Stefan Molyneux opens the livestream with story from an X account describing a recent date. The woman describes how dinner with a man named Giovanni turned into a debate over gender roles when he pushed for splitting the bill equally. She pushed back on the double standards around grooming and presentation that still show up in modern dating. Molyneux reflects on the different ways men and women get ready for dates and points out that any real call for equality needs to cover more than just the check.
From that story he shifts into a broader look at relationships and the pressures society puts on gender norms. He questions the old dating scripts and the heavy expectations placed on women’s appearance, arguing that genuine equality should include effort, respect, and the work that goes into how people present themselves. He notes the imbalances that often linger in dating and says self-worth should not depend only on looks or money.
A caller asks about ethical principles when life gets difficult and brings up Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle alongside Christianity. Molyneux examines how ancient moral philosophy intersects with religious teachings and whether secular virtues can stand on their own without supernatural backing. He presses the caller to think about whether those virtues actually work in daily situations and how much real change occurs among people who claim to follow them.
Another caller shares stories from family life that echo Molyneux’s earlier points on parenting and accountability. The tales highlight lingering tensions, old grudges, and patterns handed down through generations. Molyneux advises the caller to recognize those cycles and break them, urging him to set his own high standard for growth rather than judging himself by flawed family measures.
Throughout the show Molyneux mixes humor and everyday examples while exploring self-improvement, responsibility, and family bonds. The call-in format brings in different perspectives that show how these issues touch many lives. In the end he stresses the need to aim high instead of using dysfunctional family patterns as any kind of benchmark, encouraging listeners to question norms and keep honest conversations going about how people treat one another. The episode delivers straightforward philosophical ideas and practical insights drawn from ordinary experiences.
0:00:00 - The Experiment of Equality
0:01:25 - A Date without Makeup
0:04:09 - The Reality of Expectations
0:04:39 - The Nature of Conflict
0:07:05 - The Value of Character
0:09:30 - The Cost of Preparation
0:14:35 - The Bachelor Life
0:22:09 - The Tradition of Courtship
0:26:47 - The Impact of Aging
0:27:55 - The Irony of Fertility
0:31:47 - The Burden of Beauty
0:39:07 - The Complexity of Masculinity
0:42:59 - The Standard of Femininity
0:45:42 - The Dynamics of Attraction
0:46:41 - The Aristocracy of Youth
0:48:51 - The Skills of Seduction
0:58:28 - The Role of Virtue
1:04:21 - The Challenge of Change
1:15:51 - The Paradox of Forgiveness
1:34:23 - The Temptation of Power
1:50:11 - Virtues and Modern Society
1:59:16 - Parenting and Personal Growth
2:14:39 - The Weight of Family Legacy
2:28:43 - The Journey Forward
[0:00:00] Good morning, everybody. Hope you're doing well. Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain.
[0:00:04] I hope you're doing well. Sorry for the slight switcheroo on the spaces, but the previous one didn't work. And good morning, good morning.
[0:00:16] And an account on X called Mr. Husky One wrote a story, wrote a fantasy. This is not a real story, at least. I can't imagine it's a real story, but let us talk about it. I don't pay for women, wrote a 52-year-old man. I showed up to the date without makeup and wearing sneakers. We had been talking for about two weeks. Giovanni was one of those rare people, polite, straightforward, no mind games, divorced, two grown kids, worked in construction. He had humor, balance, culture. When he asked me out, I said yes without hesitation. Then came that message, clear, almost sharp. He said, let's be clear. I don't pay for women on dates. It's my principle. Hope that's not a problem. Honestly, it wasn't. In fact, I appreciated the honesty. Better to know up front what you're getting into than face the bill and pretend nothing happened. I replied, fine. No problem. See you Saturday.
[0:01:25] Inside me, an idea was born, a simple, honest experiment.
[0:01:30] Saturday morning, I woke up early. I'm forty-six, and I know exactly what getting ready for a date means. I opened my closet, picked the right outfit, then makeup, foundation, concealer, eyeshadow, mascara, lipstick, the usual ritual. And then I stopped.
[0:01:47] Why? If we're truly equal, if everyone pays their own way, if there are no roles, why should I spend two hours getting ready? Why should I look flawless, while Giovanni probably shows up in jeans and a t-shirt ready in ten minutes, so I decided. Jeans. Gray sweater. Comfortable shoes. Ponytail. No makeup. Just me. In the mirror, I felt strange, not worse, just different. Used to seeing myself constructed, I now looked simply normal. Let's see, I thought. At the cafe, Giovanni was already seated. He greeted me, smiled, everything calm. The first few minutes were pleasant, natural. I almost thought I'd overthought it.
[0:02:35] Then he paused, looked at me more closely, and said, You didn't get really much to see me, did you? What do you mean? In the photos, you looked more polished, the dress, the makeup. Now you look like you ran an errand. I smiled, because in that moment I knew the experiment was working. Giovanni, I said calmly, remember what you wrote about the bill? He nodded. Yes. You talked about equality. Everyone pays their own way. No roles, no expectations. You're independent. I'm independent. it. Yes. And? So I asked myself, why does equality only apply to money? You shut up comfortably. No special effort. I did the same. Isn't that consistent? He stayed silent, then tried to explain. But those are different things. Why different? I asked. He spoke about habits, female nature, the fact that women like to take care of themselves. I listened. Then I said something simple.
[0:03:31] Taking care of yourself costs time, energy, money, and it's often taken for granted. We talk about equality when it comes to paying, but still expect a woman to be perfect for free. He tried to defend himself. But women like it. I smiled. Yes, I like feeling beautiful, but I also like being myself, sleeping in, not worrying about makeup, wearing comfortable shoes. He looked at me, unsure what to say. We finished our coffee, talking about something else. Then the bill arrived. Split in half. Perfect. We said goodbye politely. We never contacted each other again.
[0:04:09] No, I don't regret it. That date taught me something. We live in a time when everyone talks about equality, but often only where it's convenient. People want an independent, autonomous woman, but also flawless, polished, perfect. True equality isn't splitting a bill. It's sharing the same effort, the same respect, the same investment. If you don't want to pay for dinner, that's fine. But then don't expect someone to spend hours looking perfect for you. If we are equal, we're truly equal.
[0:04:40] No double standards. Giovanni wanted equality. He got it. Just not the kind he imagined.
[0:04:49] That's funny. And now, I mean, how do we know that this is not a true story? Well, because it's too perfect, and she's too calm, and there's no tension, and he's perfectly wrong, and she's perfectly right, and he splutters and can't say anything, and she calmly explains, and he's upset but doesn't know why. It's just all too perfect. That's not the way the conflict works. Conflict or disagreements does not work in the way that everyone fantasizes it does. It's like the male equivalent is the guy who very calmly doesn't want to get into a fight against four different guys, but he just beats them all up effortlessly. Like, it's just, that's not, that's not how life actually works. And when there's violence, there's never any aftermath. The people's friends or brothers don't come looking for you. And right, it's just, so I thought, I thought this was interesting. And.
[0:05:53] So he has humor, balance, and culture, polite, straightforward, no mind games. So he's got qualities of character, Now, if he's got qualities of character, he's worked on those. I mean, especially in the modern world, you don't just wake up with being polite, straightforward, honest, no mind games. You have humor, balance, culture, and so on.
[0:06:26] And that takes a lot of work to become mature, to become assertive without being aggressive. To find that balance, where you don't get pushed around, but you're also not a bully, where you have assertiveness without being aggressive, where you have anger without being abusive, and where you have attachment without being obsessive, where you have love without being insecurely attached and codependent. Like, you know, these balance things take a while. And then, of course, the question is, if he's polite, straightforward, no mind games, has humor, balance, culture, why would he be divorced?
[0:07:06] If he knew how to run a relationship that way, right? So, he says, let's be clear, I don't pay for women on dates. It's my principal. Hope that's not a problem. So.
[0:07:21] I think the argument goes something like this. Let's say that he makes $50 an hour. You know, that would be $100,000 a year, which a 52-year-old man, I mean, if you're not making 100K by the time that you're 52, assuming you have reasonable levels of intelligence, you've made pretty significant mistakes in your life. It's not that hard to get to that level in your 50s, and you should be, because that's your peak earning years. So let's say he makes $50 an hour And the date goes for two hours. And so he's going to bring $100 of time value to the date. So that's $100 date. Now, I don't know, can you do $100 date these days? Not at a nice restaurant. I think at a nice restaurant, particularly if people are ordering alcohol, it's kind of hard to have a mere $100 date. So, let's say it's a $200 date. You know, they have appies, they have a main course, they have dessert, they have some wine, maybe some coffee, and with tip and tax and all of that, I can see it easily getting to 200 bones, no sweat, no problem.
[0:08:38] So, if he's making 50 bucks an hour, he works in construction, I assume he'd be a supervisor or manager of some kind. So he makes 50 bucks an hour, you know, minus, let's say, 25% taxes. So 38. And so he's got to work, you know, let's say five or six hours to pay for the date. Because after tax income, right? Now, she then complains that she has to do her hair and makeup. Now, two hours getting ready? I don't know, man. I don't know. I don't think my wife has ever spent two hours getting ready. But okay, so let's say it's two hours, whatever, right?
[0:09:30] So she's putting two hours of labor and he's putting in five or six hours of labor. Is that equal? I don't think so. And he, of course, is being up front and honest. So he's saying, I don't pay for women on dates. So he's up front. She is not.
[0:10:04] Because she has all of these pictures, the made-up pictures, right? So, I assume they met online because he says, in the photos, you looked more polished, the dress, the makeup. So, she has super made-up, super filters, and so on. And so, he didn't misrepresent anything. He's a 52-year-old man. He's 52. He has photos of himself in his natural state. He shows up with photos looking like his photos. So it's not false advertising. She has heavy makeup, filters, best possible lighting. Maybe they're professionally done, I don't know. But you can cover up a whole lot of aging with photographs, right? So he's up front with his standards and he shows up. She has no illusions and she knows the facts. She, on the other hand, decides to not put on makeup and to not do her hair, and to show up, I assume at a nice restaurant, in jeans and a t-shirt.
[0:11:24] So, that's interesting. And she said, if you don't want to pay for dinner, that's fine. So, now, the other thing, too, I don't know if men communicate this to women or if women don't know about this, but men, we also take time getting ready for dates. I mean, a man who's going on a date often will get a haircut he will shave, he will put on some moisturizer he will put on deodorant of course he'll put on perhaps aftershave or cologne he will press his pants he will press his shirt, he is going to make sure, that his car is washed and clean on the inside And so, yeah, a man is going to put time into getting ready for a date as well. This idea that women spend two hours and men spend 10 minutes.
[0:12:33] It's just not accurate. I mean, when I was a single guy, I would get ready for a date, and I would do quite a lot to get ready for the date. I remember once when I was going to meet my wife on a date, my car was muddy and dirty because I'd taken it out into the country, and I didn't have time to take it through a car wash. So I tried to clean it using the squeegees at the gas station. Because I didn't want her to think that my car was messy and dirty. So, I remember going around trying to clean my car with the squeegees at the gas station, and I wanted it to look good. I wanted it to look good. A man, in fact, if he thinks that the woman might come back to his place, will try to, he will try to debachelor his place. And, of course, it's been a while since I was a Bachelor. But if I remember rightly, it's doing things like taking old coffee cups from the computer desk.
[0:13:41] It is taking the cushions to the balcony, thumping them out a little bit, so when the woman sits down, she doesn't get a cloud of dead bachelor skin rising around her nostrils. It might be even making the bed, should a special evening be conceived of. Oh, conceived of, see how I played that. but he will also, he also will feel a strong urge to clean his kitchen.
[0:14:12] Now, for a bachelor to clean his kitchen is a big deal. It's not a small operation. For a bachelor to clean his kitchen means he first of all has to get the urge to clean his kitchen, and then he has to put on a different set of glasses, like a different set of eyeballs, because bachelors have this amazing ability. Well, men have an amazing ability to not see things.
[0:14:36] I mean, this is a constant thing. My wife has the capacity to materialize things by reaching into the fridge. She just does it to mess with my head. I'll say, I can't find the milk. And I always try to answer it when she's at the polar opposite end of the house, because most of marriage is just yelling things you can't hear at the opposite ends of the house until one of you just ends up dying. So I will ask for something. And listen, I try to look. I try to look for things in the fridge. I really do. But my concern is that my wife has tidied or moved things.
[0:15:13] She'll just cycle things through drawers. She'll cycle things through the freezer. She'll just cycle things everywhere. So if my wife has moved things, I have no chance. I have zero chance. I thought it would be more efficient if I put it in the bottom shelf of an old drawer in the attic. So I have no chance. None. So I will look a little bit. It's not half-hearted. It's quite passionate, but it's with a grim sense of Nietzschean hopelessness that I look for things. And I'm like, where's this? Where's that? Where's the other? And sometimes, I mean, to be fair, in the fridge, sometimes the smaller things are behind the larger things.
