In this subscriber-exclusive podcast, Stefan Molyneux hosts an intimate discussion, thanking his audience for their support and reflecting on recent events, including a debate with a philosophy professor that left him feeling disappointed. Stefan opens the floor to callers, encouraging them to share their experiences, challenges, and feedback while emphasizing the episode’s privacy. The community aspect of the podcast is palpable, with Stefan acknowledging long-time supporters and new subscribers alike.
Stefan dives deep into the recent shooting of political figure Charlie Kirk, expressing his sorrow and grappling with the implications of political violence in today's society. He touches upon the cultural reaction to such violence, focusing on how the mainstream media and social media platforms shape narratives around these events. His analysis is critical, framing the extreme polarization in views and the tendency for individuals to lean into narratives that align with their biases rather than seeking the truth. As discussions unfold, callers chime in with their perspectives, reinforcing themes of disillusionment with societal reactions to violence, ultimately leading into a broader conversation about morality and the implications of ideological extremism.
Throughout the episode, Stefan encourages listeners to reflect on their values and how they align with their actions, particularly in the face of adversity. A key point he raises is the importance of confronting political violence wherever it manifests, advocating for a stance against supporting individuals who endorse violence, regardless of their ideological affiliations. The conversation shifts towards personal responsibility and community dynamics, where Stefan highlights the necessity for open dialogue and accountability within one's social circles.
As the discussion winds down, Stefan reflects on the legacy of his work and its relevance in the present social climate, contemplating the challenges he faces as a public figure in a highly polarized environment. He also expresses a desire for feedback on his approach and the podcast format, underpinning his commitment to evolve and serve his audience better.
In closing, Stefan invites listeners to explore the rich archive of his content and the various resources available to subscribers, fostering a sense of community among those invested in the ideals he promotes. This candid exchange not only facilitates meaningful dialogue but also reiterates the significance of personal connection in navigating complex societal issues.
0:04 - Subscriber Only Announcement
1:20 - Reflections on Debates
3:52 - Open Forum for Discussion
7:12 - Happy Birthday Wishes
8:09 - Memories of Public Speaking
9:27 - Remembrance of a Recent Tragedy
10:35 - Discussing Controversial Figures
13:25 - The Nature of Online Discourse
14:32 - The Role of Trolls
16:01 - The Impact of Community Division
17:57 - Engaging with Past Debates
21:32 - The Importance of Intellectual Integrity
23:14 - The Challenge of Modern Academia
26:07 - The Role of Philosophy in Life
28:37 - Personal Reflections on Recent Events
30:34 - Impact of Gun Violence on Society
32:34 - The Complexity of Political Conversations
34:16 - The Dangers of Political Extremism
39:21 - The Call for Action in Libertarianism
42:45 - The Disconnect Between Beliefs and Actions
46:19 - The Need for a New Approach
50:32 - The Consequences of Inaction
52:31 - The Importance of Community Support
54:06 - Reflections on Personal Growth
55:58 - Future Plans for Subscriber Engagement
1:27:33 - Wrapping Up and Future Insights
[0:00] Hey, everybody. How you doing? It's Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain.
[0:04] This is subscriber only, does not go on the public stream. Just you and me, cozy little fireplace, maybe a little baby oil. James standing in the shadows and us chatting away. So, of course, first and foremost, thank you everyone so much. Well, thank you guys so much for signing up. and what is it, the 700 Club was a Christian organization, I guess back in the 80s that was called the 700 Club because the first 700 members signed up to keep them going and I really do appreciate you guys doing that as well. Now, of course, I'm perfectly thrilled and happy to hear from you all and if you have comments, questions, issues, challenges, maybe history of the show, I'd love to pick your brains about what made you decide to subscribe, or I can certainly talk about the things that I've been mulling over over the last little while. So, of course, you just have to click on request to talk and we can do that.
[1:07] And remember, this is sort of far from prying eyes, and I'm happy to hear what is on your mind. Hello, hello to new people.
[1:16] I'm just saying that thank you guys so much for jumping in.
[1:20] And I wonder, because I did sort of publicly complain about how long it was going to, it was taking to get this, um, subscription stuff going on and hopefully to help the finances of the show, which are not exactly a smoking wreckage post de-platforming, but, uh, certainly was not, it's not quite the way that it was before.
[1:40] And if you were, if you listened to the, uh, I never really listened back to shows, but I did listen back to just before when the guy got in last night, if you listened to that debate with the philosophy professor, which I was really looking forward to. I was hoping he was going to call in. I was sort of nagging him off and on for the last month or two to call in and set me straight. And I was really disappointed, actually. I was disappointed in the quality of what he was putting forward, just these endless ad hominems and all of that. I just thought it was really quite sad and tragic. And I was really not very impressed with the quality of his thoughts and rebuttals. And I think he was probably a little bit surprised, just in case you're wondering sort of my experience, because I think that he was like, well, I don't see you doing philosophy. And I was like, but X is not, I mean, I do a little bit here and there, but X is not the place for sort of detailed and recent philosophical arguments. But I think he was a little bit surprised at the depth I was able to go into. And, and I suppose, you know, when you're a professor and you have all of these students who depend upon you to give them a good grade, you know, power corrupts, you know, you can get kind of aggressive.
[2:53] And the fact that I'm, you know, I mean, not just heavily reliant, I completely reliant upon, you know, kind souls like yourself throwing me some money from time to time. It really, it helps keep me humble and helps keep me from, getting any kind of arrogance.
[3:12] I'm curious to see what people say, because it's been a while since I had a real debate. I think the last one that I had, if memory serves me rightly, I think it was Lauren Southern was supposed to do a debate with a couple of communists, and I ended up doing the debate instead. I can't remember why she sort of husted over to me. I ended up doing the debate with the communists, and I think it was, was it J.F. Gariepi that was going on, and it was a pretty good debate. It was a pretty good debate. I enjoyed it. But I'm always curious what people think of this kind of stuff, and it was a real shame. It was a real shame that he wasn't able to give me better arguments.
[3:52] Anyway, so yeah, this is your call. I'm happy to chat with whoever, whatever's on your mind. Again, this stays private. This will be shared with donors as a whole, but never going out into the public stream. So if you wanted to talk about something a little bit more out of the public eye, when it comes to the private calls, I can be a lot more direct and I don't have to worry about, not worry, but I don't have to be concerned that other people are going to slice and dice and misinterpret or whatever. So you're certainly welcome to do any of that. And if there's anything that you would like me to see, see me do differently or better on X. I'm certainly happy to take that kind of feedback. I mean, I get that I kind of represent, I get that I kind of represent
[4:38] Philosophy or the community or what people have invested in or helped to support. So again, if there's anything I can do better or differently, maybe post less, I can't imagine posting more. What did I just see? Over 48,000 tweets. Now, of course, that's since 2010 or 2011. I think it was 2011 when I joined with, of course, a wee bit of a hiatus in there in the middle. But yeah, if there's anything I can do better or change, I'd love to hear your feedback. And if there's any way in which I can provide more value, and also if you are aware of the sort of value that you get from subscribing. I don't know if you just subscribed and then didn't go back, but if you do go back, I think Pinned is now all of the benefits, like the French Revolution stuff, the History of Philosophers stuff, and some AIs, which are really good. Man, we put a lot of time, effort, and energy into getting those AIs really, really well-trained on my material. And I don't think there's anything else out there that's even kind of remotely like it from that standpoint. So I hope you will go and get a hold of these bonus features. I hope you will check out the premium podcast interface where I think there's 100, 150 premium podcasts.
[5:55] And also the new book. The audio book of the new book is coming along. And I think I have four chapters out now. I need to redo the first chapter because there were a couple of hiccups in the recording for some reason. And I think I might redo chapter three because I think I made the character Derek just a little bit too much of a stoner. He's supposed to be more sort of cynical like Paul Schaefer from the old David Letterman show. And I made him a little bit, I was listening back and I'm like, ah, it's a little too, a little too sort of stereotypically stoner kind of character. But so I hope that you will check out those and I'd love to get your feedback. On that as well. So let me just, I'm just going to give a pause here. I'm obviously happy to keep chatting and tell you sort of the stuff that I'm thinking about these days. But if you have any questions, comments, want to fill my ears or share a thought or share a circumstance, you are the donors and I would love to provide value for you in an interactive fashion or if you want to just listen. If you're mellow at this time of night, I'm certainly happy to talk as well. All right, no sweat, no sweat. I appreciate... Oh. Sorry, Owen Clip, if you wanted to let me know what's on your mind, I'd love to chat. I'm listening, Seattle. But you will need to unmute. Going once, going twice.
[7:13] All right, Michael, what's on your mind?
[7:16] Hey, Stef,
[7:20] Wanted to say, because your birthday's coming up, right? It's like next week?
[7:23] Yes, it is.
[7:24] I just wanted to say happy birthday and love you. I'm just so glad things seem to be going well on X so far.
[7:34] That's really all I had to say, but just get my chance to pop in, say hello, and happy birthday.
[7:41] Well, I appreciate that. Thank you so much. Yeah, I still like birthdays. I still like birthdays. And it's funny because, you know, I pretty much have everything that I want in my life. And so I don't, you know, I mean, my wife is, my daughter is like, what do you want for your birthday? And I'm like, honestly, I don't have any particular needs that I want satisfied or anything like that. I have pretty much, I don't think there's anything. Oh, I mean,
[8:08] you know, it would be nice.
