0:03 - Introduction to Conscience
1:35 - Understanding Morality
7:38 - The Role of Authority
9:16 - Pre-Conscience Mindset
13:27 - Concept Formation in Children
17:59 - Morality and Gender Differences
22:47 - The Power of Moral Authority
27:17 - Teenage Realizations
30:43 - The Nature of Moral Hypocrisy
35:10 - The Impact of UPB
36:02 - Conclusion on Conscience
This lecture focuses on the concept of conscience and its relationship to universally preferable behavior (UPB). The speaker addresses the challenges and inconsistencies in moral teachings encountered during childhood and how these contribute to the formation of our conscience. The retake of the lecture aims to improve upon previous discussions about how conscience manifests in our lives and how we understand moral rules.
The speaker begins by explaining that conscience is a fundamental aspect of human morality, inherent in our minds and connected to UPB, which asserts that there are universal moral behaviors applicable to all individuals. He contrasts the idea of conscience with hypocrisy, noting that when individuals fail to recognize their moral failings, they embody a potent form of hypocrisy that can distort moral teachings. The discourse centers on how moral principles, such as the prohibitions against stealing and hitting, are universally applicable and should be maintained regardless of context or circumstance. The speaker emphasizes that moral teaching encompasses absolutes, and it is crucial for children to internalize these moral laws early in their development.
A significant portion of the lecture explores the formation of conscience in children, noting that moral imperatives are instilled in them by authority figures who are presumed to have greater knowledge and understanding. As children grow, they transition from a state of ignorance regarding moral principles to an understanding that breaches against these principles carry negative consequences. The speaker illustrates this process by discussing how children are taught empathy and empathy's role in moral development. Through scenarios like sharing versus grabbing toys, children learn the importance of respecting others' property and feelings, laying a foundation for a more complex understanding of morality.
The discussion shifts to the authority of moral teachers and how their reliability is critical in shaping a child's conscience. If a parent, for example, preaches non-violence but employs violence themselves, the child's trust in that moral authority is undermined. The speaker elaborates on this dynamic by examining how power and hypocrisy shape societal moral structures. He suggests that individuals often become aware of the inconsistencies in moral teachings as they reach adolescence, which can lead to disillusionment with authority figures who fail to practice what they preach. This pivotal realization can challenge the child's understanding of moral principles and expose the hypocrisy inherent in many moral teachings.
As the lecture progresses, the speaker explores deeper existential questions surrounding morality, such as the societal implications of moral teachings versus individual understanding. He invokes the idea that while moral teachings are delivered through a lens of authority and responsibility, the reality may often reflect control and power dynamics. The disconnection between expected moral behavior and observed hypocrisy becomes evident, revealing the speaker's criticism of societal constructions of morality that emphasize compliance over genuine ethical behavior.
Ultimately, the lecture posits that conscience is closely tied to UPB, with personal integrity often clashing against collective moral standards shaped by those in power. The importance of moral consistency is highlighted, and the lecture concludes with a call for individuals to cultivate a genuine understanding of morality that prioritizes personal integrity and awareness over the historically exploitative nature of power-driven moral teachings. The speaker encourages listeners to question the validity of moral rules imposed upon them, fostering a deeper connection with their conscience and the universality of moral principles.
[0:00] All right. Hello, everybody. Hope you're doing well.
[0:03] So this is a wee bit of a last show. I did a show on conscience, but don't worry, the second time will be better. I don't know what happened to the first one. It went in the flurry of the 15 different devices I used to record things. So this is conscience, the retake. Okay. So I've often made the case that people get angry at UPB because UPB is a manifestation of what occurs in our minds, which we call the conscience. So, the conscience is the universal part of universally preferable behavior. And the opposite of conscience is hypocrisy, which, in particular, if it's invisible to the hypocrite, is even more powerful. We'll get to that in a bit.
[0:48] So, as the old saying went when I was a kid, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. That if you say that Bob mustn't steal, then how can you say that Doug must steal or it's all right if Doug does steal? If you say these are morals and that morals are restrictions or advocations on human behavior, which is why there's no sort of thought crime outside of dystopian novels, China, and, well, everywhere these days, I've been gulagged, digitally gulagged for thought crimes. So, there is a basic set of syllogisms that run all operations of morality, right?
[1:35] Number one is morality is specific to human actions, and morality is common to all humans at all times, in all locations, and under all circumstances.
