0:05 - Introduction and Listener Questions
1:21 - Keeping Skills Sharp
4:09 - Understanding Akrasia
11:51 - The Value of Philosophy
18:05 - Moral Influence and Responsibility
21:08 - Creating Your Own Tribe
22:47 - The Nature of Manipulation
23:18 - The Ethics of Parenting Studies
26:13 - The Edge of the Universe
28:15 - Philosophical Integrity
29:48 - Imagination and Reality
31:32 - The Profitability of Lying
33:21 - Personal Moral Influence
34:55 - Comfort and Growth
40:31 - Dealing with Corruption in Life
In this episode, I delve into the evolving nature of my philosophical practice and the questions surrounding my public engagement. A listener asks how I maintain and sharpen my debate skills, especially in the absence of frequent public debates. Given the solid foundation I’ve built through extensive work in philosophy, having authored a 17-part introduction to philosophy, a book on Universally Preferable Behavior, and countless discussions shaped by principles of reason and evidence, my experience is unique. I don’t see public debates as necessary for my own growth, as my engagement in philosophy is continuous through live streams and call-in shows that challenge my perspectives in real time. I assert that maintaining skills in debate isn’t a priority when my philosophical inquiries remain consistently engaged with my audience’s thought-provoking questions.
In addressing the complex concept of akrasia, or weakness of will, I emphasize that this historical notion intersects deeply with contemporary questions in neuroscience and psychoanalysis. While dissecting why individuals often fail to act in their own best interests—be it through unhealthy habits or indecision—I reflect on the duality of willpower: too much can lead to tyrannical behavior, while too little results in procrastination. In describing this balance, I draw connections to historical figures and their impact on society, positing that the right level of willpower is crucial to navigate the moral landscape we inhabit.
I then confront philosophical inquiries that seem disconnected from urgent moral realities, such as “Why is there something rather than nothing?” I push back against these cerebral exercises that neglect pressing societal crises, arguing that real philosophy should focus on promoting virtue and confronting evil. In an era where moral values are under siege, I propose a more action-oriented approach to philosophy, urging listeners to prioritize ethical engagement over abstract speculation.
Further, I discuss the implications of appearance and societal expectations through the lens of someone who is socially adept yet hesitant to engage visually. I provide insights targeting societal perceptions and the inherent desire for genuine acknowledgment beyond aesthetics. Transitioning to the topic of community, I highlight the challenges of finding philosophical tribes in a polarized world and advocate for the creation of one’s own communities of thought rather than passively seeking out existing ones.
The conversation takes a sharp turn as I address behaviors in society, assessing the manipulative tendencies often found in those with low IQs compared to their high-IQ counterparts who engage in negotiation versus manipulation. I examine how the profiting nature of deceit within societal constructs perpetuates a cycle of corruption, thereby offering insights into the motives behind societal lies and the rational consequences that follow.
As our dialogue progresses, I encourage listeners to reflect on their frames of reference regarding moral dilemmas, particularly surrounding childhood truths about figures like Santa Claus. I dissect notions of honesty versus myth-making and emphasize the importance of establishing clear boundaries between imagination and reality, reinforcing that childhood experiences should foster creativity without deceit.
In wrapping up, I reassert the necessity of dealing with the flawed individuals present in one's life, emphasizing that effective philosophical engagement must confront the moral failings that exist around us. I posit that philosophical inquiries should be rooted in tackling real-world problems rather than indulging in abstract musings devoid of actionable outcomes. This episode serves as a reminder of the enduring significance of philosophy as a tool not merely for intellectual exploration but for promoting genuine moral action in the world.
[0:00] All right. Great questions from Facebook and other places.
[0:05] Thank you so much for all of your support. Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show. Massively appreciate it. All right. Somebody says, I've loved your work for years. Just wondering, since you haven't done as many public debates lately, how do you keep your skills sharp? Do you still feel like you're growing? Thank you. That's a great question. It's a great question. My public debates were generally, I mean, I really work to review from first principles, according to reason and evidence, my position. So public debates were not, in a sense, not fair, because other people are not working from the same kind of blank slate, first principles, reason and evidence built from the ground up. I mean, I've built, I've got a whole, you know, 17-part introduction to philosophy series. I've written the book Essential Philosophy. I've written a UPB, Universally Preferable behavior, a rational proof of secular ethics. So I have all of my arguments and evidence reasoned from first principles, which is, well, let's just say not the most common thing in the known universe. As far as keeping my skills sharp, well, I, of course, take lots of questions from the audience. I still do call-in shows.
[1:15] And also, for those of you who are interested, I'm doing, and have been for a while, I'm doing private call-in shows, which are never released to anyone.
