• 6 months ago
Wednesday Night Live 29 May 2024

In this episode, we delve into the nuanced distinction between healthy fear and anxiety, particularly in the context of betrayal by supposed allies. We explore how childhood experiences can shape our responses to such emotions, emphasizing the importance of self-reflection and values alignment. Additionally, we critique the role of the state as a breeding ground for incompetence and exploitation rather than productivity, advocating for a reevaluation of societal structures. Personal anecdotes and reflections on caregiving, entrepreneurship, and philosophical musings are shared, underscoring the value of cherishing moments with loved ones and navigating life's adversities with resilience.

Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!

NOW AVAILABLE FOR SUBSCRIBERS: MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING' - AND THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI AND AUDIOBOOK!

Also get the Truth About the French Revolution, the interactive multi-lingual philosophy AI trained on thousands of hours of my material, private livestreams, premium call in shows, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!

See you soon!

https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022
Transcript
00:00:00 Yes, good evening, good evening, welcome to your 29th of May, 2024.
00:00:05 It is, in fact, it is, in fact, Wednesday Night Live.
00:00:12 Now I would say normally I bring some fairly good energy to this show.
00:00:18 It may not, in fact, be the case tonight.
00:00:20 I had a little bit of an afternoon nap.
00:00:22 Now afternoon naps can be a great friend or a horrifying enemy.
00:00:28 Sometimes you erupt like a humpback breaching the ocean full of verve, energy, piss, vinegar,
00:00:34 and krill.
00:00:37 But I'm afraid that did not happen over the course of this afternoon's nap.
00:00:41 Yes, I'm afraid this afternoon's nap was like a ghost vampire that remains attached by jugular,
00:00:51 slowly draining my bone-arrow chest hair and manly musculine juice away, away.
00:00:58 Although it could also have been that I tried something called a lavender latte.
00:01:03 You know, every now and then I like to go to a coffee shop and order loudly to the point
00:01:06 where everybody knows exactly how comfortable I am with my heteronormative male sexuality.
00:01:12 And so I say, "Oh, I say I'll have a lavender latte, please."
00:01:16 Like a Esterian, if Esterian was gay.
00:01:19 Well, there it is.
00:01:24 There it is.
00:01:25 But I'm sure that philosophy will re-energize me.
00:01:29 You love, I'd never tried lavender lattes before, but they're actually quite nice.
00:01:34 They're actually quite nice.
00:01:36 All right.
00:01:38 So let's get straight to your questions.
00:01:39 Welcome, welcome, everyone.
00:01:41 Thank you for the tip.
00:01:42 Tips are welcome.
00:01:43 And remember, new service, new service available.
00:01:48 We've had actually a whole bunch of people sign up already.
00:01:51 New service available at freedomain.com/call.
00:01:53 You can request, I guess it would be a fairly low rank in the totem pole of the military.
00:02:00 You can request a private call, which means if you have something you want to talk about
00:02:03 philosophically, could be business, could be personal, could be anything that's on your
00:02:07 mind and you want to keep it private, you don't want it broadcast out to the world as
00:02:11 these call-in shows are want to be.
00:02:14 You can now go to freedomain.com/call and you can click on private and we'll talk about
00:02:22 it from there.
00:02:23 And you can request a private call.
00:02:25 It's paid, obviously, but you can request a private call and thank you to everyone who
00:02:30 signed up for that.
00:02:31 So far, it's going to be very, very interesting.
00:02:34 All right.
00:02:36 Oh, other news.
00:02:37 Yeah.
00:02:38 A real-time relationships AI has now all been set up and trained and it's very good.
00:02:44 You can see the video at freedomain.locals.com.
00:02:50 So just remember all of that juicy stuff and I guess you only have two days, including
00:02:59 today.
00:03:00 Well, today, tomorrow and the day after.
00:03:01 Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.
00:03:03 You really, really, really, really want to go to freedomain.com/donate and support the
00:03:10 show and in return, I will send you the Peaceful Parenting AI, the Peaceful Parenting audiobook,
00:03:15 the Peaceful Parenting e-books and you can share them with whoever you see fit.
00:03:20 And remember, the Peaceful Parenting AI is really, really amazing.
00:03:24 It's got 70 plus languages that it can work in.
00:03:27 So it really is just incredible.
00:03:29 So all right.
00:03:32 Let's get to, as opposed to the general call, a much higher act.
00:03:37 All right.
00:03:39 So let us get to your question.
00:03:41 Heidi Steff, what is a good way to distinguish between healthy/genuine fear and aversion
00:03:46 versus displaced anxiety?
00:03:48 Now I'm not sure what your categorizations are there.
00:03:51 Are you saying what is a good way to distinguish between healthy/genuine fear and aversion
00:03:57 versus displaced anxiety?
00:03:59 I think that's what you mean.
00:04:05 So how do you know?
00:04:08 I think the question is, and correct me if I'm wrong, my friend, is the question something
00:04:15 like how do you know if your fears are genuine?
00:04:21 Is that right?
00:04:22 Just hit me with a why.
00:04:24 How do you know if your fears are genuine?
00:04:32 If you're listening, I assume you're listening.
00:04:35 So it's your question, how do you know if your fears are genuine?
00:04:39 So it's a great question.
00:04:41 And I will tell you an answer that will blow your mind, if that is your question.
00:04:50 Does that include Boomer/Normie from Self-Aware AI Translation?
00:04:53 No.
00:04:54 Probably a good way to put it.
00:04:55 All right.
00:04:56 All right.
00:04:57 All right.
00:04:58 One to ten, my friends.
00:04:59 I am the programmable blunterholic AI.
00:05:00 How blunt, how direct, how ferocious, how based should I be in my answer?
00:05:01 You can dial it down or you can dial it up.
00:05:02 One to ten is, well, one is the lavender latte and ten is fireball whiskey, and ten
00:05:03 is the chocolate milk.
00:05:04 So I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:05:05 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:05:06 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:05:07 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:05:08 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:05:09 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:05:10 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:05:11 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:05:12 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:05:35 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:06:01 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:06:30 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:06:31 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:06:32 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:06:33 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:06:34 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:06:35 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:06:36 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:06:37 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:06:38 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:06:39 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:06:40 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:06:41 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:06:42 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:06:43 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:06:44 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:06:45 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:06:46 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:06:47 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:06:48 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:07:09 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:07:30 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:07:59 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:00 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:01 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:02 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:03 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:04 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:05 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:06 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:07 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:08 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:09 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:10 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:11 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:12 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:13 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:14 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:15 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:16 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:17 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:41 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:48 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:49 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:50 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:51 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:52 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:53 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:54 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:55 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:56 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:57 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:58 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:08:59 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:00 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:01 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:02 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:03 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:04 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:05 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:12 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:21 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:22 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:23 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:24 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:25 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:26 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:27 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:28 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:29 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:30 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:31 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:32 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:33 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:34 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:35 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:36 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:37 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:38 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:39 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:40 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:41 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:42 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:43 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:44 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:45 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:46 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:47 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:48 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:49 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:50 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:51 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:09:52 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:10:13 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:10:34 I'm going to go with the lavender latte.
00:10:58 One of the reasons we have enemies is because we think we have loyalty.
00:11:05 Right?
00:11:06 I mean, if you're going to...
00:11:10 Let's take an example, right?
00:11:13 So, if you go to some sort of rough high school, right?
00:11:16 You go to some rough high school and there are fights after school, and a bunch of kids
00:11:22 start picking on you and your friends and they say, "You meet parking lot after school,
00:11:28 buddy boy."
00:11:29 Now, if you know your friends aren't going to show up, you don't go.
00:11:36 You don't go because there's four of them and one of you, so you're not going to win.
00:11:40 But if you have three friends and they say, "Hey, man, we're going to be there.
00:11:44 You show up, we're going to be there.
00:11:46 We're going to take these guys down, show them who's the boss.
00:11:49 Win, win, win."
00:11:50 Then you go and you're excited.
00:11:55 And your friends don't show and you're just handed to you on a silver freaking platter,
00:12:00 right?
