0:05 - Introduction to Red Flags
2:47 - The Nuance of Communication
11:41 - A Cautionary Tale
15:09 - The Complexity of Relationships
16:07 - Reflection on Regret
23:45 - The Impact of Parenting Choices
33:32 - The Consequences of Poor Decisions
42:08 - The Challenge of Irreversible Choices
56:20 - The Cycle of Dysfunction
1:02:50 - Environmental Toxins and Relationships
1:05:18 - Conclusion and Reflections
In this episode, I delve into a thought-provoking email from a listener, who I’ll refer to as Angus. He raises an important point about the prevalence of red flags in relationships and how they can often be overlooked under the illusion of control or attraction. Angus recounts his own experience with a woman who exhibited nearly all the warning signs deemed problematic, yet he believed he could navigate her complexities. We explore the implications of such decisions, particularly the consequences that arise when young men erroneously assume they can handle a partner’s emotional instability.
A significant portion of the conversation revolves around the notion of nuance—or the lack thereof—in discussions about red flags. I express my frustration with the term “nuance,” suggesting that it often serves as a way to complicate clear moral judgments. I argue that in many cases, we’re simply facing straightforward issues that require us to bear the consequences of our decisions rather than overcomplicating them with extenuating circumstances. The listener’s account serves as a cautionary tale, particularly for younger men who might feel empowered by a sense of superiority or rational competence in the face of clear signs of dysfunction.
We then examine the classroom of interpersonal dynamics, likely influenced by the underlying psychological frameworks that inform our understanding of relationships. Can one genuinely separate love from the chaotic and often damaging aspects of their partner? Angus’ story of his past relationship serves as a gateway to a broader discussion on commitment and the responsibilities we hold to our children and ourselves when mired in dysfunctional dynamics.
As the conversation unfolds, I confront the reality that engaging with a severely mentally disturbed partner can result in generational trauma. While Angus cherishes his daughters, he grapples with the profound implications of their mother’s instability, highlighting the lasting effects on their lives. I suggest that while it's easy to smile upon the joys of parenthood, profound consideration must be given to the environment they are being raised in.
I stress the importance of taking personal responsibility when navigating these emotionally charged terrains, urging listeners to equate the joy of parenthood with the moral obligation to safeguard not only one's self but those who will inevitably be affected by their choices. Angus finds himself in a moral conflict—he loves his children dearly, yet wishes he could have had them with a different partner, a thought I discuss further in terms of its ethical ramifications and the concept of drawing from harmful experiences to create something meaningful.
We transition into a reflective analysis on how society tends to protect and perpetuate cycles of dysfunction based on our early life experiences. The conversation shifts towards a wider societal lens exploring how family dynamics can carry trauma through generations. I express my belief that it is crucial to recognize and detach from dysfunctional elements rather than accept them passively as “nuanced” truths.
As we near the close of the episode, I emphasize the necessity of breaking down these complicated ideas using principles that are digestible and sensible, avoiding the paralysis that can arise from excessive nuance. By all means, we acknowledge that red flags are often glaring indicators not to be ignored, and that navigating relationships with awareness, self-reflection, and the courage to make hard decisions is vital for personal and societal health.
My hope with this dialogue is not simply to share insights from Angus’s experiences but to serve as a beacon for those who might find themselves in similar situations, armed with the knowledge that the healthy choices often come from clear-sightedness and the understanding that some factors in a relationship cannot be controlled or managed, no matter one's determination.
[0:00] This is from a fellow named, well, I just call him Angus. He said, hey, hi again, Stef.
[0:06] Sorry to mail bomb you two days in a row, but I listened to your show again today. And one thing struck me about red flags that I think you can help the mail public with. I could be wrong, but I would guess that in about 30% of your call-in shows, there is talk about red flags. Just as I wrote in my previous email about nuancing virtue, I think there is nuance to be made to red flags as well. Now just communication tip i'm very glad this guy wrote the email and i'm very happy to get these kinds of communications but the word nuance is annoying objectively universally without context without nuance i dare say the the word nuance is annoying because well what what doesn't benefit from nuance, right? So nuance is, yeah, looking for subtle shades of gradations and meanings and, and, and so on. So if you're saying, well, this could benefit from some nuance.
[1:06] Then by implication, and I'm just telling you like on the receiving end of this kind of stuff, you know, maybe you're right, maybe you're not with regards to nuance, or maybe this person is right with regards to nuance. But just to be on the receiving end of, I think there's some nuance that needs to be in this. It's annoying because we want as little nuance as humanly possible in our communications, a bare minimum of nuance. So if you say, you know, rape is bad, right? Rape is immoral. Rape is evil. How much nuance do you want in that?
[1:44] I mean, of course, you can find edge cases where, you know, the woman gave consent, then she seemed to withdraw consent, but it's kind of complicated. And then there's also, well, you know, rape is immoral, absolutely, but that's different from what you can objectively prove in a court of law. And so I get all of that, but we don't want much nuance in the moral formulation that say murder is immoral, not killing in self-defense. That would be a homicide, but not immoral. So we don't want much nuance, because nuance tends to paralyze. And when nuance paralyzes, it's really bad for society. I'm kind of like old school Anglo-Saxon, maybe a little bit of Viking and that kind of stuff, but I'm very much along the lines of, yeah, nuance sucks. Nuance is is hyper feminine in a way nuance is not right so when we're talking about red flags.
[2:47] And somebody tells me well let me just get the the phrase here right i think there is nuance to be made to red flags as well or yeah nuance so also nuance is a little insulting at least i experience it that way, which is not to say I feel terminally insulted, but just in its formulation. It's a little insulting because it's when people say, well, you're oversimplifying things. When someone says you're oversimplifying things, they are very, very much saying that you are somewhat of a simpleton.
[3:23] Right? You're oversimplifying things. Okay, maybe. But it is saying, well, your brain can't handle this level of complexity, so you just had to simplify it because you're simple, right? Simplifying comes from simpletons. And there are times when that criticism is valid, but just be aware that when you say you're... There's a couple of things. Over as a whole, right? Nuance is saying that you are making something black and white when it's a whole lot more complicated than that. Okay. But then why would someone make something black and white if it's a whole lot more complicated than that? Well, basically because they can't handle the complications, right? I mean, obviously, there are times when if somebody just says, well, Putin's an evil dictator who invaded the beautiful, wonderful nirvana of Ukraine for his own evil and nefarious purposes, right? That would be obviously an oversimplification, and we get that. But mostly it's just idiots who say that, just propagandized idiots who want the seal fin clapping applause of other fools, right?
