• 5 months ago
Divorced, remarried, I have one boy from the first marriage and two boys from the second one. After my first son was born, I managed to gradually work myself into one of these two horrible choices: catastrophic marriage or catastrophic divorce. I chose the second one out of selfishness and fear that I would replicate my parent's marriage. I denied my older son the joy of seeing his parents in love and I will forever be sorry for that.

When I had my second boy with my current wife, she became very cold and distant to the one from the first marriage, which I suppose is quite normal when having to take care of a baby.

But after all this time she still seems reluctant to fully accept my firstborn into our family when he's with us. I know that philosophy is about prevention, not cure, and I'm sure that my kids will never end up where I am right now, but any tips on how to help my family be happier would be greatly appreciated.


Oh Stefan! I would love a show on how to throw an amazing dinner party! Sounds like you're a pro at it!


Hey Stef, we have antibiotics, internet, relative peace and freedom and I most probably will not die as a drafted soldier, but I am still unable to feel gratitude and make myself happier just because my ancestors lived in incomparably worse conditions. Even if I am the 2nd wealthiest generation in the World history I tend to perceive myself as a tax slave in a luxury barn. Would you have any tips on how to practice gratitude and how to teach gratitude to my children?


How to wish well rationally?
In your presentation "Vampire Love Kills!" you describe that stating "you're lucky" means admitting helplessness to achieve goals like having a six pack through hard work at the gym. Is "Freedomain dot com slash donate" the new well wishing phrase? You keep referring to the shortness of your remaining days which is depressing.


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Transcript
00:00Good morning everybody, hope you're doing well. Let's enjoy a little spot of
00:04rain, shall we? All right, questions from freedomain.locals.com. I hope you will
00:09check out the community at freedomain.locals.com. All right, divorced,
00:15remarried, I have one boy from the first marriage and two boys from the second
00:18one. After my first son was born I managed to gradually work myself into
00:21one of those, one of these two horrible choices, catastrophic marriage or
00:25catastrophic divorce. I chose the second one out of selfishness and fear that I
00:30would replicate my parents marriage. I denied my older son the joy of seeing
00:34his parents in love and I will forever be sorry for that. When I had my second
00:40boy with my current wife she became very cold and distant to the one from the
00:46first marriage which I suppose is quite normal when having to take care of a
00:50baby. I'm not quite sure, when I had my second boy with my current wife she
00:54became very cold and distant to the one from, oh, to the boy from the first
00:58marriage. Sorry, I'm kidding. But after all this time she still seems
01:02reluctant to fully accept my firstborn into our family when he's with us. I know
01:06that philosophy is about prevention not cure and I'm sure that my kids will
01:09never end up where I am right now but any tips on how to help my family be
01:13happier would be greatly appreciated.
01:18So withholding affection from children is a form of abuse. You're perfectly free
01:26to withhold affection from those you don't have in your life. You're perfectly
01:31free to go through the world and be careless towards everyone but once you
01:34invite people into your home and into your life and into your family you owe
01:38them affection. You owe, like, there's a moral obligation to fulfill your vows
01:44and I'm sure that you just need to remind people to stop lying and
01:51breaking their vows because, I mean, if I were in your situation I would sit down
01:57with my new wife and I would, oh, I guess not that new now, and I would say, look,
02:01I've noticed that you're not affectionate towards my son from my
02:06earlier marriage.
