Stefan Molyneux engages with a caller, a mother navigating the complexities of her past and striving to cultivate a healthy environment for her baby daughter. The conversation begins with the caller expressing her anxiety over establishing meaningful friendships, particularly as she grapples with feelings of isolation and distrust stemming from her difficult family background. Having recently joined a more conservative church and homeschooling groups, she seeks guidance on not only how to connect with like-minded individuals but also on how to help her daughter develop the skills to form genuine friendships.
As the discussion unfolds, Molyneux carefully probes into the caller's upbringing, revealing the profound impact of her tumultuous family life, marked by her parents' repeated divorces and emotionally abusive dynamics. She shares her experience of being labeled "weird" by her parents, a designation that instilled a sense of inferiority and isolation in her from a young age. This toxic labeling contributed to her decision to withdraw from social interactions, believing that her presence might disturb the peace rather than enrich it. Molyneux empathizes with her plight, acknowledging the heart-wrenching pain of feeling unloved and unwanted by one’s own family.
The conversation takes a pivotal turn when the caller discusses her current relationships with friends who exemplify peculiar behaviors and ideological extremes. Molyneux encourages her to analyze these friendships critically, elaborating on the nature of her previous social circles. He highlights the subtle manipulations that can characterize interactions with individuals who, while not overtly abusive, may engage in psychologically damaging behaviors. The caller identifies these relationships as symptomatic of her struggle with recognizing and asserting her own worth, a theme that resonates throughout the episode.
Throughout their dialogue, Molyneux infuses the discussion with practical advice on the importance of filtering potential friends and creating a supportive network that aligns with her values. He emphasizes the need for a clear mission statement when forming groups, especially regarding her aspirations to start a Christian homeschooling network. By crafting a framework for her interactions, she can better attract those who share her beliefs and values, creating a positive space for both her and her daughter. Molyneux reassures her that her instincts, although shaped by her past, can guide her toward healthy relationships as she reclaims her sense of self.
Towards the conclusion of the call, Molyneux empowers the caller to take charge of her narrative, encouraging her to consult her husband and engage with her community in the creation of this new group. With practical frameworks and compassion, he reassures her that while the baggage from her upbringing may have distorted her perceptions, the core of her ability to navigate relationships remains intact. He underscores the importance of surrounding herself with individuals who support her journey, reframing her struggles as a catalyst for growth rather than a hindrance.
In this thought-provoking episode, Molyneux not only listens actively but provides a philosophical lens through which the caller can reevaluate her experiences, ultimately guiding her toward a path of empowerment, community building, and personal rebirth. As she prepares to implement his guidance in her life, the listener is left with the notion that even the most troubled past can lead to a profound and hopeful future, rich with connection and understanding.
0:09 - Welcome to the Conversation
1:13 - Finding Connection
2:26 - Childhood Reflections
4:15 - Family Dynamics
5:51 - The Weight of Words
7:27 - Navigating Friendship
9:46 - The Impact of Neglect
13:26 - A New Beginning
15:26 - Oddball Friendships
16:53 - Conflict and Communication
19:21 - Understanding Manipulation
22:21 - Sorting Quality Relationships
41:34 - Starting a Homeschooling Group
41:44 - Building a Community
45:20 - Group Dynamics and Filtering
45:49 - Crafting a Mission Statement
1:13:05 - Looking Ahead
[0:00] I have a baby daughter. She's asleep right now, but I might have to pick her
[0:06] up and have her join the meeting, if that's okay.
[0:09] That is totally fine. Don't worry. Don't worry even the tiniest little bit about that. That's totally fine.
[0:14] Okay. Thank you.
[0:15] You're welcome. You're welcome. All right. So how can I help?
[0:18] I would like to talk about avoiding a future problem and helping myself. I don't have any close friends, and I always end up with weird people that I don't really trust. So I feel lonely and I don't know how to show my daughter how to make friends and how to avoid bad people. I need help to try to figure out how to meet the right people and make friends or rather why I can't do that at this point. So that's what I wrote. And I would like to add that I have figured out how to meet people that align a bit better with me. I have joined a bit more conservative church and I have figured or found groups that do homeschooling close to where I live.
[1:14] But then I still need part with how to make friends.
[1:23] How to connect with people and make friends because I think I end up, meeting people and making friends with people that I don't think is scary. But when people align with my, I guess, perceptions of the world or are a bit more conservative or I, what am I trying to say? I'm trying to say that.
[1:53] No, I think I get it. I think I understand. And do you feel kind of nervous at the moment?
[1:58] Yeah.
[1:58] Okay. I mean, I get that. Listen, I do this all the time. It's not your job, right? So just I know the deep breath stuff, because I know that comes a lot from nervousness. So I totally understand that. Don't worry about it. If you say anything that you don't want to have released, we'll just take it out of the show. So just, you know, I hate to say just relax. You know, it's like that works.
[2:23] But yeah, just do your best because we're just here to have a chat. Okay so i'm i'm i'm driven almost by morbid curiosity to find out what's happened in your relationships you said people are scary or dangerous or like what what's i mean what sort of what sort of hellscape have you gotten yourself into in the past well.
[2:46] I uh i have uh talked to before, actually, I have talked to you about breaking contacts with parents. So I'm from a place where my parents ended up divorcing each other eight times now, I think.
[3:10] Sorry, was that eight times? When did we talk?
[3:13] Eight times. A couple of years ago, I think. Okay, good.
[3:18] If it was recent, I'd feel terrible, but a couple of years, I'm okay. All right.
[3:23] It's okay. It's okay. No, we saw, my parents have like been with each other and with other people and it's been a lot of boyfriends and girlfriends and getting uh yeah it's it has been not stable at all um and so socially in my family I was kind of made the bad guy I think um because I my parents always told me that oh I'm so weird and I'm so different from everyone else, or that would be the mild cases, the worst cases would be like oh you shouldn't
[4:11] exist and I shouldn't have had children and stuff like that.
[4:15] So straight up like murderous non-existent like we should never been here so they really are sadistic in that way yeah uh so sorry i'm so sorry that's that's appalling yeah that's it's one yeah it's one thing for a stranger in a sense to be mad at you but uh if it's your own parents man that that's a, that's a very very tough set of words to hear i'm so sorry no.
