July 20, 2024 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:39:23
5572 Do NOT Mess With Your Conscience!
Friday Night Live 19 July 2024In this podcast, we cover a range of topics including Bitcoin prices, meritocracy, challenges for small business owners, and humorous aspects of aging like ear hair growth. Discussions also touch on tech troubles, childhood trauma, coping mechanisms, societal pressures, narcissism, and personal anecdotes. We share a personal story about a son's interaction, explore astrology's influence, and engage with audience questions. The episode ends with warm wishes and an invitation for listener participation in future events, fostering a sense of community throughout our discussions.Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!NOW AVAILABLE FOR SUBSCRIBERS: MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING' - AND THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI AND AUDIOBOOK!Also get the Truth About the French Revolution, the interactive multi-lingual philosophy AI trained on thousands of hours of my material, private livestreams, premium call in shows, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!See you soon!https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022
Welcome, welcome to your Friday Night Live with me, Stefan Molyneux.
What is it they say?
Is that old joke?
No, no, no.
It's it's Steven with a P-H.
Fat-even?
Cheesy, but fine.
Cheesy, but fine.
All right.
Just before we get going.
Oh, hello, Bitcoin.
How lovely.
9184892.
Not bad.
Not bad.
Not bad at all.
I actually went to a Bitcoin meetup last night.
Believe it or not.
Believe it or don't.
Nowhere in the annals of human history.
All right.
Cue tech rant about global internet outage this morning.
Yeah.
Anti-meritocracy is just a form of suicide, right?
People's lives, billions of people's lives, literally depend upon their being a meritocracy.
But people, apparently, they're not keen on the meritocracy.
It's actually what keeps them alive.
It's like setting fire to the farmer's fields and expecting to get some food.
So, when people say, well, we should have something other than a meritocracy, what they're saying is, I prefer something other than life.
I guess people would rather die than think, which is generally the pattern of society as a whole.
So there it is.
You'd like more information about the proposed meetup?
So yes, you can go, please, to fdrurl.com slash meetup.
Do that right now.
Do that right now, please, I'm begging you.
Because we need to have a certain number in order to make the meetup happen.
And that number, naturally, is 666.
Now that number is a target that we need in order to have the meetup, and it's going to be Central Florida, 6th, 7th, and 8th of December 2024, and
If you can go and let us know if you can come and also what you'd like.
It's not just a can you come, there's a whole bunch of questions, not a whole bunch of questions, but some questions.
If you could go to fdrurl.com meetup and please to answer the questions and that way we can decide if the meetup is going to happen.
I'm not trying to make a big money maker here, but it just would be great fun to meet everyone.
Just so you know.
Just so you know.
It'll be at least a couple of hundred bucks to attend.
Kids will be cheaper.
And there are five questions, if you could please do that.
That way we know.
That way you know.
Now, wouldn't it be great to meet?
I mean, it would be great to meet.
We've spent all of this time together.
What will the weather be like in Florida that time of year?
Well, it is a bit of the rainy season, but we're going to have a big old tent.
And the weather should be alright.
It's not as cold as it gets in December.
I mean, relatively cold for Florida, so... So, yes, we need to know within the next couple of days how many people will be coming, and that way we can start to make plans.
If it doesn't work this time, we'll try for maybe earlier next year.
And what would the weather be like in Florida that time of year?
You know, there's this wonderful place called the internet that can give you all of these details completely free of charge.
All right, and Sunday, yeah, we'll do the first hour regular show, second hour in case anybody is interested.
I'll go donor only and I'll be happy to take your questions on anything including politics.
Including politics.
Oh yeah, it would be great.
It would be great to meet up.
It would be great to meet up.
I have incredibly fond and great memories of the early meetups in the Free Domain Radio, back when it was Free Domain Radio in that community.
I just have so many great memories and we had just a blast.
No, I'd love to meet everyone.
We'll do some philosophy, we'll do some karaoke, we'll have kids games, and we could do Q&As, we could do whatever our hearts desire.
We will get into and get going on.
So, that will be a lot of fun, and I hope that you will... I mean, I hope you'll be able to join us, and I hope that you will be able to...
I mean, it wouldn't be great too, we get a lot of material.
Alright, good evening from the small business hating town, Roanoke, Texas.
Uh, yeah, well... The, uh... People don't like...
Small business owners as a whole.
I mean, the local community likes them and their employees like them, but people don't like, governments don't like small business owners, which is what you saw very much during the small business owner punishment during COVID.
So why, why, why do you think, why do you think that governments don't like small business owners?
Just out of curiosity.
Why do you think?
Because there's a constant dislike of small business owners coming from the government.
Meritocracy, like the system used to hire last week's secret service team assigned to American Republican presidential candidate.
Yes, well that changed pretty quickly afterwards, right?
Yeah.
Small business owners have too much independence.
Jealousy, yeah.
Voluntary exchange of money rather than by coercion.
It's hard here in the UK for independent businesses with tax.
Very true.
Independence from the welfare state in the corporate world.
Plenty of small businesses are harder to control.
Support businesses too independent.
Yeah, and they tend to vote Conservative.
So, big business governments have no particular problems with big businesses.
In fact, they quite like big businesses in many ways.
They have no particular problems with big businesses because they can impose their rules and regulations on big businesses.
They're big targets.
They can be threatened and bullied and controlled and they donate and they enjoy getting government benefits and preferential rules.
So, big business, you know, the union of government and big business, it's called fascism, right?
Kind of where we're drifting.
Small businesses tend to be kind of independent.
And I said this the other day in a show about how when you genuinely help people, and small businesses do a lot of that, when you genuinely help people as a whole, the ridiculous, pitiful, pathetic substitute called the welfare state holds no appeal to you.
I mean, I've helped, you know, with your help as well.
Let's take a bow as well.
But I've helped millions of people over the course of my life.
I've helped people in the business world.
I've hired a hundred people or so and helped them get out of student poverty into the middle class.
I've helped the environment with the software that I wrote.
It was very good at helping big businesses minimize their environmental impacts.
I've helped the environment.
I've helped people, I've helped friends by getting them jobs or giving them business advice.
I've helped, of course, thousands of people through the call-in shows and tens of millions of people who listen.
So I've done a lot of good and helped a lot of people in the world.
And when you actually do that kind of good, when people come and lecture you about being a bad person, I mean, it's like, well, what good have you done?
Right?
It's sort of a big basic question.
I used to have these when I would debate people.
It's like, business is like this, and there's exploitation, it's like, okay, have you actually run a business?
I mean, you're going to tell me about the business world, you're going to tell me about the economy?
I used to have this when I would debate people in, I mean, I've been working since I was 10 years old.
I don't want to sound all kinds of Dickensian, but I was working since I was 10 years old.
And so when people would start to tell me about the economy and this that and the other, I'd be like, yeah, but you know, have you really done it?
You know, I was being lectured to about the economy and Marxism when I was in my twenties by people who'd never actually had a job.
It's just funny.
It's just funny.
I was a member of the working class, did manual labor, hard labor, gritty labor, physical labor.
I dug ditches, I used flamethrowers on the permafrost to get through to the gold, or at least where we thought there might be gold.
I humped around giant drill bits on snowshoes.
I drove snowmobiles loaded with heavy equipment across frozen lakes.
I mean, I'd done all of the hard physical labor, and then you have these pencil-neck, pale, greasy-haired Marxists telling me about the working class.
It's like, bro, the only hoe you've ever seen is pixelated and on the internet.
They're funny.
They just don't know.
And even, like, I would talk about, I would get academics, right, the sort of free market academics would be talking to me about the free market and the virtues of the free market, to which it's like, well, then why are you in academia?
Like, if you think that the free market is good, why are you in the government cartel called academia?
Well, think of all the good I can do!
What, by being a hypocrite?
The free market is the ultimate test of quality and the greatest invention of the history of the human race, which is why I, as a massive respecter and lover of the free market, am staying as far the fuck away from it as I possibly can, hiding out in the hallowed, bullshit, gated-off government cartel halls of academia.
Because, you know, in the free market, you've got to work, baby!
I don't want to do any of that shit!
Holy crap!
You know, this is my... I had a business call today, and I did two call-in shows.
And now I'm doing a livestream.
So, it's a lot of work.
It's a lot of work.
Also, I published, and you can find this at PeacefulParenting.com.
PeacefulParenting.com.
Please share the link, share the book.
I finished the shortened version.
The shortened version was a brute and a half, because you want to compress it down, you don't want to lose the key ideas.
It's really complicated and really tough.
It's less than half the length of the full version.
I hope that you will check it out.
So, these are the things I did today.
Business call, two call-in shows, live stream, finishing and publishing the e-book and Moby version of the Peaceful Parenting book.
It's a lot of work.
I mean, that was a bit of a longer day than typical, but... So then, you know, people talking to me about the working class is funny.
Oh, haircut looks good?
Yeah, I finally got weed whacked.
