Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - Just Do the Right Thing! Twitter/X Space

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Aug. 28, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:54:06

Just Do the Right Thing! Twitter/X Space

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	Hello, good evening.
	Welcome to your Wednesday Night Live, 7.02 p.m.
	27 August 2025.
	Hope you're having a lovely, magnificent, wonderful, toasty, delicious, and delightful day.
	And I'm here to listen, I'm here to chat, here to do whatever it takes to push philosophy forward through the planet.
	Yay, like a torpedo through the hull of an M-class carrier.
	All right, let's go straight to callers.
	Whatever you want to talk about, I'm all ears.
	We've got Reynard, also known as the cunning fox.
	Reynard, what is on your mind.
	Feel me.
	Feed me, Seymour.
	Going once, going twice.
	I can't hear you.
	You might need to unmute.
	Hello, hello.
	Excellent.
	It's always great to start with a no-show.
	Why is it so tough for people to do basic technical stuff?
	Are you there?
	Going once, going twice.
	All right.
	Okay, so...
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Yes, go ahead.
	Hello?
	Yes, go ahead.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Thanks for taking my question again.
	I'd like to apologize to you.
	I was on the stream last week and you selected me.
	And the very moment that you selected me, I got a bunch of pop-ups on my computer.
	And every time I tried to unmute myself, I couldn't clear and get through to you.
	but I uh you was talking about this on the stream last week friday you was talking about the baby boomers.
	And I wanted to go back to that conversation.
	You were talking about the self-centered and self-focused nature of the baby boomers.
	And I wanted to pick your brain on that in regards to the possibility that the attitude of the baby boomers is that something that's basically just overall human nature.
	And what I mean by that is., you know, you did a presentation on the fall of Rome many years ago.
	And it's not just the fall of Rome, it's a lot of other societies.
	The British.
	I will, sorry, I will, I'm going to have to urge you to get to a question so that we can actually have a conversation because right now there's just a bunch of disconnected thoughts from me.
	So if you can get to a question, I'd be happy to start engaging.
	Okay.
	So the question is, is it possible that the attitudes of the baby boomers is overall the attitudes of people in general?
	where we are selfish, self-focused, and the plight of other societies in the past will happen to us again because it's just our nature.
	Yes, it's just because it's just our nature to be selfish.
	So it's like the mouse utopia experiment, all the mice died.
	Is it just human nature for us to because these things have happened in the past?
	People make parallels to the fall of Rome to what's happening in the United States of America right now.
	And is it possible that all this will happen again and it's kind of a waste of time to practice philosophy and religion because human nature, we're just selfish.
	Okay.
	So you have a belief in something called human nature.
	Is your belief in human nature that it is not particularly responsible to circumstances but exists independent of circumstances?
	So for instance, if you're born as a slave, you still have the ability to move your eyes, to breathe, to do somersaults, maybe your cartwheels.
	And it's not dependent upon whether you're a slave or not.
	So is human nature something that exists like our physical abilities independent of circumstancesces?
	Yeah, I would say it's independent of circumstances.
	Okay, so let's say there's a black kid born in the ghetto in America in 1950.
	He has the same human nature and has the same general outcomes as a young kid born in a Japanese kid born in Tokyo in 2010.
	Uh...
	Does he have the same?
	Well, I guess you have environmental factors and cultural influence and all of that.
	Okay, so human nature doesn't exist.
	nature does not exist like our physical structure.
	Like both of both the black kid and the Japanese kid are going to have eyes, hearing, a skull, bones, a spleen, like all of that stuff exists independent of circumstances, right?
	But this question is, is human nature influenced by circumstances or does it exist like our skeletal structure independent of circumstances?
	I'll make the question clearer since I know I'm not being particularly clear.
	So let's say you swap those kids, right?
	You swap the Japanese kidid with the black kid.
	It doesn't really matter what the race is, it's just looking for, you know, where there's more variables at play.
	You take the Japanese kid and you switch the black kid.
	They're both assuming basic nutrition, right?
	They're both going to grow up the same height that they would have.
	They're both going to have the same skin color that they would have.
	They're both going to have the same general quality of sight and sharpness of hearing and and and texture of hair and and color of so those things are not dependent upon environment or circumstances.
	Can we agree on that?
	Roughly.
	Agreed.
	Agreed.
	Now, their sense of politeness, their sense of their duties to society, their sense of culture and so on would be very different for the Japanese kid raised in the ghetto versus, say, the black kid raised in high end Tokyo on the other side of the world.
	They would grow up with different, I mean, obviously they would speak different languages, English versus Japanese or whatever, right?
	So they would have very different mindsets, although their physical categories would mostly remain the same.
	Is that fairly close?
	Yeah, I would say so.
	Okay.
	So human nature, is it something that is built into us like our liver or spleen and our spine independent of circumstances or is it dependent to some degree on circumstances and if that is the case then changing circumstances will have an effect on human nature and therefore we should focus on circumstances and also different thoughts or ideas can have an effect on human nature so we should focus on improving
	circumstances and coming up with better I mean, you would say in the 18th century, it's human nature for doctors to prescribe leeches because all doctors prescribe leeches like in the West or whatever, right?
	Now in the 21st century, instead of leeches, you will prescribe antibiotics or something like that, right?
	So because we have better technology, doctors can make better choices, right?
	So it's not human nature to prescribe leeches or to prescribe antibiotics, but if you have better tools, then you get better, better outcomes.
	Is that fair to say?
	Yeah, yeah, it's fair to say.
	Okay.
	Now, Nature has animals has provided animals certain characteristics, right?
	So obviously wolves tend to be more aggressive physically outside of sexual matters.
	Wolves tend to be more aggressive than rabbits, right?
	Yeah, of course.
	Now, do wolves have the same wolf nature in the wild as they do in a zoo?
	No.
	Okay.
	So it matters what kind of environment you have.
	A child who is brought up who is beaten black and blue every day, are they going to end up with the same kind of personality as a child who is not beaten but is in fact reasoned with?
	Of course not, no.
	Okay.
	So when you say human nature is selfish, then what you're doing is you're prescribing or you're you're attaching a moral quality to a human being.
	So i think i understand what you mean by human nature like the essential characteristics of man but tell me what you mean by selfish please well when when we talked about the baby boomers last week and basically they're only concerned with themselves to the detriment of the next generation coming up after them and when you think about what's happening in America,
	some of the policies that are being made that contribute to the national debt and deficit spending and things of that nature, and no one cares and we keep doing the same thing over and over and over again, and it's sort of leading in a direction where we potentially can have a collapse.
	No, no, not potentially.
	We will.
	Yeah, it's not potential.
	We will.
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	So if we will, and it has happened in the past several times, Argentina, Russia, all these different places, yet we're doing it again.
	So is it a situation?
	that is just intrinsic in us that we just think of ourselves, we don't have insight, foresight, don't defer, and it's just going to happen.
	So if it was human nature to be selfish to consume at the expense of the next generation or the continuance of your society, why would we need all this propaganda?
	Why would we need all of this propaganda?
	Like there's no propaganda that you get trained for 12 years that, you know, maybe chocolate is good, cheesecake tastes good.
	And, you know, for the last couple of years of high school, there's not a lot of propaganda that says, you know, as a teenager, you really should be interested in sex, right?
	Because that is human nature generally to like sweet foods and fatty foods.
	And it is human nature to have sexual desire.
	So we don't need a lot of propaganda for those things.
	I mean, people will say, you should eat this chocolate, not that chocolate, or you should choose my cheesecake, not some other cheesecake.
	But there's not a lot of propaganda that is necessary to say to people, you know, if you're hungry, you should probably eat something.
	And if you're thirsty, you should probably drink something.
	You need propaganda for that, which is not built into human.
	So if it's human nature to be selfish, then why do we need all of this propaganda?
	If that makes sense, propaganda would have to be something against human nature.
	Yeah, I see what you're saying.
	Maybe I phrase the question or should have phrased it better.
	I guess what I'm I guess what I'm asking or just posing is, again, bad things have happened in the past and we're doing it again.
	And we know our history, yet we do it again.
	And it's you, you can't continue to raise a debt ceiling.
	You can't print money.
	You can't do these things repeatedly, yet people just don't care.
	And we vote people in and we still, and we still do it.
	Okay.
	Have you heard of, I'm sorry, this is kind of a dickish question.
	I don't mean it that way.
	I'm just curious in case you have.
	Have you heard of Malthusianism?
	I've heard the word.
	I don't know exactly what it means.
	Okay.
	I mean, it's not, not, not too.
	It doesn't take too long to explain.
	So the basic idea is that for most of human history, population goes up exponentially right because you have three kids they have three kids they have three kids so the population just goes up in a curved line almost up to infinity right so that's how the population grows however the the productivity of the land goes up in a straight line it doesn't go up as fast so malfusianism which is now being rebranded to environmentalism malfusianism says that human beings will always end up with famines and
	starvation because our population multiplies exponentially, but food productivity only goes up in a straight line.
	And so, and throughout most of human history, throughout like 99.999% of human history, that was the case that you would get some innovation in food productivity, which would allow people to have a whole bunch more kids, but the population in general would outstrip food productivity.
	And of course, a lot of imperialism was about trying to get hold of more arable land so you could feed your population, particularly if you had a welfare state that swelled the population.
	So for almost all of human history, this problem of Malthusianism was considered unsolvable.
	And this was even really up until the mid.
	to late 19th century, it was considered an iron law that human beings would always end up starving to death because you could not increase the food productivity to keep pace with population growth.
	Does that kind of make sense as a whole?
	Yeah, now, is that a theory, a fact, or a law?
	Does it really bear out because we waste a lot of food?
	Well, hang on, hang on, Adolin.
	So, I was talking up until the mid to late 19th century that was considered an iron law.
	And certainly it was the case that population grew faster than food productivity throughout almost all of human history, not counting the last, say, 150 years.
	And so there were continual issues with running out of food because more food meant population growth that outstripped the food.
	Does that make sense?
	Got it.
	Okay.
	So we would say that was kind of an iron law.
	It's human nature to just have so many kids without thinking about the crops, without thinking about how much food there is.
	You're just going to end up having a whole whackload of kids and they're going to be swarming all over the food supply, stripping it bare.
	And then everyone's going to starve to death because that happened, you know, regularly throughout human history.
	And that was, um, you would say it's human nature to not care about the productivity of the land and only to focus on the productivity of your loins and and making babies to outstrip the food supply.
	And then that changed in, well, I mean, arguably 18th century onwards, but certainly we don't have that issue anymore.
	In fact, the poorer you are these days in the West, the fatter you tend to be.
	So the way that we solved that problem was to privatize the land.
