2025, Stefan Molyneux
www.freedomain.com
Opening Remarks and Birthdays
Book Completion and Writing Insights
The Complexity of Female Psyche
Anxiety and Life Choices
The Nature of Male and Female Dynamics
Striving and Modern Society
The Hypnosis of Fertility and Time
The Consequences of Deferring Parenthood
The Shift in Relationship Dynamics
A Discussion on Religion
Struggling with Faith and Morality
Moral Hypocrisy and Happiness
Love and Consistency
Maximum Righteousness in Truth
Bitcoin and Individual Freedom
In this episode, I explore significant themes surrounding age, societal expectations, and personal choices through the lens of my latest work, which I have just completed the first draft of. Reflecting on the intricacies of life choices, I delve into the narrative structure of my new novel, characterized by a series of vignettes rather than a traditional plot. This approach allows a deeper understanding of how decisions we make in our younger years resonate throughout our lives, ultimately leading to profound realizations about growth and the irrevocability of certain paths.
The discussion traverses topics like the privilege of delving into fictional characters’ thoughts, the emotional connection that arises from crafting compelling narratives, and the conflicting perceptions of male and female experiences, particularly in romantic pursuits. The contrast between societal attitudes toward youth, beauty, and ambition can often lead to misunderstandings, particularly from a male perspective, where striving and competition are ingrained from a young age.
I elaborate on the psychological implications of social dynamics, particularly the tendency for young women to exhibit a level of self-confidence that can appear as 'smugness' to men who operate within a framework of continuous ambition and anxiety. This dynamic is framed not as a critique but as an observation of differing societal roles that often create tension and misunderstanding between genders. I delve into how men and women experience motivation, anxiety, and ambition differently while navigating their respective social worlds.
I discuss the perils of societal hypnosis that can blind individuals, especially women, to the ticking biological clock that governs reproductive choices. This leads to an exploration of the societal pressures and misinformation surrounding fertility, the implications of waiting too late to start families, and the role of technology in perpetuating a false sense of security about these issues. The discussion compels listeners to face uncomfortable truths about time and choice, urging a reevaluation of how to balance personal aspirations with biological realities.
In the latter part of the podcast, dialogue with listeners deepens as we engage in conversations about morality, particularly in the context of religion and the pursuit of ethics within the framework of contemporary society. As I navigate these dialogues, I draw parallels between philosophical inquiry and the practicalities of happy living, emphasizing the importance of moral integrity in personal fulfillment. Questions from callers lead to stimulating discourse about the nature of reality in moral terms and the challenges of aligning one's internal compass with collective societal pressures.
The listener interactions reveal insights into the complexities of modern life, the philosophical underpinnings of morality, and the dynamics of interpersonal relationships in a world increasingly shaped by technology and social media. As we wrap up the episode, there is a reflective gratitude expressed for the ongoing conversations that foster growth and critical thinking, reinforcing the notion that ideas are shaped in dialogue and the vital importance of engaging with diverse perspectives for a richer understanding of the human experience.
In this episode, I delve into the themes of age, societal expectations, and personal choices as I discuss my newly drafted novel, which employs a vignette structure to explore how life decisions impact our growth. I reflect on the differences in male and female experiences, particularly in romance and ambition, and address the social dynamics that create misunderstandings between genders. I examine the pressures unique to women regarding reproductive choices and the societal influences that often obscure these realities. The conversation extends to moral philosophy, where I engage with listeners about ethics in modern society and the challenge of personal integrity versus societal norms. As we wrap up, I express appreciation for the enriching dialogues that deepen our understanding of these critical topics.
age
societal expectations
personal choices
novel
vignette structure
male and female experiences
romance
ambition
reproductive choices
moral philosophy
ethics
societal norms
Stefan
[0:00]Hey, think we're live. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Hello, everybody.
[0:03]
Opening Remarks and Birthdays
Stefan
[0:03]Just a little after 2.20 on Pinch Punch. Yes, it's the first day of the month. It is my birthday month. I will be 59 years of age, or as my wife likes to put it, I am officially entering into my 60th year. And I hope you're having a great day. I hope you are enjoying time with friends, family, loved ones, or the secure and sedate contemplation of your own room and different thoughts. And I just wished to announce, oh, joy, Obelis, I have finished the first draft of my new book. Yes, I did it this morning. Normally, I can write a whole chapter at a time. This one was so intense, I had to break it into two sessions. I will not shy away from saying I wept copious tears at the close of this book. You know, it's funny because when you get to know these characters, of course, you know they're made up and all of that, but I've known.
Stefan
[1:05]And you have the realm of fiction as a writer. You have the ultimate privilege of diving into people's thoughts directly, and they cannot lie to you. You know, somebody can say in the real world, oh, I had a dream about an elephant last night. And, you know, they're probably telling the truth and all of that. But a lot of people lie. A lot of people misrepresent. A lot of people give you selective realities designed, obviously, to make them look good and all that sort of stuff. And yet, in the realm of writing fiction, I have this strange privilege of being able to dip into people's thoughts and know that they're not lying to me, so to speak. And again, I know it's all an invention of the mind, but so are dreams. And they're very vivid and real to us as well. So these, it's funny. This is stuff. I mean, I'll tell you a little bit about the book. I just, for me, it's really, really fascinating.
Stefan
[2:01]I'm fearing between two one-word titles. I have another one in my notes somewhere. It's either going to be Corruption or Boomers, which I'm sure is not, but I repeat myself. And it is, I guess, the anti-Forest Gump book in a way, because I wanted to take boomers from youth to old age, from early university through to their dotage. And it's funny because this is the first novel that I've written without a formal plot. It is a series of vignettes designed to show how life choices affect things decades down the road in ways that very few people realize or recognize at the time. Each choice you make literally carves out the future that you're going to inhabit. And after a certain amount of time, and certainly with a certain amount of bad choices, the future you inhabit becomes irrevocable. It becomes like a train track. We only retain our freedom by exercising at will. and wherever we fall into propaganda and habit and lust, hedonism, we start entering into these train tracks of determinism that wipe us out, wipe our choices out. So, yeah, it's a beautiful day up here in Canada, enjoying, I guess, the last scraps and shreds of sunshine before the clammy fist of autumn and the icy fist of winter begin to grip us in its fingertips.
[3:30]
Book Completion and Writing Insights
Stefan
[3:31]But let's make this show about you. I certainly have a topic, but I'm beyond thrilled to chat with you about whatever is on your mind. And yes, sorry, just checking. It doesn't look like we have anybody who wants to call in yet, which is totally fine. Take your time. Happy to make this a solo show, or if you want to get in some, all ears for that too.
[3:52]
The Complexity of Female Psyche
Stefan
[3:52]So I posted the other day about, my gosh, if I hear another tale of a 39-year-old woman who is playing hard to get, it's really something. Now, I say this with great sympathy for women. I occasionally, of course, you know, I just wrote a novel with a bunch of female characters and delve deep into their thoughts. And I think I've created pretty compelling female characters over the years. And I've role-played as moms and aunts and sisters in call-in shows over the years. I think I have a fairly decent grasp on the female psyche. But the one thing, you know, for a male, when you're young, you just basically exist in a state of anxiety and panic and drive and ambition and conquering spirit and all of that. So males are born just kind of like, we're just, I wouldn't say anxious like that's some sort of big, bad, negative thing. Anxiety can be very healthy and helpful. Anxiety is the fear that you might fail, right? And here's the funny thing. Like you're going to have anxiety whether you try or whether you don't. I mean, basically, it's choose your anxiety. And again, I'm not talking about sort of crippling anxiety, but you know, that little frisson that gives you that extra spark and drive and push.
Stefan
[5:04]Because you're either going to have anxiety because you're taking on great tasks and you're concerned that you will fail, or you're going to have anxiety because you're wasting your life by not taking on great tasks.
[5:16]
Anxiety and Life Choices
Stefan
[5:16]There is no other option. It's kind of like food. Guess i mean i'm not sure what your relationship with food is but for me i really like food i enjoy eating and you know my whole life is just working to eat less that's that's just working to eat less i really could pork out if i let myself rip and just working to eat less it's just a constant battle right so you either have discomfort because you're cutting off food that you want to eat or you have discomfort because you're say 300 pounds so that's life man and it's a it's a beautiful ride So...
Stefan
[5:50]The anxiety that young men have, you know, the one thing that's really tough, you see these sort of day in the life videos, you know, these young, attractive women who are like picking up Starbucks and then getting some snacks and matcha from the company cafe and eating lunch on the roof and then maybe a Zoom meeting or two. Like, oh, there's this woman who's talking about going to Pilates class, and then she goes to some photo shoot where she mysteriously passes out. It's kind of a strange little hiccup in the story. And, you know, it's like oily tan, boobs for days, bleached blonde hair, strolling around. And there is, and, you know, it's sort of, it's a tricky topic, so I'll try and do requisite delicacy to the topic, and then, of course, be misinterpreted by chunderheads and doubterheads and people with the inner voice of an empty stage. But it's the smugness. It's the smugness. Young women in their sort of peak female beauty, the splendor of their vivacious desirability, which is a wonderful, beautiful thing, and no issue with female beauty or male beauty. It's all lovely. But they have, as young women.
