Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - I've Wanted a Man for TEN YEARS! Twitter/X Space

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Aug. 25, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:17:31

I've Wanted a Man for TEN YEARS! Twitter/X Space

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	Hey, good evening everybody.
	I hope you're doing well.
	I hope you're doing well and I hope you're doing good, as we all hope to do, in this short span between the here and the hereafter, and it is Sunday night, on the 24th of August, on 2025.
	And I had a cancellation for a call in show, so I thought I'd spend a little bit of time saying hi to y'all.
	Getting your thoughts, questions, issues, challenges, problems, run it through the chattering brain of the Uber staff and see if we can get some useful stuff out of it.
	So yeah, if you can just raise your hand if you have questions or comments or criticisms, whatever's on your mind.
	I did a show, actually, was there a show, an interesting show last night.
	I'll give you just a little preview as I wait.
	I'll wait for the chatterbrain of the internet to put his tentacles in my neurons.
	And it was a fellow who wanted to know how to be an entrepreneur.
	And if you're ever curious about that, look for the show.
	It'll be coming out.
	It goes out to donors first.
	You can join the community at freedeman.locals.com.
	It goes out to donors first, but it's really, really essential stuff on how to be an entrepreneur.
	So I hope that you will check that out when it comes out.
	It's going to be a show that's free.
	And remember, of course, everything I do is without commercials, without sponsorships.
	freedomain dot com slash donate to help out the show.
	All right.
	Mr. Pooperson.
	Pooperson.
	Ah, Mr. Pooperson, Mr. Anderson.
	If you want to unmute, fill my thoughts with yours, let us commingle and be of one brain flesh.
	He has come and gone.
	He has come and gone.
	Well, that's all right.
	So, yeah, talking about the entrepreneurship, you know, one of the toughest things in life is to not take things personally.
	All right, he's back.
	Hang on.
	Let's try one more time.
	Are you here, my friend?
	You need to unmute?
	Oh, I know there's a little bit of a delay, but if you want to talk, that is your cue.
	This is your cue.
	I guess you have missed your cue.
	So, it's really tough in life not to take things personally.
	And I have tons of stories, I'm sure you have tons of stories, about taking things personally when it turns out you shouldn't have.
	I remember once going on a very awkward date with a woman when I was young, very young, going on a very awkward date with a woman, thinking I had done something wrong, and finding out later that she'd had a suicide.ide in the family.
	And of course, it really wasn't anything to do with me.
	And it was actually, I thought it was sort of a negative to me, because she wasn't really talking with me.
	But it turns out, oh, she wasn't really chatting much with me or wasn't really responding to much that I was saying.
	I remember we went for a walk.
	And I thought, odd that she would want to go on a date and then not really talk.
	But again, it turns out rather than it being an insult to me, it was actually quite a compliment to me that she would even think of going on a date with such a family tragedy so recent in her mind.
	So taking things personally.
	Personally, especially if you've had a history of rejection, it's really hard to be an entrepreneur.
	But if you've had a history of being rejected in your family or, you know, in siblings, schools, whatever, maybe the church even, if you've had a history of being rejected, you absolutely have to try to become an entrepreneur.
	Because if you've had a history of being rejected, you may in fact be overcompliant to your boss, which means you won't be able to succeed very well in your chosen profession.
	I remember when I first learned the value of joshing with and talking back to bosses, my first boss in my professional job.
	I remember his name even now, but my first boss when I had a professional job, that was being a cobalt programmer, I started programming in cobalt 74.
	We finally upgraded the tandem systems to cobalt 85 when I was there.
	This was not in 1974 when I was in fact only eight years old and not very proficient in cobalt common object business oriented language something like something like that.
	And I had a boss, he was super aggressive.
	I worked in the sort of Wolf of Wall Street environment.
	I worked in a trading stock trading company as a programmer and my boss was, you know, sort of typical.
	stock trading, super aggressive guy, And was very punchy and would, you know, come in and say, is the project done yet?
	Is it done yet?
	Are you ready?
	Is it done yet?
	And, you know, I guess a lot of the programmers got kind of jumpy, as did I. It's my first little professional job.
	But then at one point, I remember this very clearly.
	His name was Jim.
	And I stood up.
	I looked him straight in the eye.
	I clapped my hand on his shoulder and I said, Jim, when I'm done with the project, I will come straight to your desk, even if I have to pee.
	I will not pass go.
	I will not collect $200.
	I will come straight to your desk and tell you so you don't need to come in here wasting your time.
	And.
	There was this sort of long pause and then this uproarious laughter.
	And we actually had a good working relationship after that.
	He invited me to come and play squash with him at a sort of very high-end club.
	We went, I think it was to the Granite Club with some of the other people he worked with, and we played poker all night, which was an absolutely glorious night.
	I didn't really even know how to play poker.
	I took out 500 bucks, which was a lot of money, of course, back in the day, even now, right?
	And I basically...
	I didn't really know how to play poker, but I wanted to give it a shot and network and so on.
	And I went and played poker that night and had the most ridiculous run of luck that I've ever had in my life.
	Everybody thought I was fooling them.
	Like, oh, I don't really know how to play poker and I'm some sort of total card shark.
	And so they kept changing the rules.
	They kept changing, oh, we'll do Texas hold'em.
	Oh, we'll do, I don't know, Oklahoma fold'em or whatever nonsense.
	And every single time I was like, what does this win?
	It's just the most amazing night.
	I walked out of there with 1500 bucks and a reputation as someone who was really good at cards but could pretend that he wasn't.
	And yeah, it just ended up being a really good working relationship.
	But it was one of those moments in life where you kind of have.
	that Marty McFly moment where you just say, I gotta try a different approach to things as a whole.
	And it was actually really positive.
	And it was one of my sort of experiences.
	People who seem kind of bullying actually get kind of relieved when you don't fold or fall.
	People who are kind of bullying actually get kind of relieved when you sort of stand up to them, not in a sort of aggressive way, but in a sort of good humored way.
	And I remember when I did say to him, I'll tell you the moment I'm finished.
	I promise, absolutely promise.
	He laughed and he called over his shoulder.
	Oh, I call up fire dot Doc and have it ready on my.
	I call up fire dot Doc and have it ready on my computer.
	And it was, um, it was, uh, fun.
	And, you know, one of these sort of moments in life where you realize that a different direction is possible.
	And it was through there, and maybe even through that moment, I don't know.
	But it was shortly thereafter that I decided to become an entrepreneur.
	And then, except for two short stints as an executive in the corporate world, I've been an entrepreneur for almost 30 years now.
	And some success, some not success, as is sort of the case.
	As you know in life, if you're not failing, you're not trying hard enough.
	And if you...
	Being an entrepreneur is the most scary thing, but it's really the most essential thing.
	Because if you can overcome your fear of rejection, you get a superpower.
	If you can get over your fear of being shamed, if you can get over your fear of being disliked, and you can get over your fear of rejection, all of which are kind of three sides of the same D4 coin, which I guess has four sides.
	Anyway, no, three sides.
	I get it.
	Pyramid, pyramid, not cube.
	Pyramid, not cube.
	So how do you get over?
	And listen, I'm certainly happy to take your questions and comments and criticism.
	How do you get over taking things?
	things personally.
	Well, the way that you get, I mean, for me, I think this is a useful approach.
	You may have different experiences or ideas, which of course be perfectly valid, but for me, it was realizing that I reject everyone all the time too.
	It's a really, really important thing.
	You know, when you I mentioned this in the court last night, you go to the mall, pick up something, right?
	Today I had to go, I was out and I picked up some razors.
	To firmly, further, finely shave my arguments.
	I picked up some razors.
	Now, I went to the mall, I went to the store, I picked up the razors and I left., there were 80 stores in the mall, probably.
	I walked past 79 of them.
	There were probably 5,000 items in the store.
	I picked only one of them and ignored everyone else.
	Everything else.
	All the other store owners, store managers, store employees would much rather I go into their stores.
	I just walk past them.
	Like every single day, you see all these ads on your computer or you listen to all these ads on your podcasts and so on, and you don't buy stuff.
	You probably just skip right over the ads.
	Even when you have like in case files, they'll beg you not to, right?
	But you just skip past the ads usually.
	And so you ignore other people's desperate needs and pleasures.
	You probably have friends who are into art, acting, music, writing, something like that, right?
	They've done something creative or they want to do something creative.
	And do you sit there and read it all over and encourage them and get involved and help promote it?
	And well, probably not, right?
	I mean, you're probably nice about it.
	Oh, that's a cool song or, yeah, I like that story or something like that.
	But you don't get heavily involved in moving their projects forward, solving their issues and these people you care about.
	I mean, I remember I actually ended a relationship of many years because the woman wouldn't read a book that I'd written and sort of give me detailed feedback and all of that.
	And this is after I had helped her a lot on her artistic projects.
	And she's like, well, you're just not motivating me to.
	And I'm like, well, you're motivating me to get the heck out of Dodge.
	So all of that stuff.
	It's really important to remember just how much you reject other people all the time.
	I mean, look at all the spam in your folder.
	Those people are desperate for you to buy their product.
	I don't know why I get like, I get spam for electric bikes.
	Oh gosh, what else do I get spam for?
	I get spam, oh, for people's, you know, I'm doing this project and you gotta help me out.
	And I get, it's just spam for a bunch of nonsense, right?
	No.
	Now, I mean, maybe some of those are legitimate businesses, but you don't care, you just delete it, right?
	You don't care.
	So all the things that people want to do that they're really keen to do that they're very excited and enthusiastic to do and desperately want to succeed in, you don't care.
	Now, it's not personal.
	I don't dislike the other stores in the mall, I just don't have a need or use for them right now.
	You know, I haven't upgraded my phone in, I don't know, seven years or something like that.
	No particular need to.
	So all the Apple engineers or all of the Android engineers or whatever kind of phone.
	you have, you know, they're desperate for you to buy the new phone.
	Do you?
	Well, you don't.
	Usually, most people don't.
	And so you're rejecting them, right?
	You're rejecting all of their hard work, their dedication, their late nights, their pouring heart and soul in not seeing their kids, barely touching their wives or their sex dolls or whatever engineers work with these days.
	So, yeah.
	You know, restaurants open up.
	It's like the old Seinfeld thing that there's always some location that kills businesses, right?
	Restaurants open up maybe in your neighborhood, maybe on the street.
	And these are people.
	They've put their heart and soul into opening these restaurants.
	They're just they're desperate to make some money and this is their life savings.
	And, you know, if it fails, it's catastrophe for them.
	And they're going to spend years taking themselves out of debt.
	And they're stressed, they're sleepless and so on.
	You don't care.
	It's like, oh, I don't particularly like Vietnamese food.
	So I guess I'm just not going to go there.
	You just you reject them.
	You walk past even though they're desperate, as everyone is who tries anything new.
	They're desperate for you to come in and buy something, buy anything.
	My daughter and I like going to Renaissance fairs, which my wife studiously avoids like the plague with Renaissance.
	Well, it's a little bit of an anachronism, but you get the joke.
	And at the Renaissance Fair, you know, there are like, I don't know, 100, 150 stalls of people who want you to buy their wooden swords or armor or girdles or plague doctor masks or whatever it is, right?
	Their medieval crusader coffee cups.
	And you don't.
	I don't.
	Maybe I'll buy one or two things.
	There are people putting on shows.
	You don't even go.
	and they're desperate, right?
	So when you remember how much you reject and how it's not personal, you know, if there's some, some, some, some Harry Potter wand that I don't care about or want.
	It's not personal.
	I don't hate the person.
	I'm not rejecting them.
	I just, I don't want it.
	It's not for me.
	So just remember, it's not personal.
	You're not rejecting people.
	It's just not for you.
	It's just not of interest to you.
	It's not something you want to spend money on.
	And it's not personal.
	You don't hate the people.
	And it's the same thing.
	When you're out there trying to make something work in your life, maybe you want to start a business, start a podcast, or something like that, and people are indifferent well of course they are i mean it's your family's job it's your friend's job you know in in sort of concentric circles, it's your spouse's job to care about your dreams most importantly.
	I don't know who would be next, not really your kids.
	It's not their job to support your dreams.
	But your spouse really has to support your dreams.
	That's kind of a contention I had with the caller from last night.
	How to be an entrepreneur is the title when it comes out this coming week, you should check it out.
	But your spouse's job, absolutely, 100%, 150% they've got to track and help you with your dreams.
	And then who would be next?
	Parents maybe?
	Siblings?
	Friends?
	Depending on, you know, I mean, the friends that I had when I first started this show.
	Like, I'm in touch.
	It's so wild, man.
	This is the dividing line of really becoming self-defined is that none of the people that I knew when I first started the show 20 years ago, not one of them am I still in contact with?
	It's wild.
	When you really start to do your own thing, when you really start to hit the gas with regards to your own ambition and goals and ideals and so on, it's pretty hard to bring people along on the journey.
	Like, the closest thing I can imagine to it is like if you win, I don't know, $20 million.
	You know, it's kind of tough to bring people along on that journey.
	And when you really start to hit your ambition gas and really start to see what you are, in fact, capable of, it's kind of hard to bring people along on that journey.
	And if people don't think you're that great, right?
	To be an entrepreneur, you have to believe that what you're doing is great.
	You have to believe that your product is great.
