What sparked the idea behind your recent poll and proposal video to reconsider paid private calls?
What are your thoughts on the result of the poll and subsequent comments?
Stef I am currently seeing a woman, I would not say she is my girlfriend I just have chatted with her a few times and she gave me her phone number. Anyway I saw her Instagram page by random accident, maybe not completely random as the algorithm probably recognised that my phone number is on her contacts list. Anyway, I saw her Instagram page and I decided to take a look, it has several pro Aboriginal posts. This woman does not know the truth about indigenous Australian history and if she did would she still put these posts praising Aborginal culture on her Instagram? My question is Stef how do I break the news that Indigenous Australian ‘history’ as presented in Australian schools, universities and the Australian media is a lie. I want to show her your presentation on Indigenous Australia History. As Schopenhauer wrote ‘making women angry is not a good idea if you want to reproduce’. Dating today is hard and younger generations are having less sex than ever but on the other hand a commitment to truth telling is one of the most important virtues. How do I go about telling her this truth or should I just accept the fact that she is female and she can continue living on with this delusion as most females don’t have to deal with objective reality to survive. I too was constantly presented with the false history of indigenous Australian History and Culture during school and college but I accepted the reality of the true history when I saw your presentation. As she is female I don’t see any likely outcome other than her becoming hostile to the truth and resultantly seeing me as an enemy. Stef as you have stated women don’t like to hear the truth and women are particularly susceptible to government propaganda, which leaves me in a tough situation because if this is really how women in general think then how can I balance the line between exposing her to the truth about her leftist delusions whilst also doing it in a way where she doesn’t get mad and leave me? Unfortunately Stef this leftist type of ‘virtue’ signalling is on virtually every woman’s social media so I don’t think I have the luxury of just leaving and miraculously finding the super rare women who isn’t into this woke nonsense. To clarify this woman is not Aboriginal, she claims to be from some Aboriginal tribe but she is as pale as a British woman, it’s possible she may identify as an Aboriginal in the same way Elizabeth Warren identifies as Native American. She may believe being aboriginal gives her special status or she may have 1-2% indigenous blood and identify as indigenous despite the vast majority off her blood being European. White looking Australians identifying as Aboriginal is quite common over here. This may complicate things further if I decide to break the news to her & show her your presentation about ‘The Truth about Indigenous History’. To give you more information this woman was actually a good conversationalist on the few times I chatted with her and did not treat me in the vapid narcisstic manner many women display towards men these days. So I think there is enough good qualities present in this woman that all is needed is the right approach to educate her about the truth of Aboriginal Australian Culture & History. Stef have you ever educated a woman to make the truth more accessible to her in a less confrontational manner and how do you recommend I go about doing it? Would it be deceptive of me to ignore these differences until a later date in a relationship. To clarify she is 26 so not super late stages in the egg count, but yeah I shouldn’t be wasting more than 1 year of this woman’s life before bringing this up. What do you think would be the best way to tell a woman that her woke programming is all a big lie and that she should stop identifying as Aboriginal as she is almost certainly at least 95% British. Why would she ignore at least 95% of her ancestry to identify with this culture, why would she do it, why do so many women seek some sort of special status by claiming to be Aboriginal or Native American when they are not or it is only a tiny fragment of their ancestry at most?
You've constantly asked for feedback on your books, and I think I have something valuable to mention regarding your fictional work. I've noticed this right from the start but it took me years to get my head around it and come up with something that hopefully makes sense.
Your dumb, low-IQ, or shallow characters do not feel genuine. The example that I have in mind is the guy in the Just Poor novel who gets his head smacked by his partner when trying to sell the stuff they produced at their "co-op" farm. His actions and overall behavior are in line with how a real-life dumb person might behave, but his inner dialogue and the way he expresses his ideas often seem way more complex than they should be.
I was born and live in a country in Eastern Europe with an average IQ of 86 and I've met a large number of low-IQ people throughout my lifetime. They have significant difficulties in articulating their ideas and they have a limited vocabulary so the way they speak is inferior to how the Just Poor guy I mentioned speaks and thinks.
This next example hopefully clarifies my case even further. I got a similar sense with Arlo in The Present. He acted and behaved just like a shallow, self-absorbed individual but his inner dialogue and some of his speeches showed a lot of depth and meaning.
I initially thought that it might be difficult for a brilliant, high-IQ, and profound writer to create characters that are somehow the opposite of himself. On the other hand, you do seem very able to create evil characters.
Another explanation is that it is easy for you to create smart, passionate, productive, funny, engaging, gross, evil, and violent people in your stories because you've had close contact with such traits throughout your lifetime, but you've had very limited contact with dumb or shallow people. What do you think? Am I misinterpreting your characters or are there any challenges when writing the type of people I mentioned?
