Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux - I Love Being HATED! X Livestream

April 25, 2026 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

02:19:41

I Love Being HATED! X Livestream

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SPLC Funding Allegations 00:10:11
	Good evening, my friends.
	Vindication time, come on.
	Yeah, we could talk a little bit about the SPLC, Southern Poverty Law Center.
	I see we've got a request.
	We'll get to you in a sec.
	Don't be so greedy.
	So, SPLC, not an organization I have a neutral relationship with, they have a whole section on me.
	And of course, others, I think it was four months before Charlie Kirk was shot that they put TPUSA on their hate group list.
	It is pretty monstrous for me as a whole.
	And April 21st, yesterday, a federal grand jury in Montgomery, Alabama indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center on 11 criminal counts.
	Now, just indicted, not proven in a court of law, 11 criminal counts, six counts of wire fraud, four counts of false statements to a federally insured bank.
	And one count of conspiracy to commit concealment, money laundering.
	The DOJ alleges that between 2014 and 2023, the SPLC secretly funneled more than $3 million in donated funds to individuals affiliated with violent extremist groups, including the Ku Klux Klan, United Clans of America, Aryan Nations, National Socialist Party of America, and of course, Socialists?
	Wait, I thought the SPLC were pro leftists.
	It's like, no, no, no.
	International socialists, that's communism.
	National socialists, that's Nazism.
	See, they had to come up with the word Nazi to cover up that it was a socialist organization.
	And there were others that they gave money to.
	According to, and it's interesting, a couple of days before these indictments came down, the Atlantic, Published a bit of a hit piece on Kash Patel.
	I'm sure that they had foreknowledge, forewarning, and so on.
	So they wanted to get ahead of the story and do all that kind of stuff.
	Now, according to the indictments, the SPLC operated a now defunct paid informant program to infiltrate and monitor these groups.
	It allegedly used deceptive methods such as creating bank accounts in the names of at least five fictitious organizations with no legitimate purpose.
	along with other concealment tactics such as prepaid cards and so on to hide the payments from donors and regulators.
	Donors were not informed that their contributions were being used to pay leaders or members of the very quote hate groups end quote the SPLC publicly claimed to oppose and track.
	Little tough, little tough to make the case to your donors that you're fighting these horrifying demonic extremist groups that you are allegedly funding To the tune of millions of dollars.
	Little gross, little vile, little monstrous.
	Prosecutors claim this amounted to defrauding donors while, quote, manufacturing the extremism it purports to oppose by paying sources who sometimes engaged in or stoked racial hatred.
	One example cited involved an informant making racist postings under SPLC supervision.
	It's vile!
	The DOJ has also filed forfeiture actions to recover alleged proceeds of the scheme.
	The investigation involved the FBI and IRS criminal investigations.
	Now, of course, the SPLC, you know, to give the right of reply, which is not something it seems that they've often given others, the SPLC has described the charges as false allegations and politically motivated by the Trump administration.
	I mean, boy, if there's one thing that the SPLC can stand firm on, it's criticizing others of political motivations.
	Boy, they're just standing on a rock right there.
	They say it's an attempt to weaponize the Justice Department.
	Oh, can you imagine?
	Weaponizing the Justice Department?
	Oh, shriek, horror upon horror.
	It maintains that the informant program was a legitimate tool for gathering intelligence on extremist threats, that such payments helped, quote, save lives, and that it no longer uses paid informants in this way.
	They say they're going to fight the charges vigorously, but I don't understand.
	I confess to being a tiny bit confused.
	If.
	It is a legitimate tool for gathering intelligence on extremist threats, and if such payments help save lives, then why do they no longer use paid informants in this way?
	I mean, I don't know about you, but if I were able to spend money to save lives, I'm not sure I'd stop doing that.
	Honestly, why would you stop?
	Well, I assume they stopped because they got wind of the investigation.
	I don't know.
	Boy, it's going to be fascinating to see what happens when they rip open the internal documentation, emails, and paper trails within the SPLC.
	Who knows what else they might find?
	Who knows?
	I think Gavin McGinnis is suing them as well.
	If I remember correctly, I think that's been going on for many, many a moon.
	So it is interesting to put it mildly.
	And of course, you know, just to be fair, right?
	I think it's obviously important to be fair.
	Not charged, allegations only, and so on.
	But it is very, very interesting.
	Now, They seem to have given quite a bit of cash to a leader of.
	Do you remember the whole Charlottesville thing?
	The whole Charlottesville thing.
	Wow, was that ever a thing and a half?
	That's where the false allegation that Donald Trump praised white supremacists.
	That is where, I don't know, like the guy ended up being sentenced to over 420 years in prison.
	I don't know if he was trying to escape an unruly mob.
	I don't know if he was driving with intent to injure, but a woman died.
	And it's wild stuff.
	It's wild stuff.
	But they went from, and I think that the funding increased from Charlottesville onwards.
	Was it Unite the Right?
	I think it was Unite the Right.
	But what happened, of course, was that the SPLC went from.
	Something like 40, 30, 40 million raised to like 130, 140 million raised.
	So listen, I got to tell you, man, I'm not a business genius.
	I mean, I've been an entrepreneur for about 30 years.
	I'm not a business genius by any stretch of the imagination.
	However, I will say, and I will go out on quite a limb here, and I will say that if you invest, what was it, 170,000, maybe 270,000 in a rally that you use to leverage your donations up $100 million or so, let's see, 170,000.
	200, 270,000 out, 100 million back just in one year.
	That's pretty good.
	That is pretty good.
	That is a decent ROI, to put it mildly.
	To put it mildly.
	So it is going to be very interesting.
	And of course, if you remember, of course, Charlottesville and the Unite the Right, all of that, the Patriot Front and all of that.
	Certainly, Charlottesville was the And the fine people, like where there was this lie that Donald Trump said that neo Nazis were very fine people and so on, and that's not what he was saying.
	He was saying that there were fine people on both sides of the debate about removing the statues and not the neo Nazis.
	They should be condemned totally, blah, blah, blah.
	That was the foundation myth.
	Why Joe Biden, that's why he said he ran for president, was because of this myth.
	It's amazing.
	And, you know, shout out to Monsieur A. Jones, not the Jones, but A. Jones.
	Many, many years ago, I think it was like 15 years ago, I was talking about how the SPLC was funding some of these groups.
	Fiscal year 2016, pre Charlottesville, contributions and grants for the SPLC about $50.3 million.
	Total revenue then jumped to $136.4 million, two to two and a half times increase.
	Sorry, it wasn't $100 million, $78 to $81 million.
	Let's be.
	They doubled or two and a half times, and so on.
	George and Amal Clooney gave a million.
	Tim Cook gave a million.
	JPMorgan Chase gave a million, and so on.
	So, not a bad investment if this is how it turns out to be the case.
	And again, just really want to be clear not proven, they're just allegations.
	But they were passed by a grand jury, so it's not entirely politically motivated unless you're able to politically motivate a grand jury.
	Really, something.
	I'll be watching this.
	I'll be watching this as a whole.
	And obviously, I don't consider them at all an honorable organization.
	I mean, if you really want to fight hate groups, if you really want to fight hate, then you should be fighting Marxist professors and Marxists, because, you know, Marxism represents a bit more of a clear and present danger to the world than National Socialism.
	But that's not what it's for.
	That's not what it's all about.
	So, thank you for your indulgence.
	I do have a lot of topics, but it is a call in show.
	And I'm here for you, my friends.
	Gothicus, if you would like to unmute, I'm happy to hear your thoughts.
Moral Progress and Family 00:08:03
	Oh my God, I'm so nervous.
	But thanks for picking me first.
	Listen, it's totally rational to be nervous.
	I'm exquisitely terrifying.
	Totally.
	I look in the mirror in the mornings and scream.
	With absolute terror.
	So, I completely understand where you're coming from.
	Makes total sense to me.
	Please go ahead.
	Well, like, on top of that, you have so many haters, and I don't know how you come here every day and do this every single day.
	Like, I mean, it's admirable, but it's actually because you understand morality, like, you must also understand how real the hatred is, like, the aggression people want.
	To inflict on you.
	So, how do you do it?
	What do you tell yourself to feel safe?
	Well, I appreciate that.
	That's very kind.
	And yeah, listen, first of all, it's not personal to me.
	They don't hate me, they don't know me.
	And I'm actually quite a delightful fellow.
	I'm quite popular.
	I have great friends, great family, and I want the best for the world.
	If you have a good conscience, it's really tough to internalize other people's hatred of you.
	So they don't hate me any more than a criminal hates the cop at a personal level.
	The criminal simply hates the fact that the cop might put him in jail or that the cop might deprive him of his source of income.
	Or maybe to put it another way, if drugs are illegal and a drug addict needs his drugs, he kind of hates the cop who might shut down the drug dealer.
	And thus deprive him of his drug.
	It's not personal to the cop, it's just interfering with a need.
	And so I don't take it personally, like they hate me, they don't hate me, they hate the good that I'm doing in the world.
	You know, when I say to people, you don't have to spend time with abusive parents, I mean, and I feel actually quite a bit of sympathy for the abusive parents.
	I really do.
	It's very sad because the abusive parents did what they did on the goal, hope, and assumption that society would continue to hurt their children back into their bitter embraces.
	As it always has, right?
	Honor their mother and their father is the commandment that religion generally gives to parents.
	And it's really kind of a gross deal, right?
	Because religion says to parents, you have to teach your kids about our religion so that your kids will grow up and give us obedience and money.
	Like I was talking with the guy last week about the tithe, that sort of 10% of income that Christians give to their churches.
	I mean, there is the spiritual power, and then there's just the sort of basic material gain.
	So, the deal is that religion says to parents, you teach your children to obey these religious doctrines, and one of the foundational religious doctrines will be that we will command your children to love you no matter what you do.
	It doesn't say honor good mothers and fathers, it just says honor mothers and fathers foundationally, no matter what.
	And so they grew up with that kind of deal, and, you know, if.
	If you're an abuser and your wife can't leave you, well, you're not going to curb your abuse.
	If your wife can leave you, hopefully you'll curb your abuse or find a better way to control your temper and so on.
	And so parents treated children as if they could never leave.
	And then people like myself come along and make a moral case for voluntarism in the family, to privatize the family, to have it not be some government union or tax that you could never escape.
	And it's tough.
	It's tough to have this kind of progress.
	You know, the people who freed the slaves were hated.
	By the slave catchers and the slave transporters and the slave sellers and the slave owners.
	They were really hated by that.
	There was a movement early on in the Industrial Revolution called Ludditism or the Luddites.
	And what they did was they went around smashing the power looms that were causing wool to be combed much more effectively.
	I think I'm getting that right.
	It's something like that.
	And it was putting people out of work to some degree.
	And they smashed them all up, and they hated the people who manufactured the power looms because people adapt to a certain kind of environment and then progress changes that environment, and they hate the people who are changing the environment.
	And so, the women hating evil, nasty husbands hated it when divorce became legalized.
	Like up until the 60s in Canada, you can only get divorced through an act of parliament.
	So, all the abusive, uh, Husbands hated the people who were advocating for legalized divorce and so on.
	So it's not personal to me.
	I have actually a great deal of sympathy for people who've made bad decisions and moral advancements expose and cause negative consequences to those bad decisions.
	But they made those bad decisions with the thorough understanding that, or the thorough belief that had gone on for hundreds of thousands of years, that.
	Children would never be able to escape abusive parents even into adulthood.
	That you just, well, she's your mom, man.
	She's your dad.
	You got to spend time with her and so on.
	And this is why I think it's really important to organize your life according to principles because.
	You don't know what moral advancements are coming down the pipe.
	So, if that's any help, of course, I have people who love me.
	I measure myself not according to people's happiness or unhappiness or anger or hostility or rage or any of those things.
	I measure my actions according to universal principles.
	And to me, it would be kind of like this if once in my life, once, once, only once did I jump out of an airplane.
	When I was 17, I went parachuting with some friends.
	And I understood the physics, of course.
	Now, if somebody had said to me, I hate that you're jumping out of this plane with a parachute, but I'll, I hate you if you jump out of this plane with a parachute, but I will love you if you jump out of this plane without a parachute.
	Well, I would have said, no, I'm, your hatred and your love is not how I'm going to guide my actions.
	Because if I'd listened to that and I'd said, oh, well, I want your love.
	I don't want your hatred.
	So I'm going to jump out of the plane without a parachute.
	That would have been very unwise.
	It was very bad.
	Very bad idea.
	And so when people say, I will love you if you don't say these things, and I'll hate you if you do say these things, I'm not measuring whether I should or shouldn't say these things according to their love or their hatred, any more than I would judge whether to jump out of a plane with or without a parachute based upon someone's love or hatred.
	I choose the parachute because that is in accordance with the laws of physics, and I choose my behaviors that are in accordance with the principles of morality.
	So I accept that the price of moral progress is the hatred of the corrupt.
	The price of moral progress is the hatred of the corrupt.
