0:10 - Welcome to Friday Night Live
13:08 - Defining Coachability
14:27 - The Bitcoin Debate
18:30 - Insights from "Just Poor"
34:16 - The Challenge of Poverty
46:44 - The Power of Storytelling
1:03:16 - The Eternal Nature of Potential
1:25:06 - The Vanity of Predicting Potential
1:38:34 - Immortalizing Moments of Insight
In this episode, we delve deep into the complexities of poverty and the human condition, reflecting particularly on the South Korean film "Parasite," which masterfully portrays the intricacies of wealth disparity. I share my insights on the film's authenticity in depicting the realities faced by the impoverished, inviting our listeners to consider their own experiences and reflections on poverty. The discussion skims the surface of societal perceptions, exploring themes like the hedonistic tendencies often attributed to those in poverty, as well as touching upon self-destructive behaviors that contribute to cycles of financial despair.
Throughout the conversation, we cultivate an understanding of what separates the wealthy from the poor, positing that the greatest distinction lies in "coachability." Many individuals entrenched in poverty demonstrate a reluctance to learn, evolve, or seek feedback, which ultimately perpetuates their marginalization. This leads us to scrutinize personal anecdotes and collective observations that highlight how uncoachable behaviors are prevalent not just within socioeconomically disadvantaged communities, but also among those of considerable intellect who reject guidance even when it could lead to profound improvements in their lives.
I recount personal experiences, including a journey of self-discovery that began with reading philosophical texts and acknowledging the necessity of addressing one’s emotions, shaped by my own challenges growing up. Through this narrative, we illustrate the critical importance of self-awareness and emotional acceptance in achieving personal growth. I share stories from my early experiences, like volunteering to help the homeless, and those conversations reinforce the thesis: individuals who are open to constructive criticism and coaching are far more likely to rise above their circumstances.
The episode further delves into the nuances surrounding the definition of "poor," dissecting the myriad factors that contribute to one’s socioeconomic state. Is it solely a result of choices, circumstances, or some amalgamation of both? We confront tough discussions regarding the links between crime and poverty, emphasizing through statistical evidence that crime often begets poverty rather than the other way around, thus challenging common societal narratives.
As we navigate the complexities of human relationships within impoverished settings, I examine how feelings of envy, resentment, and dysfunction manifest. I draw parallels to literary critiques from my novel "Just Poor," which dissects the moral failings of society towards the unfortunate and the implications of government policies designed to alleviate poverty without addressing the underlying issues.
The dialogue escalates to encompass discussions of self-responsibility and the insidious nature of complacency—that even breaching the surface of one’s situation requires the humility to seek and accept help. We further reflect on how our perceptions of potential can be pivotal; I encourage listeners to abandon the limiting beliefs rooted in vanity about their capabilities and instead embrace the unknown nature of one’s potential.
Through philosophical musings, I articulate that true growth comes from recognizing and surrendering to the vast possibilities inherent within ourselves, rather than attempting to box them within pre-defined limitations. This essential dialogue acts as a motivator for aspiring individuals to break free from their barriers, emphasizing that coachability and a willingness to learn are not merely traits of the successful, but essential attributes for everyone looking to rise above their circumstances.
The episode closes with an invitation to reflect on these insights, urging listeners to cultivate a mindset geared towards growth and to seek the humility necessary for development. By fostering an understanding of the profound differences that exist between the poor and the wealthy, we aim to inspire critical thought about how societal structures may be reshaped to create environments where all individuals have the opportunity to thrive, thereby reexamining the ways in which we interact with the concepts of poverty, wealth, and personal potential.
[0:00] Good evening, everybody. Welcome to your Friday Night Live, yes, 22nd of November 2024.
[0:11] 2-2-1-1-2-4. Sounds like a cha-cha-cha step. And have I seen the South Korean film Parasite? What are your thoughts? It's a good film. Actually, it was a good film. Memorable, surprising, interesting, good writing, great acting. And it is one of the films that's realistic about the poor. I mean, let me ask you your experience. If you've spent much time, and Lord knows I have, if you've spent much time around the poor, what are your thoughts? What are your thoughts on the poor as a whole? And I'm not just, I'm not talking about the people who have a hard time making Ben's meat. I'm like really poor, like no car, rent control, apartment, squeezing together every thin dime.
[1:04] What are your thoughts if you spend significant time around the poor? I'm not talking about the voluntary poor, right? I'm not talking about the people who are going to write the great Canadian novel, so I'm going to take my time off from working, but the poor. What has been your experience of the poor as a whole? I'm curious. I have some thoughts, but it is, of course, a show for which I would love to hear your thoughts.
[1:45] A lot of the poor are just lazy. They don't listen either. They're very hedonistic. I was thinking about your assessment of the poor in your last podcast and must say, I agree, many I grew up around and spent time with were into drugs, unable to hold down jobs and hated their landlords. They are into instant gratification. And it's not just an IQ thing, but it certainly has something to do with it. Of course, nothing's a just one explanation thing, right? They have friends with bad habits that they don't want to say no to. Most poor people are suffering consequences of their past actions. I have in passing, says someone, I do some volunteer work in soup kitchens. There's some serious dysfunctional people. My last volunteer day, a guy was dragged out by the cops for being simply crazy.
[2:38] You want to know the biggest difference between the poor and the wealthy? It is one word only. What is the difference between the poor and the wealthy?
[3:01] And I say this having had brutal decades of experience in this manner. Responsibility? I don't think so. Accountability? Mm-mm. Mm-mm. Somebody says, you have to adopt everything they believe, at least outwardly. Otherwise, they view you as an enemy. You must like rap, hate the rich, assume all upward mobility is luck, and they will be unlucky. So better off just doing drugs. Right.
[3:32] I tell you why my family was poor when I was a kid. my parents gambled and took out a ton of loans and leases on cars. Yeah. He says, someone says, I let a poor comedian live with me for a year, giving him cheap rent. He was all right until I wanted to get serious about starting a family with my girlfriend, then began to disrespect every rule of the house and I was forced to kick him out. The wealthy buy lobbyists? No. So what's the words you're thinking? Discipline, agency, arrogance, tenacity, sacrifice, the rich are sensitive to shunning. Ah, what's the one thing the poor people will always say when you begin to, oh, you just think you're too good for us now? Oh, you just think you're too good for us now? Yeah. So I will tell you, and this is a thesis that I will stand by. It doesn't mean that I'm right. It just means this is a thesis that I will seriously stand by.
[4:39] So the thesis that I will seriously stand by about the biggest single difference, and tell me if I'm right or wrong in your eyes, right? We'll chew it out. But the biggest single difference between the wealthy and the poor is coachability.
[4:59] You cannot tell poor people anything. They are uncoachable. Don't take feedback don't take advice aren't self-critical don't yearn for better things for the most part uncoachable, I'm not sure exactly why I'm certainly happy to hear ideas about this but the biggest difference between the rich and the poor, is the poor people don't take any fucking feedback literally to save their lives You can't tell them anything. They know everything. There is nothing that you can do to instruct them. They don't take any coaching at all. In fact, they get angry at and resist all forms of coaching known to man, God, beast, or devil.
[6:01] 100 that's good i agree it's a fair assessment too smart i agree an iq thing well i mean there certainly is an aspect to that but i've known i mean i grew up this is sort of a malcolm gladwell story like i grew up in a group of some seriously bright people in canada i mean they went on to become professors, and one was an architect, and they went on to, one of them became an English professor, one of them is a very, very senior engineer, like just really smart people, really smart people.
[6:46] Couldn't coach them at all. Now, they'd become materially successful. I would not particularly argue that they were successful in love, which is the one thing that really matters, but couldn't coach them. Couldn't say a goddamn thing. I don't know if that's vanity.
