Philosopher Stefan Molyneux celebrates the beginning of his 60th year, engaging with diverse themes centered around free speech, societal control, and personal morality. Opening with an invitation for listeners to call in, Stefan humorously touches upon his age while expressing the importance of thought-provoking dialogue. As he navigates through various topics, he builds an intense narrative on the encroachments of government regulation on freedom, particularly concerning digital IDs and the potential for social credit systems reminiscent of China's model.
Stefan delves deeply into the implications of these systems, warning against the dangers of government-sanctioned surveillance and the manipulation of social participation based on subjective moral judgments. He likens the control a government may exert to a form of violent coercion, comparing it to the dynamics of personal relationships and societal ostracism. He illustrates how people might be socially penalized for minor transgressions or "thought crimes," drawing parallels to his earlier predictions about societal behavior in a free market versus a controlled government environment.
The conversation transitions to a profound exploration of morality, where Stefan contemplates the essence of human lifespans against the backdrop of mortality. Through vivid imagery, he encourages listeners to reflect upon their lives and consider the weight of their choices, particularly when faced with death. He addresses the universality of regret, asking listeners to examine moments of conflict, missed opportunities, and the fear of being original or thinking outside societal norms. His narrative becomes a call to introspection, as he emphasizes the importance of living meaningfully and in full recognition of mortality.
Throughout the episode, the theme of courage surfaces prominently. Stefan advises listeners to "send an echo location to your deathbed," suggesting they should navigate life with the foresight of their own mortality. He argues this perspective grants clarity and purpose, allowing individuals to discard the distractions that often dull ambition and creativity. Drawing on personal anecdotes, he speaks candidly about his own relationship dynamics and the struggle many face with control in various facets of life.
As callers engage, the discourse shifts towards strategies for cultural influence, political engagement, and the significance of rejecting societal pressures that infringe upon individual freedoms. A notable exchange with a budding artist touches upon the trials of navigating the entertainment industry and the moral dilemmas inherent within it. Stefan encourages creativity as a form of personal expression, urging the caller to share their work despite hesitation, highlighting the value of authentic communication in a world fraught with superficial narratives.
The episode culminates in a reaffirmation of individual liberty, accountability, and the necessity for people to surround themselves with those who reject violence and manipulation, both personally and politically. Stefan closes with an impassioned reminder that life's transient nature should compel us to strive for authenticity in our interactions and contributions to society, ultimately leaving an enduring impact. As the session wraps up, listeners are reminded that the path to a meaningful existence is illuminated through the choices made in the face of life’s inevitable conclusions.
0:06 - Introduction and Opening Remarks
1:21 - Digital IDs and Government Control
5:31 - The Role of Ostracism in Society
10:45 - The Nature of Control and Addiction
14:46 - Reflections on Mortality
21:46 - The Value of Time and Choices
29:11 - A Life of Purpose
31:02 - The Importance of Original Thought
36:34 - The Consequences of Lost Free Speech
42:51 - Systemic Violence and Manipulation
47:25 - Influencing the Next Generation
1:13:12 - Navigating the Music Industry
1:18:17 - Closing Thoughts and Call to Action
[0:01] Evening, everybody. Hope you're doing well. Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain
[0:07] for Friday Night Live 7 and change PM, 26th of September, 2025. 2-6-0-9-2-5. Two days into my 60th year. And I have the audio in my good ear. I'm about to start rapping and then coughing, I think. All right so we're broadcasting to a wide variety of platforms here i'm happy to take your questions i'm happy to take your comments you're welcome to call me up if you are on x, and sunday will be subscriber only we'll be running that off the locals platform but also broadcasting to x so i hope you will join us for that if you haven't subscribed to me either on subscribestar.com/freedomain, freedomain.locals.com or X. you can go to fdrurl.com/x or just search me up on x click on the header and there's a nice subscribe button there i would gratefully deeply and humbly thank you and send you feet pics uh it's actually just a picture of a third of a meter but if you're really into meters that's your bag man that's your thing. Alright.
[1:22] So...
[1:25] Looking for questions, comments, issues? Feel free to raise your hand if there's something you want to run past me or oppose me on or something like that. I've been spending a good chunk of the day thinking about free speech. Wild what's going on out there in California, man. I can't believe that's going to pass any constitutional check, but I suppose that's not the point. This is a constant encroachment. It's a constant encroachment. I'm going to try and get digital.
[1:53] IDs working in the UK, as if they don't already have, like, how many pieces of ID do you need? How many pieces of ID do you need? A driver's license, health card, social security card, retirement benefits, a membership card at the library, passport. I mean, it's just insane. But of course, the purpose, just so you know, the purpose of digital IDs is so that the government can label you problematic and people can deny you services, right? It's, you know, basic commies, social credit stuff, right? That's the general idea. It has nothing to do, of course, with trying to help anyone out. You won't be able to work if you don't have a digital ID. It's like, so they'll just, they will prevent you from working. Thank you for the donation, Adam. They will prevent you from working if you have wrong thing. Honestly, it's just going to be a way to turn on and turn off social services, through thought crime rules, right? Through thought crime rules. So, you know, there'll be some person, maybe a foreigner, who will be a...
[3:11] Maybe checking you out in the grocery store and then, ooh, I'm afraid that you've been branded racist. Oh, I'm afraid that you've posted social media stuff. And this way they don't have to send girls in uniform over to pretend to use something to knock down your door. They can just wean you off being able to participate in society by attaching a global computer ID to everything you do. That's all. and AI will then scour your emails and your posts and eventually where your eyes go in a cleavage video and you will simply be denied services. And the funny thing is that I talked about this social credit score stuff.
