Hi Stef, not sure if this is much of an argument but I had something I'd like your thoughts on. Some creative writing on my part combined with some skepticism inspired by one of your characters from the 'The Future', I think you might know who I'm talking about. Feel free to rebut this with some creative writing too if you find it appropriate. :)
"Do we mirror reality, and if so which parts of reality?"
"Are animals not a part of reality? And are we not more animal than object? Why then should we look towards objects as a source of direction for how we should live our lives?"
"Contradiction? Bah. Only heaven itself can afford the luxury of consistency. When put inside of a mortal body, I dare say even the sun itself would have days that it would feel like hiding its glorious light."
"To live according to logic and rationality is to try to make ourselves Gods. But we are not. We have the capacity to see a glimpse of godhood, but so long as we need to eat, sleep and reproduce, we will forever remain animals struggling against the hand of death."
"The humble farmer toils on his soil and regardless of how consistent he is in his labours, the locusts will devour that which he has sown."
"So tell me Mr Philosopher; to whom does the farmer partition for his lost crop?"
What is it about human beings that gives them the unique capacity to be sadistic? This question was inspired by my reading of “Survival I’m the killing fields”. Some the things the communists did to people is not something I can comprehend.
Hey, Stef! How do you stop ruminating over people? my family is one to sweep things under the rug a lot and certain members seem to be in a consistent cycle of failure. my mother is an enabler and complains about it but never does anything to stop it. I distance myself from my family and only occasionally visit them because it's usually a very draining experience but I do ruminate over them and I really wish they didn't live in my head. any tips?! Thank you!
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"Do we mirror reality, and if so which parts of reality?"
"Are animals not a part of reality? And are we not more animal than object? Why then should we look towards objects as a source of direction for how we should live our lives?"
"Contradiction? Bah. Only heaven itself can afford the luxury of consistency. When put inside of a mortal body, I dare say even the sun itself would have days that it would feel like hiding its glorious light."
"To live according to logic and rationality is to try to make ourselves Gods. But we are not. We have the capacity to see a glimpse of godhood, but so long as we need to eat, sleep and reproduce, we will forever remain animals struggling against the hand of death."
"The humble farmer toils on his soil and regardless of how consistent he is in his labours, the locusts will devour that which he has sown."
"So tell me Mr Philosopher; to whom does the farmer partition for his lost crop?"
What is it about human beings that gives them the unique capacity to be sadistic? This question was inspired by my reading of “Survival I’m the killing fields”. Some the things the communists did to people is not something I can comprehend.
Hey, Stef! How do you stop ruminating over people? my family is one to sweep things under the rug a lot and certain members seem to be in a consistent cycle of failure. my mother is an enabler and complains about it but never does anything to stop it. I distance myself from my family and only occasionally visit them because it's usually a very draining experience but I do ruminate over them and I really wish they didn't live in my head. any tips?! Thank you!
GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND AUDIOBOOK!
https://peacefulparenting.com/
Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!
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
Category
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LearningTranscript
00:00Good morning, everybody.
00:02Hope you're doing well.
00:02It's Defend Maloney from Free Domain.
00:04Questions from freedomain.locals.com.
00:07Hope you will join the community.
00:09Here we go.
00:10Hi, Steph.
00:10Not sure if this is much of an argument, but I had something I'd like your
00:13thoughts on some creative writing on my part, combined with some skepticism
00:17inspired by one of your characters from the future, I think you might
00:20know who I'm talking about.
00:21Feel free to rebut this with some creative writing too,
00:23if you find it appropriate.
00:25So this is a speech.
00:30This is a speech from a monologue from a character this guy wrote.
00:35Do we mirror reality?
00:37And if so, which parts of reality?
00:41Are animals not a part of reality and are we not more animal than object?
00:46Why then should we look towards objects as a source of direction
00:49for how we should live our lives?
00:51Contradiction?
00:53Only heaven itself can afford the luxury of consistency.
00:56When put inside a mortal body, I dare say even the sun itself would have days that
01:01it would feel like hiding its glorious light.
01:05To live according to logic and rationality is to try to make ourselves
01:10gods, but we are not.
01:14We have the capacity to see a glimpse of Godhood, but so long as we need
01:18to eat, sleep, and reproduce, we will forever remain animals struggling
01:22against the hand of death.
01:25The humble farmer toils on his soil and regardless of how consistent he
01:29is in his labors, the locusts will devour that which he has sown.
01:33So tell me, Mr.
01:34Philosopher, to whom does the farmer petition for his lost crop?
01:42Okay.
01:43So it's some nice writing.
01:46I appreciate that.
01:47And if I were to critique, I'm critiquing the character, of course,
01:52not you or the writing.
01:54So I say, do we mirror reality?
01:56And if so, which parts of reality?
01:57So this is a deepity, right?
01:58It sounds deep, but what does it mean?
02:00Right.
02:01Do we mirror reality?
02:02Okay.
02:02What do you mean by mirror?
02:03And what do you mean by reality?
02:05And what do you mean by parts of reality?
02:07So people make deep sounding syllables and then plow on as if it makes sense.
02:15Right.
02:16Do we mirror reality?
02:19What does that mean?
02:20Are you talking sense processing?
02:22Are you talking concepts in the mind?
02:24A mirror is passive, whereas consciousness is active.
02:27So it just sounds like, you know, do we mirror reality?
