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Feb. 10, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:53:00
How to Fight Selfishness! Freedomain Livestream
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Good morning, good morning everybody.
Welcome to your Sunday morning philosophy on the 9th of February 2025. And just a tiny little addendum from last week where I said apparently my mind is both unique and not unique.
And somebody had some trouble about that and I kind of understand where it's coming from.
So what I mean is that my...
My mind is unique in terms of its creativity and ability to conceptualize.
I don't mean unique in the world.
I just mean it's fairly unique in its ability to conceptualize, to generate ideas, and to generate stories, analogies, and arguments, and so on.
But the way that I view my brain in its relationship to reality, rather than its generative internal content, which is kind of unique, the way that I view my brain in relation to reality is not unique.
I accept reality, I process reality, my philosophy aligns with reason and evidence, and I consider that to be hyper-normal.
Normal doesn't mean common, right?
I mean, there's two ways you can use normal.
Normalized, like this is just what most people believe, nonsense, and that's normal.
Or you can say it's a normal, healthy relationship to reality to accept reason and evidence and to reject fantasy and bullying.
So, hopefully that resolves the contradiction, and I appreciate people bringing it up.
It's always good to get these kinds of things clear.
All right.
Yes, I did catch that, actually, last night.
I thought it was very interesting, and I appreciated that tweet.
Let's see here.
The tweet was from...
Let me grab it here.
Ah, yes, from Mickey Von Cernovich.
Mickey Dicky Von Cernovich.
He wrote last night at 8 p.m.
It's got almost 300,000 views.
He wrote, is, is, is Stefan Molyneux ever going to return from his self-imposed exile?
That's interesting.
Um, it's, it's a tiny bit of a dig.
It's not a huge deal.
I like Mike and all of that, but it's a little bit of a, oh, it's a self-imposed exile.
It was just, just me.
I just decided.
Of my own free will and volition and whim, with no external circumstances or feedback, to just exile myself from, I suppose he means X, right?
Because I'm not exactly restored to any other platform.
So, it's a little bit, like, it wasn't entirely self-imposed.
When I was deplatformed, of course, I looked for support from people I had previously supported.
And it was not overabundant.
It was not an excess.
I was not buoyed up by the gaseous word clouds of other people's hot air balloons of support.
Boy, that's a complicated analogy.
Sometimes we follow the muse, and sometimes the muse leads us off a cliff.
So, Ed, it was a very interesting tweet, and I'm always kind of fascinated.
When people are like, oh yeah, whatever happened to that guy?
Currently, there's a great line from an old movie, Spinal Tap, a rockumentary, if you will.
You can't dust vomit.
And it was, ah, and that's a hit from Spinal Tap, currently residing in the Where Are They Now file?
And even though they were still on tour.
So, Jack Posobiec?
Said, my mom still listens to his podcast.
Hello, matriarch of the Posobic variety.
And Mike Cernovich wrote, one of the most influential pre-MAGA intellectuals.
And Jack wrote, yep.
So, sorry, yeah, Jack wrote, yep.
So it was nice.
It's nice.
It's nice.
So, OSM said, why didn't you go to bat for him when he got canceled?
Was within a couple of years of hoax being released with their falling out, the public was unaware of.
No.
No.
Somebody wrote, I would like to see Stefan Molyneux make a return to social media, but I understand his apprehension in doing so.
A lot of people turned their back on the guy after he got targeted.
It's bad enough to have the whole of the establishment slandering you, but...
To have your own people leave you bleeding out in the ditch, well, that's a tough thing to rectify.
I wouldn't characterize it that way.
And I have, just so everybody knows, I have, because, you know, there's this thing out there, it's kind of funny when you see people describe your innermost emotional states, you know, it's just kind of funny, because he's bitter, man, he's angry, he's, you know, like, what is it?
I mean, it's four and a half years ago, a long time ago.
I've moved on.
My daughters are almost grown.
And I've written, you know, three books and done a great deal of wonderful work.
And so I'm very happy with what it is that I'm doing.
I'm very much enjoying my life.
He's bitter, man.
And it's just projection.
Like, people think, well, if I had my fame taken away, I'd be bitter.
And of course, nobody really comes to find out or ask.
So I have no negative emotions to what happened with deplatforming and afterwards.
Just to set the record clear, I look upon it as a redirection, in a sense, from the universe to get back to philosophy.
Because I was doing, well, I was doing quite a lot of politics there, as you may or may not have noticed.
So, I do not have any negative...
And in fact, you know, I've got to tell you, to be honest, sort of looking back...
Sorry, I don't want to say to be honest like I'm not, but I don't say that.
But it's surprising for people.
Like, when I look back, if a huge movement had buoyed me up and everyone had invited me on their shows and everybody had pushed back and stood by me...
You know, I'm not sure that's exactly what I would have wanted.
Maybe people get that at a sort of semi-unconscious level.
So, I'm not sure that I would have wanted that, to be honest.
Because I'm so enjoying what I'm doing now that it's hard to look back and say, a different path would have been better.
So, I have no negative feelings.
I don't think anybody did me ill or anything like that.
So, yeah, just so you know.
Just so you know.
I stopped listening to Poso after he got the Russian invasion very wrong.
What did he get wrong about the Russian invasion?
Yeah, it wasn't exactly a self-imposed exile.
And of course, it's easy for...
I don't even remember when it was, what, about a year, a year and a half ago?
I don't even really remember what it was that I got the Twitter account back.
But that was really it.
It was not a self-imposed...
I guess nobody could really say it was a self-imposed exile when I was banned from everywhere.
But you could sort of say, well, it was a self-imposed exile when...
I got my Twitter account back.
Because, I mean, that's the only account that I've gotten back, right?
Everything else is still a giant mushroom cloud of former philosophical access to the world.
So, Steph sure wants to spend a lot of time on X to not want to be on X. Oh, it's funny, you know, it always amuses me.
It really does.
It genuinely amuses me.
And I offer this as a liberating path out of your own pettiness.
Does this stuff work in your life?
Boy, he sure seems to ha because of ha, you know?
Like, this sort of petty, you know, half-estrogen-based digs, does this work?
Does this get people to change in your life?
Yeah, X is the best source of news.
No question, hands down, without a doubt, X is the best source of news and I both want to and kind of need to keep track of the world, right?
I both want to and need to keep track of the world.
So, X is the best source of news.
So, yes, I spend time on X. So, Boy, he sure seems to spend a lot of time on X to not want to be on X. I mean, do these sort of petty little digs, do they work in your life?
Do people like, oh my gosh, I'm so hypocritical.
You're right, that's so deep.
Does this stuff work?
Oh my gosh.
It tells me, and this is not just me, this is just anybody with any kind of acuity.
It tells me that you're surrounded by insecure fools.
it tells me that you're surrounded by insecure fools because people don't just laugh at you for this transparently manipulative nonsense.
Oh my gosh.
you Thank you.
All right.
Funny how everyone's asking you about if you'll come back, says Cameron, but then Elon shadow bans H1B critical posts.
Um, well, I don't know that Elon himself is doing that.
Remember, the guy's running a bunch of companies and, you know, there's a lot of people trying to do end runs around him within his own organization, so I wouldn't blame Elon for that.
Joe says, I think Russell Brand got more support than Steph.
Remember when conservatives rushed to defend Russell?
Yes.
I don't, I mean, I hate cool.
I've done a whole video on this some years ago.
I hate cool.
Without a doubt, without a doubt, Russell Brand is cooler.
He's cooler than I am.
There's no question about that.
You know, he's got that whole self-conscious, low-hipped, tight-pent-Jesus thing going on, and so on, right?
So, he's cooler.
I think he's vile as a human being as a whole, but he's cooler.
I miss Gonzalo Lira.
Unfortunately, he's not just one website over.
And he said one word to me, but that was dead.
In an alternative universe, do you think the platforms could not cancel you if enough people stood up to you or stood up for you?
Why on earth would I want to muck about in an alternative universe?
It's like I'm studying medicine and you say, well, but where would a kidney be in a Klingon?
It's like I'm never going to treat a Klingon and I don't deal with alternative universes.
You've been going on about this for the last six months.
Oh my God, you're so bitchy.
Oh my gosh.
So, you bring up a criticism, I mock and push back on it, and then you're like, so you bring up something for me to respond to, and then you think it's petty for me to respond to it.
That's great.
Oh, bro, you've got to surround yourself with better people.
How to be a wealthy man and not a materialist?
I'm not sure what that question is.
I'm not sure what's wrong with being a materialist.
Oh, thanks for clarifying that for the 42nd time this year.
Oh, my God.
You were raised by a single mom, no question.
You were raised by a single mom.
Because men don't talk to each other that way.
And maybe you're a woman, I don't know.
But men don't talk to each other that way.
Men don't do these petty backdoor insinuations and superiority and snarkiness and scorn.
At least straight men.
So, yeah.
All right.
Anne says, I'm a subscriber and long-time listener.
Thank you.
