0:00 - Introduction
1:16 - Concerns about UK unrest
2:30 - Greetings from Prague
3:23 - Dealing with people who talk at you
4:28 - Handling rude co-workers
7:07 - The importance of not rewarding rude behavior
7:34 - The significance of politeness and respect
8:03 - Dealing with know-it-alls
10:24 - Exposing ignorance gracefully
17:01 - Addressing slow engagement in the show
17:17 - Importance of genuine engagement
20:08 - Exploring gentle parenting
23:00 - Emotional availability in men
24:06 - Men's emotional availability challenges
26:45 - Balancing success and emotional availability
33:26 - The value of excellence and feedback
37:21 - Impact of childhood comfort on adulthood
41:43 - Upholding excellence in consumer choices
44:35 - Pursuit of Excellence
56:25 - Anger and Communication
1:05:09 - Family Boundaries
1:09:53 - Facing Consequences
1:19:34 - Fairness Instinct
1:23:15 - Motivation and Gratitude
Tonight's show begins with a fun song quiz before diving into a wide range of topics and listener questions. We explore the complexities of deciding when to leave a country experiencing unrest, navigating interactions with non-technical know-it-alls, and addressing instances of rudeness. Strategies for conflict resolution, standing up against impolite behavior, and insights on gentle parenting are shared. Additionally, we unpack a viral story about a child dropping their ice cream after the fifth lick, sparking a thought-provoking discussion.
Delving into the concept of gentle parenting, concerns regarding its potential to foster laziness are highlighted. The speaker delves into the idea of emotional unavailability in men, attributing it to the demands of success in competitive environments. They stress the significance of excellence and constructive criticism in promoting growth and specialization across various fields. Rejecting the notion of overprotection, the speaker underscores the value of objective feedback for personal development. Ultimately, they advocate for a balanced approach that combines encouragement and constructive critique to drive overall progress and achievement.
Continuing the conversation on pursuing excellence, the speaker underscores the importance of avoiding activities in which one lacks proficiency. The challenges of nonviolent communication, particularly in managing anger, are acknowledged. Advice is offered on establishing boundaries with dysfunctional family members, emphasizing self-care and stress management, especially in the context of family planning. Shared anecdotes shed light on the intricacies of family dynamics and individual evolution.
In the podcast segment, various inquiries on honesty, fairness, and self-reflection are addressed. Emphasis is placed on taking responsibility for choices, learning from them, and steering clear of a victim mentality. The distinction between feelings and judgments is elucidated, with fairness being portrayed as an innate sentiment. The speaker explores the consequences of truth-telling and encourages listeners to approach situations with maturity and self-awareness. Moreover, the importance of restitution and equity in relationships is discussed alongside reflections on responding to rudeness and navigating interpersonal complexities. The segment wraps up with announcements about upcoming shows, donation avenues, and the opportunity for call-ins.
[0:00] Good evening, good evening. Welcome to your Wednesday Night Live, 7th of August 2024. Let's get straight into your questions. You can go to fdrurl.com slash live call. Fdrurl.com slash live call. If you would like to have a chitty chatty bing bang with me, with moi. Song quiz. You did miss it, but it was a pretty easy one. In other words... Please be true, in other words, I love you. All right. Easy peasy, nice and easy. Thank you, Anthony. Very nice to start with a tip. And did Frank Sinatra do it first? I know a bunch of people have done it, but he does the definitive version. You said Tony Bennett did an album of Frank Sinatra covers called Perfectly Frank, which I think was really good. But I'm not a huge fan of the Tony Bennett Outside Have I Left My Heart in San Francisco, which is about as close to an angel crying in your ears you're ever going to get on this life or any other or so. All right, let me move this over here, just in case the caller's the call. All right.
[1:16] But let's get me to your questions. Hi, Stef. Things appear to be deteriorating quickly here in the UK. How will I know if or when it's time to leave the country? Many thanks. Are you talking about the riots, the unrest, the cultural, religious, and racial animosity? That's going to be put down. I mean, they'll use it to crack down more on free speech and it'll all fade away so it's a sad but true it's sad but true i mean i you know obviously can't philosophically answer whether you should stay in a country or not but.
[1:58] Um it's it's it's all just pressure and coercion now it's it's not about any sort of recent arguments or data or facts so this is why i bailed out of politics because it just wasn't uh, Will the IRA get fired up? No. No. The IRA was only against British capitalism. They're not against what's going on now. No.
[2:31] Greetings from Prague. Ah, beautiful, beautiful city. I have often wished to tootle over to see more of Eastern Europe. Of course, my name is Stefan, which is very Polish. And of course, I did a great documentary in Poland. You can get that at freedomain.com slash documentaries. You should check it out. It'd be free. But I absolutely adore Eastern Europe. I just love Eastern Europe. So hopefully I'll get a chance to go out there. And it's the kind of place where I could actually have meetups without too much violence.
[3:11] All right, so that was a question there, let's see if we've got any others.
[3:23] What to do about people who talk at you rather than with you? Let's say you tell someone your life story and they simply step all over what you said and they never ask you any questions.
[3:34] Well, make your excuses and get out. Make your excuses and get out. You know, I have a three-minute rule. I'm happy to ask people questions. If they don't ask me anything back in three minutes, give or take, peace out. You know, good luck with your narcissistic, solipsistic life. But I'm going to spend some time with people who have ears as well as mouths. So, yeah, just don't, I wouldn't have anything to do. You can't fix that in someone. You know, you just have to really look at politeness and basic civility, right? Somebody who was raised with that level of narcissism, that level of selfishness, they're just never going to be interesting or interested in other people. It's all about them. And that goes all the way back to the roots of childhood. What if they're your co-worker?
[4:28] Oh, just say, I'm sorry, I'm waiting for an emergency broadcast and put your headphones in.
[4:36] Or, you know, just say, if we're going to chat, like I'm really busy today, if we're going to chat, let's do it at lunch and then just avoid them. Like, you don't have to be polite to rude people. It's a foundational thing in life. Don't feel helpless in the face of rude people. Rude people have earned no social consideration whatsoever. Rude people rely on polite people being weak. Just be rude. They've not earned any politeness from you. I mean, you've seen me in interviews. If somebody really starts to get shirty or crappy with me, rude, it's like, I'll send it right back.
[5:22] Why? Don't extend courtesy to the uncourteous. Courtesy is something that, courtesy, politeness, niceness, that's something you earn by being a courteous and respectful person yourself. Right? That's what you get. That's why we are polite, so that we can reasonably expect politeness in return. If somebody is just blah, blah, blah, blah, my daughter calls her the yappers, If someone's just a yapper There's a yap, yap, yap You don't owe them any politeness, You don't owe them any politeness at all You can be completely rude To people who are Self-absorbed, selfish, not polite themselves Morality is a relationship It is not an absolute, Morality is a relationship Certainly aesthetically preferable actions.
[6:26] You only owe being on time to people who are on time you only owe politeness to people who are polite you only owe consideration to people who are considerate otherwise you know everybody's worried about counterfeit money fiat currency the fad printing goes the money printer right it's like well but most people fear they counterfeit rewards for virtue they just print it up oh i'll I'll treat you as great, even if you're not great. So if you're polite, I'll be polite to you. And if you're rude, I'll be polite to you. Nope. I don't think that's right. That's just not right. You know, if you pay for your iPad, I'll ship it to you. If you don't pay for your iPad, I'll just ship it to you.
