Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - New York City Socialist Mayor! Twitter/X Space

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Oct. 28, 2025 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

01:26:52

New York City Socialist Mayor! Twitter/X Space

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	Um, I just wanted to get your thoughts on what happens if um mom Donnie, I believe the character in New York City gets elected, and what kind of thing or what kind of financial turmoil do you think that could potentially call out?
	I don't know, that might be a little bit deviant from what you want to discuss today.
	That's just kind of a whole lot of questions.
	I didn't catch the question.
	I mean, something so a financial thing, I, your mic is not particularly great.
	So, if you're a little more slowly, yeah, can you hear me now?
	Yeah, it's it's okay, but go ahead.
	Okay, um, so basically, my thoughts are kind of on um mom Donnie in New York City or the Mayor All the guy who's a sort of a he's alleged to be a communist or something like that, right?
	Yeah, I'm just kind of wondering what kind of effects that could spiral into in terms of how it could impact financial markets, especially since Wall Street is you know, it applies in New York City.
	So, I don't know, that's just kind of what's on my mind right now.
	Okay, I'm happy to give some thoughts on that.
	And again, if anybody else has issues that they want to raise, I'm certainly happy to hear that.
	So, it's just got to be the same fracking lesson over and over again.
	It's the same lesson, the same lesson.
	You got a bunch of poor people and you got a bunch of wealthy people, and the poor people hate and resent the wealthy people.
	And why?
	Well, there's the sort of natural human competition, as well as the fact that these endless socialist sophists come in, and as I've said a bazillion times before, and I'll keep it brief here, they come in and say, Ah, that rich guy, he's only wealthy because he stole from you and he stole from your father and he ripped off your grandfather.
	And they just provoke all this hatred.
	And I'm not talking about the politically rich, but military industrial complex a-holes.
	I'm talking about people who've worked and built companies and earned some money and created jobs and so on, right?
	See, it's a funny thing that happens in the world, doesn't have to happen.
	People say, Oh, well, the poor are always going to resent the rich.
	Nope, nope, because there's three areas where that doesn't happen for the most part.
	There's three areas where people don't endlessly resent the rich.
	Number one, movies, TV, actors.
	Those guys are fantastically wealthy, and yet people go and see their movies because they're fans.
	Denzel Washington and Brad Pitt, and you know, whoever it is for the younger Padro, whatever his name is, the younger generation.
	They love those guys, they cheer them on.
	Movies, TV actors, very wealthy, very wealthy, and cheered on.
	People don't resent them.
	What else?
	Oh, I know sports.
	Is it Michael B. Jordan and Michael Jordan?
	So, in sports, LeBron James, King James, fantastically wealthy.
	People don't resent him.
	They love him.
	They wear pictures of him on their t-shirts.
	They get his number and play basketball.
	They pay outrageous prices for tickets.
	The Knicks, the Jack Nicholson's team.
	Anyway, so in movies, TV, sports, where oh, I know music.
	Is anybody out there bitching and moaning that Taylor Swift is a billionaire at this point?
	The Kardashians.
	I mean, there's probably a little bit of hate watching there.
	Good luck with your aneurysm, Kim.
	But people have no problem with the wealthy as a whole if they don't have any illusions about it.
	I don't sit there and look at Taylor Swift and say, it should be me up there.
	I did some karaoke with my daughter last night.
	She did well.
	I did not.
	So.
	Oh, boy.
	So we don't.
	It's just astounding.
	It's just astounding.
	It really is.
	Yeah.
	So all the women who are probably on the left are thrilled that Taylor Swift is touring.
	Now, what's the only reason Taylor Swift is touring?
	Well, A, she writes great songs.
	B, she likes to tour.
	And C, she makes a frack ton of money doing it.
	And nobody is, there's no big petitions of all of these white women or whoever the liberal women are.
	There's not these big petitions saying, well, come on, man.
	It's not fair.
	Taylor Swift should be limited to 650 seats.
	She shouldn't be in stadiums.
	That's elitist.
	And she should be on tour buses and shouldn't be flying around either.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Yeah, they don't say she's not allowed to have backup dances.
	That's unfair.
	She's not allowed, like Pink is not allowed to fly around like a monkey on a sling because that's not fair to all of the old.
	I mean, the Rolling Stones aren't doing that.
	Mick Jagger, I mean, he's still a pretty spry guy, pretty spry for a white guy in his 80s or whatever it is, right?
	So they're not saying, well, I mean, at least what we have to do to even things out is give Taylor Swift a bad microphone and some reverse auto-tune, which throws a slightly off key.
	You know, just make things equal because we can't compete with that.
	They love it.
	They love it, Jerry.
	They love it.
	So they're really keen, really thrilled, really happy.
	They're fans of these bands, right?
	They love the music.
	They love the singing.
	They want people to do really well.
	And what's it?
	Olivia Rodriguez, I was listening to a song called Vampire.
	I never really thought of her as much of a serious singer, but girl, girl, has pipes and a half for days.
	Amazing.
	Amazing.
	How many people can do that?
	Maybe one in 10,000, one in 100,000.
	Perfect pitch, great musicality, great emotional connectivity, great ability to act because singing is a form of acting.
	Need the passion.
	Pretty, talented, good performer, reasonable health.
	So people don't hate the rich.
	People love the rich.
	They love the rich.
	People love and hate.
	Well, people love who their instincts tell them to love, and people hate who they're trained to hate.
	So, you know, when people are like, I can't believe that's, I accidentally tripped up some secret socialist wire on X, and now I'm getting all of this nonsense flooding in about how can there be billionaires and the homeless, right?
	And when people say billionaires, generally what they're thinking of is white men.
	It's just another proxy.
	Let's be honest, right?
	Because nobody's saying that there ought to be a special Taylor Swift tax because she's so, you know, talented and pretty and blah, blah, blah, whatever it is.
	Nobody's saying that.
	Because they like Taylor Swift.
	The women love Taylor Swift.
	And if you were to say, because they want to see her tour, right?
	And if you were to say to them, well, you know, if you enact a special tax on very rich people, Taylor Swift will be too poor to tour.
	They'd be like, oh, no, that's no good.
	That's what you're saying against people like Elon Musk for like launching rockets and building these amazing white guitars and all that stuff.
	Man, it's just been a while to make.
	Yeah, I mean, who's doing more good for humanity in material sense?
	I mean, obviously, music is important, happiness is important, but who's doing more good for humanity?
	Not Taylor Swift, but Elon Musk.
	I mean, certainly with regards to free speech.
	Pounds are pounds, absolutely.
	Yeah.
	Elon Musk has done.
	I mean, we know that also, that she has more economic value because he's worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
	And so, but if the schools simply taught people from the beginning some basic economics, they'd be thrilled about the poor.
	They'd be as happy with Elon Musk as they are with Taylor Swift.
	Which is what they need to be.
	I think it's by design.
	I don't know if this is by design.
	Yeah, the moment you let government take over the education of the youth, the youth inexorably move towards communism, inexorably.
	Because you can't hand over children to a communist or socialist system and then expect that communist or socialist system to criticize communist or socialist principles.
	Right?
	Government schools are explicitly socialistic/slash communistic, from each according to their ability, property taxes, higher taxes, to each according to their need.
	That's how it works.
	No competition.
	You can't fire people.
	It's all government work and it's all socialist in principle.
	And America had a very brief, let me just pick on America, had a very brief flourishing of being a free society.
	I mean, it took 80 years to break the bonds of the Constitution foundationally.
	And yeah, you want to look for a real fascist.
	You look at Abraham Lincoln.
	You don't look at Donald Trump.
	Yeah, Braser Fist actually made a really good video on Abraham.
	Like no familiar with his word, but you made it.
	Oh, love the fist.
	We love the fist.
	He's great.
	I liked him for his verbal acuity.
	It is astonishing.
	It's really like watching a master scimitar wielder.
	Oh, it's very entertaining.
	It's very understanding.
	You know, monologues for days.
	It's so fun.
	He also did one very funny video, which I always remember of him falling over backwards in a chair.
	So he didn't take himself too seriously, which is always a pleasure for me.
	But yeah, extremely talented verbal magician.
	And yeah, I've done my own little entree into the criticizing Lincoln sort of stuff.
	But so if they, yeah, if they taught children that people don't have money, they create value.
	That's number one.
	You don't just have money.
	You create value.
	I mean, I'm sure that there are a bunch of people in Taylor Swift's hometown who did karaoke.
	And Taylor Swift did not steal their money, right?
	Because they can't do what Taylor Swift does.
	So people don't just people saw she was.
	No, you're good.
	People saw that she was entertaining in terms of the value she was providing.
	I mean, it's pretty obvious, right?