[8:09] It would be nice, you know, when I went back and I, oh, and Owen Klipp, if you want to unmute, I'm certainly happy to hear as well. But when I went back and looked at my speech from 2009, man, that is a donkey's year ago. That is right after my daughter was born. I think my daughter was 10 weeks. We put her in a car and drove to the White Mountains for the New Hampshire Liberty Forum and seeing. And i think that was shortly after the media started really getting ferocious on me with the sort of cult cult stuff which was you know not not super fun uh because you know it's it's your media cherry getting popped kind of thing so now it wouldn't bother me nearly as much but back then it was like oh gosh what does this mean and i remember because i remember i really enjoying uh the speech and it was like i think i only did half an hour of speech and then And I did almost an hour and a half of Q&A, which was great fun.
[9:03] And I got some messages on X, in particular from people who were like, wow, that was fantastic. You know, the way you worked with the audience is really great. And I do miss playing with the audience like a cat with a ball. I do miss playing with the audience in live public speaking.
[9:20] And yeah, so my wife was saying, yeah, maybe it'll come back. Who knows, five or 10 years or 10 years.
[9:25] Who knows? I mean, it would have shut down over COVID anyway, obviously.
[9:28] But I really do miss that kind of stuff and I get invites from time to time and I'm like, maybe, maybe, maybe but I mean, I think that's kind of the chill, like the icy half fist on the heart that comes out of things like it's only a week ago right it's only a week ago a week and a bit week and a day right it's wednesday a week ago wednesday the Charliewith Charliewas was gunned down and oof yeah that is that is rough stuff to see i think i heard a breath go ahead
[10:00] i never really listened to him before like i was aware because i've seen like memes of him and stuff but now i've seen all these clips of him and he was a really good uh communicator and seemed like a nice person.
[10:12] So I'm sorry I didn't really listen to him before.
[10:16] Yeah, he really did walk into the lion's den and I even saw clips where I really wasn't expecting to see him show up, right? Like I saw him on the Whatever podcast talking to the OnlyFans girls.
[10:31] And I have obviously some mixed thoughts about OnlyFans.
[10:35] I think it's kind of easy pickings. and i think that um it could be uh uh i think it might be a bit over cynical with regards to to the women sort of easy pickings and over cynical but he was there and he was you know trying to help women you know make better decisions and he really was um someone who
[11:01] Went into places like i can't i can't imagine maybe you guys have seen this but i can't imagine people who are on the left. I can't imagine them going to a venue and inviting people to come and debate with them and argue with them in a sort of open format. I really can't, I can't imagine them doing that. And I think it's because the arguments are somewhat weak. And
[11:31] I think they would not do that as a whole. I think they really like to sort of stay in the echo chamber. And we can see this, of course, with this Jimmy Kimmel stuff from, was it a night or two ago, where he was just, that was just absolutely appalling. I said just that, I did that tiny video today, whether, I'm not sure if you saw it or not, but yeah, just that video where it's like, you are, you're in such a bubble. If you don't know, it's not just that he was ascribing the shooter to the MAGA, base. I mean, that's appalling enough. And then, of course, you know, in the absolutely wild lack of self-knowledge, claiming that people would only do that for reasons of trying to score political points. And to me, the most appalling thing was just the idea that the shooter of Charlie Kirk, the devout Christian, would also be another devout Christian.
[12:28] That's a wild thing. That is a truly, truly wild thing to say and to believe or to promulgate. And, you know, it is, you know, because I haven't been on mainstream social media. I'll just sort of give you, again, if you guys have anything you want to chat about, I'm obviously thrilled to hear. But I'll sort of tell you a little bit. I haven't really done mainstream social media. I used to check X from time to time for news, and occasionally I would search for my own name just to see if there was anything that was interesting or important that I needed to know about. But I have not been on sort of breaking news, culture war, social media for like half a decade until I came back on X in sort of seeing myself and getting involved in those conversations. Holy crap. Maybe it's gotten worse. Maybe it's gotten worse since I was last on X. I'm not sure.
[13:25] But the lying, the lying, the lying, the lying is just appalling. I mean, it's not even close to truth. It's not even a simulacrum of truth. It's just focusing on what can be the most damaging, what can cause the most conflict, what can be the most hysterical. It's a dark day, you know, and to be canceled just for making a joke. Or, you know, as I'd say, to be canceled just for disagreeing. And it's like, maybe this is stuff the algorithm is floating up and maybe there's more nuanced discussions going on, but holy crap. It is, they're all just wretched trolls that I'm seeing. They're all just wretched trolls because this is the behavior. And, you know, I'm sure James has a couple of facial tics when we remember this from the old days of running the forum or other things that we've been involved in where, you know, trolls come in and they just lie. They just lie. It's like a borderline personality thing. So borderline personality is sort
[14:30] of halfway between neurosis and psychosis.
[14:32] And they are experts at fomenting conflict, at using language to just goad and rouse people up.
[14:41] And we had a troll, oh gosh, James, jump in if I get any of this wrong, but I remember probably it was about, oh, 14 years ago. I think it was 14 years ago. Maybe it could have been close. 13, 14 years ago. And it was actually a professional troll who decided to target our community. I don't know if he was sent here by, you know, there were forums all dedicated to Stef's an evil guy or whatever, right? And this troll was like, he was like a professional troll and he decided to target the community. And he came in and we talked about hookers and blow. He came in hot on hookers and blow. And I, of course, I think a lot of people are libertarians because they're kind of hedonists, right? They want access to prostitutes and drugs and no rules and no standards.
[15:29] And I remember that he caused just this massive wedge in the community and divided it between the moralists and the hedonists and was just stoking the flames. And we used to get people to come in on the free will determinism debate and just misrepresent everything. And it's a statement that comes out of Tolstoy that unless you can get relatively comfortable with the lies that are told about you in public, you really can't be a public figure and have any sort of peace of mind. And they're just trolling all the time.
[16:01] He just got fired for criticizing. He just showed a video of Trump not appearing to grieve Charlie Kirk, and he got fired for it and the FCC intervened and Trump made the call and it's all, it's just made up nonsense. All right. Dylan if you wanted to unmute i'd love to hear what your thoughts are all right james let's try let's try you out of what's going on with the tech tonight yo
[16:24] Uh so um i had the thought of pop in my head i almost i'm maybe sure it's like half an excuse but you know with him making Kimmell making that absolutely vile uh suggestion or accusation whatever it is
[16:37] no it's like it's an absolute lie because the facts were all out by yesterday
[16:41] Yeah yeah that the shooter the christian I mean, the thought I had was like, well, the left would shoot their own with no compunction whatsoever. So, I mean, it's a lie that in their worldview makes a weird sense.
[16:57] Yeah, I thought of that too, that they would absolutely shoot each other on these disagreements. And so they don't imagine that a Christian wouldn't. But sorry, go ahead.
[17:07] No, I'm sorry. That's all I really had to add. And I almost feel like it's half an excuse, but there's no excuse for the lie. But, I don't know, it just sort of, it just popped in my head, so, the thing.
[17:17] Yeah, yeah, and you remember, do you remember that hook us and blow guy from a decade, decade and a half ago?
[17:23] Yeah, excuse me.
[17:24] I think I wasn't really paying attention to the message boards at that time.
[17:27] Ah, okay, okay.
[17:29] So, I remember hearing about him. I remember other folks, I remember the determinism stuff a bit more.
[17:36] Right, yeah, the determinism was very big.
[17:39] Yeah, yeah, yeah, one fellow in particular who was just, you know, just got really, really aggressive and insulting with other people around determinism.
[17:48] Yeah, and it's interesting because, and if you, if you, since you heard the debate last night, let's look at Dr.
[17:58] John, Dr. John. Would you say that he was a leftist? I got the feeling he was, but what did you think?
[18:06] I mean, leftist, I seriously doubt he votes Republican or even like knows any Republicans in his personal life. Leftist, I mean, it's a good possibility because the guy, there's a smirking, smarming, half chuckle to everything he's saying. But that's not necessarily, I mean, that's often on the left, I think, but anyways. But yeah.
[18:31] And he was very big on the, I won't criticize Genghis Khan, but like white europeans like that i think there was that and that's a real a real leftist thing because you know sort of white europeans tend to be fairly opposed to big government and leftists want big government because i definitely got that sort of sense uh from him and yeah it would be interesting because yeah i mean i wouldn't say obviously not a troll troll but as far as the quality of arguments go you know i suppose that's one of the big challenges on the left is they live in such an echo chamber that they never get really challenged.
[19:07] And when you develop that kind of prickly vanity and just being ripe for breathing, then when you get challenged, there's this narcissistic rage that just kind of comes out where it's just kind of incomprehensible. And I think this is where the racist and sexist and Nazi and I think that just this vain rage stuff comes out as a whole. And it's really, I mean, this is why I have generally much more intellectual respect for people on the right because they're swimming against the current. I mean, everything is leftist and the leftists don't even know. They think they're good swimmers when they're just being carried by a strong current. But the people who could swim against the current, um, to me would just, just automatically have more integrity. Like there was this, I remember this story. So when I was 12, when I was 12, I ended up staying with a friend of mine's grandparents. I didn't know them. And the grandmother was kind of ill. It was in a pretty, pretty small condo.
