https://freedomain.com/freedomain_books/the-future/
Centuries in the future, an old man awakes from cryogenic sleep to face the judgement of a utopian society that barely survived his past abuses of power. In the vein of 'Atlas Shrugged, philosophy, philosopher Stefan Molyneux has created a compelling and powerful work of imagination. He vividly describes the wonderful future that mankind can achieve - and the barriers to getting there - and all that we need to leave behind to finally live in peace...
Centuries in the future, an old man awakes from cryogenic sleep to face the judgement of a utopian society that barely survived his past abuses of power. In the vein of 'Atlas Shrugged, philosophy, philosopher Stefan Molyneux has created a compelling and powerful work of imagination. He vividly describes the wonderful future that mankind can achieve - and the barriers to getting there - and all that we need to leave behind to finally live in peace...
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00:00:00 The Future by Stephen Molyneux
00:00:03 Chapter 24
00:00:07 I wake up suddenly and feel wretched
00:00:12 nausea churning through my innards.
00:00:16 God, I haven't thought of my headless friend in decades. Why is he haunting the
00:00:22 carved channels of my memory now?
00:00:27 The figure to my left has moved closer. I can't tell in the gloom whether Jane has
00:00:32 moved her chair or is just leaning forward, her dark hair hanging over her
00:00:39 eyes like a black awning.
00:00:42 What kind of insanity is this?
00:00:46 The chill, the nausea.
00:00:50 It's because I have just experienced a complete reversal of everything that is
00:00:54 human.
00:00:55 The waking world is supposed to be sane.
00:00:58 Dreams are the toxicity release of nightly madness.
00:01:02 But I fell asleep here.
00:01:08 It feels that way. At least I have really no idea what's going on anymore. And I
00:01:13 walked through perfectly lucid memories, resurrected in my mind with electric
00:01:19 clarity.
00:01:20 Nothing went awry. No physics were violated.
00:01:25 Everything and everyone came back to life as if they were a movie briefly
00:01:31 paused for a snack break.
00:01:33 Gerhardt stayed ostracized. My friend stayed dead.
00:01:37 Jane stayed dead.
00:01:40 My waking life is madness.
00:01:45 Dreams are my only sanity.
00:01:49 Jane has been waiting for me in this room for decades.
00:01:57 Everything I took from her,
00:02:01 she will now take from me. And not for a week or month, but for eternity.
00:02:09 You run from the lessons of your youth, then spend forever in regret for what
00:02:20 you failed to learn.
00:02:23 But would Jane want to punish me?
00:02:30 When I think of those who wronged me in the past, I don't feel much anger. Some
00:02:37 frustration that I lost at the game of life in part, but not real anger. Because...
00:02:42 Because...
00:02:45 Because Jane was pure. Pure?
00:02:49 The hell does that mean? I interrogate the alien voice. I get another deep spinal
00:02:56 chill, remembering that the voice exists in both my waking and my dream life.
00:03:01 It can pass between the barriers of madness and sanity.
00:03:05 Unless...
00:03:10 My waking world is now the hell of walking through my history,
00:03:14 helpless to change it. And when I fall asleep,
00:03:19 I end up in this little room with the dead girl of my doing.
00:03:29 I try to move my arms. It is a violent attempt, but they barely seem to twitch.
00:03:33 Jane slowly raises her head.
00:03:38 I stare straight up, then close my eyes, hoping that she imagines that I have
00:03:44 drifted off back to sleep. The sleep where she is alive again in her youth
00:03:48 before her step, her fall.
00:03:51 Jane clears her throne, and it sounds...
00:03:58 Too deep, too guttural, almost like a hint of a man's voice. And then a tear
00:04:05 escapes my left eye as I remember that she hung herself and is trying to speak
00:04:10 through a broken neck.
00:04:13 "Welcome back," she says again in a gravelly, masculine voice.
00:04:19 The light in the room... I can't find the source... brightens slightly.
00:04:27 Can a man cry in his sleep?
00:04:30 Deep anger grips me at the idea of running from the dead.
00:04:36 If she has power in the afterlife, then so do I.
00:04:40 I open my eyes, turn my head, and see...
00:04:46 and see...
00:04:48 Jane lifts her head, pulls her hair back, and...
00:04:55 It is not Jane at all, but a man with a black beard.
00:05:01 Something faint is deep screaming in my ears as the man,
00:05:07 "Did Jane have a brother?" puts his hand on my left arm over the covers,
00:05:12 and I am wildly relieved to feel the pressure of his palm.
00:05:15 "You made it," the man says gently. "We welcome you."
00:05:21 "Where... where am I?" I whisper and feel another flood of relief that my voice seems to work.
00:05:28 The man says, "I have no idea how to answer that.
00:05:33 You're not dead. You are where you paid to be."
00:05:37 "What?" the man nods slowly.
00:05:40 "Your name is Louis Staten.
00:05:44 You have recovered from a serious illness and you've been out for some time.
00:05:49 I'm not a doctor, just someone watching over you.
00:05:53 I have memories of cheesy movies where men wake from comas and always ask the same question,
00:06:00 'I will not conform!'
00:06:02 But then I do.
00:06:05 How long have I been out?"
00:06:08 The man stares at me for a moment.
00:06:10 "It's been a while. Let's take this one step at a time, literally.
00:06:16 What do you remember last?" Before the man gestures at the room, I swallow painfully.
00:06:23 The man lifts a cup and gives me a sip of ice water.
00:06:27 "I... I can mostly remember my childhood, my youth, and the word...
00:06:36 Was I... the president?"
00:06:40 The man seems oddly relieved and nods vigorously.
00:06:43 "You were! You were the president."
00:06:46 I feel anger again.
00:06:48 "Then I still am. You were never a former president."
00:06:52 "That is true. My apologies," said the man.
00:06:56 And I find the phrasing annoying.
00:06:59 He didn't say that he apologizes, only that his apologies exist somewhere.
00:07:04 "I want... I want to see my wife, my children. Why are they not here?"
00:07:12 The bearded man purses his lips.
00:07:14 "Even with so long to consider your questions, which are perfectly sensible and totally predictable,
00:07:21 we need to establish your physical health before anything else.
00:07:25 You are clear of the heart disease, I know that for sure."
00:07:28 Heart disease?
00:07:30 A vague memory swims at the edge of my mind like a shy shark.
00:07:37 A bald doctor, his wrinkles end where his hair used to be,
00:07:42 telling me that there is nothing more to be done,
00:07:47 that I can be made comfortable,
00:07:50 but that there are still options, which confused me, and confuses me now.
00:07:57 I feel... I feel disoriented, but all right.
00:08:03 Why can't I move my toes?
00:08:06 "Oh, sorry," the man made a gesture and feeling,
00:08:10 came flooding back to my extremities.
00:08:13 "Wa-ha!" I cry out with a sudden sensation.
00:08:17 "I'm doing this very badly. I'm so sorry," says the man, half-standing.
00:08:22 "Let me get your family."
00:08:24 My heart pounds in my chest, reminding me of that raging night with my friend on the dirt bike.
00:08:29 And I remember being afraid of my heartbeat, in the past, near the...
00:08:35 end.
00:08:37 The full-body sensation overwhelms me, and I...
00:08:42 Dark.
00:08:45 My eyes open at the same time as my door, the white door that leads to wherever...
00:08:51 My wife strides into the room, her handkerchief covering her mouth.
00:09:02 Chapter 25.
00:09:04 Alice's mentor was so ancient that it came to no one's surprise whatsoever that his name was Adam.
00:09:14 Shortly after her confinement at the top of Smudge Mountain,
00:09:18 and the resulting media firestorm that accompanied such a radically unusual occurrence,
00:09:22 Alice decided what to do with her life.
00:09:28 She made an appointment with Adam, who lived in a cave.
00:09:32 A cave with many modern amenities, but still a cave.
00:09:36 Adam loved the law, like many philosophers, because it's the practical engineering of abstract reason.
00:09:45 Words made flesh and fist.
00:09:48 And hated Plato so much that he actually went to live in a cave.
00:09:53 It had high ceilings and endless bookshelves and could be sealed from the outside and cooled in the summer.
00:09:58 And Adam had installed a fire which cast the shadows of hung shapes against the dark recesses of the cave,
00:10:05 which he stared at while writing, to thumb his nose at the ancient Athenian totalitarian.
00:10:12 Adam had written the Basic Law, which was the template for most ERO contracts.
00:10:20 He had completed it at the age of 55, which seemed young for such a feat.
00:10:25 But he argued that things seem endlessly complicated when you're young, and also when you're old.
00:10:30 But there is a time of luminous clarity at the peak of middle age,
00:10:35 when the world is written in universal laws, not petty specific details.
00:10:39 He only took in-person visits.
00:10:45 So Alice went out early one morning.
00:10:50 He boiled some mint tea and welcomed her.
00:10:53 "Adam, I think I have found my bliss," she said without preamble.
00:10:59 He nodded slowly.
