Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - 20th Anniversary of Freedomain 1! Twitter/X Space

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Oct. 25, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:41:47

20th Anniversary of Freedomain 1! Twitter/X Space

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Time	Text
	Mike is on.
	Mike is on.
	Hi, everybody.
	Hey, a month since my birthday.
	That's sort of an anniversary.
	59.
	But also, factually, realistically, truthfully, honestly, in this great span of the here to the hereafter, we call time, not just a magazine, but a cause and effect sequence of TikToks leading to the grave.
	Well, it is 20 years ago to the day.
	Nay, verily, almost to the very minute.
	Second, it is 20 minutes, 20 years, almost to the day since I first poked my head over the parapet into public life as a thinker, as a philosopher, as a reasoner, as a person conferring with the planets.
	And I guess I wasn't going to do a show tonight in a bit more detail, but I did want to talk to everybody today, get your thoughts, impressions, feelings, reasonings, anti-reasonings, if that's what you prefer.
	And understand what is on your mind.
	And let's see.
	I think we talked to this fella before.
	It's always kind of interesting.
	I guess we can give it another shot.
	And happy 20th anniversary to me.
	Happy 20th anniversary to you, the fine listeners.
	And I think we talked to this fellow on Wednesday.
	If there's anybody else who wants to chat, I'm certainly happy to hear from it.
	Stephen.
	Steve versus Steph.
	The PH versus the F. Yes, sir.
	Hey, how are you doing?
	Not bad.
	How you doing?
	Great.
	Thanks for having me on again.
	I appreciate it.
	Well, happy birthday and happy 20 years.
	Thanks for all you do.
	I really do appreciate the cause of philosophy and that you bring so much attention to that conversation.
	I was thinking if I ever got on again, we could talk about your favorite topic.
	Is it more?
	Oh, dear.
	It looks like he's come and gone.
	It looks like he's coming on.
	Apparently, philosophy is very important, but apparently, it is not that important to have a stable connected internet access.
	All right.
	I give him another second.
	Hello?
	Yeah, yes.
	I'm still here.
	What happened?
	I don't know.
	What do you mean?
	What happened?
	I don't know.
	Am I supposed to know?
	I thought you had the fancy computer that tells you all that stuff.
	Anyway.
	Okay, let's not start off with passive-aggressive stuff, right?
	Oh, you're right.
	I don't know what the hell happened to your connection.
	You're right.
	And my connection is not great, so that is my fault.
	You have an uncanny ability to start things off badly.
	It's really amazing.
	Yeah, I'm sorry.
	So you have an unstable internet connection, and then I ask, you say, what happened?
	I said, I don't know.
	You said, well, I thought you have the big fancy computer supposed to tell you, right?
	First of all, space doesn't work on a computer.
	It only works on an iPhone or an Android.
	And secondly, if you have an unstable internet connection, why would you imply that I somehow know or should know because of my big fancy computer?
	I mean, it's almost like it's an amazing ability that you have to just start things off badly.
	It's a gift.
	So moral.
	It's a gift that keeps on taking.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Abstract moral philosophy.
	That's your favorite topic?
	Did you say that once?
	I do like that.
	Okay, well, it doesn't look like we are going to get our good friend to chat because he doesn't have a stable connection.
	All right.
	Well, you know, with the words.
	Hello?
	Every time my screensaver comes on, it seems to wave.
	Okay, so could you do me a favor and not have your screensaver come on?
	I don't know how to.
	I guess if I kind of keep touching it, it won't come on.
	Oh, like it's on your phone, right?
	Yeah, I'm on my phone.
	And for some reason, why not?
	So, yeah, just keep touching the screen and you'll be fine.
	Okay.
	Okay, well, give it one more try.
	If you cut out again, I'll have to move on.
	Okay.
	Yeah, no problem.
	I understand.
	I don't know.
	I kind of feel like everybody gets God wrong.
	So I think the atheists are wrong.
	I think the Christians are wrong.
	You're an atheist, right?
	I am.
	So I guess my assertion would be: how do you know?
	How can you define God enough to know that he doesn't exist?
	Doesn't assuming he doesn't exist add up to defining him somehow?
	Well, the word God is not without definition.
	Otherwise, you wouldn't know to use the word God.
	Right.
	If I said to you, there's a word named flippet to gibbet and I refuse to define it, you wouldn't know when to use it, right?
	So when people talk about God, they're talking about something with a definition, usually to do with immortality, omniscience, being outside of space and time, and so on.
	And usually, certainly for most people who talk about God, they're talking about God as the originator of morality.
	It's a desperate way to extract an ought from an is in the absence of universally preferable behavior.
	And so it's not that God has no definition.
	God usually has a definition, which is why you know to use the word God rather than something else.
	Yeah, but does it have a definition we all can agree on?
	I'm sorry, is that a rhetorical question?
	No.
	I mean, but you're an intelligent man, right?
	So you know that there is always disagreement on just about every definition.
	And certainly there wouldn't be 10,000 different gods in the world if every like this is just an obvious thing.
	It's like saying, do cultures differ in what they value?
	It's like, well, everybody who's over the age of 10 knows that that is the case.
	And everybody over the age of 10 knows that people don't universally agree on what the definition of God is.
	Yeah, but how can you not believe in something that you don't know the definition?
	I mean, you kind of have a general definition.
	We have all these different religions and a lot of that's about dogma, which are all different.
	No, no, but that's a different category.
	So the category of do people agree on the definition of God is, well, of course they don't, right?
	And the other question is, do people believe their own definition of God?
	And the answer to that, of course, is yes.
	Okay.
	Well, since you're a philosopher, you would certainly know of Spinoza's God.
	Correct?
	I mean, I've certainly studied some Spinoza over the course of my time, but let's start with definitions, right?
	Philosophy has to start with definitions, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So we'll start with metaphysics.
	What is reality?
	What is reality?
	Yeah.
	Because if we want to say something exists, we have to say compared to what?
	Well, compared to non-existence.
	And it has to be something that is not purely subjective, like a dream that you had about a flying elephant.
	It has to be something that we can both meet and agree upon within reality.
	So the first question is, what is reality?
	that's what we're comparing, whether something exists or not, too.
	Well, according to Kant, reality is...
	I'm not.
	I'm asking.
	What is you?
	I'm not asking Kant.
	I'm asking you.
	Well, I would basically agree with Kant.
	You know, I talked about my essays in George's Ghost.
	Kant talks about categories.
	So it's almost like, you know, the light bounces in from the apple into your eye and prints on your retina.
	And then your mind makes that into an apple.
	But it's almost like that category, which is why Kant talks about categories, right?
	It's like there has to be.
	Oh, yeah, I don't know.
	I mean, he seems to be very intelligent.
	I think he claimed to be an engineer of some kind, but apparently keeping his screen on or knowing how to change it is different.
	Yeah, I'm sorry.
	I did say three strikes, right?
	So you're not able to keep your screen on, right?
	Okay, well, thank you very much.
	I appreciate the chat.
	Yeah, okay.
	You know, if you're an engineer, maybe you can figure out how to turn your screensaver off on your own.
	It's just something to think about.
	It's just something about.
	So it's a, it's, I do question.
	I honestly, I question the intelligence of people who can't figure out how to turn that.
	I mean, you literally go into settings, look for screen, and there's a screensaver, right?
	Of course you can do, yeah, you can.
	So he's not talking about the screen saver, plus he's not talking about the screensaver.
	He's talking about the screen turning off, right?
	So after a certain period of inactivity, right, you can literally just do a search for a screen and settings and it'll say, you know, screen timeout or something like that, right?
	Actually, let me have a look here.
	This is, let's see here.
	I'm just curious, so because it could be helpful to other people as a whole, right?
	So if I go into settings and I go into search, usually it's screen lock or something like that, right?
	Yeah, screen lock.
	Yeah.
	So you just need to look at screen lock and turn it off.
	And maybe he didn't.
	Or, you know, if you're going to start engaging in a lengthy conversation and you have to keep your screen on, then all you do is just you keep your thumb on your screen and you just move it a little bit as you're chatting, right?
	It's not a big complicated thing, but apparently for some people it is.
	So I thought that was an interesting question that he's bringing up.
	And the other thing too, like if you want to engage with people in substantive discussions, stating the blindingly obvious as if it's a revelation or asking rhetorical questions that everybody over the age of 10 knows the answer to will cost you points, right?
	So if he says, well, does everyone on the world, does everyone in the world agree on the definition of God?
	I mean, I don't even know how to answer that kind of question.
	It's like, well, of course they don't.
	That's why there are different religions.
	That's why there are sometimes conflicts within religions.
	I mean, I went through a couple of weeks there of critiquing the automatic, self-consciously virtuous, quote, forgiveness of Charlie Kirk's murder.
	And again, happy to take other calls, of course, if anybody else wants to chat.
	Fantastic, but I'll talk about this until.
	So if you want, you could see the sort of passive aggression, right?
	And this guy, he called in, I think, I think on Wednesday.
	And sort of the passive aggression, like, so the moment he says, well, what went wrong?
	It's like, I don't know.
	I mean, how am I supposed to know why you cut out, right?
	Well, you have this big fancy computer.
	Shouldn't you know?
	Like, that's just an amazing bit of passive aggression, right?
	I mean, so this is somebody who the vanity, right?
	It's just vanity, right?
	Or somebody who, you know, can't handle.
	I didn't even criticize him.
	I just said, I don't know.
	How am I supposed to know what went wrong with your call, right?
	I've done three and a half, I did three and a half hour show, a three-hour 45-minute show with no problems last week.
	So I know it's not at my end, but.
	And he cut out last time as well.
	So, yeah.
	So the fact that he cut out last time and I'm just, I mean, it's not particularly guy, right?
	But it's just important for people as a whole to know how you come across to others, right?
	So he cut out repeatedly last time.
	And so you might want to look into that and then solve it for the next time you call in.
	But nope.
	And so if you want to talk to intelligent people, don't state obvious things.
	I don't go to a math conference and say, well, my thesis designed to enlighten you is that two and two make four.
	They just laugh at me, right?
	Like, what are you doing here?
	Like, that's just a bizarre troll thing, right?
	And it is often the case, you know, and I've sort of had to fight this myself as well.
	So maybe you've had this experience.
	But if you're the smart, if you're a big fish in a little pond, I've gone through this in my life as a whole, right?
	If you're a big fish in a little pond, one of the worst things for a thinker is to be the smartest person in a small group, right?
	You've got a group of 10 or 20 people, or maybe it's a small school or a high school of 100 or 200 or maybe 300 people, and you're the smartest guy there, right?
	So that is very dangerous for people.
	Very dangerous for people.
	There's an old, gosh, what was it?
	Liz Lemon.
	30 Rock was the name of the show.
	And I think Jane Krasinski, who's a great comedian, she was the prettiest girl around.
	And she went to Los Angeles where everyone at the airport was like, all the women were stunning.
	And it's just like, oh dear, right?
	And it can provoke significant vanity.
	And lots of art deals with this.
	I'm thinking of the salesman in Tennessee Williams' great play, The Glass Menagerie.
	Or you think of Al Bundy.
	Let's really mix up our literary references.
	You think of Al Bundy and Married with Children.
	And Al Bundy was a football star, as was apparently Tony Soprano, the big, big man on campus.
	He was the big, he was the quarterback in high school, right?
	And I, of course, was a, I was the, quote, best actor in my university.
	And then when I ended up going to the national theater school, I was sort of the middle of the pack.
	I certainly wasn't the best.
	I don't think I was the worst.
	I didn't get booted out like some people did, but I was not, certainly not the best actor, without a doubt.
	And so going from being a big fish in a little pond to something much larger is a real challenge.
	So if you're the prettiest girl in high school and you think you could be a model, well, maybe you can.
	It's not impossible, but it's very unlikely.
	If you are the best hockey player in your junior high school, it certainly raises your odds of getting to the National Hockey League, but it certainly doesn't guarantee it.
	And again, the odds are still very short.
	If you are the fastest runner in your high school, the odds of you winning Olympic gold are still virtually zero.
	They're not zero, but they're virtually zero.
	And that process of going from being a big fish in a little pond to actually dealing with the big boys and the big girls in the world is a real challenge for people.
	And I had the good fortune of having a very wild cohort of very smart people as my friends in my early teens.
	I think Jordan Peterson talks about this.
	I think Malcolm Gladwell talks about this.
	There's almost nothing better for your intellectual development than being surrounded by really smart people when you're forming your intellectual life, like when you are sort of in your early mid-teens.
	A friend of mine with a hilarious name that I won't repeat here, but a friend of mine, I used to spend Saturdays in the computer lab learning how to program pet computers, the Atari 400, and so on.
	I didn't have a TRS-AD, but my friend did.
	And I was writing a space travel and space fighting game.
	And I needed the screen to flash.
	This was written on a 2K pet.
	I needed the screen to flash.
	And my friend was so brilliant at computers that he wrote a screen flashing because trying to get the screen to flash was very hard, right?
	Because if you try in BASIC to get the ASCII character, was it ASCII 32 was a white square?
	Right.
	It took forever to like pixel by pixel or character by character to fill out the screen.
	So this friend of mine was so great with computers that he wrote an assembler subroutine that I could call on to make screen flash.
	Assembler is a brutal programming language.
	It takes like 15 lines of code to multiply two numbers together.
	It's like crazy, right?
	Basic is beginners applied symbolic instruction code.
	Nobody over the age of 12 is supposed to use it, but I somehow built a career out of it.
	It's a different matter.
	It improved over time.
	So, and he became a high-ranking academic.
	Another friend of mine, great at economics, also became a high-ranking academic.
	Another friend of mine became a semi-famous writer and an English professor.
	And one of my best friends also became, well, he took a math and physics double major.
	He was so good at math at a very, very difficult and challenging university.
	So I had another friend of mine, multi-talented, a good actor, great singer, played guitar, and he ended up becoming an architect.
	And just, you know, amazingly, I was not a standout in any way, shape, or form among the friends I had when I was younger.
	And we all played Dungeons and Dragons and had very imaginative and enjoyable sessions.
	And having people around you that you're not significantly smarter than is a great gift.
	It's a great gift because you don't feel smart by just having less intelligent people around you.
	You really have to earn it.
	You have to work for it.
	You have to sweat for it.
	And literature is full of people who failed their early potential, right?
	People who failed their early potential, just couldn't sustain or maintain the momentum of their early lives.
	And so one of the big problems that happens, of course, is if that's the case, then people end up feeling artificially smart.
	And then the problem is that that becomes their ego.
	Their ego is, I'm smart, rather than I'm good, virtuous, wise, intelligent, well-read, well-learned, and things like that.
	I'm smart.
	Now, I'm just looking up the glass menagerie.
	Thought I'd be further along and further along.
	Yeah.
	So Jim.
	Jim.
	There's a great, it's a great scene.
	And I remember in theater school, there was an acting teacher who said, it's just casting.
	And she gave us an example.
	She cast two people I knew in theater school in a scene from the Glass Menagerie, and they both hit it perfectly just because that was their personalities.
	So she casts the shyest girl as Laura, and she cast the most, in a sense, externally driven, bombastic person as Jim, and they didn't even need to act.
	And Jim says, people are not so dreadful when you know them.