[1:49] So, if you grabbed another kid's toy in the kindergarten or in the early grade school, the teacher did not say, oh, wait till tomorrow. Tomorrow you can do it, no problem. Tomorrow it's totally fine to do, but today you can't, right? Or they didn't say, wait till it's raining, or wait until you're outside, because outside there's totally different moral rules. No, what did they say? They said that it's wrong. it's wrong to steal wrong to grab wrong to take what does not belong to you it's wrong to take what does not belong to you thou shalt not steal and this was a universal claim it was not based upon location it was not based upon gender it was not based upon race it was not based upon circumstance in and it wasn't based upon need right wasn't based upon need i need that toy.
[2:36] It wasn't based upon a disparity. Well, he has that toy and I don't, so I'm just redistributing it, right? It was an absolute thou shalt not steal. And it was a rule that was universal based upon the human status of the child, right? So you've seen these videos where some monkey grabs a purse, right? Like in some island somewhere. So the monkey grabs a purse, right? And we say, well, that's annoying, but we don't put the monkey in prison, right? We don't try the monkey, right? So it is a human characteristic. All humans are subjected to thou shalt not steal and thou shalt not hit. No hitting, no stealing. Respect property rights, don't use violence, right? So that is claimed to be universal. Now, it is inflicted by those who have moral authority over the children. Now, if I teach something to a child, I must be in possession of greater knowledge than the child does, right? So, you've seen these sort of endless memes about the parents trying to puzzle out the new math, right? Well, I don't know why they're teaching math this way. This isn't the way that I was taught math. I don't know what's going on. And, you know, when my daughter first sat down and said, okay, this long division thing, how would you do it? I'm like, I must resist urge to grab calculator, right?
[4:03] And, you know, it sort of came back to me in a horrified, appalling rush, right? Like popping a blister or something. So if I'm going to teach my daughter chess, then obviously I have to be in possession, of greater knowledge of chess than my daughter. I must also, of course, practice what I preach. if I say that the castles or the rooks cannot move diagonally, right? Because that's the rule in chess, right? The bishops can move diagonally, as can the queen, as can the pawns if they're taking something, right? And the knights can do that weird L-shaped epileptic diagonal and jump, right? So if I say the rooks cannot go diagonal and the bishops cannot go straight, and they can't go X, Y, right?
[4:55] Then I, of course, will have to be restrained by that rule, right? So if I say the rooks cannot go diagonal and it's written down, I write it down for my daughter's reference and then I try to move my rook diagonal, she would say, wait a minute, you told me the rooks. So I would have to be constrained by the rules I had imposed upon the child, right? So, all morals are UPB. It's universally preferable behavior, and there are negative consequences for immoral behavior. So, what are the requirements that are taught to children? Well, maybe the first time you get away with just grabbing a kid's toy, say, no, don't grab, it's not nice to grab, or how would you feel it if the toy was grabbed for you? You'd give some sort of basic, right? Because kids emerge from this primordial ooze of diapers and no moral responsibility, right? That's just, kids are that way, right?
[5:49] So, the baby is not responsible for grabbing things, right? Babies will grab, and maybe you gently take it away, maybe not, but babies will grab, and you don't hold them morally responsible and say, it's rude or bad or immoral to grab, right? Babies grab.
[6:07] Surprising strength, right? They say, taking candy from a baby. Have you ever tried that? So babies grab. That we know. So then at some point, moral consequences can start to be encouraged or morally good behavior can start to be encouraged. So if the child decides to share a toy, you can praise the child for sharing the toy and so on, right? So the child has to be knowledgeable of morality, have some knowledge of morality. So, at some point, when your baby grabs and the toddler grabs, it goes from, well, isn't that cute? He's grabbing, that's natural, to, right, that's not good, right? That's bad, right? So, babies will sometimes need the breasts while they're breastfeeding, that's good. If you're not breastfeeding and you're 14, that's not good, right? With an adult, for sure, even with your own age group, that's not good, right? So, at some point, moral responsibility starts to occur, and that's because the child now understands morality, understands empathy, understands consequences, and has the capacity to put himself or herself in the other person's shoes, and that's sort of what empathy is, right? How would you like it if somebody grabbed from you? And we all went through this. Sorry to be so detailed, but there's a reason why I'm doing all of this, and you may have nodded along five minutes ago, but it's important that I really lay this foundation because there's going to be a bit of a whiplash coming soon, right?
