0:09 - The Nature of Compassion
6:29 - The Illusion of Altruism
11:44 - The Cost of Compassion
14:17 - Outsourcing Moral Obligations
20:06 - The Two Types of Poor
25:01 - The Dangers of Indirect Help
In this episode, I delve into the complex interplay between compassion, historical violence, and modern societal structures. I explore how compassion often becomes a tool manipulated by those seeking personal gain, leaving the genuinely compassionate individuals feeling exploited and powerless. This leads to a chilling conclusion: societies that embrace genuine empathy often face significant challenges, as those in power exploit these virtues for manipulation and control.
I discuss the cyclical nature of civic compassion, drawing from historical patterns where the so-called "benevolent" actions often disproportionately benefit the wealthy and powerful at the expense of the average citizen. I examine the disparity between the altruistic narratives perpetuated by leftist institutions and the harsh economic realities facing the average taxpayer. As I analyze the absurd salaries of executives in organizations purportedly dedicated to alleviating poverty, it raises a critical question: Are we truly helping the disadvantaged, or merely funding a new class of bureaucratic elites?
The conversation shifts to the consequences of misallocated compassion in governmental and charitable institutions. I emphasize the need for transparency and accountability, urging organizations and their leaders to prioritize the needs of those they claim to serve. My arguments shine a light on the mechanisms of manipulation at play, discussing how leveraging the suffering of others can enable a culture of corruption that spirals out of control. Statistically, it’s evident that the charitable structures established under the pretense of compassion may end up funneling resources away from those in genuine need.
Continuing along this thread, I emphasize the importance of direct action over outsourcing moral responsibilities. Personal engagement with those in need is not only more effective, it also fosters a deeper understanding of the different demands and nuances present within poverty. I dissect the dichotomy between the 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor, advocating for a hands-on approach that bases aid on individual merit rather than blanket policies.
I challenge the commonly held beliefs that financial aid is the ultimate solution to poverty, arguing that unconditional financial support can reinforce negative behaviors instead of encouraging accountability and growth. By sharing anecdotes that underline personal experiences with individuals who slip through the cracks of systemic aid programs, I highlight the critical need for discernment in charitable efforts.
The crux of my argument is that compassion should not be outsourced. I encourage listeners to consider how they can involve themselves in community efforts, bringing their unique skills to bear directly for the benefit of those in need. Whether through volunteering time, providing mentorship, or lending specific skills, the effectiveness of personal involvement is immense. This renewal of direct action may serve as an inoculation against the corrosive narratives propagated by those who exploit empathy for their gain.
In closing, I reiterate the moral imperative that we cannot responsibly delegate our duty to care for others. By doing the work ourselves and building authentic relationships with those we aim to help, we can ensure that our compassion retains its integrity and efficacy.
[0:00] Hey, everybody. Stefan, I just wanted to mention a couple of things, because it's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine.
[0:09] The really interesting thing that's sort of rippling along through people's consciousness, which is, you know, people look back at history and they say, gee, you know, history for most of our existence has been really, you know, cruel and mean and so on. And sort of the question is why you know the original sin fall of adam our bestial nature and so on it's um it's not it's not really that you know why why is it that.
[0:43] Our history has been so uh bloody and and violent and so on and and the reason for that is compassion gets fucked. So people who are compassionate, people who are thoughtful, people who care about the feelings of others, get held down and fucked by the pretend empath sociopaths, right? This is how it works. So if people have a great sympathy for the poor and the downtrodden, then usually through the power of the state, or it could be through the power of religion, the poor and downtrodden use that sympathy as leverage to extract resources and, obedience and eventually often a kind of slavery from the compassionate, right? So if you see something that doesn't show up very much in human history, even though it's considered to be a good thing, then the question is, well, why? Why doesn't it show up much in human history? Why is there not more compassion and so on, right?
[1:52] Societies that concede a lot of things to women end up with lower birth rates and then get taken over by societies that don't concede a lot of things to women. I mean, it's just facts that we can see being played out across the world. And so there are people who do well, there are people in the middle, and there are people who do badly. And the people who do badly will always cry that they're victims and are done by and oppressed and subjugated and so on. And then what happens is they play upon the compassion and empathy of those who are doing better. And then this transfers a lot of resources, again, usually through either material punishments through taxation in the state or supernatural punishments through hell and religion. It transfers resources from those who are doing better to those who are doing worse.