[3:59] 20 years ago when I was talking about how a free society, a stateless society would work, an anarcho-capitalist or voluntarist society or voluntarist society. That you would have to adhere to basic social norms, not use violence, not defraud, and so on, in order to participate in social society, in order to participate in the economy. And I remember I sort of made the argument and I said, think of the number and amount of economic interactions it takes just for you to go and buy some milk at the grocery store, right? You have to be allowed on the sidewalk. You have to be allowed on the bus or on the road if you're biking or even on the sidewalk if you're walking. You have to be allowed into the store. You have to be allowed to purchase. You have to be, you know, all of those sorts of, like everybody's participation is required for you to be part of the economy in a civil society. And this, of course, was without a government, right? that plus like so that way of minimize you you would want to in a free society you'd want to minimize how much you hit people with this kind of stuff it would have to be pretty egregious could people say well well what if you what if you murder someone and there's no government well, first of all if you murder someone and there is a government it depends whether you're on the left that shouldn't have left, you might get away with it.
[5:28] People getting away with crazy stuff in the West these days.
[5:32] So, but it would be like, well, your economic participation would be turned off until you had satisfied the requirements of repentance and compensation for your crime.
[5:49] So, having a way for society to ostracize you in a free society is wonderful and great and lovely and delicious and delightful. On the other hand, having this in the hands of a government, particularly with AI, it's going to be horrendous. And wasn't Keir Starmer associated with communism when I was younger? I was reading about that. I think that's true. But you should double-check these things for yourself. But, and you know, I think there'll be a pushback and I think that people won't participate and they'll just wait until they try it again, try it again, try it again, try it again, try it again. Oh, there we go. There is no end to the human hunger for control. I mean, if there's anything that came out of the 20th century, It's that. There is no end to the human hunger for control over others. For a drug addict, what is the end of the drug addiction? Well, you either hit rock bottom, try and turn it around, or you die.
[7:12] And drug addiction tends to be illegal, as is illegal gambling and other sorts of things. So drug addiction tends to be illegal, and people still pursue it, yea, verily, unto the death. I don't know if you've ever known anyone who's died of a drug overdose or drug addiction, but it's a pretty ugly, vicious process, and it generates, of course, an intense sense of helplessness on the part of everyone around you. This is why, if you've ever watched it, it's an interesting show to watch. It's called Intervention. It's a documentary when, you know, sort of friends and family of somebody who's spiraling into addiction, you know, sit them down and they say, you either go and get help or.
[8:00] You're cut off, you're ostracized, we will never talk to you again. And it's a very powerful show and it shows how ostracism is really the least utilized but most powerful way to I won't say control society but to reinforce positive behavior I mean it kind of happens in relationships right I mean if somebody goes nuts in your relationship then you don't date them anymore. You break up with them, right? That's ostracism, right? Somebody is at a job and you do something stupid or bad or maybe the boss just doesn't like you, get fired. It's ostracism, right?
[8:46] So, ostracism is a great way to run things in a free society because people want the minimum amount of control, just enough to reduce or eliminate violence, but not so much that there's this huge rebellion. And of course, in the past, when the king was just a guy with like 500 blades at his disposal, and you had, you know, hundreds of thousands or millions of subjects, there was a sort of balance to the power. But the same technology that could set us free, is going to be used to tyrannize people as a whole. And I've never, never wanted or liked the idea of controlling others. Have you ever been tempted by that? You can call in and let me know, or have you ever had somebody who has tried to control you significantly? I would say I was in a relationship where the woman was a little bit on the claustrophobic and controlly side. Nothing major, but I rebel against it just deeply and enormously. None of that. Like, that's not how it's going to go. That's not how it's going to go.
[10:03] But I don't understand why people want to control others. I don't. I mean, I suppose it's an addiction. I know that, you know, we've talked about this before. When bonobos climb up the social hierarchy ladder, they get massive amounts of dopamine released in their system, endorphins and so on. And so it is sort of physically addictive to go up in the dominance hierarchy. But just how demonic and horrifying a human being do you have to be to want to control and bully and humiliate and threaten and arrest.
[10:40] Millions of people who want to do it to tens of millions of people. It's wild.
[10:46] I don't fundamentally get it. I mean, I'm very happy in my life. I have about the most meaningful job. It's job, quote, job, about the most meaningful job in existence. And I thank everyone here for that. I have great relationships with family and friends and got my health, which you know when you get older when you're younger it's just you don't even say, touch wood right got my health and uh it's pretty things are good things are good and i, one of my first videos was live like you're dying which is to say at some point maybe you're 80 maybe you're 90 maybe you're younger older but at some point you're on your deathbed and you get that, slow shake of the head from the doctor doc am i going to get better and he's going to say those faithful words. Well, I'm afraid all we can do at this point is make you as comfortable as possible.
[11:48] And you realize that the sheet sticking to your back is what's going to be used to carry you to the morgue. That you're never getting back up, you're never getting back out. You'll never feel the blood rush to your feet again. You'll never get even slightly dizzy getting up too soon. You're never going to climb a tree. You're never going to climb the stairs. You're never going to climb out of bed. You're going to lie there and expire there. Like you're a sandcastle under the sort of drizzling rain of endless mortality, you're just going to dissolve down into nothing, be reduced to your component atoms without the emerging principle and purpose and brilliance and glory and morality of life and consciousness. And the nurses will come in and the nurses will go out. And they will go on with their lives. And they may mention, oh, there was a sweet old man, there was a sweet old woman, really, really hammered the morphine drip.
