0:00 - Introduction to Apologies
22:27 - Banter and Humor
33:45 - Healthy Skepticism vs. Unhealthy Pessimism
40:03 - The Role of Consent in Morality
51:23 - The Depth of Trauma and Consent
1:11:45 - The Morality of Sibling Incest
In this episode, I dive into some thought-provoking and complex questions about morality, consent, and the nature of apologies within relationships. A listener posed an intriguing question regarding the frequency of apologies in our lives and whether a decrease in these instances reflects progress or an unhealthy stance of vanity. Through a metaphor of driving straight down a long road with a locked steering wheel, I discuss how the ability to apologize and course correct is essential for a fulfilling life rather than a paralyzing quest for perfection.
I emphasize that making mistakes is an inevitable part of the human experience, and maintaining a standard of perfection can lead to excessive self-criticism. Such a mindset generates a cycle of fear and frustration, both towards oneself and in interactions with others. Healthy relationships allow for mistakes and, consequently, the opportunity for genuine apologies, which liberate us to engage spontaneously with the world, free from the terror of judgment.
Furthermore, we explore the moral complexities surrounding consent, particularly in extreme situations where trauma can severely impair a person's ability to consent. I address a provocative challenge raised about the non-aggression principle concerning morally repulsive acts such as incest among siblings, especially when those siblings have endured extreme childhood trauma. This discussion dives deep into understanding morality's relationship with personal experiences, how severe trauma might inhibit one's capacity for consent, and the implications that has for defining immorality within societal norms.
Taking this exploration further, I articulate the importance of empathy in our relationships, pointing out how an authentic apology fosters a growth-oriented environment. Such dynamics are critical as we interact with those around us; our ability to navigate relationships hinges on the mutual understanding of mistakes and the grace extended in accepting apologies. It’s a call to be vigilant about who has the power over us in these interactions and how we can maintain an equitable dynamic that encourages honesty rather than spiraling into manipulation or guilt.
Throughout the episode, I highlight the necessity of examining our relationships critically to discern which individuals contribute positively to our lives and which may bring about unwarranted negativity that could trap us in cycles of shame or regret. As we conclude, the focus remains on the pivotal role of understanding consent and the potential lasting effects of trauma in shaping both personal morality and societal standards. The conversation challenges us to reconsider preconceptions about adult consent and the moral responsibilities that come with forming healthy, compassionate relationships.
[0:00] Good morning, everybody. Hope you're doing well. Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain, freedomain.com. So, a bunch of questions, very interesting ones, and the spiciest question I've ever received, I think, or the most challenging one, certainly in my living memory, which I'll do at the end. So, somebody writes, thank you for your clarity regarding the components of a proper apology. Since starting your journey of real-time relationships and self-knowledge, Would you say you have fewer occurrences where you need to apologize, more occurrences, or about the same?
[0:36] Does decreasing frequency of occurrences where we need to apologize, not for the same transgressions concerning genuine apologies, help indicate progress in self-knowledge or indicate we may be flying close to the sun of vanity? That's a good question. So i want you to think of you're driving right and you have it could be a bike or a car you have a long road it's a long straight road to go down and you're going to be paid uh ten thousand dollars if you don't have if you can just lock the wheel and get to the end of the road.
[1:12] Right you're gonna lock the wheel if you lock the wheel and then now you can stop if you're going to go into the ditch or whatever right but if if you lock the wheel and you can get to the the end of the road without changing course, then you're going to get $10,000. Well, you're going to line that thing up. You're going to, you know, get all of the math and all that, right? You're going to lasers and satellites and drones and preparation and right to get your 10 grand. So what that means is that you're going to have to be super extra mega careful if you can't change course, right? So you understand what I'm saying here. What I'm saying is that if you don't have the capacity to apologize, you end up paranoid, right? So if somebody wasn't getting 10 grand and they could change their course and they did all of this and we're going to practice and, oh, I got to get that, it's got to be just right. And it can't, it can't swerve. And right then that would be paranoid. Just get in the car and drive. And if you drift a little to the right, go to the left and vice versa. Right? So.
[2:10] If you can't course correct, you're paralyzed. And so people who don't accept apologies are trying to inject a form of spiritual paralysis into your bone marrow and your veins. So one of the reasons that I'm able to act fairly comfortable in the world, comfortably in the world, is because I don't have a standard of perfection. That's just paralysis. And a standard of perfection arises out of a fear, right? It arises out of fear of punishment. management. So I accept that I'm going to make a certain number of mistakes over the course of my life, both professionally, personally, you name it. I'm going to make errors. I'm going to jump to conclusions. I'm going to get bad data and repeat it. So I accept that I'm going to make errors and I'm going to have to course correct over the course of my life. I'm going to say things that are unpleasant, thoughtless, cruel, that's going to happen. I don't have a standard called perfection. And I will not allow any bad behavior on my part to be overshadowed by excessive punishment, right? So if you say something kind of thoughtless to someone, you don't mean, right, it's not your intention, you just say something kind of thoughtless, right?
[3:33] I remember many years ago, a woman seemed to be happily married. She was a young woman, and the conversation turned around to, like, single moms, right? And I was talking about some of the challenges of, you know, dating and single moms and all of that. And it turned out that she had been for a couple of years a single mom. I had no idea whatsoever. And so I didn't feel bad about that. I mean, in hindsight, I would not have done it, but I didn't feel bad about it because it was just informational, an exchange of information and so on.
[4:17] So, if someone had been like, well, why don't you think before you act? What's the matter with you? And I get really, really hostile and be like, okay, mine was an innocent, quote, error. You're just being mean, right? That's intentional, right? So if somebody gets mad at me for some mistake I've made or something I've done wrong, then their level of anger just completely overshadows anything that I might have done. And then it's just like, okay, so if you're really interested in behaving well, why are you yelling at me for a quote mistake, right? For a mistake. Then they're not interested. They're just, it's people who use your mistake to bully you, right? People will say, do you care about your impact on others? You wouldn't want to criticize single mothers directly to a single mother. Well, I don't have a massive issue with that, but I guess I would like to know ahead of time so I could know how to steer the conversation in a slightly more diplomatic fashion or whatever, right? So, fine. So, I mean, I've criticized feminism to feminists and all of that.