	That's just how it works out in entertainment land: more or less, they don't steal your money.
	You're basically giving them your money, your hard-earned money, because they provide some sort of value.
	Like, that's just, it just seems so obvious to me.
	Maybe not so much to the people we're talking about.
	Right.
	So you, yeah, I mean, if you're a model-looking person who can sing well and write good songs, I mean, you can write your own ticket, right?
	So, yeah, people don't have money, they provide value, and that's number one.
	And number two, billionaires don't have a bunch of dollar bills in a vault.
	Billionaires do not have a bunch of dollars.
	No, they haven't been locked, they have it locked away in their companies, investments, all sorts of stuff.
	If they know better, they know that cash is generally trash and you shouldn't hold on to too much of it because it's just going to erode away.
	It's going to have an inflation.
	Yeah.
	So Elon Musk does not have hundreds of billions of dollars.
	He doesn't.
	And I mean, the only way he could get the access to those hundreds of billions of dollars would be to sell all of his shares.
	But the moment he sold his shares, their value would evaporate and he wouldn't have hundreds of billions of dollars because if he was on a selling spree, people would sell as fast as he was and drive down the price of the shares to very low levels.
	And of course, even if he sold all of this money, sorry, even if he sold all of his shares and somehow was able to get a good chunk of money for it, there'd be capital gains, taxes, and then what?
	He'd have all of this money.
	He'd have to put it somewhere.
	If he just put it in the bank, he'd lose money.
	He'd lose, you know, like tens of millions of dollars a year or more just to inflation.
	So, so he doesn't have, so he's a, it's an obscene amount of wealth.
	It's not wealth.
	It's not real.
	It's not totally fake.
	It's not made up.
	It's not like he's a fiat bank or anything like that.
	But no, he doesn't, he doesn't have this money.
	And he doesn't have money.
	He provides value.
	Taylor Swift is not a thief.
	Taylor Swift provides value.
	Some people will pay hundreds of dollars to see Taylor Swift.
	I mean, if I were given free tickets, I'd go.
	I think there's like three songs of hers that I like in the sort of the Katy Perry category.
	And Blank Space, I think, is a great song.
	It's a great song.
	It's very, very clever, very catchy and entertaining.
	So like Katy Perry's Raw, great song, and so on, right?
	But then, you know, every artist ends up with breathy vocals, rap in the middle of breathy vocals.
	It just seems to be a law of nature.
	So, yeah, so there's just hatred.
	I mean, they're just taught to have hatred.
	It's just disturbing that New York City.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	It's just disturbing that New York City is almost certainly going to elect this person.
	I don't think.
	Sorry, why is it unsettling?
	I mean, New York City is considered the global financial capital in some regards, right?
	Oh, yeah, definitely not.
	Yeah, so they'll, you know, I have no pity or patience for people who learn these fucking lessons now.
	I have no pity or patience.
	Like, but the entire 20th century, I mean, go back to Spinham lent 400 years ago, go back to Spain and its experiments with inflationary goals from the new world, put it into a 400-year depression.
	So I have no patience.
	If people want to vote for this shit, okay.
	I'm not going to New York.
	Yeah, I know some people, but it's just like, I really want them to leave.
	I know they kind of feel married to the city.
	And, you know, that's on them, I guess.
	But it's, I don't, I don't care.
	And I would strongly suggest people start unplugging your empathy circuits for what's coming in the world.
	Like, I seriously, strongly urge, for the sake of your sanity, you must disconnect your empathy.
	Oh, yeah, you're going to just hijack.
	They're just going to, people are going to just hijack, and then they're going to manipulate you because that's what they do.
	Well, there's no excuse.
	The internet and the 20th century, if people want to vote socialists, if they want free stuff, if they want to go full communist, if they then, yeah, the rich will leave and they'll have no money and then they'll beg for bailouts and crime will surge.
	And it's like, I don't have any sympathy left over for self-inflicted wounds.
	Did you know what I mean?
	100%.
	I absolutely do agree.
	I just wish it didn't have to be this way.
	But I know it might have to be this way because that's ultimately this is how people learn.
	It's either through philosophy, which is not providing the cure, but prevention, or through, well, what's happening right now.
	So, again, I totally get where you're coming from.
	Absolutely.
	And I think it is wise to keep empathy.
	I do blame the Christians a lot because, I mean, with the idea that 41 million people in America are going to be without SNAP benefits next month.
	And that's another thing.
	That's another bomb that's going to pop off possibly.
	I don't know what's going to happen with that.
	That's also kind of scary.
	I'm out of sympathy.
	I really am.
	And I'm not exhausted.
	I'm actually preserving my energy by resolutely.
	I mean, if you've got three generations of people who've been ripping off the taxpayer through the power of the state, what sympathy am I supposed to have?
	Yeah, there was a video I saw of that.
	That was insane.
	Yeah, I have as much sympathy for people.
	And of course, I'm not an American, right?
	So I'm just putting myself in this mindset, right?
	But have as much sympathy for people as they have for you.
	Do not have more sympathy for people than they have for you.
	And the people who have been on government assistance for many years without really trying and working hard to get off, they have no sympathy for the taxpayer.
	In fact, they're exploiting the taxpayer.
	And so if people are exploiting the taxpayer, if they've gotten lazy and entitled and they don't want to work even when they could, why on earth would the taxpayer have more sympathy for people than the people have for the taxpayer?
	So I'm reserving my compassion as a just man, and I strive for justice and I strive for fairness.
	I am reserving my compassion for the victims, not for the self-inflicted.
	If I had money to like whatever, to donate to, I mean, I do some charitable donations and so on, but let's say, you know, you've got, you've got some money to donate to a cause.
	Do you donate it to genetic diabetes or do you donate it to self-inflicted diabetes?
	I mean, it's pretty clear.
	You give it to the people who can't roll the dice well on us, which would be the genetic epidemic.
	Yeah, because if you get diabetes, yeah, if you get diabetes as the result of lifestyle choices, I think it was Tom Hanks, doctor some years ago, was saying, if you keep gaining weight or you keep not exercising, you're going to get diabetes.
	So if you voluntarily make yourself ill, right?
	Obesity, give yourself joint problems, diabetes, smoking like crazy, then that's a very selfish act.
	And it would be a selfish act even in a free society, because when you make yourself sick and like three quarters of health issues are lifestyle related, which means they're kind of chosen.
	So if you make yourself sick, then you are taking away healthcare resources from other people.
	Specifically from people who, specifically from people who didn't have a choice in the matter because they may have a genetic disease or disorder, they do malcuse.
	Right.
	And you say, oh, well, it's supply and demand.
	The more people are sick.
	Well, okay, then the more people go into healthcare, sure, but that's fewer smart people who are available for other things.
	I mean, imagine if we had a world with 75% less healthcare spending.
	Well, that would be a world where people took responsibility for their health and acted reasonably in a way to make themselves healthy.
	And if people don't have compassion for others to the point where they pile on the pounds, they don't exercise, you know, they don't do basic sleep hygiene, you know, they don't get enough sunlight.
	They just don't do the basic things that you need to do.
	They don't get the checkups.
	They don't get blood work done.
	You know, all the things that basic things you need to do to maintain your health.
	Well, then they are, they're causing other people to get sick and die because they are taking away healthcare resources from people who are sick through no fault of their own.
	And that's just welfare alone.
	That's not even factoring or considering the impact on, say, travel, like airplanes, the extra amount of weight, the amount of food they consume.
	Like it just kind of spiraled up in there, too.
	Yeah, why haven't environmentalists, why haven't environmentalists targeted the obese for overconsuming resources that are very scarce in nature?
	And, you know, food requires a huge amount of carbon to produce because they don't care, because the obese are dependent on the state and can be reliably voted to have more and more government.
	So like with control.
	Yeah, for over 40 years, I have poured out like this stuff is bad.
	It's going to end badly, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
	And, you know, we shouldn't be using force to try and solve complex social problems.
	And so for, so I'm out.
	Like I'm tapped out.
	And I don't, sorry, I'm tapping out.
	I'm not tapped out.
	I still have a lot of great compassion and empathy for people who are undergoing misfortune through no fault of their own.
	But yeah, with regards to the people who've caused their own problems, you know, especially people who are like, you should not be obese when you're in charity.
	When you're on charity food, you should not be obese.
	That means you're misusing the program.
	You're buying more than you need to live.
	That program should be just to get people back on their feet.
	Maybe.
	I do think we should have these social systems in place, but there's definitely a lot of abuse and that needs reform.
	But you can't reform it.
	Everything that is coercive is corrupt.
	Everything.
	So the only way that you can actually help the poor is through voluntary private charity.
	Because I want to donate to a charity that gets people back on their feet, whereas the government charity relies upon people never getting back on their feet because that's where their power, control, authority, and spending comes from.
