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Aug. 30, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:50:41
My Mom is on FIRE! Twitter/X Space
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Good evening, everybody.
Welcome to your Friday Night Live.
This year of our brain, 29th of August, 2025.
Trying a massive live stream, who knows what's it, and all of that.
And I have certainly comments of my own, but this is your show.
Let's go straight along with the eponymously named Dong.
Dong.
What is on your mind, my friend?
How can philosophy help you and yours?
How's it going?
Good.
How are you doing?
I wonder, you know, I'm a math tutor, and this is just a pure philosophical question.
What do you think about the existence of numbers?
Are they real things?
Are they just tools that we use?
What do you think?
I want to have your, I want your, what's your opinion on that?
Well, to me, it's like if you look in the mirror, as I am sometimes want to do, getting lost in my own cranium.
But if you look in a mirror and you see yourself, are you real in the mirror?
Well, you are a reflection, right?
So is what's in the mirror subjective?
No, it's you being reflected in the mirror.
And so the way that I look at numbers is they are a reflection of real properties in the world, right?
So if I have, let's see here, let's make it vivid.
We have two SD cards, two wee little SD cards, right?
Now, these are two discrete entities that exist in the world.
There's space between them.
There's atoms that hold them together, strong and weak atomic forces, all kinds of cool stuff, right?
So these are two actual things in the world.
We agree on that, right?
Sure, sure, sure.
Okay.
Of course.
Now, if I say there are three of them when there are only two, I'm wrong.
If I say there's one or zero, I'm wrong.
The only correct answer is two.
That's because that's what we defined.
Yes.
Well, the word represents two things.
I mean, it could be in German or whatever, right?
Yeah.
So forget about the linguistic, you know, hoo-ha, but these are two real things.
If I say there's three or none or war, if I say that's blue rather than that's two, I'm also incorrect.
So numbers as a concept do not exist in the real world any more than your reflection in a mirror exists in the real world.
But the reflection is an accurate representation of what's in the real world, right?
Does that make sense?
Yes, yes.
Okay, so they're not arbitrary or subjective, but don't exist in the real world.
Does that make sense?
Well, yeah, I mean, I have the idealist opinion.
I think that there's two-ness as a thing that exists, but it's not, you know, like a platonic form, two-ness.
But the hard part about using the realistic, because using, you know, it could represent a real thing.
Well, how do you deal with infinity?
How do I deal with one?
Infinity, infinities.
In mathematics, infinity exists.
I mean, some people, there's, you know, opinions.
People are finite tests.
They don't think infinity is a real thing.
It can be a useful concept.
Like, there's a lot of arguments about this in like the early 1900s.
Yeah.
So infinity is a concept.
And, you know, is there a real thing such as infinity?
That kind of thing.
And that's why, you know, having a good, that's why I think that infinity has to be, you know, numbers have to have something beyond something that's real.
They're an abstract property.
And it's, you know, beyond, there's two-ness that exists or three-ness.
Okay, so let's start with this.
And it's a great topic.
And for those of you who feel like this may be obtuse and abstract, think about how many times you've been exhorted to follow the social contract or to go along with the greatest good for the greatest number, society as a whole, the good of the masses and all of that.
So this idea that the collective or abstracts or concepts exist and are more important than individuals is powering our entire social discourse, if that makes sense.
So I just wanted to mention that.
Sorry, just getting a comment here.
Can hear audio is a bit off here on locals, good on Twitter.
Like the audio is trying to record at a higher volume.
Okay, I'll take that down a little bit.
Okay, so tell me a little bit about the platonic higher realm, the thingness of the numbers two that exists somewhere.
Well, there's a you can know what two is.
Well, I mean, how, you know, if you could, you can you can use inductive reasoning to see that there is like a property that a set of two objects will have that functions mathematically regardless of what type of object it is.
It doesn't matter which.
Wait, hang on.
Sorry, too abstract.
Sorry to be annoying.
Okay, so if you're watching the camera, I'm holding up these two SD cards, right?
Is the number two embedded in them somewhere?
That's a good question.
Well, you have one and one.
I have one and one.
Yeah.
And you have one and one together as two, right?
Okay.
Is the number two embedded in the objects themselves, in the relationship between them, or only in my mind as an accurate identification of how many there are?
Well, I would say it's in the relationship between them, but that's also based on your senses, too.
Okay, hang on.
So in the relationship between them, does the relationship between these two SD cards exist as a physical property between them?
Like they each have a property called gravity that has some tiny tiny leaves attracted to each other.
It's not a physical property.
Okay, not a physical property.
Okay, so if I just have one, it's the same object as when I bring another one in.
They're both individual objects, and the fact that there are two of them doesn't change each individual object, right?
Yeah.
Okay.
If I bring a third one up, it doesn't change.
So the two-ness is not in the object because the objects don't change whether I hold up one or two.
They're still the same things, right?
Yeah.
I mean, to me, it's something going on elsewhere.
I mean, this is like when you deal with mathematics in the abstract, it does, to me, these are something like real objects.
Not physical objects, but they have a structure.
Numbers have structure.
They have, and it's not, number has structure, and it's not arbitrary, really.
Sorry, number has a structure.
I'm not sure what you mean by structure now.
Like a set of numbers, sets of mathematical objects have structures and stuff like this.
The integers have a structure.
They have, you know, there's multiples.
You have different mathematical properties that the integers would have.
We're talking about numbers as a concept, not things in the world.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, but.
Okay, so let's get back to the platonic thing because I want to understand.
It's not a criticism.
I'm genuinely curious how you think because it's a fascinating question.
And of course, Aristotle and Plato went to war about this 2,500 years ago.
So where do numbers exist, if not only in our minds?
Well, I'm a theist.
So somewhere with it, it has to be somewhere within God.
I don't know what that would really mean.
It's something outside of us for sure.
Like numbers would probably numbers would exist if we didn't exist.
It has to be that kind of thing.
Sorry, numbers would exist if we didn't exist.
Yeah.
Now, when you say numbers would exist, do you mean that if there's, let's say there's a canyon that has 100 rocks at the bottom, that those hundred rocks would still exist even if we didn't.
And of course, we know that they existed before we existed, depending on your level of creationism versus evolution.
But are you saying that the hundred rocks would exist, whether or not we identify them as a hundred rocks?
Or are you saying that the concept or number 100 also exists, even without the human mind?
Even without the human mind.
It has to be that way.
Sorry.
I don't have the show.
You don't get to say it has to be that way.
That's not an argument.
I don't have a good argument for that, actually.
Okay.
Why it would be that, but it has to be a theistic argument that it has to have existed before creation or something like that, in the mind of God or something like that.
That's the only way I could explain it.
Okay.
So why does it have to be that way?
Because it seems that mathematical things would transcend any, like it's, what would be the term?
It's something you can have a priori to anything.
It's like a priori knowledge.
It's mathematics is a priori knowledge.
You can figure things out about mathematics without knowing anything else.
Sorry, say that again?
Like things in mathematics can be deduced a priori given just, you know, the existence of number.
I said that's circular, I suppose.
That's a bit circular.
Would you like me to take a swing at, I hate to sort of say, let me do your argument for you, but if you wouldn't mind, I'll sort of take a swing at this and see if this makes any sense.
So if we say that concepts are an imperfect reflection of things that exist in the real world, in other words, in any conflict between the conflict, in any conflict between the idea and what it's describing, what it's describing must take precedence.
In other words, if you have a scientific theory, but matter doesn't behave in that way, your scientific theory is false.
It's not that matter is false.
Does that make sense?
Sure.
And of course, as a math tutor or as a math teacher, you would do this all the time.
Because no matter how fervently the student believes that two and two makes five, two and two makes four.
And he's or she is just wrong about that.
So if we say concepts in the mind are imperfectly derived from sense data, then since God doesn't show up in sense data, we then have to say the concept of God does not come through our sense data, but is only an idea in the mind.
But if ideas in the mind are no more real than that which comes from sense data, and given that God is an idea in the mind, that would be a disproof of the existence of God.
So I would assume, and again, tell me if I'm going astray, of course, in this, but I would assume that by saying concepts in the mind are more real than things in the world, or at least of equivalent reality in some other dimension, then the fact that I have an idea of God or the fact that we have an idea of something called infinity or eternity must mean that those things exist somewhere in the universe,
because if concepts in the mind are only valid to the degree that we get empirical evidence of them in the universe, and there's no empirical evidence for God in the universe, that God wouldn't exist.
So I think the idea is to elevate concepts in the mind to a higher or new omenal or platonic reality to retain their existence in the absence of sense data.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, something like that.
It's like you can, I think of it, you know, you can see a certain amount of things and you can start to draw conclusions, like a certain inductive reasoning.
Like, oh, these things have all these properties.
Like objects in the world have properties of number and numbers abstractly have properties without having reference to object.
Now, where I think, and there was a lot of conflict over it, and it later came up with dealing with infinity.
Infinity became a very controversial thing in some ways in mathematics.
The Greeks wouldn't accept, because the Greek view of mathematics, it was things had to number, it meant something, some kind of unit.
The Greeks didn't, when they thought about number, Greeks did not think of, they thought of numbers referring to lengths, areas, volumes, not abstract things we have, the kind of abstract number we have now, like complex numbers and all the different kinds of numbers we have now in mathematics.
So something changed and we work with something different now.
And those things, to me, are as real as, you know, the normal counting numbers, integers.
Do you have anything else to add?
I'm sorry, you seem to be in the middle of the sentence.
I didn't want to interrupt.
I'm kind of rambling.
Okay, no, that's fine.
That's fine.
Okay.
So let me make a brief case here for you and see if it makes any sense in this great conversation.
So let's look at something called immortality, right?
So everything that is biological that is alive is going to die.