	That's why you have to remember.
	Sorry, people are not so dreadful when you know them.
	That's what you have to remember.
	And everyone has problems.
	Not just you, but practically everybody has got some problems.
	You think of yourself as having the only problems, as being the only one who's disappointed.
	But just look around you.
	You'll see that lots of people are as disappointed as you are.
	For instance, I hoped when I was going to high school that I would be further along at this time, six years later than I am now.
	You remember that wonderful write-up I had in the torch?
	It said I was bound to succeed in anything I went into.
	Yeah.
	Jim says later he signs the Pirates of Penzance.
	He sang the baritone lead.
	He signs that and he says, my sickness isn't worth very much right now, but someday, maybe it will increase in value.
	Being disappointed is one thing, and being discouraged is something else.
	I am disappointed, but I'm not discouraged.
	I'm 23 years old.
	How old are you?
	And then blah, blah, blah goes on.
	And he says about how he says, you know what I judge to be the trouble with you?
	Inferiority complex.
	Do you know what that is?
	That's what they call it when someone low rates himself.
	I understand it because I had it too.
	Although my core was not so, although my core was not so aggravated as yours seems to be.
	This is not exactly a perfect translation, or I guess this is some sort of AI thing.
	I had it until I took up public speaking, developed my voice, and learned that I had an aptitude for science.
	Before that time, I never thought of myself as being outstanding in any way whatsoever.
	Now, I've never made a regular study of it, but I have a friend who says I can analyze people better than doctors that make a profession of it.
	I don't claim that to be necessarily true, but I can sure guess a person's psychology, Laura.
	And that's what I judge to be your principal trouble: a lack of faith in yourself as a person.
	You don't have the proper amount of faith in yourself.
	I'm basing that fact on a number of your remarks and also on certain observations I've made.
	For instance, that clumping you thought was so awful in high school, you say that you even dreaded walking into class.
	You see what you did?
	You dropped out of school.
	You gave up an education because of a clump, which, as far as I know, was practically non-existent.
	Little physical defect is what you have, hardly noticeable even, magnified thousands of times by imagination.
	So he wishes he was further along.
	It's very common.
	It's very common.
	And if you're smarter than people around you, and that becomes your vanity, and I'm not talking about the prior caller, it's just a general principle, right?
	So if you're smarter than the people around you and that becomes your general vanity, the problem is that you then have to surround yourself with people who aren't as smart as you, right?
	If you are the best actor in a small town and that becomes your vanity, then it becomes very hard to test yourself in a big town.
	It gets very hard to go to Broadway and to try and get roles.
	Because, you know, when I was in university, I didn't even have to audition for anything.
	I was just cast as the lead in everything.
	And, you know, then when I went to a theater school, it was like there was, you know, thousands and thousands of applicants.
	They just took 16 people.
	And I was like, yeah, there's people better.
	Right.
	There was a guy in my class who was, I don't know, like 20, 22 or something like that.
	No, I think he'd already completed a degree.
	So he was in his sort of early mid-20s.
	And he played King Lear without makeup.
	And he was fantastic.
	Like, goosebump good.
	Goosebump good.
	And it becomes very tough to test yourself against the best if you're used to just feeling superior to the average.
	And it is really crippling.
	And I've had to fight this over the course of my life.
	And so on.
	So the fact that I just happened to have a bunch of really, really smart people around me when I was in my early mid-teens was great for me because I always felt that I had to catch up.
	I always felt that I had to work harder.
	The fact that I started off in a bad, poor, welfare ghetto style neighborhood.
	It wasn't so bad in England, but it was certainly that way more so in Canada, has given me a lot of drive, a lot of ambition.
	And now I'm not really sure that I fear anyone or feel inferior to anyone.
	I try not to feel superior because a lot of the gifts that I have are accidental and you got to be humble with that.
	It's like if you inherit a bunch of money, that's not you.
	That's just your parents, right?
	And you shouldn't feel superior because of that.
	If you're tall, right?
	If you have blue eyes, like I do, right?
	If you didn't have any genetic health issues when you were a kid, that's just good luck.
	Didn't earn it.
	So I can usually tell because I saw people, I saw people over the course of my life who felt smarter than everyone else get completely paralyzed after high school and certainly after university.
	They could not put themselves into the raw furnace of absolute meritocracy because I'm not ego bound in winning.
	I'm ego-bound in truth, like I want to pursue the truth, but I'm not ego-bound in winning any particular debate or argument.
	I mean, obviously, I prefer to be on the right side, which is why I do a lot of work to try and figure things out ahead of time.
	But I'm not ego-bound to be in the right.
	You know, there's a, I think Mike Cernovich reposted this about Elon Musk, that Elon Musk was talking about some technical problem live in an interview and somebody said, we should try this.
	And Elon Musk is like, yeah, I think you're right.
	I never thought of that.
	Like, no ego, right?
	Just it only matters being right.
	It doesn't matter who's right, right?
	If you're arguing with your friends about the best way to drive to Vegas, it matters that someone's right.
	It doesn't matter who's right.
	So one of the markers that I look for, and I'm saying this to you, not because you care what I look for.
	I mean, maybe you do, but probably not.
	But because it matters to you in terms of having productive conversations.
	So when John, the philosophy and logic professor, wanted to call in, and I knew that he was hostile to me and I knew that he thought I was really bad at what I do.
	When he wanted to call in, I was thrilled.
	Like, yes, do it.
	I've got nothing to lose.
	I've got nothing to lose.
	Because if I am bad at something and he tells me that, I will work to become better.
	I don't want to be bad at things, particularly when they're the things I think I'm pretty good at, such as philosophy and debate.
	I don't want to be bad at things.
	I don't want to be a pirate.
	Sorry, Colonel Seinfeld reference.
	So either he thinks I'm bad at something and I'm not, which is good.
	Maybe he then can learn something about wisdom and humility.
	Or I am bad at something.
	I have made a mistake, in which case, I need to figure out what personality quirk has had me deviate from my general goal of humility and accuracy and figure out why.
	That could be very interesting and important for me.
	In fact, it certainly would be.
	If I think I'm good at something, I try to be, obviously, try to be humble.
	I mean, it's so hard, obviously.
	Oh, Lord, it's so hard to be humble when you're perfect in every way.
	But no, I try to be humble.
	And if I have got some vanity about something, it's usually a barrier to truth, some sort of prior dysfunction or some blind spot with regards to myself.
	I don't know that I have a huge number of blind spots left.
	I hope not.
	But, you know, certainly possible.
	And so if John was able to correct me on something, fantastic.
	Fantastic.
	I view the work that I do stretching as it does out across the world now.
	And I'm going to be like a cone in the future, right?
	It's going to be much more important in the future.
	And so if I could be corrected on something, that's great because I don't want to transmit bad information.
	Like if you're about to go to some crowded place and then your doctor, you go see your doctor for whatever reason, maybe just a checkup and your doctor says, oh, you have a respiratory virus, but you're pre-symptomatic.
	It's actually quite a dangerous virus, but you should be fine.
	Then you would not go to that crowded place because you don't want to spread your respiratory virus, right?
	And so maybe you're a bit disappointed that you don't get to go to whatever crowded place, but you wouldn't want to go and spread something that was bad for people.
	And error is bad for people.
	So if I'm talking about something and I'm wrong, I want to be corrected so that I don't spread error with the platform that I have.
	The platform that I have is here for the pursuit of truth and virtue.
	So I'm eager to be corrected.
	I'm eager to be corrected, thrilled to be corrected.
	And I mean, you've heard this in call-in shows.
	If somebody tells me something and I repeat it back an hour later and I got it wrong, I'm like, oh, thank you for the correction.
	Or I say to people, obviously, you know, this is my perspective.
	I'm not saying it certainly doesn't have to be yours or anything like that.
	But what you want to do in order not to waste time in life, you know, time being, what they say in real estate, land, it's the one thing they're not making more of.
	Although they are in China, greening the desert and all.
	But yeah, time.
	It's the one thing they're not making more of.
	I mean, you can make more time a little bit by exercising and eating.
	Well, maybe that can extend your lifespan some years.
	But I always sit there and think when I'm eating, I'm like, oh, this is a really nice dessert.
	I'd like to finish it.
	And it's like, well, but would you like to have another couple of days of life?
	You know, I'm not saying that's true, but in general, I mean, certainly you don't see a lot of very old fat people, the old, all the really old people you see tend to be very skinny.
	So I'm aware of that, right?
	Decision now versus, you know, decision later, but versus life later.
	But in order to save time, you want to look for people who are humble.
	Because if they're not humble, all they have is bigotry, vanity, and prejudice.
	And again, I'm clearly not saying that I'm perfect in this way.
	Obviously, we're all human, but it's something I strive for, to be humble.
	Now, when people state the blindingly obvious as if it's a revelation, they have clearly shown to me that it's a vanity exercise, not a truth-seeking exercise.
	They want to be right.
	They want to be thought of as smart.
	They want to be better than you.
	They want to dominate.
	Own.
	You know, they all say this in, he owned and schooled him, you know, this kind of stuff, right?
	Every time I do a, every time I get a debate, I do a debate, that kind of stuff, shows up.
	So there is an interesting thing that occurs.
	And you can get this, you know, right off.
	My wife always told me, my wife is a practice.
	She practiced psychology for like 25 years, right?
	Well-trained, well-schooled.
	And my wife always told me everyone tells you everything you need to know about them in the first few minutes.
	So this guy who called in on Wednesday, he called in to apologize for prior interaction.
	And I asked him, I'm sorry, what are you apologizing for?
	And he didn't have an answer.
	So it's just being manipulative, right?
	Just making appeasing sounds rather than having, and that's a false apology, right?
	That's fraudulent.
	To say, I apologize means I've done something wrong.
	I don't apologize.
	And you've never seen me apologize or retract anything that I know to be true, no matter how much the blowback might be.
	I will not apologize or retract anything that I know to be true.
	So I don't apologize when I'm not at fault because I want my apology to mean something, not just to be a manipulative factor.
	So this guy called up.
	And again, I'm just using him as an illustration.
	But this guy called up, said, I'm sorry for what I did.
	And I said, well, what did you do that was wrong that you're apologizing for?
	And you didn't have an answer.
	So that tells you.
	This time, right, he disconnected and he calls back in and says, what happened?
	And how am I supposed to know?
	I haven't changed anything.
	How am I supposed to know what happened?
	It's a reasonable, I don't know.
	How am I supposed to know what happened?
	Well, you with your big fancy computer, you should know, right?
	So that's vanity, right?
	That's just immaturity, right?
	And this is a guy in his 60s with obviously a lot of intelligence, although I think right now he works blue-collar work, which is fine, but it does mean that there's a loss of success.
	Somebody who's this smart and has patents and claims to be an engineer, though not a formally trained engineer, which is fine, but it's a little confusing.
	Engineer is a protected term, right?
	It's a credentialed term, right?
	Somebody who's not a doctor can't call themselves a doctor.
	Somebody who's not a psychologist can't call themselves a doctor.
	Philosopher is not a protected term, but engineer is.
	So anyway, that's no biggie.
	But if you're in your 60s and you're very smart and you've got patents and you claim to be an engineer and you're working blue-collar work, it means you haven't succeeded in life.
	And if you haven't succeeded in life, this would fall into the pattern of maybe being the big fish in a little pond, a big fish in a little pond, having the vanity that comes from the circumstance, the coincidence, the coincidence of having been born smarter than those around you.
	That's just an accident.
	I mean, if you're the tallest guy in your junior high school, that's an accident.
	You didn't earn that.
	And to take pride in that is foolish.
	It's vain.
	Vain is when you think that you're better for things you didn't earn.
	I think legitimate pride is when you have earned things, then you should take pride in what you've done, right?
	So if you have thought really hard about things and you've come to some really important and good conclusions, then you should feel proud of yourself.
	But being proud of being intelligent is a contradiction, at least in the terms that I'm talking about.
	You can't be proud about being intelligent because intelligence is largely genetic.
	You can't be proud about being told.
	You can't be proud about having great hair or, you know, no genetic issues because those aren't, that's just accident.
	It's just an accident, right?
	It's just an accident.
	So if you're a big fish in a little pond, that's just an accident.
	You happen to be born smart and you just happen to be born around people who aren't that smart.
	And if you're an intelligent person and you're humble, then you refrain from stating the obvious when you're with intelligent people.
	Because when you state the obvious when you're with intelligent people, they lose respect for you.
	And again, I don't mean to pick on this fine fellow, but it's just useful as an example because I really want you guys to not waste your time and to, you know, do good in the world and use our short time on this planet in the most positive and meaningful way possible.
	And sorry, Milk, there was a fellow Milk who wanted to talk.
	And sorry, other people I've talked to before.
	So when someone says, well, does everyone in the world agree on the definition of God?
	I don't even know how to answer that because to ask that question as if it's a real question is incomprehensible to me.
	It would be like me trying to score rhetorical points by saying, well, does everyone in the world speak the same language?
	It's almost impossible to respond to that because it's not even an insult.
	It's so ridiculous.
	It's not even an insult to someone's intelligence.
	Well, does everyone in the world speak the same language?
	It's like, how can you even respond to that?
	How could anyone think that that's any kind of meaningful point?
	That's not smart.
	That's not smart.
	But it may sound smart to people who aren't smart.
	All right.
	Let us move on to the colors.
	Thomas, what is on your noggin, my boggin?
	Oh, I may have startled him.
	Just don't let your screen phone go off.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Understood.
	Hello, Stephanie.
	I hope you're doing well and your family as well.
	I have an observation about free society.
	So maybe a critique about free society that I've been thinking about.
	It's about...
	Hang on, hang on.
	Oh, I hate to nag you at the beginning, bro.
	What do we need to do?
	Say free society.
	Do you think I know what that means?
	Oh, yeah.
	Okay.
	Define me, bro.
	Define me.
	Sorry, go on.
	Okay, so I would say a society which is based on non-coercive and not coercion.
	So people can do whatever they want and they are free to do so to associate how they want to invest wherever they want.
	You say resources.
	You can have society, a state, a society, and a society, hopefully, where peaceful parenting is accepted.
	Something like, I don't want to put words in your mouth, but is it something like that?
	It's something like that.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	All right.
	So in this kind of society, I would suppose that some people would like to associate.
	And we maybe because of our biology or who knows why, some people tend to associate with their ethnic group or their religious group or both.
	And so they might.
	Sorry, but you say for some reason, are you being politically correct or do you not know the reason?
	I don't know the reason I suggest that it might be biology, but it could also be environmental.
	I don't know.
	That's why I said that.
	Well, do you know that babies of a particular race prefer pictures of their own race to other races?
	I do know that.
	So I strongly believe that aiding genetic proximity is an evolutionary imperative, which is why we prefer our own children to the children of strangers, at least if we're not hyper-liberal.
	So genetic in-group preference is foundational to biology, right?
	I mean, you know that, of course, male lions, what do they do when they come across a female with cubs that aren't theirs who doesn't have a male around?
	They mold them?
	They kill them.
	They kill the cubs because they don't want to invest their resources into raising another lion's genetics.
	So genetic in-group preference, whether it's within the family or the local tribe or whatever it is, genetic in-group preference is foundational to biology and evolution, which is not to say it's a moral command, but I'm just saying let's not pretend to be confused about where the impulse might come from.