[5:25] So if what people do is they, some people, it's a minority, right? But what they do is they scan to see if you will criticize yourself for something. And if you will criticize yourself for something, well, that was thoughtless or rude or like, and if you will say, oh, gee, well, I don't want to be thoughtless and rude. So I'm going to criticize myself. Then they'll just grind you down. They'll just grind you down on that. Whatever you have a self-criticism of, they will try to turn into a self-attack. Oh, I'm just thoughtless and cruel. So if you, and this is why it's really, really important to have people around you who are considerate and empathetic because we all have standards of behavior. And if you fail, for whatever reason, you fail your standards of behavior, which I think we all do, I certainly do from time to time. If you fail your own standards of behavior, then you want someone to remind you, right? Oh, you were aiming for this, but you kind of hit a little low there, as did I the other day. And we're all in this... Uh this this team of trying to become better right and trying to become better.
[6:32] So if someone knows that you have standards then anytime they can convince you that you have failed to meet those standards and they create a self-criticism they will then attempt to napalm you into self-attack with external aggression right so if if you have a standard called i'll go to the gym every other day and you miss a couple of days for whatever reason and somebody says hey what's happening i mean are you are you unwell uh did you change your standard what's going on as opposed to you know you lazy fat f you know get the hell to the you know that kind of stuff right so if you can't course correct you're paralyzed so i can act in the world, and I can make mistakes, as I have made, not too, too many over the course of my public career, at least not things, I mean, there's things that other people would consider mistakes, but not things that I would consider mistakes, and really it is my own conscience that I have to satisfy because that's what accompanies me around all the time. And so I can act in the world without...
[7:42] The terror of being attacked because I have failed my own standards, right? So if somebody attacks me for failing my own standards, then they're failing any rational standard far more than I ever could. And they get to be completely discounted. I mean, I remember when I put out my book, Art of the Argument, you can get this at artoftheargument.com. It's a great book. And somebody was like, oh, he's failed basic logic. He's, you know, and just this massive amount of aggression and it's like why why would you be so angry let's say i made a mistake in the book and you know um uh there was some syllogism that that had a flaw in it it's like hey you know this this could be improved a little bit try it try it this way or whatever that would be interesting oh this this so-called philosopher this self-described intellectual can't even get the basic facts of logic right i mean it's like okay so you don't you you think that the problem compliment your life is my syllogisms rather than your rage. It's such a, it's just such a wild disconnect that people think that even if there was a bit of a mistake somewhere in the book, I don't think there was, but it's one of these things could be taken both ways, but.
[8:57] Is the biggest, like, that's what gets this person. And so they lack even the self-knowledge to know why they're so angry. So why would I take any correction on murky syllogistical questions, Right. I mean, it's just so apologies, the ability to have people in your life you can apologize, apologize to liberates you to act without terror.
[9:19] So you can be spontaneous, you can be funny, and if you go a little too far at one point or another, you can just say, oh, sorry, my bad. You know, sorry, that was a bit too hard. It was like, yeah, yeah, that's fine. I appreciate it. And you sort of move on, right? Whereas if you have people who are just going to, like, they're just going to grind your gears. They're just going to, oh, how could you? And it's so unbelievably offensive. And it's like, okay, well, they're just bullies looking to turn you against yourself. And uh it's i mean to me it's just a little if i put it in the demonic category which just means that they are possessed of a hatred beyond themselves they're being used as a mechanism of a larger idea idea set to attack free will and to attack spontaneity and joy curiosity right because if they can get you to stop being spontaneously curious they have taken from you one of the greatest attributes of life, which is living vividly and thinking vividly in the moment to be present and to not self-censor, right? The purpose of this kind of attack is to self-censor. The reason why people attacked my book, The Art of the Argument, is that it is.
[10:33] Ammunition against sophistry, manipulation, bullying, and so on, right? So once you understand how to debate, then people who attack you, you discount them, and they lose their power. And people who have devoted their lives to gaining power over others through verbal abuse don't like a book called The Art of the Argument. And so they verbally abuse the book. And they say, anyone who takes this seriously is an idiot, right? Because they want to keep having power over people. And a book like The Art of the Argument...
[11:02] Helps prevent and helps minimize and lower their power. They don't like that, right? So that's important. I would say I probably have to apologize a little less over the years, if that makes sense. But having the ability to have people in your life, see, the apology thing has to do with the people in your life, not just you, right? Morality is a relationship. relationship if you tell the truth to someone and they use it against you right they they spread it they they distort it like if you tell the truth to someone and they use it against you that is not a good person to be honest with the honesty is not just i'm going to be honest no matter what sorry funny voice is not an argument but it is uh morality is more complex than well you just have to follow these absolute orders no matter what right that's a kantian thing right the kantian thing is, even if somebody breaks into your house and says, where's your wife? Let's say she's at a hotel across town. She's at a conference or something. And somebody breaks into your house and says, where's your wife? I'm going to go kill her, right? And you say, well, I have to tell the truth no matter what. My wife is here. She's at this address. This is the make of her car. This is, right? Well, you just have to tell the truth. Well, that's Kantian. And Kant would say, well, Well, you have to tell the truth regardless of circumstances, right?
[12:30] And that's a fairly sad way to make an absolute without context and without rationality and without self-protection and without the morality is an absolute you owe everyone no matter what. But to me, morality is not an absolute you owe everyone no matter what. So, for instance, if somebody, you know, everyone's got these suspicious, you know, I guess AI makes them better now. Everyone has got these suspicious messages on the phone. You know, this is X, Y, Z agency. You owe X, Y, Z. You must call. Right. And and so on. Right. And then you call. And I mean, I've never called those places. But if somebody calls, it seems kind of sketchy and and so on. And then they will. We're going to need your. Your ID number and and it's like you get spam, right? You don't owe you don't owe them the truth.
[13:23] Yeah, you don't owe them the truth. so morality is a relationship and people who just try to make it absolutes uh are just trying to exploit you they don't want you to evaluate whether they themselves are honest and honorable, right so you know somebody says uh you've won the euro lottery for 10 million dollars you just need to give us your xyz information oh well you know i want that money i guess i should give them that I mean, you've got to have some skepticism about these things. And moral, and I'm not talking about like the non-aggression principle, that you owe to everyone. But what I'm talking about is to make sure that you evaluate who you give your highest moral standards to. Who do you give your highest moral standards to? If there are people in my life I would do anything to help, anything to help. And then there are other people that I wouldn't, I mean, not in my life, but there are people that I wouldn't. And so morality is a relationship that you foster with other people who are moral. It's, you know, escalating trust, right? So there are people in my life I would do a handshake business deal with, right? Just a handshake business deal. We.
[14:50] And then there are people that I'm in, again, not in my life, but that I wouldn't do that with. So virtue is something that other people earn through ever-escalating acts of integrity and virtue. So if you meet someone new and they want information about you and you like them and they seem honorable and so on, you might give them a little tidbit of something, right? And then if it turns out that they tell other people, then you don't trust them further. You do this testing, this little testing process.