[13:01] And your family, the oldest, the older members of your family will be ashen-faced, realizing that they're next. Middle-aged people will be exhausted because they've had to care for you and their kids. The teenagers will be bored and restless. And the younger kids will run around and jump up inappropriately and be pulled off your rough one thread.
[13:33] Weird fabric that makes up your sheets in hospital. And you will realize that you maybe have five meals left, four, three, two, last meal, last bite, last swallow. And every time you close your eyes and lay your head back on the pillow, it will feel like you're falling down into eternity, and you will jerk back up and you will try and cling to life. But you will also realize that by extending your life, if you can through willpower, you will, be extending the agony of those who have to watch you die. And at some point, at some point, you may just relax and fall into the great beyond, into the arms of your ancestors or into nothing.
[14:32] Into judgment or as much consciousness after you die as you had before you were born, which is to say, none.
[14:46] And people will cry both in sadness and gladness. Sadness that you're gone, but gladness that your suffering is over. And the little kids will ask when you're going to wake up. And their parents won't know what to say. And all the people you had your conflicts with, your cousins, maybe your brother-in-law, sister, will look back at all of those conflicts and will say, I really didn't understand any of that. Why did we fight? Why did we not talk to each other for that year? What would I give now to have another conversation or another year? And as you're dying I think time slows down this is what the reports are of people who died and came back as you're dying time slows down and I think you revisit all the major points and decisions and choices in your life when it's too late to change any of it I think that the entire mechanic and purpose and principles of your life are laid clear to you at the end.
[15:57] And the girl, who was just right for you, but maybe not quite pretty enough, that you left for the hottie borderline, she would come back and say, you could have had this, but you had that. And your cousin who wanted you to start a business with him, but you were being too well paid. So you ended up being a cubicle surf under the sightless, sore-on-flickering eyes of endless, fluorescence, and you clawed your way up through some kind of hierarchy, got spit out the side. Couldn't take your chair home, it was bought by the company. But it didn't even cool down before some new ass sat in it. There was some cake, there was some goodbyes. You drive away for the last time and you look back and you say, how much of my family time did I sacrifice for these people who are going to forget me tomorrow? And the moral cowardice. I think all of that is revealed. I think you're right, Simon. At the end, everyone has a conscience.
[17:16] And the moral compromises you made. When you yelled at your kids, I said you'd do better. Stop yelling at my kids. And then you just forgot about it and went back on autopilot, back on the train tracks of circular inevitability, based upon unexamined harshness from your own childhood. And that time that someone really reached for you and needed you, but you kind of walked away because you were kind of embarrassed and didn't know what to say. Or the time when you had a conflict and stormed off, even though staying and talking would have changed your whole life. All those times you refused to ask for what you want but expected people to read your mind. And because they can't read your mind, you got to bully and dominate them. All of that stuff, I think the curtain is lifted and all just becomes, utterly clear. All the good you failed to do, all the people you failed to correct, all of the truths you chewed back, bit, and swallowed like broken glass, humiliating, sliding down, cutting your windpipe, silencing your voice, turning you into an NPC.
[18:31] Did you do everything you could? Your conscience will ask as you die, and that will feel like an eternity. There's a reason we believe in limbo. Did you do everything you could to make the world a better place for those around you, and those who come after you, and those you make? Did you do everything you could? Short, sadly, of things like getting forced to drink emblem, tortured to death, or shot through the throat. Did you do everything you reasonably could to do good?
[19:20] Or did you leave the world a graffiti and garbage strewn hellhole of incompatibility for your children to try and find a way to navigate through, did you bring wisdom to people did you tell people when they were doing good that they were doing good when you saw people who were doing wrong did you say you were doing wrong, did you engage the grappling hooks of your conscience in the grim battles with other people's avoidance? Big questions. Big questions. The devils of distraction reveal everything at the end. Everything. I think everything gets revealed. Even if it's not just as you're dying, most people spend at least a couple of weeks on their deathbed.
[20:13] It's a lot of time to think about things when it's too late to fix anything. When it's too late to fix anything. I mean, look around you right now. Look at your hands, look at your body, look at the twin ghosts of your nose that stick out like a prow in front of your eyes. When you are old, and when you are dying and dying isn't, just falling off a cliff. Dying is being told you'll die. Dying is being told you're going to die, weeks or months before you die. some of the people I've been in business with have died recently, people I've known 20-30 years they're older than me but not by much.
[21:26] What wouldn't you give on your deathbed to come back to where you are now with the choices and the options, and the will and the health and the mobility and the strength?
[21:46] What would you give at the end of your life, to come back to where you are right now?
[22:03] Why? What would you give if somebody said to you, when the doctor said you have hours to live, how much would you pay to get back all the time you spent playing video games? Or watching shows that weren't that great, distracting yourself, get all of that time, weeks, months, years for some people, to get back all of that time that has been wasted.
