In the latest episode of "Wednesday Night Live," hosted on the 4th of October, Stefan Molyneux dives deep into the intricacies of "Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs." He candidly shares his perspective on the current state of philosophical discussion, emphasizing the proliferation of superficial content designed to prop up mediocre intellects. Molyneux criticizes the misuse of academic knowledge, suggesting that many merely regurgitate university-taught concepts without genuine understanding or depth. He particularly points out the pretentiousness of certain individuals who employ these surface-level concepts to project an image of profundity.Highlighted Quotes:"There's an entire industry out there of cannon fodder nonsense that is designed to prop up midwit brains and make them seem deep.""And just all of this nonsense is put out there as cannon fodder for midwits to impress idiots with how deep they are.""It's just ways that people can pretend to be deep because they scraped a few things out of their university nonsense wagon, right? Social contract, man.""But it's all a bunch of stuff that just flows out like this slow, brain-deadening, soul-eating, tapioca crap syllable idiot fest."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
So let me sort of tell you what there is in the world.
There is... Thank you for the tip.
I appreciate that.
Don't forget to tip your friendly neighborhood philosopher.
All right.
Oh, it's not.
I mean, should we do a rant right away?
I know it's a little bit after.
We start a little bit late because a couple of tech issues, but... Oh, rant.
Yeah, all right.
Okay.
So here's the thing.
There's an entire industry out there of cannon fodder bullshit that is designed to prop up midwit brains and make them seem deep.
Like, you guys all know this stuff.
It's somewhere between actual philosophy.
It's below actual philosophy, way below.
And it's slightly above astrology.
Like a tiny, tiny little bit above astrology.
And what it generally is, is stuff that just, you know, it's like quantum physics, amateur understanding.
Hey, it's all relative, man.
Theory of relativity.
Well, I guess everything's relative, man.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs.
Well, you know, you need food before you need self-actualization, man.
You need shelter
Before you need meaning, it's like, whoa, man, that's so smart!
So brilliant!
And the greatest good for the greatest number, man.
And I like to use the word pragmatism because it makes me sound practical.
And just all of this nonsense is put out there as cannon fodder for midwits to impress idiots with how deep they are.
Hey, man, what's your Myers-Briggs result?
I'm a slowly farting death brain.
Oh my gosh.
Just absolutely mad.
Yeah, it's complete word salad.
Complete word salad nonsense.
It's just ways that people can pretend to be deep because they scraped a few things out of their university nonsense wagon, right?
Social contract, man!
There's a social contract!
And so, yeah, it's terrible, it's awful, it's ridiculous, it's nonsense.
Oh yeah, well the secret is the manifesting things, that's all, you know, this other kind of stuff, but...
It's all a bunch of stuff that just flows out like this slow, brain-deadening, soul-eating, tapioca, crap-syllable, idiot-fest.
It comes a lot from academia and it's, you know, the nation-state and the challenges of democracy and all just nonsense, you know, the end of history, man.
It's like, yeah, it turns out none of that stuff was true at all.
The end of history?
No, it's just the beginning of hell.
I put a lot of work into being an INTJ.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Yeah, nothing's true, man.
Like Star Trek 3, first law of metaphysics, nothing unreal exists.
Thousand dollar words to say, that which is, is.
Sounds smart, but they are screenwriters.
Yeah, well.
So it is, it's really terrible.
It's really just awful.
It's appalling.
It's a brain rot.
And the entire purpose of intellectual discourse is defense against the midwits.
Right?
The people who are smart enough to mouth platitudes and yet so addicted to feeling smart that any real questions causes them to attack.
Y'all experienced this in your life?
Y'all have experienced this in your life, right?
The people who, and this is sophist, right?
The people who are like, they're at some party and they're like, yeah, you know, they come out with some, quote, semi-deep stuff and all that happens is you ask them a couple of basic questions and they just get hostile.
Hey man, don't expose that I'm an idiot, particularly to me.
See, an idiot is not somebody who's dumb.
That's not an idiot.
You're not an idiot if you're dumb.
If you're dumb, and I've been around a lot of dumb people in my life, and there's nothing wrong with them.
They're totally fine, they have decent lives and all of that.
You're dumb if you pretend to be smarter.
That's the dumbness.
That's where the dumb stuff sits.
Yeah, it's all this just shallow, regurgitating stuff.
Like the people who use the word epistemology and you ask them what it means and they're like, they get hostile.
Teleological, man.
So, yeah, they just heard some podcast.
They've got a few stored up bits of nonsense and they just regurgitate it.
And it's all, all of it is Emperor's New Clothes, right?
You know, one of the most powerful things I ever learned in the business world was a guy who said, hey man, explain it to me like I'm five years old.
Explain it to me like I'm three years old.
I don't understand this.
I don't understand it at all.
That's a powerful statement, right?
You follow?
Like, that is a really powerful statement.
So, to just go to somebody who's mouthing off all this smarty-smart stuff, right?
And say, no, no, no, explain it to me like, explain it to me like I'm three years old.
Well, we need the government to protect our property.
It's like, well, the government has the right to take your property, pretty much it will.
How does that protect your property?
Like, explain it to me like I'm, I'm three years old.
And nobody wants to, very few people want to take that stance where you say, explain it to me like I'm three years old, right?
What's moral is the greatest good for the greatest number.
It's like, I don't know what that means.
How do you measure it?
How would you know?
What if the greatest, what if people just lie?
What if people just lie?
No, no, no, this is really good for me.
Yeah, and this is really good for the greatest number.
What if people are just bribed?
Right?
What if you just hand out a bunch of government money to people and they end up just voting for you because you have a bunch of government money?
Yeah, or they use acronyms or jargons and act like you're dumb if you don't know, and oh yeah.
That's just terrible.
So somebody says, Maslow's hierarchy makes sense to me, to be honest.
Isn't it an accurate description of human behavior?
All right.
You want a bit of a detailed look at Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs?
Right.
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
Should we go into it in a little more detail?
Hit me with a Y if you'd like a little bit more detail about why it's all such errant nonsense.
Yeah?
Okay.
So, he says... Okay, so...
Physiological.
You need breathing, food, water, sex, sleep, homeostasis, and excretion.
Hopefully not all at the same time.
So you have physiological needs.
If those physiological needs are met, you can move on to safety, security of body, of employment, of resources, of morality, of the family, of health, of property.
And then you need love and belonging, friendship, family, sexual intimacy.
So physiological you need sex, but love and belonging you need sexual intimacy.
And then after that you need esteem, self-esteem, confidence, achievement, respect of others, respect by others.
And then under self-actualization you need morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem-solving, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts.
It's all just such soupy word nonsense, right?
So, is it true that you need to breathe before you can be philosophical?
Yeah.
But it's one of these things that's so blindingly obvious to state that why would anyone get any points for stating it?
Imagine you're at a business meeting and someone just comes up with this really wild business plan to get into new markets to a wild marketing approach and just a funding approach and a development approach.
It's really creative and really interesting and you're at the back of the boardroom meeting and you stick your hand up and say, yes!
But we will have to be breathing first.
Like we will all have to be breathing in order to to do this.
Yay brain!
We will all have to have had enough to drink over the past few days in order to actualize this business plan because
Because people need water.
So I think first in this business plan should be breathing and liquids.
I mean, can you imagine?
Can you imagine the thousand-yard stare that you would get?
Yes, that's very important.
Now also, under safety, you need safety of morality, but it's okay because self-actualization also has at the top morality.
How on earth are you going to have food if you don't have property rights?
And how are you going to have property rights if you don't have morality?
So, property rights are down at the bottom, but then morality is very distant, as if you can have stuff and keep stuff and use stuff without property rights.
Oh, you need shelter, do you?
Well, that means that you have to have property rights.
You can't build shelter, you can't grow food, you can't hunt for food unless you have some kind of property rights, some kind of ownership over what you create and make.
So it's all just such errant nonsense.
What does security of employment mean?
Does that mean you're guaranteed a job?
Self-actualization means lack of prejudice?
Lack of prejudice.
What does that mean?
Lack of pattern recognition.
It's just funny.
And you see, you need food and water and shelter, but apparently only way down the road do you actually need acceptance of facts.
How on earth are you going to be able to hunt and get water and build a shelter if you don't accept facts in the first place?
It's just funny.
Oh, but isn't it, you know, isn't it so deep to say, I mean, if you're a woman, the guy asks you out on a date and you say, well, yeah, assuming, assuming, assuming I'm breathing.
Yeah.
I'll go on a date but but I won't go on a date with you like it's Tuesday now I won't go on a date with you on Friday if I don't have any water or liquids between now and Friday because I'll have dehydrated and I'll be dead so yes I will but but first and foremost I'm gonna need food, shelter, sleep, liquids and then yeah we can go out we can go out for I mean would you date someone like that?
Oh my gosh.
That's just hilarious.
Yeah, it's like Jeremy Irons' speech in the movie about the crash of 08.
Explain it to me simply.
Yeah.
It was not brains that put him as CEO.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
No, no, no, no.
