Friday Night Live! 4 Aug 2023

  • last year
The first excerpt from my Peaceful Parenting book!

Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!

Get access to StefBOT-AI, private livestreams, premium call in shows, my new book and the History of Philosophers series!

See you soon!

https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022
Transcript
00:00:00 This is Stephen Molyneux from Free Domain. We are here at nine o'clock on Friday night.
00:00:04 Yes, it's a late-night GabFest and I am all about the you today. I am all about
00:00:10 the you. If you would like to support the show I would be absolutely thrilled to
00:00:16 get your support. I am slaving tirelessly, well mostly tirelessly, I'm
00:00:23 slaving semi-tirelessly on the new book on peaceful parenting. I have about a
00:00:28 hundred and seventy pages done and it is a passion project that is kind of eating
00:00:34 me from the inside out in a good way. I've never been this passionate about a
00:00:39 book since really the start of my writing and it is a wild, wild thing to
00:00:46 be going to be going through.
00:00:50 Showing of the six head, yeah four head. All right so we are all live let me just
00:00:54 check here and let me ask you this, let me ask you this. Hit me with a Y if
00:01:05 you have siblings. Hit me with a Y if you have siblings. That would be a yes for me.
00:01:13 Do you have siblings? Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. All right then hit me with a G if
00:01:19 your sibling relationships are good and hit me with a B. G for good, B for bad.
00:01:23 Let's make it nice and easy. Good or bad as a whole? I know it's complicated but
00:01:28 good or bad as a whole with your sibling relationships? Yeah that's tough right?
00:01:40 It's tough. So yeah I think a little bit more than half of you. Just see here.
00:01:45 Yeah maybe two-thirds bad. Bad mostly. Yeah. Do you have a theory as to
00:01:54 why your sibling relationships are not good, if they're not good? Oh thank you.
00:02:05 Appreciate that. You can donate at freedomain.com/donate as well.
00:02:09 Very, very bad parenting? It comes from the parents? Right.
00:02:21 Specific to us? Oh gosh I'm sorry to hear about that. Sorry to hear about that.
00:02:32 You said you don't talk to your sister because she molested you as a kid and
00:02:39 is a bad mom? Wow that's harsh man. I'm really sorry, really sorry about that.
00:02:46 Somebody says criminal assault, property damage, attempted murder, defamation,
00:02:51 slander, yeah bad. Strong personalities? Somebody says envy because I had an
00:02:57 obvious talent. Right. So and the reason I'm asking is that somebody says I think
00:03:07 the biggest challenge is my brother's marriage is like my parents and I don't
00:03:10 want that. Good evening. Dee Grizzle, glad you could tune in live tonight. You are
00:03:16 going to, if you want, this stream is for you, this show is for you, if you
00:03:23 want, I've wrestled with a couple of sibling issues myself, and if you want,
00:03:29 I mean I think this is gonna be the big book. This is gonna be the big
00:03:35 book. For those of you who don't know, I've tried writing the
00:03:39 Peaceful Parenting book a number of times before. This time I'm gonna see it
00:03:42 through. This time I'm gonna see it through. I quailed at the impact it was
00:03:46 gonna have on the world. Honestly, I faltered. I'm fairly courageous I think
00:03:51 in many ways, but I faltered on this one. The impact that the book is gonna have
00:03:56 on the world is going to be tectonic. This is the core. This is the
00:04:02 core. Now, if you have siblings, I just finished the chapter on siblings,
00:04:15 and I could give you a taste if you like. I don't want to make this a book
00:04:22 about me, I don't want to make this about the book, this is because I wanted to
00:04:25 know how many people had siblings or had challenges with siblings, but it's gonna
00:04:30 make you cry. I think. That certainly made me emotional. To write it, so yeah, hit me
00:04:39 with the why. I'm not looking for compliments here, but yeah. Okay, this is
00:04:49 not a final draft, of course, right? So be aware of that. But you asked for it.
00:04:59 Just remember, you asked for it. It sounds almost, "You asked for it, didn't ya, big boy?"
00:05:06 All right, let's do it. First draft, of course, so I can't guarantee it's gonna
00:05:18 stay in this format. I just finished the section on how you parent peacefully
00:05:25 with a wide variety of examples. I did the section on peaceful parenting and
00:05:29 peer pressure, how to apologize, what have we got here? Let me just get down to the
00:05:34 right spot here. And we can get to the sibling stuff. Yeah, I did discipline
00:05:46 without violence. Yes, all of that stuff. Siblings, yes. Here we go. Let me just get
00:05:57 to view the draft. No, I don't want it to view that way. Draft, there we go.
00:06:12 All right, this is
00:06:19 siblings. And it goes like this. Siblings. Siblings are each other's greatest
00:06:33 allies or greatest enemies. It's very little in between.
00:06:40 Evolutionarily speaking, siblings compete for parental time, attention, and
00:06:45 resources. In situations of scarcity, they must view each other as rivals, enemies
00:06:51 even, since there is not enough to go around for everyone. On the other hand,
00:06:56 siblings who ally with each other are virtually unbeatable in the adult arena.
00:07:04 A hunting or war party composed of loyal brothers can scarcely lose.
00:07:13 Affectionate sisters raising children in close proximity create great safety and
00:07:19 security for their offspring. Unfortunately, since the powers that rule
00:07:26 us always want us to be loyal to them rather than to each other, siblings are
00:07:32 usually turned against each other from day one.
00:07:38 Brothers. The way that modern society turns brothers against each other is to
00:07:47 rigidly age-segregate children in schools, which promotes peer bonding
00:07:53 rather than family bonding. The older brother thus gains his status from
00:07:59 hanging out with his peers rather than his younger brother. This leads to the
00:08:06 dismal spectacle of the tag-along. The younger brother desperately wants to
00:08:12 spend time with his older brother and gain the status of having older friends,
00:08:15 while the older brother's peer group asserts their dominance by constantly
00:08:20 calling the younger brother a tag-along. And this way, the older brother is
00:08:27 compelled to reject his own flesh and blood – the sibling with whom he shares
00:08:36 50% genetics in return for the social approval of his unrelated peers.
00:08:46 Tragically, the older brother ends up losing both the bond of his younger
00:08:52 brother and the approval of his peers. His younger brother resents having been
00:08:59 rejected for the sake of transitory classmates, while the classmates who
00:09:03 shredded the bond grow up and move on to other lives. The older brother ends up
00:09:12 feeling lonely and tries to reconnect with his younger brother, but because of
00:09:17 the prior power dynamics, the older brother refuses to submit to the
00:09:23 "humiliation" of an honest apology. The resentment of the younger brother
00:09:28 triggers a status blowback. Since the younger brother has learned that having
00:09:33 higher status means rejecting a brother, when his older brother reveals a need
00:09:38 for him, thus giving him higher status, he rejects his older brother, just as his
00:09:45 older brother rejected him when he had higher status. "Bound together in
00:09:53 discontent" is the tagline for most modern relationships, brothers included.
00:10:02 Sisters. Sisterhood works in a similar manner.
00:10:11 Parents who claim authority based on being older create massive power
00:10:17 imbalances among siblings. The older sibling, identifying with the parents,
00:10:23 asserts authority based on age, just like they do. This creates an artificial sense
00:10:32 of superiority among the older siblings and an equally artificial sense of
00:10:39 inferiority among the younger siblings. The older siblings become addicted to
00:10:48 feeling superior, which creates unstable egos dependent on the imaginary
00:10:55 inferiority of those around them. The younger siblings eventually realize that
00:11:02 if they want to have any power at all in life, they have to detach from the older
00:11:12 siblings, who constantly need to cast them in an inferior role. You either
00:11:20 reject your older siblings or you end up with very little in life other than
00:11:28 propping up their vainglorious and imaginary superiority. When the younger
00:11:35 sibling detaches out of a need for survival, the older sibling often explodes
00:11:41 in hostility, either directly or indirectly. Placing your entire value on
00:11:51 the accidental, that you are superior for something you never earned, is the root
00:11:58 of most violence and tyranny the world over. The older sibling is addicted to
00:12:06 his accidental quote "superiority." The subjugation of the younger brother is the
00:12:13 drug. The deference of the younger brother is how the drug is delivered. And
00:12:22 we all know what happens to addicts when their drug is withdrawn against their
00:12:28 will. Unstable escalation, tyranny, and eventually, we hope, healing as the
00:12:40 withdrawal slowly dissipates and new and more authentic sources of happiness are
00:12:47 generated in the personality. These dynamics are only exacerbated if the
00:12:56 older sibling happens to be taller or more physically attractive or more
00:13:02 intelligent. The accidental quote "superiority" of the birth order is then
00:13:07 supplemented by other preferred physical or mental characteristics and the chance
00:13:12 to break out of the addiction becomes virtually zero. Among sisters, the well-
00:13:24 known verbal viciousness of female conflict often manifests in the older
00:13:29 sister implanting cruel insults into the mind of the younger sister, which ends up
00:13:35 with her feeling inferior and unlovable. The high of verbal abuse often implants
00:13:44 a kind of dangerous charisma into the personality of the older sister, which
00:13:47 can make her more attractive to men. She has a swaggering kind of confidence that
00:13:54 is vampirically leeched from the younger sister, which makes her seem very
00:13:59 appealing. The constant rejection and humiliation of her younger sister
00:14:06 hollows out her personality. Now, it should be, let me just fix that, the older, the
00:14:12 "her" is ambiguous there. There we go. The constant rejection and humiliation of her
00:14:20 younger sister hollows out the older sister's personality, leaving her prone
00:14:24 to ideology. Ideology is the attempt to substitute the drug of pretend virtue
00:14:34 after the withdrawal of the drug of pretend superiority through accidental
00:14:40 characteristics. The older sister thus often gains a lot of romantic attention,
00:14:46 but can never settle down with any one man because of the hollowness at the
00:14:51 center of her personality. She failed to develop genuine value because she was
00:14:58 provided artificial value in the form of birth order. She gets a lot of dates, but
00:15:06 never experiences love, and so is never able to settle down. Those who exploit
00:15:14 others are often charming, but can never be loved. The frustration of constantly
00:15:23 drawing male attention, while never winning male commitment, causes
00:15:28 escalating aggression in the older sister. She cannot blame herself for her
00:15:34 hollowness. She cannot take responsibility for her exploitation, and
00:15:39 so she turns her anger and frustration outward to society, blaming the patriarchy
00:15:45 or the system or capitalism or other such nonsense. Empathy, the ability to
00:15:55 put herself in another's shoes, has been sacrificed on the altar of vanity, as it
00:16:04 so often is. All that is required for older siblings to save themselves is to
00:16:14 imagine what it would be like to be a younger sibling. The humility of
00:16:22 recognizing that much of your quote "value" is accidental is essential to the
00:16:28 development of empathy, and thus of the capacity to love and be loved. You cannot
00:16:38 pair bond without trust, and you cannot trust without consistently positive
00:16:44 behavior, and you cannot achieve consistently positive behavior if you
00:16:49 are addicted to subjugating others,
00:16:55 because you both need and despise your victims, and so will eternally swing
00:17:03 between emotional extremes. A man who inherits his fortune is not an
00:17:11 entrepreneur, did not earn it himself. A woman who was born beautiful or with a
00:17:17 great figure did not create her own value. A sibling who happens to be born
00:17:24 earlier is not more valuable through the accidents of time.