[0:15:53] My wife is fairly petite. In a lot of the photos, she's just standing behind me, but no one can tell. And so I'll look, and then I'll ask my wife where things are. And she has enormous patience. She really does. I think she's, she either has patience or she's just completely given up. It's really hard to tell which is which. And she will come and she will reach and then there's a little shimmer like as she beams things in, like in Star Trek, right? She reaches behind something. I think she's a magician and she's able to do this even without sleeves. I don't know, but she's a really good magician. So she'll have, let's say I'm looking for the ketchup. She will have the ketchup in her sleeve. She will reach into the bowels of the fridge and pull forth the ketchup that has just materialized. Um...
[0:16:42] So a bachelor who wants to clean his kitchen, first of all, has to notice that the kitchen is dirty, which means putting on a different set of eyeballs. If you ever want to horrify your own life as a bachelor, imagine being a high quality woman coming into your place. Because then the things that seem perfectly natural will be perfectly horrifying.
[0:17:04] And so for a bachelor to clean his place, he has to A, want to clean it, and B, he has to notice that it's dirty, and then C, he has to recognize that he has nothing with which to clean his place. Zero. Women come with a vast array of cleaning materials, which can pretty much be assembled to, create bombs, they can create helicopters, they can create rivers of fiery sludge, the women can they just come with all of this stuff and they also know how to use it and and what to do so you have to want to clean you have to notice it's dirty and then you have to figure out what you need to do to get the things to clean and then you actually have to clean, and then you clean and then after it's dried you notice that there's little it looks like little dust, it's a little grit, and then you have to be like, oh my gosh, this needs to be rinsed. This is horrifying. And then, as you clean, in particular, if you end up cleaning your bathroom, because heaven forbid that a woman comes to your place and deals with a bachelor bathroom, it's very much like the end of Aliens 2, when Ripley takes the flamethrower to the giant crustacean, or whatever it is.
[0:18:25] She will hover, like she will use her biceps and she will hover, Should she have to pee in a bachelor apartment, she will hover and there will be, there will be sounds. There will be sounds that you really can't reproduce in any other circumstance.
[0:18:46] And then you have to clean, and then you have to realize that you may have left cleaning too long because there are things you cannot clean. There are things bachelor essence has seeped into the ring around the bathtub, unmentionable places in the toilet. You just, you can't. You can't. And then the wild thought occurs to you that perhaps you can just redo the bathroom before the date. Just put it a new toilet, a new tub, you name it, right? But you do your best. So yeah, we men do put a lot of work into dating. It's just that that work is not really appreciated by the women because the amount of work it takes to get even minimal standards of survivability in a bachelor apartment is so high that women are just like, well, I guess it's a little clean. Whereas for the bachelor, like that's been three days of cleaning and crying and using your tears to help clean. Because the salt, I think, could be helpful. I'm not an expert in these things. But so yes, men do put a fair amount of work into into a date, and the other thing too is that.
[0:20:05] The idea that getting ready for a date for a woman equals paying for the date for a man is saying that the man has to buy the woman's time.
[0:20:18] The man has to buy the woman's time. I say, ah, that's what the woman says, but you are paying, I have to pay for all of my makeup. I have to pay for my shoes, I have to pay for my this, I have to pay for my that. And this, I mean, this is a big question of whether women use makeup for men or whether women use makeup for themselves or for other women and so on.
[0:20:50] And men don't have the ability to use makeup. I mean, some men will dye their hair, which I think is kind of cheesy. There's this picture of George Clooney out there at the moment with his, hair dyed and it just looks absolutely terrible. Old face, young hair is a weird combination. it looks like a very it does not look like a robust older man it looks like a very ill younger man that's all it looks like so, so if everyone pays their own way, and she didn't say what Giovanni showed up, what did she say again let me just see here what she said she was getting together with, She said, and 46 as well, right? 46. Now, the traditional reason why men paid for dates in the past was that a woman was financially dependent upon a man, I mean, throughout her evolution. Like, why do men pay for dates? Why is that even a thing? Why is that a tradition?
[0:22:10] Because the man needs to show his generosity. Why does a man need to show his generosity? He needs to show his generosity because women would spend the next 60 years, like 20 to 80, the women would spend the next 60 years raising their children, running the household, raising the grandchildren, the great-grandchildren.
[0:22:38] And doing charity work, doing community work, doing church work, and so on. There's an old saying about what do German women really want. Church, kitchen, children. Kunde, kitchen. There's something in German that I can't remember how it goes. And that was just evolution, right? So women had to rely upon a man to pay the bills. Because the amount of time it takes to raise a bunch of kitten a bunch of kittens a bunch of children especially at a time of 50 infant mortality and here's the thing too i mean that's 50 infant mortality and it's not like the other 50 are not getting sick, I remember my mother, when I was a little kid, my mother would have, I don't know, she'd have these funny people coming over. Of course, everyone in my mom's life was kind of a little off, a little odd for the most part. But she would have these hippies come over from Germany, you know, big beards and beads and weird stories about other dimensions.
[0:23:52] And my mother would sometimes spend an hour. I remember timing at once, like looking at the clock. My mother would spend an hour or sometimes even more going through the stories of my brother and I's illnesses. Now, I mean, we weren't particularly ill. I didn't have any sort of Robert Louis Stevenson sit in bed for a year kind of stuff. But there was a lot of nursing. There's a lot of illness in kids because you've got a relatively new immune system and you're playing around with other kids, you're eating a lot of dirt, all of this kind of stuff, right? So when we say 50% infant mortality, it's not like the rest of the kids were robust. They're constantly getting sick and you don't know if they're going to die and all of that. There's a lot of grieving, a lot of burying. This is one of the reasons why religion was stronger because death was omnipresent. And now death has been shuffled off to nursing homes and weird bullying pods in medically assisted induced deaths countries. So, a woman would be completely dependent upon the productivity and generosity of a man. And one nightmare for a woman would be to, of course, get married to and start having children with a man who either A, was unproductive or B.
[0:25:21] Was stingy.
[0:25:26] And in the same way, of course, the fear for a man was getting together with a woman who was maybe infertile or also was a spendthrift or not good at taking care of children, not patient and not a good nurse and a comforter to children and so on.
[0:25:50] So on a date a woman would enhance her fertility markers whole makeup is there to enhance fertility markers, I won't sort of get into the why's and wherefores you can look this stuff up if you want but makeup is there to enhance fertility markers and to simulate ovulation, so the man is getting fertility, and what is the woman getting well the woman needs to get a man who is productive and generous, so he has excess resources because if he doesn't have any excess resources he can't afford a family when you have a wife and kids 90 of your income goes to
[0:26:43] the wife and children but that's just the way of the world. There's nothing wrong with it. That's one of the reasons why men tend to be so ferociously productive is that those men who weren't ferociously productive either weren't chosen in the dating pool or their children didn't last very long because they weren't able to provide them with enough food for them to fight off infections and disease.
[0:27:07] So, the man is showing that he has excess resources, and the man is showing that he's willing to transfer those excess resources to a fertile woman. That's the deal. That's why women wear makeup, and that's why men pay for dates. Now, there's nothing wrong with that tradition there's nothing wrong with that tradition but the weird thing about it is 52 and what was she 46 or 47 or something like that.
[0:27:56] Her eggs are about as fresh as 20-day-old bread or milk left in the sun. So for her to put on fertility markers, such as makeup, and for him to show that he's willing to transfer resources to a fertile woman is kind of ridiculous.
[0:28:20] It really is kind of ridiculous. Every now and then, I will threaten my daughter that I will, like, I'm a peaceful parent, for sure, so I don't raise my voices. I don't raise my voice. I certainly don't hit, don't insult, don't call her names, anything like that. But if I really do want to get my way, I will threaten my daughter that I will learn a K-pop TikTok dance and just do it to the camera. This fills her again with the aforementioned existential H.P. Lovecraft Nietzschean dread and horror that her father would learn some K-pop demon hunters TikTok dance and just like actually do it. Horrifying. Horrifying. And I agree, it would be horrifying. I'm not sure that I will ever hate the world enough to inflict that level of horror on the world. Obviously, I've come close. I think we all have at some point or another.
[0:29:28] But it would be age inappropriate. You know, it's like I remember when my wife and I, we love to dance. And she's a killer dancer. She got moves like a waterfall in a high wind. She flows. She ebbs. She spins upside down on the pole. Wait, I may be going a little bit far here. Just a tiny bit. Just a tiny bit. She's not upside down.
[0:29:54] So, anyway, I remember the one time, I don't know, we were in our 30s, and we went to the club. Now, I used to love going to the club as a teenager and doing my older disco dancing. I even learned the moonwalk. Oh, oh, yeah, it's true. Only white people have been to the moon, and that was a very white moonwalk.
[0:30:23] And yeah we were at the club and we're just looking around and it's like yeah, yeah we're past this now and we will still go to jazz clubs and sort of that kind of stuff and dance there but yeah we don't uh we were we were post club we were post club and so, for a woman of 46 saying well i need to put on my fertility markers and the man needs to demonstrate his generosity because we're going to have eight kids together and he needs to know that I'm fertile and I need to know that he's got resources that he's willing to transfer to me and be generous. I mean, that's so age inappropriate. I can't even tell you. And it is really one of the saddest things to me. And you see it everywhere. This is George Clooney with his hair dye or whatever it is, right? You see this kind of everywhere. It is a very sad thing when people are grimly resisting the passage of time and not acknowledging aging as a whole. It's a very sad thing. It's a very sad thing.
[0:31:32] So, of course, the general idea and goal is to embrace and accept that you're aging.
[0:31:39] And this sort of cutesy stuff where, you know, you've got to pay for me on the date and so on. It's like, he's divorced, he's got grown kids, you're 46, you can't have kids. And the idea as well that a man who is professionally successful needs to impress a woman is to me a funny and be a little ridiculous i mean why would he need to impress her he's already successful. He's got good qualities of character, and.
[0:32:26] He has an income and morals and honesty and virtue. He's upfront, he's direct, doesn't play games. So the idea that he would also need to further impress her is interesting to me. I don't quite get why. Like, I understand that a man, I don't know, I'm trying to think sort of back, boys, going back a ways now, right? So 40 years ago, I was 19 years old. And I can understand that other than being a decent looking young dude, I can understand that I would need to work to impress a woman. I can totally get that. I can totally get that. So this is one of the reasons why men develop a sense of humor. A couple of reasons. Men develop a sense of humor because it's hard to tell how old a woman is, If she's not laughing, like if you can get a woman to spontaneously laugh, then it's a lot easier to tell how old she is. And of course, when we evolved, it wasn't like there were birth certificates and so on. A woman faking her age was a big problem.
[0:33:48] So you would learn how to make a woman laugh so that you could find out how old she was. And I mean that's a minor aspect of it but of course it's to show intelligence it's to show a good nature and you know women throughout history women had to deal with them and men as well but it was a bit more direct for women, women had to deal with a lot a lot a lot of suffering a lot of suffering, a lot of suffering I mean, you know, this sort of meme Hillary Clinton, I think you said that women suffer the most in war and of course the men are like, well we got killed, and it's true, of course, but when you're dead, your suffering is over those who grieve on after you have to live with the loss for years and years and years, I mean sometimes I remember one woman it's almost stuck in my head one woman talking about, she was old and she talked about a man that she married in World War I the men going to the front the women would marry them in part to get survivor benefits to get widows benefits, and also maybe to get a kid out of it.
[0:35:18] And she married this young man. He went off. They spent like two or three weeks together. He went off and got killed on the Western Front in World War I.
[0:35:31] And I remember when she was old, she was saying that she barely remembered what he looked like. He just seemed like this terribly nice young man she spent a few weeks with in 1915. mean. So women suffer a lot and their suffering continues. They tend to live longer than men and throughout most of human history, the suffering that they went through was enormous, prodigious. And so you need a man who's going to help you laugh when you carry the sorrows and burdens of being a woman. And just to, you know, for the nitpickers, of course, I understand men suffer as well, blah, blah, blah, but there's a special suffering that women go through. Women have to incredibly strongly bond with children in order for those babies to survive, and they lose half of them. That's rough. And of course, the men go through their sorrows as well, but it's not quite the same as having carried the baby in your body and breastfeeding. I mean, you become one flesh when the baby is born. You're one flesh before, and it stays that way for a year or two afterwards.
[0:36:44] Developing a sense of humor, knowing how to make women laugh. That's a lot of work. It's a lot of work. It's why there tend to be more male comedians than female comedians. Men have to be themselves plus, just for women, like, so you understand this. It's really important to understand. It's really important to understand what has shaped either sex. So we, you know, I had a t-shirt when I was a kid. Vive la différence, right? Vive la différence. Celebrate the differences between men and women. So men have to be men plus, I mean, in the dating world, men have to be men plus resources. And a reasonably good nature. They have to be assertive without being aggressive. They have to have enough dominant traits to get resources, wrestle them from other men, but not so many dominant traits that they're abusive at home.