02:10I made mistakes but he didn't, right? So if you had told me before we got married
02:18that you would be cold towards my son I would not have married you, right? The
02:24understanding was we're going, you're going to love the children as equally as
02:28humanly possible. Will you love equally a child that is not yours? I don't know,
02:35maybe there's a special thing, especially for women, about carrying the baby and
02:38breastfeeding and so on, so maybe there's a little bit less of attachment
02:41or whatever, but that's the deal. That's the deal. So this is what you have to do
02:46in relationships and it's foundational to relationships. You must say if these
02:51conditions were known ahead of time would I have embarked upon this
02:55relationship. This is the same thing when it's a work relationship, a friendship, a
02:58romantic relationship, a marriage. So if you get caught into a sexless marriage,
03:03right, let's say the woman won't sleep with you, then she's breaking her vow
03:08assuming she's not some medical issue or whatever, right? She's breaking her vow
03:11because you sit down you say to people okay so we don't have a sexual aspect to
03:16our marriage. Now do you think that I would have married you knowing ahead of
03:20time that it would be a sexless marriage? And the woman of course would say,
03:25because sex is very important, the woman would say well no you wouldn't have
03:29married me if you'd have known ahead of time that it was going to become a
03:33sexless marriage, right? So that's breaking the vow. If there is explicit or
03:38implicit conditions in the entering into of the relationship, changing those
03:43conditions after the fact is a violation of your vows and of course the marriage
03:50is the most sacred and holy vows around. So you have to say to her look that
03:58so the Q&A is something like I've noticed that you're a little bit less
04:03warm towards my first son from my first marriage and that's a problem. Now if she
04:10admits the problem and wants to work on it, great. If she denies it, you say look
04:14you're just gonna have to trust me on this. I mean you're just gonna like it's
04:17okay to say to people just trust me. You don't, it's not a court of law in a
04:21relationship. You know when my wife says don't wear those pants to wherever we're
04:26going, I will say okay. I just trust her. If she says we need to repaint this some
04:34room that looks okay to me, I just trust her and she's usually right. So just
04:38trust her. Okay, let's trust, right? So if you say I've noticed you're being cold
04:42and she says well I treat them totally equally, it's like you're gonna have to
04:45trust me on this. I'm an outside eye, he's my son, I see the difference, I
04:50notice the difference, so there is a difference and you're just gonna have to
04:53trust me on that. It's the first rain-based podcast we've done. It's quite
04:56refreshing, like little pinpricks of tiny ice spears. So now if she says okay
05:03maybe I have been a little bit standoffish, it's like okay but but you
05:07understand that the condition of the marriage was that you love the children
05:14that you're becoming a stepmother to, this boy. Like you know that, like
05:17if you had said to me ahead of time I'm not going to be warm towards your son
05:24from the first marriage, then I wouldn't have married you because I have to owe
05:30what's best for my children, right? And so we're gonna have to figure something
05:34out, we have to find out if there's anything I can change or there's things
05:37that you need to discuss with him or we all need to discuss together, let's do
05:40that, but this situation cannot continue. The situation cannot continue. It's as
05:47simple as if you order something online and they don't deliver it, do you have to
05:52pay for it? Well no, you pay for it because it's delivered, that's the
05:55expectation in the relationship. If you pay for it and it's not delivered you
05:58get a refund because that's the condition of the relationship and so my
06:03assumption and our conversations before you got into the marriage is that you
06:06would find a way to love the children who weren't yours and you're not
06:11fulfilling that and I have to protect my children, I have to protect my love for
06:16you and the sanctity of a marriage and listen we all drift from our vows, I get
06:20that, we all drift from our vows, but you have to fulfill your vows. The
06:26reason for this relationship is the promises entered into before the
06:31relationship started. To love, honor and obey and of course you have to love
06:36my children even if they're not yours, like you have to. That's the condition of
06:39marrying into and becoming a step-parent is you have to love the children as best
06:44you can equally. Maybe you feel a little different deep down in your heart but it
06:48doesn't matter. You have to be warm, you have to be friendly, you have to be
06:52inclusive, you have to show affection, you have to praise, you have to encourage.
06:56That's the deal. You marry into a family with someone else's children, you have to
07:01try and love them equally as best as you can. That's the deal. That's why the
07:06relationship exists because if you say ahead of time I'm not gonna love your
07:09kids as much as mine, the marriage won't happen. So you understand, look at all of
07:13your relationships and look at both the explicit, i.e. we agreed or we made a vow
07:17in front of the community or God. You look at all your relationships, look at
07:21all of your relationships. So what are the explicit and implicit
07:26requirements and standards in those relationships? So I had a friend as I
07:29mentioned before who used to put me down in social gatherings and again a couple
