April 1, 2026 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
31:13
The Ego Death of TRUTH! X Follower Questions
Stefan Molyneux addresses an X follower's inquiry on ego preservation, arguing humans prioritize tribal agreement over truth due to evolutionary compliance. He ranks childhood neglect as second only to sexual abuse because it signifies parental indifference, creating a terrifying sense of non-existence. Molyneux rejects "intentions" as gaslighting, demanding direct answers without defensive mysticism, while contrasting Christianity's historical "slave religion" status with masculine master religions. He notes the church's feminization drives men away, warning that excessive masculinity breeds fascism and femininity communism. Defining morality as logically consistent behavior, he dismisses near-death experiences as proof of consciousness survival and labels Wikipedia a falsehood launderer, concluding philosophy is the pursuit of rational virtues. [Automatically generated summary]
And questions at the end of almost the end of March 2026 from X. Question Why are most people so quick to protect their ego and so strangely unwilling to fully dissolve the trauma they both received and inflicted?
A fine question.
And this is, of course, the basic question of why do people choose vanity over truth?
Well, it's one thing I've learned in almost 60 years on the planet.
You can't change your mind without completely disrupting your relationships.
Do people like you for you or do they like you because you agree with them?
Foundational question.
If people like you for you, yourself, your thoughts, your virtues, your interests, your communication, whatever, sense of humor, if they like you for you, then they have no problem if you change your mind.
In fact, they would probably not like you as much if you didn't change your mind when better information came along.
So, most people, though, don't like you, but they like your agreement with them.
You have shared delusions.
Most people have false identities based upon shared delusions.
Those delusions could be religious, they could be political, they could be about the virtue of a dysfunctional family, they could be about ignoring the elephants in the room, they could be about any number of things.
Most people, frankly, are barely sentient from a philosophical standpoint.
They don't think for themselves, they don't reason from first principles, they don't.
Accept reason and evidence over conformity and delusion.
And so most people are protecting a false identity by merging with shared delusions.
And so it's not really their ego that they're protecting, it's their historical drive to survive.
The Worst Parenting Neglect00:05:57
Tribes fought over delusions.
We're superior, you're superior, God has chosen us, God has chosen someone else.
So there's just a bunch of shared delusions.
Delusions, we're the greatest, you're the worst.
I mean, this is back to stupid sports ball stuff, right?
You're watching costumes, not people.
So, most people had to surrender any particular sense of individuality or thought in order to survive the tribe, to get the protection of the tribe, right?
The tribe gives you protection in return for the dissolution of your independent thought.
And that's really been the big battle.
They just evolved to be machines of compliance in order to reproduce their genes.
They're barely sentient from a philosophical standpoint.
That is just the way of the world.
We're aiming to change that over time.
All right.
Another caller.
Oh, I saw another watcher, listener, reader.
Childhood neglect.
Why do you put it down as more damaging than physical abuse?
What makes it so insidious, in your opinion?
Right.
So, for those of you who don't know, it's just my particular rankings.
Lord knows I've had decades of talking to people about childhoods and its effects.
So, hopefully, this has some.
Authority, but of the four types of abuse, from worst to least worst or less worst, the worst is sexual abuse.
The next worst is neglect.
The next worst is emotional abuse.
The next worst is physical abuse.
Sexual abuse, I'm sure we don't have to get into.
It's just the most horrendous violation of a human being that is possible outside of murder.
The next worst is neglect because if your parents are angry at you, if they yell at you, if they hit you, if they call you names, if they get outraged by your presence, they get upset, you have an effect on them and you serve some utility.
To them, which is to discharge the venom of their messed up personalities.
So at least you're a target and therefore have value to them in a horrible way.
And therefore they will work to protect you.
And therefore you have some modicum of security.
It's sort of like if you're a hostage and they're trying to ransom you for $5 million, but you have to be alive and healthy, then they will keep you relatively healthy because you have value to them.
And therefore they're not going to.
They're not going to kill you, right?
At least in the short run.
But if you no longer have value as a hostage, let's say whoever the hostage takers are trying to get the $5 million from, that person says, there's no way I'm ever going to pay that $5 million.
