All Episodes
Previous Next
May 9, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
47:04
What REALLY Happened Over COVID...
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Alright, how are you doing everybody?
Sven Melanie from Freedom Main.
Let's get to your questions.
Does the modern way of understanding the mind, primarily through mental illness diagnosis, obscure the deeper nature of the psyche?
I'm not sure what you mean primarily through the mental illness diagnosis.
I did a show many years ago, a three-part series on mental health.
It is very tough in the world.
To figure out what is healthy, mentally.
I mean, this is an old quote, it is no mark of mental health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
It's really tough to figure out what is healthy.
You know, many years ago, probably about 17 or 18 years ago, I wrote on a free domain forum that I did not believe there were any truly, truly great or good parents in the world.
And I've just caused a ruckus and a firestorm and so on.
And I was saying that because there was not the theory of peaceful parenting and so on.
In the same way, like, were there any really good doctors until the invention of modern medicine?
I mean, absent the perverse incentives that exist now, until, I mean, I really was until the late 19th, early 20th century, you were actually better off not going to see a doctor.
You had a greater chance of survival if you didn't see the doctor.
You know, leeches and humors and magical spells and all kinds of bizarre snake venom potions and so on.
So were there any really good doctors before there was a scientific theory and practice of, I don't know, germ theory, antibiotics?
I mean, it took forever for surgeons to even realize that it might be a pretty good idea at some point to actually wash their hands before operating on people.
In fact, the guy who first came up with that idea was harassed, considered insane.
Thrown into an asylum and eventually was beaten to death by an orderly there.
Now, of course, it's accepted that he was totally right, he'll scrub your hands.
So, until there was a genuinely, you know, first principles valid, non-aggression principle, healthy theory of parenting, for me it was tough to imagine that there were any really good parents.
I mean, this is not to say that there weren't good parents, in the same way that I'm sure there were doctors who...
You know, maybe they had some sort of OCD and they'd wash their hands, but it was accidentally good, right?
It was not consistently good.
Consistency is the key to excellence, right?
I mean, a blind man could hit a hole in one if he played golf every day, but it's consistency that's key.
And without the right theory, it's really tough to be, it's really impossible to be consistent.
I mean, you could think the world is flat, and you could sail across a sea, be blown off course, and get to your destination.
But you wouldn't be able to reproduce it because you didn't have the right theory.
Didn't have the sphere of earth, the sextant, and so on, right?
So, yeah, I remember that.
And I would have put myself in that category as well back in the day before I really developed the theory of peaceful parenting and real-time relationships and so on.
And now, I mean, here's the tough thing too, right?
So now, is it great parenting to raise your children to be truly rational and then You know, they've got to go out and make their way in a kind of crazy world.
I think it will be possible to be genuinely good parents when the world becomes, well, quite a bit more sane.
Because, you know, raise your children peacefully, raise your children reasonably.
They've got to go out and try and find a way to get by in a world that's very much anti-rational a lot of times.
So, it's not an easy answer.
But...
Certainly, the writing of peaceful parenting.
Well, I mean, that sort of developed the theory over time, but the writing of the book in particular, I think, has really helped with that.
At least now you can be a consistently good parent if you follow those principles, but in terms of being a good parent, both not just in cause, but in the effect on your children's lives, I mean, I think it's going to have to wait for a lot more people to become peaceful parents in order for that to be something which we can say.
So, sorry, that was just a bit of a minor aside.
I think it's related, but it's a bit of a minor aside, based upon something that I saw that was...
I remember being brought up as a criticism quite a bit.
He doesn't believe there are any good parents out there.
It's like, no, there are good parents out there, but they're good parents by their own upbringing, by their nature, by their personality types, and again, still not...
Significantly consistent.
So, it's tough to know what is healthy.
I mean, the healthier you are in the world, the more conflict you have with the crazies out there.
So, what is it to be mentally healthy?
That's tough.
I mean, we all have to...
I mean, I wouldn't say we.
I certainly have to make my compromises.
And it's tough.
So, the deeper nature of the psyche...
The psyche yearns for truth.
And survival.
Now, there's human nature.
Right deep down in it, there's our poles.
These are our poles.
These are what we're working with.
We are fighting for survival, and we are fighting for truth.
Now, we cannot survive without the truth, right?
If we think we can fly, or we think that breathing air feeds our bodies, we can't survive without the truth.
But too much truth also threatens our survival.
