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April 30, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:02:34

How to Evaluate Investments - Livestream

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	Good afternoon, everybody.
	Hope you're doing well.
	It is April 26, 2025.
	I have a little bit of time today and wanted to touch base with Yao and to see if you have any thoughts, preferences, issues, challenges, problems, criticisms, hair club for men, suggestions, armpit braiding, ideas,
	whatever is on your mind, I'm happy to more than indulge.
	But if you have, of course, questions, You can, or comments, or criticisms, of course.
	You can raise your hand.
	Oh, look at that.
	We have a taker right away.
	Yeah, I think I sent you a message.
	I'm the guy who got his channel got nuked.
	So, yeah, that sucked.
	That was on the YouTube planet, right?
	Yeah, it was on the YouTube planet.
	It was doing well.
	Yeah, it sucks.
	I did have a question about business credit.
	I don't know if you, I guess, still know anything about that world or can point me in the right direction.
	I do have really good credits.
	I have about 50k liquid cash.
	I think about 30k credits available to me.
	I just don't know.
	I have all of the stuff.
	I can proof of income, everything.
	Well, technically now, but I just don't know where to...
	To look for business credits and stuff like that.
	Well, tell me what you mean by business credits.
	I'm not sure I understand the term and the way that you're using it.
	Just business loans.
	So I know there are some industry, six-month or 12-month loans.
	I've heard about them or I guess grants or something like that.
	Yeah, that's my understanding.
	I was planning to...
	Well, I was going to take the money I made from YouTube and invest into...
	Some ATMs from a guy that Fresh and Fit recommended.
	So I was wondering if I could speed up the process by getting a business loan and then using that while I'm still recovering and growing again.
	Okay, so is your question, how do you get business loans?
	Yeah, the simple stuff, like point me in the right direction, of course.
	How do I get business loans?
	What are business loans?
	Yeah.
	And you want to invest in ATMs, is that right?
	That's right.
	Okay, got it.
	Now, what is your history of investing?
	Bitcoin.
	Okay, so that's kind of passive in a lot of ways, and it's not hardware and all that kind of stuff, right?
	Yep.
	I think before that, it was just investing in some dividend stocks.
	Okay, so that's a very different...
	Class of investments, right?
	Yep.
	So, how much research have you done into the ATM space?
	Only about 10 hours.
	And how much do you want to invest in the ATMs?
	It's just the only thing I've spent time doing any research on.
	Obviously, because of my situation, I'm more motivated, you could say, to look into stuff like this and getting surplus for my lack of current income.
	Sorry, I'm not quite sure what you mean by that.
	So you have no particular experience in, I assume that you buy ATMs, you put them in particular high-traffic areas, and then you take a percentage of the withdrawals.
	Is that right?
	Well, the company would do that.
	So I'd be buying through the company, and then the guys would work with the sales, and I would buy the machines, and I'd work through them, and their sales team would go to the stores, and then I would make money from that.
	So I'm buying both the machines and, I guess, their sales team.
	Okay, and I assume this is fairly public knowledge since you talked about it coming from the sort of Fresh and Fit show.
	So, what sort of percentage breakdown are we talking?
	That's a good question.
	I haven't done that.
	I don't know how much percentage breakdown.
	I only know how exactly the model works.
	So, I haven't done that research.
	Okay, so when you give the ATMs, let's say it's in a...
	Convenience store or something like that.
	It's generally where gas stations or whatever.
	So, say somebody withdraws $20 and maybe there's a $2 fee or something like that, a dollar fee, and then that's broken down.
	Some of it goes to the store, some of it goes to you, and some of it goes to the salespeople.
	Is that right?
	Do they accumulate based upon the number of stores they put into various places?
	Sorry, the number of ATMs they put into various places.
	I'd be paying them to go into the stores for the stores to use it.
	So I'd pay them.
	I'd buy the machines.
	I'm using my capital to buy the machines up front.
	And their sales team, which goes into the store person by person, and they would say, oh, use this, use this, we want you to use this.
	And then they would convince them to use it, and then I would get a split from that.
	So they don't get the split from...
	I think they do take some for processing, but...
	The sales team isn't getting residuals from that.
	So they just get a flat fee based upon they place the ATM in a store or a location, is that right?
	I guess the sales side would, but yeah, the companies, I still believe they get some residuals, but not the sales team.
	Okay, got it.
	Now, of course, ATMs have been around since I was.
	Gosh, you know, I remember being a DJ in college, and there was a guy who was also a DJ who had figured out a scam.
	You know, you deposit money that's not real, but you're allowed to withdraw it right away.
	So, of course, he's the kind of guy, this is why your funds are put on hold, right?
	Because he had figured out the scam.
	I wasn't exactly sure how it worked, because, I mean, they know who it is, right?
	ATMs have been around for, you know, 30 plus years.
	So is it the case that when new stores open up or new venues, I guess they're not really building malls anymore, right?
	But is it the case that, because I assume that a lot of people who want ATMs, like, already have them, right?
	Well, it's not, I guess, the cash ATMs.
	It would be, no, I don't know how this works exactly, but it would be a new...
	A new machine that does the card.
	So it would be, I guess, a credit card.
	The new credit card ATM theme.
	This is where I should have been more expert.
	I should have had more expertise about what the machines does.
	But it's a machine that saves money through the credit.
	So I guess you go to the store, you use your credit card.
	The store would save money, you would save money, and then there would be residuals.
	Different from the normal Visa, the old machines.
	So you would use the credit card in the ATM, but the fees would be lower, is that right?
	Yeah, it's like a handheld machine.
	Sorry, is it a point of sales or an ATM?
	I don't...
	That's a good question.
	I don't...
	I don't know.
	Okay, so listen, bro, you're a long way from going to get business credit.
	I mean, all your respect, I mean, you're not even sure what the business is yet.
	No, I'm not as competent in this as I thought I was.
	It's not a criticism.
	I mean, listen, I mean, it's cool to have these kinds of opportunities and, you know, I encourage people to look at business opportunities, but it seems to me, it seems to me that you're a long way from, you know, trying to get credit.
	No, no, you're completely right.
	I was, I was actually, I was thinking more because obviously before I didn't have, I didn't, I wasn't any rush.
	I wasn't any.
	I mean, I wanted to do this.
	Obviously, I saved money, but I wasn't like, because I was making enough.
	I was like, okay, I can just figure this out as things go on.
	I can learn more and take my time with it.
	Obviously, now, it just happened like two days ago.
	Like your YouTube channel, right?
	Yeah, so it's two days ago.
	So I'm now like looking, I'm motivated to learn, stuff like that.
	So obviously...
	When I wasn't motivated, I was like, okay, this is a good opportunity.
	Let me look at this.
	Let me do some research.
	And it was more casual.
	But now, obviously, when I'm speaking to you, it's obvious that I should have spent more time understanding exactly what it is that I would be investing.
	Right.
	Even if it's a good investment, but I still should have...
	Or I guess I got time now, so I've got to make sure that I'm...
	Completely sure on exactly how the business works and what exactly I'm investing into.
	Well, and, you know, the most essential thing to think about in terms of business is who is shouldering the risk, right?
	So if, for instance, you have to buy 10 of these ATMs and then cross your fingers and hope the salespeople place them, then you're kind of taking on all the risk, right?
	Yes, so I would be taking the risk.
	I would be taking on all the risk.
	Right.
	So, just so you know, this is sort of a standard business or economics principle.
	There are no really good investments.
	It's impossible.
	I mean, in terms of business, right?
	I mean, obviously, I'm a big fan of Bitcoin and have been forever and a day.
	But there are no really good investments.
	Do you know why?
	Because if there were, then everyone would have already invested in them.
	Yeah.
	I mean, if it's a fantastic investment, then everybody piles in.
	And drives the profits down.
	So don't get fixated on one thing and say, this is sort of my golden ticket, this is my way forward, and so on.
	And also be very alert to, you know, this isn't specific to the Fresh and Fit podcast, I don't really know them from Adam, but be very careful with people who are offering you A great investment.
	And why is that?
	For the same reason, I guess, if they already...
	Well, I mean, they'd be biased.
	They're not going to say, my investment is bad.
	They're going to say, oh, my investment is the best.
	Well, if you can make good money buying 10 ATMs, then why would anyone want you to do that rather than themselves?
	Yeah, they would just...
	They would just do that themselves, finance it and do that themselves.
	I think they do have...
	I think they have like 30 or...
	I don't know how many, but I think they do have some themselves.
	Yeah, but if this were money and another 10, they would do that.
	They would just...
	Yeah, they would just do that.
	It has to be profitable for them to bring in people and then sell them, I guess, the revenue from the ATMs.
	So it would have to be profitable for them to do that.
	Or more profitable than it would be for them just to secure more financing.
	And it's like the microstrategy thing.
	Microstrategy just gets financing or sells convertible bonds and then just does that.
	He doesn't need to market or do anything or do it.
	He just goes to them, hey, give me more money.
	Let me buy Bitcoin.
	That's it.
	Right.
	So, be alert.
	It's sort of like if you've ever been in the business world at any sort of senior level, you get a whole bunch of phone calls.
	I guess your number goes out and there's a whole bunch of stockbrokers who get your number somehow.
	Well, I guess they would scour the website back in the day.
	Probably still do.
	And then you get these calls.
	And it's all these skeevy stockbrokers saying, hey, man, we got a sure thing.
	This stock is going to...
	They always use X, 2X, 5X.
	Over the next six months.
	10x.
	That's a crypto thing.
	I don't know much about stocks, but in cryptos, like, oh, 10,000x.
	Right.
	And then they start dangling this, you know, you can turn 10k into 50k in six months.
	And, you know, the way that our brain works is we start to taste that.
	Like, we start to see it.
	You know, it's like you show a hungry guy.
	A really well-stocked buffet, and his mouth starts watering.
	So when people start talking about multiples, sure thing, money, X, whatever, right?
	Well, we start to see it in our mind's eye, and then what happens is we feel we're going to lose it if we say no.
	Right?
	So they say, oh, 5x in six months, right?
	And then you say, oh, I turned 10k into 50k.
	And then if you say no, I mean, part of your brain thinks that you're walking away from $40,000, right?
	You already assume that you've made the sale.
	Well, I mean, there's a reason why these things work.
	And you kind of have to...
	You know, it's like that car snake in the Jungle Book, Trust in Me guy, with the sort of spiral eyes or the whirlpool eyes.
	And it's like you have to not, you have to work very hard against suggestibility, if that makes sense.
	Work really hard to push back against susceptibility or being programmed in that way.
	So, you know what?