07:33of jokes is fine, whatever, but it seemed kind of relentless. Now if I had started
07:38with that friendship or been interested in having a friendship with that guy,
07:40this is like 25 years ago or whatever, 20 years ago, and if he just said well you
07:45know I like you but I'm gonna put you down in social situations, I'd have said
07:48well I don't want to be, I don't want to have that friendship, thank you. So when
07:51you have a friendship and things emerge that would have prevented the
07:55relationship from forming in the first place, either you or the other person is
07:58breaking the explicit or implicit vows. Friends have to be there for each other,
08:03they have to support each other, they have to encourage each other, they don't
08:07put each other down, they don't undermine, they don't sabotage. That's not a
08:10definition of friendship. So if you have a friend who's doing that or you have a
08:12wife who's not loving her stepchildren, you need to talk to her about that and
08:17say you're breaking your vows, you are undermining the reason why this
08:22relationship exists because if you told me all of this ahead of time I would not
08:25have married you, so we need to fix that. Just remind people to keep their word,
08:29it's important. Oh Steph, I would love a show on how to throw an amazing
08:35dinner party, sounds like you're a pro at it. A dinner party has to do with the
08:40environment, the food, but most of all the guests. Just have people who have a
08:44good sense of humor, people who enjoy ribbing, people who aren't uptight, people
08:48who can roll with the conversation flow and so on and have some activities
08:52for sure, have some activities. I mean it can be as simple as charades or a great
08:57card game or something like that. Don't do memory games or anything like that
09:00because that's just all silence, so stuff where there's a lot of conversation is
09:03great. Hey Steph, we have antibiotics, internet, relative peace and freedom and
09:08I most probably will not die as a drafted soldier, but I am still unable to
09:12feel gratitude and make myself happier just because my ancestors lived
09:16in incomparably worse conditions. Even if I am the second wealthiest generation in
09:20world history, I tend to perceive myself as a tax slave in a
09:23luxury barn. Would you have any tips on how to practice gratitude and how to
09:27teach gratitude to my children? So the very first video that I ever did was
09:33live like you're dying. I remember I had a webcam that tracked my face and
09:38people referred to the swoop when I thought I'd get closer and all that. Live
09:42like you're dying on your deathbed. I was just thinking about this this morning
09:45that once I was going to go on a trip and I couldn't find my passport. The trip
09:49was all booked, the hotels were all booked, I could not find my passport and
09:52that seemed like a whole lot of stress and strain and now 25 years later I
09:57barely remember it. So this too shall pass is very very important, this too
10:02shall pass. Your happiness, the highest will pass, the lowest will pass and you
10:06work to have a general sense of positivity. So when you get older,
10:10it's a funny thing, it's true, so when one of the things when you get
10:13older that brings you happiness is health scares that turn out to be
10:17nothing. Health scares, I got a weird mole, oh it's nothing, oh I got a
10:21funny little lump, oh it's benign, like it just happens, right? Oh I need to have a
10:25colonoscopy, oh everything's fine, right? So honestly I'm not
10:29kidding about this, one of the things that brings you happiness when you get
10:32older is health scares that turn out to be nothing, it's kind of a big thing. If
10:36your kid is unwell and then they get well you have gratitude for that, you
10:40have gratitude when you hear about people who've had significant problems,
10:46right? You know somebody takes a medical treatment and has a very very bad
10:52side-effect outcome and either you don't have to take that medical treatment or
10:56you don't have that outcome. People who have back problems and arthritis and
11:00knee problems and headache problems and vision problems and teeth problems
11:05and so on. This is all over the place and being grateful you don't have those is
11:12very important and working to try and make sure you don't have those is also
11:14very important. So one of the things that's different about modern life which
11:22causes unhappiness is I truly believe that in many ways our ancestors yearned
11:27for death, right? I mean I was just reading up about the Black Plague, the
11:31Black Death where like 40 to 50 percent of the European population died in the
11:36most horrible agonizing painful ways and children died and in Genoa I think
11:41it was when families would get sick they would simply nail up the windows and
11:47doors from outside and they would just die, cough, bleed and expire in this
11:52fetid house with rats around. So life was so difficult and so unpleasant and like
11:58I'll just I mean I'll give you a tiny example, right? So when I hit my teens my
12:02skin became very dry. Now I didn't know why or what was happening but I was
12:06itchy all the time and being in a state of constant itch was just really really
12:10really bad and most clothes would make me itch, sitting would make me itch and
12:15you don't want to be scratching all the time because it looks like you've got
12:18fleas. I just had dry skin. So fortunately I figured out the
12:23moisturizer thing and so I don't know since I was 12 or 13 I've been
12:27moisturizing and that helps my whole body, right? I'll do that video on the
12:34OF channel. Only philosophy, only philosophy. I just it's a phonetic pH.
