Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - 'X' Listener Questions Answered!

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Aug. 11, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

57:13

'X' Listener Questions Answered!

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	All right.
	Hello, fellow ex-denizens.
	Thank you for your warm, robust, and occasionally manic welcome back to the greatest social media platform in the world.
	X, formerly known as Twitter, formerly known as formerly censorious.
	Thanks again, Elon.
	Now, for those of you who can't make the live streams, I begged on my hands and knees, bruises, on both my knees for you, for questions that I could put my philosophical brain towards.
	These are the questions.
	Here are the answers.
	Why do you think the West has fallen into this existential crisis?
	And what's the way out?
	See, I like to start with the easy questions.
	You know, the two and two make four questions.
	So the existential crisis fundamentally is fueled by statism.
	Statism is the idea that the government is an effective arbiter or solver of complex social problems.
	State is an agency of force, which is to say the complexity is able to be solved by a force.
	Using the government to try and solve social problems is like using a gun to make someone write a great poem.
	It doesn't work.
	And the people who confidently talk about the government being able to solve complex social problems like poverty and discrimination and so on, or a lack of education, the idea that the government can solve these problems is a drug.
	And I'm not kidding about this.
	It is a drug.
	Dopamin is a very powerful human motivational biochemical.
	And what happens is people say, let's say they say, well, I want to help the poor.
	I want to help the sick.
	I want to help the old who don't have enough to live on.
	And, you know, these are all worthy and fine things to do.
	And they're very hard to do.
	It's hard to help the poor.
	And all of the people who say, well, just have the government do this, that, or the other, I absolutely know for sure those are people who have never actually dug in and tried to help the poor.
	When you dig in and try to help the poor, it's really complex.
	It's really complicated.
	And if you give resources to the poor, you are, in a sense, rewarding them for being poor.
	Now, this is not to say don't give any resources to the poor, but it's challenging and it's complicated.
	And what happens is people don't understand how other people's decisions change when resource application and government programs are applied.
	So as I've mentioned before, poverty was lowering itself by one percentage point a year, every year, for blacks and whites in America after the Second World War.
	And people were like, well, great.
	So poverty is being solved.
	We've got a lot of wealth.
	So, you know, basically all we need to do is just throw a little bit more resources into helping the poor, and then we'll be fine.
	We'll have eliminated poverty.
	But then what happened, of course, is that poverty increased after social programs were put in place.
	Now, the absolute percentage of poverty remained about the same.
	In other words, poverty was declining, and it sort of ended up kicking in at a particular percentage point, something like 15 or 20% of the people were poor.
	And then it hasn't budged since.
	But the problem is that poverty has actually increased because debt has increased significantly as a result of poverty programs.
	And what that means is that we now have an entrenched underclass of people who are very poor, who are now three or four generations removed from productive work skills.
	I mean, my mother was not able to transfer to me any productive work skills.
	I mean, sister's been unemployed for, but it is now.
	What it is, something like 30, 35 years.
	And so I had to sort of learn to make my way in the business world largely on my own.
	It's a very complicated thing.
	Whereas a friend of mine whose father was the head of a university department, he himself navigated, of course, with relative ease his way through how to become a university professor because his father was not only a university professor, but was also head of the entire department.
	So he could, of course, go to his father and say, hey, I want to become a university professor.
	And his father would be Like, would spend countless hours stepping him through the process and so on.
	And so, when you lose work skills, when you lose how to deal with boss skills, when you lose how to help customer skills, when you lose financial literacy skills and budgeting and planning skills, it's really bad.
	So, the poor now are much worse off than the poor in the 1960s.
	They've become entrenched.
	And because we have, in the West, particularly in America, massive unfunded liabilities, deficits, and debt, and so on, then the poor have lost a good deal of their skills, have become entrenched in a particular mindset that is bad, and the programs are utterly unsustainable.
	So, I mean, you really couldn't design a worse situation for the poor in the long run, which is why people who talk about the welfare state as helping the poor are basically in the same category as saying that heroin helps heroin addicts.
	Well, I guess, briefly, but at enormous future cost.
	So, I mean, I grew up with friends who were, you know, poor and broke.
	And, you know, my one of my best friends, his mother was a bookkeeper, but she only worked like in a day or two a week.
	And I don't know exactly where she got the rest of her money, but I assume it was something to do with social programs.
	And she didn't really have any advice for him in the workplace.
	So he kind of struggled to find his place.
	Now, I gave him work because I, of course, started companies and was able to hire people, so I gave him work.
	And it's tough.
	It's tough to transfer those skills.
	It's tough to make people enthusiastic, particularly, not that he was, but particularly depressed people, right?
	Depressed people, you want to come in and help them.
	Oh, let me come in and clean up your place.
	Oh, you know, come on, man, let's go to the gym or let's go for a walk or let's catch some sunshine or let's catch a ballgame or something like that.
	But the more that you do for depressed people, the more inert they become.
	I mean, you can't work out for someone else.
	You can't eat for someone else.
	You can't go for a walk for someone else.
	So it's tricky.
	It's complicated.
	It's challenging.
	And you really want the best and most creative minds working on these problems.
	So the reason why the West in particular has decayed is that people have a feel-good mechanism, a feel-good magic wand, a literal drug called, I support this government action.
	I care about healthcare for the poor.
	Therefore, I care about, you know, Medicare or Medicaid or the NHS or socialized medicine in Canada or wherever, right?
	So people say, well, there's a problem in that some people don't seem to have easy access or can't afford healthcare.
	Now, to actually solve that problem is a big challenge because, you know, second-order effect, public choice theory, the more free healthcare you give to people, the less care they take of their health.
	I mean, it's just in general.
	It's true, right?
	I mean, people say, oh, seatbelts save lives and so on.