[7:08] Arrogance, but some of the brightest people I knew would take no coaching whatsoever. Because philosophy is coaching. I would say that not being coachable by people who know better is the single biggest limiting factor in everyone's life. Everyone's life. Not taking input from people who know better is the biggest limiting factor in just about everybody's life.
[7:51] And I noticed this, of course, as a teenager when I got into philosophy. Through philosophy, I got into self-knowledge, studied a lot of psychology, She read books on self-knowledge and the unconscious and so on, and really got into coachability, being coached. Right. I remember when I worked in Thunder Bay, I was reading The Psychology of Self-Esteem by Nathaniel Brandon, which is a great book. I don't think he ever did as well again, but that's like Leonard Peikoff and his book Ominous Parallels, which admitted a lot, but had a lot in it that was good. So I was reading and I remember I went to a bar and I was chatting with this girl and I gave her my number and she didn't call and I remember when I noticed that I hadn't really thought about it a day or two later I was like oh uh she didn't call and I felt this stab of disappointment and then I immediately just wished it away I just make that bad feeling go away.
[8:53] And I, of course, had read my myth, Andrew Brandon, used to accept your emotions, accept your feelings. And that was the beginning of, I think I was maybe 18, 18 and a half, maybe a little closer to 19. But that was the beginning of my journey to accept my feelings, to respect my feelings. And it came out of that. And so, but I had to say the way I'm dealing with my emotions is not right. It's not healthy. It's not good. Just pushing the emotions away. whenever I feel something negative, pushing. Now, it made sense when I was a kid, right? When I was a kid, yeah, I had to push my emotions away because there was nothing I could do about it. I had no power. I had no independence. And I was just trying to survive like most of us in that situation. So there was no point experiencing negative emotions when I was a kid. But once I was in Tundra Bay and was working and had independence and I was really never going to go back home, then it made sense to get back in touch with my feelings. That was the beginning of my resurrection, right? That was the beginning of, as the great song from Pink Floyd goes, coming back to life.
[10:19] So, and of course, philosophy was coaching as a whole, right? I was pretty mystical. I was into socialism. I started reading the arguments and I was coached. I was coached. I took better advice, better arguments and went along with that. And when you are willing to be coached, then you avoid manipulation and you reject sophistry and you reject propaganda. Because to be coached, somebody has to have an expertise and they have to care about you thinking better and doing better and being better. So hit me with a why. If you've ever had someone in your life who has a huge ass problem, the problem may in fact be a huge ass, they have a huge ass problem, they won't take any coaching. Nothing. Not a shred. Not a smidge. Not a bit. Nothing. Nada. Goose egg. Bagel. Zero.
[11:30] I'm going to take a thing. Hit me with a why if you've ever had someone who's overweight, and maybe you're not overweight, and you tried to give them some advice. And they're like, no, no, no. Hey, I'll figure it out myself. Hey, I'll do it myself. Don't push me. I'll figure it out myself. I don't need your help. I got it. I got this. If I want your help, I'll ask you for it. But don't volunteer your help when I haven't asked.
[12:04] Have you ever had a girl, woman, in your life who has some minor psychological quirky poos and you say, you know, therapy might be, hey, hey, I've got it. I'll figure it out myself. Don't push me. I've got this. Not asking for your help. Everyone's got their quirks. I'll figure it out for myself. Somebody says, yes, I'm a fitness trainer and I've offered free help. Yes, that's right. That's right. That's right. Somebody's a puddle of fairness and you're like, you know, I could give you a hand getting yourself off the cap. Hey, I'm fine. I'll figure it out myself. I'm just going through a bit of a lull. When I want your help, if I need your help, trust me, you'll be the first person I come to ask. Hey, if you have not noticed, I'm not asking.
[13:09] Oh dear oh dear oh dear somebody says yes in fact any coaching leads to insane hostility it does right yeah thinking of the same person you also reject the thought that you know it all if you're coachable yeah being coachable means other people have value to you and you don't know everything.
[13:34] Does all of this come from growing up around people who have no credibility? You spoke to my mom, didn't you? That's good. Sounds like pride. They consider therapy a huge insult. Right. Right. Right. Yeah, it's rough, man. It's rough. So a lack of coachability is absolutely brutal for people i mean hey i've been trying to coach the world on bitcoin for well over a decade no hey it's just it's a scam man it's going to go to zero it's nothing it's a bubble haven't you ever heard of the tulip bubble of the south sea bubble. Come on, man. It doesn't even exist.
[14:28] People will send me bits and burps over the internet to tell me that sending bits and burps over the internet has zero value.
[14:44] You know, the fact that Bitcoin is allergic to morons is one of its greatest strengths. it's really one of its greatest strengths, are you all going to leave me disappointed with tips today it's not like i'm fine i don't need your tips i could sell a kidney free domain.com slash donate to help out the show i would very much appreciate it my friends.
[15:14] The internet revolutionizes absolutely everything except money sure every revolution has an asterisk that says although this money is digital and not under the control and manipulation of the government, although the only reason you hear my show is for lack of gatekeeping well a monetary system or an exchange of value system that's fully digital and has no gatekeepers well that's just that's crazy, No, fiat is backed by guns. Fiat is backed by guns. It's called fiat, which means by government decree and mediocre car. Coachability. Coachability. You know, I had a friend, who, stay away from details, to be fair, right? So, I had a friend who was not used to negotiating, and he ended up in a business negotiation that went completely terribly, just appalling.
[16:25] Thank you for all that you do thank you for the two dollars so i had a friend got involved in a business negotiation and he was not used to it, and i met him up in toronto many years ago now and he was telling me the whole story about these business negotiations and how badly they'd gone. It got to the point of like legal threats, right? And I said to him, his name's not Bob. I said to him, I said, Bob, help me understand. Help me understand. I've literally been doing business negotiations for well over a decade. I've been negotiating in business with Fortune 500 companies for well over a decade why wouldn't you call me and ask me? Why wouldn't you call me? I mean, I'm not going to negotiate for you but this is my gig I'm a negotiator in the business world, around million dollar plus contracts.
[17:51] Uncoachable can't learn too much vanity hey man I got this I got this I got this, so to get back to the movie Parasite in the movie Parasite the poor are depicted, with significant accuracy that they pull each other down that they insult each other that they're highly dysfunctional And the upper middle class family is, well, I mean, one kid as opposed to a bunch of kids. But, you know, there's this great scene where the poor wife is like glaring at her husband, who's kind of Weasley.
[18:30] And you can see that they're all just in this rat's maze nest of collaborative pull-down-everyone dysfunction.
[18:47] I've had friends, like I've interviewed like over a thousand people over the course of my career. I've hired over a hundred people over the course of my career. I'm pretty good at it. Pretty good at it. And I've had friends, this is all in the past, of course, right? But I've had friends who like, they haven't been able to find a job for three months and they never called me for any advice. Or they go for interviews and they don't get the job and they never call me for advice. Literally a highly experienced hiring manager and my friends who can't get jobs do not ask me for advice. I had friends who had problems in their marriage. I'm very happily married, 22 years going and strong, happier every day, had friends who had big problems in their marriage, never asked for advice.
[19:56] Had a friend many years ago, turns out he had a secret addiction. Never asked me for advice. Uncoachable. Uncoachable. I mean, that's the difference between athletes who make it and athletes who don't make it. The athletes who make it are coachable. The athletes who succeed are coachable.
[20:32] Somebody says, oh yeah, Pulsar, welcome back. Somebody says, there's a saying on Wall Street that the person who is able to change their mind the fastest usually wins. You need to figure out as soon as possible when you are wrong. Doubling down is doom. Yes, that is true. That is very, very true. That is very true. Coachability. That's right. They have to validate each other. If you don't validate them, you'll get ostracized from the poor. Somebody says, that used to be my life. I was, and also surrounded by pull down everyone, dysfunction. Pull everyone down, dysfunction. I look back on that period, it seems like another dimension now. Yeah. Hubris. There is a lot to it. There is a lot to it.