HI Stef. Have you ever made a list of must read books? like maybe your top 10, or even 100? Thank you.
hi Stef! I am about 5 months into a serious relationship with a woman who I'd one day like to marry. I often have, or at least try to have, very in-depth conversations with her about our past, about emotions, etc, but I notice she gets sort of vague and foggy and I feel she isnt truly opening up with me.
When I press her on this, I get responses such as she is afraid of being vulnerable, afraid of rejection, afraid of change, stuff like this. I feel like when I try to dig deeper, I inevitably hit a wall. And while I do my best to be totally open and honest with her, I struggle with getting her to be as open and honest with me.
What can a man do in a situation like this in order to convince a girl to open up about herself more? Is it a matter of patience, or should I keep pressing it?
Some background that could help: She was raised in what appears to be a nice family with 6 siblings. She's kind and considerate with others. But she seems to have an aversion to being up-front and moving forward in life, and she's always been somewhat socially recluse; she doesnt have many friends, and isnt very close to anyone outside of her family.
I would greatly appreciate your help on this. Thank you, Stef!
0:00 - Introduction
5:17 - Reconsidering Paid Private Calls
16:06 - Addressing Indigenous Australian History
22:17 - Depth of Characters in Fiction
28:33 - Characters' Inner Complexity
31:03 - Must-Read Book Recommendations
32:58 - Encouraging Emotional Openness
38:01 - Respecting Differences in Relationships
In this episode, we delved into various listener questions and topics. One listener inquired about the idea behind reconsidering paid private calls and the dynamics of increasing headcount and demand for private calls amidst a growing amount of content production. Another listener sought advice on educating a woman about the truth regarding Indigenous Australian history, considering potential reactions and approaches to discussing such sensitive topics. The conversation shifted towards exploring societal norms and gender perceptions, highlighting differences in male and female perspectives and societal constructs that influence behavior.
Further discussions centered around creating empathetic relationships and respecting differences in individuals, emphasizing the importance of understanding and accepting diverse interests and personalities within relationships. The episode also touched on the challenge of fostering open communication in a relationship where one partner may have reservations about vulnerability and openness due to various personal reasons.
Overall, the episode provided insights on communication dynamics, social constructs, empathy, and relationship dynamics, offering a multifaceted exploration of human behavior and interactions.
[0:00] Good afternoon, everybody. Hope you're doing well. Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain. And questions from freedomain.locals.com. Great community. Come and join us also. Donate this month, May 2024, and you get access to the fully loaded, peaceful parenting, artificial intelligence servant. Really, really good stuff. You can work with 60 plus languages in it, and it's lovely. All right. What sparked the idea behind your recent poll and proposed video to reconsider paid private calls. What are your thoughts on the results of the poll and subsequent comments? Yes, so you can email me, callin at freedomain.com, callin at freedomain.com, and we can do a private call. So, I mean, there are a couple of reasons for that, and it's a perfectly fair question. I appreciate the question. It's a bad economy. We have increased headcount, and there is increased demand for private calls. And also I'm producing so much material as a whole that I was concerned in the past that private calls would take away from the material I'm producing.
[1:06] But that's not really the case. We're producing more, really, than people can absorb, so some private calls will be helpful in every metric. And if the only way that people can get access to philosophy is through their private calls and it doesn't interfere with general production and helps with income, I think it's a good thing overall. All right. New question. Other question. Steph, I am currently seeing a woman. I would not say she's my girlfriend, and I've chatted with her a few times, and she gave me her phone number. Anyway, I saw her Instagram page by random accident, maybe not completely random, as the algorithm probably recognized that my phone number is on her contacts list. Anyway, I saw her Instagram page, and I decided to take a look. It has several pro-Aboriginal posts. This woman does not know the truth about Indigenous Australian history, and if she did, would she still be putting these posts praising Aboriginal culture on her Instagram?
[1:58] My question is, Steph, how do I break the news that Indigenous Australian, quote, history as presented in Australian schools, universities, and the Australian media is a lie? I want to show her your presentation on Indigenous Australian history. As Schopenhauer wrote, making a woman angry is not a good idea if you want to reproduce. Dating today is hard, and younger generations are having less sex than ever, but on the other hand, a commitment to truth-telling is one of the most important virtues. How do I go about telling her this truth, or should I just accept the fact that she is female and she continued living on with this delusion as most females don't have to deal with objective reality to survive. I too was constantly presented with the false history of indigenous Australian history and culture during school and college, but I accepted the reality of the true history when I saw your presentation.
