Hi Stef, not sure if this is much of an argument but I had something I'd like your thoughts on. Some creative writing on my part combined with some skepticism inspired by one of your characters from the 'The Future', I think you might know who I'm talking about. Feel free to rebut this with some creative writing too if you find it appropriate. 🙂
"Do we mirror reality, and if so which parts of reality?"
"Are animals not a part of reality? And are we not more animal than object? Why then should we look towards objects as a source of direction for how we should live our lives?"
"Contradiction? Bah. Only heaven itself can afford the luxury of consistency. When put inside of a mortal body, I dare say even the sun itself would have days that it would feel like hiding its glorious light."
"To live according to logic and rationality is to try to make ourselves Gods. But we are not. We have the capacity to see a glimpse of godhood, but so long as we need to eat, sleep and reproduce, we will forever remain animals struggling against the hand of death."
"The humble farmer toils on his soil and regardless of how consistent he is in his labours, the locusts will devour that which he has sown."
"So tell me Mr Philosopher; to whom does the farmer partition for his lost crop?"
What is it about human beings that gives them the unique capacity to be sadistic? This question was inspired by my reading of “Survival I’m the killing fields”. Some the things the communists did to people is not something I can comprehend.
Hey, Stef! How do you stop ruminating over people? my family is one to sweep things under the rug a lot and certain members seem to be in a consistent cycle of failure. my mother is an enabler and complains about it but never does anything to stop it. I distance myself from my family and only occasionally visit them because it's usually a very draining experience but I do ruminate over them and I really wish they didn't live in my head. any tips?! Thank you!
0:00 - Introduction
3:41 - Critiquing Deepity
4:51 - Figments of Imagination
10:05 - Nature vs. Nurture
14:41 - Scattershot in Society
18:12 - Enjoying Unhappiness
21:08 - Incomprehensible Choices
25:19 - Understanding Differences
27:36 - Respect Free Will
31:18 - Accepting Choices
33:55 - Embracing Diversity
36:11 - Respect Choices
37:31 - Conclusion
The episode starts with the main speaker discussing a monologue from a character created by someone else, questioning the mirroring of reality and the role of animals in our lives. The main speaker critiques the character's rhetorical questions and delves into the concept of consistency and logic in human behavior. The speaker emphasizes the importance of balance between kindness and harshness in interactions, touching upon evolutionary perspectives on kindness and cruelty in human nature.
Moving on, the conversation shifts towards the choices people make and how individuals often enjoy their unhappiness or make choices that may seem incomprehensible to others. The speaker stresses the significance of respecting people's free will and individual choices, even if they differ from one's own preferences. The speaker provides insights into understanding and accepting the diverse decisions people make in their lives, acknowledging that everyone has the right to pursue the life they want, even if it may not align with societal norms or personal beliefs.
The discussion continues with an exploration of how people find comfort in different lifestyles, even if those choices may be unconventional or challenging to understand. The speaker encourages accepting the variety of preferences and decision-making processes individuals have, emphasizing the need to refrain from imposing one's values or judgments on others. The importance of letting people make their own mistakes, live through their experiences, and respecting the diversity of choices individuals make is highlighted throughout the episode.
In conclusion, the main speaker points out the liberation that comes from accepting and respecting people's autonomy over their lives, even if their decisions may not align with one's own perspectives. By letting go of the need to change or fix others, individuals can reclaim their own autonomy and focus on living their lives authentically. The episode ends with a call to embrace the uniqueness of each person's choices and approaches to life, promoting a sense of understanding and acceptance towards the diverse paths individuals choose to follow.
[0:01] Good morning, everybody. Hope you're doing well. Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain. Questions from freedomain.locals.com. Hope you will join the community. Here we go. Hi, Stef. Not sure if this is much of an argument, but I had something I'd like your thoughts on. Some creative writing on my part, combined with some skepticism inspired by one of your characters from the future. I think you might know who I'm talking about. Feel free to rebut this with some creative writing too, if you find it appropriate. So this is a speech.