Stefan
[7:06]A kind of self-contained, airtight, vacuous and vacuum-sealed smugness that, honestly, it's kind of incomprehensible and annoying to men. Because men generally exist in a state of striving. We strive. That's why we're out of the caves. in many ways, right? We strive. We strive to achieve. We strive to get the girls. We strive to make some money. We strive to get educated. We strive for status. We're born striving. And smugness, is something that we don't understand and seems kind of foreign and alien to men as a whole.
Stefan
[7:49]And that female smugness that arises from being young and pretty and very much in demand, and social media, of course, has inflated this stuff. I mean, women used to get positive feedback from, you know, max, maybe five, 10, maybe a little bit more men in their life. Now it's thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, yea, verily, maybe even unto the millions and zillions, and infinity, it seems, minus one. And that does produce just a level of smugness and self-satisfaction. Because women are, of course, designed to, or we have evolved, or men and women have evolved, that women are there to be taken care of by men so that they can raise children and pass on the torch of civilization and culture. It's really kind of an important job. It's really the most important job, and it's what men really strive to provide for. And so a woman gains her strength in security. A man gains his strength in competition.
Stefan
[8:47]Women are happiness. I'm sorry. Women are generally happiest when they can't fail, and men, in the long run, are generally happier when they can fail, when we can't fail, which is why when women run sporting events, everybody gets a participation trophy, and why when men run sporting events, the losers are told, you suck. Right you can see this happening in uh online video gaming spaces where i saw this video of woman she tried rolling a grenade in some combat game and it rolled back and blew her up and she got you know pretty relentlessly marked by her teammates she's like oh guys can we just can i just have a nice game you know just this weariness and i'm in this but men we thrive on trash talk and we thrive on being put down. Because for men, being put down is a sign of encouragement, right?
Stefan
[9:41]I mean, if some kid was blind, like some boy was blind, and let's say couldn't catch a ball, men would never say, or boys would never say, you suck, or at least like no sane boys would say that, right? You suck. Women hear that, and they hear it as a definition. But what men mean with you suck is you don't have to, you can do better. You have the potential to improve. You suck is a term of present tense description, not essential definition. You are not united with suckiness, right?
Stefan
[10:18]You suck now, you can unsuck later. And in fact, telling you that you suck tells you what you need to improve on, right? It is a good-natured way of helping men stave off excessive self-criticism. I know it sounds kind of odd, right? But it's a way of helping men stave off excessive self-criticism because saying that you suck is not saying you'll never unsuck. It's saying that sucked, not you are suck. I know this is kind of obtuse, perhaps even obscure, but it's really, really important for women to understand this. Also understand how women experience it. When a woman is told you suck, she thinks it defines her as sucking as a whole in general. Yes, I get all the jokes. as a whole in general at our essence. It's a definition. You suck is you are defined as sucking.
Stefan
[11:13]And for men, it's like you suck right now. I'm telling you that so you can improve. And where there's no capacity to improve, there is no trash talking. This is sort of really, really important for men. When there's, if somebody can do better and chokes or does something wrong or silly, but they can do better, they will be mocked by men. If a man can't do better, he is not mocked by men or boys as a whole. So mocking is a way of saying, it's not that serious, it's kind of funny, you can do better, and let's move on, right? Because for men to be part of the group, like let's look at a male hunting, because they want to take down a deer or whatever, right? And the spear at the deer, see, I'm starting to rap now, Guy throws a spear at the deer and misses, and the other men are like, you suck, that sucks, right? But he's still invited the next time. And by being told he sucks, he's being told he needs to practice more with the spear. But he's still invited along, right?
Stefan
[12:20]If there's some old guy who gets a hold of the spear and throws it and can't get any better because his eyes are roomy and his limbs are creaky and all of that, he's like not at Bob, then he's not told, you suck. You know, the spear is gently taken away from him, and he's not really invited back into the hunting party. So men trash talk each other as a form of encouragement, and women take it personally. And that's because men don't use reputational damage as a form of assault. Women do. Women use reputational damage as a form of assault. And so when women hear trash talking.
Stefan
[12:56]They hear reputational attack. It is the equivalent of physical assault to them because women fight with words, men fight with swords, which is why when men get political power, they ban violence, and when women get political power, they ban speech. It's how each sex fights. So women hear trash talking, and they experience it as verbal abuse. When men hear trash talking, they experience it as encouragement. It's funny. It's funny, and it is a form of saying, it's not that serious, you can do better.
[13:32]
The Nature of Male and Female Dynamics
Stefan
[13:27]It's fine. We're joking about it. You suck. You threw this beer and you suck. Probably not joking if it's the last year around and everyone's going to starve to death. Probably a little bit less joking after that or during that time. So, men, you know, we strive. You know, since as far back as I could remember, I've had this fairly tiny productive knot of tension in my belly. And I think most men have it. We call it fire in the belly or just want more, want to do better, want to take on more challenges, want to increase risk, want to, like, you just want to expand and risk and fail, and it drives you forward.
Stefan
[14:12]And, you know, one of the problems with modern society, of course, is that men aren't allowed to do that stuff really anymore. So many regulations and, and confinements and HOAs and licenses, and you can't just do stuff. I mean, I, I posted this question on X some time ago, which was, would you rather get into a physical fight with a guy or have him report you to HR for months of paperwork? And the guys were overwhelmingly, oh yeah, no, just give me a physical fight. Honestly, just, I just, just, you know, throw a couple of hands and get it over with. That's, that's what I want. You know, this paperwork shit is claustrophobic and kills men's spirits. So this tension, this anxiety, this excitement, this thrill, this wanting to take on more and more, wanting to expand your capacity for risk and success and failure is the growth of technology, the growth of civilization in terms of the material aspects of it. And so men, we strive and we're anxious. And I wouldn't say we're stressed exactly, but we are cattle prodded by our own sense of tension, anxiety, apprehension, whatever it is, to work to achieve. Because, as we all know, in the dating market, women have value, men have to prove value.
Stefan
[15:31]So a smugness in a man is kind of incomprehensible. I mean, in a feminized man, not so much, but men experience smugness as female-coded as a whole. And this is why these Day in the Life videos are just kind of maddening to men. Now, if a woman were to say, rather than doing some useless Zoom pretend work, right, the daycare stuff, if a woman were to say, you know, I'm thoroughly satisfied and happy with my life taking care of three or four children, while my husband provides and I homeschool, men would not be annoyed. But just strolling around, being paid for non-work, and being admired without ever having to settle down and trade in your physical attractiveness for actual human babies is annoying. It's the smugness. Now, the smugness is something that is so hard to comprehend, and it's very hard for women to let go of.
Stefan
[16:30]Let me just finish this up and I'll chat in a sec if that's all right with you. So the sort of stress, tension, anxiety, and striving that men feel when they're young.
[16:40]
Striving and Modern Society
Stefan
[16:40]And I mean, I think if you want to really achieve some good things in your life as a man, you never want to lose that flame, that anxiety, that tension, that stress, that striving. This is kind of how we're built, right? And when men are thrown into stressful situations, we kind of relax. When women are thrown into stressful situations, they really tell. So, when a woman who wants a family is in her mid-late thirties and doesn't have stress, tension, panic, and anxiety, understand it's kind of incomprehensible to men. Like, yes, you should panic. Yes, you should panic.
Stefan
[17:16]I've heard, of course, in a bunch of shows, and actually was talking to a friend of mine recently, just about a woman. I won't get into any details, of course, right? But this woman's 39. She wants a family. Now, she should be panicking because it's like, you know, you're lucky to get one at this rate, one kid. So you should be panicking. It should be like, you should be diving for men like some tween on the last seat, on the last lifeboat on the Titanic. Whatever it takes, whatever compromise is needed, just make it happen, you know, like men have to do. You know, I wanted to date as a teenager, and so in order to date as a teenager, I worked three jobs. And from 15 years of age onwards, I was paying my own bills with roommates and three jobs, and I had to have money, and so I just, I worked.
Stefan
[18:04]And for women who've been sort of thirsty, laughter, and desired, and put on this pedestal and elevated to almost superhuman levels of vanity and smugness, there's this strange hypnosis that is going on in their mid to late 30s. This weird, oh, I can freeze my eggs. I can do IVF. Some guy will come along. I guess I can always be a single mom. Like all of this just weird, hypnotic, like, holy crap. Now is the time to panic. And I understand this, of course, better on. It's my famous, infamous tweet from sort of five years ago about Taylor Swift's eggs, pointing out that by 30, 90% of her eggs were gone. My 40 is like 98%. I think now she's 35, got engaged to some dude, and it's like 97%. Now, she can still have a kid or two, but it's going to be dicey, really dicey.
Stefan
[18:58]So... Hard when you have, let's say, from the age of 18 to 39, right? So for, you know, age of drinking for like 21 years, you have been, you know, lusted after and taken out and given trips and all kinds of cool stuff and lulled and hypnotized maybe by the media, by whoever, right? Into thinking you have an eternity ahead of you. And of course, people keep calming your anxieties as a woman, right? Which is, as I said, IVF and you can, oh, one guy was saying women can have children into their 50s. And it's like, good God, man, this is absolutely wild misinformation.
