0:05 - Gratitude and Philosophy
3:27 - The Role of Women in Culture
10:55 - The Nature of Sports Rivalries
22:14 - Political Pardons and Their Implications
22:28 - Young Women's Uncertainty and Purpose
28:34 - The Value of Hard Work
39:03 - The Impact of Family on Relationships
51:08 - Introspection vs. Action
53:01 - Choosing Life Over Family Ties
1:09:51 - Evaluating Family Influence
1:22:05 - Choosing Between Past and Future
1:33:35 - Breaking Free from Toxic Relationships
In this episode of Wednesday Night Live, I delve into the intricate nuances of personal growth, relationships, and societal structures, while also acknowledging the profound impacts of our upbringing. The discussion begins with my heartfelt appreciation for the listeners who engage with philosophy and challenge my viewpoints, reinforcing the idea that we're all on a quest for truth and understanding.
I address the concept of women's roles in shaping culture, emphasizing that women historically functioned as transmitters of societal norms and values due to their higher levels of agreeableness. I explore the evolutionary aspect of this, discussing how individualism among women didn't thrive in environments where survival depended on conformity and adherence to group cohesion. This leads to an analysis of how these long-standing societal dynamics continue to play out today.
Transitioning to contemporary themes, I encounter a listener’s query regarding aimlessness among young women. I confront this by highlighting that many people, regardless of gender, often lack a clear passion or purpose in life. I share my own journey of pursuing various passions with relentless determination—be it writing, acting, or philosophy—emphasizing that success stems from action rather than mere contemplation.
The conversation shifts to the nature of family and friendship. I pose a critical question: Do your family members enhance your value in the dating market? It’s a provocative exploration of how our familial connections and friendships can either uplift or hinder our personal and relational success. I encourage listeners to reflect on their relationships, assessing whether they contribute positively to their life narrative or serve as anchors, dragging them down.
Through personal anecdotes, I illustrate the importance of making conscious choices about the people we surround ourselves with. I advocate for proactive introspection—not for the sake of navel-gazing, but to identify barriers to meaningful action and growth. I emphasize the need to evaluate our relationships based on merit rather than unchosen historical bonds.
Finally, we examine societal trends, particularly the evolving landscape of meritocracy versus dependency on historical affiliations. I argue that in order to thrive, individuals must hold each other accountable, prevent the normalization of mediocrity, and push for excellence in their personal lives. This holistic approach pushes back against the notion that familial ties should overshadow an individual's potential for growth and achievement.
This episode is a call to action, urging reflection and active decision-making within our lives, relationships, and engagement with the wider world. We must question what truly adds value to our lives and the lives of those around us, setting the stage for a future that empowers and uplifts.
[0:00] Hey everybody, Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain. Hope you're doing well.
[0:05] Have you received your appreciation lately? I don't know that you have from me. I know that I talk about it from time to time. But I really, really, really, really, really do want to thank you for your time, care, and attention, and support for philosophy. This is The Philosophy Show. And your listening, your questions, your comments, your criticism, everything beautiful beautiful yeah somebody posted uh what was it i think on telegram, i posted a short clip from me from back in the pandemic days and i don't think i ever got the full context for it but i really appreciate people bringing that kind of stuff up where i may have gotten things wrong absolutely worth um worth telling me i'm obviously uh being mortal and limited the opposite of omniscient so if there are more criticisms or um things that i got wrong Please, please let me know. I certainly would love to correct the record and apologize for, you know, reasonable levels of error, right? Nobody's omniscient. You keep coming back for the call-in shows. That's right, the call-in shows. I have one in the can.
[1:20] And it is, sorry, my daughter is ill at the moment. She has some sort of flu-y thing. So I'm doing this nose irrigation. Doing this nose irrigation which means that i'm i'm a i'm a little drippy sorry sorry this is more than you need to know but just you know i i'm not addicted to the booger sugar i'm just um i'm irrigated i'm well irrigated like i leaned over a computer like yesterday i leaned over computers niagara of touchscreen so oh yeah that's what's going on so yeah if you have um criticisms or things that i got wrong you know please let me know i'm certainly happy to, correct them and of course apologize if i get things wrong which um which i should have gotten right i don't mind getting things wrong that could have been wrong or that they're reasonable to get wrong because that's just the nature of the beast but um and if anybody does have the quote from early on in the pandemic where i was um having a speech but i don't know what context it's in.
[2:26] I just remember, it was Paul Elam, Paul Elam, last name, the reverse of male. But yeah, Paul Elam wrote an article from the point of view of, like, reversing the arguments of a radical feminist. And of course, people took it out of context, right? So obviously, I'm skeptical of snippets with no context. Like if somebody says, Stef, you spent a minute and a half saying this with no larger context, you know, I, so I always look for the larger context and would appreciate, uh, getting it, of course. Thank you, Durbin's. So yeah, I just really do want to thank you for, I don't know, helping to keep me honest and, uh, helping me to reach some really great heights. I think a philosophy because of your questions and comments and all of that. I really do, really do appreciate it. I really, really do appreciate it. All right. So let's get to some of your comments and questions.
[3:28] Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show, of course. Muchly, muchly appreciated. Were women created to lead or to follow?
[3:41] So women in general, there's lots of infinite numbers of exceptions, But women in general score higher in agreeableness. Women score higher in agreeableness. And the reason for that is that women need to stably agree with the dominant culture. Because one of the things that women do and why we have culture is that women transmit arguments and perspectives down through the generations, which means that women have to conform to the perspectives of those around them and then semi-uncritically reproduce those in children. And I did a whole thing about this in one of my recent Bible verse explorations, so you can sort of get that. down.
[4:37] But this is why women tend to conform a lot with other women. And to put it another way, women who were sort of radical individualists, which would have happened, of course, throughout most of human history, you just, the genes pop up or their mindset pops up and so on. Tribes where there was a lot of radical individualism among women didn't tend to do very well because they did not have the necessary myths that allow for conscience-free bloodshed that was necessary for survival when most of human history is characterized by brutal violence.
[5:14] Most of human history is characterized by brutal violence. And those who were radical individualists and too philosophical, so to speak, destroyed the necessary myths of tribal cohesion, which a lot of those necessary myths are required for a conscience-free deployment of violence. Like, if you think about, of course, with regards to sports teams, and I remember, you know, my brother and I used to go to this, when I was a little kid in England, we used to go, On Saturdays for 10p, 10 pennies, 10 pence.
[5:52] You know that there's a... I mean, we used to go on camping trips with women who would apply makeup inside the camping gear or equipment. It was pretty intense. Pretty intense. Okay, never mind.
[6:07] A swing and a slight hit. A swing. So we used to go uh saturday mornings to a theater a movie theater and there'd be these little shorts and so on and one of them of course it's a fairly typical story was a soccer team it's always the same kind of thing the misfit ragtag band of sports guys that nobody else wants and they get together And somehow with a chaotic and slovenly coach, you know, league of their own style, Tom Hanks, they pull it together and the mighty ducks all works out. These misfits all gel together, right? It's the idea that you can be a misfit and still have a community. Sorry, you got to choose integrity or community for the most part, or the only real community that you can have is in integrity. So, of course, you know, it's the red team and the blue team, right? So because you're following the red team, you care about the red team, you want the red team to win, and you just, you hate that blue team. You just hate that blue team, man. But if you have basic empathy, getting sports obsessed becomes impossible because you recognize that sports is not a moral category. It's not good versus evil. It's just skill versus skill.