00:17:30 Intelligence is largely genetic, it's an accidental gift of nature and thus
00:17:38 should never be used to feed the vanity of the ego. Of course, we generally prefer
00:17:49 to gain rewards without effort, there's nothing wrong with that, it's the root of
00:17:53 our industrial efficiency, it's why we don't have to get up off the couch and
00:17:57 change the channel on the television. However, it is essential for us to
00:18:04 recognize that we can never take as valuable that which we did not earn.
00:18:13 Let's say you're a guy with a great head of hair. It's very tempting to look in
00:18:16 the mirror, toss your locks, and feel superior to balding or mangy-headed men.
00:18:21 It's just an accident, no? If you're a tall man it's easy to feel superior to
00:18:27 shorter men, that's just an accident too. We all understand that, but we get so
00:18:33 often addicted anyway. Some men get big muscles when they lift weights, most men
00:18:40 don't. Some women are naturally lean and have a tough time gaining weight even if
00:18:45 they want to. Some people who garden have what is called a green thumb, they
00:18:51 just have a natural instinct for growing things and outproduce other gardeners
00:18:54 ten or twenty to one. Some people are naturally gifted at singing, others sound
00:19:01 terrible even if they take lessons. Some people have perfect pitch, others can't
00:19:05 tell the difference between two similar notes. Some people can get by on only a
00:19:10 few hours of sleep a night. Other people are tired if they get less than nine
00:19:15 hours. This is all genetic variance and a delightful variety in the species, but
00:19:23 the recipients of unearned gifts must strive to avoid feeling superior for
00:19:30 being in accidental possession of great value. The devil, so to speak, tempts older
00:19:40 brothers and sisters with the offer of existential value for an accidental
00:19:46 characteristic, being older. The only value we can possess is the virtue that
00:19:56 we earn. It is a whole lot easier to imagine you have value for something you
00:20:05 never earned than it is to manifest and spread virtue in a dangerously immoral
00:20:12 world.
00:20:14 Evildoers silently applaud you for pretending to have value for that which
00:20:21 you did not earn. That is the surest path for joining their ranks. To actually
00:20:30 manifest and spread virtue in the world, though? Well, that is the most extreme
00:20:38 sport known to man and God. If you're not facing resistance, you're not building
00:20:47 muscle. If you're not being opposed, you're not doing good.
00:20:54 Sibling potential. Siblings who overcome vanity and become allies are the most
00:21:03 powerful force for good in the world.
00:21:07 Siblings are the only people in your life who can go through the entire
00:21:11 journey with you. When your parents die, only your siblings remember your life as
00:21:19 a child. Your siblings remain the only witnesses to the forces that shaped you.
00:21:26 Your siblings have enormous, detailed, exquisite, and deep knowledge about you.
00:21:33 How they use it often determines your future. True bonding, true love, is when
00:21:43 you trust someone enough to reveal your deepest thoughts and fears, knowing that
00:21:49 you are placing great power over you in their hands. As an adult, you can choose
00:21:56 whether or not to reveal yourself to people. As a child, to your siblings, you
00:22:03 are exposed no matter what. Imagine, as an adult, if you found out that your most
00:22:12 secret thoughts and actions were actually recorded and published. Siblings
00:22:17 see everything, like it or not. As an adult, you have expectations of privacy.
00:22:25 As a sibling, you have little to no privacy. Siblings hold enormous power
00:22:34 over each other. This power is not earned, it is innate to witnessing childhood.
00:22:42 Do parents train siblings to use their power over each other for good or ill?
00:22:52 Well, it all depends on how the parents use their own power over their children.
00:22:58 For good or ill. The opinions of anonymous strangers about you probably
00:23:07 don't hold much weight in your world. The opinions of your spouse and best
00:23:12 friends hopefully do. If you have complicated finances, a highly skilled
00:23:19 accountant can either help you stay legal or rob you blind. People who know
00:23:26 everything about you hold great power over you. Siblings don't earn this power
00:23:32 and rarely seem to use it wisely. If parents model the principle that larger
00:23:40 and older equals dominant and aggressive, then older siblings will inflict that
00:23:46 model on younger siblings. In other words, siblings always end up speaking the same
00:23:54 language, the language that is taught to them by their parents.
00:24:01 Aggressive parenting destroys sibling bonds. For abusive parents, having more
00:24:10 than one child is basically worse than useless. All the abuse does is turn the
00:24:13 siblings against each other, shattering the family unit over time.
00:24:20 Abusive parents don't just create distant siblings, they often produce
00:24:24 mortal enemies. I've seen this play out countless times over the course of my
00:24:32 life, and I've seen a few exceptions to this trend as well. And I have given this
00:24:39 speech to a large number of battling siblings. Look, you have to treat each
00:24:47 other well for so many reasons. First of all, your parents are going to get old
00:24:50 and die, and then the only witnesses to your childhood will be each other. Your
00:24:56 sibling is the only person who can go through the whole journey of life for you
00:25:00 from start to end, with every stop along the way. They saw you learn how to
00:25:04 walk, watched you grow, go through puberty, learn how to date, get educated, get a job,
00:25:09 get married, have children, deal with aging. You all have so much knowledge
00:25:15 about each other, you can do incredible things to help each other, things that no
00:25:18 one else can do. You're like expert mechanics, you can fix anything and break
00:25:24 everything too. Siblings are bound together so closely that it's like
00:25:29 living with someone whose lips are right up against your ear, but everyone screams
00:25:33 instead of whispering. Of course, you want to get away from someone who knows so
00:25:41 much about you but doesn't want the best for you, because they can do so much
00:25:45 damage because of everything they know. It's like a doctor who knows everything
00:25:50 about the human body. They can either heal you like crazy or torture you half
00:25:59 to death. You will never meet anyone else in the future who knows you as well as
00:26:09 your sibling does. I don't care if you're married for 50 years and tell your
00:26:12 spouse everything. He or she just wasn't there for your entire childhood and
00:26:18 hasn't seen you grow all the way up. As siblings, you're all so close. That's not
00:26:26 an option, that's just a historical fact. And you can use that closeness, that
00:26:31 knowledge of each other to raise each other to the very skies or cast each
00:26:37 other to the very bottom into hell, really. If you turn on each other, if you
00:26:46 use your deep, unearned knowledge to harm and undermine each other, you will never
00:26:52 stop paying the price for that choice. You will never be able to trust anyone
00:27:01 else, not fully, because you can't trust yourself because you handled your power
00:27:07 over another human soul so badly. You will, in fact, be reproducing all the
00:27:15 things your parents did that you hate so much. If you harm each other, you will
00:27:25 be falling into the ultimate trap. Those who suffered alongside you when you were
00:27:34 children, they should be your natural allies. If you allow yourself to be
00:27:42 turned against them, you are unnecessarily following an entirely evil
00:27:47 plan. Divide and conquer, divide and conquer, that's all the bad people need
00:27:53 to achieve to continue to conquer us all, whether in the family, in society, our
00:27:58 country, or the world as a whole. You, you, you, the older sibling, you're not better
00:28:06 because you happen to be born first. That's a really pathetic thing to base
00:28:10 your value on. You didn't earn it, right? And all these best friends that you
00:28:15 threw your sibling aside for, where are they now, pray tell? Are they here? Will
00:28:22 they follow you?