[22:53] What would you do, if you just came back from your deathbed and woke up where you are right now? Maybe you're 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70. You know how bats send out echolocation, right? They send out these little ghetto ceiling chirps and then it comes back and rescue it for a talistyle. That's how you know where you are. You know, you got to send that ping forward in time, friends. You got to send it. You got to send it. Please, I'm begging you, please send that ping forward in time. If you're not at least in part navigating by the return from your deathbed, you're not living much at all. You're in a haze of now, you're in a haze of dissociation, and I am too. I'm not saying I'm perfect this way, obviously. Ping, deathbed, and back. Ping, deathbed, and back.
[24:06] And the pain to organize your life, to tell you what's important to focus on, to give you courage. Courage is really nothing more or less than the genuine realization that you're going to die. And cowardice haunts you in your final months when it's too late to do anything. My father wrote a biography of his life which was long I think I showed up in two or three paragraphs.
[24:47] And he died without, telling me he was ill or contacting me or addressing any of the issues I'd brought up with him decades before don't do that because, and the best way really to organize your life is not just to focus on your own deathbed which is important but if you really want to have a life of depth and power and purpose, which I would highly recommend, you need, to send that ping long after you're dead I live my life in part by what people are going to say at my funeral, I've had to give at least once a eulogy for someone who barely lived, What do you say? She liked handing out candy at Halloween.
[26:02] That's really all I could think of. She wasn't part of her community. She didn't have much of the world. She didn't raise good kids. She didn't do much except breathe, consume, age, and die. A houseplant would be less dissatisfying because you don't have expectations for a houseplant. What we do echoes in eternity. It's cheesy stuff. Do you want to be known after you're dead? What do you want people to say at your funeral? Well, he played through Halo nine times. He liked his shows. He spent a lot of time on social media, didn't really do much. Consumed. Blackpilled doom scrolls. You know, you flick. You know what it's like? It's like an elevator. You're just looking at the floors that you're going down, down, down, down.
[27:20] Or do you want to be that guy or that woman where, six months after you're dead, people can't really remember what you looked like. The memories kind of fade because they were copy-paste one of the same. It's like trying to think of an individual pearl in a pearl necklace. They're all kind of the same. Or when you bid your own days goodbye, you look back and just see this unbroken copy-paste of sameness. No particular peaks, no particular valleys, just there, chasing little scraps of dopamine in a descending spiral to nothing. This gift. Would you rather be a clam that inherited a million dollars or a human being born desperately poor? There's no greater gift than what we have. You know, they found DNA on asteroids. We may have actually been assembled from the ragged guts of detonated stars.
[28:42] And think of all the heroes that you watch, the people who did stuff with their life. If you like historical heroes, if you like contemporary heroes, the people who do stuff with their life. And you have this gift, these days. Everybody knows they're finite, but very few people live with that knowledge, live based on that knowledge. And I'm not saying be a workaholic, because that's not resting and enjoying.
[29:12] And being a workaholic is simply being a slave to money or status or expectations or authority or dominance or need, yours or others.
[29:32] Don't be, someone, who leaves only residual.
[29:45] Cliches in your wake, you know, like the, down at the beach, right? The waves come in and they leave that little ring, a little ring of foam, right? Ragged line of foam where the top of the wave is. And you watch that, right? Ragged foam and it vanishes. The next wave comes in or even if it doesn't, even if the tide's going out, never gets the high water, it just vanishes, just bubbles, disappears, drops, the bubbles, but gone. Don't have in the high water mark of your mortality, you leave a ragged line of cliches that vanish with you. I've often thought that, when they can teach you to be afraid of thought, all you can do is spout cliches. I did a whole listener conversation, which will be out soon, about how to understand the narcissist. To the narcissist, you're just the NPC in his game. Do what he wants, and you don't have any needs of your own, and he just uses you to achieve his quest, to thing an object.
[31:03] If they can get you to eschew thought, to not think, to not be original, to hoard your silent, skepticism away from others, like a child hiding a mouse he brought home, then you have nothing to say that is going to surprise anybody, nothing to say that will offend the petty and the vicious and the foolish and the corrupt and the evil.
[31:33] And so if they take away your free speech, does it matter? If they ban me from being a lead ballet dancer for the Bolshoi, does it matter? No. I'm 59 years old. I'm not going to be in ballet. If they can get you to not think, what do you care if they take away your rights? If you're never going to say anything surprising, original, controversial, vanity is just the fear of feeling or being or appearing original. If you're never going to say anything thoughtful, original, startling, upsetting, what do you need free speech for? Free speech is there to protect the unpopular. And if you're so physically, spiritually, emotionally, and intellectually weak that you can't conceive of surviving saying anything unpopular, what do you need free speech for?
[32:37] Like in Italy and France and other places in Europe, it's virtually impossible to fire people. You might even have to go to a judge with their employment history and prove to the judge, that they deserve firing. Can you imagine? I want to break up with you. No. No, no, it's not working out, man. Sorry. We need to part with you. No. Unflushable. And then your funny boiler girlfriend goes to the court and says, Your Honor, this guy wants to break up with me. I need you to tell him that he can't break up with me. Well, I'm going to need to see all of the things she did that make you want to break up with her, and then you can break up with her, maybe. But she can still sue you. You've got to pay for dates for at least a year, maybe two.
[33:38] Well, if you're never going to be an entrepreneur, then all you want is protection from being fired. If you're never going to say anything startling or original or thoughtful or offensive, you don't need free speech. They get you to live small. What do you need your rights for? Your rights then become, well, I'm sorry, you have appendicitis. Well, just take out the appendix. It's no biggie. I can live without it. Take my rights. I can live without them. why? Because you're not doing anything with them. Rights are there for when you need to push the envelope and need to challenge people and need to overturn established falsehoods.