[0:37:56] They have to be funny, but not frivolous. You have to be able to make the woman laugh, but not be a goofy clown. Otherwise, the woman's going to lose respect. You have to be fierce out there in the world and loving at home. You have to be deferential to the woman, open doors for her and defer to her. But you cannot be a simp. You cannot just put her in charge and rush around like a slave obeying her every whim, or she'll lose respect for you.
[0:38:38] You have to be generous. You have to have generosity as a trait, but really only for her. You also cannot be generous to your shiftless, lazy brother's in-law. You can't seem to get a job. You better not give those resources away. You have to be fierce and authoritarian in disciplining the children, but you cannot be fierce and authoritarian with your wife. I mean, it's complicated.
[0:39:08] It's complicated, and of course if you pick the wrong type of woman the complainer the complainer is will leach the balls off your body and the bone marrow from your system because the complaining woman will, will complain if you don't work hard enough because there aren't enough resources, and if there are enough resources she will complain that you work too much because the woman's fantasy, which arises, of course, out of aristocracy, is that you have resources without actually having to work for them because having resources is great, but having to work for them means that she has to spend more time with the kids and less time with you.
[0:39:59] So, a man has to be a lot. A woman, when she's young, just has to be, for the most part. Again, tons of exceptions. These are just general trends. A man has to be himself, plus a wide variety of tough-to-balance attributes and resources and stability and generosity. The man also has to be attractive to a lot of women but only attracted to her, to one.
[0:40:44] And that's tricky. The man has to stay loyal to the woman, even though the man's attractiveness goes up enormously as he ages. Because as he ages, he has more resources, more skill, more stature, more... He's higher up in the hierarchy. So the man has to stay loyal throughout his entire life, even though he becomes more and more attractive to other women as he ages. I mean, within certain limits, obviously, I'm not saying a 90-year-old guy to anyone other than the former Anna Nicole Smith. So it's tricky.
[0:41:37] And so men have to be themselves plus guitar. They have to be themselves plus money. They have to be themselves plus muscles. They have to be themselves plus really funny. They have to be themselves plus whatever, right? And this is the clavicular extension of looks maxing that is going on in the world at the moment. You can't just be yourself. You have to be yourself. And what? Liposuction, a chiseled jaw that has evolved from hitting it with a hammer, hair transplants, three hours a day at the gym, you have to be yourself. Plus.
[0:42:18] Now what do women have to be? Well, do women have to be really funny? Nope. Do women have to be great storytellers? Nope. Do women have to play a musical instrument? Nope. Do women have to have big muscles? Nope. In fact, that's kind of a negative for most men. I mean, toned, whatever, reasonably fit, sure, but not a lot. Like the ideal male body is three hours a day in the gym, crazy strict eating standards, and so on.
[0:42:59] A woman's reasonably ideal body is just don't overeat, for the most part.
[0:43:12] Do women have to be big money makers.
[0:43:23] Do women have to be great conversationalists? I mean, I think for a long marriage, and marriage is long these days, we live forever, we're like ghouls, with the ickers of eternity running through our veins, but she doesn't, for dating, she doesn't have to be, like, what does she have to be? Pretty unpleasant. And the pleasant stuff is kind of optional, because there's a lot of very unpleasant women who seem to get a lot of dates. A woman just has to be young and herself. Because the value that she has is not earned, it is baked in. The value that women have when they're young is automatic. Because it is the fertility that they are born with, the millions of eggs that they are born with. The ability to grow a human being, after a mere three hours of manly sexual activity.
[0:44:33] Her value is baked in. Now, she can enhance her values and make up, I get all of that, but the value is baked in. I mean, if a young man has the choice between, a woman of 20 who spends an hour getting ready and a woman of 80 who spends an hour getting ready well we know right so it's not the getting ready that makes the difference it's the youth and the fertility.
[0:45:06] Women can be human beings.
[0:45:12] Men have to be human doings. We have to do stuff. We have to get out there in the world. We have to carve out a niche. We have to provide resources. We have to be funny and assertive and all of these qualities of character. And we have to be honest. And we have to be generous, but not too generous. us. We have to be hardworking, but not workaholics. We have to be tough out in the world, but sensitive and emotionally available at home.
[0:45:42] And, you know, this is not any complaints. This is just, this is the tightrope that men have to walk, that women don't really sympathize with, for the most part, women have the natural aristocracy of youth, that women are in demand, when they're young through the natural value of youth, beauty, and fertility. This is not a complaint. To complain about reality is like getting up every morning annoyed that there's still gravity. Yep, good thing too. Otherwise, we'd all be flying around the asteroid belt, having exploded for the lack of pressure.
[0:46:41] When women are young and men are young women are the aristocracy and men are the serfs, this is not a complaint it's just what is.
[0:47:03] Men have to work quite hard to get female attention. Now, these days, men don't seem to want to work very hard to get female attention for whatever reason. We can sort of go into that another time. But men are all just contacting women, from what I've heard, W-Y-D. Hey, what you doing? Where you from? How old are you? What's up? What you do? Or as one young woman memorably told me, what you drinking? That's the big, that's the big Cyrano de Bergerac line of poetry that women can expect to enjoy these days. What you're drinking, what you're doing, where you're from, how old are you? You come here often, what's that? Ah, the verbal type pyrotechnics of modern wooing do not exist.
[0:48:18] And so, if you're in demand simply for existing, There are massive numbers of skills that you do not develop and should not develop. What's the point? If you inherit $10 million, does it make much sense to have a paper route when you're 12?
[0:48:51] Or be like John F. Kennedy Jr. back in the day. Took him like, what, four tries to pass the bar? The hunk flunks. with the headlines. You know, good-looking, athletic, constantly casting about for a purpose. Created this magazine called George, with Cindy Crawford as George Washington on the cover. Ooh, so edgy. Couldn't really make it work. Just a bunch of make-work, rich boy nonsense. And then had a pretty terrible marriage to Carolyn Bissette, screaming at each other in the park. Ends up dying in a stupid plane crash while going up against Hillary Clinton. Do I have that right, politically? Just a coincidence.
[0:49:49] Because he was trying to fly a plane through the dark and the fog, instruments only, with a shattered ankle. Completely stupid. And if I had to guess, If I had to guess regarding that, just by the by, I find the story quite interesting. If I had to guess by the by, he was in a highly contentious relationship with his wife. Her sister was on the plane too, I think. He was in a highly contentious relationship with his wife. And I can virtually guarantee you that the reason they all died, the three of them, on the plane, on the way to Martha's Vineyard, was because his wife said to him, you can't fly this plane. You've got a broken ankle. It's dark. You need to bring your instructor. And he hated the idea of admitting that he was wrong and hated the idea of surrendering to her will because they were in a highly contentious relationship.
[0:51:01] And so he got angry. Of course I could do it. How dare you tell me I can't? I know what I'm doing. And this is how these kinds of things happen. A bad relationship can be fatal in many, many, many different ways. But not being able to take good advice because you have no respect for your partner.
[0:51:23] Is one of the things. And if she genuinely didn't think he could fly, which she should have thought that, And she got on the plane because, I mean, I would assume that she didn't particularly want to make it too long in this life. Just a guess. I don't know. It was such an obviously terrible decision. And bad decisions have a long history behind them.
[0:51:51] So for this woman, in the story, in the made-up story, it's not real, of course, but for this woman to get all coquettish and say that the man needs to show his excess generosity and his excess resources when she's in her mid to late 40s, it's ridiculous. But it's so hard, and I have great sympathy for women about this. It's so hard to have value you did not earn. Oh my gosh, it's brutal. It is so hard, to have value that you didn't. To be born wealthy and to grow poor is brutal. I would much rather be on the masculine side of things and to be born with nothing and have to build everything from scratch. That, to me, is a much better situation. To be born with massive unearned value just for being young and attractive and fertile, and then to have that value drained away over time is brutal.
[0:53:03] I mean, it's the old thing like to be born wealthy. You know, there were a couple of kids in my high school. Oh, man, did they come from wealthy backgrounds. I wrote a play in high school, and we were rehearsing it. And we went to one of these guys' house. It just went on and on. I think there were two pools, like one indoor, one outdoor. It just went on and on. They both got Corvettes for their 16th birthday. And I still remember their father's name and what he did, which, you know, it doesn't really matter. I'll keep it to myself. But, I mean, I envied that, of course, at the time. I would have liked to have gotten a car and had two pools, and yeah, that would have been great. It was not much fun. Shivering my nipples off in minus 20 bus shelters year after year. No fun. Oh, don't worry, it builds character. Well, it's good. Now I have the character, and the shivering in bus shelters is kind of deep in the rear view, but yeah.
[0:54:19] So for this woman to say, you need to show me that you can provide for a family, and I will show you my fertility markers in their 40s and 50s is kind of sad. It's like the guys who continually get themselves injured because they're not accepting the facts of aging. It's petty, childish, foolish. But it's interesting.
[0:54:50] Excuse me if I've got a bit of a rough voice. I've had like a three-day old cold going on.
[0:54:54] No problem.
[0:54:56] Yeah. Listening to you describe the bachelor scene, reminded me of my late brother and his place, which kind of was a perfect picture of what you described. You know, his place. You walk in, it was in a permanent state of looking like The police had just shown up with a search warrant. And his bathroom, which was, again, looking like a scene out of, I don't know, Withnow and I.
[0:55:34] That is a funny movie.
[0:55:35] Yeah, had a plaque on the wall saying, Housework never killed anyone, but why take the charms? Nice.
[0:55:47] Was he like a confirmed bachelor? Did he date much at all?
[0:55:51] He dated a little bit, but not really. Yeah, he was a real artist and a bohemian kind of guy. Yeah, excuse me. I've still got this remnant of a cold going on if I sound a bit bunged up. I do have a question, though, on a more serious note. I wanted to come up with a question that, excuse me for the whistling sound here, I live in an old house.
[0:56:27] Given that it's Easter weekend, I was wondering about if you have any thoughts on this question, given that ethics is a central part of your whole philosophy. Um, I was thinking about Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle and the virtues that they came up with. And then essentially like 400 years later, Christianity comes up and proclaims the same similar virtues within its belief system, except for the fact that in order to become, a, you know, the price of membership is to become a supernaturalist. You're going to have to embrace supernatural beliefs. Do you think there's any hope that we get to a non-supernatural belief system, where we esteem virtues, virtues become esteemed again, but without the supernatural the supernatural part.
[0:57:50] Okay, I want to make sure I understand the question. The question is, can atheism provide, or science provide, moral values at least as robust as those of religion?
[0:58:04] Yeah, I mean, yeah, essentially I know that you have, you know, UPB, but in terms of the the virtues themselves, can we promote virtues within a society without resorting to having a supernatural belief?
[0:58:28] Well, let me ask you this. Do you think that superstition, religion, or supernaturalism, do you think that it promotes objective virtues?
[0:58:43] In some ways, I suppose it might, but at the same time, there's a trade-off with that in the way it then provides like an escape clause into resorting to using supernatural explanations in place of rational explanations.
[0:59:08] Well, let me ask you this. In the course of your life, I'm sure we'll just talk about Christianity because that's really the foundational ethic of the West. So in your life, have you ever...
[0:59:23] Talked to a Christian who is doing something against Christianity, and said to the Christian, what you're doing is against Christianity, you need to do the right thing. So, for instance, if a Christian is gossiping, have you said gossiping is really not good? Or if the person is failing to forgive someone is holding a grudge. And have you said to that person, so there could be any number of things that you could attempt to leverage a Christian and get the Christian to become more Christian by doing X, Y, or Z. I mean, this could be sex before marriage.
[1:00:13] This could be the commandment to give away your worldly possessions and follow jesus this could be, spending too much on vanity adornments rather than helping the poor this could be being more communal and more generous within your community this could be some of the prohibitions in Christianity against homosexuality and so on. Have you had in your experience, or have you had the experience of reminding a Christian of a deviation from Christianity and having that Christian admit, change, and recommit to the virtues they proclaim?
[1:00:59] Yes, I've pointed out at times um, And what I consider to be overly forgiving, I feel like that is, I'm more in line with your understanding of forgiveness within the Christian context. That forgiveness is not something that's handed out for free. There has to be some kind of, not apology at all, but there has to be an understanding on the person looking for forgiveness that they're prepared to change and earn it. So that's one part I've pointed out to some of the people I know who are Christians. Um, and the other thing is the.
[1:02:04] So hang on, hang on. So that's only half my, that's only half my question. So pointing out that Christians who are proclaiming forgiveness, when the person has not even apologized or admitted fault, pointing out that that is against Christianity, which, of course, I've been doing for many months, has that caused, when you pointed that out to Christians, has that caused them to change their behavior, and reform and say, gosh, you know, I've looked it up. You're right. I apologize. That's not good. I obviously was tempted into a kind of easy sin, which is, you know, part of the whole issue with regards to Christianity. So I get all of that. So when you did point out these deficiencies in people's behavior or the contradictions between their behaviors and that which is the good, according to Christianity, did those people change their minds and act in a different manner?