	Right.
	So it's a human thing, one will say.
	Oh, no, no, no, it's a biological thing.
	Right, but it's innate to humans, so to say, right?
	Well, but it's innate.
	No, because you're saying it's a human thing, right?
	Do birds feed their own chicks or do they feed other birds' chicks?
	So it's innate to life in one sense, but I'm just focusing on genes.
	Birds build a nest and lay their eggs.
	Now, the cuckoo and things like that's just a form of fraud in nature.
	So if a starling mates and there's eggs in the nest and they go and get food, do they fly back to their own nest or did they feed random starlings?
	They go to their own nest.
	Right.
	So that's genetic in-group preference.
	They feed their own genes, not the genes of other starlings or birds or any kind of creature, right?
	Right.
	And yeah, I do agree with that.
	I just say that because I do strongly sense that's biology, biological, so genetic in this sense.
	It might have to be something with environmental as well, but let's just continue if I may.
	Yeah, no, listen, I'm not trying to thwart your entire thesis.
	I just want to say when you say genetic preference is incomprehensible, I don't think it is, or you don't know where it comes from.
	I just wanted to go in and say this is where it comes from.
	But yeah, I'll shut up now.
	So please go ahead.
	I have your depth.
	No, no, I agree with that.
	Okay.
	So these people tend, we as people tend to congregate into our ethnic groups or maybe as well as religious communities.
	So we might tend to prefer each other.
	So for example, a religious group will prefer to hire only people from their religious group or they give some special information only to their people.
	And so in this kind of society, this free society that I defined earlier, we end up with strongly selecting people to join the stronger group in a sense.
	So we don't get into individuals.
	So we select the stronger, the strongest group.
	Does it make sense what I say so far?
	I'm not quite sure.
	What do you mean by we select who's the we and we select the strongest group?
	Because if you're an individual who's alone and who only prefers other people because of meritocracy, so to say, you are in a loop.
	Sorry, sorry.
	I want to make no more short.
	So if you're an individual and you're alone, so who's alone?
	I mean, we all have, we come from a family.
	We have cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, parents, friends when we're growing up to go to school.
	So what do you mean by someone who's alone?
	I'm not disagreeing.
	Okay, if I may put an example, it might make it easier to show my point.
	Let's say a person from Siberia whose group is very, very small compared to an American, so to say.
	So there are 300 and so million Americans in the world.
	They are very rich as well, very powerful.
	So it's a huge imbalance in that sense.
	So that's because Americans is not an ethnicity, right?
	Oh, yeah, it's a group still.
	Okay, but it's a group with massive disagreements.
	I mean, how far America is away from some sort of civil conflict is debatable, but it's not infinity.
	So are you saying, let's say that there's a free society and let's say there are a bunch of Hispanics in it, right?
	And then somebody from Siberia moves to that group.
	Is that right?
	Or moves to that society.
	That's right.
	Okay.
	So they move to that society.
	And are you saying that the Hispanics, like most ethnicities, have an in-group preference?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And they will stick to their own.
	Okay.
	So they will stick to their own.
	And so then let's say the guy from Siberia wants to move to the NCAP Hispanic society or whatever, right?
	And the guy from Siberia does, does he speak Spanish?
	Does he, I mean, does he understand the customs or something like that?
	And if he does, you know, maybe people from the Hispanic ANCAP society will be fine with somebody from Siberia, or maybe they won't, right?
	I mean, if I were to move to Japan, how long would it take for the Japanese to accept me as one of their own?
	I mean, I asked this question on X, and the answers range from a hell of a long time to they will never accept you as one of their own, right?
	So it's more of a closed society.
	Yeah, freedom of association means that the Hispanic people are obviously not compelled to provide any services or resources to the Siberian who wants to move.
	Because this is the big question in Ireland or other places, which is like, okay, well, what makes someone part of a community?
	Well, it has to be that the community voluntarily accepts that person.
	You can't force people to accept others.
	And so if somebody from Siberia goes to a Hispanic-free society, then the Hispanics are not obligated to accept him.
	They're not obligated to give him work.
	They're not obligated to rent him houses.
	They're not obligated to do any business with him.
	Now, that Hispanic society will not, almost certainly will not reject all outsiders because that would require A, a unanimity, and B, no tourism industry, right?
	The tourism industry relies upon people coming from elsewhere to come and spend their tourist dollars where you are.
	So my imagine, my guess would be that the Hispanic ANCAP society would say, you're welcome to come, like tourist visa, like you're welcome to come and visit.
	But if you want to come and live here permanently, that's a different matter.
	And this is usually the case with most countries that you go to.
	You can go and visit, but you cannot go and become a citizen because that requires the voluntary permanent consent of the community.
	Now, so sorry, so that's my general thoughts, but please go on with your example.
	Yeah, that leads me to maybe a further question.
	So maybe refine my example a little bit.
	Let's imagine a country like America, so say, so a very diverse country with different groups in it.
	And let's say that this Siberian person already lives in America, so he's an American.
	He's just from a very, very small group which doesn't hold a lot of power.
	So what is there in this America?
	There is a group that it's quite close.
	So they don't accept tourists.
	They don't even accept tourists.
	And they stick to their own and they just hire their own and they just give information to their own and they just promote their own.
	And the rest of society, they don't matter in that sense to them.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	So that's unusual, but let's just say that everyone in Hispanic ANCAP is totally dedicated to not doing any business with outsiders.
	Okay.
	So go on.
	Yeah, but in Hispanic ANCAP, you have different groups as well.
	So maybe you have Sil-Americans, you have Central Americans, you have Caribbeans, you have many different groups.
	And also you have this very little Siberian group.
	So let's say that Central Americans, this Central American group, they don't want to hire any other group.
	So they just stick to their own.
	My sense, if this Central American group is quite strong, is that this group will tend to overcome all the other groups because they will just feed their own group and they become stronger and then they overcome by power every other group.
	Okay, sorry, there's a bunch of big leaps there.
	So, okay, let's go to the end point, right?
	So let's say there's a give me the name of the Aztecs.
	I mean, it's just make up something silly, right?
	So let's say the Aztecs are a large Hispanic group within an ANCAP society and they hire within themselves.
	And we'll get to the problems with all of that in a sec.
	But let's just get to the end point.
	So they have a lot of economic power.
	They have a lot of economic authority and they've got a lot of money, a lot of savings.
	And then you said they coercively take over everyone else.
	Is that right?
	I said that they don't play the game of...
	I thought you said, I thought you said they take over everyone else.
	Yes, but they take through choosing their own.
	So they take it through a free association.
	That's what I want to do.
	How do they take over everyone else if everyone else still has the right of free association and there's no government or military or law in the sense that we understand it now?
	Okay, okay, I see the lead now.
	I see the lead.
	Yeah, so eventually there will have to be some coercive thing that will happen, but it will still gain more power.
	So maybe they'll hold 90% of the power, so to say.
	Okay, hang on, hang on.
	So now we have to define what power means.
	That's a good question.
	So power could be economic.
	If a guy has a million dollars sitting in the bank, does he have power?
	Potentially.
	No, no.
	Does he have power?
	Not at the moment.
	Okay, so not so having money doesn't give you power.
	Let's say the guy takes his million dollars out of the bank and he decides to buy a condo and a boat.
	Okay.
	So does he have power now now that he's buying a condo and a boat?
	He might hold some power because he owns land, so an asset.
	No, no, while he's in the, he takes the money out, he's going to buy a condo and a boat.
	Does he have power?
	Not yet.
	No.
	Okay.
	So once he has the condo and the boat, does he have power?
	I say yes.
	Okay, great.
	So tell me how he has power.
	I'm not disagreeing with you.
	I just want to understand what you mean.
	I think he owns an asset on the real world that he could potentially use to hire some other people.
	He potentially could do things that other people cannot do.
	Okay, well, that's true about everyone, right?
	So, I mean, a gymnast does things that I can't do.
	That doesn't mean they have power.
	Okay, so let's say he then hires people to clean his condo and maintain his boat.
	Right.
	Okay, he's got two people.
	One maintains his boat, one cleans his condo.
	Does he have power now?
	He pays those people, yeah.
	Okay, but don't give me synonyms.
	Asking for power.
	Does he have power when he offers someone wages to clean his condo and maintain his boat?
	And again, I'm open to the argument.
	I just don't know what you mean by power.
	Okay, what I think anybody who pays anybody else, do they have power?
	What I think about it now is that he has more power than a person that cannot pay for other people to clean their condo or their boat if they even have a boat.
	Okay, so are you saying that the accumulation of property means power?
	In a sense, I no, no, no, no, no, we are a philosophy, bro.
	We don't do innocent.
	That's just voodoo ghost fog at the end of consciousness, right?
	So we've got to be precise here.
	Wow.
	Yeah, you're making me think really hard.
	I don't know, Stefan.
	I don't know.
	I really don't know this one.
	Okay, so he has the power to deny other people access to his condo and his boat, right?
	Yes.
	I mean, so if somebody breaks into his condo, he can use up to lethal force to get them out in a free society, right?
	Right.
	If somebody steals his boat, he could use up to lethal force to get his boat back, right?
	Right.
	So somebody who doesn't have any property has nothing to defend.
	Somebody who has property has something to defend.
	Is that the power that you mean?
	That could be one of the ways to see power, but I also think of this other way that you said that I said is that they can potentially hire other people to do stuff they don't want to do.
	So they have more free disposition of their own time in a sense.
	And they can do more stuff than other people are allowed to in a way.
	Okay, hang on.
	So that's a very interesting topic and it's really foundational to political thinking.
	So I appreciate you bringing it up.
	Okay, so let's go back to the guy who's got a million dollars in the bank, right?
	Right.
	Now, let's say you've got two brothers, Simon and Adrian.
	Now, the two brothers, they're roughly equal in intelligence, but Simon is hardworking and Adrian is kind of lazy.
	Adrian likes to go to parties.
	He likes to get Christel in bottle service.
	He likes to, I don't know, hookers and blow, whatever nonsense, right?
	And so he doesn't save any money, right?
	But he has a lot of fun, which his brother Simon doesn't have because Simon is working hard and saving his money, right?
	Yeah.
	So the million dollars in this instance is the result of having less freedom to do what you want.
	Now, when you have the million dollars, you can then buy more freedom, but that's the result of you having had less freedom in a way in the past.
	You haven't done what you wanted because most people would rather spend money than save it, right?
	Because saving money is like not having money in a way, right?
	Or if Simon works very hard to get an accounting degree and his brother Adrian goes and gets some nonsense arts degree, but has a lot of fun and doesn't have to work very hard, then Simon, the million dollars that Simon ends up with, is the result of hard work, of the denial of gratification.
	So let's say that he's minus a thousand happiness points because he deferred gratification.
	He got a degree in accounting.
	He worked hard.
	He saved his money.
	He didn't blow it on trips, Christel hookers and blow or whatever, right?
	And so he deprived himself of particular choices.
	He did difficult choices.
	He deferred gratification.
	He surrendered his happiness, right?
	And so he ends up the million dollars is the result of self-denial.
	And I'm not, obviously, this is not the case with every million dollars.
	Some people inherit and so on, right?
	But in general, wealth accumulates through self-denial.
	Because if you didn't have self-denial, you'd just spend it, right?
	Yep.
	So he's like at minus a thousand freedom, and that's how he gets the million dollars.
	He didn't have the freedom or he denied himself the freedom to just blow the money or have fun or whatever, right?
	So Simon is minus a thousand points of happiness and he gets a million dollars.
	Now, when he starts spending the million dollars, he has more choices and he has more happiness because he doesn't have to clean his own condo.
	He's got a nice place to live.
	He's got a boat.
	He doesn't have to learn how to maintain it.
	So if you just take the time slice of somebody has a million dollars and somebody doesn't, then it looks from the million dollars going forward, it looks like the guy who has the million dollars has it made.
	But the truth of the matter is, in general, that the guy has the million dollars because he denied himself the immediate gratification of spending his money, right?
	I mean, by definition, if you saved the money, you haven't spent it.
	And even if you inherit the money, you know, Simon and Adrian could both have inherited a million dollars, but Simon decided not to spend it.
	And Adrian decided to spend it.
	I knew a guy when I was younger, in my teens.
	He inherited a significant chunk of money, and I begged him to not spend it, but he spent it.
	And so he doesn't have the money.
	I did not inherit.
	Well, I guess I inherited it.
	I inherited $800 when I was 12.
	And my mom chipped in a couple of hundred bucks and we bought an Atari 800, which turned out to be a very good investment because I ended up being in IT for a while, a long time.
	Pretty good investment.
	But, you know, my friends were saying, why are you buying a computer?
	That's nerdy, you know?
	And I could have just kept the money and then bought a car when I was 16 back then, right?
	So if you just look at why does someone have a million dollars in the bank, because they have denied themselves immediate pleasures in the past.
	So now they have more immediate pleasures now, right?
	Like somebody who goes to the gym and sweats and curses and moves heavy metal around in a dark place.
	Well, they generally have, like I just, I just had my annual checkup.
	My health is great.
	And, you know, I exercise a lot and I try to eat well and so on.
	And so, I mean, I've gained a little bit of weight, but given that my pants still fit, I think it's mostly muscle because I've been working out kind of harder.
	I'm just kind of curious what I can still do in my late 50s.
	So I have freedom to do a bunch of things that somebody who never exercised and has gained weight and so on.
	Like I can go play an hour of pickleball, whereas somebody who's overweight and out of shape, they can't do that.
	So, oh, look, I have all this freedom now.
	It's like, well, yeah, but that's because I denied myself the freedom to sit on the couch and eat butter tarts, which is what I'd rather be doing in the past.
	So self-denial, which is a minus of your happiness, gives you more options down the road, but it's not like you suddenly magically have a million dollars.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	So will you say that the people that restrict themselves, they have less power before, so when they are restricting themselves and then in the time slides where they have this million dollar, they have more power?
	Is that?
	Well, choice is you keep using the word power.
	So if you reduce your options in the past, you get more options in the future.
	So if you save your money, you save a million dollars, then you do that by denying yourself in the past or in the present.
	And then you have more choices in the future.
	So if you save your money when you're younger, you can retire earlier.
	And if you spend your money when you're younger, in general, you can't retire earlier.
	So because you deny yourself in the past, you get more options in the present and in the future, right?
	Right.
	So let me allow me then to go back to the NCAP Hispanic America.
	So in this case, I'm going to use what you said now.
	The Aztecs allow themselves to have more options because, but not because they restricted themselves in the past, or maybe they did, but they also gain more options because they use their in-group preference to allow themselves to have more options in the future due to maybe recruiting more people or having their people be more united in one goal.
	They have different advantages that in-group preference gives them.
	So what would that mean on the end capsis?
	Sorry to interrupt.
	I'm not interrupting because I want to be rude.
	I'm just interrupting because I don't understand what you mean exactly.
	So you're saying that they only hire the Aztecs only hire other Aztecs and therefore they gain economic advantage.
	Yeah, because the money they create in one sense, it only goes to their group.
	It doesn't flow out of their group, so to say.
	Okay.