[4:43] It's uh well it's not okay but uh but I'm going to therapy, I'm working through it and then, but it has been a bit difficult because I have a sister and she has not been treated well, she has been more or less neglected but she has also been like, not screamed the same things at or we were like we got different treatment I'm the oldest one so I got like oh you shouldn't exist oh we don't like you and oh you're weird and different and other people probably won't like you and my sister got more like, or nothing actually so i grew up thinking that i was like the bad guy in the family that i destroyed everything and at some point uh in my youth i stopped talking to people because i thought that okay but if i'm that bad then maybe i will make the world a better place by not socializing with
[5:47] anyone if no one wants to yeah like a quarantine like.
[5:52] If your personality is so bad that you're like an illness, then I'll stay away from people and I won't infect them with my badness. And yeah, I think I understand that.
[6:00] Yeah. So I think that's where I come from. And then I think the reason I'm calling bad people, like to avoid bad people, I don't really believe that everyone is just bad.
[6:18] Well, no, because if you did, then you wouldn't be calling me because like, well, everyone's bad. so there's no nobody calls me to say how do i fly by flapping my arms right at least i hope not because it's not possible but sorry go ahead.
[6:29] Yeah no it's just i think i've just ended up with people who's how do i describe it i don't want to be rude but um.
[6:42] No just to be honest i mean this is just your perceptions nobody's this is not a court of law so this is just your perceptions okay well um.
[6:54] I usually end up with friends that's, if I'm honest, for example, with them. Sorry, I just have to go take the baby.
[7:06] Sure enough.
[7:08] There we go. I have five months old.
[7:11] How lovely. And listen, if your baby Googles, coos, cries, makes noise, don't sweat it at all. We're very pro baby here.
[7:18] Okay.
[7:18] I miss those sounds, and I'm still a ways away from grandfather,
[7:22] so i'm i'm delighted to hear a baby saying so don't don't worry about that at all.
[7:27] Okay thank you um yeah no so i i usually end up with i couldn't say to people i don't like divorces because usually my friends would be like oh but sometimes the divorces are great and you know what about the bad relationships and or i could end up with people who honestly be like i like that charlie kirk is shot oh gosh yes and so uh i don't think i have any friends right now that would say that but i think i have friends that's on the borderline to say something like that and And I don't think that's people I should introduce my daughter to.
[8:19] Right.
[8:20] And I don't know how to connect, really.
[8:28] Right. So tell me a little bit more about, and if we talked about this last time, just please let me know and we'll move on. But tell me a little bit about your experience of your parents treating your sister. I wouldn't say treating her better, but not treating her as badly as you, because neglect is pretty terrible too. But what was your experience with that?
[8:49] Well, I... My experience or it's a bit different from when I was a child because when I was a child I thought that they liked her more and that okay they're letting her be so they're like um I'm must be terrible and and she must be great that that's my thought as when I was little but from an adult perspective I think they might have even treated her worse because um they think she's normal but they also think that normal children are bad in a way like when she had nightmares when she was little they would lock her up in the bathroom because they would try were tired and wouldn't deal with it
[9:38] type of neglect and that just well that's that's a bit more than neglect yeah neglect is you.
[9:47] Know we have no time for you we're going out we don't care we don't read to you, locking you in the bathroom when you have a nightmare, that's I would argue that's beyond neglect.
[9:57] Yeah, yeah. So, but socially it was, I think she was treated a bit better because, she would be like, oh, she's not a problem or she's she can do things herself, it's fine. I don't really remember They talking too much about it But with me it was more like Oh she's, She's always troubled about this Yeah, I'm sorry.
[10:40] No, that's fine. Now, did your parents ever compare you or your sister to any other of their own parents? Like, was it, oh, you're just like my mother, or you're just like my father, or was there any of that sort of cross-pollination from the generations?
[10:59] Well my mom sometimes uh she would she would um i i think she would think of me a little bit like herself uh because she would be like oh my parents uh always thought that i was weird but you know it's just a dhd or something and and you have it too so you're weird as well or something like that, but not with any other family members, I think.
[11:32] And what would they say about the weirdness? How would they describe it or would they just use the word without any explanation?
[11:41] Mostly just the word, but they would say that I had too much energy and that I had to calm down a lot. And that they would say that I was like mean to them and that my apologies didn't mean anything. But mostly it would be like, you're weird. And I would ask, okay, but how am I weird? Or no, you're just weird. It's a thing.
[12:21] Right. Well, and for a lot of cruel parents, treating one sibling better is part of the cruelty. It shows you that they can be nice or at least nicer. So it's clearly you who is making them not nice, if that makes sense. Like you're the one who's provoking them because your sister doesn't do it. We're fine with her. At least we're not as cruel with her because she's not weird. And so they're cruel then in two ways. One is that they're cruel to you by showing you that they can speak, they can deal with children in a less negative way. And also then they're cruel to your sister because she sees how they treat you. And that's, I mean, you don't have the example of seeing an older sister treated this way by your parents. So she falls in line and she is more frightened of negative consequences because she saw and sees what happens to you.
[13:23] Okay, okay, I see.
[13:27] Okay. So, the father of your child.
[13:33] Yes, my husband.
[13:35] Congratulations. He's not one of the people you need to get away from, is he?
[13:41] No, absolutely not.
[13:42] Good. I hesitated to bring it up.
[13:45] No, I'm sorry. I should have brought it up. My husband is the one that saved me from my family.
[13:52] Good, good, good. we.
[13:53] Met at the school where you sleep at the school so we lived at the school and then we, became boyfriend and girlfriend and when he understood what family i family i came from uh he um he was like no this is not good uh something has happened and then he introduced me to your shows and i would listen a lot to your shows and i would be like oh that happened to me oh and that happened to me and that doesn't feel so great and then i would slowly realize that oh, they're kind of wrong and they're bad people they're not good to spend time with.
[14:40] Right yeah a lot of men don't realize that the rescue the woman from the fire breathing dragon is rescue the innocent young woman from the fire breathing is is verbal abuse and uh verbally abusive parents so uh and of course there's great danger in that but you you get the maiden if uh if it works out so okay all right so uh what sort of oddballs have you had as friends before what what what would you look at them and again this is just your opinions but what would you look at and say well that person is strange and if I looked at them I'd say oh that person is strange I mean how is it that we would know that looking at your prior friends.
[15:26] What do you mean, like looking at them visually?