Stefan
[19:44]First of all, I don't believe it. I don't believe women can have children into their 50s. And let's say there is some complete genetic freakazoid who's having a kid naturally when she's 50. I mean, good God, I can't even imagine the defects that kids would be prone to. And that's so freaky, that's way more rare than winning the lottery. So, you know, it would be the equivalent of saying, if some financial advisor comes along and says, you should save for your retirement, and someone says, no, people win the lottery. I mean, that would be dangerous, right? That would be horrible. And there's a whole industry that is designed to sedate and hypnotize women to not panicking about the birth rate, their birth rate, what they're going to get out of life. And by pushing against that, I was trying to break through that in my sort of former, and I still talk about it now, but I was in my former Twitter, like, you know, saying, ladies, you're fertile until 40. You live to be 80. What are you going to do with those 40 long years if you don't have kids, right? Now it's even like you live longer, 87, 86 or whatever, in a lot of the West, among whites, I think. So, trying to break through this hypnosis, this zombie shuffle, like lemmings off the cliff of infertility ending four billion years of evolution, is wild.
[21:00]
The Hypnosis of Fertility and Time
Stefan
[21:01]Child, taking money instead of life. This is what one of my characters says to his mother, what happened to all your memos? What happened to all of your emails? What happened to all of your folders and your pamphlets and your little newsletters? They're all gone, turned to ash, dust, nothing, garbage. You lived for everything that dies, and you failed to live for everyone who actually lived, like your children. And trying to break through this zombie shuffle off the cliff of genetic end is a tough gig, man. It's a tough business. You hate women. It's like, well, I don't know. There are people who are hypnotizing women into deferring children until they're childless. They're the ones who hate women. Like, honestly.
Stefan
[21:45]If you have somebody who's anxious about something that's legitimate to be anxious about and you calm them down, yo, I'm really worried that my smoking is going to get me lung cancer. No, you're fine. By the time you're old enough to get lung cancer, I'm sure they'll be able to grow lab-grown mutant minotaur lungs to transplant. Like, don't worry. And so at the moment, it's like, oh, I feel better in the moment. Oh, thank God. But you hate that kind of guy. Like whoever you're telling, don't worry about smoking, you can't hate him because, you know, most smokers will get sick from smoking. You're not helping them. Provoking anxiety with the truth is important, right? If you've gained a lot of weight and you say to your friends, you think I've gained weight. No, you look great. You feel okay in the moment, right? But you're not doing them any good. Like, yeah, you have. The old great line from men, hey, bro, do you think I've gained any weight? Hey, man, I have fat people and you're four of them. Sorry about that. I don't know what happened. I'm sure it was at my end. I have a battery-powered mic, and although I changed the battery recently, maybe I left it on or something, but I guess the battery ran out. And we will survive. We will continue. So.
Stefan
[22:54]Forget you're welcome to call in. And yeah, my basic case was that women are hypnotized into not being anxious or panicking about birth rates and about having children, about their fertility, and about their value to men as they age. And trying to break through that hypnosis and happy to take calls again, just trying to break through that hypnosis is a very challenging feat, to put it mildly, because when people have been hypnotized into not acting, into not changing their behavior to fix something, when people have been hypnotized into stagnation and inattention to the passage of time, then whenever you remind people about this.
Stefan
[23:46]The inevitable passage of time, then there are some people, and again, there's really nothing you can do about this other than complain about the people who hypnotize them. But when you start to talk to women about, you know, geriatric pregnancies, 35, 90% of your eggs are done by 30, you know, and 98% by 40.
Stefan
[24:05]And, you know, somebody was saying, ah, yes, but there was this percentage of women in their 30s who get pregnant. And it's like, well, yeah, but you got to get pregnant, You've got a third of pregnancies result in miscarriage, and you have to bring the baby to term, the baby has to be healthy, and so on. And these are not inconsiderable challenges as you age. And so the people who have hypnotized women into just ignoring all of these basic facts that used to be common knowledge, when you remind women of these basic facts, the women who've passed the window
[24:41]
The Consequences of Deferring Parenthood
Stefan
[24:37]of recovery will absolutely freak out. And I'm really sorry about that. It is an inevitable reality or fact of human nature and human society that people get angry at those who tell them the truth rather than those who've lied to them. So a woman who's kind of sailed past reproductive age and, you know, she's in, you know, her early mid-40s or whatever, and she can't get a man of sort of quality to commit to her. And, of course, this also happens to women who are single moms. They have another man's child, and then they say, gee, why can't I get a quality man? Well, because quality men don't want to raise other men's kids. They don't want to pay for other men's kids. It's a basic biological fact. And so when you say to people.
Stefan
[25:25]There's this grave danger, there's this great danger you need to be aware of in order to achieve happiness. Then there are people who've been hypnotized so long that they pass that window of recovery. They can't turn back the clock. They can't turn back time. And they cannot go back and have babies. I mean, in South Korea, the number of geriatric people outnumber the young two to one. And you can't go back in time and have kids. I mean, you can go back in time. You can go get educated in your 80s if you want. You can start a workout routine in your 70s or your 80s if you want. You can diet in your 90s, you can do, but you cannot go back and have kids.
Stefan
[26:03]That you cannot do as a woman. That you cannot do. And so, you know, when it was first proven beyond the shadow of a doubt that smoking was bad for you, there were a bunch of people who already had lung cancer. And they're really angry and frustrated. And I get that. And I really do sympathize with that. I really do. And it's hard to escape society's endless lies towards women. I sympathize. But because people who've made terrible mistakes, however, we might understand the propaganda and the hypnosis. So people who've made terrible mistakes, should we never ever talk about making better decisions because people have made bad decisions? I don't think so. I mean, we just have to grit our teeth and say, yes, you should have kids. You should have kids when you're young. If you wait too long, if you get into mid to late 30s, like, ladies, I'm saying this because I care about your happiness. I know it's hard to hear because you, a lot of you imagine that the only people who care about your happiness are those who tell you what your anxiety wants to hear. Don't worry, don't worry, don't worry. But.
Stefan
[27:12]This because I care about you. Ladies, if you're in your mid to late thirties, and maybe earlier, it depends, right? But let's just say mid to late thirties, you got to panic. I mean, the baby rabies, the feeling that you want to have a baby so bad, it's like always having to pee or always being hungry. That's real. And that means you got to lock down a guy and you settle down, got to have your babies, and he ain't going to be Hugh Jackman. He's not. He's not. Any more than you are, I don't know, Jennifer Aniston in her prime or whatever you find attractive, right? Oh, did I reveal myself? Hey, I married a Greek woman too, so that's all right.
Stefan
[27:54]So yeah, you got to panic and you got to lock down a guy.
[27:58]
The Shift in Relationship Dynamics
Stefan
[27:59]And honestly, in the same way that men feel deeply grateful if an attractive woman shows them any interest at all, ladies, you should feel in your mid-late thirties, you should feel enormously grateful if a reasonable guy shows you attention and a willingness to commit. You should be grateful. Because at that point, the tables have turned. And I say this with great sympathy. I really, I say this, you know, I can't imagine what it's like to have spent over 20 years being pursued, lusted after, and desired, and then having to do the pursuing of waiting for guys to show up on this endless conveyor belt of huggy penises and then have to be the one doing the pursuing, making it happen, and freaking out. That's a tough thing. It is like a millionaire who suddenly has to clip coupons and buy dented cans of tuna. It's a come down. It's very tough. But the alternative is much, much worse. All right. All right. I think it's Alex. Thank you for your patience and for your return to space, the sequel. What is on your mind, my friend? Thank you.
[29:08]
A Discussion on Religion
Stefan
[29:09]Okay. Sounds like you're out of a Kafka novel.
Caller
[29:12]Hey.
Stefan
[29:13]Yes, sir.
Caller
[29:13]Sorry about that.
Caller
[29:16]Sorry, I have a question about religion.
Stefan
[29:21]Yeah, you're show, man. Whatever you like.
Caller
[29:24]Okay.
Caller
[29:27]So, I've been following you for a long time. And I was kind of Christian way back and waffled between Christianity and atheism and whatnot. I, I, you did a, you did a show with, uh, um, Bob Murphy and I, and you guys talked about your, your, um, you know, becoming more amenable to Christianity over time. And, um, I thought that I heard you say something along the lines of that you were going to church in that, uh, podcast. Um, but recently you did one where you were saying that, uh, you're definitely still an atheist and whatnot.
Caller
[30:10]And I've personally struggled with the same kind of thing in terms of Christians being clearly more immoral than pretty much everybody else. And recently I've made good friends with a lot of good Christians and whatnot. It's like, I don't know. I'm really on the fence as to whether or not, I mean, my son's a Christian. His mom kind of got him into that. despite my protestations back in the day. And recently I'm like, well, geez, I almost feel better when I pray, but I just can't epistemologically reconcile the existence of God and whatnot. So that's just something that I've struggled with. And I guess my question is, do you have any recommendations for God?
Stefan
[31:03]To follow a question with a question, because I know it's kind of rude, but can you specify a little bit more about how my recommendations could help you or what you would like me to recommend or in what area?