[15:27] So this happens when you're dating. When you're dating, you will have a little disagreement about something or other, and you see how the other person handles it. Do they escalate? Do they get aggressive? Do they get manipulative? You know when people are just kind of phasing, crossing over to the back rooms of crazy land, right? And you don't go further if that's... If that's the case, if they do that, right? Or if you can't talk them out of that, right? If you're dating and the woman does something a little bit careless, a little bit thoughtless and so on, and you point that out and she's like, oh, you know what? You're right. That is not my stand. I'm so sorry. You're absolutely right. My apologies. Okay, that's great. Then you can sort of move forward. If they're like, no, you did 10 times worse last week. I didn't say anything, right? Just that you can't listen to the escalates. It's like, do you still owe that person a relationship? No, you keep escalating your trust. You keep escalating. They're not exactly tests. The tests will just arise over the course of the relationship. But you continue to escalate. And the people who pass the tests all the way along.
[16:37] Are the people you hold fast in your heart. It so apologies are tests of other people's ability to handle power over you so you apologize to someone you're saying you're right i'm in the wrong and therefore you have power over me because i'm admitting fault right you're justified i'm unjustified you're in the right i'm in the wrong That's power. How does someone handle power over you? Right? How does someone handle power over you? I mean, I've mentioned this before, but when I was a manager in the software world, I had 35 employees at one point. When I was a manager.
[17:24] A direct, well, I was chief technical officer, director of technology. And so when I needed to talk to an employee, I was very aware, having been an employee myself, how nerve wracking it can be for the boss to say in my office now, right? I'm going to get fired or whatever, right?
[17:39] So I would say, hey, can I borrow you for just a sec, right? That's the most neutral, non-threatening way that I could get someone into my office without them crapping bricks in their tighty-whities, right? So I know that I had power as a boss. So I really, really worked to make sure that I was, I mean, I got people over a million dollars in raises at one company because I sort of proved that they were not paid industry standards. So, and if there was a really difficult client, I'd say, you know, forward that client to me, I'll handle it.
[18:13] Because I would say to my employees, you're paying me. Like you think I'm paying you, but you're paying me because my salary is deducted from your wages. So what that means is I'm providing a service for you as a boss. And so I want you to be happy to pay me, right? I mean, the customers fundamentally pay us both, but it's not the case that I just sitting on this big bag of cash. And then I just give it to you like some feudal King based upon, you know, who I like and who I don't like. I said, that's the government. But I said, you're paying me. So my salary is taken out of your salary. So I need to provide a service to you. I need to make sure things are organized. I need to deal with the difficult clients. I need to make sure that the work you're doing is economically valuable to the client so that you continue to get paid and get paid more over time. So we're working together and I have particular skills and abilities that I want you to pay. In other words, if somebody were to say to you, you can make whatever, X percent more.
[19:19] Without having Stef as your boss, I would want you to say, no, no, no, you take that X percent of my salary. You give it to Stef because he makes my life better and easier, right? That's right. So how do you handle power over others? How do other people handle power of you? And apology is very, very powerful about that. And you really, really do have to look at, if you apologize, does the person puff up and lord it up? And yeah, well, I told you, if I told you once, I told you a million times and I can't believe it, do they just escalate? or is there some graciousness and some empathy, right? So people, the power or empathy is really the opposite poles of the human experience, because if somebody grinds your gears about something you did wrong, they are implicitly stating that they never do anything wrong because once they understand that, I mean, if they grind your gears when you do something wrong, you can grind their gears when they do something wrong and they don't want that, right? So there's a fundamental lack of empathy. The asymmetry of I'm perfect, you're bad. that those relationships are incredibly toxic and negative. So the ability to apologize into a productive mindset, I apologize to the person who's like, oh, you know what, I really appreciate that. That's very kind. I've certainly struggled with that. And it's very mature. And I really do appreciate that. And thank you. And let's move forward, right? That's a gracious acceptance of an apology.
[20:39] Because when you apologize to someone, If they have empathy, they would understand that they need to apologize at some point to you and others, and how do they want to be treated when they apologize? Do they want somebody to just go in with the shiv and gouge their liver out? No, they want somebody to accept it with reasonable graciousness and all of that, and so...
[21:01] You're setting yourself up for an asymmetrical power-based relationship because somebody who bullies you for apologizing will never themselves apologize because they'll expect you to do the same and they can't handle that. So apologies give you the ability to course correct, which means you can go out there and do things in the world. And you have to just, for me, I just had to filter out people who, who ground my gears and bullied me for apologizing. I mean, I'd give them one or two, maybe a bad day or whatever, but because you don't want to bully someone for apologizing because then you're in the situation of apologizing for something far worse. So if I did do something inadvertent, and I can't remember the last time I did something consciously mean or whatever, I'm not saying it never happens, it just doesn't pop into my mind, you'd have to ask my wife.
[21:48] So if somebody really grinds your gears, then they're saying that they will never ever then they'll never apologize to you because they'll expect you to do the same and so for me if people escalated when i apologized and ground my gears and really just get the shiv in and tried to make me feel as bad as possible i'd be like okay so you're saying that you're never going to apologize which means you're never going to admit fault which means any problem that we have in our relationship is always going to be my fault and i'm just not interested in that nonsense so all right hope I hope that helps.
[22:27] Banter. Oh, yeah. So this is a question about people's jokes about you that kind of hurt, right? So the opposite of conflict is honesty. All conflicts arise out of falsehood. All conflicts arise out of falsehood. The purpose of banter is, it's my daughter's favorite phrase, it's literally not that serious, bro. It's literally not that serious. So banter is a way of reminding you that death is serious, life is fun. Now, death is serious because that's the end of fun, right? But death is serious. Life is fun. So over the course of your life, and I can think of this and you can think of this, we can all think of a million zillion examples of this. There are things that you thought were a disaster that turn out to be not a disaster. And this is a good mental exercise to go through, which is because you worry about future disasters. Most people do. And what you need to do is you need to go back in time to the course of your life. And you need to make a list of all the things that you thought were going to be a disaster that turned out to not be a disaster.
[23:52] It's an incredibly powerful exercise to do. So banter is a way of saying it's not that serious, right? So if people get frustrated, they're playing golf, they get angry, it's like, come on, come on. Or people waste their time in regrets, right? So people who are 40 look back at 20 with regret. And they waste time in regret rather than saying, and they say, oh, if only I could go back to 20 and make better decisions, right? Without thinking, okay, 20 to 40 is 20 years, 40 to 60 is 20 years. Imagine that you were 60 and you got to snap your fingers, go back to 40 and start making better decisions rather than get lost in the past. Everyone thinks that the past is about the past. The past is not about the past. The past is always and forever about the future. Future. The past is always and forever about the future.