	All effective philosophers have had to pay it before me.
	All effective philosophers after me will have to pay it.
	And as far as history goes, I don't really have to pay that much compared to people like Socrates or Aristotle or Plato or whoever.
Ancient Tribal Conflicts 00:04:24
	So it's really not too bad.
	And I have sympathy.
	For the people who hate what it is that I'm doing, they don't hate me.
	They just hate that I'm interfering with their corruption.
	And I sympathize.
	But still, even though the people who freed the slaves were hated by the slave owners, we can have sympathy for that.
	But still, the slaves must be freed.
	Does that help at all?
	Yeah, that's a great answer.
	Thanks.
	And I wanted to ask a couple of questions to you, but I know I have time to strain.
	No, no.
	Well, you don't have a time.
	No, we got nobody else in the queue.
	So, sister, you can ask whatever you like.
	I'm happy to help.
	All right.
	Thanks.
	So, like, I wish that you talked about Gaza and Israel more, but maybe, I mean, I don't want it to get canceled.
	But everyone that I like and I follow talks about it.
	And I see the contrast that you don't really talk about it that much.
	And I want to know your opinion, at least, like, on the Holocaust.
	Uh, uh, you know.
	The six million number, what you think about the history as it was told to us?
	Well, that's very much a jumping in the deep end.
	So, with regards to Israel and Palestine, I think it was about 12 or 13 years ago, I did an entire presentation called The Truth About Israel and Palestine, which you can find at fdrpodcast.com.
	Just do a search for Israel.
	And I went into all of the history and the details and the morals of the whole situation.
	So, I certainly have dealt with and talked about the topic before, and so people can look into that.
	So, I view most of the world, this is not specific to the Middle East, but I view most of the world, and a lot of the West too, by the way, as operating at a very primitive moral level.
	So, if you look at places in the third world where they have their sectarian violence, Child soldiers, they have machetes cutting up people and so on.
	And what's going on in Nigeria against the Christians is, you know, barbaric and cruel.
	And so I view most of the world as operating in a state of violence, deception, propaganda, and power.
	And I don't really feel that philosophy can do much about that.
	So philosophy kind of kicks in when people are willing to reason from first principles.
	And I would argue that most of the world is not particularly willing to reason from first principles because it would undermine tribalism.
	So, tribalism is kind of the opposite of reasoning from first principles.
	So, I've done my politics, I've done my geopolitical analysis, and so on.
	So, you know, what's happening between Israel and Gaza, you have groups, as in many cases, and throughout the world.
	That are not basing their beliefs on reason and evidence, but are basing them upon mysticism, upon tribalism, upon religiosity, and sometimes even superstitions and so on.
	And you don't, to me, it would be like if I was in the First World War, you know, you got the French and the British and the Germans all, well, the French and the British on one side, Germans on the other, shooting at each other, and there are all these bullets flying back and forth.
	Across no man's land.
	And to me, I would not, as a philosopher, I've sort of got this image from Gal Gadot in Wonder Woman, but I, as a philosopher, I would not stand up and walk into no man's land holding up my hands and saying in my little reason toga, well, maybe not that little, and I wouldn't go into no man's land and say, hey, guys, we need to reason all of this out.
Choosing Who to Marry 00:15:11
	We need to reason all of this out.
	And so it's the same thing when I look at various tribal conflicts across the world.
	It is not a situation where reason in particular can hold sway because people are being driven by things, sort of ancient tribal conflicts and so on, that are not being driven by reason in particular.
	And so it would be almost like a physicist going to an astrology conference, if that makes sense.
	They're just operating on different principles.
	And I'm not entirely sure that philosophy would have.
	Too much to say if that makes sense, yeah.
	Yeah, but uh, since I mean, uh, America is not even independent, like, so it affects us.
	Like, I live in North America too, and uh, Israel is taking our taxes and funding a genocide, so uh.
	I don't know.
	I mean, we contribute to that by not paying up and by, I don't know.
	Well, I mean, sorry, to be technically correct, Israel is not taking the taxes.
	The elected representative of the American people are sending what is actually a very small portion of the total taxes collected to Israel.
	And of course, the argument is that Israel uses it to buy American weapons, so it kind of comes back and so on.
	So it's a very small amount of money relative to the total.
	Proportion of the U.S. income that goes to Israel, which obviously matters to people in the region significantly.
	But if you look at sort of American spending, like a tiny fraction of 1% goes to Israel, 66% of the money in America goes on entitlement spending.
	I'm sure that biblically it would be 66.6% because it's kind of corrupt and immoral and fraudulent in many ways.
	So 66% of the money in America goes on.
	Basically, buying votes and having people escape usually the consequences of bad decisions, not taking care of their health, being single mothers, not saving for their old age, and so on.
	And so it's, you know, massive, massive, massive, 100, 200 times more that's going on that.
	And that also has very negative effects, I think, on American society and culture, and not just in America, but in all the places where this kind of stuff happens.
	So when it comes to how.
	Do we reduce government power?
	My particular approach is saying, oh, money shouldn't go here in foreign aid, money shouldn't go there in foreign aid.
	I mean, even if they were to lower taxes, they just print more money.
	So it doesn't hugely matter because a lot of the American spending throughout the West is kind of protected and can't really be changed.
	So the way that I work at reducing political authority over people, political power over people, and the demand for Free money, quote, free money from the government, is I say to people, you should.
	Get married to the right people.
	You should get married to the right person.
	You should get married to the right person.
	Because if you get married to the right person, I know this sounds like a long way away from what you're talking about.
	So, you know, just be patient.
	I'll try and tie it all together in a minute or two.
	But the case that I want to make is I can't alter or affect what goes on in the Middle East.
	I can't alter or affect where government money goes.
	I can't alter or affect how much money they print, how many unfunded liabilities they create.
	I cannot alter or affect.
	How much money is spent by any government, anywhere, at any time?
	I cannot do that.
	What I can do is I can say to people look, if you don't have corrupt people in your life, your life gets a lot better because there's stuff that the government does that we all disagree with.
	We don't really have much choice about it unless you want to go to prison, which is certainly not what I recommend.
	So the government does a bunch of stuff we don't agree with, and we can't really do much about it.
	What I choose to focus on, and what I've really been focusing on for the last five or six years, I mean, throughout my whole show, but in particular on the last five or six years, is what I want to do is I want to say to people, look, you can't control a lot of the power that government has over you, but there's things you could do to minimize the government's power over you.
	So, for instance, I've advocated for homeschooling where it's legal and possible, and Canada is very good for that kind of stuff.
	So, I advocate for homeschooling.
	What that means is that the government doesn't have control over your children.
	That's number one.
	Number two, I've said that arts degrees are probably fairly bad and fairly negative.
	And I've helped people stay out of government.
	A lot of times it's government debt, government loans, government student debt.
	So that helps them be free of that because in most places you cannot discharge that debt through bankruptcy.
	And therefore you are under the control and power of the government.
	So try and stay away from.
	I mean, if you want to become a lawyer or an engineer or a doctor, you have to have specific education.
	But you know, some marketing degree, some English degree, some history degree is mostly just propaganda, is going to get you heavily into debt, and it's going to reduce your liberty and your freedom.
	So I sort of talk about that.
	If you get married to the right person, then you don't end up with the government taking over your life and your finances through a divorce court, and if you have children, a family court.
	And so, there's lots of things that we can do that are going to reduce the amount of control that the government has in our lives.
	There's things that the government's going to do no matter what.
	They're going to tax you and print money and so on.
	And then there's things that are voluntary with regards to that.
	And I would much rather people focus on choosing the right person to get married to, choosing not to get into useless and counterproductive student debt.
	Entrepreneurial topics because that way you can not be under the control of a corporation that is probably going to be under control of the government.
	And also, to not get heavily involved in politics is wiser for your personal liberty.
	Like, if you have the choice and you say, Well, I'm going to get really, I'm going to focus on getting really knowledgeable about politics and I'm going to talk about politics, I'm going to argue about politics, I'm going to post about politics and so on.
	Okay.
	Either you don't move the needle, in which case it's all kind of pointless.
	Or you move the needle image case, you're going to be attacked.
	And that's pretty tough for a lot of people.
	And the second thing I'd say is that all the time you spend focusing on politics and on the things you cannot change is time you're not spending learning how you can be free in your own personal life.
	You can have virtuous, supportive, healthy, happy, loving people in your life.
	You can get married to the right man, the right woman.
	You can have children and raise them free of state control.
	And you can have a love that doesn't end up with you getting your ass dragged into family court and having the government having control over your finances.
	And how your children are raised, and where you live, and what your options are, and so on.
	And my general case is that every ounce of energy you spend on politics and you don't spend, it's subtracted from learning how to live a free and happy life as much as possible.
	And you can live a pretty free and happy life these days.
	So I think that a lot of times politics is an excuse for avoiding bringing moral principles to bear in your personal life, where in my Experience.
	And listen, I've done the politics thing quite seriously for many years, and I don't regret it.
	I thought it was interesting and enjoyable, and I think it did have some real positive change in the world.
	But I mean, I have a particular set of skills that is unusual.
	So, I would say that focusing on what brings actual value in your life and what brings actual traction, I sort of call it traction.
	I don't know if you've ever been in a car in the snow or the mud, you gun the car and you just don't get anywhere.
	And the problem with politics is it's a huge amount of stress and effort and energy and time and money and arguing and frustration and.
	And it doesn't actually improve your life in general.
	And again, I'm not saying never talk politics.
	I'm certainly not saying anything like that.
	I'm just saying that if you have the choice between manifesting virtues and values that actually change your life for the better, or manifesting virtues and values that get you into pointless and useless political arguments forever and ever, amen, I would argue strongly that you should try and focus your time, efforts, energy, and attention on that's going to have traction.
	On that, which is going to have traction, improve your life.
	Politics isn't going to bring love to your life.
	Politics isn't going to raise your children wisely.
	Politics isn't going to give you wonderful friends, a wonderful husband, a wonderful wife.
	It's not going to give you wonderful children.
	It's going to be stressful, difficult, deleterious in very many ways.
	And at the end of your life, I think, you know, I've always sort of tried to plan my life from the deathbed going backwards.
	And my concern is that.
	I don't think at the end of people's lives they say, oh man, I wish I'd spent more time arguing about politics online.
	I think what people will say is, I wish I'd spent more time with people I love, with people who love me.
	And it's always the question sorry, the last thing I'll say is, it's always the question of how do you change people?
	Do you change people by getting into sort of these endless political arguments and so on?
	Or do you live a sort of virtuous, happy, relatively content life full of Love and connection and friendship and family.
	And then I think people will say, Ooh, you know, whatever that person has, I think I want me a slice of that.
	I think I want some of that.
	Whatever that person has looks pretty good to me.
	It's the old question of how do you get people to lose weight?
	Like if you want them to lose weight.
	Well, if you're overweight or obese and arguing with people about losing weight, it's probably not going to go very far or be very productive.
	However, if you lose a lot of weight and you get ripped.
	Or whatever it is, then I think people will come to you and ask.
	About your life.
	So, I generally focus on bringing principles of morality and virtue and integrity to bear in your personal life, in your private life, which really is your only life.
	We don't have a political life unless you're a politician.
	You don't have a public life unless you're, you know, I guess famous or semi famous or micro famous like me now.
	But everybody has a personal life.
	Everybody has a life where you have to choose who to fall in love with.
	You have to choose who to marry.
	You have to choose.
	Whether to have children, you have to choose how to raise your children, you have to choose what kind of occupation you have, how you make your money, you have to choose who to marry and who your friends are going to be.
	And I really want to give people guidance on that stuff because that's stuff that adds or subtracts the most.
	Happiness or unhappiness in your life.
	It's where moral values can give you the most traction and effect.
	And I really hate the idea that philosophy should come with a giant dose of helplessness.
	You know, like, I really want to change, as you say, like maybe too much money is going to this country or that country or this country's doing bad stuff, but you can't change any of that.
	And if philosophy leads you to feel frustrated and helpless, And tense and alone, I don't think philosophy is leading you to the right place, if that makes sense.
	Sorry, sorry for the long answer.
	I hope that helps.
	Yeah, no, I agree.
	But if I don't talk about these things, how will I?
	I mean, I have a boyfriend, but like, if I want to find a boyfriend again, how will I attract the right partner if I didn't advertise my political beliefs?
	Because what if I end up with a commie?
	I mean, or if I end up with somebody who somehow has.
	An aggressive opinion on something like he's not really moral or something like that.
	I mean, that's the only reason that I talk about things.
	Other than me, when I want my friends to be peaceful, for everyone that I have in my life to be on the same page.
	And yeah, I mean, how can you not?
	I mean, basically, if I don't.
	Uh, do that.
	I feel like I'm with strangers.
	And later on, I get attached to these people.
	And then it's hard to, uh, cut ties with them after I find out that they have, uh, some fucked up beliefs.
	Um, and also another thing like, if I talk about these things, uh, how do you, how does my boyfriend know that I'm still virtuous over time?
