Philosopher Stefan Molyneux expresses his admiration for the late James Dewey Watson, a titan of science who significantly advanced our understanding of DNA. Molyneux opens with a light-hearted anecdote about Watson's prowess in ping pong, followed by the poignant news of Watson's recent passing at the age of 97. As he reflects on Watson's remarkable achievements, Molyneux paints a vivid picture of a man driven by curiosity and a commitment to empirical reality, whose insights paved the way for molecular biology and genetics.
Stefan elaborates on Watson's early life, detailing how a prodigious child, he entered the University of Chicago at just 15 years old, eventually earning both a bachelor’s and PhD. This remarkable educational background set the stage for the groundbreaking collaboration with Francis Crick in 1953, where they uncovered the double helix structure of DNA—a discovery that revolutionized biology and led to their shared Nobel Prize in 1962. Molyneux highlights the elegance of this structure—the twisted ladder of base pairs that explains genetic information storage and replication, referencing the crucial contributions of Rosalind Franklin’s X-ray diffraction data.
Stefan explains Watson's subsequent career blossomed at Harvard, where he modernized the biology department and emphasized innovative approaches to genetics and virology. He continues tracing Watson's path as he later guides the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory through transformative advancements in molecular biology, all while stressing the importance of Watson's ability to manage both scientific endeavors and the often brutal politics of academia. Molyneux acknowledges Watson's essential role in the Human Genome Project, advocating for open scientific progress and pushing towards the ambitious goal of sequencing the entire human genome, which was achieved in 2003.
Amid this celebration of Watson's life, Molyneux delves into the darker sides of his legacy. He discusses the controversy surrounding Watson’s remarks on race and intelligence made in a 2007 interview. Stefan presents a nuanced analysis of the ensuing backlash, asserting that while Watson's views aligned with some empirical research, the liberal scientific community exhibited a profound unwillingness to tolerate dissenting perspectives. Molyneux cites Watson's tragic downfall, whereby his freedom of speech was severely curtailed, leading to his eventual ostracization from the very institution he bolstered.
Stefan skillfully ties gratitude into his tribute, lamenting the lack of appreciation shown by society towards Watson, despite the multitude of lives saved through medical advancements resulting from his discoveries. He warns against a culture that fosters a lack of gratitude, equating it with malevolence. Drawing parallels to broader societal issues, he underscores the importance of fostering a culture of appreciation and gratitude for scientific contributions that have significantly impacted human health and progress.
As the lecture unfolds, Molyneux engages with themes of morality, societal progress, and the importance of evidence-based discussions. He invites callers to share their insights, discussing various topics ranging from parenting to philosophical disputes regarding force and aggression in society. In a striking conclusion, Stefan reiterates the crucial role individuals like Watson play in pushing the boundaries of human achievement and knowledge, asserting that true appreciation lies in embracing uncomfortable truths and fostering open dialogue.
Ultimately, Molyneux leaves his audience with a resonant message: the pursuit of truth, the importance of gratitude, and the celebration of individuals who illuminate the path of scientific discovery. In his final remarks, he honors Watson's legacy, encapsulating it as an enduring beacon of inspiration for future generations in the quest for understanding the code of life itself.
0:03 - Introduction to James Watson
19:49 - The Importance of Gratitude
37:26 - Consequences and Human Development
52:29 - The Nature of Criticism
56:24 - Understanding Hatred and Conflict
58:59 - Consequences of a Consequence-Free Lifestyle
1:01:41 - The Burden of Moral Facts
1:03:04 - The Challenge of Authentic Storytelling
1:06:17 - The Dangers of a Germ-Free Environment
1:08:51 - The Nature of Good and Evil
1:14:41 - The Shape of Human Nature
1:26:25 - The Risks of Social Progress
1:28:53 - The Moral Imperative of Change
1:32:01 - Dreams of Lions and Personal Growth
1:40:59 - Family Dynamics and Masculinity
1:49:03 - Understanding the Dream's Symbolism
[0:00] Okay, okay. Good morning, good morning, everybody. Hope you're doing well. This is for donors only, and happy to take your questions and comments. But right now, we're going to talk about James Dewey Watson. You know you're going to be a scholar when you're named after the Dewey Decimal System. You just know it.
[0:21] So I read, oh, The Double Helix, I think, Crick and James Watson. Crick and Watson? I can't remember James. Anyway, so I read this when I was younger. I read as a teenager. I found it very exciting and thrilling and cool. Oddly enough, one of the things that I remember most is how good James Watson was at ping pong. It's in the book. It's in the book, believe it or not. So today, oh, I guess it was yesterday or the day before that he died, November 6th. Sorry, he died on November 6th. So a couple of days ago, he died on the Thursday, this be the Sunday.
[1:01] So James Dewey Watson, undoubtedly, without question, an absolute titan of science. A rabidly curious, quite civilized, an old-school British scholar, for sure. And he unlocked the actual very secrets of life itself. So he was born a shocking amount of years ago, April the 6th, 1928, in Chicago, Illinois. And he passed at the age of 97 in East Northport, New York. So he lived a life of bold inquiry, groundbreaking discovery, and he did not break his commitment to empirical reality. He also was generally a liberal. And this is probably why it was hard for liberals to forgive him. They can forgive everything. Actually, no, they can't really forgive anything. But one of the things that they forgive least is betrayal. So he wasn't just a scientist. He was a visionary. He really unpacked the secrets of the universe, not just about biology, but also genetics and humanity's place in the natural world.
[2:11] So his life's work began in the fertile intellectual grounds of the mid-20th century academia. A precocious child, he appeared on the radio show Quiz Kids and entered the University of Chicago at the age of 15. Just when you think you're getting something done with your life. At the age of 15, he entered the University of Chicago, earned his bachelor's degree in zoology in 1947 and a PhD from Indiana University in 1950. Studying under Salvador Luria on bacteriophasias. His postdoctoral years in Copenhagen and Cambridge set the stage for his magnum opus. Francis Crick, there we go. In 1953, alongside Francis Crick at the Cavendish Laboratory, Watson deduced the double helix structure of DNA. It's an elegant twisted ladder that everybody was inflicted in high school, an elegant twisted ladder of base pairs, it explains how genetic information is stored and replicated. Drawing on X-ray diffraction data from Rosalind Franklin and Morris Wilkins, their model published in Nature revolutionized biology. For this, Watson, Crick, and Wilkins shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
[3:34] Watson's career flourished thereafter. He served on Harvard's faculty from 1956 to 1976, first as assistant professor, advancing to associate professor in 1958, to full professor in 1961, where he modernized the biology department by shifting its focus to the molecular era, emphasizing innovative approaches to whole organisms and genetics. And this is kind of cool because it means that he was good at faculty politics, which are notoriously savage. He was good at organization. He was a good manager. Like he didn't just have these sort of horse-blind or autistic skills in science, but was a whole world person, a full rounded person. So during this time from 56 to 76 at Harvard, he contributed to other key insights, including applying X-ray diffraction techniques to determine the helical structures of the tobacco mosaic virus in 1955, building on his DNA work to advance virology. He also played a role in early ideas surrounding the genetic code and messenger RNA, collaborating with Crick and others in the 1960s to elucidate how DNA's instructions are translated into proteins. This, of course, set the stage for...
[4:51] The last couple of years. All right. From 1968, Watson directed Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, serving as its president from 1973 and chancellor from 1994 to 2003, again showing his very good business, political, and management instincts and abilities. So he transformed it from a modest facility into a world-class research institute focused on molecular biology, cancer, neuroscience, and genomics, fostering breakthroughs in tumor viruses, gene regulation, and neurological diseases. He led the Human Genome Project's early efforts at the NIH from 1988 to 1992, advocating against gene patterning to ensure open scientific progress and overseeing the push towards sequencing the full human genome, which was completed in 2003.
[5:42] So, Bruno's a smidge or two about genetics. Just a smidge or two. Literally unpacked the double helix structure. Throughout his career, he authored influential books that disseminated his knowledge and experience, including the groundbreaking textbook Molecular Biology of the Gene, which became a cornerstone for generations of biologists. His candid memoir, The Double Helix, in 1968, a bestseller that vividly recounted the DNA discovery. Genes girls and gamau reflecting his post-dna years dna the secret of life 2003 exploring genetics broader implications and avoid boring people lessons from a life in science from 2007 offering career advice laced with his characteristic wit so let's just be frank.
[6:29] He was a well-rounded genius. Pretty sure he did not get anyone to ghostwrite his books. Great thinker, great partner, great negotiator, great manager, great leader, great writer. I mean, I'm pretty sure he could levitate. And that's just incredibly admirable to me. I just think that's beautiful. The engineering and medical benefits enabled by Watson's discovery of DNA structure are nothing short of transformative, laying the foundation for the entire modern genomic era. In medicine, it paved the way for recombinant DNA technology, allowing the production of insulin, growth hormones, and vaccines through genetic engineering, saving countless lives from diseases like diabetes and hepatitis. So that's pretty good. Millions and millions of people alive because of what he did. But God forbid he talk about IQ. The lack of gratitude is just astounding.
[7:28] I mean, they're the kind of people that the critics or the people who got hysterical and canceled him, they're the kind of people that you give them a kidney to save their life. You're the only match. You're in the family, right? You give them a kidney to save their life, and then they completely cut you off and try and destroy your career because you said something positive about Trump. I can't, I can't, like gratitude is such an important element of life. You know, post-cancer, of course, every day is beautiful. Every day is to be treasured. I wasn't sure I was going to get any of them. So gratitude is just so important. And the lack of gratitude is a foundational characteristic of malevolent people.
[8:16] So the Human Genome Project, inspired by Watson's vision sequence the entire human genome by 2003, enabling personalized medicine where treatments are tailored to individual genetic profiles, such as targeted cancer therapies and other treatments that reduce adverse drug reactions. Gene editing tools like CRISPR, Cas9, built on understanding DNA's architecture, now offer potential cures for genetic disorders, including sickle cell anemia and cystic fibrosis, while advancing regenerative medicine and immunotherapy. In engineering, DNA's blueprint has birthed synthetic biology, where organisms are redesigned for biofuels, biodegradable plastics, and environmental remediation, harnessing bacteria to clean up oil spills or produce sustainable materials. Forensics, agriculture through GMOs increasing crop yields, and even computing DNA-based data storage owe their advancements to this foundational insight demonstrating how Watson's work propelled humanity into an age of biotechnological mastery.
[9:22] Ah. In the twilight of his career, I mean, it's almost 20 years before he died, so not certainly the twilight of his life. 20 years is a long-ass time. Watson encountered a storm of controversy that tested the boundaries of scientific discourse. In 2007, during a book tour for Avoid Boring People, he remarked in an interview with the Sunday Times that he was, quote, inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa because, quote, all our scientific policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all testing says not really. These comments grounded in decades of intelligence research showing persistent IQ gaps between racial groups reflect this interpretation of data suggesting a partial genetic basis for such differences. And intelligence researchers, I won't speak for any of the individuals, certainly none of the ones that I interviewed, but as far as I understand it, intelligence researchers as a whole.