Caller
[31:16]Would it be, if I was going to church, I mean, and whatnot, and I wouldn't want to call myself a Christian if I don't believe in God, but the Christians are the only people that seem to have any morality or really value in terms of people that I want to associate with, people who aren't just like postmodernists and just, well, anything goes, and justifying morality with that kind of postmodernism. I guess sort of a question.
Stefan
[31:53]But the problem with the postmodernists as well, as with the sort of general atheists, is that there are no moral rules, but there sure as hell is moral hysteria.
Stefan
[32:05]And that's a wild thing to see. It's like all the postmodernists, like, ah, there is no such thing as truth, you gallic monster. There is no such thing as reality. Ah, but Marine Le Pen is a racist. You know, and it's like, so there's no moral rules. There's just
Stefan
[32:21]moral hysteria, which is they get easily programmed into attacking. Like, if there's no moral rules, then you should never punish the unvaccinated under COVID, right?
Caller
[32:31]Yeah.
Stefan
[32:32]But it was the Christians fiercely defending as a whole the rights of unvaccination. Atheists got vaccinated at the mid-90s, 90%, right? And there were certain denominations of Christianity that we're only in 50, 55%. So, you know, rounding a few mathematical edges, some Christians were twice as rational, twice as scientific as atheists. And so, of course, if there's a postmodernist, it should have been like, well, of course you can't vaccinate, you can't force vaccinations. There's not even any such thing as truth or reality or morality. But that's not how, like, the problem is that when you let go of objective moral virtues, You were then easily programmed in pure primitive tribal in-group, out-group, vicious bullshit. You know, like they're unvaccinated or unclean and they're putting people's lives at risk and so on, right? And the Christians, to a large degree, rejected that. Again, two to one versus atheists. So atheists almost unanimously fell into the COVID propaganda bandwagon despite being, oh, so skeptical. Oh, so scientific. It's like, but there was nothing particularly scientific. I mean, they wouldn't even release the data for these shots until the judge forced them to.
Stefan
[33:50]Safe and effective after three months testing? Come on, right? And the absolute versus relative risk stuff. And they said it was sane for pregnant women, even though no pregnancy lasted as long as the trials were. I mean, it wasn't even close to science. It wasn't even close. Not even within, it's an insult to science to call that science. And yet all of these supposedly skeptical secular atheists swallowed all that crap hook, line, and sinker. And viciously turned on people who were exercising bodily autonomy and people who were exercising skepticism. And all the leftists. I'm sorry to interrupt. I remember doing a debate with two communists and they were the last communists like, don't forget to get your shots, get your shots. It's like, well, if the communists are telling you to do something, if you're not running in the opposite direction, I don't know how you even find your feet to put on your socks. So the problem for me is that a post-modernist is an NPCyou know like the meme right they unplug the module they plug in the next module it's not that they don't believe in morality it's that they are easily programmed to hate based on in-group at-group preferences and christians are more.
Stefan
[35:05]Christians are more resistant to that in part because Christians, of course, believe that everybody has a soul and therefore you can't hate another human being because they have an essence of God within them, no matter how corrupt. But yeah, atheists, they have the ethics of apes, which is just in-group, out-group preference easily stimulated by rampant propaganda into behaving with extraordinarily levels of viciousness towards their fellow man. And that's the problem. It's the old thing. If you don't believe in God, the problem is you'll just fall for anything. You'll just believe in anything. And without objective morals that supersede in-group, out-group preferences and easily programmed them versus us versus other rhetoric. Yeah, atheists are absolutely useful weapons for sophists. Sorry, go ahead.
Caller
[35:53]Yeah, and the thing that you were talking with COVID there, that's my entire extended family. They all got the shot. My grandma called me trying to miss me to get the shot. She was nice about it. She wasn't too insistent. But my son and I, we were the only ones in my entire family that didn't get it.
Stefan
[36:11]Sorry, is your family religious?
Caller
[36:14]Well, my grandma is religious. My mom used to be religious. But she's been dissuaded probably in no small part due to me.
Caller
[36:24]But, you know, maybe 10 years ago or so. But, yeah, and some of my family members have become very vicious and very, like...
Stefan
[36:39]Go ahead.
Caller
[36:39]No worries, no worries. I don't know what the right word is, but vicious and oversensitive and can't elucidate any kind of objective morality, but they'll jump right down your throat for not wearing a mask or just these perceived injustices. And then they can't actually speak to what makes good good or anything like that. And they don't want to listen and they don't want to read any books. And, uh, and then, you know, I, I meet Christians and I hang out with some Christians and they're just so much easier to hang out with and talk with and, and whatnot. Oh, I don't know. And I'm, I'm, I'm going to a church, not regularly, but next week we're going to go there and there's this men's kind of thing, men's dinner. And I went to one before and the people that I met there were fantastic.
Stefan
[37:38]Yeah, really thinking about life. And I remember some, I think it was last year at the church. I go through, there was a whole evening on social media, the good, the bad, how to help your kids with it and all this kind of stuff. You don't see sort of atheists getting together and talking about these sort of important issues as well. And it's funny, too, because, I mean, atheists accept evolution, except from the neck up. I think basically atheists are not running from God. They're just running from rules. They're just running from moral rules. And because they have no moral rules, they just become, they have nothing to push back against with regards to the pleasure pain principle, right? So, hey, we'll give you a donut if you get vaccinated, and maybe you'll lose your job if you don't. Well, that's just a pleasure pain principle. And atheists, by not having objective moral rules, they're just easily pushed around by the pleasure-pain principle, which means they really can't have any values. They're just, you know, instead of being predator, they've turned to prey, so to speak, because prey just works on pleasure-pain principle, right? Run away from the fox and try to reproduce. Sorry, you were going to say?
Caller
[38:50]Well, I guess, ultimately, I guess the question that I do have is, you know if I you know I guess the best way to it seems like the best way to you know create a better social circle than what I have now would be something along the lines of like going to church and making better friends with more Christians and what not.
Caller
[39:18]But it would be difficult if you know they're like hey you know like did you, say your prayers today or something. And it's like, well, I don't actually believe in God, but I just want to hang out with the Christians.
Stefan
[39:32]Well, but I wouldn't put it that way. I mean, sorry, I didn't mean to tell you what to say. But I think, and if I understand your position correctly, correct me, of course, if I'm wrong. I think it's something like, you guys have the best values. You have the best morals. You accept morality. I accept morality. I really struggle with the metaphysics and the epistemology. Like, I really struggle with the existence of God. But I fully accept objective morality and have like a 90% overlap with Christian ethics. And there's no other group as a whole that overlaps with and is willing to sacrifice for these values. There's no other group in the world. No other group in the world. And so, you know, I hope that you'll accept me as somebody who's struggling with God, but who fully accepts Christian morals and the universality and absolutism of ethics.
[40:25]
Struggling with Faith and Morality
Stefan
[40:26]Not just like you guys are fun to hang with. You know what I mean? That might seem a bit on the shallow side, which I know is not where you're coming from.
Caller
[40:33]Well, that's why I called, because that's the difficult part. But I appreciate that response.
Stefan
[40:41]I mean, the question is sort of like this for me. Sorry to interrupt. But it's kind of like, would you rather go to a socialist doctor bought and paid for by the pharma companies, or would you rather go to a Christian doctor who's not bought and paid for by the pharma companies, right? Because the first doctor who's the socialist and bought and paid for by the pharma companies, he is not, he's just going to follow the money, right? And if you look at, and I talked about this recently in a show about, I don't think it's been released yet, but It was about how.
Stefan
[41:17]the problem of unhappiness was solved with Christians by saying, well, you're unhappy because you're sinning. You're lying to yourself, you're lying to others, you're not living a virtuous life, you're not making the necessary sacrifice to be good. And philosophy and Christianity both say that unhappiness is likely caused by, or the first place to look, assuming there's no health, blah, blah, blah. Unhappiness is most likely to be caused by sin or immorality. And when the atheists kind of took over who say, well, look, I mean, life is, we're just machines. We're just, we're just cell dividing, DNA replicating machines. And if something's wrong with a machine, you don't fault it for things like sin, right? You fix it. I mean, if your car's not running well because your carburetor's dirty or you don't have enough oil or whatever's going on, you just fix the machine. And then the machine runs better, but you don't lecture the machine about its immorality, right? And so this is where, like, the SSRIs come from, right? Well, the reason you're unhappy has nothing to do with sin. Just something's wrong with your engine. Something's wrong with your motor. You have a chemical imbalance. And the chemical imbalance is not real. It's not scientific. It's not true. But you're just a broken machine. Take a pill.
Stefan
[42:34]And reason equals virtue equals happiness. Or for the Christians, the equation is faith equals virtue equals happiness.
Stefan
[42:41]That is a much better explanation. And so, with Christians, they are looking deeply at the world, they're looking deeply at themselves, and if you're not Christian, of course, praying is a form of meditation or internal communion.