[7:34] So, we are all taught universally preferable behavior.
[7:39] Now, we're not taught the theory in the way that I have proven morals in this way, but we're all taught universally preferable behavior. And then there are exceptions.
[7:50] So, if you have a spanking father, then you're not allowed to hit, but your father is not only allowed, but encouraged to hit. Now, we can say, of course, to sort of make the case, we can say, but there's lots of things that adults can do that children can't, right? Adults can drive a car, children can't. Adults can drink alcohol, children can't. Adults can sign contracts and rent cars and children can't. So we understand that, right? But in general, they would redefine it, right? It's not hitting, it's discipline, right? It's spanking, it's not beating or whatever, right? Or it's confiscation, not theft, right? Like I'm taking away your phone because you looked up bad things and listened to bad things or played rude games or watched rude video. I'm taking away your phone. So that's not called theft. That's called confiscation, and it's a punishment. You have failed to, you know, what do the parents always say? You have failed to exercise your choices responsibly. Therefore, your choices are going to be reduced, right? That's what they always say. So it's redefined, right? It's not hitting children. It's discipline and spanking and consequences, and it's not taking. It's not kidnapping and confining. it's teaching a child consequences by putting the child in his or her room and so on. It's not withholding food as torture. It's, well, if the kid doesn't want to eat, there's nothing else to eat, so they just have to go to their room and wait till tomorrow. That's all this redefinition stuff.
[9:17] The conscience is formed prior to morality. There's a pre-conscience mindset, which is universalism as a whole. And this is called object constancy. It's called conceptual or concept formation and so on. And that is the idea that chocolate is always good.
[9:40] You get some, like there's a weird jelly bean game I played with my daughter a couple of times where you spin the wheel and maybe you get a good jelly bean or maybe you get the sour milk jelly bean or whatever. It's actually, it was kind of fun. But a chocolate bar is always good. Ice cream is always good. Objects have properties, right? Broccoli is always bad. Brussels sprouts are always, well, actually they're evil. That's a different, different, that's the only exception to UPB. It's just Brussels sprouts. Unless, unless they're covered in bacon and sauce. Anyway, Now I'm hungry. Back on track, ADD boy. So, you are going through a process of extrapolating and universalizing as a baby and as a toddler. You are learning automatically and universalizing the automatic properties of nature as a whole. And this isn't, of course, just, I mean, all creatures that are alive that have the capacity for concepts, not describing concepts of language, but having concepts, right? The lion does not assume that the next baby zebra is poisonous, right? That's not what the baby, sorry, that's not what the lion believes.
[10:47] The fox does not believe that the next rabbit is explosive, right? It's going to blow up, right? It's tasty, right? Especially if it's running, it means it's fresh, right? Fresh, exciting. So we all, all the living creatures, certainly the mammals and lots of other creatures as well. Like when you pour out the cat food, right? And the sound of you pouring out the cat food has the cat come and, well, want the food, right? So they understand that sort of cause and effect, right?
[11:20] So, and you've probably seen those videos of they, you know, just put a couple little pieces of food in the dog bowl and the dog just kind of glares at them like, bro, what are you doing? Why are you Kate Moss and me. I'm a wolf. Hungry like the wolf. I got a little bit of music brain today.
[11:37] So the baby, and in particular through the acquisition of language and so on, the baby is learning all about universalism, right? A tree is a tree is a tree. A swing is a swing is a swing. A playground is a playground is a playground. Chocolate is chocolate is chocolate. And you are, as a baby and a toddler, you are learning all of these universals, right? A candy store is a place you want to go to and get candy from. Your favorite movie will not mysteriously change every time you watch it. So we are universalizing as a whole in order to understand and the world, learn, survive. Basically, our higher brains or our neofrontal cortex is identifying the behavior of matter and energy in its most fundamental anatomic form. We have concepts because the behavior of atoms are consistent, right? Water is water. H2O is H2O. When you're thirsty, you drink water. You don't drink oil, right?
[12:41] I said, there's a line in some Anne-Marie McDonald novel that I never finished because her writing is just, it's like paper cuts to your soul with the horror on the page. But there was something about how it was in the back of the car and mom put on her lipstick, which always had the color and reminded me of candy, right? And you've seen those soaps, right? Those soaps in those stores that look so good that you want to eat them, right? But don't, unless you've sworn. So, we are developing all of this conceptual ability just as part of being an advanced mammal, and also in particular through language and through our concept formation, the ability not just to process concepts at a sense level, but identify, abstract them, and define them at an abstract level, a conceptual level.
