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June 22, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
02:06:02
Chatting with JustPearlyThings! X/Twitter Space 4
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Well, good evening.
Welcome to your Friday Night Live, everybody.
Thank you so much for joining.
It is Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain at freedomain.com.
Also on X at Stefan Molyneux.
Should I spell it?
Okay, I'll spell it if you insist.
S-T-E-F-A-N-M-O-L-Y-N-E-U-X.
Polish first name and French last name.
So I get invaded and surrender.
What can I tell you?
That's the bipartisan nature.
Of my lineage.
Also, I was born in Ireland, so we stay out of war, Southern Ireland, at least because we have that choice.
So I hope you're having a wonderful evening.
It is very pleasant and wonderful to chat with you tonight.
And this is the time for your conversation.
This is the time for you to inquire of me how philosophy can help you tonight.
So the way that you do that is you just say, Hey Steph, I would like to talk and we can yap to your heart's content and we can find out how philosophy best serves you, the fine, lovely listener as a whole.
So I'm still, I have these, I found these old headphones in a drawer kind of by accident, so I'm using these because the audio is not ideal and because you can only run these things off a phone.
And I don't have any Bluetooth headsets.
This is sort of the best that I can do for audio, but there we go.
So I'm happy to take your questions.
If there's things that we can do with regards to philosophy, that would be delightful and delovely.
And let's see here.
Loud and clear, that's good.
And let me just figure out And remember, remember exactly how to get people.
I think if you raise your...
Sorry, my phone is sideways, and I guess like most people...
Okay, got it, got it.
So we have a request from Dennis.
Dennis, if you want to unmute.
I'm all ears.
How can philosophy help you, my friend?
Hello, Mr. Molyneux.
Hi, I'm a huge fan, long-time listener, first-time caller.
I'm from Toronto as well.
I was living in the Don Mills area not long ago.
I tried to explore those areas you mentioned, the old mall and the path by the river.
That used to be my running route.
Anyways, I recommend you to everyone.
I mostly love you, but there's a few serious issues I have with you.
And just to pick on one of them, I remember on one of your call-ins, You kind of carelessly said that a 17-year-old boy should get jailed, for example, sharing leaks of his ex-girlfriend.
And would you say that's a mistake, a careless thing you said?
Without context, if you don't have quotes, I'm not sure what the circumstances were.
I'm not sure what the context was.
I'm certainly happy to talk about it further, but do you remember any of the details of the conversation?
Unfortunately not, but you tend to have this position in general.
So, if I were to ask you right now, if a What is the position I have in general?
You're super sensitive to anything to do with early sexuality, and you would always take, like...
So you've gone from a specific complaint to a general accusation to now an emotional motivation, like I'm super sensitive?
Early sexuality?
Yeah, so I'm sure this is a deep rabbit hole which has deep emotional roots for both of us probably, but including you.
You get very emotional when this topic comes up.
Which is fine.
Why are you bringing up my emotions when we're trying to have a discussion about philosophy?
I mean, that's a poison in the way.
I mean, one of the reasons why I love this show is because we go into the emotional roots of things, but I'm fine with sticking to the philosophy.
So if I were to ask you, Rick, So going into the emotional roots of things is asking questions to people about their thoughts, their histories, their feelings, their childhoods, or whatever.
It's not...
Well, I've been following you for over a decade.
I'm familiar with your views on this.
Good.
Then you should absolutely know what you're doing when it comes to reasoning with people.
The reason I'm being harsh is you have no excuse.
You've been following me for a long time, so coming up and saying, oh, Steph, you're just so super sensitive and irrational about this topic when you can't even remember the details of the criticism.
No, I'm not trolling.
I'm sincerely trying to help.
This is not concern trolling.
I'm seriously trying to correct you here.
I could be wrong.
So, for example, let's stick to the philosophy.
Would you say that a 17-year-old should be jailed for sharing leaks of his girlfriend?
How old is the girlfriend?
Let's say 16. I think that sharing a child's nude experience If the person is 17, then the person would be tried, I assume, as a child and therefore would not go to an adult jail, but would receive some kind of correction because sharing sexually explicit images of a child to the general population is really, really bad.
So you'll notice that you didn't answer the question and you're kind of, uh, Okay.
Are we just going to fight?
Is that your goal?
I wish you would just have said no, he should not go to jail.
That's the simple answer.
I did say no, he should not go to jail.
If you listen carefully, I said he would not be tried as an adult, so jail would be inappropriate, but he should go to some, he would have some sort of correction.
That's a NAP violation.
That's a NAP violation.
He shouldn't be forced to do anything against his will.
He did nothing wrong, according to the UPB.
I mean, we're begging the question, I suppose.
Did he do anything wrong?
Yeah, he did something wrong.
A UPB violation, however.
He did something wrong.
So what was the UPB violation that he did by sharing a picture?
Well, because a child cannot consent.
Well, there's two things that he did wrong.
Number one, he shared sexually explicit images of a child who cannot consent.
Therefore, he did something against consent.
That's number one.
And number two...
That's an implicit contract.
In other words, if somebody takes a picture of you or you send a picture of yourself in a sexual way to someone, that is sent with the assumption that the person is not going to share it.
If I tell you something really, really important in confidence, and then you go and tell it to everyone and it has significant negative impacts, then yeah, that would be something that would be sanctionable.
So on two levels, he's sharing explicit pictures from somebody who cannot consent in the abstract and someone who did not consent in the specific in that the implied contract of sending sexually explicit pictures is that they're not shared with the Internet.
First of all, they're his pictures.
You can make the argument that they're his pictures.
It's his property.
And second of all, I mean, the implied contract idea, like what exactly was the contract?
That if he shares them, he's going to get physically punished?
I don't think he ever would have agreed to that.
I think it's more of a softer thing.
Like, it's aesthetically unpreferred behavior, but nothing that rises to the label of something that can be physically punished.
I don't think that's part of the implied contract, actually.
But you're just stating an opinion.
I'm stating this.
You're just saying, I don't think so.
Well, that's not an argument.
And you should know how to make an argument.
If you listen to me, as you claim for 10 years, you should know how to formulate a damn argument.
The question is, what do you think the implied contract was if he broke it?
What do you think the clause would have been implicitly if he had, um, I already explained that.
Were you not listening?
What the punishment should be.
I absolutely did.
You said there is an implied contract, which I agree with, but the devil's in the details.
What specifically do you think the contract implies?
I think in most people's opinions, you should not go to jail for sharing pictures.
Bro, we can't have a debate if you don't listen.
You do not specify what the punishment should be.
Okay, now you're moving the goalpost.
First of all, you said, I need to specify what the implied contract was.
No, the goalpost was jail.
Hang on.
Okay, we can't both talk at the same time.
Can we agree on that?
Okay, so first you asked me, what was the implied contract?
And I said, I already explained that.
And now you're saying, I have to give you the specific punishment, which I said I can't do, because in a free society, I don't know how it would be handled.
I'm not sure you're listening.
I think you're here to troll.
No.
But if you want to make another point, you can.
My opening question was whether he should go to jail.
I did not move the goalpost.
And you did not answer yes or no.
And then you vaguely said it's implied that he should maybe go to jail.
You didn't specify anything.
My original goalpost was jail.
Right.
So I did not move the goalpost.
What did I say about that?
Well, hang on.
I'm just curious if you're listening.
You didn't answer.
You said he should go to juvenile jail.
I didn't say he should go.
He should face some kind of sanction as a minor.
I don't know exactly what that would be, certainly not in a free society.
But yeah, he should face some kind of sanction because he shared explicit pictures of a child against her consent.
First of all, it's not up to her to give consent, in my opinion.
It's his picture.
She gave it to him.
Yes, she gave it to him with the implied contract that he would not share it because if he had said to her, if he'd been honest, right?
If he had said to her, if you share me these explicit pictures, I will put them out there on the internet for everyone to see, she would not have shared them.
In the same way, if you go into a restaurant and you say, I am not going to pay for my meal, they will not serve you.
The implied contract is you order the meal and you're going to pay for it at the end.
That's the implied contract.
If you get into a cab and you say, I am not going to pay, I'm just going to open the door and run away, the cab driver will not take you.
So there are implied contracts all over the place, all the time in society.
You don't sign a contract in a movie theater to say you're not going to shine flashlights around, set off fireworks and scream at the top of your lungs.
But if you do, they'll kick you out.
So there are implied contracts everywhere all the time in society.
Do you admit that?
Of course, yes.
Again, the question is, should he be physically punished?
Hang on, hang on, hang on.
Do you admit that if someone sends sexually explicit pictures to someone else, which is unwise in general, but this is a 16-year-old kid, so whatever, she doesn't know what she's doing in that way.
So if you send sexually explicit pictures to someone, is there an implied contract that they will not share it?
On the internet or with others?
I mean, I want to say...
I'll go with you here.
I'll look to be difficult.
So then he broke an implicit contract and he's subject to sanctions.
But again, what sanction?
I initially asked you whether he should be jailed and you didn't say no.
Okay, what did I say?
He'll be tried as a juvenile, whatever that means.
That doesn't mean much to me.
Juveniles can go to jail as well.
Well, I'm sorry you don't understand how courts and the law work, but that's scarcely helpful.
He should not be forced to go into a courtroom.
He broke a contract.
Yeah, so he should be shamed.
Perhaps he should be shamed.
Okay, hang on.
Bro, bro, bro.
You gotta let me talk, okay?
It is supposed to be my show.
Try not to be too rude.
So, if you break an implicit contract, you can be hauled into a court.
Of course you can.
If you don't pay for your meal, you can be hauled into a...
If you pump and dump, if you just bolt off, then yeah, you can be tracked down from your license plate and you can be hauled into court.
So yeah, the breaking of implicit contracts can absolutely get you hauled into court.
So you're just passing the can down the road, and then the question is, what punishment do you think the court can be justified in imposing on him?
Okay, so fine, I'll agree with that.
He can go to a court, but then what punishment do you think is fitting for sharing a picture?
Okay, so you came on very hard.
I just want to give people the lay of the land at the moment.
So this fine young gentleman, who I think has a bad conscience, although that we don't know for sure and I don't want to overanalyze, but this fine gentleman came in very hard saying I was over-emotional.
I think I'm giving rational arguments.
He said that the young man should face no sanctions.
I did not say that.
And I said...
The question is, what sanctions?
I'm okay with shaming.
I'm okay with ostracism, but not jail.
Sanctions generally means something legal.
Yeah.
So you can be, I don't know.
I mean, if you sanction a country or a product, generally that means something legal.
But anyway, we don't want to get hung up on that.
My only question was about jail.
Okay, so you accept implicit contracts, you accept that the girl was underage, you accept that she did not say that she allowed the man to, or the young man, to spread her image, and you accept that there are sanctions for...
could or should be...
You casually said he should be jailed.
I mean...
And?
That's a serious...
That's a serious punishment for sharing an image.
I mean, you can't jail It is sharing against the person's capacity to even approve of it.
It is sharing sexually explicit material of a child, my friend.
It is not sharing an image.
Yes, it is an image.
I mean...
Does it not trouble you?
Hang on.
Does it not trouble you at all that a child's sexually explicit image is shared against your will?
Does that trouble you at all?
I'm a free speech absolutist.
I'm a nudist, perhaps.
I'm okay with nudism.
We're different on this.
I don't expect you to become a nudist, and you're appealing to emotion.
This is not a question of nudism.
Don't hedge.
And don't pull this bullshit.
Okay?
This is not a question of nudism.
If adults want to share their sexually explicit images, go for it.
I don't care.
As long as they're not violating implicit contracts.