You know you're over 50 when there's no hair on top but you say, could you do something about my ears and possibly send some weed whacking napalm into my cavernous nose hairs?
That would be excellent.
I don't know why your body says this around later middle age.
Why does your body say
Well, screw it.
We're going to leave the top open to the elements.
We're not going to block the sunlight, but if we could stop blocking the sound with giant Ewok Chewbacca ears, I don't know why it does that.
Does it just fall?
Is it like screaming, falling from the top of the iceberg and grabbing on like the hairs are just like, no, oh, I'm going to hang here and grow here.
Like when, when did my earlobe need fur?
I don't know.
I don't know why this happens.
I don't know.
It's a job.
And when now, I also have to have that, I get the full on Andy Rooney eyebrows, like Arkansas ditch caterpillars.
And like, when, when did that happen?
When, when did I start sweating to the point where I need two baby seals above my eyes to put the sweat away?
I, I, I have no idea.
Why?
I don't understand what happens with my body.
I understand the general aging and creaky stuff.
I get that.
I get that.
But just the weird little quirks that happens with your body?
I do not understand.
Why is it that as I have less hair on my head, I get more hair on my neck?
I'm starting to look like a polar bear back there.
You gotta send in a team that normally uses
It's normally used to trim topiaries into weird animal shapes and they just go back in there and I mean you could make a whole menagerie back there.
It's very strange.
Here migrates south for the winter of our lives.
Yes.
As the snow fell from his head, so he fell from life.
It's from a great poem I wrote many years ago called Farewell Father.
I did a whole video on it.
You should look it up.
It's really, really a great, great poem.
I wrote it for a friend of mine's death.
Death.
Alright.
Thank you for your effort.
I heard your comment on celebrating four years of deplatforming.
We shared it with everyone we knew when that happened and followed your move to rumble.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate it.
Ear hair is a massive issue for me.
Pulling it out is a chore.
Yes.
And I can sometimes be a bit of a fidgeter.
So if I have a little bit of hair, I'm like fidget, fidget, fidget.
I don't know why.
It just is the way that it is, but I do not know why.
I'm waiting for, like, why is hair growing out of my ears?
I'm waiting for, like, teeth to grow out of my eyeballs or something, like toenails to grow out of my nose.
Like, it's just bizarre.
What is happening?
Have I been irradiated from space and I'm just starting to mutate life?
I do not understand.
I do not understand.
Thank you, Anthony.
Don't forget, of course, freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show.
I would really, really appreciate it.
Slash donate.
Is that 630 farewell father?
Yeah, I did a whole video where I analyzed the poem as well as just read it.
But yeah, it's a FDR podcast slash 630 slash farewell dash father.
Yeah, you should check it out.
It's a poem that even now it gives me gives me goosebumps.
Yeah, I don't know why the body just gets kind of strange.
When you get older and at some point you just turn into a box.
Like, it doesn't matter.
I can do, like, I do, like, I don't know, 75 sit-ups a day or whatever.
Still doesn't matter.
I just turn into this Bill Adama-style fridge box.
Box with legs.
I don't know why.
I used to have a waist.
I'm now a box with legs.
Like I did a show the other day.
I answered questions in the full glory of sunlight with no shirt on.
And you're like, doesn't that guy work out?
It's like, I do.
I really do.
You can check my watch.
I really do.
It doesn't really matter.
I guess it just prevents from becoming even more box-like.
But I had basically turned into, you know, when you're a kid, you make the robot out of the giant boxes.
That's just me.
That's just me.
All right.
Let me get to your questions and your comments.
I have no complaints about aging, though.
I have no complaints about aging.
All right, let me get to your questions and your comments.
Tips, of course, are massively and delightfully and deeply welcome.
And I did not get the blue screen of death tech rant.
No, so I have a surface
A tablet.
It's old, old, old.
In fact, I still have a sticker on it from when, many years ago, I went to the European Union to give a speech on tech censorship, after which I was censored.
Still have no regrets.
Go down in flames!
If you're going to go down, at least go down telling the truth.
So that's how old this tablet is.
Anyway, it's got a detachable front, and I was going to use it as a tablet, but I didn't want to drop it.
It's kind of slippery, so I got a case for it, and I tried using it as a tablet.
So I'm like, OK, that's good, right?
Because one thing that I set up my call-ins on Skype and Skype for the tablet doesn't tell me when my call-ins are coming up.
I've got to go to Windows for that.
And plus, Outlook is better than stuff that's on iOS or Android or whatever.
So I'm like, okay, I'll just, you know, I'll, I'll order a case for it and I'll be able to use this as a tablet.
And that's great.
Right?
So I'm like, okay, why does my, why does my taskbar keep disappearing?
Like I need to keep swiping up from the bottom.
And then it turns out that buried deep in the window settings is something that says, Hey, if you're using a tablet, I'm happy to screw it up for you.
Okay.
So then I, I kind of get rid of that.
Right.
And then, um, I touched something in the, the, um,
The on-screen keyboard shrinks to like a quarter of its size, and it takes a little while to get that back, and then I'm like, okay, well, this is working, that is working, that's not too bad, let me boot up Twitter!
And I make sure it's the latest version, always update, I'm a big fan of updating, get the latest version, I boot up Twitter, and it just says error.
Right?
It won't give me any, any tweets.
So then I'm like, okay, well, fine.
I'll log out.
I'll log in.
And then I get to the login screen.
I enter my login and it just goes white.
You know, that's when your soul leaves your body and hope leaves your testicles.
When it's like, I'm not going to give you an error.
I'm not going to give you an hourglass.
I could be doing something.
I could not be doing, I could be frozen.
I'm not going to give you an error message, I'm not going to give you a status update, and I'm not even going to give you an hourglass.
You just have to be psychic.
Now what you can do is you can open up the task manager to see if Twitter is taking up any percent of CPU.
In other words, if it's doing anything whatsoever or it's just like a dead beaver on the highway slowly rotting under the maggots.
No.
Ah!
But in order to bring up the task manager you need the taskbar which you can't find because it's been turned off by Windows!
So, and then you're like, because you know how there's this weird voodoo thing, right?
So you're in tech, and people just say, I'll reboot your computer.
It's like, why should that make any difference?
It's tech.
It's not supposed to have a random element.
There's nothing in the operating system that says, well, let's roll a dice.
Let's roll two dices.
And if it's not snake eyes, we'll work.
It's not supposed to work like that.
Rebooting isn't supposed to make a goddamn bit of difference.
But I still do this voodoo ritual where I try to log into Twitter.
And I got nothing.
I got a blank screen just on the Twitter part, right?
So there's a little login pop-up for Twitter.
It goes blank.
No message, no hourglass, no nothing.
Can't click off it.
And the other thing is, can you at least close it?
Or do you get that really depressing fade out?
Like the Windows app just goes gray.
And it's just like, well, you're now in limbo.
The app is not alive.
It's not dead!
It's just... grey.
It's like those men who lead lives of quiet desperation, those sort of Jack Lemmon, man in a grey flannel suit, corner ghosts.
It's not dead!
No, no, it hasn't crashed!
And then it's like, we also want to send all your shit to Microsoft because something crashed, and I'm like, can you not?
Is that okay?
You know, just... I don't want you reading my digital innards and sending them to the Great Ghost in the Sky in Microsoft just because something crashed.
It's not my fault.
Why should you scrape my innards and send them to Microsoft because some app crashed?
So it shouldn't matter, but I do it anyway.
I do a forced close on Twitter and then I start again.
I start again.
And you think, well, it shouldn't work the second time because it's computers.
They're not random.
And it didn't start again the second time.
So then I was like, okay, so this is great.
This is great.
Stuff isn't working.
I can't really use it.
I did buy a case for it.
I spent time looking for a case, buying a case.
And installing the case, and then find the setting which allows me to keep the taskbar on, and then, and then, it just doesn't really work.
Why?
I don't know.
Now, I could try the great uninstall and reinstall, you know, where you just wipe everything out and start again.
Maybe that'll work, maybe it won't.
Maybe there'll be another 10-15 minutes sucked out of my brain for no particular purpose.
Just make your shit work, that's all.
Apparently that's just a bridge too far, and I distinctly remember when shit used to work.
That's the problem.
See, for you younger people, you're just used to this tapioca-brained, incredible slow-motion decay into nothingness.
You're just used to shit not working.
I, unfortunately, am old enough to remember when shit worked.
When you turn stuff on, and it worked.
THAT is the maddening part.
I'm... I'm not so old that I don't use the new stuff.
And I'm not so young that I don't remember when stuff used to work.
I'm just in that sweet spot of age.
Shit doesn't work.
But I remember when it did.
Will the Flash livestream yesterday be available to watch?
Wasn't that guy magnificent?
I would create an alter to that weirdo from yesterday.
I can't believe that was only yesterday.
I would create an alter to that guy if I could.
We had...
