0:00 - Flash Livestream Introduction
0:36 - Shyness and Promiscuity
21:13 - Arrogance in Shyness
35:58 - Overcoming Avoidance through Persistence
45:23 - Challenging Misconceptions on Anxiety and Productivity
1:02:59 - Flawed Sampling: The Unseen Impact of Anxiety Levels
1:15:27 - Misunderstandings and Definitions
1:24:22 - Tone-Deafness and Singing Abilities
1:27:25 - Overcoming Shyness and Social Skills
1:34:32 - Addressing Arrogance and Immaturity
1:38:06 - Handling Interruptions during Monologues
1:48:41 - Dealing with Aggressive Debaters
1:55:42 - Gauging Engagement and Dissociation
1:59:17 - Uncovering the Root of Difficult Personalities
2:04:09 - Understanding Triggered Responses in Conversations
In the latest episode, we explored the concept of shyness in a new light, discussing how it can be perceived as linked to arrogance. We contemplated how shyness may inadvertently lead others to accommodate the shy individual, resembling arrogance in social interactions. This introspective conversation urged us to rethink our views on shyness and its societal implications. Stefan shed light on how arrogance and entitlement manifest in social settings, drawing parallels with scenarios like helping someone move. He stressed the significance of contributing and adding value in interactions, drawing from personal experiences to highlight the importance of putting in effort to ensure mutual benefit in various contexts. Stefan critiqued individuals who expect rewards without putting in the necessary work, underscoring the impact of non-contributing and shy individuals in social gatherings. His message reiterated the value of actively participating, contributing, and adding value in social interactions rather than passivity or entitlement.
The conversation delved into the necessity of overcoming negative emotions and experiences to foster personal growth and improvement. Stefan emphasized the value of perseverance through challenges, viewing such experiences as opportunities to counter past adversities. Engaging with a caller who challenged his perspective, Stefan discussed how negative emotions can serve as motivational drivers towards success. This dialogue illuminated differing viewpoints on the role of anxiety and fear in driving motivation and productivity, ultimately advocating for persistence through adversity and leveraging challenges as avenues for growth.
A segment focused on the impact of anxiety on academic performance, particularly exploring ways to navigate anxiety to engage in exams and attend classes effectively. The complexities of emotions like anxiety and fear were discussed in relation to motivation and performance, shedding light on how avoidance behaviors stemming from anxiety can hinder individuals from participating fully in academic assessments. Despite varying opinions on anxiety and avoidance, the conversation emphasized the difficulties of collecting data on individuals with extreme anxiety who may avoid participating in exams. The nuances of emotional responses were examined, emphasizing the significance of listening and understanding differing perspectives.
Delving into the debate on whether shy individuals can overcome their shyness, Stefan stressed the importance of actively working on improving social skills to prevent shyness from obstructing social interactions. He highlighted the necessity for individuals to invest effort in developing their social capabilities to avoid discomforting others in social environments. The discourse navigated through diverse viewpoints on shyness and the potential for personal growth within social interactions.
In a reflective segment, I voiced frustration towards a caller who interrupted the broadcast, accusing me of inadequate term definitions without having been present for the initial explanation. I criticized the caller's lack of social skills and displayed arrogance, underscoring the importance of seeking clarification in a respectful manner. Addressing the inconsistency in the caller's arguments and highlighting the importance of context comprehension, I engaged with listeners on strategies to handle interruptions effectively in future discussions.
Stefan shared a personal encounter where he attempted to assist someone in enhancing their social skills but encountered resistance and confrontation. He explored how childhood experiences can shape behaviors and how some individuals may resist personal growth due to past traumas. Stefan reflected on the significance of seeking truth in conversations and the rarity of finding individuals committed to this pursuit. Despite the challenges faced during the interaction, Stefan found value in the learning experience and appreciated the opportunity to dissect and discuss the encounter with listeners.
[0:00] Hey there, it's Stef. I just wanted to let you know this was a Flash Livestream that we did, and it turned into an extremely savage and, to some degree, off-putting but very instructive debate. And so, we do the debate, and then we do the analysis of it right afterwards. So, just wanted to mention that up front before you start kicking in. Much, much interesting stuff, very worth listening to, and thanks again, of course, everyone, for all of your support of the show. So, yes, hi everybody. Little flash live stream. Hope that you're doing well. Thank you for your support and interest in this magnificent philosophy conversation.
[0:37] And I wanted to talk a little bit about something I mentioned yesterday in my grandiose, topless show which has yet to be released, and it has something to do with this question of shyness.
[0:52] Of shyness. Now, Now, if something persists, in general, it is because the opposite belief is held. If something persists, the opposite belief is held. So, if you think of someone who's promiscuous, right? Let's just say a woman who's promiscuous. Well, she has some belief that promiscuity is a plus and a positive, adds value. And, of course, we act in a way that we hope will make us happy.
[1:31] And promiscuity doesn't lead to happiness, neither for men nor for women, but in particular for women, because a man has time later in life to fix these kinds of mistakes. A man later in life can say, oh, I shouldn't have done that when he's 30 or 35 even. I mean, I really only started my business career when I was 27 or 28, so I was 10 years an adult now. Now, I spent a couple of years in theater school. I spent a couple of years doing an English literature degree. I spent a couple of years doing a history degree. I spent a year working. I spent a year, a little bit more than a year, in fact, a year and a half almost, doing a master's degree. And so, you know, was I faffing around a little? Yeah, I'd say so. I was trying to find a good place. I basically was biding time until I could podcast. I was killing time until I could podcast. That was really all that was going on, sort of in hindsight.
[2:30] And I didn't get married until I was in my 30s, and I'm fine. I mean, I'm fine. I would like to have had more kids, but overall, things are great, right? So I had time to recover, to hit my traction, to get my groove on, and to make things work. But for women, of course, you have a much shorter runway. You have to be, I mean, if I'm landing on a really long runway, way i don't have to be as good a pilot as if i'm landing on an aircraft carrier in a in a high storm right that's a but you gotta hook the belly of the plane on those um stop elastics or whatever they are so for women promiscuity is particularly bad now if a woman says well you know sexual liberation and pleasure and hedonism and being a cool chick like the whole point of propaganda Propaganda really is to get you to not question your direction.
[3:29] And it gives you absolutes of, I would say, moral positives or the way to live. Because, you know, people don't say hedonism is a moral positive. What they do is they say that people who restrain themselves, right? We've all seen this a zillion times in all these endless stoner movies. But people who restrain themselves and who defer gratification, those people are squares, they're repressed, they're weird, they don't know how to have fun, and all of that, right? And so, well, I don't want to be one of those nerds who doesn't know how to have fun, and you just put pretty people in roles doing cool things and looking satisfied and happy and all this. Like, to sell single, I remember seeing this, there was an old show called Damage with Glenn Close. And Glenn Close was a single, bitter, unmarried, childless, angry, tense, explosive lawyer. And how do you sell that horrible life to women? Well, she sits in a perfect apartment.
[4:45] Everything's absolutely clean. And she sips a tall glass of blood red wine and smiles to herself. yourself. That sort of smugness and happiness and all of that tends to be how they sell this stuff. So they sell you, this is what you have to do to be good or cool or attractive and so on, right? And then you start down that path.
[5:14] And as you start down that path, you get the initial happiness, which is partly relief. Okay, this is how I'm going to live. I'm going to be a hedonist or something like that, right? I'm going to live this way and live for pleasure. Going to live for the clubs. Going to live for Tinder and Bumble and whatever, right? And then what happens is you begin to feel unhappy, right? But you see, to begin to feel unhappy is to be a square, is to be repressed, is to be a prude. And so you push that away, and you just double down, and it just goes on and on that way. Now, some people, they take the exit ramp. Some people break out. And they say, whew, you know, this is a bad idea, and they self-correct. Not many not many probably only about 10 to 20% of people self-correct most people just double down, and they get more and more miserable and they don't want to say to themselves I've been duped into selling my soul like living for pleasure is selling your soul and the reason why that analogy is so powerful and so accurate is because.
[6:37] The soul is the analogy, if you like, if you're not religious, the soul is the analogy for our higher, rational, human consciousness, that which separates us from the animals. And if you live for pleasure, then you are living for the flesh alone.
[6:57] And you have given up your soul. You've become a highly cunning and calculating animal, an NPC. And NPCs are soulless in a way, of course, because they have given up their ability to think and reason and process.
[7:20] And they're simply programmed into particular responses. What's this old saying that says if you're arguing with a boomer or a leftist, you're actually just arguing with the television. and the television can't hear what you're saying and doesn't care what you think. So if you take this great gift of free will, rational consciousness, and you devolve it into a sort of pleasure-seeking missile, which actually detonates on your future, then you are basically living like an animal. You've uncoupled your higher consciousness and you're living for sensation, Sensation, which is what animals do. Animals live for sensation, right? The dog wants the treat, and so the dog will do the trick. The dog doesn't sit there and say, well, I feel like a bit of a slave here. I'm just kind of being programmed and bought and paid for and controlled, and I don't really have any free will of my own. The dog's like, mmm, milk bone, yummy. You want me to sit? Yeah, I'll sit. Give me the milk bone, right?
[8:27] So that's why they talk about, that's why the argument is that you lose your soul. Soul being, again, if you're secular, the analogy for your higher consciousness. So people who are hedonistic look like they are having fun and they advertise it like they're having fun. To me, there's often been kind of a brittle, annoying shrillness to that pursuit of pleasure. You know, like the woo girls, the girls in the bar who put their hands over their heads in their skimpy tops and woohoo, you know, the woo girls when I call them, right? I mean, that's just kind of hysterical. It's kind of insistent. It's manic. It's kind of manic.
[9:13] And so, if you pursue a life of hedonism, and of course, you know, the pleasures of the body are important. You can't just live for the spirit or the mind. The pleasures of the body are important because happiness is a satisfaction in the mind, but it also manifests in the dopamine from the body, right? So, body pleasures are important, and mental free will, acuity, curiosity, and reason are very important. That is what defines us as human beings. And so, if you have the wrong answer, then the problems continue. If you have the wrong answer as to why you're unhappy, your unhappiness will continue. If you think that sitting around eating Cheetos makes you healthy and fit, well, you don't get healthy and fit, right? your unhealthiness continues to escalate because you have the wrong answer. And if you look at things in your life, this is a sort of very big macro view of your life, and one of the most helpful things that philosophy can do as a whole is philosophy will say to you.
[10:26] Wherever your repetitive problems are, so also is the wrong conclusion. Wherever your repetitive problems are, there exists, the wrong answer I mean if you if you want to drive to Vegas and you're supposed to go north but you instead go south and continue to go south you just get further and further away from Vegas, because you have the wrong answer, We've all met, and I'll speak about women here because I'm straight as the horizon, which means I guess only slightly bent from a high altitude, but we've all met the women who complain about their exes. I talked many moons ago about meeting a woman and going out for coffee with a woman, and she complained that her ex-boyfriend had run up $17,000 of bills on her credit card and then taken off. And she was outraged at this, right? And, you know, just ladies, I mean, and this is true for men as well, right? But it's kind of important, right?
[11:40] If a blind man compliments your painting, does it mean anything to you? Well, no. The blind man cannot judge your painting. Because it's a visual medium, right? If the deaf man praises your song, blah, blah, blah, right?
[11:58] So, if you say that you have no judgment, it is no compliment to be approved of, right? If you say, well, I can't judge anything. I like you, right? So, I remember with this woman getting this dismal sense of, okay, so she chooses to have a relationship with and sleep with a guy, who steals $17,000 from her. And that's even worse than just stealing because then you've got the interest as well, right? You've got to pay your 20% pound of flesh to the credit card companies, right? So it's worse than just stealing to run up credit card debt. So this guy is a massive thief who's kind of crippled her. I mean, in your 20s, I mean, any time, right? In your 20s in particular, $17,000. And this was a long time ago, right? This was decades ago. So it'd be like $30,000, $40,000 now. I mean, that's crippling. You will probably be working for 10 years to pay that off, especially given the interest rates, right? So, when the woman was complaining to me, I was like, okay, so let's say she likes me. Well, that's just a blind man saying he likes my painting. It's no compliment to me as an artist or as a painter or anything like that.