If somebody sends a nude picture to someone else and says, by all means, go share it on the internet, I think that's stupid.
I think it's unwise.
But that's their choice.
We're talking about a child.
Not an adult.
What's the difference between sharing a picture of a child or an adult?
A child cannot consent to the sharing of sexual imagery.
Again, what is the harm that's being done here?
Who's the victim?
How is he victimized?
Sometimes you would say that the problem is actually the way society handles it.
Okay, let's try it this way.
What if it's a six-year-old girl?
The onus is on the gun.
What if it is a six-year-old girl whose naked picture is being shared on the internet?
I don't see the harm that's being done here.
Is she physically hurt?
Is she psychologically hurt?
Where is the harm done?
Yes, of course she's psychologically hurt.
Because when she gets older and she realizes that her naked pictures have been shared for strangers...
You're assuming all this.
Why would images be harmful?
I don't understand why you think that would be harmful or why it would hurt her.
And why would it hurt her as an adult but not as a teenager?
Well, it does hurt her as a teenager.
Have you ever talked to, let's say, A girl who's had sexually explicit images shared against her will.
Have you ever talked to someone like that?
I've heard of cases like this.
Have you ever talked to someone?
It's a yes or no question.
Not have you heard of cases.
Have you ever talked to a girl who's had sexually explicit imagery shared against her will with others?
I know of a teenager where this happened to.
Some ex of hers, revenge leaked her stuff.
Have you ever talked with a girl who's been in this?
Okay.
So you have talked with her directly about her?
Yeah.
Okay.
So why wouldn't you say that at the beginning?
I don't believe you because otherwise you would have said that.
No, because I thought you meant younger.
Teenager is a bit different.
Still legally a child?
Okay.
So did she experience any negative emotions from having explicit imagery?
Yes.
And her main issue is, you know, the shame that her society would bring upon her.
It wasn't specifically the image sharing.
It was the effect that other people would have when looking at it.
And the way they would shame her.
It wasn't necessarily the image that hurt her, obviously.
It's the effect that sexually constructed So, this is all bizarro land, man.
So, you said, what's the harm?
But you've actually talked to a woman, a girl, And directly heard the harm.
The harm was done by society, not by the photographer.
So I don't understand.
You're saying, well, what's the negative?
And the only person you've ever talked to about this expressed significant negatives.
So what the hell are you talking about?
The perpetrator of the harm was not the boyfriend or the guy.
It was society.
The guy actually taking the picture Well, punish the right people.
What on earth does it matter?
Punish the perpetrator.
What on earth does it matter who the harm comes from if the harm is coming from a significant number of people?
So let me put it to you this way.
Let's say that you and I have competing restaurants across the street, right?
And I spread a rumor that I found the ass end of a rat in the soup you served me, right?
And this costs you a lot of business because people don't want to eat it in a restaurant where you get the ass end of a soup in your clam chowder.
Right?
So let's say this costs you a million dollars of lost business, right?
Am I responsible for any of that loss that you've experienced?
I lie about your food and cost you a lot of business.
I would actually say no, but I can understand the argument.
However, this is not what's happening here because that's a lie.
Like, that's a form of fraud and dishonesty.
You have to...
It's a huge difference because lying and making like, that's a dangerous lie.
Nudity is not a dangerous lie.
That's just honesty.
It's your body.
It's a huge, you can't make that embarrassing.
I understand.
I understand that an analogy is an analogy.
If you can't understand that analogy is imperfect by definition, then you're just not smart enough to do the conversation.
The problem with lying about a restaurant is you're...
All right?
Sorry.
This just can't be the conversation.
All right?
So, if we accept that if I lie about your business and cost you half a million dollars, you would take me to court for slander.
It would be slander, I think, or defamation.
I can't remember the two.
So, let's just say defamation, right?
So, you would take me to court because my lies have directly cost you money.
Now, in most common law court systems, there is something called pain and suffering.
You have caused me significant and objective pain and suffering.
In other words, any reasonable person would experience pain and suffering as a result of this, even if I haven't lost money.
Let's say that you lie about me having an affair and my wife wants to leave me and I go through a lot of pain and suffering, even though it hasn't directly cost me money yet, then I might take you to court and pain and suffering would be recognized as something that you might have to pay for.
Now, you can disagree with common law if you want, but then we're in an entirely different conversation about a society that doesn't exist.
So, and societies would in general deal with that.
Most societies do and have throughout human history, at least in the West.
So, causing someone pain and suffering through lying or the breaking of an implicit contract is something that people can be sanctioned for.
Now, children are generally sanctioned at a far lower rate than adults.
So, I don't know what the punishment would be for this young man.
I don't know what it would be currently, and it would vary by jurisdiction.
But yes, he should receive some kind of sanctions.
I don't know whether those sanctions would be I think what would be ideal would be some sort of counseling or some sort of therapy to figure out why he's so cold-hearted and so destructive of somebody else's peace of mind and privacy that he would share a sexually explicit image of a child to others.
That would be an indication of a severe problem in the personality.
So, yeah, for sure you can be sanctioned for causing someone else pain and suffering.
If I do the half-million-dollar damage against your restaurant, and you say, well, no, the damage isn't caused.
And I say, no, the damage isn't caused by me.
The damage is caused by all these irrational people who believed me, who just didn't go to your restaurant.
That doesn't matter.
The fact is that I told this lie, and you suffered half a million dollars in losses.
Me blaming the people for what they do is irrelevant.
And in the same way, if somebody shares a sexually explicit image of a child, and she suffers as a result, as she will, It doesn't really matter if it's society or others.
The suffering is real and objective, and any reasonable person would suffer under those circumstances.
So, please, go ahead.
Any kind of physical incarceration of him is a nap violation.
It's far from clear that she suffered greatly.
The girl that I know didn't really suffer that much.
You haven't made the case that she suffered greatly.
If she suffered a million dollars, I can understand your case.
That's far from clear.
There might have actually been, to play the devil's advocate, there might have been credible or decent reasons why he did this.
Maybe she wasn't a good girl.
So many things.
What?
Maybe she was a bad girl.
Maybe she wasn't a good girl so he can share sexually explicit images of a child.
Do you hear yourself at all?
Does this register with your conscience at all?
I mean, as you know, people don't change, right?
So even a teenager, you know, they might not be the best person in the world.
Okay, you're just too creepy and sinister.
You're done.
Yeah, you're just too creepy, man.
You really need to seek some help.
Appeal to emotion.
This is not a healthy conversation.
No, yeah, this is an appeal to revulsion, bro.
This is a repeal to Repulsion.
So yeah, this is like really nasty and vile.
I invite you to not listen to my show, and I definitely invite you to go and see a therapist and try and deal with this, because you are definitely going down a very dangerous path of cold-hearted exploitation.
So, I'm going to remove this fellow, and that was quite unpleasant, and I'm sorry to have, well, you know, maybe it's interesting for you guys to see this kind of stuff.
But yeah, that was definitely not much of a plus.
No way!
It can't be true.
It can't be true that the inimitable H. Pearl Davis has graced us with her illustrious volleyball 5 '11 and change presence.
Is this right?
Do I have you in the right category, Pearly Things?
You do.
Hi, it's nice to meet you.
Hi, how are you doing?
I'm good, how are you?
Good.
Sorry for that last conversation.
I hope you kept your lunch.
I didn't actually hear it.
I heard the end, but I didn't understand what it was about.
Good, good.
Well, what's on your mind?
How can I help you?
And I very much enjoy what you say.
And I think you are a very courageous young lady and a very good singer.
I envy that ability.
I really do.
I like to sing, but it doesn't like me back as much.
So I really do appreciate what you do.
And I've been recommending you for quite some time.
And thank you very much for calling in.
Oh, thanks so much.
You know, people just keep tagging me in your stuff.
I guess you're back on Twitter.
And they just kept saying that you need to interview him.
You need to meet him.
And I just saw you were live.
So I was like, I'll come say hi.
Okay.
You're expanding.
Like your average American female.
I mean, so that is really something.
I mean, how many people do you have working?
You're opening up studios every time I turn it on.
It's like we are now colonizing Mars and we're heading to Uranus.
Oh no, I stopped.
So congratulations for all that.
They demonetized me too.
So they put a...
I feel like I'm re-monetized now, but it like just happened.
So yeah, I was doing that.
Now was that Twitter that did that?
No.
You know what?
You guys...
I've never really made a ton of money off of Twitter.
So when I got kicked off of YouTube, it was kind of game over for a while.
Now, hang on.
Did you get kicked all the way off or just demonetized?
No, sorry.
Demonetized.
I know there's other people that have not stopped them.
They're better than me, I guess, because it did stop me.
I had to leave England.
Like, close pretty much all of it.
And how long ago did you get demonetized on YouTube?
It was in November of, like, two years ago.
So I was demonetized for a year and a half, and they let me in, I think, maybe March.
They reaccepted me.
Okay.
And just for the listeners here, if people do want to support you, I can't remember, sorry for this, I can't remember the website.
If people do want to support you, and I would strongly suggest that they do, Where is it that they can go to best help out?
Yeah, it's theaudacitynetwork.com.
Thank God we're re-monetized now, but yeah, if they do kick me off again.
Well, there's nothing like the exciting rollercoaster of telling the truth and trying to catch a few bucks out of the cannons of people outraged, so good for you.
I really, really appreciate that resolution and that stick-with-it-ness, and I assume that comes to a good degree.
I know you've got a great relationship with your dad and also more than a Broadway cast worth of brothers.
And also sports, really sports.
It's like get up, walk it off, start again.
And so I think that that's got a lot to do with it, which is not to take away from your own personal resolution, but I think those are some of the powerful factors that are helping you keep going.
Yeah, I don't know where I'd be without my dad.
Yeah, no, it's definitely from my dad taught me that.
You know, when I was like a kid.
It's like one of those conversations that you kind of remember forever.
It was like my dad.
So my dad's really smart, right?
He went to the University of Chicago.
Just a really, like, you could meet him.
He's just a high IQ person.
And I just remember he was like, I was trying to do math homework and I couldn't get it.
And I was like, Dad, you don't understand.
You're so smart.
Like, you just, you don't get it.
And he just told me that.
He's employed people for years, and he'd take someone that works hard over someone smart any day.
And he's just like, when you're young, it doesn't really seem like it, but in the grand scheme of things, if you stick things out.
So I don't know, that's just kind of one of the things that when I was young.
But didn't you get kicked off?
That's what everyone's telling me.
You got kicked off of stuff too.
Yeah, I got kicked off like a rock flies out of a medieval ballista.
I got banned from just about everything, and even one of my own kidneys filed a petition to leave me.
It was, yeah, definitely a real challenge, and thank heavens for dedicated listeners.
And what I did was I went from stadiums to jazz clubs, which, you know, I took the meatloaf route, right, which is you're really big and you get involved in a lot of conflicts and disputes.
And then I think he took a couple of years off after Bat Out of Hell because there were so many lawsuits.
I went from stadiums to jazz clubs, which is, you know, not the end of the world, and it's just a different kind of conversation, right?
It was more intimate.
And I got back into reading my novels as audiobooks.
And I just, after doing all of this...
I went back to sort of my roots.
I was originally a novelist and actor and an artist, so I went back to that kind of stuff and wrote a couple of books and chatted with people in a sort of very limited way.
And then, you know, back on Twitter, it was crazy.
Just, I mean, to come back was quite exciting, like Prodigal Son, Back from the Wilderness, that kind of stuff.
But yeah, I got yeeted off just about everything.
But, you know, it was an election year, so I don't blame anybody but myself.