	So of course in the past, those who aided the emperor, the king, the Caesar, or whoever, those who aided the military aristocracy got big land grants and
	And the fact that society rested upon the pretty uncertain and low productivity of slaves meant that you could never really increase food supply that much now.
	When you privatized land, which sort of 18th century onward in England and a little bit later in other places in the West, when you privatized land, everything changed.
	I mean, you got rid of slavery, you got rid of serfdom, and you privatized land.
	And what that meant was that the land was not now under the control of the most violent warlords, which was generally how land was, quote, distributed or stolen or whatever you want to call it throughout most of history.
	Now, those who were the most productive farmers ended up with control over the most land.
	So if you and I are bidding for 10 acres or whatever, and I can get 10 acres to produce 10 tons of wheat, but you can get 10 acres to produce 20 tons of wheat because you're just really good at it, then you can outbid me.
	for the land because you'll get more profit from it and because you'll get more profit from it you will end up being able to outbid me so when land was privatized, the most productive land ended up in general being owned by the most productive farmers.
	And that blew the lid off the Malthusian limit.
	And now, even though human population growth was growing exponentially, so also was land productivity.
	the beginning of the 20th century, like 80% of Americans were involved in farming.
	Now, it's, I think it's less than 2%.
	It was, It's probably about 2% now.
	And farming productivity is massive.
	It's staggering.
	And even when they began to privatize the land in the late Middle Ages and early on into the Enlightenment, you were seeing productivity growths of, you know, five, ten, fifteen, not percent times.
	People started experimenting with winter crops like turnips.
	They started doing crop rotation.
	They were better at using manure to increase productivity.
	They were just incredibly good.
	I mean, there are some people, this is the Pareto principle, like 80% of productivity comes from 20% of the people.
	So when land was reserved for violent warlords, it would be like putting WWF champions or some sort of martial arts champion in charge of farming.
	I mean, just because they're good at fighting doesn't mean that they're good at growing, right?
	So when you moved land from the violent to the talented farmers, you got massive increases in productivity.
	And so my general point here is, and I'll stop in a second, I appreciate your patience with this, but my general point here is that when you privatize things, you get massive multiples.
	And when you keep things in the public sphere, they decay and get worse.
	And if you look at everything that's run by the government, it decays, stagnates, and generally gets worse.
	Education is under the control of the government.
	It's getting worse.
	Roads are under the control of the government and they're getting worse.
	And currency and money is under the supply of the government.
	And since the government took over currency, currencies have lost like 98% of their value.
	Marriage is under the control of the governments and people are getting married less and less.
	Divorce is under the control of the government and people are getting divorced more and more.
	And just in general, all around, it's wretched..
	And health care is under the control of government.
	And it's absolutely terrible.
	I had a friend here in Canada who needed a procedure done.
	And he was told he was going to have to wait until, well, it doesn't really matter.
	Because what month is it now?
	It doesn't really matter.
	He was going to have to wait three or four months.
	And he's like, well, I don't want to do that.
	And so he went back and forth with them for a while.
	And after a while, they just said, I'll just go to Emerge.
	They'll do it there.
	So he had to go and spend half a day sitting around consuming very expensive emergency resources because there was just no other way to get at night.
	I see these videos on X and other places.
	This woman is like.
	woman who's like, I might have a brain tumor.
	I can't get a scan until a year from now.
	Like, you're either better or dead, right?
	And, and, and, of course, in America, things are getting worse too as the government has taken over more and more control of the healthcare.
	A hundred years ago, in America, you could get a full year's healthcare for two days' pay.
	It costs you two days' pay to get a full year.
	Now, I get it.
	People say, well, but healthcare is more expensive.
	It's like, yeah, but.
	It's also supposed to make you healthier and have you live longer.
	So you should be more productive over the course of your life as a whole.
	So it shouldn't be a net negative.
	So whatever the government takes over stagnates and gets worse because violence produces the opposite of its state of..
	And so when you talk about human nature, what you're talking about is people under the control of the government.
	So the government controls the educational system, the government controls daycares through licensing or direct control, and the government has massive influence over the media.
	And so, I mean, and the media is often produced directly by the government or the government subsidizes or pays for or gives grants and loans to people to create media.
	I know here in Canada, one of the reasons I bailed out of the theater industry was that it was left to slash communists because they were all dependent upon the government for their income.
	So you couldn't write anything that was even remotely skeptical of those positions.
	So when you say human nature, well, human nature is shaped by families.
	Families are controlled by governments.
	Human nature is shaped by daycare.
	Daycare is controlled by government.
	Human nature is shaped by education.
	Education is controlled by government.
	Human nature is shaped by the media.
	The media is largely controlled and influenced significantly by government.
	And so we live in a zoo.
	We are animals taken out of our natural state of freedom.
	And we are in a zoo.
	And studying human beings in a crazy-making, high-pressure, high-endoctrination zoo is like studying It's like studying lions in a zoo where every time they try and exercise any of their instincts, boom, they're hit with some sort of cattle prod or some sort of taser.
	And they just end up completely screwed up, absolutely at war with their own instincts, bullied and controlled and manipulated.
	and taught that everything that they feel is the opposite of what is good, you would look at that as completely neurotic, broken and screwed up lion.
	You wouldn't say, well, the essence of a lion's nature is to be against its own instincts.
	Lions have this weird instinct to be against their own instincts.
	things.
	It's like, well, no, that's really the zoo and the cattle prod that's doing it.
	And so whatever is controlled by violence has a cycle.
	And then they call this in relationships, they call this a cycle of abuse, right?
	That there's a friendliness, positivity, enthusiasm, and hope.
	And then that escalates.
	And then there's a problem, a fight, a challenge that then itself escalates often to verbal abuse or violence or both.
	And then afterwards, there's a period of sorrow, shock, and horror.
	And then a promise to make things better and chocolates and flowers.
	And then the whole cycle just sort of resets and goes, goes over again And yeah, wherever there's violence, we see this sick cycle in human affairs.
	But the more we move to the free market, the more we move to voluntarism, the more we break this sick cycle of programming, indoctrination, and the breaking of the human spirit that right now we think.
	as human nature if that makes sense Thank you.
	Oh, did I lose you?
	I believe he may have gone.
	All right, no worries.
	hope that makes sense and we will move to...
	Oh, he came in, he went.
	All right, situation.
	Let me just see if I can get you here without...
	I think you're in.
	You're still in the request queue.
	Sorry about that.
	Uh, situation H?
	Like preparation H, but, uh, with more jersey shore.
	Are you around?
	My friend.
	I don't know what's happening with this interface, but it does not appear to be letting you in.
	All right, let's go and see if we can get...
	If anybody else wants to...
	I certainly do have a rant.
	But I don't want to do rantus interruptus if people have stuff that they want to talk about.
	Oh, it's interesting because it says you can now speak, but it does not move you into the speakers.
	You're still staying in the requests column, so I don't really know what to do with that as far as X goes.
	Okay, well, let's move Reinhard off since I think he has lost his ability to speak.
	And let's try once more with Situation H. No.
	All right, Situation H, I'm going to just move you off that queue if you want to get yourself back in maybe we'll get you over all right thanks all right did that get you in Oh, it says there was an error adding this person as a guest.
	Please try again.
	Excellent.
	All right, but try once more.
	All right, it says you can now speak, but I don't know if you can because you're still in the request queue.
	I think we may have a minor hiccup on X. I haven't seen this error before.
	Normally the platform is pretty stable, but let's see.
	Bye.
	Bye.
	Thank you.
	All right, yeah, sorry, man.
	It's not...
	Did that work?
	work let's try this let's try this as a co-host invite let's see if that kicks in oh are you in are you in if you want to unmute i might be able to hear you no all right all right diggy if you want to unmute i'm all ears Hey,
	how are you doing today?
	My name is Deggy.
	Nice to meet you.
	How you doing?
	doing great I was listening to you earlier when you were talking about the I think someone posed a question to you and you kind of answered the question, but then you did mention it kind of like related back to like government in government, you know, that government controls education, they control, you know, family.
	But then I'm kind of curious in the organic nature of humans, right?
	Taking out the government, like what are the true organic, can you, you know, natural nature of humans?
	Because I do know, naturally, humans want to survive by default.
	They want to, you know, get something they want to eat.
	They want to do a lot of stuff.
	So to me, I feel like that should be some, you know, few identification that we can use to say, yes, this is the true nature of men or human in general.
	And maybe some of them might be selfish or not.
	But I just want to hear your talk on that.
	Well, I can't go with eating and sex and sleeping and drinking because that's all shared with the animals.
	So we can't just say that human nature is just like animal nature because we're specifying it as human.
	So we have to look at something like human nature or human beings.
	Well, we want to survive.
	Well, yeah, but everything wants to survive.
	I mean, that's not particular to human beings.
	So I think we have to get a little bit more specific to that which differentiates human nature from all other kinds of animal nature, if that makes sense.
	Yeah.
	So what would that look like?
	Because if we as humans, of course, we are considered animal, there's no science as well, but then we're just a little bit maybe a little bit advanced kind of animal.
	But in our true nature, there are certain attributes that we have that other animals do not have.
	For example, we can communicate very well within our own groups.
	So depending on the group you find yourself, that's a natural human nature that other animals do not possess.
	humans know how to kind of like corporate solutions you know they are very you know one of the unique attributes that any human has is the ability for them to be able to create solutions or maybe you know hunt something or whatever that might look like so um I think the person initially that was talking was pointing out that we humans sometimes do have an egoistic nature.
	And I kind of like agree to some extent, but maybe not fully.
	And I think, you know, if you put two, if you put a hundred men and women in a country where they're not bothered by any law, any religion, any, they can just do whatever they like, right?
	And they can just do whatever.
	I think in that particular scenario, you will see humans in their natural nature where they will do whatever they want to do.
	You will see people say they want to, people could decide to marry four wives, they could decide to marry my ten wives, they could decide to not even do anything at all.
	So I do think there is a natural human, you know, behavioral trait that, you know, and some of it is very, very selfish and some might not be, I think, personally individual.
	But I'm just curious to know why you don't think so because I feel like what I'm hearing you say is you're just kind of connecting it to all this systematic of system that we already have and not just the natural way that humans are naturally because we don't, we didn't use to have certain, you know, system in place about seven hundred years ago.
	So, yeah.
	Well, how can you say that something is human nature and also ascribe a negative moral quality to it because selfishness is generally considered negative right so if it is in our nature or the essence of humanity is to be selfish then selfishness would cease to exist as a category right because if it's just human nature we can't have moral judgment to it so it's human nature to be lusty to want to reproduce right and
	and we wouldn't say that that's evil or selfish because it's human nature right so we that's my question i guess i'll sort of put i have certainly have an idea about human nature but i want to sort of get your thoughts on how can it be both human nature and morally criticized at the same time?
