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Oct. 28, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:29:15

Inheritance Horror Stories!

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	Questions, comments, issues, problems.
	But she's got problems.
	She knows, you know.
	I have a topic.
	I do. I have a topic.
	And by the way, thank everyone for your kind wishes.
	I said I had some exciting stuff to work on this week.
	It all worked out beautifully.
	I will get to telling you about it someday on my deathbed, which hopefully is not over the course of this show.
	So... Thank you everyone for your kind wishes and kind words.
	I really, really appreciate it more than you'll ever, ever know.
	So, gosh, what do I say?
	I have a topic.
	I'm happy to do your topic.
	If you want to type in le chat, or if you want to ask in le eardrum, look at that, all kinds of trilingual here.
	You can just raise your hand To speak.
	I was actually in Toronto.
	And there's a Germain hotel.
	Hotel Germain.
	And when I first glanced at it, I thought it was a German hotel.
	A German hotel.
	Which means, of course, the bed whites are crisp and clean, the toilet paper is like sandpaper, the coffee is like bilge water, the starch is like iron or a sail sheet from hell, and you better not be checking out even 30 seconds late.
	So it's a plus and minus of the glorious German experience, so...
	Because in my experience, you know, my mother was German, and when the Germans do things, they do things not to moderation.
	I think it's probably fairly safe to say not to moderation seems to be the key.
	So, you know, when they're reasonable, they tend to be super reasonable to the point of being nitpicky.
	When they inhabit two extremes, you know, either very placid and very calm or bye-bye Poland.
	And let me tell you this, boy, when Germans go crazy...
	They don't just go a little bit crazy.
	They are fully committed.
	It's peaceniks or full national socialism.
	That's really all that happens.
	And I was actually thinking the German hotel.
	The Germain hotel where every discussion is related to the philosophy show FDR. That's exactly right.
	All right. Let's see here.
	I have a question, says somebody.
	Not me. Somebody else. I have a question.
	I just wonder what you thought about a premise put forward similar to what you have said.
	In the novel, a test for psychopathy based on eye-blink tests is developed in Canada over a murderer.
	During the research, it is discovered that humanity is divided into three groups.
	One is zombies. They are alive but only act on instinct and react to others.
	There is no inner voice.
	That is the majority of humanity.
	The second type are your sociopaths slash psychopaths.
	They are aware of themselves.
	And their wants, but have no concept of others, but as means to an end.
	Lastly, a third who have empathy and an inner monologue, and that people can be switched between states.
	If proof of this existed, I think horrors would be unleashed.
	Would you agree? By the way, the world leaders were type two.
	Oh yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
	I mean, it's really, really sad that people look To leaders, political leaders in particular, to solve their problems, when to those political leaders, they are just livestock and ants and resources to be controlled, manipulated, lied to, bullied, and exploited.
	So, yeah, I don't really know what your question here is.
	So, I'm afraid you'll have to, you know, I mean, I'm sure, like, you can divide human beings.
	Like, I mean, there's... Human beings are divided into two categories, those who divide human beings into categories and those who don't.
	So I think categories are helpful.
	The problem with categories is they can become self-fulfilling filters.
	So if you say, well, you know, the people who don't blink and stare at you too long and so on, they're psychopaths, right?
	Or something like that. Then you tend to start dividing people because of sensitivity to that information.
	So sometimes these kinds of divisions...
	Are not helpful.
	Because the accuracy is always questionable.
	Because you don't know if it's an actual category or you've become sensitive to that category and therefore you just kind of filter people into those categories anyway.
	So, I mean, to me, I don't know if you guys have any thoughts about this, but I'm certainly happy to hear what you want to say about it, but humanity to me is just divided into two categories.
	It's people who think and people who don't think.
	I'm not sure for me there's much else.
	There are people who want to appear smart and do a lot of regurgitation of slogans.
	And there's people who just skim and get the bare surface of things and then pretend that there's depth there.
	And listen, come on, we've all faked it from time to time, so I don't consider that sort of some massive sin, but you have to have a general commitment to understanding things at a fairly deep level before you start discussing them with a pretense of knowledge.
	So, I mean, there's a little sophist in all of us.
	I mean, I think, you know, maybe I'm alone in that, but I think there's a little sophist in all of us, and that's okay.
	I do think that people who think and people who don't think, people who actually process information and people who just seek to reinforce prejudice.
	So dividing humanity into these big, broad swaths, it also says to me, like, I'm not saying that you do this, but if people do this, I think that they're not surrounded by surprising people.
	I mean, you can let me know.
	Have you ever had it?
	Have you ever had it where somebody just surprises you?
	I've been in the presence of some people, and it's like watching a mastodon trying to wrestle its way out of a tar pit, but I have seen or been around some people who are just struggling to wake up and, you know, with that fixed smile of the chuckles kid in the back of the school bus, he he he, I'm in danger!
	Waking up to the horrors of the world.
	I mean, I'll tell you this, like when I was younger, I mean, I thought the world was pretty bad, but I thought it was sort of bad on a personal level, like an individual level.
	I don't think I quite got...
	Well, I know I didn't actually get, and probably was good for my sanity, I didn't get just how bad the institutions as a whole were and are.
	And I also think, I do think that when I was younger...
	I mean, institutions related to the state go through idealism, exploitation, corruption, and evil, right?
	So the idealistic phase is, well, we just do want to educate all the kids, right?
	The exploitation phase is, well, I just want money and summers off and I want job security and all of that.
	The corruption phase The evil phase is when you realize or some group realizes they can actually corrupt the children for their own political ends and they go in and start lying heavily to the children.
	And then the evil phase is when it's just outright, you know, like the communists getting the kids to turn on their parents kind of stuff.
	So I think that sort of idealism phase, the exploitation phase, the corruption phase and the evil phase of public institutions I was just at the tail end of the idealistic phase and I really went into the exploitation phase.
	The teachers didn't particularly care about us.
	It's really what you want from public institutions is for them to not care about you.
	It's nice when the police don't care about you.
	It's nice when you are ignored by these kinds of institutions.
	I mean, we all knew that the teachers were there, like I had the shop teachers who were half-stoned all the time.
	You had the very giddy, heady, giggly, half-children English teachers who were on the fading end of the hippie empire.
	And you had the nerdy...
	Excitable science teachers, and they weren't there for us.
	I mean, occasionally they would make jokes, and I remember when I was in, I think, grade 8, my English teacher heard that I was writing a novel, and she read some of it to my class until she got to the very mildly raunchy bits, in which case I just remember everyone laughing.
	Because everybody knew exactly who I was writing about and the teacher blushing like crazy.
	And it was actually quite a lot of fun.
	And it was one of the times when I first began to understand how, you know, not that I had a huge amount of art in grade eight, but how artists could generate this kind of stuff.
	So there were these cliches.
	And then, of course, there were the snarly, gruesome, failed athletes and Butch females who ran the physical education department, the gym teachers.
	If you can't do, teach.
	If you can't teach, teach gym.
	And they always gave the sex education to the gym teachers, which was about as bad a situation as could possibly be imagined because they looked like the kind of guys who would just have, I don't know, rage sex with couches.
	It's hard to sort of A picture of them having productive relationships and someone that's just perpetually angry.
	Because I think, you know, the failed athletes who dream of superstardom and end up teaching gym to a bunch of sweaty, unmotivated preteens, probably not idealistic for that.
	So I was just going through the exploitation phase where it's like, yeah, you know, it's fine.
	We'll teach the kids some stuff, but we're basically here for pensions and the endless PE days.
	Sorry, PD, professional development days, the endless PD days.
	Where everybody of course did things I don't understand and the kids got to stay home which was of course always great.
	And so I was at the tail end of the idealistic and the idealistic was really more in the boarding school or what would be called the private school.
	And then I was straight into the, well, yeah, we'll go through the curriculum.
	We don't really care about the kids, which was fine by me.
	It was fine by me that they didn't really care about the kids, because now they really care about the kids, i.e., they really care about indoctrinating the children, and the children are moldable, and they're going to serve the revolution, and now we're in the corruption phase.
	And, you know, man, if you see the chart in America of mental health and happiness...
	Of teenagers.
	Starting 2013, it just went nuts.
	Like they went miserable, horrible, dastardly nuts.
	I don't know if anybody knows why and what happened at that particular time.
	But basically, Obama signed law.
	Obama basically rescinded a law that said That the American government wasn't allowed to propagandize domestically, and I think they just went full tilt into the kids, and this is where you're getting all of these modern hysterias and so on coming along.
	Well, I did a whole presentation on him.
	Obama, a couple, actually.
	You can check it out at fdrpodcasts.com.
	But, yeah, don't let me interrupt your questions and comments.
	If you have questions and comments, I'm certainly, certainly happy to hear them.
	Otherwise, I have a topic, and I don't know whether this topic is better done with typing responses or if you have voice responses.
	So let me just give a moment here.
	If you all want me to do the topic, just hit me with a Y in the chat if you all have questions.
	Mockingbird Act. Was that the one?
	Yeah, that's the one. That's the one.
