0:04 - The Philosophy of Life and Death
3:57 - Fitness and Philosophy: A Personal Journey
4:50 - Exploring Philosophy for Young Minds
8:57 - Navigating the Great Books
15:37 - The Role of Artists in Society
32:49 - Perspectives on Death: Secular vs. Religious
50:52 - The Ethics of End-of-Life Decisions
56:01 - Moral Imperatives in Suffering
1:01:31 - The Shift to Bitcoin Discussions
1:03:45 - Bitcoin's Future and Industry Insights
1:05:32 - Critiques of the Bitcoin System
1:14:26 - Central Banking vs. Bitcoin
1:14:58 - Engaging with the Audience
1:16:39 - Exploring Ownership and Morality
1:32:08 - The Nature of Morality
1:43:23 - The Dangers of Moral Relativism
1:48:51 - Closing Thoughts and Farewell
In this episode, I dive into a rich tapestry of philosophical discussions, beginning with a light-hearted inquiry about my fitness regimen and my bench press - though I quickly clarify that my real exercise lies in grappling with complex ideas while confronting the forces shaping the landscape of modern discourse.
I then turn to a call for action from my listeners regarding the resurrection of my YouTube channel, advocating for the value of open dialogue and the importance of resisting the tides of political correctness. Emphasizing the significance of intellectual freedom, I invite listeners to share their thoughts and criticisms, as a means of enriching our shared understanding.
When engaging with callers, I address various topics, from fitness discussions like rucking, to the philosophical development of young adults, offering book recommendations that resonate with themes of Stoicism, integrity, and the search for virtue. I underline the importance of thoughtful literature in shaping a philosophical outlook, championing works by Aristotle, St. Augustine, and Ayn Rand, while acknowledging that having a focus can lead to fruitful exploration of ideas, as opposed to a mere checklist approach to learning.
In deliberating existential matters, I discuss the value of facing the reality of suffering and death, in both secular and religious frameworks. Explaining how various moral systems derive from self-interest, collective survival, and societal norms, I challenge the listeners to grapple with unsettling questions about the legitimacy of our moral constructs. This leads to a broader inquiry into whether morality is inherently subjective or if there exists a universal truth that transcends individual perspectives.
As our conversation meanders through the complexities of moral philosophy and human behavior, I contend with the idea that morality is sometimes perceived as a tool for societal survival rather than a timeless ethical code. This perspective opens up room for exploring the darker aspects of our nature and the fallibility of our ethical convictions.
In our exploration of knowledge, I express a candid skepticism of modern trends in philosophy and social constructs, urging listeners to seek genuine beauty and virtue in human experience rather than succumbing to prevailing nihilism. I argue that understanding and nurturing the good in our lives is essential for building a resilient moral framework.
Towards the end of the episode, I confront a critique of historical moral figures like Genghis Khan, presenting the argument that historical success doesn't equate to moral rectitude. This discussion illustrates the pitfalls of evaluating morality through the metrics of success and survival, urging listeners to reflect on the dangers of a purely evolutionary framework of ethics.
In closing, I call for a rekindling of passion and commitment to living a life driven by truth and virtue, encouraging my listeners to develop a moral compass that aligns with genuine ethical principles, ensuring a profound understanding of our responsibilities towards one another. I express hope for continued dialogue and exploration in the days to come, reiterating the significance of this ongoing philosophical journey.
[0:00] All right. Hey, everybody. How are you doing? This is Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain.
[0:04] Freedomain.com, the best philosophy nuggets of wisdom in this or any other multiverse. Somebody asked me what I bench. What do I bench? Well, I bench two things. I bench bad players and I bench my ego.
[0:23] Few can handle. So I hope you're doing well. I am here to talk philosophy with y'all as we eagerly await the feedback from YouTube as to whether the modern digital library of Alexandria, known as my work, but most importantly, the comment section gets resurrected from the YouTube tomb of political correctness. we wait, we see. I think almost 270,000 of y'all have viewed that, and if you could add team YouTube and request a return of my channel, I would be beyond thrilled. Thank you very much. I humbly await and look forward to your questions, comments, issues, challenges, problems, whatever is on your mind. I am thrilled to hear. I just have to remember how it works. I just have to remember, it was really like two days ago, I did my last one, so it shouldn't really be that complicated. Yet somehow, it is. Let's just say that I'm a bit of a guppy fish that lives in the hypersonic blur of the cocaine moment. That is my life as a whole.
[1:32] So, if you want to chat, if you have comments, questions, issues, criticisms, whatever you like, I posted, it's funny, last night, I haven't done this in quite a long time But I did wear my Tearaway Philosophy shirt And ripped it off to try to reproduce, The vaguely Eastern European Uber Chad meme I think the guy that's based on was asked on a podcast And he said, what the hell is a podcast? Which is kind of interesting So I did that And.
[2:09] I don't know, it got a pretty cool thumb. So I posted it because, you know, I think spontaneity and all of that is good. And I'm only 59 this year. I weigh 180 pounds. I'm a shade under six feet tall. And I've been doing weights since I was in my mid-teens. So it's a long-ass time. That is a long shadow at sunset time. I did take a break for it for a couple of years when I was really intense in the entrepreneurial world and to my detriment.
[2:46] But I'm back. I'm not a super muscle guy, obviously, right? I'm not a ripped, shredded super muscle guy. But I like to stay trim. I like to stay fit. It's partly out of gratitude for my wife, for her wonderful company. You want to stay as attractive as possible to the people you rope into an exclusive sexual arrangement with. So and also I just I just like feeling strong I like feeling competent and I do a fair amount of sports so that's also helpful uh you know I mean my daughter wants to go rock climbing or treetop trekking I'd like to be able to do it without pulling my ass tendons through my eye sockets that seems like a plus so I am thrilled for that and so and also I mean I'm an older parent. And so, as an older parent, you know, I kind of want to make sure that I am.
[3:40] Staying sort of relatively fit and healthy. The last thing I'd want is for my lovely daughter to be burdened with some sort of carrying of an aged and decrepit giant forehead, in a wheelchair when she's just springing forward in the eager spring of life.
[3:57] So, all right but i can talk anytime and here is a time here is the time in sprockets where we turn to the conversations all right kevin i think you were up first you may need to unmute i'm all ears brother what's on your mind.
[4:14] Just love getting to know you again. It's terrific to hear your voice. By the way, I started rucking fairly regularly. Picked up, I'll call it a rucksack, but it's a case designed for inserting a plate.
[4:33] Sorry, rucking? Rucking. I thought that was like grape. It was some safe word for the algorithm for something else. Safe word? I'm glad, yeah. uh my safe word is about 14 syllables and a mixture of german dutch swahili and.
[4:47] Klingon but.
[4:48] So sorry i misunderstood yeah go ahead sorry.
[4:50] Yeah no no i was just saying i've added this to my exercise routine it's been terrific three four or five times a week you know but.
[4:58] What is it is hiking with a backpack of weights.
