"Stef, I am in need of a pep talk in regards to having a second baby. My husband and I were planning on trying for our second this year but I've suddenly got cold feet. I had a very difficult postpartum time with my son and I'm afraid of not being able to tend to my current child properly with a new baby. (Ps I donated on Freedomain)"
"how much of psychology is woo woo vs reality, and how do you define the difference between the two?"
"Stef, Which is more destructive? Belief in mysticism or Belief in the State?"
0:00 - Welcome to the Broadcast
0:49 - Life Updates and Reflections
2:35 - Urgent Call for Prevention
4:14 - Warning Against Mysticism
8:18 - Dispelling Haunting Beliefs
12:13 - Imagination and Reality
13:50 - Entertaining Mystical Practices
18:08 - The Isolating Effect of Mysticism
19:23 - Impact of Mysticism on Sanity
22:12 - A Song Reference
23:09 - Mysticism and Superstition
26:14 - Exiting Mystic Organizations
27:30 - Effects of Mysticism on Individuals
30:04 - Experience with Mystical Beliefs
32:28 - Parenting and Playtime
33:57 - Benefits of Sibling Relationships
36:44 - Power of Sibling Bonds
40:03 - Sibling Dynamics Discussion
42:32 - Advice for Growing Families
44:07 - Gratitude for Life and Existence
46:11 - Geek Nerd Culture vs. Heroic Aspirations
In this episode, Steph and I engage in a deep conversation about the complexities of living in the fast-paced year of 2024. We specifically tackle a listener's struggle with upholding traditional values in relationships and stress the significance of effective communication and early intervention to prevent potential issues. Our discussion shifts towards the risks associated with mysticism and superstition, cautioning against embracing beliefs that can distort reality and lead to isolation. We underscore the importance of maintaining a firm grasp on reality and boundaries, highlighting the consequences of immersing oneself in superstitions that may result in mental deterioration and detachment from logic and truth. Ultimately, our dialogue underscores the essential role of discipline and rationality in navigating the intricate landscapes of imagination and belief.
Furthermore, we delve into the topic of nightmares triggered by biological factors, with Steph candidly sharing their personal encounter with such experiences. The conversation broadens to explore early mysticism, superstition, and the potential influence of substances like drugs. We also examine the interplay between mysticism, Christian beliefs, and astrology, analyzing their impact on individuals and society at large. Our discourse spans from reflections on military service to the impacts of having multiple children, with Steph offering heartfelt encouragement to a listener contemplating expanding their family. Throughout our exchange, we touch upon a wide array of subjects including parenting challenges, the profound influence of beliefs and societal norms, homeschooling, bullying, and the dynamics within families. The blend of personal anecdotes, philosophical reflections, and practical advice fosters a dialogue rich in introspection, humor, and thought-provoking insights, urging listeners to embrace diverse perspectives and cultivate critical thinking skills.
Moreover, we dive into the evolution of geek and nerd culture and its implications for cultivating courage and aspiration. We explore the concept of irritability and its connection to achieving fulfillment and fostering positive interactions with others. The host emphasizes the importance of confronting fear and embracing vulnerability to unlock one's true potential, drawing from personal experiences to underscore the need for adaptability in pursuing opportunities that align with individual growth. Insights are shared on the host's book, intertwining personal journeys with fictional characters and delving into the realm of peaceful parenting and the genesis of "The Island." Audience questions drive the conversation forward, encouraging introspection on a myriad of topics and inviting engagement with the audience.
Lastly, we shift focus to the concept of peaceful parenting, with the main speaker underscoring the practice of guiding and teaching children without resorting to aggression, punishment, or coercion. They illuminate examples of parental inconsistencies and illuminate the advantages of employing peaceful parenting methodologies. Discipline strategies within the framework of peaceful parenting are explored, along with discussions on the neurobiological impacts of verbal abuse on children. The main speaker stresses the importance of self-awareness and consistency in parental approaches, offering guidance on assisting relatives in understanding and implementing peaceful parenting techniques. The episode concludes with reflections on societal attitudes towards children and updates on the features of the Peaceful Parenting bot, coupled with expressions of gratitude towards the listeners for their support and engagement.
[0:00] Good evening, good evening. Welcome to your Wednesday night live on the 15th of May 2024. What the hell was that? Oh, you see, that was 2024. Ripping by at breakneck speed. And yeah, it's wild. Doesn't it feel like it's just... Boom! What was that? Oh, that was your life, mate. Did you enjoy it? I don't know, I barely even noticed it. as long as it's gone, right? I mean, this year is going by so fast, I'm getting younger. Just finished chapter five of peaceful parenting and the French Revolution. You know, those are good works to go hand in hand. Those are good works to go hand in hand. Yeah, questions, comments, issues, criticisms. I had a tough minute. Oh, let me tell you, tough morning. Whew.
[0:50] Ah. Now.
[0:55] I love me Germans. They're great. They're great. German engineers and subtle introspective philosophy do not seem to go hand in hand. I had a call in today, three hours with a guy, German engineer, and his story that he's conservative and traditional and was having trouble finding a conservative and traditional girlfriend. Friend he was in his 30 30s and he spent the last five years embroiled in a relationship with, a chinese woman who was the daughter of chinese immigrants who came to america about 30 years ago or 40 years ago didn't speak a lick of english really and they lived together without getting married but apparently he's just so traditional trying to get him to understand that this you know, could conceivably be a little tough to countenance or understand was not easy, was not easy. Woo! And he's listened to me for 12 years. And, you know, I'm just going to put this out there. Brothers, sisters, whatever you are, please, for the love of all that's holy, I have one request and one request of you only. Other than freedomain.com slash donate, I have one request. Please, dear Zeus above.
[2:18] Call me before it's a complete disaster. Before you have to, say, spend $35,000 in legal fees trying to get your house back from your fiancée. You know, just a thought. You can call me before.
[2:36] Early. Red flags. Prevention. Philosophy is all about prevention. Please don't call the parachute people, after you've already jumped out of the plane I'm just don't wait please don't wait until it's a catastrophic emergency and a disaster scenario because it's a little frustrating, it's just a little frustrating to continually be putting out the world's best advice, people don't listen they do the exact opposite and they call me and say i'm in trouble.
[3:22] All right, let's get to your comments an 80 year old family member still has nightmares about her childhood incest survival she journals but claims to be haunted by the dead uncle who molested her How would you advise her, or would it even be worth trying to help her at this point? Why wouldn't it be worth trying to help her? She's in agony.
[3:50] Permission to swear, ladies and gentlemen. Permission to swear. Permission to swear. where I just need a yes or a no. I'm happy either way. But I may feel a tiny bit more self-expressed if I am in fact swearing, but it won't interfere with the general quality of what it is that I'm putting across. Permission granted, granted, granted. All right.
[4:15] All right. Okay. Holy shit, man. Do not, do not, do not fuck with mysticism. Do not fuck with mysticism. You are opening up a portal to hell. Don't fuck around with Ouija boards don't lay that tarot card shit down don't even read your fucking horoscope do not fuck with mysticism, don't believe in ghosts don't believe in any of this shit because if she literally believes in there are ghosts and she's fucked with mysticism then, the uncle who molested her can haunt her, there is the biggest giant fiery bear I'm not talking about religion I'm just talking about straight up superstition and mysticism. There are no ghosts. There's no astrology. Our fate is not written in the stars, astrology is bullshit, telekinesis is bullshit, telepathy is bullshit.
[5:14] Hauntings are bullshit ghost stories are goose bumpy fun with about as much realism as grand theft auto do not fuck with mysticism don't go to the edge of human experience and tip over because you will fall forever do not fuck with sorcery magic mysticism witches spells ghosts Ghosts, tarot, Ouija, don't fuck with any of that stuff. It, numerology, all that shit. Do not fuck with it, man. It will erode and destroy your brain. It is a brain virus. It is an environmental toxin, not least because of what it does to your metaphysics and your epistemology, your sense of reality and your sense of truth, but also because if you fuck with mysticism, you have to spend time with mystics and mystics are an environmental toxin.
