0:06 - Escape Room Adventures
9:21 - Critiques and Courage
10:22 - Handling Criticism
13:14 - The Only Child Debate
18:40 - The Reality of Siblings
26:36 - The Nature of Mistakes
32:03 - The Cost of Living
37:58 - Adapting to Financial Stress
46:38 - Admitting Fault
52:27 - Evaluating Relationships
1:18:28 - The Importance of Standards
1:19:53 - Avoiding Toxic Relationships
1:40:14 - Accountability and Growth
1:48:14 - Closing Thoughts and Reflections
In this episode, I delve into a variety of engaging topics, starting with my recent experience at an escape room that actually lived up to expectations, providing an enjoyable challenge. It prompts me to reflect on the varying levels of engagement and interaction in such settings. Moving on, I address the recurring comment I've received about how only children, myself included, supposedly have something "missing." I dissect this claim and challenge its validity, emphasizing the importance of understanding and critique rather than relying on vague insinuations.
I further explore the nature of feedback, emphasizing the difference between constructive criticism stemming from genuine concern and malevolence wrapped in insecurity. My approach to receiving feedback is methodical; I strive to differentiate between those who offer help out of goodwill versus those who aim to undermine my confidence. I explain my principles of engaging with criticism, advocating for transparency and accountability, while also underscoring the significance of courage in both giving and receiving criticism.
In the latter part of the episode, I engage in an intriguing discussion about the nature of evil in society, considering whether small dedicated evildoers or ignorant masses pose a greater threat. The conversation takes us through a philosophical landscape of accountability and the systems that govern societal behavior. I reflect on personal responsibility, particularly in the context of economic choices and the hand that fate deals us. My thoughts lead to the realization that understanding our individual and collective failures is crucial to moving forward.
Towards the end, I shift gears to provide guidance on evaluating potential partners, especially with a focus on distinguishing character and mutual respect in romantic relationships. This is intertwined with a personal anecdote about confronting familial dysfunction, underscoring the need for clarity and distance from negative influences. I conclude with a powerful analogy depicting the contrast between a life enveloped in negativity and the aspiration for personal growth and enrichment, resonating profoundly with the audience as I advocate for a departure from toxic environments towards healthier, fulfilling relationships.
This episode encapsulates a dynamic exploration of personal anecdotes, societal observations, and actionable advice, all rooted in my philosophy of embracing both challenges and constructive self-reflection.
[0:01] Hey, everybody, hope you're doing well. Stefan Molyneux, 16th October 2024.
[0:07] I actually went to a escape room today that didn't make me feel completely retarded. I was quite impressed, actually, it was quite impressed. It's a pretty good one. And I went there, I went to one escape room before where it was pretty bad. They're like, well, you can't use force. And then later it's like, well, you have to really pull on this thing. So, but I went to one, it was good, a good level of difficulty. We got almost way, almost through to the end, uh, this group. And it was, uh, it was a lot of fun. I don't know if you guys like escape rooms. They can be a, uh, a lot of fun anyway. All right. Let's get to your questions and comments. A lot of people lately have been telling me that only children such as myself have something missing. Every time I asked for specifics, they failed to give me any explanation or answer. In your opinion, what do you think they mean by this? what they mean by this is get the fuck away from these lunatics that's what they mean by this there's a lot of people put out these warning displays i'm bad i'm gonna undermine your confidence there's something wrong with you what i'm not gonna tell you i'm just hoping to worm tongue my way into your ear and lay waste to your sense of self-confidence no anybody who tells you there's something wrong with you that's fine you know feedback we love the feedback uh and and the tips, freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show, freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show, massively, gratefully, and deeply appreciated.
[1:31] Bit of a fall off this fall in subscribers, maybe it's the politics or whatever, right? But I don't know, cost of living is tough. But if you can, help out the show, freedomain.com slash donate. Okay, so I have a series of steps that I go through if anybody wants to give me feedback. And I was actually just thinking the other day about how, I mean, I have my sort of moral principles for not being back on X or Twitter, but one of the more practical ones is I don't miss the idiots. Like, I just don't miss the stupid people who think they're smart. I know an exception to your general rule. You're a racist. Anyway, so I very much enjoy not being around the idiots. But, you know, it's not their fault. The problem with idiots is they think they can participate. So there used to be this whole thing which we would keep idiots out of high-level discussions. You know, in the same way you want to keep meth addicts out of your graduate physics class, you know.
[2:27] Because they can't add much except the odd tooth on the ground. So we used to keep idiots out of high... But, you know, the good thing with the social media is people get a voice. The bad thing with social media is... People get a voice. So I think you understand the complexity. So if people want to criticize me, fantastic. Fantastic. I love it. I love getting the feedback. I am eager to improve. And I have a couple of standards that maybe have helped to you. So first of all, I try to detect malevolence.
[3:01] Malevolence is someone correcting you because they have a genuine desire for you to live a happier, a better life.
[3:07] Right? That's important. I try to detect now i'm not omniscience but we're pretty good at detecting malevolence right so are they interested in correcting you because they want you to live a better and happier life right, okay uh now if if there is malevolence fuck off like i don't i don't have anything to say to them i have no interest in what they have to say because they're just being like weird creepy jerky trolley bully whatever right so they just despawn in my mind i wet finger them like candles You know, thumb, forefinger licks, out goes the wick. Boom, boom, out go the lights. And I just, they despawn in my mind. They skate three, straight out, they glitch. Backrooms, nether, whatever you want to call it, they're gone. Now, if they pass that test, that's fine. You know, if they genuinely believe that they are trying to help me in some way rather than score stupid points by appealing to insecurity, you know, because, or if they're triggered, right? If they're offended offended to me is just the mark of low IQ like it is and and that's not just my opinion like there's actually quite a number of studies that offended is inversely correlated to intelligence being offended is inversely correlated to intelligence so if somebody's offended if they're aggressive if they use NPC terms I have no particular interest but let's say they pass all of that and somebody says Stef Stef.
[4:31] You need to be more courageous, let's say. Okay, that's an argument I'm willing to hear for sure. I mean, maybe I should be. I'm open to hear it if there's a better way for me to serve philosophy. I did not feel that the courage I felt. I felt that the courage I had from like 2005 to like 2020, you know, that's like 15 years. I felt that courage was getting very close. Well, it had already gone into the territory of foolhardiness, right? So a deficiency of courage is cowardice. An excess of courage is foolhardiness, which is, you know, fools rush in where angels fear to tread. I can take on these 12 machine gun nests by my own some, right? That's not wise. So, however, you know, it's a moving target and I'm certainly happy to, I'm happy to hear criticisms of Stef. You should take on more tasks. You should deal with this, that, or the other topic. You should be more courageous. Lovely. So, the first thing I'll do is say, huh, I wonder if this person is posting under their own name. Hmm, no, they have an anime avatar and a fictional name.
[5:45] So, how much courage can they encourage me to have if they won't even use their own name or their own picture? I, of course, since the beginning, have used my own name and my own picture. So, I look for that. If they say, Stef, you should support this person in their trials and tribulations, I'd be like, oh, okay, great. Fantastic. You should support this person in their trials and tribulations, because it's really, really important to people to support people going through trials and tribulations. Fine.
[6:20] So I would say, okay, like if somebody posts to me and says, Stef, you should support me because I'm going through these trials and tribulations. It's like, okay, that's an interesting, so you clearly believe that supporting people through trials and tribulations is important. So then I will ask them, okay, please show me some evidence, if you don't mind, that you supported me when I was being deplatformed or attacked or whatever it was, right? Now, if they did do that, then they gain credibility. It doesn't mean that I'll do, but it means that they're at least living by their values, right? So somebody says, Stef, you should support me or someone else through my trials and tribulations. I'll be like, oh, okay, so you believe that supporting people through trials and tribulations is a good value. Therefore, you must have practiced it when I was going through my trials and tribulations. So show me where you, because, you know, I'm not going to go and search for them and try and run through everything they did. And if they send me something where it's like, yes, I came to your defense. I, you know, I called the censors out of the deep lab. Okay, fantastic. Then, you know, there's more credibility.
[7:23] So far, so far, I can't think of one instance where people have said, support me or support X, Y, and Z, and they actually supported me when I was going through my trials and tribulations, in which case, honestly, I just, I have no patience for people like that. Because then you're trying to use my compassion to manipulate and control me. By claiming a universal value that you don't even follow. Somebody wants me to be more courageous? Great! Show me your courage. Show me the giant Halley's Comet footprint chalk strike across the skies of eternity. Show me your courage. That's all I want to see. Show me where you face down.
[8:14] Tear gas and danger while marching with anti-communists. I did that. Show me where you've stood up in front of a city council and told them they're full of shite and they can't afford to pay for all of their promises, any of their promises. Show me where you have gone into the belly of the beast like the European Union and called out the censorship. Show me where in Brazil I stood in front of politicians and called them all corrupt. Show me your courage. That's all I want to see. If you're going to instruct me, hey, I'm keen to be instructed. It's so much easier than reinventing the wheel. Show me your courage first. Stef, you should have abs. Excellent. Okay. Then show me your abs. Stef, having abs is super important. You should have abs. Okay, show me your abs. Show me your abs. That's all I'm asking. That's all I'm asking. Show me your abs.