02:31And if so, which parts of reality?
02:32It sounds kind of deep.
02:33It sounds vaguely deep, but when you pick it apart, it's skywriting.
02:39It just fades away to nothing.
02:40It's candy floss.
02:41It just isn't food.
02:45Tastes pleasant in the moment it rots your teeth.
02:47Are animals not a part of reality?
02:50Okay.
02:50Rhetorical question.
02:51Of course, animals are a part of reality.
02:53Are we not more animal than object?
02:56I don't know what object means here.
02:59Why then should we look towards objects as a source of direction
03:02of how we should live our lives?
03:03I don't know what that means.
03:04Do you mean graven images?
03:05Do you mean sacred cows?
03:07What is it that you mean as a whole?
03:10A contradiction, bah, only heaven itself can afford the luxury of consistency.
03:14When put inside a mortal body, I dare say even the sun itself would have days.
03:18It should be where it would feel like hiding its glorious light.
03:22So, uh, if somebody is saying, right, this is a, like the Walt Whitman.
03:27Oh, I contradict myself very well.
03:29I contradict myself.
03:30So if somebody has said that they have no interest in consistency and that
03:35they're fine with contradiction, I don't, I don't mind that, but you wouldn't
03:42hire them as a mathematician if they say, I don't care if my equations balance.
03:46I don't care if they're accurate.
03:48I can make up my own numbers and my own mathematical operations.
03:52You say, oh, well, I mean, I guess that's a weird, but okay.
03:54Hobby.
03:55I mean, I guess, uh, Tolkien's desire to write Elvish gave us Lord of the Rings.
03:59So that's cool, but you wouldn't hire that person as a mathematician, right?
04:04I make up my own laws in Klingon.
04:06It's not the guy you want representing you in a murder rap in court.
04:10So, uh, it is, um,
04:16it's, it's fake deep.
04:17Uh, it's just a bunch of syllables.
04:19This, this would be very pretentious person.
04:21It's a bunch of syllables with somebody who wants to sound wise and, and what
04:25that see, and this character, this character would be trapped in the
04:28underworld of credulous fools.
04:30Wow.
04:30Yeah.
04:31Maybe we do mirror reality, man.
04:32Maybe, maybe be a mirror part of reality.
04:35And you go off down that road and nobody's asking for definitions
04:38about anything, so nothing's getting done.
04:40And the person sits back in their easy chair, smoking their corn cob pipe, a
04:43little bit of drool coming out of their mouth saying, yes, I suppose we are
04:46exploring the mysteries and depths of the universe and it's like, eh,
04:52are we, but dreams in the, uh, are we, but figments of God's imagination as
04:58he dreams, or are we not figments of the nightmares of the devil as he weeps?
05:04I mean, so just saying all these things, you know, uh, breath in the wind, man,
05:08all we are is dust in the wind.
05:10You know, they made a great parody of this pseudo philosophy in, um, Bill
05:14and Ted's bogus journey or excellent adventure or what it was.
05:17So, uh, I, I just view this stuff as it's like wind chimes or music.
05:26It's like vaguely pleasant sounds that don't interfere with your thinking
05:32and are vaguely positive to be around, but don't add up to anything.
05:38Right.
05:39We used to play this game, my friends and I, when we were at these
05:42to call this mall music, right?
05:43The only music Sting hates, but we would be like, how long is it going to take
05:48us to identify the song in the endless gusts of wind strings and, and vague
05:53thudding of a drum for the sort of elevator music and so on, right?
05:59What is it about human beings that gives them the unique ability
06:03or capacity to be sadistic?
06:06Why would you take human beings like them?
06:07Like human beings over there, you're part, right?
06:11This question was inspired by my reading of survival in the killing fields.
06:16Or I see.
06:17So I'm the killing fields.
06:18Um, I assume this is a Cambodian story.
06:21Some of the things that communists did to people is not
06:22something I can comprehend.
06:24Right.
06:25So remember all human desires exist in a bell curve.
06:27There are some people who are pathologically kind to the point where
06:30they can't help people because they can't trigger any negative emotions in people.
06:35Right.
06:36So there's, of course, such a thing as being too kind, right?
06:39And you think of that bell curve, right?
06:40So, uh, there's, there's too cruel.
06:43And then there's too kind, uh, cruel to be kind in the right
06:46measure means that I love you, baby.
06:47So if you are, uh, on the bell curve, right, nature can't aim at the
06:54middle when it needs a spread, right?
06:56Nature can't aim directly at five, 10, right?
07:00It says, here's some height genes.
07:01Good luck.
07:02Right.
07:03So, uh, there are taller and shorter people, right?
07:09So nature cannot aim or evolution cannot aim at a one specific point.
07:15It aims at a range and it has to mix things up because there are times in
07:19society where you need a lot of kindness.
07:22And there are times in society where you need some genuine bluntness.
07:25In other words, there's times when you help people avoid a pain
07:29and that's good for them.
07:31And there's other times where you have to be doing the right
07:35thing, even if it emotionally, I'm looking emotionally, even
07:38if it emotionally hurts others.
07:39You have to tell people the kind of brutal truth, like, uh, no,
07:43you're not that good a singer or.
07:45You know, I, you don't really study acting.
07:47I don't think you're ever going to be an actor or I've read your
07:49poetry and it doesn't move me.
