EXPLORING BOUNDARIES: A Deep Dive into Digital Ethics and Personal Freedom - Transcript

Chapters

0:00 - Introduction and Setting the Stage
2:05 - The Trap Expands: Bread and Flagpole Scenarios
5:26 - False Dichotomy: Property Rights vs. Saving a Life
11:38 - Selective Enforcement: When Property Rights Are Uncertain
13:51 - Breaking into a house to escape a bear attack
18:18 - Property rights and voluntary enforcement
21:22 - Example discussed on a forum
21:39 - Brace Yourself for Some Coarse and Crude Topics
22:08 - Dealing with bears and home break-ins
26:00 - The Ethics of Looking at Stolen Naked Pictures
27:57 - The Risks of Taking Matters into Your Own Hands
30:25 - The Importance of Due Process and Society's Response
32:52 - Unstable Behavior and the Need for Self-Control
36:30 - Rant about inappropriate clothing and underwear visibility
38:59 - Discussion on the insignificance of laptop smashing incidents
42:56 - The Curse of the Younger Brother

Long Summary

Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain kickstarts the podcast by presenting a compelling scenario involving a moral dilemma where property rights clash with saving a life. Through personal anecdotes and thought experiments, he delves into the complexities of enforcing property rights, emphasizing the nuanced nature of individual decision-making in extreme situations. Stefan argues that property rights should be selectively and voluntarily enforced, prioritizing human life and practicality over rigid frameworks. By challenging listeners to consider empathy and pragmatism in ethical decision-making, he advocates for a compassionate approach that values both property rights and human well-being.

As the podcast unfolds, various hypothetical scenarios are explored to challenge traditional notions of property rights, responsibility, and moral behavior. The discussion expands to controversial events like "The Fappening," prompting reflections on culpability in viewing stolen images and the ethics of responding to perceived violations. The speaker underscores the risks of hasty judgments and calls for evidence-based decision-making to navigate ambiguous situations responsibly. Through engaging anecdotes and moral quandaries, listeners are encouraged to reassess their ethical stance on property rights and individual liberties, fostering introspection and nuanced perspectives.

Transitioning to a broader discussion on a free society, the speaker highlights the importance of shifting societal values away from hypersexualization towards greater self-restraint and a K-selected mindset. Critiquing the overemphasis on sexual validation and revealing attire, societal norms regarding modesty and self-worth are challenged. The conversation extends to societal issues like government programs, war, mass incarceration, and propaganda, urging listeners to prioritize addressing these systemic concerns over minor inconveniences. Emphasizing the benefits of a free society, such as reduced violence and enhanced personal freedoms, the speaker advocates for active participation in championing peace, security, and individual rights for a more just and liberated society.

Throughout the episode, there is a consistent call for contemplation and action towards building a society grounded in essential values and liberties. By cautioning against superficial concerns and distractions, the speaker underscores the significance of focusing on broader societal impacts and advancing critical conversations for a more harmonious and free world. The episode concludes with an invitation for continued support in driving these important discussions forward, emphasizing the collective effort required to realize a society that upholds fundamental principles and empowers individuals.

Transcript

[0:00] Introduction and Setting the Stage

[0:01] Well, well, well, well, hope you're doing well. This is Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain. Yes, I'm just trying this drop-in thing. Just gonna try that wee drop-in thing. It is Sunday the March the 7th, 12.30. And I've had some thoughts. Well, is that hugely shocking? Let me rephrase that. I think I've had some useful thoughts and a giant pushback against a kind of trap that is set for those of us who love liberty, who love the non-aggression principle, who love freedom, all these kinds of good and juicy things. And we'll keep this as a dialogue if you want to chat with me in a couple of minutes to get the thought across. And if you want to ask questions or debate or push back, let's make it a dialogue. Lord knows I've had enough monologues in this show in my life. Just let me know if you can hear me comfortably. And I would be happy to continue. Let me sort of get started. And then you can tell me what you think. So your voice is at a perfect volume. Well, then I guess I should start screaming.

[1:10] No doubt. No doubt. So a long time ago, on a podcast far, far away, I got the following objection. I do not remember for the life of me what forum it was on. Could have been the old community server forum back in the early days of free domain. And the objection went something like this. Oh, Steph, you're so into property rights, aren't you? Well, let me ask you this. Let me ask you this, my friend. Let's say that you have a man hanging from a flagpole outside a window of an apartment building. Let us further say that this man is about to fall to his very death.

[1:56] Do you, oh Steph the philosopher, believe that he should be allowed or encouraged or permitted to kick in the window of the apartment,

[2:05] The Trap Expands: Bread and Flagpole Scenarios

[2:05] climb to safety, or should he respect the property rights of the apartment owner and fall to leave a morally perfect and consistent property rights stain of death on the sidewalk below. What should you do? Now, you will see this question over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. And the question basically goes something like this. And this question has been asked before many times in many circumstances. Ah, you are a baker and you have more loaves of bread than you can possibly eat or even maybe sell that And a man comes in who's starving to death. Is he allowed to steal or to take your bread? Is the man allowed to kick in the window and climb to safety if he's hanging from a flagpole? Well, that's the big question, right?

[2:56] And here's the trap, right? Here's the trap. And usually when there's a trap, it's because the premises are incorrect. Like usually if there's a no-win situation, right? So let's take the flagpole example, right?

[3:08] So you take the flagpole example, and you say, no, no, no, the guy should totally kick in the window and climb to safety, because otherwise he's going to die. Why? Aha, you say, or other people say.

