Hope you are having a glorious Sunday this 7th of December, 2025.
And I am here for you because you're here for me too.
And I hope you're doing well.
If you have questions, comments, issues, challenges, problems, unlike Marillion, I say, do give me your problems.
He knows, you know, oh, the randomness.
Anyway, if you have questions, issues, challenges, problems, criticisms, whatever's on your mind, I am thrilled, overjoyed, beyond happy to help.
It stimulates every atom of my being to bring philosophy to bear on whatever challenges you're facing.
And while we await the tsunami of questions that can come in over this lovely tech space, I give to you, I give to you my issues.
Oh, yes, let's talk about me for a minute.
So I went to go, I have a little bit, for those who are new, I have a little bit of a fetish for the singing multi-layered buck teeth vocals of Juan Falsook Farouk Bulsara, a.k.a. Freddie Mercury.
And my wife got me tickets to a show in Toronto.
This was for my birthday back in September, my birthday month, really, which I inflict on everyone around me and which they studiously ignore, except for the one day when they shouldn't.
But she got me tickets to a show called We Will Rock You, which is playing in Toronto.
So we went in, and it's a five-week run.
I mean, I highly, highly recommend it.
It is a fun, fun show.
And it's a blast.
The talent is prodigious.
I mean, they call it triple threat in the theater world.
Triple threats is when you can sing, you can act, and you can dance.
What was it they said about Bing Crosby?
Or Gene Kelly can't act, can't sing and dance a little.
Anyway, so we went to the show.
Highly recommend it.
It's, I mean, they're putting their vocals to the test.
Freddie Mercury is not too bad for women to sing because he just sits in altar, right?
Freddie Mercury was naturally a baritone, but he pushed himself to be more of a tenor.
But the talent is astounding.
I mean, good-looking people.
They are great dancers.
The singing was all pretty spectacular.
For men to do Freddy is pretty tough.
People even got the high notes.
The guy who looked like a Mormon, he hit the high notes of the show must go on.
Not the easiest thing in the known universe.
And it was funny.
It was energetic.
It was moving.
You know, there's a song that Brian May wrote about the death of Freddie Mercury called Only the Good Die Young.
The Hounds Across the Water.
And it just sort of burst out.
And I wasn't expecting it because it's not exactly a queen head, but a very moving song.
Brian May, absolute can't seem a genius.
By the by, I just want to mention this.
I mean, Bro is a fantastic guitarist, great lyricist, great songwriter, great performer, and, you know, soft-voiced, fairly existentially nihilistic atheist, it seems.
And yeah, I mean, if you can do a PhD in astrophysics and write Fat Bottom Girls, let's just say you have a talent stack, as Scott Adams would say.
Hope he's doing well.
And the show was fantastic and really enjoyable.
I haven't seen a live musical in many years.
And so, of course, you're sitting there in the audience and you're looking at these people dancing, singing, acting.
You know, they make you laugh.
They make you cry a little.
I mean, it's just really a fantastic show.
And the stagecraft is astounding.
For those of you who don't know, I spent a couple of years at the National Theater School studying acting and playwriting.
And what you could do back then was pretty limited.
I remember people being astounded when in Les Minister it looked like the guy actually jumped from the bridge.
But this backdrop, the sets, the scenery, ah, staggering.
And only for a five-week run.
Now, it was a little bit of a gerontocracy.
It was boomer.
It was like a boomer graveyard in there, but most people made it out, I think.
But anyway, so I was kind of curious.
My wife and I were chatting on the way home.
And she said, I wonder how much they get paid.
Because, you know, you're in the audience, they're doing all of this spectacular stuff.
Now, having been trained as an actor and a singer and a playwright and so on, let me tell you, it takes a long time to become good at this stuff.
Years and years and years to become good, to become a great singer, to become a great performer, to know how to work with the audience, to be able to sing and dance at the same time, which is insane, by the way.
Try singing opera while doing an aerobics workout, and you too will be ordered to leave the gym.
So it's really spectacular.
So my wife said, I wonder how much they get paid.
And I said, well, I assume it's standard rates, right?
That there's a union, actor in the U.S., I guess there's a Canadian equivalent.
There's a union that negotiates on behalf of the actors.
And she said, I bet it's quite a bit.
And it does seem that way because, you know, you look at the average person, you may go to a karaoke night, like how many people can really sing well, plus they have charisma, plus they can dance, plus they can act.
Like it's just, it's a rare combo.
And usually they're good looking.
I mean, the people all looked spectacular and sang beautifully and all of that and would genuinely seem to be having a lot of fun.
I guarantee you that's an actor who did a lot of team building exercises because especially comedies that have to be collaborative.
And if the actors aren't having fun, the audience sure isn't having fun.
Anyway, so we looked it up.
And I mean, for those who have any sort of vague interest, look, I don't care about me, care about philosophy.
But if you have any kind of curiosity about me, then this was a road that I was going to take.
I was going to be an artist.
I've always loved philosophy, but art was where my heart was.
I mean, philosophy is where my head is at.
Art is where my heart is.
And I wanted to be an artist, an artist, I tell you.
And I come from a long line of on my mother's side, in particular, writers.
And I don't know if they performed or gave speeches, but I know there were a lot of writers.
My uncle got an award for like a national award, top poem, in Germany.
And another uncle of mine wrote a history of trade unionism that was very popular.
And just a lot of writers and intellectuals and so on.
On my father's side, a lot of soldiers.
This is sort of the price.
My family is aristocratic going back to 1066 in Ireland, which is not really something I knew about until much later on in life.
But I think I get my punchy side from my father's and my writing and communication side from my mother's.
It's sort of a happy coincidence about how it all came together.
But I know how tough it is to do what it is that these guys are doing.
So I was like, I wonder how much it is.
So that was going to be my path.
So this is interesting.
So in Canada, professional stage actors and major productions like We Will Rock You are typically members of the Canadian Actors Equity Association or Kahoo, Kahu, something like that.
The union for live performance artists.
They negotiate minimum weekly fees through agreements, blah, blah, blah.
It's a little surprising.
It's a little surprising.
So if we were lively live, I would say, what is your guess?
It was less than I thought that these guys get paid.
Now, I don't know what these guys get paid individually.
There's no public disclosure of the salaries of the We Will Rock Ucast, just so you know.
So I don't have any particular idea of how much they're paid as a whole.
So minimum weekly pay for ensemble chorus, chorus, right?
So they get 1,300.
This is Canadian, right?
1,300 and change a week.
Understudies get 1,500 a week.
So principal roles such as Galileo, Scaramouche, Killer Queen, Khashoggi, etc.
And they get 1,346 base plus a negotiated over scale of, you know, they might get 1,800, 2,500, maybe at the top 3,000 a week.
So that's wild.
Oh, so it says here it's a seven-week Toronto stop.
So you're talking a couple of thousand a week.
And that's pretty wild for the level of talent.
And because it's years and years, you don't just sort of step off the street and like modeling, I suppose, you just, you know, they, hey, you're pretty.
And then you go for some photo shoots and you just sort of be pretty, right?
You can just kind of do that, right?
But it's, I mean, honestly, being actor, singer, dancer, you have to have vocal training because you've got, you know, these guys who are, you know, belting top of their lungs, really challenging songs.
Queen's songs are intricate and challenging.
And these guys are belting at the top of their lungs two hours at a stretch, maybe a little more.
It was two hours 40, but that included an intermission for the boomers to empty their bladders, which was quite lengthy.
And you have to, have to, have to take care of your voice because you have to hit those notes and it's a lot of strain on the voice.
