Nov. 26, 2023 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:00:46
5317 STRENGTH DRAWS DYSFUNCTION
Sunday Morning Live 5 November 2023In this stream:"Your steel man argument for aggressive parenting blew me away.""Why do people post about about the atrocity of their life, then insult all who question them about it?""Do you have any comments on the massive increase in dissatisfaction with working corporate jobs? I notice this on X a lot. I find it annoying as I just got my first job and I feel very grateful and have lots of excitement about the future"And more!Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!Get access to the audiobook for my new book 'Peaceful Parenting,' StefBOT-AI, private livestreams, premium call in shows, and the 22 Part History of Philosophers series!See you soon!https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022
Unfortunately, you guys are just more generous and all of that.
So we're here.
If you want to donate, that would be fantastic.
Somebody wrote to me.
something interesting about the Peaceful Parenting book, which of course if you're a donor you can get at freedomain.locals.com.
You can also get it at subscribestar.com slash freedomain.
And he said, oh wait, those are all my notes for the French Revolution.
Oh, that's an address of a guy I'm sending some money to so he can do some therapy.
That stuff is still going on.
Here we go.
Just finished chapter six of peaceful parenting.
Your steel man argument for aggressive parenting blew me away.
So I just really dug into why you need to be aggressive with your children.
Your steel man argument for aggressive parenting blew me away.
See, here's the thing.
If you want to change people's minds, if you can represent their position fairly, it really opens up the listening.
It really, really opens up the listening.
Thanks, Joe.
Yes, let's start off the morning with a tip.
If you can present someone's argument to them in a way that doesn't mock, doesn't caricature, doesn't strawman, then they're going to listen.
Because if you give someone's argument and you strawman or you misrepresent, then you never get to the actual argument, you just get to definitions.
And it's sort of... Paula, you broke your wrist!
What?
How did you break your wrist?
I know how some of my male listeners may get carpal tunnel syndrome, but I don't know how my female listeners break their wrist.
That I don't know.
Anyway, we'll get to that.
He says, despite being a somewhat seasoned listener, I almost fell for it.
Your steelman argument for aggressive parenting.
The argument is cunningly crafted on the basis of false presuppositions that are never examined but very much embedded in our culture.
The total reversal of ethics when you talk about peaceful parents as people unwilling to do what's right in the long term for the sake of what's easy in the moment, i.e.
unwilling to discipline their children for fear of the discomfort that will inevitably follow, sent my head spinning.
You took playing the devil's advocate to an entirely new level.
After listening to this chapter, I feel this argument had to be in this book.
It would have been sorely incomplete without it.
Thank you so much.
Yeah.
Yes, well,
Roman is an update of my dream character from many years ago in therapy called Lord Gruul.
Roman, the character in The Future, who is a primitive tribal chieftain and a hyper-aggressive parent.
And David being somewhat of a stand-in for me, Roman really, really makes fun of David, really mocks and attacks David.
And
David of course has a daughter and Roman says, oh, you just, you just want to be her little buddy.
You just want to be her friend.
You don't want to be a parent.
You don't want to be an authority figure.
You've just created a live-in friend rather than a child.
And, uh, yeah.
So that's, uh, you've got to, you know, you're inner critics.
You've got to really listen to them.
Otherwise they will just trip you up and mess you up.
So.
Playing with a dog on a long green cord on 10 acres of green grass.
Now have green cast.
And of course, if you fell on the green grass, you would also have a green... Oh well, I think everybody knows how that sentence ends.
So, um, sorry to hear that.
Playing with a dog on a long green cord.
I don't quite, is a dog on a long green cord?
If you're on 10 acres of green grass, why would your dog be on a cord?
I don't, I mean, doesn't the dog run and roam and all of that?
Don't know.
Tripped cord should be orange.
Tripped.
Tripped cord should be orange.
Tripped.
I'm sorry, are you having a stroke as well?
I don't know what that means.
I don't know what that means.
But yeah, well, I'm sorry to hear that.
There is a... I should get started on pets.
I already had that rant.
I already had that.
I already had that rant.
All right.
Let's get to your questions, comments, issues, challenges, criticisms.
Anything that is on your minds.
How many cups of coffee today?
One cup of coffee, and this is a second cup, but it's decaf.
I will have four cups of coffee usually today, two caffeinated, two decaffeinated.
Do you know why there is a constant deluge?
Well, that's a good word.
Constant deluge of people who join Freedomain who do the following.
They post about an atrocity of their life.
Example, still calling their child a fetus after many years, then insult all who question them about it.
Afterwards, they continue to post about their daily lives and even have the gall to ask people wish them luck in their endeavors.
It feels like a sabotage of helplessness.
I'm not sure.
I'm sure you've seen this.
I, of course, check in on the community, but I haven't seen this.
Oh, and by the way, a second hour will be donor only.
The second hour will be done only.
Someone's posted something.
Sorry, I'm not sure if that's something for someone else.
Well, let's have a look at this, right?
Constantinople people who join Free Domain do the following.
They post about an atrocity of their life.