07:51Or, uh, you're not a very good piano player or, um, you know, you, you
07:57keep thinking you want to start this business, but it's been five
08:00years and it's not going to happen.
08:02Like there are times where you just need to rip the gauze off people's dreams.
08:05Right?
08:06So there are times when you need to get behind people's dreams, obviously
08:08need to get behind people's dreams and encourage them and motivate
08:11them and, and help them out and all that.
08:13And then there are times where you need to say to people, uh, this
08:15dream is a delusionary fantasy.
08:17That's choking off your future.
08:20Right.
08:20There are times when.
08:22If, if a guy likes a girl, you'll encourage her to ask.
08:25You'll encourage him to ask her out.
08:27And then there are times where you say, dude, it's been six months.
08:30Move on.
08:30Like, you're not going to ask her out.
08:32It's not going to happen.
08:32Like do it now or stop talking about it.
08:35So there are times when you need to be supportive.
08:39Right.
08:40And then there are times when you need to be harsh, right?
08:44It's the old thing.
08:45Like, and women tend to be on the supportive side because
08:48women deal with toddlers.
08:49Women evolved to deal with babies and toddlers.
08:51Right.
08:51Just remember from sort of the mid teens onwards throughout most of
08:55human evolution, women would be having and raising babies, right?
08:59They'd have a whole series of babies of their own.
09:01And then by the time they, uh, their babies were grown or their
09:06babies were out of toddlerhood and early childhood, uh, the oldest
09:10would start to have babies of their own and then they would
09:12be involved as grandmothers.
09:13So you just understand that for a women evolved for most of their
09:17lives to take care of a conveyor belt of helpless and defended
09:22and dependent infants and toddlers.
09:24It didn't end.
09:25And I assume that they evolved to like it as well.
09:28And so ripping that out of women's lives, as we have done over the
09:32last 60 years or so, 70 years, uh, ripping that out of women's lives
09:36is saying that women can be entirely suited for something they never evolved to do.
09:43I'm a big fan of women's equality.
09:45Do what you want, have a career, but just, we need to
09:48understand at an emotional level.
09:50What we've done as a giant social experiment is we have said, we are
09:53going to take women out of the role that for hundreds of millions of
09:59years, they have evolved to do and put them in an entirely unfamiliar role.
10:06And we are then shocked when it doesn't seem to go quite as well as we
10:10hoped, because we have this, it's a leftist fantasy that a human, there
10:14is no such thing as human nature.
10:16It's all the environment.
10:17It's all based upon the means of production relationship to
10:20the means of production, right?
10:22So the worker is only the worker because he's not the boss.
10:25And if you take the worker and make him the boss, he'll be a fantastic boss.
10:30Right.
10:30I mean, this is all the way back to the movie trading places, right?
10:33Which is a very sort of philosophical movie that came out, I think in the
10:36eighties with, um, Oh gosh, well, Eddie Murphy, of course, uh, and, uh, Dan
10:43Aykroyd and, uh, Jamie Lee Curtis and so on.
10:46And so, uh, Eddie Murphy plays this guy who's a homeless cheating scam artist.
10:52And then the bet is, well, if he switches places, right.
10:56And, and switches places with the rich financier, he'll then become
10:59a fantastic rich financier and the rich financier will end up
11:03homeless and so on, right?
11:05So this is an argument that says, and it's a very, very leftist argument.
11:08The only thing that matters is the environment.
11:13So if you take the scamming homeless guy and you put him in the corner office,
11:19he will be a fantastic executive and stock trader.
11:23And if you take the fantastic executive stock trader and you put him out on the
11:27streets, he will become homeless and pathetic very quickly.
11:31So everything is environmental.
11:33Everything is circumstantial.
11:34There is no such thing as human nature that we are just like water and you pour
11:40us into whatever container you want and that's who we'll become.
11:43So it is not a meritocracy.
11:45It's an accidentocracy.
11:47It's just, Hey, the way things shook out.
11:48I happen to be born to a rich family.
11:50You happen to be born to a poor family, family or vice versa.
11:53And that's just the way things are.
11:55And if you, if you flip things around and, and it is a fantasy, it is a fantasy.
12:01It is a fantasy and it drives resentment, right?
12:04It drives massive amounts of resentment in the world, right?
12:09Drives massive amount of resentment in the world.
12:12So, uh, understanding that nature aims at a bell curve, right?
12:19We see it everywhere.
12:20We see it in height.
12:21We see it in athletic ability.
12:22We see it in musical ability.
12:23We see it in, in, in intelligence.
12:25We see it in, in, uh, singing ability.
12:28We see it in entrepreneurial ability, right?
12:31There's a bell curve and there's the Pareto principle and so on.
12:33So all of these things are part of nature and nature aims at a scattershot.
12:38So nature requires that sometimes we are very kind and
12:42sometimes we are quite harsh.
12:44And again, I'm not talking about physical violence, right?
12:46I'm just talking about sometimes we are kind and sometimes we are quite harsh.
12:50And if you look at the harshness tends to be on the male side, the kindness, the
12:55excessive kindness tends to be on the female side because excessive kindness
13:00is a kind of cruelty, right?
13:01So if somebody is really overweight and you say, no, you look fabulous, blah,
13:05blah, blah, blah, blah, you're taking 10 plus years off their life and you're
13:09giving them a life of pain and loneliness and discontent, and it's not kind.