Simple people oversimplify.
Brilliant people simplify just right.
Midwits overcomplicate.
Are you with me on that?
You don't have to agree.
Simple people oversimplify.
Well, it's just one factor.
So and so and so.
Period.
So simple people oversimplify.
Brilliant people simplify just right.
Midwits overcomplicate.
Because midwits don't... Do you know how I feel?
Why is it that I feel smart?
What do I have to do
To feel smart.
What do I have to do to... I mean, I like to feel smart.
I think everybody likes to feel smart.
What is it that I have to do in order to feel smart?
What do I have to do?
Come on, people.
Nope.
Nope.
Nope.
A little bit.
Nope.
Yes, but why?
Why?
Okay, you know this old cheesy, I can't remember, there was some Euro trash store that sold makeup or whatever it was that said, you only look good if we look good.
We only look good if you look good.
So, how I measure my intelligence is how comprehensible I make to you complex ideas.
You and your understanding of what I'm putting forward is the measure of my intelligence.
Nothing else.
Nothing else.
Right?
A coach is measured by the quality of his team.
Did you follow?
A CEO is measured by the productivity of his company.
I am measured by
The value that I can give you in the realm of philosophy.
That's it.
That's it.
That's my sole measure of efficiency and intelligence.
And that's because I'm an empiricist.
How do I know if I'm providing value?
Well, am I providing value if I just baffle-gab and over-complicate things and you don't know which way is up or what the hell I'm talking about?
Does that mean I'm doing well?
All right, let's look it up.
I got a whole thing about this in my novel, The God of Atheists, called The Babblefish, pomo in slo-mo.
All right.
Each year, Philosophy in Literature, an academic journal, runs a bad-writing contest to celebrate the most stylistically lamentable passages found in scholarly books and articles.
The only condition is that the entries be non-ironic.
All right.
Two of the most popular and influential literary scholars in the U.S.
are among those who wrote winning entries.
All right.
Are you ready?
Are you ready for somebody who's much more interested in feeling smart than helping others?
You need to brace yourself for this.
This is straight-up academic lower intestine bafflegab.
This will make your head spin without even the fun of alcohol.
Sam Harris.
No, not that bad.
All right, here we go.
The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and re-articulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of structure.
And marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the re-articulation of power.
So that must be brilliant.
That must be brilliant.
Alright, here's second prize.
This is from Homi K. Babha, Professor of English at the University of Chicago.
If, for a while, the ruse of desire is calculable for the uses of discipline, soon the repetition of guilt, justification, pseudoscientific theory, superstition, spurious authorities, and classifications can be seen as the desperate effort to normalize, formally, the disturbance of a discourse of splitting that violates the rational enlightened claims of its enunciatory modality.
Oh.
Uh, yeah.
So that's how we fix the flux capacitor.
Hit me with a Y if you can handle one more.
Can you handle one more?
Or is it just, is it just too, is it just too awful?
All right.
All right.
Third prize from Steven Z. Levine in 12 Views of Mammoth's Bar.
This is published by Princeton, right?
As my story is an august tale of fathers and sons, real and imagined, the biography here will fitfully attend to the putative traces in Manet's work of Les Noms du Père, a Lacanian romance of the errant paternal phallus, les noms dupes errants, a revised Freudian novella of the inferential dynamic of paternity which annihilates and hence enculturates, through the deferred introduction of the third term of insemination and phenomenologically irreducible dyad of the mother and child.
My brain, she closed!
There you go.
You hit brain melt?
Yeah.
So...
Yeah, that's... I mean, that's midwits.
And what they're trying to do is they're trying to feel smart.
I can't just use simple words.
I can't use direct communication.
Because then I'd actually have to have ideas of my own that were helpful, valuable, and useful to others.
And this is what taxpayers are held at gunpoint to subsidize.
I shit you not.
This is what taxpayers are held at gunpoint to subsidize.
You heard about, I make fun of this in my novel, The God of Atheists, but Professor Sokal back in the 90s, Professor Sokal was a physics professor who submitted a bunch of baffle gap nonsense.
There's actually a post-modernist generator, a POMO generator, post-modernism, so it basically would just generate a bunch of post-modernist garbage, and I used it for my book, The God of Atheists, to make fun of all of this stuff.
And Professor Sokal used the post-modernist random
And it wasn't AI, but just a random text generator to submit an article, and it was published.
And everyone got really mad, because he said, I'm just a physics professor, I wrote a program to create a bunch of pseudo-articulate postmodernist nonsense, and it all got published, and people got really mad at him.
And he said, hey, you know, I mean, you can submit a paper to a physics journal and see if that gets published.
Yeah, it's just absolutely terrible.
So the entire purpose of thought is to keep the midwits away from the polysyllabic levers of bullshit that drive people away from thinking.
Hey man, if that's thinking, I really don't want any part of it.
They're just border guards of hell to keep people in.
My intelligence is
You know, this is why, I mean, I had a long call today with a guy, really frustrating by the way, but anyway, it's out there for subscribes at freedomain.locals.com, but my purpose is to give practical and actionable insights and philosophical perspectives to people who have not even finished high school, who have never gone to university, who have never read philosophy, right?
So, yeah, I measure my intelligence by how much you guys understand.
Because you're smart people, you're interested in philosophy, you're here to talk philosophy, and I am absolutely here and measuring my intelligence by how well I can translate things.
And this comes out of my computer background, right?
So, in computers, it started off with... I mean, the first computer I ever programmed was a PET.
It had 2K.
P-E-T.
It was called 2K.
It had a 40x25, a green LED, ASCII-only character screen.
And the entire purpose of computers is to become easier and easier and easier to the point where you can just swipe your life away, right?
Swipe, drag, you know, swipe your life away.
That's progress, right?
That's progress.
That which is easiest for computers is 1s and 0s.
1s and 0s are hardest for human beings.
That which is hardest for computers is, you know, touch capacitor screens and all of that.
And that's easiest for people and it's hardest for computers.
So, I mean, I didn't just design the backend and the midware for the software, I designed the end-user interface.
And so, it had to be as easy as possible to use by the end-users, of course, and I had to hide all of the complexity that the program was doing.
So, who's improving the user interface at Philosophy?
Me, baby!
I'm improving the user interface in philosophy.
Who else is improving the user interface of philosophy?
Well, I think Peter Boghossian was doing a little bit with some of his stuff, the street epistemology and so on.
But as far as ethics go?
Who's improving, because ethics is the core of philosophy, right?
Who is improving the user interface of philosophy to the point where people can actually use it?
Or who's giving you a bunch of computer punch cards written in Assembler and saying, here's your user interface?
Right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, all of the people who are saying, you know, like,
It's worse to be Trump than to find dead children in somebody's basement.
How on earth are you supposed to make any sense of that in a rational universe?
Steph, what about people who mock those who try to explain things like you do?
Which category are they?
Well, bullshit has a great competitor.
And what's the great competitor of bullshit?
Of bafflegab, right?
What is the major competitor of BaffleGap?
It's not simplicity, because simplicity can be wrong.
It's clarity.
Yeah, clarity, that's right.
It's clarity.
I mean, you're here, and I really really appreciate you guys being here, but aren't you here because you will get something out of what I'm saying, hopefully already, you'll get something out of what I'm saying that is clear, comprehensible, makes sense of the world, you'll probably remember forever, and probably will help you in your life as you sort of navigate the fog of nonsense that characterizes the modern or postmodern world, right?
And that's the challenge!
That's the challenge.
That's the challenge.
I've always tried to use direct analogies, tried to boil it down to its essences, and speak in terms that we're all familiar with.
Right?
Does that sort of make sense?
Yeah, you're a better person after each show.
Thank you.
And I'm a better person after each show as well, because explaining things clarifies them for myself.
Explaining things clarifies them for me, as well as you.
So it's a very good thing.
It's a very good thing that we're doing here.
It's a very good thing that we're doing here, not just for us, but for the world as a whole, right?
So, the great competitor of a bullshit is clarity.
The genius is the enemy of the midwit.
Because the genius puts things in terms
That the unintelligent can truly understand.
And when the genius put things in terms that the unintelligent can truly understand, the unintelligent looks at the midwit and says, why aren't you as clear as that guy?
Like, I don't understand anything you're saying.
Why can't you be clear like that guy?
Right?
So then what does the midwit say?
What does the midwit say?
What does the sophist say when the unintelligent demand as much clarity as the genius provides?
What does the midwit say?
Always.
What is the big argument of the midwit against the clarity of the genius?
What have you all heard?
Exception to the rule?
Are you ready?
A crucifier?
Oh, that's just an oversimplification.
Oh, you think that's clarity, but it's just an oversimplification, darling.
He's just reducing it to just too simple.
Right.
It's the Pareto Principle or IQR.
It's an oversimplification.
It's many more complex factors at work rather than one thing.
Oh my, it's such an oversimplification.
It's embarrassing, really.
Correlation doesn't equal causation.
After this, not necessarily because of this.
Oh yeah, yeah.
All my friends hate smuggins.