12:39Only philosophy. That must be it, yeah. So just being in a state of
12:44constant itch or you know if you had a lot of pimples when you were younger or
12:47whatever it is just being in that state of so imagine that times a thousand like
12:51that was the Middle Ages, right? The Middle Ages I mean most of antiquity and
12:54so on you were a slave, you had no chance of reproduction, you got beaten on a
12:57regular basis, you got bad food, your body was overworked, overused, you're a Roman
13:02soldier, you get drafted and you get you know limbs blown off or some horrible
13:07injuries or just wear and tear. You know the armies throughout history have had a
13:10buy-and-burn mentality where they just you know you got to do your your 40-mile
13:15march with the 80-pound backpack and your knees just wreck and then they
13:18won't give you any rest they'll just give you painkillers and then your knees
13:22are destroyed or your back is destroyed. I mean the buy-and-burn mentality in the
13:25armies throughout history has been absolutely appalling. And so you're some
13:29Roman soldier even if you're physically intact, you're mentally shredded, your
13:33body is ruined and wrecked from overuse and what do they do? They toss you a tiny
13:37little bit of land at the end of it and that's it but your body's too
13:42broken to work. Starvation in many places in Europe in the Dark Ages of the
13:48Middle Ages 10 to 20 percent of the population could starve in any given
13:51couple of years. You had to kiss a woman who'd never brushed her teeth, you had to
13:56have sex with a woman who bathed once a year, life was hell. And so the death
14:01instinct and of course on the other side of death's door was a perfect paradise of
14:05milk and honey where you never got itchy and all the women brushed their teeth
14:08whatever you want to say right? So this yearning for death was kind of
14:13important. So people did the happiness was in dying, the happiness was in being
14:17cured of the pain of life by the grim medicine of the guy with the scythe. So
14:25the fact that life is enjoyable now is tough. I mean the fact that life is
14:29peaceful and life is pleasant and their food is plentiful and medicines
14:35are easily available and illness is unusual at least when you're young. So
14:42the fact that life is pleasant you know we adjust to everything. So the fact that
14:47life is when you get good news it takes you a couple of days to adjust right? So
14:53if you're in crypto and crypto goes up you're happy for a couple of days and
14:57then you you adjust right? So working on your baseline happiness is important
15:00because external stimuli happiness and unhappiness all passes. Crypto goes down
15:05you're unhappy for a day or two and then you normalize right? So working to
15:09get your baseline happiness up is the important thing and the only way that
15:12you can do that is virtue. You want gratitude I'm telling you gratitude is
15:17not going to do it because gratitude is just continually adjusting right? Like
15:20you know if you've ever been in a place where there's a repetitive noise like
15:25somebody's mowing or whatever you pay attention for the first few minutes and
15:28then your auditory nerves simply stop sending the information to your
15:32brain. If you've ever had tinnitus or tinnitus it's the same kind of thing you
15:35ignore it for the most part if you're concentrated on it's there, hey I just
15:39did that. But environmental pluses and minuses you adjust to. The only thing
15:45that will continually raise your happiness is virtue and virtue to get
15:49the happiness of virtue you have to go through the unhappiness of being
15:54virtuous and the unhappiness of being virtuous is realizing how many people in
15:59your life hate virtue. Sorry simple fact simple fact I've done this for enough
16:05years and I've talked to enough people this just a simple fact you start
16:09telling the truth you stop being honorable and decent and keeping your
16:12word and demanding that people tell the truth or at least not lie and you stand
16:16up for what's right you will very very quickly find out that the people you
16:20think around you who are just lovely people and wonderful people and great
16:23people who care about you will turn on you like a bunch of coked-up pit
16:27vipers. Again maybe there's a big exception for you but there's a reason
16:30why if you haven't been virtuous in your relationships there's a reason why and
16:34that reason is that you don't want people's you don't want their masks to
16:38come off and you don't want to see the feral beasts behind the pretend social
16:42smiley faces and you don't want to unzip the chihuahua to find out the rabbit
16:47wolf right so that's a quite an image so we are unhappy because we know that
16:55being virtuous which is the only way to raise baseline happiness in a consistent
16:58way will make us unhappy because we'll realize that we've been lying to
17:02ourselves about the supposed virtues of everyone in our life and they've been
17:05lying to us about their supposed virtues. Try being really virtuous see what
17:10happens. Try being really virtuous. Try pushing back on propaganda. Try talking
17:15about child abuse. Try talking about adverse childhood experiences. Try
17:18talking about bigotry and prejudice against children called childism. Try
17:22sharing the Peaceful Parenting book at PeacefulParenting.com. Try all of that
17:26stuff and see what happens to those around you. Watch the mask come off.