Just handing the remaining coins because I rarely catch live streams and unsure when I will buy more coins.
Well, thank you.
I appreciate that.
Grok is an excellent AI. Yes.
This guy is also like, oh, Whittle Steffi's Feefies.
You know, just out of curiosity, I don't know how old you are, but if you're over the age, so my daughter used to make those kinds of jokes when she was 12 or 13, but then she outgrew them.
So...
You self-imposed your 2 million sub ThemTube account overnight with zero warning and still keep the alt media accounts because that is what people do.
Let's see here.
Thank you.
Can you break down Andrew Tate's Bitcoin concerns?
Not live.
You can message me.
Host at freedomain.com.
I'm not going to...
Watch some video and try to analyze it live.
I have a question.
My wife is retired and wants to travel the world.
I'll never retire, but if I did, it would be the last thing I want to do.
Why do women like to travel so much?
Women like to travel because they get to show off to new men and have men and women take care of them, drive them around, make them breakfast, make their beds.
And they feel like royalty and they feel pampered.
I remember there was some promotion.
You know, they called up my wife and they said, you know, we would like to offer you an in-home pampering.
To be pampered.
Now, to men, I don't know even what it would mean to be pampered.
Maybe some Swedish brute muscular elbow massage and a knot on my back or something like that.
But we can offer you an in-home pampering.
And my wife, of course, just laughed.
But women, they love to be pampered.
A lot, right?
A lot of women love to be pampered.
And travel is pampering.
Travel is pampering.
It's my first time here.
Greetings from Ireland.
Steph, thanks for the work that you do.
I appreciate that.
In the modern age, it might allow it.
Eventually, YouTube might cave to public sentiment and government policy.
I'm not sure what that means.
I mean, it's an interesting question, right?
It's an interesting question, and I don't have a moral answer to this.
I'd love to hear what you guys think.
So, Trump is going to declassify all of the government influence, pressure, threats, or whatever, in America against social media companies.
And it will be very interesting to see.
Now, if Social media companies were threatened or pressured by the government to de-platform me.
What is my relationship to that?
Let's say it was not an internal ideological choice, but let's say that it was, in fact, government power.
That's a mighty interesting question.
What do you guys think of that?
Alright, so let's see here.
Thank you.
Oh, this guy's great.
He's like such a cliché.
Sadly, Steph has become so insulated.
He can't function in a non-insulated one without the sand coming out of his vagina.
That is fantastic.
I mean, I'm sorry that you were raised thinking that this is a way that adults talk to.
Yeah.
Thank you.
I'm sorry that you feel this is a way to talk to a strong and competent and confident man.
I don't know why you would feel that, but you do, and I guess...
You are going to end up remaining in a world where this stuff works, which means you're going to be in a world of frightened, broken people for the rest of your life, thinking that you have power when all you have is bullying the broken.
Very sad.
All right.
So, let's see what you guys are thinking about this.
Let's say that the social media companies were receiving extraordinary amounts of...
Well, a super spreader of misinformation.
What about the thousands of journalists being paid by USAID and just somehow failing to include that in their bylines?
interesting all right so see if This guy's kind of annoying.
Alright.
The possibility to find a new husband somewhere overseas.
The travel thing.
So, I mean, a lot of people don't have an inner life.
Right?
They don't have inner dialogues.
They don't argue with themselves.
It's just like a...
A blank, vaguely sensual echo chamber of feelings in the moment.
They don't have what you and I would accept as a natural state of consciousness.
You have to understand that about the world.
They don't have an observing ego.
They don't have a third eye.
They cannot compare their own actions to ideal standards.
They cannot argue with themselves.
They do not have inner voices.
Like, you know, you have this thing, you're in the shower or the bath or whatever, and you're like, oh yeah, this was said.
I could have said this.
I've done this my whole life, like my whole life.
Since my earliest memories, I've been arguing, debating, and challenging myself.
I have that external voice, the third eye, the observing ego, the inner voices.
I've written a whole, you know, book about this, real-time relationships, and I developed a whole theory of consciousness called the MECO system.
Which is that you are not a singular entity.
You are an aggregation of personalities, voices, consciousnesses within your head.
All consciousnesses are contagious, right?
So trolls are trying to get you to implant self-hatred, right?
Through this girly manipulative nonsense, right?
So it's not me like I'm a singular person.
It's an ecosystem, the me-cosystem, right?
It's a competing set of things, right?
And that's good.
You want that.
Because to get to the Aristotelian mean, which is a lot of virtue, is the Aristotelian mean.
Some honesty, not too much honesty.
Some courage, not too much courage.
Some prudence, not too much prudence.
That would be cowardice.
And so trying to get to the mean means you have to debate with yourself because the middle is usually the debate between the two extremes.
So in order to have virtue, in many ways, you have to have that inner voice, that inner debate.
Certainly in a fairly corrupt world that we live in, you need that.
But most people, they don't have, excuse me, they don't have that inner voice at all.
It's like a third of people and probably higher, because some people would lie and say that they are, but very few people would lie and say that they aren't.
So, but, you know, just going conservatively, now, is it a little bit more men than women?
No, I would argue it's a little bit more women than men, which is why women tend to be, they tend to score very high in the big high.
Personality trait called agreeableness, which means that they're other-focused.
They don't ask what is right according to some abstract standard.
They ask what is approved of.
What will I get in trouble for saying?
What will I be ostracized for?
What will people get mad at me about?
And so what that means is that they don't have inner voices, which is sort of the conscience and the...
And again, this is maybe 51-49, right?
So I think there's a little bit more women.
But they wouldn't have that kind of inner conscience thing.
They would say what is, not what is true, but what is approved of.
They would be a little bit more in the social metaphysician camp of the Ayn Rand or objectivist approach to self-knowledge.
So when you don't have that kind of multiverse inner life, you probably want to go see the pyramids more.
Right?
Because you're out there looking at things.
I mean, Andrew Tate has a pretty funny thing.
About travel.
Oh yeah, let's go see another church and then get a coffee.
Pretty funny.
And of course, I've done massive amounts of travel over the course of my life.
And there was times before deplatforming, I was traveling between 30 to 40% of the year.
Doing documentaries, giving speeches, all kinds of crazy stuff.
And I don't regret it.
I enjoy it.
But it is not something that...
I would want to necessarily keep up for the rest of my life.
So if you don't have as much of an inner life, you want external stimuli, which is why people, you know, who's more likely to binge watch a streaming series, men or women?
The people who don't have an inner life, it's hard for those of us who do have an inner life or the sort of multiverse of the ecosystem.
For those of us who don't, For those of you who have that kind of life, it's really impossible to imagine the infinite silence and emptiness of the people who don't have this kind of life.
Now, travel then would be something that people would want to do.
Now, for younger women, saying, I love to travel, is saying, I'm hot enough that men will pay for my travel.
Right?
They are saying, I'm hot enough that guys will pay.
For my travel.
I'm a semi-prostitute with an airplane ticket, right?
That's generally...
Because, you know, when a young woman is like 22, 23, oh, I just toured Europe.
I think most people know what that means, right?
So...
All right, let us get to your questions and comments.
What's that?
It's a great Kelly Clarkson song, Miss Independent.
Misinformation!
I am so old.
I was following staff before I had home internet in 2015. I burned limited cellular data to listen.
Now, that was my commitment.
I appreciate that.
And that's back when bandwidth is so expensive, I did 40k podcasts.
Hard to say.
Not one of them broke ranks to publicize the pressure they were under.
Granted, they probably would have been destroyed by the government if they did so.
Well, honestly, if the social media companies, and maybe it's got nothing to do with me.
I'm certainly, of course, not an American citizen, but if the social media companies de-platform people because of government pressure, I would not blame them.
I would not blame them.
I would not have blamed them.
I would not blame them.
I mean, I suggest that people pay their taxes.
Pay your taxes, people, because you go to jail if you don't.
So, conforming with threats of coercion or intimidation, I mean, wouldn't that be pretty hypocritical for me to say, no, you should...
Oh, this guy's great.
You have lost some of your strength.
Oh, I'm sorry.
I know I'm indulging the troll.
Too much time with your wife and daughter has philosophically castrated you.
Oh no!
I've got estrogen goodies from time with my wife and daughter.
Oh boy.
I mean, if you only knew, man.
If you only knew.
Uh, and...
Though you may now be a great husband and father, you are no longer as good a debater or philosopher as you once were.
So none of these are arguments.
You're just telling me you're frightened of women.
Women will rip the man hair off my chest and feed it up my ass and make me gay.
So you're scared of women.
I'm sorry that you have...
God, what's that old...
It's an old Woody Allen joke.
I wrote a short story about my mother called The Castrating Zionist.
I'm sorry that you've had these bullying women in your life, but the idea that women make you less of a man?
No, no, if you're around a feminine woman, and my wife is very feminine, which is a whole other conversation, but when you're around a feminine woman, you become more masculine.
