Oct. 14, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:51:33
5283 USE YOUR PSYCHIC POWERS!
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/UPB2022On that note, how do you differentiate between your inner conscience (which may have legit issues) and introjects from abusers?Good evening, Stef! Why is it that people think that you should "spank your child while they're young so that they know to obey you when they're older"?Dear Stefinator: my 9 year old is visiting my parents for a few days of fall vacation. However, my dad crashed the car into a huge truck, motorway speed, with my daughter and mother in the back. Nobody hurt, but totally his fault. He hasn't called me to say what happened. When I called him, he basically hung up when I started to ask. I'm utterly shocked. Your thoughts? (Hey people: donate to the Stefinator!)Hey Stef, after watching one of your videos the other day I realise people in my life don't give me credibility in the areas I am strong at.What have I done to facilitate this and how do I fix it?ThanksWhat do you think about people’s story about how they felt something off before a tragedy happened, like someone who had the urge to call a loved one and then found out they were dead?I signed up because of your extensive library of documentaries and insightful commentaries on History and current events. For some reason this has, in my eyes devolved into endless chatter with dysfunstional people and their personal problems, usually of their own making. A sort of "Dial The Analyst" format.I am truthfully not the least interested in hearing people whine about their self-inflicted misery! There is more than enough of that sprayed all over the Internet.You have to much knowledge and too much to offer about history and its implications upon the current world we live in. To be wasting it on such nonsense.But that is just me.Last night I had a dream that I had a baby. She/he was so small, so precious. I felt a deep connection to this child in the dream. I was breastfeeding her/him, my fiancé was there and I just felt an immense sense of love and care towards both of them, especially the baby. When I woke up, I was heartbroken and devastated. So disappointed. It felt so real. I can’t stop thinking about this dream, about the baby. It has consumed my whole day. I have cried multiple times, even had a moment of hyperventilating. I have never had such a vivid dream about a baby before. I feel changed. What does this mean? I’m curious to know what you think about this..perhaps my body/genes is telling me something. I can imagine you perhaps saying this. I am 22, and cannot wait to have children. If my fiancé was on board, I’d have them right now.Wednesday Night Live 11 Oct 2023
Let me ask you this quick question, just a quick question.
You know, this is your empathy for the Steph Bot time.
How tough do you think it is, say, being out of politics at the moment?
Just, you know, from a 1 to 10, how tough do you think it is being out of politics at the moment?
It's, well, I think we all know the answer to that.
All right, everyone.
Yes, yes, yes, I do want to announce it to a whole bunch of bunch of people.
Yes, I do.
All right.
It is a big challenge.
It is a big challenge.
Hey, how many people are being de-platformed for supporting hummus?
How many people are being de-platformed from supporting hummus?
Isn't that wild?
Isn't that just wild?
You know, it's a great relief for me, of course, just to recognize and realize that there was never anything even remotely moral going on amid me.
Let's see here.
Let's see here.
I want to make sure I get to your questions.
Alright, so somebody writes, as for the interruptions, as for the interruptions.
A live stream is not a conversation.
Different rules apply.
It's perfectly normal for people to just type whatever they happen to be thinking about in the chat.
It's common for there to be random conversations between viewers entirely separate from what the streamer is doing.
Most streaming services have a special keyword to indicate your chat is meant for the streamer who will ignore chats without this keyword.
Yeah, but that's not what I was talking about.
I mean, it's great that you're creating up this, you know, it's wonderful that you're able to create this fantastical 3D VPN virtual reality scenario wherein you're right, but it just didn't have anything to do with what I was talking about.
What I was talking about was that when I was in the middle of a flow, hold off on your questions for me until I'm done.
That was, you know, and if you come late, see if you come late to something that's totally fine.
I mean it's not like we, you got a clock in, it's not like a business.
So if you come late though,
Don't come barging in, elbow aside what the host is doing for your own particular needs and preferences.
Read the room, get a sense of where the host is, you know, just basic politeness stuff.
If he's in the middle of a flow, just wait until he's done.
That's all.
It's just a... I mean, I hate to say it's a basic, but it is kind of a basic politeness thing, right?
So he says, so your request to do off-topic interruptions is going against people's habits.
Oh no.
Oh no.
Are you saying that there's an aspect of philosophy that goes against people's habits?
Oh my gosh.
I think it's possible to achieve this, but understand what you're asking.
Maybe even have text on screen like, please focus on the topic of why we have war to boost the quality of this philosophy.
And it wasn't rules.
I didn't kick anyone.
It was just a request.
That's all.
Did I kick anyone?
Did I scream abuse at anyone?
Nope.
Made a request.
Made a request.
Made a request.
Made a request.
Just asked people for some, what to me is basic politeness, but it was rules.
I don't know.
It's just so funny.
Like, how is this controversial?
That I have preferences when I'm in the middle of a flow state?
And I said, look, if people want to keep interrupting me, that's fine.
Then I'll do the big speeches.
Solo, without interruptions, and people are like, no, no, no, don't do that.
We want to watch the speeches live.
Okay, then if you want to watch the speeches live, try not to interrupt with your impulsivity until I'm done.
And that's a reasonable request.
It interferes with the quality of the show for other people.
Like, talking loudly during a movie interrupts the quality of the experience for other people.
You know, it's so funny, I mean, it's like these people who complain about this stuff, like, have you never had to run a business?
Like, you understand, I have to please the customers, and the customers want me in a flow state, they want me to do it live, which means anything that interrupts at the flow state and interrupts with the flow of the speech, which people want to see live, is something I have to ask people to not.
And I asked it as a favor, I wasn't rude, all this kind of stuff.
All right.
Dear Stephanator,
My nine-year-old is visiting my parents for a few days of fall vacation.
However, my dad crashed the car into a huge truck.
Motorway speed with my daughter and mother in the back.
Nobody hurt, but totally his fault.
He hasn't called me to say what happened.
When I called him, he basically hung up when I started to ask him.
I'm utterly shocked.
Your thoughts?
Hey people, donate to Steph.
Yes, you can of course tip me and I would really, really appreciate that.
Oof.
Oof, oof, oof.
All right, it's your show, my friends.
I am here for you.
I'm here for you.
How harsh do you want me to be?
Minus ten for super gentle.
Foot massages and oil back rubs and plus ten for super harsh.
Where do you want me to be?
The hardest?
Oh, you can't handle the hardest.
The hardest is Diamond Head.
You can't do it!
Alright, everybody wants me to go harsh.
I mean, I know that generally that is the answer, but... Alright.
Alright, hit me with a Y if you've ever known a total asshole who uses a car as a weapon.
Hit me with a Y if you've ever known a total asshole who uses a car as a weapon.
They drive too fast when they're angry, they yell at people, they swerve, they try and go ahead, they fist, they road rage, they... Have you ever?
They drive up, like you're driving along on the highway, and they drive up like you can see their fucking grill in your brain.
They're that close, right?
People who just act out their anger, their rage, using 6,000 pound death metal boxes filled with flammable liquids.
No, I'm not talking about the terrorist fan attack, obviously the Christmas fan attack.
I'm talking about just regular everyday assholes who act out their aggression using vehicles.
Audi driver.
What's the difference between a porcupine and a BMW?
Well, what is the difference between a porcupine and a BMW?
Well, you see, with the porcupine, the pricks are on the outside.
Everyday Assholes feels like a good book title.
You might be right.
Everyday Anarchy, Practical Anarchy and Everyday Assholes.
No, have you... I was just talking to a woman yesterday.
So I talked to her back in 2018.
I think it was 2018.
No, 2016.
Back in 2016, she was dating a really up and down emotional guy who had Tourette's and asked me my advice.
Now, she was basically a model, super tall, super blonde, super pretty, and she was dating a guy who had Tourette's and real emotional moodiness, and I gave her advice.
I gave her advice.
What advice do you think that I gave her?
What advice did I give her?
You know, as a whole, I don't like to tell people what to do as a whole, in principle, but what advice do you think I gave her as far as moving full steam ahead with this relationship?
With this guy.
Well, from zero to infinity, how many children did she end up having with this guy?
Just out of curiosity.
How many children did she end up having with this guy?
Two!
Yes!
You have got it correct.
She has had two children with him and he was so angry at her once he was driving with the kids in the car super fast and she was terrified for her life.
This is what I mean.
People who, the assholes who use cars as an anger mechanism.
I have a deep, visceral, Old Testament, strike them down please Jesus, hatred to people who drive recklessly.
People who drive recklessly.
Go have your asshole accident on your own.
Don't involve me, I'm driving well.
You know, you see those guys, just roaming around, motorcyclists sometimes, it can be just regular old car drivers, they're just zipping!
You know, they've done studies where they try to get from one side of the city to the other and one person obeys the traffic signals and laws and the other person is cutting corners and racing and it takes about the same amount of time, it doesn't really matter.
Or as a friend of mine used to say when we were in a car and somebody was racing around, it's like, oh look, I'm desperate to get home one car faster!
Oh man, if I could just get home one car faster that would be paradise!
Yeah.
What percentage of car accidents do you think are impossible to prevent?
Or, yeah, what percentage of car accidents do you think, I mean, where you're causing the accident, are impossible to prevent?
Like, occasionally there's just some weird black ice shit, or your brakes fail out of nowhere, or something like that, right?
Or somebody's got the remote control of your car somehow, right?
But it's very tiny.
It's very tiny, the number of car accidents that can be
That can't be prevented.
Now when you're on the receiving end of somebody being an asshole driver, that's one thing, but car accidents are mostly preventable.
Do you know how many, I haven't looked this up for a while, probably got lower over the pandemic, how many Americans die every year in car accidents?
How many?
How many?
Yeah, is it 30,000?
35,000?
Something like that?
It's massive.
Massive.
Massive.
Massive.
Massive.
I mean, it's like a third of fentanyl, for God's sakes.
Yeah, more than dying shark attacks.
Yes, yes, but not more than sharks on motorcycle.
Shark attacks on motorcycle, number one killer of most people in their dreams.
Oh yeah, it's more than guns.
Well, certainly more than guns in terms of self-defense, but yeah.
So, let's get back to your question about your fatter.
All right.
Hello mother, hello father.
That semi is getting closer.
All right.
Let me get here.
Sorry, I lost the question.
I normally copy and paste.