	If I don't like exhibit my virtues, you know what I mean?
	I mean, I don't know how I exhibit my virtues every week, every day, but I don't know.
	Like, if I don't do something, who am I?
	A very deep and a very wise question, and I commend you for asking it.
	And I know that you're not trying to say that your political ideas or arguments or opinions.
	Are a form of mating display to make sure you end up with a good man.
	I know you're not saying that, but I understand that there are issues involved in that.
	So then the question is, how do you attract?
	If I want to make sure I understand your question, I don't want to answer something you didn't ask because the Lord knows I have a habit of doing that.
	So are you asking, how do you determine, let's say it doesn't work out with your current fellow or whatever, right?
	If you're going to get a new guy, just for purposes of intellectual exploration, not because I know anything about your relationship, is your question, how do I make sure?
	That the man I'm with shares my values if I don't talk about politics or something like that?
Living Your Values 00:04:46
	Right.
	Okay.
	That is a great question.
	That's a great question.
	As a philosopher, I can only answer with one word that has two syllables.
	Are you ready?
	Are you sure?
	Okay, the word is.
	Are you sitting down?
	I just want to make sure of that.
	I don't want you to fall over with shock.
	Okay, the word is two syllables, the total answer.
	The word is magic.
	I'm happy to have helped.
	I know that that's cleared it up for you completely.
	And no, I'm just kidding.
	But I'm not kidding about the magic thing.
	So there's something interesting that happens when you start really living your values in your life.
	So, when you start living your values in your life, for real, like not just in terms of politics, which, you know, it's fine in the abstract, but when you start living your values in your life and you start being really honest and direct with people, and look, if you have strong opinions about Israel or Gaza or Nairobi or Kenya or India or wherever, obviously, you know, say them and say them loud and say them proud and so on.
	But when you start.
	And I'm not saying you haven't, but when you continue to expand, as we all do, or try to, when you continue to expand your honesty, your emotional openness, your directness, your courage, your integrity, it's magic what happens.
	So the funny thing is that I used to meet socialists all the time.
	I cannot tell you, like when I was younger, I cannot tell you the last time I met a socialist.
	Isn't that strange?
	They were everywhere.
	And I know they're everywhere because I see them.
	I used to meet woke people all the time.
	I cannot tell you the last time I met a woke person.
	Why do you think that might be?
	I don't know.
	Magic!
	No, it is.
	It's a kind of magic.
	It's a kind of magic.
	And I'll tell you what I think it is, and I don't know the answer.
	And I'd certainly be happy if other people have thoughts about it and they wanted to share those thoughts.
	I'd be very happy to hear them.
	But I think it's magic.
	And I think what happens is, as I go through life, there's an eye contact, there's a firmness of the jawline, there's a firmness of handshake, there's a way that I move, there's a way that my spine is tall, my shoulders are square, I have a relaxed physicality.
	I mean, obviously, I work out, and not that I'm some big buff guy, but it does give you some physical strength and confidence.
	And, you know, I'm warm without being soft.
	So some people are warm because they're kind of desperate, like they don't.
	Don't be upset with me, kind of warmth.
	But I'm warm and friendly, but very firm, very direct, and very honest.
	And I don't know how that communicates itself, but I know that it does.
	The word is like, you know, it gives you an aura or it gives you a halo or it's something.
	Like, to take a sort of very sinister example, there are, of course, creeps who prey upon children in a sexual manner.
	Now, the amazing thing is they know which children to pick, and they do it very successfully.
	I mean, the average one of these kinds of predators preys upon dozens or sometimes even hundreds of children over the course of their life.
	Every child they prey on has the potential to send them to jail, where they will often be killed by other inmates, or certainly extremely aggressed against and mistreated, or ostracized at the very minimum.
	And all of these creeps and these predators are able, usually, to sail through life with dozens or hundreds of victims with the highest possible stakes.
	And they do it incredibly successfully and with almost no error.
	I mean, it's incredible.
	Bullies know who to pick on, which kids to pick on in school.
	And if you've ever been bullied in school, hopefully not been a bully, but could happen.
	Bullies very rarely pick on some kid who ends up having a secret ninja ability who then beats them up.
	That almost never happens.
	I've never, I mean, we have to make allowances for the fact that it must happen at some point or in some theoretical way.
	But in terms of like practical reality, bullies know exactly who to pick on.
	So there's a lot of studies that show that 90% of communication is nonverbal.
Reading People's Attitudes 00:03:46
	And when you become conscious of this, I would strongly suggest to everyone like, really look at this.
	And think about this.
	I had a friend when I was in my early 20s.
	Well, it was actually a friend since my early teens, but in our early 20s, sometimes for amusement, we would sit at a cafe where, you know, outdoors usually, people were walking by.
	And what we would do is we would make up the entire backstory of someone walking by.
	And I'd say, Woman in red dress.
	And he'd say, Arts major wants to get into theater, is uncertain about her acting ability.
	Doesn't have much money at the moment, but comes from rich parents, and then he would tell me why.
	So we would unpack everyone's lives just glancing at them.
	I mean, it's kind of like there's a show called Psych where the guy was trained by his father to observe everything and he pretends to be psychic, but he just is very observant.
	And, or the monk was an OCD guy that is another show, is an OCD guy who observes every detail and so on.
	And it really is worth Developing this skill.
	Look at people and try to figure out what they're like.
	Try and figure out what motivates them.
	Try and figure out their level of confidence.
	Try and figure out their level of assertiveness.
	Try to.
	And so when you go to a party, look around.
	It's sound like the Terminator.
	Scan people, you know, scan their souls.
	It's a really, really important skill to develop.
	And I think we have it, and it's either unconscious or it's conscious.
	And so, when you're out there in the world, you want to look at people and scan them so you make your unconscious evaluation of them conscious.
	I mean, even dogs do this all the time because dogs will fight for dominance, but they don't fight to kill each other usually, or they don't fight to like break each other's legs or put out eyes or something like that because you want dominance in a pack.
	You don't want injuries in a pack because then you can't hunt as well.
	So, dogs do this as well where they evaluate and the dog knows whether to submit.
	Or to escalate based upon the attitude, the body language of the other dog.
	A lot of animals, cats do this, like they puff up their fur, they hiss, they stretch, they squish their shoulders up, and so on.
	Dogs do it, and there's lots of animals that have aggression displays, and some of them are fake and some of them are real, but animals really work on evaluating body language.
	I'm sure you've heard this thing, and it seems to be kind of true that if you show fear around a dog, the dog kind of senses it and knows it just based upon maybe it's your sense.
	Maybe you're dumping a bunch of sweat or cortisol on your skin, or maybe it's just your physical attitude and so on.
	And so, animals do this a lot.
	They do this all the time.
	What do you do about the dog?
	I don't know.
	Me, dogs always misbehave.
	It's like, I don't know.
	I always thought that, oh, just because I'm not trained or something.
	But they somehow just always know when it's me.
	Yes.
	And maybe it's because you have a bit of a higher voice than normal, and maybe.
	You have an attitude of, or a physicality that has something to do with being hesitant or being unsure of yourself or being unsteady and so on.
	Oh, you do?
	Yeah, it's like a curse.
	I mean, I want to change that, but I don't know.
	I mean, I don't know.
	I don't want to make excuses for it, but I just don't know how to change that.
Childhood Hierarchy Wounds 00:15:05
	Like, I remember there would be like instances where, Me and my friend, my girlfriend would go, uh, and meet a group of people and we both would have met them at the same time, but they would completely behave differently with me and they would be different with her.
	And with me, they would be very comfortable making, uh, making like uncomfortable comments around me.
	And with her, they would revere her.
	I mean, I don't think this is in my head.
	I saw it and I was like, we are both brand new to this group and somehow I'm being treated differently.
	And it was so strange.
	Like, they didn't know either of us, but it was so weird.
	I know that I have a difficult time signing up to people and expressing who I am and all that.
	I've always been scared.
	I don't know.
	I have been scared of being myself around people, but I don't know.
	Like, I'm still trying to find out who I am so I can change that.
	And it's frustrating, right?
	Because you look at your friend who's been treated with more respect than you are.
	You look at your friend and you're like, well, Why are you treating her better than you're treating me or with more respect?
	It's frustrating, right?
	It is.
	Uh, yeah.
	But then I don't know why.
	Ah, well, um, if you don't mind, we can do a little bit of a dip into your history because this stuff usually starts pretty early.
	Uh, tell me a little bit about how you were treated as a child.
	I mean, I was abused.
	I was abused.
	It was like a sad childhood, and I don't want to cry over it.
	But my dad was not affectionate.
	He never apologized for anything, even now.
	But even as a kid, I would compare myself with other kids.
	I think because he started that, he would always compare me to other girls and always compliment other girls and be like, oh, she's so.
	Somehow they would be better than me.
	And I don't know.
	I mean, I know you say not to do this, but I tried to like suppress or get these memories out of my head because it's I don't know.
	It's hard to because when I remember these things, it feels like I used to identify as someone who gets treated like this, like it's normal for me.
	Yeah, my dad was abusive, my mom was just passive.
	She was, she's just like, she likes to act like a helpless victim.
	And I feel like I also unconsciously did that in my life act powerless.
	And yeah, my dad used to physically abuse me to a lot of like jump scares, like barging in my room, no privacy, and all of that.
	So yeah, I never felt valued, appreciated.
	But I don't know, like, I think most shitty childhoods must look like this.
	And I remember, like, my parents would fight, like, really bad, like, fight.
	They would be, my mom would leave the house and she would go to her parents for a few days.
	This would happen very frequently.
	And I would have to go to school the next day and I would just feel like death.
	And I would have to like deal with these kids, and I actually can't remember how, but I used to get bullied in school too, and I didn't know how to deal with that.
	Like, if somebody talked shit to me, I would just, I wouldn't, and I still feel like I don't know what to do.
	I, and I don't know how to respond to people who, like, sometimes people will casually say something disrespectful and think it's funny, and I would, I would be like, I would freeze.
	I don't know.
	I hate being around people because of that.
	Because I feel like I just become like timid and I just become like, oh, please don't hurt me.
	Please don't be mean to me.
	Because I wouldn't know how to stand up for myself.
	I've been working on that.
	But yeah, I think probably my dad conditioned me to be like that.
	I don't know if I'm missing any details.
	I mean, I am missing details, but.
	No, listen, I don't want to interrupt, and I'm obviously really, really, really sorry about all of this.
	I have a daughter myself.
	Teaching your children, and especially your daughters, because it comes a little bit more easily to some boys, but teaching your daughters how to be assertive, how to defend themselves, how to stand up for themselves and for others is really essential.
	And I don't want to interrupt you, but I just really wanted to say I'm so sorry that this is the way you were treated.
	Yeah, I'm glad that I mean, I'm glad to be seen.
	I remember one time, I mean, I used to get bullied in my school bus, and in school, it was so tiresome.
	And like, the only people to like me were shitty fucking teachers because I was so obedient and I was so moldable because I learned not to raise any conflict so my parents wouldn't get called.
	Or even at parents, teachers' meetings, if there was one negative word about me or one like unsure word about me from the teachers, my dad would, um, give me hell for that.
	So I learned not to, uh, you know, have any conflict in teachers' eyes.
	So, uh, like the kids would bully me.
	Uh, I, I know it's me, but I, like, I think I'm smart, but I don't know how to teach myself.
	Uh, but In my school bus, I used to get bullied by this stupid looking kid.
	He was younger than me, but he was so, he was such a menace.
	And I was getting tired of it because other people would also make fun of me.
	It was humiliating.
	So I was like, uh, I, I'm gonna tell my dad.
	And I don't know, I've, I don't know who to tell.
	So I told my dad.
	And there were like two different occasions when I would have told him that somebody is giving me a hard time.
	And he went up to that boy and he, He didn't hit him, but he pretended to like smack him on the cheek, like, like, poked him on the cheek, like, okay, you understand?
	Don't do this.
	And, uh, the kids were like, oh, her dad hit him.
	Oh no, Ria's dad is violent.
	And it just made things worse for me because the teachers found out about that and they called me like, what is happening?
	I was like, well, this kid was bullying me every day.
	And so I had to tell my dad.
	And it didn't get any better.
	The kids didn't stop bullying me.
	They just started to get disgusted at me because my dad is violent, which he was.
	He was with me.
	So unhelpful.
	I mean, I didn't ask him to help me with bullies after that.
	And I just like, I would just lay low so no one would talk to me.
	But people would still make fun of me.
	And even now, when I walk on the street and people are laughing, I'm like, oh shit, they're laughing at me.
	It's because of this, because of that.
	And I know that is irrational.
	And I know like my higher brain doesn't believe that.
	But like these instincts come back to me.
	It's so frustrating.
	No, I get that.
	And of course, if your father comes in and fights your battles for you, then the kids will just wait till your dad's not around and escalate again.
	So it's usually not a particularly good strategy.
	So again, I sympathize with that.
	So you weren't allowed to be assertive.