17:33The world is mostly a morality play of pretend virtue masking sinister
17:38corruption. All right. How to wish well rationally in your
17:44presentation Vampire Love Kills you described the stating you're lucky means
17:47admitting helplessness to achieve goals like having to having a six-pack through
17:51hard work at the gym. Is freedomain.com slash donate the new well-wishing phrase
17:55well well well three holes in the ground. You keep referring to the shortness of
17:59your remaining days which is depressing. Well technically it's not the shortness
18:03of my remaining days but because that would be isolate right it's not
18:11depressing it's not depressing look man I am 58 this year and it's not that long
18:18right and I don't know if you had that the 2020 you blink and it's 2024 because
18:24COVID was memory holes right everybody showed their absolute feral colors in
18:28COVID 80 to 90 percent of the population depending on the country you lived in
18:3380 to 90 percent of the population showed themselves to be abject and
18:36willing slaves that's a little tough so everyone's memory holding that because
18:40they don't want to go back and realize what that means right so
18:47it's not depressing for me to be aging it sure beats the alternative it's not
18:51depressing for me to be aging and that's because and I check in with myself I'm
18:55not kidding about this a couple of times a week I check in with myself and say
19:00have I done I won't say the most good because that's a real shaky ragged line
19:07right if you do too much good well you you don't do well in society at all and
19:11then you end up not being able to do any good at all so have I done good have I
19:17done a reasonable amount of goodness in my life this week have I spread virtue
19:24have I spread reason have I encouraged people have I been inspiring to whatever
19:27degree I can have I been a positive have I been honest and direct have I stood up
19:33for the good and opposed the bad I mean so over the course of my life when I
19:39look back over the course of my life because I got into philosophy 43 years
19:44ago almost I mean it's honestly it's close to a half century it's close to a
19:49half century that I got into my philosophy in my mid-teens so let's say
19:55it was oh let's not let's not bother with the the details as a whole but yeah
20:01about about 45 46 years ago I got into philosophy I spoke about it continually
20:08I promoted it continually and the moment the moment that there was a public forum
20:13for doing so with the internet and in particular with podcasting I am I love
20:18to write I'm a verbal not a written guy you know like I've never been able to
20:25write short stories I don't particularly enjoy writing you know those sort of
20:29short blog posts or or newsletters and stuff like that I'm a verbal verbal
20:34verbal guy in fact my novel writing has changed considerably because I can voice
20:37dictate rather than just sit and type but even when I sit and type I'm just
20:41going with the voices in my head police song so
20:46free association tangent so I'm a I'm a verbal guy so the moment that
20:56podcasting became a thing I dove into it like full bore I was doing two hours of
21:02shows a day and this is back when it was actually pretty expensive to upload and
21:06download which is why the earlier shows are only at 40k audio quality
21:13because
21:16I couldn't afford the bandwidth and bandwidth was brutal back then
21:21so I think I think I've done maximum good in the world I've gone right to the
21:26ragged edge of irradiating social blowback and I continue to dance on the
21:33the fire of truth on a regular basis so I I don't I would find it depressing to
21:40be aging if I had not achieved my potential I don't know what greater
21:43potential I could have achieved I don't know because if I had manifested some
21:47magical greater potential I would have had more effect on world events and the
21:50blowback would have been well I wouldn't be doing philosophy for one reason or
21:54another right so and I'm satisfied that I have surfed that edge and I'm doing
21:59maximum philosophy possible I put out enough truth that people in the future
22:02will look back and say yeah he was totally right and I haven't put out so
22:06much truth so consistently that there'll be nothing to remember in the future
22:11alright
22:13alright
22:16thank you for answering my previous question regarding the rationality of
22:20child abuse I'd like to continue that discussion if possible by raising a few
22:22points first I'd like to clarify why this matters to me personally because
22:26without the context I think we might misunderstand our intentions
22:30I don't know what that means my brother recently became a parent I tried to
22:33advocate for peaceful parenting this was before you finished the book and he said
22:39he trusted more in how he was raised with corporal punishment the typical
22:42points of I turned out fine etc were raised by him it was a lost cause and by
22:46the end of it he felt as though his honor was challenged by me calling it
22:49cowardly ooh really you went with cowardly
22:56you went with cowardly
22:59that's not how to change people's minds
23:03if you're in a debate and you don't care about the future relationship then
23:07you can call people whatever you want although there are some credibility
23:12issues if you go real strong in your language but you called him a coward
23:17he wanted to spar with me in a ring for five rounds as a way for me to prove my
23:21point he's older than me by four years and also more muscular
23:25the only other way he'd accept my proof would be through raising my own children
23:28peacefully and seeing what kind of adults they would be at that point of
23:30course the damage to his own children would already be done
23:33long story short this was the end of our relationship I have grieved and I'm
23:36still in the process of accepting things but a part of that process for me is
23:39still manning his position maybe in seeing it completely destroyed I'll have
23:43more peace of mind
23:45ok well I'm sorry about that but I would criticize you in this I really would I
23:50would criticize you so calling your brother a coward is going to trigger him
23:55right because he's macho and and willing to use violence against his children so