[1:22] And I can be very blunt and frank in those because I don't have to have any sort of people second guessing me in my mind's eye. So you can book one if you want at freedomain.com slash call. They're really, really good. All right. So how do I keep my skills sharp? Why do I need to keep my skills sharp? I mean, honestly, it's a question that I would have. Why would I need to keep my skills sharp? I mean, I do philosophy every day. I do three live streams a week. I do call-in shows, getting challenging and interesting questions. So I don't really say, how do I keep my skills sharp? If I were doing a lot of debates, I would need to keep my debate skills sharp, but I'm not really doing debates as a whole. So I don't need to keep those debate skills sharp. It's sort of like if somebody, like I played the violin for 10 years from the age of six to the age of 16, and I have not played violin in 42 years. And how do I keep my violin skills sharp while I don't? Now, of course, if I was going to go into a debate for some reason or another, I would, review. I mean, I've written a whole book called The Art of the Argument. You can get that at artoftheargument.com. So it is a little bit like riding a bike. It wouldn't be hard for me to get back into the mindset.
[2:38] And the reason in general I've kind of given up on debates is because I just have to wait for the world to catch up. Like I've done so much work over the past 20 years, particularly 15 years, 16 years before I got out of politics. I've done so much work and at least for me, advanced the field of philosophy so much. Philosophy has usually a two to three generation lag, 60 to 90 years. And I just have to wait for the world to catch up. I remember, who was I debating? Stephen Woodward? Rationality rules. And I got him to accept that rape, theft, assault, and murder could never be universally preferable behavior. He accepted that. And it just didn't matter. I think I did a debate with Thaddeus Russell where he made the claim that a woman could have sex with a tree and produce an offspring. And I don't fathom that kind of thinking. So, and of course, what was I debating with, what's his blobby, Mr. Manbun, Vosch.
[3:38] And Vosch was talking about letting the workers control the means of production. And I asked how often he released his studio to those who worked there and let them own the means of production. Didn't matter. Nothing matters to anyone. Consistency doesn't matter. Rationality doesn't matter. Very few people change their minds. And this won't be the case in the future, but it is the case right now. So I'm not sure why I would need to keep my skills sharp when everyone else is pretty much disarmed and way too emotional and invested to reason. All right. Where will you answer this question so I can hear a response if possible?
[4:09] Well, subscribe to the podcast, of course. Can you go into the classic concept of akrasia, e.g. Weakness of will, and how our understanding of that concept has evolved with access to the fields of neuroscience, psychoanalysis, etc.
[4:25] Yes, let me do that for you. Let me write an entire multi-volume history of will and eccrasia with reference to the fields of neuroscience, psychoanalysis. I like how he just says, etc. You know, maybe physics, maybe some biology, maybe some Egyptology, whatever, right? He says, with a particular focus on the topic of free will and how perhaps it is or isn't an outmoded concept. Thank you, Stefan Molyneux.
[4:53] That's great. That is great. Listen, man, just a wee favor. If you could just, you know, raise the Titanic and build me a house, make me immortal and find a cure for cancer. If I could just throw that into a Facebook comment, I'd really, really appreciate that. Oh my gosh, that is delightful. That is delightful. I mean, it's amazing to me that people ask this kind of stuff. And listen, it's not like, that's fine. It's fine. I'm happy to share my thoughts on this, but I will say that it is quite wild. So just for those of you, I'm sure you know, Akrisia, this is ancient Greek. It means a weakness of will or powerlessness and so on. Why do people not do what is right for them? Why do people not eat well when they know that eating well would make them better? Why do people not exercise when they know exercising would make the better? Why do people not lose weight when they know that losing weight would be better for them or quit smoking or whatever, right? Obviously, with reference to neuroscience and psychoanalysis and so on, that is a multi-dimensional, multi-layered, multi-year project, which I find it's ridiculous to ask. But what the heck, you can ask anything you want in this life. I could ask the son to learn how to do jumping jacks if I wanted, just probably won't listen. So, strength of will versus weakness of will is a very interesting concept.
[6:18] So, I think, let's sort of make the case for this. So, we want will, willpower, I think, or at least I'm going to make the case, falls into the Aristotelian mean. You don't want too little willpower, otherwise you're weak-willed and procrastinate and don't get anything done. But you also don't want too much willpower, because then you can become quite brutal and aggressive, and also dominant and not negotiate. And also, if you have too much willpower, you can easily be harnessed into doing significant evil.