[2:42] As she is female, I don't see any likely outcome other than her becoming hostile to the truth and resultantly seeing me as an enemy. Steph, as you have stated, women don't like to hear the truth. Oh, come on. No, no, no. Oh, God, the people think that people think that I've said. All right. Anyway, Steph, as you have stated, women don't like to hear the truth, and women are particularly susceptible to government propaganda, which leaves me in a tough situation, because if this is really how women in general think, then how can I balance the line between exposing her to the truth about her leftist delusions, whilst also doing it in a way where she doesn't get mad and leave me? me. Unfortunately, Steph, this leftist type of virtue signaling is on virtually every woman's social media, so I don't think I have the luxury of just leaving and miraculously finding the super rare woman who isn't into this work nonsense. To clarify, this woman is not Aboriginal. She claims to be from some Aboriginal tribe, but she is pale as a British woman. It's possible she may identify as an Aboriginal, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. She may believe being Aboriginal gives a special status, so she may have one to two percent Indigenous blood or identify, blah, blah, blah.
[3:42] Okay, this may complicate things further. Truth about the indigenous history. To give you more information, this woman was actually a good conversationalist on the few times I chatted with her and did not treat me in the vapid, narcissistic manner many women display towards men these days. So I think there is enough good qualities present in this woman that all is needed is the right approach to educate her about the truth of Australian, sorry, truth of Aboriginal Australian culture and history.
[4:05] Steph, have you ever educated a woman to make the truth more accessible to her? She's 26. Best way to wake her up and all of that. Okay. So it's an interesting question. I appreciate the question. Sorry to skip some of it, but it's a long enough email that it makes my presentations look concise. So not a long enough question. so there's a couple of ways to approach it and she has a thought or an idea about aboriginal history so just everyone knows it's generally it's a it's a demoralizing psyop to tell you know europeans who settled places oh that the indigenous population was holy and beautiful and wonderful and wise and smart and in tune with nature and recognize rights and could levitate and and and was beautiful and wonderful to their children and you know it's It's just a way of instilling guilt, right? It's a way of instilling guilt and a feeling of illegitimacy so that you can be pushed around more, right? If you can make a person guilty or shameful or whatever, then they're easy to push around, right? So it's not, and I did a whole series of speeches about this, which I was obviously attacked for, threatened, death threats, bomb threats, blah, blah, blah, the usual.
[5:17] But nobody, I was very careful to use official academic and scholarly sources. So nobody, you know, the people create a lot of sound and fury because they can't disprove your arguments.
[5:30] So yes, it was an incredibly violent and destructive culture and murdered significant percentages of their babies by pouring sand into their mouths, used rape as a weapon of war, tortured and mutilated their children. I mean, the usual stuff that happens when society is stuck in a pre-Stone Age situation.
[5:49] But with regards to this woman, you need to be kind. I mean, you don't need to be, but you probably want to be kind if you want to get any kind of quality woman. So what do I mean by that? Well, what I mean by that is you are in possession of knowledge that has been resolutely hidden from her.
[6:08] And one of the things that's happened in the world, like if you really want to understand the modern world, nothing wrong with women, nothing wrong. I live with two wonderful females, just make my life better in every conceivable way. Like there's nothing wrong with women. What's wrong is the propaganda, right? What's wrong is the statism. I mean, it's so profitable to lie to and indoctrinate people that it can scarce be resisted by anyone, right? It's just, it's so profitable. Like if you can lie to people about, you know, governments can't keep homeless people from urinating on the sidewalk, but they can change the weather in a hundred years, right? Just pay taxes and we'll control the clouds in a hundred years. Oh my gosh, it's just funny. Now, the reason that these lies are told in modern environmentalism is not more than half a stone's throw away from rampant child abuse to tell children that the world is going to end is abusive almost in the the extreme. It's not just a death threat, but a civilizational slaughter threat. So the propaganda is so profitable, right? Nobody in a free society, nobody would bother lying to children except the occasional random sadist to this degree and in this way, but it's just so profitable. You lie to children and then you harvest that fear and guilt and anti-industrial sentiment. You know, A government's always so hostility towards business because business is their prey, right? I mean, this is what they get the taxes from, right?
[7:33] So if you want to understand what's gone wrong with the modern world, not everything, but a large part of it, is that women have a natural sympathy for the underdog.
[7:48] Women have a natural sympathy for the weak. There's nothing wrong with women. In fact, it's a beautiful, wonderful, perfect part of women's natures. So I, myself, was a younger sibling, two and a half years younger than my brother. Now, if my mother had not had sympathy for the underdog, me being the underdog, being a baby when he was a toddler, if my mother had not had sympathy for the underdog, I wouldn't be here. I mean, or at least I'd be a lot weaker or less healthy. I'd have fewer calories and all of that, right? Because when you have, let's say you have five kids spaced two years apart, a newborn all the way to a 10-year-old, you don't just put out a bunch of food and say, well, whoever gets the most gets the most. And whoever gets the least, well, sucks to be you, skill issue, as my daughter would say, skill issue. Well, no, you have to take the food away from the bigger and stronger kids and make sure that the younger and weaker kids get the food. So redistributionist from the strong to the weak is essential for our survival. And it's why you and I and everyone else are here overall, right? So women have an instinct to take from the stronger and give to the weaker because that's what keeps people alive. And of course, remember in a situation of scarcity, which is most of our evolution.