[9:22] You can eliminate a lot of people, right? Stef, here's how you should take on position X, right? Okay. Show me how you've, it's really important, show me how you've taken it on. Stef, your show is okay, but here's how it should be great. I'm like, okay. So, if you know how to make a great show, why the hell are you talking to me? It's like going to a band and saying, your songs are okay, but really great songs should be this. It's like, okay, but if you have really great songs, why are you going to nag a band? Go start a band or sell your songs or like, why are you going to nag a band? If you're so good at things, do them yourself. These fucking sideline people.
[10:23] Fuck off if you're so good Dunning-Kruger that shit go do it yourself, or take a long walk off a short pier, because I don't know I mean there used to be just people just need to be I'm not saying bullied but people need to be put in their place I mean I need to be put in my Everybody needs to get a realistic, Can you ask out the head cheerleader Do you have the social juice and verve Are you a great singer Are you really good at baseball Are you a great dancer, We need to be slotted in and categorized In the hierarchy.
[11:04] Well, it's easy for me. I don't know why it's difficult for you. Well, then you should. You should show me how easy it is. If somebody wants to teach me chess, I'm going to ask them for their experience in chess. I'm not just going to sit there, oh, you told me I'm going to shoot you chess. I should do it your way.
[11:30] So somebody says i know how to make a lot of money and they show up on a rusty old bicycle, in tattered old clothes and they have no evidence of wealth of any kind then why would you listen, why would you listen being an empiricist is so it's it's a cheat code it's life on easy mode honestly being an empiricist is being an empiricist is i don't care what you say, i don't i mean i don't really care what you say show me what you can do show me the money show me oh you want to be a singer for the band here's a microphone blow me away paul rogers it up whatever sammy hagar it up what i'm freddie mercury it up whatever you're gonna do show me the magic i don't care oh but let me tell you i went to this singing school and that singing school and the other and It's like, oh, just shut up, pick up the mic, and blow me away. That's all. Here's how you should run relationships, Stef. Okay, I've been really happily married for 22 years.
[12:39] But it's hard to think that I've been just doing it wrong. I mean, my wife is pretty skilled in this area. It's literally her training. So, yeah, I'm tired to think that I'm just... Stef, you should have done this. You shouldn't have done that. You should do the other. Shut up. Drowning in nagging, sidelined estrogen bullshit seems to be the fate of modern men. So, to your question. Only children have something missing. Yes, they're called siblings.
[13:14] Good job. You know, bachelors lack wives. You know, that's right there in the definition. Thank you for adding your remaining two IQ points to the discussion. Now, good luck drawing your next breath because you won't have enough brain matter to work your lungs.
[13:36] Right. So, the conversation for me would go something like this, right? Somebody says, if I was an only child, ha, we could have but dreamt. If I'm an only child, I guess somebody could have said, only children have something missing. Yes, they're called siblings. Your point is, well, you just don't get socialization. It's like no i get socialization i choose not socialization i didn't choose right fate chooses your siblings free will chooses your friends so i didn't have socialization inflicted on me in the same way that you would be say if you got in prison and were thrown into a cell with 12 other people or number of siblings, other people. So I got to choose those who I socialized with. You were just stuck with people at home. So isn't that closer to adulthood? Like in adulthood, you choose your friends. They're not assigned to you by God, the state, or fate.
[14:36] So as a kid, I chose my companions. As an adult, I choose my companions. As a kid, you didn't choose your companions. And as an adult, you do choose your companions. So, being an only child is far more congruent with what we do as adults than what you had. At least 50%, probably more, but at a bare minimum, 50% of sibling relationships are categorized as abusive. James, see if you can dig this up. It's a little video I saw. There's a girl at a table with a bunch of, I don't know, men and women around, and she's like, oh, what's it like to have siblings? And what they do is they steal her food, they tug on her hair, they take a sip of her drink, they flick water into her face, and she's like, what the hell, right? That's what it's like to have siblings a lot of times, right?
[15:27] Yeah, you know what's missing if you don't have siblings often? Trauma! Trauma. Birth order. Weirdness, right? Oh, those first siblings. Wow. Not often. Sorry, not always, but often. Very often. The older siblings are... Oh! Oh, let me tell you. Let me tell you. I happened to drop out of mom's velvet hoochoo a little bit earlier than you did, and that makes me vastly superior. see how I am taller. See how I am bigger. See how I am smartereth. See how I have slightly more eloquence, get a little bit more allowance, and oh my, that's right, I get to stay up a little later. Oh, it's magnificent, you peasant. You late birth, dropping off the ovaries, behind scheme, to muter delay, peasant, you serf of youth.
[16:24] Look upon me. I have the older, cooler friends. I can do things. I can drive sooner. I get puberty sooner. I get to drink sooner. I have more athletic ability, because I happen to be old. Look at my height, my strength, my maturity, my intelligence, my wisdom, my friends. You shall just envy me from now until the end of time, because I am a vainglorious, accidental shit of history. I got shit out a little earlier, you see. I was the first to hit the bowl. You were the second to hit the bowl. That makes me king shit. You are late shit. You land on my shit, and therefore you are summit shit, and thus somehow below me. Yes, you just came down the pipe a little bit later, through no fault of your own, through no virtue of my own, but I will take it as a virtue from now until the end of time.
[17:13] Oh, it's sad. the elder sibling shit is really really sad it's really really pathetic oh happened to drop out mom a little earlier boy what an accomplishment boy you really earned that one didn't you oh magnificent if only i had a time machine and a desire for shallow bottomless endless vanity i too could be a vainglorious asshole like you hmm delightful and the other thing too is that if somebody says, you know, you got something missing because you're an only child, I'd say, is what I'm missing vaguely insulting people for things completely beyond their control without any details or specific? Because that's kind of being an asshole. So if you grew up with siblings and you're saying there's something missing, something wrong with me, and you can't even tell me why, then I can only assume that growing up with siblings makes you an asshole who just tries to make people feel insecure for things completely beyond their control without being able to define anything. So I'm very glad I didn't grow up with siblings if siblings make someone, an asshole like you. All right. Good evening, everyone. Thank you, Stef, for having these three regularly scheduled live streams. I look forward to every one of them. Thank you. Appreciate it.
[18:29] Oh, just madness. Just madness.
[18:41] All right, so let's get to the question. There has been one question, one tip so far this show on the stream. One question, one tip. I am working like a Turkin. I am working and twerking like a Turkin. All right, like a Turkish eye. Anyway, Turkish delight. My question will be, which is the bigger threat to society, the small dedicated evil people with real people? What? The small dedicated evil people with real people? Or, okay, I'm just going to ignore that shit in the middle. Please check your typos, man. My question will be, which is the bigger threat to society, the small dedicated evil people or the ignorant masses who believe them and engage no critical thinking skills or empathy for their fellow beings? Right. So society is one dumb shit cycle. of, hey, maybe this time, not thinking, and evil will work. Maybe this time, this time, this time, we can be evil. We don't have to think. And everything's going to work out great. Just maybe. I mean, I know every other single fucking time in human history, being evil and not thinking has never worked out but this time this time.
[20:00] If we're evil and don't think we got it made man maybe this time if we borrow, the entire lifetimes of the next three goddamn generations for our own vaglorious self-pumping of virtue in debt, maybe say the boomers maybe if we just completely rape and pillage the next three fucking generations or more and destroy the entire historical fabric of our own civilizations maybe it'll work out great, which by them means see the boomers are so narcissistic as a whole that they believe that when they end the world ends they don't have a sense of legacy they overthrew everything which came before, some bad, mostly decent, and they believe that when they end, the world ends. There's nothing after them. There's no legacy, nothing to leave their grandchildren. You know, civilization lasts when old men plant trees they'll never see to give fruit. They'll never sit under the shade.
[21:10] So, it is the great question of evil. Is it a push economy or a pull economy? So, a push economy is something like the iPad, right? Say's law, right? Supply creates its own demand. So, do politicians become, do corrupt politicians offer things to the populace for free and the populace says, oh, free stuff, that's great? Or, does the population summon the politicians with their own greed for the unearned? Is evil something that the devil just infects you, like SARS? You just walk it around, sucked in some evil. Oh, dear, now I'm evil. Or do you have to ask the vampires in? Do you have to sign on the dotted line? Recent Fortnite update style. Do you have to sign on the dotted line to sell your soul to Satan? Is evil a lion that pounces or a grim courtship you have to acquiesce to? Now, I generally believe that it is a pull economy. A pull economy is, well, people need shelter, they need food, they need water, they need electricity, so they pull demand for that, right? But a push economy is, okay, I'm going to offer you this free thing. You want it? Okay, you take it, your soul is mine.