[1:03:11] Um on the on the most no that no they did not they had no that the action actually the reaction, was um an accusation on against me was like well you're not even a christian so you don't even know what you're talking about um that was usually the that was the kind of the standard uh reaction i would get which.
[1:03:36] Is not rational right, I mean, I don't have to have a PhD in mathematics to point out to someone that two and two does not make five. Okay, so can you think of an example? And of course, I'm happy to open this up if other people have things they want to mention in this area. But have you had an example where you point out to a Christian, that they are not following Christianity and had them A bit false. Change behavior. Recommit. And thank you.
[1:04:16] No, I haven't had that experience.
[1:04:19] And you are not a young man, right?
[1:04:22] No, I'm certainly not a young man.
[1:04:25] Okay. So what do you think that means?
[1:04:28] I used to be a Christian when I was much, much younger. And I went through the whole thing, and then I came out the other side, And I thought, well, a lot of it is just irrational. And I became a non-Christian at that point. It doesn't really make much sense, a non-Christian, right? But it's very difficult. It feels to me like Christianity has become, over the years, sort of hyper, I don't want to use this as a pejorative, but kind of hyper, feminized in many ways.
[1:05:16] Okay, listen, I mean, that's sort of a and we can get to that discussion if you like, but let me sort of give you an example, right? Erica Kirk. Her husband was brutally murdered. I think it was September. and she, within a few days, publicly, with shining eyes and outstretched hands, forgave the murderer, right?
[1:05:38] Now, Erica Kirk has been involved in sending out multiple cease and desist letters, like legal threats, right? Because she says people are spreading defamation, conspiracy theories, false claims about her, and so on, right? Three letters, one went to Colin Scott Campbell, one to Zach DeGregorio, of course, to Candace Owens. These letters often sent via an attorney demand retraction cessation of statements sometimes public corrections saying this defamation emotional distress harm to reputation blah blah blah yep so cease and desist of course are just warnings not court orders right yeah so.
[1:06:27] Do you understand this kind of contradiction, right i mean just i'm sure everybody does but just very briefly to mention it i think it would be arguably true to say that murder is worse than conspiracy theories, or making false claims about someone or even defamation we can say that defamation is wrong but defamation generally is civil not criminal and and so on right so it would just be financial penalties, no cost of life. And so it's a bit of a bewildering contradiction that you forgive a murderer, but not someone who makes false claims about you.
[1:07:11] Yeah, absolutely.
[1:07:14] So, that is a bit confusing.
[1:07:20] Yeah, definitely.
[1:07:21] And I, of course, have been pointing this out. Sorry, I've been pointing out the problems with forgiveness in Christianity and Christians' enactment of forgiveness for decades. How many Christians do you think have especially when I cite biblical passages and blah blah blah how many Christians have written to me and said oh my gosh you're right, I have to change what I'm doing and blah blah blah I've been in philosophy for 40 years now of course I haven't focused on forgiveness for 40 years but let's just say I talked about forgiveness and the need for the three, things needed for true forgiveness. One is an apology. The second is restitution. And the third is a reasonable commitment that's measurable that it's not going to happen again. Like if you're angry at someone, you apologize, you make restitution, and then you go to anger management. Yeah.
[1:08:22] I know the answer to this question because I've heard you speak about it before.
[1:08:25] So, I mean, honestly, zero, right? Now, I'm not saying no one's changed, but I can only go with the evidence in front of me. So, what does Christianity mean if, you can't leverage it to adjust people's behavior to the better. So you say, I believe in Christianity, I'm a Christian. And then you do things that are specifically repudiated by Christianity. And what is the point of a belief system if it can't be used to modify your behavior? It doesn't make any sense to me. like if somebody says to me, Stef, you made a mistake here. Well, of course, I want to be accurate and I want to say things that are true. So if I make a mistake, I will put out a correction, you know, that kind of stuff. Or if somebody says to me, Stef, you made this argument, but there's a logical flaw in your argument. And if they prove that there's a logical flaw in my argument, I will put out a correction, you know, this kind of stuff, right? Because I have publicly stated beliefs that people can use as leverage to correct me.
[1:09:39] Sure.
[1:09:41] So when you say the ethics of Christianity or can atheism come up with, beliefs that provide ethics the way that Christianity does, I have some serious questions. Which is, I have yet to meet a correctable Christian. And I'm not saying they don't exist, obviously, but I'm just saying that I've been out here in the public square for almost 45 years. And I have yet to meet a correctable Christian. Now, there are some people who believe in religion. I present the arguments for atheism and so on. Now, and they'll change. On the other hand, I have also yet to meet a correctable atheist.
[1:10:30] Yeah.
[1:10:32] So I'm not putting Christianity under the microscope here solely.
[1:10:36] Yeah.
[1:10:37] So when I meet atheists and they say, I don't believe in God, and I say, the state doesn't exist, they're like, what?
[1:10:44] Yeah.
[1:10:45] Come on, man. Of course the government exists. Look at these buildings. And I say, buildings don't mean that the concept exists. Otherwise, you'd say that God exists because there are churches.
[1:10:54] Yeah.
[1:10:55] Right? Right, so atheists are not correctable either. Now, again, I'm not saying no one's correctable. I'm just saying that the vast majority of people say a bunch of shit.
[1:11:10] Yep.
[1:11:12] And if you call them out on deviations from what they claim to be the good, what do they do?
[1:11:18] Well, generally speaking, they make a bunch of excuses and then just say you're wrong.
[1:11:27] Yeah, I mean, it's like if you say someone's fat and all they do is adjust the mirror. No, it looks fine now. All people do is adjust their shitty standards until they're somehow justified. Or if they can't do that, they just ignore it.
[1:11:46] The other thing I wanted to mention was, and this is going out to the Christians out there, if they're any in this, in your calling show, excuse me, is that if you commit murder, if someone commits murder, kills somebody, like happened to Charlie Kirk, and then someone on his behalf forgives you, I would say that is a cardinal, you know, in terms of theology, I would argue that that's probably a cardinal sin as well because that's between the person who committed the murder and God. That's not, I don't think that's, if someone killed my, you know, say I was married and someone shot my wife or killed my wife, I feel like I would not have whether I believe it or not it wouldn't be on me to forgive that person I wouldn't be in that role I would just say, I don't think that we should have the power to forgive someone whether they seek penitent.
[1:13:03] Penitence I know it's a tricky.
[1:13:04] One Yeah, thank you Or not So I feel like that was you know not only was it wrong for erica kirk to stand up and forgive this guy whether he did, seek penitence or not but that wasn't even her i don't even think that was really her role i don't think that's one well.
[1:13:22] Can you imagine if you had a friend whose wife, had had an affair and one of his children was not his.
[1:13:32] Right and.
[1:13:35] Can you imagine I'll see you next time. Going to your friend's wife and saying, I forgive you on behalf of my friend. You are fully forgiven. The sin is removed. The stain is removed. And I do that on behalf of my friend. I mean, how narcissistic would that be?
[1:13:54] Yeah, that's exactly my point. Yeah. It's gross. Yeah, it's gross.
[1:14:01] I mean, the Christian ministries that take hundreds of millions or billions of dollars of government money to settle migrants into communities, which is why, of course, America has Obamacare and all of the associated disasters.
[1:14:20] So if you point out to them that taking government money.
[1:14:28] Is kind of a violation at least to some degree of the separation of church and state, and and so on if you were to try and point that out do you think that they would have fierce debates and end up saying you know what this is involving ourself too much in secular affairs, we are taking money from the government which you could make a case in christianity that taking money from the government is not theft if the government has the money but of course the government doesn't have the money which we know because of national debts and unfunded liabilities, so you are taking money from the future from the unborn from the next generation which is absolutely immoral thou shalt not steal, like you could say you could make some vague case in a democracy that well people have voted for this and it's the will of the people and the majority and all of that okay it's not a great argument but at least you could make it with some credibility and, But there is no money, it's all debt, and it comes from the next generation, and we don't know whether the next generation would or would not vote for these kinds of resettlement programs. In fact, we could be quite certain that they would not.
[1:15:51] Absolutely.
[1:15:52] So, does it matter?
[1:15:55] Yeah, I know.
[1:15:56] Does it matter?
[1:15:57] Well, it matters, yeah, I mean, yeah, look at the state.
[1:16:02] It doesn't matter. So I don't know what the beliefs, I don't honestly know what most people's beliefs mean at all. Other than some vague feel-good self-justifications for whatever hedonistic bullshit they want to engage in in the first place.
[1:16:17] You know.
[1:16:19] People just do what they want. Ex post-factor reasoning, reasoning after the fact. They just do whatever the hell they want. And they just make up some florid bullshit to justify it. After the fact. I mean, that's what most people's beliefs have nothing to do with discipline or self-restraint or the sacrifice of pleasures in the moment for the sake of the good of self and society. In the long run, most people just do whatever they feel like and make up nonsensical stories after the fact so that they're in the right. I mean, how often, and this is not quite as rare, how often have you met someone who's had a bad breakup and who only talks about what they did wrong, not what the other person did wrong?
[1:17:21] Yeah, many times, yeah.
[1:17:24] How many times have you met someone who's had a bad breakup or a divorce or something who only talks about what they did wrong and not, doesn't even mention what the other person did wrong.
[1:17:37] Yeah, frequently, yeah.
[1:17:40] Sorry, I just want to make sure that we're on the same page here. I do not meet people who say, here's what I did wrong in my relationship. I hear people say, here's what the other person did wrong in the relationship.
[1:17:52] Oh, I get what you're saying, yeah. Sorry, I mis...
[1:17:55] That's fine, that's fine.
[1:17:56] Yeah, yeah. But yeah, the blame game is, yeah, of prolific, right?
[1:18:00] How many boomers are saying, gee, we completely pillaged the public purse, which is why the next generation is growing up in such appalling public debt. We absolutely need to get together and find a way to cut our pensions so that.
[1:18:22] We don't put the young through all of this financial hardship, which we did not grow up with, because the national debt was very low. When the boomers were growing up, now it's very high, which has massive distortionary effects on the economy and destroys the opportunities for the young. Or the boomers would say, particularly the white male boomers would say, well, when we were growing up, there was no DEI that kept white males out of jobs. We really should find a way to repeal this because it's wrong to inflict restrictions on those who come after us that we did not face ourselves. Because the boomers always told me when I was growing up, we inherit the world from our ancestors and we are supposed to take care of it for our children. Well, the same is true of the economy, right? And even the most basic environmental protection ideas should be applied to the economy first and foremost. Because if you don't have any excess resources, you can't protect the environment anyway. I mean, people have this belief, of course, that the indigenous populations lived in harmony with nature. Nope. Like countless species were just wiped out by only 5 million people around the world prior to the modern world, right?
[1:19:42] So, can you ever go to boomers and say, according to your own values, you need to change your behavior?
[1:19:53] Oh, I don't hear any, I don't, I've never, I've never heard that from a boomer. I've never heard any.
[1:19:59] No, and you don't hear that freely from anyone.
[1:20:02] Very rarely. Yeah.
[1:20:03] Right. So this is, this is the basic test of integrity that need to be applied, right? Which is to say, according to your own values, you need to change your behavior.
[1:20:16] Yeah.
[1:20:18] I mean, the Erica Kirk, TPUSA situation is wild to me. Honestly, it makes my head spin. I forgive a murderer. I put out cease and desist orders on those who are spreading what I consider falsehoods or some defamatory thing. And it's like, fine, okay, then have your defamatory thing and send out your cease and desist. Fail to protect those who may be exercising free speech. Defamation is tricky.
[1:20:48] Misinformation is tricky. Maybe they're exercising free speech. I don't know. I'm not a lawyer, right? so I can't evaluate these things in any detailed way. But defamation is definitely a blurry line, you know, particularly in America, if you're a public figure, because you have to show not just that the information is false, but you also have to show a reckless disregard for the truth. Getting things wrong isn't enough. You have to have a reckless disregard for the truth, which is a very high bar for defamation in America. So it's definitely a gray area, the relationship between free speech, what are called anti-SLAP laws, which means that you can't sue people for trying to participate in public discussions. SLAP is a strategic litigation against public participation, which means, so it's a very interesting, complicated, and gray area. The government in America can't suppress speech, but it can fund NGOs that get people banned. Like it's all mucky and complicated and messy, and certainly a whole lot less complicated than shooting poor Charlie Kirk through the neck. And I don't see much discussion of this.
[1:21:59] Yeah.
[1:22:00] I don't see much discussion of this.
[1:22:02] It's appalling. Yeah.
[1:22:04] Well, and again, no particular hate on Miss Kirk. I mean, she's obviously had a very tough time, but it's just if forgiveness of a murderer is a value, then forgiveness for those who are perhaps carelessly speculating about Charlie Kirk's murder or whatever it is, right? Far less egregious and should also be forgiven. But it's not. And that I find wild, that there's not these conversations. So as a whole, and I did a whole presentation on this many years ago called The Death of Reason, which is people act the way they want and then make up nonsense afterwards to justify it, which means that you cannot leverage their virtues or integrity, to compel them to better behavior. It's like trying to lasso someone with fog. You know, if you get a lariat on a bull, you can pull it and change its course and so on, right? People's publicly proclaimed virtues can almost never be used to compel or change their behavior now by compel I don't mean of course use force, but if people say here's what I believe.