[9:10] In a situation of scarcity, women had to use force, right? Like, you would have to physically take the food away from the older child and give it to the toddler. And sometimes the older child, if he was hungry, would snatch the food out of the toddler and run, and you'd have to prevent, and you'd have to use violence.
[9:32] To keep the underdog children, the weaker, younger children alive. And, I mean, I don't even know what it would mean to complain about that. Whether you like it or don't like it, it's an absolute fact of evolution. See, the older storks, like if you look at storks, and there are videos of this all over the place, they will take the youngest and weakest stork and they will throw it out of the nest. Well, we don't do that. I mean, I guess, well, maybe some of the Aborigines and other, well, I mean, it's not common, but it does happen in the West, but it's not common. In other cultures, it's more common. But we don't do that. We don't say, oh, this kid looks a little sickly. We're just going to toss him off a cliff, right? That's not how things work, at least in a reasonably cultured or civilized society, right?
[10:21] So, women keep us alive by having coercive sentimentality and sympathy towards the underdog. Now, there's nothing wrong with that in a free society. It's a beautiful thing. But when you combine it with the state, then this is why a victimhood has become so powerful. Because women outvote men and women take resources through their voting from men and apply it to the underdogs. So, this is why you see, oh, marginalized minorities, the sad, the lonely, the helpless, the pitiful the whatever right and women just their ovaries twitch and they just have this overwhelming urge to take resources by force if necessary from the successful and give them to the unsuccessful right in the same way that i got food that my brother probably wanted instead.
[11:05] Right or attention right i mean even if it's not just food like attention like you need to spend a lot more time with a newborn than you do with a three-year-old right so the underdog stuff is really, really powerful. If you can convince a woman that this group, that group, the other are sad-eyed, helpless underdogs, then the women will instinctively wish to use coercion, if necessary, to give resources to the underdog, right? Now, this is very different from the male approach to things and the world. As you know, the male approach to things and the world is, is if you're the underdog... You suck, and you should improve, or GTFO, right? I mean, if you've ever played, I mean, volleyball, right? Not too long ago, I was playing volleyball with some teenagers, obviously through my daughter, and the girls would give it a shot. Oh, nice try. Oh, good shot. Oh, you'll do, you know, you're getting there. You know, very encouraging. You got this, you know, and all of that, right? And the guys were like, some guy would miss a shot. You suck! Right? I mean, and this is the male. and females. There's nothing wrong with it. It's a beautiful part of human nature. There's nothing wrong with it at all. But it's just the reality. And, you know, you can find exceptions and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, like this is the immigrant thing or the migrant thing.
[12:32] They're trying in search for a better life for their family. It just gets the sympathy. And it's really easy to be sympathetic with other people's resources, right? That's a form of narcissism, but it's very common these days. So, if she has been convinced that the aborigines in australia or you know wherever that they're sort of sad-eyed people who are just wonderful and delicate and and sensitive and and just scorned and thrown aside and women just go crazy for that kind of stuff like if you look at the rise of nerd culture, since the 80s sort of the revenge of the nerd stuff right so nerds or weak men and boys i have some sympathy for this of course you know you're growing up without a father and so on but weak Weak men...
[13:17] Are alarming to other men because weak men can be cruel. Weak men fight in subterfuge. Weak men, you know, they don't stand up and challenge guys. And, you know, they like come to school with guns in their backpacks, you know, that kind of stuff, right? So weak men are unstable and often quite vicious. And if you look at, you know, general mental health statistics, There's been this nerd elevation phenomenon for the past 40 years or so, wherein the jocks are mean and cold and bad and selfish and sexist and racist and just, you know, just terrible. The nerds are nice and good and sweet and caring and thoughtful, and all the jocks are just mean and bad. And it's actually not true. I mean, none of it's true. And you don't have to take my word for it. You can look all this up yourself. But the reality is, in terms of mental health, in terms of kindness, altruism, and so on, the tall, strong, athletic boys tend to be vastly better at this than the dweeby, nerdy boys, who are often quite petty and resentful and not particularly charitable. I remember thinking about this kind of stuff when I had my Dungeons and Dragons.
[14:41] Friends, and none of them did anything in particular nice for society, because they were kind of resentful and felt excluded and were hostile, and they weren't charitable, kind, thoughtful. One of them would read books for the blind, like record technical books for the blind, But that was about it. And then when I went to McGill, I rented a room in a frat house the first year that I was there. I actually ended up sharing that room with a friend of mine who's actually, well, actually, I met him there, and he's been my friend. He's still my friend, you know, like, gosh, almost 40 years later. Okay.