[15:31] I mean, if it's visual, yes. If it's not visual, how else would I know that they were oddballs?
[15:37] Well, I had a friend that, like, she preferred, for example, to let out air in public.
[15:50] She preferred? Like, that was like a, it wasn't like, oh, no, it was like, oh, good?
[15:55] Yeah.
[15:56] Okay.
[15:59] And we're kind of the full package of like Greenpeace, Save the Planet, everyone.
[16:08] Save the Planet while adding CO2? That seems odd.
[16:12] Yeah. Yes.
[16:14] So like a lefty but no sort of physical boundaries or consideration for others?
[16:20] Yes.
[16:20] Okay.
[16:21] Yes. Another friend of mine would be some Christian friends who would tell me that it's important that I get back to my parents and that it really is all about forgiveness. And then I would have...
[16:54] Friends that I mean if we came in conflict, I remember I had a fight with a friend or I didn't try to make it a fight but she kind of struggled a bit, and locked herself up at home and I tried to talk to her about it and tried to, say to her what about treatment if you know that it's like social anxiety is it possible to like, go to a psychiatrist and she would say like no it's not my thing to go into psychology and, Well, it didn't turn out so great. She also said, I think she tried to, like, escalate the conflict in a way with saying something like, oh, but so you're breaking contact with everyone you meet, like your parents.
[18:00] Oh, so you're the one with the problem because you're negative towards everyone, right?
[18:06] Yeah.
[18:07] And what happened to that? Do you know what happened to her?
[18:12] I don't know. She wouldn't really have contact afterwards.
[18:19] Do you never do? I mean, maybe you're alone in this, but do you never sort of check up on people afterwards if you're curious? Because now with the exciting joys of social media, you can usually check up and see how people are doing.
[18:32] Yeah, well, sometimes I do. With her, I haven't.
[18:37] Okay because.
[18:38] A lot of people i haven't actually.
[18:40] Right i'm not saying you should i mean maybe it's healthier to not do but i mean uh it's interesting okay all right and so uh quirky people manipulative people ideological people i mean it sounds like it's that kind of stuff that you had around you and were they mean or openly abusive or more just if confronted they would get maybe manipulative like this woman i think both okay so what what about the verbal abuse people what would they like for you um.
[19:21] I think the first one, that they weren't really verbally abusive, but I think I would understand it as verbally abusive. For example, the Greenpeace friend, she would say that, oh, I'm so weird, and you're so weird too, oh, we are weird. Oh sorry i just said my name is it.
[19:50] Oh sorry i'll take it out don't worry about it no sweat.
[19:53] No sweat okay okay all.
[19:55] Right yeah don't don't yeah because i'd rather edit afterwards than have you watch everything you say so don't worry about it it's fine.
[20:01] Yeah okay all right so yes so uh the green fish friend would would um uh tell me that oh she's so weird and and we are weird together or stuff like that. And since my parents always called me weird, that was kind of a, no, I don't like that. But I don't think it was verbally abusive people I ended up with. Actually, I just think it was, not my type of people and people I couldn't really stay connected with. So I think I ended up choosing people that weren't so bad to lose if I should lose them because I thought that I was... That i was um not worthy of being friends with and when they figured that out i would lose them anyway does that make sense.
[20:54] Yeah yeah yeah i never quite know how to characterize people who are not like calling you an a-hole or some sort of really negative where you're selfish you're mean like or but the people who are just they have this weird psychologizing where you always come out petty and wrong you know like like if you have an issue with her it's like oh you just have an issue with everyone you're the one with the issue no one is good enough for you it's not quite verbally abusive but it is highly manipulative and it is not um i i don't know exactly how to how to word it i never have but it's it's somewhere in that gray zone because it's not nice but it is it's a It's a form of lashing out that in a way is for me, and I think for most people, it's even worse. Like if somebody calls you an a-hole or a jerk or something like that, then you can just kind of say, well, you know, they lost their temper. But when people lay these complicated psychological traps for you, it's really hard. I just read the chapter in my novel where a guy does this, and I never quite know how to categorize it, but it's not verbally abusive. It's kind of manipulative, and in a way, it's even more damaging because they're trying to define your personality for you in a very negative way, but not by using mean words, if that makes sense.
[22:21] Yeah it makes sense that's that's uh that's i think that's the category i've ended up with.
[22:29] Okay so let's let's dive into how you met these uh people these we'll call them oddballs uh so how did you meet them because uh that that's if you have a pipeline about how oddballs come into your life then we obviously need to do something different so how did those people come into your life in the past?
[22:50] Well, the first one was through another friend, just because she lived in the neighborhood. So.
[23:06] We just ended up hanging together because we were in the same neighborhood. And I think that, well, I was lonely and she was, too weird for people to like I mean when you go around and party in public it's not many that would hang out with you I guess so we kind of just ended up hanging together because I didn't think that anyone else would hang out with me, and then the one that escalated when she had anxiety I think yeah we actually were, yeah we met through work I worked in a store and she worked at the same place so we also just, it's a lot just ending up with people actually, I think it has been mostly by coincidence like okay I'm at the same place and, they're my age and maybe not um, it's not the worst people to lose i guess so i just ended up.
[24:28] So but so you you meet them sort of you don't seek them out but there's circumstances that the neighborhood or work that they're around so how um when you met let's say greenpeace girl how old were you uh.
[24:46] I was, um nine i think so it's like all through.
[24:53] Oh nine oh okay okay um so what about adult friends.
[24:58] Well she she ended up being my adult friend.
[25:02] Well sure but i mean you didn't meet her as an adult so what about what about gas girl one.
[25:07] From the one from the uh what did you say gas girl.
[25:14] Yeah the fart girl we can call her jupiter uh gas girl yeah that was the fart girl um just.
[25:19] That it continued until adult.
[25:22] Adult okay so what about an oddball you met as an adult um.
[25:27] That would be for example the one with the the anxiety uh we met during work um.
[25:38] Okay well we'll call her we'll call her Nellie, because when I was growing up, there was a cliche, nervous Nellie. You're a nervous Nellie. Okay, so we'll call her Nellie. Okay, so you met Nellie through work. And when you met Nellie, were there any indications about her mental health issues?
[26:01] Um, I would say no. Um, maybe just that she was really skinny, but I don't think that's a warning sign other than like, I don't think she had a problem with eating. So I don't, well.