[7:27] So those who came along throughout human evolution and said, why is my tribe better than your tribe?
[7:36] Why is my tribe better than your tribe? Why should my tribe win and your tribe lose? Now, I'm not saying that all tribes are equal. I mean, there are tribes closer to objectivity, morality, and of course, I'm a big fan of the Christian universalism when it comes to morals.
[7:56] But throughout most of human history, it was a little hard to say, well, my team should win and your team should lose. The blue team should win and the red team should lose. Right this is when i was a kid the uh the soccer to football team football the soccer team that was a in my neighborhood my neighborhood was supposed to represent was when i was a kid a bunch of white guys later on it just seemed to be like a bunch of jamaicans but it was crystal palace crystal palace was the team they were like the top of the third division or something like that so they didn't and then there was some kid who was like you know crystal palace sucks manchester united man crystal palace sucks and i just and i was a precocious kid or maybe it's genetic i don't know but as a little kid i don't know like five or an arm like but but you just live there man like you just live there i live here you live there the team does not reflect you you haven't done anything right so i mean that's a true statement that's a true statement but for large portions of human history, that ship would get you killed, right? Not necessarily by your tribe, although that could happen, but it would get you killed because the moment you say, why is red a better color than blue? Why is the red team a better color than the blue team?
[9:16] Kind of hard to answer, right? We rode in the evening, Casablanca to the west. From the atlas mountain foothills leading down to marrakech, from mohammed and morocco we had taken up our guns for the ashes of our fathers and the children of our sons yeah so why why do you um why why is your team better than the other team i mean again there are objective reasons but those objective reasons tend to be anti-cultural right I mean, science is better than astrology. Science is better than witchdoctory. Science is better than throwing chicken bones and reading entrails, right? Science is better, but only because it's objective and rational and not culture, right? Not math is better than guessing, right? Like, you know, the old saying, any engineer can build a bridge that stands, but it takes a very skilled engineer to build a bridge that barely stands, because that's what you want. Don't over-engineer it, don't waste resources, barely stands, right?
[10:26] So, women have to transmit culture based upon dominant beliefs that they can't productively, question, which is why women tend to be a little bit copy-paste, they tend to be a little bit hive-minded, they tend to be a little bit that way. We can get mad at it, but it is why we're all here, right? It is why we're all here.
[10:55] And what do, um, yeah, the team prayer before the Superbowl really captured God's attention more than the opposing team's player. Yeah. I good, you bad. I mean, that's a necessary delusion for survival throughout almost all of human history.
[11:20] All right, so women, men, in general, throughout history, men would develop culture and women would reproduce culture, right? I mean, you could say that the cook makes the meal and the women deliver it and both are essential right i mean if it's some takeout place there's no point making the meal if nobody's going to deliver it because that's how it gets to the customer but the person delivering it is not the person making it and the person making it so i think that men made culture as a whole and women delivered culture reproduce it to the next generation so that's what i've seen and again there's infinite numbers of exceptions, all right, why are people so obsessed with Keanu Reeves they seem to be fascinated by him for some reason online, okay I mean is this what people have noticed I mean I've seen a couple of memes about the guy, I've seen a couple of memes about the guy hit me with a why if you have seen or perhaps experienced against this obsession or focus or interest in Keanu Reeves.
[12:43] I'll wait for people to catch up because I know we've got a little bit of a delay. Is it just, uh, you've not seen it? Some people have not seen it. Yes, no, no. I mean, he's an unusual guy. He never had kids. I think one of his, uh, he had his, one of his girlfriends got pregnant, but the kid didn't make it. He dates a much older woman. He gives a lot of money to charity. Uh, and he seems, he's always struck me as a kind of empty guy, right? It's just my particular, I don't have any inside scope or scoop on Keanu Reeves, but He's never struck me as a particularly skilled actor, although he's a very hardworking actor. I mean, the stunts he does are amazing. And I don't know if you know the story about the Wachowski brothers.
[13:34] When they were making The Matrix, they wanted a particularly famous, I think it was a Hong Kong fight director or Chinese fight director. And he didn't want to do the job. So he just charged an absolutely insane amount. They decided to pay him. And then he said, okay, but I'm going to need four months of training because he just really didn't want to do the job. It was too polite to say no. so they said but i need the actors for four months straight to do the training and i need this ridiculous amount of money and they paid him this ridiculous amount of money and then they gave him the actors for four months and that's one of the reasons why the matrix was one of the greatest movies in my opinion ever made so yeah he's he's a he's a quirky guy right i mean does he smoke he smokes a little from time to time i think he's obviously a very hard-working actor uh he was he's good at comedy and he's i mean the uh early stuff he did i always remembered the movie parenthood which is a really good movie uh parenthood with uh keanu reeves of course.
[14:30] And oh gosh who else was in it um mary steenbergen was in it steve martin was in it uh it's a really good uh movie and uh he plays a race car driver who just crashes right out of the gate and first thinking did i win and uh he plays a guy not particularly smart who shakes his head the moment of deep thought comes into his head he shakes it off it's really well done so yeah he does good comedy of course bill and ted's um strange things are afoot at the circle k, he's a very funny guy shaggy hair and all of that the matrix of course was very well done and the The skill he has with physicality is quite amazing. I was thinking about this, like with the actors, they have something crazy, intense physical role and like Harrison Ford went from doing the Indiana Jones in the old age home to some movie where he plays a therapist and doesn't have to run or punch anyone.
[15:33] It must be kind of nice to go from the really intense physical roles to something that's just straight up acting like on stage. So I assume that they're interested in him. He doesn't seem to have much of a personality of his own and his choices are somewhat incomprehensible because of course, most people think, well, gee, if I was that rich and famous and successful and, you know, he's good looking when he's lean, I think most people have an idea what they would do with all that money and fame and he doesn't do it, right? He gives a lot of money to charity, sits around, eats stuff on a park bench, and, you know, there's this sort of sad Keanu Reeves thing.
[16:09] And, yeah, he's a little bit of an enigma, I suppose, to a lot of people. And enigmas, like, a lot of actors are really empty. I mean, trust me, man, I spent years around actors. I was in theater school for almost two years. I've spent a lot of time directed actors. I've been an actor and most actors are kind of empty they don't actually have their own personalities which is why you can shuffle in and out of various personalities they don't have an identity of their own any more than, an octopus has a color right octopus does not have a color octopus changes its color base right doesn't have a color and in the same way the more skilled the actor in particular who can slip in and out of various identities because they.
[16:57] They're not there, right? Like Chauncey Gartner style, they're just not there. Because if they were there, they couldn't morph into other people, right? They couldn't shape shift if they had a shape, right? Actors have personalities like water has a shape, right? You pour water into a cup, it takes the shape of a cup. You pour water into a bowl, that takes the shape of a bowl and actors have to pour themselves into other people. And you can't do that if you are yourself. I mean, I always felt this when I was an actor. I wanted to surrender myself to being someone else, but I couldn't very well because I was myself. So the more identity you have, the less you can pour yourself into other things, right? I mean, if you freeze water in the shape of a bowl you can't put it in a cup because it's not fluid anymore.
[17:56] That would be my guess. All right, let's get to your questions. Sorry, I've missed a lot of shows recently. Just wondering if you've talked about Trump pardoning Ross Ulbricht, or if not, what your thoughts are, hopefully not too political. No, I don't mind that in particular, and I appreciate you bringing up the question or the issue as a whole. But it's pretty wild when you look at the number of presidential pardons has been just absolutely completely and totally wild.