	It's like, well, no, no, they don't.
	They don't.
	Because when people have seatbelts, all they do is adjust and drive more dangerously, right?
	There was an economist who suggested that you'd get the same effect if you had a giant spike coming out of the steering wheel pointed right at people's hearts, then they drive very carefully.
	So, oh, you know, we put all these safety features on cars and so on.
	That just means that people drive more dangerously, which means pedestrians, bicyclists, and motorcyclists tend to take the brunt of people's poor driving.
	So you need very smart people to solve complex social problems, not idiot bureaucrats with the power to tax and spend, right?
	That is not what is going to solve these problems.
	But people want to feel good about solving problems.
	Of course.
	I mean, you get a rush.
	You get a hack.
	I mean, I'm not one thing that almost never makes me feel smart are escape rooms.
	I've done a couple and I always feel like a bit of a mouth-drooling idiot.
	It's not the way my brain particularly works.
	I get some of them really easily, but some I can just stare at for like 10 minutes.
	So you want smart people solving these problems of social problems.
	How do kids get educated?
	How do we take care of the elderly who failed to save for their retirement?
	Because of course, if you just give a bunch of money to the elderly who failed to save for their retirement, then people will stop saving for their retirement.
	I mean, people respond to Incentives.
	Most people act on incentives not on morals.
	So if there's a single mom and you say, oh, we should give money to single moms because they need help.
	Okay, well, you've just turned children from a cost into an asset, which means that a significant proportion of women will have children in order to make money.
	And you have now increased the incentive to be a single mom.
	So what happens is it's really hard to help people.
	And of course, you know, sorry, I forgot what I was talking about the escape rooms back now.
	So I'm not particularly good at escape rooms.
	So when I figure something out, I get a rush.
	Oh, got it, right?
	You get that rush.
	You get that sort of happiness, right?
	And nature has programmed us to have that kind of rush from actually solving problems because, you know, it's hard to solve problems.
	And so the more effort that we put into solving problems, the more difficult the problems are, the happier we tend to be when we solve these problems, right?
	I mean, you've heard of these poor guys who put their crypto on some locked hard drive, which only allows 10 password guesses, right?
	So if they get the right password, they feel a huge flash of relief and happiness and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	And so the more difficult the problem is, the happier we are in solving it.
	We get a rush.
	We get a, ah, I think you get a full, a real rush.
	Now, the government allows people to say, well, I support the government solving these problems, and then they feel good.
	And liberalism, in its essence, is a drug addiction to the appearance of solving problems rather than actually solving problems.
	It would be like if you have a bunch of people coming over and you want to lay out a fruit tray, but you only have plastic fruit, right?
	And you put out the fruit tray and people are like, well, hang on, this isn't real fruit.
	It's like, no, no, no, but I have a fruit tray.
	I feel good about that.
	It's like, but it's not real fruit.
	It is an addiction to the fruits of virtuous problem solving without actually having to go through the difficult process of virtuous problem solving.
	And also then it becomes about removing negative consequences from people and thinking you've done society an eternal good by removing negative consequences from people, which is, again, sort of like a new mom with babies and toddlers' mindset.
	Babies and toddlers should not learn to navigate the dangers in life by trial and error, by brute consequences, right?
	You don't let your kid, who's a toddler, learn about how dangerous stairs are by letting them fall downstairs, right?
	Consequences are too dangerous and so on, right?
	But at some point, you have to let people start learning from their own bad decisions.
	Otherwise, there's no incentive for people to make a good decision.
	So if a woman has children with the wrong man, her life becomes quite complicated and difficult.
	If you take away those complications and difficulties, she's happier.
	Sure, sure, she's happier because she doesn't have to live with the consequences of her own bad decisions.
	She's happier.
	But then you undermine everybody's ability to make good decisions.
	At an extreme example, just sort of to hammer the point home, if a policeman catches a robber, you know, he's got the hamburglar hat.
	He comes out with a big bag of Looney Tunes loot over his shoulder and so on, right?
	And the thief is caught, the robber is caught by the cop.
	Now the cop decides to let him go.
	Well, how happy is the thief?
	The thief is delirious with joy, right?
	This is the scene in Les Mies where Jean Valjean takes the candlesticks, the silver candlesticks from the priest.
	And then the priest says, no, no, no, I gave them to him.
	Now go forward and sin no more.
	And Jean Vanja becomes a really great guy and mayor of the town.
	And I am the master of hundreds of workers.
	They all look to me.
	So that's the fantasy.
	So people who've done bad things really, really, really want to get away with those bad things.
	People who've made bad decisions want to escape the consequences of those bad decisions.
	And yet, so we get happiness from the people, immediate, right?
	Immediate happiness.
	Oh, the thief is like thrilled that the cop isn't going to charge him.
	But then, of course, the more the cops let thieves get away, the more thieves there are, and the worse society becomes.
	So it's a real challenge, a real balance.
	So solving corruption, solving poverty, solving people making bad decisions is very complicated.
	I mean, a lot of it has to do with better parenting, which I've talked about for like 20 years, but it's very complicated.
	And so if we genuinely help someone overcome their desire or the fact that they make bad decisions, we feel greatly thrilled and happy.
	We saved a soul, so to speak.
	And that requires a lot of personal knowledge, a lot of personal wisdom, a lot of personal investment, a lot of trial and error, and a lot of rejection and failure.
	When you say to people, you should do these better, you should make these better decisions, and they just kind of reject you and don't make these better decisions.
	It's kind of frustrating.
	So by creating this massive vending machine dopamine dispenser called I Support the Current Thing, I mean, the war in Ukraine is complex.
	And Western powers are involved.
	You know, they said they're not going to go east with NATO in the early 90s, and they continue to go east.
	Ukraine did some pretty bad things to the Russians in eastern Ukraine.