I don't hold anybody responsible except myself.
I peed and grabbed just about every third rail known to man, God, and Zeus, and I basically got myself kicked off with no regrets, because sometimes I think the truth is worth more than income, fame, and even reputation.
Because, you know, as a moral philosopher, you expect your reputation to accrue to the benefit of your great-grandchildren, but almost never yourself.
So what was it?
What got you booted?
Maybe we could exchange booted stories.
Can we boot it?
I mean, I don't know for sure, because nobody ever told me.
They didn't tell you?
Like, nobody ever said, bro, you did this, and this was a bridge too far.
So I talked about IQ, which, you know, is a very contentious topic, but that had been years before.
I don't think it was that in particular.
I do know, at least I suspect, that on YouTube...
And I had sort of regularly been pushing back against these narratives.
I had a very big video on George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin.
I did some stuff on Ahmaud Arbery and other people.
And I had done an interview with a friend of mine who's a cop in America.
And his black cop friends, the white cop and a black cop, and we all three of us got together and jawboned about George Floyd and this issue called excited delirium.
Like some people just when they're getting arrested, they just completely freak out and have all these medical issues.
And so we talked about that.
We talked about the drugs in his system.
We talked just about a bunch of other stuff, not coming to any conclusions because nobody knew for sure, of course, what was going on at the time.
But I think having, you know, me host a white cop and a black cop talk about George Floyd.
I think that probably broke people's brains in the censorship, motherships, or whatever runs that.
That's beautiful.
No, that's a great panel.
I love panels like that.
I want to watch the video.
It's too bad.
Oh no, it's available.
Just not, obviously, on YouTube.
So that was up in processing.
You know, and you know, sometimes when you've got, you know, you know, it's a little, it's a little spice.
It's got a little cinnamon in it.
And I don't know if you've ever done this.
And I try not to because, you know, a watched pot never boils.
But I remember sitting in my computer and it's like 90%, 95%.
And I'm like, come on, baby, you can do it.
You can do it.
And then it's like, your channel has been deleted.
And it's like, oh, so close.
So close.
So close.
Because apparently speech you hate is just called hate speech.
You know, hate speech is just a made-up term for people who don't have good counter-arguments.
So I think, I don't know for sure, but I think it was that.
And I assume, of course, that there were a bunch of people who were saying, here's a terrible guy.
Look at that.
He's a terrible guy.
And so on.
Now, the other thing, too, is because I didn't take ads, like I never took any ads, so I think it was kind of tough for people to, they couldn't go to advertisers, so I think they just had to go.
To the source, like maybe if I'd had advertisers, although I'd been demonetized on YouTube a year or two before all of this.
And yeah, just the dominoes kept falling and, you know, you just have to reinvent yourself as best you can.
You don't want too even a life because if you have too even a life, you're just not taking enough chances.
And then you have, rather than some of the frustration of deplatforming, you have the bitterness of regret, which is to me one of the worst things ever.
Like I'll do a lot to end my life.
Oh, that's nice.
Tommy Sotomayor just followed me.
I did some shows with him as well.
He's a great guy.
And I'm very, very upset that I never got to talk to Kevin Samuels.
That was a huge dream of mine.
But yeah, so I pushed the envelope.
And of course, the funny thing is too, and I'm sorry to monopolize.
I want to hear your experience as well.
But the funny thing is, too, is that a lot of the stuff that I talked about was just razor...
Edgy.
Like, cutting edge.
How dare you even think these thoughts, let alone expostulate them?
You know, and now when I'm looking on Twitter, it's like, yeah, it's pretty common coinage.
But, you know, nobody really cares that people took bullets to open up these conversations.
They just want to have them now.
And what do you think was it for you that got the demonetizing yeet?
Oh, they told me.
Yeah, they gave me a meeting.
So I'll tell you the full story because there's some people that think that I was deplatformed for other reasons, but all I can go off of is what YouTube told me.
So the summer, like June, before I got demonetized, there was a song I did release that I thought was funny, but people did not.
It had to do with Nick.
F stuff and that sort of thing.
I don't really want to talk about it.
Sorry, Nick who?
Nick Fu, I don't want to Yeah, yeah, nice guy.
But I made a song kind of on that topic.
It was just like a freestyle song and a guitar, but this got me on like Pierce Morgan, like ambushed.
Like, I don't know.
I don't really think it was that big of a deal, but the world.
So when that happened, they told me, That did come true.
I don't know if that was the reason.
That is not what YouTube told me.
So about six months later, basically there was a pissed off woman.
That was very upset.
Women, they're the most spiteful creatures.
This woman probably cost me a million dollars.
If there's one woman, I would fight on this planet.
But not actually.
Basically, after this interview, I made her look dumb.
She had my account flagged and got all these videos.
The thing was, I had 10,000 videos at the time.
Wait, what?
What do you mean you had 10,000 videos?
Oh, I had 10,000 videos because what happened was I blew up because I was one of the first people that figured out I could get really cheap editors in, like, Nigeria, Africa, all these, like, places.
So I was paying, like, full-time Clippers, like, $200.
And then they started calling me a colonizer, so maybe I shouldn't talk about that.
But they were living like kings there before, you know.
It's like, how dare you give people who are poor money for a job well done?
They should starve!
They should get nothing!
Foreign aid!
Anyway, sorry, go on.
Yeah, so I had, like, 30 clips going out a day at one point.
So I would do these, like, four-hour shows, and I would just clip.
Like I would get shorts.
I would.
So there's a lot of, you know, there's something, but nobody was watching that closely.
So this woman gets everything flagged.
And the official reasons that YouTube gave me was one of them was tranny.
And the other one was I said that being a woman is like being in the Special Olympics.
Everybody knows that you're not as good, but they still clap.
And it was pretty funny watching the YouTube rep read that to me, and I was like, oh, okay.
And the other one was Women Shouldn't Vote.
I guess the t-shirts that I sold were too far.
So that's what they told me.
You mean sort of like the Repeal the 19th stuff?
Yeah, so that was the official reason.
I don't know.
some people claim it was the song.
I don't have...
I don't have any evidence that was the case.
It's possible.
But as far as I know, it was from the comments I said the second half.
Right.
Well, you know, it's nice that you got a meeting.
I was like the third guy on YouTube back in 2006, and I'd had the channel for 14 years or whatever, and I didn't even get a strike.
It was just like, you have been despawned.
Basically, it's like that photo of the guy next to Stalin by the river, that sort of black and white photo.
It's just instant dissolve.
Steph was never here.
These are not the droids you're looking for.
The Will Smith pen, you know, it's like gone, gone.
And it works, man.
When I came back to Twitter, like, Like, 97% of the audience was just, like, gone.
Like, it's like, and I actually bought, or somebody paid for, like, onewebsiteover.com redirects to my website, because I'm like, bros, I'm not dead.
I'm one website over.
In fact, you can just get the feed of my shows into your feed catcher, and you can, you know, it's like I'm still here, and it's like, it really works, because, you know, people have the attention span, and I'm not immune to this either, right?
But people have the attention span of a, A coked-up squirrel.
And so, you know, out of sight, out of mind.
And it's been funny coming back, of course, because people are like, oh, yeah, I thought about you all the time, but you were just gone.
It's like, I wasn't gone.
I'm not dead yet.
I'm like that guy in the Monty Python.
I'm not dead yet.
I'm still here.
I'm still doing my thing.
People are just funny that way.
People won't go to a different website.
It's either Twitter, YouTube, or nothing.
You're done.
Right, right.
So, I'm putting, like, I did these speaking tours with Lauren Southern where, you know, we were putting our lives on the line.
Like, there was massive violence and not just protests, like, people chanting.
I got no problem with that.
Go for it.
You know, bomb threats, death threats, people charging the stage, people attacking the buses, bringing the people to come to speeches and all of that.
So it's kind of like a real difference of commitment that was really important for me to understand.
Because when you're in the thick of it, right, you think, oh, I'm fighting this philosophical culture war and my bros and my sisters, they got my back.
And I'll go on the front lines and people will watch my back and feed me intellectual ammo and all that kind of stuff.
And be, you know, as you say, you go on the media and people are like, we just want to have a friendly conversation with a shiv.
And so I'm willing to do all of that.
And then when I got deplatformed and people were like, forget him, man.
He's on a different website.
So there's nothing we can do, man.
I mean, what am I supposed to get to Mars to watch his show live?
So once you realize how little people, not this current audience, love you to death, but when you realize just how little people are committed to the work that you're doing, it helps.
And this is healthy.
I'm not criticizing the audience.
Once I sort of got this, which was pretty quickly, I'm like, whew, fantastic.
I can really lower the temperature and intensity of what it is that I'm doing because, you know, in the analogy of World War I, No,
it totally makes sense.
Yeah, getting demonetized.
I didn't get my channel deleted, so I can't even imagine that.
But, yeah, it's humbling.
You think you're on top of the world until you're not.
Look how important I am!
I'm so important that if I vanish from people's feed, they don't know that I exist.
Yeah, they don't care.
Right.
And so, yeah, why would I put...
And again, I know this sounds, oh, he's just hiding his bitterness.
It really was.
It's been five years.
Like, it's all in the past now, and I've more than adjusted.
But it is humbling, and it's good to be humbled because being humbled is not being brought down.
It's being brought to reality.
And it's easy when everyone's cheering your name and you're speaking to like a thousand people and, and, uh, on the media all the time, it's easy to think that, uh, you're so important and, you know, it's tempting and, and maybe there's a.
little spice of grandiosity in there, but it is really good to be brought back to reality and realize that you're actually not that important, which liberates you to pursue a little bit more pleasure rather than these sort of massive philosophical obligations that I was sort of carrying like a giant burrow on my back.
Yeah, I almost, it brought me personally to something I call radical acceptance, because I think when you're in it...
I don't know.
You feel like that.
And then there's just a certain point where I'm like, women win, man.
Women, they win.
I'm like, I lose.
You guys win.
One woman took me down.
And I'm like, you know what?
They just kind of got to operate in the laws that are there.
Like, even...
You can't really...
I'm happy it's a little bit better.
It seems to have gotten better from when you were on, but I'm still prepared for the same stuff, if you notice.
Well, fingers crossed after your conversation with me.
Yeah, it is.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, it really doesn't matter because it's just evolution.
All the men who were really good at saying no to women didn't reproduce.
Like, it's just one of these sad things that the genes that survived are the semi-simpy, yes ma 'am, no ma 'am, three bags, full ma 'am kind of things.
Because, you know, as you know, there were significant majorities of men throughout periods of human evolution that didn't reproduce at all.
So the last thing you'd ever want to evolve to do is say a lot of no to women because then those genes just despawn, right?
But, you know, I mean, it's tough to get mad at evolution because it has had us develop all of these amazing brains, this technology, the ability to have these kinds of conversations.
So we can look at the dark side, but it's important to know that we only analyze it because of the amazing things that happened in evolution.
But one of those things is not being able to say no to women too much.
Yeah.
So, like, what was your main talking points, like, back in the day?
Like, what was the main topics that you would go over?
Well, I mean, it's a long show.
It's been, I mean, the 15 years that I had before de-platforming, I started off with a voluntary society, a stateless society, which is, it's called, the official name is market anarchism or anarcho-capitalism, which is anarchism, but not capitalism.
Anarchism with sort of private property and free markets.
The non-aggression principle, which means don't initiate the use of force.
If you expand that everywhere in society, you end up with a stateless society.
So I started with that.
And then I started doing call-in shows with people to talk about philosophy.
And everyone called in Pearl and they wanted to talk about their lives.
Because I, you know, had talked a little bit about my life and sort of what brought me to philosophy and what.