[18:34] Right. So here's, here's for example, right? President George W. Bush, of course, 2001 to 2009, they're counting past the election, right? Into the presidential elect. So George Bush did 200 pardons. Barack Obama, 2009 to 2017, 1,927, so like five times as many, right? Donald Trump, 237. Joe Biden, does anybody know? Ask you this, Joe Biden, how many pardons has Joe Biden issued? How many pardons has Joe Biden issued, right? George W. Bush, 200, Barack Obama, 1927, Donald Trump, 237. How many pardons has Joe Biden offered? Yeah, good for you, yeah. And the pardons go back to 2014. Well, sure, they have to go back to 2014 for some people because that's when the Ukrainian bio labs were put in there. So he's done a lot. He's done 8,064.
[19:51] Joe Biden has done 8,064 pardons. Joe Biden, who seems to have to have left and right printed on his socks and someone reading it out to him before he gets dressed in the morning. Joe Biden, you see, has apparently been able to review over 8,000 complex legal cases in order to provide pardons. I'm sorry I shouldn't laugh, but oh man, what can you say? I mean, this is, I think this is one of the main reasons why the Democrats are just kind of quiet these days, right?
[20:37] What could they say that absolutely nothing that's defensible about that, i'm sorry i shouldn't laugh absolutely nothing that's defensible about that, and of course people are mad that he's issued blanket pardons to a lot of the j6ers some of whom aren't being let out of prison and i would i would expect that some of the j6ers are not being let out of prison because they're in really rough shape they're in really rough shape and they just can't have these people crawling out of prison, uh, because it's just a pretty bad look as a whole, but some of the, some of the, um, Democrats are sort of mad about that, but I mean, the issue I think is not the J sixers or the pardon. I think the issue is that they were mostly show trials without any particular legal legal substance. So, yeah, it's just, it's a wild man, 8,000. And of course, you know, he's some people on death row, a lot of people on death row, right? Pretty rough.
[21:41] So, no, it's fine. As far as Russell, he's a Silk Road guy, right? I have not followed the case. I don't know much about the details of the case. So, but it was a campaign promise, right? Trump had a campaign. I think he made the promise to the libertarians, right? So Trump did make a campaign promise, and he kept his campaign promise, right? I mean, pulled out of the Paris Climate Accords, pulled out of the World Health Organization, just a lot of stuff really early on, right?
[22:14] Someone says, I'm in academia, and let me tell you, it's nuts right now. Yeah, I could see that coming, right? That tsunami of madness coming in when I was in academia in the 80s and 90s, early 90s. Bad scene.
[22:28] Why do so many young women seem to be so aimless and uncertain about where they want to go with their lives or what they want to do? I ask since I've noticed it in dating and my current girlfriend's friends all seem to be that way. I'm a bit concerned about it.
[22:46] Most people don't have a clue what they want to do with their life. Most people don't have even the tiniest clue what they want to do with their life. But let's put this to the test. Let's put this to the test. Okay. What percentage of the people you've known in your life have a central, yearning, burning passion that they want to achieve and that they throw themselves into and they want to achieve it. Not because it's a practical thing to do or because it'll make some money or it's a decent career or something like that. What people have, a yearning burning, excuse me, that they really care about that they want to achieve. Tell me, what percentage? I, phew, um i've maybe known, maybe maybe one or two over the course of my life maybe one or two and i've known a lot of people man maybe one or two like a real yearning burning not they have a particular skill and they're okay at it and they'll make money at it and they kind of enjoy their work but just like gotta have it gotta have it make sacrifices.
[24:13] But I tell you, in general, there's no more soul-sucking conversation than trying to talk someone into having a purpose in life. Purpose in life? I don't have a purpose in life. I'm in my late 20s, I'm in my early 30s, I really don't know what I want to do with my life, I just know that I ain't doing much. Oh, God. Oh, God. Those questions are quicksand, slithery, tentacle around the nuts, hole with no bottom, drain you like a vampire. Thanks, but no thanks. Peace out. Don't do it. I don't get involved in those. Oh, oh, don't know what you want to do with your life? You're kind of aimless. Yeah, that sucks. I mean, that sucks. So when you say, well, what about all of these young women? Young women, they don't seem to have much aimless, uncertain, where are they going to go? What are they going to do? I mean, how many young people do you know, right? How many young people do you know who want to do anything in particular?
[25:26] I mean, maybe you've got some kid who's like, yeah, I want to be a lawyer. It's like, okay, are you reading? Do you read about the law in your spare time? Do you watch legal movies and analyze them? Are you in contact with lawyers? Do you want to be mentored? Like, do you care? Do you care? I remember once at a karaoke bar. There's a karaoke bar that I used to go to many, many moons ago. And uh there was a the the karaoke host the woman the guy who did the karaoke he could play guitar he could sing and uh all of that he did a really good version of uh the thrill is gone it's all bb king song i think it's pre-bb king but he's the one who made it famous, and i just remember my friends and i and one night this guy came over he's like hey man i got this rock opera it's been sitting in my drawer for years and you know what do you want to do something but it's like never gonna happen, it's a rock opera about spaceman and it's like never gonna happen, never gonna happen.
[26:34] I mean, it's fine that he wrote a space opera, but most people, they just talk about what they want to do. And it's really soul-sucking. It's really soul-sucking. So for me, I wanted to write books, so I just sat down and write books. I wanted to be an actor, so I auditioned and went to theater school, then found out I didn't want to be an actor because i have too much personality you know i wanted to produce a play i didn't just hope that somebody came across it on my in my drawer somewhere i i i auditioned people and i spent the money and i made a play and it was a high risk thing man it was a high risk play for me to do because i put all of my earnings into that play and if it hadn't made any money then i would have not been able to go back to university a very very high risk very high risk situation fortunately it did make money but that's because I made it make money, like I made it make money.
[27:43] Which means I went to the Ticketmaster equivalent back in the day and just handed out flyers and told people about how great the play was and I just walked up and down the street and handed out you gotta come to this play that's what I did, you just make it succeed you just make it succeed and then i found out that i did enjoy uh the theater world but not enough uh to do it so then i'm like go do business i was like in programming like business right so i went and did that and just make it happen make it work because i'll outwork just about anybody honestly this is just my thing like there are people who i don't know better at me at certain things but it won't help work me as a whole right i mean just look at the last couple of years right.
[28:34] The last couple of years, right? Like a thousand shows, three books, three entire books about the future, the present, and peaceful parenting. I mean, people can do a lot, but they can't outbook me for the most part, right? For the most part. so, I just don't have any particular interest in people who, don't seem to want to know don't seem to know what they want to do it's like well then you're just kind of here to reproduce and provide support to people who know what the hell they want to do there's nothing wrong with that, but if you're not graced with or can't find any particular big passion, than just grow food and carry water for the passionate. That's what your job is. You're the road, not the car.
[29:34] There's nothing wrong with it. I do it in various things, right? I care a lot more about music than I have any kind of musical talent or ability. So I buy music and I praise music and I help the musicians with buying their stuff. It's one of the reasons why, you know, we Gen X is a really bitter man, really bitter. Why? Why? Because we had to buy the 45 and then we had to roll the dice on the album. We bought it on vinyl and it got scratched because we had shitty ShopRite record players. And then we had to buy it again on CDs. And some of us even bought the DVDs of the audio. And then, and then we had to do MP3s. And then we had to burn the CDs and pay all of that. And now we have to pay every month for a subscription service. It's like we paid 19,000 times for the same 12 songs. It'll have to drive you mad. But the important thing is that the amoral people in charge of the music industry make a lot of money. And I think that's just got to be about enough for everyone, for everyone.