For example, still calling their child a fetus after many years.
I've never seen that.
Can someone link to that if you know it?
They call their child a fetus?
After many years?
Fetus example.
Thank you, I appreciate that.
All right.
Let's see.
Oh, okay, okay, right, right.
Well, okay.
Strength draws dysfunction.
Of course, right?
Strength draws dysfunction.
So imagine this.
You are from a poor family and you win the lottery, right?
How many people are going to be drawn towards you?
How many people are going to be drawn to connect with you, to ask you to... I mean, Bill Gates ended up having to have an underground parking lot pretty early in his Microsoft days, because if he'd park in the employee parking lot, people would be lined up between him and the Microsoft doors in order to ask him for money, to ask him for help, people who are desperate.
So, access draws deficiency.
I mean, you can see this happening with entire countries, right?
Excess draws deficiency.
And it's very, very destructive.
Or to put it another way, if you're perceived as a parent, people will act out their dysfunction.
So, we have a community full of people who are, you know, pretty successful, good self-knowledge, they understand philosophy, they're happy, most of you all seem to have good relationships, or at least you're not in bad relationships.
So, strength, access, wealth, confidence will all draw deficiency.
Or to put it another way, if you're strong, you're viewed as prey by those who are not strong.
Those who are needy, those who are unstable, those who are chaotic, and so on, right?
And it is one of the great challenges of strength to not provide access to the deficient.
Yeah, that's a great question about corporate jobs.
It is a great challenge of strength to not provide your excess to the deficient.
And this doesn't mean don't be kind, it doesn't mean don't be helpful.
I think all of that is the case.
But hit me with a why if you've ever, when you were in a state of success or excess, had people kind of float around wanting things, needing things, asking for things, either explicitly or implicitly.
Whenever you have an excess, it just draws people to get things from you, to want things from you, to, you know?
I mean, this can be as simple as, you know, buy me lunch, I'm broke.
It can be
As complex as, well, you're really good with women, so I want to go out with you so that I can be your wingman, and I can meet women because you're good with women, or whatever it is.
This is why having an excess sucks a lot of time, doesn't it?
Having an excess of love, of wisdom, of money, of success, of confidence, and it's like... The black hole and all the people come in.
They're like sperm trying to get into the egg.
This is why showing your excess... Oh my God!
I genuinely don't understand people who parade their excess on social media.
Hey, I love to get robbed and swarmed by people who don't have stuff because they want things.
I don't know, it's just weird to me.
It's just weird to me.
What do they say?
Stack sacks and stay humble.
Because you understand, when you have excess and people want things from you,
It's dangerous.
You know why?
Have you ever had this experience?
You're doing well, somebody wants something from you, you say no, what happens?
What happens?
Creating access on social media isn't necessarily bad if it's done in an artful slash tasteful manner.
Okay?
Good luck with that.
Anger, rage, attack, right?
People are nice to you until you don't fall for their manipulations, right?
And then you find out if they really like you.
And then you find out if they really like you.
You're doing well, somebody wants something, you say no.
And why do you say no?
Because you hate them?
No, because you care about them.
Right?
You say no to someone who wants something from you that's just like a freebie, you say no because you don't want to end up in a parent-infant relationship with them.
You don't want to infantilize them.
You don't want to pretend to be their parent.
You don't want to cripple their ability to get things for themselves.
Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.
Okay.
Why do you need to teach a man to fish?
I mean, I get the quote.
I understand the quote, blah, blah, blah, but it still puts an obligation on you.
I do this funny little thing in my life.
Let me, let me tell you, I do this funny little thing in my life, and maybe this is helpful to you.
Maybe this is helpful to you.
What I do as a whole is I treat everyone who's an adult in my life as an adult.
I treat everyone in my life who's an adult as an adult.
It's a pretty wild thing to do.
If somebody makes a good decision, hey, fantastic!
And if somebody makes a bad decision, oh, there's some sympathies, but I'm not rushing in to dig anyone out of holes.
Because everyone in my life who's an adult, I treat them as an adult.
Which means that if they do well, they should be proud of it.
And if they do badly, they should learn from it.
But I'm not going to sit there and police people and endlessly guide people and tell them this.
I mean, yeah, if they want advice, I'm happy to provide advice.
I can ask them for advice and so on.
But the advice is, you know, man, it's your sovereign life.
If you want pride at doing well, you've got to accept the opposite for doing badly.
And you know, you know generally what happens.
Let's take that fishing analogy, right?
You know what generally happens when somebody says, Hey man, you got a lot of fish.
I just wanted, I just want you to teach me how to fish, man.
And everything will, I just teach me how to fish, man.
Just teach me how to fish and I'll be fine.
It's just a trap, right?
You teach them how to fish and you catch a couple of fish for them.
They're like, hey man, thanks.
I think I got it.
And then the next time they're like, ah man, I'm not catching any fish.
Can you just give me one?
And they just keep trying.
They just keep trying to get stuff.
Sanity is like a parachute.
Just because you lost yours doesn't mean you can borrow mine.
Yeah.