13:13So in the moment they feel better, right?
13:15In the moment they feel better, but you know, if you have a tumor and, and it
13:20gets biopsied and the doctor says, oh, it's just benign, we'll take it out.
13:24You'll be fine.
13:24You don't need any chemo or radiation, right?
13:26You feel good in the moment, but if the doctor's lying and the later you find
13:29out that, uh, it is not, it is cancerous, well, then you're in serious danger.
13:33Right?
13:34So, uh, wanting people to feel fine in the moment is great.
13:38When you're dealing with babies and toddlers, you want to do that.
13:41Babies and toddlers, certainly babies can't defer gratification and they
13:44shouldn't, right, because they're very dependent upon external sources
13:47of, uh, food and liquids and so on.
13:51Right.
13:52So babies and really toddlers can't defer gratification.
13:55It's kind of unfair to ask them to.
13:56So, uh, you, you, you make people comfortable in the moment when you're
14:00dealing with babies and toddlers, one of the greatest philosophical, uh,
14:03and it's a really unique, really unique philosophical understanding
14:06that I got from being a stay at home dad and seeing this whole progression.
14:09Right.
14:11So, uh, and of course, if you think throughout human history, uh, and
14:17we go sort of go back to the violent times, uh, you had various tribes.
14:21And if you did not have people with the capacity for extraordinary levels
14:25of cruelty, you could not survive.
14:29Right.
14:29You, you could not survive.
14:31And so you would be taken over.
14:33You would be run down.
14:34You, you know, it's just the Athens versus Sparta thing, right.
14:37Or Carthage versus or Carthage versus, versus Rome.
14:42So if you look at the fact that there is this scattershot in society of
14:47kindness to cruelty, where, uh, having a little capacity to be blunt with
14:51people and maybe cause them a bit of emotional pain can be very good and
14:54very healthy, having too much of that cruelty or that harshness or that
14:58bluntness is sadistic, it's good to be nice and consider other people's
15:03feelings and thoughts, but at the same time, if you abandon principles,
15:06because you can't stand making people upset in any conceivable way, that's
15:11pathological altruism, and so you need that balance.
15:14So, uh, we're going to get this scattershot.
15:16As long as we are human beings, this bell curve, there's
15:19going to be a scattershot.
15:20And of course, most people are in the middle, but there's going to be extremes.
15:23And what do you do with these extremes?
15:25What do you do with these extremes?
15:27If you have people who are kind of cold and cruel, you make them surgeons
15:31or, uh, you, you make them soldiers or, you know, I mean, not you make them,
15:36but that's where they will gravitate towards.
15:37And you're trying to find a way.
15:39Yeah.
15:40You make them people who come into companies and cut the fat, right?
15:44If you've got like when they hire 80%, uh, they fired 80% of the Twitter
15:48stuff and Twitter's functioning even better than ever, but you need a
15:52certain amount of coldness, right?
15:53You can't sit there and say, oh, but these people have signed leases
15:56and they, they have children.
15:58And like, you have to just be kind of harsh and to, to be efficient.
16:02So you have people who are going to be able to do that.
16:06And so that some of the cruelty you try to, or the coldness you try to channel
16:11into economically, socially, medically productive, uh, things, right.
16:17And some of the excessive kindness, well, you know, you would put these
16:20people more in charge of babies and infants and, and maybe people who've
16:23got mental challenges and, and, and, uh, and so on, and so the people to whom
16:28that gentleness and kindness and what would be an excess in the general
16:30population and access in the marketplace, you can find places where those can be
16:34a value, but if, if you then give the cruel power, uh, it moves them closer
16:41to the extremes because power dehumanizes, right?
16:44So power is exercising a violent, coercive control over others.
16:48And it's a step-by-step thing, right?
16:51Like how do they get people in concentration camps
16:53to participate in torture?
16:54I wrote a poem about this many years ago.
16:56And what they do is they just assign them to the concentration camp and
16:59then they assign them down the hall where they can vaguely hear the screams.
17:03And then they move them a little closer and then they have them even closer.
17:05They have them guard outside the door and then they have to have them bring in some
17:09food and then they have them bring in some implements and then they have them pass
17:12the implements and eventually they just are torturing some person they don't even
17:15know by incrementalism, how that came about and how that happened.
17:18They didn't make a choice at any particular moment, that kind of incrementalism.
17:21It's called grooming, of course, in some contests.
17:24So, uh, it's progressively dehumanizing.
17:27And then the restraining bolts in a sense are taken off the sadism.
17:30So, uh, all right.
17:34Hey, Steph, how do you stop ruminating over people?
17:36My family is one to sweep things under the rug a lot.
17:38And certain members seem to be in a consistent cycle of failure.
17:41My mother is an enabler and never, and complains about it,
17:44but never does anything to stop it.
17:46I distanced myself from my family and only occasionally visit them because
17:50it's usually a very draining experience, but I do ruminate over them and I really
17:53wish they didn't live in my head any tips.
17:56Well, I mean, the answer is in the question.
17:58Uh, these people, see, here's the thing, right?
18:01The big secret ready for a big secret in life.
18:03Okay.
18:03It's a big secret in life.
18:07A lot of people enjoy their unhappiness.
18:14You know, there is such a thing as masochism, right?
18:16Which is where you take pleasure in negative experiences.
18:19A lot of people enjoy their unhappiness.