[7:08] Like the entire functional economy could not work on the basis of that kind of subsidy.
[7:17] Rude people are relying upon you thinking that politeness is a weakness you have to extend to bullies. No, politeness is a reward you extend to polite people. Reasonableness is a reward you extend to the reasonable.
[7:34] It is not a blank check you hand over like your balls to all and sundry. Don't reward selfish, rude, mean, inconsiderate people. Don't reward them. Avoid them if you gotta lie to them if you gotta make excuses you owe them nothing, nothing well justice you owe them justice pay people what they deserve.
[8:04] Alright Stef any tips on how to deal with non-technical people who act like they know it all even though they have no technical qualifications you mean at work At work? At work? Well... The best way to deal with know-it-alls is humiliation. And I don't mean that you humiliate them. You just allow them to humiliate themselves. You just allow them to humiliate themselves.
[8:48] So, if you're in a public meeting and somebody says something false, just say, oh, that's interesting, tell me more. Oh, what does that mean? Oh, where does that come from? Oh, what's the source of that? What operating system does that run on? Is that 32-bit or 64-bit? Is that an integer or a floating point or a decimal? Is it long? Oh, that's interesting. Would you put that in a VARCHAR or would you put that in a more defined variable? Oh, what kind of array? Would you bubble sort that array, or how would you do that?
[9:22] Just keep asking questions until their ignorance is exposed, and then they'll stop doing it. Like, you understand, most people you have to train. Most people will just do whatever they can get away with, and you have to build little fences around them of emotional, just a little emotional, you know, those little dog collars, just a little emotional negative experiences, so they stop screwing around with your life. That's what you got to do with people, for the most part, not all, not all, and you don't want that. That as much as you cannot have that in your life, don't have it in your life. But, you know, if you're stuck with people. You've got a salesman who's like, I remember when I worked in my first job as a programmer, there was a trader. And this is back when having two screens was like having a space shuttle. And he was like, so I built this neural net in Excel. It's a neural net. I'm like, oh, tell me, what is a neural net? Well, it's these cells that communicate to each other. And I'm like, so like Excel. But how is it a neural net?
[10:24] Well, the data flows from one place to another and it balances. And I'm like, is that based on the equations you typed into the cells? Yes. So that's Excel. I'm still not sure how that's different from a neural net. And I'm not sure what the definition is. Well, it's complicated. Oh, so it's a lot of cells. What number of cells do you need for it to become a neural net? Is it 1,000, 500, 10,000, like, how, like, tell me, how many? I read the word, I read the phrase neural net. I read the phrase neural net, and therefore I'm going to use it.
[11:04] Most people are faking knowledge. They are. They're just going through life faking knowledge. They're faking knowledge about politics, economics, virtue, truth, honesty, integrity, courage, relationships, love, honor, decency. They're just faking it all. This is all the way back to Socrates, right? Just faking it all. Faking it all. I can't let the five seconds my eyes rested on that nerd magazine go to waste. Yeah, they're just making it up. And you can see the sort of puffed up pompery of people right, it's just it's wretched, absolutely wretched alright any other questions, comments issues, challenges disagreements and I've got obviously some stuff to chitty chat about.
[12:11] So one of this is from August the 2nd on X. On X. This was probably one of the biggest tweets, around 42 million views, 20,000 comments. I think it even outstripped my Taylor Swift dino egg hunt. And it's from Nick Huber. Huber? And it's a picture of a sad-looking boy. I think it's a boy. It's a sad-looking boy. And he says, this kid saved up all week for an ice cream, spent $5, dropped it after the fifth lick. I didn't buy him another one. Life is hard. He took it well. Life is hard. He took it well. What do you guys think? Let me give you the post here so you can see it. You can eyeball it for yourself. While you're doing that, oh, let me put it in one other place as well. Let me put it to another place as well. Where we are with the stream of liveliness. But you can have a look at that. How do you deal with the fear that rude people might retaliate when you expose their incompetence publicly?
[13:40] Well, if you're not willing to escalate, Don't get involved in conflicts. So you document, you just document. People genuinely and generally underestimate the value of documenting things, right? So if someone retaliates, then you document it, right? And if somebody, I don't know, does something kind of mean, you document it and you go and talk to them about it. and you talk to them about it in a public place or you talk about it with them loudly. I didn't understand why this happened. Can you help me understand this? Do it loudly around their cubicle. And they might, and they might get you fired. They might get you fired. What can I tell you? All conflict has risk. But all appeasement has risk. So if you, if somebody is incompetent and they're, and first of all, who cares, right? I mean, if it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter, right? Who cares, right? But if it matters and if it's important to you as a person and as a company, if it matters.
[14:53] Then you know you would want to expose that person do it mildly like you just you don't grind them all the way to atoms just you know a little bit of shot across their bowels oh i didn't know that it's a neural net what do you mean by neural net i don't understand well it's how's that different and then just let it go and what you've done is you put just put a shot across their bowels you don't have to take someone all the way to the woodshed the first time there's a conflict right it's just a little bit more right and if they then start retaliating for you against you, well, then you have a fight on your hands. And what's wrong with that? Because you either fight with people who are jerks or you fight with yourself and not fighting with people who are jerks. There's no escape from the conflict. None. You either end up in combat with jerks or you end up with combat with yourself for being cowardly regarding jerks. There's no good answer when you've got a jerk around. That's why I tend not to have jerks around as a whole, right? It's no good an answer. You either get into a conflict with them, or you get mad at yourself for not getting into a conflict with them. I prefer to not get down on myself, but rather get in conflict with others. I mean, obviously, I'm critical of myself. I want to make sure I'm doing the right thing.
[16:06] Appeasement is the belief that there is a non-conflict resolution to a conflict situation. I mean, how did that work out with Chamberlain and Czechoslovakia? Check out my free novel, Almost, available at freedomain.com slash books. Please check it out. It's a great, great book, and the audiobook is pretty spectacular.
[16:32] When you have a conflict with someone, you either deal with that conflict. Hopefully, you can deal with it positively. Hopefully, you can deal with it nicely. Hopefully, you can whatever, right? You have a conflict with someone, you either deal with that conflict directly, or you avoid, and then you just set against yourself. Right?
[17:01] All right. Seems like a slow show tonight. No, it doesn't seem like it is. I've had, like, two questions. No tips. But that's all right. Hey, that's totally fine. If people aren't too into it tonight, we can just have a short show.
[17:17] So, yes, with regards to the guy, I don't particularly believe the story. The kid saved all week for an ice cream, spent $5, dropped it after the fifth lick. Now, this kid looks to be about four. Now four is a little too young for you dropped your ice cream, therefore you're out of ice cream. Now, I don't particularly believe this story.
[17:44] Because they're still in the ice cream store, it looks like. Are they? Maybe. But after the fifth lick, so when little kids get ice creams, they lick it right away. And so if this kid is still in the ice cream store if he's just on his fifth lick and he drops it what is the ice cream store going to do they're going to say oh here's another ice cream that's fine don't worry about it we'll clean it up because they want the kid to be happy right, i mean anybody who's worked customer service knows that if the kid drops the ice cream you give him another ice cream maybe it's not quite as large or whatever it is right, so he's on his fifth lick he drops the ice cream which means that the store is noticing and says oh that's too because they got to clean up the ice cream fifth lick means he's still in the store right because kids get the ice cream they immediately dive in as the father as i guess the kids paying or whatever right so five licks he's still in the store so they have to clean up the ice cream they see him drop the ice cream and they say have a new ice cream that happens have a new ice cream, right?