[24:53] Talking about the noble indigenous population that was cruelly treated by the Europeans or whatever is about instilling guilt and taking resources. It's not about the past, it's about the future. Pain is not about the past, pain is there to protect you in the future. You grab something too hot, But it hurts that it's not about the past, because nothing can change the past. The purpose of the past is to change the future. And so...
[25:23] Realizing that 99% of the things you were really worried about turned out to be no particular big deal. And some of the things you weren't worried about did turn out to be a particular big deal. But it is about, all about the future. Philosophy is about the future. Self-knowledge is about the future. The past, nostalgia, reminiscing, dreams where you're six and can't breathe, they're all about the future. Everything in your life is about the future because we are a free will species and there's no free will in the past there is no free will in the past the only thing that we have to do with the past is to learn the lessons or not that's all there is we can go back and we can ruminate and reminisce and blame and get upset and angry and feel helpless and frustrated and things were never different things couldn't change well yeah okay if you go to a system that you cannot change, you will blunt your free will. However, if you go to a system called the past that you cannot change and learn the lessons from the past about the future, well, then you have a future that you can change. And then you have free will. The past is there to bulk up your free will. And the free will is always about the future. Free will is always about the future. Animals live in the present. They don't have any particular free will, but human beings can live in the conceptual future, which is where we get our free will from.
[26:52] We go to the past in order to open up choices in the future.
[27:01] So a lot of making fun of you is to minimize the demon of worry and anxiety.
[27:14] And this is what self-deprecating humor is as well. I could take myself enormously seriously, and I like to have that Aristotelian mean of not taking myself too seriously and not taking myself in a merely frivolous manner. So if you're going too serious, then jokes about you can alleviate the tension, but sometimes jokes about you are there, to have you think of yourself as irrelevant and completely frivolous and with no depth or power or future at all. There's an instinct about these kinds of things that's just important. And if somebody says a joke that really hurts you, you should say, whoa, okay, hang on. That really stung. That really did sting. Do we have a problem? Because just honesty, right? Honesty. Some people will make fun of you in order to exert their power over you, to have you subjugate yourself and your self-image and your honesty in order to, dominate your consciousness right to have you think about them to have you feel helpless right because we all know the way this works right somebody says um uh makes a joke that really stings and then if you and they know that it stings deep down and if you laugh it off then they've dominated you because they've got you to falsify your existence and lie to them and if you lie to someone out of fear, they have dominated you.
[28:43] You know, we're still bonobos in many ways, all of us climbing the social hierarchy, and we have to watch out for that drug of power.
[28:55] So, of course, when people put you in an impossible situation, they're trying to paralyze your will and subjugate you to their aggression. So, of course, we know the old thing. Somebody makes a joke, it really stings. And if you laugh it off, they've dominated you and it bothers you and it sits with you and you're helpless. If you point out that they said something mean they'd say bro it's literally not that serious but why can't you take a joke right like you're just oversensitive so i choose not to be in those situations i remember back in the days of twitter what i did was somebody said uh that uh that they quoted where i'd said there's no aspect of personality that doesn't seem to be susceptible to genetics and then they said both your mother and your father were institutionalized for mental illness, right? And I said, not going to lie, that one's done. I'm not going to lie. Normally, I can roll with the sort of jokes back and forth or the insults back and forth and so on. But yeah, that one's done. And I wasn't going to pretend it didn't, right? I mean, I don't want mean people to get between me and the truth. That would be to surrender a good to a bad. All right. So let's see here. Stef, I'd like to hear your thoughts on the intellectual discipline it takes to maintain healthy skepticism without devolving into unhealthy pessimism.
[30:21] And my apologies, but I lost the second page of that. Healthy skepticism, unhealthy pessimism. So healthy skepticism is there so that you have in your life people who pass the test of skepticism.
[30:42] So if somebody says, I really, really want to write a book, I really, really want to write a book, healthy skepticism is, are you really going to write a book? Is it just something you talk about from time to time?
[31:00] So if the person doesn't write the book, then, I mean, I would be like, yeah, I'd rather you didn't talk about this. I mean, it's been a couple of years. You're never going to write that book. No, I will. It's like, no, I mean, okay, then write the book, stop talking about it. And maybe they then write the book or they stop talking about it. So that's healthy skepticism is, I mean, I remember the first time that I wrote a novel, like a real novel sort of start to end was my novel revolutions, which you can get a free domain nft.com. Great book. And I, I did this. Um, I took a gap year between undergraduate and my master's degree. And in that time, I worked jobs and I wrote a novel. And so when I was at the mixer for my graduate program, people would say, oh, you know, where did you, did you come from undergrad? No, I took a gap year. Oh, how was that? Oh, it was good. I worked some jobs and I wrote a novel. Oh, I've always wanted to write a novel. I've had so many ideas. I've got notes everywhere. And I'm like, yeah, you know, it's, um, if you just want to write a novel, you probably won't. if you kind of feel compelled like you have to and you enjoy the process, which I do, then you will write a novel.
[32:17] So skepticism is how many of those people ended up writing novels that they did anything with, right? I worked hard to get it published and all of that. And, um... So how many people, maybe they write half a novel and it's in their drawer and they never get back to it, right? Okay, then it's just a vanity exercise. It's just a vanity exercise.
[32:36] You know, a novel is a way to spread empathy and virtue, or corruption and narcissism. But a novel is a way to spread empathy and virtue. So something like Turgenev's Fathers and Sons, or Jane Austen novels, or Dickens is a way to spread empathy and virtue. you. All modern novels are there to sow sociopathy and coldness. Almost all novels are about that. I mean, just read Anne-Marie MacDonald's Fall Under Your Knees and just realize that it is an attempt to turn you from a warm-hearted human mammal into a frigid-hearted lizard sociopath, because it is just a series of absolute horrors with no emotional connection and no virtue and no avoidance of pain. So it is a way of re-inflicting massive trauma, unprocessed trauma on other people to spread the dissociation of trauma. This is true of most modern novels. Although she did write Good Morning, Desdemonia, Good Night, Juliet. She did write a pretty funny play at one point. But anyway, not to pick on her, that's just my impression of her novel.
[33:45] It got a lot of great language in it. I like the novel...
[33:54] No, the title will come back to me. An Exhaustible Joy Hardens the Heart or something like that. It will come back to me.
