Stefan Molyneux
Stefan Molyneux
  • 2 months ago
I have written my first article in years for the amazing new Islander magazine. It's called "Losing the Language of Freedom," and it is a must-read!

You can get the magazine here:

https://lotuseaters.com/islander-2-11-09-24

QUESTIONS

"Related to your post of death by heroism.

"Is creating and nurturing life a superpower, e.g. creating families?

"I can scarcely imagine the amount of joy there is in been involved as a parent, and seeing the progression in your daughter for example.

"Why do the man-children avoid it? What is the fear?"


"Hi Stef, I'm a couple of weeks behind on your show and working on catching up! If this has been mentioned before then please skip over my question :) I heard on the lotus eaters podcast that you have contributed an article in their latest issue of the islander magazine, which had me immediately purchase it. As a UK citizen I find their podcast to be very useful in navigating the maelstrom that my country has become over the past 2 months, so I am excited to hear that my favourite guide in moral reasoning (you) is collaborating with them again. It will be a few weeks before it is printed/posted out so I was wondering if you could drop any hints about the subject of your article? If you think that it's best that I wait to find out for myself then I fully understand!"


"Apologies if it has been asked before, but I read implicit in your philosophy that God (if such an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being exists) has not made his approval known of any particular religion. Is the question of God and any potential source of divine revelation outside of the scope of your interest, does it seem like God has not approved of any religion or that any and all miracles are not credible, or something else entirely?

"I ask this because as a Catholic I glean divine approval of Traditional Catholicism (such as it was before John XXIII) from the miracles of Catholic saints and the eucharist (and besides that the truth of the testimony of many Catholic martyrs)."


"How can you tell the difference between a legitimate desire or need and a narcissistic impulse that demands to be satisfied? Sometimes I feel like the boundary between self-care and self-indulgence is blurry."

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Transcript
00:00Morning, morning, morning everybody. Time for our morning constitutional philosophy.
00:05Welcome to Fantasy Island.
00:09Related to your post of death by heroism, that's at freedomand.locals.com.
00:13One of my favorite videos from the early days of Freedom Man.
00:18Is creating and nurturing life a superpower, such as creating families?
00:22I can scarcely imagine the amount of joy there is
00:26in being involved as a parent and seeing the progression in your daughter, for example.
00:31Why do the man children avoid it? What is the fear?
00:37All right, just between us.
00:40This is all there is to know about the practical aspects of life.
00:48This is all there is to know about the practical aspects of life.
00:53Everything, everything, everything, everything, everything is a muscle.
01:01Everything is a muscle and everything is a skill.
01:05But let's just talk muscles, right?
01:08If you exercise, your muscles grow.
01:13If you don't exercise, your muscles atrophy.
01:20Hard work is a muscle. Love is a muscle.
01:23Kindness is a muscle. Virtue is a muscle. Discipline is a muscle.
01:29Commitment is a muscle. Integrity is a muscle. Courage is a muscle.
01:38Be muscular or fade away.
01:42The reason why I work out is to remind myself
01:47of the discipline necessary to maintain the muscularity of life.
01:53Thinking is a muscle.
01:56This is my morning constitutional. This is my morning.
01:59Wake up the brain by thinking, reasoning,
02:01communicating. Empathy, empathy, empathy is a muscle.
02:08Focus is a muscle. Lazy doom-scrolling destroys your focus.
02:13And Lord knows I'm not immune to this.
02:16So please understand. I say this not as any kind of world champion of muscularity,
02:22but this is the fact. Everything is a muscle.
02:25Love is a muscle. Commitment is a muscle. Use it or lose it.
02:31So why do people not have families or have children?
02:39Because they have atrophied themselves into inevitable laziness.
02:46Repeating NPC talking points rather than thinking for yourself is the avoidance of muscularity.
03:00So the way that the world works in practicality is you look at the people around you
03:07and you have to become an expert at figuring out mental muscularity.
03:18You would not get involved in a strength,
03:27a team strength competition like some sort of like a rope pulling competition with a 98-pound weakling.
03:34Right? If you were a combined wrestling team,
03:41like you your two wrestling teams would combine for a score,
03:44you would not get involved in the wrestling team with a 98-pound weakling.
03:49When I first came to Canada, I, you know, I was in the same category as everyone else as in,
03:56hey, we're going to play baseball. And it's like, well, we don't know about the fruity British kid.
04:00So we're going to pick him last. Turns out I'm pretty good hitter and all of that.
04:04So then I moved up in the ranks. I was an unknown quantity.
04:09I wasn't particularly, I wasn't obviously muscular.
04:11I was like 11 years old, but I was an unknown quantity.
04:15The guys who were really, really great at baseball were picked first.
04:22You want people of strength and skill on your team.
04:35So when you move through the world, you need to be able to very quickly evaluate
04:44who has any strength and skill in their mind.
04:50And if people do not have strength and skill in their mind,
04:55they will simply frustrate, baffle, undermine, sabotage, and annoy you.
05:02I mean, look at social media. I think it could be fair to say,
05:07I have just a little smidge of experience with this.
05:13If you are a boxer in his prime, you know, 20-year-old Mike Tyson with the barrel neck, right?
05:29If you're a boxer in his prime, you want to go up against other boxers who have strength and skill.
05:37If you go up against some 98-pound weakling, it's going to be incredibly frustrating for you,
05:43especially if the audience, like if you just clock and beat up that 98-pound weakling,
05:47the audience is going to be like, hey, he's such a bully, and your reputation is going to suffer.
05:51So you have to, but also if you just pretend to spar and just laugh and joke at the guy's expense
05:56and make it into the comedy that it is, people are going to be like, ah, he's so mean.
06:01He's so mean. So you have to pretend to fight without actually fighting
06:06so that the mob doesn't get too angry, the guy doesn't get humiliated,
06:10but you don't actually want to lose, and so it's really frustrating.