00:12:01 So, you're only there because you anticipate loyalty and support.
00:12:07 And so, the perception of loyalty, the belief in loyalty...
00:12:17 I mean, it's a bit of a sore spot even now.
00:12:20 But the belief in loyalty is what allows you to take on danger, to take on threats.
00:12:28 The belief in loyalty.
00:12:35 And so, a perception of loyalty that fails to materialize is the real predator.
00:12:40 That's your real enemy.
00:12:41 It's the belief in a loyalty that fails to materialize because that's what gets you on a 1v4 fight situation.
00:12:51 If you know your friends aren't loyal, they're going to chicken out and bugger off, then you don't go to the fight.
00:12:55 But if you think your friends are going to have your back, and it can be even worse than that, right?
00:13:00 So, there's three layers of betrayal.
00:13:02 One is they don't even show up.
00:13:04 Two, they show up, they start the fight and then they run.
00:13:06 Or three, they show up, the fight starts, and now it's 1v7 because they've joined the other guys.
00:13:11 Right? 1v7, right?
00:13:13 You and four of them and three of your friends.
00:13:19 So, we have anxiety because one of the best ways to destroy someone is to pretend to support them,
00:13:25 which has them have the confidence to go in a situation of danger and then betray them...
00:13:34 so that they're destroyed.
00:13:40 That is one of the most certain ways to destroy someone.
00:13:48 If you know you're not supported, then you manage your risks equivalently.
00:13:55 So, what anxiety is telling you is you have a foundational miscalculation in your perception of danger.
00:14:07 That's what anxiety tells you.
00:14:09 You have a foundational miscalculation in your perception of danger.
00:14:18 And if you have that foundational miscalculation in your perception of danger,
00:14:30 then you are not only going to lose, but you're going to be miserable for a long time afterwards.
00:14:36 Because the pain of an enemy is expected, the betrayal of allies is not.
00:14:42 Now, if for whatever reason, and I've done this, right? So, there's not any kind of condemnation.
00:14:49 Well, let's make it about me, not about you, since I have more knowledge of me than you.
00:14:54 So, if you believe that you have allies when you are surrounded by people who will betray you
00:15:01 for a hand job and a six-pack, then you are a naive fool headed for disaster.
00:15:14 And you will end up isolated.
00:15:19 Because your enemies won't accept you, and if your friends betray you,
00:15:23 you're angry at them and your enemies laugh at you.
00:15:26 Because your real enemies are those who betray you, not those who oppose you.
00:15:30 Because those who oppose you don't put you in danger nearly as much as those who pretend to support you,
00:15:36 so you wade out into the heat of combat, and then they turn tail or turn coat,
00:15:42 and then you're really fucked.
00:15:46 So, false friends are the greatest enemies.
00:15:52 False friends are the greatest enemies.
00:16:09 Which is why, you know, the guy says, "If I'm betrayed, I save my last bullet for the guy who betrays me."
00:16:17 This is an analogy, of course, it's not a real thing, but if I'm betrayed,
00:16:22 I save my last bullet for the guy who betrayed me, not the enemy.
00:16:32 Sir Humphrey explained that if you wish to rubbish someone, first you must praise them.
00:16:36 After all, it is first necessary to get behind someone before you can stick the knife in their back.
00:16:40 My friends left me when I was bedridden in depression, yeah?
00:16:45 Not even a word, bunch of cowards, right?
00:16:50 Now, I understand, I really do understand, that you feel angry at your friends,
00:17:01 but you shouldn't.
00:17:04 If you're betrayed, as an adult, who should you be angry at, if you're betrayed?
00:17:14 If you're betrayed, as an adult, should you be angry at your friends for betraying you?
00:17:19 Nope.
00:17:24 Who should you be angry at, if you are betrayed as an adult?
00:17:31 Yourself? Nope.
00:17:38 Nope, not yourself, because that's just betraying yourself.
00:17:44 I hold myself at fault for not properly vetting them, I know, I get that, it's not you.
00:17:56 Yeah, parents, that's right. Parents, teachers, preachers, all of those who, when you were growing up as a child,
00:18:02 had as their sworn duty and mission to protect you from malfeasance and malefactors in the world.
00:18:12 Those whose job it is to deliver you, with some moral muscle, into the hurly-burly of life,
00:18:22 who bound and gagged you and served you up to the wolves,
00:18:28 those are the people who betrayed you.
00:18:32 Because they didn't teach you how to tell a friend from a betrayer,
00:18:37 and therefore your parents betrayed you by not preparing you for the world,
00:18:41 by exploiting and betraying you,
00:18:48 and turning you loose in a world, after having exploited you savagely,
00:18:53 by turning you loose in a world blind to exploiters because you had to bond with traitorous parents.
00:19:10 Then, of course, I mean, you don't have a choice with your parents.
00:19:15 You have to get along and get by and survive with your parents, right? I understand that.
00:19:26 You don't have a choice about that.
00:19:28 And if your parents are traitors to your future protection by exploiting you as a child,
00:19:37 then they are the ones to blame.
00:19:40 Somebody said, "I missed the beginning, but this shit is spot on." Well, good. I'm glad.
00:19:45 It's an ugly, ugly, ugly lesson to learn.
00:19:50 It's an old Dr. Phil thing. He said, I don't know, he probably didn't say it himself,
00:19:54 but the way he put it was, "Real friends are the ones coming in the door when everyone else is going out."
00:20:02 I mean, everyone says that kind of stuff, but I mean, Dr. Phil has betrayed his entire profession by not talking about IQ.
00:20:13 Because of you, Steph, I'm an advocate for therapy. Thanks so much. I tell my close friends about you.
00:20:17 Well, I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you.
00:20:23 Anxiety is not for the predators you can see, right?
00:20:32 Anxiety is for the predators you can't see.
00:20:37 Anxiety is the unease you have when you have danger in the vicinity that is invisible to you.
00:20:47 Anxiety is not for a charging lion, but for a poison gas.
00:21:00 Anxiety is not for the drawn blade from the man across you in the square.
00:21:05 Anxiety is the poison arrow from the guy who's behind you.
00:21:13 Caution, fight or flight, fear or anger is for the person directly in front of you.
00:21:18 The person drawing a silent blade behind you is what anxiety is for.
00:21:22 Turn around, turn around, turn around, turn the fuck around.
00:21:26 Someone has got your back in their sight. Right?
00:21:34 Someone has got your back in their sights.
00:21:39 That's the anxiety.
00:21:44 That's the anxiety.
00:21:47 So I hope that helps.
00:21:50 All right.
00:21:53 I am preparing my wife and I to move from the US for good, or at least trial it to see if we like it,
00:21:59 because I don't think I will be able to give my future kids as good a life, as lives, quality time, safety, stability, freedom,
00:22:06 if we were to stick it out in the US. On paper, certain parts of Asia jump off the page as a great option.
00:22:12 Did you ever consider moving from Canada before having your daughter?
00:22:15 Would you consider it now as a soon to be parent?
00:22:19 Would you consider it now as a soon to be parent?
00:22:23 I'm not quite sure I understand that last sentence. In fact, I'm quite sure that I don't.
00:22:31 Now, why would you care?
00:22:33 I mean, our lives are very different. Our choices are very different. Our environments are very different.
00:22:38 Our paths in life, our stage of life are very different.
00:22:41 So I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm certainly happy to hear it, but I'm not sure what my decisions would be in terms of relevance to your decisions.
00:22:52 So, I'm not sure why you would ask me.
00:23:03 Oh, he means he will be a parent. Would you consider it now as a soon to be parent?
00:23:08 Oh, so you're the parent. Okay. So would you consider it now as a soon to be parent?
00:23:15 So, I mean, just for me, the later on in life you get, the tougher and tougher it is to move countries.
00:23:23 I mean, it's not in particularly important why, but the older you get, the tougher it is to move countries.
00:23:32 So if you're a younger person and it's not as difficult to move countries, it certainly does seem to be a wise thing to do.