00:28:26 Sorry, one sec. Are they here? Will they follow you from start to end? Will they
00:28:39 help you watch your kids, nurse you when you're sick, talk you out of bad
00:28:43 decisions? Will these best buddies that you kicked your siblings to the curb for
00:28:48 help you out when your parents get sick and need years of care and attention?
00:28:51 Will you be able to call them up and ask them to help with the cost of aging
00:28:56 parents? Hell no. Probably don't even know where they ended up. And if you did call
00:29:02 them, wouldn't they just kind of laugh at you? This is who you gave up your blood
00:29:11 kin for. Strangers with their own lives who live for their needs. Isn't that
00:29:22 pathetic? How can you ever trust your judgment when you made such a stupid
00:29:28 decision for many years against nature, against history, against your family,
00:29:33 against your own blood? And now, ah, now you want to go to your younger siblings as if
00:29:45 you have any kind of authority and tell them how to live and ask them for favors
00:29:49 and still, still try to be in charge. Go talk to your precious friends, they want
00:29:57 to say. You know, your besties that you spent years kicking me to the curb for.
00:30:03 You know you're gonna end up alone if you don't apologize and make this right.
00:30:13 And you, yes, you, the younger siblings addicted to playing the victim, do you
00:30:22 honestly believe that if you had been the older sibling that you wouldn't have
00:30:27 done pretty much the same thing? You're angry with your older siblings because
00:30:33 they did not empathize with you. They did not put themselves in your shoes and
00:30:37 realize how sad and alone you were. But have you ever tried putting yourself in
00:30:45 your older siblings' shoes? Taking the full brunt of parental misdeeds
00:30:51 programmed by society to prefer peers over kin and with a whole gaggle of
00:30:57 younger siblings to wield power over. If you've not held that kind of power, it's
00:31:06 very easy to judge those who misuse it.
00:31:11 You're tempted to be angry at your older sibling. That is an essential part of
00:31:21 the plan of abusive parents. You all fight amongst each other while we skate
00:31:26 free of all judgment. You claim that the negativity of your older siblings has
00:31:33 had a great effect on you. How much more effect did your parents have on them?
00:31:40 You attack each other and thereby excuse your parents. That is exactly what they want.
00:31:52 They're still running the show. That is the saddest thing. You squabble with each
00:32:02 other and blame each other and curse each other and your parents laugh because
00:32:08 they are let off the hook for now and all time.
00:32:14 You're all victims, all forced to play your part in a play orchestrated by your
00:32:20 parents. You all made mistakes, forgive each other as children and put the blame
00:32:28 where it squarely belongs on the adults.
00:32:36 Your parents are part of your past. They no longer parent you, but your
00:32:45 siblings are not only your present but your future as well. Sacrificing the
00:32:53 functional future for the sake of the dysfunctional past is a terrible idea,
00:33:00 one that you will all pay for the rest of your lives if you do not change.
00:33:10 So yeah, that's as far as I've gotten. I think that chapter is fairly close to
00:33:20 being done. Let me know, oh did I get your messages?
00:33:30 Wow that was powerful, thank you for the read. You are welcome. It's, I'm kind of
00:33:47 turning myself inside out writing this.
00:33:51 All right, so let me just get to your comments and questions. That was beautiful
00:33:58 and terrible, true stuff. If the rest of the book is of that quality, which I know
00:34:02 it will be, I'm buying at least ten. Absolutely phenomenal, thank you,
00:34:05 appreciate that. It's good to know that the forces of language are moving
00:34:09 through me and sometimes dragging me like a leg-broken water skier behind
00:34:14 them. That was amazing, thank you Steph. Stephan, I don't think I've ever heard you
00:34:23 mention your mother and father-in-law. Were they good parents? It's not for me
00:34:28 to say. Thanks for you for sharing, can't wait to read it when it's done. Well I'm
00:34:33 hoping, I'm hoping that, I'm hoping that it's going to give people a zoom out and
00:34:36 a clarity in where their relationships are. Like so much stuff in life just
00:34:40 decays because we don't zoom out and see it for what it is. We just kind of drift
00:34:47 through every day like a pinball bouncing around the bumpers. Very good
00:34:57 stuff, many, many similarities to my experience with my older brother, thank
00:35:00 you, appreciate it. And I think the first round is the book and then I'll make a
00:35:08 documentary about all of this.
00:35:12 All right let me get to your question, I'm sorry I just want to make sure I get all
00:35:22 your comments. I hate interrupting when a whole bunch of people are typing because
00:35:26 then I feel like I'm losing what it is that you're saying. Somebody says, "Wow, now
00:35:31 except I am the older twin brother, my brother is the one who aggresses against
00:35:35 me. No bond of love between us or between us and our parents." I'm sorry to hear
00:35:38 that, I really am. "I talk to my brother every day, I haven't spoken with my high
00:35:44 school friends in years." Yeah, isn't that sad. A friend of mine, he's got one
00:35:50 brother and his brother had as his best man at his wedding some guy that he had
00:35:55 been roommates with for a couple of months, but the relationship never
00:35:58 continued and it still burns, right? Matt says, "I'm blown away, I feel like we could
00:36:03 end the show now, such great writing." Thank you. I feel like this language is
00:36:09 like carved in my, in the marrow of my spinal cord and I'm kind of turning
00:36:16 myself inside out. And of course I'm trying not to make it about me, I'm
00:36:19 trying to, I figure if I dig deep enough we get to our common humanity, do you
00:36:23 know what I mean? Like if you dig deep enough you get to something we all
00:36:28 share. You know, whereas if I try and just base it upon my thoughts and my ideas
00:36:32 then it stays within me and if you agree with me great, but if you don't, but I
00:36:35 feel like if I just go deep enough then we connect.
00:36:46 All right, well I'm glad you found it interesting, I appreciate that.
00:36:56 Somebody says, "Thank you Steph, that hit me hard starting a tag along, my brother
00:37:01 is eight years younger, you nailed it, I was so happy when he was born but my
00:37:04 parents divided us." Yeah and the culture tells you that too, right? I mean you guys
00:37:15 know why there's, like hit me with a why if you know why that, why is there
00:37:19 leftism, why is there leftism at all in society? Well hello back, you know why?
00:37:27 Okay give me a short explanation as to why there is leftism. No it's
00:37:38 not broken homes in particular, although that's a very, I mean certainly related.
00:37:44 It's not the turn away from religion, not envy, child abuse leads to our
00:37:50 selective behavior, that's something, to replace family with government, right.
00:37:55 Brothers divided against each other, each wanting the unearned, mother wanting to
00:37:59 evenly distribute resources, lack of parental bond, parents get their emotional
00:38:02 development stunted because deep state wants to destroy the family, right. So by
00:38:12 right I'm talking about smaller government, more free speech, lower taxes
00:38:17 and so on, right, that's leftist restrictions on free speech, censorship
00:38:22 and it is a larger government, higher taxes and so on. So men vote for smaller
00:38:34 government, married women vote for smaller government. The only reason there
00:38:43 are leftist parties really in the West is single women. Single women are like
00:38:50 plus 35 percentage points for the left.
00:38:57 Now when you look at society and a lot of the propaganda that is going on, you
00:39:08 understand it is designed to turn women against men so they stay single, so they
00:39:15 vote for big government. This is why the leftists always attack the family. The
00:39:24 family is the free market form of the government and the government is the
00:39:30 fascist form of the family. So when they say to women you should be fine with
00:39:37 being fat, when they say to women you should cut your hair short, when they say
00:39:40 to women well you shouldn't be subjected to the male gaze and there's a patriarchy
00:39:43 and men run everything and they rule everything and they boss over everyone,
00:39:46 they're just trying to keep women single, right? Just they're just trying to keep
00:39:52 women single and they're just trying to keep women single so that they get
00:39:55 bigger and bigger government, right?
00:39:58 Feminism is designed to keep women single. No, it's not specifically the
00:40:09 19th amendment. The 19th amendment gave women the right to vote but again,
00:40:14 married women vote for smaller government.
00:40:19 It's not the 19th amendment in particular, it's the propaganda about
00:40:24 turning women, well convincing women that being unattractive is empowering, keeps
00:40:31 men from committing to them. Women go through life kind of a little bit
00:40:34 nervous and afraid because of physical vulnerabilities and fear of pregnancy
00:40:38 and so on and so if you can convince women to stay single, they'll vote for bigger
00:40:50 government. Yeah, motherhood is not a job, you don't want to be a broodmare and all
00:40:57 that. So I mean it's really really awful, right? I mean power junkies, right? Power
00:41:08 addicts. Hit me with a why if you've ever had an addict in your family.
00:41:16 Right, now you know that addicts will absolutely, well, no let me let me not
00:41:29 tell you your experience. Hit me with a why, hit me with a why why just to
00:41:38 differentiate from people answering the last question. Hit me with a why why if
00:41:42 you believe a rampant addict will destroy a family to satisfy the
00:41:47 addiction. Will a rampant addict destroy a family in order to satisfy his or her
00:41:53 addiction? Right. So the way to understand politics in my view is, yeah, Nurse
00:42:09 Jackie, yeah that's right. Edie Falco played that, right? So fairly dire show. So if you
00:42:18 look at somebody who's like a drug addict, the drug addict will absolutely
00:42:21 destroy the family in order to get the fix, to get the drug, right? So just look
00:42:27 at political power as just an addiction and the political junkie, the power
00:42:34 junkie, will absolutely destroy the power to satisfy, destroy the family to
00:42:38 satisfy his or her addiction. I mean it's truly brutal, right? It's truly brutal.