06:13Anytime you're in a situation where you cannot give it your all,
06:20if it's a conflict situation and you cannot give it your all in terms of, quote, combat, right?
06:26I'm obviously, I'm talking intellectually here, but if you're in a boxing match
06:31and you have to only pretend to fight to save the other person's feelings
06:34so that the crowd doesn't think you're a bully and so on, it's really annoying, frustrating,
06:39and who would want to get involved in such a thing?
06:42Who would want to get involved in such a thing? That would be terrible.
06:47If you are teaching a child, I remember when I was a kid,
06:52it took me forever to really get good at racquet sports.
06:55I started playing at the age of five or six. It took me a long time to get good at racquet sports.
07:00And so if you're teaching a kid how to play racquet sports, there's a tough aspect to it, right?
07:07You have to be patient. They're going to hit the ball badly.
07:11They're going to get frustrated with themselves.
07:13The kids are not going to want to take instruction. I got it myself.
07:16They don't want it. So they're going to be maybe a little touchy.
07:19So it's a tricky, difficult, and challenging situation, which is fine.
07:23That's part of parenting. But it is much better when you are playing a sport against somebody
07:34who's kind of on your level, right? I mean, love my wife, love playing pickleball with her.
07:40And she's a fairly good player, but she's my wife.
07:44And there's just only a certain amount of skill and speed and strength that she's capable of,
07:49given that she's, you know, all of 5'2 and 112 pounds or something like that.
07:56So when I play in leagues and I play against a skilled, fast, competent man, I can give it my all, right?
08:07And that's fun. That's nice, right? So having a hold back is always a challenge, right?
08:15You wouldn't go into business with someone who didn't really understand business
08:19and had no interest in learning, right?
08:23I mean, you wouldn't play racquet sports with a blind guy.
08:29But unfortunately, the masses view competence as bullying.
08:39And this is because we've been very infected by this sort of estrogen-laced, not specifically female,
08:45but this kind of estrogen-laced sympathy for the underdog, right?
08:50Which is, I love the sympathy for the underdog stuff.
08:52It's fantastic when you have a six-year-old and a three-year-old both fighting for the same resources.
08:57You absolutely have to have sympathy for the underdog.
08:59You have to restrain the six-year-old to make sure the three-year-old gets what is fair.
09:04But it's just terrible in society as a whole.
09:08So I didn't like the struggles and strifes of my childhood.
09:18I didn't like having to get a job when I was 10 years old.
09:22I didn't like having to work three jobs through junior high and high school at times.
09:29I didn't like having to go and battle the elements working up north.
09:34I didn't like, I didn't like, I didn't like.
09:38You know, I mean, there were times when I enjoyed it, but for the most part, I looked at my friends.
09:45There was a friend of mine.
09:45He had a really nice professional family.
09:48They had a nice pool.
09:49He never had to have a job.
09:50He ended up taking a job at a computer store for a while.
09:54And he got to spend all summer by the pool reading Hayek and von Mises while sipping on a Diet Coke.
10:07While I was sometimes slucking away in the sun, I had a job weeding gardens.
10:12I had a job moving and installing office furniture, which was brutal.
10:17And yeah, it just, I looked at that guy's life with great envy.
10:27I looked at the kids who got to keep their money.
10:31I didn't really get to keep my money.
10:33The money that I made was to, was to pay rent at the age of 15 and onwards and to buy food.
10:41And I didn't really have frivolous purchases as a teenager.
10:50I mean, even the, I guess the one big thing that I did spend on was a computer.
10:54When I got a bit of inheritance from my grandmother, I bought a computer.
11:00And I used it to play games and all of that, but I also used it to learn how to program,
11:03which ended up being my career for many years in my twenties and early thirties.
11:11So I didn't like that stuff.
11:14But it gave me mental muscularity.
11:19Don't want to do it? Get up and go and do it.
11:22It gave me resilience.
11:23It gave me spine and sinew and guts and marrow and willpower and just kind of doggedness like to just keep going.
11:32That's all that matters in life is just keep going.
11:35Yes, people will throw logs across your path.
11:39They will sabotage you.
11:41There'll be weird traps.
11:42There'll be bugs that land on your leg when you're trying to concentrate, giant bugs that sound like biplanes.
11:48So there'll be people who lie about you.
11:50They slander you.
11:51They oppose you.
11:52They get triggered and they speak not to you, but to arouse the sentimentality and hatred of excellence in the mob.
12:00And there'll be all of this stuff that is going to happen to you over the course of your life.
12:05Anytime you try to do anything, you'll have 10,000 screaming banshees coming down on you like a ton of ghostly bricks telling you you're doing the wrong thing.
12:14Right?
12:16I mean, you give someone a thumbs up and somehow it turns into a hate symbol.
12:19Right?
12:20It is just one of these things, right?
12:23It is just one of these.
12:24It is just a sad fact of life that there is a kind of paralysis to action and opposition to action and decisiveness and competence and clarity that the powers that be want everyone to live in a fog.
12:41And there's this ghost army that puts fog over every clear statement known to man and attacks anybody with the semblance of directness and clarity.
12:49That is a fact of life.
12:50It's a sad fact of life.
12:51It comes out of childhood and it comes out of political power, but that is the way that things are.
13:00So what are you going to do?
13:01Well, the only thing in life.
13:06Just keep going.
13:09You get rejected by five girls.
13:11Just keep going.
13:12You get rejected for 10 jobs.
13:15Just keep going.
13:16People lie about you, slander you, attack you, threaten you.
13:22Just keep going.
13:23The option being what?
13:26I mean, it is not exactly honorable to our ancestors who had to keep going in much worse circumstances than we will ever find ourselves in.
13:35Just keep going.
13:37Everything in life is a muscle.
13:40Every time you rub one out rather than talk to a girl, you are weakening your capacity to talk to girls.