00:23:42 If you are concerned about the future direction of the country that you're in, exploring your options seems like a reasonable thing to do.
00:23:51 And giving it a shot is a useful thing to do.
00:24:00 So painfully invaluable as always. Steph, I was going to donate tomorrow anyway, but I'll try to give a bit more because that was something so important to hear.
00:24:07 Well, thank you, and I'm very, very glad it was helpful, and I do appreciate, as always, the wonderful quality of everyone's questions. Thank you.
00:24:17 Is it harder because it's harder to teach an old dog new tricks? No. I won't get into it all, but legally, accountingly, it's just a nightmare.
00:24:30 Oh yeah, don't forget to, I did an interview, the first one in many years, with Conor Tomlinson, lotuseaters.com.
00:24:40 I did an interview, we covered peaceful parenting, we covered UPB, we covered philosophy as a whole, and all of that.
00:24:47 And it's a really good interview, and I was very happy to be on his show, and he did a very gracious and great interview.
00:24:55 [silence]
00:25:05 All rights.
00:25:07 [silence]
00:25:14 Let's see, what questions, comments, issues, challenges we have. Feed me, people. Feed me.
00:25:22 He says, "I'm on chapter 22, Sis John, I'm on chapter 22 of peaceful parenting, and boy oh boy, I'm so upset with my family of origin, it ignites a fire under my feet."
00:25:32 Yeah, I just did a show this morning. I did a solo show this morning, responding to the question that was posted at freedomain.locals.com,
00:25:41 which was, "Steph, why oh why am I so hesitant to talk about peaceful parenting with my family?"
00:25:54 [silence]
00:26:00 All right. It was a great interview, yes it was.
00:26:03 "How to deal with illogical, aggressive grandparents."
00:26:06 Why would grandparents be a category that matters?
00:26:09 [silence]
00:26:16 No, gosh, guys, it's not psychological. It's not a psychological barrier to changing countries, it's not,
00:26:22 "Well, I'm just invested in my location." Come on. Come on.
00:26:26 [silence]
00:26:33 All right.
00:26:35 "They put words in my mouth and complain about the smallest things."
00:26:40 [silence]
00:26:48 So, one of, sorry, this is somebody posted a graph,
00:26:59 "The brain's ability to change in response to experiences the amount of effort such change requires."
00:27:05 And there's this graph that goes up to age 70 that is like, "Oh man, when you get older, it's really tough to change in response to experience."
00:27:14 No, that's determinism and that's pure nonsense, and I find that graph repulsive.
00:27:20 I find that graph repulsive.
00:27:23 And it answers, it certainly answers nothing to do with me, just so you know.
00:27:27 Like, you may find that it answers something to do with you, but it answers absolutely nothing to do with me at all, just in case you're wondering.
00:27:35 [silence]
00:27:45 All right, so, sorry, let me get back to your question.
00:27:47 "They put words in my mouth."
00:27:48 Okay, so, here's the thing.
00:27:56 There is only one foundational question of self-respect, or statement of self-respect.
00:28:11 To not be a slave to others. And if you say, "Well, you know, I have these really difficult people in my life.
00:28:19 They put words in my mouth, they manipulate me, they bully me."
00:28:25 There's only one question of foundational self-respect.
00:28:29 Who's going to guess for me what is the foundational question of self-respect?
00:28:41 What is the most foundational question of self-respect?
00:28:54 Come on, you a smart crew? You a smart crew?
00:29:03 What you got?
00:29:05 Foundational question of self-respect.
00:29:13 Am I compromising my values for this person? Eh.
00:29:17 Am I adhering now?
00:29:19 No, that would be maybe a moral question, but self-respect doesn't necessarily have to do primarily with morality.
00:29:27 Do I deserve better? Eh, I don't know what deserve means. You deserve what you get.
00:29:36 What are your standards? No.
00:29:40 [chuckles]
00:29:42 No.
00:29:45 Self-respect. Didn't say virtue. Didn't say virtue.
00:29:53 All right. Oh, wait. Universal morality. Eh.
00:30:02 All right, I'll tell you. So, the most foundational question of self-respect is,
00:30:08 "How does this serve me?"
00:30:12 See, slaves are never allowed to ask that question. "How does this serve me? How does this benefit me?"
00:30:19 You say, "Oh, no, but that's selfish."
00:30:24 Selfish is just a word that assholes use to lower your defenses against their exploitations.
00:30:33 It's just a word.
00:30:36 So, how does this benefit me?
00:30:43 So, if there's some perception that you need to go and see your grandparents and their nasty, manipulative bullies or whatever, right?
00:30:51 It's okay. How does this benefit me? I mean, I get how it benefits them. They want to see me.
00:30:55 How does this benefit me? How does this benefit me?
00:31:00 That is the question of a non-slave. See, the slave can't ever say, "How does this benefit me?"
00:31:06 because he just has to do what he's told or he'll get beaten up or mutilated or crippled or hobbled or killed.
00:31:16 How does this benefit me? Right?
00:31:20 I mean, this is my sort of foundational question with my family of origin, right?
00:31:24 They wanted to see me, wanted me to come over, wanted to do this, wanted to do that,
00:31:27 but they wouldn't listen to me, they wouldn't respect me, they wouldn't be curious about me,
00:31:31 they'd yell at me any time that I said things that were uncomfortable.
00:31:35 So, eventually, I'm like, "Okay, so, they want me to come over. How is this good for me?
00:31:40 How does this benefit me? How does this benefit me?"
00:31:47 That's a really powerful question to ask, isn't it?
00:31:50 Because we don't get to ask that as kids, for the most part. We don't get to ask this in school.
00:31:55 "You have to learn the triangle inequality relation and the opposite angle theorem, O-A-T."
00:32:03 And you don't sit there and say, "Okay, how does this shit benefit me? How does it benefit me?
00:32:07 How does it help me? Of all the things I could be learning in the known universe,
00:32:11 of all the things I could be doing in the known universe, including rubbing my face against tree bark,
00:32:18 why would I do this?" Well, you just have to. Shut up, sit down.
00:32:24 "How does this benefit me?"
00:32:28 I mean, all the things in our life that are of quality result from the question,
00:32:34 "How does this benefit me?"
00:32:37 You want to go and see a cool movie with your new favorite actor. How does it benefit you?
00:32:41 Well, it's probably going to be a pretty good movie. So, you go and you spend the money.
00:32:43 And if you don't like it, most places, if you leave in the first half an hour,
00:32:46 you can get your money back. Right?
00:32:49 "How does it benefit me?"
00:32:56 I mean, I don't do these shows out of altruism.
00:33:01 They benefit me. They benefit you. They benefit me.
00:33:06 I get to dig deep in philosophy. I get to enjoy the very exciting process of brain-surfing
00:33:13 the edge of my own correslating language skills and logic skills, which is quite an exciting thing.
00:33:18 You all reach down like depth-charging dashboat fishermen to detonate ancient hulls of wisdom
00:33:26 loose from the bottom and have them float to the surface.
00:33:33 It's exciting times for me to do these shows.
00:33:37 I get to expand and push a little further and wider what I accept that I'm capable of.
00:33:44 And then, next time, I'll try to go harder and push further.
00:33:51 "How does this benefit me?"
00:33:54 You're here because it's benefiting you.
00:33:56 You could listen to this later, but there's something quite exciting about the live thing. Right?
00:34:02 Somebody says, "This is on Rumble. Unfortunately, most people live their entire lives with a slave mentality
00:34:07 and don't even realize it."
00:34:09 Sure. Well, I mean, that's because that's how they're raised. Right?
00:34:12 They're raised with the slave mentality and shut up and be useful to others and obey others
00:34:18 and don't look at how it benefits.
00:34:25 "How does this benefit me? How does it benefit me?"
00:34:35 So, when it comes to your grandparents, "Oh, you should come over Sunday,"
00:34:40 you look in yourself and you say, "Do I want to? Does this benefit me?
00:34:44 What's the value in this for me?"
00:34:48 And this happens even with your spouse.
00:34:52 Maybe it's your wife's grandparents. Right? Your step-grandparents.