[3:23] That means that you think that human life is more important than property rights, and therefore, taxation is valid, right? That's interesting, right? And therefore, taxation is valid. it and sorry people are saying i remember i think also remember you saying the conversations like that can get so pedantic that it can turn people away from thinking about liberty yeah yeah no that's right that's right that's right but there's something very important i mean it's a really it's a great trick when you think about it right it's a really great trick because you get liberty people to say no no no come on human life is far more important than property rights and you say okay well is it not true that the welfare state and taxation and redistribution and socialized medicine and blah, blah, blah. Does it save people's lives? And the answer is, well, yeah, of course, it does save some people's lives. I mean, it may cost other people their lives and socialized medicine has a pretty uneven record of keeping people healthy. Generally, what happens with medicine as a whole, what happens with the healthcare industry as a whole, even what happens with vaccines as a whole, is that sanitation, nutrition, and living conditions and pollution, they all improve, and people get healthier, and then the doctors strut around saying, ah, see how great medicine is? We just, everyone's getting so much healthier. It's like, well, yeah, medicine is a good thing, but in general, you'll notice that the improvements.

[4:45] Almost always predate the, quote, improvements in medicine, right? The improvements in human health almost always predate. It's like OSHA, like the Occupational Health and Safety Association.

[4:55] They say, well, you know, after OSHA came in, I mean, workplace fatalities and injuries went way down. It's like, well, if you look at the data, workplace injuries and fatalities went down considerably before OSHA came in. And so they were just capitalizing on an existing trend. But then they hide the decline, right? They hide the early decline and they say, oh, it's us, man. It's totally us. And they obviously don't want to point out that the decline was already occurring. They were just capitalizing on it, right? So that's the argument,

[5:26] False Dichotomy: Property Rights vs. Saving a Life

[5:26] you see. It's a false dichotomy. And whenever there's a false dichotomy, you've got to root around the assumptions and say, what the hell is going on? So if you say, oh, no, the guy should fall to his death. He should not violate the property rights of the apartment owner by kicking in the window. He should fall to his death rather than violate property rights. I mean, it's not an argument, but doesn't that just kind of feel wrong? Doesn't that just kind of feel wrong that when hanging for your dear life, you will not kick in a window because property rights and you fall to your death. It feels wrong. It kind of is wrong. And it's not really how anyone would behave. So giving people a moral prescription, that's how almost nobody in the known universe would ever behave is a recipe for disaster. I mean, then you're a communist, right? Saying that your human beings are motivated by incentives.

[6:14] Human beings respond to incentives. Let's take away all the incentives and human beings will respond even stronger. Then you're just a communist creating some alternative species or specimen of humanity in order to maintain some lust for power theory or whatever. So you got to ask, what's the issue?

[6:34] Now, what happens is usually when you have a false dichotomy, it's because one human being, at least one human being is being erased.

[6:42] Erased, baby. Gone, baby, gone. Vanished. Twinkled out, beamed away, gone. So what happens is there's a guy hanging from a flagpole, and then there's this abstract property rights. And those are the only two entities, so to speak. There's property rights and the guy. But property rights don't float around in some abstraction. action. They're not like gravity, radiation, magnetism. Property rights are voluntarily enforced by particular individuals, by particular individuals. And boy, this goes back to, I was in a really horrendous car crash in my early twenties. I was driving up north with a friend of mine. It was a pretty bad road. I was kind of dozing because we'd been out before with a couple of fine young ladies the evening. We just took a break from the camp. We took a a break from the tents and we decided to head into town and we went to see a band and we met some girls and, and, uh, Had a fun evening, and they let us – there was no sex or anything because it's not a penthouse magazine, but we had a fun evening with them, and then they let us crash on their couches. So I was just kind of tired, and we were driving back to camp, going back into the wilderness. And a friend of mine was driving, and there was a Winnebago ahead of us.

[8:09] And the winnebago was kind of in the middle of the road because a bit of a hump road you know this kind of dirt roads that kind of sag down on either side and my friend decided to try and pass the winnebago because it drifted to the right he thought that they had seen him but they hadn't and then they started to drift to the left and he was run off the road he wrenched right we sailed Nailed up and some slow motion, like we spun, we spun 180 and we landed on the roof of our truck.

[8:39] And it was pretty wild, man. I mean, we were going fast because, you know, you're passing on what was basically a highway. So we're going 110, 120 kilometers an hour and just rotated in midair, landed on and then just scraped and scratched to the end. And remarkably, except for him having a cut on his arm, we were unharmed. A ford it was a ford truck and whenever people say ford found on road dead it's like well that wasn't me because ford i made some damn fine trucks let me tell you to to land upside down on a gravel highway going a cool 120 and no passenger and driver are injured that's pretty wild man it's pretty wild anyway so the upshot of this is that our truck obviously is a complete And believe it or not, I mean, the truck was towed to the police station. And later we talked to the cop who found us and he said, strangest thing, that truck that you completely totaled, that truck?

[9:40] It was stolen. It was stolen. Some native kids got in and hot-wired it or something like that. This is like way back in the day before all this electronic key stuff. And they drove this wreck.

[9:51] And he said, you know, they made it like a kilometer down the road. They got picked up. And he said, I didn't know whether to pick them up for stealing or littering because the truck was worth so little at that point. It was like it's just they left garbage on the road. Yeah. So, and the upshot of this is that if you, let's say you had towed that truck home and it was just a complete wreck, well, what do you do with it? What do you do with it? What do you do with it? And if somebody came along and stole that truck and took it away from you, you'd be kind of relieved. You wouldn't, somebody steals a new truck, you're mad, or a functioning truck, but somebody steals some wedge-shaped sandwich crushed truck that barely moves, you're like, woohoo, thank you, right? Or if you've ever ordered a new mattress, right? You order a new mattress, which means you're married because bachelors will just sleep in quicksand if we have to, right? But you order a new mattress and what happens? Well, they come and they take your own mattress. They take your old mattress. Now, if somebody came in and stole your mattress, you'd be pretty mad. But if they take your mattress away because they're giving you a new one, that's good because you don't have any particular, even if the old mattress isn't that old, it'll still be used by you. And they may even charge you to take it away. So property rights do not exist in an abstract sense. Property rights do not operate automatically. They are selectively and voluntarily enforced by particular individuals.