	I think it's similar to when an animal kills another animal in the jungle.
	Would you say the animal is the murderer?
	If I killed someone, would you say it's the same thing?
	So if you're saying, you know, because we humans can identify when someone is being selfish and if also a human.
	No, no, no, hold on, hold on, hold on.
	So what's your definition of selfish?
	Is it a moral definition?
	I mean, it has to be, right?
	Because we wouldn't call animals selfish, right?
	Yeah.
	I think I will say selfishness is more like when you, you know, trying to like, you know, sell driniving, you know, now maybe that's not a.
	So you drive what?
	Maybe you're self driving.
	Self driving.
	Yes.
	I'm not sure what that means.
	I'm trying to put this in a very simple way that I can't, that I don't mind if it's complicated.
	We've got a smart audience here.
	That's fine.
	Great.
	So I would say, you know, for humans in their natural way, selfishness would be something like, you know, they are trying to protect themselves, seeking food or trying to get shelter.
	Okay, but that wouldn't be bad, would it?
	I mean, all animals do that.
	So that's not human nature.
	That's just animal nature and trying to protect yourself and seek shelter.
	and food in someone, that wouldn't be selfish, would it?
	It depends on the context.
	Okay.
	So that's why I'm trying to just point out the fact that something is selfish doesn't necessarily mean every time it could be, maybe there's some good selfish or there's some bad selfish.
	I don't know.
	But you know that, hang on, hang on.
	But you and I both know that selfish has a negative.
	You never say to a kid that was really selfish and you're praising them, right?
	So it is a morally condemnatory phrase.
	It's a moral con condemnation to call someone selfish as a whole.
	And that's why I'm trying to figure out if it's human nature, then it's baked into human beings.
	And therefore, it's not really a choice.
	And therefore, how can we judge it as morally bad if it's not really our choice?
	Well, without judging, we can just call it what it is, right?
	What is it that you're referring to?
	Why would you use a moral term for something that is not moral?
	I mean, if it's a selfish trait that someone has that's engraved in them, you know, by default when they were given back to, we can just identify it as what it is.
	And maybe we need to change that terminology to something else.
	I see, okay, maybe this is not selfishness.
	Maybe we'll call it, you know, maybe this doesn't mean prioritizing their survivor or they're just, you know, just watermark.
	Again, that's prioritizing their own survival as all animals.
	Or at least the survival of their genes.
	I mean, you might have, if a, if a mother monkey has, you know, four kids or four, I don't know, baby chimps, a mother chimpanzee has four baby chimps, she might sacrifice her life to for her own kids.
	But that would be programmed into her because that would be for the survival of the genes, because five of those genes is worth more than one mother sort of from an evolutionary standpoint.
	So that's the challenge is if you're going to apply a moral standard and then say it's human nature, you have a contradiction because something that is human nature cannot be judged as morally good or bad.
	So hunger is something that human beings and animals of course experience, and to have hunger is to want to eat.
	Now that's not a moral thing.
	It's not wrong to be hungry.
	It's not wrong to want to eat.
	I mean, if you feast on the flesh of your neighbor as some sort of horrible cannibal, then we get into a moral category, right?
	But that would be the action of murder and cannibalism, not the act of being hungry.
	So to say that human nature is something we can judge as morally good or bad would be a contradiction because moral nature, sorry, moral choices have to be voluntarily made.
	They can't just be baked into human nature.
	Gotcha.
	That makes sense.
	So selfishness in general, I mean, there's lots of different ways that you can define it.
	But selfishness in general, to me, is, and this is why I put it into a moral category and why I apply it specifically to humans.
	So selfishness in general is having hypocritical moral rules that you apply to others while excusing yourself.
	That would be selfish.
	So, you know, this is an example from being a kid, which wouldn't really be the kid's fault, but it's something we've usually experienced, you know, the crybully, right?
	So some kid goes around, you know, flicking people's ears and throwing things at them and pushing them into the mud and so on.
	And then the moment someone pushes him back, he, oh, he cries and he runs to the teacher and he complains and he tries to get the other kid in trouble.
	So that would be a problem, which is the kid is basically saying, well, I can do whatever you want.
	I can do whatever I want to you, but you better not try and do anything to me or I'm going to get you in trouble or politicians who or teachers let's say teachers who say to their kids you should never use violence to get what you want but of course the teacher's salaries are paid for by property taxes which are coercively extracted from the general population even those people who don't have any kids in school or you know the the boomers who would say to you've got to be responsible and then don't get into too much debt and blah blah blah while at the same time running
	up all these massive debts from the government so To me, selfishness, it's not just acting for yourself, because I think people do that as a whole.
	It is not just acting to benefit you and yours, because animals do that and human beings do that.
	that and that's not necessarily wrong.
	What is wrong to me is to have a moral rule that says you have to do this because it's good, but don't ever try and apply those moral standards to me.
	So it's really good for you to do X, but it's never the case that I have to do X. That to me is really selfish and exploitative and that's particular to human beings.
	That doesn't occur in the animal kingdom.
	Thank you.
	So, so, from me, thanks for explaining.
	So can, can morality exist, in your own opinion, if every action of human is self-serving can morality exist if every actions of humans is self-serving yes well let me ask you this do you expect my answer to be self-serving or in pursuit of truth i mean depends on you no no that i'm asking you because if you're asking me steph can
	there be such a thing as morality and let's break it down and this is interesting question i appreciate the questions very interesting so if we're going to say uh morality doesn't exist steph i don't think morality exists because Because everyone is self serving.
	Well, morality would be telling the truth.
	So you're saying that human beings will never really tell the truth.
	They'll only pursue their own self interest.
	But if you're asking me that question, are you assuming that I'm going to lie to pursue my own self interest?
	that I'm actually going to try and tell you the truth.
	I guess...
	I guess I'll leave that to you to decide.
	Because no, no, I can't, no, I can't decide it.
	I can't decide it because I'm curious what, what you think.
	Because if you say, Steph, I think you can tell me the truth about this rather than just serving your own self interest.
	My own self interest might be, I don't know, to dazzle you with a bunch of analogies and metaphors and brilliant bullshit or something like that so that I look smart and you just get confused, right?
	I'm not saying that would even work, but that would be something that, you know, if it was just, but, you know, this show is kind of dedicated to the pursuit of truth, sometimes it feels like at all costs, which means that the virtue of honesty and the virtue of consistency and rationality and integrity is something that we hold, I think you and I both hold in this conversation, this is something that the show has been dedicated.
	to for like 20 years.
	So if you say to me, can there be such a thing as morality given that all human beings human beings are self-interested and there's no such thing as morality because you're asking me the question relying upon me to put maybe immediate self-interest aside and to speak honestly even if it contradicts something I said before or even if I don't know the answer very well or even if I struggle to explain it or even if I try to explain it but
	fail that is going to be against my immediate status or self-interest so By asking me the question, you're affirming that morality exists, at least in this conversation.
	Okay.
	Yeah, I guess I'm trying to like wrap my head around some ideas here.
	Okay, so I'll actually, if you do you know because this is a platform, right?
	You're on this platform.
	This is my first time here, by the way.
	This is my first time.
	Welcome.
	Your questions are fantastic.
	I really do appreciate them.
	Yeah, thank you for joining.
	Yeah, thank you.
	So, you know, if you were, if you had to tell me the truth right now, I wouldn't know because I actually, I'm not yet familiar with you, right?
	I would, but based on the fact that you're on a platform where you have an audience, I could say whatever you're going to tell me is probably more about.
	about, you know, your personal self interest, right?
	Uh, due to the fact that this is a platform about, you know, philosophy and, you know, your friends and your, you know, business what you run on.
	So I wouldn't necessarily spread the truth from you on this platform, um, unless I'm your friend and I know you personally, then, you know, then maybe I'll say, oh, yet the host sold me the truth, right?
	So, um, I can't.
	So, hold on.
	So, so, why would you ask me, and this is, this sounds confrontational.
	Like, why would you, I don't mean it that way, right?
	but, but why would you ask me something if you didn't think I would tell you the truth?
	Well, I just want to hear what you have to say.
	So, just, that's the whole point of it.
	Just to hear your point of view, just to hear how you have to say.
	Okay.
	Do you think, do you think that it's possible that I'm dedicated to telling the truth even at the expense of self-interest.
	I wouldn't know.
	I'm sorry?
	I said I wouldn't know.
	No, no.
	it possible not Yes, it is possible.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So there are people that you've met in your life, and I'm sure that you're one of them, who will tell the truth, even if it goes against immediate self-interest.
	Absolutely.
	Yes.
	And you don't know whether I'm I mean, you don't know me and so on.
	So I could be some complete sophist and pathological liar or someone who makes the worst argument, try to be the better or something like that, like the enemy of Socrates and reason and all kinds of things.
	I mean, that's perfectly valid.
	And you should have that skepticism when you approach people with philosophical questions because there are a lot of liars out there so i i appreciate that skepticism so morality the question is does morality exist is that is that your question okay well does the scientific method exist i mean to some extent Well,
	does it exist in the way that a single tree exists or a rock?
	I don't.
	Yeah, I think so.
	Okay.
	I'm trying.
	Go ahead.
	Don't go ahead.
	I'm trying to rub my head.
	No, it's a tricky question.
	Listen, it's a tricky question.
	Okay.
	So there are three coconuts on the table.
	And I say, hey, look, three coconuts.
	Now, the three individual coconuts, do we accept that they exist?
	Okay.
	I agree with you because I love coconuts.
	So I love a lovely bunch of coconuts.
	So we accept that the three coconuts exist.
	Does the number three exist?
	It does exist.
	Yeah.
	I mean, based on the numerical factor.
	Yes.
	I'm sorry, it does exist.
	What?
	Based on the numerical number factor, it does exist.
	The number three exists.
	Okay.
	Does the number three exist in the same way that each individual coconut exists?
	I wouldn't know.
	I would have to say these three coconuts to make my.
	So to be sure.
	No, no.
	I mean, assuming it's accurate, there are three coconuts and I say, hey, there are three coconuts.
	Does the number three exist in the same way that each individual coconut exists?
	In other words, can you touch it, feel it, eat it, taste it, whatever?
	Yeah.
	Yes.
	So the number three, you can touch it.
	Yes.
	No.
	Sorry to be annoying, but no.
	No, you can touch each individual coconut, right?
	But you can't touch the number three.
	Well, tell me how you would touch the number three.
	You just said you have three coconuts on the table.
	Right.
	Do you have...
	We agree, yeah, we agree on that.
	The three coconuts are absolutely real.