	You weren't allowed to stand up for yourself at home.
	You weren't allowed to say to your father, I don't like it when you do this.
	I'd prefer it if you do that, and have him sort of listen and take your concerns seriously.
	Yeah, I couldn't argue against my dad.
	Otherwise, I'd get hit.
	Right, right, right.
	And it's not good parenting, to put it mildly.
	Peacefulparenting.com for people who want to get the free book and the AI on that.
	You can ask the AI questions.
	It's all programmed with my parenting material more than just the book.
	So I'm really sorry about all of this.
	And it's a burden.
	It's a burden to not be listened to, to be bullied and aggressed against and diminished and belittled, as you said, he would always.
	Or often he would compare you to other girls and praise them and not you.
	And I mean, it's terrible.
	The job of a parent, of course, is to prepare children for a moral and effective and competent adulthood.
	And you don't do that by grinding their souls into a fine dust.
	And so, what it does is set your kids up to be bullied.
	And I'll tell you the way that the world works.
	And it is a brutal fact.
	It's a brutal fact.
	And of course, if people have different experiences and opinions, they're certainly welcome to come in and share.
	You can ask to join the conversation either with this young lady or Lynn one on one.
	But the way that the world works is that most people scan for a weakness or what they perceive as weakness, or which usually as a kid just means lack of support, lack of parental attachment and involvement.
	They scan for weakness.
	And they do what they can get away with.
	So, most people, if you're really tentative, it tends to make other people more aggressive.
	Have you ever noticed that?
	That if you're feeling particularly nervous, people tend to be even more pushy?
	Yes.
	That's so cruel.
	It is, because at the very time that you feel like you need the most support, people tend to be the most aggressive or diminishing you or something like that.
	And so, most people don't have any independent standards of behavior.
	They don't say, well, you know, this is an old Dr. Phil phrase.
	I don't like it hugely, but I kind of get where it's coming from.
	You know, they don't have a standard which says, I'm going to treat people with dignity and respect and I'm going to look for the best in them and I'm going to have a standard of behavior independent of what the other person is doing.
	Most people, what they do is they do this kind of dog thing that we talked about earlier where they're scanning for, okay, is this person.
	Confident and aggressive or assertive, in which case I'll be compliant and nice, like you said with your friend, that people don't say rude things to her and they're not kind of insulting her in a way.
	They treat her well.
	And that's because people are like, they're like water and they just get poured into what they can get away with.
	And so if you're kind of nervous and deferential, then they'll say, oh, okay, so this person's low status, so I can be aggressive and get away with it.
	So they'll just be aggressive and get away with it.
	And if somebody's more confident and they view that person as higher status, then they'll restrain their own behavior because they can't get away from it.
	Like they can't get away with whatever it is going to be, like telling a rude joke or making fun of someone or whatever, right?
	So, most people are scanning for physical signs of hierarchy.
	How confident are you?
	How direct are you?
	What kind of strength do you have?
	Are you sure of yourself?
	And they'll just conform to that.
	They are scanning for physical manifestations of where you are in the hierarchy.
	And dogs do this as well.
	Like if one dog approaches another and the other dog rolls over and shows its throat, the dog is signaling submission.
	If the dog lowers its head, I mean, there's lots of body language stuff that's going on with the animals.
	Primates do this, apes do this, baboons do all of this.
	That, you know, when the king gorilla comes around, all of the other males kind of kowtow to him, bow down before him, and so on.
	And so most people are operating at a very primitive mammal level where they will do what they feel they can get away with based upon the physical cues they read from you about where you are in the hierarchy.
	Now, in the family, It sounds like you were at the bottom of the hierarchy, or was there somebody below you?
	When I was very young, my dad is such a fucking pedophile.
	I mean, I don't know.
	He would always say that I was so nice and cute when I was young.
	And then I grew up, and I don't know why he would stop loving me shallowly when I would pass six years old.
	But apparently, I wasn't nice to him anymore.
	And my mom used to get treated very badly before that.
	And then as I kept growing up, I went below my mom in the hierarchy.
	So, yeah.
	I'm sorry about all of that.
	It's appalling.
	And I'm really sorry that you had that experience.
	But, yeah, so if you, and this is quite common among the youngest in the family, the youngest in the family, there's been studies going back decades that older children tend to be more successful in life.
	And one of the reasons for that is sometimes they're a little bit higher IQ, but much more fundamentally, the reasons why.
	They're successful in life more so.
	Often, there's tons of exceptions, but it's because the youngest child in the family usually is the one.
	That gets put down the most, usually is the one who has the least power.
	And so, usually, it's the one who has to do the most adjusting to other people's preferences and so on.
	And so, we get a certain I'm a younger sibling, my wife also is a younger sibling.
	And we end up with a lot of flexibility, which has its pluses, it has its minuses.
	But usually, we're allowed the least amount of assertiveness.
	We're just not allowed to be assertive.
Anger as an Immune Response 00:04:12
	We're not allowed to.
	In a sense, stamp our feet and get our needs met.
	That's usually for the older siblings.
	So, in terms of your earlier question, how do I get a good, strong, competent boyfriend or husband without talking about what's going on in Gaza or in the Middle East or other places?
	Well, my argument or my answer would be that you have to work on your confidence and your assertiveness.
	And that usually means going through the process of being angry at people who wouldn't let you be confident, who wouldn't let you be assertive.
	I mean, it was just the other night.
	My daughter was telling me a story, and I interrupted her like two or three times.
	And she said, Dad, you're interrupting.
	And I'm like, You know, you're right.
	I'm so sorry.
	I'm so sorry.
	My enthusiasm got the best of me, and I apologize and I shut up because, you know, it's a little rude.
	It's not, I mean, it's partly enthusiasm, but it's a little rude.
	And so I want my daughter to have that ability.
	I want her to have the ability to say, Dad, what you're doing, I don't like it.
	Can you change it?
	And, you know, she's a pretty reasonable person.
	So it's not like she's asking me to hop with her to.
	Tallahassee.
	And so when parents raise children and the children are not allowed to be assertive and the children are not allowed to have needs that they can vocalize that can be met in some way, when they're not allowed to push back at the things they don't like, then you raise children who are, you know, unless there's significant change, are kind of going to go through their whole life being incredibly frustrated that they get treated the worst, even though they're the most sensitive.
	And in fact, they get treated the worst in part because.
	They're the most sensitive.
	And the reason why the youngest children tend to be the most sensitive is because they have to be sensitive to everyone else in the family, but nobody often thinks about being sensitive back to them.
	So if you work on confidence and you work on assertiveness and you work on honesty, and I think anger is a very healthy emotion when you've been mistreated because it signals to your body that the mistreatment was wrong and therefore something different should happen.
	Like you want your immune system to get really angry at a bacteria or Heaven forbid a cancer and just kill it and get rid of it.
	You want your immune system to have no mercy and to be very aggressive against that which is harming your body.
	And anger is like the immune system of the soul.
	It signals to the body that what's happening is unacceptable.
	A slave is never allowed to get angry because getting angry is very dangerous for the slave because he's always going to be a slave.
	But if a slave allows himself to get angry, then he might rise up and get free or something like that.
	So, in general, I think working on anger at having been mistreated will give you.
	A kind of grit and a kind of stronger spine that signals itself in ways that, I mean, there are experts who do the sort of body language analysis.
	I mean, some of it may be a bit woo woo and a bit fruity, but I think a lot of it is really.
	Is really good.
	Like, not to compare you to, you know, some small dog or something like that, but, you know, a small dog will run away when it can, but if it's cornered, it will turn and fight.
	And so the turning and fighting is signaling that submission is no longer, submission or flight is no longer an option.
	And if you have that level of anger, not all the time, all right, but in terms of anger at having been mistreated, like you don't want your immune system to be hyperactive all the time, that would be.
	Some sort of immune disorder.
	And so you want it to rouse itself when there's an infection and then not rouse itself when there's not an infection, and certainly don't attack the healthy cells, right?
	Sorry to overstretch the analogy, but if you really focus on being certain with regards to your conscience, having good moral values, and being honest with people, and if you say to people, hey, I don't like that you told that joke.
	I really don't like it.
	Oh, big whoop.
	So what does it matter?
	It's like, it matters that I don't like it.
	I have never said this to anyone, actually.
	It's so weird.
Emotional Honesty Skills 00:14:34
	But that's so that's the virtue called honesty, which is if someone says something to you that is upsetting, you say what?
	I get passive aggressive in the future.
	No, no, but what would you say?
	What could, if you had the, and listen, I'm not saying you're a dishonest person, of course, right?
	But the sort of philosophical commitment to honesty is if someone says something to you that is upsetting, what could you say if you were the most honest?
	If they insulted me or.
	Well, if they make a sexual joke that's inappropriate, like it's not your boyfriend, you know, making a joke, but someone makes an unpleasant joke or something at your expense or rolls their eyes or just something that's negative to you, what's the most honest thing you could say?
	I would actually press them on why they feel comfortable talking to me like that.
	Okay, hang on, hang on.
	But hang on, sorry, sorry to interrupt.
	So that's a strategy, but what's the most honest thing you could say in the moment?
	I had a picture of this.
	I'm sorry?
	I need to picture this real quick.
	So it's really.
	So give me an example of, if you don't mind, give me an example of something that someone said that bothered you recently, maybe something that they didn't say to your more confident friend.
	Well, it was a while ago.
	They.
	Oh, man.
	They.
	They would.
	It wasn't direct, so it was hard to tell that.
	They're speaking to me, but then later I found out that, yeah, they indeed were trying to make me uncomfortable.
	But about my body.
	By saying, hang on, what were they saying?
	Do you remember?
	About my body or something.
	Like, he would, and there was this guy who was like a mutual friend.
	And at first he was a jerk, but after I got a bit more assertive, I got assertive when I was doing mushrooms, so I don't think that counts.
	That's a bit of a cheat code, yeah.
	Yeah.
	It was the first time that I did it, and he trips its people, and I was like, I have no one to call, and I called him, and I suddenly got so frank with him that he actually changed his whole behavior with me.
	And I was like, all I had to do was be honest and say no.
	And he actually obeyed me, and it was.
	Oh my god.
	Well, hang on, hang on, hang on.
	So, there's a lot in what you're saying.
	First of all, please don't do drugs.
	I'm begging you.
	Please don't do drugs.
	You have a great brain.
	Please don't do drugs.
	Number two, it's not that you want him to obey you, you just want to be honest.
	So, let's say that you're wearing a dress and some guy says something like, I don't know, hey, you know, when you bend over, I can see all the way down your top, you know.
	Oh my god.
	That would be kind of offensive, right?
	Yeah.
	Now, what's the most honest thing you could say about your emotional reaction to that?
	I would say, shut the fuck up.
	That would be my impulsive reaction.
	Okay.
	And so that's not an emotional statement.
	And that's aggressive and that's going to invite a fight.
	And inviting a fight is not the same as being assertive, if that makes sense.
	And so I don't know what you should say.
	I'm just telling you that sort of the way that I approach these things.
	What is the so what emotion, if some guy said something coarse like, oh, you see down your top, what emotion would that bring up in you?
	Unsafety, like this guy might rape me or something.
	So I assume it's fear and anger, right?
	Yeah, yeah.
	Right.
	Okay.
	So, what is the most honest statement that you could make about your emotional state when he says that?
	My emotional state?
	It would be, I would be alarmed because that's usually how I get emotionally when I feel somebody put me in a position where I find it hard to say something.
	Right.
	So I don't know what you should say.
	What I would say in that situation, assuming at the age of 59, anybody wants to look down my top other than my wife, but what I would say is I would say, What you just said there makes me feel both a little scared and kind of angry.
	Right.
	And then I would say, Do you know that that has that effect on me?
	You can say this to people.
	I would if it worked.
	Because if you say, you know, shut the F up or whatever, then you're getting immediately into a combat mode.
	And I think that the best thing to do, I have a whole book about this called Real Time Relationships, is to be honest about what you think and feel, to be honest about what you experience, and also curious.
	Like, do you know that talking about looking down my top is alarming and it makes me uncomfortable?
	Like, are you aware of that?
	And to ask that of a guy.
	Now, how do you think a guy would react to that?
	Well, he might actually see me as a person and have empathy.
	He might, but he can't just start yelling at you because you're not attacking him, right?
	You're just being honest about what you experience.
	And, you know, curious about, like, are you aware that this is unpleasant to hear?
	Yeah.
	And so that's a way of being very honest.
	Because if you, like, shut the F up, that's very punchy, which, you know, hey, listen, I mean, if the guy's being really aggressive, whatever, be as punchy as you want, you can bite him in the kneecap for all I care.
	But.
	If you just honestly communicate your thoughts and feelings, it has a strange level of assertiveness to it.
	And it tends to not escalate in the way that shut the F up, it kind of immediately would.
	And it's a way of giving someone feedback, like, you know, what you said is kind of alarming to me and also makes me kind of angry.
	I mean, I'm not commenting on the fact that your penis is hanging to one side and looks kind of small.