I mean, physically, right?
Yes.
Okay.
So if everything that is alive is going to die, then immortality, and again, I'm not talking about the soul or the immaterial essence of humanity or anything like that.
I'm simply talking about what we call physical biological life.
Immortality with regards to physical life is not a concept, but the removal of a concept.
It is the removal of a limitation.
So if we say something like immortality, what we're saying is it's life with something taken away, which is death.
Now, of course, there is no life physically without death.
So we are removing a definition from what we're talking about.
So we're talking about physical life, which all lives and dies.
And then we remove death from that which is physical life.
It is the removal of a concept or it's the removal of a reality, not an actual concept.
Does that make sense?
Yeah, but that's dependent.
Well, okay, what's your definition of life?
Well, like I said, physical, biological, bodily life.
Again, I'm not talking about immortality, just talking about if we say so-and-so's body is immortal, we would know that would be false, right?
Yeah.
Okay, so we've taken something called a body, which is mortal, and we've removed a concept or we've removed a fact about that body.
So it's the removal of a fact that makes something inaccurate that is immortality.
So we can talk about it with regards to the body, but it's an anti-concept.
And what I mean by that is We've taken the rational definition of physical life, which is birth, growth, and death, and we've simply removed one of those tripods, one of those tripods that defines physical life, birth, growth, death, or birth, life, death.
And we've simply taken one of those away.
And we said, well, we've removed the concept of death from physical life.
So immortality is not a concept, like it doesn't identify anything in the real world.
We're taking the definition and nature of physical life and simply removing one of its actual properties, if that makes sense.
It's like saying, well, I have a concept of a square, a square being four lines, four straight lines of equal length in a circle, or in a square, I guess you can say.
So if I say, well, look, a square is four circles, and I have this concept called a square with only three circles.
Sorry, a square with three lines.
A square is four lines, and I've got a concept of a square which is only three lines.
I'm just taking away one of the definitions of a square, and I'm ending up with something kind of incomprehensible.
So if you say immortal physical life, you're taking away one of the definitions of physical life.
And so it is an anti-concept in that you are retaining the concept of physical life, but you're taking away one of the definitions, which is death.
And so immortality at the physical level is an anti-concept.
It's not a concept.
You're simply taking away a definition.
It's like saying a square with three lines.
Well, a square can't have only three lines.
A triangle, maybe if they all contain each themselves, but not a square.
A square can't have three lines.
So if I say it's a square with three lines, I'm not saying anything comprehensible.
I'm just creating a contradiction.
And if I say immortality for physical life, I'm simply creating a contradiction, and it's an anti-concept, if that makes sense.
Sure, that's, you know, A not being equal to A is contradiction.
That's basically what you're saying.
Okay, so numbers are markers for discrete entities in the world.
At least, I'm not talking all the theoretical numbers, the negative numbers and all of that sort of stuff, but I'm talking about the development of numbers.
They represent discrete entities in the world, right?
And numbers by definition are limited, right?
So going back to our two little memory cards here, there has to only be two.
There can be only two, Highlander style, right?
So they are limited.
Now, I can have a billion or a Googleplex or what was it my daughter used to say the biggest number when she was very little is a dillion quill.
That was her biggest number.
But it's still limited, right?
Like all numbers have to be limited because they arrive out of limited discrete entities that we see using our senses.
So numbers by definition have to have some kind of limit to them.
Okay.
So that's well, one way that, so if you want to talk about the limits of number, one way infinity is talked about is you can even conceive of it as like a process type thing.
Infinity as a always extending a number one more than the largest number you can conceive of.
That's one possible way of doing it.
No, but it's infinity more, isn't it?
Well, it's one more.
Whenever you have one more, you take a limit.
You can define a rigorous process for doing this, like taking a limit.
This is like an analysis.
You do this.
But you do get into questionable things, especially when you deal with real numbers, which some people don't think are real.
Which are, yeah.
So they're not counting.
The numbers, you know, numbers like pi and e and zeta three, any rational numbers and stuff like that.
Those are things that can't, a rational number like the square root of two, that can't be represented by anything physical.
It cannot be.
Because it's an irrational number, you would require an infinite amount of precision to represent it.
Yeah.
Like finding the end of pi, right?
Exactly.
Okay.
But there are things that have a real, that have a real use.
But I guess when we're saying real, we're talking physical.
But in anything physical, you're going to do approximation.
But in mathematics, like it's treated as a real, treated as an object that has its own existence.
Yeah.
So in mathematics, you would deal with pi as a ratio, not as something you could encapsulate because it can't be encapsulated because of the random numbers that go on forever, right?
Not random.
No, you would treat it as just a quantity.
It would be its own quantity.
It's irrational.
You can't represent it in any way as a non-infinite thing.
So my case with infinity would be something like this.
And forgive me for my non-math brain, and I'm sure this is mostly incorrect, but let's take a quick stab at it.
So if we say biological life is finite, and if we remove the definition of mortality, we end up with immortality, but it's an anti-concept because we're taking something that defines human life and just removing it.
Now, if all numbers represent some kind of limitation, then if we say infinite in terms of numbers or counting, we've taken the definition of numbers and we've created an anti-concept, which is simply we've simply removed the limitation.
So in the same way that all life is limited into some span of years, if we remove that limitation and say immortality, well, then we've simply taken the definition of life and removed one of its definitions.
We've created an anti-concept.
And if we take numbers, which are all limited or represent things that are limited, or in fact, the only reason we have numbers is because things are limited, because we don't really count the air molecules because they're practically infinite.
And so if we have numbers which are limited and then we remove the limit of numbers, I don't think we've created anything other than an anti-concept, which is numbers are by definition limited.
What if we just remove those limitations?
Well, we get infinity.
But that's not a concept.
That's an anti-concept in the same way that immortality with regards to physical life is not a concept, but an anti-concept.
Well, it's because life takes place in a limited universe.
The universe is limited.
Yes.
It is limited.
It's bounded.
The number of particles is bounded.
It's like 10 to the 80.
It's actually not a very big number.
It's a huge number, but it's not like combinations and permutations of small things are a much larger number.
Like all the different configurations of the atoms in the room you're in right now is much, much larger than the number of atoms in the whole universe, for example.
Sorry, say that again?
So the size of the universe, the number of particles in it is like 10 to the 80.
But if you were to consider, say, the number of different places that all the atoms in just the room you're in, like the air molecules, all the possible places they could be in the room is much larger than 10 to the 80.
Much, much larger.
Much, much larger.
But yeah, we do, we limit, we live in a finite universe.
And life, because it's in a finite universe, is finite.
You know, the entropy is always going to increase.
Yeah, you can't make things, there's no immortality in a finite, in a finite universe.
So infinity is taking the properties of the universe and of life and of stripping them of one essential element, which is limit.
Yeah.
Well, that's, I mean, I think there's part of why I'm a theist is for this reason.
I discussed this question with many people in college too, and part of the conclusions of why I came to become a theist.
It's not, and it's not strictly rational thing either.
No, no, I get that.
And I really understand, at least I think I understand why you need concepts in the mind to be a reflection of larger things in the universe, because if concepts in the mind, as I said earlier, if concepts in the mind must be validated by external reason and evidence, then you don't get to God.
But if concepts in the mind are a reflection of a higher reality that has more reality than the sense data, then you retain the idea of God.
This is an old argument for God goes back to St. Augustine and so on, which is that how do we end up with a concept of God?
Since why is it so universal to have a concept of God when we never experience God in terms of sense data?
And that must mean that we have connection with something larger than ourselves.
And there's many moral arguments for that something must extend.
It must come from somewhere.
I'm sure you've talked about these things before.
What else is there to add?
Yeah, I mean, I studied science in school too.
So I can see things empirically, try to at least.
I don't think anyone can really be very empirical most of the time.
It's difficult.
But it just seems to me that I'm willing to make a leap of faith to see that there's inductively, there's something going on beyond us, if that makes sense.
And number and is part of that concepts.
There's many transcendent things, it would seem.
But that takes faith to do that, to believe that.
Well, it does.
Although I do think that there is, even from the materialistic or agnostic or atheist side, we are not just participating in eternity.
We are composed of eternity.
I mean, as you know, every atom in your body and in my body, according to the law of the sort of matter can't be created or destroyed, only transferred to energy and back is eternal.
Yeah.
And I mean, that's sorry.
It's really fascinating to think that what composed you and I mostly is just like star vomit from billions of years ago that has been around for eternity.
And so we are actually composed of things that not only outlive us, but will be eternal.
And I think this is one of the reasons why we think, well, you know, we live forever.
It's because everything that composes us has lived forever or existed forever.
You know, I would think a big part of the feeling that people have about eternal life, and a lot of it comes from, is that your actions, I mean, it goes back to earlier religions, you know, like pagan religions and stuff like that.
Part of their idea of eternal life is that your actions will ring forever.
You know, the things you do, there is infinite consequences.
And if you, and if you paid really close attention, the tiniest little things you do can have very profound consequences, the tiniest, the tiniest thing.
And I think that's a lot of where people started to pick up on that.
Yeah, I mean, I think one of the, I mean, by the by, this is sort of like an ad for my new book.
I just, I'm on the last chapter, chapter 23, and I've got one more chapter to go, which is a novel just about how the tiny changes at the beginning of things end up with you in a totally different place.
I mean, if you are going, if you're sailing from London to New York and you're just two degrees off, you're going to end up in South America.
Like you end up in a completely different place, just little decisions at the beginning of things.
And it comes out of partly the frustration that I've had over the course of my whole life, which is that I think I'm pretty wise when it comes to making good life decisions and I'm pretty good at communicating these things.
This is why I've done thousands of these call-in shows helping people and why I'm booked for these calls.
And people call me after disaster has struck and, oh, what am I supposed to do now?