Now, if you're around a real ball-busting, quote, hyper-masculine and aggressive woman, sure, I understand that you might get a little bit emasculated, but that ain't me, bro.
That ain't me.
A materialist, as in a person who values material possessions, is more important than spiritual values.
Can you be wealthy and not that kind of materialist?
How?
Well, you just focus on your virtues and your values.
Right?
Focus on your virtues and your values.
But I take pleasure in material things.
I take pleasure in material things.
I really do.
Mostly nerdy tech, but I do take pleasure in material things.
So, you would go back if we found out you were banned due to government, right?
That's a very interesting question, right?
That's a very interesting question.
It's the old thing that...
If somebody came and robbed your store, you'd be mad at them, but if it turned out that they robbed your store against their own willpower because somebody had kidnapped their wife and threatened to kill her, then you would no longer be as angry at the person who, quote, robbed your store because they were acting under coercion.
You'd be angry at the person who kidnapped, right?
So, it's interesting.
If it were to come out, and I, you know, this may never come out.
It may, I mean, maybe...
I don't think I was irrelevant because I was one of the earliest and biggest people to be deplatformed, so I don't think I was irrelevant to the equation.
But if it were to come out that it came out of abuses of government power and pressure, then I would have sympathy for the social media companies.
We would be, you know, it would be like, you know, one slave is then forced to beat another slave.
Well, you wouldn't get angry at the slave who beat you.
You'd get angry at the master who forced it, right?
So, I don't know.
I mean, the question would be, if it turned out that it was government pressure, then the question would be, what comes out of that?
If I remain banned when all of this comes out, that's a different matter.
If my accounts are restored, that's a whole other different matter.
So, it's big, complicated.
I have to sort of see the layers.
What was going on?
Was it a request or was it a genuine threat?
Are my accounts restored when all of this comes out?
And all of that kind of stuff, right?
So, it's complicated, but if there was government power involved in mighty platforming, then I would have sympathy.
I really would.
All right.
Somebody says, I agree.
I find it's the exact opposite.
The more feminine women I'm near, the more masculine I become.
It's amazing, powerful energy that rises from the depths of my soul.
Steph, why did you decide to start a business in the software field and not in industries that you worked on before, like gold prospecting?
Well, because gold prospecting was a semi-slavery I had to do for a year or two in order to make money for university, to fund my family.
because my mother had stopped working for many years.
And so it was not something that I was particularly interested in at all.
But from the age of 11 or 12, I spent as much time humanly possible as learning how to code and work with machines.
All right.
So software was make more sense.
Oh, it's always it's always rumble, right?
Nuko says, so if the government makes you do bad things, it's suddenly OK.
How much money would be the limit?
Five bucks to betray staff?
A million?
Thirty pieces of silver?
Oh, these thin-skinned, eggshell-brained internet tough guys.
Yeah.
Do you think that's what happened?
Do you think that the government went to a social media company and said, I'll give you five bucks?
To ban Steph?
I mean, how dumb are you?
Oh my gosh.
Oh my gosh.
If it's a positive incentive, that's different from a negative, right?
So if the government said to some social media company, you know, we'll give you X amount of dollars if you deplatform certain people, okay, that's a different matter, right?
But if there's threats, that's a different matter, too.
It says, guess I am suddenly absolved for what I did in Afghanistan and Somalia.
There was definitely government power involved.
Well, did you voluntarily go, and could you have voluntarily left?
Different matter.
All right, so...
Are you all saying he was more effeminate when he was more widely respected?
What?
Are you saying that my wife is less feminine in the past?
No, she was feminine from the very beginning.
Very feminine, beautifully feminine from the very beginning.
All right.
Thanks for helping me find some moral clarity, Steph.
You are very welcome.
Thank you for the tip.
I appreciate that.
All right.
Negative incentives like being fired, my reputation ruined and blacklisted for speaking the truth.
Sorry, I've lost the thread of that conversation.
No, see, I personally think that dealing with the petty people is healthy.
I mean, look, we're all going to run into them, right, in person or online.
And I think it's fairly instructive to see how these things can be dealt with.
All right, let me get to the other comments that I wanted to make.
With regards to your notorious pedophile Jimmy Savile's former hideout has erupted in flames, with emergency crews rushing to the scene as the fire tore through nearby garages.
Savile once looked closely linked to King Charles, and current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer was buried at a 45-degree angle.
Boy, if that didn't tell you, if Jimmy Savile did not tell you everything you needed to know about the British elites, it's just amazing to me.
It's amazing to me just how much goes into the memory hole with people.
Now, maybe there's some lawsuit that's going on and somebody set fire to the home to destroy evidence or something like that, but the fact that King Charles, or maybe it was Prince Charles, was like leaning on this guy for marital advice, who was...
You know, one of the most corrupt, vicious, and evil people who has ever drawn breath in the Emerald Isle.
Oh, no, sorry, in the Fair Isles of the UK. It's just amazing.
Just amazing.
And people just forget about this kind of stuff.
Just into the memory hole.
People have no moral continuity.
They only have moral continuity if it's provoked in them by the media, right?
If the media keeps saying so-and-so is a bad guy, then the mob gets hysterical and then says so-and-so is a bad guy.
If the media doesn't talk about it, people don't think about it.
It's wild.
It's wild.
I mean, the fact that there were so many British elites palling around with a child rapist pedophile with hundreds of victims who was an obvious creep.
In every conceivable way, as visible as South Korea from space.
The fact that there were people palling around who were going to lecture you about all the good things in the world.
Well, you know, it's very, very important that we control the temperature in a hundred years.
I don't know.
Maybe don't hang out with rapey pedophiles.
Maybe.
Maybe don't pal around and be best buds with these kinds of people.
Because, you know, if you don't have...
And he was like a weird, creepy guy.
You could just see this from ever and ever, right?
And so all of the people who hung around with him clearly have no moral judgment whatsoever.
So why anybody would listen to anyone about anything if they ever palled around with Jimmy Savile or failed to call him out?
I mean, my God.
I mean, the BBC. Oh, I don't know.
I mean, it's all...
It's all just wild.
And this is one of the negative things that Margaret Thatcher did, is that there was a whole inquiry into pedophilia in the upper classes in England, which she squelched pretty hard, if I remember rightly.
Turns out Obama did in fact originally create Doge, it's just been repurposed.
So that's interesting.
And...
Let's see here.
Did you know that RFK was a heroin addict for 14 years?
Isn't that wild?
A heroin addict for 14 years.
Did he deal?
I don't know.
But certainly he's got a whole conversation about...
Being an addict.
And from his teens to his 20s, right?
So, that's pretty wild.
TRHL official, President Washington had four departments, State, Treasury, War, and AG. Very interesting.
Now, tell me what you guys think of this.
Tell me what you think of this.
It's an interesting quote.
A wise man once told me that in order to win an argument, it wasn't enough just to have the correct position.
You must also give your opponent a face-saving way of accepting that position.
If you leave your opponent no option but to say, you were right, I was wrong, that person will never back down.
You need to say things like, I can see what you are thinking, and if the situation was of type X, I would agree with you, but I think we're in more of a type Y position.
Policy disputes are roughly the same.
It's important to give one's opponent the option of honorable defeat.
In many cases of backlash, however, it seems to me the policies that have been implemented, or the way that they have been implemented, have made this impossible.
In terms of the current political environment, the right-wing commitment to owning the libs It's clearly not intended to foster honorable compromise.
At the same time, many liberals and progressives seem to be unaware of how unnecessarily provocative their own behavior has been, especially over the past 10 years.
Isn't that interesting?
Should you give someone a face-saving way to accept your position in an argument?
Interesting.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Have you guys been in a situation where you've tried to give someone a reasonable way out?
You want to give someone a way out?
Well, you treat people the best you can the first time you meet them, and after that, you treat them as they treat you.
And if the left has attacked the right, then the right would have to attack them back.
I mean, the moral high ground is a form of altruistic suicide in certain ways.
Look how they tortured Tommy Robertson for the high crime of exposing the cover-up of the grooming gangs of Pakistani Muslims and UK children.
Well, I mean, technically it's because, I think, if I remember rightly, technically...
Tommy Robinson got in trouble legally because he lost a defamation suit and continued to make the claims in publishing a documentary.
I'm no expert on this, so don't take this as any kind of gospel, but that's my sort of understanding.
So, yeah, it's not...
I don't think it's exactly what you're saying, which is not to say I agree with it all, but I'm just saying that it's not exactly what you're saying.
Face-saving?
If you're wrong, you're wrong.
Right.
Right.
Now, the face-saving argument is because you have to continue to live with the person and you don't want to make an enemy.
Face-saving might be a value, I think.
It might be a value if you intend to continue the relationship.
If you don't really intend to continue the relationship, I'm not sure why you would give somebody a face-saving out.
But yeah, if you're wrong, you're wrong.
That's a male perspective.
Well, you have to think the other person's feelings is more of a female perspective.
Which, again, I'm not saying that that's entirely wrong.
