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Aug. 31, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:10:29
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All right, hello everybody, it is the twenty ninth of August twenty twenty five and questions, comments, issues, challenges from the great and noble and censorship resistant platform of X. You can follow me at Stefan Molyneux and if you find these answers to be helpful, if they clear up issues in your life, I would very much appreciate your support at freedomain dot com slash donate.
That's freedomain dot com slash donate.
All right.
So someone has put forward an argument to be objective is to exist independent of opinion and or thought including the absence of human minds or brains.
I'll read the whole argument and then we'll get into it.
Gravity continues to exist independent of opinion and or thought including the absence of human minds and or brains.
Therefore, gravity is objective.
Morality grounded in God continues to exist independent of opinion and or thought including the absence of human minds and or brains.
Therefore, morality grounded in God is objective.
Universally preferable behavior, my theory of ethics, does not continue to exist independent of opinion and or thought, including absence of human minds and or brains, therefore UPB is not objective.
The moral argument for God one, if God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.
two, objective moral values do exist.
three, therefore God exists.
To put this in an analogy, if an object blocking the light does not exist, a shadow does not exist, if a shadow exists, an object blocking the light exists.
In other words, we don't see the object directly, we see its effects.
A black hole we cannot see, but we can see the effects of it on its gravity well, on matter around it.
So I appreciate the argument deeply and I thank you for providing it and let us go through it in a little bit more detail.
To be objective is to exist independent of opinion and or thought, including the absence of human minds and or brains.
Now I wouldn't say that is true.
Existence exists independent of opinion and or thought.
Right, there is, there are objects in the solar system that we have not observed, you know, they could certainly exist and so on.
So existence is a different matter.
Objectivity or to be objective is a function of human consciousness.
So the reason for that is because objective compared to what?
Well, objective is typically compared to or contrasted with subjective, objective versus subjective.
I had a dream last night about flying, that was my subjective experience in the dream, but it is not objectively true that I can fly.
So objective versus subjective is really important.
Now, if we're going to say that there's something called objective, that is to have an opinion in your mind that refers to things that exist outside the mind.
To have opinions in the mind that accurately refer to things that exist outside the mind.
So if I say, that is an oak tree, If it is in fact an oak tree, then what I'm saying is true because I'm referencing something objective outside my mind.
If I say, I like that oak tree because I remember climbing it as a child, I have fond memories of that oak tree, that is not objective, that is a subjective experience of the oak tree.
If I say, I can walk through that oak tree, I am incorrect because I cannot walk through a tree.
If I say, I think I really want to climb that tree, I think I can.
I think I can.
Well, that's a different matter, right?
Maybe I can prove it or not by climbing the tree or whatever it is, right?
So, to be objective is to exist independent of opinion and all thought, including the absence of human minds and or brains.
But objective refers to beliefs held in the mind that accurately correspond to things in the real world.
Right?
I think that makes sense.
I don't want to over-explain.
So objective is a state of mind in which you're accurate about the external world.
Subjective is your own personal thoughts and experiences.
Cheesecake is made of dairy, is objective.
I like cheesecake or I dislike cheesecake is subjective.
So to be objective is to exist independent of opinion and or thought, including the absence of human minds and or brains.
So I would say not that that is objective, because that is an operation of consciousness to have an objective thought, which accurately maps onto reality versus a subjective thought or experience I like, I prefer, I think, I wonder, I dream, or whatever it is, right?
So to be objective cannot exist in the absence of human minds, because objectivity is an operation of consciousness wherein your beliefs accurately map to the world as a whole.
Now, we have the word exists or existence, so I'm not really sure why we would say existence which is the presence of something that's independent of human consciousness, right?
A tree exists, whether or not anyone has seen it, a tree exists, whether or not anybody has climbed it or anything like that, or likes it or doesn't like it.
And we know that because plants existed before people.
I mean, we couldn't have life if plants weren't recycling the CO2 into O2 and providing food and sustenance for the herbivores which then allow the evolution of meat eaters and all of that sort of stuff, right?
So we know that trees existed prior to human minds.
What sense would it make to say we can say trees exist, right?
What sense does it make to say, though, to say trees are objective?
We say trees exist.
So we have the word existence.
I don't think we need to layer in objective, because objective refers to a state of mind wherein the facts correspond to reality as opposed to subjective.
So we have objective versus subjective, which are both states of mind.
One is accurate, and the other is accurate if you're talking about something that you experience.
If I say, I like cheesecake, I'm not lying.
my like does not exist outside of my mind, whereas the cheesecake does exist outside of my mind, if that makes sense.
If you open the door, walk through the doorway, right, you've created a passage through which you can pass.
So, we have existence as opposed to non-existence, and we have objective as opposed to subjective.
So, if you say to be objective is to exist independent of opinion and or thought, including the absence of human minds and or brains, I would not agree with that, because objective is a function of consciousness.
it's a thought that corresponds to reality as opposed to subjective which is a thought that corresponds to your own inner preferences so we have the word existence and I don't think we want to which is not required human thought is not required for the existence of things so we have that I don't think we want to take the operation of consciousness called being objective and layer it over the permanent states of matter and energy all right
it says gravity continues to exist independent of opinion and or thought, including the absence of human minds and or brains.
Therefore, gravity is objective.
No, I would say gravity, I mean, it's hard to say whether it exists because it's an effect of matter.
But gravity is a valid concept.
Gravity is an inherent property of mass, all mass attracts other mass.
So I don't know if we can say gravity is objective.
And this is sort of the tricky thing because if I say, well, there's no such thing as gravity, then I'm wrong.
So gravity is objective, but objective refers to the human mind's evaluation of the validity of gravity, not the existence of gravity, so to speak.
So he says morality grounded in God continues to exist independent of opinion and or thought, including the absence of human minds and or brains.
Well, that's a bit of a leap, right?
In fact, that's quite a leap.
Morality grounded in God continues to exist independent of opinion and or thought.
That is begging the question.
We're trying to figure out what exists, and you can't say, Well, God exists and God is moral, therefore God, by being moral, has morality continue in the absence of opinion and or thought.
So I don't see that.
Makes sense.
You say therefore morality grounded in God is objective?
No, because you haven't proven the existence of God.
UPB does not, my theory of ethics, universally preferable behavior, does not continue to exist independent of opinion and or thought, including the absence of human minds and or brains therefore UPP is not objective.