[26:19] I mean, if she's really skinny, then that's a bit of a warning sign, isn't it?
[26:23] Not that skinny or maybe borderline that skinny, but yeah.
[26:27] Okay.
[26:29] I think maybe a little bit because she would, like we would be invited to a Christmas party and she liked to go or she would like to go but then we both ended up cancelling last time or like right before and after she would be really angry that she still had to pay but I thought that okay, but I don't get why she would be that angry because when you have said you're going to their party, they have a budget and we're supposed to pay a little bit. And if they have bought meals already, you know, it's... So I guess the only signal would be that she could get overly emotional about... Things that happen, I guess.
[27:30] Okay. So at work, was she competent and decisive? But she can't have been that anxious in her private life and also been great at work.
[27:43] No, I guess she would be a little anxious, I think, and talk maybe a little mean about the customers when they didn't hear.
[27:54] And was she when you met her was she in her 20s or 30s uh 20s 20s okay and when you met her, usually i mean there's a funny kind of vetting process that you go through when you meet people at least certainly as you get older because you have to know if you have things in common and so when you met her if you start talking about things other than work usually what happens is you try to find out about people's personal lives because you want to find out um if they say oh i have 15 cats you know you want to know that oh yeah so that you can so or or you know um, i have a long distance relationship with somebody on the other side of the world and it's like okay you kind of want to know that because you know or uh they're 28 and they're still living at home or And so you want to, or if they're a woman and they live in a bad section of town.
[28:55] It means that they lack sort of basic self-protection. So you want to ask people questions. Maybe you do, but generally there's this exchange of information. Because when you get older, you tend to move in similar circles, right? So if you're very successful, you tend to be around people who are very successful, medium, medium. So you don't need to do those. There's a sorting process over the course of your life so that you end up meeting people who are, you know, kind of like yourself. Like if you live in a poor neighborhood, you're going to meet people like yourself. If you live in a very wealthy neighborhood, you're going to meet people who have those. So there's a whole sorting process. But that sorting process doesn't happen until the 30s, 40s, sometimes even the 50s. But usually it's done by the 40s. So when you meet people, let's say when you met Nervous Nellie, when you met Nellie, what kind of questions did you ask her, if any, or what kind of indications did she give to you? That her life was odd or that she had these kinds of difficulties?
[30:02] Well, we talked a bit about home life, I think. And she would tell me that she hated her parents because they were really mean to her, but she still lived at home and didn't want to move out.
[30:17] Well, there you go.
[30:19] Okay, yeah.
[30:20] Yeah, there you go.
[30:21] Yeah.
[30:22] And was she early, mid or late 20s?
[30:25] Early 20s.
[30:26] Early 20s. Okay. I mean, that may not be the end of the world, because early 20s, you know, it's tough to get things going economically, especially these days. And how did she seem when she was talking about these things emotionally?
[30:46] She laughed about it a bit.
[30:49] Correct.
[30:50] Or she would be kind of uptight about it. like oh it's but but it's not a big problem type of.
[30:58] Okay so so there's your i mean that's more than a clue that's that's decisive to me like if somebody has like and again i don't want you delve into her history she's not here but what sort of issues did she have with her parents or what sort of complaints did she have.
[31:17] Well, I don't remember much, but she said that her father would think that she was useless and say a lot of, like, oh, you're living home in your 20s.
[31:37] Like a loser or something like that, right?
[31:39] Yeah, yeah.
[31:41] Okay, so her father was really cruel to her. And listen, I mean, I get the tough love thing, but the tough love thing usually can't come from the parents because the parents have created the situation.
[31:52] Yeah.
[31:53] Okay. All right.
[31:58] I think if it helps, I have a reason example.
[32:03] I think. Let's look for the patterns. Absolutely.
[32:10] I have, this is also a neighbor of mine. And we had babies almost at the same time, so we kind of bonded over that. But she's not against divorces. She's like, oh, but it's necessary sometimes. Um she uh i don't know i think she's not that bad of an oddball i think but but also, we we really don't align i think as well we can talk about everything like um babies diapers children stuff like that but um she would also think that it's uh it's important that rich people share all their money with poor people and when i said that i was a bit more conservative she would ask if i was a racist straight out what um yeah and i oh because.
[33:31] Because say black people generally are poorer than say east asian people so if you don't want redistribution you must be a racist is something like that.
[33:40] I think so okay and yeah or i think we actually we we um we discussed political parties and she would be like oh but i will be a bit disappointed if if this and that is what you vote and i would be like um, then you just have to be disappointed.
[34:03] So if you said, I don't want the government to take money from the rich and give it to the poor, she then asked you if you were a racist?
[34:15] Not. Yes and no. If you vote for the party that doesn't want to take money from the rich to the poor, does that mean that you're racist because the party is racist?
[34:32] Yeah, see, personally, that would be it for me in that conversation. I would not pursue it any further.
[34:42] Now, I'm not telling you what you should do, of course. i'm just saying that if somebody is so uh so indoctrinated that they just say well everyone who's conservative is a racist and you say well i'm a conservative and say well then are you a racist it's like i i mean i wouldn't even know like how could you put that there's too much intellectual damage to undo yes if that makes sense and and it's not your job to try and fix it. And of course, also, you know, and I posted this on X, I think, yesterday that or the day before, people don't evaluate your ideas. They only evaluate the effect your ideas have on their relationships. So if she's friends with everyone who thinks all conservatives are racist, then if you try to change her mind on that.
[35:32] She knows that every single one of her friendships is gonna be i mean toast dead dead because so so she is i don't deal with individuals i deal with systems like it's like saying well i'll just i'll just remove you build a house of cards right i'll just take this one card out from the bottom it's like but it's a whole system right and so i don't look at people having ideas i mean obviously there's exceptions but most people i don't view them as having ideas. I view them as having relationships based upon lies. And if I start undoing any of those lies, all of those relationships...
[36:17] Fall apart. And we are social animals and we need our relationships in order to survive. So basically what happens is I am setting fire to the food they need to survive over the winter. They don't, that they view it as if I am honest or if I accept what you're saying, I will have no friends and no family and I will die alone in the woods. And so I, you know, we're not programmed to pursue the truth. We're programmed to pursue survival. And as social animals, this gives people who propagandize a lot of power over us because they can have us set up our relationships based upon these lies. And then anyone who comes and tells the truth, well, they threaten the relationships and thus provoke a fight or flight mechanism. Like, There's that famous picture of that woman, you know, triggered, you know, like she's really angry and upset. Well, that's her fight or flight kicking in because the truth is coming along and the truth is a predator to the indoctrinated. So if somebody said, oh, well, if you don't want the government to point guns at people and move money around, you must be a racist or you could be a racist or something like that. But, you know, I mean, that's a lot of work to try and undo, if that makes sense. And why would you?