I'm just saying that's probably the difference, right?
Yeah, I don't know what his job.
I don't know what RFK Junior's childhood was like, but I imagine it was pretty bad.
Opinions versus facts.
Do most people know the difference?
What was it on the whatever podcast?
The woman was asked, what's the definition of epistemology?
And she said, well, it's studying the epistles.
It's easy to laugh, but most people don't have a clue.
Most people are entirely clueless.
I mean, prior to UPB, most people did not have access to a rational proof of secular ethics.
Yet for thousands and thousands and thousands of years, people have claimed to know what is right and wrong.
Prior to proof.
prior to proof.
Somebody says, trying to give my parents a hundred paths to honorable defeat and submission to anyone or thing was not going to happen.
It got to the point that my husband and I said, no, you will apologize or this is it.
And we've not heard from them since.
Are you ready for a mind-blowing five words?
I am not going to hold back on this because this has been a central agony and joy in my entire freaking existence.
Hit me with a Y if you're ready for stuff that is going to blow your mind into the stratosphere in a good way, but in a terrifying way.
Are you ready for something like this?
This is one of these inflection points.
After this, after this, your life will not be the same.
But I will tell you.
I will tell you.
And if you agree with me, please donate.
Don't donate yet!
If you agree with me that these five words change your entire life, if you agree with me, will you donate?
Come on, man, this is all very hard-won, hard-earned, blood-from-a-stone wisdom that had me on the cliff edge of the most extreme sport.
a personal confrontation known to mankind for decades.
It's a very hard-won knowledge.
Here we go.
Thank you.
The most fundamental question you need to ask of everyone in your life, everyone in your life.
Is this.
Are you ready?
Brace yourself, man.
Helmet, fetal position.
Get under your grade 5 desk.
Curl into a nuclear shadow position.
Here we go.
Do I exist to you?
Most fundamental five-word question you can ask of everyone.
This is the ultimate test for the narcissist.
The narcissist only processes his own feelings.
You do not exist to him as an equal or her as an equal.
Do I exist to you as a separate sovereign consciousness with the same needs, concerns, preferences, and emotions as you do?
Right?
So, this is, when I talk about this in peaceful parenting and countless numbers of podcasts, if your parents never accepted The excuse from you as a child that, hey, man, I did the best I could with the knowledge I had.
I mean, I failed that test, but I've forgotten about it, so I did the best I could with the knowledge I had.
If they never accepted that from you as a child as an excuse, then when you say you did this, that, or the other wrong as parenting, and they say, hey, man, I did the best I could with the knowledge I had, and if they don't even notice that they punished you,
For failing to know things that were inconsequential, like some stupid test of spelling or math or grammar when you were 10 or 11 years old.
If they got mad at you and punished you for failing to know things so inconsequential when you were a child, and it was in fact their job to remind and help you remember these things.
But then, when they did bad things as parents, they say, hey, hey, hey, I did the best I could with the knowledge I had.
Right?
If they don't notice this difference, boom.
Straight-up bottomless selfishness.
Now, I'm going to use the term narcissism.
I don't mean this in any diagnostic way.
I'm certainly no psychologist or psychiatrist.
I'm using this in an amateur fashion, right?
Straight-up narcissist.
And it's all emotion-based.
I'm annoyed that you failed a test.
I'm mad at you for failing the test, so I'm going to punish you.
And not take as the excuse that you did the best you could with the knowledge you had.
but then when they feel uncomfortable because you're questioning them about their parenting they haul out this statement this defense i did the best i could with the knowledge i had which they never would have allowed you to have as a kid or if you knock a glass off the counter you're clumsy and stupid
but if they knock the glass off the counter, what do they say?
Who put that glass there?
What a stupid place to put the glass!
You know these things.
They're so boring.
They're so predictable.
People are just machine code acting out their tippy-tappy domino theory.
It is, uh, really boring.
Thank you.
Thank you.
If you're late for something, the parent says, well, why the hell didn't you set an alarm?
When the parent is late for something, it's like, why the hell didn't you wake me?
It's not all parents, of course.
But it ain't none.
But it ain't none.
If you let the bath overflow, your parents says, why the hell weren't you in there watching the bath?
When your parent lets the bath overflow, why the hell weren't you in there watching my bath?
When you get angry, you have attitude and you're being petty.
When your parent gets angry, it's because you provoke them and they're stressed because you're so difficult.
Come on, give me, give me more.
Give me more.
You can donate via the website and payday later this week, yes.
Yes, you can.
Come on, give me more.
My parents punished me for not doing well enough in school, no tutoring offered, and extorted a promise to do better.
Trying to do better is not an acceptable response.
I was expected to guarantee a result with no offer on how I am to achieve that result.
You didn't study for this test.
I'm going to punish you for not doing well on the test.
I never read a book on parenting, so you have to forgive me for all of my bad parenting.
Oh, it's crazy.
I mean, and you could, you know, you see this.
It happens on the right.
Maybe it happens a little bit more on the left.
Right now, the left is in full, full array, right?
Because the left is like, damn it, we've got to lower the voting age to 16. What do you mean a 24-year-old has access to data?
They're too immature to have access to data at 22 or 24 or 19. But they should be able to vote on complex matters of economics and foreign policy at the age of 16. We want to hire 80,000 agents to audit you.
Oh, wait.
Somebody's auditing us?
Well, that's just wrong!
Steph, narcissists have become less obvious than the examples you gave.
An assertion without evidence is like dust in the wind to me.
I dumped two old friends on that premise last month and life has never been better now.
Steph, you're exactly right.
The validation is priceless.
Thank you, Steph.
Or, you know, people got...
You know, the media, mainstream media, lots of people got incensed and enraged at me for saying to people, to adults, you don't have to stay in abusive relationships, even if it's your parents.
And then they gleefully, like a bunch of sharks on a baby seal, tore families apart over COVID mandates.
Oh, yes, the it's not what you said, it's how you say it.
It's tone policing.
That's when people can't win the argument, often women.
They deny, deflect, gaslight, avoid.
They're snipey, snarky, bitchy.
And then when you get upset, they say, whoa, whoa.
They provoke you into a response, which you're still responsible for.
And then they say, well, it's not what you said, it's how you say it.
And then you get into like weird goopy emotional manipulation territory rather than basic facts.
And of course, somebody who has a rule with you should not ever complain about that rule being imposed on them.
Have you ever tried to talk to a manipulative woman and she has a complaint about you and you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I don't appreciate that tone.
I mean, let's not talk about the content of what you say.
Let's just talk about the way in which you're saying it.
It's really, it's not good.
It's upsetting to me.
I don't like your tone.
And they're like, oh, yes, you know, that's a big deal.
I'm so sorry.
Let me readjust my tone, right?
They never say that.
They just escalate.
Oh, you're just deflecting.
Are you deflecting every time you do that?
That's different, right?
Just nonsense, right?
Just nonsense and noise.
People that I don't exist to are no longer in my life.
I decided that a long time ago.
Yeah, Joe, that's right.
People I don't exist to were never in your life.
One of the reasons I love this podcast is Stefan can articulate things I only instinctively knew.
You don't exist as a person with needs and wants, but simply as a resource slash supply.
Yes Yes Thank you.
The guy talking about his father.
The guy, let me just sort of get to you.
The guy talking about his father.
My dad used to get angry at us for swearing.
One time he asked, Where did you hear such language?
I replied, From you.
He screamed, That doesn't mean you have to repeat it.
Right.
Right.
Sad, but sad, but sad.
Do I exist to you?
Do I exist to you?
So, This is not the part that blows your mind.
I mean, this is a good way to contextualize it and to understand it.
This is not the part yet that blows your mind, though.
Are you ready for the part that will blow your mind?
Are you ready for the part?
Hit me with a Y. I need to know where we are.
People are concentrating.
Are you with me, brothers and sisters?
Yes, you are.
All right.
So, the question is, and you guys may have your own particular tips, tools, and tricks for this, the question is, how do you find out whether you exist in someone else's mind as an independent entity?
How do you know if the person recognizes your existence as a sovereign being with needs of your own?
How do you do it?
It's one thing to say, do I exist?
Because everyone's going to say, yes, you exist to me.
And they're not going to say, asterisk as a resource.
So people are going to say, yeah, yeah, I care about you.
Yeah, I love you.
Yeah, your thoughts and feelings really do matter to me.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
Like the creepy congresspeople who only show up at the Department of Education, not when test scores have been crashing for decades, but only when an audit might be occurring.
So...
Thank you.
Yeah, you say no to a narcissist.
Do some RTR and talk about your experience.
Great.
Questions?
Ask them to help you move?
Maybe.
Maybe.
But they might do that in order to deposit.
Like, your bank account doesn't exist to you as a sovereign entity.
entity, that doesn't mean you don't make deposits into your bank account, right?
So the way, or the couple of ways that you find out if you're dealing with a real narcissist, The first is to talk about something that's important to you that does not impact them directly.
Talk about something that's important to you that does not impact them directly.