	Yes, okay. So it looks like people want me to do the topic.
	Could you do me a favor, just for the people who are watching, oh, sorry, listening.
	Could you do me a favor? Could you just give me your age range?
	20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, etc., etc.
	Just let me know where you at in the great arc of life.
	Look at that. Some people I know their actual name are telling me.
	Okay, so we've got 40s, 20s, early 30s, late 40s, all right, late teens, mid 40s, 30s, 30s, 40, late 20s.
	Right. Late 30s.
	Okay. So that's good.
	It's good. So we've got some people middle-aged, a little past middle-age.
	Now, let me ask you this.
	Just hit me with a why, if you could, my friends.
	Hit me with a why, if you've had to deal with will stuff.
	Stuff to do with wills.
	The disbursement of properties after death.
	Hit me with a why, if you've had to deal...
	We're the will shit. Because, oh my god!
	Oh, you're currently doing it?
	We've got yes, yes, yes, no, yes, no.
	Will stuff. Alright.
	Alright. You walked away from seven figures?
	Well, walk back and donate it.
	I'm kidding. No, I mean, that's wild.
	You've got to tell me that story sometime.
	That's pretty wild. And if you want to tell me that story, I'm certainly happy to hear it.
	You can tell me right now if you want, but...
	Yeah, that's... Because I'm sort of at the age where I'm really hearing these stories, man.
	I'm really hearing these stories.
	Been through one myself, in fact.
	Been through one myself.
	I won't get into the details of it in particular for obvious reasons, but yeah, been through one.
	When my father died, he left some money, but I said my half-sister should take it.
	She really needs it for medical reasons, so that's fine for me.
	But last bit of feedback, at least for a bit.
	Tell me this. Tell me this, please.
	From minus 10 to it was hell on earth, to plus 10, everything was resolved amicably, peacefully, and with greater love.
	From minus 10 to plus 10, minus 10 was just terrible, plus 10 was just beautiful, you ended up closer and happier as a result of the disbursement of property.
	How did it go from what you've heard?
	Minus 10 to plus 10.
	We got a minus ten. We got a minus seven.
	We got a zero. I don't know if that means it was neutral or you haven't had it happen.
	Plus three. That's good.
	So it wasn't too bad. My uncle stole from my grandma, 80K, then had a stroke when she was getting sick.
	And the whole family knows.
	Wow. You missed the question?
	First time, plus seven.
	Second time, minus ten.
	From minus ten to plus ten, how negative or positive was the disbursement of property in a will situation?
	It could be grandparents. It could be parents.
	It could be an uncle who maybe didn't have any kids or something like that.
	But in the disbursement of property situation, how was it?
	Thankfully, other will stuff within my family has been settled amicably.
	Yeah. Hasn't happened yet?
	Okay. You've never had that experience?
	Well, I'll tell you, man.
	It can be pretty gross.
	There's an old saying, was it Norman Mailer?
	You never know your wife until you meet her in court.
	You never really know.
	I mean, and I think these things are very interesting.
	You've heard horror stories?
	Yeah, it's wild, man.
	Have you had the experience where...
	Money gets involved and people really change.
	Money gets involved and a mask comes off.
	Like people you would never have guessed just turn into kind of feral beasts of entitlement and aggression and whininess and manipulation.
	You've experienced that?
	It can be in business, right?
	There's an old saying among lawyers, nothing is worse for a partnership than success because then you have stuff to fight over, right?
	Yeah, you've had that, right?
	You've had that experience where...
	Might happen in the coming decade, but I should not trust my two well-salaried brothers.
	Well, that's the funny thing, is that it doesn't often seem to have much to do with how much money people make.
	Sometimes the people who make the most money can be the most vicious when it comes to these kinds of legal things.
	In Canada, of course, up here in Canada, it's pretty famous that cottages...
	Oh, cottages are the big thing.
	You know, the parents buy or build a cottage, or maybe the grandparents and so on, and then there's like three or four kids, and some of the kids are far away, and some of the kids are closer, and there's always a gap, right?
	So everyone enjoys the cottage when they're kids, and then there's a gap of like 10 or 20 years between the last kid growing up and the parents dying or leaving the cottage or getting too old and giving the cottage, and somebody's got to take care of those cottages, right?
	Somebody's got to take care of those cottages and the kids who take care of the cottages, they feel that they should get more and the other kids want to sell it and divide it and other people are like, oh no, it's been in the family for three generations and all kinds of crazy stuff.
	And the fights over cottages are legendary in Canada.
	Let's see here. Yeah, it can happen in divorce as well.
	Yeah, it can happen in divorce. My estate lawyer literally went over disbursements today.
	Oh, that's interesting. Okay. I've heard Adam Carolla, somebody says, talk about how disappointing it is to realize that people he has known and ended up in court with will just lie to get what they want.
	Yeah, isn't that interesting?
	So I'm going to read you a couple of stories that I dug up because it's been on my mind this week and I just wanted to get you guys' thoughts about it.
	All right, let me go here.
	Somebody says, family members as close as can be.
	The epitome of a close family.
	The last parent died and left $70,000 in a bank account and now none of them talk.
	$70,000? That's no reason to destroy a whole family.
	Another family laughed at them and three years later did the same for $100,000 threw each other out of a home.
	Isn't that wild?
	And I sort of stored a whole bunch of these, right?
	One guy says, I used to know an estate guy said his client spent over $5 million to get $3 million from her brother.
	Client ended up in the red but didn't care.
	They just kept spending to get even.
	And somebody wrote, my grandmother had 22 worthless acres under power lines in Ohio.
	My mom and uncle stopped talking over like $15,000 and worthless land.
	And somebody wrote, there's a Syrian restaurant here in Boston that's been closed for 50 years as the family fights over it.
	And this one, I don't know if it's true, obviously, but it says, there was a literal murder in my family over $150,000.
	Yeah, we don't talk to that nephew anymore.
	I thought this was interesting.
	Somebody wrote, in Spanish, there's a saying that basically states money is no one's friend.
	Somebody else. Mom has nine brothers and sisters.
	She only talks to one.
	The other eight are suing them over their uncle's estate.
	So ridiculous. Such a waste of court's time.
	Thankfully, my parents put everything in a trust.
	Somebody writes, I'm from a rural area.
	Last time I was home, my parents drove me around talking about who owned different properties we saw.
	So many times the stories ended with, and now brothers, parents, and kids, whatever, aren't on speaking terms.
	Sad. Sad. Someone says, dude, I've seen country lawyers in court arguing their asses off over the Tupperware and a propane tank.
	Someone says, I know a woman who was living in the house her parents owned.
	Sister wanted her out. Went to court.
	Dispute lasted for years.
	Judging the original trial even said, go outside, talk, sort it out, or the lawyers will get it all.
	Refused to talk. Lawyers got the house.
	Someone says, I live in a rural farming community.
	The number of brothers that don't talk to each other because of how the farm was split up after their parents die is crazy and extremely sad.
	Someone writes, I once witnessed a family devolve to physical violence over $1,500 found in their dead father's sock drawer.
	Someone says, when I lived in Israel, there was a large empty plot of land in the Gulen neighborhood of Jerusalem, surrounded by development, some of the most valuable land in the country.
	It was empty because the brothers who had inherited it had been fighting over its use since the 1930s.
	And Mike Cernovich wrote, There's a meme going around on TikTok showing someone in front of a shanty house with the caption, I finally found out what my dad and uncle stopped talking to each other over.
	Even in small estates, the knives come out.
	You don't know someone until there's money on the table.
	Someone says, if you want to know what people are really like, not the BS fronts, talk to lawyers who have dealt with will contests from larger estates.
	Siblings turn on each other with a ferocity that's hard to imagine.
	The only thing that sometimes holds them together is a collective fight against their father's second wife.
	Oh, gosh.
	Monstrous. Monstrous.
	Someone says it doesn't have to be a large estate.
	I knew one where sisters fought bitterly over a $50 piece of furniture.
	There's always a risk when perceived childhood injustices and resentments come into play.
	Yeah, it's rough, man.
	Somebody says my family splintered pretty hard for way less than a fortune from a will.
	Oh, it's crazy.
	Anyway, these stories, I saved a whole bunch of them.
	They really do kind of go on and on, but let me check in with the glorious listenership and see what you guys have to say about this, because I find this very interesting.
	Mom sold the cottage after Dad died.
	She never cared for it. Far-left city dweller.
	Cabin was for him.
	Yeah, I love Your Enemies is coming to mind.
	Money is nobody's friend.
	I like that one, says someone, yeah.
	Reminds me of lottery winners that lose everything, including relationships.
	Yeah, I remember when my daughter was about eight, I sat her down and read her a whole bunch of histories from people who'd won the lottery.
	And it's really, really important.
	It says, it seems like money helps accentuate red flags.
	Seems like a good thing. Somebody says, I was offered my grandfather's watch after he died.
	I just told the funeral home to bury him with it.
	I don't want property or money.
	I would only waste it. Memories last a lifetime.
	What prompted this inquiry?
