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Feb. 4, 2026 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
42:32
The Greatest Listener Questions - 1!
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Cows, Cliffs, and Commandments 00:05:59
What are the most important questions that my listeners want answers to?
And we're going to run through them quickly.
And hopefully this will be a one-stop shop for at least tertiary answers to your most important questions.
First was morality and ethics foundations.
Is morality objective and universal?
E.g., does UPB hold up against religious, theistic, or secular alternatives like divine command theory and hedonism?
Great question.
And the answer, of course, is yes.
Next question.
All right.
So does UPB hold up against religious, theistic, or secular alternatives like divine command theory or hedonism?
So a commandment is not an argument.
And escalating the power and authority of the commander does not make something true.
The richest man in the world, the most politically powerful man or woman in the world, can say that the physically strongest man in the world, the tallest man in the world, the man with the loudest voice, none of them can say that two and two make five and have it be true.
There is no power in the universe strong enough to make the irrational rational, to make the antirational rational.
So religious commandments are just that.
So the big challenge, of course, is that morality evolved to serve rulers, not virtue.
And so if you look at sort of historically developed morality, it creates exceptions for the rulers, which is kind of the point.
The purpose is if you can convince your livestock to respect fences that aren't there, then it's a whole lot cheaper to run your farm.
And because it's a whole lot cheaper to run your farm, you end up with more money for military conquests and so on, right?
So the more self-regulating the tax livestock are, the more efficient is the tax farm, and therefore it will tend to spread.
And so morality evolved as a technique for human management that causes the livestock to respect boundaries invented by the rulers.
And therefore, you need less enforcement mechanisms, fewer enforcement mechanisms.
And also, when you get people to accept moral commandments, then they police each other.
And so if somebody in a highly religious community becomes atheist or agnostic, they are rejected, well, corrected, rejected, and ostracized if they don't change by the other members of the religious community, which is a free enforcement mechanism for the rulers.
So you get people to believe in a particular set of moral absolutes based upon arguments from authority, which is to say not arguments, but impositions based on brute power.
And people will attack each other for failing to respect those rules.
And therefore, you don't need as many police.
You don't need as many enforcers.
You don't need as many prisons.
And people self-regulate or are regulated by each other.
So if you can train your cows to believe in fences that aren't there, then you don't need to build fences.
And it's all the more effective if the cows bite or stomp or attack each other for failing to respect the imaginary offenses, then it's a whole lot cheaper and easier to run the farm.
And generally, what has emerged in the relationship between state and church, state and religion, is that the government provides a monopoly for religious leaders.
In return, those religious leaders teach people to obey the state.
It's a sort of mutually mutually beneficial relationship that in general parasites on the people as a whole.
Now, this is not to say that all religious rules are bad, right?
Thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not steal, and so on.
They're good.
So you can have a commandment that aligns with rational morality.
In other words, you can have an imaginary fence that keeps the cows from real dangers as well as false dangers, right?
So if you've got a field and on one side is a cliff and you don't want to bother building a fence, then you, in this analogy, you would teach the cows that going near, let's say the west side has a cliff, fall down and die.
So then you would teach the cows through religious imagery that the great cow god has told them never to go to the west side of the field and that way they won't fall down the cliff.
So it could be that it's rational.
Of course, maybe on the east side they could escape and live wild and free and happy and not beat cows who are domesticated.
So you'd say, well, you don't go to the east or the west or whatever it is, right?
Or if you wanted your sheep, or let's say you wanted your, no, let's say of cows, right?
So let's say you wanted your cows to line up voluntarily to form themselves into lines and so on so that they could be executed and harvested for their meat.
Then you would tell them that it's the path to paradise or whatever it is, right?
And then they would self-organize.
And anyone who tried to get out of line, they would attack and get back in line.
So it's just a whole lot easier.
It's a management technique.
Again, Christianity is the closest that I've read about.
And I'm no expert on, of course, all theologies.
It would be impossible.
It's 10,000 different gods.
The Middle Ground Between Pleasure and Pain 00:07:48
But Christianity is certainly the closest to a UPB.
But that's still not a rational or objective or reproducible methodology.
So how does it hold up to something like hedonism?
