STOP SCORNING VICTIMS!

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Topics discussed: husband shaming, perceptions of younger men, suicide controversy, self-conflicts leading to divorce, desire for children, time management, childhood issues. Emphasis on personal growth, empathy, and support for positive change.

Brief Summary
In this episode, we discuss various topics including younger women shaming their husbands, the perception of younger men being nicer, the controversy around suicide as a valid option, self-inflicted conflicts leading to divorce, the desire to have children, time management, and the importance of addressing childhood issues. We emphasize the need for personal growth, empathy, and support for those seeking positive change.

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Chapters
0:00:00 Introduction and invitation to join the discussion
0:02:03 Women's high value and vanity due to attractiveness
0:04:03 The difference between work that pays off immediately and long-term
0:06:09 Men's inability to understand the vanity of attractive women
0:08:26 Importance of using inherited wealth wisely and investing for the future
0:11:27 From Wealth to Debt: The Bitter Transformation of Women
0:18:54 The Long Road to Becoming a Doctor
0:26:29 The Impact of Personal Problems on Dating Prospects
0:35:15 Society's Impact and the Desire for Improvement
0:37:34 Effects of Verbal Aggression on Call-In Shows
0:40:41 The Impact of Socialist Dictatorship on Family History
0:43:06 Frivolity Evaporates as a Man and the Importance of Time Management

Long Summary
In this episode, we delve into various topics and conversations. We start by discussing the trend of younger women shaming their husbands over emotional load and labor, viewing it as a form of self-victimization from feminists. We explore the idea that everyone faces a choice between adding value in a specific area or being better than someone else, with some overlap between the two. The speaker emphasizes the vanity and entitlement of young, attractive women who prioritize looks over character.

Next, we shift to discussing the perception that younger men are nicer and more polite due to their less aggressive pursuit of women. The speaker values individuals who have earned their social standing through hard work rather than inherited wealth and criticizes those who waste their inherited money. We also reflect on childhood experiences and the different representations of femininity observed, specifically mentioning TikTok videos where women showcase their superiority over their husbands.

The conversation then takes a turn towards the topic of suicide and the differing opinions on considering it a valid option for those enduring suffering. The speaker strongly disagrees with this idea, highlighting that life is meant to be a journey with challenges and hardships that lead to growth and fulfillment. They argue against skipping the process and expecting instant gratification, asserting that true fulfillment is earned through dedication and perseverance. The nihilistic nature of such thinking is examined, and the negative consequences of not helping individuals with their problems are discussed.

The speaker expresses their concern about self-inflicted conflicts leading to divorce and the resulting negative effects on society. They believe in helping others improve and peacefully raise their children. The conversation then moves onto discussing a dream the speaker had about having a baby and their longing for the joy and connection it would bring. They encourage others to pursue their desire to have children, despite potential excuses or financial concerns, drawing from their own family history under a totalitarian regime.

The episode continues with a reflection on managing time efficiently and avoiding wasting it on frivolous activities. The speaker acknowledges the importance of leisure but emphasizes the need to prioritize personal and economic growth. They also address the criticism of focusing too much on personal problems in the show, explaining the value of call-in shows and the insights gained from discussing issues rooted in childhood abuse or neglect.

The connection between verbal aggression, manipulation, and aggressive parenting is highlighted, with the speaker expressing their preference for helping those who seek guidance and insights. They criticize dismissive attitudes towards others' suffering and stress the importance of extending support to individuals who want to change dysfunctional behaviors.

Lastly, the episode concludes with a call to avoid wasting time and find closure on childhood issues. The speaker encourages listeners to approach life with the seriousness of children, emphasizing the need for self-improvement, maturity, and adulthood. They express their gratitude for support and offer donation and community joining options.

Tags
episode, younger women, shaming husbands, perception, younger men, controversy, suicide, valid option, self-inflicted conflicts, divorce, desire for children, time management, childhood issues, personal growth, empathy, support, positive change
Transcript
Introduction and invitation to join the discussion

[0:00] All right, good morning, everybody. As usual, fantastic questions from the core, meaty, beaty philosophy crew at freedomain.locals.com.
Please drop by, have a look, have a chat. We'd love to see you, freedomain.locals.com.
All right, what is behind the latest trend in younger women making TikToks and other content that shames their husbands over what they call emotional load and emotional labor?
It seems like a new round of self-victimization, but the same feminists die up. These women seem absolutely miserable, right?
Well this is not of course specific to women but everybody in life has a fork in the road.
You've got a fork in the stew and you've got a fork in the road.
Now the fork in the road is I want to feel competent.
I want to feel like I'm good at something. I want to feel like I add value and everybody has a choice to make.
Do they add value by being good at something, or do they add value by being better than someone else?

[1:06] Do I add value by being objectively good at something, or do I add value by being better than someone else?
Now, I mean, there's a little bit of overlap of these two things, of course, because you do need to measure your competence relative to other people.
In the same way, you want to measure your height relative to other people, like there's an objective height and then there is relative height.
So a guy who's short in Denmark will be tall in Japan, you know, that kind of stuff, right?
So you want to have some objective measure, but you also want to have some relative measure.
Like you're a good singer if you have a four octave range, you're a great singer I guess, but you don't want to sit there and say, well, I'm not a great singer unless I have a 12 octave range of go-beyond human hearing.
Then dogs will appreciate your versions of Bohemian Rhapsody.
So everybody has a choice.
Women's high value and vanity due to attractiveness

[2:03] Now, women, because they are assigned this eternal adolescence of massively high value for high sexual market value when they're young, a phase which is only supposed to last three to six months while they choose their long-term mates, Well, of course, they end up in this situation where they milk this level of attractiveness and male lust and hysteria and pursuit and so on.
They milk this stuff for, I mean, decades, really.
I mean, 20 years, easy, 18 to 38.

