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March 1, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:22:25

My Witch Girlfriend Broke My Heart! Freedomain Live Call In

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	Welcome to your impromptu, hey, pinch-punch first of the month.
	As usual, March 2025, the first, noon-ish.
	And I, of course, I have some thoughts, as I often do, and I also have some ears, as I always do.
	If you have anything that you wanted to talk to me, ask me about, chat me about, criticize me about, harangue me about, harass me about, I'm all ears.
	As always, I certainly have a couple of thoughts.
	And I really did watch with very close attention the Zelensky-Vance-Trump interaction from the other day.
	And I think, just while I'm waiting to see who wants to chat, I think I'll tell you what's going on, because I do get exasperated, right?
	Like, I enjoyed, I found politics interesting to talk about, but I got really bored talking about politics when everybody was rejecting IQ, right?
	You can't really understand the world without understanding IQ. It's sort of like trying to discuss geography with people who think the world is flat.
	Like, you just can't really get very far.
	You can't really do very much with it.
	And it's sort of a round-in-circles conversation.
	And it did get, as a whole...
	Just kind of boring to talk about stuff when the central topic of discussion that's most relevant usually to these discussions is disallowed.
	Is it disallowed?
	So I didn't get very far with that.
	I also find I still, you know, dip into the political realm from time to time.
	And I do find it quite annoying that, you know, there's this sort of meme, few understand, few get it, few understand.
	So, for those of you who didn't watch it yesterday, it's more, to me, it's not about politics, it's about negotiations and psychology.
	So, for those of you who didn't see it yesterday, what happened was there was a very interesting, normally this stuff happens deep behind closed doors or in encrypted chats or whatever, but there was a very interesting conflict that Zelensky, as far as I understand it, was brought to America in order to...
	Well, I guess the general idea was to broker a peace deal.
	And as far as I understand it, Zelensky kind of backed out of the peace deal at the last moment.
	Now, of course, Zelensky stays in power because...
	There is a war.
	If the war ends, then he has to have elections, and I doubt the guy who's been dragging young men off the streets to go and fight at the war would be massively popular.
	So, I mean, there's a bunch of stuff going on geopolitically.
	Not particularly interesting.
	What was interesting, though, was the conflict.
	And I'm not even sure the participants understand what was going on.
	I know that sounds lofty, but, you know, bear with me as I make the case, and we'll see if I can back it up.
	So, in order to understand this conflict where Zelensky was, you know, vaguely threatening and obstructionist and rolled his eyes and, of course, rubbed his nose quite a bit, as you expect somebody who might have a bit of a predilection for the booger sugar, but, you know, very disrespectful, somewhat contemptuous, vaguely threatening, and so on.
	And, you know, showed up in his usual homeless attire and all of that.
	He was treating Trump and Vance disrespectfully, which meant he was treating the office disrespectfully.
	And one of the things that they talked about was his lack of gratitude.
	Now, of course, the mainstream media played back when Zelensky visited Biden and Harris, that he was grateful and humble and so on.
	Trump in advance, he was belligerent and obstructionist and negative.
	And it got so bad that the Ukrainian ambassador, this woman, like just buried her face in her hands.
	Like it was just, she knew she could see just how badly it was going.
	Now, people, again, I hate to sound this way, but I'm going to be honest with my thoughts, I was trying to be honest with you guys, that people don't understand.
	The mechanics of what was going on was really going on.
	So, in order to help get at least my perspective across, I think it'll be helpful, I'll give you an analogy.
	And the analogy goes something like this.
	You have a man named Bob, and he has a wife named Alice.
	Alice is dying of cancer.
	Alice is dying of cancer, and Bob is just absolutely desperate to save Alice's life.
	And there are two doctors that can save Alice's life.
	One is far away, one is close.
	And he works with the doctor to save his wife's life.
	And, you know, they're doing the chemo, the radiation, I don't know, whatever they throw at this kind of stuff.
	And Alice is hanging on.
	She's not exactly getting better.
	She's kind of in a state of limbo.
	She's not dying.
	She's not getting better.
	Alice is hanging on.
	And Bob is just, every night, prayer vigils, candlelight, I've just got to save Alice.
	Alice is the greatest human being ever to exist.
	I can't be happy without her.
	She's the love of my life.
	I would do anything to save Alice, right?
	And then what happens is, the first doctor, let's make this politically accurate, the first doctor gets dementia and is unable to treat Alice.
	So then the other doctor, Is put on the case.
	The doctor returns from far away, he's put on the case, right?
	And in conversation, Bob, who is an ardent environmentalist, finds out that the new doctor, the new doctor is skeptical of anthropogenic catastrophic global warming, right?
	He's skeptical of it.
	He's like, I don't know, seems like the data's not really there, it hasn't really happened yet, and so on, right?
	So, Bob finds out that the new doctor doesn't believe in catastrophic anthropogenic global warming, that man-made CO2 is destroying the planet.
	And then, he's incredibly rude and aggressive towards the new doctor, who's, by the way, who is treating Alice for free, because...
	You know, he cares about Bob and, you know, doesn't want Bob to be unhappy and so on, right?
	So then Bob gets incredibly rude at the new doctor because he doesn't share his views on environmentalism, insults him, escorns him, mocks him, and starts trashing him, trash-talking him publicly, and calls him a little bitch.
	Now, if we were to observe this, Bob, remember, claims that Alice is the love of his life.
	He's desperate to have her.
	He'd do anything to have her survive.
	But then, when there's a new doctor who he has some ideological disagreements with, he gets enraged, scorns the doctor who's giving his work for free, calls him a little bitch, and just alienates the doctor as much as humanly possible.
	Well, What would we think of Bob?
	Does he love Alice?
	Or is he an ideological fanatic?
	In other words, he's willing to put Alice at massive risk by scorning, attacking, insulting, and denigrating the only doctor who can save her.
	Would we have sympathy?
	And I think, for Bob, would we believe Bob's protestations?
	That he just loves Alice so, so, so much and cares about her so much.
	Right?
	We would look at Bob as a deranged, cold-hearted, ideological lunatic.
	And we would no longer believe his protestations.
	That he loved his wife so, so much.
	And if he even threatened the doctor.
	Well, I mean, we would recognize that he was putting ideology above that which he claims to love.
	And we would have sympathy for Alice.
	We might have some sympathy for the doctor he's insulting, but we would not have much love or sympathy left for Bob, and we certainly wouldn't believe all his protestations that his wife meant everything to him and he would do anything to save her.
	In a nutshell, to me, That's what was going on yesterday.
	Like Zelensky thanked and was very positive towards the Biden administration, and as J.D. Vance pointed out, Zelensky went and campaigned last fall for the Biden-Harris, well, for the Harris presidential campaign.
	So, does Zelensky hate Republicans?
	Or hate Trump in advance more than he loves his country?
	Does Bob hate the doctor more than he loves his wife Alice, since the doctor is the only one who can save him, and he's threatening and insulting and scorning and deriding him, and going back on his word?
	So really, that's all it comes down to.
	Now, if Zelensky hates Republicans more than he loves Ukraine, that's a problem, to put it mildly.
	That's a problem, because then love of country is not his...
	Fundamental motivation.
	I mean, if you love your wife, what do you care about the politics of the doctor who's going to save her life?
	Be a communist, be a socialist.
	I don't care.
	Just save my wife's life.
	So, this is a test of virtue and integrity.
	If Zelensky was positive and friendly with Biden-Harris, but is hostile, And insulting to Trump Vance, that means that he is ideological.
	And he is willing to sacrifice the interests of his country for the sake of petty ideology.
	And that is not an inspiring leader.
	I mean, even Churchill, I mean, Lord knows the man had his faults, to put it mildly.
	But when Churchill, who was an avowed anti-communist, was confronted with working with Stalin to defeat the Nazis, he said, well, if Hitler should invade hell itself, I'm sure I could find something good to say about the devil.
	So, that is the question.
	Is he a noble leader who is putting the interests of his country first?
	Or is he an ideologue willing to sacrifice his, not just his country, sacrificing a country is sort of an abstract concept, is he willing to prolong a war because of his hatred of Republicans?
	Well, then he's willing to sacrifice untold, uncountable numbers of, you know, often teenage or elderly boys on the altar of his own Ideological perversions.
	That's not super inspiring as a whole.
	So, that's really what was going on.
	And that's what people got deep down, I think, in their gut about what happened yesterday.
	That if you're willing to threaten and insult a doctor who can save your wife's life because you disagree with him about global warming, you're kind of a lunatic.
	Not a moral leader.
	Not a virtuous person.
	But, you know, a semi-hate-filled ideological robot, a blind praise and opposition depending on the shifting sands of the ideologies of those you're sitting across from.
	No particular abstract integrities, no commitment to virtues, and certainly no commitment to that which is best for your country and its inhabitants.
	You know, it's very, this is an old line from a Pink Floyd song.
	General sat and the lines on the map moved from side to side.
	It's very easy to say, we'll fight to the last man, when you're not fighting, and you'll never be the last man.
	It's very easy to be brave and proxy.
	You know, this would happen, I mean, obviously a completely different moral sphere, but this would happen in my life continuously.
	That people would say, oh, Steph, you should talk about this.
	You should do that.
	All these anonymous accounts, you know, on their VPNs.
	Oh, Steph, you should do this brave thing.
	I'm like, hey, man, if you think it's an important topic, man, then go for it.
	But I don't have as big an audience.
	Well, that's because you're not talking about these big topics.
	If you want to talk about a big topic, don't let me stop you.
	And so it's very easy to be courageous, right?
	There's this line.
	It's a great line from Shrek.
	Lord Farquaad, many of you may die, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
	And it's tragically true, right?
	So, yeah, for Zelensky to talk about being brave and, like, you know, what risk is he at?
	What risk is he, you know, I mean, he's being handed hundreds of billions of dollars, of which a massive amount seems to fall through the couch cushions.
	That seems to me like the money just doesn't get where it's supposed to go.
	And that's, That's not ideal, right?
	I mean, if you're handing people money, you know, if you say, oh, you know, Bob says, I'm desperate to save my wife's life.
	I'm going to save my wife's life.
	You know, she needs money for her cancer treatment.
	She needs $50,000 for her cancer treatment.
	And then you give him the money.
	And then, you know, later you say, well, you know, I did give this as charity and I need a receipt.
	And I need to know how it was spent, you know, for my accountant.
	And he's like, oh yeah, I seem to have lost about 30,000 or that 50,000.
	I can't really tell you where the rest went.
	I can tell you that, you know, a lot of it was lost.
	And he's like, well, what do you mean lost?
	You said you were desperate for this money to save your wife's life.
	So how could you have lost the money?
	And why does your mistress have a new car?
	Right?
	I mean, so it's very, obviously, beyond suspicious, right?
	It's, you know, if there's a leader who's genuinely, you know, whoever's going to help.
	And America's really the only country that will help.
	And, of course, whether America's help is actually help is a whole other question, right?
	If America hadn't helped, the war would have been negotiated to a resolution in the first couple of days or week or two.
	America's help has prolonged it.
	And this is, you know, part of...
	I just...
	I rail against Trump for this kind of stuff.
	We just hands over all of this weaponry and money.
	And it wasn't just him, of course, right?
	But Trump was bragging about how he gave Zelensky javelins and Obama gave him only sheets.
	I'm not quite sure what the Obama reference is about.
	Pretty sure it's not a KKK reference.
	But the fact that...
	Trump is saying, well, without our help, the war would have been resolved years ago, and then Trump is taking pride at giving the weapons that prolonged the war.
	I mean, you know, this is the awful thing that happened, of course, with the First World War, is that everybody was fighting for a standstill, right?
	You'd spend 10,000 soldiers taking a hill, then the other side would spend 10,000 soldiers taking it back.
	It used to go back and forth, like the narrowest, bloodiest crimson tide in the known universe.
	And this is another reason why they were desperate to get the Americans in, and why they funded the Russian revolutionaries to take Russia out of the war, is that there would have been, I think, and, you know, I can understand why there would have been a bloody revolution at the end of the First World War if it had turned out that they simply had fought over nothing, that 10 million plus lives and entire regions had been destroyed for the sake of ending up pretty much where you started.
	That is why there usually has to be some kind of decisive victory, however horribly attained.
	I mean, as I'm sure you know, as I've talked about it before, the Germans funded Lenin and went up through Finland with arms and weapons and money to create the Russian Revolution, the Communist takeover, which, you know, killed 70 million plus Russians.
	And they did that to take...
	Russia out of the war because they could not have a standstill.
	You can't spend three years and 10 million bodies for nothing.
	So you have to have some kind of resolution.
	And so one of the reasons why the war in Ukraine can't be resolved at the moment is if it pretty much was going to be the same as what would have been negotiated a couple of years ago, people get a true sense of how pointless and horrifying and useless.
	These wars can be.
	So it is, again, a desperately sad situation.
	And American interventionism, I mean, America's been intervening in Ukraine, I mean, certainly since 2014, and you can find my old videos on that if you're interested.
	But this American interventionism, oof, it is a bad scene.
	I mean, American interventionism in World War I, So, 1914, but because they got America in, they could impose such a draconian set of peace terms on Germany that was partly responsible for the rise of Hitler and then World War II.
	So, yeah, interventionism is the war to end wars, right?
	That was the Woodrow Wilson cry.
	Oh, the First World War will intervene because this is the war to end wars, right?
	How did that go?
	How was the 20th century in terms of war and combat and conflict?
	After they had, after mostly a century of Franco-Prussian war excluded, but mostly a century of peace in Western Europe, for really the first time in its history.
	And then...
	This massive bloody war.
	But don't worry, men.
	This will be the last war.
	We're having this war, so we never have a war again.
	And, well, how did that go?
	There was war in Russia, and then, of course, the Second World War, which, as Marshal Fox said about the German peace, the armistice, the peace treaty, he said, this is not the end of war.
	This is just...
	A pause in the First World War for 20 years, which of course he turned out to be extremely prophetic with regards to that.
