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Dec. 23, 2024 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
51:24
My Life After Deplatforming!
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Hello everybody!
Stefan Molyneux from FreeDomain, FreeDomain.com.
I have popped up, popped up, On Twitter again, like a dolphin surfing the front of a cruise ship, I occasionally emerge and get a couple of old views.
This is from 22nd December, yesterday, I think.
Yeah, it's almost Christmas Eve.
Merry Christmas, everybody.
Somebody wrote OG Roland Radd, I think it is.
He's hurt.
His ego's hurt.
But he's a big star, and it's all right to have an ego.
I encourage efforts to get him to come back.
And this is, um...
A screenshot with me looking fairly fresh-faced and apple-cheeked saying, it's nice to see that people still remember me.
And it is.
It is nice to see that people remember me.
So, one of the things that is a real challenge when you're a public figure, especially, you know, I've been through a lot of self-knowledge work, a lot of therapy and stuff like that, so...
When you have a good degree of self-knowledge, one of the things that's tough out there in sort of the public square or the public space is just seeing the number of people who can't understand someone else's perspective or viewpoint.
They can really only imagine how they would feel in such a situation, right?
So it's really important.
So, a lot of people, when I was cancelled, a lot of people were like, well, I would be really hurt, angry, and upset about that.
Therefore, Steph must be really hurt, angry, and upset about that.
Now, it was upsetting, don't get me wrong.
I was like, hmm, pure, pure Buddha Zen floating around on fart juice above the mountains of indifference.
I was not indifferent, of course.
It was disappointing.
And, I wouldn't say overly shocking, but what occurred for me was, you know, really, really looking at the upside of things is important.
I'm not 100% on the Hamlet train of like, there's nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
But, There is so much that you can do to change your perspective about things that happen to you that a lot of your happiness is under your control.
If you're at the mercy of events, you're saying that I have no interpretive faculty with which to reshape the immediate emotional impact of something.
And of course, the whole point of having these sort of higher brains as cognitive functioning ability is to be able to To intercept emotional impulses and shape them to a larger and more universal perspective.
I mean, that's virtue, right?
You want to do bad things, you intercept that impulse, you shape it towards a greater virtue, and through that you end up with a happier life, right?
That's why we have philosophy, is to oppose some of the, I would say, baser instincts, not that I have any problems with emotions.
I mean, what we're all after is happiness, and happiness is, of course, an emotional experience, but You can't allow emotions to dictate your life.
Otherwise, you're not partaking in the very essence of humanity, which is to have these rational, universal, cognitive capabilities that can shape and align our emotions to a larger moral purpose.
In the same way, like if you look at the world, oh, it looks really flat, man, it's totally flat.
Well, you want to use your scientific method to figure out whether it is flat, you know, that kind of stuff, right?
So it's the same thing.
Our limited perspective and the strength of our emotional impulses is why we need to have philosophy as a whole, particularly moral philosophy, so that we can take a larger perspective on that which is immediately upsetting and reshape that to a larger and more universal All morality involves sacrificing the comfort of the moment for the happiness of the future.
It's sort of like, you know, dieting, like you're sacrificing the happiness of the moment by being hungry for the sake of happiness in the future, which is being healthy, not having joint pain, you know, this kind of stuff, right?
And longevity.
Same thing with quitting smoking or what is even harder for most people, which is quitting propaganda.
Propaganda is there to program you to prefer short-term gains over long-term happiness because the short-term gains of conformity and social acceptance and feeling like a good person and all that, that sort of moral posturing that passes for ethics these days, propaganda is there to say to you that that which makes you happy and relieved and Approved of in the moment is also that which is moral and virtuous and good in the long run.
And of course, really nothing could be further from the truth.
That which makes you happy in the long run is that which is often the most exquisitely uncomfortable in the moment.
It's sort of like a diet that says, eat whatever you want, whenever you want, that's the best way to diet.
Well, that wouldn't be a diet.
And those who seek for approval gain the drug of approval in the short term, but they lose Integrity, virtue and self-respect in the long run.
Philosophy is there to say it's essential if you want happiness in the long run to embrace the discomfort of being disapproved of in the moment so that you can approve of yourself in the future.
We don't want the approval of others because that's a form of enslavement and gives way too much power to bullies.
We want the self-respect of ourselves in the future And that's worth sacrificing just about anything for, because it's not really a sacrifice.
You know, if you quit smoking, are you really sacrificing things?
So yeah, getting away from the short-term dopamine to the long-term self-respect is really the goal of philosophy.
So if people say, well, if I were Steph, I would be Really angry and upset and I would rage quit and I would, you know, ego and all of that, right?