	So I'm sure you've heard me talk about the Pareto principle, which is that it is a tiny minority of people who are responsible for almost all the productivity of the world.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So just for those of you who don't know, in general, the economic rule is that the square root in a meritocracy, the square root of any productive group produces half the value.
	So in a group of 10,000 workers in a company, 100 of them are producing half of the value.
	And the square root of 100 is 10, which means 10 people are producing 25% of the entire value of the corporation.
	10 people out of 10,000 or are producing 25%, 100 people out of the 10,000 are producing 50% of the value of the entire company.
	And this is very well borne out in sports and music and dare I say podcasting and so on, right?
	So if the Aztecs only hire from within, they have a reduced access to the Pareto principle superstars that drive most economic growth.
	Right.
	So let's say that the Aztecs are 10% of the population or 20% of the population, but they only hire from themselves, right?
	So what that means is that 80% of potential Pareto principal superstars are unavailable to them.
	Now, if somebody else says, listen, I don't care if you're Aztec or green-colored or, you know, have a broomstick up your nose, I'm going to hire based on raw meritocracy.
	And I'm not going to deny myself access to any talent.
	Well, who is going to out-compete?
	Who?
	So it's the Aztecs who reduce, who only draw from 10 to 20% of the population, their own population, or the person who says, I'm going to take raw talent from anywhere, who is going to end up economically stronger in the long run.
	Well, in that scenario, theoretically, it would be the other person because he would hire from every other population so that he doesn't have any limitations on who they hire.
	But this is where I see the problem.
	So in the real world, I see that there's this group, the Aztecs, but the rest of the people, they are also divided in different groups.
	So they are not completely free also or unified.
	So they might also hire from their small groups because of in-group preference.
	So maybe that 20% might be enough to just take the whole population.
	Hang on.
	But not everyone.
	Of course, there's a lot of people who have in-group preferences.
	And to be honest, I can understand the value of in-group preferences.
	So for instance, I grew up in England, and let's say I was still in England.
	And let's say that I wanted to start a business with people.
	Would I hire people who spoke a foreign language?
	Nope.
	Because I don't speak that language.
	We can't work together.
	Would I hire people who had really different moral and cultural values from me?
	Well, probably not.
	Probably not.
	So like, let's say England is a high-trust society, at least the England that I grew up in, very high-trust society, where you feel really bad if you upset or offend people.
	And you feel pretty wretched if you break your word or cheat people or whatever it is, right?
	Or break the law and so on, right?
	Now, if there's another culture which says, well, I have in-group preference and, you know, I will have honor and virtue and honest dealings with people who share my beliefs, but not outsiders.
	Well, would I hire someone who was part of a group that said he didn't have to be honest with me?
	No, that would be crazy, right?
	So I would want to hire people who had universal morals.
	And that wouldn't necessarily be everyone who's native British, but it would be, you know, probably a little bit more in that category, right?
	So if somebody was part of a religion called nonsensism, right?
	And that religion said that they only had to be honorable towards other people who were nonsensists, and I'm not a nonsensist, then I wouldn't hire that person because they wouldn't have any foundational ethical obligation to be honest or virtuous with me.
	So I could certainly understand some cultural reasons, some moral reasons, some language reasons, and so on.
	That, I mean, even as simple as things as if you grew up as a Christian, then, you know, Easter and Christmas and other sort of holidays and so on, they all make sense to you.
	If you've this, you know, somewhere from nonsensism, they take, the religion says take the whole summer off.
	There's just going to be some challenges in terms of compatibility.
	So while meritocracy is important, it's not the only thing that's important.
	And some cultural, certainly moral values are the most important thing.
	And there would be some cultural or language values.
	So it's a tension between you want the Pareto principle, but you also want people who share particularly your morals and to some degree your values and certainly your language.
	So I'm sort of arguing your point and my point that the meritocracy is going to win out in many circumstances and situations.
	But if you hire somebody who's super smart and not moral, you're actually quite a bit in danger.
	I'd rather hire somebody who's less intelligent, but we share the same universal moral values, if that makes sense.
	Right.
	And it makes sense.
	And I would also like to share that I do agree with in-group preference.
	When I first traveled to Germany, when I lived in Germany almost a year ago, I first encountered people who were very different to me.
	And that made me open my eyes in a way.
	So I do agree with that.
	Okay.
	And maybe the last thing I would say about this scenario that I was talking about, I am not sure if feeding into our in-group preferences leads to a stable country in the long run, because if the Aztecs only feed their own and the English also feed their own, but they live together in the same country.
	So eventually maybe that's going to cause a divide.
	Would you say so?
	Okay, but you're not.
	I'm basing on you.
	Are you Hispanic yourself?
	I'm South American.
	I'm from Chile.
	But I live in Chile.
	I'm not from the US.
	Okay.
	So I know Chile has a wide variety of ethnicities.
	I will say this as a white bro, as a full-on speckled forehead, pasty face, right?
	So the problem with multiculturalism is that in-group preferences is encouraged in every group, but attacked among white people.
	I don't think that's too much of a shock to anyone here.
	So I have no problem with in-group preference.
	I mean, I think it's actually kind of cool that there's a little China, there's a Greek town, there's a little Italy and so on.
	Yeah, fine.
	You know, have your own, yeah, have your own in-group preference.
	That's fine.
	But if in-group preferences is promoted for everyone, you have pride in your heritage and like your culture and so on.
	But if a white person ever expresses it, they're an immediate Nazi, that's when things get completely fucked up, right?
	That's true.
	That's what's happening, I think.
	Yeah, that is what, I mean, that's clearly, I mean, the AI stuff just came out, which is like how a white's perceived in AI.
	And it's like, we finally found institutional racism, right?
	So freedom of association, I think that's fine.
	I think that there is going to be a tension.
	And that's a healthy tension, right?
	We have our cultural histories, which are important.
	And we also have universal objective truth, which is also important.
	And that tension between the two is very interesting and important.
	There's in-group preference, which is fine.
	I mean, you can't get rid of it any more than you can get rid of the desire for profit anymore.
	You know, women want equality and then they want a man who's a little bit better than they are.
	That's just nature, right?
	And you can't get rid of in-group preference because it's why all of us are here.
	My in-group preference tends to be, you know, smart, wise, philosophical, high IQ people.
	That's my tribe.
	It's not racial.
	It's not that sort of my in-group preference is the intelligence and the virtue.
	So the challenge is in a free society, yeah, there'll definitely be, and I'll get you, Jolie, in a sec, there'll be in-group preference in a free society because you can't get rid of it.
	Because that would be like saying to someone, your daughter is drowning and some stranger's kid is drowning.
	You should equally want to save both.
	It's like, that's just not, no, it's never going to happen.
	It's not a real thing.
	It's crazy to imagine it.
	And it would take, only a sociopath would even think that would be, I'm not putting you obviously in that category, but only a sociopath would say you have to be indifferent as to whether the child you're saving is yours or a stranger's.
	That would just be a completely, that's like somebody with a severely broken brain and is not really part of evolutionary continuity.
	So there is going to be in-group preference.
	What's balancing that is if you only have in-group preference, then you miss out on talent from outside your group, which is going to be harmful to your economic long-term success.
	On the other hand, if there's no language or culture, if you only go for raw talent and there's no language or value cohesion within your own group, you probably don't want to do it.
	So it's a tension between the two, you know, and how this plays out over time.
	I think that meritocracy in reason and virtue will win out and then we'll all be joining the happy tribe of thinkers.
	But in the short run, there definitely would be this kind of tension.
	But it's not like just your in-group preference is this unstoppable tsunami that just washes away civilization because the Pareto principle pushes back against that, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, it makes sense.
	Thank you, Stefan, for this bit of philosophy.
	It was great to talk to you again.
	Oh, always a pleasure.
	And I hope to make it to your neck of the woods sometime.
	And I have great admiration for what Chile did in terms of fending off the socialists.
	All right.
	Jolie.
	Jolie, something.
	If you want to unmute, I'm happy to hear your thoughts.
	Hello, Mr. Moenu.
	Thank you again for bringing me on.
	I had a more, I guess I had a more personal question in regards to some geopolitics I've heard.
	Do you think, at least in terms of modern politics, because you think it's better to be a full unionist in terms of having a United Kingdom of Great Britain and all Ireland or not?
	And the only reason why I asked this is this.
	I have been leaning towards full unionism ever since the legalization of abortion vote that they had back in 2018.
	I personally disagree with that.
	Right?
	In Southern Ireland.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	And so, yeah, I feel, at least for the longest time, at least since maybe the mid-16, mid-1960s or whatever, whenever the infamous IRA became a thing, that everything good that Ireland originally fought for in terms of their independence is being wasted away in a politically Faustian deal with reason,
	neo-Marxism, and all that type of stuff in exchange for destroying what they consider a very patriarchal patriarchal Catholic Church, even though that was one of the main things that made Ireland what it was in the first place.
	I'm sorry, I'm not sure if that's the end of your thought.
	Yeah, that is.
	I just, I guess my question is: do you think that it is reasonable to be critical of modern Ireland to the point where you want full unionism back?
	That would be my point.
	So tell me, so just for me and for the audience, tell me what you mean by full unionism.
	Remember, we're dealing with an international audience here where the catchphrases won't be as clear.
	Full unionism basically either, at least what I describe it as Ireland being a direct part of Great Britain again in terms of their government and whatnot, but everything before the World War I and the Irish War of Independence, or at the very least, a form of dominionhood like Canada or Australia or New Zealand.
	Okay.
	And what would be the advantages of that for you?
	I don't think there, at least, because I'm an outside of an observer, I don't actually live there.
	I personally feel like, I personally feel like, ironically, the Irish people would have more of a say in terms of wanting to preserve their nationalism, especially with their modern, at least what I'm seeing with their modern political parties trying to be even more authoritarian in forcing multiculturalism than even the British Labour Party or under purest armor.
	At least that's my observance as an outside, as an outside observer.
	And the way I'd also see full unionism is it'd be a form of, I guess, federalized devolution in a sense, where the House of Lords would be like any mixture of Ireland, Scotland, Wales, Britain, and whatnot, whereas the House of Commons would be based off of what it currently is in terms of popular vote and whatnot.
	But again, this is just me.
	So I just wanted to hear your thoughts on this and possibly and reasons, whatnot.
	Okay.
	So you feel that the...
	Oh, sorry, I wouldn't say you feel...
	Your argument is that the Irish people say would have more sovereignty if under full unionization.
	To my, at least with this, at least under their current political situation, yes, ironically, because I feel like they are being forced to force libertinism and multiculturalism in a very bad light and is going to destroy everything they stand for in the long run.
	At least that's what I think.
	Okay.
	So with the exception of some Eastern European countries, do you think that there are many Western countries that are, again, outside of perhaps Trump, but do you think that there are any Western countries at the moment that seem to be working hard to retain sovereignty, borders, and cultural continuity?
	I think the only one, and this only happened a couple of days ago, potentially Japan, potentially Japan.
	Western countries.
	Western countries, Western countries.
	The only other one, it might be, and again, this has to go with their presidential vote, maybe Chile, but that's good.
	But that's just me.
	Okay.
	So it's rare, right?
	It's the exception.
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Do people in Western countries believe that multiculturalism is successful?
	I guess it depends on who you ask their background.
	In general, in aggregate.
	In aggregate.
	I mean, everything depends on who you ask.
	One of the things that I'm going to beg you to do is just not state the blindingly obvious.
	So in a complex question, it always depends who you ask, right?
	But in aggregate, in general, are people in favor of what's going on in Western countries at the moment?
	Actually, I. No, the answer is they're not.
	Most people feel that it's failed, and most people are not huge fans of this kind of Astroturfed social experiment that's going on at the moment.
	Most people are not in favor of that.
	And one of the reasons we know that is it's not being funded voluntarily.
	It's not being funded like people give donations and they don't give up their own houses to immigrants and so on, right?
	And so, I mean, it's an interesting question as to why all of this is occurring.
	And there's lots of theories and so on, but I would imagine that one of the things that's occurring is that when people vote for more resources from the government that they're willing to pay for in taxes, you end up with deficits and debt and unfunded liabilities.
	Can we agree on that?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	So when you vote for free stuff, you go into debt.
	Now, when a country is massively in debt, who does the leadership respond to?
	The population or the people who hold the debt?
	I'm pretty sure the population.
	Absolutely wrong.
	Sorry.
	Sorry to be annoying.
	Don't worry.
	Yeah, it seemed right from the-Let me ask you this.
	Let me ask you this.
	So are you married at all?
	No.
	Okay.
	So imagine you're married.
	What's your favorite female name?
	Probably something that starts with an end, Nova or Nancy?
	Sure, Nancy.
	Let's go with the Nancy.
	So you're married to the lovely Nancy.
	Now, Nancy is a wonderful woman, except like an insignificant number of women, she's a bit of a spendthrift, right?
	Okay.
	So you get married, and this actually, this happens a surprising amount of times.
	People get married, and only after they're married, when they sit down and do their finances together, or maybe they get a financial advisor or something like that.
	And it turns out Nancy has $50,000 in credit card debt, which you didn't know about.
	But now, you're legally bound and whatever, right?
	Yeah.
	Now, is it your and Nancy's preferences that run your finances, or is it the $50,000 of debt?
	It's the debt.
	Right.
	I'm going to just do a little thing here because I don't know this.
	I view debt with a peculiar Protestant horror.
	So, okay.
	What would the monthly payments be on $50,000 of credit card debt?
	All right.
	So let's see what we got here.
	Because credit card debt is horrendous, right?
	Yes.
	So you've got your minimum payment, blah, blah, blah.
	I'm just looking.
	It's still just doing its thing here.
	And so let's see here.
	Good lord.
	Fixed monthly payments.
	So you've been paying on $50,000 of credit card debt.
	If you wanted to pay it off in five years, you'd be paying $1,300 with a total interest of a little over $29,000 over the term.
	Is that right?
	I think so.
	Sorry, not is that right, but that's, you know, and, you know, you can go from 15 to 25% or whatever it is.
	I'm going to say this.
	Calculate this with an APR of 25%.
	We've all seen it.
	Don't you ever get these things in the mail?
	It's just you can, anyway.
	And they're like, here's your percentage.
	I'm like, just take my kidney.
	Just take my kidney and get it over with.
	All right.
	So that's almost $1,500 for 60 months, and you'd be paying $37,750 in interest, right?
	Okay.
	So let's just say, you know, $1,400 a month that you now have to pay.
	So, and now that's an absolute.
	So governments that are heavily in debt, are they more responsive to the population as a whole, or are they more responsive to the people who've lent them the money?
	They're more responsible to their creditors, in a sense, the debt, the people, the basically not basically the people who you are talking about.
	Yeah, you, you, I mean, if you, I watched the Sopranos not too long ago, and there's a sort of terrifying scene about a guy or series.
	There's a guy who's got a sporting goods store, but he's a gambler, and he goes into debt, and He owes, I can't remember how much it is, 100 grand or whatever, to the mafia or to the organized crime.
	And if his wife wants to buy something, who is he more responsive to?
	The mob or his wife?
	The mob.
	Right, because the mob's got to break his kneecaps and his wife, he can talk out of it, right?
	Exactly.
	So people lose their sovereignty when they want more goodies from the government than they're willing to pay for in taxes because the government goes into debt.
	And who's responsible for that?