18:22And who am I to interfere with people's happiness?
18:25I don't think it's a very healthy way to live.
18:26I don't think it's a very productive way to live.
18:28It's not a way that I would want to live, but just empirically, a lot of people,
18:32maybe it's a little bit more women than men, but a lot of people love to complain
18:37and love that satisfaction of being wronged, loved that self-righteousness
18:41and moral superiority and all of these great things they get out of being wronged.
18:46Oh, it's so delicious.
18:48I'm in the presence of people who are wronging me and I'm a victim.
18:51And there's this, uh, bittersweet taste of being, uh, of being victimized
18:57and, and being self-righteous.
18:58And I can't believe it happened again.
18:59And there's a sick familiarity, like a lot of people love their unhappiness.
19:07I, you know, it's not a big thing for me, obviously, but I mean, I'm willing
19:11to take unhappiness in the pursuit of truth, but I don't love the unhappiness.
19:15So your mother's an enabler and complains about it.
19:18Well, she is called secondary gains, right?
19:20Which is whatever people do, they want to do.
19:24This is the other big secret in life.
19:25That's just going to liberate you from a whole bunch of things.
19:28Whatever people do is what they want to do.
19:31Assuming they're not, you know, directly being coerced, right?
19:33So whatever people do, if your mother is an enabler and complains about it,
19:37then she wants to be an enabler and wants to complain about it.
19:41That's what she wants.
19:42Now it may be incomprehensible to you.
19:44It may not be the life that you want to live.
19:46It would be horrible for you and so on, but people are different, right?
19:52People are people.
19:53So why should it be?
19:54You and I should get along so awfully, right?
19:58They, she likes it.
19:59That's what she prefers.
20:00My mother prefers to indulge in aggression and paranoia rather than
20:09accept the truth and be close to people.
20:11Now, just because other people are incomprehensible to you does not
20:14mean that they're incomprehensible.
20:16So emotionally you'd be like, well, that can't be true.
20:19Why would anyone choose that?
20:20Why would it be?
20:20Right.
20:23But they do.
20:24I mean, there are lots of incomprehensible choices to me.
20:27Some people choose to pay $1,500 to go see Taylor Swift.
20:31I'd pay $1,500 to not see Taylor Swift, to listen to the cries of her dying dino
20:35eggs, right, but it's, some things are incomprehensible to me.
20:38Some people go to Burning Man.
20:41I don't understand.
20:42Some people just make terrible decisions, right?
20:48They make bad decisions, decisions that I would never make in a million years.
20:53I, I'm not even going to say whether I respect or don't respect their
20:56decisions, but I accept, I accept that they make their decisions.
21:00Some people choose to drink a lot rather than get help.
21:04Some people choose a lot of gambling.
21:06Some people choose like, it's a whole number of things, a whole bunch of
21:09things that people choose that I would never choose.
21:13And so recognizing that people are very different from you.
21:16I'm sorry.
21:17I know this sounds kind of school Marmee, right?
21:18But recognizing that people are very different from you is
21:21really the essence of growing up.
21:23Right.
21:23It is a child's perspective to say, well, I'm right.
21:25And everybody else is wrong.
21:26If they did do things different from me, some people choose to not exercise.
21:33In fact, the majority of people don't have any particularly
21:36consistent exercise regime, right?
21:38So some people choose to not exercise.
21:40I choose to exercise.
21:41I really enjoy the, I don't particularly enjoy exercise itself.
21:45It's just, you know, right.
21:47It's like being a lever, being a forklift, but I enjoy the effects of exercise,
21:50which is, you know, good health, a good sleep, a strong body and, uh, and
21:55relatively youthful life and so on.
21:57Right.
21:57So I prefer the benefits.
21:58Other people prefer the latitude.
21:59Some people prefer the latitude.
22:01Other people prefer the latitude.
22:03Some people, uh, gain weight.
22:05Why are they, why are they overweight?
22:07Well, that's what they prefer.
22:09Oh, but they can't prefer that.
22:10It's like, but they do.
22:12Everybody knows what you need to do to lose weight.
22:14Everybody.
22:17And they choose to eat more.
22:18They choose not to exercise and they choose to eat more.
22:22So they choose that.
22:23They prefer that.
22:24Uh, somebody who, um, uh, decides to stay in his parents' basement
22:28playing video games, uh, until he's 30 and complains about it.
22:32It's like, but that's what he prefers to do.
22:34And we know this empirically because we have free will.
22:37Therefore, whatever people are doing is what they prefer to do.
22:42And again, you might be, it might be incomprehensible.
22:44How could they possibly doesn't matter.
22:47That's a kind of narcissism to say it is incomprehensible to me that other
22:54people choose differently from me.
22:56Right.
22:56That's very, very immature.
22:58And maybe you're a young person and other than some people, um, choose to
23:04get married and put down their spouse.
23:07Incomprehensible to me, but they do it and they prefer to do it.
23:11They want to feel right.
23:12They want to be self-righteous.
23:13I mean, people make bad choices all the time and you're making a bad choice by
23:19thinking other people have to be like you.
23:21So you wouldn't be an enabler and complain about it.
23:23I think that's great.
23:24I think that's a better way to be.
23:26Don't complain about things, uh, change them.
23:28Right.
23:29So you choose to not be an enabler and you choose to not complain
23:34about things that are negative for you.