[6:50] So, willpower is one of these things that we sort of think that, More is just always better. More willpower. Stronger will. Dominant will. But look at Genghis Khan or Napoleon. A lot of evil gets done by people with very strong willpowers and so on. I mean, every serial killer has a strong willpower to commit murder, and lo and behold, they go and do that kind of stuff. And next thing you know, you've got a lot of dead bodies and so on, right? So with regards to willpower, think of the First World War, all of the fresh faced, apple-cheeked young boys who went to war hoping it wasn't going to be over by Christmas because they imagined that they would be charging up a hill on a white horse, waving a sword and cutting down enemies in their prime. When what actually happened was somebody 20 miles away pushed a button and you got blown up. And if you only got half blown up, rats would gnaw off your toes while you slept and you would die of other things.
[7:47] So a willpower is one of these things that if somebody says, go and take that machine gun nest, right? Like think of First World War trenches and go and take that machine gun nest. Go destroy that machine gun nest. And you've got a really strong willpower. You're like, yes, I will go and I will go and take out that machine gun nest. And what happens is the machine gun nest riddles you full of bullets and you hang on barbed wire until you get hit by a shell. Nobody ever finds you and you end up as a telegram to your relatives and a flickering flame in the tomb of the unknown soldier from here to eternity and you just fucking die. You just die. A deficiency of willpower is a significant negative. An excess of willpower means that you're often harnessed into the plans of evildoers and you end up in a pretty terrible situation. So, evolution has given us medium willpower. And, you know, whenever biology aims for the medium, you tend to get excesses either way. So, you know.
[8:49] It has aimed us for medium willpower, and thinking that the will being strengthened is always a positive is not a good plan as a whole. I think of things like extreme patriotism and nationalism, regardless of the morality of your government. Think of people genuinely have a resistance to torturing and murdering other people, but somebody with a strong willpower can overcome that in the service of the state and could become some kind of concentration camp guard or torturer or something like that, right? So I'm not a huge fan of, you know, more willpower is always beneficial. You could, of course, make the case and that would be a good case or a better case to make, which is to say that if you are deeply steeped in virtue and honor and morality and so on, then more will is generally better. But even that has its challenges. To will the good in the world, as I can tell you from direct personal experience, to will good into the world is to be subject to massive amounts of a blowback and attacks and lies and slander and defamation and libel and all this kind of stuff, right? So it's a balancing act, right? You want to promote virtue, but not at the point of, you know, the mob chasing you into the swamp with their pitchforks and fiery tortures, right? So a weakness of will, yeah, weakness of will sometimes is survival.
[10:14] Weakness of will, sometimes when you're hunting, you should turn back.
[10:20] So you're hunting some woolly mammoth and it's you and two other guys and you throw the spear, the woolly mammoth just gets enraged and angry, knows that you're there, sniffs you out and maybe you should just turn around and go home. A weakness of will. Well, he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day. It's like, you know, height. I mean, everyone says, oh, being taller is better. But one of my best friends when I was a teenager was six foot six, had horrible knee problems. And, you know, people who are very tall have knee problems, their back problems, they tend to live less long because their hearts have to work harder. So I think that willpower is one of these things that falls into the Aristotelian mean, like courage, right? Too little courage, you're a coward, too much courage, you're foolhardy, and the aforementioned machine gun nest takes you down. And even if you were to have some moral disagreement with this, which, you know, I could certainly debate if you're interested. But evolutionarily speaking, people with too much willpower tend to be very dominant, tend to be very aggressive, or tend to be roped into the plans of evildoers, especially when they're young.
[11:26] And forward for St. George, right? I remember when I was a little kid, I heard a story about St. George and was raised on heroic stories of the Battle of Britain and so on. It's like, forward for St. George and all of the people who have very strong willpowers and go into battle and are leading the charge, well, a lot of them tend to get killed, which means that the excessive or over-strong willpower tends to get weeded out of the gene pool over time. So, I hope that helps.
[11:51] All right. Why is there something rather than nothing? Additionally, as a tangential question, I will also ask so as not to present the first question in a biased framing. Why would there be nothing rather than something? I mean, this is boring, intellectual, circle-jerk, masturbatory nonsense and nothingness. Honestly, this is just completely ridiculous. There are serious, serious moral crises going on in the world. You know, Western civilization is hanging by a thread. We have endless amounts of child abuse and exploitation. There are wars around the world. There is the exploitation and outright theft of the next generation through national debts, and you're just sitting there going, well, but maybe there's nothing, maybe there's something, what's the difference, and why is there one rather than the other? Honestly, if you don't want to do philosophy, moral philosophy, which is what counts.