I'm not getting one red cent.
It's all over.
Well, then you no longer have any value to the hostage takers, and therefore your life is in great peril.
And so if you don't serve any value to your parents, Even as a punching bag for their irrational anger, then you go through a catastrophically deep level of anxiety and dissociation.
And you tend to try to make yourself as inconspicuous and non difficult and non chaffy and non resistant and non individuated as possible.
Because if your parents neglect you, they're kind of signifying that they have no bond with you.
They don't care if you're there or not, they're indifferent to your existence.
And therefore, you are in grave, great, and deep danger.
The greatest danger in many ways, outside of sexual abuse, of course.
And so, neglect is really terrifying to a child.
Imagine if you're in the woods, marching around with your dad in the middle of nowhere, like some Appalachian Trail or Algonquin Trail, like really, really deep woods kind of stuff.
Well, imagine if.
Your father is angry with you and snaps at you to stay close and don't wander off, but he's angry with you for some reason.
Well, that's alarming, but at least you're safe from the woods.
If, however, you lay down to rest, you fall asleep, you wake up, and your father has just left because he kind of forgot you were there.
Now you're in deep doo-doo, right?
I mean, now you're alone in the woods and you could call out, but who knows where he's gone, and so on, right?
I remember when I was a little, little kid, maybe three or four years old.
I was in Ireland with my father, and he just lost me.
I don't know what happened.
I just remember being in a police station for a long time before he came to get me.
My father was horrifyingly neglectful.
As a father, when I was younger, even, he was playing tennis and let me wander around the tennis area.
I ended up crawling into a garden shed, and I guess I was thirsty or something, and I saw a can of something and I drank it.
And it was a weed killer, and it was almost fatal.
It was not an ideal parenting situation.
I think this is one of the things that had my mother leave my father, which, you know, but, you know, I'm sure it was a great game of tennis, so that matters, right?
So neglect is really terrifying.
And recovering from neglect, see, if your parents are mad at you all the time, at least they have some emotional connection to you.
You serve some purpose to them, you have some value, even as a punching bag.
If your parents are indifferent to you, it's really hard to shake.
That feeling that you just don't matter, that no one's ever going to care, that you kind of don't exist.
Very, very hard to shake.
And it's harder to get angry at neglect than it is to get angry at other kinds of abuse.
All right.
Let's see here.
Avoiding Accountability Through Power00:15:17
Julia asks Can you talk about intentions, particularly in others, and when we should trust them?
How about intuition, which seems closely related?
Yeah, I have a deep and abiding hostility towards claims of intentions.
Claims of intentions are almost always gaslighting and insults.
So, if someone does something that is, you know, kind of objectively annoying, and you say, what you did was just annoying, and they say, I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to be annoying, I didn't mean for any of this, then you have a problem.
Right?
They're putting a real problem in your lap.
Now, if someone says to me, What you're doing is annoying, I generally, I mean, obviously I'm not perfect this way, but, you know, my general approach is to say, Tell me more.
Tell me more.
Tell me what, when did you find it annoying?
What did I do?
Blah, blah, blah.
Right?
I mean, if I was reading something on my tablet and my daughter was trying to tell me something and my eyes kept wandering back to what I was reading, my daughter would say, That's annoying or that's kind of rude.
And I should say, well, what?
And she said, I'm trying to talk to you, and you keep reading something else.
And I would say, I mean, I would say, well, yes, I'm so sorry.
Close this and put this away.
I really apologize.
That was rude.
And, you know, we would give her the eye contact and listen better, right?
Because it is kind of rude.
Whereas if I say, I didn't mean to upset you, I didn't mean to do this, I didn't mean to do that, I'm making a claim that is actually quite deep, interesting, and important.
Because the claim.
Is that you have misinterpreted me?
So I do something, you get annoyed.
I say, I didn't mean to.
Then I'm saying to you, you are misreading me.
Maybe you're a little paranoid, maybe you're a little jumpy, maybe you're defensive, maybe you're taking things too personally because you're annoyed when I had no intention of annoying you.