[0:30] This is a speech from, a monologue from a character this guy wrote. Do we mirror reality? And if so, which parts of reality? Are animals not a part of reality? And are we not more animal than object? Why then should we look towards objects as a source of direction for how we should live our lives? Contradiction? Only heaven itself can afford the luxury of consistency. Inconsistency, when put inside a mortal body, I dare say even the sun itself would have days that it would feel like hiding its glorious light. To live according to logic and rationality is to try to make ourselves gods. But we are not. We have the capacity to see a glimpse of godhood, but so long as we need to eat, sleep, and reproduce, we will forever remain animals struggling against the hand of death. The humble farmer toils on his soil, and regardless of how consistent he is in his labors, the locusts will devour that which he has sown. So tell me, Mr. Philosopher, to whom does the farmer petition for his lost crop?
[1:42] Okay, so it's some nice writing. I appreciate that. And if I were to critique, I'm critiquing the character, of course, not you or the writing. So do we mirror reality? And if so, which parts of reality? So that's a deepity, right? It sounds deep, but what does it mean? Right? Do we mirror reality? Okay, what do you mean by mirror? And what do you mean by reality? And what do you mean by parts of reality? reality so people make deep sounding syllables and then plow on as if it makes sense right do we mirror reality what does that mean are you talking sense processing are you talking concepts in the mind a mirror is passive whereas consciousness is active so it just sounds like, you know do we mirror reality and if so which part of reality it sounds kind of deep it sounds Sounds vaguely deep, but when you pick it apart, it's skywriting. It just fades away to nothing. It's candy floss. It just isn't food. Tastes pleasant in the moment and rots your teeth. Are animals not a part of reality? Okay, rhetorical question. Of course, animals are a part of reality. Are we not more animal than object? I don't know what object means here. Why then should we look towards objects as a source of direction of how we should live our lives? I don't know what that means. Do you mean graven images? Do you mean sacred cows? What is it that you mean as a whole?
[3:10] Contradiction, bah, only heaven itself can afford the luxury of consistency. When put inside a mortal body, I dare say even the sun itself would have days. It should be where it would feel like hiding its glorious light. So if somebody is saying, right, this is like the Walt Whitman. Oh, I contradict myself. Very well, I contradict myself. So if somebody has said that they have no interest in consistency and that they're fine with contradiction, I don't mind that.
[3:42] You wouldn't hire them as a mathematician. If they say, I don't care if my equations balance, I don't care if they're accurate, I can make up my own numbers and my own mathematical operations, you'd say, oh, well, I mean, I guess that's a weird but okay hobby. I mean, I guess Tolkien's desire to write Elvish gave us Lord of the Rings, so that's cool. But you wouldn't hire that person as a mathematician, right? I make up my own laws in Klingon. It's not the guy you want representing you in a murder rap in court. so, it is, it's fake deep it's just a bunch of syllables this would be a very pretentious person it's a bunch of syllables with somebody who wants to sound wise and what that see and this character would be trapped in the underworld of credulous fools wow yeah maybe we do mirror reality man maybe we mirror part of reality and you go off down that road and nobody's asking for definitions about anything so nothing's getting done And the person sits back in their easy chair, smoking their corncob pipe, a little bit of drool coming out of their mouth saying, yes, I suppose we are exploring the mysteries and depths of the universe. And it's like, eh.
[4:52] Are we but figments of God's imagination as he dreams, or are we not figments of the nightmares of the devil as he weeps? I mean, so just saying all these things, you know, uh, breath in the wind, man, all we are is dust in the wind. You know, they made a great parody of the pseudo philosophy in, um, Bill and Ted's bogus journey or excellent adventure or what it was. So, uh, I, I just view this stuff as it's like wind chimes or music. Music, it's like vaguely pleasant sounds that don't interfere with your thinking and are vaguely positive to be around, but don't add up to anything, right? You ever have? We used to play this game, my friends and I, when we were at these, called this mall music, right? The only music Sting hates. But we would be like, how long is it going to take us to identify the song in the endless gusts of windstrings and vague thudding of a drum for these sort of elevated music and so on, right?
[5:59] What is it about human beings that gives them the unique ability or capacity to be sadistic? Why would you say human beings like them? Like, human beings, oh, well, yeah, you're part, right? This question was inspired by my reading of survival in The Killing Fields. Or, I'm The Killing Fields. I assume this is a Campodian story. Some of the things that communists did to people is not something I can comprehend. Right. So, remember, all human desires exist in a bell curve. There are some people who are pathologically kind to the point where they can't help people because they can't trigger any negative emotions in people, right? So there's, of course, such a thing as being too kind, right? You think of that bell curve, right? So there's too cruel and then there's too kind. Cruel to be kind in the right measure means that I love you, baby. So if you are on the bell curve, right, nature can't aim at the middle when it needs to spread, right? Nature can't aim directly at 5'10", right? It says, here's some height genes. Good luck, right?