An absolutely jaw-droppingly fantastic troll on the show yesterday.
Are you just gonna talk or is it possible for anyone to interrupt or is this just a monologue?
You know, he started off that way and it just got better and better from there.
That was just absolutely delightful.
Absolutely delightful.
So what you can get out of this, and I'll sort of give this lesson a haul.
I'm sure you should listen to the whole thing anyway.
It's a great, great conversation.
You know, I'm not a man who would approve of human torture at all, at all.
But if I did, if I was that type of man, it would basically be anybody who just doesn't answer a direct question.
Sorry, it's thumbscrews for you.
Just kidding!
But if I was that kind of guy, it would be people who just don't answer direct questions.
Right?
So, I mean, I'll give you an example from yesterday.
So I just did a Flash Livestream yesterday, and people weren't particularly chatty.
I guess a lot of people were at work, so I was doing a monologue on how shy people are basically a-holes, right?
I don't know why I used the F-bomb and then A-holes.
It's just bizarre, but there it is.
So, it's like occasional class.
Just a sliver of class occasionally.
Shrapnel class embedded in my brain.
So, this guy was very aggressive and one of his arguments were that people who are anxious do better on exams.
Which seems like one of these completely unsurprising facts.
Yeah, I get it.
So people who are anxious about exams do better on exams.
Because they're more worried and they study better.
Okay, I've got no problem with that.
So he was saying that anxiety is always a positive thing because people who are anxious about exams do better on exams.
So then I asked him, how does this study capture people who are so anxious they don't take the course or take the exam?
They're so anxious that they're paralyzed.
So, I fully get, you know, somebody who's really anxious about a race and trains for it for months is going to run fast.
But what about someone who's so anxious for a race that they don't even sign up to do it?
How does that get captured, right?
And you just wouldn't answer the question.
Now, trolls don't answer direct questions.
Trials do not, you know, it's like, and they think they're being so sneaky and so subtle.
Like, isn't it wild?
They genuinely think they're being so, wow, nobody's going to figure this one out.
And, you know, it's as obvious as when you see some greasy, slimy politician, right?
He's asked a direct question and he just windbags the living shit out of it, right?
Oh, let me bury your question in a stream of inconsequential syllables.
Right?
Everybody sees it.
Everybody knows what's happening.
There's no mystery.
Everybody knows.
And it's so funny how people have this inner view of themselves when they don't answer basic questions, when they just gaslight and change the topic and get aggressive and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I mean, they must, they must genuinely think that they're getting away with something.
They must think that it's not blindingly obvious to everyone.
Just wild.
Absolutely wild.
So, anyway, it's worth it.
Alright.
Alright, let me get... You did the poll earlier?
Thank you, thank you.
I appreciate that.
fdrurl.com slash meetup.
And every meetup we get at least one oddball.
Don't be that guy.
They're fine.
They're fine.
It's fine having an oddball and they can be kind of cool as well.
But... Right, so let's see here.
Oh yeah, small businesses.
Yeah, we went through that, right?
And small businesses are practical, right?
They're practical people, right?
You can be hugely impractical if you're a big business.
I've worked in some big businesses and they can be massively inefficient and impractical because they get the economies of scale, you can really hide out as a bullshit artist slash HR person, you can really really hide out
In big corporations and you can't do that in small businesses.
In small businesses it's get busy or get lost.
I don't know if you've ever worked for small businesses.
I have been a small business.
You know everyone's productivity all the time and you can't hide out.
They have no patience for lazy people.
So lazy people, well first of all they love government work and secondly they love big corporations and they love HR.
So I mean I worked in HR departments in major corporations for a couple of summers and man they did nothing.
They did nothing.
I once got flown out for an HR conference as a temp.
I got flown out to Paris for like a week of HR nonsense where people, ah, they went to these lovely cafes and they went on these river trips on the Seine and just did all these wonderful things and it was just like, I mean, yeah, it's pretty nice.
Pretty nice, you can go and get a full week in Paris complaining about racism.
Just lovely.
Yeah, have you ever signed the front of a paycheck?
Yeah.
Yeah, so lazy people hate small businesses because they just, they have no patience.
And you can't.
You can't afford unproductive people in small businesses.
All right.
Somebody says, Dylan Yo, nice to see you again, my friend.
I remember you said something about a lot of people with bad childhoods get addicted to nicotine.
It was in your Ayn Rand series.
Can you talk something about that?
Yeah, so nicotine is a stimulant, of course, as we know, and nicotine can be very good for creativity.
I'm just telling you, nicotine can be incredible for creativity.
So, this is not in particular to nicotine, but as a whole,
If you have a bad childhood, you emerge into adulthood in a negative state.
It could be anxiety, it could be depression, it could be temper issues.
So you emerge kind of jumpy, kind of dysfunctional into an adult state.
And you are operating below the normal level of human happiness.
My happiness in general peaks to a 10 at times.
I cook along at a 7 to 8 on a regular basis.
Sometimes, of course, it goes down.
It can even go down into negatives, although I can't remember the last time that happened.
But I'm cooking around a 7 or an 8, and I think that's great.
I'm not going to aim for more, because if you aim for me, it just could be different for everyone.
I cook along at a 7 or 8 of happiness.
I feel that if I push for more, it's not going to work.
Because then I will be disappointed at not getting more, and I'll go from a 6, a 7 or an 8, down to a 5 or a 6.
Because it's like, oh, why don't I get to a 9 or a 10 on a regular basis?
I think that would burn me out.
I think that would be too much happiness for me.
And again, I'm happy to peak at times, and there are days where I have just absolutely wonderful days, nothing could be better.
But I'm happy to cook at a 7 or an 8.
I feel if I reach for more, I'm gonna fall.
You know?
What's that?
There's that old story.
I don't know if you've ever heard this old story about this, um, this big giant department store, right?
It's got like five levels and it's, uh, the husband department store, right?
And on the bottom level is men who are unemployed.
They're not romantic.
They don't like kids and they don't like in-laws.
And if you go to the next floor up,
Then these are men who have jobs, but they're still not romantic.
They don't like kids and they don't like in-laws.
You go one floor up.
Then, you get guys who have jobs, they want to have kids, they're not handsome, they don't like in-laws, and they're not romantic.
You go one floor up, you get how this goes, right?
So eventually, on the top floor, you get men who are handsome and love kids, romantic, sensual, sexy, love in-laws, great with people, great with pets, love everything about you, and are perfect.
And then,
There's a ladder to the roof.
And then all the women go, oh my gosh, let's go further up.
And on the roof it says, there are no husbands, you're alone, because women can never be satisfied.
So this is kind of an old joke that if you reach too much for happiness, you end up with nothing.
And that's very true, I think.
So for me, I'm happy to cook at a seven or an eight.
I think that's great.
And I think if I try to go higher, I will end up.
Lower, because that's kind of perfectionism.
So, if you've had a bad childhood, you emerge into an adulthood into a negative state.
And now, this negative state is romanticized by a lot of people, right?
I'm black-pilled.
I'm red-pilled.
The world is crap.
You just don't know it yet.
Only shiny, happy people holding hands.
Only shiny, empty, plastic people are happy.
Oh, look at them.
They're so happy because they don't know anything.
They don't understand anything.
I mean, I remember some cynical friends of mine and I, when we were downtown, once we saw a bunch of women running down the street giggling.
And my friends were like, oh yes, off you run to be a surgeon and an accountant and an astronaut.
Off you go, honey.
Like, just bitter and negative, right?
Anybody who's happy in this view is a fool, is foolish.
Anybody who's happy.
Oh, you just think, oh, they're so in love.
Like, I saw this great tweet the other day where this woman said, when I met my husband in a restaurant not too long ago, we were so happy to see each other that the couple at the next table broke up.
Right, so this normalization of negative experiences, otherwise known as bullshit, galatoire-smoking, student-groping French quote philosophy, right, this glamorization of the negative is how people try to deal with the fact that they exist in a negative emotional state as a whole, chronic pain, chronic dysfunction, chronic negativity, because of a bad childhood.
So rather than deal with the bad childhood, what is the bad childhood trying to teach you?
So somebody was saying to me today in a show about Thomas Sass, who was a pretty skeptical guy who was anti-psychiatric in many ways.
And he says, you know, some people take something about their past and turn it into an altar, like they just stay and... It basically, I think, that gives people excuses, right?
I had a bad childhood, so don't expect as much from me, which is the exact opposite of what you need to do with your bad childhood.
When you have a bad childhood, you should expect more of yourself, because you know how bad bad things are, so you have a responsibility to be good and better.
So, you've got this negative emotional state, and what is your childhood trying to teach you?
Well, I mean, this is a fundamental philosophical question, right?
What is pain for?
And we know what pain is for.
Pain is to keep you safe.
Right?
So, when you're a kid, do you try touching fire or touching something hot?
It burns, and that you stay away from it, right?