So people wanted to talk about their lives.
And I'm like, okay, hey, if this is what works for you, I'm a customer-driven kind of guy.
I've spent a lot of years in the business world.
So we'll talk about your life.
So then I started hearing, you know, the stories of people who had had pretty terrible childhoods and the effects that it had on their lives.
And as a moral philosopher and as a guy who understands quite a bit about...
I was like, okay, well, let's see what philosophy can do about your childhood.
So then I started to talk about you don't have to be in abusive relationships.
Now, that's not, to me, a very controversial topic.
Ha ha!
So I thought.
But the reality is that if you say you don't have to be in abusive relationships, it's fine if it's a woman complaining about a man.
It's mostly okay.
If it's a man complaining about a woman, although that's more controversial, but where the real third rail was, was if it's an adult child talking about a parent or parents.
And, you know, my advice has always been, you know, go talk to your parents if you have issues with them, see if you can get them into therapy or group therapy if you can't resolve anything.
but if they're relentlessly abusive, yeah, you don't have to have them in your life.
I mean, our media stories and a cult leader and like all just kinds of Not led by a lot of men, I will say.
Just wanted to point that out.
Really?
Yeah, shocking.
It's basically the crazy moms, right?
Well, it's, yeah, it is, it is, I think there's some of that involved for sure.
So then I wrote that wave for a while, and then I started talking about I'm trained, I've got a graduate degree in history, the history of philosophy specifically, but I'm pretty well trained in historiography, so I did a whole bunch of presentations on the fall of Rome and Plato and Aristotle and Abraham Lincoln and Joseph McCarthy and, you know, all of these, George Washington and all of that sort of stuff.
And people really liked the current events and they liked the...
And it really started to build.
And then I did a series of shows called The Untruths About Donald Trump.
Because the media, I would not say, was overly solicitous of pursuing the objective truth about me.
Let's put it as nicely as possible.
And so when I saw the media lying about Donald Trump, I was like, okay, well, let me just put out the facts.
And those shows went ballistic.
There were millions and millions of views.
And so I think that may have been where I got on the lists and so on, right?
So then I talked about IQ because I think looking at the world through an understanding of IQ is really, really important.
IQ is one of the most studied and objective and valuable metrics in all of psychology.
And I interviewed 17 world experts on IQ and differences between ethnicities and differences between men and women and so on because I think it's very important.
Oh my gosh.
I'm sorry?
Okay.
I actually have a question for you since you're an IQ expert.
I don't know.
Based on what you're saying.
So I am convinced that I, everyone keeps telling me that, that women are, And I just don't believe it.
I don't really care if they tell me that, because it's just not what I see.
Do you know what I mean?
Like, I don't see.
Like, everyone tells me that there's all these, like, really, really dumb men.
And maybe I see dumb men, like, with women.
But I don't really see.
Maybe they do a trade job.
I don't want to even say dumb because that's a different type of intelligence.
But most guys I know know how to do stuff.
Maybe if they're not good in school, they can fix stuff.
There's something they can do.
But women, it's like nothing.
Like, nothing.
Like, nothing at all.
They do make up, eat hot chip and lie?
What's that mean?
I don't know.
I feel like, and this is all just feelings, I feel like they're lying on these tests.
Like, I don't, like, I feel like the IQ Who's lying?
Do you mean the women taking the tests or the people reporting on them?
I don't know.
I just feel as though there is some lying going on in this somewhere because it's not like, it's like...
I'm like, kind of.
Because if you give me a study or a stat or you say this test is accurate and I look at the world and I'm like, well, everything I've seen in my life says otherwise.
I know it's a little hypocritical because we all use stats in this job or whatever.
I just feel like there's a catch when it comes to the female IQ tests.
I don't know versus male IQ tests.
I feel as though, and this is my guess, is that they changed the test to make it easier to women because they've changed everything in society to make it easier to women.
So I'm like, why would the test be different?
And so I think that women are actually dumber than men.
And I think it's worse than the IQ test say.
I don't think men are like, And my guess is they took something out of the tests to make it easier for women and harder for men.
I don't know.
And my guess as to what it would be, and by the way, I have no evidence for this.
This is just my thought process.
But my guess is they did something where women can manipulate it.
And my thought was when I took the ACT, they added a writing section.
And I'm like, we can just write about bullshit for years.
We can, like, write essays and say nothing.
That's a great prize.
And so I think they did that with the IQ tests.
I've never taken an IQ test, so I don't know.
But yeah, am I crazy?
Is that like a crazy thought or like?
Well, look, I mean, I think it's interesting.
And my first thought was that as a woman, you said, well, my experience and my feelings as opposed to generic facts.
And that's fine.
I mean, look, what you're saying is important and valid.
So just for those of you who don't know the general IQ stuff between men and women.
There appears to be a small gap between men and women favoring men on average, but it's too small to be noticeable.
It's like a couple of points.
So it's too small to be noticeable.
And again, IQ tests don't mean anything for the individuals who we meet.
Just when you zoom out, there are these aggregates that can be helpful in understanding society at large.
The fact is that women tend to center around the IQ.
To use a slightly crude analogy, a female IQ is a penis, male IQ is a boob, right?
It's flatter and wider.
And so because of that, there's more of a scattershot with male intelligence.
You end up with more men who have cognitive deficiencies, like significant cognitive deficiencies.
these might be people who'd be homeless, or, you know, they're probably not in the orbit of you and I as a whole.
We're not talking tradespeople who are of average or above average intelligence as a whole, but just people who, So they don't generally show up that much, at least in society, and certainly probably wouldn't be in the orbits of you and I. So at the low end, there tend to be more men.
And at the high end, there are almost no women.
Like at the very highest ends of IQ, there are almost no women.
And this is one of the reasons.
But that's where a lot of economic and scientific prowess emerges, right?
So like in terms of chess grandmasters and so on, there would be men.
So because the IQ curve for men is flatter, you tend to have more men and fewer women I just can't believe it.
I just can't.
No, no, no.
Hang on.
Sorry.
Maybe I'm just too sexist.
No, no, no.
That was just a generic thing.
Now, the question of IQ with regards to sex...
It was a fellow who was asked, it was a Yale or Harvard or some Ivy League school, he was asked, why are there fewer women in STEM?
And he said, well, it may have something to do with the fact that, on average, women have slightly different preferences than men in the fields they go into, right?
Men like working with things a little bit more and women like working with people a little bit more.
And physics and STEM tends to be about things, whereas the stuff that women...
I know, but they're not even good at that.
Oh, in the business world, I was useless without my secretary.
So some of the competence that women show there is very high.
But again, it may be different from – and of course, it was when I was younger.
It was a generation, maybe a generation and a half before.
So Lauren Summers made this comment.
That women have slightly different preferences, and that's going to show up.
A small difference of preferences shows up in a big difference after you filter out everyone.
So this is why you'd have mostly male physicists.
There's never been a female economist, I think, that's won any sort of big major prize and so on.
And so there were women who got – It's like because in the big fine personality traits, like women score a little bit higher on the trait agreeableness, which means that, you know, they're more likely to line up and go along, which is why women can be particularly dangerous.
As George Orwell pointed out, in totalitarianism, because they tend to be tattletales, and that certainly happened over COVID.
And so, you know, this difference is, again, each individual doesn't matter that much.
But in aggregate, in a sort of big zoom out, it is a big issue.
And it does tend to condition where people end up.
But the blank slate theory is an absolute cult fanaticism for people on the left, that we're all just blank slate goo that can be shaped into whatever by whoever and just apply enough force and social pressure and insight.
Yeah.
I think I just don't believe IQ tests.
And I know it's like, maybe I should.
But there's a point where I was trying to think of anything we were good at.
Because they keep saying we're better with people.
And I'm like, if we're so good with people, why do single dads raise better kids than single?
We can't even mother, right?
Do you know what I'm saying?
Well, sorry, I've talked a lot, so if you're in the middle of the thought, please, please finish up.
No, you're fine.
I don't think this is like, I think when I say this stuff, it's pretty frustrating to academics or to people when I say this opinion.
I'm not saying it's the right opinion, but it's just one of the points.
So the question to ask, I think, Pearl, would be, what would happen to a researcher who found robust differences in the IQs between men and women and published it?
I would not want to be within the last radius of that person's career or maybe even the same hemisphere.
And that's the challenge is what are the costs and benefits of publishing this kind of research?
Because academia has long since stopped being...
So if somebody did come up with a test, let's say, that showed a pretty robust difference, maybe it was one of the older IQ tests or something else, something that measured what intelligence researchers call G, which is generalized intelligence.
It's the raw underlying speed of processing that gives people good IQ tests.
And IQ test measures it to some degree, but there's other things that you can do to figure it out.
So if The not insignificant gap, unless it was women higher than men, right?
Oof, you know, maybe somebody at the very end of their career who was like 30 seconds from retirement might push the publish button.
But even that person, because you only would survive in academia by being a craven coward, for the most part, there have been some exceptions.
That makes sense.
Because it's just, maybe it's because of what I do for a living, but I just see women that have everything handed to them just take the biggest L's.
And it's not just like ones from like poor background.
It's like all of them.
And I'm like...
Poor background?
What is that?
Sorry, it's not just like bad backgrounds, right?
But I'll just see women take these L's.
And I'm like, I think her IQ is significantly lower.
Like, I think it's significant.
Well, I would say that intelligence is a bit of a muscle that develops against resistance.
And, you know, the one thing that women are not sure of in the modern world is endless, bottomless, sadistic praise.
Oh, you're so wonderful.
Oh, you're so great.
Women rule the world.
Women would stop all wars.
Women are perfect.
Women are wonderful.
I mean, there's a name for it in psychology.
It's called the women are wonderful phenomenon, and it infects just about everyone's mind.
I mean, men are susceptible to status, but women are susceptible to flattery.
And, you know, it's rare to find a woman who's like, no, no, no, there's too much flattery.
Come on.
I'm not that.
That's too much.
I can't take it.
It's not realistic to me anymore.
It just lap it up like a cat with cream.
And I think that the amount of flattery, it's demonic in my view, the amount of flattery that's inflicted on girls in particular by the pro-female or pro-girl approach of public school teachers.
I'm sure you know these studies where they take the male and female names off the tests and the scores for the boys go up considerably and the scores for the girls go down.
In other words, there's favoritism from the mostly female teachers for the girls and against the boys.
And so it is really tough.
You get that level of praise and support and everyone telling you how wonderful you are and, as you say, changing the standards to accommodate you and making sure you never lose and everyone gets a participation trophy.
I don't think it's that… I think that the problem-solving and resistance that human beings need to face in order to develop practical intelligence has been largely removed.
And I think people's minds, whatever their potential, just become flaccid in the absence of resistance.
And taking away resistance and consequences from women's lives, I think, just has them be somewhat passive and inert with regard to the potential that they have.
Yeah.
Were you on Joe Rogan?
I was just Googling you.
Three times!
Whoa!
That's so cool.
Until the last time, which was a delightful ambush, where he's like, yeah, come on down.
And then they had queued up all of the things I said that were bad.
And what about this?
And what about that?
And I remember in the meeting, like, okay, this is an ambush, I guess, whatever, right?
But I was like, did I say something insane?
You know, you ever have that?
Because, you know, you're queen of long form.
I'm convinced you wear adult diapers like that crazy astronaut.
When you've done so much material, you never know if you've just misspoken about something or, you know, something could be snipped.
But everything he played, I'm like, yeah, I stand by that.
Yeah, you don't have to be in abusive relationships.
Yeah, stand by that.
Yeah, stand by that.