	Yeah, go ahead.
	Sorry.
	It's funny when you say that.
	I think the first time, so I had hired some guys to help me with the YouTube security thing.
	Well, I mean, they're actually pretty good.
	Sorry, what do you mean by YouTube security?
	Just some guys to help me, I guess, protect my channel just in case something like what happened actually happened.
	They're actually pretty good even.
	Sorry, I still don't know what that means.
	Oh, to someone to...
	Who has connection to people inside of YouTube that when something like this happens, I can call or to prevent something like this from happening.
	Does that make sense?
	I give them money.
	They have connections.
	It's like corruption.
	Does that make sense?
	Well, I mean, it does make sense, but how do you know?
	It's just the reputation.
	They're not bad, but it's obviously reputation.
	Their reputation, they came on fresh and fit.
	They have done well.
	They do a good job.
	I don't mean to be overly skeptical.
	If they have good reputation and good reviews and so on, then it seems like that would be a legit approach.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Actually, they helped me with the theme, and they helped me write an appeal, and they're working on that right now.
	In the very small chance that...
	Whatever they did succeeds.
	I'll know by Sunday.
	So maybe this will all just be nonsense.
	But I highly doubt that.
	And did you get any warnings?
	Actually, so the people that I'm clipping, they did a stream catching pedophiles.
	And they were, I guess the guy was, YouTube said it was harassment and bullying.
	What I did was I appealed and then rejected, but what I should have done is I should have just deleted all of the Ketchupito stuff.
	But yeah, so what was the question again?
	Well, did you get like the three strikes or did you just get...
	No, I just got one and then went to sleep, woke up in the morning, it was gone.
	Oh, so you just got a notification that you were toast.
	No, not even a notification.
	I tried to log in with my phone, and then it's like, oh, this account doesn't exist.
	Wow.
	Yeah.
	I got a warning, but that's not a strike.
	And then I got one warning, and then my channel was gone.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Well, I'm sorry about that.
	I'm sorry about that.
	I appreciate that.
	Currently, I've got another one I'm working on.
	I'll be working to get that monetized, so hopefully I'll be able to do that by the end of the month, and then I'll be able to get at least some income to supplement.
	Yeah.
	Right, okay.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Sorry, were you going to say something?
	No, go ahead.
	Okay, so I was on a note, I was talking about, so the guys who I hired, obviously I've never dealt with salespeople before, so it was more like this kind of thing where I was, I noticed how salespeople are,
	where it's more suggestible, where I could feel that they were trying to make the sale, right?
	So I could feel that.
	Sorry, you mean the salespeople who were trying to sell you on the ATM purchases?
	Not the ATM purchases, the YouTube...
	Oh, my apologies.
	Got it.
	Okay.
	So before this, I was thinking of getting another channel and automating it.
	I was planning to be lazy and then just have them do the work and I just sit back and do nothing.
	Turns out that the cut that they would take, it's not a lot, but I just realized, say I'm making $17,000, there's like $2,000, I'd be keeping $15,000, which is fine, but I just realized I'm not doing anything other than YouTube.
	It doesn't really make sense for me to spend $2,000 to make $15,000 and then do nothing for...
	Yeah, I mean, because I don't...
	This is my work.
	I don't have any other jobs.
	I can just work and then save money and then buy another...
	I don't really understand what you're talking about.
	Spend $2,000 to make $50,000?
	25x.
	What is that?
	Is it automated?
	I'm not sure what that means.
	Oh, it just means I would hire people to do what I'm doing on the current channel.
	So I would not have to do it myself.
	I would hire people.
	Oh, you mean to, like, edit and upload?
	Exactly.
	So you give them a script and they edit and upload?
	I would give them the formula that I use and they would replicate it and then I would upload.
	Like, I would be completely hands-off.
	I just pay them.
	I get most of the, obviously, I pay them the fee and then I get the rest, whatever the YouTube, the channel makes.
	I'm not sure what you mean.
	I'm sorry.
	It's been forever since I've been on YouTube.
	What do you mean by the formula?
	Just the process by which I make videos.
	Yes, I get that.
	But do you not have to have some input on how the videos are made?
	Not.
	Well, I mean, I would just teach them how I make the videos.
	I wouldn't have to be consistently there once they understood how I make the videos.
	Oh, okay.
	And then I assume there's some sort of contract where they say, we're not just going to take your formula and go off and do it ourselves.
	Because why would they sell their services for two grand if they could make 50 grand with the same expertise?
	Well, that's what I thought, too.
	Only implicitly because they have a lot of work.
	So they do work on other channels larger than mine, but obviously that's the thought that came to mind as well.
	Mainly what I was looking for from them was obviously the YouTube connection, the insider YouTube.
	Yeah, that's what I was mainly seeing.
	So I'm like, okay, instead of doing that, I'll just get the YouTube connections and then I'll just do that.
	I don't have to hire these guys.
	I can just keep doing what I'm doing.
	Yeah, I always wonder with this harassment stuff, I don't know.
	But, you know, if it was a video of someone, I don't know, yelling at a MAGA hat wearer in public, Whether that would cause a problem or not, right?
	Well, YouTube's liberals, right?
	So everything is kind of spinned by the feminist ideology.
	The people are there just on that.
	So it would be different.
	They would be seen as a different lens.
	Victimhood, privilege, all that stuff would be taken into account.
	Be like, okay, well, it's not the same.
	Yeah, all conservatives are criminals and all criminals are victims.
	Right, okay.
	Exactly, like the pedophile.
	Got it.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So, I appreciate that background, and I will tell you my thoughts.
	Of course, anybody who wants to chime in, please feel free.
	So, in general, I think the best way to approach business investment is not necessarily to get business loans, but rather to get people with expertise to invest.
	So, when I first started or co-founded a software company back in the 90s, yeah, reluctant to find he stuck in the 90s.
	So, when I got that business started, we pulled together 80k.
	Now, remember, that's Canadian.
	So, it's like South Korean reals or something.
	But, but, the but, something with yen.
	So, but, you know, in the 90s, that was a fair chunk of change, and it was enough to get us started.
	And the money was certainly valuable.
	The money was helpful.
	The money was a plus.
	The money was good.
	However, the real benefit was not the money that was sort of necessary but not sufficient.
	The real benefit was having a bunch of people with business expertise.
	Who wanted to protect their investment by giving us good advice.
	Now, I knew the tech side, and my partner knew the business requirements, and these guys gave us the how-to, you know, the actual sort of running the business stuff.
	So, of course, if you just get a loan, well, of course, if you get a business credit, you get a loan, you got to pay it back.
	Right?
	Even if the business fails.
	And nobody is particularly invested in your success, if that makes sense.
	They're investing in their money.
	They get their money back either way, right?
	Mm-hmm.
	Unless you're getting, I don't know, $50 million, in which case the bank probably does care, but we're not talking that, right?
	So, in general, I think if you want to start a business in particular, if it's your first sort of, I mean, bricks and mortar business rather than something online.
	And by bricks and mortar, of course, I don't mean necessarily buildings, but stuff that's physical rather than digital.
	My strong suggestion would be to cast about friends, family, extended family, people you went to school with, anyone you can find online, maybe on LinkedIn or something, and find someone who might be willing to invest.
	You know, give them the pitch, right?
	See, the problem is, while I suppose the bank cares about your assets, so if you have assets to cover the loan, I guess they'll give you the loan, and maybe they will put you through the grinder as far as,
	is this a viable business?
	Maybe.
	I don't know.
	I mean, I remember co-signing guarantees for payroll back in the day.
	Pretty hairy experience.
	But I think, in general, if you have enough collateral, the bank knows they're going to get their money back no matter what, then they probably wouldn't put you through the kind of grueling Q&A that an investor will.
	And if you don't go through that grueling Q&A, which is sort of, I mean, obviously I was doing that in a very minor way at the beginning of this conversation, but somebody who's going to invest, If they're interested, somebody who's going to invest is going to put you through that grueling Q&A,
	right?
	Because if the company, what was the phrase my business augurs in?
	If the company just craters, then he loses or she loses everything, right?
	That's the difference between a loan and an investment in general, right?
	An investment, you know, if you invest in...
	I mean, if you lend someone $10,000 and you paper it as a contract, they've got to give you the $10,000 back, right?
	If you invest $10,000 into Hawk Tour Girl's meme coin and it goes to zero, well, you're SOL, right?
	Can't get your money back.
	So, I think in general, it's really good to try and find somebody who's experienced in business.
	And get them to invest.
	Now, how much money are you looking to get a hold of?
	That's a good question.
	Uh... Thank you.
	I don't actually know.
	I don't know how much I would need.
	Just give me a ballpark.
	10, 50, 100, 200?
	It'll only be 60. Okay, so you're looking for 60 grand.
	Is that US?
	U.S. No, that would be Canadian.
	I've already done the conversion from the U.S. Okay, got it.
	Now, the challenge, of course, is it takes about the same amount of time to evaluate a 60K investment as it does a 600K or a 6 million K investment.
	Obviously, a little bit more the larger it gets.
	But there's kind of a minimum.
	Time and investment, I assume you'd have to put together if you were trying to get investors.
	Or maybe even if the bank is skeptical, if you don't have the assets to cover the loan, then they'll want to know probably a little bit more about the business.
	But to evaluate your 60K proposal is going to take X number of hours.
	Let's say it's 20 or 10 or whatever, 20 hours.
	And it would be less for somebody who's already in the business.
	But then...
	If they're already in the business, they're already in the know, why wouldn't they just take the 60k and instead of giving it to you, just invest in the ATMs directly?
	That's always a challenge, right?
	Because you're kind of educating people on opportunity if you're looking for loans or investment.
	So the challenge is that people who have money, what they want to do is they want to invest in something that's going to give them You know, the most return, obviously.
	So that's a blatantly obvious thing to say.
	But if they invest, let's say you say you can double your money in 18 months.
	I don't know, whatever.
	You can make it up, right?
	So you can double your money in 18 months.
	Okay, so 18 months later, they invest 60, they get back 120.
	But if they invest 600 in some other guy, they could get back 1.2 million, which is quite a bit more exciting than 120K, right?
	Yeah, so that's a little bit more of a challenge, but you really do need to, in my humble opinion, you really do need to go through that process of grueling questions.
	Unless it's, you know, I mean, I didn't go through that with FDR, but, you know, this show is like a madcap passion project, right?
	It's not a rational business model.
	It's a Hail Mary.
	Make the world spiritually wealthy and wise through philosophy rather than some, you know, practical.
	I mean, there's nobody who would invest at a dime if I had said to them, yeah, I'm going to yell at a microphone in my car and then I'm going to publish stuff and I'm not going to take any ads.
