In this Friday Night Live on 12 December 2025, Stefan Molyneux engages in another thought-provoking conversation with a diverse group of callers, addressing a wide range of philosophical and societal topics. The episode, which aired on December 12, 2025, opens with Stefan sharing his experiences navigating a snowstorm in Southern Ontario and setting the tone for an insightful evening ahead.
The first caller poses an intriguing question regarding the philosophical conundrums that Stefan finds most compelling yet unresolved. He delves into the perennial debate of determinism versus free will, the nature of love, and the principles of ethics, sharing how his nearly five-decade-long exploration of these issues has led to a deep understanding but remaining questions. This conversation unfolds into a critical discussion on Immanuel Kant's ethical theories, particularly his view that acts must be performed out of duty, rather than for the sake of personal pleasure.
As the dialogue continues, another caller challenges Stefan on the complexities of morality, suggesting that Kant aimed to strip ethical considerations from subjective influences. This leads them to analyze how societal pressures and personal motivations affect ethical behavior and truth-telling. Stefan emphasizes the importance of separating personal gain from moral actions, asserting that genuine ethics must be universally applicable and free from external expectations.
Topics shift as another caller, tapping into the spirit of societal betterment, expresses urgent concerns about the looming "metacrisis"—an aggregation of various global challenges that threaten societal stability. This caller shares their personal journey, highlighting how unwavering commitment to truth and personal sacrifice have shaped their worldview. The discussion deepens as Stefan encourages examination not only of the crisis itself but the systemic failures that have led society to this precarious moment.
The conversation evolves into a reflection on parenting philosophies, where Stefan shares his viewpoint on the critical role of self-respect in parenting. He and another caller exchange thoughts on familial dynamics, touching upon the importance of choosing healthy relationships for the sake of children. This segues into a consideration of how individuals cope with past traumas and the ways they influence present choices, an exploration marked by personal anecdotes and philosophical musings.
Later, an inquiry arises about the nature of virtue as it pertains to men and women within relationships. Stefan asserts that while both genders exhibit virtuous qualities, societal shifts have complicated traditional roles, particularly as women find themselves less reliant on men. He critiques the modern landscape where instant gratification often overshadows deeper commitments and responsibilities. Listener engagement intensifies as callers discuss the implications of these changes on marriage and family structures.
As the episode unfolds, Stefan highlights the essential qualities of communication and respect in relationships, ultimately championing the notion that understanding our differences—rather than judging each other through a singular lens of virtue—is key to harmonious interactions. The episode wraps up with a humorous nod to consumerism, juxtaposing Molyneux's musings on human interaction with the challenges of modern dating and societal expectations.
Overall, this podcast episode weaves together complex topics of ethics, personal integrity, individual responsibility, and societal dynamics, all while maintaining an engaging and humorous tone. Each segment offers listeners a chance to reflect on the philosophical underpinnings of contemporary life, challenging them to rethink their perspectives on relationships, family, and societal obligations.
26:36 - Communication Challenges
1:01:57 - Stories of Struggle and Resilience
1:18:15 - Vetting New Relationships
1:21:59 - Navigating Past Mistakes
1:26:38 - Seeking Answers in Dating
1:29:17 - Understanding Birth Rates
1:33:19 - The Role of Women Today
1:36:12 - The Importance of Parenthood
1:41:50 - Finding Peace in Relationships
1:46:42 - Trust and Credibility in Marriage
1:52:46 - Virtue and Gender Differences
2:05:43 - The Complexity of Modern Relationships
[0:00] Evening, evening, evening. Good evening. Good evening. Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain, 12th December, 2025. We are halfway to Christmas Eve. And I hope you're having a lovely December. I hope you're enjoying, if you are in southern Canada or southern Ontario, the massive Wall Street 80s cocaine dump of snow we've had recently. Quite exciting. Went to bargaining with my wife and daughter. uh, yesterday. Quite exciting. Quite exciting, this video magic. All right, uh, let's go straight to callers. I have a bunch of stuff to talk about, but let's talk to you, firsty-foremosty. All right. Zah-rah. Zah-rah. If you want to unmute, I'm all ears. Going once going twice.
[0:57] Hello hey, well you're sorry uh when it connects you through the mic it cuts out all the speaking so i don't know what we're talking about right now.
[1:07] I don't understand your question.
[1:12] Then i must have posed it back how you doing man i'm.
[1:16] Good do you want to get to a question.
[1:18] Oh i yeah i had a question which was of all the philosophical conundrums and topics and questions which one do you find the most interesting that you don't think you've solved yet, or that you haven't settled in a camp.
[1:34] Of all the philosophical conundrums that i haven't solved yet, uh generally.
[1:45] I was like yeah go ahead which i just mean more like which one did you not settle on like a camp that you like best or a position that you think is most persuasive where you're still bouncing back and forth and you're not sure how to resolve it in your mind yet.
[2:03] I mean, I've been doing it for 44 years. I've certainly tried to aim at and take down the biggest questions, you know, determinism versus free will. What is love? How to improve the world? What is the non-aggression principle? How is it defined? How is it universalized? What is ethics? So I've tried to, what is truth and so on. I've tried to work all the way from metaphysics, study of reality, epistemology, study of knowledge, ethics, study of virtue, politics, study of social organization. I think I've tried to take on the most. It doesn't mean that my job is done because there's always new stuff that is coming in. But is there anything that you have in particular that you feel I haven't answered that I should answer?
[2:49] I wasn't thinking along those lines. How about what's a philosophical camp or an idea that you dislike, but it still nags at you and there's not a germ of truth to it?
[3:01] Yeah, I suppose the closest, and this is sort of where I stalled on my History of Philosophers series. I did like 23 philosophers. And I stalled among the giants sort of pre-modern but post-medieval thinking, which is Immanuel Kant, C-A-N-T. And I just did a show on him called F. Kant. He is someone that I've certainly wrestled with. I suppose this issue that his basic argument is that if you do good just because it makes you feel good, it's not really good. Like if you give the... Bomb the homeless guy, if you give him 20 bucks just to make yourself feel good, then that is not particularly good. What you need to do is do the virtuous thing for its own sake rather than for some benefit.
[3:58] Out of duty.
[3:58] Yeah, out of duty. And ideally, it should be against what it is that you want to do in order for it to work well.
[4:08] Now, look, I found Kant to be the most difficult to read of all the philosophers. But I feel like there's a difference between saying it's not good if you're motivated by feeling good and saying in the philosophical inquiry of trying to identify what makes it good, we have to strip it from all those other things. And I suspect that that was more the tact he was taking. So he's trying to find out what make something good. And he kind of, he kind of ends up separated by a veil a little bit from that. That's why he's got the categorical imperative and all that. But he's, I think maybe I'm wrong about this, but I think that in investigating what it is that makes the good, good, he's trying to not be distracted by those sorts of things. Is that possible?
[4:59] What sort of things? I'm not sure I follow.
[5:01] Well, like you brought up, okay, what if I do it out of habit or what if I do it? Cause it feels good or what if I do it to get a good reputation or what if like all of those other things would not be how he would define what makes it good so he's trying to get rid of those not because you shouldn't have a good habit or get pleasure from doing good or any of those things but that he as a philosopher can't put his finger on the fact that it's good if those things are clouding um why you're doing it that you have to behave according to the rational principle Of the categorical imperative He came up with this formula For the philosophical purpose Of identifying what makes it good I think.
[5:43] Yeah, I mean, and I can certainly understand how someone who is only doing things based on a pleasure pain principle can't really be committed to doing good because, and this is sort of the modern phenomenon, which I and of course many others have suffered under, which is, oh, you're telling the truth. You're telling a truth we don't like. So what we'll keep doing is we'll keep applying more and more negative pressure to you until you shut the F up and stop saying things we don't like. And if you're into the truth for hedonistic purposes, to look cool, to be popular, to make money or whatever it is, then you are going to be pretty uniquely susceptible to negative pressure to abandon your position. And so you have to like the truth for its own sake and you have to remove yourself from the hedonism of rewards and punishment. Otherwise, you cannot consistently tell the truth.
[6:39] Yeah, I mean, if you want to care about the truth, you're going to get the hemlock. I mean, you've got to be like Socrates and just say, well, I'm thirsty, so give it to me because I want the truth.
[6:51] Well, I'm sorry to be annoying, but to me, it's an Aristotelian mean. So if you say, I'm going to say the most awful and appalling truths and, you know, give me the hemlock, then you don't actually get to speak much truth because you get killed or ostracized or, You give the truth such a bad reputation that nobody else wants to speak it like ever again. Right. Because if it's like if you if you get nailed to the cross or tormented or tortured, then people are like, whoa, OK, I guess I'll shut up about the truth. So in order to sell the truth, so to speak, or sell the value of telling the truth and in order to aim for maximum truth, it's sort of like aiming for maximum workout to aiming for maximum skill in a sport. Like if you want to become a weightlifter, you can't just lift weights all the time because you'll just get injured. You need your rest days, you need your stretching, you need your massaging and all that kind of stuff. So with maximum truth, you have to aim to pace yourself. And also you have to show that there are some benefits to telling the truth. It isn't all just rejection and ostracism and horror and deplatforming and things like that, that there's pluses to it. So in terms of spreading the truth, I would, you know, this like, go on, give me the hemlock. I mean, I don't think that's a very good answer.
[8:15] Well, now we're getting interesting. So let me hasten to agree with you. I actually don't think that saying a bunch of things that bother people, I think those are more like lies than truths.
[8:26] No, no, no. I said, I said truths that not just things that bother people, you know, your mom is a hoa would bother people. But assuming it's not true, it's not particularly valuable. So if you tell too much truth, you will get killed or ostracized. If you tell too little truth, the world doesn't get better. If you tell the truth and you suffer enormously, other people will view that as a good example as to why they shouldn't tell the truth, because look how much it made you suffer. So my goal has been to aim for maximum truth, which means to go right up until the edge of, you know, Charlie Cook territory, and then back off to do that dance. And so I'm not a, you know, super tough guy, give me the hemlock thing, because I think that would actually be pretty bad for philosophy as a whole.
[9:13] I comprehend it. I comprehend your position. I do. I was finding a little common ground there, but yeah, I understand where you're coming from there.
[9:24] All right.
[9:26] That's interesting.
[9:27] Yeah.
[9:27] Thank you.
[9:28] You're very welcome. You're very welcome. And of course, I come out with sales as well. You don't often go to the gym and there's a fat person at the counter, right? So you have to sell your lifestyle by providing some benefit to it. Because if it's like, well, tell the truth and everyone's going to chase you through the darkened woods with pitchforks and torches, then all you'll do is get self-destructive masochists interested in the truth.
[9:59] I see your point. I'd love to talk about, I got to make a show so I can invite you on and interview you because I'd like to ask about a thousand questions about that, but I appreciate your answer.
[10:09] All right. Thank you. I appreciate that. And yeah, being in the business world was pretty good before getting into the podcasting world because it really helped. All right. Presner Stroke, you had a question, comment?
[10:27] Next door. Yeah, thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to be here.
[10:29] Thank you.
[10:31] I don't know. I think that the tree of liberty must be watered from time to time by the blood of both patriots and tyrants.
[10:38] Yeah, I mean, people say that kind of stuff. It just sounds tough and cool, but I mean, I'm not saying you should do anything about it, but what do you do? I mean, that's nice, but are you expecting other people to do all this watering?
[10:50] Well, I mean, Jesus was pretty radical. He was a very radical person. He definitely was like, you know, take up the cross. he was like take the risk because we know what will happen if we don't push hard enough with the truth okay we all know so what.
[11:05] I appreciate that and what have you done that's very risky with regards to the truth i'm not saying you haven't right at all i'm just wanted to understand if this is a talk or theory or practice.
[11:15] Oh no it's certainly in practice yeah i'm no longer active duty in the united states marine corps um i am no longer married i no longer associate with my family. There's a number of different things that are basically choices that I've made in life where I'm like, okay, all right, I just need to separate myself from anybody who is not going to be willing to do what it takes to make the changes that are necessary to be able to promote truth and actually make this happen in a way that it is conducive to a free and open society, an actual better maximalized society. Because the outcomes that we have right now, I can tell you, they're not looking good, man. I mean, 15 years to the metacrisis, where two-thirds of the world population is dead from old age or disease, and they're keeping that from the public.
[12:01] Sorry, to the what crisis?
[12:02] That's not good. You know, keeping truth like that from the public.
[12:06] No, sorry, you said 15 years to the, and I didn't catch the word, the metacrisis.
[12:10] It's called the metacrisis.
[12:11] The metacrisis. I'm not sure. I'm not familiar with that. What does that mean?
[12:14] Yeah. So basically, there's a number of different crises that are all going to compact and compile all seemingly at the same time within a very, very short few year time span. And this is the meta crisis. And part of that is that we're going to lose all the engineers, all the NDAs, all the secrets that are kept in people's minds that are aging out, that signed, like I said, NDAs. And like those people engineered the nuclear age and when they're gone, we don't have anybody to replace them. Like we haven't even started on that process to doing that. And that's, I don't think that like people are alarmed enough and they really need to know the truth because the sooner they are revealed the truth, the sooner we can actually start making plans and we can, we can actually have a real shake at some positive, genuine outcomes for our civilization.
[13:06] Right. Okay. Okay. If you don't mind, and certainly don't talk about anything you're not comfortable with, but what happened with your marriage and your family?
[13:17] I told them the truth. And I predicted the events that led to COVID two and a half years in advance, and they didn't like that. And I did not shut up about it. I ran for United States president twice. You know, I made that my lifestyle. I'm like, okay, the truth is so important. You know, Kennedy died for it. Charlie Kirk died for it. A lot of really important people that are very intelligent died for it. It must be worth something, so it's at least worth dying for. And I already signed up to join the Marine Corps once, so I'm not one for dying, but if dying's asking me, I'll bear that cross with honor because freedom don't come free.