[4:37] So over and under is one of these things. You're overcomplicating things. Well, that's basically saying that you're neurotic, right? If someone says to me, well, Stef, you're just overcomplicating things, then they're saying that I don't have any particular principles, I'm prone to paralysis, and I'm just kind of neurotic.
[4:56] So when people say there's a complicated topic, there's a complicated topic, and it needs more nuance. Okay. I mean, obviously, complicated topics can always have more nuance, but too much nuance, and you're paralyzed. You get lost in the weeds. And it's sort of like, for me, philosophy is like a drone flying at, say, 2,000 feet in the air, or a satellite plane flying at 2,000 feet in the air. Now, a satellite plane will take a photo. I mean, you could say a video, let's just go old school, and say, well, the satellite plane or a drone. We'll take a video. We'll take a picture, right? Now, how much detail needs to be in the picture? Well, enough that you can see what's important, but not so much that it can't store many pictures, right? This is the trade-off, right? Obviously, you don't want, you know, three pixels by three pixels because then you can't see anything. Do you want, you know, a 50 gig photo where if you zoom in you can see the veins on the, leaves of the plants. Well, no, because then you really can't take that many, many photos, right? So the right amount of resolution is important. You could, I guess, get a camera that took 100.
[6:25] Megabytes of photos every single time, but you would quite rapidly run out of storage, and you wouldn't necessarily need that much detail for the average person to look at and enjoy your photograph. So higher resolution is good. So it's sort of for me saying, well, it needs more nuance is like saying, well, the picture needs more resolution. It needs more detail. And why? Why? It just means you need a super expensive camera. You need crazy expensive and fast memory cards. And then you need, I don't even know what kind of monster infinity terabyte storage you would need to store those photos. It's overkill. It's over and under, right? So, when people say it needs nuance, why? Maybe it does, maybe it does, but nuance is actually a black and white thing. Say, I don't like the phrase nuance as a whole. You can say it needs more detail. You can say it needs clearer definitions, but philosophically speaking, nuance always strikes me as intellectual pretension. It needs, well, it's a complicated topic. It needs more nuance. And this goes back to, you know, debating with Vosh, V-A-U-S-H, I think it's like Mr.
[7:47] Chunky Butt Man Bun. So debating with Vosh was, you know, kind of gave me intellectual hives because Vosh was constantly saying, I mean, the causes of these things are incredibly complicated.
[8:02] Oh dear i mean that that to me is just really really sad to say that the causes of the industrial revolution are incredibly complicated it's like kind of yes and no right i mean if you want to go into every single little piece of detail i suppose you could but then you're never done but it's also saying well i who am a brilliant semi-bearded man bun guy i can hold all of these incredibly complicated things in my head, but you can't. And therefore, it's like the white coat scientists, you know? Well, if you don't understand quantum physics, you can't make any comment on anything about it. If you don't know all of the modeling that has gone on in the.
[8:48] Databases and coding and schematics of global warming, then you can't comment. It's incredibly complicated, right? And it's just a way of, it's a mystery. It then becomes a mystery religion. So when people say the discussion or your discussion of red flags requires nuance, I'm like, I just find that kind of annoying and just vaguely insulting. Now, that doesn't mean that I'm right about that. It just, I'm telling you that's my experience. And I would generally recommend. And of course, I'm sure you can find where I've used the word nuance and so on. So I get all of that. But in general, the purpose of significant ability in the intellectual sphere, is to distill things down to principles. Midwits, right? You know that bell curve, right? Low IQ simplifies, midwits complicate, and geniuses simplify again, right? So somebody who's not particularly smart will climb a tree. Somebody who's very intelligent can define a tree and all of the attendant biological and physical properties. Whereas somebody who's a midwit is going to look at that tree and say, well, you know, maybe it's a tree, maybe it's not. Maybe it's just a representation in the mind. Maybe I'm a brain in a tank. Maybe I'm like, it just gets really, the midwits complicate and midwits are addicted to overcomplication.
[10:12] And I'm not calling this guy a midwit, of course, right? I had some emails from him, but I'm just telling you that... I don't know if you've ever experienced this. Yeah, so Heizzi says, With nuance, they mean messing with the definitions of fogging things up to infinity. Yeah, yeah, nuance is really the enemy. You know, E equals mc squared. But energy can't be measured in massive detail, and the speed of light is a constant, but it might change slightly through different mediums and all of that, right? So it just complicated. And when I meet people, they are the sort of professional paralysis mongers, right?
[10:53] And generally, the people who create so much nuance, and it's incredibly complicated, what they do is they are basically servants of the elites, because the elites are certain. Like the elites are absolutely certain. I mean, you see some of their speeches and so on, like they're they're they've no doubt they're so the paralytic agents that go through the bloodstream of society are all all about nuance and it's over complicated or it's it's it's it's it's overly simplistic and like they have all of these words that they use to sort of vaguely insult a perspective and elevating themselves and again i'm not saying this is this guy's i i'm not going to read his mind i'm just telling you that after 40 years of debating i've noticed a pattern or to in things. So, let's go on.
[11:42] He said, just as I wrote in my previous email about nuancing virtue, I think there is nuance to be made to red flags as well. Okay. Now, just because he used the words nuance and I find it mildly annoying, it does not mean that I'm not going to enjoy reading his email. I'm not, right? He says, I met a woman some years ago that had almost all the red flags.
[12:05] She said very early on, she was bipolar, type 2. What does type 2 mean? Does that mean, is that a form of bipolar? Does she mean diabetes? I don't know if you know what type 2 means, right? So he said, she said very early on, she was bipolar. Type 2 had a PTSD diagnosis, post-traumatic stress disorder, of course, which I doubt, but I do think she has a narcissistic personality disorder. Checked herself into the suicide ward at the local hospital a few years before we met, and told me she didn't talk with her family for three to four years over a dispute of how much they should spend on Christmas presents.
