DON'T MOURN FAILING TO CONNECT WITH EVIL!

Freedomain Livestream

Empathy's impact discussed, with a story of calming a woman. Strength and weakness, boundaries and self-care emphasized. Selective empathy hindering understanding. Social media offers potential for positive change. Gratitude and kindness encouraged.

Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free! Get my new series on the Truth About the French Revolution, access to the audiobook for my new book 'Peaceful Parenting,' StefBOT-AI, private livestreams, premium call in shows, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and more! See you soon!

https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022

Brief Summary
In this part, I explore empathy and its personal impact, sharing a story of calming a frightened woman in an elevator. I discuss how empathy can be both a strength and a weakness, emphasizing the importance of setting boundaries and self-care. I believe empathy can be learned and selective, hindering understanding of diverse perspectives. I mention the influence of social media and conclude by emphasizing empathy's potential for positive change. I thank the audience for their support, address countercultural interests, and invite kindness. I bid farewell, expressing gratitude and promising future engagement.

Chapters
0:01:49 Casual Chit-Chat and Greetings
0:07:13 Discussion on Dealing with Nuts and Troubled Individuals
0:10:36 The Downfall of a Troubled Woman
0:14:01 Personal Experience and Lack of Understanding Addiction
0:17:14 Unconsciousness and Painkillers: A Different Loss of Control
0:20:21 The joy and philosophy of laughter
0:27:03 The potential dangers of addiction and its consequences
0:32:09 The impact of non-standard lifestyles on drug use and productivity
0:36:59 Dental Horror Stories: Teeth Pulled Without Painkillers
0:39:01 The Effects of Drug Use on Friends and Society
0:42:32 The Collapse of Society and Disillusionment with Health Agencies
0:47:25 The Psychological Impact and Origins of Sadism
0:51:25 Vivid Hallucinations and the Realness of Schizophrenia
0:56:04 Steve-O's Sleep Paralysis Experience
0:57:57 Introduction and credibility discussion
1:01:10 The separation of head and heart, emotional manipulation
1:04:31 Mind, body, and the importance of listening to emotions
1:08:23 Engaging in Virtual Reality and Suspension of Disbelief
1:13:06 The Purpose of Abuse: Emotional Rejection for Survival
1:14:30 The Purpose of Abuse: Reversing Emotional Nature
1:16:01 The Reversed Emotional Programming of My Father
1:19:36 The Absolute Reversal of Truth and Propaganda
1:22:56 Propagandists: Manipulating Emotions and Rejecting Self-Interest
1:24:59 Postmodern Art: Replicating Mental Illness
1:29:12 Awkwardness with Parents: Consider the Source
1:33:22 Childhood Trauma and Abusive Father
1:37:00 Holding Mothers Accountable for Violence
1:40:00 Incitement to Violence and Responsibility
1:43:01 Words as Precursors to Violence
1:46:03 Technical Difficulties and Support Appeal
1:53:17 Mourning the Loss of an Illusion

Long Summary
In this part of the conversation, I reflect on the concept of empathy and how it relates to my own experiences. I share a personal anecdote about feeling trapped in an elevator with a woman who was panicking and how I was able to calm her down by empathizing with her fear. The power of empathy is evident as I recount how my ability to understand and share her emotions helped to alleviate her distress.

Moving on to the topic of empathy in society, I discuss how it can be both a strength and a weakness. Empathy allows us to connect with others on a deep level, to understand their perspectives and experiences. However, it can also be overwhelming and lead to emotional exhaustion. I emphasize the importance of setting boundaries and self-care when practicing empathy.

I express my belief that empathy is not just an innate trait, but something that can be learned and cultivated. By actively listening, seeking to understand others, and putting ourselves in their shoes, we can develop a greater capacity for empathy. I also touch on the idea that our empathy can be selective, often favoring those who are similar to us in some way. This inclination can hinder our ability to truly empathize with individuals from different backgrounds or with contrasting viewpoints.

I bring up the influence of social media on empathy, noting that it can both amplify and diminish our ability to empathize with others. On one hand, social media platforms provide opportunities to connect with diverse perspectives and experiences. On the other hand, they can also create echo chambers and reinforce biases, limiting our exposure to differing viewpoints.

In conclusion, I suggest that empathy can be a catalyst for positive change in the world. By practicing empathy in our own lives, we can foster understanding, compassion, and empathy in our communities. I encourage listeners to step outside of their comfort zones, challenge their assumptions, and actively engage in empathetic conversations.

In this part of the conversation, I conclude the discussion by thanking the audience for their continued support and emphasizing the importance of their donations to sustain the show. I touch on the concept of mourning the death of an illusion rather than the thing itself, highlighting the need to differentiate between the two.

The topic then shifts to exploring the contradiction of having an agreeable personality but countercultural interests. I acknowledge that while I am generally liked by others, I emphasize the importance of remaining disagreeable with those who possess terrible consciences or promote harmful ideologies. It is crucial to stand up for what we believe in, even if it means going against the grain.

I express gratitude for the engaging conversation, recognizing the valuable insights shared by the audience. I mention the supportive community at freedomain.locals.com and encourage listeners to join if they haven't already.

Briefly mentioning my daughter's upcoming birthday, I invite listeners to send positive messages, highlighting the power of kindness and connection even in a virtual space.

As we reach the end of the conversation, I bid farewell to the audience, expressing appreciation for the chat and promising to continue engaging with them in future episodes.

Tags
empathy, personal impact, story, calming, frightened woman, elevator, strength, weakness, setting boundaries, self-care, learned, selective, hindering understanding, diverse perspectives, influence, social media, positive change, support, countercultural interests, kindness, gratitude, future engagement

Transcript

[0:00] Oh, you ever have that thing where there we go. There's that strange zoom out whenever I hit record Fantastic hardware Sony great job great job all around all right Yeah, but you ever have that where you just I know oh, no I slept too long.

[0:17] There's that great meme it's like sleeping four hours tired sleeping eight hours tired sleeping two minutes refreshed Good morning from Jacksonville, Florida. Ooh, how nice.
Did I get it right? Did you guys have a wee bit of a tropical storm lately?
Did I say that somewhere? I think I did. I think I did. Well, hi everybody.
Welcome to your, oh my gosh, Sunday night live.
Sunday morning live, there we go. I didn't sleep that long.
Sunday morning live. This is me on nine hours of sleep. so I'm not sure what's gonna happen but it's gonna be fairly random.
Well it usually is but with a general coherence we assume shows up a couple of hundred years from now when people are analyzing and poring over everything we do. Good morning from Texas.
Hello from New York. New York. Did you get your coffee? Coffee.
Coffee. Like Kwanzaa but coffee.
Just finished an 11-hour shift feeling broken down, oh, oh here I am lamenting, oh no I slept too long last night, oh god I just didn't, well I just finished a nine hour shift, it just happened to be sleeping, so.

[1:33] Sorry about that, I'm sorry about that, man I wish I could say I was better, I'm feeling very angry these days, well you should come and talk to here, talk to us about it, talk to us about it, a conversation is stability.
Casual Chit-Chat and Greetings

[1:49] Conversation is stability. Man, did I call in yesterday? Don't know about this one.
May go out, may not go out. But it's basically a guy complaining about problems in his life. Turns out he's violent.
And I really had to talk to him for a long time to get to the roots and cause, of the violence in his life.

[2:11] So, that I'm not sure about. I'm not sure about that one.
Good morning from Colorado. Oh, Rocky Mountain. Yes, Rocky Mountain.
Good morning from SWO, Southwest Ontario. Chris? Hey, that's not too far.
Good morning. Good morning back, but yeah, we'll talk about it.
Well, got a couple of topics this morning. Totally, totally happy, overjoyed, thrilled, and blissed to talk about what's most important to you.
Don't forget to tip your friendly neighborhood philosopher.
If you want a little mental exercise, that I thought was funny.
My daughter now has a name for her child, doesn't matter if it's male or female.

[3:05] So, of course, she refers to me as Egg, and I said, for some reason, I can't remember it, I said, could you imagine me with hair?
And she's like, yeah, Fuzzy Egg.
Fuzzy Egg. And I said, what would my name be? And she immediately said, Freg.
Freg with two Gs. Freg with two G's. So she's now convinced that she's going to be naming her child Freg, male or female.
And as I pointed out to her with great laughter, that Freg will spend most of his life doing two things.
Number one, saying, no, no, not Fred, Freg, Freg-ga, Freg. And also, two G's. Why?

[3:47] Because my grandfather and my mother made some joke and I have to suffer with it for the rest of my natural-born days So Frank that's gonna be her Frank Frank Molyneux.
Also She wanted to tell her friends that her middle name was Ella.
So Ella Ella Molyneux. So Isabella Ella Molyneux Anyway, there we go.
It's not a middle name, but that would be funny.
Ah What else? Oh, yes We were also joking the other day about what my autobiography would be called?
What would my autobiography be called?
Freckery. That would be, if I was a mass murderer, because it would be free gory.
Free gore! Why? Free gore. Why? This is how my brain just breaks up part language and comes up with nonsense.
And occasionally non-nonsense. So she suggested the name for my autobiography, which I thought was actually very funny, and she said, your autobiography should be called, Vague British Noises.

[4:52] Vague British Noises. She is very funny in my mind.
Maybe it translates, maybe it doesn't, but I thought that was hilarious.
Vague British Noises by Stefan Molyneux.
The story of my life. Ah, very funny.
So, if you have any, if you have any ideas as to what my autobiography should be called, I think that would be very funny.
Fragger the Eggman. Fragger the Eggman, that would be an excellent movie starring a young Clint Eastwood and, I believe, an orangutan.
So. All right, well, while I wait for your joyful comments on Quailfrag, Autobiography… Anyway, where was I? Anyway, where was I? That's good.
That's good, I'll make a note of that. Anyway, where was I?
I got confused, where was I?
Let me just make a note of that. I really like how… I used to use a lot of shortcuts on Windows like I open up my videos file, my folders file all the time, folder so I used to use Ctrl-Alt and they just don't work anymore.

[6:10] They just don't work anymore. It's really great how Windows is like, you can connect a zip drive from 1974 and it's going to recognize it, but the shortcuts that you use to save your sanity and life over the course of many years, they just don't work.
All right, what else have we got? For my autobiography, Unregulated Pretentious Britishing.
I hear what you're saying, I mean, but I would say that to call myself pretentious, in an autobiography would be a bit too self-deprecating but I think it's certainly funny.
Delete Windows. Wait, is that the name of my autobiography or?
The Steph Bot. I think people in the future would be concerned that that was written by an AI.
But it would be interesting to have an AI write a biography of me just based on the information in the podcast. Anyway, it would be kind of funny.
Although the Things I've hidden from everyone. My gosh.
Not much, really. All right.
So, I'm happy to take more of those, but I'm just curious.
Discussion on Dealing with Nuts and Troubled Individuals

[7:13] Have you had someone in your life that you would call really nuts?
Really nuts. Like, cutting themselves, kinda nuts.

[7:33] Or, I don't know, just really doing, just really doing crazy stuff, kind of, goodbye governor!
Steph, not Steph, with a PH, yes, that's good, that's good too.
So yes, yes, no, yes, yes, alright. it.
So somebody wrote, he says, I don't want to put this on locals and I don't need help with a call-in, I have a wonderful life. So that's good to know.
That's of course great to know. I mean, of course you do see some of the people who are having real challenges in their life in the call-in shows, but of course the people who are finding philosophy and having a great time with it, we don't really hear from.
He says, I've been a supporter for a few years now. You were my only subscription until I recently subscribed to access a vote for Elon's attempt to protect free speech.
Blah blah blah blah blah. Your guidance is invaluable for the world, even for an old man.
Thank you. I wish I had had access to your philosophy 50 years ago when there was no guidance for my life other than being beaten and bullied into submission by eight years of boarding school.
Neglectful parents were no help. Church and classical philosophy at university weren't much practical help either, so that's nice and I really really appreciate that message.