[37:45] It makes sense. But then again, then I have no mom friends left.
[37:54] Then you have what?
[37:55] Then I have no mom friends left or friends with children.
[38:00] But that's because, I mean, of course, listen, I accept and I understand that. And I'm not saying that you're wrong because that's a very real phenomenon. But it also does have something to do with how you evaluate people.
[38:20] Yes.
[38:21] I mean, when I was a gold panner, like almost everything that I found was not gold. And the important thing as a gold panner was to figure out where the gold was not.
[38:33] Yes.
[38:34] And then even if I found a place where I thought gold would be, it was as quickly as possible to get rid of all of the stuff that wasn't gold, if that makes sense. And sorry, that's a kind of a cheesy analogy or a silly analogy, but the sorting process, if you're looking for people who think, if you're looking for high quality people, then having a sorting process is really important. I mean, let's say that only one out of 20 people can think. I mean, who knows what the real number is, but let's just say, or let's say one out of 10, be nice, be nice. So one out of 10 people can think. So you have to be really rigorous when it comes to figuring out who you're going to talk to. Yeah. And so I think that's part of what you're calling about is how do we find the people who can think? And if you are, you know, I mean, the number of women who've gone very far left over the past 10 to 15 years is very high. So, again, the gold has become more scarce. And so if you are looking at. I mean, sorry, this is this is the question. So the further you go, are you religious? Are you a religious woman?
[39:58] Yes, I'm Christian.
[39:59] Oh, good. Okay, that's fantastic then, because if you weren't, then you have to sort of, in a sense, pick your challenge, because the further left you go, the more people will probably agree with you about religion, but the less they'd agree with you about ethics. And the further right you go, the more people would agree with you about ethics, but the fewer people would agree with you about religion. So the fact that you are religious is great in terms of finding people who agree with you both about god and morals so okay so that's that's good so uh homeschooling groups you said you've looked into those is that right yes.
[40:37] Um i've met up with one a couple of times and there's there's all kinds of people there um you have everything from moms that, are like vegetarian and kind of a little bit green peas, but also at the right wing, more like we should do the childcare ourselves. We should be home with the children. And then you have other moms that lean a bit more, or I don't know, it's a blend of people, I think, in the groups with homeschooling.
[41:27] So it's not a specifically Christian homeschooling group, is that right?
[41:31] Yes, that's right.
[41:34] Sorry, have you thought about a specific, I'm sure you have, but what's the story with a specifically Christian homeschooling group?
[41:44] So I live in a country with really long distances, between cities so it's a bit I don't know if it exists as far as I've researched I can't find any, though I might be able to make one because me and my husband have just started in a bit more conservative church and I know that a few of the mothers there are thinking about homeschooling.
[42:21] Yeah.
[42:23] So it might be possible to create one, actually.
[42:27] Well, I think that would be good. Now, of course, the big challenge is that if you create one, then you have to filter.
[42:35] Yeah, absolutely. Yes.
[42:40] So, so then the question is, if you're going to start one, how do you filter?
[42:45] Yeah. And also. I think um sorry i just have to move something that's no no it's fine it's fine again don't.
[42:59] Worry about that's totally fine parenting is a delightful thing to hear in the show so.
[43:04] We are a bit close to the cats you see there we go um yes i need to know how to filter.
[43:14] Okay so how conservative is the church that you go to.
[43:21] As conservative As women Aren't allowed to be priests Okay.
[43:28] Got it So is there And how many parents are there?
[43:37] I think it's almost Only parents And young men And.
[43:43] Is there no group there Already?
[43:46] Not yet I think it's a quite new church, No, it's not that new It's 20 years old, There's nothing there yet But it's Sunday school And the parents know each other But I haven't heard anything about something there yet No?
[44:17] Okay. Well, I would say that obviously would be, you can talk with the priest, and if you can recruit people for a mom's group, you could just call it, or a parent's group, if you can recruit people from the church, then, I mean, you'll still need to do some filtering, because Lord knows not everyone in the church is totally mentally healthy, but I think you can at least have a good base to start from.
[44:44] Yeah, yes, yes.
[44:47] Yeah. So, I mean, there will be, I mean, there's one thing, especially if you have a more conservative church, the one thing they're good at is networking and creating groups. Sorry, I shouldn't say that. It's not like the one thing, but it's something that they are very good at is that kind of networking and creating social groups, creating reinforcement groups. And so, if you were to create a meetup for moms or something like that and just
[45:15] restrict it to the people in the church, then that could be very positive. As you've been going to this church, what percentage of oddballs would you say there are at the church?
[45:29] Um... 10%, maybe less.
[45:35] Okay, so that's pretty good. That's pretty good.
[45:37] Yeah, I would say so, yes.
[45:40] Okay, and so have you ever done anything like this before?
[45:48] No.
[45:49] So generally, the way that I would approach this, which, you know, obviously I don't know how you should do it, but I can tell you the way that I would approach it, is what I would do is I would have a mission statement, right? So reason, virtue, happiness, you know, that sort of, and for me, the tagline was the logic of personal and political freedom. That was sort of the tagline for the show. And so you need to have a mission statement What is the purpose of the group? Because any group without a specifically designed purpose gets lost to the crazy people. There's an old saying in all sorts of social organization that any group that is not specifically right-wing becomes left-wing over time.
[46:44] Okay.
[46:46] And so I would say, write down your wish list of what you want the group to be. A group to reinforce our faith and to talk about parenting from a Christian godly perspective, blah, blah. So, to have a mission statement, and then if it's online, say, here's the group and here's the mission statement. If you agree with this mission statement, come on in. Because that way, if people end up going against your mission statement like let's take a silly example like let's say some atheist socialist comes in and starts preaching about the evils of the, bourgeoisie then you can say oh yeah i mean you you signed something which said this is a christian godly group to talk about the morals of parenting from a biblical perspective uh you You clicked on that and you're not doing that. So you can't be in the group, right? The group is for this, right?