[22:39] And it all has to do with the avoidance of the IQ issue. So like a lot of people on the left have this completely bizarre belief that there's just stuff in the world and it just gets unfairly divided. And some people end up with a lot of money and some people end up with no money, right? Well, you know, you could take all of Elon Musk's fortune, and you could pay for everyone's food for like a week in the world. And then what? And then what? And then what? Right? You know, there's just a whole bunch of songs around in the world. And, you know, Rihanna and Sting and Paul Simon and Peter Gabriel, they all just get an unfair share in some mysterious, there's a whole bunch of songs, scrap songs, they just accumulate to some people it's totally unfair it's a child's view right it's a child's view that stuff mysteriously comes into being because the parents go out and do weird things you don't even understand stuff manifests like food manifests toys manifest money and you just have to fight hard to get your fair share against like your siblings right stuff just mysteriously comes into view and you got to fight to get your fair share fair share fair share fair share is a child's view of the universe, and there's nothing wrong with fair share when you're a child.
[24:06] When you're an adult, you're supposed to move from the retarded childhood of fairness to the adult productivity of justice.
[24:18] So, people who fuck up, they want to escape the consequences of fucking up. I get that. I mean, it's a natural human thing, right? And when you screw up, you want to avoid the consequences of screwing up. Sure, I get it. You had a lot of fun? Had a lot of fun. Had a lot of money. All right. so, you didn't save for your old age yeah that sucks that's really tough man I get it you had a lot of fun spent a lot of money did some travel kind of lazy sat on your ass, learned how to carve potatoes into tiny replicas of Michelangelo's David hey whatever you did didn't save for your old age oh fuck, I got 15 years to go and I'm broke, that's tough man whoo oh didn't take out life insurance you got three kids and your husband, died no life insurance oh that's tough people fuck up all the time lord knows i've done my fair share maybe more than my fair share but people fuck up all the time oh no fuck i got pregnant by some drifter with great hair.
[25:46] Scrubbed him down. He blew out my back. Mmm. That's the kind of sex that has a woman named Rose go back out to the Titanic and not think about the guy she had a family with for 70 years, but about the homeless dude who banged her on a boat. And throw, it's the boomer thing, right? Dream about the past and throw wealth into the ocean out of sentimentality. Hang on to your multi-million dollar mansion so you can be buried with your fucking deed and leave nothing for your children. Or by the time you die, your kids are too old to have children so that money does your bloodline fuck all good. You greedy, greedy bastards.
[26:32] So people fuck up all the time.
[26:36] Oof. Oof. We've all done it, right? Oh, shit. I remember once, uh i instead of using bcc blind carbon copy right uh for for a whole big mailing list where the people weren't supposed to know each other i used cc so everyone got everyone else's email oh ouch ouchies right i mean we've we've all fucked up from time to time right, i've done amazing speeches where i thought the recording button was working but no it was not, I've done great speeches where I think I'm using the headset microphone, but I'm using the tablet microphone somewhere away So we all fuck up, right?
[27:31] Some people prefer to go drinking than, I don't know, go to work. They don't really want to go to work, so they just go and drink. And they drink too much, and they stay out late, and they're having a great time. You know, I remember those times when I was in my teens. You'd be out having a couple of drinks. The jokes would be flowing, everything. I remember one night playing poker, and I was about 17. Drinks were flowing. We were playing poker. It was a blast, man. And it was so much fun. I remember I ran out of money and some guy tossed me a handful of quarters saying, all right, for sexual favors passed, this is what I'm going to give you, free and clear. I still remember the guy's name too. He was like somebody who'd stepped right out of the two-dimensional world of a Malson beer commercial. But a pretty good guy. So... Yeah, we all fuck up.
[28:25] Oh, fuck, I forgot to set my alarm. Oh, shit. It's 11 o'clock, I was supposed to be at work at 8. Fuck. You know that, ooh, that sinking feeling, oh my god. I remember when I went to visit my father in my mid-teens in Africa, I almost left my entire ticket behind on a counter, because I had to fill out some customs form, and I would have been screwed, right? I remember once on a business trip, and I know military time well so I don't know why this happened but it did that, I showed up at the airport, at 6 o'clock for a flight that was at 4 o'clock right because 4 o'clock is, 1600 hours and I thought it was 1800 hours I just glanced and I thought it was 1800 hours it was 1600 hours Oh, fuck. Missed the flight. So, you know, everybody fucks up from time to time, right?
[29:34] Oh, shit. I dated this girl. Say some people. I dated this girl. She turned into a complete fucking stalker. She was psycho. Kind of missed the warning signs that everybody fucks up. Oh, shit. Oh, my God. I thought. Oh, my God. I thought the exam was Friday, but it was Thursday. Oh, God. Oh, no, no, no, even worse, even worse, Oh, I thought it was three pills three times a day It's one pill three times a day Oh, shit, I've just been taking triple dosage Oh, my God, what have I done? Oh, my God.
[30:15] Oh, I'm pretty sure this, I'm pretty sure this fruit is okay. Yeah, I'll just eat it. I'm kind of hungry. There's not really much else. It's fine. Whoopsie. Whoopsie. Oh my gosh. We have all, we've all done it. We've all done it. and so when people fuck up, oh shit my company just closed down and I don't really have any savings because I just bought a new truck what do they call this in Microsoft the $100,000 snowmobile so people got their stock options, and they spent their $2,000 worth of stock options on snowmobiles and then the stock options went 50x and they referred to them as the $100,000 snowmobiles. Like people think that, I mean, you all think housing prices have gone up, right? You all think housing prices have gone up? Houses are really expensive. Apartments are really expensive. It's absolutely untrue. It's absolutely untrue. Housing prices have gone 99% down.
[31:44] Like housing prices have dropped 99%. I don't know what people are talking about. Housing prices have dropped 99%. You can pick up a house for 1% what you could seven or eight years ago. Because seven or eight years ago, it was 600 bitcoins to buy a house.
[32:04] Now you can buy a house for 6 bitcoins, 99% reduction in the price of housing you can't beat that oh inflation is so bad, my god if I didn't tell everyone for the past eternal fucking years to hedge, for inflation on hard currency well what can I do, what can I do, What can I do?
[32:48] So people fuck up all the time you do i do and uh the first thing women the first thing that people do when they fuck up badly is they want to run to the government, oh shit i got sick and i don't have health insurance oh my god i have diabetes and i don't have health insurance i better go and apply for health insurance and they say well you're rejected because you have pre-existing conditions, that's like trying to get fire insurance for your house when your house is currently on fire, doesn't work oh i gotta run to the government and say it's immoral it's wrong it's discriminatory for insurance companies, to discriminate against me because i have a pre-existing condition it's unfair, And the government is like, well, shit, we got to pay all the insurance. I would just pass a law and say you can't deny people for pre-existing conditions. Oh, then what happens? Oh, shit. But then what happens is people wait until they get sick and then they apply for life insurance because you can't be denied for pre-existing conditions. Oh, shit. Well, people are dropping their health insurance, relying even more on government-funded ERs. So now we have to pass a law that says everyone has to buy health insurance, and that's Obamacare. Passed by the Somalis. So, keep a fuck up.
[34:18] There's a meme. When you've texted your girlfriend to calm down, and then you spend the next 15 minutes looking at that typing swirly. She's typing. And it's a Gandalf like, no matter what comes through the gate, we will hold the line. No matter how much people are full of self-pity, When they've fucked up We will hold the line, You didn't save for your retirement.
[34:59] Good luck Oh, you got pregnant by the wrong guy Good luck, Because the inability to let failure suffer Means that everybody fails Including society as a whole The inability to let failure suffer Causes society itself to fail, Oh, you got sick? And you didn't buy any health insurance? Yeah, that's tough And we all know It's a man thing, The man thing The man thing it's a man thing we know it's a man thing right we know that right, it's a man thing you fucked up man oh i feel for you it's a great, it's a great sign i saw early on in my business days imprinted itself on the big chatty forehead deep deep and hard baby deep and hard and it was a sign on a project manager's desk and it said, A failure to plan on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part Oh no no you gotta No you didn't plan for it right.
[36:24] When I was working to get a million dollars worth of raises from my employees, I screwed up the spreadsheet and I was $40,000 under. And I said, just take it out of my stock options. Like I made the mistake, take it out of my stock options and take some of it out of my salary if you have to. But I made the mistake, so I'll pay the price, which was not a fun price to pay, to put it mildly. So I fucked up, right? Should have triple checked that. $40,000 is a lot of money. And I fucked it up. Oh, the fault is with the spreadsheet. Right? Oh.
[37:16] So the pull economy is, ah, I fucked up. Everyone else has to pay. I was mean to my kids when they were little, and now I'm old, they don't want to take care of me, they don't want to help me out, they don't feel any sense of obligation, they don't love me, I dumped them in daycare, now they just say, yeah, go to an old age home, yeah, we'll pay for some, but we're not going to take care of you, you can't move in here, you can't move in here.