[34:05] So skepticism is there to sift people who talk but don't do out of your life. Some guy's like, oh, I got to move out of my parents' basement. It's like, okay. So if he spends year after year not doing it while complaining about it, skepticism is there to say his energy will destroy yours, right? There are people who give you energy and people who take your energy. And people who talk without acting are there to undermine your free will by separating ideas from actions, right? The purpose of free will is not to think, but to act. And people who claim to want but never act, people who say, I've always wanted to write a novel, never write a novel, people who say, I want to get a girlfriend, never get a girlfriend or work to get a girlfriend, people say, I want to move out of my parents' basement, never met other parents, I got to quit vaping and they don't quit vaping. I got to eat better, but they don't eat better. I got to work out, but they don't work out. They're there to saw between the idea and the action. They're there to saw the sinew that transmits ideas into actions. So people who talk and don't act are sawing your free will into and scattering it to the wind, and you will find yourself less energetic. People who act, well, people who act without thinking, impulsive people are also destroying free will by saying, you just have to act on your instincts and your impulses. People who have ideas, plan and execute are the people who give you energy because they're the people who give us life.
[35:31] People didn't say, oh, it'd be really great if we had some kind of electrical grid that would spread electricity. Wouldn't that be cool? And then, hey man, pass the dutchie on the left hand side, man. No, they had an idea. year. They drew up some blueprints, they got the funding, and they built the electrical grid that keeps us all functioning.
[35:54] Ideas executed into rational action are how you have food, shelter, electricity, and the internet, and your cell phone, and data plans, and all of that, right? And banking for what it's worth, right? So all the stuff that keeps us alive is people who translate ideas into action. People who just have ideas but don't act are vampires. Not only are their own lives paralyzed, but they will paralyze your life as well by separating that, right? The purpose of thought is action. The purpose of thought is action. And what I'm doing here is acting. I'm not just thinking on my own. I'm acting to communicate in the world. So...
[36:39] Healthy skepticism is there to weed out the thinkers and talkers, but not the doers from your life. So if you're around a bunch of people who just talk about all the things they want to do without ever doing them, then if you keep sticking around those people, they will infect you and you will become pessimistic. Oh, everybody talks. Nobody does anything. No, no, that's just the people you keep in your life. There are tons of people. Hey, quick question. Do you live in a a place with a roof and a foundation and a plumbing system and an HVAC system and a heater and a cooler and an electrical system, right? When you turn on the tap, does water come out? Okay, then there's a lot of people who translate thought into rational, practical action. You're just not around those people. You're just kind of hanging like a leech off the actions of people who actually get shit done in this world. So if you're just around a bunch of talkers who never achieve anything, then you will go from healthy skepticism to unhealthy pessimism, ah nobody does anything nobody gets anything done nobody achieves anything it's all like everybody just paralyzed like they'll just infect you right so the purpose of healthy skepticism is to weed out the talk is not doers from your life you can actually get shit done and go to your grave content with some actual footprints behind you on a path to reason that people can follow so all right um.
[38:03] Oh, yeah, this, do you owe everyone in your life every single scrap of facts about your past? No, you don't. Oh, that's lying. It's like, no, no, it's not. No, look, there's diplomacy, right? There's diplomacy. There's diplomacy.
[38:25] You meet some girl. Do you want to know about the biggest penis she ever encountered? I mean, let's just be frank, right? Hey, here's, I got a Jimi Hendrix-style plastic cast of it. Oh, it's way bigger than yours. Right, do you want to know all of that? I mean, that would be masochistic, so have some discretion for God's sakes. Again, honesty is something that is, you know, thou shalt not bear false witness, is not send a picture of your bowel movements to everyone every morning, right? Hey, it's true, man, I did have a bowel movement. Well, no. I mean, in important matters, tell the truth. In matters of deep moral and factual import, tell the truth. Thou shalt not bear false witnesses in a trial. Wow, right.
[39:15] If it's okay to be encouraging, and to be encouraging sometimes is to not tell the absolute truth. Somebody who's 250 pounds loses 20 pounds, you may not even notice it. You say, you look great. I mean, keep going. Honestly, well done. You look better, right? Oh my God, they don't look much better. What are you going to say? I don't really notice the difference. Well, then they may not continue to lose weight. I don't know. I mean, it just seems odd to me. Well, I am a robot, and if people push the truth button, I just have no free will, no diplomacy, no tact. I just say the truth, no matter what, right?
[39:57] I don't know. All right.
[40:03] That was a long question. If there was some ultra-master philosopher who had even deeper insight and consistency in their thinking than you, what are three questions you would ask them?
[40:22] Well i i don't really understand the question i mean i've answered the questions of free will determinism simulation theory and ethics i mean i've i've unpacked so much cause and effect in the human mind and made so many foundational and unshakable arguments regarding the most essential aspects of philosophy that if there was a if there were three important questions that I wanted to ask someone, I would answer them myself.
[40:57] So the way you get to your maximum potential is you don't imagine anyone above you. That's how you get to your maximum potential. My goal is to be the best philosopher. That's my goal. Because if I say, because I'm not vain, i i'm really i'm very very humble and because i'm humble i'm not going to put any artificial cap on my potential i'm not going to say well i can do this but i can't do that well i'm going to get this far but no further i uh right i mean in the things that i'm good at right obviously you know far from the world's i'm far from a decent singer i'm far from the fastest runner i'm fast i'm far from the most muscular 57 year old obviously right so there's tons of things that I'm perfectly willing to accept limitations on, because that's just factual, right? But I have yet to find empirical limitations on my reasoning and language skills. And that doesn't mean I'm right about everything. It just means that the reason I keep doing this is I keep going further. I keep going deeper, wider, higher, taller, right? So I...
[42:11] Will not put artificial limits on my abilities because that would be vanity. That would be saying of this amazing wet wear that I have, the three pounds of infinity in my finite skull, I know how deep, how far, how wide, how long my potential is. And I don't. And I say that because I keep pushing past what I think I can do. And that's my goal. My goal is to be better every time to go deep. And this is why I keep live streaming. This is why I keep answering these questions is I always have the goal of improving. So because I always have the goal of improving and my experience has been, and people tell me I'm doing my best work now. Okay. So let's say that's true. Like I'm doing my best work now. Fantastic. I'm pleased with that. I hope to continue to do my best work going forward into my seventh decade, eighth decade, ninth decade. I want to continue doing my best work. I'm not going to put an artificial limit and say, well, well, I'm good at this, but then I'm going to say, I'm not going to get any better. I don't know. I will try to get better. And if I try to get better and I consistently don't get better, right? Like I took singing lessons when I was younger. That's, you know, reasonably okay, amateur baritone. All right, fine. So, but I couldn't get better, right? Because of the sort of physical limitations of the voice.