00:11:02 "As a wizened old elder, I feel obligated, although it is kind of a cliché,
00:11:08 to tell you that you never just think you have found your bliss.
00:11:11 You know."
00:11:13 "You knew?"
00:11:14 "Mentoring? Oh yes.
00:11:16 Although when I was a kid it was called teaching, but that word got into such disrepute,
00:11:20 we couldn't use it ever again."
00:11:22 "How old are you?"
00:11:24 "A hundred and forty."
00:11:26 Alice whistled.
00:11:28 Not just because she felt she had to, but because she wanted to show off a recently acquired skill.
00:11:33 "So you remember the cataclysms?"
00:11:38 His face seemed to go slack, losing all animation.
00:11:42 "I do. I am one of the few."
00:11:46 "Why are kids not supposed to ask about those... that... whatever they are?"
00:11:53 Adam shrugged.
00:11:55 "You are smart enough to know. That is an unfair question."
00:11:59 Alice nodded.
00:12:00 "You know that just makes kids more curious, right? We know."
00:12:05 There was a pause.
00:12:07 Something skittered outside the cave opening,
00:12:10 and Alice deeply inhaled the relaxing scent of the mint tea.
00:12:16 Adam said, "Your bliss."
00:12:20 Alice jumped up as if electrified.
00:12:22 She paced back and forth, her hands gesticulating.
00:12:25 "You know, I kind of got touched by the old world in a way.
00:12:30 I never felt it vividly, of course I can't, I'm too young.
00:12:34 But now I feel like an archaeologist studying some ancient civilization,
00:12:39 and the people who were dust come back to life, or something like that.
00:12:43 I'm not putting it very well, but..."
00:12:46 Alice took a deep breath.
00:12:48 She knew that it was considered extraordinarily rude to interrupt a child,
00:12:51 so she felt in no rush to collect her thoughts.
00:12:54 "Oh, I had this all worked out in my head, but now that I'm talking about it,
00:12:58 my thoughts are like a bunch of startled birds.
00:13:01 I want to know about the lore.
00:13:05 I know we don't have that anymore, my dad has explained some of it to me,
00:13:09 but I want to know about the old lore, the history of how things used to be.
00:13:14 Tell me, Adam, do you think that we will ever forget how bad things were and go back?"
00:13:21 The old man paused.
00:13:23 "I'm not sure if that's a rhetorical question."
00:13:28 "Wasn't that always the way, though, in the past, that disaster would follow disaster,
00:13:32 and no one would ever learn anything for more than a generation or so?"
00:13:35 Adam nodded.
00:13:36 "Why didn't they learn anything?
00:13:39 Why did it have to get so bad?
00:13:41 They had books and flat movies and the hypernet--
00:13:44 Internet, Adam Mermin-- yes, sorry, Internet.
00:13:47 They had access to every slice and dice of information at their fingertips,
00:13:50 but they learned nothing.
00:13:52 I know that when I was taken on the mountain with Emily,
00:13:56 that it was a piece of the past cutting into the present,
00:13:59 but I can't shake the feeling that it could also be our future,
00:14:04 and I've been researching some of these cycles of history,
00:14:08 and I guess I'm kind of worried that we're just at the top of another cycle
00:14:11 and everything that was bad and old could become new and alive again."
00:14:17 Adam nodded slowly.
00:14:19 "You are not alone in that fear.
00:14:22 The philosophers who founded how we live now
00:14:24 spent a lot of time thinking about how to avoid that kind of repetition.
00:14:30 There was a big movement towards the end of the Cataclysms
00:14:33 to go back to the land and give up on civilization completely
00:14:36 because people were so exhausted from civilization
00:14:39 leading inevitably to brutality and barbarism.
00:14:43 Why build a tower? Just to have history knock it down?
00:14:46 What's the point of carving a whole civilization
00:14:48 out of the brutal prehistory of the species
00:14:51 just to have that prehistory become the future
00:14:54 and swallow every city up whole?
00:14:57 The Christians, in particular, had a mission
00:15:01 to civilize the world as a whole,
00:15:03 to bring their universal values to every corner of the planet,
00:15:07 but this caring about everyone was used against them.
00:15:11 They wanted to help the helpless,
00:15:13 so everyone pretended to be helpless to get resources,
00:15:16 and the Christians tore their own arms off,
00:15:18 trying to lift the world, so to speak.
00:15:21 They didn't know enough.
00:15:23 They knew just enough to make things worse,
00:15:25 a constant problem in the past.
00:15:28 Alice stared into her green cup.
00:15:31 Old tendrils of historical air
00:15:34 seemed to be leeching the heat from her fingers.
00:15:38 "Tell me about the law."
00:15:41 "You know about the few historical nations that remain."
00:15:45 "Well, the whole world was like that long ago.
00:15:49 The land was divided into sections,
00:15:51 and a tiny minority of people controlled
00:15:54 the legal use of violence in those sections."
00:15:57 Alice blinked.
00:15:59 "The legal use of violence?
00:16:01 But everyone has that. That's self-defense."
00:16:04 Adam shook his head, his hooded eyes dark.
00:16:07 "Oh, no, precious child.
00:16:09 This tiny group of people could initiate
00:16:12 the use of force against their disarmed subjects."
00:16:16 "Initiate?" echoed Alice, deep shock in her voice.
00:16:21 "Yes, that was the cycle.
00:16:24 Rulers took money from people by force,
00:16:27 more and more every year.
00:16:29 People were oppressed by their rulers
00:16:32 until the rulers took so much money
00:16:34 that they destroyed the economy,
00:16:36 or the people rose up and attacked them, or both.
00:16:39 And then the people would claw back
00:16:41 some of the power of the rulers,
00:16:43 keeping more of their own money.
00:16:45 And then the economy would start growing again.
00:16:47 The wealth of the region would increase,
00:16:49 and the rulers would start taking more and more money.
00:16:52 But the people had so much wealth
00:16:54 that they could afford to pay off the rulers
00:16:56 to be left in peace,
00:16:58 until the rulers ended up taking too much money again,
00:17:01 having too much power, controlling too many people.
00:17:04 And then the collapse would begin all over again."
00:17:08 "And how did the Lord do this?"
00:17:13 "I don't know.
00:17:15 Have you ever heard about fairy tales,
00:17:18 old stories about magic?
00:17:20 I've heard of them, but I've never heard one."
00:17:22 Adam grunted, "Good thing, too.
00:17:24 Magic always means madness.
00:17:27 And we have finally found how to live in a sane world."
00:17:33 Magic was the idea that certain words, magic spells,
00:17:37 could change reality,
00:17:39 like summon fire, move items, create illusions,
00:17:42 disguise people, all sorts of mad stuff.
00:17:46 Experts in this magic were called wizards, or sorcerers,
00:17:51 or lawyers, as they were known later.
00:17:56 Once upon a time, a wizard could put a curse on you,
00:18:00 and you would have to give him money to remove that curse,
00:18:04 or keep it at bay.
00:18:06 Later, people were threatened with hell,
00:18:08 and had to give priests money to stay out of it.
00:18:11 When the scientific revolution happened,
00:18:13 and people stopped believing in magic,
00:18:16 the people who were wizards invented a new curse,
00:18:19 called the law.
00:18:21 And you had to give them money,
00:18:23 otherwise they would use the law, a kind of magic curse,
00:18:27 to put you in prison,
00:18:28 where unbelievably terrible things would happen to you.
00:18:32 In other words, when people stopped believing in hell,
00:18:35 the wizards had to become lawyers or politicians,
00:18:39 and create hell on earth,
00:18:41 so that their magic words could still get resources
00:18:44 and obedience out of people.
00:18:47 Alice shuddered.
00:18:50 "Sounds like a madhouse."
00:18:52 "Hey!" cried Adam loudly, startling Alice.
00:18:56 He pointed a wizened finger at her.
00:18:59 "Don't ever do that, please.
00:19:02 Don't insult asylums.
00:19:05 It's not madness. It wasn't a madhouse.
00:19:08 That's like calling a zoo a madhouse for animals.
00:19:10 No, it's just a place where the animals are caged,
00:19:14 so that the owners of the zoo can profit from them."
00:19:17 "Sorry about that," said Alice.
00:19:19 "You're right, it wasn't madness.
00:19:21 But it's all very abstract to me.
00:19:25 Can you give me a real example?"
00:19:27 "Sure. Let's start with..."
00:19:31 Adam frowned, and Alice could almost directly see
00:19:34 the old man's brain sifting through the horrors of the past
00:19:37 to provide something composed of lesser horrors to her waiting mind.
00:19:42 "Okay, do you know what counterfeiting is?"
00:19:47 Alice shook her head.
00:19:49 Adam got up to refill his tea.
00:19:51 "Okay, well, in the past, there was no Bitcoin, no blockchain.
00:19:56 Way back, gold was money, because gold is limited and valuable
00:20:01 and can be used for more than one thing.
00:20:03 Money, of course, but also jewelry and later industrial production,
00:20:06 just like now.
00:20:08 You can divide gold into smaller pieces and it doesn't lose value.