[11:07] So with regards to the hanging from a flagpole, one guy, and this abstraction called property rights, does he violate property rights by kicking in the window and crawling to safety? Well, to life, really. Does he violate property rights? And the answer is, we don't know. We don't know whether he violates property rights by kicking in the window and crawling to safety. We don't know.

[11:38] Selective Enforcement: When Property Rights Are Uncertain

[11:39] In the same way, if you say you've got a truck parked in your driveway, what do we do? We drive on the parkway and we park on the driveway. English is confusing. You've got a truck parked in your driveway and someone comes and takes it without your knowledge. Is that theft? Well, you don't know. No, because if it was this wrecked truck that my friend and I crawled out of, then it's not theft because we're happy it's gone. We're happy it's gone.

[12:08] So property rights, if you smash someone's window, a guy drives up and smashes the window of your house and comes inside, is he violating property rights? Is he a home invader? Don't know. What if your house is on fire and he's a fireman and he's coming in to save your life? Would you say to him, hey, man, I mean, thanks for saving my life, but you owe me for a new window, man, because you broke my window, right? Even if you didn't call the fire department. them. So property rights must be voluntarily and selectively. They will be selective if they're voluntary. They must be voluntarily and selectively enforced. So what matters in this equation is not the guy hanging from the flagpole and some abstract thing called property rights. What matters, what's missing in this equation is the guy who owns the apartment. That's what's missing, the guy who owns the apartment. Now, imagine you live in the country and you're on vacation. And in your country home nearby there's some deep woods and some hiker is out there and you're away from home some hiker is out there and he's being chased by some big ass grizzly right some big ass dangerous grizzly and he comes to your house now let's say he breaks your window to get into your house to get away from the bear and it's the only way he can survive at least that's what he believes leaves the bears right behind him in some, you know, semi-photoshopped chase scene. The bear is right behind him.

[13:36] Now, let's say that's the day you come home. You come home and there's a guy trembling, terrified. He's got bear scratches on his ass and he's in your house and there's a bear around your house. So you chase the bear away, you go in, what do you do? Do you call the cops

[13:51] Breaking into a house to escape a bear attack

[13:54] and say, this guy broke into my house? Of course you don't. Of course you don't. Now, the guy is probably going to say, I'm so grateful, and I'm sorry that I had to break your window. It was the only way I could survive. I'm so grateful your house was here. I will completely pay for your window to be repaired.

[14:10] Let's say he's a homeless guy and he's broken. He can't even do that. Are you going to charge him? Of course not. I mean, obviously you could. You could charge him, but I mean, no jury. He's going to sit there and say, this guy's a thief because he broke into your house because every jury would put themselves in the running shoes of the guy being chased by the bear and say, look, if the only place he could get to safety was in your house, he broke the window, he got in. He offered to pay or even if he doesn't have any money, he offered to mow your lawn or whatever it is, right, to give you recompense for your window. Now, of course, the reason why you'd be happy the guy broke your window. Window, the reason why you'd be happy the guy broke your window is that that's the least intrusive thing he could do. That's the least intrusive thing he could do. Why? Because if he stood in front of your window and said, oh man, I'm just going to let that bear rip my head off because I don't want to violate property rights, well, you don't know that you're violating property. Breaking into someone's house is not necessarily a violation of property rights. Jumping off a building and trying to fly will 100% of the time be a violation of the laws of gravity, so to speak, in that you won't be able to fly by flapping your hands and you'll fall and die, right? Because though gravity operates without human consciousness, without human choice, without human intervention, but property rights are enforced voluntarily.

[15:30] You have to perceive them as a violation of your property. You have to be angry enough or upset enough or vengeful enough to file charges, to pursue. You, you have to voluntarily enforce property rights. And I'll tell you this, if I lived in the country and a guy was running out of the woods being chased by a bear, I would desperately want him to break into my house to save himself. I would be thrilled. In fact, I would be really angry at him if he didn't. And do you know why? Well, of course you do, right? He's a very smart audience. The reason why you would be desperately happy for him to break your window, climb into your house and get away from the bear. It's because the alternative is you coming home from vacation and finding a slaughtered, eviscerated, disemboweled, half-eaten, dead body in your garden. Now, how complicated does your life get if there's a dead body in your garden? Well, the answer is pretty complicated. I mean, I think everyone's pretty clear that you weren't there, You've got an alibi. You were at the airport. You were in a cab.

[16:35] You've got, you know, no blood on you that there's a bear. Footprint. Like, I get that. But what happens? Well, you've got to call the cops and the cops have to come and identify the body. And then you have to go and testify. And then blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you've got to live in a house. Where every time you look at your garden, you remember this dead body. And your children, if you have kids, are traumatized because they saw a dead body.