	Because they can pull the string, they can pull the strings of their voting behavior, and then they can stay in staying power almost indefinitely.
	So no, I do agree with you on that.
	And of course, a lot of the, I mean, you can see a lot of people in America who are like, well, if we're not going to get free food, we're just going to riot and steal things.
	So basically, it's just become a kind of protection money to just give.
	And what was it Fidel Castro said about the welfare programs in the U.S. that they were the most amazing pacifiers of the population that could be conceived of?
	So basically, you're just paying people not to riot.
	It's just, you know, nice store you have in the mafia neighborhood be a real shame if something's bad.
	On the backs of the taxpayers.
	Yeah, yeah.
	Well, and not even on the back of the taxpayers, on the back of the children being born millions of dollars in debt and unfunded liabilities.
	It's not even the current taxpayer.
	You're literally enslaved.
	Yeah, people are born into debts they can't pay off, which is really enslavement.
	Just because you get to choose your own job doesn't mean you're not enslaved.
	So yeah, with regards to New York, I mean, I won't even say good luck.
	I just, okay, you get what you get.
	You get what you want.
	You get what you deserve.
	And all of the people like myself, and of course, you know, countless others, and for a long time before I became a public figure, we've all been saying the wages of sin is death and this is bad stuff.
	And it's like, okay, so if people want, if they feel the need to learn this lesson again, then let them learn this lesson again.
	I don't care.
	I don't care.
	I mean, I guess I could say, I wish it didn't happen, but I mean, that's what you're saying.
	I go to you.
	What does that mean?
	What does it mean?
	Like, does the doctor say to the guy with lung cancer, I wish you stopped smoking 40 years ago?
	Like, what does that even mean?
	It's a fantasy.
	At a midpoint, it's a mid point at that point.
	We're here.
	We're here now.
	There's nothing we can do about the past right now.
	So it's just buckle up, buttercup, right?
	Like, that's kind of my attitude.
	Well, I feel bad for that.
	Well, don't, but don't feel bad for that.
	Don't feel bad.
	I mean, you could say, ah, the kids, this, that, but I'm not, I'm not even going to care more about for people's kids than they care about themselves, right?
	I'm just not.
	Yeah.
	And yeah, so I don't even feel bad for them.
	I am, oh, okay.
	So that's their choice.
	Okay.
	Well, I don't even, I'm not even checking.
	I'm not even going to check in to see how it plays out because I know exactly how it's going to.
	I mean, I've already watched this movie 50 times before, as the whole world has watched it 50 to 100 times before.
	And they want to do it again.
	And they're motivated by greed.
	And they want to pillage the taxpayer.
	They want to pillage the unborn.
	They want something for nothing.
	And, you know, the ladies are taken in by this fairly oily guy with his, hey, baby, campaign ads, his sort of Barry White campaign ads.
	It's like, okay, well, if you want to vote for some pretty guy promising you everything for nothing, okay.
	I mean, I'm not going to argue.
	I'm not going to track it.
	And, you know, there will be these occasional bursts of terrible news coming out of New York.
	And I don't care.
	I don't, I don't even angrily, like, I don't care.
	Like, I don't even, it's like, I don't care.
	This is the, this is the choice that they have made.
	I have put 44 years into telling people about this.
	I have, you know, I've received my bomb threats, my death threats, my physical attacks.
	I have been deplatformed.
	I've been slandered and lied about all across the multiverse.
	And so I have poured everything that I conceivably have outside of my life itself.
	I have like a doctor, like an oncologist or a doctor saying, hey, you know, you should probably get this bad habit or you're going to suffer very badly.
	No, bro.
	It's not like that at all.
	An oncologist doesn't get bomb and death threats for telling people to stop smoking.
	It's much worse.
	Yes.
	Much worse than that.
	It is much worse.
	Now you're absolutely right.
	Be kind about what I've suffered, right?
	So I have risked almost everything to bring the truth to people.
	And, you know, I mean, there are lots of people in New York who are going to be dressing up as Charlie Kirk this Halloween, right?
	And there are lots of people who are like, you know, F Mergaman.
	You know, it's like, okay, well, I have put, I've put great honor into the field of battle for almost half a century, Brad.
	That's a long time.
	That's a long time.
	So I've acquitted myself with honor.
	I have put as much and as entertaining a series of philosophical and moral and economic arguments out into the world in the language of the common man with some jokes, with some engagement, with some good humor, with some passion, with some energy, made it all available for free.
	There aren't even any ads, freedomain.com/slash donate.
	So I've done as much as I possibly can to avert this disaster.
	I mean, it's like, it's like somebody, it's like if you could get to Jack at the beginning of the movie Titanic, right?
	Jack, while you're gambling, don't go, don't go on.
	No, it's not even don't go on.
	It's like, this is the movie.
	I'm going to, Jack, I'm going to play you the movie called The Titanic.
	And that's going to tell you to not get on the Titanic.
	Like, I'm literally playing the movie, right?
	And I've done detailed documentaries about how badly all of this stuff turns out.
	Sorry, presentations and some documentaries too.
	But this is how badly it all turns out.
	So if you play the movie Titanic to the main character in the movie Titanic, and Jack still decides to get on the Titanic, it's like, okay, incomprehensible to me, but he just wants to die.
	It's been too hard living.
	He's not afraid to die.
	And off he goes.
	And I mean, what can you do?
	You can't chain him up.
	You can't lock him up.
	You can't.
	It's not even worth exerting the mental effort.
	Yeah.
	It's like, hey, man, I told you exactly how it was going to go.
	I proved it.
	I had every expert in the known universe tell you how it's going to go.
	And people are just so dumb, greedy, and or evil that this is the path they want to pursue.
	This is the road they want to take.
	Fine.
	You know, I saw this picture with this guy, the New Yorker mayor and AOC and Bernie Sanders grinning away, looking confident and happy, attacks the rich.
	And it's like, hey, if these are the sophists, if you got a philosopher saying, eat your veggies, and you got all of these sophists saying candy is great for you and vegetables and meat is terrible for you.
	Okay, well, then if you go with them, off you go.
	And actually, I got to tell you, it's kind of a relief for me.
	Because if you've put maximum effort into, you know, you've got some uncle who can't quit the hookers and blow and you say to him, man, this is going to end badly.
	And you try to get him to stop.
	And you, you know, the mafia threatens you because they want to keep getting access to his money.
	And, you know, the hookers who want his money, they start threatening you.
	And the pimps come over and they threaten you and beat up your dog or something like that.
	And then eventually, if he's just like, nope, I'm committed.
	I'm going to keep doing the hookers and blow.
	It's a relief because now you're not going to get threatened anymore.
	Like, you've done everything you can.
	And honestly, I'm not quite glad, but I'm not unrelieved.
	Because it's like when you're a diplomat and you're trying to stop a war and you're working, you know, for years and years to stop a war and you get a lot of threats and stress and blah, blah, blah.
	And then, you know, once the war breaks out, you're like, okay, well, at least I don't have to worry about stopping the war anymore.
	At least that is off my plate.
	So, yeah, they choose this stuff.
	I no longer am interested, since I won't compel anyone, I'm no longer interested in what happens to people who make these obviously terrible decisions with all of the full knowledge of history.
	And the internet has removed everybody's excuse.
	It's like somebody who still uses the word McCarthyism, unironically.
	All right.
	Is there anything else?
	All right, thank you.
	Yeah, I strongly suggest just getting that skilled indifference, but sorry, go ahead.
	No, you're good.
	Yeah, that's all I really have.
	Thanks again for having me up and having that deep dive.
	That was very good.
	My pleasure.
	And I'm not sorry that it's happening.
	It's fine that it's happening.
	This is what people are choosing.
	And they're going to have to live with the consequences of their choices.
	And, you know, it would be nice if people were as anti-communist as Eastern Europe.
	But apparently you have to go through 40 to 70 years of communism in order to be anti-communist.
	And even then, it doesn't seem to last for too long.
	And that's because of people's bad childhoods.
	All right, if there's anybody else who has...
	Sorry?
	No, you're good.
	I just said time to batter up then, I guess.
	I'm not sure.
	I'm not sure what you mean.
	Basically, just letting whatever's going to happen happen.
	Well, no, it's not whatever's going to happen, happen.
	It's all going to be a disaster.
	It's not whatever's going to happen happen.
	You know, it's like if once the Titanic has had its side ripped open, there's no like, hey, let's whatever happen.
	It's going to sink.
	Like you still have this neutral, like, hey, whatever's going to happen, it's going to be a disaster.
	And it is a self-inflicted disaster with all of the best information available to human beings, known to man.
	We literally have the sum total of human knowledge is being carried around, nestled next to everybody's ass crack in their back pocket.
