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Aug. 18, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
02:16:10
Life After Covid! Twitter/X Space
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Hey, hey, good evening, my friends.
Welcome back, my show.
Welcome back, my show, to the Friends That Never End.
Power to all our friends.
How are you doing this evening?
Welcome to your Saturday Night Live.
Sorry I couldn't do last night.
But I was otherwise occupied and you know what it takes to come between me and the greatest audience in the history of the known universe.
Quite a lot.
quite a lot, but it was important, and I hope you will forgive me, and I...
Yeah, let's do a good show.
Let's do a good show and a good conversation.
And you know what?
Let's just dive straight in, Zenko.
Zenko, you are on the air.
What's on your mind, my friend?
Hit me.
Don't forget to unmute.
Zenko, don't stop me off with the quiet call.
Don't do it, brother.
I'm begging you.
I'm begging you.
Going once, going twice.
All right.
We say farewell to our mime friend and we say hello to Greg.?
You might need to unmute.
I can't hear you.
All right.
Sorry, I'm going to just pause the flow here for a sec.
I don't know if there's some issue.
Is there an issue?
I certainly can hear the system sounds.
Um, can other people hear?
Or not?
If there's anyone who would like to come in and test to know if their mic is working, that would be excellent because I cannot hear I heard the music so I think the system audio is working all right Greg you're still on if you want to unmute no all right let's go with Darren
Come on, Darren!
Give me the audio that worketh.
Thank you.
I feel you can talk.
I feel it strongly.
I feel it strongly.
All right, go on.
What's going to happen?
I can hear a background noise.
What the hell is going on with things today?
Joseph, what's on your mind?
What a shame.
Okay, hello, go ahead.
Estefan.
Yes, go ahead.
Can you find me on telegram.
I want to donate donate you some money back.
I don't get any job here in Mexico.
Oh, listen, listen, brother, if you are without work, if you are low on funds, if there are issues going on with you financially, please, please, please don't worry about donating to me.
I appreciate that.
Listen, and I don't want to downplay the kindness of what you're talking about.
It is very kind, and I really, really do appreciate it.
But I do not want you to think about that at all.
Hang on, hang on, hang on.
Just hold your horses.
So, yeah, listen, this is a general note to people as a whole.
Like if you're broke and can't donate, honestly, share the ideas, share the shows, whatever you can do is very much appreciated.
But don't worry about donating.
Just enjoy the show and enjoy philosophy and don't sweat it at all.
Don't sweat it at all.
So I appreciate that.
If you do want to donate, you can go to freedomman.com slash donate to help out the show, freedomman.
dot com slash donate but if you can't for whatever reason don't feel bad enjoy the show enjoy, imbibe, absorb, and feel nothing negative whatsoever with regards to that.
All right, so I'm just gonna, I don't know what's going on, people, or maybe we got some trolls tonight.
Is it possible?
Is it possible that people could be so silly and petty as to troll a philosophy show?
I suppose it's possible.
But, uh, alright, sword.
Sword.
If you want to unmute, I'm all eagerness to hear your thoughts.
I wonder if we have some technical issues going on tonight, because I can certainly hear some people, but not the people who are actually...
What are your thoughts on the aesthetic philosopher Roger Scruton?
What are my thoughts on the aesthetic philosopher Roger Scruton?
Sorry, was that your question?
Yes, sir.
I don't have any particular thoughts on the aesthetic philosopher Roger Scruton, but I'm certainly happy to engage...
with his arguments if you wanted to present them I'm not able to present them.
I would wonder if you could point me in a direction in which I could engage with them.
I'm a beginner.
I'm trying to figure out how to approach his arguments and evaluate.
Well, I'm an original philosopher.
I don't do cover band stuff material, so I don't know why you would call a guy and say, how do I evaluate the arguments of another philosopher?
Maybe I should make, maybe I should make, let me frame that.
How would I approach your work?
What approach should I take to reading your work?
And maybe I take that same approach reading Scruton, Aristotle, Hegel, and whoever else.
Okay, I think that's a great question.
I appreciate that.
So the way that I approach the works of a philosopher.
is I say, did the philosopher apply his values to his own life, number one?
If not, I really don't care what they have to say.
Really, honestly, I just don't care.
You know, I don't buy diet books from fat guys, right?
So did the philosopher apply his values to his own life?
And number two, can I apply those values to my own life?
Philosophy is not a spin spider webs of mental machinations in some other dimension.
Philosophy is practical ethics and virtues in the here and now.
I look and I see, can the philosophy or the philosopher that I'm reading provide me actionable, helpful, useful insights on how to live a life of greater morality and integrity and virtue and courage and so on.
I'm sorry?
Are you implying that all philosophy is value theory?
I don't know in what way you're using these terms, so feel free to break them out a little bit more so I can understand them.
I'm not a professor, I'm an undergrad.
I'm just a robe.
Hang on, hang on.
So when you say value theory, you understand that we're having a conversation in front of a general audience and the first thing you need to do in philosophy is to find your terms.
So I'm just curious what you mean by value theory.
Well, no, sir, it's the systematic study of values, what is good and valuable.
I'm more into metaphysics and epistemology myself.
I'm concerned with what is is and the essence of being, what nature is, whether things have a nature to them, their thisness, their whatness.
I'm more of a metaphysicist than I am an ethicist, but I do have an idea.
This is an unrelated question.
Is it theoretically possible that consequentialism, deontology, and virtue ethics could be squared with one another somehow?
I'm working on a project to do just that.
Okay.
So I'm not slow.
Are you saying that consequentialism, deontologicalism, and so on could all be squared with each other?
Is there a metethics under which the things that produce good consequences are also the things that are virtuous are also the things that one has a duty to do?
It's one I'm trying to approach.
Okay.
What would have to be true for that metethics to be true?
Okay.
So there are there is a theory of ethics which I've developed called universally preferable behavior that is a rational proof of secular ethics.
It requires no gods, no governments, no pragmatism, no utilitarism, and no hedonistic calculation of the greatest good for the greatest number.
Would you be interested in hearing a short summary of that a system of ethics that achieves all of these goals?
I would.
And I actually think I have your book on universally preferable behavior.
I think I have a number of your books that haven't fully explored them in the depth they deserve, but I have read If I'm not confusing you with someone else, you've read a large part of practical error.
Okay.
All right.
So very briefly, morality is universally preferable behavior.
And then if we look at the four major moral categories that all moral systems need to deal with, we're looking at rape, theft, assault, and murder.
So let's look at the concept of theft.
The proposition is, can stealing be universally preferable behavior?
This is sort of the Kantian approach that is it possible for a principle to be universalized?
If it is not possible for a principle to be universalized, then it cannot be a valid moral principle because morality is universally preferable behavior.
So if we look at a concept like stealing, we would say, can stealing be universally preferable behavior?
In other words, can all people under all circumstances both steal and want to be stolen from at the same time?
And of course, the answer to that is no, they cannot.
Because if everybody wants to steal and be stolen from, then the concept of stealing loses all of its meaning.
It becomes a self-contradictory proposition.
Because if I want to be stolen from, if I want somebody to take my property, they're not stealing.
Like if I want you to take my old dusty couch that I don't want anymore, I can't then complain that you stole it from me.
So stealing cannot be universalistic.
Let us look at the counter example.
Is it possible for everyone to respect property rights at the same time?
Yes, it is.
We can all respect property rights at the same time.
Can rape ever be universally preferable behavior?
No, because rape, like stealing, is asymmetrical.
In other words, rape is a evil rapist inflicting his evil will on a tragic and hapless victim.
So it's asymmetrical.
So if we were to say rape is universally preferable behavior, we would have to say everybody must want to rape and be raped at the same time, which would be logically impossible.
You can't want to be raped.
If you want the sexual activity by definition, it's not rape.
And we can go through the same thing with assault.
Sorry, hang on, hang on, hang on.
Let me finish my, let me finish my thought.
So we can go through the same thing thing, but we won't with assault and murder.
So there is no possibility that rape, theft, assault and murder can ever be universally preferable behaviors, and therefore we know that respect for persons and property is moral.
So sorry, go ahead.
Is this substantially equal to the Kantian categorical imperative or do you recognize differences between?
There is differences between Kant's categorical imperative.
Kant says, act as if the principle of your behavior were to become a general rule which everyone should follow.
And there's absolutely no reason why anybody should do that.
So he does not logically prove his moral theory.
He says, well, look, if everyone becomes a thief, then there won't be anything to steal and society doesn't work, everything breaks down and so on.
But of course, everyone who steals knows that very few people are thieves relative to the general population.
Everyone who rapes knows that rape is very rare relative to the general population.
And of course, the fewer people who steal, the more incentive there is to be a thief.
Because if almost nobody steals, then there's no bar security cameras.
Everybody, if they lose something, they'll just assume they've lost it so the fewer people steal the more incentive there is for people to steal so kant is like diet books for thin people if you already are morally sensitive then uh emmanuel kant seems to appeal to you but my question is what about the people who aren't morally sensitive and who want to steal how we just how do we disprove any theory like that and of course emmanuel kant did not in a in even the slightest and most remote fashion did not believe his
own moral imperatives which is why i consider him to be pretty malicious and hypocritical because he said act as if the general principle of your action becomes a rule for everyone and then he said, but you have to obey the unjust ruler.
You have to obey even the unjust ruler, and that's sick and twisted and evil as a whole.
So when Kant says act as if the principle of your action becomes a general rule for everyone, he specifically excluded the government and said you had to obey even the most tyrannical of governments, which puts him squarely into the Nazi asshole evil camp.
So I don't have any particular respect for Emmanuel Kant.
See, the challenge is, and I'll just a very, very brief thing here, then I'll turn it back over to you.
So it wouldn't make much sense in a lot of ways when they first figured out that smoking was bad for you to say to people, you should quit smoking.
And people would say, well, I don't want to quit smoking.
I enjoy smoking.
I like it.
It's social.
It goes great with coffee or whatever they say.
So you have to find a way to get people to quit smoking who don't want to quit smoking.
And, you know, now everybody says, well, yes, I should quit smoking.
And so that's all been sort of dealt with.
But the question with ethics is how do you get people to stop pushing forward corrupt and immoral ethical systems?
And how do you get people to want to be good who don't want to be good or at least accept that what they're doing is wrong?
And so that's the big challengege.
And a UPB, anybody who puts forward a proposition that says, well, the government should control the economy.
It's like, okay, so can people initiate the use of force to control other people's property?
Well, that fails the test of UPB because it can't be universalized.
Because it would mean then everybody has the right to initiate the use of force to control everyone else's property.
But if you want other people to control your property, they don't need force.
And then you look at the social contract and you say, okay, well, we have to obey government because of a social contract.
We have to obey rules because of a social contract.
It's like, okay, so can everyone create their own social contracts and impose them on everyone else.
Well, of course not.
I mean, if I impose a social contract on you that says you owe me $10,000, then you just impose a social contract on me that says I owe you $10,000, it all cancels out and gets nowhere.
So this is a way of evaluating moral propositions and removing the greatest danger to human life, which is false moral theory.
So it's very distinct from Kant's categorical imperative.
Well, I'm going to say something that I don't necessarily agree with here.
Some so-called anarcho-communists believe that property itself is stepped and that the appropriate way for goods and services to be distributed is essentially on what we would call death, where people can have as much as they can take and use, leaving equal and is good for others.
And they say that could be a universally preferable behavior under such circumstances where two behaviors each claim to be universally preferable.
Who decides which is right?
Okay, so can you give me a bit more of a synthesis of what the anarcho communists say?
So let's say that I have I build a house, right?
And what do the anarcho communists say about my property?
If you're able to protect that house and use it and live in it, you can keep that house.
But if you have 14 houses, you're not in all 14 of them at once.
13 of them are going to be taken and used by people who need a house.
That's what they say.
Well, but nobody builds 14 houses for themselves.
You build 14 houses because you're very good at building houses and you rent them out to other people.
So are they saying that the people who rent your property can take the property without having invested in building the property?
They're saying that society as a whole has invested in building the property, the property as such, the whole concept of property is theft.
That's a quote from Pierre Poudon.
And well, but Pierre Poudon was talking about the aristocracy and their historical ownership of land as stolen from the peasants through largely acts of war and suppression.
He wasn't talking about a toothbrush or a house you build for yourself.