I mean, what's it?
The majority of people in the left in America are, you know, pretty comfortable with violence as a political tool.
So we can't survive without the truth.
But if we have too much truth, that also threatens our survival.
So it's a bad and tough combo.
It's a real balancing act.
And, you know, I could see, I guess, you know, half a decade ago, I could see...
That political violence coming down the pipe, which is why, you know, I'll reason with people, but I don't, I'm not a violence guy and oppose it, of course, right?
All right.
So, I mean, this is the challenge we all face.
We need to be accepted into society to some degree in order to survive and reproduce, right?
Social animals, we need to interact with others, we need to find someone to have our kids, raise our kids with, and so on, right?
So, this is the challenge we face.
How much truth Can we survive?
And of course, surrendering the truth, backing away from the truth, choking back the truth, silencing the truth.
Well, that's humiliating, isn't it?
Violence is there to humiliate truth-tellers.
Violence is there to provoke a sense of cowardice among those who want to tell the truth.
So, that's a navigation.
That's a balancing act.
Everybody has to choose their own levels.
As far as that goes.
And to...
This is a line from my novel Just Poor.
Not if Bob says to Mary, the truth is not a sword to be drawn at all costs.
In the face of violence, silence can be wise.
It's not humiliating to me.
It's not humiliating to stay silent in the face of violence, especially if you have a family, right?
The moral horror is on those who are violent, not those who avoid certain topics.
It's just a fact, right?
Alright, let's see here.
Tell me if the Bible was the work of one particular philosopher, would anyone even allow that person into a philosophical debate with real philosophers?
But the Bible is not the work of a philosopher.
The Bible is a document of theological moralism.
The Bible is a work of theological moralism.
The Bible is not a philosophical document.
So, the Bible is, religious texts as a whole, is how we get morality prior to UPB.
And society needs morality.
And if the way to get morality is with stories and fables and gods and punishments and heaven and hell and examples, That's fine.
I mean, I learned a lot about integrity from reading The Fountainhead, which I sort of go back to about once every 10 years or so.
So, you can learn a lot about morality from stories.
So, saying that the Bible needs to be evaluated according to philosophical rigor is invalid.
Have you ever thought about returning to your roots in the theater?
Do you mean writing for the theater?
No.
I do not consider that to be a valid option.
I mean, I was not a bad playwright.
I wrote about 30 plays when I was younger.
And I did produce one, which actually did quite well.
And I enjoyed the process.
I thought it was fun and interesting and creative and enjoyable.
Actually, believe it or not, I wrote a Greek tragedy for a man who had the most amazing Life-sized puppets.
It was a retelling of a Greek fable for this life-sized puppet guy.
It was amazing.
Really cool.
And he produced that, and that also did quite well.
So, the theater, there is no exploration of the human condition in the theater anymore.
It just isn't there.
It's all just...
Pushing an agenda and programming the population and giving people their comfortable false egalitarian fables.
And it's not about a genuine exploration of the human condition and the challenges and complexities and so on.
It is all, you know, I mean, for me at least, it's all just low IQ propaganda, repetition reinforcement stuff.
So, no, not for me.
And I have, I think, too many of my own useful words to Now, others like to star in other people's works or to have a role in other people's works.
So, I don't think it would be...
For me, it's a matter of differentiation and focus.
So, for instance, does the world need another actor or does the world need philosophy?
You know, it's funny because, you know, you can switch on any streaming service.
It's pretty wild, right?
You can switch on just about any streaming service.
Or, I guess, if people still watch TV or whatever, right?
And there are thousands and thousands and thousands of actors all out there doing pretty good jobs.
Doing pretty good jobs as a whole.
And you don't see a lot of bad acting on TV.
You don't see a lot of bad acting in movies.
Even Andy McDowell is getting better.
God help her.
But there's just a lot of people who are good at that stuff out there doing their thing.
I mean, I'm not going to kid myself and think I'm some sort of Marlon Brando or Al Pacino or Jack Nicholson or whatever.
That's not my level of talent is, of course, nowhere close to anything like that.
So, I mean, I could be a decent and probably memorable actor.
Not famous, not, you know, maybe relatively well-known, but not famous, famous, right?
But there's lots of people out there who are doing that, and they're doing a good job, and the world does not need another middling actor.
So now, somebody says, so what was the real purpose of the COVID-19 agenda 2020 to 2022?
Or do you still think it is not an agenda, and actually it's being undersold, as you came out and warned at the outset?