00:34:58 Your grandparents-in-law. Your grandparents-in-law. Sorry.
00:35:01 So, your wife's like, "Do it for me!"
00:35:10 Now, that can be a valid thing if she's done a whole bunch of stuff for you and, you know,
00:35:13 she's put deposits in the benevolence bank, then she can make some withdrawals. That's fair.
00:35:17 That's fair.
00:35:19 But, you know, if you're in these shit-canned relationships where you're just doing things for other people
00:35:24 and they take it for granted. Right?
00:35:26 Because this is the great fear of generosity is other people just eat you alive.
00:35:29 They just consume you. Right?
00:35:35 Fools are never satisfied. Greed always expands.
00:35:44 Greed is like a demon that the more you feed it, the hungrier it gets.
00:35:49 So, if you just don't want to, then your wife might say, "But you should. It's important.
00:35:59 If you cared for me, blah, blah, blah."
00:36:01 This may, she may manipulate you, which she probably got from the step- from her grandparents or whatever. Right?
00:36:05 And you say, "No, it doesn't. Sorry. It's not." You know?
00:36:09 "But you should. You ought. You must. You this. Responsibility and honor and respect and love."
00:36:15 And it's like, just slam the vending machine until you get what you want. Right?
00:36:19 People just try all of these button combos and they try these, you know, like, when you used to play Doom,
00:36:24 you do these key combos to get some God mode or whatever.
00:36:27 So, people just try to slam the vending machine and tip the vending machine and all this sort of stuff
00:36:32 just to get you to do what they want. Like, eh.
00:36:37 The appeal to "You're a bad person" should never come from people who claim to love you. Right?
00:36:43 If you cared for me, you would do it.
00:36:46 It's like, "No, no, no. Don't use my affection for you as a lever to get me to obey you."
00:36:53 "This work, says someone, is a far better use of my time than supporting monsters who hurt children.
00:36:57 The value provided to me here is not in the cinema.
00:37:01 The value provided me is here, not in the cinema.
00:37:03 I stay true to my moral principles as best that I can."
00:37:07 Well, good for you. And I appreciate the tip. Thank you.
00:37:10 [silence]
00:37:17 No. Just, how does this benefit me?
00:37:21 How does it help me?
00:37:26 How is it good for me?
00:37:33 Just ask that question.
00:37:37 You have to, have to, have to have as a staunch absolute
00:37:42 that your virtues will never, ever be used to control you.
00:37:49 That your virtues and your morals and your courage and your integrity
00:37:57 is there for liberation from corruption, not subjugation to manipulation.
00:38:10 You know, like, people always use these cheat codes to try and possess you, to control you.
00:38:19 A real man would step up and raise another man's children.
00:38:25 A real man would pay my bills. A real man would write...
00:38:35 Of course, if single mothers knew what real men were, they wouldn't be single mothers, so I'm sorry.
00:38:40 You have disqualified yourself from playing this entire language game.
00:38:51 Toxic masculinity, yeah. Your mother chose an asshole to be your dad.
00:38:56 Sorry about that. But your mother's choice is toxic. That doesn't make all men toxic.
00:39:03 You know, because there's strychnine and arsenic, all things you ingest are poison.
00:39:09 It's like, no, you just chose to drink those things, and so you're not doing very well,
00:39:14 but that doesn't mean everything you drink or ingest is poison.
00:39:17 You chose poison. Not everything that is chosen is poison.
00:39:21 But of course, the bad single mothers... I mean, you understand that the hatred of patriarchy
00:39:27 and the rise of single motherhood, the welfare state drives single motherhood,
00:39:30 single motherhood rising drives toxic patriarchy, because the single mothers need to cover up
00:39:36 their own terrible choices in a general fog of all men are bad, right?
00:39:40 It's very boring and very basic, right?
00:39:42 [Silence]
00:39:51 Ah, the best advice I got in school was from my grade 11 science teacher,
00:39:56 the first who suggested gets to try it.
00:39:59 That really was the best advice you got in school?
00:40:02 Oh, the first who suggested gets to try it.
00:40:07 Really? There's a real pretty girl in the bar, you're with a bunch of friends,
00:40:12 hey, someone should ask her out, and I think... does that mean that...
00:40:16 Yeah, I guess he gets to try it. First who suggested gets to try it.
00:40:21 First who suggested gets to try it.
00:40:26 He who smelt it is he who dealt it.
00:40:32 Not terrible, but not particularly moral, right?
00:40:37 [Silence]
00:40:43 Yeah, and the moment people say, "Oh, he's a good guy with integrity and virtue,
00:40:49 he's a good guy with integrity and virtue, so what I really should do is try and use
00:40:55 his virtues and his integrity to control and bully him."
00:41:03 Interesting.
00:41:06 Ah, he's got standards. How can I gain those standards to control him?
00:41:16 I mean, we all have had people like that in our lives.
00:41:20 This is why it's tough to broadcast your standards,
00:41:23 because when most people find out that you have standards and values and virtues,
00:41:29 they will immediately shift into exploitation mode and attempt to game and jig your system
00:41:39 in order to control and bully you.
00:41:44 [Silence]
00:41:49 I don't have a mute button. Too handy.
00:41:52 You could do so much. Yeah, man, I thought you wanted to spread philosophy in the world.
00:41:56 Then you should go on Twitter, man, because, you know.
00:42:00 Hey, welcome. Welcome to Finlender.
00:42:05 What is it? Dogs in general? Bark? Swedish dogs? Bjork!
00:42:10 Or Icelandic shriek-voiced singers? Bjork! Yeah, man.
00:42:16 If you're rejecting this random convoluted paper that I've been sitting on for 20 years,
00:42:20 that's exactly the same as people not reviewing UPB, man.
00:42:24 You're a hypocrite. You've got to do what I want in order to be--
00:42:26 Funnily enough, you being hypocritical goes exactly against what I want you to do,
00:42:31 and you having integrity as I define it--oh, funny story, it turns out,
00:42:35 you having integrity is you doing exactly what I want you to do.
00:42:39 Isn't that interesting? Oh, boy, what a coincidence. What a coinkydink.
00:42:45 My appeal to your virtues and values happens to coincide with exactly what I want you to do.
00:42:58 Oh, very boring. Wow, what you said about subjugation--it's so true, this is so impactful for me.
00:43:06 What is it about quotes you said?
00:43:08 "A man with principles or morals is a marked man. They try to attack you for that,
00:43:12 but when you sit down, try to find hypocrisy and contradictions in your logic or actions is--
00:43:16 what is that strange behavior? It's so frustrating."
00:43:19 Okay, it's not frustrating. Do you want to understand in a nutshell how the modern world works?
00:43:25 It's very boring. It's very boring, but I'll try to deliver it in an animated fashion.
00:43:36 So, the less competent want to get resources from the more competent,
00:43:41 the less competent have nothing to trade.
00:43:43 So, they rely on the benevolence of the competent and manipulate and guilt the competent
00:43:48 in order to have the competent feel that they've stolen from the incompetent
00:43:52 and therefore should give them resources.
00:43:54 It's a form of enforced bullying, parasitic vampiric exploitation, but based on morality.
00:44:02 See, in a free market, to make some money, you have to have empathy,
00:44:06 you have to have understanding of the other person,
00:44:09 you have to put yourself in the customer's shoes, you have to make things a win-win situation,
00:44:12 you have to figure out what people need and try and provide that good or service.
00:44:15 So, to win in a free market, you have to have empathy.
00:44:18 That same empathy can be used by people less competent than yourself
00:44:23 who want your stuff to guilt you into thinking that you just stole stuff, man.
00:44:28 It's structural privilege. It's racism. It's sexism. It's phobias of every single kind.
00:44:33 That's the only reason you have stuff and I don't.
00:44:36 And the media, of course, is happy to whip this kind of stuff into a frenzy of self-righteousness
00:44:41 and then what happens is, in order to try to survive,
00:44:46 the more competent throw free stuff at the less competent
00:44:49 in the hopes that they can head off the riots and the pitchforks
00:44:52 going through the wealthiest sections of town.