[30:39] So most people don't know what they want to do with their life. Now it's either because they just prefer complaining about things. But to me, it's like, you know, if you want to, if you want to do something, I don't know why, like, you can just do things like, you know, that meme, like you can literally just do things. If you want to produce a play, you can just produce a play. Right. Right. If I wanted to make a short movie, uh, and I made a short movie, you can just do things.
[31:11] I wanted to work in the software field. So I co-founded a software company and it's still running like 35, almost 40 years later. Right. So you can, you can just do things. You know, I wanted to, uh, I wanted to do a philosophy podcast. You can just do things.
[31:32] I mean, if people took one-tenth of the energy that they spend complaining about not achieving their goals and actually put it into achieving their goals, this wealth would be paradise. People would rather be perceived as ambitious than do the hard work to actually succeed. Because success is blindingly hard work. I happen to have a big capacity for work, and I generally enjoy work. So for me, it's not some big, oh God, I have to do this, I have to do that, I have to do the other. is like, okay, I'll do this, that, and the other.
[32:05] So the people who, even if they, you know, I had a friend when I was in my teens, super talented, like, honestly, talented in a lot of different ways. A good singer, a good, he played instruments and so on. And I'm like, so write songs and make it happen. Oh, well, you know, there's these barriers. They say, yes, but still people make it. People still do it. and i just remember saying like just do like when i wrote uh revolutions i remember i wrote revolutions um in i had a year and a half just out of money and i needed to work so for about a year and a half between undergraduate and graduate i did i worked i worked in the business world and i also wrote my first novel first real novel revolutions i'd written one and a half or almost two before that so i wrote my first real novel revolutions and then when i went to do my masters people were like hey what were you doing over the last little while it's like well i worked and i wrote a book oh my god you wrote a book like you finished it yeah i finished it you just do it till it's done it can be really frustrating and tough and just like floundering your way forward but you just keep doing it till it's done.
[33:18] And people were like, oh man, I've always wanted to write a book. I do not understand that. My mom was one of these people. She had a book in her head, one woman's century. It was going to be the story of her life. I wish she had written it. I really do. But it probably would have been too horrifying about what the Russian soldiers did to her, what was done to all the Germans, the German females from eight to 80 after the Second World War. But, you know, especially people who aren't particularly busy, it drives me crazy. My mom has not had a job. Gosh my mom has not had a job since i was in my mid-teens, 40 years she's not had a job, and uh and yet she's never written the book i don't understand i don't understand.
[34:04] I don't understand, you can just do stuff you want to write a song you can just write a song, i tried writing songs and got i was in a garage band wrote some songs and recorded them and with some guy who had an eight track recorder and so on i'm like it's okay it's nice not particularly for me but you can just do things i don't i don't know why people want to do things i genuinely i'm no clue especially now right i mean i could understand back in the 80s you know kind of tough but you know there were new bands all the time right you just write songs you get keep people who can play the instruments and you just go and play you just go and play you know when i worked up north there were these bands that would tour up north i remember there was one woman who complained she was a singer and she had a really high sort of squeaky voice and she basically said like i'm smurfette with a perm uh how she sounds right so you just you just go and.
[35:14] You just go and play songs you just go you just go do it i do not understand people with all of the modern accoutrement and opportunities and so on i have no idea why people talk about doing stuff, i don't understand oh man i've always wanted to write a book.
[35:35] So, like, I've always wanted to. I don't understand. I don't understand. I don't understand. I wanted a big thesis, a big meaty thesis. And I had to work really hard to get a thesis advisor who was willing to let me do a big meaty thesis. Because everybody wanted to have some tiny niche specialty that nobody could question them on. And they're like, I'm right. Because nobody cares. I didn't want that. I wanted a big meaty thesis, which is why I did four major philosophers and a giant thesis about the relationship between mysticism and tyranny. You can just do things. Now, sometimes they won't work, sure.
[36:15] But I've never understood that people say, well, I want to write a book. I want to write a book. Well, everybody knows that people haven't written the book because they're afraid of failure. But what's the worst case scenario with failure? You don't get a viable book or whatever. Nobody cares. You can't sell it or whatever, right? Well, you've gained a lot of skills writing the book. You've got the pride of having written a book. The discipline to have finished it, you can say, I wrote a book. You can say that in interviews. Maybe that helps you in an interview. You've got the discipline to write a book. But let's say you end up with a book that doesn't go anywhere. You don't have a viable book. But if you don't write the book, you don't have a viable book either. like all trying improves your odds of success even anything any kind of trying because if you don't try you have 100% failure and let's say you have a 95% failure if you try you're up infinitely higher right you're not you're up from 0% to 5% is not a 5% increase it's infinitely higher, it's infinitely higher.
[37:26] In the same way that zero meals a day and one meal of the day are the difference between life and death. Zero to anything is infinitely higher. Zero to anything is infinitely higher. So you are going to fail forever if you don't even try. And if you don't try, it doesn't matter fundamentally whether it works or not. What matters is that you try and complete it.
[37:58] Uh denisa says my boss came into the lab today and told me to check our funding because all dei funding is frozen right now meaning any grants under diversity supplements or anything are cut right now which is wild i figured they would not renew but to cut it outright is definitely a statement lol yeah i mean the west was refashioned in the 1960s, when it went from a meritocracy, equality of opportunity, to a politocracy, a pullocracy, the aristocracy of pull, which went to equality of outcome. So the West, as it was conceived of and ran for ever and ever, and thousands of years, was subverted and replaced in the 1960s when equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity, became the law of the land. America has not been America for decades, at least relative to its original vision.
[39:04] All right. Sometimes I have a hard time having said passion in my own life. It's been rapidly growing, however.
[39:17] I'm 28 and I've always had a drive to just do random cool things, honestly. What the hell are random cool things? I don't know what that means. I'd say most people, thanks, Denise, I'd say most people don't know what it means to get what they want. Even if they get too successful, they have a buyer's remorse because they didn't know what it meant to be what they said they wanted to be. Oh yeah it's just like a lot of the youtubers i'm burnt out man of this big argument about whether live streaming is hard work or not well nothing's hard work if you prepare enough i was preparing for live streaming for decades before.
[40:00] The younger generation varies. Honestly, it varies depending on urban, suburban, rural. Back up, back up, everyone. Giant brain has entered the chat. Giant brain has entered the chat by saying about a general statement, it doesn't apply to everyone. Low back wow a general statement doesn't apply to everyone there are variations, wow just a moment i'm gonna have to start the whole show again and i don't mean just this show, i have to go back to show one erase everything start again because it has never occurred to me that a generalized statement might vary depending on urban, suburban, and rural.
[41:01] It's rare someone actually goes all in on a goal. Well, I'll tell you this, bros, brothers and sisters, you know who's going to go all in on a goal in your life? Do you know who's going to go all in on a goal? Death killing you. Death killing you. Death will go all in. Death will go all in and wipe you the fuck out. No compromises, no coming back. You're going to be dead. And you're going to have a long time before you're dead where you can't really do much of anything. Right? Most people, you know, could I go and be a doctor right now? I don't know, seems unlikely Seems pretty unlikely It wouldn't be sensible for society to train me To be a doctor And I still have, at least, I hope On average, like another 25 years to live, but certainly starting in your 60s, late 50s, it's pretty tough to start anything new because you're old and your productive lifespan is pretty diminished. You have a very short amount of time to really go into things because death is going to come, sand down your opportunities and then wipe you the fuck out. Death is all in on erasing you from existence. I don't know, why would you want to be less all in than death?