[34:21] Rights are not for, okay, I'll meet you at the movie, 8.30, 8.30, yeah. Or bigotry is bad, or I like the government, or bad people should be punished, or apparently there are no Nazis. In the West, there are only communists calling people Nazis, trying to get them killed. He's a Nazi.
[35:00] So once they can get you frightened to speak the truth, frightened to confront, the fideous falsehoods in all its forms, once you don't have free speech in any practical sense, and in the West you really don't have much free speech in any practical sense, I mean, maybe the government can't put you in jail, but people will lie about you. They'll mass report you. they'll get you banned, they'll get you silenced, they'll whatever, right? To the point where you'll end up losing much more voice and income than if you'd been charged for something at all.
[35:52] So, what do people care who don't think, who don't reason, who don't communicate, who aren't striving and fighting for the good? What do they care if they lose their free speech they don't not using it anyway, what is the fat guy glued to the sofa care if they close down the gyms, what is the agoric what is the agoraphobic care two weeks to flatten the curve you're gonna have to stay home oh thank god out there is people everywhere.
[36:35] Send that echo location to your deathbed and beyond, and have it come back and inform you what you need to do.
[36:47] Let eternity dictate the scope of your ambitions. Let longevity dictate the volume of your courage.
[37:03] Or the blessing and great opportunity of this life becomes an endless curse and spreads. And then, of course, and I'll take your call in a sec, but then, of course, what happens is you end up spreading your smallness. It's an infection. I'm trying to spread as best I can, live with reasonable Aristotelian mean levels of courage. That's my argument, right? As Aristotle said after fleeing Athens, I'm not going to let them sin against philosophy twice, because they were going to put him to death too. He who fights and runs away lives to fight another day. Discretion is the better part of valor. Fools rush in where angels fear to tread these bromides have great value.
[37:50] Do maximum virtue before they kill you. Then stay alive to do well, virtue. Martyrdom advances very few rational causes. Not none, but very few. Because you're either going to spread courage or you're going to spread cowardice. There's No, nothing else. Nothing else. You're either going to spread concentration. I can see the posts on locals and YouTube and other places. So you're either going to spread courage or cowardice. You're either going to spread grandeur or pettiness. You're either going to spread concentration and focus or distraction and dissolution. You're either going to spread love or something even worse than hatred, which is indifference. Thank you.
[38:48] You're either going to spread fight or flight, or freeze. You have no choice whether you have an effect on the world. You only have a choice what that effect will be, positive or minus. And entropy, avoidance, fear dictates the minus. It only takes one act of courage for people to believe that courage is possible and important. And valuable, essential. And it doesn't take many acts of cowardice, for people to believe that cowardice is the sensible, the norm, and the only valuable approach. Yeah, sorry, Joe just arrived a little late. I'll absolutely start over. All right. I think we've got Drygun. If you've got something you'd like to chat about, I'm all ears. Going once, going twice. You might need to unmute.
[39:59] Yes, sir. Well, that's cryptic. Yes, I heard you. Hello, hello.
[40:17] I'm going to just give you another five seconds. And just, you know, just in general, people, if you're calling into a live show, please have a decent internet connection. Don't call in on one bar on a plane. I just have a decent internet. It's not my end. I've got a fiber optic. So, all right. I guess he's wasting our time. Jay. If you wanted to ask me a question, I'm thrilled to hear. Now, you just asked to speak, so I don't think you're distracted by my eloquence.
[40:54] Yes, sir. It's built on what?
[41:12] Yeah, sorry. Dry gun, you're going to have to wait because you weren't coming through. Our whole system is built on manipulation.
[41:23] Well, but you're going to have to define to me what you mean by manipulation.
[41:37] Uh all right so is our whole system is built on influence i'm not sure what you mean i mean, there are coercive relationships and then there are voluntary relationships but both fall under the category of influence right so if a guy um if bob sticks a knife in against the ribs of doug and says, give me your wallet and Doug gives him his wallet, then there's been influence and so on, manipulation in a way. And if my wife asks me to get her a cup of coffee and I go get her a cup of coffee, I mean, there's been influence, manipulation or whatever. She's manipulated me, not in a negative way, but in the same way that you would manipulate a Rubik's Cube or whatever it is, right? So you're going to have to, I think, if you could just be a little bit more specific about what you mean.
[42:51] But saying that something is good or bad doesn't help. I mean, we all have influence on each other. I would be more precise in my view, and maybe you're right, but I would say our entire system is based on violence. How do we educate our children? Coercion. We force people to pay for government education. We, in many places, force children to go. We trap them there, and it's like a prison. And we indoctrinate them, and they can't get away. And we don't pass them if they don't repeat back the indoctrination with sufficient enthusiasm. And then you go into the workforce and maybe you're hired because of DEI, which is under threat, or maybe you're not hired under DEI, which is because of a threat.
[43:32] And you got to pay your taxes and you have to contribute to wars that you probably disagree with and your time, energy and economic value is used as leverage to borrow against so that your children end up in 10 times the debt of the taxes you paid. I mean, it's all coercive. If you don't pay for the old age pensions for which there's no money, then you go to jail. And if you don't pay for the foreign wars or you don't pay for the soft enslavement of the young through the education system and the soft enslavement of the poor through the welfare state and the soft enslavement of the sick through socialized medicine when you go to jail. So I don't know what you mean by manipulation. Certainly violence is shielded by language, right? So violence is shielded by language. Oh, you're not, you're not aggressed against, it's a social contract, voluntary. Well, it's not indoctrination, education. Don't you want people to be educated? Right? I was reading today about a study that said that one's preference for socialism is dose dependent, dictated by almost the level of illness you experienced as a child.