	And you can of course look at the map of Ukraine over the last 100-150 years and look at its original size and see how much territory it's invaded and absorbed.
	It's really quite fascinating.
	It's really because apparently, you know, just invading and absorbing territory is the worst thing in the world.
	But if you look at the current borders of Ukraine and compare it to 100, 150 years ago, it's grown by 10, 12, 14 times its original size.
	Largely as a result of seizures and all of that.
	But people are conditioned to this mindset of cartoons and Superman and Lex Luthor and the all-good and the all-evil, the plucky.
	Defenders and the rapacious, villainous invaders, and it's all...
	It's like the level of ethics of a Transformers movie.
	Good robots.
	Bad robots.
	All good robots.
	All evil machinery.
	It's, um...
	It's, uh...
	It's sad.
	But this is the level of...
	Like, you either have straight-up retarded good versus evil...
	And there is good versus evil in the world.
	It's, you know, just not usually in the armed conflict.
	It's more complex.
	Or you have these, there is no such thing as good and evil, endless shades of moral ambiguity and nihilism and so on.
	And it's really, really sad.
	So I think, of course, we can all hope that we can all hope that this war will come to a speedy resolution.
	I just did throwing More trapped and helpless slaves.
	Men dragged off the streets, thrown into the front lines and told kill or die, with little training.
	We can all hope that that comes to a swift end.
	And it's just amazing to me just how all the people who claim to be so caring are not caring about that.
	And no doubt the same thing is happening in Russia, too.
	I'm sure Russia has conscription, is dragging people off the streets, throwing them into these endless flesh furnaces of young man disassembly conveyor belts.
	It's just absolutely horrifying.
	Absolutely horrifying.
	But I guess the other good thing is that the Department of Government efficiency, by taking endless amounts of money away from all of these chess piece...
	Bloody chessboard moves from governments around the world, or certainly in America, but therefore governments around the world.
	Well, it is the hope that that which is not funded, the evil which is not funded, has less capacity to express itself.
	And evil has projects in order to extract money.
	If the money is not there, the projects diminish.
	And of course, it is, I think, a great hope and goal that there can be some peace in the region and the native Russian speakers on the eastern part of Ukraine, the native Russian speakers will no longer be harassed, oppressed, have their languages and books banned and be shelled randomly.
	And the endless slaughter that is the...
	Razor-bladed chessboard of the elites can draw to a close, and we can learn something.
	I'm not holding out a massive amount of hope, but I'll certainly do my little bit to move that forward.
	All right, so if you have questions, comments, issues, challenges, I'm thrilled to hear.
	If you've got stuff on your mind, I'd be happy to chat.
	And I'm just going to give people a second here.
	Very nice to have everyone in today.
	Thank you for dropping by.
	If you'd like to help out the show, I would really appreciate it.
	But I'm all ears.
	Yes, my friend Arcanaut, what is on your mind?
	Holy cow!
	Is this real life, man?
	Is this the real life?
	Is this just fantasy?
	Yes, my friend, what's on your mind?
	Oh, man.
	I've been struggling with something for a long time, but it just really came up to a head kind of last night.
	But anyway, I struggle with the idea of being loved.
	I've got familial love.
	I have a mom that really cares for me.
	My dad, he's an okay guy sometimes.
	I've always had this desire to, like, be loved unconditionally by someone that didn't actually have to, you know?
	So that's something that I've struggled with.
	Does that make sense?
	I mean, all the words make sense.
	I'm not sure I grasp the deeper emotional meaning as yet.
	That's just because we're just meeting and there's nothing, no deficiency on your part, but tell me more about what you mean.
	I've never been really good at the dating and the romantic relationship angle of life.
	I had a pretty traumatic kind of early on first relationship that caused me to stop wanting to date for a long time.
	I figured I wanted to work on myself.
	Okay, well, don't give me the flyby.
	Let's hop off the tour bus and explore the Lion Park.
	Tell me what happened in that first relationship.
	How old were you?
	How long did it last?
	And how did it go?
	Well, I was about 19. I felt like a late bloomer at that time already.
	So I was, you know, very interested in, you know, getting laid as soon as possible and, you know, having an awesome relationship and all this.
	So I kind of mistook all the red flags that came up.
	And essentially what happened was it was a bit of a narcissistic relationship.
	Oh, bro, you're killing me.
	Okay, so you're giving me all these descriptors, right?
	Right?
	Like, narcissist, and I had these hopes and dreams, and I wanted this.
	What happened?
	Okay, just give me the facts first.
	Because if your interpretation was helpful, you wouldn't be calling me.
	Right?
	So, I know that your interpretation is incorrect, because otherwise it wouldn't be torturing you.
	So, and I, you know, I say that with all respect and affection, but just that's, you just got to give me the facts first, because I can't find reality through your interpretation.
	I can only find reality with the facts.
	So just, you know, what, when did you meet?
	How long did it go on for?
	And I tried to prompt you with that kind of stuff, but you went storyville, which is fine.
	But give me a facts and what happened.
	Did she cheat?
	Did she physically attack you?
	Like, just give me the facts first.
	I was in my undergrad.
	I met her during the time we were doing music together.
	And she was a bit younger.
	She was like 17, turning 18. And she had gotten into...
	Well, that's when we had first met, but we started dating a bit later.
	She was in university, though, so I'm not sure how that ended up.
	Regardless...
	We were doing the program together.
	I started, you know, having lunch with her, chatting.
	We started dating.
	When she was younger.
	I guess, yeah.
	Yeah, I think my wife went to university about the age of 12 or 13. She skipped so many grades.
	And she was from the States, too, and this is not in the States now.
	Sorry, I don't know.
	She was from the States, too.
	This is not in the States now.
	I don't know what that means.
	Oh, well, I am in Canada.
	Okay, so you met in university and you and her were in the States?
	No, no, no, no.
	She had grown up in the States, I should say.
	So maybe she did her education, public education there, and that's how she skipped a grade.
	Okay, which university?
	We were doing university in Canada.
	In which country was the university that you met?
	In Canada.
	Okay, so she was an international student from the States studying in Canada.
	I guess so.
	I'm not really sure.
	Her father had worked at the university, so it was a divorce thing.
	Hang on, hang on.
	So she was from the States, and she was studying at a university in Canada.
	Yeah, I think it was like a split custody kind of thing between parents.
	Her mom was in the States, her dad lived in Canada.
	So I'm not sure of her citizenship situation or how that all panned out.
	Okay, so was she...
	Based in the States or split between States and Canada?
	She was based in Canada.
	Like, she was living in my hometown that I was doing my programming.
	Okay.
	But she spent some time in the States because of split custody.
	Is that right?
	Yes.
	Yes, I believe so.
	Okay.
	Got it.
	All right.
	So you met and you said you met doing music together.
	Does that mean you were in a band together or studying music or both?
	We were studying music.
	She was much more into the recording art stuff that I was doing.
	I was taking basically a classical degree in voice at this one university.
	Okay.
	And anyway, so we met, we got along.
	It was really kind of cool.
	And essentially, what kind of started happening after a certain amount of time where everything was super ideal, she would just like say things and like...
	There were just all these really weird manipulations, and I was very naive at the time.
	I didn't really clock them as they happened.
	And then eventually...
	Okay, so I don't know what that means.
	Super manipulations is another descriptor.
	Or subtle manipulations, or whatever it was.
	So again, just tell me what she said, and so on.
	Well, there was like a lot of...
	Kind of gaslighting moments.
	This was, you know, 10 years ago.
	Gaslighting is another description.
	I know, I'm just going to keep hammering on you this, right?
	Because gaslighting is a conclusion.
	And I'm not saying you're wrong.
	But gaslighting could be, I didn't kill your dog, or you did say you would pick me up at seven, right?
	So this is such a range.
	I don't know.
	Gaslighting is such a range of mild to egregious activities that when you say gaslighting, it's like you say, well, she did something wrong.
	Like, according to the eyes of the law, it's like, okay, did she j-work or kill a football team, right?
	So just tell me the kind of interaction that would give you these perceptions.
	So there was a lot, and because I wasn't really aware of any of this stuff when I was that age.
	Okay, no, no, I'm going to have to.
	Wait, wait, wait.
	Hang on.
	No, no, no, no.
	Listen to me.
	There was a lot, and I didn't know how to this, that, and the other.
	You're still not giving me facts.
	Okay.
	She stole a cat.
	Okay.
	Fantastic.
	We got to a fact.
	Yay.
	We have got through the fog.
	This is some semi-solid lead.
	Okay.
	She stole a cat.
	So tell me about that.
	Yeah.
	So she came to me one day, and she was like, I found this cat, and...
	I'm trying to find the home for it or whatever, blah, blah, blah.
	It's got a tattoo on its ear, or I think maybe I found the tattoo on its ear.
	And usually those tattoos are either shots or some sort of ownership kind of thing, I believe.
	Anyway, so I had kind of mentioned to her, oh, this is probably the way you can find the owner of this animal.
	And she's like, oh, yeah, that's a great idea, a great idea.
	And then a couple days go by, I talk to her again.
	Whatever had happened.
	Again, this is 10 years ago.
	And she said, yeah, I went to the vet and there was no nothing.
	Couldn't find anything.
	I've just decided to keep the cat.
	And it was like, it's a very odd scenario where, okay, you can keep this cat, but it's not yours.
	And yeah, she would never let it outside.
	She found it outside.
	It probably did want to go home, but she...
	And sorry, and how long into the relationship?
	Did she steal the cat?
	How long had you known her for?
	Like, how long had you been dating for?
	Overall, we dated for about four months, and this was probably month one or two.
	I'm sorry, how old are you now?
	I am 29. Okay, what are you talking about here?
	Are you saying you had a relationship ten years ago for four months, and you don't date because of that?
	Yeah.
	It was...
	Okay, that's an excuse.
	I mean, okay, but I'm just telling you, that's a little, you've got to understand how shocking that is to hear, right?
	It is an excuse, and that's been my, I've been like a big Eeyore about all this stuff.
	Sorry, you've been a what?
	Okay, a big Eeyore, you know, like Winnie the Pooh stuff.
	Okay, all right, so sorry, I interrupted your story.
	So how did the cat theft play out?
	Um, she took it in, she renamed it, she, um...
	Didn't really ever address it further, and I guess I didn't either, because I was a bit...
	I was always put off by it, but I didn't want to impede on her kind of thing.
	The reason that this was such a big issue for me, and the reason that it caused such a problem...
	Hang on, hang on, before you get back to narrative land.
	So, how do you know...
	I mean, did she steal the cat, like...
	She took it from someone's backyard, or did she steal the cat, like she found a cat wandering around and never found the owner?
	I think it was an outdoor cat, yeah.
	So she found the cat wandering around, and I don't think she even put in the effort to find the owner, even though she said she did.
	Okay, so why didn't you do it?
	Great question.
	I was young, dumb, and I really wanted to be with this girl, and I was afraid that it wouldn't have panned out.
	Okay, how pretty was she?
	I mean, at the time, she was very, very pretty.
	I don't know what she looks like now, but like, yeah, I would say...
	Why would I be talking about her now?
	Come on, man!
	Do you think you looked through the tunnel of time and saw her in 10 years when you were 19?
	Okay, so she was hot, right?
	1 to 10, what are we talking about?
	Just body and face.
	Like 7 and a half.
	Oh.
	Hang on.
	If you had four girls, she'd be the prettiest, and if you had 100 girls, she'd be about 25 prettiest.
	Yeah.
	So not stunning.
	Yeah.
	Not like deathly stunning, though.
	So she's beyond cute and just on the fringes of pretty.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So hang on.
	Did you have a sort of special, you know, the pharognomes, the biological connection, the chemistry?
	Did you reduce lust?
	Did you lust after her?
	Were you drawn to her in that kind of way?
	That could be independent just of looks.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, I was.
	I was pretty drawn to her.
	And it was a bit of a challenge at points because she was a bit of an interesting person.
	And, you know, at some point she said she was asexual.
	And at other points, she would paint a blue mustache on her face and walk around university that day with a mustache, and it was a bit demeaning to me.
	Okay, hang on, hang on.
	I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
	One more thing.
	Hang on.
	No, no, no.
	I think you're trolling me.
	I think you're trolling me.
	No, I'm not, man.
	She was a witch as well.
	I think she was like, I think Wicca.
	No, it's not because she walked around with a blue mustache, which is pretty funny in a way.
	Well, that only happened the one day.
	Okay, you got to let me talk, right?
	Did you call up to listen or just to talk?
	I called up to do a little bit of both, but mostly to get your imperfection.
	Okay.
	So the reason why I think you're trolling me...
	It's not because you're saying these outlandish things, but you're saying them as if they're not outlandish.
	Well, she did this.
	You know, she walked around with a blue mustache.
	She's asexual.
	She stole a cat.
	You know, like these things are just normal, right?
	Or within the realm of normality.
	But this woman's insane.
	I mean, she's deeply disturbed from what you're talking about.
	And yet you're talking about, like, well, yeah, she walked around with a blue mustache.
	Right?
	So that's why I think you're trolling me in that you're saying these things.
	You know, be like me saying, yeah, yeah, I dated this girl, she thought she could fly, she would occasionally wake up and think that she had lobster claws, you know, the usual.
	Yeah, I promise I'm being legit.
	I had like a hole in me that made me feel unlovable even at that time, and this girl showing even the slightest bit of interest, even though she was off-the-wall wacko.
	Now, when you said she was a witch, do you mean she was a genuine witch?
	Like she believed she was a witch?
	Yeah, I forget.
	I remember she was clarifying to me once, she was like, I'm like Wicca and not Wiccan, or Wiccan and not Wicca, I forget which.
	Yeah, that's a big difference.
	To them it is, allegedly.
	No, I know, but just to outsiders, it's not.
	Yeah.
	Okay, so you dated for four months, and were you intimate?
	Yeah, we were intimate, which I guess would have been the goal for me at that time, right?