[42:31] I saw her today at the reception all right in my profession you become a researcher and realize it's 95 grant writing and not doing research i think many times you don't know what it means to be the thing you say you want to be yeah i've talked to people who are scientists which means pathological liars for government money not talking about you but in general, could always just keep your vinyls and be an old hipster dude, make the days count don't count the days that's a deepity you should count the days, you should absolutely count the days you ever go to that calculator you enter in your facts it tells you how much time you've got left in life on average i hate the i've always wanted two people. Yeah. So here's the problem. Here's the problem. Because most people don't hit any gas on their particular dreams, because they don't do that. If you do, you'll leave them behind. Right? If people are walking and you want to drive, you're going to have to meet them there and they're probably not going to show up. There being, of course, success, right?
[43:55] So if you're actually someone who gets shit done which is if you're actually contributing to civilization right if you're actually someone who gets shit done, you can't stand being around the props and deadbeats and parasites who just wait on other people to get things done so that they can cash in right, I don't know. I've never read Atomic Habits. I'm not sure that a lot of people have much to tell me about having better habits. All right. Somebody says, it's remarkable how many people are just content with their jobs and don't care to introspect, pick up a book, learn a new topic. Well, that's because if they do that, oh, you just think you're so much better than us. You're just going to get the horizontal resentment that keeps everyone down, right?
[44:53] I bake sourdough. So many people, when I tell them I do that, exclaim they've always wanted to. So I'm like, bet, I'll give you a starter. They hesitantly accept, and they never actually use it or make bread like, hmm, okay. Yeah, people just say stuff. I mean, it's like all the people who say, oh, I've always wanted to write a book. It's like, no, you haven't. Most people are just saying stuff. They don't have any particular personality. They don't have thoughts of their own. They haven't reason through anything they're not knowledgeable about much of anything they're just saying stuff oh i read this i thought it was kind of cool so i'll regurgitate it here i mean they're just people just say stuff i'm right because nobody cares and you're the road not the car damn stuff you're hurting me tonight sorry but hopefully it's a a good kind of hurt like surgery or a band-aid coming off the more someone talks about doing something the less likely they are to do it yeah.
[45:55] It's good do you feel like you're a bit contrarian i don't know what that means, i assume that just about everything that everybody says is bullshit i mean that's just this i mean that's not even a theory for me i've lived long enough and i've strode the world in, giant chariots of pure philosophy so sorry streeting striding in giant chariots i've driven giant flaming chariots of pure philosophy across the sky greek god style and most people don't know what they're talking about and don't care it's not that they it's not dunning kruger they just don't even care so contrarian i don't know what contrarian means the world has proven to me that it doesn't know what it's talking about and lies about virtue rather than trying to be virtuous, so i don't know what contrarian means uh uh it discusses three layers of changes, oh the atomic habits three layers of changes and goal-oriented changes are the least likely to stick the most sticky level is a change in identity there's a difference between refusing a cigarette by saying no thank you i'm trying to stop smoking and no thank you i'm not someone who smokes so i bring this up because you trying to do more things and realizing the benefit of it, might not be hacking the tree at the root.
[47:11] But that's just gaslighting yourself, no thank you i'm not someone who smokes i mean you know like when bad things happen to you in life and you're like but i'm sure it's for the best somehow and i don't have a huge issue with that but it is kind of gaslighting yourself right so if you just if you just speak to yourself in this way man it'll be fine it's like.
[47:41] Stef, your poem about death as a thief is one of my favorites I've ever heard. Yeah, and it just came about kind of by accident. It just came about. Farewell, Father. It's a great poem. You can do a search for it at fdrpodcast.com. Farewell, Father. A friend of mine's father died, and she didn't even ask me for it, but I said, here, I'll write something you can read at the funeral. Does Stef look at this chat? No. Why do you think you have great influence on your viewers? i'm not sure what you mean why do you think you have great influence on your viewers, i'm just making arguments right i mean if the arguments resonate and are acceptable as true by people who can't disprove them it's the truth that has an effect on my listeners not not me, right so why do you think you have great influence on your viewers is misunderstanding what i'm doing in a really foundational and probably not accidental way right i mean this is this is the year of being blunt, right? So I don't have any influence on anyone. I make arguments.
[48:48] And people accept the validity of those arguments or not, but it's the arguments and the truth that has great influence on your viewers, right? So let's say that I'm, I mean, I'll make it real simple, right? So let's say I'm your math tutor, right? You're not very good at math and I'm your math tutor right and i teach you vector calculus quadratic equations functions and relations or whatever or make it even more simple let's say you've been raised by wolves and i teach you math and i say two and two make four two and two make four get you two coconuts two coconuts oh one two three four four coconuts so two and two make four right.
[49:31] Would it make any sense to say, Stef, why do you have so much influence on your students? I don't have influence on my students. Reality, facts, evidence, logic, that has influence on people willing to accept those things. I don't have any influence on my viewers. I'm telling them things that are true. Hopefully the truth has some influence on them, but it's not me. Right so if i teach you then two and two make four am i imposing something of mine on you no, two and two make four that's a fact it's the fact that has an influence on you not me as a teacher, you know the world is a sphere and here's how we know and sticks in alexandria and rome and the shadows of his we know yeah okay wow you've really influenced me it's like no i haven't i'm simply delivering the facts the facts that influence you uh gosh i love your energy at the end of a long day Stef it's remarkable how i go from being kind of sluggish to just fired up i know i'm not the only one just wanted to voice it thank you my friend i appreciate that i'm late again oh sorry about that um hopefully you're not a broken typewriter and missing a period might want to get a pregnancy test because could be this month could be this month.
[51:00] All right.
[51:08] And this introspection stuff i mean introspection is good that there's there's value in it and for sure but it's real easy to fall into a pit of yourself right the purpose of introspection is to get shit done in the world, not to understand the ever-changing, quicksilver of your own soul. You will never understand yourself because everything you understand about yourself changes yourself. Trying to understand yourself is impossible. Now, I'm not saying that there's not different degrees of understanding, for sure, but trying to understand yourself is like trying to paint a cloud. Cloud keeps changing.
[51:53] Except that you painting the cloud changes the cloud, right? It's like trying to understand a painting that you're painting. Well, every time you put paint on it, you've changed it. So what's, you know, the purpose of introspection is to achieve practical things in the real world that do good in the world. That is the purpose of introspection. The purpose of knowing how to run a car is not to know how to run a car, but to have the car take you from A to B. Right? The purpose of surgery is to restore you to a state of health. It is not to cut you open. And the purpose of introspection is practical action in the real world. If your car won't start, you get it fixed so that you can drive places again. And if there's something going wrong in your life, you get it fixed so you can get shit and gear in motion again.
[53:02] So, be careful about falling into yourself and becoming fascinated by yourself. You will never understand yourself because every new insight that you get about yourself changes yourself. The purpose of life is not to look inward at the ever-changing landscape. Like, you know, when you close your eyes, I close my eyes right now, I've got these lights coming in, right? You close your eyes and you get that vague blue and orange Mobius strip of shifting stuff, right? That's never going to change. Oh, I freeze that. I want to know that. I want to, nope, it's constantly changing.