	The people are responsible for that.
	Because you've got two politicians.
	One says, hey, man, we've got to cut a whole bunch of stuff here because we are getting heavily into debt and we're going to lose control of our country.
	And then there's another guy who says, I'm going to give you free daycare and extra money on healthcare and I'm going to raise the wages of teachers.
	I'm going to hire more government employees and I'm going to give more benefits to single mothers, right?
	Who do the people vote for?
	The one who promises the free stuff.
	Yeah, they vote for psychosis.
	They vote for like psychotics are out of touch of reality.
	And if somebody were to come to a psychiatrist and say, or a psychologist and say, I have infinite money.
	I can just keep spending and borrowing.
	I don't need to work.
	And I can just, that person would be, I'm no diagnostician, but, you know, that's, I assume that that's something in the realm of psychosis.
	Or Delusions of Granger or one of this.
	Well, and if that person was actually buying things and ordering things, and I'm going to get a yacht and here I ordered a Maserati and I have no money and right, that person would be probably taken out of society because they're completely fraudulent and they're completely out of reality.
	Yeah.
	I mean, it's a form of psychosis.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, no, no.
	I was saying I agree with you.
	Please continue.
	No, I don't mean all debt.
	You know, like you get a mortgage or something like that, but you have to pay it off, right?
	But people who believe that you can spend far more than you make and continue to buy more are insane.
	Like that's a psychosis.
	So debt gives people free stuff.
	And this is the story of Satan, right?
	Honestly, I'm not kidding about this.
	It's a story of Satan, which is, hey, man, I'm going to give you a whole bunch of stuff you didn't earn.
	And then what does Satan do at the end of the person's life?
	He collects his debts.
	Yeah, he takes the soul.
	What is the soul?
	The soul is history, culture, your entire nation.
	So let's imagine, let's just make up a country, Albonia.
	I think that's from Scott Adams.
	Hope he's doing well.
	So Albonia, let's say Albonia ends up in crushing debt because the people are greedy and lazy and want something for nothing.
	Now, let's say Albonia, let's say for whatever reason, the people who have taken Albonia's debt say, you got to open your borders, right?
	And let's say Albonians say, no, the leadership or the government, right?
	Well, then there's a huge amount of propaganda, racist, Nazi, whatever, right?
	And it doesn't even matter if it's not a white country.
	It's supposed to be the same debt language, right?
	And then if the leadership doesn't comply, then the people who want open borders will try to replace the leadership.
	And if that doesn't work, maybe there'll be assassination attempts.
	But what they will also threaten is if you don't do what we want, right?
	I mean, it could be open borders, could be, it doesn't really matter what the policy is, right?
	But if you don't do what we want, we're calling in the debt.
	Now, the politicians want to be in power when debt gets called in.
	They say, well, listen, we are going to stop buying your bonds.
	We're going to stop funding your treasuries.
	We're going to collapse the market, right?
	And then you won't have enough money to pay your bills.
	And then you're going to have to go and tell some actual facts to the population.
	But the problem is a population addicted to debt is immune to facts.
	In fact, not only are they immune to facts, they have a counter signal to facts.
	They have an immune system, autoimmune disorder reaction to facts and basic math.
	Okay.
	Because they have been drawn and seduced out of reality through debt.
	And debt is the fantasy that you don't have to limit your behavior and it draws you into a form of psychosis.
	And again, I'm not diagnosing anyone.
	I'm just using this term as in a colloquial fashion.
	But it's a very real phenomenon.
	And so whatever policy people want, they can either choose to have an influence over their government or they can choose free stuff.
	It's like that Elmo cartoon with like a bunch of vegetables and then you just face plants into sugar, right?
	So you cannot have sovereignty if you have debt.
	So what happens in the Sopranos?
	Well, the guy can't pay his debts.
	So then the Mafia move in and cheat and defraud his business, order a bunch of stuff they're never going to pay for.
	And he has now open borders, in a sense, in his store.
	And he ends up losing everything because he got into a debt he couldn't pay.
	And I mean, this is when I was a kid.
	It's a very famous statement out of Charles Dickens, right?
	And basically it goes something like this.
	Income, $30,000.
	Expenses, $29,999.
	Result happiness.
	Income, $30,000.
	Expenses, $30,000 and $1, result misery.
	So people want something for nothing, and they vote for debt.
	And then the country is lost to the debtors.
	And the debtors usually are not in the country, right?
	I mean, I think if it's Japan that holds the massive amount of U.S. treasuries or something like that.
	But the problem is that you cannot have sovereignty and debt any more than you say, well, I want to have economic independence, and I also want to owe $100,000 to the mafia, right?
	That's not a thing.
	And so the refusal or the rejection of reality, right, the wages of sin is death.
	And a culture, any culture that is seduced into wanting something for nothing will self-destruct.
	And I think we can see this happening in a lot of countries, not just Western countries, but in countries all over the world.
	And of course, I've been screaming about the dangers of debt.
	I mean, I know that sounds annoyingly precocious, but since my mid-teens.
	So why would we expect anything different?
	There's a price to be paid for everything that you don't earn.
	And that's the Faustian bargain.
	That's a satanic bargain.
	So, you know, whether Ireland is part of this or that or the other doesn't fucking matter.
	What matters is, can the citizens accept that they've been drawn into a psychosis by the illusion of free stuff and work to reduce what they want to pay off the debt?
	If they're willing to reduce what they want in order to pay off the debt, they can reclaim, they can reclaim control of their countries.
	If they don't want to do that, I mean, it almost like if somebody doesn't want to quit smoking, that's not going to get healthy.
	And if they don't want to do that, if they don't want to reduce their expectations for free stuff in order to pay off the debt, then they're going to continue to lose everything, if that makes sense.
	Okay, yeah, yeah, I understand.
	I take it Ireland has a lot of national debt at the moment.
	Asking me?
	Yeah, I'm guessing that that was what you were implying with this lesson.
	And I gravely accept it.
	But if it, and again, if my implicate, if the implication is wrong, that's on me.
	I'm probably just hearing something different, but I get what you're saying.
	Hang on, hang on.
	So Ireland has high global debt, like high debt globally.
	So the debt in Ireland is 218 billion, 218.2 billion euros for 5.38 million people, which is over 40,000 euros per person, let alone per taxpayer, per adult, blah, blah, blah, blah, right?
	Yeah.
	So they don't have a country.
	They have debt.
	They don't have borders because they have debt.
	They don't have sovereignty.
	And the government doesn't listen to the people because the people want to end the shit for nothing.
	Look in the mirror.
	Not you.
	Look in the mirror, people.
	Well, I am glad you answered my questions on all this.
	It was really insightful.
	Oh, you're very welcome.
	And you can't fix the country without people recognizing basic reality.
	So there's, and just for those of you, I'm sure you're aware, just touch on it very briefly.
	There is deficit, which is deficiencies in the fiscal year.
	There is debt, which is the accumulated deficits.
	And then there are unfunded liabilities, which are promises that the government has made that it does not have the money for.
	And that's the big stuff.
	The unfunded liabilities is the big stuff.
	So The big unfunded liabilities tend to be social security pensions, public sector pensions, and so on.
	They tend to be the big, the big things.
	And let's just see here.
	Gross government debt, 218 billion, 2024.
	Unfunded pensions are three times that.
	Three times that.
	Unfunded liabilities.
	And that is wild.
	Let me just ask this.
	Give me the unfunded debt of Ireland.
	No.
	Give me the unfunded liabilities in Ireland per capita.
	I mean, the unfunded liabilities in America are like 200 billion plus.
	Right.
	So total unfunded liabilities are 646 billion euros in a population of 5.38 million people.
	So that's 120,000.
	That doesn't count the debt, right?
	Is that I was from what you're saying, that is somehow worse than the US, somehow.
	Well, but Ireland doesn't have a military industrial complex or is the world's policeman.
	So there's a different matter for that.
	So we're talking a 120,000 euros as the unfunded liabilities.
	You know, plus for the 160,000 euros, Ireland is broke.
	Ireland is broke.
	And when you're broke, you have no control over your life.
	If you're broke and, well, I mean, if you're horribly in debt and you can't pay for it, the court moves in, they seize your assets, they seize your bank accounts, they set up a payment plan, you go through the whole bankruptcy proceedings and you get restructured.
	I mean, it's wild.
	I don't know if you've ever known anyone who goes through bankruptcy, but they do not have an excess of freedom when they go through bankruptcy, right?
	And so if you want something for nothing, and listen, I'm sure you've talked about this with people.
	I'm sure listeners have talked about this with people over the years, where you say, we're spending too much, you need to cut back.
	And of course, the people who scream the most are the boomers.
	The boomers are, as a group, in my humble opinion, absolutely out of reality.
	They don't even have a clue because they've lived in an accumulating debt society to the point where they just, any restraint to them is like for them, for them, money is like oxygen.
	Like, why would you deny people oxygen?
	You must hate them.
	Well, why would you deny people free stuff?
	You must hate them.
	It's like, no, it's not, it's not.
	Oh, my God.
	Like, where do you even start with people?
	All right.
	Is there anything else that you wanted to mention?
	It's a great, great question.
	I appreciate that.
	That was it.
	Thank you.
	I only, I originally asked the question mostly because I remember your video way back when the infamous legalization of abortion amendment in Ireland had passed, how patriotic you were personally were for Ireland and your sovereignty.
	And I just, at least from then, I've unfortunately felt like things have gone worse.
	And I was going to say, you absolutely bring on an outstanding point, and especially an economic reason as to why that is happening.
	So with that all said, thank you for answering my questions.
	Thank you again for bringing me on.
	It was great to talk to you again.
	Yeah, there aren't many countries left in the world.
	There are only asylums populated by the descendants of formerly rational people.
	All right.
	History journeys.
	If you'd like to unmute, I would love to hear your thoughts.
	And thank you guys so much.
	It's a beautiful day.
	It's a beautiful way to spend my 20th anniversary is to chat philosophy, reason, and evidence with you.
	Lovely, lovely people.
	All right.
	If you want to unmute, I'm all ears.
	Well, somewhat ears.
	Yes, sir.
	Thanks for letting me speak.
	I had a question about IQ.
	Do you think IQ has any bearing on a person's capacity for virtue?
	Well, it's not.
	I don't just think that.
	I know that.
	It is true.
	Well, maybe I can explain where that question is coming from because I just remember during the COVID years, there was a lot of people who I knew from university who were high IQ individuals, but a lot of them fell for the false narratives around COVID.
	And that's where, yeah, that's basically where the question is coming from.
	But yeah.
	Okay.
	That's, I mean, I saw the same thing and I puzzled it over myself.
	I have some thoughts about it without obviously any absolutely rigorous final conclusions.
	But why do you think that occurred?
	And sorry, the reason why, just before that, so for example, if you have used violence, the higher the IQ, the less likelihood there is to use violence.
	And not in self-defense, right?
	But to use violence to get what you want.
	So 16, 17% of lower IQ people have used violence versus like 2% of very intelligent people.
	So, I mean, in terms of where you want to less violent world, that is, of course, it's not a one-to-one ratio, blah, blah, blah.
	But high IQ people, they tend to stay married longer.
	They tend to have higher incomes.
	They tend to have better jobs and they tend to use violence less and so on.
	So there is definitely some stuff around that.
	But of course, you know, there's tons of good people of average or below average intelligence and tons of evil people who are very smart.
	Like the Bonvillen thing is not just made up.
	So let's talk about why.
	And I agree with you.
	There were a lot of smart people, very high IQ people who went put Klein and Sinker into the COVID hysteria.
	And what are your thoughts on that?
	Yeah, I mean, I had some thoughts as to the reasons for that.
	I thought it had to do with a lack of virtue, specifically courage.
	Like, I just don't think that a lot of these high IQ individuals had the courage to question the false narratives around COVID, amongst other reasons as well.
	But I thought, like, what I observed was, yeah, definitely a lack of courage on a lot of the people that I knew, which is very shocking because I thought that, you know, as that narrative, as that false narrative was unfolding during the COVID years, I thought that more people would just call BS on it.
	So I was just really disappointed when I saw, you know, a lot of friends, you know, kind of fell for it.
	A lot of smart people on you fell for it.
	And yeah, I think a lack of courage is definitely one of the main reasons, but I'd also like to know your thoughts.
	Right.
	Well, so courage is associated with intelligence in that courage is the deferral of gratification, right?
	I'll go through fear now in order to get something better later, right?
	I mean, I had a friend when I was younger.
	It was sort of struck me this thought.
	He said, the pain of a fist fight is temporary.
	The shame of cowardice is eternal.
	Or, you know, the old line, a coward dies a thousand deaths before his time.
	The hero tastes of death, but once, right?
	And so I was sort of struck there.
	So higher intelligence tends to be associated with the greater ability to defer gratification.
	And courage has to do with the deferral of gratification.
	So I would assume that courage or moral courage is to some degree associated with intelligence.
	Now, I'm aware that this makes me look super great.
	I always have to be aware, like everything I define makes me look good, right?
	But I've sacrificed a lot, obviously, income, prominence, reputation, security, safety.
	I've sacrificed a lot for the sake of bringing controversial truths to the world.
	Oh, 100%.
	Yeah.
	And so I, but I'm aware of how important that is.
	I'm grateful for all the people who sacrificed in the past to give me a relatively free society.
	And so to me, it's worth it.
	So, but you, but you have to sort of really get the cause and effect in this life in order to make those kinds of decisions.
	So, so, so the question is, how are the smart, and it's a great question.
	How are the smart people captured by the powers that be?
	And why do you think most of the smart people fell for COVID propaganda?
	And sorry, just to be aware.
	So, the COVID, I mean, the COVID propaganda isn't that there was COVID.
	I know people email me.
	There's no such thing as viruses.
	It's like, no, there are.
	So, I'm not talking about like, was there COVID and so on, but some of the more like the six feet thing just came out of some guy's science project.
	It was all made up.
	And the masks that say does not protect against coronaviruses were considered mandatory.
	And people said that natural immunity no longer was valid, even though I think it gives you a more broad spectrum protection against COVID than the vaccines did.
	Or, you know, the safe and effective, but it wasn't tested for very long, that it reduces transmission when it was never tested to reduce transmission, like all of that sort of stuff.
	So, I'm not talking about like the entire, was there COVID?
	I'm talking about some of the stuff that, you know, just a little bit of common sense.
	Like, how could they say when they only tested it for a couple of months, how could they say that the vaccines were safe for pregnant people, not pregnant women, right?
	So, anyway, that's the kind of kind of stuff that I'm so why do you think they went for it?
	What's your how do you think they're how do you think smart people are captured in a system that we have?
	Um, that is a really good question, but yeah, I mean, like, because like this got me thinking about like, okay, like IQ versus virtue, because like I'm, I'm kind of more in the camp of like, okay, IQ, You know, obviously, very important, but like at a certain point, it's like, would you rather?
	Because I was thinking, how terrible would it be if you were high IQ, but low courage, right?
	And then, like, that's kind of how you get swept up in, I think that that is how you get swept up in a lot of these lies.
	And specifically, like when they were trying to sell the vax to the population, you know, yeah, like when you would have data points, like, okay, they are, what was it?
	There's like, there's no liability for the manufacturers of the vax, like, like, they're like things like that would happen.