[17:03] And maybe 100 hours of your life plus a perpetual and permanent trauma. Plus you try and sell the house. And maybe people find out that a guy had his head ripped off by a bear right there in the backyard. Well, how happy are they going to be to buy that house? Not just because they don't want a house where the blood of the hiker is soaked into the ground and fertilized the dead alias, but because they don't want to buy a place where you can get your head ripped off in the backyard by a bear. Whereas if the hiker comes in, he's not dead. Good. He's not dead. You just saved like a hundred hours. You have a really wild story. You get a free new window probably because you'll pay to fix it. So he hasn't broken into your head. It's not a problem. In fact, you want him. Now, if you want him to break into your house, and if you are, if you have an apartment, a guy's hanging by a flagpole, you want him to kick in your window. Because every time you look out that window, you don't want to remember the guy who fell to his death because he didn't want to break your glass. The property rights are selectively and voluntarily enforced. They don't exist in a state of nature. It's the choice of the guy who owns the apartment, who owns the house, whether he's going to consider it a violation of his property rights for something to be broken. That's the question. you.

[18:18] Anytime someone's missing from the equation, you're in the land of sophistry.

[18:18] Property rights and voluntary enforcement

[18:22] He kicks in the window and crawls to safety. He's just violated property rights. No, he hasn't. You don't violate property rights by destroying somebody's property. You don't violate property rights by taking something against their permission. You know when property rights are violated? You know when property rights are violated? When the person who owns the property decides that they're violated and can prove it. Property rights, let me say this again, it's so important. Property rights are not violated when you break or take someone's property without their permission, because the permission can occur after the fact.

[19:00] The permission can occur after the fact. The permission can occur after the fact. It doesn't really matter. From a practical standpoint, point, it doesn't matter one bit if the property rights are not violated ahead of time or after the fact. Doesn't matter. Property rights are violated when the property owner decides that they're violated and can prove it. And can prove it. Another silly example, we've all had this, you're driving down the street and you see some ratty old couch, free, take me, or just says, Just take me, right? And you stop and you take it. Now, the people are happy that you've taken it, even though they haven't specifically granted you permission, you specifically. And let's say that the guy then says, oh, wait, my property was violated. I had a Bitcoin thumb drive in there. My property was violated. Well, he feels his property is violated because he took the couch that said, take me. But he could never prove it because, let's say, you took a picture. No, it says take me. And therefore, even though he feels his property rights has been violated, he can't prove it. but therefore his property rights were not violated. Property rights are not the laws of physics.

[20:14] It's voluntary to enforce them, and you have to prove it. And you have to prove it. In the same way, you can't lend your lawnmower to your neighbor and then claim that he stole it. Even if you feel your property rights are violated and you call the police, the police will say, wait, did you lend it to him? Oh, yes, but then I changed my mind. It's like, well, then you can't say he stole it. Now, if you change your mind and he won't give it back, okay, that's a different matter, but this is not what occurred, right? So that's really, really important. You can't just erase human beings from the entire equation, in this case, the owner of the apartment or the house. You can't just erase human beings from the entire equation and say, well, it's a violation of property rights to kick in the window. No, it's not. It's not a violation of property rights to destroy or take other people's property. Because that's to say that property rights are like physics and they operate regardless of human will human choice human circumstances or the ability to prove anything it's the difference between homicide and murder in some ways right homicide simply means something you did cause the death of another human being doesn't doesn't mean the same thing as murder so yeah just just watch out for that stuff so what i wanted to talk about here

[21:22] Example discussed on a forum

[21:27] was an example that was being talked about on a forum and the example was this do you guys Guys, remember, a little something called, are you ready for things to get a little coarse, a little crude?

[21:39] Brace Yourself for Some Coarse and Crude Topics

[21:42] Are you ready? Are you ready for a little coarseness? Do you remember? Do you recall? Oh, now that Genesis song, do you remember? It's a good song. The fappening. Do you remember this? The fappening. Now, I, in all my moral glory, have never seen these pillaged photographs or passwords. Words all right so here we got a couple of questions here um will homeowners insurance restore the window without a police report don't know it doesn't matter

[22:08] Dealing with bears and home break-ins

[22:11] it doesn't matter should we go and kill all the bears prophylactically no why a homeless guy is hiking in woods filled with bears doesn't matter it doesn't matter what if it's the 15th time this month that someone has broken into my house to avoid the bear, Well, then your problem is not the people breaking into your house. Your problem is the bear, and you need to get the bear captured and take it to some remote location like they do. But, you know, if you feed gators in Florida or anywhere, I guess, but you feed gators in Florida, they get used to people, they become nuisance gators, and then they have to be taken away. When do I decide to do something about these man-killing bears? Yeah, yeah. If my window is indestructible, am I responsible for the death of the hiker by bear? You are not. You are not.

[22:50] Because you can build indestructible windows that doesn't cause the death of anyone. One it's the bear who was responsible for the death at that point so yeah so the fappening so for those who don't know the fappening was uh fapping being uh masturbating to pornography as far as i understand it so the fappening is when there were a bunch of uh celebrities i think jennifer lawrence was one and some others a bunch of celebrities got fished right with the ph right so fishing is when somebody says oh dude you got to reset your password here's a link and they mask Ask some sinister link in something that looks more innocuous. And sometimes these emails can look pretty legit. And this is how John Podesta got hacked, so to speak, right? You probably had indestructible windows because of the bear. Well, yeah, again, but it's cheaper to catch the bear and move it somewhere else than it is to get indestructible windows because really there is no such thing. But anyway, so. What happened was, as far as I understand it, some celebrities got these emails saying, you need to reset your password. They go and reset their password. But in order to reset your password, you have to enter your old password in and then you change it to something new. And then what happened was people took the password they entered in order to get the new password changed or changed to the new password. And they use that to log into people's online accounts.