	And like, it's complicated.
	But no, it's just like the heroic, scrappy, blah, blah, blah, evil Russia.
	So then there's just this vending machine that if I just trust the government, if I just support the government, if I just praise the government, then I get the rewards of solving complex social problems.
	We have had poverty programs in the West for, I don't know, let's say 65 years.
	And have we solved the problem of poverty?
	No.
	No.
	In fact, again, if you count the unfunded liabilities, the deficit, and the debt, poverty is almost infinitely worse than it was when we began these programs.
	So it hasn't worked.
	And it's crippled the poor and it has stripped valuable skills from the poor at a time when the system can't possibly continue.
	So it's really, really bad.
	It's getting people addicted to a drug and then yanking that drug away from them.
	It's going to be brutal when the money runs out.
	So people get a lot of dopamine from doing good, supporting the government, now feels like you're doing good.
	And so people have become addicted to their support for government programs to the point where they don't care whether the government programs achieve their stated goal or not.
	They don't care.
	It's like somebody who starts marijuana for, quote, medicinal purposes becomes addicted and continues to take it long after the problem is resolved or cured, right?
	Like somebody who gets addicted to opiates, they start taking opiates because of a back problem, and then the back problem gets solved, but they're now addicted to the opiates.
	So their purpose is to not solve a problem, but to get more drugs.
	And it's the same thing.
	People are addicted to feeling good about pretending to solve problems by handing money and power to the government.
	They're addicts.
	So when you say these programs are not solving the problems, in fact, they're making the problems worse, they react in the same way as a guy who gets on opiates because of a back problem.
	He goes to his doctor, keeps asking for more opiates.
	And at some point, the doctor says, listen, I've looked at the scans.
	I've done the exam.
	You don't need the opiates anymore because your back is better.
	I mean, there are people who go into hospitals, they go into emergencies complaining of, you know, terrible pain just so that they can get given some opiates.
	So if somebody started taking a drug because maybe they needed it for some reason, and then that reason has gone away, but now they're addicted to the drug, when someone comes along and says, you know, this is not healthy for you anymore.
	This is not working.
	This is not needed.
	I'm going to take you off it.
	They get really angry.
	It's the same thing when libertarians or anarcho-capitalists come along to mostly leftists, although it happens on the right as well, and say, well, these programs aren't solving the problem.
	People need to feel that they're, oh, they now feel that They're good because they supported government programs.
	And if you take away the moral and practical validity of those government programs, they're going to get very angry because they are, and again, I know this sounds like hyperbole.
	I don't mean this as actual, in my mind, literal fact.
	I know in my mind, literal fact is a bit of an oxymoron, but we certainly know that monkeys are addicted to dopamine, right?
	So this is the pathological altruism.
	This is the virtue signaling and so on.
	People want the rewards of doing good without the challenges and difficulties of doing good.
	And through their fantasies about the power and virtue of the state, they get their vending machine dopamine drip of virtue without actually having to solve problems.
	And then when you come along and you say what you're addicted to is not good, their entire identity, their sense of being a good person, is not just threatened, it's reversed.
	Like you think you're a good person by supporting poverty programs that harm the poor.
	You're a bad person for supporting these programs.
	And so this addiction is facilitated by the state.
	It's facilitated by, of course, politicians and the media and so on.
	It's facilitated by all the people who want the power.
	So, yeah, we have made, you know, billions of people around the world utterly addicted to the pretend virtues of supporting government power and trying to take away that power or trying to question the moral and practical utility of that power.
	People react exactly the same way that any drug addict reacts when you threaten the supply of their drug.
	So I don't debate with drug addicts.
	And so people who are addicted to the dopamine or pretend virtue, if you start to question that virtue, they're going to freak out.
	It's going to be highly destabilizing.
	And they're going to catch a glimpse of themselves in the mirror, not as, you know, beautiful, wonderful, compassionate, wise, and benevolent souls, but of, you know, Gollum-style, heavy betrayal, amoral or immoral drug addicts.
	And, you know, people don't want to see that stuff, right?
	They don't want to see the truth about themselves.
	If they're bad people, I get it.
	I wouldn't either.
	So, all right.
	Does God really get mad if I kill myself?
	Don't kill yourself.
	It does unbelievable, staggering harm to others.
	And your ancestors certainly did not suffer through everything they suffered through for you to jump off a bridge.
	So please get the help that you need and don't kill yourself.
	There's tons of hotlines that you can get a hold of who will help you.
	All right.
	Is it morally wrong, asks someone, to make short form content on scrolling platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Reels, et cetera, if it makes one money but contributes to the low impulse control and dopamine harvesting of the general population?
	No.
	So it might be aesthetically negative behavior, you know, like being rude or being late or whatever it is, but it's not evil.
	You're not initiating the use of force and so on.
	I mean, there are lots of ways that people can make money that don't contribute much to the values and virtues of society, but, you know, may contribute to happiness or a sense of contentment or whatever it is, right?
	So, you know, like I have no problem with makeup as a whole, but, you know, when it's really caked on and filters and this and that and the other, that's a delusion.
	And it's one of the reasons I don't use makeup or filters, because this is just who I am and this is how I look.
	I'm not going to pretend otherwise.
	So if you're making entertaining videos, and my daughter will sometimes show me videos on social media that are very funny.
	And generally what's even funnier than the videos are the comments.
	And I've actually laughed so hard that I have tears have run down my face and it is enjoyable.
	Don't think there's an, it's not exactly, you know, morally elevated stuff, but life isn't all about moral elevation.
	Sometimes the McGoofy fun is fine.
	What do you think of the work of C.G. Jung?
	This would be Carl Gustef Jung or Jung, J-U-N-G, Young at Heart, Forever Young.
	So I've read quite a bit of his work and I find it very interesting.