Now, this is very much true in the parent-child relationship, right?
So, when a kid really gets into a story, Then they're very passionate about that story and they want to tell you about the story that they're into and what happened and they want you to get involved and understand the story.
So when my daughter would get into a particular book series, she would tell me about it.
I would ask questions.
I would try to understand the characters.
We read through a couple of them together and we did.
So, I mean, do I care about this particular book series?
Well, no.
But I care that my daughter cares about it.
Right?
So, When you're interested in something that does not impact them directly, you know, like occasionally I'll dip into sort of the isolated vocals of Freddie Mercury, you know, listen to Play the Game, isolated vocals.
I mean, it's goosebumps.
It's so good, right?
And I play this for my wife.
Now, she's not particularly interested in singing and vocal quality the way that I am.
I mean, I kind of live on my voice, so...
It matters to me, and I love to sing, so it matters to me, and I also love expertise.
I'm very much inspired by people who are incredibly good at stuff, because that raises the standard for me to try to become even better at what I do.
But she'll listen.
Does she care?
Would she ever search this up on her own?
No, but she'll listen and say, wow, I hear what you're saying, right?
To me, I mean, it is incredible.
Does she ever go and look it up herself?
No.
No.
Thank you.
So, what's going on in my daughter's social group has no particular direct impact on me, but I'm fascinated to find out what's going on in her social group and the mechanics and the ups and the downs and all of that kind of stuff, because it matters to her, therefore it matters to me.
So, share something you're interested in.
And see if they show interest because you're interested in it.
Because a narcissist will put it through, does this benefit or harm me in any way?
And if it doesn't, they just cannot rouse themselves to pay any real attention.
I mean, they might fake it a little bit or whatever, right?
My daughter was explaining a game she was playing the other day on her phone, and I'm like, oh, this works with this, this works with this.
Oh, that's interesting.
Okay, that makes sense.
Okay, blah, blah, blah, right?
Are you saying narcissists are bad listeners?
No, they're fine listeners as long as it impacts them.
They're fine listeners as long as it impacts them.
I mean, even a narcissist will listen to a doctor who says, here's how you should take your medication in order to get better, but not because they care about the doctor, but because they care about getting better.
So, the other way that you find out if you exist the other way that you find out if you exist to someone is you have a criticism of them and you have a criticism of them.
Thank you.
They say they will think about it.
If they don't get back to you, you don't exist to them.
Really, really important, right?
Thank you.
You have a criticism, and we all have criticisms of each other, right?
You have a criticism of someone, and you say, it really bothered me.
Let's say that your brother put you down in a social gathering, right?
Made fun of you and put you down.
And you got a whiff that this was not good-natured, right?
And you say, you know, that bothered me.
It upset you, right?
And if they say, well, I don't agree, but, you know, I guess I'll mull it over, right?
I'll think about it.
Now, if they never get back to you, you don't exist.
You don't exist.
Because there should be an active part of their brain that knows that what they did might be bad, that it might be indication of some hostility or dysfunction in the relationship, and that you're upset and that they need to figure it out and that they need to help make you feel better.
Now, Maybe they were genuinely trying to be funny and it didn't work or whatever.
Maybe you are oversensitive, in which case you can talk about all of that.
Or maybe there was a history in the past.
But if you say to someone, I have an issue with something you did, then they owe it to you to get back to you.
Even if you talk about it for quite a while and come to some kind of quote resolution in the moment, then it needs to become something that is in their mind.
Right?
So, let's say you say to your brother, you know, you kind of put me down pretty hard in that social situation.
It's kind of awkward for me.
Because it's tough.
It's a tough situation.
A very cowardly way to bully someone is to make jokes about them in public, right?
Because it's upsetting, and it puts them in an impossible situation.
Because if they say, well, that's just kind of mean, then they can just be laughed at as being oversensitive, and, you know, they can't take a joke, and, you know, all of that kind of stuff.
You know, narcissistic 101 standard garbage programming, right?
So if you have an issue with your brother, he puts you down in public and you tell him about this, then he should think about it.
He should really mull it over.
He should get back to you.
Here's what I thought about it.
I did think about this.
It started with this.
Maybe I was upset with you about that and you continue to have the conversation.
And then the next time you're in a social situation, Afterwards, he should call you up and he should say, listen, did I do anything that bothers you?
Like, it should be part of the conversation for resolving the issue.
Damn it!
But what a narcissist will do is, if you have a problem with a narcissist, they will just try to memory hole it and are perfectly content if it's never brought up again.
They're perfectly content.
Because they're not bothered by the fact that you're bothered by something they did.
See what I'm saying?
If I do something that upsets a friend, a family member, I'm bothered.
And I'm bothered until it's resolved.
are the same way.
So the conversation needs to keep coming up until the issues are resolved and the relationship becomes strong Every time you resolve an issue or a disagreement or a conflict, the relationship gets stronger because you're more confident then to have disagreements and you're then more naturally yourself and so on, right?
Second way, right?
Do they circle back when you're upset?
If they don't, to me, to me, I'm not diagnosing, I'm just saying for me personally, total narcissist.
Somebody says, the spooky experience that narcissists act like if they wait long enough, the problem is no problem anymore.
My older brother wronged me and nine months later, and nine months after no talking, asked if I had a perfume recipe I made years ago.
Yeah.
Now, it's kind of incomprehensible.
To people who are sensitive and empathetic, it's weird.
It feels almost like a kind of aggression.
Like, they do care about it, but they're holding it back because they want to punish us and so on.
Maybe that's true.
And that's more functional than it doesn't matter to them.
Your upset doesn't matter to them because they're not upset.
And the fact that you are upset does not upset them.
Does that make sense?
Does that make sense?
Thank you.
So, just to reiterate, talk about things that don't directly impact them, see if they're interested, number one.
Number two, have disagreements and see if they circle back.
Here's number three.
The third way you find out if someone is narcissistic.
You have, genuinely, you have an inconvenient emotion.
You have an inconvenient emotion.
So, let's say they want to go out and party, and you get some bad news, and you're unhappy.
You're supposed to go out with them and do some party thing, right?
They've been looking forward to blowing off some steam all week.
They're going to go out and they're going to go party or do something fun.
And then you, Get some bad news.
Like your dog died or, I don't know, you get some bad news, your aunt is ill, and you're sad.
How does the narcissist respond if you're sad and they want to go and celebrate or be positive or peppy about something?
If you're sad, and we all know this from really dysfunctional families, right?
If you're sad, And that interferes with what the narcissist wants to do.
How does the narcissist respond?
The narcissist responds, we all know this, right?
The narcissist responds with annoyance.
it's annoying that your feelings are interfering with their desire to go and celebrate.
And so what they'll say is they will encourage you to not feel sad because you're feeling sad is interfering with them wanting to go out and celebrate.
Yeah.
Well, no, they wouldn't start off by calling you selfish.
Not usually.
I mean, maybe, really, that's pretty obvious stuff.
No, it's not rage.
No, no.
So what the narcissist will do, I mean, there's overt and covert, right?
There's whole layers, right?
What the narcissist will do is the narcissist will say, oh, I'm so sad.
Gosh, that's so terrible.
And they'll talk to you about it for 10 or 15 minutes.
And then they'll say, you know what?
I mean, I know this sounds kind of crazy.
We should just go and go out and have some fun.
I mean, I'm so sad about your dog.
I'm so sad about your aunt.
There's nothing we can do about it right now.
Let's at least try and go out and have some kind of fun.
Right?
So, they will pretend that part of their concern for you is having you go out drinking and dancing or whatever you're going to do, right?
So, they will say that their concern and compassion for you just happens to coincide with their desire to go out drinking and dancing.
Bye.
Thank you.
Usually, that's what will happen.
No, they won't.
They will start usually by pretending to be concerned and caring.
They will usually start off that way.
Like, oh, that's so sad.
That's so terrible.
I really sympathize.
I mean, I think we should just go out and have some fun.
You know, let's celebrate life.
You know, you can go visit your aunt this weekend or I'll certainly be there for it, but we might as well go out and have some fun because just sitting home and being unhappy is just a net loss and it doesn't bring your dog back and it doesn't make your aunt healthier.
So they'll basically just say that you should discard your feelings or shake them off or somehow it would be wiser and more mature to go out and have fun even when you're very unhappy.
So that's the first pass, right?
What they won't do is they won't say, what do you want to do?
Listen, I'm here for you.
If you want to go out, see if we can try and have some fun.
Maybe that's too much.
If you want to stay in, we can talk about memories of your aunt, we can look at pictures of your dog, like whatever it is that you want to do, I'm absolutely here for you.
Because that's somebody who cares about you and is trying to adapt their response to what would be emotionally best for you.
Oh, that Sheryl Crow song, All I Want to Do is Have Some Fun.
That is a really depressing song.
That's an incredibly depressing song about truly broken and empty alcoholics.