Stefan
[42:58]And I have aspects of myself that I'm in conversation with. I mean, I do it when I'm writing books, I do it when I'm doing role plays, I do it when I'm having arguments with myself. So it's simply a communion with the deeper and richer aspects of yourself. And there's a lot of good power in that as a whole. I mean, I made the argument many years ago that God is basically the unconscious. And you can sort of look that up at fdrpodcasts.com. But I think just, I mean, thou shall not bear false witness. You can't have good relationships if you're not honest with people. And so I think with regards to Christianity, it would be something like, yeah, look, I'm really struggling with the God thing. But at the same time, atheists are kind of douchebags and don't have any ethics and are easily programmed into a random bigoted hate. And, you know, you guys have a much deeper and richer tradition. And I agree with most, if not all, of the ethics. And this is where I want to be on my journey, right? And if my journey leads me to God, my journey leads me to God. And if my journey doesn't lead me to God, but instead to good companions with whom I share deep values and ethics, then that's where it is, if that makes sense.
Caller
[44:16]I think that does make sense, and I really appreciate it. I also just want to say, because I think that we're good there, you were the one who convinced me not to hit my kid, and I've convinced others as a result of that. So thank you.
Stefan
[44:35]Well, I really, really appreciate that, and that is the greatest compliment that philosophy can receive, and I thank you for that, and I hope you'll keep us posted about how your journey goes.
Caller
[44:45]Okay, I will. Thank you so much.
Stefan
[44:48]All right, Sigmus, what's on your mind, my friend?
Caller
[44:50]Hello.
Stefan
[44:50]Yes, go ahead.
Caller
[44:52]Good afternoon. Great to make your acquaintance, Stefan. I was wondering if you'd like to go back and forth if we could discuss why, or how, rather, philosophy might be considered the most useful failure. What do you think?
Stefan
[45:08]I'm obviously an interesting and provocative opening to the conversation. I'm certainly happy to hear the thesis. I may, in fact, agree with it, but I'm not sure what your definitions are.
Caller
[45:18]Well, I suppose we can frame that.
Caller
[45:21]I suppose that philosophy, as I comprehend it, had an objective, right? Presupposition of what it intended to accomplish, just a ground knowledge. Sorry, did you say to ground knowledge? Ground knowledge.
Stefan
[45:41]Okay, so I'm not sure what that means.
Caller
[45:42]Ground the world, maybe.
Stefan
[45:43]What does ground knowledge mean? I'm not disagreeing, I just don't know what you mean.
Caller
[45:47]Well, it could mean, I suppose it could mean a lot of things. There's really a sentiment at the heart of it, which is maybe ground knowledge or ground a sense of confidence in the world.
Stefan
[45:59]Um well okay so i'm just let me just tell you where i think that might land because if you say it's got a whole bunch of definitions then we're going to have a tough time because i don't know which definition you're using so philosophy generally means the study of wisdom and wisdom generally is practical truth in virtue or wisdom is not yeah so you have to be able to act on it it has to be true and it has to be virtuous because in terms of grounding people in certainty well, mathematics does that, engineering does that, physics does that, biology does that, it grounds people in certainty. And those disciplines are not philosophy. Philosophy undercuts, sorry, undergirds all of those methodologies, the scientific method in particular, but philosophy is the understanding and application of practical virtues. And so the virtues have to be true, universal, valid, reasoned. They have to be applicable in your own life, and you have to be able to act upon them. And so I think the study of wisdom, wisdom being the application of practical virtues, I think, can we go with something like that with philosophy?
Caller
[47:07]Well, to act, to do what? What would be the goal, right? The virtues would be in light of a pursuit. What would they be pursuing, in your opinion?
Stefan
[47:17]Well, so philosophy would say that we must be rational in order to be virtuous. And if we are consistently virtuous, that gives us our greatest chance at happiness.
Stefan
[47:28]Being the one thing that we don't pursue for the sake of something else.
Caller
[47:31]What would rationality do? What would that do?
Stefan
[47:35]Sorry, what would rationality do?
Caller
[47:37]Yeah, rationality. Yeah, it's function toward happiness.
[47:41]
Moral Hypocrisy and Happiness
Stefan
[47:42]That's a fine question. Well, would you say that a moral hypocrite can be happy?
Caller
[47:51]Let's say that that's a possibility. But, would you mind? I don't know how to question myself.
Stefan
[48:00]No, that's fine. So, okay, let me ask you this. On average, would you say that someone who has moral integrity is happier than someone who constantly switches his morals to win some petty combat in the moment?
Caller
[48:15]Well, it's at scale, possibly.
Stefan
[48:18]Yeah, yeah. So in general, on average, would you say that somebody who has genuine moral integrity is going to be happier in the long run than somebody who is a moral hypocrite? In other words, he's not moral. He just makes up moral rules to win in the moment.
Caller
[48:34]Well, being consistent usually is usually pretty effective, right?
Stefan
[48:38]Right. So a moral hypocrite can't be consistent in his ethics, right?
Caller
[48:42]He would probably run into inconsistencies.
Stefan
[48:45]No, no. He's not running into them. he's generating them.
Caller
[48:48]Well, yes, I would agree. Generating is a better term.
Stefan
[48:52]So, I mean, if somebody says, well, if I injure you, you should forgive me and turn the other cheek. But if you injure me, I'm going to seek vengeance because the Bible says an eye for an eye. Like that would be moral hypocrisy, right?
Caller
[49:08]Yes, if a one-to-one circumstance, like eye for an eye, yes.
Stefan
[49:13]Okay. So somebody who makes up different moral rules, depending on what benefits him in the moment, right? Like Schrodinger's feminist, right? The feminist who is either empowered or a victim, depending on what gives her the most benefit in the moment. So somebody who's a moral hypocrite, in general, would be less happy than someone who has moral integrity. Also, would you say that our happiness, as social animals, our happiness has something to do with being loved?
Caller
[49:45]Well, like I said, it's going to be difficult for me to question myself into your response.
Stefan
[49:51]I'm not sure what you mean by question myself into your... I'm just asking questions.
Caller
[49:54]Well, I mean... Well, that's what I mean. It's like, well, you're asking the questions internally. I have to ask myself the question, right?
Stefan
[50:00]Well, no, that's not a trick. I'm not trying to trick you or anything. So you asked me a question. What has reason to do with happiness? and I'm trying to answer that. But I'm trying to answer that not with some big lecture, but with a conversation. That's the Socratic reasoning method, right?
Caller
[50:12]Well, yeah.
Stefan
[50:13]Okay, so would you say that being loved makes you happier than being hated? I mean, in general.
Caller
[50:21]It could. I'll tell you right, all of these will respond with the same sentiment.
Stefan
[50:26]I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that?
Caller
[50:28]All of my responses to all these hypotheticals would be it could. Just so we can go past them.
Stefan
[50:35]Well, okay. In general, in general, hang on. So in general, I mean, are you married? Do you want to get married?
Caller
[50:43]I have many preferences, many desires and aspirations.
Stefan
[50:46]Okay. Are you married? Do you want to get married? Okay. Are you married? Yes, no.
Caller
[50:52]I have been.
Stefan
[50:53]I'm sorry?
Caller
[50:54]Long ago. I was.
Stefan
[50:55]You were married. Okay. Would you ever like to get married again?
Caller
[50:58]Yeah.
Stefan
[50:59]Okay. So if you were to get married, would you rather be married to a woman who loves you or a woman who hates you?
Caller
[51:08]Well...
Stefan
[51:09]Come on, man. Let's not hedge too much here. I'm really trying to be friendly here, but if you're going to hedge on this kind of stuff, I don't even know how we can have a conversation. Would you rather be married to a woman who loves you or a woman who hates you? I'm trying to answer your original question.
Caller
[51:23]I would prefer that a woman, I believe a woman loved me.
Stefan
[51:26]Okay, fantastic. No, no, not you believe, but a woman genuinely loved you, right?
Caller
[51:30]I don't know how to establish that in any permanence.
Stefan
[51:32]Well, okay. We're just talking theoretically here, right? Okay, so can you love a thing and also love its opposite? So let's say you love courage. Can you equally love courage and cowardice? Or let's say you love someone who is honest. Can you equally love someone who's a pathological liar? So if you love something, can you also love its opposite?
Caller
[51:58]I'd say necessarily you'd have to that's definitions definitely contained in the other
Stefan
[52:02]i'm sorry i'm not i'm not it's your mic's not too great at least for maybe my um my earphones are bad but so can you love a thing and also love its opposite and you said what
Caller
[52:13]i reset the uh i reset the mic
Stefan
[52:15]okay go ahead.
Caller
[52:16]Okay um i would say that in a strange way uh yes for that by contrast right for the definition of love it's a hate right um would be required right so in an ironic way you'd have to acknowledge it right your capacity to hate someone or someone to be hated
Stefan
[52:34]okay so sorry so so are you saying that you can love something and also equally love its opposite
Caller
[52:40]i'd say in a strange way yes
Stefan
[52:43]okay but i'm sorry but you have to make the case for it because it's a little counterintuitive like if you have a daughter and she has a boyfriend who treats her really well and uh respects her and listens to her and makes her life a better place and is sweet and makes her laugh. And then you have another daughter whose boyfriend assaults and rapes her. Are you saying that you would love both boyfriends equally? Do you have positive regards for both boyfriends equally?
Caller
[53:09]No, no, the quality, the quality of, right? So the, like deception, right? I would say that necessarily I have to have a value, like a respect, let's say, for deception or to value, let's say.
Stefan
[53:24]I'm sorry, I don't know. Hang on. So let's just get back to the two boyfriends. One respects one daughter, the other one assaults your other daughter.