13:48Every time you take, quote, free money rather than getting a job, you cause your work ethic to atrophy.
14:02Every time you play a dopamine delivery addiction video game rather than trying to achieve something in the real world, you weaken your capacity to get anything done.
14:14Every time you sit for a week rather than working out ever, you turn yourself into more and more poodle and pudding.
14:25Pudding.
14:28I used to be able to speak.
14:29Sorry, I was up late last night.
14:33But every time you don't move, you get more used to sitting.
14:38Every time you don't stand, you get more used to sitting.
14:41Every time you don't exercise, you get more used to apathy.
14:45Every time you back down, you get more used to cowardice.
14:49Everything in life is a muscle.
14:52And of course, with all due sympathy to the people I've talked to over the years.
15:03The number of messages that I've gotten over the years of guys who are like, I'm 28, I'm 30, I'm 35.
15:09I'm not getting anything done with my life.
15:11It's just passing me by.
15:12I'm still living with my parents and I don't really do much.
15:15And it's like, well, you got to start doing things.
15:20I mean, this is why Jordan Peterson starts with like, clean your room.
15:22Just stop moving, start doing something.
15:24You got to build somewhere.
15:26I mean, if you have never, ever lifted a weight in a gym, then you don't start with the heavy plates.
15:34You start with going to the gym and studying the machines.
15:37You don't even maybe lift anything.
15:39You start with some research.
15:40You start with some light weights.
15:41It's embarrassing.
15:42It's humiliating.
15:42You feel terrible.
15:44Look at me.
15:44I'm a pear.
15:46So when there is great joy in parenting and parenting, good parenting, peaceful parenting is a lot of work.
15:57Now to me, it's much less work than any kind of aggressive parenting because it's work, but it's fun work.
16:02Like philosophy is work, but it's fun work.
16:04But this is like this women these days.
16:09I mean, I don't mean to sound unfair and I'm sure that there are lots of exceptions to this.
16:16But it seems to me that we have.
16:23Oh, I love these edge precipices that I linger on.
16:27We have just about the laziest generation of people coming up now.
16:30I know they can say yes, but the boomers and they took all the good stuff and they bought all their homes for eight strawberries in 1962.
16:37I get all of that.
16:38But there's also unprecedented opportunity, laptop work, international work, learning AI to make money.
16:46There's unprecedented opportunities in the world as it is.
16:53And we have just about the laziest generation of people coming up.
16:59So we have all of the guys who don't have any hustle, don't have any willpower, don't have any focus, don't have any follow through.
17:05They're just like, I tried.
17:07I tried.
17:07It didn't work.
17:09And then you have all the girls who, you know, the guys say, well, what do you bring to the table?
17:13Say, I am the table.
17:14I am the table.
17:16And they just expect the princess treatment to be courted and they never provide any labor and effort and focus and support and practical skills and children and motherhood in return.
17:35It is a narcissistic vanity as an adult to think that you don't have to put any effort or labor in.
17:43You just have to be there.
17:47Why should men pay for our dates?
17:49Because look how much expensive my makeup is.
17:51It's like men don't even really like the makeup that much.
17:54We don't really like the makeup that much.
17:56Makeup is for yourselves and makeup is for trapping simps into giving you resources.
18:02What the hell does makeup matter at three o'clock in the morning when your colicky baby is waking up for the fourth time?
18:07What the hell does that matter?
18:10What does it, why does makeup matter when you have to pack up and move a house?
18:17What does that matter?
18:19What does makeup matter when you have that dark midnight of the soul as a man and you're not sure you can keep going?
18:27I'll be right with you.
18:28I just need to do my mascara.
18:31None of that matters.
18:33What does makeup matter when you're giving birth?
18:38What does makeup matter when your kid needs comforting because they fell off a bike?
18:44Makeup is a promise of laziness.
18:53I mean, this is the big question, right?
18:56Women want to be taken care of a lot of times.
19:00They would like to, especially if they want kids, they would like for a man to be able to pay the bill so they don't have to work.
19:04Okay, fair enough, right?
19:07But then you say to the woman, what skills can you bring to bear on the household?
19:13And you can answer this question in the comments below.
19:16And this is particularly true for the younger men.
19:18How many women do you meet or know or date who know how to cook at least 20 meals, have a cookbook, and are really comfortable with the kitchen?
19:34I mean, that's an important skill.
19:36Family's got to be fed, right?
19:41How many women that you know and date know the dozen or so different ways to get stains of various things out of various fabrics or cloths or leathers or whatever, right?
19:54Wine on a white t-shirt, peanut butter on a couch.
19:57How many women know the wild alchemy of running a household?
20:01How many women do you know can balance a checkbook or know how to review all the visa statements and make sure all the charges are legit?
20:07How many women do you know who want to stay home, know how to run a household?
20:11Or they just sit there like Cleopatra in a milk bath expecting everything to be, well, you know, we can just doordash.
20:22So laziness, laziness, laziness, laziness.
20:26Now, I mean, of course, you say, well, the women work out and they put makeup on and that's work and so on.
20:30Yes, but it's less work than working.
20:34Right, it's less work than working.
20:36I mean, I'm a pretty hard worker, I think, as you can tell by my output.
20:42My wife outstrips me.
20:44She is just, she works a lot and, you know, I lure her to relax.
20:50She works a lot.
20:51She does amazing things in her lives and everything is just perfect the way that she manages and runs it.
21:01So that's work.
21:04So this is the great secret in life.
21:06Everything is a muscle.
21:08Everything is a muscle.
21:10I mean, skill in a guitar is a memory muscle.
21:13It's a muscle memory, right?
21:14You just have to be able to know how to play guitar.
21:17Singing is a muscle memory.
21:22I mean, I sing because it's also a good exercise for me to be able to use this vocal instrument that I need to be able to communicate philosophy in a way that hopefully is pleasing to listen to.