I mean, my gosh, ego.
I mean, I can be accused of many things, even a few of them credibly, but having a big ego?
No, no, no.
An ego is when you dominate people With irrational perspectives through, you know, threats, bribes, bullying, and so on, right?
It's like, you know, pushing those two pieces of paper together.
If you don't reason, one just has to go over the other.
Like, they can't coexist.
One just has to dominate the other.
So, ego is when I am right simply for being, and you use your intellectual and emotional talents to browbeat other people into submission.
The one thing that is the opposite of the ego, the opposite of the ego is to relentlessly submit to a rational standard that is not the ego, right?
To relentlessly, this is, science is ego-less, in that the scientist of course wants to be right, but he says, or she says, I'm going to submit my preferences to a universal rational standard, and therefore the ego is when you impose an irrational standard on other people through browbeating, bullying, bribery, and so on, the BBBs.
So, to have an ego is to say that I'm right for existing, To have humility is to say, I want to be right according to a universal standard.
So the fact that I submit virtue to a universal moral standard, the fact that I submit the metaphysics, the study of reality to a universal rational standard, epistemology, how do we know what is true and what is false, that is a universal moral standard.
If you can transfer it to someone else, it's not ego.
And so pursuing truth and virtue and therefore being able to achieve love.
You can't love or be loved if you don't know what is true and you don't do what is virtuous.
So the very opposite of having an ego is to submit yourself to a larger universal moral standard.
That is absolute.
That is not optional.
It's not like, well, you know, I in general submit myself to a standard.
As long as it's not too inconvenient and so on.
It's not optional.
It's not sometimes.
I mean, if someone has given me An empirical, rational argument against what it is that I'm saying, I will submit.
I'm not submitting to that person.
I'm submitting.
It's not an ego thing, right?
Dominance and submission is what less mature personalities believe, just as I was more inclined to when I was younger.
But I submit to the truth, which is called having integrity, right?
And having integrity is very, very important.
Not just because it's a nice thing to have integrity as a whole, but as I say, self-respect and love is only possible if you have integrity, because you can't love someone who's untrustworthy, and integrity means that your behavior is predictable, right?
Integrity means your behavior is predictable.
And so If your behavior can be predicted and your behavior is virtuous, then people can trust you enough to love you.
So, with the people in my life, if I do something that's not ideal and they say, that wasn't ideal, and here's sort of why, I'm like, you know, you're right, I'm really, really sorry about that, and so on, right?
So, that one of the problems with being in a public square, which of course, you know, I'm much less of now than I was, I'm still there, but one of the problems with being in the public square is people keep confusing you for them.
And they don't say, gee, Steph, I mean, if I was in your shoes, my ego would be wounded, I'd be bitter, angry, I'd rage quit, and so on.
They don't say, if I were in your shoes, this is how I would feel, which is to say that they're differentiating that they're not me.
But they say, Steph does feel this way.
Steph is experiencing this, right?
I mean, when people say, oh, you know, he's just a manipulator or, like, cultish and kind of stuff, it's like, because if they had some authority or influence over people, that's how they would use that power, whereas I don't use that power.
I never tell people what to do and simply try to remind them of universal principles and some important and essential moral truths.
But what they're saying is, well, if I had the kind of authority that Steph has, I would use it to a terrible end.
They don't say, well, I'm glad I don't have Steph's influence because I would use it for a malevolent end.
They just say, no, Steph does this, right?
Like, they don't, there's no self and there's no other distinction.
And, I mean, I'm pushing 60 years of age, right?
So, I get to say, oh, it's so tiresome, you know, Asterian style, right?
Oh, it's so tiresome.
My bad.
So, But it is tiresome.
It is tiring.
Not tiring, like physically tiring.
It's just boring.
It's boring when people just imagine that you are them with no understanding of that.
Because really, I mean, how are you going to talk people out of that in any reasonable time frame?
I mean, that's such a leap from...
You know, disco, internal, mirrorball, solipsism, or...
It's not quite narcissism, but...
When you don't understand that you and other people are different, and it comes from childhood, right?
It's hard to get people to cross that bridge.
It's hard to get people to really differentiate between self and other and to stop projecting particularly onto public figures.
And what it comes from is usually Let's say you have a mother who is short-tempered, right?
She's irritated, she's stressed, or whatever it is.
And then you're kind of, you know, loud and banging drums as a little boy.
And your mother says, you're being irritating, right?
Not, I have a susceptibility to irritation, or I'm feeling irritable at the moment.
She says, the mother says, That my escalating bad temper is the direct result of your behavior.
Not, you're irritating me, but you are irritating.