	You can clack them together, you can try and stuff them up on your nose or whatever it is that you want to do with them.
	But so the three individual coconuts absolutely exist, but the number.
	three is a concept.
	Now, it's not arbitrary or subjective.
	For it to be accurate, they have to be three coconuts.
	But the number three does not exist.
	Let me give you another example.
	So let's say I hire you to do something and I say, let's make it nice and concrete, none of this nonsense, check abstract computer stuff, right?
	And I say, you cut me down.
	these five trees and I will give you five gold pieces right now I will pay you five gold pieces that's money right now if I give you a picture of five gold pieces, Are you happy?
	So I say, I'm going to pay you five gold pieces and then you cut down the trees for me and I give you a picture of five gold pieces.
	Are you happy?
	A picture rather than the, you know, rather than the, of course I wouldn't be happy.
	Wouldn't be happy?
	Okay.
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So if you want three coconuts from me.
	And I don't give you three coconuts.
	I just say I'm giving you the idea or the number three.
	Would you be happy?
	No.
	No, of course not.
	Because you can't et make little clipping, clopping Monty Python noises with them.
	You, right?
	So the number three is useful and it's a, but it doesn't exist in the way that coconuts do any more than a picture of gold is the same as gold, if that makes sense.
	Dumb it first.
	Okay.
	the scientific method is an idea about the best way to accurately describe the behavior of matter and energy and to predict it ideally hopefully as well now if Like if you take, I don't know, what is it?
	Let's take some, I don't know if you're watching the video, we'll take some lip balm.
	Because crazy dry in the studio, right?
	So you take the lip balm.
	Now I have a theory that if I let go of the lip balm, it's going to fall.
	Do you agree with that theory?
	Yeah.
	Hey, let's test it.
	There it goes.
	Now it's fallen past my feet and I will forever be lip dried.
	Okay, so we have a theory and then we test it.
	Now the theory does not exist in the way that the lip balm does.
	The theory that says if I let go of the lip balm, it will fall.
	The theory doesn't exist in the same way as the lip balm does.
	But it's neither is it arbitrary or subjective because I'm making actual prediction about what's going to happen with the lip balm.
	Does that make sense?
	That makes sense.
	Okay.
	Yes.
	So morality is what human beings ought to do.
	And in the same way that a scientific method is what human beings ought to do if they want to truly understand things about the world rather than read tarot cards or chicken entrails or think that the answer to the universe is written in the shape of clouds or other sort of superstitious nonsense, use the scientific method.
	We don't just randomly guess and, oh, I had a dream or whatever it is.
	So there are ways to figure out what is logical and what works.
	And the scientific method is logical and it works.
	And morality is logical and it works.
	So does morality exist in the same way that a knife exists?
	Well, no.
	So saying don't stab people is like a rule and stabbing someone is a physical action, right?
	And saying don't stab someone won't stop them from stabbing them necessarily, won't stop them from stabbing someone necessarily in the same way like the chainmail arbor would.
	So the question is always in morality is, is it a made-up rule like chess and checkers?
	You know, you play chess and checkers, you just have a bunch of rules, but then they don't exist like the rules of physics, right?
	They don't, they're not objective or enforced automatically.
	So are they just made-up rules?
	morality, are they rules given by Almighty God?
	Are they rules just enforced by the government?
	Because that's kind of what people vote for and there's no objective morality to it or anything like that.
	So are they rational objective rules?
	Are they made up social constructs enforced by governments and churches perhaps?
	Or are they given by God?
	I mean, Now, as a philosopher, I can't just say, well, whatever rules the government enforces are good moral rules because governments enforce absolutely terrible and horrible moral rules all over the world every single day, tens of thousands of times.
	You know, like there's probably right now over the course of the show, there's like five policemen fanning out in England to go and arrest people for some.
	memes that they posted or some statement that they made online, right?
	So there's tons of terrible rules being enforced all the time.
	You know, there's places that the countries at war where they're running around and grabbing men off the streets and stuffing them into vans and forcing them to go and fight in wars that they don't want to fight in because they don't want to otherwise they would have volunteered.
	So I can't just say as a moral philosopher, I can't just say, oh, it's what the government does, right?
	That one of the whole points of the Second World War, at least ideally, was that there are rules that are just immoral no matter what.
	I can't just say as a moral philosopher, I can't just say, well, it's what God says, because that's not philosophy, that's theology.
	And of course, as we know, there are 10,000 different gods all over human history and all across the world.
	And all of those gods say different things.
	And even the same gods themselves sometimes say different things.
	Like in Christianity, there is turn the other cheek, and then there's an eye for an eye.
	And so sometimes these things can be, you know, there's Jesus says, whatever you do to the least among you, so do you also do to me.
	And then they also say, if you beat your child with a rod, he will not die.
	He will probably become a better person.
	So, whereas, you know, nobody recommends beating Jesus with a stick.
	So there's contradictions, and they really can't be easily resolved.
	So as a moral philosopher, I have to say, if you're a Christian, you're a Christian.
	have to take the approach that moral rules are universal and objective, but they don't exist in the same way that physical things exist.
	Because there are some people in philosophy who say moral rules do exist., just in another dimension, like in a ghost realm of platonic forms or the neo-menal realm of Kant, or there's a higher reality man where all of these rules exist in real form.
	And, you know, we just get the echo.
	And I can't do that.
	I can't because I'm an empiricist, which means I have to have rational proof and evidence for all of that.
	So, and thank you for your patience.
	I'm almost done here, but...
	Uh, no.
	They are not.
	Are they arbitrary?
	Nope.
	Numbers are not real, but they're not arbitrary.
	You can't look at five coconuts and say, those are three coconuts, because you're wrong.
	There are five coconuts, not three.
	So even though the numbers don't exist, they correlate or represent things that are real, and numbers are objective even though they don't exist.
	Logic is objective even though logic doesn't exist in the same way that a tree exists.
	So the classical argument sequence which is all men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal.
	Well, that rule, that logic doesn't exist.
	You know, you can't eat it, you can't tap it, you can't sell it as a physical thing, but it's not subjective.
	And moral rules, what human beings ought to do to be good, they don't exist., but they're not arbitrary and they're not subjective any more than math, numbers, logic, and the scientific method.
	They don't exist, but they're not arbitrary or subjective.
	And even kids know that.
	Like if you say to a kid, I'm going to give you an ice cream with two scoops on it and you only give them an ice cream with one scoop in it, I don't know if you've ever been a dad, but you'll hear about that for quite some time because the kids are like, hey man, you promised me two and I only get one.
	So it's not subjective or arbitrary.
	They understand.
	those things and so the moral argument is you know rape theft assault and murder are evil and the way that we know that is to test the rule.
	Can the rule be universalized?
	Right.
	So in science, we say, can the rule be universalized?
	So if people say, well, everything that you drop falls to the ground, it's like, well, no, it doesn't.
	If you drop a bird, the bird flies up if it's alive, right?
	If you drop a, or you let go of a helium balloon, the helium balloon flies up.
	Even if you hold onto a sycamore leaf and it's windy and you let go of it, the sycamore leaf is probably going to fly up.
	So not everything that you let go of falls down.
	And so we have to have a better rule in order to make it universal.
	And the rule is the mutual attraction of gravity and wind resistance and all these kinds of things where you can figure this sort of stuff out.
	Everything that's heavier, everything that's inanimate and heavier than the air falls down.
	So we end up with universal rules that are actually much more instructive.
	And so when it comes to something like stealing, we say, okay, so stealing is the unwanted taking of somebody else's property.
	Because you can want someone to take your property, right?
	I mean, you can absolutely want someone to take your property.
	I mean, if I get an ice cream and my daughter wants some ice cream, I'll just give her some ice cream.
	I want her to take my property here, enjoy some of the ice cream.
	Sometimes when you're cleaning out your garage, you put stuff on the sidewalk and say, take me, please.
	You don't have to go to the dump and you want people to take your property.
	So it's the unwanted taking of property.
	Say, okay, well, is it possible to have a rule that says everyone should want to steal and be stolen from because it's a two-person thing, right?
	Everyone should want to steal and be stolen from all the time, no matter what.
	And the answer is that's not possible.
	That is a self-contradictory proposal because if you say to people, or you try and create a rule that says you should want to steal and be stolen from, then stealing ceases to exist as a category because if you want to steal and be stolen from, well, it's no longer unwanted property transfer because you want to be stolen from.
	And if you want to be.
	stolen from, you're not stolen from because you want the other person to take the property.
	So the only way that stealing can exist as a concept is if you have a universal rule called don't steal.
	Now, a universal rule doesn't mean everyone's going to follow it because human beings aren't laws of physics, right?
	We just sort of make these suggestions and so on.
	Like if you say it's better not to smoke for your health, which it is, doesn't mean everyone's going to immediately, you know, stop smoking.
	It's just that you have a universal rule that is true.
	And so.
	It's the same thing with assault and rape and murder, but theft is a pretty easy one to work out.
	So we have rules that don't steal.
	Don't rape.
	Don't murder.
	Don't assault people.
	And these all are consistent and objective and rational.
	And if you have a rule which says, no, no, no, you should rape.
	Well, rape is unwanted sexual activity.
	So if you want to rape and be raped, that doesn't make any sense because you can't want to be raped.
	Because if you want the sexual activity, by definition, it's not rape.
	And so we can come up with very objective and rational moral rules.
	and work to encourage people to accept them and to spread them and to understand them.
	They're not subjective, they're not arbitrary, they're not made up rules, any more than logic or numbers or math or made up rules they are objective and rational and that's what we work to propagate throughout the world and it's going to take quite some time for new moral rules to take root but that's a way to prove morality without requiring gods or governments if that helps thank you so much that's well well i guess my last question before i you know um you know step down so i don't you know take to your space i was having a conversation with my dad this morning we just kind of have in
	this debate um and so How do I put it?
	So it's more of like a belief question.
	So I ordered a pizza, right?
	And, you know, my belief is that while I ordered this pizza between the time of when I ordered the pizza and when you know it comes to me I believe it I believe like you know based on ground and evidence and past experience that there are high chances that this pizza is going to be delivered to me on the flip side my dad believes in God right it believes that you know you know it is you know grounded in some kind of same you know similar ideology.
	But then my question to you is like, are these two belief systems fundamentally the same in nature or they represent two different categories of belief?
	Because, you know, one is waiting for pizza to come.
	The pizza is on your hand, but then I believe that the pizza is going to come because historically, when you order pizza, you get pizza.
	If they don't give you a pizza back, they get it.
	But then on the flip side, the religious path is, you know, you're believing on something that is coming, but then you've not seen it, you've not had it.
	So I'm just curious to know what I thought on that.
	Yeah, I mean, that's a great question.