	Sure, yeah, you're 19. I fell behind, yeah.
	Anyway, so we were intimate a few times.
	It was not always the most pleasurable because she wasn't really...
	She would either pretend not to be into it or just wasn't really into it.
	Asexual, right?
	Well, she...
	She said that.
	Yeah.
	It's like dragging your pacifist girlfriend to a war movie.
	She might sit there, but you'd be pretty clear that you're not enjoying it.
	She's not enjoying it, right?
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	All right.
	And was this the first woman you had sex with?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, it was.
	Okay.
	And then what happened at four months?
	She had become really quite...
	Cruel in her speech towards me.
	I wish I could remember a specific example, but eventually at some point she mentioned that she had to end things because I was being very toxic.
	Right, which I agree with.
	Yeah, I agree with that.
	I mean, she was right about that.
	I wouldn't really say so, but to be fair, I really took that to heart.
	This is not open to interpretation.
	I'm not saying she wasn't being toxic.
	But you were being toxic, for sure.
	Because you were just there for the sex.
	You didn't like her as a person.
	You didn't respect her as a person.
	You didn't value her morals and her integrity and her virtue and her honesty.
	You were just there to get laid.
	And I'm sure you're asked, oh, I like you, oh, I care about you, oh, I love you.
	Which is not true.
	You were just horny.
	And, you know, I'm not condemning that.
	I'm just saying that...
	That's a fact, though, because this woman did not have qualities of character that would arouse great moral admiration on your part, right?
	And look, I say this with humility.
	I'm not saying, oh my, I never ever told a woman I liked her when I was just there for sex, right?
	So I say this with all humility.
	I'm certainly not condemning you, but you weren't there for the qualities of her character.
	You were there for sexual access.
	So this is, I exactly understand where you're coming from.
	I think I haven't been like totally 100% maybe clear.
	I was actually quite spiritual at the time.
	And I was all with her on the spiritual element.
	I was actually quite with her to be with her in some ways.
	Okay, do you want me to run through a few things?
	That you've told me?
	That she was verbally harsh or abusive towards you?
	That she stole a cat, which I know sounds kind of funny, but that's really heartbreaking for someone.
	Like, people get really attached to their pets.
	She stole a cat.
	That's deeply, deeply immoral.
	I mean, that's worse than stealing someone's bicycle or whatever, right?
	Because people have a relationship with their pets that is very strong.
	And this pet was obviously cared enough for to have a tattoo and all of that.
	So she stole someone's beloved pet.
	That's monstrous.
	And then she, of course, paraded around with blue mustaches and whatever else.
	So, yeah, verbally abusive, a thief, presenting herself as deeply disturbed and deranged.
	She's asexual but still has sex but doesn't enjoy it.
	I mean, this is a deeply disturbed and immoral woman.
	Yeah.
	So you saying that you were spiritual doesn't mean shit to me.
	If we're going to be frank, you're pushing 30, right?
	You've got to be frank about this stuff.
	Yeah, yeah, true enough.
	So if you weren't there because she was a deeply corrupt, vicious, and immoral woman, so what were you there for?
	Right, that's a huge minus.
	So what was it that made it a plus?
	Sexual access.
	That's it.
	And what else was there?
	Did she lavish you with expensive gifts?
	No, definitely not.
	Right, did she help you with your homework and help you get great grades?
	No, you were there, so she had these massive...
	Massive minuses.
	Right?
	So she had minus 100, but she had plus 110 because of sexual access.
	So you hung around her to get in her pants.
	And you lied to her about how much you like her just so you could sleep with her.
	I mean, to be honest, right?
	I'm not condemning, but that's what it was.
	I guess 19-year-old me probably would agree with that.
	I'm asking you at 29. Was that what was going on?
	Yeah.
	I mean, I guess.
	You know, I think you're right in a lot of ways.
	You know, there's always more and more context that could be added.
	Because I did have really strong feelings for her.
	I said I love you to her first.
	And that was after...
	Okay.
	All right.
	All right.
	Hang on.
	Hang on.
	How long into the relationship?
	Because you're only there for four months, right?
	How long into the relationship did you say I love you?
	I wish I could tell you.
	I would say it would be about the halfway mark, guessing.
	Okay, so you've been going out for eight weeks, right?
	Yeah.
	When did she steal the cat?
	When in the relationship?
	Just remind me.
	I mean, it would have been after the I love you point, so maybe, again, I don't know.
	Okay.
	But let's say...
	For simplicity's sake, I said I love you a month and a half in, and then she stole the cat at the two-month mark.
	Okay.
	So six weeks into the relationship, six weeks after starting dating her, you say I love you, which is, you know, a little bit bullshit, but okay.
	So tell me what you loved about her.
	Because you know me, like I'm the philosopher guy, so love is our involuntary response to virtue if we're virtuous.
	So anything that's not based upon virtue is a manipulation.
	All claims of love not based on virtue are manipulations.
	So what did you love about her?
	Personality, character, morals, integrity, whatever.
	What did you love about her other than the fact that she had two legs she was willing to spread like cheap butter?
	Yeah, it was the sex.
	You know, making me go back.
	I said I love you under duress.
	She was threatening this, threatening that.
	I don't remember the specific thing.
	Hang on.
	Do you talk to human beings much?
	Are you really isolated in your life?
	Not terribly, but romantically, sure.
	Do you talk about deep thoughts and feelings with people much?
	Because you're really confusing to listen to.
	Well, the funny thing is I do, and I've always kind of considered it to be something I'm good at articulating.
	I apologize for not doing that.
	I'll just give you an example, right?
	And again, this is not a condemnation or anything.
	I'm just sort of pointing something out.
	I'll give you an example.
	So you said, and we just had a few minutes talking about how you said you left her first it was eight weeks, then it was six weeks.
	That's fine.
	I mean, it's 10 years ago.
	I'm not expecting granular levels of time detail.
	But you said...
	I told her I loved her, right?
	And then a few minutes later, you now say, it was under duress.
	Right?
	Like, if someone says, I robbed a bank, and then later says, I was kidnapped and forced to rob a bank, those are two completely different things.
	Do you understand?
	Yeah.
	So when you say, I said I loved her, and then you say, well, I said it under duress or compulsion, that completely erases the earlier statement.
	Why are you laughing?
	This is not funny.
	I don't understand why this is funny.
	I'm laughing at my stupidity, like at how I frame things, right?
	It's not honest.
	I don't know what it is.
	I don't know what it is.
	But I can tell you that it's confusing.
	Like, I feel, like, yanked all over the place here.
	And I've been doing this for, like, decades.
	So I have some experience in these conversations.
	Okay.
	So in what way were you under duress when she got the words, I love you, out of you?
	Please don't tell me it was a spell.
	No.
	Well, she was threatening, you know, a lack of access to sex.
	And like you were saying, I was kind of in that relationship for that.
	Okay, so what did she say?
	Man, I wish I could tell you, but the essence of it was that she was going to probably break up.
	And for me to not make that happen, I decided to say the I love you words.
	Oh, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
	So this is the third.
	Iteration of this screwed up merry-go-round in that you claimed to be under duress.
	I think that was a bad word choice on my side.
	You think?
	Because that makes you the victim.
	Now you're the victimizer because she wants to break up with you and then you lie to her and tell her that you love her just to keep access to sex.
	That makes you the asshole back then.
	You're the manipulator.
	Like, all you've done is complain about her.
	But if she wants to break up with you and you're like, oh man, I better keep access to sex so I'm going to lie to this woman and tell her I love her so I can keep banging her, you're an exploitive jerk back then.
	Yeah, and I was acting selfishly.
	Okay, so you weren't under duress, you were actually manipulating her.
	Well, I mean, like, the element that might not have been so apparent at the moment was...
	That was part of her manipulation game, too.
	She's quite an unkind person, and I don't think her plan was really to break up with me as much as it was to sneak emotional hooks.
	Okay, go ahead.
	So you keep focusing on her moral deficiencies.
	In this conversation, we've pointed out, and I say this again with sympathy and understanding, I was a young man once, too.
	Back in the antediluvian era when we were trying to get out of the water and involve some legs.
	So, I understand lust.
	I understand not being straight or upfront with women or lying to women for sexual access, right?
	It's every man's temptation.
	This is why there's a sin called lust and thou shalt not bear false witness, right?
	So, you lied to her and told her you loved her in order to get into her pants and then you have the gall to tell me she's an unkind person?
	Are you kidding me?
	Well, I mean, there's just a lot of history that we're skipping over.
	I don't care what history we're skipping over.
	Hang on.
	What statement did I just make that I got wrong?
	If I got something wrong, please correct me.
	You didn't get it wrong.
	I was acting selfishly.
	Well, yeah, so you were being unkind.
	You were lying to this obviously disturbed woman offering her love, which was false, in return for sex, which was real.
	You were selling a bill of false goods in order to get the real goods called sexual access, the false goods being that you left her.
	Yep.
	Yep, 100%.
	So what happened then in the last two months of the relationship?
	So I either have like a wacky story or I have the conclusion.
	Which one would you rather hear?
	I just want facts.
	As I keep telling you, I don't want wacky stories or conclusions.
	I just want facts.
	Right?
	Because when you tell me, well, I was under coercion and I was under duress and it turns out you weren't, I just need the facts.
	So what happened?
	How did the relationship end?
	Well, so let's go to that then.
	She mentioned that I was being toxic and I took that very much to heart and I did a lot of research and I did a lot of self-work.
	And I did work on correcting the parts of me that seemed to be ungenuine and disgenuous.
	I'm sorry.
	No, disingenuous.
	That's fine.
	So what did she refer to as toxic in your actions?
	What was she describing?
	Not a single thing.
	There was not a single specific thing.
	The conclusion I arrived at after the fact, and I mean, you're not going to like this, and I just wish I had the memory to kind of describe some of the circumstances, but I found out that it must have been some sort of projection that somebody that she had dated prior but I found out that it must have been some sort of projection And for her to kind of get rid of that label, she chucked it onto me.
	To be fair, like you mentioned, I was only in it for the sex.
	There was a toxic element.
	I was like 19, and I didn't really know that.
	hang on, hang on.
	You claim moral excuses because you were young.
	I understand that.
	I'm not, you know, I mean, you're still six years away from brain maturity, right?
	Because brain maturity for men is around mid-20s, right?
	So you say, well, you've said this a number of times, like I was young, I was dumb, I was this, I was that, right?
	I mean, so you claim, and I'm not disagreeing with you, but just to establish the principle, you claim that youth is an excuse for bad behavior, right?
	I'm not trying to trap you.
	I just want to make sure that we understand that's a principle, right?
	I guess.
	No, this is not a guess.
	You have repeatedly said, in defense, and I'm not trying to pull down that defense.
	I'm not.
	I'm not trying to trap you here.
	You've repeatedly said, look, I was young, and now you just said, well, I was only 19, right?
	So youth is an excuse for bad behavior.
	I think...
	No, no, just, God's sakes, man, just give me a yes or no.
	Is that a principle that we've established in the conversation?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	Now, she was younger than you.
	Yes.
	So, what excuses have you given her for her bad behavior, given that youth is an excuse for bad behavior, and she was younger than you?
	By two years?
	Yeah.
	Yeah, so, and those are two big years, right?
	They are two big years.
	Yeah, that's like 10% of your age, so that would be like, you know, that's quite a lot of years, right?
	At that age, right?
	Okay, so, because you haven't said, well, she was doing bad things, but, of course, she was only 17, or 18, or whatever it was.
	17, I guess, right?
	So why is it that you get excuses for bad behavior at 19, but you've not given her any excuses for bad behavior at 17?
	Or is it just for you?
	She's fully responsible at 17, but you're just a young idiot at 19. I mean, I kind of feel trapped here.
	I know what you're...
	I'm not getting at anything.
	I'm stating it very clearly.
	I'm not trying to hint at anything here.
	I'm just curious.
	I'm curious how you get an excuse for youth at 19, but you've not given her a single excuse for youth when she's still legally a child.
	Because people, in my research after that breakup and everything, I went down a deep rabbit hole towards narcissism and understanding it.
	And I got at the point at that point in my life where I felt that basically people with the dark triad, personality, narcissistic, borderline, sociopathy, I don't consider them people as much as other people.
	And I know that's very cruel to say, but...
	I don't even know what you're saying.
	So a narcissist will generally have a moral standard that excuses himself or herself, but she then can ignore to condemn other people, right?
	So the typical narcissistic, and again, I'm just using this term as an amateur, right?
	but the typical narcissistic statement is if you confront a narcissistic mother she will say I did the best I could but the knowledge I had you shouldn't be upset with me I was doing the best I could but the knowledge I had but at the same time when you were a child if you failed to study for an exam and failed it she would never accept that excuse from you well I did the best I could but the knowledge I had and she would say no well you should have studied you should have learned more you should have done better right
	so she has a standard which excuses her own behavior which she then suspends in order to condemn other people does that make sense Thank you.
	Or the narcissist will say, You should let go of the past and you should move on, right?
	But when you were a child, the narcissist would get angry at things you did last week or last month.
	So when you're criticizing the narcissist, you should be more mature and move on and not be upset about the past.
	Like my mother would say this to me sometimes, right?
	My mother would still be angry at my father, you know.
	25 years after their divorce, and then she would have the gall to tell me to let go of the past and move on, right?
	So it's a double standard where the narcissist gets all the excuses, and then they suspend that rule for somebody that they're criticizing.
	Yeah.
	Okay, and I'm not calling you a narcissist, but what I am saying is that you have kind of the same thing, where you excuse your own bad behavior because you're young.
	But you don't excuse any of your girlfriend's bad behavior, even though she was even younger.
	So, everything you described about narcissism is something I've experienced personally.
	I had a narcissistic father, and I wasn't aware of it at that time during that relationship.
	And after dating that girl, it all kind of came into focus why I was this way.
	Sorry, why people what way?
	I'll just get right, I'm getting right there.