I can't listen to that song.
it's just appalling now if the narcissist is trying to manipulate you into going out after you got really sad and tragic news and if you say no I don't I don't want to go.
I can't go out drinking and dancing.
Like, I'm just too unhappy.
Like, no, you shake it off.
You know, like, let's go and kick death in the face and let's go and have some fun, right?
Like, they'll start to become kind of insistent that this is the right path for you dealing with your unhappiness.
The right, healthy, and good path is to go drinking and dancing.
Right?
And if you're like, no, I just, they're like, well, now you're just hanging on to it.
Then they'll start to turn the corner and they'll start to get aggressive, right?
Because you have to go drinking and dancing because they can't go and do it on their own.
And your unhappiness is an obstacle that has to get removed by whatever means necessary.
Your unhappiness is an obstacle.
They want to go drinking and dancing.
Your unhappiness is an obstacle.
because they need you to go because they can't go alone.
I've been looking forward to this all week.
They'll try to get you to empathize with them.
So-and-so is aiming to meet us there.
I mean, we have to go, right?
Obligation, all this kind of stuff, right?
But what you'll get a sense of is that they damn well want to go drinking and dancing and it kind of doesn't matter what you say.
Your unhappiness, your sadness is an obstacle to be removed like there's a fallen log on the road.
If you say no, you're bringing down the vibe, man.
you Thank you.
And then they will get annoyed.
And yes, at that point, they will start to call you selfish.
Like, you're just...
Holding on to your unhappiness and they start to take it personally.
Like, well, what about me?
I mean, I've been looking forward to this all week.
I dressed up.
I got a babysitter.
Like, we gotta go.
Like, I'm sorry about your dog.
I'm sorry about your aunt, but...
I don't, like, I've already, I've put a lot of time, effort, energy, and investment.
I'm ready for this.
So-and-so is going to meet us there.
Let's just go and have some fun.
They just start to get annoyed.
They just start to get annoyed.
Right.
They just start to get annoyed.
Like the boomers making their grandchildren stay home from school and lockdown because they were afraid of COVID. What percent of people do you think are narcissists?
Well, let's look it up.
This is from Psychology Today.
What have we got?
0 to 6.2% in community studies.
That's the success of 2015. There is a woman, Dr. Karen Mitchell, really, really good to follow on X. She puts sort of dark triad personalities at about 20% of the population.
I'm quoting from memory, so forgive me if I've got it wrong.
Let's see here.
This is more recent data from the recovery village.
Yeah, it's very low. it's very low.
Yeah.
Well, I mean, the prevalence of it, I think, I think actually is quite high.
Now, in terms of like clinical diagnosis, that's a different matter.
But what they want is what matters, and they know that other people have resistances, those and they know that other people have resistances, those people need to be talked out of their disagreements so that the narcissist can get what he wants or she wants.
right?
Steph, how did you learn so much about dealing with narcissists?
Via experiences with them or studying the dynamic or both?
Yes, both.
I had that sort of your sadness slash upset as an obstacle to be removed constantly with my parents, especially my father.
Yeah, if the narcissist is in a good mood, they're up or buoyed up because they got what they want or satisfied some petty need.
If the narcissist is in a good mood and you're in a bad mood, The narcissist is annoyed that you're bringing them down.
Why can't you just be happy for me?
Because the only thing that matters is their happiness.
Your unhappiness is just an annoying and irritating interference to their happiness.
Somebody says, my mom would come over twice a week and every time she'd want to go out with at least some of the kids and have me join too.
It got to the point where I was like, no, we're homeschooling and there's chores to do.
We can't go out all the time.
And she's like, you don't want to have your kids to have fun?
It's good for you to get out.
When you go, you have a nice time and so on until I give in.
If I'm mad about it, yep, it's taken personally if I don't enjoy it.
It's so infuriating.
I finally got firm.
And then, and she cried to everyone about how awful I was to her.
Truly ridiculous.
I don't fully get then how little I meant to her.
Are you of value when you are, quote, inconvenient?
Right?
Are you of value?
When you are inconvenient.
Do you exist to others?
Somebody says, I was surrounded by narcissists since birth, so much so that I thought that's just how people acted.
I'm so sorry about that.
Pulsar Light says, it feels much higher than 20% to me.
Lots of narcissists in Silicon Valley.
Yeah, I think 17% of medical students test positive and narcissistic traits.
All right.
I remember going through old photos with my, with my mom.
When she remembered a story about a photo, I listened to her and talked with her about it.
When I told her a story, I remembered she did not react at all.
Yeah, I remember in my mid-twenties watching a show with my mom, and it was about a mother who was losing her mind and terrifying her children, right?
Like wailing on her children if the children knocked over a glass.
The mom was losing her mind.
The children ended up being taken to some other home, some other foster home, where they also knocked over a glass and they were terrified.
And the parents there were like, no, it's fine.
And my mother was in tears.
And all she could say was, the mother must have been so terrified.
The show was really about how terrifying it was for the children.
But the only thing that my mother could...
Process was how terrifying it was to the mother.
She didn't say, boy, that gives me a bit of an insight as to what it was like when I was institutionalized.
This must have been terrifying for you.
It would never have crossed her mind.
It would never have crossed her mind to look at this movie or this show about a woman losing her mind and abusing her children and empathizing with the children and asking me what my experience was.
Never happened.
Not once.
Not once in my family as a whole has anyone ever asked me what my experience was.
Nope.
Doesn't happen.
Will never happen.
Will never happen.
I mean, once you get that, you're asking people without arms to applaud you.
Like, it won't happen.
In my view, again, I'm not a professional in this area.
It's just my personal opinion.
Absolutely irreparable.
It's absolutely irreparable.
Because there's a fork in the road.
Now, abuse does not help with these issues, but I still hold people responsible.
Unless there's legitimate brain injury, like legitimate brain damage, then there's still choices, right?
So, everyone has this fork in the road.
Right?
Where you say, like, I talk about this with the players, right?
The pickup artist guys, right?
Who come and call into the shows.
It's like, what's the value of women?
If the value of women is status and sex, then you're using women because you're lying to them.
And if you say to women, right, what is the value of men?
If the value of men is status, sex, and resources, then you're using men.
Right?
You're using men.
Because Everyone you have long-term relationships with is going to end up doing something you don't like or that is negative for you.
And it may be entirely against their will.
I'm aging.
My wife is aging.
Do we want to age?
No.
It beats the alternative, but we don't want to age.
Because we both look better a quarter century ago.
just a fact, right?
So let's give you, I'll give you another example, right?
Another example is you're planning on a day out with your mother, right?
And she wants to go and do a bunch of walkabout, shoppy, whatever it is, right?
The day out with your mother.
And for some reason, nothing you did that was particularly bad or wrong, but for some reason, you end up Having a really bad night's sleep.
tossing you're turning you wake up with a headache and so on right and you your mother calls you and says are you ready to go And you're like, oh man, I'm completely wiped.
I just slept so badly.
I've got a blistering headache.
I'm so blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
Well, how does your mother react?
Does she say, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry.
Let me pick you up.
Is there anything you need?
I'm happy to drop by the pharmacy.
Do you need any Advil or, you know, can I get you anything?
I mean, we should cancel today because it's no fun.
I'm sorry about that.
I was really looking forward to it.
But, you know, I'm really sorry that you slept so badly.
And if there's anything I can do to help, we'll do it another day.
Right?
That's you existing to your mother.
If she's just kind of annoyed, what time did you go to bed?
Did you have coffee in the afternoon?
Did you do something?
Just, you know, you'll be fine.
Just pop an aspirin.
Some fresh air will do you the good.
Walking around will help.
There's no point moping about the house all day.
She wants to go shopping.
And whatever interferes with her going shopping is an annoyance.
Right?
Thank you.
Are emotions inconvenient to someone in your life viewed as an annoyance that needs to be changed?
Or, to put it another way, is every solution to your inconvenient emotion magically aligned with the short-term preferences Of the narcissist.
She wants to go shopping.
And so all of her solutions to your sleepless night and blinding headache is that you just go shopping.
There's no other solution.
All of the solutions magically coincide with what she wants to do.
Hit me with a Y.
Do you exist?
you To them.
Do you exist to them as an independent entity?
And the way that you know that is to reverse it.
So if your mother was, let's say that you needed your mother to drive you to pick up a computer that you'd ordered.
She didn't really want to do it, but she's your mother or whatever, right?
Now, if your mother slept really badly and woke up with a blinding headache and you insisted, That she still come to drive to get you to pick up the computer, would she call you selfish for that?
I have a headache.
I didn't sleep.
For heaven's sakes, your computer will still be there tomorrow.
Stop being so pushy.
Right?
If the situations were reversed, would the same thing occur?
Right?
This is Socratic reasoning, right?
If the situation were reversed, would the same mechanics occur?
So, if you don't particularly want to go shopping with your mom, but you'll do it because, you know, she's your mom and you care about her.
But you wake up, or you half wake up from a groggy, terrible night's sleep with a blinding headache.