So she takes her irritation and embeds it in the child and then criticizes the child based on that.
And, you know, woe betide, you tell a mother or a father who does that kind of stuff, no, I'm not irritating, you're just short-tempered.
I mean, because then it just escalates.
So you kind of have to go along with it.
So there's a whole lot of, you know, trauma and upset at the root of a failure to differentiate between self and other.
And honestly, when you have people around you and, you know, I won't say I'm blessed because I certainly have some blessings, but we've all earned it through pretty hard self-work.
But I'm really, I mean, I'm surrounded.
The people in my life are so far removed from the general rabble and projecting horde that, you know, once you've You know, once you've listened to, you know, 1962 Moscow Pavarotti,
it's kind of tough to go back to Johnny Rotten and Sid Fisch, so to speak, because my sort of daily life is elevated and wonderful conversations and self-ownership, responsibility, and easy, productive, positive things, that then sort of going back to this sort of very primitive kind of situation I mean, how would you feel if you woke up and had to start at grade 2 again?
Like, it just wouldn't be that much fun.
So, this is one of the reasons why it's less appealing.
So, he said, this guy says, and you know, no hate on the guy.
I'm glad he posted this and all of that.
But he's hurt.
His ego's hurt.
But he's a big star and it's alright to have an ego.
Yeah, I mean, it's really the opposite of what I do is to have an ego.
I mean, if I had an ego, I would have stayed away from controversial stuff and continued to grow my presence and brand and so on, right?
So what did people reply?
It's interesting to see where people are.
Somebody wrote, It's too bad that what he holds up as his life's work in UPB has been destroyed multiple times.
The logical possibility that someone would debate without wanting an outcome of truth, like a spy, defeats it.
I'm not sure what that means.
It's too bad.
So this is the other thing, too, is that people say, he's wrong, he's been debunked multiple times, he's wrong, he made basic errors at the beginning of the art of the argument, which is, you know, it's not true.
They don't point out the errors, they simply say the error has occurred, and they're just absolutely certain about it, and this is like...
Being a choir director and going to a dog shelter and just hearing random barks, it's hard on the ears and it's just kind of unpleasant.
We need to do quite a bit to get away from it, right?
The logical possibility that someone would debate without wanting an outcome of truth, like a spy, defeats it.
That sentence really doesn't make any sense.
I'm not sure what it means.
What is a logical possibility?
As opposed to an illogical possibility, like a square circle, that's possible.
No, it's not.
By definition, a square circle is impossible, right?
Someone would debate without wanting an outcome of truth defeats it.
Now, I don't know what that means.
Somebody else writes, a return of Molyneux would be cataclysmic.
Few today could handle his arguments.
Well, it's interesting because I actually think more people today could handle my arguments.
We need him, even just for the lulls he will inevitably produce.
Well, I will say that that's probably the biggest temptation, is the lulls are a little addictive.
I'm not saying it's a good addiction, but it's there.
Some people get their YouTube channels back if they appeal, some people don't.
What do we say here?
I would unironically love to see this come true.
This dude was hugely influential to me, less for his positions, which generally were good, but more his approach.
That's not an argument.
He was an underappreciated titan.
That's not an argument.
Not an argument was fairly iconic, right?
Let's see here.
Yeah.
*sniff* He wouldn't do well now.
He was a stepping stone for a lot of people, but most of us have outgrown a lot of his takes.
Oh, see, that's the funny thing, right?
I mean, I've been doing philosophy now.
I'm 58 years old.
I've been doing philosophy for 43 years, right, since my mid-teens.
I've been doing philosophy for 43 years.
And...
Look, I obviously, I get it.
There's no hate here.
But this is just kind of like, and I hate to be this, the arguments are so wrong.
Where do I even start?
You know, that's kind of an annoying approach.
But let's say that I made an argument that two and two make four.
Two and two make four.
Well, says a mathematician, I guess he was quite influential when I was younger with his two and two make four argument, but I've since outgrown him, don't you?
I've just outgrown him, and I've outgrown his little takes that two and two make four.
It's like, look, it's true or it's false.
There is no outgrowing that you can abandon the truth if you want.
But don't tell me you outgrew the truth into what?
What did you outgrow the truth into?
Falsehood?
Now, of course, I'm not saying I am the truth, the way, the light.
But I'm saying that if I made an argument that is false, then you need to prove that it's false.
If I made an argument that goes against the evidence, you need to provide counter evidence.
But if you can't disprove the argument and you can't provide counter evidence, it has to stand as true.
What are you outgrowing?
Well, I used to accept gravity, don't you know?
But gravity was just an amateur take, and I've since vastly outgrown the concept of gravity.