Oh yeah.
Oh yeah.
It's just an oversimplification.
See, E equals MC squared is just a blinding oversimplification.
Many more factors.
Right?
And you see this, what is it, Vosch used to say this of the communists that I used to debate?
Oh, you're just trying to boil it down to one thing!
It's like, there's so many factors!
I can't, I can't, my brain can't even contain how many factors there are!
There are more factors than there are!
Me, in the multiverse, there are more factors than atoms in the universe, and only my giant brain can contain all of these factors, but I can't communicate them, and if you poke any one factor, all of the others get rippled.
It's a butterfly effect, and there's so many factors, it's like juggling with a billion things, I can't possibly explain it to you, but trust me, obey me, because there's so many factors.
So many factors, right?
Are they being paid by the syllable?
Yeah, kind of.
They're being paid to keep people away who are asking for clarity.
People who are paid by the taxpayers should deliver value to the taxpayers.
Of course they don't, but they should.
If I was in academia, I'd feel absolutely horrible if I wasn't publishing books that would be accessible and healthy and helpful to the general population.
There's so many factors.
You can't boil it down to one thing, right?
So, this is the accidental coalescing, like the alignment of planets view of history.
Why was there virtually no economic progress for about a billion years, and then, over the last 200 years or so, productivity went through the roof?
Well, you see, it's a giant combination of factors that all came together.
No, end of slavery, free market.
End of slavery, free market.
Respect for property rights.
That's it.
No, we can't boil it down to these things.
So many more complicated things.
There's the price of tea in China.
There's the alignment of the planet Venus.
There's the introduction of the automatic quill writing in Norway in, I think it was 1843, or thereabouts, that doesn't have to be perfectly exact.
Then, of course, there was all the weather that happened.
There was the introduction of the spice trade from Iceland through to Guatemala.
And, of course, coffee.
We can't forget coffee.
A great stimulant.
It also happened to... alignment of planets, great coalescence of mysterious... Well, no, but the one thing that changed was the end of slavery and property rights.
Oh, and, of course, stock markets.
Well no but you can't.
I'm not going to deny those are factors in any way shape or form.
It's so embarrassing that you'd simplify it to this degree.
So, you think that poverty causes crime?
No, no, because there's been specific measures that have been done, I've had the experts on this show, that show very decisively that crime brings poverty, right?
Because they can track when the crime explodes and when the income goes down.
So, you say that poverty is caused by crime, which sets up a situation where the welfare state becomes a desperate plea of, give you money so you don't steal, right?
So, no, it's... And so when I talk about that, you know, most ills in society caused by child abuse, well, I'm not denying that it's a factor, but it's so much more complicated than that.
There's one factor.
So I'll tell you why this alignment of the planets, conflagration of infinite factors is, would render the whole, um, it would render the entire discipline gone.
Like, irrelevant, completely pointless.
Does that make sense?
Like, so all of these people, well, it's very complicated, so many factors.
This is the germs, guns, germs, and steel argument, right?
There's a complication of factors and geography and maybe a little bit of politics and some weather issues, right?
And these people happen to do this, which of course, no, no, no, right?
Because if you're a historian, let's say, I mean, what's the purpose of history?
The purpose of history is to fix the future.
The purpose of history is to fix the future.
That's the only purpose.
It can't fix the past, can't fix the present, but it can fix the future.
The purpose of history is to fix the future.
Now, if you can find the key patterns in history that allow you to fix the future, then great!
Fantastic!
Oh yeah, Jared, the whole book was just to avoid the IQ stuff, right?
If you say as a historian, well it's a complicated congregation of wildly different factors that all happen to coalesce at the same time, so what you're saying is that history is just accidental shit and can't ever be fixed in the future.
Right?
If you say the reduction of the use of force, the respect for property rights, and the establishment of a stock market was the reason why we ended up with the productivity of the modern world, well that's easy, you can fix the future, right?
Respect property rights, reduce the amount of coercion used against people, and allow people to have stock markets that aren't interfered with horribly.
And you're going to be rich.
So you can boil it down to a couple of factors, and they're moral factors really, right?
So you can boil things down to a couple of things that we expanded the rule of morality, we expanded the laws of morality for property rights, the end of slavery.
There you go.
I mean, it's a little bit of a red herring when it comes to the stock market because that's just another aspect of property rights, right?
So, if you are one of these, well, 12,000 planets aligned, and, you know, we can't ever predict it, and it's just kind of random, and all these factors came together, then you're saying, history can't fix anything.
Because there's no moral principles, there's no things that we can choose to do.
Like, if it's 15 different factors that came together, all of which are kind of random and accidental, then you can't reproduce it in the future.
Right?
I mean, think of medicine that worked like that.
Why did he get better?
Why did he get better?
Oh, he took antibiotics?
Okay, then let's study giving people antibiotics and making them better, right?
That's getting better, right?
But if you say, well, why did he get better?
Well, it's a whole congregation of... It was a Tuesday, it was a full moon, and the wind was north by northwest, and there was some particular spores or buds in the air, and he happened to hold in a sneeze, and other things which I can't even really explain.
But why did he get better?
There's just a whole bunch of complicated things that just all kind of coalesced and produced this magic called getting better.
Okay.
Maybe you feel a little smart.
Maybe you're baffle-gapping a whole bunch of people into thinking you're smart, but you've just destroyed the entire field of medicine.
Do you follow?
Hey, how did he get cured of cancer?
We killed the cancer cells.
Okay.
So let's do that to cure people of cancer.
No, how did he get better from cancer?
You know, there's so many factors that just happen to coalesce at the right time, at the right place to cure his cancer.
Okay, so the cancer can't be cured, shut down the whole medical field.
Because you've just got to hope and pray that this coalescing of bleh, right?
Does that make sense?
So the people, like, they're actively destroying entire industries.
So when people say, why is X happening?
Well, it's a complex, but okay, then if it's a complex bunch of blah, blah, then you can't fix anything in the future.
And we got to shut the entire field down.
Does that sort of what I'm saying?
Does it make sense?
Yeah.
It's terrible.
So, yeah, I mean, so all the, I mean, once you know the answers to these things, you know, seeing people out there in the world trying to explain stuff is just, it's like listening to a three year old kid describe his dream, you know?
And and and and there was an and there was a snake and and it was tall and there was some grasses and and it was it was sunny and and I had a lightsaber but then it was gone and and it's just like oh my god like
It's just embarrassing.
I mean, yeah, there's basic moral things that make the world run.
I hope that the current situation in the world has completely disabused people of the idea that you need governments for national defense.
How's that national defense thing going?
All right, but let me get to your questions as a way of getting to your tips.
As a way of, meh, prying open the wallets.
Now, hopefully I'll provide some value in this way.
Lord knows I've provided enough value already by accurately resurrecting the smuggins from my daughter's worst nightmares.
Actually, we did a show the other day.
It was really funny.
Really, really funny.
All right, let me get to
People's questions.
But yeah, we've already done Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, we've already done Sophistry, and History, and Reason, and all of that, right?
All right.
Dear Steph, I'm so impressed with the way you ask questions at the call-ins.
I'm a shrink myself.
You make me better at my job.
I never catch the live shows, but donate regularly.
And so should everyone else, by the way.
His words, well, and mine.
Question.
Could you elaborate on the compassionate, you had a bad childhood versus everyone gets full accountability?
I know it's not a contradiction, but would love to hear the chatty forehead's thoughts.
All right.
Now, I can, of course, do this as a solo show, or I can do this as a show with y'all.
Let me just get a couple of questions from here at the beginning.
Would you be interested in me explaining how somebody can have full compassion as a child, you had a bad childhood, really really tough, and you have full accountability.
You have full accountability.
Is that of interest?
You've wondered about this myself?
All right.
Well, the answer as to how you can have massive compassion for someone's childhood while holding them fully accountable is that it's a conflagration of a wide variety of factors that just all come together.
Zoom in, rotate, you give it a little dandy flying stuff, a fluff, you stuff a couple of, what, three chickens and three rabbits up its ass and then you just shake its innards together until it erupts in a certain prismatic, spore-laden cloud of absolute certainty that I'm completely right.
Excellent!
I have answered everything!
It's a complicated combination of factors.
Yes.
And I just, I don't have the time to explain them to all, but boy, if you had a giant brain like I did, you'd just... Oh, it's so sad.
Oh, it's so sad.
It's like you're a basketball coach, and you're talking about quantum physics, and your team keeps losing, and it's like, well, you know, it's just so complicated, isn't it?
Wow.
I should work at a university.
Oh, I tried.
Oh, I couldn't do it.
I couldn't do it.
All right.
Like, morally.
Okay.
So, let's start at the beginning.
Very good place to start.
Babies.
What percentage are babies responsible for their own behaviors?
What percentage are babies responsible for their own behaviors?
Absolutely zero percent!
Okay.
What percentage of babies responsible for the parents and their environment, right?
So their own behavior is zero.
To what degree are babies responsible for parents or their own environment, right?
Now, the purpose of a baby is what?