23:36I assume you either don't complain about them or you work to change them.
23:38I think that's great.
23:39Good for you.
23:40That's not the decision of the majority of people.
23:43That's not the decision.
23:44I didn't take the vaccine.
23:46Most people did.
23:48I find that kind of incomprehensible.
23:52Oh, well, but you know, they, they had to keep their jobs.
23:55It's like, well, I had a pretty good job until I was de-platformed and I choose
23:58the truth, I choose the truth, the truth over, over that.
24:02So I got fired just for telling the truth, let alone putting a fairly untested,
24:07a vial of mystery juice into my veins.
24:09So people do things that are incomprehensible to me.
24:14People are mean to their children.
24:17I mean, it's wrong.
24:18It's absolutely wrong, but they do it.
24:20The majority of people hit their children.
24:22The majority of people yell at their children.
24:24The majority of people are aggressive and in many ways, abusive towards their
24:28children, incomprehensible to me.
24:31That's what they do.
24:32The majority of people, when confronted with wrong behavior on their part,
24:36we'll deny, we'll gaslight, we'll manipulate, we'll counter-attack, right?
24:41Like it's income, like just the debate that happened, um, it's a week ago, right?
24:46A week ago, I just did a flash live stream on Telegram and had this really
24:50aggressive guy come in and really have a go at me to me.
24:53That's incomprehensible behavior to just interrupt someone's speech and
24:57just start attacking them and then not admit any fault and manipulate
25:01and gaslight and avoid that's incomprehensible behavior to me.
25:05But just because it's incomprehensible to me doesn't mean that I don't accept
25:10that is that it is obviously it act acted out in the world and a lot of people do it.
25:17Right.
25:19Uh, apparently there are people in the world who really like Chinese opera.
25:24Not my cup of tea, but I'm sure the music I like would be unpleasant
25:27to Chinese people or whatever.
25:28Right.
25:28So yeah, there, there are people, there are people who literally eat dim sum.
25:32There are people who go to Chinese restaurants and order
25:36sea slug and snake soup.
25:38Right.
25:39And look, no dis, I guess they grew up with it.
25:41I guess they like it.
25:42And I'm sure hot dogs.
25:43Well, I know hot dogs are objectively vile no matter what, unless it's
25:46practiced for women who travel.
25:48So.
25:51Uh, people do a lot of incomprehensible things in the world, but the one
25:53thing that is always the case and is always true is that whatever people
25:57are doing, they choose to do again, with the exception that if
26:00they're being directly coerced.
26:02So whatever people do, they, they prefer to do if people believe false
26:06things, it's because they prefer to believe false things.
26:09If people don't seek out counter arguments to their perspective, it's
26:12because they prefer to be bigoted and biased and, and, uh, tribal.
26:17Okay.
26:18So you, you prefer to not get the truth.
26:21Okay.
26:21Well, I mean, I, I find that incomprehensible.
26:24I really like it and counter evidence to my position, but that's what people do.
26:29And that's just a fact.
26:30So you think because it's unbearable for you, it must be
26:34unbearable for other people.
26:36Because if you were doing that, it would be unbearable for you.
26:39Right.
26:41And so you think that other people are going through the torture that you're
26:46going through, if you were in their position, look, there's great comfort
26:50in living in your parents' basement, playing video games and, uh, living
26:54off mom and daddy's financial titties.
26:56Right.
26:57There's great comfort in that.
26:58You don't have to risk stuff.
26:59Uh, you don't have to go out there and wrestle in the world.
27:02Uh, you get a kind of comfort and I mean, there's great parts.
27:04I mean, that's, it's great fun to, I assume it's great fun to, uh, to, to
27:08eat what you want, enjoy the food and gain weight.
27:11I mean, that's really nice.
27:13That's really nice to not have this constant leash on your, your appetite.
27:18Right.
27:18I'm, you know, I'm it's, it's pretty nice to not exercise.
27:23Right.
27:23It's pretty nice.
27:26So just because it wouldn't be the life that I would want.
27:28And in fact, it would be a life that I would find unbearable.
27:31Well, guess what?
27:32They find people who, who do those things would find my life unbearable.
27:37So what that's just the, again, that's the bell curve of variety.
27:41So it is a form of selfishness to imagine that just because your mother's
27:47life would be unbearable to you, that it is unbearable to her, you know, there
27:51are people who literally study mime for years and they go out on the streets
27:55and they try to make money as a mind that would be about as depressing and
27:59unbearable life as I could possibly imagine.
28:03I have no problem that they do it.
28:04It's what they prefer to do.
28:05It's what they like to do.
28:06So recognize that people are different, that which would be unbearable to
28:10you, maybe sweet joy to someone else.
28:12So for you being an enabler and complaining about it would be unbearable
28:15and you'd do anything to change that.
28:17Okay, great.
28:18That's you.
28:18Your mother has chosen to enjoy that life and that's what she wants to
28:22do because that's what she's doing.
28:24And, and prying away this, this mold that you have, that other people have
28:28to be like you and other people have to make your decisions is really
28:31liberating, really liberating.
28:34You know, if, if people want to vote in, um, DAs or whatever, who let
28:39violent criminals out on the street.
28:42I mean, that's not my particular choice.
28:43It's not my particular recommendation, but that's what they want to do.
28:46So I'm not going to live near those people.