[12:49] If you want to do philosophy, then do philosophy. And this is not philosophy. This is just wasting time with puffy syllables. If you want to do philosophy, then do philosophy, which is moral philosophy, which means promote virtue and confront and harm the interests of evildoers, right? That's philosophy. Promote virtue and thwart the gains of evildoers. That's what philosophy is. It's really nothing else. It's really nothing else. You know, like, I mean, if you're a doctor, you should be promoting health and thwarting illness, right? Promote health and thwart illness. That's right. I mean, if you're a doctor and someone comes to you with some big weird lump in their stomach and you say, but why is there something rather than nothing? People would say, yo, yo, Mr. Oncologist guy, could you maybe help me with this weird lump that I got growing out of my abdomen? Can you do? No, but it's interesting because why is there a lump versus there not being a lump. And why are there atoms versus not being atoms? People would be like, what the hell are you doing? Help me with my lump. Is it benign? Is it a cyst? Is it cancerous? Like, help me. No, but it's interesting to think about whether there is, why there is something rather than nothing. Oh my God. Can you imagine?
[14:08] You're frying in some horrible fire, right? You're trapped on the third floor of your house and you've wet the towels and put them at the base of the door and you can't breathe and you're staying low to stay out of the smoke and you're making a peace with life and death.
[14:28] And you hear a fireman outside the door and you say, help me, help me I'm dying and the fireman says yes but why is there fire versus not fire why are there why are there atoms versus not atoms this is like you are discrediting yourself and philosophy like anybody who's actually doing moral good in the world who's fighting against evil and promoting virtue and you're like yeah but why is there something rather than nothing.
[14:57] I don't, I mean, I don't know what to say. You're being robbed. You've got a store and you're being robbed by three guys with shotguns and you press your alarm and the police shows up and says, but why is there a store versus not a store? Why is there Adams versus void? You're like, can you help me with these three shotgun toting criminals? Oh, with a counter, with a shotgun. Yeah, I mean, you are useless in this realm. I mean, probably not in other realms. I'm just being frank with you. like there are people out here fighting the good fight, thwarting evil and promoting virtue. And you're like, but why is there something rather than nothing? And the reason why this is all useless is that the only reason you're here to make the question is because there is something rather than nothing. Why is immensely subsequent to existence, right? The universe is what, 13 billion years old. Life is like four plus billion years old and really has been over the last few thousand years that people have had philosophy.
[15:53] So why is downstream from something rather than nothing? So trying to take the question why and throwing it back in time is pointless. Because the why only exists because there is something rather than nothing. Why is a question in the human mind. It is not baked into the nature of the universe. There's no inscription on a carbon atom that says why or why not. There's no decision at the beginning which says why or why not for existence versus non-existence, something versus nothing. Why is way downstream of something existing and life existing and near frontal cortex existing and philosophy and language existing. All of these things have to exist in order for there to be a why. So then taking the why and going back in time to the beginning of things when the why is only 14, 13 or 14 billion years into the existence of things is truly putting the cat before the horse.
[16:49] I don't, I mean, it's like demanding to know why Socrates was not a vlogger or a blogger, right? Why did Socrates not record his ideas and arguments on a YouTube channel? Well, because he'd be banned, right? But because YouTube and the internet is 2,500 years after Socrates. So you can't put it back in time. reverse time. So honestly, this is from, you know, I've been doing philosophy for 42 years, 43 years. This is not philosophy. This is just a bunch of nonsense, syllables puffing around to make you feel smart and to paralyze the inexperienced. But it is, it's a waste of time. If you don't want to do philosophy, if you don't want to take the danger of promoting virtue and thwarting evil, right? Promoting virtue and thwarting evil is the job of philosophy.
[17:49] And if you don't want to do that, that's fine. I mean, it's not to everyone's taste. Not everyone has the constitution or the strength for it or the hopefully medium amount of willpower. So if you don't want to, if you don't want to do that stuff, that's fine, then don't do it. But don't do this crap. That's just nonsense. All right.
[18:06] All right. Detective Molyneux, on the case. What could you reasonably infer knowing only the following about someone? They, well, I know that you have problems with singular and plural. All right. They, all right. They are confident in person, both around strangers, as well as people they have a close relationship with.
[18:29] However, they appear specifically camera shy, despite rating in the top 10% of attractiveness. Okay, so they're socially comfortable and good looking, but they don't want pictures. Well, my guess is that if people are in the top 10% of attractiveness, and I suffered under this when I was younger, I was scouted for modeling and all of that. And if you're in the top 10% of attractiveness, at some point, you want to be judged by something other than your accidental looks, right? You don't earn your looks. I mean, you can maintain them with diet and exercise and all of that, but you don't fundamentally earn your looks, right? It'd be like if you were a woman with like really big boobs, you probably don't want portrait, you want landscape because you want people to listen to what you're saying rather than scan the jiggle, right? If you are very wealthy, you probably don't want to show off your wealth on every social media post because then you're going to be judged by your wealth and there's going to be gold diggers and so on. So I would imagine that the person who's that attractive wants to be known for something other than being attractive and therefore is probably trying to avoid just the photos and all of that, right?