00:42:51 Addict, rampant addict to philosophy, you know, it got close but no, an addiction is
00:42:59 something which you pursue to the detriment of life, success, and stability.
00:43:07 So yeah, just they're just power junkies and if they have to shred families to
00:43:14 get votes they will do that, right? Yeah, power is a stronger addiction than
00:43:18 cocaine. Yeah, I think that's been tested, right? That's been tested. Because, you know,
00:43:25 if you teach women to fear and mistrust and hate men, it means they can't be loved,
00:43:31 they can't be secure, they can't be happy, they can't wake up to children jumping
00:43:36 up and down on their bed, they can't see the joys of their children growing up,
00:43:39 they can't have comfort, succor, and society in their old age, they don't have
00:43:45 a pair bond that survives the death of their sexual beauty. It's really, really
00:43:50 awful.
00:43:53 It's really awful. I mean they're literally destroying people's capacity
00:43:58 to love and be loved just so they can get votes. It's a vile arena, a vile arena.
00:44:13 Somebody says, "My dad is the only non-addict. My mom, stepdad, brother, step
00:44:18 brother, stepsister, stepdad, even myself, all addicts. Only my brother and I dug our
00:44:22 way out." Wow, that's an incredible thing to do my friend. That's an incredible
00:44:27 thing to do. Well done, well done, well done. How amazing, how wonderful, how
00:44:32 terrifying, how powerful. Good for you and a half and a half. Oh, I wanted to mention
00:44:43 as well, just by the by, a little bit of housekeeping here. The glorious
00:44:50 James has fixed up the books page, my books page. So if you go to
00:44:58 freedomain.com/books, go to freedomain.com/books, you can see it. It's a lot
00:45:03 easier to get my books. We got rid of all of this funky rotation stuff and all of
00:45:07 my fiction and nonfiction is nicely listed, except for out of the argument,
00:45:13 it's all free and you can get all of that stuff.
00:45:17 Alright, now I'm going to let you guys get some, yeah, it looks good and it's
00:45:31 much nicer on the mobile, mobile, mobile Alabama. It's much nicer there too.
00:45:38 Alright, so let me just, a new window, new window, Lucinda. Alright, because I
00:45:48 definitely had a bunch of questions that I didn't get round to from listeners and
00:45:54 while you guys are coming in with your questions and again, really, really
00:45:59 appreciate your support. freedomain.com/donate, or you can donate right here on the app.
00:46:13 Unfortunately, I have, it doesn't let you sort by, it doesn't let you sort by date here, so let me just get to these.
00:46:29 Ah yes, here we go. Here we go.
00:46:34 Freedomain, what would be your definition of a temper tantrum? My son is a two year old and sometimes cries when he's not getting what he wants.
00:46:41 We calm down very easily when we explain to him why he can't have or do something.
00:46:45 Sometimes we offer him a deal or remind him about the importance of keeping promises.
00:46:49 Is this still normal behavior? At what point should I start worrying? Thank you very much for helping us be better parents.
00:46:54 Well, I mean, to me, you are doing just right. So a temper tantrum is not because the child is not getting what he wants.
00:47:03 Just so you know. A temper tantrum does not occur because the child is not getting what he wants.
00:47:08 The temper tantrum occurs because the child does not feel that what he wants is being listened to or respected.
00:47:14 Right, do you follow that one? A temper tantrum occurs when the child does not feel listened to.
00:47:24 So if the child is listened to, his need and want and preference is internalized and understood and reflected back to him or her,
00:47:34 then he knows he's not being ignored, he knows he's not being dismissed, he knows people aren't being mean to him.
00:47:41 You know, like if your kid wants something that your kid can't have, like I understand, the steak knife is shiny.
00:47:47 I like them too, but you know, I absolutely understand that you want them to play with the steak knife.
00:47:53 But unfortunately, it's like, "Leah, let me show you on this apple. It's super, super sharp. It's just dangerous, right?
00:47:58 But I absolutely understand that you want it." Kid will not be upset if he's listened to.
00:48:04 What happens, though, is people get angry and scornful and contemptuous and they withdraw and they roll their eyes
00:48:10 and stop asking, you know, and then the kid doesn't feel listened to and that's when the escalation happens.
00:48:20 You still throw temper tantrums when you're not listened to? Yeah.
00:48:27 All right, let's see here.
00:48:31 "Steph, how do I talk to and interest women? I feel like they are willing to talk to me,
00:48:37 but I can see them losing interest almost immediately. Do you have any advice?"
00:48:45 I mean, I hate this, "Be yourself no matter what they say." I'm just going to tell you this, though.
00:48:50 Be absolutely, completely and totally and authentically yourself. That's so rare.
00:48:54 That's very interesting to people.
00:48:57 So, if you do the real-time relationship thing, which is you tell people what you think and feel in the moment,
00:49:05 honestly, without blaming them, but simply explaining things, right?
00:49:08 But you're trying to interest women, which means that you feel you have to be someone other than who you are.
00:49:14 Like you have to put on a show. You have to be funny. You have to be engaging. You have to be entertaining.
00:49:19 You have to be, I don't know, whatever it is that you feel, like you have to put on a show.
00:49:25 But when you put on a show, people sense that you don't like who you are.
00:49:35 Let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. And again, I look for your honesty. I look for your honesty, right?
00:49:44 Oh yeah, I'll get to the dentist question in a sec.
00:49:47 Do you think that I, in these shows, am I putting on a show? Am I someone other than who I am?
00:49:55 I mean, other than, you know, a little bit of extra animation or ripping my shirt off from time to time.
00:50:00 Do you feel like, and again, I'm perfectly happy to hear your answers and I don't prejudge it. I'm genuinely curious.
00:50:06 Do you feel that I'm putting on a show or being someone other than who I am?
00:50:15 No, you're real AF, in my opinion. No, not putting on a show. It feels natural.
00:50:20 I don't think you could keep it up this long. Yeah, that's quite true.
00:50:25 No, no, I believe you're genuinely yourself. Not at all. You're real. You're a physical expression of UPB,
00:50:30 universal peanut butter, of course, as my daughter has donned it.
00:50:33 You're more honest than every other podcaster. You know a lot of truth, genuinely.
00:50:36 Yeah, I don't think I could fake it, right?
00:50:43 Yeah, if you want to read or listen to real-time relationships, just go to freedomain.com/books.
00:50:48 #Darealness. Darealness. Good, good.
00:50:52 Okay, like I'm not looking for praise here. I genuinely do try to be, like I don't want it to be like, you know,
00:50:58 how some people, they have their radio voice and they talk in their radio voice.
00:51:01 And if you imagine having a conversation, you call them up on the phone and they do their radio voice.
00:51:05 I want to talk, obviously it's not like we're on the phone, but I want to talk like we're just having a conversation.
00:51:10 Right? And because every ounce of effort you put into putting on a show is less of a capacity if you directly connect with people.
00:51:21 Did you follow?
00:51:24 Right, like imagine you're trying to move furniture with your friend.
00:51:28 You both pick up this giant heavy couch and then you decide to do some tap dancing and twerking at the same time.
00:51:35 Every effort you're putting into tap dancing and twerking, maybe even at the same time, is you not putting effort into lifting the couch.
00:51:42 Right? And of course if your goal is to lift the couch and you start tap dancing and twerking,
00:51:47 your friend's probably going to get kind of annoyed, particularly if you're in some stairs, right?
00:51:52 So if you are saying, "Well, I have to interest people, I have to be interesting to people.
00:52:00 How do I talk to and interest women?"
00:52:03 Look, the question is, and it's a pretty big question, do you find yourself interesting?
00:52:11 Do you find yourself interesting?
00:52:14 Hit me with a yes. Do you find yourself interesting?
00:52:18 You have interesting thoughts, ideas, arguments, you can bring new things to people, you can be spontaneous, maybe funny,
00:52:25 although funny's a little bit of a talent as well, but...
00:52:32 So if you find yourself interesting, like I'm not trying to be interesting to you guys,
00:52:40 I'm not trying to be interesting, I'm not trying to be deep or witty or engaging or philosophical,
00:52:45 I'm sort of trying to be myself.
00:52:49 Now if you don't find yourself interesting, asking someone else to find you interesting is kind of a rip-off, right?
00:52:56 So you've got to find yourself interesting, and if you find that you're boring,
00:53:00 then read more, think more, I mean you're all in the top 1% of intelligence as far as I'm concerned,
00:53:05 so if you find yourself kind of boring, then maybe you need to go dig deeper, read more,
00:53:12 or do some self-work or get some therapy or whatever it is, analyse your dreams and all that kind of stuff, right?
00:53:20 So don't try to be interesting, don't try to win people over or engage people, be yourself and be honest.
00:53:27 Yeah, be yourself, it's Oscar Wilde, right? Be yourself, everybody else is taken.
00:53:33 Right, working on it, my spontaneity was punished as a child, right.
00:53:37 So don't treat people like the people who punished you, because that's unfair,
00:53:40 as I talked about in the show last, right?
00:53:43 Yeah, it's like, you know, you've got paper currency that's leaving ink stains,
00:53:51 you know, quick, take it, right? Like if you don't believe your money's worth anything,
00:53:54 asking other people to believe it's worth something is counterfeiter, right?
00:53:59 You're kind of ripping it off, right?