He was talking about aristocratic property throughout Europe for the most part.
Yes.
And the modern inner communists, following the footsteps of Emma Goldman and Rosa Luxemburg, would argue that capitalist property and private ownership of really anything that could generate non-labor income is theft.
So private ownership of anything that could create non-labor income.
So if you build a house, you build 14 houses, you live in one, and you rent the houses to someone else.
They're saying that the houses that you've built, that you rent to people, the houses that you built...
are theft well they're sort of that it's not the work if you the capitalist landlords, let's say, didn't build, didn't do the work to build the house, the workers built the house, you hoarded the gold and sold out a little bit to the workers and are now hoarding the workers' gold to let them live indoors.
That's what they said.
Okay, so let's let's look at that.
So let's say that I have homesteaded a bunch of land and I have saved up through sacrifice and not spending money and so on.
I've saved up a bunch of money and then I order a bunch of wood and brick and, you know, all the materials that you'd need to build a house and then I pay workers to build those houses on land that I've homesteaded.
What according to the anarcho-communists, what have I stolen?
You have stolen all the money that you were able to save up.
No, no, no, no, I didn't steal the money.
I saved the money.
Well, they would say, I don't know, because they're stupid and they're wrong and I know, but if you're going to argue, hang on, if you're going to argue their position, we can't just say that they're stupid and wrong, right?
We have to give a steel man case for what it is that they would say.
So what have I stolen?
I'll have to read some more Luxembourg and get back to your next space.
No problem.
In the meantime, when I get to the place where I start breaking through these people and converting them to what I am, which is a minor co-capitalist, is I say the fact that I've saved the money, invested in the land, taken the risk that the houses will not stand or not rent out.
I took the risk, I put up the money, I got the reward.
That's why been a wonderful talk.
I appreciate that.
So what I would also say, and I understand that it's a volatile argument, but it really does bring the point home, is that if all property is theft, then self- ownership is theft, because the first property that we own is our own bodies and our own selves.
Right?
So if all property is theft, then simply having a body and making choices is logically, according to this viewpoint, is stealing, breathing.
That's what the communists believed.
I'm sorry?
The communists believed.
Communists believe that the collective is supreme over the individual, that the people own each person, and the people may dispose of each person as they see fit.
That's another one of the atrocities of the communist viewpoint.
I'm glad you clarified that today.
Yeah.
So the communists invent a ghost that has no voice of its own, that has supreme authority and can order mass murder at will.
It is actually just Satan or a demonic concept, right?
So this is what elites do as a whole.
It's called the mystery religion and it's somebody who says, well, there's this invisible ghost called Bob.
Now Bob is all knowing and all perfect, but sad to say, sucks to be you, Bob, the perfect ghost, only talks to me.
And so when Bob talks to me and then I tell you what Bob says, you have to obey or we'll throw you in a gulag.
And hey, nothing personal, it's just what Bob wants.
And I am the sole arbiter and interpreter of what Bob, the invisible ghost wants.
My invisible friend is perfect and all moral and all knowing.
and only speaks to me, will never speak to you.
And therefore, I am imbued with omniscience, with omnipotence, with all virtue, all perfection.
And so my word is law, not because of me, but just because I have access to this invisible ghost called Bob, who's perfect and only talks to me.
And if you look at sort of since the fall of Christianity, or at least the decay of Christianity, this has been a constant thing in the world.
It's either the class or the race or the sex or Dr. Fauci or the men in white lab coats.
It's all well, see, I have this secret god called data that I can never really show you this modeling, this conceptualization of the future based upon subjective data bullshit.
So I have these models and these models say, hey, don't blame me.
Don't shoot the messenger man.
These models say, you gotta give up all your rights.
These models also say, hey, you, oh yeah, you gotta give me a billion dollars because of climate change.
And so it is just a sad and pathetic mystery religion that is actually more tyrannical than Christianity ever was, because at least with Christianity, you could talk to God yourself and had access to the source documents called the Bible, at least after Martin Luther translated it into the vernacular in the 15th century.
So, yeah, this modern mystery religion, people just are constantly driven to create this invisible body of theirs that is all perfect and all knowing that never has a voice of its own but commands you through them, through the mystery religion, people.
This was, of course, was the case back in the day with the Oracle of Delphi.
This is, well, the proletariat.
I speak on behalf of the proletariat.
So you better shut up and give me everything your own or I'm going to, you know, paint the wall with your brains because the proletariat has no voice of its own, you see, but, but the proletariat speaks for through me.
I speak on behalf of the proletariat, so you have to obey.
So all of this mystery religion stuff is pure sociopathy and mad vanity, right?
Because these invisible ghost buddies don't exist, and therefore we just look at people.
I just look at people like that.
Not you, of course.
I just look at people like they're just hearing voices.
They just hear my invisible friend is telling me that I'm perfect and you have to obey me.
And it's like, well, that's nice.
Maybe we should just give you some good meds and send you on your merry way.
All right.
Let's go with who's coming up next?
Who's coming up, Roses?
Okay, we've got some requests.
Dylan Dylan DYLIN DYLIN DYLIN And Dylan was his name.
If you want to unmute, I'm happy to hear.
Hey, Steph, you hear me?
Good.
A little cut out, but we're survived.
What's on your mind?
I just wanted to see if you can give me more of a take.
So a tweet you had the other day was about how people seem to be different ever since COVID.
And that one kind of interested me because I've, me and a lot of friends of mine.
have had this weird feeling ever since 2020.
The way I can describe it for me personally is that things seem to be sped up a lot, time, years going by.
Another thing, it seems people are way more vicious since 2020.
And then the last thing I would say is that I find it also very weird how 2020, you know, was filled with mass riots and COVID.
And it just seems like, I wouldn't say memory hold, but it was definitely, it's just like brushed to the side now.
like it was just never a big thing.
So I would like to get your take on that.
What do you, what is it that you think is different with people now?
And how COVID and 2020 in general might have affected us?
Yeah, it's I've been sort of been puzzling it over and I've had a really interesting view of this since coming back to X after half a decade off any sort of mass media, social media.
I have been, you know, as you know, tucked away in the hinterlands on my wilderness tour playing small jazz clubs and not dealing with the general population.
I mean, I have a Facebook account, but I barely look at it because it's so heavily suppressed in my view.
And so for a half decade, I was away from the general public and then coming back on X. It really is a different world.
And I think for people who've seen things change slowly over time, it's probably not as apparent as it is to me coming in after a time away.
And I'm kind of ambivalent about the value of X. So I find people...
So a lot of people can be volatile, hot-tempered, and I have no problem with people who are volatile and hot tempered because at least it shows some good old passion.
But it's almost like there's this cold sociopathic volatility but coldness.
They're not passionate about anything.
It's just this cold, soron-eyed domination idea.
And I don't have any particularly good words to describe it other than that.
That people are aggressive and volatile without the spicy, hot tempered, at least they care and are passionate about it.
And it's like a boxer who really enjoys boxing who's like, I can't wait to get in the ring and they're they're aggressive and all of that but they're hot tempered they at least they enjoy boxing this is sort of a different thing this is just like somebody coldly punching over and over without a flicker of expression on their face and so I find that people have gotten colder and crueler and I was sitting there the other day and I was because I'm sort of mulling over whether X
X is a good idea or not as a whole.
And I was thinking, okay, so I've been back on for, I don't know, three months or so, a little less, two and a half months, something like that.
And I was like, okay, whose mind have I changed?
Whose mind have I changed?
Or am I preaching to the choir and not able to change people's minds as a whole?
So one example is, well, yeah, there was this professor of logic who was really dissing me and I got everything right.
and it's like i'm like great you know if you're a professor of logic and i'm getting things wrong please please i don't want to get things wrong and i offered him a debate and he's like yeah i'd love to and then I never heard from him and then I called him out again.
Come on.
He's like, yeah, I'm just researching.
And it's like, this was like a month ago, a couple of weeks ago.
And of course, he doesn't.
He doesn't come back and all of that.
And I think about all of the academics out there.
You know, I have a big audience and I've certainly studied philosophy and have a lot of arguments, perspectives, and opinions and a lot of data to back it up.
And so professors of philosophy, they've certainly heard of me, I'm sure.
And if I get things wrong, I'm always happy to have people on.
I've interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people.
I've done debates with dozens of people.
I'm happy to have debates and conversations.
And they won't, they just won't do it.
They won't do it.
And I think that's really shameful because if I really care about a particular topic and someone's getting things really wrong, then if they invite me onto their show, I would love to go in a friendly way and say, you know, here's the things that are good, here's the things I think can be improved, and here's why, and here's the details, and like, fantastic, that would be great.
But they don't, they don't really do that.
So I think, as far as what's changed in people, I think it's a combination of three things.
And, you know, forgive me when I expound a little on these, and then.
I'd love to get everyone's thoughts on this.
So number one, COVID might have hit the brain, right?
Crossing the blood.-brain barrier and COVID might have hit the brain like the actual virus and it might have done something to the brain.
That's number one.
Number two, the vaccine apparently does things to the brain.
And if that's the case, then either because of COVID or because of the vaccine, or a combination of them, especially the people who got COVID, took the vaccine, took a bunch of boosters.
got COVID three or four more times.
I mean, I never took the vaccine.
I got COVID once.
And it was like, it was like, it wasn't even a flu.
It was just like a cold and a half.
And I had no particular negative symptoms at all.
But I think the people who got COVID took mRNA shots, took a bunch of, that's just my opinion, obviously.
I'm no doctor, right?
But I think if you got COVID, took the shot, took the second shot, took a bunch of boosters, and then got COVID three or four more times, if these viruses and vaccines do something to the brain, you're not the same person.
In my opinion, like your brain has maybe changed, and probably not for the better.
So I think it's three things.
One, COVID, two, the vaccine, potentially possibly.
I don't know.
I mean, I can't evaluate the science.
So, you know, there are people who say that COVVID hits the brain, there are people who say the vaccine hits the brain.
And if those people are right, and again, I can't evaluate, and I'm a philosopher, not a doctor, so I can't evaluate these things.
But if they're true, then I feel like on Twitter, I feel like I'm...
And they're mostly bewildered and still quite sensitive and thoughtful about things.
And I appreciate that humanity.
And I revel and bathe in that humanity.
And it's a good solve for the sort of bruisings of dealing with these cold-blooded, cold-eyed, aggressive zombies.
But, and maybe they're AI, right??
Maybe it's a bunch of AI people, and that's why I get this uncanny valley and this coldness.
So it could be a bunch of AI bots, I don't know.
But it does seem to divide along the took the vaccine versus not took the vaccine situation, which again could be a coincidence, might not be, and it's not like I have scientific data.
So I think there's those two things.
But I think the third thing is that, you know, who you were under COVID, that's who you are.
So I've always sort of wondered with the Milgram experiments, you know, where just Just about everyone will torture you if someone in a lab coat says it might be basically a good idea or somewhat required.
They'll just torture you.
Two-thirds of people will kill you.
And I've often sort of wondered what was it like to go through those experiments?
What was it like if you finish those experiments and you come out and it turns out it was just a mock-up that you weren't actually hitting people with electrical shocks?
But now you know.
You'll torture people if someone just says the experiment requires that you continue, it's important that you continue.
They don't actually give you orders at all.
And they have no authority over you.
It's just a guy in a white lab coat.
So what does it mean when you come out of those experiments knowing that not only could you, but you will do great evil if someone just basically doesn't even ask you to, just says, you know, it's important for you to continue.
Like you will torture and kill your fellow man.
What is it like to walk out of that and go back to your life knowing?
That's who you are, that you are capable of dehumanizing people and torturing them and two-thirds of you willing to kill them just because some guy in a white lab coat says it's important for you to continue.
Never gives you orders and has no authority or power over you.
What is that like?
Well, that's COVID, man.
That was COVID and its reactions.
How many people slid into, oh, the unvaccinated, they're unclean.
Donald Sutherland Invasion of the Body Snatches Time.
Right?
Inhumane NPC, cruel, robots that would serve any sinister master.
and be basically orcs in the armies of Saruman and are willing to give up any communion with their fellow citizen, their fellow human being, for the sake of Cleaving to lies and manipulations that you are fucking soulless That you are a tyrant a petty tyrant in the making and that you are like some crazed animal that is only restrained
out of fear and the moment you are let slip let slip the dogs of war the moment your muzzle is slipped off You would chew the shit out of anyone that the leaders point at that you are an attack animal and that you would have sided with the Nazis and you would have sided with Genghis Khan and you would have sided with the communists and you would have sided with the fascists and you would have rooted out whoever the rulers said was unclean and wrong,
and you would have turned them over and you would have tortured them, and you would have stripped their rights and you cheer that shit on.