[24:08] And a lot of people, it's not my particular recommendation, but a lot of people take this default setting where every photo you take on your phone gets synced in the cloud, right? You know, which is one thing if you're taking pictures of your snacks, right? As a tragic number of people seem to do. 94% of the bandwidth officially in the world is taken up either with A, pornography, or B, food porn, people taking pictures of their food. But anyway, so people got in and it turns out that these celebrities had taken nude photos of themselves and those nude photos had automatically synced to the cloud, or maybe they voluntarily put it up there although i can't imagine why and they got in and they got all of these naked photos right now without a doubt this is information that is taken from people because it's taken from people against their will i mean the information is stolen that the naked pictures are stolen they are the product of fraud and they are taken without permission and this is a violation of property rights because the celebrities complained and didn't want the photos out there And so this wasn't a save yourself from a bear or gravity or anything like that. So this was a genuine violation of property rights. So the question was this. The question was, hey, man, let's say you're in a free society, stateless society.

[25:27] And you see someone in a cafe looking at naked pictures of Jennifer Lawrence. I'm sorry to drag J-Law into this, but that's just the way it is, right? So you see someone looking at these pictures. Now, let's just say for the sake of argument that they're not looking at naked pictures where there are pictures of naked women or men while there are children around. Let's say that they're pixelated or whatever it is, right? So it's an interesting question.

[26:00] The Ethics of Looking at Stolen Naked Pictures

[26:02] Now, are you allowed in a free society to take this person's laptop and smash it on the ground because he's looking at J-Law's pixelated hoo-hoo, right? Interesting question. And yet not.

[26:17] Not yet. So are you a criminal for looking at or enjoying the stolen property of Jennifer Lawrence and looking at her naked pictures, which clearly she did not give you personally any permission to look at? And so the hacker is a criminal. The hacker stole these images. The hacker then distributed those images online and lots of people looked at these pictures. Are you a criminal because you're using your property to view images that were stolen? Are you allowed to smash someone's laptop? Now, it's a vaguely interesting question. Let me just say, it's a vaguely interesting question. And it comes back to this issue of initiation of the use of force. Are you initiating the use of force or fraud against someone for looking at naked pictures of them that they did not give you permission to look at, right? It's an interesting question, right? It's an interesting question. And listen, we could go back and forth in six million different directions about how this might possibly work, how this could conceivably work, what might happen in the backdrop, in the background, what level of force is allowed, what level of force is not allowed. These are all very interesting questions. And I would submit that I don't care.

[27:38] I know, but you're supposed to care because you're testing the edge of your principles and seeing if your principles hold and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? But as they say in, you know, edge cases make bad law, right? Edge cases make bad law.

[27:54] Now, here's the thing. Let's say that you are in this cafe and you see someone

[27:57] The Risks of Taking Matters into Your Own Hands

[28:00] looking at the naked pictures of Jennifer Lawrence. And let's say you take umbrage, That's a good word. Somebody put it in the chat. You take umbrage, and what you do is you grab their laptop and you smash it on the ground because the laptop is being used in the commission of a crime. Well, you're taking a risk, right? You're taking a risk. You're taking a huge risk.

[28:22] So, yeah, I'll throw this out, right? People in the chat. How could you be wrong in this circumstance? How could you be wrong? You see somebody looking directly at pixelate images of Jennifer Lopez's butt, and you smash their computer on the ground. How could you end up being in the wrong? Because if you're in the wrong, like if you take matters into your own hand, hand, so to speak, well, that's probably the wrong way to put it when you're looking at naked pictures. But if you take matters into your own hand, you smash this guy's laptop. If you're wrong and he's not a criminal in some manner, then it's you who are the criminal and you are now in trouble.

[28:58] So what could be the case is that he is a researcher looking at tracking data, GPS data, some kind of data, metadata, who knows what, right? And trying to figure out how this stuff got shared. He could be, in fact, a police agent of some kind, a DRO agent, and he's working in his spare time to try and sort this out. And this is why the pictures were pixelated or whatever it is, right? It could also be that this person got a piece of spam, opened up the JPEG, and is looking at the picture and doesn't want to look at it and wasn't sure what it was and doesn't know. No, and therefore, like if you open up an attachment and it happens that it says babypics.com and it seems to be coming from your wife and you open it up, which is probably why you'd end up doing it in a cafe rather than at home. You open it up and it turns out to be, you know, fuzzed out beaver shots of some celebrity baby maker. Well, then you just smash someone's laptop and they weren't actually to blame. They weren't at fault. They weren't. They were going to delete it or report it or whatever it is. They don't want to be in possession of this material. They don't want to be looking at it, and they're in the right. And you, by smashing their computer, you're now in the wrong. There could be any number of scenarios.

[30:14] Or it could be that this is Jennifer Lawrence's boyfriend, and she sent these pictures to him voluntarily, and he's looking at them with her permission to own them. Or it could be an insurance agent who's looking at these pictures because she

[30:25] The Importance of Due Process and Society's Response

[30:28] filed a claim and she's upset and emotional damages. It could be a lawyer looking at she's suing someone. It could be any number of reasons that someone is looking at these pictures and they're not in the wrong. They're not in the wrong. So if you grab a laptop, you smash it, oof, ouchies, ouchies, right? Because maybe it has all their precious information. Maybe they're going to sue you for a million dollars. Maybe it has their Bitcoins on it and you just smash their laptop. Who knows, right? So you could lose your house. You could lose your livelihood. You could be a half slave for the rest of your life just because you smashed someone's laptop and it turns out they're not totally in the wrong.

[31:02] Let's say that you smash someone's laptop, but the penalties in a free society are less. Yes. Let's say the penalties in a free society for being in possession of these pictures are a $50 fine, if you knowingly, blah, blah, blah, right? You keep them, you open them repeatedly, blah, blah, blah, right? So let's say that the penalty is a $50 fine. But by smashing someone's laptop, you're inflicting far more damage than the penalty that would exist, right? Because the laptop could be worth $1,000 or $2,000 or whatever. So by smashing the laptop, you're inflicting a far greater punishment than society would inflict. And, of course, you're doing so without any due process, any standard of proof. So you're in the wrong. There's no due process because you've been judged jury and executioner, so to speak, by grabbing someone's laptop and smashing it on the ground.