[2:45] And then society collapses, right? So what we're seeing, I think it's a very interesting thing that's going on right now. What we're seeing right now, let's just look at the USAID thing, right? What we're seeing right now is that the left claims to be very caring, very compassionate, very thoughtful, very sensitive, and wants to help the downtrodden at the expense of, the wealthy. That's the story. Now, what everyone is focusing on, and, it's important to focus on, is the billions and billions and billions of dollars spent on, you know, obvious leftist boondoggles and DEI musicals and Sesame Street in Iran and so on, right? But what people aren't focusing on as much, and there's a few exceptions, Mike Sonevich is one of them, is the absolutely absurd salaries that are being paid to the people who are running these grifty, scammy programs, right? People need $200,000, $300,000, $400,000 dollars a year or more, plus a tidy set of benefits, I'm sure, and pensions and job security and so on, right?
[4:09] So this is a great crashing, cracking sound as an entire narrative.
[4:19] Collapses. And the narrative being that the left has compassion, wants to help the poor, and is willing to take stuff from the rich. Because when you've got a median income, in America of, you know, $40,000, and the heads of these boondoggle USAID programs are paying themselves, you know, $300,000, a quarter million, $400,000. I mean, at the top end, they're paying themselves 10 times the median salary in America. So that is not taking money from the wealthy and giving it to the poor. It is taking money from the average or below average and giving it to the super wealthy. So that is.
[5:10] That's really, really important. And I need this to not be in people's unconscious, like it needs to be floated up and fully examined and analyzed because this has the potential to be, an inoculation against sociopathic pathological pretend altruism which we desperately need as a society we need that inoculation because this is a mind virus that's taking down our entire spinal cord so people have a sense of like well okay hang on so these people claim to be, wanting to help the poor and are willing to take from the rich. But in this equation, they're taking from the relative poor and giving to themselves to become super rich. So that's a fairly obvious one. There's a more subtle one that I want to talk about for a minute or two, because it's really important that we kind of get this stuff, you know, netted into our mental and physical sinew, right? This is an inoculation that unfortunately has to go straight to the nets. It's not something you can just snort.
[6:17] So, the left, you know, claims to be very much about compassion, and we care about the working class, and we care about the downtrodden, we care about the excluded, and so on.
[6:29] Okay. So, if they care about others, they should, at the very least, show the most empathy for those they're taking the money from.
[6:44] Like if I have a business, I guess I kind of do freedomain.com slash donate, but if I have a business, then I should focus on that which pleases my clients first and foremost, right? If I run a pizza store, I should care whether I'm selling good pizza at a price people are willing to pay and they enjoy the pizza, they think it's a good deal for the money. So if I'm running a pizza joint, then I should care the most about who pays the bills. It doesn't make much sense to me if I'm a pizza owner, pizza store owner, to try and sell pizza, maybe it's selling well, maybe it's not selling well, but then to do a survey about what people in Afghanistan think of Sesame Street. I mean, imagine if I had investors and they say, how are you tracking customer satisfaction for your pizza in your pizza store in Philadelphia? And I say, well, I've just run a whole giant expensive survey on what people in Iran think of Spotify. You'll be like, what? That's not your customer base. That's not your product. Why on earth would you do that? So the people, if you claim to have compassion and you claim to care about your customers, your clients, then you care about the people who are paying your bills, right?
[8:09] I mean, would it make any sense if you have a boss, right? And your boss determines your salary and your promotion and your career path and so on. And your boss is kind of annoyed because you keep failing at tasks that he proposes. And you sit down with him and you say, listen, Bob, I mean, I understand that I've messed up the last five tasks you've given me. I know that's been tough for you. But here, like on the plus side, the person I buy flowers from really likes me.