[13:11] So, don't complain about your exes. Do not complain about your exes. If you complain about your exes, you're saying, I have terrible judgment. I can't tell a good guy from a bad guy a good woman from a bad woman so if you're saying you have no judgment how on earth is the woman or the man supposed to feel complimented if you say you like them so yeah don't do don't do that just as a whole and the other thing I also thought at the time was okay so let's say I get involved in a relationship with this woman I'm going to have to transfer or that income is going to come out of our relationship of you know twenty to thirty thousand dollars depending on how quickly she can pay down the principal twenty to thirty thousand dollars is going to come out of this relationship in other words i'm going to have to if we get involved in a relationship or a marriage then i'm going to have to cough up my money, to give to her ex-boyfriend. Ew. Yuck. Thank you, but no thank you.
[14:24] So shyness is something that is misunderstood. And this is one of the reasons why it continues, right? Sorry, right. I haven't made the case yet. Let me try and make the case and see if this makes sense to you.
[14:42] So shy people who are true introverts will just stay home and you don't really know anything about them. You know, like the Boo Radley shut-ins, you know, they just haunt the hallways and you might smell them as they get their mail, but they don't really impact upon your consciousness and they don't intrude upon anyone's life. So I'm not talking about like the real agoraphobic introverts who don't emerge into society or anything like that. Lord knows how they make a living, probably something online, but they don't do that, right? So, I'm talking about the introverts who enter into society and come to parties and come to dinner parties and engage in interactions and chats and games, and they're just kind of shy, awkward, don't really talk, and they just kind of warp the conversations around them.
[15:41] So why is shyness hard to solve and i say this as i was a very shy kid when i was younger and my daughter went through a shy phase as well and we both uh conquered it at roughly about the same time so probably something genetic in it but i went from shyness to i mean i think fairly outspoken, fairly confident, fairly direct. And so I know a little bit about this. It's not proof. I'm just saying I have some direct experience. So what do we misunderstand about shyness?
[16:22] Well, shyness is the underbelly of arrogance. Shyness is the underbelly of arrogance.
[16:36] So, if you look at someone, let's call him Bob, and Bob is really shy, and Bob is like, no, you know what, I'm going to go to this dinner party. And Bob sits there, you know, radiating tension and unhappiness, and Bob doesn't say much and is really awkward in his replies. So, Bob, what is Bob doing? Bob is putting, is making the work more difficult and putting it on other people. That's arrogant.
[17:14] So, if a whole bunch of people, you know, the thing in your 20s when you have to move, you invite a whole bunch of friends over to help you move. And in return, pizza and beer, you know, maybe a movie night, setting up in a new place. And that's what you do. Now, if someone doesn't come, they don't help move and they don't get the pizza and beer. But what do you think of someone who does come to help you move, and doesn't help you move and then wants all the pizza and beer? I mean, that's being a total jerk, right? I'm not going to help you move, but I will take seven slices of pizza and four beers. That's one thing. Now, what if, though, the person who's supposed to come and help you move in return for the pizza and beers, not only does that person not help you move, but they're constantly in the way, they trip people up, they stand on the staircase, they make everything more and more and more difficult. Well, that's arrogant. That's interfering. And so when shy people come to a dinner party, Bob comes to a dinner party and he won't say anything and he just interferes and he laughs awkwardly and inappropriately. Everybody else has to bend around Bob.
[18:42] Everyone has to bend around Bob. Everyone's got to accommodate Bob. Everyone's got to adjust their behavior to deal with Bob. And everyone becomes kind of a slave to Bob. Everyone has to work on Bob's agenda. Everyone has to deal with, accommodate, and bend to, and is kind of enslaved to Bob. And that's arrogant. That everyone else has to adjust to you, and you won't put in the effort to make things easier for people. You want to come for the pizza and beer, but you don't want to lift any furniture, and in fact, you just stand in the way. And people start snapping at you. Man, get out of the way. You're constantly underfoot. Go do something productive. Or go home, right?
[19:43] And, of course, it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, and arrogance and self-fulfilling prophecies often go hand in hand. So, to take the analogy of helping someone move, Bob comes to help a friend move, and Bob is like, well, you know, I don't know what to do, and I don't think I'm going to be helpful, and people often get annoyed at me in these kinds of situations. So he just stands around and puffs around and knocks things over and stands in the way and accidentally trips people carrying a couch down a spiral staircase, and then people say, Bob, what are you doing? Help or go home? And if Bob sticks around after interfering for a couple of hours with the move, being in people's way, maybe he carries one lamp, and he gets in people's way, and people are annoyed, and they're sweaty and, you know, men in particular have a very delicate sense and a very accurate sense of who's pulling their weight or not.
[20:45] So, after that, Bob helps himself with his fifth beer and his seventh slice of pizza, and people really dislike Bob. Because he's arrogant, he's coming, he's not helping, he's in the way, and he wants all the resources without providing any of the work, and in fact interfering with other people.
[21:13] He's in the way of the work getting done. He's a net negative to the work getting done, but he's taking all the rewards as if he'd done the work, the pizza and beer. Now that's arrogant. I don't want to help. I'm not going to prepare. I'm not going to do this. I'm not going to do that, but I want all the goodies. That's aristocratic.
[21:39] That's like being the man or lord with his serfs. And everyone's like, oh, you know, well, Bob's just really shy. It's like, no, Bob's not shy. He's arrogant and entitled. If you want the goodies, do the work. If you want the pizza, lift the table. If you want the beer, hoist and haul the boxes. If you want the benefits of social interaction, con-trib-ute to it. Contribute to it. This goes back to Dungeons & Dragons. Many, many moons ago, I've mentioned this on the show before, but there was a guy, we were all chipping in for pizza, and he pulls out a coupon.
[22:35] And was he contributing to the pizza? So his argument was he was reducing the price of the pizza. Our argument was he wasn't spending any of his own money, and nobody else could use that coupon because it was only one. And he said nobody else has the coupon, and it was an interesting debate. Is the purpose to reduce the price, or is the purpose to contribute? And this is a guy, and the problem was that he was just cheap. Like if he'd have said, man, I'm really broke this week, I'm so sorry. The only thing I can contribute is this coupon. on. Now, if you guys don't want that, that's fine. I'll do without. But, yeah, sorry. But he didn't say that, right? We used to make jokes about this guy that when he would open his wallet and get this creaking sound and moths would fly out there'd be some dusty, Roman denarii in the bottom of his wallet because he hadn't spent money since the fall of Rome. And he was just cheap as a whole. So it was a sort of pattern.
[23:39] So, people who are shy feel that they're very self-effacing and they're very insecure and they're very doubting of themselves. And it's like, well, then don't show up to move, people. Don't show up to help in a move if you're going to get in the way. You know, like if I say, well, you know, I'm just so weak and I'm so delicate and I can't really lift things and I'm very uncoordinated, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, I'm just so, I'm so unable to help people move. Okay, then don't show up to help people move. But if I know all of this about myself and then I show up, don't help people move and in fact get in the way of people who are helping people move, and then I want all of the pizza and beer, I'm an a-hole. I'm an entitled, arrogant a-hole who wants something for nothing. And this shyness, this shifting of the burden to other people, so that they can run the dinner party, they can cook the food, they can lay out the table, they can get the drinks, they can invite everyone over, they can do all that work, they can run the conversation. And then you just show up, plonk yourself in a corner, eat the food and be awkward. Don't go if you can't contribute.
[25:02] Don't go if you can't contribute. I remember when I was in the business world and I was first picked to speak at conferences, I worked like crazy to make sure I had something of value to offer.
[25:15] Like, honestly, I can't even tell you. Because I would be giving speeches to people with 20 years experience in a particular industry, and I didn't want to be this arrogant idiot who demands their time without having anything of value to add. So I worked like crazy to make sure, not just because it's not just a speech, there's a Q&A, and I wanted to make sure that I could add value.
[25:41] I mean, this is a constant thing in my life where I want to add maximum value. You know, I've been doing call-ins for like 18 years. And I still, at the end of call-ins, will generally ask people, how was the call for you? Did you have value? Did it add value? And so on, right? So I want to make sure. You know, I'm doing these private call-ins now and all the way through the private call-ins, I'm like, is this the most value that can be added? Is this the best and most helpful thing for you? Right? Because I want to add value in my family. Are you enjoying my company? Are we doing fun things? Is there anything else you want to do differently? Just make sure you add value because I'm not selfish. I'm not arrogant. I don't assume that I add value by breathing. And I don't put the demand on other people to do all my work. You ever had somebody, I think we've all had this experience at one time or another, You're in some project, right? Some group project. Doom, right? You're in some group project. Right? And in the group project.
[26:53] There's almost always, at least, usually more, but there's almost always at least one dud. Like one guy, one girl, who doesn't do the work. And do the work. They'll show up. They'll drink the pop. They might eat the pizza. But they haven't read anything, they don't contribute and they just sit there. Now, frankly, a lot of times it's the pretty people. Well, I've just shown up and I'm pretty so why would I need to do any work? Right, this sort of arrogance, right? So there's these people who don't contribute and they're annoying as hell because they'll take the marks but they won't contribute. I mean, I remember when I was in high school I was in a theater group and we were supposed to take a play around to teach kids some valuable lessons.
[27:45] And we toured other high schools putting on this play. And there were, I don't know, six or seven people in this theater group. And we all sort of got together at a friend's place. And we were, I was about 16 or 17. And we went over some ideas. And people, you know, it'd be cool if we did this. But no. And so eventually I just had to write the play. Had to write the play. Had to write the theme. had to write the scenes, and all that. And everyone else, you know, the play was very well received and all of that. And I remember the first scenes where each character was a kind of archetype in high school, and each scene, the character woke up to a particular song, and that song defined the character. I played the preppy guy, and I woke up to Wham's Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go, right?
[28:46] So I did all the work, directed it, I was in it, I wrote it, and everyone else got the marks. And we got a lot of accolades, and we toured a whole bunch of high schools, and that was fun. But I recognized that I was doing the work. And other people were, you know, it was all, your group did a great job, and it's like, yeah, all right, whatever, right? I'd rather do the work and share the prize than be that lazy, entitled, and arrogant to just hitch along.
[29:24] So, I mean, there was a guy in there, in our play. He actually had a car and a driver's license, but he never offered to drive us. We had to take the bus to get to these various schools to put on this play. It was really sad. So, the shyness stuff is when you recognize a deficiency, you won't fix it and you put all the work on everyone else, so if you're shy recognize that there's an arrogance and an entitlement and a kind of bullying in that which is you go to social events and you expect, everybody else to do all the work for you and you nom nom nom, nom, like Pac-Man, and all the social, physical, material, eating and drinking goodies, you just consume, consume, consume, and you won't lift a goddamn finger to help the host out. So, you know, there's an old phrase, if you have a really cool story, right? I don't know, you met Noel Gallagher in his prime, or, you know, and then he got drunk. Well, it's unusual, I guess. So, there's an old saying, it's like, Like, wow, that guy can dine out for years on that story.
[30:49] Right? That guy can dine out for years on that story. And that's because if you are going to a dinner party, and it's not a potluck, and you're not being charged, of course, right? So other people are putting in dozens of hours and hundreds and hundreds of dollars to make a good dinner party, You are expected to sing for your supper.
[31:19] You don't have to bring food, but you better bring some good conversation. Because, you know, everybody wants that magical dinner party that everyone... I still remember dinner parties I had from many, many years ago, where everything just clicked together, everything was fantastic, everything was perfect. I mean, I had one not even too long ago. We had a dinner party, and we had, you know, really hilarious conversation. Everything clicked, the jokes were flowing. then we played a game the game the current game called cheat and there were some kids around of course so then we ended up playing charades and the kids had a blast and it was just like a perfect evening it was a perfect evening and i will remember that uh my whole life and i've got i don't know i can't even tell you i'm pretty good at throwing dinner parties as you can imagine so So, people can come over. Now, if everyone came over and was shy and awkward, it would be a nightmare. Like, I would hate it. And everybody would hate it, and everyone would feel annoyed. Everyone would feel annoyed, and rightly so. Because you're taking without giving. It's one-sided. It's exploitive. It's parasitical, almost.