	There is codependence and then there's counterdependence, right?
	Counterdependence would be the narcissist, would be the whatever.
	Counterdependence kind of seek codependence for this narcissistic supply because it's a lot easier to get emotional energy and like what you want out of people that need, have an external locus of control, which means have...
	Sorry, let me just make sure I de-technical.
	Because we're talking to a general audience here, so I think I follow what you're saying.
	If I understand this, so let's say that as a narcissist, you want a lot of praise.
	You want people to praise you, and so what you do is you find people who are susceptible to disapproval.
	You bind them to you with sex or money, and then you withhold approval or inflict disapproval if they don't praise you, and that way you get your narcissistic supply of praise based upon threats and rewards of those who are dependent.
	Yes.
	And that is what she did to me.
	And I understand everything we've been talking prior has framed me as also a bit selfish.
	And I agree.
	At that time, I certainly was.
	I was unaware and unaware.
	Hang on.
	A bit selfish?
	You told the disturbed woman you loved her when you didn't in order to get in her pants.
	Is that just a bit selfish?
	Again, it's not some big blanket condemnation, but that's pretty selfish, isn't it?
	At the time, I thought that's what love was.
	What, lying to women to get in their pants?
	I mean, just getting any attention from women at all.
	I was very sheltered when I was young, and I didn't have much of a...
	Oh, so she's narcissistic when she's cruel and manipulative, but you're just sheltered.
	I'm codependent.
	But codependent is a fancy word for victim.
	And you're trying to portray yourself as the victim of this cruel 17-year-old legal child, your helpless, sheltered, you know, victim.
	And I'm pointing out that probably the reason you're not dating is because you haven't recognized your capacity to victimize others.
	I think in the past 10 years, I have recognized that capacity.
	At that time, I certainly did not.
	I've got to tell you, I just don't believe you because, and this is all recorded, right?
	So you can go back and listen to this, and you can listen to how much responsibility you took for inflicting harm on the 17-year-old girl when you told this story.
	story you portrayed yourself as a complete victim i mean like how do you describe you know different instances of like manipulation and gaslighting 10 years after the fact it You say the following.
	You know, I'm a 150% moral responsibility guy.
	You say, well, you know, when I was 19, I dated this woman a couple of years younger than me, who was disturbed from a bad childhood, was also inexperienced, and...
	I manipulated her.
	I lied to her.
	I told her I loved her just so I could continue to have sex with her.
	I told her that I really liked her when all I wanted was sexual access.
	It was cheap and shallow and wrong of me.
	And my God, have I learned to treat women better.
	That's how you describe it.
	But that's not at all how you described it.
	Because there was abuse involved from her as well.
	Like a quite significant amount.
	And that's the challenge that I'm...
	Like, what you said?
	But you're like two thieves complaining about the other person being immoral.
	That's bullshit.
	You're like two people engaged in a criminal enterprise saying, well, I was a victim, but they're the criminal.
	And the other person says, well, I'm the victim, and they're the criminal.
	It's like, no.
	Yeah, did she do things that were wrong?
	Sure, absolutely, I accept that.
	But I'm not talking to her.
	I'm talking to you.
	If I was talking to her, even though she was 17 and therefore would have more of an excuse of youth, I would tell her the same things.
	But I'm talking to you.
	And you came to me, I hope, to get some truth.
	And everything that I'm saying, I've backed up by what you've told me.
	So you can continue to pretend that at the age of 19, you were just a foolish and youthful victim of this scheming, evil 17-year-old child.
	Or you can say, I did wrong.
	Now, does that mean she didn't do wrong?
	No, it doesn't mean she didn't do wrong.
	But this is 10 years later, and it's your own conscience I'm working with, not hers.
	That makes sense to me.
	That makes sense to me.
	So how did it finally end at the four month mark?
	Essentially, we stopped talking.
	We happened to live near each other and ride the same city bus to school or whatever, and I would just kind of not regard her, and she would not regard me, and that went along for about...
	No, no, but that tells me what happened after it ended.
	And I'm sorry if I missed this, because we just were getting into it before, but what was the final straw?
	How did you go from boyfriend-girlfriend to ghosting each other on the bus?
	I mean, it was over...
	And I'm sure it was something, you know, she was the one who ended it, I guess, if that is what you're looking for.
	Oh, yeah, sorry.
	She said you were toxic, and then you said you worked on, you read a bunch of stuff, and you worked on your toxicity, and then what?
	Yeah.
	And then I learned that there was a lot of people in my life that were that way, that I was this kind of individual that attracts people that want to take advantage.
	I was very naive.
	I grew up Mormon.
	Oh, my God.
	Honestly, this is just fucking relentless.
	Oh, I was taken advantage of.
	You lied to a woman to have sex, and you claimed to be a victim who was just taken advantage of?
	I mean, seriously, bro.
	No, I'm holding myself to task for that.
	For all of that, for sure.
	What you just said was, I attract the kind of people who take advantage of me, and I grew up very inexperienced.
	And listen, I sympathize with that.
	I really do.
	And by the way, I sympathize with you for all of this.
	I really do.
	I'm not condemning you.
	I haven't called you any bad names, and I won't, right?
	I've specifically said I'm not calling you a narcissist or anything.
	So I haven't called you any bad names.
	I'm not condemning you.
	But we do need to look at things as they really are.
	And this is the rare time in your life where you'll talk with someone, Who will give you the straight goods.
	This will probably never happen again in your life.
	This is why I put so much effort into these conversations.
	Because this is a now or never scenario.
	You exploited this woman and you were older.
	And you had less excuse.
	You exploited this woman.
	It doesn't mean you're a terrible guy.
	It doesn't mean you're going to hell.
	It doesn't mean you're evil or anything like that.
	You were lustful.
	You were horny.
	She was offering sexual access.
	And, you know, we evolved this way, right?
	I mean, men evolved.
	We have to get sexual access because, you know, at certain times in history, many times more women reproduced than men.
	So men was rare.
	So whatever we need to say to get sexual access is kind of how we evolved.
	So I'm not giving you any kind of condemnation.
	But you can't play the victim with me when you also lied to this woman.
	To maintain your sexual access.
	You can't claim that you were exploited and that she just took advantage of you and so on, right?
	And you were just naive.
	No, you were calculating.
	You knew what to say to get into her pants and you lied to her and told you that you loved her when you just wanted to keep getting in her pants.
	And again, there's not some big condemnation, but that's the facts of the matter.
	So when you tell me that, well, you know, people take advantage of me and I'm just naive and it's like, nope, that's not it.
	I'm not saying that people don't take advantage of you, sure, but you take advantage of people too.
	Yes, it's like a takes two to tango kind of thing, is what you're saying, right?
	Are you still a Christian?
	Um, great question.
	I'm definitely not Mormon.
	Okay, let me ask you this.
	When it comes to the biblical injunction, why are you looking at the speck of dust in your brother's eye and ignoring the beam in your own?
	Do you think that...
	It is better for your moral development to focus on the failings of others, which you cannot change, or to focus on things that you yourself can improve.
	And this is why I took my 10-year hiatus in dating.
	Okay, you're really good at not answering questions.
	Do you remember, like, literally 10 seconds ago I just asked you a question?
	Yeah, and you asked if it's better to...
	Morally judge others or to work on yourself, kind of.
	And what was your answer?
	Did you answer?
	No.
	You said, this is why, blah, blah, blah, but I don't know what your answer is.
	To work on myself.
	Okay.
	So, if you believe that it is better to work on your own moral failings than to criticize others, particularly when they're younger than you, then why did you not begin this conversation by focusing on your own moral failings, but instead just complaining about...
	Your 17-year-old ex-girlfriend and kind of playing the victim, right?
	Because that's complaining about others and not saying, here's the things that I did wrong.
	Because I have this stupid victim mindset.
	And I know that I just come up against this.
	And it's not just with you, but it's my life.
	It's this whole problem where I feel victim all the time.
	And after these 10 years, after that, Traumatic experience back then.
	It was traumatic for me.
	Okay, so I sympathize with that.
	I'm sorry to interrupt.
	Really, I'm sorry to interrupt.
	But when you say it was traumatic for me, I'm not disagreeing with you, and I sympathize with that.
	But tell me, what was traumatic about it?
	What was the specific traumas that you experienced that had you off the dating market for a decade?
	And again, I say this was sympathy and open-heartedness and open-mindedness.
	What were the traumas?
	Well, the biggest thing was that, I mean, there were so many in my research, but the biggest thing was basically learning that I'd been kind of pegged as a loser amongst certain people, and somebody who was easy to get a rise out of.
	And I fought for a long time to kind of correct that part of my personality, and I still have weak spots.
	Sorry, the trauma was that as a result of you dating the witch, people called you a loser?
	No, so it was a realization that I was surrounded by people almost exactly like her that fostered unkindness.
	And I'll give you a quick example.
	You know, I wish we didn't have to linger on the examples all that much.
	I bet you do, because then you can stay safe in the world of manipulative narrative.
	All narratives have elements of manipulation.
	As the old saying goes in law, people lie, documents don't.
	Just the facts, right?
	So you'd like to stay in the realm of narrative, because then you can control my perceptions.
	Whereas if I get the facts, then I can come to my own conclusions, which may be different from yours.
	So this is part of you not being a victim.
	them.
	Wanting to stay in narrative is wanting to stay in control of the information.
	Like, you can't see the source documents.
	You can only get what I say are in the source documents.
	It's like, no, I just want to look at the source documents.
	Why won't you let me look at the source documents?
	I don't want you to look at the source documents.
	That's because you don't want me coming to my own conclusions based on the facts.
	So I understand that, but I won't do it.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	So the trauma was that you, because I thought you said the trauma was that you were called a loser by some people around you, and then...
	No, no, no.
	Sorry?
	No, you did say that.
	Well, I didn't mean for that to come across that way, I guess.
	I don't know.
	Sorry.
	You said, and I may not get this verbatim, but I'm a pretty good listener.
	It's kind of my gig, right?
	So I asked what the trauma was, and you said, well, there were certain people around me who thought I was a loser.
	Yes.
	So thinking, yes.
	Calling, no.
	Well, hang on.
	How did you know they thought you were a loser if they never said it?
	Basically, that was my red pill moment on what manipulation was and how I act in the world and how others act in the world.
	I had placed myself in a number of friendships and relationships.
	I'm telling you right now, try not answering my question one more time and I will bid you a good day.
	I'm not having a conversation.
	With a fiction machine.
	Now, you don't have to answer any of my questions, but it's really rude to pretend I didn't ask that.
	What was the question I just asked?
	I'm sorry.
	I don't remember.
	The question I just asked was, you said that people never called you a loser.
	But you knew that they thought you were a loser, and I asked, how do you know they thought you were a loser if they never expressed it?
	That was my question.
	Then you went off on some narrative bullshit, so I just, I need an answer to my question, or if you don't want to answer it, that's fine.
	I at least need an acknowledgement that I asked a question.
	So what is the answer?
	You say, people thought I was a loser, and then you say, but they never said that, so then my question is, how did...
	You know that they thought you were a loser if they never said that you were a loser.
	It was the manipulations in the friendships.
	And allow me to just say, this is an example, a personal example of this specific moment.
	I'm not trying to spin a yarn here.
	I was friends at university at the same time with this alcoholic kid, and we would drink quite a lot.
	It was my first experience drinking.
	I was just ex-Mormon.
	And he would basically make me walk around as his shopping cart.
	So he would say, hey, what do you want?
	And then I'd say, oh, well, why don't we try this around?
	He said, okay, grab it.
	And then he'd say, hey, what do you want?
	I would carry everything.
	And so there's a serving element.
	Sorry, do you mean in a store?
	Is that what you mean by shopping?
	I don't understand.
	Yeah.
	Oh, yeah, like in a liquor store, right?
	Okay, so he would say, carry these drinks, and you would carry the drinks.
	Yeah, and my whole life up to that point, I realized was a succession of those kind of subservient impulses.
	Sorry, who paid for the drinks?
	Yes, he did.
	So, hang on, hang on.
	So, again, this is another victim narrative.
	I had to carry some drinks.
	It was so humiliating.
	But you got hundreds of...
	No, I'm not saying it was...
	Okay, do you want to interrupt me again?
	I'm sorry.
	Think carefully.
	Can I continue?
	Please.
	Okay.
	So you got hundreds or maybe thousands of dollars of free drinks, and your complaint is that you had to carry the bottles for five minutes or ten minutes, right?
	Now, that's a pretty good deal.
	Let's say that he bought $30 worth of liquor or $40 worth of liquor.
	You got $20 worth of liquor for carrying some bottles for ten minutes.
	Right?
	So $20 worth of liquor for carrying bottles for 10 minutes is a lot of money.
	That's $180 an hour.
	You're getting paid, like, good rates there.
	Right?
	That's $360,000 a year.
	That's crazy money.
	So you claim to be a victim, but you were scamming free drinks off a guy.
	Why was he paying for the drinks?
	Why didn't you have to pay for any of the drinks?
	Um...
	Because I didn't drink as much as him, I guess.
	And I wish that was just the one issue that I ever had.
	But that's like a microcosm of many such cases.
	You can't complain about an example when you're the one who delivered it, right?
	But you understand, you were getting free drinks from the guy, and you were complaining that you had to hold the liquor bottles.
	For a few minutes.
	Now, he could say, this guy, this guy never once offered to pay for drinks.
	He was a real exploiter.
	He totally took advantage of me.
	Do you understand how, from his perspective, like, would you rather hold drinks for five or ten minutes or pay forty bucks for the drinks?
	Well, I'd rather hold the drinks for five minutes, so you got the better end of that deal, but you're claiming to be a victim.
	I mean, like, it's not, um...
	It's not the case that every single time, I never bought this guy a drink in my life.
	There was give and take, for sure.
	I admit he was on more of the giving end, but he was also the kind of guy that could finish a whole bottle in one night.
	He would go daily, basically, to the liquor store.
