• 2 months ago
In this lecture, Stefan Molyneux explores the concept of "fog" in communication, highlighting how vague responses often stem from fear of judgment and the desire to avoid conflict. He argues that precise answers signify confidence, while ambiguity reflects insecurity and a need to navigate power dynamics. Molyneux emphasizes the importance of recognizing these patterns and advocates for transparency in communication to foster healthier interactions, urging individuals to confront societal structures that encourage evasiveness.

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Transcript
00:00All right, everybody. Hope you're doing well. Stephen Molyneux from The Free Domain. So
00:06there was a question at freedomain.locals.com, which was, what is the story with fog? Of
00:12course, when I do call-in shows, a lot of times I get a fog, which is imprecise answers,
00:18evasive answers. Did you get hit a lot? Not much. Well, how much? I don't really know.
00:25It wasn't too bad. You know, all of this stuff where any clarity and precision in the
00:32answer is studiously avoided, right? So the question is sort of, why does this happen?
00:39Why do people do that? So precise answers are a mark of confidence and a mark of security.
00:52Precise answers are a mark of confidence and of security. So if you say to an engineer,
00:58you know, what tensile strength have you calculated for sort of X, Y, and Z, then he will say,
01:05you know, it's fairly good. It's kind of accurate. It seems reasonable and sensible. It's in
01:13the right area. It's like, no, you get precise answers. When I had to submit my code to speed
01:21testing, well, the speed testing had to have precise answers, and you did the testing a
01:25whole bunch of times to see if you could figure out which way, like how accurate the results
01:30were. So you needed really sort of precise answers. So precise answers are a mark of
01:35confidence and accountability, whereas fog or evasion is a mark of low status and being
01:45punished both for lying and for telling the truth. So it's really, really important. This
01:51is a big, big issue in life. You are punished both for lying and for telling the truth.
01:58Now if you're punished for lying and telling the truth, then all you can do is obfuscate.
02:03It is a mark of low status. It is a mark of victimhood, and it is a mark of a personality-based
02:13abusive, non-objective methodology for the truth. So for instance, in the business world,
02:22a lot of times with regards to sales projections and so on, you are punished for lying and
02:28you are punished for telling the truth. So what I mean by that is that if you tell the
02:31truth based upon your most reasonable expectations, you are punished because inexperienced investors
02:38will give money to the other person instead, the person who fabricates and doesn't tell
02:45the truth about what's going on. So if you tell the truth, you're punished. If you lie,
02:52you are punished, but later. So if you say, oh, we're going to do $5 million in business
02:59next year, then if you really only think you're going to do $2.5 million, then you are lying,
03:07but you are rewarded in the moment, but punished later when you come in under. So fog or obfuscation
03:13is a way of trying to defer the punishment to later. Now, if the person is trying to
03:18get information out of you in a non-hierarchical fashion, right, they're not sort of ordering
03:23you to give information and they'll determine whether it's good or bad and reward or punish
03:28you on their whim. If someone is trying to get information out of you in a non-hierarchical
03:33fashion, then your fog will be something that is kind of annoying, like, just give
03:39me the facts, give me the facts. However, if someone is asking you a question in order
03:45to dominate you, then the fog may well satisfy them. A foggy answer may well satisfy them
03:52because their purpose is to establish hierarchy and dominance, and if you provide a fogged
03:58out imprecise answer to someone, you are submitting to them, right? So you are admitting
04:04to them that they have higher status, you have lower status, and you won't give them
04:13precise answers because they have the capacity to punish you, both for lying and telling
04:19the truth, right? I mean, you know, there's a silly example that's quoted about women,
04:24where some woman, some wife says to her husband, does this dress make me look fat, or do you
04:33think I've gained weight, right? Now, he's punished if he lies or if he tells the truth.
04:38So if he tells the truth, yes, I think you have gained some weight, then he's punished.
04:42If he lies, no, you look fantastic, then at some point she will realize she has gained
04:48weight or other people will mention it and like, well, why didn't you say anything? So
04:52he's punished if he lies, he's punished if he tells the truth. But what she's doing by
04:57asking this kind of question is she is not asking for the truth or for a lie, she wants
05:06him to show his submission to her by not being clear and answering the question. Being clear
05:13and answering the question is, do you think I've gained weight or does this dress make
05:17me look fat? Be like, well, don't ask me, go ask the bathroom scale. I mean, figure
05:21out if you've gained weight. It's not an eyeball thing, it's a weight scale thing.
05:27But what do you think? It's like, well, I don't know. I mean, it could be muscle, maybe
05:31you've been working out more. It could be any number of things. It looks a little bit
05:34like you've gained weight. The pants do look tighter, but you know, I don't know for sure.