[13:55] Well, I mean, I would recommend not using violence, but I still think we're in the realm of language still. Sorry, go ahead.
[14:05] No no i mean i've been promoting this concept called the worldwide party for quite some time now other people have probably even heard me talk about it but it's basically a five-day civilization-wide celebration of an end of war and scarcity because once our civilization learns the truth which is you know our ability to organically unite and there were all brothers and sisters here in civilization um that that once they experience peace because they're no longer participating in the machine that makes themselves hurt they won't go back and and that's the one thing that our common enemy all fear is, is our organic unity because they plan to unite us under many different circumstances. And, and they already know about the meta crisis. They're trying to use this crisis to gain power and control just like they've done for generations.
[14:51] Right. And tell me a little bit more about this five day thing that people can look into it or try to understand it.
[14:56] Right. Well, so as far as I'm aware, I'm the only person that's come up with the solution to this big problem. And my solution is fairly simple. It's a global non-participation event, also known as a global post-scarcity event, because basically this is the revelation that we are already a post-scarcity civilization, and that the idea of scarcity is actually being used as a socioeconomic tool to extract wealth and resources from the bottom percent of the population. Because if they ever discovered the truth, the entire socioeconomic paradigm would simply flip on its head because we're already post-scarcity. Again, this is all an effect of being able to keep the truth from the general populace.
[15:38] With post-scarcity, what does that mean?
[15:40] So we, for at least 20 years now, we have had the means by which to produce all of the equipment that would be necessary to halt, cease, stop, change, transform all of the largest problems that people would consider that are facing our civilization, hunger, poverty, homelessness, et cetera, for at least 20 years now.
[16:02] And what are those technologies? I'm not disagreeing. I just want to make sure I understand what you mean.
[16:08] Yeah, so actually these technologies go back quite a ways, but they fomented only recently since the nuclear age, you know, around the 1960s. And so some of these are like manufacturing technologies, which are still covered by NDAs. I'll give an example of one that's going to sound ridiculous until you do the research. Glitter. It sounds crazy, but the manufacturing process behind glitter is a closely guarded national secret. And the process to create glitter is actually extremely useful in industry for other purposes, especially for like metal 3D printing and so on. There's a number of technologies that are tied up in NDAs and intellectual property that are actually, believe it or not, holding back progress in our civilization. I'll give another example, the Einstein refrigeration process that could have been used to solve world hunger and poverty realistically for at least 60 years from the time that we're talking right now recorded. Yeah.
[17:02] So do you feel that scarcity is simply a matter of increasing productivity? And if we increase productivity of our capital resources, that we will solve the problem of scarcity?
[17:14] Okay, so here's where it gets interesting. The technologies cumulatively that would allow us to functionally solve material scarcity, in other words, being able to produce materials off of the periodic table, has existed for at least 20 years. In other words, we could have built functional fusion reactors that produce extremely high purity materials on the periodic table for at least 20 years now. We could have started building these reactors 20 years ago, and they could be reaching completion in the next few years.
[17:42] And that's for energy production.
[17:44] Right. Correct. So this is too disruptive, and of course it would rob too many very, very powerful wealthy people of the current resources that they have because that alone, by itself would actually cause, be the chief cause of the socioeconomic paradigm shift. And I'm here to tell you, I'm one of those people. I'm building a fusion reactor here in my city in Roanoke, Virginia. And that's real. It's real. I'm not part of some organization that's doing it to commercialize fusion like these other fusion startups are doing. This is a municipal power source. It's way too important to be commercialized. It's way too important not to be disruptive. It needs to disrupt the marketplace. This is what civilization needs.
[18:26] Okay, so would you say that relative to, say, 300 years ago, we have many hundred times more wealth now than we did a couple of hundred years ago?
[18:37] Oh my gosh, man. Look, we can have this conversation. The invention of the kilogram made functionally, okay, this is where it gets interesting, made functionally millionaires of every single person living on the planet.
[18:50] Sorry, the invention of the kilogram?
[18:51] Yeah, well, I need to explain. Okay, so So scientists for a long time were looking for a common measurement system. Because if you have a common measurement system, then now you essentially have unlocked wealth internationally in a language that is recognizable in every country you go to on Earth. And so the kilogram and the invention of the millimeter, for example, are great examples of that. And the millimeter was invented chiefly, and the kilogram was invented chiefly because they discovered that a single droplet of water is consistent when you measure across its radius every single time. And so they looked for lots of different things in nature that would do the water droplet was the only thing we found that, that met up to those standards and it's measurable and it's repeatable over and over and over again. The creation of the kilogram and why this is important um i'll give an example if you go to a dollar store and you find a pack of um 0.05 you know graphite lead mechanical pencils the the millions of dollars and i really mean this the millions of dollars even by today's standards that were utilized generation to generation to produce the engineers that made the machines that simply shoot those things out so that you can buy them a three-pack for a dollar, is worth billions of dollars. The fact that I can only spend, I can work for an hour, make $20 an hour, and one twentieth of that would allow me to get the access to technology of extremely high precision, 0.05.
[20:20] Graphite mechanical pencil. That's incredible. The value of that should absolutely not be understated.
[20:26] Okay, so we have almost infinitely more wealth than we had a couple of hundred years ago, and it seems to me that all the wealth has done is give us more idiots.
[20:37] Well, you know, I think that the biggest problem has been because there is a meddling. This isn't a conspiracy theory at this point, you can actually trace the money on this. But there has been a meddling for a number of different generations, there's been proof of it, people have written books about it. You know, the creature from Jekyll Island is an example of one.
[20:57] You know, we did just say meddling.
[21:00] Meddling, M-E-D-D-L-I-N.
[21:02] Sorry, my apologies. Go ahead.
[21:04] Meddlesome, right? And so this is evidence of a larger action by a small clandestine group and to the best that I can discern, without going too far into it. These folks are psychologically motivated by factors in their subconscious that maybe perhaps they aren't even aware of. And to be clear, there are two main motives of those that do not want things to change. And the first one is that they are not stupid.
[21:33] They've been planning contingencies for a long time. And part of that contingency has been to basically stupefy the population. That's part of their plans. They've been doing this for generations. This is not some new thing for them. And the reason why they need that is because if we ever discovered the truth en masse, the 70% would turn against the 30% in the flash of an eye. And they're genuinely concerned that we will burn their mechanisms down with the children inside. I'm not suggesting we do that. I'm just saying this is their motive. This is what's motivating them. Everything that we're witnessing that's happening in real time from the top down is because of this in their shadow, as Jung would put it. It is affecting their subconscious in very, very real ways that are measurable. And you can see it all around us. The second motive is that they're genuinely, chiefly concerned with their legacy, that if the tables were to suddenly turn and the socioeconomic standard was suddenly to shift, we would treat them worse than they have treated us for generations. And so those two things are extremely important for people to understand. And this is the reason why I'm 100% certain that the worldwide party will work. And to answer your question, I hope that really answers your question you asked. Sorry.
[22:47] I'm not sure how that answers my question. Just out of curiosity, what was your childhood like?
[22:54] Um, you know, I, uh, I grew up, uh, in poor family, rural, uh, single mom situation. Um, what's the location? Buffalo junction, Virginia. So kind of out in the middle of nowhere, um, away from civilization. Um, by four years old, I was aware very keenly that, um, the adults were playing a strange sort of game that maybe perhaps they did not understand that they were playing.
[23:20] Um, I knew what happened to your father?
[23:23] I don't know My mother kept me away from him From the time that I was an infant.
[23:28] Did you ever get in contact with him later?
[23:31] Oh yeah, yeah He died last year He was born in 1955 I got to meet my extended family And everything.
[23:39] And how was your mother as a mother?
[23:43] Um, you know, the typical narcissistic, um, you know, I need to be seen as pious by the community, um, type mother that would use her own children to, to sort of get, um, what do they call that? Uh, uh, when you, when you have like a moral high ground, you know, it's like, you know, because I'm so poor, I'm pious. And so aren't I good? It was all about the performative aspects you know that what people didn't see is that you know Mary Beth beat us you know and that's why we were so well behaved in public because we were afraid that she would kill us or injure us you know in private also she.
[24:20] Had murderous tendencies as well.
[24:22] I mean she was not a super awesome person but I mean no no come.
[24:26] On let's not hedge conversations here if she if you're afraid of your mother murdering you she had that's a bit different from being she's not.
[24:35] A super wonderful person. Well, I mean, she used that as a tactic, certainly. I mean, there were times where, you know, I mean, for example, she broke a cutting board over my backside, you know, and I hadn't done anything particularly wrong, but she just woke up grumpy from a nap. I mean, and there was fury and rage in her face. I mean, she broke a cutting board over me.
[24:52] I'm so sorry. That's just awful. And how many siblings?
[24:56] Well, again, this is all just, you know, evidence, you know, of the exact problem that I'm outlining. This is the truth. I'm telling the truth about what's really happening. And the reason why women have been weaponized against their own short and long-term best interests. How, the how is not so much important, it's like the why. Why are they corrupting the women? Because, you know, in order to be able to destroy the next generation and prevent strong people from standing up to these people and stopping them, you know, you have to destroy the nuclear family. And the easiest way to do that is to attack, you know, the emotionally vulnerable sex.
[25:28] Yeah, sorry, you keep cutting in and out a little bit, I mean, but there are people who don't, who are part of the current system who aren't breaking cutting boards over their children's backs.
[25:40] I mean, there are also people in the current system, and I just dealt with one recently, that, you know, they think that this pedophile is interested in them when, in fact, the pedophile is interested in their 14-year-old daughter. You know, and they really believe that this man is going to change, even after he gets picked up by the U.S. Marshals and is put in jail.
[26:00] Okay, let me, I need to interrupt you for a sec. So, how do you think this conversation is going as a whole?
[26:10] I mean, I think it's pretty going pretty well.
[26:12] Do you think it's a conversation?
[26:16] I don't know. I mean, what would you consider it?
[26:18] I mean, you haven't asked me if I've understood. You haven't asked me for any sort of feedback, really. It's just, it's a wall of words coming at me. And it's not a big criticism or anything. I'm just sort of pointing out that.
[26:36] Am I incomprehensible?
[26:38] It's hard to follow at times, for sure. It's hard to follow at times. And I say this with great sympathy. Was your mother a talker?
[26:49] No, actually, I'm pretty quiet. I don't really have a whole lot of friends.
[26:53] No, no, I asked about your mother.
[26:57] Mary Beth had to be seen, so yeah, she was very boisterous.
[27:00] So she was a talker?
[27:02] Oh, for sure, yeah. But that was definitely very Sagittarian of her.
[27:06] You mean like the sagittarian like the astrology sign well.
[27:11] That's that's her astrology yeah that's the sign she was born under he's got that cardinal fire.
[27:15] Okay yeah i mean obviously a very passionate guy and and um obviously you you care a lot about the truth and and you're willing to take a brave stand as one communicator to another it's hard for people to follow the wall of words so you usually need to ask what somebody else understands and go in short bursts and make sure that they know what it is that you're talking about. In that way, you can communicate more effectively. Again, it's just a sort of minor tweak or a tip.
[27:52] Well, frame of reference is difficult because the future we're being presented right now is not necessarily the future that we have to choose. And that's the big confusion. As I'm talking about things that absolutely can happen if people are armed with the truth, if they understand the situation of our world. There are certainly better outcomes that are available to all of us that are being kept from the general public.
[28:20] Right. So I'm sort of complaining about the wall of words and there's more wall of words. So what I meant by the idea that there is some technology that's going to save the world, I don't believe that. I think that if you look at the technology that we have available to us now, it's infinitely more than we had a couple of hundred years ago. And all we have are more less intelligent people. And all we have is a giant pile of goods that everyone in the world wants to come and kind of help themselves too, like more than half of people in America who are immigrants are on welfare. So I think if we just produce a whole bunch more stuff, we just get a whole bunch more people who want to take our stuff. So I don't, okay, so guy, so did I give you a fair amount of time to talk?
[29:08] Well, that's not what I'm suggesting at all.
[29:12] Okay, go ahead. But you do think that post-scarcity is possible?
[29:17] It's already here.
[29:20] Okay, so why are there problems if post-scarcity is already here?
[29:25] And as I mentioned before, the regular public has not been informed. There are very good reasons for keeping this information, the truth, from the public.
[29:34] Okay, so it's not here in terms of it's being implemented?
[29:38] It is, just privately.
[29:41] So there are people who have, like, replicators or infinite productivity machines that they're not revealing to the public?
[29:50] If you think that there are not private food stores that are in very close private control, I think that you have a rude awakening coming.
[29:59] See, you're kind of getting rude here. I'm just being accurate. I'm not particularly enjoying this part of the conversation. Like, I'm really trying to follow what it is that you're saying. And there is kind of being first of all, okay, so hang on, hang on, hang on. All right. If you keep talking in my ear, I'm just going to hang up on you. I'm just telling you that right now. Because it's really rude when I'm trying to sort of explain something to you and you keep talking in my ear. That's just rude. And that's not how I run the show. Does that make sense?
[30:32] Got it. You feel inferior. Understood.
[30:37] Okay. Delightful. Delightful.
[30:40] Yeah, I don't lie.
[30:42] Yeah, no, I get it. I get it. Any kind of pushback, any kind of coaching that you could possibly get that might help you to be a better communicator.
[30:55] I think that's a real shame. I mean, if you really care about your subject, project, then you should be able to take some feedback. You should be able to, you know, I really want to help this guy become a better communicator. I mean, I've got a billion views and downloads. I know a little bit about how to communicate about challenging ideas.