So, pain is about... pain comes from the past, but it's about the future.
Right?
So, if all you're doing is staring at your childhood, you're missing the point.
The pain of your childhood, if you experience a lot of pain in your childhood, the pain in your childhood is there to protect you from abuse and exploitation in the future.
As people get lost in their past,
And that's not the point.
The purpose of your past is to protect you from...
Predation and evil and evildoers in the future.
That is the purpose of your pain.
So if you are in a state of chronic pain, emotional pain, from a bad childhood, in my humble and obviously amateur opinion, if you are in a state of chronic pain from your childhood, it's because you have not learned the lesson.
It's sort of like saying, well, I keep touching hot things and I keep getting burned.
Well, that's because you haven't learned the lesson.
Don't touch hot things.
Now get ready.
Because this is going to be a little bit of a rant.
I'm going to get loud.
You can feel it in there.
Uncurling like a geriatric snake of striking.
I will tell you.
What is the purpose of your childhood pain?
If you were abused, neglected, traumatized.
What is the purpose of your childhood pain?
The purpose of your childhood pain is to get you to shun the fuck out of evil.
That's it!
The purpose of your childhood pain is to get you to shun evil.
Just as the purpose of being hurt by burning is to get you to stop touching things that are hot.
To shun hot burning things!
That's the purpose of... Ow!
The purpose of your childhood pain, since it was inflicted on you by evildoers, the purpose of your childhood pain is to get you to shun evil, and that's it.
Now, as long as you are not shunning evil, your childhood pain will continue, just as, and get worse often, just as if you stop removing your hand from a fire, your hand gets worse and worse.
The purpose of the pain in your hand is to say, hey, maybe, just take your hand out of the fire!
And if you were preyed upon by evildoers as a child, well, you can't get protection from the evildoers because they're the ones preying on you.
But you can get protection
From your emotions, your instincts, your feelings, your pain is there to help you, to guide you, to guard you, to keep you safe, to get you to shun the fuck out of evil.
That's what your pain is there for.
And then people go back.
Why do they go back?
Why do they go back?
Because they have, you know, what I would colloquially, I don't know what the technical term is, but I would call it a trauma bond.
The trauma bond is when you have to pretend to have a relationship with people who don't care about you and can't take criticism.
Right?
It's when you have a relationship, you have a pretend relationship with people who don't care about you and can't take criticism.
Because if you care about people, you have to take criticism.
I care about you as an audience.
I'm all like, corrections, issues, problems.
I'm always inviting people to, you know, I didn't even boot the troll because I actually quite enjoyed that debate.
It was a great workout.
Not that it was really a debate.
So you're at the trauma bond, and so the trauma bond is ambivalence about your parents' relations.
And again, I'm only talking about abusive parents here.
In particular, it happens in the realm of neglect.
So the trauma bond is when you say, my parents were bad in x, y, and z area, and then you're like, but they were good over here, you know?
Maybe they ignored me, but
They bought me a bike.
I always had a roof over my head.
There was good food in the fridge.
So then you... up and down, right?
Up and down.
And what happens is, if you identify evil too young, you're toast.
It's a really, really important thing to understand.
Hopefully it gives you some forgiveness for whatever collusions you had with evildoers as a child because you were forced to, right?
If you identify evil too young, you're toast.
You will have a very short and unpleasant life.
Because of course, if you look at your caregivers, right, you look at your caregivers, and if they're evil, and you identify them as evil, you're dead.
Like, they just won't take care of you.
They will reject you, they will attack you, they will, you know, we can say maybe not so much now, but certainly evolutionarily speaking, you'd just be dead.
If you look at, let's say you've got a violent mother, you look at your violent mother in the eye and say, you're stone evil.
You attack children, you brutalize children, you're just stone evil.
You're toast.
You just won't make it.
You'll be handed over to the priest for the next human sacrifice.
You're dead.
Dead!
I'm not kidding about this.
You're dead.
So, you can't identify evil when you're a kid.
I mean, you feel it, you know it's there, but you can't identify it.
You have to keep that knowledge even from yourself, and that's the trauma bond.
So then when you get older, your adult liberty and freedom and capacity to identify and act upon evil, to escape it, to avoid it, is at war with the fact that you couldn't see it as a kid and you had to pretend the opposite.
Right?
Because when you have parents who are abusive, they have no bond with you.
And not having bonded parents as a kid is terrifying.
So you can't identify that evil as a kid, and then when you, as an adult, you start to identify that evil, then you face panic from the inner child who believes that identifying evil is death.
And he's right!
Identifying evil, evolutionarily speaking, was death.
Right?
So...
The trauma bond is when you have to pretend to be bonded with people who don't care about you and can't take criticism.
So what happens is, as an adult, as a child, if you criticize your parents particularly morally, you're dead.
As an adult, you have a strong desire to criticize your parents morally, but it conflicts with the trauma bond, which is, if I criticize them, I'm dead.
But if you don't criticize them, you can't really live, because you can't ever get to a safe place.
I was trying to remember
When the last time was, I actually dealt with an evil person in my life, or a corrupt person, or an immoral person, or a bad person, or whatever.
Honestly, it's probably been 10 to 15 years.
They know me now, and even if they don't know what I do, they just sense it and they, wide berth, avoid, blah blah blah, right?
So, the adult identification of evil is there to keep you safe, but it collides with
As a child you could not identify evil, it would have been fatal.
So in order to flourish and live in a secure and happy and positive and loving set of relationships as an adult you need to be able to identify evil, but it clashes with identifying evil was directly suicidal as a child.
So you've got all this negative stuff going on, this ambivalence.
Now, when you have a depressed emotional state, you wanna lift it up.
So you have two choices, right?
You have two choices.
Well, three choices, sorry.
You have three choices.
The first choice is to say, uh, this is just the facts of life.
This is what life is.
Life is shit.
And people are corrupt, and they are terrible, and they exploit each other, and it's like a pack of piranhas on each other.
Like, all of this nonsense, right?
You just turn into this existential French bullshit intellectual who
Says that life is shit and seems to always continually advocate for legalized rape of children.
You think I'm kidding.
You can look it up.
All the French intellectuals who wanted the age of consent lowered to close to single digits.
It's insane.
Not evil, right?
So, you have a choice.
You either normalize your unhappiness and say, this is human condition, this is what life is, and anybody who thinks otherwise is a bourgeois idiot.
Right?
You just make it, right?
And I remember seeing a play when I was in the theatre school, they did at the Saint-Denis Theatre in Montreal, a play with this French guy who just did all shit.
You know, this just terrible stuff.
I mean, God, just go and watch, just go and watch, well, there's a couple of movies you could watch.
So, The Fourth Man, and also, well, I mean, the classic of this French life is shit stuff is Marlon Brando in Last Tango in Paris.
Life is shit.
So, then you normalize your negativity and your
That's your first option.
Take mind-altering substances so that you don't feel so miserable anymore.
And this could be either external or internal mind-altering substances.
So you could become a sex addict, which is rewiring the dopamine delivery system to sexual addiction.
You could, or a gambling addict, which again is using external things to rewire your internal happiness delivery system.
You can
Become a compromised, right?
This is the people who have bad childhoods end up as NPCs, right?
If it's unprocessed because they'd really they run out of choices and they then say well, I did not get approval from my parents.
Therefore, I can't stand disapproval.
And therefore, the disapproval of society is agony to me, and therefore, I will parrot whatever gives me the most approval, right?
Which is being an NPC.
You know, you've seen that meme of the soyjack head, or the wojack head, or the NPC head, and they just unplug one chip, and they plug in another chip, and this is people who... they...
They got so little approval as children, in fact they were probably attacked as children, that they can't stand anybody having displeasure with them because displeasure with them means assault or neglect or abandonment or death, right?
So displeasure is a death threat and this is why propaganda can't work without child abuse, right?
Boy, really doing some concentrated work today!
Propaganda can't work without child abuse because
Propaganda says, if you don't say this, repeat this, or believe this, I will disapprove of you.
And sane people say, okay, so why the hell would I care whether you disapprove of me?
Right?
But what matters is I approve of myself, my conscience approves of me, good sense, reason, and virtue approves of me.
Why would I care?
I mean, and this was the sort of the fundamental battles that I had on social media back in the day, was people would say, well, you're a bad person, or you shouldn't believe this, or you're whatever, right?
And like, but why would I care what you say about me?
Like, help me out.
So, because I sort of dealt with the sort of rejection and disapproval as a child, it was like, okay, so you're trying to push this thing, trying to ham this button called I disapprove of you, which is supposed to trigger early rejection from parents in childhood.
And you're supposed to find that unbearable and therefore you abandon your integrity and you conform to the person, but that's a never-ending thing, right?
And you can see this, like the disapproval never ends.
The lines just keep getting pushed of what you're supposed to approve of.
It just keeps getting crazier and crazier and crazier.
It'll never end.