And, you know, if you're a dancer, you can work on your muscles.
And obviously, as a singer, you have to train very extensively to not damage your voice.
Freddie Mercury himself eschewed training because he wanted to have a sort of raw natural sound.
And he got these nodes, which are these sort of rubbed, raw parts of the voice.
He got them in the early to mid-70s and nodules, I think nodules they were called.
The same thing that Julie Andrews got operated on and it destroyed her singing voice.
And Freddie Mercury refused to get them operated on because he was, of course, like he refused to get his teeth fixed.
He had extra teeth, which is why he had the giant overbite because he didn't want to affect his voice.
So you have to train a lot.
You have to train for years.
A friend of mine is a singer and was, you know, in the process of destroying his voice when he got the training and it saved it, right?
Celine Dion doesn't even didn't even talk when she was doing her Vegas residency.
She couldn't talk during the day when inveterate belter Phil Collins was on the road with Genesis or Solo.
You know, there's something in the air tonight guy or in the air tonight guy.
Take me home, lovely songs.
Anyway, he wouldn't even phone to talk to his children.
He had to fax them because he had to save his voice.
So there's a lot of work, a lot of training.
It's more like being a professional athlete, which, of course, you in part get paid for all of the time it takes to learn how to do that kind of stuff.
But I was really, I was shocked.
And you know me, hard to shock.
But isn't that wild that you have to study for years?
And I was reading because I was reading one of the cast members, this was a black guy who was not the greatest singer, but intense and immense physicality in the role.
And he brought the kind of energy that is sort of incandescent and I would normally associate with drugs, though I'm sure he's clean.
And I think he was, I was reading just out of curiosity, a little bit of the background of the performance.
And he's like, oh, yes, I'm doing this.
I also teach voice, voice lessons and things like that.
And of course, this seems a bit odd, right?
You know, I don't think Freddie Mercury did voice lessons, taught voice lessons, because they need side gigs.
And so you get paid, you know, $1,500, $2,500, maybe at the top end, something like $3,000.
Again, I don't know about these guys individually, but because it's negotiated individually.
And you've got, you know, whether it's a five or seven week run, it's a pretty short thing.
You really don't make much.
And then, of course, you take that money and you are living in Toronto, very expensive.
You can't do much outside of the show because you have to save your voice, right?
So if you say, break down the take-home pay, because when artists make money, often they'll have to, I mean, usually, I think almost always, they have to give 10% to their agent, right?
So that's 300 off your 3,000, right?
So you then have to pay a couple of points, couple of percentage to your union.
And of course, you've got to pay taxes and all kinds of stuff, right?
So your weekly take-home for a principal, even with overscale, 2,000 to 3,000, their take-home is $1,300 to $2,000 plus.
$1,300 to $2,000 for that kind of work, right?
Because you're paying a weekly basis, $200 federal income tax, provincial tax, $110,000, CPP, Canada pension plan, $80.
EI, you know, some money, RSP contribution, health insurance premiums.
Yeah.
It's wild.
Seven-week production means total earnings are limited, $9,400 to $10,800 gross for ensemble at a minimum.
And it's a tough life as an actor.
So, I mean, the question is why?
is it so high?
Sorry, why is it so low?
I could get the words right.
I could get the words right, but why bother with that?
All right.
See, I can't even get my script right.
That's why I'm doing this, not that.
So why is it so low?
I mean, the commercial theater scene is much smaller than the U.S. Toronto is the primary hub, often called the third largest after New York and London, but far behind it in scale.
Broadway in New York benefits from massive tourism, higher ticket prices, often $150 to $300 or more US dollars.
And Canada just doesn't have that kind of ticket prices.
And the supply, I'm just going to ask, because I had this, but it was on another computer.
What is the supply of actors, let's say musical actors versus demand?
So the problem is supply versus demand.
And that's, I think, the real issue.
And it's a heartbreaking situation or scenario.
When I was studying playwriting in the 90s, I remember my teacher telling me that the average income for a playwright in Canada from his plays or her plays is $2,500.
$2,500.
So, one of the problems, of course, is that there's a pipeline that kind of goes from, and I'll, sorry, I'll get you, Luke, in a sec.
There's a pipeline that goes from high school to, you know, it's not hard to be the best actor in high school or the best singer in high school, you know, it's a limited pool and all of that.
I was not to brag, because it wasn't the biggest university in the world, but I was considered the best actor in my university.
It's one of the reasons why I went to the National Theater School, which only take 1% of their applicants.
1,600 people apply, 16 people get chosen.
And I was automatically, I didn't even have to audition.
I was just automatically casting the lead in shows in university.
And then I played Macbeth.
And so, yeah, I was, you know, I was pretty good.
And I would say I was sort of in the middle of the pack in theater school, certainly not the best, but that was sort of very top-tier stuff.
So there's this pipeline where you're really good in high school.
Maybe you're really good in university.
Maybe you go to theater school.
And then, right.
So what happens is that there are hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people coming out every year from university, Bachelor of Fine Arts in Musical Theater, conservatories, and so on.
And there's just not as much demand.
There are hundreds and hundreds.
I read somewhere 900 people coming out a year with sort of this sort of musical theater stuff or sort of top-tier theater stuff.
And they're just competing for maybe 100, 200 roles.
And they're already competing with all the other people who've come out.
And so the competition is incredibly fierce.
The pay is kind of low.
And everybody wants to be a star.
And so it's funny.
And it's just a funny coincidence that I went to see this show.
And thanks again to my lovely wife for thinking of that.
It was great.
It was a great time.
And just on the way home, have you ever had this where you don't even know you're carrying any kind of burden, but something happens and you feel a little tiny easing of a little tiny burden that you didn't even know you had.
And I kind of had that.
Driving home, my wife was driving and I was looking up this stuff.
We were chatting about it.
And I was like, huh.
Because, I mean, it was almost 40 years ago.
I was in theater school and I don't really think about it much.
There were times, there were times when I was grinding away midnight coding.
I was chief technical officer of a software company I co-founded.
And there were times when I was sort of squinting at the screen, coding like a madman to finish a project or something like that, where it was like, yeah, I had a lot more fun doing sword fighting on stage in Macbeth.
That was a little bit more fun than, oh, I have to make sure I declare this variable correctly or it's going to go and eat up too much memory.
As opposed to, you know, ferociously wanted to kill people on stage with cool Dungeons and Dragons broadswords.
That was, so there were times when I was in the business world and I was like, eh, or times even when I was in academia, I was around right before the digital revolution came in.
So I had to look up everything by hand at be times like, oh, well, I have to figure out what Immanuel Kant said about political power.
Oh, dear.
Oh, dear.
I wrote a play called Ephorus.
That wasn't there.
I wrote a play once, which was two foul-mouthed punks, a day in the life of two foul-mouthed punks.
And then for a variety of reasons, they make a vow not to swear anymore.
And then the last minute or two of the play is them just staring at each other with nothing to say.
And that was the end of the play.
Just little fun things like that.
I actually performed that with a friend of mine.
I shaved my head for that role back when I didn't necessarily have less hair to lose.
But that was fun stuff.
Playing with the audience is fun stuff.
Doing comedy is fun stuff.
I did a number.
I did one night of theater, which was, I played the lead in a Harold Pinter play called A Slight Ache.
And then I played a comic role in a Chekhov play called The Bear.
And it was called A Slight Ache with a Bear.
And so seeing me go from like grim nihilistic drama to comedy was kind of fun for the audience.
And it sort of reminds me, although I wouldn't put myself in this guy's category, when I was in theater school, we went to go to Stratford and I saw like 10 plays over a weekend.