My mother used to say, uh, insanity is hereditary.
We get it from our kids.
It's kind of true in a twisted way for her, right?
Sure, I mean it's a constant challenge in call-in shows, for sure.
A friend of mine, many years ago, he's not a friend anymore, was not doing well.
And I got him a job.
I got him a job interview, right?
Where I was working, right?
Because I was in the position of being able to hand out employment.
Because I've interviewed like a thousand people.
I've hired like a hundred people over the course of my career.
And so as a chief technical officer, I was in the position of being able to give people jobs.
And here's the thing, right?
I mean, if a friend got me a job,
Then I would consider it really incumbent upon me to do super extra well because my friend had put his reputation on the line to get me a job, which would mean that I would have to do, like I'd have to go above and beyond, I'd have to do super incredibly fantastically well because my friend had gotten me the job.
Does this sort of make sense?
However, however,
Some of my former friends did not particularly feel that way.
They were like, Hey man, I'm friends with the boss.
I can, I can just show up whenever I want.
I didn't know.
It's just weird to me.
It's just, it's a different mindset.
It's just a different mindset.
I have a mindset of.
I mean, I was thinking, I was reading about this the other day, how sort of a mindset of gratitude is actually physically good for your heart.
I do have a mindset of gratitude.
I'm grateful for my wife.
I'm grateful for these great conversations.
I'm grateful for my health, of course, post-cancer and all of that.
So I'm just grateful.
And if someone gets me a job, I'm grateful.
And I want to do extra well, too.
And also, you may want that friend at some point to get you another job, right?
In which case, well, maybe you should do a good job, right?
I got a job interview at a company I was working at for a friend.
And the manager who was going to hire him sent him an email, sent him another email.
Guy never even responded to the email.
And then he was, uh, you know, he was, he was running low on cash and I'm like, man, I did my part.
I mean, you didn't even respond to that guy's email.
Oh yeah.
I just, I guess I just kind of forgot.
It's like, well, you know, if, if you're kind of low on money and you want someone to help get you a job and you don't even respond to the email to get the job, then you wouldn't have been a good employee anyway.
Right.
I also got a woman, I guess I was in my early 20s, I got a woman a job and I said, but you can't quit.
Like you have to work at least four months at the job.
Like I'm willing to recommend you for the job, but they just had someone quit.
So I really need you to not quit.
Right?
Because if I'm going to recommend you right after they had someone quit, you need to at least work the summer or whatever it was.
Right?
And a week in, she got a better job offer and quit.
And it was like, well, okay, that's... And what do I know?
What do you say?
What do you say?
Okay.
So you can, you made a commitment to me and therefore I recommend it to you.
And it just, it teaches you about integrity.
It teaches you about empathy.
But, yeah, I mean, the number of times I have tried to help people, even through this show, right?
Give people money and so on.
And sometimes it works out really well.
Some people, you, responsibly, they, like, I'm just sending a check off today to a guy who needs help with his therapy bills.
He was a caller from a while ago.
Yeah, fantastic, right?
Other people, it just doesn't work out, right?
When I interview a candidate for our company, and he's two minutes late at the interview, it's already a bad start.
I mean, these things could happen.
They can.
It really depends on how he handles it, right?
If he's like, I'm so sorry, blah, blah, blah, right?
I mean, there can just be weird stuff on the highway that's just, I don't know.
Oh, you should have left a day before or something.
I mean, I get that it's important, but you know, the lateness thing.
I mean, I was a minute late for the show this morning.
I was just I just got completely messed up this morning because you know we lost an hour or gained an hour or whatever it was and so I'm like oh I have time and I wanted to expand on something I wanted to expand on the Jacobins in the French Revolution so I did more research and I
I recorded a bit and then I had to fix that up and then insert it into the right place in the main show, because I'm on show four of the French Revolution, which is almost four hours, I guess, at this point.
It's going to be a lot longer by the time we're done.
But man, it's great stuff.
Of course, you can get that at freedomain.locals.com.
So I was just like, oh, God, what have I done?
And then I'm like, oh, my God, I haven't even eaten anything.
So I have a banana.
And right.
So.
All right.
So yeah, sorry it was a little late, but it's worth it.
It'll be worth it.
When you were doing research for the Peaceful Parenting book, did you come across R.I.E.
parenting?
If so, what are your thoughts on it?
No, I didn't... I didn't... I didn't research other parenting methods.
This is not a review of other parenting methods.
Because no other parent... What is the one thing
That every other parenting method is going to miss.
What is the one thing that they don't have?
Yeah, UPB, Non-Aggression Principle Philosophy.
They don't have practicality, right?
Well, your kids will turn out better if you do this, and kids will blah blah blah.
But that's all pragmatism.
I need arguments.
You're ready for a statement that's gonna blow your mind.
I can tell you the whole business plan of what I've been doing here for so long.
No, no, not the 500-year thing.
So, people say, well, you should treat your children well because, you know, it's nice and it's practical and they'll be happier and they'll turn out better and so on, right?
But, there are good outcomes is not a moral argument.
There are good outcomes is not a moral argument.