And it's like, well, you're supposed to have called me before.
So I'm really trying to help people understand that disasters that happen in their life usually start 10 or 20 years earlier with bad decisions made at that point.
It's unfortunate.
And over time, I mean, I've over time started to have eyes to see how the tiniest little things can affect what happens in the future.
And it's difficult to do that.
You know, I appreciate, I've been listening to you for probably 10 years now, every once in a while.
And I like how you come back on Twitter.
It's really good.
Oh, good.
Well, I appreciate that.
Thank you.
Is there anything else you wanted to mention?
No.
Okay.
Thanks, man.
Really appreciate the conversation.
And I would invite everyone to keep thinking about these things.
And I can't tell you how amazingly and wonderfully delightful it is for me to even have a chance of correcting a math tutor.
It's not my enemy, but it's not always my friend either.
All right.
Mr. Singh.
You are up next, I think.
What's on your mind, my friend?
Greetings, Stefan.
Thanks for inviting me up again.
Last time that we talked, there were some threads that I wanted to go back to.
The one most important one, though, was that magic word of accountability.
And there's some moral dilemmas, speaking as an activist, that I'd like to go over with you because I think that's one of your fortes, one of the reasons I've gravitated towards you.
So I had mentioned that the Democrat Party is not really serving moderate leftists and that there's a district in downtown LA that is winnable.
So I think there's one dilemma is how to engage in civil disobedience because I really feel like the two parties are right-wing and fascist and won't allow any competition.
Sorry, sorry, hang on.
The two parties, do you mean in America, right?
The two parties are right-wing.
Sorry, the two parties are right-wing.
Sorry, the two parties are right-wing and fascist.
Is that right?
Primarily in Congress, for sure.
Okay.
For sure.
Okay.
So what are your definitions of right-wing and fascist?
Okay.
Well, we got bogged down on this again.
No, no, it's not.
Hang on, hang on.
That's a little rude, right?
I mean, if I'm asking for definitions and you're saying, well, definitions are going to bargain down if I disagree with you.
It's like, well, no, if you want to use my show as a platform to spread your ideas, which is fine, then don't you need to define your terms?
Yeah, I was going to say it would have probably been easier if I had laid out the foundation of the argument and then we could go back to the rather than tell me what you could have done, just tell me what your definitions are of right-wing and fascist.
Sure.
Well, I'm using the old term of fascism, corporatism.
The corporations and the governments, their major interests are totally entwined.
And people have conflated fascism with totalitarianism.
And one of the things I think that A freedom movement, whether it's national or global, has to recognize that the far left, the communists and the socialists, and the far right, whether you call them fascists or something else.
I don't include the libertarians in that, by the way.
Sorry, so I just want to make sure I understand.
So corporate fascism is when there's a merger of government and corporate power.
Is that right?
Yes.
And unlike the totalitarianism of the left, the corporations are dictating more to the governments where the government would dictate more.
Hang on.
Okay, sorry.
Have you ever run a business?
No, not even close.
Okay.
So why would you say that the corporations are dictating to the government?
I mean, the government has all the power, right?
The government writes the laws.
The government imprisons people.
The government has nukes, weapons, aircraft carriers.
Corporations don't have any of these things.
So how is it that the corporations dictate to the government?
Through economic power, through the corruption of Congress and the executive branch, through lobbyists, through the banking system, especially.
Well, no, but the banking system, I mean, if you're talking about the Federal Reserve, I mean, that's not a private corporation.
I mean, I know it's a private corporation, but its monopoly is enforced by the state, right?
I look at it as more of a private bank, so maybe I'm...
No, but hang on.
Hang on.
Hang on.
So let's suppose that you want to pay your tax bill with something other than the U.S. dollar.
Let's say you live in the States.
Is that right?
Yeah, I'm in Los Angeles.
Okay.
So if you want to pay your tax bill with something other than U.S. dollars, what happens?
I think they would reject it.
They would reject it, right?
So in order to survive in society, you have to pay the government like every day, right?
Because it's a sales tax or property tax or tax on your income or whatever.
Every day, you have to use government currency.
That's enforced through the power of the state.
I mean, of course, one of the clues is the word fiat, right?
Fiat currency means by coercive degree.
So it's not a private corporation if it is mandated, if its customer base is mandated by the government and you go to jail if you don't use the product called the U.S. dollar that is produced.
And the Federal Reserve, sorry, the Federal Reserve cannot enforce its own monopoly.
No corporation can enforce its own monopoly.
It can only do so through the power of the state, if that makes sense.
It does.
The state is the enforcer.
So how is it that the non-coercive institution controls the coercive institution?
Perhaps controls is an inaccurate term, colludes and manipulates the partisan parties and the individuals.
No sea power.
Here's the thing, man.
I mean, I am in the annoying position of having run companies.
So I apologize for this pomposity and all of that.
But if you run a corporation, you have to work with the state.
You have to follow the rules.
You have to have your DEI initiatives.
Otherwise, you might get sued by the DOJ or other places.
You have to use their currency.
You have to follow rules, regulations that go on for hundreds of thousands of pages sometimes.
You have to hire lawyers in order to survive within the system.
And you generally have to do business with the state as a whole, because if you don't, then your competitors get all of the big dollar contracts and relatively easy executions, and you go out of business.
So most businesses are trying to survive the state.
They are not, you know, Mr. Burns style, kind of rubbing their hands and, oh, we're in control of the government.
Sure, they will go and lobby Congress and they will donate to campaigns and so on.
Well, sure.
And that's because the economic reality is there's no better way to spend your money than buying Congress people.
Like this has been studied quite extensively, that the biggest return on investment is political donations.
So it is attempting to influence that which controls you that is what most corporations are doing.
And of course, you know, I mean, with the corporations that are heavily embedded in the military-industrial complex, it's a little bit more predatory and so on.
But they can't do shit without the government's weaponry, right?
They can't do anything.
They can't impose anything on anyone.
The government holds all the cards.
The government has all the weapons.
The government has all the law, the courts, the prisons, the judicial system as a whole.
And so I don't know how the corporations, I mean, they'll try to survive that.
They'll try and work within the system.
And some of them may like it in a way, but they can't impose anything on the citizens at all.
I mean, the government can raise your taxes, but McDonald's can't make you do anything.
They can't even make you eat there.
Well, perhaps I should retract the term dictate, and then we can use the word corporatized instead.
So it's more of a colluded.
And of course, the socialist communists would want the government to supersede even more the corporate powers.
I think that's we can safely agree with that.
Yeah, for sure.
I mean, I would certainly agree with you.
On the left, they want the government to own the means of production directly.
And under fascism, they want nominal private ownership, but still public control.
So the way I look at some kind of freedom...
Hang on, sorry.
That was just one of the definitions.
That was fascism.
And what do you mean by far right?
Well, this is harder for me to explain, but the more authoritarian left and right is, usually the more they are on the economic scale, left and right.
So it would be very authoritarian and very much on, if you know what I'm talking about, the political compass.
It would be very high on the authoritarian scale.
All the way down would be a pure anarchist.
And then it would either be far left or far right on the economic scale if we're talking about totalitarians like communists and hardcore militant corporatism.
So hardcore militant corporatism.
Again, these are phrases that given that corporations don't have any military, how can they be militant?
I meant like integrating black water and private mercenaries so they get more money than if we just had a regular army like the left wants.
But I mean, that's all paid for by the state, right?
I assume so, yes.
Of course.
Otherwise, it would be private security guards or something like that.
So the mercenaries are paid for by the state, right?
Or foreign entities, yeah.
Well, yes, but I mean, generally it's governments of one kind or another.
Okay.
So what's the difference?
The difference between left and right authoritarian, I'm still trying to understand that, given that corporations in and of themselves have no power of law, no power of weaponry, no armies of their own that is paid for by customers, right?
It's generally paid for by the state.
So how is it, because it seems to me like when you have the government on the left taking over more and more of the economy using force, right?
Nationalization is just theft, right?
So they use force to take over more and more of the economy.
But how do corporations on the right who don't have the armies and police force and law courts and prisons of the left, how do corporations do it?
That's what I'm, and I'm sorry if I'm missing something.
I'm just trying to understand that.
You're not missing anything.
I haven't really articulated it.
Well, this wasn't what I was prepared to speak about.
But I'm not sure.
No, no, no.
Hang on.
It's kind of sophist.
It's kind of sophistic if you will accept the criticism.
Maybe it's wrong, maybe it's right.
But if you come in throwing terms around and I ask you to define those terms and then say, well, I wasn't prepared to talk about that.
It's like, well, what do you mean you weren't prepared?
This is a philosophy show, which means you have to define your terms.
Right?
So, I mean, you have to make a case.
And to make the case, you have to define your terms.
So if you come in and say, well, I didn't want to talk about actually defining my terms, that seems like you just want us to slide a whole bunch of stuff, stuff past people's consciousness without having to define it.
That seems kind of a bit slimy, if that makes sense.
I think because I didn't get to lay out the argument of what I wanted to speak on, I got a little thrown off.
I think I told you before that I spent a lot of time articulating because of my stuttering problem.
So when people interrupt me being an introvert, sometimes it takes a little more time to process and figure out how to answer people.
But I'm trying.
No, no, but you should know that, first of all, a conversation is not interrupting if we're having a conversation.
If you want to do a solo speech, you should just do a solo speech and publish it somewhere.
But if you want to have a conversation, then it's not an interruption to ask you to define your terms.
And that's also having a like, it's not just you and I talking, right?
It's you and I plus a worldwide audience that over time will number in the millions.
So there's no point assuming that people know what you're talking about without defining your terms.
Number one, number two, you know this is a philosophy show.
So you should have been prepared to define your terms when you come on for a conversation.