	They have the sum total of human information around available to them, and they're still choosing.
	You know, you could understand people before smoking was understood to be dangerous saying, well, it's nicotine is fun or something like that, right?
	But now, like now, somebody who smokes is like, well, it's full knowledge, right?
	I mean, so it's not whatever's going to happen.
	Let whatever happens.
	It's going to be a disaster.
	If somebody just decides to jump off a cliff, you say, well, what's the other thing?
	They're going to fall.
	Not whatever's going to happen.
	Sorry to be annoying now.
	No, you're fine.
	I think they're still resisting the facts.
	Yeah.
	No, it's, I don't know.
	It's just been, it's been very wild and it's kind of hard to care for.
	Well, and the last thing, yeah, sorry, I'll stop this because we keep having these kinds of things.
	Very good.
	Yeah, thank you.
	I appreciate it.
	But yeah, so I was posting about that this morning and I mentioned it briefly, so I'll touch on it here.
	And then if you have questions, if not, I'll Drago, I see you see you up there.
	But the rich used to have a fair amount of nobles oblige towards the poor, right?
	They used to have a fair amount of it.
	It wasn't perfect, but you sort of think of the Carnegies and the Rockefellers and so on.
	Public libraries came from this.
	Charitable hospitals came out of this.
	Subsidies to education came out of this.
	Donations to universities came out of this.
	Scholarships came out of this.
	There was this nobles oblige because everybody understands to some degree that, you know, if you're wealthy, it has a little bit to do with the luck of the draw.
	Not everybody who's super smart becomes wealthy, but everybody who's wealthy, who becomes wealthy is pretty, is super smart and has other moral qualities, such as the courage and the ability to defer gratification and so on, right?
	So there's a certain amount of good luck that you have.
	I mean, there's lots of people who are in the music industry for just as long as Taylor Swift, but they aren't as pretty.
	They aren't as good at singing.
	They aren't as good at performing.
	They don't happen to have the magic brain juice to write great songs.
	So she's obviously skilled and has worked hard and deserves everything that she has.
	But there's a certain amount of just good luck in it.
	Just a certain amount of good luck.
	So, I mean, everybody at some point tries to slid along with the radio, and some people do it really well.
	That's just kind of luck.
	You just have the voice that sounds good, or you don't have the voice.
	That sounds good.
	So that certain amount of luck translated into, okay, well, I've done fairly well with a certain amount of luck, with a little luck, right?
	So Paul McCartney style.
	And so I should spread that good luck.
	I mean, I felt that I had a good ability to do pretty well in the podcasting vlog space.
	And so I'm like, oh, it's kind of lucky.
	I happen to have an accent, happen to have a pleasant voice, happen to have fairly photogenic features, happen to have a good sense of humor, and happen to have been well prepared, voice training, acting training, blah, blah, blah, improv.
	So I thought, okay, well, if I have this platform, there's lots of people out there who are good and don't have the opportunity.
	So, of course, I opened up my platform to a wide variety of other people so that other people could be introduced to people who were, you know, good thinkers and speakers.
	And of course, everybody sort of knows that sort of list.
	So I had a, I would say, noblesse oblige, but because I was pretty early on in the space and pretty popular in the space, I wanted to bring other people on board.
	And a lot of times I just let them talk.
	So a little bit of nobles oblige and the fact that I have discovered some pretty good principles of relationships.
	So I wrote a book, Real-Time Relationships, to help people have better relationships and made it free, all that kind of good stuff.
	So there's a certain amount of nobles oblige that comes from having talents, which you have some degree of responsibility for, but a lot of it is just luck.
	I didn't choose my genetics.
	They just are.
	So noblesse oblige is when you want to help the poor.
	But unfortunately, now we've had three plus generations of the poor ripping off the wealthy.
	And I know that sounds kind of odd and kind of strange, but it's a very real phenomenon that every time you've got to think about it from the other person's perspective.
	This is empathy, right?
	So if you're a rich guy and all you see online is we hate the rich, tax the rich, it's obscene.
	You know, the rich should inheritance taxes and all kinds of taxes, taxes for just being, right?
	You know, raise the capital gains tax, arrange the corporate taxes, right?
	Because everybody has this fantasy that somehow somebody else is going to pay the taxes.
	Raise corporate taxes.
	It just means the workers get paid less or the price of goods goes up and the consumer has to pay more and so on, right?
	Because if you cut all the wealth of the people in charge, they'll just stop running the businesses and the businesses will collapse.
	So you've got to think about it from the rich people's perspective.
	And it's, I imagine, I imagine, it's kind of frightening.
	This is one of the reasons why the rich will fund the left, but not the right.
	Because if the rich fund the right, then they will probably get into some pretty serious trouble.
	This is sort of to Mike Sunovich's point as well.
	Why don't the billionaires fund the right?
	Well, because they will have a pretty tough time of it, probably in many ways, if they, if they do that, in the way that doesn't really happen with the left, right?
	So thinking of it from the perspective of the wealthy is really important.
	You know, like for women, right?
	This is the question of body count.
	Sort of try and put it into a little bit more personal before we take it to the abstract.
	And then I will get to the next call, but thank you for your patience.
	But, you know, for women, a high body can, right?
	High body count, look at it from the perspective of a man.
	How does a man benefit from you sleeping around with other men?
	How does, oh, well, you know, maybe you've got some sexual skills.
	It's like, you could have got those sexual skills with one man.
	There's no reason for that.
	No need for that.
	So how does it benefit a man?
	We understand how it benefits the women.
	They get to go through their whole phase and have a lot of variety and spice and excitement and lust, men lusting after them and buying them dinners and taking them on vacation.
	Yeah, that's fun.
	I get it.
	That's fine.
	Yeah, absolutely.
	But how does it benefit a man?
	How does it benefit a man that you slept with a lot of other men?
	So he gets to take you around town and constantly run into guys who've slept with you.
	How does it benefit a man?
	I mean, you then have, you know, pair bonding issues, right?
	Because every man's going to have some aspect that you like and some aspect that you don't, right?
	This guy's taller.
	This guy has more money.
	This guy's better in bed.
	This guy has a bigger penis, whatever it is, right?
	And so you're going to be comparing the highlights rather than a person with their strengths and weaknesses.
	You're going to be picking from all these highlights and being dissatisfied with everyone that you end up with, any individual that you end up with.
	So you've got to think, what's the benefit?
	What's the benefit to a man of a woman sleeping around?
	Pair bonding issues, potential STDs, a lot of Xs, some drama, and a perpetual sense of dissatisfaction.
	And it's the same thing, sort of looking at the world from the perspective of the wealthy.
	How does the world look from the perspective of the wealthy?
	How does the man look?
	How does the world look from the perspective of the wealthy?
	Well, it looks like a bunch of people who are just dying to tar and feather them, throw them in jail, rob them blind, and string them up.
	And of course, people can do that.
	They can do that all they want.
	They can have all of this hatred towards the wealthy, and they can constantly threaten the wealthy and get mad at the wealthy and tar and feather the wealthy and want to attack the rich, written all over AOC's butt.
	And they can do all of that.
	And they can see.
	I don't know if you've ever been targeted by people, but you know, it can be a smidge unnerving, right?
	Obviously, it's kind of what it's designed for, right?
	And if everybody is just hate the rich and so on, well, then the rich will are going to view you, they're going to view the population as a whole as dangerous, volatile enemies, right?
	And that's not a great position to be in.
	And the rich will no longer have the noblest oblige.
	They won't really want to start companies.
	They'll enjoy their money and they'll leave it to their children.
	And they won't go out there in the world and try to make money and try to create jobs and provide value because it starts to look increasingly like terrorism, not economics.
	Because why would you want to benefit people who want to rob you blind and put your head on a pike, so to speak, right?
	I mean, literally, if the communists take over, but you know, in general, it's a sort of an analogy.
	But why?
	Why would you want to work really hard to benefit people who are loping through the streets, sword in hand, baying for your entrails?
	Why?
	And then, of course, when the wealthy no longer feel any noblest oblige, but instead have mostly fear and contempt for the masses, what happens then?
	What happens then?
	Well, they're stopped creating jobs, people become more and more poor, and everybody will hide that connection.
	And what they'll do is they'll say, well, workers are becoming increasingly resentful and dangerous.
	So I don't want to hire people.
	I'm going to invest in robotics and AI.
	If you are in a small town and you're the mill owner and you employ friends and relatives and so on, then you want to keep the mill going, right?
	But if a bunch of strangers move into the town and are constantly baying for your blood and having workers around is becoming more and more dangerous because they unionize, they can organize, they keep threatening you and so on.
	Well, it's like, okay, well, robots are safer than dangerous people.
	So all of that's going to happen.