Things will be better, your children will be happier, they'll like you more, you'll have a better relationship with them, and blah blah blah blah blah, right?
Why is that not a moral argument?
You should be nice to your babies and kill children and you should negotiate with them because they'll turn out better, you'll be happier, it'll be nicer.
But what happens if somebody says, I don't agree?
I don't agree.
You're pampering them, you're turning them into spoiled brats, they don't have any consequences, they won't ever learn any discipline.
What if somebody disagrees?
What if somebody just, nope, I don't agree.
I don't agree.
I don't agree.
Now, people have always tried to overcome this, I don't agree, right?
I mean, some religions overcome by saying, oh, you don't agree?
Well, you're going to hell then.
Okay, well, then you should agree, right?
Or some people say, well, it can't be universalized.
If you cheat on your exams, what if everyone cheated on their exams?
It can't be, it's like,
What if you don't agree with the universalization stuff?
What if you don't agree?
The entire purpose of what I'm doing is to make arguments that you can't reject without being insane.
To make arguments that you can't reject without being insane, without courting insanity.
And this is why even the people I disagree with the most, when I give them the argument for UPB, they can't disagree.
There's no way out.
Oh, I hate that little escape hole, the fog, the spawn spell, the misty step.
They're gone.
They just, and you grab and so off it goes.
No loophole, no loophole.
If there's a loophole, I've done something wrong.
I've done something wrong.
I have made a foundational error.
I'm not interested in preaching to the choir.
I mean, who's going to be drawn to treating babies nicely?
Nice people.
Okay, great.
So you've just written a diet book for thin people.
You have written a book trying to convince people to exercise and you're handing it out at a bodybuilder competition.
Ooh, what a great person you are.
How amazing.
How fantastic.
I want the people who violently disagree with me to have no escape.
No escape.
Now, what they can do is they can rage quit, they can storm out, but that's fine.
I mean, everybody can do that, right?
But there's no...
Like the exploitation, right?
Exploitation!
I'm being exploited!
Well, that's not an objective definition.
I mean, anybody can feel exploited.
I'm underpaid!
You're overcharging!
These are all just feelings.
Manuel, why do you keep repeating this thing that I've already answered?
I don't understand this.
Like, you've now repeated this three times.
Did you not notice that I actually responded to that?
It's kind of annoying, to be honest with you.
I don't know why you keep repeating this.
Just finished chapter six of Peaceful Parenting, your steel man argument.
Why?
Why do you keep copy-pasting it?
I don't understand.
I'm trying to get people's comments and questions, and if you keep copy-pasting this wall of text... Anyway.
Yeah, there's no way out except insanity.
Right?
There's no way out except insanity.
Now, you say, ah, but they don't feel crazy.
It's like, well, that's... I don't care.
I mean, what do I care about their feeling?
She says that two and two make five.
Openly, directly, then clearly they're crazy, right?
All right, Somebody Sayers.
Do you have any comments on the massive increase in dissatisfaction with working corporate jobs?
I notice this on X a lot.
I find it annoying.
I just got my first job and I feel very grateful and have lots of excitement about the future.
Right.
Right.
I was always perfectly thrilled to get jobs myself.
I was always perfectly thrilled to get jobs.
I mean, even when I got a job weeding people's gardens and I've got a job washing cars and like dishwashers.
I was, you know, I didn't stay at the dishwasher job.
That was too much, even for me.
But I was always grateful to get the jobs and particularly when I got to work in offices and all of that.
So there's a couple of things going on with people's dissatisfaction about work, some of which, in my view, are legitimate, and some of them are illegitimate.
But is this an interesting topic?
Hit me with a why if this is an interesting topic about this quiet quitting, this job dissatisfaction stuff.
Right, okay.
Hit me with one to 10
How bored were you regularly as a child?
Were you bored?
Were you 10, 9, 8, 0?
Right.
Most of the time?
Right.
Trying to explain to my daughter what was going on in my childhood is
Really hard.
I mean, I grew up in England.
Of course, I was in boarding school.
There was no television, no radio, no music, no board games.
I mean, there was a game.
Occasionally, we would play games, but that's about it.
We would see a movie maybe once a month.
But you just had to figure out your own stuff.
Of course, being broke.
And in an apartment building, you just gotta try and find some way to entertain yourself.
This is why Dungeons & Dragons was so cool because one guy had a couple of books and we just went from there.
I was willing to spend a couple of bucks on dice because I got years and years of entertainment out of it.
My friends and I, we would go garbage picking and create our own games.
And I mean, yeah, we were bored.
We were bored.
Who's bored now?
Who's bored now?
Yeah, we played for sure, but sometimes you just... I remember my friends and I sitting out back of the Don Mills Mall for like an hour or an hour and a half trying to figure out the name for our bicycle gang.
So, kids grow up with tablets, they grow up with flashing light, board games, they grow up with giant screen movies and infinite video, and... I mean, the opportunities for stillness, for quiet, for contemplation, for self-reflection, for boredom!
Yeah, Manhunt was very fun.