[6:10] Mystics are an environmental toxin they are a brain rot they are a noxious gas they are the mustard gas to the flowers of your mind do not fuck with mysticism friends i'm telling you it is a bad situation i told you many years ago i i when i was in theater school i was good friends with a woman in theater school and a friend of mine had given me a tape now this friend of mine was a pretty disturbed guy of course i'm looking about it and back it in hindsight, He was into some very, very strange bands, what he was in, there was a band called King Kurt, if I remember rightly, he said that, I don't know if it's true, but he said that they used to throw animal entrails around in the concert, I remember we once went to go and see the Psychedelic Furs, and he was very proud because he showed me about a nail that he'd pushed all the way through the soft part of his thumb, he was a strange bird man in hindsight, and anyway, he gave me a tape that some band had put together called Sounds of Hell, or something like that, and it literally was a soundscape of what it sounded like in hell, And I remember just playing it with this girl one night. I just was like, hey, what's on this? And we started and it like literally we had to turn it off. Like we both leaped at the cassette player at the time. Turn that off. Turn that off. That way, madness lies. Do not screw with psychic stuff. Oh, I had a feeling. Blah, blah, blah. Ooh, there's a, if you get a cold shiver, it's because a goose is walking over your grave. Oh, if there's a cold spot in a room, that's because there's a ghost there. Do not. Fuck. with mysticism.
[7:38] It tears the fabric of your mind into a million tiny pieces, scatters them to the wind, and you lose your sanity. Do not screw with mysticism. So you've got to tell her there's no such thing as ghosts. You're not haunted. There's no such thing as ghosts. If you're religious, your soul goes somewhere else. It doesn't stick around. But there's no such thing as ghosts. You can't be haunted. And of course, ghosts of evil people don't exist in Christianity in terms of haunting the living because they go to hell. They go to hell. So they're not here to haunt the living. So she has been infected by a brain virus called mysticism where she believes she could be haunted by the pedophile who molested her as a child.
[8:19] She is not. She cannot be. He's fucking dead and gone.
[8:25] He's gone to the choir invisible. He has descended to what justice in the universe would only say is a slow, fiery, eternal torment. But because she's opened her mind to mysticism, she is tortured by the utter destruction of cause and effect.
[8:50] To believe that you're haunted is to believe that there is consciousness without matter. Again, I'm not talking about religion. There's consciousness without matter. You've given up cause and effect. And when you give up cause and effect, anything goes. Up can be down, black can be white, effect can be caused, you can reverse anything you want, and imagination becomes a cancer.
[9:16] I mean, I love imagination. I wrote a whole science fiction novel with an entirely imagined world and universe. Imagination, imagination is funny. It makes a cloudy day sunny. It makes the bee think of honey, just like I think of you. So imagination is great. Love imagination. But imagination without discipline is destructive psychosis. Imagination without the discipline of reason and evidence, without being tightly constrained by the discipline of reason and evidence, imagination washes away your personality and replaces your judgment with a kind of fantastical quasi-psychosis wherein nothing is real and you can think and unthink things in and out of reality. You become a kind of god in the metaphysics of your own delusions oh that guy from 70 years ago he's haunting me it's like no he's not no he's not I mean the mind he's in your head I get all of that but he's not physically, merging with your flesh or flowing through you like a wind through the leaves of a tree no he's not doing that.
[10:28] It's not like you hung a sponge in the river and the water is flowing through. Nope. No, he's not. No, you've got to be strict as shit. Because we are a mind that has evolved from rank fantasy to quasi-reality. We have evolved from rank fantasy to quasi-reality. The mysticism of our distant ancestors would dwarf the craziest person alive right now. So we grew out of imagination was bigger than the universe, right? The gods and the demons and the devils and the ghosts, and there are dryads in trees and there are spirits walking the land. And you must apologize to the rock for moving it away from its preferred place of resting. And the mysticism of our unfettered, psychotic, overarching, cancerous imagination eclipsed reality itself. And we lived in a world of fetid dreamscapes. And we had to tamp that shit down.
[11:35] We had to tamp that shit down. We had to restrain it. We had to control it. So, I mean, look what happens in your nighttime dreams. In your nighttime dreams, reality is insane. There's no cause and effect. You can fly. You can jump. You can swim through fire. You can walk on water. You have no physics, no cause and effect. You can go from A to Z with no letter in between and back. Time changes, flows backwards. It's psychotic.
[12:07] And beautiful. I love dreams. I think they're wonderful. Get a lot of great stuff out of dreams.
[12:13] But that was our waking world as well.
[12:18] Our waking world was mere matter dwarfed by a cancerous imagination called superstition. Superstition is when the imagination spills out of the mind and begins to coat the entire universe in wild, fantastical projected colors. And you can will things into and out of existence. I believe in this ghost. And then, oh, your body, you always get a body chill and I get goosebumps and there's a ghost, and then it begins to take you over. Possession is not possession by demons. In this context, possession is possession by fetid rank cancerous imagination, superstition, fantasy. It's vile and extraordinarily dangerous because it harkens back to a time where we could not tell the contents of her mind from the concepts of the universe. Right? Everybody knows someone like this. They're a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. The readiness is all, right? Oh, I was just thinking of you when you called. Isn't that funny? Oh, I had a feeling. I had a feeling you shouldn't go on that plane. I had a feeling you shouldn't take... I had a feeling.
[13:42] Cancerous estrogen drowning, reality obscuring, spine-on-the-mind breaking, superstitions.
[13:51] Stay the fuck away from mysticism. be strict with it keep your imagination it's a wonderful servant and a fucking crippling master, well I'm just lighting candles I'm thinking of the one who will come and be my person you witch, fuck off with that voodoo don't do it don't do it you want to go find a guy don't like a candle then fantasize there's been something wrong with imagining like I imagined success from when I was a little kid there's nothing wrong with any of that stuff that's great, Ooh, the secret, I'm going to ask the universe, I'm going to wear low cleavage and I'm going to ask the universe to buy me drinks. Oh look, the universe is buying me drinks, because cleavage, right? Don't do it man. Stay the fuck away from that stuff. It will dissolve your brain. And you know what mysticism does in the final analysis?
[14:50] In the final analysis, mysticism isolates you. It puts a fiery mode of superstition all the way around you and no one and nothing can get through. Some of the most vicious people I've ever met are mystics because they have to bond with their own rank-fettered cancerous imaginations, which eclipses actual human beings. And any actual human being who tries to reach through that fiery moat of fettered imagination, they attack. They attack.
[15:35] And you lose causality and you gain, you know, this is what I hate about mysticism. There's so much that I hate about mysticism. One of the things I really hate about mysticism, is it makes you feel special. I'm special, so special. Right, I've got to have some of your attention. Give it to me, right. We can only meet in reality. That's right, Tim, we can only meet in reality. It is only the objective material universe of mere sense. Data that we can meet. You and I cannot meet in the mountains of Mordor. We cannot meet in heaven, at least while we're alive. We cannot meet in mysticism. We cannot mind merge on the astral plane. We can only meet in tangible, factual, actual material reality. That's it. That's the only place we can meet. There is nothing else. It's the only place we can meet. And I dated a girl once who claimed to have the ability to read minds, and yet she constantly misinterpreted absolutely everything I was saying.
[16:53] Mysticism makes you a liar. Makes you a liar. Oh, I have psychic abilities. Oh, fantastic. You know, the amazing Randy down in Vegas has had this million-dollar prize for decades. Anybody who can prove psychic abilities, man, let's go down. Let's pick up that mill, baby. Let's pick up that mill. Oh, it doesn't work that way. So you're just a liar. I have this skill. Okay, let's put it to the test. No, it can't possibly be tested. Then you're lying. People want to meet in the metaverse these days, VR, AR, etc. Well, not much. But the VR and AR, they're not mysticism. That's not mysticism. That's technology. I heard weird voices in my ear then I realized I had my airpods on I was in a phone call that's not mysticism that's not mysticism.
[17:46] Oh, it's horrendous. Don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. You got to have discipline, man. And if there's one thing that you got to have discipline with, it's retaining a sense of reality.
[18:08] You know, with social animals, we go insane on our own. We go insane on our own, and mysticism isolates us. Because the only way that you can hang out with people when you're a mystic is with other people who are compulsive liars like all mystics are. No, you can't read minds. No, your dreams are not prophetic. No, you didn't have a funny feeling that turned out to be true. It's just some coincidences in life. Hello, welcome to statistics. Mathematics is the enemy of the mystical. Every human being guaranteed is going to have three to six dreams that seem to come true. Goosebumps. Ooh, you know, I had a feeling that something bad had happened to my mom, and then I got the phone call, and she was in a bad accident. Ooh, ah, no!