[2:32] And so, they are of high value, which when you have high value that you didn't earn, you get, oh, what do you get? Oh, we know.
What do you get? If you have high value that you did not earn, you get vanity. Vanity.
Vanity is when you choose to add value by being better than others for things you did not earn.

[2:56] I think I'm a better philosopher than other philosophers, but I think I put in the hard blood sweat tear work and the attendant reputational damage work that occurs when you are a good philosopher.
I think I put the work in, so yeah, I think I'm better at philosophy than other philosophers, but I've worked at it, and I mean, eventually it's not for me to judge, it's for history to judge.

[3:22] So yes, that is the big question. And so women of course get decade after decade of being high value if they're attractive and of course you say, ah yes, but Steph they work at being attractive and it's like yes, yes they do.
They do work at being attractive. They buy a lot of makeup, they learn how to do makeup, maybe they go to the gym, maybe they restrict their eating, whatever it is that they do to be attractive.
They might have that Sarah Jessica Parker scrawny, no fat, scarecrow stick figure, no fertility body, but they work at it. They work hard to be attractive.
Well, that's not particularly important.
The difference between work that pays off immediately and long-term

[4:03] I say, well, Steph, you just said you have to work it. They say, yes, but you work at it because it pays off. And why does it pay off?
Because you're a young attractive female, right? So you're young attractive, so working hard at it pays off.
And so it's not really work.
So generally the stuff that really pays off that's like moral and virtuous and good and valuable and useful in society as a whole, that stuff pays off after a long time of it not paying off.
Like if you want to become a doctor, there's a whole lot of it not paying off before it pays off.
As something that pays off immediately.

[4:40] Well that's like you slap on some makeup and a tight dress and you go and get a lot of attention that's not that's not really work that's not that's not the work is when there's a deferral of gratification and for a woman to slap on some makeup and a tight dress go strolling around Manchester that's not a whole lot of work.
Ah yes but they look for the right clothing It's like yeah, they do they do and if a woman spends a hundred dollars buying a really nice Sexy tight outfit and then a guy spends a couple of thousand dollars on her.
Well, that's It's not exactly becoming a doctor, right?
So so if a man inherits ten million dollars and, He thinks that makes him better smarter wiser, you know, like there was some comedian who was asking some guy, I think I mentioned this before, there was a guy, there was a comedian asking some guy, oh you're 24, what do you do?
I work in real estate, I have my own firm, right? Oh, 24, does anybody else work in your firm? My dad works there.
Yeah, my dad works there, right? So this is the typical thing, like how to make a million dollars by the time you're 30, you know, get up, do ice baths, work out, study the Harvard Business Review for half an hour a day, also inherit a million dollars at 29, right, so that's…
You and I, like as men, almost for certain, as men.
Men's inability to understand the vanity of attractive women

[6:09] Almost for certain, we will never ever understand the vanity and confidence of a woman, a young, attractive woman who devotes herself to looks rather than quality of character, like we will never understand that level of entitlement and vanity.
We will never understand that level of deference.
We will never understand anything like that.
I saw a meme the other day where an old woman was saying to her grandmother, sorry, a grandmother was saying to her granddaughter.

[6:35] Young men are so much nicer and more polite and civilized than when I was younger.
It's like, yeah, that's because they're not trying to get in your pants anymore.
So yeah, they don't have to be that aggressive. So that's, I think, just an important thing to understand.
So when I meet people, I scan for them, right?
I mean, it's not really a conscious process anymore, it just kind of happens.
But I scan for people when I meet them and what I do is if I meet somebody and he's well-off I scan for did he earn it? Did he did he work for it?
Substantially work for it now just because you're born with money doesn't mean you didn't work for it I mean, there's lots of people who were born into wealthy families and they increase that wealth ten tenfold and that's you know That's good work.
That's hard work and I respect that for what that's worth But I just I just scan for it. Did you earn the positive regard?
That you have. Now of course somebody who's gone from nothing to something is the most impressive, somebody who's gone from something to something more is impressive, somebody who's born with something and just stays with it, doesn't add to it, doesn't subtract it, is kind of meh, somebody who destroys it is blech, and so on, right?

[7:41] And so somebody who inherits a million dollars and fritters it away, and I actually knew a guy when I was in my teens, he got over a hundred thousand dollars, And I remember sitting with him one night, a windy, windy night I remember it was, and I remember saying, man.

[8:01] You save it and buy some bonds and, you know, like, hang on to this.
This is a… And nope, nope. What, he bought a Jeep, he bought a really expensive computer, he just bought a bunch of crap that declined in value and…
Anyway, so somebody who inherits, and that wasn't an inheritance, but nonetheless, somebody who gets a lot of money, well, if they fritter it away, I mean that's one of the worst things around isn't it?
Importance of using inherited wealth wisely and investing for the future

[8:26] It's one of the worst things around.
If you get a bunch of money and you just fritter it away, you're supposed to use it to invest, to maximize, to find some way to increase the value of your holdings.
And in particular you do this, you're going to have kids and if you can give your kids a slightly easier start in life, I get that there's well they won't have as much muscularity if they don't have to lift as much weight and it's like, yeah, but I had to lift too much weight.
I mean, that was, you know, burrowing out from the trashy welfare littered with human refuse kind of world. That was a bit too harsh a climb.
A bit too harsh a climb. I think that's a bit more grace when you don't have to hardscrabble your way up the side of a bladed cliff wall using your teeth and balls. That's really not a whole lot of fun.
So women, of course, they inherit, I mean, the sort of functional equivalent of, I mean it depends how attractive the woman is, but they inherit the functional equivalent of about a million dollars.