[13:28] To define concepts as concepts is a uniquely human attribute, in the same way that every other creature but human beings, if you point at something, they look at your hand. But toddlers, when you point at something, they'll look at what you're pointing at, right? That's just sort of basic sort of empathy stuff, right?
[13:46] So we have all of these concepts that are formed in our mind that are universal, and that is the fertile soil in which universally preferable behavior, from a moral standpoint, is planted. That's how we get it. That's why it hits us so deep.
[14:07] If we just look at universally preferable behavior prior to morality, so universally preferable behavior, right? I remember my brother and I, when we were little kids, there was a sort of little wooden box, a sort of long box of after eights. And we were just snacking on the after eights and putting like magical thinking, right? We were putting, they come in these little paper sleeves, right? The little black paper sleeves. And we just kept putting the paper sleeves back. We'd reach around in, we'd get some more after eights, we'd munch on them and so on. And so the universally preferable behavior for us in that moment was do that, which gets the after eights in your mouth, right? Then, of course, at the end, we were kind of horrified and had to hide it and all of that because, oh my God, there's no after eights left. We're doomed. So universally preferable behavior. If you're tired, go sleep, right? If you're hungry, eat something. If you're thirsty, drink something. If you want a good tasting food, go and get a little stool and go up in the cookie jar, open the cookie jar, get a cookie. And if you don't want something good to eat, for me at least, then have your mother bake some weird German rusk cookies that basically have been excreted from a wildebeest's armpit. And she'll call them cookies. But all you'll do is daydream about chocolate covered digestive cookies, which are little slabs of paradise in a bag. So, man, I'm hungry again. I should have probably eaten before doing the show. Oh, well, we'll survive. Or will we? dun dun dun.
[15:32] So there's universally preferable behavior in terms of getting what you want, getting good tasting food and all that resting when you're tired and so on, right? And if your parents say, clean up your toys and you can have a nice snack, then if you want the snack, you'll go clean up your toys. And so that's universally preferable behavior to get what you want, to get the candy or whatever it is, right? So you've got all of this universal preferable behavior that's going on just in terms of sense data and the automatic extrapolation of immediate sense data into universal concepts. And then there is cause and effect, you know, like for the lion, right? If you're hungry, go chase something and eat it, right? I mean, you've probably seen the video, it's on X, I think, where there's this species of bird where the mother feeds the children until they're relatively old. And then when the children, when the babies leave the nest, what happens is they just, stand where there are bugs and open their mouth, expecting the bugs to sort of jump into their mouth. And it takes them a little while to figure out that they actually have to sort of chase the bugs and eat them, right? Because they're just so used to being fed. But enough about the welfare state. So then we are primed for this universally preferable behavior in terms of morality.
[16:54] I want a piece of chocolate that my mother promises me for cleaning up my toys. If I want the piece of chocolate, I ought to clean up my toys. And then she would give me the piece of chocolate. So that's universally preferable. So we're all primed for universally preferable behavior based upon direct sense data going into concepts. And by concepts, I don't necessarily mean that we have defined those concepts in our minds. But a kid knows to roll a ball before he could define what a ball is, right? I mean, the same way that a lion can chase a zebra without being able to define what a zebra is, right?
[17:27] There's sense concepts, and then there's abstract concepts, right? So, we are primed for this universally preferable behavior simply based on our sense concepts and then our cause and effect concepts. And hopefully, of course, our parents have kept our words so that cause and effect is relatively clear for us, right? So, then we are told that universally preferable behavior is our moral standards involving niceness, kindness, and empathy.
[17:59] It used to involve justice until education and religion became completely feminized because femininity is more about niceness and is harsh against perceived rudeness, whereas male morality is more around justice and is harsh against cheaters and liars and thieves and murderers and so on, right? So women, they want cooperation and men want peace and honesty, right? This is the tension, right? If you grew up with a single mother, she wants you to lie in order to save people's feelings. But you, as a man, you want to tell the truth, right? You don't want to lie, right? Back to the Jell-O experiment I've talked about before. And both are important, right? It's important to have some diplomacy in the world, as I remind myself from time to time, or I'm rather forcefully reminded from time to time. It's important to have some diplomacy in the world, but it's also important to tell the truth, right?