Because once you've given people that vending machine button of getting resources from you by disapproving of you, you think that's ever going to end?
No!
End up being surrounded by people who keep hammering at you because they're going to disapprove of you.
And of course, the next generation doesn't really care that much about being disapproved of because society has lost all of its credibility.
I mean, there's almost no credibility left in society as a whole at the moment.
Anyway, so your first choice is to say unhappiness is the human essence and then normalize it that way and then just have contempt and rage against anybody who's happy and normal.
The second is you take drugs or nicotine, this is the nicotine part, or you get addictions of various kinds and conformity and so on, and that's how you try and raise your levels, right?
And the third is you learn the absolute lessons if you're unhappiness and you learn how to become happy, right?
Because you're unhappy as a child because you're surrounded by corrupt and immoral people.
And so, you learn that lesson, you grieve that, you learn how to keep yourself safe, you don't have corrupt and immoral people in your life, and then your childhood unhappiness goes away.
Of course it does.
Because you've learned your lesson.
And your childhood unhappiness has achieved its insistent goal of trying to keep you safe.
Of trying to keep you safe.
And if you listen to your childhood unhappiness, trying to keep you safe, you will become happy.
And if you don't listen to it, and you deny it, and you say, well, my parents were fine, or they could have been worse, or, you know, they had their own childhood, their own problems, their own issues, like, okay, if you got all this pretend understanding, all of this pretend understanding and desire for sympathy, to forgive and sympathy, it's just, I don't want to become safe.
I'm now addicted to being unsafe, so I'm going to justify everyone who ever attacked me as a child.
And I don't really know what to say about that.
Alright.
So, uh, hopefully that makes some sense.
Long speech, but hopefully worthwhile.
Alright.
Steph, I found a method of making free money on online casinos.
Not a lot.
Am I in the wrong because I'm not providing value to earn it?
I assume you're scamming people.
Are you scamming people?
I mean, online casinos are not supposed to have you get free money, right?
So, if you're scamming people, then you're just a thief, right?
You're just stealing.
I get that it's tempting.
Oh, nobody gets harmed.
It's like, no, people get harmed.
I mean, I'm not a big fan of gambling as a whole, or certainly online gambling, but
I think it's going to be tough on your conscience.
I think it's going to be tough on your conscience.
Alright.
All right.
First live stream we've been able to catch since the YouTube days.
Glad to be here.
Very nice.
Charles Bukowski romanticized that kind of BS.
Yeah, there's a Mickey Rooney, a Mickey Rourke, slightly different Mickey Rourke movie called Barfly about this stuff as well, right?
Hi community, did Steph answer the Andrew Wilson incest morality question?
Yes, but I don't think it's been published yet.
Pain is nature's way to tell you not to do something.
Yeah, for sure.
Running through the cabin, planting my head on the wood stove to balance myself as I turned the corner.
Only took doing it once, while the stove had a fire in it, to never do that again.
Yeah.
Yeah, I got a feeling this is exactly what happened to me.
I'm glad it was helpful.
I also think that this is likely what the story of Adam and Eve and the original Sin is about.
Yes.
Yes, yes.
Yes.
Thank you for joining the community.
I appreciate that.
Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show.
Let's see over in rumble.
Yes.
Love rumble, but you're the least tippy people on the planet.
I'll just tell you that.
So have you ever, let me ask you this.
Have you ever been to a church or heard religious sermons or instructions?
That focus on your relationship with God.
What is your relationship with God?
Do you have a good relationship with God?
What is your relationship with God?
Because I heard a lecture the other day, it doesn't really matter where, but I heard a lecture, it was all about your relationship with God, your relationship with God, your relationship with God.
And that's the feminized church.
So the masculine church is, follow these rules or bad things will happen.
The feminized church is your relationship with the divine.
God is a comfort.
God is there for you.
God is a relationship.
Whereas for men, God is rules.
For women, God is a relationship.
And that's sort of the modern world, right?
Food, clothing, shelter, toys, video games, summers at the cabin, visits to US tourist destinations, verbal and physical mental abuse, neglect.
The former does not excuse the latter.
No.
Of course not.
Roll the donations out, he's cooking.
That is true.
Thank you.
I had a great bond with parents slash extended family until age 10 when my parents left the LDS church, since then never been able to bond with anyone.
But that's because you haven't learned the lessons of non-bonding.
The sim was eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
It was not a sin, it was part of the plan of salvation.
I don't think that many Catholics would agree with you there.
I support the latest thing, yeah.
Yeah, of course, very few people judge anything according to principles.
Very few people judge anything according to principles.
I mean, certainly Christians do, and that is for the best, and great honor and respect for that.
But very few people outside of Christians, and even a lot of Christians, they don't judge anything according to principles, or virtue, or truth, or reality, or facts.
They judge everything according to danger.
Is it, am I going to be approved of for having these opinions or am I going to be disapproved of for having these opinions?
And I don't have any particular issue with that except they're lying weasel bags about it and they talk about virtue when all they're really concerned with is conformity.
Being moral and Christian can be very lonely in a world of evil people.
Is that a problem if you have the constant presence of the Holy Ghost?
That is a theological and personal question I will not pretend to know the answer to.
Somebody says, Steph, the more I adopt your methods of argumentation, the more I get directly to the point and save precious time wasted on being manipulated.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, look, it's a basic thing in conversation, and people seem to have, I don't know if this is a modern problem as a whole, but people seem to have a great deal of problem with this.
Just answer the fucking question.
I don't, like, it's bizarre to me.
That people just, you ask them a simple question and they just won't answer it.
They just go on this dance, this merry-go-round, this bullshit, this carousel, this nonsense, this calliope music, tiddlywinks music, all kinds of nonsense and bullshit.
It's just like, don't just answer the question.
I mean, in the debate I had yesterday, the debate I had yesterday, I asked the guy a simple question.
And he didn't, went off on some bullshit tangent, and I interrupted him, because it's rude!
Because what people do, they don't ask you a question, and they don't even acknowledge that you asked it.
So, if you ask a question, they don't say, hey, I heard your question, I'm going to go in this direction to answer it.
It may seem like circuitous, but I'm going to circle back to you.
They just go off on their own tangent, right?
So, I asked him a simple question.
He went off on a tangent and I stopped him after 10 or 15 seconds.
And he was a guy who just kept talking, which to me is also kind of wild, right?
And I just said, what was the question I just asked you?
Like 10 or 15 seconds after I asked my question, I asked him, what question did I ask you?
And he didn't know.
I mean, narcissism is a kind of brain damage.
Like why?
People listen so little that... and you've heard this in call-in shows, right?
When I'm getting impatient with someone, which is, you know, the mark that I need to be more assertive, and that's fine, maybe even aggressive.
But people will go off on their tangent and I'll say, okay, what question did I just ask you?
And they just come out of a daze, like this, like a possession, like they just didn't hear the question.
They're just so triggered.
That all they're doing is managing negative emotion.
They're not listening.
They don't care.
It's not something that they're engaged in.
And know when people aren't listening to you.
And you can't have a debate without listening.
You have to listen to the other person's point and respond to those, right?
All right.
That was super deep and makes total sense.
I will have to listen to that again.
I've certainly heard those kinds of sermons growing up.
Yeah, yeah.
That's more of an even jellyfish.
Yeah, my church, the Orthodox Church, tends to be more robust.
One's relationship with God is the reflection of his relation to his father at childhood is an argument I've heard.
Instead of nicotine, my quote drug of choice is lots of intimate time with the wife.
That's not really a drug.
I still struggle with giving my neglectful parents a pass because they quote provided for me.
Shelter, allowance, car, clothes, video games, food, etc.
Alright?
So what you're saying is that your conscience is for sale.
I mean, let's just be frank.
And I sympathize with what happened to you as a child, but let's be frank about what's going on.
You're bought and paid for.
You're bought and paid for.
I mean, if you have kids and some babysitter comes over and says, you know what?
You don't have to pay me 50 bucks.
In fact, I'll pay you 50 bucks.
I just want to beat up your kids.
Would you say, oh yeah, no, that sounds good.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm a hundred bucks off.
I don't have to pay you 50.
You're paying me 50 and all you have to do is beat up my kids.
So then you're saying that your protection of your children is for sale.
Your conscience is for sale.
You're like one of those bald ducks hanging in the nicotine-stained sweaty window of a Chinese restaurant.
You're just for sale!
Your conscience is in fishnet stockings swinging your purse on the corner of Church and Dundas.
You're for sale.
You can be bribed into not criticizing evildoers.
Well, I thought he was evil.
I thought he was evil.
Turns out he bought me a bike.
So he's great.
Whoopsie.
Whoopsie.
Why on earth would you give up your conscience for the sake of bribes?
Don't be for sale.
That's gross.
That makes you like a dog who could be trained to do anything if you get the right kind of treats on your nose.
Don't be for sale.
I think I can say this with some credibility.
