All Episodes
Previous Next
Sept. 5, 2024 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
20:30
DON'T LIVE ALONE!
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
All righty, righty!
Hello, everybody!
Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain.
Hope you're doing well.
Questions from freedomain.locals.com, a great community.
I surely hope you will join us!
freedomain.locals.com.
All right, so what's the difference between people-pleasing and thawning over people?
And it's a longish question, but let's see if we can Sort it out and get to some kind of reasonable answer.
So being a people pleaser is fine because it involves having people have a positive experience of you.
I know people pleaser has a bit of a negative connotation but not nearly as negative as something like fawning.
So, people-pleasing is wanting other people to have a positive experience.
I aim to please you, the fine, generous, and noble listeners, freedomain.com slash donate, if you find what I'm doing to be pleasing.
So, I want to please you, and I want to please my wife, I want to please my daughter, I want to please my friends, I want to please my conscience, obviously very, very important.
So, being a people-pleaser is fine, but fawning is when you are attempting to provoke A state of unreality in the mind of the other person in order to gain a benefit.
Right?
So I'm trying to please you by bringing you truth, reason, evidence and all these good things.
That's what my goal is.
So that's how I aim to please you.
So reason, truth, evidence, facts and these are all good things that we should pursue and we should Enjoy, right?
That's all good stuff.
Now, of course, if I'm fawning, then what I'm doing is, oh, you're so magnificent.
Oh, you're so brilliant.
Oh, you're so wonderful.
Oh, you're so wise.
Like, attempting to provoke, say, unreal vanity, or some sense of importance, or, you know, the people who kind of grovel before you, you know, these vendors, cheesy vendors, often in resort companies, like, hey, boss!
They say, hey, boss!
Hey, boss!
Hey, boss!
You know, hey King?
And so they're trying to provoke a sense of vanity in you in order to give you a bit of dopamine based on unreality that then they use to manipulate you to get something positive.
Telling people the truth Making a joke, saying something complimentary, again, assuming it's true.
This is not manipulation.
This is not fawning, right?
So, if a woman is shopping for a dress and the saleswoman says, you look fantastic in that dress, when the woman looks fantastic in the dress, that is not fawning.
But if she says, you look fantastic in that dress, and the woman looks terrible in that dress, then that would be fawning over someone, a state of unreality, in order to extract a benefit.
I'll give you an example from my own life, because far from perfectly virtuous am I. It's a journey.
It's a journey.
It's a journey.
So, what I would say, or my experience has been, that in the 90s I wrote a short story called After, and it was about a comedian, a man who was a comedian returning home from the Second World War, and his difficulties in his life until he tells his first joke again.
And I wrote the short story, I adapted it to a screenplay, and I produced a movie.
A short movie, obviously.
And the movie was entered into the Hollywood Film Festival contest, where it did fairly well.
I remember, actually, after the first showing of the movie, which is kind of a surreal experience, right?
Seeing your words manifested with good actors up there on the screen.
But, and you can find it at fdrpodcasts.com.
Just look for After Movie.
I think After Movie.
Anyway, so, after it was shown for the first time, an old man came up, embraced me, like sobbing his heart out, saying that I had perfectly captured what it was like when his father came home from the Second World War.
I mean, really, just a wonderful moment in life.
Anyway, so the guy who was head of distribution at the Hollywood Film Festival back in the day, he and I had lunch.
This is before the movies were judged.
The movie that beat mine went on to win an Oscar, so not super bad as far as that goes.
So, I had lunch with the distributor who was responsible for getting it on TV, for getting it put in airplanes, as sort of short movies shown before other movies and so on.
And, you know, because I was a young gun and eager for success, I had lunch with him and I, obviously, I did not treat him as if he were just some dude I was having lunch with, because he held to some degree Some aspect of my artistic future in his hands and so on, so I was probably a little bit effusive, a little bit, oh, that's very interesting, oh, yeah, yeah, you really get that, you know, that kind of stuff, right?
So, unfortunately, that is probably the nature of the beast for people like that.
I probably was completely obvious.
I'm not the most subtle human being in the known universe, as I'm sure you're perfectly aware.