[18:55] What, like, so there's nothing more uniquely feminine in a way than the concept of malinformation. Disinformation is stuff you know to be false. Misinformation is stuff you think is true, but it's false. Disinformation is stuff that is true, but negative in some manner. It hurts people's feelings. It upsets people that might need to negative social outcomes. Okay, so that's just the tyranny of conformity to narcissistic bullies, right? Because the moment you say, don't say that which offends people, people will just censor others by pretending to be offended, right? And being offended is just a mark of low intelligence, right? It's just an inability to handle emotions and a complete disinterest in the truth and an over-focus on emotional responses and a belief that if you're upset, it's a completely irrational belief, which is that if you're upset, other people are bad for upsetting you and must be punished, right? Again, that's just a low IQ thing. There's not much you can do about that. It's like all the people who think it's a genius thing to add, oh, there's an exception to a general rule. Oh, no, no, no, thank you very much. I really appreciate that. So if you want to get to the North Pole, probably go north. Well, not if you're standing right on the North Pole. It's like, okay, but then you're already there. All right. So UPP is the conscience, and the conscience is accepting the universality of moral rules that are taught to you as a child, and inflicted upon you as a child.
[20:23] Now, the conscience is the part of you that accepts that the rules that are claimed to be universal are, in fact, universal. In other words, that the people who are teaching you morality aren't lying, hypocritical a-holes. That's the foundation of the conscience, is that you are taught that a stealing and hitting, taking and pushing, taking and hitting, is bad and wrong for everyone at all times, and it is taught to you by people who know the rules and practice the rules, since they're inflicting the rules upon you, they must therefore be inflicting the rules on themselves. So, stealing and hitting is bad, and it is being taught to you by people who have almost infinitely greater knowledge and the practice of moral consistency than you, right?
[21:20] To take the analogy again, if someone is teaching you chess, then you're going to assume that at the beginning, since you know nothing about chess and they know a lot about chess, that they have infinitely greater knowledge of chess than you have, and that they consistently follow the rules, themselves that they're asking you to follow. Because the only reason that you would not follow the rules you were inflicting on others is because you want to cheat them through their integrity. So if someone teaches you a particular chess move and then tries to get away with breaking that chess rule, then that's because they want you to be bound by a rule that they're not going to follow because they're lying hypocritical cheaters who want to win against you and dominate you through your devotion to consistency and integrity to the rules. The worst kind of people, and this is just in a chess realm, in the realm of morality, It's just infinitely, infinitely worse. The people who teach you moral rules so that you'll follow them and that they don't plan to so that they have an absolutely unfair advantage.
[22:30] This is one of the things around Christianity that Christians sometimes don't understand how some other belief systems have no interest in universality or consistency. They're only interested in inflicting it upon their foes to cripple them in conflicts. I'm looking at you, Zoroastrianism. Actually, no, I'm not looking at Zoroastrianism.
[22:47] I don't even know fundamentally what much of Zoroastrianism is about, other than it's Manichaean good versus evil, and mankind is decisive for the balance. That's all I basically get out of that. It's not a lot. Anyway, so, but at least it's not making me hungry.
[23:01] Wait, Zoroastrianism? Indian food. Mmm, sag paneer, mutter paneer, cheese cubes. All right.
[23:13] So we are taught well so we develop this universality sense-based conceptual-based language-based and then morality-based and we fully accept when we're little for the most part sorry i shouldn't say fully accept for the most part if you have a really hypocritical family you're going to have doubts about this but like we're just going to say for the most part like in the main in the majority so you accept that the people who are teaching these moral rules know these moral rules infinitely better than you do and practice them consistently. Otherwise, you're just in a state of nature where your goodwill and integrity is being used against you, which is going to turn you pretty feral pretty quickly, right?