[10:18] Almost all accept that there is some genetic basis for IQ differences. Studies, including those by Rushen and Jensen, have demonstrated a 1.1 standard deviation gap between blacks and white IQ scores in the U.S. Have heritability estimates of 50% or higher across races. Watson's views aligned with evidence from twin studies and genomic analyses, indicating that while race is a fuzzy social construct, population differences and cognitive traits have evolutionary roots, much like variations in height or disease susceptibility. However, in an era dominated by progressive ideologies emphasizing equity over empirical nuance, his statements were branded as racist in igniting widespread outrage. Well, I would say that it didn't ignite anything. People just get mad at what people tell them to get mad at. So lectures Pressures were canceled, and the Cold Springs Laboratory suspended him from administrative duties, forcing his retirement as chancellor at age 79. Under pressure, Watson issued an apology, stating that there was no scientific basis for such a belief, and expressing regret for the hurt caused. A concession that, in hindsight, stances as one regrettable lapse, where it betrayed the very data he had long championed. And of course, this is the other issue, um.
[11:41] Is that it's hard to defend a man who won't defend himself, right? The fallout continued. And of course, he didn't get anything back. And it's tough. You know, it's tough when you're a sensitive guy, as I'm sure he was, because you've got to be sensitive to be a good manager because you've got to understand how people think and feel. He was a sensitive guy, and that's tough. That's tough. The fallout continued. In 2014, feeling like an unperson, he sold his Nobel medal for $4.1 million to fund research, only for it to be returned by the buyer.
[12:11] In a 2019 PBS documentary, American Masters, Decoding Watson, he reaffirmed his stance, noting that, quote, there's a difference on the average between blacks and whites on IQ tests, and attributing it partly to genes, prompting Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory to revoke his honorary titles and sever ties entirely. This exile from the institution he had built marked a sad chapter, but Watson remained unbowed in private life. Following a serious car accident in late 2018 that led to long-term care in a nursing facility, he continued to engage with a close circle of friends, family, and occasional visitors, sharing his unfiltered thoughts on science and society in private conversations and correspondences. Despite declining health, which is to be expected at that advanced age, he advocated for unrestricted scientific freedom, particularly in genetic research, into mental illnesses like schizophrenia, a cause close to his heart as his son Rufus battled the condition, inspiring Watson to reflect on genetics' role in human suffering and push for advancements in brain science through advisory roles, such as the Allen Institute for Brain Science. Watson held firm to his convictions amid criticism, and he expressed concern for history's judgment without wavering, maintaining his intellectual dependence until an infection in 2025 necessitated hospice care.
[13:32] So in the end, James Watson's legacy endures not despite these trials, but because of his unwavering pursuit of truth. He illuminated the code of life, empowered humanity to conquer disease and engineer our future, and reminded us that science thrives on evidence, not ideology.
[13:49] So, critics sought to diminish him. His contributions stand eternal, a double helix of genius and grit. Rest in peace, Dr. Watson, your light guides us still. And I love the fact that there are these amazing, amazing people in the world. I just, I find that it's like if you're really interested in climbing and you think that this is the top you can get to, and then you see a further summit or peak where people can get to, it just inspires you and says, what human beings are capable of should inspire us all. This man was an absolute stone genius in just about every conceivable field and, you know, witty and a great writer and a great communicator, great at public speaking, great at management, great at science. And, you know, I won't say it's a fault of his at all. I won't say it's a fault of his at all. But he grew up in a world where you could talk about these things. He grew up in a world where you could talk about IQ, you could talk about genetics and so on, right? And he stayed in that world, right? He stayed in a world where people talked about facts, data, reason, and evidence. And he didn't, of course, realize that the world had changed, to some degree, didn't realize that the world had changed outside of his purview.
[15:07] And that witch hunting hysterics had taken over the public discourse, and that there was an army of easily provoked NPCs that shake their fist, tortures and pitchforks at anybody who questions their benefits. And of course, unfortunately, there is a huge amount of money. It's really just about money and power in the suppression of the IQ topic. There's just a huge amount of money and power in all of this, because guilt runs the world. and.
[15:45] If differences in ethnic outcomes are based upon IQ that is to some degree genetic, then there's nothing to be guilty about. There's nothing to be guilty about. An unfortunate by-product of human evolution. It's sad. You know, people who were less intelligent, if you look at it as, to some degree, genetics, and IQ does appear to be 80% genetic by late teens, it only goes up from there. I mean, it's just sympathy. You don't look at people who are physically short and say, oh, you've failed in life. And you don't look at the tall people and say, well, you stole the shortness from the short people. And well, that's just weird, mystical nonsense. But because of the government, provoking guilt in people rather than trying to find actual solutions to social problems, provoking guilt in people is amazingly effective. And it's very sad that we just can't have these discussions, but it makes perfect sense that we can't because, of course, that's the way the world works. That's the way that money gets transferred. You know, this is an old thing about religion, that in order to save you, the priesthood has to damn you first. I mean, what do they have to offer? Well, they've got to threaten you with hell and promise you heaven in order to get you to conform and comply.
[17:15] Aggression always expands or increases to match the injustice of the exploitation. The more unjust the exploitation, the more violence attends its infliction. And there really is no greater violence than hell itself, right? That is the greatest violence known to man, is the concept that you will be, tortured forever in hell, that you will live forever in eternal torment, torture, And so the exploitation of religion, to some degree, is we are going to threaten you with truly eternal psychotic torture, the kind of which Mengele or the Japanese army in World War II couldn't even imagine inflicting. We're going to promise you perfect paradise. We're going to threaten you with eternal hell. So give us money, resources, and obedience.
[18:21] And it's the same thing you you can have a career and will bribe you with all of this money and prestige but you have to not talk about certain things and if you do talk about certain things was it larry summers was talking about that perhaps there is some genetic basis for women's preference for non-stem fields and there were women who were like i can't even breathe oh i've got to put my head between, I can't even, and it's like, it's a bit confirming the stereotype, sadly, but yeah, you get, I mean, it was the same thing with me, right, you get, you can be on the platforms, and you can make some money, but if you talk about things we don't like, then.
[19:00] Too bad, you don't get any of these fun things, and learning how to live without social approval is essential to the pursuit of truth. I mean, it's funny because you talk about difficult things in the world because you care about society. You talk about difficult things in the world because you care about society. Because you care about society, society has the capacity to inflict suffering upon you through rejection, right? I mean, the more you want to ask a girl out or a boy out, the more you are upset if they don't want to go out with you, right? We understand. You can't say, well, I really want this girl to go out with me,
[19:46] but I'm indifferent as to whether she actually goes out with me or not. That doesn't make any sense, right?
[19:54] So you want to help and preserve the values in society that are universal, rational, objective, and moral. And so you take on the risk of speaking about things that are upsetting to people. And then because you care about society, you then care about whether society turns on you. And then the good news is, at least the way that I've dealt with it, and again, happy to take questions, questions, please. The way that I've dealt with it is to say that I am working not for the society that is, but for the society that is to come. It's one of the reasons why working on the novel, The Future, was so powerful for me, and hopefully valuable and worthwhile to you. I, I am working, not for the world that is, but for the world that is to come.
[21:04] And the world that is can go take a long walk of a short beer, honestly. I mean, people who are alive because of James Watson, diabetics, and like millions and millions and millions and millions of people around the world are alive because of James Watson. And Francis Crick, and the woman. But, you know, he's the guy who's around. I don't think James, I don't think Francis Crick lived too long. But the millions of people who are alive did not come to his defense. It's a singular lack of gratitude that is just wild. A singular lack of gratitude that is just wild. You're literally alive because of the bro, and you can't come to his defense. It's the same thing, you know, when the sort of modern feminists complain about men, it's like, well, you're largely alive because of the efforts of men. No gratitude.
[22:09] And it's like the people around the world looking at sort of wide Western European culture and saying, gee, we have a lot of technology and we have a lot of free markets and we have a lot of virtues and values because of you guys. But they just can't get gratitude. They can't get themselves to gratitude. And this lack of gratitude is, I mean, it's important. It's really, really important in life. You know, I was, we do this thing in my family. Which is we'll pick a book to read. Look, and it's not very elevated. It's not trash, but it's not super elevated books. And I will read the book, and we will comment on the book as we read it, you know, the good and the bad, the cheesy and the interesting. And so we'll pick some thriller or, you know, something like that. And last night, I stayed up very late. And we were sitting in the living room and I was reading a book and it was like a cliffhanger kind of novel.
[23:16] And we were just laughing so hard about what was going on in the book. And there was a whiny character. So I put on my whiny voice, which is like, well, you guys, I'm sure you hear it from time to time. And it was just so I was like, one more chapter, like one more chapter, one more chapter. And we didn't go to bed until like one in the morning, but it was worth staying up. It was just, it was so much fun. And, you know, those kinds of things are just to have those kinds of, I'm going to say they're moments because a lot of the family life is like that, but to have those kinds of experiences in your life.
[23:55] You know, I look at these two wonderful people that I live with, and I look at my friends, and I look at my life, and I am so grateful. You know, like when I say, thank you, thank you, thank you so much, it's not like just, hey, I'd like to thank you for coming out to the sands to listen to Frank Sinatra. It is a genuine thing. Like, just I'm incredibly grateful for what I am. I'm grateful for my health. I'm grateful for my mind. I'm grateful for you guys for supporting what it is that I do. I'm grateful for the life that I have built, again, with your support. It is, thank you, think clearly, I appreciate the tip. And gratitude is just so foundational to having a happy life. I'm grateful to all of the people who built this technology. I'm literally grateful for all the people who built these microphones. I'm grateful for it all. All right, so, yeah, gratitude is key. But resentment pays, sadly, in the status system. All right. On X conservative, it says conservative, conservative, no, dot, dot, dot. So I'm going to fill out the rest of the word. If you want to unmute, I'm all ears.
[25:03] Hey, Stefan. I'd like your thoughts on a couple things. I'm a little conflicted. I'm very familiar with the non-aggression principle. Love it. But then I've also been introduced to Andrew Wilson's Force Doctrine. And I hope you're familiar with it. And it seems conflicting at first, but as I think through it, it actually might be complimentary. And I'm just curious of your thoughts on it.
[25:28] I don't know Andrew Wilson's specific Force Doctrine, though. I'm sure I'm happy to be schooled on it. I assume it's somewhat in alignment with the just war theory that comes out of Christianity.
[25:40] Well, he does divide it with men and women, but the overall thought is that for us to have civilization and for us to have laws, that requires force.
[25:53] Well, sure. I mean, so is he talking about things like self-defense? And I guess what he would talk about in terms of defensive property, that you're allowed to shoot trespassers, people who invade your home, women are allowed to, you know, stab the throat of men who are trying to rape them, that force is necessary for the protection and preservation of human values.
[26:13] That's, to paraphrase it all, that's essentially it.
[26:17] I'm sorry, how is that different from the non-aggression principle? Because it's not the MVP, it's not the non-violence principle, it's the non-aggression principle. So it means that you are perfectly justified. In fact, I would encourage you, where just and right and legal, to use force in self-defense.