	And again, that's not a really helpful...
	That's not...
	I'm not trying to morally condemn.
	I'm really happy to mention that he's clean now from booze and stuff.
	I'm very happy for him.
	It was that using Element.
	He gathered a lot of people around him, me included, that were treated in a very subservient way.
	It's almost like he was a bit of a cult leader.
	Okay, he was a cult leader.
	There are no facts to support that, other than he bought you some drinks.
	When I say, I said a bit of a cult leader, right?
	I didn't say that he was a cult leader.
	But I'm saying, you know, some people...
	No, but there's cult leaders, subservient, this, that, and the other.
	I mean, you're just spinning a narrative.
	I can't have any input in your narrative.
	So, I mean, I have nothing to say about that.
	I mean, well, see, I don't know.
	I don't particularly trust anything that you say, because I just spent five minutes pointing out how you also victimized him by getting free drinks.
	And this was never addressed.
	You just go off on some other tangent.
	It's like trying to push two opposing magnets together.
	Trying to get you to take accountability seems to be practically impossible.
	You exploited him too.
	You got free drinks from the guy.
	You didn't offer to pay very often.
	Now, he drank more.
	I get that.
	But you still got free drinks from the guy.
	Which is kind of exploitive.
	And yet, you're still the victim.
	You're still the victim.
	He's kind of a cult leader.
	He treated people badly.
	You got free drinks and you were there by choice.
	But you're a victim.
	He paid for stuff, you consumed it, but you're a victim, right?
	So I get that this is something you're so wedded to, you can't even see the other side.
	You can't see how you could possibly exploit people.
	Like I told you, you lied to a woman who was clearly disturbed.
	You lied to a girl.
	She was 17. You lied to a girl who was clearly disturbed in order to get into her pants.
	That's exploitive.
	I mean, it's pretty horrible.
	And yet, you're still spinning me this narrative that because although you got free drinks, And free parties from the guy, you had to hold the bottles for a couple of minutes, therefore he was an exploiter and you were just a victim.
	I don't know that, can you understand how from the outside you also might look like you're exploiting him for free drinks?
	Yes, I do.
	Okay, I just need that acknowledgement because you keep skating past it like I didn't say anything.
	Yeah, well, yes.
	No, it's not from the way the conversation has evolved.
	It's from the empirical facts you've given me.
	And you also made a promise to me which you've broken.
	Which is dishonorable.
	I'll be straight up with you.
	Do you remember what the promise was?
	To not...
	It's been narratives?
	The promise was, I asked you, how did you know people thought you were a loser if they never expressed it?
	And you said, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to get there.
	And then you told me some story about carrying drinks and getting free drinks, and you never actually answered my question.
	So I trusted you, right?
	You're like, I need an answer to this question.
	Right?
	And you don't give me an answer to the question and I say, no, no, no, I need an answer to this question.
	Like, no, no, no, I'm going to give you an answer to the question.
	Just let me do it my way.
	And then you take me on some bullshit story which doesn't answer my question.
	Do you see what I mean?
	How did you know your friends thought you were a loser if they never expressed it?
	I mean, you forgot that question entirely, right?
	Now, for me, when somebody makes a commitment to me, I take it very seriously.
	I mean, I make a commitment to you to tell you the truth.
	And to provide reason and evidence as to why I'm saying what I'm saying, when you make a commitment to me, when I say, hey man, you didn't answer my question.
	No, no, no, I'm going to answer it.
	And then you start off on some story and I say, damn man, this is not going to answer my question.
	And you're like, hey man, let me answer the question.
	I'm going to answer the question.
	And then you completely forget about the question and take me on some ride of language, which has nothing to do with either the question or the answer.
	And then you completely forget that you made that commitment.
	I'm just pointing it out.
	This is why it's very tough to communicate with you.
	They keep asking you questions, and then you get offended when I tell you you're not answering them, and then you promise to answer them, and then you don't answer them.
	I'm very sorry.
	I wish I was able to be a bit more direct and clear and less yarny.
	This is actually something I criticize my dad for quite a lot.
	It's just something that...
	Well, it just means people aren't going to want to talk to you.
	Because unless you're paying someone...
	Nobody's going to want to chase these ghosts all over the landscape.
	And this is a bit of a feminine thing, and also it indicates weakness manipulation and self-doubt.
	Right?
	So, you made a claim, my friends all thought I was a loser.
	And then I say, well, did they call you a loser?
	No, but I knew that they thought it.
	Okay, well, how did you know that they thought you were a loser if they never called you?
	That's a genuine question.
	Right?
	Honestly, it's been 20 minutes.
	I still don't have an answer.
	Like, who on earth is going to bother communicating with you if after 20 minutes you still don't have an answer to a basic question?
	Like, honestly, who's going to bother?
	I'll do it.
	I mean, it's kind of my gig, right?
	It's my job.
	But I'm telling you, most people won't.
	They'll just give up.
	Oh, forget it.
	This is just a maze.
	This is just a foggy maze with no entrance and no exit.
	It's too much work.
	You're like some politician.
	You know, like you see politicians, you ask them a simple question and they just take you all over the hell's half acre with the answer.
	Yeah.
	And it's exhausting and nobody wants to deal with that.
	Just get used to answering questions.
	Get used to answering questions directly and the quality of your relationships will go through the roof.
	So...
	If you say, my friends called me a loser or thought I was a loser, and then you say, well, they never called me that, and they said, well, then how did you know?
	Then you could say, huh, you know what?
	I don't have a good answer to that.
	You're right.
	I don't know that, so let me withdraw that.
	That's totally fine.
	Or you can say, well, they didn't say it, but they spray-painted it on the wall or on my garage doors.
	Okay, well, then I answer, right?
	But when you don't answer direct questions, quality people will not want to be around you.
	Because quality people, Recognize that they're mortal and don't have forever to chase around your avoidances and evasions.
	So if you want to have quality people in your life, you need to answer questions directly.
	Otherwise, it's just manipulation, fogging, and gaslighting.
	And I'm saying this out of genuine affection for you and sympathy for how you were raised.
	You weren't raised in a direct way.
	You said your father was kind of narcissistic and so on.
	So I say this with great sympathy.
	I'm really trying to kind of shock you out of this fog bank that you live in and saying, if you contact people directly, answer questions directly and honestly, and don't take people on some narrative journey that leads nowhere.
	Because they'll just give up on communicating with you.
	Because it's my job, but it's not most people's job.
	Most people have the choice between talking to people who aren't direct and don't answer questions and talking to people who are direct and do answer questions.
	Does that make sense?
	Like, you're in competition with people who are clear and direct.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	And you've done a lot of reading.
	It sounds like in psychology and self-knowledge, right?
	You've got a codependence and counterdependence and narcissism, right?
	So you've done a lot of reading in this stuff.
	And I don't know what you've been reading or who you've been reading, but the first thing to do when you start to develop higher standards than you were raised with is to look in the mirror.
	And listen, having been raised religious, having been raised religious, You would know that.
	You would know that virtue starts from within.
	That virtue starts with self-criticism, not endlessly complaining about a 17-year-old girl from 10 years ago.
	And I do know that.
	Now you need to live it.
	You know, the only reason, yeah, I agree.
	The only reason they called in was...
	Because I want to get further along that path, right?
	The answer to why I felt that my friends at that time thought I was a loser was because I was being placed in circumstances where I was either derided or put in a subservient position.
	And I'm sure that's not the answer you were looking for.
	Sorry, you were placed?
	Hang on, hang on, hang on.
	Sorry to interrupt.
	So, just because I don't know what you mean by you were placed in situations.
	Did you choose to go to the liquor store with your friend who asked you to carry the bottles?
	Sometimes it was a bit more coerced, but yeah.
	Okay, great.
	Okay, so tell me, hang on, hang on.
	If you're going to use the word coercion.
	I need to know what you're talking about.
	Because the last time you said coercion, you weren't really direct and honest about it.
	It was just a girl who wanted to break up with you.
	That's not coercive, right?
	So I would drive him to the liquor store.
	And oftentimes, I wouldn't even be drinking that day.
	In exchange, he would offer to cook mission noodles or something, like cook food after we got booze or whatever.
	But it was very much a case of...
	A transactional friendship.
	Maybe...
	I'll stop now, because I don't want to continue spinning narratives, but does that make sense?
	Is that more along the lines of what you wanted to hear?
	Okay.
	The way you phrase things, the lines of what I... I just want to hear the truth.
	If you're telling me you were coerced, that's serious business.
	Right?
	If a woman says, I was coerced into sexual activity, that's sexual assault or rape.
	Right?
	Coercion is serious business.
	That's the initiation of the use of force.
	That's deeply immoral.
	So if you're going to say, I was coerced, I'm alarmed that you had a friend who used violence or threats to get you to do stuff, that's scary as hell.
	So when you say, I was coerced, and then you say, well, he made me dinner in exchange for me driving him to the liquor store, I'm like, what the fuck is going on?
	So how were you coerced into going to the liquor store and drinking and hanging out with this guy?
	How were you coerced?
	You know, I think, again, maybe my vocabulary isn't the best.
	No, no, don't make excuses.
	Don't do it.
	Don't go down that road, man.
	Do not do it.
	Did you grow up speaking English?
	Apparently not, man.
	No, don't give me apparently not.
	Give me direct answers or this conversation will not continue.
	Now, that's not a coercive threat.
	I'm just telling you that's my standard.
	Did you grow up speaking English?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	You listened to a philosophy show, right?
	Yes.
	You didn't just randomly dial, right?
	So you listened to a philosophy show.
	That is highly complex in its use of language.
	Are you saying that you don't know what the word coercive means when you listen to a moral philosopher who's defined it about 8,000 times over the course of 20 years?
	Obviously, you haven't listened to every show.
	But when you say coercive, that means force or the threat thereof.
	To coerce someone is to bully them with threats or violence.
	So, when you said you were coerced, I need to know what you mean.
	Now, offering to make you dinner in return...
	That's not coercion.
	Am I still talking?
	So, offering to make someone dinner in return for...
	You drive him to the liquor store, he makes you dinner.
	Is that coercion?
	No.
	Okay.
	Saying, will you hold these bottles as you go through the store, is that coercion?
	No.
	Alright, buying you drinks.
	Is that coercion?
	No.
	So what is coercion?
	How do you say I was coerced?
	I wasn't aware that coercion only explicitly means physical threat of some sort.
	Okay, what does coercion mean to you?
	I'm a person.
	Hang on.
	Oh, it's fine.
	What does coercion mean to you?
	I'm a person that can get steamrolled quite easily in conversations, and I get steamrolled quite easily in frames.
	And the coercion element, for me, is basically being guided towards certain outcomes that somebody else wants.
	That's what the coercive element is.
	You know what I mean?
	And you might want to say, I'm trying to argue a lack of free will or something.
	At that time, I would argue it was closer to that.
	And when I became aware of those relationships and those circumstances, I backed away.
	And that's not the answer you wanted to hear.
	Okay, so being guided towards a particular outcome.
	I don't know what that means.
	Like, if you have a tutor who's teaching you some math thing, he's guiding you towards a particular outcome.
	But I don't think we would call that coercive, would we?
	I guess not, but what would be the term you use?
	You use the term.
	You must know what it means.
	I guarantee you know that it's going to get you sympathy.
	Because somebody who's being coerced is a victim.
	And then there's that victim mentality thing.
	Shoot.
	All right, let's look up the...
	Definition of coercion.
	Hang on, hang on, hang on.
	I'm still talking.
	So, actual or threatened force for the purpose of compelling action by another person, the act of coercing.
	Use of physical or moral force to compel a person to do something or to abstain, thereby depriving that person of the exercise of free will.
	So that's coercion.
	Moral force.
	Could you do me a real solid and describe to me what that would mean?
	I would assume moral force would be something like, have sex with me, or I'm going to tell everyone that you had sex with me anyway and you have herpes and gave me herpes, or something like that.
	Or do what I say, or I'm going to condemn you as evil publicly.
	I would assume it's something like that, but it's, you know, some...
	Particular act of aggression.
	It's not encouraging people, right?
	I mean, when you go to a car dealership, they want you to buy a car and they encourage you to buy a car.
	It's not coercion, right?
	The restaurant wants you to, like they say, hey, would you like any drinks?
	They're trying to upsell you, right?
	Or would you like some dessert?
	Their desserts here are really, really good.
	I used to describe perfeteroles when I worked at a seafood restaurant and I had this way of describing them that just when I would describe them that way, just about everyone bought them.
	Am I coercing?
	No, I'm selling.
	So, when you say coercion, the threat element has to be pretty there and significant.
	And, of course, you have to accept the moral definition, right?
	So, if somebody says, you need to do what I want you to do, or you're a selfish asshole, and I'm not going to hide that from everyone, right?
	Okay, maybe that's sort of a moral threat.
	They're going to call you a bad name or whatever, right?
	But, of course, you have to agree with the moral evaluation, and you also have to respect the people they might talk about in order for that to work.
	So there's still an element of voluntarism in that, right?
	So maybe extreme levels of verbal abuse would be considered coercion, but that would be more true, of course, with parents, right?
	So when parents morally condemn a child for not agreeing with them or having a different opinion, if they morally condemn a child, you're just a selfish, bitter, ungrateful whelp of a whatever, right?
	Okay, well, that could be a sort of moral condemnation, but it has to be in order to do something.
	Just calling someone an asshole is not coercive, but saying, you have to do this, or I'm going to use violence or threat thereof, or some sort of extreme moral condemnation or whatever it is.
	The moral condemnation would be more to do with the parents because people can't morally condemn you if you're not their friends, right?
	At least in a way that really impacts you, right?
	So you have to be in the orbit of someone.
	Now, children don't choose to be in the orbit of their parents, right?
	So children don't have any chance to escape.
	And of course, children...
	The words land like craters on the hearts and minds of children because their identity is still in the process of being formed, right?
	So this is why I do count verbal abuse as a violation of the non-aggression principle against children because it's a form of psychological poisoning.