[19:01] So Nick Huber says they offered him a freebie and I declined it. Community Notes now says Nick Huber later claimed that no freebie was offered and implied the statement was made for engagement. So, he saved up all week. He has multiple opportunities to earn dollars at the age of four. I mean, that's terrible. Four-year-olds earning money and so on, right? That's crazy. So, this is, I mean, to me, I don't know this guy, but this to me would just be engagement farming to say something outrageous so people get all riled up. We'll miss the education live, but we'll hear it tomorrow. Thank you. I appreciate that.
[19:59] But no, don't have your kid drop an ice cream and then not give him the love.
[20:08] All right. Have you heard of this thing called gentle parenting? Parenting. More gentle parenting. Because Dr. Camilo Ortiz, I don't know who that is, this got almost 550,000 views again from August 2nd, says, my career can basically be summed up as trying to fix the damage caused by gentle parenting. My field has foisted this abomination on the general public, and it's awful. So that's, that's interesting. So Jessica Vaughan writes I don't know why it's so hard for people to find a balance between not traumatizing their kids and permitting them to grow up and be absolutely unlikable to their peers. And Dr. Camilo Ortiz writes back in part because my field has been giving well-meaning parents terrible parenting advice. Parents think we're experts so they listen.
[21:10] And someone else writes, I once babysat for a mom who told me I wasn't allowed to use the word no with her daughter. Her daughter was very violent. When she hit me or pulled my hair, I had to give her other options to express her anger, not tell her to stop. The mom was a child psychologist.
[21:33] And she says immigrant parents generally have not lost their sanity. I count myself among them. So gentle parenting what it's never correcting your kids never saying no never give them any standards of behavior never having any requirements I don't know gentle parenting it just seems lazy parenting it just seems very very lazy lazy parenting, but it's kind of like way back in the day we got into a bunch of conflict on the show about non-violent communication, and I had my issues with it to put it mildly, and, hmm i was talking with a fellow today who he was 40 and already wealthy by the time he got together with his wife who was almost 30 he was almost 40 and and had made it and, his wife was complaining that he was not emotionally available it's just he's just not sensitive he's just not emotionally available he just doesn't have the kind of conversations that she wants to have. Have you heard this emotionally unavailable stuff?
[22:54] Yeah, James, I won't do that now. I'll just see if there are any calls.
[23:01] But have you ever had this emotionally available? I want to be emotionally available. You've got to be emotionally available. As a man. As a man. You ever hear these complaints? I find them very funny. I find them very funny. You've heard this trope before, right? I just listened to three episodes on NVC. Do you have any ideas on why this topic often leads to passive aggression? Yes, I do. I do. We'll get to that in in a sec. So why is it that men are not, let's say that this complaint is true. Let's just say for the sake of argument, men are not emotionally available. Why do you think men are not emotionally available? Why do you think men are not emotionally available in the way that women want or like, or at least some women, right? Why, why do you think?
[24:07] Why do you think men are emotionally unavailable? It also seems to be the case that the men who are the most successful are often complained, the women often complain, that the men are emotionally unavailable. And the more successful the man, the more emotionally unavailable the woman will often complain that he is. I find it funny. Men get it used against them no I mean I hear what you're saying and I don't think that's it fundamentally alright, have you ever played poker have you ever played, a really hard challenging sometimes one on one, sport or been heavily involved in negotiations and so on so you understand for a man for a man you cannot be in general both successful and emotionally available at the same time.
[25:12] You cannot be both emotionally available and successful. So there's an old story of two tennis players, Andre Agassi and Bjorn Borg, or something like that. And Bjorn Borg had a tell. Like if he was going to serve to the left, his tongue would go to the left. If he was going to serve to the right, his tongue would go to the right a little bit. And Andre Agassi, I think it was him, figured this out and then obviously didn't want to always return perfectly because Bjorn Borg's serve was like clocked at like near light speed. It was a near C serve. And so you had no time to react. You had to basically guess where the ball was going to be.
[25:57] Before he served it or before he really started blasting it because you didn't have enough time to react. So he'd let some go by, but he gave him just enough of an edge that he was able to win some matches against the famously powerful serve, Bjorn Borg. Arthur Ashe also had one. Jimmy Connors had a good serve as well. But Andre Agassi figured out Bjorn Borg. So Bjorn Borg had a tell, right? And you're always looking for this in negotiations, right? In A Man in Full, a Tom Wolfe novel, the guy who's getting ground down by his bank, they get saddlebags where he's sweating so much that he's got big armpit stains. That's his tell. He's got a tell. So as a man, you cannot be successful in negotiations, successful in combat with other men, and be emotionally available at the same time.
[26:45] So it's almost kind of funny to me that men want women, you know, the sexy librarian, she takes off the glasses, shakes down her hair, and suddenly she's like Scarlett Johansson or something like that. The men want this absolute hottie who has no idea that she's a hottie, and the women want a successful man who's completely emotionally available. It's like, you can't have these things. I'm sorry. If you want a man with money, he's not going to be wearing his heart on a sleeve, because you can't make money if you're wearing your heart on your sleeve.
[27:25] You follow, right?
[27:34] Yes and women of previous generations chose them to be this way so if you want a man who's strong and successful you get a man who's not emotionally available whatever i'm not even sure what that means but a man has to go out there and win against other men, we have to win against other men and sometimes women, so if you want a man who's really really really really really empathetic you're gonna get a man who loses a whole lot.
[28:16] You're gonna get a man who loses a lot if he's very empathetic i mean can you imagine a man trains for 10 years to run sprints in the olympics and then he's about to win, and he feels bad for the guy behind him. He's like, no, no, no, after you, please. And then the other guy's like, no, no, no, after you, please. I don't want to take your victory. And then the third guy's like, now I feel bad about taking it. And no, everybody just stands around three inches from the finish line until they're all dead. No! Screw the guy behind me! I'm winning! I mean, I didn't get to the top of my profession by being overly sensitive. To other people wanting listeners i'm like i'm taking all the listeners i'm gonna take them all, by the hair so in order for men to win against other men we have to have very tight control over our empathy over our empathy.
[29:20] It's the old thing throughout history, the child of an enemy dies. And the women are sad that a child died, and the men are happy that the child didn't grow up to be a future enemy. So it's just different. And there's nothing wrong with both perspectives. I think they're very interesting and it's fine, and you need the yin-yang balance and vive la différence and all these kinds of wonderful things. But you've got to be emotionally available, okay? What percentage of her income are you willing to give up so that I can be emotionally available? Oh my gosh. What percentage of income, honey, do you want to give up so that I can be emotionally available? No, no, no. I don't want to give up any income. Okay. So you can afford to be emotionally available because you're designed to deal with babies and toddlers. I have to be a little cold-hearted because I have to compete with other men who don't have a lot of empathy. Somebody says, I feel like you're talking about me. I always feel bad about the other guy, and then I end up losing. Right. Yeah, stop it. I'm not calling you a parasite. That mindset is parasitical. That mindset is parasitical.
[30:47] Because we rely on excellence in everything we do in our daily life. You require excellence in the gasoline you put in your car, otherwise it's going to clog up your car. You've got a bunch of sugar in it, it's going to kill your car.
