[0:00] Good morning, Sunday. Sunday, chatty Sunday. We are 7th of January, 2024.
Let me tell you the phase of life that I've achieved. The phase of life, that's quite magnificent.
The phase of life that I've achieved is either I wake up a little underslept, which is not too bad, just a little bit tired over the course of the day, off and on, or, or, it's really cool, I get enough sleep, but wake up with a headache. Oh, isn't that magnificent?
Oh, I just love these options. Oh, lovely, lovely aging.
Lovely aging. Magnificent. So, yeah, if questions, comments, issues, challenges, problems, I am all ears.
I'm all yours. Now, let me see here.
[0:49] Um, the question or two, just while I wait for the comments to flow, let the spice flow.
Anyway, so somebody last stream, I kept a note here, said, I paid an escort online to ask her why she was an escort and grilled her politely about her connection with her parents and if they knew her job as well as finding out her bond with her parents overall for $15?
What?
[1:11] You paid an escort $15 for a chat? All right.
I hope you donated to me too because I'm your escort in the thorny tranches of philosophy.
I think it was worth the effort just once but she took it as me being too personal and rude. How do I lead a woman to a better direction and pair bonding with me?
I was hoping to be a breath of fresh air Oh, so you were paying an escort to ask her about her life In the hopes that she would then realize how sensitive, warm, and open And emotionally available you are, pair bond with you And bang you like T-Rex's gong for the rest of your life Okay.
[1:46] Right, right Uh, you know, it's just a thought Um, it's just a thought Instead of trying to domesticate a lion, why not just raise a cat?
It's just a thought it's just a thought that does not seem to be the wisest approach to things so what you're doing and this is a male fantasy i mean women have their fantasies uh but but men have their fantasies too and the male fantasy is i'm going to find a beautiful woman physically beautiful woman and she's going to appreciate me just for who i am though like i'm going to be different from all the other guys so i'm going to find this beautiful woman she doesn't really know that that she's beautiful.
You don't even, you don't know how beautiful you are.
That's a male fantasy. There's a line, there's a great line from a.
[2:33] A streetcar named Desire. So Blanche Dubois, a historical neurasthenic southern woman, says to this rough-and-ready guy, Stanley Kowalski, do you think it's ever possible that I could have been perceived as attractive?
And he says, I don't go in for that stuff. And she's like, what stuff?
I'm complimenting women about their looks. I don't do it.
I never met a woman yet who didn't know exactly how attractive she was.
So some give themselves way more credit than what they've got.
And that's true. I mean, it takes a gay man, Tennessee Williams, sometimes to tell straight men about female nature yeah women know exactly how attractive they are they know exactly how attractive they are they have to i mean women have been evolved women have evolved to know, exactly how attractive they are because if they aim too low that's bad if they aim too high that's bad they have to know exactly where they are in the hierarchy now of course everybody wants to be higher and because women have a disproportionate amount of money in society because of alimony palimony, diversity hiring, the welfare state, free this, free that, free the other, women have a disproportionate amount of money in society and therefore they've created a market of everyone telling them how beautiful they are and trying to talk them out of what they absolutely know, which is exactly how attractive they are.
[3:44] So everybody has this fantasy that he's going to, she's going to, she's going to, I'm going to find a woman, she works in a library, she's totally beautiful, but she just keeps her hair up in a bun and wears these unattractive glasses and doesn't use makeup and then I I take her out, and she looks like Jennifer Lopez in her prime. You know, she's let her hair down, she's put on the makeup.
It's this wild fantasy. It's this wild fantasy.
I want you to, as a man, if you're a man, have you ever been susceptible to this, that you're going to find a woman who's just beautiful, but she doesn't know.
She doesn't know how beautiful she is. I'm the only one who sees it.
And then, of course, when she becomes beautiful, everyone else will see it.
She's the ugly duckling, turns into a swan, and I'm the one there, and she's going to bond with me. and I'm going to get the beautiful girl because she doesn't know she's beautiful. I mean, this is wild.
[4:30] So the equivalent, if you want to know just how insane this is, if you want to know just how insane this is, I will tell you.
[4:40] So let's say you've got $2 million, right?
You've got $2 million. You're a man. You've got $2 million. Do you know you have $2 million?
Yes. So the equivalent woman's fantasy is to find a guy who, you know, you just don't know how wealthy you are. You just don't know the resources that you have.
Look, I've looked into your financial situation, and you actually have $2 million.
[5:06] You didn't even know that. You thought you were broke. You actually have $2 million.
So she gets a guy with the mindset of a broke guy, but actually has the resources.
So she gets the striving and all of that, and the lack of vanity, the lack of pomposity, because you just don't know how wealthy you are.
Of course you know exactly how wealthy you are. At least I hope you do.
So anyway, it's just kind of funny, right?
Yes some of you have fallen for that it's an understandable fantasy it's a way of getting the beautiful woman without having to be the high value man so but of course all of this is by the wayside because of income redistribution and bloody bloody blah but anyway um so welcome good morning uh what else do i have maybe a little look up couple of lefty overs hey steph i'm currently talking with a girl who i'm interested in but i think i just found a red flag she's very disinterested in fitness, and has made arguments against maintaining fitness. What are your thoughts?
I don't know what you mean by fitness.
[6:02] I don't know what you mean by fitness. Do you mean, you know, protein shakes and working out three hours a day?
Well, that's kind of narcissistic and a big waste of time, money, and energy.
And it won't be sustainable if you want to be a quality parent anyway.
So I don't know. Does that mean she doesn't even like going for walks?
Well, then she's going to be a piece of furniture and probably isn't a long-term positive partner. So I don't know. I don't know.
I mean, the question is, why? Why?
God, you know, I just had this conversation with a woman last night whose eight-year-old daughter was having panic attacks and screaming for an hour straight when she didn't get what she wanted.
And we have this thing in society, right? We have this thing in society where someone disagrees with us.
If we care about someone, right? Someone disagrees with us and the first thing we do is what? We try to change their minds, convince them, well, you're wrong.
Here's the the facts you need this you need that here's the facts you're wrong that's not that's not caring about someone trying to change someone's mind when they say something that you don't agree with that's not caring about someone i mean it's fine if you're in an adversarial debating situation.
[7:11] But the idea well someone has expressed an opinion that you strongly disagree with first thing you do well you're wrong let me correct you and you can do it benevolently or whatever but that's terrible.
I mean, it's terrible behavior in a relationship.
I'm sorry, I mean a lot, but that's our first response these days because society is very adversarial, right?
Society is incredibly adversarial and by design, right? I mean, fight with each other and be easier to rule.
So, but that's not right. Somebody expresses some, so this woman says, I don't, I don't like the idea of maintaining fitness.
Now let's say you're into fitness. You're on a date with a girl and she says, well, I don't like, I think fitness is a scam. I think fitness is crap.
I think fitness is bad for you, whatever, right?
[7:52] So if you want to have a bad relationship or no relationship, you say, you're wrong. You are wrong. You are wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
Like a dog barking. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.
If you want to have a good relationship, you don't say you are wrong.
You say, tell me more. Tell me more.
I'm like, you know, I mean, you saw me go through this in real time in the last show.
Somebody was saying that it was lack of tough food and diet and this and that.
That I think he said that was the cause of crooked teeth and then he amended it to that's a significant contributor to crooked teeth I didn't really know anything about this he sent and I said yeah I said that's wrong that's nonsense because I don't think it's absolute and then he amended it and I was like it feels wrong but hey man send me the data and you could absolutely be right this this community has taught me a lot so he sent me some studies and there's really good arguments really good arguments I'll post them at free domain dot locals dot com it's really good good argument. So yeah, he was right.
So instead of, he's just wrong, which, you know, I have it, you have it, everyone has that instinct.
Unfortunately, we're not trained in to tell me more.
So she's got, she's disinterested in fitness, makes arguments, again, maintain, you're wrong.
But if you don't know why people believe what they believe, you can't change their minds.
[9:10] If you don't know why people believe what they believe, you can't change their minds.
And listen i honestly again although i have this impulse i think i can justly say and you guys obviously if i'm not uh accurate about this are you please tell me but i think i can justly say like last i did two call-in shows yesterday one over two hours one over three hours and the one with the three hour plus one was the woman with the eight-year-old daughter who was mean and screaming and cruel to her sister and so on and for the first two and a half hours i was just listening and asking questions like i need to know where people are coming from before i try and give them any feedback and i think i do this fairly constantly when it comes to call-in shows that, i ask and i ask and i just tell me more tell me more i need to know the background the history the thoughts the experiences the implicit and explicit um mindset before so so this woman says oh, fitness is crap, maintaining fitness is a scam, it's bad for you.
And it's like, well, tell me more.
Find out why. Why did she have someone who died from over-exercise?
Did her father spend all his time at the gym and she resents fitness?
You don't even know why. How can you change someone's mind without even knowing why they think what they think?
Anyway, so, now just ask questions. It's not a red flag.
The red flag is in you jumping to the red flag without asking her more questions.
That's you are the red flag with regards to that.
[10:39] All right. That one we did, the getting engaged one. What else did we have left over? That might be it.
Yes, that is it. I think that was all we had left over. All right.
All right, let me get to your comments. Don't forget to tip your friendly neighborhood philosopher.
It's, I guess, the end of the first week of the first, boy, what a week it's been.
Ten-foot-tall aliens at a Miami mall, plagiarism wars, crazy stuff.
Yo-yo Steph, I don't know if you're saying yo to me twice or you're saying that I'm a yo-yo emotionally.
Ah, you know, either way, I'll accept it as valid. it uh let's have you read the child the child called it uh yeah actually a listener gave me that book many years ago i i do have um of course with great sympathy to the people who were who were abused to that extreme but i do have a bit of a problem with the massive sensationalization of really extreme calls forms of child abuse because it tends to draw people's attention tension away from the much more common forms of child abuse. I don't like gym girls.
Why don't you like gym girls?
[12:04] Right. Let's see here. Yeah. It's really amazing to me. The books that are.
Yeah. The judge was attacked. Yeah, that's right.
I did see the meme.
Where this woman was like, for $120, I'll do anything you want.
And he's like, anything? Anything.
For an hour? Yeah, for an hour. I'll do anything you want for an hour.
Oh, great. I got a really dirty truck. Will you come and wash it? She's like, what?
With a real hose?
A lot of hose involved.
A lot of hose involved.
Let's see here I've got stuff that I want to talk about but, basically it's about me being right, yeah the judge was attacked in Vegas that's right, earthquakes in Japan yeah it's been pretty what is the deal with the Stanley Cups this is like women without kids collecting cups, Steph I'm looking for content you put out about your childhood, where can I find it?
Well right here at freedomain.locals.com I have the first part of my autobiography so you can put that in as well.
[13:22] Uh chris says i listened to chapter 15 of peaceful parenting i love that the acronym is pp, because a lot of kids love pp jokes and peaceful parenting too i listened to chapter 15 of peaceful parenting on bullying i was at the on the receiving end often in childhood i found a lot of value in it your point about bullies shedding light on the hypocrisy of society in terms of morals really struck me i've had thoughts like that before also i've apologized to my younger brother for me bullying him in childhood but not with the honesty and integrity of the speech you gave near the end well i mean i'm a writer and an actor who does a lot did a lot of improv so i have a um and also i get to read and edit and and all of that so don't you know no nobody's going to speak like that not even me in the real world but it's there as a sort of idea thank you jared for your tip i appreciate that i appreciate that what's one of the harshest jokes i heard as a kid leper has sex with the prostitute and says i left a tip.