	And you have to move heaven and earth to get it into the world, get it into people's minds and hearts.
	and get money out of their wallets, right?
	And so if you think, let me make this about me.
	If I think I'm really great at something and other people, friends and family don't, there's a huge collision, there's this underground war that goes on in that situation where there's a combat which is, I think I'm great at this, you don't.
	And gosh, who was it?
	Jim Marsons dad and Paul Simon's dad, right?
	Paul Simon, not the best singer in the world, obviously Art Garfunkel's voice vastly outstripped his own, but you know, a competent singer and, of course, one of the top tears of American songwriters.
	So he was singing to his father and his father was like, nah, nah, nah, nah, you can't.t.
	It's not for you.
	You can't do it, right?
	And he ended up becoming one of the most successful singer-songwriter in American history.
	But of course, his father probably was like a Frank Sinatra guy, and you know, the sort of manly baritone, and Paul Simon has a slightly whiny, slightly flat, not very big range high tenor.
	And Jim Morrison's father did not understand his son's music at all.
	His father was strangely enough and very high up in the U.S. Navy of all things.
	And Jim Morrison's father, the singer for the Doors, Jim Morrison's dad didn't understand it at all.
	Didn't make any sense.
	His music sounded like dying buffaloes to his dad or something like that because it's very non-traditional vocal style.
	Half storytelling, half demonic possession.
	And later on, it was only long after Jim Morrison died that his father was like, well, you know, I guess the kid had something because people really care about his music.
	And so what do you do if you have big goals, big dreams, big ambitions, and people around you don't view you that way, don't think of yourself as that way?
	Well, it's a high wire act, really pursuing significant ambitions.
	And for me, I set my sights on the very highest possible goal, the very highest possible goal, which was to be the most innovative and effectual philosopher in history.
	And look, I fully understand that's a crazy claim.
	It sounds crazy to me sometimes as well, but I like to set my goals as high as possible.
	It's kind of what Anu Schwarzenegger said.
	Like, why wouldn't you aim for the top?
	Why would you just aim to be fifth or seventh or tenth or twentieth?
	Why not aim for number one?
	I don't know if I'll.
	reach it.
	I personally have reached it according to my standards, but it's not like I judged by my standards, especially after I'm dead.
	That will be up to history and posterity to decide, but I think I've got a pretty good shot and a lot of it has to do not just with my particular approach to things, but also the technology which is available now that wasn't available in the past for philosophers and thinkers and moralists.
	So, yeah, that's been my goal.
	To be the most effectual and successful in terms of problem solved philosopher and in particular moral philosopher in history.
	That's absolutely the goal.
	I've always been open about that.
	I aim for the absolute top because I don't have the vanity to think I know what I'm capable of.
	I don't have the vanity to think I can reasonably put a cap on what my brain is capable of.
	For instance, I've done a lot of work with my unconscious.
	And I did this through writing.
	And of course, I did a lot of this work in therapy, working with dreams and with the unconscious and engaging with alter egos and the unconscious and so on.
	Now, the unconscious has been scientifically clocked at being up to 6,000 times faster than the conscious mind in terms of instincts.
	Plus, you have your brain in your head, you have your brain in your gut, which has a whole bunch of neurons and functions as your gut instinct, your second brain.
	And there's many layers to your brain.
	You know, the sort of post-monkey beta expansion pack we call humanity is pretty new and pretty buggy.
	And it sits on all these layers of prior brains all the way down to the lizard brain and maybe even below that.
	So I'm not going to have the vanity and pomposity to imagine that I know what I'm capable of.
	I know all the layers of my brain and everything they can do.
	I don't even know what my spleen does.
	I have a vague idea about my liver and my kidneys and so on, but you know, I couldn't really pick them out of a lineup or tell you in any great detail what they did and how, certainly how, but they do their thing, right?
	And so I don't know what my brain is capable of.
	If I knew that, I'd be able to predict what my dreams are every night, which I can't do at all.
	And so I will not put a cap on my ambition.
	But if there are people around you, who put a cap on your ambition?
	Oh, come on, that's a ridiculous, that's crazy goal.
	Who are you to blah, blah, blah?
	I get all of that.
	Of course, I ask myself those questions on a regular basis to make sure I'm not losing my mind in megalomania.
	Fingers crossed.
	So far, I think so good.
	But if you have big, grand, deep and noble ambitions and people around you don't share, don't share that view of you or think it's ridiculous or crazy, then it's going to be, I've used this analogy a bunch of times, it's a really good analogy.
	It's really important.
	It's going to be like trying to do a very important math exam that determines the future of your life.
	Very important, crucial math exam determines the future of your life with a whole bunch of friends and relatives sitting around you barking random numbers into your ear.
	It won't work.
	You have to have people in your life who believe in you.
	You have to believe in the...
	the infinite potential of those around you you have to believe in your own infinite potential and you cannot have while you're on this high wire act people are shooting spitballs at you and jiggling the rope and tickling you and right because if you have very high ambitions and you succeed and i swear, I swear that the majority of success is simply getting out of your own way and not putting an artificial limit or cap on your own potential.
	That is most of our successes because so many people have so much potential and capital limited in order not to offend the underachievers around them that all you have to do really is believe in yourself and let your brain do its thing, get out of your own way.
	and be willing to be inspired and to shock and surprise yourself with your possibilities.
	That's all you have to do.
	I think that there's brilliance in most of us and we cap it in order to avoid offending those who capped their own brilliance before.
	And I don't really genuinely believe that there are superstars and NPCs.
	I think that there's such potential in every human mind and every human soul, and we cap it for fear of being perceived as, oh, you're just too good for us.
	Oh, you think you're too good for us now.
	Well, that problem, that issue, to stay capped.
	And of course, we violently cap each other.
	because most human beings evolved as slaves and serfs, galley slaves, farm animals, so to speak, right?
	And so you wouldn't want your fellow slaves getting too upperty, because if your fellow slaves get too upperty, the slave master will punish all of you.
	And so we hold each other down.
	We hold each other down.
	But the time for that in history has come and gone.
	And if we continue to hold ourselves down, we may not have much of a future to look forward to at all.
	So entrepreneurship.
	Yeah, it's really, really important.
	Don't take things personally.
	People aren't rejecting you.
	They're just busy.
	They're just bored.
	They're just uninterested, and so on.
	And of course, I mean, I went through a massive set of rejections when I got de-platformed, right?
	Like 90, 95 percent, pretty 95 percent of my audience didn't follow me over to new platforms, which was liberating and positive.
	And don't succumb.
	The guy I was talking to about being an entrepreneur succumbed to the indifference of his audience and ended up giving up a 10 to 15 year dream of music.
	And yeah, don't take things personally.
	People don't care enough about you to reject you.
	Right.
	And most people, when they ignore you or they reject you, What they're actually doing is they're attempting to trigger your self-attack through their hostility or indifference.
	You know, I mean, my heaven's sakes.
	I mean, you've probably read some of the the people say the most outrageously horrible things about me online.
	And their goal, of course, is to attempt to get me to self-criticize.
	And I remember when I put out my book, The Art of the Argument, some troll took some fussy problem with one of the syllogisms.
	Oh, he doesn't even understand basic logic, you know, just this venom, this hostility, this rage.
	And it's like, he's just trying to trigger a self-attack.
	Oh, my God, maybe I don't understand logic.
	Oh, my God, maybe, I mean, it's like, ah, forget it, right?
	People will just try to trigger your self-attack.
	And it is an old and true aphorism that nobody can make you feel bad without your consent.
	And of course, I mean, I open up every show with comments, criticisms, issues, and people who disagree with me or think I'm wrong about stuff.
	Absolutely.
	Come in and let's have the conversation.
	I want to be correct more than I want to be right.
	You know, to be perceived as right in my own mind would be a form of psychosis or derangedness.
	So, yeah, don't take things personally.
	People are just, they're acting out their own crap.
	They have their own bad childhoods.
	They themselves have probably sacrificed their own potential.
	So when they see someone stretching for their own potential or taking the cap off what they believe that they're not.
	capable of, it causes great stress and anxiety because people who have in a sense self-castrated, right?
	They've castrated themselves.
	They don't want to see the fecund and the fertility of others, the fecundity and fertility of those around them.
	People who have put a cap on their own potential don't like to see other people stretching their wings and flying to heights that they can't dream of.
	So it's usually people's self-betrayal that causes them to attack you.
	It's usually people and remember the other thing I'll say as well.
	And again, happy to take your questions and comments.
	The other thing I will say as well, my friends, is that there are a lot of evildoers in this world.
	Don't underestimate that.
	There are a lot of evildoers in this world.
	Two-thirds of people will kill you if vaguely it's told by those in charge that it might be necessary.
	I mean, we saw this of COVID, the number of people who will turn on family members and turn on friends and colleagues, co-workers and so on, just because the media tells them to, right?
	So two-thirds of people, this is the Milgram experiments I've talked about before, two-thirds of people will kill you if someone they perceive to be an authority vaguely.
	suggests that it might be important.
	They'll just kill you.
	Almost 100% of people will torture you.
	And so there are a lot of evildoers out there, a lot of people who have beaten their children, a lot of people who have sexually assaulted, a lot of people who have stolen, and I don't mean some shoplifty stuff, but you know, like serious stuff, a lot of people who exploit others,
	a lot of women who exploit men for money, a lot of men who exploit women for sex, there are a lot of people who cheat at work, there are a lot of people who lie a lot, there are a lot of people who mistreat their children through neglect, and there are a lot of people who are just they've done some significant.
	wrong, bad and evil in the world.
	And when you sort of understand that, you go into a room of 100 people, most of them would torture you, two thirds of them would kill you if someone in authority said, Yeah, maybe it's sort of necessary for you to do that.
	Don't even tell them to do it, right?
	Then that's how little self esteem they have, that's how little moral integrity they have.
	They don't fundamentally exist on a moral plane.
	They're just NPCs, right?
	Programmed by whatever goes on in the media.
	So once you understand that there are a lot of evildoers in the world, then you learn not just to expect rejection or to survive rejection., to feast upon rejection, to enjoy attack as a signpost and a guidepost in your pursuit of virtue.
	If you're doing something that evil people attack you for, that's a pretty good sign that you're doing something good.
	If...
	You're not winning enough to annoy them.
	If people in the business world are not angry and upset and trash talking you, you're not winning enough.
	And all success, and in particular moral success, will breed and beget savage attacks from the amoral and the immoral.
	And sometimes you get even worse attacks from the amoral than the immoral.
	Because the immoral generally don't pretend that they're that good, but the amoral often do.
	Atheists in a lot of ways or hypocritical religious people.
	So the fear of condemnation is something that as you age, you You realize is less important.
	Like as you look at all of the troubles of your youth, very few of the issues or things that you feared about when you were young came true.
	And, you know, the women I wanted to go out with who didn't want to go out with me, fantastic.
	All of that led, you know, step by step, stepping stone by stepping stone towards the woman I've been married to now for 23 years and enormously happy and overjoyed and wonderful.
	So all of that is good stuff.
	Learn to not just survive criticism, but to embrace and relish it as a mark of virtue.
	TMAC.
	All right.
	Okay, what's on your mind, my friend?
	Don't forget to unmute.
	I'm all yours.
	Hey, Steph.
	I've been a followers for about nine years.
	I'm 23 and I was listening to your entrepreneurial talk and I just started working out of college and I feel like I'm stuck as far as upward and with entry level jobs these days.
	I feel like I see more people getting fired than getting promoted and things like that.
	And I have a lot of entrepreneurial wants and I feel like I was successful in college, but I felt like I needed a stable job after college.
	So I started working and I get shiny object syndrome a lot.
	So how do you kind of come over shiny object syndrome when it comes to entrepreneurship?
	What is shiny object syndrome, you magpie?
	Shiny object syndrome is when you see an opportunity and then you kind of fixate it for a little bit and then maybe you see something, another opportunity and then you kind of don't get fixated on one thing at a time and don't know where to best put your resources and mind to.
	Can you give me I think I understand.
	Can you give me an example?
	Like AI.
	There's AI, AI, many AI businesses that people start with.
	So like start, like I had an email, like a custom email writer that would find people's emails, email market and email market.
	And I did that for a while, but then I saw other opportunities.
	Let's see, I started working on a whole different startup that I started working on.
	So then I switched avenues in life.
	And this has happened many times with me.
	I was also trying to do Amazon SVA, but then I had a then I had a problem, then I had to switch again.
	And so I've just kind of been not able to focus and lock in on a certain business venture.
	Okay, got it.
	I appreciate that.
	Are you a white man?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So like Fight Club, if it's your first night, you have to fight.
	If you're a white man, you have to be entrepreneurial, you have to because the output mobility for white men, especially in major organizations, is kind of scotched in many places.
	And I know that Trump has kind of rolled back some of the DEI stuff, but yeah, just as a white man, you absolutely have to try to be an entrepreneur as best you can because your output mobility options are limited.
	in organizations because of, you know, legal pressures and not just legal stuff, but also the investor stuff.
	Like there's a lot of investment companies that demand all this DEI stuff and proportional representation, regardless of raw meritocracy.
	And so I just sort of wanted to point that out.
	Okay.
	So what is it that you want to achieve as an entrepreneur?
	I want to make enough money to the point where I don't have to worry about speaking out online about issues.