[37:59] There's a great line in a very funny movie called Spinal Tap, where the band that's on the down and outs meets the band that's very successful, and the successful band says to them, well, we'd love to stay and chat, but we gotta go to the lobby to wait for our bus. I am as God made me, sir. But yes, you should have seen what they wanted to put on the album cover. It wasn't a glove, I can assure you. But it was a very funny movie. Choked on his own vomit. Well, not his vomit. You can't dust form it. You can't dust form it. Anyway, so it's a very funny movie, but yeah. So you fucked up. You lived a life of selfishness. You lived a life of serving your own pleasures and needs. You lived a life of ostentatious display. You spent money on things that depreciated in value, and you did not invest money in things that appreciated in value. You bought watches and cars, not Bitcoin and real estate. But you had fun, right? You had fun. You know, the woman who in her 20s, hopefully her early 20s, you know, settles down, has kids when you've got youth and energy and fertility and vitality. So she looks over at her friend who's going out to the club. The newest club is opening up. She looks over and she's like, damn.
[39:28] You're up till three in the morning being hit on by guys and i'm up at three in the morning with a colicky baby you're having fun i'm not and yeah i get that i understand that, i understand that but then later on when the club girl is used up and worn out and blown through can't settle down won't have kids no guy wants her riddled with stds and trauma, then the woman who's having a big family dinner with her children is having fun and the other girl isn't. But this is where time fucks everyone and this is why the government is so toxic and dangerous.
[40:12] So a woman who's 50, right, the party girl who, burned herself out, And the woman who was responsible and has produced kids who are productive in the economy. So all of the fruits of diligence and conscientiousness can be taxed, but none of the fruits of fun can be taxed. This is the big injustice, right? This is why society crumbles and falls apart when you have a government redistributing income.
[40:50] At the age of 50 the fruits of the woman's labor can be taxed her husband's income her income if she has any her kid's income that can all be taxed and that can be given to the burned out party girl, but the fun the party girl had in her 20s and maybe early 30s none of that fun can be redistributed, to the people who were diligent so fun is in the past and can't be redistributed but productivity is capital in the present, can be stolen from and passed over. It's like the marriage contract, just sort of by the by, right?
[41:25] All of a man's obligations in the marriage contract can be enforced. All of the man's obligations in the marriage contract can be enforced with alimony, child support, right? So all of the man's obligations, can be enforced through law, through the point of a gun, through jail. But not one of the woman's obligations can be enforced. Oof. Not one of the woman's obligations can be enforced. The state can't, if she's a stay-at-home wife, the state can't come in and force her to clean or cook, run the household pay his taxes, raise the children have sex none of the woman's obligations can be enforced but all of the man's obligations can be enforced it's just an asymmetry that undoes the very fabric of space, time, continuity and civilization as a whole.
[42:27] It's amazing how Stef's rants are as good, if not better at times, than his prepared speeches. Truly amazing. Well, thank you. I appreciate that.
[42:38] So, society collapses when you have forced redistribution of income, because everybody who fucks up runs to the government, and forces everyone who didn't fuck up to pay them forever and ever. Amen. So, whatever you subsidize, you get more of, which is why incompetence gets subsidized, competence gets taxed, you get less of it, you get less competence, more and more incompetence, and then society collapses. There's a certain threshold, and we're there, right? We're right there, we're tipping over, right? There's a certain threshold at which minimum competence no longer exists for society to survive. So, that is the fact. Thank you, Tony, very much. I appreciate it more than words. All right.
[43:38] Let's get to your other questions. So we have more to fear from the greed of the screw-ups. Now, the fact of the matter is that it is absolutely fine to screw up. It's natural. It's inevitable. And if someone screws up, then they have to go through what seems to be the worst thing in the known universe for most people.
[44:17] People have to, when they have screwed up, they seem to have to go through the worst thing in the known universe that people absolutely hate for reasons I truly find it hard to understand. When people screw up, they have to humbly throw themselves on the mercy of others. Didn't save for your retirement?
[44:50] Then you have to humbly throw yourself upon the mercy of friends, of family, of charity, and you have to, with all humility, go in and say, I'm so sorry, you were right, I screwed up, I need help. I'm so sorry, you were right, I screwed up, I need help. There's the four corners, right? I don't know why it is so hard for people to say i'm so sorry i screwed up you were right i need help why well a lot of times people have a tough time doing that because they've mocked and attacked other people for screwing up so they but i don't know honestly people would rather die than be humble, it seems, and admit fault. I don't know why. I don't, I mean, my mother was a right fighter like that. I mean, rather than admit any fault in her parenting, she's chosen to not have me in her life, and I was her favorite child. I'm not going to kid it. I'm not going to kid, because I reminded, her of her father, who she loved, and my brother, unfortunately, reminded her of her ex-husband, who she did not, her now ex-ex-husband.
[46:07] But my mother will not admit fault. I don't know why that is. I don't know why people just, I mean, I've got a whole series of things I was wrong about. And, you know, you've seen me the.
[46:22] I'm corrected and I thank people for the correction and so on. I don't know why. But to me, if you would rather choose to be homeless than admit fault, welcome to the street.
[46:39] He's for the streets. If you would rather be homeless than admit fault, or take any correction.
[46:52] You know, I begged my mother to stop doing all the destructive stuff she was doing, which I'll get into perhaps on my deathbed, along with the other things. But I begged my mother, please stop doing all these destructive things. Well, wouldn't admit fault. You know, you did me dirty as a kid. You did me wrong as a kid. Won't admit fault. She'd rather be alone than admit fault. But if people won't admit fault, you can't have a relationship with them because there's no input. There's nothing for you to say. There's nothing for you to do. They're just going to do what they want relative to their own preferences. There's no relationship. People won't admit fault. It's literally the biggest red flag, that I have in people is if you can't admit fault, people get defensive and, no, it wasn't me, or I didn't know, and then, no, forget it. Forget it. Forget it. Life's too short. Life's too short. No, thank you very, very much. I do not like green eggs and ham. I do not like those who will not admit fault.
[48:21] If you would rather be right, or if you would rather pretend to be right than admit legitimate fault, I don't really care what happens to you. I mean, I have sympathy. People screw up. Absolutely. People screw up. They mess up. They, right?
[48:41] I understand. And I have sympathy, right? I mean, it's a mutual sympathy. But you have to admit fault. Otherwise, you're just going to do it again. You're just gonna do it again now something like old age if you didn't save for your old age right and you need like two million dollars to have a i mean the government money is going to get pretty worthless pretty quickly but you know you need like two million dollars to.
[49:06] Go from 65 to 85 all right, so if you don't have it it's a little tough to to go back and do it right, and of course the problem is this is what's so cruel right this is why government money is just this absolutely vile drug that destroys people en masse because the problem is that people are expecting government money and when the government money doesn't show up then what happens is, people are left with nothing if there wasn't government money people would have saved right, and the saving doesn't have to be the saving doesn't have to be money the saving or the investment can be in relationships i talk about this uh in my book the art of the argument about the woman she doesn't save for her retirement she instead spends all of her uh time and what little money she has on creating a great neighborhood community and gifts to the kids and right and then when she gets older people will take care of her because she was just such the central pillar of the community and made things great for everyone. It doesn't have to be money.
[50:17] But I hate this brinksmanship of like, well, you have to be nice to me, even though I did wrong and won't admit fault. It's like, I really don't. I mean, the government can force me to, of course, right? I mean, I'm forced to pay for my mother, which is another frustrating thing. If you have bad, unstable, mentally ill, or whatever family members, the only sway that you could have over them is paying their bills or not paying their bills. Like I could have said to my mother, listen, you have to get to therapy. You have to do this. You have to do that. You have to stop smoking. You have to at least go for a walk a day. You can't just hide in this hoarder dungeon of an apartment. You have to go to the dentist. You have to, like, or I'm not paying your bills. But I have no hold or sway over her that way, right? Because the government forces me to pay all her bills. The government doesn't make her do any of these things. They don't care, right? All right, so let's see here.
[51:14] Boom. She came without a farthing a babe without a name so much ado about nothing is what she tried to say all right in some states yeah yeah mythbusters proved there was room yeah yeah i get that i fucked up today pulled the wrong wire read the blueprint wrong yeah it happens, You know, everybody does this thing, right, where it's like, it's more efficient if I do it quickly, I fuck up when I do it too fast. But if I do it too carefully, I won't fuck up, but it'll be too slow. So this is a constant tension in life, right? Somebody says, oh, yes, waiting until 8 p.m. to catch a bus to work, forgetting that I needed the 7 p.m. bus. Oops, an hour late to work. James said, I missed a typo in the thumbnail for the podcast that went out today. I hate it when I do that. It's painful. Yeah, yeah. I started dating a girl, says Frank, a few months ago, and it has gone really well so far. She comes from a good family, but has a hard time admitting some of their faults. She has done a lot of self-work in the past couple of years and has made some good progress in certain areas.
[52:27] What are some of the best ways to vet and evaluate a girl to see if she is wifey material?
[52:42] Oh, my gosh. Oh, Frank. Okay, maybe I'm unjust. Maybe I'm unjust, right? I'm looking through... No, nothing. Okay, so... Now, let me just... I want to be fair. I want to be fair. Fair. Yes. So, Frank, you want an objective, valuable way so that you can avoid the biggest mistake of your life. The biggest mistake of your life which is marrying the wrong woman or man right if you're a woman so marrying the wrong person is the biggest mistake of your life the biggest decision you'll ever make is who you marry.