Well, this is an epistemological question.
That's very interesting.
So does the equation 2 and 2 make 4 exist independent of human mind?
Of human minds?
No, it does not.
2 and 2 make 4 is not an equation that exists independently.
of the human mind.
However, 2 and 2 do in fact make 4 in reality, and therefore, even though 2 and 2 make 4 do not exist, does not exist independent of the human mind, it is not subjective.
So the principles that two and two make four are universal in terms of logic, right?
The universe operates in a logical fashion because if it didn't, we wouldn't exist because the behavior of matter and energy wouldn't be predictable enough for life to emerge or evolution to occur or the planet wouldn't be stable enough.
These things would happen randomly if there was no predictability to the behavior of matter and energy, right?
Trees would turn into volcanoes, oceans would boil away into a mist, clouds would turn into iron and thud down on the landscape like you'd live in a crazy LSD world where there'd be nothing permanent enough for life to consistently emerge.
I mean, we build our houses on foundations of concrete and things.
We don't build our houses on the surface of the ocean because it's unstable, right?
Everything sinks.
So life needs that sort of stable base.
Matter and energy need to have universal consistency and absolutism in order for life to exist.
So when we say 2 and 2 make 4, we are identifying the absolute properties of matter and energy as well as logically consistent numerology for example h2o right one hydrogen sorry two hydrogens one oxygen h2o two hydrogens and one oxygen make water always no matter what absolutely everywhere universally permanently now
again you could say well but it gets frozen turns into vapor i get all of that the water has different forms But H2O is water.
It's Aristotle's first law of logic, A is A, right?
So a hydrogen atom is a hydrogen atom and something else.
A carbon atom is a carbon atom and nothing else, right?
See, O2, one carbon atom, two oxygen atoms makes carbon dioxide, dioxide being two oxygens, right?
Carbon dioxide, everywhere, all the time, no matter what.
If that wasn't the case, right?
O2, right?
So if that wasn't the case, then plants couldn't breathe, because plants need to be able to absorb CO2 and produce oxygen.
And if plants can't breathe, then animal life that requires oxygen can't evolve.
And so that's pretty bad, right?
So all around.
Right, so all the round.
So UPB does not continue to exist independent of opinion and or thought.
But what the human mind identifies when coming up with things like logic and math and science and equations and so on is the human mind is hooking into the pre-existing absolute universality and predictability of matter and energy.
I mean, if you think the Sun lasts for like 10 billion years, it's a big giant nuclear bomb.
going off for 10 billion years, that's only possible because matter and energy is relatively stable, right?
So the question of UPB, does it continue to exist independent of opinion and or thought.
Well, Although the identification of water as H2O or carbon dioxide as CO2, although the identification of that requires the human mind, the existence and structure of the atoms, the molecules, that is independent of the human mind.
The human mind is picking something up that is already there.
If you've ever tracked an animal in the wilderness because you're hunting, then you're following the footprints.
You are not creating the footprints, you are following the footprints.
So when you say UPB does not continue to exist independent of opinion and or thought, well, the universe is logical, independent of human beings calling it logical.
Water is water, independent of human beings identifying it as H2O.
Carbon dioxide is carbon dioxide, regardless of human beings identifying it as CO2.
So the principles of matter and energy automatically operate because of the nature of the universe, regardless of human beings identifying those principles or not.
I hope this is not over-explaining.
So UPP does not continue to exist, but self-contradictory entities do not exist.
There's no such thing as a square circle.
There's no such thing as a creature that is an elephant and a tree and a unicorn and a dragon simultaneously.
Self contradictory entities do not exist because self contradictory entities would be to require that atoms were both themselves and something else at the same time.
So something cannot be, like a single thing cannot be both water and carbon dioxide at the same time.
I mean, you could bubble the two together and so on.
But O2 cannot be CO2 at the same time.
It's sort of a nature of reality thing, right?
So the laws of logic are derived from the stable properties and behavior of matter and energy.
The stability and properties of matter and energy have existed for many billions of years before human beings came along and accurately identified them.
So does UPB continue to exist?
Well, no.
I mean, UPB is an invention of mine using the laws of logic and the knowledge that we have of history and economics and morality and so on.
So I have identified that rape, theft, assault, and murder can never be universally preferable behaviors and that is an ironclad proof which cannot be overturned without overturning the laws of logic and the nature of reality and really just joining a madhouse.
So UPB does it continue to exist independent of opinion?
But that's like saying that do carbon atoms continue to exist independent of people calling them CO two.
Well, of course, there's lots of people, countless people around the world who don't know the carbon atoms are CO two and for most of human history, certainly prior to people like Niels Bohr and other atomic theorists, I guess including Democritus, although he didn't have the details, there are plenty of human beings throughout the course of human history that did not identify carbon atoms as CO2 or didn't even know that carbon atoms existed.
So, UPB does not continue to exist, but the laws of logic operate whether or not they are formally identified by human beings.
So saying UPB is not objective is saying concepts that do not exist in the real world are not objective, but as we talked earlier, The equation two and two make four does not exist in the objective universe, but that does not mean that the equation that two and two make four is subjective.
So saying UPP is not objective is false.
So the moral argument for God, if God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist.
Objective moral values do exist, therefore God exists.
But this is, I mean, sorry to, you know, again, I really appreciate the argument, it's a good mental workout.
But if you say if God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist, objective moral values do exist, therefore God exists.
But this is a circular argument, you're begging the question.
Because you're saying that God makes moral values exist.
Moral values exist, therefore God exists, but you're presupposing that God has created and made manifest in some platonic realm moral values.
So I'm afraid the argument does not work, but again, it's a really, really great argument and I appreciate it.
All right, hi, Steph, I have a philosophical question.
What is the fair way to split kids and assets in divorce?
And what may it look like in a free society?
Well, I don't know, obviously that would be worked out by a free society.
Remember, divorce is going to be exceedingly rare in a free society, because people are raised rationally and peacefully, and because kids are raised with negotiation, they know how to negotiate as adults, which is, you know, obviously kind of important as a whole, right?
So people have to kind of learn, they kind of have to learn how to negotiate as adults, you know, sort of slowly and painfully.
Like we raise all these kids to be bullied and controlled and all of that kind of stuff.