And the incomparable Brian Bedford played a comic role in a 19th century play.
He played a sort of gay guy in a 19th century play.
He was absolutely hilarious.
Oh, stomp the vitals.
He was just really, really funny.
And then he played Shylock in Merchant of Venice at Night and was powerful and terrifying.
And just having that kind of flexibility is really a wild thing to see.
And I suppose it was the Roadless Travels, right?
Like I didn't take that particular path for a variety of reasons.
I didn't like the people in the theater world.
There was a lot of vainglorious stuff, all ferocious lefties, like just crazy lefties.
And I, you know, when I was in theater school, they said to me, oh, I mean, you're a good writer.
We took you in for writing, but you're doing fantastic as an actor.
Just focus on that.
You'll do great.
And then they found out about my politics.
I can't even remember how.
I probably got into some debate with someone somewhere.
And then they just hated me.
Just no tolerance at all.
So my sort of my first real connection with leftist tolerance was there.
And it was like, yeah, this, because it's all about the mission.
It's all about Bertold Brecht, muter kapage, unter kinder, mother courage and her children.
And, you know, just like pushing the lefty agenda and the farm show and things like that.
And I ended up not staying in that world.
I did write and produce a play after I left theater school, which I enjoyed.
I enjoyed, but it's a little, it was a little too exciting for me as a broke teenager.
Like I couldn't have gone to university if the play had failed and it was pretty stressful to make the play work.
I've sort of gone into that in other times.
So anyway, just looking at this Roadless Travels, that even if I had been a better singer, and obviously I'm not great, I'm no, I like to sing, but I'm no great Shakes as a singer, to put it mildly, there's no way I could have done a show like that unless they needed a real narrow range baritone, which they didn't.
But I could have been making $1,500 a week for five or seven weeks living in Toronto, where you can't save anything because that's not enough really to live on.
And long time between gigs.
Unless you're super entrepreneurial, which I could have been, of course, I did, because if you can write as well, like acting, singing, dancing, the writing, because you can write your own shows and so on.
But it just, it was a funny thing because I just look back and I'm like, okay, so if I sort of look at my life and the arc of the various things that I've done, like I've done the art world, I've done academia at the graduate school level.
I've done business.
I've done podcasting.
I've done sales.
I've done live speaking and so on.
I've just done a lot of different things.
And I've just written my most recent novel.
I just finished doing the audiobook a couple of weeks ago where I got to do some acting.
I got to do some acting because I'm playing all these different characters, but I know the characters intimately.
So when you're acting, you have to get to know your character so that you can reproduce them authentically.
And because I wrote the characters, I know the characters so intimately that I can do them all, I think, pretty well.
So it's just interesting.
I don't know if you've ever had that.
And I'd love to hear if you have.
But it's interesting if you don't even know that you're carrying a burden, like, oh, should I have done that?
Should I have taken that road less traveled?
Should I have tried that acting thing?
Should I have just dug in and written and done one-man shows?
I found myself, if I can't get work from anyone else, like, just, should I have just pursued that ferociously?
And even, but even if you get to the top of your profession in Canada, and I would assume that, you know, being a lead in a musical right downtown Toronto, which is the third biggest theater city in the world, that that's pretty much the top of your profession.
And you can't really make a living at it.
Interesting.
So I felt a tiny burden lift and it validated the road that I had chosen.
All right.
Well, thank you for your patience with that.
Luke.
Luke.
What is on your mind?
Don't forget to unmute.
All right.
I heard the beep of you coming in, but I cannot hear your Mac.
I am now here, sir.
All right.
I missed my cut last week, but I do have a friend who's been petitioning me again and again to come on your show and talk about a rather controversial subject.
I'll give a shout out to him, Pure Blood, he's his nickname.
But what I really want to talk about is the dilemma of someone who has a Cassandra complex and the philosophy of that.
And what should one do?
Should one choose one's family or one's friends?
And, you know, like you've seen all this stuff on how AI get their philosophy examined with the colleges, right?
You know, do you direct the trolley car over this person or that person?
And I'm kind of in that same situation right now.
And that's what I'd like to talk to you about.
Is that okay?
It's fine.
I'm just wondering, are you on a speakerphone or something?
Your audio is kind of rough.
I bought the cheapest smartphone you can buy in Vietnam because you have to have a front-facing camera.
And my old phone had the screen broken.
It was a flagship phone and I stuck with it.
But they made everyone in Vietnam get a front-facing camera or they'll seize your bank account.
So I begin to.
Okay, so you're using a cheap speakerphone.
Okay, but if it can't upgrade, that's fine.
So tell me more specifically what it is that you're facing.
Well, it's crap going down in two continents.
You can pick North America with my friend who's been denied a file for three years because he knows too much about...
Sorry, he's been denied what?
He's been denied a right to a trial by jury for about three years.
Oh, God.
Okay.
Because his ex is on the internet movie database.
Okay, listen, don't talk about your friends, legal issues.
Let's just focus on your stuff because he's not here and he may or may not want it talked about.
So yeah, let's just talk about your issues or your choices.
Yeah, so he's asking me to help be a Bush lawyer and try and help him with all the case law right now.
And I've been battling for him for three years.
I'm getting tired and fatigued, but I don't want to see an innocent person sold down the river.
There's that.
And the thing in Australia is that I'm aware of actual acts of terrorism that are likely are not correctly being portrayed in the media.
Okay, so hang on.
So sorry, sorry.
I'm not sure what you, I mean, if you have knowledge of crimes or potential crimes and so on, I'm a philosophy podcaster, so I think you should be talking to a lawyer.
Oh, like I said, I don't have those means, but I went to the proper channels.
I contacted the New South Wales Parliament and the Australian Federal Police is my first.
Okay, so hang on, hang on.
Sorry.
I just want to make sure we focus the conversation on something that I can actually help you with because obviously I'm not a lawyer and I don't know anything about what it is that you're talking about in terms of law.
So are there philosophical questions that I could help you with?
Yeah.
Should I keep?
I'm basically losing faith with humanity.
I'm like I said at the beginning of when I came on, this family complex thing, I'm exposing level T sex offenders being illegally removed from the sex dependence.
No names, don't worry, in Arizona, and then nothing gets done.
And then another level two sex offender gets released, and a 10-year-old girl gets abused because no one listened to me.
And I'm just frustrated with how political correctance is normalizing things that are meant to be morally evil.
I even got the government of Israel to take down their final medical position paper on Metzit Subape, which is what Pure Blood was wanting me to talk about.
Okay, so you're just talking about a bunch of stuff that could be used to identify you.
So if you could not do that, I'd really appreciate that.
So let me, I'll cuz, yeah, every time you talk, every time you talk, my spidey sense tightens a little bit more.
So as far as the, so for those of you who don't know, the Cassandra complex is the curse that you know that bad things are coming down the pipe.
You know, bad things happen, and you run around warning people that bad things are going to happen.
And everybody laughs at you and calls you crazy.
And you know for certainty that bad things are happening and nobody listens to you.
And it's the curse of knowing what's coming that's negative.
People won't listen.
And it's very frustrating.
I mean, obviously, I've had a brush or two up against that kind of stuff myself as well.
So what you have to do is you have to measure out the stresses and challenges and strains in your life.
So if you went to a personal trainer and you said, well, I want to get fit and I want to lose some weight and I want to get some muscles or whatever it is.
And he said, well, what you need to do is you need to be working out to failure every moment you're not directly asleep or eating.
So like 14 hours a day, 14 hours a day, you need like this would be the crazy thing people be saying, right?
