Divorced, remarried, I have one boy from the first marriage and two boys from the second one. After my first son was born, I managed to gradually work myself into one of these two horrible choices: catastrophic marriage or catastrophic divorce. I chose the second one out of selfishness and fear that I would replicate my parent's marriage. I denied my older son the joy of seeing his parents in love and I will forever be sorry for that.
When I had my second boy with my current wife, she became very cold and distant to the one from the first marriage, which I suppose is quite normal when having to take care of a baby.
But after all this time she still seems reluctant to fully accept my firstborn into our family when he's with us. I know that philosophy is about prevention, not cure, and I'm sure that my kids will never end up where I am right now, but any tips on how to help my family be happier would be greatly appreciated.
Oh Stefan! I would love a show on how to throw an amazing dinner party! Sounds like you're a pro at it!
Hey Stef, we have antibiotics, internet, relative peace and freedom and I most probably will not die as a drafted soldier, but I am still unable to feel gratitude and make myself happier just because my ancestors lived in incomparably worse conditions. Even if I am the 2nd wealthiest generation in the World history I tend to perceive myself as a tax slave in a luxury barn. Would you have any tips on how to practice gratitude and how to teach gratitude to my children?
How to wish well rationally?
In your presentation "Vampire Love Kills!" you describe that stating "you're lucky" means admitting helplessness to achieve goals like having a six pack through hard work at the gym. Is "Freedomain dot com slash donate" the new well wishing phrase? You keep referring to the shortness of your remaining days which is depressing.
PART 1
Thank you for answering my previous question regarding the rationality of child abuse. I’d like to continue that discussion if possible by raising a few points. First I’d like to clarify why this matters to me personally because without the context, I think we might misunderstand our intentions.
My brother recently became a parent. I tried to advocate for peaceful parenting (this was before you finished the book), and he said he trusted more in how he was raised, with corporal punishment. The typical points of “I turned out fine”, etc were raised by him. It was a lost cause, and by the end of it, he felt as though his honour was challenged by me calling it cowardly. He wanted to spar with me in a ring for 5 rounds as a way for me to prove my point (he’s older than me by 4 years and also more muscular). The only other way he’d accept my proof would be through raising my own children peacefully and seeing what kind of adults they would be. At that point course, the damage to his own children would already be done.
Long story short this was the end of our relationship. I have grieved, and I’m still in the process of accepting things, but a part of that process for me is steel manning his position. Maybe in seeing it completely destroyed I’ll have more peace of mind. As such in Part 2, I shall continue to play devils advocate. There might appear to be some level of disassociation in part 2 since there is clearly an emotional undercurrent to this discussion. A call-in might be good, but for this I prefer the slower process of contemplating and responding through argumentation. The emotions are still being processed and this sore emotional underbelly might also be why I haven’t yet read peaceful parenting.
First I think you made a few fantastic points which are worth repeating and rephrasing just to make sure I understand you.
- “If you can’t hit any characteristic of a child, how can you hit a child?” I.e. if there is no justification for violence against someone with a single characteristic of a child, how can violence be justified when you have those characteristics in aggregate?
- “Rationality is an abstract thing and abstract things judge abstract things. You don’t judge particular actions, you judge arguments. It’s a category error to say that reason should judge individual actions.” I.e. Reason is a standard that we use for judging the quality of abstractions. If we want to judge the quality of actions outside of practicality, we use morality.
- “Practicality is taking the steps in order to achieve a goal. Morality is universally preferable behaviour.” I.e. something is given the quality of being ‘practical’ when it makes it likely that a given goal will be achieved. Something is given the quality of being ‘moral’ when it is universally preferred and enforceable.
With these points in mind, I have a question regarding point 3. If the act of copying yourself / reproduction is universally observed across all living organisms, does this qualify as a universally preferable behaviour? Since morality is exclusive to human beings, then does reproduction both (physically or memetically) qualify as a universally preferable behaviour since human beings show a universal preference for this?
If it is universally preferable to reproduce, with memetic reproduction as one part of this process, then child abuse can be considered a form of memetic reproduction that has a moral status because it is an enforceable subset of a universally preferable behaviour (reproduction). On the other hand, memetic and physical reproduction is goal oriented and practical. Since you made a distinction earlier between the practical and the moral, is this not a case of the two overlapping? If the two can overlap, then are we back to the point I was arguing earlier of rationality and practically overlapping, since you said that morality is a subset of reason.
The key mechanism here is to first say that reproduction is a UPB. Then to say that child abuse is a form of reproduction (memetic). Once child abuse is seen as a form of reproduction, it has moral and rational status. On the other hand, reproduction is also practical. Therefore, you have the moral/ rational intersecting with the practical.
Thank you in advance.
I am struggling with how to navigate raising children: should I participate in creating the belief that Santa Claus exist ?
I don’t have children, but actively planning to have children.
I’m leaning towards not wanting to participate in creating the belief in Santa Claus because it seems like a huge deception. When I explain to people why I don’t find it healthy for children to be deceived then I’m typically met with “oh! you have to! it’s just for fun! it’s magical! It’s Christmas! It’s part of childhood!”