Hedonism is that which is the pleasurable is the good.
That's not a moral system.
That is simply allowing evolutionary dopamine programming to rule your life.
And to prefer that which is pleasurable is not particular to humanity.
The pleasure-pain mechanisms have been programmed into all sentient creatures, so most creatures, since the dawn of life itself.
So it's not morality.
That's simply chasing dopamine and all of that.
And in general, if something is good, then it is better if it is sustainable.
So a typical example would be cocaine, heroin or whatever, makes you feel really good in the moment, but destroys your life in the long run.
So the good is better if it is sustainable.
You may be tempted to cheat on your wife rather than work on issues in your marriage.
And so you go have an affair, and the affair feels good, but then your wife leaves you, takes half your stuff, you don't see your kids, and bad things have resulted from your hedonism.
So you could say that philosophy is an argument for superior hedonism, for sustainable happiness.
If you lose weight, then you will generally be better off if you have a very high BMI.
Say you're six foot tall, you're 300 pounds.
If you lose weight, you will be happier in the long run because you will not have weight-related health issues.
Sorry, it's kind of obvious.
But of course, to lose, say you need to lose 100 pounds, to lose 100 pounds is very difficult.
Right?
It was a pound, 3,500 calories or something like that.
So that's a lot.
That's a lot.
And so to deny yourself the pleasure of eating and to impose upon yourself the discipline of exercise is difficult and painful.
But happiness is something that should be sustainable, because if it's not sustainable, then it's brief joy at great cost.
So you could argue that philosophy, morality, virtue, responsibility is rational hedonism in that it aims for longer-term sustainable happiness, which of course it cannot guarantee, but there aren't any particular guarantees in life as a whole, right?
You could lose 100 pounds and then get hit by a bus or something like that.
So now hedonism is in general the sacrifice of longer-term pleasures for short-term pleasures.
Like if somebody enjoys denying themselves dessert and enjoys exercising, we don't say it's hedonistic for them to do that.
Hedonism is when you choose short-term pleasures at the expense of long-term gains.
And hedonism or pleasure and pain exists in the scenario of the Aristotelian mean.
So too much self-discipline could be masochistic.
You know, people who really cut their calories and they exercise obsessively and they go too far in self-denial and self-discipline.
Well, that would be anorexia, nervosa, or some sort of masochism in that they are denying and savaging their happiness too much.
And that can certainly, certainly happen.
And so the pleasure-pain principle, you could deny yourself your whole life and die young, right?
So that could happen.
Or you could deny yourself your whole life.
And we think of somebody, let's say they make $10 million and they continue to live in their car or some real crap hole of a place and they live as if they're still broke.
So they eat bad food.
They don't have comfortable or even remotely comfortable living arrangements.
And they don't take up a gym membership because that's expensive, so to speak.
So people who do that would be considered an excess of self-denial in that you are taking on uncomfortable difficulties in your life with no need to do so.
So that would be an excess of self-denial.
There's, of course, we all know there's an excess of hedonism, which would be you just grab every pleasure in the moment and don't take care of your future.
So a hedonist, for example, would be somebody like Christopher Hitchens, who, as far as I recall, had a family history of a particular cancer, but he drank and smoked, drank like a fish and smoked like a chimney and did not exercise and so on and died of that illness, which was pretty high risk for him.
So that would be an excess of hedonism.
I always remember when he was given the odds, they were very low of him surviving it.
And he said, those aren't the odds I would have chosen.
So the pleasure-pain continuum exists in the Aristotelian sphere of the mean.
You want sort of the middle ground.
And so it's not a good, evil thing.
I mean, it could be a responsibility thing, of course.
If you have a wife and kids and you're doing dangerous and foolish things that are unnecessary, that's not good.
Another example of the pleasure pain principle would be courage, right?
You want to have a certain amount of courage in life so you can fight the good fight, oppose evil and promote virtue, but you don't want to do it to the point where you end up being completely destroyed and so on.
So there's lots of sort of these Aristotelian mean things in life.
But the pleasure-pain continuum is important to process from an Aristotelian mean standpoint.
You want to experience some pleasures in life, because otherwise, what's the point?
But you also don't want to sacrifice long-term pleasures for short-term pleasures when rationally appropriate.