[5:00] Yes that's it and uh you can have they make specialized products to make it a little less bulky and easier to use. I've found immense growth in stamina using that. But anyway, that wasn't what I was going to ask you about. I have a couple of young adult children, and they have a curiosity in philosophy. And I was just wondering if you had like a reader's list for the teen set or the young adults or a place they would start. Perhaps some of your work. Any thoughts there?
[5:34] Yeah. I mean, for integrity and Stoic suffering, you can't do much better than, of course, the Stoics, but in particular, the Fountainhead by Ayn Rand is very good on enduring Stoic suffering and the integrity and pain that comes with a reasonable pursuit of virtue. And I say reasonable because we don't want to self-immolate on the altar of virtue. Self-sacrifice does not sell virtue to others, neither does cowardice. So it's an Aristotelian mean in the pursuit of virtue. Aristotle is great. The Platonic dialogues are good, but they tend to be kind of circular, and I'm not sure that they would add much to your children's lives at the moment because they're about sort of critical thinking in the Socratic method, which is great. Are they religious, or is your family religious?
[6:24] One, our family is somewhat modestly religious. Not my son as much. He's probably more agnostic. But my daughter, yes, she's a Christian.
[6:35] Okay. So, St. Augustine is good for the attempt. And he's just about, in my view, the best attempt to merge reason and faith.
[6:46] And it is a bit of a square circle but he does a magnificent job of sanding out the edges.
[6:52] Um so i think that's great and um if they're interested in philosophy as a history uh will duran's got a great series on the history of philosophy which is very cool and i of course have my own my own history of philosophers where i deal with 23 or so of the major philosophers or up to the giant precipice that I'm standing before is Immanuel Kant, which is something that I'm going to need quite a bit of research. I've done weeks of research. I need more because he is a very multifaceted, complex thinker that's very central to the way the world is going minorly right and majorly wrong at the moment. So I really want to take that on with a great deal of passion and devotion.
[7:30] So of course, I don't want to skip a forward too ahead, but essential philosophy for me, is a great way of showing the practical applications of philosophy. I mean, peaceful parenting, of course, but that's more relevant when they become parents. Essential philosophy, I deal with three major topics. One is the simulation theory, which goes all the way back to Plato, and in particular, Descartes was very big on, well, how do we know we're not a brain in a tank being controlled by a demetric style? So I take on that. I take on free will, which is really an essential topic, and I take on rational morality. So essential philosophy is a short read, On Truth, The Tyranny of Evolution, which is also a very short read, is designed to shake people out of their hypnotic complacency of the, you know, the giant car snake of modern culture that has you dissociate into not thinking about things too deeply, because we're all skating the shallow pleasures of life and tablets.
[8:24] And for ethics, university preferable behavior, a rational proof of secular ethics for politics, I obviously recommend my book, my books, Everyday Anarchy and Practical Anarchy. And if they want a good introduction to Philosophy. I've got a 17-part series. You can find all of my videos at fdrpodcast.com. Very few of them got nuked in the great neutron bomb of deplatforming that happened half a decade ago. Most of them have been resurrected in alternate sites. Fdrpodcast.com, just do a search, and you can go and watch the videos at the bottom.
[8:58] So, sorry, that's a real sprint, but I mean, I think those things would be good places to start.
[9:03] Wonderful. Thank you.
[9:03] All right and i appreciate that based reporter you uh have the mic what's on your mind brother or sister, You must remember to unmute. I've been told to remind you of that. Don't meet an egg, but go ahead.
[9:20] Yes, Devon. Actually, that was a great previous guest you had, because I had a similar question I want to add on that. I purchased the set of The Great Books of the Western World, and they have like a 10-year reading plan. And even that is a lot to take on. And there's also other sets out there, I think like Harvard Classics, there's the Loeb, then there's all kinds of very large sets. If we wanted to get more into, you know, do a serious read of over our lifetime of the great books, you know, that we were ready to take the time and do the full survey of the full, you know, great books, the Western world. To do you have any thoughts on any specific set or um or uh you know if if we were to you know to to add on to what the previous uh guest said you know if we were ready to do sort of the full survey of the great books over our lifetime you know how would you how would you go about that any specific stat or yeah yeah.
[10:26] I hear what you're saying and i i certainly don't mean to dismiss the project that a lot of people have of, you know, here are the great books. And I think you could, I remember way back in the day, you could order, I think it was a thumb drive or a USB stick, which had like audio books of all the great books and so on. So my concern is that it's a little bit paint by numbers in that I think that philosophy should try to solve particular issues in your life. And I know you're not just talking philosophy, you're talking about literature and so on.
[10:55] So my concern is it's just kind of jumping from one lily pad to another, and it doesn't take into account the genuine hedonism that you need. So for instance, I went on a Dostoevsky kick for a couple of years. I went on a fetish for Dickens for a number of years. Of course, I've talked about my history with Ayn Rand and other sort of writers that I've really, really dug deep into. So I think that you should read a book when it really grabs your interest or grabs you by the nads or the spleen or the spine, then you should pursue that writer's thoughts until they sort of run out. I went on a big Nietzsche kick in my late teens and just read everything that I could get my hands on and absorbed a lot. And then I actually had a book club many years ago at Freedom Main where we did the Antichrist and actually read back and I found it was a lot less deep than I thought it was. But that may be just aging out of some of the teenage rebellion and stuff that Nietzsche seems to encapsulate. So I think find something, like read through the books, find something you're passionate about, but then don't feel like, well, I have to go to the next one, or I have to have the menu called out by other people. I would say if you have particular problems, like if you have problems with stress, then the Stoics can be really good. Marcus Aurelius can be really good with regards to stress.
[12:12] If you have a trouble with passion, Nietzsche will plug five electric eels into every available orifice you have in terms of energizing you. So I would say if you have particular issues, cast about until you find something or someone who speaks to those issues in a way that's highly motivating. If you have issues with procrastination, I've done a lot of work on procrastination. I mean, it was always later, obviously, but I've got a whole video on procrastination and podcasts on procrastination you should check out. Procrastination basically coming from, it's a slave morality. When we're ordered and told what to do, we end up resisting and procrastinating. The slave can't say no, but he can do a bad job later. Not so much that he gets beaten, but enough that he registers his protest. So procrastination usually comes from being ordered around, which we generally are, have been in society and are particularly males at the moment in school. So I think it's great. You should definitely dip into just about every great writer you can get your hands on. If they don't speak to you, I mean, I've never had much luck but Tolstoy, Marcel Proust, Remembrance of Things Past, which is a paperweight that puts Atlas Shrugged to shame and makes it look like a Bazooka Joe comic in terms of length and breadth. So, or James Joyce, actually many, Years ago, I was reading Portrait of the Artist as a young man with my daughter, and we found it hilarious in that it was so incomprehensible. But when you had to approach the general attack on Christianity that characterizes the 20th century, you've got to be kind of delicate in your language, and that's what that was.