And that's who you are.
And that has happened to a significant majority of the population.
And nobody's processing that for shit.
Nobody's processing that.
Nobody's sitting there saying, Holy shit, boss, Batman.
I kinda turned evil.
I don't have the moral spine of your average Nazi jellyfish.
I can be programmed like that to become someone who hates his or her fellow citizens.
I can cheer on the stripping of their rights, I can yell and scream at them, I can sit idly by, I think I love my family, but the moment somebody frightened me a little bit, without much data.
I said no more Thanksgivings, no more Christmases, no more birthdays.
You stay away, you unclean filthy animals.
And I surrendered my
I mean I've been not a perfect person over the course of my life and when I do something that is wrong I feel wretched.
And I have to make it right.
And I have to talk to the person.
I have to make amends.
I have to apologize.
I have to make restitution.
I have to make it better.
Because if I don't, I can't look myself in the mirror.
I can't hold my head up high with integrity.
I certainly can't morally instruct my daughter or have any authority in the world if I do things that are wrong.
I mean, I haven't done any big grievous decisions But, you know, the little hiccups or, you know, being slightly short-tempered or something like that.
So for me, and this is what Socrates was talking about with his daemon.
That he has a sort of invisible being on his shoulder who tells him whether he's doing the right or the wrong thing.
And I have that, UPB internalized.
This is why people get so tense about UPB, because UPB summons the absolutism of the conscience.
And, you know, one of the things that you very quickly learn about, my friends, when you become a resolute truth teller is how many people are 30 seconds away from personality collapse.
And those who resisted the authoritarianism of COVID, we hold in our throats, in our muscles, in our voices, and in our syllables a kind of verbal depth charge that can shatter other people's sensations.
sense of identity and virtue and it's really tough There has a great canyon or chasm of silence has arisen between the compliant and the thinkers.
And compliant is not necessarily specific as to whether you complied or not, but did you agree with it or not?
Did you enthusiastically get behind the authoritarianism of the COVID era or did you at least talk out about it?
You may have obeyed the rules and I strongly suggested that people did.
When I was ordered to leave a mall with my family on my birthday and had to eat our food in a cold parking lot, I left the mall.
So it's not necessarily whether you obeyed or not, it is whether you agreed or not.
And I think that when you do a grave wrong and your vanity or your fear causes you or seduces you into not apologizing and not making restitution, then you become exquisitely and extremely vulnerable.
that exquisite and extreme vulnerability causes most people to want to deeply control others.
I Well, I mean, you'd be pretty focused on controlling those people's behavior because they could just push that shot collar at any time and shock you.
And what if there was 30 seconds of conversation that would have you look in the mirror and see the stripped down, ugly, demonic face of authoritarian compliance staring back?
That you know now who you would have sided with when the worst people in history pointed at others and said, unclean!
You know exactly who you would have sided with, that you have no moral center.
that you are an NPC, that you have no moral authority, and that in the greatest test of modern times, completely, and totally failed.
You sided with the bad guys against the good guys, and that's all you are.
You're a minion in an evil army.
You're not a superhero.
You're not a good guy.
You're not a moralist.
You're just an empty, vacuous, void of compliance to corrupt authority.
That's a tough thing for people to process.
Sorry, go ahead.
Oh, no, no, no.
I appreciate it.
It was a, yeah, that was great to listen to.
Um, before you do let me go.
What was the name of those experiments you talked about?
I would like to read up on that.
Sure, I can describe it very briefly.
It's Milgram, MILGRAM.
So the Milgram experiments, they said that they were doing experiments on how the application of electrical shocks could help people learn.
So they set people up, there was a window through which they could see an actor who was strapped to a chair with a bunch of electrodes strapped to him, and they asked questions or quizzed people, and whenever the subject got an answer wrong, people were supposed to deliver an electric shock.
Now, of course, the actors, they were just actors, they weren't wired up to anything, but they, you know, they would cry out when they were shocked.
So they started off with very mild shocks, and then they kept dialing it up until the dial clearly said could be fatal.
And 100% of people dialed up to pretty high levels.
And the people who were pretending to be the psychologists or the people running the experiment, They had their white coats and...
and when people objected they were given a script and they were said they had to say things like the experiment requires that you continue it is very important that you continue but they never told people you have to continue.
So they just suggested that people continue.
66% of people, 65% of people, basically two thirds of people got would dial it up to fatal levels and really believed that they were killing people.
Two thirds of people now.
That's insane.
And the fact that these experiments were done in the 60s, good luck trying to get that approved now.
People don't want that kind of truth anymore.
These experiments have been done all over the world with similar results.
Women are slightly more compliant than men with regards to these things, which is why propaganda often hits women first.
And the fact that the world did not completely freak out and say there's something foundationally wrong with how we're raising people if two-thirds of people will kill someone else just because someone in a lab coat suggests that it might be nice for them to continue.
That's insane.
Now, of course, the people in charge love this kind of stuff, right?
And that's just the way that it is.
And if you look at the people who complied under COVID, I mean, you could make a case that it was similar to the Milgram experiments.
I wouldn't do any of that kind of stuff.
my God.
I mean, the moment they asked me to dial that up and it looked like the actor was My God, I won't continue.
That's not ethical.
Everybody says that.
But almost nobody does that in reality.
And of course, everyone says, well, there's no way that I would dial it up to the point where I'm killing someone.
That's insane.
How could I possibly dial it up to the point where I'm killing someone?
And everyone thinks I wouldn't be in those two thirds of people.
But two thirds of people would.
And COVID was the test.
COVID was.
The test of reason, of integrity, of virtue, of.
And again, compliance or not, you know, we don't have much control over what the government does.
But how many people enthusiastically got behind all of this stuff and were nagging and yelling at and cheered on the stripping of rights from those who were exercising their supposedly guaranteed Nuremberg code bodily autonomy you can't be forced to participate in medical experiments you can't be forced to take medical treatment that was all the stuff that came out of the Nazi regime right that we we were never going to have that happen again oh no unless unless there's covet so Yeah,
that's a brief description of the experiments.
And then, in a sense, the experiment was run.
Obviously not with, you know, people getting killed, but, you know, it was run.
And people were like, yeah, you know, basically after, F those kids, I mean, they don't get prom, they don't get school, they don't get sports, they don't get anything.
They're locking them in their rooms for six months a year, eighteen months.
And, you know, F those small businesses, too bad if you've built up your business, you just, it's going to get destroyed.
The big box doors are all open.
And, you know, F any kind of common sense, because, you know, you gotta wear the mask when you're in the restaurant until you sit down, because Lord knows the virus doesn't go above five feet or below five feet.
And, you know, I mean, it was like, well, you know, we, you, you gotta take this, this vaccine or you get fired.
And then they let, what, millions and millions of people pour over and take jobs completely unvetted for any COVID or vaccine.
And, you know, the summer riots of 2020, I mean, well, you know, this is a deadly virus.
We've got to strip people of their rights.
Oh, unless people are upset and then they should totally be allowed to riot and be in close proximity.
I mean, it was all an absolute fucking asylum.
It was an absolute asylum in my opinion.
And people just are not processing that.
And I think...
the people who behaved shamefully don't want to talk about it.
They should.
They should talk about it and they should apologize for what they did.
But apologies, NPCs don't do apologies because all they do is ex post facto justification.
Well, hey, we just, we did the best we could, but the knowledge we had at the time, we couldn't have known with this blah, blah, blah, right?
All they do is ex post facto justification.
So they're a hundred percent certain when there was no possibility of certainty.
And then they're a hundred percent certain that they did the the best they could, even though the information and data contradicted them.
And so they're not circling back.
And I think for the people, either the people who mentally resisted some of the authoritarianism, what they did was they either cut contact with the authoritarian bootlickers, in which case there's this massive gulf and divide, or they re-establish contact with them and just don't want to bring it up because they don't want to go through it again.
If people do wrong, They don't like you to bring it up because it makes them feel bad.
They felt good going along with the regime, I guess, and then they felt bad afterwards but they don't want to talk about it because Their conscience will get them, so to speak, right?
And, you know, once you do enough wrong, there's really no point having a conscience because your conscience will just lacerate you and you really can't fix it.
Like once you've done the kind of wrong for which there is no restitution.
No restitution is why you don't abuse children because no restitution is possible.
And what is society going to say to all the young people who were never in any particular risk as far as I understand it again?
Obviously as a rank amateur, bad kids didn't seem to be particularly at risk.
slender didn't seem to be particularly at risk.
Those who didn't have comorbidities or who weren't extremely old didn't seem to be particularly at risk.
And, you know, these masks, like they literally said, does not protect against coronaviruses.
You know, if you can smell a fart, the mask isn't doing what you think it's doing.
It's like a chain link fence versus a cloud of mosquitoes, right?
And, you know, the six foot thing, Fauci admitted, came out of nowhere, just came out of nowhere.
Six feet.
Sure.
Six feet.
Right.
And then People aren't processing this.
I think it's hard for people to process just how much they've been lied to because most people have founded their identity on complete falsehoods.
And if you rip away those falsehoods, their entire identity collapses.
And I don't know if you've ever gone through an identity collapse, but it's a serious amount of not fun, to put it mildly.
So I think that this gulf is occurring because people have separated into opposing camps and the subject simply isn't broached.
It's a massive giant elephant in the room that just society as a whole is not talking about.
And I think it's really, really sad.
You know, when...
And look, none of us is perfect.
We all make mistakes.
We all can be.
I can be a little cruel.
I can be a little impatient.
I can be a little impatient, I can be a little insensitive.
Some of those things can be helpful, you know, when I'm in a situation of combat, and some of those things can be useless.
It's a delicate balance for me.
Sometimes I err on the side of too much aggression, and I apologize.
I have to apologize because that indicates that I have a self-correcting mechanism called a conscience.
People who never apologize, who never admit they've done anything wrong, have no functional conscience, and will only escalate and can't be changed.
And I think people don't want to confront that in their relationships.
Does that make any sense?
Yes, it does.
Thank you for your time also.
You're very welcome.
That's my pleasure.
Okay.
Jeff.
Jazzy Jeff, what is on your mind, my friend?
Once more, I will put forth the request that if you want to talk, please be ready to talk.
And if you are not ready to talk, please remove your request to talk, because it's a little annoying to have people want to talk.
and then I bring them in and they don't talk.
So, all right.
What is that?
Favjeti?
Favjeti.
It's Fossette, but mister Stefan, I've been a fan of yours since I was probably 17.
Just before I go, I had to go and say, you say the things out loud that internally most men automatically believe.
And growing up, I was ashamed to go and say those things out loud, but with your guidance and help, it has now been like, I've realized you literally lose nothing from going ahead and just saying things we all inherently understand and know and as men, you know.
The one thing I wanted to ask, really, you just said something that was such a banger.
A person with no conscience will continue to escalate until they'll continue to escalate.
Why do people with no conscience have this?
How do I put this?
How do people with no conscience have a quote unquote understanding of respect?
Why do people with no conscience have an understanding of respect?
This quote unquote understanding of respect.
Tell me a little bit more about what you mean.
I want to answer the question, but I want to make sure I'm answering the question that you're asking and not the one that I'm interpreting.
So go ahead.
Like, for example, like these people with no conscience that are like they can't admit that they mess up, right?
Oh, why did I?
Oh, I didn't do that.
Why are you telling me I did that, bro man why you talk to me like that put some respect on me it's It's almost as if, like, how are they able to even conceptualize the idea of respect, but not conceptualize the idea of forgiveness?
That's the real question I have is like, how is one so easy for individuals to understand, but not the simple aspect of I'm sorry?
That's my question.
That is a great, great question.
And it's tricky, so I'm going to pretend that you cut out.
No, I'm kidding.
No, that is a great question.
So there are words that people use.
And of course, you know, don't fade out of me because I could get this completely wrong and I'm certainly happy to hear your thoughts on it.
And by fade out, I just mean don't bail because, you know, I want to get your thoughts on it.
But I do think that in my experience, there are words that people use that sound good, but are euphemisms.