[9:25] About a million dollars. And the reason I say that is an attractive woman can have her life paid for by a husband, you know, she has kids, she homeschools, raises her kids, does all that kind of good stuff, and a quality man will make, I don't know, two million dollars, over the course of his life, gives half of it, well, more really, but a lot of it goes to the kids, gives half of that money to his wife, and so she gets like a million dollars.
So, I don't want to say you're sitting on a million dollars because that's a bit too groin-specific, but you're born and you get a million dollars.
You get a million dollars. All you have to do is use your beauty and youth and, you know, obviously qualities of character and all of that.
All you have to do is cash in your beauty for a million dollars.
You're literally sitting on a million dollars.
So all you have to do is, you know, be attractive, be nice, be reasonable, be helpful, be loving, be virtuous, you know.
I mean, so you're sitting on a million dollars. Now, somebody who inherits a million dollars and fritters it away, what do you think?
Right? Somebody's hard-won family gave them a million dollars or maybe a parent died and they got a million dollars in life insurance or something like that and she gets a million dollars when she's 18 or 20 or 21 or something like that.
Maybe it comes out of a trust or whatever it is. So she gets million dollars and then by the time she's 40 it's all gone and she's in debt.

[10:53] And she's broke. So you get a million dollars, let's say 20, and a million dollars, and it goes down in value, $50,000, every year.
Every year, the value of your, I just say putting the ass in assets, but the value of what you can bring in terms of fertility and raising kids and being a loving mother and a great companion and a homemaker, all these wonderful things, the value goes down like 50 grand a year, right?
Because over 20 years, 20 to 40, it's down to zero. Now, why do we say you end up in debt?
From Wealth to Debt: The Bitter Transformation of Women

[11:27] Well, you end up in debt because you're now bitter about the money being gone, right?
So from being youthful and positive and bouncy and attractive and so on, right?
You now are bitter at having been used, tossed aside, and you're now in debt, right?
So you've gone from having a million dollars to being half a million dollars in debt.
You've gone from being very attractive to being bitter, of course mostly infertile and so on.
So that's not great.
So some women of course do the right thing and focus on qualities of character and of course being attractive and there's nothing wrong with that.

[12:07] And you know, raising kids well and homeschooling and creating communities and doing charity work and just being all around great women.
Like I had two poles of femininity in my childhood, like two wild poles, so it couldn't be more opposite, could they be?
So on the one hand was my mother, who was this sort of Blanche DuBois hysterical caricature of anime high-strung femininity, and on the other hand were my aunts, who were solid and sensible and good Christian women, who were good with their kids and tended to help people in their community and you know they stayed relatively trim and they did their hair and so on and you know it was like 50s versus.

[12:51] Tennessee Williams, right? So I sort of had these, and they worked hard, they did physical work, they gardened, you know, they were just all around strong, staunch, helpful, productive, fertile women who, so I had these sort of two poles of femininity, and thank goodness I had my aunts, because otherwise, Lord knows, right? So I'm sort of trying to pass that along.
So what am I saying about, what the hell am I talking about?
Well, it's always, always a reasonable question, but what I'm talking about is why would women make these TikToks about how much emotional labor their husbands are, how difficult it is, how foolish their husbands are?
Well, because they have taken the dark path of not being good at something but being better than someone.

[13:35] And if you want to find a vain woman, a woman who's decided to be better than rather than good at something. Better than someone good at something.
If you want to find a vain woman, all you do is find a woman whose husband puts himself down.
Whose husband makes fun of himself.
Whose husband, oh, she's put up with me all these years and just denigrates his contributions and that's the price, right?
Her vanity is the price he has to pay to stay in the relationship.
And you know, we evolved as men to protect our women from other men and from predators, and now we seem to have evolved, for a variety of machinations, we seem to have evolved into protecting them from basic reality itself, which is really quite sad, but that's the thing.
So yeah, they just want to feel superior to their husbands, they haven't really achieved.

[14:38] Anything and so what they do is they take things that they're naturally good at and they compare them to the things their husbands are naturally not good at and they feel superior.
I mean my wife is 110 pounds and all of five foot one and a half right?
Now if I you know bench press whatever weight and she can't do it I'm like yeah you know I'm superior to you it's like well that's just my physical strength versus her relatively hobbit-like stature.
So that's not… have I won? No.
And like most women, she's better at, yes, this is her Izzy's dental appointment and she needs this and she needs that.
She's really, really great at managing all of that stuff and I love her for it and it's great.
So if she were to say, you know, when's Izzy's next whatever ex-appointment or whatever and I'd be like, I don't know.
I don't even know when minors, just wait till you tell me to go.
And so she would take her organizational strengths at my, you know, not particularly, my mind is well organized, my schedule not so much.
So would she say, well I'm superior because I know these things and you don't?