Did I?
I did not.
Because I got yanked up by the tangents.
I did a black eye spin in the world of tangents.
Let me get the spanking question.
And let's see here.
No, don't go there.
I don't want to click there.
Not the computer's fault.
All right, so let's do this question again.
Nine-year-old visiting my parents for a few days of fall vacation.
My dad crashed the car into a huge truck motorway speed with my daughter and mother in the back.
Nobody hurt but totally his fault.
He hasn't called me to say what happened.
When I called him, he basically hung up when I started to ask.
I'm utterly shocked.
Your thoughts?
All right, so if this was the situation, you sent your nine-year-old to visit your parents and your dad crashed the car, it was totally his fault.
And he's not returning your calls.
What would you do?
What would you do?
In that situation, just out of curiosity.
What would you do in that situation?
I know what I would do right away.
I know what I would do right away.
Yeah.
Yeah, of course you would, right?
Try to get surveillance footage of the incident?
Don't care.
You would feel comfortable with the child being in his care?
I assume that's wouldn't, Autumn.
Never put my kid near my dad ever again?
Bye bye father?
Wouldn't, yes, they wouldn't, right?
I'd go get my family ASAP.
Hit the road, Jack!
Don't care if you do, cuz it's understood.
You ain't got no money, you just ain't no good.
Yeah, so yeah, I would immediately, I don't care if they're in Mumbai or Bombay in the past, I would simply get to where my kid is, and I would retrieve my child and make sure that she was never, ever, ever under my father's care again.
Right, Kairos, that's exactly right.
Ask myself what I was ignoring pre-car accident.
You see, you don't have the right to put your kids in danger.
Like, you just don't have that right.
Like, it's not even close, right?
So, if he crashed into a huge truck, and it was totally his fault, then there's something seriously wrong with him.
He's either distracted, he wasn't wearing his glasses, he was texting, he was thinking about something else, he was dissociated, he was texting, he was fighting with his wife, like something.
He was fiddling with the radio, you know, because it's really important to have just the right song to be beheaded by.
Don't lose your head, right?
So yeah, I mean he's not... if he's totally his fault.
Now,
I mean, if it's totally his fault, I mean, it would be like, oh my gosh, I've got to go back to remedial driving school, I need to get my eyes tested, I need to confess whatever I was doing, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
The Great Khan says, I'm a tow truck driver, and it never ceases to amaze me how distracted people are driving.
Yes, I drive like everybody has their head
A porpoise's ass in a giant fish tank and is texting and playing video games with their feet at the same time.
I drive like everyone's texting.
Like, it used to be relatively safe to cross the road, right?
Used to be relatively safe to cross the road.
Now, you literally have to wait until, like, the driver sees you or there's huge amounts of room because I just assume everyone is texting and, you know, you have a stop at these lights and you look around, it's like, stop texting, asshole!
Stop texting!
Leave your phone!
Drop your phone!
It's fine.
You'll be okay.
You're not that important.
You really are not that important.
No!
I got a text!
I gotta return this text!
Okay, you need to return the text.
Pull the fuck over.
Put your car in park.
Return the text.
But don't do it... Oh my god.
So, yeah.
It's just appalling.
And most people get into two car crashes over the course of their life, right?
Texting while driving in the UK is illegal, is that the same in Canada?
Yes, yes.
But, you know, one of the first lessons I got in power was when I was a kid, obviously a little kid,
And I was at a zebra crossing, right, which is where pedestrians are supposed to cross.
And I confidently walked out because, you know, I was supposed to cross and some truck came roaring up.
Some adult grabbed me, yanked me back.
And I said, I had the right of way!
And he said, what good is that going to do you in a graveyard?
What good is that going to do you in a graveyard?
Worked in ambulances, Dylan.
Always amazed by the complete lack of empathy most drunk drivers display, even if they hurt someone.
Well, drunk drivers are just murderers-in-waiting, right?
They're just murderers-in-waiting.
I've been to fatal car accidents and people drive by phone-in-hand recording.
Yeah, I still have a very vivid memory of when I was probably five years old and I was playing in my neighborhood and everybody was running up to the main road and there was a terrible car crash and
Bystanders were pulling smoking people out of the car.
Like, not cigarette smoking people, you understand, right?
It was really tough.
Angry is dangerous, dissociated is dangerous, distracted is dangerous, and so on, so, yeah.
My son said he wanted to cross the street by himself.
I reluctantly agreed, but just reminded him of the steps.
He followed to the T, but some jerk was making a left hand and honked at him.
Now he's scared like he made a mistake.
Do people not learn that pedestrians have the right of way?
Listen, I don't mean to be all up in the grills of BMW drivers.
I'm sure there are one or two wonderful BMW drivers in Final Fantasy VII, but I do very vividly remember it was raining insanely, like car wash raining, and I was on the sidewalk with a bunch of people, and we wanted to cross the road to get to shelter, and a BMW driver was driving and edging his way through the crowd.
It's like, oh, I'm sorry, we who are currently drowning,
In the Satan snot of infinite rainstorms, are we in the way of you getting to some arsehole squash game that you need to get to at the Granite Club, my friend?
Woo!
Crazy.
Riding a motorcycle with the modern man around you in vehicles is terrifying.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And of course, there are a lot of the most motorcyclists who do that, you know, weird inter-car ziplining thing.
You know, those cars could just drift together at any time, right?
And of course, I'm constantly alert and aware of, you know, the drift drivers.
Here's your fucking lane!
Stay there!
We're not asking for the world!
You know, it's a pretty wide lane.
We're not asking you to land a 747 on a fucking aircraft canter.
Just stay in your lane, asshole!
Yeah, my dad drove past the Lockerbie plane crash when I was pretty young.
We were on the motorway and I remember the whole road was at a crawl as all the drivers tried to catch a glimpse of the crashed plane.
I found it very weird and uneasy.
I, you know, I know everyone's kind of disturbed by rubbernecking.
I don't particularly mind it.
I mean, I look too, and it's instructive for my daughter to see, because, you know, if there's a crash, we want to notice just how dangerous it can be, right?
So, yeah, I would not let
I would not let my child around anyone who was an unrepentant asshole driver.
And, you know, if he caused this accident, he was being an asshole.
And I really, really hate those people because, you know, we need to drive and there are these potential half-brain-dead murderers-in-waiting on the road.
I mean, it's getting worse too.
Like in Canada in particular, there's of course, you know, with the mass immigration, there are people who come to Canada who've never driven snow before.
And every winter it's the same thing, right?
All right, don't forget to tip your friendly neighborhood philosopher.
I'm trying to be positive, trying to be positive, just, you know, since you... I assume you want some of my sort of honest and personal experience.
So working very hard on this book.
It's tough on the income, because I don't know if people think, well, Steph's not being very productive, he's not releasing as much, he's not... Well, you know, but I am working like insanely hard on this 450-page book.
And so if you can tip me,
That will encourage me to keep working on the book, because otherwise I have to stop working on the book and start working on revenue generation.
Because, you know, especially with employees now, I have paycheck, right?
Paycheck, paycheck, paycheck.
So I've got to pay people, I've got to pay myself.
And so if you think I'm working less, you're entirely wrong.
All right.
Snow driving is pretty hard.
No, honestly, it's not.
It's not.
Snow driving is not hard.
You just have to completely slow motion everything.
That's all.
You just have to slow motion everything.
Everything is 20% speed.
Turning, starting, stopping, everything is 20%.
It's like driving underwater.
That's all you do.
Do you think self-driving cars are going to fix this problem?
I assume so.
Snow driving is what opened me up to applying philosophy for the first time.
My physical reality was as out of control as my life was.
All right.
My rule for winter driving is just to add 10 to 20 seconds to each decision.
Stop sooner, start later.
Yeah, that's right.
It's just... Do you have any advice for driving anxiety?
Well, I mean, I think taking courses is really good and just, I mean, driving anxiety is great.
I mean, you need to be anxious when you're driving.
You absolutely have to be anxious while you're driving because driving is combat.
Right?
I mean there's people flying around with indifferent driving skills and they're distracted and as I said before they're on six thousand pound death metal explosion devices going along at a hundred or a hundred and ten kilometers an hour.
And I'm not a speeding guy.
I'm not a speeder.
Like I don't speed.
And
It's wild to me that no matter how, you know, if you go in the speed limit and everyone is just, go past, go past, go past, go past, right?
Freedomain.com is delisted from DuckDuckGo.
Yeah, DuckDuckGo is not particularly freedom oriented, but I guess they had that reputation for a while.
But I'm sure you can still get through to BLM.
Speed limit is fast enough already.
Well, unless somebody's actually having a heart attack in the back, I don't see any need to speed.
I don't see any need to speed.
Do you care about driving irritations?
Because I've got a few.
Do you care?
I mean, I don't want to be a boring show if you don't, but I've got my driving irritations that just...
Yes, yes.
You want to hear the driving irritations?
Are we going to get petty?
All right.
Okay, so here's how it should work, people.
Okay, so you're in a left-hand turning lane.
At the traffic lights, you're in a left-hand turning lane.
Do you know that technically, legally, morally, ethically, philosophically, and epistemologically, you do not need the size of a World War I dreadnought battleship between you and the car that's turning?
You know the way, you're like six cars back and there's an advanced green and you want to get there, right?
So, of course, the first guy is like, oh, I must finish my text before I turn.
So he takes a while.
And then there's like half a football field between that and the next guy.
And in my mind, I'm always like, I want you to think of a chain that's about four feet long, that's tying you to the car ahead of you.
When you turn left, that chain keeps you going.
It should be flow, flow, flow, done!
I remember a friend of a friend once many, many years ago was talking about how annoyed she was because she'd parked... like Toronto has like two lanes, right?
And during the day you can park, rush hour you can't.
And the reason why it's tough is that people turn left, right?
So when they turn left and you've got parked cars on the right and they're turning left, traffic completely stops, right?
And she was really annoyed because she got a ticket for parking
On the right-hand side of the street during rush hour.
And I was like, oh yeah, no, I'm really, really upset about that.
She's like, oh yeah, thanks.
And I'm like, no, no, no, I'm really upset that you didn't get incinerated from low orbit.
I just want cars turned into puddles that drain away into the sewers.
I want you to turn into the Terminator liquid guy and drain away into the sewers.
