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So, two questions: one on epistemology, one on ethics.
And the first one is: Steph, why do you say that you only generally trust people who've worked with their hands at some point in their lives, worked manual labor at some point in their lives?
Well, that's a great question.
And I've really touched on it here and there.
I might as well give you a more concentrated answer.
Now, I am fully aware of the fact that a lot of what I say is necessary to be a good philosopher is what I have done.
So, I just want to put that right up front.
There could be confirmation bias.
I'm aware of that.
But I also have looked for this over the course of my life and found it to be a consistent principle.
Is it 100%?
No, it's not.
It is not deductive reasoning.
It is inductive reasoning, which means that you're looking at the balance of probabilities.
But most of life is inductive reasoning, not deductive reasoning.
So that's where the most value is.
But it doesn't provide you certainty, but we mostly have to make our decisions on probabilities.
Like if you're taking a job, you have to take a job, accepting that the probability of a better job falling into your lap between the time that you decide to take the job and show up at the job is very low.
If you are selling your house, you have to accept the probability that an offer out of nowhere that's double the price of your house isn't going to come in from some deranged, wealthy eccentric.
You have to understand these probabilities in order to live.
So while this is not 100% proof, it is a general trend that is important.
So the question is the sovereignty of mind or the sovereignty of matter.
Sovereignty of mind versus sovereignty of matter.
So a good example of the sovereignty of mind is prayer, wherein you pray for mind, as in God's mind, to overcome the facts of reality.
The last time I prayed, the last time I prayed fervently, was when I was working up north.
I was alone in a tent in the middle of nowhere, and some creature was snuffling around my tent in the middle of the night.
And boy, oh boy, did I fervently pray?
Did I fervently pray that it was not a mountain lion or a bear or a wolf or any other sort of predator that would have torn me limb from limb?
It was one of the few times I did not have my handy dandy shotgun to protect me.
Most times I had a shotgun to protect me.
So, of course, when I say I was praying, of course, I was fervently hoping with an amen, which is a lot of what prayer is.
And of course, was I praying that God would make it to be a deer or something that was not dangerous?
I never, by the by, I never did, in fact, find out what it was.
It snowed overnight, and I could not see the tracks in the morning that would make any particular kind of sense.
So I never did find out what it was.
But it certainly did not eat me up or attack me, as you can hear, I suppose.
Because if I had been even bitten or clawed or something, I really was in the middle of nowhere.
And the odds of making it back, this is long before cell phones or satellite phones or anything like that, I would have died out there.
So I was fervently hoping I wasn't expecting the hand of God to come down and turn a wolf into a deer or something like that.
Fervent hope with an amen at the end.
But it was certainly the last time that I prayed.
Was it summer, winter?
Anyway, so I don't remember finding out what it was.
So what that means is that I was hoping for the primacy of mind over the reality of matter.
Another example of the primacy of mind is the secret.
You know, I've marked this occasionally over the years, just this nonsense that pretty people believe that the universe just gives you stuff.
You know, like really hot women are just like, wow, the universe just gives you stuff.
It's like, no, that's just hormones offering you resources in return for a potential sexual favor slash relationship slash reproduction, whatever.
I just ask the universe for things and lo and behold, the universe provides, right?
It doesn't generally tend to happen to, you know, ugly, fat old women living in the middle of nowhere.
It doesn't generally work that way.
So that's the primacy.
Like I ask the universe for things and the universe provides.
Now, I do think that accepting that you have certain possibilities and potentials and so on is valid, has important aspects to your life.
I believe that I am capable of doing great philosophy.
That certainly opens up the possibility of that.
If I don't believe I'm ever capable of doing any good or great philosophy, I'll never really try.
If I think I can, I might.
So thinking does matter.
And I think that in an unconscious way, the energy that you put out there, so to speak, does return in some manner.
I've put out a lot of generosity.
I've received a lot of generosity.
I think those two things are related, but that's psychological exchange.
It's not the mind of mind over matter.
There is a sort of old meme or joke about socialists, which is a man comforting a crying woman on the couch, saying, you know, saying that something is a human right does not magically render it immune from scarcity.
Right.
So that is, there's a reason why it's a man and a woman crying, man trying to tell a woman something.