	I find it very thought-provoking.
	I'm not sure I find it entirely practical in terms of living a virtuous and moral life.
	So the Animur, the Animus, the Shadow, the Collective Unconscious, this work, he's got a bit obsessive with the Mandelas In my view, not the Nelson kind, but the intricate design kind.
	So I would not consider myself any kind of expert on Jung.
	There were a couple of things that stick out for me.
	People's self-destructive tendencies, his story about how his patient, who was a mountain climber, kept dreaming about climbing up past the mountains into the clouds, and Jung said, oh, you're going to kill yourself.
	You've got to be careful.
	And then the guy ended up dying in the mountains.
	Again, it's a story told by Jung, so I'm not sure exactly how honest it is.
	I read the biography of Jung, and at one point he got a whole bunch of people killed by trekking through Africa for reasons that never made any particular sense to me, so it seemed a bit odd that way.
	And did he focus heavily on child abuse and parenting?
	I mean, I think like most psychologists, he certainly did to some degree, but not in terms of abstract ethics.
	So helpful, useful, interesting.
	But, you know, modern psychology, I compare things to physics and computers, right?
	I mean, I'm no physicist, but I sure as heck no computers.
	I was a computer programmer for decades.
	So if I look at the progress that is made in, let's just say, engineering, technology, physics, of course, is a government-funded boondoggle for the most part.
	But I compare things to the progress in engineering and technology.
	So, I mean, however you count it, sort of Freud, you know, we've had 140 years, give or take, 140, 150 years of psychology, modern psychology, if you want to count it with the founding of Freud.
	So we've had a 150 years of psychology, and how is it done?
	Compared to, say, electricity or motors, or not that we've had 150 years of computers.
	I mean, I guess you could go back to Pascal's calculating machine and all of that kind of stuff, but or an abacus.
	But even if we just look at the giant room-sized computers of the 1950s, we've had 70 years since then, and a computer is a zillion times more powerful than a room-sized computer.
	You can get these rings now that are like even smaller than the smartwatches, they're just rings.
	So what I do when I look at these sciences is I compare them to excellence.
	Now, I don't believe there's any foundational reason why we couldn't have maybe not the exact same, it wouldn't be like Moore's lore, but we could have similar levels of progress in the humanities as we have in other disciplines and areas.
	I look at 3,000 years or 4,000 years of philosophy, and there's no particular consensus on even the most basic of answers, which means 3,000 to 4,000 years into philosophy, the discipline literally sucks ass and blows wind.
	It is an absolutely tragic, complete and total mind-frack waste of near infinite human potential.
	And it is embarrassing to me to be even associated with a discipline that has made so little progress in its, you know, tens of thousands of practitioners, hundreds of millions of dollars of funding per year around the world through universities and other things.
	The most brilliant minds, you know, philosophy, those who study philosophy rank number one in graduate school are basically IQ tests.
	So, you know, the most brilliant people can't come up with an explanation as to something like a baby's development of object constancy.
	You know, like you roll a ball under the couch, babies first pretend it's disappeared or believe it's disappeared.
	After a while, they'll go and look for it, realizing that it's still there.
	It's just under the couch.
	So if you look at the progress made in engineering, in computers, in physics, in empirical, particularly customer-oriented science as a whole, it's massive, staggering.
	And so you then look at the progress made in other fields and areas, and it's worse than pathetic.
	And this to me is it's been really embarrassing.
	Now, one of the things that really helped me as a philosopher was being in the business world, where you actually have to produce things and things have to have value.
	You can't just frack around from here to eternity, mucking about whether nouns exist more in the Aristotelian empiricism or the Platonic mind space.
	It's all a bunch of bullshit, and it's embarrassing that the field has not resolved these questions.
	I view, in general, philosophy as a place to capture and trap brilliance so that it doesn't threaten the social order.
	And you can see this happening all the time on X, by the way, right?
	And people are trying to catch me with questions that philosophy has just been unable to answer.
	And no, you can answer them.
	And you should.
	Because the only way that I was going to stay in philosophy was if I got some GD answers.
	In the business world, at some point, your code has to compile and satisfy the customer.
	And I will not do this hookie-cookie circle jerk of abstract nothings that lead nowhere, waste my entire lifetime existence, and the gifts that I've been given.
	So I view, like, anybody who's into philosophy or psychology and so on, should be cringe-embarrassed at the lack of progress.
	I mean, psychology has been around for 150 years in its modern form, arguably, and certainly statistically.
	People are more anxious, they're less happy, they're less contented, pair bonding is down, marriages are down, fertility is down.
	We're all acting like a bunch of depressed emos.
	And, you know, this is the argument Robert Whitaker has in his book, Madden America, which is: if we have all of these drugs to treat mental illness, then why is there more mental illness now than ever?
	Well, again, this goes back to the first question about incentives.
	When people make money for being crazy, well, there'll be a whole lot of crazier out, right?
	You're just paying for it.
	So, yeah, so with Jung, I mean, there should be a devotion to measurable progress, right?
	You cannot manage what you cannot measure.
	So, there should be robust theories, rigid experiments, and a relentless focus on doing that which is good and that which works.
	And the fact that the psychological profession is not in a complete panic over rising rates of mental illness, despite the fact that they're getting billions and billions of dollars from governments around the world.
	Well, if there was a, I don't know, how harsh should I be?
	That was a tough question.
	Because, you know, Blunt feels like harsh to the associated.
	But there should be a clarion call for, like, what are we doing?
	We're taking all this money and we're not providing the kind of value that we need to.
	You know, in fact, that which we claim to cure after we take we've taken now hundreds of billions of dollars over the decades, and that which we claim to cure is now worse.