And what happens is they end up having to learn how to negotiate as adults after being traumatized with a lack of negotiation.
when they're younger, right?
It's terrible as a whole.
It's like you raise kids with almost no exposure to Japanese, except you punish them whenever they even think about or try to learn Japanese or try to speak Japanese and then you expect them to learn Japanese as an adult with all that trauma and all that lack of knowledge.
So you raise kids negotiating and they learn how to negotiate and of course they see in healthy, happy households children see their parents negotiating as well, right?
So kids see their parents negotiating, the parents negotiate with their children.
And of course, the teachers negotiate with the students or however education would occur.
So people know how to negotiate.
They share rational values and so the chances of divorce are very low.
Now, I'm not going to wave a magic wand and say, well, that makes it impossible because it's a valid question and I'm certain that there would be.
I'm certain that there would be divorce in a free society.
But I just wanted to point out that it is extremely rare in a free society.
Now, what is the fair way to split kids and assets in a divorce?
I mean, I think in a common law standpoint, The way things work fairly rationally is the assets that were gathered by each party prior to divorce are not split.
And assets that have accumulated since the marriage are split.
If the woman has decided to stay home with her choice and her husband's choice on the expectation that her husband pays for her to raise the children, then she deserves some form of income having foregone her career advancement and education, so she gave all of that up to raise kids.
And so she deserves some sort of compensation for that.
As far as splitting the kids go, well, if the father is paying alimony or child support or both to the mother then it doesn't make quite as much sense for the father to get as much custody with them because she can stay home and raise them especially if they're young she can stay home and raise them and and he can't right because he's got to work to pay the bills so That's a challenge.
So I could see her getting more custody and so on.
In many ways, though, in many ways, I can see the argument, and I'm not advocating for this, I'm just saying that I can see the argument, where somebody might say, oh, Because that way the kids don't become pawns.
They're not turned against each other.
There's not the complications of visitation rights and wrangling about all that kind of stuff.
And it also, if you have other people adopt the kids, maybe it could be grandparents or something like that.
But if you have other people adopt the kids, then what happens is you eliminate the very real possibility that people get divorced in order to make money and punish each other and so on, right?
In other words, a woman might divorce a guy so that she can keep the kids, have an income, not have the bother of a husband and so on.
So I don't know.
Again, I have no idea how any of this stuff would work in reality, but I think assets accumulated during the marriage get split and the woman needs a, if she stayed home to raise the kids, then the woman needs a sort of minimum income in order to be able to do that.
But maybe the split of assets during the course of the marriage would be enough for that.
I don't, again, I'm not entirely sure, but you would want to have it so that the kids were taken care of, but also you would want to discourage the divorce based upon financial concerns or preferences or interests.
So you would want to make it as much as the kids could be paid for, that would be great, but you wouldn't want to make paying for the kids such a great incentive that the woman, in this case, would have a larger incentive to divorce, if that makes sense.
And I could certainly see that if the man is paying for his kids and sort of bare minimum lifestyle for the mother, that there should be validation, of course.
that the money is actually going to the kids and not to other, you know, getting nails and hair and all the sort of nonsense.
So it's hard to know, but again, philosophyhy is about prevention, not cure.
Those are sort of some basic thoughts that I have.
And it's just because it's such an ungodly mess when parents get divorced, it is really tough to know how to handle it in a way.
And the best way to do it is to prevent things as well.
And of course, the other thing, too, is that if the divorce is considered unjust, like you would have to have some proof of wrongdoing in order to be divorced.
Because it is, if there are kids involved, who cares really if they're not?
But if there are kids involved, you would have to have some kind of proof of big problems or wrongdoing.
It can't just be, well, I'm just kind of dissatisfied or whatever.
I don't think that would be valid.
And if you left a marriage just based up on being dissatisfied, then I don't think that either party would be responsible for compensating the other.
You know, if the husband cheats, you know, that's sort of a different matter.
But I would not assume that in the absence of cheating or abuse or some sort of substance abuse or something like that, in the absence of any of that, I don't think that people should get paid.
to divorce if there's nothing serious going on that's frivolous and bad for the kids all right should children expect an inheritance from their parents my take is absolutely while teaching them to use their wealth responsibly frugally and generally towards those in need, children growing up unable to use wealth wisely is a reflection of poor parenting.
Yeah.
I mean, should children expect an inheritance from their parents?
I'm not sure what that means.
Are you saying, is it valid for children to receive an inheritance from their parents?
Well, sure, of course.
Because you own your property and you can dispose of it as you see fit.
So if you want to give all your money away to charity, instead of giving it to your kids, you can do that.
I mean, it may be unwise, but it is, after all, your property.
If you want to give all your property to your kids, you can do that too.
Again, it's your property, you can dispose of it as you see fit.
All right, I watched an interesting video on Owl Man.
Apparently this is a DC Batman variant that believes nothing matters due to multiverse theory.
He believes that no action he made mattered as there was another version of him in another Sony that didn't that did the exact opposite.
Interesting video on nihilism and if your actions actually matter.
Would like it if you explored this weird rabbit hole of philosophical theory?
It's not it's not weird.
It's a seduction to cowardice and inaction.
Right?
It's just it's a way of saying to people nothing really matters.
Anyone can see, right?
It's just a way of saying to people, nothing really matters.
It's a way of seducing them into laziness and letting the bad guys run the world.
So people just want a lot of excuses for not doing the right thing.
And look, I'm not blaming people.
I'm subject to the same things, but maybe I'm just a little bit more honest with myself than some people.
So yeah, doing the right thing and interfering with the designs of...
And they don't like you and they will work to harm you if you interfere with their evil objectives, right?
I mean, this is if you're going to testiestify against the mob, get ready to sleep with the fishes, right?
So there are a lot of people who are frightened to do the right thing, and I sympathize with that, and I share that feeling.
It can be a bit nerve-wracking to do the right thing from time to time.
And I'm not here to tell people you must do the right thing.
It has to be voluntarily chosen based upon rational values, and so on.
However, like that having been said, I encourage you to do the right thing, and if you don't do the right thing, that's fine.
Don't lie to yourself about it.
So if you don't want to take on evildoers and you don't want to join the fight to make the world and humanity and the moral landscape a better place if you don't want to do that.
That's not great, but it's fine.