[20:06] And I had nothing to do all summer. I didn't have a job and I had no money. And I remember just, I'd go to the library and I'd read books and I'd walk around and I'd go to the mall, walk around. And I didn't even have bus fare. There were no friends around. Like it was like middle of nowhere and all of that. And I remember the library reading a book about, it was a book of short stories, and one of the short stories was about a guy who wanted to win a swimming race, and he would go to the beach to practice, and he would go to the nice beach, the sunny beach, with good sand and not big riptides and all of that, but he got bullied, and he got beaten up and driven off that beach, and he ended up.
[20:50] Going, having to go to another beach where there was riptides, rocks, you know, bad waves and so on. And he had to battle through and do his swimming there. And, you know, of course, the moral of the story was he ended up winning the swimming race because he was driven to the beach with the bad environment. And so he was, you know, then it was after he'd battled the riptides and the rocks and the crashing waves and all of that for a month or two, when it came to the swimming race, which was on the nice beach, he found it ridiculously easy. And I think that's a lot to do. Like you have to really develop your muscles when you're swimming against the current.
[21:26] And that's really, to me, was the surprising and lazy thing about this.
[21:32] I wouldn't necessarily even call it a debate from last night, but it's just lazy. It's just like if I was publicly going to take on, and James, you've been here and other people, I don't know if you've been there, But when I would do debates in the past, remember, I'd sit down for an hour or two, go over my arguments, get feedback from it, make sure I did the research. And I'd always switch up my arguments so people couldn't research and have counter arguments to anything I've said before. I mean, you remember those kind of, I'm going to try this. What do you think? Is this weak? Is this strong? And I'd just get this kind of feedback. And if I was going up, I mean, I'd just do a bunch of research.
[22:09] And this guy, I mean, obviously, I just, and he didn't even seem to have the self-knowledge to know that he was bothered at a personal level. Like there was something about me or what I'm doing that bothers him. Maybe it was professional jealousy or I don't know what it was, right? Just general leftist snarkiness or whatever. But he didn't even seem to have the self-knowledge to know that he didn't like me at a personal level and it was interfering with his critical thinking.
[22:37] And that is, yeah, that's a really sad thing to go through because I would do the research, right? I would say, okay, here's my definition of philosophy and here's why you don't meet that definition, right? That would be. But he didn't even define his terms. It's just this endless wave of snarkiness and hostility and all of that. It's really sad. And this is really, I think the state of academia to some degree, they just haven't been challenged.
[23:09] And I think that's what was really tough for Charlie.
[23:14] And, you know, because the trans movement and Christianity have some significant opposition, I think that also was a pretty volatile area. But yeah, just not being able. I remember, was it Thaddeus? Oh, Thaddeus Russell or something like that. Some professor I debated many years ago who was of the opinion that it was possible for a woman to have sex with a tree and produce a child.
[23:43] And I remember being truly jaw-dropped in that debate that somebody would make that argument, that that's just true. Or this guy last night, when it's like, okay, it's true that rape, theft, assault, and murder can never be universally preferable behavior, but so what? So what if the arguments self-contradict? I'm like, that's your entire job. It's trying to get people to produce arguments that don't self-contradict, and now you're saying, who cares? It's wild. Wild stuff. And I remember with that guy who said, oh yeah, women can have sex with trees and produce babies, thinking like, well, that's got to be it for his career. Because I was much bigger back then. And the fact that somebody would make a public statement like that and then expect to get students to come and take his class is deranged beyond words to me. And I remember, I think he had a son that he wrote about. Because of course, before the debate, I went and read his blog and all of that. And I was thinking like, gosh, how awful, terrible, and sad it would be to be the son of someone who has those kinds of perceptions or beliefs. Oh, just wretched. Just wretched.
[24:50] And I listened today to the beginning of that because I wanted to make sure that I had said, this isn't about me, this isn't about philosophy, this is just an example or a template on how to get what you want by motivating others, motivating to other people's greed or self-interest. And yes, I did say that repeatedly. I always want to be sort of fair because I'm pretty sure I said that, but I went and listened back. And the sound is really good, actually, because I listened to it in the car, which has got a fairly decent stereo system. And yeah, the audio quality is really nice.
[25:24] Auphonic does a really great job of cleaning that stuff up. And it was a really good conversation. And then for this guy to come in and it's just like, why would you need to be sold on doing philosophy if you're a philosopher? And I'm like, oh, bro, like this level of irritability, irritability just makes people kind of irrational. And it's a really sad thing to see because, of course, Oh, the other thing, too, is like, are you a licensed therapist? It's like, well, I can't talk to people about their thoughts and issues, really. I can't use philosophy to help people in their lives unless I get a piece of paper. And it's so funny, too, because, of course, these are the people who study Socrates. Well, Socrates didn't have a piece of paper saying he could be a philosopher.
[26:07] And so they studied people like Socrates who railed against sophistry, who railed against the pretense of knowledge, who railed against people who make the worst argument appear, the better, and who railed against all of the paid and state-protected academics of his day. And these guys, you know, when they go and teach these university courses, I mean, they don't identify with the sophists, they identify with Socrates, right? And then, you know, what does he come at me with? Credentialism and so on? Or at least find out that I have a master's degree in the history of philosophy and dealt with four major philosophers. I mean, that's right there on my about page on the website. At least do that because he seemed kind of surprised that I actually had graduate school training in philosophy and so on. And, oh, man. It's just sad.
[26:53] And because it doesn't matter, right? Because I assume he's got tenure on. But yeah, it is pretty wild. Because if I heard somebody debate like that, I would never have my kid go and learn anything from them. Because the only thing that that would be instructive in is here's what not to do in a debate. And it's pretty wild, too, because he said, well, you don't understand the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning. And then I quoted the examples from my book and he's like, well, that's correct. And I'm like, but that's exactly what he said in my book. So how can I be wrong in my book? And then you agree with the analogies that I use. Anyway, it's a shame. I think like everyone, you're always looking for somebody who can teach you something and somebody who's like, if I ever had had a debate with Charlie Kirk, I think he would have instructed me on some stuff because I mean, he was really, really good at that. And you're always looking for people who can teach you and instruct you on better ways of doing things. And I hope I'm still, you know, aiming at that until the day that I die. But anyway, so for people who weren't listening to the debate last night, who haven't heard it, this is all kinds of inside baseball. So we still have two people on the line. If you wanted to try unmuting, certainly happy to hear what you have to say.
[28:11] Yeah, I mostly just wanted to say thanks, and you asked why we subscribed, and just wanted to say that I'd follow you to the Gates of Hell stuff.
[28:22] Thank you.
[28:24] Since the Charlie Kirk thing has happened, I really don't typically find myself affected on a personal level by events like that, but I do.
[28:38] I ended up going out to California. I had a, uh, I had a friend who was graduating, uh, Marine bootcamp, right. Um, and, and, you know, I did try to talk about it a little bit, but he's determined. And there's certainly
[28:50] Far worse things that you could do at 18, um, than, than join the military. But I mean, it was kind of sad. I mean, they had the, they had the flag at half mast and, uh, I mean, when I was like looking at.
[29:01] Uh, sorry, they had the flag at half mast for Charlie.
[29:04] Yes.
[29:05] Okay.
[29:06] Yeah. I mean, there's this big flag and all that. But, I mean, as I was looking at the faces as they were, like, marching by and graduating, I just couldn't help but just feel, like, deeply sad. I mean, just how young they are, you know? I mean, they're still basically, like, kids, you know? You mean they're soldiers.
[29:23] Yeah.
[29:23] Yeah, yeah, the Marines that were graduating. I mean, because it's been a while since I've been in the military, obviously. And how long were you in for? I was only in for four years.
[29:33] Right, okay.
[29:34] But, I mean, I went in at 17, too. I mean, so I was, you know, in a similar situation.
[29:39] But I mean, yeah, I mean, just thinking about like,
[29:43] I don't know, you know, I mean, just how like young men's like at their prime, you know, years and
[29:50] It's just kind of going to waste. And I mean, who even knows what's going to, what's going to happen on a, uh, you know, a geopolitical scale, um, in the coming years. But I mean, the, the, the whole Charlie Kirk thing though, I mean, just, just as a whole, like I just, I don't know. I, I just find myself a lot more serious. Like I really just don't want to have any of these crazy people around me.
[30:14] Yeah. So tell me what was your, how did you find out about it? And what did you, did you actually see the shooting, uh, video?
[30:20] Yeah, and I have seen a couple of different angles on it. I mean, it's horrific. I mean, he was a pretty moderate guy. I mean, that was pretty horrifying.
[30:30] I actually did happen to be in Utah. I mean, I was like three hours south of Salt Lake City.
[30:35] But he did happen to be in Utah when that had happened. I didn't realize what had happened until way after the fact because I was driving and not scrolling on YouTube.
[30:45] I'm sorry, did you hear he'd been shot?
[30:46] Or yeah i i just heard that he had been shot um i you know was still you know because i was um spending time with my kids while i was out there as well so that was kind of more of my primary focus but then i did find that he had uh passed away by it um.
[31:06] Like, geez, yeah, I mean.