	So this should provoke an existential crisis in the profession, if they were genuinely concerned with making people better, as opposed to getting their hands on government cash, which, you know, seems to be empirically supported, at least to some degree.
	All right.
	How badly, says somebody or asks somebody, how badly have we sinned by presuming ancient philosophers were dumber than we are and forgetting crucial lessons from such wise people and their respective traditions?
	Well, ancient philosophers in general believed in slavery and so on.
	So I don't know that they were massively wise in these areas or productive in these areas.
	So I do think that we should not get rid of ancient customs without having a pretty robust examination as to why they existed.
	But all right.
	Since you don't trust studies, yet cite them regularly, what's a worthy study and what isn't?
	So a worthy study generally tends to be something not funded by the government that just coincidentally happens to fulfill a leftist agenda, right?
	That would be a study that I would trust more.
	A study that goes against prevailing leftist orthodoxy would be something I would find to be a value.
	And there are ways of cross-referencing studies to determine their validity.
	So for instance, if you look at crime statistics, you know, crime statistics by ethnicity are very different, as we know, right?
	So Asians have very East Asians, not South Asians, but East Asians have very low crime rates.
	And as you know, Hispanics and blacks have higher crime rates.
	So this could just be prejudice in terms of policing.
	However, there's a victim impact surveys where they say to people, have you been the victim of a crime and what was the race and so on?
	Now, if the victim impact surveys match the arrest records to a large degree, then you have two cross-references and it's most likely valid, right?
	So, all right.
	Because people don't report crimes and then they don't say, oh, I was robbed by a guy and then change the race or the ethnicity of the person who robbed them because then that person won't be caught, right?
	All right.
	Question: How do you square your correct belief that nobody really changes and you're trying to get your followers to change and embrace your philosophy?
	Oh, man.
	You know, this girly estrogen insult to women, passive-aggressive crap is really tiresome.
	You want people to embrace your philosophy.
	Come on, man.
	Would you say to a math teacher, well, you're just trying to get people to engage, to engage with them to accept your mathematics?
	A competent physics teacher is not trying to get people to be hypnotized by his physics.
	It's like, well, it's true if it's false.
	It's valid or it's invalid.
	That's it.
	It's true if it's false, valid or invalid, supported by reason and evidence, or self-contradictory and denied by evidence.
	So trying to get your followers to change and embrace your philosophy.
	I don't have followers.
	I don't tell people what to do.
	I can teach people how to think, both through example and through theory.
	I've got a whole book called Art of the Argument, which you can get at artoftheargument.com.
	So, yeah, so your followers embrace your philosophy.
	I don't want people to embrace anything other than their own robust capacity to process facts and theories through reason and evidence.
	So just if you have this habit, see, this is the thing that people need to just understand.
	I mean, I haven't done this speech in forever and a day, so I suppose it's needed.
	I suppose it's time.
	So look, bro, if you're annoyed at me, you need to figure out why.
	This is basic self-knowledge 101.
	The unexamined life, according to Socrates, is not worth living because you're just an NPC.
	You're barely functioning as a cognitive entity.
	So if what I'm doing just rubs you the wrong way and it bothers you and it frustrates you and it annoys you, well, you have a choice, a mature choice and a toddler choice, which again is an insult to toddlers because they can't really choose better.
	So if you're annoyed, and the annoyance is coming off, right?
	Steph, of course, you're in a contradiction.
	And you're trying to get your followers to change and embrace your philosophy.
	That's so passive-aggressive, it's ridiculous, right?
	So clearly, you're bothered by what it is that I'm doing in the world, right?
	So you have a choice.
	And this is not particular to the person who asks this question.
	This is, in general, good self-knowledge and reason and evidence, all that kind of juicy, lovely good stuff.
	So if you're bothered by what it is that I'm doing, please, for the love of God, for the love of all that is holy and unholy in this and every other world, ask yourself why.
	I'm not threatening you.
	I'm not aggressing against you.
	I'm not taking your money by force or fraud.
	I'm not cheating you.
	I'm not lying to you.
	I mean, I may make mistakes, but I'm not lying to you.
	Oh, I may make mistakes, I do, right?
	But I'm not lying to you.
	I am trying to make rational and empirical cases for virtue, reason, facts, and evidence in the world.
	Because I know that we either resolve our disputes through reason or we have to use force.
	And I would rather there not be force in the world that my daughter has to grow up in.
	I think it would be a big plus if the world were less violent.
	And the only way the world becomes less violent is through the strict application of philosophy, reason, and evidence.
	Like there's no third option, reason or violence.
	That's all you get.
	So by promoting reason, I'm trying to diminish violence.
	And by scorning and being this passive-aggressive, gaseous, estrogen, pseudo-ghostly viper trying to strike at my NATs, you're just being gross and weird.
	So, I mean, I can tell you the answer.
	So, if you're bothered by what it is that I'm doing, really bothered by it, it's because either you or people in your life are bullshit artist sophists.
	So, the enemy of the philosopher is not the theologian.
	It is not the ignorant.
	The enemy of the philosopher is the sophist.
	And the sophist is somebody who pretends to have knowledge that he just doesn't have.
	So, if you're bothered by what it is that I'm doing, it's because I'm focusing on reason and evidence.
	And there are things in your life, and people in your life, and things in yourself, and yourself.
	There are things in your life that cannot survive the scrutiny of reason and evidence.
	You have counterfeit bills that you know deep down a counterfeit.
	You're passing them off as real money.
	And when I come along with my instantaneous magic wizard counterfeit detection machine, you get bothered and alarmed because your interests as a sophist or the interest of those around you who are also sophists are threatened by a philosophical dedication and devotion to reason and evidence.
	Now, you can't say this directly, so you just have to be bothered, irritated, and passive-aggressive.
	Because why would I answer a philosophical question from somebody who thinks that I can invent philosophy and make it personal and not have to prove it rationally and empirically?