What is the central purpose for a baby, and we'll throw toddlers in as well, what is the central purpose of a baby and a toddler?
Let's go back to refer to Maslow's hierarchy to survive.
Yes, I mean they must survive, and
Do babies and toddlers have any foundational morality other than survival?
Do babies and toddlers have any foundational morality other than survival?
Not really.
I mean, you could sort of imagine, I don't know, some three-year-old maybe sacrificing his life to save a young... I mean, but generally there's no morality other than survival.
And we see this, of course, with the grasping for resources, combat, and fights between siblings, this, that, and the other, right?
Look at that.
Exceeded my move goal by 200% today.
Yeah, I did a lot of work today, man.
I played some pickleball with my lovely wife, actually played about an hour of pickleball, I went for a hike, and I did about 45 minutes of weights.
I had to do weights after that call in the show because it was kind of frustrating.
Anyway, so.
So we start off with no responsibility for our actions, and we start off with no responsibility for our environment.
Now, at what point does a child become responsible for his environment?
At what point does a child become responsible for his environment?
It's complicated.
Not really.
Not really.
Choosing friends?
Nope.
Environment, the house you live in and all.
It's complicated.
Oh, you were joking?
Okay.
Yeah, so when you move out, when you achieve economic and legal independence from your parents, then you are responsible for your own environment, right?
Does that make sense?
So what percentage responsible is a child up until the age of moving out?
What percentage is the child responsible for his environment prior to moving out?
Yeah, zero.
I mean, you can do some things to control your environment a little bit.
I don't know if you had a bad home and you didn't want to go home.
What's the thing that you did to manage that when you were a kid?
What did you do to manage having a bad environment when you were a kid?
Yeah, you stay out as much as possible.
I built tree houses.
I became great friends with people who had pools and nice houses.
You bike.
You stay in your room a little bit.
Yeah, you go to the Y. You go to friends' houses.
You bike to the library.
You get jobs!
Because getting jobs gets you more economic independence, and you get to stay out and all of that, right?
So, you're still not responsible for the environment that you have to live in, but you can do some things to ameliorate some of the harm by being in better environments.
What is the danger of that, though?
What is the danger of spending more and more time away from home?
What happens?
Ah, this one we all know, right?
You could get in bad with company.
Yeah, the parents have come.
You treat this like a hotel!
My response was,
Hotels have clean towels, mom.
And food.
But yeah, your absence threatens the family dynamic.
Your parents get petty and resentful and jealous and angry and all of that.
I remember when I was in grade 8, I was in a grade 13 writing class.
And at the end of the class year, we went to a bar.
And because I was, you know, pretty tall and all of that, I got in and had a great evening at a bar.
It was actually a bar called
The Edge.
And I remember many years later there was an article in the newspaper called, Rock Takes a Blow as The Edge Closes Its Doors.
So I guess it ran out of money or whatever.
And I came home and my mother smashed me across the face when I came home because she was worried about me.
And you treat this place like a hotel, you're never home.
So they take it personally and they feel rejected and they get angry, right?
I can get refund for substandard services at a hotel.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So,
So you can manage a little bit, but you're 0% responsible.
Now, at what point does a child or a person, at what point does a person become 100% responsible for having parents in or not in his life?
When does that happen?
Yeah, when you move out, you then have a choice.
You don't have a choice when you're 5, or 2, or 10, or 15, or whatever.
I guess I had a choice when I was 15 to put my mom on a bus to the other side of the country, and of course, as we all know, Canada's a fairly large country.
So, and it's not necessarily 18, but it's when you move out, or when you have the capacity to move out, then you have responsibility.
Now, in this, it doesn't grow.
Um, slowly.
It goes from 0 to 100%, right?
You have 0% responsibility, you move out, you have 100% responsibility for your environment.
Same thing with having your parents in your life.
When do you, um, when do you stop having responsibility for having the parents you have?
Like, when do you no longer have responsibility for having the parents you have?
Because you obviously don't choose your parents, right?
When do you no longer have responsibility for the parents you have?
When does that occur?
When you have kids?
When you become a parent?
Uh, no.
When you're independent and can choose not to see them.
No, that's when you're responsible for whether they're in your life or not.
When do you become responsible for having the parents that you have?
Yeah, never.
They'll always be your parents.
Yeah, absolutely.
Even when they're dead, right?
I mean, my father's been dead for years.
I will never, until the day I die, I will never be responsible for having the father I had.
Does that make sense?
Like, I will never be responsible for that because I didn't choose that.
Does that make sense?
Okay, so we've got a couple of different categories here.
We'll keep them going and let's do this.
Let's compare it to marriage, right?
So, a baby is not responsible for the parents or the environment that the baby lives in.
Is a wife responsible for the husband she marries and where she lives?
Yeah.
What percentage is a woman or a man responsible for the spouse and where they live?
What percentage?
100%?
Yeah, 100%.
You're not forced to do it, you can choose from anyone, you can choose no one.
So you are 100% responsible for who's in your quote family, right?
It's not a quote family, it is a family.
So who is responsible?
100% responsible, right?
When do you cease being responsible for who you chose to marry?
Is there a statute of limitations?
Does it ever run out?
When do you cease being responsible for who you chose to marry?
Never.
That's right.
Nope.
No, it never happens.
In fact, even after death, you will still be held responsible for who you chose to marry because that can never be erased.
Right?
So in a relationship where I almost married the woman in my twenties, I was a hundred percent responsible for that relationship and I was a hundred percent responsible for that person being in my life and that will never change.
Does that make sense?
Never.
Now,
Over the course of dating, relationship, engagement, and marriage, unless they were deceived by a very, very thorough scoundrel, I agree.
You chose them.
Oh, wait a minute.
Let's back up a little here.
You chose them or who you thought they were.
Are you giving me an asterisk here?
You want to give me an exception here, don't you?
Unless they were deceived by a very, very thorough scoundrel.
Right.
Should we pause on this asterisk?
Because this is an important one.
Hit me with a Y if you want me to pause on this escape hatch here.
Right.
But my mommy was deceived.
Listen, I appreciate this person bringing this up.
I really do.
I thank you for bringing it up.
It's a very important point.
And everybody thinks this, right?
Everybody thinks this.
Unless they were deceived by a very, very thorough scoundrel.
Okay, so what is a thorough scoundrel?
Is this someone with no history?
Is this someone with no family?
Is this someone you can't look up?
Is this someone you can't talk to his friends?
You can't talk to his family?
You can't meet anyone from his past?
You can't look up his credit history?
Like, how is it that such a person can be undetectable, especially in the modern era?
Especially in the modern era.
Right?
How is it possible for someone to be this undetectable?
And if they are this undetectable, and let's say you just can't find out anything about them, what is the answer if they have no footprint?
What is the answer if they have no footprint and you can't find anything?
Yeah, you married D.B.
Cooper.
What is the answer if you can't find out anything about this person?
What do you do?
They have no family, they have no friends, they have no social media footprint, they have no university you can check on.
Right?
It's the FBI!
You move on, witness protection program or FBI agent, you ask them what happened.
All right?
How much does it cost to hire a private investigator?
Mr. Anderson.
Yeah, no social media is a huge red flag in and of itself.
Could be.
It could be.
So, how much... Okay, let me ask you this.
How much does it cost to hire a private investigator versus getting divorced?
Right?
How much does a private investigator cost versus getting divorced?
You could probably get all you need for about $2,500 from a private investigator, right?
No, I'm just saying, if you can't find anything, right?
So, you can hire a private investigator, and you can find out about your partner, or your potential partner.
It's about $2,500.
Now, people say, well, I can't afford that.
It's like, okay, then you've chose not to spend that money.
You'd rather put yourself at risk.
So, do we have a legitimate excuse called, I was completely fooled, I had no chance of knowing the truth, he's a perfect villain, and I have zero responsibility, zero percent responsibility, for vetting him?
You did not notice anything wrong.
All the research you put in produced nothing wrong.
Your friends
Also detected nothing wrong.
Your family, your mother, your father, who desperately want you to be happy, they detected nothing wrong.
Everyone around you detected absolutely nothing wrong, and he turned out to be evil.
Credit history is only 30 bucks, yeah.
It's only 30 bucks.
So this is paranoia.
That someone can have every single marker of being a good person,
Nobody can detect anything.
His entire history is he's a good person, but then he just turns evil.
Does that happen?
Does that happen?
That somebody is just perfectly camouflaged, they've lived a really virtuous life, but they're just evil.
Nobody can detect anything.
It's impossible to see through the camouflage, and they're just evil.
Sociopaths, maybe?
No.
Okay, if they have a brain tumor, they're not evil.
They're just a brain damage, right?
Sociopaths, maybe?
Are you saying that sociopaths don't leave a trail?
And there's no way to detect a sociopath?
Have you never been around someone who gives you the creeps?
Really?
Come on.
I mean, sometimes when I'm shaving.
No, have you never been around
Somebody who just gives you the creeps, who's like, oh, something's off with this person.
There's like an unblinkingness or a smile, which is only the face, but not the eyes.