[14:19] Nothing like the Helen Keller jokes man they were rough they were rough alright questions comments I am going to get a hold of, yes I am yes I am you know just in case just in case, you are interested this is just a bonus for showing up here Which I appreciate If you ever want to see how the book looks When it's read I actually recorded chapter 15 on video It's private, But you can look at it I think it's interesting, For my favorite songs I would love to see the studio Like what happened in the studio.
[15:08] So this isn't the full version. This is one that's edited, but in case you ever want to see how it looks, it also has captions as well.
All right, let me get to this, get to this.
And I don't like the gym girls like the muscly ones. That can cause infertility.
But that's very much a minority in the, that's very much a minority in gym culture is for the muscly girls.
So that's, I wouldn't characterize gym girls as a whole like that.
And I would assume, I could be wrong, but I would assume that the girls who are very much into muscles are girls who were sexually abused as children and need to signal that they're strong enough to take care of themselves and that they can't be bullied anymore.
So I would assume that that has to do with that.
[15:57] Relationship advice. Tell me what you guys think of this. Advice, please.
[16:01] Husband, male 27, doesn't want me, female 32, to go on a girl's trip.
Advice, please. least, we'd be married four and a half years, shotgun wedding, two kids aged two and four.
I'm a teacher and four of my co-workers slash friends are going to Florida on our spring break.
I've asked my husband if I can go with them. We're all women and four out of five of us are married.
We'll be getting a two-bedroom place in Destin just to enjoy ourselves and relax on the beach, according to my husband.
I shouldn't want to go on a trip without him, the kids. He doesn't want me to go. He thinks it's weird.
He claims it's morally wrong and makes me feel guilty about about having young children and still wanting to go.
To me, his behavior is incredibly controlling and insecure. Should I care more about his feelings than going on a vacation?
Aren't girls trips and boys trips normal?
Things normal adults do?
[16:47] What do you guys think about the 32-year-old mother and wife who wants to go to Florida on spring break?
To a Florida beach on spring break.
Why, what do you guys think? Is the husband being just controlling and unreasonable, right?
I mean, to me, there's really fascinating statements in this. It's so much to unpack.
So much to unpack. She's nuts. Come on. Well, come on, tell me.
What do you think? Tell me.
Tell me more. Thank you. Lee, I appreciate that. That's very kind.
[17:36] Spring break is horrible, especially in Miami. Come on, screaming spiked volleyballs and the occasional gunshot. What's not to love?
What's the biggest lie? What's the biggest lie in that woman's text?
[17:59] Agree, clear tape. Clear tape, I don't know what that means, sorry. Clear tape, even when I was at that age, I had no interest in that kind of trip.
She wants to do the trip during spring break. So many drugs, too. Wildly inappropriate.
I've gone on a girl's trip as a mom to a quiet lake for the weekend.
I understand the idea of a quiet retreat. This doesn't sound quiet or relaxing at all.
Yes, I quite agree with that. I quite agree with that. She's going to be drinking and doing dumb stuff. Yeah, I think that's probably quite true.
She's acting oblivious as to why her husband would be upset.
Oh, she's acting oblivious as to why her husband would be upset.
That is nonsense. She loves her husband. Calling the husband controlling.
So, I mean, there's so much that's to me very interesting about this, and I'll unpack it.
She got pregnant by the guy less than five years. Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, less than five years ago, right?
She wants to have a one-night stand. That may or may not be true.
That may or may not be true. But it may happen, right?
So, there are a number of lies that are enormous in this. Uh, the biggest one is we just want to relax on the beach in Florida during spring break.
Uh, I'm, is Destin, uh, is Destin, where is that? Let me see.
Destin, Florida. Is that in Miami? Yeah.
[19:25] Uh where's the map here, white sandy beaches.
[19:36] Ocalusa ocalusa it's on the east side, uh in a peninsula separate in gulf of mexico from something something okay i'll give myself the challenge talk to wahatchee bay probably is wrong near uh near near several other cities, Fort Walton Beach, Santa Rosa Sound.
It doesn't look like it's right next to a huge city. But yeah, the idea that you're going to go to Florida Beach on spring break to relax on the beach. Nope. Nope, nope, nope.
That's not even remotely true. It's a bit more tame than Miami.
It's on the Panhandle. Yeah, Panama City, the Panhandle. It's a tourist hotspot.
Right. Right. So there'll be a bunch of men there who are looking to get laid.
And women there, I guess, as well, too. It's a big destination for spring break.
Right. Right.
[20:33] So, yeah. So here's what I find absolutely fascinating about this, right?
So if a man is making a moral argument and the woman feels bad, so normally if somebody makes a moral argument to me and I feel bad, then I'm like, oh, okay, so I probably feel out of integrity, my feeling bad my feeling guilty or whatever is probably a sign that I'm not doing something too great so it's, you know, I appreciate it but he makes a moral argument she feels bad, and then he makes me feel guilty that's a wild thing now that's a female thing, that's a female thing, that's a female thing he makes me feel guilty and then she resents him It's like, well, isn't your conscience your own business?
[21:21] It's not too late to say, Happy New Year. Henri, thank you very much.
I appreciate that. It's very kind. So, no.
So, you make a moral argument to a woman. She feels overwhelmed with guilt.
And then she's like, well, you're making me feel guilty.
Like, you're just inflicting some kind of abuse on her, as if her own conscience has no relationship to her, and it's entirely under your control, and you're just controlling.
I know, this idea of, you're insecure and controlling. rolling now of course imagine if her of course we all know right this is the basic empathy problem, uh the basic empathy problem uh it's pretty easy right if her husband who's 27 years old wants to go with a bunch of guys to a spring break beach what's she gonna think right what's she gonna think so she's not going on vacation and yeah you know when you when you become a a husband, a wife, you become a parent, you're one flesh. You're one flesh.
Yes, you're right. You're right, insomnia cat. There's so many ways this trip will go wrong. Absolutely. And here's the thing too.
If the trip goes wrong, the husband probably won't find out about it.
Everybody will be sworn to silence.
The girl's code will kick in and he'll never know. He'll never know.
[22:37] She's going to be ogled. She's going to be ogled.
She wants male attention. she's going like come on whether so this is why maybe she wants to sleep with a guy or not it seems unlikely to me she probably doesn't want to sleep with a guy but she's she's going because she wants men to hoot at her to holler at her to wolf whistle at her she wants uh the spice of male attention she's addicted to lust now that doesn't mean that she wants to have an affair um but it will often lead in that direction but that's in my view like why on earth would you want to go and and parade your mostly naked body in a place where you know there's going to be lots of drunken, hollering, inhibition-free men.
[23:22] So she wants to go and be admired. She wants to go and be lusted after because it's sexy for her.
Now, maybe that means that the husband isn't lusting after her enough.
Husbands, please lust after your wives. It's a sin to not lust after your wives.
It's a desperate, deadly sin to not lust after. Why is my nose so shiny?
I'm going to take off the shine. I guess I have a new moisturizer.
I had to pick one up because I forgot it when I was away for a night.
So apparently my new moisturizer is a combination of Vaseline, lacquer, and castor oil.
[23:56] So yeah, I mean, why do all the women, right, this is a whole sign, why do all the women want to go on a vacation without their husbands?
Listen, I can vaguely understand wanting to go on a vacation without your kids, but I wouldn't do it, right? I wouldn't do it.
I mean, I think it's really important to lean into and embrace having kids and recognize that once you have kids, your life is just not the same.
Like, it's never going to be the same. You're never going to be childless again, and for the rest of your life, you have a piece of your heart walking around in the world that you hope the world will treat well. So that's just like getting married.
You have to, this is sounding kind of abrupt, but you literally have to murder your former self in order to be happy in a life change.
You have to, maybe you have to have a ceremony, but you have to put your former self in the grave, in the ground, in order to be happy in a new life.
Because if you're constantly looking back at your former self and looking at all the positives of that former life, you will never be contented in your new life.
[24:54] So, I was a guy who enjoyed chatting with women and enjoyed flirting with women.
I get into a long-term relationship. I get married. I don't do that anymore.
And I don't look back at, oh, it was great when I got to shower my rears on the planet.
That's not what you think it is. Just go look up the word.
But I don't look back with regret and say, oh, that time was great.
No, you have to take that part of yourself and you have to give it a loving strangle and throw it into the ground, into a hole with no bottom.
If you want to have a ceremony, have a heroize the StephBot Riz Magnet, who liked to chat with women and ask them out and enjoyed that aspect of new things.
And he had a wonderful run. You know, he had a good, good two decades. Good for him.
Fantastic. He did us proud.
[25:39] And he's dead. It's very sad. And we're going to throw a couple of symbolic handfuls of grit in his face.
And we're going to move on to a wonderful life of monogamy, marriage, and children. And then when you have children, you have another ceremony where you take your childless selves and you say, well, you know, we had a great time being spontaneous.
We had a great time getting enough sleep.
We had a great time having money. We had a great time with spontaneous trips.
We had a great time with sleeping in. And, you know, that was great.
That was great. And, again, loving strangle to the former self, lower it into the ground, and say, that's it. That's it.
I remember the word riz because I've seen it a bunch of times, and it's short for charisma, I think.
Now, of course, instead of seducing women into my heart, I am now seducing.
I'm taking my riz skills and I'm seducing you into philosophy. So that's good.
That's good. it um yeah you go travel with your kids i can understand if you want to travel just with your husband but you have to take away that mostly solely romantic era of honeymoon and, early marriage you have to you take that and toss that that's dead that's gone that's done.
[26:58] Right part of my therapy was given my own eulogy for my old self no that's great if you get if you you get used to lowering your earlier selves into the grave, you can also lower your traumatized childhood into the grave and move on if that's what you had.
I had a Zoomer explain Riz last week during a business call.
These are the states of things.
[27:24] I really enjoyed playing hide-and-seek, but I had to move on.
Oh, yeah, like there's this meme.
It's like it hits you right in the feels, right? This meme hits you right in the feels.
It's a picture of a bunch of kids on bikes in the early evening, and it's like, yeah, when you were a kid, there was that one day when you and your friends went all out to play for the last time, and none of you knew it.
[27:47] Oof. And I had something this week. I won't really get into details, but I had something this week that I had to lower into the grave.
It was something that I had been doing for 12 years, and I just had to lower it into the grave and move on.
And it's a little sad because, of course, every moving on is a little step closer to dying, right?
So every past self you bury is getting closer to the grave, right?
So you stop playing with your friends so you can start playing with girls.
You stop playing with girls so you can start marrying a girl you stop playing just with the girl as a single married guy or as a married guy without kids in order to have kids and you move on right i mean leaving high school is a little bittersweet because i mean i had a lot of fun in high school i enjoyed it and nothing to do with any of the academics but i had quite a blast in high school i was on the tennis team cross-country team water polo team swimming team uh and um i I had a lot of fun with friends, I threw parties, I went to parties, I had a lot of fun in the high school situation, because of course it's, you know, baked in automatic friends and companions and access to girls and all of that. So yeah, I had a blast.
[28:58] And then I left high school and I went up to work up north, so social life dipped a little bit. I'm stuck in a tent with two other smokers, well, two smokers.
[29:08] And, uh, so yeah, it was, um, yeah, I have skills. Yeah, I have got some, I've got some risk skills.