	Did you, Stephan, run into problems like this recently?
	Yeah, yeah, a little bit.
	A little bit. A little bit.
	I wonder if wills are the first time the abused...
	Finally get a chance at recompensation and they'd kill anyone for it.
	Well, the reasons why I think are really, really fascinating.
	And again, listen, if you guys want to chat about this or whatever's on your mind, please, please feel free to do so.
	You can just raise your hand and I can unmute.
	But yeah, I was going to share a couple of my thoughts about this.
	And... I think there's a couple of things going on.
	First of all, obviously, I can't give anyone any advice, obviously.
	But I can certainly tell you my experience.
	Hit me with a why if you've ever walked away from a substantial sum of money because it was just getting too ugly.
	Have you ever walked away from a substantial sum of money because it was just getting too ugly?
	Yeah? While people are answering that, somebody says, my minus 10 lasted over two years in court with evictions.
	I was accused of a horrible crime.
	No evidence. I was innocent.
	In the end, the lawyers just rolled around in a bed made of money.
	Never spoke to those family members again.
	Ended up settling due to the extreme costs on both sides, fighting over the same single pile of cash.
	All expectations of justice were shattered.
	I don't trust lawyers or the system, obviously.
	Somebody says, yes, yes.
	Never even started a fight over it.
	No. I've walked away from a fairly valuable gun collection.
	Not happened, but I would.
	No, unless bad experiences at jobs count.
	I mean, let me ask you this.
	From like zero to ten, how tempting do you think it would be if there was some inheritance and let's say it was a fairly substantial sum of money, let's say a hundred grand or more, would you be tempted to fight for it with siblings?
	If it started to get contentious and ugly, would you be tempted to fight?
	In this economy, maybe.
	Yeah, I hear you, brother.
	I really do. I really do.
	Well, you know, with this inflation, you just wait six months and it'll be worth 50 grand.
	Yes, definitely, says Sir Justin.
	Fighting for what is right and just.
	No, family is too toxic.
	No, I'd be the only sibling of five to back down.
	Right. I would imagine most people would be tempted.
	I think most people succumb to that temptation.
	Rather give it away. My precious.
	Yeah, yeah. There is that aspect, right?
	And listen, I mean, this may sound all kinds of abstract, but, you know, a lot of my friends, they were born when their parents' late 20s, early 30s, which means, I mean, believe it or not, right?
	I mean, I'm 57, right?
	Tack on 30 to that, you get to 87.
	And so I'm sort of at that age where parents are beginning to drop out, drop down, right?
	And it's brutal for some people.
	It's brutal for some people.
	And, of course, lawyers are always happy to fight anything.
	Lawyers are always happy to fight anything.
	And I've had one experience with an inheritance that I think was not right, not fair.
	Because what people end up fighting over is the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law.
	And language is always imprecise, right?
	So the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law.
	And, you know, if the parent says, I want to split things equally, and then one person thinks that the cottage is worth more or less, it doesn't feel equal.
	So the spirit of the law is, you know, split things equally.
	The letter of the law is something that people end up fighting about.
	And, oh man, it's just, I think it's fairly ghastly.
	Because here's the thing too, you get into these kinds of fights, and you guys tell me if I'm wrong about this, but if you get into these kinds of fights, you drag everyone into it.
	It's not just you and your siblings, or you and your whoever, right?
	Your cousins or whatever, everyone gets dragged in.
	Your wife, your friends, you talk about it, like you just get consumed by it, right?
	I'm sure I'd be tempted to engage.
	I'd have to resist. I'd rather give to charity than fight.
	Let it do good.
	Animals are innocent and can use the funds more than greedy people.
	I don't think animals are innocent because they don't have any capacity to be guilty.
	So I don't know that that's quite the right word, but I mean, I appreciate the sentiment.
	I appreciate the sentiment. Someone says that's lawyers' game.
	Play with words to get as much as they can.
	Yeah, yeah.
	I mean, I was talking about this with Izzy the other day, because we went through Hamlet, right?
	And I said, you know, of the things that Shakespeare talks about, the thousand natural shocks that the flesh is heir to, and one of the things that he rails against as one of the most foundational horrors of human existence is the law's delay.
	I don't know if you remember that from Hamlet.
	The law's delay is one of the things, and the law's delay?
	Law is a government program, so it serves the government and lawyers.
	It doesn't serve the people and justice.
	But, yeah.
	And here's the thing, too.
	What happens is that people...
	And look, I think we've all been susceptible to this.
	I don't want to obviously speak for you, but I think we have.
	Hit me with a why if you or someone you know has been in a morally ambiguous situation
	but they've convinced themselves that they're in the right and then they have no moral case
	for backing down.
	They have every moral case to continue because they're in the right and they're fighting
	for what the parent really wants and they're fighting for justice and they're fighting
	for what's right.
	And then you can't stop, you can't back down and I think this is why this stuff just goes
	on and on.
	It's not about the money, it's about justice and truth and virtue and fulfilling the honored
	parent's wishes and all of that kind of stuff and it's really, really, you know, I have
	to be really, really sparing when I look at my own life and say this or that is or is
	not a moral crusade.
	Right?
	It's really, really important.
	really important.
	The moment you become, you put on the crusader uniform and you become Superman and you're fighting evil and injustice and you're fighting for truth and light and goodness, you're kind of doomed.
	Because your free will has just gone away.
	So, you know, sort of advice that I would give, not that I can give much, but, you know, I would recommend, let's say, be really sparing in the moral absolutes you layer on what you think.
	If you're having a conflict with someone in the family and you're like, well, I'm fighting what's right.
	It's not about me. It's about what my parent wanted.
	It's about what's right.
	It's about what's fair. It's about what's good.
	But then you're really cornered because now you can't back down without backing down from nobility and virtue and all of that kind of stuff.
	And yeah, it's rough.
	It's rough. And everyone says that, and this is why nobody can back down.
	And the other thing too, once it becomes public and you announce it, that you're fighting the good fight against an evildoer and a greedy person and an immoral person or a corruptor, then of course everyone's like, oh, how's that all going?
	And if you say, oh, I walked away, oh, I backed down, people are like, oh, you gave up a fight, you convinced me and yourself was noble and virtuous and right and just and good, right?
	Crazy. One writer called Justice the most elusive being in the cosmos.
	Yeah. Somebody says, yes, everyone knows and everyone wants an update.
	I always had to step away due to emails or calls from my attorney at my job.
	Highly distracting, stomach-turning stress.
	I wasn't able to hide what I was dealing with.
	Yeah. Ooh, I've had that experience as James in a different context.
	I've talked about it recently. Oh yeah, I've taken down the bad guys, and then you can't walk away.
	Like, what does Superman just go on vacation?
	Like, I mean, if you've just told yourself that this is the good stuff, and this is the right fight, then you're stuck.
	Once you define something as moral, you lose your free will.
	I mean, this is a really, really important thing, right?
	Or you give up morality.
	Or you give up the idea that you're pursuing morality.
	So you've really, really, really got to evaluate fights before you get in.
	Because once you're in, and it's moral, you can't back down.
	Like, you can't.
	And... You know, it's like...
	Running into the middle of a medieval battle.
	Like, once you're in, you can't just, no, guys, I changed my mind.
	Oh, whoa, whoa, I changed my mind.
	Okay, everybody, swords up.
	Okay, keep those bows.
	I've changed my mind. I'm just backing out here.
	It's not going to happen. Like, once you charge into the middle of a fight, once you've, like, really, really be careful.
	I mean, over the course of this show, over years and years and years, you know, I've had sort of legal temptations and, you know, I think pretty good reasons to go after people and I mean, I've dabbled here and there, but yeah, I mean, I've really got to be real careful about the fights that I want to get into, because the only reason I would get into them is for moral reasons, and once I've defined it as a moral fight, isn't it kind of a battle to the metaphorical death?
	Am I wrong about that?
	What parents wanted?
	They're dead. They had their lives.
	How about we concentrate on those yet to have a chance at their own lives?
	Right. Right.
	Walk away from multiple seven figures and think about your self-worth, baby.
	Yeah, yeah. Starts with chatting in groups, smoking funny things, ends with gluing yourself to a highway.
	I think there's something else that happens, too.
	So, a lot of families are really held together with spit and...
	Dental floss, like a lot of families just held together, and they can't handle the stress.
	I heard the story once of a brother and sister who, when there was an old will, it was kind of poorly worded, it wasn't particularly professional, and when they sat down with their lawyer, they said, listen, we talked about this beforehand, and Any clause that's ambiguous or inconclusive, we've decided, should be decided to the benefit of the other sibling.
	So the brother said, if there's anything dicey, it should be decided in the benefit of my sister, if it has anything to do with her.
	And the sister said the same thing.
	If it has anything to do with my brother, anything...
	That is ambiguous.
	It should be just decided in his favor.
	And the lawyer was, like, expecting, of course, to make a fortune from the dissolution and fights over this will, but he was so overcome with emotion, he just came around the table and hugged them both, and he said, like, I've never seen that before.
	Like, that's some well-raised kids, right?