[26:36] Fair enough. But the conflict I have is that it seems that although we want to avoid using force, especially for self-gratifying means, it is absolutely necessary for the development of a civilized society.
[26:54] Well, so I'll tell you my response. I'll try to keep it brief and then obviously push back where you see fit because it's a relatively new topic. So please do. So, what I would argue is that the reason we need force is because of publicly owned properties. So, in the West, in a state of society, the government owns like a truly extraordinary amount of property. I mean, schools run by the government, owned by the government, government buildings, of course, roads, sidewalks, parks, like there's just a massive amount of property that is owned by the government. And in the U.S., it's truly mental. And of course, it's true in Canada as well, the government. It's called Crown Lands, right? I remember working with this when I was working up north. So the government owns an enormous amount of property. Now, in a free society, in a stateless society, all relevant property is owned privately. And because of that.
[27:59] You can use trespassing laws or trespassing self-defense to prevent people from participating in your property, prevent people from using your property. So in a privately owned society, of course, everybody knows that there will be thieves and all that kind of stuff, and rapists and murderers and so on. It'll be rare because it's peacefully parented, but it certainly will happen.
[28:24] So ostracism is very, it is impossible in a statist society. In a society with a government, ostracism is impossible because there is not the same setup in terms of your social reputation and your contract rating, which is how good you are at maintaining your contracts. That's not set up as much, sort of like a social credit score, but privately run and with a minimum of intervention. So if you think of a town where everything is privately owned, everything, roads, sidewalks, electricity, parks, everything is privately owned. And there's a network or system which says if somebody violates the non-aggression principle, they have to submit to arbitration, they have to submit to adjudication, they have to provide some sort of restitution if they're found to be guilty, and they have to be taken out of society for a certain amount of time, whatever it is, right? So then if the person decides not to submit to any kind of punishment, then they are deemed as an untouchable, so to speak, in the credit rating system or in the contract rating system. They're deemed as untouchable, and so nobody does business with them.
[29:48] Because none of the contracts that you have with that person will ever be enforced. So you just don't do business with them. They're an un-person. They can no longer participate in the economic life of the town. I'm just, you know, they can go live in the woods or whatever. Maybe, maybe even a lot of the woods would be privately owned as well. But let's just say they can't be in the town.
[30:06] And so one of the reasons why you need force in your governmental affair, in your state of society is because the government owns so much that people can't be kicked out or pushed out of society. Now, this happens afterwards, right? So, afterwards, let's say somebody's a felon in the current system, it's tough for them to get a job, it's tough for them to rent a place, you know, there's lots of issues or challenges, right? But you can't ostracize someone very well in a government society because the government owns so much property. And so, in a private society, and with regards to Andrew Wilson's force doctrine, yes, you need force to enforce rules in society. But the primary thing that you need is ostracism. Ostracism, as you know, provokes the same emotional response in people as actually being tortured. So ostracism, and it's funny, it's kind of ironic that I was promoting ostracism as a method of social control and compliance for decades before I was, in fact, ostracized in the goal of social control and compliance. So I was proven, in a sense, by my own theory. The fact that people ostracized me proves that the theory works. I'm happy to be a sacrificial lamb on the altar of proving the empirical value of ostracism. I mean, unfortunately, it was ostracism based on falsehoods and manipulation, but that's because I was touching politics.
[31:35] So, yeah, I mean, we need force. We need force to enforce rules. Absolutely. And force is a powerful and problematic thing to have in society. Of course, the moment you give an agency the right to use force, it gets corrupted over time.
[31:51] And relatively quickly. So, if you say, well, we need force to have rules in society because people are so corrupt, then who will enforce the force? Who will enforce, sorry, who will police the police, right? Who watches the watchers, you know? We can't just carve off humanity and say, well, there's this group of people that are immune to corruption when they have a monopoly on the use of force. Well, they're not.
[32:17] They're not. And so anarchism or anarcho-capitalism is just taking that principle and saying, well, people get corrupted by power. So we need to diffuse and minimize power as much as humanly possible. And the only way to minimize power is to make all relationships voluntary so that if you start to abuse your power, people can detach from you. If the government starts abusing its power, people can't detach from it. I mean, there's lots of countries which even have exit taxes, which means if you've accumulated any resources, you can't get out without handing a good chunk of those resources over to the government. So, they're literally keeping you hostage economically. So, but you need to be, all relationships need to be voluntary. So, I mean, I don't agree, I don't disagree with any of the principles that we need to have rules in society, but I would say that the cheapest and most efficient and effective way to minimize potential corruption with the right to use violence is to use ostracism as your primary tool and violence only if ostracism fails, in which case people are trespassing and you can use force to prevent them from being in your environment. Does that make sense?
[33:25] Yeah, and I really don't have any pushback. I'm just, these are thoughts that I'm trying to digest in a cohesive manner. If you don't mind, I have one other thing to talk to you about.
[33:35] Not only do I not mind, you're the only caller so far.
[33:38] Okay.
[33:38] Because, you know, there's not a lot of people who are subscribing on X's yet. So you are perfectly welcome and I encourage you to have more questions. Please, go ahead.
[33:47] Well, thank you. I'm glad I have this opportunity for this. This is a little more rabbit hole-ish, But the Great Barrier, as far as a block from us developing into this class one, two, three civilization.
[34:02] I'm sorry, I don't know what you said there. I don't think I'm having a stroke, but you seem to drift from comprehensible language for me. But sorry, if you can just break it down a bit more.
[34:12] Fair enough. Are you familiar with the Great Barrier as far as human or a species development of intelligence to the point where they get to a point that they end up destroying themselves.
[34:22] The great, what is that word, barriers?
[34:25] Barrier, like a wall.
[34:26] Oh, the great barrier. Is this sort of the Calhoun mouse experiments or something like that?
[34:31] Something, but that's exactly where I was taking it. A great barrier could be a comet comes through space and destroys your planet, so civilization never develops.
[34:40] Okay.
[34:40] Okay. One of the things that worries me about a potential great barrier in front of us is exactly where you took it with the mouse experiment.
[34:47] Okay.
[34:47] We strive so hard to take suffering out of human life that when we did it with mice, they destroyed themselves. Is it necessary for humans to develop to suffer? Is suffering required, I guess, is my question.
[35:05] Well, consequences are certainly required. And it's important to remember, of course, and if you know more, we're currently looking into doing a presentation on the mouse experiment because I think it's kind of misunderstood. So in the mouse experiment, it's socialism. I mean, they're not hunting. There's no predators. Right? So in the mouse experiment, it's a government run or a free resources environment. Right? Is it not the case?
[35:36] That is my understanding. Yes, there is no need whatsoever because it's provided for you.
[35:41] Right. So it is not anything about human nature. Right? It is not. Thank you, John, by the way. I appreciate your tip. It is, it's not, that's not, that's not the nature of mice. That's the nature of mice when they're put in an entirely artificial, non-earned, consequence-free, predation-free, communist or socialist environment. When they're put into a totalitarian environment, then they lose their minds. And, and I remember there were, there were two big books by a guy named Desmond Morris. Okay. I think they came out in the seventies and one of them was called The Human Zoo. Where he basically said that people in cities are like animals in zoos. I remember a sort of vivid example he gave of sexual perversion or degeneracy occurring in cities more than in the country. And there will be monkeys who will copulate with their water bowls in a zoo. And so the argument, the naked ape and the human zoo were the two big books, and they had quite an impact on me as a whole. And so people say, well, the city is an artificial place and it's bad and so on, right? And...
[37:00] What people don't think about, and I don't remember Desmond Morris talking about this in the book, but what people don't think about with regards to the mouse experiment and the fact that people go weird in cities, and they do, is that it's not the cities and it's not, the lack of suffering, it's the socialism, the forced redistribution of resources.
[37:23] What drives people crazy in the city is not the city, it's the welfare state. It's the turning the people out of insane asylums and prisons and having crazy dangerous people roam the streets and it is...
[37:39] It is a big example of how totalitarian stuff is the case, right? So somebody's saying here, Edward Dutton does a good debunk on the mouse experiment, saying the scientist picked only his one experiment out of hundreds that had the most sensational results. Hmm. James is looking into the mouse experiments, and the mice are trapped, cannot escape. This has not been replicated in the wild.
[38:06] Right so if you take mice which are supposed to be out in the wild and you put them in a you trap them in a contained area with no predators and free food that's an entirely artificial environment and for human beings to um to have consequence-free lives and no matter what mistake you make. Oh, if you got injured on the job and you didn't have any insurance, we'll just pay you a bunch of money. Or if you claim to be disabled or claim to be injured on the job. Oh, if you had a child out of wedlock, no problem. We'll just give you a bunch of money. Right? If you like, that is entirely artificial. Human beings, like how did we develop our brains? Well, we developed our brains because the consequence of not developing our brains was death, So to look at the Siberian and Northern European climates that birthed the East Asians and the whites, well, if you didn't plan for winter, you died. If you didn't defer gratification, if you didn't measure out, I mean, one of the reasons why East Asians tend to be great at math is that you need a lot of math to grow rice. You've got to figure out the water, and it takes a huge amount of water and all that. So.
[39:24] If you fail to figure out the winter and fail to figure out the rice and fail to figure out how to be a good farmer and fail, then you just died. So our brains are sharpened on the whetstone of consequences. And if you take away consequences, our brains just get duller and duller. And a free society, there will be a lot of comfort, but there will also be consequences. There will be consequences. And if we try to live a life without consequences, it is like trying to live a life without any muscle resistance. Like if you lived a life, let's say that you were in a, um, some sort of, uh, isolation tank, right? Some sort of sensory deprivation tank, right? Just floating in a void lukewarm water. And you just spent week after week, let's see if bed through a tube in your arm and, and, you know, and so what would happen to your body?
[40:18] Well your muscles would decay uh and your bones would soften and and get and get fragile and and and then you would be unfit right yeah i mean they have to work with people who've been in the space station even though they're doing a lot of resistance training to make they have they can't walk when they get back to earth because they have to re uh relearn how to well they have to um strengthen their bones and and the people who've got you know they're in uh bed rest right They've got bed rest or some injury or illness or something like that. I mean, it's bad. People have to move there. You get bed sores, right? So non-resistance is terrible. It's terrible for our body. It's terrible for our minds.
[41:00] So we want a life of ease, which is fine. But we're not. A life of pure ease is terrible. It's terrible.
[41:14] So the mouse experiment and the idea that if we get civilization, because this is Roman's argument, right, in my novel, the future. His argument is that, yeah, you can have your civilization, but it won't last, right? And he's basing his thing on the fact that you get soft, right? And you've seen that meme, right? Hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men, weak men create hard times. But it's not the fact that there's technology. It's not the fact of any... The problem is that... The state exists to prevent consequences from accruing to people who make bad decisions. Right? If you didn't save enough for your retirement, and this is, it's a male-female thing. It's a male-female thing. And I'm aware of this sort of every time I'm posting, I really am, is that if you say, serves them right, serves them right, serves them right. That is a male perspective. The female perspective is help everyone. And that's because it was a tribe that women evolved in. And so everybody was kind of genetically related and all of that, right? And women have to be able to flip to outgroup preferences in case they're conquered in order to survive, right? The women who remained completely loyal to a conquered tribe got killed.