We used to call it Red Rover.
Red Rover, Red Rover, I call Billy over.
Yeah, we would.
I mean, I write about this in my novel almost about the games that we would create, the war games that we would create and all the elaborate rules we would create and how we would enforce them and all of that.
Because we had no money.
We had no money.
I really didn't have toys as a kid.
I painted, I had a chalkboard and I would do elaborate drawings and I painted and all of that, but I don't really have... I had a box of hand-me-down... You ever get this Franken-Lego?
Like just a... nothing ever fits together, things are different sizes, but you know, I had this box of Lego and I'd play with that sometimes.
We'd play in a grove of trees, pretend we had a great fort that needed to be maintained.
Yeah, you create all of this sort of stuff, yeah.
Logic puzzles with matchsticks, yeah.
When I lived in Canada, there were some really great Indian girls who lived down the hall, and they had a game of Monopoly, and we would play Monopoly.
We didn't have Monopoly at my place, but yeah.
So, kids are, I mean, they're growing up hyper-stimulated, and well, they're hyper-stimulated at home, and they're incredibly bored at school.
When I lived in Canada, yeah, yeah.
They're incredibly bored at school.
School is just mind crushing.
It's like this soft, velvet, vice-like fog that just squeezes the life out of you, like blood coming out of an accordion.
Oh my gosh.
It's just horrifying.
It's just horrifying.
No, I say when I lived in Canada, because I lived in England.
I also lived for a short period in South Africa.
So yeah, I just, when I lived in Canada, just so you understand.
Does growing up in an apartment make it worse?
No, I loved growing up in an apartment in many ways because we were on an apartment which had a whole bunch of apartments around on what's called an estate.
And so everywhere you went out, there were kids to play with.
Like, and of course I was just at the tail end of the baby boom or beginning of Gen X. So everywhere I went, there were just hordes of kids to play with.
So when,
When young people get a job, well, they get a lot of vanity, they get a lot of praise.
Well, not the boys so much, but the girls in particular.
They get a job and they feel like they shouldn't have to work.
Why also we defer working for so long now.
It's one of the things that happens with mass immigration is the jobs that used to go to teenagers now go to immigrants.
And so teenagers used to get jobs and of course those on the left want to keep teenagers from getting jobs.
They want to keep young people from getting jobs as long as humanly possible so they don't get that, you know, everybody remember that that
Freefall feeling when you get your first paycheck, like your first real paycheck with deductions.
Do you ever... Do you remember that?
I remember when I got my first job at $40,000 a year.
It seemed like all the money in the world.
And then you get that paycheck and it's like... What the ever-living hell?
So, you know, they want to... You want to keep people on the receiving end of government money for as long as possible.
That way you bypass their critical faculties and you wrap them in with guilt for receiving stuff, right?
So, when they get to work, they have to subject themselves to some kind of discipline.
Pay is not great.
Housing prices are ungodly.
Housing prices are absolutely ungodly.
And I mean, for me, it wasn't so bad because, I mean, I was still in my mid-twenties.
I was living in a room in a house with like five other people because I was doing my graduate school and all of that.
And I never bought a place.
I moved in with my wife.
She had a condo when we got married.
But no, I've never, I never bought a place and never really thought about it.
Didn't have a car.
So I was just, I mean, thrilled to be doing graduate school.
Then I was thrilled to have a job and then thrilled to be an entrepreneur.
But yeah, I didn't particularly care how expensive houses were to buy or condos were to buy it.
But of course, even rent now is completely mental, right?
Which is inevitable, right?
Given the policies.
So, what's happened is, kids are overstimulated, they get to work, they're understimulated, they get their first deductions, they're horrified, there's a lot of discipline, they actually have to produce, although I know there's a lot of frou-frou HR jobs where you don't have to, but you know, and then what are they working for?
What are they working for?
You ever have that thing, where it's like, you get that zoom out in your life, you get that zoom out, like I'm getting up, I'm going to work, I'm coming home, playing a couple of video games, you know, chatting with some friends, I go to sleep, I get up, I go to work, like it feels a little bit like Groundhog Day, and there's this zoom out, you say, okay, the fuck am I doing all this for?
What am I, uh, what am I doing?
Where's this going?
And you know what that is?
That's the first necrotic sniff of the tsunami of mortality rolling down from the end of your life saying, would you like to build towards something?
Anything?
Anything?
What's the goal here?
What's the plan?
What are we doing all this for?
Why are we drawing breath?
What's the purpose of all of this?
I produce.
I consume.
I sleep.
I wake.
I produce.
I consume.
I sleep.
I wake.
I produce.
I consume.
I sleep.
I wake.
Why?
Why?
Why?
Now of course some people can answer that why with big moral crusades and so on, but that's not the case for most of us.
Why?
Why?
Produce.
Consume.
Sleep.
Wake.
Produce.
Consume.
Sleep.
Wake.
Produce.
Consume.
Sleep.
Wake.
You can keep that voice quieted for years with addiction, yeah.
Yeah, why?
What's the answer for most people as to why they work?
Why do most people... I mean, why do most men go to work?