[18:58] You're paranoid. You constantly think bad things are happening to everyone, and then the one time it actually does happen, you think you're psychic. You think bad things are happening all the time everywhere, and then you get confirmation, Oh my God, I'm right. Astrology is popular with women. Not sure if they're just joking there. Well, it's not popular with any sane woman.
[19:24] Okay, and what's the equivalent of astrology for men?
[19:40] Would you say mystics blur or erase the line between the subjective and the objective? Okay. I cannot meet in your mind. We can only meet in reality by talking and listening in the objective medium through the sense of sound waves, whatever, ASL or whatever, right? So we can only meet in reality. I can't say, you know, there's no meeting scheduler that says we'll meet in your brain next Tuesday at 1 p.m. I can't get into your brain. I can't get into your brain. I mean, I can send messages through your ears to your brain. We can have a conversation, but I cannot get into your brain. Now, what mystics do is they take their brain and extend it to infinity. Man is the dream of the dolphin.
[20:38] Snow on the Sahara is a good song. But yeah, Enigma. Man, it's the dream of the dove. You take your capacity for generative thought and you extend it to the universe so that everything in the universe becomes within your own mind because the capacities of your mind, such as creation, go to the infinite of the universe and beyond. So the entire universe becomes your mind and therefore you imagine that people are in your mind which they can't be so you never get to meet anyone and you get to project see it's projection right projection is when you take internal states and ascribe them to external causes right.
[21:21] I'm upset you made me upset therefore you're a bad person because only a bad person would make me upset so you you're upset then you ascribe to external on in courses. And mysticism is taking the imagination of the mind, which is a beautiful and wonderful thing, projecting it out into the universe into infinity and saying that the entire, he's got the whole world in his insane brain. He's got the whole, right? That's all it is. And you cannot ever have a deep connection or a direct connection with a mystic because you are in their mind as an imaginary being and therefore it's narcissism incarnate.
[22:12] Taylor. Thank you for the donation. Steph, I'm in need of a pep talk in regards to having a second baby. My husband and I were planning on trying for a second this year, but I've suddenly got cold feet. Well, you know that's because you're stepping in a ghost. Okay. I've had a very difficult postpartum time with my son, and I'm afraid of not being able to tend to my current child properly with a new baby. Thank you for the support. Why do you think you had a difficult postpartum time? Why do you think you had postpartum depression? Or whatever we could say, however we would describe it. Why do you think you had that? And again, you'll call in at freedomain.com, happy to chat, but I'll wait for that. All right, as a Christian, says someone, I don't believe that there are ghosts, but sometimes there are resident demons that are happy to let you think there are ghosts to fuck with you.
[23:09] But as a Christian, wouldn't you accept that a belief in superstition is a pathway to demons?
[23:21] Mysticism is saying that there are no boundaries to your mind. My mind extends to infinity and eternity. There are no boundaries. Now, if you say that there are no boundaries to your mind, you have no borders. Anyone can come in because they're already in, right? Your entire mind is bigger than the universe and therefore everything that's in the universe, including demons, is already in your mind. So not having boundaries, not having the strictness of empiricism means that your mind is a slut harbor open to all ghost ships. You're a mind whore. Anyone can come in without even having to pay anything. So wouldn't you accept as a Christian that mysticism and superstition is a gateway that the devil's used to get in, right? Oh, it's fun. Let's try some Ouija boarding, right? Imagination is like a car. You need to drive responsibly and you need to imagine responsibly. Except a car can't swell up and swallow the whole universe.
[24:24] Steph, have you ever had nightmares appear as a response to a biological problem? If my chest is uncovered and I get chilled, I will have nightmares until I wake up. It has been super consistent since I was a child. I don't think I have. I don't think I have had that. Was early mysticism and superstition fed by drugs? I don't know. I mean, we're talking about prehistory, pre-written language. So mysticism leads to no-time mindset, and people in a no-time mindset are unlikely to realize that a broken clock is right twice a day. I almost dated a mystic girl. She had beautiful eyes, but yikes, she was crazy. Is it okay to be entertained by it, but not involved in practice, or is that accepting by proxy? I don't know what you mean by that. You mean watching a horror movie? I think it's all right. All right, let's get to your comments.
[25:26] Astrology for men equals sports. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah, so let's see here. How could military service affect you emotionally and psychologically with regards to how killing other people as your job could affect you well i don't know what percentage of people in the military actually kill people but i don't think it's that many like in terms of people who are on the front lines and pull their triggers and turn somebody into red mist so i don't know a military service do you mean like being a front line infantryman or or seal or marine or something like that and killing people well i mean you're you're killing people not in self-defense right you're killing people because you're ordered. I think that's pretty soul-costly.
[26:15] Somebody says, I work at an organization that is mysticism veiled as a Christian organization, planning my exit. Yes, well, Christianity, of course, the big problem with Christianity these days is it has become feminized and wokefied. And this is kind of a back and forth that happens with Christianity, where you go from the masculine to the feminine influence and back. It's not particularly stable that way.
[26:47] I struggle with understanding how religion and mysticism differ. Are Christians mystics? Well, Christians can be just about anything, but I would not categorize Christianity. Thank you for the tip. I would not characterize Christianity as mysticism. I mean, I know that there are Christian mystics and so on, but in Christianity, the universe is a reflection of the mind of God, not of you, and you are a small part of that. So it's not you. You, you're not projecting your own creativity and consciousness into the universe to infinity. It's God's universe. You're just a part of it and you have absolute rules. And in Christianity, you don't mess with superstition. So it's not the same. So what is astrology for? Yeah, it's interesting.
[27:31] So sports ball for men. So astrology gives women a sense of specialness and it takes away their responsibility and gives them highs and lows depending on what's being said. And I suppose sports ball men outsource their happiness or sadness to random, um, steroid laced doofuses. All right. My mom used to say every time she had a dream that someone died, it meant someone in her family was pregnant. Right. Because, you know, the, the fetus, the fetus at like six weeks or whatever is putting out sub harmonic vibrations that affect your mother's unconscious in a distant place. Right. Crazy.
[28:15] You ever seen the book Men Who Stare at Goats? It was an insane dive into the CIA in the 60s, 70s, who were trying to get remote viewers because they picked up some fake intelligence that the Russians had remote viewers. It was all massive waste of money. Additionally, a bunch of barrels of weapons-grade LSD went missing as well. You once said sanity is a social construct. No. Social construct means it's created by society. No, sanity requires feedback from honest people. It's not just society. You have to have honest people around you. You can't be saner than the least honest person in your life. Instead of astrology, women now put their minds bricks into their, yeah, everybody wants their, everybody wants to be categorized, not moralized, right? I'm INTJ. I'm psychic. I'm, can you be moral? No, I'm, I'm, I'm categorizing myself. In finance, the mythic is technical analysis. Let's just, yeah. Next week, a doctor with a flashlight shows you where business projections come from. Breastfeeding was extremely difficult and painful, and baby had multiple food allergies that kept him up in pain all night. Took two months to get everything sorted out. Okay, so it wasn't postpartum depression. You just had a difficult time breastfeeding, and your baby had multiple food allergies. Do you have any idea why your baby had food allergies?
[29:40] Thanks, Steph. Amazing distinction you made out there about Christianity and mysticism. We'll be donating next paycheck. Yeah. Mysticism is when your imagination flows like a rotting set of carcasses on a stormy sea out from your brain to the extent of the universe, but that's not Christianity. Christianity is we live within the mind of God and we are constrained to our own souls and our own consciousness and our own responsibility.
[30:04] Ever heard of moonology? Went out on a date with a girl like that. Apparently the moon affects our emotions. Yeah, I can understand that. I mean, everybody knows, of course, the craziness that happens on a full moon. I have no doubt that the moon would have some kind of effect on our limbic system or our neurological system for sure. I mean, if it can move the entire ocean, maybe, just maybe, it can shift your mood a little bit too. I mean, we're made of water, right? I mean, what are we, hugely composed of water.
[30:36] I mean, by water, I mean testosterone for me, but for you guys, probably just water. All right, so I hope that helps. Let's get to... So with regards to the second baby. So something's missing from your equation, right? So this is the quote. Steph, I am in need of a pep talk in regards to having a second baby. My husband and I were planning on trying for our second this year, but I suddenly got cold feet. I had a very difficult postpartum time with my son, and I'm afraid of not being able to attend to my current child properly with a new baby. Okay, so I will tell you what to think about this. And maybe you'll find that you agree, and maybe you'll find that you don't, right? They're your thoughts. This is just my strong exhortation, right? Okay, number one, the past is not a reliable guide to the future. If the past were a reliable guide to the future, I'd be screwed. Because my past was terrible, my future is as bright as can be. So the fact that you had a difficult time with your first baby is not any kind of certainty that you're going to have a difficult time with your second baby for two reasons. One, random variation. And two, you have experience now. First babies are terrifying. I mean, am I wrong? First babies are terrifying. I mean, I used to sit over my daughter's. She used to have this habit of when she was a baby, she'd just roll into the corner and jam her face into the corner and fall asleep. and I'd be like.