[42:40] So I'm aware of this. Like part of me, I'm not saying it's a huge part of me, But part of me is like, if some leftist is dying of cancer and they cheered on the cancellation of and the firing of James Watson is like, you cheered on the firing of one of the world's most brilliant cancer researchers. So it's entirely possible that in the 20 years that he was fired, you can say 10 years, 2007 to 2017 or whatever it is, like I said, 10, 15 years, he could have come up with a cure. I mean, he's come up with a cure of a whole bunch of others. He could have come up with a cure. So I hope you enjoyed your moral outrage and your, oh, I'm joining the mob and we're chasing the scientists off the plantation. Okay. Well, then if you're dying of cancer, actions have consequences.
[43:38] Men are very strict on actions have consequences. You know, there's this fucking story. Sorry, there's this fucking story. The grasshopper, the ant drives me nuts. Drives me nuts. Which is, you know, the grasshopper plays all summer and doesn't prepare for the winter. And then the ant is storing up all the food for the winter. And then the grasshopper is starving. And what does the ant do? The ant lets him in. Ah, bleh, bleh. Everybody dies. Everybody dies. Everybody dies. If you have just enough food for you and your family for the winter, and you let a bunch of people in, everybody dies. So, you know, what you do is, as a kind, honorable man, what you do is you say to all your neighbors, hey, you got to prepare for the winter. You know, here's what you need to do. You'll go and have drinks with them, and here's what you need to do and just remember to do this and yeah yeah yeah we'll do it we'll do it right and then maybe you'll check in with them you'll check in them with them a little bit right.
[44:47] And uh if they don't do it though you have to harden your heart, you know listening to people toys this constant default position out of oh blame the rich oh blame the rich oh tax the rich oh blame the rich how can people be wealthy when people are starving it's like because people make different decisions and have different abilities, you know it's like if you have got enough firewood and you've got enough food, for the winter and then there are people three houses over who were starving it's like how can you have all of this food and these people are starving it's because I prepared and they didn't.
[45:21] And if I let them in, we all die. And so it's the consequence-free aspect of things that messes people up, not, you know, oh God, that homestead movie. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, that homestead movie. Oh, let them all in, let them all in. It's like, okay, now we all die. So the men want to keep the people out when the resources are finite, as all resources are finite. And the women just want to let everyone in and be nice. But the only reason women have that feeling of helping everyone is because men kept the enemies at bay. Men kept the foolish and the greedy and the wasting. So women want to feel good by letting people in, and then everybody dies. And so women's empathy and compassion needs to be restrained by male boundaries.
[46:19] Yeah, so the grasshopper and the ants with no death. Yeah, just let them in. And I hate that story. I hate that story. I really do. Oh, they're just looking better. I hate that story. It programs people to like civilizational suicide, which is why charity needs to be limited by voluntary methods. And so, yeah, honestly, listening to people talk about the rich, It's like listening to my mom complain about my dad, right? Because my mom would like, we'd go out for, there was a little restaurant at the old Don Mills Mall called Top of Don Mills or something like that. And it was a pretty bad restaurant, but occasionally we would go there.
[47:05] And I remember my mom had some nice fish. Oh, this fish is good enough for Jehovah. My mom had some nice fish and chips or whatever, and she actually demanded that the chef come out so she could praise him. And I remember the chef being kind of greasy, young and confused. Like, I'm a depressed alcoholic chef. I'm sure he was. Working in a restaurant like that is not exactly Gordon Ramsay. And we would go up there on occasion. Every now and then she'd bring out these lists, this paper. Like, here are all our expenses and blah, blah, blah, blah. Here's what we're going to get your father to pay. And it's like that, right? Ah, here's our list of demands. Are we going to get the rich to pay? And like, it's just fantasy that there's just this infinite money that you can get a hold of, right? Like everyone's like, oh my God, Elon Musk with his trillion dollar payout. People are paying Elon Musk a trillion dollars. That's 12 million nurses, like whatever nonsense they were saying, right? And it's like, they're not paying him a billion dollars. It's retarded to even think so. They're not paying him a trillion dollars.
[48:08] What they're doing is they're saying, hey, we'll grant you all these shares. And if there's massive growth and you become bigger than NVIDIA and the next top five companies combined, yeah, your shares will be worth a trillion dollars. But in order to do that, in order for Elon Musk to get a trillion dollars worth of stock value increase, he has to increase the value of the shares by $10 trillion, which creates between one and five million or more jobs for over a 15-year period. And of course, even if he were to take that trillion dollars and sell it, he owes almost a quarter of a trillion dollars in taxes. Anyway, it's all, nobody's giving Elon Musk a trillion dollars. Anyway, but people just get mad. They just get mad because they're stupid. And I don't blame them, I blame the sophists. So yeah, so with regards to does success breed failure? Nope, but if statism removes consequences from you.
[49:08] Then you end up with a bunch of whiny, dependent people. And it's tough. I get that, right? I mean, I remember this demotivational poster from when I was in the business world. I actually had it as my desktop wallpaper for a while on my good old 486DX50. And it was a ship sinking, and it said it could be that the only purpose of your life is to serve as a warning to others. That's a very male perspective. If you don't let fools suffer, society loses its mind and self-destructs. You have to let fools suffer. You have to let, and you know, people were quite happy with that when I was younger. Hey, if you didn't study for the test, you failed. You'd get held back a year, man. If you do, and that was even when I was a kid, right? Didn't have control over my environment. I was judged the same. It's just the same as people who had university professors and calm and peaceful. University professors? Professors as parents in calm and peaceful studying environments. Taylor says, this is such a good Sunday sermon. I'm so happy and fortunate to be listening. Well, thank you very much. Thank you very much.
[50:21] Hey, there's one more thing. It's a tangent because I'm not here to be contentious. I'm just poking through thoughts.
[50:28] Be contentious.
[50:28] I really got nothing to be contentious about.
[50:30] Go on.
[50:31] I have been following you pretty well for at least a decade, I would say. And as much as there are many out there that appreciate your position as myself and like to hear your thoughts, I have seen others just try to beat you down. What keeps you going, Stefan? Because the kind of things that I've read addressed towards you would destroy many self-esteem. So how do you keep going, brother?
[50:57] Well, I love it. it's like saying i mean i sorry it's not like i i i love what i do and.
[51:08] It's if you're if you're a surgeon, you can't faint at the sight of blood. Like if you faint at the sight of blood, you can't be a surgeon. And if you find sickness, illness, gross and disgusting, you can't be a doctor. If you hate numbers, you can't be an accountant, right? If you are mystical and want to pray for knowledge, you can't be a scientist. And so when you choose the job, you choose the difficulties. And a surgeon should not love the sight of blood then he might just, stab people for the sake of getting them to be bloody but a surgeon recognizes that the sight of blood and of course it's not just blood it's like a bile and and various humors and ichor or whatever i don't know what goes on in the here it's acid if you're cutting into the intestines or the bowels or whatever it is right so there's like there's gross stuff you've got your hands, you know, risk deep in other people's innards. And for a lot of people, that's really gross. I'm not sure I'd be particularly comfortable with it, but that's the deal. If you want to be a surgeon, you have to be comfortable with the sight of blood. If you want to be a lawyer, then you have to be comfortable with people fighting you tooth and nail because they will, right? If you're a prosecutor,
[52:28] the defense is going to fight like crazy. If you're a defense lawyer, then the prosecution is going to attack like crazy. It is a contentious.
[52:37] Job. And if you don't like conflict, don't be a lawyer. And so if you say to a surgeon, you know, there's a lot of really gross blood around what it is, blood and poop and urine and body fluids and, you know, smell, you know, cutting. I mean, one of the things that people don't understand about doctors, or I mean, they do maybe, but I just want to point it out. One of the things that people have a tough time understanding with regards to doctors is just how much people stink, you know, like even a GP, you got to examine someone, they take off their shirt, like, ugh, you know, they haven't washed in a while, people, you know, the stink, right? And it's like, if you say to a surgeon, like, how do you keep going despite the grossness of your profession, it's like, that's the deal. I mean, I knew that going in. And so I, you know, the considered arguments and the pushback and the criticisms, all fantastic. I mean, i genuinely like when when that guy he's still floating around john balfour this professor who i completely schooled on ethics honestly like i mean i hate to use that i owned a destroyed school but you know he said yeah rape theft assault murder can never be university powerful behavior and then he said but so what i'm like what's that for big deal that we just proved that right anyway he's still floating around and still taking these yappy snaps at me right so there's a uh Dostoevsky quote, uh.
[53:57] That I, uh, X account that I follow. And, um, they said, Hey, what's a good, easy book to get into philosophy. And I said, essential philosophy.com it's free. Right. And then he was like, how delusory, what delusions of grandeur do you have to have to suggest your own work as a good introduction to philosophy? And I was like, like, that's just a weird thing to me. I mean, if you're good at something, um.
[54:24] And especially if it's free, if you're good at something, then you should want to share it with the world. I mean, if you're a really good singer and you write really great songs, then go out and push them into the world because it'll bring happiness and so on, right? It'll bring positivity. So I don't, you know, so I did write back to him on X and I said, like, I'm sorry. I mean, I am genuinely, I'm sorry that self-confidence appears as a mental illness to you, John. If you confront whoever broke you, you can build your own self-esteem. Why would self-confidence appear like delusions of gratitude? So that's just kind of like a hatred thing, right?
[55:00] Now, why do people hate what it is that I do? They don't hate me, right? I mean, they don't even know me like in terms of like evaluating me at a personal level. So it's not me that they hate. What is it that they hate? Well, this guy's in direct competition with me, right? So if people learn logic from me, they're less likely to take his class. So that's just sort of a dissing the competition thing. That's just kind of natural. But why do people hate me? It doesn't make any sense. I'm actually quite delightful. I'm a lot of fun to hang around with. I want the best for people and all of that. So why do people hate me? Well, I don't know. I mean, I have some theories or whatever. There's some logical, hatred of the good for being the good is a very common thing and sort of foundational to Ayn Rand's philosophy, or sorry, to objectivism. But I don't think too much about why people hate me, because I try not to ponder the unknowable, right? So this guy, John, why does he dislike me so much, right? I don't know. And I don't really think about it, because he wouldn't tell me.
[56:09] Because he's not an honest and direct person, right? So why do people dislike me? I don't know. And in a fundamental way, I don't care because it's not knowledge that I can get a hold of, right?
[56:25] Like what happened in my father's childhood to have him be the way he was? I don't know. And I'll never know because I would not trust him when he was alive. I would not trust him to be honest about it when he was alive. He actually wrote an autobiography which i read with great interest and there was no particular answer and so i don't oh thank you david for the donation i don't know because i can't i can't get the information i mean he's dead now but even when he was alive i didn't ask him because i didn't think i would get anything factual from him his conscience i think was just so bad that he just couldn't, um, he couldn't tell, he couldn't or wouldn't tell me the truth, right? So why does this guy, John, why is he so bitchy? Why is he so negative? Why is he so hostile?