[15:21] Those frat boys, they're very, very nice guys, actually. Very nice guys. They did invite me to join. I wasn't much of a joiner. I guess I'm still not, but they were very nice guys, very thoughtful, and they did a lot of work for charity, and they did a lot of sports. Some of them sponsored Big Brother stuff. They were just involved in their community doing nice and good things, right? But But it's always like the nerds are really great and the jocks are, you know, terrible, bad. You know, nerds, you know, they drink, they assault women, you know, all of this kind of stuff. And it's false. It's false. The nerds, I mean, you know, these are general categories and so on, but the nerds are, by and large, not great people.
[16:06] And, of course, there are nerds who are great people. There are jocks who are bad people, blah, blah, blah. Everybody knows these exceptions. But in general, if you look at IQ, if you look at happiness, if you look at mental health and stability and assertiveness and like all of the decent qualities, the tall, athletic, healthy, physically fit person.
[16:26] People the jocks so to speak they generally vastly outstrip the nerds and the excluded and so on but, the sympathy for the nerds thing came up of course a generation into the welfare state like it kind of had to be that way because moms raise nerds and dads raise jocks right moms don't raise jocks in general right and so when you had the rise of the single mother jock stuff you had a lot of people who were, a lot of moms who were like, well, my kid is kind of nerdy and dweeby and excluded and not athletic and so on. And so media had to come along and, as usual, serve the needs of women and tell everyone that the nerds were great and the jocks were bad. And this is just a sort of consolation prize for the fact that the women raised a bunch of nerds. And I'm not putting myself out of this category. I say this, I've done both, right? I was a jock as a kid, a very athletic. When my mom started to go crazy and I was really isolated with her, I went full nerd. And then for a variety of reasons, I ended up full jock, high status. So I've played both sides, so to speak, of the pitch.
[17:40] And jock is just better. Jock is just better. So if you want to look at the woman's sympathy for the Aboriginals, and with your male perspective, where you say, well, you know, I judge it according to objective morality and so on, right? But that's not her situation. Her situation as a female is she has sympathy for the underdogs. And so there's only power incompetence in the male world. Again, generalizing, right? The power is incompetence in the male world. If you're really good at sports, everybody wants you on their team. If you suck at sports, you're just regretfully picked, right? And this is all the way back to.
[18:22] There was WKRP with Les Nesman in a baseball game. I remember watching that a couple of times as a kid when it would come on the rotation. It was a great show in many ways. But yeah, Les Nesman is this nerdy, you know, time for more music and Les Nesman. It was kind of a nerdy guy. And Andy was like the jock. And all the jocks were mean because Les Nesman was bad at sports. Now, why was he bad at sports? Well, because his mother, right? There's no mention of a father because his mother forced him to play violin rather than do sports. And, I mean, that's not fair, right? Because, I mean, I played violin for 10 years. It doesn't mean that I didn't do sports. You can always go out and do sports. So this sort of L of sympathy for the nerd and hostility to the jock, that's because they needed to reshape male values because single mothers were raising nerds. So this incompetence is the mark of value in the male world incompetence is the mark of value in the female world right so you suck let's say guys to each other so that it's a goading to improve right if you suck at throwing the spear you better get better at throwing the spear or everyone starves to death right so or you lose in a war and all your women get raped right so So, it's pretty, pretty important.
[19:44] But for women, and you know, again, you combine male aggression with political power, you get the military-industrial complex. You combine female sympathy with state power, and you get pathological altruism that destroys entire civilizations. Because the poor are sad, right?
[20:04] And I remember being directed by a woman in a play. And she wanted me i played a vampire hunter van helsing and she wanted me to say something unlikable and there was a beggar on the stage i said oh i suggest sir you get i suggest sir you seek employment right so this is the issue right mike cernovich talking on twitter about drug addicts that they're parasitical and so on whereas you know the women are like yes but they're addicted and they need our help and like perfectly natural all of the stuff that's supposed to be be confined within the family and within competition is played out in the political arena in giant tidal waves of blood and coercion. So you look at her sympathy for the Aborigines from two perspectives, one, knowing the truth, and two, being a male, being a male.
[20:57] Being a male, being sad and excluded. For men, if you're really bad at sports and you say, that's it, I'm leaving, there's a sigh of relief. Oh, good riddance, because he sucks at this. And he's not willing to get better. Now, from the male perspective, you suck means get better. We'll keep playing. It's not like you suck, get off the pitch. You suck is an evaluation that you You don't do something well, but you know, boys will, if you keep trying to get better, like when I first came to Canada, I sucked at North American games because I grew up on rugby and cricket and rounders and so on. So I sucked at North American games and I was told that I sucked and I, you know, it's not fun, but, but, but when I got better, I was embraced with open arms. Like I worked hard to, to get good at baseball and I got pretty, I'm actually pretty good at baseball and i worked even harder to get better at tennis and you know swimming cross-country team water polo like i just became very very athletic and i was welcome and in demand everywhere, so the you suck is get better please like we'll we'll encourage you to get better and if you get better everyone's thrilled and happy you know like when when i first started to become good at i had a problem like with with baseball because i'm left-handed right so i'm left-handed and And I couldn't afford a glove, right?