[13:42] So don't feel like just because other people like something, you have to like it. It's very rare for me to see a good Shakespeare production these days. And so you don't feel like you have to like it, but when an author grabs you, I would jump off the beaten path and just pursue that author until you've drank his cup dry, so to speak, and then if you have particular issues, I mean, you can ask AI these days, you know, what are the best philosophers to deal with, you know, X, Y, or Z? If you have problems with social conformity, Ayn Rand is very good. If you have problems with basic reasoning, Aristotle is fantastic because he packs so much reasoning power into his philosophy as a whole. Sorry, I'm outside, so there may be a little bit of background noise from time to time, but I think it will pass.
[14:27] Will it pass? I think it will pass. So, that would be my suggestion. They're great places to start, but I view it as a menu. You don't have to order the menu alphabetically. You don't have to order the menu by price. You should find a food you like and eat that food and all of its related foods, and then you can move on to something else, if that makes sense. I would strongly advise against just, you know, like when I was a kid, I don't think these are things that are around anymore, really. But when I was a kid, there were these, you'd get a big piece of paper, and there'd be a bunch of dots with numbers. And they'd go from like one to 40 or something like that. And you'd start at the one, you draw to the two, and then you go to the three, and then when you got to the 40, I mean, you'd usually figure it out before that, but when you got to the 40.
[15:14] You'd see an elephant or a knight or there would be some drawing that you had gotten by following these numbers. Now, that was fun, but I never pretended that I was learning how to be an artist. And I guess I just don't want the sequence to be dictated by other people and editors and so on. So I think they're great places to start, but don't feel like you have to go in sequence or in any particular pattern.
[15:38] I think you should have the joyful hedonism of just indulging in the writers who move you the most, if that makes sense.
[15:45] Yeah absolutely um sitting here thinking i i just thought of another question but i'm sure there's others in line i can drop down and then um if there's time i'll pop back up.
[15:56] Is it a long question or a short question do you think medium medium oh you're an aristotelian mean guy okay hit me with the question and uh i'll see if i can answer it heaven above help me briefly oh god it's gonna Okay.
[16:12] Going a little out on the margin here, in terms of like secret societies, esoteric readings, occult readings, whatever you want to call it, first of all, do you think, and I'll ask it together, but do you think that secret societies have any value when it comes to understanding the direction of civilization? And if so, are there any readings in that realm of the occult, esoteric, whatever you want to call it, that you would, hermetic, that you would recommend?
[16:46] Yeah, that's a great question. And it's funny. I mean, I'm sure everybody knows this is pretty common knowledge these days. But the term conspiracy theory was invented by intelligence agencies to discredit people who were figuring things out. Like, it's just become this blanket term. And the funny thing is, is that people say, oh, there's this impression that conspiracy theories are false. Which is weird because conspiracy is a well-known.
[17:10] Relationship. It's a well-known issue. I mean, just look at law. Conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to defraud, conspiracy to whatever, right? So conspiracy is a known legal term that people get charged, convicted, and go to jail for. Yet somehow when you put the word theory on, I mean, everyone who tries to break up a smuggling ring is focusing, they have a conspiracy theory. The conspiracy theory is there's a smuggling ring. There's a number of people who are part of this smuggling ring. We can identify them. We can get enough proof. We can bring them to justice or whatever it is, right? People who are trying to break up these ghastly human trafficking or pedo rings or whatever, they have a conspiracy theory. They have a theory about a conspiracy. And that's how a good proportion of the law works. Whenever you're going after people, whether it's through RICO or through just a generalized conspiracy, you are trying to get a gang or a group or a number of people, all who are conspiring, conspiring together. So it's a well-known term in policing, in law, in the court system, just about everyone who goes after any group of more than one criminal has a conspiracy theory. And so it's perfectly valid. It's a perfectly valid thing to say that people in power tend to act in ways that maintain or expand their power. Of course they do.
[18:23] Is it a conspiracy theory to say that Coke would like to do better against Pepsi and it will advertise to outstrip Pepsi? Is it a conspiracy theory to say that one pizza joint wants to do better than another pizza joint and will work to enhance their marketplace? Well, of course not. The fact that people act in their own interests and often unjustly is not a conspiracy theory. That is observable fact. So that phrase, and I'm not saying you used it in any particularly negative way but that phrase it's an npc phrase right it's like like grifter or you know this kind of like it's an npc phrase somebody who uses the phrase conspiracy theory in a pejorative sense like it's just a it's like debunked debunked is just another it's just another it's a conspiracy theory debunked is just another npc word you know actually debunked and and so on or if you put out a general rule, which is like 99% and then people swarm you with the 1%, that's NPC response, right? That's just, I don't want to be certain about anything because otherwise I have moral responsibility. So of course there are secret societies and of course that they act in ways that...
[19:35] Benefit their own power, either to maintain their power or expand their own power. It's not a conspiracy theory, for instance, to say that central banks manipulate interest rates in the currency in order to favor a preferred candidate or harm an unpreferred candidate. That's actually been studied and is pretty solid. Is it a conspiracy theory to say that your rulers will not teach you the truth about the system that rules you? I mean, would slave owners have a lot of classes on the evils of slavery and how to most effectively rebel to their slaves. Of course not. How would that even be a question, right? So, oh my gosh, there's a conspiracy theory that slave owners don't want to teach their slaves about the evils of slavery and how to most effectively rebel against them. Here's your path to freedom. Go through that hedge and you get the Underground Railway, you get to Canada, right? So, the idea that people don't act in concert towards their own self-interest. You know, there's a Hispanic organization, you know, there's tons of Hispanic organizations. They act to further Hispanic interests. Well, of course they do. Is that a conspiracy theory? No. La Raza, right? They're pro their own race, right? So the idea that there aren't secret societies is just people who don't want to look at the sort of hidden truth behind the obvious, right? This is sort of fifth generation warfare where you don't even know who the enemy is.
[21:00] Throughout the West, people have been skeptical of or hostile to mass immigration, and yet they can't seem to do much to control it, absent Trump with the border right now.
[21:12] So, what is the reason why? You can't point at someone and say, it's that guy, right? And so, yeah, of course, there are conspiracies. And of course, there are people who act in concert to further their own interests. I guess my concern with all of that, though, is that studying this stuff is stuff you can't change, right? You can't go to the Bohemian Grove and set them straight, you know, and turn them into voluntary, it's all peaceful parents or whatever, get them to relinquish their dastardly power. So my concern is that you spend a lot of time in researching things that make you feel helpless. And it's really, really important to avoid feeling helpless in the world. And Lord knows there's a lot of people who want to make you feel helpless, either through brain twisty, pointless conversations or trawling or having you focus on things you can't change, which is why as an empiricist, what matters in your life are the moral influences you can affect in whatever environment you work in. So I think it's a bit of a rabbit hole and it's a bit of a hole with no bottom. It's obviously, since they're secret societies, it's somewhat unverifiable and you can't change it. So I would ration it very closely while recognizing that they certainly exist. Does that help at all?
[22:23] Yeah, yeah, that's really good. I think the perspective is good because you have two roads in front of you. You have the road of like the great books, so to speak, or you have the road of the secret society sort of reading. And I, yeah, I think you make a good point about sort of what's solid, you know, that you could work to make your life better in this world versus sort of the endless rabbit hole. And I think that's a good perspective. And I think I'll definitely take it as I move forward. And of course, you can't stop fully the, you know, the curiosity we have as humans.