I've got some risk skills. So yeah, you, you got to bury your former self.
And that just means that you're going to bury your actual self eventually.
Right. So every time you move on, every time you move on, right.
Every time you move on, you are moving closer to death. But what's the alternative?
The alternative is to not move on.
Not getting to that next stage in life is really seductive, isn't it?
Like staying in that previous stage, staying in that prior stage, isn't that really seductive?
[29:52] It's really seductive. And I mean, hit me with a why if you've had friends who stayed, got stuck in a stage or stayed in a stage.
I certainly do. I have friends who stayed, who got stuck in a stage. They got stuck at an age.
I have, he's not a friend of mine anymore, but I have a friend who was still basically doing the same things at 40 that he was at 17.
I did some martial arts, did some Dungeons and Dragons, and had a job.
And yeah, it's just basically the same thing, right?
Right, the devil is like, stay here, it's comfortable. Ooh, you know how to do this.
Stay here, man. man. Don't evolve, don't grow. That's scary, that's alarming.
Stay here and I'll give you the illusion that if you don't grow, you won't die.
Yes, my kickboxing instructor is stuck in an eternal teen boy phase, plays video games, lives with parents, age 31.
[30:51] Yeah, that's what the devil says. Oh, hang out here. It doesn't have to be forever, but it's the Peter Pan thing, right?
If you don't take on the next stages in life, you don't have to be insecure.
You don't have to have new challenges.
You don't have to figure out new skills. You don't have to feel like an idiot.
Because, you know, you're good at this. You're good at video games.
You're good at mild flirting on Instagram.
You're good at this stuff. You're good at Dungeons and Dragons.
You're good at kicking around the vague edges of the martial arts world.
You know this. You're good at this. Stay with what you're good at.
Don't move to something you're bad at.
Why would you voluntarily want to put yourself in a situation where you don't just feel incompetent, you are incompetent?
I mean, just stick here where you know what you're doing.
Look at all those people that are striving and striving on this treadmill. For what?
Why? Why? You've got everything you need right here. You've got your friends, you've got your companions, you've got your skills, you've got your competence, you've got your confidence. Like, why would you want to move on? Right?
People who play video games regularly after age 20, it's weird to me, at least use that time to learn a skill or find a hobby. Read books.
[32:09] Well, you should ask, right? You should ask. people have been barred from competing out there in the real world I mean particularly white males.
[32:26] So
[32:32] People will take the artificial sense of progress over the real sense of progress.
Some of that's by design, by the system, and some of that is just taking that path of least resistance.
I mean personally I quite love feeling like an idiot I mean that's me and I'm not saying this is any better or worse I'm just saying that for me if I'm not feeling like an idiot if I'm not feeling at the edge of my competencies I'm just not doing something right which is why I'm always like surfing at the edge of what I can competently do in this show you're constantly aren't you here just for the edge of failure, ooh, you're going to fall, right?
[33:16] I'm right here at the edge. Which I think is where some of the great stuff comes.
Like, there's an old David Bowie quote, like, if you're not doing something uncomfortable, you're not doing much of anything.
If you're not doing something edgy and dangerous, and I find that kind of funny.
Heh, David Bowie. So edgy, so dangerous.
Well, what if people don't quite like my song when I already have $100 million?
Well, what if people don't particularly like my new album? oh so edgy so dangerous you know when you've been through cancel culture and bomb threats and death threats when when a mega rich musician talks about being edgy and dangerous i just laugh i just laugh honestly i just think that's oh so edgy so dangerous what if i change my hair what if i change my hairstyle and people don't like it oh such edge such danger i want to play dnd again, Well, I've played with my daughter and some friends from time to time, and it's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun.
[34:16] And Steph as a DM went, yeah, we've talked about that. I play a lot of video games. I despise it, being playing them a lot since a very young age.
My mother hated me being outside alone, playing in a sandbox, making forts and digging holes.
Well, of course, video games now are social, right?
Now video games are social. Would you play if I was a DM? Would you play?
Would you play if I was a Dungeon Master? I am a very entertaining Dungeon Master, as you can imagine.
The characters are very vivid, and the situations are often quite absurd.
Well, there's a way to do it online as well.
There's a way to do it online as well. But yeah, that could be fun. That could be fun.
I'll bring dice for everyone. Dice, dice, baby.
All right. Let me just get easier. Alright, I'm just waiting for Jared to give me a summary here. How many people can play?
You should probably top out at five or six in the party.
[35:22] Otherwise it gets a little too chaotic. You've never been into D&D? It's fantastic.
D&D is such fertility for the imagination.
It's mind-blowing. Just how good D&D is for storytelling, for sustained summoning of interest, for inventiveness, for creativity.
D&D is an absolutely fantastic exercise for the brain. I would never have any problems or hostility.
And also it teaches you, I mean, D&D is kind of like gambling with abstractions.
[36:00] So, yeah, it's really, really good. It's really, really wonderful for the brain.
[36:04] I mean, there's really very few better workouts for the brain.
You got to have a good dungeon master. Yes, for sure.
Yeah, I mean, we had one dungeon master.
I mean, we'd give everyone a try. I hate to say it. Like, of course, I was a very popular dungeon master.
But yeah, we had one dungeon master who was kind of a dull guy, bit of a monotone, bit of a mumbler.
And his dungeon was as empty as his personality.
It's like that Monty Python story where a man walks down the street, street, opens the gate, and nothing happens.
So we keep going into these rooms, and it's like, you see a dusty old chest in the corner. Any monsters? No. We go over to the dusty old chest.
It's really tricky to open it. You have to roll all these dice to open it.
You open it. There's nothing inside.
It's like, oh my god. It just went on and on. Empty rooms, empty chambers.
It wasn't a dungeon. It was a cry for help.
D&D is a narcissist detection. They can't wait their turn. Yeah, yeah.
Very true. Very true.
[37:04] All right, do I have anything else? I think I've got nothing else.
All right, let's talk a wee smidge about the coins of Bitness.
Honduras economic zone, Prospera, recognizes Bitcoin as a unit of account.
This means Bitcoin acceptable for commercial tax and financial transactions.
That's pretty good.
Somebody, Nick Huber, on Twitter said, If you've been dating someone for more than three years, you have two options. Get engaged, break up.
There are zero exceptions.
Grow up, make a commitment, and start a family. Yeah, I've been talking about that lately.
Ah, right here. Let's see. I should be able to bookmark my categories, but it's not my platform, so I'm not going to complain about it too much.
Google searches for Bitcoin ETF have gone parabolic, and I think it'll be next week. I think it's pretty much a done deal.
Oh, this was kind of funny. I told my mom that her apple pie tasted a little weird this year, and she goes, really? really? I've always used the same recipe.
The nutmeg was a bit clumpy. Maybe it didn't blend well.
She takes out the jar to show me. And after a very long pause, I say, mom, this nutmeg expired 24 years ago. It's like November 2000.
That's a little rough.
That's a little rough.
[38:34] And you hear about fertility collapses in South Korea, in Japan and so on.
Nowhere has there been a more rapid collapse in fertility than in South America since 2015.
Argentina went from 2.24, which is a little bit above replacement.
Argentina went from 2.24 per couple to 1.36.
Chile went from 1.78 to 1.25. Colombia went from 1.94 to 1.54.
It's absolutely wild. Absolutely wild.
[39:07] Will writes, there are really two big ideas that you need to understand to be bullish on Bitcoin. Monetary debasement is programmed.
Over time, decades, wealth will go from being controlled by boomers to a younger digitally native generation.
Yeah, boomers don't get Bitcoin, digitally native do, right?
So for digitally native, your social life is largely online, and therefore for your economic life to be largely online is not beyond the pale, right?
Lark davis wrote bitcoin reached 69 000 without a usa bitcoin etf without every institutional sales team pushing it to their clients without a hong kong etf without fair accounting rules without dozens of major banking on ramps added in 2023 no one is bullish enough which i think is quite interesting also bitcoin archive wrote on january 5th blackrock has over two billion dollars lined up in week one for their bitcoin etf says van x matthew siegel right so that means that that's what they're going to be using to pump and push and all these kinds of great things.
[40:20] All right, let's check back here for questions.
Bitcoin is based on nothing.
Okay, I mean, that's fine. Let's say Bitcoin is based on nothing.
It's not based on a gun to your head, right?
[40:40] It's like a guy saying, well, you know, asking a girl out is nothing.
It's based on nothing. You're just asking her out.
So you should kidnap her and lock her in your van. No, no.
Steph is not having a social media presence a red flag to women it seems like everyone has an Instagram dating all the way back to when they were still in school the hell am I supposed to know that is not having a social media presence a red flag to women okay youth dating social media presence women's preferences who were 20 I don't know apparently women don't like guys with android phones I have no idea I have no idea do you know actually uh this I was playing trivia the other the night uh with my wife and the question was asked i was kind of interesting see if you guys know any of these trivia questions it's pretty neat what is the most uh what is the best-selling video game franchise of all time what is.
[41:34] The biggest selling or the the most the biggest selling video franchise of all time do you know i didn't i thought i did but i did not biggest selling video franchise franchise gta yeah i thought it was grand theft auto for sure but no but no call of duty yeah you guys are right you got it mario yeah mario is um mario yeah apparently it's mario i didn't know that i did not know that thanks okay where were doritos invented where were doritos invented invented?
Did you know this? I didn't.
Where were Doritos invented?
[42:20] Do you know this one? I should, you know, we'll just have a trivia.
Forget it. The rest, it's no philosophy. We just do it a trivia game.
Where were Doritos invented?
And it wasn't multiple choice. You literally had to pull the answers out of your butt. So it has to be more specific.
No, Doritos were invented at Disney World. They were invented at Disney World.
[42:45] Didn't know that. Did not know that either. Did not know that either.
I'm fine with trivia. I'm fine as long as someone can cover sports.
Because I know SFA about sports. I don't follow it. I don't care about it.
And so on, right? So, yeah.
So, if I've got a teammate, like we play sometimes with another couple.
And if I've got a teammate, and he's really great on sports.
He's just like a sports accounting machine.
And so, I can cover a bunch of stuff. And if he's got the sports, like, of course, we got into, my wife got into a good argument or a good debate.
The woman was like, how many planets are there in the solar system?
I said eight, and my wife said nine, because Pluto has been elevated back to planet.
But apparently not. Pluto is not a planet. Pluto is a dwarf planet.
Pluto is a dwarf planet.
And so my wife was having a debate. It's a dwarf planet.
And the woman's like, that's not a planet, and my wife said, well, I'm short, I'm still a wife, I'm a short wife, anyway, so it's kind of funny, it was very good in ancient exchange, it's a lot of fun, all right, so I don't know, we probably won't do trivia for the rest of time, but I just thought it was, wait, no tips for my trivia questions, I'm shocked, I'm absolutely shocked, All right.
[44:07] So let's go here. Okay, so in the, we check mark on Steph was right.
I mean, I remember something I wasn't particularly right about.
So I did a video way back in the day saying, of course, there should never be mask mandates.
But I did accept that masks could prevent you from touching your face and might have some benefit in terms of not giving you the virus because you're not touching your face. I didn't think that it ever stopped airborne stuff in particular, but it doesn't seem to be the case.
[44:42] Um, what about trivia on tips? Maybe, maybe, just maybe.
But, uh, yeah, so, I mean, it does, does, it seems like it's pretty hard to find any positive effects on masks.