Or, you know, there's too much curiosity about you and never want to talk about themselves.
I mean, how are sociopaths diagnosed if they're undetected?
Well, I mean, but you're professional, right?
So they'd be professionals, right?
This is the reason to really get to know someone.
Marrying someone after a weekend is their fault.
Yeah, that's a choice.
Elizabeth Holmes.
Yeah, is a creep.
Is a creep.
And I mean, I mean her business model was insane from the very beginning.
We're gonna be able to detect a thousand illnesses without even drawing blood.
It's gonna be magic.
Had a little son.
They said they thought they'd call him Sonny.
Right, so yeah.
Sorry, I can't give anybody an asterisk.
I can't give anyone an asterisk.
Let me ask you this, let me ask you this.
If someone is genuinely unable to determine or detect good from evil in anyone they meet, right?
If someone is genuinely, they cannot tell a good person from an evil person, should they be loose and self-directed in society?
I mean, there are some people, at least in the past, we'd say, look, you can't function on your own, you're a danger to yourself or to others, and therefore you need to be put into some sort of institution where hopefully you can be treated and made better or whatever it is.
But if someone says, I have no way of determining whether somebody is good or evil, but I really want to get married and have children,
Sometimes it is difficult to tease out truly bad people.
Right?
Let's say that's true.
Okay?
I'm gonna go with you on that one.
Let's say that's true.
Sometimes it is difficult to tease out really bad people.
So you don't rush into anything.
Does that make sense?
Like, investors will say sometimes it's tough to find just the right company to invest in, which is why they do a lot of due diligence, and they... I mean, I've been part of this whole process.
They look in every nook and cranny, they go through every spreadsheet, they talk to every employee, they do anything and everything, right?
So, let's say it is sometimes difficult to tease out truly bad people.
So that's why you take your time, and you really vet and evaluate, right?
What is it they say?
If you really want to get to know someone, go on a little vacation with them and their luggage gets lost.
Or, if you want to really get to know someone, watch someone try to untangle Christmas tree lights or, you know, that kind of stuff, right?
So, uh, I...
I don't think that it is that hard to determine good from evil people.
I don't think as a whole.
Because you should... I mean, okay, what's a couple of things before you get married to someone?
What's a couple of things you absolutely have to do?
Right?
What are a couple of things that you absolutely have to do before you get married to someone?
Meet their family.
Absolutely.
If they're around.
And if they're not around, this should be a good reason why.
Ask about their childhood.
Absolutely.
This is empirical evidence.
Meet their friends, of course.
Meet their social circle.
See whether they drink too much.
See whether they can hold a job.
Check their credit history and look at the books that they have on their shelf.
Look at their hobbies.
Look at their habits.
Look at their hygiene.
Look at their grooming.
STD tests, absolutely.
What are their morals?
What's their source of morality?
What is their source of, what do they live for?
What are their values?
Do the values that they claim, have they actually manifested in their life in the past, right?
Say, oh, well, I like giving to charity.
Oh, can you tell me the charities you give to and all of that?
Now, you may not need to see receipts or whatever, but just ask them, right?
Clean car for men, clean house for women.
Yeah, can be.
Can be.
A man's job is his penis, a woman's home is her vagina, right?
So, yeah, just basic grooming and so on.
Are they considerate?
Are they thoughtful?
Do they help you out?
Do they listen?
Do they respond?
Do they ask you about yourself and all of this?
What do you think about moving in together before marriage?
It's a bad idea.
Yeah, it's a bad idea.
It's a bad idea.
And it's a great predictor of divorce, right?
The people who live together before getting married divorce at a much higher rate.
Because they can't defer gratification, right?
If you want to live with someone, get married.
Right?
So you should always date with the goal of marriage.
Always, always date.
Why should you always date with the goal of marriage?
Why should you always date with the goal of marriage?
What's the reason why you must always date with the goal of marriage?
I don't care if you're 90.
Because it raises your standards.
It raises your standards.
If you had to keep a job for 10 years as opposed to just, I don't know, I need some income right now, you're going to be much more particular about the jobs you take, right?
Somebody says, I don't know how a certain member of my church met and married the mother of his kid.
She left him and took the kid when her father brought her back to his church.
Seems she only wanted a kid, not a husband.
Or not one from outside her church.
I can only think there was a lack of research.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, there's a certain electrical element, isn't there, to just being here live and seeing this high wire act of how I'm pulling all this stuff together with the gossamer threads of my random brain?
And so, yeah, I mean, to be here live is a great gift.
You can tell your grandkids, I'm telling you.
Tell your grandkids.
Okay, so.
Yeah, the power of no edits, that's right.
And I barely edit the shows anyway, unless there's some tech issues or whatever.
Okay, so.
Who remembers what the original- I do, I do.
But who remembers what the original question was?
The original question was... How can you have full sympathy for someone's childhood... while giving them 100% moral responsibility for the effects of their childhood?
Well...
If someone says that something was bad, immoral, wrong, hurtful, disastrous, contemptible, decadent, vile, if somebody says that something was enormously negative and it hurt them greatly, they have created in themselves an automatic obligation to not repeat.
To not repeat.
To not repeat.
You follow?
If somebody says, this was bad, it really hurt me, it was really terrible, it was immoral, it was bad, it was wrong, they have automatically created a moral obligation to not repeat.
If they want to be moral, right?
If they're a sadist, they could say, oh, it was really bad, I learned how to be sadistic, right?
So I have full sympathy for the suffering someone went through as a child.
My God, it's terrible things I hear about.
I mean, the guy I was talking to today, his father hit him so hard he flew across the room when he was eight years old.
Landed face down on the carpet.
Appalling stuff.
Just terrible stuff.
So he has the memory.
He knows how bad it was.
He knows how hurtful it was.
He knows how wrong it was.
And how immoral it was.
So he now, by having that memory, you have an obligation to not repeat it.
Right?
You have a moral obligation to not repeat that which you know to be wrong.
Would you like a clear example?
Hit me with a why.
I know it's a little abstract.
Would you like a clear example?
Yeah, okay.
Okay, so let's say you're an older brother, you've got a younger brother, right?
And as an older brother, you've got one of those, like you've got the, just living in the household, you've got one of those vortex ring stovetops, right?
The metal heats up, not a convection.
The metal heats up, gets really hot, right?
And let's say you put your hand on it and it really hurts and it burns.
Right?
And then you smile and you say, oh, that tickles.
Here, you should put your hand here, man.
This really tickles.
Right?
So now you're being cruel.
Does that make sense?
Now you're being cruel because you're pretending something didn't hurt and you're reproducing it cruelly, knowing that it does hurt, on your brother.
Does that make sense?
Whereas if you go, ah, damn that hurt!
Oh man, keep your hands away from that.
And just as a warning, I can't believe I did that.
Please keep your hands away from that.
Always assume it's hot until proven otherwise.
You know, like that bald-headed philosophy guy.
Just always assume hot until proven otherwise.
Spoiler, it will never be proven otherwise.
I'll be hot when I'm mummified.
So you follow?
You've hurt yourself, and you've got an obligation to have it not reproduce in someone else.
Does that make sense?
And if you reproduce it in someone else, you've gone from victim to victimizer.
I absolutely sympathize with what happened, and they were not responsible for the suffering that they experienced as a child.
Because they're calling me, and they say, I suffered as a child, they're 100% responsible for not reproducing it now.
Because they know.
They know.
I mean, I mentioned this before, many years ago, in theater school, I had a writing assignment, which was to create a short play based on an Oliver Sack story about a guy who had no long-term memory.
Like, something would happen, and he would then forget about it, like, 10 minutes later, 50 minutes later, right?
Now, if someone had a brain injury and lost part of their memory, we would not hold them responsible for that.
So let's say that there's someone who had a brain injury or a tumor and they lost the memory of heat, they lost the memory of burning, right?
Okay, then we wouldn't fault them for sticking their hand in a fire out of curiosity.
Because they literally had lost their memory.
Memory is responsibility.
Memory is morality.
Memory is self-ownership.
Does that make sense?
When you have a memory of something, you have moral responsibility.
Yeah, I love it when assholes in the family say, I don't remember that.
Sure, Jan.
Brady Bunch References FTW!
So you're not responsible for the suffering you experienced as a child, but you're 100% responsible for not reproducing it as an adult.
And if you do reproduce it as an adult, you can't claim that you didn't know, right?
So if you're the older brother and you trick your younger brother into putting his hand on a hot stove, you can't claim you didn't know the stove was hot and painful.
Because the whole reason you're doing it is because of that, right?
So in the caller I had today, his father was very violent and abusive, but then when I role-played with his father in a sort of desperate move at the end,
The father was like, well, I had a bad childhood too.
It's like, then you're responsible.
Like if you confront your parents and you say, well, then they say, well, I had a bad childhood too.
It's okay.
But then that makes you a hundred percent responsible for not reproducing it.
Right?
So people think that if they say, well, I have an excuse because I had a bad childhood.
It's like that completely eliminates your excuse.