So, that's an example of a fawning.
I was exaggerating his positive characteristics in the hopes of getting favorable treatment in return.
Which was really a vote of non-confidence on my own movie.
My own movie should have spoken for itself, but I thought, well, if he really likes me, this might push it over the edge, and so on.
So, it is, of course, very silly.
People don't make business deals based just on that, or if they do, they don't stay in business very long.
But I was young, hot-shot, hot-headed, inexperienced, and so on.
So that would be an example of I just want a woman.
I don't want more than a woman.
example of fawning. A common scenario is the guy who's like says to the woman,
oh you're just so wonderful, you're just so great, you're all that and a slice of
bread and was it more than a woman? More than a woman? What is that a woman is a
six-pack? So I just want a woman I don't want more than a woman that's not what
really I'm looking for. So a man who says to a woman you're just wonderful I love
you I could really see us having a future together blah blah blah he's in a
sense stimulating her desire if she desires him and and he's high status in
particular she he is stimulating an unreal desire in her which is that he
will commit and he does this in order to get her into bed and then he walks on or
moves on or whatever so that would be an example of fawning.
Fawning is an act of submission with the goal of dominance.
So fawning is when you pretend to be lesser than someone, like those guys in the third world saying, hey boss!
Right?
And what they want is your money.
So they pretend submission in order to gain resources.
And it's very, very common in the world as a whole.
All right.
I'd like to know what your take is on guys who choose the life of isolation.
All the studies that I have seen on negative effects of men who never marry is ultimately due to alcoholism.
Not sure if it's correlation or causation.
Overall marriage seems to be statistical negative for men.
I'm very curious as to hear your case on missed opportunity castromicta.
So, it depends really on what you mean by isolation.
If you just mean not getting married, well, if you don't get married, and particularly if you don't have children, your life is largely composed of decay.
Your life is largely composed of decomposing, right?
So you hit your physical peak in your 20s and after that, brothers and sisters, it's just downhill.
I'm doing alright as a whole.
I'm doing alright.
I took my legs out for a full-on wind sprint a couple days ago and I've still got it.
I still got it.
I won't say for how long I wind sprinted, but I certainly ran full on max.
So I still do the same workout I did in my teens, which of course is nothing massively strenuous.
I can still do 40 minutes of hard cardio.
I can still do an hour of hard racket sports.
So I'm doing alright, but it ain't the same.
It ain't the same.
You know, sleep is a little lighter, and I get these mid-afternoon lulls from time to time, where it's just like, ugh, Steph bought me nappy.
So it's just not, it's not quite the same.
Obviously, and I'm gonna be 58 this month, so obviously there's gonna be a couple of wee changes, lad.
So, my heart rate is really good, and my blood pressure is excellent, and all health indicators as a whole are doing well, but there is that decaying thing.
Now, if you get married, though, Your relationship grows and strengthens even though your body decays and weakens.
If you have children of course you see your children grow and strengthen and flourish and have all of these wonderful things going on and that's a beautiful thing to see.
So if you don't get married, don't have kids, life is just downhill.
The uphill is the strengthening of your relationship.
Now you can say of course, ah yes, but I have my male friends, right?
Let's say you're a solitary man.
I have my male friends.
And it's like, well, yeah, but studies are that you, you know, change friends about every seven years or so.
And either your male friends, well, your male friends are almost likely, almost certainly just like you, in which case they're decaying too.
Ah, well, but the friendship is strengthening and so on.
It's like, yeah, no, I get that.
But a male friendship cannot substitute for a pair-bonded romantic sexual love.
It just plain can't.
Male friendships are great, but male friendships for a man cannot substitute for romantic, sexual, pair-bonded love and lust and desire and all of that.
It just can't.
You just can't get the same love hormones from good conversation that you can from great sex.
Or cuddling, or whatever, right?
It's just sort of a basic fact.
So, there's a great divide.
One of the biggest divides in life as a whole is between the people who get married and have kids and the people who don't.
I'll be straight up honest with you.
I'm not saying this is some sort of objective thing, but I've talked about it with a lot of people.