Because when you've got to drive a lot in Toronto, it just takes one person parking during rush hour for the entire thing to turn into, I don't know, Schwarzenegger's
Clogged up steroid, beaten up hard before he had that quadruple bypass or whatever the hell happened, right?
So, yes, it is... It's just wild.
Speed limit is usually too slow?
No.
No, I don't like that.
I have no problem going slow.
I mean, you're going infinitely faster than walking and horses and stuff like that.
I mean, no, I'm fine, but I think the speed limit could be lower myself.
When I was a child, one of my friends was killed by a woman who was speeding in a residential zone.
He was playing in the park and was struck when retrieving a ball.
Yes.
Yes, my brother was in a car when he was very little and one of his friends got out and walked straight into and got creamed by traffic.
Seconds at the traffic light are measured in dark years.
That's right.
That's right.
My new car, says Tim, has lane assist, so the steering wheel gently keeps me in the center of the lane.
After using it for a while, I notice everyone else bouncing from side to side in the lane.
Yeah, yeah.
Have you ever had a car with that blind spot indicator?
I just won't trust it.
I've programmed enough software to know that software can be a little dicey.
I just don't trust it.
Supercars can speed because they actually have the ability to break fast enough to be safe.
Yeah.
Well, so speeding, don't you always have that thought?
You know, well if I speed I might get to my destination five minutes faster.
Or I may never get there at all.
Or I might spend two months in the hospital.
Or I might need a year of rehab to recover my shattered frame back to semi-normality, right?
It's just not
The cost-benefit just doesn't make any sense.
Just leave a little earlier or be a little later, but risking death and maiming for the sake of saving five minutes?
That's retarded.
Sorry, that's an insult to retarded people.
My apologies.
I would never trust the blind spot indicator as well.
I've seen it to be iffy when a car comes up fast.
Yeah, and what is it with people?
Like, if it's turned into a real sleep, black ice, car wash, rainfall, hail, death scenario, just pull over and get a coffee.
God, wait for it to clear up.
What's the rush?
I don't know.
People just get these fixed things.
I gotta be there!
And it's like, well, yeah, the only thing you got to do is breathe and then die.
Those guys rip past you only to have you pull up beside them at lights two minutes later again anyway.
Yeah, yeah.
I did the math.
I'd have to get away with 27 commutes to make up for one ticket.
Yeah, and then there's the problem, too, as everybody who's driving over the speed limit, it then becomes dangerous to go the speed limit, because, you know, I used to refer to it as my train, you know, like the train on the tracks or the train behind a queen that I would be driving, and behind me would be all of my fans, all of these staff fans behind me just gathering, and I'd be like a snake going over the hills and dales, right?
I feel too competitive when I drive?
Yeah, yeah.
Since having kids, I drive like a grandma.
Oh yeah, Michelle, bang on, man.
I remember driving home with Izzy back in the day and it's like, slowly, gently.
And of course, you also have to recognize that there are a lot of people out there who are sleep deprived when they drive.
It's a very, very, very... Well, sleep deprivation as a whole is a huge issue in the world.
In the modern world in particular, but sleep deprivation when driving?
Assume that everybody is half-drugged and their reaction times are equivalent to a Quaalude-addicted sloth, because... Everybody's sleep-deprived.
Apparently sleep was just for the Middle Ages, like the Middle Ages 500 years ago.
The modern world's just like, wakey wakey!
No sleep!
It always makes me feel great when somebody blows by me and then I meet him later in a wed light.
Don't you like, how you doing man?
You risk death to end up at exactly the same place.
Like the daylight savings time?
Yeah, for sure.
Just assume everybody is distracted and exhausted and slow reaction times and impatient and immature.
And of course as IQ drops over the world, particularly in the West, driving just gets worse.
Quality driving is an IQ issue as well, to some degree.
Everybody's dangerous and everybody's incompetent on the road.
That's my assumption.
Try driving in South Florida.
You drive in South Florida?
Isn't it safer in South Florida to just hop, skip and a jump over the alligators to get to where you want?
What philosophy is on the menu tonight?
That is a fine, fine question.
All right.
That's a fine question.
Good evening, Steph.
Why is it that people think that you should spank your child while they're young so they know how to obey you when they're older?
Yeah.
So you know, you know, and I know, that people don't hit their children because they have reasoned arguments as to why.
We know that, right?
People don't hit their children because they have some big reasoned arguments as to why!
They should hit their children.
Well, I don't want to hit my child, but boy, you know, that really reasoned, detailed argument backed up by science and evidence.
People don't, they don't hit their children.
So this is called reasoning after the fact.
Ex post facto justifications.
So you lash out at your kids because you're angry, you're triggered, you're upset, you hit yourself, you're traumatized.
You lash out at your kids and you hit them, and then you're like, well shit, I can't be a bad person, so there has to be a good reason why I hit them.
Hey!
Discipline.
Respect.
Maturity.
Obedience.
Yeah, that's it.
I'm not a bad guy.
I'm not a guy who just hit a defenseless and helpless little child.
I'm not a bad guy.
People do bad things and then the justifications are sold to them, right?
Do you know what?
Half the fucking economy is selling justifications to people who do really shitty things to try to convince them that they're not shitty, right?
Only half?
Yeah, maybe more.
Maybe more.
Saves a lot of money to go the speed limit, too.
Yeah, boy, I had my $100 fill-up.
I think it's just cheaper to steal a helicopter at this point.
Like, it's just, it's insane.
And it's only going to get worse, of course, with what's going on in the Middle East at the moment.
But hey!
At least there are no mean tweets.
Biden is Theoden.
Yeah.
I'd rather hit my kids than consider that my parents abused me.
Yeah.
We have an economy based on propping up bad decisions, right?
We have an economy that is based on propping up bad decisions, right?
You understand that?
Women's fashion and makeup is propping up bad decisions on who they date.
Video games are propping up, and I guess pornography is propping up bad decisions on men to not engage in the world or with the world.
The welfare state, which has massive effects on the economy, is propping up bad decisions on the fathers of your children.
Corporate liability shields.
Well, and, you know, one of the reasons why the war machine hated Trump is Trump engaged in exactly what I talked about on the Joe Rogan Show like 10 years ago, which was you target the leaders, you don't, right?
But targeting the leaders of, say, terrorist organizations is very cheap.
You don't need aircraft carriers to target.
And again, I talked about this on Joe Rogan like 10 years ago.
He said, well, what would you do?
How would a free society defend itself?
I was like, well, you would develop DNA weaponry that would target a particular individual.
And you would release that DNA attack technology over the grounds of that particular individual who was running the invasion or the attack.
And I have a whole scene about this in my novel, The Future, which you should really get at freedomain.com forward slash books.
Trump, I mean, what was it, in 2020 there wasn't even a discussion of terrorism as a whole because it had mostly been solved.
Yeah, I mean, the military-industrial complex doesn't like people who have intelligent free market solutions to massive military spending stuff.
The future, five stars!
Thank you, I appreciate that.
Douglas Adams wrote about a computer that can go from your desired conclusions and put together a line of logical-sounding statements to support it.
It was sold, in the book, to the Pentagon.
When people say, well, I hit my kids because of X, Y, and Z, and you say, oh, well, you see, if I just convince them that X, Y, and Z is not rational, boy, they'll stop hitting their kids.
I mean, look at my presentation.
Watch my presentation.
You can find it at fdrpodcast.com forward slash
Sorry, FDRpodcast.com, you can just do a search for the death of reason.
Death of reason.
And it's all about how people don't reason.
They have emotional, hysterical, often conclusions, and then they just reason backwards from that.
My dad punched me in the ribs for bullying my little brother.
He probably even wonders where you got it from.
All right.
Hey, Steph, after watching one of your videos the other day, I realized people in my life don't give me credibility in the areas I'm strong at.
What have I done to facilitate this and how do I fix it?
Yes.
Hit me with a why if you've ever had people in your life who don't recognize your expertise in something.
Has that ever occurred to you, for you, by you, around you, within you, among you, and between you?
Yes.
Yes.
You know, when I was younger.
I mean, I'm pretty good at figuring out interpersonal dynamics and the causes of people's problems.
You know, I would say I'm fairly good at that.
Fairly good at that.
And people, oh my gosh.
Okay, I'll tell you a story.
Oh no.
Oh my gosh.
I'm trying to organize it because I don't want to identify anyone, right?
You guys know I've been, like, I've been an entrepreneur for, like, over 30 years now, right?
And when I was in the software field, I co-founded a company, me and one other guy.
We grew the company.
We had, like, you know, 30 employees, 35 employees.
It was pretty good.
We were doing well.
Sold the company and sold the company again.
So I've been involved in two corporate sales and lots of negotiations, board level stuff and all of that.
I'm not trying to sort of pat myself on the back.
It's just something I've had.
Experience him.
Now, one of my best friends when I was younger is literally a free market economist, right?
He got involved in contract negotiations that just went completely tits up.
Or as my old business partner used to say, they just orgered in, you know, you just orgered in, right?
It just went really, really bad and, you know, legal threats and just went really, really messy and really ugly, right?
And his name's not Bob, obviously, but he was telling me about this one night and I'm like, but Bob, I've been through so many negotiations in the corporate world about contracts and responsibilities.
I mean,
I've participated in two corporate sales.
I write contracts or review contracts with employees.
I'm not a lawyer, obviously, but I can read.
With customers and multi-million dollar contracts, you name it, right?
Like why wouldn't you call me?
Like you're literally an economist who's supposed to figure out what value is and where value is and you have a great friend who's got massive experience and endless contracts and you're just spending a year on this thing
And we even talked over the course of that year!
Because I'll tell you, man.
I shouldn't laugh, but I'll tell you.
So in my life, if I can outsource something, oh man, it's so important.
This is my big tip to you tonight.
Holy crap on a stick, man.
If you can outsource something, please God above.
Right?
Like, you know, no matter how often I tell people in call-in shows, please don't talk about names or places, there are some people who are like, well, when I was seven, my best friend's name and middle name and social security number and it was X and we lived on such and such and such a place and blah blah blah blah blah.
And it's like,
You don't have to tell me everything.
Anyway, so I could listen through these things myself.
I could give it to my employees to listen, but all of that costs money.