00:20:11 You can also melt it and join it back together.
00:20:13 You get the idea.
00:20:15 But the rulers demanded to be paid in gold
00:20:18 for most economic transactions.
00:20:20 It was called a tax," Alice started.
00:20:23 "Wait, what? Every transaction?"
00:20:26 "Sure." Alice gestured helplessly.
00:20:29 "What does that mean?"
00:20:31 "So if you earned $1,000, you had to give $500 to the rulers
00:20:36 or be thrown into one of their torture prisons."
00:20:38 "$500? Why? What value did they add?"
00:20:42 "Well, they claimed to protect people's property rights."
00:20:45 Alice snorted.
00:20:47 "How can they claim to protect property rights
00:20:49 without forcing people to give them money?
00:20:51 That's like a thief promising to keep your wallet safe by stealing it.
00:20:54 Isn't that the wildest contradiction?"
00:20:57 Adam held up his hands.
00:20:59 "Listen, I'm happy to tell you these things,
00:21:02 but you're going to have to check your outrage.
00:21:05 You're looking for reason, morality, and consistency,
00:21:09 but we are in the realm of sorcery here, the blackest magic.
00:21:14 Have you ever tried to figure out the physics of your nightly dreams?
00:21:17 You can't. It's the wrong standard completely.
00:21:20 I will get to why people accepted this,
00:21:23 but first we have to understand what they were accepting, okay?"
00:21:28 "Good."
00:21:30 A rather hypnotic clanking drifted through the air as Adam stirred his tea.
00:21:36 "Ten years ago, I wouldn't have forgotten what I was talking about," he murmured.
00:21:42 "The rulers stole gold from every transaction?"
00:21:45 Adam snapped his fingers. "Right, thank you."
00:21:48 So, the rulers took gold, kept a lot of it for themselves,
00:21:53 and then handed out some to their friends and relatives,
00:21:57 and the enforcers, of course.
00:21:59 The enforcers were the citizens willing to initiate the use of force
00:22:02 against their fellow citizens for money.
00:22:05 Yes, I know, I know, outrageous, but that's most of human history.
00:22:10 Almost all of it, up until the last century or so.
00:22:15 Alice frowned. "I think I get it. I think I do. It's very strange,
00:22:20 but I don't quite understand why it was so unstable."
00:22:26 Adam interlaced his fingers and pressed the heels of his hands outward.
00:22:32 "Violence is never stable, Alice.
00:22:35 Because the rulers didn't add any value,
00:22:38 but rather were taking value away,
00:22:41 they had to create the illusion of value.
00:22:44 Otherwise the citizens would be-- would get wise to the predation.
00:22:49 So, what did they do?
00:22:52 How do you pretend to add value when you're just taking it away?"
00:22:57 Alice stared blankly, shaking her head slowly.
00:23:01 "I don't-- I have no idea.
00:23:05 Create art? Build things?"
00:23:10 Adam smiled a little sadly.
00:23:13 "It is actually testament to the beauty of the modern world
00:23:16 that you have no idea how any of this worked."
00:23:20 Sorry, I forgot to put mental quotes around that. "Worked."
00:23:25 All right, the rulers could add gold to the economy in many different ways.
00:23:32 They could borrow gold from bankers or other rulers,
00:23:35 or they could use less gold per coin,
00:23:39 so that they might get a thousand coins instead of 500 from the same amount of gold.
00:23:44 "But that's not adding any real value, right?" Adam laughed.
00:23:49 "Of course not. In fact, it's just another kind of stealing.
00:23:54 It's hard for you to understand,
00:23:56 because the number of satoshis and bitcoins cannot be increased,
00:23:59 and no one controls the entire financial system.
00:24:02 But back then..." he whistled.
00:24:06 Things were very different indeed.
00:24:09 "If you could somehow magically double the number of bitcoins,
00:24:13 what would happen to the price of everything?"
00:24:15 "It would double," said Alice instantly.
00:24:18 Adam snapped his fingers, pointing at her exactly.
00:24:22 "Perfect. That's the kind of economic instinct that everyone has,
00:24:26 unless it's bullied and trained out of them.
00:24:29 Yes, they inflate prices.
00:24:32 However, it's perfect for the rulers.
00:24:35 When they double the number of coins,
00:24:37 they and their friends get to spend those coins at full value,
00:24:42 while the people who get those coins later
00:24:44 pay sometimes more than double for everything that used to be cheaper."
00:24:48 Alice smiled with illumination.
00:24:51 "Oh, and... and...
00:24:55 everyone would just blame the shopkeepers rather than the rulers?"
00:24:59 Adam nodded.
00:25:01 "Oh, yes, obviously.
00:25:03 The rulers would also blame shopkeepers
00:25:05 and threaten them for price gouging,
00:25:08 which was another curse invented to cover up the rising prices
00:25:11 that resulted from the inflation of the money supply, of the gold."
00:25:15 Alice shook her head.
00:25:17 "But surely... surely people would figure this out quickly
00:25:21 and know what was going on."
00:25:23 "You would think so.
00:25:25 You would think so now, for sure,
00:25:28 because... well, for about a billion reasons.
00:25:33 But this is what no one understood, really,
00:25:36 until much more recently.
00:25:39 The rulers didn't really rule over the people,
00:25:43 the citizens, the working population.
00:25:46 The rulers ruled over the children.
00:25:50 Everything else, every other disaster,
00:25:52 was just a long shadow
00:25:54 cast by that initial violent control over the young."
00:25:59 Alice blinked.
00:26:01 "I... I don't know what you mean, Adam.
00:26:03 The... the rulers raised the children?"
00:26:07 Adam shrugged sadly.
00:26:10 "It's hard to strangle a thousand individuals,
00:26:14 but if you can give them one neck between them all,
00:26:17 you only have to strangle one."
00:26:20 Sorry, that was a little inappropriate and badly worded.
00:26:25 He took a breath deep into his creaking lungs.
00:26:29 "The real enforcers were the teachers,
00:26:32 which is why we don't use that word anymore.
00:26:36 There was a word called 'curriculum,'
00:26:39 which was the plan of instruction
00:26:41 that every teacher in the region had to follow.
00:26:43 Or lose his job, or her job later on.
00:26:47 Once the rulers could define everything
00:26:49 that the children had to learn,
00:26:52 millions and millions of children
00:26:54 were all told the same lies."
00:26:57 Alice jumped up, frustrated.
00:26:58 "But... but kids are great at figuring out lies.
00:27:01 You just told me that yourself
00:27:02 when I knew what happened to the prices."
00:27:04 "Children are great at figuring out lies.
00:27:08 They are original humans,
00:27:11 like slates ungouged by the swords of the rulers.
00:27:16 But even deeper than their capacity to detect falsehood
00:27:20 is their need to bond with their parents.
00:27:23 And it was that bond that was used
00:27:26 to kill their capacity for honesty."
00:27:30 "Can you draw this out?" Adam laughed.
00:27:35 "No, you will get it in a moment.
00:27:39 Look, for most of human evolution,
00:27:42 food was very scarce,
00:27:44 and there was no easy way to control fertility,
00:27:46 so women had a lot of children.
00:27:49 Children who displeased their parents
00:27:52 would inevitably get less food,
00:27:54 and were thus less likely to survive.
00:27:57 Pleasing parents is absolutely necessary for survival,
00:28:02 at least until puberty,
00:28:04 when you get the ability to hunt for your own food.
00:28:07 In other words, we imprint very strongly.
00:28:12 The rulers know all about this
00:28:15 and use it to control the population.
00:28:18 They take money from the parents, by force of course,
00:28:21 and use it to pay the teachers who lie to their children.
00:28:26 The children get a sense of the lies,
00:28:30 but if they push back against these lies,
00:28:32 their parents get angry at them,
00:28:33 partly because the parents were told the same lies,
00:28:36 and partly because knowing the truth about an evil society
00:28:39 can make you mad,
00:28:42 but mostly because we evolved to please our parents,
00:28:47 so we swallow the lies rather than stay honest.
00:28:52 It's hard for children to imagine
00:28:54 that their parents willingly and voluntarily
00:28:57 hand them over to liars working for the rulers.
00:29:01 The children grow up defending the lies,
00:29:04 which means defending the liars,
00:29:06 which means defending the parents.
00:29:10 Anyone who questions the lies
00:29:12 is actually questioning the loyalty the children have
00:29:15 to their parents,
00:29:16 which means undermining their very capacity to survive.
00:29:20 Cornered animals fight to the death.
00:29:23 Indoctrinated delusions do the same.
00:29:28 When you raise children in unreality through violence,
00:29:34 they become reactionary and hostile to the truth.
00:29:39 The lies form a kind of immune system for their insanity,
00:29:43 making it impervious to reason and evidence.
00:29:48 You, my dear, have been raised to honor and respect the truth,
00:29:53 because we do things so differently in the here and now,
00:29:56 but you are asking about the past,
00:29:59 the lid of which I have opened.
00:30:03 Alice's face was pale.