So 14 hours a day, you need to be working your muscles to failure.
Well, I'm no personal trainer, I'm no doctor, but I think that would pretty much get you injured within a day or two.
And you would be harming your muscles more than you would be helping them.
In the same way, it's important to get good rest every night, but maybe not be sleeping 16 hours a day, right?
It's important to have nutritious food, but not, you know, 5,000 calories a day or something like that.
So when it comes to the sort of stresses and strains that you take on in the world to make the world a better place to challenge evildoers to promote virtue and interfere with the interests of the malevolent and so on, which they get their say in that interaction as well.
And sometimes their say is not particularly honorable or honest.
Of course, they're malevolent to begin with.
So if you want to take on challenges in the world, I mean, good for you.
I mean, that's good for you to promote virtue, to interfere with the designs of evildoers.
I think that's a good and wonderful and powerful thing to do.
However, if you want to take on difficult things in the world, you have to have ease and comfort somewhere in your life.
Like, so, for instance, if you're out there fighting the good fight and then you come home and you fight with your spouse and you have conflicts with your children, and then you go out with your friends and they stress you out with their difficulties even more, like at some point, you're going to be working your muscles 16 hours a day.
And then even when you go to sleep, your dreams are probably pretty stressful because your dreams are trying to help you process and learn from the lessons of the day.
So you can have fight in the good fight.
That's fine.
In fact, I think that's good.
But what you have to do, and this is not even optional, like if you want to continue in any productive capacity for any reasonable length of time, you have to have a place that's fun and easy, that you support and are supported, that is a rest place for you.
You have to have that.
I have that with my family, and I live in a surveillance panoptagon in a smart city, and I've put my real name out there already.
And like personal security, I don't think it's too much of a concern.
I think, you know, sometimes I believe getting the stuff out there is safer once the horse is bolted.
We like when you're flat, and that's why I keep doing the activism I do.
But I know there are limits.
Well, it's not your, hang on, sorry.
It's not your job, right?
This is something that you do as, I won't say a sideline or a hobby because it's obviously more serious than that.
People don't know.
I can give you one example in Australia, right?
It has to do with recent news events and stuff, if you want to hear it.
No, sorry.
Again, the specifics of what you're fighting are not as relevant as the Cassandra complex or the issues that you're facing as a whole.
Okay, so let me ask you this.
Do you have a full-time job?
Yeah, I have.
Okay, that's fine.
I just want to know, if you have a full-time job, is your job stressful?
No, my job is not stressful.
That's why I have the time to do the activism I do.
But now I've got people depending on me to get them out of their crisis.
And I have that.
And I don't want to.
Okay, so hang on.
Sorry.
I'm sorry.
I just need to ask a couple of questions.
So you have a full-time job that's not stressful and you have a family.
So you have a wife and kids.
Is that what you mean?
Yes, I do.
Okay.
And what ages roughly are your kids?
They're single digits.
They're double digits.
One double, one single.
Okay.
They're going to a good school.
They're having a good life.
I contribute.
My family contributes.
It's all pretty much well on the home front, but as far as on the shape of the world and… Okay, hang on.
Sorry.
Sorry.
I understand the shape of the one.
I apologize for interrupting.
There's just some information that I need to get.
So your kids are old enough to understand the fights that you're taking on.
Is that right?
They've just heard about it, but I don't like talk to them about it every day.
They know.
No, no, that's no, no, that's, I didn't ask whether you talk about it every day.
I asked, it seems that they're old enough to understand.
Certainly the one who's in his teens or her teens, they're old enough to understand the fights that you're taking on, right?
I believe so.
I talked to my daughter yesterday and she understands that if you saw a kid and standing in the middle of the road about to be hit, you'd run across the road.
You'd be the good Samaritan, you'd do the good thing.
But that incident only takes a few seconds to solve the situation.
And I've been trying to help someone out for three years, railroaded by the enough system.
Okay, so hang on.
Again, I'm just trying to gather some information here.
So there are times where you would not try to save the kid who's in traffic.
No, I'm not saying that.
I'm saying that's easier because you would go out there, you would do it quickly, and then it would be over and then mission accomplished.
I'm just in this draining, long-running conflict with denial of due process in America going on for years.
And I want my...
No, sorry.
Again, I apologize.
I really do.
I understand all of that.
But there are times where if the kid is over the median, the truck that's about to hit them is too close and you're going to die if you try and save them.
There would be times where you would, with great horror, you would just have to watch it happen.
But so it's a, I just wanted to say it's not usually as simple as like, if it's easy, you do it, but usually things are not easy that way.
I mean, let me give you another example.
I don't want my kids to grow up in the world where the justice system and the police and the military are all controlled by, you know, Satanists, like all the auto-templi orienters who have the power to stop people having trials in two continents.
I'll give you an old newspaper headline from two years ago.
No, no, I understand that, of course.
I mean, I understand your perspective.
I wouldn't necessarily agree with the Satanist part, but I understand the perspective.
So, do your children approve of your multi-year fight to try and get someone in America justice?
Do they think, do they agree with that?
Do they approve of that as a worthwhile conflict?
Yeah, I understand it relates to me too, because I'm a political refugee from Australia for going against the same occult forces.
So, you know, it's what I do.
It's kind of like, and progress is being made.
764 is that Ash Patel declared war on is a division of the auto-templi orienters.
So people are starting to become aware that this evil does exist and needs to be eradicated more and more.
I know you're okay.
So I'm going to repeat my question.
I'm sorry if it didn't come across.
Do your children approve of the stress and strain of challenges and challenges that you are taking on in this fight?
Do they approve of it?
Do they understand it?
And they are like, yes, this is a good use of your time.
The time that it takes away from family, the stress that it brings to the family, this is worth it to them.
They're busy.
They're busy too with all their homework and their school.
And I help them when I can with that.
I think they understand.
I think they're okay with it.
You think they understand?
Well, my oldest sort of does, yeah.
Okay.
And she is approves of how you're spending your time and energies in this way.
I probably need to talk to her more about it.
Is that where you're trying to lead me to make a right decision on what to do and the dilemma?
Well, when you become a father, your priorities have to be your children.
I'm not saying they're your only priorities, of course, but your priorities do have to be your children because you have brought people into this world.
Hang on.
You've brought people into this world.
You brought people to life and they are stuck with you as a parent.
I'm not saying that's necessarily a bad thing.
My daughter's stuck with me too.
But if you decide to have children, then your loyalty first and foremost has to be towards your children.
My concern would be that if you are burning yourself out in a legal or political fight and so on, as you say, that's going on for years and it's not bringing any income in and so on, then the people who get the final say when you're a father or a mother, the people who get the final say on how you spend your energies are your children.
Now, you can say, of course, well, I'm doing this for the kids and this and that and the other, but they have to, at least at an age-appropriate way, they have to understand and approve because I assume that this is distracting for you.
I assume that this is stressful for you.
I assume that this is difficult and draining for you.
And if your children understand and agree, that's at least a check mark in its favor.
But your loyalty as a father is to your children, not to your friend in America, not to the legal issues that he may be facing and so on.
And certainly not to, I mean, I get that you want your children to grow up in a free society.
Of course, we all want that.
And there's things that we should all be doing to move towards that.
But if it becomes too consuming, if it becomes too difficult, if it becomes too stressful and it harms your parenting, you know, then Then there's a problem.
And the problem is that you have kind of dove into a bigger fight at the expense of the quality of your relationship with your wife and your children and so on.