It's like, what are you talking about?
Oh, and I mean, to get someone to understand that this is just an emotional thing.
So what probably happened is...
My arguments were causing upset in professional, social, political circles, which I understand and I sympathize with.
And so people can say, these arguments were too dangerous.
They were too destabilizing.
They threatened too many of my relationships.
I get all of that.
But then just say that.
Just be honest.
If you can't be honest, you can't have a debate.
So when people say, well, but I've just, he made these takes.
They're not takes.
I feel like a four-poster bed is nice.
It's a take or whatever, right?
Wainscoting is gay.
I don't know.
Is that a take, right?
But it's not a take to say two and two make four, right?
All men are mortal.
Socrates is a man.
Therefore, Socrates is mortal, right?
I put highly sourced arguments out, interviewed subject matter experts with data, charts, and references.
So these aren't takes.
These aren't takes.
Who would you rather sleep with?
The prince that the beast in Beauty and the Beast turns into, or the beast himself?
I don't know.
That's kind of a provocative, odd Fifty Shades of Hairy Grey take.
It's not a take to say that two of them make four.
He wouldn't do...
Oh, sorry.
It says, Growing up is appreciating what we had.
His call-in conversations are amazing to listen to.
It's time to move on, though.
It's time to move on.
And moving on is like outgrowing.
It's a hierarchical statement.
We've got to move on.
I enjoyed grade two, but it's time to move on.
Move on is not an argument.
Take is not an argument.
Outgrowing is not an argument.
And dealing with these random P. Diddy oil Vaseline lubed tentacles of not an argument just gets kind of...
Because it doesn't change, right?
Cut off one tentacle, another one regrows.
So, alright.
I lost touch with his content when Trump got elected in 16. When I came back into the political arena, I didn't see his content anywhere.
Found his rumble channel, but he doesn't seem to make the same content.
Can someone fill me in on what happened?
Did anyone reply?
He's still going strong and local strongest.
Everyone shit on him and abandoned him.
He took it personal as one would and quit discussing politics.
Took it personally.
Took it personally.
What does that mean?
So, yeah, it's true that a lot of my former colleagues kind of hit the road and whatever, right?
I mean, I took it personally.
What does that mean?
So, when people say, Steph took something personally, what they're saying is, what they're really saying is that, I would take it personally and everyone is just like me.
I mean, I don't know exactly what to say to that.
I... I would take it personally if people, quote, abandoned me, and...
Therefore, Steph takes it personally, and there's no possibility otherwise.
I don't...
I mean, again, I'm sorry, I'm not sure exactly what it means.
So let's say there's a bunch of people I worked with in the past, they kind of despawned when I got deplatformed.
I mean, they didn't...
I mean, some did say some stuff, for sure, but, you know, they didn't rush to defend me or have me on their shows or, you know, push back against, like, whatever, right?
But, I take it personally.
So, to take it personally would be that they're doing it against me.
I don't think they're doing it against me.
I think, if I were to sort of look at it the most objectively, I would say that they are making rational decisions based upon the job descriptions they have.
I would say, honestly, they're making rational decisions based upon the job description that they have.
So I am a moral philosopher first and foremost, which means I have to take a stand for truth, reason, objectivity and virtue no matter what.
So that's my job description.
If you have a job description called, I want to get so-and-so elected, I wish to push Conservative political arguments forward as efficiently and productively as possible, that's a different job description.
Right?
That's a different job description.
I mean, if I'm a Formula One racer, the job description is to win the race.
Not no matter what, but to win the race, pushing the envelope as far as possible without Exploding in a fireball of exit spicy food clouds of lava, right?
So that's the job description.
The job description of the Formula 1 racer is to drive as fast as humanly possible without crashing to win the race, right?
Now, the job of the UPS driver is not to do that, right?
The job of the UPS driver is to deliver the package in a reasonable time frame while obeying the law.
I mean, there are no laws for speeding at the Indy 500, right?
And there are no headlamps, because they're lit, man.
So, it's a different type of description.
So, if the Formula One racer is going 150 miles an hour, that's good.
That means it's probably going to win the race.
Maybe 100 miles an hour.
Yeah, because they've got to turn, right?
But if...
If the UBS driver is going 100 miles an hour, that's terrible.
That's illegal.
He's going to get someone killed.
And he should go to jail, right?
So, it's just, it's a different job description.
I am moral principles universal no matter what.
Follow the evidence where the evidence leaves and work as hard as humanly possible to reduce the amount of violence and conflict that Escalating conflict in the world to reduce the amount of abuses.