Why do most men build things?
Why do they produce more than they consume?
No, not to survive.
Animals do that.
Yeah, for the family.
There are still so many people stuck in the toddler mindset that happiness is the serving of the self.
Do you follow?
To be happy is to serve yourself.
To be happy is to buy something for yourself.
To be happy is to achieve something for yourself.
To be happy is to go on a vacation that you enjoy.
To be happy is to get someone to date you.
To be happy is to serve the self.
Does that make sense?
Do you know people like that?
Are you someone like that?
That the happiness is service of the self?
Right.
Why is that such a contradiction?
Happiness is service to the self.
Why is that such a contradiction?
Why is that such a paradox?
Can't be happy alone.
It does not lead to happiness by definition.
Why?
Why is it such a paradox to say service to the self will make me happy?
Because short-term happiness does not last.
I've never thought about it, but it's true.
Happiness is serving myself.
Wow.
You can't receive love without providing value to others.
Well, I mean, but if you buy stuff, you're providing value to whoever you're, who's selling it to you.
There you go.
P-dot.
Boom!
Laser target right at the core.
Because the reason you exist is because someone else did not only think about themselves.
Right?
Right.
No matter how bad your parents, there was sacrifice in having you.
There was.
My mom was not a great mom, to put it mildly, but my dad was not a great dad.
Did they sacrifice things to have me?
Yes, they did.
Yes, they did.
Did they like that sacrifice?
No.
Did they resent it?
No.
Yes.
Did they get enraged about it sometimes?
Yeah, I guess.
But nonetheless,
Why are we here?
Because other people didn't only live for themselves.
Stop stealing from eternity to serve your nerve endings.
Stop stealing from sacrifice in order to sacrifice your future.
It's selfish because you only exist because your parents sacrificed things to have you.
And if all you do is serve yourself, you are consuming about 14 billion years, not kidding, 14 billion years, sorry, 4 billion years of sacrifice.
You're consuming 4 billion years of sacrifice to tickle your own dopamine receptors and fall off the cliff to nothingness.
If life is a joy,
Create joy.
If life is happiness, create happiness.
If life is a blessing, create the blessing.
Pass it on.
If life is misery, well, maybe it's because you're only living for yourself and not doing it for anything else.
Now, do you know why people are so tempted to live only for their own satisfaction?
Why is it that people don't want to serve others?
Children, community, family, whoever, right?
Easy?
Maybe.
Because their parents didn't serve them?
Well, all parents serve you to some degree.
All parents serve you to some degree.
Have you heard about the way that I talk about where people get stuck, where people get stopped?
When I meet people, I look at their mental age, and very few people get to maturity.
Very few people get to adulthood, like true adulthood, and particularly as you age, right?
We all know the people in their 60s or even their 70s who are still kind of giddy idiots, right?
And of course you see women in their 30s who are still acting like they're 18.
The age stop.
The age stop.
Where do people get stuck?
Where do people get stopped?
Yeah, permanent adolescents.
There's some reason they're not able to get to the next stage in life.
And I saw these people all the time in the business world.
You know where they got stopped.
You know where they get stopped, you know where they get stuck.
Peter Pan symbol syndrome is real, yes, that's right.
They didn't get what they needed as children.
Oh my gosh, are you guys still doing dominoes?
Well, this person is the way they are because of their childhood.
Is this really where we are?
How many people think that?
Oh, this person is the way they are because of their childhood.
Let me ask you, am I the way, am I a peaceful parent because of my childhood?
Am I the way I am because of my childhood?
It's not what happens to you that defines you.
It's not what happens to you that defines you.
Please, people, I'm begging.
Cast that out like the demon it is.
It's not what happens to you that defines you.
What defines you?
Not how you react.
A reaction is a passive thing.
I push you, you fall back.
That's a reaction.
I yell at you, you yell back.
That's a reaction.
Well, you're not defined by anything that happens to you as a child.
You know that, right?
You're not defined by ANYTHING that happens to you as a child.
How could you be defined by things you did not choose?
Am I defined by having a crazy mother?
No, I didn't choose having a crazy mother, and I chose to fight it as much as possible.
Nothing that happens to you as a child defines you.
And this is true even for all the great successes, if you have a wonderful loving family and so on.
I do, you know, say to my daughter, remember how lucky you are.
You pulled some great parents, you're lucky.
Other people are unlucky.
And make sure you don't feel automatically superior to people with whom you have better luck.
Do not feel automatically superior to people if you have better luck, and do not feel automatically inferior to people if you have worse luck.
Steph, has your daughter seen bad parenting in real life?
Yeah.
Nobody we know, of course, but yeah, I mean, we're out in the world, we see it.
The only thing that defines you, and I mean, I know it's tempting to say your choices define you, but a lot of choices are reactions.
And people still make choices who don't think.
The only thing that defines you is whether you think or not.
The only thing that defines you is whether you think or not.
That's it.
Now, you'll make choices, of course, but even people who don't think make choices, right?
I mean, a lot of it's reactive, but they make choices.