[53:32] So, I'll just tell you how it looks in the marketplace. I'm going to be straight up with you, man. Straight up with you.
[53:39] You haven't tipped at all, and you want this service from me. You want me to save your entire future and guarantee your bloodline and immunize you against divorce, and what is it worth to you, right? So, you're not that serious about it, right? Because it's not worth much to you, right? You're asking for the biggest and most important and essential and actually hard to gather and communicate advice in the known universe, but doesn't mean anything to you. It's not that important. So, no. All right. Small rant. I went down. I'm happy you're here and all of that, right? Small rant. I went down to the local Walmart to purchase new undergarments for the first time in years. I was shocked. Half the aisle was all weird bulge accentuating mankinis and hybrid spandex boxer briefs. I'm not heavy. I'm not Henry VIII or a Bulgarian Olympic swimmer. Is that, are you pleased to see me, or is that just a canoe in your card piece? How long has this been a thing? Is it further evidence of the collapse of society? Yeah, hypersexual displays are collapse of society for sure. I just wanted to buy some plaid boxers with the hope that no one will ever see me in them. Really? All right. Stef, was it common at your job to throw fires at project managers? That's why he had the sign. Oh, yeah, absolutely. A project manager has lots of people coming in and saying, well, first of all, they won't ever admit fault. They'll say, well, the client didn't tell me this, and the salesman promised that, and they'll, I need you this, and I need this person reassigned, and I'm like, nope.
[55:05] There's too many loopholes for the wrong things. It's a gross asymmetry between the level of, quote, forgiveness, what that, quote, forgiveness costs, and the willful ignorance it took to make that mistake in the first place. Mistakes harden into repetition through excuses and justifications, right?
[55:26] Feels like so much of life is just the more you think and act for the moral good of the long term, the more fruits you'll reap as a whole. The reverse breeds the opposite outcome. Well, violence always achieves the opposite of its stated goal, right? There's a guarantee, right? So I've been saying this for 40 years. Is it too much to make child support mandatory only on the condition of a successful proof of paternity? Well, let's look into that, right? The couple must sign a contract in a free society that stipulates the terms of the divorce, right? The couple must sign a contract in a free society that stipulates the terms of the divorce. If a man is forced to pay alimony and child support then the woman is being paid to leave.
[56:23] Say, ah, yes, but you know, you've got to have child support because otherwise the children will suffer. It's like, no, the children suffer the most when the mother leaves the marriage. The children suffer the most when the mother leaves the marriage. Divorce shreds children's soul. Divorce is a massive bearded.
[56:49] Rich men north of richmond axe chop down the trunk of a child's soul divorce shatters children, and it's not really the divorce in particular it's just all the fucking lies around the divorce, i mean my mother would rip on my dad like nobody's business god forbid if i ever said well why did you choose him oh he hid it all okay so people can just hide stuff and just The paranoia, right? The refusal to take responsibility for the fuck-up, the intergalactic fuck-up of a divorce. It's the lies about the divorce that really last, right? Well, you seem fine. And then after we'd been together for three years, dating a year, engaged a year, married a year, I had a kid and he just changed. Oh yeah, that's great. So you can know someone for years, have children with them, and they're just going to change. Wait, it instill rampant paranoia in your children. Which and a half? Son of a witch yeah it's horrendous oh and also well we don't you know alimony and child support are essential because we don't want the children to suffer it's like okay how many children let's be frank about it how many children get sexually assaulted, by boyfriends of single mothers it's not zero.
[58:13] Could it be that those kinds of people who won't be humble believe being humble is selling yourself to slavery category mismatch? Dude, you can make up any bullshit causality and motivations you want. I don't care. See, the thing is people who won't admit mistakes are pathological liars. People who won't admit that they fucked up are pathological liars. So you can root around like a badger looking for truffles for all of the intentions in the known universe, but you'll never find out what their true intentions are because they're pathological liars. Homeless might be better. Well, clearly they prefer homeless to taking responsibility. Okay. The other place for those who'd never admit fault or refuse to stop repeating the same mistakes is prison. Yeah, that's true. That's very true. I moved out from my parents' place two months ago. I visited them last weekend, and I brought up a bunch of the terrible things they've said, and also that they did me very dirty when I was a child. It was met with nothing but hate, denial, and criticism for me. Well, I'm very sorry for that. But what a gift they gave you. What a gift they gave you.
[59:28] The reason why you show vulnerability to corrupt people, the reason why you show vulnerability to corrupt people is you find out how they handle power. The reason you show vulnerability to corrupt people or to people as a whole as you find out how they handle power. And if they can't handle power, if you go to them with vulnerability and they mock and attack you, they can't handle power. All right. Thank you, Kairos. As always, thank you, Mobius. That makes sense. I'm a subscriber, but I'm currently paying off attorney fees and alimony and don't have much extra. But I'll save up and ask again when I can provide more value.
[1:00:10] Attorney fee is an alimony. So this woman is dating you while you're going through some sort of divorce paroxysm? I don't understand. And I appreciate you being a subscriber. But this woman is dating you. She comes from a good family. You say she's done a lot of self-work. She's dating you while you're broke paying off lawyers and alimony so why is she dating you if you're broke, right so and I'm just going to be straight up maybe she needs the vetting not you maybe she needs to be in the position of vetting you not you vetting her, I mean I assume you're in your late 20s early 30s at least, so why the fuck would a woman want to date a broke guy in his 30s what am i missing i'm happy to be corrected as always but what am i missing.
[1:01:19] Why is she you're broke you can't even tip me 20 bucks and listen i sympathize with that i totally understand that and that's fine keep your money obviously and i appreciate the subscription, but if you're so broke that you can't tip someone 20 bucks on a live stream for the most important information you're ever going to receive in your life, I sympathize with that, but why the hell would a woman, I assume she's somewhat your age, I assume she wants kids, because most women do, so where would she be dating your broke ass? And again, I say this with great sympathy, but why would she be dating you? Doesn't she want to have a family of her own? If it's alimony, that's going just go on and on and on. Why is she dating a guy so broke he can't afford to tip 20 bucks on a live stream for the most important information he could receive? And again, I'm not calling you cheap. I get that you're broke, and I sympathize with that. I really do. But why the hell would she be dating you? Maybe the guy is hot. Okay, but if she's dating a broke guy because he's hot, than she's a low-quality woman.
[1:02:31] Broke guys are the equivalent of fat chicks. Right, you know that, right? So, you're broke, right? And again, I sympathize, and I'm not condemning you at all for that, but you're broke. Because you're telling me, like, the tips here are like, somebody sent me, and I haven't complained about any of this, right? What do we got here? somebody sent me $7.50 I'm not complaining about that somebody sent me $5 I didn't complain about that so you can tip a couple of bucks and again I sympathize with that I really do, but holy crap man if you are that broke why on earth is she dating you? Doesn't she want to have kids? And I'm certainly happy to hear the answer, but, geez, can you imagine if she was typing, right? The brokenness is temporary, probably for the next six months or so. Oh, so it's mostly legal fees? Mostly legal fees, but is the alimony going to end? Is your ex-wife getting remarried? Is it just like a massive drain on your finances at the moment? But you don't even have any savings.
[1:03:44] Yeah I don't see how the brokenness is temporary if you don't have any savings and you can't afford 20 bucks and again I sympathize with that I'm not ragging on you I'm just saying that, god I can't imagine if my wife had met me and I couldn't afford 20 bucks, oh I can't take you to Subway I don't have the money she'd be like well you're a nice guy a good conversationalist but holy crap I want to get married and have kids and that's not it It's not it.
[1:04:20] All right. Well, I will turn it over to the audience. I don't want to be, obviously, I don't want to be unfair or unjust. Is it pride or vanity that makes it impossible for people to admit that they were wrong? No, it's a prior history of verbal abuse. So people who've been assholes to other people cannot admit fault because they expect everyone's going to pay them back in the same coin they paid other people with, right? So, if you've just mocked and attacked people for being wrong in the past, that blocks you from admitting fault in the future, right? That's the price you pay for being an asshole is you think everyone around you is going to treat you like you treated them. That's the price, right? This is why it is better to suffer evil than to do evil, because if you suffer evil, right? People treated me in a horrible manner when I made mistakes as a kid, but I didn't treat others in a horrible manner. I was very, very careful in the business world to make sure I didn't scare people or goose people or bully people or threaten people. I was very careful about that. Very careful.
[1:05:24] I racked my brain to think of the right phrase when I needed to talk to an employee privately one-on-one. I didn't want them to think they were getting fired, so I'd just say, oh, can I borrow you for just a sec? As opposed to, can you get into my office? I need to see you in my office right now, right? Because that's going to scare people. I don't want them to be scared. Unless I'm going to fire them, in which case it doesn't really matter what they feel, right?