My best answer would be to explain to my children that Santa Claus is not real, explain the concept, and allow them to enjoy the fictional character.
( Then , I’ll face the problem when my child tells other children that Santa Claus is fictional, future podcast question I suppose, lol)
Recently, you’ve said that Izzy is quick to identify contradictions because you’ve never asked her to believe in contradictions.
I recall the age I realized Santa Claus wasn’t real, but feared if I let anyone know then I wouldn’t be getting as many gifts. This led me to develop an ability to deceive the “giver” into “yes, I’ll believe what you want in order for me to get what I want”.
It all seems so innocent when looking at a fat jolly man dressed in a red suit.
Is Santa Claus (maybe include Easter bunny, tooth fairy, other pagan folk lore, etc) a contradiction that Izzy was never asked to believe in?
thanks!
Hello Stefan!
My first question is: How can I become a more content person?
For example, I fall into a cycle of saying, "This is going to be our forever home!" and then after a few years, I start dreaming of something bigger and better, getting excited about the prospect of moving again. I can't seem to go 3-4 years without feeling the itch to move up!
My second question is: Why am I struggling with feeling left out?
Maybe my two questions are somehow linked. Lately in my community and circle of mom/homeschooling/neighborhood friends, I've been aware of recent instances where I haven't been invited to join a dinner or gathering. Logically, I tell myself that it's okay! We live in a small town and I don't have to be invited to everything! Emotionally it still hurts though.
Thank you!
0:00 - Introduction
1:18 - Withholding Affection and Moral Obligations
23:32 - Confronting a Spouse's Lack of Affection
30:18 - The Myth of Santa Claus and Honesty with Children
36:59 - Dealing with Feelings of Exclusion
41:40 - Conclusion
In this episode, we hear a conversation covering various topics. The speaker discusses a listener's struggle between catastrophic marriage and divorce, emphasizing the importance of fulfilling vows and being affectionate towards family members. The conversation delves into relationships, the significance of keeping promises, and the impact of breaking vows, especially in marriages.
The speaker emphasizes the need for trust in relationships and the importance of fulfilling vows, especially when it comes to showing affection and love towards children, whether biological or stepchildren. They highlight the role of honesty, trust, and the moral obligation in relationships to ensure a harmonious and happy family dynamic.
Additionally, the speaker explores the concept of gratitude, reflecting on personal experiences and the significance of appreciation despite life's challenges. They discuss the importance of virtue in achieving happiness, highlighting the role of morality in shaping relationships and individual contentment.
Addressing feelings of exclusion, the speaker provides insights into handling emotions related to being left out or not invited to social gatherings. They discuss the impact of exclusion and emphasize the need for self-reflection, recognizing one's actions of exclusion and understanding the dynamics of social interactions.
In conclusion, the episode touches on various topics such as relationships, gratitude, virtue, the importance of fulfilling vows, handling feelings of exclusion, and the pursuit of happiness through moral conduct and self-awareness. The speaker shares personal anecdotes and provides philosophical perspectives on navigating life's challenges and maintaining healthy relationships.
[0:00] Good morning, everybody. Hope you're doing well. Let's enjoy a little spot of rain, shall we? All right, questions from freedomain.locals.com. I hope you will check out the community at freedomain.locals.com. All right. Divorced, remarried, I have one boy from the first marriage and two boys from the second one. After my first son was born, I managed to gradually work myself into one of those, one of these two horrible choices, catastrophic marriage or catastrophic divorce. I chose the second one out of selfishness and fear that I would replicate my parents' marriage. I denied my oldest son the joy of seeing his parents in love, and I will forever be sorry for that. When I had my second boy with my current wife, she became very cold and distant to the one from the first marriage, which I suppose is quite normal when having to take care of a baby. I'm not quite sure. When I had my second boy with my current wife, she became very cold and distant to the one from, oh, to the boy from the first marriage. Sorry, I'm kidding. But after all this time, she still seems reluctant to fully accept my firstborn into our family when he's with us. I know that philosophy is about prevention, not cure. And I'm sure that my kids will never end up where I am right now, but any tips on how to help my family be happier would be greatly appreciated.
[1:19] So withholding affection from children is a form of abuse. You're perfectly free to withhold affection from those you don't have in your life. You're perfectly free to go through the world and be callous towards everyone. But once you invite people into your home and into your life and into your family, you owe them affection. There's a moral obligation to fulfill your vows. And I'm sure that you just need to remind people to stop lying and breaking their vows. Because, I mean, if I were in your situation, I would sit down with my new wife, or I guess not that new now, and I would say, look, I've noticed that you're not affectionate towards my son from my earlier marriage.
[2:11] I made mistakes, but he didn't, right? So if you had told me before we got married that you would be cold towards my son, I would not have married you, right? The understanding was you're going to love the children as equally as humanly possible. Will you love equally a child that is not yours? I don't know. Maybe there's a special thing, especially for women, about carrying the baby and breastfeeding and so on. so maybe there's a little bit less of attachment or whatever, but that's the deal. That's the deal. So this is what you have to do in relationships, and it's foundational to relationships. You must say, if these conditions were known ahead of time, would I have embarked upon this relationship? This is the same thing when it's a work relationship, a friendship, a romantic relationship, a marriage. So if you get caught into a sexless marriage, right, let's say the woman won't sleep with you.