	Why would I entertain a question on mathematics from someone who thinks that I have somehow invented my own mathematics and want people to follow my math, my reason, my evidence?
	Right?
	Why would you entertain an answer, or why would you entertain a question and provide an answer to somebody who said, Well, you're a scientist, but you're just trying to get your followers to change and embrace your science?
	Like, that's retarded.
	It's dumb.
	And I say it's retarded and dumb, not because I think the guy's retarded and dumb, because it's just so transparently manipulative.
	Because it means you don't understand philosophy, you don't understand reason and evidence.
	And because you're only pretending to understand philosophy and reason and evidence by making these petty tween girl estrogen strikes of passive aggression, well, you can get lost.
	All right.
	And of course, the point is that I have a responsibility, since I have a strong ability to process and communicate reason and evidence of philosophy.
	I have a responsibility to do that.
	I just do.
	I mean, if you had the magical ability to heal cancer patients by touching them, I assume you wouldn't spend your whole day staying home and touching yourself, right?
	Although I guess that would mean you wouldn't get dick cancer, but you would have a responsibility.
	You would have an obligation, right?
	It's not foundationally moral, but you're kind of a dick if you don't at least go and help some people you can cure by cancer.
	Or even if only 5% of the people you touched got cured of cancer, you'd still go and do it, right?
	So I don't know how many people are positively changing their lives as a result of philosophy.
	I don't know.
	I don't know.
	I mean, by this point, I've had close to a billion views and downloads, right?
	Let's say people listen to 10 shows, that's 100 million people.
	Let's say 5% of people radically change their lives for the better through philosophy.
	That's 5 million people.
	If it's 10%, it's 10 million people.
	If those 10 million people have 2.5 kids, that's 25 million people.
	Plus the 10 million, that's 35 million people.
	That's almost the entire population of Canada.
	So you may not be able to do this kind of math.
	I mean, literally, I think it's a bit outdated now, but on my, I think I have 750 million views and downloads.
	It's kind of been tough to track post-deplatforming because people share stuff without me knowing it.
	It's all places I don't know.
	But so it's fairly easy to do these calculations, right?
	It's fairly easy to do these calculations.
	Now, of the 100 million people who've listened to my show over the last 20 years, well, how many people have, I said, radically changed their life, maybe 5% or 10%.
	But let's say that 50% of people have gotten significant benefit out of philosophy.
	They've got some problems solved.
	They've listened to conversations where I promote self-knowledge and they've worked with self-deduct knowledge.
	They've gone to good therapists, which I recommend on a constant basis, and so on, right?
	Okay.
	So that's 50 million people.
	That's 50 million people, bro.
	To which I would ask, what have you done?
	Purpose of life.
	Question is, what is the purpose of life?
	I did a whole show recently, just this last couple of days, called The Meaning of Life.
	You can find this at fdrpodcast.com.
	The purpose of life is to thwart evil and promote virtue.
	All right.
	Have you ever, I simply can't remember, had a chat with Sargon, or would you be open for a long-form chat with Sargon on Philosophy Fellow?
	Yeah, I mean, maybe.
	Honestly, I think I provide so much value.
	And I think the maximum value that I do provide is in call-in shows, live streams, and these kinds of solo shows where I'm answering questions.
	I'm fine to do conversations with people, but and I think I did do a show with him once before, so it wouldn't be the end of the world.
	But anyway, I think he might have trouble because he's in England, right?
	If somebody says, I believe there is value to be found in suffering, assuming this is true, how do we balance the necessity of overcoming adversity against the desire to avoid becoming callous?
	I don't understand the question.
	You're going to need to reframe it.
	So we've got suffering, overcoming adversity, and avoiding becoming callous.
	So let's see here.
	I'm going to have to aim at the foggy target here because this is not very precisely done, which is fine.
	But so you do have to overcome excessive empathy in order to help people.
	Because when you say to people, you're doing something wrong, you've gained weight, the song you sang was really bad, you know, when you say to people these things, it upsets them, right?
	It upsets them.
	And if you're not willing to upset people, you can't tell them the truth because the truth often will upset people because most people go through their lives on this foggy, weird ghost horse chariots of delusions.
	And the longer they hold on to those delusions, the more brutal the truth is if and when it finally emerges.
	So yeah, you do have to tell people the truth.
	I mean, at least as you see it, and they will get upset with you, right?
	So, I mean, you've heard these in my recent ex-Spaces where people come in with their theories.
	You know, there was a guy who called in yesterday who was saying all about how the United States government has all these assets.
	And so we had a conversation about whether these assets could be sold.
	Now, of course, some government stuff can be sold, but a lot of it would face significant legal challenges in being sold.
	So somebody had a theory which had not been thought through particularly well.
	And listen, this is no negative.
	So I just happen to have been involved in corporate sales a couple of times, and I have a pretty good understanding of, you know, the differences between liquid and illiquid assets, between goodwill and tangibility, and so on, right?
	These are just things that I have had some experience with.
	So it's no negative.
	It's just that, or the woman who called in the other night, I think it was Friday night, and was talking about structure versus chaos and trying to sort of understand what that means.
	Stuff that feels true, but doesn't have a rigorous basis for believing that it is true.
	So you do have to become somewhat callous, right, to know when to switch from significant enthusiasm for when little kids do stuff to less enthusiasm when they get older, right?
	So, you know, the first time your kid draws a little painting, or draws a little painting, it makes a little painting with the crowns and so on with, you know, the sun and the people, and it's a mix of two and three dimensions.
	Like I remember being in kindergarten and doing warplanes, and of course, the warplanes, it was kind of like Egyptian thing where they have the profile, but the eyes are looking at you.