00:54:01 So if you genuinely know that you have value in yourself, then you show that to people,
00:54:10 but please understand, you have to be quality to see quality.
00:54:16 Do you understand? You have to be quality to see quality.
00:54:21 A lot of what kills quality in this world is that it's invisible to the average person.
00:54:28 A lot of what kills quality in the world is that it's invisible to the average person.
00:54:34 So if you're a high quality person, I mean, you can visit the norm, you know,
00:54:42 it's like diving for pearls, you can go down there, but you can't live there.
00:54:47 If you're a very smart person, you need to be around very smart people.
00:54:51 If you're a high quality person, you need to be around high quality people.
00:54:58 Because otherwise, your strengths become your weakness, your quality becomes your invisibility.
00:55:07 Because if you're around low quality people, they can't see your high quality,
00:55:13 they may get vaguely resentful towards it, like maybe they see it out of the corner of their eye,
00:55:17 like some predator of excellence is going to take down their vanity.
00:55:23 You have to be around quality people.
00:55:26 So when I was dating, I liked to be myself and talk with people and all of that, talk with women.
00:55:31 And if they saw my quality, great, you know, then it's a sign of a potential for quality, right?
00:55:37 Chris says, "I'm struggling with my quality lately because I'm lacking high quality people around me."
00:55:41 Yeah, for sure. For sure.
00:55:45 Hit me with a "why" if you've ever seen the old Gordon Ramsay show, "Kitchen Nightmares."
00:55:52 Hit me with a "why" if you've ever seen the old...
00:55:56 I've heard of him. I knew he was a tanglehead cuss machine.
00:56:03 But I did watch a couple of these with my daughter, and I really wanted to...
00:56:15 Yeah, he is hilarious, right? People are like, "Oh, he's so rude."
00:56:18 It's like, no, what's rude is losing five years of your life and your house
00:56:21 because you haven't fixed up your restaurant.
00:56:25 And you can see just like rabid intelligence in his eyes, like impatience, intelligence.
00:56:32 He sees things, the excellence, and he's got a really great conflagration of skills, right?
00:56:37 I love that meme. He puts two pieces of bread around a woman's head and she says, "What are you? I'm an idiot sandwich."
00:56:44 He also hosts Hell's Kitchen. Yeah, I haven't seen that, right?
00:56:48 I think that's a little harsh. But yeah, so he's harsh with people, but he's...
00:56:52 I'm sort of trying to explain to my daughter how men deal with each other
00:56:55 because, you know, she deals a lot with females, so I'm trying to explain how men deal with each other.
00:56:58 And she's noticed that Gordon Ramsay is like incredibly harsh with people,
00:57:02 and then they thank him, he hugs them, and he's saved their butt, right?
00:57:10 So I was trying to explain to my daughter that one of the reasons why restaurants fail is...
00:57:18 Hit me with a why. Hit me with a why if you've ever been driven nuts by the incompetence of people you work with.
00:57:26 Like, come on, we know this, right? Hit me with a why if you've ever just gone mad.
00:57:33 Like slowly round the bend with the incompetence of people that you work with, right?
00:57:37 People who just give you that thousand-yard stare.
00:57:39 People like... Have you ever had this where, you know, you say to someone,
00:57:43 "I need you to do X, Y, and Z," and they say, "Okay."
00:57:49 In that kind of semi-autistic way that clearly communicates to you,
00:57:55 they don't have first or final clue about what you're talking about.
00:57:59 So you can do X, Y, and Z. I really need you to handle X, Y, and Z.
00:58:02 Okay, I'm on it. And you just know.
00:58:06 It's like maybe it's slightly wider eyes, maybe it's the frozen deer in the headlights,
00:58:09 facial paralysis or something like that, but you know, for a simple practical fact,
00:58:15 it ain't getting done. It ain't getting done.
00:58:19 Or someone who keeps saying they're doing something and they're on it,
00:58:22 but you just don't believe them, so you kind of stalk past their desk
00:58:25 and see what's on their computer screen or, "Are you sure?"
00:58:28 Like, "Yeah, absolutely." Because I remember, my gosh, when I was a manager,
00:58:32 it drove me absolutely completely insane when people didn't understand what I wanted
00:58:38 and didn't come and ask for clarification. Oh my God.
00:58:44 Oh my God. It's horrendous.
00:58:48 And I would not quite yell at people, but I'd be pretty damn emphatic.
00:58:54 And I would say, "If I ask you to do something, I need to know that you can do it
00:59:01 if you say yes. If you don't know how to do it, that's fine.
00:59:04 Come and talk to me. Come and ask me. But do it or say you're not going to do it.
00:59:09 One of those options. Do it or say you can't do it. One of those options.
00:59:14 But there's no option called pretend to do it, cross your fingers and hope,
00:59:17 do useless tasks outside the scope of what I asked. That is not a thing.
00:59:26 It's not a thing. But people just, "Yeah, okay." And you just know.
00:59:31 You know. And you say, "Are you sure? Listen, I'm happy to sit down.
00:59:33 I can step you through." "No, no, no. I got it."
00:59:39 [Sigh]
00:59:46 Yeah, a thousand yards there is horrible.
00:59:48 Yeah, it never gets done.
00:59:50 I screen all my coworkers by asking them the breakfast question.
00:59:52 I don't know what that means. Oh, like if you hadn't eaten,
00:59:55 would you still be hungry at breakfast?
00:59:58 Have you ever heard this phrase, "If you want something done,
01:00:05 give it to the busy guy."
01:00:09 You ever heard this? Hit me with a "Y" if you've ever heard.
01:00:11 If you want it done, give it to the busy guy.
01:00:14 Because have you ever had this, in every organization, there's like at least one guy,
01:00:21 it's usually a slightly portly guy, with polyester shirt and a bad mustache.
01:00:28 He never seems to be busy. Never seems to be busy.
01:00:32 And every now and then, some new guy will come along and say,
01:00:34 "Oh, Joe. Joe, you're not that busy. Can you do X?"
01:00:37 And Joe's like, "Yep, got it. Yep. You bet. I'm on it."
01:00:44 And you just know. Everyone's like, "Oh man, don't give it to Joe."
01:00:48 Nobody knows why he's there. He's just there.
01:00:57 It's brutal.
01:00:59 And so I was sort of trying to explain to my daughter,
01:01:02 and I'm trying to explain like she got it in about 10 seconds,
01:01:04 but it's like, "Okay, so if you're a waiter and the restaurant is not busy,
01:01:08 are you a good waiter?"
01:01:09 Nope. Nope. Nope.
01:01:18 Because if you're a good waiter, you don't stick around at a slow restaurant.
01:01:26 I mean, why would you, right?
01:01:28 If you are a good cook, do you stay at a bad restaurant?
01:01:32 Nope. You don't.
01:01:36 Because people good at their job can't stand working with incompetent people.
01:01:48 Somebody says, "I know the phrase, 'If you want the job done, let alone done right,
01:01:51 do it yourself,'" but you can't.
01:01:54 Somebody who's competent is absolutely worth their weight in gold.
01:02:01 Somebody who's competent is absolutely worth their weight in gold
01:02:03 because you can trust them.
01:02:05 I mean, do you have people in your life, you don't have to chase them,
01:02:08 you don't have to follow up, you just, you ask them to do something,
01:02:12 they agree to do it, it just gets done.
01:02:14 You don't have to worry about it, you don't have to circle back,
01:02:16 you don't have to double check, you don't have to follow progress,
01:02:19 they just get it done.
01:02:25 You have people like that?
01:02:26 Hopefully you are someone like that, because if you are someone like that,
01:02:28 you're worth your weight in gold.
01:02:30 You don't have people like that?
01:02:31 Then you need to get to better people.
01:02:34 You need to get to better people.
01:02:36 I hired a guy like, one guy like that worth ten of the others.
01:02:39 Yeah, absolutely.
01:02:41 The IQ of those people is blistering, they read your needs before you ask.
01:02:44 Yeah, yeah.
01:02:45 I rotted in such a work environment but blame myself for not seeking better.
01:02:50 Yes.
01:02:52 So, one of the reasons why it's so hard to turn these restaurants around
01:02:55 is everybody there sucks.
01:02:57 They've all kind of filtered and sifted down,
01:02:59 like when I was a gold pan, gold is heavier than most other materials,
01:03:02 so you'd shake it and that's how you'd get the gold to the bottom.
01:03:05 So, this is the opposite of gold, right?
01:03:07 So, if you're in a situation where people are kind of incompetent,
01:03:10 what you do is you shake, the economy is constantly in motion, right?
01:03:15 The cream rises to the top and the crap sinks to the bottom.
01:03:19 The dead weight sinks to the bottom.
01:03:24 And so, when a restaurant or a business concern is failing,
01:03:28 just about everybody there sucks
01:03:30 and it's almost like you just have to fire everyone to start again.
01:03:33 Yeah, restaurants have a lot of pot smokers, yeah, that's right.
01:03:36 And that restaurants, of course, also have a lot of people
01:03:38 who are just passing through, like they want to be actors
01:03:41 or some writers or something like that, right?
01:03:49 Somebody says, a Christian says,
01:03:51 "I work in one of the big four consultancies as a manager
01:03:53 and I need to follow up with most people across every level to get shit done.
01:03:56 It's just not hospitality."
01:03:59 Now, you all know the blink phenomenon, right?