So there's something that I was, I mean, I'm not trying to hedge, like I wasn't like masks will save us, but, um, um people reach around masks to scratch um i don't know the i mean i knew that they didn't stop right do music trivia oh don't start don't get me started don't get me started so, anyway so i did a video um about the oncoming plagiarism wars a couple of days ago right so as you know claudian gay uh has resigned as president of harvard but she's still maintaining gaining her teaching position and her $900,000 a year salary.
It's amazing to me that Harvard is sitting on billions of dollars and still gets government money. Well, I guess it's not that amazing, right?
Don't stop me now. One of the best sung songs in history, by the way. It's so well sung.
Just listen to the vocals isolated alone. It's incredible. But...
[45:44] There is now a plagiarism wars. It is now the plagiarism wars are upon us.
So I was predicting a couple of days ago that there was going to be an examination of all academics with regards to plagiarism, that the plagiarism wars have started.
And so I've been following this with great interest, of course, and we're going to get into the plagiarism wars. All right.
So the person to know with the plagiarism wars is Bill Ackman.
I mean, Bill Ackman is a great name for a guy who attacks people. It's a noise wave.
Bill Ackman. I mean, if I was a, if I was one of these simulation guys, we're like, yeah, the guy who's currently on the attack is Bill Ackman.
I mean, literally, the anti-aircraft guns are called Ack-Ack guns.
Like, I'm not kidding. All right.
Bill Ackman is an American investor, hedge fund manager, and philanthropist.
He's the founder and CEO of Pershing Square Capital Management, hedge fund management company.
Ackman is known for his contrarian and sometimes activist investing style, often taking a large position in a few key stocks and occasionally engaging with the management of companies in which he invests to advocate for changes that he believes will increase shareholder value.
Now, so this is a description.
[47:02] If you're an activist investor, usually you're pushing a wokey agenda, which is usually to the negative of shareholder value, but whatever, whatever, right?
Ackman has been involved in various high-profile investment actions, including his bets against bond insurer MBIA and his massive short position against the nutritional supplement company Herbalife, which he publicly labeled a pyramid scheme.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Harvard College and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
[47:31] So he's been making headlines recently. He's been vocal in his criticism of the response to anti-Semitism at some of the U.S.'s top schools, including Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and MIT, right?
So this is because of the October attack on Israel and then Israel's response and so on, right?
He has called for the presidents of these institutions to resign after they appeared hesitant to denounce calls for violence against the Jewish population during a congressional hearing in December.
In a recent development, of course, Claudine Gay resigned after her response to anti-Semitism and alleged plagiarism.
I'm not sure that it's still alleged, but I haven't been following i think it's beyond alleged but you know i'm not gonna um stand to the death on that iceberg so uh let's see here other news he recently covered his bet against long-term treasuries believing that investors may increasingly turn to bonds as a safe haven because of growing geopolitical risks he made a hundredfold profit by hedging his investments using credit default swaps after predicting an economic shutdown resulting from the onset of the covet 19 pandemic.
[48:34] So, January 3rd, 2024, he wrote an article, How to Fix Harvard, in the Free Press, addresses concerns regarding Harvard University's policies and environment, particularly in relation to the DEI movement.
And he, quote, quote.
[49:20] DEI movement alleging it promotes a divisive ideology that categorizes individuals into oppressors and oppressed based on race, sexual identity, and gender.
He argues this approach undermines the American values of democracy and equality of opportunity, promoting instead a harmful focus on equality of outcome.
Sure. Yeah, makes sense, right?
So, he also discusses the impact of DEI on Harvard's administrative decisions, including the presidential selection process. Fair, right?
All right, so the article says Harvard must once again become a meritocratic institution that does not discriminate for or against faculty or students based on their skin color.
Yeah, I mean, all of this stuff is, I mean, it's really one of the reasons why.
One of the reasons why it's kind of boring to talk about this kind of stuff.
The reason being that, I mean, if you want a meritocracy, it's very simple.
Right it's very simple all you do is you take name race sex or any other identifying characteristics you take those off the application so it's completely blind to all of these things that's that's all you do that's all you do i mean but of course nobody wants to do that because obvious reasons right so, so
[50:44] So after he wrote this article article.
Sorry, Jared, I just need a bit of confirmation here. I don't think it's someone.
I thought it was the Business Insider. Can you just double check on that?
I think it was Business Insider. Let me, I think I've got some tweets bookmarked, so I might need to go and check that.
I think it was the publication Business Insider that accused Bill Ackman's wife of plagiarism.
[51:22] And that's not particularly fair to go after someone's wife.
It's not particularly fair. I don't think she's much of a public figure.
And i also don't think that her degree is central to what she does right, i mean to take this is not her but to take an example of why it's not particularly relevant if you're a dentist but you got an undergraduate degree in english and it turns out that you had some plagiarism issues in your undergraduate degree in english it may not be great but it's not like you're making your money from your english degree it's not like you're a professor of English and displace somebody else.
And the plagiarism thing is a very big deal. Like it's a very, very big deal because plagiarism of course is stealing somebody else's ideas, passing them off as your own and gaining some particular significant reward, uh, thereby.
Uh, it's really tough. If, if Bob steals an idea from Jane, publishes it at his own, Bob gets the job that Jane otherwise would have gotten.
Then he gets the job from Jane.
And then of course, Jane is is also kind of screwed because when Jane promotes her idea, everyone says, well, no, that's Bob's idea.
You're the plagiarist. And then you get into this huge battle.
It is straight up fraud and theft. And it's not great.
[52:41] So, yes, the Business Insider accused Bill's wife of plagiarism.
[52:48] So, that was not great at all.
Now, of course, there's a lot of gray areas when it comes to plagiarism.
So, if you start talking about something like the separation of church and state, right, then you don't have to reference that, right, because that's a commonly...
Nobody would think that you invented the idea of the separation of church and state.
If you talk about democracy, you don't have to talk about democratus, right?
Right. Footnote, democracy, right? Because everybody understands, like, if it's known that you didn't come up with that idea, then I don't think, I'm not an expert in the laws of plagiarism or the rules of plagiarism.
But I, you know, if I say, if I write that the world is a sphere, I don't have to reference Archimedes because nobody thinks that I'm the guy who came up with the idea that the earth is a sphere.
So if it's common knowledge that it's not your idea, I don't think you have to be as strict.
One of the, you're not supposed to quote Wikipedia Wikipedia, because it's Wikipedia, and it's also shifting sands, things can change.
And you're not allowed to paraphrase, and so on.
So yeah, you really do have to be very, very strict about if it's somebody else's argument or somebody else's idea, you either have to put it in quotes, and you're not allowed to paraphrase, and you have to give them due credit for what they have contributed.
[54:14] Uh, it's just that she didn't cite references. Uh, well, again, I haven't gone into detail about the accusations because, you know, she's not an academic, I don't think.
Didn't cite references? Eh, okay. So did she just not put things in quotes?
Were they indented but not put in quotes?
Okay, that's, you know. So anyway, there's a lot of gray areas with regards to plagiarism. Also, you can have inadvertent plagiarism.
You think the idea is common knowledge. Maybe it's not.
You meant to cite someone. on you forgot you know and particularly in the past right in the past uh before word processors man oh man it was brutal brutal to to get this kind of stuff organized and so on so there's some gray areas and also you know if somebody's published 100 papers and there's one instance of plagiarism that's different from somebody who's published one paper and there's one instance of, plagiarism and so on so yeah it's it's tough it's tough so it's it's a complicated issue issue, and generally it is hard to detect.
Now, of course, things have changed, right? Things have changed.
What's the big factor that's changed? That now you can detect plagiarism very easily.
What is the one thing that has changed? That now plagiarism is pretty dead simple to detect and cheap.
It's dirt cheap and dead simple to detect plagiarism.
[55:37] What is the change what has happened yeah that's right AI it's a word guesser it's a pattern recognition algorithm for words right.
[55:53] So, this is really something.
And the creation of AI and its incredible ability to detect patterns is, it's the nuclear, it's the mutually assured destruction, weapon of mass destruction for academia.
It's really, really something. something.
AI comparative software. I've had that my whole life. Even in sixth grade, I submitted to turnitin.com.
Yes, that's true. AI comparative software has been around for a long time, but has there been a motive or an incentive to run everyone's published work through that?
Has there been a motive or an incentive to run everyone's published work through that so that's the big question motive and incentive so this is what bill ackerman wrote, last night no one at mit had a good night's sleep i i think i'm not don't quote me on this but i think someone in charge and jared if you could check this someone in charge at mit has a relationship to business insider and i think that uh he bill ackerman perceives that someone high up at MIT was the source for his wife's dissertation and all these kinds of things, right?
[57:19] So he said, he posted this, I think, yesterday. Last night, no one at MIT had a good night's sleep.
Yesterday evening, shortly after I posted that we were launching a plagiarism review of all current MIT faculty, President Kornbluth, members of MIT's administration board, and its board, I'm sure, that an audible collective gasp could be heard around the campus. Why? Why?
Well, every faculty member knows that once their work is targeted by AI, they will be outed.
No body of written work in academia can survive the power of AI searching for missing quotation marks, failures to paraphrase appropriately, and or the failure to properly credit the work of others.
[58:01] Wow.
[58:04] But it wasn't just the MIT faculty that did not sleep last night.
The Harvard faculty, its governing board members, and its administrative leadership did not sleep either. Because why would we stop at MIT?
[58:16] Don't we have to do a deep dive into academic integrity at Harvard as well?
What about Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Penn, Dartmouth? You get the point.
While we are going to do a detailed review of plagiarism at MIT, we're not going to be the only ones who do so.
Every college and university in the world is going to have to do the same for themselves.
They will do so because they will need to validate all plagiarism accusations or someone else will do it for them.
The best approach, however, is probably to launch an AI startup to do this job.
I would be interested in investing in one, as there is plenty of work to do and many institutions won't have the resources to do it on their own.
Perhaps more importantly, the donors are going to demand that the review is done by an independent independent third party, for who is going to trust higher education to review itself?
Consider the inherently irreconcilable conflicts of interest.
Would you trust today's university president to do an examination of their faculty?
What are the chances that the reviews would be weaponized to go after faculty members whose politics were not favored by leadership?
We've seen this before with other tools used by university presidents and their deans.
Consider the weaponization, he says, of MeToo accusations, speech codes, and other tactics of cancellation that have destroyed free speech on campus, and many faculty members' reputations, careers, and their families.
[59:34] And what if a plagiarism review turned into an incredible embarrassment for the entire university?
It could lead to wholesale firings of faculty, donors terminating their donations, federal funding being withdrawn, and a massive litigious conflagration where faculty members and universities sue one another about what is plagiarism and what is not.
Think about the inevitable destruction of the reputations of thousands of faculty members as it rolls out around the country and perhaps the world.
[1:00:02] Wild.
Anyway, it's a very long tweet, but let's just, I'll skip a bunch.
[1:00:11] It's well worth reading.
He says, now that we know that the academic body of work of every faculty member at every college and university in the country and eventually the world is going to be reviewed for plagiarism, it's important to ask what the implications are going to be.
If every faculty member is held to the current plagiarism standards of their own institutions and universities enforce their own rules, that they would likely have to terminate the substantial majority of their faculty members.
Well, and this is my sort of comment on it. So, I mean, one of the reasons is that original creative thought has been smashed into oblivion in universities over the last couple of decades.
Like creative original thought has been smashed into oblivion.
Now, creative original thought is the best defense against plagiarism.