[31:07] Did you get the hour or hour and a half of, like, he's in critical condition? And it's like, because I just didn't get that. I didn't believe that at all. I mean, I saw the shooting, and again, I'm no expert, but I saw the shooting, and I'm just like, yeah, he's dead. He's dead or worse than dead, even potentially, which is like he's in a vegetative state, and they have to decide to pull the plug or something like that.
[31:27] Yeah, I saw that.
[31:29] Oh, geez, yeah. I mean, it's, you know, I mean, yeah, there's two little girls, I mean, growing up without a dad now. I mean, that's, I mean, that's heartbreaking, you know, and, and I mean, just the fact that like, I mean, even some of my friends who have seen like, you know, some of like the, the local, you know, Facebook groups and I mean, people talking about like, oh yeah, well we're glad and all this. I mean, it really is. It's horrifying. You know, I don't know how anybody like, I mean, they're so like serious about it too. Like, you know, that they, they really do believe that, you know, Charlie Kerr getting shot with some kind of benefit, you know, like, like he was some fringe, you know, like, you know, like evil dude that like nobody, you know, agrees with, but I mean, he's a pretty moderate guy. I mean, he shares an opinion with half the country.
[32:19] Yeah, more than half, I think, yeah.
[32:21] And so, I mean, for him to just have these kind of like, I mean, you could even say, you know, I don't mean to be demeaning, but like milquetoast kind of like opinions on things, right?
[32:31] But I mean, for them to just be so thrilled about that.
[32:35] Yeah, it's ghoulish, yeah, for sure.
[32:37] You know, so.
[32:38] And not to be troubled by it. Like, it's one thing to me, it's one thing to say, oh, it's so good, you know, but then not to sit there and say, oh, gosh, that was kind of a weird reaction that I'm having. That doesn't seem right. That doesn't seem healthy. Because it just sounds like a bunch of sociopaths who are, you know, like the Sopranos or something. That's the wild thing that everyone's reinforcing and no one's saying, this is not a good, it's not a healthy reaction. Family man got gunned down.
[33:10] I know. I mean, and I mean, again, he wasn't doing anything fine. He wasn't like arguing for people. Hey, you know, we're going to, you know, burn down this campus or whatever. I mean, there wasn't anything like there, but I mean, they still, you know, and so it is a reminder. I mean, just the absolute level of delusion that people have out there.
[33:29] Well, it's evil. I mean, it's more than delusion. And I was going to post, like, I just wanted to personally thank everyone who got me DePlanfant. Because uh it is to me it's it's an absolute fact you know i can talk about this sort of out of the public eye but it's an absolute fact that uh i would have been shot if i hadn't been de-platformed because i'd still be out there and i was talking about stuff way more volatile than uh than charlie and i would i would have been shot for no question i mean that that was that was like looking at a video of me if uh in an alternate timeline where i hadn't been de-platformed sure
[34:03] Yeah i mean it's very dangerous and i think in charlie kirk's case i mean just because like he is so representative of like so many people's opinions out there
[34:13] that it's like i mean that they they're celebrating shooting half the country.
[34:17] Yes yes they are yeah
[34:20] And so it's just like, well, I mean, how are you supposed to feel, you know, I mean, even safe with any of these people? Like, it's really monstrous. I mean, I just, yeah, I mean, it just has me like just feeling much more serious about like, you know, the types of relationships that I just decide to have with people just in general.
[34:40] Well, and this is why I was saying for 20 years, like, get people who want violence out of your life.
[34:47] Yeah and that's kind of what's been you know ringing through my head I think since this happened you know it's just it's really I mean not that I haven't taken it at least somewhat seriously but I mean really like being pretty black and white.
[35:01] About that and I said that over COVID too like the people people who they'll inform on you like they'll turn on you they'll phone if you've got an extra car in the driveway they'll like they'll get you in trouble they just I mean because I know enough about history to know that Not just the Milgram experiments, of course, which are pretty obvious, but having looked at the data on the East German side of communism, like the Stasi, how many people were informing and taking great delight in, turning over their neighbors to the secret police and all that kind of stuff. It's wild.
[35:35] Oh, yeah, and they get to feel like heroes.
[35:37] Well, they just do damage, right? A lot of sadists out there, and one out of six people has no functional empathy. And uh that's uh that's kind of alarming uh and i i think it's actually much higher than that because i think that the requirement for empathy is not particularly high but you know two out of three two or three out of ten democrats support political violence which means you know if you're in a room with with ten democrats only two or three of them want you murdered like why would you want to earth would you want to have anything to do with that stuff
[36:09] At all no yeah i mean it's impossible because then what do you talk about? You know, you're not, you're not really able to connect or, you know, even feel safe having a discussion.
[36:18] Yeah. And, and this is why I, I mean, this is why Charlie, you know, I'm, I'm certainly willing to put forward the proposition that he might've been a better person than me because I'm pissed at the libertarians for not doing this because if libertarians had done this, got the violent status out of their life, then it would have pushed a conversation to the forefront of society.
[36:44] And that conversation is, do you support political violence? Because that's what the against me argument is entirely designed for. Do you support political violence? Do you support me disagreeing with you without wanting me shot? And I was really trying to get that conversation going 20 years ago. Well, even longer, but in the public sphere, I was getting that conversation going 20 years ago. And and It's wild for me to see just how, you know, obviously with some notable exceptions, but how completely erased from the libertarian world I have become. And it's been for sort of many, many years. But I've seen nobody, nobody from the libertarian world have I seen, and they all know this argument. I mean, I was pumping it out 20 years ago for years, conferences and all of that, shows and panels. And not one person has said, wow, we should have listened to Stef's warning about political violence. Because if there was ostracism based upon political violence, this stuff could have been exposed and there could have been a transnational conversation about violence and politics.
[37:59] Yeah, I mean, when I've had the opportunity to interact with libertarianism, I was kind of mortified that when I brought you up, I mean, just how many people were like, oh, yeah, that guy and this. And I mean just had so many like nasty things to say and I was like wow you know I mean that's kind of the thing I mean to have like that nasty of an attitude towards like somebody who's not who's deliberately not advocating for violence well.
[38:23] No but it's it's not that that the libertarians don't dislike me because of IQ they don't dislike me because of whatever I've talked about in the past that's sort of abstract. The reason why libertarians dislike me is because I say, here's something you can actually do. You can promote peaceful parenting, and you can ostracize evildoers. This is something you can do. Well, libertarians don't, they want to talk.
[38:53] And I understand that most of us, most people just want to talk. They don't want to actually do stuff.
[38:58] Sure. Yeah.
[38:59] It's a lot safer to just talk, right? This is sort of my example of like, to interfere. It's like, yeah, okay, you can say that until you're blue in the face, right? But it's not going to change a damn thing. You're not going to interfere, at least not that way. And I gave them a clear path to a free society, which was peaceful parenting and shunning evildoers.
[39:18] And so when I said, and I'm the nag, right?
[39:21] I'm the nag, which is like, stop talking about it. You can do something about it, right? My argument that if you want to promote the non-aggression principle, you look at the widest violation or the most prevalent or common violation of the non-aggression principle that you can do something about, right? That's a reasonable and rational thing to do. What's the most prevalent thing that I can do the most about? And, you know, it's like when it comes to improving human health, you know, well, people get sick from dirty water. So what's the most prevalent thing that I can do the most about? Okay, let's get a water cleaner filtration system and a sewage system and chlorine or whatever it is that they're going to do to clean up the water, and then that's the most prevalent thing that you can do the most about. And so that's what you should work on.
[40:11] And because I made that case consistently that if you care about the non-aggression principle, getting together to talk about how we shouldn't have tariffs on Japan and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, isn't going to do anything. And so when I say, here's actionable morality, that's tough because then you actually have to sit down with people, which I understand is scary. You got to sit down with people and you got to say, do you support violence against me?
[40:35] And we can see that the avoidance of that conversation has had really terrible results in society. And maybe, I mean, I like to, because I'm, you know, obviously self-critical as I think people should be, but not self-attacky, right? So I do sit there and I say, well, gosh, should I have approached it in a different way? Should I have approached it in a more gentle way? Or should I have approached it in a more humorous way or anything like that? And I'm like, but I look back at my old speeches, I'm like, that was pretty engaging. That was a pretty good case and pretty friendly and, you know, good jokes, good sense of humor. And I don't know that I could have communicated it in a different way. And of course, I don't want to believe that there's some sort of magic combination of words that I should have used that would have got everything to go the right way, because that's to give, that's to take away people's free will. But yeah, so when you push people to say, oh, these are your values, well, how about you start taking them fucking seriously, right if you define the initiation of the use of force as evil then people who want to initiate the use of force against you are evil
[41:41] They are supporting evil policies. And I've always said to them, sorry, I'll shut up in a second, but I always said to the libertarians, you don't have to confront anyone, but then drop the beliefs.
[41:52] Like if you define X as evil and then people around you are advocating for X, okay, then either get the evil, like either change their minds so they don't advocate for violence anymore or get them out of your life or drop your beliefs that violence is bad. Because if you're going to hang around with people who are big fans of political violence. And of course, all we know as libertarians or anarchists that all statism is violence, but it didn't have to be that far, right? Even if it was just libertarianism, like small government stuff, right? So if you're going to hang around and break bread and laugh and make jokes and watch movies with people who your values define as evil, then you clearly don't believe in your values and you should not pretend to have those values. And so I just wanted to take away this unearned, this sort of socialism that comes from when people say, well, I have these values and they're really important,
[42:44] but I don't actually act on them.