[21:32] There's a lot to it, but that really is the most important part, is just absolute lack of coachability. Absolute lack of coachability. Now, Now, I don't have anyone in my life who's not coachable, and I, of course, would not be coachable.
[22:21] Now, in my novel, Just Poor, I talk about the strengths and weaknesses of the poor. So there's there's two the the novel title is just poor which is well they're just poor and they can just be made wealthy and just poor is that poverty can be a kind of justice just poor poor poor is just and also that the poor can be just if they take the right approach so that's why the novel is called Just Poor.
[23:06] So, there's a scene, this is from chapter 14, The Poor Feet, there's a scene, this novel takes place in the 18th century in rural England, at least the first half of the novel, and it is, of course, a critique as well of socialism, a forced redistribution. Do you take the money in society and invest it into growing wealth by giving it to competent people who can increase the value of money, or do you just fire hose it at the poor and think that you're solving the problem of poverty? And Lawrence, the hero and the antagonist, he is originally very keen on just take all of your wealth and plow it into improving crop yields and productivity of the farmlands, and then that's how you grow wealth. And he kind of gets infected, and this is part of the story, he gets infected with pathological altruism that.
[24:07] Well, the people who will benefit from investments in infrastructure are people who are going to make it out of poverty anyway. What about everyone else, right? So, he puts out a spread. He puts out a socialist spread to help the poor and he puts out the word that there's going to be jobs and food available, and then he basically lays out this plenty in a field and watches the poor like a gray tidal wave, of stick-legged insect approach. He watches the poor come. So this is chapter 14, The Poor Feed.
[24:56] When they came, they seemed weighed by chains forged from the very depths of their histories. There could be biologists who would be hard-pressed to call them members of the same species, so different did they seem from those they staggered towards.
[25:13] Yet there would be little risk if such ambiguities for those with the education to classify had won their knowledge at the expense of a certain set of eyes, eyes which saw legless beggars sitting by the road, or mothers with dry breasts and unmoving bundles wandering the fields. So good. There's so much just in these three sentences. Are they the same? They seem so, so different. Those with education to classify had won their knowledge at the expense of a certain set of eyes. So we all know the tragedies of poverty in the world. I mean, I dove when I did my documentary on California. I dove with a social worker into the tent cities and talked with the truly, you know, homeless and destitute, and we had conversations about it. So, the way that you survive in life is you do have to blank out. For some portion of your life, you have to blank out the misery that's out there. Otherwise, you can't be happy, you can't be productive, so you have to not see certain things. So, anyway, the story goes on. Such blind spots rendered the dissection of mute abstractions far easier than the recognition of simple human misery. And in the slow dawn of the modern world, the amount of misery would quite have buried any who dared stare at it openly.
[26:41] The vast tribe of the forgotten, who have left no footprint in history or men's minds, where should they show up in the chronicles of the age? The privilege skimmed the surface of their comfortable existence, unable to see beyond the powder of their noses. Unable, not unwilling, for if there is a soul that can look upon the gaunt face of poverty and survive the insanity of such suffering, it has yet to see the light of this earth. And that is true. Like if you, you know, I was in an Ontario town not too long ago and in the city square were these tents and homeless people and so on.
[27:27] The gaunt face of poverty in the world and survive the insanity of such suffering, it has yet to see the light of this earth. You really just have to block out certain things at times, right? You can't do it 100% or you're too cold hearted. Now, the word poor here is all capitalized. So the story goes on. The poor were ghosts treading the uneasy halls of speculation. Speculation to me, spec is part of spectacles, which is to work, right? But speculation here has two meanings. One is to simply wonder about the world, to think about the world in a conceptual form. But speculation is also investment. To be a speculator is to invest and look for returns, right? There were ghosts treading the uneasy halls of speculation. So whenever you grow the economy, the poor are left behind. And all rich, famous, and powerful people fear two things, the combination of two things, politicians and the mob. Politicians and the mob.
[28:37] The story goes on. The poor were invoked in many an erudite speech, as if there existed a vast group of humanity with no existence, save four letters and two legs. Poor, four letters and two legs. What is to be done? Was asked in profound boudoirs and sun-washed parlor rooms. What is to be done? Was asked by tender ancient souls and bitter young minds. Tender ancient souls is the pathological altruism, usually the elderly female, bitter young minds as the resentment of the socialist. The story continues. What is to be done? was asked by those who breathed sherry fumes and those who renounced them in blind protest.
[29:19] What is to be done? was the central question of the age. But it was an interrogation that could not be answered through the blinkered habits of the generous. A new age, or none at all, seemed the only possible answer, right? The new age is rising tide lifts all boats, none at all is we stay in medieval squalor, right? So one of the reasons why Marxism caught the imagination of the world was because formerly the poor died, out of sight in the countryside, but then when you had the urban proletariat, then people who were poor would be everywhere. And of course, you know, the women who had slept with the wrong guy, got pregnant, couldn't get married, who fell into prostitution and drug addicts and alcoholics, you see them and it's like, it sears your brain.
[30:15] So, the story continues. This is the approach of the poor to the groaning tables aplenty. When they came on the morning of that clear day, it seemed as if the earth had opened wide and spat out its most bitter seeds. Seeds ratcheted forth for their failure to bloom. The trails of these seeds, these poor, were littered with unnameable losses, as if they cursed their movements by dropping all limbs that might propel them. Here, a man rises from drinking and stumbles out into the street. He tries to scratch his brow, but raises his stump in vain, for his hands have remained clinging to the bottle. There, a woman rises from a thickly companioned bed and tries to walk, but falls to the floor. Her legs have remained between the covers, the mobility they offered, amputated by the growing seed in her belly.
[31:15] Here, a child arises from the wreckage of a sunken family, tries to grasp at the light he projects before him, but his eyes are gone. Sold for respite from horror and memory, he gropes alone in the dark.
[31:34] So many limbs! It should surprise the world to cross the street without tripping, without falling, and regarding the right angles of human destruction, through the corner of a propped elbow.
[31:48] All avenues of escape, all stripped from the hapless poor like the uniform of a cowardly soldier, stripped by the sergeant of choice and circumstance. His sword finds the seam binding hope to effort, and rip! They fly apart to be lost on the empty battlefield. The sergeant spits and says, No salute, boy. You are disgraced to your uniform. And what are the medals of labor, hope, and expectation? Off with them. Throw them on the ground. Grind them to dust. This was a war fought long before your time. Your father's father ran from the battlefield. These medals do not belong to you. This cap? What is this cap? Do I finger an inscription marked ambition? Ambition for what? Woman, do you wish to become a queen? You are the daughter of a gambler, a thief, a drunkard, a poor man. No, no, you shall walk bareheaded and fall by the road under a hard sun. Your hair shall fly in your face when the winds of adversity strike, and your flesh shall chill on your bones, for you have been part of the darkness at the corner of men's eyes. And if they see you, they shall see your trail, see where you came from, and shall be blind no longer. Compassion, girl, have compassion for those a little less fortunate than you.
[33:13] And whether the haughty sergeant who hacked at the ranks of life was appointed by God, by society, or by the poor themselves, was of little consequence to the age. The effect was clear. Four letters, two legs, and entirely too much of the whole business. Something should be done. But what? Ah, an interesting question, very complex. Compassion, yes. Generosity, naturally, but not too much. Wouldn't want the unwashed getting lazy, hmm? Perhaps also a sprinkling of legislation. Oh, for what better way to undercut the dictatorship of the sergeant than with good old-fashioned political clout? Tell them how long to work, where to work, what pay to receive, what to eat and where to sleep. Discipline, by God! Get them to see the link between work and food. Yank them from their habits, away from this damnable humility, this lack of faith that keeps them down.