	So is your father saying that your belief that the pizza is going to come is fundamentally the same as his belief in God?
	Yes.
	And he's telling me that why am I not believing in God because of that?
	Right, right.
	Right.
	Now, it's going to be fine if your dad gets mad at me, right?
	Because I'm going to take your side.
	on this.
	So sorry, Pops.
	I just have to do, this is the part where I just have to do and say what is true.
	So.
	When you phone for pizza, is wanting the pizza to be delivered self-contradictory?
	And what I mean by that is if I said to you, hey man, I want you to bring me a shape that is both a circle and a square at the same time, would you be able to do that?
	Yeah, sure.
	No, because it's self-contradictory.
	Something cannot be both a circle and a square at the same time.
	Yeah.
	I mean, maybe because I've seen some pizza there.
	Sorry, okay, I don't agree to that.
	Now we're both hungry so we can't reason with each other anymore.
	Anyway, go ahead.
	Go ahead.
	Sorry.
	I'm back.
	No.
	So something can't be both a square and a circle at the same time.
	If it's a circle, it's not a square.
	And if it's a square, it's not a circle.
	Is that Right.
	So if you said to the pizza place, I'm really hungry.
	So if you said to the pizza place, I want you to deliver me a square circle pizza, what would they say?
	They'll say, sorry, they cannot do that.
	Yeah, can't do it.
	Can't do it.
	Yes.
	And so that would be impossible.
	Now, when it comes to saying, I want you to make some dough, some cheese, some veggies, some meat, whatever, bake it and put it in a box and drive it over, there's nothing self-contcontradictory about that, right?
	Yes.
	And because they're advertising, they're going to send you the pizza or they're going to give you your money back if, for whatever reason, they can't send the pizza, right?
	Okay.
	Now, usually you phone, especially if you're home, right?
	You phone pizza places that you've dealt with before, right?
	They've sent you 10 pizzas or 20 pizzas or whatever before.
	And so you have every reason to believe that they're going to send you the pizza, right?
	Yes.
	Now, it's not 100%.
	I mean, the guy delivering your pizza could get hit by some Indian driver making a U-turn or something like that, right?
	Sort of to take the example from America recently, right?
	So, or he could just drive into a pole or his car could fail and in the middle of nowhere and he, you know, his cell phone has died.
	So you can't 100% be certain that you're going to get the pizza, right?
	Okay.
	However, there's nothing self-contradictory about ordering the pizza, and while you are not 100% certain that I mean, you're 99.9% pizza.
	I mean, probably not.
	I mean, a friend of mine delivered pies when he was a teenager.
	And I think like one out of a thousand may not get delivered.
	So you're 99.9% likely to get the pizza, right?
	And you'll certainly get your money back without it, right?
	So there's nothing self-contradictory about getting the pizza.
	The person, the people are in business to send you the pizza.
	You've ordered from them 20 times before.
	You got a pizza each time.
	So it's reasonable to believe you're going to get the pizza.
	And of course, if there was a reason to believe you weren't going to get the pizza, then you You're only ordering the pizza.
	Like if you call up the place and they say, oh man, we're just closing, you wouldn't order the pizza because then you're not going to get it right so so they have agreed to give you the pizza they're open they they haven't said we don't have any drivers we haven't said uh we've had an emp go off and none of our cars will start or something like that they haven't said uh none of our ovens work for some mysterious reason we're out of electricity like they said yeah we'll take your order we'll send you the pizza 30 minutes or free or whatever they're doing you've done it 20 times before there's it's you're not ordering a square circle pizza you're just ordering
	a regular old pizza So you can be very, very certain that you're going to get the pizza, right?
	Now, again, 100%, no.
	But it's not faith because you're not asking for the impossible.
	The whole business is in there to deliver you the pizza.
	You've done it a whole bunch of times before.
	And so you have every reason to believe that unless there's something really bizarre happens, you're getting the pizza.
	Do we agree on that?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Now, God, as a concept, is the idea that there's consciousness without material form, at least in this universe.
	Is that fair to say?
	Now, have you ever had In other words, do you think that I'm a teapot or a soap dish or a bubble or something like that or I don't know Bell Dauphin's Bathwater or something like that, right?
	So you and I having a conversation because we both accept that we have rational consciousness.
	We share the same language.
	We are having a very productive conversation.
	So there's nothing self-contradictory about what we're doing.
	And the idea that I would be having a conversation with someone where no physical consciousness was involved would be completely weird, wouldn't it?
	Like, can you imagine if, if I was somehow, like, let's say you were calling from next door, right?
	And I'm like, oh oh you're next door I'm gonna come on over and I went over and there was just a computer that was turned off and nobody was home like that would be kind of weird right like I'm having a conversation with you with a consciousness, but no one's there.
	Like that would be, I would be like, okay, this is a joke, right?
	Because I can't have a conversation that doesn't involve physical human consciousness.
	Does that make sense?
	Yes, it does.
	Okay.
	So if people are going to say, oh, no, I'm having a conversation with consciousness for which there is.
	No material form.
	I'd be like, yeah, that's not a thing.
	That's like saying that there's gravity without any mass or there's light.
	without a light source.
	Like that, that's just not a thing.
	That's just not something that is real.
	All consciousness requires material form because consciousness is an effect of the physical and material brain.
	And we know that because we never have conversations with any kind of consciousness that we can test that does not have a physical brain as its source.
	Does that make sense?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And then people also say, I'm having conversation with an all knowing God, right?
	Well, that's pretty wild, right?
	Because all knowing, I mean, that's knowing everything past, present, and future, right?
	Now, that's very testable.
	So if somebody says to me, I'm having a conversation with an all-knowing entity, I'd be like, wow, that's pretty cool.
	I had a dream last night.
	What was it?
	Because God would know, right?
	So that's a test.
	Somebody says, I have direct access to all-knowing consciousness, to an all-knowing, omniscient, all-knowing consciousness.
	You're like, yo, I had a dream last night.
	What was it?
	Now, do they ever give me the right answer?
	No.
	Well, would that make any sense?
	If somebody says, I have access to all.
	all-knowing consciousness say, oh, well, here's a tough question.
	Or what was my first birthday cake made from, right?
	God would know that.
	Or what is the price of Bitcoin going to be like tomorrow at 12 p.m. Eastern Standard.
	God would know that too, right?
	So if somebody says, I have access to omniscience, then you would simply ask them to ask that omniscience to answer a question that that person couldn't possibly know, right?
	That's a pretty easy test, right?
	And has anyone who claims to have access to omniscience ever been able to answer a question that they couldn't possibly know.
	No.
	No.
	So that's a test, right?
	So you have consciousness without material form, which is impossible, and you have a claim of a direct access to omniscience, which is never approved.
	And you have both omniscience, which is knowing everything, and omnipotence, which is all powerful.
	Now the problem is, of course, if God knows everything, past, present, and future, then God can't change anything.
	Because if he can change it, he can't know it.
	Does that make sense?
	Yes.
	Like if I was in prison, I'd know where I'd be tomorrow.
	In prison, because I can't change that.
	But I'm not in prison, just a mental prison, but I'm not in prison, so I don't know exactly what I'm going to be doing tomorrow, right?
	Now, if God knows everything past, present and future, then God can't change it.
	But if God can't change what he's going to do or anyone is going to do, then he's not all powerful.
	So if God knows everything, he can't be all powerful.
	If God is all powerful, can do and change anything, then he can't know for certain what everything is going to be.
	If God says we have free will, like you and I are morally responsible for what we do because we have free will, but God knows exactly what we're going to do, do we have free will?
	No.
	It's like if a train goes down the tracks from Chicago to Detroit, right?
	And there's a train track, right?
	Okay.
	So the train goes from Chicago to Detroit.
	Can it go anywhere else except from Chicago to Detroit or back again?
	It's on the train track, right?
	can't go anywhere else, right?
	So if I say The driver of the train.
	I can't remember the name.
	There's some technical name.
	So if I say that the train is leaving from Chicago and going to Detroit, and I say, it's totally immoral if you end up in Detroit.
	You've got to go on this train track, but it's totally immoral.
	You're an evil person if you end up in Detroit.
	Does that really make any sense?
	No, because it's got no choice.
	There's a train track, right?
	So does it make any sense to morally condemn people who have no choice over what they do because God knows exactly what they're going to do?
	Hmm.
	Mm-hmm.
	Thank you.
	I'm sorry.
	I'm listening to you.
	No, does it make sense to condemn people for that which they do not choose?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So, if God knows everything we're going to do, do we have a choice?
	We don't have a choice if he knows everything we're going to do.
	Right.
	So how can God punish us for things that he knows ahead of time we're going to do?
	Free will?
	I don't know.
	No, no, because if he knows what we're going to do, we don't have free will.
	That's true.
	So, I mean, we could sort of, I don't want to go all night on these, but these are just things where you'd say, that's not the same.
	as ordering a pizza, right?
	Because there's all of these contradictions bound up.
	And I know, listen, I'm aware, I'm fully aware that religious people have what they claim are answers to these problems.
	And I'm not going to, I'm not going to pull this fedora wearing, you know, kind of debug approach of saying, well, I've just completely overthrown religious blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	I mean, I know that they have answers, but these are pretty significant challenges.
	And the answers that religious people have when I say, well, God can't be all knowing and all powerful is to say, well, God is outside of time.
	And it's like, I mean, that's not, we don't accept that that answer anywhere else right so if when I was a kid and I said that two and two make five and I got marked down I can't say no no no I'm right but my answer is outside of numbers like that just doesn't that's not a that's not a thing that anyone would would accept or if I say that the the capital of uh the capital of of of England is uh Auckland in in Australia they'd say no and I'd say no no no I'm right but
	it's outside of geography and it's like no you don't just get to remove things from from the from any kind of context and say that you're still right we don't accept that anywhere else right so I'm again I'm aware thatware that religious people have answers to these questions, but, you know, they're pretty hard to overthrow.
	And so it's not quite the same as ordering a pizza, if that makes sense.
	That makes sense.
	Yeah, I mean, he did make some good arguments when we're having the conversations that I would love to touch on, but then I think you, I mean, because I'm on the same page that, you know, they're not the same.
	And, but then he did make some, you know, valid arguments regarding how, um, he kind of like talked about the core definition of, you know, he kind of like explained the belief system.
	And also, like, you know, both our reliance on, you know, incomplete evidence, right?
	You know, someone who is waiting for a pizza, even if you're 99.9% sure that a pizza, you know, is going to be deliveredivered to you based on past or previous experience.
	It usually comes when you order it, but then from the God-belief standpoint, it's based on personal experiences and testimony or tradition or whatever that looks like.
	But then they're both incomplete evidence at that point of weight, right?