01:04:01 Hit me with a "why" if you know the blink phenomenon.
01:04:06 This is a Malcolm Gladwell thing that's been described.
01:04:09 I don't want to go into it in too much detail if you all know it,
01:04:11 but it's really, really important.
01:04:12 I mean, if you know this in life, you can save yourself myriads,
01:04:15 myriads amounts of time.
01:04:19 So, very briefly, is that a blink is our capacity
01:04:23 to process massive amounts of information almost instantaneously.
01:04:27 And I'll sort of give you an example.
01:04:29 So, they played two professors,
01:04:33 wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah,
01:04:35 like Charlie Brown Teacher with the Trombone, right?
01:04:37 So, they played two professors.
01:04:38 All of the words were obscured.
01:04:39 They played five seconds and they asked people to judge
01:04:41 how good the professor was.
01:04:43 And people judged in five seconds very accurately
01:04:46 how good the professor was measured by student evaluations.
01:04:50 They also got a bunch of doctors together
01:04:53 and recorded the doctors talking.
01:04:55 And again, wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah.
01:04:57 All you could hear was vague tone.
01:04:58 You couldn't hear any specific words.
01:05:00 And they asked who was the better doctor,
01:05:04 who was the worst doctor?
01:05:05 And people got it in terms of malpractice
01:05:07 and license suspensions and commendations.
01:05:10 They got it pre-COVID, of course,
01:05:11 when good doctoring didn't get you toasted, right?
01:05:17 Yeah, predatory people can pick out good targets
01:05:19 after watching them walk for a few seconds.
01:05:21 Yes.
01:05:22 So, the mind, like the unconscious has been clocked.
01:05:25 I'm serious.
01:05:26 This is why I can't be this analytical,
01:05:29 neo-frontal-cortex-post-monkey-beta-expansion-pack-bullshit-philosopher guy
01:05:34 because the unconscious is just so powerful.
01:05:39 It's so powerful.
01:05:43 It's so powerful.
01:05:45 The unconscious mind has been clocked at 6,000 to 8,000 times faster than the conscious mind.
01:05:57 6,000 to 8,000 times faster than the conscious mind.
01:06:00 So, this is why I tell you, you know,
01:06:02 trust your instincts, go deep.
01:06:03 You've got a second gut-brain.
01:06:05 This is why I exercise to make sure that the mind and body are not separated.
01:06:09 Yeah, prayer, meditation, dreams, dream analysis and so on.
01:06:13 I mean, I'll tell you, I did a whole chapter in the book on un-parenting
01:06:17 and I had a dream about a woman I once knew who was an un-parent.
01:06:21 But it was a really, I won't get into all of the analogies,
01:06:23 but it took me a while to follow those threads
01:06:25 and it was me processing that judgment and that person.
01:06:29 And it's incredible.
01:06:32 The stat includes the gut-brain?
01:06:33 Yeah, absolutely.
01:06:34 You have a second brain in your gut
01:06:37 and one of the purposes of ideology is to separate you from your instincts, right?
01:06:41 So, for example, they say, "Well, you're ex-phobic.
01:06:44 You're ex-phobic.
01:06:46 Like your fear or disgust at something is a phobia."
01:06:49 And they're trying to separate it from your gut instincts,
01:06:52 from your blink brain, right?
01:06:58 So, the unconscious picks up millions and millions,
01:07:01 you're right actually, millions and millions of pieces of data per second.
01:07:07 So, it's worth reading.
01:07:09 Malcolm Gladwell's a little bit of a card shark as far as some of the stuff goes.
01:07:13 Like the 10,000 hours thing.
01:07:16 You can do a bunch of stuff for 10,000 hours,
01:07:18 but you can shorten 10,000 hours to expertise
01:07:20 by getting really high quality feedback on what it is that you're doing.
01:07:27 So, yeah, the blink phenomenon is really important.
01:07:31 Have you ever had this?
01:07:32 So, let's say you have a problem.
01:07:34 You need to call the bank, right?
01:07:35 You need to call the bank.
01:07:38 Tell me how long it takes in seconds after someone answers the phone
01:07:42 at the bank or wherever for you to know if they can actually help you.
01:07:52 Somebody finally picks up the phone.
01:07:55 How long does it take for you to figure out
01:07:58 whether they'll actually be able to help you,
01:07:59 whether they will be competent,
01:08:00 whether they will get the right information,
01:08:03 whether they will escalate it if need be.
01:08:07 Yeah, it's a second or two, isn't it?
01:08:09 Hello? You know. Done. Right. Immediately. Immediately. Immediately.
01:08:14 You know. Yeah. Hello. Yeah.
01:08:17 Do you know that vacant, empty, nothing burger behind the brain, right?
01:08:27 Let me just double check. I want to make sure I get this.
01:08:33 Are we still going here?
01:08:42 Oh, yeah, we are. Okay. Sorry.
01:08:43 Just looked like it wasn't working for a second there.
01:08:46 Let me just get something here.
01:08:50 Did you hear about the guy who got his guitar broken by the airline?
01:09:04 You ever seen that?
01:09:07 Let me see if I've got it here.
01:09:12 Oh, come on. You can refresh my bookmark.
01:09:15 You really, really want to.
01:09:18 Yes, so David Carroll was a singer-songwriter and a member of the band Sons of Maxwell.
01:09:24 In 2008, he flew with United Airlines from Halifax to Omaha with a layover in Chicago.
01:09:29 He checked in his Taylor guitar, which he valued at $3,500 as part of his luggage.
01:09:35 Upon arriving in Omaha, he discovered that his guitar was broken,
01:09:38 apparently due to mishandling by the baggage handlers.
01:09:41 He contacted United Airlines to file a claim, but faced indifference and bureaucracy.
01:09:49 They informed him that he had missed the 24-hour window to report the damage
01:09:52 and was not eligible for compensation.
01:09:55 In his attempts to escalate his complaint to various managers and executives,
01:09:59 he received no satisfactory response or resolution.
01:10:03 Frustrated, he decided to take matters into his own hands and wrote a song called
01:10:07 "United Breaks Guitars," recording it with his band and posting it on YouTube.
01:10:12 The song quickly went viral and had a significant impact on United Airlines'
01:10:17 reputation and customer satisfaction.
01:10:20 Within four weeks of the video's release,
01:10:23 it's beautiful, within four weeks of the video's release,
01:10:27 United Airlines' stock price fell 10%, costing stockholders
01:10:33 how much, come on, give me a guess here,
01:10:36 how much did the shareholders lose in value because
01:10:43 people just wouldn't deal with this guy's issue?
01:10:46 How much did the shareholders lose in value because nobody wanted to help this guy
01:10:52 with his broken guitar?
01:10:55 It's $180 million.
01:10:59 $180 million!
01:11:01 Now, this is back when $180 million was real money, right?
01:11:04 Not how much a box of Ritz crackers have gone up.
01:11:07 So, $3,500 versus $180 million.
01:11:17 I mean, you should be eager to help people.
01:11:19 I mean, I'm eager to help people.
01:11:21 You should be eager to help people because that's how you're providing value.
01:11:24 But you ever have this thing where you ask someone for help and they're like,
01:11:30 "Okay, what?"
01:11:32 There's this vague resentment, this vague resentment that there's a problem.
01:11:38 Isn't that wild?
01:11:40 Isn't that wild?
01:11:43 Like, the job is literally customer service and you, you know,
01:11:47 you ever have this thing, you order food in a restaurant.
01:11:49 Now, I got to tell you, man,
01:11:55 is it just me or do restaurants suck these days?
01:11:58 Like, the food sucks, it's kind of slow, it's all fairly bland,
01:12:03 it's all either buttery or oily or deep fried or…
01:12:08 I always have to ask for the salad dressing on the side,
01:12:11 otherwise you get this weird, shitty salad soup,
01:12:13 which is they just dump a bunch of dressing in it and then throw some vegetables in.
01:12:22 Yeah, it's like, okay, tell me, how long has it been since you put a piece of restaurant food
01:12:26 in your mouth and you went, "Oh my God, that's good"?
01:12:34 How long has it been?
01:12:35 Honestly, I can't remember the time.
01:12:37 You said 10 years, 2015?
01:12:39 COVID killed the business?
01:12:45 You can't… I can find good ones, but I search for them.
01:12:48 Isn't it tough to find a restaurant meal which isn't just bland fuel?
01:12:54 You know, just like, well, I guess I need some calories, so I'll stuff my face.
01:13:00 I particularly like it.
01:13:01 My daughter's a big fan of Subway and I'll get a Subway wrap with some fresh veggies and stuff.
01:13:05 That's pretty good.
01:13:06 Actually, I generally prefer that to a restaurant meal.
01:13:08 Like, good, healthy, fast food is better to me than just about any restaurant meal.
01:13:17 Every now and then a steakhouse is really nice,
01:13:20 but I just… my daughter, after we watched a bunch of seafood restaurants in Kitchen Nightmares,
01:13:27 she wanted some seafood because, you know, we see the seafood and all that,
01:13:35 so she wanted and all of that, and she was interested in crab cakes.
01:13:38 So we went to a named restaurant chain that does seafood,
01:13:42 and they don't have any crab cakes.
01:13:46 It took 40 minutes for our food to come.
01:13:50 It wasn't presented that well.
01:13:53 Everything was just kind of deep fried and they have this creamy sauce all over the place.
01:13:58 It's just goop.
01:14:02 It's just goop.