[7:03] So there are taller and shorter people, right? So nature cannot aim or evolution cannot aim at a one specific point. It aims at a range and it has to mix things up because there are times in society where you need a lot of kindness and there are times in society where you need some them genuine bluntness. In other words, there's times when you help people avoid a pain and that's good for them. And there's other times where you have to be doing the right thing, even if it emotionally, I'm talking emotionally, even if it emotionally hurts others, you have to tell people the kind of brutal truth like, no, you're not that good a singer. Or, you know, you don't really study acting. I don't think you're ever going to be an actor. Or I've read your poetry and it doesn't move me or you're not a very good piano player or, you know, you keep thinking you want to start this business, but it's been five years and it's not going to happen. Like there are times where you just need to rip the gauze off people's dreams, right? So there are times when you need to get behind people's dreams, obviously, and to get behind people's dreams and encourage them and motivate them and help them out and all that. And then there are times where you need to say to people, this dream is a delusionary fantasy that's choking off your future.
[8:19] There are times when if a guy likes a girl, you'll encourage him to ask her out. And then there are times where you say, dude, it's been six months. Move on. You're not going to ask her out. It's not going to happen. Do it now or stop talking about it. So there are times when you need to be supportive. And then there are times when you need to be harsh.
[8:44] It's the old thing. And women tend to be on the supportive side because women deal with toddlers. Women evolved to deal with babies and toddlers, right? Just remember, from sort of the mid-teens onwards, throughout most of human evolution, women would be having and raising babies, right? They'd have a whole series of babies of their own. And then by the time their babies were grown or their babies were out of toddlerhood and early childhood, the oldest would start to have babies of their own, and then they would be involved as grandmothers. So you just understand that for women evolved for most of their lives to take care of a conveyor belt of helpless and dependent infants and toddlers. It didn't end, and I assume that they evolved to like it as well. And so ripping that out of women's lives, as we have done over the last 60 years or so, 70 years, ripping that out of women's lives is saying that women can be entirely suited for something they never evolved to do. Now, I'm a big fan of women's equality, do what you want, have a career, but just we need to understand at an emotional level what we've done as a giant social experiment is we have said we are going to take women out of the role that for hundreds of millions of years they have evolved to do and put them in an entirely unfamiliar role.
[10:06] And we are then shocked when it doesn't seem to go quite as well as we hoped because we have this, it's a leftist fantasy that a human, there is no such thing as human nature. It's all the environment. It's all based upon the means of production relationship to the means of production, right? So, so the worker is only the worker because he's not the boss. And if you take the worker and make him the boss, he'll be a fantastic boss, right? I mean, this is all the way back to the movie trading places, right? Which is a very sort of philosophical movie that came out, I think in the eighties with, um, Oh, gosh. Well, Eddie Murphy, of course, and Dan Aykroyd and Jamie Lee Curtis and so on. And so Eddie Murphy plays this guy who's a homeless cheating scam artist.
[10:52] And then the bet is, well, if he switches places, right, and switches places with the rich financier, he'll then become a fantastic rich financier and the rich financier will end up homeless and so on. Right. So this is an argument that says, and it's a very, very leftist argument. The only thing that matters is the environment. So if you take the scamming homeless guy and you put him in the corner office, he will be a fantastic executive and stock trader. And if you take the fantastic executive stock trader and you put him out on the streets, he will become homeless and pathetic very quickly. So everything is environmental. Everything is circumstantial. There is no such thing as human nature. That we are just like water, and you pour us into whatever container you want, and that's who we'll become. So it is not a meritocracy. It's an accidentocracy. It's just, hey, the way things shook out, I happen to be born to a rich family. You happen to be born to a poor family or vice versa, and that's just the way things are. And if you flip things around, and it is a fantasy. It is a fantasy. It is a fantasy. And it drives resentment, right? It drives massive amounts of resentment in the world, right? Drives massive amount of resentment in the world.