	You know, I mean, you can make a joke or something like that.
	But it would be like you would be honest about what you think and what you feel.
	And just openly say, like, are you aware that what you say is alarming to me?
	I think it would be alarming to most women.
	It's alarming to me.
	It makes me kind of angry.
	I'm just curious if you know that.
	Now, how do you think a male would react to that?
	I don't know.
	Because I've never been in that position.
	I mean, I've never cursed that.
	Right.
	But how do you think it might go?
	If you were the guy, I don't know if I heard correctly.
	No, how do you think if you were to say to a guy who made some joke about staring down your top, how do you think it would go if you said to the guy, you know, that's kind of alarming to hear and it actually makes me kind of angry?
	Are you aware of that?
	He might say, what if he told me to just dress better next time?
	Okay, so then we could do that.
	So, say, dress better next time.
	Say, how do you think it feels as a woman?
	Like, it makes me quite angry that you're telling me how to dress.
	I mean, you don't have any authority over me, so I'm not sure why you would think that you do, but it actually kind of angers me.
	And it also angers me, to be honest with you, my friend, it also angers me that you're not answering my question.
	My question wasn't, how do you think I should dress?
	Do you remember what my question was?
	I would say to the man.
	Can I repeat the last part?
	Do you remember what my question was?
	My question wasn't, How do you think I should dress?
	Trust me, you're the last guy on earth, given how you dress, that I would ever ask for how to dress.
	But do you even remember my question?
	Now, he would say, Maybe, no, I don't remember your question.
	In which case, you would say, So it's kind of rude to not even listen to someone, right?
	And if you did remember the question, the question was, Are you aware that it is alarming?
	And it's angering to women to make comments on being able to see their cleavage.
	Like that's alarming and angering to women.
	Are you aware of that?
	And so telling me how to dress is not answering the question.
	And I would appreciate it because it's a polite thing to do if you could answer the question.
	I mean, you feel free to comment on my breasts.
	So I would really like it if you could answer the question as to whether you know that that's alarming and angering to women to do that.
	I don't know what he would say, actually.
	Well, do you think he would mess with you again?
	I don't know.
	Um, maybe not.
	Well, he would try to not answer, right?
	Oh.
	And I would say, listen, you started the conversation by commenting on my breasts.
	You started that conversation.
	So you're in the conversation now, and you owe me an answer.
	You owe me an answer.
	I have to try that.
	I mean, I haven't been honest like that to people.
	So, honesty is really fascinating when it comes to disarming people as a whole.
	Because he might be trying to pick a fight.
	He probably is trying to make you uncomfortable.
	He's trying to put you in an impossible situation.
	Men do this to women a lot.
	And I hate it.
	I hate it as a whole.
	I hate it when I see it.
	I hate it when I hear about it.
	I hate that it happens to you.
	So, men will find a woman who's been neglected or bullied by.
	Her parents.
	And what those men will do is they will make inappropriate comments, which puts the woman in an impossible situation.
	Because if she calls him out on it, he'll say that you're being oversensitive.
	It was just a joke.
	Don't be ridiculous.
	It doesn't matter.
	You're taking it way too seriously.
	Blah, blah, blah, blah.
	And then you feel humiliated, right?
	If you don't call him out, then he's won and he's silenced you and he's made you uncomfortable.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	It's really terrible behavior.
	And men should be.
	Called out on it.
	Now, if you immediately get super punchy and, you know, shut the F up and so on, then I don't think that's assertive.
	And people, and I've made this mistake myself, so I say this with all humility and humbleness, but people mistake aggression for assertiveness.
	It's not assertive to just swear at someone.
	I mean, unless it's a real extreme extremity, but so somebody who makes a crass or inappropriate joke, aggression.
	Is not assertive because aggression is saying, You pushed my buttons, I am now your slave.
	Like, you made a comment about my boobs, and now I'm just going to tell you to shut the F up, and now you've pushed my buttons.
	And, you know, cruel people kind of like pushing other people's buttons, and so you've kind of fallen into a trap, if that makes sense.
	Now, if you're just calm and you say, Listen, what you said is alarming to me, I don't like it, I feel a little nervous, like I don't know what you're capable of, and it makes me angry that you would say that.
	Do you know that, right?
	Now, that is being assertive and not aggressive, if that makes sense, because you're just being honest about what you think and feel.
	Because people, like men, will say crude comments to women because they dehumanize women.
	And if you just say, you know, shut the F up and start yelling at him, then you haven't humanized yourself to him.
	And the way that you deal with bullying is with emotional honesty.
	You don't want to get into an escalating fight of yelling and swearing.
	But the person has dehumanized you, and the best way to counter dehumanization is with emotional honesty and curiosity.
	Because you're saying, if you say, shut the F up, you're saying you're afraid of him and you're reacting with rage.
	And again, that may be appropriate in an extremity.
	But if, like, the way that you deal with bullies is you show you're not afraid of them.
	And the way that you show you're not afraid of them is you are emotionally honest and curious about what they think and feel.
	Like, if you have a little kid, like a two year old, and he comes up and he thumps you with his pudgy little fist on the leg, do you punch him?
	No.
	You say, Hey, buddy, what's up?
	I'm so sorry.
	You're upset about something.
	Tell me what's going on.
	What happened?
	You don't get mad.
	You don't say, What are you punching me for, you little brat?
	You know, you don't get mad.
	You just, and most people are toddlers.
	They have the emotional maturity, emotional intelligence of toddlers.
	And we try not to get, again, I'm not talking about when you're in a position of significant physical danger, right?
	Then you can do what, go angry, go wild, whatever you need to do to get yourself to safety.
	But if somebody's just being kind of a little bitch to you, then I view it the way that I view it it's a pudgy little toddler thumping on my leg.
	I'm not going to react with anger.
	I'm not going to, I mean, after a certain amount of provocation, I just put out a call I had yesterday to donors about where a mystic was just being relentlessly insulting and gaslighting and so on.
	So, I'll be calm and curious for a while, and then I just get angry towards him at the end, which is fine.
	I mean, but that was after like, I don't know, an hour and 40 minutes or something like that.
	But emotional honesty and curiosity is, I think, the most powerful way to deal with sort of soft bullying.
	I'm not talking about someone who's got you up against the locker and has their elbow in your throat.
	Then you can get as feral as you want.
	I'm talking about the people who make those snide little bitchy comments and kind of put you down from a side angle and so on.
	Just, you know, hey, I don't like what you're doing.
	It makes me kind of nervous, makes me kind of angry.
	Are you aware that you have that effect?
Dealing with Soft Bullying 00:05:12
	Do you know that?
	Now, what are they going to say?
	If they're going to say, no, I don't know that, then I would say, well, you could consider this educational.
	So somehow you've managed to get through life not knowing that commenting on a woman's breasts is alarming.
	I'm sorry that you don't know that.
	You should know that, but I'm sorry that you don't.
	But now you know it, so please don't do it.
	Okay.
	Or if they say, yes, I do know that, then I would say, so that's why you're alarming, because you know that what you're saying is frightening and angering to women, and you choose to do it anyway.
	That makes you a bad guy.
	It makes you a bad guy.
	Right?
	So, and then you'd move away from him, right?
	Yeah.
	So that level of honesty and directness can be really important.
	Like when I started talking with this mystic yesterday, this guy who was really into.
	Alternate planes of existence and past lives and things like that.
	He started off by saying that atheists, and I'm an atheist, so he started off by saying atheists are more religious than religious people and they're dogmatic and they're fanatical and so on, right?
	And I said, hey, listen, can we not start this way?
	Like, this is annoying.
	It's a terrible way to start a debate by just insulting me.
	He's like, oh, I don't mean to insult you.
	And I said, well, now you're gaslighting me.
	Like, it is an insult.
	You can't say someone's fanatical and dogmatic.
	And think that that's a neutral term.
	So let's not do that.
	And let's, like, I don't like that.
	Let's not do that.
	Let's start off on a different way.
	Let's start off in a different way.
	So I wasn't yelling at him.
	Now, at the end, I was more aggressive because at the end, he hadn't listened for like an hour and a half.
	But yeah, I think just, I don't have all the answers, of course, and I certainly can't speak to it from a female perspective.
	But I think the verbal arts of self defense are telling people honestly how you feel.
	And then, you know, curiosity like, are you aware that that's how you're making me feel?
	And that puts them, what they say in England, on the back foot, right?
	That puts them in the defensive.
	Because if you say, listen, talking about my breasts makes me feel both alarmed and angry, are you aware of that?
	If they say, no, I'm not aware of that, then they look stupid, right?
	I had no idea that talking about a woman's breasts would make her alarmed and angry.
	And so, if and then they have to say no, if they say no, I wasn't aware of it, then they look stupid.
	And it's all the better if you can do this in public.
	It's all the better if you can do this in public where other people can see what's going on.
	So, if they say no, I had no idea that commenting about your breasts would make you alarmed and angry, then they look autistic or just kind of socially idiotic and they don't have the common sense that God gave a goose, right?
	And if they say yes, I do know that me commenting on your breasts makes you alarmed.
	And angry, then they just look like a common sadist, right?
	Yeah.
	So, sorry to give you the lengthy view, but I find that just emotional honesty and curiosity is really, really important.
	And it is a way to be calm and assertive, and people don't mess with you.
	And so, if you are that way and you have that confidence, and listen, I fully understand that confidence.
	In this kind of honesty, it is tougher for women than for men.
	Like, I'm a six foot tall, 190 pound guy who works out.
	So, for me, it's very easy to say to you, just be more confident.
	And I get that it's really tough for women.
	As a friend of mine told me many, many decades ago imagine being half your size and with a treasure between your legs that most men want, like to try and understand the perspective of women.
	And that's a very real and important thing.
	So, I say this with due.
	Humility about this advice, but I'm not asking you to do anything physical.
	And women have a great deal of power.
	We all have a great deal of power.
	And this is why the virtue of honesty is really important.
	And this is why I don't meet woke people.
	I don't meet socialists.
	I don't meet communists.
	I don't meet far right or fascists or whatever you want to call them.
	Everyone I meet is pretty reasonable because they read my body language and the creeps and the crazies and the sociopaths and the disturbed and the Borderline and the bipolar, and they all stay away from me.
	They don't, because they read the body language.
	And so, sorry, your original question how do you get a good guy without talking about politics?
	Well, work on the verbal arts of self defense.
	Work on being honest.
	And listen, the first time you try this, you might just burst into tears.
	And that's fine too.
	Like, it's just a matter of learning a kind of new skill.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Sorry.
Finding New Interaction Ways 00:09:36
	It does, like, with my boyfriend, I also struggle with that.
	And I would start crying.
	And he would get mad when I start crying.
	And it would feel very cruel to me.
	And he'd be like, why do you cry?
	Why?
	What's so, like, why do you always cry?
	And I don't think he's, like, not empathetic, but he doesn't understand or something.
	And I don't really have an answer.
	It just overwhelms me.
	And it feels like I can't, I guess, assert myself.
	I feel defeated, condescended, overpowered, all these things.
	And I don't know.
	My relationship dynamic, it's all dynamics just end up that way.
	Like I explained, like with my friendships and all that.
	And it feels like I want to express my needs, but I'm afraid of doing that.
	And I end up misbehaving.
	Like I would end up acting like a jerk because I would think, oh, this is how girls assert themselves.
	Like they would.
	Because I'm a girl, I'm allowed to just not give an explanation and just like.
	Be like, yeah, don't talk to me like that, and that's it.
	And I have done that before, and I felt stupid after doing that.
	But I was like doing, trying everything, and trying to figure out what works.
	Well, let me ask you this, and I sympathize with this, and I want you to be kind and gentle with yourself, if you could do me that tiny favor.
	And the reason I'm saying that is what would have happened, my friend, if you had tried to be assertive?
	With your father when you were growing up, if he was yelling at you and you were to say, Dad, I don't like it when you yell at me, it scares me.
	I really hate it when you yell at me.
	Can you please find some other way to talk to me other than raising your voice?
	Or, I really hate it when you hit me.
	It makes me frightened of you.
	It kind of breaks my spirit a little every time.
	Can you please find some other way to interact with me other than yelling and hitting?
	I don't like it.
	It makes me scared.
	It makes me angry.
	And it kind of makes me hate you after a while.
	And I don't want that.
	You're my father.
	I want to love you.
	So treat me well.
	Like if you'd have said something like that, and listen, I'm not saying you probably could have or should have or would have as a kid, but if you imagine saying something like that to your father when you were a kid, What would have happened?
	I think it would have worked after a while.
	I wish I had done that.
	Like, maybe out of habit he wouldn't have stopped at first, but maybe it would have got to him.
	Well, okay, but I think that most children have a pretty good instinct about their parents and what's possible and what's not.
	So, for instance, you asked me some very tough questions early on, which is fine, but did you think that I was going to get mad at you?
	No, not yet.
	Good, good, good.
	I'm glad you didn't because I wasn't, right?