[31:16] And when people say we have a problem with tyranny, and then when you try to give them feedback, they get insulting. I think the problem with tyranny is in them. I mean, obviously there's a problem with tyranny in the world as a whole. But if people say, you know, we've got all these people who are so interested in control, and then I try to give some feedback, and he just gets insulting. I feel inferior. Yes, big problem I have, big problem I have with feeling inferior. Okay, so no problem, no problem. It's exciting when these kinds of things happen, and I do appreciate people who come in. So the way that I would answer this question of scarcity is that the problem of peace and plenty in the world is not a lack of productivity. If the problem with peace and plenty in the world was a lack of productivity, and I made this post on X a month or two ago, that the GDP of America is like five to ten times the GDP of the entire planet when the Communist Manifesto was being written. I think it was even more than that, but let's just be as conservative as possible. So the Communist Manifesto was being written, and.
[32:33] We have 20 times the wealth now, and we don't have fewer poor people. We have more poor people than we did when the communist manifesto. And not only do we have more poor people, but we have the trajectory of poor people is going, either staying stable or going up. It is not going down, right? So in the post-war period in America, poverty was being reduced by one percentage point every year, especially in the black community. And then I guess the wealthy and powerful were frightened of running out of poor people, because if you run out of poor people, there's much less need to have a lot of political control. And so they put the welfare state in. And so if you count the fact that the welfare state has stayed steady or increased in terms of the number of people, both relative and absolute, and yet we have, or sorry, you're not we, America has like a $40 trillion plus debt and $200 trillion worth of unfunded liabilities. There are more poor people now counting the debt. Like if somebody's gone into a huge amount of debt, they're poor, even if they have a bunch of assets, right? If you have a house worth half a million dollars, but you are $20 million in debt, you don't actually have a house, you're still minus $19.5 million.
[33:44] So we have almost infinitely more productivity than we did a couple of hundred years ago. And we have in absolute numbers, more, many more poor people around the world as well. And so excess productivity in a state of society ends up vote buying and fueling and funding the least responsible people in society as a whole. And so the idea that, well, if we just get more stuff, everything will be solved. It's like, well, we have infinitely more stuff and everything isn't solved. In fact, it's worse. Europe might not, well, probably won't be Europe in a hundred years unless something pretty drastic changes.
[34:30] Not even 50. I mean, my God, look at South Africa. There are more racial laws targeting whites in South Africa now than there ever were racial laws targeting blacks under apartheid. Excess and plenty doesn't solve anything. In South Africa, they landed 500 years ago. I mean, many South Africans have been in South Africa longer than Americans have been in America, or Europeans have been in America. So they landed 500 plus years ago in an almost virtually uninhabited area. And then being Dutch farmers and being the Boers and all of that, they created all of this wealth. They created all of this plenty. They created all of this food, the sanitation and so on. And then the Blacks started coming from elsewhere to come to where all the stuff was.
[35:21] And now it's falling apart.
[35:26] So having more stuff when you don't have a lock on the door, right? Having more stuff. If you said, well, I'm going to go into a million dollars worth of debt. I'm going to buy a whole bunch of really cool things. I'm going to buy, you know, top end Apple computers and iPads and whatever it is. I'm going to buy all of this stuff. and then what I'm going to do is I'm going to leave it on my front lawn covered over, right? Doors open, it's a greenhouse. Everyone can see it. There's no lock on the door and I'm going to go on vacation for six months. When you came back, how much of your stuff would be there? Well, none. They'd probably even take the greenhouse, right? So if you have more stuff without protection, your stuff just gets taken.
[36:20] And so as you produce more and more in a society, the government takes that, leverages it, borrows against it, uses it as collateral, then goes out and buys votes, and does what governments do always when they have access. When governments have access, they always do one thing and one thing only, which is to remove from idiots the consequences of their own bad choices, thus ensuring we get more and more idiots. I mean, idiots have a chance to not be idiots, And I say this as myself, I was kind of an idiot in my teens and 20s, early 20s for sure. So I say this with all humility, but the only chance that idiots have to not be idiots is to suffer for being idiots.
[37:00] What does the government do? Government comes along. Oh, you made a mistake. Oh, you didn't save for your retirement. Don't worry. Here's all this money. Oh, you didn't take care of your health. Don't worry. Here's some free healthcare. Oh, you didn't save six to 12 months of salary that you're supposed to because you might get fired or get laid off or there could be a recession. Oh, you didn't do that. No problem. Here's all this unemployment insurance. Oh, you didn't keep your marriage. Hey, no problem. Here's all of this. We'll force the guy to pay you massive amounts of money. Oh, did you get knocked up by an idiot? No, no problem. Here's all of the money in the known universe to take care of your babies, right? So that is what governments do whenever they have an access, is they go to idiots, pat them on the head, and they say, oh, that's no problem. We'll just take money from people who aren't idiots and give it to you, who are an idiot. And that way, whatever you tax, you get less of, which is people who aren't idiots. Whatever you subsidize, you get more of, which is people who are idiots.
[38:01] The only thing that stops idiots from being idiots is harsh consequences. I mean, hopefully philosophy, but in the absence of that, harsh consequences. And we know that. We know that. This is true throughout history. I mean, Kevin Samuels would talk about this all the time, that in the black community prior to the 1960s, there was an 80% marriage rate, and very few kids were born out of wedlock. And now it's like only one in four black women get married, 80% or 75% illegitimacy rate because people have been spared the consequences of their own actions. And this happens in every community.
[38:43] Whenever governments get power, whenever you get a huge amount of resources, government can tax more and just use all of your resources. Buy votes from irresponsible people by taxing responsible people. Because if everyone's irresponsible, there's no one to tax, right? Somebody's got to be pulling the cart. And originally you start with 20 people pulling the cart and one person in it. And eventually you end up with 19 people in the cart and one person breaking his back and then giving up. So the idea that the problem within society is scarcity, is female-coded. Well, if I just had more money, I'd be fine. Well, look at all the people who win the lottery. They're not fine, to put it mildly. So the idea that what we have in society is not enough stuff is not true. Now, if you have a free society and then idiots can be taught how to not be idiots, hopefully with philosophy, hopefully with good parenting, hopefully with peaceful parenting. It's not necessarily that you can be smart and be a complete idiot and you can be somebody with a low IQ and be very wise. So it's not anything to do with intelligence foundationally, but the governments will always, always, always buy votes from people who've made bad decisions by removing from them the consequences of their own bad decisions, just thus making sure that they will never learn any better and continuing it in a.
[40:12] Intergenerational cycle, as I think we saw a little bit with this last caller, too, to a small degree. So the idea that this was way back, the Venus Project, what was his name? I can't remember. The guy who ran, Zeitgeist, Zeitgeist guy, that, well, you know, the problem is, you know, we have all of these magic machines that can produce all of this great stuff. And, you know, for me, even if I could snap my fingers and have that be true, I wouldn't. In fact, we could do a lot, we could do with a lot more scarcity. Peter Joseph, thank we could do with a lot more scarcity these days. We could do with a lot more scarcity because the excess is being used to buy votes, to smother the few remaining productive people in the bellies and bowels of the bad decisions of the idiots. Again, I put myself in that category when I was younger, and the only thing that got me out of that category was not running to the government, but rather working to make better decisions after being somewhat brutalized by my own bad decisions. Hey, look at that. You only have to put your hand in the fire once and you're not doing it again.
[41:18] So to shield people from the consequences of their own bad decisions in return for votes and loyalty to the regime is the foundations of modern politics. Now, in the past, of course, governments didn't have much money. So the little money that they did have, they had to use to pay enforcers to kill anyone who resisted. But now, instead of stick, it's all carrot.
[41:41] The carrot of other people's money, which is a much deeper and more dangerous addiction in many ways, even than violence, because violence tends to be self-limiting, but charity enforced by the state just goes on and on until it collapses. So I hope that makes sense. If people have other questions, issues, challenges, problems, please to dial in. And I do appreciate the last caller, and I hope at some point that people will be, you know, being coachable is key. Like being coachable is absolutely key in life. And it's hard, you know, because we all think we're great. We all think we do the right things and so on. But to be coachable, I would say this in particular in the business world, but it's also true in the romantic world and so on. To be coachable is so, so, so important. It's hard though. It's hard. It's hard on the ego. It's hard on the vanity. So, but to be coachable is to improve. There's no way you can get to anywhere close to the top to your sports without having a good coach that you're willing to listen to.
[42:41] So, um, when people try to give you feedback and I was just, I wasn't calling him stupid or bad or wrong. Uh, he was the one who escalated, but yeah, it's, it's a shame. It's a shame because if you have really good ideas, you need to submit yourself to an audience and so on. And if you don't even notice that it's not a conversation, you know, like if it's just the, you know, the wall of words, we've all had those kinds of people, like the wall of words and they're just certain and they don't ask you anything. People stop listening if all you do is talk. All right. On that note, I'm just trying to, I got a new iPhone holder. I'm quite excited. Oh, Carrie, what's on your mind?
[43:20] Good evening.
[43:21] Good evening. How you doing?
[43:23] I'm great.
[43:24] I saw you.
[43:26] You did.
[43:27] I saw you. Not through the Venetian blinds. Don't panic, everyone. Not live, but on X. You posted a picture, right?
[43:35] I did. I got the hoodie. It's really nice.
[43:38] You got the what? Oh, the hoodies. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a lovely, lovely picture. Not just because of the hoodies, but I appreciated that. And it's always nice to put a face to the name. So what's on your mind?
[43:49] I saw a comment you made today about grandparents, and you said, my daughter is happier and more relaxed because she does not see her grandparents. And I'm assuming because that might be dysfunctional?
[44:06] Yes. Well, we're down to one because I'm in my late 50s. Actually, no, as my wife reminds me from time to time, you're in your 60th year. But no, my father died a couple of years ago. My mother, to my knowledge, is still north of the dirt nap. But I have not talked to her in 26 or 27 years.
[44:33] Wow. Well, I just thought at the holidays that there's a lot of people in situations that you were probably in and I was in where you, We don't have the family to go to, you know, the big happy family to go celebrate with. And it can get kind of lonely. And I've always struggled when I was a single mother with, it would just be me and my kids. You know, we'd make the whole Thanksgiving dinner and it'd just be us. And we'd do Christmas, it'd just be us. And it's getting to where, you know, some of my family's coming back around, you know, to be able to visit. But I always felt guilty that I was depriving my kids of having grandparents and cousins and all of that because I chose to stay away. But I think in the long run, it was the right decision. But I just thought maybe you could talk on that a little bit for other people that are struggling with that. You know, is it okay to protect them and keep them alone and they'll grow up better than trying to force an imaginary happy family on them?
[45:38] Right. No, that's a big issue. I mean, in my family when I was growing up, Christmas was a supremely heartbreaking and tragic time. Because of course, Christmas is a time when people are supposed to be happy and people are supposed to be together and so on. And my mother would get really squirrelly around Christmas for a reason. So I'm sure I could sort of puzzle out if I needed to, but I don't have enough data from her sort of early childhood, other than she was born in a war. So that was pretty wretched. So it is, the more the expectation of happiness, the more dysfunction in a family shows up, which is why families tend to get pretty dysfunctional at Thanksgiving and birthdays, and especially around Christmas. Because Christmas is such a lovely and wonderful time. We went out the other day, my wife and my daughter and I, we went out and we chose a tree. We got it cut down. We took it home. We put on, my wife has a truly insane amount of Christmas decorations. And so it's just lovely. We put on the music and we sit and look at the.
[46:44] Really lovely and relaxing, but... At the times when you're supposed to be the happiest is when the real cracks and seams generally tend to show up in dysfunctional families. So I have, well, almost a quarter century of wonderful Christmases with my wife and, you know, almost 17 years of Christmas, lovely Christmases with my daughter. But yeah, the childhood stuff was not great for Christmas. In fact, I began to be quite averse to the idea of Christmas and would try to not be home over Christmas, which then of course just made it even worse. You treat this place like a hotel.
[47:18] I think a hotel would have cleaner towels. But anyway, so with regards to grandparents, there was a study that said that children are like 30% happy and relaxed if they're around grandparents. And of course, a lot of people think this just means, well, just bring grandparents over and you get this magical peace and happiness. And it's like, no, because if you want the grandparents over, then the grandparents are probably happy and functional and productive people who raised happy, functional and productive children. And so their grandchildren will benefit from their presence. If you have grandparents who are junkies or abusers or child molesters or just violent or verbally abusive and so on, I guarantee you there's not 30% happier with kids having those people over. So there's a lot of sort of cause and effect stuff. So the grandparents who are welcome are the grandparents who are good and kind and happy and functional and very nice people. And so those will produce happiness in the children for sure. But it's, um, it's like that plane, you know, that all got shot up and they studied all the parts that got shot up because it made it back. And it's like, no, no, no, be studying, uh, everything else. Right. Because that where it got sharp and shot up and made it back is not where you need to reinforce. You need to reinforce everywhere else. Right. Because the planes that didn't come back were the ones that weren't shot up in that particular place or way. So, I mean, I don't know if it's important to get.
[48:41] Personal, I certainly have no objection to doing it, but a lot of people have heard the stories before, so I will just suffice to say that I do not let my daughter see me in subjugated positions.
[48:55] I do not let my daughter see me in subjugated positions. The people around me, I treat with respect. I expect them to treat me with respect. If they don't treat me with respect, then I don't have them around me, right? So, I mean, just tiny instance would be this last caller who was kind of the wall of words guy. And I understand the insistence and I sympathize with it. And he's on a mission to save the world. And I tried to give him some sort of feedback. I asked him some sort of questions and I asked him a couple of times to stop talking while I was talking. And then, you know, he got pretty rude and aggressive. So I just removed him from the conversation. I don't let people put me down. I don't let people insult me. And given that my mother is quite aggressive, and given that, of course, you have this wired in history with your parents, they have live wires from their throat to your medulla, like to your lizard brain, from their hands, their voice, their face, they have a direct, it's a remote control, right i mean oh well you you can't let people control you it's like they're your parents of course they control you i mean that's the deal you've bonded with them right it would be like me saying well i'm never going to let my parent teach me english it's like well i've already grown i've already grown up i speak english uh because my my mother did so if people are around you who have a lot of power over you and parents will automatically have a lot of power over their.