And so mind over matter is there are facts, right?
Saying that healthcare is a human right does not make health care available to everyone in some magic way.
Everyone deserves dignity and respect in a more sort of abstract fashion.
Everybody should be treated with dignity and respect.
It's like, well, I mean, I think initially that's a good approach, but after that, treat them as they treat you.
Everybody should be paid a living wage.
It's like, well, if you really believe that, then the best thing you should do is start a business and hire a bunch of people.
And that way you can pay people a living wage.
But basically, just having a demand that something you like be provided by the universe is it's like a kid wanting a unicorn, a toy train, and world peace for Christmas, right?
It's just, I can wish things too.
But the important thing is to actually make things happen in the world, not just sigh and wish.
Because whatever you wish for that has to be produced by others is a wish for enslavement.
Oh, I wish the cotton just picked itself, says the slave owner, right?
In a terrible way.
So the primacy of mind says that the mind is supreme over matter, that the mind rules matter, not by doing, but by thinking or wishing or hoping or imagining or what do they call it?
Manifesting, manifesting.
You know, I wanted a date for Saturday and I manifested it like a date for Saturday, that sort of thing.
So that the mind produces effects in the universe without the annoying intermediary matter that has to be maneuvered and manipulated, right?
I want everyone to have a roof over their head and clothes on their back.
Oh, that's nice.
Have you ever made any clothes for people or built free houses?
Well, no, but I want, right?
And it is, I mean, to be frank, it's a little bit more of a female perspective.
It's female-coded.
Because women want, men satisfy that.
And there's nothing wrong with that, right?
I mean, women want, and men satisfy that want by providing.
And so for women to wish for things is fine.
Men have to actually do the work to provide it.
And again, I know this sounds critical of women.
I don't mean that at all.
It's just that women throughout human history were, at least in northern climates in particular, disabled by childbirth and child raising and couldn't go out there and raise barns.
And so women wished for, and in order to woo women, men provided, and we got to the top of the food chain and became apex predators.
Lovely.
I prefer that to having a wolf chew out my intestines.
A plus.
So when I look at people as a whole, when I meet people, what I look for is signs that they do not have the primacy of mind, but they have instead the primacy of matter.
The primacy of matter is that nature is real and objective physical laws are eternal, permanent, and immutable, and the mind must bend to what is.
Reality does not bend to the mind without the intervention of the hands.
A man who wants to kick a ball does not think of kicking the ball alone, right?
Because he needs his foot.
See, I just went from hands to feet.
But you get the point.
A man who wants to juggle doesn't just think about juggling or read a book about juggling.
I mean, that's fine, but at some point he actually has to try juggling and learn how to juggle.
Daydreaming without action is the primacy of mind over matter, that you get satisfaction in daydreaming about success.
I mean, I think everyone's daydreamed about being a rock star or a movie star or, you know, a gigolo, like some Casanova, sexually successful, whatever, right?
And women daydream about six foot tall, six pack, six figures guy and all of that, right?
So the daydream.
And again, daydreaming is fine.
Imaginary lovers never let you down.
Daydreaming is fine if it translates into action.
If daydream does not translate into action, it is.
And if it's accepted as daydreaming, oh, I've always wanted to hamina hamana.
I've always wanted to write a book.
But I know I'm never going to.
It's just a daydream, right?
But if people hold that out as a possibility, I remember when I was younger, I would read about, you know, so-and-so didn't become prominent until they were 40.
And I'd be 30 and I'd be like, oh, okay, so there's still time.
You know, I guess this is like the women who read about some woman had twins when she was 42.
Oh, I guess there's still time.
It's like, not really.
I mean, it's reported because it's unusual.
Rare, very rare.
Grandma Moses only started painting when she was 70 or whatever it is, right?
So I look for primacy of matter over primacy of mind because that's practical.
That's somebody who wants to achieve real things in the real world.
Because all of the buildings and all of the cars were once just a dream in somebody's head.
So you have to have a daydream in order to have a reality.
You have to have an ambition before you can have a manifestation.
You have to have a goal before you have a direction.
I get all of that.
I dreamed about being a public and valuable philosopher, intellectual guy for decades before it happened.
I sort of, I would practice speeches in my car.