Right? Original, like creative original thought is the best defense against plagiarism.
[1:01:09] Pretty wild. And creative original thought has been absolutely banned.
The critical thought, um, database thought has been absolutely banned from universities.
I, I was probably just getting in under the wire with my graduate thesis.
So I was just getting in under the wire and, And I could see it like a rolling tsunami of blood-soaked zombie bones just coming right after me.
I was like, Indiana Jones. I didn't even reach back to get my hat as the door was coming down on original thought.
That's one of the reasons why I didn't go for the PhD, which I was interested in.
But I also, I was 27 or whatever, and I was like, oh, seven years to get a PhD.
And then five years to get tenure. I'm not going to have a regular paycheck until I'm 40 and I want to have a family. so that wasn't really a thing.
So I think that the plagiarism is going to be brutal and the more woke the people are the worse the plagiarism is going to be.
So that's going to be that's really going to be rough as a whole.
[1:02:18] So, the other thing, too, is that if, I mean, the amount of, again, I'm no lawyer, obviously, but the amount of legal jeopardy just seems enormous.
I mean, if, for instance, universities had received plagiarism allegations against people, right?
If university had, and as far as I understand it, some of the stuff that was going on with Claudine Gay may have been known beforehand.
There were certainly some suspicions. So if universities had received accusations of plagiarism, and of course the person who's being plagiarized will usually complain, if they've received it but not acted upon it, I think that that's not great. So I'm not going to talk about the legal system.
I'm not going to talk about anything to do with existing laws.
I'm talking to talk about an ideal system that I would imagine that in a sort of an ideal free market and cab legal system that if students were disciplined, if students were failed, if students were expelled for plagiarism.
[1:03:30] And the university knew about plagiarism in the faculty but did nothing, uh that to me would be an actionable defense right like you you you kicked me out for plagiarism but you also knew that your faculty were plagiarizing and didn't do anything about them because kicking someone out for plagiarism is obviously harming their economic interests and costing them all the money they've invested in time they've invested in their education, and so if there's if you're protecting the faculty for the same thing that you're expelling the the students for, that would be, I think that would be liable.
Again, not in an existing system, I don't know, but to me in a reasonable system, that would be the case. So, so.
[1:04:10] Uh bill ackerman goes on to say if every faculty member is held to the current plagiarism standards of their own institutions oh sorry i mentioned that he says over the last few weeks and months i have literally received hundreds of texts emails hand and typewritten letters and cards and phone calls of support and tens if not hundreds of thousands of posts and replies on x from friends and strangers alumni alumni sorry faculty and students senior leaders of foreign countries u.s senators and members of congress high profile members of the media and several presidential candidates for my efforts to help address the problems at Harvard, MIT, Penn, and the higher education system at large.
All that said, most have been pessimistic about the opportunity for necessary changes, as nearly everyone believes that it will take decades to fix the problem because of the life tenure system for faculty, right?
So tenure was a system put in, I think, in the 1960s. It was ostensibly to protect academics from being fired for controversial opinions.
All, of course, it did was guarantee that nobody with any controversial opinions would would ever be hired.
So this is another reason why academia has become so monolithic and mono quote thought, right? It's not even thought, right?
[1:05:17] The good news is, however, that with AI, says Bill, getting rid of, like we're on a first syllable basis, he calls me, who the hell are you?
And why are you in my shower?
He says, the good news, however, is that with AI, getting rid of tenured faculty is no longer as much of a challenge because it is much easier to fire faculty who have problems with their academic record.
It is any uncertainty that authors will miss some quotation and fail to properly cite or provide attribution for another author on at least a modest percentage of the pages of their papers.
I say percentage of pages rather than number of instances as the plagiarism of today can be best understood by comparison to spelling mistakes prior to the advent of spellcheck. Anyway, so to go on by that.
[1:05:58] So, he says, if you think about what plagiarism standards were designed for, the purpose was to protect scholars from the theft of their intellectual property.
And protecting intellectual property is critically important, as it is the livelihood of our authors, composers, researchers, designers, architects, artists, companies, and effectively all modern institutions.
I'm not a big fan of... Anyway, we don't have to get into that.
Okay. Interestingly, while AI can identify plagiarism, AI itself is the ultimate plagiarist. Large language models are by design built off the work of others.
As competent, as computers have no innate knowledge, at least not yet.
And as the New York Times, there's a lawsuit against open AI as a result of all of this.
[1:06:40] So, this is going to be very interesting. And it says, anyone going to address that the Bible has stories taken from other cultures?
Oh, my good friend, that's not the answer. true.
The answer is that the Bible is sourced by God.
God is the ultimate footnote to the Bible. And of course, the Bible that is dictated by God, God is going to dictate to more than one culture.
That's like seeing, well, a whole bunch of people who saw the Oppenheimer movie know the story of the Oppenheimer movie. Therefore, those people are plagiarizing.
No, no, they're not. There's It's just one author, one source, right?
So this is going to be very interesting. This is going to be very interesting.
[1:07:34] It's going to be very interesting. Now, you know who's responsible for this fundamentally?
Do you know who's making all of this happen or allowing for all of this to happen?
Why is all of this happening? There's one guy. There's one guy.
There's one guy, just one guy, who'd lay down his life for you and I.
I hate to say it, I hate to say it, it ain't me.
Yeah, it's Elon Musk. Yeah. Yeah. And without Twitter being under Elon Musk, this story would never have hit the light of day because criticizing Claudine Gay would have got people bad.
Sting, yes. Sting's the guy who did it. Sting bought Twitter.
He could have, I guess. So.
No, it's because of Twitter. It's because of Twitter.
I've always said I did this show many, many years ago. Should look it up on free speech. Who supports free speech? Well, white males.
The biggest free speech absolutist on the planet, which is why the culture is so hostile to white males, right?
So, that's right. That's right.
Should listen to It's Probably Me, but with the Eric Clapton guitar.
And that saxophone is fantastic.
[1:08:54] Yes, it's really only because of this. So you can see why the fakers hate him so much, right?
The fakers hate him so much everyone and this means he's going to be further targeted and all kinds of stuff all kinds of stuff so yeah it's really something, quite something free speech is incredible but free speech exposes sophists, free speech exposes sophists but of course plagiarism as a general concept i'll sort of to make a moral case here, plagiarism as a general concept, is only important because of government funding. Plagiarism as a concept is only important because of government funding.
The purpose of higher education should be to provide value for society.
Now, the fact is, though, that higher education, and Walter Bloch had an article about this many years ago.
Sorry, Dr. Walter Block. I wouldn't want to plagiarize his name. So...
[1:10:05] If your surname is your employment, Ackman is acknowledging men.
Well, I don't think it fits with this one, though.
[1:10:13] So, you get tenure, and tenure is, you basically can't be fired.
And you get, Malte Block was talking many years ago about, like, I only work a couple hours a week for $150,000 a year, and he was sort of celebrating all of this.
[1:10:26] Which, I mean, I've used the argument, of course, that education will never bring about a free market, because even those who are incredibly well-educated have PhDs on the the value of the free market um they love getting paid by the government and protected by the government so even if you gave everyone a phd in free market economics and the value of free market economics they'd still want to work for the government and be protected and paid by the government and of course they've got all their justifications but yeah it's all all a bunch of nonsense i i don't really have much i mean to me and i made this case many many years ago like if you're a free market academic once podcasting opened up you had no excuse to stay in academia academia no excuse you reach more people as a podcaster and you're actually in the free market and you can work as much or as little as you want and so why didn't people quit academia and say oh finally i can reach more because you know the academics who are free market academics well i can reach more i can reach people i can teach people about the free market it's like yes but through hypocrisy you all should be in the free market the free market is fantastic while i hang on to my government protected government subsidized job it's really sad but yeah everyone Everyone who was a free market economist should have left academia and gone into the free market that they love and claim to adore so much. I didn't see one.
[1:11:44] Look it up. Tell me. Am I wrong?
[1:11:50] Tell me, did any academic leave academia and move to the free market?
Who's a free market advocate?
Any of them. I mean, it's an example of how corrupt, how corrupting the government is, that even the free market economists will cling to their government teats rather than join the free market.
Because they say, well, the free market is quality, the free market is reach, the free market is integrity.
Okay, so if you leave your academic posts and you go into the podcasting world, you get reach, integrity, you get greater value, and ugh, right?
Tom Woods, did he quit his academic job? Jordan Peterson, half and half?
[1:12:43] Yeah i mean i'm not saying there aren't any uh of course i mean i i couldn't think of any but yeah jordan peterson he's pro free market right and he went into the free market yeah good for him tom woods he was an academic is that right i don't know was he an academic did was he uh, we love the tom we love the tom tom is tom is the goat so um it's not an endorsement don't don't hate on him just because of me. It's not his fault. I like him.
So, all right, let me just get to your, uh, but, but was he, was he a tenured academic? Did he have tenure?
I'm not saying somebody who taught for a year or two at university.
I'm talking about somebody who is a free market academic who had tenure and quit tenure in order to to pursue the free market.
[1:13:42] Eric Weinstein?
Is he a free market academic? I don't know that he is.
He was very pro-lockdown, if I remember rightly. Very pro-lockdown.
So, I'm not sure about that.
All right. Let me get his brother was super liberal yeah, all right let's see here i'm going to get to thank you for that uh time maybe that's an indulgence of mine but i like it when a prediction comes true that i made that quickly that there were going to be plagiarism wars and boom off they come now uh somebody asks why do some people who are nasty to others insult themselves first for example an online bully whose screen name is is a slur.
Is it a pejorative, preemptive strike against oneself so you couldn't retaliate?
Well, I call myself an a-hole, so you can't hurt me.
[1:14:44] Well, why are you interested in how trolls name themselves?
I'm a little curious as to why that would be of interest.
Some question, just because I don't find the question too interesting doesn't mean the question isn't interesting.
It just may not be particularly tickling me. So, uh, can you tell me why that's of interest to you?
[1:15:31] Uh, Tom has his limitations, but I won't get into those. Um, I mean, don't we all? Don't we all?
Worship no one. except your own potential. Worship no one and nothing except your own potential.
Yeah, I just, I mean, why trolls insult themselves first?
It seems like a very, very specialized kind of problem. I'm not sure it would appeal to too many in the larger sphere.
[1:16:14] Uh the the act of just while waiting for that response i don't know if the person is still around but the plagiarism thing is gonna it's gonna further divide people into those who now have to say plagiarism isn't a big deal and those who understand that it is a big deal, and it's just a further split a further split of reality right propaganda is designed to separate people from reality and set them against anyone who tells the truth right, anyone listens to tech lead youtuber who got fired from big tech companies now makes woke, videos tech lead is that the asian guy he's a japanese guy right he got divorced and, uh he got he got divorced and he's having trouble seeing his kids and uh all of that he's the guy who like i was being paid a million dollars at what i was tech lead at youtube and i think i watched him a couple years ago well somewhat interesting but his personal life just seemed like too much of a mess to uh to listen to him too much about life i mean whether that's right or wrong i just have that kind of uh prejudice right uh or or you know it's a sort of filtering mechanism that if somebody's personal life is a complete mess uh i'm not particularly interested in what they have to say about things uh things as a whole yeah.
[1:17:31] I mean he married a woman i think who just bugged out on him and he's having real trouble seeing his kid and um you can say oh well that's you know that's the system and yeah it's the system but you know people know that that's the system so aren't they kind of responsible for being in that in that system all right i don't want to do a short show but i gotta tell you um i came in with a big topic i mean i have other topics i could certainly talk about but if there's anything i'm not catching from you guys please to let me know and please to let me know let me scroll down here here for my other topics.