Not an agenda.
So, this is all just my particular thoughts.
Of course, I don't have any empirical proof.
I'm sure all of the empirical proof is long gone, you know, towed away like the Twin Towers, and exercised from The material realm.
But I think that, my personal opinion, it escaped from the lab, and the governments generally welcome disasters because it gives them more power.
I think that the media makes money from fear-mongering, so they pumped up the fear about it.
And because people got afraid, they then demanded A solution.
And because they demanded a solution, colossal amounts of government money went towards the mRNA vaccine technology, and then people were easy to turn against each other, and hospitals were easy to incentivize, and all this kind of stuff went down.
I don't, for me, maybe there'll be proof at some point down the road.
I don't think so, but of course I could be wrong.
But for me, I don't think it was some big agenda.
I think something big happens, and then everyone just grabs whatever cash is rolling by.
That is, I think, what happens.
It's sort of like if a Brinks truck full of $100 bills crashes in some neighborhood, everyone's just going to grab their money and run off.
Oh, you see this when the police are on strike, or there's some sort of...
I think if you look at everybody's particular incentives, right?
I mean, this thing gets loose, in my view.
I came from the lab.
This thing gets loose.
And China, of course, has an incentive to say it came from The wet market.
Or the pangolins or whatever.
That's what China has.
Because they don't want to say, we were working on this stuff.
America doesn't want to say that it had anything to do with funding it.
France doesn't want to have anything to do with saying, we helped build the lab.
So everybody just kind of covers and shuts things up.
That's just people protecting their own self-interest.
So, what happens then is the media gets a hold of it, and they love pumping up fear.
That people respond to fear.
They're glued to their TV.
They're glued to their websites.
And of course, you know, the people on the left as a whole, if you talk about shutting down travel from China, they'll just say racist.
It's just a knee-jerk reaction to any ethnic thing.
It's just racist.
And so, then people are freaking out.
They're panicking.
And, you know, there's a certain number of sadistic people who enjoy panicking others.
I, myself, I'd have to sort of review.
I was nervous.
I was nervous because I pretty much accepted from the very beginning that it came from a biolab, right?
So, because in my view, and I did a whole video called The Case Against China, that it came from the lab.
So, for me, I didn't know what the long-term effects of this would be.
And I never wanted governments to do anything, of course, but for me, I was like, yeah, I'm going to give this a week or two.
And C. Because I'm dealing with an unknown.
So, I mean, I was very much...
I mean, I did a whole video against the lockdowns from the very beginning.
It can do far more harm than good, which was pretty easy to predict.
So...
And I was also curious.
I was curious to see if any borders would be closed.
I was quite curious about that, looking back.
And when the borders weren't closed, well, then...
I became a little less nervous about things.
So, I think it got loose.
I think people couldn't, countries couldn't close borders because of cries of racism.
I think that the media pumped up the dangers.
I think China definitely seeded media with, you know, people falling over, that kind of stuff.
The estimates that came out of the, I think it was the British think tank, I can't remember the name, the estimates were just wild.
You know, I mean, they're just wild in terms of fatalities and deaths and so on.
And then, of course, hospitals said we need more money to deal with these things, to deal with COVID patients.
So the government offered them more money to deal with COVID patients.
And then everybody seemed to get classified quite a bit as a COVID patient and so on.
And because people were so panicked and there was so much money in the emergency use authorization aspect, Very much fast-tracked and so on.
And because people were so scared and they viewed the COVID vaccine as the only way to get back to any kind of normalcy, they turned on people who were hesitant or skeptical.
And so I don't view it as a big, you know, big giant hand moving all these chess pieces all over the place.
I don't view it that way.
What I view it as is a whole series of kind of dominoes that fall and people just grabbing opportunities.
To make a lot of money and have a lot of power when they can.
And, again, I could be wrong about all of this.
Just that's sort of the way that I have viewed it as a whole.
I'll view it.
All right.
Is Christian moral teaching incomplete?
The New Testament barely emphasizes devotion to kin and instead focuses on love for self and non-kin neighbors.
Either Christ presumes Gentiles by instinct, prioritize family, flawed assumption, Or being raised in Jewish tradition is a necessary prerequisite for a full ethical framework.
So, is Christianity fit for modern Gentiles?
That's a very interesting question.
Let's see here.
So, non-kin neighbors, when a belief system is starting out, then it has to focus on people who aren't part of that belief system yet.