05:40But go ask the scale, right? There's no point asking me. So a lot of times when people are
05:45demanding information from you, they want to see you squirm. They want to see you have
05:51to lie or be awkward, and professors do this all the time. Professors do this all the time
05:58because they ask you your answer for a particular question, and if you lie and parrot back what
06:04they want to hear, what the professor wants to hear, then he or she is satisfied because
06:13they got you to lie, to misrepresent, to falsify. Like the odds that you have exactly
06:18the same opinions as your professor are virtually zero, but it is a dominance, a display to
06:24get you to stumble and stutter and lie and falsify. To see your true authentic self collide
06:31with the sort of devious self that wants to gain resources through falsehood is a pleasure
06:38that a sadist will get in terms of corruption, like they are corrupting you. And the amount
06:44of pleasure that people take in corrupting others is really quite something to see. You
06:50know, hey man, have another drink. Hey man, smoke them if you got them. Hey man, you should
06:56try this weed. Hey man, all of this sort of stuff, right? And that pleasure is really
07:04something. Sort of think of Oprah Winfrey with that young blonde actress with sort of
07:08a lecherous, lurky owlbear of Harvey Weinstein looming over them in the green room from hell.
07:16So they enjoy, sadists will enjoy, asking you the questions in a demanding manner and
07:22then watching you squirm and oh and oh because that is a mark of submission. It is a way
07:28of getting you to bow down before them under the pretext of trying to get information.
07:37I mean, I remember one of the first, I think it was the first computer program that I wrote
07:43at a trading company was to analyze the disk usage on a tandem system to figure out if
07:47they needed to upgrade. And I wrote the program and I brought the install over and I ran it
07:53on my boss's computer and it didn't work. And that was because he had his date formatting
08:00set to something in N dimensional Serbia or something like that. Like it's normally in
08:05Canada is day, month, year and it's four dates for the year. But he was like year, day, month,
08:10two for the year. And so I just hadn't anticipated that. And you know, that's fine. And one of
08:17the programmers said, oh yeah, sorry, I forgot to mention, he has all these kinds of weird
08:21settings on his computer to check and see if you're thorough in your coding. And I'm
08:27like, but it's just running locally here. I mean, obviously if I was sending it overseas
08:32or to some other place, I would check all these weird date formats and he's like, no,
08:36it doesn't matter. Right. So that was interesting. Right. And of course it was a very easy fix.
08:41I went back in five minutes and it ran fine. I thought maybe he'd changed his dates formatting
08:46again, but that wasn't the case. Right. So most times when people are demanding information
08:51from you, they are exercising hierarchy over you. And so one of the things that I have,
08:58which is a challenge and I sympathize with it and I understand it, in the call-in shows
09:03is what I'm doing is I'm saying to people, give me information and they think it's a
09:09trap so they fog. In other words, they treat me as an abuser because that's been their
09:15habit. And of course this happens in church, this happens in other religious institutions,
09:20this happens in school, this happens at home and so on. Why did you do that? Right. There's
09:26no good answer. Why would you think that? You know, there's no good answer because the
09:30aggression is there to establish dominance and the asking for information is simply a
09:35pretext for the sadist to enjoy the corruption that sinks into your soul by his perception
09:41from you neither affirming nor denying the facts on the ground. Right. So it is a mark
09:49of power and of strength. It is a mark of subjugation towards you. And as a kid, of
09:56course, what can you do? You're trapped in these stupid ass-ish relationships. When you
10:00get to be an adult though, you tell the truth and if people don't like it, well, they could
10:05screw off. Right. These are the facts. Right. How long is it going to take for this project
10:10to be done? Three weeks. That's unacceptable. Well, then you're going to have to talk to
10:14Father Time or the person who sold the specifications. I didn't sign off on the specifications. You're
10:19telling me, you're asking me how long does it take to do this? I'm telling you it's three
10:22weeks. Well, it's got to be faster. It's like, well, then you need to provide me more resources
10:27or bonuses for people who completed faster because if I'm going to ask people to put
10:31in time and a half, I'm not just going to do that every single time. Right. So that
10:36is just a dominance thing. Right. They just want you to do what they want you to do. And
10:43what they want you to do is surrender to their power by being paralyzed and either lying
10:52to them, which is a surrender to power or telling the truth, in which case they'll punish
10:58you, which means you're also subject to their power. So yeah, whenever you have the urge
11:01to fog, it is because you're in a no-win situation where the question is there in order
11:07to attempt to elicit a subjugation or slave response from you to the person. So as an
11:15adult, of course, try and avoid those relationships as much as possible. I worked at this programming
11:21job for about a year and then quit to start my own business because that kind of relationship
11:26is pretty bad. I hope this helps. freedomain.com to help out the show. Hugely appreciate it.
11:32Lots of love from up here, my friends. Take care. I will talk to you soon. Bye-bye.