[34:17] Show them a better way, our way. For they are the poor, and they must no longer be poor if we are to sleep peacefully in the afternoon.
[34:36] Lawrence watched them come, this skeletal army, and some of these thoughts, half-remembered scraps of heated arguments, floated through his mind. He stood in a field south of his house. Kay, Mary, and Adam stood beside him. Tables of food were laid before them, and a few stout lads stood ready to quell any disorder. The autumn day was blazingly hot, and the lightly rolling hills, the distant smoke of the village, the far trees soaring between the lawful divisions of land, the sparrows being shooed from the trays of food, the wheat and heat and shimmering blue sky, all this seemed to be a sumptuous table laid for a feast of beasts. For as Lawrence saw them coming, he could scarcely think of them as human. By God, he whispered, for he was not an unimaginative man. His lands were no longer poor, and the distance between himself and his poor subject could still be reckoned in a degree of sorts. But these, God, he thought, where are these coming from? The meek are not among us, for the meek are self-bowed, and these wrecks before me have not even the shy dignity of meekness.
[36:02] There were less than two hundred, and they walked on stiff legs that seemed to have forgotten even the pain of motion. Their eyes were fixed on the ground as if they expected the sun to strike them down for defiling its vision, their arms hung thin and useless by their sides. The effects of true starvation had never before been fully apparent to Lawrence. He blessed their rags in fearful relief for when their tatters passed aside, they revealed bodies that seemed a child's sketch of life. Muscle, the food of toil, had itself been consumed in their desperate attempt to cling to life, and the hopeless habits of their existence appeared nothing more than a brutal joke. What keeps them going? wondered Lawrence. What keeps them from ending it all? He imagined himself briefly in the prone position of abject poverty shorn of education, of health, of opportunity, each day less than the one before, the future a dark descent into more want, more horror, more self-peeling and self-erasure. He stood there watching, then the sight overwhelmed him, and he averted his eyes.
[37:29] Yes, the poor are a challenge.
[37:39] All right, let's get to your freedomain.com slash books you should get this novel it's a great book you should read it, on that my wife is getting lazy in the way she dresses while at home I make an effort but I feel she's getting lazy am I being an idiot it. So she's like sweatpants and stuff, right? Ask her how she's doing. A lack of self-care or a diminishment in self-care, in my view, obviously just an amateur view, but a lack of self-care is, in my view, related to depression, to just being or feeling down. Thank you, Adam. So ask how she's doing. And are you both staying healthy and fit? Keeping your weight at a healthy level? And are you both staying healthy and fit?
[38:56] Stef, have you ever heard the argument, sorry, Stef, have you ever heard people, particularly leftists, make the argument that the reason certain areas have a high crime rate is due to poverty? I personally don't believe being poor is a valid reason to commit crime. No, it's not true. It's a shakedown. Pay us welfare, give us charity, or we'll fuck up your society. It's just a shakedown. Well, you see, poverty causes crime. Therefore, you have to bribe people with taxpayer money in order for them not to commit crime. Pay us. We'll stay in our own neighborhoods. Pay us. And we will let your stores survive. Pay us. Off. it's a shakedown.
[39:44] And it is empirically entirely false that poverty causes crime. No, it's quite the opposite. And this has been proven repeatedly statistically. You can look up the work of Dr. Kevin Beaver regarding this and others. It has been proven decisively with much regressive analysis and many, many meta-analyses that it is not. It is not poverty that causes crime. Some of the poorest places in America are in the Appalachians, and the crime there is very low. And so, no, it is not poverty that causes crime. It is crime that causes poverty. It is crime that causes poverty. Also, there have been twin studies done, and unfortunately, there does appear to be a genetic aspect to these things, as there is to most things. So, for instance, if you do a twin, or they've done these twin studies, are children from criminal parents who grew up in non-criminal households have a significantly higher rate of crime than children from non-criminal parents who grew up in criminal households. So again, all other things being equal, the answer is likely has something to do with genetics.
[40:58] Which also, recidivism rates are enormously high, 80% in some ways. That's people who recommit crimes after being released from prison or being convicted of a crime, recidivism rates are hugely high. And, uh, it's bs when i was poor says anthony i wrote poems for food never begged or stole from anyone for something even for free yeah.
[41:26] Boom boom no being poor is not a valid reason to commit a crime no but most crime is committed by the wealthy right most crime is committed by the wealthy i mean the people who run the federal reserve. Pretty fucking wealthy. Military industrial complex, pretty fucking wealthy.
[41:49] Never heard it said this way before. Shakedown. Yeah. Yeah. Give me money or I'll commit a crime is a shakedown, right? It's like when you open up a little patisserie shop in a Sicilian neighborhood, you get a visit from the local Cosa Nostra where they say, hey, that's a nice shop. You know, a lot of fires in this neighborhood, man. A lot of fires around. I don't know if it's the sun or whatever. It's a lot of fires. And, uh, you know, we'll protect you from these fires. Uh, you know, 500 bucks a month for fire insurance. Right. And of course, they're just telling you, give them the money or they'll burn your fucking store to the ground. Right. It's just a shakedown. People who say poverty causes crime are just saying, give us money or we'll fuck you up. It's the same with the guy who's got his knife in your ribs. Well, you know, uh, give me, uh, give me your money or I'll stab you. Right. So no, that argument is, it's a threat. All it is, is a threat. All it is, is a threat. Yeah. Stef, I love the episode you did with Duke Pesta reviewing the present. Do you think it's possible to have a whole series with him reviewing all of your fiction? You two guys have a great rapport and I especially love when you guys talk about art. I should do it again. We should do it again. Might be a big time commitment for him to read the present, for him to read Almost, my novel Almost.
[43:15] Stealing food isn't equal to stealing Nikes. Yeah, people don't steal food. I mean, there's a guy who did this experiment where he went to a bad neighborhood and trying to sell a PS5 or PS4 or something like that for cash. Every single person robbed him of the PS4. One guy even stole his flip-flops. There's another one where a guy goes into a neighborhood with a clear plastic bag full of cash, and it just gets torn apart. It's like feeding frenzy. It's like a cow wandering into the Amazon. It's just an instinct for some people. Because being coachable, to be coached, is to defer gratification.
[44:01] And people who are not coachable can't improve because when we have a gap between, our aspirations and our achievements, and there's always a gap, always a gap between our aspirations and our achievements. I was really struck. I think it was Leonardo da Vinci who said at the end of his life. I'm appalled at how little use I put to the gifts God gave me. He was awash with regret as one of the most accomplished human beings who ever existed. And he is awash, was awash with regret about how little use he'd put to the gifts God gave him, which, you know, even if you've achieved some of the most amazing things in human existence, you can still feel like you fucked it up, right? So, we all have gaps between our goals and our achievements. And how do you close that gap? I have in my warm-up to the show, these shows, in these conversations, I have in my mind.
[45:10] This is going to be the greatest human conversation of all time, of all time every single show has got to be the greatest it's it's it's the only chance it has to be the greatest right if i undermine my expectations for what we're able to achieve in a community in these conversations, if I undermine my expectations, I will achieve less. Aim high, see what happens. Aim at the very top and see what happens. Like, I can't.
[45:52] Figure out why actors aren't always aiming to be as fantastic as humanly possible. It has something to do with work ethic, right? So, one of the most lauded performances in cinema history is RPM. It's a great set of initials for Randall Patrick McMurphy, the Irish hero, if you want to call it that, of the Michael Douglas produced version of the Ken Casey novel, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Filled with incredible stars. There's Danny DeVito, Christopher Lloyd, that guy who looks like his face is melting, and one guy who pushed through leukemia, right, They filmed in an actual hospital. There was an actual doctor there. He diagnosed one of the actors with leukemia, and the actor pushed through leukemia to deliver an incredible performance and then died shortly thereafter.