00:30:06 "It's like a horror movie that never ends."
00:30:10 "But it did," said Adam softly.
00:30:13 "It finally did."
00:30:16 He shook off the imaginary spider webs of ancient history.
00:30:20 But, back to counterfeiting,
00:30:23 the rulers pretended to add value to the economy
00:30:27 by creating money out of thin air.
00:30:30 This was called "currency."
00:30:32 It was, of course, perfectly legal.
00:30:35 To put it another way,
00:30:37 the law removed the curse called "jail"
00:30:42 from the counterfeiting of the rulers.
00:30:45 "Ah, but if you were a citizen caught watering down the money,
00:30:49 you were punished with jail or maiming."
00:30:52 To be more clear,
00:30:54 the law put a curse on one man for counterfeiting,
00:30:58 but lifted that curse for another man who counterfeited,
00:31:01 depending if he was a ruler or the rules.
00:31:04 In fact, you might not believe me, but I swear that it's true.
00:31:09 It could even be the same man,
00:31:12 depending on whether he was a ruler,
00:31:15 or, if he left the ruling class, a citizen.
00:31:19 You could wake up one day with the law keeping you safe,
00:31:24 and the next day the law would kill you.
00:31:28 How would people know the law?
00:31:31 Oh, well, that was the black beauty of it all.
00:31:35 Ignorance of the law was no excuse,
00:31:39 but no one knew the law.
00:31:42 Alice looked up, shocked.
00:31:44 "What do you mean? The law must have been written down somewhere."
00:31:50 Adam smiled grimly.
00:31:52 "Oh, it was.
00:31:55 In fact, it was written down everywhere.
00:31:59 The law was so lengthy, complicated, and convoluted
00:32:04 that not one single person, not even the greatest expert in the law,
00:32:08 knew the entirety of the law."
00:32:11 He ticked off his fingers.
00:32:13 There were laws for criminals,
00:32:15 laws for businesses,
00:32:17 laws for families,
00:32:18 laws for taxation,
00:32:19 another magic word to cover up the word theft,
00:32:22 thousands and thousands of laws,
00:32:24 some of which contradicted each other,
00:32:26 and each of these laws had language that could be interpreted any number of ways
00:32:30 (by design, of course),
00:32:32 so that people were fully responsible for knowing the unknowable
00:32:36 and understanding that which could never be objectively explained.
00:32:41 The law was simply a permission slip for the rulers to use violence.
00:32:46 The law was an opinion with a gun.
00:32:50 Alice swallowed.
00:32:53 "This must...
00:32:56 This must have been known at the time."
00:32:59 "Except for a very few, it really wasn't."
00:33:04 Adam spread his fingers and slowly spiraled his hands together.
00:33:09 "Everything which is centralized becomes corrupt.
00:33:15 If you put power in the hands of a few people,
00:33:18 those people will become corrupt.
00:33:21 Or, if they are somehow immune from corruption,
00:33:23 they will be replaced by corrupt people,
00:33:25 who will cheat them out of the power the most corrupt always want.
00:33:30 Competition in the free market is the only antidote to the entropy,
00:33:36 the inevitability of human corruption.
00:33:41 This is why we can never ever have only one DRO,
00:33:46 or only one curriculum, or a central control of currency.
00:33:51 Everything and everyone that is forcibly imposed on others
00:33:56 degrades into rank corruption and evil.
00:34:00 I mean, imagine if your father and the only DRO...
00:34:05 No, forget your father, at least in this example.
00:34:08 Imagine that your worst enemy,
00:34:11 one of the boys from Smudge Mountain perhaps,
00:34:13 had violent control over the only DRO allowed to exist.
00:34:18 Imagine that he controlled all the currency
00:34:21 and all the education of all the children,
00:34:23 and could create any rule he wanted,
00:34:25 and interpret those rules any way he wanted,
00:34:28 and paid millions of enforcers to point weapons
00:34:31 at anyone who disagreed with him.
00:34:33 Imagine what a terrible and delusional man-god he would turn into.
00:34:39 Imagine how cold-hearted and cruel and inhuman he would become.
00:34:48 Empathy is like a copper wire.
00:34:52 Put too much power through it, it just breaks.
00:34:56 The power to initiate violence destroys the soul,
00:35:01 which means only the soulless want to use it.
00:35:05 The old world was a giant invitation for evil to rule the good.
00:35:13 Adam's eyes had grown feverish, intense.
00:35:17 If everyone is good, you don't need rulers.
00:35:21 If everyone is evil, you can't have rulers,
00:35:24 because that guarantees the rule of evil.
00:35:27 If the majority of people are evil, you can't have rulers, for the same reason.
00:35:31 If the majority of people are good, you still can't have rulers,
00:35:35 because only the evil will want to have power over the good,
00:35:38 which eliminates people's capacity to be good,
00:35:41 because you cannot be virtuous if you are ruled over by evildoers.
00:35:46 There was no possibility that human rule could lead to anything other than rank and bottomless evil.
00:35:57 These rulers were contained by disaster and revolution for a time,
00:36:05 but they always grew back, grew back their power over others,
00:36:09 crushing freedom and productivity and virtue in their damn bloody fists.
00:36:15 The only solution, the solution that was finally found,
00:36:20 was the non-aggression principle,
00:36:23 the ethics of universally preferable behavior,
00:36:27 and the peaceful and rational raising of children.
00:36:32 Tell me this, Alice.
00:36:34 Have you ever wanted to violently rule over another human being?
00:36:40 Alice shuddered, "Of course not."
00:36:43 "And the boys on the mountain?"
00:36:46 She paused. "They did, yes."
00:36:50 Adam nodded, "Right."
00:36:53 "When society stopped ruling over children,
00:36:57 we stopped raising children thirsty to rule over others."
00:37:02 [snap]
00:37:04 He snapped his bony fingers once more.
00:37:07 "We broke the cycle by accepting that no man or woman alive can handle power.
00:37:16 We broke the cycle by convincing parents to stop ruling over their children,
00:37:22 and so feeding the power of the rulers who repeatedly destroyed humanity for the past tens of thousands of years.
00:37:30 The solution was so simple that it took forever to realize."
00:37:41 Alice considered his speech for a long while.
00:37:47 "I don't see how parenting creates tyranny."
00:37:51 "Not current parenting," said Adam.
00:37:53 "Why have you never had the desire to violently rule over another human being?"
00:37:59 Alice paused. "It would be horrible. Why?
00:38:05 If you rule over others, you can get a lot of resources. Money, food, the thrill of obedience.
00:38:10 I can get my own resources, thank you very much.
00:38:13 And I don't think that seeing fear and subjugation in someone else's eyes would be thrilling at all.
00:38:21 It would be horrible.
00:38:23 I would just imagine myself in their shoes, on their bended knees."
00:38:26 "Right," Adam nodded in satisfaction.
00:38:32 "You know about painkillers, right?"
00:38:34 "Yes, my grandfather had a back problem. He took opioids."
00:38:38 "Did he become addicted?"
00:38:40 "Not to my knowledge. I don't think so."
00:38:43 "Right. Because he was raised well."
00:38:49 Adam stood up and paced slowly around the fire, like a strolling planet in a tiny solar system.
00:38:56 "I want you to imagine something.
00:39:00 Imagine that mothers took a powerful and addictive drug during pregnancy
00:39:05 and fed that drug to their babies, not just through breast milk, but directly.
00:39:10 Then imagine that the children were locked up in schools that continued to feed them this addictive drug,
00:39:17 and it was everywhere in their life, as teenagers, as adults.
00:39:21 It could not be escaped."
00:39:24 Adam paused.
00:39:26 "In these circumstances, would you say that it was human nature to be addicted?"
00:39:32 Alice shook her head. "No, no, of course not.
00:39:35 If it was natural, it wouldn't need to be inflicted from the outside."
00:39:38 Adam nodded.
00:39:40 "If you took nomadic animals and put them in a small field surrounded by an electrified fence,
00:39:47 and within a few generations the offspring of those animals no longer roamed,
00:39:52 would you then say that it was the nature of that animal to remain in one place?
00:39:56 No, right.
00:39:58 Humanity was confined, controlled, brutalized for almost all of our evolution.
00:40:07 And the purpose of all that trauma was to take away our humanity,
00:40:12 to push us from the path of our natural evolution?"
00:40:15 "No," said Alice firmly.
00:40:18 Adam smiled.
00:40:20 "Go on." She pursed her lips.
00:40:23 "If this trauma was common to all human evolution, then it was natural to us.
00:40:29 But didn't you just say that if it was natural, it would not need to be externally applied?"
00:40:37 Alice clocked her head.
00:40:39 "It is natural for us to use violence on each other, I think.
00:40:44 That's what the evidence you were telling me clearly shows."
00:40:48 "Very good.
00:40:50 Now we get to the essence of humanity, which is a very powerful thing.
00:40:56 We will come back to the addicted babies, but let us talk now about justifications.
00:41:04 Tell me, does the lion lecture the zebra before eating it?"
00:41:08 Alice smiled.