[15:47] We have a sort of funny difference in that she's really good at directions in built-up areas and I'm really good at directions in the wilderness, right?
So we go hiking someplace, I know exactly where we are and exactly how to get back.
Now that's partly a bit of a male hunting instinct and it's also partly a, you know, I worked in the woods for 18 months kind of thing where you really couldn't get lost or you'd die.
So, yeah, she's really good. So, and this makes sense, right, that women are better at local directions because they'd have to go where the berries are and whatever it is and come back, and men are better at unknown ranged directions because we were hunting and we had to find our way back to the tribe and so on, right?
So, if I'm going to sit there and say, well, you get lost in the woods, how foolish, and she's going to say, well, you can't remember how to get to X store, how foolish, right?
Well, I don't know, it's just, it's just kind of sad, right?
So, maybe these women are better at emotional work and the men are better at practical work and so what they do is they're comparing their strengths to the man's weakness and they're feeling superior and it's really sad.
And of course the sad thing is that vanity destroys your life, like vanity literally destroys your life.
It's a drug, right? It gives you a high and then you crash really really hard.

[16:58] So these women feel like they're getting something by putting down their husbands but they're not, they're losing everything because a woman who can't respect her husband falls out of love with him.
So they're cannibalizing future attraction for the sake of immediate vanity ego gratification so yeah it's really it's really sad.
Alright I am a follower of Christ and believe in an afterlife.
Yesterday my father-in-law suggested that Christians who believe in heaven should just end their lives and go to a better place saying that there is no reason to continue life here if there's a paradise waiting for us.
I have children, I'm pregnant, I find so much joy and beauty in my daily life and can't imagine how I could just press the eject button on myself, not to mention the gospel really doesn't care for suicide, put it mildly.
I saw his statement as an idealistic confession that nothing really matters to him and that if he could trade his life away for something he perceived as better he would.
What does philosophy say about our purpose here?

[17:56] Can suicide ever be considered a valid option for people who are enduring suffering?
Oh there's a whole bunch of complicated questions put in there which I appreciate and I I thank you for.
Well, to me the analogy that you should, you know, if you're a Christian you should just kill yourself to go to heaven is, it's crazy.
Sorry to characterize it before I make the argument, but I just wanted to say how strong my emotional reaction is to this kind of argument.
So life is a test you have to pass to get into heaven.
And so if If you were to say to someone, you're saying to some 14-year-old kid and the kid says, oh I really want to be a doctor, right?
I really want to be a doctor, well, you know, I've got to finish high school, get good marks in biology and science, and then I've got to, you know, go take undergrad, medical degree, I've got to go through an internship and all that kind of stuff, right?
The Long Road to Becoming a Doctor

[18:54] And that's not quite the right word, is it? Well, it doesn't matter.
So, you know, it's going to take me a long time to become a doctor, right?
But, you know, once I do all of that, and I, actually a friend of mine is becoming a doctor at the moment, and it's in his 40s.
So, it's going to take me a long time to become a doctor, but boy, when I become a doctor, I'm really going to help people and I'm going to save people and it's going to be really rewarding and a beautiful thing to do, right?

[19:20] And then, you know, I'll probably never retire because I love being a doctor.
I hope to still be working and helping people in my 80s and so on, right?
And that's going to be a satisfying, productive, positive, helpful and healthy life, right?
I'm going to save thousands of lives and all that kind of stuff.
So that's the kid's 14 years old, 14 years old, and he says that's what I want to do with my life, right?
And then His uncle says to him. Oh, so you want to become a doctor?
You want to spend your life helping people and saving them and and so on and then you know like at some point I mean you'll retire So you end up in a retirement home, and you look back upon your life with great satisfaction, right?
Yes, that's my hope uncle. Oh, okay, so why don't you just move into the retirement home right now?
And get all of that satisfaction and be like, what?
Well, you told me you want to become a doctor, you're 14, you told me you want to become a doctor, go through all the grueling stuff about becoming a doctor, spend decades helping people, maybe retire into a retirement home when you're 85.
So just move into the retirement home now and you'll get all that happiness and satisfaction.
And it's like, no, no, no, no. That happens after all that challenge, hardship, happiness and satisfaction.

[20:33] I really wanna learn Spanish, you know, and I wanna learn Spanish and become a translator, there's a really, really tough exam.
I don't know Spanish yet, but there's a really tough exam and I wanna learn Spanish and there's a whole exam about translating Spanish to English and, you know, I'm gonna have to spend years studying Spanish, but I really wanna translate Spanish to English, English to Spanish.
So I'm gonna have to spend, you know, I don't know, five or seven years studying Spanish so I can become a really good translator, right?
So then my uncle says to me, Wait, so after you take this exam, you can be like an official translator?
Yeah. Well, just take this exam now then. What?
You understand this crazy? That's what I mean when I say like it's nuts. It's nuts.

[21:17] It's nuts. Well, if you, if you'll have the life that you want after you take this incredibly complicated translation exam from Spanish to English and English to Spanish and you don't know Spanish at all yet, well, if, if, if your great life is on the other side of this exam, just take the exam now then?
I can't take the exam now. Well, why not? You said after you take the exam you get the life you want being a translator.
But I can't speak Spanish yet. The exam is proof that I speak Spanish.
I can't just take the exam when I haven't learned Spanish because I'll fail.
I don't know. Do you see what I mean? It's just completely reversing cause and effect.
So after a life of fulfilling Jesus's word and spreading the gospel and and being virtuous and inculcating great virtues in others and saving other people from hell and like so at the end of all of that service to God and virtue and the commandments and the teachings of Jesus and after a lifetime of that you get rewarded with heaven.
Well why don't you just kill yourself and go to heaven now? Why don't you just take the exam before you know anything?
Or why don't you just go to the retirement home and get all the satisfaction of having a lifelong doctorhood? And it's like because you haven't done it.
You get the satisfaction after you've done it. I mean, you understand, this is why I'm saying, it's totally nuts.
It's completely insane, and it is nihilistic.