[9:00] But, he said you may want to talk about it on one of your shows, and, what have we got here?
I, um, rhetorical questions for drug users. Thank you for your tip, Josh, I appreciate that.
Um, Major, you're more nuts than a topic bar?
Topic, tropical bar? Topic bar? I don't know what a topic bar is.
My brother, when he was on math, threatened me a couple times.
Oh yeah, no, I think that's one of the reasons I had trouble with math classes.
You want to take math, I heard math, and I'm like, no!
More nuts than a pecan pie.
Claimed and threatened to do crazy stuff like that, wouldn't actually do any of it, but it made, which made it more crazy, yeah.
Lived with prostitutes for a while, saw a lot of insanity. Oh, I bet that's true. I bet that's true.

[9:51] So, let me get to this guy, and his comments will close that, and it's something I don't really really understand.
So he says, my dear sister has a responsible husband and couple of kids.
Two children are competent and delightful adults. The middle child, a daughter, now about 40, has been a problem for 15 years.
Particularly since she married this guy against her parents' wishes, a man from a different background who seems cruel and selfish. They now have kids.
The Downfall of a Troubled Woman

[10:36] She was physically beautiful and born into a privileged and well-educated family.
Since her marriage, she has devolved into an emaciated, tattooed, drunken, I suspect dope too, drama queen raging against anyone in physical or phone reach.
She has cut her arms and legs several times, requiring hospitalization and threatens suicide.
She has been through dry-out centers at great expense but soon resorts to her self-pitying outrages.
The feeling profession has not prescribed reality. Ooh, that's a good phrase. That's a good phrase.
Her parents, sister and brother invited her to visit them in two weeks with the idea that they would try one more time to help her, offering her full support if she wanted to divorce her abusive husband or narcissistic husband, he says.
They think she needs the divorce to get away from the destructive lifestyle.
It would be a huge commitment for the family to take on their crazy daughter or sibling. They were all willing to take on the responsibility, but no longer.
Outbursts, multiple demanding phone calls and insults from this woman against her older sister, father and mother have backfired.
Instead of the family wanting to help, they've decided to cancel the trip and finally separate from her. It's a sad end.
I am my sister's tough brother.

[11:56] Sorry about this. I'm getting a little confused here. tough brother.
So my dear sister owe two children, confident and delightful at dance.
Okay so it's his niece isn't it? Do I have that right? All right.
I am my sister's tough brother. When this woman cut herself I cut her out of my life a long time ago.
For years I've encouraged my sister to separate from this daughter completely to keep her support.
Oh I see what you mean. I see what you mean. Okay to keep support for her husband and healthy children.
My sister says that she has to help her ill daughter. Where is the right balance for dealing with a troubled adult child?

[12:36] Where is the right balance for dealing with a troubled adult child?
And that is a very tough call and a very tough question and of course I pray to all that remains holy on the planet in the mind and in the world that you never have to deal with this kind of situation.
Never have to deal with this kind of situation, but it is not super uncommon, especially these days where drugs are kind of used as a weapon of biochemical war against populations, where drugs are freely imported into a country and then often mixed with fentanyl or other incredibly destructive drugs and it's a form of biochemical warfare in a way against the population.
I think this is true particularly in the US, but so it's very, very tough.

[13:35] And I'll tell you, man, I mean, this is something that, this is, it could just be completely my prejudice, I'm just gonna be frank with you guys, it could absolutely be my total prejudice, and I may be entirely wrong in this, but I genuinely can't understand how and why people lose control of themselves in this way.
Personal Experience and Lack of Understanding Addiction

[14:01] Now, I've never done drugs, I've never smoked marijuana, I've never taken mushrooms, I've never, I've never done any mind-altering drugs.
A couple of times as a teenager I got drunk and realized that was a huge waste of time and money and I haven't been drunk since one cast party when I was 21 I think, after I played Macbeth, and I haven't been, because it's just really unpleasant, right?
It's really unpleasant to go to bed, you got the spins, and it's just, yeah, and then the next day is a write-off, and it's just no good.
And I never particularly enjoyed being drunk. I used to give myself a test, am I really drunk, and I'd say, well, what is a galaxy?
Well, a galaxy is a mass of, a swirling mass of interconnected stars held together by a central gravitational force.
And I could always remember that, and I could always recite that in my mind, so I never really lost control, even when I was drunk.
But I've never taken any drugs. And yes, for the nitpickers, I have coffee. I have two cups of coffee a day, ooooh.
So I have a little caffeine, but I've never taken anything that causes me to hallucinate.
And I've certainly never gotten drunk to the point where I've lost time, lost memories, or lost control.
I'm a very cheap drunk, like I get drunk on a couple of beers and…
It's really unpleasant. So, yeah, I just don't lose any control.
So I've never had a loss of control incident.

[15:23] And I've never passed out, so I've never been unseated from the throne of reason, throne of self-control and so on.
So I really, really don't understand people who seem to lose control of their lives in this kind of way. Like I don't understand it.
Again, total prejudice could be entirely wrong. I for a while, for a while I thought people were just faking it.
I thought people were just like oh no it's so dramatic I have to cut myself and I thought that people were just kind of faking it being dramatic.
Now that's because I suspected for a while that my mother was enhancing her own mental instability in order to get pity and avoid responsibility and judgment from others.
So I, again, and not like this is the greatest thing ever. I'm just sort of pointing it out that.

[16:17] I thought there was a certain amount of fakery, hysteria, and drama involved.
But I also, I remember, but can the lie become the truth?
If you fake something long enough, does it then become a reality?
I mean, I remember thinking that when I saw the movie What's Eating Gilbert Grape, which was, I think, Leo DiCaprio's one of his first roles, where he played a mentally handicapped boy, I thought, jeez, what if somebody just decided to do that for their whole life, they were really good at acting and they just spent their whole life with everyone taking care of them and not having any responsibility.
Sort of like the jailers in the life of Brian who are pretending to be, they're pretending to have speech impediments and then when people stop bothering them they just get back to chatting rationally and normally so that people don't bother them. So.

[17:07] When you went for your surgery did they give you morphine or were you unconscious?"
Unconsciousness and Painkillers: A Different Loss of Control

[17:14] I mean, I've been out twice, once for my neck surgery and once for my colonoscopy, so I've been out twice in my life, but that's not a loss of control thing because I wasn't conscious.
I mean, that's like saying that being asleep is a loss of control thing.
I was given, I can't remember what painkillers, after my neck thing, and I took them once or twice, and I do remember there was this kind of this glow, this glow of high in my sort of heart and chest region and I was like well this isn't good so I stopped taking them and it just wasn't too painful.
I mean I have no problem with painkillers right I had to get a filling it was like a way a 30 year old filling had to get replaced so yeah inject away man, inject away because dangerous right if you jerk back from the pain and they've got some high speed drill in your mouth, that's not particularly good, so.
Let me just catch up with your questions here.

[18:15] Wealthy people don't think alcohol and Xanax count. I only drink at weddings when I need to dance.
Alcohol shut down my alter egos more than causing a blackout.
Oh yeah, I've heard about that kind of stuff, right? At 52, I wish I'd never done drugs or alcohol.
I partied a lot when my job was stressful and felt as if I was working with no purpose. Thankfully, that stopped 10 years ago. Oh, good for you. Good for you.
Don't think whether you earn a lot of money or don't earn much money has anything to do with being into substances or an iberation.
Well in fact, there's really nothing worse than somebody with an addictive personality and a great money-making talent.

[18:56] Because you have, you don't have to get up, you don't have to go to work, so, you know, if you're some movie star, this is why a lot of movie stars have these sort of substance abuse issues, because you're a movie star and you can take as much time off as you want because you've made a lot of money and so on.
So when you're working you have to work very hard but then you can take as much time off as you want.
Not an excuse.
Not an excuse but peers have a big influence and if someone doesn't see the damage in their circles it's much easier to fall into.
I had, quote, suicidal thoughts throughout middle school and early high school, but I've never told anyone about them or used it to gain anything from anyone.
I'm sorry to hear that, Bob. I really am.
A softer woman shouting at her kid yesterday turned out she works for child protection services.
Local anesthetics don't get you high, so don't worry if a dental work- no, I don't worry about it. I don't give a shit.

[19:57] So, with regards to this, you know, she's cutting, she's crazy, she's chaotic, she's yelling at people, she seems, quote, out of control.
And I, again, perfectly willing that this is a complete limitation of imagination on my part, but I can't understand people who lose control.
I don't understand people who lose control.
The joy and philosophy of laughter

[20:21] I mean, obviously I can get goofy and foolish and giddy and silly, which I find an enjoyable part of life. I know some people say, he's just not serious enough.
He just isn't serious enough. He doesn't have the full weight of the disaster of the planet, of the suffering of mankind on his shoulders.
He's not dragging himself, blank eyed and heavy jawed through life with the chains of a billion souls weighing down his admirable traps.
So, yes, I get all of that, but philosophy is laughter and philosophy is joy.
Philosophy is happiness and all of that so.
Somebody says post-surgery drugs, sorry I slept so long I can't pronounce anything, do cause a terrifying glow.
Says Jared I only use it the first day out of surgery. Yeah like I did at one right?
Step-grandfather pulled my wisdom teeth. What? Was he a dentist or he?
Step-grandfather pulled my wisdom teeth and gave me a Vicodin painkiller or something like that.
I hated it. I just want me. It was wasted time.

[21:24] It just, yeah, it just wasn't me. Don't be ashamed to use pain meds for pain after surgery.
That's interesting. What a certain amount of projection that is.
Did I mention anything about feeling ashamed of them? No, I was just, if I can do without them, I will do without them.
I mean, if I can do without them, I will do without them.
And I was more concerned about the possibility of getting used to.
Oh, he was a dentist. Good, good. I'm glad to hear that.
So that's interesting. Don't be ashamed. And that's a funny thing.
And this is from male to female. This is a good translation error from male to female.

[22:00] This is when I say I was concerned about liking the feeling too much and therefore I stopped using it, that I have caution and the woman says, well, don't be ashamed.
I'm like, because that's the difference. Men experience caution women experience shame and so when I said I was experiencing a certain amount of caution she says well there's no need to be ashamed because in her mind not wanting to do something is not out of caution it is out of shame and, that is oh I'm not I am and it was not a comment about your comment oh so it was just somebody else just because I don't think anybody expressed shame.

[22:38] I don't think anybody, I mean, let me look back here, maybe I'm wrong, I can't read every comment, stop pushing me people, I'm going to rip my shirt off in an uncontrollable fashion of physical vanity.
Yeah, I don't think, and I've said it's great, I mean, painkillers are great.
Every time I'm at the dentist, if somebody's new is cleaning my teeth, and they say, how are you doing?
I'm like, I'm happy to be here, man, I love dentistry. I absolutely, completely and totally love dentistry, like modern dentistry is one of the great unsung benefits, superheroes and moral goods that the planet has to offer.
Because they keep your teeth, I still have my wisdom teeth, right?
So I'm like one in a thousand guys in their 50s who has still his wisdom teeth and why do I have my wisdom teeth? Because of dentistry.
And in the past, of course, people died of tooth decay and so on a lot, right? or you just live in agony.

[23:37] And the fact that there is dentistry that they can scrape and clean and polish, and that they can extract if they have to, relatively painlessly, that they can give you healthy fillings that are relatively pain-free to get put in, the fact that there is modern dentistry is something that I appreciate every single time I'm at the dentist.