And the way that you reduce abuses is you follow reason and evidence so people have reason and evidence to mediate disputes rather than aggression, escalation, threats and violence.
So it's attempting to displace propaganda, which is a form of verbal abuse, with reason, which is a form of verbal reconciliation.
So that's the gig.
So, I mean, I'm not sure that I take it personally in that way.
Molyneux's autism can't comprehend that any arguments based on humans being rational actors is false.
He also can't accept that all civilization is based on violence and that it actually requires violence to function.
So, you know, calling me autistic is not an argument.
It's not an argument.
It's saying that I can't comprehend something is a projection.
You know, it's called confession through projection, right?
So, when I talk about the state being founded on coercion, when I talk about spanking being coercion, when I talk about taxation, and in particular national debts being a form of debt enslavement to the young and the unborn,
when I do a huge amount to expose the massive amounts of unseen or unacknowledged violence in society, saying that I don't understand the role of violence in society, I mean, it's like literally somebody who's running a sun god religion being told that he doesn't understand that the sun has power.
So yes, there is violence everywhere in society.
And it starts with the family, right?
It all starts with the family.
People's acceptance of violence in society is founded upon their acceptance of violence in the family, right?
The physical abuse, spanking, hitting, beatings, and so on.
Verbal abuse, which is why people are susceptible to propaganda as adults is because they were subjected to propaganda in school and in the family.
So that which is normalized as a child is automatically accepted as an adult without a significant amount of intellectual intervention, so to speak.
Now, can we reduce the amount of violence in society?
Sure.
Yeah, of course.
We denormalize.
We identify and denormalize it.
If everybody accepted that violence was so necessary to run society, then why do people have to use all these euphemisms for violence, right?
Why would people have to use all of these euphemisms for violence if the violence was accepted, right?
That's not a thing.
That's not a real thing.
So, society requires violence to function.
Well, I mean, that certainly is a thesis, and I've addressed it many times.
Doesn't mean I'm right.
Just means I've addressed it, right?
But he's not accepting the counter-arguments.
So all societies functioned on slavery, right?
All societies functioned on slavery prior to the end of slavery.
And serfdom is a kind of slavery, but...
So, if you were to say, prior to the British Empire's great 150 plus year massive amount of blood and treasure epic side quest to eliminate slavery from the world, if you were to say, prior to that, that all societies require slavery, and to have a society without slavery, like direct physical human ownership, It's ridiculous because everywhere you look...
And it's like, well, it is till it isn't, right?
It is till it isn't.
All societies require horses until they don't.
What did we get here?
Somebody rats.
Stéphane Molyneux is not coming back, guys.
He's done with politics.
And has made it abundantly clear on his podcast.
He's bitter.
People he lifted up abandoned him when he was censored, and he's content with no longer being a celebrity.
Your efforts will fall on deaf ears.
Yeah.
See, when you get dysfunctional people out of your life, you open the door for functional, happy, moral, positive people to come into your life.
So my relationship with the social media platforms was dysfunctional.
I would argue it was abusive, because there are supposed to be all these rules, warnings, appeals, and so on, right?
Which were not, in many cases, not applied, right?
So, if you have a contract with someone and then they break that contract to your significant immediate detriment, that's not healthy, right?
Right?
I mean, it's like when you get married and you say we're going to have a monogamous relationship and then someone cheats on you with, say, the football team, that would be a breaking of the contract.
That would be a dysfunctional relationship.
So, I have great people in my life.
We just had a great Christmas party the other day full of people and kids and fun and playing and Uno.
It was a blast, right?
So, the idea that I'm bitter is interesting, right?
And so, the reason that I would recommend people not take that approach, because I'm not bitter.
I'm actually happier now than I was.
At my peak.
There's stuff that I miss.
I'm obviously not going to lie to you guys.
There's stuff that I miss.
But for the most part, it's a much...
I mean, I finished my book, Peaceful Parenting, PeacefulParenting.com, which is free.
And so I hope that you will read it and spread it around.
But the problem is...
Here's the problem.
And this is why I think you're kind of serving the powers that be if you're referring to me as...
Got a big gap over here.
But if you're referring to me as, he's embittered, he's tense, he's unhappy, right?
Then what you're doing is you're saying, like, what is it, four and a half years ago that I was deplatformed.
It was coming up, I round it up.
I round myself up to 60 and I round myself up to half a decade.
So if you're saying, Steph is bitter, twisted and angry for the last half decade, almost after deplatforming, the problem, what you're doing is you're giving a lot of power to the censors.
Right?
So the people who censored me, the people who de-platformed me, that you would say they have dictated and dominated Steph's angry unhappy bitterness for the last half decade.