I mean, nobody watches their weight if it's their last meal before being executed, right?
You just eat whatever you want and enjoy it and so on, right?
So hedonism is not a moral system.
Hedonism is a self-management of pain and pleasure, which should aim for reasonable maximum virtues.
The uncoupling, the extreme uncoupling of hedonism from morality or pleasure-pain from morality would be Kantian ethics, where if you gain any pleasure or positive reaction from your moral action, it's no longer moral because you're doing it for the pleasure rather than the thing itself.
And I don't particularly agree with that at all.
All right.
Why should someone be moral without God, force, or pure self-interest?
Great question.
Why should someone be moral without God, force, or pure self-interest?
False Temperature Conversations 00:04:54
So I had a call last night.
It was actually in XSpace, but it basically became a call-in show.
And it was a woman who had a really horrendous family history, criminal, violent, exploitive, and so on.
And she's like, well, I can just hide this, right?
From if a boy is interested in my daughter or a guy's interested in me, I could just hide it.
So the problem, of course, is that the more you hide, the harder you are to love.
You know, it's hard to get to know, let's say there's a real criminal and he's to hide his crimes.
It's pretty hard to have a relaxed, positive, and open interaction with someone who's got a really bad conscience, is constantly afraid of being caught, and has to hide and watch everything that they say.
I mean, it's one of the reasons why the sort of giant hammer blow of censorship hits people so hard, because people then become very cautious and constantly censoring themselves for what it is that they can or cannot say.
And that makes it harder for people to connect with them.
So if you are virtuous and you do the right things, then you don't have things to hide from people.
And when you don't have things to hide from people, you are more relaxed, accessible, emotionally open, and you have a better relationship with yourself.
And other people have a better relationship with you.
I mean, imagine that you were in some, I don't know, horrible combination of squid slash hunger games.
And you were in a three-way conversation.
And you would get killed if the third person in the conversation said the word temperature.
And the other person would get $10 million if the third person said temperature.
And so the other person in the conversation, the second person, would constantly try to get the third person to say the word temperature.
And let's say you didn't know the punishment.
He didn't know your punishment would be death.
So he would have a huge incentive to get the third person to say the word temperature.
And you would have a huge incentive to stop the third person from saying the word temperature.
Would this be a natural, organic, healthy, relaxed, convivial, enjoyable conversation?
No.
Because there would be two people with strenuous agendas, one to get the third person to say temperature, the word, and the other to have the person not say the word temperature.
So this would be a very false, very forced, very weird conversation.
And of course, the third person who maybe wouldn't know anything about these incentives would wonder why the conversation was so weird.
Because there would be all of these perverse incentives.
And of course, the rule is you couldn't tell the third person about your incentives.
So there would be all these perverse incentives at play.
And it would be a very strange and bizarre conversation.
And the third person wouldn't get to know anything about you because you would have all of this incentive, right?
Don't say the word temperature.
And the other person would be, get the person to say the word a temperature.
So there would be all of these perverse incentives.
It would be an entirely bizarre and unnatural and non-relaxed and close conversation.
So if you're hiding a bunch of stuff, if you have a bunch of contradictions in your mind that you can't admit to, then you're going to be harder to know, harder to relax around, harder to be connected with.
And in fact, it probably would become pretty impossible pretty quickly.
So why should you be good?
Why should you be good without these incentives?
Well, our brain is designed for consistency.
And a lack of consistency is a sign of a fear of enslavement, of being controlled, and so on.
So why should someone be moral without God force of pure self-interest?
Well, you are more relaxed.
You are more yourself.
You are more honest.
You are more able to be loved.
And then you, because people trust you, like you wouldn't trust people engaged in this weird temperature conversation.
So because people trust you, you have a better and more efficient life because people trust you, they respect you, you are relaxed and open with them.
And so you have a better quality of relationships.
If you have to lie about something fundamental or foundational in your life to the people who are close to you in particular, then that creates a distance.
And that distance is negative.
Practical Benefits of Morality 00:04:34
And in the business world, if people trust you, then you have a much better relationship in the business world.
So there are really practical benefits to being moral.
Comparisons between, this is the, sorry, the third one is challenges to UPB.