[42:46] And I don't demand that anyone change their minds. And I define this as evil, but I'm happy to break bread with the evildoers. And that's gross to me. And so the libertarians are mad at me, right? Because I'm not a sort of comforting Tom Woods figure or Ron Paul figure who talks about, you know, how evil central banking is and how inflation and Austrian economics and this and that, which is all, you know, nice and fun and interesting stuff. And it's enjoyable and engaging, but it doesn't do a goddamn thing to change the world.
[43:14] Whereas I was like, okay, here's things you can actually do. And people are like, whoa, let's not get crazy there, baldy.
[43:21] Yeah, we're really just here to talk. And the people who are still welcome, and you know, I like Tom Woods, I like Ron Paul. They seem like nice people and all of that. But as far as actually bringing values to bear in your own life. I mean, it's kind of funny because there are Christians, right? And I think Tom Woods is a straight-up Catholic. And so the idea that virtues and values are just abstract things that you just waffle on about and write books about and give speeches about and so on, right? And don't actually bring to bear in your personal life. I mean, statists are like Satanists to Christians, right? To those who love, freedom, and the non-aggression principle. And it seems weird to me that a devout Christian would break bread and cheer on and never confront literally Satanists around the dinner table. That's weird to me. That's bizarre. That's a complete disconnection of morality from actual practice and having an effect with your virtues and values. And when I see, you know, status around, I see like I'm a holy Christian and they are Satanists. And the idea that you would simply skate over that and pretend like that's not a thing, that is a problem. I just, I find it bizarre, but sorry for long speech. If you have any thoughts on anybody has thoughts about this, I'm happy to hear.
[44:43] I mean, the only thing that I was going to add is, is it is even crazier when you think about the fact that there are like immediate benefits to getting people like that out of your life like it doesn't have to necessarily just be this abstraction right it's like immediately you get crazy people who support crazy violent things out of your life and and the quality of your life improves like right away.
[45:07] Well and there's a then there's a price to be paid for for advocating for violence shouldn't there be i mean because because people on the the conservatives and the libertarians are always talking about incentives and incentives and it's like okay so here's a pretty big incentive that if you support the use of violence against me you don't get to be in my life. And that then is a disincentive for supporting political violence.
[45:32] And now, you know, 20 years after I started talking about it, people are scrambling to try and punish people, so to speak, economically or whatever, or get them canceled, get them fired. Well, they can't get them canceled, but maybe get them fired. But people are now scrambling to say, well, you know, we've got to inflict negative consequences on those who support political violence. It's like, Lord, above people, that's what I was talking about 20 years ago. Could have all been averted. Could have had this conversation, got it out in the open and dealt with it 20 years ago. But, and I personally, you know, I could be right. This could be self-aggrandizing, but I think that people have a bad conscience and they don't want to say that Stef was right. And if we'd had the conversations with people that Stef had recommended and
[46:17] nobody found a way to argue against it, right?
[46:20] This is like, because people on the right are like, oh, people from the left are so immune to logic. It's like the logic that I put forward in a wide variety of speeches and articles and podcasts and interviews and debates was incontrovertible. If you define X as evil, then if people support X, if political violence is evil, people who support political violence are corrupt and immoral. And why would you continue to pretend the people around you aren't corrupt and immoral if you define them as corrupt and immoral? That's just weird to me.
[46:52] So to me, it's like being an oncologist and somebody's got a big giant tumor and you just don't mention anything about it and just keep keep going out and playing golf or whatever right you don't say anything it's like but that's kind of weird isn't it yeah
[47:06] I mean and you're completely right i think that i mean you know you just kind of see it i mean people that just act out in like kind of nasty ways i mean yeah they're they're trying to bury a bad conscience
[47:17] Well I, I think so because um i was i was right and you know charlie kirk i mean love the guy there was a lot to admire. But I mean, it's a little, you know, again, the deplatforming was fine. I definitely brought it on myself and I have no particular big issues with it. But it is a little rough to see how the left stands up for Jimmy Kimmel, who's like a real piece of trash. Like Jimmy Kimmel is just gross. I mean, he's the guy who wished death upon the unvaccinated, right? That you don't even get healthcare. He's just a real piece of trash. And seeing the left all stand up for him and we're going to boycott this and we're going to write letters and we're going to you know I stand with and post the pictures and it's like when I was when I was de-platform man I mean honestly I think people on the left and the right were kind of relieved that I was gone because God forbid you you actually have practical ethics that can people can bring to bear in their lives it's you know it's a whole lot easier to just keep things abstract and so I think people on the left and the right because you know it wasn't like i got any messages from charlie kirk saying hey man like i'm sorry i mean he knew about me obviously we'd actually met right
[48:28] And it wasn't like I got any messages from Charlie Kirk or any invites to, you know, let's come and make the case. But of course, because I was talking about the IQ stuff as well, that's tough for Christians. Because for Christians, like we're all, all the souls are created in the image of God. And therefore, this is foundational substrata of platonic egalitarianism just based upon being alive. And the IQ stuff is pretty uncomfortable. more. The atheists dislike it even though it's in alignment with evolution because it repudiates a sort of Star Trek socialism. But it is a sad reality.
[49:04] I'm sorry, go ahead. It is a sad reality. I mean, it's not really a great topic. There's nothing fun about coming to terms with that.
[49:13] No, there's not. So yeah, I think everyone was kind of relieved when the crazy bald guy who told people to live the values that they espouse was out of the conversation and they could get back to complaining about the Fed. I think everybody was kind of relieved about that. And so when I'm brought up, I do think people should, I mean, they should have a guilty conscience because they couldn't disprove my argument. And because I wasn't even telling them, like if I went to a bunch of socialists with the non-aggression principle, they disagree with me, but libertarianism is founded on that. And so I wasn't telling them what their value should be I was telling them that their values should have consequences in their lives, that they should make decisions based upon what is the good.
[50:01] And those are peaceful decisions, right? I was always, you know, don't have to be violent, but don't pour resources into people who want you dead for disagreeing with them. And, yeah, so I think that there's sort of a closed ranks thing. And let's just go back to the comforting people who talk about things that we can just yammer on about without actually bringing them to life. And again, to me, I could understand it from the atheist standpoint a lot more,
[50:29] but from the Christian standpoint, you are supposed to live your values.
[50:32] And what I was talking about with regards to the family, even back in 2006, was if you've got a problem with your parents, they've treated you badly at some point, sit down and talk with them. And with anyone, right? Sit down and talk with them. And if it doesn't work, try again. And if it doesn't work, try again. But at some point, you have to, you know, and I said this even in the speech that I posted from New Hampshire from 2009. And I said, look, you know, give people some time. You know, it's a big, big adjustment to realize that they're promoting violence. So, you know, give them a time, a month, two, couple of, you know, a bunch of conversations, but not forever, not like years to come around. Because in my experience, people either start to really think about a new argument or idea, or it's just never going to happen. Like it's, it's, uh, it's relatively quick or not at all. And
[51:24] So it's wild to me that I was saying, look, you can bring your values to life. And for Christians in particular, what I was suggesting, what I was talking about was purely biblical, which is if you have a problem with someone, talk to them one-on-one. If that doesn't work, bring a couple of people. If that doesn't work, bring the whole congregation. If that doesn't work, shun and ostracize them. I mean, so not only was it right psychologically, not only was it right morally, but it was also right biblically. And it was airtight from a rational standpoint. this case. So why, you know, in a sense, Charlie Cook got shot because both the left and the right rejected reason and virtue.
[52:06] And I saw that, I mean, I saw that bullet, I mean, the brutal, hideous, it stains your brain for eternity, right? Just seeing that bullet and it's like, I wish people had listened. I wish people had listened and I wouldn't be watching this. And even now, nobody's like, yeah, Stef was talking about political violence like 20 years ago. It doesn't matter. They're just shocked and appalled, and it's incomprehensible.
[52:31] And I said, you know, I mean, if we don't reason together, then it's going to be violence. And I did say, what was it? Six years ago, the time for arguments has passed. It's a famous fascist meme of mine. But again, you know, my major goal was if I had not put forward these arguments out of fear of being ostracized myself. Like, I can't say to people, put forward your moral arguments even if you get ostracized, even if you ostracize others, right? And I can't do that. If I don't put forward that argument, then I'm obviously really hypocritical because, well, I mean, it wouldn't even exist in the world. But I have to say, look, I'm willing to be ostracized through putting forward a practical moral argument.
[53:18] And other people, I hope that that would lead some people, but I guess people are just addicted to their groups and their societies. But it would have been a beautiful thing if people had done that, because it would have prevented this kind of escalation. And the other thing, of course, is it would have been beautiful if the libertarians had really got on board with peaceful parenting, because then right about now we'd have a whole bunch of young adults who'd been peacefully parented out there in the world as proof of the theory, rather than just the relatively smaller number of people, because libertarians did not want to enact in that way, they did not want to enact.
[53:57] Non-aggression principle. So again, sorry. I, you know, I think I did a good job. I think I put it forward as positively and as rationally and peacefully as possible.
