[0:00] Good morning, everybody. Hope you're doing well. It's me. Who's it going to be? Who is it going to be?
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Question. Hi, Steph. If you ever did subcontracting work for someone and you later realized they intentionally planned to never pay you for your work, would you bother reporting them to their superiors or the government?
Or would you recommend just moving on and never working with that person again?
Could you think of any justifiable reason for reporting someone and so on, right? Well, the answer is yes.
Let us poke the wound. Yeah, so I have lost a lot of money through people's incompetence, through people's malevolence in some ways.
But yeah, there is irresponsibility and so on. And yes, I'm not going to name the sum, but it's not small.
And that has been so sort of over the course of my life.
[1:20] I think if there are, I mean, if they did something really bad, then, you know, there may be legal remedies.
If it's just incompetence, well, I mean, this is sort of back to the 150% ownership of your life question, right?
The 150% ownership of your life is, okay, well, why was this person in your life and why did you give them economic power over you?
You so i guess that's i mean lauren southern talked about the intergalactic clusterfrag of financial mayhem that was the australian tour and you can uh look that up if you like but yeah it was uh but you know i uh i chose to go on that tour i'm happy i went on that tour it was really a great experience uh my favorite thing about that tour was watching my daughter catch a giant monitor lizard, something like the length of her entire arm.
[2:16] And she was incredibly excited by that. And she proudly carried the scratch marks for a couple of, well, for a while.
So yeah, I mean, it was a great, great experience.
And did it cost? Yes, it did.
[2:29] But to me, my general philosophy is this. Now, this is not some UPB thing.
This is sort of my personal philosophy.
So this is, if this is helpful to you great but this is any kind of objective or rational absolute so this is how it doth worketh for me um most people now i with the exception of very religious people most people that you meet uh have no particular internal moral compass us i mean most people i mean it's just a fact most people that that i know like that's that's for sure i've done uh the death of reason presentations looked up all the research yeah most people make up any self-serving bullshit that they can to get through the moment right i mean i'm sure you saw the elon musk interview with the bbc reporter bbc reporter says i've seen an increase in hate high speech and elon musk is like oh can you give me an example.
And the reporter is like, well, no, but other people have said, it's like, no, no, you just said you said, now you're saying other people have said, and he said, well, just one example from your own feed.
And no, I didn't check that feed in weeks. It's just, right.
Just lying in, in the moment. Right.
[3:51] And that's the default human position, is lying in the way that we're raised, right? Not when you're raised well, right?
But in the way that we're raised and the schools that we go to and the culture that we inhabit, the default human position is lying, cheating, and manipulation, right?
So I'm doing work on artificial intelligence.
At the moment, artificial intelligence generally is going to have a huge issue in the world because it covers up stupidity.
Somebody who can't spell, who can't construct particularly coherent thoughts, who doesn't know grammar, can put any piece of garbage into AI, and the AI can kind of smooth it out and make it look smart.
And that's pretty wild. AI is going to drive the need for something that tests real intelligence in real time.
In other words, there's going to be a great deal of suspicion when you get a smoothly worded, error-free letter that it's probably just an idiot hiding behind AI.
So to camouflage a lack of intelligence is one fundamental goal of modern society because intelligence tends to pay so well.
[5:08] So AI is just going to be the new tool for covering up incompetence.
And often laziness, like people who would rather watch silly videos than actually read a book.
Well, they're going to end up, I mean, the way you become a good writer is you read a huge amount of good writing.
It's just the way it works. How do you become a good speller?
Unless you're some sort of Indian half-autist, right? The way that you become a good speller is you read a whole bunch of books with the word spelt correctly.
And then when you see bad spelling, it just looks wrong, right?
So you can't become a good writer without reading a lot of great books.
It gives you something to aim for.
And so the people who are kind of lazy and prefer just watching to reading, well, those people are going to be able to cover up their fundamental lack of literacy by grinding their half-chewed, half-digested, half-thoughts through the refined palette of artificial intelligence, and it's going to be the ultimate makeup, Botox, and facial surgery for people who are intellectually incompetent.
So anyway, it's just a natural thing that happens.
So my personal philosophy is this, that...
[6:23] I trust people at my peril, and what I've done, of course, over the years is I've cultivated a friend group and so on that I would trust with my life, and they would trust me in that way, and that's worked out really well.
Well, but yes, certainly in a business context over the years, there has been, yeah, I mean, it's not huge, it's not tiny, a not inconsiderable amount of corruption and incompetence that's cost money and so on, right?
And that's just par for the course, right? Par for the course.
There is sort of something in the world now where people have kind of lowered their standards of good enough. enough, and that's fine.