And yeah, I believe that we should have a society in the long run without a government.
Yeah, I stand by that.
Joe Rowan ambushed you.
Yeah, and I don't think I've ever seen that before with good old Joe.
So I take my place in the Hall of Fame.
Of, I don't know, someone got to him or something, but I mean, that was many years ago, of course.
How long ago was that?
Probably eight or nine years ago.
Yeah, we did a show in a room in Toronto, just in a room.
This is back in the day, right?
And then we did a show in his studio, both of which were great fun.
And I remember Joe saying, wow, you know, I'd love to help support you.
You're really great at what you do.
And then the third, it was just like, welcome to your trapdoor from hell.
I've released the Headless Monkeys and you're going to have helped me shove up your nose until you admit that you're wrong.
So, yeah, that was, you know, it's part of the game and he's got his people, so.
But you should go on, definitely.
I don't think he'd ambush you.
Well, he hasn't invited me on, but...
What?
I mean, I can't dislike the guy.
I have no animosity.
It's fine.
My life has worked out really well, and I have no complaints.
He did his thing, and it's just part of the general throwdown of life.
You know, if you want to be controversial, people are going to take their swings.
That's the nature of the beast.
And if you don't want to be controversial, to me, I mean, that's not worth it because then you just have all these great gifts of communication that you've used for the most bland stuff possible.
And that's, again, as I said, I'll do anything to avoid the feeling of regret.
And if that means a couple of hard blows to the solar plexus, that sure beats regret because that passes, but regret is forever.
Where are you from?
Like, where are you at?
I hear an accent, but I can't recognize what it is.
You can't because it's impossible.
So I was born in Ireland.
I grew up in England for the most part.
Moved to Canada when I was 11. Spent some time.
My father lived in South Africa, so I spent some time there.
And then I went to the National Theatre School as an actor and playwright and tried to scrub some of the accents so I wasn't constantly getting cast in, oh, fetch Shakespearean rills, my dear.
So, yeah, it's a real tour of the colonies kind of accent.
And I think one guy got close once trying to figure out where it came from, but nobody's ever got it right.
So, where are you now?
Are you in Canada?
England?
South Africa?
Canada.
Okay, cool.
As you can tell from the backdrop, it's all a snowbank.
No, I'm kidding.
But, yeah.
And where are you from?
I'm in Chicago.
Have you ever come to America?
I have certainly been to America since deplatforming, yes.
Sure.
Well, you should come on the show.
We should do a sit-down.
be kind of fun.
Because you have...
Is that your contention?
Things have just been too peaceful, too quiet, too calm.
And you just need to spice it up.
It has to be within the guidelines.
You're back on YouTube, aren't you?
I was looking you up.
No.
Oh, you're not?
No, I put out a plea a couple of days ago, but I haven't heard anything from them, and I'm not holding my breath, but I don't think so.
Okay.
I mean, there's some of my videos up there, but it's not me.
Boy, if it is, that would be kind of nice to find out because there was a lot of...
I just saw one that had your name on it, but I don't know.
Yeah, that could certainly be possible.
No, I mean, I'd love to get the channel back, even if it was read-only, because I thought the comment section was gold, baby, gold.
More.
Too fast.
I mean, it would be funny if they restored the channel without even telling me.
That would be the ultimate act of passive aggression, wouldn't it?
Fine, you're back, but I'm not going to tell you, man.
This looks like you.
All right.
Hang on.
My keyboard has been moved away.
But it says you only have...
Oh, it says it's from India.
Someone's pretending to be you.
Right.
Right.
It is not...
So, all right.
Okay, well, listen, Pearl, listen, I've got a bunch of callers, and I hate to be rude, but I think it would be great fun to do a show together.
And once again, if you can tell my listeners… And I love your whiteboards.
It's so low-tech.
It gives me hives.
But it's like, where's your touchscreen from the gods?
But no, it's great.
And so if you can just tell people who listen to me.
How to get a hold of you.
That would be great.
Sure.
You can follow me on Twitter or go to theaudacitynetwork.com if you want to support.
And thanks so much for having me.
It was really nice to meet you.
My pleasure.
And I'm sure we'll talk again.
And thank you for all the work that you do.
All right, we will move on to...
Oh...
You're going to need to unmute, though, if you want to talk.
I know that people have an inconstant capacity to stay on hold forever.
I saw Tommy Sotomayor came and went.
Tommy, call me.
Just Tommy, by the by, I think you and I were doing a show right before my deplatforming, and you did a show, you did a documentary on fatherlessness, and I think one of the last, I've always remembered this, because like five years ago, and change.
But Tommy, if you listen to this, and I hope that you do, let's do a show again because you did this documentary on fatherlessness, and I said, we're going to watch this documentary, talk about it, and it never happened because I got deplatformed pretty soon afterwards, and I'm sorry about that.
That was not ideal, but let's do something again.
All right, so Technobarbarian, what a great name.
Did you have a comment or a question, a criticism?
What is on your mind, my friend?
Oh, no.
That was an error.
All right.
Agoras, you are on.
If you want to unmute, I'm all ears.
Don't give me dead air, man.
It kills my soul.
I hear it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What's on your mind, friend?
Hey, man.
First of all, I don't think I have to harp on it too much.
Definitely a pleasure having you back and an honor to chat with you.
As a matter of fact, we've chatted in the past in other capacities.
So, just bringing it back to the philosophy thing a little bit, you mentioned the thing about the blank slate.
I'm a big philosophy of mind buff.
My background is in philosophy.
The thing about the blank slate, though, is I'm wondering how far you kind of, you know, push that idea in the sense that...
If that kind of makes sense, is there some sort of delineation there?
Do you still maybe hold to the sort of Randian view of the blank slate?
Tell me what your understanding is of the Randian view of the Blanks Lake.
What I remember from Rand, essentially what she says is, although we might have sort of natural impulses or something like that, essentially our conceptual schema is built out over time, right?
So, like, you get this in Objectivist Epistemology, basically how everything starts with impressions and builds over time into giant schema.
Actually, you get it actually a little bit in count, too.
I think that actually still holds true.
But I was wondering how far, you know, you took it, you know, the idea of rejecting it or, you know, how you would approach it.
Right.
No, that's a great question.
So the blank slate, and I'll really do my best to keep this brief because we've got more callers than I really want to get to, and I appreciate everyone coming by tonight.
It's a real delight and pleasure to chat with you all.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So the blank slate.
Is valid and invalid.
That's the end of my speech, and on we go.
So what I mean by that is, no, so if you look at people who grew up in Muslim countries tend to be Muslim, regardless of race.
If Middle Eastern Muslim, there are certain countries in Eastern Europe where it's white Muslim countries.
So in general, people who grew up in Muslim households tend to be Muslim.
people who grew up in Christian households, atheist households, and so on, right?
So the content of the mind tends to be shaped by language, by culture, by your parents, by your schools.
And from that standpoint, we can't say that anyone is born a Muslim or is born born a Christian or is born an atheist or anything like that, that tends to be what comes into your mind from your environment.
And I don't want to speak endlessly if there's something you disagree with.
So is there something you disagree with that I said so far?
Yeah, so far, that seems about to be how I...
Okay, so that is the content of the mind.
The form of the mind has components of environment, free will, and genetics.
Right, so I'm not a pure geneticist, of course, because I believe in free will.
I don't believe that free will encompasses every aspect of the brain, because free will is a component of consciousness, but it cannot.
Fundamentally change the brain.
So, there's environment, there are genetics, and then there is choice.
Now, as a philosopher, as a moral philosopher in particular, I focus on choice.
So, for instance, I've never said to anyone, listening to me will raise your IQ.
Why?
Because IQ is largely genetic.
It's been clocked at about 80% genetic by your late teens, 80 to 85%, and it goes upward from there.
If you get sort of the twin studies with people near the end of their life, The overwhelming majority of IQ is genetic.
So that is to some degree beyond, it's not entirely, but it's to a large degree beyond the capacity of philosophy to tinker with.
There is no aspect of personality that is unaffected by genetics.
Again, that doesn't define us.
But it's an important component.
So if you look at things that are 100% genetic, like eye and hair color, clearly I can't say to people, listen to my show and you can pick your eye color, including plaid, right?
That's not a thing that would happen.
I can't say, if your children listen to moral philosophy, they'll grow to be six inches taller, right?
Because that's all 100% genetic.
So the blank slate theory says that all differences Between ethnicities and sexes and whatever, that all differences in outcome are 100% the result of bigotry.
In other words, everyone is identical, and this is true within classes as well, like sexes, races, classes, and so on.
All the differences in outcomes are the result of prejudice, bigotry, evil, and exploitation.
So why is there a capitalist who makes money and a bunch of workers who make less money right now?
The argument from a sort of philosophical or free market perspective is, assuming the guy didn't just inherit the factory, right?
is that you've got a guy who's probably very smart, who's very ambitious, who's willing to take risks, and is probably a bit of a psycho workaholic, you know, like Elon Musk style.
And that plus some luck, plus, you know, the right place, the right time, and some good investment is why he ends up And this is, Jordan Peterson has talked about this, as of a lot of people, this is called the Pareto Principle, which is that the square root, in a meritocracy, the square root of any group of people produces half the value.
So in a company of 10,000 people, 100 of them produce half the value.
That's just, it's a weird magic multiplier.
I mean, it's like the Brad Pitt phenomenon.
There could be, you know, thousands of people in a Brad Pitt movie, but Brad Pitt is producing half the value because people would just go see the movie because Brad Pitt is in it.
There are some people who are just crazy magic productivity machines.
And this is in every field known to man where there's a meritocracy.
Of course, in sports, 95% of the money goes to 5% of people.
In music, 95% of the money goes to 5% of the people.
In acting, in writing, in novel writing, you name it.
In modeling, in porn, whatever.
Whatever fields you look at where there's a good meritocracy and not crazy amounts of government interference.
90%, 5% of the money goes to 5% of the people.
Now, on the left, they say, well, look, if everyone's the same, why is one person getting paid more?
Because they're exploitive and evil, right?
And that's the answer.
And that is a, you know, I actually did this research not too long ago, which is, do leftists come disproportionately from young people?
And the answer is yes, right?
Because for a variety of reasons, but it's a child's view of things, right?
Why does so-and-so have more?
Well, he just took it, right?
If you all go out to do trick-or-treat and some kid ends up two days later with a bunch more candy, he must have stolen it, I guess, whatever, right?
So if someone has more, they must have stolen it from me is a very immature and childish perspective.
The adult perspective is to say, There are some people who just have great instincts for business.
They're probably born with it.
I mean, a friend of mine who's a great businessman was hustling selling LightUp.
I remember being 14 years old, lining up all night to get Michael Jackson tickets so I could sell them for some money.
There are some people who just have a good knack for business, and they're very hardworking.
They instinctively understand customers.
They're good leaders.
They have a good finger on the pulse of the market, even if they can't explain why.
And they just produce stuff that's crazy, crazy valuable.
You know, Brad Pitt or other actors who are famous just have this weird, you know, he's got the face of a thug and a poet, and he's got this weird eerie calm and centeredness and so on.
Plus, he's a really good actor.
So he's just somebody.
I think that is something that is more like culture.
We can choose.
to be better, we can choose to be more honest, we can choose to be more courageous, we can choose to do more good in the world.
Yeah, so it seems like...
Yeah, it seems like the way you're overcoming the idea of the blank slate is because of that free will element, right?
So like, yeah, you can look at it from the perspective of like, say like a Marxist is going to look at it like historical materialism and material relations.
That's really what's forming.
All of how your outcomes are coming in.