	I have no idea how to monetize it, but I'm going to do that.
	How much do you want to invest?
	People are like, that's insane.
	Like, what are you doing, right?
	Because I think I did podcasting for like a year or a year and a half, maybe a little longer, before people said, hey, you should have a donation page.
	I'm like, oh, that's interesting.
	Maybe.
	So if it's a passion project, but it doesn't sound like the ATM thing is a sort of liberate the masses Bitcoin Satoshi Nakamoto passion project or like free domain.
	So you need people to grill you and you need to be Extremely skeptical.
	Because there's a lot of people, and again, this is nothing in particular to the fresh and fit guys who, again, I don't know from Adam, I'm just talking in general.
	There are a lot of people who will dangle surefire things, easy opportunities, 2x, 5x.
	And it's really, really important to be massively skeptical and to kind of put yourself in their shoes.
	If you, let's say, Let's say you buy 10 ATMs and somehow you're able to make, let's say, 20K a month, right?
	Let me just pull these numbers out of my armpit, right?
	Okay.
	So if you're able to make 20K a month with 10 ATMs, well, if it's 60K to start, then we're not taking EBITDA taxes.
	I get all of that, right?
	But let's just use the raw numbers.
	So if you're able to make 20K a month, Let's drop it.
	We'll make it 10k a month, right?
	So if you're able to make 10k a month with 10 ATMs, then you'll want to buy 10 more, right?
	Exactly.
	And you can fund that.
	I mean, again, just using retarded raw numbers, you can fund that in six months.
	With the money you get from the...
	Yeah, and then you can, instead of making 10k a month, you're making 20. Or instead of 20, you're making...
	A 40 or something like that.
	And then you just keep doing that until something saturates, right?
	You can't find any good new locations for the ATMs.
	The salespeople can't place them.
	Whatever it is, right?
	You would keep expanding until you saturate, right?
	Now, would you...
	This is the question you've got to ask yourself.
	It's a tough question, right?
	But would you...
	If you're making 10k a month from 10 ATMs, what the first thing you do is say, I've got to get someone else to buy 10 ATMs.
	No, you would just buy 10 more ATMs.
	Well, that's the challenge, right?
	That's the challenge.
	Which is, why would someone want you to buy a great investment rather than invest in it themselves?
	I mean, if you knew for sure, let's say you knew for sure, there's sort of some ABC stock, right?
	And let's say, let's pretend that you could read the future.
	And let's say that you knew, and you didn't have anything illegal, like no insider information.
	But you just, sorry, could you not touch the microphone and stuff like that?
	It's a lot of rustling and so on going on.
	I'd appreciate that.
	So, let's say that you knew the stock was going to double in three months.
	Well, would you try and get other people to invest in the stock?
	I mean, maybe friends, maybe family or people you really cared about, but your major focus would be to invest in it yourself, right?
	Well, I would invest everything I could first, and then when I couldn't either get any more credit or I didn't have any more assets or anything, then I would get as many people to invest in it as well.
	Right, right.
	Right.
	Okay.
	So, people, if they have a surefire moneymaker, they tend, in general, to invest in it themselves, and then family, and then close friends, and then maybe acquaintances.
	Maybe.
	But it tends to be very concentric, right?
	Sort of think of a bullseye, right?
	The black in the center or the red in the center.
	It tends to be, I'll invest myself.
	And then I will invest.
	I will encourage my family.
	I will encourage close friends.
	And it'll sort of radiate outwards from there.
	But when people say, I have a really great investment, and you, who I don't know from Adam, should invest in it, I would be a tiny bit on the cautious side.
	It doesn't necessarily follow.
	The general patterns of rational self-interested human behavior.
	You know, like the guys who used to call me up trying to flog their two-bit stocks.
	This thing going three X in six months, you know, it's like I would just say to them, well, you should really invest in that then, shouldn't you?
	Right?
	But I really had to work because, you know...
	I'm British, very polite.
	Oh, do go on, sir.
	But I really had to work to dispel this genie of magic powers of money.
	Oh, can't you just taste the gold in your mouth, the diamonds in your hand, the silver thread thong mithril underwear that you could be prancing around town in, right?
	I mean, people will talk up all of this kind of stuff, and it becomes real in your mind, right?
	Sort of the pornography principle, right?
	I mean, we are kind of hardwired to be sexually aroused when we see sexual activity, because we grew up in these fairly undifferentiated blob tribes, and if sex is going on, we want to get in on something.
	Not necessarily with the woman who's...
	But if sex is going on, we kind of want to get involved in that, because that's how our genes get replicated and so on, right?
	So the fact that when things are portrayed to us...
	They become quite real and vivid in our mind is very powerful.
	It's a very powerful thing.
	And it's got its strengths, of course, in that we can, you know, I envisioned a big, powerful, worldwide conversation about philosophy and made it so.
	I picture things in my mind with regards to characters and storytelling and themes and morals.
	And I've written, I don't know, eight novels and stuff like that, six novels.
	So we have all of this stuff, which is good, but it can also be used to exploit us, in that people dangle these imaginary piles of gold in front of us, and they become real in our mind,
	and we kind of feel like we have them and we own them, and if we walk away, we're losing something.
	So I would be...
	Skeptical, which doesn't mean every business opportunity is bad, of course, right?
	I'm just saying that.
	Put yourself in the other person's shoes.
	If you wouldn't behave as they do, it's something to be very cautious about.
	And if I were in your shoes, and it doesn't really matter whether it's ATMs or POS or something like that, but I would definitely try to find people who had already gone down this path.
	And contact them.
	Now, a good bunch of people who are trying to get others to invest, right, they should have a whole roster of people who've gone down this path already and should tell you, here's the strengths, here's the weaknesses, here's what I learned,
	here's the pluses, the minuses, whatever, right?
	But I personally would not take 60K of hard-earned cash and throw it into a venture.
	Without talking to people who'd already gone down the path.
	And not just cherry-picked people, but there should be a forum or people who are willing to talk to you and so on to see how they fared.
	Because, you know, every investment has its strengths and weaknesses, and you don't want to invent the wheel.
	Also, you can ask if they have a mentor program.
	In other words, if you get to invest in something.
	Like this, do they have a mentor program where you have access to people with more experience?
	Just a bunch of stuff to sort of protect your hard-earned assets.
	And again, this is not to say, I don't know whether you should or shouldn't invest in anything.
	I'm not trying to give you any kind of advice about that.
	I don't know.
	But I would certainly say that conservative caution is probably the way to go.
	Does that sort of make sense?
	That makes sense.
	Just a review.
	Okay, so the first thing I should be looking for is to look for people to invest in me that can scrutinize, I'm just writing this down, scrutinize my ideas and my business.
	Well, hang on, hang on, hang on.
	So, I don't want to go over this because it's recorded.
	So you can just go back and listen to it again.
	So I don't want to do a recap of something that's recorded and will be published.
	Because, of course, especially if you're a donor, you get transcripts and summaries.
	So I don't want to go over that, if that's all right.
	No, that's fine.
	All right, then everything is good.
	You've helped me a lot.
	So, yeah, I appreciate it.
	You're very welcome, and I wish you the very best of luck.
	And I'm sorry about this YouTube thing.
	I'd like to pretend I'm surprised, but I don't think I could muster that myself.
	Yeah, I'm working to get back there, but I appreciate it.
	All right.
	Monsieur Zyral.
	What's on your mind, my friend?
	Ah, yes.
	Hello.
	Hello.
	Sorry, I didn't realize.
	How are you doing?
	Hey, how are you?
	I'm good, I'm good.
	Well, first of all, I was just going to add a quick comment to the last caller, which was around the, you know, looking for who has to benefit from your investment, right?
	So, as someone who actually has looked into this topic quite a few years ago, one of the things that...
	Yeah, the ATM stuff specifically.
	Just like everyone, sometimes business opportunities come up, and I have had this one come up before.
	And one of the things I looked at is, well, who has to benefit from your investment?
	In this venture as well.
	So it's not just what you have to gain, it's about what others have to gain.
	And one of the things that at the time I started looking at is, well, there's a huge decline in transactions from ATMs.
	Because as people are going more and more cashless, everyone's using tap to pay, and there's a lot.
	I think in Australia, we're one of the worst countries at this.
	It's declined by over 70% in just a few years.
	So it's like 13 of all transactions in this country are now with cash.
	And it's going further and further down.
	13%.
	Yeah, 1-3.
	Because people didn't want to take cash for fear of the virus.
	Exactly.
	And actually, banks...
	If you think about who wants to make the most money in the world, probably the banks.
	And banks are shutting down ATMs and branches all over the country because people are doing everything electronically.
	Everyone's doing online banking or they're tapping their cards wherever they go.
	So there's a massive reduction in cash use.
	And so I'd be thinking, well, who would be the people who'd want to benefit from that?
	Right?
	And so the people who already have ATMs probably want to offload their problem to someone else would be the first thing I'd be thinking about.
	So that was just kind of the thought process I was going to elicit is like, well, who has to benefit?
	And this goes for any business opportunity.
	Who has to benefit from your investment?
	And look down their motivations for doing that rather than, you know, why aren't they already themselves just going out and expanding their massive portfolio of ATMs, right?
	Or whatever other business venture.
	But that was the main thing I was going to contribute to that.
	Yeah, sorry.
	I mean, I actually have an acquaintance who did some ATM stuff many, many years ago when it was really early days.
	And you did pretty well.
	But, you know, late-stage markets are, you know, it's kind of like going to the gold rush now rather than, say, in the 1880s.
	I mean, can you find some gold?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	But not much.
	It's kind of all, like, all the easy stuff is done and gone, if that makes sense.
	Yep.
	So, the actual thing I was going to talk about, and I don't know how long I've got, so this is me just thinking about that now.
	Wait, so do you mean on your side or my side?
	Oh, on my side, on my side, sorry.
	Oh, too busy for philosophy, are we?
	Sorry, go ahead.
	No, no, no.
	But this is an interesting topic that has kind of come up for me quite a lot.
	So, as you know, we've been on a fertility journey for a long time now, and we've spoken about it before.
	And, you know, one of the things I find very interesting is everyone's reaction to the topic of things like surrogacy.
	Because everyone who is aware of the topic...
	It knows that it can be very, very expensive, and it's quite a long and difficult journey.
	But for some people, they think this is like, hey, this is the easy way to have children or something, like you can just whip out some bills and someone will want to get pregnant for you.
	The funny thing is, is a lot of people, once they actually get the details, Kind of like trying to convince me to go, hey, you know, why don't you just not have kids?