[23:54] So the conscience is the part of us that extends sense conceptual or conceptualized and language-based concepts into the moral realm based upon the moral rules taught to and we believe modeled and inflicted on us by moral authorities when we are little children, toddlers and little kids, right? From the ages sort of two or three sort of onwards, right? so we're taught that things are universal and we're taught by people we perceive to be of infinitely greater moral not just moral knowledge but moral practice right almost infinitely greater moral practice right so someone who who has not played chess can teach you the rules just by reading the rules out to you from a website or you know for money when i was a kid i would spend you know, endless afternoons. And like just thumbing through, we had a big old Encyclopedia Britannica, which was the, I guess, the original Google of the day, but without the horrendous, corrupting, propagandistic bias. But so they could read you the rules, but they can't teach you the strategy because they don't have any experience in playing a lot of chess. Like once you've played a lot of chess, then you can teach people strategy, right? But if you haven't played chess, you can read off the rules, but you can't teach strategy, right? So it's not just that somebody has to have knowledge of chess, right? They have to also have experience with chess or experience in chess, right?
[25:22] So that's how we develop the instinct, the conceptual, automatic, unconscious processing of universal rules.
[25:36] That UPB is the conscience. The conscience is the part of us that accepts the moral legitimacy of universal rules, which is bound into the moral legitimacy of those who teach us the moral rules, because they teach us their moral rules based upon not just their knowledge of those moral rules, but also based upon their decades and decades of experience manifesting and practicing those moral rules. They have authority not just based on knowledge, but based on experience. In the same way that we take health advice from somebody who is healthy, right? We take diet advice from somebody who's not obese.
[26:25] And so those who teach us morals don't say, well, I don't really practice this, but you have to. Well, I don't really believe in this, but I'm going to inflict it on you, right? So the way that morals are inflicted upon us is by, frankly, fairly pompous, overbearing, smug, certain people who claim moral authority based not just upon perfect knowledge of universality, stealing, hitting, but also on the consistent practice of that morality which has given them the absolute authority, experience, and credibility to inflict their rules upon us.
[27:09] So, this is why chefs are allowed to be fat, right? Trainers are not, chefs are, because a chef who's fat obviously enjoys his own cooking.
[27:18] So, things change, though, particularly in your teenage years. Things change. One of the most fundamental things that changes is you realize that your parents, if they hit you, they no longer hit you, and instead they reason with you, and you happen to notice that this coincides with you getting as big or bigger than they are, right? You happen to notice that your parents magically find sweet, sweet reason the moment that you become big enough to fight back, they abandon aggression and start reasoning with you. And that is a pretty, like deep down in your unconscious, right? Maybe it's conscious for you, maybe it's not, but deep down in your unconscious, it's like, oh, so it was not about discipline. It was just about size and strength.
[28:05] Is that as you begin to understand how your society works, and you realize that children are forced to go to government schools, and adults are forced to pay for government schools, then you realize that the use of violence as the foundation for government schools means that the teacher who told you not to use violence is relying on violence to get her paycheck. So, you begin to get these cracks, right? And I very, very vividly remember, very, and I wasn't alone in this. I think this happens to a lot of kids, but I very vividly remember when I first started hearing about the national debt and I was like, wait, what? Hang on. I was told to not overspend. I was told that I shouldn't waste my money. I was told that I needed to save for a rainy day. I was told that society really cares about me. So why on earth would I be born into debt? Like it made no sense to me at all.
[28:59] There is, you cannot go with the flow. You cannot go with what the other kids are doing, right? It's the old thing. Why did you do it? Well, everyone else is doing it. Well, if everyone else was jumping off the Boston, jumping into Boston Harbor, would you do that too? If somebody else was jumping, everybody else was jumping off the CN Tower, would you do that too, right? So you were told that personal integrity had nothing to do with the will or preferences of the majority, but then you're told that the government is legitimized by the will of the majority.
[29:28] I was like what we're talking not just you know i threw an egg at at a house because the other kids were doing it too we're talking about actually going to fucking war we're talking about jail we're talking about sometimes the death penalty right we're talking about the institutionalized use of force not just egg throwing or whatever throwing and why did you throw all these toilet rolls into the tree well everyone else is doing it well if everyone like so So we're told that there's no such thing as the majority is right, and then we're told that the entire society and violence and war and debt is all founded on the majority is right. So again, we start to get these cracks where things don't start to make any sense, right? I mean, obviously, my mother hit me, and then when I hit her back, she was just shocked and appalled. You just get this realization that you're just surrounded by stinky old liars, right? I mean, that they don't have all of this moral authority, that they don't actually practice what they preach, and that you begin to suspect that morality is the exercise of power. It's not really morality, it's just the exercise of power.
[30:44] And you know what? Prior to UPB, for the most part, you'd be right. You'd be absolutely completely and totally right. See, here's how morality works throughout history.
