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April 1, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
31:22
STOP WHINING!
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You! Hello, hello, Stephen Molyneux from Free Domain.
Great questions from the glorious Heaven Sent listeners at freedomain.com, freedomain.local.com, great community.
Somebody says, why are we here?
Why are we here?
Well, we are here to promote virtue and to hinder and oppose evil.
We are here to do good and battle evil, because That's the one thing we can do that no other creature can do in this mortal land.
So that's why we are here.
Somebody says, I missed the highest possible calling in my life.
It felt like a destiny.
My subconscious tried to tell me.
Using terror, feelings of impending doom, inspiration and synchronicity, old memories, and I failed to listen.
Help! Help!
All right.
Stop whining.
I missed opportunity.
is an opportunity to make an opportunity.
Let me say this again.
A missed opportunity is an opportunity to make an opportunity.
Right? So, if there's some girl and you chicken out of asking her out, then you go and ask some girl out that you otherwise wouldn't have asked out.
If there's some job that you missed applying to or failed to apply to, go apply to a better job or make your own job.
Missed opportunities, I have no patience for.
All of life is a missed opportunity.
You can't escape that.
The opportunity costs, right?
I'm currently doing this show and I'm not learning how to do the tango or learn kanji or backflips.
So, everybody misses every opportunity all the time.
You know, when I was a new parent, I spent 10 years not writing books because I wanted to parent, right?
Good stuff.
So, I had my parenting, I didn't have my books.
Right? Oh no, I missed all these opportunities to write books.
Man, life is missed opportunities.
Everything you choose to do is everything you didn't do.
I chose to study philosophy rather than learn guitar.
I got a guitar.
I started to learn guitar.
But I decided philosophy was better.
Why? Because the world does not need another guitarist.
The world is in rather desperate need of good philosophy.
So all of life is missed opportunities.
You are not lamenting a missed opportunity.
You're giving yourself a godforsaken excuse.
Oh, I missed my opportunity.
Oh, I am so full of woe and regret.
I am like an over clogged with syrup pancake of sorrow.
Shut up.
Stop being so dramatic.
Calm down.
Yeah, you missed an opportunity.
Guess what?
That's life.
We're always missing opportunities.
And if you miss an opportunity, what you do is you say, hey, I missed that opportunity.
I mean, the big thing in life is how to turn something negative into a positive.
Negative shit's going to be flying at you all the time like cannon propelled trebuchet flying monkeys of vampiric doom.
You are going to have constantly negative shit flying at you.
How do you judo that negative shit into great stuff?
How do you do it?
How do you do it?
That's the big challenge.
You can't control all the negative stuff that happens to you, but you can control what you do with it, right?
So, I don't know, 13 years ago, 12 years ago, whatever the hell it was, I got me some tasty little cancer.
Yes, I did.
Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
Mmm, that's some tasty stuff.
Now, I managed to not die, always a plus, and I resolved to exercise even harder You know, death, you come at the king, you better not miss, or I will fuck you up.
So I decided, hey, I'm gonna lose weight.
Hey, I'm gonna exercise like crazy, gonna eat well.
So what was going to kill me has actually made me much, much healthier.
Right? That which does not kill you makes you stronger if you make it happen.
Doesn't happen on its own.
It's not like aging or gravity.
Or being slightly off-key at karaoke.
It's not an automatic thing.
So, you don't miss the highest possible calling in your life.
You make the highest possible calling in your life.
You missed an opportunity?
Great! Make an opportunity so that your life ends up better than if you had taken that opportunity.
You didn't ask some girl out.
She was really pretty.
Oh, that's too bad.
Well, go and ask a girl out who's a really great, wonderful and virtuous woman.
Great mother for your children.
Great companion for your life.
So that you not asking out the pretty girl turns out with you having a virtuous loving wife way way better.
All right.
What are your thoughts on the classical cynic school pros and cons of that type of asceticism?
So the school of cynics everyone lies everyone's a hypocrite all is vanity and the avoidance of the pursuit of status and material gains is the ideal.
You know there was one who lived in a giant jar If I remember rightly.
So, there's an entire school of philosophy where chicken shits claim that they're virtuous.
Where chicken shits claim that they're virtuous.