Fortunately, I have somebody who loves being the first draft listener of a call-in show, so he's willing to go through and listen to these things.
Just outsourced.
The moment that I have a problem... Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Hugely appreciated.
And he's bang on accurate, which is gold.
Just being good at your job or being good at what you say you're gonna do is gold.
So when I have a problem, or when I have a challenge, my first thought is, who can I ask?
Who can I get advice from?
Who can I outsource this to?
Who can I lean on?
Does that sort of make sense?
And, you know, how many of us try to just sort of shoulder on alone and soldier on alone and just, well, sure, I can learn Photoshop.
Yeah.
So for me, it's like if there are more than five items on the menu dropdown, I'm outsourcing it.
Right.
Because you see, you see in Photoshop, it's just like, oh, my gosh, the tree menu items.
This is like.
This is like the bloodline of the Silmarillion.
It's completely insane.
I won't do it.
I remember many years ago, because I use fairly low rent,
Video editing program because I don't have anything particularly major to do.
I'm not like making gravity with Bullock or anything like that.
So and people are like, oh, you should try this.
And I went and I'm like, oh, you know, you look at the here's the introduction to and you look at the menus and it's just like, oh, my gosh, this menu tree is like the Amazonian forest.
It just doesn't end.
You have to try it myself first.
Well, you'll learn.
You'll learn.
Whatever you can outsource, you should outsource.
Because you can't be efficient if you're not outsourcing.
So whenever I get a challenge in my life that I'm not sort of intimately familiar with, I'm just like rolodexing.
I just go through the list.
Okay, who can I call?
Who can I get help from?
Who can I refer to?
Who can I pass this along to?
I feel like I'm too cheap for outsourcing.
What the hell does this have to do with money?
What are you talking about?
What does this have to do with money?
Did I say, did I say, oh my gosh, did I say I pay anyone?
Did I say I pay anyone?
Wait, I could get paid for that?
Hey man, if you want to do it, you can certainly do it, but you'll be competing with other people who want to hear the call-in shows free.
So we can talk about it for sure.
So no, I will... What did I didn't say?
So how is it that you get to ask someone for favors if they have knowledge you don't?
Right?
How is it that you get to ask someone for favors?
How do you get it for free?
Right?
How do you get it for free?
Well, yeah, you create value for them, right?
So, you say, I'm happy to help you whenever I can, or you've helped them in the past, so you get this network of cross-pollinated, zero-dollar expertise, right?
You sort of follow that?
Like, you get this network of cross-pollinating
Totally free expertise.
I mean, you're giving time, but you give time and you get time, right?
Does that make sense?
You create this network of people that you offer value to and you get value from, and you'll be way ahead of the competition.
So, let's get back to this.
After watching one of your videos, I realized people in my life don't give me credibility in the areas I'm strong at.
What have I done to facilitate this and how do I fix it?
All right.
Do you know the biggest barrier to recognizing other people's competence?
What is the biggest barrier to recognizing other people's competence?
Why can't people recognize excellence?
Familiarity?
Nope.
Well, not being good at things yourself.
I mean, if there's nothing you're really good at, how are you going to recognize competence in other people?
So, yeah, you are just surrounded by people who aren't good at anything, so they can't recognize that you're good at anything.
Well, because they don't have humility.
Sure.
Yeah, of course.
I mean, you understand that competence and humility are two sides of the same coin, because you can only get competent and stuff by realizing how much you suck at it.
You know, why did I write UPV?
Because I realized after 20 years, I suck at ethics.
I can't answer these questions.
I have a bunch of answers, but when I really drill down in them, they're paper thin.
Right?
So, yeah, you have, like, you have people who are so dumb, they don't recognize how bad they are at things, and therefore they can't recognize how good you are at things.
Right?
Does that make sense?
What do you think... Oh no, Nate, are you really trying to tweak me this way?
What do you think about people's story about how they felt something was off before a tragedy happened, like someone who had the urge to call a loved one and then found out they were dead?
They were dead.
If you can't tip on the app for some reason, you can always go to freedomain.com slash donate.
freedomain.com slash donate.
You ever had one of these bullshit artists?
You ever had one of these vainglorious idiots who say to you, I have a special web and connection with the universe.
I had a bad feeling about something.
Something bad happened.
That's your mom?
Oh, isn't it a very, very female thing?
Isn't it a very, very female thing?
Yeah, you can have your astrology because I'm horny.
So, fine.
Yeah, fine, whatever.
Pisces is in the east, can I be in you?
Yeah.
The star rises, as does my trouser bishop.
So...
Yeah.
My grandma was a crystal ball reader at the town fair.
I once acted in a play.
I acted in a play where I ended up paralyzed halfway through the play.
And it was actually kind of interesting.
The director taped my entire half of the body to simulate being paralyzed.
It was actually really good.
I was in a play, and the woman I was in with, she answered phones on a psychic hotline, or I think it was psychic or... No, it wasn't psychic.
It was one of these astrology things.
And she's like, oh yeah, just make stuff up.
No one has any... The stars inform how you are.
Stars, 300 years ago, you see, knew the choice you were going to have to make today and decided to get into the right place.
The constellations are really about me and whether I should have this piece of cheesecake or not.
My wife sees ghosts and won't let me back into the house after visiting a cemetery unless she douses me in salt.
Spicy!
Wouldn't it be an actress to be the only person who could do that job?
Oh yeah, she was, I mean, she really threw herself into stuff, man.
She was, like, terrifying.
Really, really terrifying.
She had a violent scene and she just completely freaked out about it.
It was actually kind of alarming, but I guess good acting, but being acting is... To be an actor is not necessarily to have a whole lot of pride.
Yeah, I've heard this kind of stuff.
Man, it's some narcissistic and lazy shit, isn't it?
It's just rampantly... First of all, you know what they say?
Well, narcissists, they just believe the world revolves around them.
They literally believe that the stars and the moons and the planets were in a certain position when they were born just because of them.
Like literally the orbit of Mars is contingent upon you.
It's one thing to think that the universe revolves around the Earth.
It's quite another thing to think that the hundred billion galaxies, each with a hundred billion stars, all revolve around you and your personal choices and preferences.
I mean, that's intergalactic narcissism.
That's like narcissism that breaks the space-time continuum.
That's infinite narcissism.
That's the kind of narcissism that would make God himself say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
A little full of yourself, aren't you?
No, this is, I mean, yeah, the center of the universe, of course.
Of course it is, because they say, well the moon was here, and the stars were here, and the constellations are here, when I was born, and this blah blah blah, right?
So the entire universe is waiting for the right place of the stars for you to get born, and this is going to dominate, right?
And of course, you get the time stuff too, because the stars are dozens of light years away, hundreds or even thousands of light years away, and yet, it's all come here just for you, right?
It's wild.
This is why dating a woman, or a man, or a man, who's into this kind of stuff is just emotional suicide.
Like it just, oh my god.
Yeah, it's just appalling.
It's just appalling.
So, it's the great question of, okay, what makes you special?
Right?
That's the big question.
You've got to answer this, right?
If you want to be loved, if you want to be picked out of a crowd, what makes you special?
Right, I've seen this video.
My daughter and I were watching some funny videos, and these guys are driving past this, I think it's a sea of sorority pledges at university, and they all have the same haircut, and they all have the same outfit, and they're making fun of these girls, like, oh, you'll never find another woman like me!
I'm so special!
I'm a snowflake!
You'll never find anyone like me!
And they're all exactly the same, right?
You've seen that picture of the girl, all the girls in the university classroom, and they all have the same haircut and the same top.
All that kind of stuff, right?
Okay, well, what makes you special?
Why should someone pick you?
Why should someone pick you?
Now, you have two ways of answering this, right?
You can do something really good, powerful, wonderful, and useful in your family, in your community, in your society, in your country, in the world, something like that, right?
You can do something that's just really nice and wonderful and great, and that makes you special, right?
Or, what's the other option, my friends?
What's the other option that you have?
Rather than doing some great goodness in the world, what's your other option?
I'm special in absolutely unprovable ways.
The universe thinks I'm fabulous and whispers me secrets that I only find out and communicate really after the fact.
But I had a feeling.
I had a feeling.
Yeah, I had a feeling.
I'm special because psychic vibrations in the spiderweb intergalactic web brain of nothingness.
Why should you choose me?
Because the constellations were in this particular place when I was born, you see, and that makes me special!
I'm special!
So special!
I gotta have some of your attention!
Give it to me!
Chrissy Heinleg.
That's a nice voice, actually.
So, yeah.
Well, yeah, of course, there's being pretty and stuff like that, and
But you understand that, I mean, as a man, right?
What's the purpose of a woman blathering on about astrology when you're a man, right?
What's the purpose?
Do you know the purpose?
Like, what's the evolutionary purpose?
Met a woman recently who was into astrology.
Her mother apparently predicted Covid.
Anyways, I dug a little into her life and childhood.
Turns out she has several schizophrenic uncles and stepfathers, several stepfathers, long history of meth use, family involved in local gangs, lots of sexual and physical abuse.
So we know not to choose her?
No.
No.
So do you understand that for a lot of women, bullshit is a status symbol?
Like, do you know that?
Like women... Bullshit is a status symbol for women, right?
Do you know why?
Yeah, because they're pretty.
What they can get away with, right?
So the prettier the woman, the fewer men will confront her on her nonsense.
So when a woman spouts nonsense, she's signaling how attractive she is.
Right?
It's a form of status signaling.
And in general, it displaces
Prettiness, right?
So when the women are young they're more pretty and so they get away with domination or status because of that, but when they get older they start spouting all this nonsense so that you view them as higher status, right?
The Marilyn Monroe quote, if you can't handle me at my worst you don't deserve me at my best.
I read a biography of hers last year, I think, you know, when she was a kid.
I mean, it was the most appalling childhood.
Did you know she bonded with a dog in her neighborhood, in one of her many foster homes?
She bonded with the dog, took that dog in, loved that dog, and somebody was annoyed by the dog's barking and literally sawed the dog in half.
Like, they sawed Marilyn Monroe's childhood dog in half and left it on her front porch.
She was like a very shapely emotional crater.
Oh yeah, what happened to her as a child was just absolutely, absolutely appalling.
She was a foster kid?
Yeah, she was a foster kid and she was one of the first people of any prominence to talk about having been sexually abused.