[3:06] Then she's breaking her vow assuming she's not it's not a medical issue or whatever right she's breaking her vow because you you sit down you say to people okay so we don't have a sexual aspect to our marriage now do you think that i would have married you knowing ahead of time that it would be a sexless marriage and the woman of course would say because sex is very important the woman would say well no you wouldn't have married me if you'd have known ahead of time that it was going to become a sexless marriage, right? So that's breaking the vow. If there is explicit or implicit conditions in the entering into of the relationship, changing those conditions after the fact is a violation of your vows. And of course, the marriage is the most sacred and holy vows around.
[3:54] So you have to say to her, look, so the Q&A is something like, I've noticed that you're a little bit less warm towards my first son from my first marriage.
[4:09] That's a problem. Now, if she admits a problem and wants to work on it, great. If she denies it, say, look, you're just going to have to trust me on this. I mean, you're just going to, like, it's okay to say to people, just trust me. It's not a court of law in a relationship. relationship you know when my wife says don't wear those pants to wherever we're going i will say okay i just trust her if she says we need to repaint this some room that looks okay to me i just trust her and she's usually right so just trust her okay let's trust right so if you say i've noticed you being cold and she says i'm on total i treat them totally equally it's like you're gonna have to trust me on this i'm an outside eye uh he's my son i see the difference I noticed the difference, so there is a difference, and you're just going to have to trust me on that. It's the first RAIN-based podcast we've done. It's quite refreshing, like little pinpricks of tiny ice spears. So now if she says, okay, maybe I have been a little bit standoffish, it's like, okay, but you understand that the condition of the marriage was that you love the children that you're becoming a stepmother to, or this boy. You know that. Like, if you had said to me ahead of time, I'm not going to be warm towards your son from the first marriage.
[5:27] Then I wouldn't have married you because I have to owe what's best for my children, right? And so we're going to have to figure something out. We have to find out if there's anything I can change or there's things that you need to discuss with him or we all need to discuss together. Let's do that. But this situation cannot continue.
[5:44] The situation cannot continue. It's as simple as if you order something online and they don't deliver it, do you have to pay for it? Well, no. You pay for it because it's delivered. That's the expectation in the relationship. If you pay for it and it's not delivered, you get a refund, because that's the condition of the relationship. And so my assumption and our conversations before you got into the marriage is that you would find a way to love the children who weren't yours. And you're not fulfilling that.
[6:13] And I have to protect my children. I have to protect my love for you and the sanctity of a marriage. And listen, we all drift from our vows. I get that. We all drift from our vows. But you have to fulfill your vows that the the reason for this relationship is the promises entered into before the relationship started to love honor and obey and of course you you have to love my children even if they're not yours like you have to that's the condition of marrying into and becoming a step-parent is you have to love the children as best you can equally maybe you feel a little different deep down in your heart but it doesn't matter you have to be warm you You have to be friendly. You have to be inclusive. You have to show affection. You have to praise. You have to encourage. That's the deal. You marry into a family with someone else's children. You have to try and love them equally as best as you can. That's the deal. That's why the relationship exists. Because if you say ahead of time, I'm not going to love your kids as much as mine, the marriage won't happen. So you understand? Look at all of your relationships and look at both the explicit, i.e., we agreed or we made a vow in front of the community or God. But you look at all your relationships, look at all of your relationships. So what are the explicit and implicit things.
[7:26] Requirements and standards in those relationships so i had a friend as i mentioned before who used to put me down in social gatherings and again a couple of jokes is fine whatever but it seemed kind of relentless now if i had started with that friendship or been interested in having a friendship with that guy this is like 25 years ago or whatever 20 years ago and if he just said well you know i like you but i'm going to put you down in social situations i'd have said well i don't want to be i don't want to have that friendship thank you so when you have a friendship and things Things emerge that would have prevented the relationship from forming in the first place. Either you or the other person is breaking the explicit or implicit vows. Friends have to be there for each other. They have to support each other. They have to encourage each other. They don't put each other down. They don't undermine. They don't sabotage. That's not a definition of friendship. So if you have a friend who's doing that or you have a wife who's not loving her stepchildren, you need to talk to her about that and say you're breaking your vows. You are undermining the reason why this relationship exists. This, because if you told me all of this ahead of time, I would not have married you. So we need to fix that. Just remind people to keep their word. It's important. All right.
[8:32] Oh, Stef, I would love a show on how to throw an amazing dinner party. Sounds like you're a pro at it. A dinner party has to do with the environment, the food, but most of all, the guests. Just have people who have a good sense of humor, people who enjoy ribbing, people who aren't uptight, people who can roll with the conversation flow and so on and have some activities for sure, have some activities. I mean, it can be as simple as charades or a great card game or something like, don't do memory games or anything like that because that's just all silence. So stuff where there's a lot of conversation is great. Hey, Stef, we have antibiotics, internet, relative peace and freedom, and I most probably will not die as a drafted soldier, but I am still unable to feel gratitude and make myself happier just because my ancestors lived in incomparably worse conditions. Even if I am the second wealthiest generation in world history, I tend to perceive myself as a tax slave in a luxury barn. Would you have any tips on how to practice gratitude and how to teach gratitude to my children?