I'm not jumping you with something weird.
I'm not saying, well, this is a philosophy show, so I'm going to need you to do the chicken dance and the macarena.
That would be a bit of a non-sequitur.
But in a philosophy show, asking people to define their terms is not out of bounds, is it?
No, again, I was focused on the moral dilemmas and talking about resistance.
And now I'm trying to shift gears to accommodate the explanations of the initial terms I brought up, which you're right.
There's nothing weird about wanting to define these terms.
Okay.
So, sorry, go ahead.
where were we we were talking i think about uh well i think i think well i'm just my point is that yeah my point is that just the blaming corporations who don't have weaponry for the actions of governments and saying that somehow corporations and governments are equivalent is not accurate I mean, foundationally, fundamentally, it's not accurate.
If you can imagine in a war between the U.S. military and McDonald's, who do you think would win?
It wouldn't even be like Roland McDonald would be flying through the air in smoky bits in about 30 seconds, right?
So corporations don't have weaponry.
They don't have the law courts, the prison system, the judicial system.
They don't have all of the power that the state has.
They don't have any of the power that the state has.
So corporations are shadows, in a sense, cast by state power.
I also don't agree with the very existence of corporations as fictional entities, right?
Having a corporation is like having an invisible friend that you can commit all the crime and he goes to jail because people can do the most appalling things using the corporate shield, liability shield.
And then if they get caught or bad things happen, they can just shut down the corporation and basically walk away scot-free a lot of the time.
So corporations, I think, are a legal fiction that's invented so that wealthy people can get away with terrible things.
And in return, the wealthy people will support the state that gives them this liability shield called corporations.
They don't exist in a free market.
They wouldn't exist in a free market.
Like in the past, if you were a bank owner and you screwed up your bank and you lent out too much money, you had too much fractional reserve gobbledygook and you went bankrupt, you lost your house.
You lost your house.
You lost your savings.
You went to jail.
Now, I mean, what happens to people outside of Iceland?
What happened to people in the 07-08 financial crisis?
Nothing.
Nothing.
The corporations and fiat currency, it's all designed to give rich people free, get out of jail free cards, free evil cards.
And in return for that, they may support the state, but it's very corrupt and would never, ever exist without state power in the first place.
Well, we were talking about you asked me how corporations influence.
I think that's the better word I should have used.
No, I know how they influence.
I mean, I know that.
Yeah.
I mean, they donate to political campaigns.
They run ads.
Yeah, they do a whole bunch of stuff to attempt to influence and often quite successfully the progress of government power.
So is it fair to say, for the sake of this summation that we just went through, that the two parties that control America are corporatized?
See, again, I don't know what you mean by corporatized.
Do you mean that does the government have so much power that businesses can only survive by attempting to influence the government?
No, I meant that the government officials are in bed with the corporate powers to the point where they serve the lobbyists and the entities, especially the most powerful ones.
We saw Biden's administration.
People were saying that BlackRock was controlling it.
There was O'Keefe filmed one of their agents at a dinner bragging about how Congress can be bought for around $30,000, but oh, a senator would cost them upwards of $50,000.
Okay, so is the problem that the government has the power to control the economy coercively to the degree that it does, or is the problem that corporations can generally only survive by attempting to influence that system?
The latter, I think, is more prevalent.
Okay.
So if the government did not have the power to control the economy, would corporations still be spending millions of dollars trying to influence government?
In a decentralized system, they would have a much more difficult time.
So they would not be spending.
So in areas where the government can't control things for whatever reason, right?
Or doesn't control things.
So for instance, there are sugar tariffs that allow sugar manufacturers in America to vastly overcharge by keeping foreign sugar out, right?
And so there's millions and millions of dollars that's made by the sugar industry.
And of course they have a huge incentive to keep these tariffs going, these pre-Trump tariffs, whereas each individual consumer maybe loses 20 bucks or 50 bucks a year on the extra price of sugar, so they don't have much incentive to push against it.
So do you notice when government controls sugar tariffs, do you notice that the sugar corporations spend a lot of money to maintain that system, or do you notice that other corporations not involved in the sugar industry also spend a lot of money to maintain sugar tariffs?
That's out of my big rate.
I really don't know.
I haven't studied tariffs too much.
Okay, just from a logical standpoint, if you were the manufacturer of hubcaps, like you manufacture hubcaps for some car company, and you went to your board and you said, I think we should lobby to maintain sugar tariffs, what would your board say?
Yes.
No, they wouldn't.
Because your board would say, why on earth would we spend our hard-earned money maintaining sugar tariffs?
We make hubcaps.
It has no impact on us.
Because I was thinking that the tariff system as a whole would be a good idea.
No, no, no, no, I didn't say no.
Never said tariff systems as a whole.
I made a mistake.
No, no, that's fine.
That's fine.
Listen, it's a complicated subject, so I appreciate your patience.
So if you go to the Hubcap Manufacturing Board and say, I want to spend $5 million lobbying Congress to maintain the sugar tariffs, what would your board say?
No.
Right.
Now, if you are in a sugar industry, if you're in the sugar industry and you go to your board and you say, I think that we should, like, we make $20 million a year on these, because of these tariffs, we get to charge a lot more to the customers because there's no foreign competition that undercuts their prices.
So I want to spend $5 million this year to make sure that we maintain these sugar tariffs and that leaves us with a $15 million profit.
Would your board say yes or no to that?
They would say hell yes.
Right, hell yes.
So what that means is that where the government doesn't control things, people don't care to influence it.
Where the government does control things, people do care to influence it.
So corporate attempts to influence governments are entirely based upon the government's ability to control the economy.
And therefore, it's not equal.
You will never solve the problem of influence from corporations of lobbying, of donations, of ads and support.
You will never solve that problem as long as the government has the power to control the economy.
We'll never get solved.
Because anyone who steps outside of that battle, right?
So let's say that the government awards, I don't know, $100 billion worth of contracts.
And let's say somebody decides not to take any of those contracts.
Well, they're not likely to do very well relative to their competition.
Who is willing to take those contracts?
Let's say that there are sugar industries, there's a sugar industry and they lobby for this, but one company gets excluded from that tariff and people can undercut them for just imagine some reason, right?
Well, then the company that can be undercut is going to go out of business.
The companies that can't be undercut, they make a lot of money.
So when you talk about corporatism, what you're talking about is the shadow cast by government power.
If the government doesn't have the power to control the economy, there's no point trying to control the government.
And if the government does control the economy, you have to try it or you go out of business.
The problem is force, not what people do to survive that power.
Okay, sorry, I didn't know if it was my turn to interject.
So the bankers, the major equity firms, the heads of state, they meet with the Bilderberg Group and they do centralized planning.
And that's more along the lines of what I was thinking.
But why are the business people there?
You and I could have some goat sex weird thing in the middle of the bohemian grove too, but nobody's going to show up because we can't do anything to them or for them.
Why do people show up to these meetings?
Why do the heads of business all take time out of their $40 million a year jobs, come and fly out to meet with business people?
Why do they do that?
Sorry, my apologies.
I was unclear.
Sorry, I misspoke.
To meet with politicians.
Why do business people take time out to meet with politicians?
I would assume to make big money business flow easier with a synchronized system of business and governmental policy.
They fly out because politicians have power.
That's all.
I mean, politicians don't fly all out.
You don't get 100 politicians flying out to the McDonald's headquarters saying, I think it'd be really cool if you bought the McGrib back, right?
They don't do that.
But business leaders meet with politicians because politicians have power.
And as long as politicians have that power, business people are going to meet with them and they're going to attempt to gain control of that power.
Of course, I mean, you can't survive any other way.
And so the problem is not with corporatism and so on.
It's like, oh, the evil corporations.
It's like, no, that's just the shadow cast by the governments having the power to transfer trillions of dollars and make people wealthy and make people broke and all of that.
The governments have that power.
So given that that power is there, you either attempt to control it or you go out of business.
You attempt to influence it or you go out of business.
And the only way to solve that problem is to take away the government's power to initiate force, particularly in the realm of economic matters.
So can we agree that the two parties in America, the two major ones, are very authoritarian?
Yes.
Great.
So to combat that authoritarianism, I feel like there are some moral dilemmas attached to civil disobedience.
Like you, I try to follow the NAP, but to do civil disobedience sometimes, if it's in the form of national strikes or boycotting mega.
Yeah, I'm sorry.
I don't do politics, really.
Yeah, I can't, you know, I'm not a lawyer.
I can't give people advice on what level of civil disobedience to do.
I mean, that's something that you need to discuss with a lawyer and so on, right?
So whenever sort of the coercive power of the state enters the room, the philosopher exits stage left because then that's just a matter of pragmatic and legal power choices.
It's not moral choices.
Moral choices require free will.
And in the presence of sort of state power, you just make your rational decisions.
And I suggest that people obey the law.
And if you want to do civil disobedience, if it's legal, go consult with a lawyer.
But I can't really help with that.
Well, I wanted to ask about the moral dilemma as an activist, considering being part of some kind of global freedom movement where innocent people might get caught in the crossfire of that.
Because a strike can be viewed as arbitrary violence.
It could hurt people that want nothing to do with changing the status quo.
Crazy, man.
I tell the guy I don't want to talk about this because it's not my wheelhouse and he just keeps going.
Amazing.
All right.
Jared, my friend, what is on the noggin?
Hello, hello, Jack Jack again.
Can you hear me?
Yes, a little stuttery, but I'm sure we'll be fine.
Sorry about that.
It was a bit of a delay in the transition.
So I had been hearing about, sorry, I saw it on Twitter not that long ago.
There was a new flagpole problem in the libertarian world, and I was curious to get your take on that.
Right.
Hit me.
Okay.
So I will just read the tweet verbatim so that I don't get anything wrong.