That your conscience is worth more than filthy fucking money.
Having a good relationship with your own conscience is worth more than all the money in the world.
You know, Jesus was right about that.
Satan takes him to the very rooftop of the world and says, I'll give you everything you see before me.
You'll be in control of the entire fucking planet.
Everything you see, you'll own everything in the world.
Everything in the world.
You just have to not be a good person.
And Jesus is like, I'm going to give you a big fat bearded no on that one.
Sorry.
And I'm not, uh, I mean, I like nice things.
I'm not particularly materialist.
I mean, I've been reasonably well off.
I've been broke as a hobo.
You know, it doesn't matter to me that much.
I mean, it doesn't matter to me that much.
And of course, I burnt my income and credibility in the public sphere and a presence on social media.
I burnt my entire life work to the ground to tell the truth.
Have you ever heard me saying, shouldn't have done that?
Nope.
Nope.
Take the money.
Take the money.
Take the money!
It's just money.
Take the money.
So don't be for sale.
Don't be for sale, right?
Like you understand that if you're for sale, then you'll never stop being for sale, right?
It'll never end.
You'll just get offered less and less as you go forward until you're given your last shred of dignity for a six-pack and a handjob.
Don't be for sale.
So if you say, well, I'm going to forgive my parents their evil doing because they gave me some money, they bought me some things, then you're saying my conscience is for sale.
And you'll be tempted to do that.
You'll be tempted to wallpaper over your own corruption with money and resources.
I'm telling you, I've seen the people who've taken the money.
It is not a good thing.
It is not.
We can think of some people.
We can think of some people in the public sphere, right now as we speak, who took the money and sold their soul.
Oh, God.
Tis a consummation devoutly to be avoided.
That's really bad.
So... Sorry, just had a little bit of housekeeping to do here.
The pedo bribes his victims when grooming them.
That is not an acceptable... I mean, that's a very strong analogy, but I get where you're coming.
All right.
Sorry, just have a tiny little bit of housekeeping to do here.
My apologies.
And if you have more questions or comments, issues or challenges, I am perfectly happy to hear them.
Judas took bribe, was disgusted with the silver afterwards.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's not worth it.
I mean, you just... it's gross.
You end up in a big house, alone, stalked from room to room by the invisible silver-backed predator of your endless conscience, and it is not a life of peace or ease or happiness or contentment.
Now, did destiny take the money?
I don't know, but it's all very gross.
It's all very gross.
All right, let me just go and check questions in various places.
Do atheists need to support Christians even if the Christians call you amoral for not believing in Christ?
Well, I think a recognition of the virtues of Christianity is very important.
And we aim to support the truth, and the truth is that if I had to choose someone with integrity, and I was given the choice between the tick-box atheist and the tick-box Christian, I would choose the Christian every day of the week and twice on Sundays.
I have not found any notable integrity or virtue among the atheists while I have found great nobility and moral courage among the Christians.
That is an empirical fact that I absolutely know for certain.
And it was a surprising fact for me because I handed the atheists all that they needed to do to have virtue and integrity with UPB.
If you had to ask me who is more trustworthy, a Christian or an atheist, I would answer the Christian every single time.
And there's zero doubt and zero hesitation in that for me at all.
Ostracism is something most people cannot tolerate.
Well, ostracism is just having standards.
I was talking to someone not too long ago who was saying, well, I have to forgive evildoers.
I'm like, so you have no safety, no standards, and you reward everyone no matter how bad they behave.
That's not good.
People would rather stay in connection with those who cause harm than risk the ostracism.
Yeah, ostracism is a risk.
Yep, ostracism is a risk.
But it is better to be alone than be in bad company.
You know, they do say that, you know, a lot of the world's problems exist because of people's inability
To sit comfortably alone in a room with their own thoughts.
I very much enjoy my own company.
I mean, I mentioned it a while ago that my wife and daughter went away for a week.
I had a great time.
I love having them with me and I'm fine when they're gone.
I'm glad that they weren't gone for too long.
I had a wonderful time.
I worked out a lot, I did a lot of shows, I read a lot, I napped in the afternoon.
You know, four days out of five.
It was lovely.
It was lovely.
And it was lovely to have them come back.
People who can't stand solitude are people who are never alone because in the haunted house of their mind is the silver-backed, invisible, questing beast of their relentless conscience.
Just donated at freedomain.com slash donate.
Anyone else done that tonight?
Iwanda slash hope.
Let's go see.
I do not see it, but I'm sure.
Tithcoming.
Tiscoming.
Tis coming.
Did you see that meme?
It's a guy standing looking over the mountain saying, maybe it's the clitoris' job to find me.
Oh, it's funny stuff.
As long as you don't get too offended by coarseness, the internet can be a very funny place.
But coarseness it certainly has.
Which I don't mind too much.
Alright.
Let me just turn down the old sound just a smidge there.
All right.
If left alone with my own thoughts, I'm always late for my next engagement.
It's so interesting.
It's dangerous.
Oh, that's good.
That's good.
That's good.
You all know these restless people.
You know these restless people, right?
It's pretty horrible.
It's pretty horrible to be that kind of restlessness.
It's really, really unpleasant.
All right, let me get back to your comments or questions.
Uh, there have been a few donations tonight, and I really do appreciate that.
Freedomain.com slash donate to help out.
Le Show, you can also donate on the apps.
And don't forget about the apps too!
Uh, you can go... Oh, James!
I'm so sorry, I forgot the URL.
Yeah, I'm sure you could let me know again.
All right, so let's see here.
We will be loners for life, but our children will have brains and grow strong.
All right.
I'm not saying I disagree with you because I don't know what you mean.
So, maybe I do, maybe I don't, but there it is.
Alright.
Let's see here, questions, comments?
Oh yes, fdrurl.com slash apps, A-P-P-S.
Steph, did you see the video about the spine surgeon who quit because surgery didn't cure people, diet and exercise cured back pain?
I heard about that, I have not...
Um, I have not, not read anything about it, but I, um, I mean, to me, the more you can do to stay away from doctors, the better.
I mean, obviously it goes to your doctor.
I get my sort of regular checkups every year, get my blood work done and all of that.
Cause you know, want to see if there's anything odd.
And as a cancer survivor, you know, it's important to look for occasional markers.
So yeah.
So fdrurl.com slash apps.
You can install FDR podcasts as an app, as well as the AI chatbots, if you have access to them.
Yeah, I view the... I think the American healthcare system is not quite as bad because there's still some elements of the free market, but yeah, socialist medicine only makes money off cures, not off prevention, so there's very little of utility there.
And, you know, you've seen that old meme, it's like the first day of medical school, it's the guy tapping the blackboard where it says, a patient cured is a customer lost.
And I don't know how true all of this stuff is, because, you know, a limited amount of time to do infinite amounts of research, but when they talk about how the various alphabet soup agencies of here's what's healthy just get relentlessly bribed and manipulated by various industry forces into saying
Oh no, sugar is fine.
It's fat that's bad.
Oh no, it's red meat that's bad.
Oh no, it's like... I don't... Honestly, I don't know about you guys.
I read a scientific study these days.
I don't care.
In fact, I don't think I've even... I don't think I've read one in forever.
Right.
Bacon is bad.
Bacon is great.
Eggs are bad.
Eggs are really great.
Meat is bad.
Meat is great.
You know, I just, I don't believe any of it anymore and I just sort of try to eat what works for me and gives me energy and keeps me healthy and a good weight and all of that.
The food pyramid.
Yeah, I mean, the food pyramid is a bribeocracy to a large degree.
Again, as far as I understand, I don't know all the details about it, but yeah, I just, I don't believe, I don't believe any of it anymore.
I mean, I think COVID woke us up to that, the corruption of that.
Good point, but how would you push back the atheist bashing without calling out their religion?
Yeah, I'm not answering a question for a buck.
If the question is only worth a dollar for you, I'm not going to waste everyone's time about it.
I trust comments on X more than the experts.
Yeah, for sure.
You have the odds doing the opposite.
Yeah, so some, you remember there was this whole, oh my God, we're losing all of the coral reefs around Australia.
It's just so terrible.
There are no coral reefs.
And I did an interview years ago with a guy saying, oh, there's more than ever.
And now the studies have come out that there's more than ever.
And I mean, global warming and COVID, I mean, it's all just a bunch of nonsense.
The replication crisis in science.
Well, it's not science.
It's just, it's just,
Government bullshit, right?
It's not a crisis, I mean, the purpose of a system is what it does, right?
And if you can use science to increase your profits...
By saying this, that, or the other is good, bad, or indifferent, eh, it's too much power, and it's not science.
I mean, whatever the government touches is the opposite of what it says.
It's not welfare, it's hellfare.
It's not military defense, the homelands are undefended and the military is attacking others.
It's not a healthcare system, it's a money-making, prey-upon-illness system.
It is, I mean, and it's not science, it's mysticism.
Mysticism and complexity.