	So then the pit system that I did mention for the pizza, you trust that the delivery system is going to work, whether the restaurant, the workers, the traffic condition, whatever the situation that gets that pizza delivered to your doorstep.
	Okay, but just let's listen.
	I mean, no, no disrespect to your dad.
	Let me ask you this, my friend.
	Have you ever played hockey from school?
	no no you are such a nice young man that's really really impressive okay let me ask you this did you ever fake oh oh oh dear dad oh i think i'm coming down with something i don't know if i can go to school yes okay please god tell me you at least faked an illness because you can't be that good okay so you you faked an illness right in order to avoid going to school right Yes.
	And then let's say your dad had to go to work, right?
	And you said, oh, I can't, I can't even get out of bed, right?
	And then your dad., when he's driving home to check how you're for lunch, he sees you at the playground, right?
	Just jumping and running and swinging and all kinds of crazy stuff, right?
	And then he comes home and then you come home later, right?
	And he's, he's, he's mad at you, right?
	Yeah.
	So what does he say?
	He's just gonna probably tell me he's disappointed in me that why would I have to lie?
	But he would say, you know, you lied to me about being sick.
	And if you were to say, no, no, dad, let me tell you something.
	I was both here and sick and playing on the playground at the same time.
	What would he say?
	He would say, I'm crazy.
	No, no, no, dad.
	I was both here, so sick, and playing at the playground at the same time.
	He would say, that's impossible, right?
	Yeah.
	Because it is impossible to be in two places at the same time.
	So he wouldn't, and you wouldn't say, well, dad, look, you just have to have faith that I was both here, sick in bed and playing at the playground at the same time.
	You just have to have faith.
	Because I'm telling you that that's what happened.
	He still wouldn't believe you, right?
	So that's the standard, right?
	which is things that are impossible can cannot be true you cannot be both at home sick and perfectly healthy running around at the playground at the same time it's that's impossible and he would never say, well, I'm not going to punish you.
	I'm not going to get mad at you because it could be true.
	Right.
	And even if you had a bunch of friends say, oh, yeah, no, he was home and sick and at the playground at the same time, he'd be like, come on, guys, stop pulling me.
	Stop playing these games, right?
	So your dad has a standard of believing what is true and what is false, that things which are impossible cannot be true.
	If you came home, not that you ever did, I'm sure, but if you came home in some imaginary scenario and you had failed an exam or you'd failed a test and your teacher said you've got to get your dad to sign it, and let's say the test was out of 100 and you got 30 and that was a fail.
	Then your dad would say, what happened?
	And you'd say, no, no, dad, I passed the test.
	You said, no, no, no, a pass is a 50 or more, you got 30.
	You said, no, no, no, I got 30 and a pass is 50, but I passed the test.
	What would your dad say?
	It's impossible.
	You say, no, no, dad.
	You gotta have faith that I passed the test even though I only got a 30 and a pass is a 50.
	And he would say, no, you just stop, stop doing whatever silliness you're doing, right?
	Because you didn't pass the test, right?
	So he has a standard of proof and facts and reality and truth, and we're just saying that's universal, right?
	Things that are impossible, things that are self-contradictory can't be real.
	They can't be real.
	It doesn't matter how many people have said that they're real.
	It doesn't matter how many people believe that they're real.
	They're not real.
	And that's how we know.
	Well, these are the challenges that would be there for the existence of God.
	So if your father has, as a lot of people do, and again, maybe after I'm dead, I'll find out I'm completely wrong, but I still have to go with reason and evidence as a philosopher.
	But if your father has a standard of proof for you and for what you say and for what is real and what is possible and what is rational, what is empirical, then he has to apply it universally.
	That's the job of the philosophers to say, you don't get to carve out little pockets where the opposite of truth becomes the truth just because you like it or it feels familiar or that's what you were taught.
	We have to have objective universal standards for truth and falsehood and you cannot carve out exceptions any more than you can carve out exceptions for numbers or math or the scientific method or logic.
	We don't get to substitute our own particular preferences and familiar concepts for reason and evidence because that is kind of childish.
	Like that's like saying, well, I have an imaginary friend who's a real friend.
	It's like, no, no.
	If he's imaginary, he's not real.
	If he's real, he's not imaginary.
	You can't have it both ways.
	And so that's really all we are working on in the, at least all I'm working on in the philosophical realm is to say, we just let's simplify it.
	Let's just have one rule, the truth and falsehood.
	And if it goes against what we're used to, that's definitely a challenge, but that's not a reason to stop.
	That makes sense.
	Thank you, Sam.
	Thank you, man.
	Great conversation.
	Please jump back in any time.
	And I really do appreciate your questions and comments.
	All right.
	Thanks, man.
	Gilbert.
	Did we talk before?
	I think we might have.
	I don't even know how to what is that happening?
	I tried to pronounce your last name, but I think I'd have a stroke or my furniture would start to float or something like that.
	Go on.
	That's probably quite difficult.
	Yes, can you if you don't mind saying, well, I don't think that's your last name, but what is, well, how do you pronounce that?
	That mouthful of umlauts?
	Ushchelen.
	And that?
	It means East and Jutland.
	Ah, okay.
	All right.
	I didn't know that part, but I think I could have taken a run at it.
	All right.
	What's on your mind, my friend?
	Well, I wanted to continue on the discussion we had yesterday because I found it very interesting around this, this voluntary society.
	Yes.
	And how it might be stable and how it might be unstable or say how it might be weaker in some ways than a centralized society.
	Because you probably know from software development, right, that we have these two models of like you can have a decentralized and modular software system and you can have a monolithic software system like in a kernel, right?
	You have you can have this large block of code that does basically everything.
	You can split it up in small modules.
	And the trade-off here is the system complexity in the in the in like a singular system versus the interface complexity of the modular system.
	And I was thinking, like, wouldn't that also apply to a societal construct, right?
	You would have a tension between the centralized society where you could send out a decree or something like that, and you would have a rapid response from the entire system versus the decentralized society where it has to move through all these channels.
	Okay, and I appreciate the abstractions, but can you give me a more concrete example?
	More concrete, yeah.
	You mean like a cyber defense or something like that?
	Yeah, we could say national defense, right?
	Because you would have.
	But let's say a foreign power is running, is preparing for an invasion.
	Right.
	And a centralized intelligence agency discovers this mobilization.
	And because you're talking about two statist societies or one anarchic society and one statist society.
	I was talking a statist society and an anarchic society versus a statist society.
	So like, hang on, hang on.
	Sorry, that's just went one too many layers for me.
	A statist society and an anarchic society versus a statist society?
	Yeah, those two individually, if you put them in a vacuum next to a statist society, how would they be able to react?
	Okay, so the statist society and the statist society don't have any kind of alliance.
	So we've got, let's go with country A, statism, country B, statism, country C, anarchism or region C or geography C or whatever, right?
	So A, B and C, A, B, statist, C, anarchic.
	Is that fair?
	Yes, that's fair.
	Okay, so sorry, go ahead.
	Okay, so let's say that you're starting up the statist versus the statist society.
	That one we know pretty well because it has happened many times in history, right?
	You would have a build up to an invasion.
	You would have a reaction from the opposing state.
	They would mobilize the army rapidly to their border and prepare resources.
	And they could also rapidly increase taxes to start pushing more and more economic energy towards a war economy, for example, if they're preparing for a long term war.
	And in this situation, you would have to basically consider that they're like they're equal in every other way, it would basically be a stalemate, right?
	Because it's the same system.
	Theoretically.
	Then let's take the.
	the voluntary society versus the status society.
	How would that reaction compare to the centralized society, right?
	Because you would expect an increase in complexity of, say, communication and organization just because you don't have this central decree you can roll out in the same way.
	And because everything in it is voluntary, you would also have a lot of differing opinions on whether this is actually an invasion, do they actually have this plan that some people like some private intelligence services might mean one thing and some might mean another thing, right?
	It would turn into more of a discussion and a debate.
	And that would probably bring you closer to truth in some situations about what's going on.
	But it could also delay this reaction if the enemy is smart enough.
	Sorry, what would delay the reaction?
	The debating?
	Yeah, the debating and the, like the, the organization of the system or like a combined front against this assault.
	So sorry, is your question how would the anarchic society defend itself against a statist invasion?
	Yeah, and more like would it be equal or would it be weaker?
	Why, why, why do you think countries invade other countries as a whole?
	Well, usually it's based on on wishes from leadership.
	No, no, no, that's but what is the motivation?
	I get that the leadership decides it for the most part, but what is the motivation?
	Well, it could be a security motivation.
	If let's say that it's an act of aggression, not of defense.
	Yeah, acts of aggression.
	Then it would be likely resource acquisition or land acquisition.
	Well, land acquisition in a free society can be achieved by people selling the land.
	Resource acquisition can be achieved through trade.
	In general, though, countries invade other countries to take over the government.
	To take over the tax system, to take over the legal system, to take over the governmental system.
	So, for instance, when the Germans invaded France, May 1940, they displaced the existing government and took over the existing tax revenue.
	So there was an existing government that they took over, and that was the purpose of invading, was to gain control of the other country through its government system.
	Does that make sense?
	Yep.
	So if you're invading or trying to invade an anarchic system, there's no government to take over, there's no tax revenue to take over, and there's no.
	limit, for the most part, on the weapons that the citizens can have.
	And also because an anarchic system has no central decision-maker, they can afford to strike at the leadership rather than the soldiers, because there's no leadership to strike back at, if that makes sense.
	So the best way generally to prevent war is if some leader is making aggressive noises and massing troops somewhere on your geographical area.
	And you could do this any number of ways.
	You could do this with drone strikes.
	You could do this with biological weapons that would be focused on the leader's DNA.
	You could do it by putting a massive bounty.
	We'll give a billion dollars to whoever takes out the leadership.
	And this would even be, this old Harry Brown argument, this would even be paid to his wives or something like that who probably don't like dictators very much.
	So you take out the leadership.
	And one of the reasons governments don't do that is they don't want to end up with a war against the leadership.
	They'd much rather spend the lives of the citizens fighting each other than themselves be at risk through assassination.
	So in general, I would assume that an anarchic society not having any particular head to cut off, so to speak, would simply work to eliminate the leadership of whatever country was threatening them.
	And I would also assume that if you lived next door to a truly free society, all the smart people would have left in the same way that people, you know, have done just about anything to get out of places like North Korea or Cuba or Cambodia under communism or West Berlin, to West Berlin or from East Germany and so on.
	So you get a massive brain drain of people who want to come to the anarchic society because they actually get to be free there and not subject to taxation and national debts and the draft, right?