[32:42] So of course i know the answer right what what is the response that shy people say right what is the response that shy people say well the response that shy people say is they say well it's not my fault i'm socially awkward it's not my issue you know i'm just shy it's just tough for me to blah blah blah it's like okay then don't go if i'm too weak let's say i'm just recovering from the flu, right? I'm too weak to help my friend move. Like I can barely get up the stairs because I'm wiped out from the flu, right?
[33:16] Okay. So if I'm too tired to help someone move, physically weak, can't help someone move, then what's the point of me showing up, clogging up the works, getting in the way, dropping things, knocking things over, tripping people up, and them wanting all the pizza and beer? That's arrogant, that's entitled, it's greedy, it's selfish. Now, am I saying all shy people are like this? It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. I'm simply examining the behavior. Everyone takes the principles and immediately, in a defensive way, tries to apply it to themselves if they're shy or someone else. They know, oh, they're not like that, they're just nervous about it. Well, okay. But the arguments are irrefutable. That shy people come and take social resources while expecting everyone else to do all the work. And not just all the work, but extra work.
[34:12] It's not just that you have to do the work of the shy person, right? Like if there's 10 people and one shy person, it's not like everyone else has to do 10% more work to make up for the quietness of the shy person. Everyone else has double or triple the work because they've got to figure out the awkwardness. People who are good conversationalists tend to be quite sensitive and they can figure out when someone's feeling really awkward and tense and stressed. And so then they'll, you know, it's so much work. You have to work, work, work. It's not just like, well, they're not saying anything. Therefore, we have to do a little bit more conversation. It's not like the shy person isn't there. They are there and they're completely in the way. You know, if somebody, if you've got 10 people at a dinner party.
[35:04] And one person just doesn't show up, right? The car breaks down or they just can't make it or they get sick or something. Okay, so then you just have one less person. That's not what it's like when there's a shy person around. You don't have one less person. You have someone in the way of good conversation. Because if everyone's chatting and having a great time and laughing and telling stories and, you know, all that dopamine-laced, convivial, Hobbiton-shire stuff of raising your butt a beer and eating your canaps. Well, that's great, right? But if someone is sitting in the middle of that dinner table, shy and miserable and radiating unhappiness and awkwardness and laughing at the wrong times and telling weird stories, if they even speak at all, it screws it up.
[35:58] Shy people in social gatherings are like people pissing into a pool during a pool party.
[36:10] And then when you point this out, shy people get all kinds of passes. What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to pretend something I don't know? I don't know how to do it. I'm not good at it. I'm just trying to learn. Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope, no. Just learn how to socialize. Oh, it's not easy to learn. I know it's not easy to learn how to socialize. Trust me. I grew up in a crazy, dysfunctional, messed up, single mother household on Hell Street, any town. In the matriarchal manners, in the bottom bowels of the screwed-up welfare state. I get it. I had to do some work. I had to do some work. So if you want to help your friends move, and you want to be included in the great parties where people move, then if you're too weak to help people move, then go to the gym. Go to the gym, get some weights at home, lift some weights, and figure out how to help people move. And if you're too lazy to go to the gym, then don't show up, drop things, trip people, get in the way, and then demand your pizza and beer. Don't make extra work for other people because you're too lazy.
[37:28] To learn how to socialize better. Well, my parents kept me isolated. Okay, I sympathize with all of that. So, for God's sakes, you absolutely dishonor your dysfunctional childhood if you make it an excuse for a dysfunctional adulthood. Childhood, because your inner child, right, when you were a child, if you were being isolated and abused and mistreated, and you weren't being allowed to learn or punished for learning basic social skills, right, if that's the case, if that's the case, what did you do as a child, and what is your inner child still screaming? me. Well, what you did as a child was you said Okay, man, we can survive this. We can make it through. We can make it through. We can make it through, man. We'll get out of this. We'll get out of this. Like a prisoner, unjustly imprisoned for years. Dreams of running through the fields, knowing what the top of wheat feels like on his palm. Thank you for watching!
[38:54] He doesn't survive prison to lock himself up in a tiny room in a free city because, hey man, that's just what he's used to. Then what's the point of surviving prison if you just use your prison time as an excuse to lock yourself up? Your inner child, lonely, neglected, isolated, if that's what happened, survived prison so that you could do everything that was denied to you. So if you were isolated, your inner child survived, got you through, so that you could not be isolated.
[39:48] I survived and barely survived, by the by. I barely survived. my family. I survived a crazy, violent, anti-rational person, family, in order to what? Why? Why would I survive that? Why would I get up every morning and fight like hell to survive that? Well, I survived violence so I could be peaceful. I survived silencing so I could speak my mind. I survived anti-rationality, so I could be rational. I survived a terrible childhood, so I could spread peaceful parenting and be a peaceful parent myself. So, you survive in order to do the opposite, not to spread your dysfunction. I mean, you have an immune system.
[40:47] You have an immune system so that it recognizes a hostile virus or bacteria or ailment. It recognizes a foreign and hostile entity, learns to attack it, and keeps you safe forever. Right, so your immune system recognizes something dangerous to you, adapts to repel it, and keeps you safe forever. That's the general idea.
[41:15] And that's the purpose. So your childhood, you fight through a bad childhood in order to live the adult opposite. Otherwise, you are absolutely dishonoring the fight that you as a child had to go through in order to survive bad or terrible parenting. Can you imagine if your inner child could see through the tunnel of time when he got up at the age of 4 or 5 or 6 or 10 or 12 or 15 to fight another fight to survive another day of terrible, abusive, neglectful parenting. If he looked down the tunnel of time to you at the age of 30, clogging up and making everyone's social life awkward, being resented and disliked and still isolated and still neglected and still avoided, people still angry at you, although this time with more just reason, is that what he was fighting for? Or was it you to just do the same stupid shit over and over and over again? Was he fighting to survive in order to give you excuses to repeat?
[42:21] Oh, God damn it. I'm telling you now, it's an absolute dishonor. It is an absolute dishonor to your fighting child, to reproduce voluntarily everything he fought to save you from.
[42:41] If you were fed bad food as a kid. And you say, well, I have to eat bad food because that's all I'm used to. No. You were fed bad food as a kid, and your inner kid survived in order for you to get access to better food. I survived crazy people in order to live with sane people. I survived manipulators in order to live with honest and direct people. I survived corrupt and evil people in order to be surrounded by good and virtuous people. I survived the quicksand, acidic fog of subjectivism, mysticism, in order to have a clear, rational, and empirical connection with absolute reality. You fight to get the opposite, not to repeat the same. To repeat the same and to take your childhood struggles and survivals as an excuse for more of the same, is to continue to neglect and abuse your inner child by dishonoring everything that he was fighting for. The soldier, hopefully, fights for the end of war. The soldier does not fight so that war can be justified forever and ever, amen? Otherwise, there's no point fighting.
[44:09] So shy people you say well you know but I can't help it that I'm awkward it's like yes you can yes you can of course you can help when you're awkward.
[44:24] You can read books, How to Win Friends and Influence People. You can join Toastmasters and get used to chatting with people. You can start off small. You can play board games so that you get used to interacting with people. You can practice, practice, practice. There are so many books, seminars, instructional videos, how to socialize, how to get along with people. And yeah, will you make mistakes? Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, there'll be times when You will make a mistake, and you'll be mortified. Yeah, so what? So what? Who cares? You're mortified. Suck it up and move on. I don't know. It's wild to me that people use negative emotions as an excuse to stop.
[45:14] And that's also parasitical. I've got to tell you. I'm just going to be blunt and frank with everybody today, and you can like it or dislike it as you please. But these are the facts.
[45:24] So, why don't you look at everything around you? Your walls, your carpeting, your office, your computer, your headphones, your windows, the roof over your head, the plumbing. Okay, understand. So, all of that stuff was built by people who completed it despite despair. bear. Everything around you. Do you think the farmer doesn't feel despair when some boll weevil comes? There are even songs about it. Harry Belafonte sings about it. And the boll weevil comes and destroys the crop, or there's too much rain, or too little rain, or the birds come, or some bad thing happens, or the government changes the laws, or some, geoengineered or some biologically engineered seeds blow on your crop and then you're sued, right? All of this crazy stuff happens. All of this crazy stuff happens.
[46:14] Yet your food is on your table anyway. Not accepting your fear and pushing through anyway is being parasitical because everything that is provided to you is provided to you in the face of fear and failure and horror and problems and injustice and lawsuits and negatives and panic and anxiety. And people push through and build your house anyway and deliver your electricity anyway. And your water, and your medicines. They build their stores. They provide their goods. You know, everything that you touch was built by someone whose family member was dying of cancer or whose parents were aging out into Alzheimer's. And they had horror, and they had pain, and they had difficulties, and they make stuff and deliver it anyway. Because if you allow yourself to be stopped by negative emotions, well, you're living at the level of an animal, which is programmed by its emotions, and you are parasiting of everyone else who pushes ahead anyway. Would you be happy...
[47:35] Can other people speak?
[47:36] I'm sorry?
[47:38] Are other people allowed to speak or is it a monologue?
[47:42] Could you not type that question in?
[47:48] Well, I don't know. So most people who do well in exams do well in exams because of so-called negative emotions. So you're completely missing out on the fact that people who feel positive do less in society. So you're attacking people who do more for society because they feel quote-unquote negative emotions. Negative emotions don't actually exist. And number two, you're saying people like...
[48:31] Still talking. You asked... If it was a monologue, did you wait for a response?
[48:40] Um, so you're not answering my question.
[48:42] No, no, I'm, I'm asking a question here. No, no, because hang on, hang on.
[48:47] Okay.
[48:49] So this is an example of a shy person who's triggered and is aggressive. So he asked me, is it a monologue or am I allowed to talk? Hang on. He asked me, is it a monologue? Am I allowed to talk? I did not give him an answer and he started lecturing me anyway. He did not give me a chance to respond to his points. He told me I was wrong. He said number one, and then he moved on to number two without giving me any chance to respond. So this is a rude person. Now, I'm happy to have the conversation with you, but if you ask someone, am I allowed to interrupt your monologue? Interrupting a monologue is a little rude. I mean, I don't know if you raised your hand. James was supposed to track this stuff and let me know. So I don't know if you raised your hand to talk. But if I'm in the middle of a monologue and you interrupt me I mean that's not the end of the world, that's fine, but then if you say is this a monologue or am I allowed to talk and I don't give you an answer and you start talking anyway that's rude, right? Would you agree?
[49:57] This is the arrogance I'm talking about I'm going to decide when I want to talk I'm interrupting you, and even even if you don't give me permission to speak because i i was actually in the middle of a monologue i was just finishing it up but that's fine i mean it's not the end of the world that you interrupted me but if you say in an annoyed tone if you say well is this just a monologue or am i allowed to talk i'm saying that's true you're more.
[50:23] Concerned about home you said you're direct and empirical but you're more concerned about someone's tone which is largely cultural than and the actual substance of the conversation. So all you want to do is be a victim.
[50:36] What? No.
[50:41] That's pretty funny.
[50:42] So what I said was, what I said was, that when you interrupted me, that's a little rude, but not the end of the world. Could be totally fine. Right? So there's a hand raise function in Telegram where you raise your hand if you want to talk. I assume you didn't do that. So maybe you don't know the architecture I'm sure you don't know that. That's fine. But then you said, am I allowed to interrupt your monologue? And I didn't give you an answer. And then you just went ahead with your thing anyway. So you didn't actually ask me if it was okay to interrupt my monologue. You just started talking. Now, that's rude. I didn't say anything about tone with regards to that. So now you're just making up something else.