[1:05:46] But so people can't admit fault because they've attacked other people for the normal mistakes that are part of life, right? So the reason they can't admit fault is if they admit fault, they say, you're right, I made a mistake, I'm wrong, I need help, right? If they do that, then they're going to want to kill themselves because of the amount of harm that they've done to other people by attacking them when they make mistakes. So they can't admit fault because it will cause their conscience to rise up against them for the amount of harshness and ugliness and abuse that they've heaped on other people for mistakes. All right, so I will leave this to the crowd. And also, I don't want to block the crowd if... Do you want the answer to the question, how do you vet the girl for marriage? Right, so Frank wrote, broke Frank wrote, I started dating a girl, and like I say, broke with sympathy, right? I started dating a girl a few months ago, and it has gone really well so far. She comes from a good family, but has a hard time admitting some of their faults. She has done a lot of self-work in the past couple of years and has made some good progress in certain areas. What are some of the best ways to vet and evaluate a girl to see if she is wifey material?
[1:07:04] Hit me with a Y if you'd like me to answer that, if you have sympathy for Frank's brokenness. Hit me with a Y if you'd like me to answer that and have sympathy for Frank's brokenness. Hit me with an N if you don't want me to do that. I have $300,000 in cash and $200,000 in credit card debt, but the cash is frozen until the judge makes a ruling. You have $200,000 in credit card debt? You have $200,000 in credit card debt. Holy crap.
[1:07:51] You have $200,000. Okay, let me... I gotta figure this shit out. All right. Jesus, man. Okay, I've got this online calculator. It'll only do 100,000, right? So what is credit cards these days? 18%, something like that? So you've got to pay three thousand bucks a month basically just to break even you're just paying three thousand dollars a month, okay sorry this is the kind of numbers that online calculators can't sort out right, holy crap that is just wild man, Okay, so let's say you want to pay it back within five years, right?
[1:09:09] Uh, no, it is not. $91. That's wild, man. Let's see. If we make that 19%. Yeah, none of these seem to be able to handle this. That's wild. Okay, I'm going to try. That's not taking this. Okay, let me try this. Let's just say 18%, right?
[1:09:48] Okay, desire, let's say you want to pay this off in 48 months, right? Okay, so if you have $200,000 in credit card debt, and you want to pay it off in four years, that's almost $6,000 a month. And you're going to pay $82,000 in interest. Right? Now, some of them are 22%. What does that do to us? That makes you $6,300 a month, and you'll pay $102,458 in interest. Let's say you want to pay it off in 60 months. That's uh $5,500 a month you'll pay $131,426 in interest wow that's wild.
[1:10:45] Uh, I was building a house and then interest rates went up. So my loan wouldn't cover the original budget. I use cars to finish the house and then sell it. I'm paying about 4,500 per month to my cards. 3.73 years at 4,500 a month. Okay. So, so that's much lower interest, right? So what is that? Let's see. Let's try this. And you want to pay it off. Sorry, when? Let me just do this real quick. So you're going to pay that off in 3.73 years about 42 months right, okay so wait that's got to be way less interest right, oh my god man even at three percent you're still paying five thousand a month so oh yeah i've no i've no idea where you're forty five hundred a month i don't know where you're getting that's like a three percent interest you're still paying five thousand a month to pay that debt off in 42 two months. So, I have no idea how this math works. I have no idea. Yeah, that's not a thing. I'm sorry. I mean, I'm not saying you're wrong. It's obviously your finances, but none of this math adds up in any rational way.
[1:11:57] So, you bought, you got a variable rate interest loan, right? So, he's building a house and then the interest rates went up. So, my loan wouldn't cover the original budget, right? Okay. So, if you listen to this show, of course, you knew that interest rates were going to go up. Because of the amount of money printing over COVID, interest rates had to go up, right? So you decided to save a couple of bucks by having variable rate interest, and then the interest rates went up, and you got toasted.
[1:12:28] So, again, the vetting would be for her. Was it, I mean, why didn't you just get a 10-year fixed rate? Oh, it's a couple of points more. It's like, well, yes, but it's predictable. Right because what's happened is rather than pay a couple of points more for fixed rate you've now gone to credit card rates which are way higher right so i don't uh it's just not right, i only get variable rates for short-term loans yeah for sure of course of course of course, so yep.
[1:13:18] All right, uh so the way fixed rate but the construction loan amount that i qualified for went down but the construction loan amount that i qualified for went down, yeah i mean i'm sure you're right i'm obviously no expert in this but oh because interest rates went up the construction loan amount that i qualified for went down down. So that seems odd to me because you'd need a, let's say you needed, well, you needed, what did you need? You got a hundred thousand, 200,000. Let me just get back here. Sorry. I want to make sure I get these, uh, these ones correct. 300K in cash and 200K on credit card debt. Okay. So you, you, oh, so, and all of your cash is, is held up because you're battling with your ex. Is that right?
[1:14:17] Wild. So because the interest rates went up, the construction loan amount that I qualified for went down. But didn't you already have the loan in writing? I don't understand that. So if you need $200,000 and you borrow the $200,000, how does the fact that the interest rate goes up affect that? Now, that just doesn't make sense to me. Again, I'm sure there's ways to explain it, but it doesn't make sense to me.
[1:14:49] All right. So it looks like people want the vetting question answered. So I'm not going to go down the rabbit hole of your finances. I built the house myself and it took me five years. So they adjusted the qualified amount once per year. Right. And you knew that interest rates were going to go up because of the amount of money printing over COVID. So that's still on you. That's still on you.
[1:15:14] Okay, so how do you vet for a wife? How do you vet for a wife? How do you vet for a wife? All right, if this helps you, I will do what I'm about to recommend and I will express my preferences that if this helps you, I would appreciate a tip or two. I'll just tell you that would be my preference because it's very helpful information. Okay, so how do you vet for a wife? A wife. Before the subprime crash. What, in 07, 08? I think 15 years ago. Anyway, okay, I'm not going down this rabbit hole. All right. So, how do you vet? How do you vet for a wife? Okay. First of all, no hypersexual presentation. Secondly, no overemphasis on looks as a whole, yours or hers. Thirdly, a good conversation is fourthly, positive view of the world. Fifthly, good sense of humor. That doesn't mean she has to be funny, but she has to appreciate your humor if you're funny. Sixthly, she has to have the capacity to put her own interests aside to serve the good of the relationship. Secondly, she has to focus on what you like, and then you have to focus on what she likes so that you negotiate for the mutual happiness of both.
[1:16:39] Next, she has to have moral standards that she's willing to submit her ego to, right? So if you have a moral standard called honesty, if you catch her in a lie, she's got to apologize and say, my bad, right? So you have to have moral standards that she is willing to subjugate her ego to. Of course, this is true for you. I'm just talking like how you vet the wife. She should be vetting you in similar ways, right? She has to have patience with disagreements and curiosity about your motives. She has to be a healthy body weight.
[1:17:14] Everything else is greed and inattentiveness to what men want. And you, of course, should be a healthy body weight. These are all mutual, right? But in general, she has to be educated in wisdom. That doesn't mean these days in particular formal education, but she has to read good books. She has to have curiosity about self-knowledge. She has to have a sense of richness and moral virtues. For the most part, this will be religion, unless you happen to meet an FDR listener, as does happen from time to time. She has to have a particularly in your age bracket she has to have a proven ability to set goals, and reasonably work reasonably hard to achieve them right she has to have the ability to set goals and work reasonably hard to achieve them i mean one of the things that impressed me about my wife was like myself she got a graduate degree in her chosen profession i mean i ended up doing history, but mostly through the internet.
[1:18:14] She has to have rules of conflict that are non-escalatory, that don't escalate, right? Rules of conflict that don't escalate.
[1:18:29] No jab, no debt, no jab, no tattoos. Yeah, well, I think the jab thing has become pretty important these days because it just indicates a willingness to stand against the herd and not be a hive mind, easy to program by the monster media, right?
[1:18:53] No kids? Yeah. Please, please, Lord above, do not get involved. Do not get involved with a woman who has kids. Don't do it. Baby daddy drama, impulse control issues. It's very tough to bond. You can't really bond with the kids much past four or five years of age anyway. And you guys are smart and you won't be good stepdads, right? The average single mother has an IQ in the low 90s. It's not all, right, obviously. But you guys would not be good fathers. I mean, I wouldn't be a good father to a kid who wasn't smart. I just wouldn't be a good father. And it would be a mismatch on every conceivable level. It wouldn't be fair to the kid. It wouldn't be fair to me. But mostly, it wouldn't be fair to the kid, and that's what matters.
[1:19:53] I can't see the rumble comments. Since you ask. Since you ask. She has to have a positive view of men. I mean, obviously, if you're going to marry a woman, you have to have a positive view of women, and I do, or a femininity, not all women, of course, but she has to have a positive view of men. This doesn't necessarily mean that she has, you know, a great relationship with her dad, because you don't have control over who your parents are, right? You don't have control over who your parents are, so you can't be held accountable for your relationship with your parents because they're in charge of the relationship as a whole.
[1:20:42] So with regards to this guy who's a couple of hundred K, no, 300 K assets, 200 K credit card debt or 300k cash, there's a really, really simple test. There's a really, really simple test, to know if the woman could be right for you. Really simple test. Are you ready? It's going to blow your mind a little. Hit me with a why because I want to make sure we're all caught up here. Really simple mind test to know. If the woman can be right for you, I will tell you. I will tell you.