Stefan
[53:31]Would you have the same affection for both boyfriends?
Caller
[53:35]I'm referring to the qualities themselves.
Stefan
[53:38]I don't know what this...
Caller
[53:39]Well, because the hypothetical you're bringing up is leading a question, right? Into like, what is it?
Stefan
[53:48]No, no, just answer the question. I'm not trying to be some tricky guy. I'm just, I'm trying, I'm literally trying to answer your question. You're fighting me every step of the way, which I don't quite understand.
Caller
[53:55]Well, I don't, I like being a tricky guy doesn't, like that's interpretive, right? I mean, you can say you're not, but I'd still, your behavior.
Stefan
[54:02]What is the difficulty in answering the, hang on. What is the difficulty in answering the question? If one boyfriend treats your daughter really well, and the other boyfriend assaults your other daughter, then what's the problem in saying you would like one boyfriend a lot more than the other?
Caller
[54:17]I would like this. Maybe we could reset.
Stefan
[54:19]No, no, no, this is my show. Hang on, this is my show. You called and you asked me a question. I am now dedicated to answering it, not just to you, but to the world.
Caller
[54:29]You're asking me to do it, sir.
Stefan
[54:30]No, I'm not, I'm absolutely not. I'm not asking you to answer it.
Caller
[54:34]Okay, then.
Stefan
[54:35]I'm trying to set it up. I'm trying to set it up so that you understand my answer when I give it.
Caller
[54:41]Okay, well, before that, right, I'd still like a direct response without my contextualization. Perhaps just yours, and then we can discuss that. we could break it down together.
Stefan
[54:52]So you called me up and you want a lecture, not a conversation?
Caller
[54:54]No, no. I just wanted your response. I didn't want to be interrogated.
Stefan
[54:58]My response is to ask you questions. Hang on. My response is, I mean, I don't know if you've ever read Plato, but this is basic Socratic reasoning, right? I mean, you're calling a philosopher. You can't be shocked that I do Socratic reasoning, right?
Caller
[55:08]Yeah, you can. And I'm here. I mean, I don't have to respond to the question. I can redirect it back to you, right? Which is what I asked for. I asked you the first question.
Stefan
[55:16]Okay. So I don't get involved in this kind of nonsense. So I will answer the question because this guy is just not answering the question. Perhaps this is why he didn't stay married. So I will ask the question, it's a great question, which is how does reason help promote happiness in your life? Well, so you cannot love both a thing and its opposite the same. You cannot love honesty and equally love a liar. You cannot love a person who is reasonably courageous and equally love someone who's irrationally cowardly. You cannot love somebody who treats others with dignity and respect and somebody else who just verbally abuses, assaults, and insults them. You can't love the boyfriend of one daughter who treats your kid well and another boyfriend who assaults her. You can't love them both equally. So you cannot love both a thing and its opposite. So let's start to assemble some of this stuff together.
[56:15]
Love and Consistency
Stefan
[56:15]So it is better to be loved than to be hated. And you cannot love a thing and its opposite. And therefore, the more consistently you practice your virtues, the more consistently you can be loved. So if I had no virtues, I had no abstract ethics, I had no rules of conduct or standards of behavior, then I would simply do that which was most expedient, to win in the moment, right? And this guy was very concerned about losing in the moment, which is why he didn't want to answer the questions. Although the questions were perfectly innocent. I wasn't trying to trap him in something that would be bad for him, but.
Stefan
[56:59]To be loved by yourself and by others, love is our involuntary response to virtue. Therefore, that which allows us most consistently to practice virtues gives us self-respect, gives us the capacity to be loved. And since love leads to happiness, or love really is the same as happiness, self-respect for your own honor and integrity is the basis of happiness with yourself.
Stefan
[57:25]Being looked up to and admired by others for your virtues, just as you look up to, as I do, and admire others for their virtues, is love. And so the reason, or the reason we reason, so the reason we reason our virtues is we can only consistently love virtues that are consistent.
Stefan
[57:47]And therefore somebody who reasons their ethics and reasons their virtues can be more consistently virtuous. You are only brought onto a sports team if you consistently do well. I mean, even a blind guy could land a basketball once in a while by hurling a ball from the other end of the court, but we would not put the blind guy on the basketball team because he wouldn't be able to do it consistently. So excellence is consistency. Consistency in virtue requires objective morals and a rational plan of action, which is why I was saying that philosophy, the study of wisdom, wisdom is practical and rational virtues. So I have a set of rational virtues that I pursue. They give me self-respect, which makes me happy within myself and makes me happy within my own conscience. They also generate love from friends and family because you cannot love a thing and it's opposite. And a moral hypocrite tells the truth when it gives him advantage and then lies like hell when it gives him advantage. And since we can only love virtues and telling the truth is a virtue, we cannot equally love somebody who consistently tells the truth with somebody who switches from telling the truth to lying.
Stefan
[59:02]How does reason lead to happiness? Reason equals virtue equals happiness. Having rational values and virtues, and we can just say universal and consistent to include our Christian friends, but having rational values and virtues allows us to practice those values and virtues in the most consistent manner that is possible. And since we can only be left for consistent virtue, it allows us to have self-respect, and it also allows us to experience and to give the greatest source of happiness, which is love. So that's the answer to that question. And just in general, like I'm not saying this is true for everyone, but of course for this fellow, like if you're going to call in to a philosopher and then you won't let the philosopher lead the conversation, then you're going to an expert nutritionist and just arguing with everything the nutritionist is saying. And that's fine, but I don't, like I'm not going to do that. I mean, I've been studying philosophy now for over 40 years.
Stefan
[1:00:04]But I know what I'm doing. I know what I'm talking about. I think I just gave a very elegant and good answer to a very challenging question. So if you're going to call up an expert and then argue with everything the expert is doing, that's totally fine, but experts won't waste their time with you. I know what I'm talking about. I know what I'm doing. Doesn't mean I'm always right, but I have to be allowed to make my case, right? If you're going to hire an expert builder to fix something in your house, and then the expert builder is explaining what he's doing, and you're just disagreeing and arguing with him, then the expert builder will say, well, you just need another builder, or you need to do it yourself. But I'm not going to, you know, given the expertise that I have, I'm a world famous builder, been doing it for 40 plus years.
Stefan
[1:00:46]I'm not going to argue with somebody who doesn't know dick smack about building. Like, I'm just not going to. This is why I said I don't get involved in this kind of nonsense. Like if you're going to call up and ask me a very challenging and difficult question, which I answer for free, given all of the work that I put into, the reputational destruction that I've been, had inflicted upon me, the financial costs and all that kind of stuff, right? You're going to call me up and you're going to ask me a question. I'm going to answer it for free without ads, without charging you a penny. And with all my expertise, you're certainly welcome to argue with the answer. But if you're going to argue with every step, I take towards giving you the answer, given that I'm not just talking to you, but talking to the whole world, like people on the live stream and also people, you know, hundreds or thousands of years down the road, I'm acutely aware that everything I say is going to be poured over for a long time.
Stefan
[1:01:38]So if you're going to say, hey, Stef, answer me this very difficult and challenging question, and I say, okay, here's the groundwork we need to do so that I can answer the question, and you just disagree and argue and hedge with everything that I'm doing, that's fine. I'll just drop the call and answer the question. I think it's more fun if we engage and I step you through the reasoning. But if you don't want to do that, that's fine. I'll just give you the answer. But I'm not going to pretend to be engaged in a conversation with that. It's Jow Jow? What is on your mind, my friend? How can philosophy help you today?
Caller
[1:02:13]Hello. What was your name again?
Stefan
[1:02:17]Stefan.
Caller
[1:02:18]Nice to meet you, Stefan. I wanted to ask you something about you said you cannot love without virtue.
Caller
[1:02:28]But nobody's completely virtuous, I guess. So I don't understand how that's the truth or how that's what you believe.
Stefan
[1:02:40]Okay, let me ask you this. Have you ever had occasion in the healthcare system to have a full-body scan?
Caller
[1:02:49]I haven't, but yes, I'm pretty...
Stefan
[1:02:53]I mean, you're aware. They just do this full-body scan. Now, most people, if you get a full-body scan, they'll say, oh, you've got a cyst here or a little thing here or a little whatever, right? But you're not unhealthy, right?
Caller
[1:03:05]Okay, yeah.
Stefan
[1:03:06]Okay, so is anyone perfectly healthy?
Caller
[1:03:10]No.
Stefan
[1:03:11]Okay, is there a difference between being healthy and being sick?
Caller
[1:03:16]Yes.
Stefan
[1:03:17]Okay, so nobody is perfectly virtuous, but there is a difference between being virtuous and being correct. Can we agree on that?
Caller
[1:03:26]Yes. Objectively correct, yeah.
Stefan
[1:03:28]Well, so that's your answer. So we love virtue, but we don't have the requirement for perfect virtue, because that's kind of impossible. But we have a requirement for reasonable levels of virtue. In the same way, we don't have a requirement for perfect health, whatever that might mean.
Caller
[1:03:44]So you're saying that virtue, sorry to interrupt you, but you're saying that virtue correlates with your capacity to be loved?