[23:01] But yeah, I would put it in the realm of hobby rather than calling.
[23:07] Yeah yeah yeah yeah very yeah i mean like i have like you know a shelf here of books on that sort of stuff but i haven't really touched them you know um and uh but i i think that's a good perspective and uh and thank you so much for that and i wasn't expecting uh um expecting this i really appreciate it and i'll circle back again um if i have any more questions about this the great books or this i really appreciate it.
[23:34] I appreciate that i mean really the the praise This goes to our good friend Elon Musk, who has lost a quarter of his wealth in the defense of free speech and other aims and goals, which is a staggering amount of money, although I get it's marginal utility, but thanks to go to Elon. All right. I appreciate that. Noble, it's a well-named user nomenclature for a philosophy show. What's on your mind, my friend? Don't forget to unmute.
[24:03] Hello. Can you hear me?
[24:05] Yes, sir.
[24:07] Yeah, thank you for bringing me up, Stefan. I just had a quick question. So I do a lot of digital art, a lot of it's AI-assisted, and I've been noticing, and it's not just with art, it's with a lot of different things. I'm sure you're aware of this conversation, a lot of people who... Um, you know, like, for example, a lot of digital artists are very scared and very upset about, I guess, what's capable now, especially ones who create a lot of nihilistic art. So I'm just wondering why it is that there's just a lot of people that are just so against this. It's sort of like your thoughts on this.
[24:43] Sorry, sorry. Against what?
[24:45] Against like these tools, I suppose, these learned language models. Like they just, there's people that are petitioning to have them shut down. There's people who are saying that this undermines the entire art world, the entire music industry, and that this stuff needs to be regulated heavily because it, you know, it's not art. It's slop, I guess.
[25:05] Slop. Okay. So do you mean the visual artist? because you also said LLM. So I want to make sure if, are we talking visual art? Are we talking language arts or both?
[25:17] I'm speaking, yeah. I mean, I'm speaking primarily on, because I do a lot of AI art and digital art and they kind of blend together lately with some of these tools available to me. But I've noticed this conversation even with like how CHAPGPT is helping writers proofread and stuff like this. So I see a lot of people are just, especially people with government jobs, They're just very, um, threatened by this. And, you know, I think I kind of have it sorted out, but sometimes I think like maybe, you know, am I undermining like a really crucial process in getting as much virtuous art out there? Is, is there a specific, do I have to like, um, do it the way people are saying I'm supposed to be doing it, even though I think they're just sort of gatekeeping. So that's kind of like what I'm getting at. I'm not sure if any of that makes any sense.
[26:03] No, it makes good sense. And I'm going to just go on a little bit of a rant here. So people hate artists these days and have for a long time, particularly the visual artists. But this also goes to the creative artists in the realm of movies and television. They hate artists for a number of reasons. Artists ran to the government for money. Artists ran to the government for subsidizing their art school education. Artists ran to the government for subsidies. And artists run to the government for, I mean, all kinds of government protections and support. They ran to the government for the implementation of copyrights and so on. And so artists, and this is a real unconscious process, I think, but people dislike the fact that artists have run to the state rather than protect the sensibilities and desire for beauty of the people. And because the artists ran to the state, they turned their backs on the people and became court toadies of those in power.
[27:10] And there's a very sort of deep and instinctive sense that the artists are supposed to sustain the culture through the ennobling of people's souls with the regular application of beauty and truth and power of the senses to make a world that is better than the world so that you love the ideal and like the world.
[27:35] And artists, when they faced the challenge of the free market, they said, We are not going to find a way to serve the people better. We're going to run to the tax bandits and take every form of state protection, subsidy, and control that we possibly can. Blah, blah, blah, exceptions. I get all of that. But in general, modern art is an eye-gouging abomination of chaos, madness, and money laundering.
[28:16] You look back at the art of the Renaissance at Angra and people like the people who created such beauty that, you know, like when you stare at a bright light and then you look into darkness, the light still has an after image, like a ghostly soul of light fading away into the darkness. You're supposed to look at art to get beauty and elevation so that then when you look at the world, you get this after image of beauty and elevation and you have something to love and you have something to protect. Who the living hell would go to the wall, go to the barricades to protect the looks like somebody got shot and brain splattered against the wall. Jackson Pollock coalesced madness dots. No. There was a famous painting up here in Canada many years ago called Voice of Fire. And it was two blue stripes with a red stripe. That is an offense to the public. And they took a lot of money, I assume, from the government to produce this absolute insult to the soul.
[29:30] Assault on the culture, garbage. You go to art museums, and it's divided into two areas, the stuff that is good and the stuff that is modern. It's garbage you've heard of these stories like the banana taped to the wall, and so on and the woman who said oh you can do whatever you want to me for 12 hours or 24 hours or whatever this is horrendous this is appalling and this is an absolute betrayal so the artists ran to the money launderers and the political power and they decided to jam their probisci into the taxpayers' financial wounds, and bleed them dry of every spot of jugular sustenance they could get a hold of.
[30:21] Vampires. The lot of them. Andy Warhol. Absolutely predatory on children. Oh my, don't even, like, my God. It's just horrendous, right? And he's held up. Yeah, he's held up as some sort of elevated guy. Oh, here's a can of soup. Here's Elvis. Here's Marilyn. Ooh, so daring. It's trash. It's insulting trash. And it's there to give people despair and give them nothing to protect, nothing to revere, so they can be taken over. So when AI comes along and the artists are like, oh, this is bad for us. Screw you, artists. You turned your back on us and you turned to the state. And you pillaged us and our children of every dollar you could jam your political tentacles into. So the question is not, how is AI harming the artists? The question is, why is nobody loving the artists and protecting the artists? And I think that's why.
[31:18] Well said. Thank you so much. That answered it really succinctly. And yeah, I read a little bit about Warhol and an absolute, yeah, people around him, people who were personally close to him, suffered greatly underneath his private tyrannies. So thank you for this.
[31:36] Oh, yeah. I mean, what was it? The Tropic of Cancer guy, Miller, stabbed his wife. Is that right? And said, well, as long as you only use a knife, there's still some love left. Like this is vile, psychopathic, corrupt, evil, immoral, wretched behavior. And these guys are held up as absolute lions of the culture. I mean, isn't there this horrifying orgy scene in the Stephen King novel It, which I won't even describe in any detail because I've never read it. I've simply read about it. I assume it's true. so yeah I mean it is it's like I used to like going to movies I don't like going to movies anymore because it's all just horror, it's all horror and it's all madness and I just it's repulsive so and theater is anyway it's a whole other conversation so yeah artists have turned to the state rather than stay with the people the artists are there to elevate the people and strengthen the people so that they can resist the encroachments of power but instead they joined, with political power to pillage the people and now they have no sympathy left and nobody's lifting a finger to help them. All right. Well, thanks, man. I appreciate the question and the comment. My friend, Josh.