[19:44] Because, you know, especially if it's a woman, right? She's very attractive. She gets photos, they're posted on social media, and next thing you know, she's got people sliding into her DMs, like some sort of mud corner of a BMX rally. I mean, I did a show not too long ago with a woman who is a former model, and the number of men who have, and I did ask her, like, would you want, she wanted to get married, and I asked her, would you mind if I, is it okay if I forward people's emails if men want to get to know you and it's she got swarmed right so all right uh recommended areas to relocate while looking for a new tribe.
[20:25] There are certain areas you want to avoid, you know, like really heavily propagandized, heavily leftist areas. I mean, rightists have their own propaganda, but it tends to be a little less comprehensive than leftist propaganda, because leftists have no foundational beliefs. Other than conformity and approval, everything is subject to propaganda. However, people on the right tend to have at least some firm and fixed beliefs, which are not subject of propaganda.
[20:54] But as sort of the years have gone by, my general position or thought on this sort of stuff is there's no place. Like if you're really into philosophy, you're thinking from first principles, you're reasoning for more, there's no place you can go to get a tribe.
[21:08] You just have to make one. You have to try and find a way to make one in your own area. There is no big hyper-rational tribe that's out there just waiting for you to join them. And I say this as somebody who's been working in this area again for sort of 40 plus years. Yeah, just work to create one. There is no place you can slot yourself into. All right. Can someone be low IQ and manipulative? Sure. Yeah, absolutely. In fact, people who are high IQ tend to negotiate and debate. People who are low IQ tend to manipulate, right? So HOMATH is a very sort of passionate thinker on X. It's H-O-E under my math. And, you know, he basically says that a lot of people on the left or propagandize people are like, I'm going to hit you with a negative label and then say you should be harmed.
[21:54] I mean, I've been talking about this for years, which is not to say that his way of putting it is not very passionate and clear. But yeah, they hit you with a whole series of negative labels and then they countenance violence against those negative labels. You're a Nazi, Nazis should be beaten up or killed. So they are applying, like you know they have these target painters, like in the military, they'll hit someone with a laser and then the missile or drone hones in on that laser mark. So yeah, manipulative, absolutely, absolutely. People who are very low IQ tend to be manipulative. They have a dim instinct for understanding morality. They don't have any morality themselves in general, but they know that other people do and they know which buttons to push. So yeah, low IQ and manipulative often goes hand in hand. And.
[22:42] I mean, high IQ and manipulative can as well, if they don't have any moral absolutes. All right.
[22:48] Ba-ba, ba-ba. All right. I have one question, says somebody else. First question ever. I wish I could play a sound for that. Try as I might, I cannot for the life of me find the study that I know you've referenced many times. It was about parents lying about how often they abuse their kids, how quickly the problematic behavior resumes after the abuse. There were ethical questions because microphones were placed in their homes under false pretenses. Am I misremembering? Where do I find this?
[23:18] Yeah, so the study that you're referring to, I talked about many years ago, and I don't believe it was unethical. I don't believe it was unethical. I think it was accidental. The data that they got was accidental. Oh, yes. So, is the first real-time study of spanking. Yes, here we go. So, the show number is 2,675. That's the show number. And it was a little, it was 11 years ago, a little over 11 years ago, and it was April 22nd, 2014. And it is really, really, really something. So, let me sort of tell you, just very briefly, you can.
[24:05] You can go and listen to that show and get more details about it. I don't think I was able to, which I tried to do, of course, at the time. I don't think I was able to get the study authors. I think that they were unavailable or didn't respond or something like that, right? So I will tell you about the study and you can go and listen to the show for more details.
[24:29] So the first real-time study of spanking. So, a study conducted by George Holden, a psychologist and parenting expert at Southern Methodist University, used real-time audio recordings to document instances of parents spanking their children. This research revealed that spanking was more common than parents admitted, often occurring for minor misdeeds, and that children misbehaved again within 10 minutes of being spanked. The study also found that parents did not always follow the guidelines recommended by advocates of corporal punishment, and blah, blah, blah, right? So, yes, that was a very powerful study. It was not actually designed to find a spanking thing. There were sort of other recordings and so on. Let's see here. Yeah, the parents did not know that it was going to be a study about spanking.
[25:23] And Holden, the researcher himself, didn't even know he would be studying spanking he wanted to study yelling and so on and so it was it was pretty pretty brutal and, it is incredibly common and it is just just appalling so i hope that helps and i hope that you will check it out as will other people so yeah it wasn't exactly false pretenses he said he was studying yelling he turned out to be and that was his goal all right what is at the edge of the universe. You know, when I was a kid, I thought it was my mother's ironing board. The edge of the universe?