[22:31] It is nihilistic. If I've never worked out a day in my life, and I say, you know, I really, I just woke up this morning, and I just, I want the goal of being able to bench press 400 pounds, right?
And then my uncle loads up a bunch of weights and says, all right, I put 400 pounds, go for it.
I mean, you said you'd be satisfied after you weigh, after you bench press 400 pounds, here's 400 pounds. I'm like if I try and bench press that right now my shoulders will pop off Like I will injure my like what are you doing?
I have to work up to it. I have to work up to it.

[23:02] I Have a lifelong goal of winning the Wimbledon tennis Championship and your uncle says yeah, okay. I had Wimbledon actually starts tomorrow.
I bought you a tennis racket and signed you up. What?
You see that's what I mean like it's completely insane. So I hope that helps with regards to suicide I'm not a fan, obviously. I think it's appalling.

[23:25] And suicide is an act of murderous satanic rage towards anyone and everyone who ever cared about you.
It's a form of spiritual mass murder in the hearts and minds of those around you.
And I have such bottomless contempt for people who openly commit suicide that I can't even tell you.
I mean, there's a reason to me why, of course, in a lot of Christian belief systems, suicides It's a never bother, they go straight to hell and they're never buried in holy ground, because it's a satanic action.

[23:59] It's a satanic action. It is an act of wildly destructive, like serial killers, at least their victims are dead, but the people around a suicide have to live with that agony for the rest of their lives.
Like Christopher Hitchens, his mother calls him, or he calls his mother, he misses the phone call, doesn't get through to her, doesn't connect, and then she kills herself, and he's got to live with that.
He's got to live with that. And that death impulse is probably why, even though he suffered from a significant risk of, I think it was the cancer who killed him, he smoked and drank and that death wish.
It's just awful. And now, of course, people can say, well, what about those who are just enduring unbelievable suffering, that there's no pain management, there's no cure, and they just have months and months of suffering ahead of them and they can't be fixed?
I understand that. You can absolutely create a scenario wherein you can say well why would you want to keep on suffering if your life is blinding agony, pain management can't help you, you can't be cured, you can't be fixed and it's only going to get worse, right?
I can completely understand that and you can make that case and that's more in the realm of euthanasia.
Euthanasia to be in suicide are two different characteristics, two different scenarios.

[25:11] Now if someone genuinely for whatever reason, that usually passes right, for whatever reason if somebody's like, I want to kill myself, well, if, I mean, I don't agree with it, I think it's a terrible idea, but I would have slightly more respect for people if they wanted to kill themselves, you know, at least make it credibly look like an accident. And that's my plea.
My plea is don't ever kill yourself, but I would have marginally more respect for people who, you know, made it look like an accident.
Like, they drove in the rain, they slipped, went over a cliff, died.
Okay, so then at least the family isn't tortured with, you killed yourself.
Okay, you get what you want, which I think is a bad thing, which is you want to end your own life.
Okay, you get to end your own life, but at least, at least Don't.
Torture everyone else forever and ever, amen. I mean, jeez, I mean, it's such an act of vile and destructive and murderous rage, I can't even tell you.
Like if you have a kid and you kill yourself, at least you got a daughter and you kill yourself.
Okay, great. So now every time she goes on a date, oh, tell me a little bit about your family.
The Impact of Personal Problems on Dating Prospects

[26:29] Yeah, dad killed himself. What's that going to do to her dating prospects? Like it's murderous.
If you want to die, bad idea, don't do it, but at least don't make it obvious.
Anyway, for more about this, you can check out my free book, The Future.
I have a whole storyline involving this, so you can get more details about it.
Alright, what do we got here?
I signed up! Ah, this is so critic, it's totally fine, it's good.
I signed up because of your extensive library of documentaries and insightful commentaries on history and current events. For some reason this has, in my eyes, devolved into endless chatter with dysfunctional people and their personal problems usually of their own making.
A sort of dial-the-analyst format. I am truthfully not the least interested in hearing people whine about their self-inflicted misery.
There's more than enough of that sprayed all over the internet.
You have too much knowledge and too much to offer about history and its implications upon the current world we live in to be wasting it on such nonsense. But that is just me.
And look, I appreciate the feedback, I'm always glad when people tell me what they think about the show, it's very, very important information to have, so I really do appreciate that.
I suppose I have a minor pushback or a couple questions, and you know, if you want to talk, call in at freedomain.com, don't have to talk about your childhood, just talk about your thoughts about people.

[27:50] So usually of their own making, that's interesting, that's interesting.
I mean, the people who have significant problems in their lives, who I talk to, when I ask them about their childhood, I mean, with no exceptions that I can think of, they were violently abused as helpless children by caregivers or others in their vicinity, or at least not protected by caregivers.

[28:16] Now we don't as yet, as a society in the sort of great human journey, we don't have as yet the key knowledge of the deep roots of adult dysfunction in childhood abuse.
I mean, we kind of get it, but we don't really apply it.