[44:56] So the more sick you were as a child, the more you like socialism, leftism, or maybe even communism. And so healthy people don't need to state as much, don't want as much government, and so the government has every vested incentive to make and keep you sick, which it's doing a fantastic job of doing. Ridiculous amounts and numbers of people are on endless chronic fistfuls of medication. It's appalling, in my view. So.
[45:34] I think that the system is built from the ground up on violence, and it's not a system that we ever would design from the scratch. It was just to be inherited it. And to hide the violence is the purpose of propaganda. Diversity, equity, inclusion. It's like, no, just say you don't want to hire white males. I mean, that's what it's really all about, isn't it? So it's sexist and racist. Okay. So they have to invent all of these words so that people don't see the fist in the face, the gun in the room, so to speak. So I would say that there is manipulation in society, but I don't think it's specific enough to the institutionalized violence that we experience on a daily basis that is covered up through endless amounts of propaganda so that people don't see it for what it is. Does that make sense? Or if you disagree, that's fine. All right, I think we have lost Jay. Dylan! I've done more for Dylan Thomas, said Bob Dylan, than he ever did to me. Dylan, what's on your mind? Don't forget to unmute.
[46:53] Hello.
[47:10] Well, hang on, hang on, hang on.
[47:13] Violence of any kind? What about self-defense?
[47:17] Okay, I'm sorry. I'm not a pacifist. I just, you know, I'm sorry to be a nitpicker and a nagger, but that kind of is philosophy. So, sorry, go ahead.
[48:16] You a christian man, Okay. So the answer is in the Bible. The answer is in the Bible. Now, of course, you can do your global stuff. You can set up your channels. You can do your podcast. You can write. You can blog, whatever it is. I get all of that. And that's fine. That's great. But how do you shake people out of the grip of evil?
[48:43] Well, first of all, they don't know that it's evil. And I would grant them, you know, people who are propagandized, forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do. I'm 100% because we all started propagandized. Well, maybe not originally, but very early on from daycare onwards, we all started propagandized. And it's going to get loud here, just so you know, I'll just take my earpiece out so I don't get that loop back. So we all started off propagandized. When I was in my early teens, I was a socialist. Why? Because it just seemed like a very positive thing to do. I didn't know anything, but I had gotten the impression through propaganda that It was niceness and goodness. And of course, we didn't want these evil, cold-hearted capitalist robber barons running things and exploiting the workers anyway. So, of course, you can't hand your children over to a socialist system like government education and expect it to teach that capitalism is good. You send your kids off to be educated by Caesar, don't be shocked when they come back as Romans. So we have to shake people out of their trust in me. right? We have to shake people out of their hypnosis. Literally, it is a hypnosis. Like when I was a kid, I got my first train set. I love trains. Loved trains. I got my first train set and it was a circle.
[50:08] It was a circle and I put it on the little cheesy sticks and sticks, hardwood floor in the apartment flat. And I hooked it up, wired it up, plugged it in, turned it on and it went round and round and round round and round, and that's people's minds just round and round round and round well you wouldn't want to want people to starve in the streets would you? Church lady stuff right? so people are propagandized and I think it's important to be patient I do I think it's important to be patient with them but not infinitely, so how do you influence people.
[50:52] To give up their addiction to pretty, pretty violence and learn to become moral.
[51:05] Well, because they don't listen to reason, it's a carrot and a stick. Now, the carrot is, it's true, it's good, look at my life, I live it according to reason and evidence, things are great, I don't forgive willed without it being earned I do the right thing as much as reasonably possible without masochism or at least not too much.
[51:33] I have love purpose self-esteem I sleep well at night exercise I'm a happy, healthy productive guy you too can have this all this, You just got to give up evil. You too can have abs, but you got to give up just sitting around all the time and you probably have to give up some Cheetos. So you got to have a carrot. Live a life that a sane and rational person would want. If you want to be a personal trainer and people can't see any muscles, not that I have a lot, but if people, you know, that little vein, you know, that little vein, right? If people can't see that, I'm a personal trainer. We're going to have to meet on the ground floor because I can't really do stairs. They make me huffy. Well, that's not going to be great, right? If you don't show up chain smoking and telling people, uh, I know how to quit smoking. It's easy.
[52:39] So you've got to have a carrot. You have to have created a life that people are going to have some interest in. I think people have looked at my life and said, well, you know, he's, he survived some, he survived a couple of blows and attacks and has come out a positive, peppy and happy and enthusiastic and effective guy. So that's your carrot. Be someone that other people might want to be. I'm not a flash in the pan. I've been doing this for two decades. Number one. Number two, after you reason with them and show them and teach them for whatever time period it is, not forever, I say a month or two, whatever, right? It's not hard and fast, but just in general. Then, if they don't want to be like you, and they won't listen to reason and evidence.