	Like right now, if I was to go public with my ideas and things I had to say, my My, my corporation job would complete, would terminate me so fast.
	And, and it's, and you're right about that upward mobility thing.
	The people that are above me, they're clearly DEI hires.
	They're, it's, it's majority like African American females just like, past their, past their, not having kids.
	They're just channeling their mother energy into like watching me, making sure that I do all the work that they don't.
	Oh, yeah.
	The female micromanagement is, is, is rough.
	And look, it's for people who are listening to this, even if you're 150% behind the justice of it.
	It's like, oh, well, white males had all this privilege and we're balancing things.
	Even if you accept all that, I don't particularly, but even if you do accept all that as a white male, you're just not going to find much upward mobility.
	You've got to start looking for other things.
	Okay.
	So if the purpose of being an entrepreneur is to make money, it's going to be tough to follow through because we're not just money machines, right?
	Like we're not like, you know, those races where there's this electronic hare or rabbit that the greyhounds just chase.
	We're not that way.
	A simple desire for money itself isn't going to be enough.
	There has to be some meaning in it for you to pursue it in a persistent way because as you know you you hit endless obstacles as an entrepreneur right and the obstacles are whether you succeed if you if you fail that's an obstacle obviously if you just kind of powder along that's an obstacle that's a challenge and if you succeed even if you succeed wildly that's another challenge which is you know there's a whole bunch of other different messes and problems that come along with succeeding.
	So whatever path you choose, whatever path you take, there are going to be a lot of problems because, you know, people fantasize about, oh, if, if I win the lottery, my problems will all be solved.
	It's like, no, if you win the lottery, you just exchange one set of problems for another set of problems.
	Now, not all problems are the same.
	So I get that there are better and worse problems to have.
	But I think you're going to need to find something that you're passionate about that has some kind of meaning in order for you to kind of stick in, stick, stick with it, to dig in, to lock in, and to just will your way forward no matter what the obstacles are.
	I don't think money is enough for that, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, it makes sense.
	I mean, I have other alternate other motives, like obviously to like I can't have my kids in a in a public school, but obviously that's still connected to money.
	So I have to have some type of value, have a value beyond the money that is, that is accomplished in the business.
	Yes, but again, that's getting money in order to do something for yourself.
	I think that the most sustainable businesses are where it is doing something good for the world.
	And, you know, to sort of take my own examples, I did environmental and health and safety stuff.
	So keeping workers safe and keeping the environment relatively clean, those are things that mean something to me.
	And, you know, obviously the work that I'm doing now is good for the world in the long run, although bad for evildoers in the short run.
	And so if you, it's the old thing, you know, like the two medieval workers, they're both building a building and one says, well, what are you doing?
	He says, well, I'm just putting one brick on top of the other.
	And the other one says, I'm building a cathedral to the glory of God.
	You know, who's going to be happier?
	Who's going to be more persistent?
	Who's going to do better work in the long run is the person who has a larger meaning behind what it is.
	that they're doing.
	And so trying to make the world a better place, and I don't just mean morally, it can be practically and efficient from an efficiency standpoint and all that sort of stuff.
	But I think you need a larger mission to pursue something entrepreneurial.
	And again, let's say you want to open a restaurant.
	Well, if you just want to open up a restaurant to make money, I don't think it's going to get the kind of charm and passion that's going to differentiate it.
	If you say, you know, this was the sort of the Schultz Starbucks thing that you need a third place, right?
	There's work, there's home.
	You need a third place for people to congregate, for people to socialize, for people to work and so on.
	So that was sort of the idea behind Starbucks.
	So even if you're opening a restaurant, it's like, I want a community place where people can gather, have great meals and people can celebrate important milestones in their life with the best possible service at a good price.
	Like there has to be a mission that is more than just khiching khiching, right?
	It's more than just a spreadsheet of income and expenses and the difference being yay, right?
	So whatever it is that you're going to work on, if you can find a way to get a deeper, more positive and better meaning out of it, then I think that gives you the sustainability to lock in and stay in when the going gets tough.
	And I'll just give you one tiny example.
	It's an analogy, but I know I used this in the show last night.
	So if you have a kid who's sick and they've got some terrible infection.
	and you desperately need antibiotics, right?
	Well, and let's say your kid needs antibiotics quickly and whatever it is, right?
	So, so you'd go and try and or some medicine, let's just say medicine, right?
	So, you'd go to the store.
	If the store was closed, you'd go to another store.
	If that store was closed, you'd look and try and find some store that was open.
	If you couldn't find a store that was open, you'd go to the hospital.
	If you couldn't get to the hospital, like you'd look online.
	Or like, you wouldn't just hit an obstacle and go home because your kid really needs the medicine.
	You would do whatever it took to get that medicine.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah, that makes sense.
	I mean, I remember.
	many years ago, I was offered to take over a courier business.
	Somebody was retiring and they saw that I had some business skills and they offered to take me over to help me take over the courier business.
	And I didn't have a car at the time and I took three buses for like two hours to go and have this meeting and then I walked and it took me like three hours to get to the meeting.
	But I was really curious about it and I just wanted to go.
	So I just did whatever it took to get to the meeting.
	And so if you sort of think of whatever it is that you're doing, whatever you're creating as a child that needs medicine.
	And you will not fail your child.
	If you have a vision or a dream or something that's going to make the world a better place, even if it's local, even if it's minor, even if it's just social, but it's not just about the raw money making, then you will get your kid that medicine.
	You will do whatever it takes to make it succeed.
	But without that meaning, without that passion, without that purpose, it's very easy to get stopped by things, right?
	Because there's a whole bunch of obstacles that circumstances.
	accidents sometimes your own incompetence certainly is the case with me and sometimes your competitors and sometimes evildoers and so on they'll just throw massive numbers of obstacles in your way to the point where it feels like, and they're trying to wear you down.
	Usually it's death by a thousand paper cards.
	They're just going to wear you down.
	it's not like you get into a big sword fight you just have a huge cloud of insects each of which takes a tiny bit of blood but eventually you just kind of run out of blood and fall over right and so how do you keep willing your way forward there has to be something that you're really passionate about that's more than just money because I think what probably happens with you is you make some money you hit an obstacle and then you're like,
	ah this money isn't good I've got to find something else and then you do something else you hit an obstacle you're like, ah this money's turning out to be tougher than I thought I think I'll try something else but if you have something which has a deep and passionate meaning to you ideally moral doesn't have to be again it can be that sort of thirdird place argument from Starbucks, but something that you're passionate about, something that means something to you, then you will have the ability to overcome obstacles.
	And really, success as an entrepreneur, assuming you have some kind of decent product or service, success as an entrepreneur simply refers to overcoming obstacles, having that persistence to just keep going.
	It's sort of like a marathon.
	Like 95% of the people in a very long distance marathon will just drop out.
	They just won't make it to the finish line.
	If you've just got that will to keep going, then you've taken your competition down from 100% to 5% because only 5% of people have the willpower to keep going despite all obstacles.
	And, you know, my show has been up and down and successful and less successful, big numbers, small numbers, I just keep going.
	I just will.
	I view myself like water cascading down the side of a mountain, right?
	I hit a rock.
	I don't stop.
	I just go around it.
	I find some way to go around it.
	I find some way to continue because the moral meaning for me is not just, well, obviously it's clear in a moral philosophy show, but it's about doing things.
	for all time, for the future.
	So people have a reference point and hopefully an example of some moral courage and persistence.
	But you can take your competition down from 100% to 5% simply by saying, nothing will stop me except bankruptcy or death.
	Even death, if there's an afterlife, I'm going to come back and hunt someone to continue my business.
	But if you say, nothing stops me but bankruptcy or death, then you almost certainly will succeed.
	But it needs a larger motivator than just money, if that makes sense.
	Yeah.
	Um, I had one more question.
	Um, as for young men like in their early twenties, what do you think a proper balance of dating and enjoying life and business and making money is?
	Because I feel like I have all the opportunities to work on my own.
	I'm not really sure how to balance it correctly without feeling like I'm missing out or not capitalizing on my younger days of being able to work really hard and have like being able to go out and and be in public and socialize.
	I mean, it's a great question.
	And what I would say is that, you know, people get outraged when the wife of an entrepreneur, let's say they get divorced or something and she walks away with millions of dollars, right?
	And people are like, Oh, that's so terrible.
	She didn't do anything.
	I can virtually guarantee you that's not true.
	I think what you say is the pursuit of money is somehow opposed to romantic love.
	What I would argue is that if you really want to succeed, having a girlfriend or a spouse who's in your corner, you can bounce ideas off, you can get good feedback, they can watch your back, they can watch your weaknesses, they can give you good counsel, that is not in opposition to your success.
	That is an essential component of your success.
	Now, of course, if she's an entrepreneur, you can do the same thing with her.
	But you know, this behind every great man, there's a good woman or behind every good man, there's a great woman or whatever, however it's phrased, that's very real.
	So I think what you're doing is saying, well, there's all this money making and then there's all of these, I don't know what, frivolous women who are going to distract me from all of that and go to the club and spend my money on bottle service and that's going to end.
	No, no, no.
	You get someone in your life who's committed to your happiness, your goals, your dreams.
	You're committed to her happiness, her goals and her dreams and you both encourage each other and give each other good counsel for maximum success.
	But yeah, just don't look for frivolous people if you're engaged in serious work.
	Okay.
	Do you mind if I ask another question?
	Yeah, go ahead.
	So I know like you being.
	a little older, you kind of haven't seen what it's like the dating scene anymore.
	And I feel like me and I've talked to a couple of my friends and they and we haven't really we don't run into too many girls that would be considered like stable people.
	And I don't know where to find them particularly to like I've had friends that have girlfriends from work and they still say, oh, they're manageable with their with their emotional volatility and things like that.
	Where would you recommend people that don't marry people from like high school or people from the church from a church where to find viable people?
	And are you, you're not a religious man yourself, is that right?
	No.
	Okay.
	Do you play any sports?
	Um, no, not recently.
	Um, I used to play lacrosse.
	Okay.
	I mean, getting involved in sports leagues is at least going to have active, healthy, fit women who have gone through the discipline of sports.
	You know, sports is a really, really good metric or measure of someone's quality, right?
	Do they, do they handle losses?
	Can they work together in a team?
	Uh, are they enthusiastic?
	Uh, are they willing to push a boundaries are they willing to make mistakes right i mean uh i met my wife playing volleyball she's all 5 foot one and a half and you know but she gamely you know threw herself into uh trying to spike trying to set up and and you know and i just i really admired that and that would like to be like me playing basketball with twelve foot tall people even think about it is kind of crazy right and so if you're in the sports realm and you're playing sort of uh in some sort of uh a
	sports league or something like that then you'll meet women who probably have good fathers who have gone through if they have any sports history have gone through teamwork team play and learning how to train with discipline and lose gracefully and yet still want to win to try to win hard and then shake the other team's hands no matter what.
	And so I think there's a lot of quality to be found in sports.
	And there's nothing wrong with attending church for me if you believe in the morals.
	And, you know, myself and Christian morality overlap very significantly.
	So, you know, I think people would rather have people in church who believe and practice the morals rather than believe in God but don't practice the morals.
	And so I don't think there's anything wrong with going to church if you're not convinced of the existence of God, if the morals are things that you pursue and follow and respect, then you'll have the overlap in that way.
	So yeah, I think sports and church is probably a pretty good place to go.
	And, you know, just don't don't just go for the uber bad hotties, right?
	That's that's just not going to work out.
	Oh, there.
	That's it.
	Well, thanks, man.
	I appreciate that.
	And let me know if you can.
	You can drop me a line at host hosd at freedomain dot com.
	Let me know how the entrepreneurial stuff is going.
	And I wish you the very best of luck.
	All right.
	Thanks.
	Thanks, man.
	Josh, if you want to unmute., I'm happy to take your question.
	Or is Josh going the way of the dodo?
	Josh, Josh, Josh.
	Go on once, go on twice.
	Oh, Arthur, I really appreciated your feedback on my post about the fashion industry.
	I just wanted to mention that since I see you here in the audience, I really do appreciate that.
	Thank you very much.
	All right.
	Josh, go on once, go on twice.
	Nanya.
	People's usernames blow my gourd.
	Nanya, what's on your mind?
	Yeah, it's a quick question.
	When it comes to these X spaces, for some reason, it always shows me like I'm near the top or the very top.
	I'm just thinking maybe this is an ego trick or something, but does this show everyone who first comes in or stays in a room is just near the top, no matter what, or is this just like literally I am on top in the room.
	I'm not sure what you mean.
	Do you mean in terms of people who want to talk or people who are just listening?
	Uh, no, I just mean like my icon, my profile picture is on top in the room like almost every time I join.
	So I was just wondering like if that's just like because I don't know.
	I've never hosted a space and had a bunch of people on it.
	So I just don't know how to tell like, you know, I'm just not really sure how that works.
	Does that help?
	Uh, yeah, I would suggest asking Grock about that.
	I have no idea how X prioritizes people's stuff.
	So, all right.
	No White.
	No White.
	What is on your mind, my friend?
	Greetings.
	Hello.
	Nice to talk.
	Yeah, first, I'd just like to mention, you know, I hope people recognize like what you, what you're bringing with this focus on philosophy and reason and rationale, that you're one of the few voices.
	really injecting that into the, you know, the public space.