Shepard. So that's just to do with absent fathers and all of that, right?
[7:14] Women don't have to be perfect. They just have to be attractive or vote for the fruits of attraction through the state.
So it's men, because we're judged by output and not being, if you don't have have a sort of positive and productive father around, it's very hard to end up with a standard of excellence.
And also because we live in a resource excess, constantly shifted around half theft of a society, you can just talk your way into or manipulate your way or threaten your way into getting resources.
So the cult of excellence, so to speak, the fetish for perfection has largely fallen away.
Now, for me, it's not any sort of particular personal virtue, just sort of life circumstances that I grew up paying my own bills.
I got my first job when I was 10. I've been paying my own bills since I was 15 years old. And...
[8:12] You just have to get things right. There's no particular room for error.
If you're homeless, if you get fired, you just do a good job.
You just have to do a good job. And so that sort of fetish for excellence, the cult of perfection, was just kind of pounded into me.
And like everyone, I kind of resisted it at the time, right?
Because having to be really good at stuff, it feels humiliating.
Because if you're the king, how good do you have to be? You don't have to be that good. You're the king either way, right?
[8:43] I mean, aristocracy is not meritocracy. And if you are, I don't know, someone in control of central banking, or you have some big giant corporation that has a lot of politicians on its belt, how good do you have to be?
So the pursuit of excellence often feels like being on the receiving end of the slave whip.
The slaves have to be excellent or they'll get beaten. and of course when we're in school what do you get well this is shoddy work i mean you used to i don't know if you get that anymore boys probably do right oh this is shoddy work and this is bad or you can do better or you know the old for me if effort matched ability you'd be an a plus, and so boys are getting humiliated for imperfections and girls too sometimes i'm sure as well getting humiliated for imperfections and so we have this relationship to perfection that That to need to achieve perfection or to need to have very high quality standards is, it feels like the emotional equivalent to humiliation, to being enslaved.
[9:48] The slave can be beaten by his master if the slave does something, quote, wrong.
The master can't even be receiving a harsh word from the slave if the master does something, quote, wrong.
[10:02] And so perfection, which should be high status through a variety of mechanisms, perfection or getting things right or triple checking your work and so on, all of that has become humiliating.
All of that has become the mark of low status. us.
And so the demand for perfection in particular when it comes out of schools or, you know, those parents who use perfection as an excuse through which to attack their children, to assault their children, to beat their children, to abuse verbally or whatever, humiliate their children, or teachers who do it too.
The people who do that are inoculating their children against perfection.
And, of course, we have a whole society that's built on perfection.
[10:49] I mean, if your electricity only works 90% of the time, you're in real trouble, you know, particularly if you're, oh, I don't know, a hospital or something, right?
If your tap water is only 90% clean, then your entire population is going to get sick, right, over time.
And so you know if if you're pretty good at maintaining aircraft engines you're going to get a lot of people killed right so we have a whole society that's built on the culture of perfection when perfection was high status and often masculine enforced and and so on when making mistakes was how like you were negatively viewed or punished and it was harsh and all of that i'm not saying it was great but it's better than all of this stuff that's going on right now so we have have a society built on the culture of perfection, which is now being inhabited, right?
As the boomers retire and so on, it's now being inhabited by people to whom perfection is bullying.
And it's high status.
[11:52] I mean, you think of all of the stoner movies and so on, like all the kids who work hard, all of the kids who dot their I's and cross their T's and do their homework.
They're all nerds, right? They're all nerds and bad and so on.
And the people who are sloppy and and lazy and drug addicts and so on. They're all cool.
You're just getting programmed to view getting things right as being low status, nerdy, unattractive, unappealing, and humiliating.
[12:21] And of course, the funny thing is that, do you think the people who make and distribute these stoner movies let stoners do their distribution and marketing?
No, those things have to be absolutely right though they get perfectionists to broadcast how bad perfectionism is of course right do you think that they get lazy people to sync up their sound and video so that there's this sort of space angel drift on what they say no they get perfectionists to broadcast this message that perfectionism is lame and unattractive and anal and all of that right, So my view in general is that most people don't have a dedication to quality.
I mean, most people have a real capacity for that, but most people don't have a dedication to quality.
[13:12] And it's not their fault. It's just the way that we're programmed and so on.
It is, I think, a little hypocritical to not have a dedication to quality when you live in a society that has a dedication to quality.
I mean, if your internet goes down, you probably get annoyed.
Well, so you expect 100% uptime. You expect perfection in the provision of your internet services or your cell services or your electricity.
Like if you turned on the water and there was no water, you'd get really mad, right?
So you sort of live on this updraft of perfectionism.