Yeah, Joe, straight to jokes, Joe.
I don't know, man.
Could be considered a little cold.
Could be conceived of as a little cold.
So, yeah, she, I mean, she had an absolutely appalling childhood, and she had terrible personal hygiene.
Right?
I mean, like, late-stage Ayn Rand levels of personal hygiene.
Okay, so if you can't handle me at my worst, is that a quote from hers?
Is that her quote?
I've heard that before.
Is that hers?
Her quote?
It doesn't sound like it.
Uh, let's see here.
Uh, no.
No, it's, uh, it's not.
It's not Marilyn Monroe.
So... Yeah, I'd be skeptical of these things.
It doesn't sound like her.
It doesn't sound like her.
All right.
I've heard she would eat in bed and leave dishes everywhere.
Well, and of course, you know, she was just passed from man to man and run through like a train station and went in this decaying orbit and, you know, obviously, you know, ended up in the sort of Anna Nicole Smith world of I can't sleep and I have to take drugs and it just got worse and worse and worse.
I'm sorry, I didn't intend to deceive, apparently I was misinformed.
No, that's fine, that's fine.
I mean, I'm not a big Marilyn Monroe expert, but although I did rent a condo from some gay men once, boy, that's quite the union of gay and Monroe, right?
But, no, it's fine, it's fine.
I just, it didn't sound like her, so I was a bit skeptical.
Of course, Autumn, of course you didn't intend to deceive.
Absolutely, completely and totally fine.
No problem at all.
No, I was just a little skeptical.
It's, you know, absolutely totally fine for you to make a mistake.
Lord knows, we all do.
So that's totally fine.
No problem at all.
No problem at all.
All right.
Yeah, Sheryl Crow has a song about that.
She also did a duet with the Dixie Chicks girl at one point.
Or as a friend of mine once put it, never ever date a woman whose playlist includes Goodbye Earl.
Lie to me, I promise, I'll believe.
But I'm throwing punches in the air when I'm acting like I just don't care.
Will you be the one to take my hand?
Are you strong enough to be my man?
Right.
Confessions of a bipolar disorder.
Yeah, kind of, right?
Kind of.
Kind of.
She was, was it Sheryl Crow?
It was Sheryl Crow, who was the backup singer on a Michael Jackson tour and then ended up doing Well Going Solo, if I remember rightly.
But she's had some really messy and messed up relationships, but it's
No, I'll come.
This idea that relationships are hard work and you need to manage them, that you've got to roll with them, everybody fights, and, you know, that's, oh my god.
Just horrendous.
Also, Marilyn Monroe converted to Judaism when she got married to Arthur Miller.
So,
Yeah, this idea that relationships are just hard work.
I mean, no, no, no, no.
Relationships are for pair bonding to raise children.
And everything that you have to spend to try and prop up the relationship is taken away from the stability your children need.
God.
Crazy.
It's crazy.
You know, my wife and I love each other and we never fight.
I mean, I don't know.
We have a conflict once every year or two and it's usually great.
So this idea that there are all these relationships that you've got to prop up and you've got to wrestle the person back.
And like there was a guy who posted, oh yeah, yeah, there was somebody who really, really hated the direction of the show, which I wanted to read about that as well.
Well, let me see.
Yeah, call a loved one and then found out they were dead.
Room for one more?
Yeah, that's all, all nonsense.
It's all a lie.
It's all unverifiable.
You know, I've mentioned this story years ago, but I dated this very pretty woman, very pretty woman.
And she was like, oh, you know, I have psychic abilities.
And I was like, oh, oh my gosh, like the amazing Randy has had a bed in Vegas for like a million dollars.
Let's, you know, we'll split it, man.
I mean, we'll fly down to Vegas.
You'll prove your psychic abilities.
You'll get a million dollars.
And, you know, because she's claiming something, and I'm like, right?
And what did she say?
We all know exactly what she said when I said, hello, Alan.
We all know exactly what she said when I said, let's go get a million dollars.
That's right, Joe.
It doesn't work like that.
It doesn't work that way.
It's like, well, you've got three words, right?
It doesn't work.
Yeah, that one.
I'm embarrassed to say I went on another couple of dates, but I just couldn't.
I mean, I couldn't.
I mean, I like pretty like everybody else does, but I just couldn't.
I was like, oh man, I hope nobody's ever that pretty.
I hope nobody's ever that pretty.
Oh my gosh, just terrible.
I have somebody who had an issue.
Oh boy, did he ever not like what I was doing.
Uh, oh, is that not even running?
Hang on.
Ooh, we'll find it.
We will find it.
Okay.
You all feel like giving me my files?
No?
That was nice when I had them.
That was fun.
There we go.
Yeah, that was fun.
Well, most of the pretty women you dated are a little unstable.
Well, I mean, I think my wife is very pretty, but she didn't dress for her looks, right?
She was like, we were playing volleyball, she's got a great figure, but she was in like a, she called it the tent, right?
Because she was a little tired of men judging her by her looks.
You want to hear this?
So, yeah, most of the pretty women you dated are a little unstable.
I wouldn't confine that just to the pretty women, but there seems to be a lot of female instability out there.
Have you noticed this?
Is this just me?
Of course men see it more.
I'm sure that there are women as well, right?
But would you say that there are just a couple of... there's a certain amount of instability in women these days?
Is that right?
Is that just me?
Or is that like a thing that is out there that's like a real honest-to-goodness perception?
Just a smidge?
Hey Steph, can you give an example of a positive, productive conflict in a relationship?
I can't picture it myself.
So if you're annoyed at someone and it turns out that your annoyance has something to do with their history or their past or something they haven't realized about themselves, and what happens is because of your annoyance they end up learning something useful and important about themselves and it helps in your relationship as a whole, that's really good.
That's really helpful.
Oh, oh, okay, maybe, maybe I'll just do it online, hang on.
Ah, yes, here we go.
Yes, Mr. Krabby Kegs.
No, no, I shouldn't, I shouldn't characterize his language ahead of time.
So let me just say, Mrs. Krabby Kegs, Mrs. Krabby Kegs.
All right.
Would you like, would you like obnoxious voice?
With obnoxious message, or should I just read it straight?
Should I... Should I do obnoxious voice?
I'll let you guys decide.
The most obnoxious?
Serious Smuggins?
All right, okay, okay, all right.
Dear Mr. Molyneux, I signed up because of your extensive library of documentaries and insightful commentaries on history and current events.
For some reason, this has, in my eyes, devolved into endless chatter with dysfunctional people and their personal problems, usually of their own making.
A sort of dial-the-analyst format.
I am truthfully not the least interested in hearing people whine about their self-inflicted misery.
There's more than enough of that sprayed all over the internet!
You, Mr. Molyneux, have too much knowledge and too much to offer about the history and its implications upon the current world we live in to be wasting it on such nonsense!
But that is just me.
We have reached maximum most unorthodox
Smuggins overload?
Is it too overloaded?
But that's just me.
I could be wrong.
Wow, I don't like that message.
I'm guessing he had a great childhood.
Yes, so quick question.
He was a donor, so let's be fair about that.
How much was he donating?
A month.
I shouldn't laugh because, listen, I appreciate donations.
I'm not going to laugh.
But yeah, let's just say it was not the highest tier.
Not the highest tier.
All right.
So let's look at this.
And I mean, I sort of make fun of it.
I'm always happy to get the feedback, right?
I'm always, always happy to get the feedback.
So, insightful commentaries on history and current events.
I get that, man.
That was great stuff.
I really enjoyed doing it.
It was very helpful.
It was, in fact, too helpful.
Put me in personal danger.
So, yes, that was a blast.
That was a wild ride.
Now he says, for some reason this has, in my eyes, devolved into endless chatter with dysfunctional people and their personal problems, usually of their own making.
Yeah, I mean, I'm talking to adults, so not everything is of everyone else's making.
They're not golems, they're not two-year-olds, right?
So... Now, what's interesting about this?
I mean, there's a lot that's interesting about this, and I'll try to sort of be... I'll probably fail, but I'll try to be a little more serious about this, right?
So, very interesting.
So he said, for some reason, now you're just talking to people about their personal issues, right?
About how philosophy can help them in their personal lives.
So he says he has no idea why I've pulled back from politics and documentaries.
Just of the people who are watching here, and thank you for watching, thank you for coming by.
Is it unclear to you why I went off politics?
Is it at all unclear to you?
And if it is, that's fine.
I'm certainly happy to talk about it and then we can get into why I'm not on Twitter.
But it's pretty clear, right?
I mean, I think it's pretty clear.
You've only said why about a hundred times.
It is boring and there's not much to be done, right?
A few people are not clear.
A few people are not clear.
So hit me with a why if you watch my documentary on Hong Kong.
Yeah, because no one reads Mars Twain's newspaper columns.
Right, so I was there.
I was marching with the anti-communists.
I was getting facefuls of tear gas.
In hindsight, it was really foolish.
I should have had eyewear, because there was these tear gas canisters, which were fairly small, roaming around.
And I think I showed a fair degree of physical courage in that area, and so on, right?
And then what happened when the armored personnel carriers rolled up?
Like, what happened?
What happened to me in the documentary when the armoured personnel carriers showed up?
Of course I left.
Right.
Somebody says, I just started listening again when I heard you stop talking about politics.
Oh, that's funny.
Yeah, I left because you can do commentary and when you're surrounded by protesters and it's interesting and engaging and fascinating,
But when the tanks roll up, in a sense, like, this is not a place for philosophy anymore, right?
Philosophy is the spoken word.
It doesn't seem like there's much debate anymore, is there?
I mean, unless I'm missing something, is there really much debate anymore?
No, not really.
Not really.
So I'm not going to pretend there's a debate where there's not really a debate.
So, I mean, there's kind of smashing and toasting political opponents and so on, but it's not a debate situation anymore.
So he has no idea why I would be out of politics, which is interesting.
So what has he learned from philosophy if he hasn't learned why I'm out of politics?
He said, I am truthfully not in the least interested in hearing people whine about their self-inflicted misery.
Right.
So people in genuine pain, right?
I mean, I think, look, and if people, do you think if somebody sent me an email to call in, you can email me, callinfreedomain.com.
Do you think if somebody sent me an email saying, I really, really want to debate UPB, what would I say?