[12:12] So, understanding that nature aims at a bell curve, right? We see it everywhere. We see it in height. We see it in athletic ability. We see it in musical ability. We see it in intelligence. We see it in singing ability. We see it in entrepreneurial ability, right? There's a bell curve and there's the Pareto principle and so on. So, all of these things are part of nature and nature aims at a scattershot. So nature requires that sometimes we are very kind and sometimes we are quite harsh.
[12:44] And again, I'm not talking about physical violence, right? I'm just talking about sometimes we are kind and sometimes we are quite harsh. And if you look at the harshness tends to be on the male side, the kindness, the excessive kindness tends to be on the female side because excessive kindness is a kind of cruelty, right? So if somebody is really overweight and you say, no, you look fabulous, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you're taking 10 plus years off their life and you're giving them a life of pain and loneliness and discontent. And it's not kind of, so in the moment they feel better, right? In the moment they feel better.
[13:17] But you know, if you have a tumor and it gets biopsied and the doctor says, oh, it's just benign, we'll take it out. You'll be fine. You don't need any chemo or radiation, right? You feel good in the moment. But if the doctor's lying and the later you find out that uh it is not it is cancerous well then you're in serious danger right so uh wanting to people to feel fine in the moment is great when you're dealing with babies and toddlers you want to do that babies and toddlers certainly babies can't defer gratification and they shouldn't right because they're very dependent upon external sources of uh food and and liquids and so on right so babies and and really toddlers can't defer gratification it's kind of unfair to ask them to so uh you you make people comfortable in the moment when you're dealing with babies and toddlers one of the greatest philosophical uh and it's a really unique really unique philosophical understanding that i got from being a stay-at-home dad and seeing this whole progression right so uh and of course if you think throughout human history uh and we go sort of go back to the violent times uh you had various tribes and if you did not have people with the capacity for extraordinary levels of cruelty, you could not survive. Right? You could not survive. And so you would be taken over, you would be run down, you know, it's the Athens versus Sparta thing, right? Or Carthage versus Rome.
[14:42] So if you look at the fact that there is this scattershot in society of kindness to cruelty where having a little capacity to be blunt with people and maybe cause them a bit of emotional pain can be very good and very healthy, having too much of that cruelty or that harshness or that bluntness is sadistic. It's good to be nice and consider other people's feelings and thoughts, but at the same time, if you abandon principles because you can't stand making people upset in any conceivable way, that's pathological altruism. And so you need that balance. So we're going to get this scattershot. As long as we are human beings, this bell curve, there's going to be a scattershot. And of course, most people are in the middle, but there's going to be extremes. And what do you do with these extremes?
[15:25] What do you do with these extremes? Well, if you have people who are kind of cold and cruel, you make them surgeons or you make them soldiers or, you know, I mean, not you make them, but that's where they will gravitate towards. And you're trying to find a way. You make them people who come into companies and cut the fat, right? If you've got like when they hire 80%, uh, they fired 80% of the Twitter stuff and Twitter is functioning even better than ever, but you need a certain amount of coldness, right? You can't sit there and say, Oh, but these people have signed leases and they, they have children. And like, you have to just be kind of harsh and to, to be efficient. So you have people who are going to be able to do that. And so that Some of the cruelty you try to, or the coldness you try to channel into economically, socially, and medically productive things, right?
[16:16] And some of the excessive kindness, well, you know, you would put these people more in charge of babies and infants and maybe people who've got mental challenges and so on. And so the people to whom that gentleness and kindness and what would be an excess in the general population and excess in the marketplace, you can find places where those can be of value. But if you then give the cruel power, it moves them closer to the extremes because power dehumanizes, right? So power is exercising a violent, coercive control over others, and it's a step-by-step thing. How do they get people in concentration camps to participate in torture? I wrote a poem about this many years ago. What they do is they just assign them to the concentration camp, and then they assign them down the hall where they can vaguely hear the screams, and then they move them a little closer, and then they have them even closer. So they have them guard outside the door and then they have to have them bring in some food and then they have them bring in some implements and then they have them pass the implements and eventually they just are torturing some person they don't even know by incrementalism how that came about and how that happened. They didn't make a choice at any particular moment, that kind of incrementalism. It's called grooming, of course, in some contexts.