[24:01] I came across that in people a lot after surgery worried that they were going to turn into addicts. Right.
Right. So they were worried they weren't ashamed.
Again this is the thing, so you say don't be ashamed and it's like they're worried that they were going to turn. In other words they had caution about liking the drug too much.
Because I mean that's the fundamental thing that I have about drugs right.
Oh yeah you want to cause pain go for the nerves in the face yeah.
That's a funny thing, and it's just a basic equation, that I don't think is particularly smart of me, but it's just a basic equation.
When somebody said, Would you like to try this marijuana?
And I'm like, okay, so let me just do the cost-benefit. It's simple, right? Let's do the cost-benefit. I have it on my chin here.
Let's just do the cost-benefit. Did I miss a shaving spot? Yeah, probably.
A little distracting. White, bitter beard on shit.
So, no, it's not shame. It's just they're just concerned that they're gonna get addicted.
I might like this feeling too much So I'll do with this, but it's not I'm not I wasn't ashamed of it at all I there was no shame in I'm just saying maybe you've seen those people but I but it was no shame for me There was just like so when somebody of course, you know Like everyone in at parties and so on I was offered drugs and things like that and it's like, okay Let's just do the basic. Let's run through the scenarios, right?
Column A, column B, right? Just run through the scenarios. We all do this all the time, right?

[25:28] And it was like, okay, so somebody offers me marijuana. Okay, I can now doing something illegal because it was illegal back then.
So I'm doing something illegal. That's a negative.
And what are the options? So if it's just slightly better, then it's not worth it.
Because also, I don't know what's in the marijuana, right? it could be caught with any other sorts of dangerous stuff, right?
Because it's coming through criminal channels, so it's not like it's some public company that can be sued for impurities.
Because that used to be a thing back then as well. So I'm like, okay, I don't know what's in it.
I don't know if it's strong or weak or clean or dirty.
So if it's just somewhat better, it's not worth it.
If it's massively better, like if I just find this ecstatic, orgasmic joy out of taking this drug, then my life is screwed because I've just reoriented my happiness metric to just a mess, right?
So if it's super good, that's bad. If it's just okay, it's not worth it.
If it's neutral, there's no point.
And if it's negative, obviously I don't want to do it. So there was no scenario in which smoking marijuana or eating hash brownies, like there was, there was no scenario in which that could be, that could have a positive outcome.

[26:56] So, I don't know why… I mean, that's not super clever, is it?
The potential dangers of addiction and its consequences

[27:03] Like, the best case scenario is it's so good I become an addict. Excellent.
In which case, if I become an addict, then I now spend a huge amount of time and money and stress and effort trying to get a hold of this drug. Right?
So let's see here, Steph, did your mother or father smoke and drink?
My father smoked a pipe when he was younger but I think he quit in middle age.
This was an example of his sort of rather dry sense of humor, that he had a pipe with a very long stem and people would say, well why does he have a pipe with such a long stem?
He said, oh my doctor told me to stay away from tobacco, which I thought was, you know, that's pretty amusing, that's pretty funny.
My mother, and I don't know really whether he drank, he's Irish, so my mother was a smoker, but not a heavy smoker, I'm probably, I don't know if she still is, maybe, I haven't seen her in a quarter century, but she was a light to medium, like half a pack a day maybe, a light to medium smoker.

[28:08] And, uh, I mean, yeah, I had a, I, one of the things I bought when I was a kid and I got some jobs was I bought an electric typewriter because I started writing, I wrote a whole series of short stories called Shark and Sea Stories.
And I just enjoyed typing up whatever, whatever I was working on and so on.
And my mother would sometimes come into my room to use the typewriter.
And I remember her typing all the way through the night, usually something to do with some mystery legal action she was involved in, and I just remember the smoke and the random clatter clatter clatter of the typewriter keeping me up and then having to drag my ass off to school the next day, smoky and exhausted.
It's like, oh, gross. But yeah, my mother was all about it.

[28:53] Uh…
Look up… Tick dollar row, people kill themselves from the pain.
Just a comment about face.
Maxilla, not sure what maxilla is.
Was given morphine when my appendix burst. Still had the pain, but it shut me up from yelling for help. Took them over 14 hours before they operated because it was Christmas Day.
Oof, that's rough. That's rough.
The painkillers are like an absolute like heaven-sent thing on the planet.
The smell of weed is enough of a turn-off, yeah, I don't really like that.
Yeah, I mean pain management is a huge challenge, right, because a lot of people they develop tolerance to the medications like you got little old grandmothers who were taking the kind of painkillers that would fill an NFL quarterback at his prime because they've adapted to it and it's really tough.
Of course a lot of people fake pain in order to get hold of the meds and things like that, So, best case Joe Rogan invites you again, yeah.

[29:55] You know, it's not in particular about Joe Rogan, but it bothers me when people with non-standard lifestyles promote habits that are unsustainable if you have a standard lifestyle.
Right, so, does he still do drugs? I mean, isn't he in his 50s now?
I mean, it seems kind of sad if he is, but is he still doing the wacky-de-backy?
The Mary Jane?

[30:30] Bob says, when I was a paramedic, we had a drug called Nax, sorry, Nax, Naloxone, that was for reversing respiratory arrest due to opiate overdose.
Put people in the instant withdrawal and they usually weren't very happy about that, even though you just saved their life. Oh, is that right? Is that right?
My mother began smoking cigarettes and cigars after my parents divorced.
Us kids would move to the other side of the duplex to get away from the smell.
That was thankfully ingrained in me enough to never want to try cigarettes in my life, yeah. He promotes weed and DMT.
Enough coffee can drive you legit insane. I've never, I've never experienced that.
Yes, just last year Joe Rogan mentioned smoking weed in order to enjoy his daughter's company. Oh, no.
Oh, no. Really?
That's, I mean, that's just beyond terrible.
That's just beyond terrible. I'm so sorry. I vaguely remember that now, too, that you mentioned it.

[31:45] So yeah if if you're a talented comedian and of course comedians work at night they travel a lot they have all the time in the world during the day so because they have a non standard lifestyle.
They can indulge in drugs.
They're also in different cities so they can fairly anonymously get a hold of the drugs they have right so if you have a non standard life.
The impact of non-standard lifestyles on drug use and productivity

[32:09] Then you can get away with stuff that. people with a standard life, you know, getting up at 7.30 to get to work by 9 and whatever it is and work in eight hours and so yeah the people with non-standard lifestyle who promote drugs, I mean it's bad to promote drugs anyway, but the people with non-standard lifestyles who promote drugs are just cratering and killing other people's productivity.

[32:37] I have friends who are twin sisters who were convinced to sell pills by a doctor in their teens? Convinced to sell pills?
I don't get it. Convinced to take pills? I don't know what that means.
It went on for over a decade and they still struggle with the addiction 20 years later. Yeah. Yeah.
So, the way that I sort of view this kind of addiction in my mind is that I regretfully have to give up that which makes me very, very happy.
And And it's sort of like if you're married to someone and they're not great and you have this dream of the one who got away, like the woman who was great and perfect for you, but you just didn't, it didn't work out or something like that.
And you just look back regretfully and you know, you're okay with your life, but it does hurt when you look back and think about the woman you could have married who was going to be great or the perfect man who was going to be great.
And I think it kind of works like that for people with addiction that they look back at that time that was happy and they can't ever get that back.
Up at 4.30 to work out and get to work by 7.00. No time for destructive habits. Yeah.
Yeah, it's like somebody who's an entertainer who, you know, the Dean Martin thing, I'm a crooner, I'm an entertainer and I can drink and promote drinking. It's like, well sure you can.
Because you go on stage for an hour and a half, you warble some songs, then you can get drunk and then the next day you can… you don't have to do anything all day.

[34:04] Let's see here. Years ago as children both my sister and I had teeth removed using gas.
Oh, is that the laughing gas that they used? To this day my sister and I talk about how traumatic that experience was.
The best way I can explain the experience was, it was what I'd imagined the most horrible acid trip you could have.
I discussed it with my dentist recently and said, he said more modest means are used now, of course.
What amazes me is how back then there wasn't even a second thought about putting children through this. How could they not know?
Well, I mean, obviously that's not great, I'm sorry you went through that, but there may not have been alternatives back then.
And you would not want to get your teeth removed without painkillers.
Nitrous oxide, yeah. Yeah, you wouldn't want to get, I mean, don't even imagine how you could.
Like, they'd have to put you all the way under, and putting you all the way under does harm some brain cells. I mean, we have somebody who's an expert, but doesn't put you all the way under harm some brain cells over time so you want to do it as little as possible and Local is better and all of that, so.

[35:08] Doug says what's with the nangs? What is with the nangs? N-A-N-G-S.
What is what is with the nangs?
If you all could do me a tiny favor just so I don't sound like I'm having a stroke if you could just, Uh, check yourself for typos, because if I read stuff and I don't understand it, it's a big waste of everyone's time.
I have a brother who uses nitrous to get high because weed wasn't strong enough.
Oh gosh, I'm sorry about that.

[35:38] They used to use PCP as an anesthetic to children? PCP, the I can take on 10 cops drug? Really? Wow.

[35:48] So sad, I never progressed past cannabis, however several of the kids doing pot as 12 to 13 year olds are no longer living at 25.
I'm still here, but not without the scars. yeah.

[36:07] No. Sell things. Oh so this is the twins. Sell things like Percocet and Oxycontin to their friends and the people he introduced them to.
It gave them a sense of independence because they were making a lot of money.
It took time for them to become true addicts themselves. Finally when the doctor got caught and lost his license etc. they were stuck with the addiction but couldn't get the drug.
What do you mean? So the doctor was caught as a drug dealer and they were caught as drug dealers and they didn't get their asses in jail?
They didn't like I don't understand where they were they literally distributed drugs to others and they were criminal elements taking illegal drugs and flushing them into the mouths in a sense of the most traumatized and dependent people in their community and and they didn't get their asses thrown in jail?
I'm a little curious as to why.
Uh, let's see here.
Dental Horror Stories: Teeth Pulled Without Painkillers

[36:59] I got teeth pulled by the dentist with no painkillers as a Gen Z kid.
That seems… That seems illegal. I mean, it seems illegal, but what do I know, right?
Nangs is laughing gas. Alright, feel free to tell people that as a whole.
Yeah, if it's slang for a drug, you may not be in the right community for everybody who knows drug slam.
Ketamine is similar to PCP. Ah, Special K, what is it they said, Matthew Perry, the friends actor, I think it was an excess of ketamine in his system, they don't, I think he got it to manage some of his addiction issues, but they don't, they said, we don't know how it got in his body, I don't really know what exactly what that means, isn't it just a pill?
But I think he died of an excess of ketamine and drowning, right?
And what's it, somebody said, even his drug of choice was stuck in the 90s.
Reluctant to find he stuck in the 90s again. All right, got my teeth removed without local anesthesia.
Interesting to have your wisdom teeth being crushed and removed. Interesting to hear.
That's a very dissociated thing. Interesting to hear your wisdom teeth being crushed and removed.
You're inviting us to remove ourself from your body or remove ourself for basic human empathy. It's horrifying to hear your wisdom teeth being crushed and removed.

[38:17] So yeah, please don't don't cause, don't don't invite people to dissociate to that degree. It's not good.
Nitrous makes you nauseous. Don't do drugs, kids. Yeah. The twins weren't caught.
He was found out on his own.
The twins weren't caught?