I always like to have... I always like to have backup topics in case we don't have too chatty of a crowd.
All right, what else did I have here?
[1:18:30] I mean, it's almost like the fertility rate of the world knows that AI and robots are coming.
I mean, dig deep. Thank you, Trogas, I appreciate that.
Dig deep, folks. Not even that deep, but I appreciate your tip.
So, you can also, of course, tip at freedomain.com slash donate, freedomain.com slash donate.
So, AI and robots, that is a wild thing, man. That is a wild thing.
You know, there's robots that can clean drapes. There's robots that you can send into vents to clean the vents.
There's robots that can do just about anything. thing and you combine the ai with the robots and um how like so what so for for all of human evolution it's been a break-even game almost all of human evolution except for the last maybe 200 years right so for almost all of human evolution it's been a zero zero sum game right so you have kids your kids live and they produce just enough food for their own kids and they produce just just enough food to keep some of the old people alive, and there's no excess, no extra, right?
[1:19:40] Everyone is necessary, and almost nobody is expendable, right?
Everyone is necessary, and almost nobody is expendable.
So if you have somebody with an IQ kind of low or whatever, there's still stuff they can do that is of value that can produce enough to keep at least them alive and maybe a couple of kids.
So the caloric expenditures, you know, there's an old quote from from Dickens, which basically says, I have to paraphrase him with modern equivalents, you know, income, $50,000 a year.
Expenses, $50,000, 500 a year, result, misery.
Income, $50,000 a year. Expenses, $49,500 a year, result, happiness.
And it's the same thing with human beings, you know, whatever caloric requirements depends if you're, you know, a single young woman or a pregnant woman or a, you know, hard exercising kind of guy, you know, 1,500 to 2,500 calories or whatever.
So let's say 2,000 calories, you know, expenditures 2,001 calories, income 2,000 calories, result disaster.
Expenditure 2,000, expenditure 1,999 calories, calories in 2,000 result survival and happiness, right?
So it's been that much of a razor thin wire for almost all of human evolution.
[1:21:01] And now, we have massive excess calories.
It's really, I mean, my daughter has showed me a couple of these videos, British videos from, I don't know, about a decade ago or eight years ago, called Secret Eaters, something like that.
And these people all say, oh, yes, I only, well, I only eat about 2,000 calories a day, my governor.
Something like that, right? I mean, that's a British accent in the style of Dick Van Dyke, which is to say pretty bad.
So, yeah, they say, oh, I only eat 2,000 calories a day. I don't know why I'm gaining weight.
I only eat 2,000 calories a day. And then they send, they measure everything they eat.
The camera's in the home and the guys don't even know that they've got two PIs following them around, recording everything they eat.
And one guy used to be a marathoner, says, oh, I only eat 2,500 calories a day, ended up eating almost 8,000 calories a day. So, I mean, this is staggering.
Absolutely staggering. And, you know, we're designed to eat to excess, particularly if you're back, if your ancestors came from a winter climate, a cold climate, we're designed to eat to excess, right? Because you don't know when your next meal is coming.
Especially the hunters, right? You don't know when your next meal is coming.
Of course you're going to eat to excess. You have to eat to excess.
Because you can't keep the food anyway. You pig out on deer because you don't know when the next deer is coming and you can't put the deer in a fridge.
I guess you could freeze it in the winter or whatever, right?
But it's also harder to find the deer in the winter.
So, yeah, it's pretty wild.
[1:22:28] It's pretty wild.
[1:22:36] So, now we have an excess of food, and we are going to have very soon, I mean it's already happening, but we're going to have a deficiency of demand for the average person.
Because so many of the average people can be replaced by robots and AI.
[1:23:00] That's pretty rough. so um this is uh really uh really going to be be pretty wild that that's a big factor in society the other big factor in society is going to be the tsunami of mental destabilization that's coming from all the women who are passing 40 without boyfriends that's going to be rough that's going to be one of the roughest things in human history now lord knows uh lord above knows Zeus knows I did what I could to try and prevent that, but the massive wave of women who are going to experiencing crushing anxiety, depression, and rage because they pass into their 40s and 50s and can't get a date, my gosh, that when their sexual market value has collapsed and all the high value men that they want, want younger women are already in relationships, man, that is going going to be one of the most destabilizing things that society has ever ever experienced particularly because of their political power right so all right let me get to your questions any thoughts on the upcoming bitcoin etf yeah i've done that already tom sorry, uh did is he get balls for christmas she did and she did and she took some back so.
[1:24:17] Uh do i have another presentation on ai coming no uh let's see here do you have a rendition of polonius's advice to laertes uh i don't know if i've done that i'm happy to do it, all right yeah polonius is very interesting character very very interesting character because he's an idiot and a buffoon who has some of the wisest things.
Shakespeare used his characters as a mouthpiece for his own poetic...
Genius, so his characters are not particularly consistent.
[1:25:00] So he gives advice to Ophelia, and then I just want to say, yes, so he says to his son who's sailing, he says, the wind sits in the shoulder of your sail and you are stayed for.
Therefore, there he kisses my blessing with thee.
And these few precepts in thy memory.
See thou character. Give thy thoughts no tongue, nor any unproportioned thought his act.
Be thou familiar, but by no means vulgar. Those friends thou hast, and their adoption tried, grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel.
But do not dull thy palm with entertainment of each new-hatched, unfledged comrade.
Beware of entrance to a quarrel, but being in, bear it that the opposed may beware of thee.
Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice.
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment.
[1:26:14] Custly thy habit is thy purse can buy, but not expressed in fancy, rich, not gaudy.
For the apparel oft proclaims the man, and they in France of the best rank and station are of a most select and generous chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be, for loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
This, above all, to thine own self be true, and it must follow as the night the day.
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
[1:26:56] Farewell. My blessing, season this in thee.
I mean, this is fantastic. I mean, I must have read this a billion times as a teenager because you grew up without a father and you've got to grab them from text, right?
See thou character.
It's a man's character that matters, right? Give thy thoughts no tongue, right?
Don't unpack your heart to everyone because so many people will use your thoughts against you nor any unproportioned thought his act uh act in proportion right so if you're angry don't punch a guy or run away right proportion to the act right be thou familiar but by no means vulgar right so you can be popular by dragging people down to a low level right but don't do that so be friendly but not vulgar so the friends you have and their adoption tried grapple them to thy soul with hoops of steel so somebody who's proven to be a good friend in a time of emergency or panic or danger, hang on to that person.
But do not dull their palm with entertainment.
[1:27:59] Do not dull their palm with entertainment of each new hatched, unfledged comrade, right?
So don't fall into all of these new people, big friends, drinking buddies, or whatever. That's no good.
[1:28:09] Beware of entrance to a quarrel, but being in, bear it that the opposed may beware of thee.
So yeah, I don't start fights, I end them. Try to avoid quarrels.
This This has been my philosophy forever and ever. Amen.
Try to avoid quarrels as much as possible, but if you're in one, you know, fight as hard as you possibly can.
[1:28:27] Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice. Yeah, listen to people, but don't give advice much. Don't give your feedback much.
Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment, right?
So somebody criticizes you, notice that they criticize you, but don't judge them as being accurate or correct, right?
Costly the habitus thy purse can buy, but not expressed in fancy.
Rich, not gaudy, for the apparel of proclaims the man.
Well, so this is to do with appearance, right? Don't be shabby, don't be penny wise, pound foolish, right?
Neither a borrower nor a lender be. Yeah, because if you lend money to a friend, you're going to lose the loan and your friend. And if you borrow money, you won't cut your expenses, right?
Fantastic. And it must follow us the night to day. Oh yeah, this above all to thine own self be true.
Now that's be yourself no matter what they say. We've got a sting theme tonight.
But to thine own self be true, that's kind of tough, right? Because that's, you know, just be true to yourself. It's hard to know exactly what that means.
But I think what it means for me is you've got a bunch of gut instincts that you can over-talk with your chattering brain. brain, don't do that.
Listen to your gut instincts, your deep self.
Be true to your essence and be true to your instincts. Listen to your instincts, right?
[1:29:36] For then, sir, to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night, the day, thou canst not then be false to any man, right?
If you are, if you deeply honor your own thoughts, integrity, and instincts, you can't be false to any man.
And what that means, of course, at least, sorry to say what that means, of course, like I have have some sort of final answer but what that refers to in my humble opinion is that he doesn't say you won't lie to anyone but you won't be false to them you won't have to pretend you're something other than who you are in order to gain favor if you're true to yourself, englishman in new york oh catches the scrap catches the scrap crap.
[1:30:24] Have you heard of gentle parenting? It overlaps with peaceful parenting, but includes some other questionable aspects.
Yeah, I think gentle parenting is unparenting, isn't it? Like your kids are always right. You don't correct them. You don't give them any feedback.
You don't give them, you're not, you're not a leader. You don't have any authority.
You don't guide them anywhere.
It's terrible. I think it's absolutely terrible. Children need to be raised.
You've got got to be a leader you got to help people right so yeah i mean um i i mean shakespeare jams this speech into polonius's mouth because polonius is kind of an officious idiot courtier or advisor to the king and he doesn't even know that the king killed hamlet's father spoiler in 500 years i I think we're okay. Or more. So...
[1:31:17] The, um, 15, 15, 20.
Yes. Okay. So no, wait, I always get, I always get, uh, Shakespeare and, um, uh, bacon.
Uh, I think they're on the same time anyway. So, uh, yeah. So Polonius is serving a murderer and doesn't even know it. Right.
So Polonius is giving advice to a man who murdered his own brother in order to get the crown.
So Polonius is an absolute idiot fool and blind to everything under the sun and moon, which is why it's kind of annoying that he gives this great speech about depth and wisdom and importance and and perceptiveness and all of this right and of course we assume that the king is in debt but he's like you know so anyway he's got all of his thoughts of wisdom while he's literally conciliary to a murderer a fraternal murderer fratricide yeah fratricide cain and abel right so uh it's kind of annoying but shakespeare wanted He wanted a place to put this advice, and he just jammed it in a character, and it's sort of, it's like putting a dildo in a sheep's ear.
It just doesn't seem to fit at all with the character.
[1:32:20] Everyone loves the speech, and I think the speech is great, but it's entirely the wrong character to put it in, because he is serving a murderer.
So he's basically saying, well, it makes people very cynical deep down, right? So with all of this wisdom, the guy is still pompous, dumb, dull, abusive towards his daughter and serves a murderer.
But he has all this wisdom.
So he's actually trolling the world by saying wisdom doesn't even stop you from serving a murderer and abusing your own children.
So it's pretty rough.
[1:32:49] So yeah, Shakespeare just wanted to jam this in, and I don't think he particularly cared about what it actually meant.
But, you know, as a writer myself, and I always thought it was meant to be a standalone against the character.
It's the only father figure in the whole play.
Well, I mean, there's the ghost.
Yeah shakespeare um he just he has these incredible flights of unbelievable poetic fancy and depth and they just hit him like tourettes and they just it's like the car he's got this character that then speaks these incredible speeches that has nothing to do with the character it's like possession by shakespeare's language demons and uh it's kind of chaotic and kind of annoying uh in my view uh so so uh as a writer myself and listen Listen, I understand that me saying, well, here's the problem with Shakespeare, but as a writer myself, I mean, I get Shakespeare will never be equaled.