[28:33] So I can certainly understand if you prefer documentaries, you prefer historical analyses, philosophical analyses of current events.
I mean, I can certainly understand that you might not be particularly partial to the call-in shows.
I get that. Not everything is to everyone's tastes. Now, of course, the majority of people like the call-in shows are the most popular format of what I do.
I mean, just so you know. Even these solo shows, which I think are magnificent, doesn't hold a candle to the call-in shows.
The call-in shows are, and it's not even really particularly close, the call-in shows are the most popular thing that I do.
And I think in some ways it's where my skill set is the most unique.
Self-knowledge plus philosophy is not the most common combination.
So a lot of people in the call-in shows suffer because has other people bully them into doing what those other people want.
Like a parent who wants you to do X will verbally abuse you, yell at you, denigrate you, bully you in order to get the children to do what the parent wants, right? That's a very common phenomenon.
We've all experienced this at school or whatever it is, right?
So what's interesting to me is that the call-in shows wherein people have been bullied because their bullies want them to do what the bullies want is kind of mirrored in what you're doing here.

[29:59] So bullying is sometimes associated with flattery, right?
So this person says, I signed up because of your extensive library of documentaries and insightful commentaries in history and current events.
For some reason, right, hasn't asked, hasn't sort of figured out, well, geez, it must be Steph knows a little bit about entrepreneurship and so on, built one of the biggest podcasts, ran a software company he co-founded, you know, knows a little bit about entrepreneurship.
For some reason, this has in my eyes devolved into endless chatter with dysfunctional people, right?
So, endless chatter, devolved, endless chatter, dysfunctional people, and the person problems usually of their own making, right?
So that's a form of significant verbal aggression.
Is it verbal abuse? No, not really, but it's obviously kind of cold in me.
And you say, I'm truthfully not the least interested in hearing people whine about their self-inflicted misery.
So, this is verbally aggressive, right? And I can be kind of punchy myself, I don't have any significant issues, I just call the prior perspective nuts, so verbal aggression is fine with me.

[31:02] But what you're saying, though, is not at all an honest reflection of what people are suffering, right?
So if you listen to call-in shows, we start with childhood and usually we stay with childhood because that's where the root of the adult dysfunctions are.
And of course, you know, I've talked to people whose parents committed suicide, who've been raped, sexually assaulted as children, beaten half to death, knives pulled on them, things thrown at them.
Like, people who've, as children, had deep, genuine suffering, clearly, as children, not of their own making, right?
So what you are, my friend, is brittle. It's brittle.
I mean, you can certainly criticize the prevalence of call-in shows, absolutely.
You can say, you know, well, I sympathize with the people who are dealing with these issues, I have largely dealt with them, and I don't find too much value in the repetition, though of course I wish everyone well, I just don't find the call-in shows that much to offer me anymore.
Perfectly valid, perfectly fair, always great to get that kind of feedback.
Because call-in shows are generally time independent, right?
So if you go and listen to a call-in show from 10 years ago, well, nobody's going back and listening to what I said about Ukraine in 2013 really, but the call-in shows are kind of timeless, right?
And this is one of the reasons why getting off politics is beneficial to me because I create works that are more timely, yet timeless. They're more timeless, right? So they're not tied into current events.
So it's a stake on, like, people read Mark Twain's fiction, they don't read his newspaper articles anymore because nobody cares about what was happening back then and in those locations.
In particular, I mean, you know, a couple of academics or whatever, right? But nobody reads that kind of stuff.

[32:31] So, your verbal aggression against people who are suffering because of what was inflicted against them as helpless children, your verbal aggression against these people is very mean, right? It's very aggressive.

[32:46] It's contemptuous, it's dismissive, and it's false, like you're actually lying about this.
So of course, you can look at somebody who, like I did a call just yesterday, I did a with a woman who was sleeping with two men at the same time, and you say, ah, but that's self-inflicted.
And it's like, yeah, but you go back to her childhood and you can sort of understand where this kind of stuff is coming from.
And it's the kind of thing like, and this is sort of an interesting question.
So let's say it is completely self-inflicted. Let's say it is completely self-inflicted.
They're calling me because they don't know how to stop it, but they want to.
So, I mean, it's a question, right? And if, let's say it's completely self-inflicted, If you're a doctor and someone comes in who's 50 pounds overweight and they say, I'm desperate to lose weight, what do I need to do?
Do you kick them out of your office because, well, it's self-inflicted, right?
You gained this weight, you chose to eat too much, get out of my office, you whiner, right?
Okay, well, then they just won't lose the weight, they may gain more weight and so on, right? Just put more burden on the healthcare system.
And if they put more burden on the healthcare system, they take away healthcare resources for other people who are more responsible so it doesn't actually help those people who are more responsible like we're all kind of tied in together so even if everything you said was true it's entirely self-inflicted and so on well they desperately want to stop this dysfunctional behavior so let's say that somebody calls in I mean let's create a unicorn right somebody calls in and they.