All right.
I'd like to see this answered by some specific people.
Also, let's just clearly stipulate: A, you have asked this neighbor to borrow his letter before, and he said no, because he doesn't lend his stuff.
And B, you love, sorry, I apologize to interrupt halfway through, give you a little bit of context.
The flagpole problem is not.
You can't get any better data, can you?
You're kind of stuttering a little closer to the router or something like that.
I'm so sorry.
I thought this was the best setup I could get.
No, we'll struggle through.
I was just wondering if, if not, go ahead.
So you've got a neighbor.
He's got a ladder.
He doesn't want you borrowing it because he doesn't like lending his stuff.
Okay.
Exactly.
And now the flagpole problem is that your mother is trapped on the second story of a burning home.
And if you don't take his ladder, she's likely to die in the fire.
Right.
And now I'll read the tweet verbatim just so I don't miss anything there.
A, you've asked him to borrow his stuff.
He said no.
B, you loved your mother.
She loves you.
And she's got a good 30 plus years left.
C, there is no other way to save her.
You've exhausted all other possibilities.
D, the fire was started randomly, something like a dog knocked over a candle or something like that.
Would you, under this framing, violate the NAP to save your own mother?
This is not a post about borders or government-occupied property or food regulation or anything else.
It's just about how you view the NAP.
Well, let's pretend this isn't about my mother because that's a whole other set of moral considerations.
What are your thoughts on it?
So I had, and I sorry, I went back, tried to find the show today, and I couldn't.
I had thought you had answered a question similar to this not that long ago.
And so I was viewing it with that frame.
And so, but I apologize if I got this wrong.
These are my thoughts, not yours.
My take on it is, absolutely.
I'm grabbing the ladder.
It's not theft.
It's not wrong because any reasonable person would be like, please, please, absolutely take this letter.
Right.
It's like, no, you cannot take, you know, you can't, you just come home and get my letter.
I would still assume that, like, well, now, obviously, he didn't mean like my mother's dying and I'm going to grab it for five minutes, you know, and be back and save a life and all that stuff.
Clearly, you know, he was just like, I don't want to lend my things.
And I can respect that.
But this is this, it's an edge case.
He didn't mean that.
I think that would be reasonable to conclude.
That's my frame on that.
And then to go even further with that, let's say it was some case where he went out of his way to be like, I'm like, well, you know, what if somebody's dying, you know, and there's a fire and stuff like that?
You know, I can, I can kind of sympathize with the neighbor to a degree where I'm like, well, look, if you can already foresee something like that, you're even more responsible to prevent it now.
Like, go, you know, buy a ladder because you don't have a second egress from your home.
But, you know, even then in that situation, it's like, yeah, sorry, I should have got a ladder.
I didn't.
I was, you know, whatever for whatever case.
I'm still your ladder just broke.
You had one, but it just broke the day before or something like that.
Exactly.
Yes.
Okay.
Certainly could be the case.
Yep.
And so that's my take on it.
And I've actually gone on to question the point here because a lot of the responses I was seeing from General NCAT Twitter was like, of course, you know, I would not, I would not violate the property rights.
You know, and I can, in one place, like respect where that comes from, but the other side of me rages against it.
It's like, this is part of the paralysis that, you know, keeps the whole world back from this stuff.
So like you, you, and I think it, I think these are, I think they're wrong.
These are misinterpretations of the DNA P and property rights and all of these things.
And but like I appreciate your show not that long ago about the is auth dichotomy and how you had always been like satisfied you would answer that, but you didn't have the airtight case.
And then with this most recent show, you got that.
And that's where I'd like to be on a case like this.
Like I know in all practical terms, how it's going to act.
It's not going to change my life in that way, but I still want that airtight answer.
Right.
Well, it doesn't matter if you get permission after the fact.
Getting permission after the fact is the same as getting permission before the fact.
Can we agree on that?
Absolutely.
Right.
So if your neighbor says, don't borrow my stuff, I don't lending.
I don't like lending my stuff, then you shouldn't take his ladder.
Now, if the house is burned down, your mom's trapped up there, you love your mom, you want to, like, then you take his ladder.
Now, let's say he then afterwards says, listen, that's totally understandable.
I'm glad you saved your mom.
Then you're not taking his, you haven't stolen it because he's given you permission after the fact, right?
Yes.
Yep.
So that's number one.
Number two, let's say you take his ladder, and for some reason, he's like, you know, I'm glad I'm glad that you saved your mother.
I'm mad that you took my ladder.
What are your options?
Well, my response would be like, I like, okay, I can appreciate that.
And I'm certainly glad to have my mother alive.
And your ladder was here for me.
And, you know, I know you told me not to and all that stuff.
What can is there something I can do in the moment?
You know, just like to make that up to you.
Like, I promise I respect you.
Here's 500 bucks and a new ladder.
You just pay him after.
I mean, if you waive in and say, hey, man, I told I got 500 bucks cash here.
I know you don't like me borrowing.
My mom's hanging and she's burning.
And here's 500.
Well, he would say yes, right?
So if you give him the 500 bucks after, that's fine.
So at some point, he's going to be okay with you borrowing the ladder if you make it up to him.
And there's nothing wrong with doing it after the fact.
Right.
Right.
And then I guess it's UPB, which means it exists throughout time.
Time is not specific.
Sorry, go ahead.
Do you mind if I get a little bit of edge case with this?
Like, I really appreciate that.
Yeah, yeah.
So the edge case is he won't take any compensation whatsoever.
Right.
Right.
So he hates you so much that he won't take any compensation.
You could offer him a million dollars and he would still want to press charges against you for stealing his ladder, right?
Yes.
Yes.
Doesn't matter.
You still didn't steal it.
Okay.
No, no, let me make the case.
Let me make the case.
Sorry, I paused dramatically there.
So if you have a reasonable expectation that permission will be given after the fact, and if a reasonable person would give permission after the fact, if you happen to run up against a real asshole, irrational person, you still didn't steal it because you had every reasonable expectation that he would approve of it after the fact.
You still didn't steal it.
You had every reasonable expectation that he would approve of it after the fact.
Yeah, I agree.
Yes, that's been my position.
It's the person.
It's a reasonable expectation.
Yeah, the person who would say, I am enraged at you and I'm going to press charges when you borrowed my ladder to save your mother, that person would be so psychotic, insane, and rare, I guarantee you, they wouldn't even have a house.
They'd be in an institution somewhere.
They couldn't function in the world if they were that kind of person.
So you have every reasonable expectation that the person will give you permission after the fact.
And let's say that you destroy their ladder in the fire.
Will you just buy them a new ladder and give them money for lunch or whatever it is?
I'll mow your lawn for a week or a month or whatever it is, right?
I'll buy you a ladder and a new lawnmower.
Like you're going to make it okay.
And so you have every reasonable expectation that the person will say yes after the fact because somebody who would say no to something that didn't harm their ladder, that saved a human life and will accept no recompense, that is somebody who is, I'm not kidding about this, they're legally insane.
Right.
They would not, nobody would, in a free society, nobody would hold their contracts anyway because they're insane.
And that level of absolute madness and viciousness and intolerance and I mean, that person could not function on their own out in society.
And the other thing I would say is that in a free society, it would be written into the contract that says you have to respect people's property unless A, it's an emergency and B, you have good reason to believe that they will give their permission after the fact.
Like, I would want that because I would want that.
I would want people to use my property.
You know, like if, I don't know, like if my neighbor knew where I kept my car keys or something and his wife is dying, he borrowed my car to drive to the hospital or whatever.
I'm like, yeah, fine, I do it.
I don't want my wife to die, right?
So in the contracts in a free society, it would say, in an emergency, you can use other people's property if you have reasonable belief that they would give permission if it was available, right?
And so that is the definition of a legitimate use of somebody else's property.
It's an emergency and you have reasonable belief that they would give permission after the fact, right?
So given that everybody would say, sure, you had reasonable belief that the person would give permission to take the ladder after the fact.
You have reasonable belief for that, right?
And everybody would accept that.
That's, of course, right?
So given that stealing is the illegitimate transfer of property and it's legitimate to transfer property if it's an emergency and there's a reasonable belief that approval would be given, then you say you haven't stolen because nobody would enforce the contract if he was so irrational.
They would actually probably give him a brain scan for a tumor or like a brain tumor.
And I'm not kidding about that.
Somebody who would be that weird and vicious would have so many signs of mental illness and craziness that they would not be in possession of a ladder, let alone independent households, let alone paying their taxes.
Like they would just be so bizarre and weird and venomous and cruel and so on that they would, you'd have run into problems as a human being long before some bizarre emergency.
So if you did not take the person's property because it was an emergency, you had every reason to believe that they would approve of it after the fact.
And if in order for someone to prosecute you on taking their property, you have to have violated one of those two things, either it wasn't an emergency or you had, I mean, the fundamental one isn't the emergency.
The fundamental one is do you had reason to believe they would give you permission after the fact, right?
You know, like if I have a bucket of water on my front lawn because I'm playing water fights with my daughter and someone staggers up who's on fire, have they stolen from me by dumping the bucket of water over their head and saving their life?
Of course not.
I'm thrilled that they have, blah, blah, blah, right?
And so every sane and reasonable, so nobody would enforce a contract because everyone would say, you did not steal the ladder because you had every reason to believe that permission would be given.
The fact that the person is mentally ill is mad, insane, and has probably a brain tumor and can't possibly be pacified with any amount of money or new ladder or, you know, whatever, right?
Well, they're clearly mentally ill and we don't enforce contracts of mentally ill people.
And because every reasonable person would say you had every reason to believe permission would be given after the fact, we're not going to enforce any complaint, legal complaint of theft on the part of the crazy person, if that makes sense.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
Thank you so much.