[32:49] What's on your mind, my friend? Don't forget to unmute.
[32:57] Going once oh hello stefan can you hear me yes sir wow stefan molyneux on x amazing i'm proud of you stefan i.
[33:12] Appreciate that thank you what's uh what's on your mind.
[33:14] Okay stefan it's a pleasure to speak with you first time long time you're a canadian treasure um i've been thinking recently about uh the secular verse religious approaches to death um this this sort of comfort care uh verse taking nature's path um okay.
[33:38] Just to make sure i understand what you're saying is give people as many painkillers and keep them alive have as long as possible.
[33:44] Yeah as long as they're comfortable okay so i live in ontario i'm josh i live in ontario and i've experienced our medical system here and i i just saw that this sort of numbing of pain sort of removes a a certain dignity from death i i suppose and and and also So like the secular doesn't seem to offer comfort for the soul when a person is grappling with the meaning of life and death when they're at their sort of finest hour. So I'm wondering if you could expound on that in a certain way, however you see fit, the secular versus the religious approach to death.
[34:39] Well, that's not a small topic, but I'll try and do it justice. And I will start with the religious approach to death. Of course, the religious approach to death is that there is no such thing. There is the discarding of your mortal shell, thus revealing your soul to ascend like a butterfly from the remains of a caterpillar. So there is no death. And in fact, as Hamlet says, tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. Because assuming a natural death, since suicide is a sin certainly in Christianity and other religions as well, assuming a natural death, you end up in a much better place if you've been a moral man, a moral woman. So death is not death. Death is a promotion. Death is an upgrade to the eternal bliss of being in close proximity to divine virtue and love and reuniting with your, loved ones and, you know, people are all like, oh, yeah, Jimi Hendrix jamming with Freddie Mercury up there in the great beyond and so on. So it is paradise.
[35:45] Now, the idea that there is a paradise after death means that life is a job you hate and death is a vacation that never ends. Now, if you compare life to a perfect bliss for eternity, then the suffering of life is worse. Like if you compare all of your days to your very best day, then your days feel bad. If I were to compare, like I'm 40 years past the age of 18. Now, if I were to say, I need to look and move and sleep and spring out of bed at 58, exactly as I did at 18, if I were to compare peak health to where I am now, which is, you know, pretty healthy, but not 18, then I will feel unwell. Because if I had the body I had and I was 18, I mean, I'd be studied by specialists for vastly premature aging. So you can't compare everything in life to the best.
[37:01] Otherwise, everything else seems drab and deficient. So my concern is that, yes, with religion, you diminish the fear of death. You diminish the sorrow of death, right? he's gone to a better place. He's gone to a better place. Well, not just a better place, but the very best conceivable place where he's going to be in perfect bliss for all of eternity, which again, colors and washes out the vitality, joy, passion, and power of the life that we have. Everybody has a perfect moment. Everybody has a perfect day. Everybody has a good or bad year. And the challenge is to surf life, enjoying the highs, but without using them to further lower the lows. I know this is very abstract. I hope it makes some kind of sense. And again, I really, it's a great question. So it's just an old Dr. Soul quote, there are no solutions, there are only trade-offs. So, what you gain from religion in losing a good portion of your fear of death, in fact, looking forward to it and celebrating the fact that people have passed on to an infinitely better place, the ultimate promotion.
[38:22] So, you lose a lot of the sting of death, you lose a lot of the fear of death, but what's the price? There are no solutions, only trade-offs. What is the price of that? Well, the price of that is that this life is what? In most religions, a veil of tears. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, it is a constipated, bad knee, trip and fall, stub your toe, toothache hair loss fading vitality torture prison of decaying fleshly loss not great, compared to perfection mortal life is hell, and it is not a price that I want to pay because Because it's the big question, it's always the big question, what if you're wrong? What if you're wrong? What if, I wrote this in a poem when I was 19, what if there is nothing to greet you at the end of your life other than the chilling regret of quietly discharged atoms, right? Your atoms are eternal, they just move from your body into something else, into worms, into soil, into crops, into whatever, right?
[39:49] What if you're wrong? What if by comparing your life to infinite, eternal, perfect, blissful joy, you scrub the pleasure out of your life, you wait for happiness rather than carve it out of the indifferent universe by your bare claws if you have to, You lose In this life By believing In the eternal perfection Of the afterlife It has an effect A big, deep, powerful effect, On you.
[40:31] If you only look at Victoria's Secret's supermodels in their prime when they haven't eaten for two days or drunk water for 14 hours, then you are imprinting upon yourself ideals of female beauty that then, when you date a woman, she looks less pleasant.
[40:59] So there's a price. I get the comfort. The idea that I could spend eternity with my wife, my daughter, and my friends is a beautiful thought. But it does provoke a lack of commitment to the everyday. It does promote procrastination, and it does promote a lack of pursuit of joy and virtue in the world that is. And it promotes procrastination. If I'm going to spend eternity with my friends, is it important that I call them tomorrow?
[41:33] If this is our only life, and science, reason, facts, empiricism, and history says that it is, why would I think I have an afterlife? If I have an eternal soul, I should remember before I was born, but I don't. I don't. Nobody does. So, outside of the sort of philosophical reason and evidence and empiricism arguments, I just want people to understand that there is a trade-off. Now, this is a Pascal's wager, right? Not the same, but a similar sort of vein. So if I'm wrong, and there is life after death, and you merge with the almighty, perfect, beautiful, blissful divine, but I've lived my life passionately and proactively and with a great desire to define and spread the tenets and arguments of virtue and truth. I haven't lost, right? Assuming I'm living a virtuous life, I get to go to heaven. I haven't lost because I've had a powerful, vital life based upon the idea that it's your only life.
[42:47] Then you commit. You commit, right? Now, if I'm wrong and there is life after death, then what have I lost? I've had a powerful, passionate, positive, proactive life. Let's get our peas shuffling along, But If I live my life With three quarters of my vision Cast upon the afterlife.
[43:21] And I'm wrong, and I have deferred, and I have viewed my life far more negatively, because in my mind and heart's eye I've compared it to the eternal perfection of the divine, then I have lost. I have lost significantly. I have reduced my commitment to the life that is in exchange for an imaginary life that does not come to pass.
[43:45] It's like a guy who scrimps and saves and scrimps and saves and denies himself everything because he wants to buy whatever, whatever your heart desires. So he wants to buy a cool car, some Maserati. So he scrimps and saves and scrimps and saves. And then on the way to go pick up his Maserati, he gets hit by a bus and dies. All that scrimping and saving was just sad because he didn't get the Maserati. Now, if he scrimps and saves and scrimps and saves and then gets the Maserati and he's thrilled with the Maserati and it's the greatest thing ever and it makes him blissfully happy, not that it could, but let's imagine that it does. Okay, then at least his sacrifice was not in vain. What if there is no Maserati? What if you're going to get hit by a bus on your way to pick it up and you never get to enjoy it? Is it worth the scrimping and saving? Believing in an afterlife has very powerful effects on how much people commit to the world that is. And part of the passivity, and I'll speak specifically here, part of the passivity of Christianity is the belief in the end times. It is the belief that Satan rules this world. It is the belief that you just got to struggle through and get to the afterlife with as little damage as possible.