[51:20] You're going on about cultural dynamics of conversation and you're spreading Christian science nonsense, like how to inflict friends and influence people, and you're trying to victimize shy people while playing the victim at the same time, and you're avoiding the substance of my arguments because you don't actually care about arguments. You want to play like a leftist, the moral high ground, and point out morals which are completely cultural while, you know, being the victim the whole time while moralizing everyone else. You avoid the argument. And then you're going to cry about being rude. You have your conversation. It's labeled as a conversation, not a monologue. That's why I asked. And then you give me an indirect, false dichotomous answer. And I just thought, well, I'll just contradict what you're saying because you're spoiling nonsense because what you're saying is so-called negative emotions, which don't exist. Are causing people not to work, when it's the opposite. The data shows that fear, anxiety cause people to succeed. So you're spouting Christian science bullshit.
[52:28] Okay, so your perception is that I said negative emotions don't exist.
[52:35] No, no, I'm...
[52:36] No, that's what you just said. Listen, I listen very well. You just told me that I said that negative emotions don't exist. So are you going to stand by what you said, or are you going to weasel?
[52:48] Do you have hearing aids? I don't understand. I said that you said that negative emotions cause people not to work. I'm not talking about ontology of emotions. For me, negative emotions don't exist. They don't because emotions have four characteristics and they have all sorts of dimensions, so they can't be categorized by affect theory as negative or positive. But you're trying to say, as the affect theorists say, that negative emotions are bad, which they're not. That's Christian science. And you're trying to say that causes people not to work, but it's not true because the empirical data, measured by the five-factor theory of personality shows that people high in so-called negative emotions like anxiety and fear actually do more work. So you're talking, you're saying things that are wrong. You're completely wrong. And that's before we get into your philosophy of attacking shy people. So you don't like Finnish people or something. I don't know what's wrong there.
[53:46] I don't like what people? Finnish people?
[53:49] Yeah, they're shy.
[53:51] Sorry, what does Finnish people have to do with shyness?
[53:55] Finnish people are shy they don't speak much they sit in silence on the bus they don't like people talking it's a common stereotype which is actually true.
[54:01] Oh so that's true but.
[54:04] You're avoiding the question you're avoiding the question you're saying that people who feel what you call negative emotions anxiety and stuff like that work less but they don't that's impaired empirically wrong so you're you're talking you're not telling the truth.
[54:19] Okay so um i guess you missed the part of the conversation which happened right before you interrupted me the part of the conversation that i said was that everything that you have that is of value is delivered by people who persisted in the face of negative emotions right do you remember that part.
[54:41] That's not necessarily true because.
[54:42] Sorry no no no do you remember that you learn to listen right we're trying to have a conversation here so i'm responding to what you said no no don't overtalk me. That's rude. So I'm trying to respond to what you said. So in return, you have to respond to what I said. So do you remember me saying just about five minutes ago, right before you interrupted, do you remember me saying, look around you, your computer, your roof, your water, your electricity are all delivered by people who persisted and overcome, overcame negative emotions in order to provide you what you wanted. Do you remember me saying that? Okay, so do you remember me saying that everything that is delivered to you, the farmers have to face horror and problems and laws and bad weather and pestilence and disease, right? And they persist and they overcome and deliver to you all of these wonderful things, right? And so if you say to me that I'm arguing that negative emotions make people stop working, when I'm saying that everything that is of value around you is provided by people who have persisted in the face of negative emotion, how do you get that that means I'm saying that people with negative emotions don't work? I'm saying that they push through and they persist, and that's of great value.
[56:05] Well, yeah, you're dividing two people into two categories. people who feel fear and anxiety who don't work and people who fear feel fear and anxiety and break through but that's not true they work because of their fear and anxiety they do better in exams because they're afraid the fear drives them so overcoming nothing it's actually the fear that makes them work the people who don't work do you understand how do you understand how experiments work like do you understand how these things.
[56:33] Are put together and how they work because it just takes a moment for us.
[56:36] To dispel this.
[56:37] Nonsense that you're saying. So what you're saying is, sorry, let me just finish my point. Let me just finish my point. So what you're saying, I'm responding to your point. This is how it works.
[56:46] This is how it works.
[56:47] This is how it works. This is how it works. I'm not going to let you over-talk me. I need to finish my point. You made a point. You made a point. Let me respond to it. You made a point. You made a point. Let me respond to it. You made a point. Let me respond to it. Thank you. Okay. So what you're saying is that people who show up to exams and do well, people interview them and say... Well, were you worried about this exam? Were you scared about this exam? Were you anxious about this exam? And the people who do well on the exam report that they experienced more anxiety and fear about the exam, and it could be, of course, that their fear and anxiety drove them to do better. That's your point, right? I want to make sure I understand where you're coming from.
[57:35] And empirically, people who are naturally high in so-called positive emotions do less work because they have no fear.
[57:41] Sorry. You have to listen to what I'm saying and respond to it if you want to have a conversation. Right, so did I characterize your argument correctly?
[57:52] Yeah, people, half of it, yeah.
[57:55] No, no, this is the part that you've made. You haven't made the other part. I'm just trying to understand the point that you made, which is that people who do better in exams report feeling more anxious about those exams, right?
[58:08] No, no, they're high in, they're measured by the five factor and they're high in anxiety. They're just anxious. Whatever they do, they'll be anxious about it, right? And that drives them to work, yes.
[58:21] Okay, I understand that. So the people who do well in exams suffer from high anxiety. Is that what you're saying?
[58:28] What you call negative emotions, yeah. Fear, anxiety, neuroticism, all that.
[58:34] I'm sorry, but they're negative emotions because we experience them as uncomfortable. An orgasm is not a negative emotion. Appendicitis or passing a kidney stone is a negative emotion. I'm not saying that they're bad for us, pain is very good for us, but let's not get hung up on the positive-negative thing. So your argument is... Sorry, go ahead.
[58:56] That's not emotion, that's physical pain. And second, things like anger have four components.
[59:03] Okay, no, no, no, hang on, hang on, sorry. You're right, I made a mistake in bringing physical sensations in, I was trying to make an example. So, Let's go back to the people who take the exam, right? So the people who take the exam do better if they score higher in anxious or neurotic or...
[59:20] Generally.
[59:21] Yeah, generally. Generally, yeah. Okay. So how do you measure the people whose anxiety is so great, they don't take the course or don't show up for the exam or don't go to university at all? How is that data captured of the people whose anxiety is so high, they are avoidant rather than meticulous? Thank you.
[59:44] Well, if your anxiety is so high, it depends what the object of your anxiety is. Usually, the object of their anxiety is a future insufferable situation. So obviously, every emotion, emotions tend to have objects, not all do. But the emotion that has the object directed at the future, which is causing fear and anxiety, which is creating an avoidant behavior, then that avoidant behavior is going to make them work no matter how strong the anxiety is. It depends on the dynamic, because every emotion has four ontological factors and one of them is the object. And the object can be in the present or the future. And anxiety tends to be present focused and fear is future focused. And these people who are high on anxiety generally are ones who work. And it's the anxiety that makes them work, not the feelings the positive so-called positive feeling because you think people experience so-called positive feeling as pleasure that's not true because anger has pleasure and pain in it and it completely depends on the object and the cultural factors that come into it so there is no positive and negative emotions it's nonsense.
[1:00:58] Okay i can see why why you're having trouble with this conversation do you remember what my question was.
[1:01:06] You said that you're trying to confirm what I was saying.
[1:01:11] No.
[1:01:11] You're trying to make me look stupid now. I've answered your question.
[1:01:14] No, you didn't. No, see, if you've answered my question, you should be able to remember what it is. So what did I just say?
[1:01:22] You were saying an extreme example. You try to use an extreme example. You try to pigeonhole people with extreme anxiety, and you try to categorize them as avoidant. and I turn around and it says, depends what they're avoiding.
[1:01:37] Do you remember what my question was?
[1:01:38] So you're trying to say...
[1:01:39] Hang on. No, do you remember what my... Rather than characterizing what you fantasize that I'm all about emotionally, do you remember what my actual words were of my question?
[1:01:48] That's what I remember. I was answering that.
[1:01:50] Okay, so that's not what I asked.
[1:01:51] So you don't remember what I'm answering.
[1:01:52] Right, that's not what I asked.
[1:01:54] What did you ask then?
[1:01:55] Well, do you understand that this is not looking good for you? And this is, again, if you want to engage...
[1:02:01] Hang on, I'm still talking.
[1:02:02] I'm still talking. So if you want to engage in a conversation and to change people's minds and to not look like rude.
[1:02:10] You need to listen to what people are saying.
[1:02:12] Right? That's reasonable, right? I mean, we can't have a conversation. If you don't listen to my questions, you can't, we can't have a conversation.
[1:02:20] So just to be clear.
[1:02:21] Just to be clear. Now, if you could do me a favor, I'm really enjoying the conversation, but please don't over talk.
[1:02:26] Please don't over talk me.
[1:02:27] Let me finish my my points all right so my question was if you say that the people who take exams who are more anxious do well how does that study capture the people who whose anxiety is so high that they don't take the course or don't take the exam because all you're doing is you're you're you're measuring people who've overcome their anxiety and are doing well but what about the people who don't overcome their anxiety, how does the study capture that?
[1:02:59] No, I did answer that question. I answered that question. That's the question I answered. So your statement and question were the same thing. So you weren't listening, or you haven't paired up.
[1:03:08] No, how does the study capture the people whose anxiety is so high that they don't try? And the answer is it doesn't. If you're just measuring the people who show up to the exam, then you can't measure the people who failed to even take the course because they're so anxious. So it's a skewed sample. You're measuring all the people who overcame...
[1:03:29] Let me talk.
[1:03:30] Still talking. Still talking. You're measuring all the people who showed up to the exam, and there's no way to capture the people who didn't show up to the exam. Is that fair to say?
[1:03:39] Well, this is the point. You don't know, number one, that it's anxiety that's causing them not to come to the exam. No shows. You don't know that. Most of the time.
[1:03:47] It's the YQ. Exactly. Nobody knows.
[1:03:49] It's not the YQ. So I'm using a valid sample that's gone through statistical significance testing that generally shows, because they're not all or none categories. They're general prototypical categories. There is no, we're not machines. So the general finding is what I've said. And you're trying to say they overcome it, but I'm telling you, no, they don't overcome it. The anxiety is they're driving. This is the point. People who don't go to exams generally feel positive, what we call positive, happy. Those people don't give a fuck about exams, excuse my French, because they're already happy. So you're slandering people, so-called negative people, whenever it's actually so-called positive people.
[1:04:38] You're very sensitive to slander while calling me stupid and wrong and in public, right? You're very sensitive to slander while using slander quite a bit. That's just kind of ironic, but also kind of typical. Okay, so the short answer is that the study does not capture people who don't show up because they're too anxious, and so it's a skewed sample.
[1:04:55] You don't know that.
[1:04:56] No, I do know that.
[1:04:57] You don't know that.
[1:04:57] Because if you had that answer, you would give it to me. You've already studied the study, and you don't have an answer.
[1:05:02] It's a representative sample, so you're going to...
[1:05:05] Of the people who showed up.
[1:05:06] And find one. You're going to find one anomaly, and then you're making the assumption that these people who haven't shown up, you don't know if they have, are so high in anxiety they're not coming up. But there is research showing that people high in so-called positive emotions don't work because they're already happy. They have no motivation to work because they're happy.
[1:05:30] So are you saying that, for instance, like a movie star who has more than enough money and fame to last for the rest of his life without working and is enjoying being a movie star obviously is enjoy being paid ten million dollars a movie that they stopped making movies because they're already happy well.
[1:05:48] Most of those people in movie like extreme neuroticism and they're driven by status and their fear of loss of status not money because money and everything.
[1:05:59] Sorry how do you You know that? Have you got another study that deals with that? Oh, so you just make stuff up to fit your theory. Okay. Now, do you think it's possible... Do you think it's possible... Sorry, do you think that it's possible that there are some people whose anxiety levels are so high that they avoid anxiety-provoking situations such as an exam?
[1:06:27] Do you think that the anomaly makes the rule?
[1:06:31] No, no, you can't answer a question with a question. Hang on. I'm just asking you a question. You just sound manipulative. Like, honestly, you're being incredibly manipulative because you're just not answering a direct question. Do you think it's possible that there are people whose anxiety levels are so high that they won't put themselves into stressful situations, like an exam?