[31:49] Um it's sort of like uh if if you're um you know some some kid and and you hear mommy moaning and screaming and and you think a guy is attacking her you go in and you clip him on the head with a baseball bat and it turns out they're having sex well as a kid obviously you would have mistaken the situation and or let's say that uh you you see some woman who appears to be being assaulted, through the the window of of the house and you you kick the door in and you go in and you beat the guy out but it turns out that just into some weird kinky 50 shades of gray.

[32:22] Role-playing bullshit and they were only faking the assault because they're so decadent and corrupt it's the only thing that gets their joy juices flowing okay well now you're in the wrong so now you're in the wrong and that's the big question right that's the big question are you willing to go and do be judged jury and executioner in a free society knowing that if you're wrong man you are seriously in the wrong and you are seriously in the wrong so that's sort of my answer is that it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. If somebody is suspicious, they might take a photo of it. They might forward

[32:52] Unstable Behavior and the Need for Self-Control

[32:55] it to a DRO dispute resolution organization or private security, whatever the, and that person's going to, that group's going to investigate and find out maybe call the guy. And he says, oh man, it was a total spam. Uh, and I deleted it and they can see the spam in his, whatever, who knows. Right? So nobody's going to sit there, grab laptops and smash them up. Now, if somebody does do that, then that's somebody who is unstable, stable, who's got no control of his or her temper. And the society kind of needs to know that, right? Because that's probably going to do some other bad stuff here, there, and everywhere, right? So that's sort of one answer. Now, the other answer, which I think is really interesting, I think more interesting. So you can push back against that kind of stuff, right? It's just not going to happen in a free society. Now, here's the thing too.

[33:37] Another reason why it won't happen in a free society. It's because we only get a free society when women stop using sex as their primary coin of value in the world, right? Because they're so R-selected. You want K-selected. You want three wolves, not rabbits. You don't want to just follow your impulses and live for the moment. And you only get a free society when people are able to defer gratification. And when people defer gratification, it means that men are able to push off being violent and women are able to push off hypersexualizing their appearance. And so a woman will not take probably nude photos of herself because she won't have that as her primary coin. She won't have that as a primary code. That doesn't mean nobody will do it, but it'd be very rare. It would be very, very rare. And trying to get women to stop hypersexualizing themselves. You know, I was someplace, ah, it was just a couple of days ago. And, no, no, sorry, longer ago than that. Sorry, I was thinking of something else. So longer ago than that, I was in the lobby of someplace.

[34:41] And there was a woman behind the counter.

[34:46] And she was, you know, pleasant looking. and and conservatively dressed i had her hair done nicely and a little bit of makeup not much and she looked you know fairly classy right fairly classy and then these women came up, who were wearing these skin-tight clothing and their butts and their boobs were hanging out and you know like the kind of workout wear that you know like the bicycle pants that just about nobody in the world should ever wear there's like four people in the world who could wear a butt floss bikini and bicycle pants not necessarily in that order but everybody else seems to you know like this there's this new thing these days in the world i don't know how new it is fairly new there's two new things one is um the labia creepers like the shorts so short that you get spill over from the labia like this is the kind of stuff that only your mother when you were born and your gynecologist when you need a pap smear should ever see but this just hanging out all over the place right mud flaps skin flaps whatever you want to call them it's like short so short that the woman likes she's uh outgrown them uh the daisy dukes look pretty much.

[35:47] Extraordinarily conservative relative to these if you you know adjust a headband down shove it around your butt and it's the new style of shorts these days that's number one and number two is these stockings these black stockings and apparently like you just don't need pants anymore there's pants pants dresses skirts all gone that's all that's that's like yesterday's moons that's bourgeois man now women need to walk around like they literally forgot to put anything on like they They got their stockings on, and that's it. That's it. Forget it. There's nothing more you need. Just stockings?

[36:17] And that's it. No pants, no skirt, no nothing. That's the way things are at the moment. And I do not know what, I don't, I fundamentally don't want to know what style of underwear the woman is wearing. I just like, unless she's my

[36:30] Rant about inappropriate clothing and underwear visibility

[36:31] wife, I don't want to know what style of underwear the woman is wearing. I mean, if men wore this kind of outfits, this kind of skin tight stuff, I mean, you'd actually know whether they were circumcised or not. I don't want to know that. I don't want to know that. It also seems to be the case that again, there's like five people in the world who can actually wear that stuff and it looks somewhat attractive everybody else is spilling out all over the place and i would be too i would be too i mean can you imagine men showing up to a mall in ballet outfits that could tell you exactly which way the twigs and berries were pointing it's that great line from liar liar it's an old jim carrey movie back when he wasn't so unbelievably tragic as a human being but he's got a curse he always has to tell the truth and And somebody says, hey, how's it going? No, he says, sorry, hey, how's it hanging? And he says, short, shriveled, and always slightly to the left.

[37:20] I don't want to know. I don't want to know. There's some things that should be reserved to lovers and medical professionals, not something that you should see in the mall. I mean, put some pants on. It used to be pull your pants up, you know, like that prison thing where you've got the do-rag because you're not allowed a hat in prison and your pants are hanging low for two reasons. One, you're on prison food and you're probably working out a lot, so you're losing weight. And number two, you're not allowed a belt in prison. So having pants hanging around your knees is kind of like a prison thing. So shout out to your prison bros.