[38:38] Twins weren't caught. Well, because usually what they do is, oh I guess they go up the chain, right?
Like you get a local drug dealer, you offer him reduced sentence or maybe immunity.
If he rats on the people higher in the chain, you get at the top I guess this is the top and they didn't want to go down.
The Effects of Drug Use on Friends and Society

[39:01] Someone I know had a bag of PCP tear open in his sock sweat made it absorb through the skin free ambulance rides oof.
What was the norm for my friends says Dave until I quit the friends and the pot it makes you bonkers I had so many friends who were daily or weekly users even with demanding careers and kids.
No shortage of narcissists in that group. I smoked for ages.
I can see the short tempers and lack of empathy for my old friends who smoked all the time. If they didn't smoke they would binge drink.
Ketamine drips have been used for success for depression. In short, it resets receptors, etc.
Yeah, I would highly doubt that anybody knows exactly why. And I just say that because, you know, you have a chemical imbalance.
This is why you need to take these psychotropics. And it's like, that's just a theory. It was never tested. Turns out it's fairly false, isn't it?
I'm certainly no doctor or psychiatrist. I ain't no doctor with degree, but as far as I understand it, exercise and dietary improvements, sunlight, and all of that have been proven pretty effective at dealing with all but the worst cases of depression.

[40:12] Weed makes you complacent. Growing up in Jamaica my peer group didn't even contemplate using ganja.
In fact you would lose the respect of all the girls in your age group.
They would not consider you boyfriend material in the least.
Ask me how general anesthetics work.
I'm just concerned that your explanation would put us to sleep.
Minor anesthetic joke.

[40:38] There's a reason I cling to philosophy instead of these drugs.
My siblings have done nearly everything but meth and heroin.
What's the saying? Give a group alcohol and they will start a fight.
Give them and they will start a band. Pretty funny.
All drugs relieve depression, hence the epidemic. Hey Steph, do you think that an addictive personality is a valid concept?
It seems deterministic and in contradiction with your previous views on free will.

[41:06] Having genetic predispositions for things doesn't destroy free will.
Yeah, the serotonin thing got debunked. Isn't that wild?
It's just, it's wild to me that massive conceptual and intellectual and moral structures of our society just get detonated on a regular basis.
And everyone's just like, um-de-dum-de-dum, off we go, let's just believe the next lie. It's like everything is just getting boom, boom, boom, dismantled.
All the stuff that was considered conspiracy theories when I was a kid, like JFK and Kaczynski and like all of that stuff, just boom, it's been dismantled.
It's it, the truth is out. And the serotonin theory of billions and billions of dollars going on the psychotropics, it all gets detonated.
And it was like, it's just wild to me. It literally is like watching somebody, amble through a killer ice tornado in their underpants and not even show any body shell and not even notice.
There's this giant storm of dismantling everything.
Everything is getting dismantled. It's like the end of Crows and you know the end of every fantasy movie when they kill the wizard they have to escape the collapsing castle.
Like everyone is like the castle is collapsing, massive chunks of masonry are spiraling down from the ceiling, the floor is cracking and opening up.

[42:26] And everyone's just like, hmm, I wonder what's new on Netflix.
Like, it's just wild to me.
The Collapse of Society and Disillusionment with Health Agencies

[42:32] There is a massive collapse of everything around us.
People are like, hmm. It turns out that a lot of people, like I assume millions of people, got sick and died because in the 1950s, the sugar corporations, the sugar lobby, paid massive amounts of money to doctors to put the blame on fat.

[43:07] Isn't that wild?
Everything is collapsing. All the edifices of belief are cratering.
People are even beginning to question whether alphabet health agencies are actually truly interested in your health.
Now, have you guys read about the weed and schizophrenia challenge, right?
Schizophrenia has got to be one of the worst things around. It's got to be one of the worst things around in my opinion.
There are very few things in life that I would consider worse than death, but I would, in my humble, personal, subjective, amateur opinion, schizophrenia is one of these things that can be worse than death.
Because you live in constant terror, demons coming out the walls, visual hallucinations, you don't know what's real, and your brain is scrambled and it doesn't seem like it's really very possible to get it unscrambled.
So, schizophrenia is one of these things that just seems, to me, again, just my opinion, I can see that.
Like, if somebody said, you get to live in hell for the rest of your life with schizophrenia, or you can go to sleep and won't wake up, I'd be like, eh, so.

[44:25] So, the degree to which weed use as a teenager can lead to schizophrenia is not zero.
You know, you can look it all up and who knows what the actual numbers are.
But it sure rains there is an association between weed use and schizophrenia.
Thanks, Josh. If you want to send more, I mean, yeah, people are tipping a dollar, it breaks my heart. I just, I feel terrible, I don't want your last dollar, please keep it and apply it to food or something.
But you can also go, of course, freedomain.com/donate, freedomain.com/donate if you'd like to help out the show.
So yeah, the people who are smoking weed are risking schizophrenia.
And that is a one-way trip, it seems to be a one-way ticket to hell.
It's a one-way ticket to hell.
Nina recently posted an article about childhood trauma and schizophrenia. Could happen.

[45:33] Listening to schizophrenics makes it hard not to believe in demonic influences over people. Yeah, for sure.
I agree with you, Staff, and the meds you have to take are horrible to deal with.
Oh, for schizophrenia? Yeah, doesn't it numb you right out and all of that?
Like the antipsychotics.
Massive weight gain with a lot of schizophrenic meds for one.
Yeah, I mean, I assume that it was a Sid Barrett, right?
I don't know what he was diagnosed with, but it looked something like schizophrenia, and he had massive weight gain, shaved his head, and went from a sort of good-looking pop rock singer and writer to a guy who just spent decade after decade doing nothing with his life.

[46:17] I was at a tech conference a decade or so ago, was invited by some guys to smoke pot, and was tempted. I wasn't too happy in general. I only didn't because I knew.

[46:26] I was pretty anxious and had heard pot could make that worse, it seemed like a bad risk. It presents itself like demonic possession, yeah.

[46:35] So people, I don't know of course how this works, but the analogy that I would use is something like this, that when you are told by parents to kill or die, right, I could kill you, I wish you were dead, like all of this murderous stuff that comes, and we've, Of course, you've heard call-in shows where people are dealing with exactly this, and when you have parents who are bringing, suicide and murder into your mental constructs, I think what happens is, people, in order to survive, in order to survive…
See, the parents who really, really abuse you in, like, absolutely monstrous and terrible ways, they don't want you to die. Right? They don't want you to die.
Because they want to keep you alive to keep torturing you. Jared, sorry I forgot to mention this, might as well do it live.
The Psychological Impact and Origins of Sadism

[47:25] If you could look up sadism, I had somebody who asked me like what's the sort of facts about sadism, truth of a philosophy of sadism.
So if you could look up stuff about sadism that would like prevalence and symptoms and so on, history, that would be a very interesting truth about sadism.
It would be viciously good.
But yeah, so people who really abuse you, they want to continue to torture you and they don't want you to die. They want you to live in misery.
So you are commanded both to die and to stay alive and of course you have to choose to stay alive part and you have to build a big psychic wall between you and the suicide or the murder part right.

[48:03] I think this is where a lot of murderers come from a lot of murderers come from well somebody has to die it's either you or someone else and in order to stay alive the only way that they can appease the voices calling for death is to kill someone and that buys them a little bit more time.
I think that's where a lot of murder comes from. It's just my theory of course, there's no proof.
But I think you have to build a wall between yourself and the voices calling for death.
You build a wall between yourself and the voices calling for death.
Now, I think that when you get older, it's probably a good idea to break down that wall, to deal with the evil you were inflicted to, to let your anger fight against the voices calling for death in your mind.
So, I think what happens is if people run from those voices for too long and then they encounter something or experience something or take something or do something that breaks down the wall …
Breaks down the wall.
I talk about a little bit of this in my analysis of Pink Floyd's The Wall but you can find it free domain.locals.com in the premium section.

[49:14] So they have a wall between murder, suicide, and their life.
And then something happens. It could be the birth of a child.
It could be getting into a drug. It could be one too many drinks.
It could be a little bit too much stress.
It could be, and that wall comes down and the voices that they have repressed and choked down and buried and chained up, come raging forth and take them over.
And we call that demonic possession, but to me, it's the activation of old alter egos of evil implanted by truly evil parents.
Or it could be someone other than parents, could be priests, it could be other authority figures as a child. answer.

[50:03] What happens when the wall comes down?
It's a terrifying scene in the movie The Wall, when the wall gets detonated.

[50:20] Ah, let's see here.
They're coming for the cats again. New York Post claimed association with schizophrenia and cats.
Well, I mean, there's a lot of cruelty in the media.
And so, if you were really cruel and you were in the media, what you'd want to do is you'd want to…
You would want to program women to avoid pair bonding with men, right?
This is just the cruelty thing, right? You would want to program women to avoid pair bonding with men, to reject men, to reject the patriarchy, to be a strong independent trademark woman.
And then, when she was in her fifties, you'd want to take away her cats.
Right? I mean, that would be one of the cruelest things you could do.
All right, and a UK psychologist told me that the subject of emotional maturity is unknown in their industry.
He's only ever found one book on it. What do you guys think on this revelation and also can or have you explain this subject? Oh, emotional maturity.
Vivid Hallucinations and the Realness of Schizophrenia

[51:25] I can hear my daughter's distant laughter at the idea of me talking about emotional maturity.
I've always wondered how vivid schizophrenic hallucinations truly are.
Is it learned behavior or is it really like a VR experience from hell? I don't know.
I don't know. I know someone with schizophrenia who was a heavy weed user.

[51:48] Oh the hallucinations are real. The auditory ones are terrifying.
Yeah they say they hear voices and I don't know if it's like you kind of you know get a sense of here how you actually hear voices in your ear right.
I mean have you ever had this thing where you hear a sound and you're not sure if it's real or not.
I mean, I think we've all had it in, in movies when there's a cell phone and it's our ringtone for whatever reason, and we think it's our, like, so I don't mean that.
I just make, was that a real sound? Did I just hear that? Anyway, so.

[52:25] The hallucinations are real, yes, but how do we know how vivid they are? Yeah, I don't know.
From the many I've had to admit to the hospital during rotation and having to follow them, they are like real life experiences.

[52:40] Yeah, like I can't imagine, like a demon suddenly pokes his head through the wall of the studio and screams at me to do something terrible, I mean, and that was like a real vivid, could feel like you could touch it.
Not suspension of disbelief, movie or VR thing, but like a real genuine thing.
I mean, I can't even imagine. That would, to me, that would be hell.
Like, that would be hell.
My old friend who was a high school, oh, sorry, my old friend who was a high-end dentist smoked daily, always, getting not advanced professional training, always doing more and more in his personal life. Three kids and a wife. Total stoner. Not my friend anymore.
I think people underestimate how many fancy suburb professionals are high.
Yeah, I talked to someone way back in the day when I was in the finance world who was talking about the number of lawyers and traders and so on who were using cocaine or other sort of stimulants to manage anxiety because they got these multi-million dollar bets and so on and to get the work done that needs to get done, lawyers of course a lot of finicky work and massive preparation and so on so there's a lot of drug use in society and it's not just the people in tent cities in San Francisco.
There's a lot of drug use in society even among professionals and the sort of high-end, top-tier people of professional abilities.

[53:58] Yeah, it's self-reported data.
There's no way to know how vivid the hallucinations are. I don't know.
I mean, it would be interesting to have somebody's brain in a scan and see if the exact same things get lit up as if you see something for real, so I don't know.

[54:18] The phantom baby cry when you're in the shower and your baby is napping.
Yes, for sure. I remember those. I remember those.
Your analysis of the wall says this guy made me realize why Roger Waters is the way he is.
Well, Roger Waters in one interview was also saying that he had a complete psychotic break from reality at one point and thought that was it for him.
He was going the way of Sid Barrett, right, which is who, of course, as you know, shined on Ukraine.
Tracy Diamond was written about, but fortunately it cleared for him. Other people don't.
The hallucinations are intrusive during daily life. People can tell the difference between dreams, thoughts, and hallucinations, yes.