	All right.
	Drago and Alex, you're on deck.
	I appreciate that.
	What is on your mind, Drago?
	How can philosophy help you today?
	Oh, hello, Stefan.
	How are you?
	It just, I was listening to your what you were saying, but when I went to speak, I lost the last bit.
	But yeah, how's it going?
	Well, thanks.
	What's on your mind?
	Yeah, no.
	Well, it's hard to imagine a way, as you said, the Titanic sinking.
	It's hard to imagine a patch work job or what that could entail.
	But I guess before on that, I was.
	It's no, bro.
	It's not going to happen.
	Yeah, I don't see it.
	Yeah, exactly.
	Wishing.
	Yeah.
	If witches were horses, beggars would ride, right?
	You need to stop wishing.
	It's not going to happen.
	Sure, sure.
	Yeah.
	No, I mean, I don't disagree.
	I'm concurring that it goes beyond imagination to see what would even.
	I'm sorry to be annoying, right?
	I have a responsibility for what goes out over my channel.
	You said it's hard to imagine a patch job.
	Yes, yes, which rhetorically you can't patch a sinky Titanic.
	No, no, no.
	You said it's hard to imagine, which means it's possible.
	If I said it's hard to imagine, it's hard to imagine X, then it means it's possible, right?
	Nobody says it's hard to imagine walking off a cliff and not hanging in midair.
	It's like, no, if you walk off a cliff, you'll fall.
	Sure, sure, yeah.
	Right.
	So I'm sorry to be annoying, but this is a challenge for people as a whole.
	Knowing when to give up hope is essential for mental health.
	But anyway, I don't mean to nitpick overly or nag overly.
	So if you want to go ahead with your general question, yeah, yeah, sure.
	I guess, right.
	Given that we've established this impossible, therefore, right, then there's no imagination, right?
	Given that we agree it's impossible, let's say.
	But my, yeah, I guess firstly, I wasn't aware.
	I haven't thought about this thing you said about rich people not being incentivized to fund the right.
	And I apologize if I misunderstood the thread, but could you please help me understand the logic there, why the rich are disincentivized from supporting the right?
	Well, I mean, you just have to go through a list of all the right-wing figures that were arrested under the Biden regime.
	Okay.
	I mean, it's just direct punishment.
	And even if it's not that, then the media will just whip up a frenzy about you, and you'll have to have increased security and lots of negative things, and your kids might be at risk.
	That's just a lot of difficult and dangerous stuff that doesn't happen when the left funds people, but when the right funds people, or if the right funds people, then it would go pretty badly.
	God, okay, I see what you're saying.
	Like, given the existing system and power structure, which rewards, it punishes one group of people, rewards the other.
	I see.
	It's risky for a rich person to support the right.
	I guess what I was, the way I was interpreting the statement was that even without a corrupt system, is there something intrinsically about how you can control people through a leftist paradigm?
	And if you like power, you're more inclined to support leftist causes because that entrenches your position of power among the higher.
	Whereas if you're supporting the right, maybe, you know, that's more freedom or more threats, more competition.
	And maybe your wealth is more under threat if you're lifting up the middle class.
	Let's say.
	You got to back up from your mic a little bit, man.
	You're like postiving my brain into atoms.
	So I'm going to break out a story.
	I haven't broken out in many years.
	I'll keep it very brief.
	This comes out of Down and Out in Paris and London by one George Orwell.
	It's a really great book.
	And it's about his travels through the lower classes with the planjeurs and so on.
	And at one point, he spends quite a bit of time with tramps, the homeless, the people who wander from town to town.
	And he said there is considerable literature about why these men roam from place to place, that they have wanderlust genes, that it's part of their culture, their history.
	They're in a mobile frame of mind.
	It's all a bunch of like socio-economic, cultural, historical explanations as to why these tramps don't settle down but move from town to town.
	And George Orwell says that the answer is pretty clear, and it's actually quite simple.
	It's that if they stay in any town for more than three days, they'll get thrown in jail.
	So always look for the simplest explanation rather than the most complex one.
	So what is the simplest explanation as to why people on the right who are wealthy don't fund courses on the right?
	I mean, you don't get to be wealthy without being good at risk assessment.
	Is that fair to say?
	Yeah, no, I mean, I agree with your risk assessment point.
	Yeah.
	So if you're good at risk assessment, then you will assess the risks of funding the right and you will see what has happened to people on the right.
	And listen, some people can do it, but, you know, not a super great number of people are willing to take that risk.
	And so what you do is you say, okay, what's the cost benefit?
	Now, Elon Musk, of course, has gone fairly anti-woke and has rescued free speech through Twitter and so on, which is great.
	That's why we're talking.
	But that, I think, is partly because he lost one of his sons, I think, to what he perceives as some excesses of the left and so on.
	And so, but for most people, I imagine being super rich is a pretty comfortable life in many ways, unless you get in the crosshairs of the mob and the media and so on, right?
	And then they'll just sort of relentlessly whip up a bunch of sort of hatred and hostility against you and your life.
	And I think people would even be willing to do that if they could see a particular benefit.
	If they, okay, I'm willing to do X and suffer Y if I can achieve A, B, and C. But can they achieve that, whatever it is that they would want to achieve by funding the right or at least funding the non-left?
	Well, I doubt it, because however many people you cure, let's say that you came up with a cure for lung cancer, but let's say government schools were forcing children to smoke 30 cigarettes a day from the age of five onwards, right?
	Would you ever stop the cancer?
	No, because you'd be curing people at difficulty and expense and challenge as adults, but there'd be way more people with damaged lungs coming out of the schools than you could ever cure afterwards.
	And so the prevalence of cancer would still increase, even if you came up with some relatively easy cure for cancer.
	The crazy people, like the sick people are being manufactured faster than you can make them healthy.
	And it's the same thing.
	Even if you were to fund something in the world that promoted sort of reason and facts and truth and evidence and all that kind of stuff, well, you've still got millions of people pouring out of government schools and universities and so on every year who are directly opposed and have been programmed to be sort of vicious and violent towards your course of reason and evidence.
	And so what's the point?
	I mean, They're producing far more unstable ideologues than you can ever convert into rational thinkers.
	So, again, I'm not, I don't have any idea.
	I'm not speaking for any wealthy people, but I would imagine that the equation goes something like that.
	Okay, cost benefit.
	Okay, the cost is considerable.
	What can I achieve?
	Well, it's not going to be to make money because they already have money, so that's not worth it.
	Is it to affect and achieve some sort of positive cultural change?
	Well, unless the educational system is dealt with, you're just, again, you're patching up something that the whole is just getting bigger every year.
	Yeah, I mean, I agree.
	I suppose if I'm more precise with my question, the way I ask it, what I'm trying to ask is today, the risk benefit, it doesn't make sense.
	It doesn't make sense to fund a person on the right.
	The cost benefit doesn't shake out to do so for the reasons that you mentioned.
	I guess what I'm wondering is, and especially given your historical background of looking at society through the ages, was it kind of always the case where it's more dangerous or risky to be vocal, to be promoting a right-wing, smaller government kind of position, or however we define right-wing.
	Is there something intrinsic, even absent the modern era, that would make that a riskier deal?
	Or were there some periods of time where actually, you know, you could be more vocally right-wing and actually, you know, that would be the dominant thing you could fund and support.
	And then, you know, the risks wouldn't be there.
	No, it's, it's never, it's never been safe because when people are getting their resources from the government through the force of the political process, when people are getting their resources from the government, then it's a matter of incentives, right?
	So the old example, of course, is the sugar industry, right?
	So the sugar industry gets a certain amount of subsidies and they get a certain amount of protection because there are tariffs in America.
	There are tariffs on foreign imports of sugar and there are subsidies to the sugar industry.
	And that drives up the price of sugar to the point where people start looking for these, you know, cane sort of weird chemical substitutes for sugar because it's too expensive, right?
	So they get, you know, tens of millions of dollars a year, the sugar industry, but what does it cost the average American a couple of bucks a year out of there, right?
	So it's dispersed cost and concentrated benefits are always dangerous to try to overturn.
	Because let's say that the average American makes 15 bucks an hour, right?
	But let's say that it's $15 a year that they lose because sugar is more expensive.
	So they have no more incentive than one hour to put into preventing the sugar subsidies and tariffs and so on, right?
	But the sugar industry getting tens of billions of dollars, sorry, tens of millions of dollars a year in benefits could be more.
	I'm just sort of going with some number like that.
	Well, they have all of that money and multiples of that money to spend on making sure that those benefits don't stop, right?
	So the cost to the general public is very small.
	The benefits to the concentrated minority is very large.
	And so they have a great incentive to keep it going.
	And you only have a very small financial incentive to stop it.