And if you survive on perfectionism which we all do especially those of us who live in if you live in cities or whatever so if you only are alive because of other people's dedication to, perfectionism then you owe the world perfectionism in return otherwise it's kind of parasitical right like you rely on other people's dedication to quality but you yourself will just yeah you know i'm done let's throw it out there or whatever right and uh so i have i have impatience with it And it's not necessarily the best trait in the world, but I hugely respect the people who, you know, keep me alive and keep the power on and keep the water flowing and keep the endless flow of food coming from the outlying areas to the inner planet, so to speak.
And I do want to pay them back with some perfectionism on my side.
[14:37] So so yeah just recognizing that most people don't have that particular ethos and the fall of religion has also coincided to some degree with the fall of perfectionism because when you are religious you have a very high standard which is all perfect right jesus all perfect god is all perfect and so you have a very high standard whereas if you are secular what's your standard well your standard tends to be social and how many of our social groups are really dedicated to perfectionism, And just about everyone can improve in sports, but a lot of people are like, well, I guess I'm just not naturally athletic.
It's like, oh, give me a break, right? Give me a break. You can always improve, right?
So when you don't have perfectionism, but you rely on perfectionism, you have excuses.
And excuses and the low, trashy standards of people around you and the infliction of perfectionism as punishment as a child will keep you trapped in a state of mediocrity.
Profound, empty, dull mediocrity that you will never achieve your potential, that you will never figure out all of the glories that you're capable of.
Sorry, a little bit redundant there. Look, slightly imperfect. That's all right.
[15:44] So for me, yes, people will mess up, people will screw up.
I myself, of course, will mess up and screw up from time to time.
I mean, there have been times where I've had to pull shows and push things out because I made mistakes and so on. And that's natural.
I mean, absolute perfectionism is impossible, but you want to try and aim as close to it as possible.
It's like, who's in perfect health? I don't even know what that would mean, but there's a lot of difference between a healthy weight and a BMI of 666.
Six so so for me it's like okay if i have untrustworthy people in my life i should take responsibility for that because i mean there's no point putting responsibility on other people.
[16:27] Because untrustworthy people in general are that way because they don't take responsibility because they have excuses they feel bad for doing a bad job and they come up with excuses and you know the first time and it's funny like the first time that you come in contact i don't know if you've have had this and sort of let me know below, the first time you come in contact with someone.
[16:46] Who doesn't accept mediocrity, it can be a real shock.
And there's a lot of resentment, there's a lot of frustration, and there's a lot of, well, what do you want from me kind of thing, right?
People who just, I mean, I remember when I was at the, when I was at theater school, we had a, you know, we all thought we were, you know, the greatest gift to acting since Amal and Brando or something, and we were all, you know, pretty confident and so on.
And this woman came in, and she was very harsh, and she had an incredible eye for falseness.
And I remember she gave me an assignment, which was to create a scene, or she gave everyone this assignment, to create a scene where you're doing nothing of importance, right? Because we all want these big dramatic speeches.
I understand that. So do nothing, right?
And so I ended up, of course, coming up with some fantastical scenario wherein I was doing laundry, but I ended up putting my hand in my sock and having the sock sing to me a Sam Cooke song.
And she found it funny. And she said, you know, good singing and all of that.
But you absolutely missed and failed completely the the assignment.
The assignment is to do nothing, not to create some fantastical entertainment scenario, which of course is entertaining, but that's not thee, right? You didn't listen.
You let your vanity and your ego and your desire for attention and pleasing and entertainment take over the authenticity of the moment. And she was right. And it was harsh.
[18:15] And so she said, do it again. And then a couple of days later, I came back and this was my scenario.
My scenario was I came out of the shower and I chose a CD to listen to, some music to listen to.
I put on the music. I put on my headphones and I listened to the music.
[18:41] And it's hard to do nothing because we all want to be entertaining and we don't want there to be any authenticity i remember one of my acting teachers saying that he saw john lithgow attempting to uh thread uh a fishing a fishing line through a fishing hook and it was one of the most gripping things he ever saw on stage sort of interesting right and um i did get some rare praise from this woman she said like it's rare to see somebody get the assignment so well well, after getting it so badly, that was perfect, like you did nothing.
And the idea that you can be looked at without trying to entertain people, without self-consciousness, was pretty wild for me.
But there was someone who really wanted perfection in the assignment.
And it was actually quite powerful in its way.
I remember one of the guys in the class being jealous that I had CD.
And I still, I even remember, I remember I listened to to Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd on the album Wish You Were Here, the Fiery Guy album.
So you are going to have people in your life who rip you off.
[19:47] And what do you do about that? I mean, obviously, you can do whatever you want.
You can do whatever is legally available to you.