	You're perfectly free to ask any questions that you want on this show, and I'll do my best to answer them.
	So, you were able to assess how I was as a person and ask me tough questions in public, you know, which is fine, and controversial questions and high stakes questions.
	Again, totally fine.
	I put myself out there.
	It's totally fine to ask me whatever you want.
	And so, you had a good assessment of me, and I would argue that you have a much better assessment of your father.
	And if You could have said this to your father and it would have worked, then you would have.
	So what do you think might have happened that would have been negative if you'd have said to your father, I hate it when you hit me.
	You need to find some other way to interact with me.
	I get that you don't like everything I do.
	That's fine.
	But you can't yell at me and you can't hit me because it breaks my spirit and it makes me hate you.
	What is your fear?
	What would have happened if you'd said that to your father at the age of eight or 10 or something?
	I just remembered I tried doing similar things and it didn't work.
	And he said he didn't listen, he ignored it and it didn't work.
	He thought he knew better and it didn't work.
	And so I wasn't hurt.
	And I was like, okay, I accepted it eventually.
	Right.
	So you expressed your preferences, which, by the way, were perfectly reasonable preferences.
	Yelling at children, hitting children is absolutely unacceptable, immoral behavior.
	And so you tried.
	You tried to reason with your father.
	You tried to be honest with your father, and it didn't work.
	Now, what do you think would have happened if you had gone really assertive?
	And again, I'm not suggesting this to anyone out there, but what if he tried to hit you?
	You'd have caught his hand and you said, Don't you lay a hand on me.
	Don't you hit me.
	What would have happened?
	He would have beat the fuck out of him.
	And he did that because I also tried that when I was like 18.
	I was like, No, you're not going to hit me.
	And he hit me more.
	I'm so sorry.
	He even kicked me out.
	Right, right.
	So, and so again, with all of the sympathetic human noises that I can make about how appalling this is as a situation.
	So, as children, our goal is to survive no matter what.
	Now, as children, as human children, we take like 20 to 25 years to reach full brain maturity.
	As children, can we afford to be kicked out by a parent?
	No, you will never have more power over any human being in the world in your entire life than you have over your own child.
	There's no equivalent.
	If I turn into a jerk, my wife can walk out tomorrow.
	You know, my daughter's almost an adult.
	She can leave the house and she can never talk to me again if she doesn't want to.
	But when she was a little kid, you have no say, you have no choice.
	You just have to put up with whatever your parents dish out.
	You just have to.
	And this is evolutionary.
	In other words, the kids who stood up to their parents throughout most of our evolution, what happened to them?
	They probably got killed.
	Yeah, they got killed or abandoned or they didn't get fed or they were handed over to the priest for some human sacrifice.
	Parents have a million ways to reduce the survival chances of their children if that's what they choose to do.
	So, evolutionarily speaking, the only kids who survived were the kids.
	Who just shut up and put up with it all because those were the genes that made it to adulthood.
	So when you say you're scared to be assertive, listen, I mean, sister, I get it.
	I get it because what you're being asked to do is to put your hand into a poisonous snake pit.
	It feels that it feels almost suicidal.
	It feels like this is the best way to not be here anymore.
	It goes against our entire conditioning, it goes against our entire evolution.
	It's terrifying.
	That's why I say when you try, you know, as an adult with these kinds of situations, it's entirely possible that you might just burst into tears.
	And it might happen the first 10 or 20 times you try it because it feels like jumping out of a plane without a parachute.
	Because our instincts to not aggravate our parents, to not defy the will of our parents, our instincts are so strong that way that it feels like we're self deleting or something, if that makes sense.
	Yeah.
	It does.
	And that's what I mean when I say, please be gentle with yourself and be kind to yourself, because going against our entire evolutionary survival mechanisms by being assertive when we were raised in a bullying manner.
	See, I mean, you have a chance now to have a different kind of life, but throughout our evolution, the tribe you were in, man, that was just your tribe.
	And if the females are subjugated, you can't push back, because even if you somehow survive the indifference or hostility of your parents, If the men are expecting the women to be broken and subjugated, then the men won't marry you either and your genes will die out.
	So we surrender.
	All of us surrender.
	That is our absolute instinct.
	And I'm very glad that my ancestors did surrender because if they didn't, I wouldn't be here.
	So when you're trying to change that conditioning, it's going very much against everything that keeps you and your ancestors alive.
	And it feels like jumping off a cliff.
	So just be, hopefully, be kind and patient with yourself.
	Now, I do have somebody else who wants to talk and I.
	I wanted to get to them.
	I hope that the conversation was helpful today.
	And I just really wanted to give you, you know, big hugs from afar about everything that happened to you.
	And I wish it hadn't, but it doesn't have to be your life, of course.
	Thank you.
	You're very welcome.
	You're very welcome.
	Me too.
	All right.
	Sorry to cut her off.
	I thought she was done.
	Mike, you have the mic.
	Stefan, can you hear me okay?
	Yeah.
	Second time caller.
Asking Permission for Faith 00:03:06
	I had a topic I wanted to bring to your.
	Well, you've actually talked about it, but I wanted to kind of air it out and make sure my thought process is correct on it, if I may.
	Sorry, you're asking for permission for something I don't know the content of yet.
	So the form of the form, if you're asking for permission for the form, yes, that's fine.
	I have no idea what the content is, but yeah, go ahead.
	Thank you.
	Thank you.
	I know a lot of your listeners are believers, and I think.
	You've commented on your experience with church going.
	One thought I want to, and a lot of these obviously are coming from listening to you.
	I've been a long time listener and subscriber.
	So I think my biggest issue in America right now, and I'm in the United States, though I immigrated here when I was a kid, growing up in a church and no longer being a believer, the biggest issue I see is you have.
	A majority population who profess to be Christian, and as you've mentioned, have direct insight from a higher being, whether that's through the Holy Ghost or through prayer, direct revelation.
	Every one of them is waking up trying to live a holy life to achieve passage into heaven, or if they're Calvinists, they believe they're already going to heaven, they're predestined.
	And the big glaring elephant in the room.
	The biggest sin I think you would agree and I would identify is force and coercion that we see in the state, whether that's inflation and taxation that we would define as theft, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security.
	You have churches full of elderly who are sitting, living off future generations.
	And somehow, no higher being is telling them about this elephant in the room.
	Am I getting that correct?
	Because I think to me, that's the biggest.
	My concern is you have preachers who are no longer prophets, who are meant to be going against the grain, who have been somewhat co opted.
	I want to hear your thoughts on that.
	I think I understand.
	And I don't want to paraphrase, but I want to make sure I follow what you're saying.
	The way that I approach religious people is if there is a God, they have access to God.
	Infinite, perfect, eternal knowledge.
	That's just the way that it works.
	If you believe in a God and you believe that you pray to God and God gives you answers and God gives you thoughts and ideas and feelings and guides you and so on, Jesus takes the wheel, right?
	Well, if Jesus takes the wheel, there better not be a crash because Jesus is perfect, right?
	So, if people are religious, then they have access to infinite knowledge and wisdom.
Testing Infinite Knowledge Claims 00:03:29
	Do I have that correct according to your understanding?
	Okay.
	So, if people are religious, then they should be praying to God, and God should be giving them answers better than anything else they could get from anywhere else.
	They should be getting better answers than science can give.
	They should be getting better answers than math or doctors or reason or philosophy or my theory of ethics, UPB.
	They should be getting better answers than anyone else because they have access to perfect, omniscient, flawless knowledge through their relationship with God.
	Do I have that more or less correct?
	Correct.
	Or at the very least, if they're striving to live a good life, those morals should be at the forefront.
	Well, I agree with all of that.
	But if I say I have perfect AI, like a computer or a chip or whatever it is, I have perfect AI, it can never make any mistakes, and it knows everything in the universe, past, present, and future.
	I mean, that would be an extraordinary claim, right?
	Right.
	So if I go to investors and I say, I have an omniscient AI that knows everything in the universe, past, present, and future, wouldn't their jaws hit the floor?
	Okay.
	Now, if you were an investor, here's where I'll turn the analysis over to you.
	If you were an investor and I said, Hey, man, I need investment, I've got an AI that knows everything, including things that have never even been figured out, it knows the answer to absolutely everything, past, present, and future.
	What would you say?
	Oh, there'd be so many questions to ask.
	Okay, what would be a question you would ask?
	I think right now, probably the most prominent in my mind would be.
	No, no, as the investor, not of the AI.
	If you're an investor and I'm sitting across the table from you and I make the extraordinary claim that I have an AI that knows everything, they say, what's it trained on?
	Oh, it's not trained on anything, it knows everything.
	Yeah, you'd give certain proofs, whether those are scientific or.
	Quandaries that humans haven't solved yet, you would basically be able to ask that question and show an answer that would be verifiable.
	Right.
	Right.
	So, I mean, you'd ask it the Bilbo question, right?
	What do I have in my pockets?
	Right.
	No, seriously, you would say, oh gosh, well, what did I dream of last night?
	What was the date my second daughter got her measles shot?
	Right.
	You would say, what is in the glove box of my car right now?
	Right.
	You would say, what's the odometer on my motorcycle read?
	Right.
	You would say things.
	That wouldn't be immediately apparent to any AI, and you would check to see if the person, like me, the guy with the supposed omniscient AI, you would check to see if it was true, right?
	Can I steel man that argument, Stefan?
	Sure.
	I had this conversation with my nephew.
Worshiping a Powerful God 00:15:32
	So the way they would speak about that is to say Are you familiar with the Star Wars saga?
	The first three, like the 77 to the mostly, I don't remember the other one.
	I think I've seen some of the others, but I remember the first three quite a bit.
	The analogy might be apt.
	So the picture they would paint is of an all powerful being similar to Palpatine.
	So it's an empire.
	You have a Palpatine that has all power, and it's not necessarily about them being moral because they're all powerful.
	They don't need to be moral.
	Morality is for.
	I'm sorry, who is this in the analogy?
	This would be, say, a predestination Calvinist talking about why their faith does not necessarily give them answers to scientific questions and why the way they would view, say, that all powerful being.
	The picture I get is it's an all powerful being.
	They're not necessarily moral in the way we humans perceive morality or ethics.
	And the reason they're not giving Sorry, you mean God?
	Correct.
	Okay.
	Sorry, I wasn't Palpatine.
	I'm like, I don't know who we're talking about here.
	So, this is God.
	God is all powerful, but not moral in the way that we would understand.
	Correct.
	And they would say they are not, and I apologize for confusing the analogy with Palpatine, which is from Star Wars.
	Because they're all powerful, they don't necessarily need to give us answers to everything.
	They're okay.
	Who is they?
	Isn't God singular?
	I mean, Calvin's aren't, they don't believe in multiple gods, right?
	Yeah, sorry.
	I'm going to play the Christian in this case.
	Sorry.
	No, no, but I don't know who they are.
	You said they are all powerful.
	Is that multiple gods?
	Is it polytheism?
	What does that mean?
	Yeah, I confused it.
	He is all powerful.
	Okay.
	Please try to be precise because if you're dealing with abstracts and you're not precise, and again, we all make mistakes, but this is like, it's very confusing already.
	And I have to think of the audience.
	If you're confusing to me, then you're confusing to the audience.
	And then the conversation becomes quite unproductive.
	So, Thank you for that correction.
	Yeah, sorry, there's no problem.
	Go ahead.
	So, if I'm Christian, I'm going to say God is all powerful.
	And again, I'm steel manning this because of how I grew up.
	The purpose for God is to achieve his final goal on earth and for eternity.
	And that goal does not necessarily require him to give us truths to be able to prove his existence, hence, where faith comes in.
	And that may require us to behave in immoral ways, Old Testament examples, so forth.
	And I believe in this, such a God.
	And therefore, I'm going to act immorally because that's what God in the Bible tells me to do.
	And it's not contradictory because I'm believing in somebody like a Palpatine in the empire simply to get into a heaven.
	That would be the response.
	So God bribes you in heaven to do things that are immoral.
	God bribes you with heaven, with the promise of heaven, to get you to do things that are immoral.
	Is that right?
	Correct.
	And I mean, this was the argument I received talking, like I said, to a family member.
	It's hard to argue against that.
	No, it's very easy to argue against that.
	Okay, so go ahead and play.
	I don't mean easy emotionally, but okay, so how is that different from paying a hitman to kill someone?
	You are promising someone a benefit, which is money, in order to do something immoral, which is murder.
	Yeah, it's only immoral from your perspective.
	You just don't know the greater good for eternity because God sees everything.
	And it's the law example of, you know, God destroyed his whole family.
	But at the end of the day, it was for the greater good because we are still reading that story and we know the power of God.
	Okay, so how do you know that God is good?
	I think they would say the term.
	No, just be the Christian.
	We understand it's a role play.
	So, how do you know that God is good?
	Good.
	God is good because his definition of good would be faith and belief in him.
	He is good.
	No, no.
	You can't say God is good because I choose to believe God is good.
	That is not an argument.