[8:41] Your boss would be highly confused and would say, well, hang on, I'm the one who's paying your bills, so you should really care a little bit more about what I think. I guess it's nice that the person you buy flowers from likes you, but it's not relevant to you satisfying me who actually pays your bills, right? So if you have care, compassion, concern, consideration, you should apply it to those you are getting the money from, your customers, your boss, and in this case, the taxpayers. So the heads of USAID or you know could be any number of things within the government the heads of USAID should have already set up an online voting portal and say here's the here are the proposed things let us ask the taxpayers what they most care about and then let's do that and let's have them track the spending and do right none of that has been done at least until the, teenage wunderkins that are coming out of elon shirt pockets went in and, turbo analyzed the data set using a wide variety of ai tools and created their own portal so that people could do searches and so on so they did not create that they did not say well you guys are actually you're the taxpayers you're paying the bills so we should really figure out what's important to you, we should focus and pursue on that.
[10:07] They didn't do that. They, in fact, tried to make things as opaque as possible, and they tried, or they haven't, maybe not necessarily at USAID, because, like, I don't know if you know this, but the reason why Musk went into USAID first was that they, Trump and Musk put a 90-day, pause on foreign aid, right? Stop the bleeding till they can figure out what the priorities should be and what they are, whatever waste, fraud, and abuse might be going on.
[10:35] And they quite quickly found out that the heads of USAID were really trying to do an end run trying to bypass that whole process and trying to get money out to their projects despite the fact that there was a ban on spending money on foreign aid USAID was trying to bypass that so they said oh okay well um we're playing whack-a-mole because that's the mole that put its head up so we're gonna have to go and take that one first because that's probably where the most corruption is so that's that's kind of how it came about so all of these people in the heads of these departments they claim oh but we care we care so much about people we care about others and so on well then you should care about the people who are paying you the bills really first and foremost make sure you're pleasing them but not only did they not do that not only did they not set any methodology up by which that could be done but a lot of these agencies seem to be actively resisting any kind of outside scope and scoop into their data sets. So what this means is that the people who are running these agencies do not, do not.
[11:45] Possess the virtue called compassion and empathy.
[11:53] If you have a big investor in your business and the investor is concerned about misuse of funds and the investor wants to look at your books you have to let that happen right that's a moral decent thing to do now the only reason that you wouldn't let a big investor in your business look at your books, it's because you know you're doing something wrong. Wrong, not mistaken, wrong.
[12:23] That you are corrupt. So, what that means is that all of the people in charge of these agencies, it seems, would basically are acting as if they know that there's a lot of corruption and problems, and that what they're doing does not align with the preferences and purposes of the American electorate, which means they do not have the virtue called compassion. Now, if people claim to be acting in the name of compassion, but they don't possess the virtue called compassion, they are con artists as a whole i'm not talking about anyone in particular i'm just saying as a general principle right so if somebody says oh you really care about the children they see that you really care about the children of gypsies and they come in and they say don't worry i'll take care of the children of gypsies because i really care about the children of gypsies and then they take a bunch of money or you give them a bunch of money and they use it for hookers and blow then they don't have the virtue called compassion or empathy all they know is that you have that virtue, and they can use it for their own benefit. This is why kindness gets fucked in the world chock full of sociopaths, conscienceless people, con artists who will rip you off.
[13:36] But I don't want you to play the victim here, because the fundamental inoculation, I mean, it's good what's going on with Doge and Trump and Musk and big balls and so on. Yeah, it's good. But here's the thing.
[13:53] The fundamental inoculation that you and me and everyone needs is this fundamental statement. I will never, ever, ever outsource my moral obligations.
[14:18] What do I mean by that? somebody comes along and says oh no problem man I'll take care of the poor just give me money.
[14:31] Don't do it don't do it, the desire to give money to people so that you feel the poor are being taken care of is the most fundamental corruption all this other stuff it's just a manifestation of it if you want to help the poor fantastic, Fantastic. Fantastic. So let's say you're an accountant and you want to help the poor. Great.