Does it account for survival instincts, power dynamics, might makes right, preemptive defense, or real-world irrationality?
Well, this is the kind of question that answers itself.
So if I say I'm a researcher and I'm feverishly working to find a cure for lung cancer, and people were to say, but does that take into account the fact that people like to smoke?
Bro, that's the whole purpose of it.
The whole purpose of it.
Let's say I had some beloved uncle who died.
It's always the uncle.
Some beloved uncle who died of lung cancer because he was a chain smoker and I'm a cancer researcher who's working hard to find a cure for lung cancer.
Say, well, but but does this take into account the fact that people like to smoke?
And it's like, well, the whole thing is driven by the fact that people like to smoke.
I mean, I'm aware that some people get lung cancer with anti-Kaufman without having smoked, but most people who get lung cancer were smokers or had, you know, I guess that's the asbestos thing and so on, right?
So when I'm working very hard on a system of ethics, and then people say, but how does this account for the fact that people want to be unethical?
That's why.
Because the danger does not come, I mean, I really can't say this often enough, but I'll say it again.
The danger in life and in the world does not come from people who are corrupt and immoral at all.
The real dangers in life do not come from those people.
The real dangers in life come from the people who think they are serving goodness and virtue when they are in fact serving vice and evil.
So if you look at something like property taxes, they are taken from you, obviously against your will, every year and so on.
And so you look back sort of over your life, see how much have I paid in property taxes versus how many times have I been robbed?
I think I was robbed.
I was mugged once.
I was mugged once.
This happened right before I left England.
My friends and I were visiting the War Museum and three very merry and happy black teenagers stripped us of our money.
And I was 10 or 11 to maybe 10 at the time.
So that's the only time I've been mugged.
And I obviously didn't have much money with me because it was just bus fair, which I think was 5p.
So I didn't have much money on me.
And so I've lost very little money over the course of my life to mugging.
On the other hand, on the other hand, I have lost, you know, a little bit more than that over the course of my life from taxation.
And so it's the people who think they're doing the right thing but are doing the wrong thing that pose the greatest danger in the world as a whole.
So people who normally wouldn't kill but end up killing because the government points at someone and says that's a mortal enemy and you need to kill that person, they're the people who are doing real danger, right?
So yeah, for sure, there are people who say might makes right.
Yeah, there are absolutely people like that, for sure.
And because of people like that, governments tend not to be particularly productive because those people will take control of the government.
So people have a power lust for sure.
Yeah, people have a power lust.
There are people who are, you know, sociopaths and psychopaths and so on that might makes right and they don't believe in any particular virtues.
And I mean, they would manipulate virtue to get what they want and so on.
But yeah, people are power hungry.
And there are countless people in the world very happy to impose their will on others through force.
Absolutely.
That is an accepted reality.
So those people will end up running the government.
You see, I would argue that the theory of hierarchical or oligarchical political power is the real pie in the sky utopian dream world because it is saying, well, human beings have a lust for power, dominance, domination, and we're addicted to hierarchies and we love gaining control over others.
It's like, yeah, that's true.
Proving Goodness 00:11:34
I mean, that there is real elements of that, not just in our psychology, but in our actual physiology.
And so because of that, governments end up being controlled by the least scrupulous.
People have a power lust.
We accept that.
And therefore, giving people access to that degree of power is not good.
It's not good.
Comparisons between secular ethics, UPP rationality, and religious frameworks.
Christianity, Jesus is teaching sin redemption a sacrifice.
So the big challenge is how to get people to be good in the absence of being able to prove what goodness is.
In the absence of proof, how do you get people to do what you want?
So let's say that you are being paid a million dollars to get your wife.
Let's say you're in your 40s, right?
And you're being paid a million dollars to get your wife to go to a rave for six hours straight.
And you're in your 40s, so you shouldn't be, I mean, raves would be ridiculous at any age, but particularly in your 40s.
So she comes home from work.
She's tired.
A long, difficult commute.
She's tired.
And then you have to convince her to go to a rave, but you can't tell her about the million dollar offer.
So how are you going to get her to go to the rave if you can't, like if you could say, hey, you know, we've been paid a million dollars to go to the rave, that's the rational reason.