[31:04] You want excellence in the quality of the food that you get. You don't want there to be salmonella or botulism or anything like that. You want excellence in the provision of your internet service and your cell phone service. You want excellence in the reliability of your electricity. You want excellence in all these things. And excellence means excluding the losers from control of the means of production. Keeping the incompetent and the losers away from the handles of the levers of the means of production. I want this camera to work. I want this microphone to work. I want this keyboard, computer, monitor, amp, recorder, everything. I want it to work and I want it to work flawlessly. And in return, I will try to do a good job myself in what I do. So, if you're like, oh no, let the loser win. That's the end of civilization. I'm not kidding about that. Do you like things to work? Then the losers can't win. Do you get annoyed when things don't work? Then the losers can't win. Right? Do you get annoyed when politicians give juicy contracts to their friends and relatives? No, you want the best person to win.
[32:33] All of our evolution, all of our progress has been the result of a commitment to excellence and tough titties to the losers. Sorry, tough titties to the losers. I know, yeah, the losers are sad, so what? So what? Can you power your house with loser sadness? Can you heat your home with loser sadness? Can you shake loser sadness like spice over your cell phone and have the screen repair itself? You cannot. And people who are doing the wrong thing, who are in the wrong field should experience loser sadness so they can get to the right field where they will be happy and successful.
[33:27] You know, when you get those injections in your gums, you've got a cavity to fix or something. Do you want that to just be kind of okay? Or, you know, do you want to get tooth drill agony? Or, like, you want it to work. You want it to be successful. Which means you don't want the guy who's bad at anesthetic to deliver the anesthetic. You don't want to have too much and you don't want to have too little. It's got to be just right. it.
[33:54] You're helping people out of unproductive occupations when you decisively win against them losing. You know, when I was in my mid-teens, I started a garage band and screeched away with my vocals into the microphone. It was not my thing. I like to sing a little, but I'm not much of a singer, so it's not really my thing. So they should have better people out there doing that. Absolutely. So it helped shove, and I didn't mind acting. I thought I was okay at acting. I mean, obviously, it was top tier insofar as I got into the National Theater School, which takes like 1% of the applicants. I was pretty good at it. But I have too many of my own words to spend the rest of my life mouthing the platitudes, written by socialist others. It's not my thing. Not my thing. I prefer live streaming to recording because it feels more connected and communicative with... Yeah, I had a friend of mine wrote an entire rock opera. It sat in his drawer, and it will never get produced. And it shouldn't be because it wasn't that good.
[35:13] Have you tried not sucking? Right. So all of the people who said those magical words you suck the three words that just help you the most in your life you suck molly you they helped guide me to what i'm doing now wonderful, i was a solid good coder with a great deal of creativity but there are other genius coders who were way better than me at coding. Now, I had a good combo of sales and marketing and business smarts and economics and all of that, but...
[35:55] Actually, no, I was pretty good on coding. I was pretty good at coding. But there are certainly better people, right? I think I'm sort of top tier when it comes to doing this kind of stuff. Because if I had the realm I was better at or in, I would move to that realm. I think I've kind of hit my peak. Here we go, right? Here we go. Hit my peak. Am I a weightlifting guy? No, look at those anemic little British muscles. Well, no steroids, what can I tell you? So you're not helping people by feeling bad for them when they fail that indicates that you did not receive comfort, and you're dragging around a salt water soaked broken heart inside you like a deep bell tumbling troubling in the inky depths. You have a deep sadness inside of you because you weren't comforted as a child. And because you have a deep sadness within you because you weren't comforted as a child, you want to go around comforting everyone. Because you think that by comforting other people, you'll feel better about not being comforted as a child. This will not happen. All you will do is keep people...
[37:21] In fields they are ill-suited for. Now, you also probably are not close to your father because women are supposed to be blindly encouraging. Yay! Good job! Yay! Well done! Yes, women are supposed to be blindly encouraging because they're babies and toddlers. They're raising babies and toddlers.
[37:47] And you want to be blindly encouraging encouraging, so that the kid has a basic sense of competence, because all the stuff that babies and toddlers are learning is not differentiated, right? He learned how to roll over. Well, everyone's got to do that, especially Beethoven, right? Oh, he learned how to sit up. Well, everyone's got to do that. Oh, learned how to crawl. Got to do that. Learned how to scooch. Got to do that. Learned how to crawl on his hands and knees. Go walk like a horse. Learned how to stand, walk, right? Learned how to run learn basic language everyone's got to do that so you can't differentiate, well you know you're better at crawling so you don't crawl no crawling for you but you're really good at that so i'm going to get behind you right because women are encouraging all of the basic skills that everyone needs so they have to be enthusiastic about everyone and they can't differentiate however when the kids drift over to the asshole land of skeptical boys men right, girls are all yay good job men are like you suck that blows that was terrible oh my god how awful right no no there's no good there's no good no whatever you're doing don't do that right.
[39:04] Right i mean and i've gone through because i've had this rare opportunity to... Oh, don't ask me. Don't get me started on the daily wire monetizes. But, It's all yay-yay positivity from the moms. And then after the basic skills of walking and talking and running and some basic morals of sharing and don't grab, like after all of those basic skills are done and implanted around the age of six or seven, the boys in particular go to the men. And the men are, good job, you suck, well done, that blows. Good job, yay, thumbs up, thumbs down, right? Thumbs up, thumbs down. We are not amused, right? So that's what the men are supposed to do. Now, we've got this gynocentric estrogen vagina quagmire of a society, which means everyone gets, yay, good job, and then they get out there into reality, and they know it's bullshit, and they're absolutely terrified of any objective feedback because they feel like they're going to fucking die and mentally collapse if they get criticized because they haven't hardened at all. They don't have any realistic assessment of their own.
[40:20] Capabilities. Because they've never had their weaknesses pointed out, they have no idea what their strengths are. Thank you for watching. So.
[40:47] If you are, Or, oh, I don't want the people who've lost to lose. Okay, then just live like that. Don't be a hypocrite. Live like that. Pay the same amount for the fifth best product. Right? So let's say you've got the iPhone Max, you've got the iPhone, you've got the iPhone SE, you've got like all these, like all the... So just pay iPhone Max prices, the one that's half a frickin' iMacs, right? Pay iMacs prices for the iPhone 6. Because, you know, the guys who made the iPhone 6 are going to feel sad if you just buy it. Or the guys who made the smaller iPhone are going to feel bad if you... So just give them... Oh, I don't want to do that. That's not fair.
[41:43] You know, go to the slowest internet provider you can find and pay them top dollar for their services. Pay T1 prices for a 56K modem speed or a 9600 board modem speed. Well, you don't want to do that, right? Well, but the guys with the slow internet are going to feel bad if you go with the T1. They're going to feel bad. When your child is sick, go to the worst doctor you can find. Because, you know, he feels sad if you don't come to see him. He can't, you know, buy his drugs or whatever. He's going to get either from the cabinet, right? But you don't want to live like that, do you? You want excellence from everyone around you, so you're requiring everyone else to enforce excellence while you encourage incompetence.
[42:47] You are offloading the challenge of giving people the truth to everyone else. You're requiring everyone else to do the difficult task of telling people that they suck at stuff because you want to be encouraging. And you're offloading it to everyone else and you're making their job tough, tougher. Because if everyone says, hey, Stef, you're not a great singer. It's like, you know, I can hear myself. I know I'm not a great singer, right? So, but if you and 10 other people are saying, oh man, you're Ben Heppner and Freddie Mercury all combined in one flavorful puppy dog, Josh Groban soupy pile of her stute goodness, that's going to confuse the shit out of me, isn't it? And it's gonna get me wasting my time on singing lessons.