	That's some well-raised kids. But a lot of families held together with glue and spit and tape and nonsense, and they just can't handle any storm.
	You know, it's... Like that first tent that you put up when you go camping as a teenager.
	Hey, I can put up a tent and then some slight breeze comes along and it all just collapses in on itself.
	So they just can't handle that kind of stuff.
	There's a lot of old sibling resentments that unravel or unroll or come to life, I suppose, when money's involved.
	But I think there's another thing that happens.
	And let me know what you guys think about this.
	Sorry, yes, my friend, you had a story to tell, and you had your hand raised if you wanted to.
	I've just unmuted you.
	If you wanted to let me know what happened with you and a Will, I'm certainly happy to hear.
	If you're still around, sorry, I didn't notice that for a couple of minutes, but M-A-L-C, if you wanted to.
	Yeah, go for it. Hi, Stefan.
	Hi. How's my connection?
	Yeah, it's great. Go ahead. So, I've been blathering on in the comments section about walking away from seven figures.
	And I'm currently, well, I'm the middle child, younger brother, older sister.
	And I was the first to excommunicate my father for his moral failings.
	Back in August of 2020.
	And knowing his vindictive, vengeful spirit, I assumed he just cut me flat out of the will,
	which was in excess of the low multiple seven figures.
	Oh, so like millions, right?
	Multiple, yeah.
	Multiple millions, okay.
	Which was his half after my mom had divorced him one year prior,
	and she had basically liquidated all the cash from the family.
	He was the sole provider to extremely successful printing-based businesses.
	And to my surprise, I was actually in the will, but to the point where it's almost like I shouldn't, like I'm really not.
	And my brother and sister are the, well, they're the vast majority...
	And hearing you go over all of the details of these dynamics of this stuff that gets brought up in family.
	It's just, you know, you're singing my song and I've been talking quite a bit.
	I don't want to suck all the air out of the room.
	No, no. What was the decision process for you regarding fighting for, I guess...
	The shadow you cast on the will and trying to get the money or walking away?
	I mean, it must have been tough to...
	I mean, that's a lot of coin to stroll away from.
	No, it wasn't tough at all.
	I knew back when...
	I'm 35. Back when I was in my early 20s, I knew that my dad was a traitor to himself and to his family.
	In the starkest sense of the word and I kind of grieved his his death while he was still alive back in my early 20s over the course of a couple years and I knew that it was just a matter of time before I would likely cut him out of my life completely and I was completely I had all the tears out.
	I felt nothing.
	And I saw him betray my sister in a terrible way.
	And the money didn't really matter to me.
	It didn't hurt.
	There was so much pain from what he did that money could never make up for that.
	I've done really well for myself with my own business.
	I've had terrible things done to me by my siblings and by my mother.
	Basically, they are all highly medicated on SSRIs.
	I'm the only one in my family who's sober.
	Too much coffee in a day for me, that's like living on the wild side.
	Man, I feel like I should let the tennis ball get on the other side of the net a little bit here.
	I don't want to get carried away.
	No, listen, I appreciate that story and I'm glad you weren't tempted.
	Now, you did say though that your siblings are less successful, less functional, right?
	Very much so. My sister is codependent and living with my mom.
	Related to, you know, the terrible relationship she had with her husband.
	She wants to infantilize and keep the kids close because of the lack of the relationship she had with her husband.
	My sister's barely functioning.
	I assume that when my mother passes away that my sister will...
	My sister's already made attempts on her life multiple times.
	And I'm assuming that when my mother passes away, I hope she lives as long as humanly possible, but when she does, I'm pretty sure my sister's going to end her life shortly thereafter because it's the only relationship my sister has.
	And my brother is married, no children to my knowledge, and he...
	He is very focused on money and keeping up with the Joneses and, well, he's paid the price with his soul for the medication he's addicted to to help keep his sanity because of it.
	Yeah, I'm sorry to hear about that and I know someone who's Also, the parent died, and the money went to various people in the family, and he had a sister.
	Again, no husband, no kids, no, you know, she really just threw her lot in with the easy-peasy, baked-in-by-nature family relations.
	Like, that's like, family relations in a way are kind of like a government program.
	It's like, It's not part of the free market of relationships.
	Now, I mean, obviously, I think family relationships are very important.
	I hope I'm in my daughter's life forever.
	But she didn't choose me.
	And I didn't, you know, I mean, obviously, I chose to have a kid.
	I didn't choose her individually. She didn't choose me as a parent or to be born.
	And for people to focus on the parents or the siblings as the relationship is really putting your money on a losing hand.
	Because You know, it's like my friend when I was younger.
	He lived upstairs from his mom in the apartment building, and she'd be like, hey, Bob, sometimes not Bob, hey, Bob, you know, come, I've made some hamburger helper, murder she wrote it on, come on down!
	Because she was lonely. She was a single mom, and he was the only son.
	Single son of a single mother is usually like the last gasp of the whole family line, and he would, you know, he would go down.
	He would go down like going to the sirens, going to a whirlpool, going to a nothingness, And, you know, he got lots of free meals.
	And he got to sit and watch TV with his mom.
	And his mom was nice, but, you know, she couldn't afford to let him go because she poured herself into her child.
	And then he couldn't get away.
	And he ended up, when she died, he was in his...
	Gosh, when am I going here?
	He was in his early 40s when she died.
	And that was it, man.
	I'm sorry, good afternoon. There's just a massive amount of wind noise coming in.
	My apologies. But yeah, he just had to...
	He had no skills to win a relationship, right?
	I don't know if you've ever...
	Hit me with a why. This is sort of for people who are listening.
	Hit me with a why. If you've ever just gone to a new city, gone to a new town, gone to a new place, and just had to start from scratch.
	You ever had to do that and...
	Try to make friends and try to break into friend groups and try to, like, it's not easy, right?
	You've really got to bring a lot to the table.
	I've had to do it a couple of times over the course of my life.
	Some of it was easier, like when you go to college, you kind of have baked in companions and everyone's away from home and there aren't usually pre-existing friend groups that are super solid or at least they don't all travel together.
	So, yeah, you did it 2,000 miles away, right?
	Yeah, that's tough. So that's breaking into a free market kind of set of relationships.
	That is hard work.
	That is really hard work. And I've had to do it a number of times.
	Of course, I've gone to a whole bunch of different schools.
	And, you know, when I first finally came to Canada, I got a really great friend.
	But then, unfortunately, he died.
	He just died at the age of 12.
	He just had a heart defect and expired in his sleep.
	And then I had to start all over again.
	And so on. So yeah, just having to make a whole bunch of new friends.
	So long story short, I think what happens is, if there's some fairly significant parental assets, and you know, these days, you don't even have to be wealthy for there to be a lot of parental assets, because all they have to have done is bought a house in the 60s or 70s or 80s.
	And, you know, because of mass migration, because of inflation, like the house price has just become ludicrous.
	Like it's just madness, right?
	I mean, it used to be the case in the 60s, a teacher making $9,000 could buy a house for $13,000, which now a teacher making $80,000 should be able to buy a house for like $120,000, $125,000.
	And most houses, certainly in cities these days, are around a mill.
	So housing prices relative to salary have gone up a thousand percent.
	But what happens is, I mean, the one thing that really helped with me and my ambition is I never had any expectation of inheritance.
	I mean, when my mom dies, at least I don't think she's dead yet, but when my mom dies, If I was still involved, all that would be left was a giant cleanup, which I guess we could even leave to the landlord because she never owned anything.
	She was just a rental queen.
	So I never had any anticipation of parental inheritance.
	So I just worked hard.
	But here's the problem.
	So if your parents have significant assets and They're old.
	And, you know, some people, I mean, sometimes people can take a long time to die.
	I'm not saying this in any sort of macabre way.
	It's just kind of a fact. I mean, hit me with a why if you've ever known someone who took five or more years to die, like knowing that it was probably not going to get better and all of that.
	Have you ever had that situation where somebody is just like at death's door for like ever and a half, right?
	So I think what happens is Your parents get old.
	You're not very successful.
	Your parents get old. And you say, well, you know, I'm going to inherit half a million dollars.
	I'm going to inherit a million dollars.
	I'm going to inherit a house.
	I'm going to sell a house. I'm going to inherit a cottage.
	They've got money in their savings account.
	I'm going to inherit a couple of hundred thousand dollars or more or whatever, right?
	And what does that do to someone's ambition, right?
	Well, it shaves it away.
	It shaves it away. In the same way, like what happens to someone's ambition when they win a million dollars in the lottery?
	Well, take this job and shove it, right?
	I mean, their ambition kind of goes through the window.
	Now, what would your ambition be like if you held a winning lottery ticket but you couldn't cash it in for a couple of years or five years or maybe, you know, seven years or whatever, right?
	If you held the winning lottery ticket, a million dollars, right?
	And yet you couldn't cash it in for five years or whatever.
	What would happen to your ambition?
	Well, you wouldn't be as much of a hustler.
	You wouldn't drive.
	You wouldn't market. You wouldn't take risks.