And it's easy for men in particular to get sucked into these larger, bigger, dramatic fights rather than stay in a sort of loving, fun, and connected relationship.
My own father did the same thing with East Timor.
He's a, well, no, an East Timor, he's oil and gas activist expert.
So, yeah, I've also had the role of a kid in this, and I've grown up to… So, you've had the role of a what?
I've had the role of the kid in Gone Dynamic, where my father was an activist for Timor.
When I grew up, when I was young, I was upset and spent a lot of time at home, enjoyed working on this, you know, doing activism for East Timor and his consulting work.
But so hang on, so your relationship with your father suffered because of his activism?
No, now it's stronger because I know that he did.
No, no, no.
In the past, you said your father was always out doing his activism, which means you had less access to him.
When I was a kid, but now I've grown up, he did a good thing.
Now East Timor is free, you know.
So, you know, people, no one else was talking about back in the 90s.
And my dad was being an activist.
But, you know, I don't, do I want to grow up and know that I could have done something to make a difference?
And also, the other reason my difference you need to make is with your family, first and foremost, because you chose to have children.
Correct.
And when you choose to have children, they have to be your top priority.
Now, I'm not saying that you just sit and stare at them 24 hours a day because they also need to see you doing things in the world.
And I'm not saying this doesn't mean you can't do anything good in the world.
I mean, I understand that that's all compatible, but your primary responsibility is to your children, not to your friend in America, because you chose to have children.
I mean, maybe you disagree with that, but that would be my argument.
The thing is, my children want to go to Australia when they're older.
They want to live in one of the five-wise countries, and it's probably not safe for them if this threat to them isn't fought against and eliminated.
So that's kind of how I rationalize it.
And my oldest daughter knows that.
Sorry, your older daughter knows that her life might be a threat if you don't win this particular legal or political battle.
Is that right?
That's what her understanding is.
Specific threats have been made and people have lost their Twitter accounts for making those threats, namely Vodka on X.
So that doesn't.
Okay, please, please, please, please, I'm begging you, bro, to stop getting into specifics because this is a philosophy show, not an individual fight show.
So your children, have they been put at risk by your activism?
Only if they leave the country where they're safe in, where they are now.
Yeah.
And it was never my intention for my children to get astray citizenship.
Our laws were broken to give it to them, but those laws have since been repealed.
So there's been, you know, there was no tier.
And I mean, listen, I mean, just father to father, what are your feelings about the fact that your activism seems to have put your children in some crosshairs?
If good people do nothing, evil triumphs.
And that's the moral dilemma that it is.
You're protecting your family, but then you have to stop in the world people down the rabbit hole.
What they're doing in Guard, if you said Delphi to North America next, if we don't all take a stand, good people have to do things in it, well, or the world goes to shit.
If everyone's chewed into Watson, my dad falled, the radio's like WIFN, then set a society that you want to have your kids growing up.
That's the local debate here, I think.
Okay.
So it sounds like you have no issues with your decision.
It sounds like you feel that you have made the right decision in putting your family at risk and fighting forces that you call evil and so on.
So I'm not sure if you're comfortable.
I mean, I was interested in sort of reviewing that decision, but if you're comfortable with, and that's fine, if you're comfortable with the decisions that you've made, and there are, hang on, hang on, hang on.
And I would also appreciate it if you're going to do a call-in show.
Honestly, headsets are like 10 bucks, 15 bucks.
It would be a little easier to hear what you're saying because it's really tough to follow because it's a very, very tinny speaker.
And so it's a little easier, just for future reference with call-in shows, headsets are very, very cheap and you will do a lot better that way in terms of trying to get your point across to me.
And I don't even know if this is usable because I don't know if people are going to understand what it is that you're saying.
But yeah, my sort of point is that I think it's a challenging, and this is a challenging Aristotelian mean question or conversation is if you choose to get married and you choose to have children, how much risk should you take on in order to do the right thing?
And this is a very big and challenging question.
You know, there was a Tim Poo was reporting on X that there was a drive-by shooting against his property.
Of course, we know about Charlie Kirk.
Everybody knows about that.
And there's been a variety of people who've been talking about this.
And it is a big and challenging question.
If you're just a guy and you don't get married and you don't have kids, then obviously you need to think about the security of your society as a whole.
And you have fewer factors to take into account when it comes to trying to do the right thing and trying to oppose malevolent or evil or negative forces.
I think it's a complex question about this.
And the cost benefit needs to be weighed because you've chosen to get married and have children and you have to do what's best for them.
And I also, of course, completely understand that trying to make the world a better place or at least have it stop becoming a worse place is important, is an important part of being a parent as well.
So it's complex.
It's a challenging question and it's hard to know how to come to the right decision.
And of course, the right decision, which is good today, may change tomorrow if the laws change or whatever it is, you get particular threats.
So it sounds like you're very comfortable with the decisions that you have made.
And so I won't continue the conversation.
I'm not sure what you were asking if I'm sort of trying to get information and trying to understand what sort of the costs and benefits are.
And, you know, I mean, you don't know me, right?
So I understand that.
But honestly, to give me a lecture on the importance of making the world a better place, as if I don't know that, as if I haven't taken a lot of negatives for the cause.
I'm not saying it's offensive or anything like that because you probably don't know who I am, but I don't really need to be lectured on the importance of making some sacrifices to make the world a better place.
That's an obvious thing.
That's why we're having the conversation.
It would be like if I hired a consultant to come in to my business and I got a lecture on it's important to make more money than you spend.
It would be like, I'm not really sure why you would need to say something that obvious.
But anyway, and I wish everyone the very best with these challenges.
It is, you know, and most people who want to make the world a better place do it because they have kids.
But in your fight to make the world a better place, you know, it can be challenging for your kids.
So these are very complex and difficult issues.
And again, if you want to call back in with fewer details and maybe a headset where I can hear every word rather than trying to guess what's in between every second or third word, I'd appreciate that.
Pleb, you had a question or comment if you would like to speak up.
I'm all ears, my friend.
Hey, Steph.
Happy Sunday.
Thank you.
You too.
So I've tried looking through the archives.
There might be something in there.
I'll keep looking, but as for now, I just want to get your opinion.
I got something that kind of gets under my skin.
So I have a younger sister around 12.
And we have the same dad, different mom, without getting too many personal details.
But so our dad is like really what they would call tight, doesn't spend a lot of money.
And anyway, so I kind of, what he would call spoil her, as in like, I'll take her out to eat a lot.
I kind of don't really say no to her, but she doesn't ask for a lot.
And it really gets under my skin when he calls her spoiled.
I'd like something about that bothers me because to me, I don't understand what the problem is in like, especially someone you care about, you know, taking them out to eat or treating them pretty good, especially being a 12-year-old.
For example, he got her breakfast from like a gas station and she didn't like the food.
I mean, it's freaking gas station food.
And I ended up bringing her against her something better.
And he called her spoiled because of that.
That kind of bothered me.
So I wouldn't mind if I need to add more, I can, but I wouldn't mind getting your thoughts on the whole spoiled thing.
Yeah, yeah, that's it.
It's a good question.
What's your father's history with money?
Never really had any and was more like a partier.
He partied a whole lot and a heavy drinker.
Does he still drink?
Oh, yeah.
Yes, sir.
Okay.
So how much money do you think he spends every week on his foul alcohol?
It's probably definitely a good bit.
It's close to the hundreds.
So hundreds of dollars a week, or let's say even just $100 a week, he is spending on alcohol.
Yes, sir.
Okay.
And how long has he been doing that for?
Oh, man, probably since he was in his late 20s, early 30s.