[32:01] Can she breathe? I'm looking up. Can babies breathe in their faces? And, oh, right. New babies are terrifying because you're inexperienced. Plus, I hadn't spent a lot of time around babies before. So new babies are terrifying. And you've no experience. And, of course, we didn't have grandparents on either side, really, to help out. So it was terrifying. New babies are terrifying because you don't know.
[32:28] You don't know. No, my daughter never wanted me to sit with her, always wanted to be moving around, always wanted to be interacted with. She has been an interaction baby from the very beginning, and it was very, very different. I remember my wife and I took Izzy to a local library for reading time, and she was maybe 18 months.
[32:58] And i'm kidding you not there were like 30 35 kids there with moms every single other kid, was sitting nicely in their mother's lap and listening contentedly to the story sucking their thumb a little or had a binky maybe and they were kind of half dozing and there were some kids six six months to like three or whatever.
[33:19] Uh my daughter no absolutely not she would not sit down she wanted to squirm she picked Picked up the bubble maker. She picked up the ball. She rolled it. We ended up in the way back of the room with my daughter playing with the taps. She had no interest in the story and absolutely zero interest in sitting ever. Always wanted to explore. And she's always been an explorer. And she loves to explore. I love to go exploring with her. She loves chasing and catching animals where the safety is good. And yeah, she's just always been there. She loves going. We go river hiking. We go hiking in the woods and look for animals and, and someone she loves catching her frogs and her toads.
[33:58] She'd just always been, well, ants in the pants. We used to call it when I, when I was a kid. So I didn't know she was extraordinarily different from other kids and it remains that way, which I think is delightful.
[34:12] But first babies are terrifying. I mean, if we have multiple parents here, you know, I mean, a friend of ours has just had their sixth baby and she's like, eh, I'm old hat, right? Eh, you know, no worries, no concerns. She's had, so your second baby is totally different than the first. I mean, just the dice roll is most likely going to be that you have a different kind of kid. So if you had a difficult kid early on, odds are that you're not going to have, you know, there's a law of averages for these things, right? You don't tend to roll, you know, snake eyes 10 times in a row, right? Tends to be, there's a bell curve to these things, right? So if you have one extreme, you're either going to have moderate or something different. So the second baby is not likely to be at all like the first baby. So I wouldn't judge the future by the past as far as that goes, because there's a huge amount of biological variation between children. So that's sort of number one.
[35:04] So your kid's going going to be different very much different and maybe much easier number one number two you're going to have experience so you're going to know a lot about what's been going on and what what to do you've you've found ways to solve these these kinds of issues and number three let me just read this again and now you're going to have to you know figure out what's missing steph i'm in need of a pep talk in regards to having a second baby my husband and i were planning on trying for a second this year but i've suddenly got cold feet i had a very difficult postpartum time with my son and I'm afraid of not being able to attend my current baby proper new PSI, right? I, I, I, I, I. I, I, I, I, I, and I'm not saying you're selfish. I'm just saying that the fundamental decision I think about having another kid is what's best for your current kid. Is it bad? I mean, I wanted more kids. Nature did not oblige. I wanted more kids. Is it best? Like if you're raising your child to be different from everyone, you're a peaceful parent, you're rational, you're philosophical, you're UPB based.
[36:17] So, do you want your child to have some of that isolation that comes from being really different from everyone else? Is that fair? If you have the choice. Wouldn't it be better? See, here's the thing about siblings. I love the idea of siblings. And I do know some great siblings. I don't have a great sibling, but I do know they're great. I knew they were great siblings. So a sibling is someone, they go through the whole journey, man.
[36:45] I'll never know my wife when she was a kid. She'll never know me when I was a kid. Siblings go A to Z, man. They go with tiny bits of overlap or missing sections. They go through the whole life journey with you. Isn't that amazing? Your parents don't. Your spouse doesn't. Your friends usually don't. They go go through the whole life journey with you. Isn't that an amazing thing? And almost nothing is more powerful than a good sibling relationship. And almost nothing is more destructive than a toxic sibling relationship. And of course, half of siblings are, in fact, half of sibling relationships, statistically, even by current standards, are categorized as abusive.
[37:29] So, is it better for your child to have a sibling? Well, I think in general, the more you're raising your child to be an individual, rational, critical thinker, the more essential it is for your child to have a sibling.
[37:55] So, you know, please understand, I'm not trying to call you selfish. Selfish i'm just struck by what's missing from the equation right what is missing from the equation is what's best for your child is it best for your child to have a sibling especially if they're homeschooled and so on right and also let's say that you do have a difficult time for a couple of months with your kid as somebody who's raising a single child an only child who's great but i'll I'll just tell you that, you know, every time they want to play, they'll come to you. If you have more than one child and they're reasonably close together in age, they'll play with each other and you get a little bit of time to do some other stuff. It will pay off massively. Because when you have an only child, particularly in the kind of modern bedroom neighborhoods that we have now where everybody's gone all day and then the kids are in daycare or they're at school or after school activities and people don't go out to play. It's very different than when I was a kid. When I was a kid growing up in the 70s in England, you could leave my apartment. There were at least 10 kids around you could play with at any given time. You could always get a game going.
[39:05] Always, always, always. We were all broke. maybe we had a soccer ball but we would just come up with our own games we go build forts in the woods we played war i write about this in my novel almost which you should definitely check out at free domain.com slash books it's free it's a great book but these sort of bedroom communities now the kids aren't out kids aren't out people are nervous they want their kids home kids are on tablets video gaming right everybody's turning into a squint-eyed question mark and we're coming into the final stage of the movie WALL-E. But you, if you don't have another kid, then you've got another 15 years of being a constant playmate with very little break.
[40:03] So Mike says, I have four siblings. We definitely had our moments of fights and brief fallings out, but the things I learned from them and the comfort and joy they brought me in play, and then later on in serious conversations about life and whatnot. Amazing. Ah, that's beautiful, Mike. That's wonderful. That's what you want. That's what you want. Any thoughts on how many children, maybe too many. Elon Musk has like 11 children, for example. I wonder if that or even more is fine or if there's something to look out for. It depends. So if you're going to have more kids, it's usually a good idea to have extended family family, or at least close people around you to help out with the kids. Steph, which is more destructive, belief in mysticism or belief in the state? Well, it depends what you mean. Belief in the state is more destructive to others. Belief in mysticism is more destructive to yourself. I think for fairly obvious reasons. Thank you, Monsieur Mirage. Oh no, I'm sorry. I thought that was a tip. It was just light waves bouncing between differently heated layers of atmosphere. Just kidding. No, thank you I appreciate that thank you thank you thank you and yeah to those who have tipped who are tipped I will send you to the Stephbot AI have I talked about I talk about Stephbot AI.
[41:17] Steph in the USA parents have been arrested for not being outside while their kids play in a small fenced off yard but watching through a window parents have also been arrested for merely walking their kids home from school rather than using car taking the bus you know I I... I don't believe you. Sorry. I mean, has this happened? I'm sure there's more to it than that. I'm sure there's more to it than that. You've talked about it, never played with it. Really? Really? All right. You've talked about it, never played with it. Well, we could. We could. We could. Shall we try? The Peaceful Parenting AI is very good. It's very good. And we're looking to upgrade it even further. Even further, further, even further. Mike says, yeah, Yakko staff, I've got four kids. Plan to have seven more. It would be a tribe. We started late, so grandparents due to age and health can only help so much. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
[42:29] The more the merrier. In my, in my view, because here's the other thing too, right?
[42:33] So this is back to the lady and Taylor. Like I, again, if I can do anything to help, I absolutely will. These are just suggestions. Um, I, I somewhat arrogantly earlier said, I'm going to tell you what to think, which I apologize for that was too, too strongly worded and not accurate, but, um, here's what you want to think. So there's a life poised, right? There's a life poised. Think of the lives of babies, the souls of babies ringing the earth like Saturn, right? Now, a baby born to a free-domain listener has won the intergalactic lottery and may be in fact the most privileged being in the known universe. You follow? A baby born to a peacefully parenting philosophical family has won the intergalactic lottery. Lottery of infinity. And your next baby desperately wants to meet you.