I just don't want you lying to yourself and pretending that you're doing something you're not.
Because then you can't ever rejoin the fray.
Right?
So if you have a bad dentist, right, who just tells you everything you want to hear, oh, your teeth are great, oh, your gums are fine, blah, blah, blah, you've got no plaque, when in fact your gums are receding and you have a lot of plaque and you do decay and cavities, right?
So if you have a dentist who tells you what you want to hear, he's endangering.
your life because you swallow the bacteria can infect your heart and you can die, your heart can explode, right?
So I'm just here to tell you that if you don't want to do the right thing, if you don't want to be honest, if you don't want to stand up against evildoers, if you don't want to ostracize consistent evildoers in your environment, if you don't want to promote peace and reason and peaceful parenting, if you don't want to do any of that, that's fine.
But I'm not going to support you lying to yourself.
and pretending that you're a good person when you're not.
The dentist can't force you to take good care of your teeth, but if he's a good dentist, he's not going to lie to you about the effects.
So if people say, well, it doesn't really matter what I do because there's a multiverse, this, that, and the other, then they're trying to make wisdom out of moral cowardice and laziness.
Right?
You know, in another universe, man, I'm doing the right thing, so it doesn't matter if I don't do the right thing in this universe.
I mean, that's just cowardly crap.
That's all.
And if you're going to be frightened out of doing the right thing, that's fine.
But I'm not going to support your delusion.
that you're doing the right thing.
And please understand, I'm not talking to you directly.
I know you're just bringing this up as a thought exercise.
So, that's all.
am not going to support people's delusions.
If you punk out of the essential moral battles of the world, that's fine.
You're a moral coward.
Now, the reason I'm telling you that is not because I think that's etched into your nature or part of the physics of the universe.
I tell you that so that at some point, if you get tired of being a moral coward, you can stop being a moral coward and you can join us in the essential fight for virtue and against evil.
You know, be the superhero instead of just watching guys in spandex rocket all over Gotham, right?
So, if, on the other hand, I were to support the delusion that it doesn't matter what you do because of the multiverse theory, you're doing something different in every universe, if I support that theory, then you can't ever come back from it, right?
You can't because now it's become wisdom and it gets etched into your soul and you're not a moral coward and you drug yourself.
Now, deep down, you know the truth, but eventually, if you push the truth down far enough in your mind...
like it dies and drowns and turns into oil or something like that right so I don't support fostering or enabling people's delusions like the people who have delusions like oh a force can achieve virtue and oh there's no free will because determinism or multiverse theory or something like that.
It's like, no, no, you're just more a coward.
And that's fine.
Look, we all punk out from time to time.
I'm not lording it over anyone.
But I'm honest with myself.
If there's topics I don't want to touch, I don't touch them.
I don't lie to myself.
Well, I'm above that.
It's not important.
It's topics I don't want to touch.
And I think I'm honest about that.
At least to myself.
So and that way, if I choose at some point, blah, blah, blah.
Okay.
All right.
Somebody says, not sure if it's a philosophical question.
question, but wondering your thoughts on the term Intrinsic value.
It's a term that gets used a lot, but to me, it's always seemed like an oxymoron.
Well, that is a fine, fine question.
So intrinsic value is generally finance term.
It's a term of finance.
It refers to the perceived value of an asset.
based on its own inherent characteristics rather than just sort of market demand right so Brad Pitt has intrinsic value that cannot be separated from Brad Pitt right because if Brad Pitt says he's going to be in a movie, it's going to get a bunch of financing.
If he pulls out, and there's now Brad Pitt with three T's who's just some unknown, then the funding will likely be pulled and all of that, right?
So intrinsic value is something that is not based upon mere demand, but it's based upon the person or the thing itself.
So if you have a web design shop with a couple of computers, but some really great web designers, If all those web designers leave, how much value is the computers that remain and so on?
Well, not much.
On the other hand, if you have a big giant manufacturing plant like the $10 billion fabrication plant that makes computer chips or something like that.
If the workers leave, then the machinery, the zero, like the super clean environments, the soundproofing and all of that, and all of the capital machinery, that still has value.
Right?
There was an old saying.
It's an old saying in the software industry, like 90% of the value for a company goes down the elevators every night after work.
So if it comes to things like business then you can consult investopedia or other places to learn more about intrinsic value but i think what you're talking about from a philosophical standpoint, and I'm sorry if I got this wrong, but I think what you're talking about from a philosophical standpoint is, is value embedded in a thing itself or is it always a function of the human mind?
And the answer, of course, to those who know the way that I do philosophy, which of course I think is the right way to do philosophy, I wouldn't do it the wrong way, there is no such thing as a value that is embedded in a thing itself.
So, what is the value of a bottle of water?
Well, if you're tripping balls on MDMA and thirsty, as someone lost in the desert, well then, the value of a bottle of water is very high.
If you've just drunk three bottles of water, then the value of the fourth bottle of water is not very high.
There's no value in the things themselves.
And people say, ah, yes, but everyone who's dying in a desert has a high value for a bottle of water.
I mean, no, they don't have a high value for the bottle of water if they're dying of thirst in the desert.
They have a high value of wanting to continue to live.
The bottle of water is just a mechanism to achieve that.
So there's no value inherent in things.
Value, I'm not talking values like moral values and so on, right?
But value, how much value you place on something is subjective.
It is subjective.
I say, ah, yes, but there's price.
No, price is the objective measure of what you're willing to exchange to get something that you value.
But, you know, I like a good steak.
My wife doesn't eat meat.
And so I would pay decent money for a good steak.
My wife would not pay any money for a good steak.
So where is the value inherent in the steak?
It's not.
all in personal preferences.
And it's actually a really deep thing to sort of come So people can say, I want to help the poor.
Okay, and I think most people do.
I certainly do.
That's why I give out my philosophy lectures for free.
So people say, well, I want to help the poor.
And I think that's great.
Good.
Help the poor.
But if helping the poor means having the government print or borrow money in order to just throw money at the poor, then nobody knows how much you actually care about helping the poor because all you're doing is demanding that future generations pay for what you like and want in the moment, right?
And so you have to put that test.
The same sort of with mass migration, right?
You want to help refugees, right?
This is the JK Rowling thing, right?
She's very pro-refugee, and it's like, okay, well, take them into your house and fund them yourself and then be personally liable for any crimes that they commit.