	And funnily enough, the people who are more, you know, like more for you, like just, you know, hey, you've already...
	We tried everything.
	Just, you know, why don't you quit now instead of just spending, you know, additional resources, time, and money into making it happen?
	Generally, the people who already have kids, which is quite interesting, an anecdote.
	And I was just wondering what you thought of that.
	And, you know, just wanted to kind of get your thoughts on...
	And why you think people who already, especially the ones who already have kids, which is funnily enough, the people who don't have kids are the most sympathetic towards what we've been dealing with.
	And what's your, just for the people that, you don't have to share anything you don't want to, of course, my friend, but what's the length of your journey so far?
	13 years.
	12 to 13 years.
	Right.
	Right.
	Now, obviously, some of that's been...
	Sorry, just to add a little bit of context.
	So some of that has been like, you know, we got married 13 years ago.
	We started trying to have kids.
	Didn't happen.
	We didn't know why.
	But my wife had several issues.
	We had to stop for a few years at doctor's recommendations just to...
	Because she had to go on some...
	What do you call it?
	IUD.
	She had to add an IUD in.
	To let her body recover because she went through this time where she just was literally having a period every single day for a year straight and her body was just not handling it, right?
	Like she was anemic.
	She had loads of health problems that came from that.
	And so they stopped that process for a few years to let her, you know, her body recover because she wouldn't be able to carry a healthy pregnancy otherwise.
	Right, right.
	Then we decided to go off that and do IVF.
	We've done IVF several times.
	We've had miscarriages.
	We've had a lot of failed IVF transfers.
	We spent probably $100,000 on going through the whole IVF process.
	And at the last miscarriage, my wife's like, I just can't keep doing this, but we still want kids, right?
	It's very important to us.
	And so we're fortunate that I do make...
	A decent amount of money and that we have the financial opportunity to pay for surrogacy, even though it's extremely expensive and we're definitely having to sacrifice.
	It's not like I've got the required money on hand right away, right?
	We've saved up for it and sacrificed to make this happen.
	And a lot of people are like, well, you know, you could just give up on the idea of having kids or some are like...
	Why don't you just adopt, right?
	Or why don't you just, you know, give up having kids?
	A lot of people are quite happy without kids and, you know, they just go traveling the world and blah, blah, blah.
	You know, kids are expensive anyway.
	And it's just interesting that the ones who are like, hey, just give up, it's not worth it, are the ones with kids.
	That's the thing that really kind of bothers me a little bit, is why are they the ones who are just more, like, willing to just go, well, you know.
	But then the next thing I ask them is, Well, you have kids.
	Are you saying you'd rather not have them?
	And they're like, no, no, no, we love our kids.
	They're the best thing to ever, blah, blah, blah.
	And it's just like, why are you so willing to throw someone else's dreams to have a family under the bus, right?
	And so I always get very interesting answers from that, but I wanted to get your perspective on it.
	Yeah, I mean, to me, sort of three thoughts pop into my mind, and I'll start with the most difficult to the least difficult, is that At some point, I mean, obviously I hope that you get what you want, but at some point you'll have to stop if you don't, right?
	Yes.
	And do you guys have a time frame for that?
	Yes, we do.
	Okay.
	So it could be that people are saying, you have to stop, or you should consider stopping.
	And they may do that out of just care and concern for you and your lovely wife.
	Yes.
	And, you know, to take a sort of ridiculous example, like if I was your friend and I was like, I'm going to be an actor, right?
	And for 13 years I don't get any roles, what might you say to me?
	Well, maybe acting's not your thing, right?
	Yeah, like, look, it's been 13 years, you don't have any roles, and you should definitely consider not or trying something else, right?
	And so part of it could be, That it's not like, you know, if you don't, like when you first started trying 13 years ago, and your wife didn't get pregnant in the first month, I mean, of course, nobody would say to you,
	well, that's it, you should just stop trying.
	Right?
	Now, at some point, if it doesn't happen, and again, you know, fingers and toes crossed that it does.
	You guys would be wonderful parents.
	I've known this fellow for years.
	And so...
	At some point, if you don't get what you want, if the fates and the gods and the eggs and the sperm are unkind for whatever reason, then you will have to stop.
	It's kind of like if you want to be a ballet dancer and you're in your late 20s and you haven't made it in any way, age is overtaking you, so to speak, right?
	So that would be one aspect of it.
	The other aspect of it...
	Would be that if people, like, knowing how much you guys want to have kids, people who had kids relatively easily are going to feel kind of rough.
	And they're not going to, you know, I mean, I assume that you're a very thoughtful and kind man.
	I assume your friends are the same way.
	So your friends, you know, what are they going to do?
	Say, you know, boy, being a parent is the greatest thing ever.
	I mean, they're going to try to be...
	Somewhat sensitive to the fact that their happiness, through nobody's fault, right, but their happiness is to some degree your pain, right?
	Yeah.
	And I don't know that there's any particular way around that.
	So it could be that, you know, they might downplay their happiness regarding having children because it's upsetting for you.
	And listen, I mean, again, it's nobody's fault.
	It's not like they're doing anything wrong.
	It's not like you're doing anything wrong, but it is just what it is, right?
	That if, you know, they're pretty happy to have kids, you desperately want kids, they had it relatively easy, you're having it ridiculously hard, it is just going to be one of these things that they're going to downplay out of consideration, if that makes sense.
	No, it makes sense, and it actually...
	It correlates exactly with a lot of the replies I've gotten from people.
	So some people are downplaying their happiness and keep giving excuses as to why, oh, you know, kids are expensive.
	You know, they can be a pain in the backside sometimes.
	The ones that really kind of upset me, though, is when they go, oh, you know, if you really want...
	Kids have mine.
	I'm like, but, you know, in a dismissive way, like, you know, how some people are like, you know, my kids are being a pain.
	You know, you can have them if you really want to, but they don't actually mean it.
	They're saying it in a flippant way.
	Right.
	It kind of makes me upset a little bit because it's like, you know, you're dismissing the gift that you have, you know.
	In a way.
	But those are generally not people who are close to me or friends.
	They're just, like, people who I talk to about it.
	Generally, my friends wouldn't say things like that.
	But it is, you know, it kind of is interesting, though, that it's usually the people who have them that will be more, like, you know, towards, hey, you know, maybe you'll consider quitting now.
	On the question of have we considered, of course we have.
	And our consideration is that, you know, at the end of...
	So we've got six embryos that we're shipping to a foreign country because you can't...
	It's very difficult to do surrogacy in Australia because of the laws and the legislations.
	You have to find altruistic surrogacy, which means someone's got to do it out of the goodness of their heart for no...
	Compensation whatsoever.
	It's not allowed.
	It's in fact illegal and carries jail sentences for doing surrogacy with a commercial intent.
	So you have to go overseas to do it.
	And that makes it hard too.
	So we do have six embryos that we are shipping.
	And so once we attempt those six embryos, that's where we will most likely call it.
	And we're looking to attempt two at the same time.
	So two different women and hopefully to have two children.
	That's our goal.
	Okay.
	Well, listen man, fingers and toes crossed.
	I absolutely wish the very best for you and your wife and I hope that you get it for sure.
	When's it going down?
	So they're shipping out next week on the 29th of April.
	It takes about a couple of months to match with the surrogates because they can't just have them on hold waiting for the things to arrive, right?
	Because obviously there's way more demand than there is a supply.
	So a lot of the clinics who have...
	Surrogates to do the work there.
	Obviously, it's on a demand basis.
	As they come in, generally they go out.
	So generally there's like a time to match up.
	So we're hoping if everything goes well, it could take like one or two attempts.
	Sometime next year, end of next year, you know, is mid to end of next year is what we're thinking about when hopefully we'll have two kids.
	That's the hope anyway.
	But yeah, it's going to be quite a long journey still.
	Still quite a lot to go.
	And obviously there's no guarantees.
	We can still get to the end of that and nothing works out.
	At that case, we'll...
	That's kind of what we've set as the stopping line for us, for at least trying to have genetically our own children.
	We have thought about adoption, which is another thing people always ask about, but people don't understand how difficult adoption is and how...
	There's a lot of misunderstanding about how adoption is, which is a, oh, there's children everywhere who are just looking for parents, which is a massive misconception.
	It's not true.
	In our country alone, there's only been, the last year, we had 16 international adoptions in this country.
	That's one six across the entire, you know, all 26 million Australians, people who are looking for adoptions.
	There's massive waiting lists.
	And there's only 18 countries that they can adopt from, and there's a very limited number of babies ever up for adoption.
	So normally if you're adopting, it's going to be in children five and above, which come with a whole bunch of psychological issues, a whole bunch of trauma that normally comes associated with those.
	And it's not a very...
	It's an easily available thing.
	It's also extremely expensive, which people don't know.
	And also the thing is, is with abortion becoming such a common procedure in most Western nations, there's actually a very limited number of babies ever even available.
	So even nationally...
	Almost every adoption has been, it's usually within the family, so it'll be like a grandmother adopting her grandson or something like that, because normally they'll get put into the foster system, so they'll just go bouncing around from house to house until they return to their biological parents.
	Yeah, the reality is people have this fantasy idea that, oh yeah, adoption's just easy and you can just do it.
	Waiting lists can take over six to ten years.
	It can cost insane money.
	I think in our country, it's over $60,000.
	And there's restrictions on how old you can be, how much income you have, everything about your life gets scrutinized, all your finances, your home, everything.
	They come and visit.
	It's way easier to just go to the pub and knock someone up, right?
	It's crazy.
	People think that it's...
	It's just something you can do.
	It's not.
	It's extremely, extremely difficult.
	I don't know how...
	Sorry, sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, go for it, sorry.
	Go ahead, you had your thought.
	Oh, I was just going to say, people just think it's something that is widely available, and it's actually not.
	Right, and you had said 16 out-of-country adoptions, but what do you mean by, like, why would you restrict it to out-of-country, because there's just not that much in-country, or what do you mean?
	So, the rules around adoption within Australia is you have to...
	So, the only children that will be put up for adoption that isn't within the same family unit, so, you know, grandparents or aunts and uncles adopting, you know, family members, is they have to be extremely disabled.
	Like, to the point where...
	Generally, they're very, very high needs.
	Yep.
	Or they've been basically marked as unsuitable for the foster system.
	Yep.
	And so generally, I've known people who've gone through the foster system as people who've adopted, not an adoption, they've fostered children themselves.
	Someone I knew did 36 kids throughout her lifetime, and man, it had a massive impact on her life and her kids.