[50:22] People are around you who have a lot of power over you and they misuse that power to undermine you, to put you down to, uh, or to like this guy was, it was kind of dominant and aggressive to just talk and talk and talk and not ask for feedback and not say just what I'm saying make any sense. Or when I said, I'm concerned that more resources just leads to more idiots. He just went off on another tie ride. And when I said, well, I think you just, it's a wall of woods. He just went off in another wall of woods. That's a dominance thing. It's like, well, I get to speak and you don't get to respond. You know, like if you've ever been in a work situation where the boss has these long stories, if you're telling a long story to co-workers, they're like, go, guy, come on, get to the point, get to the point. We don't have all day, right? But if the boss is telling a long story, everyone's like hanging on every word and, oh, yes, oh, sir, you know, or if you've ever been in that situation, I've been in it once or twice where you have a boss who just keeps telling the same jokes. Now, if you're telling a coworker the same joke, say it's a longie, look at that escargot, like a long joke, then your coworker would be like, bro, you already told me this joke last week. Come on, stay with the program, right? You already told me this joke. But if the boss is telling a long story or the same joke, again, a lot of people won't say anything, right? So to not interrupt people and to get to expound is a mark of power.
[51:42] It is a mark of superiority, Which is why when I questioned him, he then accused me of being insecure, which of course was pure projection, right? So, uh, so I don't let people who have power over me and parents will always have power over you. If they misuse that power, uh, I won't have them. I don't want my daughter seeing me being put down by an elderly, elderly woman. Sorry, go ahead.
[52:05] No, I agree completely. That's like I used to try to answer the phone whenever my mom would call when my kids were little just to be nice. You know, she's my mom. I have to show respect. But then she would say things to me with my kids listening, you know, and I was like, they don't need to see me thinking it's okay.
[52:24] Edward, I have your conscience. What would she say?
[52:28] One time I left her on speaker with the children and I was listening and I was letting her talk to them. and I was getting, this is years and years ago, and I was getting my landscaping design company going. And she said to my children, well, I know your mom loves flowers and everything, but she's just never going to make any real money doing that.
[52:47] Oh, my gosh. So the kids are like, oh, great. So that Dickens novel we read, we're just about to start living it in about eight minutes because mom's not going to make any money and we're going to get thrown out of her house. We're going to have to live with the car.
[53:00] I know, I know. But, you know, now they just don't answer the phone if she calls, and I don't make them. They are not obligated to answer her if she calls.
[53:10] Wow. And what other issues did you have with your mom after you became a mom?
[53:17] Um... Well, she just hasn't really been around. I told you one time, you know, I had not healed yet, and I had offered her to come live with us, you know, thinking she could help out. And I let her babysit one night. Do you want to hear the worst story ever?
[53:39] Oh, I'm on the edge of my seat. Please, put my crash helmet on. I'm assuming the position. Go.
[53:46] Oh, God. so I let her babysit because I had a date and I didn't date much but I had a date so I you know she came into town and I left her there with him, and she had I noticed she had started drinking you know after my brother died but she said oh I just have this little bottle that's all I brought with me don't have to worry about me and I was like well you know I really don't want you doing that at all she's like even if I have a sip of it it'll be after the kids go to bed right, So she calls me a few hours in on my cell phone. And she says, oh, that rum you had was just awful. What is wrong with that rum? And I said, mom, I don't have alcohol in the house. You know, she's like, oh, yes, you did. I tried to mix it with Coke. I tried to mix it with water. I mixed it with everything. And it was just terrible. And I'm thinking, where in the world is she talking about getting alcohol? And come to find out, I had taken a five gallon jug of paint when I'd repainted my house, and I'd put a little bit of the paint in an old rum bottle so that I could just do touch up with the kids. She is a very pastel pirate she found it and tried to drink it thinking it was rum and this is this is the last time i ever let her watch the children but oh.
[55:07] My gosh like yo ho ho and a pastel pink bottle of rum.
[55:12] And so right and i'm like she's then she i say mom that was paint so now i have to get home right and um she's like oh no is it gonna kill me is it bad for me Is it bad for me? I said it's a lot less toxic than that vodka that you drink on a normal basis. But yeah, that was my one and only time I let her watch the children.
[55:39] Gosh, I'm sorry. And I get the giggle. I get the giggle. But I mean, that's pretty tragic, right?
[55:43] It's pretty bad.
[55:44] Yeah. Yeah, I had a friend once whose mother was very dysfunctional. And I used to say, don't leave it with your kids. Don't leave it with your kids. And then she... He did end up having his mother come over. His mother was on the phone with some guy she wanted to date, left the front door open, and the dog wandered out onto the road and got creamed by a car and died. And the kids heard it, ran out. It's just appalling. And I'm like, you know, I hate, I hate, you know, there's some people, I told you so. I hate that. I hate telling people I told you so because I just would much rather be listening in the first place. And he was really upset. And I said, well, you know, it's terrible, but it could have been one of your kids. So this may not have been the worst conceivable outcome. And then, of course, he's got to explain to his kids, because whoever, you know this, right, whoever you allow around your kids, it's your responsibility. Whoever you put in charge of your kids, it's your responsibility. They have absolutely every right to hold you 100% to task for the people you give power over you and the people you give power over them. And if I want my daughter to have some respect for me, then I cannot allow her to see me being treated with disrespect. Like, I mean, I don't know, like I can't think of a sort of particular exception, you know, not that it's happened, but if a cop pulled me over, I'd be like, you know, compliant and all of that. But that's sort of a different situation. But in terms of personal life.
[57:11] A few times people just in public have treated me with disrespect and I'm just like, That's not happening. That's not happening. We will just get up, we will walk out, I will confront the person. I just really think it's important. If you want your kids to respect you, then you have to treat yourself with self-respect, which means you can't have people around you who don't treat you well, because you're also training them to say, oh, well, you know, if it's family, they can treat you like crap, and yeah, they're always welcome. And that is just rewarding idiots, sort of, to continue the theme from the last conversation.
[57:44] Right, and for me to have allowed that, you know, I can laugh about it now, but it was pretty disturbing that I left her in charge one time and I couldn't trust her, you know? And I couldn't leave my kids with her again ever because what would they think later? You left us with a lady that you knew was crazy.
[58:04] I mean, crazy is a nice way of putting it. Is she institutionalized? Is she crazy, crazy?
[58:10] Well, she has dementia now.
[58:12] No, no, but back then.
[58:12] Um It's hard to tell. I try to look back, like, when I was four, five, and the house was clean, and she cooked, and she baked, and it seemed like normal, but I don't know if it's just my clouded being a child didn't see the rest of it, and then as you grow up, you know, the house gets dirtier, things get crazier. She probably should have been institutionalized. At one point, I, you know, I like to say, well, it was after my brother died that she lost her mind completely, but she was always kind of crazy like she came home one time and dinner was she she took everything all the leftovers out of the refrigerator and put them in a big pot chicken bones and all and that was stew and that was supposed to be our dinner like you should know not to feed children chicken bones you know so you're like at some point she slipped away even before i think i i want to admit you know like.
[59:10] Well and the institutional stuff doesn't necessarily i mean my mother was institutionalized and she was never the same after. I don't know what kind of crazy SSRIs they pumped through her eyeballs or whatever, but unless they keep them in the institution, which they don't really do these days anymore, at least in most places, because communism. But it is not a panacea to have crazy people go into an institution. They tend to get drugged through the gills and then turf back out on the streets with half-functioning leftovers in their noggin.
[59:42] Right. Yeah, I don't know if they would have been able to do her any good.
[59:47] And and there's people who i i associate this a little bit more with women which could be completely unfair but they are burning up their stores of sanity pretty early like you say i mean when i was a little kid my mom had a job she we never had a car but she she had a job she was pretty pretty functional and so on as she was an executive secretary so you know that's that's not unskilled labor at all. And she was a very good typist and very organized. But the level of stress, the level of tension was so high that you could almost see like the fuse, you know, the gunpowder fuse in the old Western, hitting the barrel, that she was just.
[1:00:31] Borrowing from the future to pay a bottomless debt in the present of stability. And you can only do that for so long. And then you just run out. You just run out of things you can borrow from the future. In terms of like just muscling through and willpower and not dealing with sort of core issues or core problems, just kind of gritting your teeth and I'm not going to go nuts. And then, you know, I mean, I wouldn't say who, but somebody in my family had a theory that my mother was basically just like, I'm going to get my kids to their teen years and then I'm just going to fall apart because that's kind of what happened. She, by the time I was 11, 12, 11 and a half or 12, she just fell apart. So it was kind of like, you know, the people who are drowning out, see, they're just like, all I've got to do is I've got to get to the beach and then I'll just pass out. And then I'm not going to drown. And I think it was just like, I'm going to work every muscle and every fiber to get my kids to their teen years. And then they can get jobs. They can fend for themselves, which is kind of what we did. And yeah, She didn't have any reserves left. My father was used to refer to it as resources. She just ran out of resources.
[1:01:37] And you know, this is a single mother. I'm not putting you, of course, in the same category as my mother at all. But you're pretty overstretched as a single mother. And you're pretty overwhelmed as a single mother. And having all of that responsibility for income, for child raising,
[1:01:53] for paying taxes, for getting groceries, for doing the cooking and cleaning, it's endless. And it's exhausting and the days are just you know copy paste of like barely hanging on by your nails sometimes.
[1:02:05] Yeah there was times i people i'm not single now but you know people would say how did you do it because i was pretty obsessive about my kids would not wear anything with a stain in it my kids were not going to wear clothes with holes in them my kids you know because i didn't have clothes and shoes and things as a kid and so i was like trying to be super super mom as a single mom in work and make sure they didn't lack anything. And I look back at it and I was in like a robot survival mode. I have no idea how I did it. I just got up every day and did what was in front of me, you know?
[1:02:43] Yeah, and it is like getting fired out of a cannon, hitting your bedroom wall at night and just sliding into the bed for five hours of sleep and then doing it the next day. And, you know, kudos to you. Just remind me, what is it that What happened to the father of your kids? I'm sure it's a very brief story, so go for it.
[1:03:03] He's been out of the picture since they were very young. He's on his third family.
[1:03:12] Rose, the photocopier. So how tall and handsome was he?
[1:03:16] He wasn't very tall. He was handsome, though.
[1:03:19] Okay, how handsome. Was he your type?
[1:03:25] He doesn't look anything like... My husband now is taller and full head of hair and really good looking man.
[1:03:31] Oh, so the guy was balding. Well, as a woman, you're just doomed. Like, there's nothing better. There's nothing better. It's peak male performance. What can I tell you? You're doomed.
[1:03:43] He was a decent looking guy. But he never had trouble getting girls. But he... Yeah, he had two kids before... at me, and then it was all the mother's fault, the mother's fault, and everything. And then he did it to me, and then he's immediately on to another family, and she had five children. So he's been basically raising five children that aren't his and completely not doing a single thing for his actual biological children. And I mean nothing. I just gave up on thinking about child support. If I ever did get it, it was just a special occasion.
[1:04:21] Was he a very confident guy?
[1:04:25] Um, yeah.
[1:04:27] Yeah. That's really tricky for young women. It's like, wow, he's really confident. It's like, no, he just doesn't have a conscience.
[1:04:33] Yeah, he could tell stories. It's easy to mistake the two. He could tell stories. I was just last night for some reason, well, his, one of his stepchildren died and we, I took my children to the funeral.
[1:04:42] You know. Well, what happened? I feel like we're fast forwarding through a whole Italian soap opera, but go on.
[1:04:48] Yeah. Well, one of his stepchildren was really sad. He was, he was a good kid, but he was 23, just had a baby. and about a year or so ago, I don't know if he was drinking or what happened, but he ended up in a swimming pool in his car and was a quadriplegic.
[1:05:02] I'm sorry, he ended up in a swimming pool in his car.
[1:05:07] Yes.
[1:05:08] So he drove into a swimming pool and he couldn't get out of the car?
[1:05:12] Right.
[1:05:13] Or was he injured in driving into the, he drove at high speed? He didn't just like rock into it, he just like whammed into it like an asteroid?
[1:05:21] Somehow he crashed and ended up in someone's swimming pool in his car and he ended up a quadriplegic. That's the only thing I know about it. And I guess they took, yeah, he was in rehab and then they got him home and he ended up passing away. And so one of his aunts told me about it. So I thought it would be the right thing to do since they're technically my kids step, brother. You know, I took him to the funeral. But it got me thinking.
[1:05:48] But why?
[1:05:50] They wanted to go. They had met him and they liked the kid. They liked the boy that died. They thought he was a nice kid and they wanted to go. So I sat in the back and took him. But it got me thinking about so many stories. There had to be drugs and alcohol involved.
[1:06:05] You can't just end up in a swimming pool.
[1:06:07] Right. Yeah. No one said exactly. I tried to look up if there was any articles on it, but, But I don't know exactly, but it had to have been.
[1:06:18] It had to have been after all. Yeah, that kind of happened by accident.
[1:06:21] But it got me thinking, though, because he's such a good storyteller. And there are still things to this day, like I was thinking about last night, because it got fresh to my mind because of the funeral. I don't think about him on a normal basis. But I was like, I wonder if that story's true even. There's just so many things that he said with so much confidence and so many details that he could sell ice to an Eskimo.
[1:06:43] Well, you know what excessive confidence, superficial charm, and great storytelling adds up to, right?
[1:06:51] A jerk.
[1:06:54] Sociopath.
[1:06:55] Yes, yeah, close enough.
[1:06:57] Especially if none of the high confidence and charm and so on actually adds up to anything.
[1:07:04] Yeah. Yeah, he can always get a job, he just can't keep a job.
[1:07:08] Sure, sure. Yeah, because people get close to the hollowness of the personality and they start to see through the manipulation and then they don't like him.