Now, one of the reasons why emergent belief systems don't focus hugely on family, It's because either your family is already with you, or they're not coming on the journey, right?
Let's say a young man converts to Christianity around the time of Jesus.
Either he's going to convince his family, or his family is going to reject his conversion.
But there's not a huge amount of the proselytizing can do in that situation.
So you kind of do want to focus on strangers, people who are further away.
That's your best chance to gain new converts.
So I just view that as kind of necessary for the emergence or spread of a belief system, if that makes sense.
So, and of course it did work very well.
What are some of your favorite movies and why?
Love the movie Run With The View.
That's my favorite movie.
It is beautiful, it's civilized, it's wise, it's deep.
I have a real affinity for late 19th century, early 20th century art, because that to me was a time slice of true, deep, powerful human potential before, I mean, the infinite slaughterhouse of the 20th century destroyed all of that.
It's, I mean, you can see on X sometimes sort of videos of, oh, here's a Paris 1908.
And you see these people, I mean, I know it's a time slicing, they're not going to the bad sections of town, I get all of that.
But there was an optimism, a wealth, a civility, and a beauty to the, in the English, the Edwardian era, I think.
But, yeah, late 19th, early 20th century was a really beautiful time in many ways, and I'm drawn to a lot of the art from that, in the same way that I'm also drawn to the art that, the Russian art.
Of the 1870s onward, especially novels.
Amazing.
I mean, to compare what Turgenev or Dostoevsky or, you know, I mean, to compare these writers, Pushkin, to compare these writers and then the society they described, to compare those to what they described to what was going on under communism is...
I mean, it's deeply shocking.
It's deeply shocking.
Tolstoy and so on, right?
I mean, so how life was prior to the hellscape of communism is really something.
And of course, you know, they had the liberation of the serfs and so on, so it wasn't exactly paradise before, but the rule of law and relative civility and so on, social enforcement of rules rather than dictatorial enforcement of rules, amazing, powerful stuff.
Powerful stuff.
I don't know.
I've never...
There was a really good Spanish-language version of Crime and Punishment called Sin Compassione.
I've actually looked it up, but it's only available, I think, in the original Spanish.
I don't think there are even subtitles.
It was really the best adaptation of Crime and Punishment that I've ever seen.
What else?
Movies?
I mean, for fun stuff.
I mean, I enjoyed the Star Wars movies, especially the second one.
Empire Strikes Back was a fun movie.
Terminator 2 was a fun movie and, you know, had some little bit of philosophical gems in it, right?
With the kids saying, you can't just go on killing people.
Why?
You know, that kind of stuff, right?
Interesting questions.
And I was, you know, when I was going through a bout of insomnia in my late 20s, I went to see, early 30s maybe, I went to go and see the movie Fight Club and that hit.
I mean, it's a pretty gross and repulsive movie in many ways, but it really did hit the core and I just remember that, you know.
We're a generation of men raised by women.
I'm not sure another woman is the solution to her problems.
I just think that was a great line.
To even have that mentioned in a movie is incredible.
Movies.
I did re-watch The Godfather not too long ago.
I mean, Brando anchors that performance in a truly fantastic way.
And why?
I mean, I find a lot of movies, and I don't really watch that many movies anymore.
I don't mean to sound elitist or anything like that.
I'd like to.
I like movies, but it's just hard to find anything that's not gross.
It's either, like, pure candy.
Like, it's either just complete fluff, like Marvel nonsense.
Or it's just, you know, dark, wretched, and incomprehensible.
Or grim beyond words, right?
The substance, that kind of stuff.
Just repulsive.
Alright.
Have you ever watched episodes of the UK?
Show Supernanny.
I stumbled upon one tonight that horrified me.
The old me would have applauded the approach.
Since becoming so intimate with Peaceful Parenting, my heart broke for the little girl who was at the center of the episode.
I saw myself in her, and not one adult was asking why she was so angry, hostile, and in distress.
It was all about controlling her behavior.
Sickening.
Thank you for writing about such an important book.
Oh, thank you for writing such an important book.
That's PeacefulParenting.com.
It changed my life.
Oh, thank you.
I appreciate that.
Yeah, I used to watch some Super Nanny's because I was curious what the state of contemporary parenting approaches were or child management approaches were.
And she did do some work from time to time that seemed kind of deep, but I think with Super Nanny, she was in general, she was being bungied into families that were in serious crisis.