[53:49] Then, ditch them. Ditch them. Make them pay. You cannot be around me if you lick the bloody knife of corruption and violence. I will tell you it's violence. I will show you it's violence. If you continue to support violence, you can fuck off. And if you think like coming back, fuck off again if you think of coming back again maybe if you want to learn i'll teach you some more if you then reject peace and embrace violence particularly political violence, you can fuck off again and then don't come back, without the, g t f o what you got oh please Please, please, please, it's a violation of the non-aggression principle. Please, if you could just not be violent, that would be so nice. Please, I'm begging you. God, I'm not saying you, but have some pride, have some spine. Spine, I tell you.
[55:11] If you're Jew, don't have Nazis around. If you're a capitalist, don't have communists around!
[55:26] Don't have people around who want your ass arrested by men and guns and thrown into jail because you think differently. Don't do it. They will fuck your life up every which way but Sunday. Make them pay. If you want to be around the glory of me, it's great. Love to have friends. Love to have people in my life. Beautiful. Oh, a little price of entry, though. You gotta not love bloody knife-edge violence. You gotta not love people getting shot through the throat. Is that a ridiculously high bar? I don't think so. I don't think so. I mean, if my bare minimum for going on a date was, okay, I just need you to agree ahead of time, you're not going to murder me on the date.
[56:24] Just do me a solid. Shake on it. Spit hands. We don't need to prick fingertips. Just spit hands. Shake on it. You don't kill me before the end of the day. You're not a murderer, not a serial killer. I'm not going to end up chopped up into a soprano box and thrown in the Hudson. Can we, can you sign something about that? can we shake hands on that? Now, that's not having super high standards. I'm not saying you have to be an intergalactic virgin from the 17th century. I'm just saying, please don't kill me before the end of the day. And if you came across a bumble or, what are the other ones, plenty of fish, or Tinder or something like that. And there was some super hot woman or man. And it was just like, I'll go out with anyone who doesn't kill me.
[57:30] Would you say, oh, whoa, whoa, hey, come on, man, lady, lady, come on, man. I mean, those are really insane standards. I mean, listen, I'll be happy to go out with you. 36, 24, 36, I'll be happy to go out with you. I'm just, I'm not agreeing to this crazy demand you have. That I not kill you before the end of the day. I mean, come on, let's be realistic here. Men have needs. Let's not get nuts here. I reserve the right to not, fulfill your crazy expectations to not be killed, right? That would be insane. So that's all I'm saying. That if you want to influence the world for the better, love it. Love it. Join us up here on the ramparts. Love to have you. It's bracing. It's cold. It's exciting. The dawns are fantastic.
[58:37] Work on yourself to the point where you have some positive energy and enthusiasm and excitement about the moral mission of the world, of mankind. And then tell people, um.
[58:51] Bare minimum entrance to my life is you got to give up violence. No beating your kids, no hitting your kids, no support of political violence, no enthusiasm for people getting shot, deplatformed, arrested over memes. You gotta let go of the gun, drop the gun, and you can come into the club. This is a gun-free zone in my life. Gun-free zone. Political gun-free zone in my life. Because if people can't see the obvious, and won't reject the corrupt. It's not some abstract thing where you say, oh, gosh, well, you know, it's really, really important from an... No, these people are messed in the head.
[59:43] Communism, 100 million dead. Well, yeah, technically, but no, oh, oh, whoa. I'm sorry. We only do sane here and not evil. So, yeah, can you reject the initiation of the use of force in human affairs? Can you reject shooting people for disagreeing with you? Can you reject the gun in the room? Can you reject violence? Is that a crazy high standard? I mean, after that, there's certain levels of compatibility and fun and all of that. But, yeah, can you reject violence? I mean, I was into peaceful parenting long before I was a podcaster, and that's what my wife and I talked about. When we were dating, we met in 03.
[1:00:29] So, we met February, we first went out February the 13th, and then we only didn't go out February the 14th because it felt a bit odd for a second date to go out on Valentine's Day. But after that, we spent every day together. I proposed within a couple of months, we got married within 11 months after our first date. And we had those conversations. And I said, I'm not going to punish. I'm not going to yell. I'm not going to hit. I'm not going to confine. I don't even want to do the naughty stares, timeouts. I'm not doing any of that. She's going to reason with the kids. She's like, yeah, sounds great. Sounds right. I mean, she practiced psychology for decades, and her education at the undergraduate and graduate level was in child development. I think that's a meme from a video game, and I don't know what it means. I do not know what the meme means. So, sorry, that was a long chat. Dylan, is that helpful?
[1:01:38] All right. Thank you very much, JC. Jesus Christ, Gonzalez. All right. What's on your mind, my friend? How can I help?
[1:02:23] Was it because of the hysteria that Trump's ascent to the presidency drove a lot of people on the left really baddie?
[1:03:19] Word to your mater Sure.
[1:03:54] Do you do in music.
[1:04:23] Oh, no, you almost got Bieber'd or Alanis Morissette'd.
[1:04:42] Was to get you on a yacht and oiled up.
[1:04:47] I'm so sorry.
[1:05:08] Sorry, just to interrupt briefly, but I had on three separate occasions, two women and one old gay guy. If I would sleep with them, they would advance my career. and it's like, I'm really not that good in bed. It's not worth it. No, I'm kidding. So it was just not tempting, but sorry, go on. Yeah, with Wi-Fi, but yeah.
[1:06:51] But I'm really thinking I love music fill my ears with some glorious noise I'm a happy guy so go for it sing it if you if you wouldn't mind.
[1:07:15] Oh come on you're a performer perform listen I sing on this stupid show and I'm not any good. So go for it, man. Come on.
[1:07:28] If it's any consolation, we're not playing a stadium here. So go for it.