And mysticism and exploitation.
DDY Yoga has done miracles for some people.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I did years of yoga.
I haven't really done it in a long time.
I do, just in case you care, I walk.
I try to aim for between 10 and 15,000 steps a day, and this is why I don't do call-in shows in the studio anymore.
I do them walking around, because I want to get my steps in, because I do believe that sitting is the new smoking, and I try to avoid it where I can.
I will obviously make sure I get the right amount of sleep and I don't particularly eat much until a little later in the day.
I always have to watch out for late night snacking because that was my anxiety trigger point as a kid.
And in order to survive the negative emotional pressures of my crazy mother I would sometimes turn to food and particularly sugar.
I'm now six months plus into having virtually no added sugar and I think that's been
Beneficial as a whole.
I know it has been.
I did 45 minutes of weights today.
I should do more cardio.
I did yesterday 60 minutes of pickleball with the family, and I should do more bike machines, but it's really kind of boring.
But I do 40 minutes of pretty hard cardio on the bike machine.
And yeah, I mean at one point I was over 220, now I'm 187 and still slow.
I mean I lose like, I don't know, 10 pounds every 18 months.
It just sort of vaguely goes down.
I'm just trying to overcompensate for the general pound a year that happens when you're aging, so I have to sort of modify things as I go.
And so it seems to work for me.
I have pretty good energy and my health is great and all of that.
Oh, right.
Any other last questions, comments, issues, challenges, problems?
Oh!
Donation came in!
Thank you very much!
I appreciate it!
Most kindly!
I appreciate it so much I'll stop doing that entirely punchable voice.
Sorry about that.
Sorry about that.
Swole Steph on the way!
Yeah, not bad.
Not bad.
Not bad.
You can't see it right now, but I would say, I mean, I've always been a little bit thick in the middle, um, since I was a kid.
Oh, since I was in my teens, early teens.
Um, but not too bad.
Not too bad.
I'm, I'm certainly no big muscle guy and you'll never find me on the, uh, cover of anything, uh, in terms of calendars, but you know, I would say not bad, not bad for 58, uh, 57, almost 58.
My gosh, we're 58 in a couple of months.
It's just wild.
Time flies, man.
I mean, also, it must have been four, four and a half years since COVID started, right?
Four and a half years since COVID started.
It's wild.
I know a lot of people feel that
I know that a lot of people feel that COVID, like you, that white guy blinking, that just blinked in 2020 to 2024.
I was very, I had a very, very busy and detailed life during COVID because, you know, that was all the reach for the de-platforming and all of that.
And people are still wearing masks.
I don't see it much.
I don't see it much.
How is Izzy's job?
No bad customers?
Well, there are always occasional bad customers.
Heck, we even have them here, but she's having a blast.
She's having a blast.
And she has been doing her job for three weeks and she's already gotten promoted.
Of course, because, you know, business needs talent, right?
So she's great.
Of course, we've been talking about business since she was like five years old.
Some.
All right, let's see here.
Steph, my 13 year old son, was roaming the city with friends the other day and got hit on by a girl for the first time.
He came home very impressed by this and was eager to tell me, i.e.
wanted to talk and get some feedback.
I got a bit worried.
I didn't see it coming so soon and began explaining to him the morals of pair relationships to my best ability.
Do you think the truth about sex presentation you wrote is appropriate for him to listen to?
He may be a bit young.
I obviously, I don't remember that presentation.
I remember the general tone, but I would leave it to you.
To figure that out, but how old was the woman who... Sorry, I said the woman.
How old was the girl who hit on your son?
That's the most important question, right?
If she was his age, interesting.
If she was not his age, if she was older, creepy, right?
Because he's 13.
I see masks on select older people in city areas, very rare outside of cities.
Oh, it was a 14 year old girl who hit on your 13 year old son.
Yeah, that's a funny thing.
It is a funny thing these days.
That didn't happen when I was a kid.
It didn't happen when I was a teen.
Girls didn't hit on guys.
Now girls would flirt a little and they would let you know that they liked you in some way or whatever, but they would not hit on guys or ask guys out.
If I had a son, so what would I tell my son?
This is a very interesting question.
What would I tell my son if he's 13?
I would say that it is maybe this is just old-fashioned or whatever it is maybe it's a square or whatever but I my instinct would be to say and I'm happy to get corrections and feedback on this my instinct would be to say no it's your job to ask the girl out don't don't it's kind of emasculating for the girl to pick you
It is the man's job to show that he has courage, that he's willing to be a, quote, hunter and to be assertive and to say what he wants and go after it.
That's going to give the world comfort that a girl who flirts with you and asks you out directly is not feminine enough to be a good partner.
Yeah, and again, maybe I'm completely wrong about this, and maybe it's just too old-fashioned, but if I had a son, I would say, you find the girl that you like, and you go up and you talk to her, and you ask her out.
But it is a feminine deal to be asked out, and don't let a girl put you in a feminine role at the very beginning by asking you out.
I would view that as a red flag.
How the heck did a fly get in here?
Gotta admire his dedication to consuming philosophy.
So yeah, I would not... I love the dance between boys and girls and men and women, the dance of attraction and desire and fear and preference and all of that, the anxiety and all of that.
I think that is a delightful thing and I think that a woman who takes a very masculine approach in this realm is probably someone who is
Not ideal, in my view.
All right.
Steph, that is a brilliant take.
I'm going for that.
Oh, good.
Yeah, I think that's helpful.
I think that's helpful.
That might mean that she wants to dominate him.
Well, it means that she has very masculine energy, which, if he has masculine energy, is going to clash.
The woman feels special in being picked.
The man feels special in doing the picking.
That's how we've evolved.
And I'm not a big one for just rip out and rewire human beings from the ground up.
That just doesn't work.
He refused politely, by the way, said he didn't feel ready.
Of course, yeah, I mean, there's no reason to be rude.
Yeah, absolutely.
Hey Steph, what arguments would you use to convince women that astrology is false?
Well, how do you know astrology is false?
Now, of course, the positions of stars have no influence on your personality, right?
So, you would say, look, we understand that the position of a star that is dozens or hundreds or even thousands of light years away, well, probably not thousands, but hundreds of light years away, perhaps,
The position of a star has nothing to do with your brain.
So that's, that can't be true.
And any woman who says that that can be true, I mean, then you just have to say, okay, by what possible mechanism is this achieved?
It's not radiation.
It's not gravity.
It's not ultraviolet rays.
It's not x-rays.
It's not neutrons.
Like, by what, by what possible metric or influence could the position of the stars
Have on the personality and developing brain of a baby, right?
Now, if they're purely mystical, like it's just magic, then you can't reason, right?
So, we'd say, okay, well, it's not that.
Now, I'd like to give people some respect for their beliefs in that if something is just completely unproductive, it generally tends to fall away, right?
So, the question is, it's clearly not the position of the stars, this, that, or the other, but, but, particularly in colder climates,
Does it matter what time of year you're born?
Well, yeah.
It absolutely matters what time of year you're born in colder climates in particular.
So, I was born in a colder climate in September.
So, my first experience of the world was indoors.
Right?
There's not a lot of people who are leaving babies out in Ireland or England.
In the winter.
Doesn't happen, right?
So, I'm kept indoors, I don't have a big view of the outside world, so the fact that I tend to have some, I'm into books, I'm into interior stuff, I spend a lot of time indoors, that may have something to do with that.
My brother, who is remarkably different from me in just about every conceivable dimension, my brother was born in Africa, where you go outside all the time.
And he doesn't tend to have as much of an interior monologue or introspection and so on.
So does it matter what time of year you're born in?
It absolutely does.
So I was born going into winter and I did so for the first six or eight months of my life.
I was indoors.
I was an indoor cat and we know there's differences between indoor cats and outdoor cats, right?
Whereas if you're born
In April or May, you're taken out.
You see the big world.
It's very bright.
You see the trees and the skies and all of this kind of stuff.
So, I do believe that the time of year you're born has an effect on some of your development.
It's just not the stars, right?
So, do you take any particular supplement, Steph?
Yeah, I mean, nothing out of the ordinary, really.
Nothing in particular that would matter.
The only time I get hit on by women is when they're asking to be Russian brides for a day.
Hard pass, right?
Again, I'd like information about the meetup later.
I'm considering going, but I need to know more information before I can decide.
What city, general theme, etc.?
I don't know.
You need to know what to expect.
I can't indulge that.
Sorry.
That's just, that's too nitpicky.
I don't know.
I don't know.
It's six months away.
I don't know exactly how it's going to shape out.
It's going to be great.
If that's not enough for you, then I wouldn't commit to it if I were in your shoes.
But I'm not going to like, okay, I need this detail.
I need that detail.
I don't even know if it's going to happen yet because we don't know if we're going to get enough people.
So I'm not going to work everything out to the last detail when I don't even know if it's going to happen yet.