[1:07:15] Yes. Yeah. Very, you know, he could do anything. He's talented. He could have done a lot, but he's unemployed as far as I know at this point. And by not having brains and being healthy enough to do something, he just, I think he kind of, like, he's just kind of worn out as welcome of anyone that would hire him because he can't stay at a job. Yeah.
[1:07:37] Yeah, I know that's also quite common for that type of personality. Ah, so rough. And how old, oh, sorry, don't ask that question. What did your mother think of him before you married him, or before you got together with him, or had kids with him?
[1:07:52] Um, she probably never even met him.
[1:07:55] Oh, okay. So you were more separate back then. How long did you, were you together with him before you had a kid, or kids?
[1:08:01] Um, not very long. I'd rather not go into that too much.
[1:08:05] No, that's totally fine. That's totally fine. You just said, whack me back if the nose goes under the tent too far.
[1:08:10] I wasn't the smartest person on the planet, but, you know, but no, I've been not talking to my mother, you know, not like I, I cut her off. I'm not talking to her like completely in my mind. I just, I just had kind of separated. I lived in Texas a long time for my jobs and I kind of separated from my family and I'd come up sometimes and try to be a part of it. And finally, after having children and seeing that what my mom did when I let her babysit, I just realized it was probably best this that they didn't have the grandparents and the cousins and all that around if it wasn't going to be a positive experience for them it'd be better just to protect them and be just us you know but I know they they look at their friends that have cousins and they do all the big families and they would sometimes say I wish we had that why can't we go do that and I'd be like well it's just better that we do it by ourselves and I think in the long run it was the right choice, to do it that way. But I do wish that I could have provided a little more, you know, family around for them.
[1:09:13] No, no, hang on, sorry. While I appreciate women's endless self-flagellation about things beyond their control, you can't make your parents good. You can't make them better. And so to me, I mean, I think I remember telling my daughter something like this. It's like, well, why don't we see your mother? And I'm like, well, if my mother had a, a really bad cold and was like, I don't know, bleeding from the nose and the ears, would it be good to have her come over? No. Why? She could be contagious. Right.
[1:09:42] Right.
[1:09:42] Right. Right. So there's even worse than that because that at least is obvious and you can see it as a medical reason. Right. If people are just really messed up in the head, then having them over, there's no actual relationship. And I don't want to have to try to explain the visceral experience of my mother to my daughter. My wife never met her either. Thank heavens if she had. I might be doing a woesom, loesom, loesom, loesom, loesom existence.
[1:10:13] Yeah, I just thought it was really neat that you made that comment because I've been wanting to ask you about that for a while, you know, So just for other people's sake as well, you know, and also to make me feel a little better that I did. I did do the right thing by just, you know, keeping my distance from that and not feeling like just because it was the holidays, I needed to go be around family. That wasn't really family.
[1:10:36] Oh, no, no, that doesn't. Well, and it sounds like you have an infinitely more functional and good man now than you had in the past, right?
[1:10:45] Oh, absolutely. Yes.
[1:10:47] Right. so the reason you have him is because your mom's not around because if this guy came around and met your mom it'd be like oh i get another 30 years with this woman right thanks but no thanks right you know it's the old a chain is only as strong as its weakest link and you can only like you can't have a higher quality relationship in general than your lowest quality relationship because that's how you're judged, as a whole, right? I mean, if you have a bake sale, like you're at some farmer's market and you got 10 items, right? And they're all the same, right? You got 10 muffins, right? And all of them are $3 except for one that's $1. What are people going to say?
[1:11:29] What's wrong with the one that's $1?
[1:11:32] Well, maybe. Let's say they're all, and you say, nope, they're all the same. What would they say?
[1:11:39] So they all should be $1.
[1:11:41] Right. so you can't charge more than your cheapest product and you can't have a better relationship than your worst relationship right.
[1:11:49] Yeah yeah if he had come and met me with my mother around he would have definitely questioned why i would have someone like that around my kids i would have questioned that.
[1:12:01] Yeah for sure well and and intelligent people don't judge you as an individual they judge you as a system right you with your friends you with your family you with your colleagues. You were like, because you don't just marry a person or you don't just date a person. You date a whole system. You date a whole extended clan and all of that. And, you have to have good people around you if you want to invite good people into your life. I mean, would you be able to get an investor if you said, well, you know, the business is running pretty well, but I have three accountants and two of them are robbing me blind. Would you be able to get an intelligent investor to invest in your company?
[1:12:45] No.
[1:12:45] No, because he's like, I don't want to give money to your thieving accountants. And the fact that you want me to invest in your company when you have thieving accountants says that your judgment is too bad for the business to even survive, let alone for me to invest. So if you say, come join my life, your life should be full of decent, good people. Because if you have even one just messed up, especially the closer they are, one messed up and dysfunctional person and be like, where are your standards?
[1:13:13] Where is your susceptibility? And what happens is, you know, it's the old question about single mothers or single fathers, single mothers more common. It's like, okay, so if you have some really twitchy, aggressive, dysfunctional, messed up ex who drinks a lot and comes over and, you know, pounds on the door at three in the morning, does a guy want to come and be a part of that? No. Like, I don't, you know, I'm sorry about these issues with your ex, but I'm not getting involved in that because he's going to get testy with me. He's going to view me as, who are you taking care of my kids and who are you sleeping with my ex? And it's like, who wants that kind of drama? And it's the same thing with family. Your new guy, if your mom was in there and he came along and you were like, yeah, my mom's in the early stages of Alzheimer's. She's really difficult to handle, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Because, you know, if he's a good quality guy, he's got five to ten girls he can date and he's going to sort them to some degree. I mean, certainly by attractiveness, by femininity, by cooperation, but also just by drama. You know, I don't know your mom. Why do I want to spend the next five to ten years being half responsible for wiping her butt when she was mean to you as a kid anyway? Like, it's just not something that people want to do with their scarce time.
[1:14:28] Right, yeah, and, you know, I don't have the fights with the ex because he's busy. He's busy with his new family, his third family. So I don't really have to deal with him. And sometimes it's like, oh, that's sad because... You know, the kids didn't have that, but it's better even that they don't have the half, the halfway there dad either. But, um, you know, I don't have the, that drama of fighting over who gets the kids for what holiday and whatever. I always have them.
[1:14:55] The tough thing, uh, and don't tell me how old your kids are, but of course the tough thing is to communicate to your kids the mistakes that you made that ended up without them having a dad in their life. Uh, because obviously Obviously, the last thing you want to do is have them reproduce. It's bad enough making bad decisions on your own. If you see your kids making those same bad decisions, that's got to be hell on earth.
[1:15:16] Yeah, I have told both of them. I've apologized multiple times throughout their life and just say, I'm really sad that you didn't have that experience because I chose badly. I didn't always do things right, and I want you guys to do better.
[1:15:32] And part of why you chose badly was because you had a bad childhood and you were untutored. And when we don't have any values, we just go off instinct, we go off hormones, we go off need, we, it's sort of, it's kind of hedonistic. And then, you know, we pay the usual price for hedonism, which is a short-term gain, long-term pain. But I'm certainly, you know, good for you for turning it around and good for you for getting them away from a guy who would have almost certainly imprinted upon them in very negative ways and had them most likely reproduce his mistakes.
[1:16:05] Yeah, yeah. I'm, you know, I feel like they've turned out really well. They're 14 and 16 now and, um, They're doing really well. They're thriving. And I think they're on a good path.
[1:16:21] Good step.
[1:16:22] But I never had the multiple stepdads. See, I was really careful in that way when I was single. I never wanted to get married and have a stepdad in their life that then they would have to, you know, then he's gone. And then they got a new daddy and all that, you know. So when I finally did get remarried, you know, they were older and older. I knew that it was a good person that was going to stick around and be there for them and want to be there for them. You know, I didn't want that. You get remarried and then they have a stepdad for four years and then he's gone and they got another stepdad. So he was a really good quality man that convinced me to try again.
[1:17:06] Oh, that is great. That is great. All right, seriously, I've got another caller. If there's anything else that you wanted to mention, I'm happy to hear.
[1:17:11] No, thank you so much.
[1:17:12] My pleasure, my pleasure. and I'm very sorry for all of that, but it sounds like you made the right decisions with regards to your kids. And, you know, we simply, we have to be logically, all we can do is control our own actions. We cannot be responsible for the behavior of other people, particularly if those people were around for 20 or 30 years before we even came along. So don't feel bad about not having grandparents. If the grandparents are toxic, you can't control your parents. You can't control anyone, but especially you can't, that's trying to get the tail to wag the dog. So you cannot control parents in that way. And you just have to take them as they are, uh, and not try to wish them into something other than who they are, because maybe that might happen, but it's never coming from the kid's side. All right, JJ, what is on your mind?
[1:17:58] Mr. Stefan, what is up my brother? I got somewhat of a quick question. It could be a little bit longer if necessary. Um, so I was just coming out of somewhat of a toxic relationship.
[1:18:10] Sorry, can you speak up a little bit? I'm having a little trouble hearing you.
[1:18:13] How was that? Is that better?
[1:18:14] Much better. Thank you.
[1:18:16] Okay. So, yeah. My question is, I'm trying to find that show where you went over some of the questions you would ask somebody when you're looking to kind of sort them out for marriage. Reason being, I just came out of a relationship. And so I met someone else today when I was in nature doing my usual thing and just having like a natural organic flow. We kind of, you know, clicked off, hit it off on like a conversation. And before i you know hit this girl up again for like date one uh we go out and do our thing i was trying to figure out if you knew or remember the name of that show you did about the questions you ask someone i.
[1:18:57] Would like like vetting questions for red flags and stuff.
[1:18:59] Yeah uh.
[1:19:01] So we'll talk a second uh maybe james will remember somebody in the audience will remember fdrpodcast.com you could do a search for red flags or questions or something like that but maybe somebody will kick it up so tell me a little bit about the relationship that came and went, the dysfunctional one you said.
[1:19:18] Yeah i don't want to get too off and on into it but kind of like the the story kind of the long short was um, I mean, the girl was emotionally unstable. So there was like the boom bust of the block. She'd block me, I'd block her. Then we'd break up, make up, all of that stuff. And so I just, I was done with it.
[1:19:40] How long did the relationship last?
[1:19:43] Three years, about three years.
[1:19:45] Three years, okay. Let me ask you this. This one is from August this year, 6060. Learn Dating Red Flads, Twitter X space. So August, just do a search for 6060 at fdrpodcast.com. The link is in the chat here. Okay. When in the dating process after you met her, when did you first begin to suspect that the lady might be a tad wobbly?
[1:20:17] So I knew she came from a tough, kind of a tougher background, but she seemed very well, I guess, mentally kind of to handle it. But I'd say nine months, somewhere off in there.
[1:20:29] No, no, no, no, no, no. There's no way someone can hide crazy for nine months. Let's back it up. Okay, so when did you find out about her bad childhood?
[1:20:41] Oh, we kind of got to that. Um... Maybe what two three weeks then sorry.
[1:20:47] You keep fading it now it's uh i don't want.
[1:20:49] To turn the volume up two three weeks in give or take so.
[1:20:53] A couple of weeks in and without obviously she's not here we don't want to get into too many details but what were the general categories of issues that she had was it sexual abuse physical abuse neglect verbal abuse something else.
[1:21:09] It was a neglect definitely neglect um just kind of being left at home as a kid by herself kind of having to stay behind in class for like safety and not kind of like the the drama that girls go through when girls kind of bully each other um they want to like beat you up and do all these crazy things to you um but so that's so that's not like the the main concern i have because I kind of want to...
[1:21:37] No, no, but you can't be dating someone for eight or nine months and then only then find out that they're unstable. Is that your question?
[1:21:45] No, no, because my main thing is just like the vetting questions for this new young lady that I had met earlier.
[1:21:52] Okay, I'm sorry. What decade of life are you in?
[1:21:55] Third.
[1:21:56] Okay, so you're in your 30s, right? Yeah. Okay.
[1:21:59] I've called in before. I called in... This was... I think the show was titled The Truth About Love and I spoke about why I wasn't already married and whatnot.
[1:22:06] Yeah. I certainly recognize the voice and I appreciate that you're calling back. Okay. So got to think back to the earlier girl. Okay. Let me ask you some of the basic vetting questions. So what did she do for a living?
[1:22:23] This is the earlier girl or the new girl?
[1:22:24] The earlier girl.
[1:22:26] HR.
[1:22:27] Okay. So that's a red flag right there. She's got a made up daycare job. Okay. So she's, and I say this having worked in HR. So she's in HR. Was she also in her thirties?
[1:22:39] I mean, I'd rather kind of not get off into her so much if you don't mind.
[1:22:44] Oh, it's your call, man. Whatever you want to do. But I'm just trying to say, I guarantee you, I guarantee you there was stuff before eight or nine months. She wasn't like perfectly sane, healthy, and happy. And then holding it together. And then eight or nine months, she just went nuts out of nowhere. So you don't have to answer the questions here, but in general, go back and look really critically at the woman that you dated and...
[1:23:10] If she's in her 30s, the question is, okay, well, why are you single? What's the longest relationship you've ever had? Why did that relationship end? Because it's one thing if you're 17, who cares, right? But if you're in your 30s, you've got a track record, at least most people do, and you've got to be able to answer those questions. Now, the red flag in particular is if, this is back to the last woman who called in who was saying that her ex-husband or the father of her children had a family before, but it was all the woman's fault, right? So what I looked for or what I looked for in dating in my late 20s and early 30s was ask about relationships, ask why they ended. Now, if the person is like, oh, he just, and this is because you're a red flag right now. This is sort of what I want to say. If the woman's calling in and I know you don't want to talk publicly about this stuff, which is fine, but you're a red flag right now because if you think that there were no signs of instability prior to eight or nine months then you're a red flag so if the woman says um we broke up because he just he just decided to cheat on me and there was no signs and no warnings and blah blah blah i remember i stopped dating a woman once we went on two dates and on the second date i asked her these questions.