[1:06:49] Maybe, but what does it matter?
[1:06:50] What do you mean maybe?
[1:06:52] What do you mean maybe? Maybe, I don't know.
[1:06:54] Okay, so you don't know. No, you don't have a clue, and you're attacking me. See, here's the problem, my friend. I've been doing this publicly for close to 20 years, and I have spoken with countless people who have very high levels of anxiety that is causing them to be paralyzed. I know people personally who have very high levels of anxiety, and it causes them to be paralyzed, or they feel paralyzed. I have a lot of people who call in who say, I have a lot of anxiety. I'm not getting anywhere in my life. I'm paralyzed with fear. I'm avoidant. And so I have countless empirical examples, and you can look for them in the call-in shows. I have countless empirical examples of people who have been and have called me up for help with crippling anxiety. Now, if you don't know that, that's fine. I mean, you don't have to do what I do. But the problem is that you're literally holding a ball in front of me and saying it's not a ball, because I have talked to many people. Now, there are some people, of course, who do overcome their anxieties and continue on, and that's great. And there are some people who don't. And that's my point. And if you agree with that, I'm not sure what we're fighting about.
[1:07:59] You've retracted into an extreme example, and you're using anecdotal evidence of people who are calling in who like to receive advice from people with social status, and they're playing the psychological game of possessor and victim. If you ever read Thomas Shas, The Myth of Mental Illness, what you're describing here There is a social game of how victims retrieve attention and ego gain, or whatever it's called, the narcissism from a person putting out the advice. That's all that is, just a setup. And number two, you're using one extreme example, but you're avoiding the other examples. There's people with histrionic so-called personality disorder. They're too happy. They can't do anything.
[1:08:48] So you're just focusing on anxiety. you're saying people with anxiety and shy people are a problem they're they're um what is the word for it they're not they're not yeah you're saying that they're not doing their work but there's but you're just focused on the anxious people and the shy people there's people who are histrionic and they're always competing for your attention and they're 10 times worse than shy people because they're like people who come to your house and you're whatever moving a piece of furniture and they come around and they move every piece of furniture and rearrange your whole house, and they come up to you and say, oh, look what I've done. Can you give me some praise, please? And then they move everything around, and they never stop, and they're always terrorizing your building because they're constantly seeking intellectual gratification from attention. And those are the opposite of the shy people. Why are you not focusing on them?
[1:09:42] Okay, have you been around since the beginning of the show, this show today?
[1:09:46] No, I haven't. I haven't.
[1:09:49] So hang on. So just out of curiosity, when did you join the show?
[1:09:56] I don't know, five minutes ago.
[1:09:57] Ah! Are you kidding me? So you're coming in, and you're lecturing me on a show you heard about 4% of. That's delightful.
[1:10:08] I didn't know how long it was.
[1:10:09] That is absolutely delightful. I appreciate that from the bottom of my soul. So at the beginning of the show, because I guess you weren't around, you're arrogant enough to know the whole show because you heard a couple of minutes of a show that's been going on for an hour 10 or an hour 20. So at the beginning of the show I said I would like to talk about shy people, and I'm going to talk about shy people in a very detailed way and that's going to be the topic of this monologue, and now you barge in here saying why are you only talking about shy people well my friend the reason I'm talking about shy people is I announced at the beginning of the show that I'm going to be talking about shy people it's like if you go to a lecture where the guy says I'm going to be talking about diabetes and you're saying well what about pulled hamstrings huh Huh? Why don't you talk about those? And it's like, that's just arrogant, weird, and rude.
[1:10:58] Yeah, I sort of give you half that point. Yeah, fair enough. I don't see anything with shy here. Whatever. Okay. Fair point.
[1:11:10] Okay, so...
[1:11:10] You still haven't answered the other question.
[1:11:12] No, hang on, hang on.
[1:11:13] Hang on.
[1:11:14] So you understand that you're wrong. Like you're saying, why are you talking about shyness? when I said at the very beginning of the show, this is going to be a show about shyness.
[1:11:24] I'm not wrong because I've answered your question about you giving explanations of shy people. Like you're talking about shy people who go to parties and then you're using extreme examples of so-called people who are extreme in anxiety, they can't do anything, even go to a party. Those are two different cohorts of people. The people you're talking about are the people who, in spite of being shy, turn up to your party. You're not talking about the extreme example. you're using the extreme example to try and disprove my general statement about anxious people actually doing more work that's what you're using that for but the point is so how do you know sorry sorry people just.
[1:12:02] Out of just out of curiosity how do you know that shy people being awkward in social situations is an extreme example and what's your definition of extreme because that's just.
[1:12:15] Not an extreme example it's not an extreme example you're you're calling people who want advice. They're an extreme example to go against my generalization that anxious people do more work. That's what that is. But you're talking about shy people as freeloader, right? Instead of them having personality traits. So that implies that you think human nature is environmentally sensitive, so much so that we can all just mold ourselves into reading Christian science books like How to Win Friends and Influence People, Socialites, Forever, and Win All of the Attention We Can Want in Spite of Problems with Your Physiology and Biology and Whatever Else. That's what you're saying.
[1:13:02] Sorry, this is a truly wild example to me. Honestly, I've never quite experienced this, and I've been a public philosopher for close to 20 years. This is just wild to me. And just so you know, I mean, there's lots of people listening, and this will go out to the world. So what you're doing is you're coming in having listened to a few minutes of an hour ten lecture and you're completely confident about everything I said.
[1:13:28] You said what you said. You are using a freeloader analogy, are you not, to talk about shy people being arrogant. You have said that.
[1:13:37] Well, that's one of the many things that I've said. You don't reference any of the other things that I said.
[1:13:44] But you can, because you just came in at the end. I'm not allowed to focus. You said I can't take parts of your argument and focus on parts.
[1:13:54] Well, yes. Yes. So are you saying, because you're saying that I've said that everyone can just easily snap their fingers and change this. This was sort of what you were saying, if I understand, which is not what I said.
[1:14:07] That's what you've been implying, yes.
[1:14:08] No, no. You see, you can't just take your own fevered imagination and then say, well, I don't have to quote you. I'm going to make up this magic word called implying. That's not what I was implying. In fact, before you showed up to the conversation, I had a long section on how difficult it was to change and how much work it was. But it's possible. So I'm encouraging people to learn social skills and gave a number of specific examples and paths through which people could improve their social skills. So your argument is just false. And listen, I mean, I understand this because I am a humble enough man that I don't barge into an hour 20 lecture having listened to a couple of minutes and assume that I know everything that was said because I'm just not that way inclined. I have some humility and rationality.
[1:14:57] No, you don't, because you would understand that people can bring forward direct arguments no matter what. You're in the field of philosophy and arguing, and you keep bringing in personal arguments and arguments of character and arguments of...
[1:15:10] No, I brought in a counter-example. You said, Stef, you're implying that people can just change and so on, and I'm like, no, and that's not what I said, right? So you missed a whole section of what I said, and now you're just saying, well, that's what I'm implying when it's the direct opposite of what I said. So that's just arrogant and mistaken.
[1:15:28] Right, first of all, You said, you like that word, Arvind, you said that you can't imply things, right? But you know what syllogisms are. And second, you do understand the definition of intelligence is your ability to perform the adduction of relations, yeah? Adduction of relations is a fancy word for implication and inference, or the other types of inference as well. Well, so actual IQ tests are built around your ability to infer and imply information, right? I know there are slightly different meanings. So things do implicate things. An intelligent person reads what's not written. That's the point of intelligence. And I can't remember what my other point was I was going to say about shine. So you're saying that you're offering, you've created the psychological victim hero narrative where, Everyone's diagnosed with shyness and whatever. This is what psychologists do. I'm not saying you just do that. This is what psychologists do. You've been to a lot of psychologists, right? So this is the whole industry of psychology. It's like Christianity. Christianity makes you feel, you know, original sin, and here's how you get out of your original sin. Psychologists, oh, here's your personality deficiency. You have narcissism, and here's how to get out of it.
[1:16:46] Cult behavioral therapy, all this nonsense, Christian science methods turn you into a positive, happy, happy, vacant person. and that's what psychology is, right? And you're trying to promise people that if they work hard enough, even in spite of their DNA and their traits, that they can still be sociable. You're denying the fact, or I don't know if you are denying the fact, but it sounds like you're denying the fact that there are people out there who just are shy. And even if they work on it.
[1:17:13] They're not going to be socialized. And third, the hierarchy of socializing and the extreme competitiveness of people nowadays to compete for attention in our attention economy, they're going to raise the bar and raise the bar. So even the shy people, they're canoeing uphill. So their improvements are relative to the people who are naturally gifted at being extroverted. Sadly, we're living in a culture of extroversion that's not very good. And they're canoeing uphill against the tidal wave while the other people are not even going uphill, they're going downhill because it's in line with their genetic DNA. It's in line with who they are. So every centimeter gained by the shy person in socializing, there's going to be 50 meters gained by the non-shy person. So there's always going to be a relative gap between them. And you're saying that they can overcome that always. And if they're shy, I either saw it off or work in your social skills. That's what you're saying.
[1:18:10] Yeah, I mean, I'm enjoying your monologue. I don't know who you're talking to, because this is not what I was saying, but you wouldn't know that because you weren't here. So, you know, you can have your monologue with your fantasy stuff, but I don't know how to respond because you didn't hear what I said, and now you're telling me everything I said without even the humility of knowing that you weren't here to hear it. I mean, this is a wild thing to me. And, you know, if you want to finish your monologue, that's great.
[1:18:34] Are you saying that everyone can work on their behavior, that they can all be socialized?
[1:18:40] I'm not sure what your question is. Are you saying that people can work to overcome... Hang on. Let me make sure I understand what you're saying. Do I think that people can improve negative or difficult characteristics about their personality? Well, sure. Sure.
[1:19:03] Right, so everybody, there's nobody out there so genetically shy that they can't be whatever you want them to be, that they can't improve enough to be a socialite.
[1:19:14] Well, I don't know what you mean by socialite here.
[1:19:20] Well, people who are good at socializing. Well, I may be not using the word in the right way, but what you're advocating for, to have social skills and not be shy. Sure.
[1:19:28] Well, no, I said to improve. So to give you and the audience an analogy, everyone who doesn't exercise will likely improve their health by exercising. But that doesn't mean that everyone is going to be an Olympic athlete, because there are some built-in aspects. And you used to say there's extroversion and introversion and so on, right? So my point is that if you want to socialize.
[1:19:54] Then you should learn some social skills. Does that mean you're going to be as smooth as butter? Well, probably not. So if I move to Japan, I should learn Japanese. Will I speak it as well as somebody who grew up speaking Japanese? Probably not.
[1:20:10] But it's polite to learn something about where you're going. So somebody can learn to improve their social skills. They can learn to overcome their anxiety. And as you say, they can use their anxiety to improve. You said people who feel their anxiety work harder to improve. Well, that's great. So I'm saying to people, don't just accept your anxiety, sit there like a lump, distorting everybody else's social enjoyment. Work at figuring out how to socialize better, right? There's tons of books and videos and so on where people can learn how to socialize better, and it is a skill that can be taught. I don't know if you've ever been to Toastmasters, but that is for people who are cripplingly shy at public speaking. And at Toastmasters, people have flourished. They have, and of course, I've seen people who've been really, really shy, pathologically shy, you could say, they call in, maybe we have a couple of calls over the years, and eventually they end up married and in a good community and so on. So yeah, I mean, everyone can improve for sure. It's like singing lessons, right? Everyone can improve their singing with a couple of singing singing lessons, but that doesn't mean that you're going to be Pavarotti, right? Because there is some physical substrate to these kinds of things. So, yeah, I don't know what we're disagreeing about.
[1:21:27] Yeah. Okay, okay. So, most people who practice singing will be unbearable to listen to no matter how much they try, because they don't have the ability to hear notes, and then they've got problems with voice.
[1:21:39] Sorry, are you saying that most people are tone deaf?
[1:21:43] A lot of people are going to be tone-deaf. They're not going to have the ability to sing.
[1:21:46] No, you said most people are tone-deaf.