[43:33] I played racket sports um i won a couple of tournaments in tennis i won a pickleball tournament but i'm like i'm a good amateur right when i did swimming i came in seventh in ontario in uh swimming and so you know those those are sort of limitations i couldn't get really beyond that so those are the limitations that i have and that's fine but when it comes to language language, concepts, concepts, ideas, conversations, analogies, metaphors, I've yet to hit my limit. And that's just a fact of mine. It's a fact of mine. So if I've been working at something for 40 years and I keep going past what I think I can do, how could I rationally, based upon experience and reason, on the empiricism of going further than I think, because I always have the goal of being better and going further. And I achieved that goal, not just according to me, but according to others as well. That's as much as I can use to gauge. So if after 40 years, I'm still getting better, it would be insane and vainglorious to put an artificial cap on my abilities. I mean, you understand this. This sort of makes sense, right?
[44:48] I mean, if you're a musician and you keep getting more and more people to come to your concerts or to watch your concerts and so on, then why would you say, well, you know, it's true that over the past few years, I went from a hundred people watching my concerts to 10,000, but 10,000 a month is my limit because it keeps growing, right? And you'd go to more concerts, you'd go to live streaming, you'd go to whatever, right? You would have as your goal, the human race. I mean, why wouldn't you? Because you wouldn't like you would just keep getting a larger and larger and larger audience. And if after 40 years, your audience kept getting larger, wouldn't it be insane to say, well, I did 100 million viewers on my last live stream, but 100 million one is my limit. Like that would just be that would not be rational, because you keep growing, you've gone from zero to 100 million over 40 years so why would you then say well i mean nobody's going to be interested tomorrow that would be like weird and paranoid and insecure right so so as far as if i imagine a master philosopher that i want to ask three questions that would be the three questions that i would try to answer tomorrow and that would be the way that i would approach it so all right we did nostalgia all right let's get to the uh the big one all right this is the biggie this is the uh what is it, last sip of coffee? Biggie. All right.
[46:10] So, Andrew Wilson, who is a caustic but very effective debater.
[46:21] I like him. And Andrew Wilson, who's involved in I don't know to what degree but the whatever podcast, a video. you. And Dave Smith, who is a comedian who's also a great debater. I've done shows with Dave Smith. I've never done shows with Andrew Wilson. So in a conversation, Andrew Wilson, brilliant, came up with an objection to the non-aggression principle.
[46:53] And here's where I'm going to completely shock you, I think, and we may part ways, perhaps, but I hope that if you are upset and offended at what I'm about to say, that you will reason with me and correct me in good faith, because my arguments are being made in good faith. So I'm paraphrasing, but Andrew Wilson asked of Dave Smith, myth.
[47:20] Okay, under the non-aggression principle, why is sibling incest wrong? Now, God says incest is wrong, and so the religious have that it is absolutely wrong and immoral. Under the non-aggression principle, how is sibling incest wrong? If both people are consenting. Now, I'm a big one for instincts, and I'm a big fan of what's guided me in a lot of my moral moral examinations is the old Aristotelian, of course, sorry, to say it's old and Aristotelian, it's a little redundant. The ancient Aristotelian argument that says, look, we do have instincts about morality. We do have instincts about morality. And if you can come up with a moral argument that somehow proves that premeditated first degree murder, look at me being redundant over and over again. I'm redundant about being redundant, but that's just redundancy. So if you you come up with an argument that first-degree murder is moral, I really don't care what your reasoning is. You've just made a mistake because that just goes against all of our moral instincts.
[48:24] A sibling incest, we would, of course, view with a particular kind of horror as a deeply corrupt, immoral, wrong, not just, of course, for the genetic abnormalities that would likely, or at least from a higher likelihood, result from such an unholy union, but we just have a revulsion against incest as a whole. Obviously, pedophilia, parent-child incest, the child cannot consent. But what about sibling incest as adults, right?
[48:54] Is it a violation of the non-aggression principle? And so that is a challenging argument, and I appreciate the challenge of the argument. Because if God says it's wrong, then clearly it's just wrong you don't need any other particular reason because god is all-knowing and all-virtuous and therefore it's just wrong because god says so it is a challenge to the non-aggression principle to say two adult siblings let's just say full siblings two adult siblings who choose to have sex with each other why would we prevent why would we prevent that because if it's consensual right that then and it's a it's a it's a really really good, question, and I really do appreciate Andrew Wilson, I think it's Andrew Wilson, bringing the question up. So.
[49:54] I've been working for some months on a presentation about the Turpin family. The Turpin family were two parents who were, well, they started off as religious fundamentalists, and then they became hedonists and went even darker than that. And they had, I don't know, 14 children or something like that, and they kept their children confined, chained up. They tortured them, and this was eventually found and discovered.
[50:28] And the oldest child, the youngest child was a baby or a toddler, and the oldest child was in the late 20s and so on, right? Right. And they were saved. The children were saved because one of the children, a 17-year-old girl, escaped the house with a cell phone that had been deactivated, but which was still able to call 911 and called 911. She didn't even know her address. She'd just been basically kept in confinement and they had not changed their clothes in seven months. This level of nutritional Nutritional starvation in the household was so extreme that some of the older women slash girls would be unlikely ever to be able to bear children. They had severe nutritional deficiencies. The 17-year-old looked like a 9-year-old. There were adults there who were 90 pounds or 85 pounds.
[51:23] It was just absolutely appalling, appalling situation. So.
[51:34] Let's say that there was.
[51:40] And I'm just going to make up, right, this kind of situation, right? I'm not making up the situation. I'm just making up an age category. So let's say there was a girl who was 18 years old. By the law, she was an adult, but she had been confined and chained up, tortured, abused, neglected, and starved had received virtually no education, and at the age of 18 she was liberated from this horrifying situation and condition and then a man seduced and had sex with her.
[52:23] We do understand just at a moral level that that would be repulsive. That would be repulsive now let's say uh that her brain was functioning but she had been so appallingly neglected and abused can she although 18 years old and legally an adult can she meaningfully consent to sexual activity after such a childhood of abuse neglect torture torture, lack of education, intellectual destruction, massive trauma, is she able to consent to sexual activity with such a history even at the legal age of 18?
[53:14] My argument would be that she would not be able to consent.
[53:25] Given the history of intense trauma.