So for instance, a lot of time, if you criticize a woman, she says, I just need you to be supportive.
Now, supportive sounds positive.
Well, I want to support you like a bruh, honey, right?
Like, I want to be supportive, blah, blah, blah.
But when you break it down, what does she mean by the word supportive?
She means agreement.
I want you to agree with me, which is to put it another way, when you break down, I just need you to be supportive.
It's like you're not allowed to disagree with me.
You just have to blindly accept everything I say and nod like a machine.
And supportive is one of these words, again, often when you break it down, it comes down to, I just need you to slavishly applaud like an idiot seal everything that I do, which They'd rather cloak it in the word of support.
So the question is respect.
So this is something, Dr. Phil, you know, we treat everyone with dignity and respect, right?
And then it's nice, I suppose, right?
But this is the fundamental question that Gen Z, Gen A have.
Respect what?
What are we supposed to respect?
What are we supposed to respect?
This crap stain of a semi-economy.
burdened down with massive housing costs, near infinite debt, really tough to get a job and wages that have stagnated for the past half century.
We're supposed to respect all of that.
we're supposed to respect the massive national debt, unfunded liabilities, tax burden, terrible schools.
We're supposed to respect all of...
Respect has to be earned, and the best way to earn respect is through moral courage.
And they look at the elder generation and they say, you have no moral courage at all.
All you have is compliance, conformity, greed, and blame of the young.
And it's a line that I remember when I first read this in King Lear.
Thou shouldst not have been old before thou wert wise.
How sad and pathetic it is to see old people.
people who are querulous, petty, vindictive, immature, toddlers in wrinkled suitskins.
And I remember when I directed my first, the first play that I wrote, that I produced and directed was called Seduction.
And I hired a guy to play a petty, vainglorious character.
And he as an actor was petty and vainglorious and I found him kind of unbearable to work with.
So I fired him.
I tried to work with him and I tried to coach him, but he just had a stupid answer for every suggestion.
And, you know, if an actor won't respect the authority of the director, then he needs to go do his own own one man show rather than pretend to be part of a team.
And I just remember, like, he was so petty.
He's like, well, you owe me.
I'm going to send you a bill for every hour I've worked on your stupid play.
Just vindictive and just like, bro, you're like, you're 65, which seemed ancient to me at the time.
I was in my early twenties.
And I was like, how sad it is to just be old and uncoachable and vainglorious and petty and vindictive and just fundamentally and utterly unwise.
So what do people mean when they say, you gotta treat me with respect?
Why do I have to treat people with respect?
How do I differentiate between people who've genuinely earned my respect?
You know, friends, family, people I admire morally.
How do I differentiate how I'm supposed to treat people who've genuinely earned my respect?
So people who have not done anything to earn my respect, but instead have done just about everything in their power to earn my contempt.
Sorry, go ahead.
So you just said two bangers right there.
Number one, about growing old before growing wise.
That right there could kind of answer a few things.
Like some people that think, oh, because I'm older, I'm wiser.
That's the first thing that immediately comes to mind.
But you also hearkened on respect being agreement.
That's probably where the issue lies.
They don't actually want their respect.
They want agreement.
So that's why they do not apologize because they just think you're going to go ahead and agree with them.
So respect in their mind is not, you know, treating, giving you your time, giving you your essence, giving, giving, allowing them to be present at the moment.
It's, hey, you're going to follow everything I say.
So they don't actually have a conceptualization of respect.
They only have a conceptualization of agreement.
And so that, okay, that makes a lot more, sorry, it's just when people say respect, you 100% of the time, or at least me, I want to at least give them the benefit of the doubt that they know what respect means.
Like they know the definition of that word, or at least they know how to like carry it out.
But with your extrapolation on this, that actually, they don't actually want it.
They don't want respect, they just want agreeance.
And so that makes a lot of sense to me.
Thank you so much.
Well, and I'm going to continue because it's such a fruitful topic and I really do appreciate you bringing it up.
so economists always talk about market, the exchange of value and supply and demand and price fluctuations and all of that stuff is very good and very interesting.
But I find that the best place to apply economics is in the realm of.
of emotions and virtues and these things like respect.
So if I do a good job, like you say to me, Steph, I want you to mow my lawn.
You do a good job.
I'll give you 50 bucks.
And I do a really good job.
Then you owe me the 50 bucks, right?
Because if you don't pay me, then you're just kind of welching, right?
So I've earned the 50 bucks.
Now, if I don't even show up and I demand the 50 bucks.
I'm entitled.
I'm rude.
I'm actually kind of intimidating and trying to steal from you in a way, right?
Correct.
And so when it comes to something like respect and support, these things have to be done earned, like the $50 for mowing a lawn.
And all the people, when people say to me, you owe me respect, when they haven't behaved in a manner worthy of respect, it's just like some lazy ass teenager coming up and saying, well, you owe me $50.
It's like, but you haven't mowed my lawn.
I'm not paying you the $50 if you haven't mowed my lawn.
Now, if you do a good job, sure, I'll pay you the 50 bucks.
So to me, the economics of respect and deference and credibility and trustworthiness, these are where the real value of economic analysis is.
I view my positive regard for people as paying them and they have to earn it.
Now, if they've earned it and I don't pay them, I'm welching.
Like if I do mow your lawn well and you admit it's a good job and you don't pay me the 50 bucks, you've just ripped me off.
Like you've just stolen from me.
So we owe positive regard to people who've earned it and we don't owe positive regard to people who haven't earned it because if you give positive regard to people who haven't earned it, earned it, you are lowering the incentive for people to behave with integrity.
Right, so if you give people a lot of money So to me, it is an act of almost infinite justice to deliver unto the people who've earned it respect and deference, and to equally not deliver respect and deference and credibility to people who haven't earned it.
Because I want to encourage both myself and others to have moral courage and to act with honesty and integrity.
And if you just pay people for doing a shitty job, nobody has any incentive to do a good job.
and the real socialism is not in the money.
The real socialism is not in the central planning.
The real socialism isn't even in the fiat currency.
The real socialism is giving people respect who haven't earned it just because they demand it.
And that's like giving people money for a terrible job just because they demand it.
And the only reason you do that is out of fear.
So you're being bullied out of your money to, or you're being bullied out of your respect to provide it to people who haven't earned it, which destroys the entire economic system of incentives, rewards, and punishments.
for actually earning respect.
And so the real economic analysis happens in the realm of the emotional transfer of good regard, of high regard, of reputational excellence, transferring that to people who haven't earned it is worse than socialism because it really paves the way towards socialism.
And all the people who demand respect and dignity and this and that and the other, while behaving like complete douchebags, I consider it an absolute badge of honor and one of the most essential moral tasks to withhold my approval from people who behave in negative, irrational, or destructive ways, and to provide my approval.
to those.
So the idea that, you know, there are people I admire, I won't get into names in particular, I think some people know who they are, there are people who I really genuinely admire from a moral standpoint in the world, and I will listen to them with great care and attention and deference and so on and they're right until proven otherwise because they've earned it through consistent reason and evidence and virtue and that's great I love that I aspire towards being that to some degree to others and yet when people come along and
behave in a terrible petty negative way it is absolutely essential to withhold payment from those who don't earn it otherwise the socialism of respect utterly corrupts the incentives for virtue in the same way that if you pay people for doing a bad job, nobody does a good job.
That's the whole problem with communism.
And everyone thinks that it's something to do with central planning or some other foreign system.
No, no, no.
It's everything you do every day.
That to provide respect to those who've earned it is an act of virtue, and to withhold respect from those who haven't earned it is an essential act of virtue, and to point out, possibly even with contempt, the people who have acted in a truly negative fashion is also an act of ethics and virtue and free market distribution of respect.
And it does tend to be a bit more of a male thing.
Women tend to be a bit more boosterish no matter what.
But we men in particular, it can happen with women too.
But we men need to be pretty fierce with people who act in a negative fashion.
So the last thing I'll say, I'll get your thoughts on it.
There was a fellow who said, you know, Bitcoin is a bubble or a Bitcoin is a Ponzi scheme or something like that.
Right?
And I looked at his profile and he's a handyman.
There's nothing wrong with being a handyman.
It's a noble profession.
And I find handymans to be very helpful.
I'm not particularly handy myself.
So they're great.
But if I were to post and say, you know, all handyman do is rip people off and cheat people, he would be offended and upset and would have every right to punch back at me sort of online metaphorically, right?
And so if he says, oh, Bitcoin's a bubble, it's like, well, I have been talking about this in pretty positive ways for almost a decade and a half.
And so if it's a bubble or a cheat or a Ponzi scheme or something like that, then I'm a dishonorable guy.
And so if he's going to attack and insult my honor, I went and said, listen, you're a handyman.
Go fix a gutter and let smarter people solve the problems of the world.
And know your lane.
I don't go around lecturing people who've been studying chess for 40 years on how to win at chess.
I, because I'm not insane.
I'm not, and we need to preserve knowledge, preserve respect.
When people treat me with disrespect, I have earned respect.
That doesn't mean I'm always right, but I've earned consideration and the benefit of the doubt, not only because I'm right a lot, but also because if I'm wrong, I will self-correct and publicly apologize.
And I did this just the other day when I got some math stuff wrong.
So I I have earned respect and people who don't pay me respect when I've earned it.
And I'm not saying the first time they meet me, but you know, after they've been around for a while.
Yeah, people who don't pay me, they're ripping me off and it's dishonorable behavior.
And so, yeah, when people come at me strong and they're aggressive and so on and, you know, you're an idiot for this, that or the other.
And I'll say, like, how do you know?
How do you know that?
So you're right and I'm wrong?
And then they're like, okay, well, maybe I was wrong.
Why don't you explain your position?
And I'm like, well, no, now you owe me an apology because you kind of called me a douchebag.
And now you owe me an apology and then you owe me respect after I break it down to you and it works.
Like, you don't have to agree with me.
And that's the portion that I wasn't getting was, even if someone doesn't agree with, like, for example, like your opinion on geriatric pregnancy, oh, I could have a kid at 45.
You could show them so many graphs and data and stuff like that, and they can still not agree with it.
That doesn't mean that you're not a respectable individual, but to these sub 90 IQ, sub 95 IQ individuals that think just respect is agreements, that's not, that's simply not the case.
And so, especially with a person like you, you've been on Twitter now.
How long, how long have you been back since the ban?
Like about a year now, but it's been no, no, no, my account got restored, but I've only been back posting for like two and a half months or something like that.
Who knows?
Yeah.
I'm sorry, it fell, it fell way longer than I apologize.
Well, it's like in some tweets.
Yeah.
He recognizes it, people.
But yeah, that amount of going through trials and tribulation, coming back and posting on X, that requires respect, not requires acceptance.
And how do I put it?
If an individual doesn't understand those two concepts individually, they must be of a lower, I don't want to say IQ bracket because that sounds disingenuous, but it just seems as if they were from a lower.
What's what I'm looking for here, Stefan?
Well, I would say lower cognitive perception.
Now, that doesn't mean low IQ necessarily because there are people who have sub 95 IQ who have a great deal of common sense and there are people with IQs of 160 who can talk themselves into just about any florid bullshit that you can imagine.
So I would just say that they certainly lack integrity, and that is not, to me, specifically related to IQ.
Perhaps at the lower end, you'd have a great deal of difficulty with it, but...
Oh, okay.
I've really only ever seen this with people that are...
You don't really see that with like the upper, I don't say upper echelons, but just like the better part of society.
I've really only ever seen it as like a lower class thing to like really demand respect as a snakeful term for agreement.
And so that's why I bring up like 90 IQ, you know, I'm trying to say, but noers.
Yeah, that's interesting.
The upper classes have different ways of information They tend to enforce it according to leftist ideology in that they won't demand respect, but they will ostracize the living shit out of you if you don't fall the line.
forward line behind their particular moral shibboleths.
So that's a little bit different, but yes.
Yes, so on X, if somebody comes at me strong, and that's fine, you know, I don't particularly care.
It's just that I'm not going to engage with someone like that unless they apologize.
Because if they can't admit that they're wrong by insulting me without any particular cause, why would I try to educate them about anything?
Because they're never going to admit that they're wrong, and it's going to be completely, this is why apologies are so important.
Because apologies indicate that the person can self correct.
And if someone can't self correct, why would you engage with them for any intellectual task or correction?