But you have to, some reality show or whatever, right?
So you have to get your wife to go to a rave that starts at 10 p.m. and goes till 4 a.m.
It's a Wednesday night.
She's got a big presentation the next day.
You have to get her to go to the rave, but you can't tell her about the million dollars.
Well, what do you do?
I mean, you cajole, you beg, maybe you threaten.
I don't know, whatever, right?
But you've got to get her to go and do what you want her to do or do what may be even objectively better for the family.
I mean, sure, a million dollars helps people quite a bit.
So how do you get her to go?
Well, you have to cajole, beg, threaten, bribe, whatever, right?
You have to get her to do what you want her to do, but you can't tell her the why.
And so if you look at, say, Christian ethics, a lot of which are perfectly UPP compatible, well, you can't explain why.
So what do you have to do?
Well, you have to bribe, threaten, cajole, guilt, manipulate to get people to do the right thing when you can't explain to them why the right thing is good or even what it is objectively.
So with Christianity in particular, and this is a common pattern in religion as a whole, religions tend to focus on punishment and reward.
And the punishment is either guilt in the here and now or hell in the hereafter.
So Christianity says, in general, and there's tons of exceptions, but this is the general pattern.
Christianity says, well, you're born sinful because of Adam and Eve.
You are infected with original sin.
There's an illness.
And the cure for this illness is following the teachings of Jesus and giving money to the church.
And listen, I'm not, it's not a criticism.
I mean, freedomain.com slash innate, you can help out philosophy as well.
So churches need to survive and heat themselves and maintain themselves and repair the roofs and so on.
So it's not a criticism, but it is a fact, right?
So you are born ill from original sin, and the cure needs to be perpetual.
You don't just get cured once, right?
You don't just go to one religious ritual.
Original sin is removed and then you're done.
You can go back to whatever you're doing before.
It's not a one-shot thing, you know, like a round of antibiotics.
You know, hopefully you're not on antibiotics for the rest of your life.
So a round of antibiotics solves your problem, solves your issue.
And maybe if you get infected again, but in general, right, that's the idea.
So Jesus died for your sins.
Your sins existed because they're inherited from Adam.
And you need to be in a state of perpetual sorrow and apology and begging for forgiveness in order to avoid going to hell or being absent from heaven and so on, right?
So there is a negative emotional state, guilt, and its necessary reciprocal obligations, right?
Right.
So if someone saves your child's life and then asks you for a favor, then I assume that you would feel a fair amount of obligation to do that favor because they saved your, I mean, if you're a decent person, right?
Your neighbor saves your child's life.
And then they say, hey, could you give me a hand shovel in my driveway?
You would say, well, yes, I'm hugely obligated because you saved my child's life and so on, right?
So if Jesus died for your sins, then you owe Jesus, right?
Jesus took on all this pain and sacrifice to die for your sins.
So you owe Jesus allegiance and obedience and loyalty sort of for the rest of your life and so on.
It's why they have this crucifixion, right?
Jesus is sorrowful and on top of the altar and on the wall and so on, sorrowful.
And he died for you.
He was nailed up for you.
It's your, basically, it's your fault that Jesus had to get nailed up, but he did it to save you.
And that creates, of course, a lot of obligation, a sense of obligation in the moral.
And if you don't respect Jesus' sacrifice, then you're kind of an ungrateful person.
Look, I mean, like I literally got tortured and died just for you.
And so you kind of owe him back.
And so that's the kind of obligation that is created.
And again, that's not anything foundationally corrupt in any kind of religious teachings.
It's just that you have to get your wife to go to the rave and you can't tell her about the $10 million.
And of course, they do tell you why you have to obey, say, Jesus, but they can't prove it.
They can't prove why morality is valid.
And because they can't prove why morality is valid, but people desperately need others to be moral, then you are in a situation of manipulation.
You have to manipulate your wife into going to the rave from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m., which he desperately does not want to do.
It's loud.
It's uncomfortable.
It's sweaty.
It feels out of place.
She's got a big presentation the next morning.
She's not going to get any sleep.
It's overstimulating.
Whatever, right?
So in the absence of proof, or the absence of proof combined with the necessity of action, means manipulation and dishonesty.