[19:55] But for me, not always, but for the most part, I just say, well, it's my responsibility that this dishonest person was in my life, I chose, and if I knew that this person was dishonest ahead of time, would I choose to do it again? That's sort of an important question, right?
[20:14] If I'd have known this person was going to do this, would I do this again?
I had some issues in the business world, which I won't get into here.
But I'm very happy that I had my business career.
It taught me a lot about the market, which is one of the reasons why I don't particularly care to listen to people talk about the free market who've never really spent time in the free market. it.
And it gave me a lot of entrepreneurial experience, which really helped me to allow this show to survive.
And for that, of course, I thank every donor, every supporter.
Thank you, thank you, thank you for 17 years.
So hopefully we've got another 30 to go. Would you do it again?
So for me, if I wouldn't do it again, I'd take action. If I would do it again, I take it as lesson learned.
You know, sometimes you can spend a lot of money to train yourself on how to avoid a bad outcome.
You can take management courses. You can take ethics courses.
You can take self-knowledge courses. You can do whatever, right?
Other times, people teach you for the price of your paycheck.
[21:17] And is it a lesson that is worth learning? In other words, sometimes, let's say somebody rips you off for $1,000.
[21:25] So they've just charged you $1,000 to help you identify your inability to spot scammers.
And so, you can look at it that way. You can look at it that way.
I mean, if I'd have known, if I'd have known before going to Australia how it was going to turn out, I still would have gone.
I still would have gone. I think it did a lot of good.
[21:53] I, of course, was proud of the way that I handled myself in the media and in the face of some pretty dire threats. and at one point literally being hunted in the streets.
So, yeah, I mean, to go, it was pretty costly to go to Hong Kong and march with the anti-communist protesters and take faceful tear gas and again be hunted through the streets. It was tough.
[22:22] I know, nobody ripped me off there, but yeah, knowing ahead of time, yeah, I would do it again.
I mean, it was one of the things that really helped liberate me from these shackles of social media channels and so on.
So I think, see if there are lessons to be learned that are worth the price.
See if there are lessons to be learned that are worth the price.
I knew someone many, many years ago, before I even started the show, but not too long before, and it was a pretty significant chunk of money that that relationship cost me.
[22:58] But liberating myself from that relationship was worth the money and the funny thing is of course if that person had hung on had not done that and i had not ended up uh costing me some money, that person they got a certain amount of money okay it wasn't a huge amount of money it wasn't a tiny amount of money they got a certain amount of money of course if they'd hung around me and hadn't done that i would have as i did with everyone in my life at the time said please buy buy some bitcoin right and for a hundred bucks they could have become financially secure so uh you know people people hopefully learn their lesson so yeah somebody rips you off for a thousand bucks or five thousand bucks or ten thousand bucks or whatever.
[23:37] Is it an education that you've just paid for? Have you learned something about your susceptibility, about your greed, about your vulnerability, about your trust issues, about your discernment and all of that?
And I say this without harshness, right? I mean, it's just if you have, you know, like you will pay if you have a sort of sophisticated.
[23:57] Online data sensitive operation, then you will pay white hat hackers to come and try and figure out your vulnerabilities.
Susceptibilities they will try and hack into and break your system okay so you're paying people you know tens of thousands of dollars to find out where the holes in your armor are, and it's the same thing with people who might rip you off that in a sense you are they are charging you to reveal to you your susceptibilities to corruption where you don't have good judgment, now let's say somebody ripped you off for a thousand dollars okay would you pay a consultant thousand dollars to tell you where your vulnerabilities are or think of it as sort of an inoculation or you know you get an illness and then you have antibodies till the end of time so if somebody rips you off for a thousand dollars or five thousand dollars you can look at that as a net loss or you can look at that as well somebody just charged me five thousand dollars, to teach me how to protect myself how much is that going to save you in terms of money money in the long run how much is that going to save you in terms of money in the long run it.
[25:11] Sometimes being ripped off is the best deal you're ever going to get in your life, sometimes being ripped off is going to be the best deal you're ever going to get in your life right so let's say somebody uh shafts you in some inheritance scenario well that's tough for sure Sure.
But that person has now revealed themselves and you don't have to be obligated to take care of that person in the future.
And it's almost for certain that it's going to save you more money than it's going to cost you.
So if you look at things as a net loss, oh my God, I just got ripped off for a thousand dollars or $5,000 or whatever. It could be more.
If you just look at that as a net loss and you're angry, helpless, frustrated, enraged, and so on, or you can say, how much would I pay to never have this happen again?
How much would I pay to have this never happen again?
That's a big question, right?