[44:59] And there is not that same passionate commitment to spreading truth, reason, and virtue. There used to be, for reasons that are historical, which we can touch on perhaps another time, but that's my concern. Why focus on the now when the forever and ever is beckoning? Why dig into and get the most out of life when it's a prison of suffering relative to the perfection to come. How hard are you going to work at a job you hate, when you are retiring tomorrow with a lot of money in the bank?
[45:52] Because your job that you hate, and you hate your job relative to this glorious retirement you're about to embark on, the job that you hate is a negative, and you're about to retire into a comparatively infinite positive. So you're not going to work very hard. You're not going to commit to your job. And we've all had that, right? You're in some job and it's your last day. I remember once, my first programming job, I worked with COBOL 74, then COBOL 85 on a tandem system. And I worked there for about a year. And during that time, I co-founded a software company. And I used to have these horrible, I'd go and do presentations and they'd go on and on. And I was only supposed to be at lunch and I was completely paranoid. And a friend of mine said, hey, man, you take your job too seriously. I'm like, but I'm British, and why should this what we do? So...
[46:44] I remember the last day, there was a guy there who was explaining to me how the disk allocation system and the file allocation table worked on the tandem system. And I'm like, bro, it's my last day. Why are you teaching me this? I'm never going to use this. I'm never going back to tandem. So that last day, I didn't care. I mean, how hard do you work? Do you remember the last day of school? Last day of school, I loved it, man. I was like, why can't school be like this every day? Last day of school, you know, there were games, There was fun, free donuts. And I remember there was some, they would divide the girls on one side, the boys on the other side. There'd be trivia contests with prizes. Man, it was blast. Beautiful. Beautiful. But nobody was studying because last day.
[47:31] So outside of the sort of recent science, biology, empiricism, evidence, which are important, there are costs and benefits to both beliefs. I am a bird in the hand kind of guy. I'm an empiricist. I don't like to risk that much. I know that sounds kind of odd, given the entire mad, evil Knievel trajectory of my, quote, career, but I don't like to risk. I don't like the idea that I'm going to defer my passion and commitment to the world that is for the sake of a world that might be that remains unproven because if, if I'm wrong I've lost not everything because I still lived but an enormous amount I never want a day to go by without the people I love knowing how much I love them, because we can all get wet-fingered, candle-disappeared any moment. I want to be as passionately devoted and committed to the definition and expansion of truth, reason, and virtue in the world as humanly possible.
[48:44] Because I will not come this way again. Humanity has waited thousands of years for a rational proof of secular ethics. I've done it. And if I have any particular gifts, which I think I do, in not just reason, but in rhetoric, in presentation, then I will stake everything on the good that I can do in the world. If there are benefits after I die, I will take them with gratitude. I do not expect them because I will not withdraw one ounce, one atom of commitment that I have. To the virtues that I can define, achieve, and promote in the world that is. Does that help at all?
[49:33] It does help. Could I provide you a hypothetical here? Imagine you're a cancer patient and you know that you are going to die in two months. Death is assured in two months or so. And you're presented with an option, as patients often are in Canada, with, let's say, medical assistance in dying um and you can end it early forget the two months you know it's going to be extremely painful uh so you can you can end it early but you're let's say a person of of um christian upbringing and the the other option says um escaping escaping early is is uh is a sin or something of its nature, And you have to see the process out Until it's natural conclusion I think a lot of people In the modern day are presented with these Two options And I'm not I wonder What is the case for Someone Who's going to die, Suffering Until the bitter end Oftentimes they will say What's the point of this pain Why don't just end it early?
[50:52] Why don't I end it early, right? What's the point of enduring that pain?
[50:57] Tell me, I'm sorry to be overly definitional, but I'm not sure what you mean by what's the point. For the Christian, the point is that you're not allowed to kill yourself. It's in God's hands, and God will take you when he's ready, and you don't interfere with God's will. So that's the point for Christians, if I understand it correctly. Is that what you mean?
[51:16] That is what I mean.
[51:17] Okay, so that's the answer for the Christians. Is your question, what is the point for an atheist?
[51:22] Sure, yes, yes Well.
[51:25] Fully half of the money that you're ever going to spend on healthcare in your life is spent in the last couple of months of your life. So because we have, sorry, coughing up a hairball of revulsion, because we have socialized medicine in Canada, people don't have cost-benefit calculations. The cost-benefit calculation in Canada now is I better stay healthy because healthcare is really hard to get. People are pouring into the country like nobody's business and a lot of them need healthcare and it's not like the housing and we know all of that.
[52:03] So in the past, it used to be the case where people would say, okay, I can, let's say, it's going to cost you a quarter of a million dollars for the last six months of your life. So people used to be able to make a sort of more rational decision about these things. They say, well, do I want to blow $100,000, $200,000, a quarter mil or whatever, or do I want to leave that for my kids to get their lives started and so there used to be a sort of cost benefit calculation now if there was insurance so some of this would pay for by insurance and so on but, even for insurance if you say well i want to go to the bitter end no matter what you can prompt me alive with like three chipmunks and a taser then your insurance is going to be more expensive if you want to be kept alive at all costs so people have to make costs i mean in the past, people would make rational cost-benefit calculations. If I end my life early, given that the doctors have all assured me I'm not getting better.
[53:08] The pain is going to get worse, it's going to become unmanageable, and it's going to cost a fortune.
[53:16] Well, then again, I don't know what the answer is, because this is not a moral decision. This is a resource decision, right? Should you spend your money or should you save your money? Nobody can tell you that in any objective, rational way because there are benefits and costs to either saving or to spending. So nobody can tell you. So these are resource allocation decisions. So people would make those resource allocation decisions when they actually had resources to allocate, but because it's all debt and tax and money printed and funding, people don't make those cost-benefit decisions. So the meaning of going to, you know, gruesome end of life for somebody who's not religious would be to some degree, not perfectly, of course, but it would be to some degree a cost-benefit calculation. And it is not, of course, just the person himself who's, Because, you know, the people you love, you hate to see them suffer. And so it would be a family decision, an extended family decision. It would be a bunch of things that would be going on. So the meaning would be perhaps to reduce suffering in the world by taking an early exit and also to preserve resources for your family that otherwise will be spent on ever increasing suffering, pain and expense, if that makes sense.
[54:44] Hmm there's one i'm gonna drop down here so other people can speak but there's one part of this that um i it'd be necessary for you to expand on regarding uh the moral the what is the moral imperative in in this case in that if you're an atheist and you're presented with an option to injure pain or avoid pain, that there is no real moral calculation within that. Pursuing suffering for an atheist or a Christian is a moral decision.
[55:22] Okay, hang on, hang on, hang on. So what do you mean by a moral decision? And let me just very briefly, very briefly, I promise, say what I mean by it. So let me ask you this. are you allowed to destroy your own property without going to jail?