[53:45] All right. So, yeah, just thinking, well, the way that you achieve things is to just gaslight yourself with this one weird trick baffles doctors, you know. Do you think that Elon Musk, say, was just like not a productive and hardworking guy, but then he read some book and it totally broke him out of his. No, the guy was like at the age of, what, 10 or 12 or whatever. He did Blastar. He did this like crazy complicated game that was printed by a magazine. I was learning computers. I was writing short stories at the age of six, and I was learning how to program computers when I was 11. I would, like, literally carry a giant pet computer with 2K of RAM home for the weekend so that I could learn more about how to program.
[54:34] You know, there was an old saying in the business world when I was in the business world, probably still a saying, if you want something done, if you want something done, give it to the busy person. Because there's this tendency to say, ah, this guy's too busy. I'm going to give it to someone else. But the reason he's busy is he gets shit done. So if you want something done, it's kind of counterintuitive, right? If you want something done, give it to the busy person. It's very true. It's very true.
[55:06] Power of positive thinking channel, good things, don't you dare challenge child abuse. Our natural state is to get things done. If you've been around kids when they're growing, the natural state is to get things done. You know, kids learn how to roll over, they learn how to roll and catch, they learn how to walk, they learn how to run, they learn how to ride a bike, they learn how to, like, just to get things done. They're not introspecting, saying, oh my God, what's my block, and how do I rearrange, how do I gaslight myself so that I want to learn how to ask for candy? I just get things done. That's how we're born. And it takes a lot of work to turn people introspective to the point where they can't get things done. Well, I'm getting things done by understanding myself, man. Like that's a psyop, right? It's a way of taking you out of the game so that evil people can take over. To say, well, you have to have all your ducks in a row and you have to really understand yourself and you have to really, what's your block? And what about this? And it's a way of just avoiding the game so that the bad people can win.
[56:09] All right. So Chris says, there are plenty of non-producers where I work. They often try to hook on like dead weight. Navigating around them can be quite tiresome. Well, they're not non-producers. They are consumers, right? They consume. Consume. There's nobody who's neutral. You're either producing or consuming, right? It's like the Jordan Peterson books. He has the opposite of the life I want. Why would I read his book telling me how to live? of my life.
[56:40] Yeah, I mean, occasionally I'll see him pop up on Twitter, and it's just a bunch of DVDs now. I'd say he's become like this half koan, and it's like something you'd expect to come out of a fortune cookie. All right.
[57:02] Stef, how is your experience with us viewers overall? How can we do better? How can we do better? You know, that's actually the first time in 20 years that anyone's asked that. So I really do appreciate that question.
[57:20] So I would just give this as a general life advice. Is in life, pause and really check that you're adding value before you say something. I try to avoid obvious things. I try to avoid cliches. And I try to liberate you to pursue and achieve practical things in the real world. That's sort of my goal as a whole. So you'll sometimes see me pause because I'm like, okay, I've got this obvious stuff in my head but i don't want to insult you by saying obvious stuff right like the guy who was saying like but it depends on you know really different circumstances can produce really different results it's like yes a bird is not a fish got it birds don't have gills and fish don't have wings so i get it so pause and work hard to make sure you're adding value which means don't say obvious things as if they're deep. Like, imagine if you were going to a physics conference, imagine how much work you would have to do to actually add value at a physics conference.
[58:39] So I try to have every sentence that comes out of my mouth be of value and not obvious in one way or another. So in general, in life, just make sure you add value. I mean, we've all been in those meetings where someone's talking for the sake of talking or he loves the smell of his own farts, he gets high on his own supply, he loves the sound of his own voice. So people who talk for the sake of talking rather than out of a genuine, deep and empathetic desire to add value to people, well, those people are kind of tiresome. Is your communication about you or about value you can add to someone else based upon your knowledge of what they know. All right, your cutting sense of humor is so disarming. Now here comes a gun joke. Jay Dyer. Yeah, I did that debate way back in the day, right? It's still there, yeah. FreeDomain.com slash podcasts or FDRpodcasts.com. Just do a search for D-Y-E-R.
[59:55] All right. reminds me of a lot of modern therapists constantly trying to get you to introspect rather than taking actionable steps to get better. Yeah. Yeah. Listen, and introspection is fine. Introspection is how you discover your barriers. And then the purpose of discovering your barriers is to overcome them. Right. I mean, if you want to win a running race and you don't want to train, then you can introspect to find out what your barrier is. And you say, oh, it's because I had a really mean coach when I was a kid who used to force me to train. I've got a resistance to it. But it's like, okay, now you know that you're responsible for doing it. I mean, we may have had a couple of calls, possibly, potentially. We may have had a couple of calls over the years of people who have listened to the show for 10 years and not taken one piece of advice. The purpose of listening to the show is to make positive practical decisions and act in your own life.
[1:00:59] Uh, Denise says, uh, I was thinking of, uh, Danica Patrick now she dropped out of high school. I think. Okay. I read that it's an IQ thing. Actually, it really ticks people off when you say cliched things, if they're emotionally intelligent or otherwise intelligent, for example, working at the grocery store and the barcode doesn't scan, you can bet that someone says, if it doesn't scan, it's free. Right. Or somebody who says extra points for hitting pedestrians in a car, you know, like bonus points or something like that. Like some absolute cliche thing. It's just input-output. It's MPC talk, right?
[1:01:44] I understand what you're saying, Stef. I'll think more before I speak. Sometimes what I say is actually for me, not others. You're right. Right. People who use word soundness to try to sound smart yes that has always bothered me that has always bothered me it's like a doctor saying well here's the thing i know exactly i know exactly, what the cure is for your you think you're going to die your fatal illness the cure is levicticus maximus von burlow head right it just goes into some latin esperanto klingon mix right and it's like no no can you no it's a fantajmo ole fatang fatang biscuit barrel head bonus beforeton okay i got one word in there and and so if you're trying to give people something that is important and necessary for their health and happiness and all of that how about you make it comprehensible, to the general population. You know, how about you make it comprehensible to the general population? That's all. That's all. It's all that needs to be done. Right?
[1:03:05] So, if you claim to be somebody who has knowledge and value about the human condition, then how about, you know, just as a radical experiment, how about you tell people about your wisdom in a way that they can act on to make their lives better, right? So, one of the big things that I have focused on, lo, these many decades, is stop lying. Stop lying. and in particular stop lying by omission, right? So if you're in a relationship, you've got corrupt family of origin, whatever, and if you hang around them, but you never talk about what's important to you, you never share your thoughts and your feelings, you never discuss problems that you have with them, then you're lying by omission.
[1:03:55] You're lying by omission. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Don't pretend to be in a relationship where you hide continually. Don't pretend it's a relationship if you can't tell the fucking truth. Now, that's not overly complicated, is it? Don't pretend it's a relationship if you are continually lying in people's presence, right? I mean, if you're a husband and you're currently having an affair, can you be close to your wife? Well, no, because you have to lie all the time, right? We know that lying, is bad for relationships. So if you're hanging out with, let's say your mother abused you and was terrible to you, let's say that. Your mother abused you, she was terrible to you, and then you just keep hanging out with her and you never say anything about what's on your mind. Just tell the truth.
[1:04:58] Just tell the truth. That's not super complicated, is it? Or if you're not going to tell the truth, at least accept that you're lying. That's all. Don't lie to yourself about lying. Don't lie to yourself about lying. That's all. Tell the truth, or at least don't lie to yourself about having to lie or choosing to lie. That's all. And also, stop trying to figure out your family and look at your family from outside. Because outside your family is where your future is. That's where your future is. Inside your family is the past, right? Your parents met each other, got married, had kids, raised the kids badly or well or whatever, right? That's all the past. Your future is outside the family. So if you're only looking at your family from inside, You never grow up because when you're a kid, everything came from within the family. So you had to focus on the family, right?