	And so I'm not sure who would be left in the government society other than, you know, kind of desperate, low rent, welfare recipients and other kinds of predatory classes.
	So what would they even really be invading with just a bunch of fat people on food stamps?
	Yeah, well, let's take an example like China, for example, right?
	They have a lot of their own citizens all around the world.
	And upon closer investigation, you often actually realize that they are indirectly or directly working for the Chinese state, even when they are in these freer societies right because they're working for an ethnic interest and who is it who gives like we just saw this with trump right sorry to interrupt but trump is basically saying we're going to have six in the states he's saying we're going to have 600 000 chinese students come over to basically it's to prop up the universities because oh without these students like 15 of universities
	I'm sorry, I'm getting all excited just talking about it.
	But 15% of universities might go out of business, right?
	would be a whole bunch less propaganda and enslavement of the young in debt and killing the birth rate by having women buried under student loans and so on.
	So who is it who allows these Who is it that encourages them to come into the country?
	It is the government, right?
	The individual citizens don't want H1B visas.
	The individual citizens don't want 600,000 Chinese students coming in, right?
	They don't want that.
	But they don't have any choice about it, right?
	Whereas in a free society, they would.
	Because in a free society, The people who enforce the contracts, whatever social contracts are working, are responsible to the people paying the bills in a very direct way.
	And if they get boycotted or people just cancel their contracts because they're doing things that they don't like, then they have to adjust their policies.
	It's a dollar democracy, like the leadership or those who enforce the rules in an anarchic society have to respond to their customers every single day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
	And so if, let's say that there's some company that wants to bring in, you know, 600,000 H1Bs or Chinese students or something like that.
	And let's say the general population of that anarchic society doesn't want that, then people would just say, okay, I'm not doing business with you.
	I don't like it.
	I'm canceling my contract.
	I'm not, you know, gonna.
	going to do business with you, which happens all the time in the free market, and then they just wouldn't do that because it wouldn't really work, whereas governments can do their stuff all the time.
	So, you know, and this is not to navigate you because it's a general mindset, is people say, well, we have this thing called the government that works and what you're proposing has to work as well.
	And it's like, well, no.
	I mean, look at the Western countries as a whole.
	People have been desperate to try and reduce population movements and so on forever and ever.
	Amen.
	And they don't.
	I mean, why do they have to listen?
	They don't.
	Well, the reason I ask is mostly because I'm interested in the search.
	or like a better system or a better model to build from.
	And so I'm trying to figure out why it might be threatened or what would threaten it the most.
	And from my perspective, it would be something like the Chinese government because they work in a very high timescale and they work on I mean, you know that in America they're buying up land around military installations.
	Yeah.
	And that's legal.
	And apparently that's fine, right?
	Now, in a free society, would that be allowed?
	Well, I guess if they find someone who's willing to sell their land.
	Well, sure, but you don't operate in isolation.
	So let's say I'm some guy and I say, I want to sell, let's say I have 5,000 acres, right?
	And I want to sell 5,000 acres to this terrible dictatorial government, right?
	Well, not because that would be the initiation of the use of force, right?
	Because it's not illegal to sell.
	It's not, it's not the initiation.
	What else could they do other than force?
	They I mean, what if we consider the threat position, right?
	The threat would be for the Chinese government to gain a foothold in the territory these people live on and start to enact influence from that foothold, right?
	So what can the society do?
	If the Chinese government wants to buy five thousand acres of a free society's land?
	Well, you could have all the service providers cut off services.
	services and not engaged in contracts with the Chinese government?
	No, they just say we're not going to enforce those contracts yeah that's all so they can have a whole bunch of money and and you know it's the old selling the brooklyn bridge if i sell you the brooklyn bridge and you go and try and assert ownership over it people say i'm not going to enforce that contract so you don't actually own it right so you just don't enforce the contract you don't need to bring out the uzi's just don't enforce the contract okay well but
	the the reason that i i included challenge was to was to talk about this uh this loyalty concept where it it was it was part of my contention, right, with, say, like this hypothetical war scenario where you have the centralized versus the decentralized system.
	Well, you, I didn't know.
	Sorry to be annoying.
	The better way to put it is a government system versus a free market system.
	Okay.
	Now, can you think of a time when government technology has in a sustained manner outstripped free market technology and development.
	Not in isolation.
	Right.
	So you have a government.
	program versus a free market program.
	And you have people in government who want to start a war that their population doesn't want to have started.
	And you have people in a free society trying to prevent a war that everyone in the free society, almost everyone, would desperately want to stop.
	You have a government that is going to invade a geographical region which has no government.
	And also, in general, there's been no nuclear power that's ever been invaded in the history of the world.
	And so the, I'm sorry?
	That's a good point.
	And so the free society would just have nukes or some other form of weapons of mass destruction so that people would leave them alone.
	Okay.
	Yeah, well, the reason I included Chan in the discussion was to talk about this concept of the brain drain, that you would have brain drain from the status society or the state society to the free market society.
	Yes, and of course people could come over pretending to be refugees or wanting to, but they're actually spies.
	And I get all of that for sure.
	There would be vetting procedures for all of that for sure.
	But the problem, of course, is that...
	But anyway, let's just sort of go with the sort of traditional boogeyman, right?
	So the problem is, of course, with China is that if China wants to influence America, then they simply get compromised on the leaders.
	Right.
	This is sort of the Jeffrey Epstein argument, although I know he didn't work for China.
	At least I don't think so.
	But so you just, you simply get blackmail material, you get compromised, you bribe, you threaten, or whatever it is.
	And then you've got this big giant lever to change society.
	That does not exist in a free society.
	There's no centralized, organized, hierarchical, oligarchical political power that you just get a hold of and you can have these big giant levers so you can move all of society.
	It's all decentralized.
	And decentralized is by definition kind of impossible to control.
	Yeah.
	And that's the strength of it, right?
	That it's decentralized.
	So even if you knock out out of the network, there's still a network.
	Right, and there's no central...
	However, if I was a statist and let's say I could say, well, I just need the approach that I take to philosophy.
	I need it taught to every school child all the way through to the postgraduate level.
	And let's say that I could bribe or threaten or bully or do something to get my approach to philosophy instituted in government schools, I would be able to spread it pretty quickly because children would be indoctrinated in it, although I would hope it wouldn't be indoctrination because it's philosophy.
	But I...
	Whereas if you have, you know, five thousand or ten thousand different schools, all of which are competing to be the very best, I'm going to have to convince like twenty, thirty thousand people as opposed to five or ten people.
	And so it's much more resistant to that kind of control.
	Yeah, it is, but I was also considering like a scenario of, say, for example, Blitzkrieg, right?
	where it's this rapid movement, this rapid change.
	And I was trying to think like, okay, so you have the centralized system.
	It can react quickly to change.
	Like the system itself is slow most of the time, but when it's motivated, it's very, very rapid.
	Like we saw under COVID, right?
	You have these big bouldering giant governments and they can suddenly lockstep implement measures across the entirety of society.
	And people also go along with it, right?
	Because if they resisted it, it would be impossible for governments to attack this because in the end, they are just people.
	still they they can enact these things on a very large scale and i agree that it's weaker in a in a like a theoretical sense right because it's it's a it's a it's a mon monoculture in a way.
	It's a system that reacts similarly or very similarly across the entire field versus a system that's very differentiated with niches.
	So it would be more difficult for a single perturbation to destroy.
	No, but see, but you keep, I mean, sorry.
	So you keep talking about a government threat to other regions, right?
	Yeah.
	But the primary threat of governments is against its own citizens.
	I mean, look at Russia 1917, China under the communist takeover.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	So if you have this centralized political entity or agency, then anyone who wants to take you over or who hates the local citizen and wants to murder them by the tens of millions just takes over the government.
	I mean, fuck, some other country, oh my gosh, it's the own citizens.
	I'm sure you're aware of this number.
	It's called democide.
	In the 20th century, governments outside of war slaughtered 250 million of their own citizens.
	You know, I'll take my fucking chances with a foreign government that the entire brilliance of the society is dedicated to preventing from invading me because I don't want to get holodemored.
	I don't want to get drafted.
	I don't want to get holocausted.
	I don't want to get Cambodians starved.
	I don't want to get thrown up against the wall and have machine gun clips emptied into the back of my head because I criticized Castro.
	Like, I'll take my chances.
	Because it's not that I'm worried about foreign governments.
	Right?
	I'm worried about, I mean, people should be worried about their own governments turning on them, arresting them.
	Because I'll take my chances.
	So to me, it's kind of like this like I'm gonna use a personal analogy here and I'm sorry I know it's a bit of a cheat but but I just want to tell you how sort of so let's say that that we work towards a stateless society over generations of peaceful parenting and all the stuff we talked about yesterday okay and let's say that we end up with a stateless society now your concern is well you know but something bad could happen down the road right okay so well about 13 years ago I got cancer and it got cut out and
	then I did radiation and chemo now is there a chance the cancer can come back there is does that mean I shouldn''t give it a shot to be cancer free?
	Of course not.
	Right, so even if under some scenario that I can't think of, but you know, whatever, I'm not some all-knowing guy, but even if there is some scenario wherein, oh my gosh, we only get, you know, fifty or a hundred years and then something happens and, okay, but it might not.
	And this is what we do with illness, right?
	When you get an infection, you get a bad infection, you take antibiotics.
	Now, that doesn't mean you're never going to get an infection again, but you treat what's there and don't worry so much about the future and you don't sit there and say, well, let's just crawl along in this hell'scape of statism and inflation and war and predaation and identity politics and enslaving the young through national debts and unfunded liabilities and rampant vote buying and all of this kind of horrible corruption lying, indoctrinating the children and all of that.
	It's like, well, we don't want to solve all of that because, you know, in fifty or a hundred or two hundred years, something bad could happen.
	How is that?
	That's not how we operate.
	We don't operate on what bad things could happen.
	If we solve a problem now.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	What we do is we say, what's the right thing to do?
	Because the argument when people were trying to get rid of slavery, of course, the counter argument was., well, the slaves are collecting all the food, we're going to starve to death.
	The paid slaves are collecting all the cotton, we'll have no clothing.
	How are you going to power your ships without slaves?
	And if you're like, well, now we've got amazing machinery and we've got the internal combustion engine, which only, of course, was developed after the end of slavery because you want labor saving devices when you're not invested in labor using devices like slaves.
	So you say, well, we have to end slavery because slavery is a moral abomination.
	We don't sit there and say, ah, yes, but in fifty or a hundred years, maybe that's not what we do.
	We do the right thing.
	We do the right thing according to universal morals and ethics.
	And this consequentialism is, you know, all due respect, and I really do appreciate the question, so I hope you don't mind the pushback, but consequentialism is just a form of paralysis and mysticism.