And he's 50 now.
Okay.
All right.
So let's just do a little bit of math, right?
So 25 years, would you say?
Yes.
Okay.
So that's $130,000 he spent on alcohol.
Now, to make $130,000 in after-tax money, you know, depending on your tax rate, right?
I mean, you said he doesn't have a lot of money.
So, you know, let's give him a just a 25% tax rate.
So he's got to make $162,000 over 25 years.
In other words, he's spending $6,500 a year on alcohol for 25 years, right?
That's $160,000 and change, right?
Yeah.
And tell me if that math, and that's with only $100 a week, which is pretty low for somebody who's abusing alcohol.
But, you know, we're trying not to, we'll not push it up to a quarter mil of income or earnings or something like that, right?
Yes.
But if you buy, so he's blowing all of this horrible money.
Sorry, he's blowing all of this money on a horrible habit that makes him emotionally unavailable, that wrecks and destroys his health, right?
That destroys his ambition, that interferes with his sleep.
And he has the nerve to say when you buy your sister some eggs and sausages and toast that you're spoiling her.
Yep.
Okay.
When was the last time you talked to your father?
I mean, is it fair to call it alcoholism?
It sounds like it, but I don't want to be unfair.
Oh, definitely.
Okay.
Would you say it's rampant alcoholism?
Would that be like non-functioning or so?
To me, no, rampant is like a lot of like, so if you drink every day, technically you're supposed to be some sort of alcoholic.
A rampant alcohol to alcoholism to me would be like it significantly interferes with your life.
And also you drink, yeah, maybe to the point of passing out or vomiting or not being able to function the next day, like on a weekly basis.
I mean, that's just my amateur, obviously, made up standard that I've sort of worked with for many years.
Yeah, that sounds about right.
Okay.
So when did you last talk to him or try to get him help for this rampant alcoholism?
So let's see.
So most of the year, I try to talk to him about it.
But, you know, the farthest it gets with him is, yeah, I'm going to try.
I'm going to try.
But, you know, that's about as far as that goes.
And is your mother in the picture?
Yes, but they've been separated for since I was real a kid.
Okay.
And who takes care of your sister, the 12-year-old girl, who takes care of her for the most part?
So we have different moms.
So her mom and her mom's husband, which is pretty decent.
Both of them are pretty decent.
Okay.
So what percentage of the time is she with your father?
One weekend every two weeks, I believe is how it goes.
And does he drink on that weekend?
Yes.
So she would be somewhat at risk, as far as I understand it.
Yeah, I guess, yeah, sure.
Like, you can't drink and be a parent.
Yeah, definitely not.
I mean, and you say, well, you know, but I'm able to cook.
It's like, but what if your kid has an accident?
What if there's a problem?
What if there's a fire?
What if she cuts herself?
What if she falls down the stairs?
I mean, you're staring there like an idiot in your alcohol-sutton monkey brain, right?
That's wretched.
So you can't drink and be a parent.
It's like drinking and driving.
Oh, well, you know, a lot of people who drink and drive, they do okay.
It's like, well, yes, but until they don't, they make it home alive.
Well, until they don't.
So, I mean, tell me if I'm wrong.
Tell me if I'm overreacting.
It's always possible.
I hate alcohol as a whole.
But is your sister in a safe and secure environment with a guy drinking that much?
I wouldn't say so.
No, that's usually why I'm around so much.
Right.
Does his ex-wife, does the girl's mother know about this alcoholism?
Yep.
Okay.
So why is she sending her kid over to a guy who's got a serious alcohol addiction?
The only thing I would be able to come up with is, you know, the, oh, it's her dad kind of thing, and they don't think further than that.
Okay.
Have you talked with the girl's mother about the risks she's exposing her daughter to?
And again, it's not just in case there's an accident, but people aren't themselves when they drink.
If they liked themselves, they wouldn't drink.
They drink to not be themselves.
And if this guy's had, you know, alcohol poisoning, I'm not saying from a sort of medical standpoint, but, you know, excessive drinking for 25 years ain't exactly great for your health and your brain.
So have you talked to the girl's mother about the problems involved in sending her daughter over for a weekend to the house of a drunk?
I haven't yet.
That's been coming up too.
Okay.
So aside from your care, it's your half-sister or your full sister?
Half.
Okay.
And listen, the fact that she's got you in her life is wonderful.
And I applaud you for that.
And, you know, I'd send you to heaven with angel wings if I could.
Sorry, that sounds a bit sinister.
After you die of natural causes.
But so what's the benefit of your relationship with your father outside of your concern for your half-sister?
There really is no benefit, I guess.
I mean, because I have tried to help out of some caring, but there isn't, it doesn't seem like there's much he wants to help himself.
Well, have you ever heard of something called an intervention?
Have.
Okay.
And what's your understanding of that?
I'm not trying to quiz you.
I just want to make sure we're on the same page.
No, you're fine.
I mean, I'm probably going to say this wrong, but maybe getting people around that he cares about or that cares about him and to maybe is convinced the right word for him to get help.
Yeah, I'm no expert.
I've just watched a couple of shows on it, so don't take this as any kind of prescription for action.
But my understanding is you get an addiction expert involved, which I always suggest to get the experts involved.
Like don't do your own dentistry and don't do your own interventions.
But from what I've seen, you get an expert involved who leads the intervention.
And the intervention is you get the person to go to a location where all of the people who are still in his life who've been affected by his alcoholism, they write letters usually ahead of time, or maybe they can speak extemporaneously, but they write letters ahead of time and they say, I hate to, you know, but they say, here's how your alcoholism has affected me.
Right.
Here's the negatives and the problems that have accrued to me as a result of your alcoholism.
So not to put you wholly on the spot, but if you were to say to your father how his alcoholism has affected you over your life, what would you say?
I would say it puts us in danger.
Okay, go on.
I'm not going to say the right word, I don't think, but it has the potential to rub off someone as young as her, which is definitely a negative.
What about your emotion?
And I appreciate that, but what about your emotions?
Well, yeah, that one definitely too, because, you know, definitely not a dad, definitely emotionally unavailable, which, you know, sucks.
Yeah, and that's a very neutral term for like they're just like a brain-soaked zombie, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So you don't get good conversation.
You don't get curiosity.
You don't get emotional mirroring.
You don't get connection.
They're just kind of half-sodden and laying around or burping a little or maybe getting irrationally angry, but they're just like this broken alcohol-fueled robot of decay.
Yep.
Yep.
So I'm sorry.
I'm really, really sorry.
Alcohol is a tremendous curse in society with almost no upside.
But so the intervention, again, in my amateur understanding, the intervention goes something like this, that you get the intervention specialist, you get the addiction specialist, and the addiction specialist goes around, says, okay, what's the list of all the people who are still in this person's life and are negatively affected by the alcohol, which would be just about everyone who's in his life.
And just so, I mean, off the top of your head, how many people would you say, assuming that there was, you could just teleport people in, how many people would you say are still in your dad's life who've been negatively affected by his drinking?
Yeah, there's at least five that would be considered close that definitely have been negatively affected.
And what about the people who would care about your father, who aren't necessarily super close, but would care about, or have there's some splash damage, some negative effect?
Like maybe the girl's father is not close to your father.
Your half-sister's father is not close to your father, but he's negatively affected by the drinking, right?
Yes.
So how many people do you think, if you sort of widen the net outside of just those who are very close to him, how many people do you think there would be?
Probably like two or three, just because he's always been like, you said it earlier about the anger.
They're just very angry.
Yes.
Right, right.
Okay, so we've got maybe seven or eight people as a whole.