So, you can choose not to enter into the battle of the arena of good and evil.
And, you know what?
To actually do something in the arena of good and evil, oftentimes, it pays to not live in a jar, not bathe, and look ridiculous.
Right? Little bit of grooming.
A little bit of money, a little bit of eloquence, learn a little bit of humor, and a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.
A little bit of charm, a little bit of riz.
I can say that because my daughter's not here, so I can dip in a brain rot because it gives her hives when I do.
Make things a little easier, a little bit more pleasant for people to actually absorb values and virtues.
So, if you say, well, I hate everyone, everyone's a lying Hypocritical XYZ.
So I'm gonna live in a jar.
And not bathe.
Not earn any money and beg.
You are giving people a massive easy excuse to dismiss philosophers as raving lunatics and pointless pet ants.
Don't do that.
Just be normal!
I mean, I'm such a normie, it's ridiculous, right?
Love my daughter, love my wife, you know, reasonably productive business career, and entrepreneur, and I'm just so normal and natural.
No body piercings, no tattoos, nothing like that, right?
So, just be normal.
Just be normal, be pleasant, and then, people, like, don't give people an excuse to avoid learning philosophy, right?
If you believe what I believe, you'll hate everyone, consider everyone a hypocrite, eschew all virtues, values, wealth, wife, children, and you'll live in a jar and won't bathe.
Oh, and going to the dentist is vanity too.
Okay. Excellent.
So you're only going to be able to sell philosophy to other masochistic self-hating lunatics.
Great job, everybody!
All right.
Can you justify Jesus as a gatekeeper of the Jungian collective unconscious?
Yes. Collective unconsciousness?
Collective unconscious?
I don't know what that means.
Tell me more.
All right.
What's the proper balance of personal ambition, that is virtuous, and family life including wage and homework for the family?
Right. Your primary job as a parent is to model the kind of life your children want.
I was just talking about this with a friend of mine the other day.
Your job as a parent ... is to model the kind of life that your children will grow up wanting.
So, for instance, if you spend all of your time focusing on work and the kids, right, and you ignore your marriage, right, you let your marriage fall by the wayside, you don't spend much quality time with your husband, your wife or whatever, you spend all your time focusing on work and the kids or whatever, well, then the problem is that your kids grow up not wanting the marriage that you have.
They grew up not wanting the marriage and the relationship that you have with your wife.
That's double plus ungood because then they have to invent their own story of what a marriage is, right?
They have to invent their own stuff.
So, if your kids grow up not wanting the marriage that you have, then it's like teach them English and then they have to move to Japan and never speak English again.
In other words, they have to invent an entirely new Relationship paradigm that they didn't grow up with.
That's not easy, right?
Life on hard mode is when you don't want what your parents have.
So live a life that is what your kids will grow up to want.
Love your wife, have a productive and fulfilling career, work hard, work well.
You are serving your children by going to work as a man, right?
Because you are saying to your daughters, You should have a man who's productive enough that the wife can stay home with the kids.
And you're saying to your sons, go work hard for your family.
And that is a beautiful thing, which it is.
So I don't see any particular opposition between work and family life.
But anyway, how would Encapistan build more roads?
Hashtag checkmate.
That's very funny.
How can therapy help you change?
That damn profile pic, bro.
People are bothered by the oddest things in this world.
They really are.
I mean, Steph's okay, but damn, son, that profile pic is driving me crazy.
Okay. Well, it's good to have priorities in this world.
You know, there's endless cavalcades of bottomless evil and corruption to focus on.
Or, or, hear me out, you can get really angry at my profile pic.
Good. Good priority.
All right.
At times it seems philosophical thought is a form of neuroticism.
Neuroticism is built into nature.
It's that part of a living organism that realizes if it doesn't engage in a consciousness that connects itself to survival followed by precise behavior to assure that survival, it will perish.
What? Okay, let me read that again.
It's that part of a living organism that realizes if it doesn't engage in a consciousness that connects itself to survival followed by precise behavior to assure that survival, It will perish.
Yeah, I mean...
I mean, you can come up with your own definitions and state them like they're somehow proven.
Establish your premises!
Establish your definitions!
So, are you saying that...
I mean...
What? Ants engage in behavior to assure their survival?