I would strongly recommend that you don't, I would strongly make the case that you don't make the better world by giving imaginary soul-destroying powers to censors because that makes everyone else Much more frightened of being censored, right?
Much more frightened of being de-platformed.
Because if you're de-platformed, don't you know, it's at least half a decade of bitterness and twisted anger and so on.
But it's not.
I mean, there's a shock, there's an adjustment, there's a commitment to other things, and it's nice.
You know, I'm still relatively content to wrestle with the irrationality and anti-rationality of the world.
But the more you fill your life with healthy, happy, rational people, the less appealing it is to go out and wrestle again with the sort of greased up pseudo parts of anti-rationality striking at you from people with no self-knowledge, right?
Somebody says, that's quite sad.
He was really a gateway into a lot of things.
His history videos were great.
As a Christian, I miss Steph.
Thank you very much.
I appreciate that.
He was best on the topic of peaceful parenting.
I'll always be grateful for it.
Somebody says, I found his The Truth About series to be interesting.
He put in the work.
Also, the dating a single mom topic was thought-provoking.
I differ with some of his perspectives and don't care about some other topics, but he was worth a listen anyway.
The era of sensor and cancellation was not only truly evil, but just plain stupid.
Much was lost.
Now, see, this is another thing, too.
This is the You know, there's a bunch of ideas out there.
It's kind of like a buffet.
You know, I like this part of the buffet.
I don't particularly like this part of the buffet.
You know, the crockpot stuff.
Not so great.
You know, the bamboo bag of monkey bones.
Not for me, but I really do like the cheesecake.
Like this buffet stuff, right?
I like jazz.
I'm not so much into country.
Like, we put forward all these arguments, and I liked some.
I didn't like others.
I wasn't interested in the others.
Like, there's just this...
This is the emotionally driven, whim-based mindset.
It's not really a mindset, it's a spine set because it's just you're dealing with the most very primitive instincts.
The idea that truth is something you can pick and choose, like things you like from a buffet.
And again, I'm not saying everything I said was true.
I certainly have striven for it my whole career, but of course I've had things to correct, like everyone.
But when someone says, well, I found this an interesting perspective, I didn't like this so much, I was not interested in the other, that's saying that truth, reason, facts, and evidence is just like a buffet.
Right?
I mean, can you imagine being a math teacher and marking people's math Assignments or their math exams and say, I like this answer.
This kind of speaks to me.
This answer speaks to me.
I'm not so much interested in this answer.
Your perspective on this answer is interesting.
Maybe a little thought.
That would be crazy.
That would be crazy.
It'd be like getting a bunch of submissions.
For physics papers or engineering projects and talking about how you feel about them.
I like this one.
You know, it's a nice font.
I found this one kind of interesting.
I'm not so warm on this one.
Your perspective on how to build a bridge is interesting.
It doesn't really speak to me.
Now, that to me is ego.
It's saying it has to please me in order for me to accept it.
It has to please me?
But that's what propaganda leads you to.
Propaganda is...
turns you into a hedonistic person and hedonistic people are...
Immune to reason.
In fact, they're opposed to reason because the more people become hedonistic, the more uncomfortable it comes to ask them for self-discipline and a dedication to reason and evidence because that's uncomfortable and people get mad at them.
So hedonism, that's decadence.
Hedonism is putting your own personal pleasure above the truth And lying about it, right?
Because, again, not calling this guy a liar, but this is a false perspective, right?
So if he were to say, you know, his arguments made me really uncomfortable, and, you know, I started, I brought up some of his arguments with people around me, got really mad at me, and, you know, my wife threatened to divorce me.
Okay, like, I'm not telling you how many bullets you should take for the truth.
I'm not telling you that.
I don't take all bullets for the truth.
I'm not going to lecture other people.
But at least don't lie about it, right?
Just say, his arguments, I couldn't oppose his arguments.
The reason and evidence was solid, but it got me into too much trouble.
You know, I wasn't invited to Thanksgiving one year, and I almost got fired from my job for mentioning this on a lunch break.
Okay, look, I'm fine.
I'm fine with that.
I'm not a 100% self-sacrifice guy.
I pick and choose my battles.
It's totally fine.
But don't lie about it.
Don't lie about it.
I just say, his arguments were too volatile for my life.
As opposed to, well, I like this, but I didn't like that.
His perspective.
It's not perspective.
Philosophy is not perspective.
If you think it is, then you've missed what philosophy is.
And maybe that's my fault for explaining it badly, but I think I've shown that it's not just what you prefer.
Alright, anything else?
Does anyone have the $5 green text story?
I don't know what that means.