[54:06] And if people don't want to listen, again, I don't want to sound like overly fussy about my own conscience, but it is the thing that is the most important to me. And again, if you guys think, and you know, James has been around for donkey's years and all that. And if you guys think I could have done a better job. Honestly, I'd be more than thrilled to hear because maybe I could improve what I'm doing going forward. But I would be very thrilled and excited to find if there's a better way to get this case or this argument across. But I think that's why the libertarians and the atheists hate me because I bug them about morals. I think the Christians hate me because of the IQ stuff from time to time and the libertarians hate me because i've actually talked about uh actionable values uh in the world and uh it's it's equal opportunity just like i suppose if that makes any sense yeah
[55:06] And well i mean i think the other thing about liver is i mean people do like to play victim you know and if as soon as you tell them like, Oh well this is what you can do, right like They'll get upset. I mean, you know, just in practical sort of life terms, right?
[55:21] Oh, there's this unsolvable. Oh, no, you can just do this. And they'll like just get upset that you like offered them a solution, you know, because they really actually prefer complaining about the problem rather than actually doing anything about it.
[55:34] Yes, it is a lot easier to promote virtue when there's no particular risk of you harming the interests of evil people and then suffering blowback. And, uh, and again, that's fine. If, if people don't want to do that, then don't, then just understand that your values aren't that important to you.
[55:55] And, and again, I, I have no particular issue with that.
[55:58] That's fine. I'm not, everyone has to, uh, do the kind of things that I'm doing or Charlie was doing or whatever, but yeah, just recognize that it's not, uh, it's not something that you're particularly interested in, uh, in, in actually bringing to life and doing. Yeah well james if you're around were there any other topics thoughts ideas anybody else i am
[56:21] Around uh the there's something been banging around in my head and you've touched on a couple of times um which is, you know, libertarians you know the libertarians we spoke to i mean some of them like a handful of them went on with the peaceful parenting stuff but you know the against me you know would you be willing to use i know the against the argument is about political violence but you know so many people suffered violence at the hands of their parents or done violence or you know maybe not direct violence but neglect and you know the timeout stuff and everything else just this authority domination thing and I mean I don't know if it's it's like correct me if on the sort of you can't you correct me on this sort of like the timing of the thing you, you know, you, did you talk, uh, state comes from the family First or You know did you put that out first or did you put like the against me argument out thing first
[57:23] Uh i think it was state comes from the family first and spanking i remember having a debate with walter block about spanking and yeah there was all that kind of stuff uh but yeah the against me argument was very very early i think it was 2008 that i put because i put it out before i put it out in public speeches i put it out in podcast form so yeah 2008 so yeah 18 years ago yeah
[57:47] Right around the same time i guess yeah yeah yeah and it's just not even like a criticism criticism at all i mean hard to imagine criticizing on that because they're so they're so closely linked you know um
[57:58] But do you think that there was a way that i could have done it better to get it out in a way that people would be more likely to accept
[58:05] i don't know i don't know i Mean like if you had never mentioned the family stuff, but I'm not sure.
[58:13] Well, no, that to me would have been, I think that to me would have been pretty, pretty, I'm not saying you're suggesting that, but that to me would have been pretty terrible to have the, and this also just comes out of just, not a lot of libertarians have really practical free market business experience. And business experience is, you know, focus on the biggest change that you can actually affect. If you're having trouble selling in your town, don't sit there and say, well, I'm going to create a giant a giant plan to sell in China. You know, you've got to work on things that you can actually change in effect. And that just practicality comes, I think comes out of my business experience.
[58:51] Yeah, yeah. And it's not so much that you've suffered violence is when you like defended or especially when you've committed violence that it becomes incredibly difficult to apologize.
[59:03] Right. And I think, you know, there was that moment when libertarians, because I was still getting invited after making the against me argument. And I think I made it at a few major conferences, one in New Hampshire in 2009, and then another one at Libertopia in California in 2011, when I was introduced by, I think, the late Dick Gregory.
[59:22] But it wasn't like every single time I'm grabbing people by the lapel and saying that this is the only thing. But I think, you know, I put the arguments out there and people, yeah, they didn't like it. People don't like it when you say, oh, you can actually do something, but it's going to make people angry. Most people don't get too mad at libertarians talking about the Fed. Now, if for whatever reason libertarians were about to end the Fed, well, then, you know, the hatred and the attacks would sort of come out.
[59:54] But, yeah, it is, people, they don't really like it when you tell them, oh, you can actually do something, but it's going to be difficult.
[1:00:01] Yeah, well, and I mean, the against me argument in terms of, you know, those relationships that like just focusing on the state stuff, even if you, even if they were to not like worry about the parenting thing, like that's like the five pound weight relative to the parenting stuff, right?
[1:00:16] Oh, you mean like the against me argument with regards to friends and family as opposed to like the peaceful parenting stuff?
[1:00:23] Yeah, like how difficult it is to sort of confront somebody and say, I mean, in both situations, you can have conversations and you try to fix a relationship, but you know, if it's not going to work out, it's not going to work out, right?
[1:00:34] Yeah, because I can't remember the exact year, but it was really early on where I put out the case against spanking, like the spanking violate the non-aggression principle. I've been through a whole recent argument about that. And again, people, they don't really disprove it.
[1:00:51] They don't say, well, it's illogical or wrong. And it was the same thing with Dr. John last night regarding UPB. He could not disprove it.
[1:01:04] And that is really tough. If you can't disprove it and it's essential, what are your options? Like, what can you really do? But all you can do is ignore it. and then have irritation when the subject comes up. And pretend that there's just something kind of bad or negative about it. And of course, I guess that was what Dr. John was doing last night as well. It was just like, what you're doing is unspecified bad. I'm like, okay, I think you've got to specify. No, I'm just going to chuckle and tell you that you're wrong no matter what. It's like, and yeah, I mean, that's, and, and, you know, that's, that's the challenge. And, you know, obviously, I'll be honest with everyone here. I don't want to say to be honest because, you know, this sort of indicates that I'm not. And, you know, so it'd be... But, yeah, I mean, there's definitely times where I'm like, well, did I just really screw up? Like, did I just really mess up? Should I have, you know, stayed in the political arena? Should I stayed in the economic stuff? Should I have, you know, avoided the call-in shows and avoided the sort of personal topics? But the Colin stuff, I mean, it's funny because this topic also came up last night. But the Colin stuff kind of came out of left field for me. I mean, if you remember, James, sort of back in the day, there was this Skype. That's kind of the equivalent of the spaces things that's going on here.
[1:02:31] Skypecast.
[1:02:32] I'm sorry?
[1:02:33] Skypecast.
[1:02:34] What was it called again?
[1:02:36] Skypecast.
[1:02:36] Oh, Skypecast. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, there was Skypecast. Yeah. And that allowed people to have the kind of conversations that we're having now. It's very early days. And do you remember? I wasn't like, okay, here we're going to talk about personal issues. That was never on the agenda. But from the very beginning, people were like, I'm having this going on. I'm having that going on personally. And the call-in shows really came out of that. I mean, I was looking forward to doing abstract philosophy. But because I had touched on a childhood and I had touched on a wide variety of things it really did become... That was it. I mean, that was it. And of course, as far as I understood it,
[1:03:22] There was nobody else in libertarianism that was doing that stuff as a whole. And what else? I mean, I knew I could do it. I knew I could do it. And knowing that I could do it, was I supposed to say no? Was I supposed to say, no, you can't, or anything like that. You can't talk about this stuff, even though I know I couldn't do it and do a good job and so on. That just didn't seem right at all.
[1:03:55] I'm just looking at the call-in... I should probably go through to see that all the shows are tagged, because the first one is tagged there is call-in show number three. But if I go to call-in show number five, 227, year 2006, in May, the third timestamp there says the argument for morality and DeFOO and then right the 24 show 246 which is just a few weeks later um talking about freedom with family you know philosophical parenting cult families communities and i don't know like obviously i can't see like what people are talking about here because you know we're on the chat right now but um yeah i mean and that was before i showed up i showed up in like 2007
[1:04:31] right right so i mean that was that was early stuff and um was there was there a sort of one-on-one call-in show before of that stuff sorry i don't have that stuff sort of up in handy but was there a one-on-one call-in show
[1:04:44] Um i don't see that there was uh i'm not sure what these call-in shows are like because i haven't spent ages since i've heard them right so
[1:04:53] Right right
[1:04:54] um looks like multiple callers but yeah i don't know if there's a one-on-one call-in show i'm sure it's in the in the early shows you know
[1:05:01] Yeah yeah yeah very interesting so yeah so um that was uh was how it sort of played out was that the moment i opened up any kind of personal topic um it all just
[1:05:16] Came came flooding in sort of the call-in show stuff and it was it was never a plan of mine it was never like ah well i'm gonna get all this family and history and all of that stuff and that still is you know i mean i just did a call-in show the other night uh yeah somebody had sort of issues with the family and wanted to work on a dream and you know all that kind of stuff and it's wild.
[1:05:41] There's another call-inshow with notes here from October 2006. Romantic love, wooing potential partners in hot anarchistic breeding.
[1:05:50] Hmm. Interesting.
[1:05:52] Yeah.
[1:05:53] So yeah, it was, people started in the personal topics that they wanted to discuss and talk about and their families and parents.