[34:10] Their kid, right? They just hit their kid. They hit their kid and they were never abused as a child, this, that and the other, and I say, well, it's your own fault, it's your own problem, it's your own this, it's your own that, right?
Okay, well, so then they hit their, they continue to hit their kid because I don't help them, and then maybe that kid robs me in a dark alley, sticks a knife in my side.
Oh look, I have not helped people with their problems because I've complained that it's all self-inflicted, and now I have a pocket knife sticking out of my side, right?
Maybe it pierced my stomach lining and I'm gonna drown in my own acid or something like that, right?
So, look, I have blamed people and not helped people and so, like, you know, people who call in, the couples who call in, they've got a couple of young kids, they're screaming at each, the parents are screaming at each other and say, well, it's all self-inflicted, just be nice to each other and, but they don't know how to fix it, otherwise they wouldn't be calling, right?
Right, like, I know how to install a piece of software so I don't need to call IT to do it, right?
I know how to brush my own teeth, I don't know how to scrape my own teeth, so I brush my own teeth and go to the dentist for the scraping, right?
Society's Impact and the Desire for Improvement

[35:15] So if I say to the couple, oh it's all just self-inflicted nonsense, okay then they continue to scream at each other and then maybe they divorce, and then maybe their kids end up really messed up and then I've got to live with the society full of that kind of stuff, right?
Because of course it's not just the people I'm talking to, it's everyone, it's the millions of people over time who listen to this kind of stuff and learn from it and improve.
And I think, I mean, for me, I don't want to be an a-hole.
I want to live in a society where people improve because we're all bound in with each other.
I want to live in a society where people raise their children peacefully.
I want to live in a society where the husband and wife get along.
I want to live in a society where people are improving.
And if I can do something to help, that seems like a pretty good use of my time.
So you want me to serve your preferences and you're being very verbally aggressive, kind of cold and contemptuous in order to try and get me to do what you want.
In other words, it's not exactly verbal abuse, I'll just put it down to verbal aggression.

[36:14] But you're kind of bullying me to get what you want and then you find yourself really upset when people talk about how painful it is when they were children to get bullied to get what the parents want.
Like you see the, like you're behaving in a vaguely similar way to the aggressive parents who bullied their children, right?
You're like, oh, it's these contemptuous people and self-inflicted wounds of whiners, right?
So you are trying to offer me, and there's praise and all of that, right? they're so good at current events and documentaries and so on.
And so you're trying to do sort of a Judah move where you say, Steph you're so high status, why would you spend all this time dealing with people who are quote low status?
It's not my view, this is what I think you're saying, because they're just a bunch of whiners with self-inflicted problems and complainers and all this kind of stuff.
So get back to the majestic heights of current events and documentaries and all this kind of stuff.
And it's like, no, that's, I don't view, I status.
Honestly, I view everyone who asks for a call in as high status because they've recognized the problem, they're willing to listen to potential insights and maybe solutions and so on. So that to me is very high status.
To me what's low status is the people who just scorn on other people trying to improve their lives, are verbally aggressive, kind of bullying.
Effects of Verbal Aggression on Call-In Shows

[37:34] And of course, if you are this kind of person, if you just let rip and scorn people and and so on.

[37:41] I can understand why the call-in shows would be unpleasant for you, right?
Because the call-in shows are showing you the effects of your verbal aggression on other people.
Of course, I'm not putting you in the category of child abuse or anything like that. I'm just saying that this level of verbal aggression, this is why it bothers you to listen to a call-in show, because you're seeing what's on the other side of verbal aggression and you don't like it, because it was done to you and now you're reproducing it to others.
So, all right, let's see here. Last night, Last one? Do we have a last one?
What have we got here? Yeah, let's do one more.
Last night I had a dream that I had a baby.
She, he was so small, so precious. I felt a deep connection to the child in the dream.
I was breastfeeding her, him, my fiance was there, and I just felt an immense sense of love and care towards both of them, especially the baby.
When I woke up, I was heartbroken and devastated, so disappointed.
It felt so real. I can't stop thinking about my dream about the baby.
It has consumed my whole day. I have cried multiple times even had a moment of hyperventilating. I have never had such a vivid dream about a baby before. I feel changed.
What does this mean? I'm curious to know what you think about this.
Perhaps my body genes telling me something.
I can imagine you perhaps saying this. I'm 22 and cannot wait to have children.
If my fiancé was on board, I'd have them right now. Well, get your fiancé on board.

[38:59] What a bored… No, I'm just kidding. Right, so that's a beautiful thing and And it is of course your heart opening up to the joy of a child.
The joy of a child. The joy of a child is almost beyond compare, it's almost beyond words.
You merge and you will never feel closer to anyone than you will with your own child when they're young in particular.
So yeah, I think it's your body saying let's partake of this universal beauty of the creation of a rational mind. Let's partake of the universal beauty of the creation of a rational mind.

[39:34] And to create something that then creates itself is incredible.
I mean, how many people would sculpt if their sculpt just came to life and develop thoughts of their own?
Well, you can sculpt using your body, right? Your body can create another body.
It's unbelievable. It's like creating a painting that can paint paintings.
There's no greater art than the creation of people. So I would imagine that that's going on and there's nothing wrong.
You want to have babies at 22? heck some of my friends had babies in their late teens and are still going.
So if you want to have a kid at 22, find a way to get your fiancé on board.
Now he of course as a man is gonna say well we can't afford it and it's like hey trust me bro, first of all we have infinitely more wealth than everyone maybe except the boomers in our entire history.
There's always an excuse to not have kids, always. It's really sad. It's really sad.
Of course you know my my mother was born in Berlin in 1937, right, under the Nazi regime.
Do you think that was not a good reason to not have my mother?
I mean, you were living in a totalitarian.
The Impact of Socialist Dictatorship on Family History

[40:41] Socialist dictatorship and my family on my mother's side were chock-full of, intellectuals who were not allowed to publish under the Nazi regime. So it's like, argh!