[9:30] So the very first video that I ever did was Live Like You're Dying.
[9:35] I remember I had a webcam that tracked my face and people referred to the swoop when I sort of get close to them and all that. Live Like You're Dying, on your deathbed. I was just thinking about this this morning, that once I was going to go on a trip and I couldn't find my passport. The trip was all booked, the hotels were all booked, I could not find my passport. And that seemed like a whole lot of stress and strain. And now, 25 years later, I barely remember it. So this too shall pass is very very important this too shall pass your happiness that the highest will pass the lows will pass and you work to have a general sense of positivity, so when you get older one is the funny thing that's true that so when one of the things when you get older that brings you happiness is health scares that turn out to be nothing, right health scares it i got a weird mole oh it's nothing oh i got a funny little lump oh it's benign like it just happens right uh oh i need to have a colonoscopy oh everything's fine right you So honestly, I'm not kidding about this. One of the things that brings you happiness when you get older is health scares that turn out to be nothing. It's kind of a big thing. If your kid is unwell and then they get well, you have gratitude for that. You have gratitude when you hear about people who've had significant problems, right?
[10:47] You know, somebody takes a medical treatment and has a very, very bad side effect outcome. And either you don't have to take that medical treatment or you don't have that outcome. People who have back problems and arthritis and knee problems and headache problems and vision problems and teeth problems and so on.
[11:07] This is all over the place, and being grateful you don't have those is very important, and working to try and make sure you don't have those is also very important.
[11:18] So, one of the things that's different about modern life, which causes unhappiness, is I truly believe that in many ways our ancestors yearned for death. I mean, I was just reading up about the Black Plague, the Black Death, where like 40 to 50% of the European population died in the most horrible, agonizing, painful ways, and children died. And in Genoa, I think it was, when families would get sick, they would simply nail up the... Windows and doors from outside, and they would just die, cough, bleed, and expire in this fetid house with rats around.
[11:53] So life was so difficult and so unpleasant. And like, I just, I mean, I'll give you a tiny example, right? So when I hit my teens, my skin became very dry. Now, I didn't know why or what was happening, but I was itchy all the time. And being in a state of constant itch was just really, really, really bad.
[12:11] And most clothes would make me itch, sitting would make me itch and you don't want to be scratching all the time because it looks like you've got fleas i just had dry skin so um fortunately i figured out the moisturizer thing and so i don't know since i was 12 or 13 i've been moisturizing uh and that helps my whole body right i'll do that video on the of channel um only philosophy i only philosophy i just it's a phonetic ph only for only philosophy that must be it yeah so uh just being in a state of constant itch or you know if you had a lot of pimples when you were younger or whatever it is just being in that state of so imagine that times a thousand like that was the middle ages right the middle ages i mean most of antiquity and so on you were a slave you had no chance of reproduction you got beaten on a regular basis you got bad food your body was overworked overused you're a roman soldier soldier, you get drafted and you get, you know, limbs blown off or some horrible injuries or just wear and tear. You know, the armies throughout history have had a buy and burn mentality where they just, you know, you got to do your 40 mile march with the 80 pound backpack and your knees just wreck and then they won't give you any rest. They'll just give you painkillers and then your knees are destroyed or your back is destroyed. I mean, the buy and burn mentality in the armies throughout history has been absolutely appalling.
[13:28] And so you have some Roman soldier, even if you're You're physically intact. You're mentally shredded. Your body is ruined and wrecked from overuse. And what do they do? They toss you a tiny little bit of land at the end of it, and that's it. But your body's too broken to work.
[13:44] Starvation, in many places in Europe, in the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages, 10 to 20% of the population could starve in any given couple of years. You had to kiss a woman who'd never brushed her teeth. You had to have sex with a woman who bathed once a year. Life was hell. And so the death instinct, and of course on the other side of death's door, was a perfect paradise of milk and honey where you never got itchy and all the women brushed their teeth, whatever you want to say, right? So this yearning for death was was kind of important so people did the happiness was in dying the happiness was in being cured of the pain of life by the grim medicine of the guy with the scythe so the fact that life is enjoyable now is is tough i mean the fact that life is is is peaceful and life is pleasant and the food is plentiful and medicines are easily available and illness Illness is unusual, at least when you're young.
[14:41] So the fact that life is pleasant, you know, we adjust to everything. So the fact that life is, when you get good news, it takes you a couple of days to adjust, right? So if you're in crypto and crypto goes up, you're happy for a couple of days and then you adjust, right? So working on your baseline happiness is important because external stimuli, happiness and unhappiness all passes. Crypto goes down. you're unhappy for a day or two and then you normalize right so working to get your baseline happiness up is the important thing and the only way that you can do that is virtue you want gratitude i'm telling you gratitude is not going to do it because gratitude is just continually adjusting right like you know if you've ever been in a place where there's a repetitive noise, um like somebody's mowing or whatever you pay attention for the first few minutes and then your your auditory nerves simply stop sending the information to your brain if you've ever had tinnitus or tinnitus, it's the same kind of thing. You ignore it for the most part if you're concentrated on it's there. Hey, I just did that. But.