00:41:09 "I'm going to go with a big no on that."
00:41:12 Adam narrowed his eyes.
00:41:14 "Are you sure?
00:41:16 Doesn't the lion say to the zebra, 'It is moral for you to submit yourself to my appetite,
00:41:21 and it would be very selfish for you to refuse to give your flesh to feed my little lion clubs'?
00:41:26 Only the most selfish and evil zebras would run away and force my lovely family to starve to death.
00:41:31 Have a thought for creatures other than your own selves, my zebras, and surrender yourself to us."
00:41:37 "I must have missed that documentary."
00:41:40 Adam smiled and spread his hands.
00:41:43 "Between the lion and the zebra, it is an open game.
00:41:48 The lion chases, the zebra tries to escape, and whoever wins, wins.
00:41:53 There is no need to justify either the chasing or the running."
00:41:57 Adam poured another half cup of tea.
00:42:00 As his passion grew, he started waving it around, hence the need to only fill it halfway.
00:42:06 "However, human rulers feel a bottomless need to justify their power.
00:42:12 Indeed, without that justification, ruling people is impossible.
00:42:17 Everyone used to think that morality was invented because people were interested in being good.
00:42:23 And like most things in history, the exact opposite was the case.
00:42:28 What was called morality was invented to control and subjugate human beings.
00:42:35 Morality was defined as subjugation to virtue,
00:42:39 and virtue was always defined as subjugation to the magic laws of the rulers.
00:42:46 Being a good citizen always meant obeying the law."
00:42:52 Adam paused, and Alice could see that it was taking him a moment to organize his thoughts,
00:42:58 because there was so much to convey.
00:43:02 "As we are talking," said Adam,
00:43:06 "do you think you are getting any closer to seeing the modern version of the laws as your bliss?"
00:43:12 Alice nodded without hesitation.
00:43:15 Adam closed his eyes, deep satisfaction radiating from his wizened face.
00:43:22 "Very well. Now I will initiate you into the mysteries of history.
00:43:31 In the past, there was a massive contradiction in all human societies,
00:43:38 which had to be skirted around and evaded in order for those societies to pretend to function, at least for a while.
00:43:45 The contradiction was the rules inflicted on children versus the rules the rulers obeyed.
00:43:56 What was expressly forbidden to the children was expressly encouraged for the rulers.
00:44:03 Children were told not to hit, not to steal, and never to use violence to get what they want.
00:44:10 But the rulers threatened citizens with endless violence for failure to comply with their magic laws.
00:44:16 Children were told that it was deeply immoral to use violence,
00:44:20 but the entire foundation of the entire society they lived in was based on violence,
00:44:25 taxation, regulation, laws of every kind.
00:44:30 Now, as you so wisely told me earlier, children have an amazing ability to detect lies,
00:44:39 and in particular when they become teenagers, to detect hypocrisy.
00:44:45 A mother, and it was usually mothers, sadly, would hit her son for hitting another child,
00:44:51 yelling at her son that it was immoral to hit."
00:44:55 Adam smiled grimly.
00:44:58 It was quite a brain twister, I can tell you.
00:45:01 Well, you can imagine.
00:45:04 Parents would tell their children that it was immoral to use force to take money,
00:45:09 and then would send them to schools which only existed because the rulers used force
00:45:13 to take the money from the parents to pay for those schools.
00:45:17 Teachers would tell children not to bully the very same teachers
00:45:21 who were happy to have their fellow citizens sent to jail if they tried to avoid paying the teacher's salary.
00:45:28 "They were almost like a different species," murmured Alice, her eyes wide.
00:45:35 "I know what you mean, but try to avoid that kind of thinking.
00:45:40 Remember the animal in the tiny enclosure, losing its natural self to electric fences?
00:45:46 It's not a different species. It's just a punished and controlled animal."
00:45:51 "Okay."
00:45:54 So, children in the past were given strict, objective, and universal moral values,
00:46:00 the non-aggression principle, and a respect for property rights.
00:46:04 And then they grew into, and tried to live in, a society that only existed due to its complete violation
00:46:11 of the non-aggression principle and the respect for property rights.
00:46:16 Some tea slopped over the side of Adam's cup. He didn't seem to notice.
00:46:21 "How is this achieved? How is this possible?"
00:46:24 "Well, an unholy bargain" -- Adam shook his head slightly, then rose and started walking around the fire again.
00:46:30 "Sorry, that means a very evil bargain" -- was struck between the rulers and the parents.
00:46:35 The parents acted as agents for the rulers by training their children to be useful citizens,
00:46:41 more obedient tax livestock, while the rulers encouraged the punishment of any adult children
00:46:48 who awoke to the rank hypocrisy of their parents.
00:46:52 Adam took a deep breath.
00:46:55 "I don't want you to think that this was conscious or willed or subject to a modern moral analysis
00:47:02 any more than we would blame a peasant ten thousand years ago for believing that the world was flat."
00:47:08 Color rose in Alice's cheeks.
00:47:11 "I don't agree. In fact, I couldn't disagree more strongly."
00:47:14 "Yes?" Alice rose in agitation.
00:47:17 "Well, it's one thing to talk about an ancient peasant who walked out on the world he felt was flat,
00:47:22 and saw as flat, and had no scientific knowledge to think otherwise, but it's totally another thing,
00:47:27 another thing entirely, to inflict universal morals on your children and then punish them for following,
00:47:33 for acting as if those universal morals were in fact universal.
00:47:38 That would be like teaching your children that the world was round and then punishing them as adults
00:47:42 for trying to navigate the world as if it were round.
00:47:45 It's a self-contained hypocrisy, not a lack of knowledge or a narrowness of perspective.
00:47:51 You don't need access to any outside information to know that you're contradicting yourself.
00:47:56 When you rankly contradict yourself between being a parent and being a...
00:48:00 what was it... a citizen?" Adam nodded.
00:48:03 "Oh no, they don't get off the hook, they don't get off that easy."
00:48:07 Alice shuddered, struggling to find the words.
00:48:10 "You're literally standing over a child with your fist raised,
00:48:16 punching... ah, so horrible... punching your child while telling your child not to hit anyone,
00:48:21 that hitting is totally immoral and wrong.
00:48:24 That's a bubble, that's an island.
00:48:26 I don't know how to put this.
00:48:28 But you don't need any outside information to know that you're contradicting yourself.
00:48:32 Violently, literally in this case.
00:48:34 I don't agree with this lack of judgment about the past.
00:48:38 You're suggesting that we do for the parents what the rulers back then did for the parents,
00:48:42 create excuses, create bubbles and reversals and eddies in the river of morality,
00:48:48 where time goes backwards and up is down and black is white and...
00:48:51 I won't accept it, I won't accept it at all."
00:48:54 Adam nodded slowly.
00:48:56 "That time on the mountain changed you."
00:49:00 "For the better, I think," said Alice fiercely.
00:49:03 "I don't disagree." Adam inhaled deeply through his nose.
00:49:08 "I'm not ignoring your arguments, but I would like to continue with mine.
00:49:13 We can circle back later."
00:49:15 He tapped a forefinger to his temple. "It's bookmarked."
00:49:19 Alice did not sit down and a similar planet joined,
00:49:22 the small solar system as she strode with Adam around the fire.
00:49:26 "Go on," she gesticulated.
00:49:30 In many religions, the clerics had a similar bargain with parents.
00:49:35 The parents had to deliver the children to the clerics to be educated in the religion.
00:49:40 Why would they do that?
00:49:41 Well, one main reason was because the clerics in most religions
00:49:45 indoctrinated the children in the belief that disobeying parents was a great sin.
00:49:52 Alice held up her hand, frowning.
00:49:54 "So, uh, disobedience to authority was a great evil?" Adam smiled.
00:50:01 "Go on."
00:50:03 Alice's brow furrowed and her hands traced the air.
00:50:07 "Disobedience... parents use violence against the children
00:50:12 while telling the children that violence is immoral,
00:50:16 which means that the parents have carved out or created
00:50:21 an exception to the rule that violence is immoral.
00:50:25 In other words, those in power... those in power...
00:50:29 the rulers are exempt from the moral standards they inflict.
00:50:33 No, it's even worse. It's even more...
00:50:38 the rulers are in charge because they must do or can do
00:50:44 the opposite of the moral rules they inflict.
00:50:47 It is immoral for the child to hit,
00:50:51 but it is not just permitted for the parent to hit,
00:50:57 but it is moral for the parent to hit.
00:51:00 The child must not hit, but the parent must hit, morally.
00:51:08 It is forbidden for the child to hit,
00:51:10 but it is equally forbidden for the parent not to hit.
00:51:14 The child must not take property without permission,
00:51:17 but the parent can take the child's property without permission,
00:51:21 just as the rulers can take the parent's property without permission.
00:51:27 The child must not bully, but historically, parenting was bullying.
00:51:35 Despite the grimness of the topics, Adam laughed.
00:51:39 Now it is my turn to disagree because you are insulting bullies.