[46:45] Incredible. Incredible movie.
[46:56] And Michael Douglas, who was the producer, son of Kirk Douglas, of course, lived next door to Jack Nicholson, and he could hear Jack Nicholson into the wee hours working on his lines, into, like, film all day, go home, have some food, and then he would just be working feverishly and obsessively on his lines. And he did produce one of the great performances of 20th century movies. So he worked, took nothing for granted. Why wouldn't you aim to be just as fantastic as humanly possible? And Louise Fletcher in the longhouse dealing nurse ratchet, incredible performance. I don't think she ever matched that again. And they both got Oscar awards, I think. Aim for the stars and hit the moon is still a huge success. My God, aim to be as great as humanly possible. When I sit down to do anything, I'm like, how can I make this so great that I don't recognize it? I mean, honestly, that writing, whether you like it or not, it's the writing that I like. It's like the writing I just read you. It's thought-provoking. It's deep. You can ponder every sentence. It's got compassion. It's got criticism. It's multidimensional. So that's the kind of novel writing that I yearn for, hunger for, and wrote because it just wasn't out there. And this was me 30 years ago.
[48:26] So, I aim to be the clearest communicator and hit the most targets, right? Not the targets people can see, the targets people can't even see. And that's my goal. Because that's the only way I can stretch myself. And I have the goal of having the greatest conversation with every show, or if it's a monologue, the greatest monologue with every show. I have that goal and midwits view that as vanity. It's absolutely the complete opposite of vanity. Vanity is when you fantasize that you know what the fuck you're capable of.
[49:14] Humility is when you remove your restrictions because you're not in charge and you don't know what you're capable of. I don't know what I'm capable of. I've been doing philosophy for over 40 years. I don't know what I'm capable of because I keep doing things I didn't know I was capable of, which keeps me going, keeps the conversation going, hopefully keeps you guys coming back. I don't know what I'm capable of. Therefore, I refuse to limit my potential. to limit my potential would say ah well i'm uh the post monkey beta expansion pack sitting on the four billion year evolution of the human brain we got our human level we got our monkey level we got our bird level we got our lizard level we got our amoeba level all the way down.
[50:09] A man standing on top of everest cannot rationally look down and say I understand the planet all the way through to its molten core, hotter than the surface of the sun. He's standing on a mountain. What he can see is what he can see. He can picture a little bit down there, but he can't grasp and establish every atom and energy and property of the planet whose tip he stands on. I don't know what's going on down there. If I knew what was going on down there, I'd be able to predict my nightly dreams, which I can't do. I can't do.
[50:46] I don't know what I'm going to dream at night. That's how I learn. I don't know what the next tumbling dice thought is going to come railing down the pipeway and use me as its thumb puppet to get some value out into the world. I don't know. I don't know what analogies are going to pop up in my head. When somebody asked me about the poor, I didn't know that coachability was what I was going to say. I kind of just relax into it and see what comes. So the idea that I'm doing anything other than trying to vaguely wrangle a horse that has its own mind, that I can guide a little bit but mostly drags me off to destinations only it knows about for on roads I can't even fucking see, through fog my brain cannot penetrate, the idea that I'm in charge?
[51:38] Ha ha ha, bless your soul. You think you're in control? It's a great line from that song. I'm not in charge. I'm just along for the ride. My brain is my coach. And for my conscious mind to be in a deep dance with the unconscious energy, sometimes I lead a little, often it just drags me along.
[52:17] I'm in a dance with depth, and you're in a dance with depth.
[52:28] I'm not inventing, I'm excavating. I feel like I've got the library of Alexandria buried in my brain, and I'm just excavating and translating. That is humility. I don't know what's down there. I don't know what's coming up next. I know that it works. I know that I have to give respect to the generative engine that's down there, the unconscious, which has been clocked at over 8,000 times faster than the conscious mind, the instincts, the gut. It's not even my brain. It's the neurons down there in my gut that toss up this language, these analogies, these inspirations, and these reasonings. So I'm not Apollonian, I'm not Dionysian. I'm hopefully a combo. The Dionysian is fuck reason, flex the feelings. The Apollonian is feelings are madness, constrain with brute reason. Even that assemblage of language which to me is mind-blowing just comes along like a skyfield dance of dragon-y drones that all move in coordination with no controller i don't know i don't know i am humble at what emerges and try to shape it.
[53:46] To something good when i'm writing my novels i have a goal i have an idea i have a thought have a plot. I can't dictate it. Ayn Rand, she dictated it down to the last fucking comma. I can't do that. It dries up. I cannot bully myself. I cannot control myself. I cannot divvy myself into good and bad, right and wrong, virtuous and vice alone.
[54:14] In other words, the reason I accept anarchy and voluntarism as the ideal political system is that how. That's how it works for me. And genuinely works for me. I cannot dictate to my unconscious, neither will I surrender to it. We must work together.
[54:42] It will permit itself to be shaped as long as I do not dictate. It will generate as long as I guide. I'm like a fireman putting out the mad blazes of the world with water I did not generate but can only aim somewhat. If I try to aim it too much, this is really true, it's a good analogy, right the world is burning i got a giant hose of water i can aim it a little bit but if i try to turn it too much it kinks and the flow stops if i just let go of it it's just gonna go all over the place you see those whipping hoses people trying to catch them and when they're training women to be firefighters? Firemen, let's not be kidding. So you can guide it a little bit. You guide it a little bit. But it dies if you try and control it too much. And if you let it control you, no fires get put out. Hmm.
[56:06] It has always bothered me the arrogance of people who think they know what they're capable of or what other people are capable of. The arrogance is crippling. It's satanic, right? Satan says, this is what you're capable of no more, which gets you away from what, the only phrase that I can use that is accurate is the divine inspiration of the eternal.
[56:38] I am just a tiny jump-up whack-a-mole representation of eternity, right? We know that, right? We are a mere happenstance assemblage of the eternal. I know this sounds mystical. I know it sounds like artsy-fartsy bullshit. It's not. And I'll tell you, I can prove it to you like that. Where are your atoms from? The atoms that make you up, where are they from? Well, according to the law of the conservation of matter and energy, they are forever. They are eternal. So you and I were in the fiery bowels of some long-exploded star scattered across the universe, assembled into our fortuitous, truth-blaring trumpet. You did not invent your atoms. They've been here forever. They just assemble for you. You did not create the energy that is in your body.
[57:45] Matter and energy are interchangeable according to E equals mc squared. Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. Matter and energy are interchangeable. You created neither your energy nor your atoms. They are eternal.
[58:04] You think of those flocks of birds that go wheeling and coruscating around the sky, like scattered confetti, dodging, moving, swirling, and every now and then, every now and then, if you watch them long enough, and I find it quite hypnotic to watch these starlings or these swallows blitz and blur around in the sky, like a bunch of drunken drones avoiding predators, and every now and then, they will assemble into what looks like a human face, or they will assemble into what looks like a little dragon, or they will assemble into what looks like a large bird, in the same way that you could look up at the clouds and say, oh my gosh, that's a duck. Oh my gosh, that looks exactly like a dog running. And then it blares, and it disappears, and it dissipates. So that's you. You are the freeze frame of the assemblage of eternal star matter into speaking, reasoning, singing, all dancing crap of the universe, right? You are a freeze frame moment where, starshit becomes conscious so because we are composed of things that have lasted forever and ever amen and will last forever and ever amen though they go from the back rooms of energy to the front rooms of matter because we last forever thinking we know what we're capable of is the mortal judging the capacities of the immortal Do you follow? I hope this makes sense.
[59:32] You cannot judge eternity from a mortal perspective. You cannot judge your eternal potential from your transitory flash of mere surface-level consciousness. Both the man and the mountain are eternal, but the consciousness of the man is mortal. Thought cannot judge the potential of matter and energy.