[30:57] To suspect that there are hypocrites who are in charge of morality. There are hypocrites in charge of morality. You begin to suspect that. Well, you're right. And then you realize who it is you have to obey, who has power. So, the people who have power in your life, those who can inflict moral rules on you that they are excluded from themselves, and you can't say anything about it, really.
[31:29] Those who can inflict moral rules upon you that they are exempted from themselves, and you can't really point it out, those are the people who have power. So, the infliction of moral hypocrisy is a marker for power. And so, when you begin to see, wait a minute, I was told to be responsible in my spending. I was told that debt is bad, and yet the entire country and all the voters have indebted me just before I was even born, right? So, that tells you who's in power and who's in charge, right? So, I'm not allowed to print money, but the government can print money, okay? If I kill someone, I'm an evil murderer, unless the government points at someone else and forces me to kill them, in which case I'm a hero and a good guy, right? So, you begin to suspect that there's all of this moral hypocrisy, and of course you're right, but if you then begin to demand moral consistency from those who told you that moral consistency was everything when you were younger, you're in serious freaking trouble. You're in grave danger. Chuckles to himself in back of school bus land. I'm in danger.
[32:36] So UPP makes people anxious because it exposes the moral hypocrisy of those who are in charge, which historically has been a grave danger for people. So if you are a moral hypocrite, UPB bothers you because it proves that you are a moral hypocrite. If you're not a moral hypocrite, UPB makes you nervous because it puts you in the what was historically the generally suicidal position of calling out moral, quote, moral rulers for their moral hypocrisy when morality was invented to exploit. Morality was invented for the slaves, the serfs, the voters. It was not invented for the powers that be. It was invented so that, like the thief wants to teach you that you shouldn't steal because if everyone steals, nothing gets produced, he has nothing to steal. So the thief teaches you that stealing is wrong so that he can steal more, right?
[33:32] It teaches you to respect property, right? So it can, well, we know how all of that goes, right? Nothing new under sun or moon as far as all of that stuff goes, right? I mean, the people who are really into diversity don't hire conservatives, half the population, right? So it's all, you know, very sort of boring and predictable. So this is why UPB is very tough for people to take on, because if you are a moral hypocrite, then UPB makes you very uneasy by pointing out your moral hypocrisy, or it makes you uneasy because your victims will learn something about moral consistency, and thus, right, UPB inoculates you against the exploitation of moral hypocrisy, right? And so, if you are an exploiter, then people who are moral exploiters don't like their victims to be empowered, right? They don't like their victims to learn more about moral hypocrisy, right? So, one of the most foundational exploitation is for the parents to say, well, I hit my children because my children are cognitively deficient, right? And then if the children grow up and say, okay, so is it okay for me to hit you when you become old and you have cognitive, you know, they call them senior moments, you have cognitive deficiencies, right? So if you spanked me for losing my phone when I was a kid or losing some valuable thing, then am I allowed to hit you when you get old and you lose things, right?
[34:58] So, people don't like this moral hypocrisy because all the hitting of the kids is in the past, whereas the wanting to exploit your kids is in the future, right? So, they don't like that. And I understand that. I really do. Of course, yeah.
[35:10] And it's bad luck, you know, bad luck for the moral exploiters that UPB came along and empowered their victims to escape these claustrophobic, strangling, suffocating necks of pure, rank, vicious hypocrisy, to coin a phrase or two.
[35:25] So that's why people get uneasy about it it is their own conscience and your own conscience, it starts off as the belief of the universality and authority and experience of your moral instructors and then grows ends with you growing into the deep understanding that the people who taught you morality are you know vicious exploiting hypocrites and you better shut the hell up about it, or you're going to be dangling from a flagpole or illuminating the night sky on a torch next to a funeral pyre next to a witch or something, right? So that is my general conversation about the conscience.
[36:02] Conscience is UPB. UPB is the delineation of the validity of the conscience, but as soon as you start applying the moral rules that your rulers claimed to be consistent, consistently you're in grave danger because the entire point of them instructing you on moral rules was for you to be good and them to be evil, right? So that's my general thought on the conscience. I'd love to hear your thoughts about what it is I am talking about. And lots of love from up here, my friends. Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show. I would very much deeply and gratefully and humbly appreciate it. And I will catch you on the flip side, known as Australia. Bye.
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