[15:42] Environmental pluses and minuses, you adjust to. The only thing that will continually raise your happiness is virtue. And virtue, to get the happiness of virtue, you have to go through the unhappiness of being virtuous. And the unhappiness of being virtuous is realizing how many people in your life hate virtue. Sorry, simple fact, simple fact. I've done this for enough years and I've talked to enough people. This is just a simple fact. You start telling the truth, you start being honorable and decent and keeping your word and demanding that people tell the truth or at least not lie, and you stand up for what's right, you will very, very quickly find out that the people you think around you who are just lovely people and wonderful people and great people who care about you will turn on you like a bunch of coked up pit vipers. Again, maybe there's a big exception for you, but there's a reason why if you haven't been virtuous in your relationships, there's a reason why. And that That reason is that you don't want people's, you don't want their masks to come off and you don't want to see the feral beasts behind the pretend social smiley faces and you don't want to unzip the chihuahua to find out the rabbit wolf, right? So that's quite an image.
[16:51] So we are unhappy because we know that being virtuous, which is the only way to raise baseline happiness in a consistent way, will make us unhappy because we'll realize that we've been lying to ourselves about the supposed virtues of everyone in our life, and they've been lying to us about their supposed virtues. Try being really virtuous. See what happens. Try being really virtuous. Try pushing back on propaganda. Try talking about child abuse. Try talking about adverse childhood experiences. Try talking about bigotry and prejudice against children called childism. Try sharing the Peaceful Parenting book at peacefulparenting.com. Try all of that stuff and see what happens to those around you. Watch the mask come off.
[17:33] The world is mostly a morality play, a pretend virtue masking sinister corruption. All right. How to wish well rationally. In your presentation, Vampire Love Kills, you described that stating you're lucky means admitting helplessness to achieve goals like having a six-pack through hard work at the gym. It's freedomain.com slash donate, the new well-wishing phrase. Well, well, well. Three holes in the ground. You keep referring to the shortness of your remaining days, which is depressing. Well, technically, it's not the shortness of my remaining days, but because that would be isolated, right? It's not depressing. It's not depressing. Look, man, I am 58 this year, and it's not that long, right? And I don't know if you had that 2020, you blink, and it's 2024 because COVID was memory holds, right? Everybody showed their absolute feral colors in COVID. of it, 80 to 90% of the population, depending on the country you lived in, 80 to 90% of the population showed themselves to be abject and willing slaves. That's a little tough. So everyone's memory holding that because they don't want to go back and realize what that means, right? So...
[18:47] It's not depressing for me to be aging. It sure beats the alternative. It's not depressing for me to be aging. And that's because, and I check in with myself. I'm not kidding about this. A couple of times a week, I check in with myself and say, have I done, I won't say the most good, because that's a real shaky, ragged line, right? If you do too much good, well, you don't do well in society at all. And then you end up not being able to do any good at all. So have I done good? Have I done a reasonable amount of goodness in my life this week? Have I spread virtue? Have I spread reason? Have I encouraged people? Have I been inspiring to whatever degree I can? Have I been positive? Have I been honest and direct? Have I stood up for the good and opposed the bad? I mean, so over the course of my life, when I look back over the course of my life, because I got into philosophy 43 years ago almost. I mean, it's honestly, it's close to a half century. It's close to a half century that I got into my philosophy in my mid-teens. So let's say it was, let's not bother with the details as a whole. But yeah, about 45, 46 years ago, I got into philosophy. I spoke about it continually.
[20:08] I promoted it continually. continually and the moment the moment that there was a public forum for doing so with the internet and in particular with podcasting i um i love to write i'm a verbal not a written guy uh you know like i've never been able to write short stories i don't particularly enjoy writing you know the sort of short blog posts or or newsletters and stuff like that i'm a verbal verbal verbal guy in fact my novel writing has changed considerably because i can voice dictate rather than just sit But even when I sit and type, I'm just going with the voices in my head, police song. So free association. Tangent. So I'm a verbal guy. So the moment that podcasting became a thing, I dove into it like full bore. I was doing two hours of shows a day. And this is back when it was actually pretty expensive to upload and download, which is why the earlier shows are only at 40K audio quality. Because.
[21:17] I couldn't afford the bandwidth. The bandwidth was brutal back then. So I think I've done maximum good in the world. I've gone right to the ragged edge of irradiating social blowback, and I continue to dance on the fire of truth on a regular basis. I would find it depressing to be aging if I had not achieved my potential. I don't know what greater potential I could have achieved. I don't know. Because if I'd manifested some magical greater potential, I would have had more effect on world events, and the blowback would have been, well, I wouldn't be doing philosophy for one reason or another, right? So I'm satisfied that I have surfed that edge and I'm doing maximum philosophy possible. I put out enough truth that people in the future will look back and say, yeah, he was totally right. And I haven't put out so much truth so consistently that there'll be nothing to remember in the future. All right. All right.