Shakespeare is the ultimate language smith in many ways.
I certainly have read a lot of Shakespeare, and I aim to have the same kind of flights of fancy in language that Shakespeare has.
Obviously, right, it doesn't, right?
But that's the goal. That's the aim, is to try. I'm not going to do it in iambic, but I'm going to do it in such a way that I'm going to try and reach the boundaries and extend the boundaries of what extemporaneous speech can do. And so...
[1:34:16] With Shakespeare, when I say me and Shakespeare, obviously I get that that's kind of a hubris and all, but I'm very strict with my characters and what they are and not allowed to say.
What they are and are not allowed to say. So if a character is making bad decisions, he can't spout wisdom.
I mean, this is a basic reality. if a character is making bad decisions he can't spout wisdom with the exception being, that everybody knows he's lying right so i mean if you have a father who's heavily in debt lecturing his teenage son about not getting into debt you have to look the audience has to know that the father is being hypocritical right not to blow smoke up your ass but i enjoy your writing more steph not as much as i enjoy having smoke blown up my ass no thank you that's very kind I mean, as far as integrity of character, I'm obviously aiming for all of that, because my books are philosophical in that thoughts are destiny, right?
Beliefs are destiny. Thoughts are destiny. What you believe, what you think is who you are, who you'll become, and it almost certainly determines the course of your life, right? If you think you're not worth anything, you'll end up not worth anything.
If you think you're worth too much, you'll also end up being hollowed out and disappointed and enraged at the world. So...
[1:35:39] Uh the purpose of my novel writing is that the philosophy of the characters determines the outcome of their lives the only novels i can read without frustration like this have been yours is there any other authors who reach that integrity i mean obviously i ran as characters that have a huge amount of integrity but the problem with ayn rand's characters is they don't teach you how to to live in your life because their lives are too distant, from how people live, right?
That there are no kids, there's no illness, there's no difficult relations with parents or other family members and so on.
Going to listen to podcast 204 later, art part three, Shakespeare, right?
If a character, so for me, the arc is, if a character lies to herself.
[1:36:32] Then she either strenuously intervenes, usually as the result of great suffering.
I mean, think of Rachel in the present, right?
And if you haven't read the book, that's on you. I mean, the book is free, and you should read or listen to the book.
I mean, I don't know what else you're doing with your time other than these live streams.
So Rachel lies to herself. She lies to herself about having a career.
She lies to herself about having value. She lies to herself about loving her boyfriend. friend. She lies to herself about being a good sister.
She lies to herself about everything and anything.
Anything she can get her hands on, she lies to herself.
And society supports her in that lie because she's pretty.
So a character, and her aunt, Crystal, also lies to herself.
Aunt Crystal lies to herself.
Now, Rachel, over the course of the novel, experiences her first genuine desire and And.
[1:37:32] Takes her first genuine act of courage in writing about the men's rights movement.
And she does it without consulting anyone around her because she knows that everyone around her would counsel her to cowardice.
Right? So she does an act of courage. Now, it is partly an act of wooing of Oliver, but it is an act of courage. And the fact that everyone's mad at her for not.
[1:38:02] Um telling them that she was going to do this but she also knows that they would have talked her out of it she also she has a true self down in there and the detail i mean there's lots of details about it in my humble opinion but she at the beginning she's like where do baby pigeons come from i don't know that sounds like a completely ridiculous thing in in the novel Where do baby pigeons come from? No, it's really important.
[1:38:31] It's really important. She has no maternal instinct. She never thinks about where baby pigeons come from.
And pigeons, of course, are parasites of the city.
They live off the scraps of others. They don't hunt for themselves.
They just live off the scraps of others, like she lives off the scraps of attention.
So she's basically saying, I've never even thought about reproduction.
I've never even thought about depth. I've never even thought about becoming a mother. I've never... Where do baby pigeons come from?
And the chapter ends there which tells you that it's a very important thought that she has that she's a city parasite feeding off the attention of others and feeding off Arlo and, she begins to have an inkling because her sister is pregnant that she should start to think about reproduction when she starts to think about reproduction she falls out of love with her boyfriend who's ornamental and he's cool I like Arlo in a lot of ways I really do I have a very soft spot for Arlo, But...
[1:39:33] She can start telling the truth, right? And if you think about the beginning of the novel, where she's brittle and bullying and vain, and I mean, she's a dreadful person.
She's like an absolute, and I, it's hard to write a main character who's just so awful, but who has scraps of potential. angel.
So in the beginning, she's all about showing her butt and showing her boobs and tossing her hair and being flirty and manipulative and aggressive and hierarchical and bossing around the waiter and bossing around her sister.
And she's, I mean, she's insufferable. Absolutely, absolutely insufferable character.
He was your favorite character. Arlo, I have an absolute soft spot for Arlo because he's pretty direct.
He does not lie to himself. self and Arlo of course Arlo is a character who has such a grim ghastly past I mean the hints about Arlo's past are the grimmest of just about any character I've ever written that his parents have all of this creepy podesta art that he absolutely will never spend any time in his parents household like the the hints about what happened to Arlo in the past are unbelievably unbelievably brutal.
And so I have a soft spot for him because of that. And he doesn't particularly lie to himself, but he also doesn't confront his past.
[1:41:03] So if you look at how manipulative.
[1:41:10] Rachel is at the beginning versus the scene near the end with the officer in the car when she's trying to escape the city.
What's she trying? She's desperate to get away from the city.
In the beginning, she can't stand anything but the city sorry she can only stand the city and everything else is foreign and then she's desperate to escape the city and she does escape the city but only by being honest she doesn't flirt she doesn't manipulate she appeals to the man's soul and through appealing to the policeman's soul she also saves the soul of the policeman i mean it's pretty wild.
[1:41:46] Um, Rachel awoke, this is when she's trying to escape the disaster of the collapse of her society.
Rachel awoke in bright sunlight.
She heard the distant din of dogs and shuddered.
A beam of light was falling directly on her face from just above the newspaper-stuffed hole in the broken glass.
Tasting an acrid stench, she realized she must have vomited. it.
Now she was almost eaten by dogs trying to escape. Better to have food coming out than be food going in, she thought, wildly remembering the gruesome carpet of glaring dogs on the floor of the convenience store.
It was strangely pleasant to lie here. The warmth of the sunlight light seemed to heat even the roots of her teeth.
Then something most odd happened.
Within Rachel, and to Rachel.
Her whole life she had felt a strange tension in her belly, her chest, a sense of impending disaster, a lack of protection, a blindness to circling predators.
I always fiddled while Rome burned.
[1:43:08] She remembered another meme that her brother-in-law had sent her.
Are we the fall of Rome? The answer, nope, Rome had good roads.
How I rolled my eyes and called him crazy.
[1:43:25] Rachel felt, at the strangest possible time, she thought, all her tension leave her body at once.
My life is not entirely my own, she thought.
Now, that's the opposite of vanity, right? All vanity is a fundamental lack of gratitude.
You know, if I was like, oh, look at my brain, my creativity, my analogies, my language skills.
Oh, I'm so good. No, that's not mine. I inherited that. That's genetics, evolution, biology, whatever.
I have some pride I can take in my moral courage and things like that, but my abilities, my life is not entirely my own.
That's the beginning of wisdom. That's the beginning of humility and gratitude.
All right. She lay in the sunshine, the bright light of survival, and her animal will just left her.
[1:44:20] It's migrating back to my past, past, where it will hibernate with my parents, she thought, barely understanding her own mind.
So her sexual obsessions, and I don't mean that like kinky stuff or anything like that, but her obsession with being pretty attractive, sexy, getting that kind of attention, that's an animal will, to gain attention, to be narcissistic, that's an animal will of domination, and it just just leaves her.
Her life had been delivered to her as a gift, lying on the fake wood of an abandoned dining room floor.
Right. Do you accept, this is what I'm trying to get across, and this is what she is beginning to learn.
What she is learning is.
[1:45:11] Gratitude.
Do you experience your life as a gift? Do you experience your life as something you're deeply grateful for?
I'm unbelievably thrilled at my own existence, and I'm incredibly grateful for my life, for you, for friends, for family, for support, for donations.
I'm just incredibly grateful for being able to do everything that I do with you and the world. I mean, for all time.
I'm incredibly grateful. So I go on to say, and she's thinking this, vanity is the most fundamental lack of gratitude.
To use all the gifts you've been given for your own ego and gratification is really sad so in the book it says, the unknown instincts that had saved her from the dogs saved her from her parents' lassitude that were driving her to the only home she could imagine with Oliver, she did not earn those instincts she had no idea they even existed, I know that my home is with Oliver, and that is insane at a conscious level.
He barely knows me and does not approve, but I know it against all reason, against all experience, because what is coming has nothing to do with what was past.
[1:46:35] Now, that's obviously highly compressed, but what, and she knows, she doesn't know what she, again, the writing says, I wrote, again, her thoughts churned beyond her comprehension. What does it mean?
What is coming has nothing to do with what was past, because your instincts are about the future.
Your conscious mind is about the past, because it's empirical, but your instincts are about the future.
Your instincts are about the future. Right? Just think of hunger.
Hunger is I need to eat in the future.
Sex drive need to have sex in the future love for someone attachment that's all about creating a family and children in the future your instincts are all about your future she's focused and obsessed about the past her animal will where does it go back into my past the animal will is like the the conscious mind right animal will just left her it's a conscious mind it's based on the past past, it's just an animal.
But your instincts are about the future, and people who aren't in touch with their instincts don't have much of a future, because they don't have a sense of where they're going to go, of their own potential.
Potential is an instinct. Do I have an instinct for some kind of potential? It's about the future.
Because what is coming has nothing to do with what was past.
She's finally getting in touch with her deeper self.
The sunlight, the source of light, this is a platonic analogy, the sunlight, what does does it do? It warms her teeth to the very roots.
[1:48:01] She's getting right to the root of herself. And it's about the future, and it's about instincts.
Turning her head, Rachel saw a shiny something by her eyes, a near-dead battery.
So the clock she smashes, what is a clock. A clock is about the past.
It measures time passing. It's about the past.
She smashed this clock. Turning her head, Rachel saw a shiny something by her eyes. A near-dead battery.
So she's out of the past. And remember, all the way back at the beginning of the book, what does she say? She says, where the hell did baby pigeons come from? That's about the future.
She sees all these pigeons. They're all in the present.
There's nothing about the future. Then she finally thinks, okay, well, what about the future?
Everything she thinks about is about the past or the present.
The book is called The Present.
Right?
[1:49:02] A near-dead battery, so she's out of the past. The bird, this little cuckoo bird, the bird beyond it lashed by strange threads of metal to the dark opening of the clock, lay on its side, its beak wide open, in mute surprise.
Its beak wide in mute surprise. That's a nice little phrase.
Its beak wide in mute surprise. A nice little rhythm to it.
She smashes the clock. The bird is...
[1:49:33] Dead. and the battery's almost dead. And she says, I will never move again entirely by my own will.
It's amazing to me. I will never move again entirely by my own will, right? So she's got to have some kind of instinct.
She's got to have something that she's willing to surrender to, some outside force, some ethics, some virtue, some standard, other than her own vanity, her own will.
What am I being kept alive for? The idea of being kept alive, protected, nurtured, guided.
Is it the mere animal within me or something beyond me?