It seems to be a fairly universal phenomenon.
To the childless and the unmarried, you all just look kind of like perpetual teenagers and kind of goofy and immature.
Because, you know, taking on the responsibility of keeping alive and growing an entire human being or human beings, maintaining a pair-bonded love through the years and decades and being there and You don't know support until you're married.
Male friends can support each other to some degree, but you don't know what it's like to have a winged person in your life who's there for you 150% no matter what.
I spend thousands of times more time with my wife than I do with even my closest male friend, so it's just not the same.
And it just looks like a kind of goofy and frivolous life.
You know, you're going to concerts, and a little bit of travel, and some work, but you know, your problems aren't really that big, and the stakes aren't really that high, and you, you know, you just never really grow up until you have kids, and really sort of take care of them.
And, I mean, I became a father later in life, so that's sort of been my experience.
It's what I've seen as a whole.
You know, the last time I was sort of in contact, I don't really have much to do with childless friends from my youth, because our lives are just too different.
You know, I've lived their life, they don't understand mine.
They don't really understand mine, at all.
And so, there's just too much of a gulf in the distance, and they're just like, oh, you know, a new season of this show came out, and I'm really looking forward to this concert, and it's like, yeah, okay, I was 23 once, too.
But just, it's just a little copy-paste Groundhog Day, with that kind of stuff, and it's all kind of decay as a whole, so I think it's very sad.
Alright, is peaceful parenting sufficient for ending the immoral practice of taxation?
Paying taxes?
How do we teach our kids?
Blah blah blah.
So...
It doesn't matter.
I mean, yes, I think there's a case to be made.
Kids who are peacefully parented will grow up to be stable people who can pair bond, maintain the stability of a family, raise healthy, happy children, not become criminals, not be dysfunctional, not usually be sick, at least from stress or trauma-related diseases like ischemic heart disease and certain forms of cancers and things like that.
Not medical advice, just what I've read.
Look at bombinthebrain.com for more on that.
It's the best shot we've got and even if it doesn't lead to some perfectly free rational society, it's still a good thing to do because any reduction in the number of violations, the amount of violations and the degree of violations of the non-aggression principle is a massive plus.
All right.
Somebody says infinite childhood, infinite resources, infinite escapism, nihilism, infinite potential, infinite time.
Some might say that the experience of being a baby in oneness with the environment is being one with the infinite.
Or that moments last for eternity, but is that just a crutch?
Is infinity an indicator of sophistry and an enemy of rational philosophy?
On a practical level, is it useful shorthand for determining how rational people are to simply ask oneself the question, in what ways might this person be afflicted by the concept of the infinite?
So, infinity is not a concept.
Infinity is an anti-concept.
I mean, does infinity exist in theory?
Yeah, of course, right?
But we are mortal and everything about us is limited.
Our height, our energy, our time, our musculature, our strength, our patience.
Everything about us is finite and we are the products of We are literally the products of the opposite of infinity.
If we live forever, we wouldn't need babies.
If we didn't need babies, we wouldn't need sex organs, or sexual dimorphism, or pair bonding, or sexuality.
And of course, if we were infinite, we never would have evolved.
So everything about us is the result of the opposite of infinity.
And so everything that we understand is finite.
Everything that we comprehend directly, that we can fit inside our brains, is finite.
And then you need the opposite of that concept.
Every concept has an opposite, but we really can't fathom it or figure it out or hold it in our minds.
Like if you close your eyes and picture You know, a bunch of spinning balls in your mind's eye.
You can get to maybe 9, 8 or 9 or 10 maximum and then you can't keep them all in.
So everything that we are, everything that we have grown from, everything that we use to evolve is based upon the opposite of infinity and the opposite of eternity or certainly the opposite of immortality.
And so, we can't really comprehend infinity or eternity.
we can, we have it as a tag for the opposite of what is.
And so, childhood is not being a baby.
No, it's not being one with the infinite.
No, no.
See, being at one with the infinite would be to have infinite patience, right?
But we don't have infinite patience, nor should be.
Babies are very impatient, and they should be, because their needs are immediate and have to be satisfied without language.