[1:06:10] So people are like, well, my mom did this, and my father did this, and my aunt did this, and my uncle did this, and my brother did this. That's all the past. All of that is the past, and it was all unchosen. You need to look outside your family as if you don't know them because that's where your future comes. Because your future comes from a man or a woman who, apparently that's legal to say now, a man or a woman, comes to you from outside your family, assuming you're not in the Middle East or Pakistan, a man or a woman comes to you from outside of your family and has to decide with no history if they want to join your family. So what is it I've said for decades? Well, if your parents were, you met them at some dinner party, would you want to see them again? Would you ever want to see them again? And if the answer is no, then people outside your family who've got any real moral qualities are not going to want to spend time with your family of origin. They're not. They're not. They're not going to want to.
[1:07:34] Men marry women, women marry families. So you need to see your family from outside because your future is coming in from outside and you need to see what they see so you can empathize with them. I mean, I can't tell you, when I look back, dodged bullets, my God, I got to tell you, brutally close, brutally close. If I had chosen, let's just take my mom. Let's say that I had chosen to stick it out with good old mom, right? Mommy dearest, right? Let's say I had chosen to stick it out with mom. Well, I would not have gotten married. At least not to anyone as great as my wife. And I would have given up that future for the sake of what? hanging around some, decaying ghoul of bottomless corruption. Bad call, man. That's a bad call. Like a friend of mine who never veered out into the dating market. Did go to a bunch of D&D conventions but never quite veered out into the dating market. And he would go to his mom and she'd make him hamburger hell, but oh, come on down. He'd go to his mom's place, go to his mom's place, and then she died.
[1:08:58] Died gone baby gone.
[1:09:06] And now what's he got well he got some free meals and now his heart starves till he's dead.
[1:09:19] So all of the stuff that's like, you got to fix your family, you got to work on your family, you got to focus on your family. Nope. Because your family is not your future. Outside your family, independent of your family and judging your family, judging your family aligns with the values of a quality person coming into your life, especially a girlfriend or a boyfriend. They're going to come into your life and they're going to judge your family objectively.
[1:09:52] If all you do is focus on your connection with your family, your history with your family, you are not going to be able to empathize with someone coming in from outside your family. Because it's all of you from inside, and it is hanging on to the past, which is dying. You understand? Your parents are dying. Your parents are dying your children have yet to be born to align yourself with your parents at the expense of your future is to choose death over life decay over growth failure over birth, it is to choose a cemetery over a kicking crib Bye. It is to choose lowering into the earth rather than hurling into the sky. It is to choose wrinkles over rosy cheeks. It is to choose that whose choices are passed over those whose choices are yet to begin.
[1:11:19] And that regret of avoidance of taking that which is familiar rather than that which is new is the fundamental question. Everybody, oh, sexual market value, sexual market value. Okay, let's talk about sexual market value. It's the most fundamental question you need to ask about dating. Most fundamental question. And I would appreciate some tips. I know I'm spitting straight fire here, but this is going to blow your mind because this is an encapsulation of what I've been doing for 20 years. Do my parents add to my sexual market value? That's the brutal, hard, deep, powerful, and essential question you must ask yourself. Do my parents, does my family of origin add to my sexual market value? Now, by sexual market value, I'm not just talking about sex, of course, right? I'm talking about dating, engagement, marriage, children, and so on. Do my parents add to my sexual market value?
[1:12:28] Are they a plus or a minus for quality people? Because if they add to your dating market value for trashy people, you're just dicing with death. Do your parents add to your sexual market value? In other words, are your parents someone, are your parents people that other strangers with no history and no ties and no bonds, are your parents people that a virtuous stranger would be thrilled to know?
[1:13:14] Seriously. You got to ask that question. You have to ask this question. and it has concentric rings, concentric rings. Do my parents add value to a quality person with no history with them? Do my parents add value to a quality person, a moral person, who has no history with them? Do my parents add value other than accidental history and unchosen bonds, right, are they government workers or are they in the free market.
[1:14:18] That's the first question. Second question. What about my extended family? What about my siblings? Do my brothers and or sisters add value to my sexual market value? Do they? Do they treat you with good humor, with respect? Are they wise? Do they care? Would they be great aunts and uncles? If you're a man, do your siblings add value for you in the dating market? Would your siblings, because your siblings are going to be around longer than your parents in your life, right? So let's say you're 25. Let's say you've got siblings in the 20s. Well, your parents are 25. your parents are probably 55 or whatever so they've got another 30 years siblings have another 60 years siblings will be around twice as long as the parents, so you say okay if I met my siblings I didn't end a party and didn't know anything about them would I want to see them again.
[1:15:39] That's your date people that's your girlfriend your fiance say. That's how they see it. Because that's what it is for them. If you had no history, do they add value? No history. No unity. No, well, we grew up together. No, well, they've been around forever. No habit. No nothing. Can you empathize with people who don't already empathize with your parents? Do your parents siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, are they people that other people of quality with no history will be happy to know do you follow shit I've had this on my desktop for like a month to talk about.
[1:16:38] People are going to come into your life with no history with the people you are bound with and to that you never chose. Doesn't mean they don't have value. But they're coming in blind with no history. None. Are the people in your life a genuine plus to the people who've never had those people in their lives?
[1:17:17] Super deep, important question. What about your friends? Some quality, moral, wonderful woman comes into your life. She sees your family of origin, your parents, your siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, and your friends. Are they a plus and a bonus for someone to get to know who has no history? Have you held on to those friendships long past their expiration dates? Well, you know, we hung out a lot when we were teenagers and didn't really have any choice. We kind of came up together. Okay. Have you hung on to it too long? has it become a ceiling or a cap, if you become more successful do your friends become more resentful, are they growing with you are they challenging you do you inspire each other to greatness to better, because if you're listening to this message man greatness is circling you, like an angelic vulture.
[1:18:42] You have the potential that's why you're listening you have the potential that's why you're listening are you being held back by a history you never chose can you see your life from the outside, because if you can't see your life from the outside you cannot empathize with someone who comes into your life you must see your life from the outside and that's what philosophy does is it gives you objective moral standards by which to judge people, because they're going to be judged with no history. Philosophy doesn't care that she's your mom. Philosophy doesn't care that he's your dad. It cares about the morality of the behavior.
[1:19:32] Your family is going to be judged by people coming into your life with no excuses from history. No excuses of growing up together. They are going to be judged objectively. So philosophy in having you judge your family has you empathize with people coming in from the outside and how they're going to view your family. And if your family is great, wonderful. If your family has conformed with UPB, peaceful parenting, good morals, good values, or reasonable facsimiles, and the goal there too. Wonderful. Then people coming into your family are going to look and going to see, wow, what a plus. Great stuff. Beautiful. Can't wait for them to be grandparents to my kids. They've got really good advice. They really care about this person that I love. Because if you're going to ask someone to love you and you hang around with people who've hurt you, you're asking them to be a masochist, which they will not do.