Does that mean ants are neurotic?
Come on, man.
Thoughts that goes beyond that...
Oh, so...
It's that part of the...
Okay. Okay, so you're saying that that is not neurotic.
Sorry, I get confused.
That is not neurotic.
So you're saying thought that goes beyond that is mostly superfluous, but with exception it leads to discovery and invention, some of which can become a means of exchange, this further assuring one's survival.
Whether this thought leads to great truth or if it's ever in our scope to comprehend truth versus quote truths is yet to be seen.
We all seem aware that we can argue.
We all seem aware we can deduce more and believe despite the jarring solitude of a life-filled planet in a barren universe.
Everything is in our environment and minds to solve all our problems beyond the marvel of us existing in the first place.
I'm sure AI will give us the tools to see ourselves and beyond ourselves.
It seems our belief there is more is always proving quote itself.
The next few decades will be profound in that regard.
Well that is a lovely bag of marmalade bafflegab.
That is a creeping tsunami of spider-legged tumbleweeds to tickle the brain.
I don't know what the Living hell, any of that adds up to.
Okay, here's the thing.
If you want to say something profound, if you want to say something profound, fantastic.
I think that's wonderful.
So you're saying, well, there's thoughts that is bare survival and more than that could be sensitive neurotic.
However, more than just thinking about survival can sometimes produce good things.
Yeah. That's deep, man.
Whoa. So overthinking can be bad or good.
Thinking about more than bare survival can be neurotic, but it can also be good.
You know, man, a knife can be used to defend yourself, it can be used to cut food, or it can also be used to kill people, man.
So, like, a knife is morally ambiguous.
That's so deep, man.
You want to say something profound?
You know, watch my...
watch my...
17-part history of...
Sorry. Watch my 17-part Introduction to Philosophy series.
You want to see something profound?
Start with the basics.
What is real?
What is true?
What is good?
And go from there.
But saying that stuff which is superfluous to life can be good or bad...
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, that's such a commonplace.
You know...
You know, trees can be fun to climb, so they can be just there for fun.
Trees, you can cut them down and build a cabin so they're there for like utility and shelter.
But also trees can just like fall on you and kill you.
So trees are like a big ambivalent who knows what, you know?
It's really complicated.
It's like, you're not saying anything deep.
Start again.
Fail. Start again.
Start from the basics, build from the bottom up.
All right.
Is it completely unreasonable if I keep falling or getting involved with women already in relationships?
On my mind, it makes some sense that the most interesting and attractive women are quote taken, Why do people put these quotes in like I'm supposed to know what the ever-living fuck you're talking about?
Right? The last guy did this too.
What did he say?
It seems our belief there is more is always proving quote itself end quote.
Quotes don't explain shit, Jack!
Quotes don't explain shit.
I don't know what you mean when you put stuff in quotes.
So, interesting and attractive women are quote taken.
What does quote taken mean?
Does that mean they're not taken or they are taken?
Quotes do not help.
Apparently bored and unfaithful but taken in the end.
All right?
Maybe after a certain age people just cling to loveless relationships.
Maybe when I turn 40 they will all be divorced and I will be like pass.
Turns out I just liked you better when you were just a fling.
All right?
If you keep falling or getting involved with women already in relationships there's probably a couple of reasons for that.
The first is that You prefer the yearning to the getting, right?
You prefer the chase to the catch.
Going after women already in relationships, I mean, I get it.
If you're going after a single woman, it's 1v20.
If you're going after a woman in a relationship, it's 1v1.
And until there's a ring on the finger and the marriage is complete, you know, to some degree, all's fair in love and war.
But if they'll cheat with you, they'll cheat on you, right?
So my guess is that You don't really want to get involved in a romantic relationship, otherwise you'd choose women who were available.
You just want to chase and pursue and all of that.
And you want to keep lower quality women in your environment.
Like, if you really want to know whether you deserve a good man or a good woman, you've got to think about how the scalding, laser Mike Saylor eyes are going to look at the people all around you.
Let's say you're surrounded by The rough-hewn denizens of Trash Planet, right?
Let's just say that around you is just a bunch of scurvy half-orcs in makeup, right?