23:59calling him a coward is going to trigger him is going to make him oppositional
24:03towards you and it means that you were more about winning an ego and insults
24:08than you were about actually protecting his children because when it comes to
24:12the protection of children
24:15you should put all ego aside and work for the benefit of those children no
24:18matter what right
24:21no matter what now it could be that he has no inner voice he has no observing
24:26ego he has no capacity to subject the violence of his immediate animal will to
24:30higher rational and moral standards in which case there is no changing there is
24:34no improving and it may be better to be out of the relationship rather than
24:37watch him put his kids through the meat grinder of his own intimidation for
24:41decades so I'm really sorry about that but in my view and again I don't know
24:48the details of the conversation you're welcome to a call-in show free to
24:50domain.com slash call you did the wrong thing by provoking your brother because
24:55you knew the response that would bring and it didn't end up with him trying to
25:00become more peaceful towards his children
25:02all right in part two I should continue to play devil's advocate there might
25:05appear to be a level of dissociation in part two since there clearly is an
25:08emotional undercurrent to this discussion I appreciate that
25:12all right
25:14first I think you made a few fantastic points which are worth repeating and
25:17rephrasing if you if you can't hit any characteristics of a child how can you
25:20hit a child
25:22ok we don't need to we go through my arguments
25:27rationality is an abstract thing and abstract things judge abstract things
25:29you don't judge particular actions you judge arguments yes good practicality is
25:34taking the steps in order to achieve a goal morality is universally preferable
25:37behavior yes with these points in mind I have a question regarding point three if
25:41the act of copying yourself slash reproduction is universally observed
25:44across all living organism does this qualify as a universally preferable
25:48behavior no because that is an action the action of reproduction is the
25:52physical act of sexuality or I guess mitosis or meiosis and so it is not
25:59universally preferable behavior preferable is not in there by accident
26:04preferable refers to things which can be preferred which means that there's an
26:08alternative which means that there is free will do we say that a female frog
26:15prefers to reproduce no she is programmed to reproduce do we say that a
26:19male dog in heat who will hump everything from a couch to his owner to
26:23a female dog is preferring to reproduce no it's programmed in the lust is
26:28programmed in the behavior is programmed in trust me we've had ducks for some
26:32years and the males with no other males around know instinctively to copulate
26:37with the females so it is not preferred is not preferable behavior it is
26:43programmed behavior that can't be stopped you can't reason someone out of
26:47of that right since morality is exclusive to human beings then does
26:52reproduction both physically or mimetically qualify as a universally
26:56preferable behavior since human beings show universal preference for this but
26:59no all animals don't show a preference they're programmed to reproduce so
27:03universally preferable behavior is ideal moral standards which we need because
27:09we're programmed sometimes to do otherwise if it is universally
27:13preferable to reproduce with mimetic reproduction as one part of this process
27:17then child abuse can be considered a form of man now no so child abuse a form
27:22of mimetic reproduction yeah child abuse reproduces child abuse sure and those
27:29so clearly people have the ability to not abuse their children which is why we
27:34call it abuse right so nobody would say that it is abusive if you raise your
27:40child in a healthy manner then when puberty hits that's you abusing your
27:45child
27:48nobody would call that child abuse because it's not under your control
27:53if if your child unfortunately develops something like epilepsy and you of
27:58course work your best to get treatment and so on that is not abuse because it
28:02is beyond your control now if your child has epilepsy because you beat his head
28:06against the door and he got seizures that's bad right but if your child has
28:10ill health obviously that's not the result of any bad parenting or
28:13deficiency in parenting that's not abusive so child abuse can is people who
28:20who can choose not to abuse their children and we know that they choose
28:24not to abuse their children because they would not abuse their children in front
28:28of the policeman in front of the teacher or the social worker or at a mall or at
28:32a church or you know on a plane or on a train you know all these kinds of things
28:36right so they choose not to which means they can they can choose not to abuse
28:40their children which means that they choose to abuse their children which
28:43means they're exercising free will and they are subject to moral rules because
28:49they can exercise free will
28:54so reproduction is not universally preferable behavior
29:00because that is a physical act capable of
29:05well animals constantly enact reproduction and they are programmed to
29:10do so by nature and so reproduction is not a universally preferable behavior
29:15because it is programmed in and remember if animals can do it it's not part of
29:19moral philosophy right
29:22so I'm struggling with how to navigate raising children should I participate in
29:26creating the belief that Santa Claus exists
29:29no
29:32you don't lie to your children right you don't lie to your children oh they need
29:37to believe in magic it's like no you're just training them that people in
29:42authority can absolutely believably lie to them about something that
29:47doesn't matter I mean Santa Claus doesn't particularly matter
29:51jeez it's funny I thought that there was I thought there was some beast out the
29:55tree behind me but it's just a little bug on my screen
29:58well Starship Troopers giant bug it's pretty funny
30:03so yeah Santa Claus it's a great story it's a great story
30:06right I mean when you when you when you say the lion said to the warthog blah blah
30:13blah right you don't think that you're not saying to your kids lions can