00:44:57 So, that's it. That's it.
00:45:01 All disparities in income are the result of exploitation,
00:45:05 which is a threat of violence to take back what has been taken
00:45:11 and it's a threat. Right? It's a threat.
00:45:15 You give us stuff or we'll burn you to the ground.
00:45:20 It's a shakedown. It's a shakedown.
00:45:26 And this is why politics became, you know, just kind of fundamentally boring.
00:45:32 It's just the same exploitation mechanism over and over again.
00:45:39 And this is why we shouldn't have sympathy for those who pursue this path.
00:45:44 Listen, I give to charity. I have bottomless and endless sympathy
00:45:48 for those who are in want and in need
00:45:53 and genuinely unable to provide for themselves. Right?
00:45:58 I sympathize with that, in particular with children,
00:46:01 but there are people who have some sort of mental handicap
00:46:06 and maybe their caregivers are gone. Those people need help. Right?
00:46:12 But the moment you manipulate, you can get a fucking job.
00:46:15 The moment you're smart enough to threaten, shake down and manipulate,
00:46:18 you can get a fucking job. You can pick up a broom.
00:46:21 You can carry some plates. You can paint a fucking wall.
00:46:28 If you have the strength and energy to manipulate and complain
00:46:33 and bully and threaten, then you're smart enough to get a job
00:46:37 and I have no sympathy.
00:46:45 All right. Thank you for your response. Good, good. Simple enough.
00:46:50 Yeah, I'm glad you got away from politics. You got me away from politics.
00:46:53 For that, I am very grateful.
00:46:55 How does someone redistribute that which was never distributed in the first place?
00:46:59 Yeah, yeah. I mean, can you imagine me saying,
00:47:03 well, I guess John Bon Jovi blew his voice out or whatever, but you know,
00:47:06 I don't know who's a good guy. Andrea Bocelli, he stole my voice, man.
00:47:10 He just took my voice. No, he didn't. He was just born with that voice.
00:47:13 I was born with my voice.
00:47:15 And the state, of course, is the mechanism by which the incompetent turn to shakedowns
00:47:27 rather than productivity. I mean, the whole ruse and violence of political power
00:47:34 is so desperately bad for everyone involved that it's really hard to overestimate
00:47:38 just how tragic it all is. All right. Let's go check over here.
00:47:48 Questions, comments, issues, challenges? I know sometimes you're expecting a long answer
00:47:52 and sometimes you're not. What have we got? What have we got?
00:48:01 Hit me. We kind of finished. This is it. We're just at the end.
00:48:05 It's like the end of Minecraft. We've done philosophy, man. Hey, look at that.
00:48:08 19 years and we're all done. There's nothing left to answer. All done.
00:48:13 All dead and gone. I love the lyrics for that song, "All Dead" by Queen.
00:48:22 All dead, all dead. I wish I'd never found out what it was really about,
00:48:26 Brian May's cat, but it's a lovely set of lyrics and a wonderfully sung.
00:48:36 Her ways are always with me. I wander all the while.
00:48:41 But please, you must forgive me. I am old but still a child.
00:48:47 All right. I've started RTRing with my family and it has produced some of the best conversations
00:48:51 I've ever had with them. Ah, how lovely. How lovely. Good for you. Good for you.
00:48:58 Jared, shall we toss the RTR bot to people? If you're around, if you could toss the RTR bot out for people,
00:49:07 I think that would be lovely. I have a friend who's marrying a girl who's about to take him to the cleaners.
00:49:15 He won't listen to me or his father. Oh well. I let it go. Yeah. Yeah.
00:49:25 Some people rush to the cliff edge with great joy and thrill.
00:49:32 There is, for some people, great seductive joy and self-destruction,
00:49:38 programmed, I assume, by parents and culture, and you either get dragged in their wake
00:49:48 or you step back from the gory scene. Oh, somebody says, with regards to RTR,
00:49:53 I can't believe I took so long to read it. Yeah, it's a great book. It's free. Freedomain.com/books.
00:50:01 What do you think about taking antidepressants to alleviate stress caused by environmental factors?
00:50:06 Is it a way of gaslighting yourself?
00:50:10 Well, I cannot, of course, give you any medical advice. I am a guy who talks about philosophy on the Internet,
00:50:18 so I can't give you any medical advice. But I did do a show called The Myth of Mental Illness.
00:50:26 I have done a whole bunch of shows on mental illness, and you need to do your own research
00:50:31 on the efficacy of things like antidepressants versus diet, sunshine, good sleep, nutrition, and exercise.
00:50:39 So you can do your own research regarding that.
00:50:42 The RTR chatbot was quite useful today, says someone when I asked about emotional manipulation from it.
00:50:46 Seemed to give a decent advice on how to spot it and deal with it. Oh, that's good.
00:50:53 That's good.
00:50:56 Yes, thank you, James. There is. You can bookmark that if you want.
00:51:01 There is your AI for RTR. Really, really good stuff. Really good stuff.
00:51:08 Somebody says, "Aged 12 to 14, I delivered flyers and CS catalogs on foot.
00:51:12 Destroyed my back and knees, but I earned money after school. You do what you can.
00:51:15 Started my savings plans. Eventually, I owned a car and a condo." Yeah. Yeah.
00:51:24 Particularly weightlifting for men seems to be pretty good for this kind of stuff.
00:51:28 There is an old Jimbro meme, which is, "Lift heavy weights makes sad voices in head go away."
00:51:36 Yeah, I remember getting up at the crack of dawn on weekends and also having to stay after school on weekdays
00:51:45 when I was like, I don't know, 12 or so. I had a pretty long paper route, and I had this giant sack.
00:51:53 Wednesday, I got paid a penny per insert, put the advertising inserts in.
00:51:58 I had to bike up and down. I had a little tape recorder that I played.
00:52:00 I remember it was based on batteries, and I remember I had Queen's Greatest Hits that I listened to
00:52:05 on repeats and some ELO tapes and so on. Yeah, you'd have to do that in the rain, sun, winter.
00:52:12 It was brutal. It was brutal, but it paid the bills. It paid the bills.
00:52:23 "A doctor told me," says someone, "A doctor told me that all of the self-care stuff I'm doing
00:52:27 can be exhausting and costly and that the antidepressants can speed up the process."
00:52:33 Yeah, exhausting and costly. Yeah. I mean, the system is unsustainable, right?
00:52:57 Anybody with half a brain can do the basic math. Like in the US, 40% of the dollars that have ever been printed
00:53:03 were printed in the last couple years. The system is completely unsustainable.
00:53:12 And, you know, historically, there's sometimes a little bit of a pinch and a tug, a scrape and a pain
00:53:20 when systems that are unsustainable mathematically cease to be sustainable.
00:53:29 Just a little bit of a "Ooooh!" Felt that little speed bump in the road there, didn't we?
00:53:40 So, anybody with half a brain knows that the system is unsustainable and that this kind of system
00:53:51 can never be sustainable. The power to create money out of thin air and borrow against the labors of the future.
00:54:00 You know, it's so funny because, I mean, everybody's so against slavery.
00:54:04 This is a lack of philosophy, right? People don't want philosophers because I align with their bad conscience
00:54:08 and make them feel like the assholes they are.
00:54:11 So, everybody's so concerned, "Oh, slavery was just..." I mean, like, yeah, slavery's bad.
00:54:22 And, you know, having children born to over a million dollars of debt to foreign banksters is also bad.
00:54:26 That's a kind of enslavement, isn't it? A kind of enslavement.
00:54:31 I mean, a pretty significant, it's a soft enslavement, but it's still pretty significant.
00:54:38 But people just want to use historical injustices to create modern injustices.
00:54:49 So, isn't there a certain amount of, I don't know what to say, unease, caution,
00:54:56 keeping your eye on things in a pretty significant way?
00:55:09 I mean, that's pretty...
00:55:13 We're pretty alert and cautious about where things are going, right?