But it's like, yeah, but wait a second.
You can choose to do otherwise at any given moment.
You can initiate the thought that would get you from one place that you may be in into another.
It's particularly philosophy that actually kind of equips you with being able to flex that free will muscle, right?
Well, and it's also, I don't know if you've, my brother and I used to have these talks when we were very little, you know, what would you do with a million pounds?
You know, we grew up in England, right?
And everyone has this belief that if you just have a lot of money, you're happy.
And so that's kind of a child's view, right?
Reason equals virtue equals happiness.
In order to be happy, you have to be virtuous.
And in order to be virtuous, you have to be rational to make sure you're not contradicting yourself and doing.
Evil inadvertently.
So it is virtue that brings happiness, and virtue may bring money, but that's somewhat coincidental or incidental.
And so, by focusing on free will and moral philosophy, I'm hopefully giving people the greatest good in life, which is virtue, which leads to love, which leads to integrity, which leads to happiness.
And so, it is a child's perspective to say, well, the rich people are always happy.
And there have been times when I've been broke, there have been times when I've made some money, and I wouldn't say that foundationally one is better than the other.
I mean, one has more choices, but also more responsibilities, and one has more leisure, but less money, and so it's all just a trade-off.
And so by focusing on free will and virtue, I aim to deliver to people the greatest good in life, which is moral excellence, which is the only way to fall in love and to stay in love and to have a clean conscience, which is the greatest gift, to feel like you've done good in the world.
But as far as explaining economic differences, differences in influence and so on, The blank slate leads people to rage and resentment, and it leads, I'm not kidding to this, it leads to massive slaughters of tens or hundreds of millions of human beings.
And I did a documentary on Hong Kong, coincidentally, right before COVID, so I had a lot of early information on COVID.
And in that documentary, I sort of talk about this problem of envy, right?
If you have decided to not work as hard in your life and you like playing cards and you like having naps, and it's fine.
There's no issue, no problem with that.
But you're just not going to make as much money as the guy who gets up at dawn and reads and learns and studies and practices and just works really, really hard.
So what happens is later, the guy who's worked harder can have his money taken away and given to you.
But the leisure that you had in the past can't be taken and given to the guy.
Because it's all in the past, right?
The money is, because it's stored up, it's available for transfer in the present.
So what happens is, there are always sophists who come along where there are economic disparities, and they come along and they say, hey man, you know why that rich guy on the hill has the big house?
All the land and the beautiful wife and all of the silk clothing and all of the money and influence.
You know why he has that?
Because he stole from your father and his father and he's a thief and an exploiter and we should drag him out and stick him on a spike and take his land!
And it's pretty hard to resist that if you're a resentful guy who's upset about the rich guy having worked harder.
It's not like all wealth is legitimately.
Earned, of course, there is central banking, but in general, that's kind of the way it works.
And so the problem is the blank slate theory comes out of a desire to just steal stuff.
And if you point out that, you know, this guy has high IQ, this guy is incredibly hardworking, he's incredibly conscientious, and his wealth has actually helped the community because he's a fantastic farmer, which is why he can bid more for the land, which means that more food gets produced, which means the price of food goes down, so you're wealthier because of his excellence.
Well, resentful people who've made bad mistakes in their life always want someone to come along and tell them it wasn't their fault, and I'll go get your money back for you.
And the blank slate theory is designed to serve that kind of predation and exploitation, both from the relatively less successful and the people who want to rule them through resentment, through socialist power, if that makes sense.
Absolutely bitch in response.
Yeah, I'm picking up what you're putting down, and I really like it.
So most of the time, whenever I ask this question, I'm like my fellow philosophy bro types.
It's normally just the normal, traditional approaches at it.
I like the idea of swapping out the idea of the blank slate for the emphasis on the free will and the emphasis on the focus of, no, there are different options that you can choose, primarily reason, virtue, and just ethics.
I love it.
So I think you answered my question wonderfully.
Well, thanks, man.
Our good friend Technobarbarian is back.
I assume that he's having trouble getting his Twitter spaces activated with his giant club with a nail through it.
TB, are you...
He's got an error, too.
Alright, Sean.
Sean of the Dead, you are on the show.
What is on your mind, my friend?
Speak, friend, and enter.
Wait, wait, wait, wait.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
Oh, first of all, hey, Stephen.
Very big fan.
Very big fan.
Well, thank you.
Oh, you caught me off guard here.
Can you hear me all right?
Yeah, just making sure I'm in the car.
I can hear you just fine, my friend.
I read The Art of the Argument.
That was a really good book.
I've been listening to you for 10 years.
I can say that your R vs.
K sexual selection theory series was life-changing for me.
Boy, they say never meet your heroes, man.
Anyway, I'm glad.
Well, no, they say never meet your heroes because your heroes are disappointing.
So I will aim to not disappoint you and we should be fine.
You know, another thing is, man, that first guy, that first guy you got on there.
Oh, please don't bring him back to my mind.
I already feel the need to hide my daughter from him.
Steven, I'm sorry to go off on this one, but I was screaming the whole time.
What if the girl, instead of she was 16, it was five years old?
And I'm thinking, there's no way.
There's no way.
And my God, he doesn't.
There's a way, apparently.
And then you brought it up.
What if she's six years old?
And I'm like, oh, man.
Well, anyway, I had it written out when I wanted to ask you.
Let's see.
Did I get it here?
Okay, so you were saying something about the I'll get to the question here real quick.
You're saying how all the men basically, you know...
I'm thinking about World War II and all the good men that ended up getting called in those wars, which leads me to something you said on Twitter.
I think it was yesterday.
And I'm sorry, I'm probably going to get you in trouble with some of the audience here.
But it was...
And then you went off on another part of it, the next part of it, which was men plus power is fascism.
And then, not to just leave it alone, somebody says, what's the balance?
And you just hit me right in the head with this one.
There is no balance.
Can you...
And it just...
I just, I cannot, I mean, first of all, now that you've said it, I cannot unsee it.
You hit the nail on the head, and I'm not trying to, like, keep praise on you or anything, but man, can you expand on that?
Because it just got me thinking, like, how do you navigate that reality?
Because you're right, there is no in-between.
I cannot see the in-between.
Well, that's a great question, and it's funny, this sort of hive mind of Free Domain.
I mean, you're contributing massively, and I really appreciate that, Sean, because when I was writing that tweet, there is no balance, I was like, I should explain myself.
And then I was like, no, I shouldn't.
And I honestly sat there for a couple of minutes like, should I explain myself or not?
And I'm glad that I didn't, but I'm also glad you brought it up, so I appreciate that.
So, yes, femininity plus political power is a forced redistribution of wealth for the simple reason that women's instincts are from each according to their ability to each according to their needs.
I mean, this is how families work in evolutionary terms and even to a large degree in the present, which is the ability of the man is to go out and hunt and get resources and fight off the enemies and so on.
So he comes home with a… So he's got the ability to do that from each according to his ability to each according to their needs.
Well, that's the children.
The children can't go and hunt themselves and the woman who's taking care of the children or maybe pregnant or breastfeeding can't go and hunt or menstruating, she can't go and hunt.
So from each according to their ability to each according to their need, that's how families work.
And it's a beautiful thing in the family, and it really can't work any other way because – You know, the first year of the baby's life referred to the fourth trimester because they're just completely useless and, you know, kind of death and disease magnets.
So women have the instinct to take from the stronger and give to the weaker, and they do that with siblings all the time.
So if you have a bunch of siblings and a fixed amount of food, if you just lay all the food out, Then the older siblings are going to elbow the younger siblings aside, get all the food, the younger siblings don't get enough, and the younger siblings might die either directly from just being hungry or they might die because they don't get enough food and therefore they're a weakened state and they're more susceptible to infections and viruses and this kind of stuff.
So a woman's instinct, and it's a beautiful one, it's why we're all here, I have no issue with the instinct, everything that got us here is glorious.
So a woman's instinct is to say, Like, what do they always say?
The vulnerable, the marginalized, the underdog, the poor, the helpless, the hopeless.
Like, all of the underdog stuff, it triggers women to want to redistribute resources because they view underprivileged people, marginalized people, whatever you want to call them, they view them as helpless babies and toddlers that stuff needs to be taken.
From the more competent and given to the less competent to the more aggressive and given to the less aggressive because that's how you keep younger siblings alive.
And that's a beautiful thing.
I, as a younger sibling myself, I very much appreciate women's instincts with regards to this.
So when you take women's instincts to redistribute resources based upon from each according to their ability to each according to their needs, and force is viable and fine with that.
In fact, it's necessary.
If the older kid grabs a bunch of food and runs off into the forest, the mom has to go down, chase him down, pry the food out of his house, and give it to the younger siblings, because the younger siblings can't, or she sends the man to do it.
Get back here!
This is always reminded of, again, 1984, which I listened to before writing my last novel, The Future, which was, you know, he takes the candy from his sister and runs away, because there's no parents around, or at least nobody who can do anything about it.
So when you take women's instinct to take from those who have ability and give to those who have need, and you combine that with political power, you get socialism and communism, because that's what happens.
Does that make sense from that side of the equation?
Yes, it does.
And probably I should, to interrupt it, maybe we should start off when you get into the fascism side.
What is the definition of fascism?
Because obviously there's a lot of propaganda.
But yeah, I understand your position on the, I understand the position of the socialism, why it's good for the family, why it can be, well, I guess the unrestrained, why it can be problematic in politics.
Right.
So fascism, I mean, the technical definition of fascism is private ownership of the means of production and state control over the economy.
So nominal private property.
In terms of ownership of the means of production, socialism, communism is the government owns the means of production.
In fascism, it is corporations that nominally own the means of production, but they pay a lot of taxes and they're largely controlled by the state for the, quote, good of the people.
So that's sort of the technical definition.
But if you look at the actual characteristics of fascism, it tends to be a brutal eugenics meritocracy with no particular empathy.
So this is why when you get fascists in, they tend to You know, kill crazy people and disabled people, and this is raw, brutal, genetic meritocracy with no particular compassion or empathy.
Now, men as a whole, we like the meritocracy because that's how we survive.
So, for instance, if you and I go hunting, and you're a much better shot, we only have one gun, and you're a much better shot than I am, who gets the gun?
Well, you know, logic dictates I get the gun.
Yeah, you get the gun.
If you've got one spear, you don't give it to the guy who's got one roomy eye and a bad arm, because he's just going to scare away, and you're going to starve to death.
So, men survive by excluding the less competent from ownership, from leadership.
And from control over the means of production, whether it's a spear or whatever, right?
So if you think of a sports team, like the NBA or whatever it is, they rigorously won't take people who aren't good.
You suck, get out of here, right?
And the classic example of this that most people have experienced, I don't know if it's still allowed anymore under the gynocentric schools, but the classic example of this, of course, is lining Yeah, I was always picked last.
Right, so you were always picked last.
Now, for women, that makes them very sad.
And come on, give him a chance.
He's not going to get better if you don't play with him.
Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Come on.
And you see this with moms with their older brothers playing baseball.
And it's like, oh, let your younger brother play or let your little sister play.
And it's like, well, we don't want to because then we can't play well and we've got to accommodate and all this kind of stuff.
But for men, it's life or death.
It's can you hunt?
In war, who gets the weapon?
Well, the guy who's best with the weapon.
The guy who's the best archer is the guy who gets the longbow.
Or even if everyone has a longbow, he's the guy who gets the most arrows.
Because it's literally life or death.
Because if your opponents as a man are on a raw meritocracy and you're not, you're going to get killed.
You're either going to die, your tribe's going to die, you're going to get killed, your kids are going to get killed, your women are going to get raped.