[1:24:31] And she said, oh, yeah, until like six months ago, I was living with a guy. And I said, oh, okay, not necessarily the end of the world, not super wise, but you know, whatever, right? And I said, oh, well, what happened? And she said, oh, it was the strangest thing. I thought everything was going great. I thought everything was going great. We'd been together for like two or three years. We'd been living together for six months. So I come home one day for my job in HR. I come home one day, and his stuff is just gone.
[1:25:06] Yo, I'm dead. I love how you set the HR job.
[1:25:09] His stuff is just gone. He blocked me on the phone. He blocked me on the email. I had a hell of a time trying to get in touch with him. And I said, oh my gosh, he just like ghosted you for real during the day you're at work, you know, stopping white guys from getting hired. And then next thing you know, you come home and he's just gone. And she's like, yeah, it was the strangest thing. I thought everything was going great. I'm like, peace. I'm out. I'm out. I'm out. Uh, because if somebody just doesn't, is not at all connected with their partner and doesn't have any idea that anything's wrong, has been with someone for a couple of years. And this person has the ability to just move out from them during the day, block them on anything. Now, if she'd said, oh yeah, I had this terrible experience. This guy moved out, blocked me on anything. I went to therapy. I figured out what the problem was. You know, I've really taken responsibility past mistakes and not a red flag because we all make mistakes.
[1:26:06] What is a red flag is if people haven't learned from them, which is, you know, and again, I don't want to hound you about your past relationship if you don't want to talk about it, but you got to have good, in your thirties, you got to have good answers. Like, because you're, you're doing a job interview in your thirties. It's practical. It's that this is no, nobody dates for fun in their thirties. It's like, you got to settle down. You got to get your kids. You got to get your marriage. We do not have time to F around countdown. You know, you get that strap in because, you know, Elon's space shuttle is launching itself to Mars. you better get your seat belt on right now.
[1:26:38] So you got to have answers as to why things haven't gone right. If you're trying to get a job in your 30s and you've been fired from a whole bunch of jobs or quit a whole bunch of jobs, right? Oh, what happened with your last job? Oh, I was there for about a year. And then I go in for work one day and I thought everything was fine. I go into work one day in HR and they've locked my office and they've deactivated my card and they escort me back to my car and tell me they never want to see me again. Now, would you hire someone like that? No, of course not. Because they don't even know what they did wrong. They have no idea that there were any problems in their job, which means they're just completely disconnected.
[1:27:21] Whereas if they said, oh yeah, I really messed up. I sent the file to the wrong person. I exposed the RFP to our competitors. And I was like, I can never have this happen again. I went to therapy. I took courses on focus and concentration. I deleted TikTok from my whatever, right?
[1:27:39] Have people learned. And by your 30s, if you haven't learned a lot from your mistakes, you're just going to keep making them. And it's probably terminal. Does that make sense? So just ask people, why? Why did you get fired? Why have you never had a company commit to you? Why have you not been wifed up? Why have you not been husbanded up? And people have got to have good answers. Sorry, go ahead.
[1:28:02] No, I was going to say that I didn't want to divulge all that information kind of on a public.
[1:28:05] Sure, sure. I never got no problem with that.
[1:28:07] We can chat about that offline. But yeah, so with the new situation, I think, I mean, there's solid potential there. So we kind of talked about, I mean, being forthcoming, just like life, upbringing, therapy, things of that sort. So I want to explore. She wants to explore, obviously. Also, we've already kind of exchanged numbers, a couple of texts and whatnot. So before I get into the kind of the weeds or whatnot, sitting with her, I was looking for some advice, right? So asking, because there was a show and I mean, you've already told me the 6060. So I'll go listen to that. And I guess I'll stop right there because that's question answered.
[1:28:52] Okay. I appreciate that. And you can do a search for red flags, FDR podcast.com. You can just do a search for Ed Flanks, but you got to have answers as to why you've not been partnered up. I had my answers and so on, but yet you got to have those answers. All right. Mikhail, Mikhail. I think I'm pronouncing that correct. Correctly. Mikhaila.
[1:29:17] Michael michael michael there we go are you with us.
[1:29:22] Yes uh i am here um so uh i've appreciate your uh your show um i have seen uh you know throughout the years i've popped in and heard some of your commentary. And then I saw you on spaces, which is, is good to see. Heard you talking about birth rates and forgive me if, you know, whatever I'm going to bring up, feel free to just, you know, boot me immediately if you, if you so choose. But my question is about birth rates when it comes to, I mean, there's birth, I would like to know why you think there's an overall birth rate problem, but most especially within the white community. And you do have a big platform. And I'm wondering if you are and how concerned you are with what is going on within white birth rates and also within white countries.
[1:30:30] Well, it's even worse in the East Asian countries, right? I mean, South Korea, I think there were 622,000.
[1:30:37] Children born in Japan last year out of a population of 120 million. So it's not just white countries, tends to be the higher IQ countries as a whole. It's not just white countries. In fact, as I said, it's even worse in South Korea. It's even worse. China has been unable to reverse the one-child policy. And I saw this video on X. It was kind of chilling. It was like high school, a bunch of kids, junior high school, very few kids, kindergarten for the same, like just panning the camera, almost no kids, right? And so it is happening a lot. It certainly is happening to white countries as well, to white populations in white countries. And not so much happening in Jewish countries. The Jewish women that I've known who were hesitant about having kids, you know, they get a lot of social pressure, like you're continuing the work of Hitler if you don't have kids and a lot of pressure to have kids. People are just being seduced away from it. I've posted this on X, like it's been deeply, I always wanted to be a dad. I worked in daycare, love kids, have a great time with kids. And I remember just being completely shocked and appalled, stunned really, genuinely stunned at how easy it is to convince women to just not have kids. Like all you need to do is show some well-coiffed woman who's a lawyer and she's got a beautiful apartment. It's perfectly clean. And she sits there in her beautiful pipe stem dress and, and she's sipping a big glass of wine. And suddenly it's like, yeah, kids who needs it?
[1:32:04] And I thought maternal instinct and, and women want to have kids and the baby rabies. And it's like, it's not a real thing. Women can be talked out of having kids. Like.
[1:32:15] Unbelievably easily as a whole. And I'm not saying it's like, you know, it's a big propaganda effort and so on, but people put out the propaganda effort because it works. So, uh, you, you turn women against men and you, uh, do you, you make the state their provider so that they bond with the state and they don't have to bond with a man. And then, uh, you have endless shows with kids screaming and running around. And, uh, you know, that sort of Steve Martin in the movie Parenthood stepping over kids like uh who are just running around and screaming all the time and so you just you know the chaos and the noise and then you see this woman you know listening to classical music and staring deeply into a sunset again while sipping the inevitable glass of wine in a perfectly clean and tidy and quiet apartment and women kind of yearn for that i suppose or that's what they seem to want to do so the natural enemy of communism is white males, And when you want to spread communism, you have to de-platform white males. You have to make sure white males don't get jobs. You have to make sure that white males don't get economic and educational opportunities.
[1:33:20] And you have to feed them a whole bunch of video games and pornography and so on. And you just have to kind of castrate them. You used to have to actually blow them up in war, but you don't need to do that anymore.
[1:33:32] But white male Christians in particular, and of course, white male, there's no birth collapse. Among Christians. There's no birth rate collapse among American Christians in particular. They have a pretty high birth rate. It's the atheists, the agnostics, the socialists, the leftists, and so on. And the other thing you do, and this is a long and patient process. I mean, I had a family member when I was younger who had kids fairly early on in his 20s. And I just didn't look like that much fun because he worked, his wife worked, and they had nannies, and there was a lot of chaos and the kids bonded with the nannies and cried. And then they cried when the nannies changed. And then there was a lot of business travel. And then his wife stayed home for a while. And I was just like, oh, it just didn't look much fun at all. It just really didn't look. If you don't have a stay-at-home parent of usually the mother, because they're the feeders, right? When the kids are babies, you don't have a stay-at-home parent. Parenthood is not really that much fun. And so what you do is you make easy divorce laws. And then what happens is Kids grow up seeing their father...
[1:34:37] Almost chemically, or at least legally castrated by these family court systems. And they say, well, I don't want anything to do with that. And then if your parents have been, you know, dating for a couple of years, they've been together for 10 years, and then they get divorced, you make your kids completely paranoid about falling in love because they say, my God, you've been given 10, 15 years and you can still break up and it can still be savage. And especially if the lawyers, the legal system thrives on conflict and opposition. And so they see parents who loved each other enough to get married and have kids. And then they see the pictures of the parents on the wedding day, smiling and dewy-eyed with happiness and spent, you know, the more expensive the wedding, the more likely the divorce kind of thing. And the more, the prenup, the less likely to divorce. But they see all of this and they just, they just say, God, I don't want this. I didn't want my mother's life. My mother, as a mother and a family, the family that I was in growing up, I didn't want that. I didn't look around and see families. Well, no, there was one family where the woman stayed home and the dad worked and that was a family that I liked and was very peaceful, calm and fun and they had a pool so it was a great family and they had a cottage so it's really great to get to know that family but unfortunately the father died many well it was three decades ago because he was misdiagnosed by the Canadian healthcare system.
[1:35:56] So I think that, You just make women jumpy and paranoid and, you know, easy birth control, easy abortions, easy welfare state, easy child support, easy alimony,
[1:36:07] easy health care, easy old age payments, old age pensions and so on. And then it turns out women really don't like that much being parents. Women don't really like that much being wives. And they are seduced by a lot of easy dopamine for male attention when they're young. And then they just get kind of. Yeah, go ahead.
[1:36:26] Sorry to interrupt you. They don't do, you know, they just don't like, but two things we, we do, I don't know what percentage, but this kind of buyer's remorse that, I mean, I know what happened to me as a man, but you have this phenomenon where bio, you know, the biological clock kicks in when they start cresting over, you know, 35, 36, 38, 40. Where they all of a sudden, you know, their programming gets, they get deprogrammed, and then all of a sudden they start wanting to have kids.
[1:37:07] Oh, you mean the sort of biology deprograms them?
[1:37:10] Yeah.
[1:37:10] Yeah. Well, yeah, but then also people think that the marriage is just for love and sex and companionship. And, you know, those things are all important in a marriage, but a marriage is a sort of pretty practical occupation to make sure you don't starve when you're old, to make sure you have companionship when you get older. You know, like I've said this because I'm in my late 50s. It was a couple of years ago. I just completely vanished from the event horizon of women. I mean, I'm still in love with my wife and all of that, but I just noticed that. I was just like, huh, I don't get any second glasses. Like, could you just, and it's an instinct for women, right? Because I'm too old. Historically, I would be too old to make it all the way to a kid's adulthood. So there's a cutoff, right?
[1:37:58] So you need to invest in people so that they're around when you're not young, you're not hot, you're not necessarily full of energy because, you know, you've got to get up a couple of times a night to pee and so on, right? So you just need people. There's a very practical reality to things that people just kind of overlook, which is, who am I, you know, I'm 59, right? If I was single, it's like, hey, want to start a family? And women would be like, well, no, you're kind of getting up there, brother. And they're right about all of that, right? So it's about laying the foundation in when you're younger so that you reap the rewards later like you know you you get your teeth and you don't do drugs and you don't drink too much and you don't smoke and and you exercise and you study and you know you can have a pretty good life there's tons of exceptions but pretty good for the most part but if you do all these stupid things then you won't and so, If you say to women.
[1:38:56] You won't find a woman.
[1:38:59] Well, so if you don't groom, if you just play a bunch of video games, if you don't exercise, if you don't go and talk to women and just go through the inevitable crash and burns that you have to go through. If you're too afraid of getting rejected, you can't ever get a job. And if you're too afraid of getting rejected, you can't ever get a girlfriend. So you just you just miss that turn off. Right. You miss this.
[1:39:20] Or or you've had like just such a huge series of rejections time after time decade after decade that could also on the back end be a form of burnout as well well no but hang on hang on so.
[1:39:35] I appreciate the rejection stuff but if you keep getting rejected you have the wrong standards, So if I keep getting rejected for jobs as a brain surgeon, they won't even interview me because I'm a podcaster. It's like, well, no, because I'm having the wrong standards. I'm not a brain surgeon. I'm not trained in brain surgery. I can't be a brain surgeon. So one of the reasons why men get rejected is they keep going for these uber hotties because they've got Instagram brain or porn brain. And they themselves have not looked in the mirror and said, okay, am I the best version of myself? Do I have a lot to offer? And so you work at upping your skills until you get hired. And if you keep getting rejected from women, you have the wrong standards. You have the wrong standards. You're aiming too high or you just don't have, you know, I mean, if I went for a job, I don't know, running a media company, right? They might have some, I've done it for 20 years and fairly successfully. So maybe they'd listen, right? If I go for a job as a hair model, they're not going to. Maybe the before picture of the post-plugs Jordan Peterson thing. So this constant rejection stuff, if you keep getting rejected, you just have to lower your standards. We all have to do that, right?
[1:40:54] Okay, thank you. Let me ask you this. We, on X and other forms of social media, Um, we, there are a lot of, um, there is a lot of advice that comes from men and women. I can't give you, I can't recall any names right now, but there's some, there's some pretty, you know, viral anti-feminist women and anti-feminist men content out there. And there seems to be this push where...
[1:41:32] A woman is supposed to provide you peace, and if they're not providing you peace, basically, you know, kind of walk away. Among other things, too, like, you know, if your relationship isn't this or
[1:41:46] if they're not doing that, then, you know, move on. But where, I mean, in a perfect world, right, a man, and maybe you would argue or someone else would argue here that, well, that's what a healthy relationship is. I heard someone say recently that, yeah, you know, when I come home, you know, my wife is my best friend. And, you know, I look forward to coming home from work because my wife, you know, is my best friend. So in this, you know, maybe optimal relationship where, you know, hopefully, you know, your wife is your best friend and then you're under this umbrella that my wife or my girlfriend provides me peace or at least more peace overall than chaos, right? But then what would you say to someone that says, if you're looking for peace, my friend, then, you know, don't go into a relationship. So where is the bar and where is the threshold?