[43:51] You know, go online and find the worst deal you can find. The worst deal. And then buy it. You know, some diarrhea-soaked Pokemon card for $5,000. Well, you've got to pay that because the guy with the diarrhea-soaked Pokemon card is going to feel sad. If nobody buys it, go buy it. Oh, I don't want to do that. Do you want people to be wasting their time? Be like me threatened to James, I'm going to stop doing this and I'm going to become a coder again. And James is like, no, like slowly launching himself through the ether.
[44:36] I'm dedicated to becoming both the before and after picture of a hair model. So you want excellence and you're not willing to contribute the somewhat tough job of ensuring excellence in the world. Right? So you're just lazy and it's parasitical. I want excellence. So you aren't going to be the next Michael Bublé. I'm really not. I'm really, really not. Was it that guy? Why do I have this vague feeling that he was a wedding singer and Brian Mulroney was involved? Like the guy who, um, Conrad Black, up the guy, started on, um, Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling, From glen to glen and down the mountainside He heard some guy singing that at a company party and funded the whole record. I think it was a one-hit wonder or whatever, right? James was offered to trade. I'll code, and he'll do the show. It'll be fine. At my first job, the manager told me this job ain't for me. And maybe he's right, maybe he's wrong. But we all require on those bumpers of approval and disapproval to bing, bing, bing, right? I quit my job because it wasn't excellent and found one with a 22% raise. That's right.
[46:03] What can I tell you? So, the only reason you'd feel bad for the losers is because you want to cripple their potential. Like you think you're being nice and benevolent you're not you're not encouraging people to pursue things that are bad at is sabotaging and it's an asshole move, not calling you an asshole just saying this little bit of things is an asshole move it's an asshole move if somebody writes a song and the song is bad and you say that's going to be a hit then they're going to spend six months trying to make it a hit and it sucks, Maybe you shouldn't get beaten up like Tina Turner Criticizing Ike, but You've just wasted six months of that guy's life, No, thank you. No, and then you end up with songs like Mother on the Gem called Synchronicity. Is that my mother on the phone?
[47:08] Although, I will say, I think it was a Stuart Copeland penned, uh, I change my clothes ten times before I take you on a date. I get the heebie-jeebies and my panic makes me late. I break into a cold sweat just reaching for the phone. I let it ring twice before I chicken out, decide you're not at home. Does everyone stare the way I do? I only look this way at you. And it always bugged me because they said all songs by the police and then there's this opera voice comes up in the back and then Sting starts singing. It's like that opera voice is not yours. All music, all sounds by the police. But apparently it was just a tuning thing that came in while he was recording that little bit at home. No, no, no. If you've got no flexibility or giant boobs, probably shouldn't be a dancer, or at least not the classical kind. Right?
[48:09] And I remember, I mean, in my teens, I got scouted by a modeling agency, went through a couple of things, and finally the guy was like, you know, I got a little bit of an overbite. Maybe if you can, you know, do something about that, we could talk and, you know, and I was like, good. I didn't waste my time. Michael Jackson looking in horror at some of the other singers during the We Are The World rehearsals. Oh, yeah, that was Huey Lewis, who tragically lost one ear in the 80s and lost the other ear recently. I think he got suicidal about it because no more music, no more sound. It's one of these annoying broken ear things where it's half better, half worse from time to time. King of Suede here. I'll be mellow when I'm dead.
[48:56] But uh you know i mean i thought that huey lewis i think he's got a nice voice go listen to him do the acapella all the birds have been blue and they don't know what to do ever since you said goodbye to me and the birds up in the sky where all they do is cry and that's why the rain must fall naturally lovely song no yeah but huey lewis pulled it off eventually huey lewis had a tough Tough job, man. I believe it or not, I actually watched the documentary one night on the making of that, the whole night thing. I remember Diana Ross was very sad that it all ended. And Stevie Wonder was trying to do some Zulu challenge or something like that. But yeah, Huey Lewis was told, you know, just go harmonize with these people and do that. And, you know, he's not a natural singer. I actually know a little bit about Huey Lewis. I read a biography of his many years ago. Are so but yeah sure i get it yeah i mean you know it was pretty rough yeah but it it was fine when it was done you know the only thing that matters is the final take right.
[50:02] What what amazes me is lionel richie after hosting an award show that night and you know singing three songs and then up all night he still sounds like gorgeous you know he still sounds gorgeous boy george on the we are the world we are the world no is it we are the world oh do they know it's christmas and in this world of plenty just sounds lovely it just sounds lovely.
[50:28] Jazz musicians slumming it as pop stars. Is that the news? Were they jazz musicians? They seem very skilled. And I was a big fan of Huey Lewis for quite a while. I mean, I think he's a really cool guy. And he's got that kind of easygoing, slight dad bod thing. And he just seemed like a pretty chill, chill guy. Sorry, I have to use the word chill once a show because I have a teenage daughter. It's just a fact. I hope you're chill with it. Oh, God, I did it again. It's so creepy. I'm getting the chill. Oh, no. But yeah huey lewis uh also doesn't he have a giant dong because he's done a whole bunch of movies not as many as meatloaf who did some really bad movies and destroyed his voice by the way but uh didn't he have a nude scene and huey lewis has like a dinkle dangle dongo that apparently uh he could just lean forward and do push-ups with his hands behind his head just by thinking about an alternative between Ayn Rand and the aforementioned Scarlett Johansson, who apparently disappears women behind her backs. But anyway, all right, we're getting too obscure here. We're getting too obscure. So, yeah, stop, you know, yeah, it's sad when you want to do something and it's not for you. Hasn't everyone had that, hey, I wonder if I can sing? It's all right, but not great. So, yeah, it's...
[51:52] Yeah, you're sad when you want to do something, right? And you don't turn out to be that good at it. I get that. I mean, everybody wants to be Marlon Brando. Everyone wants to be Pavarotti. Everyone wants to be Natia Comaneci. Everybody wants to be the best. I get that. And the only way you're going to get any kind of chance to be the best is if people relentlessly keep you away from things that you're not great at. That's your only chance at greatness is people tasering you in the nads whenever you start drifting off towards something you're not great at. I could have made a living as an actor. I went to theater school. They absolutely loved me until they found out about my politics. I went there as an actor-writer, and after the first semester, they were like, man, just drop the writing. Your acting is fantastic. It's really subtle, really powerful. And then they found out about my politics somehow, and then they just hated me, and I ended up leaving, which is a mutual hatred. But I could have made a living as an actor, but it wasn't for me. And you have to relentlessly stay away from the stuff you're not excellent at and just keep thrashing around all the things you can do until you find the thing that just gets your mojo working. I got my mojo working, but it just ain't working on you.
[53:11] So, join in the great social gorgeousness and beauty of hammering people from chasing people away from what they're bad at towards what they're good at. Or if you don't want to participate that, if you want the hammer and tongs of excellence and sparks and showering, if you want all of that stuff to be done by everyone else, at least don't screw up our jobs by telling bad people they're good at stuff. You're not helping. You're actually making things worse and it's not a standard you'd ever want to live by. So if you can't universalize it, everyone who's bad, right? Think of your favorite book. Think of your favorite book being made into a movie and you want all of the worst actors playing the leads. Wouldn't that hurt your soul? You're going to go and see your favorite band, and their singer, they just replaced him with some guy they found in the parking lot who can't sing. Hey, man, he wants to get up there and sing. Everybody should have that experience.