	So we had the warplanes, and then the wings went up and down, like a sunfish, rather than from side to side, because we didn't really get, I didn't really get that perspective as yet, right?
	So you say, yay, great picture.
	I love the picture, blah, blah, blah.
	But then if they want to become an artist, you have to criticize them.
	So improvement is suffering to some degree.
	All right.
	How does believing that we live in a simulation change how you should live your life versus common alternative beliefs?
	We do not live in a simulation.
	And the very brief proof of that is that it's a problem of turtles all the way down, right?
	So it's a problem of infinite regression.
	So, if we live in a simulation, then there's some external beast or being or god or devil that created that simulation, which means they exist in a non-simulation.
	So, if there are these robots that have programmed us to live in this matrix so that they can take our energy through batteries, well, then those robots live in the real world and we live in a simulation.
	So, if we accept that there are beings out there that don't live in simulations, then we have no reason to say that we live in a simulation because we've already accepted that there are beings that live outside of simulations.
	There is no disproof for living in a simulation.
	So, Occam's razor would be, since you can't disprove, sorry, since you can't prove or disprove the idea that we live in a simulation, even though we do have simulations such as VR, which are different from the world that we live in, and we can tell that and check that and so on, right?
	Because the laws of physics are whatever the programmers decide to make and so on, right?
	Like the end of Half-Life Alex is like a funhouse mirror of impossible physics.
	It's kind of trippy, actually.
	Probably the closest thing to my experience of drugs I'll ever have.
	So, we know the difference between a simulation such as VR and what goes on in the real world.
	We know the difference between dreams and the waking world, and the waking world is perfectly uniform and consistent and objective and rational in terms of the physics and behavior of matter and energy.
	So, yeah, there is no reason to believe in any way, shape, or form.
	In fact, Occam's razor demands that we accept that we do not live in a simulation.
	So, I don't even toy with these ideas.
	It's really, really toxic.
	Okay, so somebody else asks, can the ability to express intellectual humility and admit your ignorance be taught to anyone, or is it the domain of a special type of person?
	And if so, who?
	Well, if you align yourself to the goal and purpose of achieving truth no matter what, then you will have humility.
	Well, it's funny because you will have humility and you will have certainty.
	And certainty is always called manipulation by manipulators.
	Certainty is always called arrogance by people who want to bully you.
	So, humility, for instance, I did not know the true source of rational ethics, even though I had studied philosophy for 20 years.
	And so, in my 30s, 2000s, let's say early, in my early 40s, I began to work on my theory of universally preferable behavior.
	So, I had studied it.
	I'd never been quite satisfied, but the answers provided, they weren't airtight, and I need things to be airtight.
	I need things to be beyond dispute, which is why UPB is beyond dispute.
	So, oh, sorry, I forgot to mention for more on the simulation theory, www.essentialphilosophy.com.
	It's free.
	The book is free.
	You should listen to it.
	So, because I was humble and honest about my lack of knowledge or certainty about foundational philosophical concepts, like I remember reading, I think it was in the psychology of self-esteem, Nathaniel Brandon was talking about free will.
	And I was like, oh, here's the answer.
	I've got huge respect for Nathaniel Brandon in the past.
	And so, because I had humility and accepted that I did not have a proof of rational ethics, I worked on a proof of rational ethics, which has now given me certainty.
	And certainty is really annoying to people who want to bully, manipulate, and control you.
	Because bullies, manipulators, and controllers rely on your uncertainty and your greed and so on.
	And so, people are constantly annoyed by trying to bully, manipulate, and control me, and I have certainty.
	Because, you know, what is free will, right?
	Like, well, I have really good answers to that, right?
	What is morality?
	What is truth?
	What is goodness?
	What is virtue?
	I have good answers to this.
	And, you know, a pioneer in that, right?
	So we need to hammer people to some degree.
	I mean, we need to encourage people to pursue truth.
	But we also need the social mechanism of hammering people who are sophists, right?
	And you can hear me doing this on my live streams, right?
	When I'm trying to have a conversation with someone and they're not listening, I'm going to point out that's pretty freaking Rude.
	And if you don't even know that you should listen to someone when you're debating with them, why would I listen to you about ethics at all?
	Would you accept lessons on etiquette from a guy who showed up to a formal ball wearing no pants or underwear?
	No, you wouldn't, of course, right?
	Please don't instruct me on the big things if you can't even deal with the little things.
	Don't try and instruct me on virtue if you yourself can't even listen and be polite in a conversation, right?
	So why do people concern themselves with philosophical inquiries at all?
	Mostly to look smart and to create uncertainty in others and feel dominant.
	Do you think sacrificing authenticity for the sake of being social and avoiding conflict that feels unnecessary is valid or cowardice?
	I don't hide from the people around me.
	I don't want to.
	I have no interest in it.
	And I just want people around me who know me for who I am and I don't in particular want to deal with anything else.
	When is it the right time to stop being strategic and stand for your principles?
	Well, I think you should pursue the goal of maximum honesty and truth.
	Now, if being 100% honest and truthful is going to get you thrown in prison or killed or ostracized or whatever it is, right?
	Then you should probably pull back a little so that you can do the maximum, right?
	Like, you know, if you're exercising and let's say you want to be a bodybuilder, you do the maximum exercise before you injure yourself, right?
	And that way you're going to get the strongest.
	If you injure yourself, it doesn't work, right?
	All right.
	Somebody else writes, huge fan of yours.
	Thank you, friend.
	My wife and I would listen to your podcast, helping individuals one-on-one regularly, led to many breakthroughs, including leading us to having a bunch of kids with full confidence.
	I still can't get on board with your position on how difficult it is to have kids.
	I don't understand that.
	I keep telling people that having kids is a whole lot easier than you think.
	So I'm not sure what you mean by that, but I'm certainly happy to hear more if you could clarify.