[57:17] I don't know. I don't know. And why would I think about it? Because I can't get empirical evidence for my, hey, I'm happy to have hypotheses and conjectures and theories if I can validate them or prove them. But if a pathological liar hates you, why?
[57:40] I mean, you could ask the pathological liar, but he's not going to tell you. He's just going to misdirect you. He's going to confuse you. He's going to, like, it's all just going to turn back into an insult against you, right? So this guy, John, he, I'm not calling him a pathological liar, but it shocked me. But I don't know. I mean, some people, I get it, right? So some, if I've told adults, children, you don't have to spend time with relentlessly abusive parents and then they decide to separate from their parents, I mean, that's pretty obvious, right? That's pretty obvious as to why the parents would be upset at me because I have, liberated someone from their abusive control and they're mad because they don't have easy access to free resources and prestige and support and money and all of that. Just don't have that anymore, right?
[58:36] So that I can sort of understand. If I talk about privatizing stuff and then a bunch of like, boy, talk about your consequence-free lifestyle. I mean, we teach children with teachers who can't be fired, right? The government teachers. It's almost impossible to fire teachers, right? There are these rubber rooms that they put teachers into.
[58:55] Or even if they've molested students, they can't even fire them very easily that way. Okay so if you know there's a i mean let's say that i was really involved i wasn't but let's say i was back in politics and i was really involved in somehow usa id uh getting cut right usa getting cut and that was sort of the big balls doge stuff right and so i mean if you if you lose your million dollar grant because doge gets cut yeah you're going to be mad at people because it cuts resources right so sometimes you can look at sort of pure economic aspects of things, um people often resent people who are better than them i generally don't i mean i generally well i used to have some envy of really good singers for sure because i love to sing but i'm mediocre at best but.
[59:50] I'm still happy i mean the only reason that there's a singing industry is they keep people like me far away from the microphone right so but i would say that i i admire and i'm inspired by people who are really good at intellectual pursuits for sure because it raises the bar of what i think i can like if human beings can do it i i'll give a shot at trying to trying to do it so yeah how do i keep going um.
[1:00:18] I love the work. I absolutely know the good that I'm doing. And the hatred of evil people is the natural environment of the moralist. You can't, you know, like I was thinking just yesterday about my novel. So I just finished reading a couple of days ago the audio book. And it's funny, I'm getting a strange silence towards the end of this from people. So it's very interesting. but I'm trying to do something really radically different in the realm of art with this book in particular, which is, and there's a reason why I'm not published. Like the books that I write would drive some people quite mad. You know, most people are about 20 seconds away from mental collapse. Like if, if, you know, kids start, if they've been abusive parents or they've been mean or whatever it is, they've been selfish or greedy or dishonest or, you know, there's a lot of people like that. And if they're called on it, and I've had this, I've literally, in people in my life, I've sat down with them and talked to them directly about the wrongs that they've done. And within 10, 20 seconds of me starting the conversation, they're sobbing or enraged or storming out. So most people are, they're hanging by a thread. And some direct moral facts will just unravel their consciousness, which is why people are so hysterical and hyped up, right?
[1:01:42] And especially you know post maga post trump and post covet people have just done absolutely appalling stuff absolutely appalling stuff and they are 10 to 20 seconds of you know you could say a minute or two minutes or five minutes or 10 minutes doesn't really matter most people are a hair's breadth away in the course of their life from having a complete mental and miracle a mental and moral collapse and being unable to get out of bed and maybe even being suicidal so i'm trying something kind of new in art which is to talk about the little decisions that everyone makes and to give people how terrible these decisions are down the road. And I started thinking about.
[1:02:21] I mean, Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, people aren't about to murder. So it's an interesting story, but it's not relevant to most people's lives. I mean, Hamlet and King Lear, Macbeth, they're all great stories, but they don't touch on people's lives in particular, because they're about kings and murder and all of that sort of stuff. And Charles Dickens, these aren't the lives that people have and so on. So they're entertaining stories of Star Wars writer, comic books, Marvel, DC, I mean, K-pop, Demon Hunters, whatever you mean. Most people are neither K-pop nor Demon Hunters.
[1:02:57] So I'm trying to write novels that unravel the individual choices that people make. I mean, all the way back to just before when Lawrence and Farmer Jigger and his wife don't defend Mary when she confronts Lawrence with honest statements that passionately expressed about his moral corruption. I mean, these all have brutal consequences down the road. And so I can completely understand sort of in hindsight where book publishers aren't going to publish me because my books would drive people mad with regret and guilt. So, yeah, so why do I keep going? Because I love the work. I know the good that I'm doing. And slipping on blood is the natural stance of the surgeon, if that makes sense.
[1:03:42] Absolutely. I just have to say, I have a very, very small group of people that follow me, and I say some contentious things. And when those negative comments come out, it is so hard not to fight back, not to do this deep self-check where you have to start questioning your own beliefs and ideas that I find it curious that it seems that you can get past it very easily. And I totally appreciate you, Stefan. You stayed in the fray when you had every reason to walk away, and I sure appreciate it. Appreciate it, buddy.
[1:04:13] Well, thank you, man. I appreciate that. And let us jump to our good friend, Carrie. Boy, you're going to carry that weight. Good morning. How are you doing?
[1:04:23] Good. Thanks for being here again.
[1:04:25] My pleasure.
[1:04:26] My question is inspired by the nasty question that guy asked you earlier this week.
[1:04:32] Oh, you'll have to narrow that down a little more.
[1:04:36] And he said, what would you do if your daughter...
[1:04:40] Oh, turned evil.
[1:04:41] Yes.
[1:04:42] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, that one. Okay, got it. Yes, go ahead.
[1:04:46] So I kind of go along with Jesse Lee Peterson's take where, you know, babies are born innocent, and if you raise them in pure love, they'll never, quote, sin. And I was curious what your thinking is on that. Like, if you have a child that's born pure and they're never traumatized, would they ever turn from what's right?
[1:05:12] Sure. I mean, there's free will. And, of course, as a parent, you're the primary, but certainly not the only influence over the course of their life. So you can control your child's social and educational environment if you're homeschooling when they're young, but they sort of go out into the world. And you can prepare them for a temptation but you can't inoculate them against temptation because that would be to remove their free will.
[1:05:35] Right. But let's, Let's say they were never exposed to anything negative. Like, is a person born pure and they just learn? Like, if you could raise them in a bubble and they never saw anything but good, would that person stay good? Or is there something innate in them that they already have some evil in there? There's something that's going to make them do wrong, even if they've never seen wrong or been traumatized.
[1:06:05] Yes. Okay, so let's take a physical analogy, which has some limits, of course. So let's say that you never wanted your child to get sick, so you raised them in an entirely germ-free environment.
[1:06:17] What would happen?
[1:06:19] Well, if they ever got out of that environment, they would be susceptible to everything because they never built a resistance.
[1:06:27] Right. So you would have to keep them in that bubble-free environment, which means they'd never have a life because they've got to go out into the world and do stuff. And if you raise your children with no negative stimuli, I say nothing negative happens to them. Well, if you raise them and they never encounter any germs, then I assume, I'm obviously no doctor, but I think it's pretty bad for their immune system, right? If they're raised in these like hyper-clean environments, and so they would then be trapped in those hyper-clean environments, would not be able to go out into the world and have the sort of hurly-burly of life. And of course, you know, one of the things that happens when you're a parent, as you know, is you let your kids fall down, right? You can't, you know, you could, I guess, wrap them in bubble wrap, you know, and they never injure themselves, but they have to fall off their bikes. So they understand pain and they understand self-caution and they understand how to manage those experiences and so on. So you are going to be tempted by evil in the world. You're going to be tempted by corruption.
[1:07:36] And i have been and i have failed that test from time to time for sure for sure and so the idea that the child of a a good set of parents is going to go out into the world and be completely immune to all temptations is not realistic because the people who tempt, will adjust their temptations to match the person that they're attempting, right? So the devil, so to speak, will say, oh, this person is very lusty. Well, I'll give them the temptation of lust. Oh, this person is big on status. I'll give them high status as their reward. Oh, this person is greedy. I will give them excess. This person is avaricious. I'll give them a lot of money, whatever it is, right? So they'll simply tailor. So your kids go out into the world and they need to have had experience with corruption. They need to have had experience with negative moral people so that you build up their immune system response. But in order to build up children's immune system response to corruption, you can't have them hide away from corruption forever and ever. Amen. Otherwise, they'll be a little bit too innocent and a little bit too susceptible. Because if they've been raised around people who only tell them the truth at all times, they go out into the world, they'll just be manipulated by liars.
[1:08:52] So does that make sense?
[1:08:54] Yes, I'm more asking, are people born with an innate... Evil in them. Like, the reason I kind of disagree sometimes with Jesse Lee Peterson when he says everyone's good and the only reason that we sin is because we're exposed to trauma, you know? But Adam and Eve were in a perfect environment, if you want to look at it from a Christian standpoint. They were never exposed to any trauma or any pain or any sadness or anything, and they still went with the evil, right? So are we a blank slate of nothing but good and love when we're born and everything just, it corrupts us or are we born with it in there and the more we're exposed to it, the more it comes out?
[1:09:43] Well, Jesse Lee Peterson, of course, being a staunch Christian and a brave man, and I mean, he's a very smart guy who plays dumb a lot, which is very powerful. I mean, Socrates did as well. But Jesse Lee Peterson is informed by his Christian faith to believe that there's an essence of the divine in every human being who is born. I am not that way. So what I look at is not to theology for my understanding of human nature. I look to evolution for my understanding of human nature. So human DNA is born into an almost infinite combination of belief systems, religions, tribes, countries, regions, cultures, whatever, right? The human DNA, just the sort of raw human DNA has no idea what it's going to be born into. Is it going to be born into a stable society or an unstable society? Is it going to be born into a collectivist society or more of an individualistic society? Is it going to be born into R-selected or K-selected societies? Is it going to be promiscuity or is it going to be pair bonding for life? The human DNA has no idea, right? And so, what is the most effective or survivalist-based way that the human DNA would flourish not knowing what environment it's born into?
[1:11:04] Have to be diverse.
[1:11:06] Adaptable. It would have to be adaptable. Because the DNA simply has to reproduce. And so not knowing, and I know this is a little bit of an analogy, and it's not exactly, James Watson's coming back from the dead to claw me down for the, you know, somewhat analogous nature of this example. But human DNA needs to reproduce, and it doesn't know the standards of the tribe into which it's born. So the best way for human DNA to survive a completely unknown environment is to adapt to whatever standard is there. And so if you are raised in a sort of peaceful, pair-bonded, stable society with your mother and father around a lot, then you're going to be more case-selected, right? And you're going to have a later menstruation. You're not going to have as high a physical lust and so on. If you're born into a chaotic, violent, single mother household, then you're going to get your menses earlier. Your puberty is going to kick in earlier and you're going to have way more lust than love, right? If you're going to have more love than lust in a case-selected society, you're going to have more lust than love in an R-selected society. So this is, and this to me explains, you know, because I remember even as a teenager thinking like, okay, well, why would trauma produce promiscuity and violence? Like, there's no, it's not a law of physics. It must have been that this is how society has.