	And it's critical because, you know, Western civilization really went off on emotion.
	I think, you know, if you boil it down, you know, essentially it was a prioritization of emotion over reason, ration and, you know, logic.
	So, you know, Free No Man is it's been a long time listener, loved it for, you know, many years.
	And I might just recount a couple of things that I think that I just loved from the Nailed.
	Do you remember your coverage of the Ahmad Arbery case?
	I do.
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	It was that was, you know, it always sucked out because your coverage was really good.
	Of course, the rest of the coverage was always, you know, biased and this and that whatever.
	But we were able to drill because it was a complex scenario, you know, the way that everything took place and, you know, you really drilled down to the truth of the matter.
	I love that.
	That was a really good one.
	Oh, thank you.
	Yeah.
	Another one was you had a caller, I think like an Israeli caller, and you were talking about immigration.
	And, you know, he was totally in favor of it when it was, like, into the West.
	But when you asked Simokyo, what about immigration, mass immigration, let's say, to Israel?
	He like, went silent.
	Well, no, and I remember that one because it's funny because that was a complete potato cam.
	I wasn't in the studio.
	I actually just happened to set up an old cell phone to record that.
	So it was kind of fortuitous.
	But yeah, so he was saying, look, you can't judge other cultures in some sort of generic way.
	And then when I said, well, you know, what about immigration to Israel?
	And he was like, well, but they all want to kill us.
	I'm like, no, no, no, you can't.
	I thought you just said you couldn't judge all these cultures.
	So, yeah, that was, I remember that one.
	And I think that's been floating around for a while.
	And I think that's, you know, looking for contradictory standards is kind of the job of the philosopher.
	And it is, of course, the Socratic reasoning thing.
	Totally, totally nailed it.
	Yeah, big red pill.
	I remember just like listening and going, really?
	Oh, wow, I can't.
	So this is really what, you know, people can hold this contradictory of perspectives and not really be aware of it or admit it anyway.
	So, you know, I guess my question is I have, I might as well as ask a question.
	I'm interested in your, like, what's your big, biggest solution for what the West faces?
	Is it essentially what you're doing, bringing reason to the forefront or is there something more we need to be doing to save the decay of the West?
	Well, I mean, my big focus for twenty years has been peaceful parenting and there's certainly been a lot of success in that, fighting the antinatalism.
	So people with a lot of empathy and people with a lot of intelligence are easy to frighten about the future.
	And when you frighten people about the future, I was talking about that this morning.
	So just touching on it very briefly here.
	When you frighten people about the future, whether it's a nuclear war, environmental catastrophe or just a general sense of, of, of, of, of bad things that are happening, depopulation, and oh my god, there's going to be fewer people.
	It's like, well, we got AI, robots.
	What do you know all these people for?
	But then what happens is you provoke hedonism, and normally hedonism, or what I call R-selected, or what I think it was Jensen and other people have called R-selected behavior, then normally you end up with a high birth rate, you know, like rabbits have more babies than wolves do.
	But because of birth control and abortion, you end up provoking people into hedonism and hypersexual behavior without the resulting high birth rates, which is a really tragic thing.
	So I think certainly focusing on reason, focusing on facts and evidence is important because sophists really like to move the goalposts to the area of emotionality, right?
	And the reason they do that is because you can manipulate people's emotions in a way that you can't manipulate reason.
	Like a false argument is just a false argument.
	But if you can move people to emotions and people are run by fear and greed, fear and greed, fear and greed.
	So they're greedy for moral approval.
	So you deliver that if they obey you and they're afraid of moral condemnation.
	So you attack them if they disobey you.
	And it's really important to remember that the people in charge of most of the society.
	They don't bat an eye to just make up whatever standard they make up to pursue power no matter what, to lie, to slander, to cheat.
	They will do anything to maintain their power because they're addicts, right?
	And addicts will lie, cheat, steal to get the substance they're addicted to, whether it's gambling, sex, heroin, power.
	In this case, power is one of the ultimate drug addictions.
	And they've actually done these tests on, I think, as Macau monkeys that when they climb up the hierarchy, they get more dopamine, like it is actually addictive.
	And so, yeah, addicts.
	I look at the people in charge, you know, politics and the media and other things for the most part as just absolute addicts.
	And there are exceptions.
	Of course, I'm not including Ron Paul and people like that in these circumstances.
	But yeah, they're absolute addicts and addicts would just lie, cheat and steal.
	And the best way for a sophist to gain control of a population is to move them from reason to emotion because reason is what allows you to resist being attacked or bribed.
	Right?
	The stick and the carrot is what motivates most people, like animals, right?
	Like it's how you train them, right?
	You give the dog a swat on the butt or you give it a treat to get it to do what you want.
	And how is it that?
	we can oppose the base of the brain mammalian incentives of punishment and reward?
	How can we do that?
	Well, the only way we can do that is reason and evidence.
	That's the only way that we can push back against the emotional bullying and bribery of moral condemnation or empty praise.
	So peaceful parenting, a focus on pushing forward reason and evidence, and hopefully, as I do, and hopefully as you do, provide some examples of moral courage that can inspire other people to tell the truth and to help people understand that being unpopular.
	It's a whole lot better than your entire culture being plowed under.
	So it's well worth it.
	Okay.
	Well, thank you.
	Sorry, is there anything else that you wanted to mention?
	Yeah, I appreciate that.
	And thank you so much for listening.
	I really do appreciate that, especially the length of your time.
	Arthur, Arthur, Kwan, what's on your mind, my friend?
	I know there's a little bit of a delay.
	Don't forget to unmute if there's anything you want to talk about.
	Oh, hey, Stephon, can you hear me okay?
	Yes, sir.
	What's your name?
	Hey, well, first of all, it's an honor to talk to you, man.
	I've been following you for a while and you're one of the goats, man.
	So I just appreciate you, number one.
	Listen, man, I love being called a goat.
	All I can say is thank you.
	Oh, oh, dad joke inflicted.
	See, all your respect has now completely evaporated.
	And I, it's one of the things that I do in my public life is build that praise and then destroy it with one well titled.
	Perfect, perfect.
	That's the only way to do it.
	But you know, I there's a couple of things I want to run by you.
	Number one is, you know, I did work in the art industry as we as we as I commented on one of your posts here.
	And it is true that there is this, this attempt, whether it's, you know, Hollywood entertainment, my industry with the fine art sphere, but there's this.
	cultural obsession about inverting the genders and obviously like making women look less soft, making men more feminine in their appearance.
	And what do you think?
	Because I have my own theories on this, but what is your take on this?
	Is it just because culture is a weapon and this is what they're trying to utilize as a bludgeon?
	Well, I think there's a certain amount of what can you get people to repeat?
	And there's a certain amount of power in that, right?
	So I mean, this goes all the way back to one of my favorite fairy tales, which is the Emperor's New Clothes, right?
	So the king has these tailors., uh, who say, Oh, I've got the most beautiful habit, but only people who are competent to do their job can see it.
	And because everyone wants to believe that they're competent and doesn't want to say that they're incompetent, everyone admires the naked king's clothes, quote clothes, right?
	And so just it is a mark of power to get people to say things that they don't believe.
	And so it's one of the things to just get people to repeat stuff that they don't believe that is kind of absurd on the surface is just what people love to do when they have power.
	It gets them off.
	It's a I think it's a quasi sexual thrill.
	It's a sadist dominance thing.
	You know, like when I was a kid.
	would be fighting with another kid, the way that you would signal your surrender, not that I ever had to, but I saw it, right?
	So you would say, Uncle, Uncle.
	And when you say, Uncle, that means you submit.
	Dogs do it too.
	They bare their throat at the dominant dogs, so basically saying, You can rip out my throat if you want.
	I've submitted.
	I'm not going to fight you anymore.
	And so we get kind of a thrill at dominating.
	But how do you know if you've dominated someone?
	Well, you get them to say things that are patently absurd or that they don't believe.
	And that gives you a thrill of power because they'd only be doing that because you can punish them if they don't.
	So everyone cheers the king.
	Why?
	Because the king can throw them in prison.
	If the king's just a dude in a weird hat, right?
	But everyone cheers him and says, Oh, he's the greatest thing ever.
	That's just a mark of his power.
	So I think that, you know, maybe the inversion of the genders has something to do with like everybody knows that, you know, some 98 pound woman cannot beat up three 200 pound guys.
	Like everybody knows that.
	It doesn't matter how much karate she's taken.
	What was the on the whatever podcast, some woman tried to take down that black guy and he just stood up and shrugged her off and she had all this.
	All this Krav Maga or whatever it was, right?
	And but to say that that's possible, to say that that can happen is just a mark of dominance.
	It's just a mark of getting people to say things that are obviously false, which gives you the thrill of, oh my gosh, look how much power I have over people.
	I can get them to say absurd things and and and and smile and and believe it.
	And I think, sorry, the last thing I'll say is I think people who, you know, I think the other experience that people have, if you're some cantankerous old bastard who's got, you know, ten billion dollars to dole out when he dies, then you get all these family members to come and kiss the ring, right?
	Because, oh, grandpa, grandpa, you're the greatest thing ever.
	I miss you so much.
	And you know, you can'tankerous old king leader type bastard, but people will come and kiss the ring.
	It gives you a thrill of power because you've got the money that they want.
	So sorry, go ahead.
	Oh, no, no.
	I was, uh, I was going to add on to that.
	Um, you know, I'm in this telegram group with all these artists who essentially have dealt with censorship of one form or another.
	There's 32 of us in this chat group, right?
	And all of us basically get penalized if we depict anything masculine or anything that's pro freedom.
	Like, it needs to basically fit into their narrative.
	And another thing I noticed, and this is going to pertain to the previous guy you spoke to, is that, like, we're all case selected in this chat group.
	and we all get reprimanded by the industry.
	And I guess my, I guess a question I often think about is if we need more people with these upright values producing children, you know, what is your, I know I'm kind of going all over the map, but like, how do we get the,
	the, the people who, who are proper, who want to see social cohesion, who, who are for peaceful parenting, how do we get people like us to procreate at, you know, at even a fraction of the numbers that we see all these, uh, these useful idiots producing, you know, because this has been something that's, that's difficult for me to contest because eventually., we're just going to get breeded out, right?
	Well, I mean, we just don't want the pendulum to swing, right?
	So as you know from the Pareto principle, society's productivity rests on like twelve guys.
	You know, like the entirety of productivity rests on like, I mean, obviously that makes it aggravating, but it ain't that many.
	It ain't that many.
	Like if you've got a million people, a thousand of those million, and this is not a million of the total population, this is a million people who are out there in their jobs working.
	If you've got a million people out there in the world, one thousand of those are producing half the value.
	And so it's.
	what we survive on, it's this massive inverted pyramid.
	And if smart people don't reproduce, the system collapses because the less smart people can't produce enough.
	You have some brilliant kind of reassuring, I'm not gonna lie.
	Yeah, it's it's it's there's just no way that smart people are going to be outbred because and this is part of the atlas shrug thing right which is the smart people would just go on strike and then when the smart people go on strike i mean obviously they'll try and replicate that capacity with robots and stuff like that But the average people and the unintelligent people simply won't be able to produce enough to feed themselves or to maintain the complex systems of plumbing
	and sewage and water treatment and electricity and all of the stuff that goes on.
	But I mean, what can I do?
	I mean, so what I remind people, of course, is that parenting is a very skilled business and parenting intelligent children is the greatest joy because, and listen, nothing wrong with less intelligent children, but I would not be a good father to a less intelligent.
	I'd just get too impatient.
	I would just get too, and I'd try to be patient, but it would just be teeth gritting the whole, the whole time.
	I mean, I really take delight in my daughter's intelligence and her challenges and the fact that she's smarter than me in some areas and i know that that sounds self-deprecatory but it's actually kind of true so yeah so uh so you know parenting is a great deal of fun uh and it's a skilled uh thing and generally uh it's easier to uh frighten smart people because intelligence arises out of anxiety which is you know this is the winter
	thing right i mean i think your people come from siberia my people come from northern Europe and Siberia, it's even worse, right?
	I think this is why the East Asians tend to be smarter than the whites.
	It's because like your winter swirmer And so intelligence comes out of anxiety.
	Oh my God, do I have enough food for the winter?
	Am I going to be able to hunt?
	Have I got enough stored up?
	Have I figured out how to preserve meat in a way that is like, it comes out of anxiety.
	And so because intelligence comes out of anxiety, in other words, the people who weren't anxious didn't make it.
	Then because intelligence comes out of anxiety, smart people are very easy to frighten, right?
	Because it comes out of fear.
	The whole intelligence thing comes out of fear.
	And so this is why, you know, all of this doom porn and doom scrolling and end of the world stuff and, and, you know, I mean, the number of scares that I've lived through and, you know, I'm not the oldest person on the planet may seem like that way to the younger people, but I'm telling you, it's not true.
	So, I mean, we were going to run out of food by 1980, we were going to run out of oil by 1985, there was going to be global freezing, then there was going to be global warming, then there was going to be acid rain, and then there was a hole in the ozone layer was opening up and we were all going to get microwaved by the sun and of course the nuclear war and, you know, all of kinds, I mean, even Y2K, right?
	So it's, and of course, it's moved on to sort of other things now.