So, for example, if I'm humming or sort of singing a little while I'm doing something at the kitchen, And let's say I don't have this kind of wife, but let's say I had a wife who was in a bad mood.
Maybe she had a bit of a headache or something like that.
And my sort of singing or humming or whatever I'm not talking full, like loud singing, but just, you know, whatever it is some minor indifferent scatting that she said, Oh, stop singing, stop humming.
It's really annoying.
I would be a little surprised because humming is not something that is objectively annoying.
In general, right?
You'd have to be in a pretty bad mood to hear a little wobbling or humming as annoying.
And I would say, What?
I'm so sorry.
I didn't, I just didn't even realize I was really humming and tell me what's going on.
And, you know, sort of find out what kind of mood the person's in and try and figure out what's going on.
But when I'm asking questions of people, there is an implicit agreement when you're having conversations with people, particularly a philosophical conversation that's public.
As I will often have on X or other platforms, there is an implicit contract that people are going to answer questions.
I mean, if somebody wanted to start a conversation with me and that person then said, oh, or before that person said, no, I'm not going to answer any questions.
Like I'm going to just gaslight, I'm going to fog, I'm going to change the topic, I'm going to move the goalposts and so on, right?
Then I would say, well, listen, I appreciate your honesty up front.
But I am not going to engage in the conversation.
I don't want to engage in a conversation where you're going to gaslight, lie, misrepresent, move the goalposts, fog, change the topics, and so on, right?
So to me, there is an implicit contract in the conversation.
If I ask a question, I expect one of two things.
Either somebody says, I'm not going to answer that question, or they answer the question.
But they don't change the topic, they don't gaslight that, or whatever it is, right?
I also have an expectation that if I'm answering a question, that somebody not interrupt me at least right away, unless I've misunderstood the question, right?
If I've misunderstood the question, of course, they should interrupt me and correct me on my miss, because there's no point continuing to answer a question that's a misinterpretation.
But if I've understood the question and I'm answering it, Then it's rude to interrupt.
Now, if someone misrepresents my position, then, or if they're not answering my question, I will interrupt the non answer in order to ask for a real answer.
So that's a general implicit contract that's not just true in my show, my conversations.
It's kind of true in life as a whole.
I mean, if the waitress comes and says, What would you like for dinner? she's expecting an answer that hopefully is at least somewhat related to what you want for dinner.
If you start saying that you want world peace, A unicorn and Elle McPherson in her prime, then it's a little hard for her to construct a meal order out of that.
So there's kind of this implicit contract that you're going to talk about things that are relevant to the conversation and answer questions.
I mean, that's why people like courtroom dramas, at least you get to compel an answer and there's penalties for lying.
So when I'm asking questions and people are dodging and being defensive and misrepresenting and gaslighting and changing the topic and moving the goalposts, it gets annoying.
So I say, I'm annoyed.
What you're doing is annoying to me.
I'm not saying you're objectively annoying.
I'm just saying I'm annoyed.
And the first thing that most people say is, I didn't mean to be annoying.
I didn't mean to annoy you.
I'm trying to answer the questions, which is an escalation and an insult.
Because they're immediately saying, Steph, your being annoyed is unfair and unjust, that you are making up your annoyance out of some sort of paranoia.
Because I had no intention of being annoying, don't you know?
It was never my intention.
I didn't mean to.
It's another defense, and it is an escalation.
Rather than somebody saying, well, maybe your annoyance is justified, let's examine what I'm doing.
I mean, this is what passive aggressive people do you ask them a question, and they refuse to answer.
But they don't clearly refuse to answer, they just don't answer.
That's like politicians.
You ask them a simple question, you know, how are you going to cut spending and balance the budget?
Well, spending is very important, and social services are essential, and blah, blah, blah.
Just don't answer the question, right?
And it's annoying.
It's annoying.
So, passive aggressive people will always thwart communication and then say that you're paranoid for being annoyed.
They get to be innocent and they paint you as someone who's just taking things personally.
And, you know, I'm trying to answer the question.