[37:53] It's like, I don't want to see your underwear. Like, I don't know why this needs to be said. I don't want to see your underwear. I don't want to see your underwear. And when women wear these leggings, like these really tight leggings, A, they really shouldn't. And B, I just, I don't want to see, I don't want to see these things. I just don't want to see these things like those square boxy R2D2 like German men on a beach with their sunburst buttfloss bikini ass. This is like, okay, okay, you were sexually abused as a child. I'm really sympathetic for that, but stop taking it out with these livid displays of sunburnt Germanic man meat. Banana hammocks are for bikes, not for your balls. Anyway, so where the hell? Oh, dear. Oh, dear. Did I? Did I lose my way? I think I went on a complete sideways rant and I lost. I don't lost my way. I don't lost my way. So I'll get to why this stuff is unimportant. It's just unimportant.

[38:52] So when people are talking about what do you do if you see someone looking at but naked pictures of J-Law in a cafe or whatever.

[38:59] Discussion on the insignificance of laptop smashing incidents

[39:00] To me, let's say that there is not some big solution, right? Let's say that it's an edge case. It's going to happen once in a blue moon. And let's say every now and then, let's just say, I don't know, once a month. Once a month in a free society, somebody takes the matters into their own hands and smashes someone's laptop on the ground. Let's say that happened. Let's say the combined ingenuity of billions of brilliant people can't possibly figure out how to deal with the situation and once every month the laptop gets smashed. Okay, let's say that happens. All right, who gives a shit? Who gives a rat's ass? Do you know how much property is destroyed by statism? Do you know how much property is destroyed by the government? Do you know how much theft occurs through the government? Do you know how, I mean, you're concerned about sexual exploitation of photos? Do you know that the government regularly places vulnerable children into the houses of people who turn out to be pedophiles And sometimes this happens more than once with the same group.

[39:58] Do you know how many children are sexually abused and assaulted in government schools? Far, far more than were ever, ever sexually abused and exploited in the church, in the Catholic church or other churches. Do you know how many children are sexually abused and exploited and have destroyed because the welfare state has taken the father who would normally protect them out of the household. Do you know that child abuse is over 30 times higher when a non-biologically related adult male is living with children?

[40:34] I guess on the scale of things, I will very happily take the risk that a couple of laptops a year are going to get smashed in an unjust fashion rather than the unbelievable tidal wave of miasmic, satanic horrors that currently exist in the world. Or to put it another way, when people come up with this stuff and you run around like they're turning you into a little robot slave, right? Here's a theoretical problem. I need you to solve it. otherwise i'm not going to approve free society okay okay um all right this has carried the two okay square root of and okay Pareto principle boom okay here's your answer all right okay i can maybe accept that as an answer and here's another theoretical which you have to answer i'm not going to support your free society man not going to do it won't do it can't make me okay uh here's another it's another okay here's a national defense and and roads and and conflict with resolution and violent crime and okay and you just i mean you're being tricked you're being fooled because those kinds of people never advocate freedom what they're doing is they're having you waste time so the freedom never occurs and and they enjoy the power they have over you.

[41:48] To get you to run around solving useless Mobius strip bullshit riddles because they demand it. To get people to do useless busy work because otherwise you will withhold your support and approval, which, by the way, you're never going to get anyway. I mean, I've been doing this forever. I've never had one of these people ever come over because their questions have been satisfactorily answered. I'm sure they're out there, but it's not worth it. It's like trying to run around, solve problems for people so they'll support freedom. It's like trying to buy a lottery ticket for your retirement. Yeah, you know, occasionally it'll work, but it's not a sensible strategy.

[42:23] Because they just love, they love the fact that you're running around trying to solve the problems they pose, and they get to judge whether the solutions are satisfactory or not. They get a thrill of power because you'd be turned into a slave, ideological slave, running around panting, trying to solve problems. So that they'll support and approve what you want. And what you're not doing is building real solutions, advocating for peaceful parenting, opposing circumcision, all the other things that will actually build freedom. All right, you... It's like the curse of the younger brother, like the curse of the younger brother.

[42:56] The Curse of the Younger Brother

[42:58] It's really the curse of the older brother. You ever had an older brother? You know how it goes, right? You got three words that the older brother will say that turns you into a happy, panting, willing, stupid slave. You know what those three words are. You had an older brother. They want you to do something. They want you to clean something. They want you to get something. They want you to fetch something to go to the store. They want you to return library books. And there's those three magic words that will have you just pant and run and do whatever the hell they want. And do you know what those three magic words are? I'll time you. I don't want to go to the store and get you a candy bar. Brother, I'll time you. Here I go.

[43:44] Ah, I don't want to pick up all the tires in the backyard. I'll time you. Oh, here I go.

[43:54] Somebody says it's even more amazing to try and expect one person to solve the world's problem as if the world is limited to the imagination of one person. Now that is brilliantly put and succinctly put, which means it wasn't me. I know, I know strengths and weaknesses, but no, you're right. You're absolutely right. If one person could solve all the problems of the world, then the one person should be in charge of everything and you wouldn't have a free society. The more that you can solve the problems of the world, the more you make a case for central planning. Tell me how the economy looks 50 years after the end of slavery, or I'll never support the end of slavery. You understand they're never going to support the end of slavery. They just want you chasing after their approval rather than actually building a free world. So somebody comes up with some bullshit about some guy hanging from a flagpole or running from bears or some laptop getting smashed, saying, okay, how often do you think in a free society a laptop is going to get smashed because of these issues?