It's a big question. If you get ripped off for a thousand dollars, if somebody were to say, pay me a thousand dollars and you'll learn this lesson and you're almost certain to never get ripped off again.
Okay, so let's say, and the lesson starts small, like most things in life, the lessons start small and get bigger.
[26:22] The lessons start small and get bigger. So I sort of view if, you know, somebody rips me off for a certain amount of money when I was younger, it hasn't happened in forever, right?
A long time. So I'm like, okay, well, that's my inoculation.
That's my measles party or whatever you want to say, right? So I took this hit.
It taught me lessons, and it's an inoculation. So this person who ripped me off is kind of like a consultant that has taught me how to not get ripped off.
And that may be a lesson, like that person who rips you off might be the cheapest lesson you ever have in your life.
Because you want it to be $1,000 or $5,000, not a house or a marriage or your career or, you know, $100,000 or something, right?
So I would look at it, I would invite you to sort of look at it that way.
You know, this is, I think, one of the things that occurs in Christianity, which is a very powerful and seemingly contradictory idea to love your enemies.
People in the business world who were in my view kind of corrupt they taught me a lot they taught me a lot about how to be wary how to protect myself and so on right and so, thank you for your lesson is I mean I know it's a pretty tough place to get particularly in the aftermath but if you look at it as a net loss you know like every time you get a cold you can say say, oh my God, I've got a cold.
That's the worst thing ever.
Or you can say, wow, now I will never get this cold again.
[27:50] So, you know, if you've just lost some money, man, I sympathize.
I understand the anger, the frustration and so on.
But man, what if you thought of it as thank you for teaching me where my vulnerabilities are so that I can be protected when the stakes are way higher in the future, which they almost certainly will be.
I just paid consultants to probe my vulnerabilities and fix and patch my defenses. So, hope that helps.
[28:15] Steph, would you agree that your mother was at least the better parent than your father according to the following clauses?
Dum-dum-dum, what do we got here? One, she at least didn't abandon you like your father did.
Did to? I don't know what that means. Did at to? No, because my father abandoned me when I was a couple of months old.
If your father was aware your mother was crazy, then it especially makes your father morally culpable for leaving you with a crazy woman, unless he himself was even crazier than your mother.
So in that case, it would have been actually responsible for him to leave.
So you only had to deal with one crazy parent rather than two.
Right. Now, I'm split about this question. A part of me is, you know, pretty outraged and horrified and morally recoiling from this weird cruelty.
Another part of me is like, well, that is an interesting question, right? So I just sort of want to mention I'm split. So let me at least sort of point that out.
[29:06] So this person, it looks like I did look him up. The longtime poster at freedomandoutlocals.com.
So, you know, he's listened for a while and so on. Now, what's interesting is that he's talking about, you know, the greatest trauma and violence and corruption that I experienced for 15 straight years, and do you get any shred of empathy?
Gosh, Stefan, you know, I really am sorry about what happened to you as a child, blah, blah, blah. No. know.
Now, when people have a moral question to me about the greatest wound in my life, without showing any sympathy for the wound, or any empathy for the basic fact that asking me this question, which is basically think better of your mother, the woman who or the person who did me the greatest harm in the known universe.
And they don't think that that might be, you know, even mildly upsetting or tough.
It's like, well, you know, but but she better than your dad, I know that this person doesn't care about me at all, doesn't care about my history at all, that this is the person being taken over by a parental alter ego demanding praise for evil.
Demanding praise for corruption, demanding praise for child abuse and violence and corruption of just about every conceivable level.
[30:25] So this has nothing to do with me, and it doesn't even have anything to do with the person who posted it.
This is an abusive alter ego, in my view, right? I don't know, right? What explains the facts to me?
This is an abusive parental alter ego entering this person and saying, let's get Steph to say something less negative about his mother.
Let's get Steph to praise his mother and to say, well, it could have been worse.
[30:53] I mean, the fact that you would say, well, she was a better parent than your dad, right?
Why would somebody approach me with that? Like, what a bizarre thing to do.
You know, if you had two brothers, right?
You're a girl, you have two brothers, and Bob and Jake, right?
Bob's the eldest, Jake's the middle, you're the youngest.
Now, Jake, the middle brother, beats you half to death.
Whereas Jake, the eldest brother, beats you three quarters to death.
Jake puts you in hospital for two weeks, but Bob puts you in hospital for two months.
Now, wouldn't a normal, sane, vaguely empathetic human being say something like, wow, I'm so sorry that you had two brothers who beat you up and put you you in the hospital?
Man, that's brutal. That's horrible. How awful, how appalling, massive sympathies, right?
Or would you corner the girl and say, well, come on, you have to admit that the brother who put you in hospital for two weeks is way better than the brother who put you in hospital for two months, right?