[17:25] So it's progressively dehumanizing and then the restraining bolts, in a sense, are taken off the sadism. So, all right. Right. Hey, Stef, how do you stop ruminating over people? My family is one to sweep things under the rug a lot, and certain members seem to be in a consistent cycle of failure. My mother is an enabler and complains about it, but never does anything to stop it. I distance myself from my family and only occasionally visit them because it's usually a very draining experience, but I do ruminate over them, and I really wish they didn't live in my head any tips. Well, I mean, the answer is in the question. These people... See, here's the thing right the big secret ready for a big secret in life okay it's a big secret in there, a lot of people enjoy their unhappiness.
[18:13] You know there is such a thing as masochism right which is where you take pleasure in negative experiences a lot of people enjoy their unhappiness and who am i to interfere with people's happiness i don't think it's a very healthy way to live i don't think it's a very productive way to live. It's not a way that I would want to live. But just empirically, a lot of people, maybe it's a little bit more women than men, but a lot of people love to complain and love that satisfaction of being wronged, loved that self-righteousness and moral superiority and all of these great things they get out of being wronged. Oh, it's so delicious. I'm in the presence of people who are wronging me and I'm a victim and there's this this bittersweet taste of being victimized and being self-righteous, and I can't believe it happened again, and there's this sick familiarity. Like, a lot of people...
[19:05] Love their unhappiness. It's not a big thing for me, obviously, but I'm willing to take unhappiness in the pursuit of truth, but I don't love the unhappiness. So your mother's an enabler and complains about it. Well, it's called secondary gains, which is whatever people do, they want to do. This is the other big secret in life that's just going to liberate you from a whole bunch of things. Whatever people do is what they want to do, assuming they're not directly You're actually being coerced, right? So whatever people do, if your mother is an enabler and complains about it, then she wants to be an enabler and wants to complain about it. That's what she wants. Now, it may be incomprehensible to you. It may not be the life that you want to live. It would be horrible for you and so on, but people are different, right? People are people, so why should it be? You and I should get along so awfully, right? She likes it. That's what she prefers. first. My mother prefers to indulge in aggression and paranoia rather than accept the truth and be close to people.
[20:12] Now, just because other people are incomprehensible to you does not mean that they're incomprehensible. So emotionally you'd be like, well, that can't be true. Why would anyone choose that? Why would, right? But they do. I mean, there are lots of incomprehensible choices This is to me. Some people choose to pay $1,500 to go see Taylor Swift. I'd pay $1,500 to not see Taylor Swift, to listen to the cries of her dying dino eggs. Right, but some things are incomprehensible to me. Some people go to Burning Man. I don't understand. Some people just make terrible decisions.
[20:50] They make bad decisions, decisions that I would never make in a million years. I'm not even going to say whether I respect or don't respect their decisions, but I accept. I accept that they make their decisions. Some people choose to drink a lot rather than get help. Some people choose a lot of gambling.
[21:09] Some people choose like a whole number of things, a whole bunch of things that people choose that I would never choose. And so recognizing that people are very different from you. I'm sorry, I know this sounds kind of schoolmarmie, right? But recognizing that people are very different from you is really the essence of growing up. It is a child's perspective to say, well, I'm right and everybody else is wrong if they do things different from me. Some people choose to not exercise. In fact, the majority of people don't have any particularly consistent exercise regime, right? So some people choose to not exercise. I choose to exercise. I really enjoy the, I don't particularly enjoy exercise itself. self. It's just, you know, right. It's like being a lever, being a forklift, but I enjoy the effects of exercise, which is, you know, good health, a good sleep, a strong body and, uh, and relatively youthful life and so on. Right. So I prefer the benefits. Other people prefer the lassitude. Some people, uh, gain weight. Why are they, why are they overweight? Well, that's what they prefer. Oh, but they can't prefer that. It's like, but they do. Everybody knows what you need to do to lose weight, everybody.
[22:16] And they choose to eat more, they choose not to exercise, and they choose to eat more. So they choose that, they prefer that. Somebody who decides to stay in his parents' basement playing video games until he's 30 and complains about it, it's like, but that's what he prefers to do. And we know this empirically, because we have free will, therefore, whatever Whatever people are doing is what they prefer to do. And again, it might be incomprehensible. How could they possibly? It doesn't matter. That's a kind of narcissism to say, it is incomprehensible to me that other people choose differently from me. Right? That's very, very immature. And maybe you're a young person. Some people choose to get married and put down their spouse.