You've silenced the little annoying imp in the back of my head.
You're violating the NAP.
Well, and listen, this important stuff, right?
And none of this stuff is esoteric.
So I'm sure you know this, but just for the sake of the audience, the reason why these lifeboat scenarios are put forward is what we do is we say, well, your mother's going to die.
Some mother's going to die if property is not taken.
And then you go from grabbing someone's ladder because of a burning building to you have to fund cancer treatments.
Right.
You have to have universalized health care.
You have to have the welfare state because people are going to die if we don't transfer your property to them.
Right.
So it is a wedge position that the leftists and the socialists, and I guess in this case, maybe the NCAPs and libertarians, it's an edge case wherein they say the right to life is more important than the right to property.
And so when somebody is going to die, we can take your stuff.
And given that people are dying, like 150,000 people across the world die every day, and you can take a whole bunch of property to try and stave that off, it means you don't have any property rights.
You have no property rights because the right to life apparently trumps the right to property.
So they say, well, if you can steal, quote, if you can take a ladder without permission to save somebody on a burning building, then you can take $10,000 from a rich guy to pay for cancer treatments.
It's the same thing.
Does that sort of make sense?
That's what people are talking about, right?
Absolutely.
Thank you.
Thank you very, very much.
That is, I appreciate that.
I wasn't being fair with where that comes from.
And I really, really appreciate your highlighting that.
So, I mean, the question is, and it's an interesting question, is, okay, but what's the difference between taking someone's ladder to save your mother from burning to death and taking someone's money to pay for cancer treatments without which someone will probably die?
Oh, man.
Well, in order to do that other scheme, you have to have this involuntary intermediary called the state.
That's my first answer to that.
Well, okay, but let's say it wasn't a state.
Let's say this is the old, your kid is dying of a disease and the treatment is $50,000 and the chemist won't sell it to you.
Can you steal it?
Like, this is the question.
Can you violate property rights to save people's lives?
Right.
And so this is the thin edge of the wedge, right?
Because people say, well, no, you can't just let your mother burn to death because you don't want to take someone's ladder.
But then you say, well, this is why we have socialized medicine because people are going to die without treatment and their right to life trumps your right to have an extra $20,000 if you're a multimillionaire.
I'm with you But I don't see the threat of that Without a Society behind a state To enforce that To make that Oh, no, because people could just steal stuff.
Like private criminals could just steal stuff and say, well, I need this for my mother's medical treatment.
So too bad for you.
And they'll shoot you if you try and stop them.
So it can property transfer when somebody is dying from being sick.
That can occur without a state.
Obviously, it's much more common with a state, but it certainly can occur without a state, if that makes sense.
Yes.
So we need to have a moral, a society of such moral fabric that that's not likely to happen.
Yeah, not likely doesn't work with ethics, though.
Doesn't it drive you nuts?
Because then you're back into the realm of probability.
Okay, I'm with you there.
And this also doesn't answer the question, but it is my response to it, is that I'm less worried about that, that that kind of an incident versus a whole structure of society geared around that.
Right.
But I get it.
There's going to be desperate people and that's going to happen.
So do you want to, here's the answer to that, that question.
So the issue with the ladder in the burning building is the emergency nature of it and the fact that your neighbor is not home.
Like if your neighbor's there and you say, hey, can I use your ladder?
And he's like, sure, then you haven't stolen, right?
If you say, if he's not there and you take his ladder and then later you say, I took your ladder, he's like, no problem.
I'm glad your mom's okay, right?
So that's not an issue, right?
So the issue is the emergency nature of it.
Now, If somebody is ill and they need money, it's not the same level of emergency.
So you can go to your neighbors and say, because permission after the fact is required for it to not be theft, right?
Can we agree with that?
Absolutely.
So if your mother is starting cancer treatments tomorrow and you need $10,000, you can go to your neighbors and you can ask them.
Because you don't, the only time you have to assume that people will give you permission after the fact is if it's impossible to ask them in the moment.
Your neighbor's not home.
Your mother's dying.
You can't get them on the phone, whatever, right?
But even if it's just, let's say your mother's cancer treatments are going to start next week or even tomorrow, you can go up and down the neighborhood the whole night and say, hey, would you guys chip in for my mother's cancer treatments, right?
So then you can ask permission ahead of time because it's not an emergency.
Does that make sense?
Absolutely.
But you can't just steal from people and then say, well, I assumed that they were going to give me permission after the fact because it's not an emergency.
you can ask them beforehand, right?
And of course, people normally have things like diabetes or cancer or whatever it is.
They normally have, you know, weeks or months of advance warnings so they can go and whip it.
So you, when you have time to ask people ahead of time, you can't steal and then say, well, I assumed that they would say yes.
Because, I mean, a rapist could say that.
A rapist could say, well, I had sex with her.
I just assumed she'd say yes later, right?
Because you can ask her ahead of time, right?
If she says no, she says no.
So stop touching her, right?
So the only way that you have to, you can invoke the emergency is when it's imminent and you can't get a hold of the person and you have every reasonable belief that they will say yes later.
And it has to be rare and it has to be an emergency and so on.
Right.
And so if it's like, well, it's pretty common for people to get sick and you have plenty of time to ask people if they'll fund it.
So you can't say, well, I took a bunch of stuff because I assumed they say yes later.
It's like, well, why didn't you just ask them ahead of time?
Cause it wasn't an emergency.
So then you'd be liable, if that makes sense.
No, I absolutely does.
Yep.
And of course, if you do break in, like let's say you do, you do steal someone's car and you sell it to pay for your mother's cancer treatment.
And then the person later says, oh, that's fine.
I've got three more cars.
It's fine.
I'm glad your mom's okay or whatever.
Then you didn't steal.
But given that you could have asked ahead of time, the fact that you didn't means that you knew that the person was likely to say no.
And therefore, you're responsible for the stealing, if that makes sense.
I know, I totally agree.
And like, you know, in a situation like that, but like, well, I understand you as the rich guy may be okay with that or a person with three cars, but I'd like to know if this person takes it upon themselves to other people's property in situations like that.
I would I'd be mad at you if you did report it, you know?
But whatever.
And the other thing, too.
Yeah, the other thing, too, is with things like poverty and illness.
And I noticed, of course, earlier, Jared, that you were talking about how, let's say, a dog knocked over a candle and the fire started accidentally and this, that, and the other, right?
Which is great in terms of like lowering the moral temperature of the situation.
But it's kind of like if there's a family and you, they're your neighbors.
There are five kids.
The dad works, the mom stays home.
And you say to them, well, I hope you have life insurance or at least a lot of savings because stuff can happen.
And they're like, nah, life insurance is for suckers.
Statistically, it's never going to work.
We don't need it.
We're fine, blah, blah, blah.
Right.
And then after you really try to convince them a couple of times to get some life insurance, and then the dad gets hit by a bus and then they're broke.
Right?
Well, I mean, that's a tough situation because I don't want to give them a whole bunch of money.
Because if you give them a whole bunch of money, everyone's going to be like, oh, well, forget it.
I don't need life insurance.
I'll just go get money from people if something bad happens.
And then the whole life insurance industry collapses and then we end up with a mess, right?
So these are tough situations.
Or let's say somebody's a chain smoker and you say, man, you got to quit.
You're going to get sick.
And right?
Sucks them down.
And then he gets sick.
I'm like, you know, my contribution was the advice to quit smoking or the advice to get life insurance.
I also don't want to now have to pay $50,000 or $25,000 or $100,000 or whatever because the other person didn't follow my advice.
So that's more complicated and more of a challenge.
Because if we just paper over with money everybody's bad choices, fewer people have an incentive to make good choices, if that makes sense.
And, you know, if somebody doesn't buy, somebody doesn't buy fire insurance and then their house burns down, I mean, how much should you pay for them to get a new house?
I don't know.
It's complicated.
Sometimes people have to suffer so that other people make better decisions.
And of course, one of the problems in life is that we've lost the desire to be moral because we paper over with debt, money, printing, and garbage and taxes, people's bad decisions.
And that just means people are paying, making more and more bad decisions.
We can see that happening all over the place.
So that's more complicated.
All right.
Is there anything else that you wanted to mention?
Thank you very, very much.
Like, first of all, like you solidly answered the question and appreciate you pushing back on where this came from.
That was another thought of mine.
I was thinking like a lot of them do it for attention or it's kind of a virtue signal, but I appreciate that.
And there was a time when I was there where I would, you know, get myself normal moral quandary, like a connection about like, can I violate the property?
Am I stealing under these conditions?
So I really appreciate that.
Let's see.
Sorry, I had another thought there.
No, no, I guess part of the reason I wanted to get some more clarity on it as well is I'm seeing the libertarian/slash ANCAP world break down on two sides of this.
One side is more of the practical libertarians who are more like, look, I'm going to violate the NAP.
It's still a violation of the NAP and I'm going to do it.
I don't care.
Yeah.
So it's not.
Yeah, it's not.
And that's what bugs me.
I'm like, I'm like, ooh, yes, we're in the same practical world, but you're wrong.
That is not a violation of the NAP.
And that's important.
That is important because UPB, the NAP, these are airtight.
Like we had, like, as far as I'm concerned, like, UPB is the moral answer for so much of humanity.
So we have that.
Really, I get, sorry, a little side rant.
It really frustrates the hell out of me out of the libertarian and ANCAP world that UPB doesn't get more attention, appreciation, and put out more.
But that's the universality.
Yeah, the universality of UPB is that it doesn't matter when you get permission.
If you get permission, you get permission and it's no longer theft.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And thank you.
Thank you so much.
You're very welcome.
Great questions.
And of course, if there are people who disagree with the analysis or want to give me more, but the further you go to edge cases, the closer you get to mental illness and the unenforceability of a contract.