	You wouldn't do any of this stuff. What would you be doing?
	Because part of your brain would be waiting for the money.
	Part of your brain is waiting for the money.
	To put it another way for the younger folks, like imagine if you knew in some magical way that an arranged marriage was going to get you married in three years.
	You were going to get married to a great woman in three years.
	She's on the slow boat from Russia or something.
	I don't know. Well, if you knew for sure, or you had reason to believe, that you were going to marry a good woman in a couple of years, what would that do to your dating?
	Well, you wouldn't really bother, right?
	I mean, what would be the point? You wouldn't really bother to do any of that dating.
	So that anticipation steals from the present, right?
	Anticipation steals from the present.
	Anticipation of money steals from what you're doing right now.
	Anticipation of love, anticipation of romance, right?
	Steals from what you're doing right now.
	Now, the problem, of course, is if you're expecting half a million dollars, say, from an inheritance, and then the will gets read out and you don't get much, you don't get as much as you think, you suddenly have a whole bunch of regret because you just wasted years of potential ambition and achievement.
	Let's say that you gave up on $100,000 or $200,000 worth of advancement in your career over five years.
	That sounds like a lot, but it's not really when you think about it.
	If you've got five years and you're really hustling and you make an extra $20,000 a year, I mean, that's way more than $100,000 because, you know, you invest it or whatever it is that you do, so it accumulates more, right?
	$10,000 a year invested at a reasonable amount, $15,000 a year.
	That's, you know, and let's say you really hustle and you double your salary at the end of five years.
	Okay, well, that's your inheritance right there.
	Certainly a couple of years afterwards, right?
	So if you haven't hustled and maybe you've been a little less nice to your boss and maybe you've been a little less, because, you know, hey, I'm getting all this money and I don't need to save and I've, you know, I've gone on all of these useless vacations and bought a bunch of useless trinkets.
	Like my friend whose sister inherited some money, she just went on the shopping channel and bought all of this crap that then just, she just sat around her apartment unopened, didn't even open it.
	Just, I don't understand. This I don't understand.
	This is a bit of a female thing.
	Although maybe men do it with tools.
	It's a bit of a female thing.
	Do you ever know one of these people that just, they just buy things, they get them delivered.
	They don't even really open them.
	They don't use them. They're not quite hoarders because hoarders hang on to stuff that they already have, usually.
	But they're accumulators.
	They're like squirrels with nuts, except there's no nuts and there's no winter and there's no snow, and they just grab stuff and they hang on to it.
	It's just weird. Weird to me.
	I try to live a bit more minimalistically, and I do purchase on a semi-regular basis because I just can't handle or don't like having a bunch of stuff around.
	So I think what happens is People anticipate and make decisions based upon inheritance.
	And if the inheritance doesn't work out, they get really angry.
	In the same way, like if there were these girls that you wanted to date, but you're like, nah, I'm getting an arranged marriage in a couple of years, so I'm not going to bother dating.
	And then the arranged marriage doesn't work out.
	Suddenly, what are you doing?
	You're kicking yourself. You're angry.
	You're frustrated. You're upset.
	You've just wasted years waiting for something.
	That ain't happening. Beanie Babies.
	Yeah, oh God, the Beanie Babies.
	My gosh.
	And isn't this hoarding?
	Isn't this... Oh, here I am standing on the precipice as usual.
	Oh, fudge it, let's jump. Isn't this hoarding of useless crap a phenomenon of childless women?
	Am I not? Am I wrong about that?
	I mean, this is the pattern that I've seen.
	It's 100% of the pattern that I've seen.
	I mean, the childless men that I know sleep on old army cots and prop their TVs up on the boxes they came in.
	But the childless women I know accumulate unbelievable levels of useless crap.
	You think this is it?
	Yeah. They spent the money already in their head?
	Yeah. And they've not just spent the money, but they've made significant life decisions in anticipation of this money.
	I remember this really clearly when I was a little, little kid, maybe six or seven years old.
	My mom had a friend who was very aristocratic.
	And we went to lunch at some fancy restaurant, which is quite unusual for us, as you could imagine, right?
	We went for lunch at some fancy restaurant, and I remember this ancient woman, the big sort of bony skeletal or veined hands and all of that, and she was rummaging through her purse after the meal.
	And my brother was in boarding school, I think, so I, oh no, I must have been, no, I must have been five then, because I went to, my brother went to boarding school a year ahead of me, so I was five.
	And my mother's friend, and she had this, you know, Duchess heir to her or whatever, right?
	So she was rummaging around in her purse, and I was absolutely certain that she was going to give me ten pence or five pence.
	And that was money back then.
	That was like a candy bar and a half or whatever, right?
	So, no, actually, five pence was a candy bar, because I remember when I first came to Canada at the age of 12, a candy bar was a dime, and then almost, like, very rapidly it went up to about a buck.
	Now it's about $1.20, $1.40, probably even more now.
	Inflation is just nuts up here.
	Well, they added a third to the money supply in a couple of years, so, of course, right?
	But I remember sitting at this beautiful white tablecloth, this lovely restaurant, all the waiters deferring to her and bowing and, you know, Tiny little bits of food coming that actually did taste pretty good, to be honest.
	And she was rummaging around in her purse, and I was absolutely convinced that she was going to give, because, you know, that's normally, I get aunts, it's, you know, you know how your grandmother gives you money, like she's palming off drugs in the ghetto, like, here you go, kid, you know, slides up your sleeve, don't tell your parents.
	I don't know if your grandmother does sound like someone out of the mafia, but anyway, so, I was absolutely convinced, and I felt this, like, warm flush of, oh, here comes some money.
	Oh, she's going. Because, you know, this is what I was used to.
	Oh, here's a couple of pennies, kid, or whatever, right?
	And, you know, when you get old, you want to give your money away, because it's not doing you much good, right?
	I don't think she had any teeth left to have candy with.
	So, anyway, I'm just, and I'm sitting there, I've got this warm flush, like, going through my whole body.
	Oh, here it comes. Here comes the coin, right?
	And what did she do? What did she do?
	She took out a mint, she peeled it, she put a mint in her mouth.
	I didn't get five pennies or ten pennies.
	She got the worst candy known to man.
	You know, like those little wheel candies.
	They look like tiny little pie slices, green and white, hard candies.
	Well, hard candies are like if evil coagulates into material form and gets into a wrapper and sits in old people's dinner trays, Or dinner bowls forever.
	The hard candies are really the physical manifestation of culinary malevolence across the universe and throughout time.
	But yeah, just...
	I was waiting and waiting.
	Of course, I already spent it.
	Literally, she's rummaging around forever in this person.
	I'm like, I could buy a curly whirly.
	I could buy a flake.
	I could wait. I remember there was an ice cream machine that used to come by the apartments where I lived as a kid.
	This ice cream machine used to come by And they had this thing called a Choc 99.
	You wouldn't believe this ice cream.
	Like, honestly, it's been 50 years, close, since I had one.
	My mouth waters. It's that deep a Pavlovian spinal response.
	I remember hearing that music, and I was home alone, and I was rummaging through the house.
	I gotta find five pennies.
	I gotta find five pennies so I can buy this ice cream.
	All I found was half a penny, which didn't get me very far, of course.
	Only one-tenth, but...
	It was a nice crunchy cone.
	It was that nice swirly rippled white vanilla ice cream with half a Cadbury's Flake stuck in the top.
	Now Cadbury's Flake is a wee tendonitis slice of culinary heaven.
	It is so good. It's long sort of threads of chocolate half together.
	They crumble like crazy.
	It's like trying to eat a Granola bar on a trampoline in terms of crumbs and mess, but it is so good.
	That literally does melt in your mouth.
	And I used to get this Chalk 99.
	So I was, I'm going to get five pennies.
	I'm going to get 10 pennies or five pence and 10 pence or whatever.
	I didn't dream of more, but, you know, I wouldn't have said no.
	And I was like, I can buy this.
	I can buy that. And my mouth was watering and I was ready.
	And I was, you know, a British kid, sugar-based life form.
	And the amount of frustration and upset.
	I mean, I'll just touch briefly.
	I mentioned this before. My mother and her friend, when I was very little, maybe four, were going to bingo for the night.
	And I had a babysitter. And I was led to believe that I was going to...
	Like she said, if I win, if I win, the big prize was 1,800 pounds or something like that.
	She says, I'll give you 18 pounds if I win.
	Now, I think 18 pounds.
	That's like... What is that?
	That's an insane amount of candy bars.
	I mean, my gosh, that's, what's that, 1800?
	No, 180 candy bars.
	That's 180 candy bars.
	And more, if you ration it right, that's like two years' supply of candy.
	And I had, of course, fixed in my head that I was going to get these 18 pounds.
	And then when she came back, she hadn't won much.
	She gave me 18 pennies.
	Now, normally, you'd be really happy with the 18 pennies.
	I certainly would have been if the old woman...
	I had given it to me in the restaurant, but I was inconsolable because I felt I'd been robbed of 18 pounds because, of course, I'd spent the whole evening dissecting in my brain what I'm going to spend.