Kind of trashy, kind of lazy, kind of druggy, kind of wastrels, kind of losers, right?
So, if you want a quality person in your life, you don't just have to be a quality person yourself.
By God, that's just not enough.
What you actually have to be, or have to have, is quality people in your life and in your environment.
I mean, when I first I went out with my wife, we went out with some old friends of mine, had an absolutely hilarious evening of jokes and humor and thought, and she was like, dang, this guy's got some quality people around!
That's nice, right?
So, my guess is that you don't want quality people in you, to date quality people, because let's say you're a guy here and a quality woman is going to look at your friends and say, hmm, I don't think so.
I'm not spending the next 50 years around these losers.
Or they're going to look at your family, right?
Something like that, so.
I would say, you probably, the people around you, don't want the judgments of quality people.
Usually this is at a family level, if you've got trash planet family denizens around, looking like bog demons, then if you've got trashy people around, those trashy people want you to not have quality people around, because quality people around will The quality people who are around will look at them and say, you know, they're kind of losers and you're probably better off without them.
So, all right.
What is the philosophy of the song, the logical song by Supertramp?
When I was young, it seemed the life was so wonderful.
Yeah, miracle, it was beautiful, magical, the birds were singing.
Okay, so this is the idea that we have all of this wonderful, wild, beautiful imagination when we're younger and then we get put into government schools and Supertramp's got a great song called School about Conformity.
You're coming along.
And so, the idea is that you have all this wonderful creativity and then you're put into a school and it's all ground out of you.
Which is very true.
Yeah, it's very true.
You're respectable, presentable, a vegetable.
Yeah. So, it is a condemnation of government schools.
It's not a condemnation of learning rational skills, because Supertramp were very skilled musicians.
You've got to listen to this live in Paris album.
It's fantastic, right?
So, just, you know, keep your kids out of the brain rot of government schools.
All right.
What is your best advice on how to talk to small children about de-food, that's family of origin, you separate from family of origin because of relentless abuse and no apologies, about de-food grandparents and aunts?
My kids, two and four, have I had a relationship with my parents and my sister before I finally quit contact with them this year after they tried to actively ruin my marriage.
The kids have happy and fun memories of my family members and occasionally say that they miss them and want to visit them, although it becomes less and less frequent as time goes.
Once during the first month of my quick contact I overheard my four-year-old playing with two stuffed animals pretending they were grandma and grandpa and that they were dead.
She was very neutral and matter of fact in the tone of her voice no hint of distress or sadness.
I've explained to my kids that my family have done bad things in a manner that they think is understandable for their age without trying to take away the fun memories they have.
I will usually say something like, I understand that you miss grandma but she was not very nice to me when I was a child like you and she made me feel really bad by not listening to me when I was sad.
Or, I know auntie was really fun to play with but auntie is jealous and has tried to destroy my relationship with dad.
And sometimes I will just acknowledge their feelings and not say anything more.
I understand that you miss grandma and grandpa.
How does it feel to miss them?
How do I best balance this?
I don't want to put too much focus on it or transfer my feelings onto my kids but I think it's really important that they fully understand why we don't see my family anymore and of course why I was not able to fully quit contact with them as soon as they turned 18 or at least before my kids were born is a life lesson that caused me a lot of pain but that I hope can be of value to them as they grow older but I don't want to diminish their feelings which might be that they genuinely miss my family.
I understand that this is a dilemma caused by my bad choices And I take full accountability, which is why I'm writing this.
Any advice and thoughts on this would be most helpful.
Thank you so much.
Well, you are, you know, I'm really sorry that this happened with your family.
I do sympathize with and understand the desire to get away from toxic people and probably for the best, right?
But I'm not sure, I don't think what you've done is to take responsibility for having your kids bond with abusers.
Right? I mean, that's a really bad call, man.
It's a really bad call for your kids to spend years and years with abusive people, right?
Because now it's really confusing, right?
If they had great memories with their grandparents, but their grandparents tried to destroy your marriage, then you effed up, bro!
And I say this, you know, we all do it, right?
I'm not trying to condemn you or anything like that, but you put your kids in a situation In the care, custody and control and bonding with people who are, based on what you're saying, obviously you're one side of the story, but generally I side with the adult kids in this matter.