	It destroyed her relationships with her own blood children because of how destructive the The nature of the relationships within the foster system is.
	You know, a lot of them come from drug-addicted families or have been abused in all kinds of horrific ways.
	And then you mix them with your own family and it can be quite...
	Difficult and challenging, as you can imagine.
	And oftentimes what will happen is also the birth parents want the child back.
	They might go clean for a little while.
	Maybe they'll stop committing crime or they'll stop taking drugs or alcohol.
	And then the system's designed to return them back to their parents.
	So when they do that and then inevitably they fall off the bandwagon again, They just go back into the foster system, usually with a different parent, and round and round they go.
	It's actually a horrible system.
	Really, really not good.
	I mean, it's the government, so it's bad as a whole, but I'm not sure what solutions there are in those kinds of situations as a whole.
	But sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, no, it's a really perverse system, too, because there are financial incentives for people to go into the foster system.
	So some people...
	You know, they get large handouts from the welfare system to foster children.
	So you don't always get the best kind of parents either in the system, which is another sad thing.
	Yeah, it's a disaster.
	Let's put it that way.
	As you said, anything involving government, right?
	It's always a disaster.
	Right, yeah.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, no, that was it.
	So there's just a massive incentive to just keep...
	Kids bouncing around homes and, you know, all under the guise of, you know, they're just really trying to stabilize them as much as they can before they can return them to their parents, because that's the ultimate goal of the system, is just to return them to their parents.
	Right, right.
	Okay.
	So, what percentage of parents do you think regret having children?
	Man.
	From what I hear from people telling me, percentage of regret?
	Oh, man, probably 30% to 40% of the ones I've spoken to.
	Right.
	So, studies and surveys suggest that between 5% and 14% of parents regret having children, with some estimates placing the figure as high as 20%.
	It's actually a percentage of parents in Poland was higher.
	Who regret having children than studies in the US and Germany.
	Several factors contribute to parental neglect, including burnout, financial strain, loss of personal freedom and professional development.
	And single parents and those with lower incomes are more likely to regret having children, possibly due to increased stress and financial difficulties.
	And of course, parents of children with special needs may have challenges.
	I mean, there was this, I mean, wild...
	A conversation that was going on over the last week or two on Twitter when Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was talking about some of the autistic kids who, you know, never going to hold a job, can't sometimes even go to the bathroom on their own, never going to get married, never going to write a poem.
	And, of course, everyone kind of took that personally, or a lot of people did.
	Well, my autistic kid is just kind of quirky.
	It's like, well, yeah, sure, that's good.
	I mean, relative to the 25% of autistic people.
	Who are really, really not going to progress very far.
	And I guess, I mean, of course, the parents with higher functioning autistic kids don't want that to be stigmatized.
	But at the same time, I think we do have to have a lot of sympathy.
	I mean, almost bottomless sympathy for the parents of the autistic kids who are, you know, big and strong and have little control over their temper sometimes and do have a real challenge on their plates.
	So the reason I was saying that is that Some parents, and this is sort of the least positive of the three that I was talking about at the beginning of the convo, but some parents are probably going to say, deep down, parenting isn't what I thought.
	And do not enjoy the process of parenting.
	And there's a bunch of reasons for that.
	One, I think, that is not really well remarked upon.
	Is the amount of propaganda the kids are being fed these days in school functionally alienates them from their parents a lot of times or sets them against their parents.
	and the yeah
	Go ahead.
	I was going to say, like, everything you just said, kind of just, like, I relate to most of it because, A, I come from a single-parent household, like you may or may not remember.
	So my circle of people around me growing up has all been around the single-parent groups.
	So that's why...
	Clearly, my figures, my guess for parental regrets, significantly higher than what might be in the general population, because that's the people I was surrounded with growing up, right?
	Because single mums attract single mothers, right?
	And secondly, with the disability, right?
	So my wife's...
	Sorry, your sister has a disabled sister?
	No, no.
	My wife has a sister who's extremely disabled.
	She can't talk.
	She's literally in her 30s and has no ability to speak or communicate in a way that anyone can understand.
	She was born with some epilepsy issues, and then she lived in a rural town.
	This is according to her parents, right?
	How much of this is 100% accurate, I'm not sure, because her mother's not overly reliable.
	But the way it came across was that she had a fever as a child from a flu, and the doctor in the rural town refused to treat her because she was disabled.
	And it caused her brain damage.
	Sorry, but the disability was epilepsy before?
	Yeah.
	Epilepsy and spinal.
	She also had a spinal disability, so it gave her a curved spine.
	It's called scoliosis.
	So, and she did have some intellectual impairments as well, but it wasn't, like, she was able to speak before.
	Let's put it that way.
	She lost speech.
	She lost all ability for logic and reasoning.
	And she mostly, like, you can't really ask her to do something or tell her to do anything.
	Like, she doesn't understand.
	She kind of just...
	She lives in a care facility, unfortunately, because of huge family disputes and all that kind of stuff.
	That's terrible, but she's happy as much as she can be.
	But she literally will just wander into other people in the facilities and take their toys and things like that.
	She doesn't have a concept of what theft is or anything like that, right?
	She's just being like a...
	You know, a toddler, right?
	But as an adult.
	And, you know, very, very tough upbringing for my wife, being surrounded by that.
	But also, you know, the amount of conflict that those two parents had in between them as a result of having to bring up a very disabled child is like...
	Like, yeah, I could totally understand why people would want, would have parental regret, you know, having to raise such a difficult...
	Well, you can't raise, that's the challenge, right?
	Well, that's right.
	Well, that's it, right?
	You just got to help them survive the world.
	And, you know, it's a full-time job, basically.
	And so, yeah, no, like you were saying, like all the...
	You know, around parental regret.
	Like, I can totally, you know, at least I can in my world, like, that's a lot of people have regretted parenting.
	Well, and it may be even higher than these estimates because of the taboos around these kinds of topics.
	Mm-hmm.
	Oh, yeah, there was one other thing I was about to mention.
	You were saying about indoctrination in schools.
	Well, one of the things that a lot of parents I've heard...
	you know, we're overpopulated anyway.
	Yeah, yeah.
	And it's like, and also one of the common concerns I hear a lot is around parents who are like, well, the world's stuffed anyway.
	Sorry, by stuffed, do you mean like on its way to rack and ruin or do you mean stuffed full of people?
	Yeah, yeah, no, no, no.
	Yes, you're right.
	On the way to rack and ruin.
	Sorry, exactly.
	Like, you know, everyone's going bankrupt.
	The economy's crap.
	You know, we've got, you know, wars.
	We've got, you know, people who consider we've got dictators in certain countries that used to be free.
	By the way, that's not my view, so I'm just...
	Echoing the statements they've made to me, you know, criticizing, you know, the state of the world and where it's headed.
	They are very negative about our future.
	And most of them are worried about the fact that they've inflicted this on their children.
	Huh.
	Not worried enough about the change, but worried, yeah.
	Oh, no, no, they keep voting for, funnily enough, the ones who say that, they're the ones who are more likely to vote for the ones that make it worse.
	But, you know, yes, more socialist policies, more authoritarianism, more of, you know, because they have this weird hope that...
	If only they give the government more and more power, somehow the government will fix things, which invariably they make everything worse.
	But good luck trying to educate them on this.
	I mean, I do try, don't get me wrong.
	I have lots of conversations about this.
	I may not have a podcast, but that's kind of how I spread the word.
	It's like I do it one-on-one with people, and it's something I really do enjoy.
	And it is hard, though, to...
	You know, to bring, you know, enlightened conversations to these people's worlds and bring philosophy to them.
	But it's definitely a very tough job.
	I don't envy you.
	He's got a very hard job.
	Yeah, I mean, I think it's functionally very hard to stay close to your kids these days unless you either put them in, I don't know, some sort of educational program that aligns with
	What, until about 10 to 15 years ago were considered sane, rational values, or you homeschool?
	I don't know how you stay close to your kids.
	Yeah, we're homeschooled.
	It's getting waves of propaganda that just teach them that you're bad, right?
	Yeah.
	So we're planning to homeschool.
	Absolutely.
	You know, and that's another thing a lot of people, I've heard a lot of, oh man, so many people indoctrinated against it, which is crazy.
	It's like, oh, they're just going to become autistic, they're going to become antisocial.
	It's like, well, you know, they do have families and friends and playgroups and sports they can play, they can interact with other children there, they don't have to become hermits at home, right?
	Like, this is the idea that people have about homeschooling.
	These are the same a-holes who had no problem with schools being closed for a year or more over a virus that had almost no effect on kids.
	Yeah, and not only that, this is the crazy thing, the lack of empathy for the children who were trapped with their abusers for that time period either, right?
	I don't know about the US or Canada, but here there was a massive increase in suicide attempts in child mental illnesses skyrocketing from depression because they weren't able to...
	To go to school, which is for a lot of kids, unfortunately, this is the case.
	There's parents who don't love their kids and treat them like shit and beat the crap out of them or do drugs in front of them.
	That's sometimes for some of those children, that's their only escape is to go to school.
	And when you feel trapped that you can't go to school and leave your horrible, violent and abusive experience for a lot of them.
	Being my background, like my mum was quite abusive towards me growing up, I could totally understand why a lot of those children developed, you know, or exacerbated significantly their mental state and their...
	And people had no compassion for that whatsoever.
	None.
	Like the amount of people who I've, you know, spoken to who actually understand, you know, how you're actually trapping them.
	By forcing them to stay home with their abusers, you're actually dooming them, right?
	And they just didn't care.
	Didn't care whatsoever.
	It's just sad.
	Well, I mean, I'm sure you were in a similar boat, but for me, I mean, I did.
	Gosh, I did.
	I was regularly doing two or three sports.
	I had, at one point, three jobs.
	I'd spend time at friends' places.
	I built tree houses rather than go home.
	Like, to not be home was paradise, and school was a great relief from being home.
	And then, I mean, if I'd been locked up with my mom for a year or so, it's like, good lord, hard to imagine.
	Yeah.
	And, like, people were like, oh, no, but, you know, saving children from this virus was more important.
	And it's like...
	But they don't die from it, right?
	Like, most of them don't.
	Well, I think the cover story in general was to prevent teachers from getting sick.
	Yeah, well, that cover story didn't get used here, but what did get used here was, oh, but, you know, the children will go to school, they'll get COVID, and then they'll transmit it to their elderly grandparents who are going to die.
	You don't want your grandma to die, do you?
	Well, but then you just keep your kids away from the grandparents.
	Right?
	I mean, that's not the same as keeping the kids locked up.