Stefan
[1:03:53]No, love is our involuntary response to virtue if we're virtuous. Right? So I value the virtue called honesty, which means I have a positive emotional response to people who tell the truth and a negative emotional response to people who are liars. And that emotional response, I can't will it. I can't will myself to love a liar, and I can't will myself to hate a truth teller. People who tell the truth, I have admiration for, and people who lie, I have contempt for. I mean, in general, right? There's exceptions and emergencies, but, you know, just in general. So love is our involuntary response to virtue if we're virtuous. So if we're virtuous and we see someone who's practicing virtue, we have a positive response to them if we're virtuous. If we are virtuous and we see an evildoer, we have a negative response. An evildoer has a negative response to a virtuous person. And an evildoer will have a somewhat positive response to another evildoer, but it's very unstable, of course, because they'll turn on each other.
Caller
[1:04:52]Is your belief in virtue like Stoic virtue?
Stefan
[1:04:56]No.
Caller
[1:04:57]No? What would you define it as, I guess?
Stefan
[1:05:02]Well, so virtue, I have a whole theory of ethics, so I'll just touch on it briefly here, called Universally Preferable Behavior. You can find this for free at my book section, freedomain.com/books. And generally, whatever values you can practice universally and consistently is good for virtue. So the first virtues are refraining from rape, theft, assault, and murder, right? Violations of persons and property, which unfortunately our society does all the time, everywhere, pretty much consistently. And then the second level of virtues is that once you've achieved not living in a way that you either participate in or advocate for or enact initiations of the use of force would be the secondary virtues, which are more positive, like, you know, honesty, moral courage, integrity, and consistency in the practice of these virtues.
Caller
[1:05:59]I see. So you're not like an extremist on virtue.
Stefan
[1:06:03]I'm not sure what you mean by an extremist?
Caller
[1:06:06]Like, in the sense of giving up all vanity.
Stefan
[1:06:11]I'm not sure what you mean by vanity.
Caller
[1:06:15]Um by vanity i mean things that we take for granted or things that uh we do with our free time that could be better spent
Stefan
[1:06:25]No, i don't think that's vanity vanity
Caller
[1:06:27]no no yeah
Stefan
[1:06:27]vanity is usually the belief that you're in possession of a positive quality that you don't in fact possess,
Caller
[1:06:34]well then i think my definition was skewed
Stefan
[1:06:36]yeah and so i do think that you should be honest with yourself. Like if I said, I'm the greatest singer the world has ever heard, that would be vanity because I'm not far from it, right? If I said, I'm the best basketball player and the greatest cellist at the same time, that would be an example of vanity because I'm not very good at basketball and I don't play the cello. And I certainly couldn't do them at the same time. So vanity is generally when you're in perception, you believe that you have a positive quality that you don't have. Whereas if I say, I'm a very good philosopher, that would not be vanity because that's true.
Caller
[1:07:10]Correct, correct.
Stefan
[1:07:12]So as far as getting rid of all vanity, I mean, I think that we should have an honest assessment of our own strengths and weaknesses for sure. But you know, it's not, if LeBron James says I'm a very good basketball player, then yes, that's true. He's a very good basketball player, no question, right? So yeah, I would certainly be against deceiving yourself and others regarding your qualities
Caller
[1:07:36]I don't think that's the word I was grabbing for, I guess to what degree should you live righteously.
Stefan
[1:07:48]Should you live righteously? Well, I think that you should aim for maximum righteousness in your life. Now, maximum righteousness...
Caller
[1:07:56]No matter the inconvenience?
Stefan
[1:07:57]Hang on, hang on, let me finish answering the question. Maximum righteousness means that given that the world is full of angry, programmed, volatile fools who attack you for telling the truth, you should tell as much truth the society can handle right before it lynches you, and then you should pull back. And then you should let society calm the fuck down, get its orientation, wait for the Overton window to shift, and you should start again.
Stefan
[1:08:28]So it's in the same way if you're fighting a battle, right? You use Sun Tzu. You use the art of war, right? You appear strong where you're weak. You appear weak where you are strong. And you, you know, 90% of war is deception and so on. I'm not saying you'd lie. But what I'm saying is that if you are going to wage a long protracted battle, you don't spend all your troops on the first day. You hold some back. You occasionally will sacrifice some troops. Sometimes you will withdraw, and then you will push back again, and so on. So maximum righteousness has to do with tell the truth until they're about to nail you to a cross, and then pull back. Let them calm down a little. Let their tits cool off a little. And then, but it's man and female, not specifically female, and then, you know, start again, right? And so, yeah, maximum righteousness is not tell the truth and then get,
[1:09:26]
Maximum Righteousness in Truth
Stefan
[1:09:23]you know, get your Socrates-style hemlock drink. Maximum truth is to try to maximize philosophy for as long as possible, which means you have to recognize that you are dealing with a dangerous predator called the programmed mob, and, you don't want to provoke them into sinning against philosophy, so to speak.
Caller
[1:09:43]That was beautiful. Couldn't have said it better.
Stefan
[1:09:46]All right. Well, thank you very much. Take one or two more calls.
Stefan
[1:09:51]Sats. Sorry, I only have my sunglasses on, not my glasses. And my eyes are aging. My two sets, I think it is. I don't think it's sats after all. My two sets. What be on thy noggin?
Caller
[1:10:05]Can you hear me okay?
Stefan
[1:10:06]It's kind of quiet, but we'll survive.
Caller
[1:10:08]Okay. Well, I just wanted to come up and say, you know, before I ask my question, first that I listened to you for many, many years growing up as a teenager.
Caller
[1:10:20]Your philosophy talks on YouTube, your conversations that you had there really helped me in life develop critical thinking and just the courage to think through things in life. And so I wanted to thank you for that.
Caller
[1:10:34]And I've just recently reconnected with your content and was really happy to discover that you have spoken quite a bit about Bitcoin. And so I just wanted to ask you, as a trustless system, can Bitcoin kind of help reconcile the tension between individual self-interest and the collective good in a way that traditional money cannot? Is this kind of more in alignment with, you know, UPB?
Stefan
[1:11:03]Well, tell me what you mean by the collective good, because it's a phrase that everybody uses, myself included, but it's a little hard to nail down in the old definition department. So what do you mean by the collective good?
Caller
[1:11:14]Well, I think what Bitcoin does is it poses this divide between centralized systems, which contend that there is some sort of collective good, which I don't necessarily know.
Stefan
[1:11:29]Sorry, you mean central banking? Central banking claims that there's such a thing as collective good?
Caller
[1:11:32]Yeah, government and society and politics.
Stefan
[1:11:35]No, no, but I still don't know what your definition of collective good is, and I certainly would not agree, and I'm sure you wouldn't agree either, that central banking has anything to do with anything other than the rape and pillage of the general population, in particular the unborn. But tell me what you mean by collective good.
Caller
[1:11:51]Yeah, I agree.
Caller
[1:11:53]A freer society that is more decentralized and free to act in their own.
Stefan
[1:12:02]Well, but sorry, you said collective good versus individual good. And in a free society, the individuals benefit. But you said that the individual benefits are at war with the collective good versus the individual good. And so if you tell me something that's good for the individual, and say you've defined what's good for the collective, I'm a little confused, if that makes sense.
Caller
[1:12:24]Sure, yeah, well, I guess I don't personally, I guess, then necessarily believe there is a, quote, collective good
Stefan
[1:12:31]Do you know what the collective good actually is? It is a made-up piece of arcane bullshit that is designed to get you to surrender your individual rights. The collective good does not speak for itself. The collective good always requires the high priests of culture and politics and the media to speak for it. Ah, the collective good. This is what you must sacrifice your rights to. Now, the collective good doesn't speak for itself, you see, but you have to let me speak on behalf of the collective good. And because I've invoked this magical, mystical piece of collectivist voodoo and bullshit called the collective good, you cannot question me.
Stefan
[1:13:14]Right? So people said, well, it is for the collective good of society that there are these lockdowns and people have to be punished if they don't take the jab and people have to do this and people have to do that. It turns out it was not for the collective good. it was for the profits of particular pharmaceutical companies and for the power mongering of particular politicians. And so there is no such thing as the collective good. It's like saying, what is the heartbeat of the collective heart? What is the lung power of the collective lungs? What is the IQ of the collective brain? Well, there is no collective heart. There is no collective lungs. There is no collective brain. There are only individuals. But sophists throughout history have always tried to create gods and goblins and fantasies and voodoo entities that don't exist and don't speak for themselves so that they can pretend that by invoking these ghosts and goblins and invisible incorporeal collectivist bullshit magnets that you have to obey them. But don't worry, you're not obeying me. You're just obeying the collective good. The collective good always happens to align in general with the interests of corrupt business people and even more corrupt politicians. So there is no such thing as a collective good.
Stefan
[1:14:27]It's just a piece of fiction that people can invoke in a mystery religion so that you have to obey them. Like, do you remember? Obey the science. The science. It's like, well, science doesn't exist. There's no such thing as science as a thing. There are only individual scientists. And so, you know, and that's what Fauci said. If you disagree with me, you're opposing science. I am science. I mean, so when they say obey science, they just mean obey Fauci or whoever, right? So it is a piece of sophistry designed to crush your resistance to extraordinarily talented and loquacious bullshit artists so that they can bully, control, and steal from you.