[26:00] Isn't that a universe that comes close to climaxing but doesn't?
[26:04] What is it? The edge of the universe? Who cares? Again, we have deep, significant moral issues that we need to deal with in the world, that is.
[26:14] And this is a way of pretending to do philosophy without taking on any risk whatsoever. But genuine philosophy is an extreme sport. Genuine philosophy, which is the promotion of virtue and the thwarting of evil. Evil does not like to be thwarted, and evil does not like for virtue to be promoted. So, when you're like, well, why is there something rather than nothing? And what is at the edge of the universe? you are not doing philosophy. Philosophy that doesn't come with any risk of blowback from evildoers is not philosophy at all.
[26:44] It's like saying, oh, I'm a cancer researcher and none of the work I ever do ever does anything to inhibit the growth of cancer or deal with any of the effects of cancer. Well, then you're not a cancer researcher. I don't know what you're doing. Why is there cancer rather than not cancer? Well, that doesn't, I mean, maybe at some sort of cellular level, you could answer that. But at a philosophical level, you know, why is there cancer? At a philosophical level, it doesn't solve any problems with cancer. Now, you could say, why is there lung cancer? Well, because people smoke, and then you promote anti-smoking and so on. Okay, that's reasonable. But what is at the edge of the universe? What's really at the edge of the universe is my indifference and contempt for these kinds of nonsensical questions. We are in a moral emergency. The promotion of virtue and the thwarting of evil is foundational. It's going to be very exciting, it's going to be very satisfying, it's going to be risky and sometimes unpleasant and difficult.
[27:38] And you're never going to get in trouble by asking these useless questions. But what it does is it promotes the idea of, that philosophy is useless and pointless. So you are absolutely serving corrupt people by asking these who cares questions. There is no such thing as the edge of the universe. The edge is a physical concept around the delineation of particular things, the edge of a cliff, right? There is no edge to the universe. And even if we were to imagine that there is something at the outermost reaches of the universe, it has absolutely no moral content to us whatsoever.
[28:15] So, it's, you're discrediting philosophy, you're wasting people's time, and you are pretending to do philosophy, you're hijacking the value and virtue of philosophy for your own ego gratification, which is, in my view, kind of parasitical. All right, are you still a Randian? I've strayed to anarcho-objectivism with common law, with a common law chaser. So, if you want, you can look, I've got a three-part series on Ayn Rand and objectivism, which you can find at fdrpodcasts.com. I am not an objectivist. I mean, I accept objectivist metaphysics and epistemology almost completely, but with regards to ethics and politics, no.
[28:52] Because Ayn Rand formulated, you know, the good is that which serves man's life. Reason serves man's life the most, therefore reason is the good. And it's like, nope, nope. Anti-rationality serves people's lives extraordinarily well, right? If you look at, say, let's just, I mean, Japanese culture is quite rational, Western European culture is quite rational, and the birth rates are catastrophically low. And if you look at a place like Africa, which, you know, is a little bit more primitive, tribal, and superstitious, the birth rates are enormously high. So, is reason serving people's lives? No, it doesn't follow. It doesn't follow. All right. How do you balance the line of letting children be children and encouraging imagination and play, and not lying to them. For example, Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. I do have your audiobook, but I've only just started listening to it. We've only just begun to listen. Letting children be children. That's the sort of tautology that has no value, and it's manipulative.
[29:48] I'm sorry to sound kind of harsh, because I really do appreciate the questions, and I'm not trying to be mean, but letting children be children? What does that mean? Should we not let children be children? I mean, that's setting things up in a kind of manipulative way. No, I'm in favor of not letting children be children. Children are children. It's a tautology, right? So imagination in play is great. Imagination in play is great. You know, when my daughter was little, I read to her a very sanitized version of The Hobbit. I cleaned it up and I made it obviously kid-friendly.
[30:17] And so she enjoyed the story. Did I ever tell her that hobbits are real and orcs are real and dragons are real? No, of course not.
[30:26] Encouraging imagination means you don't say that things are real that are not real. So if you say Santa Claus is real, you're just lying to them. Imagination is when we create things in our mind that don't exist in reality. Like I'm a novelist, right? So I'm currently working on a novel. And so I'm creating people who don't exist and dialogues that never happened and situations that never occurred. That's called imagination.
[30:51] There's a fiction and nonfiction section of the library. There's documentaries and then there is fiction, right? So encouraging imagination and play is absolutely coming up with great and creative stories, but you don't tell them that they're real. That's actually harmful to them, right? So when my daughter was little, we used to play a game called Smorg.