Thanks for your tip, Wallace, I appreciate that.
I mean, I had a bad childhood.
My choice, or my thought was,
I want to avoid that.
I want to get away from it, I want to avoid it, I want to put it behind me, I want to move on like it didn't happen, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
And, you know, I read books and through Ayn Rand I got to Nathaniel Brandon, who's a very good psychological writer, and he was like, you know, you've got to accept your feelings, you've got to, you know, your feelings are there to help you, and so rather than just push away my feelings, I accepted them, you've got to make these choices, you've got to think, you've got to research, you've got to learn, you've got to understand, you've got to penetrate.
Question!
Be skeptical!
Think!
Think!
That's the choice.
That's the choice.
So why don't people want to serve others?
And it's not because nobody served them and it wasn't because they were exploited as children.
These are all causal things and you must, in my humble opinion, you must cast out these causal explanations because they strip people of choice, of free will.
And you understand, if you say to someone, you are, because of your childhood, they will exploit the living shit out of you and I'm not kidding about that.
If you take away people's free will because of their bad childhoods, they will use their bad childhoods to exploit you.
I mean, have you heard of this?
On this show, in call-in shows, in other conversations that I've had, or you've had, or people have had, where you confront your bad parents and they say, well I had a bad childhood.
I had a bad childhood.
So then you say, oh, well, you had a bad childhood.
So, uh, okay.
I guess I'll continue to see you and I'll forgive you and just get exploited.
Does this make sense?
This is a domino free zone.
We don't give childhood.
Physics over adulthood.
Do you follow?
Like we don't give childhood inescapable laws of physics dictating and dominating adulthood.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
Absolutely not.
Because that is to say that the bad childhood will never, ever, ever end.
If my bad childhood produced gravity, I will never escape gravity.
It's a law.
It's dominoes.
It's physics.
The accidents of childhood cannot produce the physics of adulthood.
Cannot.
Will not.
In this conversation.
People only serve themselves because of a false thought.
A lazy thought.
One lazy thought.
And the lazy thought is this.
I can backfill.
My parents didn't serve me, so if I just keep serving myself, I'll fix it.
I don't have to process the feelings, I don't have to get angry, I don't have to get sad, I don't have to get upset, I don't have to confront everyone.
My parents didn't serve me, so if I just serve myself, I'll fix it!
Whoops.
But you know that's why your parents didn't serve you, right?
You're not fixing it, you're reproducing it.
Does this make sense?
You're not fixing it.
You're reproducing it.
And people have, because they take the physics thing, right?
Oh, if I didn't eat much, then I can eat more.
Like, I didn't eat all day, so maybe I'll have a bigger dinner or whatever, right?
Okay, that can work out to some degree.
But you don't sit there and say, well, I didn't, right, I do, what do I do, 30 pounds, right?
Shoulder lifts, right?
Oh, I didn't, uh, work out at all last week.
Normally I do, uh, three workouts a week and I'll do two sets of 12, right?
I say, well, I didn't work out at all last week.
So what I'll do is instead of doing 30 pounds, I'll just do 90 pounds.
Cause I'm just going to backfill.
Oh, I get.
I'm careful with the shoulder lifts.
I got it.
I've been doing them for like 40 years, so I'm good.
I appreciate thee.
I appreciate that, though.
Yeah, it's like... You're good form and you're good.
It's easy to... I get it's easy to injure the shoulder.
I get it.
I appreciate that, but I'm good.
The only time I ever got a permanent injury was in an aerobics class, believe it or not.
Anyway, that's not particularly relevant right now.
So you can't backfill!
I didn't get enough to eat as a child.
What is the backfill statement?
I didn't get enough to eat as a child.
What is the backfill statement?
I'll eat a lot now!
Does that solve the problem?
Or, and you can guess how much this is personal to me, I didn't get a lot of attention as a child.
So I'll be an in-your-face, really funny, loud attention whore now.
I will get your attention now.
I didn't get a lot of attention as a child, but I'll be loud and funny and do karaoke and act and I'll get your attention now!
You know, that's just all, again, perfectly theoretical for me.
Never had any experience with that.
Don't know what that... I've heard of it.
I've heard tell, and I've read tales.
But, uh...
I showed them, yeah, yeah.
My mother said, don't think!
Okay, well, that's actually one of the best commandments she ever gave me, was to not, not think.
Yeah, and of course, the people who produce a lot of content, they get on this treadmill, they get exhausted, they get burned out, they get depressed, they get anxious.
Why?
I produce a lot of content, that doesn't mean that that's the case with me.
Because they think that by getting a lot of attention as adults, it'll make up for the lack, the attention they didn't get as children, but it won't!
It won't.
All they're doing is reproducing it, but in their audience.
Ooh, if I get a million views on this video, I won't have had a bad childhood.
Nope.
All that means is that you're now reproducing not being paid attention to because the million people who are paying attention to you, you're not paying attention to them back.
So you're just reproducing not being paid attention to in your audience.
Does that make sense?
My father didn't pay much attention to me as a child, say the women, so I will now use my skin to get male attention as an adult.