[1:21:48] Sorry, did you say...
[1:21:50] Sorry, sorry. I'm just... Let me understand what you're saying, because you're just using these phrases like I know what you're talking about, and I don't. Are you saying most people are unbearable to listen to sing because they are tone-deaf? They don't understand notes?
[1:22:05] Right. You're focusing in on a micro-detail...
[1:22:07] I'm trying to understand what you're saying. So is your argument that most people in the world cannot differentiate musical notes.
[1:22:17] But you're changing the subject. The point of the argument is...
[1:22:20] No, I'm asking for clarification.
[1:22:23] I'm clarifying it. I'm telling you the point of the argument here.
[1:22:26] No, I want to know the facts before we get... If I don't agree with you on the facts, what's the point of continuing? If we're mathematicians... Hang on, let me just give you an analogy here so you understand how this works. If you and I are both... If you and I both, hang on, let me speak, let me speak, let me speak, let me speak, it's my show. You called in, you are the receiver. Okay, so if we're mathematicians and I say to you, okay, let's assume that 2 and 2 make 5 and go from there. Would there be any point continuing?
[1:23:02] If you can make a point.
[1:23:04] No, just answer the question. I'm not asking you to agree with me. But in this analogy, if I say to you as a mathematician, let's just assume that 2 and 2 make 5 and go from there, would you go from there?
[1:23:17] If he was making an overall point about something and it fitted in with the whole forest, then I would listen to it, yes.
[1:23:28] So you would continue an argument in mathematics on the premise that 2 and 2 make 5.
[1:23:38] Not directly in maths, but if he was using the maths as an analogy, you like analogies. Analogies are not focused on truth. So the point is, I'll re-say what I'm saying. Lots of people are tone deaf, right? No, you said the majority. It doesn't matter if they're tone deaf. It's a slip of the tongue. No, it's important.
[1:23:58] It's important. You can't just make a statement and when challenged say, oh, it's just a slip of the tongue because if you're not careful about your statements, how am I supposed to believe anything?
[1:24:09] Because it's irrelevant to the point. The point is, whether they're tone deaf or not, whether every single person is tone deaf, or whether no one is tone deaf, most people, empirically, even when they try, cannot sing.
[1:24:22] And we know that because we just listen to them. And when they sing, you want to shut them up. And it's the same with everything. The man who wants to learn Japanese with a 65 or 60 IQ has no chance. There are people out there who just aren't capable. and it's the same in the avenue of personality and this is even before we get into the fact that we are animals in a jungle and a zoo and a very destructive zoo at that right we are you're putting the responsibility on the people right we're living in an excessively extroverted culture of an intention economy right and and you're saying that the problem is that the shy people and shyness has an evolutionary reason and purpose yeah all of the emotions are evolved and serve a purpose so so there's a reason to be shy there's a time to be shy there's a reason to be neurotic there's a reason for them all i'm not going to go through all that right but we're living in a very um strange system at the minute that only seems to value fast life history three strategy personalities which is having low impulse control and being extroverted and you're you're using this current system to diagnose shy people who have a very good function in this world especially if they evolved in the northern hemisphere this is why finnish people are so shy.
[1:25:50] Right so the number of people who are tone deaf is very small just just so you know and it's a funny thing because you you uh.
[1:25:56] So you're saying most.
[1:25:58] People know most people can sing i mean if If you hear people humming, I mean, they don't sing particularly pleasantly. They don't have a lovely tone. They don't have great pitch in terms of hitting the notes. But most people, if you listen to them hum or they sing Happy Birthday, most people can carry a tune roughly, and singing lessons will help with that. Again, you still need the physical substrate. Now, with regards to shy people, yes, of course, shy people can be perfectly functional and great people and so on. My issue is not with people being shy. I, do you know what my issue is? Because you know what I'm saying, right? So what is my issue that I'm discussing in this live stream?
[1:26:37] Your issue is there are freeloaders from what I gather and that you're, because you're extroverted or because you've read, uh, some Christian science, secular Christian science books about appeasing people and being a lick ass that you're somehow magical and doing all the work in a social setting.
[1:26:57] Okay, so you view me as an extrovert, is that right?
[1:27:04] I would say you're not a natural. You seem like you're not a natural expert. You've worked on it.
[1:27:09] Okay, fantastic. So as I said at the beginning of the broadcast, which you weren't here for, I was shy as a child and worked to overcome it. And I was nervous in public speaking and worked to overcome it. And so, yes, you can work to overcome these things.
[1:27:25] And now maybe people don't end up as social as me. That's fine. But you can still work to improve. My issue is with people who won't lift a finger to deal with their shyness, but plonk themselves in the middle of social engagements and distort it and make it awkward and annoying for everyone else. That is rude. And people should work on their shyness. And I don't think of this sort of batting-eye shyness. I think that it's playing a victim. And I think people have a lot more power to control how they manifest themselves in the world that they can, in fact, work to overcome shyness. That doesn't necessarily mean that they'll become some massive extrovert or whatever, but you can at least learn the basics of how to interact. If you want to engage in society, if you want to have dinner parties, and you want to get social engagements, and you want people to invite you over, then you need to make your presence comfortable and enjoyable for people. Of course, right? I mean, if people don't find your presence enjoyable and comfortable, then you won't be invited over. Now, of course, I did say of the people who are really shy and just work at home and stay in the rooms and don't particularly socialize, that's fine. That's not who I'm talking about. I'm talking about, and again, you weren't here for this, but you could have asked, I suppose, rather than jumping to conclusions.
[1:28:38] I'm talking about the people who want to be invited places and want to partake in social goodies.
[1:28:46] But don't want to do the work to make their presence enjoyable for people, but instead clog up the works, make people feel awkward, interfere with conversations, and don't lift a finger to improve their social skills. And I said, of course, I massively sympathize with people who've grown up that way because a lot of times it has to do with neglect or abuse and so on as children. Children, but my particular issue is with the people who want all of the goodness of social life, but aren't willing to lift a finger to work at improving their social skills. We all do sympathy for their childhoods, but that is exploitive. It's asking other people to do much more work, right? So if you have 10 people at a dinner party, and this is something I mentioned, right? So if you have 10 people at a dinner party and one person doesn't show up, it's pretty much okay. If nine people don't show up, it's kind of awkward, right? But if one person shows up who's really socially awkward, laughs at the wrong things, tells inappropriate jokes, sits there, you know, half choked up with misery and stress and tension, it messes up the entire dinner party. And that's rude, right? So if you have a lack of social skills, don't play the victim. Don't just say, well, I'm shy and that's just all I have to deal with. And if you are so cripplingly shy, then stay home. But if you want to go and partake in social events and learn some social skills, and there's a lot that you can do to improve now what in that what in that what in what I said do you disagree with.
[1:30:14] I mean, it's hard to disagree with someone who's going to, well, you're getting disagreement because you're using the word shy, which is elastic, and we all know shy people we like, right? So maybe you would be better to get rid of disagreement in saying that it's not shy people, it's pathologically shy people or something. But that doesn't really matter.
[1:30:40] Okay, so hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. Hang on. So you're saying that you disagree with my use of the word shy and would prefer that I say pathologically shy?
[1:30:53] No, you say what you want.
[1:30:55] I said you would prefer. You disagree with the fact that I didn't insert the word pathologically in front of the word shy. Is that right?
[1:31:04] Not me personally. I'm saying if you want less disagreement, you're going to get less pushback if you say pathologically shy. Well, no, it's you.
[1:31:14] I'm talking to you. I'm not talking to some vague, abstract concept called disagreement. So I'm just, you know, tell you how to have people enjoy conversing with you would be if you call in or you interrupt my speech, which again, it's fine. So if you interrupt my speech and you don't know exactly how i'm using the word shy, what do you think you might do instead of just going at me what do you think you might do if you're not sure how i'm using the word shy you're.
[1:31:44] Trying to put the responsibility on.
[1:31:46] I'm asking i'm asking i'm trying to help you here have a more positive interaction with people so i'm trying to help you how is it how is it okay so you're not going to answer the question So I'll answer it for you because I have really good social skills.
[1:31:58] I'm answering it. No. I'm answering it.
[1:32:00] Okay.
[1:32:01] You're treating this as some sort of seminar in university, a left-wing seminar at that, where people define concepts and terms like we're some magician with the ability to re-coin basic words we use in everyday speech. You're using an everyday colloquial word in a philosophical term. Term um so anybody who's going to do that is is in without and expecting not to be disagreed with is just i don't know there's no better word for it than silly because you're going to get disagreement if you're using basic words in this a very refined way then then and that's why if you want to not let disagreement not me you're fantastic because i don't i don't no no i'm sorry i'm gonna over talk you because this.
[1:32:49] Is all nonsense okay so just so you you because this would be some basic humility and rationality, and I'm just going to be rude here because I'm tired of being polite. You're a complete jerk, and I'll tell you why. Because I very specifically defined what I was talking about with regards to shyness at the beginning of the goddamn broadcast. You weren't here for it. You didn't listen to how carefully I defined exactly the kind of shyness that I was talking about. And then you have the unbelievable, pig-headed, immature arrogance to come into me and say the problem is that I haven't defined my terms when you didn't even show up to listen to the terms being defined. Now, a nice person, a reasonable person, a person with a modicum of social skills, would call me up and say, Stef, I'm so sorry, man. I wasn't here for the beginning of this. Lecture, this monologue, this philosophical examination. I wasn't here for the beginning. I'm confused. Can you tell me what you mean by shy?
[1:33:50] Right? And then I would have been happy to go over what I meant by shy. Instead, you come in and carpet bomb my broadcast with insults and gaslighting and nonsense, without even saying, ha, maybe I shouldn't be a total jerk because I didn't show up for the definitions and then claim that Stef is not defined his terms. I don't show up to the end of a movie and say this movie's bullshit because I don't know what's going on. Why? Because I have some social skills. And if I don't show up until the last 4% of a lecture, I don't then castigate people for not defining their terms without ever asking if maybe I missed something at the beginning where they did define their terms.
[1:34:33] Now, I know you're not going to listen to this. This is more for the audience as a whole, but that's just fantastic. Like, honestly, that is, like, the fact that you'd be triggered when I was talking about people being rude is obviously, I mean, to everyone but you, it's blindingly obvious. And I really, really do thank you for coming in to the conversation because that is just an example of just how arrogant and pig-headed and rude and obnoxious some people can be. Now, the fact that you're triggered has to do with your childhood, the fact that, I don't know if you were beaten to death with Christian science books or something, you seem to have a hard-on for hating that book. You repeated it like half a dozen times. But, you know, you probably want to look into your own childhood and figure out why you react in these kinds of way and why you're so unpleasant and off-putting to anybody with half a modicum of common sense. So I'm going to not continue the conversation, but I really do thank you for coming by. It really was instructive. And I was really hoping to get into a good debate, but there was just too much immaturity and arrogance going on. And it's a real shame. It's a real shame. It could have have been a lot of fun all right well thanks everybody i am going to grab myself a little bit of a lunch i really do appreciate people coming by and i very much appreciate these flash live streams have yourself an absolutely wonderful wonderful day i will speak to you tomorrow night uh friday night live 7 p.m eastern you can join that at freedomane.locals.com thanks everybody so much have a wonderful time bye yeah yeah i just wondered if anybody wanted a detox.
[1:36:02] For this guy in particular, he came in, he could raise his hand, and I did say, allow to speak, and then he comes in unmuted. But there were like half a dozen people in the chat who didn't come in with that, and they weren't interrupting you, they were listening. And so I didn't expect him, and this is my failure, I suppose, I didn't expect him to unmute and interrupt you and just come in blasting with that.
[1:36:24] No, it was fine. It was fine.
[1:36:26] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[1:36:27] It was fine. It was fine. No, I was just wondering if anybody else had any sort of comments or experiences. That was a bit of an ugly flyby, and I just wanted to make sure how everyone was doing and all of that. It was a bit of a heart pounder for me because he reminded me of people in the past, I'm afraid. So I just wanted to see. Maybe it's just me, but how was everybody else's experience of that little chitty-chatty bang-bang? And don't forget to unmute.