[1:00:00] What you are composed of is far deeper than what you think you are. What you can stand is far more than you think you can stand. Can you imagine, and what is God inordinately fond of? Beetles and hydrogen. Hydrogen atoms are like 99 plus percent of things. So I want you to think of your average hydrogen atom strolling and tumbling through the back alleys of the void for 10 billion years.
[1:00:54] If that atom could think, would it believe it was capable of lighting up or participating in the lighting up of an entire solar system?
[1:01:09] The photons falling on my face or through the screen onto your face, did they think that they would be illuminating a great philosophical conversation? No. The hydrogen atom cannot judge the potential for sunlight it cannot judge the staggering amounts of energy that is produced by a nuclear bomb that goes off and nurtures life for 10 billion years, you cannot judge that which is eternal about you, and even if we say well of course as we know individual atoms cannot think thought is an immersion properties of combinations of atom cells and energy I get that and it's specific to the human mind right they've been teaching sign language, to chimpanzees and other forms of monkeys for well over half a century, the monkeys the chimpanzees have never asked one question not one, every animal but man when you point at something looks at the finger it is human infants who point at what you're looking at which is a fundamental question of empathy.
[1:02:32] Your conscious mind is 150,000 years old in a 14 billion year universe and a 4 billion year journey of light.
[1:02:49] Your thought cannot conceivably judge the atoms and cells that compose it which are billions of years old and the atoms are eternal, and it cannot burrow through and judge and evaluate and know the potential of all of the layers that came before it by millions hundreds of millions or billions of years us.
[1:03:16] We are a tiny piece of dust. On the tip of a spear we cannot comprehend, and yet still we imagine we know how deep it can go.
[1:03:37] There's a photon that is released. Think about this. You're taking a nap one afternoon. It's a little chink in the Venetian blind. It's a little chink on the Venetian blinds. And then the sun moves a little. It hits your eyes and wakes you up in that orange warmth of returning to consciousness, through the warm pressure of sunlight like the gentlest mother hand in the universe. You wake up, you open your eyes, and you see the sunlight peeking through that blind. I want you to think of that. Think of that backtrack. It's really wild. There's a photon that is generated from the ongoing 10 billion year nuclear bomb called the sun. Should be called a space heater. And that photon.
[1:04:29] Goes cast off into space, rocketing off into space. And it goes the eight light minutes from the sun to the earth now what happens to most of those photons well we know because we can look up at the night sky we can look up the stars, and those photons from distant suns have traveled dozens or hundreds of light years or 4.7 light years for alpha centauri the closest one i think it lands on us that's where the photon comes the flickering right i remember when i was a kid not knowing about atmospheric ripples i would look at the stars see them flickering and saying, but they can't be getting five times their size and back small again. Why are they flickering? Like insane puffer fish holding in a sneeze forever.
[1:05:15] So that photon leaps, blows off. The surface of the sun goes coruscating in to space on a dead journey to infinity and nothingness. But no, it doesn't go off into the void to be seen by no eyes. Because I like to think that the photons only come alive when they're seen, because otherwise they're just dead energy in space. A wave or a particle, a wave or a particle, well, a wave of the particle, partially. And so, imagine how much that photon wins the lottery, right? Rockets into space, like a coked up Superman, expecting to go into the void. Now, it's like, holy shit, what's coming?
[1:06:03] What's that little blue dial, blue and white? That's a planet. Holy shit. Out of all of the places I could go, the 360, 360, 360 infinity of the sphere around the sun. Jesus, I'm going to hit a planet. That's really wild. Oh, I'm going to hit a landmass. It's not a planet, it's a landmass. Oh my God, that's really cool. I'm going to see a landmass. My God, I'm going to hit a city. My God, I'm going to hit a building. Oh my God, I think I can make it through the crack in that Phoenician blind. What are the odds? And then I'm going to hit a sleeping guy. And then the eye opens. I know we have to disregard the 186,000 miles an hour of the speed of light. Just go with me on this journey. And your eye opens. And that lonely photon designed to be spiraled off into space to nothing. That photon goes into your mind, like the most random sperm into the egg of consciousness.
[1:07:22] We are infinitely more lucky than that photon to land in a human mind. I'll go you one further. Think of Beetlejuice. No, not the stupid movie. That was really retarded, by the way. I think, what is it, 300 light years away?
[1:07:46] Red supergiant star in the constellation of Orion oh belt up it's a supergiant star distinctly reddish, its radius is 640 between 640 and 764 times that of the sun, yeah how about saying how far it is away it's the brightest star in the night sky at near infrared wavelengths, if betelgeuse or betelgeuse was at the center of our solar system its surface would lie beyond the astro asteroid belt between mars and jupiter but engulf the orbits of mercury venus earth and Mars. Calculations of Betelgeuse's mass range from slightly under 10 to a little over 20 times that of the Sun. Its distance is difficult to measure, 400 to 600 light years from the Sun.
[1:08:54] It's less than 10 million years old, so it's a flash in the pan relative to our stable Sun. Betelgeuse has evolved rapidly because of its large mass. It's expected to end its evolution with a supernova explosion, most likely within 100,000 years. When Betelgeuse explodes, it will shine as bright as the half moon for more than three months. But life on Earth will be unharmed.
[1:09:22] Starting in October 2019, Betelgeuse has begun to dim noticeably from magnitude 0.5 to 1.7 by mid-February 2020. Suggesting so, infrared observations found no significant change in luminosity over the last 50 years, suggesting that the dimming was due to a change in extinction around the star rather than a more fundamental change. Occluding dusk was created by a surface mass ejection but then cool to form the dust that causes the dimming. Now, I want you to think of Betelgeuse. Again. The star, not the movie. So think of being a photon kicking off from Betelgeuse. It's a communist photon.
[1:10:22] Photon yes you have to put on the red light so you get this photon, because when you see i know it gets hundreds of years ago right four to six hundred years ago photon jumps off the surface of betelgeuse goes out into the void baby on a journey to nothing out of the, Andromeda galaxy into the space between the galaxies away from one of the hundred, million stars in the hundred million galaxies but no no, after traveling for hundreds of years he's like oh shit coming to another star holy shit coming to another solar system holy shit miss this planet miss this planet miss this dwarf planet miss this planet went past Uranus.
[1:11:14] Like Milo these days. And then. He's like. Holy shit. I'm going to hit that planet. Holy shit. I'm going to hit a landmass. Pretty pale. Not just Europe. Oh my god. Oh my god. There's a kid making snow angels. And I'm going to hit that eyeball. Holy shit. Talk about sitting your intergalactic putt-putt. Right? Talk about. The ultimate game of golf. Tiger Woods launches from Beetlejuice, and it happens to fall into the hole of a kid making snow angels staring up at the night sky. Think of that photon's journey. Think of the odds against everything you see, especially looking at the night sky. There's some photon that goes from that star to your eyeball and into your brain and into your memory.
[1:12:10] Think of being that photon. That's how More accurately, you can hit the truth, if you will it. They can hit an eyeball from 500 fucking light years away. The sun, eight light minutes away, can hit an eyeball through 93 million miles, through the air, through the clouds, maybe, a little beam through the clouds, through the break in the Venetian blind. And it thinks it's not going to hit your eyes. Thinks it's not going to hit your eyes. But then you open your eyes at the last second and it goes into your mind. Hole in one, baby. Hole in one. Well, you can hit the truth. As the light from Betelgeuse can cross 500 light years and hit your eyes. As I saw when I first saw Betelgeuse, when I was making snow angels, at a friend's cottage when I was 11 or 12 years old. Why not? Do you think that the photon that hits your eye from 500 light years or 8 light minutes, do you think that photon would expect to enter into your mind, consciousness, memory and history?