[23:07] Incomprehensible to me. But they do it and they prefer to do it. They want to feel right. They want to be self-righteous. I mean, people make bad choices all the time. And you're making a bad choice by thinking other people have to be like you. So you wouldn't be an enabler and complain about it. I think that's great. I think that's a better way to be. Don't complain about things. Change them, right? So you choose to not be an enabler and you choose to not complain about things that are negative for you. I assume you either don't complain about them or you work to change them. I think that's great. right, good for you. That's not the decision of the majority of people. That's not the decision. I didn't take the vaccine. Most people did. I find that kind of incomprehensible.
[23:52] Oh, well, but, you know, they had to keep their jobs. It's like, well, I had a pretty good job until I was deplatformed, and I choose the truth over that. So I got fired just for telling the truth, let alone putting a fairly untested vial of mystery juice into my veins. So people do things that are incomprehensible to me. People are mean to their children. I mean, it's wrong. It's absolutely wrong, but they do it. The majority of people hit their children. The majority of people yell at their children. The majority of people are aggressive and in many ways abusive towards their children. Incomprehensible to me, that's what they do. The majority of people, when confronted with wrong behavior on their part, will deny, will gaslight, will manipulate, will counterattack. Like it's income, like just the debate that happened. It's a week ago, right? A week ago, I just did a flash live stream on Telegram and had this really aggressive guy come in and really have a go at me. To me, that's incomprehensible behavior to just interrupt someone's speech and just start attacking them and then not admit any fault and manipulate and gaslight and avoid. That's incomprehensible behavior to me. But just because it's incomprehensible to me doesn't mean that I don't accept that it is obviously acted out in the world and a lot of people do it. Right?
[25:19] Apparently there are people in the world who really like Chinese opera. Not my cup of tea, but I'm sure the music I like would be unpleasant to Chinese people or whatever, right? So yeah, there are people who literally eat dim sum. There are people who go to Chinese restaurants and order sea slug and snake soup, right? And look, no diss. I guess they grew up with it. I guess they like it. And I'm sure hot dogs, well, I know hot dogs are objectively vile no matter what. Unless it's practice for women who travel. So... People do a lot of incomprehensible things in the world, but the one thing that is always the case and is always true is that whatever people are doing, they choose to do. Again, with the exception that if they're being directly coerced. So whatever people do, they prefer to do. If people believe false things, it's because they prefer to believe false things. If people don't seek out counter-arguments to their perspective, it's because they prefer to be bigoted and biased and tribal. Okay, so you prefer to not get the truth. Okay, well, I mean, I find that incomprehensible. I really like it and counter evidence to my position, but that's what people do. And that's just a fact. So you think because it's unbearable for you, it must be unbearable for other people. Because if you were doing that, it would be unbearable for you, right?
[26:42] And so you think that other people are going through the torture that you're going through if you were in their position. Look, there's great comfort in living in your parents' basement, playing video games, and living off mom and daddy's financial titties, right? There's great comfort in that. You don't have to risk stuff. You don't have to go out there and wrestle in the world. You get a kind of comfort. I mean, it's great fun. I assume it's great fun to eat what you want, enjoy the food, and gain weight. I mean, that's really nice. That's really nice to not have this constant that leash on your appetite, right? It's pretty nice to not exercise, right? It's pretty nice.
[27:25] So just because it wouldn't be the life that I would want, and in fact, it would be a life that I would find unbearable, well, guess what? People who do those things would find my life unbearable. So what?
[27:37] That's just the, again, that's the bell curve of variety. So it is a form of selfishness to imagine that just because your mother's life would be unbearable to you, that it is unbearable to her. You know, there are people who literally study mime for years and they go out on the streets and they try to make money as a mime. That would be about as depressing and unbearable a life as I could possibly imagine.
[28:02] I have no problem that they do it. It's what they prefer to do. It's what they like to do. So recognize that people are different. That which would be unbearable to you, maybe sweet joy to someone else. So for you being an enabler and complaining about it would be unbearable and you'd do anything to change that. Okay, great. That's you. Your mother has chosen to enjoy that life. And that's what she wants to do because that's what she's doing. And prying away this mold that you have that other people have to be like you and other people have to make your decisions is really liberating.