	Now everyone's terrified of, you know, white supremacy and there's all these other programmed things, even though there are lots of racial groups out there who believe that they're number one, but it's only ever white supremacy that's talked about.
	Yeah, so we need more white babies, brother.
	That's just Well, that's the Jesse Lee Peterson argument, right?
	But yeah, I mean, but you know, it's, it's, we just, we've got to have, I'll tell you like what you said is really, uh, comforting.
	Of course, the parental distribution really conforms.
	it for, you know, the scaling of society.
	That's great.
	But, um, I just, I just sometimes worry because, you know, um, in my travels as an exhibiting artist, like, I go to these cities and I just see, you know, you'll just, as you drive, you'll see, like, these two, uh, I'm not going to get too specific, but they'll have, like, they'll have, like, twelve kids and it's, and it's a little dysfunctional and they're just, like, throtting them out.
	And, um, you know, then I see my neighbor here and, uh, or even myself, I'll use, like, I'm really late to the game in that regard.
	You know what I mean?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Very late.
	I get it.
	Yeah.
	And, and so what happens, of course, as I mentioned earlier, is you frighten smart people and they become more hid hedonistic, which normally would produce more kids, right?
	Because if you're in an uncertain environment for survival, the best way to survive is to have more kids, which is why fear and trauma leads to heightened sexual drives, early menstruation and hypersexuality and so on, because nature is like, oh man, if this is really uncertain and dangerous environment, we better have a lot of kids.
	And so, yeah, so it's easy to goose people into hedonism, but because of birth control and abortion, we don't get the resulting high population.
	So just trying to calm people's minds about things.
	And, you know, there's a line from an old series I watched as a kid called WKRP in Cincinnati where the older couple, she gets pregnant and he.
	And he's like, oh, these are troubled times.
	And he's like, she's like, people have been saying that for like five thousand years.
	And it is a great time to be alive, to be able to have these kinds of conversations.
	It is certainly the best time in human history to be a philosopher, which is why I'm very humble about the opportunities that I've been given and what I can do.
	I can talk about peaceful parenting, how much fun it is to raise kids.
	I can do shows with my daughter to show just how engaging and enjoyable our relationship is.
	I can tell people to pursue that.
	I can tell people stop worrying about being the third poorest generation, sorry, only the third wealthiest generation in the history of humanity and thinking you don't have enough.
	And just because your parents are wealthy doesn't mean that you get to have a big house when you're twenty.
	So just reminding people that there are still good men and women out there that you don't need a lot of money to have fun with your kids.
	And it is a noble thing.
	And just take away people's selfishness, you know, just you have responsibilities bigger than yourself because you're only alive because other people took on responsibilities bigger than themselves.
	So, you know, and then just keep plowing forward with the pro-natalism stuff and take away the idea that I'm starting to make my content more towards that as well.
	And I've been incessantly shadow shadow banded and all that jazz that you're completely aware of as well.
	But, you know, just we have to get people to we have to get the good people to reproduce, you know?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, copy paste, copy paste, copy paste.
	And especially, you know, and I talked about this with regard to my ancestors, I obviously I think the same thing is true for your ancestors as well, is that, you know, they suffered so enormously to give us this gift of life that to not pay it forward is shockingly ungrateful.
	It is like taking ten million dollars that your ancestors have bled and died for and blowing it all on hookers and LSD and then just blowing all the money.
	It's like it's shockingly ungrateful for the gift of life and we really do have to work hard to pay it forward.
	So I think a combination of just the carrot and the stick, right?
	I mean, I'm making all the reasoned cases for sure, but the carrot is how fun parenting is and how satisfying it is.
	And the stick is, you're kind of an egoist pig if you don't even at least try.
	Right.
	Well, well, Stephan, listen, thank you so much for your time, man.
	And just, you know, big fan, you know, you're a goat so bad.
	We'll leave it at that.
	Go on.
	Okay, thanks man, I appreciate that.
	Of course, bye.
	All right.
	Taleb, if you would like to take us home, I can take you as the last question tonight, and I really do appreciate everyone's time, care and attention this evening.
	Freedom.com slash donate.
	I won't even say help keep the show commercial free, because I'm never going to put commercials in.
	I really want to focus on you, the audience, not I want to be in the business of delivering truth to the audience, not the audience to an advertiser.
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	Taleb, are you with me?
	Friend.
	Yes, how are you?
	I'm well, thanks.
	How are you doing?
	I'm good, I'm good.
	So I have a lot of questions.
	I wanted to talk about there's a post that you've made.
	Let me just read it for you.
	Because women can control good guys, they also think they can control bad guys.
	This turns good guys into bad guys.
	We are almost there.
	So I would want you to explain that point deeper, because I do not understand it properly.
	Sure, I get that.
	That's a little cryptic and I appreciate some.
	Some of them are designed to be thought provoking and not provide answers.
	So what I mean by that is.
	So when, let's say, a woman, she flirts a lot with men.
	She's very flirty and she goes out for dinner with them.
	She goes back to their houses, go back to their apartments or whatever.
	And then at times she says, I don't want to have sex.
	Now, 19 guys out of 20, maybe 99 out of 100 will be like, okay, that's fine.
	You know, obviously, that's great, you know, and drive you home and make sure you get home safely and all of that.
	So because women have great influence over good men, they think that they also have that same degree of influence over bad men.
	So women can control.
	And by control, I'm not talking about anything nefarious.
	It's just that, you know, good men care about the thoughts and feelings and sensitivities of women.
	And so what happens then is this sort of well-known phenomenon, particularly for single women, that single women keep voting in people who keep turning criminals loose on society.
	And it's like, it's hard to imagine why that is the case, but I think it's because women grow up being deferred to by good men.
	And this gives them a lot of power over good men.
	And then they meet a bad man.
	And I think it's deeply shocking to them, if they even do.
	And if they don't, then they imagine that their great feminine power and wiles will work just as well on bad men as it does on good men.
	But it doesn't, because bad men don't care about the power of women.
	They don't care to defer to women.
	They'll just exploit them and control them and bully them and so on.
	And so the problem is when men get friend zoned because they're really nice guys.
	and then they see women perhaps dating more or deferring more or going more along with bad men, then what happens is, and you can see this happening in the manosphere, is they say, well., if women like bad boys, then being all kinds of deferential and gentlemanly and all of that is a bad idea.
	It doesn't get me the right kind of female attention.
	And I think being overly deferential to women, like being overly deferential to anyone, is a bad idea.
	I think we owe women not deference, but honesty and responsibility.
	But I think that men are swinging from being overly deferential, that is to say chivalrous, to being less deferential, which is a good thing.
	I don't want men to swing too far and turn into bad guys, but that definitely is a danger, if that makes sense.
	Yeah.
	So are you, are you saying, uh, in other words, that a woman would, uh, a woman would try as much as possible to keep a man that tries forcing her to have sex with her compared to the guy that just let it slide when she refuses it?
	Well, it depends, I mean, obviously it depends on things like whether she's on birth control.
	When a woman is on birth control, uh, she tends to be drawn to a softer and more feminine men.
	And when she's off birth control, she tends to be drawn towards more assertive or even aggressive men.
	Now, I don't think that women love, of course, or have positive responses unless they're very mentally ill to men who are sexually aggressive.
	I think that's very unhealthy.
	But there is something where women have a very odd relationship to criminals.
	I mean, again, there's tons of exceptions.
	This is very much a generality.
	But women don't tend to understand the dangers of criminals.
	They tend to think, well, if you just love them or if you hug them or if you give them the right rehabilitation programs, you can turn them into good guys.
	And that's because they have so much influence over good guys that they think they can control bad guys.
	And so if a woman is drawn.
	to a man who's very aggressive, she thinks she can control him with her femininity, but it doesn't tend to be the case.
	And I think that is dangerous.
	And when good men see women deferring to aggressive men, then that's bad.
	Oh, I get it.
	And do you actually think that women really are interested with men respecting them?
	Well, I mean, there's what people say and then there's what people do or actually respond to.
	So women say that they want respect and deference, but then they also.
	seem to be very positive and sympathetic towards men who don't have that level of respect and deference towards them.
	So an example I would cite, and it sounds silly, but given that it is the most popular fiction book in human history, Fifty Shades of Grey.
	So Fifty Shades of Grey is about a woman who controls a bad man through her sexuality.
	Because this is a guy who enjoys beating women.
	He enjoys violence towards women.
	Now, of course, you say, oh, it's contractual, it's consensual.
	But that's all the fig leaves, right?
	This is a violent man who enjoys beating and humiliating and degrading women.
	This is what a Christian Grey grade, right?
	But this woman who's of average attractiveness and who works in a hardware store is nothing particularly special.
	She is able to control him and his wealth through his sexual desire for her.
	He becomes reformed, he becomes rehabilitated, he becomes mentally healthier to some degree, although the film still closes, the third one still closes with them going to his torture dungeon and her smiling because she's in control of him.
	So women believe that through the power of their sexuality, through the power of their femininity, they can manage and reform a bad man.
	bad men, right?
	In this case, a guy who's into sadistic sexual practices.
	And women love this story.
	They don't sit there and say, oh, God, this is horrible.
	This is an example of a woman who's enslaved to a patriarchy.
	They went absolutely insane over this story and, and, and, again, made it the most popular fiction book in human history.
	So men, I mean, we can't miss that.
	We can't look at that and say, okay, so what women talk about in terms of respect and equality and chivalry and deference.
	Well, this guy, Christian Gray, is the sexiest thing since sliced bread.
	And he's, you know, she's willing to submit to all of this brutality because he's so, he's so attractive.
	So again, there's what women say and then what men see women actually responding to.
	Now again, I'm not saying all women, but again, the most popular fiction book in human history or even Twilight, I think, sorry, Fifty Shades of Grey came out of the Twilight.
	I think it started off as Twilight fanfiction.
	But even if you look at Twilight, right, there's a guy who's very aggressive and but her sexiness to him, her, his lust for her, you know, makes him a better person.
	and she reforms his coarseness and his animalistic predatory nature with her loins and her lust and her whatever, right?
	So this reformation through sexual lust is really foundational to a lot of women's romance.
	I'm so sorry, you were about to say, go ahead.
	No, yeah, I was about to ask you another question.
	I'm from Kenya, and I have realized that our society is full of poor people with so many children compared to rich people who are only getting one.
	one or two kids so I've always believed that it's it's it's like rich men are being controlled by their women do not want to give birth to the kind of kids they would want them to have.
	I mean the number, not the kind.
	So what's your take on that?
	Do you think, do you think women actually control their rich husbands not to have a certain number of kids compared to poor men who are getting more kids than the rich?
	Well, I think that's very interesting.
	So I don't know much about I've actually been to Kenya, believe it or not, but I don't know much about it because it was many years ago.
	So in Kenya, is there a welfare state?
	Is there redistribution of wealth?
	If there's a single mother, does she get money from the government?
	No, there's nothing like that.
	So if a woman has a child outside of wedlock, how does she survive?
	How does she pay for her child or her children?
	It depends.
	She can work to raise her child by herself or she can sue the man to pay child support.
	But in most cases, most women who are having kids and do not have husbands, they tend to just work and raise the kid themselves.
	Because they may have these kids with broken men.
	No, but who takes, I mean, if the woman's got to work and there's a baby, who takes care of someone's got to take, is it the grandmother or who takes care of the baby?
	She leaves the baby with the mother.
	With her mother.
	Yes.
	Okay, got it, got it.
	All right, so I do think that it's a funny thing in history, of course.
	In history, wealthier men tended to have more babies that survived.
	And this has been sort of fairly well studied throughout history that the wealthier you are, the more children you have.
	And this generally tends to raise the intelligence level of society as a whole because on average, people who are wealthy tend to be a little bit more intelligent and given that there's some element of gentleness
	And Mike Judge made a comedy, I think, in 2007 called Idiocracy about how less intelligent people don't really think that much about the future and they just, you know, have a bunch of kids and figure it out, whereas smart people are like, oh, well, you know the market and I got to finish my education and, you know, I don't have enough savings and, and they tend to worry or fret or be concerned about these things.
	think that I think there's some truth in what you're saying about, not that this means it's true, I'm just I think I agree with you that the children are And I think that's because in part they want to enjoy the fruits of the man's money.
	I wrote a parody of these kinds of women in one of my novels called The God of Atheists.
	The ladies who lunch, right?
	They want to go and they want to go to the spa, they want to have nice lunches, and they don't necessarily want to be wrangling and raising six kids.
	And so I do think that a lot of the wives of rich men prefer having fewer children.
	And I actually even knew a family once where there were only two kids and the mother didn't work.
	work and she demanded a nanny for the children.
	And it's like, what?
	Why would you have a nanny if there's only two kids and you don't work at a job?
	Why on earth would you need a nanny?
	But I think it's because she preferred to have, you know, maybe longer lunches and maybe she had some hobbies that she preferred and so on.
	But I do think that if you have money, I think you should spend it, if at all possible, on having a bunch of kids and that is more work for your wife.
	But isn't that sort of what the money's for, is to be fertile, if that makes sense?
	Yeah, another point concerning kids who are from rich homes.
	So do you do you actually think that men raised from poor homes and men raised from rich families?
	I mean, in which of the two would you prefer your son to be from?
	Because there's a there's a podcast that I was listening to and there's a guy that was being asked what is your biggest fear.