	And children don't have a choice.
	Whereas, of course, adults have a choice in who they hang out with.
	So if somebody condemns you morally, I still wouldn't call that coercion unless they have some kind of direct power over you.
	Because you're still choosing to be in that relationship, if that makes sense.
	So, yeah, so that's coercion, and it's a word that brings great sympathy to people, right?
	So if you say, I was coerced, then in the law, that means you're not guilty, right?
	So, again, if you rob a bank, and then it turns out...
	There was a guy who'd strapped some explosives to you or something, right?
	And was going to detonate it if you didn't rob the bank.
	Then they go after the guy who strapped you with explosives and you're no longer considered responsible for robbing the bank because you were coerced.
	You were under a situation of coercion.
	So coercion means that you're a victim of an unchosen, right?
	You weren't part of the gang, right?
	You didn't choose to be in that gang.
	So coercion means that you're a victim and the word for you was not chosen accidentally.
	Because it portrays you as a victim.
	So then, of course, I must ask, because you've already said, you've told me, I have a problem with portraying myself as a victim.
	Do you remember telling me that?
	Yes, I do.
	Okay, so of course, I, as a kind, caring person, I want to help you with your problem.
	And so if you say, I was coerced, and you've already told me, please help me with my problem of portraying myself as a victim, then when you say, I was coerced, guess what?
	I'm going to try and help you with the problem you told me to help you with.
	Like, if you're an alcoholic and you say, okay, I'm going to go to a party, please, please, please, I'm begging you, help me not to drink too much.
	And then I tell you, don't drink too much.
	Am I helping you?
	If I remind you and tell you, don't have that drink, man, you already told me, right?
	This goes back to the Greek story of the sirens, right?
	That the Greek hero strapped himself.
	He wanted to hear the sirens, right?
	The women who sang on the dangerous rocks in the ocean.
	And he wanted to hear their song because it was so beautiful.
	But the problem was it was so beautiful that men would dive over the ships to swim to see these sirens and then they would die on the rocks.
	And so the Greek hero...
	He said to his sailors, okay, man, just strap me to the mast.
	I just want to hear this song, but whatever you do, do not untie me from this mast, right?
	So then they tie him to the mast.
	He hears the song, and he begs and pleads and conjoles and demands and threatens.
	You've got to untie me from the mast.
	I forget what I said before.
	And they don't untie him from the mast, and then later he's like, well, thank God you didn't untie me from the mast, because then I'd be dead.
	Right, so you say to me, Steph, please, God, help me not be a victim.
	Help me not have a victim mindset.
	And then you say, I was coerced by a friend who offered to make me dinner.
	I'm going to say, okay, I'm going to help you.
	I'm going to do what you asked.
	I'm going to try and help you with the victim mindset.
	So then if you say you were coerced, you and I both know that you weren't, but you're going to take me on a half-hour journey to try and avoid that fact.
	Because coerced is, oh yeah, man, he took my dog hostage and was going to kill it if I didn't drive him to the liquor store.
	You know, he threatened to murder me in my sleep if I didn't drive him to the liquor store.
	Right?
	That's coercion.
	Now, you and I both know that's not what happened.
	What happened was maybe he put some pressure.
	Oh, man, come on.
	A good friend would drive me to the liquor store.
	He cajoled you.
	He encouraged you.
	He tried to sell you on the idea of driving him to the liquor store.
	That's not coercion.
	That's not coercion.
	I mean, there's a sort of famous story of the singer Madonna who wanted the lead role of Eva Peron.
	In the musical, you know, the Don't Cry For Me Argentina.
	And she, you know, reigned audition tapes and she reigned insistence and here's how I'm going to do it.
	And she really, really lobbied hard for that role.
	And she ended up getting the role.
	And Joe Pesci also...
	Lobbied very hard, I think, for the Rolling Casino, and the guy said, no, you're too old.
	And then he got youthful makeup and sent that audition tape in.
	He lobbied really, really insistent.
	That's not coercion.
	Being insistent and really working hard to try and get what you want, that's not coercion.
	Coercion is some deep, important threat.
	And so, yeah, if Madonna had said, you cast me as Eva Peron or...
	You know, your brakes might not work in your car.
	Okay, that's a threat.
	Or, you know, you cast me as Eva Peron or I'm going to spread a story that you sexually assaulted me in Cannes four years ago.
	That's a threat, right?
	Now, you and I both know you weren't in that liquor store because you were being threatened.
	Now, maybe you're a little bit compliant and maybe you wanted people to like you and maybe you wanted to get along.
	I get all of that.
	And I sympathize with that.
	I really do.
	I really sympathize with that.
	But let's not spread this story that's coercion.
	Like, let's not do that.
	Because that's stealing from people who are genuinely coerced.
	Right?
	I agree.
	Because you're taking the sympathy we would reserve for people who are genuinely coerced and then trying to apply it to you just because you wanted to get along by going along.
	So, sorry, go ahead.
	I agree.
	I think I chose the wrong verbiage there.
	Oh, no.
	Sorry, I don't think this is going to work.
	No, you didn't choose the wrong verbiage.
	You manipulated.
	You used a word specifically designed, and this is probably the end of the convo, just so you know, because I really put everything into trying to get you to take responsibility.
	And now this is passive-aggressive.
	I chose the wrong word.
	No, you didn't.
	You chose exactly the right word to play the victim.
	That was not an accident.
	You have not once chosen a word that gives you more responsibility and less victimhood.
	Every single time you tell your stories, you choose the words that give you the most victimhood.
	Coercion being a big one.
	So you didn't, I mean, this is why you just can't be honest.
	And like, I'm really sorry about this.
	I do try to put my best effort into these conversations, but I think I have to recognize.
	When I'm defeated, because you can't even admit to being manipulative with that word.
	You say, well, I chose the wrong word.
	And then that's designed to make me look crazy for nitpicking about some, oh, I just made a mistake and you're haranguing me for 20 minutes.
	No, I'm really trying to get you to wake up to the self-pity, the manipulation, the victim narrative, and so on.
	So the fact that you chose a word that portrays you as a victim every single time, that's not just choosing the wrong word.
	I don't think that I can get through.
	So I'll give you the last word, though.
	So go ahead.
	I'm just very sorry.
	I'm sorry to end up this way.
	I really appreciate all the work you've done.
	It didn't end up this way.
	This is the result of you continuing to manipulate rather than be direct and say, you know what?
	I used that word.
	I know it.
	It's going to evoke sympathy and pity.
	And that's just part of the bad habit.
	I could respect that.
	I could totally respect that.
	But if you're saying, well, I guess I just picked the wrong word.
	Right, that's just more of the same.
	It didn't end up.
	This is the result of your specific choices.
	I'm sorry.
	Okay, no problem.
	No problem at all.
	Appreciate the conversation.
	All right, so let's do one more little chatty chat.
	Monsieur LeVictor, if you want to unmute, I'm happy to hear what is on your mind.
	Hello, hello, Stéphane.
	Can you hear me?
	I sure can.
	How are you doing, brother?
	Not too bad.
	How's the cloudy weather across the lake?
	Cloudy.
	Yes, not so fun.
	Normal winters are back.
	Right, right.
	So I just had a quick question.
	I had put in a comment on just a post I'd seen one of the members put in, but I guess one very interesting topic I've been really learning and researching about, still a lot to learn, but it's just the idea of, I guess, when you come to that paradigm of health is what we know and all this kind of stuff.
	Sorry, you said help or health?
	What was that?
	Health.
	Health.
	Got it.
	Okay.
	Yes.
	Yes.
	So, as you know, it's the, I guess the term they use for the health that, or system that we have is allopathic, and I'm sure you've heard of terms of holistic or whatever other terms, but I'm sure you've heard of also germ theory, correct?
	Oh, yeah.
	Yeah.
	So, have you, I'm sure you have come across, or someone at least mentioned that, have you ever heard a little bit about or looked into what is terrain theory?
	What theory?
	Terrain theory.
	Terrain theory, like T-E-R-R-A-I-N? Yes, T-E-R-R-A-I-N. Like landscape or whatever.
	One R or two R's work.
	Sorry?
	Yes, yes.
	I think it's two R's.
	Okay, so I have not heard a thing, a smidge, a speck or a particle of terrain theory, so take it from there.
	Okay, well, I guess the basic gist of terrain theory versus germ theory.
	Germ theory explains that people get sick through microscopic, you know, germs, whether it's bacteria or, in this case, viruses and that kind of stuff.
	That's what makes people sick.
	Whereas terrain theory argues that it is actually not the case that it's, you know, bacteria germs, but it's rather the environment of, you know, what you put in your body, what you're surrounded.
	So basically, it's like what you eat, what you drink, what you breathe, you know, if the terrain is degraded or poor quality or that kind of stuff.
	That's what makes people sick rather than germs or, you know, viruses and that kind of thing.
	So that's kind of like very...
	Yeah, I think, sorry to interrupt, but if I remember rightly, so a listener sent me a Like, there's no such thing as germs.
	And he was, like, really, really, really, really keen that I read it.
	So I certainly did read some of it.
	And it was sort of like that the Spanish flu was to do with radio waves that were sort of being introduced.
	And I don't remember the whole thing because it's been sort of many years.
	But the idea is that germs, viruses, bacteria, this kind of stuff, they don't really exist.
	that it tends to be the environment that is causing you to become ill in some fashion.
	And I'm sure I'm bastardizing it to some degree, but that was my sort of general understanding of that case.
	No worries.
	So, I guess, well, I guess that's one quick example I can give.
	From what I've heard from their argument of terrain theory of, let's say, Spanish flu, was that it's actually the reason why especially a lot of younger people are getting sick is because of the whole World War I and all these toxic gases and everything that was being spread across the whole environment in that case.
	And that's why you had so many people getting sick, because one very big case study that they like pointing to was...
	Before, I guess, germ theory was really entrenched in the way of, you know, how people think, was they did an experiment, I believe by a gentleman named Rosenau, and it was in conjunction with the U.S. Navy.
	And what they did is basically took a hundred, you know, strong, strapped, you know, military men of very good health, and they subjugated them to all sorts of natural means of exposure of how people would say they get sick.
	So they literally took the healthy men and put them in these sick people, had them cough, sneeze in their face, swab the...
	You know, saliva and snot and implanted in the back of their throat and had them hang around the sick wards and they could not get any of those men sick, no matter what they tried.
	And after that, you know, they haven't really done anything to that magnitude of basically, you know, trying to get people sick through natural means.
	Because nowadays they say, the way it's done, it's all in the lab, it's all by, you know, cell cultures and all this kind of stuff.
	But ultimately they say that's not through natural means of methods of getting sick because in turn they take this You know, soup that they make in a Petri dish and then inject it directly into a spine or into a brain of a mouse or of the sorts and say, oh, they're sick versus naturally it doesn't happen and even whatever you inject is going to get you sick of that means.
	So basically, their big argument about especially virology is they do not follow controls in terms of Koch's postulate is, you know, you need to have a control and this is what they don't do is that they don't try taking these cell cultures and they don't try to basically See if the same effects happen, even if they don't add the so-called virus.
	And they never have gone done that, because I guess they say when they do, it has the same effect.
	So ultimately, I was curious, like...
	If you would ever consider, just like you did a very good study in regards to talking to top scientists about IQ and whatnot, if maybe you'd be interested in looking into this sphere of talking to actual doctors who were trained traditionally in the system that we have it, and now are proponents of this terrain theory after doing their own research.
	A couple of doctors that come to mind are Dr. Sam Bailey and her husband, Dr. Mark Bailey, but also Stefan Lanka of his project, Virology.
	And I was wondering if that's something that would ever interest you to maybe look into because I know you're not a big government guy.
	I'm not either.
	But it just seems the way the whole COVID-19 pandemic was handled, it doesn't seem to be getting any better.
	Ultimately, you know, from what I've looked at, it seems to be just consuming more money resources and people aren't getting any healthier and keep on getting sicker and governments keep on getting more powerful with this whole, I guess, germ theory paradigm.
	That's kind of like the whole idea of what...
	Well, no, no, hang on, hang on, hang on.
	But the germ theory paradigm is not causal or related to people getting sicker and sicker.
	And the reason I say that is, I mean, obviously the basic example would be...
	Surgeons who wash their hands prior to surgery, right?
	So this was not at all believed.
	In fact, in the Middle Ages, people believed that dirt and not washing protected you from germs, created like this mud enclosure that germs couldn't get through or illness couldn't get through.
	And of course, I think it was the 19th century, there was this guy who was like, you know, we should probably wash our hands before we open up people's bodies and root around in their innards.
	And he was considered insane.
	He was attacked.
	His license was taken away.
	And he ended up being beaten to death by an orderly in an insane asylum, which is a pretty high price to pay for saving, you know, hundreds of millions of lives.
	And so when doctors started washing their hands, then the infections among operations went down very considerably and sort of very quickly.
	And so on.
	And I think in general, I've certainly noticed I try to wash my hands.
	You know, I don't know.
	I'm not obsessive about it, but I really don't like getting sick, so I wash my hands a lot.
	And generally, I don't get sick, unless I forget from time to time, which I think everyone does.
	So, I do have that.
	It seems to be a fairly established fact.
	The guy, of course, remember stomach ulcers in the 50s were considered to be caused by stress, and then...
	It turned out that a guy thought they were caused by a particular type of bacteria, and he ended up proving it by ingesting that bacteria, having all the symptoms of a stomach ulcer, and then taking the antibiotics to kill off that bacteria and thus resolving his symptoms.
	And again, this is just two examples that pop to mind.
	So I don't see any particular...
	I mean, I'm as skeptical of mainstream merit as just about everyone.
	I think the germ theory is pretty well established, which is not to say that environment is not an issue, but...
	Basically, the illness model is the result, to me, not of terrain versus germ theory.
	The illness that is so prevalent in Western countries, and in particular in America, is simply the result of economic incentives.