[47:53] Yes.
[47:53] I mean, I guess I could come up with a whole bunch of fake things and then apply to speak at a physics conference. But if those things weren't real, they wouldn't let me speak because it's like, no, this is for physics professors. You're not a physics professor. So you've got to have a mission statement. And those things can take a little while because you've got to get things just right. So I have a mission statement and then have people agree, that the mission, they sign it in a way, they agree to it. And even if they come in person, read out the mission statement and, you know, just, you don't, it's funny, you know, you don't have to have people sign it, but at least have them initial it. It's funny because people view initialing as much less serious in signing. And some people can freak out about the signing thing, but somebody wants to join and say, Hey, great, you know, come on down and, you know, come down 10 minutes earlier. You read them the mission statement and just have them initial it saying that they agree with it sorry.
[48:51] But i don't understand the word in initialing.
[48:54] Oh so uh if it's online you can have them check a box to say that they agree with the mission statement, yeah okay but if uh to to to just have your mission statement and then jade oh just just initial it that you've read it and then just keep that and then if they ever deviate from it you can say uh no i have your like i have your like you did read this and you did agree to it that your initial is right here because you need to have yeah you need to have rules anything without rules gets taken over by crazy people okay and you have rules and of course the first thing that crazy people will try and do is to subvert the rules right so i mean i i just know this from having run bulletin boards and and of course being in the business world and having employees and so on and most times i hired everyone but there were times when i would inherit somebody else's hiring decisions and then have to sort of clean house from the crazy people.
[49:56] So yeah you need to have that this is what we're for and then you need to enforce it, right so i would uh when i would run message boards there would be rules like you know no verbal abuse right and then people would be verbally abusive and then i would say no no verbal abuse you agreed to that to come into the uh but you know verbal abuse and what they do is they go right up to the edge of it yeah okay right or how yeah so people you know there's this kind a personality that's out there, and you can see this all the time on social media, which is anytime you create a standard, they will immediately look for an exception or they will try to come to the edge of that standard or they'll push the boundaries. And these are people in general who are not successes in life. They are there to thwart any other person who's decisive or any other person with rules, they will try to thwart.
[51:01] Those rules, they will try to undermine those rules and they act as a kind of rust on the iron of resolution and so on, although much faster.
[51:10] And so then, of course, I would say to people, no, this is verbally abusive. And then they would say, and they would immediately like look through the whole message board using the search function to try and find somebody else who said something similar who wasn't banned or any time that I might have been upset and said something. And they would just try to use all of that against me. And then if you would ban them, they would create an alt account and say, hey, whatever happened to that guy who was banned, man? I really liked his contributions. I mean, it seems like censorship to me, you know, just all of this just manipulation and stuff. And again, I'm not saying that would necessarily be the case because the Internet is much more of a wild place than, say, a church rectory. But yeah people uh people will uh will test and you just you sort of have to trust your instincts which i know is an odd thing because but but in terms of uh manipulation by the time you've puzzled it out rationally it's usually too late you have to have a kind of instinct for when people are being manipulative and and that instinct is what i'm trying to strengthen with you uh today right so if you say i'm conservative and someone says oh does that make you a racist or are you a racist then i'd be like no i i appreciate that but i'm i'm not gonna engage in in this or you know because then they're trying to put you on the defensive they're being very aggressive.
[52:38] And they're calling you you know what has become and is a terrible word right i mean this is like the worst worst thing in the west is to be a racist so so that's very aggressive and yeah you know if if somebody said to me that let's say they said uh i'm, I'm an agnostic and I'm married. And I said, oh, well, as an agnostic, you have no moral values. I guess you're cheating on your husband. That would be kind of rude, right?
[53:09] Yeah. Yeah.
[53:10] Now, it might be true, but probably not. So that would be very aggressive. And if I said, well, these would be the logical results of, and even if I was wrong, right? Like if somebody said to me, I'm a Christian, and I said, oh, so that means you're secretly a Satanist, and you eat babies, they'd be like, what now?
[53:38] So, I mean, conservatism has no relationship to racism. And of course, you know, you could make the left of the real racist, you could make those arguments all day long. But this is just how people have been programmed to vote for the left, right? Especially people who are non-white. They vote for the left because the left just says, oh, white people are racist. White people are conservatives. Conservatives are racist. Therefore, white people are racist. Therefore, they'll take away your rights. Therefore, you've got to vote for us. It's all that kind of programmed hysteria. So I would not engage with that. I mean, I did a show the other day. Sorry for the long speech. I did a show the other day where a guy was saying, I said, well, do you believe that rocks exist? And he's like, I think so. And I'm like, okay, well, I'm not, I'm not going to engage with somebody who doesn't even know if rocks exist, because I'm obviously much less real, there's a voice in his ear than rocks. My words are a lot less real than rocks. So if he doesn't believe that I'm, if he doesn't know that I'm real, and he doesn't accept the objective meaning of my words, then, I won't engage with him. And then, of course, he got all kinds of huffy and all of that. It's like the determinists. If I would disengage from a determinist, they'd get upset with me and say, well, you've got to continue the debate, or why are you quitting, or that's cowardly, or blah, blah, blah. And I'd be like, no, it's predetermined that I quit.
[55:03] It's not my choice. You say I don't have any free will, so if I choose to quit, there's nothing to get mad about. So the moment they get mad about it, so you're just looking for people to be to be hypocrites i mean you could get aggressive i'm not saying you should but if somebody says you're conservative oh therefore you have to defend yourself against the charge of racism then if they're a democrat then you could say well i uh i guess you approve, of the holodomor, you approve of the murder of the kulaks and of the bourgeoisie.
[55:44] Or, oh, you're on the left, therefore you must approve of the murder of Charlie Kirk, right? I mean, that would be, I mean, not everyone on the left approves of these things, and so on, right? And so that kind of punching back, though, is usually, it escalates to people who don't respect rules you know one of the problems with the leftists is they tend they don't they only respect power not rules the right are kind of hamstrung by objective moral rules through christianity but the left don't they don't have any rules and so it's like there are two rabbits and one rabbit can only run right but the other rabbit can run left and right well which one's going to get caught it's the one that is constrained in its movements and behaviors by by rules so yeah so start a group and come up with a mission statement I'm sure your husband will be happy to assist you on that, come up with a mission statement about what the group is for, and then you get people to initial or checkbox it online, have them, and then have an interview with them.