00:51:44 Insulting bullies?
00:51:46 When you were on Smudge Mountain with those boys, were they bullies?
00:51:51 Yes, yes, I think so.
00:51:54 Did they give you moral instruction?
00:51:58 Alice thought long and hard.
00:52:01 No.
00:52:03 How did they exercise power?
00:52:07 They were just bigger and willing to use violence.
00:52:11 Oh, hence the illumination.
00:52:15 Alice smacked a fist into her open palm.
00:52:17 Bullies do not lecture.
00:52:19 They just inflict.
00:52:20 Bullies don't justify.
00:52:24 Alice pointed at him.
00:52:25 Yes, yes, that's it.
00:52:28 They were just bigger and willing to use violence.
00:52:31 Ah, like the parents of old.
00:52:34 The parents of old were bigger and willing to use violence,
00:52:38 but justified what they did on the basis of morality.
00:52:45 Alice scowled, drumming her fingers on her temple,
00:52:47 and this led the children into the enclosures of the rulers
00:52:51 because size and strength and violence and hypocrisy
00:52:56 were morality for them as they had been instructed.
00:53:00 Fantastic.
00:53:02 Adam clapped his hands,
00:53:04 which seemed so old that they should have ejected dust from their palms.
00:53:08 Do you want to take a break?
00:53:09 Hell no, said Alice in a rare moment of harshness.
00:53:12 I feel like I'm just waking up.
00:53:15 That's the mark of the bliss, said Adam seriously.
00:53:21 Okay, imagine that you want to become the greatest thief in the world.
00:53:28 One problem you face is that if being a thief is very profitable,
00:53:32 more people will want to become thieves,
00:53:34 but the more people who become thieves,
00:53:35 the more society takes countermeasures against stealing,
00:53:39 and the more hazardous and unprofitable the occupation becomes.
00:53:43 If you break into someone's house, you might get killed.
00:53:46 People create locks and put bars on the windows
00:53:50 and use biometric scans to activate their property
00:53:52 and get dogs and put tracers on things.
00:53:54 The list is endless.
00:53:56 It's a real cat-and-mouse game between property owners and thieves.
00:54:01 Plus, it can get kind of exhausting.
00:54:04 In the past, you only got about one-tenth of the value
00:54:06 of whatever you stole when you tried to sell it.
00:54:09 If you needed $100 a day to live,
00:54:11 you had to steal $1,000 worth of stuff, old currency, of course.
00:54:15 And that got tiring and risky.
00:54:18 Now, to become the greatest thief in the world,
00:54:21 you had to convince everyone else that stealing is wrong for them,
00:54:26 but that stealing is right for you.
00:54:30 Alice said, "I feel the urge to say that a scam like that
00:54:34 would be far too obvious for everyone,
00:54:36 but when I think about being hit as a child,
00:54:40 that could really fry your brain,
00:54:42 and it would be hard to make sense of anything after that."
00:54:46 Adam said, "Well, childhood trauma creates physical damage to the brain.
00:54:52 Your brain is undamaged, which is why you have such trouble
00:54:56 taking modern morality, universally preferable behavior,
00:55:00 and applying it to the past.
00:55:02 Malnutrition makes people shorter.
00:55:04 You can't blame them for that.
00:55:07 The brain damage of child abuse--
00:55:10 and most things in the past were child abuse--
00:55:12 makes people crazy.
00:55:14 That is the entire purpose of child abuse.
00:55:18 How much can you blame them for that?"
00:55:22 "Hit a robot with a wrench," goes Haywire.
00:55:25 "Can you blame the programmer?"
00:55:27 Adam raised his hands.
00:55:29 "I know, I know, people are not machines, free will, determinism, I understand.
00:55:34 But the reality is that people without self-knowledge kind of are machines.
00:55:42 If someone genuinely believes that a question is immoral to even consider,
00:55:48 if it is forbidden to their entire mental framework,
00:55:52 are they free to entertain that question?
00:55:55 In some existential, abstract way, we all say yes, resoundingly,
00:56:01 but are they in practice free to entertain that question?
00:56:08 If a man grows up a foot shorter because he was malnourished as a child,
00:56:11 is he free to become a professional basketball player?
00:56:15 In the abstract, yes.
00:56:17 In the practical, not really.
00:56:21 Morality uses trauma to destroy empathy,
00:56:27 and without empathy there is no true morality.
00:56:32 Parents hit their children because those parents are too traumatized
00:56:37 by being hit themselves to question the virtue of hitting.
00:56:43 And you can tell, there is always a tell,
00:56:46 when people are traumatized because they have to invent new words.
00:56:52 Hitting becomes spanking.
00:56:55 Violence becomes punishment.
00:56:58 Stealing becomes confiscation.
00:57:02 Indoctrination becomes education.
00:57:06 Yes, said Adam softly, and indoctrinators become teachers.
00:57:15 Alice shuddered, and rulers become protectors.
00:57:22 Yes.
00:57:24 And every time the rulers became too overbearing, too powerful,
00:57:29 and crushed the life out of their societies,
00:57:32 people responded with fight or flight.
00:57:35 They waged war against their rulers in the form of a revolution,
00:57:39 or they fled the region.
00:57:41 Both were very primitive responses, which only reinforced the power of violence.
00:57:47 Everyone understood that fighting fire with fire
00:57:52 only burns the whole world to the ground.
00:57:56 The idea that you fight the power of the rulers
00:57:59 by rejecting violence against your children
00:58:02 was inconceivable to most people.
00:58:06 If you raise your children with benevolent and valuable authority,
00:58:12 with authority as a resource based on virtue and experience,
00:58:16 which can help them navigate life better,
00:58:18 then you sow the seeds of the modern world,
00:58:23 of peaceful and voluntary dispute resolution organizations.
00:58:29 They begin to see the world in terms of voluntary contracts,
00:58:33 not pretend virtuous brute power.
00:58:38 Your father's organization provides value to its customers,
00:58:43 who are free to leave at any time.
00:58:45 That is the source and sustenance of the value he provides.
00:58:51 If you can't leave, nothing can be any good.
00:58:56 "But children can't really leave the family,
00:58:59 not back then, at least before the scans and DROs."
00:59:03 Adam nodded.
00:59:04 "But humans are a raise and release species."
00:59:09 How did people's parenting change when they began to realize
00:59:16 that society would no longer force their adult children
00:59:19 to interact with them?
00:59:22 If you worked for some coercive organization,
00:59:25 some violent monopoly,
00:59:27 but you knew that in a few short years
00:59:30 it would be turned over to the free market,
00:59:32 what effect would that have on your work ethic,
00:59:35 your desire to invest in your human capital,
00:59:38 your desire to add real value to your customers?
00:59:43 "Privatizing the family."
00:59:46 Adam looked up sharply.
00:59:48 "Where did you hear that phrase?"
00:59:49 "I don't know," murmured Alice.
00:59:52 "It just popped into my head.
00:59:55 Although my father once told me that DROs were privatizing the law."
01:00:01 Adam nodded.
01:00:03 "It's an old phrase, an old duality.
01:00:08 Public meant a centralized, coercive monopoly.
01:00:13 Private meant a decentralized, voluntary interaction.
01:00:19 It's like the difference between a stabbing and surgery
01:00:23 or stealing and charity.
01:00:25 It's the difference between violence and virtue,
01:00:28 vile and voluntary.
01:00:31 I didn't know you had a habit for alliteration," smiled Alice.
01:00:35 Adam laughed.
01:00:39 Quality and voluntary are two sides of the same coin.
01:00:47 The past, everyone knew that no one who worked for the rulers
01:00:51 cared about customer service, efficiency,
01:00:53 or any kind of satisfaction other than their own greed and power.
01:00:59 People who worked for the rulers hated the idea of the free market
01:01:04 because, well, who would choose them?
01:01:08 In a society where there were forced marriages,
01:01:11 moving to voluntary dating was a huge negative
01:01:13 to the ugly, the abusive, and the generally unappealing.
01:01:19 The worst among us always worshiped violence and monopoly,
01:01:23 again, two sides of the same coin,
01:01:25 because violence and monopoly always produce the worst among us.
01:01:31 Violent parenting produced two kinds of people,
01:01:36 people cowed and broken into obeying any hypocrite in power
01:01:41 and criminals who would rather rule in hell than serve in heaven, so to speak.
01:01:46 The rulers were happy with both kinds.
01:01:48 The obedient were obviously good livestock,
01:01:51 while the criminals scared the citizens into believing
01:01:53 that the rulers were necessary.
01:01:57 This system served everyone except the future
01:02:03 and escalated into the cataclysms which finally taught humanity
01:02:09 the eternal price of breaking children with lies.
01:02:15 Alice digested this for a moment,
01:02:19 "And this is where UPB comes in."
01:02:23 Adam nodded.
01:02:26 Morality gains its power in the human mind through its universality,
01:02:32 because if we are anything at all, we are conceptual beings.
01:02:38 We are naturally drawn to abstract universalizations
01:02:42 from science to mathematics to morality.