	Then he said that my biggest fear is that I am rich and my sons are going to grow up in that environment which is going to make them grow up very lazy.
	Right, right.
	No, I'm only asking, I'm only asking that because in my village, I realized that in most homes that are well off, the kids tend to turn out to turn out, I mean, the kids tend to turn out to be very useless compared to homes that Yes.
	Yeah, no, tell them, that's a great question and comment.
	And there are entire books that are devoted and sections of bookstores that are devoted to how to have your kids grow up to not be a holes if you happen to have money to be lazy and entitled and so on.
	And this in part is just it's the cycle of the classes, which is poor kids are hungry and lean and ambitious and desperately want to escape poverty.
	So if they have any kind of ability, they'll work like dogs to get out of poverty.
	And so they'll generally tend to become wealthier, whereas the kids of rich families tend to be kind of entitled and vain and lazy and take things for granted.
	And so the wealth passes from the wealthier to the less wealthy.
	I mean, there's the old Arab proverb, right?
	Which is, you know, like my grandfather walked, my father rode a camel, I ride a Buick and my children will walk, right?
	Or in America, they call it shirt sleeves to shirt sleeves in three generations, that you have a job where you don't have to have a suit, and then your kids, they have a job where they wear a suit, and then their kids are back to manual labor because they can't maintain it.
	And how do you teach children the value of money when you can't, as a parent, make the excuse, quote, we can't afford it?
	And so it is a big challenge.
	And I think the families that are the most successful, if they've had financial success, are those families where the kids genuinely understand and appreciate the value of money, which is not an easy thing.
	Because most people who are poor, So it's pretty obvious that money has value because when it's not there, you really notice it.
	But the kids of rich families, yeah, it's, uh, it's tough to keep that same level of effort and energy and all of that.
	And, uh, maybe that's another reason why they have fewer kids, so that their inheritance doesn't get diluted and wasted on a bunch of drunken bottle service, prostitute nonsense or whatever goes on for rich kids.
	But yeah, it's all the rich kids who, uh, are doing selfies on yachts, uh, in the Caribbean and so on, private jets all over the place.
	I mean, first of all, their parents should never allow that.
	or pay for any of that nonsense.
	And kids should learn the value of money by having jobs and paying for their own things as soon as reasonably and humanly possible.
	But I think a lot of parents who work a lot and make a lot of money feel guilty about not having spent as much time with their kids as they should, and then it's the classic thing where you try to buy your kids' allegiance and love by giving them a bunch of money.
	And also, of course, if you grow up wealthy and all of your friends are jetting all over the place and have yachts and all this kinds of nonsense, then what is your kid supposed to do?
	Like never go anywhere?
	I mean, so that's a sort of peer-inforced hyperspending or something like that.
	But yeah, it is a big challenge for people who have a lot of money.
	How do you have your kids recognize the value of money?
	Because if you make it and they blow it, what was the point?
	So do you think the same effect that that has on boys is the same with what it gets on girls?
	Ah, it's interesting.
	So I think with girls, I think with boys and girls, the problem is status.
	So if you have high status for things you did not earn, it.
	it tends to inflame your vanity and destroy your common sense and maybe even your ethics.
	So if a girl happens to be born beautiful, I mean, you know, good for you.
	There's nothing wrong with beauty.
	That's fine.
	But she's just lucky and she didn't really earn it in that way.
	And if you happen to be born into a wealthy family, I mean, there were, there were, I remember these guys in my high school.
	I won't get into any details, but their father was crazy wealthy.
	And.
	you know, on their 16th birthday, they drove to school in their brand new convertible Camaros or whatever they had.
	And I remember, because I wrote a play in high school and one of the guys was in it, and we went to his place to rehearse they had like two swimming pools they had an indoor pool and an outdoor pool and the house just went on and on forever and it was crazy this is absolutely nuts so they had all of this status which they did not earn and when you have high status for something you didn't earn it tends to kill your work ethic i mean i'm not sure where you were and
	you can certainly can share if you want i was born you know, not right at the bottom of society, but only one or two layers up from the bottom of society.
	That gave me a lot of ambition.
	I really wanted to work hard.
	I really wanted to, you know, succeed in whatever it is that I was doing.
	And because I hated the low status thing.
	I hated the being broke thing.
	I hated the, you know, when my friends came over, all I could offer them was water, tap water.
	Like I couldn't even offer them any pop or we never had any of that sort of stuff at the house, really.
	Or if there was a scrap or two of pop, I had to give them so much ice that it might as well have been a hockey arena.
	So I hated that low status stuff.
	And if you get all of this high status stuff because your parents are paying for stuff and you have all of this, then that's, that's really, it's hard to work.
	Like if I had, you know, Jack Reacher style muscles without ever working out.
	It'd be pretty tough to motivate myself to go to the gym, if that makes sense.
	But you know, I don't think women need to actually be motivated to succeed in life.
	They just have to be women compared to men that have to work hard to be wherever they will be.
	Well, but I would say that women do have to work to some degree to maintain and enhance their attractiveness.
	Because, you know, your daddy's rich, your mum is good looking is kind of a cliché.
	And it's true, right?
	So I think that women do need to work.
	And of course, women, to any man who's successful and competent, a woman, if he wants to have a happy and productive marriage, a woman needs to show him not only that she's attractive and can maintain a healthy weight, which is sort of an IQ test, but also that she is a competent person who can raise his children well and run his household so that he can focus on whatever he's doing to make money.
	And that aspect of things where a woman has to show her intelligence and her competence in order for a quality man to recognize and respect and commit to her.
	I think that's important.
	So I think women have to do more than just be ornamental or to be, you know, to have boobs or to be sexy or whatever it is.
	I mean, that's kind of trashy standard.
	I'm not saying that's your standard, of course, right?
	But.
	course right but i think that a competent man is going to look for a competent woman who's going to do a good job of running his household raising his children and uh he she also needs to be an asset in the business world so uh when i was in the business world who i dated mattered because if this if i dated a woman who could not present well in a business environment i would lose status and it would harm my capa my my capacity for success.
	So I think women do need to work on, you know, being good conversationalists and understanding how to deal with rich and successful people and how to be high status for her husband and how to run a good household, maybe be a good cook, how to raise children, particularly if they're homeschooled.
	So I think that women do need a fair amount of competence for quality men to choose them.
	And if a man just wants some, you know, curvacious piece of butt, that's a different matter.
	But I don't think that that's going to, that means the money's probably not going to stay in the family.
	So with the way the society is shifting and the goalpost is changing over time, what do you think is the fate of the relationship between the man and the woman in the near future?
	Let's give it even the next 20 years.
	Oh, yeah.
	No, it's going to be great.
	It's going to be great because the governments around the world, again, I don't know much about Kenya's fiscal situation, but certainly here in the West, governments are going to run out of money.
	And when governments run out of money, women won't be able to get free money from the government, and therefore they'll have to be nicer to men.
	It's just a fact.
	And so this horrible, weird psychosis of the infinite money glitch that's characterized the last 100 years, where governments can just create money out of thin air, you know, like your neighbors in Zimbabwe did some decades ago.
	So if governments.
	can just print all the money in the known universe, then they can buy the allegiance of women, and women don't have to be nice to men any more than men have to buy flowers for prostitutes.
	So women have turned away from their natural allegiance to their providers and protectors, because their providers and protectors are the state.
	But when the state runs out of money, well, then they're going to come back to the men.
	I hope that the men will find a way to forgive them.
	Because if they don't, our birth rate is going to really collapse.
	But I think that is the challenge.
	But I think things will improve as the government runs out of money.
	Yeah, you know, I was only asking that because I've realized that over time, the whole concept of marriage has completely diminished.
	Most people are no longer embarking in that.
	So I wanted to understand, are you foreseeing a scenario where in the next thirty years, marriage is going to be more rampant than it used to be in the older days?
	Well, sure.
	I mean, people don't need to have as many kids because they think the government is going to pay for their retirement and their health care costs and provide them with nurses and all kinds of stuff.
	When the government runs out of money, then people will say, well, it's family, not the government that's going to take care of of us.
	So we're going to have to get married and we're going to have to get our security through our relationships and we're going to have to get our comfort and our old age through our kids rather than just running to the government for all the free stuff in the known universe, which just destroys the economy in the long run.
	So yeah, I mean, almost like I almost can't wait for the government to run out of money.
	I hope it will be a soft landing, but the sooner the government runs out of money, the less weird and delirious we'll be and the more we can realize how much we actually need each other.
	Okay, Taleb, I'm going to take one more caller.
	I really do appreciate the great questions.
	You're certainly welcome back any time and I certainly wish you the very best and, you know, if I'm ever in Zimbabwe, I'll I'll come look you up and we'll go and, yeah, we'll go and troll the rich people together.
	Okay, thanks, man.
	I app appreciate that.
	And Alice, if you want to, you're welcome.
	If you want to, uh, fill my ears, I'm happy to hear.
	Going a once or going a twice.
	I'm sorry.
	Alice doesn't speak here anymore.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	I apologize, it could not when you said my name.
	Um, thank you.
	Um, I can ask your advice.
	Um, is this an appropriate call for that?
	Sure.
	Okay.
	Um, so I, uh, for about ten years have been in love with my best friend who doesn't feel the same way about me.
	And, um, uh, then a couple of times months ago we got into a fight where I don't feel the need to apologize.
	And so we haven't been talking.
	And I think that I said the right thing.
	And so I just I don't know how I don't know whether I should continue on trying to keep up the relationship in the hope that one day he'll change his mind or if it's for the best.
	And I appreciate that.
	Sorry, can we give him a name that's not his name?
	Um, you what about you choose one?
	Bah?
	Sure.
	Okay, I like a nice balin drum.
	Okay.
	And you don't have to tell me exactly how old you are.
	Are you in your twenties, thirties, forties, something else?
	34.
	34.
	Are you insane?
	No, seriously.
	I mean, do your ovaries, do you listen to them at all?
	I I have always hoped that the, the, the, um, marrying my best friend would be more important to me than, um, marrying someone just for the sake of being married.
	Well, listen, I'm the last one to criticize optimism, Alice.
	But ten years.
	Ten years.
	So 24 to 34, right?
	That's, you know, more than half of your prime fertility years.
	You've been hanging around waiting for Bob to come around.
	That may be a little excessive optimism.
	Optimism, I think, falls into the Aristotelian mean.
	Too little optimism and you're kind of depressed.
	Too much optimism and you waste time hoping for things that aren't going to happen, right?
	So tell me.
	Tell me, wax rhapsodic about Bob.
	Tell me all of the great things that Bob is that you have been orbiting his NADS for like ten years.
	A lot of it has to do so maybe I am a little bit insane.
	A lot of it has to do with believing that there's some bit of divine intervention in the way that we met.
	Oh no.
	Oh no.
	Don't tell me God put you together.
	Because that's a pretty cruel God.
	If your ovaries are turning to dust.
	while Bro twiddles his thumbs.
	That's pretty cruel.
	Maybe it was divine, but maybe it didn't come from upstairs.
	Okay, so tell me about what is and no, in all seriousness, right?
	So tell me what is so special about Bob that he's evoked this level of devotion.
	I mean, in all honesty, it's more my devotion to my belief in God.
	And no, no, no, no, no, because if you're worshiping God, which I'm fine with, good for you, that's not the same as worshiping Bob, that would be a form of idolatry, right?
	You wouldn't want to put Bob in the same category as God, that would be a golden cuff par excellence, right?
	Yeah, no.
	So, so.
	What about Bob gives you this level of and don't give me this, like, divine No, that's not what I'm trying to do.
	Some that's flicking you together.
	What is it about Bob's personality, character, moral qualities that have you so hot and bothered for Load these many moons?
	I'm not trying to put on the religious facade because if I'm if I'm searching my heart for something that's so specific Okay, no, no, no, no, no.
	I need you, I need you to stop searchinging your heart because I'm not asking about your heart.
	What am I asking?
	Now hang on, hang on, hang on.
	You're asking me for advice.
	I'm trying to give it to you.
	What am I asking for?
	I was trying to say that Bob's not that great.
	He's not all that special.
	Well, does he have any particular virtues that you deeply admire?
	Yes.
	Okay, great.
	Well, what are those virtues?
	Okay.
	Um, he's really great at, um, music and he No, that's a skill.
	No, that's a skill, not a virtue.
	Okay.
	I mean, there's nothing in the Ten Commandments to say thou shalt be great at the ukulele.
	The first time I met him, someone was picking on, like, that men, that the only thing that women want to settle down and get married, and he stood up for the fact that that's all that men want to do.
	They just want to get married and be happy.
	And he, I mean, he stood up to a pastor and said that I thought that was virtuous.
	Okay, so Bob says that all men want to do is get married and be happy, right?
	Yes.
	Please tell me Bob didn't get married in the last 10 years.
	No.
	So what is he?
	Hang on.
	So if all men want is to be married, why isn't Bob married?
	Is he your age?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Why is Bob not married if that's what men want?
	Because the women that he liked didn't like him back.
	Okay.
	So if you like someone who doesn't like you back, that's unwise.
	Because what we love about about each other is moral virtues.
	Love is our involuntary response to virtue if we're virtuous, right?
	So if you like someone who doesn't like you back, it means that either you're moral and they're not or they're moral and you're not or there's a big mismatch, right?