[22:16] Thank you for answering my previous question regarding the rationality of child abuse. I'd like to continue that discussion, if possible, by raising a few points. First, I'd like to clarify why this matters to me personally, because without the context, I think we might misunderstand our intentions. I don't know what that means. My brother recently became a parent. I tried to advocate for peaceful parenting. This was before you finished the book, and he said he trusted more in how he was raised with corporal punishment. The typical points of, I turned out fine, etc. were raised by him. It was a lost cause and by the end of it, he felt as though his honor was challenged by me calling it cowardly. Ooh, really? You went with cowardly?
[22:55] You went with cowardly. That's not how to change people's minds. If you're in a debate and you don't care about the future relationship, then you can call people whatever you want, although there are some credibility issues if you go real strong in your language, but you called him a coward. He wanted to spar with me in a ring for five rounds as a way for me to prove my point. He's older than me by four years and also more muscular. The only other way he'd accept my proof would be through raising my own children peacefully and seeing what kind of adults they would be. At that point, of course, the damage to his own children would already be done.
[23:32] Long story short, this was the end of our our relationship. I have grieved and I'm still in the process of accepting things, but a part of that process for me is still manning his position. Maybe in seeing it completely destroyed, I'll have more peace of mind. Okay. Well, I'm sorry about that, but I would criticize you in this. I really would. I would criticize you. So calling your brother a coward is going to trigger him, right? Because he's macho and willing to use violence against his children. So calling him a coward is going to trigger him, is going to make him oppositional towards you, and it means that you were more about winning an ego and insults than you were about actually protecting his children. Because when it comes to the protection of children.
[24:14] You should put all ego aside and work for the benefit of those children no matter what, right? No matter what. Now, it could be that he has no inner voice, he has no observing ego, he has no capacity to subject the violence of his immediate animal will to higher rational and moral standards, in which case there is no changing, there is no improving, and it may be better to be out of the relationship rather than watch him put his kids through the meat grinder of his own intimidation for decades. So, I'm really sorry about that. But in my view, and again, I don't know the details of the conversation, you're welcome to do a call-in show, freedomain.com slash call. You did the wrong thing by provoking your brother because you knew the response that would bring and it didn't end up with him trying to become more peaceful towards his children. All right. In part two, I should continue to play devil's advocate. There might appear to be a level of dissociation in part two since there clearly is an emotional undercurrent to this discussion. I appreciate that. All right. First, I think you made a few fantastic points which are worth repeating and rephrasing If you can't hit any characteristics of a child how can you hit a child? Okay, we don't need to go through my arguments.
[25:26] Rationality is an abstract thing and abstract things judge abstract things You don't judge particular actions You judge arguments Yes Good, Practicality is taking the steps in order to achieve a goal Morality is university's preferable behavior Yes With these points in mind I have a question regarding point three If the act of copying yourself slash reproduction is universally observed across all living organism, does this qualify as a universally preferable behavior? No, because that is an action. The action of reproduction is the physical act of sexuality or, I guess, mitosis or meiosis. And so it is not universally preferable behavior. Preferable is not in there by accident. Preferable refers to things which can be preferred, which means that there's an alternative, which means that there is free will. Well, do we say that a female frog prefers to reproduce? No, she is programmed to reproduce. Do we say that a male dog in heat who will hump everything from a couch to his owner to a female dog is preferring to reproduce? No, it's programmed in, the lust is programmed in, the behavior is programmed in. Trust me, we've had ducks for some years and the males, with no other males around, know instinctively to copulate with the females. else. So it is not preferred. It's not preferable behavior. It is program behavior that can't be stopped. You can't reason someone out of that, right?
[26:49] Since morality is exclusive to human beings, then does reproduction, both physically or memetically, qualify as a universally preferable behavior since human beings show a universal preference for this? But no, all animals don't show a preference. They're programmed to reproduce. So universally preferable behavior is ideal moral standards, which we need because we're programmed sometimes to do otherwise. If it is universally preferable to reproduce with memetic reproduction as one part of this process, then child abuse can be considered a form of, no, no, so child abuse, a form of memetic reproduction, yeah, child abuse reproduces child abuse. Sure. And those, so clearly people have the ability to not abuse their children, which is why we call it abuse, right? So nobody would say that it is abusive if you raise your child in a healthy manner, then when puberty hits, that's you abusing your child.
[27:48] Nobody would call that child abuse because it's not under your control. If your child unfortunately develops something like epilepsy and you, of course, work your best to get treatment and so on, that is not abuse because it is beyond your control. Now, if your child has epilepsy because you beat his head against the door and he got seizures, that's bad, right? But if your child has ill health, obviously that's not the result of any bad parenting or deficiency in parenting, that's not abusive. So child abuse is people who can choose not to abuse their children. And we know that they choose not to abuse their children because they would not abuse their children in front of the policeman, in front of the teacher, or the social worker, or at a mall, or at a church, or on a plane, or on a train, all these kinds of things, right? So they choose not to, which means they can choose not to abuse their children, which means that they choose to abuse their children, which means they're exercising free will and they're subject to moral rules because they can exercise free will.