Because they're just going to not listen.
And then one, one, one other thing because, and one last thing, and this, well, this is where I'll ship off with, who do you think is like, or if you've ever met in your life, who has gotten to the, who is a person that you've met personally in your life?
Because I assume you have longer life than mine.
Who is the highest individual you've met that has been unable to self correct?
Like, there's never been like a president who's been unable to self correct.
Like, that would be political suicide.
There's never been a doctor that has been able to self correct.
Because that would be like, you know, medical suicide.
Hang on, hang on.
You gotta, you gotta slow your role here a second.
Presidents who don't self correct.
I'm trying to think of a president who does self correct.
I mean, we could say sort of Trump is outside the political class.
So it's a little bit of an individual case.
I mean, did George W. Bush self correct on Iraq?
Well, I mean, completely devoid of self correction.
Like once they make a decision, they're going through that till they die.
You know what I'm trying to say like, yeah, so to give me an example, I mean, did Bill Clinton self correct on using Monica Lewinsky as his own personal clean X slash geisha girl?
I mean, where is all of this?
I mean, I'm sorry if I'm missing something obvious.
It certainly could be the case, but where is all this self correction from political figures that you're seeing?
When do political figures generally say, I completely messed up, I'm messed up, I'm wrong, and here's my restitution.
Well, they usually do it behind closed doors, like for example when But then how do you know?
Well, well, because that's indicative.
A political candidate who never self corrects and only goes after the folly of their own heart and doesn't back their platform just slightly.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
So hold on, sorry to be annoying.
I apologize.
I could be wrong.
So to me, if you're saying, well, if circumstances change, they adapt their behavior.
Well, I mean, wolves do that when they're chasing rabbits.
So do foxes.
Oh, the rabbits change direction.
I guess I'll change direction too, but that's not self correcting.
That's just chasing the prey where they're going, which means that if the electorate suddenly changes on some position and it's really important to get re-elected, then yeah, they'll start parroting that new, but that's not self-correcting.
That's just adapting to hunt better.
Okay.
So that, okay.
So, okay.
So that's not, okay.
Changing is not self-correcting.
That makes sense.
So then back to the original question, who is the biggest person in your life you've ever seen that has that has made it so far without self-correcting?
Well, I mean, honestly, all of them, with very few exceptions.
I mean, and there are a few exceptions, but as far as intellectuals go.
go?
Well, let's see.
So Scott Adams changed his mind about the vaccine.
And I've certainly seen him change his mind about other things.
And that's a plus.
There are other people who I've done shows with before who I respect their integrity.
I'm not going to try and get them in trouble by naming them individually.
But yeah, there are certain, but yeah, the intellectuals, intellectuals just dig and dig and dig.
And they become tied to the audience.
And One of the things that I'm very committed to is regularly annoying my audience to the point where they rage quit.
It's really, really important to me.
It's really important to me.
You know, I mean, I've what have I I've angered the incels, I've angered the feminists, I've angered the atheists, I've annoyed the Christians, I've right, and I want people who and I'm constantly getting these messages, well, this is just too far.
I used to respect you, but now you've taken this position, I'm out and I'm like, I just block them.
I'm like, hey, like, let me help you, please, please.
If you can't, if you can't handle contrary opinions, if you can't handle briefs and stuff that goes against the grain of your identity, then you need to not be around a philosophy because that's the gig.
The gig is to work.
work from raw reason and evidence all the way up to the greatest abstractions and it doesn't really matter how many shibboleths and statues and worshipful beasts you knock down along the way.
Like we're hunting lies, we're hunting violence, we're hunting corruption and predation.
And if I have to knock down a few sacred cows, metaphorically, in hunt of evildoers, people need to get out of the way.
You can't have hysterical people in combat.
You just can't.
No.
I mean, people who just scream and freak out and wave their flashlights around and panic.
I mean, you see this in every war movie.
Like some guy just completely freaks out and panic run and gets shot and you need people who are going to stay relatively calm and work with you in the battle that we're all engaged in so of course you know if you're running a military organization the people who are going to completely freak out and get hysterical you need to get them out of the way right because if if if they're there they're going to really clog things up and mess things up and If people can't handle high altitudes,
you can't bring them on the climb.
And, you know, we've got a hell of a view to get to to show the rest of the world.
And so, so I am, you know, constantly in the process of shedding people who can't handle the conversation.
And so this is one of the reasons why my numbers, I think, remain relatively stable because I'm I refuse to be enamored by the audience.
And everyone has that temptation.
Ooh, big banger.
Ooh, big numbers.
Ooh, more numbers, right?
say what they want to hear.
That way, the number can go higher.
Right, right.
So of course, if you appeal to people's prejudices, they will love you forever and ever until they're on their death bed and they realize they've been fooled and robbed of any free will over the course of their life.
But so I have to, you know, sort of every morning, this is, I haven't really had this for half a decade, but I have to say to myself, reminded myself, do not chase the numbers, chase the truth.
And forget about the numbers, just chase the truth.
And people who want the truth can stay around.
People who get hysterical, they should be gone.
And, you know, they should, like, I want people who are reactive, emotional, hysterical and immature to say to their friends, Oh, that's Stef guy.
He's the worst guy ever.
You should never listen to him.
I'm like, Oh, mm.
Thank you.
Thank you for that survey.
That's what I'm looking for.
I'm just.
Yeah, thank you for that service to philosophy.
I really appreciate it.
So, all right, then, thank you so much for your time.
I appreciate it.
I just wanted to come and ask you those questions because now I can walk through this earth and not be so, I don't say confused, but just have the answers I've been looking for.
Thank you so much.
Yeah, if people say you should treat me with respect, like, why?
Why should I treat you with respect?
Well, because I'm human.
It's like, so we should treat Jeffrey Dahmer with respect?
How about if we resurrect Hitler?
How about Stalin?
Right?
I mean, should we treat, how about Ted Kaczynski?
How about Jim Jones?
How about Charlie Manson?
Should we treat everybody with respect?
Are you saying I'm like a serial killer?
And it's like, no.
And I just wouldn't engage with someone at that point.
Because it's like, okay, you don't understand what an argument it is.
An argument is you go to the edge case and you see if it fits.
And if it doesn't fit, then you have to revise the reasoning.
But there's a great line.
Treat every man.
Give every man his due, none will escape the whipping or something like that.
If you treat every man according to what he's earned, we're all going to get whipped.
And I view it as super important in the world to treat people with justice and to not coddle them.
That's a female thing to just talk up everyone no matter what.
And I, at this point in my life, you know, I'll be 59 next month, right?
So I'm pushing 60.
At this point in my life, I've earned it.
I have earned it.
have been studying philosophy for 42 years.
I have taken, as you know, a wild amount of abuse and I stand firm sometimes in what would appear to many to be overwhelming pressure.
And I have not backed down from anything that I know to be true.
I have not disavowed any.
argument that I have found to be solid and I have changed my mind when corrected repeatedly and I've earned I've earned people's respect and We really do need to push back on the mad vanity of people.
that people come wandering in, not knowing their ass from a hole in the ground, and think that they can lecture me about the basics of philosophy.
I've written...
I've had a billion views and downloads or something close to it.
I've given speeches.
I've taken tear gas.
I've talked under threats of bombs and assassinations and all kinds of...
And I've stood tall.
I've been attacked, lied about, de-platformed.
formed, you know, you just, you name it, right?
And I think I've earned through that process, people's respect.
Now, people don't owe me respect in some existential fashion, but if they don't give me the respect that I've earned, I just don't have any respect for them in return.
And the idea that, you know, when I'm, when I see somebody's really good at something, especially if they've studied it for like decades.
I'm almost in awe.
It seems almost like magic to me.
You know, it's just absolutely amazing what people can do when they have become experts at what they do.
It is a form of magic.
I'm agog with it.
see it with musicians.
I see it with, you know, these jazz guys who can just change keys, change time signatures, and just go on these mad journeys that are just incredibly melodic and all of that, all just off instinct.
It is just an absolute kind of magic.
It is amazing.
People who can, doctors who can look at a scan and diagnose it like that because of their experience.
They've been doing the doctoring for 40 years and they're really good at it.
Fantastic.
People who are excellent at chess, people who are excellent at sales, people who are excellent at marketing, People are, you name it, right?
Just amazing.
and I just find seeing people's excellence and competence is a beautiful thing.
And the idea that if I have virtually no experience with something that I'm going to go in there and lecture a world famous person with over 40 years experience and expertise.
The idea that I'm going to lecture someone like that is so unbelievably cringe that I cannot remotely understand the mindset of people who do that.
Who just come in and like, well, obviously, Steph, it's like this.
And, you know, it's like, well, come on.
I mean, it's just, it's simple, man.
It's like this, period.
You know, like, I mean, honestly, it's like some guy who studied chess for 40 years, who's a grand master of chess, one of the top chess players in the world.
And I'm like, well, just move your rook here.
It's, move your rook here.
It's simple.
simple.
And he'd be just looking at me like, what planet are you coming from that you're going to come in and tell me how to play chess?
Like, what credibility do you conceivably have?
That's why, you know, the great follow account post just drives people crazy.
Because I'm saying, if you want to lecture me on how to be successful on social media, you better fucking show me that you're successful on social media.
Because if you don't, I'm not going to listen to you.
And people, they just want to lecture.
They don't want to actually have proof of things.
So, all right.
Well, thanks, everyone.
I appreciate that.
Sorry, not thanks, everyone.
Like, we're all done.
But let's return to our good friend.
I think we've talked before.
Maybe, maybe.
Alpha.
Alpha.
Getty, Spaghetti, Bet, Alpha.
What's on your mind, my friend?
Hello.
Stefan, I saw you, mate, ten years ago.
You used to cut up videos or like, it might have been the early days of Jordan Peterson, but you sort of dropped off my radar for so many years and now you're back.
You're back better than ever and you have this great, once you get on a head of steam, you just, you drop truth bombs effortlessly.
It's fantastic to see you back.
back.
Thank you.
I've almost forgotten my question.
I think I'm Australia, Australian, if you can't tell.
We have a leftist, communist, collectivist takeover at the moment.
They're taxing us 80 percent.
We're circling the sinkhole, circling the drain hole of communism here.
I guess we have a protest coming up in two weeks, March 4 Australia.
So I suppose if I have one question, that quote from Shakespeare you gave was great.
Just a quick, I guess, give us a brain dump on political activism.
Maybe I'll tip you to the Velvet Revolution in Czechia.
They overthrew their communist government with one university protest that didn't back down, that broke an entire government.
Maybe can you comment on the role of patriotism or these white nationalists and getting your country back and just walking that edge between outright white power racism versus wanting your country back, being patriotic and Jefferson saying the tree of liberty.
must be watered from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.
I know that's a big shot I've given you there, but thanks for your service over the last 10 to 20 years, and I'll land on that.
Thank you.
Listen, I appreciate that and I appreciate your kind words.
And obviously, I wish the very best towards Australia in its pursuit of liberty.
But politics has moved beyond philosophy.
This is why I haven't been in politics for like half a decade.
Politics has moved now to power.
And that is not a realm that I work in.
That is not a realm that I have any particular expertise or anything to offer.
So I'm sorry to maybe do a duck and roll.
but I certainly wish the very best to people moving forward with Australia, but it is not in my wheelhouse anymore where the political conversations are.
It has moved sort of beyond.
the reason and evidence paradigm.
All right, Let's go to the bottom of the list.
Sorry.
Just oh my gosh.
How many requests do we have?
Holy crap.
Could be a long show, people.
Could be.
Could be.
All right.
Let's go with.
Sorry, we got like twelve people that want to talk.
Greg, I think you are up if you want to.
Can you hear me?
Speak.
Yes, go ahead.
Oh, perfect.
I'm sorry about what happened earlier.
I'm not sure why my speaker wasn't working.
How are you doing tonight, Stefan?
Good.
How are you doing?
Doing well.
It's glad to see you back in the mainstream.
Scott said one of my favorite videos you've ever made.
I still revisit it today is a.
Satan is not hidden where you did the Paul Johnson book review.
I thought I still watch it today.
I loved it.
What's it called?
Satan isn't hidden.
Satan isn't hidden.
Maybe I'll do a remaster of that.
So I appreciate that.
I will make a note of that.
Thank you.
No problem.