	I mean, I don't know what I was thinking.
	Could I buy an airplane?
	I don't know. Maybe. So you get this expectation, and then that expectation becomes the norm, and anything less than that becomes like a kick to the nads.
	It's just brutal.
	It's just brutal.
	So, yeah, I think people just anticipate this money, make all these decisions.
	The money doesn't come, and they are enraged because they've just lost out on significant chunks of their own lives.
	Somebody says, yeah, they spent the money already in their head.
	Somebody else says, I'm too easy at risk of buying things, trying to fix unhappiness.
	Douglas Adams said it well.
	Trying to solve unhappiness by moving small pieces of paper around is not the paper which is unhappy.
	I get a high off electronics.
	I have to really not do it.
	I have to really not do it. Let's see here.
	I remember when you could buy 351ml soda for $0.85 and 150g potato chips for $0?
	I don't know what that means. Oh, $0.85.
	Now the chips are $2.50 and the soda is a buck.
	Yeah, no, I remember 75 cents for a slice of pizza and 25 cents for a drink.
	So for a buck, you could get a meal.
	I live, for Stefan's analogy, saltwater taffy from 1967.
	Oh man, what is it, Old Town in Florida?
	I was there once and there was a store there where you could, there were just buckets like you could go up to your arms in saltwater taffy of infinite numbers of flavors.
	I won't tell you what happened because that's between me and my dentist.
	All right. Raspberry ruined forever because my ear was sliced by the barber right after?
	Oh, Cadbury eggs.
	Oh, the cream eggs.
	The cream eggs are...
	They are exactly what Satan would tempt you with as a child.
	If there were children who were hitmen, they would demand to be paid in Cadbury's eggs because it was the only thing that would make murder worthwhile.
	All right. Some of us are fasting.
	Oh, sorry, man. Sorry. Never had those guys with the freezer on the bike who came by ringing the bell?
	No, but once when I was out in the country, some guys came by selling steak out of a truck.
	And I was like, yeah, okay.
	Doesn't sound legit, but all right.
	All right. Diabetic ice cream and candy bars off the menu.
	Well, to be honest, the last time I ate a full candy bar, I'm gutted things probably 15 years ago.
	I'll have a little piece of chocolate once in a while, but...
	All right. Yeah, sorry, James.
	Sorry, Jared. Jared, I know.
	When Mary was handed a quid in just poor.
	Ah, yes. When Mary got her money in just poor...
	And she realized she couldn't be pretty, she couldn't be feminine, she couldn't buy a dress, she couldn't be happy, she couldn't be touched.
	That's when she decided she didn't want to live.
	Just had a Smarties Halloween-sized pack.
	The shame is setting in.
	Oh, but what is that, like eight Smarties?
	Dear Lord, you're not exactly a junkie here.
	This is how a man can relate to hypergamy.
	Yeah, that's right.
	I deserve Brad Pitt and everything else.
	It's a complete total loss.
	I'm sure I could get dollar slices of pizza in New Jersey on the walk home 30 years ago.
	Now I think I'd have to dish out $2.50 or more.
	Oh, no, no. Slices of pizza, much more than that now.
	Much more than that now.
	I had to go right to downtown Toronto not too long ago with my family, and we had a pretty modest breakfast.
	And with tip, it was $75.
	And I'm like, yeah, I'm not coming back for a while.
	And, yeah, 74, early 70s, mid-70s, they decoupled from gold, and yeah, it just got bad.
	18 pounds in 1971 is worth 313 pounds today.
	Yeah, yeah. Anyone have any suggestions for the less terrible Halloween candy?
	Yeah, just get the stuff that nobody wants.
	Just get the stuff that every, like, every Halloween, you just recycle the stuff that nobody wants, right?
	Like that candy corn?
	Nobody wants that.
	The Turkish delight? Nobody wants that, because there's nothing delightful about Turkey, except if it comes as cranberries.
	Steph owns a saltwater taffy shop next to a rug store in Toronto.
	The real reason he's dressed up today.
	That's right. That's right.
	Twistlers. Yeah, Twistlers, isn't that just basically plastic with some food coloring?
	I think that's how they roll.
	They just take old sneakers, they melt them down, and they throw in some food dye, and then they recycle it.
	I think that's about it.
	Black Licorice Twizzlers?
	What was it I read?
	Licorice can be good against COVID or something?
	I'm like, we must get licorice.
	Because when I was a kid, man, and I've had a few since.
	There's licorice all sorts. Did you ever have those?
	The Quality Street candies, the licorice all sorts.
	And, oh man, they're so good.
	I've got to stop talking about candy of my youth.
	I'm going to dehydrate from saliva drops.
	Oh, so good.
	We don't have video.
	Marzipan. Have you ever tried this Satan nugget marzipan?
	Like if Satan sweats on a treadmill, they just collect it at the back and then they wrap it in chocolate to pretend it's not a log of phallic evil.
	You ever tried marzipan?
	Now that is some evil stuff, man.
	That is some nasty.
	The worst are Tootsie Rolls.
	Tootsie Rolls, like the first bite is okay and after that you're like, it's one of the few candies where instant regret sets in.
	Because normally it's like, oh man, I shouldn't have eaten half that dairy milk, right?
	That's too much, right? And you feel kind of a little tired and a little kind of spaced out.
	It's like, yeah. But the taste is great.
	And you get like five, ten minutes of great taste.
	And then you're like, what have I done?
	But for me, Tootsie Rolls are like, after the second chew, I'm like, oh yeah, this is really about...
	I mean, I might as well be eating shoelaces.
	Like, this is really not good.
	Marzipan is Fudge's evil twin.
	Yeah, so Marzipan is Fudge when possessed by demons.
	When they fail their saving row against demonic possession, or when you put Fudge on a Ouija board and summon Beelzebub's evil twin, they get infected, and I think that's where Marzipan is.
	Ferrara Rocher at Christmas time.
	Yeah, so the Christmas candies are tough, obviously, because you think, oh, it's Christmas, it's once a year, and so stuff you'd never really do.
	You know, like roll them into a big giant ball and take them anally.
	Obviously, I mean, talking for everyone here, that's not just my thing, right?
	Hey, it's a Christmas log.
	That's my understanding. And I understand that this can be a little unsettling to all the people at the Christmas table, but, you know...
	It's a tradition. It's a German thing.
	A lot of people don't understand.
	And that's why we are feared.
	But yeah, a dozen glasses of eggnog.
	Yeah, it's Christmas! But it comes but once a year.
	And yeah, the Christmas regret.
	Because when you're trying to lose weight, you just kind of stagger from overindulgence festival to overindulgence festival, right?
	Yeah, it's my birthday. Hey, it's Thanksgiving.
	Ooh, it's Halloween. Oh, it's Christmas.
	Forget it. I'm just never going to lose weight.
	Never going to happen. There's too many excuses.
	That's what holidays are. It's just excuses to get fat.
	That's all it is. There's nothing else.
	Nothing else to it. Oh, it's tragic.
	It's just tragic. I've never had decent peanut brittle.
	Not once. Peanut brittle.
	Yeah, ooh, it's my friend's birthday.
	Ooh, it's my other friend's birthday.
	That's right. My left hand was born before my right hand, so there's two birthdays on this day.
	I came out in a Jesus pose.
	So... Peanut brittle is something that dentists love, obviously.
	They just hand it out, right? So peanut brittle is fine because you can close your mouth on it, right?
	The problem is, I think if you're over 40, I think this is a law of nature or a law of the universe, and when you close your mouth on peanut butter and you're over 40, it's 50-50 that you're going to keep all your teeth if you open your mouth again.
	There was this fudge, Macintosh fudge, I think it was, from England, and there was a store I went into a couple of years ago with my daughter, and it was a British candy store.
	Have you ever had this, like if you've moved or something, and you go to a place which had the candy of your youth?
	Have you ever seen that?
	I mean, it's insane.
	So we went to this British store, and...
	I got like speared with all of these deep sense memories where I could like walk around the store tasting various things.
	Like various parts of my tongue were activating like it was some zombie coming to life just punching to get at historical taste buds.
	Because I was walking around.
	I was like, oh my god, I completely forgot.
	What is Ribena? Oh my god, I forgot.
	Macintosh. Fudge.
	This little tombstone for your dental work.
	And, oh, all of this, I got a couple of the flake bars.
	I even got the godforsaken fartaholic baked beans of my early childhood, which basically turned you into a jetpack.
	And beans, beans, good for the art.
	The more you eat, the more you fart.
	And just going all over this.
	Have you ever been to one of these places, which is just like...
	The candy of your childhood?
	It literally, for me, was like a time machine.
	Because apparently, obviously, English people haven't lost their sweet tooth.
	They still make all of this absolutely fatal stuff.
	Because you know what happens, right?
	You get socialized dental work.
	Socialized dentistry just means that the candy manufacturers can completely go apeshit and just fill everybody's brains with sugar to the point where you have to...
	Balance it with spices, and that means you've got to rule India for 150 years.
	Like, it's tough. There's a lot of effects.