You have no excuse.
What if the people suppressed their memories of suffering?
Oh my gosh, my friends.
I appreciate the asterisks.
I appreciate the asterisks.
Let me tell you why they're false.
Why is ignorance of the law no excuse?
Why is ignorance of the law no excuse?
I should put asterisks in the title for this show when you post.
The truth, asterisks.
Yeah, everybody would claim it.
I forgot armed robbery was illegal, right?
Everybody would claim it.
So when you say, what if people suppressed their memories of suffering?
What if people suppressed their memories of suffering?
How would you know?
How would you know?
You must destroy, overturn, burn, and raise the God of omniscience in your mind, heart, and soul.
You must burn, overthrow, raise, and destroy the God of omniscience in your mind, heart, and soul.
I'm not talking about the Christian God.
I'm talking about the God that can tell you whether somebody genuinely forgot or is just saying that it was suppressed.
Whether they're just claiming to forget.
Do you follow?
How could you possibly know if somebody genuinely suppressed a memory or is just lying about it?
How could you possibly know?
And if you say you are not responsible for the memories that are suppressed, what is everyone going to do?
What is everyone immediately who's a bad person, what are they going to do?
Oh!
Yeah, oh yeah, no, that memory was suppressed.
Oh, that memory was suppressed, man.
That memory is suppressed.
Yes, that's totally right.
If that gets me off the hook, that's suppressed, man.
That's it.
Yeah, suppression.
Yeah, that's a ticket.
That's the way to go.
Suppression.
I can't believe I didn't think of that earlier.
Yeah.
Suppression for the win, right?
See, there's no omniscience that you can't open up somebody's ear and peer in and say, ah, that suppression is real.
Oh, that suppression is fake.
But that suppression, you have no access to that.
You have no access to that.
Now, I will say this, though.
If somebody has Alzheimer's, and they've had Alzheimer's for 20 years, and they don't remember bad things that happened in the past, okay, yeah, maybe they could be faking it, but probably not, yeah.
Because they've got Alzheimer's, and you can see the brain deterioration, and it's been measurable over years, and yes, it could have erased their memory.
So if they literally have brain damage, if they get a railway spike up their nose, and don't remember their own name, or the bad things that happened, that's fine.
Now, but do you know, do you know how you find out whether somebody remembers?
How do you know, if you're confronting a family member about past child abuse, they abused you, how do you know if they remember?
This 100%.
Trigger them.
Curiosity.
Check an older memory.
Memory is tricky, right?
Memory is not a photocopy.
Memory is not a video, right?
Memory is tricky.
Please tip, y'all.
Thanks, Steph.
This is eye-opening stuff.
Thank you, my friends.
A low-tip day, but I'm sure everybody will chip in as we go forward.
Gauge the anger in their response.
One word, two syllables.
Tension.
Tension.
Tension.
If you're digging around in the backyard and there's a body back there, buried by your roommate, and your roommate's coming out and he's kind of tense...
Then he knows where the body is buried, because he's not tense if you're digging on the opposite.
He's less tense if you're digging over there.
You start to dig over here, he gets really tense.
He wants to interrupt you.
He wants to change the topic.
He wants to take you to see Taylor Swift.
He wants to get you drunk.
Right?
Tension.
Tension.
If you forgot the body is there, he's not tense.
Yeah!
If he has literally no memory, he was possessed, he was in a total fugue state, he's got another personality that... He's like, yeah, I mean, I'll help you dig.
Dig around.
I mean, there's no tension, right?
There's no tension.
We all know when people get tense, right?
It's the tension.
My dad is literally always tense.
Well, if your dad is always tense, help him out by releasing him from his bad conscience by confronting, helping him confront the wrongs that he did.
Help him out.
I mean, it'll hurt, but it'll hurt less than being tense for the rest of his life.
But does this follow?
Does this sort of make sense?
People can't claim that they don't have any memory if they get tense when you ask them stuff.
If they get hostile, if they, oh, I don't want to talk about this, then you know.
Now, they may say, well, I just don't like talking about this topic at all.
I don't like exploring.
I don't like thinking about it.
It's like, OK, well, then you know that there's something there that you don't want to pursue.
Right?
So you know that there's something there that they're not pursuing.
They know that.
And they're responsible for that.
They're responsible for that.
Could detention be based on subconscious memories?
Oh my god, we just went through this!
How would you know?
How would you know?
Are people responsible for their own avoidance?
Are people responsible for their own avoidance?
Or does avoiding problems get you off the hook?
Are people responsible for their avoidance, or does avoidance get you off the hook?
Avoiding makes it worse.
Yeah, I said this in a show the other day, I don't think it's out yet, that deferring conflict always gives the advantage to your enemy.
Or, if you want to put it slightly less provocatively, avoiding conflict always gives the high ground to your opponent.
People are absolutely responsible for their avoidance.
They're absolutely responsible for their avoidance.
Otherwise, you just reward avoidance!
You follow?
All you're doing is rewarding avoidance.
Whatever you give an excuse to, you're giving a massive subsidy to.
Oh, I don't remember.
Okay, massive subsidy if you accept that.
Oh, it wasn't that bad.
Massive subsidy if you accept that.
Oh, it never happened.
Massive subsidy if you accept that.
All right.
Have we closed that topic?
Is there anything else that you want to know about this?
Is this helpful?
And this is true in yourself.
If you're avoiding something, that's where you got to go.
Walk towards the fire.
Can you imagine if you have a backyard, right?
And there's some freshly dug earth, and you're walking around and you're like, what the hell?
Why is there freshly dug earth here?
And then you feel this real nervousness and unease and I really want to, what should you do?
What should you do?
What should you do?
Grab a shovel.
Yeah, grab the shovel.
And dig.
I may have missed it earlier in the stream, but any chance you can cover my tipped question about mental imagery and inner voice from the post you made yesterday?
Yeah, so you dig, right?
You're absolutely responsible for that, for sure.
If you have a feeling that something's wrong and you avoid that feeling, you're then responsible for everything that goes wrong from there on in, right?
All right, so let me just look at these tips.
What are your thoughts on Zen?
Well, I did a whole History of Philosophers series.
You can get it at freedomain.locals.com.
You can get it for free.
Promo code, all caps, UPB2022.
I got a whole Zen thing.
I got a 22-part History of Philosophers series.
You should do that.
People who move in together before marriage can't defer gratification.
Marriage is going to fail.
All right.
Sorry, I've only got a couple of tips today and I don't see any questions there.
I'm not sure where you tipped earlier or when, so my apologies for that.
But if you can retype the question, I'm sure it will be helpful.
My parents had bad parents.
They knew better, did not do better.
Right.
And it's a funny thing, you know, when people say, well, I'm not responsible for giving you a bad childhood because my parents gave me a bad childhood.
So you knew it was bad, and you re-inflicted it.
Like, you're more responsible for giving someone a bad childhood if you yourself had a bad childhood.
Right?
You understand?
If you're the older brother, and you don't put your hand on the stove, and you don't even know that it's hot, and you trick your younger brother into putting it on there, you make a joke, you put your hand on the stove or whatever, right?
Then you're less responsible than if you just put your hand on the stove or you did it in the past and you know it's hot and painful.
So, if you had a bad childhood, you're way more responsible for giving somebody else a bad childhood.
Way more, because you know exactly how tough it is, you know exactly how bad it is.
If you grew up with an alcoholic father, you're more responsible for being a drunk.
Oh, what are the philosophical or societal implications of large portions of the population not having it in a monologue or not being able to visualize images in their mind?
Yeah, do you know, like, a lot of people can't visualize an apple in their mind.
Like, they can't do it.
They may see the word apple, but they can't visualize an apple.
Like a red, juicy, floating apple with the stem.
Like, they can't rotate it.
They cannot visualize a picture in their mind.
So what are the philosophical implications?
How would they enjoy reading novels?
Do you know how few people read novels?
Do you know how few people read books?
You wouldn't, I mean, I assume we're, you know, I guess fairly decent book readers here, right?
I'm just gonna dig this up because I want to make sure I get it right.
Let's see here.
It's just appalling.
Oh, I want to get more of the latest ones.
Let's see here.
I mean, the majority of people who graduate college never read a book again.
A quarter of Americans have never read a book in whole or in part over the past year.
This is from... I'm not sure when that was.
Yes, let's see here.
40% of people with a high school diploma or less have not read a book over the last year.
Those living in households earning 75,000 or more a year are more likely to read books, of course.
I think we can sort of understand that.
So...
And of course, this is self-reporting, right?
So we can assume that people are claiming to have read books when they haven't.
But yeah, I mean, a lot of people who graduate from college never read a book again in their life.
Now, again, some people, I'm sure, listen to audiobooks and all of that kind of stuff, but yeah, it's pretty rough.
Women, 50%.
More likely to have read books over the last year than men, 36%.
Whites, 50%.
More likely to read than blacks, 29% or Hispanics, 27%.
Yeah, and this is from 2016, I assume.
Now again, people read online and all that.
Paywall?