	Or they can don a space suit and, you know, fully cover themselves in a hazmat suit if they want to, to really see the children, right?
	Or they can risk actually getting sick, or they can take any one of the many actions.
	You know, they can video conference.
	There's so many options, right?
	But no, they were very insistent on that the only way...
	To address the situation is to just lock everyone up at home.
	And, I mean, I don't know if you know what happened in some states here.
	Definitely not in my state, thankfully, but in some states like Victoria, for example, where the police were literally beating people if they'd left their homes and fining them and, you know, arresting them for it.
	So, yeah, crazy.
	Like, just absolutely mental.
	In Melbourne, your favourite state, where you had the Antifa guys rocking on the buses and all that kind of stuff?
	Yes, indeed.
	Yes, if I remember correctly.
	Yeah, they're terrible.
	I do remember that quite vividly.
	Yeah, so I think that some people, probably in your social circle, or people who end up finding out about this, or you talked about this, you know, they may have their own regrets regarding having kids.
	Yeah.
	Definitely.
	I mean, kids are exposed to relentless propaganda about how uncool and bigoted their parents are, right?
	Yeah.
	I mean, when was the last time that there was a kid show that showed parents as, you know, wise and competent and positive and healthy and all of that, right?
	No, the bumbling dad who can't change a nappy and doesn't know how to wipe some boogers off the baby's nose, right?
	They don't know what to do.
	They're just confused, right?
	Right.
	Wild.
	I think that there's definitely some positive reasons as to why people might hide some of their joy in parenting.
	At least, they'll probably, you know, hopefully, you know, next year, you and your lovely wife get your two kids, and then they may feel a little bit more like, okay, now I can talk about how great parenting is because you got your kids.
	It may be tougher as a whole otherwise.
	And don't get me wrong, I don't at all, like, I'm so happy for people who have kids and love having their kids, right?
	Tell them, like, especially close friends of mine, like, you don't have to hide your joy for being a parent and for loving your kids, right?
	Like, it's awesome.
	Like, I'm so happy for you.
	I'd never be like, I'm not jealous of them, right?
	Like, people think that, oh, just because you don't have kids, that must make you jealous of others.
	It's like, no, I don't.
	Like, I'm extremely happy for them.
	I'm grateful that they've, you know, especially given that they love being parents.
	That they've had the opportunity to do it.
	I just wish I had.
	No, but I mean, you understand.
	I mean, listen, I appreciate the sentiment and all of that, but it definitely is, you know, if you, let's say you have, you know, a joyfully happy family with five or six kids, that's going to leave a mark on your heart.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	I don't know that there's any way in particular to get away from that.
	And so people may be diminishing that in order to...
	To try to be kind in a way, and that may change after you guys have kids yourselves.
	But again, fingers and toes crossed.
	Yeah, thank you so much.
	You're welcome, and keep me posted.
	It was absolutely lovely to catch up with you, and I hope we'll play a game again soon.
	Yeah, for sure.
	All right.
	Thanks, man.
	All right.
	Thanks, Steph.
	Appreciate it.
	Thanks.
	Great to get caught up.
	And if everybody has questions, issues, challenges, problems, whatever is on your mind, I am happy.
	To help out as best I can.
	If you'd like to raise your hand, something that's on your mind, go in once.
	Rare opportunity, voice chat.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	I'll just give people a second in case they happen to be away from their keyboard.
	I can't hit my protein.
	I might have something for really quick.
	If you have time.
	Yeah, go for it.
	So it's just about the anxiety as the whole situation.
	So have you heard of the concept of being zeroed out?
	I wouldn't even hazard a guess as to what that means.
	I guess it should just be the fall from grace or you've experienced it with the YouTube things like that.
	How do you deal with, I guess, the...
	I guess the anxiety, all that stuff.
	I've been trying to get back on your feet.
	Well, there is no going back.
	You know, life will knock you down.
	Life will drag you through the thorny bushes.
	Life will smack you around from time to time.
	It could be health.
	It could be the health of those around you.
	It could be money.
	It could be, you know, whatever, insomnia.
	It could be any number of things.
	It may be things that are your bad choices or my bad choices.
	It could be things that are other people's bad choices.
	It could be just or unjust.
	But life is going to beat you up on a semi-regular basis.
	Now, I'm not perfect with this, so this is not any kind of, I don't know, Aurelius meditations.
	Zen, Buddhist, rising above it, all kind of stuff.
	But I will tell you a couple of principles that have been very helpful to me, and maybe they'll be helpful to you.
	So first of all, do not have in your mind the idea that life is always supposed to go well, and everything that is a deviation from that is an insult to your existence, and is just terrible.
	And just be aware of that.
	I mean, you have to have a different standard of health when you're 60 than when you're 20. And especially if you're, you know, trying to really work hard to do good things in the world, you're going to get blowback.
	That's part of the deal.
	That's part of the deal.
	So having a standard that everything should go well is setting yourself up for frustration and annoyance and shock almost in a way when things don't go well.
	This sounds bad because, you know, I'm doing these shows.
	I aim for pretty good.
	I aim for pretty good.
	I don't aim to have a happiness level of 10. Just don't.
	I aim to have a happiness level of 7 to 8. And if I get 7 to 8, that's great.
	I mean, there's times where it's 10. There's times where it's less, of course.
	But I aim for pretty good.
	If I aim for 10, You know, then, you know, everybody has the best day in their life, whatever that's going to be, right?
	Maybe for me it was getting married or the birth of my daughter or something like that, right?
	I was going to have the best day.
	And I'm going to have the best show.
	Like maybe it was for some people the story of your enslavement or something else, right?
	Or the Flat Earth Debate or the guy who brought a cow to his Thai girlfriend's family to rent her or something like that.
	So everyone's going to have a favorite show and there's going to be shows that are objectively, you know, better than others.
	I mean, as I said, my shows over this month have not been ideal because my voice is finally coming back into its natural state, and so that's a big plus.
	But there are going to be better shows.
	There are going to be worse shows.
	Do I aim to do a good show?
	I aim to do the best show that I can, but I'm not always able to summon that, so I will just aim to do a good show, a good show, a solid show.
	And if inspiration hits and the flights of fancy happen to take me to...
	You know, spiraling lofts of updraft verbosity and eloquence, fantastic.
	If I have a little bit of a turnip head from time to time, then that's something I just have to kind of roll with, right?
	So don't have as your standard that everything goes well, and then everything that doesn't go well is a terrible deviation.
	So for me, you know, if I travel, I say, hey, I hope everything's on time.
	I hope there aren't big lineups.
	And, you know, sometimes there's delays, sometimes I don't have traveled much, but you know what I mean, right?
	So sometimes there are delays, and sometimes there are big lineups, and sometimes there aren't.
	So just aim to the middle.
	Now, as far as rebuilding goes, well, sometimes you can't.
	Right?
	Sometimes you can't rebuild.
	Sometimes you just have to go in a different direction.
	So for me, Once it became clear that the most important aspects of politics couldn't really be talked about, I'm like, okay, well, I'm not going to pretend.
	I'm not going to pretend that I'm talking about politics.
	So I stopped talking about politics.
	Went in a different direction.
	Did more personal shows.
	Did more call-ins.
	Did more Q&As.
	Wrote my novels.
	wrote more books.
	just...
	You can't rebuild, and you just have to go in a different direction.
	And it's important to know that.
	And some of that's within your control, and some of that is not.
	So, of course, as I mentioned before, when I was deplatformed, you know, 95, 96, 97% of people did not follow me to new platforms.
	Out of sight, out of mind.
	I think it was last week on X, Mike Cernovich had some very nice things to say about the work that I did in the past.
	It's very nice.
	And of course, I'm always curious, right?
	So then I go to the comments and people are like, oh God, I haven't thought of that guy in forever.
	Hey, whatever happened to that guy?
	Blah, blah, blah.
	And then I assume some listeners here or in the show as a whole post where I am, which I appreciate, but people did not follow me over.
	And of course, In hindsight, that kind of makes sense, because there wouldn't be any point deplatforming people if people would follow them to new venues, or maybe they would get more of an audience if it did some sort of Streisand effect thing.
	So that was a fact.
	So I only had a certain amount of control over how to manage or handle the deplatforming.
	So sometimes you can't rebuild, and you just have to build in a...
	Or you have to move in a different direction.
	You just have to move in a direction.
	I mean, you know, this can happen with relationships.
	If there's a lot of conflict, sometimes you can't rebuild and you just have to move to a different relationship.
	It can happen at work, it can happen romantically, it can happen with all kinds of things.
	So, I would say, knowing that the limits are to return to...
	Knowing what the limits are in terms of rebuilding is important.
	So, yeah, principle number one, don't assume everything's going to go well or you're just going to spend half your life or more than half kind of disappointed and frustrated.
	Well, statistically, you will, right?
	Because things go below the average.
	And certainly, if you expect everything to be a 10, then it's not going to work.
	There's sort of project management stuff in the business world, which is you have to build a buffer in.
	You can't assume that everything is going to work.
	Really well.
	I remember once having to integrate with a FoxPro database that I didn't have any source code for, and the job was built at 10 hours.
	It took 110 hours to get it right, because there was a lot of just, you know, run it and see what happens.
	So, of course, there were other things where you'd say it's 10 hours, turned out to be two hours.
	But you have to build kind of a buffer.
	You have to assume that things are not going to go always well.
	And there's a certain amount of just experience.
	Like, I've had a bunch of different mutations, in a sense, over the course of this show.
	Initially, I wrote articles and just read them.
	And then I started doing my car casts from my fabulous 98 S70 Volvo.
	And then I started doing Skype roundtables.
	There was this fantastic old interface on Skype where you could just...
	It was kind of like what goes on here.
	You could unmute people and have conversations with them and so on.
	I did a lot of that kind of stuff.
	And then I started to get into call-in shows.
	And then I started to get into interviewing experts.
	And then I started to get into true news and all of that.
	So there's just been a bunch of different things that I've done over the years.
	So you just have to be nimble, follow the marketplace, and be ready to adapt.
	As best you can, and sometimes it feels like at a moment's notice.
	And you also have to be willing to give up that which people want the most in order to keep your own enthusiasm sometimes.
	And people always tell me, oh, Steph, get back into politics.
	And it's like, ah, but you can't talk about anything in politics that means anything.
	And so I view most, and not everyone, but most of the people who talk about politics are just masticating, right?
	It's verbal mastication, and they're not really getting to the root cause.
	I don't want to be in a situation where I have to falsify things and not talk about that which I know to be the most important.
	So you have to be willing to give up what people want the most in order to retain your own enthusiasm for what you're doing.