[28:54] So reproduction is not universally preferable behavior because that is a physical act capable of, well, animals constantly enact reproduction and they are programmed to do so by nature. And so reproduction is not a universally preferable behavior because it is programmed in. And remember, if animals can do it, it's not part of moral philosophy, right? So, I'm struggling with how to navigate raising children. Should I participate in creating the belief that Santa Claus exists? No. You don't lie to your children, right? You don't lie to your children. Oh, they need to believe in magic. It's like, no, you're just training them that people in authority can absolutely believably lie to them about something that doesn't matter. I mean, Santa Claus doesn't particularly matter. Jeez, it's funny. I thought that there was some beast on the tree behind me, but it's just a little bug on my screen. Starship Troopers giant bug. It's pretty funny. So, yeah, Santa Claus, it's a great story. It's a great story, right? I mean, when you say, oh, the lion said to the warthog, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? You're not saying to your kids, lions can actually talk, right?
[30:19] Children my child tells other children that Santa Claus is fictional okay so what are you going to say are you going to say that if other people believe things that are false and see the Santa Claus thing it messes with reality right it you don't want to do anything that interferes with the child's processing and perception of objective factual empirical reality right and Santa Claus as a myth he lives in the North Pole he's got elves and you know people have done the math right like he can go to all of the houses and apartments in the world on one night you know he would have to travel so fast with the flying reindeer that he would actually burn and melt in atmosphere like some nazi at the end of raiders of the last ark which would not be the greatest children children's show uh donna blitzen it's time to get to chile face melt and explosion right dumb dim detonation of kindly corpulent white-haired men in the lower atmosphere would would not be the greatest, but it would teach the kids something about physics, so I suppose that's worthwhile. So, yeah, enjoy the fictional character. Absolutely, enjoy the fictional character. You know, you watch Lord of the Rings, and you don't imagine that they're real people, right?
[31:27] All right. Recently, you've said that Izzy is quick to identify contradictions because you've never asked for her to believe in contradictions. Yes. And okay, so your kid is going to say to other kids that Santa Claus isn't real, right? And they're going to go back to their parents and they're going to complain that, you know, your kid said that Santa Claus isn't real. First of all, I've never had that because my kids have friends who are rational. This is why you homeschool. You can choose the people that your kids hang out with. You are throwing your kids to the quasi-prison-of-the-mind ghouls if you drop your kids in public school or daycare. So you're not choosing the companions. You choose the kids that your friends hang out with. The only way you can do that is through homeschooling. And so my daughter has never gotten in trouble for saying things that are rational and true because we're only friends with families who value rationality and truth. So that's on you. That's on you. All right. Let's see here.
[32:25] We did how to kind of be a more content person i fall into cycle saying this is going to be our forever home and then after a few years i start dreaming of something bigger and better yes absolutely absolutely so uh you know your contentment is death uh you'll be mellow when you're dead you'll be content when you're dead so i mean you know the way that life is i imagine if you were a kid and you you you want i remember we got an actual video of my daughter when she you first figured out how to roll over, Beethoven. Chuck Berry song, tangent. Again, free association. So, the Beatles cover song.
[32:58] Bury, bury a friend, Billie Eilish, we bury people when they're dead. Ah, yes, so we're back to the kid. So imagine if you as a baby got a permanent life joy out of rolling over, right? So you rolled over and you get happy that you've rolled over just as you're happy when you learn how to walk. So you're happy about it and then that happiness fades away. Why? Because life is constant progression. Life is constant progression. And if you're not progressing, you're dying. if you're not getting better, it's entropy. You're either improving or you're dying.
[33:37] So if a kid takes immense and permanent joy about rolling over, they'll never learn how to walk. Why would they? The reason they learn how to walk is they get bored with rolling over and now they want a new challenge. And that's why we learn language and that's why I continue to do philosophy after 45 years because I want to keep getting better. Am I satisfied with the work I've done in the past? Absolutely. Would I be happy repeating all the work I've done in the past forever and ever? Amen. Absolutely not. I don't know how people do this politics stuff where they say, you know, the Dems are hypocritical, the left are the real racist, over and over and over again. And, I mean, bless them, I don't know how they can do it, right? So, yeah, you're not designed to feel contentment. You think we got to be the alpha top of the pyramid predator species and dominate the whole world because we're just happy to do whatever? No. We got to the top of the food chain out of discontentedness.
[34:37] Out of discontentedness. I am usually content with the analogies and the communication I put out. And what I want to do is do better next time. Of course. I mean, why would you? Like there's some things I don't particularly care about getting better at because they're there for maintenance, right? So I'm not aiming to be a weightlifter, right? And compete in weightlifting because my goal is to be a great philosopher and I don't want to spend the four hours a day to do weightlifting because i would rather do philosophy that will make me happier right so for that it's about maintenance you know i um i've been playing racket sports for 50 years and i'm not particularly interested i mean i've won a couple of tournaments here and there i'm not particularly interested in in becoming a great tennis player i enjoy it for exercise it's fun to get out in the sun and i you know, enjoy playing with my wife in particular. So, but I'm not interested in entering and winning tournaments and getting coaching. It's not my thing, right? So, but that's because that's not what I'm focusing my excellence on, right? I mean, I can make a couple of dishes of food. I'm not interested in becoming a chef, right? So, you can't become excellent at anything if you try to become excellent at everything. So, you got to fix something, focus on becoming excellent at that, and then the other things serve that, right? So weightlifting serves philosophy because it allows me to live longer and be healthier and do more philosophy.