[14:59] Go set up a booth and answer people's accounting questions free of charge. You're a lawyer. It's already baked in, right? Pro bono, man. Go help people, right? I'm a moral philosopher, so I help people by, you know, for almost 20 years, not charging a penny. I mean, there are private calls now, but I don't charge people for the show. I don't put ads in my books. I give away for free, so I do work and talk with people for free and share it with the public so that everyone can get the benefit of these conversations so I do philosophy for free with people because I care about the poor and you shouldn't have to be able to afford an hourly rate to be able to talk to a moral philosopher so I've set it up so that that can occur and if you appreciate that again freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show I really would appreciate that but yeah if you care about the poor if you're a gardener and you care about the poor find some way that you can do the manual labor that the poor can't afford right let's say you're a gardener and there's some old guy down the street who's broke well maybe you can go and do some gardening for him.
[16:10] Do it yourself because almost everyone you pay to do it is going to rip you off and if it's not them it's going to be someone they work with and if it's not someone they work with it's going to be their successor. It's going to be someone. Because the moment there's a big fat pile of cash based upon, quote, helping people, most people will ride their way into that situation and not help others, but help themselves. Just claw, pull out the cash. Sorry, just a fact. Big piles of cash with ill-defined mission statements attract predators and con men and sociopaths. It is like dumping a bunch of sugar in a field and not expecting any bugs to land. Just not going to happen.
[17:02] So if you want to help the poor, fantastic. Another way that I helped the poor was I started companies and hired people. I once managed a team of 35 people for many years and helped get them raises and I increased their pay 30-35% over the time that I was their manager. So if you hire three people, two people, five people, you're driving up wages, you're giving people income. So if you want to help the poor, start a company, build that. If you want to help the poor, let's say you want to help people who are blind, go read audiobooks, go read to them directly. Go take, like, do the work yourself, because that can't easily be corrupted. Maybe it can be in some way, but it can't easily be corrupted. But the moment somebody swoops in and says, hey, man, give me money, and I'll take care of your moral obligations. Don't you worry about that, baby. I'll take care of your moral obligations. You won't have to feel bad about a thing.
[18:16] Round up your purchases, and we'll take care of hungry children. It's like, no if you care about hungry children go buy some groceries and deliver it up and down the street i mean you'll actually feel better you're doing more good you're actually developing personal relationships because to outsource your moral obligations is to feed the vampires of corruption with all the blood they can desire.
[18:44] It is, it's really bad. It's really bad. To me, hiring outsiders for my moral obligations is like paying someone to go on an anniversary date with my wife. It's like, it's kind of my job. It's kind of my job. And this seduction that people have where they want to do good, but they don't want to get involved. I want to do good, but I want to get involved. I want to get my hands muddy, I don't want to actually talk to the poor, I don't want to, you know, whatever, the kind of icky you feel or something like that, right? Well, okay, then don't help the poor. But don't say, I want to help the poor and then hand money to other people. Even voluntarily, it's pretty bad, but certainly through the state, it's bad. So people who say, well, the poor need to be educated. Great. Okay, great. Fantastic. The poor need to be educated. Wonderful. Then go learn some important skill, learn how to communicate it, and then give your lessons away for free. I mean, that's what I've done. I have 6,000 plus shows and, you know, 10 books and documentaries and everything's all given away for free. No ads, no, all free.
[20:06] Learn an important skill or any kind of skill learn how to communicate it, write it record it i mean it's like a phone you just do that and then hand it out for free, so if you think the poor need to be educated you can do that or you can you know walk up down the street knock on the door and say i'm happy to tutor if anybody needs any help.
[20:33] Now, I can tell you, there are two kinds of people who don't want you to do that, right? There are two kinds of people who desperately don't want you getting personally involved with helping the poor. And I have tried, I have spent ungodly amounts of time, effort, energy, and money in helping the poor.
[20:54] And honestly, it's about 50-50. It's about 50-50. it. So the people who don't want you to have your own actions with regards to helping those who are less fortunate, number one, the con men and women who would like to take your money and use it to give themselves lavish salaries and lots of trips to study things in lovely locations, right? Well, I need to go to a conference. It just happens to be in Bali, but it's really going to help me learn how to better help the poor.
[21:26] So those people don't want you helping the poor or helping the less fortunate directly because they can't get their cut. That's number one. Number two, number two is the undeserving poor. And yes, my friends, I grew up in great poverty. I saw this for decades. I worked with it for decades. I know this very intimately. There are the deserving poor and there are the undeserving poor. And you help the deserving poor by giving them resources. And you help the undeserving poor by withholding resources. Right? I mean, if somebody has, for whatever reason, they're broke, they need some money, they want to get a job, you cover their rent for a month, that gets them out and they get their job. Okay, you've really helped them out, right? However, if somebody's an alcoholic or a drug addict or a gambling addict in particular, and you give them money, you make them worse.