And the more that you want people to be good, the more bribes and threats you need to apply to them if you can't prove goodness, which is why you end up with the ultimate bribes of heaven, the ultimate punishment of hell, and all of this manipulation and ostracism and guilt-tripping and all of this kind of stuff, right?
And I agree with most Christian virtues.
I agree with most Christian virtues.
Thou shalt not bear false witness.
That's what I was told.
And I mean, when I was growing up, it was pretty easy to see how society was falling away from virtue.
When I was a little kid, just about everyone went to church.
As I aged and things became more culturally and ethnically diverse in the various countries I was in, it was pretty easy to see that the center of Christian ethics was not holding.
I wasn't saying that I can analyze this in an abstract way as a child, but I fell away from Christian ethics.
And nobody seemed to notice.
None of the Christians around me seemed to notice or care or intervene.
And as I sort of said before, my father's family in particular was very religious and took me to church twice a week or more when I was visiting them in Ireland and in a place in England.
And then when I fell away from religion, which I did quite early, nobody asked me what was going on or tried to intervene or tried to reel me back or ask me what my issues were and so on.
And what that means, what that meant to me was either they didn't care about me or they didn't care about God or both.
You know, it's funny.
I just, the memory sort of just struck me that I was swimming in a lake in Ireland.
I must have been about eight or so.
So I was visiting my aunt in Ireland and I was swimming in the lake.
And there was a big storm.
I don't remember there being lightning, but I remember there being distant thunder.
And I thought, well, geez, I'm already wet.
And I was really enjoying the swim.
So why not just keep swimming?
Just keep swimming.
So why not just keep swimming?
And so I was out there for a while, an hour or so.
I came back in and my aunt was livid.
She was really angry at me because I could have been struck by lightning out on the lake, which I really wasn't aware of.
And, you know, I'm okay.
So she was really upset and angry with me.
And she was not a horrible person by any stretch, right?
She was actually quite nice.
So it wasn't like she beat me or anything, right?
She just was frustrated and upset and angry with me because I had put myself at risk by staying out.
And I said, well, I was already wet.
I didn't really see much point coming in.
You're going to dry yourself off.
And what strikes me now, good Lord, a half, a century or more later, is sort of deep down, I think that kind of wormed its way into my brain.
And why didn't she care about my soul, but only my head on a lake?
Because they never talked to me about religion or my views or my skepticism or my doubts.
So why would she be concerned about the extraordinarily low probability of me being struck by lightning while swimming in the lake when there really was only a storm and distant thunder?
I mean, look, if I had seen lightning coming down, I would have high tailed it back, right?
So I didn't.
I just heard some distant thunder.
So I really wasn't in any danger.
So why would she be so concerned about the almost completely zero possibility that lightning is going to strike from, you know, five miles away or 10 miles away or whatever, right?
But not my eternal soul when I was, well, I think by this point, I'd lost my faith completely.
I guess, of course, you know, I can't judge all Christians by a Christian, but I have a number of aunts, and there were a number of religious people around in my life, and not one of them cared or asked or noticed or anything like that.
And so if I had met Christians who took their beliefs really seriously, I think I would have ended up in quite a different place.
Religion Without Authority 00:05:06
But if even by their own standards, they were not practicing Christians, they were, I guess, maybe vague theoretical Christians, but not practical Christians.
You know, My aunt didn't say, I was concerned that you might get hit by lightning and die, and you haven't talked about God in years or accepted any faith or belief in years, so I'm concerned that you would go to hell for eternity based on that.
It was just like, nope, you should have come in, you were in danger, it was bad, wrong, so on, right?
And again, I've lived in four or five different countries, went to a whole bunch of different schools, a whole bunch of different churches, and no one ever asked me about my faith or my beliefs or what I accepted or what I didn't accept, and so on, right?
I mean, I would be yelled at from time to time about my sins in a collective way, but nobody ever asked me.
And that would indicate that people don't really, really believe.
So, knowing that people don't really believe and don't act as if it's true, then recognizing that we need a better or different answer was pretty foundational to my experience.
I mean, Christians can't even accept the authority of the Bible when it comes to forgiveness.