Like you've got kids injuring each other and bullying other kids at school and potential violence.
And so I think that...
When you get into that kind of extreme situation, people need to see results pretty quickly.
You need to find a way to do behavior modification so that the kids aren't getting injured.
The kids were seriously in danger sometimes.
So I think that you're looking for more of a diet and exercise approach, but I think for a super nanny, it was more like, that's just the ER.
That's the emergency room.
You just got to get in there and fix things.
Right?
So, I mean, I'm with you, but that long-term psychological stuff.
You know, one of the things that kind of red-pilled me on psychology, to some degree, was...
Oh, this is going a ways back.
Let me just look this up and see if I can get this time right.
It was called the Dr. Phil family.
And...
Yeah.
Yeah, that's probably just going to give his family...
But there was a family, the father was a doctor, messed up kids and so on, and they followed this family for quite a long time.
And it did not appear that things got better at all.
So, I just seemed to be unable to help.
Now, of course, you don't want to blame the good doctor necessarily for patients who don't necessarily follow his instructions, but...
It can be not great.
Now, I mean, there have been people, you hear them at the call-in shows, they've listened to my show for a while and aren't necessarily, you know, pursuing a life of philosophical excellence and so on, right?
All right, somebody says, no question for you.
Hope everything is going well.
Been a while since I saw you on YouTube.
Yeah, true.
Keep the conversation alive.
Thank you very much.
You can go to freedomain.com and you can find out.
All the places where I still publish.
Is it freedomain.com slash links?
I should know this.
Freedomain.com?
I think it's called links.
Let me just double check here.
Or am I going to 404?
No.
Sorry.
Freedomain.com.
Connect.
There we go.
Freedomain.com slash connect.
My apologies.
Links might be a bit generic.
Yeah, so freedomain.com slash connect.
All right.
Would you ever go on Timcast IRL?
You were the first person I found out about the Rona in 2019, and I watched YouTube censor the crap out of you right off the platform, but you are 100% right about all of it.
I mean, I appreciate that.
I obviously don't think I was 100% right about all of it, but I think I did pretty well.
I don't, I mean, I don't think so.
I mean, if, and I don't think Tim does any of this kind of stuff, but it was about parenting or that kind of stuff.
I think that would be interesting.
I think he became a father recently, but...
I don't.
I just think we're moving in very different areas and arenas and circles at the moment.
How can Western civilization ever truly return to a place of prosperity with all of the harm done?
With all of the wheels freely spinning towards ruin, what do we have left?
Well, there is only struggling forward.
There is no going back.
There is no going back.
All we can do is put forward the best arguments, the best principles, the best ideas, the best...
Reasoning and evidence.
And the world makes its choice.
For me, at least, I'm trying to put as much good information out there in the world so that people can make good choices as best they can.
All I can do is be as honest as reasonably I can and don't take the weight of the world on your shoulders.
You don't have any control over that.
You only have control over your own actions and what integrity and virtue you contribute to the world.
How does one maintain motivation and a positive momentum?
I think that, in general, your satisfaction in life as you age is measured and directly proportional to the amount of good that you've done.
And the amount of good that you can do is quite conditional.
If you do too much good, there's too much blowback.
So, it's like fencing.
You know, sometimes you advance, sometimes you retreat, and so on.
What do you think of Israel bombing the crap out of Palestine?
No, it's a terribly tragic situation.
It's a terribly tragic situation.
And until, and I said this on a live stream, until the world becomes more philosophical, these kinds of conflicts are simply going to escalate as a whole.
I mean, you don't see mathematicians or physicists bombing each other because they have an objective methodology for resolving their disputes.
Reason, evidence, scientific method, whatever you want to call it, right?
Mathematical processes and procedures.
So, it's from sort of preventive moral philosophy, it is beyond the realm of this kind of savagery and violence.
It's not within the realm of preventive moral philosophy.
Preventive moral philosophy is you're going to have to start focusing on reason and universality.
And UPB and things like that, and then these situations can be hopefully resolved over time.
But it's very sad all around.
Is Trump a cult leader?
No, he's a political leader.
Why do you sell your supporters NFTs in which you're depicted as a Caesar-like historical figure?
I think it was my old producer who came out with that image, and I just thought it was kind of funny, because I'm not a political leader.
I'm not a military leader, and I'm not a historical leader.
So it just seemed kind of funny.