We cannot afford sentimentality.
We cannot afford to give the scarce resources to the less competent people.
Does that make sense?
Yes, it does.
Now, the merging of the two, right, women have gone to extremes of empathy and men have gone to extremes of raw meritocracy because together you create a meritocracy with some empathy, which is a good combination.
Like, yes, you need a raw meritocracy, but not a violent, brutal, genetic, eugenics kind of meritocracy.
At the same time, you need sympathy, but not at the expense of excellence and competence, right?
Men and women have gone to some kind of extremes because together they're balanced.
And so when you have men and women separated and then combined with political power, you get these extremes as a whole.
So there is no balance because the problem is the toxicity of political power.
Women, if their empathy is constrained to the family, It's beautiful.
If their empathy is combined with political power, it becomes absolutely brutal and toxic.
Men's desire for excellence and a raw meritocracy is beautiful because it means that the most competent men get the best resources, which means the tribe gets wealthier and stronger.
Combine that with political power, though, it becomes brutal and violent and allows sadists to perform their ghastly liquidation programs.
I mean, this is the whole left-right spectrum, right?
Well, what do you want?
Fascism or communism?
Well, I want something in the middle.
And it's like, what is in the middle between fascism and communism?
Something that's drifting one way or the other.
The pendulum just gets wider and wider, as we saw in Nazi Germany, right?
Where communism was about to take over and they jumped into the evil arms of the National Socialists, which had more fascistic tendencies.
So there is no balance.
It's like saying, how can we use evil?
How can we use two extremes of evil?
To produce good.
How can two poisons produce health?
Well, there is no balance.
The problem is political power.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, I totally agree.
I see political power as, you know, kind of like that, what they say, the necessary evil.
So now I'm seeing it.
It's just, if you put political power into the equation, it just...
I see what you're saying.
Right.
Okay.
Well, I hope that makes sense.
And Technobarbarian, I'm intrigued by the name.
Let's give you one more try, and then we'll take one, I think, one other person.
So thank you, everyone.
Going once, going twice.
Hopefully you don't get your technical error again.
Maybe you try.
Oh, no, because you have to be on a phone to.
Steven, can you hear me?
All right, going once, going twice.
Yes, sir.
So, welcome back, by the way.
Thank you.
I was wondering, do you think that this, like, it seems like the, you know, the pendulum has shifted and politically it's,
Do you think people are going to continue on these other platforms to try to smother you, or do you think, given the meta having changed, that we'll see your return across platforms?
I don't know about across platforms, and the goal that I have in the world, just to lift the lid on sort of my secret thoughts, the goal that I have in the world is to prevent the pendulum from swinging too far.
So we've had a pendulum swing towards pathological altruism, which is massive outgroup preference and hatred to history and culture that you live in.
Now, the tendency, of course, is going to be for a reaction to be so strong that it swings towards potential, as we talked about, sort of raw, horrible, coercive, meritocratic, semi-fascism, right?
Now, my goal, and I know it's a crazy goal, and maybe it'll work.
Most likely it won't, but I absolutely have to try because I would feel wretched if I didn't.
Is to try to get people to recognize that swinging from one extreme of political power to another is only going to continue to escalate until society tears itself apart and we enter a new age of technocratic barbarism and hyper-control because of AI and robots and technology, which I talked about in the first Twitter spaces a couple of days ago.
So my goal is to, you know, like we see this in parenting, right?
In the past, it was a very, very aggressive, dominant parenting.
It's sort of like if you have the choice between sitting on the couch every day and getting soft and flabby and your bones disintegrating in your flesh or going out and exercising until you tear tendons and You want to stop somewhere in the middle.
Don't sit on the couch all day.
Don't exercise so hard that you hurt yourself, because both of those are bad for you.
So it is my goal to try and get things to stop in the middle.
Now, if it's swinging from hard left to hard right, then if it's swinging that way, people on the hard right will be mad at me, whereas before, people on the hard left.
We're mad at me.
So it's okay to be—people who are addicted to violence are going to get mad at me because I preach non-aggression principle, which is not to say no violence.
It just means no initiation of the use of force.
So my goal is to have things—find a way to arrest things in the middle.
So we went from a— A hyper-deference to women, which is the age of chivalry, to, you know, and I know it's not, Twitter is not the world, right?
It's a subsection.
And the people who comment on my posts are a subsection even, but you can see that there's a lot of hostility towards the female in society.
And I think that rank chivalry and endless deference to women is not healthy.
I also think, of course, that hostility towards women as a whole in general is not healthy.
So my goal is to...
It's a mighty endeavor and a back-breaking endeavor, and it may be Sisyphean in terms of its futility, but that is certainly my goal.
And if it doesn't stop the pendulum this time, hopefully it will stop it next time, which may be after I'm long gone.
Does that make sense?
Yeah.
I mean, it seems to make sense.
it's almost like a comic, like a good comic.
It's easy to try and...
It's like that would make a good comic, like a rich...
You're, like, trying to stop the momentum.
So, yeah, that sounds awesome.
Well, it is funny you talk about that because, of course, that is the role of court gestures.
Not that I'm a comedian, of course, but I was in the play King Lear, and the court gesture is trying to stop the pendulum in the middle, right?
And he's unable to do so.
From massive vanity to Absolutely being crushed as a human being, which is what King Lear goes through.
And he's trying to, that should not have been old before they were wise.
He's trying to, you know, she loved you in her own way.
He's trying to reason with the king through comedy.
The king doesn't listen and then the fool disappears after the storm scene because it's just too grim after that.
So trying to get people to stop in the middle rather than react to the extremes is my goal.
Certainly there are a lot of people who love fueling those extremes.
And there are people like me who I'm an absolute voice of moderation.
We'll see.
Of course, it's a free will situation, so I can't tell for sure, but I really do appreciate the question.
All right.
Men are speaking.
I feel that we too should have a conversation just in terms of ball clanks.
So if you want to unmute, you are live with me.
Men are speaking.
Oh, sorry.
Ironically, is not speaking.
Yes, sir, go ahead.
Hello, can you hear me now?
Yes, sir.
Wonderful, wonderful.
I'm so glad that you brought up this subject.
And I think it's blindsiding.
A lot of people who were...
Oh, well, the subject of balance, right?
Stopping the pendulum from swinging.
Okay, okay.
I wasn't sure if you were talking about something earlier, but go ahead.
No, no, absolutely.
Absolutely.
No, it's been quite a journey for me, right, seeing...
And I see the pendulum is not helping men very much right now at all.
And I feel like they're, I think the opposite of this sort of matriarchal social world is this hyper-competitive techno, I don't know, techno-broism, where everyone is trying to be absolute peak masculine, like peak male, peak, everything's optimized in the best.
And it's almost soulless in a way.
And I think us men are designed to do that.
Like, we're designed to be...
I know that you want to speak, and I don't want to steamroll you at all.
So very, very briefly, like, there was a guy who posted on Twitter today.
He's like, well, I like being alone.
It's like, sure, because you're young.
Yes, I saw that.
And listen, when you get old, so I don't want to give everyone too many details, but I had a bad reaction to something medical.
It was a medicine.
And I was like, oh my god, this is wretched.
And my wife happened to be away, and I was on the floor, and I was sick as a dog.
And the thought struck me.
I mean, it all passed, and I'm fine and all of that.
But the thought really struck me as like, man, you know, there are people who spend the last 20 years in and out of sickness and nobody's there for them and it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you're young, you're healthy, you're strong, good for you, man, but you kind of got to build life for the last quarter or the last third as well because it's a long-ass time to be alone if you're sick and you need things and everybody starts to have health issues when they get old and, you know, and then you can't rewind and suddenly get a pair bond.
It goes right into that vein, too, because I think even the last third of your life is actually pretty generous.
Midlife is probably about when the loneliness sets in, because you start to realize, I have no one I'm necessarily doing this for except for maybe business partners.
And if you have a really good career, that's great.
But for my marriage...
Is it, though?
Is it though?
So the other things, Let's say you've got, I don't know, a couple of million bucks, right?
You're a wealthy guy, right?
And you're old, and you're retired, and then what?
I can go travel.
Okay, you can go see a bunch of stuff with your roomy old eyes and your stiff knees, and no one's there to share it with.
And so even all of this money, like the Jimbro culture and the money and the excellence and the, you know, whatever it is, like, okay, that's fine.
But what for?
What for?
What's it for?
When you're young, you're just pushing like crazy against the tide.
You get to middle age and you start to say, okay, well, what is all of this for?
And your money isn't going to make you happy when you're old and you can't buy love.
Absolutely.
Your social status isn't going to be that much of a comfort.
And really, the only thing that seems to give life lasting meaning is I've impacted those who you have a close bond with.
So for my wife.
She's a housewife.
She doesn't have to work or anything.
I just like seeing her write her book and make stuff for Etsy.
And she's happy.
And she's kind of my oasis.
Hang on, hang on, hang on.
Do you guys have kids?
No kids.
Unfortunately, we can't.
Which decade are you in, in your life?
I'm 37. And is your wife a similar age?
And please don't talk about anything you're uncomfortable with.
Be sure to tell me that I'm being intrusive and rude.
That's totally fine.
Why didn't you have kids?
We can't, unfortunately.
Oh, I'm so sorry for that.
I really, really sympathize with that.
Yeah, absolutely.
No worries.
Right.
Okay.
And what does your, I mean, is there community stuff that she does, the good, because women can just be absolute bedrocks to a beautiful community life.
Is it that kind of stuff she gets involved in, or is there something else?
She does not, right?
She does not.
She actually is a high-functioning autistic.
Right?
So she's a little bit different, but no, she does get involved with the convention circuit and everything.
She makes stuff to go there.
She goes on to different comic cons and stuff.
She's an artist there.
For me, I'm actually usually the community builder.
We're in Tennessee now, rural Tennessee.
I guess what I was saying earlier is that she is kind of my rock that keeps all sorts of meaning because I'll go out there and do really challenging stuff.
And I sometimes just need to slow down and enter a world where it's just basic happiness.
She's made a new design, a new piece of art.
It has no function or anything like that.
It's pretty good art, but I can see how much fun she had making it.
And I get to share in that joy.
And despite the fact that I could go through just about anything, but if she's happy, that kind of carries me through.
I just don't know if a lot of young people really know what that's like.
Well, and I think it's great that you have it.
I would be very careful, though, because if you are putting all of your eggs in one basket with regards to companionship, and normally you would spread it with children, you haven't adopted kids, and all of that, which I understand it's a challenging process.
if one of you gets six and one of you is statistically most likely to die before the other and statistically it's going to be you brother because you know women live sort of five to seven years uh longer so uh i would
When you get older, because if one of you goes, particularly if she's a high-functioning autistic, if you go, what's she going to do?
And you will go, most likely, before her.
So it's just a little something in terms of, it doesn't have to be tomorrow or next year, but just think, you know, I'm here to sort of remind you of Of the last bits of life.
Hopefully it's not the last bits of my life, but pushing 60 and having a quarter century on you, I would say that you have to work to build some kind of community because you will not last most likely forever with each other.
Right.
Okay.
Thank you so much for your time, by the way, and giving that suggestion.
I'll definitely do something.
Move on it.
Yeah.
We have a large extended Asian family, so my family is really involved.
But I don't think that's enough.
I think it needs to be a bit more.
I think you're right.
Good, good.
All right.
Is there anything else you wanted to mention?
At the moment, and we can talk again.
Oh, yeah, sure.
I'm looking forward to more of these spaces.
I just want to impress the idea that a lot of these guys think that they haven't figured out that men are the best and there's no place for women and women's brains.