[1:21:38] I will tell you, you are ready, okay. All right. So this is to the original fellow who's broke. If you want to know, here's the shortcut. It's the shortcut. If you want to know, no, not can she be a good mother? Because a good mother will pass this test. So here's how you know if she's potentially right for you. I want you to think that you have a daughter. You love her. You raise her. She goes loose in the world. Now, if your daughter meets a guy like you, would you be enthusiastic? I want you to think about that deeply. because this is a gut feeling one. This is a real, you want to hook into that six, 8,000 times faster than the conscious mind, unconscious mega processing. That's the GPU, right? The girl processing unit.
[1:22:53] Your daughter is 26 years old, 27 years old, whatever. And she says, dad, I met this guy. He's kind of broke, but he says he won't be broke in the future. He's got $200,000. In credit card debt, although for some reason I don't really quite understand. He's paying a lot of legal bills. He's paying a lot of alimony to his ex. He says things will be sorted out in six months, but he's just going through this brutal divorce and legal fees, and he's got a half finished house and lots of debt. And he was recently divorced, a lot of legal stuff. The judge has frozen his bank accounts. Would you be enthusiastic? Sounds great. I can't wait to meet him. He sounds wonderful. Now, to be honest, right? I mean, when my wife met me, she would say, oh yeah, he's a guy. He's young, single, no kids. We're youngish. Single, no kids. He's had a very successful career in the business world. He's currently taking time off to write books and he's got a really nice car. And I've read his books and they're great. And he seems very warm. He's got a great sense of humor. It's pretty good looking, right? I mean, wouldn't you be kind of like, sounds great. You'd love to meet him. Sounds cool, right?
[1:24:11] If a daughter of mine met a guy like me, I'd be cautious. Then change that. Whatever you would caution your daughter about in you, change it. Make that your absolute number one priority.
[1:24:29] Absolute number one priority. Because that's the part of you that doesn't like yourself. And that's the part of you that throws off red flags, like bloody spittle off Quint's mouth when he's chomped on, to women, to quality women. Whatever would make you cautious in your daughter meeting someone like you, change that shit. Like tomorrow, tonight, whenever you start, make it an absolute priority. But that's your shortcut. If your daughter, in the future, meets a guy like you, would you be enthusiastic? Somebody says.
[1:25:19] Emily so-and-so on them tube seems to have wisdom and a good attitude married the father of her youngest kid divorced from the father of her other kids supposedly he cheated he broke up the marriage works as a counselor hmm what nice car did you drive when you met your wife well i had a company car that i took over it was a 98 volvo s70 beautiful car i absolutely i'll never get a car that good although it was a bit of a lemon in terms of it like they were like i had a list of like 14 things that were wrong with it when i finally junked it but yeah it was a red 98 volvo looked exactly like a little matchbox car i had as a kid i love that car i drove other cars i drove an audi with a tiptronic that was really cool but you couldn't get those for like 16 months and i needed them i needed the car right away and i was using it to pick up like fortune 500 ctos to go over our software with so i couldn't show up in a beater like one of those adam sandler seven color a car or something you open it with a coat hanger so uh yeah it was a nice car it was a nice car i loved that car and i couldn't afford or didn't want to pay for the cd player so i ended up with a tape deck but then i used that to listen to books because you couldn't do that through cds very easily yeah it was a nice car it wasn't like some it wasn't like a bugatti bugatti no it wasn't anything like that but it was a nice car a nice car was it back 40 grand back then right 98 that's some money, man.
[1:26:41] But, you know, again, paid for mostly by the business. And then I just took it over, defended, pay off, pay off the end bits.
[1:26:50] So is that good advice, right? You think of... Okay, I will. I'll start tonight. Or more accurately, continue making changes. Getting my own place to live has been an amazing change. Oh, good for you. Good for you. See, it's a funny thing. I was thinking about the guy who had the brutal interaction with his parents where he talked about the abuses he'd suffered as a kid and they just attacked and mocked and humiliated him. The framing is really important. And I will end here with the framing, right?
[1:27:22] You're absolutely welcome to do a call in freedomain.com slash call and thank you for I'm sorry about your situation I really am it's very tough and lord knows, any in tank months but the legal system can shave years off your life so I'm really I sympathize with that for sure and I appreciate your support and I obviously wish you the very best you're absolutely welcome to do a call in, and of course if you're listening later don't let all the people carry the burden who are sitting here for the live stream right don't let all those people carry the burden, help them out a little right Just because you can't make the live streams, which is totally fine. Just because you can... Just because they can make the live stream, don't just, oh, well, they paid for it. Come on, pull your weight. Somebody sent a $1 tip. Thanks, deaf, middle-aged, single, male, no kids, quit a six-figure job to remake myself better. Greatly appreciate what you do. Please don't send me $1. It breaks my heart. Listen, if you're that broke that you can only afford $1, please don't send a dollar and after everyone takes their piece there's very little left anyway so what does I get 60 cents or something it's crazy which I have to track and report on and like please don't.
[1:28:34] Please don't send me a dollar it's the saddest thing if I could refund it I absolutely would because I just I feel absolutely terrible if people can only afford a dollar please save it for bus fare so you can get to a job interview my god that's horrendous I'm so sorry please don't do that, all right um yes was that tip a typo perhaps well i mean it's not that hard to see if you have a zero or two after the one it's not that complicated is it i mean, I sent $60 it was locals sorry dude I don't follow what that means, uh i don't quite follow what that means maybe it was in coins but remember google takes a third of the coins right so i appreciate it of course right but remember google takes a third of your coins, and you know i'm not a huge fan of google just in general just by the by yeah if you could freedomain.com slash donate is the lowest overhead one right why do you think donations are down is the economy really that bad well that's a great question joe i mean i've got a fair amount of business experience. The economy is bad. People are anxious about the election in America, for sure.
[1:29:57] And also, there's just a kind of attrition, right? Because I'm not out there gathering a whole bunch of new listeners. So the listeners who are here, who sort of followed me after deplatforming, there's just a natural attrition, right? People just, they get busy, they have other things to do, they have other expenses.
[1:30:10] They know people just drift away. I mean, I don't know why it's the best show on the planet.
[1:30:14] In my view, but I think there's just a replenishment issue, if that makes sense right i mean if you have a business that's doing well and then you just stop all your advertising and marketing you'll do okay for a while and then it'll just start to right diminish right okay well i appreciate that i right i don't want to say um yeah freedom.com slash donate is just the easiest and best way to do it it has the lowest overhead too so it actually gets more money between us which is good and of course crypto donations are always very welcome so if you have a brutal family there's a lot to do with the framing right so heartbreak or hope right heartbreak or hope so i'm going to give you an analogy yeah everything that goes through an app but google takes a third so as far as i understand it it's pretty rough uh it's not no it's not locals fault no locals is locals is a great environment and uh it's not locals fault it's just if there's an app they take uh google takes a third of of that as far as or something like that but no it's not locals fault at all that's just the environment that they have to work in locals is a great company and i absolutely love them to death so i have no no issues with that at all it's not not please don't blame them for what Google's policy is.
[1:31:42] So, I'm going to tell you an analogy. Now, this analogy came out of a private call-in. Now, the last thing I'd want to do is reveal anything to anyone from a private call-in. So, this is just an analogy, and I asked the woman I was talking with, or the man, could be either, could be both, could be neither, right? I asked the person if I could reuse this analogy.
[1:32:12] And the person, male, female, whatever, said, yes, you can reuse the analogy. So this is something from a private cause. The private calls are absolutely night and day, by the way. The private calls are night and day from these shows, from public calls. There's directness. I'll tell people exactly what to do, in my opinion, right? So private calls are very different. You've not seen this kind of animal before. And you can go to freedomain.com. Sorry, freedomain.com slash call. You can see the testimonials. It's life-changing. and you should absolutely avail yourself of it and it's very reasonably priced. So, I want you to think of, the shit buffet and the sushi bar. So there's one buffet which has all different kinds of shit. There's beaver shit, horse shit, camel shit. There's just a wide variety of shit. Maybe even some bacterium effluvium, right? So you've got flies everywhere, and this is a shit bar, right? And then there's a sushi bar. The sushi bar has really great sushi. Really great sushi. Now, if you happen to be born, as I was, many of us here, I'm sure, have some experience with this, if you happen to be born in the shit buffet, things are pretty bad.
[1:33:34] So what you do is you say, well this is a shit buffet it tastes bad it smells bad and there are just trashy people around here there are gross people around here people with a good sense of smell and any kind of refinement really really don't want to be here why because it smells like shit it's a shit buffet right, so then you get out get away from the shit buffet and like a hundred feet away you set up your sushi bar. And it's really nice sushi. It's really crisp, good seaweed, nice light fluffy rice. You've got your ginger. You've got your wasabi. You've got soy sauce of the gods. It's really, really good.