Caller
[1:15:07]Yeah, fair enough. And absolutely agree. Yeah, bullshit term. I guess a better question or like a better way of putting it than would be is this, is, do you see Bitcoin as being a way to
Caller
[1:15:22]put us in a more individual-centric society where, like, decentralization and freedom reign a little bit more supreme and people think for themselves more? Or is this just a pipe dream?
Stefan
[1:15:38]No, no, I don't think it's a pipe dream. I think Bitcoin is our greatest and best hope for a free society. Because if you can wrestle the control of currency away from governments, you take away from them their biggest illusion of adding value to society. Because governments will tax you $1,000, and then they will borrow $10,000 on that $1,000, and then they will inject $9,000 into the economy, and they will say, look how much value you're getting for your taxes. And it's like, well, it's just debt. Or they'll money print, right? They'll borrow $1,000, and then they'll print $1,000, and then they'll pour that extra $1,000 into the economy and say, well, looky, looky, looky here. Look at all the value we're adding. And then 12 to 18 months later, when the prices of everything doubled, you just run and get mad at the shopkeeper rather than the government's, right? So taking the power of currency control and interest rate control away from governments will have people realize that governments take and they do not create.
Stefan
[1:16:46]And you can't print Bitcoin, so you can't use it to fund wars and predations and control and so on, right? I mean, let's just go back to COVID, right? So let's imagine COVID in a Bitcoin economy, right? Let's just imagine COVID in a Bitcoin economy. Well, so in a Bitcoin economy, in a free society economy, the vaccine mandates, violations of the Nuremberg Code, as far as I can see, could never have happened. In fact, the vaccine would almost certainly have never happened. So without getting into a big sort of history, I'm sure you know this, in 1986, I think it was Reagan who signed into effect a legislation that made the vaccine manufacturers largely immune from liability. And the reason that they did that, or the reason he did that, was the vaccine manufacturers were saying to the government, we can't manufacture these vaccines because we're just getting sued into oblivion. And so the government said, okay, well, you're now immune from liability, but we'll create some compensation fund and so on, right? So then, of course, after that, the vaccine schedule went through the roof. And, you know, whether this has anything to do, I think it's this month that RFK Jr. Is going to be coming out with the long-awaited what's behind the explosion in autism. And if it has anything to do with the vaccines, my God, I can't even imagine what the parents will do, but it would be hard to condemn them for anything.
Stefan
[1:18:16]Society, in a free society, what would happen with something like COVID if we look at Bitcoin as the currency of exchange? Well, you can't print Bitcoin and you can't forcibly transfer Bitcoin and you can't hack Bitcoin and you can't use other people's Bitcoin as leverage to borrow against. So the manufacturers would have to charge people for the cost of the vaccine they were producing. And I would assume that the vaccine would cost, let's just say use sort of current dollars, would cost probably at least $10,000 to $20,000 per shot. It's a rough back of the napkin calculation, right? And so you'd have to go to people and say, okay, there's this illness and we're going to need, you know, two shots, $20,000 to $40,000, maybe a bunch of boosters. So it'll probably be $100,000 to $120,000, and you'll probably have to take various forms of these boosters, and maybe for the rest of your life. So, you know, over the course of your life, you know, easy couple hundred K, easy. And because they would have to be honest, right? Because there would be liability in a free Bitcoin-based society. You can't just make, there's no government to make these manufacturers magically immune from liability. And so they would have to be very upfront with the risks.
Stefan
[1:19:41]And they would also be liable for damages if their shot hurts your health. So people would then say, okay, so I got to pay maybe $250,000 over the course of my life, for, okay, let's look at the real, okay, so it just, maybe it reduces damage from, you know, it doubles protection from 1% to 2%, right? This is the relative versus absolute risk that they kind of fudged in the trials. And you'd need all the trial data, and you'd have to look at the actual data. For the danger of the illness, which I think was much less than was reported because hospitals were getting $20,000 plus for reporting COVID patients and so on. And then you'd say, well, is there anything cheaper that I could possibly use?
Stefan
[1:20:25]And again, I'm no doctor, so I don't know, you know, the usual suspects, hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin, whatever, I don't know, a whole fistful of various supplements that vaguely orange Joe Rogan took when he got hit and so on. And I mean, I got a COVID, it was like a cold and a half. Like it was better than a flu, a little worse than a cold. That's about it. And so would I want to pay a quarter million dollars to avoid that? No, not really. No, thanks. And of course, people would also say, well, if I've already got COVID, I don't need to spend a quarter million dollars because natural immunity in general is better than immunity from a vaccine. If you've already had the illness, you probably have a broader spectrum of resistance from your immune system than you would from this mRNA stuff.
Stefan
[1:21:12]And then, of course, there's no central authority to pay for the vaccine because they can't just print money and borrow money. And there's no central authority to say, well.
Stefan
[1:21:24]Invoke the emergency use authorization, and that requires that there's no other treatments, and that means we have to kind of viciously suppress other treatments because tens of billions of dollars of profits hang in the balance, for which I'm sure the politicians got paid fairly handsomely, and we don't have a media that is promoting all of this stuff. So, because, well, maybe, I shouldn't say, I shouldn't say, let's be fair, because of course the media might still be paid. Some of their ads may be paid for in America by pharmaceutical companies, so they then have an incentive for that. But the pharmaceutical companies would have to release the data, they'd have to be upfront, society would have to be honest about the alternatives, and people would have to be told the real costs, and so on. And then there wouldn't be a central authority to lock everyone down. People would be able to take their own risks and their own thoughts, and people who'd already had COVID and who had broad-spectrum immunity, as far as I understand it, from getting COVID, they wouldn't think about taking the vaccines.
Stefan
[1:22:19]So if you just look at something like that, and the other thing too is that in a truly free society, people who brought illnesses in from other countries would themselves be liable for the resulting damage. So if Bob flies back from some creepy trip to Thailand and brings some horrible virus with him that, you know, infects and hurts 20 people, then Bob would be liable for that. And so the fact that people who flew in with this illness and, you know, Alpha, the first strain of COVID was kind of a bear. It's kind of a beast. I mean, they didn't face any liability issues. And in fact, 97% of cases would have been reduced if they'd simply closed travel from China early on over the Democrats' calls of racism. So yeah, I do think Bitcoin, this is just sort of one sort of case study, but I do think that no human being has the power to type whatever they want. No human being can not be corrupted by the power to type whatever you want into your own bank again.
Stefan
[1:23:16]And Bitcoin takes that away and returns the power to the people and to the actually productive and also returns helping the poor to charity rather than welfare, which is going to infinitely benefit the poor rather than just making them addicted to regardless. A system that's unsustainable and will collapse after a couple of generations, as we're seeing not too far over the horizon. So yeah, I do think that it is now. I mean, I know that there's a bit of a move now to increase the block size so that you can store digital images, which I think would be pretty bad because, you know, just malevolent people are going to inject CP into the blockchain and, oh, we've got to shut down the blockchain because, right, so I think it should just stay on digital currency and bits and burps and ones and zeros, not images or other things like that. But of course, if it turns out that that's bad, people would just revert to an earlier thing or they'll just reduce the block size again. But it could be a dangerous path, if that makes sense.
Caller
[1:24:09]Yeah, absolutely. The opportune debate is definitely a fiery one right now, but I agree with you.
[1:24:19]
Bitcoin and Individual Freedom
Caller
[1:24:15]It's a store of value method of exchange, our medium of exchange. And hopefully it stays that way because it is our best shot at a freer future.
Caller
[1:24:27]Stef, thanks so much for taking the time. It's a real honor to speak with you and a full circle moment for me really means a lot. And thank you for all you've done for my life indirectly with the philosophy that you continue to talk about.
Stefan
[1:24:40]Well, thank you, brother. That is very kind. I very much appreciate that.
Caller
[1:24:43]Thank you. I'll step down now.
Stefan
[1:24:45]All right. I think we got one more caller.
Stefan
[1:24:49]No, no. Sorry. I'm just looking at the list of people. Well, I'll stop here and go back to enjoying this lovely holiday Monday right here. I tell you, I took some friends out for a hike yesterday and got stung by something. I didn't even see what it was, but my hand is like the size of a pomegranate right now. My hand felt just like one balloon. All right. Have yourself a great afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much. I'll see you Wednesday night for Wednesday Night Live. Freedomain.com/donate. If you'd like to help out the show, very much appreciate it. I think I'll do an extra day. I'll post about that. I'll do an extra day where you get whatever you donate at freedomain.com/donate. You'll get both my 12-hour history of the French Revolution and my 23-part history of philosophers series, both of which are fantastic, in my humble opinion. And I just want to thank everyone, of course, for these great conversations. You know, we're coming up on 20 years of me doing this. Great conversations. And the fact that I've been able to write this book means the world to me and have an audience to read it means the world to me. and I just thank you deeply, humbly, and gratefully from the bottom of my heart for all of your support through the years. This includes the people who love me, the people who hate me. It's all productive, and a sword cannot be sharpened in butter. It needs to be sharpened against iron and steel. And I appreciate those who provided resistance. The sparks of thought have been great, and I will see you guys Wednesday night. Lots of love from up here. Bye.
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