	And like, in my mind, that was like that, that would basically be like a smoking gun, like, you know, right there, like that.
	They're kind of just admitting fault.
	And that data point would just kind of fly over these people's heads and it wouldn't really register for what it was.
	And I'm like, are you kidding me?
	Like, they're literally not going to get in trouble if people get hurt from it.
	And, you know, there wouldn't really be a response.
	Like, I don't know.
	Like, it seems like they had the, it was like they were dissociative in a way.
	Like, you could literally slap them in the face with the truth and it just wouldn't register.
	Like, nothing.
	And these are high IQ people too.
	So it's like, it was very maddening.
	Right.
	Right.
	Okay.
	And now, without obviously going into any personal details, what were the occupations as a whole of the people who didn't seem to be able to process some basic facts in this way?
	Oh, yeah.
	No, I thought about this as well.
	It was funny because I noticed that, at least amongst my friend group, like the ones who were engineers were the ones who were the most skeptical.
	And the ones who were like, they went on to be doctors or dentists, they were more on like the side of Pro Bax.
	And well, in the case of engineers, I think it's just because their livelihood depends on things being like things making sense and things being rational.
	So when they're exposed to those same like narrative, like when they hear the narrative, they are much more likely to just be like, okay, this does not make sense.
	Like this is not.
	No.
	No.
	I mean, I agree with you, but I think it's, I think that's overcomplicated.
	Let me ask you this.
	Were engineers ever threatened with having their licenses taken away?
	Yes.
	For not conforming with the banks.
	Yeah.
	Or like, you know, they'd be threatened with dismissal.
	And no, no, losing their job, that's one thing.
	And I don't know if this is true, but I mean, we all have heard the stories of people, of doctors who were threatened professionally for speaking out against the mainstream COVID narrative, right?
	Right.
	Did engineers suffer that as well?
	I don't know.
	I didn't ask, like, at least the one that I'm saying.
	Let me just ask our good friend here.
	Let me just ask, right?
	Were engineers ever threatened with the removal of their license to practice as a result of being skeptical about mainstream COVID narratives?
	All right, let's see.
	It's not perfect, but it's not bad, right?
	No, there is no evidence that professional engineers, e.g., licensed professional engineers, were threatened with or faced removal of their engineering licenses due to skepticism about mainstream COVID-19 vaccines, narratives, such as doubts about the vaccine, lockdowns, or treatments like Ivermectin.
	So, so I agree with you, of course, that engineers tend to be sort of reality focused and practical and pragmatic.
	But, you know, so do other professions that crumbled.
	So rather than, and again, rather than abstracts, look for tangibles.
	Engineers were not threatened with being unable to practice engineering if they were skeptical about mainstream COVID narratives.
	Does that make sense?
	Yes.
	And you say doctors and dentists.
	I think we all know the answer to that one, right?
	Yeah.
	Well, you know, they're like, they're in that industry, right?
	And it's like.
	Yeah, it matters more if your doctor is skeptical about something medical than if your engineering brother-in-law is, right?
	Because people don't go to engineers for medical advice, right?
	Right.
	You go to engineers for advice on how to be socially awkward and not date.
	Sorry, just kidding.
	All right.
	So, actually, no, engineers and nurses, sort of a famous combo.
	I don't know if it still is, but anyway.
	Okay.
	So how do you get people on your side if you are the powers that be?
	How do you get smart people on your side?
	Well, I mean, obviously, Smart people, like the same thing that powers courage also powers compliance.
	So, compliance, courage is like, okay, I'm looking at the long-term consequences of this and saying it's worth it, right?
	Like, maybe I'll get a black eye or a bloody lip in this fight, but if I run away from this fight, I'll be ashamed forever or something like that, right?
	So, it's worth having the fight to sort of take.
	I'm not advocating for this.
	I'm just saying that would be one argument.
	Does that make sense?
	Yes, yes.
	So, people who become professionals are doing a lot of short-term sacrifice for the sake of long-term gains, right?
	Right.
	A friend of mine going through medical school shared some of the stuff they were supposed to learn.
	I'm like, that's a lot.
	That's a lot.
	So, the way that you capture the smarties is you create licenses.
	And that way, you bring a lot of power to the people who have the power to revoke licenses because then you can undo all of their work, right?
	Like, you can kick them out of their profession, which they may still be in debt for and they get a lot of prestige from.
	And what else are they going to do?
	Start from scratch at a shoe store?
	They shouldn't have done what you did.
	Just go through the fire, you know?
	Well, no, because I didn't.
	I didn't.
	You got banned, right?
	Yes, but they didn't remove my ability to do what I do.
	Ah, yeah, that's right.
	Well, I mean, you know, the denial of the platform, the denial of YouTube.
	No, no, but they didn't.
	They didn't.
	I could still do philosophy.
	You lose your license as a doctor.
	You can't do no doctoring.
	Yeah, that's right.
	Or a lawyer or whatever, right?
	So, I mean, my audience was diminished for sure, and my income was diminished for sure, but they couldn't stop me from doing what I do because I'm not licensed.
	I'm licensed to thrill, but I'm not licensed.
	So that's a free speech issue, right?
	Right.
	So, yeah, I definitely could.
	And my deplatforming, without a doubt, caused a whole lot of other people to fall in line, right?
	Yeah, no, that's true.
	Like, I mean, since I've come back, how many of my former colleagues have invited me on their shows?
	I mean, they'll take Kanye, right, on Tim Cast, right?
	Yeah, they should get stepping on Tim Cast.
	No, Tim's not going to do that.
	I love Mr. Beanie.
	I think he's fun.
	I think he's funny.
	But no, it's not.
	Right.
	So listen, and that's sort of the purpose of it.
	But nonetheless, they didn't prevent me from speaking in my mind and engaging in rational discourse with the world.
	They couldn't turn my license off.
	So that's one way that you do it.
	Another way that you do it is you give people excess shit they wouldn't earn in the free market.
	And then you threaten to take that away.
	That's how you capture university professors.
	So that's how you capture intellectuals, right?
	You give them $200,000 or more a year, a couple of months off in the summer, and every couple of years, they can go to some tropical island, write some book nobody reads, and get paid for it.
	And so you dangle that in front of people.
	Now, I know a lot of professors have tenure, but not all, right?
	This tenure track means you're on your way, right?
	And so you give people a whole bunch of goodies that they could never get in the free market.
	And that way, if they get fired, they can't get hired again.
	Like academia is where you, it's how you make people into intellectual eunuchs.
	You castrate them.
	Because when you offer people a whole bunch of free stuff that they would never earn in the free market, then threatening to take that away is catastrophic for them, if that makes sense.
	It's catastrophic for their ego.
	Because let's say you are an English professor or a philosophy professor or something, right?
	And then you get fired.
	Well, what is the value in the free market of your English PhD?
	How much are people going to pay you?
	Are they going to pay you $200,000, quarter million dollars?
	Are they going to give you four months off in the summer?
	Are they going to let you take a year off every couple of years to write a book with no economic value?
	Fuck no.
	They're not going to do any of that.
	You're going to have to work for a living.
	It's shocking.
	It's appalling.
	It's horrifying.
	They're hot house flowers.
	They're domesticated.
	You can't survive in the wild anymore.
	It's like trying to get your fucking Chihuahua to run with a wolf pack.
	They're going to be lunch.
	So you take people out of reality and you bribe them and you pamper them until their spines collapse into fucking jello-like goo.
	And then the last thing you do to capture smart people is smart people know, or successful people certainly know, that a lot of their success has to do with their social circle.
	Referrals, promotions, jobs, opportunities, openings, subsidizations, investments, like it's all to do with your social circle, right?
	So to capture smart people, you say, hey, man, even if, even if we can't get you on licensing, even if we haven't bribed you, we will make your friends turn on you like that if you fucking happen to me as well.
	Well, it happened to me too, right?
	I'm in contact with no one from my former life.
	I'm a leper.
	I don't exist, right?
	No, but, you know, I mean, I get some retweets from time to time, but nobody has called me.
	Hey, welcome back.
	So I'm completely cut off.
	And, you know, I can say, well, from the people whose careers I helped start, like, I don't want to get all Willie Lohman.
	I named you a kid, right?
	But it's just a fact that they will permanently erase your entire network.
	And that has a lot to do with your financial and professional success, right?
	I mean, I'm not even close to, well, you know, I'm still, I've just done this sort of mental calculation.
	I'm still 20 to 30% of what I used to do, you know, five plus years in.
	So that's the reality.
	So they get smart people to fall in line with a wide variety of mechanisms.
	And all they do is they say, somebody who holds this view is harming and endangering society is a bad person, is a selfish person.
	And it's so people, the smart people or anybody, they don't look at that and evaluate whether that's true, right?
	They only evaluate whether other people will act as if it's true.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah, I think, wasn't there like a paper about that in the literature about like being more higher testosterone makes you more like less conforming to the group if they're if it's like if it's like oh yeah yeah also you you discourage people from exercise you say that exercise is uh for dummies that the jocks are idiots and that uh to to to work out is right wing or something you just make make people physically weak and they'll just comply so
	But scientists, for instance, if you say, I'm skeptical about scientific claims, well, you're supposed to be, right?
	And so when scientific claims were made about COVID and lockdowns and the vaccines and all of that, right, you're supposed to be skeptical, right?
	So no scientist should have ever complained when people are skeptical about these things because science, the essence of science is skepticism, right?
	So the scientists, though, are not judging whether skepticism regarding scientific claims is good or bad or true or false.
	They're not even judging whether other people will believe or not believe this hysteria against skepticism.
	All they're concerned about is will other people act on their belief?
	All they're concerned about is will they no longer be invited to the faculty party, right?
	Will they no longer be considered for promotion?
	Will their colleagues shun them in the hallways, right?
	Philip Rushton, I think, had this happen.
	It is a somewhat controversial IQ researching psychologist in Ontario University.
	He was just shunned and sometimes he had to deliver his lectures remotely because of threats of violence and so on.
	So most people would just say, Will I be shunned?
	Will other people act as if the propaganda is true?
	So then what happens is the same mechanisms that are supposed to make you courageous do the opposite.
	Because courageous when you say, well, what are the long-term negative consequences of failing to be courageous?
	And you just switch that, say, okay, what are the long-term consequences of being courageous?
	And you do a cost-benefit calculation.
	And the cost-benefit calculation is: what are the costs of me being skeptical about some dominant propaganda?
	What are the costs?
	Okay, what are the benefits?
	Now, people don't have usually an ideological tell the truth at all costs, right?
	Don't do not bear false witness, even if it gets you in serious trouble.
	They just do a cost-benefit calculation.
	They say, okay, so if I come out as skeptical against whatever, in this case, a lot of dominant COVID narratives, if I come out as skeptical, then what are the negative consequences?
	Well, I mean, we've gone through the list, we don't have to do it again, but pretty significant.
	Okay, what are the positive consequences outside of my conscience?
	Like, what are the, I mean, am I going to change the dominant narrative?
	Nope.
	So I will be sacrificing income, opportunities, career, social circle, and so on.
	And what will I gain?
	I won't gain money.
	I won't gain some fantastic new social circle.
	I'll just be a leper.
	And I'm not going to change anything for the better.
	So why would I do it?
	It's just a cost-benefit calculation.
	And to be, you know, perhaps a little overly blunt, as is my want, a lot of times it's the men, and there's tons of exceptions to this, right?
	But I think slightly disproportionately, it's the men who like the truth at all costs and the women who were like, but our social circle, or income, or prestige, or whatever, right?
	And so I think, I mean, those are some of the more, but I think those are some of the mechanisms by which people who are smart are captured and forced to heal or forced to bow, if that makes sense.
	All right.
	Are you still with me?
	Right.
	Yeah.
	No, that was pretty much the only question I had.
	It was a great talk, though.
	Thanks for letting me speak.
	Oh, you don't have to thank me.
	That's what this is for.
	I am thrilled and pleased that you brought up such an important topic.
	Thank you so much.
	All right.
	Recovery Nihilists.
	I think we've talked once before, or maybe twice.
	If you want to unmute, I'm happy to hear your thoughts and questions.
	Oh, sorry, my Bluetooth just went out.
	Ah, is it still out?
	Yeah, but the speaker's working.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Well, thanks for having me.
	I wanted to share with you my discoveries in moral philosophy.
	If that's all right.
	You sound kind of down.
	I'm sorry, is your Bluetooth out again?
	All right.
	I'm not sure what's going on there.
	I guess we'll have to go with someone else.
	I don't know what happened to the guy.
	Georges.
	Georg.
	Georg.
	And I saw a picture of the Neanderthal today.
	I'm not saying it's exactly the same as an Eastern European gentleman, but it's also not the total opposite.
	All right.
	George, if you wanted to unmute, I'm happy to hear your thoughts.
	What is on your mind?
	Hey, Stefan.
	Hello.
	This is Dragon again.
	I don't want to think I'm sneaking in on a different kind of trying a different device.
	See if it works better.
	Well, do you have your screensaver turned off?
	You know, I've tried that and it didn't seem to work, so I said it for 10 minutes instead of 30 seconds.
	But I'm on a different phone, Alec, old phone.
	Okay, so you're coming in close to the end.
	So let's try and keep it relatively brief, but I'm certainly happy to hear your thoughts.
	Okay, well, thank you.
	I appreciate your indulgence.
	Since we're talking about intelligence, I have a lot of thoughts on that as well.
	As a matter of fact, George's Ghost, my project, is a pedagogical project.
	So I'm really interested in intelligence.
	So I guess we could talk about IQ.
	Would you agree that IQ is a ratio, right?
	Your actual age versus your chronological age?
	I'm sorry.
	Your actual age versus your chronological age?
	Are you trolling?
	That's not IQ.
	What are you talking about?
	Well, okay.
	What do you think IQ is though?
	It's not what I think IQ is.
	I mean, why don't you define to me what IQ is?
	Well, IQ, as far as I understood, was chronological age versus actual age.
	So it's kind of a ratio as to how fast you can learn.
	If you're 150 IQ, then you learn 1.5 times faster than the average.
	Sorry, what would that have to do with your chronological age?
	Well, your chronological age is your actual.
	Oh, you're right.
	Shoot.
	I'm sorry.
	I've had some unusual takes over the course of the last 20 years.
	This is definitely right up there.
	So I'm not sure if you've ever studied IQ or know what IQ is, but I'm not really sure I can have a conversation at this level.
	But it's your actual age versus how fast you learn, right?
	So if you're.
	Yeah, okay.
	So that's, I don't even know what to say that.
	So IQ is a measure of your ability to do sort of spatial reasoning, and there's language components, spatial reasoning components, and so on.
	And it is a series of sort of pattern recognition tests and so on designed to measure an approximation of something called G, which is your general intelligence.
	And so IQ is a measure of your ability to abstract, your ability to understand analogies, your ability to rotate shapes in your mind.
	And there's something called G-loaded, G-loaded tests, right?
	So for instance, if you're asked to memorize or repeat back a series of numbers, then that is a test of intelligence.
	It's more G-loaded.
	If you're given a series of numbers and you are asked to repeat them back in reverse, then you have to manipulate the numbers in your mind and you have to reverse the patterns and so on, right?