And if somebody's mentally ill, we don't give them the rights of property or self-ownership, right?
So, I mean, we're happy to take away property rights from people.
Like if you've got a neighbor who, this is an old argument from Socrates, you've got a neighbor, you've lent him your axe, and are you allowed to take it?
Oh, no, your neighbor has lent you his axe, right?
And so you owe him the axe back, right?
But what if he says, I need the axe back?
I'm going to chop my wife into little pieces because she served my food cold.
You don't give him the axe back, right?
Because he's clearly lost his mind and shouldn't be in position of dangerous property.
So if somebody's so insane that they say, I would rather your mother burned to death than you lay one finger on my precious ladder, I mean, that's somebody who's lost their mind.
And they would not be part of any particular social contract that could be enforced.
And we try and get them some kind of mental health help, but we wouldn't worry about their property rights because they would have lost control of their own common sense.
Absolutely agreed.
And you touched on something about that that I was bowling over at the edge of that.
And I won't ask for more answers.
I've taken enough time.
But it was like, we only have the NAP, we only have the UPB because of reason and people being willing to reason and reasonableness.
Like at some point, like that, of course, morality is a relationship.
And if you're not reasonable, it's not the same thing as you're an evildoer.
But if you're not a reasonable person, I've got to handle you differently.
You know, you can't be in a moral relationship with me.
Yes.
And a reasonable expectation of approval requires that the person be sane.
And somebody who would rather have someone burned to death than lose control of a ladder they're not even using.
I mean, the other example would be that your mother is burning to death and your neighbor is on top of the ladder hanging Christmas lights and you yank the ladder away from him and he falls and breaks his leg so you can try and save your mother, but he's not even using it.
Right.
So the idea that somebody would have a huge issue with you borrowing their ladder when they're not even using it and it does no harm to them.
And of course, if it does harm to the ladder, you just buy them a new ladder.
But at some point, you can make it all right.
At some point, you can make it all right and they'll be fine with it, whether it's a new ladder, whether it's a hundred bucks, whether it's a thousand bucks.
It doesn't really matter.
It's your mother's life.
Give them 10,000 bucks if you can afford it.
At some point, they'll be fine with it and give you permission and then no theft has occurred.
Otherwise, if they give no permission no matter what, then they've lost their minds and they're not even in, they're not even in civil society at all.
They're in an asylum already.
It'd be like saying, well, what if my neighbor thinks he can fly?
It's like, well, if your neighbor thinks he can fly, then he'll have jumped off a roof.
He'll be in hospital, he won't be your neighbor.
And if somebody's so insane that they'd rather somebody burn to death than have somebody borrow a ladder, even if the person offers them $1,000 or $10,000 afterwards, they've lost their reason and they wouldn't be in civil society at all.
Right.
Right.
Thank you so much, Steph.
My apologies for the connection issues.
And thank you so much for the show.
And thank you for everybody that supports it.
I appreciate that.
Thank you, Jared.
Always a pleasure.
All right.
Let us go with anti-vilification.
I think I know uncle vilification, but not the anti-so much.
All right.
What's on your mind, my friend?
I know there's a little bit of a delay.
Vamp, vamp, vamp.
Hello.
Yes, go ahead.
Hi, Stefan.
How are you?
Good.
How are you doing?
It's an honor to talk to you.
I have actually met you before.
Do you remember eating dinner at the Sofotel Hotel in Darling Harbor in Sydney with Lauren Southern?
Well, not just Lauren Southern, but Lauren Southern and you and some other people.
Yes, I do remember.
Nice to chat with you again.
Yeah, yeah, great, great.
I'm glad you remember.
It was a great night.
I'd just like to just discuss anti-whitism with you because it's kind of consuming my life, this thing called the sort of I think we may be losing you a little.
Are you still with me?
Oh boy, that's going to make people kind of jumpy, right?
We start talking about anti-whitism, and next thing you know, he can't talk.
Oh, that's an unfortunate coincidence.
Let's just give him a moment or not.
Oh, we lost him.
All right.
Sorry about that.
We will go with Clanton.
Clanton.
What is on your mind, my friend?
You may be muted.
You may be delayed.
You may be waiting to chat, but I am all ears.
Is it me?
Yes, go ahead.
Awesome.
So, yeah, there's a few things you had just touched on that was relative to my question.
I'll see if I can remember them, but it was about the inability to reason with or like have a moral relationship with an unreasonable person.
And then it was also related to the comment you made about we're in a situation that people aren't facing necessary consequences, maybe, or like that someone has to suffer for lack of judgment, maybe, and that like we've taxed others and we've sort of spread this responsibility around, and that's the world that we're living in.
Well, we punish the more responsible and we reward the less responsible.
And of course, whatever you tax, you get less off, and whatever you subsidize, you get more off.
So we get less responsibility and more irresponsibility, which consumes the whole system after a while.
So, yeah, both of those were related to my question.
It's about integration from Carl Jung.
And it's about how, if you had some, maybe some advice, because I have a relationship with someone that I'm bound to that is holding me back.
And what I've gathered is that to release resentment against anyone, including myself.
And as far as for like the pragmatic or industriousness side of this, I have that somewhat under control, but I can tell that there's still something holding me back.
Can you give me some more specifics about the relationship?
The mother of my children.
Okay.
Okay.
And how many kids?
Two.
And how old?
You in your 20s or 30s or something else?
I have two daughters, early teen, pre-teen.
They're early teen, pre-teen.
That's right.
And how long were you together with the mother?
I've been knowing her since I've been knowing her total probably almost 30 years.
And, you know, mismatch in values and just made it really hard for me to be a part of their lives.
And like, you know, it's funny.
I came across you first in like 2016.
It's really nice to, you know, talk to you and it's kind of surreal.
But yeah, that time as the stuff that I was receiving from Jordan Peterson was very helpful.
But I went through a really hard time and I crawled out of it.
And now I live nearby and I'm doing well and everything's okay, certainly better, but I still can tell that in my professional on the side of things, like there's, there's still some fear and it doesn't make sense to me.
And I've been facing it for a long time.
It's like I kind of choke whenever I need to, whenever it's time to get attention.
Sorry, do you mean in the relationship with your ex or no?
Just in life.
And I think it probably has something to do with fear, of course, but that's like, it's too easy of an answer because if I were faced with it consciously, I would have jumped 100 times by now.
What caused the split with your ex?
Mostly miss not having the same values, morals.
Well, okay, but how did that manifest?
It's too public to get too personal, but it's a lot of not seeing eye to eye.
And yeah, I don't know.
Like, so, okay.
At one time, we were on the same page with business and we and she went and opened a business and didn't put me on it and just kind of tossed it up like, well, oh, when we get married, it'll be yours anyway.
And, you know, that was obviously.
Sorry, hang on.
Sorry.
So how long did you go out for?
And what was the circuit?
Did you have kids before you got married or how did that happen?
There was another kid in the picture and we were never married.
But you never married.
And the other kid, was that hers?
Hers older daughter, yeah.
So you go, hang on.
So you got together with a single mother, had kids with her, and never got married.
That is correct.
Why would you do that?
Yeah, bad decision making.
No, but why?
There was a lot of attraction and like oh, come on.
Let's look.
Yes.
We can be frank, right?
That that has an effect.
So she was pretty, she was hot.
And so you got together with the single mom and you never got married.
But she was also hot in high school whenever we were together when we were both teenagers.
So you were together with her in high school.
She went and had a kid with another guy.
And then you had kids with her.
Correct.
Bad decision making.
And how long ago?
So you had kids with her 13 years ago or 14 years ago?
Yes.
And how long were you together?
Or I guess how long ago did you split up?
We were together about five, six years on and off.
It was very rocky.
Yeah.
And eventually it was, yeah, it was, I was, I was, I stayed in it longer than I should have to have a better relationship with my kids because she was hanging on.
Why did you decide to have kids with her?
Yeah, it wasn't.
I'm sorry.
I don't know how to, I actually regret even saying this much to me.
Okay, that's yeah.
Don't don't talk about things that you're not comfortable about.
You can always book a private call if you want at FDRURL.com/slash call, but we'll sort of struggle through as best as we can.
And again, I appreciate your sensitivity for talking about your kids in this way.
So we'll jump past that.
Okay, was there, let me just ask you this, and you don't have to give me details.
Was there any big dramatic thing that caused the end of the relationship or did it just kind of rocky and then you just kind of broke apart for nothing major, but just an accumulation of things?
I think it's just fair to say that there is a lot of, there was plenty of pattern recognition and I had noticed enough to Try to get her aligned with it more of a traditional way of being for the benefit of our family.
And what do you mean to get married?
Um, yeah, but also like the submissive part of you have to, you can't constantly be at edge and in competition with me.
Um, but again, like, I don't want to make it about the relationship.
I want to make it more about like this stage of even though this person is, I have to be involved with this person multiple times a week, it's still toxic.
I am doing everything I can to minimize the attack surface.
I'm gaslighted constantly.
She puts my kids in counseling every time there's a disagreement between her and I. And I've done well enough to where I think if you know the child support is part of it, but it's not even that.
It's more about I want time with my family.
And even if I have to pay for it, I will.
And, but also it comes with territory with where I am.
If I do bring her to court and if I do lose that hearing or whatever, if it's, if it's in her favor, it's possible my child support may go up by who knows 50, 70 percent.
I don't know.
But that would may cause me to lose my house, right?
So it's the way that my attorney put it to me was I have to have everything ready.
But again, I can ignore that and just be competent and try to multiply my value with my career.
Like I'm okay with it.
I mean, I appreciate that you're in a difficult situation, but I do need you to get to an actual question that I can help you with.
Obviously, I can't give you any legal advice or anything like that.