	And if you get close to stopping it, well, you know, people will do a lot for tens of millions of dollars a year, right?
	Because it's not just a one-time thing.
	It's tens of millions of dollars a year.
	So that's, you know, $100, $200 million over a decade.
	That's a lot of money, right?
	So what would they do?
	Well, they would do a lot.
	They would do almost everything and almost anything to keep those going.
	Now, if it was just one industry, of course, that would be one thing, but it's 10,000 industries, each of which get a concentrated benefit while the costs are diffused.
	So it's like it's like trying to stay alive when you have 10,000 mosquitoes in the tent, right?
	I mean, you can swap some, I guess, right?
	But they're breeding and there's more.
	There's a hole in the tent.
	They keep pouring in and you got to sleep at some point and you're just not going to do well over time.
	So yeah, it's always difficult and dangerous to reduce government because it's not like it's not like you spilled some paint and you just kind of mop it up, right?
	You are withdrawing massive benefits from specific individuals and small concentrated sections of power and only benefiting.
	And of course, now, this is one of the reasons why debt and deficits and in particular unfunded liabilities is so bad, is because if you were to say to people, we need to cut government, no money would go back into people's pockets because the debt and deficit is so large.
	So normally, if you cut your spending, you get more money in the bank, right?
	But if you cut your spending and you're half a million dollars in debt, let's say it's not even a mortgage, it's some other crazy thing, or let's say $100,000 of credit card debt at some insane APR.
	So you cut all of this spending to the bone and you don't see a penny because it's all going to pay off the debt.
	And that's going to go on for years and years and years and years and years and years and years.
	And so it's one thing to say to people, well, we're going to cut all of this government spending and you're going to also, you're going to end up with more money in your pocket.
	But no, because you cut the government spending and all you're doing is paying the deficit, the debt, and trying to save like hell for the unfunded liabilities.
	So you're asking people to sacrifice for just a massive net negative.
	So you're asking people who are getting concentrated benefits worth tens of millions of dollars a year to give all of that up.
	And you're not even handing the savings to the general consumer because it's all going after the debt and deficit.
	So it is not reversible politically at this point.
	Yeah, no, that's a very comprehensive, I think, detailing of the dynamic.
	Well, I guess the last question I had today was: in your survey of history, I'm curious what you would think about the following mapping.
	It's starting to trend a little bit.
	And the idea is that, you know, since the Enlightenment, when kicking off the revolutionary spirit, we entered first the arc of the tyrannical father, which would be the authoritarian regimes.
	Of course, the communist regime, Stalin, and then Hitler.
	And then we switched from tyrannical father to the devouring mother from the 60s, the overindulgence, the comfort, this kind of hyper-feminization.
	And then the idea now is that we're entering, maybe we've already entered actually, the era of the vengeful sun, which is to say, you know, this new generation where they realize everyone's lying to them, the doctors, the parents, all the institutions.
	It's all just a lie.
	They have this nihilistic nothing means anything.
	And I just want to burn it down.
	I'm not going to fix it.
	I'm just going to burn it all down.
	Kind of vengeful sun spirit of the times.
	And of course, we see this in like some of these mass shootings, and specifically for the kids who were given the hormone treatments, you know, with the gender dysphoria and all this kind of stuff.
	So that, I mean, would that fit?
	Is that a fair kind of arc of the stories, or would you disagree with some of that framing?
	So are you putting it in sort of psychohistory terms, those are Lloyd DeMasse terms and all of that?
	Yeah, I suppose.
	Sure.
	Yeah.
	You're right.
	I suppose that would be the category.
	Well, I think, again, it's the psychohistory stuff is important, but it's not fundamentally psychological.
	So young men have a lot of rebellious, skeptical, and nihilistic energy, which is good.
	It's how society is supposed to get challenged and renew itself.
	You know, you can't get a new snake skin without shedding the old snake skin.
	So how does society tame the wild, nihilistic, skeptical, and often hostile rebellious energy of teenagers, and in particular, the boys?
	Well, society says, yeah, we'd really like you to obey the rules that we have.
	And here's what you're going to get.
	You know, I offer you, in return for your compliance with social rules, I offer you income, a wife, kids, a house, a nice neighborhood, good schools, and a pleasant life.
	That's what I offer you in return.
	And that's the deal that traditionally has been made to the rebellious youth: curb your rebellion and you get some cool stuff.
	And fundamentally, it comes down to reproduction.
	Fundamentally, it comes down to reproduction.
	Now, if it is the case that reproduction has become impossible in the system that is, if it has become the case that reproduction has become impossible, then you can bribe people with casual sex.
	You can bribe them, I suppose, with masturbation and things like that for a time.
	But at some point, the genes are like, holy shitballs, bro.
	If we like, we're done.
	And then there's a sort of existential panic, or to put it another way, or in my usual reformulation, those genes that didn't have an existential panic at their inability to reproduce didn't reproduce.
	And so the ones that have reproduced are those that freak out.
	And you can see this, of course, you can see this genetically with women who get baby rabies, right?
	This sort of fever that happens sort of early to mid to late 30s to just have a baby and just they just either all they can think of and they just get this kind of fever.
	That's the genes saying, hey, door's closing.
	Let's get another generation here.
	Otherwise, it's dead end after 4 billion years, right?
	So for the young, the question is, can I reproduce?
	And if they can't reproduce, preventing the young men from reproducing, and the young women, but the young men generally a bit more active this way.
	But preventing young men from reproducing is a fundamental pressure buildup in a society.
	And the destabilization of society is essential to the leftist revolutionary spirit, right?
	The leftist revolution, I mean, there's not much.
	That's why they hate the 50s so much, right?
	Not only was there a very sort of high white birth rate, but also there was a stability and a productivity and a level of comfort and ease.
	You know, the old one guy could have a wife and three kids and a car and a nice house.
	There was peace and stability.
	And that tends to produce fewer, less rebellion and so on.
	And so the way that you destabilize society at its most fundamental is, well, there's two ways.
	Number one is you prevent the young from reproducing and then this sort of desperation and a desire for change kicks in.
	That's number one.
	And number two, you forcibly transfer resources from one group to another.
	So the interesting question is, how does the genetics of a young man in the West how does it perceive things like the welfare state?
	Well, it perceives it as having been conquered.
	Because when you are conquered as a society, your resources are taken from you and given to the conquerors.
	And so when young men in particular see all of their resources or a lot of their resources being taken away, other opportunities being taken away and given to others, there's a rebellion about that because there is a perception of having been conquered.
	And then there's a sort of revolution, a revolutionary spirit that enters from there, if that makes sense.
	Yeah, no, that's a great point, right?
	I guess you could just streamline it down to reproductive access or viability and the attack on the family and male-female relationships and even direct chemical castration.
	I mean, that'll directly get rid of your ability to reproduce.
	It's, yeah, that does seem to be a good explanatory simplification that works, that predicts.
	Yeah, because the genes say anything but this is an improvement.
	I'll risk anything because I'm going to die anyway.
	The genes are going to die out anyway.
	Some change is necessary.
	And then, of course, the hard leftists come along with the change.
	Ah, this is going to get you what you want.
	And, you know, like, well, if the plane is going down, I might as well jump because I'm going to die if I stay, right?
	So, yeah.
	All right.
	Is there anything else you want to say?
	Right on.
	Thank you, Stefan.
	Appreciate you having me up.
	Thank you very much.
	Appreciate it.
	All right.
	Alex, Alexikov, what is on your mind, my friend?
	Hi.
	Hi, Stefan.
	So sorry to derail the conversation a little bit.
	I just have a question that I wanted to ask you.
	And I'm not going to debate that or judge or anything.
	I just want to hear your take on this.
	What's the most mystical or supernatural thing that you will be willing to believe in?
	Okay, so you know what you have to do now, right?
	No.
	You don't know what you have to do now?
	How long have you been listening to what I do, bro?
	I don't know, like from time to time for like two months.
	Two months.
	Okay.
	So when you are having a philosophical, even if you don't want to debate, if you just want an answer, the first thing you have to do is define your terms.
	What do you mean by supernatural?
	Yeah.
	Something that you cannot explain with science and you will never be able to explain with science.
	Okay.
	Is there an explanation that is possible, but doesn't involve, say, reason and evidence?
	I would say yes.
	Yeah.
	And explain to me, if you would be so kind.
	So that sounds like I'm giving you an order.
	Explain.
	No, tell me what you mean by a methodology that doesn't involve reason and evidence.
	That is a good way to believe in something.
	Yes.
	There are some things you cannot really measure directly, but you can observe the effects of such things if they exist.
	In a way, that's kind of like a measurement as well.
	But you cannot just go and measure this thing.
	know what I mean?
	But you see that it's like...
	Do you mean like gravity?