Forgiveness is easier than demands for apologies and restitution because forgiveness is a way of, you know, kind of moving on and you feel good, you feel like you've done the right thing, you can put things behind you, and you'll get a lot of praise from other people who don't want to take a stand against evil because you're relieving them of obligations as well.
You don't have to fight evil, you just have to forgive it, and then you're a good person.
And so, even Christians, they can't accept the authority of the Bible when it comes to forgiveness.
The Bible never says forgiveness should be granted without an admission of false and restitution.
Never says that.
So, with regards to sin, redemption, confession, sacrifice, obligation, heaven, hell, purgatory, original sin, and all of that, don't need it.
Don't need it.
Because UBB lets you tell your wife, go to the rave, we'll get a million dollars.
Oh, okay.
Absolutely.
If I stay longer, can I get 1.2?
Right?
So, UPB gives you the reason.
It tells you why.
It tells you what virtue is, what morality is, and why it is valid.
So, you don't have to manipulate.
Because in order to enforce thou shalt not bear false witness, you have to bear false witness, which is you have to talk about things that are not true and not provable, and in fact, go against reason and evidence.
So, I would like an ethical system that does not rely upon foundational contradictions.
That you have to accept the moral commandments of a being that goes against reason and evidence.
You have to accept those moral commandments.
But only this one being, no, those other 9,999 beings, those are totally wrong.
So, do this one being.
And the other thing, too, is that for me, the growing multiculturalism that was all around me, when I was in boarding school, I was friends with a bunch of the boys, and there were like 500 kids in the boarding school.
I actually used to know all of their names.
I remember that.
And there was, I still have the photo somewhere, 500 were all lining up, 500 kids, and there was one Indian boy, right, out of 500, right?
0.2%, something like that.
So as multiculturalism began to grow, it was pretty clear that arguments that rely on authority and manipulation cannot survive multiculturalism because everybody has their different views of what is good and right and moral and true and all this sort of stuff, right?
So in the same way that science in some ways flourished during the time of religious war, because you needed an answer as to what was true in the universe without atheocracy, because after the Protestant Reformation fragmented Christendom into warring belief systems, Calvinists, Anabaptists, Wingalians,
and all other Anglicans and all of that.
So then you had to have a more universal truth, a methodology for establishing truth and falsehood that did not rely upon revelation, i.e. madness slash illusions or delusions, and did not rely upon authority because you couldn't convince people based on reason and evidence, so you kind of have to manipulate them.
Flourishing Truth Amid Wars 00:02:34
Like you can't tell your wife about the million dollars to go to the race.
You just have to bully, threaten, cajole, bribe, whatever, manipulate her into going, which is very confusing for her.
Why do you want to go to the grave?
I can't tell you, but you got to go.
So I was also pretty clear that as the monocultural nature of the countries that I lived in was fragmenting, that you're going to need an ethic above and beyond arguments from authority, guilt, and manipulation, because otherwise it's just going to be endless conflicts and wars.
And we don't want to go through 300 years of conflicts and wars as Europe had to prior to the separation of church and state and so on.
So, and of course, there was this.
I'll sort of end here, and I appreciate everyone's topics.
We've got a bunch more to go, but I'll stop here.
And, you know, the other thing, I suppose, I remember looking at pictures of the boys, they were really boys, in apple-cheeked, rosy-cheeked little boys, in World War I.
Now, again, I think you had to be 18 to be drafted or something, but some people lied their way in earlier.
But young men, let's say young men, boys.
And it's a battle of uniforms, not of people, right?
As soon as you learn about the Christmas peace of 1914 when the British and German soldiers got together, shared cigarettes, swapped stories, brandy, played football in no man's land, and then went back to slaughtering each other the next day.
That's mad.
It's mad that these young men, who had far more in common, infinitely more in common with each other than their rulers, should slaughter each other at the behest of rulers and men should be slain by the millions by a white feather, the white feather of cowardice handed out by women to men not in uniform in the streets of London.
How can this be possible?
How can a man who kills another man in peacetime be executed, but a man who kills another man in wartime is given a pension, a medal and a ticket tape parade?
Those are the basic foundational questions.
I mean, children all think that, right?
They all wonder that from time to time.
I guess I just kept wondering until I found the truth.
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