[31:10] That's after the dragon, of course, in The Hobbit. And Smorg, I would gather together some of her gems and, you know, fake jewelry and all of that. And I would lie on the bed, curled up around this jewelry and so on. And then she would have to try and come in and sneak in and get it without waking me up, right? Now, I'm not saying I'm a real dragon. I'm possessed by Smorg, right? I mean, it's just imagination.
[31:32] So, why do Democrats lie about everything? Well, I don't know that the Democrats lie a whole lot less than the Republicans, because at least the Democrats are upfront about everything, that the Republicans pretend to be about small government, and now they're just cranking up the debt by, what, $2 trillion a year? So, I wouldn't get that partisan about it. But the government, and in particular control over government schools, and to a smaller degree the media, it means that lying is incredibly profitable.
[32:02] Lying is incredibly profitable. So if you can, let's say you can lie to children and say that plant food will destroy the planet, right? CO2 will destroy the planet. And if you don't hand over, you know, trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars and enormous amounts of obedience to the government, that plant food is going to destroy the planet. Well, that lie nets you trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars. And most people will lie, especially if they're going to get away with it, and especially if they're going to be praised for it, which is generally what happens in these situations, then most people will lie for trillions of dollars. Most people will lie for a hundred bucks.
[32:42] So it is the state and its capacity to take, borrow, and print money that makes lying incredibly profitable. So just look at COVID. All right. I think you're the greatest thinking mind of our generation, hands down. Thank you. I appreciate that. It's very kind. Somebody says, I have a question. Yes. It's funny how I ask for questions and then somebody says, I have a question. As an influencer, do you actually think you have a serious moral influence? If so, what would that be? And do you think it's any different to the mainstream? Also, what will it do apart from causing divide? Do you actually think, well, I know. I know that I have a serious moral influence.
[33:21] I know that. I mean, I have, my inbox is full of people who.
[33:27] You know, I've helped them to be happily married, and they have kids. They have a great relationship with their kids. They've, you know, PeacefulParenting.com, you should really check out my latest nonfiction book at PeacefulParenting.com. And I did the sort of back of the napkin math, and I prevented 1.5 billion assaults against children through the work that I have done over the last 20 years. So, yes, I know I have the empirical evidence, I have the numbers, and so on. So, I mean, I remember when I did a Taylor Swift tweet saying she should maybe have kids, she's 30, like 90% of her eggs are already dead and gone. And people got really upset about that. And it was viewed millions of times. It was voted the worst tweet in history, which is, you know, I'm actually quite proud of. But I did the, again, back of the napkin calculation that probably about 60,000 babies were born out of that tweet.
[34:18] And I can't guarantee the numbers in detail, but that doesn't really matter. It's a big number. So, yes, I absolutely know. And there are other things in the more general worldview that I know about. But just in terms of, you know, the number of listeners that I've had, the people who are parents, the people who've listened to Peaceful Parenting, who've rejected violations of the non-aggression principle against their own children. Yep, absolutely. I know that for an absolute fact. All right. Give me some effing crypto, you dog. I tried to give it to you, man. I tried to give you crypto way back in the day when it was very cheap. All right.
[34:55] Why do people stop growing when they are comfortable? And what can we do to stop it?
[35:00] What's wrong with, sorry, what's wrong with not growing? Is life just some sort of endless marathon that you have to climb an endless cliff wall and get to a higher place? What's wrong with taking a pause and enjoying the fruits of your labor? I mean, you sound like some, you know, there's this kind of old cliche about wives, like nothing bothers a wife more than a husband relaxing on the couch, which is, you know, my wife is constantly telling me to work less and take it easy. And I'm constantly telling her to do that too. So I, what's wrong with, I mean, oh my God, someone's comfortable. They need to be made uncomfortable and they need to stop being comfortable. My God, how tense is it in your brain, man? Nothing wrong with being comfortable. All right. What point does playing, I'm sorry, I will say this again, with a government society, people indulge pathological altruism at the expense of the next generation through debt and money printing. But that's not quite the same as being comfortable. At what point does playing along with society become selling out?
[36:00] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'll just tell you the filter that I, maybe I'm being mean again, who cares, right? So I'll just tell you the filter I put this stuff through, right? So listen, brothers and sisters, everybody, I know for a simple absolute fact that you have corrupted immoral people in your environment, in your life. Could be in your immediate family, hopefully not. Could be in an extended family, could be friends, could be, you know, people that you know, acquaintances, like you have, it could be at work, you have corrupt and immoral people in your life. I know that for a fact. I know that.