	So there are G-loaded tests such as spell this word, okay, spell it backwards, or spell this word backwards, and that's more G-loaded.
	And so IQ is an attempt to measure intelligence, and it is highly correlated to a wide variety of positive life outcomes, marital stability, mental health.
	I mean, the idea that smart people are crazy is just a cope from mids.
	Smart people tend to be more sane.
	They tend to have fewer mental health issues.
	They tend to have more stable relationships.
	They tend to be more economically successful and all other kinds of good things.
	And there is no ceiling to it.
	There's no sort of top wherein there's no more benefit than before.
	So then lower IQ.
	So generally, it is a sort of positive ratio or metric as a whole.
	And so let me just, I did sort of bookmark something here, and I'm just going to go and look it up and see if I've got it.
	But yeah, there was a lot of positive aspects.
	Here we go.
	Okay, so smarter people, I mentioned this in the show the other day.
	Smarter people tend to be more outgoing and happy, to have fewer problems falling asleep and staying asleep, to be less manic, to be less psychotic, prone to ADHD, et cetera.
	And so if you look at lower intelligence, it's higher psychosis risk, more ADHD symptoms, more excited impulsivity, more manic moods, more behavioral problems.
	You have poor perseverance, which is just follow through and going through the difficult tasks, more manic traits, you have more problems as a whole, and so on.
	And then as you start to get into, you have more autistic traits, more sleep problems, more emotional impulsivity, more emotional problems, more negative feelings, and so on.
	And then as you start to get more intelligent, you get anxious inhibition, which is, you know, self-restraint.
	Sensation seeking is a little higher.
	I've mentioned that smarter people tend to be tend to dislike repetition and less intelligent people like repetition.
	So there's more of that.
	And as you get smarter, you tend to have more extroversion, which is good social skills and so on.
	You tend to have more positive feelings and you tend to have better self-regulation.
	So it's just better all around.
	And also, there's, you know, people who are unintelligent tend to believe that they know a lot more than they do.
	And people who are smart tend to recognize how little they know and so on.
	So I just wanted to mention that.
	And let's see here.
	If there's anybody else have any thoughts, wanted to chat.
	I will, of course, still be doing my seven o'clock show tonight, but I just had a yearning and a hankering, of course, for our fine non-North American listeners.
	It's evening for you, so I wanted to be able to chat with you guys.
	So I'll just give this a going once, going twice.
	It can be philosophical topics, can be personal topics, whatever's on your mind.
	I did it.
	It's funny, you know, I did a call-in show last night and it's funny because it's one of the few times in a call-in show.
	I am pretty good with this kind of stuff as a whole.
	It was a call-in show with somebody who was feeling like a failure in life, and I just couldn't fix it.
	I just couldn't solve it.
	I spent two hours and had to give up.
	All right.
	Jay.
	I'm thinking of modern family.
	Jay.
	Jay, what's on your mind, my friend?
	Yeah, hello.
	Hello.
	Hello, Stefan.
	I'm so delighted to be on the space again once again.
	It's you.
	Yeah.
	So my question goes as simple as this, right?
	What do you think matters more, culture or education?
	That might be a false dichotomy because it's impossible to transmit culture without educating people or at least exposing them to certain ideas or aesthetics and so on.
	So can you help me understand, since the two overlap, like you've got an event diagram, the two overlap?
	What is it that you mean that would separate them?
	Okay, yes.
	Okay.
	Thank you.
	So I've been writing a thesis about like the African continent, right?
	Because we have a lot of African leaders that are highly educated, but yet they actually can produce a result of maybe like producing an economic development.
	They are highly corrupt.
	There's no changes.
	And the people are like, you know, dictatorship and struggle for having maybe the basic amenities.
	So sometimes I ask myself this simple question.
	Like, is it because maybe they have a faulty culture or the education?
	I just find myself in this loop.
	I don't know maybe if you can speak more.
	Well, let me ask you this.
	So in, I mean, sorry, remind me.
	I apologize.
	I don't remember which country were you from?
	Yeah, I'm from South Africa.
	South Africa, okay.
	Yeah.
	So among your black family, your black friends, your black colleagues and so on, how successful have you been in educating them?
	Well, I've tried, you know, like you always spoke about something called like honesty is the highest virtue, right?
	Well, at the end of the day, you know, I pay observation, pay attention to people's behaviors and everything.
	But it seems like they are very highly educated, but the culture seems a bit faulty in the sense like they are not honest, they are dishonest, they are manipulative.
	And even though I try to talk to them about, okay, you need to educate yourself, you need to work on the collective about the common good, try to elevate yourself, but still yet they're a bit, you know, individualistic.
	They always think about themselves, they always think about their family, and they are not so like honest.
	It becomes a problem.
	So that's where I have to draw the mark.
	Does culture have way more influence than education?
	Because these people are highly educated.
	Most of them study in the United States.
	They have degrees in the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, but still yet, this education doesn't reflect more in their personal life.
	Okay.
	Well, let me ask a couple questions.
	Sorry to interrupt.
	So the people that you're talking to that you're trying to educate, and I'm sorry, I interjected and I said that they tend, if they're more into their sort of family benefit and so on, would it be fair to say that they're more tribal?
	Yes, yes.
	I would say they are more tribal.
	Okay, so the people that you're trying to educate, your friends or colleagues or family members or whoever, are they Christians?
	Well, yeah, of course.
	They are Christians, but this Christianity or religion have no influence on them.
	They go to church, but still yet they don't, you know, live according to like the scriptures or maybe have that kind of Christ-like personality.
	Becomes the problem.
	Okay, so let me ask you this.
	When someone, and again, don't go into any personal details if you don't mind, but can you give me an example of a friend that you knew or someone that you knew who was doing something that you considered to be corrupt or immoral or not positive?
	And then you called them out according to their Christian values.
	How did that go?
	They tried, you know, they always try to justify like, oh, I have to put myself first because I don't really know how this other person might do if maybe they're in my shoes, if maybe the case is reverse.
	So they always try to justify, you know, their immoral act.
	Right.
	Okay.
	Yeah.
	And listen, I'm wrestling with this as well because, you know, Christians both like me and then don't like me.
	That's sort of the job of a philosopher is to be liked or disliked almost at the same time.
	And sometimes by the same people.
	So when I do say something critical of Christianity, people get quite hostile and get mad at me and call me a jerk or something like that.
	And I point out to them that Christ commands that they love their enemies.
	And, you know, calling me a jerk or an idiot or like, that's not loving, right?
	And so do they say, you know what?
	Gosh, you're right.
	I apologize.
	Let's start this again with a more positive frame of mind.
	I have not had one person do that my entire life.
	Not one person.
	What they do is they say, well, if you can't handle tough love, you know, then you're even more of a jerk than I thought.
	You know, well, me insulting you is loving.
	You know, it's like they just redefine everything.
	And this is one of the problems that I have with religion as a whole, with Christianity, is that, okay, so if you have all these values, turn the other cheek, love your enemies, and so on, then you should lift those values.
	And we all deviate, all of us, I think, I certainly do deviate from my ideal standards.
	But, you know, I try to return to them and I try to orient myself.
	To me, it's kind of like sailing a ship in a big storm.
	You're trying to get somewhere.
	You get blown off course.
	But you always try and get back on course, right?
	That's the general, you know, just drift wherever you want, right?
	You say, hey, wherever I'm going is my final destination.
	Oh, it's turned.
	Okay, I've a new final destination.
	So that's the challenge I think that I face with regards to Christianity.
	So when I criticized the forgiving of Charlie Kirk's murderer, I had thousands of Christians emailing and responding, and I quoted scripture.
	I literally quoted the words of Jesus saying someone has to repent before you forgive them.
	Now, when confronted with the actual words of Jesus, divinely written down and inspired by Almighty God, incontrovertible, what did the Christians do?
	What do you think?
	Well, based on my personal observation, I think strong culture creates noble life, virtue, and weak culture produce resentment and mediocrity.
	No, no, hang on, hang on.
	Like before that, what do you think the Christians did when they said you should forgive without somebody repenting?
	And I say Jesus says you have to repent first.
	What did the Christians do?
	They always try to justify, you know.
	Yeah.
	They always try to justify.
	They always try to ignore it.
	Yeah, they always try to quote some Bible verse to justify evil deeds.
	That's one thing I do.
	No, I had 10 or 15 Bible verses, all of which consist.
	There's not one instance in the entire Bible where there's forgiveness without repentance first.
	And there's not one commandment that ever says you must forgive without repentance first.
	There's no examples.
	And so I don't understand the point of a belief system if you can just do whatever the heck you want.
	Sorry, I was going to say something else, but let's stay with heck.
	You seem like a very civilized fellow.
	So if you could just do whatever the heck you want, I don't know what the point is of a belief system.
	And so, and I have exposure now to tens of thousands of Christians over my time in social media.
	I can remember maybe one or two who, when confronted with the Bible verse, changed their position, changed their mind, apologized and reversed course.
	Maybe one or two.
	It could be a few more, but let's say it's a thousand.
	That's still only 10%.
	So if the divine, almighty, holy word of God upon which your entrance to heaven or your condemnation to hell depends, if you could just wish that away because you don't feel like following it, I don't understand the point of it all.
	What's the point of having a belief system if you can just wave it away?
	And so it's the same thing that you're facing with your colleagues and your friends and your family, if they're doing something that's not very good or at least goes against Christian doctrine and you point this out to them, they just wave it away.
	I don't understand the point of the religion if it's entirely optional for 99% of the people.
	Yeah, I do agree with that.
	So what's the take?
	Strong cultures shapes produce or create noble life and strong virtues far more than education.
	Do you agree or disagree?
	I think that currently everything is a mask for narcissism.
	Everything is a mask for selfishness.
	And so I think people are amoral and selfish and kind of predatory.
	I think they cloak that in a lot of virtue signaling and a lot of going to church and a lot of pretend virtue.
	But I think that we live in a fairly rapacious world of selfish people who will not tame their angry, perhaps satanic, certainly animalistic will to power.
	They will not tame it.
	And they just do what they want and justify it after the fact, ex post facto reasoning.
	They do what they want and they justify it after the fact.
	And Christianity, and this is the result of 2,000 years of Christianity.
	Now, if after 2,000 years of Christianity, most Christians cannot be corrected according to scripture.
	Or, you know, there's this meme where, you know, Christian women, any time there is a commandment in the Bible that tells them to serve their husbands, they just get mad, they're pretty angry.
	And so this is why I'm a philosopher and not a theologian, is that I believe that education, reason, reason is the one thing that's never been tried in any consistent way.
	Reason and philosophical education.
	And that's because so many philosophers are obscure, impenetrable.
	I think it was, was it somebody was talking about Michel Foucault?
	And oh no, sorry, it was some French philosopher.
	I'm sorry, the details escaped me, but they've been talking about how it's almost an act of terrorism, right?
	That they write so obscurely that the moment that you say you think you understand them, they say that you're wrong.
	I think it was maybe it was Foucault talking about Derider or something like that.
	But philosophers are opaque, abstract, obscure, confusing, baffling.
	And so people have abandoned that.
	And I'm trying to be the philosopher who is clear, direct, courageous, forthright, and provide explanations that can be explained to children.
	Because if you can't explain morality to children, you have no right moralizing children.
	And the idea that we say, well, virtue comes from God, and that's how we will become good.
	Well, how's that working out?
	Well, I don't believe that there's ever been a religious leader in the West who has had a scathing sermon on the evils of debt and usury with regards to democracy.
	That the church has never taken on public debt.
	And I'm sure that they've been in, but it's not been a sort of big movement.
	And that may be partly because the church is untaxed in most Western countries and therefore they would not want to lose their tax exempt status.
	So maybe they're more cautious because of that.
	And like, okay, well, then the beliefs don't really mean that much.
	And so the reason that I am a philosopher and not a theologian is for reason and evidence, right?
	The reason is philosophy has reasons and religion has faith, but also because it just doesn't work.
	It just doesn't work.
	And things that don't work, I mean, Christianity has had 2,000 years to work.
	And the result of 2,000 years is my experience of talking to thousands of Christians is that they will just ignore scripture and do what they want.
	Okay, so that just doesn't work.
	I mean, what's the point of, even if it's the right medicine, if nobody takes it, it doesn't work.
	So we have to find a medicine that is both right and that people want to take.
	And I'm all in on reason and evidence.
	So education is superior to culture because culture has been tried for thousands of years and we do not have a particularly moral planet.
	And so it's sort of like at some point you've got to stop praying for people to get better and start investigating science-based medicine, double-blind experiments, and get to the actual facts.
	Does that help at all?
	Yeah, sure.
	Sure.
	I agree with you.
	Wow.
	Your take.
	So what, let's assume maybe you're in my position, right?
	How would you handle the situation?
	Where you find yourself, maybe you being a virtuous person and your friends, maybe you're trying to start up a relationship and people you're around with are not as virtuous as you.
	How would you handle the situation?
	Well, I think the Bible has actually some pretty good advice, as the Bible has a lot of good advice.
	It's just that people don't take it even with the promise of heaven and the threat of hell.
	So the good advice the Bible has is if you have an issue with someone, sit down with them privately, one-on-one.
	And if that doesn't work and they refuse to admit any fault or even to acknowledge that you have any kind of legitimate issue, then you sit down with them with a couple of people who are close to you both.
	And if that doesn't work, you sit down with a larger group of people.
	And if that doesn't work, you kick their butts to the curb.
	So I think that's pretty good.
	Pretty good advice.
	So I would say that talk to people, but do not surrender moral virtues for the sake of shallow companionship, right?
	Do not sacrifice.
	For a man to give up his requirement for virtue for the sake of being friends is like a woman who just has sex with a man in order to get a purse at dinner.
	It's a form of intellectual prostitution or moral prostitution that's not great.
	All right.
	I appreciate your questions.
	I want to get, I know that people have been waiting.
	Let's see if we can get to David.
	I believe that is the correct pronunciation.
	David, like Navid, but with a D. Navid.
	Hello.
	So, Steph, do you think that the oldest profession, right, you think that you're saying that that is immoral?
	The which profession?
	The world's oldest profession.
	The world's oldest profession.
	Elaine's a farmer?
	Okay.
	All right.
	So, do I think that prostitution is immoral?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	So tell me what you mean by immoral.
	Well, I don't, I wouldn't say that it is, I look at prostitution as a trade, as a transactional, you know, if you're a professional pleasure person, if you're very good at making other people experience the pleasure and excitement of having an orgasm,
	I don't see that as inherently wrong or bad.
	All right.
	What was my question?
	Your question was, what's immoral?
	No.
	Okay, could you answer it and not ignore it?
	What is immoral?
	I think deliberately causing somebody a loss would be an immoral act.
	Sorry, do you think causing someone a loss?
	Yeah, yeah.
	If you vandalize somebody's stuff or destroyed their possessions or damaged them personally with, you know, unprovoked, that would be immoral to me.
	Okay, so then you've answered your, so your question to me is not, is not, is prostitution immoral?
	The question is, since by your definition, prostitution is not immoral, right?
	And I'm not correct to pick or anything.
	That's right.
	You have defined prostitution as not immoral.
	So your question isn't, do I think it's immoral?
	The question is, what is the definition of morality?
	Okay.