[55:39] I would think so.
[55:40] Yeah. If you want to take a vase and you want to smash it on the ground, do you go to jail? No, of course not. Because you can destroy your own property without it being evil. Is that fair to say? But of course, if you go and you key someone's car, then you're a vandal and you would be arrested, right?
[56:01] Correct, correct.
[56:02] Okay, so we can destroy our own property without that kind of moral consideration. Now, we can say it's impractical or whatever it is, right? But we can destroy our own property. Now, do we own ourselves, our own bodies? So we can destroy our own property without being called evil, without foundational moral considerations. We own ourselves. Therefore, we can choose to destroy ourselves because we are ourselves. We own ourselves. Our body is our self-ownership. We own ourselves. We own the effects of our actions. So if we can destroy our own property without being called evil, without foundational moral considerations, then the same thing would be with assisted suicide. Now, this is not to say that there aren't deep emotional considerations and relational considerations and all of that, but I'm not sure I see the moral considerations like good or evil.
[57:00] I couldn't articulate, correct, good or evil from the viewpoint of an atheist when they're posed with the decision of ending their life early or pursuing a finality that is just going to be painful, absolutely painful. I could not articulate the alternative. What would be the moral argument for an atheist to pursue weeks and weeks and weeks of pain, ultimate pain, to ultimately die? I suppose within the Christian framework, we can articulate the moral argument there. But from the atheist point of view, I wonder what the moral case would be for pursuing pain.
[57:43] So with all due respect, my friend, you're not much of a listener because this is the third sort of question and you've not acknowledged any of my sort of previous answers really. And I thought we had just agreed that there were no foundational moral issues with regards, to end of life discussions. And now we're back to the, I thought we talked about that and said, it's not foundationally moral. And now you're back to, well, what are the moral decisions? Like, I'm not sure that we're actually communicating here.
[58:11] I'm sorry, Stefan. I'm happy that this is recorded, so I'll revisit it. I'll check myself before I wreck myself. Okay, my friend? I'm very happy that you're on this platform. No, no, no.
[58:22] Listen, it sounds like you're dismissing the conversation. I'm happy to answer it, but it just feels like it's a bit of a, I'm speaking a bit to a television set. You have your questions, you have your perspectives, and it's not much that I say that makes a difference. Because we had said, you can destroy your own property without being called evil. It's not a moral decision. It may be a practical decision or an efficiency decision. It's not a moral decision. And then we said, well, you can end your own life because you own yourself. That's not a moral decision. And then you were like, well, what about the morality of end-of-life stuff? So we're kind of back to that. So let me just, I just wanted to point that out. And then I'll tell you, I mean, I think most people have thought through this kind of stuff. So, I can absolutely, and I did have cancer many years ago, so I did sort of roll these questions around in my brain like a bunch of bowling balls in the hold of a ship in a storm. But there are absolutely circumstances wherein I would suffer brutal agony and prolong my own life. Totally. If I was working on a very important book or some project that I felt that it was essential to finish, then I would do whatever I could to complete that project, even if it meant enduring significant pain.
[59:39] So, if there is something that you need to get done, something that you want to get done, something that is more important than suffering, and of course, virtue, we have to place above suffering. Otherwise, we're just heathenists. I'm not putting you in that category, right? But we have to place virtue above suffering. Otherwise, we do that which is most pleasant, which only serves immorality. Like, we have to put self-discipline above what we like to eat, Because if all we did was eat what we like to eat, we'd get very unhealthy very quickly. So we have to have something above hedonism. And so if I was engaged, for me, it could be different things for other people. It could be finishing a novel or finishing a painting or whatever it is, right? Or you might want to stay alive to see the birth of a grandchild or a great-grandchild or something like that. To be able to hold that precious life before you die could be a very big thing. A friend of mine many years ago got married early and had a child early because his father had been diagnosed with cancer and he wanted his son or daughter to be able to meet his father, who was a great man, honestly. And so, yeah, there could be a number of things that would have an atheist or an agnostic hold on to achieve some good despite the pain. Does that make sense?
[1:01:01] Yes. Yes.
[1:01:04] Okay, well, I appreciate that. And Big Tech, if you want to step up and chatty chat, I'm all ears. And by the way, guys, great questions. I can't tell you just how much I appreciate these conversations. Go ahead. Oh, don't forget to unmute, of course, the usual statement. All right, going once, going twice.
[1:01:31] All right. matter flattery something like that uh you've been added to the queue or added to the the live chat if you want to unmute and tell me what's on your mind i'll i'll do my best to help.
[1:01:50] Sometimes sometimes when you take too long to answer a question people end up afk away from knowledge ah you thought i was going to say keyboard didn't i all right let's try our good friend Favell, Favell? I think that's how it's pronounced. If you wanted to unmute and let me know what's on your mind, I'd be happy to chat, Alright, let's try good texture good texture, unmute, pretty sure I didn't completely destroy no, because I'm hearing binks when I, say to people going once going twice Stefan you unmuted me, Me being who?
[1:02:37] Favell.
[1:02:37] Yes, that was absolutely intentional. What's on your mind?
[1:02:41] Hi. Your take on Bitcoin about the little bits of sand and how they would destroy it, from my perspective, was so accurate. And it was said so early on. I was wondering if you had an update of your thoughts on this entire industry that has developed since. Because mine basically is all rubbish, but I would actually be interested to know what you would think.
[1:03:09] Sorry, can you appreciate that? What was I saying about grains of sand?
[1:03:14] If the solution to destroy Bitcoin, if it is a genuinely positive development technologically, the way they would destroy it would be putting little bits of sand in it.
[1:03:29] Oh, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A little bit of regulations, a little bit of control, just a little bit of paper and so on. And then they would sell as they knew that down the pipeline, the value was going to go down. So, yes, that certainly is something that I gave a speech about.
[1:03:46] So, sorry, is there more that you want to add or would you like to hear a tiny slice of… Yeah.
[1:03:50] I would like to hear what your update on your thoughts on it is because I think that they've done that. Uh like if you want an example of how to confuse an entire market uh you take one asset and turn it into 50 million you know so that people go well i have a coin for this i have a coin for that and i have a coin for this whereas really from my readings of what satoshi wrote his idea was this is a unified protocol much like the internet in that every device in the world would eventually be connected to it, whether it's being used as money itself, is an entirely different question.
[1:04:31] So is your issue, with the altcoins.
[1:04:35] Uh no my issue is with the entire industry uh i think that everyone got dollar signs in their eyes they got distracted and you know they go well the world works a certain way you can't do anything about it move on whereas okay so this is this is hang on a true paradigm hang on hang on hang on that we're actually losing hang.
[1:04:57] On so this is these are all very abstract criticisms like people got dollar signs in their eyes well no shit of course they did, right? I mean, there's money to be made and some people want to cash out. And again, whether you're diamond hands or paper hands is not particularly relevant, there's costs and benefits to both, right? I mean, if somebody's 80 or 70, they may want to sell their Bitcoin to go and travel the world and enjoy the last remaining years of their life or whatever it is, right? So if it's not about altcoins and it's about the entire industry and greed, it's too abstract, it's too broad, it's too general. Can you give me something more specific?