But I'm glad that this is your big moral issue.
All right.
It's a long question, but a good one.
Dear Steph, I was recently browsing through my Instagram feed, and I noticed a college girl from my college posted an Instagram story of her planned flight to Marco.
Naturally, I thought, what the heck?
Anyhow, Steph, my...
Question is, how do we tell modern women that going on a trip to some third world country is to say the least a terrible idea?
Steph, it seems young women in the West are naive and stupid enough to think every country is just like the West.
Go to Morocco, okay?
Go to South Africa, catch some waves, visit the Taj Mahal, blah, blah, blah.
Okay.
Of course, I jest, but the issue still remains.
Why do so many young white women, well, it's not just white women, in the West, think about going to a third world country for adventure, fun, and vacation?
More importantly, how to convince young Western women that going to third world countries is a terribly dumb and awful idea.
Of course, they're not visiting active war zones like Afghanistan or Sudan, so there's a chance they may come back without anything bad happening.
Ah, let's see here.
An insane risk to take?
I don't know that it's insane.
You stay in the major areas and have a tour guide and so on.
Might not be so bad.
Sorry, I missed the last part of that question.
I asked a woman out in college and she rejected me.
No big deal.
But now she's going on a trip to Morocco and there's nothing I can do to stop her because I'm not her dad and I'm not in contact with her.
I already watched her adventure through Thailand on Instagram, where she posed with monkeys and made weird faces and comments about the local cuisine and public transport.
Luckily, she made it out of Thailand, but a group of young Australian women also went to Southeast Asia, Laos, and returned home deceased after their drinks were poisoned in a nightclub.
I mean, of course, bad things happen to women in just about every country, and some countries are more risky than others, but it's not.
I don't think it's as bad or as dangerous as you think that it is.
One of the things that's sort of happening with Instagram culture is just the provocation of envy is very key.
Very key.
The provocation of envy and, oh, it's so cool, or I wish you were there, and so on.
You know, what always blew my mind, and I guess still does, is, I probably have more of an answer to it now, but what blows my mind is, how do you pay for this stuff?
How do you pay?
Flights and travel and so on.
Now, maybe they're just, you know, you could say they're just sleeping around or dating around or something like that, maybe.
But I don't know.
How do you pay for all this stuff?
I was way too broke to do that kind of travel when I was a kid.
I didn't really get much travel then until I got into the business world.
And then I traveled on the business time, which was a lot of fun.
But I think the real danger is that when people don't live for the experience, they live for the exposure, right?
People don't travel to see things.
They travel to post about things.
Right?
I mean, it's like the people who are at a concert and they're just filming the concert.
It's like, you know there's going to be concert footage probably or everyone else is filming it.
You don't need to film it.
But what they're doing is they're not experiencing the moment.
They're recording the moment for social clout.
Which is not...
It's easy for a fairly old fogey to complain about this.
I get all of that.
And I have entire sections of my life with like no photographs whatsoever.
But...
I think people are getting dopamine from envy, not from connection.
And I think in particular that's the case for women.
Hi Steph, when you first got together with your now wife, did people in your life notice how happy you two were together and make passive-aggressive and outright mean comments about how you were too attached to one another?
I ask because my wife and I have experienced this.
We both love spending time with one another and given the choice.
We would always prefer to do things together instead of individually or with other people.
Some people who we do not associate with but who we still hear about slash from say hurtful things like we are codependent and that it's unhealthy to enjoy each other's company so much.
They will frame it like we are in an unhealthy relationship because we lack independence and need each other too much.
In reality, we just love each other and are delighted to spend time together.
Do you think that normies just say things like this to avoid confronting their own lack of emotional connection with their partner?
Oh yeah, for sure.
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
It's funny, like, when I met my wife, the ripple effect, and I really only noticed this looking back, but when I met my wife, the ripple effect of our connection was like a tsunami, just spread outwards.
And the people were, I mean, very disturbed, unsettled, bothered.
It did have a big ripple effect.
And there certainly was some Negativity.
I don't think we ever got direct insults, but maybe one or two.
But yeah, you know, when the real light of love lands on people, it throws everyone else's world into darkness, and they don't like that.
All right.
Free domain.
As a 50-something-year-old man, I understand that unsolicited advice is not always regarded as welcome by younger people.
That said, If you see someone about to make a major decision, how do you provide input without overstepping?
Recently, my nephew was talking about joining the military.