01:02:48 UPB simply accepts the premise of morality,
01:02:52 that morality defines universally preferable behavior,
01:02:56 and applies it consistently.
01:03:00 In the same way, hundreds of years ago,
01:03:02 Sir Isaac Newton simply accepted gravity as a constant
01:03:05 and thus understood the universe.
01:03:09 Albert Einstein simply accepted the speed of light as a constant
01:03:12 and so understood both the universe and time.
01:03:17 The abolitionists ended slavery by universalizing
01:03:21 the principle of self-ownership.
01:03:24 You could not own yourself and be owned by someone else at the same time.
01:03:30 Adam rapidly clicked his teeth with his fingernails,
01:03:33 creating a tap-dancing sound.
01:03:38 In the old days, there used to be something called an asterisk,
01:03:42 which told readers to look at the bottom of the page
01:03:45 for additional information, often an exception to a general statement.
01:03:50 UPB simply takes the simple rules of the non-aggression principle
01:03:55 and the respect for property rights, removes the asterisk, the exceptions,
01:04:01 and simply universalizes them.
01:04:05 Alice laughed out loud.
01:04:07 "Oh, come on, Adam, it can't be that simple."
01:04:12 Adam rubbed his face violently with his hands.
01:04:15 "You may not believe me, but it is.
01:04:18 Don't steal, don't hit, things a two-year-old was told,
01:04:21 and punished for disobeying.
01:04:23 These rules, which everyone claimed were universal,
01:04:27 were simply accepted as universal."
01:04:31 Then the most radical transformation of society in the history of the world
01:04:35 occurred almost literally overnight.
01:04:39 We replaced violence against children with peaceful parenting.
01:04:42 We replaced rulers with DROs.
01:04:46 We replaced coercive laws with voluntary contracts,
01:04:49 and we broke the entire wheel of history,
01:04:53 the cycle of violence that has consumed every shred of human success for the past...
01:04:59 forever.
01:05:01 Adam's voice dropped to a near whisper.
01:05:06 And the amount of human suffering it took to truly universalize morality
01:05:12 was so great that we will never, ever give up this advance.
01:05:23 Alice digested this.
01:05:26 "We never got back to the addicted babies."
01:05:30 Adam nodded.
01:05:33 "We will, in particular because you met two of them on the mountain that night with your friend,
01:05:39 and because you will be partly responsible for breaking their addictions."
01:05:46 Alice took a deep breath.
01:05:49 "So, addicted babies?"
01:05:53 Adam whistled tetunelessly and took another sip of tea.
01:05:58 Nature has endowed all creatures with a thirst for power, for control,
01:06:04 and in the great apes, of which we are the greatest,
01:06:07 for dominance over other apes, other members of the tribe.
01:06:13 For an ape, dominance means the greatest access to food and shelter,
01:06:17 and the greatest access to the highest quality females.
01:06:21 I'm sure you are aware that there is a brain component called serotonin,
01:06:25 which is a reward chemical.
01:06:28 When apes climb higher on the social hierarchy, they are rewarded with serotonin.
01:06:33 Conversely, when they tumble down, serotonin is withdrawn,
01:06:37 and they get anxious and depressed.
01:06:39 Punishments and rewards.
01:06:41 "Moment, Alice."
01:06:42 "Excuse me?"
01:06:43 Alice cleared her throat.
01:06:46 "Well, you told me that parents in the old world would punish and reward their children
01:06:50 for compliance to the parents' wishes."
01:06:52 "Delusions."
01:06:54 "And here you have nature as a parent offering sticks and carrots
01:06:58 to whip the apes up the social ladder to achieve dominance."
01:07:02 "Right, but nature is not a parent,
01:07:07 because nature does not use moral justifications for inflicting punishment.
01:07:12 Nature hits us with a straight-up drug deal."
01:07:16 "Morty."
01:07:17 Alice shook her head.
01:07:20 Animals need dominance over two things, nature itself and their fellow animals.
01:07:28 They need to dominate nature to gain resources, food, shelter, water,
01:07:33 and they need to dominate their fellow animals to gain access to the highest quality females.
01:07:39 Without reproduction, there's no point to the life of animals and no future for their genetics.
01:07:43 So the dominance over nature is merely a means to an end for the dominance over their fellow animals.
01:07:50 Even frogs fight each other for access to females,
01:07:53 and many birds show their dominance over nature by creating elaborate nesting rituals to attract females.
01:07:59 It doesn't matter if you can eat, if you can't reproduce.
01:08:05 Adam sipped more tea, and Alice couldn't help but wonder where he put it all.
01:08:11 It's impossible to take the desire to climb the social hierarchy from apes.
01:08:17 The reinforcement mechanism of serotonin is so strong that it dominates even the desire for food and water.
01:08:24 When you train them to use currency, the first thing the male apes buy is sexual access to the females.
01:08:31 This desire for dominance over other apes is so strong that we consider it a foundational driver of all biology.
01:08:40 However, this dominance has its limits.
01:08:44 Think of a male ape called Bob.
01:08:47 Bob could theoretically impregnate all the female apes by threatening all of the male apes in the vicinity,
01:08:52 but he generally doesn't do that.
01:08:56 Do you know why?
01:08:58 Alice paused, wrinkling her nose with the usual teen disgust about talk of reproduction.
01:09:04 "He is outnumbered," Adam nodded. "Bob has to sleep. Sometime."
01:09:10 If he tries to shut out all the other males from reproducing, it provokes great rage in them,
01:09:15 or rather, great rage is provoked by their genetics, which view a dead end as the worst thing of all.
01:09:21 So they band together and kill Bob.
01:09:24 Also, as he ages, Bob loses his strength and capacity to dominate.
01:09:30 If he has angered the other males too greatly, they will also kill him or drive him out,
01:09:34 and therefore he doesn't have the capacity to care for his grandchildren, so to speak.
01:09:38 No. Our good, hairy friend Bob is limited in his capacity to dominate the other males,
01:09:45 because it is ape-on-ape aggression without any third-party technology or weaponry.
01:09:51 To take an extreme hypothetical, imagine that our friend Bob gets a hold of a solar-powered laser gun
01:09:58 and can fry any other ape who displeases him, and that he will train his sons to do the same.
01:10:04 Alice blinked. Then there is no limit to what he can do.
01:10:07 He can eliminate all the other males and impregnate all the females.
01:10:11 And this has been tried by countless animals over the course of evolution,
01:10:15 but it really doesn't work out very well. Do you know why?
01:10:19 Alice pondered for a long moment, then snapped her fingers.
01:10:22 Inbreeding.
01:10:24 Bob nodded in satisfaction. Quite right.
01:10:27 Too many ape babies are born with birth defects, which makes the females depressed and anxious about mating,
01:10:33 and also drains resources, because they will still feed their unviable offspring,
01:10:37 which cannot grow to protect the tribe and hunt or reproduce, for that matter.
01:10:42 Therefore, any other tribe with more genetic diversity can take them over
01:10:46 or drive them away from the good food sources.
01:10:49 Prominent apes with too much power over reproduction destroy their societies.
01:10:54 Power, in other words, corrupts.
01:10:59 Alice scowled.
01:11:01 I really appreciate the lesson, but I'm not sure if you're aware of how smug you sound when you do that.
01:11:06 The knowledge has come full circle, Zen routine.
01:11:09 Adam grinned.
01:11:10 When the mentor is good enough, the student can survive a little smugness.
01:11:15 Even when defending your smugness, you are smug.
01:11:18 My dad does the same thing. We call it smugging.
01:11:22 The old man laughed.
01:11:24 It is my way of making light of some truly terrible aspects of human history.
01:11:30 The most terrible, many think, myself included.
01:11:35 His face grew serious.
01:11:38 An excess of power destroys the tribe.
01:11:42 A deficiency of power stagnates the tribe.
01:11:47 A central question about apes is, why did they never develop as much intelligence as humans?
01:11:55 The answer, of course, is that greater intelligence is not rewarded among the apes.
01:12:00 Another way of putting it is, the female apes prefer violence and size over intelligence and wisdom,
01:12:07 which means that the apes remain violent and stay dumb.
01:12:12 Alice frowned.
01:12:14 Is that because greater intelligence doesn't provide any specific evolutionary value?
01:12:20 Adam shook his head.
01:12:22 That's far too general a statement to be of value.
01:12:24 Why doesn't intelligence provide evolutionary value for the apes?
01:12:29 Because, um, because growing the brain means, well,
01:12:36 there are only a certain number of calories available,
01:12:40 and if the brain becomes bigger, the body usually becomes smaller.
01:12:44 Adam smiled.
01:12:45 Thus, we have the stereotype of the nerdy geek who is bad at sports.
01:12:49 His body has poured its energy into growing his brain,
01:12:53 at the expense of his size and muscles and coordination.
01:12:57 Conversely, the stereotype of the giant dumb jock also has its basis in reality,
01:13:02 for the opposite reason but the same principle.