30:15actually talk right
30:19children my child tells other children that Santa Claus is fictional okay so
30:23what are you gonna say are you gonna say that if other people believe things that
30:27are false and see the Santa Claus thing it messes with reality right it you
30:32don't want to do anything that interferes with the child's processing
30:35and perception of objective factual empirical reality right and Santa Claus
30:41as a myth he lives in the North Pole he's got elves and you know people have
30:45done the math right like he can go to all of the houses and apartments in the
30:50world on one night you know he would have to travel so fast with the flying
30:53reindeer that he would actually burn and melt in atmosphere like some Nazi at the
30:57end of Raiders of the Lost Ark which would not be the greatest children
31:00children's show Donna Blitzen it's time to get to Chile oh face melts and
31:06explosion right dumb dim detonation of kindly corpulent white-haired man in the
31:12lower atmosphere would not be the greatest but it would teach the kids
31:15something about physics so I suppose this that that's worthwhile so yeah
31:19enjoy the fictional character absolutely enjoy the fictional character you know
31:22you watch Lord of the Rings and you don't imagine that they're real people
31:25right all right recently you've said that is he is
31:30quick to identify contradictions because you've never asked for her to believe in
31:32contradictions yes and okay so your kid is gonna say to other kids that Santa
31:38Claus isn't real right and they're gonna go back to their parents and they're
31:41gonna complain that you know your kid said that Santa Claus isn't real first
31:46of all I've never had that because my kids have friends who have friends who
31:50are rational right this is why your home school so you can choose the people that
31:54your kids hang out with you you are throwing your kids to the quasi prison
31:59of the mind ghouls if you drop your kids in public school or daycare so you're
32:04not choosing the companions you choose the kids that your friends hang out with
32:08the only way you can do that is through homeschooling and so my daughter has
32:11never got in trouble for saying things that are rational and true because we're
32:15only friends with families who value rationality and truth so that that's
32:20on you that's on you all right let's see here
32:25we did how to kind of be a more content person I fall into cycle saying this is
32:30going to be our forever home and then after a few years I start dreaming of
32:32something bigger and better yes absolutely absolutely so yeah your
32:37contentment is death you'll be mellow when you're dead you'll be content when
32:40you're dead so I mean you know the way that life is I imagine if you were a kid
32:44and you you you want I remember I we got an actual video of my daughter when she
32:49first figured out how to roll over Beethoven Chuck Berry song tangent again
32:53free association so the Beatles cover song
32:58very very friend Billy Eilish we buried people when they're dead ah yes so we're
33:03back to the the kid so imagine if you as a baby got a permanent life joy out
33:11of rolling over right so you rolled over and you get happy that you've rolled
33:15over just as you're happy when you learn how to walk so you're happy about it and
33:19then that happiness fades away why because life is constant progression
33:22life is constant progression and if you're not progressing you're dying
33:29if you're not getting better it's entropy you're either improving or you're
33:35dying so if a kid takes immense and permanent joy about rolling over they'll
33:43never learn how to walk why would they the reason they learn how to walk is
33:46they get bored with rolling over and now they want a new challenge and that's why
33:49we learn language and that's why I continue to do philosophy after 45
33:53years because I want to keep getting better am I satisfied with the work I've
34:00done in the past absolutely would I be happy repeating all the work I've done
34:04in the past forever and ever amen absolutely not I don't know how people
34:08do this politics stuff where they say you know the Dems are hypocritical the
34:12left of the real races over and over and over again and I mean bless them I don't
34:17I don't know how they can do it right so yeah you're not designed to feel
34:21contentment you're not just what do you think we got to be the alpha top of the
34:25pyramid predator species and dominate the whole world because we're just happy
34:30to do whatever no we got to the top of the food chain out of discontentedness
34:36out of discontentedness I am usually content with the analogies and the
34:42communication I put out and what I want to do is do better next time of course I
34:48mean why would you like there's some things I don't particularly care about
34:51getting better at because they're there for maintenance right so I'm not aiming
34:55to be a weightlifter right and and compete in weightlifting because my goal
35:01is to be a great philosopher and I don't want to spend the four hours a day to do
35:04weightlifting because I would rather do philosophy that will make me happier
35:08right so for that it's about maintenance you know I I've been playing racquet
35:14sports for 50 years and I'm not particularly interested I mean I've
35:21won a couple of tournaments here and there I'm not particularly interested in
35:25in becoming a great tennis player I enjoy it for exercise it's fun to get
35:30out in the Sun and I you know enjoy playing with my wife in particular so
35:34but I'm not interested in entering and winning tournaments and getting coaching
35:38it's not my thing right so but but that's because that's not what I'm
35:42focusing my excellence on right I mean I can make a couple of dishes of food
35:46I'm not interested in becoming a chef right so you can't become excellent in
35:50anything if you try to become excellent at everything so you got to fix
35:53something focus on becoming excellent at that and then the other things serve
35:57that right so weightlifting serves philosophy because it allows me to live
36:04longer and be healthier and do more philosophy so so yeah contentment is
36:09you're trying to I mean even babies I mean you were born discontent you're