	Sure.
	Okay.
	So, you say, I assume that you believe that you're worshiping a moral or virtuous or good God, right?
	You're not worshiping an evil God, right?
	No.
	Okay.
	Fantastic.
	So, then how do you know?
	Sorry?
	I'm worshiping a powerful God.
	So you worship a powerful God.
	Okay, hang on, hang on, hang on.
	We can't both talk at the same time.
	So you're worshiping a powerful God, and you don't know if the God is moral.
	Correct.
	So the God could be using his power to make you do evil.
	The human definition of evil or immorality, yes.
	Well, do you think that something can be evil for a human being, but good for God?
	There are multiple examples in the Old Testament and the New Testament where that is the case.
	No, no, no, that's not, that's begging the question.
	Because we're trying to establish if those things are good or not.
	You can't say, well, I know that God has got different morals because everything that God does is good and God does the opposite of what is good.
	Right?
	That's not an argument.
	You're just, again, you're taking a place where you're suspending judgment and you're calling it faith.
	Faith is where you stop judging.
	Faith is where you stop thinking.
	Faith is where you stop reasoning.
	And if you want to wall off your God behind this giant foggy wall of faith and say, I worship him for his power rather than his virtue, that's fine.
	Then just say, you worship power like any politician or anyone who is willing to do cruel things to dominate other human beings.
	You worship power.
	But you don't worship virtue because God does things that by his own standards are immoral.
	So, yeah, just say that you worship a powerful God, but you're not worshiping anything to do with virtue in any consistent way.
	I think I have a hard time arguing that point, Stefan, because I agree with you.
	I think that actually ties.
	Oh, no, they just retreat.
	Sorry, interrupt.
	They just retreat to the fog of you can't judge God's virtue by your puny human standards.
	God has his reasons.
	God works in mysterious ways.
	They just drape a huge amount of fog and smog and bullcrap all over the whole question.
	And they say, Well, your puny mind can't comprehend what God's virtue is, you know, in the same way that a parent might give rules to a child that the parent doesn't have to follow.
	The parent might say to a child, It's wrong for you to have a job, right?
	Child labor is wrong.
	It's wrong for you to have a job.
	And then, if the child says, Well, if it's wrong for me to have a job, why is it not wrong for you to have a job?
	And say, Well, because I'm an adult and you're a child and you can't expect the same standards and blah, right?
	Well, and it's what you've talked about where the way they are raised, the upbringing determines also what kind of a God they believe in and the kind of political authority they expect.
	If it's top down when they're children, that's exactly what they will expect or want in a deity or Their political structure.
	Right.
	And so, if the claim is that God can do things that appear immoral to a human being, it must be because God possesses superior knowledge that the evil things that he appears to be doing lead to good ends.
	As you said earlier, he killed his own family, but that resulted in the spread of Christianity and so on.
	And so, God.
	Is able to do things that appear to us to be immoral because God has infinitely greater knowledge about cause and effect than human beings do, or something like that.
	Does that make sense?
	Yeah, because if he's all powerful, well, he technically doesn't need to be moral.
	Well, he is moral.
	He is moral, but he's moral in a way that we can't understand because we don't have his infinite knowledge, right?
	Correct.
	Or a puny ant.
	Yep.
	Right.
	Okay.
	So.
	If God's seeming immorality is only justified by an appeal to his omniscience, then we better be pretty damn sure about that omniscience.
	Right?
	Because if God is not omniscient, then we cannot be certain that the evils that God does lead to good things.
	Now, we can look backwards in time and say, well, you know, it led to all of these good things, therefore it was good.
	But that, of course, is begging the question, right?
	So, the only way that we could say that God is not subject to the moral standards he gives to human beings is if God is omniscient and therefore he knows the cause and effect of the seeming evil that he does, and therefore it can be good.
	One example would be if you.
	If your child has a cavity, you take your child to the dentist, and the dentist pulls out that big old horse needle and wants to inject painkillers into your child's gum.
	And your child screams and cries and says, I don't want to, mama don't make me, it's horrible, this is going to hurt.
	And you, as the parent, appear to be assaulting your child or allowing someone to stick a needle into your child.
	And the child doesn't understand what's happening, but you say, I know better.
	And so it's not assault.
	It is saving you from a rotting tooth.
	Does that sort of make sense?
	Yeah, they would even give it a worse analogy where maybe it's a mentally underdeveloped child that you will never be able to reason with.
	Therefore, you just need to do what you think is right, and we will never understand his ability or his mission.
	Right.
	But we can reason, of course, and understand that you are aiming to help the child.
	Now, of course, we could say that the parent is in charge of the child's cavities.
	And the reason that the child has a cavity is the parent has been feeding too much sugar and not saying, brush your teeth or whatever it is.
	Right.
	So, I mean, I had someone I knew many years ago who would let their child fall asleep sipping apple juice.
	And then, of course, the apple juice would pool in the mouth.
	And it was, you know, and I was like, bro, don't do that.
	Well, it's the only way we can get her to sleep, blah, blah, blah.
	So, You and I can understand, and I purposefully did not use the vaccination example because I know that's a bit of an upsetting topic for a lot of people, but let's just go with the cavity thing, right?
	Or, of course, children do not want their nails cut when they're very young, and dogs don't like it either, right?
	But you know, you've got to trim their nails or they scratch themselves or whatever, right?
	So we can have an analogy, and then we can say, but we are like the parents to the children, so is God to us, although it appears evil to us.
	It is good because God has much greater knowledge.
	Is that a fair way to put it?
	Yes.
	And I would say for those believers, the Bible is the final word.
	And yeah, I know.
	So we're not there yet because it does require that we accept that there is greater knowledge.
	Oh, 100%.
	Yep.
	All powerful.
	And as you've talked, all knowing the contradiction there.
	Yep.
	Well, yeah.
	So I get all of that.
	But so in order to say, Although it appears evil to us, it is good to God.
	And of course, one typical example would be the flood, right?
	Noah's, the story of the flood, that God killed everyone on the planet except for Noah and his family and the ark and the, right?
	And that would involve killing babies in the womb, killing children, and so on, right?
	And then the only way that you could say that could be justified is if God knows that these people are all going to grow up to be serial killers, right?
	Even if they weren't going to, he can do whatever he wants.
	But then you've taken the morals out and you have suspended moral judgment.
	And once you suspend moral judgment, you can't be sure of the morals.
	And so the only way that you can be sure of the morals is if God is all knowing.
	And all good, and his good appears incomprehensible to us, but that's only because we lack his knowledge.
	So, in order to make sure that you're not worshiping an evil deity, you would have to test the omniscience.
	Because the justification of God doing things that he specifically bars human beings from doing, the justification for that is God's infinitely superior knowledge, in which case, you better be pretty freaking sure about that infinite knowledge.
	Otherwise, You are just serving a moral hypocrite because he's powerful, which would be corrupt beyond words.
	It would actually be kind of satanic, right?
	So that comes back to if you want to say God can kill and we can't, right?
	Which is obviously an analogy for the government can initiate the use of force, but we can't, right?
	And parents can initiate the use of force, but we can't as children, that kind of stuff, right?
	So this is just a power thing for human beings.
	But if you're going to say, and not you, but if religious people are going to say, God can do the opposite of what he commands us to do.
	In other words, if a human being did what God did, we would consider him monstrously evil.
	But God can do it because he's all knowing.
	Okay, then you better have some evidence for that all knowing stuff.
	This is why I was sort of back earlier about the AI that's infinite, right?
	So, you better have some proof about that all knowing stuff.
	Because if you don't have proof of the all knowing, then all you're doing is worshiping power and calling it good.
	Stefan, thank you for laying that out.
	I agree.
	I dare say there's probably a segment that is that.
The Limits of Moral Judgment 00:15:24
	They do not think it's a God that is all good.
	It's simply a God that is all powerful that we need to believe in.
	And he requires us to be moral on this earth.
	In this sphere, but it's not that he is good, we just don't know the extent of it or the details.
	It's that the concept of good and evil doesn't apply to that God.
	Well, if you're going to say that God is beyond good and evil, but what God does would be considered evil to human beings, then the only standard that we have of virtue, according to religion, this is the Andrew Wilson argument that without God there is only preferences.
	There are no morals.
	So, if the only morals that we have come from God, but God does the opposite of those morals, how do we know that God is good?
	And this is where the omniscience and faith and all of that comes in.
	And it's like, okay, but there is no reason in terms of human ontology and reality, there's no reason why God would have to be good.
	I mean, I don't know about you, but I've seen a whole lot of evildoers gain a whole lot of power over the course of this life.
	I mean, we sort of, in some ways, started off the show that way.
	So there's no reason why a God would be good.
	God could be like some sadistic kid with a magnifying glass and a bunch of ants and just burning them up.
	And God could be, you know, like some little sociopath with skinning cats or whatever it is, right?
	Because power corrupts.
	And so if.
	God is to be called good, especially since God is claimed to be the source of all our morals.
	If God gives us morals that God does the opposite of, well, this would be again like you and I don't have the power to tax, but the government does.
	You and I can't start wars, the government does.
	You and I can't go into debt for another human being, but the government can, right?
	So this is the whole voluntarist or anarcho capitalist argument that the rules.
	That the government imposes upon the population are never to be applied to the people in the government, right?
	And so, and so.
	The only way that we could even come close to claiming that God is good by some standard that is the opposite of what God says is moral is if God is all knowing.
	And God knows the infinite cause and effect of his actions and our actions, and therefore he tends towards the good in ways that we can understand, in the same way that a parent who takes us to the dentist knows infinitely more about.
	Oral hygiene and tooth health and so on, than the child does.
	And so, first of all, it should be explainable to the child.
	Otherwise, you're just strapping the child down and you're kind of tormenting them by not explaining what's going on, right?
	They would say that's where the faith comes in.
	Okay, no, and faith, so faith is a suspension of judgment.
	And that's fine.
	But then you can't assert anything beyond that, right?
	If someone, hang on, so if someone says to me, Is this thing good or bad?
	I would say, I don't know.
	Right.
	So, and it's funny because at the beginning you said, I would like to do this and that.
	And basically you sort of paused to see if it was okay.
	And I said, well, I don't know if it's okay or not.
	I don't know the content, right?
	If the question is, can we analyze religion from a philosophical standpoint?
	Absolutely.
	If it was like, how can I best become a serial killer?
	That's a little less of a positive conversation, to put it mildly, right?
	So, if somebody says to me, is this thing, is X good or bad?
	Or bad is X right or wrong is X good or evil.
	I would have to say, I don't know.
	So, faith is when you say, I cannot judge.
	Okay, I cannot judge.
	Like, if somebody hands me a business proposal written in Japanese and says, What do you think?
	Assuming I can't translate it, don't speak Japanese, what am I going to say?
	I don't know.
	I don't know if it's I can't read it, it's not even the right number.
	I don't know.
	So, faith is where you say, I cannot judge.
	Now, if somebody says to me, is X moral, and I say, I cannot judge and it is moral, that's a contradiction, right?
	So if people want to say, God, I have faith that God is good, even though God does the opposite of what he commands human beings to do, then they are stating a contradiction, which is, I cannot judge and I can judge.
	I cannot come to a conclusion and I've come to a conclusion.
	I cannot evaluate and I have evaluated.
	Those two things are contradictory.
	It is exactly the same as saying, I both can and cannot read Japanese.
	I both, if I don't read Japanese, I both cannot read Japanese and I can tell you that this is the best business proposal that's ever been written.
	Well, those things cannot be both true.
	If I cannot read Japanese, I cannot say whether the business proposal is good or bad.
	If I can say the business proposal is good or bad, then I can read Japanese.
	Does that make sense?
	It does.
	I'm going to have to re listen to this.
	I think you hit upon something that I. Did not have in my brain.
	I thought I had was obviously God doesn't just act on his own in the universe.
	He also has agents, human beings.
	And I wonder if that's where the well, the present, we need to pray for him, or we need to pray for this dictator because God has instilled him, like the Pharaoh in the Old Testament.
	No, hang on.
	Sorry.
	I think we just skipped over this whole bit.
	Let me just reiterate because I, again, I know it's a tough concept.
	So if I say, Here is a foggy barrier that we cannot see through.
	Like you and I standing at this big giant wall of fog, right?
	Here's a foggy barrier that we cannot see through.
	Just big, dense fog.
	We cannot see through it, right?
	And then I say, I know what's on the other side.
	I've never been there.
	I have no way of seeing it.
	I don't have any secret maps or photographs or drones or satellites.
	Like you and I standing in front of a giant wall of fog, and I say, I both know.
	And cannot know what is in that fog or what is on the other side of that fog.
	That would be contradictory, right?
	Correct.
	And so if people want to say faith, they're saying, I cannot judge.
	And the reason why faith is contradictory is it says, I cannot evaluate and I can't evaluate.
	So if you say, I do not know whether God is good or bad, okay, fine.