Like many veterans my age and with my experience, I don't encourage young people to join.
Moral reservations aside, of which after my experience in the service, I now understand there are many, my nephew is unsuitable for the military environment.
And of course, I don't want him to throw his life away in the next forever war.
Many of my friends died for nothing, some of them right in front of me.
I'm sorry to hear that.
What's the best approach to initiate such a conversation without being perceived as unsupportive?
His parents have already tried to discourage this without success.
My sister, his mother, asked me to talk to him.
Well, you're trying to sell, right?
You're trying to sell.
Good for you, right?
We're all trying to sell.
So, the way that you sell is to ask, why do you want to join the military?
How do you see your life without it?
How do you imagine the military is going to be?
What do you hope to gain out of it?
And so on, right?
And if I were in your shoes, I would spend five to ten hours asking questions.
So that, obviously, you can understand what are the motivations or the driving factors behind his decision.
So, if you go into a conversation trying to discourage someone, they're just going to push back against you.
I mean, I'm sure you've heard a bunch of my call-in shows.
What I do is I'm, you know, like a two-hour call-in show.
Sometimes the first hour...
An hour and a half is just me asking questions, trying to understand the situation, trying to understand the environment, the motivations, the background, the backdrop, and all that kind of stuff.
So just ask.
You're not trying to talk about joining the military.
You just want to understand his thinking, and you don't have to lie.
You say, look, I have some skepticism, but I'm certainly open to being convinced that it's the right choice for you.
And as you sort of circle around and drill down, you will get to some kind of core.
You will get to some kind of core which is driving his decision.
I don't know what that's going to be.
That's why I like doing call-in shows.
I still don't often know what it's going to be for people.
But you are going to get to some kind of core that is driving his decision.
And the important thing is not for you to see that core, right?
We ask people questions so that they find out about themselves.
The important thing is not for you to see that core.
The important thing, of course, sorry to be repetitive, the important thing is for him to see the core of why he wants to join the core.
See?
I worked that in.
All right.
Steph, why do you praise Elon Musk so much, even mentioning that he is of significant moral purpose and intent, while he is such a terrible father-slash-ex-husband?
I don't want to diminish his success and achievements in the public and business sphere, but you're one of the only people who usually point out those inconsistencies and hypocrisies in public figures, but not with him.
Yeah, well, I mean, the bro is trying to save Western civilization.
And honestly, the acquisition and dismantling of censorship, acquisition of X and the dismantling of censorship on X is one of the most significant events in free speech history.
And, you know, I mean, he wants to go into planetary.
Because he's concerned about the survivability of life on Earth.
And, you know, I mean, he obviously knows a lot more about space than I do, so I'm not going to argue with the guy.
I mean, yeah, I don't think he's a great father.
He's certainly not a great husband, and I was not a big fan of him.
What was he calling some guy a pedo?
Got sued.
I don't know.
It was just bad.
Just bad.
All around.
But I praise him for the morals that he does achieve, which are huge.
Right?
And those are considerable.
That's right, yeah.
Elon Musk was involved in a defamation lawsuit.
Yeah, over a tweet where Musk called him a pedo guy.
So, I don't think that's something to joke about, but again, it's not a huge deal.
So, yeah, he is of significant moral purpose and intent.
And I think that there were a lot of people, what was it?
Who was it I saw?
I saw, was it Charlie Kirk or something was saying that?
When Biden was in power, and I think Mike Sanovich talked about this as well, that when Biden was in power, that they were nervous about getting visits from alphabet agencies, right?
And now that's all gone.
And, you know, did Elon Musk have something to do with getting Trump in?
You know, it seems to be.
It seems he's certainly poured a lot of money into it.
So, yeah, I mean, he is of significant moral purpose and intent.
If I had the choice, if I had the choice, as far as sort of the West, And civilization goes.
If I had the choice for Elon Musk to be a good father or to have liberated free speech on Twitter, what would I choose?
Well, I'm sorry for his kids, but I would choose all of that, right?
I would choose the free speech on Twitter.
All right.
What is spirituality and does it have value?
Ah, you're going to have to rephrase that.
It's too vague.
Andrew Wilson has a question he asks women.
What are some duties that women have in society?
They usually have no answer.
In a state of society, do people have duties?
Duties?
I don't think so.
There are no unchosen positive requirements.
There are no unchosen positive obligations.
So you don't have a duty by reason of existing.
Right?
You don't have to give to the poor.