[1:42:54] Well, yeah, I mean, I don't know about the peace thing. I mean, men aren't designed for peace. We're designed for combat. So I don't know about the peace thing. But you shouldn't be fighting with the mother of your children. I mean, it's sort of frustrating for me, not that this is relevant to you, but for... Decades, I've been talking about that the foundation of love is virtue. So what you want is a virtuous woman. Now, does a virtuous woman bring peace? Well, yeah, usually, unless you need your ass kicked about something, in which case she's not going to bring peace, she's going to kick your ass about something in a sort of hopefully fun and positive way. But, you know, if you sort of go back to the first caller from tonight. So we had a conflict, right? We had a.
[1:43:36] Not be present in the conversation, but I wanted to give him sort of my thoughts and feedback on what he was saying. And when I tried to give him my thought and feedback on what he was saying, and he just went on more speeches, I then had to say, how do you think this conversation's going? And what do you think it is happening? And I said, here were the discontents that I have, and he went off on another speech. So was I bringing him peace? No, I was bringing him the truth, at least as I saw it. I certainly was honest about my experience.
[1:43:59] So I don't know about this sort of bring peace kind of thing. You know, like what you want is a woman who says, oh, come on, you've always talked about writing this book. For heaven's sakes, just sit down and start writing it. You know, at least let's work on an outline. Let's do this, let's do that. Let's work on the table of contents, whatever, right? So at some point, she's going to challenge you to become your best self and push harder to do the things that you say you want to do. Or, you know, you keep talking about wanting to pick up the guitar, like just pick up the guitar and play, just like yesterday, like just do it. So I don't know about the piece thing, but she's there virtuously striving for the best in you to bring out the best in you as you're virtually striving to bring out the best in her. So instead of the peace thing, which sounds a bit narcoleptic, I think that you want honesty, directness, a challenge to the best of each other's abilities. And I think that's, if you have a job, which is doing that, then, you know, maybe you don't need that as much as home. But the peace thing is, it seems a bit narcoleptic. I mean, as men, we're built for, not for war, I mean, we certainly are built for war to some degree, but we're built for conflict, we're built for combat, we are built for strife, and we're built for struggle, and you don't want to be fighting with your wife a lot, but you do want to have her challenge you when necessary, so that you can... Be better off.
[1:45:27] Challenge might not be, like you said, challenge doesn't necessarily equate to chaos. And I get that. And that's profound. That's going to make me rethink this notion. And from what I hear, you say, you don't want to be fighting. And I guess it's up to every man, I'm speaking for myself here, but maybe you could apply this to a woman, but it's up to every man to decide what is too much fighting and what is optimal, um, in, in a relationship. But would you, um.
[1:46:04] Sorry, but, but fighting in a relationship arises out of a lack of trust and a lack of trust arises out of a lack of virtue. So I trust my wife a hundred percent. If she, if she, if she says, yes, we can afford this, I'll buy it. If she says, I don't think we afford this, I won't buy it. If my wife says, you need to change your pants before we go out, I'm like, I will go and change. If she says, I don't think you should do this, I don't think you should do that, I just trust her. There's no fight because there's trust and because she's a very, very virtuous person and she wants what's best for me and our daughter and so on.
[1:46:43] So fighting arises when you don't trust the person and the reason you don't trust the person or someone doesn't trust their partner is the partner is not.
[1:46:51] Of displaying consistent virtues. Because if someone has always told you the truth, and you know, at the beginning in relationships, there's a little bit of testy stuff, right? Which is to say, okay, well, this person says this, right? And are they right? Right? I mean, a silly example is, you know, my wife says, you should bring a coat, you're going to be cold. And I'm like, I think I'll be fine, right? And then if I'm cold, she was right. And so she builds up credibility, right? I think we should fill the car with gas before we go to wherever, right? And I think, no, I think we're fine, right? And then we get halfway there and the red light comes on and you've got to stop. So she was right about that. So at the beginning, there can be some disagreements, but you've got to track and see if the person is right about things as a whole. And if they're consistently right, you know, like if you've got an accountant and your accountant says, you should do this or you shouldn't do that. And let's say it's a good accountant, you've had them for years you're like okay okay fine whatever i mean just just do what they say and so when you have consistent virtues and consistent accuracy consistent competence in practical and moral matters then there's no need to fight because the person's just right and people fight because they don't trust the other person because they're not being consistently virtuous or correct sorry go ahead well.
[1:48:13] Where where does i'm i don't want to take too much of your.
[1:48:18] Time here i don't know that's fine there's nobody else calling so go okay.
[1:48:21] Well um i was gonna say i mean there there's a few things that that are on my mind right now i guess i'll just we'll just linger we'll just linger here for a second okay, I don't have a lot of experiences with relationships. So what I'm bombarded with is in 2025 and what's going on between men and women that I'm supposed to be basically the leader for the most part or the alpha. And where do you draw the line? Like these things that you're saying, and I want to pivot back to virtue in a second, but she was right. You need to put some pants on. You need to get, you know, we need to fill the tank up. And yes, yes, yes, yes, you're right. Some of these things, though, you know, wouldn't, you know, and I'm no disrespect here, but some of these things here, wouldn't you be able to make some of these decisions on your own? And is there a threshold of when they're making too much of the decisions?
[1:49:35] Can you give me a sort of concrete example because the very abstract stuff i never really know how to answer so can you give me a more specific example i'm not trying to challenge you i just want to make sure i understand what you mean.
[1:49:43] Well just the just the examples that you just said like uh the pants thing the jacket thing the gas thing um you know it it doesn't it doesn't it kind of, spiral into a shift in the dynamics of power in the.
[1:50:03] Relationship? Sorry, but what do you mean by power? Why do you want power in a relationship?
[1:50:08] Well, that's kind of where I'm going with this. I'd like to know your thoughts about power in the relationship. Do you think that it's completely egalitarian?
[1:50:17] I don't know what you mean, sorry. The word power can be interpreted in any one of half a dozen or a dozen ways. So what do you mean by power? That's a good point.
[1:50:24] Instead of Power is a bad word, but do you think that there should be a differential in the relationship to...
[1:50:34] It's just credibility. So I'll give you an example from my marriage. So my wife says, we need to paint this room, right? And I'm like, I don't know. It's the way it was painted when we moved in. Seems fine to me. She's like, no, trust me, right? So I'm like, okay. So we paint the room and I walk in there and I'm like, wow, this is really nice. She's got credibility, right? Now, if I say, I need a microphone for X, Y, and Z, she doesn't sit there and say, but you already have like half a dozen microphones. Why would you need a la la, right? She's like, well, it's what you need, it's what you need, right? Because I'm not out there just buying things randomly. Like I had a friend who was a music producer who had like stacks and stacks and stacks. And his wife was like, I do not know why he needs all these machines. He doesn't use 90% of them. And she didn't trust him that way. So it's not about power to me. It's about credibility, right? So if you have a very trusted doctor and your doctor says you need to lose weight or your doctor says your muscle tone is very flaccid, it's going to cause problems. You need to, your bones are going to get weak if you need to start lifting weight, like whatever, right? And if you're a doctor, you trust your doctor, then does he have power over you? No, he just has credibility. His credibility. So you've got to earn credibility by being right about things. And that way my wife doesn't have power over me she just has credibility with me if that makes sense.
[1:51:58] Okay let me ask you this speaking about virtue do you um do you largely believe that women are virtuous.
[1:52:10] No like god no and but not not any more or less than men i mean i don't like Because I've got a whole system of ethics that I developed almost 20 years ago that is the actual proof for rational secular ethics, which very few people live by because very few people have heard of it. So it's, you know, it's like when Einstein first came up with the theory of relativity and you were to say, do most people accept the theory of relativity? You'd say, no, it's so new. Now, yes, but not back then. Or the theory of evolution or whatever you want to say. Sorry, go ahead.
[1:52:46] Okay. Well, setting that aside, though... This might be a little controversial, and I mean no offense to the room.
[1:52:55] Don't worry about that. Just go for it.
[1:52:58] There's a lot of people, men and women, that would say that, at least in our modern world here, that women lack a lot more virtue than men do. And this kind of ties into what we were talking about before with rejection after rejection. No, you just keep trying. And your brain surgeon analogy, do I just not apply anymore? But brain surgery is not quite the same. There's no way to insert in that analogy that the brain surgeon field has become very fraught lately. And I analog that to the fraughtness of modern dating when it comes to a pool that you keep trying to pool from with women and dating and finding mates. There seems to be a large problem with the pool. Pool now they they'll probably say the same thing in fact they do that there's a problem with the pool of men out there that men are not uh they're not leaders enough or they're too beta and then from the man's perspective it's essentially kind of what we're talking about okay sorry this is getting you're.
[1:54:27] Very you're a very abstract guy i'm sorry to interrupt okay so do women and men generally have i mean there's a lot of virtues we have to share don't steal don't kill blah blah blah, right? But would you say that men and women on average have the same local virtues or the same social virtues?
[1:54:48] I'd like to think that in a sense that in the, I'd like to hope that at least with age, the lion's share of women have a biological and ethical core of virtue.
[1:55:07] Okay, sorry. This is really an abstract guy. Okay, this is a simple question. Okay, let me, are you married?
[1:55:15] No, I'm not.
[1:55:16] And how old are you?
[1:55:18] I'm 44.
[1:55:20] Okay, so stop being so abstract because it's going to turn women off. So let me ask you this. Who do you think takes care of the aged more, men or women?
[1:55:31] Uh, I would probably say women.
[1:55:34] Absolutely. Women take care. Who do you think takes care of sick children more, men or women?
[1:55:41] Uh, women.
[1:55:42] Okay. So these are two minor examples. Is it important that the elderly and children get taken care of?
[1:55:50] Absolutely. Okay.
[1:55:52] Who do you think keeps the social life going and remembers things like, christenings anniversaries birthdays celebrations and all of this kind of stuff is that more men or more women women okay is that a good thing to do in society yes.
[1:56:10] But one quick thing that i will insert here.
[1:56:13] Okay but just don't make it abstract i'm begging you.
[1:56:15] I i i don't i'm not aware that i'm speaking in abstracts um.
[1:56:21] I hear it when you listen back because i'm giving you concrete examples and everything that you say is like floating above in some platonic realm where I can't connect it to human behavior. But it could be my limitation. But anyway, go ahead.
[1:56:35] There's studies that show that men that are single fathers are equally as good, if not better in some circumstances when it comes to raising children. What do you say about that?
[1:56:49] I've certainly read those statistics. There does seem to be some truth to it. However, However, there is a skewing in that data. Have you ever been involved in or seen a divorce up close?
[1:57:01] Uh, kind of. I don't know about up close, but my brother is going through a divorce. I'm not, I'm just aware of it. I don't know if you would consider that up close.
[1:57:11] No, that's not up close. Okay.
[1:57:12] I mean, my parents got divorced. Does that count?
[1:57:15] Yes, that counts. Okay. So, who ended up with custody from your parents, with your parents?
[1:57:22] My mother got primary custody until we eventually lived with my dad for a couple years in the teenage years. Okay.
[1:57:30] So, one of the things that skews the data a little bit is that to be a single father often means widowhood because it's very few men who get sole custody from a divorce, right? It's usually 50 50 in general and if there is going to be if it's going to be skewed to one or the other then it's going to be more towards the female side men very rarely get sole custody unless the women are like complete raving drug addicts or suicidal or institutionalized like it's very hard for a man to get sole custody he has to really work to fight for it he has to put a lot of money and effort into it. He usually has to be pretty well healed when it comes to paying those kinds of legal bills to try and get sole custody, or he's just a widow. Does that make sense?
[1:58:28] Absolutely.
[1:58:29] So widows... Are not negative towards children in the way that single parents are. And if somebody is a single father, he's usually more wealthy, more intelligent, more skilled, certainly more dedicated towards his children. That's why he ends up as a single father with sole custody or largely sole custody. So I just wanted to sort of point that out, that some of those numbers are a little skewed. But What I'm saying is that women in this sort of natural healthy state are really, really great at taking care of people and keeping social fabrics together, keeping communities together, planning, you know, there'd be no dining room tables if women didn't exist because men would just eat pizza on a greasy plate on their lap, right? So beautifying a house, which is a lovely thing, and keeping social things going, taking care of the elderly, taking care of the sick, going to check on people who have not, you know, they notice, oh, our neighbor hasn't picked up his newspaper for two days. I'm just going to go knock and see if he's okay.
[1:59:34] That stuff almost never crosses my mind, which is neither good nor bad. But my wife is very sort of attuned to the social network and keeping everything chugging and so on. And so women do a lot of wonderful stuff that don't really cross men's mind. And men do a lot of wonderful stuff that don't really cross women's mind. Like we used to be able to have borders to our countries and so on. So, except for female voters to a large degree. So men and women have, I think, different specialties and different virtues. Women are really good at handling toddlers. Women are really good at making things equal. And women are really good at encouraging, you know, uh that's a beautiful painting or a beautiful picture as opposed to a man who says it's all off i'm not a lollipop with legs so uh women are uniquely skilled and good and virtuous and wonderful in particular areas traditionally and men have their own particular specialties and if you try to judge a woman by a man's this is a lot of frustration in relationships you try to judge women by men's standards.
[2:00:36] And they look lesser. And then you try to judge men by women's standards and they look lesser. And then everyone gets frustrated and hostile. And it's like, no, just, I remember, it was probably a couple of months into my marriage. I'm like, this person is profoundly different from me.