	I may be getting my history a little mixed up, but not really.
	Not really. So, yeah, we got this Macintosh fudge from my childhood, and I bit down on it.
	I could not open my mouth again.
	Like, I bit down on it.
	I'm like... I'm like, this is like a bear trap.
	I have to chew off the edge of my tongue just to get this out.
	It was insane. I literally had to just wait for the saliva to soften it to the point where, and I didn't want to open my mouth too much because I'm like, I'm going to end up with this like zigzag jaw tooth pattern because I'm going to lose half my teeth in this fudge.
	It's clingy. It's clingy like me dating in my 20s.
	Let's just put it that way.
	It's a Chinese teeth trap.
	Yeah, that's exactly right. That's exactly right.
	James, I think the candy of my youth was Snickers bars.
	I don't know how different they are, except maybe in corn syrup instead of regular sugar.
	But Snickers bars is one of those nasty things.
	Okay, tell me the sugar that you can convince yourself is not too bad.
	Snickers bars, they've got some nuts, they've got some stuff in there that's just not too evil.
	And so you can say, well, you know, it's not just straight chocolate or, you know, or if you get something like, no, no, no, they're blueberries wrapped in dark chocolate.
	So it's fruit and dark chocolate, which isn't too bad.
	And so what happens is you just eat more, right?
	Because you're like, well, it's not so bad.
	Just eat more. That's sort of the way that it is, right?
	And everybody has that weakness because it's that literally a sweet spot.
	It's a sweet spot where you say, Come on, I can justify this?
	Come on! I mean, I get.
	Like, I'm not going to have, like, bread pudding.
	Bread pudding is just soft.
	Like, it's what your teeth look like after you've had bread pudding.
	They just turn into, like, soft, saggy, middle-aged cheese yogurt.
	Butt dimples. Some sort of cellulite in a bowl with sugar.
	Um... Or, oh, creme brulee.
	Creme brulee is a nice stuff because it's soft at the bottom with crunchy on the top.
	So you know that there's nothing good in any of that stuff.
	Like, there's nothing good in any of that stuff.
	But it's the stuff, like, if you go to Menchie's or the yogurt places, you're like, you know, well, I'll just...
	What is it? I can have some not-too-sugary yogurt, and I'll do mostly fruit.
	And where the hell did all of these cookie dough bits come from?
	Well, I'm sure they just fell out from the spoon.
	That must have been it. And I guess these...
	Strawberries are kind of dipped in chocolate, but not too much.
	Come on, man.
	I got a couple of blueberries in there among the multicolored boba rainbow death.
	So, you know, it's yogurt and fruit.
	And that's the danger is for me just thinking like, yeah, you know, come on.
	It's not that bad. It's light yogurt.
	And it's dark chocolate.
	Like the stuff where you just can lie to yourself, right?
	Yeah. Alright, so maybe I'm just talking to myself here.
	Almond Joy? Never liked that.
	Chocolate-covered pretzels? Oh, God.
	Okay. The only food that is not UPB compliant is actually chocolate-covered pretzels.
	I'm very passionate about this, and I know I don't like morality with an asterisk, but this is one that just taste and sanity and Gordon Ramsay demands is never UPB compliant.
	Reese's. It has peanut butter, which is protein.
	Yes, that's right. That's right.
	That's right. So, yeah, you've got to watch out for that stuff.
	Like cheesecake. Well, you know, it's got dairy.
	No, I can't do anything with the cheesecake.
	Okay, hit me with your...
	What's your total demon food?
	Like, what is your total... For me, if I get a just warmed right...
	Apple crumble. Not apple pie.
	I'm not a big fan of apple pie.
	Man, that apple crumble.
	Oh my gosh. I had some.
	We had some friends over this weekend.
	We played like Real World Catan.
	Actually, just Real World Catan in the neighborhood.
	We just took over wheat shops.
	But my wife, God love her, she went to a Mennonite shop and got some apple crumble.
	And it's like a time machine that kills your pancreas.
	Apple crumble. Don't microwave that.
	That's just evil. That's like microwaving pizza.
	Like, not even, right? It's got to go in the oven.
	And it was warmed just perfectly to the point where it wasn't completely melting the roof of your mouth, but it also didn't have any cold bits, which is horrible.
	Heated just right. The softness of the filling, the underside of the pie, and then the apple crumble, the crunchy apple crumble stuff on top.
	Oh, my God. So good.
	I literally had to stab my hand to the table With a fork.
	So that I didn't keep reaching for it.
	But then I just reached for the other hand.
	And I couldn't stab that one because the first one was already stabbed.
	And I said, listen, I just don't like losing a Catan.
	It's got nothing to do with a sugar addiction.
	Apple crumble is fantastic.
	My demon food.
	Black Thai chocolate mousse cake.
	Oh, is that stuff with the curly chocolate stuff that always looks like it's vaguely sweating?
	And sweating joy. Not sweating like Jamie Lee Curtis' innards.
	Carrot cake. Carrot cake with good cream cheese icing is really, really fantastic.
	I'm not much of a sweets demon.
	But I could probably eat all of the meatball palm in the universe.
	Yeah. Yeah, I had a friend who was on some medication for Crohn's disease and he said, yeah, it's making me gain weight.
	I said, oh, is it one of those rare medications that in combination with meat palm and apple pie seems to weirdly combine with that to cause you to gain weight?
	Trey Leche Cake.
	Trey leche cake?
	Very milk cake?
	What is that? I don't handle milk well.
	Oh my gosh.
	Yeah, a friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, we were talking about some weight loss stuff, and he's like, well, you know, I do have...
	I probably do have 8 to 10 tablespoons of thick cream in my coffee every day.
	I'm like, dude, that's so much cream in your blood, you could give a vampire lactose intolerance.
	I think we may have zeroed in on something you may have better cut down.
	Is the live stream still going?
	No. Three milk cake.
	Three milk cake. So you're a dealer, right?
	So what you're doing is you're saying to me, who has a bit of a sugar addiction, you're saying, oh, you know what, Steph?
	There's this incredible sugar you've never, ever tried.
	You've never, ever tried.
	Yeah. Person who shall remain nameless says, it was like 800 calories of heavy cream!
	Which is about 1,400 salads.
	So, yes. It was about 1,800 calories of heavy cream.
	Actually, this person, again, who shall remain nameless...
	Interestingly enough, if you see aerial photographs of him walking through Wisconsin, you can see cows fleeing from him, like when you put pepper into oil.
	It was 16 tablespoons.
	And, you know, actually, you might have sort of just eaten the tablespoons.
	It probably would have been more healthy, because that's just...
	I don't even know what that is anymore.
	That is just insane.
	I was forced to join by my father the Young Explorers Club of England when I was a kid and we went marching through the Outer Hebrides for two weeks and the weather was so terrible we ended up sleeping in bus shelters and barns and this is when I mentioned this before I first became skeptical of getting good points like getting awards and points Because the guy was like a writer who was working on some crappy book, and he brought a manual typewriter with him.
	It was super heavy, so he didn't want to carry it.
	And he's like, well, whoever carries my typewriter gets points, and we'll tally them up at the end, right?
	And so, you know, being young and naive and all of that, I think I was eight.
	I'm like, I'll carry the typewriter.
	I want points. I'm competitive.
	I like points. Points are good, right?
	And I carried this stupid typewriter all around the Outer Hebrides.
	And I remember we camped on a beach one day.
	It was really nice. We camped on a beach.
	Oh gosh, I remember I was hiking and somehow my backpack had opened up and I just had trailed stuff off and I was lost because I was always the youngest and smallest everywhere I went.
	It was just that. Because I was right at the tail end.
	I was baby boom, like baby booms ended in 66.
	I was a, sorry, baby boom ended in 65.
	I was a 66 baby, so I was right at the tail end Of the baby boom, start of Gen X. And so I was always the youngest kid around.
	Everybody was a little older, usually.
	And I was hiking along, and I turned around, and I still vividly, I can see this.
	I could go to the spot. I could still count the dunes.
	And I could see, you know, my clothing, little bits of food, and my underpants, you know, sock.
	And it was all trailing back.
	And I was like, I was really...
	I'm stuck because the leader guy was way ahead.
	And I'm like, I don't know how far back I have to go.
	We were in the middle of nowhere.
	And if they change or go somewhere, I didn't want to stop everyone.
	And I was just really upset. And I just started crying because I didn't know if I run back to get my clothes, I don't know how far I've got to come back.
	And if they turn, I'm going to get lost.
	Lost! And this was not good, right?
	I mean, I had like, I don't know, one half a granola bar or something.
	And so if I got lost, that was really bad.
	And I remember I was confined to my tent that afternoon because I had cried.
	Because he came back, you know, when you've got a problem as a kid.
	And, you know, like I'm eight years old.
	I'm like Bear Grylls out here.
	And people, you know, adults just get mad at you.
	Why? You get mad at you. Because, you know, my stuff was like trailing, I don't know how far back, could be half a mile back, I don't know.
	And you know he's going to be annoyed.
	Oh, this is inconvenient for me.