	That doctors make no money when you're healthy, and doctors make infinity money when you are sick and on government-paid healthcare regimens.
	Right?
	So if somebody individually, like if you had a private insurance system, then if somebody ended up with a chronic ailment, the insurance company loses a massive amount of money.
	But because government, you know, they print money, they borrow money, they tax money, and they can pay for infinity pills, then doctors make their money and the pharmaceutical companies make their money not from health, but from illness.
	And of course, any system that makes its money from illness.
	And not health will get a progressively more ill society.
	And, of course, in Canada here, when your surgeon, sorry, your doctor, doesn't make any money if you're well, right?
	Because they only get paid if you come in to see them, and they get paid if you keep coming back to see them, and the pharmaceutical companies make money when you buy all of their pills and so on.
	And again, a lot of this stuff is funded or subsidized by the government or, of course, as we saw with the case of COVID, there were liability protections from the medical intervention.
	I really can't even call it a vaccine because they had to keep shifting that definition like sand.
	So, to me, the question – I'm sorry, I'll stop in a sec – but the question of why are people chronically ill, they just follow the money.
	And it's sad to say, right, but people respond to incentives, right, the basic principle of economics.
	It's sad to say.
	And, you know, there are heroic doctors out there trying to do the right thing, but that's sort of like saying they were hardworking people under communism.
	Sure they were, but the system as a whole just rewarded corruption and sloth and so on.
	So people respond to incentives, and most people don't have this magical inner integrity.
	And I'm not saying you're suggesting that they are, but most people don't have this magical inner integrity that they do the right thing no matter what.
	Most people would just respond to incentives.
	And if doctors get paid a fortune for X, Y, and Z procedure, then...
	Shockingly, XYZ procedure becomes enormously common.
	So that's on the supply side.
	On the demand side...
	Of course, people would rather take pills than fix their lifestyle a lot of times, right?
	So there's not just the supply side, there's the demand side.
	Like, maybe you're depressed because you're surrounded by abusive, dysfunctional people.
	No!
	It's a brain imbalance.
	It's a chemical imbalance.
	I'm going to take a pill.
	Even though there's no test for it, nobody knows.
	They just scattershot these pills until you, I don't know, get stupefied into some sort of coherence.
	Yeah, so there is the supply side, which is all government-funded, only makes money if you're sick, and then there's the demand side, which is that people would rather take 40 pills a day than get on a treadmill.
	So, a lot of people, right?
	So, I think those two things are combining.
	I don't know that it's particularly correlated with the rise of the germ theory, which has been around since ancient times.
	But sorry, I had a long speech there, so please go ahead.
	No worries.
	You let me go, I'll let you go.
	So, no, you're definitely...
	100% correct in regards to that.
	That's part of it.
	I guess the way to, like, the way at least I'm understanding it is that the germ theory is basically, like, it's the vehicle that allows the current system to drive it on.
	That's, like, that allows the whole, you know, well, you know, go to the doctor and they prescribe you some drugs and this and that.
	You know, it's all because of this, you know, germ virus or, you know, whatever.
	Like, basically, they have the cure.
	Well, no, hang on.
	They have the vaccine.
	Hang on.
	Just a sec, just a sec.
	So, because the three big money makers are psychotropics, statins, and diabetes treatment.
	Now, none of those, as far as I'm no doctor, obviously, I don't think any of those rely on the germ theory.
	Well, that would, yes, that would also be environmental, but I guess my focus in on is when it comes to, like, you know, the past five years of seeing the whole pandemic and how, you know...
	Just the amount of control the governments were able to exercise over this idea of, you know, of a virus, which is in line with germ theory, and basically, you know, I don't see them slowing down anytime soon.
	That's kind of like where I'm coming from, the concern of, you know, this germ theory is what basically allows the whole, you know, that system to ride on.
	I'm not saying that there's other factors.
	Such as, you know, obesity and all that stuff that's, you know, directly correlated with, you know, environmental factors are within their direct control.
	But when it comes to stuff that's not within their control, such as, oh, then this new flu is out, this new bird flu is out, and all this stuff that you can't control and keep people in a state of fear and paralysis that only they have the answer and can do it, when in reality, that's what germ theory explains that that's just how it is,
	versus when terrain theory explains it's actually not due to germs, but it's actually all within a person's control of their environment of what they put in their body, what are they eating, and all these kind of things, or it's basically the idea that the human body of health is all perfectly or it's basically the idea that the human body of health
	No, no, sorry, I get the theory, but I guess just my basic question is how do they overturn thousands of years of theory and 150 years of specific scientific research showing The identification of germs, showing germs attached to water droplets in the air, showing germs attacking healthy cells, showing immune system responses that kill the germs.
	Like, I'm, you know, to me, you know, to be frank, I'm kind of in flat earth territory with this kind of stuff.
	It's like, hey, I'm skeptical.
	Hang on, let me finish.
	I'm skeptical and I'm, you know, I get all of that.
	But, you know, I've seen the videos.
	There's a lot of science, you know, this like, it's, I just curious, how, how do they overcome all of this, what seems to be pretty clear empirical evidence of germs and infection?
	So I guess it's all about the context.
	It's like, all right, you've seen a video, you said germs, like you said, attaching on, but do you actually know what the exact context of that video, like what is it actually?
	What is this germ or that?
	Because I was in the same category, and like I said, I'm not 100% there in terms of fully accepting it.
	I fully believe that.
	Perhaps the truth might be somewhere in the middle.
	No, you're dodging.
	I'm asking, you say, well, what's the context?
	And I'm not fully there.
	That's not answering the question.
	How do they overturn all of these specific, clear infections, stuff, bacteria, right?
	I mean, everybody's had this thing where you eat a slice of bread and you're like, oh, man, it's moldy, and then you get sick, right?
	I mean, that would be a kind of infection, wouldn't it?
	I mean, so there's, you know, everybody's had their personal...
	You know, somebody comes home with a cold.
	Everyone in the family who's in the same house generally gets the same cold.
	Some kid comes home from daycare with a cold.
	Everyone gets the same cold.
	So everybody has both personal experience that's consistent with germ theory.
	There's tons of scientific evidence.
	I mean, that's asking a lot to overcome because it would be like you and I in space looking at a sphere of the Earth and you saying it's a flat Earth.
	Like, I understand the flat Earth, it looks flat when you're sort of down among the weeds and looking at the horizon, it looks flat.
	I get all of that.
	But we all have personal experience of, you know, infections and so on.
	I've had, I remember when I was a kid, I scraped my knee and it got infected and I had to have, they put iodine back on it, which is a bit of a nuclear option when it comes to kills healthy cells too.
	I think it's painful as hell.
	But I remember, and it cleared up and all of that.
	So I've sort of seen the infections and, you know, we see the mold on the bread.
	Heaven help us if we eat some food that's infected with bacteria, we get sick, and listeria outbreaks, and salmonella, and so on.
	So, you know, we generally have experienced all of these things, and there's, you know, seems to be pretty endless amounts of scientific evidence.
	That's a lot to overturn, and of course, you know, the more extraordinary the claim, the more extraordinary the counter-evidence that is needed.
	So, and of course, the germ theory, I mean, it was like, think at the end of the 19th century that it was really fairly, Fairly established.
	So this is long before government healthcare in the way that we would understand it today or modern financial incentives and so on.
	So that is the challenge.
	I have an infection, I take a bunch of antibiotics, it gets better, right?
	Again, it's a high bar, but you can't just say, well, there's context, because context is not an argument, and you can't say, well, I'm not there 100% there either.
	That's not an argument.
	My argument is how is both the personal, anecdotal, lived experience and the consistent scientific examinations, how is that overturned?
	Okay, yeah, I can provide some examples of directly that.
	So let's use your example of, let's say, moldy bread.
	Of course, I wouldn't eat moldy bread as well, but in some cases...
	You might eat some molten bread they didn't notice, and you don't get sick.
	And I guess, well, okay, what's their explanation?
	Well, hang on, hang on, hang on.
	You do get sick, but just very little.
	In other words, it's not enough to overcome your body's bacteria-fighting agents, right?
	So it's not like you don't get sick.
	It's not like you ingest a bunch of bacteria and it doesn't affect you at all.
	They don't die as they go down your throat.
	It's just that your immune system handles it to the point where you don't notice it.
	At least that's, I think, what would be recorded.
	So it's not that you don't get sick.
	It's that you don't get noticeably sick, if that makes sense.
	Well, I guess I just want to ask, so what is your definition of getting sick?
	No, no.
	Bro, I'm asking you.
	You said you don't get sick.
	And I just want to make sure that...
	We're differentiating from what you perceive and what's actually going on biologically, right?
	So, cancer cells, as far as I understand it, cancer cells are being formed in the body all the time.
	It's just sometimes your immune system doesn't overcome them or kill them or whatever it is, right?
	So, if you say you don't get sick, do you mean the bacteria doesn't affect you in any way, shape, or form at all?
	Or do you mean your immune system handles it to the point where you don't?
	Feel sick or you don't get sick in a way that really impacts your consciousness.
	I guess, yeah, it would be your former explanation that you wouldn't feel the effects because as long as the body is in good health in terms of germ theory and good health, your immune system fights it off.
	Well, no, that's sorry to be annoying, but that's not true either.
	Because if it's a small amount of bacteria, your body can handle it.
	If it's a very large amount of bacteria, it doesn't really matter how healthy you are, you're going to get sick.
	I mean, that's the general theory, right?
	If you just have a little nibble of toast, and we've all done this, right?
	Like, you take a bite of bread, it tastes funny, you know, that weird chalky sour taste, and you spit it out and you rinse your mouth, right?
	Now, have you swallowed some bacteria?
	Sure, I'm sure you have.
	But if you eat the whole thing or two slices of it, like, that's going to be more bacteria than your immune system can handle.
	And listen, being generally healthy certainly has an effect on your immune system.
	But health is not the only factor.
	It also has to do with the volume of bacteria that you would consume.
	The dosage.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, no, and that's perfectly, that's true, you know, but is it the bacteria that's causing you to get sick or is it the toxins that they're producing?
	You know, that's why it's like there's a lot of overlap in terms of what terrain theory explains a certain situation and germ theory, but they just describe it differently and you look at it in a different angle and basically in some situations where the germ theory just...
	Can't explain something like, oh, you're asymptomatic, you're sick, but you're not actually showing symptoms.
	And versus like, well, terrain theory says, well, I mean, it's not actually a germ that's causing people to get sick.
	It's due to something they, you know, from an environmental factor, whether it's, you know, with something you're breathing in or drinking or eating, like in this case, COVID-19 in China, the Wuhan has very poor air quality and it was very known to have high cases of pneumonia there.
	And what made it so special that it's now this...
	Novel virus that suddenly popped up that was different than the pneumonia that was there.
	Well, the answer to that would be that it was bioengineered with HIV inserts and, you know, that that would be the answer to that.
	Or at least that would be an answer to that.
	It wouldn't just be sort of air quality.
	So, I still don't have an answer as to how anecdotal experience and, you know, thousands of scientific experiments are overcome.
	Yeah, I'll provide my anecdotal experience.
	So my anecdotal experience, I basically started experimenting on myself in terms of theory.
	So, for example, anytime a family member would get sick with something...
	I know I use the term anecdotal experience, but the plural of anecdote, as you know, is not data, right?
	So when I say anecdotal experience, I'm simply saying we've all had the experience of being exposed to something, getting sick, and it's dose-dependent and so on, and that conforms with the scientific experiments.
	Your personal lived experience, whatever you're claiming to be, cannot overturn, you know, double-blind scientific studies going back more than 100 years, right?
	So I need to know how the science is explained away and overturned.
	Is it that the scientists are all...
	I know that sounds like an impossible standard.
	I get the global warming stuff.
	Everybody knows how corruptible scientists are and all of that kind of stuff.
	But that's all post-government funding of science, right?
	So when we're talking about going back 150 years or so, that's long before there was modern government funding of science and the corruption of Fauci and crew and all of that.
	So how is the older science prior to the bad incentives of the modern system, how is that all?
	Are you referring to the older science of germ theory?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Well, in that case, they did have studies back then and they do refer to them there.
	But ultimately, you know, the idea is that the way they were done is primarily you have to look at, well, when it came to plague, you know, what were they, what were the metrics for contagion?
	Well, they take a couple of rats in a lab and they put them beside each other and see if one dies when they're in tiny confined cages under a lot of stress.
	Well, was there, you know, was there a control done?
	Were there two rats with no proposed virus done and there wasn't?
	Sorry, are you saying that...
	Well, many of them did not have control groups, and ultimately the way they were done was in a lab, rather than, why not just, you know, like human-human contact?
	Like in this case, Rosenau's experiment of Spanish flu is a very well documented one, but never talked about because it doesn't line up with the current in line germ theory, where if the Spanish flu is very infectious through, you know, through air particulates.
	And if they were doing everything in the means of how someone typically gets sick, but no one was getting sick, then how come another study of that magnitude?
	How come it hasn't been tried again in the modern era?
	I mean, because I don't think it's really that hard to do it now, but typically you won't see them funding studies of that same, you know, format.
	Nowadays, everything is done within a lab through either Okay, but sorry, so you're saying, sorry to interrupt, so some of the germ theory experiments did not have a control group, but some did, right?
	Correct.
	Okay, so do you have a rough idea of what percent?
	I'm not saying you'd know this off the top of your head, but I'm just curious.
	Is it like a third of them didn't have control groups, or a quarter, or half?
	Do you have any sort of sense of thousands and thousands, tens of thousands of these experiments, and if even half of them had control groups, we'd have some skepticism for the half that didn't, but not the half that did.
	So I'm not sure what proportion.
	Again, I'm not saying you would know this individually, but that would be a question that I would have.
	No, I understand, yeah.
	Obviously, as you said, I am not, you know, someone that is knowing of all every single study.
	I'm only knowing of the key studies that I have read myself from these proposed terrain theorists of what they use to support their scientists.