I'm not trying to be annoying.
I'm really trying to answer your question.
I'm not trying to be annoying.
Which is a way of saying that any annoyance the other person feels is irrational and unjust and blah, blah, blah, right?
And it's really impossible.
You just can't communicate with people like that.
You just can't.
They either have to be honest about not answering the question for reasons of anxiety or fear or whatever it is.
I mean, because where do you go?
Where do you go when somebody's being annoying by not answering a question?
It's just one example.
And then they say they had absolutely no intention of being annoying, to be annoying, and they were desperately trying to answer the question.
You can't communicate.
There's nothing left.
There's nowhere to go.
So, intentions to me are a form of defensive mysticism.
If somebody is not answering the question and not saying, I'm not going to answer the question, but only pretending to answer the question, and you're wasting a lot of time trying to get them to answer the question.
Or, you know, another common one in philosophy is somebody uses a word that's kind of ambiguous.
Power.
I say they use the word power.
I mean, power could mean any number of things.
It could mean political power, could mean electrical power, could mean power over yourself, could mean the power to abuse, it could mean the power to bribe.
I mean, it could be anything.
I don't know what the word power means in any particular context.
So I said, Well, what do you mean by power in this context?
And they won't define their terms.
Or someone says, Well, it's good to do this.
I said, Well, what do you mean by good?
Do you mean practical?
Do you mean moral?
Do you mean useful?
Do you mean it's approved of?
What do you mean by good?
And they won't define their terms.
And if somebody is using a word and doesn't know how to define it in any objective way, then, okay, this is back to Socrates, right?
Somebody says, justice is, it's good to do this.
It's just.
This represents justice.
They say, oh, what's the definition of justice?
Because if you say this falls into category X, then you need to be able to define what category X is and then show how this applies.
Applies to it, right?
Mammals are warm blooded.
This creature is warm blooded.
Therefore, this creature is a mammal.
It's kind of, it's deductive.
It's not even inductive, deductive reasoning.
So, if somebody says this is good, you say, oh, what do you mean by good?
And they just go on some Waffleburger rampage of random syllables.
They say, well, you're not answering the question.
I don't know what the word good is and how you define it here.
And they go on enough of Waffleburger.
They won't answer the question.
They want to move the goalpost, move the topic, go on a story, use an anecdote.
And at some point, It gets annoying, and the annoyance is healthy because they're lying to you.
Because everybody knows that they're not answering the question because they can't answer the question.
Because they're using words that they don't understand.
When you believe in things that you don't understand, you will suffer.
Superstition ain't the way.
And it's a sophistry to just use positive sounding words or negative sounding words rather than reasoning and understanding things.
So, intentions are a kind of mysticism.
That is used to avoid accountability and to subtly insult someone for asking you to be clear and answer questions.
So, I would not, I don't particularly engage on this.
All right, could you elaborate more on the downfall of masculine traits in Christendom?
How it used to be, when it started to change, and why, and how it could be put back on track?
Well, Christianity, of course, did not start off as a masculine religion.
A masculine religion would be sort of the Greco Roman.
Worship of the gods and of battle, or something like the cult of Odin and sort of other northern Scandinavian or Viking kind of beliefs, and so on.
So, the sort of Conan stuff.
So, Christianity has started as a fairly helpless kind of religion.
It started with the virtue of forgiveness.
Now, the virtue of forgiveness is generally a virtue.
Claimed by those who have no capacity to punish.
If a master beats his slave, the slave cannot punish the master, cannot retaliate against the master, cannot beat the master back.
And therefore, the slave, in his thwarted and frustrated helplessness, is drawn toward a religion that says forgiveness is a virtue and that rich people are bad and that if you're the most humble in this world, you'll be a king in the next.
These are all revenge fantasies.
That are harbored by people with no capacity to effect any punishment.
You can't bribe, you can't threaten, you can't control, you won't use violence, or you can't use violence.
And so it started off, and this is a fairly common observation, I won't claim any particular originality here slave religion.