[1:13:40] Well, the photon isn't even willed. That's just accidental, but you can will things. Yes, I like the Milo joke, too.
[1:13:49] That was a bit of sinister inspiration. Why not? Thank you for the donation. You know I'm earning it. What's your view on numerology, Stef? Kind of the same as astrology, but for number freaks? Well, an obsession with numerology gives us Pascalian math, it gives us calculations such as Newton's calculus, it gives us odds and probabilities, which is the foundation of the modern world, because you can't have insurance without probability, and you can't have the modern world without insurance, certainly can't have exploration without insurance. So the fact that we get some people who see numbers and everything they look at it's a scattershot like all skills are a scattershot all skills are bell curve, so most people around the middle they're okay with math they could do their taxes but they're not great some people are fantastic at it but even within that fantastic stuff there's stuff that's useless and there's stuff that's amazing, so now i think numerology is just people looking for patterns and people look for patterns because it's easier to look for patterns than to enact virtue right.
[1:15:16] Thanks Stef great speech thanks for your speech on Wednesday as well I needed it more than I thought yeah be the photon that lands from 500, light years, on a human eyeball. Think about the odds. Think about the odds. What is the farthest visible star? Let's really stretch this shit out, right? What is the farthest visible star?
[1:15:53] Mmm, wow, I wouldn't have thought that. This is from August the 8th, 2023. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has followed up on observations by the Hubble Space Telescope over the farthest star ever detected in the very distant universe within the first billion years after the Big Bang. Most strongly magnified galaxy, what have we got here? Yeah, there's a red streak, five o'clock position. I'm not going to download that. What have we got here? So what's that? First billion years after the Big Bang. So that's what, 13 billion light years away? Isn't that wild? So every time, of course, you're looking at a star, you're not looking primarily across distance, you're looking primarily across time.
[1:16:52] Now, what is? What is the one? Naked eye. Let me look up naked on the internet. 2500. Cassiopeia. V762. Cassiopeia. The nerds and the poets are naming the stars in conjunction. Some websites claim it's the farthest star visible to the naked eye 16,308 light years, 16,308 years, still feels shorter than the last Martin Scorsese movie and probably was actually subjectively, Wow.
[1:18:00] So we can view 16,000 years into the past. Now think of a photon going for 16,000 years through empty space and finally landing on a human eyeball. You can really freak yourself out as looking at a landing page or a landing nesting ground for wayward photons in the universe. Every time you're out in the night sky looking up at the stars, you are collecting incredibly lucky photons that if you hadn't been there would have just landed on blind earth, but instead they go into your mind and stay in your memory. I mean, you can think of this if you've ever gone, hit me with a Y, if you've ever gone looking for.
[1:18:49] Comets or meteors, I guess, right? Was it August 12th, this sort of meteor shower? It's always a filthy lie in general. Even if I go out to the country and spend half an hour letting my eyes adjust, which I've done sometimes with my daughter, because we kind of think that space is cool, and it is. You ever gone meteor hunting? Asteroids are supposed to be raining down on you. You ever done that? Maybe you've had more luck than I have, but I have not had much luck. Put it mildly. My daughter and I, though, were hiking in the night a couple of many years ago. We did see a really bright flash. That was a kind of come and go thing, right? So you think of that, right? All that stored up energy that was converted to light when the meteor, which has been traveling around, maybe from other solar systems, right? The meteor has been traveling around for billions of years, just nothing. And then it turns into a blaze. The matter is converted it into energy, the energy then hits your optic nerve, and you go. It goes into your memory.
[1:20:06] Starry, starry night, paint your palette blue and grey, look out on a summer's day, with eyes that see the darkness in your soul. It's a lovely song, Starry, Starry Night, by Don McLean. I could have told you, Vincent, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you. I actually saw him at Ontario Place, playing with those three other people in the audience. He did a Sam Cooke cover, and, of course, American Pie. I couldn't sleep in Europe and for some reason went here and came right to this speech.
[1:21:01] If you don't know what the future holds, which nobody does, because the future is a product of forces beyond our predictability and consciousness, utterly beyond our predictability because of free will. If you... If you can't predict the future, you can't possibly predict your potential. It is satanic vanity to think that you know your potential when most of what you are is utterly unknown to you and to me and you are a mortal mind. Trying to predict the potential of that which is as close to immortal or immortal as is possible to be, it is an insult to your potential to think that you know what it is. You don't. The odds that I had the mind...
[1:22:18] I mean, this is deep and a little vulnerable. I hope you'll forgive me. Perhaps it's self-indulgence, perhaps not. So I've constantly had to wrestle with skepticism about my own potential. The odds that I was going to be the one to solve the greatest problem in the world, honestly, which is the problem of secular ethics, the odds that I was going to be the person to solve it was so minuscule that it seemed like mad vanity to think I could. The odds that I could be a great writer, a great communicator, a great philosopher, a great public speaker, were so tiny that it seemed that I would be far more, in accordance with the odds of the universe to not work but simply play the lottery to win a fortune.
[1:23:18] I have constantly had to remind myself to be humble in the face of my own potential because it's not mine. My potential is not mine. Your potential is not yours. It is the flash fire of a semi-random assemblage of universal parts with a sum total that cannot be encompassed within the human mind. The emergent properties of your potential cannot be, summarized or understood. I see all the argument, life must be lived forward, but it can only be understood backward. I have to live life forward, but I can only understand it backward. It has been a constant wrestling with fear of my potential, because society, worships innocuous potential but savages moral potential. If you are a tall, skinny, pretty girl with a pleasing voice who writes catchy songs, you get a billion dollars.
[1:24:43] Inconsequential, amusing, entertaining and distracting excellence is worshipped by the mob. Oh, he is good at sports ball, I will buy his baseball card. Oh, he's good at morality, I will fuck him up and flush his descendants down the toilet. Excellence is permitted in all things, save money and morality.
[1:25:06] Excellence is worshipped in all things, save money and morality.
[1:25:21] Because excellence in morality reminds people that everyone they worship, they worship to distract themselves from virtue. Everyone they praise, they praise to distract themselves from virtue. And back to numerology, they worship patterns so they don't have to enact virtue. I mean, you remember the Q thing? Q. Q. Don't worry, Q's got it. Jeff Sessions is doing this, that, and the other, but don't worry, because there's a plan. Trust the plan. Q, right? I mean, I remember when I was out on the planet, talking to the flesh people and looking at the big blue room. When I was out on the planet, every time I'd go to give a speech, there'd be people who would kind of corner me and pants-sweaty breath into my face about, Q, man, you gotta talk about Q. Q.
[1:26:20] Well, that was a made-up pattern, I'm sure, that came from some alphabet soup agency, but it's there to lull you into, hey, man, it's gonna happen. Virtue's just gonna happen. People have got it in hand. You don't need to be good. You don't need to take the risks. You don't need to be virtuous. You don't need to run your relationships. According to virtue and the demands of virtue, Elon Musk was like, oh, I haven't, I haven't ostracized anyone who voted for Kamalala.
[1:26:56] Her middle name should have been Toe. But no, I, uh, it's a pride, a point of pride. point of pride, oh you see communists are perfectly welcome in my life oh yes I have no problem with people who want to engage in mass slaughter and starvation why would I have a problem with them I am open minded you see, I am open minded in the same way that someone committing seppuku is open bellied.
[1:27:33] I'm not judgmental not being judgmental apparently stops bullets did you know that amazing amazing, Somebody says, Toronto used to be dope, man. I live here and it's a great example of a city that just crumpled into decay within two decades. Yes, I was actually in Toronto today.