[22:27] There are people in this world who are underweight who need more food. I mean, very few these days, but there are people in the world who are underweight and they need more food. There are people in the world who are overweight who need less food. And if you think that the solution to all problems with people's eating is to just give them more food, give them more food, give them more food, give them more food, then you will help those who are underweight and you will half kill those who were overweight. Like you end up with some.
[22:59] Giant industrial machine needing to move the what's-eating Gilbert great mom from couch to chair to car to ambulance to morgue. So there are the people who are down on the luck, unfortunate, less fortunate, and if you help them, they will bounce up, and that is a good investment. But there are other people who pretend to be less fortunate so that they can use their less fortunate status as a leverage by which to extract resources from other people. It's like if you've ever worked in a hospital, right? You work in a hospital, and there are people who come in who are genuinely in pain and need narcotics, and there are other people who are drug addicts who are pretending to be in pain in order to get narcotics. If you give narcotics to the people who are in pain but not addicts, you are helping them. If you give narcotics to the people who are only pretending to be in pain so they can get narcotics and feed their addiction, you don't help them. Not being able to differentiate between those who are genuinely in need and those who are playing the system, the deserving poor and the undeserving poor, not being able to differentiate those is one of the fundamental problems. I mean, you need personal experience with people to know whether you're helping them or not. Just mailing out those stupid yellow checks every month or depositing into people's bank accounts. Governments have no idea who they're helping and who they're harming.
[24:27] So.
[24:32] If you have on your plate or in your thoughts the idea that I'm just going to hand money over to other people and those other people are going to fulfill my moral obligations. I mean, that's like paying a gigolo to have sex with your wife and thinking you're a great lover. It's bizarre to me. I always try to directly and personally help people because I don't know what's going on otherwise.
[25:01] I don't know if we share the same philosophy or ideology or beliefs.
[25:10] Or if somebody needs alcohol to swab a wound that they don't want to get infected, that's a good thing. If somebody needs alcohol because they're an alcoholic, that's not good to get them, right? So there's two kinds of people, two massive groups of people who want you to outsource your moral obligations. Number one, the people who want to manipulate and pillage those moral obligations so that they can get big fat paychecks and prestige, help the poor, hello. And then there's the undeserving poor who don't want you to personally.
[25:46] Come and help them because if you personally come and help them you'll see that your help is being exploited so here's an example right somebody says there's there's two families right two families on your street and they're broke and you go and say is there anything i can do to help and they say, hey man, I just, give me some, give me some bus fare and lunch money because I got a job interview tomorrow, right? So you give both households, Bob and Doug's household, both households you give bus fare and lunch money. And then Bob takes that bus fare and lunch money and goes and gets a job. And he's like, hey man, thank you so much. I got this job. Let me pay it back to you. I mean, if he does or he doesn't, it's not particularly important. He goes and gets the job, right? But the other guy doesn't. Oh, I tried to get the job. There was nobody there. But man, just give it to me tomorrow. Oh, you know, I woke up with a real headache. I couldn't do the job. But you know, just one more. And you just realize that they're never going to get the job. They just want the free bus fare and lunch money.
[26:58] You know, it's like the people who are begging, and they say, man, just give me $5 for a sandwich, right? And you say, well, what kind of sandwich do you like? I'll go get it for you. And they say, screw you, man, right? Because they just want the money for drugs or alcohol or something like that, right? I mean, John Sossel many years ago did a show where he followed a woman who was begging for money to get on a bus to get back to her hometown because she was broke. And it turns out she lived a couple of blocks away and made a pretty good living doing this, right? So you have to have this discipline in your life do kindness directly or don't do it but for god's sakes don't outsource it because that makes compassion prey and turns those who manipulate compassion into predators that will take down your entire society and i'm not kidding about that it is a form of discipline you desperately need. Do it yourself or don't do it, but don't outsource it, man.
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