[1:34:17] But, but, unfortunately, the sushi bar is only 100 feet from the shit buffet. So people aren't coming for your sushi because they can't eat sushi while smelling dog shit and camel shit and cow shit and cat shit because it makes them want to vomit because you're too close to the shit buffet even though you have great food you're just way too close to the shit buffet you kind of get where i'm going with this right it's not the most subtle analogy in the known universe but it really helped on the person i was helping out in the private calling, who gave me permission for this analogy i begged her him it they.
[1:35:05] So you understand if you're born, Thank you. I appreciate that. If you're born, in the shit buffet, it doesn't matter if you reform yourself and make yourself better, but you're still in the proximity of the shit smell. It doesn't matter if you have the best sushi on the planet. If it's 100 feet away from steaming piles of shit, people aren't going to come by. You've got to get far, far, far away, out of earshot, out of eyesight, and out of smell range. And that smell can really, really fucking travel, right? That smell can really travel.
[1:36:04] Bear shit yes did you see the meme you know it's like the bear after spending a week with the woman he's being hugged by a man and the bear's like oh my god she just wouldn't stop talking and the man's like i know bear i know bad analogy i don't eat sushi you're smart enough to reframe to whatever you like. I love you, smart, sexy, bald man. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Maybe homo. All right.
[1:36:41] So, the best way to get away from the shit buffet is to stop holding your nose. Because when you grow up around that shit, you stop smelling it, right? After a while, you just stop smelling it. You ever had a bad smell around, and after a while, you just stop smelling it. I lived once not super far from an abattoir, and when the wind blew wrong in the wrong days, it was horrendous, but I stopped smelling it after a while. So, you stop holding your nose. You go put your face in the shit and you sniff deeply and you gag and then you get the fuck away. Because we think we can have quality souls around trashy people. We can't. Because the trashy people smell, right, the shit buffet smell drifts over and overwhelms the good food offerings we have.
[1:37:44] And so a lot of people get stuck there, and I did too, a lot of people get stuck there and say, well, look, I have personal quality, but I'm still around really screwed up and aggressive people. And quality diners ain't coming to your sushi bar when it's close to the shit buffet.
[1:38:20] So for the person like you just you put your face in the shit you took a deep smell and you gagged and now you can get away right it's liberation right trauma is liberation, if you let it give you wings it's a chain if you let it weigh you down it's liberation if you let it give you wings Stef what are your thoughts on the woman who got caught sexting her ex and got mad when she called to the podcast yeah so that i shared this uh on locals that there was this woman who got caught sexting her ex at a party where she was being introduced to her boyfriend's friends and then got really mad. And she said, she called in at the beginning of the show, I was like, he ghosted me for no reason. And they're like, no reason, really? No reason? No reason at all. I don't understand it. She called the boyfriend. The boyfriend was like, okay, that was the reason she sexed her ex and wouldn't admit fault and escalated and said, I don't understand emotions and I don't understand passion, right?
[1:39:14] So this is an IQ thing. it's an intelligence thing it's a wisdom thing smart people know that you suffer less now than you will later right that's why obesity is often inversely proportional to iq not always but often, because smart people say yes it's going to sting my pride a little bit to admit fault now but it's better for me in the long run to take responsibility for my life whereas less intelligent people are just, have you ever been around these people? It's crazy making, it's crazy making. They explain everything away, it's always your fault, they take no responsibility, blah blah blah blah blah, and they're just relentless and dogmatic, and they just will never, it's like trying to get two giant magnets to touch that are opposing, just impossible. Accountability is their kryptonite, and that's just a low IQ thing, because in the moment it feels better to blame others and take no accountability. Well, I don't know why he ghosted me, I have no idea, right?
[1:40:15] That way you get sympathy And you don't have to feel like you did anything wrong And it feels better in the moment It's a drug The avoidance of responsibility Is the most potent drug known to man.
[1:40:35] And smart people know that it feels worse to take accountability in the short run, but your life is infinitely better in the long run. In the same way that, you know, I worked out before doing the show tonight, it didn't feel that great. I've had a little bit of a stomach upset for the last couple days. Not quite where I look like one of those guys jetpacking on water over a lake, but not the opposite of that. So I didn't really feel like working out, but I did it, and I'm glad I did, but it wasn't fun. really. But I feel better for it. You know that, right? You know that.
[1:41:19] So, accepting small suffering now for the sake of avoiding much more suffering later is just a mark of intelligence, just a deferral of gratification. To expand on the sushi analogy, what are the implications if you were to feel like you were missing out by not smelling shit. Well, if you think that you're missing out by not smelling shit, get your fucking face in it. I don't care if you've got to rub your body with it. You get close enough to the shit where you finally go, this is shit. Right? This is why I say to people, get close to your family. If you've got a dysfunctional, trashy family, again, assuming it's physically safe for you to do so, go confront them, go talk to them, go be honest, go be direct, go tell them what you think and feel. Get your face right in the shit until you smell it. Escalate the stench until you can't suppress, avoid, and gaslight yourself anymore. That's how you get out. Right? Because if you're just kind of at a distance and avoiding, and you don't get too close, and you avoid the, you don't get, you know, you don't touch, you don't, right? It's like, okay, it was not that bad, right? No, make it, make it bad, make it worse. Until you can throw out the shit or get away.
[1:42:46] If you're used to medium dysfunction and you can't get away from it dial it up to more dysfunction with more honesty and directness visceral response makes things clear oh yeah, again i've said this before but when i was in my early 30s or something like that actually, it's a long time ago now. I was in my early 30s. You know, my mom was always talking about these goddamn court cases. She was suing all these doctors and it never went anywhere and it went on and on. And she said, oh, it's almost about, I'm going to pay you lots of money from the settlement. It's like, nothing was ever going to happen. And that's all she talked about. And I would just stop listening. I was just literally trapped, right? Like when I was a kid and there was this game called Way Out for the Atari 800. And I remember being stuck in the maze. There was It was something, it was a rectomaniac, rectalmaniac, rectomaniac. It was like a little rectal that would steal your map. It was a very clever little game and fun. And I remember I had to pause that game because my mom was droning on me and I'm like trapped in this maze. Someone just stole, the rectomaniac just stole my map and it was like my mom just droning on and on at me.
[1:43:59] And I would just space out from, look, I'm doing it now. I would just space out and just completely like not listen. But then she'd get very aggressive, right? If I didn't pay attention. But what do you think, right? Or she'd come back from these, she was part of this, I don't know, Austrian club or something like that. And she took me to one of these dances once and she'd come back and she'd go over all the minutiae, you know, like these obsessive female minutiae of this guy said this. and then he walked over there, but then he pretended to talk to another girl just to make me jealous, and then he glanced at me, and then, right? And it's all just like she's just obsessing about reading the tea leaves of probably random behavior of people to reinterpret it to her own benefit and all of that. And so anyway, with regards to her court cases, I just said to my mom, like, I just feel like all we ever talk about are these court cases, and I don't mind hearing about the court cases from time to time, but I really would like us to be able to talk about some other things, maybe where I could contribute a little bit more or something like that, right? Oh, he's throwing cushions around, screaming at the top of her lungs that I was in league with the insurance companies and who was paying me to say this. And I'm like, okay, like, no, there's like, okay, I get the stench.
[1:45:17] And the sushi bar vamoosed. And then when I met my wife, there was nothing but roses and bouquets and meadows in the air. The smell of shit was nowhere. Thank you, Adam. The smell of shit was nowhere to be found. All was lovely. And that's why i got married to the woman who was absolutely perfect for me donated another 40 for the shit analogy yeah it is a shit analogy isn't it it was for a homie good well maybe slice that one out or whatever right oh yeah no by the time i met my wife man it was japanese cherry blossoms, dandelion wine lovely beautiful wound flower scents all around birds chirping i was a vacation spot like a bali grass hut with a glass floor over clownfish it was beautiful man beautiful it was beautiful.
[1:46:33] Absolutely lovely. No shit in the air. And that's why I got married. All right, any other last questions or comments, that you would like to make? Any other last tippy-tips? I believe I have worked my brain to the bone. I will go and lie down. I can feel my brain be like, we're done, we're done. We've done a lot today. I did a show this morning going over in detail a bunch of articles about authoritative parenting. I won't tell you exactly what kind of buffet that is. You'll have to wait for the show to come out. But it was quite vivid for me. All right, waiting once, waiting twice. Let me just go check over here.
[1:47:20] Boom, boom, boom. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Is that why those older buildings in New York City have high steps to the front door from the days before cars when the streets were full of horse shit. Yeah, they really were. It's just wretched. Of course, they got used to it. You go back there, be like, oh, God, right? Denormalize the shit stench. Denormalize the shit stench. That is what must happen for our lives to be free. Smell the shit. Pick up your sushi stand and get to the cherry blossom trees. That's what we need. All right. I'll keep you posted if we're going to do something this weekend. I love you guys for your support. I really, really do humbly and kindly appreciate it. Bro, if you want to call in, I'll charge you nothing, right? We'll just do a nice public call-in, stay off names and places. And if you want a private call-in, that's fine too. And I really do appreciate you guys' time tonight. It's always a deep and honorable pleasure to have these frank conversations with you.
[1:48:15] I hope that any firmness is understood to come from a place of love and devotion to the truth. Lots of love, everyone. Take care. Bye.
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