[1:20:45] They won't. They'll leave. And they should. If you're going to say to someone, you got to love me and you got to love me. And now let's go hang around with my family that puts me down and insults me and ignores me. Love me, love my family. Well, you can't love people and love those who've done them the most harm. You can't do it. In fact, you're going to kind of hate the people who've done them the most harm. Imagine there's some guy at a bar who beats the shit out of your girlfriend, and then someone says, well, you've got to love your girlfriend and you've got to love the guy who beat the shit out of her. You all got to become best friends. That makes no sense. You can't love people and love those who've done them the most harm. You can't. It's not even remotely possible. So if you're going to ask to be loved, and then you're going to spend time with people who mistreat you and demand the other person integrate with the people who mistreat you, you're saying, hey, you know, me, the person you love, I also want you to watch me get hurt, neglected ignored and abused and put down and insulted doesn't that sound great.
[1:22:05] I want you to love the painting i made and then i want you to love the people who pee on it and dissolve it, I want you to love the statue I made, and I want you to also love this beautiful statue. I want you to love the people who take a baseball bat to it and smash it to bits. I want you to love health and disease equally. I want you to love truth and lies equally. I want you to love virtue and cowardice equally, honesty and deception, directness and manipulation. I want you to love all of these things equally that is demanding that they not exist. Embrace a contradiction and love opposites is to say don't exist don't have thoughts just obey and be a slave to the whim of the moment, love me also love the people who hate me, love me love wikipedia.
[1:23:20] When you choose the people who are around you you choose everyone else who will want to be around you, when you choose the people who are around you you choose everyone else who might want to be around you, when I was in touch with my family I could not have quality people around me. They sympathized, they cared, but they could not stay. I chose a decaying past over a fertile future. I was dangerously close to getting sucked into an endless underworld graveyard, rather than kicking myself free and striking out. for a gasping sunlit oxygenated surface.
[1:24:26] Kayla says, Ugh, this is the pep talk I needed. It's really the wake up I needed to leave a few family members behind. Get them good or get them gone. To be without my wife and my daughter and my friends for the sake of hanging around my decaying, dying mother. That is worse than slavery. I don't think I'd want to get out of bed.
[1:25:07] This is honestly incredible. I love this speech. Are your parents an asset for you in the dating market? All that is not an outright asset is absolutely expendable. Don't you get it? You know, it's the funny thing about libertarians, objectivists, anarcho-capitalists. We are all into meritocracy, man. Meritocracy. We should judge people according to the merits. Not by any other standard. No DEI for us. It's a meritocracy. Oh, except for my family and my history and my friendships and all of that. No, no, no, that's DEI all the way, baby. That's history, that's clogged up proximity, that's unchosen, blah, blah, blah. The meritocracy. Meritocracy, baby. Except for all of my personal relationships.
[1:26:21] Okay, are you into a meritocracy? or not? Are you into a meritocracy or not? Do you care about quality or unchosen history? Do you think that people should be hired based on race? I don't. I think people should be hired on quality. Do you think people should be hired on sex? I don't. I think people should be hired on quality. Because sex and race are unchosen and there's no individual to whom sex or race determines quality. Ah, you see? Meritocracy trumps the unchosen. The quality of your future partners trumps the unchosen history of your family. If there's a conflict, if there's a contradiction, if there isn't fantastic.
[1:27:31] Are you a denizen of the free market, or a slave to unchosen historical accidents?
[1:27:47] Are your relationships, of independent value to objective people, with no history? with your family and friends. When you come in from the outside is what you have to offer, not as an individual, but as an entire social array. When somebody comes in from outside and they scan and evaluate all of your relationships, do they want to be part of that? Are they eager and thrilled? Now, of course, this is other people coming in. Because here's the funny thing, right? Okay, hit me with a Y. I'm going to put one in here right now. Hit me with a Y. If you've dated someone and you're like, man, their family is crazy, man. Their family is really negative. I like her, but man, the family, oof, not so much, right? Hit me with a Y. If you've dated someone while not particularly liking their family and or friends. Steve got a yes. Jared got a yes. You gal got a yes. Yeah. We have, right?
[1:29:09] Yes. James. Yes. Chris. Yeah. Yeah.
[1:29:19] Now, if the price of dating that person was to get married and to spend the next 60 years with their dysfunctional family and friends and siblings, would that be, would that give you pause? Would that be a negative for you to do that? Would it be a negative for you if dating that woman meant getting married and spending the next 60 years, the rest of your damn life enmeshed and buried in a family and friendship structure? Would that give you pause? Would that be a negative? Would that make you pull back potentially?
[1:30:00] Or has that happened? Yes, huge negative, intolerable negative. No, just kidding. LOL. Big yes. Yes. Yes squared. Yes to the power of yes. Uh, had ever, uh, had a Rava, sorry, said having no mother increased my dating value more than having her in my life. The way she goes, boys. Like, I'm, I'm sorry that my mother did not, my mother and my father and my family as a whole, I'm really sorry that they did not add value to my dating market. I really wish they did. It would be a whole lot easier, but if I got to choose, it's actually a pretty simple choice. It's a pretty simple choice.
[1:30:46] So when you're dating some let's say it's a woman here or dating someone you're dating some woman and she's like oh man she's pretty cool but man that family oh my god if i've got to you know see them every week or two or three and they got to be around when i have my kids and they're going to come and and be grandparents and and then they're going to get old and maybe they got to move in with me and i gotta deal with them when they get older for 10 or 20 years like you know that like oh that's a high price man she's pretty and she's fun and she's smart but oh my god i mean if i've got to got to take the whole package what is your whole package insert joke here right you are a whole package you are you and your social environment your family your friends, you are a whole package you are not an individual when it comes to choosing to being chosen you are not an individual, I mean the entire pickup market is driven by people who don't want lovers to meet their families.
[1:32:01] Legit had boyfriends in the past voice how freaked out they were of my family. Yeah. Yeah. It's make or break for the relationship. Yeah. Somebody says, I told my mom, Kayla says, I told my mom recently that I don't need to have dysfunctional people in my life, my brother. And she said that she just can't cut him out, even though he is ungrateful and just takes advantage of my parents. I don't know what to say to them to make them understand he's a 30 year old man and they can't keep rescuing him from his mistakes. Well, that's a different matter though, because as parents, you are eternally responsible for how you've raised your children.
[1:32:56] So, it's really, really tough for parents to dissociate from children because they can't say that they're victims because the parents have defined and created and managed the relationship. Right? The CEO is responsible to a large degree for the stock price, not the janitor, right? I wouldn't want to be around a lady's family like that. Break her free or break free altogether.
[1:33:35] And it is just one of these decisions that, although it hurts, there's really no lose. It may not get you, right? If you separate from corrupt people, corrupt people, it gives you your best shot. At having good relationships but even if the worst thing happens is that you end up not with corrupt people as a whole maybe you don't end up meeting the love of your life or whatever but you have better relationships going there forward and you'll spend the rest of your life lying to lying to the dying right this is a if you're in corrupt feeling if you're in corrupt family you're spending the rest of your life lying to the dying that's your life lying to the dying, Falsifying the faltering.
[1:34:24] It's a bad, bad scene, man. It's a bad scene. How do you appear as a total package that includes family and friends? Are your family and friends someone... Are your family and friends people that someone's going to be thrilled to have in her life or his life when they marry you and raise children with you are they a net plus do your parents in particular and siblings as a whole because they're unchosen friends unless you grew up with them little coincidental but friends are more chosen i'm talking about family of origin, Are they an asset or a liability when it comes to dating? Are the individuals in your family of origin assets or liabilities when it comes to dating and marriage?
[1:35:42] You know the answer to that. you know the answer to that, are you going to choose the past or the future lying to the dying or birthing the next generation, accidental trash history or voluntary chosen virtue, thank you Chris, I leave you with that question, freedomain.com slash donate.
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