You don't have to help the needy.
You don't have to give medicine to the sick.
You don't have to.
Now, If you sign a contract, then you are...
But that's a chosen positive obligation, right?
I send you an iPad, we have a contract, you send me 500 bucks or whatever, right?
So then you have a chosen positive obligation.
You sign a contract with a cell phone company, you pay a certain amount of money every month.
So there are chosen positive obligations.
But there are no unchosen positive obligations.
For the simple reason that that can't be universalized.
Right?
If I say to you, I did this video many years ago called The Social Contract Defined and Destroyed in 60 Seconds or Less.
And if there are unchosen positive obligations, right?
Hey, man, you've got to give me $10,000.
Well, then you can just say to me, well, you've got to give me $10,000, blah, blah, blah, right?
So, they all just cancel each other out.
Unchosen positive obligations cannot be universalized.
They're not UPP compliant.
So, no, you don't have unchosen positive obligations.
Now, with regards to women as a whole, I would say that women, as the same with men, women have the obligation to not initiate the use of force and to respect property rights.
Two sides of the same coin, right?
Women have the obligation to not initiate the use of force and to respect property rights, which is the same moral big obligations that men would have.
Women don't have an obligation to have children.
It's an unchosen positive obligation.
And it would be interesting, you know, and maybe I'll do this as an exercise one day, which I think would be very interesting.
Tell me what you think.
But I would be interested to imagine what would a marriage contract look like in the absence of the state?
Because the state is highly biased when it comes to women and family courts and divorce law and things like that.
The state is highly biased for a couple of reasons.
One, women outvote men, live longer.
Therefore, you have to appeal to women to stay in power.
Number two, there's just a general white knighting that happens between politicians and women.
Politicians often power for men and do that.
And the other thing, too, is that if women don't get sufficient money from men, then the women end up on welfare, which is bad for the government.
The government coffers and so on would rather spend money on other things.
It would be very interesting to see, or to imagine, what it would be like.
What would a free market marriage contract look like?
It would have to be balanced, right?
It would have to be balanced to the point where women would not feel that having children was an undue risk.
They could end up sleeping under a bridge with their children.
But at the same time, you don't want women to be incentivized to leave and break up the families, right?
So, those are the challenges.
And it would be interesting to see.
It would be a tight balance.
And maybe it would all be prenups and so on, but there would be sort of things, standard templates for prenups and things like that.
But I think that would be interesting to see.
And then, of course, the women would have the obligations to maintain their contracts.
So, as far as what the duties are of women, you know, it's always a big question.
Which is what Roman is talking about in a novel, The Future, which you should definitely check out, freedomain.com slash books.
But in my novel, The Future, Roman is basically saying success is failure.
When women, through capitalism, automation, and so on, when women gain enough money to travel and have fun and have cool jobs and, you know, nice office work and so on, I mean, We can talk about, you know, perverse incentives and so on, and old-age pensions and free healthcare and all of that, but do women want to have kids?
Do men want to have kids?
It's the more entertaining and engaging life and society gets as a whole.
Do people actually want to have children?
I wanted kids.
I've worked in a daycare.
I love kids.
But I didn't really focus on it hugely in my 20s.
And of course, you know, right now, there is a kind of depopulation agenda that's going on.
So, women are, you know, the bad role models and go to university, start your career, have kids later, delay, delay, delay.
That's pretty tragic.
I think that a free society would be much more pro-natalist.
So I think that might solve some of it.
But in the absence of religion, and In the presence or really the omnipotence of hedonism that characterizes the modern world.
Do women want children?
Do men want children?
I don't know, man.
It's hard to make the case because it does seem to be a pretty universal phenomenon.
You know, people say, well, it's access to higher education and so on.
For women, I get all of that.
But I don't know.
It's just that.
I don't know that it's just that.
I think people are having a tough time.
Particularly, I think more intelligent people are having a tough time.
Trying to figure out why to have kids.
So, anyway, I hope that helps.
I really do appreciate everyone's support and care and attention in this conversation.
Thank you so much.
FreeDomain.com slash donate if you find these Q&As helpful.
And, of course, I've got more to go.
But I will get to those another time.
And lots of love from up here.
FreeDomain.com slash donate.
Or you can go to FDRURL.com slash locals to sign up for a subscription, which is also enormously...
Helpful and very much needed.
I really do appreciate that.
Lots of love, my friends.
Take care.
▲
Export Selection