[36:07] So yeah, contentment is, you're trying to, I mean, even babies, I mean, we're born discontent, you're born crying, you're born wanting things, you're born striving to master and to learn and to figure all of that. You figure out babies figuring out, or you watch babies figuring out how to do things, and they're constantly playing with things and learning and they get language. So we have this conversation because we're discontented. You know, this camera is better than the camera you could get 10 years ago because people were discontented. Your internet is faster than it was 20 years ago because people are discontented. Everything you have that's of any quality and excellence is because people were discontented. So join the endless lemming march to up the hill of discontent to excellent and off the cliff edge of death. Be excellent. Focus on things. Don't rest on your laurels. don't just say, well, that's just fine. I guess I should just be happy now forever.
[36:59] Nope, doesn't work. It doesn't work. Second question is, why am I struggling with feeling left out? Lately, in my community and circle of mom homeschooling neighborhood friends, I've been aware of recent instances where I haven't been invited to join a dinner or gathering. Logically, I tell myself that it's okay. We live in a small town. I don't have to be invited to everything. Emotionally, it still hurts though. Well, I'm glad you told me that you are a female because men don't generally care that much about being excluded because we're doing often more practical things. And so maybe you're raising kids, which is very practical, so I retract that. But it's a practicality around relationships, not around material objects. So, haven't been invited to join a dinner or gathering, right? So you are under the thumb or the boot heel of the soft fascism of social ostracism. So the reason that you're not invited is someone doesn't like you and someone who doesn't like you have convinced other people oh do we really have to invite her oh she's kind of whatever whatever right oh maybe not ideal blah blah blah so um i mean of course you don't have to be invited to everything but the way that you avoid feeling excluded uh trust me i've gone through a tiny smidge of exclusion over the course of my life and so the reason that the way that you avoid.
[38:22] Uh feeling uh wounded by exclusion is recognizing how often you exclude others right so i'm sure there are people you're throwing a a dinner or a gathering then.
[38:39] You will not invite some people, right? Sorry, I was just trying to figure out whether to tell a story or not. I think I will decline. So there are times when you exclude people. There are times when you don't want to say, oh yes, but I exclude them because they're bad.
[38:55] Okay, so if you exclude people because they're difficult or troublesome or neurotic or negative or too gossipy or, you know, whatever, awkward. If you exclude people because of negative characteristics, then negative people will exclude you you because of your positive characteristics. Like, listen, bad people have the right to ostracize you just as you have the right to ostracize them. And it's two sides of the same coin. You want to have the ability to exclude negative people from your social events. Of course you do. And negative people want to have the ability to exclude you from their events. In other words, you won't get invited to events where there are negative people. Good. That's a plus in your life the people who don't invite you are inviting negative people right so um uh people who uh people get kicked off of social media for you know quoting facts and science and other people like rappers who have you know half a dozen women or a dozen women accusing them of sexual assault some with reasonable proof uh they're fine right they can do their concerts they can they're on Twitter, YouTube, and all that, right? So if you have the right to exclude bad people, bad people have the right to exclude you, and you should get down on your metaphorical knees and thank them for keeping you out of that. So if there's someone around, right, let's say Betty, right? So Betty is around, and your name is Alice, right?
[40:24] So Betty is around and she says, there's a social gathering and they say, oh, let's invite Alice. And she's like, hmm, I don't know. Can we not like just this time because I find this and that and the other about Alice and blah, blah, blah. Now, if your friends are good people as a whole, they'll recognize that there's a probably moral difference between Betty and Alice, right? You and Betty.
[40:45] So they need to work on that, right? They need to say, oh, tell us more specifically what you dislike. Oh, she just seems kind of this, that, and the other. And they'll recognize that now there's a complication. So Betty, by dismissing you or dissing you, Betty is drawing these lines, which are going to complicate social gatherings. And people who are socially competent will have that hashed out so that they don't have to figure out, oh no, it has to be Betty or Alice. It can't be both and spread rumors and so on, right? So if Betty is like, don't invite Alice, then competent social people will sit down with Betty and say, well, what's your issue? And can it be resolved? Can we talk about it? Can we sort it out? And if it turns out that Betty is kind of a weasel and Alice, you're the good person, then people will either try and fix things with Betty and not invite her. But if people are just like, oh, Betty said something negative about Alice, I guess we won't invite Alice. It means that they're petty, weak people who can't stand up to any kind of corruption, who are easily gossiped out of a good person being around and frack them.
[41:41] Sorry, sorry they're doing you a favor all right uh should we stop here how we do it yeah yeah we'll stop here is that right wow time flies when we're doing philosophy i'll get to the other questions later thank you everyone so much for your lovely lovely time and attention it is free domain.com slash donate to help out the show we managed to survive the rain in slow motion you can see it going off my nose all right have yourself a lovely lovely day i will talk to you soon bye Thank you.
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