28:49And, uh, they, if they then want to complain about the crime, well, that's,
28:53they like making terrible decisions and complaining about them.
28:55I don't like doing that, but they do.
28:57So they can have their worlds.
28:59I'm not going to listen to their complaints because their
29:01complaints are what they like.
29:03They're complaining about what they choose.
29:04They're complaining about what they prefer.
29:06I would no more listen to someone complain about the results of those
29:09choices than I would listen to someone who had a year to figure out
29:13what kind of car they want to buy.
29:14They went and test drove a whole bunch of things, a whole bunch of cars.
29:18And they finally settled on the car.
29:19They get it for a great price.
29:20They drive it home and then they spend the next 10 years
29:23complaining about their car.
29:24But that makes no sense to me.
29:26Nobody made you get a car.
29:27Nobody made you get that car.
29:28You decided to get a car.
29:29You decided to get that car.
29:31Nobody forced you to.
29:32So why would I care if you complain?
29:34So if people complain about the people in their lives, I don't care to listen.
29:38People complain about their spouses.
29:39I mean, honestly, I haven't had anyone in my life who complains about people in
29:43their lives for probably 20 years.
29:45Why?
29:46Because they are enjoying the complaining.
29:49So it's not a problem to be fixed.
29:51You understand?
29:51They are enjoying the complaint, enjoy complaining.
29:54They enjoy the complaints and therefore it's not a problem to be fixed because
29:59you don't try and fix something that gives people some kind of positive
30:02experience, some kind of happiness.
30:03Some to me, it's a kind of sick joy, but you know, that's another value judgment.
30:07They like having dysfunctional people in their lives that they complain about.
30:10They like that.
30:11They want that.
30:12It's not a problem to be fixed.
30:14Now, if it was you, you'd find that unbearable and you want to fix it, but
30:16it's them and that's what they prefer and let them have what they prefer.
30:20Like, don't be this, you know, like the typical cliche of the sports dad, right?
30:25The sports dad who, you know, he's sporty, but his kid is, is artsy and,
30:29and, and pencil necked and wants to program computers and write haikus.
30:34And so the sports dad is like, what the hell is wrong with this kid?
30:37He's not a son of mine.
30:39Or it could be the other way, right?
30:40The artsy dad has the jock kid or whatever and, and calls him stupid and a
30:44dumb animal and all of that sort of stuff.
30:46It's like, no, they're just different.
30:47They're just different.
30:48Let them be different.
30:49Let them be different.
30:49Let them have their life.
30:51Let them have their life.
30:52Let them have their choices.
30:54Maybe they're bad choices.
30:55Maybe they're not choices that you would ever make, but that's their choice.
30:58Respect people's free will.
31:00Respect.
31:01If your mother takes pleasure in complaining about dysfunctional people
31:04in her life and propping them up and supporting them, and that's what she
31:07wants in life and that's what she likes.
31:09Accept that.
31:10That's how you stop ruminating on people is you stop trying to turn them into you.
31:14You'd find that unbearable.
31:15So that's why you don't do it.
31:16I'd find that unbearable.
31:17That's why I don't do it, but they like, my mother likes the life that she has.
31:21My father liked the life that he had.
31:24Otherwise he would have done something different.
31:26But how do you know what people like?
31:27How do you know what people want?
31:28How do you know what people are choosing?
31:30You look at what they do.
31:31That's what they want.
31:33That's what they want.
31:35They take pleasure in that, which you would find unbearable and they would find
31:40unbearable that in which you take pleasure.
31:42I like being confronted.
31:43I like ferocious debates.
31:45I like the Russell, uh, the, the, the, um, the rough and tumble and hurly burly of
31:52intellectual conversations with the world.
31:54I like that.
31:55I like being punchy.
31:57I like being punched at, uh, metaphorically.
32:00So I, that's my life.
32:02Now, other people would find that unbearable.
32:04Okay.
32:04Then they shouldn't do it.
32:05But what the life that I have is the life that I want.
32:08How do you know that?
32:09Because it's the life that I'm living and nobody's forcing me and you weren't
32:12forced to take the job most places.
32:15Oh, but there were negative consequences.
32:17Yeah.
32:17So, so, so people make choices.
32:21I don't agree with all the time.
32:24I am not going to pretend that I am some mysterious, perfect
32:28template for humanity as a whole.
32:29It takes all kinds.
32:31It takes all kinds of people.
32:33And if your mother is living in a way that you would find unbearable, you, what
32:38you do is you project yourself into your mother's position and say, well, that's
32:41unbearable, that's a horrible problem that absolutely needs to be fixed and changed.
32:45Well, no, it doesn't because that's the life your mother wants.
32:48That's the life she's chosen.
32:50And that's what she prefers.
32:51That's what makes her the happiest that she can imagine.
32:53So why would you interfere with that?
32:54Well, because it would make me come on.
32:56This is, this is one of the reasons that Marxism exists is that the intellectuals
33:00look at the guy who's got a fairly dumb job on a factory line and says that
33:05job would be unbearable for me.
33:07Therefore, the, uh, the worker must be miserable because I would
33:10be miserable in that position.
33:11It's like, but the worker is not miserable.
33:14I mean, I've worked with the workers.
33:17I've been a worker.
33:18They have a pretty good life, right?
33:20They don't have the same stresses as the boss.
33:22They get to go home at five o'clock.