[12:46] When we met, she early, sorry, when we met, she early said things like, oh, that boyfriend, yeah, I wasn't kind to him, ha ha ha. And I asked back, why were you not nice to him? I guess I didn't feel well. Did being mean to him make you feel better? I guess not.
[13:03] Another boyfriend she was stupid enough to talk about was, he just, he had just received word that he had a critical heart failure so he couldn't come to Thailand with me. Oh, sorry, I forgot to do the right voice there.
[13:16] He had just received word that he had a critical heart failure, so he could come to Thailand with me. After some polite fishing, it turned out that she cheated on him on that trip. All she had to say for herself was, but I waited six months before I broke up with him because of his heart condition. Are we talking red flags yet? Oh, yeah, of course. Also, lots of large ugly tattoos and no education and no job. But as always, there was also the upside to the equation. sigh. I'm not proud. And by that, I assume he means that she is hot. Now, to my point, did I see the red flags? Of course I did. And here is where I think you can use my cautionary tale to warn young men from going into the trap I went into. I saw the red flags, but I was arrogant and thought that, I mean, the woman is obviously slightly crazy, but hot. And I'm so smart. I have 130 IQ, and I'm so mentally stable, and I'm so much better than her in life. So I will be able to control her craziness. She won't be able to bend me down. Big mistake. Talk about bad. Think. I was able to handle her somewhat as long as we lived separately, but from the day we moved in together, my mistake showed its horrific face, total torture and horror.
[14:36] So my point is that young men should be wary about thinking, I'm so strong that I can handle this hot, crazy woman, and be warned that it is a completely different thing living separately compared to sharing the same roof. It's like night and day, almost, living separately with someone like that compared to what she's capable of doing once you can't escape the shared roof anymore. So maybe you could put out a slight warning about this concerning red flags, because I think there are many young men like me who thought, I can handle that, and then catastrophe strikes as soon as you move in together.
[15:10] Right. So, I'm not quite totally sure where the nuance is here, but I'm sure it's coming. Oh, and by the way, she happens to be the mother of my two lovely daughters, who are sleeping now after a busy day. We separated early, for obvious reasons. I don't regret meeting her, of course, but I wish I could have had the same wonderful daughters, but with a different mother. Also, a philosophical conundrum, I can't regret meeting her because of my kids, whom I love deeply. But I can wish to have had the same kids, but with a different mother, no matter how impossible that would be. It's not forbidden to dream about things. And then he writes, your friend in philosophy, and we'll call him, that's not his real name, we'll call him Angus. So nuance to red flags as well. I don't quite get what the nuance is. But to me, nuance is, I'm guilty. I cannot confront what I did and why.
[16:08] So I'm going to claim nuance as an escape hatch for self-recrimination. And it's tough, man. This was obviously a deeply, deeply, deeply, deeply disturbed woman, right? I mean, there was just, I mean, just terrible. And, you know, straight up, you know, cheating on boyfriends.
[16:33] Suicidal, bipolar, PTSD, and, you know, bad childhood, no question, no question, bad childhood. But, and this is something that I've always, and this is going to be, you know, it may sound bad, right? But I'll, you know, I want to be honest with you guys, especially because, you know, you're the lovely donors, right? So I want to be honest with you guys. So I would have a tough time being crazy because I would find it very embarrassing.
[16:59] I'm just telling you what I think, right or wrong, right? Right or wrong? I would have a tough time because I'd be like, let's say that, I don't know what she would do. She would, you know, scream at him in the middle of the night because she had a dream about him cheating or something like that. You know, whatever, you know, whatever sort of the crazy people are doing, or I don't know, she's throwing plates at the wall or you know shrieking at the top of her lungs or oh whatever it is right.
[17:25] So I would have a tough time doing all of that stuff. And this is part of the value of the British cringe system, right? The British cringe system. I would have a tough time being crazy because I would just find it really embarrassing. I would find it really embarrassing yelling at someone because I had a dream about them cheating, you know, it must mean something. Would you love me if I was a worm? You know, all of that kind of stuff. I just, I would find it embarrassing. And I would, you could say it's too much pride or just a feeling of the cringe factor is just too great or whatever you want to say. But I would just find it unbearable to be nuts. I would just find it really, you know, deeply shameful and embarrassing. And this is sort of part of the British Cringe Factor. It actually does some good. Some of the British Cringe Factor stuff, you know, this hyper embarrassment stuff is bad, but some of it is also pretty good. You know, when my mom was like yelling at me because I suggested that maybe she should work on some stress management because she was involved in all of this stuff that she claimed was stressful and maybe read a book on stress management. And so she was like throwing cups of water at me and plastic cups of water at me in a pizza hut in Don Mills. And I was like, but I'd be embarrassed to throw things at someone in a restaurant.
[18:44] So there's something to do with that observing ego where you're looking at your own behavior and like, okay, this is bad, right? This is like, whatever I'm doing is not good, right? This sort of cringe factor.
[18:58] So, yeah, and James says, there's an utter lack of embarrassment on the part of crazy people. It's like their external perspective mechanism is broken, mirror neurons, something like that. Yeah, this is the acting out with no interference. No, like, oh, no, no, that's not, oh, that's bad, that's weird, that's wrong. You know, just that kind of stuff. They just act. They just act. They just act.
[19:22] So, if you expect to be somebody else's external, I don't know what you'd call it, some kind of conscience or something like that. If you expect to be somebody else's, oh, conscience or observing ego or third eye, or, you know, whatever you might want to call it, you're going to fail. You're going to fail. Like really disturbed people in my, I mean, obviously experience. And of course, I've talked to thousands of people about this publicly and privately over the sort of course of my life as a whole. They don't really have a sense of shame. They don't really have an observing ego. And they will just act out. And they don't really have a sense of remorse. And you cannot become, in a sense, a conscience or an observing ego. You can't do that. It won't work. It doesn't happen so anyway that having been said and done i think if i sort of look at this email which again i find very interesting and i hope yeah there is a selfishness to insanity yeah for sure for sure so i think the nuance that he's talking about here is well i have these two lovely daughters.