36:13born crying you're born wanting things you're born striving to master and to
36:17learn and to figure all of that you figure out babies figuring out you watch
36:21babies figuring out how to do things and they're constantly playing with things
36:24and learning and they get language so we have this conversation because we're
36:28discontented you know this this camera is better than the camera you could get
36:31ten years ago because people were discontented your internet is faster
36:35than it was 20 years ago because people are discontented everything you have
36:40that's of any quality and and excellence is because people were discontented so
36:44join the endless lemming march to up the hill of discontent to excellent and off
36:50the cliff edge of death be excellent focus on things don't rest on your
36:55laurels don't just say well that's just fine I guess I should just be happy now
36:58forever nope doesn't work it doesn't work
37:02second question is why am I struggling with feeling left out lately in my
37:06community and circle of mom homeschooling neighborhood friends I've
37:09been aware of recent instances where I haven't been invited to join a dinner or
37:12gathering logically I tell myself that it's okay we live in a small town I
37:16don't have to be invited to everything emotionally it still hurts though well
37:19I'm glad you told me that you were a female because men don't generally care
37:23that much about being excluded because we're doing often more practical things
37:28and so maybe you're raising oh you're raising kids which is very practical so
37:32I retract that but it's a practicality around relationships not around material
37:38objects so
37:41haven't been invited to join a dinner or gathering right so you are under you are
37:46under the thumb or the boot heel of the soft fascism of social ostracism so the
37:51reason that you're not invited is someone doesn't like you and someone who
37:55doesn't like you have convinced other people do we really have to invite her
37:58she's kind of whatever whatever right oh maybe not ideal blah blah blah so I mean
38:05of course you don't have to be invited to everything but the way that you avoid
38:10feeling excluded trust me I've gone through a tiny smidge of exclusion over
38:15the course of my life and so the reason that you the way that you avoid
38:23feeling wounded by exclusion is recognizing how often you exclude others
38:30right so I'm sure there are people you're throwing a dinner or a gathering
38:34then
38:39you will not invite some people right sorry I was just trying to figure out
38:45whether to tell a story or not I think I will decline so there are times when you
38:50exclude people there are times when you don't want to say oh yes but I exclude
38:53them because they're bad okay so if you exclude people because
38:58they're difficult or troublesome or neurotic or negative or too gossipy or
39:02you know whatever awkward if you exclude people because of negative
39:05characteristics then negative people will exclude you because of your
39:09positive characteristics like listen bad people have the right to ostracize you
39:15just as you have the right to ostracize them and it's two sides of the same coin
39:19you want to have the ability to exclude negative people from your social events
39:24of course you do and negative people want to have the ability to exclude you
39:30from their events in other words you won't get invited to events where there
39:34are negative people good that's a plus in your life the people who don't invite
39:39you are inviting negative people right so
39:45people who people get kicked off of social media before you know quoting
39:52facts and science and other people like rappers who have you know half a dozen
39:57women or a dozen women accusing them of sexual assault some with reasonable
40:00proof they're fine right they can do their concerts they can they're on
40:04Twitter YouTube and all that right so so if you have the right to exclude bad
40:09people bad people have the right to exclude you and you should get down on
40:13your metaphorical knees and thank them for keeping you out of that so if
40:17there's someone around right let's say Betty right so Betty is around and your
40:22name is is Alice right so Betty is around and she says there's a social
40:27gathering and I say oh let's invite Alice and she's like hmm I don't know
40:30can we not like just this time because I find this and that the other about Alice
40:35and blah blah blah now if your friends are good people as a whole they'll
40:39recognize that there's a probably moral difference between Betty and Alice right
40:43you and you and Betty so they need to work on that right they need to say oh
40:47tell us more specifically what you dislike oh she just seems kind of this
40:50that and the other and they'll recognize that now there's a complication so so
40:54Betty by dismissing you or dissing you Betty is drawing these lines which are
40:58going to complicate social gatherings and people who are socially competent
41:01will have that hashed out so that they don't have to figure out oh no it has to
41:04be Betty or Alice it can't be both and and spread rumors and so on right so
41:08they if if Betty is like don't invite Alice then competent social people will
41:13sit down with Betty and say well what's your issue and can it be resolved it can
41:17we talk about it can we sort it out and if it turns out that Betty is kind of a
41:22weasel and Alice you're the good person then people will either try and fix
41:25things with Alice with Betty and not invite her right so but if people are
41:30just like oh Betty said something negative about Alice I guess we won't
41:33invite Alice it means that they're petty weak people who can't stand up to any
41:37kind of corruption who are easily gossiped out of a good person being
41:39around and frack them sorry they're doing you a favor all right
41:46should we stop here how we do it yeah yeah we'll stop here
41:49that right Wow time flies when we're doing philosophy I'll get to the other
41:52questions later thank you everyone so much for your lovely lovely time and
41:57attention it is free domain comm slash donate to help out the show we managed
42:01to survive the rain in slow motion you can see it going off my nose
42:05cabooey all right have yourself a lovely lovely day I will talk to you soon