If the situation were reversed, if your mother was doing something that she didn't, if she'd committed to doing something she didn't particularly want her to do, but woke up groggy and exhausted with a blinding headache.
And you said, no, no, the best cure for a blinding headache is a nice drive.
So let's go pick up the computer, which you call selfish.
Well, of course, we all know the answer to that, right?
We all know the answer to that.
Somebody says, no, you only exist as a snapshot in their own mind to a narcissist, not as a real person.
I don't really know what snapshot means.
I don't know what snapshot means in that context or circumstance.
You exist as a verbally controlled resource provider.
Right, there's an old movie with Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer.
Michelle Pfeiffer, that white gold.
And in it, one of the things is sort of a running dark gag.
That she is trying to get the GPS, you know, navigate to such and such a place and it always gets the wrong place and she just gets incredibly annoyed and frustrated because the voice command system is not working.
Now, if you want to understand the mind of the narcissist, the mind of the narcissist is that you are A GPS provider that is verbally commanded.
And if you do, they say, navigate to X mall, and it navigates to X mall, they're happy.
If they say, navigate to X mall, and it takes you to the wrong place, or says, this journey will take 14 hours, because I'm taking you to Tennessee, they get annoyed.
No, no, they repeat it louder.
Navigate to X mall.
Navigating to small X mall, which is in Bangladesh.
No!
Navigate!
Like they just get Escalade, right?
Because the GPS needs to do what they want to do.
They're driving so they can't stop and punch it in, right?
So...
Right?
And if the GPS doesn't do what they want consistently enough, they'll just rip it off the mount and throw it out the window.
And just toss it out.
Because it's not doing what they need it to do.
They would never think of asking the GPS, well, hang on, I want to go to X mall, but where do you want to go?
Maybe you want to go someplace different.
Maybe you want to stay home.
So you are a verbally controlled provider of resources.
And if you are not providing resources, it's because they are not using the correct language.
Right?
And so they'll speak more slowly, more clearly.
They'll escalate.
They'll try another approach.
They'll try a guilt, the manipulation, bullying, appeal to sentimentality, self-pity.
No, I've got to open this lock.
I try all these different keys.
I'll just, until you do what I want to do, I'll just keep changing my strategies, because you have to do what I want you to do.
You exist as an object, like a phone or a computer.
So somebody says, by snapshot, I mean an idea of you that has a role or a function for them.
I don't know that that's encapsulated in the term snapshot.
So, I mean, one of the classic narcissists to me would be Blanche Dubois, who dates a guy because she's broke and doesn't want to live...
With her younger sister and her husband.
And so she dates this guy Mitch and pretends to be all kinds of delicate.
I could never abide an unpeeled grape.
And she's all delicate and so on.
And then when it turns out that she was the town whore and he only wants her for sex, in other words, she was manipulating and using him and lying to him and pretending to be sweet and a delicate innocent school teacher and so on.
And...
Then when he finds out, like his buddy finds out that she was the town whore, tells him, then he only wants to have sex with her.
He doesn't want to marry her anymore because she's the town whore.
And men have a revulsion against female promiscuity.
Like, I'm sorry, it's just a fact, right?
There's very specific biological reasons for that to do with STDs, to do with the lack of pair bonding, and to do with the fact that...
Every sperm deposit in a woman has effects on the genetics, so you're actually raising less and less of your own child the more a woman has slept around, right?
So, it's just, you know, bad, bad all around.
And there's danger in that, right?
So, it also, I mean, promiscuity in women in particular usually is a sign of prior childhood sexual abuse, for which we can all sympathize, but not necessarily marry, right?
So, Blanche Dubois wants Mitch to take care of her, to pay for her, even though she can't give him children.
She's too old.
And when he finds out the truth about her, he doesn't want to do all of that.
And so she just gets enraged at him and threatens to harm him.
Because he's no longer providing what she wants, so she'll just escalate.
My mother made a remark about a male acquaintance that her mother abused and neglected her and as a result messed up his relationship with women.
Never occurred to her that she did the same to me.
Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely.
People will complain about others who share the exact same characteristics with absolutely zero consciousness that they're describing themselves.
Another thing that a narcissist will never do, again, in my humble amateur opinion, another thing that a narcissist will never do is they will never go out on a limb to protect you if it doesn't directly affect their own interests.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So if you're dating, Somebody who is showing signs of instability, they will never sit you down and warn you about those dangers.
I mean, there's a number of reasons for that, but they will not go out of their comfort zone to warn you about potential dangers with regards to your dating life, your political life, your professional life, and so on.
They will generally indicate boredom, irritation, and frustration when the topic drifts off something that is material to them.
Steph, what was your experience when you finished getting all the narcissists out of your life?
No, they were never in my life.
They were never in my life.
I mean, they were around, of course, and I was, you know.
Did life take off in an absolutely positive direction right away?
Yes.
Yes.
Yeah, because the quality people that were always around could not get through the ring of narcissists, right?
Narcissists are like a fiery moat around you.
Good people cannot get through.
You are guarded.
You know, like, think of the story of the golden goose, right?
The golden goose, you are guarded because you are a provider of resources for which the narcissist does not have to reciprocate.
You are a provider of resources, so you can be exploited.
So you are the most valuable piece of livestock owned by the narcissist.
And so if someone comes into your life and says, ooh, you know what?
I think you might be surrounded by some narcissists, but here's a test, right?
Don't take my advice.
You know, I can't diagnose.
You know, you can try these kinds of tests, right?
And look for this, all the stuff I'm talking about.
Look for this, this, this, and this, right?
They want to keep all of the healthy people, all of the non-narcissists, they want to keep away from you.
Nobody in my life had any problem with any woman I dated until my wife.
Boy, if that didn't tell me everything I needed to know.
What a wake-up call that was.
Lordy, lordy, lordy above.
What a wake-up call that was.
So the narcissists are guarding you, like swords out, shields out, they are guarding you, and they are threatening and driving away all of the good people who might wake you up to and they are threatening and driving away all of the good people who might So the narcissists are going to be able to get you to the right side of the road.
My default position Any sane person would be bewildered and disappointed by the fact that you keep a narcissist in your life.
No, that's not true.
Sorry, that's just straight up not true.
You don't keep a narcissist in your life.
you are kept by a narcissist like livestock.
And we all understand that narcissists fiercely guard their livestock.
And we all understand that narcissists fiercely guard their livestock.
And so, for me, just relentlessly have your own needs and preferences and expect the people to reciprocate.
And if they don't like it, then they can take a long walk off a short pier as far as I'm concerned.
I'm going to have my own needs and preferences.
People are going to annoy me.
I annoy people.
That's fine.
We can have those conversations, but I'm going to have my own needs and preferences.
and if that is really annoying to people, then they don't have to stick around, right?
I mean, the earlier the troll, I mean, I know what's really going on.
If he thinks I'm such a terrible guy, why does he keep coming back to the shows?
shows.
He's coming back to the shows because he's looking for an ally to dislodge the devils in his mind.
So, I will tell you my general approach.
To people, because I still obviously move through the world and meet people and so on, right?
So, my general approach to the world, and by the way, y'all said you were going to donate, and I've got a little bit on the live stream, but nothing at freedomain.com slash donate.
So, if you find this helpful, think of how much money you can save.
This is a cost-benefit analysis.
Think of how much money you can save.
If you identify the narcissists in your life.
Think of much time, energy, happiness, reason.
Come on, man.
A couple of bucks.
This is hard-won knowledge.
You can't get this anywhere else.
So, my general approach.
When I was younger, I used to be an innocent until proven guilty kind of guy when it comes to disorders.
Now, when I meet people, I assume selfish until proven otherwise.
And I don't mean this with any negativity or hostility.
It's just a basic fact.
I view people as selfish until proven otherwise.
Now, the proof might be pretty easy, right?
Like if you meet someone and they are, you know, they're committed to their community, they're a good parent, they care about those in their life, they ask you questions, you know, they...
And they expect reciprocity, right?
Because a lot of people who ask you questions and don't really care if you ask them something back, they're just gathering information to control you, right?
To try and manipulate you, right?
And they're seeing, do you have a hole in your life of loneliness that if they just keep asking you questions, which is kind of like a love bomb technique, if they just keep asking you questions, will you bond with them?
Will you become needy or dependent on them?
And so if somebody just keeps asking you questions and doesn't, You don't really ask them anything back, and that's totally fine with them.
That's usually a manipulator or somebody who's trying to get you addicted to their attention so that they can control you.
So for me, in general, online, not with this community in general, but it's selfish until proven otherwise.
And that's partly because, and I don't feel this when I'm spending time with Christians, But in general, with the fall of Christianity, people don't commit to anything larger than themselves.
Right?
right?
People don't respond or focus on or attach their energies to anything larger than themselves.
Not working or spending money on the Sabbath is my reason to wait, but I'm committed to donating on top of my ongoing Sabbath.
Thank you very much, and I respect that.
I appreciate that.
that?