[20:40] I have these two lovely daughters, this guy says, Angus says, and so how can I really regret meeting their mother since I have these two lovely daughters? And to me, there it is. There it is. Now, he says two lovely daughters, and I assume that they're young. Actually, let me see. I don't know if I... Tell me what time he wrote the email, because the earlier it is. Probably the younger his kids are. No, not really. Okay. So, I'm just going to see if I can look at any sort of details, any header. No. So, I assume his kids are young. Now, when kids are young, they tend to manifest less mental disturbance or dysfunction.
[21:34] So, he's saying, oh, I've got these beautiful daughters, these lovely daughters, they're sleeping beside me. Now, If somebody asks, it's a great question, and they ask, are there any mental illnesses you think do not come from child abuse, Stef, or anyone, I think the vast majority of them can be linked to upbringing. I can't think of one that's not linked. Well, it depends, sorry, it depends what you mean by mental illnesses.
[21:59] People can have, you know, what appears to be some, at least to some degree, to some degree schizophrenia does appear to be related to some genetic markers. I think you also need a significant childhood stressors, but again, I'm no expert, that's just sort of my amateur guess. But I think there are some, there are some susceptibility or susceptibilities to something like schizophrenia. Of course, if you have a brain tumor, that is going to give you symptoms of what would look like mental illness when, of course, you are having that problem. Of course, if you have degenerative stuff like Alzheimer's and things like that, then you have that problem, which is there is something degenerative that is going on in the brain that is giving you significant dysfunctions, but that wouldn't be specifically related to child abuse. So, and of course, I write about this in my novel, The Future, which of course, if you haven't listened to or read, you really should. So in my novel, I talk about the children who end up being abused or harmed, let's say harmed, in a future society where peaceful parenting is sort of all the rage. And so, yeah, to me, absolutely it can happen. Absolutely it can happen.
[23:20] But it is by far the minority, right? I mean, there are people, what's it, Andy Kaufman got lung cancer. He apparently never smoked. So is there lung cancer without smoking? Yes. But the vast majority of lung cancers are smoking related, right? I don't think it's just like type 1 versus type 2 diabetes or whatever. It's not really the same, the same prevalence.
[23:45] So it's an interesting question somebody says are there any mental illnesses you think do not come from child abuse staff or anyone i think that's i think that's a bit of a trap honestly i think that's a bit of a trap and i'm not saying it's a conscious trap i'm not even saying i'm right i'm just saying i think it's a bit of a trap and i'll tell you why so if somebody says to me oh, so you're saying that all mental illnesses come from childhood, right? Abuse and come from child abuse. Well, if you say pretty much, yeah, then you sound like a fanatic who's got that, you know, one cause explains everything, right? And then you can be dismissed. And if you say, well, no, not all, then you are relieving people to some degree of their moral responsibility to ask dysfunctional people about their childhoods, because he said, well, it could be something, right? So if you were to say, do all broken bones come from accidents or trauma or physical trauma or something like that? All broken bones come from that.
[24:54] If you were to say yes, then someone would say, ah, but what about people with some sort of degenerative bone disease, right? Then they can break their legs just, you know, getting up from the couch. It's like, oh, well, that's true, right? So, to me, oh, no, nuance, right? To me saying, let's say that 2%, 3%, 4% of mental dysfunctions come from something other than child abuse.
[25:18] Why would that matter in terms of how you would deal with life so if somebody you know hates tobacco right like the quitters inc guy in the stephen king novel a short story if somebody hates smoking and wants to stop and get people to stop smoking right and you would say well do you think that all lung cancers come from smoking like that would just be an interesting question but sort of irrelevant and pointless and kind of annoying, if this makes any sense. I'm not sure why it would matter. If the vast majority of mental dysfunctions come from or have their origin story in abusive parenting, why would you want to look for things that weren't that way, right? Let's see here. Percent lung cancer not related to smoking. Now, of course, there would be other things that would be different. Let me see. There would be other things that would be, let's see here. Right. So lung cancer.
[26:23] Yeah. So in the US, 10 to 20% of lung cancers happen in people who never smoked. But of course, you know, it is, you could expose to other people's smoke, second-hand smoke, radon, air pollution, family history of lung cancer, and asbestos. So, I actually thought it would be, I thought there would be more, that would be smoking related. But if you talk, let's see here, percent lung cancer not related to the environment. Maybe this would be answered, maybe not. Yeah, I don't know. So.
[27:01] Radon is another. Oh, so radon is 21,000 lung cancer related deaths annually in the US. So that's another big proportion. So yeah, but let's say, you know, 10 to 20% of people say, well, if you're really into getting people to not smoke, then you're dealing with 80 to 90% of lung cancer cases. So what does the gap matter? What does the gap matter? So, sorry, let me get your other comments. Healthy means not keeping abusive people in your life. This includes hot bipolar chicks, unfortunately. Yes, for sure. Yeah, I mean, I was talking to a couple last night, a call-in show that's going to be out probably within a couple of days.
[27:47] And I was talking about the principle that the more overtly sexualized, usually, let's say the woman's, right? The more overtly sexualized the woman's presentation, the more sex you'll have in the short run, and by far the less sex you'll have in the long run. And they seemed quite surprised by that general equation, right? So the more the woman puts herself forth as hot and sexy and low-cut tops and, you know, a sexualized presentation and talking about sex and all of that, okay, then you might get a fair amount of sex in the short run, but in the long run, you won't because she's putting herself forward in that significantly sexualized way because she doesn't really like herself and wants to gain attention without bringing virtue, intelligence, good conversation, and values to the equation. And so, a woman who attracts you with her body will resent you for using her body over time and will withhold it. So, it just tends to go that way. Lots of sex before marriage with a hyper-sexualized woman generally ends up with a dead-bed marriage in the long run. Right.
[28:53] Somebody says, is thinking in dreams something that comes from the subconscious. Okay, let me get, and I'll get back to that one. Let me sort of finish, let me just sort of finish that thought. So this guy's saying, well, I dated this truly, you know, somebody top right on the hot crazy matrix. I dated this truly crazy woman, but I got to meet my daughters. And I don't regret meeting my daughters, therefore I can't regret dating the crazy woman. Now, the problem, of course, is that that's kind of selfish. Because the real question is not do you appreciate what, your daughters. Of course you do, right? You care about your daughters, you love your daughters, and so on. And he does touch on this in the email, because he says, I wish I'd chosen a different mother for my daughters. Let me just sort of get the exact wording here. I wish I could have had the same wonderful daughters, but with a different mother. I can't regret meeting her because of my kids, whom I love deeply, but I can wish to have had the same kids, but with a different mother. So the one thing that's missing is what is what are the kids life what is the life of the kids like.