[43:36] With some Puerto Rican girls that just dying to meet you. Baby's desperate to meet you. Wants to meet you. Wants to hold you. Wants to be in your family. Doesn't want to land in some crap hole, abusive, neglectful family. They want to land in your lap, baby. They want to land in your lap.
[44:08] And you like being alive, and what if your mother had said, ooh, breastfeeding is tough, and, you know, it was a month or two, and there were these allergies. Like, you're happy to be alive. What if your mother had said, eh, it's too tough? You don't exist. You never came to be. You float forever, or you land in some other sucky family. Isn't that great? Steph, thanks for telling me about homeschooling. my son is testing two to three grade levels ahead, it's actually much easier than anticipated. Right. You're very welcome, and I'm very, very glad to hear that. Boy, did you hear about that story of the guy? It was a little boy who killed himself because he was being teased for his glasses and his teeth. He was being teased, and the parents complained to the school 20 times. He was relentlessly teased. And he killed himself. And you complain into the school 20 times nothing's happening your kid's getting more and more depressed i do not understand in any way shape or form and maybe there's a reason i don't understand but i do not understand in any way shape or form why you would leave him there, in that hellscape i do not understand why you would leave him in that hellscape, call him out school won't deal with bullying and pull him out.
[45:37] You have a peaceful parenting AI that is separate from your UPB AI. I don't have a UPB AI. I have a free domain AI and I have a very separate peaceful parenting AI that's been loaded up with the peaceful parenting book, the first draft and this draft. It has been loaded up with my articles. It has been loaded up with podcast transcripts from my peaceful parenting presentations, shows, interviews. It's everything. thing. It is fantastic. It's really, really good.
[46:12] Would geek nerd culture be the equivalent for men, insofar as the nerds' fetishization of their military and stories for value and courage in superheroes and space wizards? Well, it used to be that it was aspirational, right? So heroic stories used to be aspirational, and then they got progressively more and more unreal until they become a bottomless excuse for cowardice. So the stories that I grew up with, the Robert Louis Stevenson Treasure Island and the adventure stories, even the Famous Five when I was little, the adventure stories were actionable, they were doable. This, well, you have to be from the planet Krypton, you have to be in a long time ago in a galaxy far, far, far away. All your courage is elsewhere, it's not here, it's not real. The moment that the space wizard comes along and yanks you to Mos Eisley and then off-world, then you can be courageous, which will never happen. Well, of course, a lot of this stuff is training you to go to war, right? Any thoughts on how to deal with irritability with yourself and in others i personally just distanced myself from the cause but wonder if there is a better way a rational understanding of it.
[47:26] Okay give me a one to ten people if you wouldn't mind give me a one to ten on how much you deal with irritability with being irritated yourself not other people not other people but just yourself.
[47:51] I deal with irritability from time to time. It's not too bad, but I definitely haven't. Eight. Yeah, seven.
[48:16] Yeah, six. Somebody says, when I was a kid, I made fun of a kid that had glasses, calling him four eyes because I saw a bunch of TV shows and movies that insulted glasses. Kids that way. And a couple of years later, I had to get glasses from that. I learned not to make fun of people for physical defects that they had no control over. Who the fuck were your parents? parents. You're insulting a kid for his eyesight, which he has no control over. But didn't your parents say, hey, stop mocking a kid. Like, that's not his fault. What are you doing? Anyway, I guess I know the answer to that.
[49:01] Okay. You can be, yeah, I can be, I can be, I can be short-tempered. Oh, I'm sure that's not a shock to anyone. I can be a little testy. Okay, so there are two primary causes for irritation in my experience. And, you know, maybe there are others. This is just the ones I want to talk about. Number one is irritation is the shadow cast by a fear that you're not reaching your potential. Right? Okay, let me ask you this question. From 1 to 10, how much have you manifested your potential as a glorious child of the universe? us. How much have you manifested your potential, the things that you're capable of, the things that you've dreamed of, the things that you believe you can do or might be able to do? From one to 10, how much have you manifested your potential? I put myself at seven, seven and a half. I've still got a ways to go, but I would say for me, seven, seven and a half is how much I've manifested my potential. The dreams that you had as a kid, the fantasies you had as a kid, what you thought your life was going to be, where is it relative to what you dreamed of? Thank you.
[50:13] Just like everything else, those old crazy dreams just kind of came and went. Ain't that America? Right. So what do we got? Three, six, 1.3, three, four, two. If you're a seven, I'll change my answer to a 0.5. Right.
[50:36] If there's any consolation when I get to a nine, I'll change it down to a seven again because I want to keep getting better. I have achieved all of my dreams. Wow. You have achieved all of your dreams. I wish you had bigger dreams. I'm sorry about that. That's really sad. Your dreams must have been tiny. I mean, I've achieved a lot of my life. I haven't achieved all my dreams.
[51:08] Yeah, you might want to up your dream scale there. A little bit right so irritation often occurs when we back down from our potential if you back if you back down from your potential you will be irritated because the way that you achieve your potential is you say i'm terrified of my potential fuck it i'm doing it anyway, right i'm terrified of my potential fuck it i'm doing it anyway right so you have to accept the fear. Now, if you redefine that fear and you wish it away, right? You avoid your potential and you avoid the fear that's keeping you from your potential. Then you end up in a state of fairly chronic irritation. And the irritation is that you're avoiding that which gives you motive power, right? You can't achieve your potential without feeling pitifully weak.
[52:13] You can't achieve your potential without feeling pitifully weak. Because you have to have a sense of the gap between where you are and where you want to be, and that's just going to be humiliating. That's going to feel, it's going to feel low. You're going to feel small. You're going to feel like dirt between the toes of the dinosaurs. And to avoid that feeling of smallness is to avoid your potential. Because you understand you'll only feel small if you measure yourself relative to your potential.
[52:49] It's sad you consider it sad that your audience achieves their dreams rather than being perpetual victims. Oh dear, I'm so sorry you grew up without a dad. So you have to feel small in order to achieve your potential. I went through a lot of my life feeling very small, feeling like I'm tiny, I'm ineffectual. Because I had a sort of dim sense of my own potential and I just was not able to manifest or achieve it in a way that I really felt I was maxing, right? Brain maxing. So I had to go through that. And I think it's right. I think it's natural, that you have to go through that sense of smallness in order to begin to achieve your own potential. Because you're going to feel, relative to your own potential, we're all small. I still remain small relative to my own potential, though I've achieved a lot.
[54:03] So, So, irritation is when we're avoiding feeling small, which is the propulsion that allows us to really manifest our potential. So, irritation is a sense of being frustrated with our own inability to handle our smallness, which propels us to our potential. And we're avoiding all of that and letting time slip by. Letting time slip by. Like I was talking with this guy today, he, the German guy, a half German, half Italian, though he identified mostly with his German side and he got involved in a home renovation project when he was living with his fiance and it was like, I don't know, four to six months, it was going to be like 30 hours a week or more. right and.
[55:06] I said, like, I would never do a project like that because I only have, like, maybe 30 years, if I'm lucky, 30 or 40 years more with my wife. I wouldn't want to waste six months of that in the basement while she wasn't working with me.
[55:20] Oh, this guy says, why not ask why I feel my dreams have been fulfilled? No, if you think that that's the right approach, why didn't you ask me why I think it's sad that your dreams are small, right? If you feel that it's right to be curious, then why weren't you curious? Don't ask me to uphold a standard that you're not willing to do. That's really sad. It's so manipulative. Well, you should do what I didn't do because that's more mature. Okay, okay, Mr. Titan. That's funny. So number one is time slipping away and you're not confronting your lack of achievement. as I work on my achievement. I try to work on my achievement every day, right? So that's number one. Number two, which is a little bit more prosaic, is one of the reasons that you may be irritated on a more regular basis is you're surrounded by people who are not smart. You're surrounded by people who are petty. You're surrounded by people who don't think things through. You're surrounded by people with whom there's chaos There are some bad decisions and bad ideas, bad arguments, repetitive mistakes, and so on, right? So that could be another reason why you're irritable is that you're surrounded by people who are far less competent than you, and that chafes at you, and it should chafe at you. It should be really, really annoying to be around people less competent or intelligent than you are.