[1:12:30] Uh this is how the human genome the human dna adapts to various environment if you're born into a violent environment you're going to have a lower executive functioning you're going to be more dysregulated you're going to have lower impulse control and you're going to be more violent because that's how you get resources and that's what you know women must like violent guys if there are lots of violent guys around because they're breeding with violent guys and they're reproducing both the genetics and the environment that produce violence and so on And so the sort of raw human DNA from even before being born, right? If the mother is in a peaceful environment, you get one particular kind of kid that's born.
[1:13:09] If the mother is very stressed or hungry or whatever, then the kid is born kind of punchy. And so the DNA, from the moment of conception onwards, and even before that, since trauma can be transmitted genetically, the human DNA is scanning and adapting for its best chance of survival. So there is no sort of God glow that's buried deep in the spine of everyone that is a fundamental source of virtue. But what human beings are is adaptable. because we don't know what is going to give us our best chance of reproduction. So we adapt to the local environment, which is a great strength when you have a good culture, but it's how a bad culture can come in and infect you if you hand over your education of your children to your enemies. Your society doesn't have more than two or three generations to last. Does that make sense?
[1:13:59] Yes. Yes, that's fascinating because even, you know, Jesse talks about when people ask, are all children born good? And he's like, well, a kid that could be traumatized in the womb. If the mother has a very, you know, tumultuous pregnancy and there's a lot of chaos and, you know, strife going on while she's pregnant, that kid could be born already infected. You know and i'm just saying you know i love listening to you and i also love listening to him because a lot of the truths quote that you guys talk about they come from two very different,
[1:14:35] um places but they're so aligned in a lot of ways yeah.
[1:14:42] I mean we would both believe in universal values and virtues and we would both believe that we should strive for those things but uh are human beings born good or bad? It's sort of like saying, what is the shape of water? The shape of the water is whatever you pour it into. When you pour it into a cup, you get cup-shaped water. You pour it into a test tube, you get test tube-shaped water. So what is human nature? Human nature is adaptable. And of course, we want to create an environment where, reason and virtue and universal ethics are what you should adapt to. But, you know, that's a big ask. I mean, we could do it, but it's a big ask.
[1:15:21] Yes. Well, thank you so much again.
[1:15:23] All right. To me, it's sort of like saying, what is the natural language of humanity? It's like, well, it's whatever they're born into, right? If you're born in Japan, like Jared Taylor style, then you speak Japanese, right? We have a capacity for language, but the language that you speak is the language you were raised in. We are adaptable. If we were hard-coded for Japanese, then we wouldn't survive anywhere else very well. All right. Tim. The man they call Tim.
[1:15:50] Time lock. We do this every time.
[1:15:52] Yeah, yeah. Sorry. I just have my distance glasses on, so I don't end up with like two fisheye lenses where my eyeballs are. But yeah, what's on your mind?
[1:16:00] Hey, yeah, I just wanted to go over some objections I get when I bring up state of society and peaceful parenting and all that. I do have some, you know, group chats and conversations out and about. One thing I hear a lot is that it would kind of require everyone to agree on the non-aggression principle. And a lot of people find that as a non-starter because they simply see it as impossible that everyone could agree on that. So because of that, and inevitably, there will be a power structure that emerges because everyone can't agree that is required to direct and enforce morality and laws and stuff. And i guess how do you how do you see that do you is it like a 51 of the population needs to understand peaceful parenting is it 99.9 or i guess how do you see those barriers or those objections.
[1:17:00] Okay so uh do you want to play that person and i'll sort of have the debate as if you're that person yeah sure okay so you make that case and i would say why is it that, people need, why is it that 100% of people need to agree?
[1:17:17] Well, I guess if, let's see. So if not everyone agreed, then, because not everyone would agree to, let's say, the DRO setup. And some people would still want there to be violence in society because they were raised on violence.
[1:17:37] Okay. All right. So the DRO setup is because people disagree. The DRO setup is precisely because people disagree. So if you've ever been involved in sort of business contracts or whatever, you have disagreements, right? People have disagreements in business contracts and you need a party to mediate. Does that make sense? Yep. So the DRO setup is because people disagree. And let's just take it in the business context, right? So I say, I'm going to pay you $10,000 and only pay you $5,000. So then you say, hey, where's my other $5,000? And I say, well, I never, I never promised that. And then you take me to the DRO and they mediate, right? Does that make sense?
[1:18:21] Yeah.
[1:18:21] Okay. So I'm a little confused as to why you say, well, a hundred percent of people need to agree when the entire setup of DROs is because people disagree. Like that's accepted. That's understood. People are going to have disagreements that we need a way to resolve people's disagreements that they can't resolve themselves. That's the whole DRO setup. So if the entire system is based upon the fact that people disagree, and you say the system can't work because people disagree, I'm a little confused.
[1:18:47] Well, how about the fact that there's never been a free market society that's ever survived. So at some point, some power structure has come in and taken those all over. So isn't that proof that it can't work?
[1:19:03] Can you buy and sell people at the moment in your country?
[1:19:07] No.
[1:19:08] Okay. Do you realize that for almost all of human history, across the entire world, you could, do you think that's about to come back nope okay, did you have a cell phone when you were a baby or a toddler no.
[1:19:30] I did not.
[1:19:30] Did they even exist.
[1:19:33] Probably probably in some briefcase something but no.
[1:19:36] Okay what's uh do you what's the latest model cell phone that you have at.
[1:19:42] This very moment.
[1:19:43] Yeah i.
[1:19:44] Think it's the iphone 16.
[1:19:46] Okay did you have an iphone 16 five years ago no i don't look at that in movie theaters are they still showing the same movies from the 1950s no no so you new things are coming into existence all the time right so so the idea that something cannot exist in the future because it didn't exist in the past everything that you use exists because and it didn't exist in the past your house did not exist for eternity. Roads, cars, the internet, cell phones, glasses, you know, everything around you is new and did not exist in the past. So saying things can't exist in the future that didn't exist in the past, let me ask you this. Were you alive 150 years ago? You literally exist in the present and didn't exist in the past. And you're saying, well, things can't exist in the present that didn't exist in the past. It's you, bro. It's all of us. Like, what are you talking about?
[1:20:44] Well, I am role-playing here.
[1:20:46] No, no, no, I understand, but I'm role-playing too, right?
[1:20:48] I'm kidding, okay. So, and I have actually, breaking out for a second, I have used that because I've argued with people who are UBI, robots are going to take over, and I say, well, have robots taken over in the past? So you're okay with the idea that robots might take over the world, but not that peaceful parenting and non-aggression would. So, kind of silly.
[1:21:09] Sorry. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[1:21:12] Okay, so what about, I think the DROs solved this one, is that there might be some violent gang that wants to become the government. Well, obviously a DRO would just laugh at that and just take out the leader, some sort of direct struggle.
[1:21:29] Well, everyone's aware, right? Everyone is aware that DROs might want to become governments.
[1:21:36] So DROs, in order to exist, would have to solve that problem. See, it's always a difference, and I'm not talking about you in the role play, but it's always a big difference. If people have never been entrepreneurs, because the DROs would be set up by entrepreneurs, right? So if people have never been entrepreneurs, they think that magically they can just impose their will. Like if you've only ever been an employee, your boss kind of imposes his will on you, right? And so people think that like teachers impose their will on you, parents impose their will on you, bosses impose their will on you, the government imposes its will on you, the tax goes up and you have to pay it. So they just think everything gets inflicted upon them. They never think about the sales side of things. So if you're a DRO and you say, I want to be your defense DRO. I want to have armies and bioweapons and whatever, missiles, whatever they would be the most efficient way to protect your society. I want your money to build an army and everyone's going to be like, I don't trust you. I don't trust you, right? I don't want to give you money to build an army because I'm concerned you're going to use that army to take me over. So as a DRO, you can't force people. Governments can force people. That's what they live for, right? But as a DRO, you can't force people. So how are you going to get people? But also people need to be defended against, you know, outside malevolent actors. So what I do is I turn around to the person and say, okay, so you're the DRO. You're trying to sell me. You're trying to sell me on giving you money.
[1:23:00] To protect me. And the first thing I say is, listen, bro, you got that army, you're just going to take us over. So how would you sell it? And ask them to sell it to you. And they'd have to come up with ways, external audits, rigorous reviews of expenses and all of that. And they would need to, and other DROs that would be in competition with them to make sure nobody has a monopoly. There'd be a whole bunch of things that you'd need to do in order to get people to fund your DERO for defense because they would be aware of that. And so as a business person, you would. And of course you would say, if anyone who finds that I have not kept my word or I have not like anybody, I'm open to be audited by anyone and anyone who finds that I've deviated 1% from my promises, I've put in escrow $10 million. They get that. So there's a huge incentive for people to review you. And just, you know, you'd find some way to solve it. Sorry, go ahead.
[1:24:02] I just think the way I would envision the worst case scenario or what people, what I think people envision is not a DRO becoming the government, is a, let's call it a terrorist cell or some sort of uprising.
[1:24:14] Yep.
[1:24:15] That kind of takes over.
[1:24:16] Right. Okay. So then I would say, if you got cancer, would you get treatment?
[1:24:22] Yes.
[1:24:23] Okay. Now, what if they said, well, there's a small chance, a very small chance that your cancer could return, would you still get treatment?
[1:24:32] Yes, I would.
[1:24:33] Okay. So that's your answer.
[1:24:35] There you go. Yeah.
[1:24:37] I mean, if your major concern is that governments are so dangerous, but if we have a free society, there's a very small chance that there may be another government at some point in the future. It's like, it's worth the chance, man. It's worth the chance.
[1:24:50] We're already there. We're already in the shit.
[1:24:52] Yeah. Like, oh my God. If we get free, it's sort of like saying, well, I've been kidnapped. I'm locked in a dungeon. People are torturing me. But if I escape, it could happen over the course of my life or my children's lives or my grandchildren's lives that somebody might be kidnapped again. It's like, are you just going to stay there then? You're still going to, right? Anyway, so I've got it.
[1:25:12] Yeah. So I guess, do you see it as a tipping point of education? Because I've also got that kickback in that people are too stupid. No one will ever understand the nap and therefore.
[1:25:27] Okay. So if people are too stupid, you can't have a democracy. if people don't understand basic morals then democracy is always going to screw up like you are not comparing anarcho-capitalism to some ideal system that's stable right it always collapses into war it always collapses into invasion it always collapses into financial uh horrors like so there's not a stable it's like the plane is going down and people are like well i don't know man the parachute might not open and it's like that's not how like so people are comparing a sort of stable system to uh in their minds to some potentially unstable system and it's like no no no it's just because you don't know history right so the average life of an empire is like 200 250 years it's always a collapse it's always a horror you know i write about this in my novel the future where
[1:26:19] you know there were rome went from well over a million people to 17 000 in a year what happened. That's a big, it's quite a lot of, it's quite a bit of a gap, right? What happened to the 983,000 people? Well, they just died in horror, but we don't. So it's not like you're comparing.