[30:08] When they have a crazy mother and will have a crazy mother for a good portion of their lives, right so when you choose to have babies with a woman then you are choosing for that woman to be part of your children's lives for the rest of their lives, or at least for the rest of their lives, as long as the mother is still alive, right? So let's say you have kids with a woman who's 25, she lives to 85, which is kind of standard, maybe a bit less for psychologically disturbed people, but let's just say 85, let's go with the average. So she's a mom for 60 years. So you have now put your kids in the orbit of a crazy person for 60 years.
[30:59] You can leave your wife, you could choose to not deal with her, or I guess in this case, I don't know if they were married to girlfriend after he had two kids, but the kids are kind of stuck with her. It's like if you adopt a really troubled kid into your home, let's say you've got four kids and then you adopt a really troubled kid into your home, well, you are making that decision, but you're also choosing to inflict that troubled kid on your other kids for their whole lives, right? For 70, 80 years, right? You got a bunch of kids, you adopt a five-year-old, she's going to be alive for 80 years, which means that your kids have to deal with that kid for, right, the next 80 years. Now, you can say, ah, yes, but they can choose to not deal, right? They can choose to move on, they can choose to separate from that, but that's a difficult, ugly, unpleasant process.
[31:51] And it certainly doesn't mean that the other person, like the other, the adopted kid might not try to bring their way or sort of wind their way back into the family, even if the siblings, and it's a difficult, it's separate. And of course, it's also difficult because it's something that they then have to explain to people they date or people they're going to get married to. They have to explain, well, you know, I have an adopted sibling and, you know, these bad things happen. You just have to explain it. So it's difficult. So from the perspective of the children, he's saying, well, I love my kids, and I care about my kids, and I'm very happy to know my kids, but still all about him.
[32:36] All about him because he has locked the kids in to the orbit of a crazy mother for 60 years or more or less whatever right let's say she lives to 75 that's half a century that's the decision you've made about the mother of the children so the fact that he likes his kids of course he does it's great. But the fact that he likes his kids is somewhat irrelevant to the fact that the kids have to deal with a crazy mother for the next 50, 60 or more years. There is, of course, no same kids but with a different mother. So it's sort of like saying, well, my father could have said, yeah, before he died, my father could have said, well, yes, your mother was not the most stable parent, but you have a lot of great gifts, and clearly you're happy to be alive. So there's nuance.
[33:32] No, there's really not. There's really not nuance. Would I rather have been born in this particular time with the challenges and the abilities that I have, or would I rather be born in the future with a peaceful, voluntary, stateless society full of people who peacefully parent? Well of course i would much rather live in that in that society with the peacefully with the peaceful parenting and the you know oh yeah i mean to me that's not say oh yes but but then you wouldn't have met your wife and your wife wouldn't be the same and you wouldn't have met your daughter and it's like i get all of that i get all of that i truly truly understand that it would be a different life, I would be, to a significant degree, a different person. But I would prefer to live in a moral society rather than the pretty nasty, blind, NPC, vicious hellscape we currently inhabit. I mean, if I wouldn't have rather, if I wouldn't have rather preferred to live in a free society, a voluntary society, a UPB-compliant society, then why on earth would I be working so hard to bring it about?
[34:51] That's not the answer for sure that's not the answer all right let me get to your questions.
[34:59] There is all this complexity and nuance that absolves me from any real responsibility it's just gaslighting right sure i wouldn't be who i am james says without the difficulties of my childhood still would not have chosen it had i been shown a preview of my life up to age 18 Right. Right. Right. You can get good things out of evildoers. You can get positive things out of harm. That does not make the harm positive. You can learn, if somebody drags you deep underwater, you can learn that your ears pop easily, and maybe that makes you better at being a scuba diver, but that doesn't mean that the person who dragged you underwater is a good person or has done a good thing. Getting good out of evil does not make the evil good. The fact that I have dedicated my life to rationality after being raised by a deranged mystic does not mean that deranged mysticism in the raising of children is a good thing. You know, I avoid radiation to my neck after having radiation treatments for neck cancer, but that doesn't mean that the neck cancer is good, even though, you know, if I avoid radiation to my neck, maybe that's better for my skin or whatever it is. But that doesn't mean that that is a good thing.
[36:22] Our writers, and of course, I always think of Robert Louis Stevenson, who wrote Treasure Island and all these sort of really cool adventure stories. Well, he had a childhood of incessant illness, which caused him to be stuck in bed, which helped him develop his imagination. And we have some, you know, pretty fun literature that came out of that. All right. Well, does that mean that we should celebrate when our child gets ill? Because it might help him turn into being a good writer? Well, of course not. Of course not. Right? If your child gets ill, you don't say, well, you know, if you survive this, you might be the one in a million kids who becomes a great writer as a result, or partly influenced by. That's not what we do. Right? That's not how we live. That's not what we do. It's not how we process things. If someone stabs you, and in the course of the operation to repair the stab wound, they find some tumor and take it out, that doesn't mean that the guy who stabbed you is no longer evil.
[37:28] So if your parents smoke like chimneys and die horrible but painful deaths and harm you and your lungs, I mean, I grew up with a smoker, right? And they harm you and your lungs and your health, and then you become an anti-smoking crusader and you save thousands of people's lives by convincing them to quit smoking, does that mean that your parents are now virtuous? No. It means that you have turned a wound into a weapon against wounders. Really, that's the best you can do, really. If you're wounded, you turn your wound into a weapon against wounders. It doesn't mean that the wounders aren't immoral or evil. Somebody says, Oh, sorry, James says, here's a Bible verse to ponder and maybe do a show on. Joseph speaking to his brothers after being sold into slavery by them, Genesis 50, 20. But as for you, he thought evil against me, but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. Yeah, you can turn bad, you can get good effects out of bad actions, but you cannot turn bad actions into good actions.