And is that including you?
That's including you, right?
So seven or eight people.
So the intervention specialist would just sit your father down and he might need to be tricked into coming because a lot of the time in the shows that I've seen, the person is like, hey, what is this, right?
And so there'd be sort of seven or eight people plus the addiction specialist sitting down and they'd say something like, you know, your dad's name, whatever it's called, Bob.
So, Bob, you know, there have been people who've been really upset by your alcoholism and your drinking issues.
And we want to sit down and just so you get a sense of how it's affecting the people around you, blah, blah, blah.
And then people read out how the drinking has negatively affected them.
And then at least in most of the interventions that I've seen, there is a consequence.
So they'd say, listen, you have to go to treatment.
You have to go to dryout.
You have to go to rehab or you're cut off.
Like, I won't have anything to do with you anymore.
So there is a, we care about you.
We want the best for you.
Maybe people say, I think it would be largely sentimental at this point, but say we love you.
Here's how your drinking has negatively affected us.
And here's what we're going to do if you don't get help.
Like we have to keep our daughter safe.
We are not going to invite you to Christmas family dinner.
We're tired of propping this up.
We're tired of all of this.
And you have to go and get help or we're cutting you off from the relationship.
And again, that's not, I don't know whether that's always, but that's most of the ones that I've seen.
And then the goal is, and the addiction specialist sets all this up beforehand.
And because the person will say, oh, you know, yeah, I've got a couple of things to finish up.
And generally what I've seen is, no, you got to go now.
Like the car is waiting outside for you to go to rehab.
Because I assume that the general theory is that if you allow them to delay, they'll just go back to their old ways and the whole thing is pointless.
So a lot of the ones that I've seen is like the car is waiting to take you to rehab.
We've talked to your boss.
We've made a range, whatever it is, because they'll come up with all these excuses as to why they, well, I can't do it now.
I can't because blah, blah, blah.
And it's like, no, it's now or never.
You have to go now.
And a lot of times people will go.
Sometimes they won't.
But that's my, again, obviously, admittedly, amateur understanding of what an intervention is.
Have you guys ever thought of anything like that?
Yes, I have.
And I have an older sister.
She has mood, but she has also thought about it with me too.
And maybe they could do it over FaceTime or some sort of video call or whatever.
I mean, if they can't make it or whatever, but what do you think is preventing you?
I don't know if it's the right thing to do or not, obviously, but it should be on the table, right?
So, what do you think is preventing you from taking that approach?
Just knowing how he is is probably the biggest thing that's the or the biggest obstacle for me because it seems a bit futile, but I guess if I don't try it right, I wouldn't know.
Well, you need to find out if it's futile.
Yes.
Because let's say, let's say that you, I mean, a significant alcoholism is obviously horrendous for people's health, right?
I mean, everyone looks at smoking, and you know, obviously that's a pretty vivid one, right?
So, um, heavy alcoholism is just brutal for people's health.
And how is his health doing as a whole?
Oh, yeah, it's terrible.
And then, yeah, I mean, the alcohol plus the smoking also, he's a heavy smoker.
Oh, he's a cigarette smoker, too, right?
Oh, yeah.
Okay, so his health is, I mean, how many, how long, how is his health doing?
I mean, how much time does he have?
Uh, time, I don't know, but his health has deteriorated because he's um, he was always very uh lean and skinny when he was younger and definitely put on a quite a bit of weight now.
Yeah, because it's uh, I mean, alcohol is a sugar, right?
So, I mean, people sort of forget that as a whole, right?
Yep.
So, how much do you think people's life expectancy is reduced, even if we just take into account the smoking?
How much do you think life expectancy is reduced to people who are significant alcoholics?
Um, I would say 20, 30 years, maybe it takes off.
Yeah, bang on, 24 to 28 years.
Damn, right?
So, he's in his 50s, right?
Yes, and he's a smoker, yep.
So, isn't he kind of dying statistically?
Oh, yeah, definitely.
So, help me understand, like, what's worse than watching him die?
And he could die when your half-sister is with him.
Imagine how traumatic that is for her.
Yep, thought about that one.
So, what's worse than watching him die?
I'm not saying he's dying, but in terms of statistics, it's not looking good, right?
Yeah, um, yeah, the question about what's worse than watching him die, yeah, because you're saying, Well, we've thought of the intervention, but you know, the way he is, blah, blah, blah.
I mean, he's just, I mean, to my view, I'm not saying he's suicidal, I mean, but that's just kind of killing yourself if you take those kinds of approaches and don't fix them, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, so what's worse than this?
Like, what have you got to lose?
Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's true.
I mean, they don't really have anything else to lose.
I mean, so let's say that, okay, sorry, not let's say, because it's your life, right?
So, what is your worst outcome for an intervention?
What do you think would happen that's so negative?
It's the most negative.
The most negative would probably be like just anger and rage and screaming.
That's probably the worst other than that.
Okay.
So, if he does the anger and rage and screaming, what is the outcome of that?
So, I assume that people are saying, listen, you got to go get help because I'm not going to basically just suffer and watch you drink yourself to death, which is, you know, this sort of leaving Las Vegas endgame is probably not too unlikely if he's drinking and smoking and overweight.
I mean, the idea that he could make it to 60 seems statistically less than massively likely.
So, okay, so let's say he yells and screams and is abusive and you whatever terrible word.
Okay, so then what?
What then?
I get that that's horrible and unpleasant, but what is the negative outcome out of that that is so concerning?
Because that's something that will come and go.
I think the most negative outcome out of that I could think of is that that would kill any thought or any hope that he would get help because he has, I should add this, he has cut back, but that doesn't, you know what I mean?
That doesn't mean much in the grand scheme because you're just going to start back ramping again.
Right.
So, okay, so let's say that you get out of the intervention, let's say that you get a certainty that he is not going to get, he's not going to seek help.
He's not going to stop drinking.
And he's just going to continue to deteriorate until he dies, probably relatively soon, statistically, right?
So, okay, so let's say that you find that out.
Then what?
I'll find out.
I'm sorry, repeat it.
I was zoning in on it.
No, sorry.
It was my fault.
The question was too long.
Okay, so let's say that he yells and screams and won't get any help.
So then what?
What's the negative outcome that comes out of that?
He drinks himself to death.
Okay, so he's going to do that.
Do you want to be around for that if you can't do anything, assuming that your half-sister is safe?
Assuming she's safe, I don't really want to be around that no.
Okay.
So if you can find a way to keep your half-sister safe, if then the intervention has no horribly negative outcome in the long term, obviously it's unpleasant in the moment, which I don't want to pretend isn't a thing.
Like that's a thing.
It's very unpleasant.
But there's no negative outcome in the long run because why would you want to be around someone who's just drinking themselves to death?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I mean, yeah, you're right.
Yeah, being around that, yeah, it sucks.
Well, and if you want to do that, which is best, and I get your care and your concern and your love for your half-sister, which is wonderful, and she's going to benefit from it enormously over the course of her life.
That's lovely.
But is she seeing her family stand up to someone who's self-destructive and abusive?
Because you say you're concerned, and I'm sure you're right, is she's going to yell and scream and all of that, right?
So is your half-sister seeing people stand up to people who are malevolent or dangerous or destructive?
Not directly, no.
Right.
Okay.
Indirectly?
Indirectly, I guess I mean more like I talk to her a whole lot because she seems comfortable talking to me.
So yeah, she definitely knows how things are.
And I will add to it that I'm pleased that she frowns upon like smoking and drinking, like she hates all of it.
And she's 12, so that's pretty cool to hear.