[1:23:30] Then you should be able to use those public statements of belief to cause a change in their behavior you. If you are taking a cab home from the airport and the cab is, let's say you're south from the airport, the cab is going north, and you say to the cab driver, you're going the wrong way. I'm south. You're going north. And if he keeps going north, then you're going to get broken up and sold for parts, right? Because you're going to get trafficked or some godforsaken thing is going to happen to you. Because clearly his goal is not to get you home, but to do something else, which is pretty nefarious, right? I mean, there's these stories you sort of hear on these true crime podcasts of women, you know, walking home late at night and it's cold and some guy stops. Maybe there's a woman in the car to make her feel better and says, hey, I'll give you a lift. And then he starts chugging along somewhere and they go past her neighborhood and that icy dread fills her heart because she realizes they're not taking her home and she's probably going to have a very nasty and short evening and the public proclamation of virtues you know i mean was it douglas murray.
[1:24:50] Was railing against people because you know his his entire qualification is he's got a third class degree in english literature so naturally this makes him a complete expert in foreign policy and all these sorts of things but he's like well you you you he railed at dave smith you how dare you criticize Gaza when you've never been there. Now, of course, Douglas Murray is now talking all about Iran. Has he ever been to Iran? No. But they say, ah, well, yes, but I would be killed if I went to Iran. I don't know about that exactly. And people go to Iran. So the rule has just changed, right? For obvious reasons. So, I mean, when I was a kid, I was told that.
[1:25:37] If I did not prepare for a test, I would just get failed, and which could cost me a year of my young life because I get held back and so on, right? And I was told at the age of 10 or 11 or 12 or even younger that I had to study, and I would not be shielded from the negative consequences of my own bad habits, even as a little kid. And now you say to boomers, you have to take cuts in your pensions because there's not enough money, which everyone has known for 40 years. I remember when I was 11 or 12, conversations about there's not enough money for old age pensions, right? This is one of the slowest moving disasters in all of human history.
[1:26:20] Yeah. Well, that's part of the problem, isn't it? People pretend it's not even happening.
[1:26:25] Sure. Sure. And so I was told as a kid that I was going to lose a year of my life and be held back, which has severe consequences, severe consequences, if I didn't study. And now boomers, even if they have $10 million in the bank, are demanding their pensions.
[1:26:45] Yeah, it's gross. Yeah.
[1:26:47] Well, I mean, but that's just the way things are. Now, a free society, there are actually negative consequences to hypocrisy and immorality in a truly free society. And right now, statism is just kind of like a psychosis. It makes people morally insane because they never have to deal with the negative consequences of their own bad choices at all.
[1:27:11] Yeah.
[1:27:13] So they just remain in a state of infancy. Sorry, go ahead.
[1:27:16] Yeah, no, 100%. I mean, it's sort of, I mean, it's astounding, right? I mean, I felt incredibly grateful for the time I did grow up in. I feel like sort of terrified for this current young generation because what kind of role models do they have in their lives in order to sort of teach them virtues, let's just boil it down to just some basic virtues, right? Like they don't even exist hardly at all, do they? For the most part.
[1:28:03] What do you mean by basic virtues? I'm not disagreeing. I'm just not sure what you mean.
[1:28:08] Well, just, you know, the basic virtues of, like, being honest. You know, don't lie to yourself. And then, you know, by consequence, don't lie to others. You know? We're just basically being, I think, just, oh, it's okay to lie. You know, completely turn it back on reality. You know, and what are they supposed to, when that happens, what's a person supposed to do? If you just pretend that there's nothing real about the world, the whole thing is just completely upside down.
[1:28:42] Well, yeah, and of course, one of the big challenges is, and this goes back to, I mean, really the 19th century, is that was the church able to resist the temptations of government power? Because if you can't resist the temptations of government power, I don't have respect for anything involved in that. And of course, the church as a whole, this is the Protestant churches in America and other churches around the world, in the West at least, the government said, we'll take over education. Don't worry, we'll take over education and you can then use the power of the state to compel your religious beliefs on others. Now, the Christianity was founded on massive skepticism of state power, because it was the state power that was used to murder Christians, to persecute Christians, and to torture Christians, and to deprive them of life, liberty, and property, and of course, killing Jesus, not being least among these problems. So, Christians for hundreds of years, well, I guess until the conversion of the emperor. Christians, for certainly many decades, were brutally persecuted and tortured and slaughtered by the state, by the thousands, in very public spectacles. Nobody could fail to be aware of this.
[1:30:08] Yeah, yeah, 100%.
[1:30:09] And so, Christianity and its relationship to state power should have remained, at the very least, extremely skeptical and uneasy.
[1:30:19] Yeah.
[1:30:20] And what does christianity say about the devil that the devil will offer you power control and dominion, over the earth and so when the government offered to christians we will take over education don't worry man we'll totally let you run it yeah and you'll be able to use it to further indoctrinate children into your religious beliefs. Now, of course, the Christian clergy at the time, this is not complicated, would say, no, this is just an offer like Jesus got from the devil in the wilderness, right? 40 days in the wilderness, Satan comes to Jesus and says, I will give you the whole world power, dominion over the whole world. All you have to do is worship me. That's the foundational reality of Christianity. And one of the most admirable things about Jesus was his refusal to take on earthly power control and have dominion over things in the world. Because Jesus, and this is a very common myth in the West, right? The Goethes, Mephistopheles, and so on, right? Dr. Faustus. It's that the devil will come and offer you particular talent, skills, and abilities that you have not yourself earned.
[1:31:34] And you take these things, but it costs you your entire soul, and you go to hell, right? So this is foundational Christianity. It's foundational to the West. And what happened when the government offered these terrifying, violent, secular powers to the church.
[1:31:54] Sorry, are you asking me that question?
[1:31:56] No, they gobbled it up. They gobbled it up. And churches, I mean, they tried to set up their own institutions, still happy to take government money in some places, right? I mean, thinking about the Catholic schools in Quebec, in Canada, and so on. But for the most part, they were thrilled and eager to use government power to control the minds of children. And, of course, I understand, and this is to say that there are certainly Christians who are homeschooling. It's gone from very small movement to many millions, for instance, in the United States.
[1:32:35] But they're not doing that because they have a problem with government power. They're doing that because they have a problem with the way government power is being deployed against Christians. And this was perfectly predictable according to the basic ethics of christianity that the government was going to offer you dominion coercive dominion over the minds of children, which would give you a brief burst of happiness and relief but which then would cost you your entire soul and this is perfectly in complete and deep alignment with christianity and thousands of years of theology and art, right? That someone's going to come along and offer you, like a drug, happiness, control, power, success, whatever, that you have not earned.
[1:33:29] And if you take that, you will be destroyed and go to hell, right? And the churches did not wrestle with it very much. In fact, they eagerly sought out government power in particular to control the Catholics coming into America and to try to maintain the Protestant nature of America in the 19th century. And ever since then, although the church has had some issues, this is like, but this is like the man who sells his soul to the devil for, you know, fame and money and power or whatever, the man who sells his soul to the devil later regretting the deal. Well, yeah, but you can't unsell your soul to the devil. The contract is written in blood. And so, of course, the Christian leaders throughout the West, when the government offered them control over government education,
[1:34:19] control over coercive education of the young, they should have prayed to God for guidance. They should have prayed to Jesus The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit For guidance Gee, this is really tempting But it is Coercive secular power.
[1:34:38] Jesus, Mary God, Holy Spirit What should we do? And what would God say? What God would say Guys, I already gave you this story You don't have to pray to me I literally gave you this story that Jesus refused dominion over the things of this world, And that's your ideal. This is not even subtle. This is a direct parallel. Plus, I gave you endless stories about people who sell their soul to the devil, get a brief flurry of happiness, because of course it is an analogy often for addiction, drugs, and so on. They get a brief burst of happiness, and then what happens? Well, they lose their soul. Like, I've already told you this story. You already know this story. You don't need to pray to me. I've already told you exactly what happens. And so, if they prayed, as I assume they did, God above, what should we do with the government offering this awesome and terrifying coercive power over the minds of children? Of course, God would have said, absolutely not.
[1:35:42] As a religion, you barely survived the government. Like, no, absolutely not. And did they listen? Nope. Because recognizing that, Giving children over to the government might reinforce religion in the short run, but it will be used to destroy religion in the long run is, of course, right? I mean, you sell your soul to the devil. He makes you very famous, which is to say you sell your soul to the music producers and allow them to do horrible things to you in the Alanis Morissette style. So you sell your soul to the devil. You get a brief burst of happiness. It may even last many, many years, may last a couple of decades, but then towards the end of your life, you realize you're going to hell and it's too late to back out and your soul has been corrupted by the unearned. And the unearned in this case is often talent, right? So.
[1:36:38] It was a pretty obvious thing, very obvious thing. There's countless examples in the Bible and in literature and all of that. Everybody's fully aware that the devil offers you power in return for your soul. And when they prayed to God, God would have told them, no, come on, I already told you this story. You know what you need to do. You need to reject government power and you need to tell your congregation to reject government power because being God, I know exactly how this is going to play out. That you'll get some decades of control, but it would be followed by the hollowing out of religiosity, the banning of the Ten Commandments, the banning of prayer in schools, the banning of, and eventually the burning down of churches and all this kind of stuff, right? So God would know, and God would tell them, no, don't do it. Don't do that. Like, come on. I mean, I shouldn't need to tell you. I shouldn't need to tell you at this point, right?
[1:37:35] And so either they prayed to God, And God told them the truth, but they didn't listen, or they didn't pray to God, or it can't be that God didn't know the future and lied to them, because God is all-knowing and all-good. And so, Christianity was unable, and this is just one example, could be any number of examples, but Christianity was unable to protect itself and the West. And it just took government offering the power and they're all folded. There should be no compulsion in the arena of charity and therefore the churches should be very much against the welfare state. The churches should be very much against old age pensions from the government. The church should be very much against socialized medicine because that is coercion.
[1:38:24] I mean, the story of the parable of the Good Samaritan is not that the guy going down the street who sees the broken and bleeding man in the ditch, he doesn't force another person to help him at gunpoint or knife point, I guess it would be back then, or something like that, right? He doesn't say, you got to help this person or I'm going to lock you in a dungeon. He goes to help him himself. And if the story was that if you're concerned about somebody in the ditch, that you violently coerce someone else to help them, that would not be a moral story, and we all recognize that. And so thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness, thou shalt not covet, thou shalt not covet, and thou shalt not ally thyself with the state. Well, that's pretty obvious. And not to belabor the point, but yeah, Christianity was just not able. So, when you say, can we get good morals without religion? Well, we can't get good morals with or without religion as yet. And this is why I focus on parenting, because we have to be able to raise people who are able to think. and you know most people are you know kind of barely sentient and just justify whatever they want to do based on the whim of the moment and then call it the eternal good.
[1:39:41] Well yeah thanks thanks thanks for answering my question there you're.
[1:39:48] Very welcome i'm gonna just jump to the other fellow i appreciate you're always welcome to bring these questions i really do appreciate them and counter maze if you wanted.
[1:39:57] To oh wow been a long time listener so i would say about 10 years um took your advice during a past relationship also when you you said, in a relationship both people can make each other worse something along those lines sorry i'm paraphrasing um and i realized that we were making each other worse and i was like good god so took your advice there got out it's also funny because i was i lived up north and i would donate, probably a good amount of some of my paychecks to you. And she thought I was crazy. She's like, you're donating to a voice online? And I'm like, he's not just a voice. I'm like, I've played my podcast. I mean, I played his podcast. You heard what he was saying. I told you. She agreed with a lot of the stuff you were saying, but she thought it was funny that I would donate to you, which was cute.
[1:40:48] But I appreciate your support. Thank you.
[1:40:51] Oh, thank you. Yeah. Thank you for everything you've been doing for the years too. You're great. You're fantastic. I just bought a beanie off your website. I've been rocking it at work. So I wanted to bring up, have you ever heard of God of War?
[1:41:05] The video game?
[1:41:07] Yes, sir.
[1:41:08] I've heard of it. I don't know much about it.
[1:41:11] So I'll try not to make it too long. So there's like old games on PlayStation. It was like old God of War. He's this hardcore, like you can think of every macho theme possible. He's like, you go around the game just slicing up people, trying to make your way to the God of War Ares and try to kill him because he claims, oh, it was his fault that I killed my wife and child. They're like, no, bro, it was your own fault because you went crazy with power and started swinging these chainswords everywhere and sliced up your own daughter and your wife. But do you want to say that it was Ares' fault? Okay. And then later on, they had a reboot kind of a way on PlayStation 4 called... They just called it God of War, but it's God of War 4. And the crazy thing about this game is that it has traces of view pb um and priestful parenting i haven't seen any other game do that and and.