	You don't know the fucking future, neither do I. All we know is what is the right thing to do in the here and now, and to reduce the amount of violence in society, it's got to be the goal.
	It's got to be, society gets better.
	exactly to the proportion that we reduce the initiation of the use of force in society and saying, well, you know, but I could think of some scenario where in 50 or 100 years, that is mysticism and paralysis.
	And this idea that we have to figure out the future and all possible scenarios simply makes us paralyzed from a moral standpoint.
	The initiation of the use of force is wrong.
	We have to uphold that as a standard.
	We have to push that as a standard.
	And consequentialism is just a form of paralysis because you're not going to know what's going to happen in the future.
	The last thing I'll say is this.
	So when we were talking about getting rid of serfdom, getting rid of slavery in the West in general as a culture, as a society, that also happened in Russia as well, which straddles East and West.
	So if I'd have said, well, my friend, we need to get rid of slavery and serfdom, and you'd have said, well, you know, but there's all these problems I can imagine what's going to happen and other people that have slaves and serfs are going to invade us and this and that and the other.
	And how are we going to even pick the food, right?
	We have no other subs.
	We can't do it, right?
	And if everyone, if you have to pay everyone to pick it rather than have slaves, food is going to be so expensive that people are just going to starve to death en masse.
	We're going to take it over.
	Slavery is going to be reimposed, stuff like that, right?
	And if I were to say, no, no, no, man, don't worry about it.
	worry about it.
	Because you see, after we get rid of slavery and serfdom relatively rapidly, we're going to put That's what kind of weird science fiction, but that's what happened.
	Yeah.
	We can't predict the future.
	We can only do what's right in the here and now.
	Okay, thank you for the speech.
	I'll certainly give you the microphone now.
	And Stefano, I agree totally.
	I'm not a I'm not really a proponent of consequentialism and this choice paralysis thing.
	But that is kind of what you argue.
	Yeah, my argument, the reason I argue this is because I'm trying to figure out, because the system you're proposing sounds very...
	Like on a theoretical level, it sounds very good to me when I listen to it and when I think about it.
	No, but you think theoretical is just moral.
	Yeah.
	It's just moral.
	We need to do the theoretical implementation right.
	Okay.
	That's what I'm getting at.
	Right.
	Because we're talking about a theoretical possible society, right?
	No, I mean, I'm talking about moral consistency in the world that we advocate for.
	And so what results from that?
	I mean, I've got a whole book called The Future, which is about how a free society works.
	I've got my books, Everyday Anarchy and Practical Anarchy, about how these things work.
	And I'm not expecting you to know all of those, right?
	I'm just saying that they're available for free as resources, and people should definitely check them out.
	Especially The Future, which is really good.
	Great, I'll look into them.
	I'm sorry?
	I'll definitely look into them.
	Yeah, freedomain.com slash books.
	You might want to start with my novel called The Future, which is my description of how a free society functions and works as a whole.
	And it's a very good courtroom drama and very exciting story as a whole.
	So you should definitely check that out.
	But...
	You do the right and the moral thing and trying to figure out what are the effects of doing the right and moral thing.
	is just a way to avoid advocating for that which will bother people.
	Because, and I'm not putting you in this category, I'm just saying this because we're talking not just between ourselves, but I'm talking to, I'm playing for mankind, right, as the song goes.
	We do when we focus on the right thing.
	So when I was, when I became a father in 2008, My wife and I, of course, she's a mental health professional and was for at that point 15, 20 years.
	And we said, you know, no violence., no hitting, no punishment, no yelling, no name calling in our marriage, of course, and of course, in parenting.
	Now, in terms of consequentialism, we could easily have said, well, how is our daughter going to fit in if she's raised so differently?
	And we were going to homeschool her, and she's an only child, and we have this radically different approach to parenting called no punishment, no violence, no aggression.
	I mean, she's just not going to fit in with anyone, and she's going to be completely isolated, and we could have scared ourselves into compromising on those essential moral goals through consequentialism, right?
	but we both agreed that that's just the right thing to do that we don't initiate the use of force against helpless and defenseless children we're just not going to do that and we don't blame our child for our parenting so if something's not working in the house household and we're in charge you don't blame the you don't blame the janitor at one mcdonald's for the mcdonald's stock price because he's not in charge of the company and even he has infinitely more
	independence than a child in a family right and said well we didn't didn't We didn't choose.
	Sorry, our daughter did not choose us as parents.
	We chose each other as husband and wife, but our daughter did not choose us.
	She didn't choose to be born and she didn't choose us as parents and when she gets older she is going to be able to choose whether she spends any time with us at all so the way that we parent this was the sort of great conversation we had the way that we're going to parent is if our daughter were to have the choice to have any parent in the world she would choose us Because she grows up and then she never has to call me again.
	She never has to come by again.
	She never has to give me the time of day if I pass her on the street.
	And so we have to provide, we have to parent.
	as if our daughter had a choice, an infinite choice of who to be her parents, and that out of all of the choices of all the people in the world, she would choose us.
	Because that's what happens in a marriage, right?
	Or in friendships, we choose each other every day.
	My wife could wake up tomorrow and say, you know, I've read your Wikipedia page.
	You're a terrible guy.
	I'm out of here, right?
	And she could leave tomorrow.
	I could leave tomorrow.
	I mean, we're not going to, but we could.
	Our daughter doesn't have that choice, so we have to live with that.
	consequentialism in terms of, well, you know, if we do this right thing, it could have negative effects.
	It could be complicated.
	It could be difficult.
	It could be this.
	That's just now how you make moral decisions.
	You make moral decisions based upon principles.
	The initiation of the use of force is immoral, and I've proven that in my free book, Universally Preferable Behavior, A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics.
	The initiation of the use of force is immoral, and it's immoral no matter what.
	It becomes directly evil when people understand the concepts and still advocate for it and still continue.
	as we talked about the other day, like you've got a month or two where you explain things to people and if they still continue, and I'm not putting you in this category because we've just started this conversation, so we've talked twice, right?
	So this is very early on.
	But at some point, you either have to rebut these arguments or you have to accept them.
	And if you cannot rebut them and do not accept them and continue to advocate for the use of violence to solve complex social problems, then at that point, unfortunately, we become on opposite sides of the moral question.
	And again, you're a long way from that.
	This is just the very beginning, so don't sweat anything to do with that.
	Not that you'd sweat anything I'm saying about this anyway.
	But the way that we make decisions is not based upon possible negative consequences that we can't really conceive of.
	And of course, if any of us knew what society would be like in a couple hundred years when we have a free society, we should at least know what the price of Apple stock is going to be tomorrow and make a bazillion dollars and buy up a continent and you know turn it into a free society but we don't have that capacity to predict even what the stock price is going to be five minutes from now so I try not to worry too much about what's going to happen in a couple hundred years under a free society but rather simply focus on reducing the addiction
	to violence that we have in trying to solve social problems in the here and now I mean it makes perfect sense right and that but that's like the content the thing I'm trying to get at I think is Is I'm trying to figure out why the configuration of society you're proposing doesn't already exist in scale, right?
	That's because it sound spelled out.
	But come on, man.
	You can say, though, why was there no stock market before there was a stock market, which is the foundational definition of a free market?
	Why was there no free market before there was a free market?
	Why was there no Baconian scientific method before there was a scientific method?
	Why did people not know that the Sun was the center of the solar system before that?
	Because knowledge develops and we advance and we move forward.
	And things come into existence that weren't there before.
	Why were there no airplanes before there were airplanes?
	Does that mean that we shouldn't have airplanes because people didn't think of them before?
	The idea of taking the non-aggression principle and completely universalizing it across society and within parenting is new.
	This is a new idea.
	Taking this, like, you know, when Einstein said, okay, let's just play something for shits and giggles.
	Let's just fancy, let's just say that the speed of light is constant.
	It's just what?
	Well, then you come up with a, that we teach to our children, what do we say?
	Tell the truth, which is keep your contracts.
	We say, don't hit, which is don't initiate the use of force.
	We say, if someone hits you, you can hit them back.
	That's self-defense.
	And we say, don't take other people's property.
	That's what we tell four-year-olds, five-year-olds, six-year-olds.
	I worked in a daycare.
	I said this a lot.
	And so when we take the local and we make it the universal, That's as revolutionary a thing as can be conceived of.
	You know, everything that I said earlier, right?
	We got a little thing in our hand.
	We let go of it.
	It drops.
	Okay.
	So what if everything falls?
	What if it's not just, well, this thing fell to the ground.
	Okay, what if everything falls?
	What if the moon is falling around the earth?
	What if the earth is falling around the sun?
	What if the sun is falling around the galaxy?
	What if everything falls?
	Right?
	What if when I jump off a ladder, the earth also jumps towards me a tiny little bit?
	What if everything is attractive?
	And you just take your own local.
	universal experience, your own localized experience and you universalize it and then you understand the universe.
	And what if we take the moral rules that we inflict on four-year-olds and try to inflict them on politicians and warmongers?
	And, you know, we would never say to a kid, you know, if you want a candy bar, so candy bars are two bucks.
	So what you want to do is get a photocopier and photocopy some money and go and spend that photocopied money because we'd say, well, that's kind of stealing because it's counterfeiting, right?
	We wouldn't tell kids to do that, right?
	And so you wouldn't tell kids to photocopy money.
	And you wouldn't tell kids to just find a way to hack into a bank account and type whatever they wanted into it because that would be stealing.
	I mean, there's the story of office space, right?
	That they take fractions of a penny and put them in some new account and so on.
	That's still kind of.
	theft right even though nobody notices it and so we wouldn't tell kids photocopy money and go and buy stuff, but central banks do it every single day.
	And so what if we just took the rules that we take and apply and inflict upon children and just made them universal?
	What if not just this falls but everything falls?
	What if keep your contracts?
	Don't initiate violence.
	Respect property, which we inflict on kids?
	What if that's just the three rules?
	Keep your contracts.
	No initiation of force.
	No stealing.
	What if it's just that simple?
	And what if taking those simple principles and putting them at the center of our moral universe completely rewrites society?
	Well, that's fine.
	I mean, this wouldn't be the first time our entire mindsets have been rewritten by taking localized rules and universalizing them.
	Everything falls.
	Rate of light is constant.
	Inverse square law, all gases expand when heated, just taking our local experiences and universalizing them, that is progress.
	That is science.
	And that also must be the journey of morality if we're to survive at all.
	That was beautifully put.
	Well, thank you.
	I appreciate that.
	I appreciate that.
	Well, I think we've come to the end of our queue, and I really love...
	I really do.
	And I appreciate that.
	Freedomain.com slash donate.
	To help out the show, I really would appreciate it.
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