	Hmm...
	I mean, like you go to a beach and then you see the sand and then you see some footsteps.
	You don't really know who made those things, but you know someone was there, right?
	Okay, so that's inference.
	That's measurement.
	Yeah, that's measurement.
	But that's reason.
	Hang on, but that's reason and evidence, right?
	Yes.
	Well, so I asked you for something that's not reason and evidence that proves something.
	Hang on, let me let me see if I can.
	I won't say help you out a little bit because I'm not saying you need help, but let me let me sort of try it.
	Uh, it sort of explain it this way.
	Yeah, so is it the case that you're saying if you see a bunch of footsteps on the sand, you assume that somebody has walked there, but that assumption may not be correct.
	It could be somebody, it could be somebody in a hot air balloon going low over the beach with shoes on a stick.
	Is that what you say?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yes.
	Okay, right.
	Okay, so I mean, I sorry, go ahead.
	One in a quadrillion chance that the uh peaks of sand were arranged that way, and then you just believe that there are footsteps or whatever.
	I mean, you don't really know, so you have to jump into some belief at some point, right?
	In this like very simple case, it's like, okay, yeah, I choose to believe that uh there was a human here and it was walking, uh, and and I see footsteps because of that, and that's it's a plausible explanation, but it involves a very small leap of uh of faith and belief, right?
	Because you have to you have that well, hang on, hang on, hang on, and that's it's a very interesting question that you bring up.
	So, the difference is between to be mildly technical is between syllogistical reasoning.
	So, uh, syllogistical reasoning is all men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore, Socrates is mortal.
	So, that's called deductive reasoning, it's 100%.
	Now, inductive reasoning is there are footsteps on the beach.
	The most likely explanation is that someone walked along the beach, although it could have been something else, but by far the most likely said one in a quadrillion or whatever, by far the most likely explanation is that somebody walked along the beach, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	Now, does it take faith to believe that human footsteps were left by human people?
	But I would say yes, a slightly bit of faith, because you're if you only if you can like state that you're absolutely sure that there were humans doing those footsteps, and you cannot really ever say that, but then you can like behave as if as if that was the case.
	Well, sure, but is it faith if you see human footsteps to say a human being walked here?
	Is that a matter of faith?
	I would say yes, not like religious faith, like believing in God or something like that, but kind of like you rely on this kind of like extrapolation from previous experience, what's the most common thing, whatever, but you're still not 100% sure.
	So, it's like a 0.01% leap of faith or something like that.
	Well, is it a leap of faith?
	And there's interesting questions, right?
	Is it a leap of faith?
	I would say that those are those are human footsteps when it could have been.
	I mean, a human made a human made them, even if it's somebody in a hot air balloon with boots on a stick, right?
	Yes, yeah, yeah.
	So, it is not if you see human footsteps, it's not a leap of faith to say people made them.
	Uh, for me, it is slightly different.
	Okay, so tell me how, hang on, tell me how human footsteps show up on a beach without people doing it in some manner.
	Well, I mean, there, there, there's plenty of alternatives, right?
	Because you're so you're saying human footsteps a priori, but you just when it actually is like you see shapes in the sand that resemble human footsteps, which is slightly different, right?
	And then, well, okay, so let's let's let's do a couple of layers, and I appreciate the conversation.
	Let's do a couple of layers of probability.
	Yeah, if you see a person walking on the sand, you know for sure, right?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay.
	Okay, so that's not a leap of faith.
	If you glance up and there are a bunch of footsteps right in front of you, and then 10 feet away, there's a guy walking, and the footsteps lead directly to him.
	Are you certain?
	Yeah, you, I, I would say, like, yeah, it was that guy.
	Oh, yeah.
	So those are human footsteps, right?
	Yes.
	And if you see human footsteps and there's a guy 20 feet away, you're still certain if he's like, I don't know, 100 feet away and it leads to him, you're certain, right?
	That he made those footsteps.
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Okay.
	Now, if all you see are the footsteps and you don't see the person, maybe you napped for a long time, right?
	You wake up and you see the footsteps and you don't see the person.
	Yeah.
	How sure are you that a person walked?
	Almost 100%, but not 100%.
	Because you don't see that person, right?
	You don't see that person, right?
	Yeah.
	But I mean, any reasonable human, me, I would say, yeah, like they were made by somebody who worked here sometime before.
	Okay.
	Is it faith if it is the maximum possible standard of truth?
	In other words, if you see human footsteps, and by that I mean, you know, five toes, the heel, you know, that kind of stuff, right?
	So not just like holes in the ground that the tide went in and out of, but like actual human footsteps.
	So if you see human footsteps and you say those are human footsteps, that is the most certainty that you can get in that situation, assuming that there's no video that you could rewind.
	That is the most certainty that you can get in that situation, right?
	Yes.
	Yeah.
	Okay.
	Now, is it fair to say that you need faith to achieve a level of certainty that is impossible?
	Yeah, because it's just, yeah, I get the impossible part of that.
	Now, and also, it's sort of a language thing, right?
	Yeah.
	So I'm sure you're aware that in law, there's sort of two standards of proof in most common law systems.
	The first standard of proof is for criminal behavior, and it is proof beyond a reasonable doubt, which is like 95% or more certain, right?
	Yes.
	And then there is the preponderance of evidence, which is like 51% certain, which is for civil cases, usually involving just money, monetary damages.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah.
	Now, if somebody is found guilty of murder, they're proven guilty of murder in a court of law, and we say he was proven guilty of murder.
	Are we talking 100% or 95% plus?
	I would say 95% plus.
	Right.
	Right.
	However, we don't put those caveats into what we're saying.
	We don't say, well, he's proven guilty of murder.
	I mean, 95% plus, it is proof beyond a reasonable doubt.
	Like, we don't put these just like he was found guilty of murder, right?
	When you pick up the newspaper and say so-and-so was found guilty of murder today, and now legally you can call him a murderer.
	He can't sue you for defamation because it's been proven in the court of law.
	And so he is treated as a murderer, right?
	Yes.
	Okay.
	However, and so we would use that standard that he's a murderer, he's guilty of murder, he's been proven to be a murderer.
	We would use that in the same language that we would use somebody who was on film killing someone and confessed, which would be 100% proof, right?
	Yeah.
	So everything that we do has gray areas.
	So even you and I having this conversation, right?
	We started this conversation, which, again, I find very helpful and interesting.
	So we started this conversation where you said, is there what is the minimum amount of superstition or the minimum amount of superstitious entity that you would be willing to accept exists or something like that, right?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah.
	Right.
	And so I said, well, I don't know what you mean by exists or believe or superstition.
	I need to define terms.
	Now, every word that we use has fuzzy edges.
	Yes.
	Right.
	So when I say the word word, that has a fuzzy edge because there are some foreign intrusions into English that we could use, deja vu and so on.
	And there also is some slang and nuance may or may not accept as being objective, or we might not understand them.
	You know, like my daughter is a teenager, so she needs to come with subtitles sometimes because it's a living language that's changed quite a bit.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	So she ate that up.
	It's like, what does that mean?
	Right.
	So, so even the word word has fuzzy edges, right?
	Yes.
	And even the word fuzzy has fuzzy edges because you and I would have different ideas of what a valid word is or not.
	In fact, there are big debates every year about what makes it into the dictionary, right?
	Yeah.
	So, everything that we do involves fuzziness.
	There is no absolute contact of the mind that can prove everything.
	In terms of 100%, right?
	I mean, you might mistake something.
	I might mishear something.
	There could be a hiccup in our internet connection.
	And this has actually happened to me.
	Somebody says, You can't believe that.
	And I think I hear you can believe that because the tea gets hiccupped out of the conversation.
	So there is a lot of there's an almost infinite nature of fuzzy edges.
	In order for us to have a conversation, we have to accept a lack of absolute certainty in everything that we're doing.
	Yes.
	So, but and yet we still can still do it, right?
	Yeah.
	I'm thinking of this.
	So I'm going to ask you the same question.
	It's the same question from a different facet, but it sounds like a different question.
	You mentioned this, well, on this example of the sun, you said you, let's say you already have all the information that you can have.
	You mentioned that.
	So let's say, let's think of the concept that all the information that is there may not necessarily be available to you.
	Like in general.
	Okay, so now humans, we humans in this world, we can only disregard how advanced is our technology or whatever, there has to be a limit on all the information that we can query out of this.
	I'm sorry, I need to interrupt you for a second.
	I'm sorry to interrupt.
	I was starting to make a case here, and I'm not sure what we're doing now.
	So I was starting to make a case.
	And my case had a little bit more to go to it, which was around because I feel like we're just going off in some other direction now.
	So that's not your issue.
	I just need to be sort of finished the case.