	It's like, okay, if you don't want things to be inconvenient, how about you don't take eight-year-old kids on massive hikes from bus shelter to bus shelter, you douchebag.
	And anyway, I was confined to my tent that afternoon because I'd cried.
	And all the other kids were playing on the beach.
	And it's just one of these funny things, right?
	Because, you know, I'm confined to the tent.
	I felt really bad. And, you know, I had a family member with me who never came to check on me, you know, the usual stuff.
	But I remember peeking my head out, watching the other kids have fun, and they were jumping up and down on a mine, like a literal World War II mine, and there was a torpedo.
	So I guess at some point in the past, this was a pretty unexplored area of the Outer Hebrides or whatever, the islands off the coast of Scotland.
	I peeked my head. It was a beautiful sunny day.
	One of the only sunny days. The other time it was just like grim death marching through Mordor.
	But I poked my head out.
	Hey, what are the kids doing? Look at all the fun I'm missing.
	And they were literally jumping up and down on mines and torpedoes.
	And I'm like, oh my god.
	I was waiting to see bits of kid fly all over the place like you had stomped on a bunch of ketchup packets.
	And I remember the guy, the big beard and the hippie-looking guy, screaming at the kids, and then everyone ended up confined to their tents.
	Everyone ended up confined to their tents for jumping up and down on explosives.
	And fortunately, of course, nothing went off.
	It probably was all deactive at that point.
	Although, let's see. Let me do the math, right?
	So I was eight, so this was 1974.
	I mean, this is from the 40s, so these were 30 years old, right?
	And could they still be live?
	Probably not, but, you know, it's a...
	It's a possibility. And so, yeah, it was kind of funny that the one beautiful day that we had on that entire two-week dismal death hike from place to place, the only one beautiful day we had, everyone ended up confined to their tents.
	Me, for crying, because my backpack had opened up, and we all go back and get my stuff, and all the other kids for jumping up and down on ordinances.
	Like, oh my god.
	Oh my gosh.
	So apparently that's equal punishment.
	If you cry, that's the same as literally about to blow everyone up in the vicinity.
	So, I don't know, what are they, 15 kids?
	Anyway, the reason I was thinking of all of that is that this guy did have his own particular brand of crack, which was, have you ever tried this condensed milk?
	I think it's called condensed milk.
	And it is, you open it and it's like the sweetest, it's like a semi-solid, it's like your fat in your body halfway to room temperature, it's like a semi-solid.
	Evaporated milk, is that the same thing?
	Is that the same thing? Oh man, that was something else.
	That was something else.
	So yeah, that stuff is really great.
	I literally, I don't think I've had it since because it's one of these things that's so good that I'm like, no, no, I can't remind myself.
	If I let the memory fade away, that's okay.
	But if I go and re-provoke that memory, it's like, I don't know, like some guy, if you're a smoker or whatever, and then you've quit smoking and you're like, two years later, you're like, I'll just have a couple of cigarettes.
	And it's like, nope, don't.
	I assume smoking is good, right?
	Some people like it. I mean, they risk their lives for it.
	So it's like, don't do it.
	Don't do it. Like, I imagine heroin is fantastic, which is why I'll never do it.
	I imagine drugs as a home.
	I mean, you see what people do for drugs.
	I assume that there's a real upside.
	And so that's why I would never do any.
	I never tried marijuana. I never tried hash or anything like that.
	Because it's like, well, how does this play out?
	Like, either it's fantastic, in which case I've got a huge problem, or it's not even that great, in which case, why would I bother doing it?
	So it just doesn't seem to...
	Seem to play out. Sweetened condensed milk.
	Yeah, it's something like that.
	Oh, man. Well, when I'm old and my health doesn't matter, I'll probably try it.
	Like heroin, if it's legal.
	Anyway. All right.
	Let me just see any other comments, questions, issues.
	If you do have stories, you know, I'll keep the details anonymous.
	But if you do have stories, you can email me, callinatfreedomain.com.
	I'm really quite fascinated by this story.
	Death stuff and this inheritance stuff.
	I haven't had any issues with it within my own family, but I've experienced it sort of secondhand, and it's some pretty wild stuff.
	If you have stories, I'm kind of curious about it because I think it's really important to not live in anticipation of great things you can't control, really.
	I don't know if this makes any sense.
	I live in anticipation of good things.
	I'm looking forward to walking my daughter down the aisle when she gets married.
	I'm enjoying the process of aging enormously.
	I'm looking forward to...
	Every show that I do is just great, and I had some great news today, so I wanted to jump in and sort of share the joy.
	Hopefully I have, but yeah, I look forward to a lot of great things, but I don't look forward to great things that are beyond my control, and what happens with inheritance, what happens with your siblings, a lot of it's really beyond your control.
	You can have some influence, but not really control it.
	I just wanted to, I guess, maybe put out that slight caveat or maybe a little bit of a warning, but I am quite fascinated by all of this kind of stuff because I am at that kind of age where this stuff is happening and for all the people who, you know, your 20s, 30s, 40s, late teens, whatever, you know, it just seems like a long way away and it all seems very abstract and I understand that.
	I totally understand that. I mean, listen, I still read news stories about so-and-so in his late 40s and I'm like, ooh, I'm listening to this bit.
	I'm listening to a biography of Marlon Brando, the actor.
	I have to say the actor now because it's been a while, right?
	So Marlon Brando, and he was 47 when he made The Godfather.
	So, of course, hearing about his childhood and all of that is very interesting and how it affected his adult life.
	And I'll do a whole rant on this when I finish the biography, but...
	I'm listening to this literally like 47, man.
	That's kind of, oh my God, that's 10 years ago for me.
	Like I'm still, because I don't feel that different.
	I don't think I look that different.
	I am older, obviously.
	But, you know, because when you go bald young, you're not sitting there going, oh my God, I've lost more hair.
	It's like, yeah, that's decades ago, right?
	So, you know, other than, and your hair goes...
	I guess kind of whiter and all of that, but you don't really notice it when you keep it short because I'm bald, right?
	And I don't have a big beard that's gone white or anything, so I just kind of don't really notice it that much.
	So I understand, like it all, the inheritance stuff and living for inheritance and what happens when your parents die and there's property and play and all of that.
	Oof! That is really something.
	And yeah, it can happen with grandparents, but with grandparents, the fight is your parents have it, and they'll hopefully largely keep you out of it.
	But when your parents go, I don't...
	I mean, my daughter's got an interesting philosophy.
	She says, I don't look for the good, so it's a real plus when it happens.
	I aim for the neutral.
	That way, it's a real plus when something great happens.
	So, and something great did happen today and all of that.
	So, all good stuff.
	All right. Somebody says, don't feel much different from my 20s.
	I feel a lot better in a lot of ways.
	Yeah. Mental age froze around age 26.
	Oh, interesting. Wait, mine or yours?
	Hopefully, I've got a little more in the 31 years since.
	Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully.
	All right. Thanks, everyone.
	If you're listening to this later or if you're listening to this now, Freedom...
	And you find this stuff valuable. I think these mortality and inheritance and death stories, I think, are really important.
	So if you can go freedomain.com slash donate.
	We're trying to figure out how to tip on this Telegram platform.
	We'll sort of figure that out as we're going forward.
	Because I like being able to have the opportunity for voice chats, but, you know, I have to be responsible for the income.
	Steph, thank you for tonight's show on Telegram.
	You're welcome. My friend, this was an important discussion.
	This was a really interesting chat.
	I started reading this stuff, and, you know, when you host shows like this, there's always two parts of your brain.
	One part of you is like, man, this is really interesting to me, and the other is, boy, I hope this is interesting to other people as well, because, you know, when I share it, it is, and I'm glad that it was.
	So, yes, if you can...
	And listen, guys, the audiobook of...
	The Peaceful Parenting book is going out.
	I think we've got two hours or so done so far.
	So, freedomain.locals.com.
	You can actually listen to the prologue.
	And, boy, it's richly done, the audio.
	It's very nice. So, yeah, you can listen to the prologue at freedomain.locals.com.
	But, I mean, you should really get the audiobook as it comes out.
	I'm not going to release the audiobook to the general population for a while.
	And I've got a long way to go.
	It's a big book. But you should definitely get it.
	It's the wildest, greatest, deepest, and most powerful thing I've ever written.
	I'll just be straight up with you.
	It's not a sales pitch like I'm just telling you.
	I get emails after I started writing the book.
	Literally, I'm getting emails like, your show is so much better since you started writing this book.
	And I'm like, well, hopefully it was pretty good before, but I'm glad to hear that it's Because this book has opened up craters of depth within me that I'm still down there exploring, and I'm working on the second draft.
	All right, freedomain.com slash donate.
	Thank you everyone so much for your time and attention this evening, and this show and everyone who listens, everyone who gives me feedback, positive, negative, indifferent, you support.
	If you don't support, that's fine too.
	You all mean the world to me and I really, really thank you.
	Humbly, deeply, gratefully and passionately for your time and attention to this conversation.
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	And thank you guys so much.

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