No problem at all.
So, I mean, the real question is, how many people are genuinely good at appreciating and understanding the emotional life and independence of others?
Yes.
Thank you.
Because the people who claim to be empaths are usually just manipulators or people who are pathologically altruistic and they're just trying to manage their own feelings by pretending to be nice and all that.
I tend to think of narcissists as people who did not get their attention needs met as children.
Well, I appreciate that, Steve, but that's not causal.
I mean, I didn't get my attention needs met as a child.
I'm certainly not a narcissist, so there's a choice, the fork in the road.
Are you going to treat people as objects to be used for your own preferences, or are you going to treat them as sovereign, independent people?
Because, you know, we're all born kind of selfish, so to speak.
It's not really selfish, but...
You know, the baby wakes up and cries and doesn't have any particular capacity to empathize with the mother's need for sleep and, in fact, shouldn't, right?
So, we all start off kind of, quote, selfish self.
Narcissism is the default state of humanity.
It's how we're born.
It's how to grow it, right?
And people have that choice.
I'm donating at Freedomain.
Yes, I appreciate that.
that.
Thank you.
I appreciate that.
But at some point, like, don't you have this thing, right?
Don't you have this thing, you know, so we're all kind of selfish, and at some point, at some point, don't we say, hang on, I mean, I know I want to go out, but my friend's dog just died, and I'm kind of annoyed.
That's not good.
I mean, don't you have this kind of thing where you say, you look at yourself and you say, hang on, I'm trying to cajole my friend into going out when he's really sad about something rather than sit and talk with him about what he's sad about.
Isn't that kind of being a bit of a jerk?
Like, we have this, right, this thing, right?
Are other mammals 100% selfish?
But moral considerations only apply to human beings because only human beings have the capacity to compare proposed actions to ideal standards.
So it's like calling a killer whale evil.
It doesn't make any sense, right?
They can't reason in abstract ways.
Yeah, I'm not really doing external shows, just for those.
I mean, I appreciate it, but I'm not really doing external.
I'm just enjoying these conversations and the work that I'm doing so much that I'm not really doing external shows.
I'm afraid.
I'm afraid everybody has to compete with my own mind.
So, I mean, at some point, at some point, somebody has to know.
Thank you, Amy.
She says, Steph, I wish I could give you more.
You literally saved my life.
I appreciate that.
Thank you very much for your support.
So, at some point, you have to say, Is this a behavior that I would respect in others, right?
My friend is very sad.
I want to overcome their sadness so that they do what I want.
At some point, don't you get like that's kind of being a jerk?
I prefer the internal shows, especially ones where you're hashing something out.
Penguins don't love killer whales.
Killer whales don't hate the penguins.
They're just hungry.
You don't hate the cow.
He's just hungry.
That cow stomped on my ancestors.
I'm going to eat its gizzards as revenge.
That's not really how things work.
I'm also not the...
Oh, this is the troll.
I'm also not the only one who can see when you get one critique, you say the person has problems or no friends, etc.
When it becomes 50, you make a small, quick apology.
When you get a critique, I'm happy to get critiques if I've said something incorrect or contradicted something else.
I got a potential contradiction, which I addressed at the very beginning of the show.
I'm happy to get critiques, but if you have these sort of petty, emotionally manipulative behaviors, it tells me that they work in the people around you.
I never said you had no friends.
I just said you have low-quality friends.
I do find myself selfish sometimes, and I try to remind myself that it's important to be reciprocal if I want to have good relationships.
So occasionally I even fake my concern for someone because it's a right thing to do, and that mostly works.
Fake it till you make it.
Well, that's certainly a step in the right direction, right?
I mean, what matters is you build the muscles, not how much you love to exercise, right?
So even if you have to sort of, you know, I've had been absorbed with something and my daughter wants to talk about something, I have to sort of put that aside and focus and, you know, you just have to work those muscles.
To remind yourself that, you know, this is sort of a basic exercise.
If you want a successful relationship, if you want a successful relationship, there's only one thing you need to do, really, and that's to genuinely picture what it's like to live with you.
If you want a successful relationship, you must, must, must genuinely and deeply picture what it's like to live with you.
I do this exercise with my wife.
I mean, we'll be chatting on the couch.
I'll be on one couch.
She'll be on another couch.
We're chatting.
And I'm like, what is it like for her to be sitting and looking at me?
What is it like to be her and sitting?
You've got to practice putting yourself in other people's shoes.
What is it like for my daughter to have me as a father?
What is it like for my friends to have me as a friend?
What is it like from their side?
Seems pretty obvious I'm not a troll.
I mean, okay.
That's not an argument.
Yeah, your children are captive in a sense, says Steve, so it's important to every day ask yourself how that's going for them.
Just ask them, too.
Yeah, what's it like?
How am I doing?
How am I doing?
I'm asking you guys all the time, how am I doing?
Is this what you want to talk about?
Is this valuable to you?
Do you want this big topic?
I mean, I've been thinking about the narcissism stuff for a while, so do you want this as a topic today, right?
And I ask you now.
And now comes the other side, which is, you all said you would debate, you would donate, right?
You all said you would donate if what I provided was important and of value.
Now, I take this very seriously, because that's a commitment, right?
So, I take this very seriously.
I believe that what I provided over the last 45 minutes was very deep, important, powerful, and valuable.
And hard won.
Hard won wisdom.
Now, if...
You said that you would donate if what I said was important and powerful.
If you don't donate, either you're breaking your commitment or you're saying that what I'm saying is not powerful and important and valuable.
That's fine.
I mean, if I thought I was providing value and I'm not providing value, you can give me that feedback by not donating.
I would like to know what was missing in what I said about all of this.
But...
These commitments are very important, right?
If I pursue a topic for 40-45 minutes that I think is a great value because you said you'll donate if it's a value, that's a commitment, right?
That's a commitment.
You got the speech because you promised to donate if the speech was of value.
Now, Hit me with an N if the speech was not valuable to you.
If it's not interesting, not valuable, you've already dealt with all of this, you've got no issues with anything like this, this has never been a problem for you, and so on.
Hit me with an N, and listen, I'm not going to tell you whether it was valuable or not to you, that's your experience, right?
right?
But hit me with an N if it was not of value to you.
Okay, so nobody's saying no.
We've got a lot of people watching who said that they would donate if it was a value.
And obviously, this is your choice, your free will, your absolute free will.
But it's important, right?
It's important whether you keep your word.
It is important whether you keep your word.
Because if you don't keep your word, People who are trustworthy and who keep their word won't want to spend time with you.
I wish I had this wisdom 30 years ago.
So much value.
I appreciate that.
And, you know, again, you can help.
Yeah, look, if you came in later, it's not, obviously it doesn't, but if you came in at the end, if you just came in, this does not apply to you.
Come on.
You know that.
So, you can help by applying this value to others.
I mean, I wish I'd had this value when I was much younger too.
But, you know, it's hard to argue with how my life is, so what can I tell you?
What can I tell you?
So we had three people donate.
One or two more on the stream.
Okay.
All right.
Somebody says, I, for my part, prefer to be self-interested than to place the interests of others to the detriment of my own.
Being selfish is not to be derided, but to be gloried in.
To place the interests of others to the detriment of my own.
Okay, so I'm married.
Is it, let's say that my wife wants to talk about something she's upset about, and it's not what I would want to do.
If somebody would say to me, do you want to spend an hour or two this afternoon talking about something your wife is upset about?
I would say no.
You know, all other things being equal, I would say no to that.
But if my wife wants to talk about something that I would not normally want to talk about, it would not be my preference.
Is it against my own self-interest to put my own preferences aside and focus on what my wife was unhappy about?
Honestly, I can't remember the last time this happened, but, you know, I'm sure it has, right?
It's not a negative.
I gave up writing books for 10 years when my daughter was little.
Could have written like 20 more books.
I like writing books.
I like writing books more than I like going to play centers because if, you know, I don't go to play centers now that my wife is, Sorry, now that my daughter is older, I don't go to play centers.
But I chose to have a child.
She enjoyed it.
I enjoyed spending time with her.
So is it against my own self-interest to go to play centers, for instance, rather than write books?
See, what you want to have is people in your life to whom there is no contradiction between your self-interest and their self-interest.
You want to have people in your life Where focusing on each other is win-win, it's not win-lose.
Now, if you have selfish people in your life, focusing on them is win-lose.
They win, you lose.
Anyway.
All right.
So, I think we have reached the end of our donation honor roll.
I do appreciate those who kept their word.
I really do appreciate that, and thank you so much.
If you're listening later, when you listened earlier, right?
When you listened earlier, If you kind of agreed that you would donate if you found it to be of value, I would appreciate a donation from you as well.
Right?
I do guide what I do by your feedback.
And the feedback that is verbal is very nice, but the feedback that is material is empirical.
Right?
So, have yourself an absolutely wonderful day.
Thank you so much for your time, care, and attention today.
Lots of love from up here.
I will talk to you soon.
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