Do you understand how completely fucked up that is, right? And I say this with sympathy, right?
This person who wrote the question probably doesn't have any clue how how possessed he's become.
That he's, well, Steph, you have to admit that your mom was better than your dad.
[32:17] Um actually i don't i don't at all and again this is this is sort of a warning to to you out there like we're just kind of going from this corruption questions this if somebody tries to sort of corner you like if you've had a great trauma and somebody tries to sort of corner or box you in logically or morally and shows no empathy whatsoever for you know the oh in my case multi-decade trauma that I went through with a very violent mother.
[32:46] If somebody doesn't say, you know, gosh, I'm really, really sorry. I have an odd question.
It's been troubling me. I don't know where it's coming from.
I wanted to put it out here and maybe you could help me understand that.
But, you know, again, I'm really sorry for what happened to you as a kid.
Okay. Again, a bit odd and shows a significant lack of self-knowledge.
But if you get a question, again, let me just sort of point it out, right?
Because, you know, I think it's important to know how you land for people, right?
If you are in the the realm of asking really sensitive and powerful and deep questions.
Steph, would you agree that your mother was at least a better parent than your father?
Dude, what are you doing? Like, what are you doing?
What on earth would drive you to ask a victim of murderous child abuse to say, well, your mom is better than your dad?
Like, what on earth would possess you to ask an innocent victim of rampant child abuse to a question that is attempting to reframe his mother in a more positive light.
[33:47] And that is so fundamentally bizarre that, again, it bothers me a little.
I don't take it personally because it doesn't have anything to do with me.
But it's just important for you to understand how completely bizarre and weird this question is.
And, you know, you probably mean it in all, you know, good intention.
And I don't mind tough questions at all. I mean, that's the gig, right? That's the job. I invite the tough question. I say, literally, bring me your toughest questions.
So it doesn't bother me that you ask this. It bothers me that you don't seem to have a clue how completely weird, unsettling, and bizarre this is.
And I don't mean just to me.
[34:28] You know, you get two sisters abducted by two guys. One sister is raped and killed, the other sister is just raped, and you go to the raped sister and says, well, the guy who raped you but didn't kill you, will you at least admit that he's better than the guy who raped and killed your sister?
You understand, like, how completely bizarre a question is that?
As opposed to oh my gosh how terrible i'm so sorry gosh what a an awful thing to have happened to you well but but you gotta praise this boy you gotta find something positive or at least admit that they were better and like that's just so bizarre and again i don't take it personally because it's not coming from you to me it's coming from your inner parent in my view to you to your inner child But just please understand.
I mean, I hope that I'm sort of making this clear.
This is so fundamentally weird and screwed up and bizarre a question.
Would you agree that your mother was at least a better parent than your father?
Because of the following clauses. Clauses? This is a woman who...
Like, honestly, beat me half to death. Well, according to the following clauses, she was better than your dad. How completely bizarre.
At least she didn't abandon you like your father did.
[35:41] Well, see, this is what happens when you make assumptions rather than ask questions.
Did my mother abandon me? Oh, yeah, regularly.
[35:50] She left me alone while she went away for weeks to try and lock down some guy whose money she was after. her.
She left me underfed with very little money and so on, right?
So there was that abandonment. The other question is, of course, she could have, and I'm absolutely sure that this would have happened, she could have surrendered me to the many more functional family members that were around.
Like, I would go visit family members in various places in England.
I would go visit visit family members in Ireland on a regular basis.
And I don't recall this because I was too young, but I also traveled to Ireland.
I mean, there was a woman who took care of me, who had a fantastic, like when my mom gave birth, she went into hospital for depression for some months.
And the woman who took care of me bonded with me so strongly that she actually named one of her own children after me later.
We had just a fantastic bond, probably one of the things that really helped to save me.
So if my mother had said, I can't handle my son, I can't be a good parent, then she could have surrendered me to far more functional people, far more functional people, people who loved me, people who, you know, were they perfect?
No, but, you know, infinitely better, right?
[37:12] And I, of course, will never know if those conversations might have happened, right?
She could have called any social welfare service, anybody, and she could have said, I am not doing right by this kid.
[37:31] And what would have happened, of course, is the social welfare system, which, you know, back in the 60s and 70s was more functional, was staffed by more empathetic and compassionate people than it is now.
Now it's just become a gig, right?
But the people who first started, like, you know, the first NASA engineers were not government workers, right? They were out of the private sector.
So the people who first staffed the social welfare agencies genuinely cared for these, and for the most part, lots of exceptions, but it doesn't calcify and ossify until later.
So she could have said, look, I'm not doing right by this kid.