[1:36:56] That's a very good way. Very good way to put Ginny Channy Dang Day. It's a really great way of putting it. Oh my lord. Yeah, I definitely had my heart pounding as well listening to that. It's just what a wild a wild sort of interrupt in this and this like as you're trying to speak.
[1:37:18] It's the tone, right? I mean, from the moment he opened his mouth it's just a monologue or you can allow other people to speak and you could feel that temper, right? That, I wouldn't say rage, but you could feel that tension like from the very beginning, right? And it's just true how people, they tell you who they are right away. And based upon how it started, it went exactly as I was expecting.
[1:37:46] Right, right.
[1:37:48] But yeah, it was a wild thing. And so to me, there was some interesting things about it. Now, I don't want to, you know, that this is here for you guys to talk if there's anything else that people wanted to mention about what they thought or experienced or or you know maybe how i handled it or you know i'm so obviously happy to get feedback about things i can do better or differently.
[1:38:06] My my question would be i guess since you were in the middle of the monologue and i see someone come in like that uh who unmutes you because they've been given permission hey he's interrupting shut down because it is your show and you're in the middle of the monologue and i could have definitely done that i'm just curious in terms of that.
[1:38:24] Oh, like why I allowed him to?
[1:38:27] No, well, no, from my perspective, I could have if I wanted to mute him immediately. Right. And I didn't. Right. So I'm just wondering, you know, would that have.
[1:38:37] I mean... I'm sorry, do you not know why people buy tickets to MMA? Yeah.
[1:38:43] Okay okay okay.
[1:38:44] I mean weren't you probably a little curious to see how this was gonna go.
[1:38:48] Fair enough fair enough um and and you did say at one point you were enjoying the conversation um.
[1:38:54] I did yeah no it was really yeah it's really fun i mean i found it obviously i i got the rage that i experienced from the guy uh i got the intransigence i got the dysfunction right i got got severe dysfunction and you know that level of punchiness like i could understand if i was talking about something really controversial but that level of punchiness over this kind of topic is really something so um the moment that he came in with this oh is this going to be a monologue or are you going to allow other people to speak i mean this is really uh quite aggressive right, and i assumed of course because i'd asked you to let me know if people wanted to speak and i hadn't heard from you so i assumed that people were enjoying the speech which is fine but yeah Yeah, if he wants to come in hot, come in flaming, let's do it. And, you know, I do think it's nice for people to see how these kinds of conversations can go. And also that people don't really change because he was complaining that people don't change and he wouldn't take any coaching, right?
[1:39:55] And people are just genetic and they are who they are. And what that means is he doesn't have any need or desire to improve. In fact, he would view improvement, I assume, as kind of insulting. He also complained that I was using extreme examples. And then he said, well, what about somebody with an IQ of 60 who's trying to learn Japanese? I'm like, oh, that's not an extreme example. 0.01% of the population or whatever it is, right? So no, I thought it was interesting. And to me, it's like, let people talk. Clearly he was getting stuff off his chest and I loved his justification. Honestly, it was delightful. His justification.
[1:40:31] As to why he could say I was implying things. I don't know if you remember that. It was really something. So he missed most of the lecture. He hallucinated a whole bunch of stuff he said. And then he said, well, if you won't allow me to use the magical word implying, I'm going to use the magical word inference.
[1:40:53] Right? So yes, you can gather information from trends and statistics, right? For sure, I get that. I mean, I've written a whole book on this called The Art of the Argument, artoftheargument.com. But you cannot assume facts not in evidence. Right? So he can say, well, based upon what you're saying, this would be a conclusion. Now, first of all, of course, inference is not proof. Right? Deductive reasoning is proof. Right? All men are mortal. Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is mortal. That's 100%. That but inference is uh you know i uh for the last couple of years i've been really sad on my birthday i'll probably be sad this year well it's not proof it's just looking for trends so, he tried to say that he could infer from my statements things that i hadn't said and therefore Therefore, he could hallucinate and believe things at will. Now, when I said, well, you can't just say that's an inference. You can't just say, sorry, what was the word he used? Imply. Imply is like, no, what did I actually say, right?
[1:42:08] So then he said, well, no, but I can logically deduce from what you're saying your conclusions. And that is not true. You can't do that in debates. You can't just say, well, I'm going to take an inference based on incomplete information and assume it's absolutely true because it's not 100% proof. But he took them as absolutely true. And even if there was some kind of inference that could be made out of what I'm saying, you still need to confirm, right? So if somebody makes an inference or somebody makes a statement and you want to infer something from it, right? Then if somebody says capitalists are evil, right? Okay. Is that a general statement or is that an absolute statement? So you have to ask what's meant by capitalists and what is meant by evil. And is it a hundred 100%, or just most people, right? So you need to find out what the parameters are, right?
[1:43:10] And if he says, everyone who owns a business is evil, okay, then that's 100%, I guess, of people who own businesses are evil, and then you can go from there. But you can't just say, if somebody says capitalists are evil, and you say, oh, so what you're saying is that every single person who owns a business is evil, right? So, you can't just jump straight to the absolute certainty of deductive reasoning with inductive reasoning, with probabilities, right? So, it's the old thing of like, if you had to bet, you're sitting in a cafe, right? And you You had to bet.
[1:43:50] On whether the next male-female couple that walked into the cafe, you had to bet on whether the man was taller than the woman, you would probably bet that the man would be taller than the woman, right?
[1:44:01] But that's not proof. The only proof is when they walk through the door. So when people get to certainty from inductive reasoning, it's almost always a hallucination, especially if they don't check with you first. So he just went on these rambling monologues, making all of these sort of wild or outrageous claims and then he said but you were implying this but he didn't check with me right and that's when i you know and that's why i said hey you just keep talking you're obviously having a conversation with yourself because it's not referencing anything i've said and so on so that's sort of one thing that i got out of it is to if people and then the thing is is like well you know i spent you know probably five or ten minutes at the beginning talking about exactly the kind of shyness that i was talking about and then he said well, you didn't define the word shy with no consciousness. I mean, that's a wild thing to me, and I don't understand this personality structure. I really don't understand this personality structure, and I'll get you to the wild thing at the end here. The personality structure that says, I missed 95% of the lecture, and I'm going to harangue the lecturer.
[1:45:05] That's wild, right? Now, what to me was even wilder, though, was this fellow said, sounded Scottish a little bit, I don't know. But this fellow said, people who are anxious perform better, right? That was a big thing that he said. I remember that fairly clearly. Can I get a verification on that? He said, people who are anxious perform better, and people who are confident perform worse. Do I get that right?
[1:45:37] I think what he said is... It was people who are having... Sorry, go ahead. I think what he said is that the anxiety, motivates people to do better. I think that's what he's arguing.
[1:45:51] I appreciate it. It's good to be precise.
[1:45:52] And people who don't have the anxiety or have positive emotions or whatever exactly he was saying aren't motivated or something like that, you know, happier or whatever.
[1:46:01] So he's saying that anxiety, which is doubt, anxiety makes people perform better, right? And he came in completely certain of everything that I'd said, even though he'd only listened to 4% or 5% of the lecture. So do you see how ironic that is? He had no anxiety about being wrong about anything that I'd said, and he says that anxiety makes people perform better. But he didn't come in saying, ooh, you know, I want to be certain about this. I want to make sure I understand your definitions. So he came in with no anxiety and performed really badly and then says that anxiety makes people perform better. Do you see how disconnected that all is? He's saying doubt makes people perform better, and I'm absolutely certain of the contents of a lecture I only listen to 4% or 5% of. I'm not sure if I'm getting this across, because I can't see anyone, but does that sort of make sense, how completely disconnected that is?
[1:47:09] Yep, yep, it does.
[1:47:10] Because people do better on exams because they think they might fail, right? And he comes in having listened... To only 4% of the lecture or 5% of the lecture and is completely certain that he's absolutely right about everything. I'm sorry, I'm getting a lot of background noise here on...
[1:47:31] Who's it from?
[1:47:32] No, no, that's not. Sorry, that's just me. I've got another app that's just... And because I'm recording the system audio, I'm just getting endless amounts of noise here. It's nobody's fault. But let me just make sure I find this app and get rid of it because it's bib-dinking and those are tough to get rid of afterwards. Plus there's that. So that's, to me, wild. Because if he genuinely believes that anxiety makes people perform better... Then he should be anxious about getting a lecture that he missed most of wrong. Does that make sense?
[1:48:06] Yeah. Yeah. And I don't want to rush ahead.
[1:48:09] No, no, go ahead.
[1:48:10] Yeah. So he comes in being all kinds of certain, which according to his theory means that he's going to fail.
[1:48:16] Right.
[1:48:17] Right? He was perfectly happy with his definitions.
[1:48:19] He had no problems with his definition. He was perfectly happy with his definitions, which by his own definitions means he's wrong. Wrong he's not putting the work in right and he's going to screw up isn't that wild that is amazing and that's the level of disconnect and that's why you just can't get anything across right, yeah and this guy.
[1:48:41] Is a reason i don't go to parties very often.
[1:48:44] So here's the thing too he also was of course triggered by me saying that you can improve your social skills right And I did strive to the best of my ability, which I don't consider too bad a set of ability, but basically I couldn't get across to him, and it really was for the audience. And I said, look, I'm trying to help you have people have a more positive experience of debating, which is if you're not sure how I'm using a term, you can ask me to define the term. So you would come in and you could say, I'm not sure how you're using the word shy, right? So can you define the word shy for me? Because I'm uncertain. I'm anxious that I could be wrong. But he wasn't anxious. He was absolutely certain and very happy with his own projection, which by his own, I mean, this is the wild thing. I don't know why people don't notice this about themselves, but it's pretty blindingly obvious on the outside. Side i mean let me ask you this because maybe there's some people who was like yeah you get that stuff and i can understand that a little bit but was there anybody on the call who enjoyed, his presence debates arguments and approaches in the conversation.
[1:49:54] No of course not.
[1:49:55] Well and i was really you know he obviously is a punchy guy and and likes to debate and I think that's, I mean, I have no problem with that, but I'm trying to sort of coach him a little bit on how to improve, right? And he's saying, well, some people are just this way genetically and they can't improve. And you understand that this is not a theory. Everyone thinks these are things of theories. This is not a theory. This is his life. So he says, well, personality characteristics, I'm paraphrasing to some degree, right? Some people can't improve and they just can't get better and it's just they're hardwiring their genetics, right? So the funny thing, of course, is that he's trying to get me to improve, right? While saying people can't really improve. But because he believes that I believe people can improve, so I'm happy to have the conversation. He doesn't believe people can improve, or at least there's some people who can't improve.
[1:50:47] And he's one of them. So he says shy people can't improve their social skills, or some people can't improve their social skills, and he's a belligerent, gaslighting, derisive, insulting debater, right?
[1:51:04] Attacker, right? It really wasn't a debate. It was just verbal insults masquerading as, well, psychological damage masquerading as verbal insults masquerading as a debate. So I'm trying to tell him, here's how you can have more enjoyable, engaging debates, debates because there's nobody who debates with that guy who wants to debate him again right and so he's not getting what he wants which is people to debate with and i was sort of trying to help him, get that could have been a great conversation but um when i when i rephrase so there's two things one is that when i said what was my question so the reason i asked that i'm not trying to humiliate anyone it's just that when you ask someone a direct question and i think the question was, because he was saying all the people who are anxious do better in exams. Like, yeah, I get that. Of course, that makes sense to me. Because if you're anxious, you'll study more. And therefore, you'll probably do better on the exam. Anxiety and nervousness and so on can be an absolute boon to stressful tasks, because it has you prepared. I mean, I've said this, I've been a public speaker for a long time off and on, I guess more often on these days. And And even when I have like a 10 or 15 minute speech, I'll rehearse it for days. Days.