You know, a person's got a case of a woman brain.
And it's fun to make jokes and everything.
But women do perform a different function.
And I'm trying to explore that on my own YouTube channel, trying to figure out, like, what are – I see the left-right rift as the same thing, it's just different personality types, but we can't systematically sideline an entire personality or an entire gender, every generation.
No, of course not.
And people forget, of course, that men were politically in charge when the First World War happened, and it wasn't the result of female voting, and that was arguably the greatest disaster that ever befell.
Ever befell the Western world.
Okay.
I can do one more person.
Sunday.
Sunday, chatty Sunday.
All right, my friend.
If you want to unmute, you are...
They came and they left.
They came and they left.
All right.
Let's go with rubber val.
Rubber val, you can be...
Bring us home with a glorious last conversation.
I'm all ears.
All right.
Herc Singh.
Hello.
Yes, sir.
Can you hear me?
Yes.
I'm on Linux.
Hopefully the driver's working.
Hey, Steph.
Yes.
It is such a honor to speak with you.
I've been listening to your show for a long time.
And I actually never use Twitter.
You're back on Twitter, so I'm back on Twitter.
I never have a use for Twitter.
Until you're back on there.
Do you hear that Twitter?
People are coming back for a little old me.
So I appreciate that.
Thank you very much.
And it's a great pleasure to chat with you.
What's on your mind?
Yeah, so I feel a little bit upset because you've been back on Twitter.
I know it's the right decision.
It's a practical decision.
But for some reason, I just feel sad that we lost.
Idealists like you and I have lost because I know you said that, um, But I think that's BS, Steph.
Twitter did not apologize.
Twitter did not make a commitment to not ban you again, and Twitter did not...
I'm so nervous.
I can't remember the third one.
No, no.
You're doing fine.
You're doing fine.
But go ahead with your point, please.
And that's it.
I mean, I don't.
You saying that.
And the whole idea of implicit apology.
I think you need to do a whole show on that because that confused me.
I know that was the point that your daughter made, that it's an implicit apology.
I'm thinking words.
I know you're saying we live in deeds, not in words, but words are there for a reason.
I mean, the only way to know someone apologizes is for them to say it, right?
I mean, can they just...
I don't know.
Can you just talk about that, how the action can just cover the word?
They don't have to say it.
It could just be implicit?
Well, sure.
And I think the difference, of course, between a personal relationship and a professional relationship is the issue of legal liability.
And again, I'm no lawyer, so this is just my amateur opinion.
But from my understanding, It would be foolish, legally, for Twitter to provide some apology to me, because that would be an admission of liability, which could also cover not just me, but other people as well.
So if the apology, for various legal reasons, which may or may not be valid, again, I'm no lawyer, but if the apology is not possible, in other words, let's say that, I mean, not Elon Musk, but let's just say Bob, Bob who works at Twitter, is wretchedly sorry.
About what Twitter did.
Oh, he's so sorry.
He's so sorry, right?
And he just wants to apologize, and he wants to give me some ad credits and make a commitment to not ban me unless I violate the First Amendment or get convicted of some whatever, right?
So let's say Bob is like, he just, I really want a public apology to Steph, and we want to do all these things, but he can't make that decision, right?
So Bob would go to legal, right?
And he would say, this is what I want to do.
And again, I'm no lawyer.
But I'm going to guess that legal would say, sorry, Bob, you can't do that because that exposes the company to too much liability through an admission of fault.
So if the apology is impossible because it can't be done legally or it exposes the company to too much liability, what are reasonable substitutes for An apology.
Now, an apology plus restitution are two sides of the same thing, because restitution could also, again, I'm guessing legally, no lawyer, but I think restitution could be considered an admission of guilt, right?
So, if restitution and an apology are not possible in this situation, And remember, I did formulate my arguments for personal relationships, not necessarily for professional relationships, where legal has to say and legal liability is, you know, especially in litigious, happy America, is kind of constantly hanging over people.
So, if those two standards are impossible, then the commitment to have it not happen again is the only standard that remains.
And so, has Twitter...
I can't remember.
I think it was maybe two years ago that my account was restored.
And so, if Twitter has had an honorable commitment to free speech, and Elon Musk, who is obviously in charge of Twitter, has repeatedly And emphatically, to the point of cussing people out, which I'm fine with, has affirmed his commitment to free speech.
The company has practically affirmed a significant commitment to free speech, including unbanning my account.
And Twitter is, as far as I know, as far as I remember, I don't think there's an exception.
Twitter is the only company that has unbanned my account.
So is that...
So, I think that's my sort of reasoning, and I'm certainly happy to hear any criticisms of that that you may have.
I mean, your reasoning is, like I said, Steph, I think… It's okay to cave.
You cave a little bit.
I mean, Twitter has all the leverage.
Okay, bro, bro, come on.
Don't just start off with an insult.
I mean, if I did cave, I'd like...
But you can't just say I caved after I provide a whole...
Yeah, it is an insult.
It is an insult.
No, it is an insult.
It's not a good thing to cave.
If you say to someone, you totally caved, is there anyone who would receive that as a compliment?
It does sound like an insult, but when I say it's not an insult, I really mean it.
Don't give me the sounds like I'm not arguing with a tween.
It is an insult.
Just own it.
Because you already said, Steph, basically...
You think you have all these arguments, but you just want to increase your reach.
Now, listen, maybe I have some nefarious motive that I'm not aware of or something like that, but I mean, I'll take one across the chin.
But two, we've got a problem.
And the problem is not that you think I'm doing something wrong or bad, or I'm caving, or I'm lying about my reasons for coming back to Twitter.
That's fine, but you've got to make a case for it.
You can't just kind of insult me and just move on without making the case.
Insult me, that's fine.
I've got no problem with being insulted.
Maybe I'm doing something wrong.
But you can't just insult me as if you've made the case, right?
Because that's not fair.
Okay.
So make the case.
Make the case that I've caved or I'm being hypocritical or that I'm lying about my reasons for coming back to Twitter.
And, you know, if you can make the case and you've got some proof that I'm lying about my reasons for coming back to Twitter, then I don't think I am, but I will certainly fess up and work to do better in the future.
But you can't just say that I'm caving and lying and so on without making a case because, you know, then we have a problem.
Okay, you demand an apology.
I know you're saying that legally.
Come on.
Elon Musk is a smart guy.
Come on.
He could find a sneaky way of apologizing without causing legal issues.
Come on.
And everybody knows what Twitter has been doing in the past.
Okay.
Magical thinking is not an argument.
Saying that he can somehow bend or circumvent the law and go against I certainly have.
If you do something that damages the value of the company that was avoidable, you can get sued for, they call it, malfeasance.
Corporate malfeasance or shareholder malfeasance.
And so Elon Musk can't just make these decisions.
He has to run them past legal.
And he has to accept what legal says, otherwise very, very bad things.
Can happen.
So don't create this magical world where he can somehow circumvent the law and circumvent the advice of his local council.
From your point of view, there's no way.
So you're thinking there's no way that Elon Musk could apologize without causing some...
That's what you're saying.
Hang on, bro.
I just gave you a whole speech.
It's kind of annoying when I give a speech and then people just make things up.
What did I say?
I'm just summarizing what you're saying.
You're basically saying it's impossible.
No, no.
Did I ever say, I know for certain that it's impossible?
Well, nothing is impossible.
There's got to be a way for him to...
What did I...
No, what did I say?
You're doing the same thing you criticized Jordan Peterson of doing.
We're using basic words.
exactly what you said, but I kind of get an idea what you say.
Sorry, my IQ is not a I never said, I know for certain it's impossible.
What I said was...
I don't know for sure.
I'm not a lawyer, but that's my guess.
I did say I know for certain that it's impossible.
Come on, man.
You've got to listen carefully if you're going to get – For sure you did not say that.
For sure.
But I'm going to stand on D.A. Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
Did not say what?
Yeah, you did not say that it's impossible for...
Okay, so you mischaracterized and got wrong what I said.
That's the thing.
It's not necessary that I get this very specific technical correctly.
You criticized Jordan Peterson on this.
No, it is important that you quote me back accurately if you think that I'm wrong, because now you're in the wrong, because you straw-manned my argument.
This is a very basic conversation.
I don't have to get every single word correctly.
This is a basic conversation.
I think everybody understands what I'm saying, and I understand what you're saying as well.
So you don't have to get anything correct.
But I have to be perfect in my reasoning and I'm lying about my reasons.
So you don't have the requirement to be accurate and honest about what I've said, but I apparently am making a false statement about my reasons for going back to Twitter.
So you have very, very high standards for me, but you can just get things wrong and it's no big thing, right?
Yes, I have a higher...
Okay.
I mean, yes, I do have a higher standard for you because, I mean, you're a public figure, so...
But...
Well, I would suggest, hang on, hang on.
I would suggest, I would suggest, I would suggest, and strongly suggest, and I say this without any meanness or negativity, I really do.
I would strongly suggest that you have the very highest standards for yourself and not worry so much about public figures.
Because me being a public figure, let's say I get something wrong or I'm telling a lie or something like that, doesn't particularly affect you as a whole.
But if you lower your standards to the point where you can reverse someone's argument and you're not even bothered by it, well, that's going to have significant effects on your own integrity and in your own life.
So you'll end up being happier, and I say this because I want to appeal to your greed, for your desire to be happy and to be trustworthy, because if you don't listen to people and you mischaracterize what they say, you're going to end up in a lot of conflicts with people that are completely unnecessary.
And so I would suggest that you focus more on the virtues that you yourself can achieve and less upon nitpicking and getting wrong public figures who've made reasoned and good.
So I do appreciate you coming by and just, you know, always, always, always aim for the highest level of integrity that you can achieve and don't worry so much about other people because then you give yourself excuses and try and hold other people to account, which tends to be kind of, hang on, I'm still talking, it tends to be kind of an immature power process.
Listen, I'm always thrilled and happy to get corrections.
The last thing I, you know, when my GPS says, no, I'm done with the talking.
But when my GPS tells me you are going in the wrong direction, right?
When my GPS tells me that, then I'm happy.
I'm happy for my GPS to correct me.
And if I'm going in the wrong direction in some fashion in my life, and this is one of the reasons I love to do these public conversations, and one of the reasons why I always say, if you've got criticisms, get to the front of the queue and let's have them out.
Hang on.
Sorry, now you're not listening because I'd asked you to let me finish, and I said I was done with the conversation.
So let me just deal with that.
And sorry, just getting through all of this.
So, yeah, I'm absolutely thrilled to get corrections, but if you're going to correct me, you need to accurately quote me and you need to not straw man, because then it just turns into, unfortunately, a negative interaction, which is not necessary.
If you want to correct me as a public figure and as a philosopher and as a guy who, you know, obviously has put a lot of time, effort, and work into having consistency and integrity and so on.
Doesn't mean I'm perfect.
Of course, I can be corrected by anyone at any time.
But if you can't even be bothered to get what I say accurately or to listen with care and attention to what it is that I say, I'm just not going to listen.
And your goal then of correcting me is not achieved.
So if you want to correct someone, you've got to listen very carefully, be prepared, and tell them where they've gone wrong.
So thank you everyone so much for dropping it out tonight.
We will do another live stream on Sunday morning at 11 a.m.
in particular for our good friends in Europe and other places in the world who aren't on North American time.
freedomain.com.
I love you guys for dropping by tonight.
Thank you so much.
It is a real pleasure to chat with all of you, except one.
So even that was, I think, a productive chat.
So have yourselves a glorious evening, my friends.
Lots of love.
I will see you soon.
All the best.
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