Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - Will You Sell All That Is Virtuous and Peaceful for Money?
Aired: 2025-02-15
Duration: 06:16


=== Fewer People, Higher Prices (05:39) ===

[00:00:00]  Alright, let's get to your questions and comments and issues and criticisms.
[00:00:05]  I am thrilled to hear.
[00:00:08]  Yeah, people talking about themselves being sick.
[00:00:11]  Yeah, there's something nasty.
[00:00:13]  Something wicked this way comes.
[00:00:16]  That was nasty, man.
[00:00:18]  I think the last time I was that sick was like, I don't know, like it was almost 20 years ago.
[00:00:23]  I had bad food from a sandwich place and I ended up passing out for the day.
[00:00:29]  And then, and of course I thought, oh my God, I passed out for the day.
[00:00:32]  I'm not going to get any sleep at night.
[00:00:33]  Turns out, nope, sleep at night was totally fine.
[00:00:35]  So I basically got like 60 hours of sleep in a 24-hour period.
[00:00:43]  Somebody says, the sickness came through my neck of the woods a couple of weeks ago.
[00:00:46]  I was hallucinating and lost 10 pounds.
[00:00:49]  Vaxi super bugs me things.
[00:00:51]  Who knows?
[00:00:51]  But yeah, it was nasty, man.
[00:00:53]  And I, yeah, what did I have?
[00:00:55]  I had a little bowl of yogurt and fruit yesterday.
[00:00:56]  That was it.
[00:00:58]  If we end slavery, everybody will be naked.
[00:01:07]  Well, and it's one thing to believe that back in the day, but we literally got rid of slavery and agricultural productivity went through the roof, right?
[00:01:16]  As I've said before, like, in the beginning of the 1900s, 80% of Americans were involved in farming.
[00:01:24]  Now it's 2% or 3% and productivity is through the roof, right?
[00:01:27]  You know, it's a funny thing.
[00:01:35]  Maybe this is sort of a demonic thing, right?
[00:01:39]  It's sort of a demonic thing that's going on.
[00:01:42]  Which is, will you sell all that is virtuous and peaceful in your society for money?
[00:01:49]  Right?
[00:01:50]  Will you sell all that is virtuous and peaceful in your society for money?
[00:01:55]  So, there's this absolute lie that's going on these days.
[00:02:00]  Which is to say, well, we have a low birth rate and an aging population.
[00:02:06]  So, either you have to have endless immigration or you have to accept a significantly lower standard of living.
[00:02:18]  That's a wild thing to say.
[00:02:20]  First of all, people who are trying to con you will always give you two options to limit your thinking to those two options.
[00:02:28]  So, there is, of course, A collapse in the birth rate, because women would rather date than raise children.
[00:02:35]  So, I get that.
[00:02:37]  There's a collapse in the birth rate, and there's an aging population.
[00:02:42]  So, what that means, of course, since the population is dropping, the price of labor will go up.
[00:02:47]  When the price of labor goes up, you get more automation.
[00:02:54]  So, the idea that you need mass immigration to deal with a declining birth rate is completely false.
[00:02:59]  Completely false.
[00:03:01]  The birth rate in the past was like 6 to 8. Then it went down to like 4 to 6. Then it went down to 2 to 4. Now it's somewhere below 2 or like below 1 even in some places like South Korea.
[00:03:13]  So, who cares?
[00:03:15]  And let's say that for some reason the laws of economics are completely suspended, right?
[00:03:20]  There's no laws of economics at all.
[00:03:24]  And somehow, the fact that there are fewer people to work In no way drives automation, and let's say that...
[00:03:31]  Let's say that you are going to have less income, even though there are fewer people in the workforce.
[00:03:45]  Well, so fewer people in the workforce...
[00:03:48]  This is just second-order thinking.
[00:03:50]  What happens if you have fewer people, fewer adults, more old people?
[00:03:55]  And fewer young people, well, what happens to the price of housing?
[00:04:00]  It collapses, which is great.
[00:04:02]  If you want to start a family, right?
[00:04:04]  This is how it's supposed to work.
[00:04:05]  This is how the ebb and flow in society is supposed to work.
[00:04:08]  If there are more kids, then you're going to end up with a higher price of housing.
[00:04:13]  I mean, I know that the price of housing is elastic, or the supply of housing is elastic.
[00:04:19]  But if there are fewer people, then the price of housing goes down, which means it then becomes cheaper to have children.
[00:04:24]  And the wages go up because there are fewer people.
[00:04:26]  So, just the idea that, well, you know, if there are fewer people working, it's just, it's, well, there's just less money.
[00:04:37]  You know, let's say that there are 100 million people making $50,000 a year and that goes down to 50 million people.
[00:04:44]  That means that your GDP goes down by half.
[00:04:47]  It's like, it really doesn't.
[00:04:48]  It really doesn't mean that at all.
[00:04:53]  It really doesn't at all.
[00:04:55]  Oh my god, it doesn't at all.
[00:04:58]  What does it mean?
[00:04:59]  Well, it means that people will end up being paid double because there are half as many.
[00:05:03]  Or there'll be more automation, which will increase worker productivity.
[00:05:10]  So, it doesn't mean that at all.
[00:05:12]  But then, this is just stupid people.
[00:05:15]  100 million people at 50k a year.
[00:05:18]  Okay, that's a huge, huge economy.
[00:05:20]  But boy, if there are a few, if there are only...
[00:05:22]  If there are only 50 million people at 50K a year, I mean, like, there's no other variable.
[00:05:26]  There's no other variable that changes.
[00:05:28]  There's one variable.
[00:05:30]  One variable, that's all that happens.
[00:05:35]  That is the saddest, stupid stuff around, right?

=== One Variable Changes (00:36) ===

[00:05:39]  But thank goodness the flu vaccine was invented 83 years ago.
[00:05:45]  Thank goodness the flu vaccine was invented 80 years ago.
[00:05:50]  So now we don't have to worry about the flu anymore.
[00:05:54]  82 years ago.
[00:05:55]  82?
[00:05:56]  Something like that.
[00:05:57]  A long time ago.
[00:05:59]  A long time ago.
[00:06:03]  Fauci was pardoned back to 2014. Yeah.
[00:06:08]  Yeah.
[00:06:14]  All right, let's see here.