And a master religion, if you think of the story of the woman who's an adulteress who's going to be stoned to death, a master religion would say, I will put to death anyone who starts throwing the first stone.
And I'm not talking better or worse, I'm just talking about the mechanics of it.
I will jail or punish or fine or put to death anybody who throws the first stone or any stone at this woman.
That is the exercise of power.
Again, I'm not talking about the morals, just talking about the mechanics.
Christ, on the other hand, said, Let he who is without sin cast the first stone, appealing to shame and guilt and self reflection and conscience and so on.
Now, we can say this is right or wrong, good or bad, better or worse, but it is not the exercise of power.
It is the exercise of the invocation of guilt or it is the exercise of the summoning of conscience and so on.
But it is not the exercise of power.
And the exercise of power has traditionally been masculine, at least among the upper classes.
And the exercise of shame and guilt and conscience and manipulation and the invocation of negative emotions on the part of the other is more traditionally feminine, right?
So, religion as a whole, Christianity in particular, and other religions as well, but let's talk more about Christianity, tends to be more female coded.
Because if you say, love your neighbor, what you're saying is that love with regards to your neighbor is essential and virtuous, whereas competition and dominance over your neighbor is negative.
Now, women cooperate and men compete.
Women cooperate because you need eyes and ears to help raise your children, and women really can't survive without the approval of other women, which is why women tend to be.
Higher in trait, agreeableness, and the big five personality traits.
And also, as a beautiful thing, this is how culture gets transmitted.
So it's good.
We like that.
It's good.
So men compete, though, and we compete very fiercely for scarce resources, for high quality women to bear our children, for power, dominance, and control.
And we compete in the economic sphere, in the political sphere, in the sphere of academia, in the sphere of Sports and so on, there's winners and there are losers, and fierce competition is the fray.
So, love your neighbor as opposed to win the battle, win the fight, win the competition.
Love your neighbor is female coded.
Forgiveness is female coded because women do not have the power.
This is sort of forced doctrine, right?
Women do not have really the power, and certainly not in the ancient world.
They don't have the power to enforce their moral will in the way that men do.
High testosterone, high muscularity, high aggression, and so on, right?
Forgiveness is a virtue that is most claimed by those with no power to punish.
Science Requires Submerged Egos00:02:01
Now, after anti clerical methodologies, really science, reason, free markets, after anti clerical methodologies showed their undeniable power to improve humanity, science, medicine, reason, free markets have improved humanity far more than all of the religions in the world combined throughout all of human history in any given five to ten year period.
And so the masculine traits of reason, objectivity, competition, and the desire for victory took over.
Then Christianity became more masculine.
It had to because science and reason, evidence, and markets were winning the battle for the improvement of humankind.
So.
I couldn't decide that between humanity and humankind.
I stole that a little bit.
It happens.
And the massive wealth created by the free market and the true masculine understanding of the universe delivered by science, and science is highly competitive, of course, and objective.
Science or masculinity requires the submergence of the ego, the suppression of the ego.
Whereas for women, the love your neighbor stuff, the merging with the community, It requires the merging or blending of the ego with others.
Males subjugate their egos for the purposes of truth and victory.
Women submerge their egos for the sake of conformity and support.
Again, general, general comments.
And it's no moral analysis, it's just a factual analysis.
But of course, as the world became wealthier, then women began to be liberated from the tasks and endless requirements of homemaking and child raising, which was a 16 hour day job.
At least.
And so women began to become more and more prominent in politics in particular.
And they began to demand more.
Advertising as Rational Virtue00:03:39
Again, I'm nothing against it, certainly from a free market standpoint.
But women began to take over the church.
And as the church became more feminized, men were driven further and further away.
And too much masculinity is fascism, too much femininity is communism.
Neither are particularly great.
And it's the government that tips the balance too far, one way or the other, in general.
All right.
How could we put back on track?
Well, we just need more freedom.
Whatever the problem is, the solution is more freedom.
Rodney says, debate.
Humans are in consciousness, not of consciousness.
Don't know what that means.
Not sure I would care.
Wexler asks, Do you think Trump's actions in Iran can be best explained by bribery, blackmail, deception, or egomaniacal hubris?