33:23They've maybe got a union to protect them.
33:25They get benefits.
33:26Uh, they don't have to take work home with them.
33:28Nobody calls them on the weekend.
33:29They have a very strict work-life balance, a lot of benefits to it.
33:33A lot of benefits to it.
33:34And, um, they don't have to do office politics.
33:38They don't have to negotiate a power place in senior
33:41management or on the board.
33:42So they have a pretty good life.
33:44Now it's not the life that I would choose.
33:45I did that work.
33:47That's totally fine.
33:48There's nothing wrong with it.
33:48It's great that people do that.
33:50It's not the life that I want, but I'm not thinking that just because
33:52it's not the life that I want, that it's a massive problem
33:54that needs to be solved.
33:56So just look at the people around you.
33:57I'm begging you look at the people around you and say, especially if
34:01they're adults, if they're adults, if they're children, that's a different
34:03matter, but as adults, all the people around you have exactly the life that
34:07they want, assuming they're not unjustly imprisoned or something like that.
34:10Right.
34:11So everyone around you in the realm of free choice, and we have that
34:15free choice in relationships.
34:16We have for that free choice in what we get educated in.
34:19We have that free choice in where we choose to work.
34:20We have that free choice in our friends and our spouses and everything
34:25that is meaningful in life.
34:27I mean, the fact that the government takes money, I give them money, whatever.
34:30Right.
34:30But, but in the things that are meaningful in your occupation, your
34:33education, your integrity, your virtue, your relationships, your marriage,
34:37your children, with your children, you have absolute free will.
34:40Nobody's forcing you to spend time with people.
34:42Nobody's forcing you to get or stay married.
34:44Nobody's forcing any of that stuff on you.
34:46Whatever people have is what they want.
34:49It is not a problem to be solved.
34:50Now, maybe their life is unbearable to you.
34:52You can't look at it and you don't want to be around it because you don't like
34:55people complaining because they're lying, right?
34:57People are complaining when they're actually enjoying it.
34:58It's just a kind of falsehood.
35:00I don't like to have people in my life who bear false witness.
35:02So maybe you don't want that in your life, but it's not a
35:04problem to be solved for them.
35:05Just because you'd find it horrible.
35:07Doesn't mean that it's a problem to be solved.
35:11Let people have their lives, respect their choices.
35:14It's so easy.
35:15It's so great.
35:16And so what happens is the reason you keep ruminating people is because you keep
35:19thinking there's a problem to be solved.
35:21And the only problem to be solved is your kind of half narcissism and bigotry,
35:25which we all have, and I'm not putting myself out of this continuum or anything
35:29like that to look at people and say, I would hate that life.
35:33I mean, some people are pharmacists for heaven's sakes, right?
35:35And so I would like, and I'm glad that there are pharmacists.
35:38I would hate that job, but I'm glad there are people who do it.
35:41I respect the fact that they do it.
35:42I'm happy that they do it, but I would find that life unbearable.
35:45But because I would find that life unbearable doesn't mean I have to go to
35:48every pharmacist I've ever met and say, you should be a podcaster and talk
35:52shirtless in the woods, right?
35:54You should be.
35:54No, because they want to be pharmacists and that's what they like.
35:57And it's not a problem.
35:58And I want to do this and that's what I like.
35:59And it's not a problem.
36:01So stop trying to solve the results of people's free will.
36:06Now, maybe you can give them a little bit of advice here and there, but if
36:08they're committed to it, they're committed to it.
36:10It's not a problem for you to solve.
36:11That's the life they want.
36:13That's the life they prefer.
36:14Respect their choices.
36:15Doesn't mean you have to spend a second more in your life with them, but you
36:19have to, you don't respect the content of your choice of their choices, but you
36:22do respect that they've chosen it and they keep choosing it and that's what they want.
36:29You accept that people are really different.
36:31They choose things that are incomprehensible, unbearable to you,
36:33and maybe even wrong still.
36:34That's what they choose.
36:35That's what they want.
36:36You can give them some good advice.
36:37If they don't want to listen, then they're choosing the life that they have.
36:41They want the life that they have.
36:42There's nothing to fix, nothing to fix except your obsession with trying to
36:46change people all over the world to be just like you, that's narcissistic in
36:49its own way, and I'm not calling you a narcissist, I'm just saying that that
36:52is kind of narcissistic in its own way.
36:54Let people make mistakes, let people fail, let people fall, let people live
36:58miserable lives because they're getting secondary gains and being happy with
37:01their misery and it fulfills some martyr complex or whatever, it doesn't matter.
37:06Let people choose what they want.
37:08And it's not people's free choice, as long as it's not fraud
37:12or force or whatever, right?
37:15People's free choice is not your concern.
37:17It's not a problem to be fixed.
37:18Let people have the lives that they want.
37:19Maybe it's a bad life.
37:20Maybe they serve as an example to others, but it's the life they prefer.
37:23It's a life they choose.
37:24It's the life they want.
37:25Let them have it.
37:27And by letting other people have their own lives and their own bad
37:29dischoices, you get your own life back because you're not constantly
37:32trying to solve things that people want.
37:34You're not trying to constantly fix things that people deep down
37:39know is working just fine for them.
37:40So I would take that approach.
37:42Thank you.
37:43Freedomain.com slash donate.
37:45Thank you so much.
37:46I will talk to you soon.
37:47Bye.