[28:32] Really liberating. If people want to vote in DAs or whatever who let violent criminals out on the street, I mean, that's not my particular choice. It's not my particular recommendation, but that's what they want to do. So I'm not going to live near those people. And if they then want to complain about the crime, well, they like making terrible decisions and complaining about them. I don't like doing that, but they do. So they can have their worlds. I'm not going to listen to their complaints because their complaints are what they like. They're complaining about what they choose. They're complaining about what they prefer. I would no more listen to someone complain about the results of those choices than I would listen to someone who had a year to figure out what kind of car they want to buy. They went and test drove a whole bunch of cars, and they finally settle on the car. They get it for a great price. They drive it home, and then they spend the next 10 years complaining about their car. That makes no sense to me. Nobody made you get a car. Nobody made you get that car. You decided to get a car. You decided to get that car. Nobody forced you to. So why would I care if you complain? So if people complain about the people in their lives, I don't care to listen. People complain about their spouses. I mean, honestly, I haven't had anyone in my life who complains about people in their lives for probably 20 years. Why?
[29:46] Because they are enjoying the complaining, so it's not a problem to be fixed. You understand? They are enjoying the complaining. They enjoy complaining. They enjoy the complaints. And therefore it's not a problem to be fixed because you don't try and fix something that gives people some kind of positive experience, some kind of happiness, some, to me, it's a kind of sick joy, but you know, that's another value judgment. They like having dysfunctional people in their lives that they complain about. They like that. They want that. It's not a problem to be fixed. Now, if it was you, you'd find that unbearable and you want to fix it, but it's them. And that's what they prefer and let them have what they prefer. Like, don't be this, you know, like the typical cliche of the sports dad, right? The sports dad who, you know, he's sporty, but his kid is artsy and pencil-necked and wants to program computers and write haikus. And so the sports dad is like, what the hell's wrong with this kid? He's not a son of mine. Or it could be the other way, right? The artsy dad has the jock kid or whatever and calls him stupid and a dumb animal and all of that sort of stuff. It's like, no, they're just different. They're just different. Let them be different. Let them be different. Let them have their life. Let them have their life. Let them have their choices. Maybe they're bad choices. Maybe they're not choices that you would ever make, but that's their choice. Respect people's free will.
[31:00] Respect. If your mother takes pleasure in complaining about dysfunctional people in her life and propping them up and supporting them, and that's what she wants in life and that's what she likes, accept that. That's how you stop ruminating on people is you stop trying to turn them into you. You'd find that unbearable, so that's why you don't do it. I'd find that unbearable. That's why I don't do it, but they like it.
[31:19] My mother likes the life that she has. My father liked the life that he had. Otherwise, he would have done something different. How do you know what people like? How do you know what people want? How do you know what people are choosing? You look at what they do. That's what they want.
[31:33] That's what they want. They take pleasure in that which you would find unbearable, and they would find unbearable that in which you take pleasure. I like being confronted. I like ferocious debates. I like the rough and tumble and hurly-burly of intellectual conversations with the world. I like that. I like being punchy. I like being punched at metaphorically. So that's my life. Now, other people would find that unbearable. Okay, then they shouldn't do it. But the life that I have is the life that I want. How do you know that? Because it's the life that I'm living and nobody's forcing me. And you weren't forced to take the jab most places. Oh, but there were negative consequences. Yeah, so? So? So people make choices I don't agree with all the time. I am not going to pretend that I am some mysterious perfect template for humanity as a whole. It takes all kinds. It takes all kinds of people. And.
[32:35] If your mother is living in a way that you would find unbearable, what you do is you project yourself into your mother's position and say, well, that's unbearable. That's a horrible problem. That absolutely needs to be fixed and changed. Well, no, it doesn't because that's the life your mother wants. That's the life she's chosen. And that's what she prefers. That's what makes her the happiest that she can imagine. So why would you interfere with that? Well, because it would make me. Come on. This is one of the reasons that Marxism exists, is that the intellectuals look at the guy who's got a fairly dumb job on a factory line and says, that job would be unbearable for me. Therefore, the worker must be miserable because I would be miserable in that position. It's like, but the worker is not miserable.