21:35Everything is a muscle and everyone you meet is showing you either muscularity or laziness.
21:43You meet someone, if they're not really getting much done with their life, they're promising you laziness.
21:49Vague depression, the decay of mental constitution.
21:56That they will fade and fold in the sign of any resistance and all of life as it is currently constituted is resistance to virtue, opposition to virtue, fog to clarity, hostility to love and aggression against any practical intellectual self-defense.
22:19Everything in life is a muscle.
22:21Whatever you're not getting in life is because you haven't prepared yourself to achieve it.
22:30Hard work is a muscle.
22:32Do you say, well, I'll put out a certain amount of effort and then you just allow yourself to whine and complain and decay and nag yourself and it's too hard and I'm not getting the rewards and life is just a marathon.
22:45All you have to do is keep going and you'll win because so many people drop out along the way.
22:51So many people drop out along the way.
22:53I've known this like over the course of doing this philosophy show for 19 years or so.
23:01I have known a lot of people who've been in the conversation and been into philosophy who've dropped out and faded out.
23:14If you fade out before the race is over, you don't get the gold, you don't get the place, you don't get a medal, you don't even get the satisfaction of completion.
23:23Everything is a muscle in life and you need to rigorously look at yourself and say, what are my strengths?
23:33What are my weaknesses?
23:34Some weaknesses you can't do much about.
23:37That's fine.
23:38Maybe you're not the best singer or the most athletic person and maybe there's really not that much you can do about that.
23:44That's fine.
23:45There's stuff that I'm bad at and that's a weakness of mine, but I just avoid it.
23:52You look at your life and you say, what's not working in my life?
23:57Whatever is not working in your life is what you have indulged yourself to be lazy about.
24:04Whatever is not working in your life is what you have indulged yourself to be lazy about.
24:11And look, I'm a big one for compassion and empathy, but we also have to have strictness and discipline.
24:21There are times when doing this show has felt like dangling under a bridge over a bottomless chasm.
24:30And what do you do?
24:34You just keep going.
24:37And I, of course, very quickly tell myself this is nothing compared to what my ancestors had to do.
24:44And one of my philosophical ancestors, William Molyneux, best friends with the philosopher John Locke, was chased through Ireland and had to live in barns because he had criticized the king.
24:55I'm not living in barns and the woods and trying to live off berries and snatched rabbits.
25:06So why aren't people talking to each other, taking risks, getting knocked down, getting back up again?
25:18Because every legitimate challenge you avoid makes you weaker for the next one.
25:25It's like saying, well, I really want to want to get to bench press 200 pounds.
25:28I really I have never worked out. I really want to get to bench press 200 pounds.
25:33So what I'm going to do is not go to the gym this week or next week or the week after or for the next six months or year.
25:41And then after that, after I haven't worked out or done any bench presses whatsoever, after that, I would go and bench press 200 pounds.
25:49It's like, nope, you'll be able to bench press less in two years or a year.
25:54You'll be able to bench press less in the future if you don't work out now.
25:59You'll be able to lift less and do less in the future if you don't do it now.
26:03It's now or never, literally now or never.
26:07So when you meet people in life who say, I'm dissatisfied with this.
26:13And have no plan to resolve it, their dissatisfaction will grow until it's too late.
26:17The devil just wants you to postpone things until they're too late to fix or too late to achieve.
26:22And then he's happy leaving you in the stink of your own sweaty regret.
26:27So why do people avoid having families? Because they're lazy.
26:32Because they have indulged their own pathetic laziness to the point where they have no muscularity to get anything done in life and they have no plan to resolve it.
26:42Because they're so tender and sweet and sensitive with themselves, they treat themselves as infants.
26:47Now, we don't have any expectations of labor from infants, so stop treating yourself like an infant.
26:52Man up, woman up, start to achieve.
26:55Go talk to a man.
26:56Go talk to a woman.
26:58Have a plan.
26:58Have an achievement.
26:59Work out, exercise, eat better, lose the weight.
27:01Just do whatever the hell you have to do in order to start achieving things.
27:07And stop being so fucking lazy, everyone.
27:12Because here's the last thing I'll say.
27:16Everything that keeps you alive is built by people who work incredibly hard.
27:20The electricity, the plumbing, the shelter, the food, the comfort, the air conditioning.
27:25Like, everything that keeps you alive is built by workaholics.
27:29I'm not saying necessarily be a workaholic, though.
27:31That's not bad when you're young and single because it develops your muscularity of your work ethic.
27:37But everything that keeps you alive is built by people who work incredibly hard with great focus and great discipline.
27:43And if you're not joining them, then you're kind of parasiting off other people's hard labor.
27:50And that is no happy place to be for somebody with your gifts if you're listening to this in particular.
27:56All right.
27:57Hi, Steph.
27:58I'm a couple of weeks behind on your show.
27:59I'm working on catching up.
28:00If this has been mentioned before, then please skip over my question.
28:03I heard on the Lotus Eaters podcast that you have contributed an article in their latest issue of the Islander magazine,
28:08which had me immediately purchase it.
28:10As a UK citizen, I find their podcast to be very useful in navigating the maelstrom that my country has become over the past few months.
28:16So I'm excited to hear that my favorite guide in moral reasoning, you, is collaborating with them again.
28:21It will be a few weeks before it is printed and posted out.
28:24So I was wondering if you could drop any hints about the subject of your article.
28:27If you think that it's best that I wait to find out for myself, then I fully understand.
28:32Yes, I was asked to contribute an article to a magazine in the UK with the Lotus Eaters podcast.
28:39And great guys.
28:42I hugely respect them.
28:43And I was happy to contribute.
28:46It is about parenting and politics.
28:50So you can.
28:52I will put the link to purchase that below.
28:54I hope that you will do it.
28:56It is something that is very beneficial.
28:58And it's nice to have a hard copy of things as a whole.
29:01So yes, the Islander magazine.