So, have you said to your kids, I made a mistake?
I made a mistake.
I had them in your life and they were bad people and I knew that.
Right? Are you owning, and I don't know at what age you tell them this, but probably should be sooner rather than later.
Because it's your fault and your responsibility.
And I don't say this to make you feel bad, but rather to give you the facts of the situation and empower you, I think, to have the best communication about it.
But it's entirely upon you that they bonded with bad people.
That's entirely on you.
It is your job as a mother, as a father, to provide and protect for your kids.
And again, I really sympathize with, I'm not trying to make you feel bad, but it's also on your spouse, right?
So if you're a guy here, Then it's also and it may even be a little bit more on your wife and if you're the wife it may be a little bit more on the husband.
Because they're not quite as bonded obviously not nearly as bonded to the abusers and so the question is why did your spouse allow destructive and abusive people into your kids lives?
That's the fundamental question you need to ask yourselves and you know without self-condemnation without self-attack and even without self-criticism other than it was not wise.
Because The reason why your kids miss their abusive grandparents, or I get that they weren't abusive to the kids directly, but the reason why the kids miss their abusive grandparents is because of you.
Because you allowed these beasts into the house to bond with your children.
So, you've got to look in the mirror and you've got to ask your spouse, why did you let this happen?
You knew they were bad to me, why didn't we talk about this?
Because it's gonna...
look, bad people are gonna constantly try and worm their way into your family.
You gotta figure out how to keep yourself safe, right?
Let's see.
How do somewhat inalterably poor, have a mental disability, conservative-leaning white men find dateable white women, especially if they live in a city?
Yeah, I mean, so this is a long question and the only thing that I can say is that if you're looking for a needle in a haystack, you sure as hell better have a metal detector.
So, live virtuously.
Be honest, be open, don't shy away from conflict and be relentlessly like you've got a bunch of things like you don't want single moms, you don't want tattoos, you don't want whatever, right?
Okay, so you just have to be relentlessly focused upon your standards.
Now, that's good, right?
Because it used to be that crazy women or dysfunctional women were harder to find because they all kind of look the same.
Now they sorted themselves into clear basket cases, you know, the blue hairs, the nose rings and so on.
So clear basket cases and women with some potential.
The best way to find women as a whole is to get out there in the world and do shit.
Get out there, do something, be prominent.
You know, give a local TED talk.
I don't know, learn guitar and sing at the local cafe.
I don't know, do some loud karaoke.
Volunteer. Do some something charitable.
Just run a podcast.
I don't know, anything that is going to get you some Prominence, so that women can see you are a cut above everyone else, right?
As I mentioned before, when I first met the woman who's now my wife, and we're doing our 23rd wedding anniversary soon, but the woman who became my wife, I had just got my first novel published, so I was someone different and memorable.
So just be doing stuff, be doing stuff, go give poetry readings, like, I don't care, do something that gets you in front of people, Do something that has you stand out from the crowd a little.
Being prominent is the easiest way to find quality partners.
All right.
Hello! How could philosophy help me?
I have many questions for your thoughts, however one that is always on my mind and tears at me constantly.
How are so many people able to torture animals?
I grew up in the 70s watching public television during a time when censorship was more lax and feelings or empathy and snowflakes were not a consideration.
There I witnessed as a child tortured lab animals.
The attendants were having fun so brutally torturing baboons to death.
I'm sickened constantly every day by how these lab students, they sounded like college students, laughed and laughed and had so much fun.
I cannot tell you what they did and I've never told anyone and I never will.
I also have seen horrible torture of animals in the Daily Mail UK of dogs, a greyhound in particular.
Yeah, Fauci did some beagle experiments, right?
That was lifted and put into a gigantic boiling pot.
It tried to get out but couldn't and was boiled alive.
This and much more graphic torture to dogs shown in the UK in the Daily Mail UK Yulon Festival in China.
Most of my life I've been involved with spreading the word through letters and informing some people in conversations if there was a moment that it actually would fit in.
What the hell?
Through letters and informing some people in conversation if there was a moment that it actually would fit in.
Doesn't come up much.
I've been involved in Twitter, on Twitter about all this.
I'm also now on Instagram trying to spread this information.