And even more deep and thunderous like a giant bell dropped in the deep well of her soullessness.
Right, you've got a cuckoo clock and this is her wake-up call.
The cuckoo clock is dead because it's about the past. The giant bell is a church bell.
[1:50:34] You're soulless if you're just an animal, right? Now, I lead philosophy, it's UPB, it manifests as the soul, right? It's eternal.
UPB is eternal. We partake of the eternal. The soul partakes of the eternal with God.
Philosophy allows your identity to partake of the eternal through UPB.
Now, she doesn't know UPB, so she's following her instincts, and they lead her to, she says, can I get to safety without God?
These are thoughts just tumbling. I don't know if you've ever had this situation where the thoughts just come crashing into you and smash everything that you know. I remember very clearly, very clearly, being in Mexico.
I was traveling with a woman. She went to go and see Chichen Itza.
I had already seen it before.
I climbed over a fence into a resort and lay on a hammock for eight hours.
And five of those eight hours are just thoughts crashing into me about how my life needed to change. This is before the show.
So this is sort of a reminder of me, of what happened.
It says, can I get to safety without God? God and was Arlo the devil and was I?
You can't be good unless you suspect yourself of being evil. You can't.
And we can get into all of the stuff about Arlo and his devilish aspect for sure.
[1:51:53] Arlo specifically says, you can't get an ought from it is there's no such thing as virtue. you, everything is animal will. He very clearly says that.
And Arlo literally behaves as an ape in the book, right?
She says, look what it has taken for me to actually think about my life.
The death of everything, the attacks of rabid animals, lying in this house of the dead, coincidental sunbeams lighting up my eyelids.
What was I living for? Well, she was living for for attention, for sexiness, for status, for prestige, for all the things she didn't earn, right? She says, what was I living for?
To glorify the great gift of existence?
No, to step on the sadness of others in order to avoid my own.
Okay, I tell you, come on, that's a staggeringly fantastic sentence.
What was I living for? To step on the sadness of others in order to avoid my own.
So she had prestige, she wanted to be lusted after, After she wanted to be desired, she wanted to have high status, she wanted to bully people, to step on the...
But who would look up to her and worship her?
Because to step on the sadness of others, to climb up, to have higher status based on the sadness of others in order to avoid my own.
Oh, that's so compressed I can't even tell you.
[1:53:17] And then she says one of the most important questions what can we will as mere individuals, what can we will as mere individual i can't will my language i can't will my language i do these shows i can't will my i can't will it to happen i can't like if if inspiration dries up inspiration dries up i can't will any of this i can't will the solution to upb i can sit down and say i want it but i can't will it to happen when i have an insight with a call-in show when i I write like this. I'm not willing this writing.
All of this stuff's cascading into Rachel at the same time as it's cascading into me. From where? I don't know.
From instincts, from language centers, from, you would say, the divine.
[1:54:02] I can't will this book. And everybody knows this.
You can't will a great song. You can't... Shakespeare didn't will his characters.
He was half in the possession of language.
[1:54:13] What can... Now, we can will things as mere individuals, but we've got to be humble about what we can and can't will.
I don't even know what sentence I'm saying next. I'm dancing with the instincts.
All right. And then she says, and most fundamentally, why do I want to live?
A pretty essential question to ask, right? And answer.
Why didn't I just drop to the dogs, fall down to the mere mammal, right?
So, I mean, it's not the most subtle of analogies, but she survives the attack of the dogs by climbing up the roof of a convenience store, and she puts herself, spread eagles herself across the beams, the thin metal beams along the top.
So she's in a Christ position, staying above the yapping dogs, the animals, the mammals, right?
She's elevating herself, she's moving up to the sky and assuming a Christ position to avoid being consumed by the animals, by the animal, right?
Why didn't I just drop to the docks, fall down to the mere mammal?
Because of the pain? There's more pain in staying up, in surviving, right?
A strange grace enveloped her. Her mind glowed. Her body fell away.
And she had a vision of herself.
In this house, without intervention. Old. And bitter. And yelling at skateboarders. And hating children.
And spending all her energy convincing herself that she was still somehow in the right. Despite all evidence. Thank you.
[1:55:39] God above Aunt Crystal in 10 years. So she would be Aunt Crystal in 10 years.
She's in her early 30s, so she would be Aunt Crystal in 10 years, which is her bitter spinster aunt, 10 years after her fertility.
And the idea, the very idea that something larger than herself had been trying to instruct her for decades, the concept that she was a protagonist in a story designed to elevate her, this both enhanced and crushed the remnants of her vanity.
Life is a school I refused to learn from.
Anyway, the moment of revelation for her is, to me, I had goosebumps writing this.
And I can't claim massive credit for it. I mean, I've done the work and I've practiced, but I don't know, man. It's just something else.
Gotta read this book, man. Gotta read this book.
Merry Eastern Orthodox Christmas to those celebrating it, sigh, oh my god I'm already hooked I need to read this yes you do grateful almost indicates a higher power right hard to argue oh you could say a deeper power.
[1:57:02] Figuring out what was worth pressing towards into the future was a big part of my healing, yes. Now, that's great writing. I think so.
[1:57:17] Probably a bit of a stretch, but cuckoos also steal from other species where they lay eggs in other birds' nests so they can ignore their own young.
That's very good. That's not a stretch at all. I think that's very good.
[1:57:29] She smashed the artificial mothering. and of course she is by not having kids herself and not wanting kids and so on uh she is cuckooing that way i am i some of i some of it as having been willed in the past i don't know what that means jared sorry brilliant book staff well i think so and listen i uh aunt crystal hits me hard since my aunt was on crystal oh yeah sorry about that uh yeah i'd appreciate that i honestly feel like i'm the first person to read the book but i can't pertain claim particular credit for any of the brilliance that's within it i really can't i mean this is my humility like i the book writes me the book comes through me the book is dictated to me by something i have some idea some choices and so on but i didn't know she was going to smash the clock honestly uh you you do a dance so you have a plan for the book but i didn't know so the the cuckoo clock startles her the first time the second time she's just completely enraged smashes the clock and passes out partly out of pain from the dog attack and the dog bites and so on but um when the cuckoo clock went off again which i heard when i was writing the scene she had this massive convulsion ran down the hallway smashed the cuckoo clock i had no idea she was going to do that yeah aunt crystal's last gasp was insane oh yeah aunt crystal's farewell texts are just heartbreaking Heartbreaking.
[1:58:57] Just heartbreaking.
[1:59:00] And Sheeta learns nothing. Her last gasp, well, you can read that in the book.
So, and I didn't know she was going to have all these revelations.
I didn't know, like, and so I know it sounds kind of precious.
Well, I didn't know, and the book's just like writing me.
But the way that it works for me is that I have an idea of the scene.
I have an idea of the general flow of the book.
And then stuff happens that surprises me, and I just have to go with it.
Because the idea that I'm in charge of everything, thing.
I know that Ayn Rand had a very different approach, which she was in charge of everything, and I think that had a certain lack of goose bumpiness in her writing, which I really want to achieve more spontaneity and more of my own particular and personal life experiences around these kinds of revelations.
But when you've, I mean, absolutely, you can completely understand how people say, it's God who's dictating and so on. It's wild, that process.
But I can't I can't claim this massive credit. It just, you know, like everybody has these incredible dreams every night, but that doesn't make you a screenwriter. You don't say, I'm incredibly proud of the dreams that I have written.
[2:00:13] We all have these incredible stories every night.
But we don't say, I'm taking personal credit for the vividness and power and depth of my dreams.
I can't take personal credit for the vividness, power and depth of this language.
Again, I've worked with it, but I've also worked with it because there's a natural part of me that does that.
It's like what Arlo says about him working out. He works out because he's already very handsome.
[2:00:40] Yeah, it really is a dance. And I could sit there and say, well, I mean, I have the impulse that she attacks the clock and smashes it, but that's not part of the plot of the story.
So I'm not going to do that. I'm not doing that.
That's vanity, right? That's me saying, well, I know how this dream should go.
I know exactly how. It's like, nope, no, I don't. No, I don't.
A lot of creativity is humility to the impulses.
Humility to the integrity that doesn't make any sense to you at the time but makes sense in hindsight in the same way that you know you've heard me do these dream analyses with people their dreams make no sense to them at the time but afterwards when we go through it it's like oh my god that makes perfect sense that makes perfect sense.
[2:01:30] All right uh any last tips i would appreciate that on this glorious sunday well it's not glorious is still kind of mucky up here but on this uh good i find myself conflicted with creativity between that style and randy and will it to be as i desire right i want things to be more spontaneous and humane and fertile i love andran's writing but it is fairly sterile and fairly mechanical It is more like great engineering with language than it is a burst of illumination through depth.
[2:02:14] All right, just make sure. Thank you again for those of you who've tipped.
Of course, if you're listening.
Good evening from Paris. Good evening. Pauline, how does it feel to get tips from girls, huh? Lots of love to you and your family on this holy day of epiphany.
It feels fine to get tips from girls.
Sorry, I missed this one. Thank you.
Bormeg, the one piece of advice I would accept from someone who made mistakes that ruined their lives is to do the exact opposite of what they did to screw up their lives, yeah?
Shakespearean interpretation Very insightful, thank you Tom, I appreciate that, And yeah If you have speeches that you want to go through I'm obviously very happy To do it The best jokes are not willed What you truly want to will is aligned with God You can feel the inspiration when you're doing the right thing, Steph, what are some tips to deal with imposter syndrome?
Joe, you're waiting Until we've been going for over two hours What are some tips to deal with Imposter syndrome?
First of all, recognize everybody has it and second thing to realize is that, there's nothing in particular that would bar you from excellence assuming you do the work, but yeah do a search, fdrpodcasts.com fdrpodcasts.com do a search for that, imposter, if you can't find it there you can search for imposter on freedomain.locals.com and of course if you are a subscriber and I hope you are I hope you are, if you are a subscriber then.
[2:03:42] You can go to the subscriber premium podcast search engine, which James has worked on very hard, and he's done a great job on it.
And one day I'll do podcasts to match the quality of James's code, but not quite yet. I'm still working on it.
It's a perfection I attempt to reach. So yeah, just go.
It's pinned, I think. You can go to the subscriber search, and I think you'll be able to find it there if it's not anywhere else.
So, all right. right well thank you everyone so much for a great day a great show and uh uh joe if if listen call in at freedomane.com especially if you call in like if you want to call in you know send me your skype id uh send me your question tell me if you're a subscriber because you know obviously i want to benefit those people the most the most and um.
[2:04:33] Call in at freedomane.com i'm obviously super thrilled to help out like the video yeah share share the video should you dare and love you guys for coming by today thank you for making this conversation so fantastic i really really do appreciate it and i wish you the very best this weekend uh no wednesday show but it's a tuesday show we're doing the show tuesday 7 p.m so we'll not be on wednesday apologies for that but uh um i'm planning on being possessed so um love the books here's a tip uh thank you of course you know if you've read the book feel free to support and and donate.
I did pour quite a lot of time into those books and quite a lot of heart and soul into those books.
Of course, if you are a subscriber, you get the Peaceful Parenting audiobook.
[2:05:20] Oh yes, premium.freedomain.com. Premium.freedomain.com. If you don't have access, you won't get in, but if you do have access already, premium.freedomain.com, that will help you out.
So thanks a million, everyone. Have yourselves a wonderful afternoon.
Lots of love from up here. I'll talk to you soon. Bye. Thank you.
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