[56:48] Ah, my dream as a kid was to one day run my own animation studio. I'm in a completely different profession and field now, and I'm a lot happier for it. Excellent. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't have to be what you dreamed as a kid, but I bet you as a kid you dreamed big, didn't you? Although I would tell you, one of my big fantasies as a kid, I was like my catcher in the rye thing. So in England, there are these double-decker buses, and there's a little walled-off section with curtains, and there's a bus driver. So there were two people. There was the guy who collected all of the money and then there was just the bus driver and he was completely walled off. And I thought that would be lovely. It would be lovely to be working alone, walled off and all of that. That was one of my big dreams as a kid. But yeah, I've certainly had, I've had very big dreams for a long time and it was tough. It was tough because big dreams is the potential for big disappointment, right? Right? Big dreams is the potential for big disappointment.
[57:51] And that's the risk you take. Right? You got big dreams. I want to be a star. I want to be whatever. I want to be big. I want to be big in Japan or whatever. Right? And then there's a big problem. Right? Because if you don't make it, and you know, there's a big risk. Right? If you don't make it, it's pretty tragic. And it's tough. Then you got to be pretty nimble and find something else. Right? And being nimble in your pursuit of your potential is pretty important. So yeah, look at the people around you. Like when you're at a dinner table and you look at the people in your life, you're at some dinner party, dinner table, Thanksgiving, Christmas, are you looking around like, this is great. These people are fantastic. I'm thrilled to be here. Are you?
[58:45] Are you? I mean, I remember when I was finally like a gripped piece of prison soap squirting out of my old life. I just remember one of the last things was just, I was there with my wife, with people from my old life. And I was just looking around because, you know, I had such a wonderful time and always have had such a wonderful time with my wife. That I was just looking around like, what am I doing here? This is absolutely not right. The right place for me at all. What am I doing here? It's like, it's like a waking from a dream, almost like that. What am I, what am I doing here? Why am I here with these people? They're not going to change. Why am I, why am I down here? Why am I, why am I here?
[59:42] And that's a, that's a life-changing moment, man. Somebody says my big kid dreams, fighter pilot, Lego Imagineer, run animation studio, become the scientist who disproves evolution so hard that atheists have nothing left to believe in. Right. Every now and then it's, it's, it's just the thought that passes me by. And it very much is like a thought that passes me by. But every now and then I'm like, yeah, I'm only 57. I can still be a movie star. And it's like, I'm not obviously, although I've been in a movie or two, but, um, yeah, Yeah, it's just kind of funny. I mean, that would be not a great use of my talents, but, you know, I suppose. And Grandma Moses only started painting when she was 80. Anyway, being nimble in your pursuit of potential. Could you please speak more on that? Well, so the whole point of potential is it's unknown. You don't know what your potential is, and because you don't know what your potential is, you don't know exactly where your potential is. So I knew I had a great brain. I knew I could do a lot of wild, crazy things with my imagination. nation. I knew I was a great storyteller. I knew I was great with language and analogies. And I was really, I have a great grasp for instinctual debating.
[1:00:57] And I loved computers, love programming, love business, love economics, love philosophy, love literature love writing love acting love right public speaking so but i had to be nimble right so i had to just where the opportunities arose i seized them i've always been a one for like seize the day carpe diem i seized the day so when an opportunity opened up in business boom i was in 150 percent working nights weekends you name it build that company from the ground up which is really a challenging thing to do when you have no particular business training or experience and no training in computer science or computers, just learning how to code on the fly. This is before you could grab all the code samples in the unknown universe off the internet. So yeah, I mean, I remember I'd spent seven hours, about seven hours straight learning how to open a database record, save it and close it again, because there was no type ahead. There were no examples. You just had to figure it out.
[1:02:01] So I had to go to business. Turns out in business, I was good at sales and marketing, did some sales, moved into marketing for a while. And then, and of course, when I was younger, it was acting, theater school, writing, directing, and all this kind of stuff. And I wrote plays and I produced one of my own plays after I left theater school.
[1:02:18] And so I just had to be nimble. I didn't know where I was going to land. I didn't know where the real attraction was going to be. I didn't know. I know I can do a lot of stuff. There's a lot of stuff I can't do, but there's a lot of stuff I can do, obviously. Obviously so i had to be nimble oh okay can try this oh give me try that oh well it turned out was really good at negotiating with clients so whenever we had a really difficult client yay i'd get flown out and i'd stay in a 400 a night hotel having a great time and then get my ass chewed out by the client and calm them down with my negotiating skills because i'm very good at negotiating. So I just had to be nimble. And then when this opened up, when podcasting opened up, I mean, I wrote about podcasting in the nineties. I have a whole character in my book named Rudy, my book, the God of atheists, which telling you guys, if you're not listening to my I don't know what you're doing with my time with your time, but I wrote a novel called the God of Atheists where a guy spoke very passionately into a little internet camera. I wrote this in the nineties and published it and it became very life-changing for a lot of people.
[1:03:37] And that was prophetic because it was like 10 years before there was any such thing as YouTube or podcasting or anything like that, right? So, I mean, I saw it coming even 10 years before it was here, and I actually used to practice speeches just in my car without anything recording. So I had a sense it was coming. and when it finally began to arise, The God of Atheists is a really great book. Oh, thank you. I love that book. I really do.
[1:04:11] And when it became possible to speak my thoughts of the world, and then that's where I've landed and that's where my potential is being maximized. And my potential is maximized. I mean, I get to do philosophy, I get to do self-knowledge, I get to do personal issues, I get to do some acting with my role-playing and with my novels, reading them as audiobooks. I mean, honestly, this is the everything discipline for me. Get to do a little bit of singing, you know, I get to do just about everything. I mean, what could be better for me, right? How much is Terry's character based on your experiences? Well, Terry's an amalgam of somebody I knew in the software world and certainly some of my experiences, but yes. Yes, I would say there's some overlap. Let's be as opaque as possible. Yeah, there's definitely some overlap.
[1:05:11] Uh, let's just say I did a lot of research in business and the software world. I did, I did some research.
[1:05:20] I did some research. All right. Uh, okay. So let's, let's try this. I'm going to see, I'm going to see, maybe this will work. Maybe this won't work. Let's find out.
[1:05:30] The only book I've read from you is on truth, the tyranny evolution, which I thought was one of the most helpful books I've read. Looking forward to reading and listening to all of them. Oh, good. I hope so. I actually just came across a book of mine. I think I'm going to release it for donors next month. It's called How Not to Achieve Freedom. It's a short-ish book, about two hours 40 for audiobook, which is my criticism of religion and political libertarianism as the path to liberty. And it's a book i wrote i had kind of forgotten about it i don't think i ever published it but it's coming back and it's really interesting to see 15 years later how my predictions have played out because it was a book where i predicted things in the future and it's really interesting to see how these i'm just listening to it i had a computer read it to me it's kind of eerie right i had the computer i've trained an ai on my voice and i had the computer read it to me i was listening to it it today while doing some work around the house and it's very very interesting to see my perspectives and arguments from like 15 years ago and what i expected and how it came to pass so i'll put that out next month for for donors all right so i'm going to try this and try this let's try this okay i'm gonna try i'm gonna be 500 miles all right um.
[1:06:52] I'm going to try, I'm going to see if I can share the peaceful parenting, but let us see. I don't know if I can or can't or whatever, whatever, but let's see. If not, I can just take the cues, right? I can just take the cues. What's it, uh, Pearl is always saying, take the L, ladies, just take the L. Just take the L. All right, can I do it that way? Yeah, let's find out. Let's see. I'm going to see if I can share anything here. Oh, let's zoom that in a little smidge here. All right. So let's try this. So if I go to...
[1:07:55] All right. Just hang tight. I will be 500. Oh, I don't want that. I want that. Oh, looky-la. Looky-la. Oh, my. Oh, how delightful. Be careful I buy it. All right. All right, is there any way that I can have it not there? Let's see here. I would buy 500 more. All right, so let's see here. Hallelujah, no. Oh, interesting, okay.
[1:08:45] No, okay. I don't think I can move. That's fine, that's fine. Okay, so this is the Peaceful Parenting chatbot, and if you want to hit me with some cues, I will thump them in. I heard you mention working on a book called The Island. Yes, The Island was a book that I wrote. I didn't finish it, but I got about halfway through, and it was a book about an underwater volcano kicks up a whole new island, and it is claimed by anarcho-capitalists who try to build a perfectly free society on it. All right, so questions for the peaceful parenting bot. All right, let's start here with define peaceful parenting. Boom. What can we see? What can we see?