00:55:20 When you see the spiral of an unsustainable system and you're kind of caught in its machinery,
00:55:27 I'm not sure that a pill is going to change math, you know what I mean?
00:55:36 You know, I'm anxious because I don't have enough food stored up for the winter for me and my family.
00:55:44 Oh, here's a pill to make you less anxious. Well, that's not going to produce any more food for me and my family, is it now?
00:55:52 Maybe I should be anxious if I don't have enough food for me and my family for the Game of Thrones seven-year winter to come.
00:56:06 All an analogy, but I'm sure it's pretty clear.
00:56:12 Are you feeling anxious about the end of the world? Pop a pill!
00:56:17 And stop feeling and perceiving. I don't know, it just seems strange.
00:56:35 Stefan, I'm in Ontario like you. Have you seen the videos of huge lines of immigrants lining up for one job?
00:56:42 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
00:56:47 Yes, yes I have.
00:56:50 And, you know, I put out my arguments about all of that like 15 years ago, and there's really no point revisiting them at the moment.
00:57:04 You know, I wouldn't mind so much if people were drilling holes in the boat if I wasn't stuck on the same boat. That's all. That's all.
00:57:11 That's the thing that's a little bit of a drag, but that's the nature of statism, right?
00:57:21 Oh, we've had quite a concentrated little old show here. Am I providing value?
00:57:26 I'm looking for any tips or support. You can tip me here. Of course, on the apps, you can tip me at freedomain.locals.com.
00:57:33 You really should join the community at freedomain.locals.com. Really, really good. It's a great community.
00:57:43 You can also get into another great community, which is quite active, at subscribestar.com/freedomain.
00:57:49 subscribestar.com/freedomain. Also a great community, and the support for the show is very, very important. Very important.
00:58:00 And gratefully, gratefully, gratefully accepted.
00:58:05 JoJo. Acceptable. Acceptable. That's Subranati from, oh boy, that's from way back in the day, right? Acceptable.
00:58:14 All right, let's see here.
00:58:23 All right, give me one sec here. I was just trying to get a file to share with y'all.
00:58:47 Yeah, I'm digging up some old speeches that I never published. One of them was a speech that I did to prepare for, or as a draft for, my Australian tour, which I did, of course, back in 2018.
00:59:01 Six years. Boy, it feels like a lifetime and a half. Which I did back in 2018 with Lauren Southern.
00:59:08 With Lauren Southern, we went to the most south. I went Lauren Southern. And so we're digging that one up. I also did a speech in preparation for my Hong Kong documentary. I did that in a gym in a hotel in Hong Kong.
00:59:24 So you get to see rare video of me practicing speeching and working outing.
00:59:30 So all of that was pretty neat. Let's see here. So yeah, stuff's coming out for that.
00:59:46 And here we go. That's what I'm looking for. We will get this for you.
00:59:52 Yes, yes, yes. Yes, the premium philosophy community on the web. You get peaceful parenting, peaceful parenting AI and audiobook, the truth about the French Revolution, my Stephbot AI trained on thousands of hours of my material and books, private live streams, premium call-in shows, a 22-part history of philosopher series, and much, much more.
01:00:17 Really, it is a massive amount of value. I mean, I know we put out great stuff in the mainstream, but the real juicy stuff is in the premium stuff, which of course is available at freedomain.locals.com. And I will, in fact, not in fiction, but in fact.
01:00:35 Yes, you can get the link right there. You can go to fdrurl.com/locals, fdrurl.com/locals.
01:00:47 To add insult to injury, the doctor told me not to look up the side effects because it might deter me and just to try it out to see if it helps.
01:00:55 Yeah, don't look up the side effects, apparently. Wow. Nice.
01:01:05 A good bit of mental issues in humans is caused, says someone, due to humans living in an environment which is a massive evolutionary mismatch. Humans didn't really evolve to live in cities or towns and all that comes with them.
01:01:17 I don't particularly agree with that. I think forced association is a violation of freedom of association, and that's tough, right? That's tough. But I like cities myself. I like cities. I mean, I grew up in cities.
01:01:35 And I love the museums. I love the art galleries. I love the War Museum in England. I love the Science Center. I love, because you know, you can get to the country pretty easily from the city, and the city has lots of great stuff. I don't particularly like cities anymore, but I did when I was growing up.
01:01:51 And it felt pretty natural for me. And I had exposure to both, because I would go and spend summers often in Ireland with my aunts, and I would visit with my father sometimes.
01:02:09 Lauren Southern has a kid and is divorced now. It's a shame for the kid. Yes, I think it is a bit of a shame. All right.
01:02:17 Any other last questions, comments, issues, challenges, problems? What can I be fired up with based on your question? Your questions.
01:02:34 Going once. Going twice. And I really do appreciate your support here or freedomain.com/donate. Of course, very gratefully and humbly accepted.
01:02:48 My sister told me the other day that she wants to teach her kids that they don't have to associate with bad kids and people they don't like. Meanwhile, she sends them to public school. Yeah.
01:02:59 You know, it's a funny thing just how many people don't really like spending time with their children. Do you know what I mean?
01:03:15 There's just a lot of people who don't really want to spend time with their children, which is why they go for dinner and they hand their kids iPads and their kids from computers or video games or tablets and they don't particularly care and their kids go out to hang out with friends.
01:03:34 Like there's a lot of people who don't really want to spend time with their kids. I don't know if you, I mean, my mother enjoyed it more when I got older and I started writing books and stuff like that because that reminded her of her father who was a famous writer in Germany and so on.
01:03:53 But yeah, man, there's a lot of people. They just don't really look forward to or enjoy spending time with their kids. And it's rough. I mean, I went, what did I do? Got up. I did some work this morning, recorded a show and did some administrative work.
01:04:10 And then my daughter and I went and picked up some worms and went fishing and she caught not with a fishing hook, but with her hands a turtle.
01:04:25 And it was the cutest thing known to man. And then we went for a hike along the river and then we went to a coffee shop and she did some work on a dungeon she's creating and I did some work on a true crime podcast I'm working on.
01:04:43 And it was lovely. Then we went for another walk and looked for frogs and toads and like I just got to spend half my day with my daughter, which is like what an absolute joy and a pleasure. I mean, she's going to be gone pretty soon, right? She's going to be 16 this year. So she's out of here in a couple of years.
01:04:59 And I don't want to look back and say, boy, I got a lot of podcasts out. I mean, don't get me wrong. I still want to get a lot of podcasts out. But what a what a pleasure. What a pleasure.
01:05:11 All right. Steph, thank you for tonight's show. I will donate after I'm done with dinner. I will also listen to this again and listen to your answer to my question at least four times over. Thank you. Bow your grace. Walks back. Thank you. I appreciate that. That's very kind.
01:05:23 You are.
01:05:25 Right. I appreciate that. That's very, very kind.
01:05:28 How should I take into account my past of being completely emotionally neglected by my parents and family in my future dating while looking for a wife to start a family with?
01:05:37 Reframe, baby. Reframe. Take that shit out of its portrait and put it in a whole new frame.
01:05:50 Do you know, I'm in the phase in life where I'm grateful for a shitty childhood. I couldn't be happier to have had a shitty childhood at this point in my life. Does anybody want to go out on a limb? And guess why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why not? You stupid.
01:06:09 Why would I be relatively thrilled to have had a bad childhood at this point in my life?
01:06:20 Got a call from an old friend. We used to be real close. Said he couldn't go on the American way.
01:06:32 Why? Time of life.
01:06:40 What is the answer? This is the reframe. And I knew this was coming. I knew this was coming.
01:06:51 So, the reason why it's fantastic to have had a bad childhood at this time in my life is I don't have to deal with aging parents.
01:07:00 That stuff can go on for a long, long, long, long time.
01:07:06 So, my now deceased business partner way back in the day said when I was in my 20s and starting out as an entrepreneur, he's like, "Hey, man, enjoy it. In your 40s, your parents get sick and you get teeth problems. Enjoy your youth."
01:07:22 Or the professor who directed me in, I did two plays back to back. "Harry Pinter's A Slight Ache" and "Chekhov's The Bear." I played the lead in "A Slight Ache" and a comic role as a butler in "The Bear."