I think not.
I think not.
And the degree to which language has just collapsed, right?
Language has just completely collapsed.
If you look at the complexity of language in the 19th century... Do you know that Moby Dick?
Hit me with a Y if you've ever read Moby Dick.
So that's a complex book, right?
That's a complex book, the language... You understand that that was a popular novel in the 19th century.
That was a popular novel in the 19th century, as was Thoreau's Walden, Bram Stoker's Dracula, Frankenstein.
Like, these were all Dickens, and if you go back to the 16th century, we've got Shakespeare, right?
Thomas Hardy, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Middlemarch, Jane Austen.
So the amount of, and was it Chris Hedges had a study about, he was quoting a study where if you look at the addresses from presidents, you know, they've gone from like university level complexity to like now it's a grade school, a grade school complexity.
I mean the amount of illiteracy in the world is truly shocking.
Because, you know, when you're a literate person, you read, you talk about ideas, you're around.
But the degree to which you have to write things at a grade 6 level to have any hope of anybody, of the majority of people understanding them.
Like, you have to write instructions at a 6th grade level.
You have to write stuff on the side of, like, here's when to take your medicine at a 6th grade level, right?
Today, every other spoken word made by teens is like and bro.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
For real, for real!
Let me see here.
Here's a pretty funny one that I saw.
All right.
So this is from a campground, right?
And there's two signs.
One is, Text Us.
Please don't hesitate to text us at this number if you see anything that needs our attention.
We want to make this campground as relaxing and comfortable as possible for our guests.
Thank you!
Text Us, translated for teenagers.
Sup!
Hit me up at x if you see anything that is sus or cringe like IDK or toilet seat that got wrecked or something.
TBH we high key trying to glow up this campground.
Can't stop, won't stop until this place straight up slays.
Need your help fam, TY.
It's barely English anymore.
Barely English anymore.
Uh, hi Steph, I have a niece who dropped out of college.
She is now 20 and lacks motivation to do anything.
She has not looked for a job, just spends hours looking at her phone.
She also recently discovered the body of her best friend who committed suicide, so I've been treading lightly, but how can I help her?
Well, how dark do we want to go here?
Minus ten, truly dark, to plus ten, super sunny.
Coming of age in Samoa.
Didn't Margaret Meads work?
Anyway, I think she might be not as honest.
As dark as necessary?
So, I will tell you, and I obviously could be totally wrong, I'll just tell you where my mind goes when I hear about, say, a young woman
Who dropped out of college and is not getting a job and is not doing anything.
Right?
I'll tell you what I immediately think.
I could be wrong.
Obviously, probably am wrong.
I'll just tell you immediately what I think.
Yeah, she got raped.
She got sexually assaulted on college campus and she's not talking about it to anyone and she's just out.
She's fled the environment and she's just shell-shocked.
Obviously, I'm most likely wrong, but I'll just tell you that's my first thought.
That there's a secret.
Whenever people's behavior is incomprehensible, in my experience, it's always because they're keeping a secret.
Does that make sense?
I'm not saying do you agree with it, but just sort of follow what I'm saying.
Yeah.
So, people who behave in manners that are unfathomable,
are keeping a secret.
Now, they're either going to tell you that secret, and hopefully get better thereby, or start the road to recovery, or they're going to keep that secret and be paralyzed.
But secrets paralyze you.
Why would somebody, a young woman at the age of 20, why would she suddenly decide to stop living in any sort of productive or functional way?
Well, she had a friend who committed suicide, which means she's around a really dysfunctional group.
Being around a really dysfunctional group is a ticking time bomb for a woman.
In particular.
It's bad for men, too.
It's a ticking time bomb for a woman.
Because this is exactly where the predators go.
This kind of environment, right?
So, I, you know, when people just act in an incomprehensible manner, in my experience, doesn't mean I'm right, just in my experience, it's because they're keeping a terrible secret.
Now, she may not want to talk about the secret, she may not have any secret, but
That would be my first.
Now, it could be any number of things, right?
It could be any number of things.
But she may be tired of racism at campus, which seems to be increasing these days.
She may be disgusted by the environment.
There may have been a lot of drugs.
It could have been really nihilistic.
It could have been really exploitive.
But, you know, just bailed out of college and won't get a job.
And, you know, scrolling on the phone is dissociating, right?
Why would you want to dissociate from your life when you're young?
You should be full of embrace the world and get what you want and take on the planet, right?
Oh, maybe the two things are related.
Maybe a party where something awful happened to both of them.
It could be.
Maybe it didn't happen to her but she witnessed it or something like that, right?
Do you recall your first encounter with evil as an adult outside the family?
I'm not saying your family was evil, but, you know, let's say it was.
I'm asking, do you recall your first encounter with evil
As an adult.
As an independent adult.
No history, no past, just boom!
This really bad thing has happened, and I see it, or I'm around it, or... Right?
Okay.
Now, isn't this an appalling thing?
Parents beating my friend at his house?
Yeah.
Now, what happens when you encounter evil
As an adult in the world, why does it harm you so much to encounter evil as an adult in the world?
What is so bad about it?
Why is it so traumatic?
Evil should not necessarily be traumatic!
You know it exists?
I think everybody kind of knows it exists.
Your parents didn't prepare you for it?
No, good parents would.
No, I don't think it's... Listen, I don't want to say no like you're wrong.
I'm just saying I don't think that's it.
It's a threat?
No, but there are threats out there in the world.
I mean, gravity is a threat, right?
Why is it so appalling to see evil in the world as an adult?
If you see it and don't stop it, you feel responsible?
Yes.
It's such a stark antithesis of good?
By definition, yes.
All right.
Let me ask you this.
When you first saw evil as an adult, was it solved by society?
Did society identify it and solve it or deal with it in some effective and efficient manner?
Nope.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Yeah.
Not at all.
Not at all.
Do you see?
That's the trauma of encountering evil.
You don't encounter evil on the streets.
You encounter evil enabled by society, often social institutions.
Do you follow?
It's what evil shows you about the society that you live in that's traumatic.
Because you can protect yourself from evildoers.
Can you protect yourself from an evil enabling society?
Not really.
Not really.
Not really.
I mean, I've talked about this before, but I really clearly remember when Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, this scandal where she was given in blowjobs and he was on the phone with the king of some king and he was inserting a cigar into her vagina or something like just really creepy, horrible stuff, right?
And I remember thinking, man, that's it.
Oh man, these feminists are just gonna slaughter this guy.
And the feminists did not.
They circled the wagons and supported him.
Right?
Why?
Because he was a Roe v. Wade guy.
He was a Roe v. Wade guy.
And one of the feminists even said, hell, I'd give him a blowjob if he kept Roe v. Wade in place.
Ah, yes!
Feminism.
Low jobs for dead babies.
Boy, does it get any more elevated than that?
And just seeing what happened, right?
Did the Iraq War, the invasion of the Iraq War, based upon
False accusations of weapons of mass destruction.
Anybody get charged for that?
Anybody suffer?
Anybody even lose their job?
Anybody even lose their pension?
Anybody even lose their reputation for that?
Half a million people slaughtered.
Significant swaths of the Iraqi population half genetically destroyed by depleted uranium weapons.
Anybody?
Anybody?
Destruction of Libya, open-air slave markets, and buy a poor black man for $400.
Anyone?
Anyone even lose their job, even lose their pension, even have a taint on their reputation?
Anyone?
So, it's not the evildoers, it's the evil enablers that I think is the real trauma.
So my guess would be, with regards to the niece, that maybe she experienced evil, maybe she saw evil, but I'm pretty sure she's going through the shock of, oh, damn.
Everything I was told is kind of a lie.
Everything that I was told is kind of a lie.
Everybody remember that face?
Wait.
Wait, none of this is true.
It's all a delusion.
It's all nonsense.
It's all made up.
We care about educating children.
We care about the stability of the dollar.
We love our offspring and we just want what's best for them.
Oh, there is a national debt and unfunded liabilities that makes them economic slaves to the tune of about 1.3 million dollars, but hey!
Right?
I would do anything for you.
Oh, here's something... No, I'm not doing that.
You ever, uh...
I mean, you remember that phase, right?
You remember that phase.
It's true.
We've all gone through it, I think, right?
I mean, maybe you haven't.
Maybe you live in a nicer section of the universe, but... I mean, it's playing out all over the place these days, right?
Hey, remember all those virtues that society claimed to have?
Funny story.
It doesn't.
In fact, it kind of enables the opposite.
I was in a daze for days ahead.
It's a tough time.
It's like when you're dating someone and they claim to love you and then you ask them to do something and they just won't.
But I want you to dress up as a nurse.
I'm kidding, right?
But you come up with something, right?
And something reasonable.
And yeah, like I remember with a woman I was dating, I actually spent a lot of money to help her make a film.
Because she wanted to... I wrote a film, produced the film, and funded the film.
And then I said, hey, you know, now that this is done, could you spend a little bit of time reviewing one of my novels?
No.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah, you just haven't motivated me to do it.
I'm like, okay, okay.