[1:09:52] Alright, peaceful parenting is the practice of teaching and guiding children without the use of aggression, punishment, or coercion. It emphasizes reasoning with children, understanding their needs and emotions, and fostering a relationship based on mutual respect and empathy. Peaceful parenting rejects the idea of using physical force, yelling, or punitive measures to control behavior, instead focusing on positive discipline strategies that promote self-regulation and moral understanding in children. It is about being honest and consistent in the application of these principles, striving to model virtue through actions rather than undermining it through bullying or hypocritical manipulations. Mmm! Tastes like morality. Tastes like morality. All right, let me just see here. Is this, yeah, yeah, it's working, right? Oh, delightful. Absolutely magnificent and magnificent. All right. So let's try, give me some examples of parental hypocrisy. Let's see. Let's see what we get.
[1:11:16] Oh, lovely. Ew, magnificent.
[1:11:25] Ah, interesting. All right. Parental hypocrisy can manifest in various ways, reflecting a discrepancy between what parents demand of their children and how they themselves behave. Some hypocrisies include, one, demanding apologies without apologizing. Parents often require their children to apologize for their mistakes, yet fail to offer apologies themselves when they are in the wrong. This teaches children that admitting fault is only necessary for them, not for adults. 2. Punishing children for reflecting parents' own behaviors. Parents may punish their children for behaviors that they themselves exhibit, such as yelling, lying, or showing disrespect. This not only confuses children about what is acceptable behavior, but also undermines the parents' credibility.
[1:12:09] Three, not admitting fault. Many parents expect their children to admit fault, to admit when they are wrong, and take responsibility for their actions. However, these same parents may not admit their own mistakes or faults, instead choosing to justify their actions or blame others. Four, demanding respect without being respectful. Parents may insist on respect from their children regardless of how they treat them. This can include yelling, belittling, or not considering the child's feelings, which sends mixed messages about what respect truly means. Five, setting rules they don't follow. Parents might set rules for their children that they do not adhere to themselves, such as limits on screen time, bedtime routines, or eating habits. This can lead to children questioning the validity and fairness of these rules. Six, avoiding difficult conversations. Some parents demand honesty and openness from their children, but avoid or shut down conversations about their own behavior. Behaviorist decisions or life challenges. This can create a one-sided expectation of transparency. Seven, using punishment to cover up their own hypocrisy. Instead of addressing their own moral inconsistencies or failures, some parents may resort to punishing their children as a way to deflect attention from their own actions. These examples highlight the importance of self-awareness and consistency in parenting.
[1:13:32] Underscoring the need for parents to model the behavior and values they want to instill in their children. Absolutely. Absolutely. All right, so we've got a question here. I'm just going to copy and paste this. Define discipline within the context of peaceful parenting. All right, let's do that.
[1:13:48] Yeah, I had a question the other day, well, how do you, how does peaceful parenting, how do you get kids to exercise self-ownership and self-control? And it's like, but if you're yelling and hitting your kids, you're not showing any kind of real self-control and you're out of control. So, right? How does that model anything to kids, right? Within the context of peaceful parenting, discipline is understood as guiding and teaching children to understand and regulate their own behaviors through empathy, communication, and mutual respect, rather than through punishment or fear. Discipline in peaceful parenting focuses on helping children learn from their mistakes, understand the consequences of their actions, and develop internal motivation to behave in socially appropriate ways. It involves setting clear boundaries and expectations in a loving and consistent manner and using natural and logical consequences that are directly related to the behavior. The goal is to foster self-discipline within the child so they can navigate the world around them with empathy, respect, and understanding rather than simply obeying out of fear of punishment. Talk about the neurobiological effects of screaming. I'm going to say, because screaming is a bit ambiguous, could be the child screaming, right? I'm going to say of verbal abuse, if you don't mind me giving a little, you could say screaming at children. Talk about the neurobiological effects of verbal abuse.
[1:15:10] It is thinking. And by the way, this works in 60 or 70 different languages, by the way.
[1:15:22] All right. Yes. Wow. There's a lot here. There's a lot. I'm not going to read it all, but there is a lot here. Verbal abuse during childhood can have significant neurobiological effects leading to structural changes in the brain. highlights that stress resulting from verbal abuse can decrease neuron count in the hippocampus, a critical region involved in emotional regulation. This reduction in neuron count can impair a child's ability to manage emotions effectively, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? This is like three paragraphs of information about that. So that's quite important. What are the benefits of peaceful parenting? Let's do it. And if you have, of course, if you have relatives, when this goes out, you have relatives who don't speak English, they can use this. They can use this. They can type it in whatever language they want. They'll get answers in the language that they want.
[1:16:15] The benefits of peaceful parenting are numerous and profoundly impact both the child's development and the overall family dynamic. Some key benefits include, I won't go through all the details, but we've got eight major benefits. Enhanced emotional intelligence, stronger parent-child relationships, improved communication skills, better problem-solving skills, increased self-discipline, protection from abuse, long-term mental health benefits, and moral development. By focusing on understanding respect and guidance peaceful parenting aims to raise children who are not only well behaved but also kind confident and capable of navigating the complexities of human relationships and society at large all right uh we've got one which says great questions by the way guys thank you suggest strategies for helping a relative to understand and begin using peaceful parenting techniques now i'm gonna just be slightly annoying ai guy and say the relative is a big is a, um, I know one. No, maybe you're right. Maybe it's different with a relative than it would be with a friend. Okay. Let's just, let's just try it. See what we get. Uh, great question. Thank you. Suggest strategies for helping a relative to understand and begin using peaceful parenting techniques. See what we get. Here we go. Oh yeah.
[1:17:33] So we got three, four, five, Five, six, and these are broken down and fairly detailed. So there's eight as a whole. I won't go into great detail. I want to share resources, provide them with books, articles, podcasts, and so on, discuss the benefits, model the behavior, invite to workshop or seminars, offer support, discuss common misconceptions, encourage self-reflection, and start small. So there's a whole eight-point plan there for getting that done. What are some of the hurdles that parents have to overcome to start using peaceful parenting maybe to become peaceful parents but no let's just take your questions in right great questions.
[1:18:17] What are some of the hurdles that parents have to overcome to start using peaceful parenting? Some of the hurdles that parents may need to overcome to start using peaceful parenting include, and again, I won't go into all the details, but unlearning traditional parenting methods, managing their own emotions, changing mindsets about discipline, dealing with judgment from others, consistency, building communication skills, finding support, and so on, right? Come on, come on. Give it up. Give it up for the peaceful parenting bot. Beautiful. Is this even live? Yes. Yes, it is. How much of psychology is woo-woo versus reality? How do you define the difference between the two? It's a great question. You might want to just search out, search for the replication crisis, the replication crisis in the social sciences, and you might want to focus on psychology. A lot of it is absolute lies. A lot of it is absolute lies. And politically correct programming and propaganda. Not all of us. All right. How can I use peaceful parenting to help my teenage child resist negative peer pressure and make positive choices? Great question. Great question.
[1:19:35] Drum roll. To help your teenage child resist negative peer pressure and make positive choices through peaceful parenting, and consider the following strategies. And what do we have? Eight. There's usually eight. I think it usually tops out at eight. Right. So again, there's lots of detail here. Foster open communication, teach critical thinking, build self-esteem, model virtue and reason, discuss peer pressure, teach them to say no, encourage positive friendships, provide unconditional support, et cetera, et cetera. Right. So again, lots of details about all of this. Okay. Give me a question and a foreign language. Come on, do it. Let's put it through its test. Let's put it through its paces. Give me... A question and by the by you know there's a lot of work that went into building this thing so again that when this goes live this could be really world-changing honestly this could be really world-changing so i hope that you will help support the show a lot of time effort and energy went into programming creating this this thing this beast but let's see if we can do.
[1:20:37] Um if we can get a cue in another language um i guess i can i can do one um Um, uh, why is spanking bad answer in French? Oh, oh, why is spanking bad answer in France? En Francais. What do we got? There we go. Look at that. A beautiful French pouring out from the peaceful parenting bot. thought. Oh, beautiful. All right. So yes, it's very, very good. Very good French, flawless French, and you can get it in anything you want. Let's say, why is spanking bad? Answer answer in Russian.