[38:41] Can extract good from the effects of bad actions, but you cannot, nobody possesses the ability to turn evil into good, any more than people have the ability to will that two and two make five. It's not real. It's a fantasy, doesn't exist, and so on, right?
[39:00] And so, if this guy says, look, I fell prey to the sin of lust, and I pursued a woman for sexual gratification like an animal, and I didn't have any quality people in my life to teach me better. And I kind of knew it was wrong and bad at the time. And I have created two children. I love my children dearly, but I chose an absolutely terrible person to be my children's mother. That's rough. That's rough. I mean, obviously, I guess like everyone, or certainly I wouldn't say like everyone. For me, for me, I have not obviously been perfect in my life, but I've never made a mistake like that. I've never done wrong or bad like that. So, I don't know what the distortionary effects on the conscience are of having two children with a rapidly crazy woman. And then, even if you take off, they're bound to her by blood and history and law for decades and by sentimentality for 50, 60 or more years. I don't know what it is to curse my children with an unstable, deranged, dangerous mother for the rest of their lives. Again, I'm not perfect. I've certainly made my moral mistakes, but I've not done anything that I have to live with that's like that. Or even close. I shoplifted a bit when I was a kid.
[40:28] I was half dating a girl and kissed another girl in my mid-teens. I mean, not great stuff for sure, but not like I've now lashed two innocent children to a crazy mother for the next 50, 60 years. So I don't know how people deal with that. Maybe you guys have some thoughts or some ideas about that. I don't know how people deal with that. I'm not entirely positive it can be dealt with. makes any sense. I'm not really sure that it can be dealt with. Because it does seem to be the case that people don't have a lot of luck dealing with that kind of stuff.
[41:11] And again, I know I'm dealing with a self-selecting group, you know, people who call in. I get all of that. And maybe you guys have sort of different thoughts or ideas or opinions about that. But I don't know how people deal with that kind of stuff. I don't know. And I think this sort of nuance and complication, so whenever I see people who overcomplicate things or who talk about nuance rather than simple principles, what I perceive is that they have moral actions they can neither digest nor spit out. That's my general perception. You know, right or wrong, good or bad, however you want to put it, that is my general perception. That when people who've made really terrible decisions and having two children with a deeply disturbed woman is a very bad decision, and it is not recoverable.
[42:09] You can't undo it. There's no restitution for it. You just got to plow on. So when you have done things for which there is no restitution, and look, I'm not saying this guy is damned. I'm not saying he's a terrible guy. I'm not saying like he's irredeemable. I'm not saying anything like that, but I am saying that the bad decisions that he's made are irreversible.
[42:31] You can't control Zed, the mother of your children. You can't do it. It can't be undone. So what do you do when you've made some pretty catastrophic moral decisions that can't be undone? What I generally see is just people retreat into this kind of dismal, sometimes hyper-energetic fog, and they detach usually from their deeper emotions.
[42:57] So this guy's saying, well, you know, I'd love to have the same kids from a different mother. Ha ha. I know I can't do that, but a man can dream. Ha ha. You know, that kind of stuff, right? Which is like, bro, you had all the red flags known to man and you dated her, moved in with her and gave her not one, not one, but two children. Now, of course, he says that he's separated from the mom. I don't know, of course, if the mom is around. I don't know what her status is. I imagine, you know, if she's truly disturbed, like, I mean, borderline personality disorder level disturbed, then, you know, she might mellow a little bit out in her old age, but there's going to be many, many, many years of really random and destructive behavior coming down the pipe. And he can flee from it. And he can say, well, I finished my journey with your mother. She has no hold over me. But crazy people are very manipulative. Of course, right? And they really understand other people's psyche, psyches and personalities. They really do. And so it's going to be his kids, his daughters are going to have to deal with a highly pathological, incredibly focused.
[44:13] Manipulative, disturbed person who's got a sentimental hold over them as a mother to daughters. A sentimental hold over them that is second to none on this planet. And that's what they're going to have to try and find a way to live with and deal with. Oof. I don't know. I don't know. Somebody says, own it so your kids have a fighting chance. Sometimes the point of life is a service or warning to others. Yeah, it's a good quote. Well, tell me what you, what do you mean by own it? I'm not, I'm not doubting what you say. I just, I'm not sure exactly what it means. Own it. I mean, how, how do you say to your kids, I loathed your mother, but she was really good in bed.
[45:04] You're the product of lust with a side helping of hatred. But when you look back at your life and you see the mistakes that you've made, which we've all made, how do you process them? I mean, when I look at my sort of very brief and obviously not very accomplished shoplifting phase, I say to myself, well, I had no respect for the rules of society because society had done nothing to or did nothing to protect me. So I had no respect for the rules of society. Why would I? Because society had done nothing to protect me. So why would I protect society? Why would I respect property? And that was a warning to me about my very alienated relationship to society. And I mean, honestly, it was not much of anything. I didn't really steal much of anything. But it spoke of a very distant and cynical and skeptical relationship to society. So I'm not sure what it means to say, own it so your kids have a fighting chance. How are you supposed to own it?
[46:14] Supposed, if you own it, right? So let's say that you, I wouldn't say trauma dump, that's a bit of a leading phrase. But let's say that when your kids are, I don't know what age, right? You say to them that the truth about their origin story, the truth about their mother, the truth about your weakness and lust as a man, well, how are they going to view you as an authority? How are they going to listen to your moral instructions? If you say, well, this is what I This is the crazy stuff I was doing when I was 30, but now that you're 12, you really need to listen to me. Kids have a tough time with that. You can say, ah, yes, but these are hard lessons, well-learned and so on, right? But kids are going to have a tough time with that. In other words, if you really own it and you accept it, and I'm so sorry that I have lashed you kids to a bad mom for the next 50, 60 years, and you are the product of my shallow lust.
[47:12] Well the more honest you are to your children the more difficult it is for them as a whole, right so ah that's tough somebody says seems like making restitution for something like that would take a couple of lifetimes maybe you work for the rest of your life to quarter or half make it up i don't know yes but work doing what acknowledge your mistake take full responsibility for making a poor mating choice. No, I get that, but I don't know what that means. He has acknowledged his mistake. He said, yeah, she was crazy, but she was hot. She was crazy, but she was hot. And I ignored all the warning signs because she was sexy, right?