[54:32] You'd be really, really upset. So, yeah, I think we've milked that one enough, but yeah, don't do it, man. Replace it with William Hung. Oh, yes, he banks. I just listened to three episodes on nonviolent communication. Do you have any idea on why this topic often leads to passive aggression? Right. So the expression of aggression is very complicated in society, and I go back and forth with this myself. It doesn't mean that everything i've had trouble with this is complex but when people annoy me and i say that's annoying i'm annoyed i don't mean you're being annoying i'm just saying i am annoyed when you do this what and what do most people do when you say you're annoyed with them, when you are emotionally expressive and you say that's really annoying what you're doing is really annoying. What do most people do when you say that you're annoyed?
[55:37] And most people will use it against you, right? When you're annoyed, what most people will do is they will say, oh, I guess I didn't have any intention to trigger you, but I guess you're you're triggered, so, okay. I'm sorry that you were triggered, it wasn't my intention, but don't be so sensitive, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? So people are annoying, they poke you, and then when you say, hey, they're like, hey, there's no need to be so sensitive. It's a bullshit, petty, stupid superiority move, right?
[56:18] So NVC, nonviolent communication, I mean, obviously, you don't scream abuse at people and you don't, you know, yell at them and call them names.
[56:26] I'm across that. But you can be angry with people and directly angry about it. I just recorded something today where it was a long thing about how his friend's new marriage fell apart within three months. And I was really angry. I was really, really angry. Now, did I yell abuse at him? I did not, but I directly expressed my anger. And then what people do is they get shocked, and they get withdrawn, and they withdraw, and they get defensive. And then they feel put down, and they have to level up by saying that your aggression, your anger is insane. Isn't that all we have? Like, this is the new strategy in American politics. You're weird. That's just weird. Right. Right. Right, right, right.
[57:33] So when people get angry at you, I understand that. I mean, it can be uncomfortable. I got your question, ACE9. We'll get to it. Yeah, people, it can be uncomfortable. I get that. Listen to their anger. But what happens is we have a society, where anger, anger by the productive is unacceptable. Right? You understand this is, Anger by the productive is absolutely unacceptable in our society. Now, you can be unproductive, you can get as angry as you want. In fact, that's really encouraged because then that anger can be pointed at the productive. But if you're productive, you cannot be angry because we live in a society which enslaves the productive and slaves are not allowed to get angry. You're not allowed to be angry if you're being exploited. Because anger is your defense against exploitation.
[58:54] So the NVC people are often annoying. And when other people say that they're annoying, they reply even more passively. They then imply that the other person's annoyance or anger is irrational and that they're deficient or defective or wrong for being angry. And it just gets worse and worse and worse.
[59:16] Us yeah everyone who's unproductive who's angry is justly expressing their discontent at a terrible system that it's bad for them right everyone who's productive who gets angry is an extremist who must be squashed i mean it's so boring and it's so predictable that yeah that's the way the way society works. The only people not allowed to get angry are the people you want to exploit. Pretty clear, right?
[59:51] I mean, yeah, I had a back and forth with a bunch of NVC guys many years ago, on the old forum, and I think I did some shows about it. You can find them at fdrpodcast.com. Don't forget to, install that app, top right of the screen in your browser. All right, here we go. Stef, can I ask you a question about my family? No. Yes. I come from a really dysfunctional family, ACE of nine. That's an adverse childhood experience of nine. I'm really sorry about that. That's terrible. I recently found out that my brother was shit-talking me to other people, questioning my career and relationship success prospects. His daughter, my niece, is an angel and so sweet. I am her role model and life idol. How do I maintain boundaries with my brother while still being accessible to my niece, think I'm really important to her because she wants to be me? Well, this is the old question. Do you want to raise your own healthy children or try to minimize the damage of dysfunctional people who are harming their own children? I can't give you that answer. I can give you my answer for my life, but I can't give you your answer for your life because we're different people.
[1:00:57] How old is your niece? You don't say, right? Personally, for myself, I've stopped trying to protect children from dysfunctional people. I have my own family. Because I'm kind of a guy in life who likes to control the variables. The more variables I control, generally, the happier I am.
[1:01:20] Don't give me any of your autopilot. Give me the joystick. I don't want any auto-tune. if I'm off key, I want everyone to flinch and slowly cry tears of blood. So, I just like controlling the variables. Now, I don't have any control of the variables of dysfunctional people with dysfunctional families who are doing harm to their children. I can't control those variables, and I can be cut off at any time. And the more good I try to do, the more I'm in a collision course with the dysfunctional parents, right? So, if there's, you know, Bob and Jane, my friends, and they're mean to their kid, whatever that would mean, right? I wouldn't have them in my life, But let's say, right, okay, so they've got a kid named Sally, right? Bob and Jane, the parents, Sally's the kid. And Sally and I get along really well. And, you know, Sally comes to me for comfort when her parents are mean to her and so on. Okay, so what can I do? Well, the more good I do to Sally, the more I'm on a collision course with Bob and Jane. I don't like to be in situations where the good I can do is highly conditional and limited. One of the reasons I'm out of politics, right? I want to be in a situation like that. I don't want to be in a situation where I've got to watch everything I say. I can't say this because if I go too far, oh, what do you think of my mom and dad? Oh, no, now I've got to lie because if I tell the truth, I'm never going to see it. Oh, God, forget that. Oh, no, life's too short. Life is too short for that. For me. It's different for everyone. Have your own family. Have your own family.
[1:02:47] Because you really can't control what goes on in the households of dysfunctional people. You have no control. Oh, there's more information. I've cut off contact with my brother, but my niece calls me. She's seven on her iPad, Facebook Messenger to update me on just about everything. I'd like to stay in a relationship with her, even though I'm not with my brother, but I don't know how. I'm sorry, I don't understand. What do you mean you don't know how? She's already calling you. I've cut off contact with your brother. Your niece calls you.
[1:03:33] She's seven, yeah. I want my own family as well. we're trying to scuttle over an ectopic pregnancy though I'm sorry to hear that I really am I really am sorry about that, I personally I'm no doctor this is not medical advice in any way shape or form this is just my amateur idiot opinion but, I think if you're trying to get pregnant you really really really want to minimize your stressors, and if your relationship with your niece is causing you stress you might at least want to Put that on ice until such time as you get pregnant and have a baby of your own. It's a possibility.
[1:04:18] But if you're still in communication and it's not too stressful, I guess the problem is that, I mean, she's seven, so she's mostly into kid stuff, but as she gets older, she's going to ask you more pointed questions about the family as a whole. Why don't you see my dad? It's going to be tough. It's just tough. You know i i can't stand those claustrophobic relationships where you have to watch everything you say for fear of absolutely dire consequences and circumstances infy 888 hi Stef just wanted to say i love listening to your podcast and i wish you the best thank you world war three, sorry what makes you think it's not already underway all right um, so you do have a relationship at the moment but i would focus on minimizing stress with regards to pregnancy if i were in your shoes at the moment.