So if the refugee that you are supporting or something, if the refugee that you want, you know, goes and rapes someone, then you and the refugee go to jail because you invited that person in.
So you have to fund them, you have to put them up, and you have to be liable.
Now, if that's the case, right?
If that's the case, how many people, like then you have a value.
that is not just paid for by others you have skin in the game and now we can find out how many people really value this right so you have to pay for this person until that person becomes self sufficient, to put them up in your house.
And if they commit a crime, you go to jail too, because you introduced that person into the community by sponsoring them, and this is the way that immigration would work in any sort of say rational society, but so all right.
But a lot of blame, right, someone else is being placed on men as usual for the current events in England, with a child having to defend herself and another child against a threat.
My question to you and them is what could men have done to prevent this from happening?
Women demanded the vote, women received it because men permitted it.
How could this have been prevented?
Well, I'm a voluntarist.
technically known as an anarcho capitalist and I have been consistent in this for over twenty years because the just and right society is not up to me but up to reason and evidence.
So as I've sort of talked about before, to gain entry into a society, you need the approval of the people in the society, which means they have to want to hire you and put you up and work with you and you know whatever have your kids in their schools.
This would all be voluntary in a free society.
And if you're a valuable addition to that society, people would be very happy to have you come in and overjoyed to have you as neighbors, people want to rent you and have your kids in their schools and so on and if for whatever reason that doesn't look like it's going to be the case then people should never be forced to have you come into their society right so I mean I think that the welfare state was put in place to make sure that there was an underclass of people who were dependent upon it so that when the welfare state becomes more of an attraction for foreigners it can't be reformed so
anyway did Dina what we got here?
What is your solution to set theory or type theory such as how would you solve if you believe it can be solved the barber paradox or this sentence is false paradox so the barber paradox is a logical puzzle, and it says, A barber shaves all those who do not shave themselves.
A barber shaves all those who do not shave themselves.
Ah, does the barber shave himself?
The barber who shaves all those who do not shave themselves, or, you know, this sentence is false.
I'm not sure what a solution would be to these issues.
If you say this sentence is false, well, this means the sentence is true, but the sentence is claiming that it's false.
So I mean these are just kind of silly intellectual playthings.
We know that rape, theft, assault, and murder is wrong, and we know that children are abused.
We should go out and deal with that rather than muck about with this kind of nonsense.
All right.
I think that was it.
What's the categorical identifier for self ownership in a being?
If an AGI was developed and put into one of my android bodies, would it just would it be just to deprive it of their limbs, hearing, and sight since it was my property to start off with?
What is the categorical identifier for self ownership in a being?
Oh my God, I mean brothers and sisters in reason.
Like you know that we're in a time of plague, right?
Evil is winning and expanding, and good is being given unprecedented tools of reason, productivity and communication, and you're like, well, but if I my brain was if AGI was developed and put into one of my android bodies, blah, blah, blah, would it be just to deprive it of the limbs, hearing, and sight, blah, blah, blah?
Can you speak out against evil?
Or are you thinking of fantasy robots?
With what's the AGI anthropomorphic or general intelligence, right?
We have a lot, we have a lot to do.
I mean, honestly, I can't emphasize this strongly enough.
We are in a plague.
And y'all are out there arguing where exactly the placement of a kidney in a Klingon would be.
And I really want to remind people of the urgency of the moral mission that we're on, which is if we lose freedom now, given AI, given surveillance, given computing power, you know, we're probably never getting it back.
I'm not kidding about that.
And honestly, this bullshit, an android and sight and like, we're in a time of plague.
Can you please?
Do something to help the world in its time of need and not muck about.
I mean, again, interesting questions, there's nothing wrong with it, but I don't care.
I mean, in a time of peace, I would care, right?
But if I'm feverishly trying to save blown to bits bodies in a war, and you're kind of getting in my face and asking me about what I thought the physiology of a unicorn was, I might just ask you to get out of my way and start helping.
In fact, I probably would.
All right.
I don't want to spank my kids, but I also want to save their face.
My youngest, fourth, is very aggressive to our golden retriever.
It is polite that he rolls over the dog.
It is polite that he rolls over the dog, but the dog doesn't like it.
If my kid found most dogs, they would attack him.
I don't know how to express any way to dial it back.
I don't know why your child would be aggressive to a pet, unless your child had experienced some kind of aggression himself.
But if your child is mistreating a pet, Obviously you want to, I'm sure you know this, reason with your child and, you know, try and understand all kinds of wonderful things about what's going on with your child, but if your child.
is putting himself in danger by antagonizing a dog, you have to get rid of the dog, unless there's some other explanation that I can't figure out.
All right, I have a question about love.
If we can fall in love with many different partners, as we can see, from people finding love in their social circles, how do certain people stop searching for love in those social circles once they have found it with someone?
Is it discipline or is there a phenomenon called true love?
which we can harness if we want to be successful at relationships.
Are you saying like, why don't you just keep dating people when you have a girlfriend?
Is that I'm sorry, is that I'm going to make sure I understand is I don't know your question seems a little unclear to me.
So you stop dating when you have a girlfriend because you're not an asshole, right?
And you have, assuming that you have with your girlfriend, a monogamous agreement or an agreement to be monogamous in the relationship.
So you stop dating people because you have an agreement to be monogamous.
It's sort of like asking, well, why don't you just not pay your cell phone bill?
Well, because you have an agreement to pay your cell phone bill, right?
So that is that's the deal, right?
That's the deal.
If you get involved in a boxing match, you're not allowed to bite someone in the balls, right?
That's just against the rulesules.
So you have a rule called monogamy in relationships.
So once you've found someone and you're monogamous with them, and you stop looking for more things, right?
It's like if you've moved to a house that you've now rented for a year, what's to stop you from just moving to another house and not paying the rent?
It's like, well, you have a lease and you kind of have to fulfill your obligations, right?
So you make a choice at some point and you say, this person's good enough for me.
I'm going to be monogamous, and then you stick with it.
All right.
Why do you assert philosophy, never having broken into the black box of our brains, can do anything RTFMRIs and PET scans have shown down to our unconscious making the decision for us five to ten seconds before it lets our consciousness know about it, and then lying to us, saying sure you thought of that, honest.
What?