I'm being violent. I abandoned him and so on, right?
[38:08] So what would have happened is the social welfare agencies would have taken me in, got me someplace safe, and they would have started calling around to relatives saying, any place we can put this kid.
And I have no doubt whatsoever that I would have found a better place.
And I know this. And you say, oh, this is theoretical.
No, no, no. no, I actually know this because I knew a family member who was in a chaotic and desperate situation and someone else on my father's side took that person in for years. So I have absolutely no doubt.
And of course, these conversations may have happened. My mother may have threatened people.
I don't know, right? I mean, so the idea that my mother was better because she didn't abandon me?
No, no, no. She kept me in a violent and dangerous situation when she could have gotten me to safety with a phone call.
So please don't tell me about how, you know, she didn't abandon me.
It's like, well, she did.
And she prevented other people from helping me. It's number one.
Number two, of course, my father, uh, may well have been, and I think I've heard certain rumblings to this effect in the past that he may well have been driven overseas by, uh, my mother's, uh, threats, right.
Uh, through, through the, the system. And so that's also, he may have been driven away, uh, by my mother, right.
So, oh, see, you only had to deal with one crazy parent rather than two.
[39:33] So rather than give me any sympathy for having to deal with...
And my mother wasn't crazy.
[39:38] She wasn't crazy. The crazy people act out their violence in public in full view of everyone.
They have no capacity for self-restraint. But my mother hid all of this stuff for decades.
So she didn't act it out in public. In fact, in public, she was sweet as sugar, soft as butter, and super nice and a fun, cool mom and all that, right?
So, yeah, I mean, she's not crazy. She's not crazy. Crazy people don't hide their crimes.
They don't get away with it for years and years and years. So she wasn't crazy.
I mean, obviously, her immorality took a toll on her over time, and she became destabilized.
But no, she wasn't crazy. crazy so yeah just i mean just so you understand like i view myself as a quality person not perfect but a good quality person and i'm just telling you that if you roam around in this life my friend and again i say this with with great affection and trying to lift the log of this parental possession or whatever's going on for you i say this with great affection if you roam around in this life demanding or insisting or expecting the victims of rampant child abuse to say something positive about their abusers quality people are gonna back slowly away from you because it's so bizarre and again i say this not in a spirit of hostility not in the spirit of condemnation i'm trying to shock you a little bit into understanding the grip that whatever.
[41:03] Demonology is currently coursing through your neurons, you've got to get a sense of this.
These kinds of questions, well, I mean, it says to me, it says to me that you have a huge amount of unprocessed trauma yourself.
And I have sympathy for that. I really do. But you don't want to be doing this in the world if you want quality people around you.
The say something something positive about your abuser is, is messed up, man. It's really messed up.
And you probably, well, you know, in the spirit of intellectual curiosity, and then, you know, you sort of might, oh, well, he obviously that question triggered staff and blah, blah, blah.
It's like, well, yeah, I mean, it's not a pleasant question to be asked.
Doesn't mean you shouldn't ask it. I'm just telling you that the consequences of asking it are that, you know, if, if I saw this in a social situation, like, just imagine this, right?
Imagine you, you, you see this in a social situation. a social situation, somebody suffered a terrible childhood and somebody else is kind of haranguing them saying, well, but you know, your abuser wasn't a cannibal. At least give them that.
You understand that's bizarre, right? And again, I don't say this with any spirit of condemnation or negativity.
I'm just sort of, I'm trying to point out that these kinds of questions are extraordinarily costly to you.
[42:21] Because they're very cold, they're very analytical, and you're trying to corner people into going against or repudiating the horror of their experience.
And that tells me that you had a pretty wretched childhood yourself that remains somewhat unprocessed. And this, well, say something positive about a negative, evil person who's done you the most harm, it's like, that is kind of sadistic.
And again, I don't mean that you're a sadist or anything like that, but that kind of say something positive about the person who did the greatest damage to you in your entire life by comparing them to somebody even worse, which you're not even accurate about.
You know, I spent some considerable time with my father and I spent obviously many, many years with my mother.
So you haven't asked any of those questions. My father, I think when I was very young, he would knuckle my head, like he'd sort of rub his knuckles against my scalp as a sort of punishment, but he never beat me. He never screamed at me.
And so like he never abandoned me for weeks, leaving me hungry.
I mean, I spent, I mean, not a huge amount of time, probably all told, all told.
I'm trying to, it's rough to, it's tough to calculate, but I probably spent over the course of my childhood.
[43:40] Okay. Three, two months there, three months there, probably eight or nine months with my father.
And some of that was accompanying him on work sites and so on. He was a geologist.