I did all the rehearsals.
There was no practical way to achieve that.
But I dreamed about it.
And then when the opportunity arose, I was ready.
Preparation.
I love that line from Hamlet.
The readiness is all.
And it is.
The readiness is all.
You have to be ready for opportunity.
I spent years programming as a teenager.
And then when an opportunity came to start a software company, I was ready.
So I look for the primacy of matter over the primacy of mind.
Daydreamers will steal your soul because they're so frustrating.
I remember a friend of mine when I was younger was very into martial arts and was like an assistant teacher of someone at a dojo.
And he was like, yeah, it would be great to open your own dojo, my own dojo.
And I'm like, so why don't you open your own dojo?
Well, insurance and taxes and risk and this and that and the other.
And it's like, then if you're not going to do it, if you know you're not going to do it, why don't you keep wanting to do it?
You should channel your wanting to do things into things that you can do.
I like to sing.
I am not a very good singer.
So I don't say, oh, you know, I still daydream about being a singer, right?
Or whatever, right?
I mean, that's just not a thing, right?
That's not a thing.
I don't have these goals and plans for things that I am not going to pursue.
When I was younger, I borrowed a friend of mine's sister's electric guitar, and I kept it for a couple of months, and I learned a couple of songs, and my fingers hurt, and I have short fingers, and I didn't really get what I was doing, and I did not have any particular talent or desire or ability.
And so I did not become a guitarist, right?
I've tried to learn piano three times in my life because I had this sort of funny thought that, hey, maybe because I type a lot, I've got good keyboards, you know, whatever, right?
And it doesn't particularly work for me.
Some things I get sort of instinctively and right away, and some things I don't.
So I don't sit there and say, I still really want to be a pianist.
I'm not going to pursue it.
I don't put time, effort, and energy into it.
So I don't have daydreams without action.
Daydreams are a spur to action.
And if I'm pretty disciplined, that if I'm not going to pursue something, I stop daydreaming about it.
You know, like, I mean, I guess the question of everyone who works out, every man who works out is, am I going to get a six-pack?
And I strongly doubt it.
I strongly doubt I'm going to get it.
Am I going to get super buffed?
Well, I strongly doubt it because, Well, as far as getting super buff, I tried it.
When I played Macbeth, I buffed out quite a bit.
I'm genetically limited.
Some people are genetically gifted in terms of the muscle that they accumulate.
I'm limited because if I push my body too hard, I just get injured.
And so I pushed my body about as hard as I could and I bulked up some, but not super much.
And that's just as far as I can go.
And it also was kind of tiring and it also was time consuming and so on, right?
So I went from my two reps of 20 or two reps of 12 sometimes.
I went to six reps of six and train until failure.
And it's not something that is of particular interest to me.
And again, I'm always courting injury.
My body is somewhat prone to injury from overexertion.
So it's not a thing.
Anyway, so I only but so if but if I'm around people who daydream and don't act, they will steal my soul because I get progressively annoyed.
I'm not saying this is right or wrong.
I'm just telling you what my experience is.
If I'm around a daydreamer who constantly talks about what they could or woulda shoulda, my mother was one of these.
She was always talking about writing a book called One Woman's Century about her life.
And I offered to help her after I had written a couple of books.
I said I'd be happy to help and we could organize notes.
But she never did, right?
She never did.
It's just something she talked about.
And of course, after a while, I realized, and I'm not going to say how long, but it should have been shorter.
But after a while, of course, I realized that she liked talking about writing a book because that raised her status.
But she didn't want to actually write a book because that would be hard work.
And it is, right?
So being, and I grew up with a lot of dreamers.
And some of the people I grew up with did genuinely achieve cool things and good things and so on.
So it went all dreamers, but I have not, and nobody I grew up with achieved anything great.
Good, good, solid stuff.
But I certainly went the furthest of anyone that I grew up with.
I mean, by far.
And one of the reasons I went further is I just refused to be around dreamers.
And I still refuse to be around dreamers.
If somebody is sighing about what they want to do and they don't actually take tangible steps, either to do it or to find another dream.
I've been a very sort of big advocate as a whole.
I've been a very big advocate of find something that you really care about, that you're really interested in.
Throw yourself into it 150%.