[55:03] What are the first things you look at when analyzing a dream?
So dreams are tentative knocks on the door, very quiet knocks on the door, to see if you're ready to handle the truth.
And if you are willing to analyze the dream, the dream assumes that you're willing to handle the truth and therefore they will get more.
The girl that the movie Exorcist was based on was later diagnosed with schizophrenia.
She had gone through something like 67 exorcisms over the years.
Her parents and priests were convicted of negligent homicide.
I don't want to take away from Steph talking, but if you spend time in a psych ward you might understand better.
I have spent some time in a psych ward because I was there seeing my mother.
Steve-O's Sleep Paralysis Experience

[56:04] All right, from what I understand similar to the feeling of someone in the room when experiencing sleep paralysis, Steve-O had that exact experience for but for hours and hours, chilling.

[56:24] All right.
Hallucinations would be difficult for philosophy if you have no one around who was saying to keep your mind protected.
Lots of drug use in restaurants? Yeah I think so. Cocaine and financial industry are normal.
That and prostitutes. They went after Elliot Spitzer because he was going after them. Interesting.

[56:52] I once had stress-induced paranoia. It got so bad I walked into A&E and I was and the doctor saying things they weren't.
And I shouldn't know what A is, I'm just thinking ER.
Um, I'm told regular part makes you stop dreaming. That alone seems like you're messing with insanity here.
All right, should we hit me with a why? Because we're having a good old ramble tangent here.
Hit me with a why. If there are other topics you want to talk about, I can certainly talk about emotional maturity.
Well, but I mean, do think I'm emotionally mature? I guess that's, you know, do I have abs if I'm gonna tell you how to do sit-ups and get abs, right?
And would you consider me to be, oh accident and emergency, okay that's what A&E is, would you consider me to be somebody who has something valuable to talk about with regards to emotional maturity?
Introduction and credibility discussion

[57:57] Because there's not much point me talking about it if it doesn't seem like I have credibility Steph admits he spent time in psych ward Wikipedia.
Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's right, Big yes, okay. Okay. Well, I appreciate that so I.

[58:16] Don't really like the term emotional maturity Myself I mean I get its common parlance and I'm sure I've used it in the past as a shortcut or shorthand I don't particularly like it, I don't particularly like it because it says that there are immature emotions and there are not immature.
I view emotions as neither mature nor immature, they're simply information.
So instead of emotional maturity, I'm going to talk about emotional accuracy.
Emotional accuracy.

[58:45] Define emotional maturity. Thank you, that's absolutely right.
You're good, start with the definitions. Absolutely right, absolutely correct.
Good, good, good. Yeah, so I prefer the term emotional accuracy.
So if I say to someone, you made me angry, that is not emotional accuracy.
After this, therefore because of this, is a logical fallacy.
You said something, I got angry, is accuracy.
You made me angry is not emotional accuracy. It is not an Accurate statement of what happened.
I'm so glad you said that about emotional maturity. I don't like the term as well Well, as long as I'm desperate for approval, I'll take your thanks.
I appreciate that. Thank you A part of my addiction regret is that it has stunted my emotional growth Yeah, one of the first things I look at when I meet people is okay Where did you get stuck emotionally if there seemed to be stuck emotionally like at what at what phase of development? Did you get stuck?

[59:46] So, you say, you say, you make me so very happy.
Not an accurate statement. You made me mad, you triggered me, none of these are accurate statements about emotions.
And the reason is that emotions are different from sensations.
Sensations are not particularly subject to interpretation or reframing, but emotions are.
So, if somebody stabs you in the side, they are causing you pain.
Yes, because they're hitting your nerve centers, they're damaging your skin and your flesh, and my muffin top would be bleeding cheesecake.
So, if somebody stabs you, they are directly causing you pain.
Right, so that's not an interpretation, that's a physical sensation.
But emotions are different.
What a strange concept. You made me so happy. Yeah.
You make me so happy is generally a control mechanism. My happiness now depends upon you continuing to do the things that I claim make me happy that you do, right?
Steph makes me happy. There, lol. Emotional accuracy is a core part of real-time relationships. Yeah, of course, isn't it?
The separation of head and heart, emotional manipulation

[1:01:10] And emotional maturity often has to do with the absence of passion, right? You have grown out of your passions, right?
Because everybody knows the massive cliche that emotions are anti-rational, right? Emotions are anti-rational.
A feeling, passion unseats reason and you need to be cold and distant and deliberative from your emotions and so you have this heart without a head, which is you just being a toddler tantrum kind of person, or you have your head without a heart, which is, somebody who's easy to program and control, right?
The head and the heart, they want to separate the head and the heart, right?
They want to set whatever they do, keep the head and the part apart, keep the head and the heart apart, right?
Because your heart, your gut is your, your sense of danger, your sense of threat, and they want to really keep you separated from your instincts.
So, they will constantly tell you that your emotions are irrational, anti-rational.

[1:02:14] What makes people stuck at certain emotional levels? Well, it's when they take some path other than the truth when dealing with their emotions, right?
So, if you have anxiety because you're surrounded by dangerous people, your anxiety is telling you get away from the dangerous people, right?
It's a very healthy emotion that's telling you to get away from the dangerous people.
If, instead of getting away from the dangerous people, you then start taking drugs to manage your anxiety, then your emotional growth stops.

[1:02:46] Being dispassionate is an emotion, could be fear.

[1:02:52] No, but rejecting your emotions, striving to oppose your emotions.
That's what I'm talking about. Having as your goal the Spock-like, robotic, no-feeling thing.
Because you know, I mean, I know that there's some criticisms floating around that I'm too passionate, I'm too emotional, and it's like, eh, who cares? I mean, that's just ridiculous.
Yes, I'm supposed to give up my feelings in pursuit of the truth.
My feelings are what make me lust after the truth. So, can emotional maturity mean an excellent relationship to one's emotions? I don't know what that means.

[1:03:27] Because that's just another way of saying, like, what is virtue?
Virtue is goodness. It's like, well, you haven't really explained anything.
You've just come up with a synonym, right?
Excellent relationship to one's emotions. I don't know what that means.
You can't have a relationship with your emotions because you are your emotions.
It's a separation of the mind and heart, what would be referred to as emotional manipulation. It is not emotional manipulation.
The separation of the mind and the heart is a prerequisite for manipulation, right?
In order to teach you, like, the purpose of propaganda is to teach you or to instruct you or to program you into thinking that which is safe is dangerous and that which is dangerous is safe.
It's completely to reverse your pain-pleasure principle. That's the purpose of propaganda is to teach you that what is dangerous is actually safe.
What is evil is good What is safe and virtuous is dangerous and evil.
I wish I had your passion. Available for rent every other Thursday.
Mind, body, and the importance of listening to emotions

[1:04:31] So you have to separate people So the mind can be programmed to do just about anything But the passions and the feelings are older than the mind and they are more The mind responds to concepts the body responds to empiricism, The mind responds to concepts, the body responds to empiricism, the body is empirical, which is why as an empiricist I always want to be friendly to the body, exercise the body, listen to the body, and so on.

[1:05:00] So in order to teach you that what is safe is dangerous and what is good is evil, in order to teach you that, they have to separate you from your emotions.

[1:05:15] And that way, because the mind can oppose reality to get to the truth, right?
The mind can impose, can oppose empiricism to get to the truth, right?
If you're in the desert and you see a big mirage, you know it's a big lake, it looks like a lake, you know it's probably a mirage, so you can reject that, right?
The world looks flat, but it's actually a sphere, right? The sun and the moon look the same size, but they're actually close to the size of a dime held at arm's length and so on.
Zef's passion is kept under his shirt. Shirt coming off soon.
I just thought about this the other day that I haven't ripped off my shirt in months, but maybe we'll get there, maybe we'll get there, but it's better after I've worked out.
So, it's, uh, nipolosophy. It's not philosophy is nipple-osophy.
So, the mind can oppose empiricism to get to the truth.
And the opposition to empiricism is why we need science and why we don't just eat what tastes good, right?
To oppose empiricism, the empiricism of the senses, the empiricism of the body.
To oppose that is how we get to essential truths about the universe.
Hit me with a why if it makes sense. So, the mind, the concepts, the rational mind can reject empirical evidence in order to get to the truth.

[1:06:35] Let me know if this makes sense. We have to be able to reject emotions and sensations, to be able to get to the truth.
Okay, so the fact that our conscious mind can reject what seems rational, what seems empirical, the fact that our rational mind can override the evidence of the senses, is our greatest strength and greatest weakness. It is what leads us to scientific and moral truths.
And it is also what enslaves us to propaganda. We can reject and overturn the evidence right in front of us.
So the body can't do that. The body cannot experience a knife stab as pleasurable.
You say, oh, well, what about a masochist and so on? It's like, well, a masochist, I don't know what they're actually experiencing, but the fact that they might take pleasure in pain is because the mind has distorted it.

[1:07:39] So, emotions, and I'm talking about the physical emotions, like the emotions that arise in the gut, that have biochemical markers, that, you know, the fight or flight gets you the dopamine, sorry, gets you the adrenaline and the cortisol and so on, right?
So our emotions are empirical.
Good for me, bad for me.
The fact that the mind can overpower and reject the evidence of the senses also gives the mind the power to overcome and reject the empiricism of the emotions, the empiricism of the emotions.
Engaging in Virtual Reality and Suspension of Disbelief

[1:08:23] So if you're, I don't know, playing a video game, you suspend your disbelief and you get into it and you like, I don't know if you've ever had it.
I have this when I play a little bit of VR from time to time.
There's some, some monster creeps up and you get goosebumps and you know, and so on, right? It's exciting, right? So it's like it's like sports rehearsal for war.
It's just a, you kind of suspend your disbelief and you think you're really shooting a bow or something like that. And it's, it's fun. Right?
So you can overcome and reject the evidence of the senses and you can overcome and reject the empiricism of the emotions.
So, for example, when somebody is telling you a great story, when somebody's telling you a great story, you get into it, you get involved, you get, right, and this could be in the movies, it could be any number of things, right?
I mean, there's no dry eye in the heartfelt house when Horatio says, of Hamlet and flight of angels, sing thee till thy rest, Hamlet dies, the rest is silent.

[1:09:35] So, emotions give you instant appraisals of positive or negative environmental cues.
So your senses, your sensations, they give you positive or negative of direct physical cues, like somebody's giving you a massage, it feels good, that's an act of affection. and somebody stabs you, that feels bad, that's an act of pain. And so.

[1:10:02] The emotions give you preventive, right?
So physical responses are reactive, right?
So somebody, I saw a video the other day where somebody snuck up behind a big guy looking over a bridge into the water, put an air horn in his ear, and he, the big guy grabbed the guy, the air horn guy, and threw him in the water.
So that's a reactive thing. somebody startled you, somebody hurt you, it hurts in your ear, it could be dangerous for you, it could be damaging to your ear and therefore you're hearing and therefore you throw them in the water.
So that's reactive, right?
Somebody sneaks up behind you and grabs you, you might jump, you've seen the scare cam things where somebody punches someone, so that's reactive.
And that's fine, right? You put your hand in the fire, it jerks it back out even before you even feel the pain, because it's reactive, right?

[1:10:48] And so the sensations are reactive, but the emotions are preventive.
Preventative, preventive. They aim to prevent problems, right?
So if we've all had this experience where we're walking down the street, maybe it's late at night, and someone's walking behind us.
Now, if we turn around and it's some elderly Asian gentleman, we'd probably feel okay, right? if it's some young thuggish looking fellow, we probably don't feel okay.
Right? So your, your emotions, your sense of alarm and danger and so on is there to prevent.
Right? If, if the guy runs up and stabs you, then you fight or you run, you get like your body then reacts in that way, but your emotions are there as a sort of outer rings of Saturn radar to prevent physical at all assault attack or to guide you towards something positive or happy or wonderful.
So your emotions are there. Like desire is an emotion and a desire to get out of the rain and get into a hut or build a hut or do your coal to build a fire.
Your desire to avoid a negative or pursue a positive is really, really important. Right?