[1:06:00] And that was 2006, right? Yeah. And what was the, sorry, the DeFOO one, what month was that in 2006.
[1:06:08] It was the argument for morality and DeFOO just under an hour in. It's from May 2006. The number is 226.
[1:06:16] Right. So October 05 to May. So yeah, that's seven or eight months in. And I assume that those topics came up because they had been discussed in some other maybe on a forum or maybe I had talked about it in a show as a whole. But I remember doing teenagers in the state or the family in the state. I I remember doing a three-part series. I don't actually remember recording some of it at an old gym I was at. Many, many years ago. And I remember that one being, uh, Oh, the, uh, can you just do the family in the state or family state? Just do a quick search for that. Cause I remember, I think it was a three part or four part series that I did. And I think it was an O six. I just talking about how the state grows out of, uh, the, the beliefs in the power of the family, the subjugation of the individual to the family structure through coercion and control.
[1:07:07] Let me see. I can get a The State and the Family, Part One Babies, Toddlers, and Latency.
[1:07:16] Yeah, yeah.
[1:07:17] Those are 89, 90, 91, February 2006.
[1:07:21] It's just a couple of months in, right?
[1:07:23] Yeah.
[1:07:24] Like literally, and when's the first podcast? Because the first podcast was my reading, and I remember, I think the first podcast I did on the road was about speculators versus investors.
[1:07:36] Yeah, the very first podcast, I think, I'm just going to look at it, November 20, 2005. And that was your Stateless Society and Examination of Alternatives. That would have been your reading of your article, I imagine.
[1:07:46] And number two? What was the number two? Another article from Lew Rockwell? I think it might have been.
[1:07:51] I believe so. Caging the Devils.
[1:07:54] Yeah, next one.
[1:07:54] Fighting violent crime. These cages are only for beasts.
[1:07:57] Next one.
[1:07:58] Loving the state, Leviathan, and Optimism.
[1:08:01] Next one.
[1:08:02] Using the state for self-defense.
[1:08:04] Next one.
[1:08:06] Morality is not easy. Surviving the cynics.
[1:08:08] Next one. Gosh, unless it's vanished into the ether. I remember doing one on speculators versus investors. Anyway, it doesn't hugely matter.
[1:08:17] That's number nine.
[1:08:18] Number nine, okay. So that was my first car cast, I think. So the first one that I did, and what was the date on that one?
[1:08:24] That was December 11, 2005.
[1:08:26] Okay, so from December through to February, it's just a couple of months, and I was already hitting the state and the family at the very beginning, right?
[1:08:33] Mm-hmm.
[1:08:34] Right, right, okay. All right. Right. Yeah. Okay. So that's back when I could only afford 40K bandwidth. I was pushing it to the maximum I could possibly afford back in those days because bandwidth was crazy expensive.
[1:08:49] Right. Right.
[1:08:50] And we were trying to have babies and all that. So yeah. So I remember that 32K was just a little too rough. 64K was too expensive, but 40. I remember that. And I tried VBR, but back then the players would cut them off early, so I had to go to CPR and all of that. Yeah, so, I mean, obviously I was hitting that stuff pretty early.
[1:09:12] Five-part series starting in February 2006.
[1:09:16] I'm sorry, what was that?
[1:09:17] A five-part series starting in February 2006, but my parents were really nice.
[1:09:22] Yes. Yeah, so I guess I kind of came in hot.
[1:09:28] We already talked about State and Family, but in the four parts, yeah.
[1:09:32] Okay, interesting. All right. So i mean so so early on yes
[1:09:37] So i guess i come coming back to my question of like when did you start talking about what i mean basically pretty much right away you're talking about the family stuff you know and then the against me argument is hey here's something you could do that's like not easy but it's doable and and and less emotionally taxing and volatile than talking to your parents
[1:09:59] right right right
[1:10:02] so yeah... So yeah like i think like you said earlier uh just people don't want to do that
[1:10:09] right
[1:10:10] whatever reason
[1:10:11] well and then the funny thing is that um you know it's like well we got to keep families together and it's like yes until covid and and of course well it wasn't that sorry it was we have to keep families together but then they took a real axe to the family in 2015, saying that if any family member supports Trump, you have to ditch them. There was that.
[1:10:36] Oh, the lefties, yeah.
[1:10:37] The lefties were doing all of that. And then, of course, the coup de grace was 2019 with the election. And then the final coup de grace, the coup de coup de grace was COVID, right? That if they don't submit to COVID, if they don't get the vaccine, all of that sort of stuff, it was not allowed. You need to get rid of family members. And so, yeah, I guess, you know, it's like most of the left as a whole, they just don't want you to have the same, they just don't want you to have the same power and possibilities that they have, right? I understand. All right.
[1:11:20] Anything else anybody have any other questions or comments or issues or challenges
[1:11:24] Dylan has his hand raised I don't know if he's waiting to get called.
[1:11:28] On yeah Dylan you can just talk
[1:11:30] Sorry for jumping in and out I've learned that X spaces doesn't work well with Bluetooth in a truck but I'm good now okay I was just curious so let's see what she had to say I don't put my energy into arguing with these type of people, but I've noticed it does bother me. So I've noticed a lot of people, for example, on Facebook, people I went to school with that I still have. And I never watched Charlie much, but I knew who he was. You can easily see he was never like a far-right radical or whatever they would want to call him, but it just amazes me,
[1:12:12] And I want to know why so many people can easily go and find a video of him saying the most Christian or positive things and still reject all of that and will find any clip they can of him, of something that makes it sound like he's saying something radical or hateful or racist. I don't know. It kind of bothers me. I don't understand why people can't just get the whole story.
[1:12:47] You mean why they do all of that stuff?
[1:12:50] Yeah. It almost seems like they jump through hoops to get lies instead of just the truth.
[1:12:57] Right, right. Well, what do you think? Why do you think that is?
[1:13:02] The way I've tried to think about it is it just seems like people would rather reinforce their lies for their political violent gain, whatever it may be instead of accept the truth and maybe realize that they were pretty terrible
[1:13:22] yeah, I mean I think this is true it's sort of an old meme that most people don't try and figure out what's true they just try and figure out what's accepted you know like the the the low t uh response you know is it safe for me to have these these beliefs and of course the whole thing with charlie is like okay it's not safe to have these beliefs like you can literally get killed for having these beliefs and so yeah they're just is it safe is it is it acceptable will people get mad at me will they yell at me will they ostracize me and, you know
[1:13:54] we can understand from a um From a sort of evolutionary standpoint, yeah, that's kind of important for people. Because if you're ostracized and nobody will mate with you, those genes die out. So I think that the purpose of the left is to create this consensus and to program people to avoid the truth by saying, these truths are unacceptable. You are not allowed to have these. And that's what the terms like racist, sexist, misogynist, Islamophobe, transphobe, and all that is just there to say, we will F you up if you have these beliefs. You're going to be ostracized. Your genes won't reproduce. And it provokes and promotes sort of a weakness in people's minds and hearts about this kind of stuff. And I think that's what they're up to. What do you guys think?
[1:14:43] Yeah. Yeah. I can. Yeah. That makes a lot of sense.
[1:14:47] Yeah. Like even the phobe thing, right? To say, because, you know, let's say that you say, well you're islamophobic or transphobic or something like that so that puts you in the position of you're afraid because a phobia is an irrational fear so it's putting you already in a weakened position even in your mind because they're saying you're homophobic you're frightened of gay people or something like that and that is uh that is that that weakens people in their minds just to be labeled as X or Y or Z phobic. And all of that is very, very sort of cunning. But it wouldn't really work, of course, if people were trained in reason. That was sort of, you know, one of my sort of mildly more popular tweets of the last couple of days, because it's kind of random. Like, I never really know what's going to go viral and what doesn't. But it is one of these more, slightly mildly more popular was like, because the other lie that the left is putting out at the moment is that, that, oh, Charlie Kirk was a professional debater, debating unprepared college kids, right? You've seen that, unprepared college kids, right? And he was a professional debater, and he's ambushing unprepared college kids.
[1:16:00] And, you know, if I thought I was just some amazing chess player, and there was some guy who'd never gone to chess camp or chess school or whatever, and I lined up to play him, I'm not being ambushed. I'm not being ambushed at all. That's not what's happening. That's not a thing. What's happening is I'm confident that I can win and I go up and I find out I can't win or I lose.
[1:16:26] And that's important. And so even if it's true that these kids are, and I pointed this out, like the government's had 12 years to train them on how to think and debate. How on earth can they be in college and be unprepared? unless government schools are just completely terrible, which, of course, they are, not even schools. But think that other lie, you know, they're just kids, man. They're just kids. It's like, they're all 20, 21, 22, and even some faculty came up and debated. And so he's not ambushing children. He sounds like a terrorist or something, not ambushing children. He's, you know, these tours were announced months in advance. People lined up for a long time. They had a long chance to think about it. They could have done all the research. Here's the thing too. Like this is, if you want to debate Charlie Kirk. I mean, if I was debating Charlie Kirk, I would spend like a week solid just reading because he's written like five books, read everything, look up all of it. I'd ask AI to run through the debate with me because that's something you can do now that you couldn't do in the past. And in fact, the Dr. John from last night should have done that too.