Yeah, no, I'm sorry to even go that much, that far, but it's about the concept of integration.
And like, I understand there's a Christian idea around.
I'm going to have to take control.
Sorry to be annoying.
I'm going to have to take control of the conversation because I mean, I guess that you're hurting and there's a lot of chaos.
Okay.
So let's not talk about your wife and let's not talk about your kids.
Did your friends and family warn you against the hot mess single mom girl?
Yes.
Okay.
Why did they have so little credibility with you?
And this sounds like a leading question.
I mean, I'm sure there were reasons why they didn't have credibility with you, but why did your mother or father or siblings, friends who were all like, do not, do not do it, do not go there?
Why?
The obvious, you know, the obvious single mom, the obvious just pattern, everything that you can expect.
Well, no, I don't know why.
So do you not have a good relationship with your parents that their word means a lot to you?
No, I do.
I was, yeah, I guess, you know, I welcome a private call, but at this point, if there's no easy answer about the generalities of I'm still not sure what your question is, integration doesn't like if you can give me a specific question.
Okay, if you don't want to talk about your family of origin, your friends, or why you got together with the single mother or what the issues in the relationship were or why you broke up or why you have kids with her, then I do need a question that I can answer because otherwise I'm just flailing around.
So you, okay.
So maybe I think what you're answering in a roundabout way is or telling me is that all of about everything about integration is inward.
Okay, I don't know what that means.
Everything about integration is inward.
I don't know what you mean by integration.
Well, I don't think of it this way, but it's reminding me of whatever Batman that was, whenever he actually has to go into the cave to get over the fear, to get over the thing.
Like, is there something about like this level of maturity or the life cycle of a healthy man or a life cycle of a healthy adult?
Do you think that maybe your relationship with your ex didn't work out because you're kind of confusing?
Maybe.
I mean, do you think that you're being clear?
Like, talking about Batman and his cave and integration and well, no, I was just trying to because I'm asking you, I've asked you like three times now to get to a specific question since you don't want me probing, and that's fine.
But when I ask you for a specific question, you start talking about Batman, which I don't really follow.
No, that's not fair.
No, it is fair that you started talking about Batman.
I used an analogy to try to explain my question.
I did ask questions if you could give some insight on other things outside of forgiveness and, you know, holding resentment.
How can one achieve integration?
You sound annoyed.
Well, I'm just standing up for what I think transpired.
So you are annoyed.
No, I'm being defensive because you acted like I wanted to talk about Batman.
That's not what happened at all.
Well, no, you did talk about Batman.
Is that fair?
And I don't know Batman in a cave and confronting his fears.
I don't even know what that refers to.
I don't want to talk about Batman anymore.
It was a mistake to say it.
No, that's fine.
I'm not trying to nag you or anything like that.
It's just that we've been talking for like 10 minutes and I still don't know what your question is other than it's something to do with Jung and integration.
And I've asked it three times.
Yeah.
What can you, what insight can you give besides forgiveness about the process of integration?
What does that mean?
I don't understand.
What does that mean?
Okay, yeah, I was hoping you could give me some insight.
No, no, you can't just use buzzwords from Jung because it's a general conversation.
The audience needs to come along.
So what do you mean by integration?
Well, is it okay for me to admit ignorance and ask you to enlighten me on what I might mean?
No, I can't know what you mean by the Jungian term for integration in the context of the single mom and the two kids and the breakup.
So just have, I mean, saying, I'm going to use this word integration, Steph, you can figure out what it means and then try and find value.
Just tell me what you mean by integration and I'll try and help.
Isn't so you the life cycle of a healthy adult.
Didn't the Romans say like you were a soldier, you were a politician, then you were a philosopher?
So the life cycle, the way that in Jung's terms, which yeah, I'm not a student of Jung, it's just some of the things like you said, fair enough, buzzword, of trying to get to a higher level of maybe homeostasis of I like Peterson's idea of this.
The right place at the right time as often as possible.
And to me, that aligns with some better form of a match between my consciousness and my conscious and my subconscious.
And in one word, I would think what I'm trying to get to is this concept of integration.
And yeah, maybe I don't, I'm not a student of it.
That's why I spoke up.
It's to be informed.
So if you could please inform me or, you know, enlighten me on some insights of what I'm talking about.
Yeah, I didn't mean it for it to turn into anything personal or Psychological on me, but that's fine if you if you want to say it, I'll take it I'm imagining that you've listened to a bit more Jordan Peterson than me because you sound a little bit over-Petersoned to me.
No, that was way before everything got political.
I don't listen to it much at all anymore.
It was just something and still am.
I'm still very much interested.
I mean, I can give you some examples of people who I think are integrated, but I don't know if that would help.
It doesn't.
It's just something that I'm struggling with, and I don't really know how to get again practiced.
I think, like I mentioned, there's like the Christian side of it.
And what the Christians would say is be integrated into your community.
You know, have an integrated family, be spiritual, show up.
You know, like the response reminds me of Marcus Aurelius and what he voiced about a man's responsibility.
But still, that's why I perked up whenever you start talking about people who may be insane or are constantly not reasonable.
So it's like this relationship between omission and commission.
What can you do?
What can't you do?
And outside of turning into a monk, is there other tactics that one can use that even from a philosophical question?
I think there may be like little triggers in there that you, you know, may unlock certain ways of looking at things.
And do you think you're being clear asking questions now?
No.
Okay.
And I'm just curious, again, I understand that you're in a difficult position and I really do have sympathy with it.
But apologies.
No, it's fine.
Someone else speaks.
So I think that the focus would be, and again, we can do a private call on this if you want, but I think the focus would be something like this.
This is why I was sort of asking you about your decisions.
Now, obviously, you can't go back in time and make different decisions regarding how you became a father and what happened with your ex and all of that.
So the reason I'm asking those things is not because we have a time machine, but because you don't want your kids, I assume, making exactly the same decisions that you made.
And this is all good parenting.
I mean, I don't want my daughter, she's now 16.
I don't want her making the decisions that I was making when I was 16.
And so the question for me is not, can you fix the past?
You can't, but how do you prevent it from occurring in the future?
So there are two particular dangers in your life.
Number one, you need to figure out why you were susceptible.
Sorry, are you a religious man?
I aim to be.
Okay.
So were you religious in the past?
Brought up that way, but certainly had my moments.
Okay.
Well, we all do, right, with regards to sin.
So you have to figure out what it was within you that fell prey to a fairly obvious sin called lust.
So there's a susceptibility in you to the sin of lust.
And again, I mean, I say this a million times, so I'll just keep it brief.
Lust is great, but lust has to be tempered and focused by ethical considerations, right?
So do you want to date again?
Do you want to maybe get married in the future or what's your goal that way?
Yeah.
Okay.
So if you want to date again, you have to figure out how you became so susceptible to the obvious sin of lust.
So by the obvious sin of lust, what I mean by that is the woman came with a bunch of red flags and you were raised religious and so you should have known better according to various ideals, right?
And so you fell prey to the sin of lust.
Until you know why you fell prey to the sin of lust, you are going to be paralyzed from dating because who's to say it isn't going to happen again, right?
Of course, honor thy mother and thy father.
If your mother and your father said this is not a good idea and you didn't listen to them when they were right, that's another sin, which is not listening to your mother and your father.
So there's sort of two commandments that you've broken so far.
Of course, there's no commandment or clarity.
Otherwise, we'd put you in jail forever.
But the question is, how do we prevent you from making this mistake again?
And even more importantly, how do we prevent your children from making this mistake?
You said your eldest is in her early teens, so she's going to be dating in the next year or two, or he's going to be dating in the next year or two.
How are the sins of the father and the mother not going to be visited upon the children?
And if you don't, and that's fine that you don't want to talk about your history or what happened with your parents or siblings or friends, that's fine.
That just means that we can't answer it.
And again, you're welcome to set up a private call.
But that's the big question, isn't it?
Which is, how do you trust yourself going forward if you made something that's obviously not a great situation now?
How do you trust yourself going forward?
And even more importantly, how do you prevent your kids from making mistakes?
Because, you know, there's two terrible things that happen in life.
Number one, you make a bad mistake or a series of bad mistakes, which we've all done.
And number two, you watch your kids do the exact same thing.
And the second one causes even more suffering than the first.
And whatever it's going to take for you to figure out your susceptibility to lust, to greed, to status or whatever your ex brought to you against the divine wishes of God, against the teachings of Jesus, against the Ten Commandments, against the virtues you were raised with, if you don't know the answer as to why you sinned, sin is not just inevitable for you, but may in fact be inevitable for your kids.
And I think that's why we as parents absolutely have to figure out why we made our bad decisions.
Not from a point of self-blame, because you learn as you go forward in life, but in particular to help our children from ending up in the same situation, if that makes sense.
And so again, because you're not giving me any details, which I have no issue with, I mean, I respect you for trying to maintain that privacy.
But if I were in your shoes, I mean, I'd either book a private call with me or you can go some other route, but I would just sit there and say, okay, how did I make these decisions, which I regret?
And how do I prevent myself from repeating them and my children from reliving them?
And that I can't answer for you in this sort of public forum with a small amount of information, but that would be my focus if I were in your shoes.
Thank you very much.
That's actually very helpful.
You are very welcome.
I appreciate that.
And again, at freedomain.com slash call, you can help.
Anybody can listen as far as that goes.
And I wish you the very best.
And I also do appreciate, of course, that you are making these efforts to figure these things out.
And I appreciate that.
All right.
Thanks, everyone.
I appreciate your conversations tonight, freedoman.com/slash donate to help out the show.
I really would appreciate that.
Have yourselves a glorious evening.
It will be a Sunday donor show.
You can go to FDRURL.com/slash locals to join us for that.
And have yourself a lovely night.
We'll talk soon.
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