Probably a top 10 most influential person in the 2010s.
Oh yeah, 2006 to 2016 was an absolute golden age of free speech.
An absolute golden age.
Somebody says, he said a lot of good stuff, but a lot of nonsense as well.
UPB malarkey was particularly embarrassing, but he didn't deserve to get scrubbed.
So this is hedonism's call to other hedonists to reject someone whose arguments interfere with direct, immediate pleasure, right?
He said some good stuff, but a lot of nonsense as well.
See, you don't need to prove or disprove stuff.
It just has to feel like nonsense or usually you get an instinct that my arguments are going to lead you to a place of personal suffering.
You understand?
All morality in a corrupt world, all morality is going to lead you to suffering.
It's going to lead you through suffering to genuine happiness, joy and love afterwards.
If everyone's overweight, a good nutritionist will cause people to suffer.
Now, in the long run, they'll say, gee, I'm glad I went through that suffering, lost that 100 pounds, because I'm much happier and healthier now.
But this is somebody who is a hedonist.
Stuff, but nonsense, that's just feelings.
And it's false.
Because I did not say nonsense.
You may disagree with the arguments and have counter evidence, fine.
UPB malarkey was particularly embarrassing, right?
So the idea that an argument is embarrassing is a call to hedonism.
It's the cringe argument, right?
Oh, like, if you get into UPB, that's embarrassing.
So that's, oh, that's going to be, someone's going to disapprove of me if I get into UPB, so I won't, right?
So.
Somebody says, I enjoyed Steph.
you Wish you would come back.
You don't have to agree with someone 100% to enjoy discourse with them.
Often, when there is a struggle of ideals, those are the conversations worth having, worth learning from.
So, this is the, I mean, this is the gynocentric person-to-person.
Do I agree with Steph?
What does that mean?
Right?
This is the idea that You just generate perspectives, and either the perspectives fit other people's perspectives.
It gels with them.
It speaks to them.
It fits their emotional makeup.
They like the argument.
What does that mean?
It doesn't mean anything.
I mean, sorry, this is just a bit over-gynocentric.
Sorry, it's just a bit of a guy thing, right?
I mean, if two guys are standing...
Out a window, and one guy says, it's raining, and the other guy says, yes, yes it is, right?
He's, right?
That's a fact.
Yes it is.
For guys, it's kind of incomprehensible that one guy, one guy looks out the window, says it's raining, and the other guy doesn't look out the window, but just says, I agree with you.
That perspective speaks to me.
I gel with that.
That fits my emotional makeup.
Like, that's just, I'm sorry, that's just a bit of a female thing.
A little bit of a female thing.
So the idea that, well, I didn't agree with Steph 100% of the time.
So the idea that agreeing with me is the standard.
No, the standard is truth.
The standard is reason and evidence.
It's not about agreeing with me.
I disagree with me from time to time.
I disagree with former perspectives I had because I get better reason, new evidence, right?
I mean, what does it mean to...
Oh, I agree.
I agree is like a slave mentality as opposed to, is it true?
Right?
You're not agreeing with me.
I'm introducing...
Reason and evidence to you.
Facts, reason and evidence.
It's not about me.
Reason and evidence is ego-less.
I was sort of arguing about that at the beginning.
Reason and evidence is ego-less.
It's not about agreeing with me.
It's not about liking me.
It's not about whether I gel with you, or my perspective is embarrassing, or my presentation skills are off-putting.
Like, that's all just emotional reactivity.
And it's saying not, is this true, but does it feel good?
Does it feel nice?
And that makes you immune to the truth, because in a time of corruption and the education and the media and so on is pretty corrupt.
In a time of corruption, The truth is going to feel bad.
And if you go by hedonism, you can't get the truth.
Somebody says, really sad what happened to him.
him, he had some interesting takes on parenting that made me think a lot.
In my opinion, his best work is when he's working through issues with regular people, He has thousands of these talks.
Really good stuff.
Ah, the legendary tweet.
I can't believe Taylor Swift is about to turn 30. She still looks so young.
It's strange to think that 90% of her eggs are already gone.
97% by the time she turns 40. So I hope she thinks about having kids before it's too late.
She'd be a fun mom.
Smiley face.
It's a very positive and pleasant tweet.
And, of course, you know, women, it's strange to think that 90% of her eggs are already gone.
It's just a biological fact.
It's a biological fact.
It's like, it's so creepy for you to be thinking about Taylor Swift's eggs.
It's like, that's...
You know, if I said, if there was some celebrity, I don't know, who's a celebrity who smokes?
God knows, right?
So if there was some celebrity, Bob, who smoked, right?