29:02I will put a link to purchase it below.
29:05Apologies if it has been asked before, but I read implicit in your philosophy that God,
29:11if such an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent being exists, has not made his approval known of any particular religion.
29:18Is the question of God and any potential source of divine revelation outside of the scope of your interests?
29:23Does it seem like God has not approved of any religion or that any and all miracles are not credible or something else entirely?
29:32Well, I don't accept hearsay.
29:36I am an empiricist, which means I need empirical evidence for things that are claimed to be true.
29:40If the laws of physics can be violated by particular individuals, that is a rather wild claim.
29:45It is to say that there is mind or faith or divine power over the behavior of matter.
29:51Which doesn't explain why we need technology.
29:53If we can magic matter, why would we need technology?
29:57So magic is a feminine concept.
30:02Magic is a feminine concept, which is why magical thinking arises as female political power arises.
30:10So when men complain, people roll their eyes and we get rejected and attacked and ostracized.
30:21If we can keep complaining.
30:22When women complain, everything bends to their will.
30:25I mean, this is natural.
30:27It's nothing wrong with it.
30:28I'm just obviously, I mean, I'll give you an example, right?
30:31So the UN has aimed to get female genital mutilation ended by 2030.
30:36Great, you know, not necessarily that it's the UN that's doing it, but it's great when little baby girls are not genitally mutilated.
30:43But there's no such plan for boys.
30:45In fact, I remember seeing Mia Kunis, a complete monster of a human being, was in a movie.
30:52And there was a whole scene where the women were making fun of penises that aren't mutilated.
31:00Intact penises.
31:02And, oh, it's like a sweater, a sweater pulled over.
31:09So you can, of course, if you can imagine a scene where men were mocking women who had not been genitally mutilated and saying it was so ugly and so on, right?
31:22That would be absolutely monstrous.
31:24But you can openly do this.
31:26You can openly mock, attack, humiliate, and ridicule men who have been genitally mutilated against their will at birth.
31:36Had a third of their penis skin hacked away, which results in less sensitivity for the man, less pleasure for the woman, and more difficulties with maintaining erections and so on.
31:49And so there's no sympathy for men.
31:56There's no sympathy for men.
31:59And so for women, so if you look at magic, it's that words change reality, right?
32:05You can mutter a spell.
32:07Now, of course, there's sophistry in all of that as well, but it's peculiarly feminine.
32:10Because for a woman to complain or desire is for the men to protect and provide.
32:19And so for a woman, her words change matter.
32:24Her words summon powers that change matter, right?
32:27Either through complaining or desiring, right?
32:30Nagging or wishing.
32:32And so the fact that there is a system of magic wherein muttered words change the nature of reality, well, that is a female thing.
32:45And sophists are female, feminine as a whole.
32:47And again, I say this with great love and respect for femininity.
32:50I love the fact that women want things and men provide.
32:55That's why we have civilization and we're not living in caves.
32:58So it's a beautiful thing, but that's reality.
33:03When it comes to miracles, I just need to see empirical evidence.
33:10And there won't be any.
33:13There are no miracles.
33:16The only miracle is the mind.
33:18And it doesn't change reality except by obeying physical laws, not by violating them at will.
33:25All right.
33:26So he says, I ask this because as a Catholic I glean divine approval of traditional Catholicism,
33:31such as it was before Pope John XXIII, for in the miracles of Catholic saints and the Eucharist,
33:38and besides that, the truth of the testimony of many Catholic martyrs.
33:42Well, I think you need to look at the role of the Catholic institutions in changing America.
33:50That's really quite something.
33:53How can you tell the difference between a legitimate desire or need and a narcissistic impulse that demands to be satisfied?
33:59Sometimes I feel like the boundary between self-care and self-indulgence is blurry.
34:03Yeah, so a legitimate desire or need and a narcissistic impulse that demands to be satisfied.
34:07So the key is escalation, right?
34:10So if you don't get what you want from someone,
34:12if your impulse is to escalate aggression or manipulation or whining or complaining or coldness or withdrawal,
34:19to escalate in a non-direct way to get what you want,
34:24then it's a narcissistic impulse that demands to be satisfied.
34:28You feel like you're owed and you don't need to reciprocate.
34:31So if you lend someone $1,000 and they keep dodging you for paying the money back
34:37and you really desperately need the money, then you will escalate.
34:40And then when the guy gives you the $1,000 back, when you finally kind of quote corner him
34:44and you demand the money back, he finally coughs up the money,
34:47you don't feel any desire to reciprocate because he's made it very, very difficult.
34:51So that's not a narcissistic impulse.
34:53That's, you need to give me my $1,000 back because you promised you.
34:56I lent it to you on the word that you would pay me back and you're avoiding and dodging me
35:00and making me do a lot of frustrating and difficult work to get my money back.
35:04So for the narcissist, everything is just get your money back.
35:09They feel entitled in that way.
35:12They don't need to reciprocate.
35:14If the guy gives you the money back, you don't feel the need to thank him effusively
35:19and buy him dinner as thanks for giving it.
35:22He's like, you owe me the money.
35:23So for narcissists, everyone owes them everything.
35:25And if they don't get what they are quote owed,
35:30they just escalate in the same way that you would escalate,
35:33you know, in a peaceful manner, but you would escalate and get angry and
35:36hey man, call me back.
35:37I'm telling, call me back.
35:38What's the matter with you?
35:39You promised me money this week.
35:41I need the money.
35:42I've got bills to pay.
35:43Call me back.
35:44And you might knock on his door.
35:45You might pound on his door.
35:46I mean, I wouldn't use any violence, of course, right?
35:48But you would escalate because you're owed money.
35:51So narcissists, everything is owed to them.
35:54And whoever doesn't provide to them is someone who has to be aggressed against.
35:58So escalation is the key.
36:00A legitimate need, a legitimate desire or need is one that is reciprocal, right?