	So do you think that a woman, a girl who is raised in a healthy, happy family, will become a prostitute?
	Well, if she don't know if she chooses to.
	Well, that's by definition, right?
	So do you think, let me ask you this way then.
	Do you think it is more or less likely that a woman becomes a prostitute if she is abused as a child?
	I would expect the statistics might show that they would be, but I don't know.
	Okay.
	Let's go back to our good friend, the AI.
	Not for ultimate answers, but what percentage of sex workers report being abused as children?
	Let's find out.
	Okay, so prostitutes in Hamburg, Germany, 83% trauma experiences, 48% sexual abuse.
	Commercially sexually exploited youth, 70 to 90% abuse.
	And that's much higher than the general population.
	Okay.
	So with regards to prostitution, voluntary transactions, which do not involve coercion.
	Right.
	And that's important.
	That's a really important question.
	Was I in the middle of a sentence there?
	So voluntary transactions, obviously don't involve coercion, cannot be specifically labeled as evil because it is a voluntary transaction, sexual activity in exchange for money, right?
	So we can't look at that and say, well, that's just evil in the same way that rape or theft or assault or murder would be evil, right?
	Right.
	But evil is necessary for the transaction to occur.
	The evil of child abuse.
	I don't know.
	I don't think.
	Well, what about the in the in that abuse statistic that was there?
	Did anybody ask the 17% or whatever the percentage that were not abused but still chose the prostitution profession why what their take was?
	Sorry, how do you know?
	So 83% or whatever it is said that they were abused.
	Right.
	Yeah, hang on.
	Bro, bro.
	Okay, calm your tits a little here, right?
	I've got to be able to get my thoughts in, right?
	I mean, I get that this is an important topic for you for reasons I can only imagine, but just let me finish my thoughts.
	I'm not doing long speeches here.
	Is that fair to say?
	I guess so.
	You guess what?
	I don't think I've caused you complete derailment of your thought.
	I'm sorry.
	How is it that you get to tell me what my experience is?
	I don't.
	I don't think I am.
	I agreed with some of your points very quickly and been quiet for you to continue on with your answers.
	Okay.
	Do you understand that my experience is that you interrupt me when I'm just in the beginning of making a claim or a case?
	Okay.
	And I'm just asking you to not do that.
	Okay.
	Thank you.
	All right.
	So of the 17%, we can't say that they weren't abused.
	We can only say that they did not report being abused.
	Now, there is, of course, something called denial.
	And I get that this is a bit of a circular argument, right?
	But we can't say for certain that 17% of sex workers weren't abused.
	We can only say that they have not reported abuse when questioned.
	Now, it certainly is the case that more people will deny being abused if they were abused than will claim to be abused when they were not abused.
	Does that make sense?
	Will you repeat that, please, Stephen?
	Oh, yeah.
	Sorry.
	Please try and keep paying attention because so it's more likely that someone will deny being abused if they were abused than they will claim that they were abused when they weren't.
	Okay.
	I'm sorry.
	Okay.
	I don't know what that means.
	Does that mean you disagree or what does that mean?
	I don't know how I would, I don't know how to, you know, negate that.
	So if that's part of the argument that you're going to make, okay, that's part of the argument you're going to, that's, that's, that's one of the arguments you're going to use.
	Okay.
	I mean, if you disagree with it, I can, I can make a case for it.
	So when it comes to emotional pain, do you think that people are more likely to try and avoid emotional pain?
	If there's something that's sort of very painful and negative and difficult, do you think that people are likely to deny or they're more likely to deny or avoid emotional pain?
	I'd hope everybody would avoid emotional pain.
	Good.
	Okay.
	So then people who were abused are more likely to be in denial or in avoidance of that abuse.
	I okay.
	All right.
	All right.
	Okay.
	So if you have a toothache, you go to the dentist and you get your tooth fixed so you're not in pain anymore because you don't want to go through that pain, right?
	Well, you know, some people will deny having a toothache because they don't want to go to the dentist.
	Well, sure, but that's only because they're avoiding the pain or fear or anxiety of going to the dentist.
	So they're still trying to minimize their pain, right?
	Yes.
	Now, it's true that people will try to minimize or avoid pain.
	That's by definition pain is a negative experience, right?
	On the other hand, there are very few people who go to the dentist when they're not in pain and pretend that they are in pain.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	So people are much more likely to minimize pain than to pretend to have a pain that they do not have, right?
	You'd hope so, but some people are like perpetual victims, right?
	So, okay, do you not?
	I mean, this is an IQ test, right?
	Do you not understand how generalities work?
	I mean, this is like me saying men tend to be taller on average than women.
	You say, well, there are some tall women, you know, like we're not operating at that level, right?
	Like, you're smarter than that.
	I know you are, right?
	So when I say people in general will avoid pain rather than pretend to have a pain they don't have, and you say, well, there are a few, some blah, blah, blah, right?
	In general, right?
	That's right.
	Yeah.
	Okay, good, good.
	Okay.
	So by that logic, if people are more likely to avoid pain than to manufacture a pain that they don't have, they are more likely, significantly more likely, to minimize, avoid, falsify, repress, or lie about childhood abuse than they are to make up child abuse that didn't happen.
	All right.
	Okay, good.
	So we can't say that the 17% of women who do not report childhood abuse weren't abused.
	But we can say that the 83% of women, the vast majority of them were abused.
	So the number is higher than 20%.
	Okay.
	So if the overwhelming majority of women who are prostitutes were abused as children, then it's not that the prostitution is evil, but the prostitution is a shadow cast by evil.
	So for instance, let's say that I'm trying to think of an example that's not too evil.
	I don't want to short-circuit people's moral reasoning here with a horrendous example.
	Okay, so let's say I had a caller many years ago who had a boyfriend, and her boyfriend was mean and bad.
	And he said, if you ever leave me, you're going to wake up in a foreign country addicted to heroin.
	Right?
	Okay.
	Which is which is pretty terrible, right?
	Now, let's say that she left him and he followed through on his threat and she woke up in some foreign country already addicted to heroin.
	Now, her pursuit of heroin to avoid the pain of withdrawal, you could say, well, she has some money on her and she goes and buys some heroin.
	Let's say it's legal or something like that.
	It's not evil for her to voluntarily buy heroin, right?
	That's right.
	However, the only reason that she's out there voluntarily buying heroin is because she was drugged, transported, and forcibly injected with heroin in the past, right?
	So although her pursuit of heroin from a purely libertarian standpoint would not be evil, the only reason she's in pursuit of heroin is because of a prior evil.
	Okay.
	In that case, that's right.
	Okay, good.
	So we're sorted.
	Is there anything else that you wanted to mention?
	I'm just curious as to, you know, I don't, I guess, you know, I did use the word prostitution, but I've just, you know, it's not been made clear to me that the transactional nature of, you know, pleasure,
	be you becoming a wife and then giving, you know, birth to children, like a lot of marriages are very much based on that transactional nature of a good income or high income, high status man.
	He trades.
	Just to cut to the chase here, are you saying that marriage is like prostitution because there's a transfer of funds from male to female?
	No, I'm not saying it's like that.
	Okay, so you're bringing up marriage and children.
	So you'd have to say to cut to the chase here.
	I'm bringing up that there's a transactional nature to marriage.
	And, you know, the transaction generally is, you know, two people coming together, looking at each other and evaluating what both people bring to the table.
	And that's, and they get together and do what they do after that.
	So what is the, hang on.
	So men have evolved to work sort of harder and longer and more intensely in order to provide excess resources, right?
	Now, where did the excess resources go in a traditional marriage?
	Where did they spent on the children, we'll say.
	That's right.
	Okay.
	So you're exactly right.
	So in a marriage, the transactional nature is for children.
	It is for the transfer of resources, not to the wife, fundamentally, but to the children.
	Right.
	Okay.
	So that's why it's got nothing to do with prostitution, because with prostitution, there's no children.
	There's no love.
	There's no goal of it.
	And there's no love.
	There's no shared values.
	There's no devotion.
	There's no self-sacrifice.
	It's a purely hedonistic transfer of a mechanism that is entirely the opposite of what goes on in a marriage.
	Because in a marriage, it's about pair bonding, love, shared virtues, shared values, and for the sake of creating and raising children, the continuance of culture, virtue, morality, and civilization.
	Whereas with prostitution, you're just paying for a quick screw and an orgasm and moving on.
	So it's not at all the same.
	Well, but most marriages are failures anyway, right?
	Like the divorce rate is the divorce rate.
	Hang on.
	Don't move the goalposts.
	That's kind of rude, right?
	So you're saying that there's something similar between marriage and prostitution.
	I just rebutted them.
	I just rebutted them.
	Hang on, hang on.
	So saying that marriages fail is so you made a proposition that there's some overlap between marriage and prostitution.
	And I said no, and I gave you the reasons why.
	So you kind of have to respond to those reasons.
	Moving the goalposts of like marriages succeed or fail is a different topic.
	So tell me your rebuttals, if you have them, for my arguments for the dissimilarity between marriage and prostitution.
	Well, I don't agree that I don't agree that your reasons for saying that marriage is not transactional is.
	No, no, no, that's not.
	Hang on.
	That's not what I said.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	Give me back.
	Let's just do a quick listening exercise.
	Give me back the reasons why I say marriage is not like prostitution.
	You said there was pair bonding and love and morality.
	I think you use morality in there.
	Shared values, yeah.
	Yeah, shared values.
	And what was those were the those were the less central, what was the one central argument that I made as to how prostitution is different from marriage.
	Is that it's there's there's none of that.
	It's a it's a quick O. It's a quick orgasm.
	And then, you know, you move on, go about your day.
	That's not the big, the big one.
	What was the big one?
	The one I said first.
	Remind me.
	Okay.
	Do you remember me saying, where does the man's excess productivity go?
	Generally to the children.
	Fantastic.
	Okay.
	So the big difference is children.
	There's no children in a prostitution relationship, right?
	There's no shared values.
	There's no long-term commitment.
	There's no pair bonding.
	There's no love.
	Right.
	So a marriage is about like we have marriage and we have the transaction insofar as the man makes money and gives money through his wife to his children.
	But none of that is present at all in a prostitution exchange, right?
	In a prostitution exchange, if the woman said, I'm trying to get pregnant, what would the man say?
	Probably not.
	Well, no, definitely not, right?
	So let me ask you this.
	Have you yourself visited prostitutes?
	Have I been to a strip club?
	Of course.
	No, no, no.
	Have you been to, have you, have you paid a sex worker?
	I have.
	I think, you know, the strip club would say, the strip club workers would say they're sex workers.
	Okay.
	Have you paid for sexual activity directly with a woman?
	A lap dance as they're hovering above you or whatever.
	I don't know.
	I've never had a lap dance.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Have I paid for lap dances yet?
	No, no.
	have you paid for direct sexual content?
	That's, you know, that's, isn't that a crime here?
	I think I can play the fifth on that.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	I mean, so you're kind of invested here, right?
	Because if you have been to some degree exploiting the fruits of child abuse, that's not particularly honorable, right?
	I wouldn't No, I think that that's Quite a leap That you I gave you the data No, I gave you the data.
	You gave me the data and said that the 17% just didn't admit it, right?
	No, I didn't say that either.
	Boy, you're listening to me.
	No, you did.
	You said they wouldn't admit it because they would avoid the trauma.
	I said they are less likely.
	Didn't say they wouldn't.
	I can't say that.
	Sure.
	Sure.
	Okay.
	Okay.
	That nuance is important.
	No, it's more than a nuance, bro.
	If you say I said something certain when I said it's, if you said it's deductive reasoning when I only gave you inductive reasoning, that's right.
	If I said, hey, man, you said that all men are taller than all women, that would be a false statement, right?
	If you said men tend to be taller than women, that would be a true statement.
	So it's not just a nuance when you transfer something from a true statement to a false statement, right?
	All of the 17% are lying.
	I never said that because I'm pretty careful about what I say.
	I know the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning.
	So what do you want to use for the 17%?
	Hang on.
	So if you convert something I said from something that is true to something that is false, that's not just a nuance.
	So are the 17% of the 17%, you're saying that some of them didn't admit it?
	Okay.
	See, I don't know what the point is of having a conversation if you don't listen.
	And if you just, I don't like, and I'll just remove the guy because I'm going to close up here.
	And I appreciate the conversation, but in general, I don't like having conversations where I spend 10 minutes making a case and then the person reframes it, strawmans it, and then claims to understand what I said.
	Like I'm talking to you guys as the audience, and I enjoy listening to, I enjoy chatting with you guys as the audience.
	And I'm glad that you see when to cut off a debate.
	But when I make a case, and this is what's people who are emotionally defensive, right?
	I think we know the answer to the question for this fellow.
	So he's emotionally invested.
	And that's why I said you're invested, right?
	So people who are emotionally invested, so I'm not talking about this guy.
	Let's just make up someone named Bob.
	So if Bob has visited a bunch of prostitutes and it turns out that visiting a bunch of prostitutes is exploiting the ruins of her personality left over by significant childhood abuse and you can only, I guess, enjoy sexual activity with a prostitute if you're ignoring the harm that was done to her as a child, then that's a conscience issue.
	And we all have conscience issues.
	We've all done things that we look back and we regret or we should have done better or we could have done better.
	But when you're dealing with people who are invested, in other words, if my argument is true, then it is not great behavior to visit a prostitute.
	Of course, also, women who are prostitutes are often in considerable danger.
	They have STDs.
	They can be beaten, robbed, killed.
	They also can rob and kill.
	I think, gosh, who was it?
	Some woman who was a rapper.
	I can't remember exactly, but she had a career of beating men up when she was a prostitute and so on.
	I think I know the name, but I'm not going to obviously associate it if I'm not sure.
	But they're often also controlled by pimps and human trafficked and all kinds of terrible things.
	So if you're part of that economy, if you're paying for that, then you are enabling a fair amount of continued trauma and you are destroying women's ability to, you're participating in the destruction of women's ability to pair bond and be mothers and happy wives and all that kind of stuff.
	And you are, of course, flowing a lot of money into some fairly nasty criminal enterprises.
	So that's tough, right?
	It's a tough thing to look at your own conscience and say, ooh, I might have done some pretty bad things here.
	And then you have to ask yourself why you would lack that compassion or why you'd lack that understanding.
	And you'd have to look at your own capacity to exploit people and so on.
	And that's a tough thing for people to do.
	And so they generally just fog and pretend they don't understand things and stall.
	And it's not, of course, me that people like that avoid this fictional Bob.
	It is, of course, their own conscience, which I can't, I can't help people with a bad conscience other than to say it's worth exploring.
	Because exploring and analyzing a bad conscience can lead you to a very good and positive place and refusing to do so can keep you in a pretty bad place.
	So we've all done things that are not ideal.
	And it's really worth sitting down with your conscience and say, how am I doing?
	All right.
	Lots of love, everyone.
	Thank you for a glorious, gorgeous, wonderful, enjoyable conversation on this lovely Friday afternoon.
	I will see you guys at 7 p.m. tonight.
	And maybe we'll talk about the 20th anniversary.
	Or maybe everyone will have great questions and comments like today.
	Freedomane.com slash donate to help out the show.
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	All right.
	Lots of love, my friends.
	Thank you for your lovely day.
	Talk to you tonight.

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