So I'm afraid I see where things are.
The USA grew its debt by $32 billion in one week.
Yeah.
Yeah, well.
I think that's going to have an effect on Bitcoin.
So Bitcoin's in this whole process, in my view, obviously this is not financial advice, just my particular opinions.
Don't buy or sell anything based on anything I say.
Do your own research, make your own decisions.
So Bitcoin's been stable for the last year plus and they're doing that so that they can keep Bitcoin as a stable investment so that they can start to buy it legally within the portfolios of people who say they have low risk tolerance.
You invest, you check how much knowledge you have and how much
How much risk are you willing to tolerate?
So when Bitcoin was all over the place, they couldn't buy it for people's portfolios who had low risk tolerance.
So they keep it at an even level, buying and selling.
And this is all automated, I assume, or largely automated.
And then they can keep it at a stable level and they can move it into the portfolios of people with low risk tolerance.
So I think that's gonna go.
It's gonna go.
It's just a race to see if CBDCs or Bitcoin is gonna get ahead.
We shall see.
We shall see.
Can't afford bitcoins.
Goodbye Satoshi.
It's time to look into it.
Are you ready to be hurt?
I don't want to hurt you.
I don't want to hurt you.
But this is important.
Hit me with a why.
I want to know.
I'll respect your wishes.
Are you ready?
Are you ready?
Okay.
If you had bought Bitcoin instead of every phone from the iPhone 5 onwards, if you had bought Bitcoin instead of buying every iPhone from the iPhone 5 onwards, how much money would you have in US dollars?
Instead of buying a new phone, if you had simply bought Bitcoin for the price of a new iPhone from the iPhone 5 onwards, how much money would you have?
Uh... $100,000?
$5,000?
$500,000?
$1,000?
$100,000?
At least $10?
No.
You'd have over $73 million.
Or about $100 million, Canadian.
If you had simply bought Bitcoin, instead of buying every new phone from the iPhone 5 onwards, you'd have $73 million and change.
Of course, that matters earlier rather than later, but... I mean, that's what I used to say to the people who were like, oh, I'm really into helping the poor.
It's like, have you told them to buy Bitcoin?
But it doesn't mean it's over.
It doesn't mean it's over.
It doesn't mean it's over.
I think Bitcoin's still got a long way to go.
Still got a long way to go.
But yeah, I mean, that's painful, right?
But did the Bitcoin get you laid?
No, listen, if you were raising kids, you've got a far greater treasure than Bitcoins and all of that.
So if you got married and you had kids and you had a beautiful wedding, I mean, money only takes you so far, right?
You've got to have a life too, right?
All right.
Did I?
I'm not nagging you.
I don't want to nag you.
I'm just curious.
It's a low donation night tonight, which is fine.
It's fine.
Is it because you've donated before?
Is the topic not that interesting?
Again, it's all totally fine.
I'm just doing a little market research here.
I'm just kind of curious.
You tipped $5 above?
Thank you.
Again, I'm not trying to nag.
I'm just genuinely curious.
Because I always have this thing, the low in cash, you've donated and I'm subbed, I appreciate that.
No, if you've donated, I appreciate that.
Because I always have this thing where I'm like, I don't want to nag, I don't want to nag, I don't want to nag, but I also do have to ask and be responsible for the business as a whole.
Hey, if you donate monthly, don't worry about it, enjoy it, that's totally fine.
Can I change my monthly subscription to Locals to a higher amount?
You certainly can.
You certainly can.
You can just unsubscribe and then re-subscribe at a higher tier.
Thank you very much.
Appreciate that.
And listen, if you're low on cash, honestly, enjoy the show.
Don't think twice about it.
Don't feel bad about anything.
I certainly want you to be able to eat and pay rent.
It's even more Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, remember?
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, with Staff Bot at the top!
And the bottom!
And everything!
I am everybody's hierarchy of needs!
I am the hierarchy of needs bald, egg-shaped, spotty-headed sandwich!
That's it!
I am all the needs in every dimension and multi-dimensions and multiverses wherever Spider-Man shows up.
That's where I am.
Asking for donations.
I'm trying to capture you in my web.
Alright, okay, so how was everyone's show tonight?
Give me a rating.
How are we doing in terms of enlightenment and interest and value and juicy, good, beautiful stuff and philosophy?
Steph's the Maslow Slice Bread Loaf of Philosophy!
That's right!
Philosophy!
With snarls and carbs!
10 out of 10?
You are so kind.
9 out of 10?
I'll take that too.
95?
Can't imagine not being here.
8 out of 10 on the Steph-O-Meter?
Or is that Steph-O-Meter?
There's just no way to tell.
I appreciate that.
And if you're listening to this later, of course, freedomain.com slash donate.
Let me ask you a question.
It's nothing to do with donations.
So I've started really going through the second draft of the Peaceful Parenting book.
It's 450 pages.
I've done 45 pages.
I've done 45 pages.
Should I read it or wait till it's all done?
Should I read it as I go or wait till it's all done and read it all at the same time?
Steph Trickle or Steph Tsunami?
Steph Date Night or Steph Wedding Night?
All at once?
Tsunami?
What feels most exciting to you?
Yeah, it's interesting.
So, I mean, if there's something that needs to be edited, it would be nice to know ahead of time.
It's hard to choose?
It is hard to choose, right?
I mean, obviously, I want to share what's going on, and I do want feedback, and it's not like, you know, what you guys say matters a lot in terms of the book.
I mean, some of the technical scientific researchy stuff with the data is not going to be much edited, but as far as the general shape and approach of the book,
I have taken a picture.
I want women to read this, right?
So if you want women to read something, what do you start with?
This is your marketing 101.
If you want women to read something, what do you start with?
Henry Cavill on the cover!
Okay, do women respond to facts first or anecdotes first?
Anecdotes.
Yeah, in general, right?
So with the male stuff, it's like, here's the facts.
With women's stuff, it's like, Katie had never experienced anything so horrifying in her entire life.
She thought she was going to have a wonderful trip in Aruba, but before you know it, bum bum, it's like, oh, Katie!
Oh, she's in danger!
Oh, no!
Right?
So I start off with anecdotes.
I'll just be honest.
I'm trying not to soyboy it up too much, but because I want women to read this, women are, of course, the primary caregivers for children as a whole.
Anecdotes about Henry Cavill?
Not all of Henry Cavill.
I think mostly just his butt.
Some media stories are only anecdotes.
No, sometimes they'll bury some data in there down the road a ways, but yeah, it's a lot.
Sexist Steph, how dare you?
Eh!
It's not sexist to... To have... To understand some differences and respect them is not sexist.
Of course, right?
You know I'm... You're just kidding.
I know that.
Antonio Banderas mixed in.
Boy, aren't you showing your age.
You could put your awesome legs on the cover.
Maybe.
Maybe.
Peaceful parenting with a Jane Fonda scissor kick.
How to get men to watch a movie.
Place in Henry Cavill.
I don't think I've ever seen a Henry Cavill movie.
I know he's been in the Superman ones.
I don't know.
Is he into Marvel or something like that?
I haven't watched a Henry Cavill movie.
But he seems pretty charming.
The Witcher?
Oh, that's a series, right?
I've never seen that.
Any good?
Is it any good?
It's violent?
Well, yeah, I get it.
It's medieval, right?
You thought it was pretty good?
Yeah.
I don't have anything to watch right now.
If I showed my age, I would mention Clint Eastwood.
Excellent.
Yeah, I don't have anything to watch right now.
I'm sort of in between things.
Apparently he's quite spaced.
Seems like a rare figure of integrity in the Hollywood swamp.
New spy movie with Henry Cavill?
It's pretty good.
Yeah.
Strange Direction is it called?
Alright.
Alright.
He's the kind of guy like you take your wife to see the movie and you look over and you just you have to like wipe the drool off like you just hope she's not drooling and then you go home and do like 400 sit-ups till you can't even stand up straight then you hobble over to the bed like Gollum saying, I'm sexy!
Something like that.
I assume it's something like that.
Oh well, she has to suffer with me and Sandra Bullock so it's only fair.
All right, everyone.
Thank you so much for a wonderful evening.
I really appreciate it.
I will be doing I think I'm going to do audio for Friday night.
I think it'd be fun to do audio.
Be nice to chat with people as well.
Hit me with a why if you would you talk if it was just audio.
You can just don't use your name.
I could do telegram I could do other things.
Yeah, I think it would be nice.
I mean, it's nice doing these solo shows.
Not totally solo shows, but you know what I mean.
But I think it would be nice to actually chat with people as well.
Discord is preferred?
Yeah, we could do that.
We could do that.
Alright.
Had a question with my tip, retyped it.
Grudgingly, wouldn't miss the eye candy.
Why, thank you, I appreciate that.
Audio is just fine, whatever works best for you.
I'm sorry if I didn't get your question tonight.
I'm a little sore from working out, so I don't want to sit for too much longer, but if you want to email me, you can email me, callin at freedomain.com, callin at freedomain.com, and I will get to your question, I promise.