[44:45] And, you know, they'll say maybe once a week, once a month, doesn't really matter, right? Once a day, I don't care. Say, okay, would you accept that a laptop is going to get smashed once a month unjustly if it meant an end to war? Because that's the stakes, right? That's the stakes. That's the stakes. That's the stakes. Well, you know, it might be really challenging to build roads out to more super rural areas and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? Okay. Okay, will you accept that we don't have an answer as to how roads get built to super rural areas? Will you accept that we'll take that risk if it means an end to war? If it means an end to war, because war is the ultimate government program, right? War is the health of the state and the state is the health of war. I don't know how X, Y, or Z is going to be provided in a stateless free society.

[45:33] Okay, will you live with that lack of knowledge?

[45:37] If it means we get to end intergenerational debt slavery? Will you live with that possible lack of knowledge about obscure, inconsequential, rare events? Some laptop gets smashed in a cafe. Would you live with that tiny, inconsequential outcome potential if it means that we don't herd billions of children into the brain-destroying propaganda mills of government miseducation? Oh, I don't know how violent crime will be dealt with in a free society. Well, will you accept that we live without that knowledge if it means that the current system of the government prosecuting largely nonviolent crimes, throwing people in jail where they regularly get murdered, assaulted, and raped? Now, if somebody says, well, you know, I'm willing to live with war, mass incarceration, mass rape, mass child abuse, mass intergenerational debt slavery, mass indoctrination and the destruction of children's happiness, I'm willing to accept all of those things because I'm concerned that a laptop might get smashed unjustly once a month. That's a sociopath, right? I mean, right there, that is a straight up sociopath. path. It's like all of the people who were fat positive, who don't have a single shred of conscience about the fact that they condemned hundreds of thousands of people, maybe millions of people to death by their fat positivity, because COVID is 10 times more likely to kill you if you're overweight, right?

[47:06] But fat positivity, I don't want a fat shame. And fat positivity is, okay, well, you contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of millions of people. And if that doesn't give them pause, if they don't sit there and say, holy shit, that's terrible, right? Then it's like, boom, no conscience. Just move on. There's a sociopath, psychopath.

[47:22] No conscience. So if somebody says, okay, so on the one hand, we do have the end of war and mass rape and mass incarceration and intergenerational debt slavery and propaganda and child abuse. We have that. But on the other hand, a couple of laptops could get smashed. It's like, boom, okay, no conscience, no conscience, got to get away. Because if somebody is not enticed by the fact that no war, no mass rape, no incarceration, mass incarceration, much less child abuse, no intergenerational debt, slavery, if that's not something that draws them, if they're not interested in that as a goal, then they're not moral. That's a goal. all. That's got to be something you're interested in. If you're a vaguely moral person, vastly less violence, abuse, theft, degradation, propaganda, mind rape, and physical rape, that's got to be something you're interested in. Now, I can understand you're skeptical in how you get there, but if that's not a goal that makes it worth looking into something, if that's not a treasure that's worth a couple of hours of digging, then you're just a terrible human being, like straight up now you may say well none of those things are possible and so i i get you might need to hear the case about you know why war and and all of that doesn't happen in a free society right certainly not aggressive wars in iraq would never happen in a free society the war on drugs would never happen in a free society the welfare state that destroys the family would never happen in a free society mass indoctrination of children would never happen in a free society.

[48:47] And you can't morally make the unborn pay for your political greed in the here and now in a free society. You try creating a national debt on Bitcoin. You try creating a war using Bitcoin. You try funding a war using Bitcoin. You try funding the welfare state using Bitcoin. Good fucking luck. So all of these things, all of the great treasures and glories that a free society can provide. If somebody is not interested enough to start scrambling over and dealing with their own doubts and skepticism, If they're not moved by that, they say, well, okay, maybe those benefits would be good, but, you know, a guy hanging from a flagpole, which could happen once every hundred years. Guy picking up and smashing a laptop because he saw some guy in a pub. When was the last time you saw somebody in a public cafe looking at naked pictures? Come on. I used to work in cafes. I wrote my entire novel in a cafe. Freedomain.com forward slash almost. You just got to do it. You got to check this book out.

[49:47] So if somebody's not interested in all of the glories that a free society could provide, all the peace and security that a free society could provide, I mean, free societies are anti-circumcision by definition, because I remember this from my video, The Truth About Circumcision. And remember, fdrpodcast.com, do your search below your CBIT shooting library and other places you get the videos, right? That when a particular state said, okay, we're not going to fund circumcisions through the state anymore. More you got to pay for it yourself circumcision they dropped enormously in in prevalence far fewer circumcisions when the bill came to the parents rather than to the taxpayers which is really to the unborn people are saying oh man if you justified at the stimulus bill by every man woman a child you'd have over six thousand dollars instead they're only giving you fourteen hundred dollars it's like they're not giving you anything they don't have any money to give they're just, enslaving your children for the sake of buying your votes in the here and now so that i think is the important thing to mull over and to understand. If somebody's not excited by the possibility of all that could come to fruition in a free society, but then they claim that they're very concerned about property rights and laptops not getting smashed, they're just lying to you. They're getting you to waste your time. They're having you run in tiny little concentric circles like Geppetto puppet slaves. And I've done it. I've done it. Listen, I'm not speaking from any moral high ground here. I've done the whole runaround. I've done the whole chase people's objections.

[51:14] Until you're exhausted and it doesn't work. You just waste time. And they love the power they have over you. All right. Just wanted to be real brief on that. I think I'll stop right before, or just around an hour. I really, really appreciate everyone dropping by. Thank you for the feedback. Always a great pleasure. Freedomain.com forward slash donate. If you would like to help out the show, I would super, super, super appreciate it. And have yourselves a great afternoon. We might be doing a crypto or investment round table tonight, 7 p.m. Eastern. So keep yourself tuned for that. And thank you for your time and attention, concern and care and curiosity this afternoon. Lots of love from up here. I'll talk to you soon.

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