[1:26:38] Uh, a, um, a, a, a perfect stable system to some risky dice roll, right? You're saying, look, the plane is going down, we got to do something. And, um, saying, well, but the parachute, well, we might, you know, if we, if we parachute, we might land, uh, someplace, it's not super great. It's like, okay, then, then go down with the plane. I mean, that there's, but there's not some sort of stable option that we're comparing things to.
[1:27:01] Right. And it's all, and there's a moral argument too. It's wrong.
[1:27:05] Yeah.
[1:27:05] So whether or not it even works out, doesn't matter really because we know we're doing the right thing.
[1:27:09] Yeah, and you would ask the person, did they know, I would ask the person, did they know when they ended slavery, did they know how food was going to be produced in the absence of slavery?
[1:27:21] No, they did not. There's risk.
[1:27:23] Right.
[1:27:24] Someone did tell me, okay, but, oh, but it was actually government that ended slavery, so isn't that proof that you need government or something?
[1:27:32] Well, so slavery was ended when government stopped enforcing slavery. Right? So if your slave ran away, the government would go and bring your slave back.
[1:27:43] Right?
[1:27:44] So, and the government enforced the property rights of slave owners. You bought the slave, the slave had to be delivered. The slave tries to get away, the government brings it back, right, for you. So slavery was entirely a government, program. And all the government had to do was to stop enforcing the slave contracts and slavery ends. Then your slave can leave and you can't call the government.
[1:28:07] So it was their cause. So of course they needed to end it because they caused it. Right. Yeah. Okay. Well, I think that helps get me some more tools on my belt. I appreciate it.
[1:28:21] Well, and it's sort of like saying, well, if the government enforced how everyone got married and you said that's wrong, well, I don't know. Some people might end up single. And it's like, yes, that's true. And some people who were slaves were worse off after slavery, right? And all of the slave catchers were out of a job and all of the slave auctions were out. You know what I mean? So, I mean, saying that there are negatives to social progress, I mean, would you rather keep slavery because it was inconvenient and they didn't know exactly how society was going to work in the absence of
[1:28:52] slavery? No, it's just morally wrong. You just stop doing evil and let society figure it out.
[1:28:57] Love it, love it. I do get also the pushback of you being too perfectionist. You should just be happy with the way things are. It could be so much worse. You're focused on the wrong things, and that's kind of just the softest point.
[1:29:12] But well I mean I don't really know what to say about that I would just say, I mean if you think that these are arguments this may not be the conversation for you you know because if you're just like oh you're such a perfectionist you're just like, were the people who wanted to end slavery were they just perfectionists were the people who wanted to end serfdom where people were bought and sold like livestock with the land were they just perfectionist like it's not an argument it's just like what's moral what's immoral and you've got to try and do the right thing.
[1:29:43] And that's kind of the point of debate is to get to the pure truth. And that's, I guess that is perfection in some ways.
[1:29:49] Well, and a woman who's being beaten up by her husband and she leaves him, she doesn't know how she's going to date in the future or anything like that. Should she just stay because she doesn't have a perfect answer? Very true all right thanks man sir is there anything else you wanted to mention.
[1:30:05] Nope that's it thank you so much.
[1:30:06] Thank you and thank you for your support of course i appreciate that yep and we have i got some questions in text let's take one more call alec if you want to unmute i'm happy to hear your thoughts, oh hi sound good yeah sounds great all.
[1:30:24] Right uh hey steve it's an honor to speak with you i've been putting off calling for a long time now. So it's great to be here. It's an interesting question. So let me know what you think about it. I've been listening for about eight years. I've been sharing philosophy with most people I know and inserting little things in most combos about voluntarism and peaceful parenting. I started donating monetarily a couple months ago. So my question is.
[1:30:55] What makes people listen? Wow.
[1:30:57] Yeah.
[1:30:58] Okay, well, I appreciate that. There you go.
[1:30:59] I think I was 17, 16. I started with the...
[1:31:03] Okay, okay, that's fine. Yeah.
[1:31:05] The Truth Abouts with the Trump, with the, you know, the red thumbnail. Yeah, yeah. The intense red thumbnail. Yeah. Question is, what makes people listen but not donate for years? And I also think it's connected with a reoccurring dream I've had all my life. It's a change in the recent years.
[1:31:25] So why yeah why do people um listen for years without donating, well i think it's a self-esteem issue honestly uh i think it is i can't contribute it's not worth it to me and i'm not part of the conversation stef's going to be fine i'm irrelevant i think it's a low self-esteem thing i think when you're confident you're like yeah stef's out there taking bullets least i can do is uh you know make him a bowl of soup or something like that, you know, but I think it's just comes out of depression, if that makes sense.
[1:32:01] That kind of makes sense uh can i tell you about the dream so sure probably almost not so, this is i could this is like the oldest dream i've ever like i can remember i think i was super young like when i so i'm like in my house doing whatever and always when i look out the window there's always like packs of lions in the street there's like double or trio, and they're always nearby, they're always around and I always feel anxious about it.
[1:32:33] Lions on the street, right?
[1:32:35] Yeah, just roaming.
[1:32:36] Are there people or just lions?
[1:32:38] Just lions. There's people in the house, like my parents but there's like one or two I don't remember being like a lot of people but they're always out there walking down the street, that kind of thing and, recently so I'm 25 now. The dream started changing when I was like 23. Um, around that time. So I have a, let me try to get my thoughts. So I had a, when I was 16, um, my sister bought in a dog like as a pet, family pet and he got he got sick with diabetes right, and they didn't want him anymore, he got sick out around like when I was like 19, he was three years old, and they didn't want anything to do with him but I was kind of attached because the way I grew up I grew up with a bunch of sisters so I didn't have that many um, Like, no one really cared about my interests. I only had male friends. It's the only thing I did in school. And I cared deeply for my male friends. There was one time in sixth grade where I was like, a male friend got beat up, and I was like crying. I was sixth grade.
[1:34:03] So I kind of had this thing where I tried to not push my interests on others, but try to find people with similar interests because I never really had that growing up. So this pet that came in that was super attached so I was like oh I'm not leaving I'm not leaving him because you know he had a sick dog he started turning blind so, if he's gone he's just gone you know I don't feel confident having someone else taking care of him was he old? No he was three why did dogs get diabetes? Just bad health and some dogs are susceptible to like he wasn't being fed the right stuff oh so it was.
[1:34:41] Sort of environmental diabetes.
[1:34:44] Like some some susceptible because because german shepherd that are cheats a chow chow they're more susceptible to diabetes but.
[1:34:52] You said he also wasn't being fed well.
[1:34:54] Yeah so mostly bad diet mostly.
[1:34:57] Bad diet yeah because if you.
[1:34:58] Know a little bit if you know.
[1:34:59] That your dog is susceptible you've got to be really careful with the diet right.
[1:35:01] Yeah i don't think they thought of that when they brought him in okay so yeah so when he was brought in i didn't want to let him go because I got attached to it. Oh, this guy is happy when I see him, that kind of thing. So I started taking care of him by myself. A little bit with my mom giving him his diabetes shot every day, once a day.
[1:35:26] All right, so we're still not at the dream yet, so please get to the dream.
[1:35:31] Uh, dream, uh... I was trying to tell you what would have caused, what would have probably caused the change in the dream. Because the change in the dream was, the first change was I was in the backyard with him out there because I was thinking, oh, he needs to be protected. It wasn't a lion, but it was a cheetah that jumped on him. And man, I jumped on that cheetah. I chokeholded that cheetah. And I cut him up like real violent self-defense. from. And that was maybe three or four years ago. And this year, early on the year, I had another differentiating, another change in the dream where it was, it was a hyena that, it was a lion and then a hyena, like, you know how in nature documentaries say hyenas have like a stronger bite than lions uh yeah so the hyena like bit off his leg like crippled him but then they just kept walking towards me i was uncomfortable i was like petting him.
[1:36:43] Sorry who was walking towards you.
[1:36:45] The hyena so.
[1:36:49] And the hyena bit off the dog's leg.
[1:36:51] No the hyena bit off like like bit bit the lion where his it was crippled like bit his thigh okay really hard the lion was limping okay and the cheetah was just walking towards me, My dog wasn't there.
[1:37:07] So hang on. We got lions, we got hyenas, and we got cheetahs. Just give me the space again. What's going on?
[1:37:13] Okay, sorry. Let me have it consistent. So it's always been lions, one or two, three roaming the streets. At 21, it was a cheetah that I defended my dog against, and I killed him. And this earlier this year it was a lion but the lion was uh like gored by the the cheetah the hyena.
[1:37:39] And the lion the lion was gored it was bitten by the hyena yeah it crippled okay and.
[1:37:45] Then the hyena started walking towards me and that's about it.
[1:37:51] Okay and is there any is the dog when did the dog die.
[1:37:55] No the dog's still here.
[1:37:57] Oh okay um got it so lions to cheetah of the obvious question is did you have a girlfriend cheat on you girlfriend no okay did you cheat on anyone or did was there any cheating um tests um ai uh infidelity or anything like that going on in your life that that somebody cheated.
[1:38:23] Like relationship-wise?
[1:38:25] Anything. Did you cheat on a test? Did somebody else you know cheat on a test? Did your father cheat on your mother? Was there, did you cheat on someone? Was there any, just, because cheater is the most obvious unconscious thing to say that there's some cheating going on in your life. Doesn't mean that that's the case, but that's the first question.
[1:38:41] I don't cheat unless it was in high school, like chess, but my parents don't cheat. I've never had, I've never been cheated on. I never cheat on anyone. My relationship was.
[1:38:52] Okay. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of questions to ask, which is your association with these things and a lot of life circumstances to go on. So I don't know. I've been going for an hour and 45. So it's a big, big, big old question to come in. I would suggest book a call-in show for this. You can do that. Just email me, support@freedomain.com, and we'll book a time to chat about it because to dig into this is a lot because I need to know sort of the entire history. So lions, cheetahs, and hyenas. So lions, of course, generally are parents or authority figures because they're the king of the jungle, right? Cheetahs tend to be thought because they're very fast, but also not very powerful. And hyenas, of course, tend to be trolls or sophists who attack the wounded because hyenas, of course, generally, often they don't hunt on their own. They simply pick up the kills of others, or they wait for another creature to take down an animal, and then they chase that other creature away, and they tend not to lions. Was it male lions or female lions or a combo that was going on the streets?
[1:40:05] Only male.
[1:40:06] Only male. Okay. Okay. That could, of course, be a compensation for having an overly female environment is to dream of male lions. Were you close to your father? Or are you?
[1:40:24] I've always tried to. No. I've always tried to, though. Probably like a 3 out of 10 attachment.