Right.
I mean, we could go through tons of this kind of stuff.
I was broke as a kid, I'll go make a lot of money now.
My parents were over-attentive, so I'm gonna isolate myself now.
His father used to tell him he would never amount to anything and general abuse now that XQC is rich.
He loves him.
I mean, there's a lot of falsehoods in that statement, but I'm sure you're aware of it now.
I'm sure you're aware of it, right?
So, people don't want to go through the pain of having been ignored by their parents
And having been, um, unprovided for by their parents.
So they say, oh, well, I'll just provide for myself now.
Because my parents didn't care for me that much.
I'll just, I'll just care for myself and it'll fix it.
Because I was starved, I'll overeat.
But it's not caring.
It is not caring for yourself to only live for yourself.
It's not caring for yourself to only live for yourself.
My parents loved TV more than me.
Well, they probably... There's a lot of soft sadism in dysfunctional parents.
A lot of soft sadism.
A lot of soft sadism.
Do you know what that... I don't know if I... I don't want to repeat stuff if you've heard it before.
Do you know what the soft sadism stuff is?
It's when they clearly communicate to you how unimportant you are.
But without saying you're unimportant.
Right, so if your mom's yelling at you, the phone rings, hi, you know, hi, how you doing?
Right, and then she's saying, oh yeah, no, I could change my mood anytime, but you're not worth it, honestly, I act out on you.
Oh, television's really interesting.
Well, I'm just gonna watch television when you're upset about something.
And it's soft sadism, because they feel power.
You wanting them, and them not providing, gives them a sense of power.
My mom would tell me multiple times she would rather be at work all day than with me.
Right.
Soft sadism.
Wait until the commercial break!
Wow, I find this candy crush really fascinating.
Much more interesting than you, right?
Acting bored whenever you express enthusiasm?
Absolutely!
Not listening to you at all?
Not asking you how your day was?
Being dissociated and blank-faced when you're trying to tell them something?
Oh yeah, it's all soft sadism.
It's the elevation of one personality at the expense of another, right?
Which is parasitical and predatory.
Yeah, sports are on to make some sound.
Shh!
Yeah.
Sports are really important.
Because I'm absolutely sure that these athletes will come and visit me in the old age home.
I'll just call them up and say, hey man, part of your paycheck was me watching the sports game, so you gotta come and wipe my ass in the old age home.
And they'll be like, who are you?
I don't, what?
Uh, the news, always hush, yeah.
I mean, I was guilty of this a little bit myself, of course, when I was younger, where, you know, track of the show and dealing with problems.
I mean, you know, you gotta work, so it's not the end of the world, but, yeah.
Or, when your parents have much stronger emotional reactions to other things than you, they cry at a movie, or they yell really passionately at a sports game, or, like, they just have a really strong emotional reaction and involvement and connection with things that aren't even you!
The Kardashians!
Did you know what she said?
It's like, you know, I was saying something to you yesterday and you yawned, but the Kardashians!
I don't know.
Wild.
Wild.
Oh, with my mother, it was always the latest guy, right?
The new guy.
The guy.
He's really important, because he'll be gone in a month.
Well, that means I'll be gone in 20 years, so I guess I'll just be patient.
So, politics was really important to my dad, much more so than talking to my brother and I. Yeah, I just, I had a call-in show with, it was a pretty wild show, it's not been published yet, and it was a woman who was having problems with her husband, and her husband had never even heard the show, had no idea who I was, and decided to join the call anyway, which was interesting.
It was a real two different levels of knowledge and all of that, it was quite a navigation, and yeah, that was it.
Politics, we talked about politics, we just talked about politics and economics,
It's not up to listen to yet, no.
I mean, I'm producing a multitude.
Where can I find all the call-ins?
In one place?
Well, you can just go to fdrpodcast.com and search for call-in, although we're working on more of a natural language query for all of that, right?
I heard some dude yesterday saying raising kids is boring and it's a woman's job to do.
Hey man, who's got a problem with that?
Totally fine, as long as he's willing to universalize it.
You know what, taking care of elderly parents is also boring, right?
And it's a nurse's job to do.
I mean, as long as he's willing to be like, hey man, if you're kind of old and daughtery and repeating yourself a bit and having senior moments and you're incontinent, it's like, that's kind of boring.
So, hey man, if he's willing to live and die by the sword, I can at least respect the integrity.
Okay, let's see here.
Yes, so I got a bunch of questions.
We're going to go to donors now.
And this won't be published in the general stream.
I'm going to go donors now.
And of course, if you want to, you got a minute.
And if you want to join, I will give you the link.
If you want to sign up again, you can sign up, you can listen, and all of that.
It's free to try, and I'll post the link right here, right now.
You can join a 22-part history of philosophy, a series of StephBot AI private live streams, premium call-in shows, audiobooks, my new book, Peaceful Parenting, and now also the multi-hour presentation on the truth about the French Revolution, which is my
Roman Empire update it is where I think some of the juiciest parts of my brain mash together in terms of philosophy, family, history, politics, and all of that.