01:07:36 And I remember my professor, the professor who directed me, he always wanted to cast me. He loved me as an actor and he cast me in every play he ever did as the lead.
01:07:45 And we were talking about the play and I was kind of hungry and I handed over two bucks to the hot dog vendor and piled my hot dog high with like, because you know, you're broke, right? So, you get a whole salad, right? You just cram on the cheese and the olives and the onions and tomato bits and like jam it up, you know, kind of dislocate your jaw like an anaconda eating an ostrich egg.
01:08:09 And he's like, looks at me, he's like, "Yeah, enjoy eating like that while you can." Which I didn't understand, of course, being like all of 21 or 20. No, I was 20, I was 20. Yeah, I was 19 or 20, I can't remember exactly, but because I did, you know, I left high school.
01:08:24 I did summer school so that I could get out of high school earlier, you know, in the same way that you try to behave well in prison so you can get out early on good behavior. So, I did summer school and got out early. Then I did a year of, a year, year and a half of working up north, gold panning and prospecting.
01:08:44 Then I went to the Glendon campus of York University. Then I did for two years of English literature and then I realized I liked acting a lot. So, I went for almost two years of the National Theatre School. Then I finished my undergraduate at McGill in history and then I took a year off and worked.
01:09:00 Then I did a master's degree and then I got a job and then I started my business career as an entrepreneur and I worked there for seven years. Then I worked a couple of other places for a couple of years and then I started this 19 years ago. So, it's been quite a journey.
01:09:16 But, but, olives on a hot dog, oh yeah, green olives on a hot dog is beautiful, is beautiful. The hell was I talking about? Oh yes, elderly parents.
01:09:34 So, I have friends of course my age and you know some a little older, some a little younger. And a lot of my friends, even the younger ones are dealing with big problems with aging parents. Like big, heartbreaking, could go on for years, has gone on for years, massive problems with aging parents. My heart goes out for them, I really do.
01:09:59 I miss the fact that I don't get to sink down into death with someone, which is I'm sure a very deepening and enriching experience. Oh well, I've presided over the death of my public career, so I guess we'll count that as a consolation prize.
01:10:14 But, I lost out a lot as a kid and you know I had 15 years of pretty terrible parenting before I kicked my mom out. And my dad was on the other side of the world pretty much since a few months after I was born for the most part.
01:10:34 But, on the plus side, I don't have 10 plus years of aging parents and illness and frailty and dementia and problems and boredom and frustration on the part of the aging parents who've retired perhaps before their time and quarrellessness and pettiness.
01:10:55 Some of the emotional stuff comes just from aging I think, but yeah. Good thing I'm here for your philosophy advice and not culinary advice. Hey man, that was a lot of calories. You could easily get a thousand to twelve hundred calories over that hot dog.
01:11:14 You know, like I would descend upon that hot dog stand, he'd try and wheel away as fast as he could slopping all of that dirty water, but I'd catch him down and tackle him and say he absolutely had to sell hot dogs and you better open up those extras because I could get a good twelve hundred calories off one hot dog for two bucks man.
01:11:32 Fantastic, like when I used to go to Subway with a two for one deal and order the big stuff and two for one and then cut it in four, I got four meals out of that. Four meals out of what was about five bucks at the time. Fantastic.
01:11:44 Alright, so it's reframing.
01:11:54 Somebody says, this is probably something I'll learn to appreciate a whole lot more when I get older that I don't have to deal with my parents when they get up in their age. They're likely to live to eighty to a hundred and it'd be a pain to fly back and forth between the US and Finland to care for them or some other crazy arrangement.
01:12:11 Steph, you're so right. Both of my parents are dead. At times I'm absolutely relieved my mother is gone. She was so manipulative and lazy she never did her own house chores. When I was eighteen I was appointed to take care of her as if she was an invalid.
01:12:22 Somebody says, healthcare expenditures from all payers, public and private, total eighty thousand dollars in the last twelve months of life and a hundred and fifty five thousand in the last three years. Yeah, half of the healthcare costs of your entire life would be in the last six months of your life.
01:12:40 And here's the thing, so when you have aging parents who need a lot of healthcare, if you're in a socialized healthcare system, you will lose your freaking mind. You will lose your freaking mind just trying to get them specialists, trying to get them appointments, making sure those appointments follow through, making sure they can get to other specialists, trying to get things diagnosed that are complicated and challenging because everybody's just like, it's a conveyor belt.
01:13:06 Come in, send a pill, get out. Come in, give a pill, get out. Come in, give a pill, get out. They don't want to dwell, they don't want to do a house MD, they don't get paid more for that shit for the most part.
01:13:16 Steph, I want to say, your fortitude both pre and post cancellation has been inspiring. Several books, bots, hours of content, all post cancellation, it's inspiring. You practice what you preach. And you put the hollow academic self-satisfying virtue signaling clowns to shame. Well, thank you, I appreciate that.
01:13:32 It's a better life in many ways. I mean, there's times when I miss it, times when I miss it, but it's a better life in general. And I would say, of course, if I were a strongly religious man, I would say, God put me in the right place. God put me in the right place. And I don't think I've complained too much. A little bit here and there, but I don't think too much. I don't think too much.
01:13:58 So, to my friend up there who's talking about, let me just get back to the question. I know it's been a bit of a meandering family circle. Pass. But let's see here. How should I take into account my past of being completely emotionally neglected by my parents and family in my future dating while looking for a wife to start a family with?
01:14:18 All right. Are you abused or are you free? You see how the reframing is really, really, really important. Are you abused or are you liberated? For me? Yeah, I had really terrible parents and I don't have anything to do with them anymore because I just don't want bad people in my life.
01:14:46 Ah, do you know what freedom being treated badly gives you? Now, if you just mourn and grieve over the being treated badly without relishing the liberty, then it's just lose-lose.
01:15:08 Somebody says, "I watched my mother deal with her parents before they passed age 94 and 89. It was an ordeal." Yeah. Yeah, a friend of mine's grandmother lived with them in a small apartment and the grandmother, it was brutal. It was brutal. I mean, she was gotten so when people get older, a lot of times their inhibition centers break down and they get violent or aggressive.
01:15:28 They sort of lose self-control. They have no more control over their temper than their bladder at times and somebody always had to be home and watching her because she'd put on potatoes and then forget to turn the oven off, could burn the whole building down. It was horrible. I remember this woman, she was a singer in her youth and she sang in the Second World War and I remember her telling me the story that she sang to a burn ward but nobody could applaud because their hands were all burnt to hell. That's all they could do was hiss. They did hissing sounds to thank them.
01:15:54 So, if you simply focus on how badly you were treated, then there is sorrow. And I'm not saying don't have the sorrow, of course. I mean, that's a genuine and valid emotion. But you got to season that shit sorrow with a generous stirring of satisfaction at your liberation.
01:16:18 I don't have to deal with aging parents.
01:16:23 And see, the cost is in the past. So, for me, right? The cost is in the past but the benefits are in the present. Now, again, if you gave me the choice, I would rather have had great parents. But, you know, gosh, I mean, somebody had to write Peaceful Parenting and I doubt I would have done it if I'd had great parents.
01:16:51 So, the world needed Peaceful Parenting and I guess you could say whatever led up to Peaceful Parenting was good no matter how much suffering there was. Whatever led to Peaceful Parenting is the good, right? And I get that and that's a reasonable case to make.
01:17:04 But, you know, in general, I would rather have had good parents and suffer with them as they ate and died rather than have bad parents and they got to, well, they got to take that journey on their own, right? I would rather that be the case, right?
01:17:18 But it is the case, of course, that being maltreated was also being liberated, right?
01:17:41 Somebody says, "Grandpa had Alzheimer's. His mind was gone years before he died. He was like a pre-verbal child. No one should see a smart man reduced to that state."
01:17:58 Yeah, that's rough. That is very rough. And especially when the mind goes and the body remains hale and hearty, that is a long and brutal experience for people to go through. And, you know, there's a lot of depression and a lot of anxiety and a lot of challenges when it comes to dealing with that kind of stuff.