36:07So if you have a friend, you know, you pay for dinner a couple of times and
36:14he doesn't make any move to pay for dinner, you'd say, I think it's your turn.
36:17Like I paid for the last three dinners and I think it's your turn.
36:20I mean, tell me if I'm wrong, but that's sort of my memory, right?
36:23So you're not escalating, right?
36:25And if the guy is like, well, to heck with you.
36:27I'm not paying for any dinners.
36:28Would you escalate?
36:29No, you'd just be like, well, I kind of misjudged this friend.
36:31He's kind of a jerk.
36:32So good luck with all that, right?
36:34You'd move on, right?
36:35So escalation is when you feel entitled.
36:38You won't work for a win-win situation, right?
36:41So the guy might say, listen, I appreciate the dinners.
36:43I'm totally broke.
36:44But, you know, I know you've got that stuck screen door.
36:48So maybe I can come over and fix that instead, right?
36:51It's like, okay, well, then there's some reciprocation or whatever it is, right?
36:53That could work, right?
36:55So a legitimate need is when there's an exchange of values for a win-win.
36:59A narcissistic impulse is when you feel entitled
37:01and you will simply escalate in a non-verbal way.
37:05Oh, sorry.
37:06Escalate in a non-direct way.
37:08So somebody who storms around and slams doors
37:12and won't give you a hug and like that's just escalating in an indirect way.
37:16So when you manipulate or bully people to get what you feel you are entitled to
37:20without ever thinking about a win-win situation,
37:22that's not working.
37:23All right.
37:24I posted a lengthy question in this thread a few hours ago
37:26on my relationship struggles.
37:27But then I remembered the Real-Time Relationships Artificial Intelligence
37:30and pasted my question to it
37:32and received a thorough and amazingly helpful response.
37:35I've deleted my question here
37:37to give others more opportunity to get theirs answered.
37:39And I want to call out the Real-Time Relationships AI
37:43and its benefits.
37:44Well, yes.
37:45I hope that you will check out the Real-Time Relationships AI.
37:47Donors will find it pinned to the top of the feed.
37:50What do you think of the new YouTube policy
37:52where they will restrict, hide fitness and exercise content for teenagers
37:55because, quote,
37:56it can lead to negative self-beliefs and body image disorders?
37:59Well, I mean, nobody cares about negative self-beliefs
38:02because, I mean, males and in particular white males
38:05are blamed for all the world's ills.
38:07So they don't care about negative self-beliefs.
38:09They actually want to inflict it on those they dislike enormously.
38:12No, they just want...
38:14It's part of the general depopulation agenda
38:16to sort of be fat body positive
38:20which is to...
38:22I mean, if a woman is obese,
38:24she's less attractive.
38:26Men don't want obese women,
38:28I guess, except for a few
38:30traumatized by fat babysitters' chubby chasers.
38:32But men don't want that.
38:35And also women who are obese
38:38have trouble conceiving and bringing babies to term.
38:41They have trouble sometimes with hygiene and so on.
38:45So it is just a way to make sure that
38:48women stay unattractive and therefore single.
38:51That helps with the depopulation agenda.
38:53And it also helps with the political power of the left.
38:55As we know, the left's biggest constituency
38:58is single women.
39:00Women without the protection and care
39:02and provision of a man.
39:04And so they will sabotage
39:06women's pair bonding capacities
39:08in order to maintain political power.
39:10I mean, it's simple, right?
39:12So no, it's just a way of making sure that
39:14women stay unattractive
39:16and therefore stay single
39:18and therefore will marry the state
39:20and vote for expansions of political power
39:22which feeds the power lust of the power mongers.
39:24Hi Steph, I'm noticing recently on Gab
39:26and other right-majority platforms
39:28a marked rise in hatred for capitalism
39:30ultimately basing their criticisms
39:32on things that are the direct results
39:34of state action.
39:36Why is it that many right-leaning people
39:38clearly understand the social consequences
39:40of government action but appear to dismiss it
39:42entirely when it comes to economics?
39:44Well, I think the nature of the evils
39:46of National Socialism or Nazism
39:48which is fascism
39:50for the domestic population
39:52is somehow infinitely better than
39:54communism for the international population
39:56and in-group
39:58totalitarianism is
40:00not any better as far as
40:02violations of the non-aggression principle go
40:04than out-group totalitarianism.
40:06So,
40:08that is the great.
40:10And of course people get frustrated at
40:12National Socialism, they get frustrated at shallow stuff
40:14they want to live a deep, more muscular
40:16more earthy and more communal based
40:18living and they think that the mall
40:20is somehow destroying all of that.
40:22So, there is a dislike at the shallow
40:24empty trinkets pushed upon shallow
40:26empty people which consumes
40:28massive amounts of resources, time
40:30and attention.
40:32So, yes, there is that lure
40:34that when you're running away from
40:36international collectivism to run for
40:38in-group collectivism and this is
40:41a terrible idea, it is an absolute disaster
40:43and the only solution
40:45is peaceful parenting and rational
40:47discourse.