	But if you say, I cannot evaluate God, but God is good, I cannot know if God is good or bad, but I know that God is good, faith is contradictory because it is saying, reason and human knowledge cannot penetrate this mystery, but also, I know what's at the heart of this mystery.
	I cannot evaluate God's virtue, but I know that God is good.
	These things are absolutely contradictory.
	Faith is a big line which says you cannot pass beyond this.
	But if you can't pass beyond it, then don't claim to know what's on the other side.
	If you can't see through the wall of fog, don't tell me you know what's in there.
	So, should I not hold out hope that Christianity can fight back against the current growing?
	State and the current kind of what you see, obviously, in society.
	Well, let's look at something I touched on a couple of shows ago.
	Maybe you heard it, maybe you didn't.
	I'll keep it very brief, which is the Christian churches are taking hundreds of billions of dollars from the government to settle people in the West who are explicitly hostile to Christianity.
	Now, we all know how this is going to end.
	I mean, this doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure out how this is going to end, it's going to end in huge conflict, to put it mildly.
	And huge conflict may actually be the best outcome.
	There are even worse outcomes than huge conflict.
	Now, I assume that all of the bishops and the priests and the vicars and the pope and the cardinals, they're all praying to God.
	And God has infinite knowledge of past, present, and future.
	So God knows how this is going to end.
	And if they're all praying to God, now, either God is going to say what everybody with half a brain cell is going to see that this all ends in horrible conflict or even worse, total subjugation.
	If God sees that and tells every religious person, let's say every Christian happens to be, we're talking about the West, which is Christian based, if everyone is praying to God and God is saying it's not going to end well, And everyone's like, well, clearly we should keep going.
	That's incomprehensible, right?
	Can I steal that argument?
	Because this is where, if you believe in Revelations and the end of times, your claim is going to be well, Stefan, God has foretold that the end of the world will come and there will be corruption and there will be so much evil in the world that that will hearken to his return.
	And all we need to do is be good.
	So, those immigrants, we just need to be good and love them, even if the end effect will be bad, because that is ultimately what's going to happen.
	And I think there's that contradiction of how can you be a believer and work towards a better world when your belief system has a future that the world is very, very bad for Jesus to come back to earth?
	Well, I mean, this is one of the things that's really quite astonishing about a lot of Western politics is that all of these endless, Multi trillion dollar frauds keep getting uncovered, right?
	The sort of famous leering centers in sort of little Somalia and so on.
	And Christians are kind of like, eh, you know, it's a sign of the end times.
	Corruption in high places and betrayal and malfeasance and traitors and, right, this is all part of it.
	So there's kind of a shrug.
	And of course, Christianity in a sense needs its martyrs, which is why I think Erica Kirk forgave the murderer.
	Again, I think it's largely performative and so on.
	And so.
	There is a challenge, which is in those medical shows, right?
	The patient is flatlining, but there's that one doctor that keeps trying to save the patient and push more epi and more chest compressions, and they keep going.
	And it's like the other one's like, Jim, it's time to call it.
	We got to call it.
	Jim, he's dead.
	Right.
	And if society is going to end in flames of destruction and perdition and so on, then fighting to save it, fighting to fight the fraud would be, in a sense, fighting to postpone Jesus's return.
	Is it something like that?
	Yeah.
	Yeah.
	You're almost fighting against Jesus because.
	The end of times requires those events to take place.
	Right.
	Then it would be like, well, we need to build a new house, but I don't want to demolish the old rotten house.
	Well, no, you've got to demolish the old rotten house, otherwise, you can't build the new house.
	It's like, no, we've got to save the old rotten house.
	It's like, bro, you can't live in the old rotten house.
	We need the new house.
	You're going to have to tear down the old house.
	It's something like that, right?
	Yeah, correct.
	Correct.
	Right.
	Right.
	I just listen to, I mean, a lot of them have called in, and it's always, you know, I want to live a good life.
	I want to do good as a Christian.
	Nobody ever talks about inflation or taxation or the structure.
	And to me, that would be the first thing you would see as the coercion and sin in the world if that was your biggest concern.
	But I, like you said, I have never heard a preacher talk on the subject.
	I've, like you, gone to multiple congregations and you sit there and it's primarily boomers and the pastor will never talk about.
	What is blatantly happening where you have somebody who, like you said, Somali immigrants, you have somebody who just got a $65,000 wheelchair because they're obese.
	And who's paying for that?
	Well, it's going to be my grandkids.
	Well, they probably won't because they'll be on Bitcoin or nothing.
	But I would say as well that one of the things that I always found kind of surprising with regards to Christianity is that free will is essential, right?
	They say, well, God gave man free will.
	And you can't get into heaven if you're compelled, right?
	If somebody holds a gun to your head or whatever, right, then it's not a virtuous or non virtuous action.
	That was sort of my understanding of Christianity because we are responsible for what we do because of free will.
	All right, that's fine.
	Okay, so it's not charity if it's compelled, it's not helping the poor if it's compelled, right?
	Jesus said, if you want to be my disciple, then sell everything you own, give your money to the poor, and follow me.
	But he didn't say, That Rome should do it, that the government, the emperor, should force you to do it.
	And so that which is compelled cannot be moral.
	And I don't really understand why Christians didn't say, with regards to the welfare state, nope.
	No, no, that's compelled, that's coerced.
	Right.
	Right.
	And to me, if after 2,000 years, well, technically 1,965 years or whatever it was, if after 2,000 years, Christianity doesn't even have any real problem with government coercion, even though it was government coercion that persecuted Christians for the first 300 years or 100 years or whatever it was.
	So if you have a moral system.
	That is happy to take money from the government, that is happy to have Christian virtues compelled and thereby no longer be virtues.
	And if you talk to religious people about this, especially, you know, the boomers or whatever, right?
	I mean, can you imagine going up there as a priest and saying to the boomers, the boomer congregation, you know, that how come you guys allowed the government to take over just about every aspect of life?
	How come you let the government educate your children?
	How come you let the government run your currency?
	How come you let the government violate freedom of association?
	How did you let the government?
	Coercively transfer $20 trillion to the poor, thus robbing everyone of the virtue of charity and trapping the poor.
Christian Virtues and Freedoms 00:05:17
	And why don't you want to rise up and vote against it?
	How could you possibly prey upon the young and demand the government spend 10 times more on you than it does on the young?
	How is it that you became slaves to the state when Christianity was founded by being hounded by the state?
	How could you possibly join together with the ancient enemy of freedom?
	And virtue called the state.
	How?
	Like, they wouldn't understand really anything about what you were saying.
	It would be too much cognitive dissonance.
	Sorry, go ahead.
	Yeah, I don't think you and I are going to find that church.
	I appreciate you bringing up the history.
	I'm re listening to a podcast about the history of Byzantium, and I don't know if you know much about that period.
	Honestly, it looks like the true Christians probably all died in the Colosseum the first 50, 100 years because you look at the history and you have an emperor who's Christian.
	150 years in, 200 years in, and it's already the same old story.
	Let me just say, sorry, we've got someone here, and I think he wants to join in the conversation, if that's all right.
	William, I'm sorry to, I don't mean to sideline your mic, and it's a great conversation, but I want to make sure I get to William because we've already been going almost two and a half hours.
	I want to make sure we get to William before the end of the evening.
	William, if there's something that you wanted to mention or add.
	Anything I want to mention or add?
	Well, I think it's a good thing to be a hedonist, and it's not a popular enough thing.
	Libertines and hedonists are more focused on living free and enjoying.
	Okay, never mind about that guy who's been in before.
	He's just a total troll.
	And I don't mind the trolls from time to time, but right now I don't want someone peeing on our wedding cake here.
	So, all right.
	So, yeah.
	So, and that's why for me, like I had to move to something else, the UPP and all of that.
	It's like Christianity's had 2,000 years to protect the West and defend its freedoms.
	And the freedoms have collapsed in the last.
	150 years with Christianity being in charge.
	And I'm sorry, if you've lost 90% of your freedoms while Christianity is in charge, then clearly Christianity is not the answer.
	I wish it were.
	Man, I wish it were.
	If Christianity had taken the freedoms of the 19th century and expanded them further or even just maintained them, I'd be thrilled.
	Agreed.
	Thrilled.
	But I am an empiricist, which means I judge a moral system by its achievements.
	And if I look at UPB, I look at peaceful parenting, I look at the way that I promoted the non aggression principle to families and parenting and relationships as a whole, I think, in terms of measurable good, I've expanded freedoms.
	And I'm not sure that Christianity has done the same.
	In fact, I have seen freedoms steadily erode over the course of.
	Of my life, and of course, when I was a child, it's less so now, like, if you'd have to be older, but when I was a child, man, Christianity was der Bomb, like, it was the thing, it was everywhere, it was in charge of everything.
	I went to a Christian boarding school, uh, the teachers were all Christians, uh, I was taken to church, my aunts and uncles were all Christians, and like, it was everywhere in charge.
	Everybody, like, I had prayer every morning in school, I went to church twice or three times a week, I sang in the choir.
	Like Christianity, in a way that it's hard to comprehend now, Christianity was just like the very air you breathed when I was a kid.
	And I know that started to erode in my teens and so on, but Christianity was the undisputed champion, lord, and protector of Western values and freedoms.
	And like, I'm sorry, it really hasn't taken that long.
	We've fallen faster and harder than Rome.
	Yeah.
	Well, and you're correct that culturally right now, it appears that there's less Christianity, but I would say.
	The voting demographic would still predominantly in the US identify themselves as Christian, and it's almost become synonymous.
	And fortunately, I think this is what we're fighting because number one, I agree with you with UPB and peaceful parenting as the answer.
	But right now, Christianity is still synonymous with a moral, upright citizen, even though obviously you look at the United States, the biggest empire in the world.
	Predominantly Christian democratic voters.
	Right.
	And, you know, Christians can be almost programmed to do anything based upon what's coming down from on high, right?
	So they say, oh, well, you know, what's it?
	They say Israel have to stand for Jesus to return.
	It's like, okay, we'll support.
	Like, it's like there's no reasoning.
	There's no, it's just, it hasn't worked.
	And, no, of course, Christianity did some wonderful things for sure, which was to, was the driving force behind ending slavery and it's a great moral achievement and so on.
	But, you know, it's like that old Janet Jackson song, like, what have you done for us lately?
	I'm not sure in the long run that, you know, fiat enslavement through endless debt and unfunded liabilities is the exact opposite of slavery, to put it mildly.
	I know I've taken up a lot of your time.
	Thank you.
Biblical Tragedy Recommendations 00:01:46
	Thank you.
	I needed that.
	I appreciate the explanation.
	Can I make a recommendation if you are going to watch something, possibly?
	I love your contentless requests.
	I don't know.
	Reef and Style or something else?
	Sorry, go ahead.
	I know you're not a big fan of Disney.
	On Disney Plus, there is a series called Andor, A N D O R. Is that a Star Wars thing?
	It is, but it's not.
	I would say you're not going to find a lightsaber in there.
	I think they do a good job in those two seasons outlining what we're talking about as far as evil, corruption, and I would recommend it.
	It's very adult and definitely not the Star Wars from the 70s.
	Yeah, it does require me giving money to Disney, but I'll mull it over.
	I'll mull it over.
	No worries.
	No worries.
	All right.
	Well, thanks, Mike.
	I appreciate it.
	Always a pleasure to chat.
	And I'm sorry that I forgot to mention this earlier, but I really do appreciate you being a donor and supporter and subscriber.
	That really means the world to me.
	And I thank you.
	I really, really thank you.
	Thank you.
	All right, everybody.
	Well, thank you so much for a great call this evening.
	We will talk to you Friday night, 7 p.m.
	I will do my very best to do video because I know that doing philosophy without my giant speckled egg forehead.
	Is a tragedy almost beyond words, a tragedy, dare I say, of almost biblical proportions, just like my forehead is almost a biblical proportion.
	So have yourself a glorious, wonderful, beautiful evening, free domain dot com slash donate to help out the show.
	I beg you, I beg you, please help out the show, free domain dot com slash donate and shop dot free domain dot com for your merch, peaceful parenting dot com for the book.
	And don't forget to book your call in show.
	You can do it public or private, free or paid at free domain dot com slash call.
	Lots of love, my friends.
	Bye bye.

Chapters

00:00:00 SPLC Funding Allegations
00:10:11 Moral Progress and Family
00:18:15 Ancient Tribal Conflicts
00:22:39 Choosing Who to Marry
00:37:50 Living Your Values
00:42:36 Reading People's Attitudes
00:46:22 Childhood Hierarchy Wounds
01:01:28 Anger as an Immune Response
01:05:41 Emotional Honesty Skills
01:20:15 Dealing with Soft Bullying
01:25:28 Finding New Interaction Ways
01:35:04 Asking Permission for Faith
01:38:11 Testing Infinite Knowledge Claims
01:41:40 Worshiping a Powerful God
01:57:13 The Limits of Moral Judgment
02:12:38 Christian Virtues and Freedoms
02:17:55 Biblical Tragedy Recommendations