[33:13] I mean, I've worked with the workers. I've been a worker. They have a pretty good life, right? They don't have the same stresses as the boss. They get to go home at five o'clock. They've maybe got a union to protect them. They get benefits. They don't have to take work home with them. Nobody calls them on the weekend. They have a very strict work-life balance. A lot of benefits to it. A lot of benefits to it. And they don't have to do office politics. They don't have to negotiate a power place at senior management or on the board. So they have a pretty good life. Now, it's not the life that I would choose. I did that work. That's totally fine. There's nothing wrong with it. It's great that people do that. It's not the life that I want, but I'm not thinking that just because it's not the life that I want, that it's a massive problem that needs to be solved.
[33:55] So just look at the people around you I'm begging you look at the people around you and say if they're adults if they're adults if they're children that's a different matter but as adults, all the people around you have exactly the life that they want assuming they're not unjustly imprisoned or something like that right so everyone around you in the realm of free choice and we have that free choice in relationships we have that free choice in what we get educated in we have that free choice in where we choose to work we have that free choice in our friends and our spouses and everything right, that is meaningful in life. I mean, the fact that the government takes money, I give them money, whatever, right? But in the things that are meaningful, in your occupation, your education, your integrity, your virtue, your relationships, your marriage, your children, with your children, you have absolute free will.
[34:40] Nobody's forcing you to spend time with people. Nobody's forcing you to get or stay married. Nobody's forcing any of that stuff on you. Whatever people have is what they want. It is not a problem to be solved. Now, maybe their life is unbearable to you. You can't look at it and you don't want to be around it because you don't like people complaining because they're lying, right? People are complaining when they're actually enjoying it. It's just a kind of falsehood. I don't like to have people in my life who bear false witness. So maybe you don't want that in your life, but it's not a problem to be solved for them just because you'd find it horrible. Doesn't mean that it's a problem to be solved. Let people have their lives, respect their choices. It's so easy. It's so great. And so what happens is the reason you keep ruminating people is because you keep thinking there's a problem to be solved. And the only problem to be solved involved is your kind of half narcissism and bigotry, which we all have. And I'm not putting myself out of this continuum or anything like that to look at people and say, I would hate that life. I mean, some people are pharmacists for heaven's sakes, right? So I would like, and I'm glad that there are pharmacists. I would hate that job, but I'm glad there are people who do it. I respect the fact that they do it. I'm happy that they do it, but I would find that life unbearable. But because I would find that life unbearable doesn't mean I have to go to every pharmacist I've ever met and say, you should be a podcaster and talk shirtless in the woods, right? You should be no, because they want to be pharmacists and that's what they like. And it's not a problem. And I want to do this and that's what I like. And it's not a problem. So stop trying to solve.
[36:04] The results of people's free will. Now, I mean, you can give them a little bit of advice here and there, but if they're committed to it, they're committed to it. It's not a problem for you to solve.
[36:11] That's the life they want. That's the life they prefer. Respect their choices. Doesn't mean you have to spend a second more in your life with them, but you have to, you don't respect the content of your choice, of their choices, but you do respect that they've chosen it and they keep choosing it and that's what they want. You accept that people are really different. They choose things that are incomprehensible and unbearable to you and maybe even wrong, still that's what they choose. That's what they want. You can give them some good advice. If they don't want to listen, then they're choosing the life that they have. They want the life that they have. There's nothing to fix, nothing to fix, except your obsession with trying to change people all over the world to be just like you. That's narcissistic in its own way. And I'm not calling you a narcissist. I'm just saying that that is kind of narcissistic in its own way. Let people make mistakes. Let people fail. Let people fall. Let people live miserable lives because they're getting secondary gains and being happy with their misery. and it fulfills some martyr complex or whatever. It doesn't matter. Let people choose what they want. And it's not people's free choice, as long as it's not fraud or force or whatever, right?
[37:15] People's free choice is not your concern. It's not a problem to be fixed. Let people have the lives that they want. Maybe it's a bad life. Maybe they serve as an example to others, but it's the life they prefer. It's the life they choose. It's the life they want. Let them have it. And by letting other people have their own lives and their own bad choices, you get your own life back.
[37:31] Because you're not constantly trying to solve things that people want. You're not trying to constantly fix things that people deep down know is working just fine for them. So I would take that approach. Thank you. Freedomain.com slash donate. Thank you so much. I will talk to you soon. Bye.
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