	So could you and I have a conversation if we demanded perfect accuracy in everything we were saying, that we absolutely agreed on everything, every definition of every word?
	No, it would be just argumentative without making sense.
	It would not go forward, whatever.
	Yeah.
	Well, it could never work because I would say to you, what's your definition of supernatural?
	And you would say, what's your definition of what?
	Your absolute definition.
	So it would just go on and on.
	And we would never get anywhere.
	If I say, lend me $10, I'll pay you back tomorrow.
	And then you said, well, you need to pay me back the exact amount that that $10 is worth tomorrow.
	I could never pay you back because the value of $10 is even at the $1,000 of a penny is fluctuating constantly.
	So I just have to give you a $10 bill back tomorrow, even though it's not worth exactly what you lent to me because the money has changed value, even to a small degree in a day.
	Is that fair to put?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	Right.
	So you couldn't have any functionality in the world if you demand perfect levels.
	So for instance, if you are buying some cheese and you say, give me a quarter pound of cheese, can they get you exactly a quarter pound?
	No.
	No, they can't.
	Yeah.
	It's impossible.
	It's impossible.
	Because even if they get you a perfect quarter pound, when they lift it up from the weighing machine, some cheese is going to stick to it.
	And now it's no longer a perfect quarter pound, right?
	It's physically impossible to get a quarter pound of cheese, right?
	Yes.
	So everything is fuzzy.
	You say, well, we need faith because there's fuzzy stuff.
	It's like, no, we don't, because everything is fuzzy.
	We can't interact with anyone about anything if we demand absolute perfection and absolute clarity.
	So if you're going to say, well, we need faith to believe in things where we don't have direct, perfect evidence, then I would reply that the fact that you're interacting with me means that you're willing to accept some fuzzy boundaries, and yet we are not asking each other to believe in contradictory things.
	We are simply negotiating and going back and forth on how to best get to the truth.
	So for instance, if I'm making this case, I say, well, you can't get a perfect quarter pound of cheese.
	And you say, yes, I agree that we can't get a perfect quarter pound of cheese.
	I mean, you could even say that a certain amount of the Earth is escaping into outer space, right?
	Wind gets blown, dust gets blown up to the stratosphere.
	And so the Earth's mass is constantly changing, and therefore a quarter pound is going to be constantly changing.
	I mean, you could really go down to levels that would drive you completely insane.
	And yes, and yet we function, and yet we function, right?
	Yes.
	And so saying we have to accept a certain amount of ambivalence in order to function in society.
	I mean, if you said, I will only drink water that is pure H2O, you would die of thirst because you're never going to get that water that is pure H2O, right?
	There's going to be something else.
	I'm only going to breathe air that never has whatever.
	It only has this sort of what they say in the textbooks, you know, the nitrogen, the oxygen, this carbon, and so on.
	And say, I'm only going to, you're never going to breathe that air because it's always going to be mixed in with something, right?
	So we survive in fuzziness.
	We live in fuzziness.
	Fuzziness is life.
	It is the human condition.
	And so saying that that's the same level of faith that I need, or it's the same category that I need to believe in something like a square circle or something that is self-contradictory or anti-rational or anti-empirical in nature in its definition is not the same category.
	So saying, well, we can get a quarter pound of cheese is pretty accurate, right?
	And say, well, I can't get the perfect quarter pound of cheese, so I need faith that it's a quarter pound of cheese.
	It's like, no, no, I can read it on the, I can read it on the readout.
	I can see the little needle on the way scale and it's going to a quarter pound, right?
	So it's close.
	It's close enough.
	It's close enough for government workers saying that something used to be around when I was a kid.
	So saying, well, it's never a perfect quarter pound of cheese.
	So I need faith as a quarter pound of cheese is not the same category as saying that I also need faith to believe that it is a quarter pound of cheese and an elephant and a basketball at the same time.
	Did you see what I mean?
	Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
	So one is accurate, but not perfect accuracy, whatever that would mean.
	And the other is self-contradictory.
	Something cannot be both a block of cheese, an elephant, and a basketball at the same time.
	Can we agree on that?
	Right.
	So we have fuzzy boundaries which are impossible to satisfy, but is good enough to live.
	And that's just, I don't think we need faith for that.
	I do think that we would need faith to believe that something is a square circle could exist, or that two and two would make five, things that are logically and empirically self-contradictory.
	That's where the faith comes in.
	So if you were to ask me, as you did, and thank you for your patience while I go through this explanation, but if you were to ask me, what is the least supernatural entity that you would accept, I would say, I accept the possibility of any entity that does not contradict reason and evidence.
	So I accept that there could be what we call dragons living on another planet, giant flying lizards that maybe could exhale methane and spark a fire between their teeth and breathe out fire, like whatever it is, right?
	I accept that if we define a unicorn as a horse with a horn on its head, I accept that there can be things that look like a horse with a horn on their head living somewhere in the universe.
	Because those entities do not contradict their own nature.
	So there are things that we know do exist, real horses, we know real horses exist.
	There are things which could exist, such as horses with horns on their heads, those could exist.
	And there are things which could not exist.
	So if a unicorn can fly, not a Pegasus, but just then you would say a unicorn is a horse that has mass, but is immune to gravity.
	Well, then I would say that cannot exist because everything that has mass is subject to gravity.
	So I would accept the possibility that just about anything could exist as long as it does not contradict reason and evidence.
	But I would never accept that self-contradictory entities could exist.
	That's my sort of answer to your question, if that makes sense.
	Yes, but I would like to know an instance of that.
	Like, I mean, you gave this example of dragons in another planet where that might be possible.
	Is there something like that on planet Earth that you will be willing to believe in?
	Or just none.
	Sorry.
	Oh, any non-self-contradictory entity could exist.
	Could there be dragons in some underground caves?
	I mean, I consider it highly unlikely.
	Yeah, okay.
	But my question was something that you believe in already.
	Like something that you say, I think this is real on planet Earth.
	And that does not contradict reason and like in the way you constructed the question, like make it compatible with that.
	But something that you already believe in.
	Well, I fully accept that there are undersea creatures that we have yet to discover.
	Nice.
	Right?
	I mean, down the Mariana Trench, it takes like an hour from the surface to get to the bottom.
	There's some freaky stuff down there, right?
	I mean, full-on, you know, chasing the Nemo and around the planet.
	So I fully accept, of course, that there are creatures.
	I would say the Earth as a whole has been pretty well mapped, so I'd be kind of, I mean, I'm sure there's still some stuff deep in the jungle that we haven't yet found.
	But I think for certain in the deeper water.
	stuff that we don't know.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	That's the kind of answer I wanted without getting into all the, yeah.
	But then our supernatural entities.
	They are, yeah.
	No, no, they're not supernatural entities.
	Supernatural is that which goes against reason and evidence.
	You're right.
	Yeah, you're right.
	They're just, I don't know, undiscovered, whatever, unexplained, but not necessarily out of the realm of possibility of this universe, right?
	Yeah, absolutely.
	Yeah.
	Absolutely.
	Instantly.
	All right.
	Well, listen, I've got a bunch more callers, but I really think that's a very, my pleasure.
	It's a very interesting topic, and I do love working with this kind of stuff.
	All right.
	And again, rather than looking at the content of people's arguments, I find it important to look at the form of them and say, what level of proof do we need to accept in order to have the conversation?
	And if you're willing to accept fuzzy boundaries in order to have a conversation, you can't demand perfect certainty as a result.
	All right.
	Ren Shid.
	What is on your mind?
	Going once, going twice.
	All right.
	I think we'll move on to Scooby.
	What is on your mind?
	Don't make me do the Rutt Row voice.
	Oh, he's kind of come and gone as well.
	All right.
	Draco, we already talked to.
	And Ranchid is not chatting.
	All right.
	Not the end of the world.
	We will.
	Yeah, he's not.
	Okay.
	Well, I'll stop here.
	And I really do appreciate people being able to jump in and have a chat.
	And this short notice, I have a call-in show tonight, so I should probably get a wee bit of dinner before I'm trying this thing now where I don't eat until I'm desperately hungry.
	So I'm getting there.
	So, of course, thank you everyone so much for your time, care, and attention today.
	We are in our 21st year of philosophy.
	I'm immensely proud of that and immensely grateful to everyone here who has made this possible.
	And free to man.com slash denade to help out the show.
	Boy, do you get a really great bunch of goodies.
	I just finished the recording of one of my favorite chapters in my new book.
	It's called chapter 19, which isn't going to teach you much, but it is really, really great stuff.
	I'm very, very pleased with this book.
	And I really thank everyone for the opportunity to do what I do.
	Freedomain.com slash denade to help out the show.
	And we will talk to you for sure Wednesday night, 7 p.m.

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