	Or neither of you are moral because if you're both moral, you will admire each other.
	Now, that doesn't mean that you marry everyone who's moral, obviously, right?
	But in terms of like, there's a reasonable degree of physical attraction and so on.
	So if you and Bob are not getting together, let's just go through a couple of the lists, right?
	So I can see your picture.
	You seem to be perfectly charming and attractive.
	So you're not some.
	I don't know, she wolf semi ogre that's lumbering along like some shibboleth, right?
	So you're an attractive woman and you know you're a good conversationalist and so on, maybe a little over focused on Bob's imaginary qualities, but you're a good decent person.
	Do you have a extensive criminal record?
	No.
	No?
	Okay.
	Do you have any significant criminal record?
	No.
	Okay.
	If you were to turn up the gain on your microphone, would I hear anyone, maybe even Bob screaming for help from your basement?
	No.
	Any suspicious piles in your backyard?
	No.
	Any human teeth embedded in the chrome of your car?
	No.
	Okay.
	Any pets hanging from meat hooks anywhere anywhere in your house, upstairs or downstairs doesn't really matter.
	No.
	Okay.
	Anybody in the attic?
	No.
	Okay.
	Reasonably good, decent, nice person.
	You're obviously a faith-based creature.
	You love God, you love virtue, and you care about morals, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So has Bob ever liked you romantically?
	No.
	Okay.
	Has Bob dated other people while you've known him?
	No.
	So both you and Bob, have you dated other people while you've been interested in Bob?
	One.
	Okay, and how long did that last for?
	About two years.
	And how long ago was that?
	A year ago?
	It ended.
	Did you feel ignored, attacked or rejected by your own father?
	Um, maybe I did, but it wasn't probably founded in reality.
	Okay, so and let's just give me your subjective experience of what happened with you and your dad?
	Subjectively, I felt like he was too touchy.
	Okay, I don't want to interpret that the wrong way.
	Do you mean emotionally volatile?
	No, I mean physically, but I don't think that he intended to be that way.
	I think that I took it.
	I think I was probably just overly sensitive about it.
	Now, about what?
	I mean, sorry to ask and you don't answer anything you don't want to or you don't think would be helpful.
	Do you mean that he grabbed boobs butt or anything that would be considered semi sexual or sexual a part of your body?
	No, but I think I perceived I think I perceived lesser things in a way that I it was unwanted, but I don't think he intended it to be that way.
	By unwanted, do you mean overly expressive hugs or something like that?
	Something like that, yeah.
	Okay, we're not talking like a full on Biden, right?
	Okay.
	All right.
	So did you tell your father this?
	I'm not super comfortable with that and this and that.
	Like, I mean, there's a time, you know, when all daughters need to stop sitting on their dad's lap, right?
	I mean, that's just a phase, right?
	In the same way that there's a time when you need to stop going in and kissing your kids good night and reading them stories, right?
	I mean, that's just kids grow up and these things become less, less important or less appropriate, perhaps.
	Was it something like that?
	Exactly.
	Okay, got it.
	So he didn't maybe mature or recognize your physical maturity at the right time.
	Is it something like that?
	Probably.
	Well, you were there.
	So if it's not that, I don't know what it might be.
	No, I think that's accurate.
	I just don't know if what was going on in his mind.
	So in my mind, yes, I think it was that it was not appropriate.
	for my age, but maybe he didn't realize.
	Okay, and did your parents stay together?
	No.
	Ah, okay.
	So he didn't necessarily have a woman in the house saying, Your daughter's too old to sit on your lap.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And why did your parents split up?
	Look at me asking the easy questions.
	I don't know exactly.
	No, I'm nobody knows exactly.
	Your parents don't even know exactly, but what do you think it was?
	I think it was that they would fight.
	Well, couples fight without breaking up.
	Right, so that's not enough necessarily, unless it was like, I don't know, knuckle dragging violence or something like holes in the wall stuff.
	I guess I I would guess that my dad probably wanted to date other women because he started dating very quickly after they got divorced and my mom has never moved on from him.
	Okay, hang on, hang on.
	How long has it been since your parents divorced?
	Are you suggesting there's a pattern?
	No, no, a pattern?
	What are you crazy?
	No, no, no, we're just randomly grabbing an air.
	Okay, so how long has it been that your mother has been pining after an unrequited affection.
	Twenty years?
	Okay, so you've got another ten to go, and then you'll be out.
	I mean, you'll obviously have to appear before the Romantic Parole Board, and you'll have to confess your sins and all that.
	But come on, you see that pattern, right?
	Yeah, I mean, I would love if my parents reconciled.
	Right.
	So your mother hopes to reconcile and get together with your dad, which isn't going to happen, and you hope to get together with Bob, which isn't going to happen.
	Why does your mom not Oh, why does your mom still want your dad, do you think?
	Probably because she feels that they met in a serendipitous way.
	No.
	No patterns.
	I'm sorry.
	We're just going to have to move on to the position of the stars.
	We're just going to go straight into astrology at this point.
	Okay.
	So your mother feels that you're sort of she and your dad are like these two platonic jigsaw pieces that the fates and God have put together and therefore she can't move on, right?
	I I don't I mean, I don't know.
	Maybe I I've never heard her speak about another man that she's been interested in.
	And who left who?
	I'm not entirely sure if it was mutual or if it was, if I had to guess, I would say it was my dad.
	Well, sure.
	Okay.
	So your dad left your mom and started dating other women, right?
	Yes.
	So that means that it was not a particularly strong bond, or maybe he was in a sexless marriage or a romance-less marriage and just wanted to, you know, get his masculinity on, so to speak, if that makes sense.
	Okay.
	And then your mother pines after and is attached to a man who won't be with her, right?
	And then, and she says it's to some degree because of serendipitous God work, and you pine after.
	I mean, you should give me more of a challenge than this, right?
	This is like two and two made four, right?
	So you pine after a man because of God's coincidences or God's ordained meetings, and you can't let go either, right?
	Yeah.
	And was it because you met Bob in church that you think it was God-ordained or something?
	something else yes okay I mean I'm sure you've met other men in church that were not God ordained right no one Yeah, I suppose.
	I mean, he's not the only male you've met in church, right?
	I mean, there's got to be other men there.
	It can't be that bad in church.
	It's pretty close.
	Of like marriageable age, okay.
	And how soon after you met Bob did you develop romantic feelings towards him?
	Pretty immediately.
	And what happened with your feelings?
	Did you express them to him?
	Did you say, I'm feeling this way towards you?
	Or how did that go?
	Yes, that was pretty much at some point when I got the courage to then I told him that I had feelings for him.
	And how long after you met him, roughly, was it months or.
	Okay.
	And what happened?
	He said that he did not feel the same way and cited that he didn't find me attractive.
	But he put it more mildly than that.
	Okay.
	So he didn't find you attractive.
	And when you, maybe you've changed in the last 10 years.
	If you look back at the pictures of you from 10 years ago, is it, Possible, were you 300 pounds or did you have an extra eye that you had removed or three noses or something?
	Was there something that you would look back and say, okay, I can see why maybe he wouldn't have found me attractive?
	Or is it pretty much the same as now, but minus 10 years?
	More or less the same.
	Okay.
	And how would you rate on a one to 10 scale Bob's attractiveness?
	Maybe seven.
	And where would you put yourself?
	Um, I think I've gotten better since 10 years ago.
	So maybe five or six.
	six back then okay so it's not like it was a nine and a two or something like that right okay so bob said he didn't find you attractive which means he has a standard of attractiveness that may or may not be objective, but to your knowledge, and are you fairly sure that you would know if Bob had dated someone?
	To your knowledge, Bob has not dated anyone over the past ten years, right?
	Yeah.
	Okay, so what's wrong with Bob, do you think?
	I mean, that's something wrong with a man who's 34 and has not dated.
	I mean, that's really, really messed up.
	Especially if he says, well, all men want to do is get married, settle down, right?
	So what's wrong with Bob?
	I mean, the last girl that he liked.
	I just kind of did the same thing to him that he did to me, which was, you know, he told her that he liked her and then she said that she wasn't attracted to him.
	Okay.
	So Bob is not wise.
	Okay.
	Because if you're attracted to someone and they're not attracted to you, again, that means there's a mismatch in virtues and values.
	I mean, is this all happening in the general environment of the church?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So what does our good friend God say about mere physical attractiveness?
	Is that an essential foundation for marriage?
	No.
	Right.
	So what is it with all these spiritual people saying, you're just not hot enough for me?
	They're probably not, well, they're not looking for the right thing.
	Okay.
	And that's what I mean by being unwise.
	Because if in the church, again, reasonable attract, you're an attractive woman, Bob's a seven, so he's a reasonably attractive guy.
	You're both, you know, above average.
	And so if you're similar levels of attractiveness and you both go to the same church and you both have deep faith and you both pray and you're both virtuous in that way.
	What's with rejecting people based on mere looks when the looks aren't bad?
	Yeah, that's a good point.
	But that's an excuse, isn't it?
	And then if Bob wants someone, we would assume, if Bob is wise, that he wants someone for their spiritual values and virtues, right?
	Now, I'm not saying he's got to marry a complete troll, right?
	But, you know, a woman who takes reasonable care of herself and a man who takes it's hard to be ugly.
	Like it's, it's, it's, I mean, there's some people born with just weird faces, but that's very much a minority.
	Most people, if they stay at a reasonably healthy weight and they exercise and eat well and get sunshine and go to the dentist and you know they are attractive I mean is that fair to say so why is Bob chasing after women who place such a high value on looks that they will not deign even to date a guy who's a seven right I mean is he going for like super model chicks or
	what I I mean I only have really the last girl that he liked to go by and she was I mean she's attracractive, not super model attractive, but yeah.
	Okay, so if he's a seven, how would you rate the looks of the girl he liked?
	Probably an eight.
	Okay, so it's not a massive change.
	No.
	Okay, so this is the sin of lust, is it not?
	To judge someone for inconsequential and unchosen physical attributes, right?
	We do not choose our skull.
	We do not choose our nose, right?
	If you don't live in Beverly Hills, right?
	So we don't choose our hair color.
	I mean, I guess you can get it dyed and so on.
	We don't choose our eye color.
	We don't choose our height.
	I mean, the only thing we can really do is eat well and exercise as far as attractiveness goes.
	And again, I'm outside of plastic surgery, which would be a horrible sin, right?
	So if Bob is rejecting you for attributes you cannot control, because you can control your virtues, you can control your looks, again, outside of, you know, eating well and exercising, and then Bob is rejecting you based upon things you cannot control.
	And then Bob is being rejected in turn by a slightly more attractive woman for things that he cannot control.
	And here I am assuming that Bob is of a reasonably healthy weight and goes to the dentist and exercises and does basic grooming and has a haircut and dresses reasonably well.
	Maybe five out of those ten things.
	All right.
	So where is he deficient in his presentation of personal appearance, in his grooming and presentation?
	He doesn't exercise.
	He kind of dresses as though he is sits in front of the video games for five hours a day, which is accurate.
	Oh, he's a video game addict?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	All right.
	Okay, so he dresses poorly.
	How's his posture?
	How's his dental hygiene?
	How is he dressed poorly?
	does he have gamer posture like he's a big question mark?
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Does he take care of his teeth?
	Does he get haircuts?
	Does he get sun?
	Sometimes more or less.
	Okay, but not consistently.
	No.
	Okay.
	But if your point was, is he reasonably presentable and attractive?
	Yes.
	Okay, so there's some things that he could do better in, but it's not, he's not like total hobo guy, right?
	Right.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So if we subtract.
	God pushing you guys together, which you should have subtracted, my friend, many years ago, do you know why?
	Let's do that first.
	Well, if God says you two to be together, then the only reason he wouldn't be with you is why?
	I've always thought it was that he was going to come around eventually.
	No, no, hang on.
	If God is telling you two to be together, why would he not be with you?
	I don't know.
	Sure you do.
	Sure you do.
	Because he's not listening to God.
	Am I wrong?
	No.
	I mean, God wouldn't be so cruel as to tell you, oh, you gotta be with Bob, and then tell Bob, oh, you can't be with Alice.
	That would be sadistic, right?
	So God wouldn't do that, right?
	Correct.
	So God would tell both of you to be with each other.
	And the only reason he wouldn't listen to God is if he's not listening to God, right?
	If he's opposing.
	what God is saying.
	Because if God is telling you to be with Bob, then he's telling Bob to be with you.
	And if he's rejecting you for 10 years, it's because he's rejecting God.
	That's bad, isn't it?
	No, no, don't mmhmm me.
	I'm trying to fight for your soul here.
	Isn't that bad?
	Don't mmhmm me.
	No, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to sound Yes, I agree.
	Okay, so he's rejecting the commandments of God or God is not telling you to be together.
	There's no other possibility that I can see.
	Yeah, you're correct.
	Okay, so why do you, a good Christian lady, want to be with a sinner who rejects the word of God?
	Because if there's only one person in the world for me, I don't think that I can choose that person of my own judgment.
	Does God want you to be with a man who rejects the will of God?
	No.
	Of course not.
	So God has a test for you and for Bob, which is to say, I think you guys would be good together, but only if you both listen to God.
	Now, he ain't listening to God.
	In fact, he's doing the opposite of what God wants.
	If yes, if the message was from God, then yes.