Right.
Okay.
All right.
So what do you need to do?
Try to start an intervention and see how that goes.
And if it doesn't work out, then maybe talk to her mom more about, hey, he doesn't need to be around this as much or at all, really, unless maybe you come over.
Like if she comes over, like her mom comes with her for Christmas or something, and maybe in that ballpark.
Right.
So I'm, again, just a podcaster.
So my suggestion would be that you talk to someone who has expertise in this area, somebody who's an addiction counselor and an addiction specialist.
I'm sure you can find them either directly or you can call the local AA Alcoholics Anonymous chapter and they will say, listen, this is the issue.
And please, please, please get yourself to an expert who can guide you.
Don't be passive.
And listen, I say this with all absolute deep and humble sympathy towards you, because one of the things that people with addictions do is they train everyone around them to be passive because they keep putting them in endless impossible situations.
So what I would say is that it's really, really important to get some specialist, to get some specialized help and with people who know what they're doing, who can arrange all of this, who can set it all up.
And, you know, obviously it's going to cost some money.
And I'm sure that the family can all chip in for that because if you spread it out, if you spread the cost out among, you know, seven or eight people, I'm sure it can be dealt with.
But I think that, you know, when you deal with really dysfunctional people, they train you into a kind of horrible passivity.
And it's, I completely understand it.
And I don't have any criticism of it, but this passivity, because you can't ever be listened to, you can't ever have an effect.
People don't change their behavior based upon your good advice or counsel.
And it's wretched.
And trying to get out of this kind of passivity and say, look, I just have to take charge.
And I don't know how old you are.
You don't have to tell me, but it was sort of in my late 20s, early 30s that I sort of pivoted from just trying to manage people to actually having needs and preferences and expectations that they had to at least work towards fulfilling.
Like I sat down with people in my life and say, look, here's the things that I'm not getting that I need.
And they're, you know, I was in therapy, so I checked the legitimacy of those needs and all that kind of stuff so that it wasn't some sort of crazy thing.
But I sat down with people and said, look, I've kind of conformed to what you need.
And, you know, there's been value in that, but I do have some needs that you're going to have to try and fulfill or work towards and so on.
Right.
So like with my mother, you know, she was always talking about these endless legal battles that she was wrapped up in or involved in.
And I never got really a word in edgewise.
And I said, look, I mean, I sympathize with the legal stuff, but I, you know, my experience is that that's kind of all we talk about.
And I'd like to have our relationship be more about than just your legal issues.
And then my mother was like, ah, you're working with the insurance companies.
They got to you somehow.
Like, and it was just like, okay, so, you know, with sympathy to her obviously mentally challenging situation, it's like, okay, so I can't have any needs.
I can't have any preferences.
I can't have any needs in this relationship.
And that's destructive.
And, you know, again, I have a lot more sympathy for my mother now than I used to because of the war.
And now that I know more about what happened in Germany after the war and, you know, the horrors that she was subjected to.
But nonetheless, it wasn't my fault.
And I still have to look towards my own mental health and the happiness and stability of my life because there's no point, the war taking down two generations.
Right.
And even if somebody's not responsible for the illness that they have, if they're contagious, you still have to take your space from them, especially if you have kids, which you can also infect.
So, yeah, my suggestion would be talk to an addiction counselor and talk to an intervention specialist and describe the situation.
Obviously, don't take my advice because I'm not a specialist, but talk to it.
I mean, you certainly are trying to deal with a series of powerful addictions.
I mean, alcohol and nicotine are two powerful addictions.
If there's overeating involved as well, that's another addiction.
And if he's sort of the triple threat in the opposite way that I was talking about at the beginning of the show, I would suggest stop being passive again with all sympathy and no disrespect for any passivity.
But you're going to have to find a way to deal with this in a proactive way because the splash damage of being around really dysfunctional people is significant.
It goes out into your professional life.
It goes out into your relationships.
It goes out into your dating, right?
Because if you date some high-quality woman and she's like, oh, you have a rampant alcoholic father who's still in your life and kind of dominating a lot of your decisions and you're still bothered.
I mean, so when you and when you listen back to this, like you'll, you know, that you're bothered by your father calling your half-sister spoiled when he's kind of wrecking everyone's life around him.
The calling someone spoiled is like the least of the issues.
So I would suggest get to an addiction specialist and take their coaching on how to deal with this.
But I think the time for crossing your fingers is past.
I appreciate that, Stephan.
This has been wrote down.
And yeah, I'm definitely going to re-listen to this.
It was a great conversation.
And before I leave, I would like to add that my sister likes listening to the ones you do with Izzy.
So that's pretty cool.
And I think I'm going to get her a hat, a free domain merch for Christmas and Merry Christmas stuff.
That's very kind.
I appreciate that.
And please, please keep me posted.
You can email me, hostho-st at freedomain.com.
And I hope that you will keep me posted about how things are going.
And my very, very best luck to you and my very deepest sympathies for what you are dealing with.
All right.
Ran Sheed, you have a question, a comment, an issue.
How can I best help you, my friend?
You will need to unmute.
Yes, sir.
Going once, going twice.
Ran Sheed, I appreciate your patience.
I'm sorry.
It took a while to get to you.
If you're still around, if you're still with us, my friend.
Going once.
There's room.
If Ran Sheed is not around, there's room for somebody else.
If you want to jump in, he's, I see an applause thing.
Sorry, I'll just give it one more try.
Yes, no, yes, no.
My pleasure.
Thank you for your patience.
And yes, that's right.
I am Indian.
I am currently studying English in the Republic of Ireland.
And also, I work as a delivery driver and a taxi driver.
And I also work in a mobile phone store.
And I am living in a house with a small group of 18 other Indian men.
I would like to bring your attention to the campaign of the misinformation against the Indian people.
Pakistanis are called crash issues and toilet emergencies and blaming on Indians.
Pakistan are the dogs of the world.
They even attack in other Muslimic countries like Afghanistan.
Indians are hard work.
Okay.
So apparently he wants to dispel racist images about Indians while calling Pakistanis the dogs of the world.
Okay.
So that's, you know, just from a philosophical standpoint, that's, and I, I really don't want that, that kind of talk on the show, whatever, right?
I mean, he can start his own show to spread that kind of stuff, which I would, you know, just disagree with.
I mean, so, I mean, if you are going to say that my group is unfairly maligned, then unfairly maligning another group is probably not the way to go because then what happens is you don't have any logical leg to stand on, right?
So unfortunately, I would say that you probably have not done much to dispel people's concerns, right?
Because if you say, well, my group shouldn't be unfairly aligned, but that group, they're all dogs.
They're the dogs of the world.
It's like, okay, so you don't have any problem with unfairly maligning groups.
You just don't like it when it happens to you.
And this is a philosophical show wherein we deal with universals and morals.
And if rampant hypocrisy is the first thing that comes out of your mouth, I don't imagine a particularly productive conversation is going to go from there.
So, all right.
If there's anybody else, questions, comments, issues, challenges, love to hear what is on your mind, my friends.
Or we can close and I can put on my wellies and go do some debarging.
Slay queen.
All right.
Well, thanks, everyone, for a great chat today.
Oh, a couple of little items.
I just wanted to mention the condensed version of Peaceful Parenting is out because the full version, I did not write the shortest book.
I mean, it's a big topic, but the condensed version of Peaceful Parenting is out.
You can go to peacefulparenting.com or peacefulparentingbook.com and you can order that.
If you want a hard copy, of course, the audiobook and everything else remains free.
But if you want a print copy, you can get it there.
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