	Next question: if consequentialism shouldn't be used to judge morals, hence, is not useful for many of our daily decisions that are often moral.
	What?
	If consequentialism shouldn't be used to judge morals, hence, is not useful for many of our daily decisions that are often moral.
	What is the alternative?
	Do we not judge most things on cause and effect?
	So yeah, consequentialism is just mysticism because nobody knows the long-run effects of moral decisions.
	You don't.
	You don't.
	I mean, nobody who was an advocate for the end of slavery said, well, you know, when we end slavery, we're going to enter into a new world of technological and capital formation, technological innovation and advancement in humanity that will dwarf in 10 years what's been done in the last 10,000.
	Like nobody made that decision, right?
	Nobody had that perspective.
	You just did it because it was the right thing.
	Consequentialism is mysticism because nobody knows the future and you can make up whatever you want, right?
	So you can say, well, you know, if we, the consequences of privatizing healthcare will be that people will die in the streets, right?
	Or, well, the consequence of privatizing healthcare will that people will start to lead more healthy lives and will have an industry much more interested in the prevention of disease rather than the cure, right?
	Because the last thing you want is a medical system that makes money off cure, not prevention, right?
	So you can make up both scenarios.
	Now, is it true that some people might die if you privatize healthcare?
	It's true.
	Some people might die if you privatize healthcare.
	I think if you care about that, then you should alleviate that problem by giving to charity and so on.
	But yeah, it's true that some people might die, but it's true that people are dying because we have socialized healthcare.
	So if you focus on the benefits and not the costs or the costs, but not the benefits, you can program yourself to believe any other, any pile of stegosaurus-awful crap.
	All right.
	Somebody says, I have one, a question.
	Do you ever think about the dominance of aesthetic, even in domains where most people would instinctively say reason and logic prevail?
	Yes.
	So you do have to have some proof of your theories if you're going to lecture others, right?
	So if you say, I have a foolproof way to lose weight and get abs, you should be relatively slender and have abs, right?
	If I'm going to say, reason equals virtue equals happiness, then I should have, you know, some happiness in my life and some rationality and so on, right?
	And, you know, this is back to this pretty ferocious thing that happens on X, right?
	When people tell me, Steph, you're not very good at social media.
	Steph, you're not very good at social media, man.
	And I'm like, well, you have 82 followers.
	I have 425,000 followers or whatever, right?
	And I'm regularly pruning followers and blocking people who are douchebags and so on, right?
	so if you're going to tell me how to be good on social media, I expect you to have some proof.
	And then people say, well, I'm not here to gain followers.
	It's like, well, then don't tell me how to be successful if your goal is not to be successful.
	If you tell me, Steph, you don't exercise enough and you eat poorly and you look blobby and out of shape, right?
	And then you're 400 pounds, I'm just not going to listen to you.
	I'm not going to listen, especially if you say, Steph, you should switch your diet out for this, this, and this.
	And then I look at your profile and your 400 pounds, I'm just not going to listen to you.
	I'm not going to evaluate because, you know, we're mortal, man.
	You have to make decisions.
	You have to make decisions.
	Now, it could be the guy who's got leprosy-based pizza skin has a fantastic way of getting rid of acne.
	It could be, but you're not going to bother because life is short and you have to make decisions on a relatively abrupt basis.
	Now, of course, if someone were to say, Steph, I recognize I don't have many followers, so it might seem kind of silly for me to lecture you on how to be successful on social media, but here's blah, blah, blah, and here's why.
	Okay, that's one thing.
	But if people just lecture me without even noticing, like if somebody lectures me on how to fix my diet and that person is 400 pounds and doesn't even reference that fact, then they're kind of crazy.
	And I don't want to interact with them.
	Like I don't.
	I don't want to interact with people who are 400 pounds who are going to lecture me on how to be trim, slim, and healthy.
	I mean, it's deranged, right?
	So anyway.
	All right.
	Hi, Steph.
	My wife mentioned this to me.
	What do you think?
	What incentive do people who don't have kids have to improve themselves?
	They don't have anyone to mentor, to model behavior to, to educate.
	Do you think this is contributing to the current general social dysfunction?
	Yeah, for sure.
	I mean, if you can convince people to not have kids, you take away their long-term planning, right?
	But this is the John Maynard Keynes thing, right?
	John Maynard Keynes was a famous socialist or semi-socialist economist who, when he was asked about deficits, someone said, well, what about in the long run?
	And he just snapped, well, in the long run, we're all dead.
	Now he was gay and didn't have any kids.
	Did this have an effect on things?
	Sure.
	I mean, almost into almost undoubtedly.
	I do a lot of what I do because I want the world to be a better place, or at least not a worse place, or at least not a much worse place for my daughter when she goes out into the world, which is, you know, coming up.
	So, yeah, you care about the future when you have kids.
	You care more about the future.
	All right.
	What's the meaning of life in your opinion?
	Well, you shouldn't ask for my opinion.
	So again, I just did a whole show called The Meaning of Life.
	Explain Heidegger, one sentence.
	No, you didn't say the magic word.
	It's funny, you know, when people give me orders, I just ignore them, honestly.
	Explain Heidegger, one sentence.
	Like, you're not signing my paycheck.
	I don't have to pass your class.
	So you can take a long walk off a short pier, as they say.
	You know, you can ask people nicely and so on, right?
	Right.
	Grand Inquisitor.
	I think I'll stop here.
	I've got some more questions to go, but it's been a long old chitty chat.
	And I did a show this morning.
	So I do appreciate that.
	Freedomaine.com slash donate to help out the show.
	I really would appreciate it.
	Just do it now.
	You know, it's the right thing to do.
	Freedomaine.com slash donate.
	And lots of love from up here, my friends.
	I'll talk to you soon.

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