	Assuming that.
	No, the whole reason that you're fixated on him is because of the idea that God has made you for each other, right but god he's not going to force you to it's not a forced marriage right he's not going to come down with iron shackles and chains and the pope to get you married right yeah it's got to be free will do you listen does does does bob listen to god so either god has not ordained you to be together or he has but bob is a vile sinner yep
	but it's even worse than that it's even worse than that Now, if Bob were a truly honorable man, would he maintain a relationship with a woman who's trapped through her pining for him.
	I would hope not.
	That's not hope.
	You asked a man for advice, which means we don't cross our fingers here.
	We reason things through.
	Okay, so you know, you got to take hope and burn those words out of your heart, at least for the purpose of this conversation.
	Is it honorable to destroy half a woman's fertility years by having her hang around you in the hopes that you'll come around if you won't?
	No.
	So why does Bob maintain a relationship with you?
	Because he likes to have somebody who listens to him.
	Nope.
	No.
	There's lots of people who listen to him without pining after him in this way.
	He wants to feel wanted?
	Right.
	Does it boost his ego to have an attractive woman pining after him?
	Yes.
	Right.
	And is he thinking about what is best for you, or is he thinking about what is most pleasurable for him?
	The latter.
	Right.
	You need, my friend, to have people in your life who care about what is best for you.
	you not what is pleasurable for them because otherwise they're exploiting you and harming you now what do your parents say about you pining after Bob?
	Um, a mixed bag.
	Sometimes they're supportive, sometimes sometimes it's clear they're not.
	Has your father sat down and talked with Bob?
	I don't think so.
	I think you'd know that, wouldn't you?
	He's only met him a couple times.
	I don't care.
	Okay.
	That's not my question.
	Not how many times did they meet.
	Because if they're, look, I have a daughter, right?
	She's a smidge younger than you.
	But if there was some guy who was kind of keeping her around and she was pining after him.
	And so on, I would talk to my daughter and if that didn't work, I would talk to Bob.
	I mean, that's what the Bible tells you to do, right?
	If you have a problem with someone and this is a problem, right?
	Because you're not getting married and settling down and your biological clock is running out, right?
	I mean, next year it's geriatric pregnancy time, right?
	Don't laugh.
	I know that's a bit nervous, but that's serious stuff, right?
	It is.
	So I would sit down with a guy and talk to him and say, okay, what's going on with you and my daughter?
	And he's like, well, I'm just not attracted to her.
	I'm like, okay, then you can't be her friend because she's pining after you.
	And you're kind of a jerk for keeping her around because she can't move on.
	Like, and we can say, well, maybe she should, but she's not.
	So you can't keep her around if she's pining after you.
	You gotta cut her loose.
	I mean, wouldn't that be the right thing to do?
	Yeah.
	And why hasn't your father or your mother for that matter done that?
	I don't think that's that they think that way.
	Not really sure what that means.
	I mean, if they loved you, wouldn't they want you to not pine away for ten years?
	Yeah, I just don't know that it would occur to either of them to sit down and have that kind of a talk with him.
	What do you mean it wouldn't occur to them?
	If you care for someone, then you want to help protect them even from their own detachments that aren't particularly helpful, right?
	I mean, your parents are not intellectually challenged, right?
	They're not in special homes or anything like that, right?
	So they know that you've been pining after this guy for a decade and they've never done anything decisive to try and help with that, right?
	I know that because you're calling me.
	And I'm glad you're calling me, but I'm going to have you look at your parents.
	Yeah.
	I mean, I wouldn't allow that to continue more than a month or two.
	I say, what are your intentions with my daughter are you ever going to date her nope then cut her loose cut her loose do the right thing because not fair to her if she happens to have this very strong attachment to you and you don't want to date her you have to do the right thing and cut her loose yeah right if you have a kind of addiction he's got to stop supplying the drug right what about uh the priest uh in your church or the pastor does he know about this situation at all um yeah
	a little bit okay and has he sat down with the two of you or with bob and said uh this is not this is not going to replant replant Replenish the congregation, guys.
	Like, what's going on here?
	Like, you're not dating.
	You're kind of pining.
	You're pining for Bob and Bob is, I don't know what's going on, but this is not good.
	This is not right.
	This is not healthy.
	So what are we going to do?
	Isn't that what I, again, I'm not a priest, but isn't that what a priest should be doing?
	He should be looking out for the spiritual, moral and romantic health of this congregation, right?
	Yeah.
	I think that that's a problem in our church that they don't encourage marriage enough.
	And so I don't No, no, this is not, this is not encouraging marriage enough.
	This is refusing to intervene in a dysfunctional state of codependence without any positives, right?
	Right, but I don't think they see a problem that I'm not dating.
	They think that's fine.
	But they're Christians.
	The sanctity of marriage go forth and multiply.
	I mean, what am I missing here?
	That you're not a nun, are you?
	No, no.
	Okay, so then you get married.
	I think so.
	But that's not you think so.
	That's right there in the Bible.
	Be fruitful and multiply.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	Marriage sanctifies sexual activity into a virtue rather than a vice, right?
	Yeah.
	And I'm pretty much sure that Christians wantans want more Christians in the world and you get more from birth than conversion, right?
	What about your friends?
	What about your friends?
	Have any of them given you the ice bucket challenge and tried to wake you from this hypnosis?
	No.
	So I would suggest, my friend, that you are surrounded by people who are not passionately attached to your well-being.
	I'm trying to think of the nicest way to put it, and I think that's the nicest way.
	They're not passionately attached to your well-being because there's no way that people who really love you and care about you would have allowed this to grind on and on for ten years.
	I agree.
	So.
	So, unfortunately, you have to do it by yourself.
	If people around you aren't caring for you, you have to find a way to care for yourself.
	Yeah, I do agree.
	So, something is wrong with Bob.
	Seriously wrong with Bob.
	I don't know if he's gay or asexual or something like that, but something's wrong with the guy.
	Because it is exploitative to keep someone around.
	And men have more runway, right?
	He can have kids into his fifties, you can't.
	So, men have more time to make mistakes, women have less time to make mistakes.
	And so the fact that he's burning up your reproductive window for the sake of having someone around who lusts after him is deeply wrong and selfish.
	Like something wrong with the guy, like his wiring.
	There's no way a man should have a woman around who pines for him for ten years at her expense because he's just wasting her life.
	That's profoundly selfish and wrong.
	Deeply, deeply, deeply wrong.
	The priest should have intervened.
	Your family should have intervened.
	Do you have siblings?
	No.
	Hmm.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, only child, divorced parents, attachment issues, right?
	Yeah.
	So, I'm afraid the calling, I would assume from God, is to wake from this devilish hypnosis that has you in a tortured love-free and family-free and child-free existence and shake it off and stop with this hypnosis that somehow God has ordained you two to be together.
	Either he hasn't, in which case this is a dangerous fantasy, or he has, but instead of following God's ex instead following the devilish temptation of vanity and exploitation and using you for his own ego gratification.
	Has he told you he will never get together with you?
	I mean, not those words.
	What do you mean?
	Well, I mean, has he said, I mean, you, you have hope and, and has he done anything to encourage that hope?
	Has he said, well, maybe, you never know who the future, blah, blah, blah?
	Or has he said, we're never getting together?
	I mean, we we kind of gave things a shot like five years ago, but it didn't.
	So probably more, more, there's it'll never change.
	Yeah.
	Yeah, no, he he pretty much said it will never change.
	And what happened five years ago?
	We I told him that I still had feelings for him and he said, Yeah, let's give it a try.
	And we And you dated or what?
	Not really.
	We we went Well, we went, we went What do you mean, give a try?
	Let's go bowling?
	What are you talking about?
	We went out a couple of it's arm wrestling.
	It was clear from it was clear when we went out together that he it was he was uncomfortable and he didn't want to be there in that in that way.
	Okay, hold on, hold.
	So he's uncomfortable with you and doesn't want to be with you but wants to be your friend.
	Well, he didn't want to be there under the pretext of a date.
	Okay, so he's uncomfortable with romance, but not with friendship.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Now, I'll tell you this, just personally for me, if some woman was into me because God told her to be, I wouldn't be flattered.
	Because she'd be like shuffling towards me, well, you know, the divine puppet master is moving my hands and legs.
	And he makes me want to kiss you because, you know, God, right?
	I want to be desired for who I am and my virtues and, you know, the other great qualities I might bring to bear, but not because, you know,'tis written.
	Yeah.
	Do you want to get married, Alice, and have children?
	Yeah, very much so.
	Do you think that he's done wrong?
	Do you think that Bob has done any wrong over the last 10 years?
	Um, I would agree that he, he shouldn't want me as a friend if he is not attracted to me.
	Well, if you're attracted to him.
	And he doesn't want to date you, he shouldn't be your friend.
	Yeah.
	That's exploitative, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Does the devil want you?
	You to be happily married and have little Christian babies and raise them to love God and Jesus.
	Okay, so who are you following right now?
	Are you following what God wants or what the devil wants?
	I guess what the devil wants.
	Don't ask.
	Don't ask me.
	According to theology, if God wants you to be happily married and have lots of Christian babies, then God now, if the devil wants you to pine after something you're never going to get and then not have kids, whether it's the devil or communists, doesn't really matter in this context.
	Then by pining after him and thinking that you're divinely connected, that is a mirage put forward by the father of lies rather than the god of love.
	Because you're not getting love.
	You're getting sterility, tragedy, depression, desperation, hopelessness, and a constant feeling of not being good enough and being rejected, and a constant bewilderment at why what God has ordained, mere mortal man cannot put together.
	So this is incredibly destructive, I think, to your happiness and your sense of self-esteem.
	And I would, you know, the devil is very tricky.
	The devil is very tricky.
	And sometimes he'll have you pine after the impossible, so you cannot achieve the probable.
	And I would think that the idea of pining after Bob comes from a collusion between Bob and the devil, and maybe a little bit of your mother who hasn't intervened in you pining after an inaccessible guy because she's unable to deal with her own pining after an inaccessible guy.
	So I think all of these combination of things has had you follow bad commandments rather than good virtues.
	Yes.
	And sometimes we just have to fight for our own soul and our own happiness against the quicksand of other people's indifference.
	You should not have been left to be tormented for this decade in this way.
	And I'm not saying your life is all bad, but as far as all of this goes, right?
	You haven't dated and you've been pining after mister Bad Teeth Video Game Addict guy for a decade.
	And there's something weird and definitely wrong and immoral.
	I'll say that very directly.
	It's very immoral.
	It's wrong.
	It's not evil.
	Like I'm not saying you should be thrown in jail.
	Maybe.
	No, no, no, not jail.
	Maybe just an overnighter.
	But no, it's deeply wrong to have people around for your own ego boost at their expense.
	And you have to just cut people loose if you're not going to date them.
	And I think that if you subsume your own desires and common sense under divine commandments, you're not operating from a state of free will, right?
	So if you think that God has commanded you to be with Bob, then you're not operating from a state of free will.
	But, virtues are only virtues if you choose them right if you choose bob based upon his virtues i think you're serving the lord if you think that there's a commandment from god that you have to choose Bob, then you're just kind of a galley slave who has to do something that's not the same as being virtuous for choosing it, if that makes sense.
	It does.
	Yeah.
	And I think choosing those kinds of virtues is really, really essential.
	And you obviously have a very deep heart and a very great capacity for love and affection.
	And I want you to have a good man and lots of children in your life rather than question mark game a guy who probably is addicted to anime, not women.
	You're 100% accurate on that.
	All right.
	Thank you so much.
	Alice, you, you, you gotta, you gotta, I need this, I need a season two.
	You gotta tell me how this, how this goes.
	I agree.
	You gotta tell me how this goes.
	Oh, and also, also, just out of curiosity, totally up to you, if people are out there and want to chat with Alice, who seems like a very lovely young lady, if, with your permission, Alice, totally up to you, if they email me host at freedomain.com, would you be willing to have those messages forwarded to you?
	Yeah, thank you.
	I appreciate that.
	Okay, so if you would like to rescue Alice from the quicksand.
	of satanically ordained Bob.
	I can't believe the sentences I say in this show, but I'll just roll with it.
	From the quicksand of Game of Boy semi-hygiene question mark.
	Then email the host of freedomand.com, put the word Alice in the title and I will forward it to Alice when she's 10 feet tall.
	Sorry, that's a song.
	But yeah, put that and I will contact you next and we'll do that.
	And I hope that people will give you the attention, care and affection that you deserve and rescue you from this hole with no bottom called Bob's Incipient Homosexuality.
	All right.
	So thanks everyone so much for the show tonight.
	A great and deep and honorable pleasure.
	I can't tell you how humbled and honored I am by people sharing their big thoughts, deep thoughts, issues, challenges, problems.
	I hope that I do justice as best I can to help people and I love the fact that you guys help me by sharpening my thinking as well.
	It is a beautiful relationship.
	And sorry we didn't get you, John, but it has been a long show and I have people to chat with in the real world.
	I may even touch some grass.
	Ooh, that might be too much.
	Might be too much.
	We will talk to you guys on Wednesday night for Wednesday Night Live, 7 p.m. Eastern Standard.
	And thank you all so much for a great conversation tonight.
	Lots of love.
	I will talk to you soon.
	Free domain dot com slash donate.
	Mwah.

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