[56:47] So, if somebody wants to join the group and you don't already know them from church, then have an interview with them. A friend of mine who lives in the States was trying to join a homeschooling group. And he had an interview, a fairly extensive questionnaire, and an interview to sort of vet him and his family and to see if he would be allowed to join. And um then he did join and he stayed in but there was an issue with somebody who was breaking the rules there was a meeting and then their family was kicked out and so you have to be um i wouldn't say strict but you have to be resolute that this is the mission statement yeah and if you if you agree to it then you have to stick by it and if you if you break the rules you know we'll have a conversation and we'll sort of remind you and then if you keep breaking the rules you you got to go, yeah yeah so what do you think i.
[57:52] Think it's a good idea it makes sense to me um i just i don't feel confident enough yet does that make sense.
[58:06] Of course i mean i'm telling you to do something that your parents trained you against that you've never done before if you felt confident that would be insane. And you're not crazy, right? So, no, of course. I mean, that makes sense. But let me speak to you from a religious perspective. Does this benefit Christianity and the worship of Jesus and of God?
[58:35] Well yeah i would think so yes.
[58:37] Yes okay so if it benefits christianity and the worship of jesus and of god then will not god guide you if you pray to god for guidance will god not guide you in this way i.
[58:55] Yes he would yes.
[58:56] I mean it's it's it's a thing that's wild to be i remember when i was a kid, like, how could he pay attention to everything? It would be me playing piano and playing baseball and doing math and learning how to juggle all at the same time. I can't conceive of it. But God will take a personal interest in your promotion of this godly group, right? Particularly because it involves children.
[59:22] Yes. Yeah.
[59:23] So God will guide you. If you pray, if you consult with your husband, you consult with your conscience, you consult with your priest, then God will guide you. Because you have instincts that your parents can distort but not destroy. And this is very true about the victims of child abuse as a whole. You have instincts that your parents can distort but not destroy. So they can hijack your fight or flight mechanism and make you frightened of conflict because they're so aggressive and so they can hijack your fight or flight mechanism but they can't erase your fight or flight mechanism so you just kind of need to wrestle yourself back from the enemy.
[1:00:07] But you don't need to rebuild yourself from scratch it's like some criminal grabs a knife from you you just have to grab the knife back but he can't destroy the knife so your parents can hijack your emotional system and use it to their benefit, but they can't destroy it. You just need to take it back, so to speak. So your healthy fight or flight mechanism is there. It just needs to be recovered from what your parents did and prayer, consulting with your conscience, consulting with your deepest self. If you're not religious, you're praying to the deepest aspects of yourself, which are beyond the reach of your parents. Your parents can't, they can't verbally abuse you and destroy your liver or your kidney. I mean, they can hijack your systems, but they can't destroy them. So it's just a matter of taking them back. And so your healthy scanning for and identification of crazy people, dysfunctional people, oddballs, eccentrics, manipulators, and all of that.
[1:01:13] All the mechanisms that do that are all still in you And are all still viable. They've just been pointed in the wrong direction and you can kind of wrestle them back to point in the right direction. So your parents, by calling you weird, weird, weird all the time, were programming you to be more sympathetic to weird people and to, in a sense, have less in common with healthy people.
[1:01:42] And so you just need to challenge that definition and your instincts will all be there and be right and healthy. I mean, my family messed up my instincts, excuse me, my family messed up my instincts for some time and through therapy, through self-knowledge, through philosophy, I was able to reorient my instincts back to not identifying and rejecting healthy people in away or identifying and bringing dysfunctional people more in my life. But now, I mean, I see a dysfunctional person, I can tell from the body language, I can tell from the vocal intonation, I can tell from eye contact, I can tell from even if they're just typing, I mean, I can just tell. I can tell on a blog post or somebody's reply on X or anywhere, I could tell if all they're doing is trying to manipulate me with everything that they're typing. I can feel that sweat. I can see that musculature that they're trying to manipulate and control me from the very first sentence. And so your instincts will be just fine. They haven't been destroyed. They've just been hijacked, if that makes sense. If you get rid of the terrorist, then you can take the plane back in its proper direction. But the terrorist can only change the course of the plane. It can't despawn the plane from existence if that makes sense.
[1:03:06] Yes it makes sense and i think you're right i think because i have like when my friend asked if i were racist because i was um conservative i would get that oh feeling yeah but but i just couldn't like, say no she can't be my friend yet.
[1:03:32] Well it's awkward right and i i i don't have any magical cure for that awkwardness right like i mean if if i were to say this is what i believe and somebody would say oh that makes you whatever a fascist or something like that i mean you can say um.
[1:03:54] What do you mean by fascist I don't understand the definition because a lot of people mean a lot of different thing by the word fascist and say oh well you're for um you know a private a partnership between government and business and I would say well aren't there a lot of partnerships between government and businesses all over the world does that mean everyone's a fascist like I don't again to sort of try to understand right yeah say oh well fascism is when you have laws that that you you want to you want to have laws that harm minorities and i'd be like okay so in africa south africa whites are the minority and there are laws that say you can't hire them so does that mean that the government of south africa is fascist like and you just ask them questions i mean this is the socratic thing just i mean most people they don't have a clue what they're talking about i mean it's just a sad fact of life based upon bad education and propaganda and so on they don't have a clue what they're talking about and so uh and you can just you can kind of patiently ask them questions um oh well what is racism oh it's a systematic discrimination.
[1:04:56] Against people it's like well then don't hire in quotas that disadvantage whites doesn't that isn't that racist well no because you can't be racist if you have power it's like but individual whites don't have power it's like so so just you ask ask questions and most times people will just freak out and kind of stay away from you because you've got this light that shows the brain cockroaches in their minds, right?
[1:05:25] Sorry, coming in.
[1:05:26] Well, if you ask people questions that they can't answer, then you begin to peel back the layers of their language to reveal that there's nothing inside. There's no thought, there's no reason, there's no understanding, there's no kindness, there's no compassion. They're just an empty shell wrapped in spiky words. And so they will tend generally tend to avoid you or you can say um i don't i don't really feel good about being even possibly accused of racism so uh with uh with your with your kind uh indulgence i think i will not talk about this topic or this is kind of volatile to talk about at work or you know this this seems a little aggressive to me and i mean but but they're putting you in an awkward position when when somebody accuses you of something heinous out of nothing really right they put you in an awkward position.