40:51I was reviewing some of my earlier
40:53shows for a variety of reasons
40:55and I came across
40:57why I talk about parenting
40:59from the very beginning of the show
41:01and it is
41:03really the greatest tragedy
41:05that
41:07will exist in the future
41:09coming back upon this time
41:11I genuinely believe this
41:13and I could make the case for it perhaps
41:15another time but we've been going for a while here
41:17the greatest tragedy that will exist in the future
41:19is the lack of listening
41:21to me for close to 20 years
41:23talking about peaceful
41:25parenting and rational discourse
41:27if
41:29people interested in
41:31liberty, which is a huge
41:33segment of the population
41:35if people interested in liberty
41:37had listened to and accepted
41:39my incontrovertible arguments
41:41about the need to focus
41:43on peaceful parenting
41:45almost 20 years ago we would have
41:47millions and millions of children
41:49coming to adulthood
41:51thoroughly versed in the principles of liberty
41:53self-actualization, rational
41:55discourse, affection, love
41:57moral courage and we would have
41:59a cohort of
42:01millions and millions of young adults
42:03who would be so
42:05benevolent and powerful and clear
42:07and strong
42:09and admirable
42:11and healthy
42:13that it would
42:15be a movement that would swell beyond
42:17the recognition of the world as it stands
42:19because it would be so
42:21you're one of the peacefully parented kids
42:23because they'd just be so free
42:25and fun and admirable and courageous
42:27and connected and
42:29staunch and all of that
42:31we would have the evidence now
42:35and most people learn
42:37from empirical evidence
42:39rather than abstract theory
42:41and the fact
42:43that the people who claimed to be
42:45learning through abstract theory heard my arguments
42:47for peaceful parenting
42:49and to the most degree rejected them
42:51and if you look at the amount of energy
42:53focused time and attention and money
42:55that was thrown into politics over the past 20 years
42:57from
42:59liberty minded people as opposed to
43:01peaceful parenting
43:03you can see that the greatest opportunity
43:05in the history of the world
43:07was utterly, utterly missed
43:09and I do of course, I look at myself
43:11with great scalding criticism
43:13from time to time and say
43:15what should I have done differently, what could I have done differently
43:17how could I have approached it differently
43:19how could I have
43:21summoned
43:23there are some people who have this
43:25amazing ability, I'm not one of them
43:27it's a weakness, it's just a fact
43:29there are some people who have
43:31this amazing ability
43:33to have people, you know, follow them into the fires
43:35of hell themselves
43:37I mean, Napoleon obviously was one of these kinds
43:39of people and other people of various
43:41levels of positive
43:43or negative leadership qualities
43:45I am not one of those people who
43:47can summon that kind of loyalty
43:49I mean, in part because I don't want
43:51people to be loyal to me, I want people to be loyal
43:53to reason and integrity and virtue
43:55and their own conscience
43:57but there are some people who
43:59can do that
44:01they just summon this immense army of ride or die
44:03people who will follow
44:05them into the fires of hell itself
44:07I'm not one of those people
44:09and I try not to be overly
44:11insistent and
44:13dominant in my communication with the world
44:15because I don't want
44:17people to fall in line with me
44:19like a bunch of salmon in a swift current
44:21like the gale force of my will
44:23causing them to be either fleeing
44:25or in alignment, I don't want that
44:27I mean, I'm pretty sure I could summon that
44:29if I really needed to
44:31but I don't want to
44:33bring anyone
44:35into philosophy
44:37as a servant
44:39or a follower, and the last thing
44:41I don't want anyone to follow me, I want
44:43people to follow their own conscience, their own minds
44:45and the abstract dictates of reason, honour
44:47and justice
44:49so
44:53all I could do
44:55was reason
44:57and exhort and charm
44:59and plead with the world
45:01and put forth as many
45:03rational and empirical arguments
45:05as humanly possible
45:07which I think I did
45:09I interviewed all the experts, Dr. Elizabeth Kirishoff
45:11and others, I got all the
45:13data together, I made endless presentations
45:15on UPB, on peaceful parenting
45:18almost from the very beginning
45:20of the show, and I
45:22exhorted and
45:24criticized and occasionally
45:26shamed and begged
45:28people in the liberty world
45:30to talk about
45:32parenting and focus on the
45:34gravest violations
45:36of the non-aggression principle that we can do
45:38the most about, which is aggression against children
45:40and I was
45:42mostly ignored
45:44and
45:46attacked and ostracized and rejected
45:48you know, again, there are
45:50some exceptions for sure, but for the most part
45:52and this will be viewed
45:54as, I think
45:56in the future will be viewed as
45:58the
46:00largest betrayal of integrity
46:02from any group
46:04that is the most important
46:06in the world, because eventually we're gonna get to
46:08peaceful parenting and people will look back and say
46:10what a missed opportunity that was
46:12and listen, I'm fully aware that people may
46:14look back and say, yeah, but he was kind of a jerk
46:16about it, and he did this wrong, and he did that wrong
46:18and it's like, yeah, I mean, that's for the judgment
46:20of history, I've been as critical and rigorous
46:22with myself as possible
46:24to try and be as
46:26positive as possible, and it's like, oh, well he just got frustrated
46:28and he rage quit, and like, there could be
46:30all of these criticisms in the future and
46:32I will, obviously I'll be dead and gone
46:34and dust in the wind by then
46:36but they may be perfectly reasonable
46:38criticisms, I maybe have a complete
46:40blind spot, I look back and say, well I tried
46:42I tried humor, I tried debates, I tried data
46:44I tried powerpoints, I wrote entire
46:46books about this kind
46:48of stuff and
46:50I brought it up wherever possible
46:52and I'm a pretty good communicator
46:54like a billion views and downloads of abstract philosophy
46:56is not the easiest feat of the world to achieve
46:58so I did as much as
47:00possible in as positive a manner as possible
47:02and I also demonstrated it through my own parenting
47:04I have had
47:06my daughter off and on
47:08on the show since she was two years old
47:10and so I've
47:12put the reason out with good humor
47:14with evidence, and with criticism
47:16and some legitimate frustration because I'm not gonna lie
47:18about my experience when people say
47:20oh, all we want to do is
47:22uphold the non-aggression principle, I'm like, well
47:24the best place to do that is between
47:26parents and children, and I
47:28put forth all the case, repeatedly
47:30repeatedly for almost 20 years
47:32and maybe there's