[1:27:58] It's a shit heap. I grew up in Toronto. I love that city. I came in 1977 where we flew Freddie Laker to New York because we couldn't afford to fly directly to Toronto. We flew a cheap-ass seat at Freddie Laker Airlines into New York and then we took a bus. North I remember listening to I had a little tape cassette of music and I listened to that on the bus, along came lonely Lanky Jones and some Leo say you've got a cute way of walking and some of those Leo say a special I remember the dancers had big, fabric hands on their bellies, when you need love so I listened to that we came north. 1977 was an unbelievable snowstorm, snow fest. The whole winter was just staggering dumps of snow. Loved it, because in snow in England was very rare. I still remember a stick in my hand in the first snow, and I was like, holy crap, that's cold. That was the, uh, that was the winter I accidentally shot a friend of mine with an arrow, but that's a topic for another time. I thought he was an orc So, Loved Loved Toronto I know every nook and cranny of their city.
[1:29:24] And we were back in Toronto, and we went to Casa Loma today.
[1:29:33] And my daughter, and of course, I was still, you know, Toronto, it's a cool city, it's a great city, a world-class city, blah, blah, blah. And we were driving along, and first of all, Toronto's a shit heap of constipated congestion. Right? It is uh there's two seasons in toronto winter and construction but of course everything gets deferred to the point where everything falls apart massive overcrowding endless immigration, and nothing has been maintained and my daughter was you know saying it's place is kind of run down it was like and the veil was lifted yes death verily the veil was lifted and i'm like good lord, this looks like the arse end of post-fallout Rio de Janeiro.
[1:30:27] This is like uninhabited Sao Paulo for three generations. This is a shitheap. The buildings are all tired and creaky, the sidewalks are cracked and broken. It's a shit pit, honestly. And you can't get anywhere. Like, I knew that Toronto traffic was bad, so we bailed out of Casa Loma today at, uh, 2.30, we got there fairly early, did the, well, we did our own self-guided tour, and we got out of there, 2.30, quarter to three, it took us, like, we, you might as well, you just park, just park, just park, Park, abandon your car, take off on foot, set fire if you have to, and get on the subway so that you can be on the subway when the subway doesn't go.
[1:31:21] Just, it is, and of course, the reason it's a shit heap is because there are too many people taking resources and not enough people paying taxes, right? Too many people taking resources, not enough people paying taxes. So naturally, everything gets deferred, everything decays. I worked for a company many, many years ago as a chief. No, I was director of technology was my official title and the business, which I won't get into in any particular detail, but the business was involved with planning for the renewal of major capital equipment, right?
[1:31:56] So if you build a whole bunch of housing in one time, in one place, everything seems really cheap to maintain. And then your bills all come due, like the roof goes out, the windows need replacing, all comes at the same time. So, you can't judge your future requirements by looking at your past spend. Like in the same way, the first couple of years you have a car, you don't have to pay much in maintenance, but then it gets more and more expensive and this tends to cluster. And we worked with the Department of Education, which had, I won't even mention the sum because it's unbelievable to me even now, the amount of deferred maintenance for the Department of education was staggering like and this is like 20 years ago so you just defer things right uh politicians love ribbon cuttings right they're oh we're opening a new x y and z right ribbon cutting and but keeping things running is boring uninspiring things still working doesn't make any headlines so they always want to build new shit they never want to maintain the old stuff.
[1:32:56] And Toronto has just decayed and it may have in fact decayed to the point of no return.
[1:33:05] It's, uh, it's falling into third world status. It seems to me, it just has that look, there's kind of a gut look and a gut feel about these kinds of things. And it's a, it's a shame. It's a, it's a, it was, it was a beautiful city. It was a beautiful city in the past. Almost like what happened to Detroit and, and, uh, other places. Detroit used to be called the Paris of the West. It was incredible. The city was incredible. I mean, you wouldn't believe it, but the libraries, which are cathedrals of knowledge and books, amazing, amazing stuff. Oh, well. Bitcoin solves this. Are you related to Dick Cheney? because i shot another kid with an arrow didn't kill him or anything it didn't even break the skin it was a we made our own bows right we made our own bows and uh i i shot off a um overhang i didn't realize my friend was running out hit him in the leg it didn't even break skin but he was not pleased and i was muchly apologetic.
[1:34:26] Has anyone got any last questions, comments, issues, challenges? A little bit of support would be most gratefully and humbly and deeply accepted. If you could help a brother out, I would really, really appreciate it. If what I have said over the course of tonight has inspired you at all or given you anything positive, I would really, really appreciate that. I can feel the deep wellsprings of inspiration beginning to dry. Nothing to do with you it's just that you know tide comes in then tide goes out we'll donate next paycheck brother much love thank you very much i really really do appreciate that i really do appreciate that more than i can ever ever express the honor and, privilege of doing what i do which is predicated upon your support is something i hope i hope i show my appreciation often and deeply enough about all that you guys permit indulge and encourage me to do. I am very humbly grateful. I dare say that the future is going to be more grateful. And the future is going to be more grateful because we held the fucking line, right? Despite massive pressure, we held the line. I did not withdraw anything that I knew to be true. No matter what the pressure that was put upon and the pressure was at times not small.
[1:35:53] So i have not.
[1:35:57] Withdrawn anything i know to be true and i will never do that yeah i've just got to hold the line, you hold the line you save the future somebody says uh started reading real-time relationships fascinated so far well i appreciate that if you find the book to be of help freedom.com it was a lot of work to research and to read sorry to research and to write and then to read into audiobook format. Don't forget PeacefulParenting.com. Don't forget AlmostNovel.com. Don't forget OutOfTheArgument.com. Don't forget JustPoorNovel.com. And you should check those things out.
[1:36:32] Uh, yeah, somebody says, I avoid going to Toronto at all costs. Parts of Detroit are eerily decrepit with abandoned churches and blocks upon blocks of vacant houses and lots. Yeah, well, it's on that way. It's on that way. It's on that way. But Bitcoin was a bit of a white swan event, to put it mildly. Javier Malay was a bit of a white swan event. I was a Bukele in El Salvador. I mean, I hate to say, well, I was already, I was already predicting this, but I did. I said, I said, I said, and people said, well, they got blackpilled. And I said, a country is going to open up to be gold scotch. A country is going to open up to welcome home the brilliance of the world and become the new Jerusalem, so to speak, or the new Hong Kong, if you want to put it that way. All right. So have yourself a wonderful, wonderful day. Next week, Wednesday and Friday, I will not be doing shows. next week, Wednesday and Friday, I would not be doing shows, but drop by because we're going to screen documentaries. So I hope that you will drop by for that. I really do appreciate that. I'm sorry to be taking some time off. I'll tell you the story at some point. Somebody says, I really like that motivational speech about potential. I often belittle what I'm capable of. Even after that speech, it's rough for me. Yeah. Yeah. Well, stop being vain. Stop being vain and be humble. Be humble.
[1:37:56] Vanity is presuming to know what you cannot possibly know. And certainly presuming to know what you didn't know. So the coachability and the potential argument go hand in hand. Be coachable about your own potential, which is stop telling yourself what you're capable of. That's like, hey, I got this, man. My potential, don't. I got this. I don't need any coaching, right? You do. You need coaching about your potential. We all do. Because imagining you know what you're capable of is a form of limiting vanity that is immensely disrespectful to the great gifts that we've all been given about life.
[1:38:35] Awesome show. Love the poetry about the star. Think about it, man. I mean, think about these photons coming into my eyeballs. Matter and energy comes to life. It's been around for 14 plus billion years. And there it is in my eyeballs and now into yours. And these photons are now immortalized, right? There's a recording as long as there are people and computers and screens, the photons are recorded forever. They have become immortal. It is a consummation devoutly to be wished. The less vain you are about your own lack of potential, the more your conscious mind can join the immortality of your atoms and energy. Who doesn't want to live forever? All right. Lots of love. Take care. Freedomman.com.
Support the show, using a variety of donation methods
Support the show