And over that time period, my mother would beat me many times.
Over that time period, my father never beat me at all.
So if you presume to stride into people's experience and demand that they say something positive about an abuser without knowing anything in detail about the situation, without asking them any questions and without showing any empathy or sympathy or compassion at all.
[44:18] It's bone cold, man. And people with self-knowledge will sense that sort of ice demon chill in where your heart is, right?
Or where your heart should be. And look, I'm not saying you're a cold person or anything.
I'm just saying in this particular instance, this is alter egos taking over the situation and trying to corner me to saying something positive about an evil person.
And it's cold and it's cruel and it is, I'm passionate not because, oh God, I'm hurt and upset.
I'm passionate because, I mean, you're a smart guy and great grasp of language and the stuff that you've posted has been helpful and positive and I just really want to get this log off your legs, so to speak. So that's where my passion has come from.
All right, let's do one One last question. Thanks again for these wonderful questions.
[45:13] Thoughts on the euro-dollar system argument. This is the notion that most dollars are created outside of government or federal control, e.g.
Businesses in other countries. A little less on the next page.
Agreeing to denote a contract in US dollars. My hunch, not saying I'm right, just my suspicion, is that this is just an obfuscation or a cover-up for governments and to make the eventual central bank digital currency seem more justified.
After all, it wasn't foreign banks that were mandating jabs and silencing dissent.
Well, I mean, it's all kind of a big system.
Yeah, I mean, the powers that be have a challenge, which is that, you know, people aren't exactly getting brighter, and yet the demand for less bright people is diminishing.
So it's a big problem and a big challenge.
[46:00] I'm not sure I fully, maybe this is referencing things that I'm not particularly aware of, the euro-dollar system argument, countries, yeah, I mean, of course, governments want more and more control, and one of the greatest controls outside of war is currency, right?
So when government control begins to really screw up the economy, then productivity goes down.
[46:30] When productivity goes down, then you need rationing.
I mean, you can think, of course, of the sort of famous examples in England and other European countries during the First and Second World War, where you got ration books, right?
You'd get a pound of butter a week or something, and you'd have a coupon, and you'd be given this coupon, and you'd have to tear it out, and you couldn't get butter without the coupon.
On. So when expanding government control over the economy wrecks the economy and productivity begins to crater, then governments want to limit your consumption.
Now, one of the ways they'll limit your consumption, of course, is giving you the original sin of CO2 emissions, right?
I mean, for some theologies, the original sin is, well, because you're alive, you're sinful, And being alive means breathing out, and now CO2 is the new original sin, and you're sinful for breathing out, or whatever it is.
So a lot of this is knowing that people are going to have to limit their consumption enormously, and the way that governments used to get people to limit their consumption was to get millions of them killed off during a war.
But the way that governments get people to limit their consumption now is to frighten them with environmental catastrophes and so on.
[47:44] And one of the social credit things you know the stuff that's going to come with cbdc's, is to just get you to uh oh no you can't have that oh no you can't buy that oh no you can't have a car and i mean i think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the elites know that, economic productivity is massively declining over time and it's really going to hit after the boomers retire as i sort of mentioned before i mean an annoying generation at times but but much more competent than those who come after.
So I think if you look at a lot of what's going on in the world, it is all reduced consumption, reduced consumption, reduced consumption.
And social credit scores and carbon credits and all that kind of stuff have a lot to do with that.
And the taxes on consumption, carbon taxes and so on, has a lot to do with that.
And I think it has to do with the fact that.
[48:36] There are both incompetent and malevolent elements in the economy that are cratering it, right?
Some malevolent elements are, you know, it seems to me at least increasing attacks upon, you know, trains and processing stations and food production stations and farms and so on. That's sort of malevolent stuff.
And then there's just the incompetent stuff of, sorry, you're going to need that form in triplicate and it's going to take three months to get your permit started.
It's all slowing everything down. And how do you get people to reduce consumption, right?
It's a big, tough, exciting, horrifying question.
So I think that trying to find ways to punish people for consumption and pretend it's politics so that people consume less, I think that would be one of the things that's happening.
You know, if you won't restrain yourself, you get restrained by power or nature, right?
If you don't restrain yourself, you get restrained by power or nature.
[49:33] And I think we don't want to let nature necessarily do it. That's really brutal.
It would be nice if people would restrain themselves, but that doesn't appear to be imminent.
And so it falls to power.
And that's probably the way it's going to play. thanks everyone so much great questions great comments i appreciate them all love you guys for posting these challenging questions i hope that i've done them some kind of justice, and uh if you would like to help out the show i would really appreciate it free domain.com forward slash donate that's free domain.com forward slash donate bye well.
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