[1:05:10] All right let me get to your other questions, Adoption would be a pretty intense thing, right? Yeah, to me, the sort of quote World War III started in the 60s, but we can get into that another time. All right. Somebody says, I recently got fired for giving my colleague constructive feedback. He could not handle it and told my boss that I'm putting him down and mocking him and calling him an idiot, which were all lies. The boss did not care to verify any of those claims or to hear my side of the story. I feel punished for being honest. I feel, first of all, that's not a feeling, that's a judgment. You have to learn to differentiate the two.
[1:06:10] Thank you, Stef. Great feedback, but already running into situations where she asks me things about my brother and I'm honest. And it gets me in, quote, trouble with him. Yeah. You know, I hate to say it, man. And you got to focus on your own family. At least that's what I would do. I can't tell you what to do. I would focus on my own family. That'd be my strategy. And whatever good you can do is going to be vastly outweighed by the harm that others can do, right? In this case, maybe your brother, right? So let's say your brother feeds your niece 95% of his meals and what he feeds her is pure crap, just garbage, right? Just terrible stuff. Okay, and then she's over at your house and 5% of the meals are made by you and you give her healthy stuff. Does that make her healthy? Nope. Because the junk food of 95% of her diet is vastly outweighing the healthy food that you're giving her. Now, maybe the healthy food can help her down the road or something like that, but you can't fundamentally fix kids when they're in control of just really dysfunctional people. And you've got your own family to focus on, think about, and grow.
[1:07:27] So, you feel punished for being honest? No, no, you're not punished for being honest, my friend. You are receiving the natural consequences of your own bad judgment. So, you made a bad call, right? You gave your colleague constructive feedback, thinking that he could take it. Were you right? Or was you wrong? You was wrong. And then, you thought maybe your boss would have your back and find out the facts, and you were wrong about that, too.
[1:08:10] You know, I tried to pet that lion, and it almost took my arm off. I feel punished for being friendly. It's like, no, you're being punished for the results of your own bad judgment. Now, when I say bad judgment, I've had my own. I have lots of them. I still have them. So don't worry about it. It's just, you end up being punished for being honest. That's, oh, the victim. Oh, God. It's a great post from many years ago. It's like, what's the one thing that your work environment has taught you? It's like, well, competent workers get punished with more work. Because I'm punished for being honest.
[1:08:48] No. No, you made a bad call. You made a bad call to criticize a co-worker. You made a bad call working for a guy who doesn't have your back and betrays you. So you're liberated from an environment wherein you were making shitty decisions. Right? You've been taken out of an environment where you judged things badly. But they should have done this, and they should have, but they didn't. They didn't. And that's on you. You made those choices. You made your choice to work there. You made the choice to work for that boss. You made the choice to give constructive feedback to your co-worker, who then bitched out and whined like a tween to your boss. You made all of these choices. I'm getting punished for being honest. No, you're not. You're reaping the inevitable consequences of making bad choices. You thought your co-worker could handle it. He couldn't. You thought your boss would have your back. He didn't. So you made mistakes.
[1:09:54] And there's nothing wrong with that. We all do it. But please don't cry me this violin-laced operatic self-pity if I'm being punished for telling the truth. Right.
[1:10:08] No you just you made a bad call hey i do it all the time don't worry about it it's fine, but i try not to translate it into oh but i'm being punished for you think you don't think i've been punished like objectively punished for telling the truth and trying to help the world yeah i absolutely have i absolutely have but do you say i'm punished for telling the truth It's like, no, I made my choices. I knew the risks.
[1:10:32] So you have a story called, I'm perfect and you should pity me. I'm perfect. I was honest and you should pity me. No, I'm not going to pity you. You made a choice. To criticize a coworker and rely on your boss, both of those choices were wrong. Now, you can either analyze what you did and say, why did I get it wrong? Or you can whine that you're just being punished for telling the truth. No, you got it wrong. You thought the line was friendly and it almost took your arm off. Okay? So learn from that. How are you going to learn from it if you make excuses and blame everyone else? You made these choices to work there to criticize your co-worker. Maybe you didn't have a strong enough relationship with your boss, maybe you criticize someone your boss values more or produces more value for your boss in which case he sides with you him maybe your boss is completely screwed up and dysfunctional in which case you were taking money from a dysfunctional person and if you weren't aware of that that's not good.
[1:11:39] You made a choice you made a call you made a decision and you didn't get what you wanted you wanted to be able to criticize your co-worker and keep your job You criticized your co-worker, you got fired. And you can either make a story out of it, an opera out of it, where you're the noble heroic virtue and everyone else is bad and you get punished for telling the truth and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or you could be an absolute freaking adult, an actual freaking adult and say, well, I made a choice. It worked out badly. What can I learn from this? How can I improve? Not how can I cast myself in a tragic play called Woe Is Me? And I say this with great affection. I love the fact that you're here. I love the fact that you're bringing up these issues. I really do. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Very, very important. Very cool stuff. Very neat. Very nice. Very good.
[1:12:34] But you made a bad call. It happens to all of us. It happens to all of us. I sympathize. I really do. But you're not learning anything if you're just pitying yourself. You're not learning everything if you're just creating a morality play called I'm a virtuous and everyone else is bad.
[1:12:54] So you say, thanks, Jesus. Thank you for answering my question. Being rude to those who deserve it makes sense. Also, congrats to Izzy on her promotion. We'll donate later. Thank you. I appreciate that. To be technical, and I'm sure I spoke badly about this, you're not being rude if you are being rude back, right? It's the whole question, is self-defense violence? Not really, because you're aiming to minimize violence, right? You're aiming to diminish violence. It's like saying, is surgery stabbing? well I guess you could look at it that way but surgery is designed for your health and so if you're rude back to someone I don't feel that that's rude I feel that's fair, right so if you're in a fight and and they say like you're in some street fight or some fist fight in school or whatever and and you say okay nothing below the belt and no faces okay nothing below the belt and no faces and the guy starts trying to punch your balls and face and then you're like are you then cheating if you punch his balls and face no you're not cheating it's fair he broke the rules you don't have to keep the rules you didn't break the rules you followed him breaking the rules.
[1:14:14] You accepted that there are no rules. So you can't be held to those rules when the other person has broken them. Does that make sense? You say, no face, nothing below the waist. He goes to your balls, tries to punch you in the face. Okay, so he's saying there are no rules. So once he said there are no rules, you can do what you want. And rude people are saying there's no such thing as consideration in this relationship. So you're not being rude. You're just saying, okay, well, we don't have to be considerate. You're not being rude. Rude is when you initiate it violence is when you initiate it if that makes sense sorry i know that's a little technical but i wouldn't want you calling yourself rude when you're simply responding, to somebody else saying there are no rules here i don't have to be considerate i don't have to think of your feelings i don't have to do any of that okay so we can just say what the hell we want to each other now the other people will be rude to you and then when you're direct back or assertive back or you play by their own rules right down they'll say well you're being rude just because it's easier because people would rather you have to be rude if they could do whatever they want, some people, right? So, all right. We may be low on questions. We're certainly low on donations, but that's fine. I guess I'm just being punished for telling the truth. Sorry, I don't mean to be too much of a jerk about it. Just medium, medium jerk, medium jerk. But yeah, if you're listening to this later, freedomain.com slash donate, I would really, really appreciate it to help out Le Show. And I'll just go check one or two more places for any questions that have floated in.