[1:42:07] That sorry that was in a sequel to the game.
[1:42:09] Yes sir it was in um the fourth game um and people hated on it they're like he's just a pussy now like he used to be so hardcore you know he used to kill people there was like a sex mini game in the old games where the press buttons at the right time to pleasure the females um and and now he's like oh he's trying to be a good father like what a softy and i'm like dude this is character growth, I thought this is what people wanted, was character growth. Where now, he gets a second chance of being a good father, or being a father, and he's trying to be a good father. And as you're playing through the game, he has anger issues towards his son. Even so far as snatching the bow from his son's hand because he missed a shot. He goes, what are you doing? Goes off on him. And then you see him trying to resist his anger and just take a deep breath. Let's fight that deer. Because his son was trying to shoot a deer. And throughout the game, he's pushing these, I would say these maybe negative philosophies. Like he says, close your heart to these enemies that we're fighting. Because you need to do this to stay strong.
[1:43:26] Sorry, hang on. Sorry, that's a negative philosophy.
[1:43:30] I'm not sure. Please correct me if I'm wrong.
[1:43:35] You're not sure about what?
[1:43:36] I'm not sure if that, it goes in the category of philosophy. Saying close your heart to these enemies that we're fighting.
[1:43:43] Sorry, why would that, I mean, help me understand, why would that be bad? Because I don't know the context of the game, but why would that be bad?
[1:43:51] Um, it turns out, maybe it's not bad, but later in the game, well, sorry, in the game after that, he apologizes, because his name is Kratos, his son's name is Atreus, he apologizes to his son, and he says, I'm sorry I was wrong when I told you that.
[1:44:09] Okay, but what do you think? If you're facing an enemy who is bent on your destruction, should you have empathy?
[1:44:17] I would say no, because that window, they could abuse it, yeah, and it would get you destroyed. So I would say he was correct, at least at the time.
[1:44:28] Well, what do you mean, at least at the time? This is the universal principles, right?
[1:44:32] Yes sorry i guess there's there's more to the story which is why my point of view is this way so his son went okay um try not to be too all over the place he didn't want his son to know that they're gods because he feared his son would it would you know it would abuse it his son would his son would be like oh i'm a god blah blah and when he finally told his son the truth because he was pressured and his son was kind of like things were happening to his health because if you don't tell your son the truth about what they are um they get sick and his son was constantly getting sick over the years because he just kept all these things from his son so his son uh when he told him he was a god his son started being a jerk and um pushing around people and stabbed a guy who his father did not want them to stab um kind of losing the subject my mind sorry well Well.
[1:45:26] I'm just, no, because you, you had mentioned that it was a bad ethic to close your heart against your enemies.
[1:45:32] Yes. Okay. That's what it was. Um, so he stabbed a guy that his son did not, his father did not want them to. And that's why his son was like, his dad was like, first it was close your heart. And his son listened to close your heart because the enemy was someone who tried to hurt them earlier. And he's like, I did what you said, dad, basically. And his dad was, saw that his son might become like him. And so he took it back later and said, I was wrong. Thank you.
[1:45:57] Okay, sorry. I don't know the game, so there's no context here.
[1:46:02] I'm sorry.
[1:46:03] Okay, so is it a war? Is it a violent battle? Like you say he stabbed a guy. It wasn't immediate self-defense, right?
[1:46:12] It was not immediate self-defense, so it could have been. So there was, for context, there was two brothers who were other gods who were hunting them down. It was not a war at this time. They were just living, like, alone, and he was trying to keep it low-key that, But Kratos was trying to keep it low-key that they were gods, him and his son, Atreus. There was an enemy who was still following them, and he came at them, and he was cussing at them. And, you know, he's being aggressive, assertive. And his son just like, okay, he stabbed him. He's like, you know, piss off. And his dad yanked his arm.
[1:46:43] All right. So hang on, hang on, hang on. Sorry, I just need to know. So there was verbal abuse against the son from somebody who had been previously violent towards the son.
[1:46:54] Yes, correct.
[1:46:56] And was this a prelude to an attack?
[1:46:59] It very much could have been, yes.
[1:47:02] Okay, so was the sun in possession of a reasonable belief there was imminent bodily harm?
[1:47:08] I'm going to say yes, correct.
[1:47:10] Okay, so then it would be self-defense. Okay, so the father said, you should stab someone who were about to kill you, and then later said that was a bad idea.
[1:47:22] I'm going to say yes.
[1:47:25] Okay, so what changed?
[1:47:29] You got me thinking, I haven't played this game for a long time.
[1:47:32] Okay, well listen, I mean, us theorizing about video game ethics in a half-forgotten game is probably not a very productive use of time, but that's fine, that's fine. Is there anything else that you wanted to mention?
[1:47:45] Hmm uh i guess to finish off on that i would say that um i was playing the video game in my living room with my uh girlfriend now wife and my mom uh back into my family house up north and when kratos went to his son and told him he was sorry for like all the ways that he was being pushy, and the ways that he was aggressive with him he basically apologized for the stuff and he tried to be more honest with his son and we all like we got teary-eyed because this isn't something that you would really see in a video game or hear in a video game it was like wow apologizing to his son and it was so annoying that people would call kratos a sissy for doing like things that you've been saying for years which is like be honest and um you know try to own up and uh that maybe kratos was like maybe i wasn't correct about the way i um said the thing correct for the things i I told you to do. I was like, wow, it was such a shock. So maybe there's something in there. Some material for you because people were like one side was like this was great this is fantastic for a game i mean the first game won game of the year the previous game won game of the year because of it the second game people were they wanted him to become just basically a gangster again and i was like what the heck like this is progress i mean no other game is doing this people and.
[1:49:04] How old was his son when he apologized.
[1:49:07] I think in the first game his son was like I want to say like eight-ish? His son seemed 12-ish. And this, the one I mentioned, because the other one was called God of War 4, but it was just God of War, because they're trying to reboot it. And then the next one was God of War Ragnarok, for context.
[1:49:23] Okay, so the father apologized to the son when there was still time to fix the parenting?
[1:49:28] Yes, correct.
[1:49:29] Oh, good. Yeah, because sometimes it's older when it's sort of past the point of no return. But that's interesting. Okay, so the game is just God of War 4?
[1:49:39] It's confusing, I'm sorry. So they did like their whole God of War 1, 2, and 3. And they had a few spinoffs. And then they tried to restart it. And it's just called God of War, which is annoying because it's actually God of War 4.
[1:49:52] And what year did it come out?
[1:49:54] I think 2018.
[1:49:57] Okay, well, I'll check it out if I get a chance. I'm just finishing up. My daughter and I are playing Solasta with some friends, and we're just finishing that up. So maybe I want to do some philosophical review. It might be interesting.
[1:50:08] That would be so awesome if you did that. That would be amazing. I do have another topic, but I don't want to take up too much of your time.
[1:50:14] No, go for it.
[1:50:16] You mentioned people making up justifications for stuff that they want to do, right something along those lines yeah uh that was my sister i am the oldest brother of three siblings and me and my middle sister growing up was it was pretty much like war in the house, constantly constantly fights she's picking fights with me over and over and over and over and over, i did something that you said in the past which is like call out your family talking about the problems i did that before i even knew about your show before i even found you off of youtube and And then just been listening to your, following your podcast ever since. And I called out my family and I told my mom that I had fantasies about basically murdering my sister. I was like, I had fantasies about it. Like, you guys don't know how much, how many years I've been holding back because you've been pissing me off. You've been always picking fights. I'm sick of it. And my mom's like, you can't, like, you can't think about.
[1:51:11] Sorry, you is referring to, you said to your mother, I've been fantasizing about doing violence with my sister. because you've been pissing me off. Is that referring to your mother or your sister?
[1:51:19] My sister.
[1:51:22] Okay, so it's a little confusing when you say you're talking to your mother and then you say you, but you're referring to your sister.
[1:51:27] You're right.
[1:51:27] Okay, just for somebody who's trying to say, sorry, go ahead.
[1:51:29] As someone who tries to write books, I know how infuriating that is or how annoying it is. I should be careful to do that myself. Yes, to my sister, they're both sitting at the living room at this time and I was playing a video game on TV. Basically come from a gamer family, me and my mom mostly. And then, yeah, I said that to them. I was playing a game. I don't know, it just came out. I was like, whatever. And they're all, oh, like, you can't think about that. And then my sister's defense was, we're family. I said, so you've been picking fights with me for as long as I can remember. And what you have to say for that is because we're family? I said, that doesn't make any sense. And she said, yeah, we're siblings. She's like, that's how it goes. I said, no, siblings can get along. What are you talking about? And I saw my mom nod to this, like it's possible. She knows it's possible. But she didn't say anything and so yeah sorry.
[1:52:21] So what sort of fights would your sister pick like what would happen.
[1:52:24] Okay let's give an example um let's say that i was this was like throughout years of growing up there uh let's say that um i mean that's obvious sorry uh i'll be in the living room sitting down let's say i'm watching uh tv and i have a blanket on me she would come into the living room and she would snatch that blanket off me and i'd be like what the heck are you doing and so i would snatch it back and she would just start a tug of war with the blanket and it would not be playful giggles. It would be like aggression. It would be like I stole something from her. But it was a blanket in the family that was nobody's. It was like a shared one that you could get from the family closet. And she would just start a war over it or a little fight over it. And I'm like, what the hell? And we're tug-a-tug-a-tug-a-tug-a-tug-a-war. And then my mom comes to the living room, hears the aggression, and she's like, what's going on? And I explain the situation. I'm saying, she's trying to take the blanket from me. And I'm just chilling on the couch, watch TV. And then my mom looks at my sister and she's like, is this true? And my sister says, no, I had it first. And I was like, are you for real? What? You had it first? No, I was literally sitting, chilling with the blanket on me. I did nothing to you. She said, no, you tried to take it from me. I was like, oh, oh, oh my God. Um, it's fuzzy. It's hard to remember. I don't think my mom completely took my side. I think she just, I kind of remember her just going back.
[1:53:43] Sorry, but where's your father in this?
[1:53:46] Oh, single mother. Sorry.
[1:53:48] Well, there you go. Yep. Now, did your mother have hostility towards the father of her children?
[1:53:55] Oh, that's a weird one. He, I want to, I can't really say yes or no. It's kind of strange. He was not surprising. He was a typical thug. He was in jail for like when I was younger and he would call me from jail when I was a kid to talk to me.
[1:54:13] Why was he in jail?
[1:54:15] Apparently theft, robbery. He tried to rob a bank. He robbed a bank three times, and the third time, they caught him.
[1:54:25] And was this the father of all three children?
[1:54:29] Negative. Only me.
[1:54:32] Oh. And who were the other men, or man, that your mother had children with? Okay, don't laugh. This is horrible.
[1:54:41] Sorry. Sorry. Um, so second, so I'm the first second sibling. We can call her Cravey, uh, like a craving. Uh, she had a different father who was like a photographer. Um, like he had a very peaceful, nice job, which also confused me why she was so aggressive. Cause my dad was the one who was the gangster. Like your dad does photography. He's, he's cool. Uh, then the youngest sibling was adopted. Um.
[1:55:13] Adopted?
[1:55:14] Yes, sir.
[1:55:15] How do you get adopted into a single parent household? I thought adoption was pretty restrictive.
[1:55:20] I'm trying not to laugh. Because we had a foster care system, and they don't really have a word for this. I've discussed this with friends and coworkers who've gotten deep and opened up. And our apartment was where foster kids came through to stay for a while until they jumped to the next foster home. So I called it a hub, like a foster hub. My mom...
[1:55:44] Oh, so your mother got money from the government for taking care of foster kids.
[1:55:47] You are correct.
[1:55:49] Okay. So was this like her job?
[1:55:51] Yes.
[1:55:53] Okay. And was she good or skilled at it?
[1:55:58] Hmm. I'm going to say if it's like a zero to five, I'm going to say four. Four being like good.
[1:56:07] No, come on. She can't be good at being a foster mom if she can't even manage her own sexuality or her own children's relationships.
[1:56:16] I agree.
[1:56:17] Come on. Who are you trying to fool here, man? What are you doing?
[1:56:21] Sorry to laugh. I can give you details. Like she taught me.
[1:56:25] No, no, I don't. I don't. Sorry. I'm a principal's guy.
[1:56:28] Yes.
[1:56:28] I don't give you details, right? So she has three children by three different men. I'm sorry. She has two children by two different men.
[1:56:36] Yes.
[1:56:36] And then she adopts and she puts herself forward as an expert on parenting and child care when she raises one son who wants to murder his sister.
[1:56:49] Yes, correct.
[1:56:50] Like, don't tell me about her skills in child care.
[1:56:55] I agree.
[1:56:56] So where are you getting this? Like, why are you trying to snow job me with this four nonsense? I give her an 80.
[1:57:03] From perspective like she it was the typical thing where she was good with the kids who were not hers, But when it came to me and Cravey, me and Cravey would fight and she would try to stop us from fighting in front of the other kids because you said it would look bad and it would inspire that behavior in the other kids. So I'm thinking like.