01:14:03 Oh, Popeyes. Don't even get me started on that place.
01:14:07 I've tried Popeyes once in my life.
01:14:09 I was like, man, I think I'd rather starve.
01:14:12 I'd rather be crashing in the Andes among the snow than have that again.
01:14:17 That was not good for me.
01:14:21 But, yeah, it's strange.
01:14:27 Somebody says, "At a restaurant recently, the food was great,
01:14:29 but we received poor service from the drooling, feckless teenage waiters."
01:14:32 Is it true?
01:14:33 I mean, let's just completely give up on philosophy, but is it true?
01:14:38 I don't work with that many younger people anymore.
01:14:41 Is it true that young people are kind of lazy?
01:14:43 Or is that just some whittling on the porch,
01:14:46 suspenders complaining about the next generation stuff?
01:14:50 Somebody says, "A lot of that sauce is all prepackaged from the same manufacturers.
01:14:53 That's why it all tastes the same and is generally bad."
01:14:55 Yeah, it's not good.
01:14:58 It's not good.
01:15:00 It's just bland.
01:15:02 It's just fuel.
01:15:03 It's boring fuel to put in your belly.
01:15:06 The hardest working person I know is 20.
01:15:08 Okay, it could be.
01:15:10 They're either incredible and way ahead or useless.
01:15:14 Young people aren't as motivated sometimes.
01:15:18 It's hospital food.
01:15:19 Yeah, that's a good way of putting it.
01:15:22 I do wonder how much the doom and gloom that children have been exposed to
01:15:28 about the end of the world and climate change and whatever overpopulation is,
01:15:32 I wonder how much that doom and gloom has hit people hard
01:15:38 in terms of motivation and the future.
01:15:40 Yeah, it's a kind of nihilism, kind of a laziness, kind of a enjoy the moment.
01:15:45 And I think COVID was really tough for young people.
01:15:48 In fact, I know some young people for whom COVID was extraordinarily tough.
01:15:53 Extraordinarily tough.
01:15:55 What's the future?
01:15:56 And I think the blink thing too,
01:15:59 I mean, everybody knows that what we have can't last, right?
01:16:06 I mean, everybody knows that, right?
01:16:10 I mean, don't you look around a little bit?
01:16:12 Maybe this is just me, could be just me.
01:16:14 But don't you look around a little bit in society and it's like dead man walking?
01:16:18 Like dead economy pretending to work, economy of debt and credit
01:16:23 and borrowing and money printing, right?
01:16:29 And I think people get this blink about society, right?
01:16:34 Again, I could be wrong about this
01:16:36 because I'm one of these people, I guess, like yourself.
01:16:39 We know too much. We know too much.
01:16:41 We have stared too deeply into the abyss.
01:16:43 The abyss is stared back and we're locked in this black hole orbit,
01:16:46 death gaze of slow decay, right?
01:16:53 Yeah, it's like Japan, right? It's a zombie economy.
01:16:57 What's the future? Where's the future?
01:17:01 I mean, you get all this propaganda about all this environmental nonsense,
01:17:04 but I think people just get a sense of it, right?
01:17:10 Yeah, in 2010 I said 5 to 15 years, right?
01:17:15 Pretty accurate.
01:17:23 Civilization in decline, everyone's just trying to get theirs before the music stops.
01:17:30 And there is a lowest common denominator, right?
01:17:36 When I was a manager, if we ever had any deadwood,
01:17:39 I had to clear it out right away because it spreads, right?
01:17:42 If you've got somebody who's there who's not working that hard,
01:17:44 what does everyone else say, right?
01:17:46 Somebody's there, they're getting paid, they take kind of long lunches,
01:17:48 they have smoke breaks, they spend a lot of time on the phone,
01:17:51 they choose their playlist before doing any work.
01:17:53 What do you do if there are people around who just don't really work that hard?
01:18:12 Well, everybody just stops working, right?
01:18:15 You do the least.
01:18:24 Yeah, but their soul drains, their productivity drains as well.
01:18:28 Yeah, their soul drains and their productivity drains as well.
01:18:33 And this laziness/panic thing that happens in work
01:18:36 where people are lazy and then they panic,
01:18:38 one of the good business lessons I had when I was starting out
01:18:42 was I needed something done really quickly and I'd forgotten about it
01:18:45 and I went to some guy and he just tapped a sign,
01:18:50 he just tapped a sign that was behind him, I hadn't seen it,
01:18:52 and it said, burn this in your brain if you can,
01:18:55 it said, "A failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part."
01:19:04 At the corporation I'm at, it's nearly impossible to fire someone
01:19:07 for a lack of production, it's draining for sure, yeah, for sure.
01:19:11 Yeah, you pretend to pay us, we pretend to work.
01:19:13 Yeah, it's the socialist stuff, right? It's the socialist stuff.
01:19:21 Too late when the majority of employees would quit if held to standards.
01:19:26 Yeah, I mean, that's, I'm afraid to fly, man.
01:19:29 I'm afraid to fly.
01:19:31 Never felt that before.
01:19:32 I mean, I flew, I mean, I started flying at the age of six.
01:19:36 I flew to visit my dad in Africa.
01:19:38 My brother and I flew without even any adults, we were just six,
01:19:42 and he was a little older than me.
01:19:45 And I've always loved flying, I think it's fantastic.
01:19:48 Flying is like one of the most, I mean, you are hurtling through sky,
01:19:51 the sky is 600 miles an hour, 30,000 feet on a giant metal tube
01:19:56 with explosions propelling you, like it's incredible, right?
01:19:59 It's amazing.
01:20:01 But now, I mean, now that we have, I don't know, I'm sure there's a word for this,
01:20:09 what's the opposite of a meritocracy?
01:20:12 What's the opposite of a meritocracy?
01:20:17 Oh, you've had lots of cavity fillings fall out, never used to happen?
01:20:21 Yeah, what's the opposite of a meritocracy?
01:20:23 So you have to, the reason why people resent those who make more
01:20:26 is they can't see the quality.
01:20:32 Idiocracy, confederacy of densest, disgenocracy?
01:20:38 Maybe we can coin a term, diocracy, D-I-E, D-E-I,
01:20:44 deocracy, deocracy, D-E-I.
01:20:48 So, kakistocracy, nice.
01:20:52 So, yeah, I just, I'm very much aware of the incredible amount of brilliance
01:20:58 and dedication and energy and effort that the Parader principle people need
01:21:04 to put in to keep everything working.
01:21:06 And that's just not, not, doesn't work anymore.
01:21:13 And I'm very aware of the risk that complex systems bring to people
01:21:22 when you don't have a meritocracy.
01:21:24 I mean, you need it, of all the places, right?
01:21:26 You absolutely need a ruthless meritocracy when it comes to throwing people
01:21:29 through the sky at 30,000 feet in metal tubes, right?
01:21:32 You absolutely need a meritocracy there.
01:21:35 I'm just, I'm wary of these things.
01:21:38 I'm wary of these things.
01:21:40 And I just have to constantly extend my expectations downwards, right?
01:21:46 Things that I used to expect would take a week now take two weeks.
01:21:49 People who used to call you back, you have to call them two or three times
01:21:52 to try and give them money.
01:21:53 Like, "Hey, I want to give you money.
01:21:54 I want to pay you for something."
01:21:56 And it's like, "Eh."
01:22:05 Yeah, it's wild.
01:22:08 And of course, oh, the Fed's tried to pay for performance.
01:22:13 I did well, but Slack has got it canceled.
01:22:15 Oh, yeah, for sure.
01:22:16 People who are taking the unearned, they don't want any standards put in place.
01:22:21 I mean, the free market is-- I mean, of course, you can say to people,
01:22:24 "Well, you'll benefit in the long run because you'll have better stuff
01:22:26 and your plane won't fall out of the sky."
01:22:28 But yeah, aren't we probably not more than a couple of years
01:22:31 for like these very complex systems.
01:22:34 There's a lot of momentum in these complex systems.
01:22:36 And of course, there's a lot of people, the boomers, right?
01:22:38 People say, "Oh, man, the boomers aren't quitting.
01:22:40 They're not making waves."
01:22:41 But if you see the tidal wave of not just incompetence
01:22:45 but anti-competence is coming after you in the workforce,
01:22:48 don't you feel kind of desperate to not quit?
01:22:50 Like if you're some airplane mechanic and you can see all the people
01:22:52 who are going to replace you are just idiots,
01:22:54 do you feel like you can quit?
01:22:58 Wild.
01:23:04 And how do things fail?
01:23:09 How do things fail?
01:23:12 Very slowly, then very quickly.
01:23:15 Very slowly, then very quickly.
01:23:22 Everything-- like literally, literally, literally billions of human lives
01:23:30 are kept alive by meritocracy.
01:23:32 Like billions of human beings are kept alive by meritocracy
01:23:35 and nothing else.
01:23:38 Nothing else.
01:23:47 And all the people-- it strikes me as kind of a death wish.
01:23:53 All the people railing against meritocracy
01:23:55 when the only thing that keeps them alive is meritocracy.
01:23:58 Don't you think about this?
01:23:59 Do you think about this?
01:24:00 Maybe I'm just funny this way, but I think about this sometimes.
01:24:02 Like go to the fridge and get some ice.
01:24:06 You get the ice, right?
01:24:07 It's insane.
01:24:09 You can push a button and get some ice.