[1:11:00] Wow, very nice. Very nice. It's funny because sometimes the mic came through really clearly and it sounded great. Other times it was a little muffled, but I really appreciate it. Thank you for sharing. That's fantastic.
[1:11:15] But anyway, email me the actual song if you can, and we'll put it into the show.
[1:11:20] Like for when it gets published, if you want.
[1:12:53] Nice. Well, I'll send you my resume as a rap backup dancer. So, you know, people don't get to see me twerk nearly as much as they could dread it happening. So, yes, send me it in and we'll stitch it into the show and I really, really do appreciate that.
[1:13:28] So um i'm thinking of a fellow i'm gonna just double check his name this is a fellow i've met a couple of times uh i'm just gonna check his name oh no not jamie it's jordan let me just check here uh jordan page i think he is uh i saw him at a bunch of um i think that's him yeah so jordan page uh p-a-g-e uh he would be a good guy to get in touch with um you know i i'm sure he knows me we've been at the same conferences and stuff like that and he's a great singer songwriter political activist and so on and he i mean gosh i remember him doing an acoustic version of shine on you crazy diamond like the whole thing it was just like jaw dropping it was so good, and so uh jordan page music i think if you ping him uh i don't know if you drop my name or whatever i think that might help but uh i would certainly say that's a bit.
[1:14:40] Yeah yeah so um i would say uh get in touch with him because he's been able to find a way to make it work whoever you like in the industry you know and i would say this to everyone as a whole like reach out to people like you you never know people especially he's like 46 now right so he um, he probably wants to pass the torch and people who've accumulated a lot of knowledge and a lot of information they want to help people they want to help the next generation they want to you know I've done shows where I teach people about podcasting.
[1:15:14] So don't feel like you have to be the icebreaker. There are people who've gone through before who can introduce you to the right people, who can listen to your songs, who can give you some advice. But my basic thing is just get it. This is my philosophy for creation and production as a whole. Get it down, then get it right.
[1:15:33] So I'm just working on a book at the moment and I just have to get the text down. I just have to get the text down. Then I can get it right later on. Because the process of creating clarifies the end product. So, you know, when I finish writing a book, I can go back and layer in everything beforehand. You know, like at the end of the present, I didn't know that the woman was going to get attacked by a bunch of savage dogs. So when I was doing my edits, I went back and put a bunch of dogs in earlier barking at people to sort of put it in as a foreshadow. So just get it down, you know, get it recorded as well as you can. And if you have to shoot a cheesy video because you don't have much budget shoot a cheesy video that's fine you know there's lots of people who do great stuff it's just filming them in the studio even if you're lip syncing or whatever so you know get it down and then if the song takes off you can do a professional video uh if if you start making more money and so on but yeah get it down and get it out there because it doesn't do any good sitting in your drawer it doesn't do any good sitting on your hard drive. So get it down, get it recorded as well as you can, contact people who you like.
[1:16:47] Okay, so if the issue is the video, then I would...
[1:17:07] Well, it wasn't as a black guy doing whiteface at the moment and not very complimentary whiteface, like real cheesy Bubba Texan yelling at NASCAR kind of white face. So I think that taboo has largely been broken, but, uh, yeah, I would say, uh, and also I would get out and perform it. Like there's, you know, there's gotta be, um, open mic nights, you know, just get out and get used to performing it. See what the audience likes, see what they don't like. Like the moment I could get out of the studio, which I did for quite some time and go and give speeches and talk to people live.
[1:17:37] So, you know, get out there and perform it and get it into the hands of people, shoot a, a cheap video until you can afford a more expensive one but just get it down and get it out waiting for it all to be perfect is you know perfect the perfect is the enemy of the good right yeah all right well listen send me in the song i would absolutely love to um uh put it i'll put it in the um i'll put it in the show so rather than you know what was coming through the the mic which which i mean sounded great but didn't have great quality because of the limitations of the tech but um yeah i would send it in we'll drop it in And of course,
[1:18:13] I hope that if people want to get in touch with you, they can just come through me.
[1:18:18] You can email support at freedomain.com if you like this kind of stuff and can help. Is there anything else you wanted to mention?
[1:18:49] No, it's great. I love it. I mean, we've had a few people over the years share their musical talents. I love it. I'm in awe of people who do music because I love music, but music doesn't love me back. So I'm in awe of people who do it, and I'm thrilled that you're doing it. And whatever we can do to help get your song out, I think would be fantastic. All right, let's do another caller. Bobby. Bobby. Bobby, if you want to unmute, I'm happy to take your thoughts.
[1:19:20] Yes, sir. Vamp, vamp, pause, pause. Unmute, unmute. Yes, no. All right. People are in and not in. Adam! You should have been first. Anyway, but I said I had a joke in a novel many years ago where there was this woman who was so old that it surprised no one that her first husband's name had been Adam. Anyway so uh adam if you wanted to unmute yes no yes no and the only other person we have is, dragon all right well it looks like we have either some tech issues or people who've uh ascended or hopefully based upon my earlier speech about dying uh they haven't uh joined the choir invisible freedomain.com/donate to help out the show really would appreciate that have yourself say glorious wonderful a lovely tasty evening and we will see subscribers at 11 a.m sharp well sharpish 11 a.m on sunday morning and i have finished recording the audiobook chapter six of my new book which is coming out for donors uh as it as i'm doing it and so lots of love from up here my friends take care i'll talk to you soon bye.
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