	That's really important.
	Is there anything else that I could help you with in terms of that?
	No, no, that makes sense.
	Actually, that's very helpful.
	The idea that, I guess, maybe I can't build it up.
	Obviously, I'm going to work and try, of course, but the idea, I guess now I'm thinking of a different avenue.
	I'm thinking I can obviously have the skills of editing and making videos and stuff like that, and I know that, but I can take that and use it to make something different.
	So I could do that.
	So I'm just, you know, the cogs in my mind are going.
	Well, as you were saying that you were repurposing sometimes other people's content.
	So, you know, one way to avoid that is just work more on your own original content.
	And that way you can't get dinged for that kind of stuff.
	So just, yeah, be really willing to adapt and to change.
	Like I used to do these videos.
	This is sort of the story of your enslavement stuff.
	I used to do these videos where I would take snippets of other people's videos.
	And, you know, little, you know, three-second slices and so on.
	Usually public domain stuff or whatever, right?
	And I had to stop doing that because everybody and their dog was getting dinged for copyright stuff, right?
	And a lot of it was automated.
	Even if I didn't think it was right or fair, I just had to stop doing that stuff.
	And I stopped doing that stuff, like, I don't know, well north of six or seven years before my channel got nuked.
	So I got six or seven years of sort of very productive stuff.
	Coming out of that, right?
	And you also have to be willing to manage your expectations, right?
	I mean, I used to live stream to 6,000, 7,000 people.
	Obviously, the numbers are down a smidge.
	And am I going to sit there and say, oh, God, this is terrible.
	This is the worst thing ever.
	It's just a different kind of conversation.
	You know, some people play stadiums.
	Some people play jazz clubs.
	And it's just a different kind of conversation.
	You have to sort of pull back.
	From the numbers and look at the quality of what it is that you're doing.
	And I've always, of course, aimed at my very best to try and do the maximum quality that I can and to be as sort of thoughtful, sensitive, and valuable to my conversation as possible.
	I can do that with smaller numbers, sometimes even easier than bigger numbers.
	So that is something that's important to remember as well.
	You can't just run to the numbers.
	You have to run to the quality.
	And sometimes the quality is going to cost you the numbers.
	Yeah, I appreciate that.
	Thank you so much.
	You are very welcome.
	Great, great, great, great.
	Yeah, look at that.
	There's some quality stuttering right there.
	Great question.
	All right, let's do one more time.
	No problem.
	If people are done, that's fine.
	I appreciate everyone dropping by.
	Of course, of course, of course, if you could do freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show through nobody's fault but my own.
	It has not been a high donation month, but if you could really help out, I would appreciate that.
	does help keep things chugging along.
	And if you could help out at freedomain.com slash donate, hugely would appreciate it.
	Monsieur Oliver.
	Yeah.
	Hello, Steph.
	Can you hear me?
	Yes, sir.
	go ahead.
	Great. Similar kind of question about the de-platforming stuff.
	Sorry if I mischaracterize you in any way.
	This is just from snippets of conversations you've had that I've got your idea here.
	But from what I can tell,
	You refuse to go back to the social media platforms that deplatformed you because you have standards.
	Is that more or less correct?
	Well, I mean, standards is a bit abstract.
	You know, a standard could be that they have to ship me the royal crown jewels.
	That could be a standard.
	So it's not in particular because of sort of abstract standards like generic.
	It's that I've always counseled people that if someone does you...
	Or an organization, because an organization, I know enough about corporations, having founded some myself, I know enough about corporations to know that they are legal entities that exist beyond individual ownership.
	And so, if I was done wrong by a particular corporation, then I'm going to need that corporation to admit that I did wrong in order to resume my relationship with that corporation.
	I mean, if you had a bank and They stole your life savings and then they sent you an offer to open up a bank account with them, would you?
	Yeah, I guess without any other variables in that, absolutely not.
	Now, of course, if they returned your money and apologized and maybe paid you a little extra and we're sorry and here's how it's never going to happen again, maybe you would.
	but you know and if they basically said oh yeah you can open up
	I mean, let's be frank about it.
	It costs me a lot of money.
	It costs me a lot of money.
	And, you know, if people have taken, I mean, I've never really calculated it, but it's not small.
	If people have just taken X amount of dollars, in a sense, from me, Unjustly, unfairly, and of course in my particular perspective and opinion, why would I go back without some sort of apology and restitution?
	Say, ah, yes, but there's a new bank owner.
	Okay.
	If there's a new bank owner, then the bank owner should
	up to the faults of the bank and say, here's how things are different.
	Thank you.
	Yeah, I agree.
	And I think Izzy's comments about an empirical versus a verbal apology, I'm looking forward to your comments in the future.
	Yes, and I haven't forgotten about that, and those are great, great comments that she made, for sure.
	Yeah, and I've got kind of a different angle.
	I wanted to ask you about, I'm curious, your thoughts.
	So, you have a principle which...
	Which I adopt in my life.
	Treat people the best you can the first time you meet them, and after that, treat them as they treat you.
	A while ago, I was listening to some of Owen Benjamin's comedy stuff, and he said something along the lines of, he uses the social media platforms as hookers.
	He doesn't have a positive...
	He understands that they are tainted and corrupted entities and they're trying to control the narrative and so on.
	So he has no qualms with using them in the way that...
	They try to use their users and their audience.
	And so he's adopted a kind of negative relationship approach rather than a positive or healthy business relationship or personal relationship approach to defining his relationship with those social media companies and owners.
	He's using them as tools in order to accomplish a goal or a good.
	And I just thought that was an interesting way of framing the kind of relationship that you're actually aiming for when you're using these things.
	If you're treating them the best you can the first time, which you did, but now that they've mistreated you, mistreated others, made very clear who they are and how they operate, can't you now enter into a relationship intending to more or less treat them the way they...
	treat you and others for the sake of getting philosophy out, those kinds of things, you know.
	No, no, but hang on, hang on.
	Good answer.
	Sorry, let me make sure I understand this.
	I want to make sure.
	So you're saying that if I were to treat Twitter
	you.
	Yes, and they completely banned you in a way where they were not even following their own rules, right?
	And they were...
	Being very unprincipled and harming your income and all those kinds of things that they did to you.
	So if you were to, let's say, as a spy, you know, hypothetically sneak back in, not have any particular care for their rules, behave in such a way that might harm their business interests and so on, how could they possibly complain?
	Well, but it's not an equal relationship.
	Right?
	So in order to...
	Now, of course, I will browse Twitter.
	I get some really good stuff from Twitter.
	I think Twitter is a great platform for getting news and interesting things which I use for my show.
	So, I mean, it's no secret I've actually done shows where I'm scrolling through Twitter.
	So, I get all of that.
	But in terms of, like, posting and engaging and all of that.
	So, in order to do that, I would not be treating them as they treated me, because I think that they were not honest about the reasons for deplatforming,
	because they accused me, if I remember rightly, and it's been a long time, I think they accused me of platform manipulation, which I never bought or paid for any followers or bots.
	So I consider that, you know, let's just put it this way.
	My memory of all of that is very different from theirs.
	Let's just put it that way.
	Bots or views or anything like that.
	So, A, I could not treat them in the way that they treated me.
	And B, in order to, let's say that I went back on X and I got monetized or whatever would happen, right?
	Well, I have to sign, I assume I don't know what's going on these days, but I would have to sign a document or I would have to accept as a term of service that they can ban me.
	On a whim, for whatever reason, with no explanation.
	Now, why would I do that?
	Why would I sign a contract that would be that humiliating, and that would render me that powerless?
	Would you sign?
	Something like that?
	I mean, I don't know if you are on X or monetized or whatever it is, right?
	But I would not in particular sign a contract that said, I mean, would you build a house on land where in order to build the house,
	then and you would spend years building this house, would you build a house on land where the price Yeah,
	absolutely not.
	I would not sign such a contract, and I wouldn't recommend it to others.
	Right. And, you know, in some ways, you know, depending on where you are, what was taken was more valuable than a house.
	Absolutely. So, if...
	There was a guarantee of due process, right?
	That would be fine.
	But I don't think, yeah, I don't think, you know, I had a couple of times over the course of my YouTube career, but, you know, I was like user number four on YouTube back in the day.
	I think I had a couple of, a warning once or twice.
	I think I got a thumbnail warning once, and I couldn't upload thumbnails for a couple of weeks.
	But I mean, nothing major and nothing dangerous or anything like that.
	And, you know, there's supposed to be this whole due process.
	And then I think I got suppressed quite a bit because my views went down suddenly, and I was never allowed to get to a million followers that just get taken.
	And then I was just gone.
	No recourse, no warning, no strikes.
	Just gone.
	And I had spent, gosh, how long was I on that platform?
	Was it 2020?
	So, yeah, 13 years.
	13 years.
	Thousands and thousands and thousands of videos.
	Hundreds of millions of comments.
	And, yeah, just gone.
	would
	So I can't do to YouTube what they did to me.
	Obviously, it's a very asymmetrical relationship.
	And I just, unless there's an absolute guarantee of some kind of due process, then I, I mean, why would I want to?
	I mean, you wouldn't go and work for someone.
	You wouldn't go and work for someone.
	For a year, and then they say, maybe we'll pay you at the end, or maybe we'll take your house.
	Depends on what we feel like.
	You know, I grew up with arbitrary exercise of brutal authority.
	I don't want to return to that.
	And I, you know, I felt my feeling and experience, and of course, people may disagree with me, and I'm certainly fine with that.
	This is not any kind of absolute statement.
	But I very strongly did feel that I acted pretty honorably on those platforms.
	And, you know, of course, I never advocated for violence.
	I was always advocating for peace and reason and negotiation and discourse.
	And, you know, I interviewed all of the experts on the controversial topics.
	I sourced all of my presentations so that...
	People could see the science behind some of the more controversial things that I was talking about.
	So, I mean, I felt that, I mean, I wasn't just some troll.
	I wasn't just someone who was rage-baiting or click-baiting or engagement farming, never bought views, never manipulated anything.
	And, you know, tried to have as direct and honest a conversation about, obviously, sometimes difficult topics with as much.
	I'd say class, or with as much refinement and sophistication and expertise and experts and source data and reference materials and studies as possible.
	And so, with regards to all of that stuff, you know, my conscience was clear.
	My conscience was and is clear.
	And I mean, I've certainly made my mistakes in my life, but to me, that stuff wasn't one of them.
	And I regret nothing.
	So I...
	So, unless there is in the contract, right, unless there is in the user terms of agreement, a guarantee of due process.
	Now, I'm not saying, you know, if I have like one follower or whatever and I advocate violence, I get all of that, right?