[36:35] Now, when you send me these abstract, nonsense, frankly, bullshit questions, I know that what you're not doing is saying, you know, I have this corrupt person in my life. I have this person, they're mean to their kids, they're hitting, they're aggressive, they're abusive, they lie at work. They're like, I have people in my life who are corrupt and immoral. And, you know, maybe not 100%, and we all have little quirks and habits and so on that could be improved. But I know for a simple absolute fact that you have corrupt people in your life and in your environment. I know that. And every question that's not, how do I deal with this corrupt and immoral person in my life, is largely nonsense. It's avoidance. It's just pretending to be moral. It's pretending to be virtuous. It's pretending to be, oh, so into these deep and moral questions in philosophy and so on, right? So, the way that I view it is, it's like you're a medic in a war. A medic in a war is always busy, right? There's always someone coming in holding their intestines or missing an arm or whatever it is.
[37:37] And like Bertolt Brecht talking about sawing off people's legs in a war. So, you're a medic in a war. And let's say that I'm a very, in this analogy, I'm an expert healthcare, whatever, in this war. And I say, you can send me questions. Now, your questions, since you're a medic in a war, should be about saving lives and stopping war, right? That's what your question should be, saving lives and stopping war.
[38:06] And what instead I get is this stuff, this going along with society becomes selling out. It's like, no, no, you've got a steady conveyor belt of decimated, wounded, and broken people coming across your MASH unit, and that's what you have to deal with. I'm sorry that that's what we have to deal with, but that's life. Lots of corrupt people out there in the world, lots of people who are hypocrites, A lot of people who believe false things and tell lies, right? Are you telling me that in your life, you don't know anyone who tells lies, who doesn't repeat media nonsense like the fine people hoax or the Russia conclusion conspiracy theory hoax or, you know, like all of this stuff has gone at him. has a whole list of these hoaxes, which is well worth. Are you saying you don't have anyone in your life who promulgates falsehoods, who lies? No one, not one damn soul in your environment lies, manipulates, or avoids the truth. No one. But why is there something rather than nothing? And when does it become selling out? That's not real questions. The real question is, how do I deal with the liars in my environment? How do I deal with the violent people who support violence or enact violence in my environment? How do I deal with the people who hit their kids, who yell at their kids, who are bad parents, who dump their kids in daycare, who neglect and avoid their kids? How do I deal with the corrupt people in my environment? That's really the only question that matters.
[39:29] Because you can do something about that. And especially when people give me these ill-defined questions, conforming with society versus selling out. I don't know what any of that stuff means. And the fact that people aren't defining it means that they don't want an answer. They want some pleasing concoction of syllables that drugs them into thinking that they're doing something philosophical in their life when they're simply avoiding the promotion of virtue and the thwarting of evildoers. You have people in your life, my friends, who lie. I guarantee it. I guarantee it. You have people in your life who lie. You have people in your life who promote a violence, right? You have people in your life who say, I paid into social security, which is not true. There's no social security lockbox, just a bunch of dusty IOUs from treasury. You have people who say the national debt doesn't really matter and deficits don't matter. You have people who lie, who are corrupt, who promote coercion and theft and falsehoods. You have those people in your life. I guarantee it.
[40:31] And the question you should be asking me, the question you should be asking yourself is how do I deal with the amoral or immoral liars in my life? That's all it comes down to. Because you have them. You have them. I know you have them.
[40:45] I mean, I have some of them through these questions, right? And I'm not trying to say this to be mean. I'm just saying that if you want to be a doctor, then you have to promote health and do something to thwart illness. And if you're claiming to be a doctor, which is asking me these philosophical questions is an analogy, right? If you're claiming to be a doctor and you're asking me, why is there existence versus non-existence? And you're not asking me, how can I best promote health and thwart illness?
[41:10] Then you're kind of hijacking the quote doctor again as an analogy. You're hijacking the doctor thing when you actually have no interest in doing what doctors actually do, which is to promote health and thwart illness. I mean, you go to your doctor with some horrible infection and the doctor just waxes philosophical about how much you should conform to society before selling out or why there is existence versus non-existence and so on. That person's not a doctor. They're just a time waster. And they're pretending to be a doctor while actually putting people in more danger because they're not actually promoting health and thwarting illness. All right. I hope that helps. I hope that the shock therapy of this bluntness is productive for you. Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show. I really would, really would appreciate it. Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show. I look forward to the next round of questions. I really thank you for your time, care, attention, and input. Thank you so much. And lots of love from up here. Don't forget shows are, you can go to freedomain.com to get notified. You can go to freedomand.locals.com to be notified. Shows are Wednesday and Friday, 7 p.m. and Sundays, 11 a.m. Lots of love, my friends. Take care. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.
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