01:13:05 Alice said, "So, the ape who develops a larger brain, or at least a smarter brain,
01:13:12 I know the correlation isn't perfect, is smaller and weaker in his body,
01:13:17 which means that he is rejected by the females."
01:13:20 Adam nodded, "Right.
01:13:22 The females are looking for markers of the ability to provide resources,
01:13:26 and being smarter might make a male better at getting resources,
01:13:30 but that remains only theoretical.
01:13:32 Physical size and strength are valuable now.
01:13:36 To turn to humans, in colder climates,
01:13:40 intelligence is essential to gather, store,
01:13:44 and slowly measure out food during the hungry winter months.
01:13:48 So, strong but dumb men are rejected by females,
01:13:51 because it's a higher likelihood that everyone will starve to death over the winter,
01:13:55 with those men as heads of the family."
01:13:58 Alice said, "But that's only in a time of peace."
01:14:04 Adam's eyes sharpened. "Go on."
01:14:07 "Well, women want men big, dumb, and violent during times of war," writes,
01:14:14 "which tends to perpetuate war.
01:14:17 All personality traits are subject to genetics.
01:14:21 Violent societies tend to stay violent,
01:14:24 because the genes for violence help with survival.
01:14:28 Starting one war changes the genetics forever."
01:14:33 "War never ends," murmured Alice.
01:14:36 "All wars are gene wars," said Adam grimly.
01:14:41 "The genes for violence wage war against the genes for intelligence."
01:14:47 He put down his cup.
01:14:50 When women choose smarter men, society becomes more intelligent.
01:14:56 There is no shortcut, no other way to do it,
01:14:58 because men will do anything to gain the approval of women.
01:15:01 The alternative is genetic death.
01:15:05 Now, when you have a coercive social structure,
01:15:10 a collective moral delusion, really, called the state,
01:15:15 that's the equivalent of giving Bob the Ape a laser gun.
01:15:20 Many animals don't know when things are too much.
01:15:24 Some birds prefer larger eggs.
01:15:26 But if you give them an egg larger than their whole body,
01:15:29 an ostrich egg, say, they will sit on that,
01:15:31 because their brains don't have a cutoff for too much.
01:15:36 Human beings are the same with power,
01:15:39 particularly power over other human beings.
01:15:42 You can think of all the major empires throughout human history,
01:15:46 dozens and dozens of them, and they all crashed
01:15:49 because the rulers kept wanting more and more power.
01:15:54 Human beings don't have a cutoff for too much power,
01:15:58 or at least human beings who do have that cutoff
01:16:01 don't seek or keep power as rulers.
01:16:06 The natural limit to human dominance
01:16:10 is blowback from the subjugated,
01:16:12 just as the excluded male apes will kill the dominant male.
01:16:17 Trying to dominate other humans creates a certain risk of blowback.
01:16:22 However, with the apparatus of the state,
01:16:25 a ruler faces no immediate or individual limit
01:16:28 to his thirst for dominance.
01:16:30 A Roman ruler can conquer the known world.
01:16:33 A British monarch can rule over a third of the entire planet.
01:16:36 Of course, you could never do this individually,
01:16:40 but if you pay your enforcers a portion of the money
01:16:44 they extract from others through violence,
01:16:46 then you can dominate as much as your heart desires.
01:16:50 And when it comes to dominance,
01:16:53 the human heart has infinite desires.
01:16:57 This is even a founding principle of economics,
01:16:59 that human desires are infinite, but resources are always finite.
01:17:04 How much power do rulers want when there is no blowback?
01:17:10 Infinite. No limits.
01:17:12 Or at least the limits accrue intergenerationally.
01:17:17 This is the classic pattern of the addict.
01:17:21 We all want power over nature, over each other,
01:17:25 and here in the modern world we have turned that power lust
01:17:29 into technological control over the natural world
01:17:33 and sports and debates and other forms of dominance combat
01:17:36 that don't result in death,
01:17:38 either of individuals or of our entire society.
01:17:44 Towards the end, before the cataclysms,
01:17:49 especially in the democracies,
01:17:51 this addiction reached its inevitable peak.
01:17:56 The mental constructs designed to limit the growth
01:18:00 of sociopathic control by the rulers
01:18:02 -- various laws and bills and constitutions --
01:18:05 proved as useful as the promise of an addict
01:18:08 who always says, "Only one more! Only one more!"
01:18:13 Adam's face was as hard as stone.
01:18:18 Power grows in part out of hatred.
01:18:23 Hatred is necessary because you never want to rule over someone you truly love
01:18:27 because that would destroy the free will that you love them for.
01:18:31 When you gain power, you gain sycophants, adherents, and enforcers.
01:18:37 When people sense a growing power in society,
01:18:40 their first instinct is to submit
01:18:42 because the purpose of power is to destroy those who don't submit.
01:18:47 You have to hate those you rule over.
01:18:50 You have to view them as subhuman and yourself as superhuman
01:18:54 so that you can destroy them without disturbing your conscience.
01:18:57 It's an instinct.
01:18:59 You mentally divide human beings into the good -- those who support your rule --
01:19:03 and the evil -- those who oppose your rule.
01:19:06 You subvert the remnants of the law.
01:19:09 You create arbitrary punishments, which fill your subjects with existential dread.
01:19:14 And then you harvest all that anxiety and dread and blame the disobedient.
01:19:19 Then, of course, because human beings seek power and hate helplessness,
01:19:23 the helplessness and powerlessness generated by the rulers
01:19:26 is then aimed at the disobedient,
01:19:29 and the frightened attack the noncompliant.
01:19:32 And no one and nothing is then left to resist the expansion of the power of the rulers
01:19:37 except the inevitable collapse, the destruction of society, the cataclysms.
01:19:43 Adam's eyes were hooded, and he almost panted with the exertion of his speech.
01:19:49 And he whispered so softly that Alice had to lean forward to hear him.
01:19:54 When the rulers have power over all the words poured into the ears of the children,
01:20:00 they create a fairy tale, a horror story,
01:20:04 wherein all the disasters created by the rulers are blamed on the disobedient,
01:20:10 and that all manner of disasters await the society if even a tiny minority disobeys.
01:20:18 This programs the children to gain serotonin not from dominance but obedience,
01:20:25 and programs them to be hit with the twin horrors of anxiety and depression
01:20:30 not from subjugation but from disobedience.
01:20:35 And when human beings are programmed this way,
01:20:39 they become addicted to slavery, literally addicted,
01:20:43 and will fight to the death to remain enslaved.
01:20:48 Freedom, liberty, conscience, these all become predators to be kept at bay with all their might.
01:20:56 People mistake totalitarianism as a top-down system.
01:21:04 Oh no, it is not the rulers attacking the citizens.
01:21:09 It is the rulers programming the citizens to attack each other if they disobey the rulers.
01:21:17 Enslavement is not top-down. Enslavement is horizontal.
01:21:22 Horizontal slavery is the only slavery that can ever exist
01:21:25 because the slaves so vastly outnumber the rulers.
01:21:28 Social slavery exists when slaves experience terror only when another slave resists enslavement.
01:21:41 When the rulers use the state to program their slaves to attack any freedom lovers,
01:21:49 there is no escape from slavery except total collapse,
01:21:55 which for most slaves results in death.
01:22:00 And this was the cycle of human history.
01:22:05 Inevitable, inexorable, inescapable.
01:22:11 Human beings cannot handle power any more than a drug addict can handle the drug.
01:22:19 We are programmed to be infinitely addicted to more and more power.
01:22:25 It is never enough. It never satisfies. It always expands until it collapses.
01:22:33 The history of our species is the history of the mad delusion
01:22:39 that an infinite addiction can be restrained with pieces of paper and mere concepts.
01:22:46 It is the history of people who turn the education of their children over to their rulers
01:22:51 and then wonder why their freedoms continually disappear.
01:22:59 It is the history of a species, of our species,
01:23:05 who continually repeat the mantra that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely
01:23:11 and yet keep handing more and more power to their rulers
01:23:16 and wonder why they wander from disaster to catastrophe to horror to cataclysms.
01:23:28 Alice's eyes were filled with tears.
01:23:32 But are they to be blamed?
01:23:36 They were addicts trained from birth to... to... I don't even know how to put it.
01:23:42 You put it well, of course.
01:23:44 Can babies born to addiction be blamed for being addicts?
01:23:49 Adam pursed his lips.
01:23:51 That is a very interesting question.
01:23:54 It is not at all theoretical.
01:23:58 What do you mean?
01:24:00 Asked Alice, confused.
01:24:02 Are you talking about the few remaining rulers?
01:24:06 Adam shook his head.
01:24:07 Oh no.
01:24:09 I'm talking about the rulers to come.
01:24:13 Alice's face went pale.
01:24:16 You said... you almost promised that we had broken the cycle of history,
01:24:22 that the cataclysms will never come again.
01:24:24 Adam said,
01:24:26 I did make that promise
01:24:29 and I will keep that promise,
01:24:32 or rather society will.
01:24:35 But the rulers are coming back
01:24:39 because we are going to bring them back to life.