So I've been thinking about nap a lot and I do believe I have something that can call nap into question.
Sorry, non aggression principle just for those who remember we're talking to a general audience.
So that's the non aggression principle.
Thou shalt not initiate the use of force, but go ahead.
Perfect.
I just want to steal a minute.
I want to make sure I have it correct before I give a syllogogism, I prepared something for you so we could have a discussion about it.
So I understand NAP is the non aggression principle.
As long as there is no initiation or threat of force, what someone does would be admissible.
We may not consider it healthy or good, but admissible, and an example of this, I think, would be an individual that wanted to go home nightly and slam twelve beers.
We would find it admissible, so long as he didn't violate the non aggression principle, though we may not find this behavior healthy or good.
Is that a fair assessment?
No, I wouldn't say so.
So let's say that he's a single dad with three kids under the age of six.
Is it reasonable or fair for him to go back and slam twelve beers when he's supposed to be a parent?
No, I wouldn't say that.
No.
Okay, so he doesn't have that right.
What if slamming twelve beers makes him unproductive at work the next morning?
Is he allowed to do that without getting fired or suffering negative consequences?
Apparently no, I would say no.
Okay.
What if he doesn't have a lot of money and he's doing things like that that are dangerous and damaging to his health.
And there are people who like he's a dad or whatever it is.
Does he have the right to endanger his own health if he's a single father?
I would say no.
Right.
So it's not just, well, he's only doing it to himself.
Now, if it's some guy, he lives in the woods alone, nobody knows him, nobody depends on him, he's got no relationships with anyone, well, he can do what he wants, right?
But the moment that you embed yourself in relationships, Right, right.
And that's why I said, you know...
Okay, so this is someone, they're in the woods, they farm in the woods on their own, they homestead it or whatever.
And yeah, okay, they can go twelve, they can go slam twelve beers, because it's just their life, right?
Sure, yeah, that's what I was kind of hitting on, it's a it's a personal thing, he's not really, he has no one really to engage with it.
That's what I was saying.
Yeah, so he's a, he's a drunk, uh, checking moonshine in the woods, uh, alone.
Yeah.
Okay, yeah, so that's not a violation of the anonymity.
Maybe he's just, uh, maybe he's just, uh, you know, just a average drinker, so to speak, is what I'm trying to hit on.
No, no, two birds a night would be more than a average drinker.
I don't drink, so I don't know, one hundred percent, but I wanted to give at least some examples.
That would be rampant alcoholism, but okay.
So, but anyway, so what's your comment or question or argument?
Well, I got a, I got a syllogism for a nap that I think could call it into question, and I'm just curious to hear what you think about it.
It took me a while to work on this.
I'm not very intelligent man, so I'm going to do my best to, how do I say, demonstrate this.
So premise one, behavior that is not that does not threaten or initiate force is permissible or admissible under NAP.
Premise two, individuals who use AI to create art for personal use have no other person to threaten or use force against.
Premise three, individuals are using AI for their personal use.
Some individuals are using AI to develop CP.
I don't know if you know what the lingo is.
the development of CPAI for personal use admissible under NAP?
Hmm.
Bye.
Thank you.
It was just a thought I had and I was, I wanted to run this by you.
You are the best I could tell, the king of nap.
And this is always, this is something I've been thinking about for months now.
And when I saw you back on X, I was like, you know what?
That's the perfect person to ask.
Yeah, it's an it's a very, very good question, a very interesting question.
Of course, part of me revolts against it and says, no, it's terrible.
It's the worst thing ever.
And of course, that's important.
It's an important reaction, but it's not an argument, right?
So I agree.
And I agree.
It's, it's awful.
But I think it is something that has to be addressed, nap, at least for nap.
Yeah, so that's interesting.
So I'm going to do an analogy here just to take the emotional heat down a little bit for me.
Just to see if I can think more clearly about it, because I get it's a very, very volatile subject and should be because it's so evil.
But so let's say that somebody is has a torture fetish.
And they're using AI to generate images of torture.
Okay.
Right?
and maybe they fap to this or whatever, right?
Something just really bizarre and...
It's degenerate stuff, right?
Yeah, unpleasant or whatever it is, right?
Okay, so the question would be, I think, and I don't know the answer to this.
So if somebody who has a torture fetish and faps to it, uses AI to develop torture material, are they more likely to engage in real-world torture continue to make that association of sexuality and torture?
I think the answer to that would be yes, that they would be more likely to the real world because there's almost nothing that programs us more than an orgasm right i mean it's one of the ultimate things in in human life so if there is behavior that leads to real world criminality of the worst possible kind is that something that would be a violation of the nap now we certainly do accept this with regards
to speech that if you are giving a speech and you goad and rouse and use all of your rhetorical skills to get the mob to lynch someone, then that could be a violation of freedom of speech and the incitement of violence.
Do we sort of agree with that?
Yeah, I would say that's that seems fair.
Yeah, I would say it does follow at least, right?
You can't go out and say, so and so go kill so and so, right?
Because that would be a call.
Yeah, incitement of violence.
And I could certainly, I could certainly see that case.
So if, you know, torture, AI and fapping led to somebody really getting that association and cooking it, you really are reinforcing the pathways in their brain about this kind of stuff.
Now, I think the way that it would be handled in a free society, which is kind of where we have to talk about these things.
of all, of course, these bizarre, horrible people would almost be non-existent in a free society because we only get a free society with peaceful parenting and peaceful parenting doesn't produce these kinds of monsters.
But okay.
So I think the way that it would go is a then they would go out and perhaps do this in the real world.
Would the AI company be liable for that?
That would be a matter for the courts to decide and I could certainly see that it could be.
Could I interject?
Yeah, yeah, please keep that in mind.
I mean, I would say I would agree with that, the line you're tracking on.
I would say though, as time progresses and people become more savvy with stuff like coding, I don't see why we wouldn't see a future where people could make their own AI.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
So, but, but, but, but, but, so let me just say the liability thing, right?
So if in general it stimulates like private consumption of media stimulates real-world crimes, then there certainly would be caution about that kind of stuff.
Now, if somebody has created their own AI and is running it themselves, then there is no external methodology by which that behavior can be controlled, if that makes sense.
Because in a free society, you would have privacy in these matters, for better or for worse.
And so if somebody is, let's say, generating torture images and wearing and making deeper these terrible grooves in their mind and nobody else knew about it, then you couldn't really do anything about it.
And therefore, it would be something that you would only punish the person when they committed the crime in the real world.
And if they never did, you'd never even know about it.
So I try not to theorize about things wherein society has no capacity to intervene, if that makes sense.
Yeah, I just I would almost wonder, what would you do if enough people started doing this, right?
So it's so exciting.
Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on.
Oh, sorry.
Hang on.
So.
I think I've given a fairly good answer in that if it does lead to real world crimes, then AI companies would not do it.
And I think in general, most AI companies would not want to do anything like the stuff that you've been talking about or the torture stuff that I've been talking about.
And this is not to blame you.
It's again, it's an interesting question to bring up.
I think as a whole in society, what would happen is if people had, you know, horrible, terrible fetishes in this way, this would be caught very early on because a free society is about prevention, not cure.
So as I've talked about in a free society, I can guarantee you that brain scans would be done on kids to find out if they were developing in really terrible directions.
And so I think you would want to catch that stuff early.
And I don't think you'd end up with a society where this would be an issue as a whole.
It would kind of be like smallpox now, like it's kind of gone.
And so I think that people.
should not be pursuing these paths in their mind.
They should be going to get therapy and get help and trying to figure out what's going on in their brains and in their history that has given them these horrible predilections.
In a free society, this would all be prevented.
And certainly, I don't think companies would want to produce these kinds of things.
And if people could produce them on their own and society couldn't intervene, then you'd simply have to catch people on the crime side of things, if that makes sense.
No, that does.
I appreciate the response to this.
I'm sorry, we've got like 12 other people, so I'm going to move on.
But really, it's a very interesting question, very challenging, and I do appreciate you bringing it up.
All right.
Who have we got that we haven't talked about, talked with?
Before.
All right.
I think Vincende.
Vincende, if you want to.
And I appreciate everyone.
I hope we'll get to everyone tonight.
I had one of those horrible late nights last night.
It was crazy, man.
And I had an early morning call with someone this morning.
So I'm not chugging on max juice, but I'll do everything that I can.
Vincent Freeman, it's on your mind.
Hi, Seth, can you hear me, guys?
Go ahead.
Okay, perfect.
Hey, so I wanted to kind of piggyback on a previous caller's questions on honesty and dishonesty and respect, right?
And this is, you know, hopefully it's a clear enough question.
question because I I I I've been thinking about it and I don't I don't think it's like super easy to answer, so could you could you do me a favor?
I don't need and this is this is not particular to you and I apologize for picking you out in this kind of way.
I don't need the preamble.
You can just ask the question.
Yeah, sorry, sorry.
So going straight into it.
So liars are liars by definition because they're not saying something true.
They're saying something untrue, but in their own perception they're saying the truth.
So it's very hard for them to see that they're lying.
So is there a litmus test that you've applied to them or can you think of a situation?
in yours where you've made it very clear and put it up against the law metaphorically, where you could basically have them see that they are indeed liars, that they are the definition of a liar and acknowledge it?
Okay, so hold on, so hold on, sorry to interrupt.
So I just need to understand, we all tell lies, at least I certainly can think of lies that I've told, and I don't consider that a sort of very big issue and so on.
So are you talking about someone who is a pathological liar or someone who, like most of us, will tell a lie from time to time.
No, I'm talking about people like, for instance, with the COVID people.
I have some ants where, you know, like, I don't see the point in even engaging because they're going to justify it or whatever.
But with some other friends or people close to me that I thought were friends, I've had issues where it's like, hey, you're lying right here and you're kind of fooling yourself.
You're not fooling me, but you're fooling yourself.
And it's hard for them to or at least it's it's appeared to me that they have a problem with acknowledging that they're not lying.
It's acknowledging that they're lying.
And I want to know if.
Hang on, hang on, hang on.
So this, sorry, it'd be annoying ontological question.
Being lying sounds pathological or they told a lie.
So can you give me a real world example just so I can sort of understand what you're talking about?
So what was a lie that a friend told you that we can discuss?
Well, the lie would not be too complicated is basically, you know, like in, I'll call them out on their behavior and then they'll call me out on the way that I call them out on their behavior and I tell them like, I still need an example.
So what is it that your friend lied about or that you corrected him on?
Yeah, I'm just, I don't have an example like on on top of my head.
I was hoping maybe you would have an example on that point.
No, I can't give an example of your friends.
So I would say that if it's not important enough for you to remember, it's probably not that big a deal.
in your life.
Now, with regard to your aunts, like, were they true covidian?
Oh, yeah, they got they thought we were going to kill my grandma because we advised her not to get, you know, she lives in a farm.
So they got they thought we were trying to kill our grandma.
At least that's the way they framed it.
Okay.
So have when you point out that they got some things wrong, how do they react?
Ambitiously, it would, it would, they wouldn't talk to me for years.
Like it would destroy the peace that or the apparent peace in the family.
Okay.
So why do you want people in your life who can't admit fault because then you just end up being a slave to their vanity and illusions.
Yeah, I think it's a fool's errand.
And I don't know, you know, like, or at least I've made the decision not to have a relationship with them.
And that's what I'm wondering is that, like, do you have like, you know, like, at least what I've seen like from you is that you do kind of just push people like this out of your life.
Yeah, if so, so I think I understand the question.
So if they're aggressive, then I will not engage with them until they apologize for their aggression.
Like, if they just come and say, Well, you were a total jerk and you were this or whatever it is, right?
Then it's like, no, don't, don't come at me like that.
I mean, that's not how and you've heard me do this on this show.
Like, let's not, let's not go down that road.
Let's not start off with that level of aggression because it just doesn't lead anywhere.
Good.
So if they apologize, again, that's fine.
We all make mistakes and you kind of move on.
Now, if I'm calling someone out that I care about for lying, then the most important thing for me is to come at it with a sense of curiosity, not condemnation.
The great temptation when you catch someone in a wrong is to use the power you have over them because they've done wrong and you've caught them, right?
And to resist that power is really important.
And so to come at it with like., ah, you know, I think that wasn't totally true.
And I'm just curious what your thoughts and experiences was.
And I'd like to really understand what was going on with you as opposed to, you liar, you did this terrible thing.