Philosophy at best is like priests arguing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but more nefarious because it gives the impression to non technical plebs that philosophy isn't just mental masturbation after all.
Spoilers, it sure everything is.
We are sock puppets, not even being masters of ourselves.
Why do you have such an anti scientific bent?
Steph.
Do you not know you don't know?
You don't know?
Oh wait, BA or MA, not BS or MS or PhD in a hard science, FFS.
Quote.
Unconscious neural activity in the prefrontal and parietal cortex can determine the outcome of a decision up to 10 seconds before a person is consciously aware of making it, suggesting that some free decisions may be prepared unconsciously by the brain.
Research, including studies like the one by Sun, Brass, Heinzi, and Haynes in 2008, uses neuroimaging to show this early brain activity predicting choices leading to debate about the nature of free will and the role of conscious awareness in decision-making.
That's delightful.
That is, thank you.
Big kisses.
That is beyond beautiful, beyond delightful.
I massively, deeply and humbly appreciate you shoveling me this massive, massive pile of absolute bullshit.
Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, my friend.
All right.
Let's look at this, all right.
Why do you assert philosophy never having broken into the black box of our brains can do anything?
These pet scans have shown down to our unconscious making the decision.
Five to ten seconds for it lets our consciousness know about it.
All right.
So he's saying we don't have any free will because our unconscious is just this machinery.
So we don't have any free will, we don't have any moral responsibility but Steph, you're such a liar.
That's fantastic.
Oh my brains are black boxes and we don't have any control because our unconscious makes the decisions.
We have no moral responsibility.
Steph, you freaking liar And it's like no, no, that is not the case.
If like let's say, let's say that I'm misrepresenting something, right?
But see, but my unconscious made the choice.
to misrepresent something and therefore it's not a misrepresentation.
My unconscious, you see, just made the choice to misrepresent something which I am not responsible for.
So how dare you morally condemn me while saying there's no such thing as morality because we don't have any free will?
You absolute, contemptible hypocrite.
It's pathetic, it's embarrassing, it's manipulative, it's tween pseudo logic, and you should be deeply, deeply ashamed.
Now I can say that to you because I know that we have moral choices, and you shouldn't be such a censorious, vicious, little dirt bag of verbal abuse, and so ridiculously hypocritical at the same time.
So I've known about these studies for a long time.
I've talked about them multiple times in the past.
So why do you have such an anti scientific bent, Steph?
And it's like, well, because my unconscious told me to and I have no choice about it.
Right, so why would you be correcting someone if you say we don't have any free will?
Again, you hypocritical son of a gun.
It's ridiculous.
How dare you correct me while saying human beings are automatons run by their unconscious and have no control over their actions?
How dare you do the contemptible single out bullshit nonsense of saying, Well, Steph, we're not responsible for our choices and our actions.
So why are you such a douchebag and liar and hypocrite?
Oh my God.
Who in your life lets you get away with this absolutely retarded nonsense?
I'm sorry, that's an insult to retarded people who would never type anything this ridiculous.
Oh my gosh.
So unconscious neural activity in the prefrontal and parietal cortex can determine the outcome of a decision up to ten seconds before a person is consciously making the okay?
Yeah, I get that.
And do you not also think that your unconscious is programmed by your choices as an adult.
So for instance, if you are a jazz musician, jazz pianist, then you can just noodle along and play along with all kinds of funky stuff that kind of happen spontaneously in a jazz quartet or whatever.
You can do all of this cool funky stuff.
And you get an instinct about the key changes, but that's all the result of you consciously deciding to learn piano, right?
So if you train yourself in moral courage, then if you're facing a moral challenge, your decision to be brave rather than cowardly would arise out of your prior commitment to your moral courage.
So because you were morally courageous, when you're facing a moral challenge, your decision to continue to be morally courageous might emerge out of your unconscious, but that's the result of you consciously pursuing moral courage in the past.
If you have studied martial arts for many years, right?
Then you know how to handle yourself in a street fight, assuming no weapons are involved or whatever it is, right?
So then if somebody starts pushing you around, your decision as to whether you're going to fight or run may occur before you're consciously aware of it, but that decision, of course, is going to be influenced by the amount of fight experience and your commitment to learning your martial art ahead of time.
So the idea that we're just these puppets and our unconscious just does things, the unconscious and the conscious mind is a two-way street.
The unconscious informs the conscious mind, the conscious mind helps program, the unconscious, right?
So if you learn a new language, right?
Then your unconscious changes, and now you can think and reason and converse in that language.
And so if somebody speaks to me in Japanese, my unconscious tells me don't speak to them because you can't speak to them in Japanese, right?
However, if I have learned Japanese and I'm fluent in Japanese and somebody starts speaking to me in Japanese, my unconscious may say, yeah, you should have this conversation, it could be interesting.
Right, so my prior decisions influence what my unconscious will tell me.
But I mean, come on, it's just and the thing is too that not only are you completely wrong and hypocritical, but also viciously empathetically aggressive, which is a real sad, sad, pitiful combination.
All right.
Have you, somebody asked, have you ever asked God to reveal Himself to you or prove that He exists?
God promises He will be found if we seek Him wholeheartedly.
Yeah, I've spent a lot of time.
I mean, I was in the choir.
As a kid, I was spent countless hours in church.
Aunts who I lived with when my mother was hospitalized for depression, I lived with my aunts for a long, long time, off and on, and yeah, they brought me to church, and I, yeah, wholeheartedly pursued all of that.
All right, Chris Langan claims that at the deepest layer of atomization, particles have a reality creating field that has not been formally recognized.
If this were true, what are the philosophical implications?
None.
Yeah, there would be no philosophical implications because the murky quantum mechanic stuff that happens right down in the bowels of matter cancels itself out long before you get to sense data and philosophy operates at the level of sense data because because philosophy is foundationally about morality and morality operates at the level of sense data.
Did you strangle someone?
Is there proof?
Is there evidence?
Did you steal?
What's the evidence?
What's the proof?
And so on.
And so because morality operates at the level of sense data, all of the funky stuff that happens down in the bowels of matter doesn't matter with regards to philosophy.
It's interesting from a scientific standpoint.
It may provide some very interesting and positive scientific.
understanding or progress all of that's very interesting but it has no bearing on philosophy all right what do we got here the philosophy of the evil behind the scenes of the destruction of the West is rule over a heap of ashes, well, I mean, human beings are divided into those who want to be free and those who want to control, right?