[53:30] She would not have any meaningful capacity to consent, given what she'd been through. Now, if, and it gets dark here, so it's trigger warning and all of that, this gets dark. So let's say that there has been a girl who has been sexually aggressed against in the most unholy of fashions as a child. And she's chained up and passed around. And let's say that at the age of 18, she is suddenly liberated from this appalling, appalling situation. Situation, like as evil as you, and I don't know if you've ever met someone like this. I've certainly talked to people like this over the years and it is the darkness that is out there is jaw-dropping. So let's say that this girl who's gone through every conceivable horror, that you could conceive of, let's say that she suddenly turns 18, and she's had no history of ever being able to establish any boundaries, protection, control over her own body, can she, at the age of 18, snap your fingers, can she meaningfully consent to sexual activity?
[54:58] Right? Now, I understand. I understand the slippery slope. I understand everything that's ding, ding. Oh, my gosh, a woman could say that she was traumatized and she didn't. I get all of that. So let's put the legalese aside, because we're just talking about the morals here. We're just talking about the morals. We do understand that an adult female or male cannot consent to sexual activity, under certain circumstances. So clearly, a woman who has significant mental deficiencies, She is mentally retarded, handicapped, challenged, whatever you want to say. She has significantly, significantly reduced cognitive abilities due to some ailment within the brain. So we understand that she cannot consent because she remains with the intellect of a child. Of course, we understand that a woman who was drugged, a woman who was in a coma, that the women, the women, these women, although they can be legal adults, they cannot consent.
[56:21] So I'm sure you understand where I'm going with this, and I appreciate you. I mean, this is really dark and ugly stuff, but we do have to find a way to try and deal with this issue. Otherwise, we have a discrepancy between our moral horror of sibling incest and what the non-aggression principle allows. house. Now, children who are raised in a peaceful, reasonable, protected, healthy, nurturing and moral environment will not end up practicing the appalling habit of incest. They just won't.
[57:05] And look I mean you can look up the research I of course have talked to a lot of people over the course of my show who've been sexually abused and the sexual abuse comes from from what we've been able to trace the sexual abuse comes from if it's from other children those children where we've been able to verify were themselves sexually abused so it comes from the adults down to the children, right? So in other words, sexual activity that is desperately unhealthy and toxic is inflicted through adults to children, and then possibly horizontally from child to child, but it starts with the adults.
[57:52] Children raised according to the non-aggression principle will never end up practicing incest. Therefore, the practice of incest, results from violations of the non-aggression principle.
[58:24] The normal course of evolution is for the children to look at the parents as the template for a pair-bonded relationship, a romantic relationship. Now, of course, the parents aren't siblings. So then what would intervene and cause that wild swing against all instincts, against all natural development, against all healthy development, and against the template of parents? The parents. It has to be. Violations of the non-aggression principle would produce something as morally appalling and horrifying as incest. I mean.
[59:09] If you have a kid, you raise that kid, and you and your wife speak English to that kid, teach English to that kid, if that kid suddenly shows up speaking Japanese, then you would assume that someone else has taught them Japanese. So, if kids are speaking a language outside the family, it has to be taught by somebody outside the family, if nobody inside the family speaks that. So, if a child grows up with the unholy impulse towards incest, then that is because there has been massive, gross, appalling, horrifying violations of the non-aggression principle through SA upon helpless, innocent, dependent children.
[1:00:04] So, the fruit of the poisoned tree, right? If a man steals a bicycle, the bicycle does not become the property of the man. If behavior is the result of the most vile, violent, gross, ugly, vicious, and evil violations of the non-aggression principle, then the behavior is not justified.
[1:00:41] If behavior results from evil, directly results from evil, then the behavior itself is a shadow cast by evil and must be opposed as an effect of evil. And we deal with effects of evil all the time. I mean, it's evil to go up and stab someone. It's a violation of the non-aggression principle. So we deal with the effects of that. Hospital and stitches and criminal proceedings and trial and jail and so on, right? So if somebody has been so, a child has been so absolutely grossly and malevolently violated to the point where the effects are incest, then the child is not in a situation of consent.
[1:01:40] And that lack of consent does not immediately end the moment that those tortured siblings reach 18. In the same way that a girl who's chained and tortured and violated and brutalized and uneducated does not magically gain the ability to provide consent at the age of 18. The general standards of law apply, to the bulk of the bell curve. So we have to say at some point people can consent to sexual activity. We have to. Otherwise, everything is rape. So at some point we have to say that human beings can consent to sexual activity. Society, for whatever reasons, have settled on the age of 18 as a whole. And it's different, but we'll just take the...
[1:02:45] Whatever this the sort of standard so we have said age 18 now people can say yes but uh i was very mature at the age of 17 i get that or some people can say well but you know this person is so uh damaged and impulsive that you know even at the age of 22 they're still making terrible decisions and can't say no to say i get all of that but we have to fix a time we have to fix a the time but that time is not absolute and it does not apply to everyone we can't say everyone who's 18 or older can consent to sex because that's just simply not true there are people who are mentally damaged there are people who have mental deficiencies there are people who are in a coma right so we understand that there for every rule that we have there are going to be some exceptions for that rule that does not invalidate the rule as a whole because we have to design things. I go say, at the age of, let's say, 18, people can drive. People can drive. Okay. Some people are terrible drivers at the age of 18. Some people would be excellent drivers at the age of 15 or 16 or whatever, right? But we just have to fix a standard and there's going to be exceptions to that standard, which we're going to have to find a way to deal with. Again I'm not talking about the moral absolutes I'm talking about what we can actually prove and establish right so it is morally wrong to steal however it's.
[1:04:14] Whether something is actually theft can be debatable, right? So if somebody says, let's say you have a house on two acres, and one of those acres somebody says, well, your grandfather stole this from my grandfather. And let's say that the paperwork is not conclusive, but you have this problem, right? So yes, theft is wrong, but sometimes it's really tough to establish, right? Most of us have had the experience at one time or another of taking something that we intend to buy, doing a lot of shopping, and then wandering out of the store because we're absent-minded or thinking of something else, holding something that we meant to pay for.
[1:04:56] Now, in an objective sense, right, because there's the moral principles and then there's what we can prove and establish beyond a reasonable doubt, right? So if, as everyone has, you've wandered out of the store, holding, you were going to buy some gum and then you ended up not finding something else you wanted, you got distracted and you wander out of the store holding a pack of gum, now the store owner says hey you're shoplifting and calls the police or whatever and you say listen I totally meant to pay, I just I really forgot, right and okay, so what can be proved? We're talking about intention what can be proved if you left the store with property that wasn't yours without paying for it Is that stealing? How much does intent matter in law? Well, intent certainly does matter in law. It matters in terms of murder, the difference between man's law and first degree or second degree or third degree. Intent matters. But intent is very tough to prove. Right? Intent can be very tough to prove. So yes, theft is a violation of the non-aggression principle. Got it.