[47:56] So he has acknowledged and taking full responsibility, but then what? I mean, him acknowledging, taking responsibility, however you want to put it, right? That still doesn't remove this crazy woman as these girls' mother for the rest of their lives or for the rest of their shared lives, right? I don't know.
[48:19] This is a Jenny. She says, acknowledge your mistakes, take full responsibility for making a poor mating choice. That way, they are released from repeating it in the cult of the family. It is saying to your kids, wrong road, do not enter. They won't trust you. They should not listen to you. Give them good Stef podcast to listen to. Well, I can't replace parenting, right? So then he says, it's an interesting point. Somebody says, it's an interesting point you bring up about society, because if you think about it in the long term, this guy may have ended up giving his children trauma that lasts for generations, and that ripples through society. Yeah. Yeah. This is, you know, the people who know anything about life and the world and self-knowledge or psychology, that war is a last resort because wars never end. Wars never end. My mother was, of course, massively traumatized, as all females were from the ages of 6 to 80 in Germany after the Second World War. When did the war end for her, do you think? When did the war end for my mother?
[49:23] Well, it didn't. The war raged on in my mother, and peace, like, war raged on in my mother, and peace rages on in me. I don't have a neutral relationship to peace. I don't have a neutral relationship to mysticism or to violence against children. The war raged in my mother, and peace rages on in me. The bombs never stop falling. Let's say that North Korea is liberated tomorrow, so that instead of being the world's largest open air prison, they could join South Korea in feminist self-extinction. So, if North Korea is liberated tomorrow, after, oh gosh, 60, 70 years as a communist dictatorship, if North Korea is liberated tomorrow, how long will it take for people in North Korea to be mentally healthy? Right? 200 years? 150 years? 300 years? Three generations?
[50:33] Maybe. My mother's generation was severely traumatized. I was not quite as, well, not as severely traumatized. I mean, my world was hell, but bombs weren't raining down in the world as a whole. And my daughter is healthy. But the healthier you are, you gain significant bonuses in your personal relationships, but you have a more difficult relationship to society as a whole. So, wonderful. But, you know, we still have to move through the world. You know, we have good friends and all of that. But, I mean, we all know this one, right? We all know this one. The sainer you are, the less you can hide that the world is an asylum. I mean, this is the red pill, blue pill thing, right? So, yeah, people are saying three generations, three to five generations. Well, yes, for sure, but it won't be even, right? It won't be even.
[51:32] So some people will advance, other people will not advance, or at least not nearly as quickly, right? So then what? So this is maybe if intense therapy is involved, I can believe it. If there's little or no therapy, it could last for centuries, right? Well, I watched a documentary, I think it was last year, and it was a documentary on two women. It was more than that, but the two women that I remember, it was a documentary on how China, under communist dictatorship, how China enforced the one-child policy. Now, one of the women, you know, they would chase pregnant women down the street, and grapple them down, hold them down, and give them forced abortions. Like the one-child policy was about as brutal and evil a thing as has occurred in history. Because to chase pregnant women down and forcibly destroy the babies in their wombs, and then leave them to give birth to a corpse, is about as nasty and ugly a thing as has happened in society, at least in peacetime, or what is ostensibly peacetime. Now, one of these women felt such horrible guilt for her part in all of this.
[52:53] That she dedicated the rest of her life to try to help Chinese women have babies. Right? Like, ah, you know, we did the right thing, man. I mean, if we hadn't controlled the birth rates, our society would have been destroyed and it was tough, necessary. We did it as fairly and reasonable. She was totally cold about it and thought it was absolutely the right thing and had no particular issues with what she had done. So, I mean, look at your families. I look at my family, right? Look at your family. I look at my family. We're not progressing equally at all. If you have siblings right look at your siblings if you're into self-knowledge and philosophy and growth and virtue and all of the great stuff which is again why i think you're it's a subscriber here and again i massively appreciate that of course.
[53:43] But are the generations just like one step being put in front of another one foot being put in front of another? Nope. There is highly, highly uneven progress, and sometimes there's even regression. So when you say three to five generations, it's not like leaves on a stream that just get moved forward according to physical processes. This is a strongly, deeply willed process that is very expensive, very time-consuming, very destabilizing. And of course, if you think of crazy like demons who have your family in thrall, right? The demons who've taken over your family, right?
[54:26] If you think of your crazy family as demonically possessed, well, they'll try to make you crazy and they'll succeed probably for a while. They certainly did with me. They'll try to make you crazy, but if you fight off the disease, they'll ostracize you. In other words, they'll want you to shut up about being sane, and if you don't, they'll ostracize you. So, the problem is, if you have a family of 10 people, and those 10 people have within them, within their numbers or their ranks, those 10 people, two of them really make leaps forward towards sanity and mental health, well, those people are attacked, scorned, ostracized, and mocked, thus adding to the immorality of the family and preventing the spread of sanity. And certainly, they are kept from the children. And the children are really only given exposure to the crazy people because the sane people are kept away from the children. Because if the children are exposed to sane people, then their own crazy parents elsewhere in the family will lose status. So, you understand that dysfunctional families are self-sealing, like.
[55:44] Of crazy. They will eject you and seal up the hole so that the demons can stay in control. And then the family, you actually go in two different directions. Because if you're aiming towards virtue, truth, and integrity, and your family is devoted towards corruption and falsehoods and exploitation, manipulation, or like all of that really dysfunctional stuff, well, you go in different directions. Because now having staked their whole existence on and rejection of virtue, they have reinforced the barriers to virtue, right?
[56:20] So the people who break orbit and end up in a virtuous realm don't go back, are not welcome back. And if they go back, all that will happen is that the demons, so to speak, will try to reinflict the trauma and spread the craziness. This is one of the reasons why dysfunctional grandparents are often very nice to the grandkids because they need access so that the crazy can jump from one place to another. Yeah, it's like it's an immune system, right? To evil, virtue is a virus that must be neutralized at all costs.