[40:54] We can't have kids! Are you crazy? Okay, well then I'm not here.
My mother's born, I'm not born, right? So this is why I just, I get very impatient when I hear people say, whoa, it's not the right time, we can't afford it, right? No, no, no.
No, no, no. I mean, it's not understanding how these things work.
As a husband, you gain a clarity and a work ethic that you can't even imagine, and as a father, that doubles again, right?
You double your intensity, time and effort when you become a husband and you double it again when you become a father.
So you're four times your current, like you don't waste time, you don't sleep in, you don't lollygaggle or dillydaddle or flip it a jibbit or whatever, you don't just waste time.
I mean look, you know how much time you waste during the day?
I mean I still, I do it, I mean I get it, right? It happens, but I mean, try this.
My roommate in college taught me to do this. He said, you know, take an inventory of your day. Like every 15 minutes, he did this for months.
Every 15 minutes, figure out what you're doing with your day.
Then look back. I mean, open up your Steam thing. How much time have you spent on video games?
How much time do you spend scrolling the internet? How much time do you spend watching videos that don't add to your value? Especially your economic value.

[42:14] We waste a lot of time. And I'm, you know, I'm not some, you know, 24-7 workaholic, yeah, wasting time is part of life and you've got to relax and enjoy yourself and I, you know, I still play a video game or two once in a while, but, you know, you waste a lot of time.
And the idea that, well, you know, you take all of that time that you waste and just resting from hard labor is not a waste of time, it's like saying sleeping is a waste of time.
No, no, if you've worked hard then rest and enjoy and, you know, put your feet up and, I don't know, do whatever you do to relax that's frivolous, great, wonderful, you gotta earn it, you gotta earn it, you gotta earn it.
I mean, everybody knows somebody who's like, oh, I woke up and I'm so tired, and I, you know, and say, well, you eat badly, you don't exercise, of course you're tired all the time.
Whereas if somebody comes home from a really hard workout and says, man, I'm beat, it's like, yeah, I get that, you just worked out for an hour.
Frivolity Evaporates as a Man and the Importance of Time Management

[43:06] And so, as a man, childish frivolity evaporates from your life, right?
I mean, even the important stuff, as you know, I've written a whole bunch of books lately, and for 10 years, when my daughter was little, I didn't write any books.
I didn't write any books, because I was parenting.
Now, I mean, it's not like the books are frivolous or anything like that, but I took something that I worked on very hard for many, many hours a week, and I eliminated it.
And, I mean, would you rather rack up another useless achievement in some dumbass video game? Would you rather have children and a family?
Because that's what happens. You have kids, you become a dad, and frivolity vanishes, and you get serious about life, and you work hard, and you provide, and you protect.
Well, I can't because I just don't have enough time. It's like, you have, oh, you have the time. Absolutely, you have the time.
Take an inventory of your day. How do you spend your time?
How do you spend your time?

[44:05] Is it stuff that adds value, that builds capital, that is an investment in the future, or are you wasting time?
And I'm not trying to make you feel bad, I get it, you're young, you waste time, so did I, no one, who cares, right?
But the idea that you can't have a family because you just can't afford it, it's like, of course you can.
You'd just rather keep playing video games. I mean, let's be frank, right? And I understand that impulse.
I'm not trying to be overly critical here, I just want to say it like it is, I don't want to make you feel bad, I'm just like, let's be real about this, right? You have all the time.
I mean, for most young men, video games are more than a second job.
If you got a second job, you could afford a kid, and I wouldn't get to spend time with the kid. I get that. I get that.

[44:48] But you have the time to make the money to become a father.
Now let's say you say, well I'm 22, I can't have a kid right now, it's like nobody's talking right now, maybe you take six months to get married or a year to get married and then you know, you've got two years before you have a kid, 24, okay?
You've got two years, take up all of that useless crap time you spend binge watching garbage and playing video games and whatever other addictions, screen based, that you've got, take this, you've got two years.
Well, I spend 30 hours a week wasting time. Okay, so you basically have almost a full second-time job.
What if you take those 30 hours and you study something useful?
You study something of value.
You figure out how to start a business. You study entrepreneurship. You study economics.
You study marketing. You study computer programming. You do something that adds to your value. You got two years to prepare.
Don't tell me you can't do it. That's embarrassing. Of course you can do it.

[45:42] You've got the whiny weak self that wants to keep wasting time and I understand that And I have it too, I'm not trying to be superior in any way, I'm this strict with myself as well if that makes any sense.
I wanted to go for a big, fat, juicy, meaty sausage and pancakes breakfast this morning, but no, I'm not.
I am doing this, which is great and better in the long run and nobody would remember my breakfast and it's not like I need the calories, so, right?
So we all have to have a little bit of discipline, but let's not pretend that you can't do it.
My god, if you're listening to this, you're already in the top 1% of the cognitive elite. you can absolutely do it but you'll have to give up frivolity and that means you'll have to put closure on your childhood.
Like the reason we waste time is because we don't have closure on our childhood, right?
Play like children play which is seriously. Learn things, study things, read things, expand your mind and stop wasting time.
Wasting time is costing you a family. Wasting time is costing you children.
Wasting time is costing you love. Wasting time is costing you self-respect and maturity and adulthood.
Your childhood is gone. If it was bad, grieve it. I'm really sorry that it was.
But don't try and extend it forever. Otherwise, the abusers win.
All right, hope this helps.
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