In general, those who want to be free tend to be more male, in general, those who want to control tend to be more feminine.
As masculinity is freedom, femininity is control.
And the reason for that, of course, is that women evolved to take care of babies and toddlers, who are death and danger magnets and need to be rigidly controlled in order to prevent them from coming to harm, and therefore freedom makes people anxious, makes women anxious, because freedom means freedom for disaster.
And so women want to protect and control the environment and manage people and control individuals and make sure they don't make terrible choices because they're programmed to keep babies and toddlers alive, whereas men prefer freedom and a raw meritocracy because that's better for hunting and it's better for the survival of the provider, protector role that men have.
What is the strongest why that can bear any how?
Quote from Nietzsche, give a man a why, he can bear almost any how.
If you have a purpose, you have a real purpose, then you can find a way to make it happen.
The strongest why is the promotion of virtue.
It is the most exciting and dangerous sport known to man, God or devil.
All right.
Let's see here.
Do you feel that it is most ethical for powerful entities to look powerful?
I don't know.
This is a Bruce Lee argument that I don't quite really care about.
It doesn't mean not worth caring about.
It just means I don't care.
Is reality objective or does it depend on our perception?
But we only get the concept of objectivity through perceiving things, right?
Again, so I'm going to point at an oak tree, so that's an oak tree.
If it is in fact an oak tree, I'm accurate.
If it is a giraffe, I'm not accurate.
So reality is what it is.
It exists independent of consciousness, and objective refers.
to the operations of consciousness that accurately identify things in the real world.
So we only develop reason, consistency, objectivity, logic, and so on, because the senses provide us accurate information about the behavior and objective properties of matter and energy.
Do you believe in bounty hunting?
No, that's an interesting question.
It depends what you mean.
Like if you're like, there are some companies that will pay you money if you figure out a way through their networks or find bugs in their software or something like that.
So if you're talking about that.
If you're talking about paying people to go catch others, I mean, yeah, it could happen.
It would need to be obviously pretty tightly controlled in terms of the amount of violence or coercion that was used.
But in terms of bounties, what I would say, and I had a conversation about this with someone recently on X during the live streams, what I would say is that if there is a military leader in a state of society that is threatening a free society, then there is no method.
that I would have much of an issue with that would prevent that war from coming to being, right?
So you could put a bounty on that person's head.
And this is an old Harry Brown argument and we'd say you put a bounty on the status leader's heading and include that his wives can or his wife or wives can collect that bounty so could be certainly better than a war, right?
Is any behavior involving inaction compliant with UPB?
In other words, the only behavior that can't be UPB is the initiation of action.
Is there a gray area I am missing?
Is any behavior involving inaction compliant with UPB?
Yeah.
I mean, sorry, maybe I'm missing something, but if you don't steal something, you're not a thief.
That's a non action.
That's compliant with UPB.
Don't rape someone, you're not a rapist.
That is compliant with UPB, right?
If you don't murder someone, you get the general idea.
So non actions are compliant with UPB.
So maybe again, maybe I'm missing something, but that's sort of the essence of it, right?
All right.
Meaning cannot be proven.
That said, we are left facing nothingness.
Go back to belief in proven meaning, fanaticism, go down into the nothingness nihilism, go forth.
How?
Meaning cannot be proven.
Okay, I did a whole series on a big philosophical podcast on meaning fdrpodcast.com i think it was this month in august 2025 i just go do a search for that is fiat currency and fractional reserve banking immoral under upb well fiat currency is immoral fiat means by violent decree so you can't initiate the use of force to get people to have to use your asswipe currency fractional reserve banking so that is lending out a multiple
of the deposits in your institution as long as it's on the up and up as long as people are aware of the risks as long as the fractional reserve methodology and exposure is published it's not immoral Steph, as one of the smartest people I know of Thank you.
Why haven't you made the leap from second order?
Principle morality to third order long term equilibrium morality.
At some point you were supposed to stop caring about the minor details of moral principles and focus on these social societal level equilibrium points.
Is there a reason you never made that revolution?
It's a bit of a douchebag move to just use a bunch of word salad things to imply that I'm somehow limited in my proof of secular ethics, which is a feat never before achieved in philosophy and which really is the philosophical holy grail.
And so, oh, yes, but I was so much more beyond this, these petty little absolute proofs of objective morality that you've developed.
And there's something called third order long-term equilibrium morality.
I mean, there's a word salad.
And it's kind of insulting, right?
Yeah, to just say, well, Steph, you're just just so limited in your thinking, and let me give you a word salad that shows you just how limited you are in your thinking and so on, right?
If you have a superior proof to morality, or then I would love to hear it, and if I can enhance or refine UPB or develop it further, I'm happy to hear it.
But don't just say, Well, you're kind of limited, man.
Okay, I think I'll do American pragmatists another time.
Why do you do philosophy, Steph?
Because it's the most important thing that can be done, and I'm extraordinarily good at it.
I'm not obviously good at everything.
There's tons of things I'm not good at, but philosophy kind of unbeatable.
So I do it because it's the most important thing to do and I'm very good at it.
And that combination of things almost takes away free will as far as that goes, right?
So when you are very good at something that is, you know, absolutely essential for the world, then it's kind of tough to say no.
Right?
if you had the capacity to cure cancer victims with a touch, you kind of have an obligation to do that, right?
So I And I almost don't have free will when it comes to that, because if given the technology and this great audience and what I'm able to do intellectually, I think this is a now or never opportunity for philosophy as a whole, right?
Because philosophy's been around for three thousand years, didn't solve free will, didn't solve love, didn't solve the problem of ethics, didn't solve the problem of statism from a moral standpoint.
And so I've done these things as a whole, and I get that, you know, standing on the sho shoulders of giants and all of that I'm not trying to make this about me or vanity but false modesty is just a kind of hypocrisy and I don't want to lie to you guys about anything so because the technology has arrived because free speech is still mostly valid in many ways because we have this technology I have this
audience and because I have my particular skills and abilities It's now and ever.
And I honestly, I feel like this inverted pyramid of responsibility on my shoulders every day.
Just straight up telling you about my experience.
Experience of Philosophy I don't necessarily relish the fact that I was given all of these gifts of eloquence and reasoning and communication and debate and all this kind of stuff.