[56:56] And this is why you see this growing split in society. The left wing gets more entrenched. The right wing gets more entrenched. There's more progress in the right wing than there is in the left wing. There have been times where that has not been the case. There have been times, in my view, where there's more advancement in the left wing than there is in the right wing. I mean, for good or bad reasons, it doesn't particularly matter, but the promotion of free speech and skepticism of war that characterized the left in the 60s.
[57:28] Was further ahead than the worship of war and the desire to restrict speech that was conservatism back then. But right now, this is really true with social media. Social media gave people briefly a shared view of reality. Now people are just back in their own silos and their own echo chambers, just amplifying the lies that they wish to absorb.
[57:51] So as people move ahead, other people react against them moving ahead and move back. They move further back.
[58:01] So a society doesn't progress in lockstep like a bunch of soldiers in a row, society progresses that some people gain greater mental health and other people become more committed to corruption as a response and as a result of attacking the healthy. So, to me, the difference is when you progress, then you have a healthy immune system that's attacking corruption and evil. But if you commit to evil, you have an autoimmune disorder that attacks healthy cells and rewards corrupt or cancerous cells. All right, so somebody says, but isn't the concept that the people that are progressing morally will be more reproductively successful and the generations are exponential multipliers for that? Well, again, in a free market, that would be the case. But of course, immigration is key because conservatives outbreed liberals, right? So then you need to import more people who align with liberal values, and that tends to be immigrants, right? And also, through the educational system, you cripple people who would otherwise have a significant potential for self-sufficiency. So you tell them, oh, men exploit you, and capitalists exploit you, and owners are all terrible people, and getting a job is slavery, it's wage slavery. So you take people's sort of natural ambition, and you cripple them, you hamstring them, you hobble them, and then they end up dependent on the state.
[59:30] That if the future more peaceful society wasn't preferable, then we would be in the wrong for trying to change this society into that one. We would be harming our descendants by making our current society more peaceful if the current society is preferable. Sorry, I don't quite get that. If the future more peaceful society wasn't preferable, then we would be in the wrong for trying to change this society into that one. We would be harming our descendants by making our current society more peaceful if the current society is preferable.
[59:57] No, I'm certainly trying to make the current society more peaceful through peaceful parenting for sure and through keeping people away from so for me i just view i view toxic behavior as an environment it's an environmental toxic and you know of course i worked for many years in the software field in environmental protection and health and safety material safety data sheets i had a whole program that organized and allowed for the quick look up of those the internet of scanning back in the day msds sheets they're called. So I won't get into all of the nitty gritties that I know about all of this stuff, but I have a lot of exposure to the concepts of environmental toxins and so on, right? And so I view corrupt behavior as an environmental toxin. And if you can remediate an environmental toxin, right? Let's take a simple example, right? I hope you all have fire extinguishers in the house, right? So if you can put out the fire, you know, queen style, if you can put out the fire, you should put out the fire, right?
[1:01:04] The fire, you have to leave the house, right? So if you're cooking and there's a fire on the stove, then you get your fire extinguisher. Don't throw water on a stove, particularly oil, right? So if you are cooking and there's a little fire, you get your fire extinguisher, you put the fire out, right? If the fire spreads and grows and you can't put it out, then you got to leave. So either the fire goes or you go. That is my approach to these things as a whole. I'm sure this doesn't come as any big, particular, deep or great surprise. Either the fire goes or you go. With regards to an environmental toxin, right?
[1:01:47] If you're trapped in some house, a big fire, terrible fire, then if you can't escape, then you wet your towels and you put your towels under the door, at the base of the door, so that the smoke doesn't get in, because more people, I think, die from smoke than from fire, when there is a fire, because the smoke will just take you right out. And then hopefully somebody will come, break, open the window, and take you to safety, right? That's the idea. That's the goal. So, you minimize the damage until you can get out. In the same way, if you have some sort of flesh-eating disease, they will try to treat it. Let's say it's in your fingers and so on. So, if they will try to treat the flesh-eating disease, if they can't treat the flesh-eating disease, maybe your arm has to come off. But it has to be removed from your body as a whole. So I view like, you know, really toxic and destructive and corrupt and malevolent behavior as an environmental toxin. With the difference, of course, that it's not passive, right?
[1:02:51] It's not passive. It is conscious and manipulative. So it's a little bit different from that analogy.
[1:02:57] So somebody said, oh, James, I live in an area that is known for radon accumulation. My house got tested and radon was high. So I got a radon mitigation system installed because breathing that stuff in long-term is bad for you, and if I couldn't get one installed, I wouldn't want to live there. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, if you're being hunted by a relentless beast, a questing beast, if you're being hunted by a relentless beast, then either you trap or kill it, or it kills you. That's all. There's really not any other, I mean, if you could escape to another continent or some other place where the beast is not, of course, right? So with regards to social progress, it is, and this is what I talked about in the French Revolution presentation, which is donors you have access to, and you really should check it out if you haven't. But the French Revolution presentation is, when there's an advancement, some people get left behind. And I'm sort of refining that a little bit to say, not only do they get left behind, but they regress. Because in the act of rejecting progress, they start the dominoes of regression.
[1:04:03] And the other thing which we can do is, if you're in the chat, if you could just let me know if you think this should be donor only, then just type a D in if you think it should be general stream, type a G, a D or a G, sound the same, not the same, if you could let me know what you think. This is pretty advanced stuff, and I don't want to give people despair about these kinds of things, but especially when there's a lot of positive stuff that's happening in the world. Ian Carroll was just on Joe Rogan, which was pretty wild. Dana says D, you say D. I mean, perfectly happy to keep this down early.
[1:04:40] Perfectly happy. Lean D. Big D. All right. I think that's a vote. All right. Any other last questions? Issues, challenges, problems, whatever's on your mind? Happy to hear. Happy to chat. I imagine a number of you were at work. Great call-in last night. I have a show today and two more call-ins today. So it's going to be a busy day. It's going to be a busy day. Great stream. Love the flash streams. Thank you, Dana. I really appreciate that. And I really do appreciate your support. Thank you. Thank you so much for that. It really does keep things chugging.
[1:05:18] And I'm deeply and humbly grateful for all of that. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And if there's anything that I can do to improve, just let me know. All right. Lots of love, my friends. Thank you for your time today. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.
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