So baby's hungry, he cries, because if he doesn't get food in a pretty short period of time, he's gonna die.
So babies are not at all at one with the infinite.
They really can't predict the future.
They can't figure out the future or defer gratification.
Steph, you look remarkably well.
Did you find a fountain of youth?
It is not so much a fountain of youth.
I appreciate that.
That's very kind.
I agree.
But it's not really a fountain of youth.
It is, you know, good clean living.
I don't drink.
I don't smoke.
I mean, barely drink.
I have like, I don't know, one light beer every month or two.
So, I basically, I functionally don't drink, I don't smoke, I exercise, I get my sunlight, I get, you know, 10 to 15,000 steps in a day as best I can and I stay hydrated and all of that kind of stuff.
And of course, I have a wife who's, you know, really good with skin care and she helped me to get the right combination of things to make sure I don't really break out and, you know, skin stays relatively supple.
I have very dry skin just as a whole.
I went through a terrible itchy period in my early teens before I figured out the lotion stuff.
It puts the lotion on my skin, and so I have to moisturize.
I moisturize twice a day, and fairly considerably.
Like, not exactly like a shovel face full of it, but fairly considerably because my skin is dry and tight otherwise.
So I appreciate that, but you're only as old as your arteries, so it doesn't really matter how well I look, it matters how functional my body remains.
Why do a lot of women struggle with being grateful?
It's a great, great question.
Well, if women are grateful, then they can no longer apply negative economics.
So negative economics are, I'm gonna nag you until you do what I want.
Positive economics are, I'm gonna praise you and reward you and be happy and so on.
But not ever nag or be negative.
And if a woman is grateful, then she gives up The right of nagging.
And there's a lot of women, sadly, and men do it too, don't get me wrong.
But there's a lot of women who can't really imagine how they can get what they want from life without nagging, without complaining, without being hostile, without withholding sex or affection, without slamming drawers, without calling names, without escalating, without, you know, that impatience and danger stuff that goes on in a lot of marriages.
In general, right, this is the tipping point.
When a woman is young, she gets what she wants because the positive economics of being young and pretty, and when she passes over the wall...
Then she switches from being positive to, from positive economics, which is maybe you can get a date with me, to negative economics, which is I'm going to nag you until you do what I want.
So being grateful is to say I have nothing to complain about.
But if the major way that you get what you want in life is by complaining, gratitude is the enemy of your resource acquisition.
So I think it would be something like that.
This is somebody saying about his son.
His son is in his mid-teens and wondering whether I should work and build up my money or play with my friends and enjoy my childhood.
My argument would be always why not both?
False dichotomies are the enemy of negotiation.
Either you win or I win or either I make money or I play with my friends.
Well, why don't you get together with your friends and try and do something that makes money?
Maybe you'll get together to do a little lawn servicing business, some weeding and mowing or whatever it is.
Maybe you'll get together and do try and play throughs of video games or funny jokes that you can make or reaction videos.
Like there's a lot that you can do that can make you money and you can have fun with your friends as well.
So try in general to avoid anything to do with a false dichotomy.
Well, I've got this one positive thing but this comes at the expense of this negative thing.
And of course, life is a series of trade-offs, but I try to have positive things.
So, I mean, sort of one example is, should I exercise or do a show?
Well, I mean, as long as I'm willing to forego video, which I certainly, in the case of this particular recording, I'm willing to forego video.
So that I can walk around briskly while I'm doing my show.
I mean I'm not saying this is true for everyone but I used to have a standing desk and I still do in some places and I used to say if people wanted a meeting I'd say you know if it's just two people or maybe even three let's go for a walk rather than let's go for lunch and so on so Should I do this or should I exercise?
I would say why not work for both and see what you can combine the two in, right?
My wife and I enjoy playing online Catan and because it's a turn-based game, what I can do is I can play while doing weights, right?
Because I just have to watch the board and then take my turn and all of that.
So you can try and find ways to combine things and that's generally the first place to look.
Freedomain.com to help out the show.
Really, really appreciate that.
Love you guys to death.
Talk to you soon.
▲
Export Selection