That's just going to get a negative response.
Because if you care about someone, then hopefully their lying is a deviation from what they normally do.
And I think in general, like to say to people, you know, I don't think that was particularly true.
And normally you tell the truth and you're really committed to the truth.
So I'm just wondering, you know, what was going on with you there?
And maybe I'm wrong and maybe it was true, but I think it didn't quite strike me as totally true, which is a real deviation from your normal way of being.
And so I think in general, if you care about people, you want to be delicate and sensitive with them when you catch them in a fault or catch them in a wrong.
And, you know, like if somebody is spreading a rumor, right?
And it's like, you know, that's not totally like you.
And, you know, it doesn't seem quite like the right approach.
And I'm just you know, curious what's going on for you.
you know just ask questions but if you come at people like real hard like you just you just totally lied man that was terrible well you're just gonna provoke defenses and you're not actually gonna get through and you're kind of misusing the power that you have over someone, if that makes sense.
Yeah, it does make sense.
And I think, um, you know, you clarified what, um, I've been feeling where, which is that I, you know, if I don't see that predisposition of like being, being willing to acknowledge that they may, might be, um, they, they, they might have the full picture and they might be incorrect, you might as well just move on because it's a fool's errand, right?
That's kind of what I, what I've seen you do and what I'm kind of, um, crystallizing in myself as well.
So I think I'm just going to move on with people.
Yeah.
If people have been generally honorable., then if they make a mistake or they're not acting with integrity, you give the respect of the general honor in which they behave to point out that it's an unusual exception and you're curious about it, as opposed to just when you condemn people, you're done with them from a relationship standpoint, and so I try to hold off condemnation as much as possible and go instead with curiosity.
All right, let's go with Dramor.
Dramor.
What's on your mind, my friend?
All right, we got a lot of people, so unmute, speak now.
Yes, no, yes, no.
All right.
Yes, go ahead.
All right, um, yeah.
Um, I found your discussion lately about atheism and why they ache to any morality fascinating.
Um, what I found interesting about it is like, why, yeah, why do they justify having any morality if they don't believe in an afterlife or any karma?
Well, they don't justify having any morality, um, but they also don't want to feel like they're amoral, so they just make up stuff, right?
Yeah.
I'm sorry.
Is my audio okay or is it on?
It's not great, but it's not terrible.
Okay, because every time I put my headphones on, the audio, I can't hear anything.
I don't know.
I have to figure that out.
Right.
Right.
So in another, sorry, were you going to say something?
No, go ahead.
Also with anarchism, a problem I have with it is like, what if a major warlord, like, doesn't it encourage feudalism and like warlords gaining power and isn't coming up with a state like a larger collective population behind a very late.
yeah, okay.
Let me ask you this.
What's the sickest you've ever been in your life, physically?
Well, recently I was pretty sick with the fever and, uh, coughing and yeah.
Okay, so you had a fever and sort of one to ten, how bad was it?
Uh, seven and a half.
Seven and a half.
That's a rough fever, man.
And I, I sympathize with that.
Okay.
Now, did you take any.
medicines or anything that you could do to manage what you were suffering under?
No, I wasn't past that threshold where I would take medication and they just let it pass for two days actually I got over it okay so it was pretty interesting okay now are you happy that you are better yes of course yeah will you get a flu again in your life yeah is it good to be better even though you might get sick again yes okay so let's take the worst case scenario
that we have a free stateless society and let's say that there's a risk at some point in the future of the warlords or whatever it is that that you're talking about does that mean that even though we might end up in a negative situation in the future, we should not aim for freedom in the here and now, which is like saying, well, I'm not going to get better from an illness because I'm just going to get sick again, which we generally do until that last one that takes us out, right?
Yeah, I see your point.
Like you could hypothesize about all kinds of outcomes, but you should stick to the principles.
Yeah, I mean, if you get cancer, you don't sit there and say, well, I'm not going to take any treatment because I could just get cancer again.
It's like, no, get rid of the cancer, right?
Yeah.
And as far as answers to the warlord's question, I will refer you to my free book, Practical Anarchy, which goes in into these questions of national defense and roads and law courts and prisons and all kinds of good stuff.
But I wouldn't say that we shouldn't say, well, I don't want to get rid of slavery because at some point in the future, slavery might return.
Right.
We have to do the right thing and not say, well, we're excused from doing the right thing because a bad thing could happen at some point in the near infinite future.
I don't think that makes much sense because then we can just talk ourselves out of doing anything, right?
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
So you have talked about this.
You explained it in your book, Practical Anarchism?
Practical anarchy.
You can get that at Free.
There's two, everyday anarchy and practical anarchy, and you might want to read those in order.
And yeah, it's available for free at freedomain.com slash books.
Okay.
Great.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thanks, man.
Great question.
All right.
Jeff.
Okay.
Are we back?
Let me just bring you in here.
Sorry, it's like a tiny little...
All right.
Jeff Lafitte.
Another Scotsman.
What's on your mind, my friend?
I know that there's a little bit of a delay, so if you want to make sure you're unmuted, I'm happy to hear.
Testing 1-2-3 and again if you're not it's fine if you don't want to come in but if you could take yourself off the list we do have a lot of people who want to chat which I really appreciate All right, we're gonna go with Christopher with a K Christopher with a K if you want to unmute I am all ears like Dumbo flying overhead Christopher,
going once.
Going twice.
Last name.
We're not going to take it.
Yes, sir.
Go ahead.
Hey, thanks, sir.
I didn't expect to get picked on, but I was really interested in your recent podcast about the truth about lying.
And you went over some pretty cool examples about, I was wondering about, like, marriage infidelity, does that violate UPB?
No.
because infidelity requires your active participation in the relationship in order to have an effect on you, right?
I mean, there's, you know, probably a million people today have cheated on their wives or cheated on their husbands, but it doesn't have any.
effect on me because I'm not involved in those relationships.
So UPB is when something is inflicted on you against your will.
It definitely is a violation of a promise that you have made.
And it could, of course, be the case if you have a prenup that it could trigger specific legal ramifications.
So some wealthy people will say that they'll make some rich guy might make his fiance sign an agreement that says, if you cheat on me, then I can dissolve the marriage with no.
No alimony, right?
If you cheat on me.
And so there may be specific contracts about that.
But no, cheating on someone is a betrayal, for sure, but it is not violently imposed upon that other person.
It is a form of deception for sure, and it's wrong.
I would put that as aesthetically negative behavior, like it's bad, but you can't just shoot someone for cheating on you because you have actively participated in choosing that person, in keeping them in your life.
You've had the chance to evaluate them morally.
And if you've made a mistake, that's bad, and they've definitely done wrong, but it does not justify violent self-defense because it is not violently imposed upon you in the way that some guy who just jumps out of the bushes and holds a gun to your head is doing, if that makes sense..
Thank you.
And those are some one example I don't think you touched on in that podcast.
So I appreciate you using that as an example.
One last thing, if you have time, is I'm really enjoying the tweets about Tarantino films.
Those are getting quite a reaction.
I would agree mostly on all your takes on his films and whatnot and the posts that you've been making.
The one thing that I would say though that I find pretty interesting on his films would be his latest one, the Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.
I think that's probably his best film in my opinion.
Just because I like the allegory of it.
It to me, and you can correct me if I'm wrong, maybe I see it incorrectly or I'm missing something, but it kind of looked like he was taking a shot at standing up for, you know, the anti whitism that we see in our society.
And I thought it was kind of an interesting allegory that he was using with, you know, the characters who were kind of left behind in Hollywood.
In this case, it was the, I believe, the western actors played by DiCaprio's character.
And I guess he's trying to make a statement that, you know, as, you know, the anti whitism that we're seeing in society, especially with DiCaprio and Brad Pitt's characters, you don't see characters like that anymore in original movies.
films, particularly on Netflix films.
You know, you see the white character or always the villains or they're always depicted as the killer at the end.
I mean, you look at any Scream film, just you want to know who the killer is.
It's the white guy.
So, but at least in those films, they were at least depicted as the heroes, at least, like there wasn't much, you know, at least they were the protagonists.
I mean, I understand that they weren't moral and great characters, but at least that they had, that the focus was on them, it was through their journey, and at least they achieved some level of redeeming and they weren't seen as these evil people.
So I was kind of I kind of thought I thought it was just kind of his way of saying that, hey, I'm recognizing the anti-Yism in modern media.
And this was my attempt to just kind of take a take a look at it through this perspective.
This, I mean, I'm rushing through this because I know that you mentioned that you're kind of running on themes.
It's been a long day and you have other callers too.
But that was just kind of my quick, brief take on maybe that that had a little bit of depth in that film.
Look, if you know Tarantino's films, it sounds like better than I do, which is great.
But I don't know that I've ever seen a family or kids in his movies.
No, no, you're absolutely correct about that.
There's no family or kids in that in any of his films whatsoever.
So isn't that a bit odd?
I mean, it's all just kind of self-consciously cool people being ultra-violent.
I mean, it's kind of psychotic, right?
Oh, yeah, no, absolutely.
I'm only talking about once upon a time because, you know, you know, other than the last climax of the film where the violence was pretty appalling.
And of course, it was it was towards women.
Well, it was unbearable.
I mean, the violence in in his movies is psychotic.
And yeah, I mean, does he himself, I don't think he has kids, does he?
I don't know much about his personal life.
No, not that I'm aware of.
I'm pretty sure he would consider his consider his films his children.
Well, and doesn't he, didn't he cast himself as somebody who has an appalling foot fetish in the movie with Salma Hayek and he was like licking stuff off her toes and he's got this weird foot thing going on and it's just it's just kind of cold and inhuman and I would you know I mean I would really question his connection to any kind of genuine human emotion or connection it's all just you know handsome cool pretty people being ultra violent and
incredibly cold-hearted and there's no moral or good or decent or human characters it's all just you know cool I'm cool I can punch people without regret I can shoot people without regret I'm just cool and inhuman.
And I just think it's just a it's a gross and repulsive world as a whole.
And, you know, I get the skill involved in it, but I also find it pretty cheap.
You know, like it's pretty cheap that, uh, oh, we've got to, we've got to stab, we've got to stab, uh, this guy in the heart, uh, because he's having an OD and, uh, someone's about to get killed and people are pointing guns at each other.
And, you know, Christopher Walken is interrogating Dennis Hopper and someone's about to get shot and there's a gun and, and, uh, Samuel L. Jackson is like, say what again, you know?
And, and he's just about to shoot someone and it's just as cheap and cheesy as I mentioned on X as, you know, there's a really high stakes poker game and you got to win.
And it's just it's a way of creating artificial tension without any particular humanity.
And, you know, the historical revisionism to me is pretty repulsive.
But again, a very technically skilled filmmaker and stuff can be entertaining, but it's so fundamentally antinatalist, antihuman, and violence is cool.
And he's also pretty brutal on his actor.
I didn't Uma Thurman, she didn't want to do a particular car stunt and she ended wrecking her neck for like the rest of her life because he pushed her so hard.
So again, that's sort of off my memory.
But yeah, I do I do find it.
inhuman, cold, ultraviolent, and there's no humanity.
And the only reason you admire people is they're cool and good looking.
Oh, yeah, no.
All very fair points.
Yeah, absolutely.
I really can't disagree with anything that you've said.
It's interesting about the lack of family pictures in his films, that's something I haven't really considered.
And probably for obvious reasons, him probably, because you know, a lot of his films you could see, especially from Harvey Weinstein's influence.
I know he was probably under his umbrella for a while.
But again, yeah, you see a lot of the propaganda, like you mentioned in your post, with, you know, going after Nazis and going after, you know, the white man, the slaveholders and all that kind of stuff, which of course is easy fair pickings for villain depictions of Nazis.
That's all easy, low hanging fruit.
But what I would admire him if he made an accurate movie about the evils of communism, but of course we know that's never going to be allowed.
So he's just another lackey as far as all of that goes.
Yeah, no, well said.
Thank you.
I'm looking forward to any type of movie review coming in soon.
Have you seen anything good recently?
No, no, I haven't seen anything particularly good, which is why I put out the call for movie recommendations because I do miss those and I would like to get back into them more.
All right.
Who we got here?
Jeff.
Should we try this again?
Did I bring Jeff in already?
I'm just going to.
So people have told me that there are some glitches going on on X tonight.
Jeff, go ahead.