[1:06:23] And if you escalate, they generally don't have any rules of combat, right? I mean, it would be one thing to go into a boxing ring, right? Where it's like, you can't gouge the eyes. Everyone's got to wear the gloves. You can't hit below the belt. Like, there's all these rules, right? You have to disengage if the whistle blows and so on. So you can train for a fight like that. but if you're in some sort of horrible street brawl where some psycho is willing to like gouge your eyes and bite and and just do anything to win i mean it's really tough to know how to train for that other than you know i guess hopefully have some sort of weapon that can get you out of that situation as safely as possible so generally when people escalate to that degree out of nothing like oh i'm a conservative oh are you a racist then they don't have any rules of combat and they will just do anything. And so the problem is if you engage in conflict with people who have no rules of combat, well, I mean, that was my deplatforming, right? People couldn't, they couldn't dispute what I said.
[1:07:33] And so they just said, he's a terrible guy and mass reported me and whatever, right? Politics, who knows what went on behind the scenes, but I got banned rather than engaged with, right? Because of course, if there were things that I was saying that was wrong, then I would love to get the counterproof and I would love to publish the counterproof and I would retract and apologize. That's what I've done before when I've got things wrong.
[1:08:05] But the problem is they don't fight fair. And I don't get involved in conflicts with people who don't respect any rules of combat. That's like saying, well, I want to debate with you, but if I feel you're winning the debate, I'm going to shoot your dog. I'd be like, okay, I don't want to debate anymore. It's not a debate. That's like some weird John Wick thing, right?
[1:08:27] So when people are that aggressive, it's an awkward position because what they're doing is they're saying, I don't have any rules in how I relate to people. I don't have any standards. I don't have, and now in England, when I was growing up, if you didn't have any rules, then you were shunned and ostracized. Like if you were impolite or rude or thoughtless or careless or something like that, then people would just not spend any time with you. Or when I was a kid, if there was another kid who didn't respect the rules of whatever game we were playing, we just wouldn't invite him next time.
[1:09:00] Right. Or we would actually, we would have a signal. We'd wink or something like that. And everyone would say, oh, it's time for dinner. We're going home. And then we would leave. And then we would meet somewhere else and continue to get rid of that kid. And then if that kid came and wanted to join in the game, we just wouldn't respond to him. Or if he tried to join in the game, we would either tell him to go away or we would just say, oh, it's, you know, we've all got to go. And then we'd meet somewhere else. And then the kid would figure it out. And either the kid would end up learning to play by the rules or they'd just be permanently ostracized and so we had that sort of but we don't really have that in society anymore because everyone can get resources through the state so we've lost our power to ostracize which means we've lost our power to enforce rules which means people either have rules because they have a conscience or they don't have any rules because they don't have a conscience and then we have no way to enforce anything so it's it's an awkward position to um to be in.
[1:09:59] And that's part of the design of the plan is to put the good people in awkward positions and watch them squirm, right? And so that's kind of like, for you, you being called a racist or something is kind of like your parents calling you weird. It triggers all of this shame or feeling of wrongness or something like that, right?
[1:10:19] But that's tough and i i sympathize and i certainly wouldn't but yeah you can you can get out of those situations uh and you don't have to confront anyone again i generally don't confront people who don't have any rules right i okay you know if if uh if i'm engaged in a conflict with someone and they pull out a knife like i i i'm going to just leave i'm not going to engage at that level so to speak so you know when uh i was happy when i was in australia and and the left hard leftists were sort of outside the venue if they were protesting i'd go out and chat with them and and we even sent out some umbrellas when it was raining but the people who were really violent i didn't um i didn't engage with them because there's just no rules then so uh so yeah so if people are like that then your sole goal is to try and don't don't defend don't engage your sole goal is to try and get out of the situation with as little provocation as possible because they signaled that they're not capable or willing to engage in civil discourse civilized discourse and that for your sole goal is to get out of the situation as uh as non with as little escalation as possible so you can ask them definitions if you want that's a little easier for me it's online but if it's someone right there um i i would not you know once or twice over the years.
[1:11:48] I've had someone confront me in public and be really sort of upset and and mad and so on i'll ask them a couple of questions to gauge if they're at all interested in a reasonable discourse and if they're not um i just disengage and and leave.
[1:12:01] Yes okay okay.
[1:12:03] So does that help in terms of uh maybe stuff that happens uh out in the world as a whole but having a a mission statement that people have to agree to in order to join your group and then interviewing them um before they join to get a sense of who they are and um and then going over them you know you can go over with them or you can have in that you know here's the resolution process if there's a disagreement uh and and so and you don't want to get like an entire, book of law but you know um but and and you know that the decisions of the executive committee or whatever are final blah blah blah and i think then you can be in control and wouldn't that be great to go from somebody who was always called weird which is horrible to somebody who's, policing weirdos and making sure that the normal kind happy and healthy people are central central to the group.
[1:13:02] Yeah yes it would be nice.
[1:13:06] Okay listen i don't want to cut the call short i know you have your baby is there anything else that that i could sort of help you with in the in the short run and nice to chat with you again uh.
[1:13:16] Yeah nice to chat again um i think that will do. I think, well, now I have a lot of things to do. I have to make a group.
[1:13:29] Yeah, and there may be templates, like if you try and join other groups, they may have templates. You could just try and join, read the template, and then decline or whatever, and just sort of see what they have. But I think that would be, and of course, your husband sounds very wise as a you, so I'm sure you guys can come up with something good. But yeah, that would be my suggestion. It certainly is possible to run positive and healthy groups and if you have people's acceptance of the standards that are expected it does a lot to filter out the crazy people and then the other thing too is that if people have read and signed something even if they've just initialed it or clicked on a checkbox, then they're much less likely to dispute that as a whole and that could be very helpful down the around.
[1:14:17] Okay. Yeah.
[1:14:19] All right. Well, listen, keep me posted about how things are going and I really appreciate the touchback. Congratulations on your marriage and your motherhood. That is a beautiful thing and I hope you enjoy, I'm sure you will, your day with your baby.
[1:14:30] Yes, I will. Thank you and thank you for the help.
[1:14:33] You're welcome. All the best. Bye-bye.
[1:14:35] Bye-bye.
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