[1:52:18] Now, is that anxiety? Yeah, to some degree. Right? I sort of mentioned this a while ago. I made a choice to sing in public to an audience. And I worked on that song for weeks. Weeks. Because, you know, the anxiety is you come in at the wrong time. You hit the wrong note. you just get screwed up and you know that's bad right so i just wanted to make sure it was so automatic in me that i could do it in my sleep and it went off well and it all worked out so i fully understand that anxiety helps you improve for sure but it doesn't so the so i asked him how does the study capture people who were so anxious they don't show up, right because you're by definition if you're measuring people on an exam who are anxious, so by definition if you're if you're asking people who've taken an exam how anxious were you you're capturing the people to whom their anxiety has been a benefit so then saying to people saying well this study shows that anxiety is a benefit when you only test the people for whom it is a benefit is not a full sample. So I said, well, how does it capture the people who were too anxious to even take the course to show up? And the answer is, of course, it can't.
[1:53:38] Now, what you could do, maybe, if you wanted to do a study like that, is you could capture all the people, say, who started a course and then, you know, in some engineering and physics courses, like half or even two-thirds of the class drops out. And you could say to people, why did you drop out? And some of them would say, I was stressed, I was anxious, I couldn't sleep, and it was horrible, right? And so their stress would cause them to drop out. And that would be a way of capturing the people to whom stress... So, So, I mean, that's just an interesting question, right? How do you capture people who fail to thrive because of anxiety rather than just capturing the people who excel because of anxiety? Because anxiety exists on a bell curve, right? I mean, too little, it's the Aristotelian mean, too little anxiety and you're this guy, too much anxiety and you're paralyzed, right? So you want to find the sweet spot. And I was just asking people to move up, move down their anxiety so that they can socialize better. So the reason I ask him is that I, I obviously, because he was over-talking me so much, I was concerned that he was just there to kind of spurg on his emotional upset or whatever, right?
[1:54:49] And so when I ask him a question and he goes off on a tangent, and I do this in call-in shows too, to try and figure out how dissociated people are, right? So I said, do you remember the question I asked you? And he's like, well, I'm answering it. I'm like, okay, well, if you're answering it, you should remember what it is, right? And I, and he's like, oh, now you're trying to humiliate me. And it's like, no, I'm just want to check that you remember, because if somebody is really triggered and dissociated, they won't even remember your question. They're so upset. And I think he was upset, very upset, and wasn't aware of it, was sort of self-righteous in this kind of way. And of course, I can sympathize with the kind of childhood that would lead someone to be like that. But of course, I have less sympathy when they acted out in public against the innocent. Listen, I mean, I've never harmed the guy, and here he is saying that I'm slandering people and lying and, you know, whatever, egregiously wrong. And I don't know whatever happened with that Christian science thing.
[1:55:42] But, yeah, so I ask people to find out how dissociated they are. Are they present in the conversation? Are they listening? Or are they triggered? Now, if people are triggered, they can't remember your question.
[1:56:01] And it's important to gauge that in just about any kind of conversation. It's important to gauge, is somebody actually listening to you? And of course, I think it was pretty clear that he was running his own agenda and he was wanting to be right and he was triggered by something and, you know, obviously he's had some bad experiences in life and I'm not sure anybody particularly enjoys his company. So I think also what happened was when I talk about improvement, right? So if you can think of somebody who's, you know, they've allowed themselves to get to be like 400 pounds, right? And then I talk about preventing weight gain and dealing with weight and so on. They're going to get triggered, right? They're going to be angry and upset because they know they failed to do what they need to do to be healthy. And so if somebody's acting in a situation like they have no free will and you start reminding them of free will, they're going to get triggered and aggressive. To put it in an even deeper and more precise way, and this is purely theory, I don't know the guy, of course, but what would fit the facts would be, that he had very abusive parents.
[1:57:04] And his abusive parents don't want people to like him, because that way he stays isolated and doesn't have allies against their abuse who can point out how abusive they are. So they've filled him full of all of this vitriol, so that he keeps people at a distance, so he remains isolated, and so nobody sympathizes with him, him and thus exposes whatever appalling acts his parents inflicted upon him. That would be sort of the most precise way to put it. And again, I don't know. It would fit the facts because, I mean, nobody wakes up in the morning and says, I'm just going to be horrible today. I'm just going to be nasty. I'm going to interrupt someone. I'm going to insult him. I'm going to not listen. I'm going to gaslight, I'm going to avoid the topic, right?
[1:57:51] He is mined. There's a moat around this kind of personality, which is you can't get close because the people who've abused this guy as a kid don't want anyone to get close, so that their corruption and immorality, is not revealed. And the more corruption and immorality, the more people are mined against contact towards others.
[1:58:22] And the more bad habits are inflicted on them and that they indulge. Someone like this, you know, I mean, you can't get close to someone like that because they're just going to twist and change and redirect and gaslight and redefine and project and like this. It is like trying to dance with fog. You can't. So then the question is, given that connection and intimacy is a great and deep pleasure in life, why would somebody choose this? Well, of course, the answer is nobody would choose that. Nobody would choose to be that difficult and unpleasant to deal with. So it doesn't benefit him as a human being to be like that. You know, I mean, it's funny because, you know, people have these kinds of interactions and they come across occasionally, right? And I don't mind them. I think they're great, right? But, and then, you know, I go back to my, you know, loving family and my great job and my good friends. And, you know, it's like a minor stain on the day that That was actually quite instructive.
[1:59:17] And I don't know. What did they go back to, right? So if it doesn't benefit him to be this unpleasant and difficult, who does it benefit? Well, it must benefit someone else. And so why would people want to keep this guy away from everyone else? Well...
[1:59:34] Because there are crimes to be uncovered. And if he gets close to people, they might be uncovered. So this is a lot of storm and fury to cover up parental crimes. I mean, just so everyone knows what's going on deep down. He's not in control of his own personality. He is possessed or inhabited by highly abusive parents who don't want him to get close to anyone. And so when I'm talking about improving your social skills and I'm talking about getting close to people, then this triggers the parental alter egos to attack and to ridicule and to drive people away from this direction because as a collective it's not just individual there's a collective abusive parents work very hard on the consciousness of humanity to make sure that people experience negative things and and difficulties and and so on so yeah i mean i just basically view him as a puppet of people who probably committed some pretty egregious crimes against him as a child and that's just him keeping a bag. Now, of course, people will say, well, that's just psychologizing and so on. It's like, well, there's nothing else to do because there were no substantive points that were... This is what I said to him after I defined my terms. I said, what do we disagree with? What do we disagree on, right? And then it was silly things like, most people can improve their singing if they take singing lessons, right? And he's like, well, there are some people who are tone deaf. And it's like, well, that's very rare. That's very rare for people to be tone deaf.
[2:01:02] And it's sort of like saying and I said most people can improve with exercise it's like well what about someone in a coma it's like well even they improve from having their limbs moved and I think that's kind of what they have to do, so this is another way that you know that people are triggered is that, any general statement they make any general statement you make they will find an exception and think that they've disproven something right now when it comes to, uh deductive reasoning you you have right so all men are mortal okay if you find one man who's immortal then that is proven false right so so then so so then what you do is you treat inductive reasoning the same as deductive reasoning and you see this all the time on the internet i found a counter example right and this is why there used to be something called it's the exception that proves the rule right it's like yeah i know a couple where the woman is six inches is taller than the guy. And it's like, well, yeah, you remember that and it stands out because it's such an exception. You remember it because it's the exception that proves the rule. You remember it because it is so unusual. And so what happens is they, any general statement you make, they will find one counterexample and think they've disproven it. And then.
[2:02:19] When you make, when they make a general statement and you say, when he says most people are tone deaf and that's just false. I mean, that's just most people are not tone deaf. So then he says, well, I just misspoke. Right. But that's important because then it's like, well, you're just nitpicking. And it's like, well, no, if you make a statement that's false and I point that out, the reason I point that out is because it is a false statement to say that most people cannot recognize different notes. That's a specific brain disorder, actually. so most people cannot recognize specific notes it's a very tiny minority of people otherwise there wouldn't be a music industry really right so if he says most people can't recognize notes, that's a false statement, right? And if he's not careful about his statements, in other words, if he'll say something that's false and doesn't even notice that it's false and then gets annoyed at me when I point out that his statement is false, it means he has no commitment to the truth, right? And knowing people, is he committed to winning? Is he committed to victory? Is he committed to spurging on his emotions? Or is he committed to getting to the truth?
[2:03:34] Now, if someone says, most people are tone deaf, which is a false statement, if somebody says that, and I say, wait, sorry, you're saying that most people are tone deaf? Then he would say, oh, you know what, I completely misspoke, thank you, that's completely false, I'll withdraw that, sorry about that, right? As opposed to, oh, you're just nitpicking, or I misspoke, or like getting aggressive about it, right? So if somebody says something that's false and you point it out and they get annoyed, then they're not interested in the truth, right? They have no interest in the truth. And finding people who are willing to put ego aside and pursue the truth no matter where it leads is very rare.
[2:04:09] And, I mean, obviously this wasn't one of those people. And, again, I have a lot of sympathy for what happened to him as a kid. I think he's not acting in the best way possible given whatever happened to him as a kid. And, you know, if you ever hear this, you're certainly welcome to have a call-in show. We sort of get to the bottom of what's going on. But, yeah, and, you know, then he's insulting me. He's insulting my monologue. He's insulting all my callers by saying, or they're just playing the victim. It's just wild. This scattershot is another example of some pretty chaotic levels of aggression. It's just that there's nothing you won't stoop to to win, and nobody you won't insult. And then you claim to be, this is very typical too, people who verbally abuse others or verbally attack others then say that, well, I'm just slandering all shy people. And I did point this out. It's like, oh, you're kind of insulting everyone, and now you're very, very sensitive to slander. It's almost inevitable in a way, right? So, yeah, I appreciated the convo. I thought it was a good workout. I was having a nice hike, and I got a little extra cardio in from this guy. But, yeah, I mean, they are pretty dangerous people in the world. Not dangerous because they're unpleasant to debate with, but because they can be quite aggressive, and it's hard to know whether aggression can end. All right. Is there anything else that anybody wanted to say?
[2:05:25] Yeah, you can just put this guy in a scenario. so you're throwing the party you finally have the shy guy there and then this guy jumps into the conversation and pushes shy guy back home oh.
[2:05:36] Man you're done well yeah he was saying he was saying about how how there were histrionics who just jumped in and dominated the conversation, i'm like really how bad is that do you think you want to grab a mirror and see if you can find one, All right. Any, any, yes.
[2:05:57] Uh, yeah, I just, uh, I think, well, one thing I don't write two things, but, uh, yeah, just in terms of like self-improvement and, uh, you know, when you've had pretty serious abuse, I think I have mentioned this, uh, before. I think I mentioned in the live stream when I was looking to lose the weight, you know, there was a lot of pushback internally because, you know, my parents want, you know, would want me to not, you know, be healthy, to not find people to, to be insecure about, you know, don't want you to have someone in your life.
[2:06:24] Who cares about you.
[2:06:25] Because then they'll.
[2:06:26] Cause some squinty eyes at your parents right.
[2:06:28] Yeah exactly exactly yeah so i was like yep i've definitely experienced that and it's it's tough but you do it because what's the alternative you as you said um in the live stream last night you dishonor the uh the or sorry did you say today i'm i was today was the dishonoring.
[2:06:46] The inner child by using this.
[2:06:47] Effort as your excuse yeah that was and that was fantastic. I just want to say that was also really fantastic.
[2:06:53] Yes, it was, wasn't it? I'm going to agree with you on that one. Sometimes the lightning strikes the spinal cord, and that was one of those times, yeah.
[2:07:00] Yeah, yeah. I thought I had a second thing, but that's okay. It's important. I'll come up later.
[2:07:06] Good, good. Well, I'm glad the guy came by. I always wonder how people get, like, how people who are like this end up coming in, and I don't know. It's wild. It was a really wild interaction, and there was a lot to unpack, and I'm glad we got a chance to chat about it. Afterwards, because sometimes if you don't unpack it, it can leave a bit of a lingering sour taste. So, all right. Well, listen, I'll get back to regularly scheduled FDR work, and I really do appreciate everyone dropping by today. It was a great pleasure, James. Thanks so much for taking some time and managing and shepherding this stuff. And I guess I'll talk to everyone tomorrow night. Take care. Bye.
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