47:34some big thing I could have done or something I missed out on
47:36I'm perfectly willing to accept that
47:38as a criticism
47:40but I don't know what it is
47:42and
47:44it is not
47:46incumbent upon me to
47:48possess the will of others in order to
47:50effect positive change
47:52in fact, if I possess the will of others
47:54in other words, if I just browbeat and
47:56charm and work the furnace bellows
47:58of my charisma in order to
48:00drive out their hesitation and inhabit
48:02their personality with cult-like certainty
48:04I have not done a service
48:06to philosophy
48:08using my
48:10powers of rhetoric and personality
48:12to, in a sense, possess
48:14the hearts
48:16minds and balls of other people
48:18is not doing a service to philosophy
48:20and tempting though it has been
48:22tempting though it has been
48:24I have resisted that temptation
48:26because people have to choose
48:30that which you are convinced of and choose
48:32is a virtue
48:34that lasts, that which you are
48:39propagandized about and surrender to
48:41is a virtue that will not last
48:43and will not result in peace towards children
48:45because you will simply end up with
48:47inevitable blowback and you won't have the strength to maintain it
48:49and that will discredit it
48:51I could have
48:53perhaps improved
48:55some children's experience
48:57in the short run by working the bellows of charisma
48:59to, in a sense, possess
49:01the minds of others
49:03but it would have discredited the movement
49:05in the long run because it has to be chosen voluntarily
49:07and it has to be pursued
49:09out of a deep sense of virtue and integrity
49:11peaceful parenting
49:13not because I've charmed and
49:15half-bullied everyone into accepting the position
49:17that's not a thing I'm going to do
49:19I will not do that
49:21because I'm a free-will guy
49:23and excessive charisma
49:25is a form of determinism for the weak-willed
49:27I think it would be viewed as the biggest missed opportunity
49:33looking back in the future on the world that is
49:35and maybe, again, maybe it would be
49:37laid at my feet as having done something wrong
49:39I can't see what that is
49:41but, again, I
49:43obviously not omniscient
49:45but I certainly have done the very best
49:47that I can in this
49:49and, again, there have been
49:51some wonderful people who have accepted this
49:53but, yeah, I still remember
49:56I still remember seeing a conference
49:58I think it was Hans Hoppe who was talking about
50:00hating children as a good thing
50:02and there was a couple of people
50:04who know better
50:06just kind of nodding along
50:08okay, well, the world
50:10and people are not ready yet
50:12and it's a real shame because the amount of suffering
50:14that's going to be happening in the world
50:16because people have not accepted and promoted this
50:18who absolutely know
50:20that it's the right thing to do
50:22honestly, the hundreds of thousands
50:24of people who have not accepted and promoted this
50:30over the last 20 years
50:32are responsible for
50:34an unbelievable amount of suffering
50:36and their conscience knows that
50:38and there's really nothing I can do about that either
50:40they just will have hardened into this position of
50:42eye-rolling avoidance
50:44so, it is
50:46a very sad thing
50:48and it is one of the biggest heartbreaks
50:50that I have
50:52but with the acceptance
50:54again, that I feel like I did
50:56everything that I could
50:58short of
51:00again, trying to dominate
51:02people with charisma and language
51:04and bully, bribe
51:06and shame them with approval and disapproval
51:08into following the right path
51:10because
51:12if you're blindfolded
51:14and dragged around the countryside
51:16that doesn't make you an expert in the landscape
51:18it just makes you someone who's blindfolded
51:20in the countryside
51:22and
51:24people will unfortunately
51:26have to see the effects of
51:28violent parenting
51:30played out in the world with modern technology
51:32and weapons before they'll say
51:34oh maybe, like it's kind of funny right
51:36like a lot of people
51:38when I was saying to people from the very beginning of this show
51:40like it doesn't matter even if they're family
51:42principles are bigger than family
51:44and we know that right
51:46I mean, principles are bigger than family
51:48it's like moral principles are bigger than family
51:50we know that
51:52because if the father is the
51:54getaway driver for his son's bank
51:56robbery, we don't say, oh well the father's not
51:58going to go to prison because honor they mother and they father
52:00it's like, no no, he violated the law
52:02he violated property rights
52:04even if he didn't rob directly, he enabled the robbery
52:06by driving
52:08and so
52:10he goes to jail, we know that right
52:12oh, splitting up families
52:14I mean, families will get split up
52:16because some guy doesn't pay his taxes and goes to jail
52:18so I mean, splitting up families
52:20we understand that moral rules
52:22are bigger, or at least laws
52:24which are supposed to be some
52:26representation of moral rules are bigger
52:28than families
52:30and so people
52:32who are independent thinking, independent minded
52:34and so on, if you had a bad family
52:36or a dysfunctional family
52:38and they wouldn't admit their corruption and violence
52:40and dysfunction and aggression and scorn
52:42and ostracism, like all the negative traits, people will be like
52:44well no, I need to stick with my family
52:46and ok, and then your family
52:48dumped you over the covid
52:50situation, right, your family
52:52you weren't allowed to see them or they dumped you
52:54because you wouldn't get vaccinated
52:56so all of this sacrifice of personal integrity
52:58for the sake of, oh my family, my family
53:00well what happened over covid
53:02turned out
53:04that you were sacrificing yourself
53:06for people who were willing to throw you off a cliff
53:08because the TV told them to
53:10oh, it's so sad
53:12alright, hope you
53:14enjoyed the conversation, freedomain.com
53:16slash donate, I absolutely love
53:18this conversation, I am thrilled
53:20to have these questions, you can post them wherever
53:22you like, you can follow me on social
53:24media, you can go to freedomain.com slash connect
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53:28to your support, freedomain.com slash donate
53:30don't forget you get the history of philosophers series
53:32this month, my birthday month
53:34by the way, so thanks everyone
53:36for the greatest conversation I think
53:38the world will ever see, because everything
53:40after this has this as a precedent
53:42and this is a participatory
53:44action, and I really really
53:46thank you for helping me scale the heights
53:48of reason and language that we are able to get to
53:50we are a team, I might be
53:52the funder, but you are the sherpa
53:54so thank you so much everyone, have yourself a wonderful day
53:56I'll talk to you soon, bye