[1:15:44] And I'll check here. Any last tips? Happy to do another question or two, but I think we got through everything tonight. And it's good questions. I really do appreciate that. Yeah, I don't particularly like having people in my life where you can't be annoyed, right? Stef, you said, I feel that's fair. Isn't that a judgment and not a feeling. I just want to make sure I understand this.
[1:16:16] Um, I think fair is an instinct as well. Like it's a kind of feeling. It's an instinct. Fair is something we also share with the animal kingdom. Fair is something that little toddlers have. Oh, no fair, right? So fair is kind of an instinct to make sure we get the right amount of resources. So fair is in the realm of feeling. I get that you can also say in the abstract, fair, technical fair, that there's a judgment aspect to it as well, right? So I feel that's fair. It's sort of like when I talk about restitution, right? So when I talk about restitution, I say, well, restitution has to be enough that you're okay with it. You're okay with what happened, right? So the example I use, of course, is, you know, I borrow your car and I ding your car. If I just hand back the car with five bucks saying you fix it, you're probably annoyed, right? Because I dinged your car and I didn't fix it or pay, right? Right. Now, if I go and get it repaired and buffed out and also get the car detailed and all of that, then you're like, OK, I don't mind that it happened. I'm not happy that it happened. I'm OK. You've reached a point of equilibrium. That's kind of like a feeling thing. There's a gut sense about these things. However, if.
[1:17:29] If I ding your car and then hand it back to you with a million dollars, you're incredibly happy. That I dinged your car because now you've got a slightly dinged car and a million dollars or something like that. right so that's too much that's excessive right that's excessive restitution right so.
[1:17:52] Fairness has an instinctual feel to it, if that makes sense. It happens in relationships all the time, right? So if you are a guy who works 10, 12 hours a day for his family, and then your wife is, I don't know, has got one kid in school and doesn't really do much cooking and cleaning, it feels unfair. It's a feeling, like it bothers you, right?
[1:18:17] See, there are some judgments that produce a feeling, and there are other feelings that are the equivalent of a judgment. I'm sorry, I don't want to sound self-justifying, so give me a second to explain it, and maybe it'll hang together, maybe it'll fall apart. So if you say, well, I've just been punished for telling the truth, that's a thought that will provoke a feeling of self-righteousness and self-pity and self-justification. But the feeling doesn't necessarily exist without that thought, because the thought is generating that. It's one way of looking at it, which is self-pity, and says, I have nothing to lose. I have nothing to learn other than that i'm a victim and good people die like dogs in the trenches of corporate warfare or something right whereas if you have a sense of fairness in an interaction right so if you have like if you're over the age of 20 and you have friends when you all go out for dinner what you do is you know i'll pay like if i've got three three groups of friends i have more than that but let's just say i've got three groups of friends uh three families or three whatever right so we'll go out and i'll pay for dinner and then they'll pay for dinner but what we won't do is well you had the dessert and you had a drink and you ordered the steak that was slightly more expensive than this chicken and like we won't do that we won't do that.
[1:19:35] We'll just and we get a sense if there's a guy who never pays after a while you just get annoyed now it's not the thought it's the instinct it's the fairness is like an instinct and we know this because, as I've said before, if you give people abstract mathematical problems, they can't solve them. But if you put it in, this guy orders this drink and this drink, is this fair? And they get it like that, right? We have an instinct for fairness that comes all the way from being babies and toddlers.
[1:20:04] So the feelings arise from an instinctual sense of fairness like how come this guy never pays, and then you might say to him it's like hang on like there are three of us three families who are going out for dinner we've paid the last five or six times you don't pay is there something going on are you broke i mean is there something we need to know i mean doesn't doesn't necessarily come from a state of hostility but you get this kind of feeling this instinct you're You're not keeping little notches on your, you know, tablet or phone. Oh, it didn't pay. It's just a general sense, right? General sense of what's fair.
[1:20:36] So if you're in a relationship where you're doing a lot of work and the other people are like, let's say that, I mean, I had one of these relationships, right? Where I was working and paying the bills and my girlfriend was not doing much work. And then when I came home, she was like, want me to do half the housework. And it's like, well, that's fair. And it's like, well, but you're not paying half the bills, right? And I said, look, I'm happy to do half the housework, but then you have to pay half the bills. No, that's not how it works. It's like, yeah, it's not how it works for you, but it's kind of how it works in the realm of fairness. And of course, these things ebb and flow in relationships. There's times when somebody's kind of unwell or maybe feeling a bit down and they don't contribute as much. And there's other times when people have a a lot more energy, but it generally balances out. I work hard, my wife works hard, and I never have any doubt at all that we're both contributing equally to the relationship. In fact, we spend half the day saying to the other person, yeah, put your feet up, relax, you know.
[1:21:44] Well i'm basically marriages yell yelling at each other from other rooms until one of you dies.
[1:21:51] So fairness is an instinct that manifests as a feeling and then often needs to be conceptualized but this kind of judgment of like well i guess i'm just getting punished for telling the truth i feel punished that is a real judgment that conditions the emotions that follow us whereas fairness is an instinct that we have that we have to find a way to uh to verbalize and it is fair it is fair if somebody pays for what you're shipping then you should ship it that's fair if they don't pay you don't have to ship it it's not fair but you're not if you withhold shipping what someone has paid for then you're kind of stealing from them but if you also ship something that someone didn't pay for then you're kind of stealing from everyone who did pay for it because you've got to raise prices to cover that right so hopefully that uh hopefully that makes sense what you think is going on with bitcoin i just did a show on bitcoin i just did a show on bitcoin and i said it was not uh it was technical not foundational and things seem to be rebounding all right all right i think we may be done do a bit of an early show tonight, and i appreciate the people who have donated but it's a little hard to keep the motivation up sometimes so that's all right it's not your job to motivate me oh thank you that helped I appreciate that. Thank you for the tip.
[1:23:15] Why is it not showing up? Viewed tips.
[1:23:19] All right. Any other last questions, issues, comments, challenges, problems? He knows, you know, but he's got problems. The great Fish from Merlion. Very interesting singer. Great lyricist. But I think a bit of a druggie, if I remember rightly. Not that that was that unusual in the 70s.
[1:23:45] Yes, the show you're looking for is 5588, The Economy, Crash or Correction, fdrpodcast.com slash 5588. All right. Well, I think we're done, and I really, really do. We'll donate on the website as soon as the groceries are put away. Thank you, thank you very much. I appreciate that. Have yourselves an absolutely gorgeous and delightful evening. We will talk to you Friday, and don't forget, of course, if you want, I'm going to have to raise prices because demand's a little high, but you can squeeze a few more people in. I just did two today because my family and my ladies were out with the shopping and because we got ourselves a wedding to go to. A wedding. We'll be telling you all about the wedding later because you know some of the people involved. So I did two. I did six hours of call-ins today, one free, one paid. And you can go to freedomain.com slash call in, to book a call and it can be open, public it can be private if that's what you prefer but freedomain.com, slash call sorry freedomain.com slash call.
[1:25:03] Yes freedomain.com slash call and you can put a call-in request. We've just had some really smoking call-ins lately and they're not out yet, but they will be soon. Yeah, freedomain.com slash call. All right. Thanks, everyone. Have yourselves a glorious, wonderful evening. We'll talk to you Friday and we'll do our usual Sunday, I think. Yeah, we'll do our usual Sunday thing, which is the second hour. We'll be donor-only for the spiciest questions known to man or God. All right. Thanks, everyone. Have a beautiful evening. Bye. Thank you.
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