[1:11:58] I mean, I, uh, I can't rip off my shirt and do a debate with my wife.
That's bringing in the big guns, right?
Unfair. Well, of course she could do the same, which would be even unfairer.
So yeah, your emotions are there to tell you what you want and what's dangerous to you.
Hit me with a why if this makes sense.
We've got the concepts that can deny the evidence of the emotions and the senses, but not the sensations, the sort of neurological, physical, it hurts when I have my hand in a fire.
We have the sensations which are reactive to direct threats or positives and we have the emotions which are there to prevent or pursue and give you a life purpose.

[1:12:52] Josh, if you can just go to freedomain.com/donate just do it there if it's not working for you on the app. I appreciate that.
The Purpose of Abuse: Emotional Rejection for Survival

[1:13:06] So, What is the accurate, so emotional maturity if we sort of say emotional accuracy?
The purpose of abuse is what? Is the purpose of abuse to harm the body? No.
Is the purpose of abuse to harm the emotions? Yes.
And the purpose of abuse is to make the rejection of emotion necessary for survival.
The purpose of abuse is to make the rejection of emotion, the only way to survive. And this is why abusive parents deliver their children to propagandists and the propagandists then have very easy clay to work with.
Do you need more? I mean, I can do more on this. I'm not sure if this makes sense stand alone or if you need more on this.
I want to make sure it's clear, of course. Clear as a sunrise.
The Purpose of Abuse: Reversing Emotional Nature

[1:14:30] So, to just give a brief example or two, the purpose of abuse, and this is why it's abuse, not attack, right?
The purpose of abuse is to reverse your emotional nature so that you do the opposite of what is good for you.
Don't need more, I want more.

[1:14:57] So, the purpose of abuse is to get you to believe, for instance, that danger is safety, that pain is safety.
So, for instance, if you're doing something dangerous and your parent hits you, they're saying that safety is danger, and danger is safety, pain is health, and they're just reversing things as a whole.
If your parent says I love you but then emotionally manipulates and withdraws from you whenever you displease them then they're saying that love is the same as manipulation.
That I love you but if you do something that displeases me I will not love you and I will withdraw from you until you conform. You'd like more, okay.
The Reversed Emotional Programming of My Father

[1:16:01] My father, this is important, right? Here's an example. My father fights to almost no end every time he's questioned on something he says.
When he gets proven wrong, he will continue to argue and try to move the goalpost about what he is saying.
Sometimes he's right, sometimes he's wrong, but because he's doubled down so many times when he was wrong, we start to question everything he says.
I don't know why he always goes into frantic arguing. Is it because words were dangerous as a kid?
Right, so, I will give you… to get you to gaslight yourself. Maybe.

[1:16:38] So, well, and part of the programming of Disney and other places is to get you to think that polar bears are friends, there's a whole movie called Shark Tale, where sharks are kind of cute and fun and friendly and so it's programming you to the reversal of the truth, right?
The bear necessities, the simple bear, like, the bear is friendly and the bear is fun and and the bear is cool, and the bear will like tear your scalp off, right?
Cute animals, right? Cute animals. And that's how you know people live in cities, is they can nickname God's creatures, right?
They can afford to sentimentalize creatures. If they were in the country, there wouldn't be any of that, right?
So why does your father fight? Because his entire emotional apparatus has been reversed.
So, how do you gain credibility with people?
You gain credibility with people by being curious and by admitting that you could be wrong.
Right? I mean, what did I say earlier, right? And I say this all the time.
This could be my prejudice, I could be entirely wrong about this, this is just my theory, there is no proof.
Right? And so I point out when I'm not certain of something.

[1:18:02] And so when I am certain of something, it doesn't mean I'm right, but it means that it at least has passed my skeptical test for myself.
So you gain credibility by having humility. Having humility means accepting that you can be wrong.
That's how you actually gain credibility. Now your father's completely reversed this. So, admitting that you're wrong is how you gain credibility and how you avoid conflict.
And not avoid negative conflict, right? Yeah, the scientific method, for sure, yeah, I don't know, right?
How can you be so sure, right? So your father's had his emotional programming completely reversed.
To admit the possibility of error is to have credibility with people, but he believes that the only way he can retain credibility is to never be wrong.
That's complete reverse, that's completely reversed.
Credibility comes from humility, which means admitting you could be wrong.
It also makes space for the other people, right?
Because other people can then come in and contribute to what you're doing.

[1:19:08] The reversal is like you having an inverse reference frame when solving a physics problem.
Chris, that could be right, that could be wrong. I have no idea what you're talking about, so I'm not even going to pretend to know, but I'm sure that you're right, because you have credibility with me.
So, you know, your father fights to no end. He will argue and move the goalposts, so he thinks that never admitting that he's wrong is going to gain him credibility and respect, right?
So it's complete, The absolute reversal of the truth.
The Absolute Reversal of Truth and Propaganda

[1:19:36] The absolute reversal of the truth.
Ask people in Churchill, Manitoba how cute and cuddly a polar bear walking around town at 8am on a school day is.
Yeah, I mean we had, when I worked up north we had a bear attack and it was pretty terrifying.
I mean a bear attacked a camp dog that had kind of attached itself to us and I had to go out with a flashlight and a shotgun and yeah, I mean it was not, I wouldn't sing in bare necessities.
I wouldn't sing in bare necessities. I'll tell you what bare necessities was shotgun and a trigger finger.

[1:20:13] So, so emotional accuracy. So emotional accuracy, your emotions are there to tell you what is dangerous, right?
Propaganda is to tell you that the opposite is truth, right?
The opposite is true, right?
So propaganda will always have somebody who looks dangerous, turn out to be friendly and somebody who looks friendly, turn out to be dangerous, right?

[1:20:34] You follow? Propaganda is all about showing somebody who's dangerous and they turn out to be super friendly and helpful.
And then there are people who look safe and your empirical evidence will tell you are safe and they turn out to be totally deadly, right?
So this is the case like the woman marries the nice guy, he's got all the markers of sort of moderation and health and he turns out to be a total psycho And she's saved by her shaven-headed tattooed friend who's whatever, right?
And of course they call this, you know, like, well, we want to oppose stereotypes.
It's like, well, no, but stereotypes are very real.
I mean stereotypes, I mean, there's two things that are replicated in the social sciences.
The validity of stereotypes and IQ, right? We know, we know all about, right?
The poor bear, can you imagine how terrified it was coming across the most dangerous animal on the planet? That's very funny. That's very funny.
You're a funny guy, funny lady.

[1:21:36] I think this makes sense, but water is wet, so what do I know, right? Yeah, I mean, I remember, and so men are pretty good at figuring out stereotype threats, right?
So I saw this post, again, who knows what's true, but it was a very interesting post, I'm sure you've seen it, where a guy says something like, you know, well my girlfriend wanted to go to a party in a bad section of and I said don't go to this party it's not gonna be safe she goes to the party she gets raped and I break up with her and her friends are all like but she needs you now she got raped she's like you know it's like.

[1:22:11] Well so yeah a stereotype is simply like do we have brains capable of pattern recognition right do we have brains capable of pattern recognition, And, of course, the media is all about giving you, it's substituting your empirical experience for the exact opposite of what's in the world, right?
So when people consume media, they're getting programmed with the opposite of the empirical evidence they'd have out there walking around in the world. Does that make sense?
Propagandists: Manipulating Emotions and Rejecting Self-Interest

[1:22:56] So emotional accuracy, having respect for your emotions and propagandists are all about saying that your emotions are what? What are your emotions?
They're prejudice, they're privilege, they're like your emotions are unjust, they're wrong, they're evil, and you've got to reject self-interest, you've got to reject pattern recognition, you've got to reject any kind of in-group preference, like this is all about this, right? It's all about this.
So, it's always the opposite, right?
It's always the opposite of the truth in propaganda and they're attempting to substitute your empirical evidence of the world with a manufactured or simulated quote evidence from art.
And art used to be about training you to be good, now it's training you to be opposite opposite from facts, opposite from truth.
Hit me with a why if the argument makes sense. Again, that's not to say that I'm right or you agree with it 100%, but hit me with a why if the argument makes sense.

[1:24:14] Just out of curiosity. Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought him back.
Yes. Okay. So emotional maturity, and this is why I predict a fair amount of mental illness, of course, coming out of the pandemic, for a variety of reasons.
But in the pandemic, people, a lot of people eschewed or avoided experiencing actual reality, reality, and then they consume massive amounts of media, which means that they're being programmed to the opposite of reality.
Postmodern Art: Replicating Mental Illness

[1:24:59] Yeah, postmodern art is brutal, yeah. Postmodern art is attempting to give people the experience of schizophrenia, and to uncouple them from this the sense data they're getting from reality.
I'm trying to follow this one. Don't trust someone who says they care about what you care about and only trust those of us who lie to you and know what's best for you even though it only seems to hurt you.
Right, I mean one of the reasons I was deplatformed was I was interfering with the programming that was having people reject their emotions so they're easier to control.
So, how does one learn credible from non-credible emotions so that you can have the tool available?

[1:25:59] Let me just make sure. How does one learn credible from non-credible emotions so you have this tool available?
So, one of the things that you can look at when it comes to your emotions is you say, what is the source of this?
I had to do a lot of this in my teens and my 20s. What is the source of this?
If your parents say negative things about you, what is the source?
Is the source trustworthy?
Is the source verified?
Is the source honest? Is the source good.
Tell me if this makes sense. So, you know, my mother would say negative things about me and I would say, yeah, but she's crazy.
Ooh, great connection on postmodernism, never thought of that, but it's clicked as soon as you mentioned it.
Yeah, for sure. So postmodernism is an attempt to replicate mental illness in people, right?
If you were, if you believed nothing was true and nothing was real, nothing was factual, and you had no direct access to reality, that would be insane, that you're insane.
So most modern philosophy is trying to turn people insane so they can be programmed by propagandists.

[1:27:18] Steph, do you think this idea of emotional accuracy is related to music and how to listen or not to listen to it?
Some musicians can make distinctions of dysfunction very persuasive and easy to remember. Yeah, like the Radiohead song Creep, right?
That is an attempt to replicate the effects of verbal abuse in the audience, or to reinforce.

[1:27:44] Yeah, the media government's complex narrative. Who are you going to believe?
Ah, so you're lying eyes. Right, right.
So, if you've had some, like, consider the source, right? Consider the source is really, really important.
Consider the source. Consider the source.
My father was, I almost, I can't remember a single time I had a direct emotional connection with my father.
Even when he was telling me his life story on that memorable bus trip from Toronto to Montreal.

[1:28:23] When he was just telling me the stuff and I was grateful to hear it, but there was no…
Oh, Tom York's falsetto? Yeah, I know, he's a great singer for sure.
But he's got that whole physiognomy, right? The whole just, I don't know, loser almond face physiognomy.
It was just… He fits, like when people fit in every kind of way.
It just works out really well. So, I mean, it works out really well for the art. It doesn't necessarily work out really well for the rest of humanity, for sure.

[1:28:50] Or like Leonard Cohen's complete paranoia about female predation, like I mean, it's just, women will rip you apart, they'll tear you apart, they'll tie you down, they'll cut your hair.
Women are succubi and vampires who will steal your souls, like, heck I'm sorry that you got circumcised man, but don't take it out on the rest of us, right?
Awkwardness with Parents: Consider the Source

[1:29:12] Yeah, so my father, I never had any particular connection with him, I never had any, you know, I mean I just always felt really awkward around him, he always felt really awkward about me.
Does that mean I'm awkward? Does that mean there's something wrong with me and I'm off-putting? No, consider the source. Guy had huge issues over the course of his life.
And he… Guy married my mom.
Well, how on earth would I take anything seriously that anybody said who married a crazy person, and a violent person, and abandoned his children to her tender care, right?
Creep is a stolen song from air that I breathe, is that right?