If it doesn't work, try something else until you find something that really works for you.
A big advocate of that.
Huge advocate of that.
And the people who daydream, I have no particular interest in.
So with it.
And in fact, I sort of recoil from them.
And of course, the older you get, it's fine to daydream, you know, when you're in your teens or early mid-teens or whatever.
But at some point, you actually have to start acting towards achieving some kind of goal and so on.
And I had friends who did have big dreams.
I had a friend who took a math and physics double major, but didn't succeed, got too frustrated, had some physical ailments that interfered.
And I sympathize with all of that.
It's like, okay, but then you got to find something else, right?
If this doesn't work out, right?
I tried, gosh, I tried the academic world.
I tried the art world in terms of acting and playwriting.
I tried the business world.
And let's see, I did well in acting.
I did well in academia.
I did better in business.
And then, in terms of philosophy and talking directly to the public, that was when I hit my stride.
That was when I got my groove on.
You just keep trying.
You just keep trying different things until you find stuff that works.
And then you throw everything into it and see how far you can go.
So the primacy of matter is that the physical is superior to the mental.
The physical conditions the mind.
The mind is a slave to the real, if that makes sense.
And if people don't want to do that and have that approach, then I'm going to annoy them and they are going to annoy me.
I'm the kind of person that if somebody says, I want to wanna wanna, I'll be like, let's make it happen.
And if they then recoil, you know, I'm very much like, oh, I've always wanted to ask that girl out.
And I'm like, well, ask her out or find another girl, but don't just sit there wanting.
The purpose of wanting is to act.
And so the people who want to do stuff and don't do it, I annoy them by constantly telling them that they should do it or giving them practical advice.
And the people and the people who just want to daydream are annoyed by me and I'm annoyed by them because they're like, no, I just want to, you know, wouldn't it be nice if, right?
And people, it'd be nice if healthcare was free.
I'm like, well, you can become a doctor and work for free.
No, no, no.
I just want to daydream about it.
Wouldn't it be nice if?
And I just get annoyed by that because I think it's narcissistic.
I think it's greedy.
I think it's foolish.
I think it's destructive.
I think it's dangerous.
I think it's toxic.
And it is the kind of thing that causes entire civilizations to be destroyed is wanting stuff in that way.
So the primacy of matter is science, right?
So science does not concern itself much with the beauty of a theory that is falsified by experimentation, by actual physical evidence.
Doesn't matter, this is a Feynman thing, it doesn't matter how beautiful or elegant your theory is.
What matters is if it actually works in reality.
And so reason says it doesn't matter how emotionally compelling your theory is, is it rational?
Empiricism says it doesn't matter how elegant and cool and appealing and interesting and satisfying your theory is.
Is it borne out by the actual evidence?
So primacy of mind is manifested in the theory or the statement that goes something like this, where it is said, well, communism is nice in theory, it just doesn't work in practice, which is, to the primacy of matter people, incomprehensible.
Two and two make five is nice in theory, it just doesn't work in practice.
It's like, no, if it doesn't work in practice, it's not nice in theory.
It's wrong.
And it is the primacy of mind says emotions matter more than evidence.
Theory matters more than practice.
Sentimentality matters more than achievability.
Daydreams mean more than factual achievements, you know, all of that sort of stuff.
So people who work with their hands have accepted and get pounded into them every day that you actually have to do things in the real world, that intentions do not matter, except insofar as they lead to achievement.
So when I had a paper route, if I did not deliver the papers, daydreaming about delivering the papers, having the intention to deliver the papers, really wanting to.
or doing everything but, like even walking around the neighborhoods with my giant bag and I had a little cassette tape I used to play Queen's Greatest Sits on when I was 11 or so and I had a giant sack that I would get on my bike and haul the papers around.
If I did everything but actually put the papers on the people's front steps, then I was not delivering the papers and people were upset.
And if I said, well, I really meant to deliver the papers, that did not help.
That did not matter.
What mattered was, did I actually deliver the papers?
When I had a job moving furniture, a real fingerbuster, and bringing furniture into a building, I also had a job putting, I had a job for a while at a place called Space Age Shelving in Darm Mills.
I actually had to cut the shelves of the customer specifications.
And if they were wrong, then that would be bad.