I don't relish that fact.
It has at times in my life felt extraordinarily unfortunate, but it is what it is.
I have been given an extraordinary set of gifts, and I also had an extraordinary set of life circumstances that led me to, at least I hope, maximally, activate and utilize those gifts.
So I have a fairly pleasant speaking voice.
I have an interesting accent.
I'm not ugly, and I have good health.
And I mean, I was raised by a crazy woman in a fairly crazy society.
So I learned the value of reason very early and don't compromise with mysticism.
And, you know, I studied English literature, which made me a good writer.
I studied acting and playwriting, which made me a fairly good performer.
And I studied history, which made me good at understanding the products and precepts of history.
And then I was in the business world, so I learned the value of the free market and voluntary transactions and sort of you name it like there's just been this whole odd coincidence of things that have given me this path forward.
I also happen to meet this wonderful woman I've had the great privilege of being a stay at home.
Dad, and I thank everyone for that.
A freedomain dot com slash donate if you would like to sort of continue to help out with that experiment as it goes forward.
So I've had a lot of things that kind of came together to give me the abilities to be able to do what I'm doing.
And of course, I practiced philosophy for twenty years before I ever became a public figure, more than twenty years really, and I'm coming up on twenty years.
I think this October, my sort of first article published.
So I have very much felt this, it's not quite a crushing weight but it is a severe and sincere obligation that if it's not me then who and if not now then when and i'm sort of very aware of three thousand years of philosophy absent this incredible technology that allows us to have these conversations and these communications.
Can you imagine having to order a crate of hand-copied cassettes for me for ten thousand dollars to get a bunch of podcasts?
It'd be crazy, right?
But everything has kind of come together in what I do and what we do together.
Again, these great questions and great comments, great conversations.
I mean, absolutely love you guys at an audience.
And it is with great humility that I serve the gifts that I have been given.
And the extremely weighty responsibility of, if not me, who, and if not now, when.
I feel that everything kind of the planets aligned in what it is that we're doing here as a community and what I'm able to do as a philosopher.
The planets have kind of aligned and I have to make the most engaging and strenuous and rigorous case for responsibility of freedom, virtue, reason, and morality that I can.
And, you know, the bad guys have all their energy, the bad guys have control of fiat currency, control of the educational system, control of the media, control of the universities, right?
All I have, as the song says, is three chords and the truth.
So I do take this responsibility with extraordinarily seriously and with great humility.
And it is what I think about in the morning when I wake up, like today I woke up and then grabbed a coffee and immediately went to work on my new book, wrote my second-to-last chapter on chapter 23.
I have one more chapter to go, which I then will record and release, and hopefully this will do some great good in the world.
And then I've had lunch with my family, and then this afternoon I'm answering these questions.
I did some technical work on the show earlier, and then tonight I do my live stream, and it's something that organizes and focuses everything that I do over the course of the day.
I'm extraordinarily pleased that the work that I do is stored on millions of computers all over the world, it will be immune to really any kind of predictable destruction, and it will last forever.
And I will, of course, be judged by higher standards than currently exist, and that which is taboo now will be common topic in the future, and I accept that, I mean, I've even noticed in the half decade that I was off X, that topics that were formerly taboo are now generally accepted, if not downright welcomed.
So, I do have a great deal of responsibility given what I can do and given how far far, I mean this is a big experiment and question for me as a whole, which is how far can I move philosophy forward in the span of my meager and transient lifespan?
How much can I move things forward?
I don't expect there to be much change in the general zeitgeist or culture, but that's fine.
I mean the plan of a philosopher has to be measured in centuries, not in years or decades.
I expect there to be incomprehension.
I expect there to be confusion.
I expect there to be massive amounts of hostility.
I always can improve.
I just put something out on X today, which got a lot of responses, which was, what can I...
Maybe I can improve.
Maybe in the anticipation of hostility that comes with being a moralist, I can be a little too punchy, certainly a possible answer.
But on the other hand, if I'm not punchy enough, then people don't get that certainty.
People get annoyed at me for being too certain.
But if I'm not certain, then there's no such thing as philosophy.
The whole purpose of medicine is to have some certain That would be a drug pusher.
So I have to have certainty when I've achieved certainty.
I have to have doubt.
When I have not achieved certainty, the difference and the methodology to expand what I know into what I don't.
So it is like being conscripted by history, by humanity's need for philosophy, by my own abilities, and by this technology.
I mean, I much rather would be running a business and writing books as i used to do that was my great sweet spot and pleasure and i don't mind the controversy but it's not like i thrive on it it is sort of the nature of the beast i mean if you get the job All the other actors are kind of nonplussed about that, right?
And so the fact that there is hostility from the sophists and the confused and so on, I get.
Punching back when punched at, I think is valid and reasonable and fair.
And I don't think it's wise to just wait for another couple of thousand years for the planets to align in the way that they have for philosophy to improve and become relevant and rational and accurate.
actionable I mean, it's been three thousand years.
I think that the work that I do is the most actionable philosophy that has been developed.
And what does humanity look like after another couple of thousand years without robust and objective moral philosophy in particular?
So, and I'm also aware, of course, that since I have, through sheer force of will and with the help of the community and experts who've chimed in, caused the number of assaults against children to be about one and a half billion less.
Now, no matter what I want to do with my own particular life, it doesn't really matter relative to the ability to talk to the world and reduce the number of assaults and abuses against helpless and dependent children.
What would it matter what I wanted to do if I'm capable of doing that?
And that sustains everything about what I do.
So I hope that helps at least give you this sort of lift, little lifting the curtain to see what goes on in my heart and mind on a daily basis.
And this is why, like, I'm unstoppable, safe by death.
The responsibility is too great, the opportunity is too unique, and humanity should not wait for another couple of thousand thousand years for the planets to align in this way again.
I hope that helps.
FreeDomain.Chrome slash donate.
If you would like to help support philosophy, I would deeply, humbly and gratefully appreciate it.
Thank you, everyone, for these questions.
I'm sorry I didn't get them finished, but I will get to the other ones hopefully this weekend.
I did.
I'm up to page 17 out of 30.
So not bad, not bad.
All right, thanks, everyone.
Have yourselves a great and wonderful day.
I guess I'll talk to you in a little bit over an hour.
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