[1:06:13] But it can be tough to prove in an objective sense. So, if sibling incest, as I'm absolutely certain that it is, sibling incest results from egregious, absolute, and horrifying violations of the non-aggression principle against children, particularly in a sexual manner, as children. If sibling incest is the result of a great evil, than sibling incest is immoral. In the same way that if you steal something, then your retention of the stolen items is immoral.
[1:06:51] So, given that children who are so traumatized that they engage in incest, who are so absolutely, appallingly, brutally, horrifyingly treated, that they certainly cannot consent as children, And if the brutality of their childhood.
[1:07:15] Well, since the brutality of their childhood continues into adulthood, they cannot consent to sexual activity with each other because the only reason that they would have, again, I know it's an appalling subject to talk about, I understand all of that, but we do have to deal with this. Again, fantastic objection to the non-aggression principle. So if adult sibling incest is the result of non-consensual, because children can't consent, non-consensual sexual activity, if adult sibling incest is the result of the rape of children, then the adults cannot consent with each other. The adult siblings cannot consent. They're not consenting with each other because they were never allowed. They didn't learn that. They did not learn to consent. They did not learn bodily integrity and autonomy. They were brutally violated. And therefore, the sibling incest as an adult is the effect of crimes against children and therefore cannot be permitted.
[1:08:31] The siblings who perform incest as adults are so traumatized and broken that they cannot consent, and therefore they must be prevented. They cannot consent. Any more than that girl who's chained up and brutalized immediately turns 18, she can't just suddenly magically consent at all. Most people learn language, but a kid raised by wolves, you know, most people, if the cop says stop and they keep running, right, then the cop can often use force to prevent them from escaping. raping. However, if it's somebody who doesn't speak the language, if it's somebody who was raised by wolves, we have these extreme cases where you are not justified in shooting someone or using aggression against them if they don't stop when you tell them to and you're a police officer and it's a legal right to do that, which I think they do, then there are situations where.
[1:09:22] The person who's running away from the cop yelling stop is not defying the cop. He just doesn't understand what's happening. Somebody who's mentally challenged, somebody who was raised by wolves somebody's completely unfamiliar with the culture let's say that they were uh kidnapped and locked in a basement and they escape and they run away they don't know what's happening right they they don't know what a cop really is that so they're not defying the cop in the way that somebody with a relatively normal upbringing would be defying the cop did you see what i mean they don't even know what's going on they just escaped from some caged place that they were raised in for 18 years. They're running down the street, and somebody's screaming at them a word they don't understand, and it's dangerous, and they're in fight or flight. They cannot reason through the situation because they've been so broken and traumatized. Now, I understand that people can say, well, where's the exact line, and where's the ... That is, Not understanding the general thrust of the argument, right? The general thrust of the argument is that there can be such a level of trauma.
[1:10:29] That people who are legally adults cannot consent to certain activity, right? So if somebody has been chained up and assaulted and brutalized and raped for their entire childhood, the moment they turn 18, they cannot consent. They cannot meaningfully consent. Now, you say, oh, well, but there's a gray area. I get all of that. I get all of that. But here's the thing. If we accept the extreme case, if we accept the extreme case, then the problem is solved. Now, again, where we find that balance, that's a different matter. But if we say adult sibling incest, the siblings cannot consent because they were too traumatized as children and they were never taught consent. In fact, they were punished for attempting to establish any boundaries with their bodies, then we understand that they could not consent as children. They don't magically gain the ability to consent the moment they turn 18, and therefore they cannot consent to sexual activity with each other. Therefore, adult sibling incest would be a non-consensual sexual activity, and therefore would be banned and stopped.
[1:11:45] Because it would be the result of non-consent as children. They cannot consent as adults. They're too traumatized.
[1:11:58] And therefore, it is immoral. It's a violation of the non-aggression principle because they cannot consent with each other. They're too traumatized. They're too broken. Any more than the girl chained up in the basement for 18 years cannot magically consent to sexual activity the moment she turns 18 and gets free, right? There are extreme cases, where the development is so traumatized and broken that consent becomes impossible without significant further intervention. And people say, ah, yes, but how do we know the line? It's like, okay, I get that. But there is a line of intelligence below which consent is not possible. Consent is not possible below a certain level of intelligence. Say, oh, well, what is exactly the IQ and what? Okay, but we do understand, like whatever we settle on as a way to resolve this issue is not as important as does this issue even exist? Does, there are edge cases, there are edge cases. And sibling incest would be one of those cases where so much trauma has occurred that consent is not possible.
[1:13:06] And one of the ways that you would know that is that there's no sane human being, if given the choice, would say, yes, that would be a great step forward in my development, right? That's not the case, right? People who are intensely traumatized and isolated and brutalized.
[1:13:31] Do not gain the magical ability to overcome and undo all of that the moment they turn 18. They just don't. They just don't. And again, we can look at this. See, people say, well, but in an objective court of law, but that's a different matter. We're talking about the morals of the situation. So the logic of opposing this, which is fine, would be to say that there is no amount of trauma that or there's no amount of trauma or dysfunction that, removes an adult's ability to consent to sexual activity there's no amount of trauma or damage or dysfunction or brain injury or anything like that there's no amount of, trauma or damage.
[1:14:25] Whether psychological or organic that can remove move someone's ability to consent to sexual activity if they're an adult, right? But that's just not true. I mean, there are people who their brains are functioning. They're in a semi-vegetative state, right? Their brains are functioning. Can they consent to sexual activity? Of course not. Of course not. So there is a certain amount of damage to a brain that removes consent. Like, that we have to accept. Otherwise, somebody who has sexual activity with a semi-vegetative person in, like, I don't know, brimstone and treacle fashion, I understand you can't defend that morally. Like, you just, the person can't consent. So there is a, this we understand, there is a certain amount of brain damage.
[1:15:16] That removes the capacity to consent. And trauma is brain damage. Trauma shows up on brain scans. Trauma is brain damage. And there is a certain amount of trauma that removes the ability to consent and therefore since sibling incest would be the result of massive enormous deep-seated brain damaging trauma, there is no consent that is possible and that is why it is immoral and can be stopped, so I look forward to the discussion I hope that this makes sense at least the argument makes sense I really do appreciate your time, care, and attention in this, again, incredibly dark and sensitive matter, and I look forward to your feedback. Thank you so much. Bye-bye.
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