[1:29:50] There has to be an initial emotional connection that comes spontaneously, those who are so guarded it never happens, I can't feel empathy for.
Well my father couldn't connect with me because that would be to connect with his own guilt for leaving his children with a violent woman.
That says a lot considering you enjoy listening to people. Right.
I mean, so I understand, like, you have to, you have to, to get why people are awkward about you, sorry, to get why people are awkward around you, you have to remember what it's like to have a terrible conscience.
Never had an emotional connection with my father either. It's still one of my greatest regrets, but in the end it was his choice.

[1:30:30] Why, sorry, why would you have an emotional regret?
Like the only way that I could emotionally connect with my father is if I had married a crazy woman and abandoned my children to her violence and then rejected them talking about it.
So the only way I could emotionally connect with my father is if I had done absolutely terrible and appalling and monstrously bad things in my life. I don't want that.
I don't want to connect with somebody who did great evil in his life. Good lord.
Good lord. emotional connection with my father the fact that we were awkward around each other was massively positive if I had not felt awkward around him it'd be because I did some really terrible things in my life oh my god why is it I can't connect emotionally with the serial killer well god forbid you can connect emotionally with the serial killer that would mean terribly mean you got a bunch of bodies in the backyard too my god emotionally connect with my father oh god no thank you that would be absolutely appalling oh my god why would you not why would you regret not being able to emotionally connect with somebody who's terrible, i'm sorry am i am i over emph…

[1:31:41] Why would you want to emotionally connect with people who've done immense evil in their life why would you want to emotionally connect with child abusers and abandoners and those who fostered violence upon helpless offspring.
Why would you want to connect with those people at all?
Awkwardness and distance is a testament to your clean conscience.

[1:32:05] Sorry, I may have a rant. Hard to tell.
I had the reverse. Mom was really awkward and quiet. Dad was the crazy violent one.
I don't think that's true. I don't think that's true.
I don't think that's true at all. Mom was really awkward and quiet.
Dad was the crazy violent one. Nope.
Nope. They're both crazy and violent. They're both crazy and violent.
They're a system. It's like saying, well, the guy who punched me out of nowhere, the guy who punched me out of nowhere, where his fist was really violent, but his legs were really peaceful, because he didn't kick me at all.
So his legs were totally peaceful, but his fist was really violent.
Parents are a system, right?
You look at a couple, they're not one person. And one person, they're a system.
So the guy can't punch you if his legs don't hold him up. And your father couldn't be violent with you if your mother didn't support him or give him children, right?
So they're the same. They're the same.
Yes, you're absolutely right, Steph. Hulk mode. Somehow I've never seen the shirt come off.
Childhood Trauma and Abusive Father

[1:33:22] I was raised in fear of my dad's anger. That does not mean I enjoyed the times where we had time together when he was not abusing me, but I was a kid.
He was 30 years my senior. He chose to act that way.
Yes.
Sadly, yes, my mom was never violent to me or angry was what I meant.
Well, when the guy hit me with his left fist, his right fist was totally peaceful.
Your mother was violent to you, this is what I want to tell you. Well, she never hit me.
So? Do you think direct violence is the only way that violence happens?
Come on. Come on.
She married a violent guy, well, she dated a violent guy, got engaged to a violent guy, I married a violent guy, gave children to the violent guy, stood by while you were being abused.

[1:34:15] Good lord. You know, they charge the person who hires the hitman with murder, not just the hitman, right?
Well, I didn't kill anyone. I didn't do anything.
Great point, Steph. I feel no emotional connection with my father.
He allowed my mother to use me as a substitute husband. Yes.
So a lot of times when fathers are escaping abusive spouses, They leave the children back as a peace offering and as a substitute.
So if the abusive mother just wants to abuse people, if the father tries to take the children, then the mother will abuse the father, maybe through the legal system or something like that.
And so he leaves the children behind to appease the mother so that he can get away.
Which is literally like a bear's chasing you and you throw your toddler on the ground so the bear will eat the toddler and not you.

[1:35:06] Yeah, conspiracy to murder. Yeah, that's right.
I do have dreams occasionally where I am at a loss. Um, and every now and then I just have to be like, well, I'm not ready for whatever this dream has and I'm hopefully it'll come back.
But I do, I had one not too long ago actually about a dream where I was like, I just couldn't figure this one out. I just couldn't figure it out.
Damn, now you have me thinking about this and I thought I had it worked out.
Yeah, because there's always one parent who gets away, right?
There's always one parent who gets away.
Now, you know the Nuremberg Principle, right? You know the Nuremberg Principle?
The Nuremberg Principle is those who give the orders are more guilty than those who follow the orders.
Those who give the orders are more guilty than those who follow the orders.
So those who planned the Holocaust are more guilty than even the people who, down at the bottom, did the terrible stuff.
The people down at the bottom who did the terrible stuff are still guilty guilty, but the people who planned it are more guilty in some views and in some ways.
So people who never… like people who are war criminals are people who ordered bad things.
The people who followed those orders are often not considered as guilty or as culpable.

[1:36:29] And so the guy who orders a war crime, he says, hey, I didn't do anything.
But you ordered of the war crime, right?
So you're more guilty in some views, right? Literally my situation, it didn't help that I looked like my father physically, right?
Yes, and if there are a bunch of kids, especially if there are brothers, then usually one brother is picked out to be the punching bag or the remote piñata for the husband who's got away, right?
Holding Mothers Accountable for Violence

[1:37:00] I held my mom responsible a decade before my father. This show helped balance that." Good.
Yeah. Mom did not physically abuse us. Not just verbal…
What? Sorry. I'm just… I want to make sure that… So people keep posting, which is great. I'm glad that you are, but…

[1:37:21] All right, so you write, Mom did not physically abuse us. Not just verbal, psychological abuse until I explode. Then wait till Dad gets home punished for talking back.
She was not innocent, nor was she better after dad died.
Only now I am the adult and a foot taller. Psychological abuse continued until I stood up. She cut off contact. So be it.
She never admitted abuse, let alone apologized. My life better without that poison.
So if the husband is the fist for the mother's violence, like if the husband is the enforcer for the mother's violence, she is responsible for that violence, right?
She's as responsible for that violence as the father is, right?
Do you follow? So if the husband comes home and the wife knows exactly what to say to him to get him to hit the children, and she says all of that, then he's responsible for hitting the children, she's equally responsible for hitting the children.
There's a principle in law which says that if you set in motion a series of events that results in a crime, you are responsible for that crime.

[1:38:39] So there's an example of a man comes into a grocery store or a convenience store and he's robbing the place with a gun.
And then somebody else shoots at that guy, misses, it bounces off a piece of metal, hits someone else and kills him, not the criminal, right?
So criminal comes in, robs, guy shoots, misses, hits another one.
The criminal is charged with the murder.
Because the criminal set in motion, the events that resulted and the criminal didn't, didn't shoot anyone.
But the guy got shot as a result of the criminal initiating the action, right?
Or if you are involved at all in a robbery that results in a death, everybody involved in the robbery is charged with a murder, right?
So even if you're just sitting in the car, right?
There's a bank robbery and somebody gets killed in the bank robbery.
Even if you're just sitting in the car idling as the getaway driver, you're charged with murder.
It's a system. Nobody gets the excuse of, well, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't hit you.
I, I, I, I, I didn't shoot the guy in the convenience store.
I, I, I, I, I didn't, I didn't kill the guy in the robbery. I was just sitting in the car.
Incitement to Violence and Responsibility

[1:40:00] I mean, if you know for a fact that saying these words to a man will get the child beaten up, you are equally responsible for the beating.
Incitement to violence.
Right? If I have a incredibly dangerous and traumatized animal that I know attacks people, and I lose it in a playground, it's like, hey man, you can put the dog down, but it's nothing to do with me. I didn't I didn't attack anyone. I didn't chew on anyone.
I mean you gotta you got to be kidding me with this, right?
This idea that well my mother never hit me. I mean come on. Oh my gosh, like I know we've got I, Know we've got the women a wonderful phenomenon and you desperately want to bond with someone in your childhood But you got to be kidding me with this shit, right?
You got to be kidding me.

[1:41:03] If there's some MKUltra guy, I know if I whisper this certain phrase then he's gonna kill someone, I know this for certain, and then I whisper that phrase, have I killed someone? Yes I have.
Ah, everyone has their responsibilities, yes they do, absolutely, yeah.
The guy, I'm not saying that your father's innocent if he beats you and your mother, but the idea that your mother is not violent is, oh my gosh, like, you gotta be kidding me with this shit." And the violence continues because you forgive it. This is why I'm so passionate about this, right?
The violence continues because of this cover story of, I wasn't violent to you, I just, all I did was marry a violent guy, train him to attack children, and consistently whisper the magic words in his phrase that made him attack the children.
I wasn't violent myself, though. My gosh, that would be appalling.
It continues because we allow for this bullshit, right?
Conspiracy or just reckless disregard for other safety counts as criminal action.
I told someone with a hair trigger and a gun that someone was sleeping with his girlfriend, then hell yes I'm responsible for what happens as surely as if I used the gun. Right.
And you understand that most violence is verbal. You follow?
Most violence is verbal. Without the verbal, there's almost no violence.

[1:42:30] So true! I'm always so confused and ragey when they send the kids to live with grandparents after the parents did atrocious things to kids.
Like, where the F do you think the parents got their ways from? Yeah.

[1:42:43] Yeah, I mean, it's the Iago thing, right? Iago tells Othello all these terrible things about Desdemona. Othello ends up murdering Desdemona.
Is Othello responsible for the murder? Yes, he is. Is Iago responsible for the murder? Yes, he is.
Words as Precursors to Violence

[1:43:01] If you take actions you know in advance will result in a crime, you are part of the crime.
I mean, the people who were saying all kinds of terrible things about me wanted people to attack me, right?
And without those words, the violence wouldn't happen, right?
So when you look at violence, always look at the words that precede it.
And words always precede it. If you look at genocides, right?
I mean, Rwandan genocide, there were months or years of building up animosities and, like, you know, there's all these steps of genocide, right?
And a lot of dehumanization, insults, and put-downs, and raising of threats, and so on, right? There's all these steps that have to go on.
For years before you get the actual blow-up of violence.

[1:44:03] The idea that you would look at the fist and not the words that program the fist to act is incomprehensible to me and I'm sorry I don't mean to be mean or anything like that but I mean we've been around the block with so you know I was just genuinely surprised when somebody says well my mother was peaceful but my I'm sorry I didn't mean to laugh because it's really tragic right my mother was peaceful but my father was violent is so much in the rear view for me and again I'm sorry if I'm being rude I really I'm trying to be uh as as passionate and accurate it as possible but and again maybe you're new to the conversation in which case I do genuinely apologize right.