01:24:11 You can turn a tap and get some water.
01:24:13 Because of course, you know, I mean I lived in a tent for off and on
01:24:16 for like a year and a half, right, in the middle of nowhere.
01:24:18 And you recognize you don't have ice makers in the tent,
01:24:23 you don't have running water, you don't have-- right?
01:24:26 You crap in a hole, you dig in a hole, you dig another hole.
01:24:30 I mean I've lived real raw for a long time in my late teens.
01:24:34 Lived real raw.
01:24:36 And it gave me a beautiful respect and love of all the complex systems
01:24:41 that keep people alive.
01:24:44 But it's like, well we don't have to hire on meritocracy for--
01:24:51 for the water treatment plants.
01:24:52 It's like, really?
01:24:55 Are you sure about that?
01:24:56 Because I don't think you should be quite so certain
01:25:00 that you want to replace meritocracy in essential life-giving machinery
01:25:07 with something else.
01:25:10 That doesn't seem-- I mean you think of, you know,
01:25:14 you go fill up your car with gas, right,
01:25:16 and you think of like the amount of work and effort.
01:25:18 Because I mean I've gone gold panning, right?
01:25:20 I mean I still-- I was gold panning for like a year and a half, right?
01:25:22 So I think when I go to the mall sometimes
01:25:24 you see all these lovely gold rings.
01:25:25 It's like, man, I know how much work that is.
01:25:28 I know how much work that is.
01:25:35 It's wild.
01:25:36 And of course this is Roman's argument in my novel,
01:25:41 The Future, which you can get at freedomain.com/books.
01:25:44 It's free.
01:25:45 You should definitely check it out.
01:25:46 It's a great book.
01:25:47 But this is Roman's argument.
01:25:49 He says you get-- you get all this money, you get all this wealth,
01:25:52 and you can just start indulging in all this crap
01:25:54 that destroys the very meritocracy that gave you the wealth.
01:26:04 I mean it's a wild thing.
01:26:06 I mean I guess maybe you could live with a non-meritocracy in waiters,
01:26:14 or I don't know, even parking lot attendants.
01:26:18 You don't want crashing the cars, right?
01:26:20 But it's wild to me.
01:26:22 Like what do people think is going to happen
01:26:26 when incompetent people run the complex systems
01:26:29 that keep billions of people alive?
01:26:34 I mean do they think that-- or do they think at all?
01:26:37 Maybe it's just a low IQ thing.
01:26:38 Like do they think that there's just this conveyor belt of magical elves
01:26:42 that gets water out of the ground, gets it cleaned and filtrated
01:26:45 and the additives and gets it pumped through incredibly complex systems
01:26:50 using great power and machinery so that you turn a tap
01:26:53 and you get relatively clean water?
01:26:59 And to use a cliche, like a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, right?
01:27:12 But maybe they think it's just like physics, you know,
01:27:14 the rain falls and just as the rain falls without human intervention and competence,
01:27:19 thus does water get to your taps without human intervention and consciousness.
01:27:23 It's like wild.
01:27:28 It's wild.
01:27:33 All right, let me make sure I get to your questions.
01:27:36 Yeah, Bobby says quiet quitting.
01:27:37 Yeah, it's a quiet quitting, right?
01:27:41 It's a quiet quitting.
01:27:43 Food comes from the grocery store.
01:27:44 I mean you see these idiots and I don't even know what to say.
01:27:47 The people who are like, "Well, we need to ban farming environment."
01:27:55 Oh my gosh, ban farming.
01:27:59 Hit me with a "Y" if you've ever tried to grow your own food.
01:28:01 I know I have.
01:28:02 Hit me with a "Y" if you've ever tried to grow your own food.
01:28:07 That's tough, right?
01:28:08 It's a tough job.
01:28:10 It's a tough--
01:28:11 I've never hated insects quite so much.
01:28:14 Rabbits, those little furry bastards.
01:28:20 Yeah, oh, deer ate the fruit.
01:28:22 Yeah, yeah.
01:28:23 But it's incredible.
01:28:24 Like I got a little vegetable patch, right?
01:28:25 And I had to put fencing up around it, right?
01:28:27 But it's incredible how much food you can produce like out of a small patch of good earth.
01:28:33 Like it's incredible how much you can produce.
01:28:39 I mean we have friends over and everybody eats salad in the late summer because it's all bloomed and we can't eat it all.
01:28:46 My wife's a vegetarian, right?
01:28:47 So it's just incredible.
01:28:49 And it's so good tasting.
01:28:51 Oh my gosh.
01:28:53 I don't know what irradiated x-ray tuberculosis crap they run it through to get it through the grocery store.
01:28:59 But man, the stuff you grow with your own hands, man, my mouth is watering just thinking about it.
01:29:03 It's incredible.
01:29:08 How dare you, Steph, says Greta.
01:29:10 Did you see her making fun of her own speech?
01:29:12 She was at some lunch and she just turned to some guy and said, "How dare you just mocking her own speech."
01:29:16 Oh well.
01:29:19 What kind of greens do you grow?
01:29:21 Oh, tomatoes, big one, cucumbers, zucchini, potatoes, a bunch of other stuff.
01:29:27 It's really, really great.
01:29:33 And a nuclear power plant that shall remain nameless.
01:29:36 They keep hiring people to delete emails and fill out forms designed to ask external contractors to do the work they're too stupid or too lazy to do.
01:29:43 Yeah.
01:29:47 Yeah, it's a funny thing when a community became something not where you were accepted by the members of that community,
01:29:52 but where you could get a piece of paper from a government that says you're now part of the community, right?
01:29:59 It's a wild thing.
01:30:01 A square foot of your patch, it's not huge, like 15 by 15 feet.
01:30:05 It's not, maybe 20 by 20.
01:30:07 It's not huge.
01:30:10 But it's fenced and I take pretty good care of it and weed it and all that kind of stuff.
01:30:22 Hey, Steph, did you ever end up going to church?
01:30:24 Curious to hear where you stand on Christianity today.
01:30:28 I have not recently, but it's on the list.
01:30:32 It's on the list.
01:30:33 Honestly, my religion at the moment is my book on peaceful parenting.
01:30:49 All right, any questions, comments, issues, problems?
01:31:00 Any tips for entrepreneurs in this economy?
01:31:02 Oh man, entrepreneurs, you guys got it made.
01:31:05 You guys got it made, Joe.
01:31:08 Just be relentlessly good, relentlessly enthusiastic, and relentlessly help the living crap out of people.
01:31:14 Make their lives better.
01:31:16 Help them out.
01:31:18 The world will be drawn to you because competent people these days are an oasis in the desert.
01:31:22 And if you can't make it as an entrepreneur, if you're competent and enthusiastic, I don't understand what's going on.
01:31:29 Because you can do it.
01:31:30 Just be proactive, help people, make sure they're satisfied, and build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.
01:31:42 I mean, I remember starting this show like, I don't know, 17, 18 years ago, and it's like,
01:31:47 "I wonder if I could make 50 bucks a day, that would be incredible."
01:31:54 I have not read Isaac Asimov's series Foundation.
01:31:56 I have not read Isaac Asimov's series Foundation.
01:32:00 Because Isaac Asimov was one of the most horrifying human beings around.
01:32:16 He was absolutely horrendous.
01:32:21 Did you not know about any of this stuff?
01:32:23 Like, I won't do it.
01:32:27 Yeah, no, I can't do it.
01:32:31 Marion Zimmer Bradley, I think, was a similar kind of thing.
01:32:37 Yeah, so for those of you who don't know, there's actually a tie-in too to Trump, believe it or not.
01:32:42 Not in the way some lefties would think, but yeah, David Asimov, son of the late science fiction writer Isaac Asimov,
01:32:48 was arraigned in Sonoma County, charged with felony exploitation of child and related child, well, you know, charges, right?
01:32:58 More than 4,000 computer disks and videotapes from his home.
01:33:04 He said, "There were thousands of disks, thousands of videos," said Sonoma County Deputy District Attorney Gary Medvegie,
01:33:12 who was handling the case.
01:33:13 "Anything imaginable regarding sex between human beings and human beings or human beings and animals was there.
01:33:18 Whatever your imagination can conjure up, he had it."
01:33:22 And it was a processing center for this material.
01:33:34 Videotapes, computer disks, video cameras, several VCRs and editing equipment.
01:33:38 So we assume that it would seem that it would be more than just for personal consumption, in my opinion.
01:33:48 So that's who he raised. So fuck him.
01:33:57 Yeah, yeah, it's... "Done any study on the life of twins?" No, not much.
01:34:09 Yeah, so, like, honestly, I can't touch Asimov's language.
01:34:14 I don't care what he writes, because, I mean, he was a complete workaholic and all of that, but this is who he produced.
01:34:21 I don't care what writing he produced, if this is the person he produced.
01:34:28 No, thank you.
01:34:32 "If I could only watch or listen to one show ever for the rest of my life, it would be Stefan at Freedom Inn."
01:34:36 Thank you, my friend. That's... hits me in the feels. I really appreciate that. That's very kind.
01:34:41 Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
01:34:51 Alright.
01:34:58 Let's just do another few minutes just for supporters, if that's alright. I'm just going to switch it over.
01:35:03 We'll do a couple of minutes just for supporters.
01:35:07 And, of course, if you want to join, let me give you the link if you want to join.
01:35:11 I would, of course, very much appreciate that, and I know how much value it provides.