I would get in trouble.
I would mix paint and cut keys and cut glass at a hardware store.
And if I got that wrong, then the customer would be mad and I would be in trouble.
And I should be because I had wasted resources.
My code had to compile and meet specifications and run at a reasonable speed in order to please clients.
Had to compile, meet needs, meet spec, run at a good speed.
And that was a huge challenge at times.
So wanting it, I can't say it doesn't matter because you can't act without some sort of desire and purpose.
So desire and purpose is fine.
But desire and purpose that doesn't lead to measurable action is worse than a waste of time.
If you have a bad infection, visualizing your immune system fighting it like sharks attacking a seal isn't going to cure the infection.
I mean, I'm not saying it's harmful.
Maybe it'll help a tiny bit.
I don't know, but it's not going to cure the infection.
But if you think it will, your infection just gets worse.
Like daydreaming without action is worse because it gives you the satisfaction, in a way, of achievement without the actual trouble of achieving things and struggling and striving and failing and learning and all of that, being rejected and so on.
I mean, most of what I did in the business world, as is true for just about everybody in the business world, most of what I did in the business world was rejected.
Most sales calls, you don't make the sale.
I mean, even if, especially if it's cold calling and stuff, right?
It's just not going to happen.
So primacy of consciousness is toxic.
Primacy of matter is, there's no point daydreaming about building a shed unless that daydreaming has you build a shed.
So you daydream, and again, daydreaming is fine.
You daydream and then you say, am I going to do it?
And if you're going to do it, then do it.
And if you're not going to do it, then stop daydreaming about it and instead do something, daydream about something you can actually do, if that makes sense.
So the people who've worked with their hands are less susceptible to the primacy of consciousness.
A man who's actually built houses doesn't just daydream about houses being built.
He builds houses.
And if he really wants to build houses for the poor, then he goes and raises money or he uses his savings or he labors for free or whatever it is and builds houses for the poor.
And I do kind of loathe the primacy of consciousness people who think that only intention and wishing and daydreaming and nagging is the way to get things done.
I think it's just awful because you're just relying on other people to have to do what you fervently claim that you want.
And the primacy of consciousness people are just yes, but people.
Well, why don't you open your dojo?
Yeah, but you know, insurance can be a real bitch.
And, you know, you've got to sign a long lease and banks aren't in a lending mood right now.
Yes, but, yes, but, yes, but.
It's like, yeah, but I see dojos.
Yeah, but they've probably inherited them or, you know, they took over something.
It's like, well, why don't you take over a dojo?
Yeah, well, I don't really know it.
It's just yes, but, yes, but, yes, but.
And it's exhausting and debilitating and annoying as a whole.
So people who work with their hands tend to be more conservative.
They tend to be more realistic.
They tend to be more rational.
They tend to be more empirical.
They just tend to be more accurate metaphysically and epistemologically.
They cannot manipulate.
Like I couldn't manipulate the earth into giving me gold when I worked out north.
I had to go and actually, you know, hump the drills and do all of the hard work and risk and danger and cold and frostbite and all that kind of stuff, right?
So I had to actually do it.
There was no shortcuts.
I remember one time when my boss came up, there were three of us in the tent in the middle of the winter.
And we would go out most days, except when it was hailing.
Hailing was just brutal.
Anyway, he came up and wanted to go out and see the sights.
And we were like, oh, we're, oh, it's hailing.
And he's like, oh, come on, come on.
Let's go.
Come on.
And it was just this sort of, I don't know, South African absolutism.
And it was rough.
And just had to grit your teeth and go out and do it.
There was.
I mean, or, you know, get the significant displeasure of the boss, if that makes sense.
So I hope that makes sense.
So when people have worked with their hands to make real things in the real world, and I don't just mean sort of physical labor, like lifting and humping and hauling and digging and stuff.
I'm talking about even things like a code and so on.
You can't just will things to work.
You have to subject yourselves to the reasoning, right?
So if you, what's the old joke, I want a processor fast enough to complete an endless loop in an hour.
So if you are in code land and you end up with an endless loop, right?
Line 20.
Line 10, go to line 20.
Line 20, go to line 10.
Just the computer goes back and forth forever until it dies.