[1:57:21] No, no. Okay, hang on. Hang on. Why did your mother not want you and your sister to fight in front of the foster children?
[1:57:28] I think it was so also the children would not get one thing. They would not absorb the behaviors and act it out so that the. I forget what they're called. The OCS people. there are people who would come through and check and stuff so that they would not.
[1:57:41] She wanted to keep the money. She wanted to keep the money coming in.
[1:57:45] Yes.
[1:57:46] So she didn't care about you guys fighting. She only cared about the free money from the government.
[1:57:53] Yes, I agree. Because if that was the case, she would have stopped the fighting after the kids were gone, after foster care was over. And that was not.
[1:57:58] Well, she would have prevented the fighting from getting to that degree in the first place.
[1:58:03] Also very true.
[1:58:05] And if she cared about the health and well-being of children, she wouldn't have had you with a hardened criminal.
[1:58:13] Hardcore agree. Right.
[1:58:17] Okay. So why are you defending your mom and praising her?
[1:58:23] I think because one fold. She taught me things that have I talked to people over the years. They have never been told. She sat me down when I was younger and she taught me about molesters. And she told me, you tell me if somebody touches you here, you tell me about this and that. And you told me about that stuff. And none of my friends, people I grew up with, they said their parents have never warned them about molestation. And I was like, wow, really? I thought this was normal to be sat down and warned about it.
[1:58:50] Well, let me ask you this. Did your mother bring boyfriends into the home?
[1:58:56] Negative.
[1:59:00] So she didn't date after the photographer?
[1:59:04] So, I got a juicy backstory for the reason why I could tell you. So she kind of dipped her toe in it a little bit. She didn't really want to bring guys around.
[1:59:12] So she mostly found babysitters and left the house when she did date, which was very seldom. There was like two guys, or was it one guy? It was like one guy that we met at Costco, because she was talking to him at Costco and he worked there. He asked her out. And she left the house to go date him. but oh no there was a second guy we met you know what i'm just freaking out we met him also at the store and he asked her out we went to his place to hang out and then after that one time we never went back again and she just cut things off with him so she didn't really try to bring guys around and when i questioned her i was younger about having a father figure around she said oh do you want a stepdad and then she said certain things like do you want a guy around the house do you want you know a guy telling you what to do or do you do you want to be corrected are you going to be corrected on this and that me and my sister my middle sister because the other sister wasn't born yet we looked at each other and we both said no mom said okay then and then she she continued she might have still dated the costco guy but she did not hardcore bring him around he knocked at the door maybe he stood in the door sorry.
[2:00:21] Hang on hang on.
[2:00:22] Sorry so.
[2:00:23] Yeah no it's fine so your mother, told you that the only thing a man would do is order you around.
[2:00:32] Felt that way it was leading to things and no.
[2:00:35] That's what you told me she said it's not a feeling and i'm not saying you've got the exact phrase or whatever it is right but you said hey i kind of need a father influence and she said oh you want a guy just ordering you around and telling you what to do.
[2:00:46] Sorry to laugh okay.
[2:00:48] It's not funny. How did she characterize having a father or a father influence?
[2:00:56] Negatively.
[2:01:01] So that's manipulative.
[2:01:05] Yes, it is.
[2:01:06] That's framing things in such a way that you're going to have to say no, and then she can say, hey, well, I gave you the choice.
[2:01:15] You're correct.
[2:01:18] What she's saying is that she can't attract or keep a quality guy.
[2:01:24] Ooh.
[2:01:27] Because a quality guy a quality male presence would not just give you orders or tell you what to do or like i mean that wouldn't be the case he would love you and inspire you and engage with you and play with you and teach you lessons and be a blast and be great and be fun and be wise and like you know that right i.
[2:01:50] Do because i'm a father myself absolutely.
[2:01:51] So it's all you do or do your kids around, like some sergeant?
[2:01:56] Heck yeah. No, absolutely not.
[2:01:58] Right. So your mother was lying.
[2:02:01] Yeah, it was a trick.
[2:02:05] Why could your mother not attract equality men? I assume she was pretty enough that she's being asked out in cold approaches at Costco, right?
[2:02:15] Oh man, I've just seen cold approaches growing up from men to my mom being a young boy looking up. Yeah, that was a wild experience.
[2:02:22] Okay, so your mother was very attractive to the point where men are willing to ask her out and date her, even though they know she has children, right?
[2:02:33] Correct.
[2:02:34] So why could she not attract a quality man?
[2:02:38] Hmm. I think she might have given herself excuses. And she, sorry, my son is right here. My wife is trying to use the restroom, moving around to the living room. So she had an attraction to bad guys because her dad was a bad guy and she didn't do nope.
[2:03:05] Don't try and domino this stuff. I don't know why people still try to do this stuff with me.
[2:03:10] Bad habit.
[2:03:11] I will not let you give the impression to my audience that your mother has no free will. I will not let you give her the excuse.
[2:03:26] Can I try again?
[2:03:28] No, but I mean, just be aware of that. Why would you say to me and to my audience, that the reason your mother made her choices is that she was a completely empty-headed robot machine programmed by her own childhood and had no choice to do anything different. You said because she was attracted to bad boys because her father was a bad guy. Nope. I mean, you know that I married a mental health professional, though my mother was crazy, right?
[2:03:55] Absolutely.
[2:03:56] Now, could I say, well, I have to be with a crazy woman because my mother was crazy?
[2:04:01] Correct. that would be so.
[2:04:03] Why you you're unconscious when we're talking about your mother you're not alert you're not aware you're not conscious in the conversation because when i point this out it makes sense right.
[2:04:15] Correct i was trying to give multiple but yeah i'm sorry what, sorry to interrupt i know that it's not the true like i know that it's an excuse i absolutely already know it's an excuse when i was saying it that she because her dad was this way she chose these things. I was going to say that she.
[2:04:34] No, you didn't say she chose these things. Because if you say she was attracted to bad boys because her father was a bad boy, you're giving me dominoes. You're giving me causality. So, why?
[2:04:51] Oh, I guess. Because I know that's not true when I say it. It must be programmed. Like, it must be like a muscle that I have for something that I know that's not true.
[2:05:04] Okay. So, why in a philosophy show are you saying things that are not true and bad? It's bad to say there's no free will. It is all causality based on prior history.
[2:05:17] I agree. It's bad. I'm going to say this is weird. I'm not sure why I'm giving you this stuff. I thought I was giving something. I thought I was trying to lead toward the backstory. But I think that it's my mom's excuse to chase bad boys because that's probably what gets her off. And I was going to say it leads to her own childhood. But I know that it's not. I know we're not locked in because I've changed. I'm probably the only one in my family.
[2:05:43] Okay, so why do you give your mother excuses?
[2:05:48] Hmm. Probably because I'm holding on to the last thread of her, because I've already...
[2:05:55] Well, that's all very abstract. I mean, you know as well as I do, and I'm just going to cut through the fog here. You give your mother bad excuses, because that is the requirement of being in a relationship with her.
[2:06:08] I have to push.
[2:06:09] Because if you don't give her excuses, what happens?
[2:06:13] I think what I would say, I have to cut her off, but I already grilled her, though.
[2:06:17] No, no, I don't mean in terms of, like, consequences. I don't know anything about that. But if you don't give any excuses to your mother, and say that she voluntarily chose to have unprotected sex, with habitual criminals, or at least one, And you don't give her any excuses and you hold her fully accountable for her choices as an adult, what happens?
[2:06:51] Please tell me.
[2:06:54] Well, did she hold you at all accountable for any bad decisions when you were a child?
[2:07:00] Absolutely.
[2:07:02] Okay. So she said you are responsible for your decisions as a child despite the fact that you're growing up in very difficult circumstances.
[2:07:11] Yes.
[2:07:12] Right? So, if you take that ethic and say, okay, how old was your mom when she had you?
[2:07:19] 18 or 19.
[2:07:21] Okay. And how old was she when she had your sister?
[2:07:26] I'm going to say I was, she had me when she was 18. She had my sister when she was 19.
[2:07:31] Okay. So, obviously, that's young, but illegal adults, right?
[2:07:37] Correct.
[2:07:37] Okay. So, when you were in your single digits, your mother held you responsible. And has your mother ever taken responsibility for having unprotected sex with a known habitual criminal?
[2:07:55] I'm going to say yes, because I called her out various times as a kid, and she said that she made some bad choices, and it's kind of foggy. I don't want to interrupt if you're still going.
[2:08:10] Okay, she made some bad choices. Okay, so she doesn't give herself that excuse. She didn't say, well, I had to because my father was a bad guy. Okay. So, why did she not intervene when you and your sister were fighting violently?
[2:08:35] You had...
[2:08:36] Or intervene in an effective manner.
[2:08:38] You had a, something that leads to this, you had a, on one of your calls, you said something that really stuck with me years and years and years ago. And you said that parents might engineer their children to fight so they don't team up against the parent. And I think that's the reason because of certain things that happened, or at least one big thing that happened.
[2:08:57] Okay. What was the one big thing?
[2:09:00] There was a time, God, I was single digits. It's like our old upstairs apartment. And I remember, it's like daytime. It was so vibrant. And my mom, I think we went to the store. This was before the third sibling was born. Went to the store and we mom said she would get us something and she didn't get us those things probably like toys or food or something we got home me and my middle sister who rarely team up both called her a liar, and she she got angry and turned to us and said don't call me a liar and we both teamed up and we said you said you would get us these things You said you would do these things. You did not do these things. And me and my middle sister, me and Cravey, we're like teammates. We're like both blue team. We're like going in. And she, I think she got in our faces. I remember the hostility. My body remembers the hostility. Like, don't call me a liar. But we're like, but you lied.
[2:10:06] Not like screaming at you?
[2:10:08] Maybe not screaming. She wasn't a screamer. She was more like a growler. She was like, don't call me a liar.
[2:10:14] Good lord that sounds almost demonic and how old were you and gravy.
[2:10:19] I want to say trying to remember i want to say maybe i was seven she was six, And, uh, after that, we did not, I think we teamed up maybe one other time, but it's faint of memory. So I don't think it matters, but that was the significant time that we teamed up and we never teamed up against her again. So I believe that we were engineered to not team up because my mom said when we were younger, we were, we would get along very, very well. So I've always asked her like, what happened? What happened? Why did we stop? she said I put a I tricked my sister to putting a bead up her nose and that made my sister have to go to the hospital and after that uh me and my sister were never on the same team anymore but I feel like that's.
[2:11:07] Already you put a bead up her nose.
[2:11:09] Sorry I apparently me and her were in the playroom because we had a multiple bedroom apartment like three bedroom and the extra bedroom was the playroom and me and her were alone in the playroom and there was one of the beads that mom used to put in her hair. Somehow I have acquired it or my sister acquired it and I dared her to put it up her nose. She put it up her nose too far that she was freaking out screaming. My mom comes into the room and this is all from word of mouth of my mom because I don't remember any of this. And we had to go to the hospital so they would get out her nose. Mom said after that, me and Cravey were never cool again.
[2:11:49] And you were how old?
[2:11:52] That was... still around the same age, but younger. So maybe, maybe five and four.
[2:11:59] So you at four dared your sister to put the bead up her nose and she ended up in hospital.
[2:12:03] Me at five because the middle sister, I'm the oldest.
[2:12:06] So, um, Oh, sorry. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. You at five, she's four. And of course, it would be up to your mother to make sure that that relationship doesn't go bad, right?
[2:12:18] 100% agree.
[2:12:19] And she didn't do that?
[2:12:22] Correct. To my anger, to my hatred, correct. I feel all the emotion. And I called them out too. That's one of the reasons why I think some of my explaining is always, I called them both out. I called up my whole family. I grilled into my family power drill. And they made up excuses and they dug up all these excuses and it's crazy because I did this before I even listened to your show and you said do all these things and I was like hell yeah I'm already on that path and I just got the excuses got the excuses got the excuses so I was like alright y'all well, I'm moving far away and, deuces I'm gonna get married I'm gonna have a kid I'm gonna raise my kid I'm gonna do it well and then I'm gonna show you guys that, all you guys just make excuses maybe good.
[2:13:07] For you um i'm sorry about the circumstances but good for you and what's the status of your relationship with your family of origin at the moment.
[2:13:14] Distant um on facebook they'll yell at me for things i say i take some of your quotes actually because for some reason people i hate it people don't if i talk about you uh and i say this and that like you say these good things they're like oh he's a white guy or he's look i'm he's a white supremacist i'm like bro like, okay, I'm a black supremacist. What does that make me? And they never, they're like, oh yeah. So I just take your quotes, some things you say, and I post it, and a lot of people will like it. But I'll have family that I'll say maybe some political things, and they'll just lose their mind. They won't even argue with me collectively. They'll just be like, For background, my family's mixed, half white, half black. My mom is half white, half black. And I am mostly black because my dad's black. And so is my sister.