And I said, you know, I sure hope that Bob quit smoking because it's really bad for his lungs.
It's really creepy for you to be thinking about Bob's lungs.
It's like, what?
It's just so bizarre to me.
All right.
Somebody replies, he used to suck up to the intellectual dark web and wanted to be part of it.
What makes you think he'd add anything new to the conversation now?
Why do we need him?
Well, I mean, I think the intellectual dark web kind of hated me.
Not all of them.
But he used to suck up to the intellectual dark web and wanted to be a part of it.
See, this is the thing, too.
Like, people just make up an unrecognizable finger puppet or mirror that they call Steph, right?
So the intellectual dark web was sort of more prominent, and they got write-ups that weren't totally hostile.
And I think they'd say, well, if I were Steph, I'd want to be part of that, right?
I mean, I never felt much of a desire because, for me, there would just be too many compromises.
I'd just have to shut up about things too much.
You know, for me, you know, I mean, it's a couple of things, right?
So the idea that I sucked up to them and wanted to be part of that.
I remember seeing a picture of them around a dinner table.
I'd be like, how self-censorious would I have to be to be at that dinner table?
The food would taste like a shit sandwich.
Honestly, if I have to bite back words, I don't care what a meeting tastes like shit.
And there's sort of two things.
Number one is, you know, when I was a kid, I was forced to lie by, you know, school, culture, family, and so on.
And...
You know, when you grow up, you want to do the opposite of the bad stuff that happened to you as a kid.
That way you get over it, you move past it, and you signal to your entire system that those days are over.
So I had to self-censor when I was a kid, because telling the truth got me beaten.
Not just, I mean, I got caned in school, I just got beaten at home.
So I want to tell the truth, because that's how I know my childhood is over, and it's all done, and I can enjoy my adulthood free of that stuff.
So that's number one.
And it's just a personal thing.
But number two is, ah, God, I mean, come on.
Come on.
There are so many people out there, and it's not a criticism, it's just an observable fact.
There are so many people out there who cut corners and compromise in return for prominence and fame and money, I suppose, right?
So there's already so many people out there who do that.
You know, you don't need one more.
So one of the reasons I got into philosophy, I had a pretty damn good career as a software entrepreneur.
I co-founded a company, grew it and sold it and was like CXO level executive and traveled all over the world selling giant software that I'd created to Fortune 500 companies.
I made some pretty sweet life, man.
Pretty sweet life.
I got to travel to France, to China, all over the states.
I got to travel to just a wide number of great places in the world to work with really fun people to implement great software solutions.
And they were around keeping people safe in the workplace and about cleaning up the environment.
So environmental health and safety was my software gig.
So that was all great.
Pretty sweet life.
So what I did when I was sort of trying to make that decision about, am I going to just quit and do the philosophy thing and take a massive pay cut to do so?
And it's like, okay, so there are lots and lots of software executives out there in the world.
I mean, does the world need another software guy or does the world need moral philosophy?
Right.
What is the world more short of?
Moral philosophy or software guys?
To me, I mean, to ask the question is to answer it.
So, I just...
I can't do those compromises because strangers don't replace family.
I mean, never ever replace the approval of strangers for the love of your family.
And my family, my friends, love me for my honesty and my integrity.
And I love them for their honesty and their integrity.
So if I compromise my honesty and integrity, I would get the approval of strangers.
But that's like, you have a beautiful wife, you can make love to her five times a week, or you could counter that for a thousand women you'll never meet fantasizing about you.
I mean, how could that be a good deal?
That can't be a good deal.
That can't be a good deal.
So, no, it was never any particular goal of mine to compromise some really essential things in return for the approval of strangers who don't understand what I'm doing.
Or even the approval of people who do understand what I'm doing.
You don't trade immediate love for the approval of strangers.
You don't exchange the tangible for the abstract in that way.
Other than tangible unhappiness for abstract virtue, which gets you to the whole love thing.
So, anyway, I'll stop here.
I really do appreciate everyone's time, care, and attention.
I'm sure somebody will post this on X. And I really do, you know, it is nice that people still remember me.
You can go to peacefulparenting.com, freedomain.com.
I've written a whole, I've written like three books since deplatforming, done some fantastic work.
I did 11 hours on the origin and Courses of the French Revolution, which is a take you'll never hear anywhere else.
And I've done some just, I mean, for me, I've done the best work I've ever done, undistracted by people without self-knowledge imagining that they know me because they don't know themselves.
So, yeah, freedomain.com slash donate.
If you'd like to help out the show, I really, really would appreciate it.
Have yourself a beautiful, wonderful, lovely day.
I'll talk to you soon.
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