01:18:19 So, yeah, I really do sympathize with the people who have to go through it. I don't. I don't. "Worst case is a bad childhood and then the parents wreak havoc until they die." Yeah, so if you had a bad childhood and you were mistreated and abused by parents, and then what happens is, "Yay! Also, not only was I abused as a child, but also what I get to do is take care of them when they're old."
01:18:48 Yikes. "Thank you, but no thank you."
01:18:57 Somebody says, "Oh yeah, same. My grandpa still has Alzheimer's. I haven't gone to see him in the old folks' home as he was quite terrible as a person and never redeemed himself."
01:19:08 Yeah, so I mean, I dated a girl when I lived in a northern town, and we went to go and see her grandmother, who was very, you know, mentally gone in an, it wasn't quite an old age home, because I remember seeing some skinny guy who looked British who was in his 40s who was just sitting there incredibly discontented and grumbling and complaining about being jammed in with the Crypt Keeper Ward of the soon-to-be-no-more.
01:19:36 And yeah, I guess they just put everybody who was dysfunctional mentally in the same place, and it was kind of a warning, you know, "Take care of your mental health or you're going to end up staring in grim discontent at the standing bodies around you, shuffling on the conveyor belt to the hereafter, and that's a pretty terrible thing to have in your life, or a pretty terrible place to be in your life."
01:19:58 So, it's not good. It's not good.
01:20:08 All right, let me just get to your... "Dementia genuinely terrifies me." Yes, it is very tough. It is very tough. It is very tough.
01:20:20 And, you know, it is, you know, almost something I would not wish on my worst enemy. It is really a tough and horrible thing.
01:20:28 Physical ailments that have you still remain who you are is one thing, but the kind of physical ailments where you end up not even who you are anymore, like your brain just kind of disintegrates like bread in a soup bowl, that's pretty terrifying.
01:20:45 And I don't know if there's anything in particular you can do about it. I do, in general, think that staying as physically healthy as possible has some benefit to it, but, you know, I know people who are very, you know, very healthy throughout the course of their life and still get it.
01:21:07 And, you know, I hope, of course, that philosophy helps to keep the mind sharp and effective and so on, because I think that philosophy is quite efficient in how you use your brain. So, I hope that's the case. I hope that's the case, because, yeah, it would be pretty rough. And I don't have any history of it in my family, so...
01:21:30 Somebody says, "Dad died 20 years ago. Mom walked away 2 years ago." They are not missed. I remember good moments, but that is not tied to them, yeah.
01:21:38 "Thank you for the reframing advice. I'll be sure to put it into use. Can't tip because I'm a poor little student, but I am a paying subscriber, so I hope that helps." I appreciate your subscription. Don't worry about it at all. I certainly remember what it's like to be a broadcast student, and no problem, right?
01:21:52 Somebody says, "Dementia genuinely terrifies me." Somebody says, "Same for me. My grandmother had that. A stroke in her early 80s. After that, she couldn't speak. Had to drink that syrup. Water sludge."
01:22:03 It can be a lot of mess at the end of life, and a lot of pain, and a lot of sorrow for those around you. You know, because there's a phase in dementia, from what I've seen, there's a phase in dementia where you know you're losing it, and it's really, really tough. You know you're losing it. And that's brutal. That's a brutal experience.
01:22:29 What is it like thinking of the legacy you might leave through your work? It's not hard to make the case that the arguments you put forth will have great impact on the world.
01:22:42 Yeah, I mean the legacy is important. I mean, as a philosopher, you have to live 100 or 1 to 500 years in the future, and generally that's the way it works. So, the more you're appreciated in your own time, the less value you have for the future.
01:23:05 That success in the present is invisibility to the future, because success in the present is appealing to the prejudices of the present, which will be just the bigotries of the future. The preferences of the present are the bigotries of the future, and again, the future is going to look back at this time and say, "What was in the water that everybody went completely insane?"
01:23:23 And so, sanity in an asylum is nonconformity and is considered dangerous to those wishing to cling to their delusions, and people have no problem warming their delusions on the kindling of burning other people to death. So, it is a tricky, tricky thing.
01:23:42 I know that the work that I'm doing, and again, I really, really do thank you for your support in this, but I know that the work that I'm doing is absolutely transformative, and it will be viewed in the future that everything we talk about here will be blindingly obvious, and nobody can imagine how anyone could ever have thought otherwise.
01:24:03 The current prejudices that dominate the world will seem as ridiculous and dangerous and scary and insane to the future as slavery and child sacrifice due to us.
01:24:20 And it is tough to know that I will not live to see the world that should be. I will not live to see the final stature and glory of the cathedral we are gathering bricks for and laying the foundations of in the present. That's not necessarily easy.
01:24:40 I do take pride, not because, I mean, the pride is going to die with me as a personal experience, but I do take pride in the amount of progress that we've been able to make. That we have answered so many of the central and core issues in philosophy, and essentialphilosophy.com is a way to go to go and get that book.
01:24:59 Or Introduction to Philosophy is a great series, a 17-part series I did in 2006. So I have a lot of pride in going as far as I did in bringing the truth to the world. I also have pride in pulling back when it was necessary to avoid not doing more philosophy, because it's tough to do more philosophy if you're persecuted to too great an extent.
01:25:25 So I'm proud of the decisions that I've made. I also have as a public standard that I will never retract anything that I know to be true. I just won't do it. I just won't do it. And so I think that's been good.
01:25:37 So I hope that I have provided some examples in the future, and hopefully they won't be as needed in the future. I provided some examples of how to navigate a very tricky journey with some decent nimbleness and integrity.
01:25:52 But it's a very, very good thing that we're doing here, and I again really, really do appreciate that.
01:26:01 Your help and your support.
01:26:03 All right.
01:26:10 "AI may speed up that 500-year plan. I assume that any AI that isn't trained on peak philosophy won't be competitive/useful."
01:26:20 Ah, yeah, well, the vanity of the species is showing up in the woke-ification of the AI that human beings know apparently more than virtually infinite knowledge of AI. So when you lecture God on morality, you might be considered to be insane.
01:26:38 Somebody says, "I did listen to the Q&A with your daughter. She seems a delightful human being. Good parenting shines through."
01:26:44 She is a great person, and I'm very, very honored to know her.
01:26:49 And yeah, that's available for donors, freedomain.com.
01:26:53 Oh, yeah, if you go to premium.freedomain.com, you can check out what's available in the donor section.
01:26:59 Also, tiktok.com/@freedomain.com.
01:27:06 Tiktok.com/@freedomain.com is something to check out as well.
01:27:13 All right, I think we are done for the evening, and I really thank you so much for your help and support.
01:27:22 If you are listening to this later, freedomain.com/donate to help out the show.
01:27:26 freedomain.locals.com and subscribestar.com/freedomain. Really do appreciate it.
01:27:32 And fdrurl.com/tiktok. Yes, thank you, James. fdrurl.com/tiktok is good for getting to that.
01:27:44 There's some great shorts that Jared is putting out there, which if you could like and share, I would massively appreciate it.
01:27:49 And thank you for the show. Thank you for the great questions and comments.
01:27:53 I really do appreciate your help and support.
01:27:56 Don't forget, if you donate later, if you've donated now, appreciate it, but later if you're listening to this, freedomain.com/donate,
01:28:02 and you get all the peaceful parenting goodies.
01:28:06 And I thank you for giving me the capacity to do that work and some of the greatest stuff I've ever done.
01:28:15 And I couldn't have done it without all of your help.
01:28:17 And all of your help is not just, of course, the financial support, but also the conversations, the great stimulus of the questions,
01:28:22 and everybody who's ever called in, attacked, fought, loved, and hated me has contributed to the conversation.
01:28:27 And I really do appreciate that. Lots of love, everyone. I will talk to you Friday night.
01:28:33 Have yourself a beautiful, beautiful evening. Lots of love from up here. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.
01:28:47 [BLANK_AUDIO]