[1:44:39] Yeah, oh yeah like all the riots, like I used to push back a lot against this race stuff like the race riots that were all being set up, yeah people got billions of dollars of damage, dozens of people murdered because of lies pushed right.
Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, got half a million Iraqis killed and thousands of Americans and destabilize the region and right?
So the violence, I'm not, I mean I'm appalled by the violence, the violence is evil, but what philosophy does is it looks at the words behind the violence, the words that precede the violence, the words that lubricate and justify the drawing of the sword.
That's what matters, right?
And I was right about all of that stuff, I mean we've proven right repeatedly, right?
So, yeah, I don't like to think of emotional maturity, I like to think of emotional accuracy.
In other words, are your emotions programmed or are they empirical?
Do they arise from the empiricism of the body?
And of course, if you have substituted other people's perceptions and language for your own direct experience, then your emotions are going to be inaccurate because your emotions are following somebody else's programming rather than the empirical evidence of your life itself.
All right. Ah, let's see here.
Technical Difficulties and Support Appeal

[1:46:03] I understand your point, but the propagandists attacking you would argue that your own speech is a precursor to violence.
They'd be wrong, of course, but this calls for a reasonable standard to connect words to action.
Um, my own speech? Okay, yeah, of course, but everyone would say that about everyone they want to attack, right?
That it would cause violence.
Sure.
You know, one of the ways that you can figure out if somebody's speech is a call for violence is if they actually call for violence.
Like, that would be a good way to figure out.

[1:46:41] Oh, we've done that again. I'll have to get a new camera. Alright, sorry about this. I'll just switch over.
I'll keep going. I'll have to get a new camera, because this one, for some reason, even though it's plugged in, has this battery exhaustion thing that goes on.
I didn't know why but I and I've already I've already set it up to Have this yeah, I've already set it up, So that it's supposed to not deal with heat issues or anything like that.
So we'll get it sorted now We will get it sorted now.
All right, just turn that up a little bit. We'll turn that on and we'll continue So it's too bad.
I like that camera and Of course, unfortunately, it's beyond its return time, right?
It's quite tragic. It is beyond its return time But we will survive.
I have a backup camera here.
Not quite as nice, but we'll also survive that as well.
Wasn't ready for shirtless death. Yeah, that's right.

[1:47:39] You're not being rude. If I've misunderstood something so fundamental, then I deserve some ridicule.
Um, no, I mean, no, I don't think so, and I apologize for that.
I don't, it's not, it's not ridicule.
It was more exasperation, which is also not fair if you're new to the conversation, so.
These conversations about the nuances of legal culpability have always made for great debates and are extremely stimulating. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Yeah, I don't know what's going on with this camera. It's a Sony camera and it's a vlogger camera and I've got it plugged in so it says battery exhausted and it's actually plugged into an electrical source.
I don't know why that is the case but maybe I'll look it up at some point.

[1:48:23] All right, do we have any other last questions or comments? We have a tragically low donation day, so if what I'm saying is providing value to you and again, I know a lot of you are donors so I appreciate all of that, but if what I'm saying is providing value to you, I really would…
Now it looks like a classic truth about yeah, yeah, for sure.
Yeah, if you have any, if you would like to support the show, of course if you're in here just watching, that's great, welcome, I'm glad to do that, but you know, as the expenses are.
Uh, let's see here. Yeah, if you would like to support, you can of course listen.
Support at freedomain.locals.com. I would really, really appreciate that.
It being the Christmas season and all, your friendly neighborhood philosopher would like some mistletoe.
It's a plant that actually doesn't grow berries, it grows sexual harassment lawsuits. Not many people know that.

[1:49:15] Ah, alright, let's see here. I just donated but got a reload error message.
That's never happened. Yeah, so if you can go to freedomain.com/donate, you can probably do it that way.
Oh, I hope you can do it that way. It'd be nice if you could donate. That'd be excellent.
All right, how do we disentangle the emotional accuracy of grief?
If we end a relationship but feel grief because of it, is the grief a punishment so that we don't repeat the same pattern? What is the purpose of grief and how is it accurate?
Well, but there's two sides to grief, right? And one, it's really important to know the difference.
Maybe a difference, right?
Steph, did Stephen Woodward's Rationality Rules ever circle back to you on debating UPB? No. No, he didn't.

[1:50:01] So, there's two aspects to grief, right? So there's one aspect of grief which is we grieve what we have lost, and the other is we grieve what we never had.
So the first is that we grieve what we have lost and the second is we grieve what we have never had.
New battery maybe. Well, but it shouldn't be a battery situation because it's plugged in, right? So maybe I'll take the battery out.
I don't know if it runs with the battery out if it's just plugged in, but I should probably try that. Maybe that will work. Thank you for the prompt. Very helpful.
So, I don't mean that sarcastically, though it sounded vaguely sarcastic.
I genuinely thank you that gave me the idea of taking the battery out.
You know, a lot of times you've just got to futz with tech just to get it to do its basic stated purpose. Just the reality of where we live in the world.
But… Um… So, you know, if you have a great love and the love dies, uh, then you are very sad that you don't get to continue, right?

[1:51:07] Thank you. I appreciate that. I appreciate the tips. So yeah, if you have a great love of your life, your love dies, then you are very sad.
Of course, because you had a great benefit and you've lost that benefit and there's that grief.
And that's just the shadow of happiness. Everything we have we will lose.
Everyone who loves us either dies and we watch them die or we die and they watch us die. Maybe there's a flaming, fiery death together, but that's pretty unusual, right?
And then all the people who love us will mourn us.
So mourning is the shadow of love. Mourning is the shadow of happiness.
Everything that we have we will lose.

[1:51:44] So that's natural. And you can't have the joy without the loss.
You can't have the joy without the loss.
It's not, it's not possible.

[1:51:55] So there is the grief, which is the reflect, it's the, it's the grief is the pain that we have from losing love.
And of course the purpose of the grief is to remind us that we should probably try and get more love back, right?
So if you have a wonderful relationship with your wife, your wife dies, uh, then you're going to feel grief and the grief is part of the spur to get you to go back and find a new wife over time and love that, right, to love that person that way.
So grief is for that.
Now the grief of what we never had, right, the grief of, my father died, I never had a relationship with him in any way that make any sense to me or was ever connected.
So that's sad, that's sad and that's there to have you avoid disconnected pretend relationships, right?
The loss of what you wanted but didn't get, like when it's no longer possible, you can't imagine that it's ever going to happen.
And of course I'd given up on my father. I mean, my father died a couple of years ago.
I gave up on him decades ago, as far as like there was never going to be a connection, there was never going to be a conversation.
He was beyond restitution and therefore he was beyond connection.
A few people are having problems with tips not being shown here? Okay.
Well, I'm sorry about that. I will mention something to them.
Mourning the Loss of an Illusion

[1:53:17] Let's see here… So yeah, so first with grief you should be aware, are you mourning the loss of a positive or are you mourning that you never had a positive?
And it was not a shock that I didn't feel particularly much when my father died.
It wasn't a shock to me, because I'd already accepted that we were never going to have a relationship.
If you have the illusion that you're going to have a relationship and then somebody dies, then you're not mourning the death of that person, you're mourning the death of the illusion.
So if you think you're going to have a great relationship with someone, just something has to happen and then they die and it's never going to happen, then you're mourning the death of an illusion, not the death of a relationship, right? That it's going to turn around or something, right?

[1:54:00] The concept of dog whistles. Well, you did not say to do violence, but we know what you really meant. You say things. Someone who follows likes, yeah, yeah. that.
So, I don't really, like as far as dog whistles go, it's like there's tens of thousands of outright open Marxists in American higher education, not even counting government schools, and Marxism openly and outright calls for violence, so the idea that they'd be upset, at words leading to violence when they're actually Marxists and nobody really cares about it, I mean, that's just, I mean, I just think it's ridiculous, and it's, if it wasn't, And if the stakes weren't so high, it would be pathetically funny, right?
Well, I follow an ideology that openly calls for mass murder, but I can, I'm very sensitive to dog whistles of imagined calls to violence in other people who've never called for violence.
It's like, I don't know, it's just, I don't know, it's sad.
It's really sad. And I don't even know really what to say about people who follow that kind of stuff. What can you say, right? What can you even possibly say?
What is your insight? I don't get anything from a compliment or an insult or critique.
I'm trying to work on it. So, my guess is that you would have been manipulated by compliments and insults.

[1:55:12] Yeah, you can email support at locals.com if you tipped and the message did not show.
And I'm sorry for that, I really am, because I want to thank everyone.
And please, if your message didn't show, but you tipped, I really, really appreciate that.
And I'm sorry that I can't thank you individually, but please know that I'm thanking you in my heart and in my soul. Thank you. Thank you very much.
So yeah, so if you're immune to praises and if you're amused to praise and insults, then my guess is that what happened was over the course of your life you were manipulated with praise and insults and you learned how to inoculate yourself against that.
Now of course you want to have people who give you genuine praise and critiques.

[1:55:52] You want to be around people who give you genuine praise and critiques and so you don't have to be suspicious about what they say, but that would be my guess is that you were manipulated with praise and critiques and therefore you've rendered yourself immune to emotional response as a way to maintain freedom in the face of manipulation or at least some sort of sort of independence.
Thank you for that last bit that's what I meant before talking about my father I do not regret not having had a connection with him I mourn the loss of the hope of ever having one.
Well here's the thing too is your mourning this is going to be quite a complicated topic so I'll try and keep it brief.
So that way I try to be as effective and concise as possible.

[1:56:44] I would have mourned having a connection with my father because that would have meant that we would have the equally guilty conscience and so on, right? That would be a terrible thing.
That would be a curse and a condemnation of my life choices to have a connection with my father.
So it's entirely possible that your sadness at your father dying, if you never had a connection with him, is his last act of cruelty towards you, right?
To hold out the hope, to not disabuse you the hope and for other people as well to not disabuse you of the hope, right?
Never happening, he's never going to change, it's never going to connect, right? Never going to connect.
So it might be the last bit of cruelty that has occurred with your father is you having this hope.

[1:57:33] Oh, I guess that was a little more concise than I thought. Well, that's good. That's good. it's good that it's concise, would you not say?
All right, any other last questions, comments?
Again, freedomain.com/donate is a great way, I think that's where I get the most, it's the lowest overhead for for tips or support or donations, freedomain.com slash, donate is good for that kind of stuff and I really do appreciate of course everybody's support and it is necessary for the show, and thank you for all of that.
Thank you for all of that, to keep it running. Concise but still deep, yes.

[1:58:15] Is the course of action different if you're mourning an illusion?
Yeah, you don't mourn the thing, that is, you mourn the death of an illusion.
And the mourning of the death of an illusion is essential for you to not regenerate a new illusion, right?
Thoughts on the seemingly contradictory part of my personality being extremely agreeable, but also all my interests are counterculture.
Oh, yeah. So you are a good person with an agreeable personality and so am I.
I mean, honestly, the people I meet, everybody loves me.
Everybody loves me. Everybody loves me.
I just love you a little bit more. All right. Can we add a comment section to the tip page on Freedom8? Yeah, I'm sure we can. Thank you for the suggestion.
So, yeah, you're sane, but the culture is insane, right? You're peaceful, but the culture is violent.
You want to build bridges, the culture wants to detonate them.
You want to bring people to reality, the culture wants to bring people to hatred.
So yeah, you wouldn't want to be swimming with the flow of the current at the moment.
You don't want to be swimming with the flow of the current because the current is leading everyone to destruction, right?

[1:59:17] So being disagreeable with those who are disagreeable is a good thing.
It's as good a thing as being unable to connect with people who've got a really terrible conscience. Of course, you don't want to be able to connect with them.
My God, what a nightmare that would be, right?
Yikes! Alright, thanks everyone for a great conversation and a great chat.
Honestly, we are so much better together. We are a song that grows in the harmony and I really, really appreciate that.
A lot in today's show hits home for me. Thank you, donating through the website.
Thank you, Chris. I really appreciate that. That's freedomain.com.
Don't forget to check out the community at freedomain.locals.com. A great community.
And I'll do a show. Oh, I have my daughter's birthday coming up.
So if you want to send any nice messages to her, if you've enjoyed her shows over the years, if you want to email me, you can just email me at operations@freedomain.com and I can pass along your positive messages to her.
And if you've enjoyed her contributions to the show, as I know I have.
So lots of love, everyone. Thank you so much for a wonderful chat today.
Take care. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.