What would I say?
No!
I want to hear about somebody else's bad childhood.
What would I say?
But yeah, of course, right?
If somebody wanted to debate voluntarism, if somebody wanted to debate RTR, if somebody wanted to debate free will determinism, thrilled!
Fantastic!
Love to do that kind of stuff.
What are all my emails regarding?
All the emails that come to call in at freedomain.com.
What are all the emails about?
Yeah, personal problems and personal help.
Personal issues and problems, right.
Why do people email me?
Of all people.
Like, why do people email me with these issues?
Because I'm the only person who'll listen?
No, that's not true.
Because you help people, lots of people help people.
Wisdom and virtue?
I think a lot of people have some wisdom and virtue.
Because you're the expert in helping people see how their childhood informs their life?
I don't think so, because there's a lot of people who do that as well.
No one in their life will speak the truth to them?
Yes, but they're reaching outside their life, right?
To gain valuable insights they can't get anywhere else?
I hope so, but what insights?
You're effective and insightful in a short period of time because of your philosophical approach.
Yeah, we're getting there.
We're getting there.
What are people missing who call me?
Just as I was missing for good chunks of my life and all of that, what are people missing and why?
Connections?
Well, no therapists and all that, other people.
They're missing the moral connections between their childhood and their adulthood.
I don't think I've ever seen someone as wise about childhood as you.
Thank you, I appreciate that.
Yeah, it's moral clarity, right?
Because, I mean, I'm not a therapist, I'm not a psychologist, I'm not a psychiatrist or anything like that.
I'm a moralist, right?
I mean, moral philosophy is the core of what I do.
So, usually, they are missing
The view, what are they missing that's so important to them?
What are they missing?
What view are they missing?
What understanding are they missing that's most important to them that they're probably not going to get anywhere else or many other places?
What are they not seeing that they're calling me to see?
Yeah, good and evil.
Bang on.
Yeah, good and evil.
The raw truth about their moral failings?
The evil that was done to them.
Yeah, they're not seeing the evildoers.
Right.
Now, I'm a big fan of talk therapy, and I think talk therapy is great.
Statistically, it works really well.
It gives you great happiness and great depth.
But in my view, in my humble opinion, the one thing that's missing from talk therapy is a clear delineation of good and evil.
Right?
So they are
being stalked by invisible predators that keep mauling them and they call me so that I can tell them how to find them.
I never even saw the blatant abuse my parents did to me until you talked about the moral clarity stuff.
Michelle, I'm so sorry that happened to you, and I appreciate your kind words.
So it's moral clarity and seeing the evildoers, right?
Also a better definition of forgiveness than most therapists?
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
Well, because, I mean, philosophy is about definitions, therapy not quite so much, right?
So this is, you know, I'm trying to give people
I'm trying to turn... Tell me if this makes sense to you.
I'm trying to turn their childhoods and their adult life from a dismal tragedy to an action movie.
Do you see what I mean?
Right?
From a dismal tragedy to an action movie.
What do I mean by that?
A dismal tragedy is when you can't see the evil and an action movie is when you can.
Does that make sense?
Giving them clarity, giving them a view of the actions they can take.
From an indie French film to a Hollywood blusker circa 1990.
Yeah, a place where heroism can occur.
What do you need for heroism?
You need definitions of good and evil and anger.
Heroes are angry, right?
You provide non-religious moral foundations.
In a more secular culture, so many are missing that.
It inoculates against gaslighting, BS, and evil.
It's so interesting that you give people authentic action by refusing to tell them what to do.
Yeah, John Wick was angry.
Gosh, I watched it not too long ago, the Harrison Ford one, where his hands shake and he jumps from a culvert.
I can't remember what it was called.
I mean, yeah, look at... there's a lot of anger towards the villains in Star... The Fugitive, yeah.
Villains in Star Wars and so on, right?
Mission Impossible films, there's a lot... Die Hard is angry.
Yeah, I mean, but you can't be angry if you don't know what's good and evil.
The anger without moral knowledge tends towards corruption and domination.
You get angry because your interests are harmed and you would lash out and you attack people.
Anger without moral clarity tends to be abusive.
Anger with moral clarity is virtually unbeatable.
Anger without moral clarity tends to abuse.
Anger with moral clarity is virtually unbeatable.
If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be burping my two-week-old son right now on my lap.
You showed me a way forward.
Beautiful.
Beautiful.
Yeah, those who will exploit you must first undo your anger.
Or they want to harness your anger to point at their enemies, which means they rob you of a clear moral view.
Is that why the wrath of God is holy?
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's a scene in that Russell Crowe Al Pacino movie called The Outsider.
Not a great... Is it The Outsider?
About the guy taking on the... Is the guy taking on the tobacco industry or something?
I fight for you and I still fight for you!
And there's a scene in it where one of the lawyers gets really angry, and it's really quite powerful.
And if you see that as opposed to John Malkovich getting angry in that Clint Eastwood movie where he plays a psycho who wants to kill the president, that's abusive anger, right?
The insider.
The insider!
The Outsiders is the Rat Pack film with Tom Cruise, right?
On that note, how do you differentiate between your inner conscience, which may have legit issues, and introjects from abusers?
That's a great question.
How to differentiate between your inner conscience, which may have legit issues, and introjects from abusers?
Sorry, that's too good a question.
It's too tough.
I'm going to go back to talking about my traffic issues.
I'm not even going to say I know the answer and I'm going to just organize and get it in my head.
I'm like, damn, that's a really good question.
I know that there is an answer, so I just have to be patient for my brain to old faithful Vesuvius it up into my brain.
It'll come.
Let me just repeat it, stroking my chin wisely as if I'm thinking as opposed to just waiting for the answer to come to me as I usually do.
On that note, how do you differentiate between your inner conscience, which may have legit issues, and interjects from abusers?
Okay, a couple of things have come to me from... No, no, it's not... I'm reading it several times, not because the question is unclear, but it's really tough.
It's really tough.
Fearlessly writes down on calendar, first time Steph doesn't instantly have an answer.
That's a... I mean, yeah, that's really, really good.
So, I'm trying to think about a couple of things that have happened in my life that have helped with that.
Because and the reason why it's so tough is your abusers are always trying to mimic your conscience.
Isn't that right?
Your abusers are always trying to camouflage themselves as your conscience because they call you good and bad based upon obedience or disobedience.
Does that make sense?
So the reason why it's tough to pull these things apart, it's like the displacer beast at D&D, right?
Like it's a perfect mirror image.
They try to perfectly camouflage their abuse as your conscience.
Because they tell you, don't be bad, be good.
But being bad means disobeying, being good means obeying and serving them.
So you're asking me how to differentiate something from its perfect mimic or almost its almost perfect mimic.
If it's a perfect mimic we couldn't differentiate at all, right?
And a conscience can also be based on fear.
So I can't just say, well, if it's empowering to you, it's your conscience.
If you're afraid of it, it's your abuser.
Because tell me, I don't think I'm alone in that.
I notice in call-in shows, it's usually when the person is not acting in their self-interest.
But that's complicated, too.
Because obeying parents who are abusive is absolutely in your self-interest when you're young.
So that's tough, right?
Have you had a situation where you want to do something that's wrong, but you're afraid of doing that wrong thing?
I remember that very clearly.
I remember standing in the Dom Mills Eaton's store.
It was incredibly bright out.
I desperately wanted sunglasses.
I had no money and I wanted to steal the sunglasses.
I wanted to steal the sunglasses.
And I was probably 13 or 14 years old.
And I was looking at that and my hands were shaking because I was like, if I go down this road, man.
If I go down there, and I was already working three jobs, but, you know, I had to throw money into the family bonfire so we didn't get evicted, so I did not steal them.
Now, I had stolen some things before, nothing major, but I had stolen some things before, and it's one of these things where you say, if I keep going, if I keep going, so I was really scared to steal those sunglasses.
I still remember the shape of them, literally remember the shape of them.
I was really scared to steal those sunglasses and of course I'm really glad that I didn't steal the sunglasses because that would have been a road down which would have been very bad.
So it's not fear because my conscience
The only lever available to my conscience was fear.
Not honor, not, quote, virtue, not desire.
But the only lever that it could work was fear.
So, I can't say, it's just fear.
It's a really great question.
Now, I can say things, but they're kind of vague.
And because they're kind of vague, I don't think
I don't think it's particularly helpful.
I felt better after not stealing the sunglasses.
I felt good to walk away from that, although I wouldn't have any wrinkles if I had stolen them, because I would have had sunglasses as a teenager.
But, and this is too vague, so it's not helpful, but I'm just sort of working through the idea in my head.
So, I felt better
When I conformed to my conscience, but I felt worse when I conformed to my abusers.
I didn't feel at peace.
No, I felt annoyed and frustrated, but I still felt better that I had made that decision.
But saying, oh, you feel better when you follow your conscience and you feel worse when you follow your abusers, that's not... Can our conscience mislead us?
I don't think so, because our conscience is universal.
Siding with your conscience doesn't cause lashback from the abusers.
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
In order to survive your abusers, you have, if you had them, in order to survive your abusers, you have to fully internalize the fake conscience they're implanting in you called obedience.
Obedience to them is the good.
Disobedience to them is the evil or the bad.
And this isn't just parents, of course, it's priests and teachers and so on, right?
Damn, son!
I know I'll get there.
I always do.
So feeling better after might just be the abusers giving you a brief respite?
No, but I didn't feel better after obeying the abusers.
Hello, talker!
Sorry, talker, just to get you up to speed, I'm stumped.
Somebody says, how do you differentiate between your inner conscience, which may have legit issues, and interjects from abusers, which is sort of the internalized abusive language.
And I'm thoroughly stumped.
Does one develop that sense over time, then, knowing which decision will make you feel better or worse ahead of time?
Oh, I know!
Oh, I know.
Yeah, I got it.
Okay.
Oh man, that was exciting.
That was exciting.
That was Evrika!
It's not Eureka, apparently it's Evrika, someone told me.
Okay, so here it is.
Here it is.
This is my thought.
It could be wrong, it could be right.
Tell me what you think.
How do you differentiate between your inner conscience, which may have legit issues, and interjects from abusers?
If UPB has validated what your conscience is saying, the interjects from abusers are the ones who attack that knowledge.