[1:17:31] But I would have, I would do all of that prep. And so if you know for months ahead of time that Charlie Kirk is coming, you can do your prep, you can do your research, and you can do all of this stuff. And so the idea that he's ambushing, you know, unprepared college kids, I mean, he's pointing out as just the old thing from Socrates that you don't know what you think you know. And the fact that they don't know what they think they know is sort of part of their education. And of course, they say, well, he's being ambushed and controlled by an older person with more experience. It's like, but how's that different from just a professor talking to them. The professor's, hey, I took your class, man. But apparently, the professor is just ambushing children, even though they voluntarily took his class. I mean, that's just, again, these lies. I have such trouble getting into the mindset of people who just lie fluidly and effortlessly. Like, they don't have any anchoring. They don't sit there and say, well, is this really true? Like the Jimmy Kimmel thing, where he's just like, yeah, it was a MAGA guy. And it's like, they just lie. They don't care about the truth. They don't do any research. They're just, whatever they can say to win in the moment, that mindset is like an alien life form to me. I mean, I can be a little bit hybrid careful. Sorry, go ahead.
[1:18:44] Oh, no, you touched on it. The, like, I guess compulsive liar, it's just hard for me to, yeah, really get in their mindset. It's really crazy to me.
[1:18:56] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel, you know, not that I sort of lie, but, you know, I want to get things right. I want to make sure that I'm accurate and all this kind of stuff. And the fact that people can just straight up make things up is just amazing to me. Just absolutely make things up. They don't care. It doesn't matter to them at all. And they just... Lie.
[1:19:24] They don't miss a beat. They just keep going and going and going. I mean, I would interact with a number of compulsive liars. It's just like they don't care. It doesn't phase them. They just move on to the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. It's a really bizarre thing to witness.
[1:19:43] I don't mean to be negative towards women, but I do view that as a little bit either low T or a bit more female coded. Uh, and, and that, look, I, I have this view because I don't date men, right? So I've, I've, I've dated once or twice. I've gone on dates with women and they just don't tell the truth. And I'm just like, Whoa, like, like no problem. No, it just make up whatever they want in the moment. I mean, I remember I saw a family member once, there was a woman over and I wasn't dating her, but she wanted to date me.
[1:20:12] And this is the woman who kind of dangled, Oh, I'll get your book published, but you have to go out with me. Like, basically, if you sleep with me, I'll publish your book, which was, you know, tempting for no time at all, because that was just too gross. But I remember this family member was super nice to this person. And then the moment that person left, they're like, oh, my God, what a wretched human. Like, just straight up, you know, it would be great to get together. Thank you so much for coming out. You know, I hope you stay in touch and super friendly. And then turn around like, oh, my God, that person is like, how can you do that? How can you be super friendly to someone right to their face? And then the moment the door closes, just like, ah, that's the worst person. You know, that's wild to me. I mean, I understand being polite and being diplomatic and all that kind of, I get that. That makes sense. But holy crap. That is, that's creepy stuff to me. All right. Any other thoughts, questions, issues, challenges, whatever is on your mind? And again, thank you so much for supporting the show. i don't mean to over praise but i would do appreciate it uh
[1:21:17] Just a just a note um i've been looking at the podcast archive and uh i found you know this is this is my fault for not double checking a bunch of call-in shows that weren't tagged so the call-in show feed they're much older and there's also we we also called them listener conversations in the early days so i'm finding i'm finding a bunch more call-in shows um and so looks like the earliest one might be 244 it says a pro war article in listener conversation so i'm not sure if that's very personal but
[1:21:48] Interesting no listenerconversation probably is yeah
[1:21:51] Yeah yeah yeah so and let's see what what is what is 244 let's see um would be may 2006 but there's also another one that says call-in show it's actually numbered 192.5 it's like the only one um and that's from april to april 2006.
[1:22:11] Wow yeah that was early stuff right yeah early stuff now the listener conversations i think they probably listener conversations would be probably more referencing personal topics because otherwise i would put the philosophical or political or economic topic up front yeah
[1:22:27] And most of them say call-in show call-in show but I was like, I was looking through and it's like, hey, I had a call, I had a call in, uh, with you, uh, in August, 2007. I didn't see it. And it's like, I looked at the title. It's like, oh, listener conversation. Well, there you go.
[1:22:39] And it's interesting because I still remember, you know, that this is sort of way back in the day. Ned Esferatu. You remember Nathan, uh, and, um, Ducky Feats and, um, Rodzilla. Do you remember Rodzilla?
[1:22:55] I do remember Rodzilla.
[1:22:56] Yeah. Great guy. and yeah just this sort of the early days uh people it was uh it was really neat and it was really uh real and it's amazing you know that the left is fantastic at smashing up communities right and just making it untenable to continue that's what they did with the sort of the trump defender coalition in uh after trump got got elected and uh yeah they're really good at that because i think when the sort of cult stuff came in i think people were like whoa it's getting a little a little spicy in here. It's getting a little hot in here. That is tough for people for sure. Very good at that kind of stuff.
[1:23:36] Just a quick question, speaking of communities, have you heard about the surge in people going to church since the Charlie Church thing?
[1:23:46] I've heard of that, yeah. I have.
[1:23:47] I mean, I've been considering it myself.
[1:23:50] You should go. You should go.
[1:23:52] Yeah, I think so.
[1:23:54] You should go. In my humble opinion. I mean, no harm, right?
[1:23:59] Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
[1:24:01] I will bring up, Stef, in that we talked about Bitcoin a week ago. An interesting article I read was about Vietnam, I believe, locked over 86 million bank accounts for people not complying to the biometrics, so the fingerprints and face scanners. I just thought that was interesting if you ever want to look that article up.
[1:24:26] Sorry, that's Vietnam. If they don't do the fingerprints, they just toast your account?
[1:24:30] Yes, 86 million accounts have been locked and, yeah, toasted.
[1:24:36] Oh, so you can only unlock them by complying with that stuff, right?
[1:24:41] Yeah. From what the article is saying, a lot of people in Vietnam didn't comply, so they had their account locked and, yeah, shut down.
[1:24:50] Wow. Yeah, I mean, I talked about this a couple of months ago, But that's sort of the big fear that AI plus cameras plus monitoring and all of that, like the labor cost of controlling human beings has gone down enormously. And it's pretty bad. All right. All right. Any other questions, comments, issues, challenges? Appreciate it.
[1:25:12] It's a great, great chat tonight. Going once, going twice.
[1:25:16] Oh, uh, how, when do you, how often do you plan on doing the subscriber only if, uh, you do have a certain layout?
[1:25:24] Yeah, I, I don't know. I mean, um, I'll sort of feel around for, I wanted to do things. It was like the first day today, but I'll sort of feel around and see what is the best time for people. And people can listen to this and I think understand that it's a different kind of conversation that we have in the sort of public sphere. So I don't know exactly when the best time is. I've got, of course, Wednesday nights, Friday nights, and I have a bunch of call-in shows that are sort of scheduled. But yeah, so Wednesday nights, Friday nights, and Sunday mornings, maybe it would be better sort of 5 p.m. Sunday or something. I'll put out a bunch of possible options, and hopefully we'll see what grabs people. And, of course, I can do more than one.
[1:26:10] Cool. Thank you, Stef. All right. Sorry, go ahead.
[1:26:14] No, that's just the last note of the night. Over one-fifth of all the podcasts we have are call-in shows, listener conversations.
[1:26:23] Is that right? Wow. And that's assuming they're all tagged, right?
[1:26:26] Yeah, I just tagged a good couple hundred more.
[1:26:29] Wow that is wild
[1:26:31] And that's not counting like you know unreleased stuff uh uh you know private calls and all that right yeah the premium calls the private calls you're doing now yeah
[1:26:40] You know yeah yeah yeah that's wild and yeah that's cool and of course i know that when mike was working here sometimes we'd book three or four in a show so they wouldn't even be uh single ones for like two hours i could be longer ones but yeah oh
[1:26:57] Yeah no you're totally right all right i mean in the early days people jump in jump out and like conversations like this you know people jump in jumping out and then like you said you know three or four yeah yeah so it's not like
[1:27:06] because remember For the Wednesday night and Friday night shows, Mike used to book like three or four people to come in with questions. And of course, most of them were personal topics. So those would be call-in shows. Yeah, those would be call-in shows, but of course with multiple callers. That's very interesting. All right. Well, I appreciate that. And it's interesting. It would be interesting to categorize things and say what's the most common to the least common.
[1:27:31] Okay, I won't worry about that. And that's just sort of personal curiosity.
[1:27:33] I'm going to let the AI do it. in a year or two, AI will just scan through everybody's library. Well, he did this story, he told the story this way in 2007, but then in 2014 he told the story and it had changed. It's like, because, you know, it's creative license or bad memory or whatever, right? But, okay, well, thanks, everyone. I appreciate it, and thank you so much for subscribing, and I'll keep adding value, and please, please, please, don't forget to check out all of the great goodies that you get for subscribing, particularly the AIs. They're really cool, and we did put a lot of work in, too.
[1:28:04] Getting those things up and running. So I hope that you'll check them out and thanks again. And we'll talk soon and I appreciate it and enjoy your time on X.
[1:28:12] Thank you, Stef. Have a great rest of your evening.
[1:28:15] Thanks, man. You too.
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