Essentialphilosophy.com is where you can get the free book on that.
Vera asks A lot of private companies collect data on customers to sell for advertising purposes.
Do you think this practice would still occur without the state benefiting from this surveillance as well?
Advertising, you know, it gets a bad rap.
Advertising gets a bad rap.
So people want to sell you stuff.
Obviously, right?
People want to sell you stuff.
And because people want to sell you stuff, they spend money on advertising so that you can become aware of their products.
Now, you don't want to advertise eyeglasses to blind people, right?
And if you have to sell reading glasses, you probably want to sell them to older people rather than younger people because more older people need reading glasses.
And sorry, I know this is blindingly obvious, so I'll get to the point more quickly, but advertising is a way to not waste people's time, right?
So you've ever been a young person, like you're 12 and you're home and you're sick and your mom's gone to work or whatever.
And you flip on the TV and you see all these ads for things.
You know, if your liver is this and your eyesight is that, and you know, if you need a medical bracelet, if you're going to fall and you can't get up, and right, well, these things don't matter to a 12 year old.
But of course, people home during the day tend to be older, retirees, and so on.
So they have no meaning to you, no value to you, no relevance to you.
So advertising is a very benevolent process.
Of not wasting people's time.
So if you've done a search for a new computer, then you will get ads for a new computer because you're in the market for a new computer, right?
If, let's say, the advertisers find that you've bought a new computer, they will stop advertising a new computer to you because you're not about to buy two.
So, advertising is a way to filter a message so that it is the most relevant to the most needy people.
And you don't waste time advertising new computers to someone who has no interest in a new computer or has just bought a new computer.
So, advertising is very healthy and helpful.
It saves everybody's time, it saves everybody's lives and resources and so on.
So, the practice would occur.
The state benefits as well, but the practice would occur because it's very benevolent and helpful.
If you've ever seen an ad, For something that you really need, it can be very helpful.
So, if you see a bunch of ads for things you don't need, it's a waste of time.
When can we expect more peaceful parenting content?
Just call in, ask questions.
I mean, I did write a big giant book not too long ago, peacefulparenting.com, and I'm doing peaceful parenting interviews.
And of course, if you want more peaceful parenting content, freedomain.com/slash call.
Call In For Peaceful Parenting00:02:21
I mean, don't be passive about this show, it's a conversation.
Call in and ask about it.
What's the most interesting thing we don't know about your life story?
I'd have to think about that.
Can we have a follow up conversation about Noah's Ark?
Interesting, I will think about that.
What is philosophy in one sentence?
The pursuit of rational virtues.
The definition of pursuit and propagation of rational virtues.
What is the most sinister propaganda push currently, in your opinion?
Depopulation.
How has having a nearly adult daughter changed or altered your views on modern relationships and dating based on her experiences?
I would not want to talk on behalf of my daughter about those experiences, so I'll leave that private.
Why are you in Canada?
It's not easy to leave, and there's things that I like.
Basically, really liked your show, but you're talking more and more and more, and it's getting really boring and too long.
Please find a better balance so that we can keep tuning in and sending donations.
Well, I'm actually talking less now, by the by.
I mean, for five years or so, it was very hard to have listener conversations other than call in shows, right?
I mean, I couldn't do live streams.
The technology on the other platforms was really tough to use, and the audience was very small.
Now I can go on X anytime and I can have conversations with people.
So, Most of my shows are conversations, so I'm not sure what you mean.
How long have you been a disinfo agent for the communist bloc?
I'm guessing at least 20 years.
Well, I would say keep guessing.
Cannabis?
No.
Very dangerous, very bad, and wrong.
What do you make of near death experiences?
Very interesting.
I don't believe that they indicate that consciousness survives death.
Why does Wikipedia work so hard to make you seem like a terrible person?
Because Wikipedia, in my view, is a way of laundering falsehoods to be picked up by search engines to discredit people so that the truth doesn't spread.
Character assassination is a big improvement over actual assassination, which most philosophers have been threatened with or have had executed against them throughout history.