Let me sort of repeat that because it's a bit convoluted.
So once you've validated your inner conscience's impulses with UPB, the interjects from abusers are the ones who want to smash and attack that because you're moving out beyond their control and you're revealing the camouflaged conscience and finding your true conscience.
It's like, how do you find, if there's a sniper, you put the helmet up above the trench and see if it gets shot, right?
So, me not stealing the sunglasses was, well, you know, UPB compliant society was stealing from me and, you know, I was being born into national debt and all of that.
So, when you validate the moral impulse with UPB,
The interjects from abusers are the ones that attack UPB and your validation of your conscience because philosophy is moving you beyond their control, which they have from the fake conscience they've implanted in you.
Does that, does that make sense?
UPB turned my anger from a fire to a laser and my conscience approves of it.
I mean, have you had this experience that when you start doing the right thing, people just kind of hate you?
I don't think it's just my anti-charisma that seems to summon this beast in the world.
But have you ever had this experience where when you really start trying to figure out and do the right thing, I mean, people just kind of hate you.
Right, so if I'm starting to be honest, right?
So let's say honesty is a virtue, honesty is a virtue.
So when you start to be, and this, I think, hey, this is how I got it, right?
Okay, this is also how you get it.
How do you differentiate between your inner conscience and interjects from abusers?
You tell the truth to your abusers!
If you tell the truth to your abusers, they will attack you for that.
And then you can clearly differentiate your inner conscience saying, telling the truth from your abusers who are attacking you for telling the truth and being honest.
It's in conversation directly with the abusers that reveals your true conscience.
That's why I suggest it.
Oh my gosh.
Hey, wasn't it a good idea?
I've been doing that for 18 years.
That's how you find your true conscience because they can't say, I want you to lie.
I want you to misrepresent things.
I want you to not have a history.
I want you to lie to me.
So you tell the truth to your abusers.
You tell the truth to your abusers.
When they attack you for telling the truth, you have just revealed the false implanted conscience.
And then you see it.
So, that which you have a commitment to the truth about, whatever gets attacked is the false implanted abusive conscience.
It's the pretend conscience.
It's the camouflaged conscience.
Because you've got some basic simple things, right?
So, hit me with a why if you remember me being out there in the world for quite a long time telling the truth and people rabidly attacking me for it.
And not telling a subjective, a personal truth, telling objective, factual, psychological, scientific, real truths.
Right?
You came after him?
Well, isn't that polite of you?
Right, so I was out there telling the truth and I was attacked for telling the truth.
So telling the truth can't be immoral.
And so everyone who attacks you for telling the truth is an introject from an abuser.
Does that make sense?
Since the story of your enslavement.
Yeah, that was my most popular video and one of the first ones to be censored, right?
Say that one more time?
Okay, so, how do you differentiate between your inner conscience, which may have legit issues, and interjects from abusers, from abusive statements?
Well, one thing you do is you tell the truth, and whoever attacks you for telling the truth, including within your own mind, right?
So, hit me with a why.
If you've had this experience, let's say with abusive parents or something like that, if you've had abusive parents, you want to go and tell them the truth about your abuse and you're terrified.
You're terrified to go and talk.
Right?
Here's the thing.
You're terrified to tell the truth to your parents who punished you for lying when you were a kid.
Logically, shouldn't you be terrified of lying to people who always punished you for, quote, lying as a kid?
Somebody says, yes, truth got me drugged with SSRIs as a kid.
Yeah, I'm bored.
You're boring.
This education is boring.
It's all boring.
This works as an adult, says someone.
The violation of UPP is what happens if the kid does tell their abusers the truth.
My biggest regret is only finding this community in 2014, seven years too late.
Telling the truth to my parents destroyed my relationship, but it saved my life.
No, it did not destroy your relationship.
I'm sorry, but you're lying about telling the truth.
I'm not saying it's conscious.
Telling the truth to your parents did not destroy your relationship at all.
No, there was no relationship.
All there was was subjugation.
All there was was enslavement to violence.
No, but they behaved completely unexpectedly, but not out of line of our entire history.
There is... How can there be a relationship if you're terrified to tell the truth?
How can there be a relationship if you're unbelievably terrified to tell the truth?
That's not a relationship.
That's an enslavement.
I've been working so hard my watch thinks I'm exercising.
My brain is literally melting from this exertion.
There's no relationship if you're terrified of telling the truth.
Holly says, I told my parents the truth, got back exactly what I expected, yet it still hurt like crap.
Yes.
Yeah, listen man.
Rehab hurts, taking the band-aid off hurts.
Pulling burrs out of your hair can hurt.
There can be no relationship if you practice self-erasure.
Well, but Manuel, it's not a practice.
There can be no relationship.
If telling the truth destroys the relationship, there never was a relationship.
If telling the truth destroys the relationship, there never was a relationship.
The reason why we're so frightened is not because we're afraid of what might happen.
It's because we know exactly what will happen because it has already always happened.
Standing up to my mother got her to walk away from me.
No more abuse.
How is that my loss?
I don't know many people who think I'm a great guy and happy to know me.
Whose loss is them walking away?
I was always the angry kid, but when I brought up the truth with my parents, they got angry.
My father said our relationship was great before I started telling the truth.
I'm sorry, I shouldn't laugh, but...
Yeah, because it served his vanity needs, right?
It served his narcissistic needs.
And when you stop serving people's narcissistic needs, then you're kind of like a, uh, like back in the days when you had vacuum tube televisions, you just have to thump them on the top sometimes to get the picture to work.
They just, you know, thump you until you obey them again.
My father would work five to six months away from home at a time.
How could I internalize my father except for the drug and alcohol abuse he was involved in when he got home?
I really appreciate that you have a section in your Peaceful Parenting book for neglect.
The silence is so loud.
Well, I appreciate that and I do thank everyone who worked very hard to remind me to deal with neglect in the Peaceful Parenting book.
Um, the reason, you know, I mean, it's a funny thing.
You wouldn't necessarily really know this, right?
But do you know why it was very hard for me to see neglect as abusive?
You probably have had this experience too, and you may recognize it when I say, but you know why I was like, um, yeah, I guess I should talk about neglect.
Neglect was much harder to handle.
No, no.
Because you were neglected by your father?
No.
Neglect is insidious?
No.
Because you were beaten, that seemed the worst.
Do you know how glorious neglect was for me as a child?
That was my best possible chosen state, was to be ignored.
God, it is a consummation devoutly to be wished
The silence, the quiet, the reading, the writing, the thinking.
I mean, I built tree houses to get away.
So, because neglect was the best situation for me, it was my relief, it was my self-identification time, it was my authenticity time, it was being with my own thoughts time.
So for me, like, you couldn't get better than Neglect.
That was the, that was the, boy, I, if, if, oh gosh, I mean, if, if my mom, I don't know, said she, she did sometimes, she would go, she used to have these personal ads in the newspapers, and, and she would find guys, because, you know, she was slim and pretty.
Very pretty.
And so she would find these guys and she would try to get them to marry her or whatever, take care of her.
And they would pretty quickly figure out that she was insane.
And so they'd kind of kick her back to the wastes of Canada.
And so sometimes she would just go.
Like she'd just go.
I remember once she went to Houston to meet a guy.
She was gone for like two weeks.
And she left me like $35.
Which, you know, I went through pretty quickly and then just had to hang around friends' places looking for some food.
I remember going to the...
Science Center at Young and, no, no, not Young, sorry, at Don Mills and Eglinton.
Yeah, Don Mills and Eglinton, the Science Center.
And do you ever, were you ever poor enough that you just had to have ketchup soup?
Did you ever, right, you get packets of ketchup and you get crackers, which are free, and you break up the crackers and mix them into the soup and that's your
That's your food?
Did you ever have that?
Hopefully not.
Hopefully not.
So, when she was gone for those week or two, sometimes it would be like, ah, this is paradise, man.
This is bliss.
It was great.
Couldn't do better.
Could not do better than that.
So for me, yeah, that neglect stuff was,
It was beautiful.
So for me, the best times I had as a kid often were those times where I was, quote, neglected or ignored.
Just couldn't get better.
And so for me, a lot of store brand cornflakes and free milk.
Yeah, we used to get these giant bags of like this weird puff cereal.
I don't even know what it was called.
It was definitely no name.
And it was just these giant sacks of like weird puff cereal that you'd pour some milk on.
And it was like eating foam pellets that come from stuff shipped in from China.
Somebody says, I remember the bliss of the times my parents would leave.
It was so freeing.
No, money my family had, material things instead of love and affection, not a fair trade.
Yeah, that's true.
Rice puffs, yeah, something like that.
But it wasn't any kind of store brand thing, right?
The rice puffs, boy, living on those was rough.
You had to hoard peanut butter tubs under my pillow.
Oh man, when you went, when you got to a place, and when you were broke, and you got to a place which had those little peanut butter packets, I mean, I would literally leave like I was made of chain mail, just.
And this is another reason why I worked in restaurants.
You know, when you're hungry, when you're, uh, somebody says, oh, about honesty, uh, if I hadn't got the value of honesty, I wouldn't have met my wife, met on the old FDR message boards.
Oh, that's great.
That's great.
You would take handfuls, same with jam.
So this is why as a kid you, you work in restaurants, right?
Why do you work in restaurants when you were a hungry kid?
Because you get free food.
You get free food.
When I worked in Pizza Hut, no, sorry, when I worked in Pizza Pizza, you got free food.
It was fantastic.
And when I worked, it's funny, because when I worked at Pizza Hut, I didn't have to pay for my own uniform, and I got free food.
When I worked unionized at Swiss Chalet, I paid union dues, had to pay for my uniform, and had to pay for food.
It's just weird.
It's like complete backwards, right?
Made Wendy's a good first job.
Everything was 50% off.
Yeah.
Like, I really could not afford, I could not afford to not work in a restaurant.
I mean, I worked in a hardware store, but I took some of my earnings from the hardware store and spent it on food.
You work in a restaurant, man, especially when you can get some food to go, and when I worked in Pizza Hut, they had these pizzas for lunch, and it was five minutes, you gotta get the drinks out, then the pizza out, five minutes or less.
It was really chaotic.
But you could take home, like, four or five pizzas, because they'd make way too much, right?