	But certainly with AI, you could lose AI on a bunch of studies and say, okay, look for germ studies that didn't have a control group and all of that.
	I guess, ultimately, modern-day virology, like, when it comes to viruses, that is actually the case that most...
	Actually, I'm trying to think of it.
	I think all of them do not contain a control group in terms of when they basically try to isolate the virus, which you've got to look at terms.
	When they mean by isolate viruses, they don't actually have the viruses by themselves.
	They're contained within a whole, if you want to call it, biological gene slop of different, like, you know...
	You know, DNA strands, whatever you call it.
	Basically, they have never been able to take a virus and completely isolate just a virus on its own.
	So when you got to look at the term of when they mean virus isolation, that's what they mean by virus isolation.
	It's still contained within a fragment of other gene sequences and genomes.
	And in turn, what they do is they, you know, they add in your monkey kidney cells, your bovine serum, and, you know, all your, you know, your antibiotics and all these type of stress components that in turn will, of course, make a cell sick when you add that to it.
	And any of these studies do not contain basically the same procedure, but without the alleged virus.
	Okay.
	They never have that control.
	The identification of viruses was not what I was asking about.
	No, let me just ask you a general question.
	And this is sort of a larger philosophical question.
	And I'll just tell you, this is a filter by which I put these kinds of questions.
	So just so you know where I'm coming from, maybe it will be helpful to others as well, right?
	So I compare everything to something like peaceful parenting.
	Or UPB, right?
	These are two big things that I've worked on over the years.
	So what I do is I say, okay, so everyone says we should treat our children well and we should be good parents, right?
	And then when I provide the moral, physical, medical, biological proof and practical proof of how to be good parents, most people recoil and run away.
	Everyone says, you know, we need a certain proof of ethics that doesn't rely just on the commandment of Of the government, because of course everyone knows the governments can command tremendously evil stuff, and also on religious authority, because people disagree enormously, not just between religions, but even within religions, what God means by morals.
	So everyone says we need objective morality, and then, you know, like close to 20 years ago, I proved objective morality, and nobody wants to have anything to do with it.
	So when people say they're desperate...
	For something, and then you provide it, and it's exactly in conformity with what they say they want and what they have praying for and what they need and what will make the world a better place, and then they run away from it.
	Well, that's interesting to me, and it tells me, of course, how difficult it is to change people's minds about things that they claim they value, claim they want, claim they need, claim that will make the world a better place.
	You know, everyone says, you know, this is from kindergarten onwards, right?
	So everyone says, we should solve our disputes with reason, not force.
	Right?
	We should not use force to resolve our disputes.
	This goes all the way back to kindergarten, right?
	Don't push, don't shove, don't hit, don't steal, don't yell, right?
	You should reason not, don't grab, you know, just ask, right?
	So we should use, and then, you know, when I put forward, you know, my books, Practical Anarchy, Everyday Anarchy, and of course, my novel, The Future, I lay out exactly how society could work with the morals that everyone claims is good.
	Right?
	And then people run screaming from that too, right?
	So what I'm saying is that, so when you come up with something like this, and I listen, I appreciate the conversation, I find it very interesting, but I'll just tell you my processing about this.
	It's like, okay, so even, or just look at, sorry, last example, I'll keep it brief, dieting, right?
	Everybody says who's overweight, man, I should really lose weight.
	It's bad for my joints, bad for my health, bad for my back, you know, I really got to lose weight.
	And yet, you know, 90 to 95% of people, Either don't lose weight or lose weight and then gain it all back or more.
	Like, a few percentage points of people actually lose weight and keep it off.
	I mean, absent things like stomach stapling and all other kinds of semi-creepy interventions, right?
	And of course, this is not a moral thing.
	So people, they say, oh man, I want to lose weight, and they don't.
	And even though if they do lose weight, everyone tells them exactly how fantastic they look.
	I'm so proud of you.
	That's so wonderful.
	Their doctor praises them.
	Their health improves.
	Their knee stock.
	So even with these incredible positive incentives, and it's cheaper because, you know, to eat healthier and better is cheaper than to eat badly because you save money on your clothes better and you can dress more fashionably.
	So there's almost nothing but upside to losing weight.
	You know, it extends your lifespan considerably, so you couldn't really have more of an upside to losing weight, and yet almost no, and everyone praises it, and you see these transformation videos online, everyone's like, oh, it's so cool, you know, except for a few, I don't know, chubby chasers or whatever, right?
	So I say, okay, so even if people, you know, UPB, Peaceful Parenting, Stateless Society, even when people say, this is exactly what we want, this is exactly what...
	Now, the problem is, you're trying to get people to overthrow an entire worldview, which they don't have, and then you're expecting them, I assume, the purpose of belief is to change behavior, right?
	A belief that doesn't change behavior is nonsense, just mental masturbation, right?
	So, you're trying to get people to change their behavior, as am I. Now, I can't get people Most people, not everyone, of course.
	I can't get people to change behavior even when they fully agree with the worldview, the morals, the ethics, and can't argue against the process, right?
	I can't get people to change their behavior.
	Again, not everyone, but some people, right?
	So everyone says we should use reason, not force.
	And I'm like, oh, here's how we do it.
	Oh, God, no, right?
	Or, you know, everyone says we should not have abusive people.
	And I say, yeah, okay, and that includes parents.
	Oh, God, no, he's a cult leader, right?
	Or we need an objective proof of ethics.
	Here it is.
	No, that's bad, right?
	Because, you know, I could interpret you as using the word ethics in different ways in different parts of the book.
	Oh, whatever, right?
	Just nonsense, right?
	So I guess my question is, I assume that you're trying to get people's behavior to change, but my concern is I can't get people's behavior to change even when they fully agree.
	With the goals, intentions, and reasoning, they still won't change.
	And you can't get people to lose weight or exercise even when they themselves will massively benefit from it and just about everyone will praise them.
	So given that you're trying to not just change people's behavior, but they don't even agree with the world you can begin with, it just feels like, man, this is like a complete task that just can't be achieved.
	It's an uphill battle.
	Well, it's an upcliff battle.
	It's not even uphill.
	There you go.
	So, sorry, but that's what I put things through.
	No, that is something I did think about because it's even from my point.
	I thought this was wild.
	And granted, like you said, there are always going to be a small select few people who maybe see like, okay, this actually does make sense and lines up.
	Okay, I'm now going to change my viewpoint and in turn the actions.
	But most people won't do that.
	And that's kind of the thing where, well, I guess it's to be expected.
	But ultimately, you know, the least thing you could do is just, well, hey, at least now you've heard of terrain theory and know that...
	There is something else out there to explain, you know, how people are often.
	For example, if there's a point in time where, I guess, it piques your interest where something doesn't add up in germ theory, well, maybe it might, you know, interest you to perhaps look at it through a different viewpoint.
	That's kind of like ultimately my goal is.
	Well, I think a lot of it, sorry, I don't mean to explain you to you.
	I could be wrong.
	I think a lot of it comes out of the shock and horror of the COVID era, which is like, okay, well, maybe if I get people to stop believing in germs, then they won't bow down to the government about.
	It's in part.
	It's in part.
	But it's like you said, like, you know, if the goal is a stateless society, ultimately, then, I mean, the current shackles we have on now is not going to allow us to get there.
	Well, I mean, but I think, you know, I mean, I think, you know, man to man, right?
	I mean, if we're just really base and honest about this, fear-mongering is kind of a new phenomenon in this kind of way.
	I mean, men are generally not that susceptible to fear-mongering.
	We just kind of roll the dice, right?
	And the fear-mongering now is largely because women are more sensitive to fear-mongering than men are.
	And so, you know, as women get the vote and women control more and more of the finances, like women make like 85% of the household purchase decisions and so on.
	And women drive the desire to have bigger houses and all of them.
	And guys sometimes will get nicer cars to impress women.
	So as women gain more and more control over media, academia, the economy, and government, because, you know, the majority of workers in the government are female, then unfortunately we just end up in a situation where women are more sensitive to negative stimuli.
	Women are more sensitive to fear-mongering.
	And that's entirely good.
	I love that about women.
	I do.
	I absolutely love that about women.
	I mean, it was my wife's drive and desire to child-proof the house before my daughter was born.
	I'm very glad she did.
	But it wouldn't have crossed my mind.
	It's a balancing act.
	It's a balancing act.
	With women, stuff that's great in the home is terrible in politics.
	And for men, stuff that's made at work is terrible at home.
	Sorry?
	That seems to be the general gist of how it is, I guess.
	So I'm just saying that I don't know that if the major essence of COVID was fear-mongering, and it was, then unfortunately it's just going to hit the female population harder.
	A little bit, but enough to make a big difference.
	It is enough to...
	It still affects everyone, though.
	And women are...
	Women are paranoid of disease.
	And again, I don't consider that a fault at all.
	You know, it's my wife who hits me with a cattle prod to go, oh, go get your eyes tested.
	And oh, go get your blood work done.
	I'm like, yeah, roll the dice, whatever.
	We'll see what happens, right?
	And I appreciate that about her.
	I think that's great.
	I really do.
	I think that's good for her and so on, right?
	But women are more nervous about disease because women...
	I mean, it's a survival mechanism because women take care of the sick, and if germ theory is right, then women are going to get sick from taking care of the sick.
	So it's survival for women that people don't get sick.
	So I would say that as far as COVID goes, the matriarchal gynocracy that democracy has cornered us into living in, that's just going to have to change before fear-mongering stops working, at least as much.
	Or rather, fear-mongering stays in the home.
	It's sort of often a complaint from women.
	They get some alpha guy, some really big, tough guy, and they then complain that he's too bossy and emotionally unavailable at home.
	So for men, what works in the workplace doesn't work at home.
	And for women, what works at home doesn't work in politics.
	And so, you know, just politics messes everything up as far as that goes.
	So I would sort of, we're just going to have to ride it out, I think, and hoping to disabuse people of a germ theory probably ain't going to work.
	Yeah, well, I guess if you ever, I know you're a busy man, but I mean, if you ever feel like you want to have your viewpoint, I don't think I'm trying to think of a term for it.
	Tickled?
	Whatever you want to say.
	I know the Dr. Sam Bailey just very much puts it in a concise, you know, 15, 20 video formats of whatever it might be.
	Like you were saying earlier, like, well, what about this disease?
	What about that?
	What is their explanation for it?
	You know, what did they say has to be?
	No, of course.
	And I'm not expecting you to know the answers to an entire movement.
	I get that.
	Right.
	Sure.
	Maybe I'll look into it.
	I just tell you, I'm not going to have doctors on with medical advice because I'm just not that show.
	I just don't have doctors on with medical advice as a whole, just because I can't judge whether it's valid or invalid, and I don't want to expose my audience to stuff that I can't judge.
	Right, so...
	No, that's fair.
	That's fair.
	So I think it's interesting.
	What I will say, though, I do love the environmental explanation for a lot of illnesses.
	It's great because it tells people to improve their environment, improve their social environment, their psychological environment.
	Yeah, personal accountability.
	Don't just, you know, to me...
	This is not medical advice to anyone.
	My own personal thing is look at my lifestyle, look at my food, look at my exercise, look at my movement, and all of that.
	And also look at, you know, for me, my health is intensely and innately bound up to the people around me.
	I cannot be healthier than the most stressful person around me, the person who gives me the most.
	Problems or the most difficulties or the most stress or whatever it is, right?
	Which is why I don't have stressful people in my life.
	I don't have people in my life that cause chaos and stress because that to me is giving them a remote control, make me sick or make me feel unwell or make me whatever, right?
	I just don't give people that remote control.
	It's like having a slow motion assassin in your house.
	It's like you're going to get like Kato or whatever his name is from the old Peter Sellers, Inspector Clouseau stuff, right?
	No, the guy that, I can't remember, was his name Kato?
	The guy that Bruce Lee played?
	You're too young for all of this.
	Anyway, but yeah, I just, I don't want any slow motion assassins in my environment, which is why I don't have, you know, this is, again, I've said this a million times, but it's a business partner I had like 30 years ago said, well, if you have difficult people in your life, your life becomes difficult.
	If you have easy people in your life, your life is easy.
	And so if it gets people to check their environment and make better decisions, I'm all for it.
	I think that's not a hill that I'm going to invest stuff in, because if I could invest in changing people's minds, I'd do it with peaceful parenting, and I would do it with UPB, and I would do it with stateless society, not that other stuff.
	Does that make sense?
	Yes.
	No.
	No, no, that's very valid, for sure.
	I just figured, you know, if you...
	You know, I fully understand that, yeah, you don't want to bring that on your show because, like you said, you have your supporters and listeners to be, you know, you want the best for them.
	And as far as maybe just for your own interest, hey, I guess that now you know about there's a thing called terrain theory and there's, you know, there's doctors out there such as Sam Bailey, Stefan Lanka, who put it in a very much more better...
	You know, explanation than I could ever do.
	That second guy sounds innately credible just based on his name, so I'm definitely going to check him out.
	All right, well, I'm afraid philosophy has to stop for the growling of the stomach because it'd be lunchtime.
	So I really do appreciate it.
	What are you having for lunch?
	I am going to have a little slice of pizza and then some yogurt and fruit.
	So it's going to be very nice.
	I appreciate it.
	My wife makes this sort of flat bread pizza.
	It's like very little dough and tons of veggies.
	It's basically a salad and very little crust.
	I can't do much dough myself.
	It doesn't sit too well.
	Well, thanks, everyone.
	I appreciate your time.
	Have yourself a great, great day.
	We will talk to you tomorrow.
	Remember, the show is not at 11 a.m., but at 1 p.m.
	So I hope you will check that out.
	I might have some interesting news for tomorrow.
	So freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show.
	I'd really appreciate your support on this lovely month of March.
	And have yourself a beautiful afternoon, my friends.
	Appreciate your time today.
	And to all the callers, thank you so much for these fascinating conversations.
	Take care, my friendzo.
	I'll talk to you soon.

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