[1:21:36] Might be relevant to Russians. Oh, those Russians. There you go. I'm not even going to try and pronounce that other than it has something to do with Raskolnikov and Sridhar Gailov. Sridhar Gailov, I can never pronounce that. That pedo in Crime and Punishment. So do one in Spanish. All right, give me a cue. Give me a cue. Should we do Why is Spanking Bad? Answer in Spanish. It'll be all caps, why is spanking bad? answer in Spanish come on isn't this amazing, there you go, All right, what do parents owe their children? That's a good question. We'll just do English for this one, right?
[1:22:28] What do parents owe their children? And it's fast too, right? Pretty efficient. Parents owe their children everything. That is the inevitable contract of reproduction. This encompasses not just the basic necessities of life, such as food, shelter, and safety, but also extends to providing emotional support, education, moral guidance, and the skills necessary to succeed as virtuous adults. Parents are responsible for ensuring their children are surrounded by good, safe moral influences and for protecting them from harmful environments and individuals. The relationship is such that while parents owe their children everything, children only own their parents' justice, which involves treating them with fairness and respect based on the parents' fulfillment of their obligations. Oh, yeah, baby. Booyah. Ain't that good? Ain't that special? That is just bang on. All right, let's do one more. Does society truly love its children? I've never tried this one before. Let's find out.
[1:23:45] Does society truly love its children? Maybe rephrasing your question. Okay. What are some indications that society does not love children? I think it's children is probably a little confusing because society doesn't have children. What are some indications that society does not love children?
[1:24:14] Haha, here we go. Some indications that society does not love its children, as suggested by the context provided, include, legal discrepancies. It's indicated that society allows certain actions against children that would be illegal if done to adults, such as physical punishment. This double standard suggests a lack of equal protection and care for children. Two economic exploitation the context implies and by that it just means the material right the peaceful parenting book the context implies that society exploits parents and by extension their children by not providing adequate economic support or conditions that would allow parents to adequately care for their children an example given is a situation where a mother makes only a few dollars an hour after expenses highlighting systemic economic issues that negatively impact children? Eh, not a great answer, but you know, it's not terrible. 3. Lack of empirical action. Society claims to want what is best for children, but does not take empirical action to ensure children's well-being. This discrepancy between stated values and actions indicates a lack of genuine commitment to children's welfare. 4. Hypocrisy in claims versus actions.
[1:25:32] The context suggests that society's claims of caring for children are hypocritical as evidenced by not actively pursuing what is genuinely best for children. This hypocrisy is highlighted as a significant indicator that society does not truly love its children. That's a bit abstract, but not terrible. 5. Avoidance of best practices for children. There's an implication that society does not engage in or promote practices known to be in the best interest of children, such as peaceful parenting or ensuring safe nurturing environments. This avoidance suggests a lack of collective will to prioritize children's needs. These points collectively suggest that while society may claim to love and value children, the empirical evidence of how children are treated and the systemic structures in place indicate otherwise. Nothing about sort of national debt and so on, but, you know.
[1:26:20] That may be a bit detailed or abstract. Again, the AI is a bit fuzzy in its boundaries, but not a bad bad answer. Not a bad answer at all. All right. So, all right. We can continue on, but I think you get the general idea. Unbelievable that I'm getting to speak to Molyneux directly. I've watched hundreds of his vids since 2019. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. And welcome, welcome, welcome. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Prophet Alec? I appreciate it. All right. So I think we can return to our regularly scheduled view, but that's cool. I'm glad that that works. Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. All right, so let's close that down. So yeah, what do you guys think? It's not bad, right? Not a bad place for people to get an introduction to the general arguments. Does the chatbot ever criticize the state? Well, if you donate, you can find out, right? Certainly, I mean, StaffBot AI is full of my work, right? So they would have that aspect of it. And there are certainly criticisms of our existing political structures, to put it mildly. There are criticisms of our existing political structures in the regular. There's a StepBot AI available for donors. So that's very good. That's very good stuff.
[1:27:36] Alright, any last comments, questions, issues, challenges, anything else I can help y'all with? I'll give a second or two to get your thoughts and feedback. And don't forget, if you're listening to this later, this month, you can go to freedomain.com. Slash donate, you can help out the show and you get access to the Peaceful Parenting bot. And I don't even care if you share the link with other people. You can share the link with other people and start to really help spread the message of Peaceful Parenting. And we're working on another iteration where... Sorry, I'm late. Can you restart the show? Absolutely. My father had a degree in philosophy. He was an unemployed alcoholic, though. Yeah, philosophy in general is a brain virus that disassembles people's cognitive abilities. It's very sad.
[1:28:37] But we're working on a version, or an upgrade to the Peaceful Parenting bot, which will give you the actual page number in the book. And it's really cool. It's really cool.
[1:28:56] So if you have a question and you want more information, it will give you the page reference in the peaceful parenting book in the, in the PDF in particular, it's a little tough to gather in the Moby and EPUB versions. And of course it can't really do it in the audio book, but yes, it is very, it's very, very helpful that way. So you can get more details if you want them.
[1:29:18] All right. Any other last tips? I think I've shown you some pretty good stuff, the stuff that we're working on just to want to double check. You said we can share the peaceful parenting book link with as many people as we want now it's fine yeah if you want to share it uh i was thinking more about the ai but because the ai is a bit easier to share because it's just q a and we're going to put some sample questions up as well so when people log in they can see some sample questions but uh yeah it's if you want to share the peaceful parenting link i'm not going to overly complain because i am very very grateful of course for the support that has allowed me to write it, although I'll tell you this, man, there's never been a book when I've been happy to finish. Oh, that was just brutal. It was 14, 15 months of just straight up hideousness when it came to the emotional challenges of writing it. It was absolutely brutal. I've never experienced anything like that before. Ah, maybe with Almost, because Almost was some pretty intense family history, but I was like Eugene O'Neill with A Long Day's Journey into Night. It was just brutal to go through that book. So yeah, thank you for the ability to write it. I'm glad it's done. And I hope I never have to do anything like that again in the time that I have left on this plane of existence. So, all right. It looks like we're done. I think we're done, right? Don't see anyone typing now. So low donations tonight, not the end of the world, but if you do.
[1:30:40] Uh, listen to this later, freedomand.com slash donate to help out the show. I'd really appreciate it this month. All who donate there and subscriptions are fine too. We'll get a copy of the audio book, the, uh, various electronic book formats, uh, goes on your Kindle and everything. And also the staff bot AI, which you can share, uh, as much as you want and, um, really do appreciate your support for the show. It is important. We do have four people working here now, so we do need your help and support to keep the show humming.
[1:31:10] In the black as opposed to the red because if we hum in the red we end up as communists it's just, science and economics hey judy uh all is well thank you very much thank you very much i appreciate that oh he died you know your father had a degree in philosophy died of a bleed in the brain when i was 16 i'm certainly sorry to hear about that you just subscribed today well worth it steph you rock thank you so much all right have yourself a glorious beautiful wonderful evening everyone thank you so much for dropping by always a wonderful pleasure to chat with you guys and uh you know where to donate you know how to help out the show and lots of love i will talk to you guys oh friday night then sunday morning friday night 7 p.m sunday morning 11 a.m and we got some cool stuff lined up for the next couple days and uh next week and next week got an interesting interesting surprise for you next week i have an interesting surprise for you and don't Don't forget to check out the show I did with Dr. Duke Pesta. He's been on the show many times before. Great guy, a 20-plus year veteran of a professor of literature. He's a professor of literature, and he actually reviewed one of my books, one of my novels, which was really, really cool. And I hope that you will check that out. If you're listening to that later, if you're listening to this later, then the show number for the Duke Pesta show is 5,500 out of my brain on the train, on the 515. So it's 5,500.
[1:32:37] I appreciate that. And somebody says, I wanted to thank you for reasoning me out of my position on not having children. I came across a recent interview with Annie Coulter. She was fairly bitter slash hostile, which had me wondering why for a few days now, besides the obvious looming hellscape of the US, she's wildly passionate about preserving serving America's culture and ideals, but she didn't have children because she feared the collapse of the US. Yeah. That's a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? If not for you, Stefan, free domain, I would have allowed the malevolent forces of the world to rob me of the experience of being a father. Oof. Oof. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. All right. Lots of love, everyone. Take care. Have a beautiful evening. Love you guys for what you're able to allow me to do. And I always hope I'm doing you proud. If there's anything I can do better, please let me know. Take care. Bye. Thank you.
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