Yeah, boy, glitches for everybody on here, man.
It kicked me off.
The moment you asked me on, it kicked me off and I had to reset everything.
And by that time, I'm gone.
Well, I appreciate your patience.
What's on your mind?
Yeah, that's all right.
Yeah, I want to talk to you about, you were talking earlier about gaslighting, right?
When I came on, and that's what I wanted to talk to you about myself here.
You know, I think I told you a little bit of a story, you know, later, you know, about me earlier.
You remember?
Remind me.
Remember I told you that I'd gone through a lot of similar things with my mother like you did.
Remember about that?
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
So go ahead.
What's your question?
Well, you've got me some things and some DMs, you know, you ought to check out.
But anyhow, yeah.
You know, when I was 14, My counselor had noticed it was after all this stuff that I had.
Okay, no, no, sorry, sorry.
I can't do long story time because it's late in the show and I have a bunch of people who have questions.
So if you want to hit me with a question, I'm happy toy to answer otherwise we'll have to reschedule okay well yeah, well, it'd be nice to reschedule something, but what about this gaslighting?
I mean, I keep getting gaslit all the time by people, and I just want to let you know that the psychologist back when I was 14 said to be careful.
He asked me, he said, do you know what gaslighting means?
I was 14.
I said, yes, I know.
And he said, do you understand what it means?
And he said, I said, yes.
And he said, well, I just wanted to make sure that you know that people are gaslighting.
And that's why you're here.
There's a psychologist telling me about that.
You know, he tested me for all this stuff.
And believe me, I'm saying.
But he said, I just wanted to let you know, people are going to gaslight you for the rest of your life because of what's going on okay and that's why i wanted to talk to you about this i mean i've been getting gas lit by a lot of people but some really serious things in my life here okay i really do need you to get you a question i don't know why you're not listening to what i'm saying but i really do need you to get to a question i know i just had to get it you know so that you could get on what about this gaslighting what the hell do you do with it well with gaslighting um you
you just don't accept it Right.
if you know something to be true and people tell you that it's not true, you just say, nope, it's true.
And you just refuse to abandon your perception unless there's really good reason and evidence to do that.
So you just say no to the people who tell you that you're wrong.
You know, if you have a particular memory, well, yesterday you said this.
No, I didn't.
It's like, yeah, you did.
And if people don't accept that, you can't have a relationship with people who don't accept the truth of your perceptions.
Sorry, go ahead.
Well, this is a little more than just that.
They're gaslighting me to try to put my ass away.
The make me feel like i'm crazy just like the movie gaslights Do you understand the movie Gaslight now?
That's what they've been doing to me.
Well, but it sounds then if you're in a situation of legal risk or independence or freedom risk then you're probably a little bit beyond the uh help of a philosophy podcast so then you might want to consult with lawyers and and other experts who might be able to help you resist that kind of stuff well i've already been tested so i can prove i'm sane but that doesn't mean that these people aren't crazy themselves i mean let's just say not getting too political but they're democrats right they tried to take my guns away from me so
i couldn't protect myself you understand yeah so i'm real sorry but i'm going to have to um uh we maybe have to talk about this another time but i know i can't do um you know if you've got legal stuff going on you need to talk to a lawyer not a philosophy.
Dude.
All right, let's go with Tedward.
Oh, I almost touched the right.
I was like one pixel that I have got to touch on this tiny screen because they don't even let you run spaces from a tablet.
So it's got to be a phone and it's the video and all of that together at the same time.
All right, Tedward, what is on your mind again?
I know that we've had some people getting kicked or some people who are having audio issues tonight.
So I'm happy to hear what's on your mind.
Hello, hello.
Going once, going twice.
All right.
She does.
Right.
She does keep Moa Deshando in a pretty cabinet.
But there it is.
All right.
Let's go with a name.
You know, that's very meta.
I think this will be the last caller.
You know what?
If we've had a bunch of people, you know what?
I just sort of made an executive decision.
So tomorrow, 11 a.m., I was going to do just a donor-only show.
I'll do that one maybe Sunday night.
But we'll do a show tomorrow morning because I know there's a lot of people who wanted to talk.
And I'm really, I'm sorry because I'm desperate to get to everyone tonight.
But I am running a little bit on fumes.
So we'll do this call.
And then tomorrow, 11 a.m., if you would like to reconvene, we'll do more calls.
But sorry, go ahead.
Hey, thank you so much.
I appreciate you putting me on.
I love your work.
I had two quick questions for you.
I was wondering if you had ever watched a show called The Good Place.
Ted Danson?
I believe so.
Oh, Afterlife show.
Yeah.
Afterlife.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think I watched half an episode.
It didn't particularly grab me, so I have not watched any further than that, but go ahead.
Okay.
Yeah, I just wanted to recommend it.
Sure.
I'll go on to the actual main question.
So the main question that I had was, in order for.
our society to approach something closer to UPB.
I was trying to find out if virginity, the value of virginity should be held equal between men and women.
And it was actually a question that you had answered on one of your X answered questions.
But I felt like maybe it needed more context.
I feel like the answer didn't necessarily align with what I was trying to ask.
So, you know, thanks to your posts, I've been going down a little rabbit hole just kind of thinking.
And every conclusion that I came to is that I thought that yes, you know, the value of virginity should be held equal between men and women in order to responsibly reproduce.
I was wondering what you thought, Sarah Madden.
I mean, the question was asked, I gave my answer, and now you're disagreeing, which is of course totally fine, but I simply repeating a statement is not a counterargument.
So what in it, what in what I said do you have disagreements with or what additional arguments do you want to bring to bear?
Sure.
So I thought the answer that you gave was as if the question was, is virginity valued equally between men and women?
And your answer was no, because women can easily access sex and men have to work for very hard, very long, to get it.
And the example that you gave was if a man scrapes and claws $100,000, or another man inherits $10 million, the value of that should not be held equal.
Well, and I did say that ideally a man and a woman should be virgins when they get married and they should consummate their rights.
So as far as difficulty goes, we wouldn't rate these things as equal, but as far as, you know, the moral value of virginity is a great plus.
With regards to pair bonding, I know that the studies are the more sexual partners a woman has, the less likely she is to remain married.
I don't know that the studies have been done on men, at least I've never seen them, but I assume that the numbers would not be the opposite.
Okay.
So then I guess in my thought experiment that I had that I was running through in my head, I was thinking about bad women and bad men, just people that overwhelmingly support the state, overwhelmingly seek power, overwhelmingly support taxation.
And I was thinking about how, you know, bad women make bad decisions.
They may have.
If the man and the woman value virginity, then maybe that wouldn't have happened.
But it did, right?
It did.
And I was thinking further that the bad women and the bad man making that bad decision could result in a baby in which they would then go to the government and say, Hey, I made a bad decision.
Can you get something for me in terms of welfare, in terms of alimony, in terms, just give me something.
And they wouldn't go to the government for, oh, you see, they would go to the government to enforce alim alimony, the woman would go to the government to enforce child support or something from the man.
Is that right?
Correct.
Correct, yes.
Anything that says, Hey, I need resources, give them to me.
Use your force to get them to me.
And I was thinking about how the government in general, just very, very corrupt, has a lot of bad men and bad women.
And how the people in the government would say, they would reply back and say, Hey, listen, I know some good men.
I know some good women.
They're working.
We will take from them.
We will forcibly take from them.
We will subsidize your bad decision.
And because we are bad men and bad women, it's okay.
We support you.
And I was thinking about the concept or the value of virginity where, you know, bad men encourage other bad men or good men to have sex, to go to get laid and not Yeah, I sort of mentioned this a while ago on my show that sex addicts are happy to trade freedom for sexual access.
It's very sort of our selected and bad stuff all around, but yeah, for sure.
So the sexual revolution was like like, okay, well, we're going to take away your property rights in the form of the welfare state and other things, retirement benefits and so on.
But in return, you can get a lot of free love.
And it's very arse elected to say, I don't care that much about my economic freedoms as long as I can get a regular drumbeat of poontang from time to time.
Then people are addicted to sex will be very happy to make that trade at the expense of what comes down the road.
I think so if you want to get to a question, it's great.
I mean, I think in general, and I've talked about this in various shows, what is it that will promote the value of virginity?
What is it, what is in society will promote the value of virginity the most?
And it would be a free society.ety, for sure, because we are backfilling people's bad decisions with other people's money.
Correct.
So I think it's critically important that we have more good people than bad people.
And I think right now, if we have bad people in the government supporting bad people, supporting bad decisions by taking from the good people, then it really is a classic good versus evil type, type fight.
Well, and listen, sorry, I don't want to gain say what you're saying.
I think there's certainly a lot of truth in it.
But I would also say that if you and I were put in charge of the government at this point, what would you do?
I mean, you're going to get cities in flames.
You're going to get riots.
You're going to get, you know, massive bloodshed and then what, right?
So, you know, this is one of the reasons why I'm off politics.
And I'm not saying you're trying to drag me into politics again.
But it's like, okay, what do you do now?
Let's say that, you know, Javier Millay or whoever is going to be in charge of the government.
And he's like, yeah, well, the welfare state is immoral, blah, blah, blah.
It's like.
You better be prepared for a whole lot of blood in the streets if you're going to try and cut this stuff.
And I think this is why for me, it sort of moved beyond a philosophical arena.
So it's not just that there are bad people in the government.
There are certainly some well-meaning people and good-hearted people in the government and so on.
But unfortunately, the system has gone on for so long that a peaceful unwinding seems pretty, pretty unlikely.
Yeah, I agree.
I think the only way out of it is criticizing the bad decisions, which you do.
And peaceful parenting, you know, hopefully to raise people with more fluency in the language of freedom.
Yes, yes.
And so it all comes back to trying to raise a good family.
And I feel like the way that you raise a good family is very much in line with what you put out, which is peaceful parenting, which is don't have sex before marriage, so you're committed.
And I guess my statement is that in order for good people to have good reproduction and grow good families, it should be equally valuable that the man and the woman are a virgin.
And right now that is not the case.
We are getting a lot of bad people.
And your answer that you gave, I thought was fought on with what it actually is today versus how do we actually get to a better society, which is what I was trying to get at.
So that's a good question.
Well, then of course, imagine how many medical resources would be freed up.
up with pair-bonded virgin-based marriage.
I mean, there'd be no STDs, really.
And the amount of medical resources that are tied up with the treatment of both intermittent and permanent like herpes or AIDS or largely, the transmission of STDs is a massive overhead in society.
And one of the really brutal things that happens is the number of people who are denied health care for issues that aren't their fault because the health care is all consumed by people whose issues are their fault, such as STDs being spread through promiscuity.
It's a big and brutal problem among people these days, and this would largely solve that for sure.
I agree.
And I think to kind of fill the circle, it all draws back to the work that you've done over the last forty years, right?
Because the bad people in the government, they don't care about the good people because the good people are going to be good people.
The bad people want to do whatever they want.
They don't want responsibility.
They want to fuck and have kids and have somebody else pay for it.
And so we need to be equally critical of the bad decisions made by bad women and bad men and also the government., you know, outside of inside and outside of the government.
So good points, good points, all good points.
And I really do appreciate that.
And I'm sorry to all the people we didn't get to tonight.
Come back 11 a.m. tomorrow on Sunday and we will talk further.
I'll do an open show with the same kind of setup.
And I'm sorry that we didn't get to you.
I really do appreciate people's patience.
And if I had the energy of a cooked up Wall Street trader, we'd be up till 6 a.m.
But the answers would be progressively more incoherent, or at least I hope they haven't been progressively more incoherent.
So I'll go get a good night's sleep and we'll reconvene at 11 a.m. tomorrow for more conversation.
Freedomain dot com slash donate to help out the show would really, I would really, really appreciate it.
August is a tough month for donations because, you know, people are traveling, they're away and all that.
So if you could help out, freedomain dot com slash donate, I'd help.
I'd really appreciate that.
Don't forget freedomain dot com slash books and also freedomain dot com slash call in.
If you would like to do either a public or which is free call in, we can do that if you've got questions or issues that you wanted to work through, usually at a more personal level, or it can certainly be philosophical.
Freedomain dot com slash call in.
All right.
Mm, or freedomain dot com slash call.
Have yourselves a glorious and gorgeous evening, everyone.
Thank you for your time, care and attention.
I'll see you in the morning.
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