[1:40:35] I'm sorry about that. Did your father recognize that you've got a bunch of sisters and a mother? And how many sisters do you have?
[1:40:43] Four.
[1:40:44] Four sisters. Okay. So, did your father, does he have authority in the relationship, in the marriage?
[1:40:55] I'd say like 6 out of 10, 7 out of 10.
[1:40:59] And is your mother 10 out of 10 in terms of her authority in the marriage or in the family?
[1:41:08] In the marriage, I'd say like a 5 in the family. Well he was all he was always working so i was.
[1:41:17] Okay so hang on if you say that your father's authority in the family is a six or a seven and your mother's is a five then your father is more of an authority figure and it's fine i'm just want to make sure is your father is your father more of an authority figure than your mother in the family yeah.
[1:41:30] Yeah i'd say so yeah.
[1:41:31] You would say so okay so uh your sisters respect your father a little bit more than your mother, yeah yeah okay and was he a disciplinarian in the family.
[1:41:54] Uh, yeah, both of them were, yeah.
[1:41:56] Okay.
[1:41:57] He was more.
[1:41:59] And was your father, how did he discipline?
[1:42:03] The usual, uh, Arab upbringing where they just yell at you and hit you.
[1:42:08] The usual what? Arab upbringing.
[1:42:12] Okay. Where it's, it's a crazy amount of yelling, hitting. I could go more in depth, but I don't want to go.
[1:42:21] Did your, when your father was yelling and hitting, did he appear to be in control to you or out of control?
[1:42:29] Like he could control himself or I can control him?
[1:42:32] No, no. What I mean is, so when some people yell, you know, they sort of lean forward with their fists on the table. They glower and they're in control, but they're yelling. Right. Other people like screaming hysterically. Right. And they just seem to be kind of twitchy and nervous and out of control. It's the same thing with physical. So with spanking, sometimes the person just grabs the kid and whacks them. Other times, you know, you sit down, you patiently explain to the child, and you're not out of control. So when your father was yelling and hitting, did he appear to you as a child to be in control or out of control?
[1:43:12] In control.
[1:43:14] Okay, got it.
[1:43:15] Yeah.
[1:43:15] And was your mother, when she yelled or hit, Was she in control in your mind or was she out of control?
[1:43:26] I'm not sure.
[1:43:29] But not as in control as your father.
[1:43:31] A little less, yeah.
[1:43:32] A little less in control, okay. Do your sisters in their lives, do they appear to be making reasonable decisions? They're kind of in control of their lives. Do they tend to be more reactive in their lives?
[1:43:50] I'm smiling when I say this, 100% no.
[1:43:53] Not in control. No, right?
[1:43:55] Yeah.
[1:43:56] Okay. and what was the relationship between the lions and the cheetah again in your dream.
[1:44:02] They didn't have a relationship i was in the dream they were just it was just one cheetah attacking my dog and the lions were just walking around always always in the area, okay it was just it was always lions and then that 21 years old it was just one cheetah.
[1:44:19] How do your sisters generally get attention and value in the world.
[1:44:29] I don't I don't know much about what they do I always try to but they're always like pushing me away that kind of thing, the two oldest just like the regular get married and have a job, it's like normal married stuff they got married as soon as they learned to speak English after they moved. One of my sisters is just in college and just normal modern women stuff, normal American women stuff. And my younger sister, uh i'm not sure she does work but i don't think she like gets too much from like male attention like like uh resources for men is.
[1:45:26] The dark male.
[1:45:27] Yeah okay.
[1:45:29] And last question how is the relationship between your mother and your father.
[1:45:36] Oh they're super close they're super close like they're inseparable.
[1:45:44] Okay and i mean all married couples have conflicts and how do they resolve those conflicts.
[1:45:51] I this is i i've always tried to like fix this with them and i always have thoughts about oh it's not my place or oh it just keeps repeating and repeating they just have the same thing where an issue comes up they start yelling about it and then the issue isn't solved they just forget about it and then it just repeats and repeats and.
[1:46:14] How often do they have these yelling conflicts.
[1:46:18] Um used to be like when i was a teen and below it was maybe once a week or maybe twice a week and now it's like once a month once every two months.
[1:46:33] And when your parents are yelling at each other who's yelling more.
[1:46:37] My dad.
[1:46:41] Has your dad lost any prestige or physical health or strength over the last few years?
[1:46:54] Uh, no, but I've, I've grown up and I've, I'm, I'm like an inch taller than I'm now.
[1:47:01] Okay. And in the conflicts between your parents, who would you say starts it? Who starts yelling first?
[1:47:09] I used to think it was my dad, but now knowing more about them, it's, I think it's my mom.
[1:47:14] Okay. So this is what the dream means. I think I'm ready. Are you set?
[1:47:20] Please.
[1:47:20] I'm sorry to the next caller. I'm going to stop after this because it's been a lot of work. So, all right. So the lions as masculinity, because you said your father works all the time. And where are the lions? They're out of the house, right?
[1:47:32] Yeah.
[1:47:33] That make sense?
[1:47:35] Yeah.
[1:47:35] Because he's out in the world and the masculinity of the manhood is all out in the world because your father works a lot. And so the lions are masculinity that's not in the house. Does that make sense?
[1:47:46] Yeah.
[1:47:47] A cheetah attacking the dog. So the cheetah are the females. Because it was your sister's responsibility to keep the dog safe from diabetes and she failed, right?
[1:47:59] Yeah.
[1:47:59] So, uh, this is, um, women's either direct action or inaction that causes harm to masculinity in the environment. And again, if we have more time, if we had more time, I'd sort of say, okay, well, do you, are your sisters dominant in their marriages or how does the power balance work in the marriage or something like that. So a cheetah would be more female because it's more attractive, it's smaller, it's more slender, and it's faster. And you had a female who harmed your dog. So cheetah being female attacks the dog. This is why I was asking, how do they get attention? So women need to get attention through qualities of virtue or qualities of physical attractiveness. And if women are focused on physical attractiveness, then they're cheating the system, right? Anyway, so that would be one. Now, the lion, the hyena biting the lion, that would be your mother initiating conflict with your father.
[1:49:03] Um about that one the hyena uh around like this this this year and last year i changed my mindset that's it's also connected to me starting donating it's more of it's what you said before about becoming an adult where it's not like a parent-child relationship it's a equal value relationship, so that's around this time where where this is where i'm going to like become an adult and move vow and do my own thing and try to separate myself and try to give value for value. So I was thinking that the lion was my past self, my child self getting injured.
[1:49:42] But why would you becoming an adult injure the lion? Lion is a symbol of strength and of dominance, right? Which is why the masculinity side is out of the home, right? Did your father support you much inside the home in conflicts and say, listen, I'm going to be on your side because there's all these women around you, five women or five females in your environment. So I'm going to have to side with you a lot. Did your father side with you or prop you up or make sure that you retained your masculinity in such an estrogen based household?
[1:50:13] It's hard to say, but no.
[1:50:15] Right. Right. I'm sorry about that because he should have. He should have. My father grew up with, I think, uh, three, three or four sisters. I can't remember exactly, but, uh, he was the only male and it was not, it was not great to put it mildly. It was not great. Um, so I don't think it would be sort of a past self because that would be to say if, if, if masculinity is the lions, then saying a hyena is wounding or biting or disabling a lion is to say that adulthood is disabling your masculinity or your strength i don't think that would make sense if that unless you got into some really toxic relationship are you dating at the moment no.
[1:50:58] Um but i was thinking the lions were like the predators and in my area or if they're being hurt with me being me defeating their defeating the predators and moving on.
[1:51:07] Well um but we're predators i mean human beings are predators i mean we got to the top of the food chain not by being um vegans right uh so yeah so and and as a man, you need to be predatory because you got to fight other men to get resources and you have to win. And you have to get the woman that the other woman, that the other men want. And you have to get the contract that the other men want. You have to get the job that the other men want. So, uh, the fact that there are predators, uh, you, you, everyone prays, you have to, you just have to win. Right. So I don't know the lions aren't, you know, they're not chewing up children. They're just roaming around. Right.
[1:51:44] Yeah.
[1:51:44] So there's nothing negative about the lions other than there may be a little scary or a little intimidating or whatever it is, right? But the lion is weakening and is losing relative to the hyena.
[1:52:00] Yeah, that makes sense.
[1:52:01] And the hyena. See, the hyena gets the resources that the lion kills, right? And does your mother work? I assume not.
[1:52:14] No.
[1:52:15] Okay. So, and again, I'm not saying your mother's a hyena, but in terms of the mental stuff, your father is out there getting resources. So your father is hunting out there in the world. and then he brings home the kill and then the hyena, takes it, right? So this is a man bringing home his paycheck and turning over the majority of his paycheck to his wife and to his children, right? That's just the way it works. There's nothing wrong with that. It's just the way it works. So maybe the hyena aspect is your mother and because she's taking the resources that the lion brings and the cheetah aspect is your sisters, and nobody is noticing or helping you in the dream, right? There's nobody who's coming in and saying, oh, we'll be fine about the lions or let me cure your dog or anything like that. So I think there's a certain amount of isolation and solitude in the dream. And it's saying that other people are kind of reacting in their animal side. It's sort of why are they in control or are they not in control? To be in control is sort of more fundamentally human. To be sort of out of control is kind of like animalistic. And so I think that the dream is telling you something about the relationship between your parents and does your mother express a lot of gratitude towards your father and the work that he does.
[1:53:33] Um yeah yeah.
[1:53:35] She does okay yeah she does yeah yeah i i mean other than your you know when you were growing up couples shouldn't be yelling at each other every week like that's not a thing that's not a thing that reasonable couples do i'm not saying that there is a terrible marriage or terrible people but that's not healthy or normal like i need you to denormalize that foundationally because i mean my wife and i have never yelled at each other we've been married 23 years like why would i yell at my best friend why would i yell at the person i love the most why would i the other person who I've shared my life with, right? That doesn't make much sense. So there's something that's wrong with your parents' marriage as far as this weekly, and you say it's like once every month or two now. But if your mother, and you may just be seeing it less, right? Because you're out. But if your mother is yelling at your father or initiating conflicts with your father, that's not right. That's not healthy. And I would suggest that if you don't end up in a marriage where you're yelling at each other or having your wife yell at you every week is considered the norm. It's really not. And it's not good. It's not good for the kids. And it's not healthy in terms of emotional maturity, if that makes sense.
[1:54:42] Yeah, 100% agree.
[1:54:43] Okay. So yeah, if you want to talk more about it, you can set up a call. They can be free, of course, right? Freedomain.com/call. You can email, because I know we're kind of booked out a couple of months. And I say this in general, if you guys need a call outside of regular call hours, just let me know and we'll find a way to work it out, especially you guys because you're a supporter. And I'm sorry we didn't get to the last caller, but we will, maybe I'll do another show this week and feel free to call. I mean, certainly I'll do an extra show this week and be sure to dial into that and we'll talk more. So thanks everyone. We'll keep this one just private. It's a great conversation. I really thank everyone so much for a lovely mornings and afternoons chat and we'll talk soon.
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