[2:00:54] Like profoundly different from me. And that's like, vive la différence, right? The women are delightfully incomprehensible to men. And I'm sure the same thing. So this, this, this person is not like me with an hourglass figure. Like she's not like me with, with big Greek hair. Yeah. Women are not little men, right? And men are not big women. And recognizing that profound difference and loving it is foundational because if I wanted a man, I'd be gay, but I'm straight. So I want a woman, which means accepting that they're very different. And if I try to judge, I mean, imagine trying to judge women's virtues by how many of them worked on oil rigs or were commandos or something like that. They don't have any courage physical. But if you were to judge men by how sensitive they are to social cues and making sure that the place looks beautiful and making sure that things are equal between the kids and making sure that the community is kept going and the little things that matter to people. Right that would be uh then women would look at men and say you guys are retarded and autistic and we'd look at women and say well you don't do what men do it so all of that sort of so we just have to judge.
[2:02:09] The specialization that has evolved for the virtues that each sex brings to the table and recognize that I don't even know what kind of long-term social life I'd have outside of work if my wife wasn't maintaining all of these great relationships. Like, oh, it's so-and-so's anniversary. We've got to get a gift basket for them. I'm like, I'm sorry, I know we'd be married for 25 years. What the fuck is a gift basket? I know I should know this. I know I wrote it down somewhere, but then I lost it in all the listener questions. And, uh, oh, anniversary. What's that again? Like, this is like, we just have to really recognize and enjoy. I love the fact that my wife keeps all of this. I love the fact that like, if you saw my studio, you'd be like, okay, this is where my wife, she only comes into vacuum when she's feeling really brave. It's not like she has to wear a hazmat suit, but it is, it's bachelor's like wooden boxes, the cardboard boxes, there's like stupid plastic shelves with cables in them. There's a chair that my daughter used to use there. There's papers all over the place and it's, it's hell. Right. And yeah, yeah, yeah. So for instance, uh, cricket, you're absolutely right. Um, I bought something for my daughter because my daughter told me to buy it for her for Christmas. Right.
[2:03:23] And I'm like, I just handed it because what have I learned? Nothing, nothing. I hand this to my wife tonight before doing the show and I said, oh yeah, Izzy wanted this. Honestly, there's no need to wrap it because she already knows what it is. My wife gives me that thousand yard stare like, what?
[2:03:43] No, I'm going to wrap it. And I was like, oh, right. Sorry, we're different. We're different. The fact that you want to wrap something, my daughter already knows what it is. You want to wrap it?
[2:03:56] Why? Why? I don't know. Delightfully incomprehensible. But I'll tell you this. She's right. My daughter is going to be very happy. It is preposterous. My daughter is going to be very happy that the thing she already chose, my wife, my wife will take the price sticker off. My daughter was literally chosen out. No, it's there when I bought it. And wrapping and unwrapping is the funnest part hey don't talk to me about your honeymoon but, or maybe you do but i don't understand it but my my my daughter knows exactly how much it costs because she picked it out like that when i paid for it and but my wife was like oh you're gonna take the price i love it i think it i think it's great i it's it's wonderfully incomprehensible to me. It doesn't matter. It's not real, yet it's totally real and it totally matters. And it's going to make my daughter happy and so on, right? Like this was my friend, I've mentioned this before, who took his shopping bags of school stuff.
[2:05:06] Uh, so, uh, even more fun is this young lady, if it sits under the tree for days and you stare at it, waiting patiently to open it, I can't explain it. It's magical. Oh yeah. When I was a kid, you'd see those little, um, those little presents that they stick on the trees. I'm like, what's in there? Diamonds. I bet. So, so cricket, you're, you're absolutely right. It is magical. It is cool. It is fun. And it never crosses my mind. It never crosses my mind. I mean, for me, it's like, you know, they deliver all these flyers. I could just wrap it in newspaper. And my wife rarely backhands me. No, of course, she never backhands me. But if I ever want to say, well, just wrap it in newspaper.
[2:05:42] I mean, the newspaper's here. We're just going to recycle it anyway. Just wrap it in newspaper. How dare you, right? I mean, look, look at this. Look, look, my wife made this mug. It's girly. I can feel my hair growing back. And it's delightful. So yeah, so they all have. Yeah, men are fascinating too, right? You know, that meme of like, how is it possible that my husband knows everything there is to know about the economy, about central banking, about currency, about crypto, about politics, but he doesn't know when I'm upset. It's like, sorry, we're things, not people, and you're people, not things. So I'll build the house, you make it pretty.
[2:06:27] And listen, guys, if you ever want to know just how incomprehensible women are, just go to a mall. just go to a mall.
[2:06:35] You know, when I go with my wife or my daughter, both, we're walking down the mall and everyone's like handing things to them. Oh, try this sample. They don't even notice I'm there. I might as well be a ghost. I might as well have despawned, gone to the ether, gone to the back rooms and only respawn when we're going past an electronics store. There's no reason. They don't notice. They don't care. I've got nothing. I go in. Oh, let's go to, let's go to Body Works. And I'm like, what? I mean, that place just smells weird. Oh, but we need a particular kind of soap. I'm like, so I shouldn't be using the dishwashing liquid? Is that right? Oh, how dare you? But they're right. They're right. You know, my wife is like, I bought you a new moisturizer. I'm like, okay, don't.
[2:07:26] Don't say that so that my testicles can hear because it's not going to be good for them. I was like, I got you a new moisturizer, right? She goes, you know, I noticed your skin was a little dry. And I'm like, I didn't even notice my skin was a little dry. I don't need any moisturizer. And she's like, just try it. And she's like, I put it on and I'm like, oh my gosh. This is like an angel crying on my skin. And you know, gotta tell you, you know, pushing 60, you know, not bad, not bad in terms of skin. I'm not quite keeping up in the way that people used to in the past. So she's right. She's right about these things. You know, there are these gift baskets that have strange German sausages in it and cheeses that apparently you can use as ballista weapons.
[2:08:11] And apparently there's more than one kind of cracker. All kinds of crazy stuff goes on at malls. I basically just go to my happy place until I get to an Apple store. And then I go in and I say, okay, why do the mall, I don't need to upgrade anything. I don't need to upgrade anything. And my daughter, it's hunter-gatherer genes, German genes, Irish genes, Greek genes, I don't know. The hunter-gatherer, you know, you see how these beavers, they make these dams, even though they've lived in an apartment their whole life. So my daughter is like, we must find samples.
[2:08:41] Do you guys have this when you're in the mall with samples? And my wife, my wife, not so much. My daughter is like, there is nothing happier in her life than a sample. It doesn't even care what it is. It doesn't matter what it is. Although I will tell you this, that the samples in Lush may look edible, but they'll just make you cough up bubbles when you speak. Yeah, sample. It's a sample thing. It's got to be a hunter-gatherer thing. I'm like, we could just buy it. No, we're not here to buy. We're here to get samples. I'm like... Or if we are going to buy things, it's not going to be for you, white boy. It's going to be for neighbors. It's going to be for the mailman. It's going to be for some guy who gave you a footwrap in China 14 years ago. It's going to be for everyone but you. I'm like, okay. And they're right. And they're right. So, yeah, I know a friend of mine's daughter was collecting hand sanitizers.
[2:09:44] Um energy drinks gotta gotta have gotta like a magpie gotta get the different colors of energy drinks okay but but then my daughter is like why do we need three coffee makers i'm like, i don't know but we do i don't know i can't explain it but i'm telling you we do and um You know, the computer that I use for call-in shows is now nine years old, so the battery is kind of ass. And so I'm like, I want to get a new one. Got a handle. It's nice to carry. Got to walk around. So, yeah, sorry. Sorry for the long answer. I hope that makes some kind of sense. But more moral or less moral, it's apples and oranges. You know, what's more important, weight training or cardio? It's like, well, they're both important in their own way. Well, why do you have to choose? It's like, I don't. I just did 40 minutes of weights and 40 minutes of cardio today. I don't want to have to choose. Sorry for that long answer. Does that sort of make any sense?
[2:10:43] You radiate with the joy of a man that's happily married. And, you know, studies show, there's a lot of studies show of what the benefits to men are when they're happily married. There's sleep studies that show that, you know, men benefit. All these things. And that was amusing to hear your laughter. And I commend you for having a...
[2:11:12] My wife sets up dermatology appointments for me. I'm like, my skin's fine. She's like, but you need to check. You're blonde, blue-eyed. You just need to check for sun damage, for this, that, or the other. I'm like, okay, fine. Keep me alive. Fine. Fine. Have me do more philosophy without some Hugh Jackman nose. So, yeah, I mean, she's just very thoughtful that way. And it's, I'll go. I'll go. Fine.
[2:11:43] Tivoting, though, So, um, why are, why are there so many, um, why are there so many relationships that are ending? Why is there such a high divorce rate? Why are there people that, um, that move, that, that have a string of relationships? And do you know, I'm obviously, I know, you know, who Pearl Davis is, right?
[2:12:10] Oh yeah. She's been on the show actually. Yeah. When I first came back. Yeah.
[2:12:14] Oh, did you guys interview each other?
[2:12:16] Oh, we just had a chat, yeah.
[2:12:19] Oh, you guys might want to, that'd be interesting. But, you know, where she's at right now, and, you know, I've kind of seen the evolution, is, you know, she'll just flat out say that, you know, women just simply don't like men anymore, really. And, you know, they don't even really want or like children anymore. They just don't like men. That's how it is.
[2:12:42] Well, they don't need men. So we learn to appreciate that which we need. And women don't need men because the primary reason why women cleaved towards men was because women got pregnant and needed providers. And now women can not get pregnant if they take any one of the 18 different forms of birth control, not even including non-vaginal sex. So women don't need to get pregnant. If they get pregnant, they could just get a government-funded abortion. And if they choose to keep the kid, then they can just force the government to get more responsible, mostly male taxpayers to pay for it. So women don't need men and so women don't learn how to appreciate men. Like if I moved to, what's food I don't like? Dim sung. I don't like dim sung, right? Now let's say I moved to, it was a Vietnam or whatever it is. So let's say I moved to Vietnam and dim sung was all I could eat. Well, I'd learn to appreciate it, right? but I don't need to eat dim sum so I'm never going to learn to appreciate it, right? So women don't need men so they don't learn how to appreciate men. And so I think that's probably the main issue right now.
[2:13:52] But we're also seeing though that, you know, I see all these TikTok clips and whatever podcast and there's a lot of women out there. So there's a lot of women that say what you're saying, you know, that they don't need men. And to some extent, you know, We saw this burgeoning in the 90s and the 2000s. But you also have a lot of buyer's remorse going on, too, with single women where they're not happy. They're on TikTok complaining all the time.
[2:14:23] No, every decade of feminism has seen women get more and more miserable. Sure, because it's a devil's bargain. You can get sexual detention, but you can't get lifelong commitment.
[2:14:34] Right. Women are the gatekeepers to sex and men are the gatekeepers to commitment.
[2:14:39] Sure, sure. So, yeah, so it's you can get all kinds of tingles and you can go and have sex and you can have a new lover and this and that and the other. But that gets old and boring and, you know, it's essentially unskilled because in bed you have to learn what the other person likes and get better at it and then it's great. But so you get attention without commitment. You get sex without babies. You get money without market demand because of a lot of government jobs and mandated jobs and stuff like that. So you're just living this entirely artificial hedonistic propped up by force lifestyle and it hollows you out. It hollows you out. I mean, it's something that Jim Carrey said once, like I wish everyone could taste money and fame at least once to realize that it's not the answer that you're looking for. the only thing that makes you happy in the long run is the good you do in the world. So women have, what good are they doing? For the most part, they're taking a lot of money from taxpayers. They're not producing any kids. They are, you know, to some degree, the sort of vectors for STDs if they're going to have a lot of sex, because it's a lot easier for women to have a lot of sex than for men. And they're all flocking after the same 5% of guys because they've been told never to settle, which is the sin of pride. So yeah, I mean, There is not a lot of great stuff.
[2:16:00] All right. Anything else you wanted to mention? I appreciate the topic. It's very, very interesting.
[2:16:09] All right, it looks nice. So we have a question from the audience here. Jose says, I think it's Jose. Sorry. Let me just check here. I'm curious to know Stef's thoughts on the apparent contradiction whereby Erica Kirk has, quote, forgiven her husband's murderer, yet expresses hostility towards the so-called conspiracy theorists. And I asked for an example, and he said, Erica Kirk appeared on Fox News describing her feelings towards conspiracy theorists as righteous anger towards a mind virus? I am muted on X. I don't know how that happened. All right, unmuted on X. Sorry, just to repeat the question for those who didn't hear, which I muted somehow. I'm curious to know Stef's thoughts on the apparent contradiction, wherein Erica Kirk has quote, forgiven her husband's murderer yet expresses hostility towards the so-called conspiracy theorists. Yeah, that's a very interesting question. I don't, obviously, I don't know the answer to that, uh, in, in any particular, in any particularly.
[2:17:10] Vivid, uh, manner and, uh, righteous anger towards a mind virus. So the conspiracy theorists are making Erica Kirk more angry than, well, I suppose the, the, maybe it's because the murderer doesn't have any more capacity to hurt her, but the conspiracy theorists do. I don't know, but certainly I mean this is the thing that goes on in England where racism is worse than actual rape of children it's a completely deranged witch hunt, that's going on but at least that seems to be losing its power these days which you can just ask Piers Morgan the cuck a little bit more about it if you want, alright well thank you everyone lovely evening you know it's funny I thought it was going to be a short show you guys are way too interesting way too much fun and I really do appreciate that have yourself a glorious night we'll talk to you Friday night, shop.freedomain.com to get your merch I think you can still get them in time for Christmas and peacefulparentingbook.com to get your print copy of Peaceful Parenting which is a great stocking stuffer the short version is out as well and I really do, appreciate everyone's time tonight freedomain.com/donate throw a little extra Christmas stuff in my stocking and you don't even have to wrap it see because you know we're mostly dudes alright lots of love everyone thanks Emil alright.
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