So if you need that level of detail about a couple of days, six months down the road, it probably is best that you don't come in.
You can watch.
What you can do is I'm sure we'll record a bunch of stuff and we'll publish it maybe just to donors and you can then look at it and see if it's the kind of thing that you want to do.
But I'm not going to indulge.
That just seems kind of neurotic.
I'm not calling you neurotic as a whole, but that question just seems kind of neurotic to me and I'm just not going to indulge it.
So if you don't
Know what you like or what you want, then don't come, and I don't mean that in any negative or hostile way, don't come and then review what we record and what we film there on that weekend, and then you can decide if you want to come next time.
Thank you very much.
I'm a regular donor, by the way, but this one was gold!
Where's the tip button here?
Oh, freedomain.com slash donate is the best place to tip.
Thank you.
Is that why Eastern Europeans are more skeptical?
Eastern Europeans are more skeptical because they suffered under communism for 50 to 70 years.
40 to 70 years, right?
I was born in February and in the thick of winter would have learned to walk what?
September, October?
No.
It's about a year.
It's about a year.
Right, so also it matters when you learn to walk, right?
It's not just, it's the milestones too, right?
So I was born in September,
And so, my first six or seven months were winter, and then I learned to walk probably around the following September, which meant I maybe had a little bit of outdoor walking, and my favorite season is fall.
But if you're born in, say, November, then you learn to walk around November, and you're not walking outside, right?
You are walking inside, and so on, right?
All right.
Good job, Izzy.
I appreciate that.
Thank you.
All right.
I found myself getting annoyed at one of your call-in shows.
The one where the listener lost his partner in a plane crash.
I felt like he didn't show emotion considering it was only a few weeks ago.
Why do you think I would get annoyed?
So people who tell you traumatic things without emotion are
I'm trying to think of the right way to put this, because I don't want to be too strong, but I also don't want to be milquetoast either.
So, as you know, it happens about a zillion times over the course of the show, and sometimes it feels like a zillion times over the course of a call-in that people tell you these terrible things, and then giggle.
Right?
They tell you these terrible things, and then they laugh.
And why people do that is because they're probing for sympathy.
That's why people do that.
They'll tell you these terrible things and in case you don't show them sympathy, they laugh it off as a preventive way of avoiding the pain of being unsympathized with or not being sympathized with.
So when people tell you terrible things without emotion, they are shifting the emotional burden to you or to call them out on their lack of emotion.
Now, if somebody is grieving and you say, hey, why are you, like, why did all this terrible, like, this terrible stuff has happened and you don't seem to feel anything, then it sounds like you're beating up on someone who's grieving, like you're nagging or getting upset with someone who's grieving.
So one of the reasons you probably get annoyed is because
People are shifting the emotional work to you and they're putting you in what probably feels like a bit of an impossible situation.
Which is, you're upset, you're more upset than they are, and you didn't lose anyone in a plane crash.
And do you call that person out?
Well, I would call them out.
For sure.
And you don't have to call them out in a hostile way, just say, just be honest, right?
The solution to everything is just be honest, right?
And say, it's kind of disconcerting that you're
Talking about this terrible thing like you're reading a laundry list.
Like, that's odd.
Do you not feel anything or what do you feel, right?
But it's disconcerting to me.
So when people invite me in to laugh at their childhood abuse and trauma, it's disconcerting to me.
And you've heard me say this a bunch of times in call-in shows, right?
We're so scant on sympathy in society that people would try to giggle their way out of it rather than accept that it's not coming.
All right, let me get to any of the comments and questions.
If we have input on the direction of the meeting, I'd like to give suggestions or vote privately, of course.
Sorry, didn't you just say you weren't gonna come?
Yeah, fair enough, I'll stand by.
So I don't understand.
You may not, I mean, you're probably not coming, but you want input on how things go.
I don't understand.
Yeah, it opens if you're interested in coming and your level of confidence.
Well, yeah, that's right.
I mean, yes, we ask whether you're interested, because if you're not that interested in coming, then your suggestions won't mean that much.
You understand, right?
All right.
Yeah, if you're not coming, we're not going to listen to your input.
I don't know why that needs to be said.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding something, but if you're not coming, then we're not going to listen to your input.
I mean, why would we, right?
Now I need to know, what did the French-Canadians do that caused them to have to invent poutine?
Try looking up Christe Ranouille.
Poutine is French fries with cheese curds and gravy and sin and guilt and Satan.
So if you do a lot of, I tell you this man, you do a lot of heavy work in the cold, you need your calories.
Poutine is incredibly calorie and fat dense food, which you need.
You wouldn't believe, when I worked up north gold panning and prospecting, a lot of heavy labor all day.
The breakfast that I ate at the time would probably slay me in a week at this point.
I would eat, you know, three eggs, four sausages, bacon, pancakes.
I would have these giant breakfasts and then go out and burn off 2,000 calories a day.
So, it is, uh...
It is just a lot of people who have to do a lot of work in the cold.
They need a lot of calories.
All right.
Have you heard of astro-theology?
Particularly the work of Santos Bonacci.
Unsure if it's a grift.
Really?
So, it combines two mystical things.
Astrology and theology.
But you're not sure if it's a grift.
Let me guess.
Let me guess.
It's something to do with feeling good rather than following any objective moral rules.
Ass-smoking church!
Right?
So, you understand that mysticism is about the emotional comfort without having to follow any objective moral rules.
It is a form of predation.
It is saying, I want the fruits of virtue without having to follow any moral rules.
There's this old Bloom County by Berkeley Breathed, was a pretty funny cartoon from way back in the day.
And there was this penguin, I think he was a penguin or some kind of flightless bird, penguin, and the penguin wanted to lose weight.
And he's like, I'm going to go on the all asparagus and extra sunlight magic diet of, I'm just making something up, right?
And the guy was just like, his friend was like, okay, but what about just eat less and exercise more?
No, no, no, no, no, right?
None of that.
If you want to be happy in a sustained way, do good.
So anybody who tells you how to be happy without giving you any strict and objective moral rules is teaming up with Satan to scull if your conscience.
Anybody who tries to tell you how to be happy without giving you some strict moral rules, objective moral rules, is just teaming up with the devil to try to disembowel your conscience.
But the problem is your conscience can't be disemboweled.
All that can happen is your conscience can disembowel you.
That's it.
That's all your opportunity.
That's all that can happen.
Facts and facts and facts.
Yeah, so here's how to avoid grifters, right?
All the people who say,
Oh, you can be happy.
You can be happy.
All you need to do is X, Y, and Z. And if X, Y, or Z does not include objective, strict moral standards?
Uh, it's a grift.
I mean, I think that philosophy can make you happy, and philosophy comes with very strict and objective moral standards.
Now, strict just means, doesn't mean that it's perfect or you're perfect at it, Lord knows I'm not, but strict means no excuses.
If you fail your moral standards, there's no excuses.
That's all.
Strictest means no excuses.
Okay.
All right, any other last questions, comments, issues, challenges, criticisms, problems?
Can you all make sure you dig up trolls and have them come to the next live stream?
It's actually kind of funny because we couldn't get Skype to work for some reason, so we decided to go over to Telegram, where His Lordship was waiting with scaly tentacles and red teeth.
So that was actually great, so maybe we'll do some more stuff on Telegram.
Great show as always!
Ready for Florida!
Thank you.
How to get rich by signing up to my 12-step conference, buying my book, using my vitamins, doing this exercise.
Sunlight on your balls will make you happy.
You need to do this, you need to do that, you need to do this, and the other, and you'll be happy.
And it's like, so how about just tell the truth and be virtuous?
No, no, no, no, no!
It's the all asparagus and sunlight diet.
That's what you need.
And the market for happiness without virtue, the market for the illusion,
Of happiness without virtue is endless.
It's endless.
Endless.
Be happy means be good, which means be unhappy for a while.
Yep.
Yep.
UV on the sack.
That's right, things we won't be doing at the conference.
All right.
Don't forget, please, if you can go to, of course, freedomain.com slash donate and help out the show, I would massively, deeply, and humbly appreciate it.
Thank you for the people who tipped today.
You make all of this possible, and I massively thank you for your support of the show.
Signing up for subscriptions is even better because the income is a smidge more predictable, and I really, really do appreciate that.
So you can go to freedomain.com slash donate.
For that,
And don't forget to fdrurl.com slash apps to get instructions on the apps.
Please check out and share, my friends, the shortened version of
The Peaceful Parenting Book at peacefulparenting.com and fdrural.com slash meetup.
Please, please, please go and sign up for that.
You don't have to pay a penny yet.
We just need to gauge interest before we go ahead.
We need to get a first pass of interest before we go ahead.
All right.
Okay, well have yourselves a wonderful evening.
Love you guys so much.
Thank you for coming out.
We will talk to you Sunday morning and lots of love from up here.
Don't forget if you want a private call-in show or a public call-in show, freedomain.com slash call.