I've seen horrible pictures of bears being tortured to death after the teeth pulled out, blah blah blah.
All right.
Yes, animals.
Okay. Talking to me in person, you would never know that fact.
I tried counseling four times over many years.
Each therapist left me with more trauma when I entered their doors.
They were so uncomfortable when I said I hated people.
People is generally, not everyone.
I like good people and I hate bad people.
Okay. Sorry, just gonna skim a little here.
So yeah, I mean, So people torture animals because they themselves were tortured as children.
That's all people torture animals because those selfsame people were tortured as children and They have inhabited and become the torturous.
They are normalizing it and children are drawn to that which has the most power, right?
That's why little girls are drawn to Barbie because Barbie has a lot of power Being so pretty at all And boys are drawn to, like, trains and trucks and dinosaurs and spaceships because they have the most power, right?
Superheroes and mighty morphin' power rangers.
So, if you are tortured as a child, then you will very often identify with the torturer because the torturer has the most power, and you're drawn to that which replicates the most power, because that's gonna give you your biggest chance of social and sexual success.
So, I mean, we can't protect animals unless we protect children first.
All right.
So, you should focus on protecting children and then you will protect animals, but focusing on protecting animals without protecting children first is just plain whack-a-mole.
Like, trust me, whatever you do to fight evil, more evil people are being created every single moment of every single day through child abuse.
Whatever you do to fight evil, there's way more people being produced than you're able to rescue.
As a former white-collar business owner, could you offer us some insights into why So many white-collar business owners nowadays expect Swiss army knife employees for salaries commensurate with only one of their skills.
I might see a job posting for a senior level marketing copywriter, but required qualifications will include social media management, several graphic designs and video editing programs, coding knowledge, project management software, etc.
Below average salary.
Oh God, I don't care, man.
Oh, come on, man.
If you're tired of employment considerations, start your own company!
God! Oh, employers are so finicky and so picky and so this and so...
Okay, then there's a sign.
It's a sign from the universe.
Go start your own company.
Start your own business.
I don't care doing what.
Try anything.
It doesn't really matter.
Pressure wash.
Wash people's cars.
Mow lawns.
I don't care.
Start your own company.
It's such a slave mentality to complain about hiring standards rather than going out and starting your own company.
My God.
I started being an entrepreneur in my teens.
Mid-teens, I put up posters all over the place.
I'm a good typist.
I got an electric typewriter.
I got a brand new Carman Harvester and I'll sell you the key.
So, just go and I was like, I would type people stuff.
I'd type up your resume.
I'd just start something.
I was a, just do something.
Start something.
Just stop being passive and complaining and whining.
Oh, people aren't giving me a chance.
Go make your own chances.
My God, you listen to the show.
Ugh. All right.
You've mentioned that you, as a child, thought that most other people were more moral and more reasonable.
Then you started to realize they weren't.
I don't know about that exactly.
How do you deal with the disappointment when you left childhood behind and realized the place, the world, wasn't the nice place you expected it to be?
Yeah, there was a guy who really turned me on to philosophy and Austrian economics.
He became a professor and, my God, he's out there praising pharmaceutical companies for their excellent products and vaccines.
It's like, blech!
God, people can just get bought and sold like kabuki masks.
Yeah, no, it is disappointing.
And the only way to fight disappointment in corruption is to be more virtuous yourself.
Right? You turn disappointment into corruption to a dedication towards your own virtue.
Right? So this is an old thing.
I learned this as a good Christian choir boy when I was younger.
God rest ye merry gentlemen.
No. God rest ye merry gentlemen.
Let nothing you dismay.
I learned all of this, which is you use the devil's temptations to produce virtue.
If the devil tempts you with greed, then be more generous.
If the devil tempts you with lust, be more celibate.
If the devil tempts you with envy, then be more generous in supporting others' dreams, right?
So, you take your bitterness at the amorality of the world and turn it towards your own focus on virtue.
If you're surrounded by fat people, that should drive you to the gym.
How do you raise daughters to not be promiscuous Instagram obsessed?
Keep them away from bad peers.
Have a clear Pair bond with them as a father in particular and mother.
Do all of that wonderful stuff and keep them out of brain rot institutions and you will be good to go.
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