[2:14:00] I'm trying to avoid the cliche of the black criminal father, but I'm afraid we have not managed to skate around that thin ice on this conversation. I'm sorry about that. I mean, I like going counter cliches, but we're not able to get there today. Sorry, go ahead.
[2:14:14] No, no, no. It's absolutely no. I listened to your show and I heard about that. I was like, dude, it's so true. It's so true. It's gross. And it's my whole family. And it's like, can we please stop picking thugs? Come on. And it's just the whole way down. And grandpa and just like, come on, come on. Are you serious right now? So, yeah, I know. And I hand it to everybody. They say the same thing.
[2:14:35] Like, OK, you're the mostly black son of the criminal dad. Like, yeah. And he used to call me from prison to yell at me for things that weren't even my fault. So, yes.
[2:14:46] And what's the ethnicity of your sister?
[2:14:50] Um native american oh wait sorry you mean the middle or the no.
[2:14:56] Not the adopted one the uh the one your mother had with the photographer.
[2:15:00] Um black she's darker than me i don't know if that's relevant but there used to be a stream in the family which is like i'm i'm like middle tone and then my middle sister's darkest and then the native one switches between her skin tone switches between light and dark so what.
[2:15:18] What is she a disco ball what are you talking about.
[2:15:22] It happens to my son, too. It's weird. So my native sister would switch. Her skin tone would sometimes be, like, darker than mine. And we're like, what is going on?
[2:15:32] Oh, you mean, like, tan or summer?
[2:15:36] I would say it was a summer tan thing. But I don't feel like tans would happen that strongly to make her darker than me. Like, you should not be getting that dark. You're a native. You should not be getting that dark because of a simple, simple sunlight. Like, huh? It was like interesting.
[2:15:55] Okay. Got it. So your, your sister is darker than you, right?
[2:16:00] Yes. Metal sister, Kravitz, darker than me.
[2:16:02] And then, and was she, she was the one who initiated a lot of violence.
[2:16:06] Absolutely.
[2:16:07] Come on, man. Give me an escape from these cliches. You've got to help me out.
[2:16:12] Sorry, brother. Sorry. I've been trying to escape from these cliches too. Oh, I've been trying my whole life. Oh.
[2:16:20] And so your family is uh like putting you down a lot like family of origin and so on.
[2:16:26] Let's see i'm gonna give an example i it's more like dismissive um uh so like cousins are more putting me down but the older ones the aunts the uncles it's more dismissive.
[2:16:42] Right and you said you you live far away from everyone is that right.
[2:16:46] Correct. To not give too much details.
[2:16:49] No, no, don't give any details at all. Don't give any details at all. And what is the value? And I'm not saying there isn't any. I'm just kind of curious what there is. What is the value of having this dismissive or contemptuous family of origin in your orbit, in your life?
[2:17:04] There's not much in the orbit, but the value that I get on it, this is going to be interesting how it sounds to you. I want to shit on them. I want to shit on them all.
[2:17:13] Uh, okay. Right. Yeah. Vengeance, right? Like get back.
[2:17:17] Oh yeah. Oh, I want to flex. I want to show them that a good family can happen. And I want to show them that they're full of crap that, um, like the excuse that a lot of people give that my family kind of gave too, is like, you need to spank children. You need to hit children. I was hit with belts. Like you need to do these things, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, nope.
[2:17:35] So your mother hit you with belts.
[2:17:37] Absolutely.
[2:17:38] Okay. Okay. I'm sorry about that. That's, that's awful. Awful stuff.
[2:17:43] Appreciate that.
[2:17:43] But sorry yeah you want to you want to flex and you want to strut and and be the good good family guy right.
[2:17:49] Yeah it's possible it's not inevitable yeah i want to show the family that you guys you want to keep picking thugs and you want to keep acting like this and that like look it can happen the real juice can happen the good things can happen you can have a loving family you can have a um you can have a good relationship with your child without ever having to hit him you can um have all these great things uh and they never said verbally that i can't in the family i feel like it's in my bones like it's in the stream of my blood that non-verbally that's what's being pushed right.
[2:18:19] And so i if i understand this i don't want to put words in your mouth my friend but i think you want to show that a life without excuses is better than a life with excuses.
[2:18:33] Heck yeah.
[2:18:36] You want to win.
[2:18:39] Ooh, I want to win. I guess so. I guess I want to win.
[2:18:43] And listen, I'd be the last person. I won't get into my own personal details here because it's about you, not me. I'd be the last person in the world to say you should never, ever want to win against your family of origin if they're dysfunctional. It's not a tiny motivation in the work that I've done. So I'm not going to nag at you or crab at you. Not that you would care if I did, but I'm not going to do that anyway. So, yeah. So you want to win. You want to be victorious. You want to be, you know, I go to the gym and exercise and you want to end up with a better life than, you know, cousin catch potato, right?
[2:19:15] Absolutely. I did. I went to the gym for the whole year. For a whole year, I had a gym subscription. I decided for a whole year I was going to go to the gym. Yeah, I usually win in life. Sounds kind of weird to say out loud, but usually my whole life I've been a winner and I try not to have a big ego about it. But also, I think you said your wife studies psychology when I was younger.
[2:19:36] Oh, no, she practiced psychology for 25 years. Amazing.
[2:19:40] Wonderful. I got into psychology when I was very young. No, I shouldn't say that. I want to say safely 14. I started really taking psychology seriously. And the takeaway that I get is that I don't think we choose our motivations. I think they choose us. And I think when someone tries to fight what motivates them they get stuck in life as I see with a lot of my friends um so have you, have you seen the first Harry Potter by chance I have do you remember the wand scene where he gets his first wand.
[2:20:17] The wand chooses him, right?
[2:20:19] Correct. That's how I feel about people's motivations. I think our motivations are like the wand, and it chooses us. And I think people try to fight that motivation. I think my motivation is actually hatred.
[2:20:32] Hmm.
[2:20:35] Do with that what you will. No, I get that. That's just what I feel. And I was like, maybe having hatred as a motivation, maybe that's bad. Maybe that's wrong.
[2:20:48] Well it's sort of like so what i would suggest and again i i sympathize and understand and none of this is any big criticism it's just a if your goal as a runner is to be faster than the slowest runner you're only going to be able to run so fast okay so if your goal in life is to be better, than the worst around and to win against them there's a going to be a ceiling on the virtues that you can achieve.
[2:21:17] Can you explain that in further detail, please?
[2:21:21] Well, if I want to be more honest than a pathological liar, that's kind of a low bar, right?
[2:21:29] More honest than a pathological liar. Yes, I'm understanding. Yeah, that's interesting.
[2:21:34] Now, if I want to be more honest than the most honest person I know, I have a higher standard, right?
[2:21:40] More honest than the most honest person you know? Is that what you said? Higher standard.
[2:21:46] Yeah, that's a higher standard, right? Right. I mean, it's sort of the Ben Shapiro at universities where, you know, Ben Shapiro, who is like a very trained and skilled debater, and has been doing it for decades, goes up against some, you know, 18-year-old kid who's been propagandized his whole life, right?
[2:22:04] Yes.
[2:22:05] That's not much of a debate, if that makes any sense. It'd be like me going to high schools or first-year universities and talking about philosophy, right? I mean, it would be a pretty, you know, I prefer it like I had some professor of philosophy call in and take me to task on UPB. I mean, that's the kind of stuff that I prefer. And so how, sorry, not how, who you measure yourself against is how far you go in life. So if you have a broke family and you say, well, I make, you know, my mother made $20,000 a year, I make $60,000 a year, so I'm doing really well, then your motivation is going to fall off because you're just doing so much better than 20K a year. However, if you say, I'm going to compare myself against people who make $200,000 a year, therefore I've got a long way to go, that's going to have a different effect on your motivation. Who you compare yourself to is where your ceiling is. And I think you might be kind of fishing in a bathtub here because what's they call the shooting fish in a barrel or something like that because I think you want to, at some point start comparing yourself to people who can really challenge you to be better rather than comparing yourself to people whose life are confusing messes and you're obviously doing way better than them right.
[2:23:28] Wow yeah that was great yes because i'm also i also compete in sports don't do a sports as much anymore i wish i did um i do competitive video games with friends will We'll meet up online and we'll battle people. And I'm trying way harder than the whole team. And I'm getting upset sometimes because their bar is lower than mine. And that makes sense. Who they're comparing themselves to is lower. And I'm doing everything to win. I'm doing call-outs. I'm helping. I'm healing people. Checking up on people. Oh, wow. Yeah, what you said makes big-time sense. And maybe my bar...
[2:24:07] Well, you don't want your kids to grow up saying, well, I'm better than my dad's messed up family. You want them to grow up saying, I want to be even better than my father. I want to be, you want to set your goals and your sights as high as humanly possible and not necessarily just, and again, listen, I understand it. It's just a little tweak here, but to compare yourself to your messed up family is going to limit your potential because you're going to feel like you're way ahead. You know, like if I'm going to the gym And I'm not going to compare myself to the 250-pound guy who's there at the gym on his first day. I'm doing more weights than him. I want to compare myself to the strongest guy. And that's going to give me the greatest motivation.
[2:24:52] You're right. I do that in sports. I do that in gaming. But I don't. When it comes to my family, it's not a good enough equivalency. Yeah, that makes sense.
[2:25:04] I have to grit my teeth sometimes to make myself not check up on people from my youth. To see how I'm doing relative to them. I mean, I'm pushing 60, bro. I have no excuse for it at all. I've got a really great life. And yet, you know, comparison, they say, oh, comparison is a thief of joy. It's like, man, with social animals, of course, we're going to compare ourselves to others. I'm not going to compare myself to a flamingo, right? So yeah, there is that comparison element. And it can be great to say, I don't want this. I want to be better than this, but I think at some point it sounds like you're cruising ahead in life. And at some point you might want to let go of the low standard that you're measuring yourself against and replace it with a higher standard to give you more motivation to vault up.
[2:25:49] You're right. I have to shift gears because you're right. Just like, um, I do do the same thing. Well, I do try to resist looking back on friends and some ex flings to be like, well, they're like doing, and it's like, it's all bad For them, it's all, it's all crap. It's drug use. It's addiction. It's homelessness. It's dating the most horrible people on earth with the biggest red flags. Like this entire person's face is a skeleton tattoo. Does that send you any clues? And just, holy crap. And when I was homeschooled as a kid and people said I would be dumb because I'm homeschooled. Oh, you're going to be stupid. You're homeschooled. You're going to be, you're going to be inept. You're homeschooled. And then years later, I'm like, I'm doing better than all of you. Like you guys want to kiss my toes? Hmm? Because you guys said I was going to be dumb. You guys said that I was going to fall back. Look at all of you. Right. Maybe I'm, maybe I'm, I need to stop comparing the same way that I've been comparing and I need to switch gears.
[2:26:44] I think, I think you've, I think you've outgrown that. And you know, there's a couple of stages of comparison, doing better than the worst, doing better than the average, doing better than the best. And then, then, then there's attempting to approach the ideal standards. Yes. You know, I can say, well, I'm more honest than some family member in my past. It's like, yeah, but where am I in relation to the ideal of honesty? And that's what I sort to try to measure myself against now because sort of human standards have their own frailties. And human standards, in a sense, give you excuses and perhaps even a false sense of achievement because we need to keep building on our achievements. And if we're still comparing ourselves to those we originated from, then it's easy to feel that we're ahead relative to the past, which is great, but we want to be ahead relative to ideals or approaching the ideals. And obviously, you're a very intelligent young man with an enormous amount of potential. And I I would say that the anchor of comparison is probably limiting you from ascending. What's that the new phrase from Clifiquity? Ascend, yes.
[2:27:41] Ascend. That also comes from another game I love called Castlevania, which is about ascending. And it goes into God of War because he tells his son, be better than me. Because Kratos did all these horrible things and killed all these gods and all these giants. And he gets on one knee and he says, no, no, no, be better. And if that means being better than me, then do it. And I agree. Yeah, I do want my son to be better than me. And if he says, dad, I'm better than you, I'm going to say, great. I'm going to say Fantasia.
[2:28:04] Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. All right, brother. Well, listen, I appreciate the call. I'm going to close off now because I probably should get some food and really appreciate the call. I'm really, really sorry about this, this childhood. And I completely understand the excuse making, but it may be time. You don't want to have your kids hear excuses because they'll internalize that. And I try to not give myself excuses and not those around me excuses because I don't want my my kid internalizing that. But again, these are just minor tweaks. You know, you're obviously doing fantastically well. And I really appreciate hearing how the show has, to whatever degree it has, helped you with that.
[2:28:41] And that's just a wonderful thing to hear. So thank you, everybody, so much. Have yourself a glorious day. And we will talk to you soon. I've got a presentation coming up about Iran, not the song from A Flock of Seagulls, but the slightly more vivid flight of rocket stuff that's going on. Sorry, Dirk, we'll have to get to you next time, but we've had a good old long show. And lots of love from everyone up here, my friends. Thank you for your time. Freedomain.com/donate to help out the show. Keep us commercial free. I think it's very important. All the best. Goodbye.
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