[22:18] I mean, it might as well have been a moon trip, right? I couldn't afford a glove.
[22:22] So I'd have to borrow some other kid's glove, you know, when you go into batter. You don't need the glove, right? But nobody had a left-handed glove. So I'd have to catch with a glove, right? So the glove goes on your left hand because you throw with your right. So you catch and you throw. So I would have to catch with my left hand, rip off the glove because I couldn't throw with my right, and then I'd throw with my left hand, right? And when I got good at this, people were like, good throw, you know? You know, the guys were like, they were happy. They were relieved. You're happy and relieved, right? So...
[22:55] A man's sympathies and resources flow to the most competent. A woman's sympathy and resources flow to those who are the least competent. And I don't mean like babies are incompetent, but you know what I mean, like the least able. And it's beautiful. It's why we're all here. And it's not female nature or male nature, which everybody mistakes. It's plus the state, right? Plus the state corrupts just about. I mean, the state corrupts everything. It touches, right? Coercion does. So you're looking at this a woman and you see oh but she's wrong and and why would she have sympathy for these people and blah blah blah blah blah and it's like well no this this is an indication that she'd be a great mom right i mean this is why the political system particularly on the left fights so hard to keep women single you understand they fight so hard to keep women single so that the natural empathy and sympathy that women have towards the underdog can be harnessed for politics, for political causes, right? Which is why those who on the receiving end of the largesse provided by largely the male taxpayer and the female voter in the forms of the welfare state, they desperately want to keep women single because when a woman gets married and has children, there's a natural and healthy alignment of her own sympathies with her own children, right?
[24:18] Her natural sympathies then go to her own children, which is why married women with children vote for smaller government and single women vote for bigger government. It's not just that they marry the state, and I get all of that, but it's because a woman's desire to nurture, and I write about this in my novel, The Future, a woman's desire to nurture will land on something. And if she doesn't have her own children, it can be easily manipulated to land on sad-eyed underdogs which she i mean women go through genuine agony about this right so if you want to understand for women to resist this kind of stuff would be like if you're, in the world series and there's a guy who's a really bad batter and someone says to you you know this guy you know he is a bad batter i accept that but you know he really needs to feel like he's contributing and it really needs to feel part of the team i know it's like bottom Bottom of the ninth, I know that this is a crucial hit, but just give him this, man. Just give him this. Now, as a man, this goes against the grain. Like, no, I'm going to put my very best batter in there. I'm going to put my very best batter in there.
[25:22] Like this Dance Moms is a show. I watched a couple of those with the fam. And Abby wants to put the best dancer. She wants to put the best dancer front and center because it's her name and her reputation and so on, right? And when she puts dancers who aren't as good, they lose. And when she puts the best dancer forward, they win. And, of course, all the moms who aren't the mom of the best dancer are always saying the same thing. They mistake cause and effect. And they say, well, the dance teacher spends all this time with Maddie, I think her name is, right? The dance teacher, Abby spends all her time with Maddie. She just, Maddie's her favorite. And if the dance teacher spent all her time with my kid, my kid would be like Maddie, who's the best dancer, right? That would be, I mean, it's complete reversal of cause and effect. fact. It's not that whoever the dance teacher spends the most time with becomes the best dancer. It's that the dance teacher spends the most time with the best dancer.
[26:18] It's not the time that makes the dancer. It's the dancer that invites the time. And so they're constantly fighting. My kid needs more time. My kid needs more of this. It's like, it's not how life works as an adult. It's how life works when you're a kid and it's how it should work. It's not how life works as an adult. So, So, you know, if you're talking to this woman, I think you should, you know, tell me more about what you think, you know, like, it's a beautiful thing that you root for the underdog and so on, right? I mean, I have some information that's a little different, but that's not particularly important. Tell me sort of what you feel. Oh, you know, they're so isolated, they're excluded, they have terrible lives, you know, they have addictions, they're so sad and all of that. It's like, wow, you really do care about that. And so sympathy for the underdog is a marker for being a good mother. I mean, you see this, right? I think I'm making a clear enough case. That's number one. Number two is if you want to bring anyone, let's just say in this case, man to woman, if you want to bring a woman to reason, you just have to be that great a guy.
[27:19] Like if you're that great a guy and she just respects you, falls for you, admires you, loves you, whatever, then you'll have credibility with her and you can tell her your thoughts and so on. But yeah, don't approach it like women are just these crazy bombs that need to be disarmed and how do you decide that's not healthy. All right, let's see here. You've constantly asked for feedback on your books and I think I have something valuable to mention regarding your fictional work. I've noticed this right from the start, but it took me years to get my head around it and come up with something that hopefully makes sense.