Yeah, accidentally make a pizza wrong.
I didn't do that.
They'd also, you could have a pizza and and at the end of the day they were just throwing out everything in the salad bar so you could just scoop up the salad.
And I remember coming with my friends to, um, I remember coming with my friends to restaurants.
We would go to restaurants and one of us would order a salad and
We just keep going up and you just keep eating, you know, you get some chickpeas and you can get some bacon bits and you can get some good stuff in a salad and you just keep sending someone up and we each could, you know, for the price of like four dollars, all four of us or all five of us could, all the poor kids, could all gorge on salad.
And yes, if it had egg salad and potato salad, man, you were just in heaven.
You were just in heaven, man.
You could just eat until you were full, which was rare as a kid.
Like, eating until you were full was really rare as a kid.
I remember being at a friend's McDonald's party, and everybody just gorged themselves senseless, and at the end of it, the mom was like, well, I guess everyone's full, and I'm like, hey man, I could do a fillet of fish.
I could do another one, right?
Some places stopped giving out food to employees.
Small business family restaurants gave $7 free meal, 50% when working up to $20, rest is 25% or on non-working days.
There are now apps where you can buy that excess food from restaurants, get great deals.
Right.
Right.
Yeah, they had good hot chocolate at Pizza Hut, too.
So anyway, we don't particularly care about my restaurant days.
But yeah, no, it's pretty important when you're hungry to get that kind of stuff.
Very important.
So this is why, you know, like my whole childhood was not all of it because in boarding school, well, no, even in boarding school, there was shortages of food because there was a big shortages in the 70s in England because of coal strikes and miner strikes and so on.
And so, even in school, I was quite hungry.
And there was a shortage of water, believe it or not.
You only got one cup of water at dinner.
And that wasn't good, because you're out running around all day.
You're kind of dehydrated.
And then you have to say, OK, do I risk drinking from the taps in the washroom?
That doesn't seem quite right.
It doesn't seem.
Sounds like paradise compared to the modern neglect, stuck in suburbia with an internet connection and no human connection.
Yeah.
Yeah, so of course I was so under-stimulated as a child, and my brain needs a lot of stimulation, and I was under-stimulated as a child in many ways, and so what it did was fuel my language and imagination, right?
I half-lived at the library.
I mean, the library was paradise for me.
I couldn't afford to buy the books, but I could just go and read, and it was quiet and peaceful and wonderful.
I have wonderful memories of... I mean, I even used to sometimes go to the front couch in the entrance of the apartment building and
Read there, because my mom was just on a rampage or something, so... Yeah, suburbia is rough, man.
But everyone knows why the suburbs exist, and nobody wants to talk about it, so... I guess it won't get talked about.
Alright.
Any last questions, issues, comments, problems?
Or donations?
Truth about suburbs?
I just said we can't talk about it.
Oh man, the ice cold water fountain from public school was heaven after gym.
Yeah, I actually, I knew the... I knew in the neighborhood, the places in the woods where you could get a drink.
Like, where the water would bubble out of the ground and you could actually drink.
Okay, it was a little rusty sometimes, but... Donating on Friday.
Thank you very much, I appreciate that.
But yeah, knowing where the...
Knowing where the water was in the neighborhood was pretty important.
Natural springs are great.
Yeah, fantastic.
Fantastic.
Garbage picking was something my friends and I also did, because you could find really cool stuff in the garbage, especially around the industrial garbage, like where the businesses were.
You could sometimes find... We had great rolls of paper that were being thrown out for some reason that were used for Dungeons & Dragons campaigns and little sort of flick pen... Right.
I'm a poorish monthly donator for three or more years.
I hope that is acceptable for the tip.
But dude, I appreciate your support.
I love you for it.
If it's what you can afford, that's totally fine.
Please don't give me anything you can't afford.
That's not what I want.
You guys were lucky that way.
I've never seen a natural spring.
I'm not sure I would characterize that as overly lucky.
I'm not sure I would characterize that as overly lucky.
But we certainly did get a lot of creativity out of having to invent our own games.
So, that was something.
And having early computers helped because you could actually make games that other people would play.
These days, I mean, everybody wants, you know, 100 million dollar Grand Theft Auto games and nobody wants to play the indie stuff that much.
Yeah, I was not at the right time or the right country for that.
There was nothing really going on.
There was a show called Blue Peter.
I remember that.
I remember they showed you how, it was like a kids activity kind of show.
It was called Blue Peter.
I had the whole book, and I remember them once talking about how, you know, because all the environmental hysteria was starting back in the 70s, right?
And I remember them saying,
Ah, yes, it's much more water-efficient to have a shower than to run a bath, right?
So they, of course, put someone in a full-body bathing suit and had a shower, pretended to wash themselves, and then had a bath, and it was like... I just remember that kind of stuff from, I don't know, 40 or 50 years ago.
50 years ago!
Oh my God, I can't believe it.
I was listening to a Kevin Samuels show the other day, and a woman was like, I'm 52!
And I was like, damn, that's... Oh, wait, no, that's half a decade younger than me, so...
I know of Blue Peter through the Doctor Who DVD special features.
Doctor Who was peculiarly terrifying when I was a kid.
Thank you very much for your support.
I really, really appreciate that.
Would you guys like the first couple of chapters of the Peaceful Parenting book in audiobook format this weekend?
Would you like that?
Would that be helpful to you?
Yeah, okay, because after second draft I think we're... the last draft is just reading it and I think that... okay, we'll put that out to probably to donors.
Hey Nate, happy birthday!
If that's gonna be your birthday this weekend, which I think it is, I will devour the audiobook!
Excellent.
It can be Quint and you can be Bruce.
So definitely denying government benefits for a legit job.
What else is helpful for meeting people with higher standards?
Meeting people with higher standards?
Well, you have to first... I mean, there's the desert crossing.
You have to discard the people with lower standards.
Oh, thank you, Jared.
I appreciate that tip for the Peaceful Parenting audiobook.
I really appreciate that.
You have to... I'm sorry, but you just kind of have to dump the people with lower standards, then there's a desert, and then the people with higher standards come along.
So, people with higher standards are constantly... because most people with higher standards have escaped people with lower standards.
So, whenever they meet someone new, what are they sniffing for, right?
Here's your big tip at the end here, right?
So, what are people... what are high standard people looking for?
What are they sniffing for when they meet someone new who could be a friend or something like that?
What are they sniffing for?
Low-rent orbiters, liabilities, dysfunction.
Yes, are you a portal through which
The trash people can re-inflict themselves on my life.
Are you a portal or have you sealed it up?
Are you a portal?
If you've just got out of the upside down, you don't want that portal tree to open back up again.
So if you've escaped the dysfunctional people and you meet someone new, what you want to do is you want to find out.
Do you still have dysfunctional people in your life?
Because if they're in your life, they're gonna end up in my life, and I can't adjust for my periphery of all of that.
So...
That's just a fact of life.
And of course, I would say this to you as well, that if you have got out of dysfunctional people's orbits, then you've got to watch out for new people in your life who will obviously try and mimic that they don't have these dysfunctional people in their life, but they probably do, and you've got to... I don't say... I find I have to just be pretty ruthless and relentless.
Like, so the moment if I meet someone new, and I do meet new people a lot, I meet someone new, I'm like,
I love the smell of independence and reason in the morning.
Smells like victory.
So, yeah, you gotta just sniff around, and if they're a portal through which the zombies can get back into your life, probably not great.
I didn't even get to a topic.
I'll talk about it maybe on my morning walk tomorrow.
Someone I can't remember who, but it's a fairly famous person, was talking about my inappropriate glee.
My inappropriate giddiness or gleefulness.
about how, you know, when the world is so dangerous and so bad, it is inappropriate for me to be laughing or happy or anything like that.
So, I've been thinking about that for the last day or two, just off and on.
It's a very sort of interesting comment or question.
So, I won't do it right now.
I forgot to eat, really, today.
So, I should probably... I should probably... Was it Russell Brand?
No, it wasn't.
It wasn't him, for sure.
Gallows humor?
No, because... Well, not gallows humor.
I'm generally and genuinely pretty happy.
So I'm going to mull that over and talk about it.
Go eat.
Yes, mom.
You're right.
You're right.
You're right.
You're right.
Thank you for your thoughts on ego.
That was my question.
What a great question.
No eat.
Yeah, James and Jared and I are on diets, so I probably should eat something.
Getting grumpy.
No, I should eat something.
Yeah, no eat.
That's just for you.
No, it's good.
Fasting is good for you.
Yes, but probably not 24 hours.
No, I sort of have to figure out how is it that I'm still very happy.
No, I get the miserable people, but
You know, the world is kind of a shitstorm at the moment, isn't it?
I mean, wars are opening up in every conceivable front, right?
And all of that can be laid at the Never Trumpers and the media, so...
Yeah, I mean, the world is a shitstorm at the moment, isn't it?
How can you not be happy when your life improved so much?
A lot of people managed to do it.
A lot of people managed to do it.
So, I'm sort of interested in that question, right?
I mean, would you say that the world is in a worse state now than it's been in your lifetime?
Just hit me with a why if you think that the world is in a worse state.
What did they add?
Forty billion dollars to the debt overnight in America?
Maybe it's just worse in what way?
Debt, instability, political attacks, legal attacks, debt, crises, educational standards collapsing, the importing of ethnic conflicts.
I mean this just seems to be a lot that's kind of cooking at the moment and yet I
I'm very happy.
No open debate or free speech.
That's a thing.
That's a thing.
Post COVID, right, there is a lot of social division.
So
All right, I will mull that over.
I will think about that.
Thank you, everyone, so much for your tips and support.
If you're listening to this later, freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show.
I would really, really appreciate your support.
Very, very gratefully appreciated.
And of course, if you have things that I can help you with, I'm very happy to help.
It really does make my day, and I know that it really helps people out there in the world.
Freedomain, sorry, call in at C-A-L-L-I-N, call in at freedomain.com.
You can send me messages.
Send me, include your Skype address, and we will sort it out from there.
And have yourselves a wonderful, wonderful evening.
Lots of love up here.
Don't forget to check out my books at freedomand.com slash books.
They're all kind of gathered now.
If you haven't tried out my novels, particularly The Present and The Future, that's my We The Living and Atlas Shrugged.