And so if you're in an endless loop, then you can't just will your way out of that.
You can't manipulate your way out of it and so on, right?
You can't talk your way out of it.
And so when you can talk your way in and out of things, then you have a primacy of consciousness.
And again, there's nothing wrong with that, but you have to have at least at some point in your life, in my experience, you have to have had a basis The primacy of matter.
So it's fine to be, you know, a salesperson.
You talk yourself in and out of sales, but it should be based on actual facts, empirical.
And actual facts, for sure.
But you definitely do need to have that in the basis of your mind in some fashion.
You have to have been conditioned by actual facts.
And if you can just talk yourself in and out of stuff, you know, if you can whine and get resources, if you can nag and get resources, if you can intimidate people and get obedience and thus get resources, then the primacy of consciousness is when you are primarily reliant upon other people for your resources,
the primacy, which is, you know, women who are pregnant and all of that, as opposed to the primacy of matter, when you get your resources from actual facts, matter and reality in the world.
If you can't nag it or complain about it or vote for it in order to get it to come into existence, well, that's pretty bad, right?
That is a big problem in the world.
And it's not a problem in the absence of the state, although it can be, of course, it can lead to or come from a lot of emotional manipulation.
But it is important to recognize the difference.
And there's a lot of people who shy away from the primacy of matter and retreat into the primacy of consciousness.
I mean, in many ways, that's insanity is when you retreat from the primacy of matter and then you just, you know, you daydream that you're Jesus or Napoleon or something like that, right?
So that is, and I can tell, you know, I hate to say, oh, psychic, but I can sort of tell when people have spent their whole life just in language and manipulation and whining, complaining, nagging.
And it can also be inspiring, right?
But all of that.
But when their primary source of value is other people's minds rather than things in reality, and if they've never done that, again, you can be a great inspiring, abstract, intellectual, motivating leader, but in order for it to be reality-based and honorably based, it generally has to have come out of dealing with things in the world, right?
So like if you look at the practicality of someone like Mike Cernovich, then he did physical labor when he was younger.
I think the same thing is true of Scott Adams.
Socrates, of course, was famously a soldier, which is very much the primacy of matter.
And I don't think was Plato.
I don't think so.
But, you know, people who go from, you know, middle-class households into academia and then to a think tank and then into politics or policy or, you know, something like that.
I mean, they just never touch actual, unbending, unyielding, factual objective.
Doesn't give a crap about your thoughts, physical matter.
And I, of course, was not a huge fan of the physical labor.
I did when I was younger, but in hindsight, it turns out it was a pretty good idea.
And things that you don't like at the time, you know, as the old saying goes, I've sort of been thinking about it a lot lately.
Never underestimate the worst luck your bad luck has saved you from, right?
I have a very sort of strong imagination and abstract capacities.
And if it is the case that I hadn't done labor, if I had been raised, one of my friends, I remember, I had a pretty brutal job over the course of the summer, pretty sort of rough physical job over the course of the summer.
And he was sitting by the pool reading von Mises.
And I was, of course, highly envious of that.
That would be, that would be nice.
That would have been a pretty nice summer.
But no, that turned out to have been better in the long run.
I think not just for me, but for the world as a whole.
And it was better in the long run for me to have the primacy of matter.
And of course, because my mother very much threw herself into the primacy of consciousness, or was hurled down by this brutal Russians who I'm sure assaulted her when she was a child in the most horrifying ways we can conceive of, and some we probably can't even conceive of, like Menendez stuff.
But my mother definitely had the primacy of consciousness in that she just didn't like doing the physical labor, and she very much lived in daydreams of law and retribution and vengeance and hostility and manipulation.
And she worked to stay physically attractive so she could manipulate men and so on.
And of course, it never led to anything particularly good as a whole.
So, yeah, the primacy of matter is science, empiricism, reason, evidence.
And I can really tell when I'm debating with someone or I've worked with someone, if they have never had to desperately rely on the unyielding, unbending facts of reality.
I can tell because they have a certain subjectivity and relativity and all of that sort of stuff, loosey-goosey stuff.
You know, there's nothing good or bad, but thinking makes it so and all of that kind of stuff.
And that is not ideal.
And you can kind of tell that kind of stuff, if that makes sense.
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