[27:51] Your dumb, low IQ or shallow characters do not feel genuine. The example that I have in mind is the guy in the Just Poor novel who gets his head smacked by his partner when trying to sell the stuff they produced at their co-op farm. His actions and overall behavior are in line with how a real-life dumb person might behave, but his inner dialogue and the way he expresses his ideas often seem way more complex than they should be. I was born and live in a country in Eastern Europe with an average IQ of 86, and I've met a large number of low IQ people throughout my lifetime. They have significant difficulties in articulating their ideas, and they have a limited vocabulary, so the way they speak is inferior to how the just poor guy I mentioned speaks and thinks. The next example hopefully clarifies my case even further.
[28:34] I got a similar sense with Arlo in the present. He acted and behaved just like a shallow, self-absorbed individual, but his inner dialogue and some of his speeches showed a lot of depth than meaning. I initially thought that it might be difficult for a brilliant, high IQ and profound writer to create characters that are somehow the opposite of himself.
[28:51] On the other hand, you do seem to be able to create very evil characters.
[28:55] Another explanation is that it is easy for you to create smart, passionate, productive, funny, engaging, gross, evil, and violent people in your stories because you've had to close contact with such traits throughout your lifetime. But you've had very limited contact with dumb or shallow people. What do you think? Am I misinterpreting your or characters, or are there any challenges when writing the type of people I mentioned?
[29:15] Interesting. So listen, I mean, this is just a little tip that if you want to criticize, and that's totally fine. I appreciate the criticism. You know, thanks for the books, because you've read my fiction books for years, right? And they're free. So, you know, when I hand out something for free, maybe a little bit of thank you so much for making this work for free. I found the works really good. I guess you have, right? So it's, you know, a little bit of appreciation when I've given, I mean, if you'd paid for that, it doesn't matter, right? But the books are free. So I just wanted to mention that. You are a donor, so my, but the donor donations for the show. So just a little thing, which is great. So the guy in Just Poor, so the guy in Just Poor, I literally say, you know, is a smart guy who's just made terrible choices. So I think maybe you've misinterpreted that. Arlo is not low IQ. So are you saying that somebody can't be high IQ and shallow and self-absorbed? So that is not, that's not the the case. I don't think I've written many genuinely dumb characters. So there's that. The other thing is that I have spent quite a lot of time around people who aren't particularly intelligent. I've done a lot of manual labor. I've worked in restaurants with waiters and people who've been waiters their whole life. So I have worked with people who aren't smart. And the funny thing is about people who aren't smart is they just will sometimes have the most jaw-dropping insights. Now they don't have a particular inner life that generates them. They just kind of come spilling out. So...
[30:44] Yeah, I mean, maybe I'm not saying that means that characters that are right who are less intelligent are accurate or good. But I have sort of noticed that people who aren't smart will sometimes have the most amazing things to say about life. And they just kind of toss us off in passing without any particular sense of what they've just said. So anyway, but I appreciate the feedback.
[31:03] Hi, Steph, have you ever made a list of must-read books, like maybe a top 10 or even 100? Thank you. I did on a website many years ago, the original Free Domain Radio website, but I haven't looked into that in a long time. I mean, the books that I read when I was younger that I thought were insightful just aren't, right? They just aren't. So, for instance, like if I go back to the science fiction of, say, I don't know, late 19th century to, say, the 1970s, if you look at that science fiction, it got everything wrong, right? You look at Atlas Shrugged, you look at 1984, like the dystopian novels, they get everything wrong because none of them talk about the increasing racial tensions, the anti-white stuff and all of that. Nobody predicted that at all. and so I just I don't find it's too because they're so wrong about the way that the future is playing out it just doesn't really mean much to me okay let's see here, ah let's do one more okay hi Steph I'm about five months into a serious relationship with a woman who I'd one day like to marry, I often have or at least try to have very in-depth conversations with her about her past about emotions etc but I notice she gets sort of vague and foggy and I feel she isn't truly opening up with me.
[32:13] When I press her on this, I get responses such as she's afraid of being vulnerable, afraid of rejection, afraid of change, stuff like that. I feel like when I try to dig deeper, inevitably, I hit a wall. While I do my best to be totally open and honest with her, I struggle with getting her to be as open and honest with me.
[32:30] What can a man do in a situation like this in order to convince a girl to open up about herself more? Is it a matter of patience or should I keep pressing it? Some background could help. She was raised in what appears to be a nice family with six siblings. She's kind and considerate with others. But she seems to have an aversion to being upfront and moving forward in life and she's always been somewhat socially reclusive. She doesn't have many friends and isn't very close to anyone outside of her family. I would greatly appreciate your help on this.