	But unless there is some guarantee of due process, I'm not sure why I would participate.
	Again, I'm certainly happy to hear the case.
	Yeah, I guess what you're saying is all correct, and I agree.
	Especially the point about the asymmetry of the relationship, meaning that you can't treat them as they treated you in any kind of empirical sense.
	When I was saying treat them as they treat you, I was meaning more in a general or abstract sense.
	Like, if they treat you with dishonest terms and rules that they themselves don't follow, then I would see no moral issue with, you know...
	Sorry, isn't that...
	My apologies.
	But isn't that baked into the terms of agreement?
	Isn't what, sorry?
	Isn't the fact that people can be booted without recourse...
	I don't know, of course, I haven't read the Twitter or X terms of service in a long time, but isn't the fact that they can do it without recourse,
	isn't that still a thing?
	Oh, I'm sure it is now, with all of the way this has developed, but back in the Wild West days, I assumed you had been diligently following all of the rules that were written down, and they were supposed to follow rules,
	strikes, and all of this kind of stuff that I remember the system back in those days.
	I don't know if it's changed now, but there was strikes, and there was supposed to be things for review, but they didn't allow you any of that.
	They just bypassed their own terms and got rid of you in one fell swoop.
	Isn't that how it happened with you and many others that you were just summarily deplatformed, you know, and they didn't even follow their own rules and guidelines and terms and they didn't care whether you followed them or not.
	And, you know, they made up stuff about you.
	So they were just being dishonest about it.
	I mean, I don't know that they were being dishonest, honestly.
	I mean, sorry, I don't know that, I mean, I certainly don't recall, and I don't, you know, it's been like half a decade or whatever, right?
	So I certainly don't recall all of the details from everything.
	But in general, in general, I just lost the accounts with no warning and no reasoning.
	No, well, here's what you did that was wrong.
	Right, so that...
	Go ahead.
	You know, my point is that you were, to my, like I was watching in those days, and you were talking about, you know, YouTube's terms, and you were being very careful to make sure that you weren't doing anything that went against the terms.
	And like I said, I think you were being quite open and transparent about all of your methods.
	You weren't doing anything against the terms.
	You weren't bot farming.
	You weren't doing anything.
	And as a result, that's their dishonesty.
	Like, to claim that you were.
	So, they have these rules where it says, if you break rule X, Y, and Z, we can terminate you, or we can strike you, or whatever.
	And you didn't break rule X, Y, and Z, and yet they terminated you, which means that they were being dishonest with regards to their own terms, right?
	Well, again, I don't know.
	I wouldn't want to accuse them of that necessarily.
	And again, I'm not talking about any social media platform in particular.
	But I would assume that buried in the use of terms of agreement is We can also toast you for no reason.
	Right.
	Because all of this stuff that came before it is nonsense.
	They've got the world's most expensive lawyers writing these EULAs, right?
	So I assume that buried in there is like, yeah, there's all this due process, or we can just nuke you for no reason, right?
	It's at our pleasure, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, that's a fair point.
	And if you did agree to that, then I guess you were in checkmate before the match even begun.
	Well, and so this is why I would not necessarily want to accuse them.
	And again, this is no social media platform in particular, but I would not want to accuse them of dishonesty if I agreed.
	Indeed.
	And you can't agree to that in the future going forward, because that would just be, that would be like masochistic or something.
	Well, yeah, I mean, if that was an option, and of course it was not.
	I mean, for the first, gosh, 2006 to 2016 were the 10 years of incredible free speech on the internet and on social media.
	Like, that was...
	You know, those days were glorious.
	They were just absolutely glorious.
	I mean, exciting, for sure, but glorious because you could actually talk about things.
	And that all began to change, of course, the Trump thing and, you know, when social media, when its power began to be revealed to the elites and all of that.
	But, again, I don't know, of course, I don't particularly care about the end-user agreements of Yeah, good point.
	Thank you very much.
	It's just too much power for people, I think.
	James is saying, pretty much every social media company has as part of its terms the ability to remove you without appeal.
	And if it's not written in terms, it's what they do, yeah?
	And they don't have to tell you the criteria they use to remove you or shadow ban you.
	The terms don't require it, and they do not do so in practice.
	Yeah, I think was it on YouTube, it was something to do with, I don't know, hate speech or whatever.
	But, I mean, I've never cancelled hatred.
	I've always tried to be as reasonable as possible and so on, right?
	And so, yeah, they just make up, in my view, just make up kind of your voodoo terms, and then you're gone.
	So, it's not...
	And, I mean, I don't know.
	I don't know, of course, what's going on with X these days.
	I do see people complain.
	I mean, there are some people who seem to get banned.
	I don't know the why's and the wherefores of all of that.
	And also, for sure, there are people complaining about being shadow banned.
	And whether that's true or not, I don't know.
	But it's a...
	You know, and here's the other thing too, right?
	I mean, people say, well, Elon Musk is there and it's like, yes, he is.
	And is Elon Musk a very pro free speech guy?
	He certainly is.
	And that is to his great credit and to his great honor.
	However, bro is not immortal.
	And he also might get distracted by other things, could get hit by a bus, could get sick.
	Could decide to go to Mars on its own.
	Could be any number of things.
	And so, unless it's kind of baked in, you know, to the...
	I mean, to me, right, so this is something that happens with social media companies as a whole.
	And James, you can check, of course, you can check if this is the case.
	But to me...
	If you sign up to a social media account, the agreement that you sign when you start should be the agreement that governs you going forward.
	Because that's the standard by which you have signed up for that platform.
	So, When I signed up for YouTube, obviously, I don't remember the EULA back then, but I don't think it had all of the stuff that's going on now.
	Pretty sure it didn't.
	So, to me, that should just get grandfathered in.
	I mean, if you sign up for a 30-year mortgage, say you buy a house for half a million dollars, and you have whatever monthly payment, have whatever interest rate, Well, that contract is for the 30 years.
	They don't get to rewrite it later and change all the terms.
	Well, now you have to take four roommates.
	And now, anytime any of our salespeople is in town, they can stay at your place.
	And, oh, by the way, we're also going to double your mortgage.
	And, like, you couldn't possibly do business that way.
	You know, there are 99-year leases.
	Hong Kong was on one of those, right?
	This is from my Hong Kong documentary.
	You should check it out if you haven't seen it.
	freedomain.com slash documentaries.
	So, I don't really understand how, and I don't think this would work in a free society.
	I don't think it would work this way at all in a free society.
	I really don't understand how it's possible.
	That you sign up for a social media platform and agree to particular terms of service, and then they can just change them on you.
	That's not how contracts work as a whole in society.
	It's not how your mortgage works.
	They can't just change the terms of your mortgage going forward.
	It's not how long-term business leases work.
	It's not how...
	Car lease is working.
	You lease a car for 72 months these days.
	They don't get to just change it.
	Oh, we're going to cut your mileage in half.
	Oh, and you have to lend it to our Uber driver for, you know, 12 hours a week or anything like that, right?
	So, in a free society, in a more rational society, you sign up for a particular service.
	That's your contract.
	They can't retroactively Change it.
	And then just keep adding more and more terms and conditions and exclusions.
	So, for instance, if you sign up and they say, let's say you sign up for some video site, right?
	And they say, don't promote violence, don't promote criminality, and don't copyright strike, right?
	Don't violate copyright.
	Okay.
	So you say, okay, good.
	Well, so that's the deal, right?
	The deal is, I should not engage in illegal speech, right?
	And even in America, of course, First Amendment capital of the planet, there is illegal speech, right?
	So I don't do illegal speech.
	You know, this sort of vaunted fire in a crowded theater nonsense, which has never even really happened in life, but it's kind of the standard that people talk about, right?
	So, that's the deal.
	I don't steal people's material, I don't violate copyright, and I don't engage in a legal speech.
	And that is, some of the video sites, that's their deal.
	But if you sign up to a video site and you invest in uploading and building your community and engaging with people, because remember, you know, with places like YouTube and other social media sites, it wasn't just that I uploaded my videos there.
	I mean, I still have the videos for the most part,
	but all of that comments, interaction stuff is gone.
	So, if you sign up for, let's say, a video place where it's like, don't break the law, don't steal people's material, right?
	Because copyright is a violation, right?
	So just don't break the law.
	If it's legal speech, fine.
	Okay.
	So then do they get to, after, say, five or ten years, do they get to layer on all these other standards?
	Well, I'm not sure that that makes a lot of sense in a sort of free, stateless society.
	I don't think that makes a lot of sense.
	Sorry, James is keeping me up to datey-date here.
	Let me just...
	James says...
	Yeah, he says, pretty much every social media company has, as part of its terms, the ability to remove you without appeal.
	And if it's not written...
	Sorry, we still said that.
	They don't have to tell you the criteria.
	And James says, what they do is they will update the terms of service and they will send you an email telling you that the terms are changing by a certain date and that by continuing to use the platform, you agree to the change to terms.
	Every time some company sends you an update about the terms, that's the language they include.
	Yeah.
	Just about the only way you can, quote, get them on a TOS violation is if they act against you in a way that violates the terms at the time they acted against you.
	Yeah, yeah, for sure.
	So, oh, nice to see you.
	Nice to see you.
	It's been a while.
	She says, I'm still having a hard time with this.
	Why can't X just be used as a tool without the relationship aspect of it?
	But that is what I'm doing.
	I do use X. I, in fact, have done many shows where I am browsing through X and making comments and so on, right?
	So I do use X as a tool.
	For sure.
	She says, if you depend on X for your business, I can absolutely understand that it would be foolish, but if it's just used as a leisure tool, why not use it?
	I agree with Seth's reasoning, but I still think it can be used to his benefit despite all of X's social media faults.
	Well, I mean, I've already said that I do in fact use X. I bookmark, I browse, I call up X when I'm doing live streams, and I also We'll do screen-recorded shows where I'm browsing through X and making comments.
	But it is a disposable account, right?
	I have no investment in the account.
	They can't hurt me, if that makes sense.
	All right.
	Any other last questions, comments?
	I really do appreciate you guys dropping by today.
	It's nice to be back in decent voice, and it's nice to be...
	Back chatting with you guys and really do love the questions and comments.
	I really do appreciate, appreciate, appreciate you guys dropping by today.
	And of course, we're still doing our show in the morning, in the a.m.
	All right.
	Going once, going twice.
	I think, I think we're done.
	I think we're done.
	Yes.
	All right.
	Well, thanks everyone so much.
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	Thank you so, so much.
	Lots of love from up here.
	I'll talk to you soon.

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