[32:58] Thank you. you steph okay so that's an interesting question so why why do you want to have all these in-depth conversations about our past and emotions and so on like why why i mean the purpose of a marriage is the production and raising of children and the comfort and provision of grandchildren and comfort and provision of each other into your old age so if you had a bad childhood i assume that there's a lot of useful stuff to be had in terms of delving in strip mining your past and history and emotions and thoughts and feelings and so on. And she might not have that, right? She might not. I mean, she was raised in a nice family with six siblings. She's kind of considerate with others. So maybe she just doesn't need to figure out all this stuff. So I'll give you an example. Like if you have, as my daughter would always say, I'll make an example. Like, no, I'll I'll give you an example.
[33:55] So if you have a bad back, right, you got a bad back, then you need to do all these stretches. Let's say stretches help. You need to do particular exercises and you need to do these stretches. So you need to have a massage gun and you need to learn about the back and what makes it tick and you got posture stuff.
[34:11] And all of that. And it becomes, you know, not in a bad way, but it probably becomes a little bit of an obsession for you, right? And again, there's nothing wrong with that. It just is the way that it is. You have a particular fetish for, more than a fetish, but you have a minor obsession with your back, right? So then this woman, she doesn't have a bad back. She doesn't have any issues that way. Her back's totally fine. She's got good posture. She doesn't have any issues. so she doesn't really care that much about her back. Now, you have a back to maintain and fix and you don't want it to get worse and you don't want to put your back out and you've got to do your stretches and you've got to do your exercises and you've got to figure this, that, and the other. And you're talking to her like, well, you know, the back is important and you've got this and that and about the back and how's your back and what's your back like and is your back okay and what do you think of your back and how do you handle your back? And it's like, but she doesn't have the same thing that you do.
[35:07] So, but she's a nice person And so she's probably going to, you know, try and do the conversations and so on. But because she doesn't particularly care about her back, because she doesn't have the issues with it that you do, because of that, she's just, you know, you can say, well, she just gets kind of vague. And it's like, well, she's probably not that interested or it's not that important or it's not that relevant. Right. So, you know, it's one thing to go snorkeling because you love seeing the fish down there. It's quite another thing for somebody to hold your head underwater. water and i guess be minorly concerned that you might be doing oh it's really important to you therefore it's got to be important to her but you know like i'm i'm a i'm obsessed with music i'm obsessed with music my wife likes music yeah she likes music and she'll listen to me for a bit but i don't go on and on about it the way that that it goes on in my head because she's you know and there's things that she you know likes or cares about or thinks about that she just you know i'm interested in but not to the same degree and you know all this kind of stuff right so you've got to have difference so you're the you know aqualung deep diver guy and and that's great and that is probably going to be helpful at certain points in your relationship but she's not that way inclined and you do kind of have to have allowances for significant difference in interest in a relationship she's not you you're not her you're going to be interested in different things, so part of empathy is recognizing that people are very different.
[36:31] You know, I did a show with my daughter. It's going to go out for donors this weekend, I think. I did a show with my daughter and somebody says, well, what do you think of philosophy? Now, of course, even in, I know I was only getting into philosophy at her age, so I wouldn't have much to say about it. But, you know, she's been raised with philosophy and people say, well, what do you think of philosophy? And what does my daughter say? I think it's solid. I think it's good. You know, it's helpful and so on. But she's just not particularly interested. She's not cracking books on philosophy. She's not grinding through Plato's dialogues. dialogues, she finds philosophy interesting. She enjoys it when I talk about it, but it's not her particular thing. Now, maybe it will be, maybe it won't be. I don't know. It doesn't really matter because she is who she is. Now, she does frame-by-frame animations that go on for like 20 minutes, which is like, I'm not saying that is my definition of hell, but it's not exactly the opposite of my definition of hell. And so she does all that stuff and I don't particularly understand it but that's her skill when we play among us or goose goose duck she notices every detail she remembers that them all and i'm like well i think there was someone in the room with me but i don't really like she just remembers every particular detail the relationship who did what who you know she knows everything and she just instinctively has a grasp of all of this.
[37:42] And that's her particular skill she's way better at it than i am and her spatial reasoning is fantastic mine is not bad but it's not anything like my logical analytical ability but but she's just better at me than me at some things. I'm better than her at some things. She has particular interests that I don't have.
[38:02] I have particular interests that she don't have, she doesn't have, but that's, you know, that's natural. I mean, that's good, right? You want people to be different from you, otherwise they're scared of you and pretending to be the same.
[38:13] So she's got different preferences and don't try and make her like you. That's not empathetic. Empathy is not just about what we have in common. That's the obvious empathy. Empathy is also about respecting the differences and recognizing that you're not going to get someone just like you, and you shouldn't want that unless you're a total narcissist, which you're not, of course. I just sort of point that out. Freedomain.locals.com. I hope you will join and check out the community. It's fabulous. All right. I've got a few minutes before my 7 o'clock show, so I'm going to go do that. I will talk to you soon. Remember, freedomain.com. You get the Peaceful Parenting book, audio book, and the AI. Talk to you soon. Bye.
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