[1:05:32] A bit more specific then. The developers of the space, the people that code, they either have been misled by some false prophets or they are truly stupid in that a system that does seven transactions for the entire world is beyond ridiculous. Even if it's used as a settlement layer, the thing you have Bitcoin for is to solve the double spend problem. And if you have to take, problem and reintegrate it and solve it somewhere else, you're kind of building a Rube Goldberg machine that will never really work because your foundations are rotten. And I see that.
[1:06:24] Okay. So sorry, again, hang on, hang on, hang on. Analogies and abstractions don't really help. So saying it's like a Rube Goldberg machine. So is your issue that Bitcoin, just boil it down for me, brother, is your issue that Bitcoin is too slow?
[1:06:40] It's too slow and it's been co-opted from my perspective.
[1:06:43] Okay, but what is co-opted? Give me something specific rather than dollar signs in the eyes, which I can't debate. What specifically means, what do you mean by co-opted?
[1:06:53] Legally, to have a contract, you need a signature. And that signature tends to need to be on the document in bitcoin in 2017 they removed the signatures so legally it's very gray now whereas before it was like a very concrete yes this is a contract legal thing of property and now it's changed and we're already dealing with something new it seems like a tactic to divide and destroy what it is okay i need you to stay i need you hang.
[1:07:22] On i need you to stay off the abstractions okay i.
[1:07:25] Just want.
[1:07:26] To know what the issue is so in 2017 you're saying they took off a form of e-signature is that right.
[1:07:31] Yeah they put it in a different data structure.
[1:07:36] And what was their rationale for doing that.
[1:07:38] Uh increase the seven transactions per second limit that they refuse to remove.
[1:07:46] So they was they said we're going to make it faster but then they did not remove the seven transactions per second limit is that right precisely.
[1:07:53] They uh they said they would and there was a whole like segwit 2x thing that you know became a sort of reddit and x mob and uh yeah they never did that.
[1:08:06] Okay so what you're saying and i don't know the details of this i did a presentation last year which was an update on my original truth about bitcoin from like 2014 or whenever it was so you can go and check that out so is it is it my understanding that you are concerned that human beings are fallible and corruptible no.
[1:08:29] My concern is that what should have been obvious slipped everyone by because they were lied to and accepted that lie is truth and i'm.
[1:08:42] Wondering okay so that means that they are that means that they're fallible and corruptible doesn't it yeah okay so i don't we're turning in circles here so okay i don't know the details but let's take your argument at face value that people are fallible and corruptible right and and that is not limited to the bitcoin space is it better in the bitcoin space or is it better in the realm of central banking borrowing debt and war if.
[1:09:14] If we get it right it should be better in the bitcoin.
[1:09:17] Space no no no right now right now right now right now is it better in central banking the human fallibility and corruptibility is it better in bitcoin or in war and debt.
[1:09:32] Uh, well, if you know what the people at the top of Bitcoin are doing, it's better in war and debt.
[1:09:39] So central banking and money printing and borrowing against the receipts of the next generation, every child born a million or more dollars in debt and unfunded liabilities and the ability to fund war at will, that is worse than what's going on in the Bitcoin world.
[1:09:57] Uh, well, you already have all those properties in the Bitcoin world, except you also have instantaneous anonymous communication, which is a difference between anonymous and...
[1:10:09] It's a huge... Hang on, hang on, hang on. It's a huge... I think we got a delay, so don't worry about it. But I think that there's a huge statement that you're making. Okay. Can the people who are running Bitcoin enslave the next generation in virtually bottomless debt?
[1:10:26] Yes.
[1:10:27] How?
[1:10:29] Uh it's fractional reserve bitcoins and they've kind of potentially already done that uh we don't know how many people claim have certain claims on bitcoins okay fantastic so i need to know what the hell you're talking.
[1:10:44] About you keep rushing forward as if as if this is all self-evident, so are you so my daughter is born into catastrophic amounts of debt because of fiat currency can we agree on that yep okay how is she born into debt because of, the fact that people can borrow multiples against their bitcoin holdings.
[1:11:11] Um well the banking system used to work on gold and then we put it in vaults and we issued the debt on that and the banking system evolved into the whole debt slavery from birth uh and And if you can do it with gold in vaults, you can definitely do it with Bitcoin.
[1:11:30] How is my daughter, hang on, how is my daughter liable for any losses from people who borrow multiples on their Bitcoins as individuals or corporations? How is my daughter legally liable for those aspects of Bitcoin?
[1:11:47] I wouldn't say she was.
[1:11:49] Okay, so then she can't be born into debt through Bitcoin in the way that she is through central banking and fiat currency.
[1:11:57] Yeah i see what you're saying my issue i guess to be more concrete is that they've rebuilt the banking system on top of bitcoin and said it's better because it's got bitcoin but.
[1:12:09] They have not that's that is absolutely not true come on man i mean listen i i appreciate your passion and and and your obvious focus on on the improvement stuff but you got to say stuff that is not nonsense sorry with all due respect well come on yeah no no hang on hang on hang on hang on hang on So the banking system is built on monopolies provided by the state, loaning from central banks, and the creation of assets through borrowing. None of that is possible in Bitcoin. I can't ask for a loan and have Bitcoin magically created. I cannot print Bitcoin. No one can. I cannot legally enslave other people through Bitcoin, which is through a fiat currency. So when you say Bitcoin is worse than fiat currency, is war being funded through the creation out of thin air of Bitcoin?
[1:13:17] Yes, because the altcoins are a lot of times used by terrorist organizations to fund their operations.
[1:13:26] No no that's that's you're not listening and i will not have a conversation if you're not listening okay what did i say, i said is war being funded by the creation out of thin air of bitcoin and then you said altcoins and terrorist organizations okay terrorist organizations are not nation-state war which is what I was referring to. That's what war generally refers to as a nation state. And they are not creating Bitcoin out of thin air because you can't. So you're not listening. And it's really tough to have a conversation if you're not listening, because you redefined war to mean terrorism. And then you said altcoins, which again, most of which you can't create out of thin air, at least I assume if you can, they're not worth very much. So I said, is war, nation state war being funded by the arbitrary creation of Bitcoin?
[1:14:26] And the answer to that, as you and I both know, is no. Is that fair?
[1:14:42] Well i suppose it is fair because it doesn't sound like he's responding all right let's do one more monsieur big tech bigger tech uh what's on your mind my friend don't forget to unmute.
[1:14:59] Going once going twice listen and i just wanted to point out you know like no hate no foul it's fine but if you want to have a conversation i'm a really good listener i mean if you've heard in my call-in shows, I spend, you know, a two-hour conversation, I'll spend the first hour to an hour and a half asking questions and just really listening.
[1:15:20] So if you want to convince people, and you know, this guy had a public forum to make his case, if you want to convince people, you have to first listen. There's a lot of life that's about sales, right? I had lots of speeches to start, but people wanted to talk, which was great, happy to hear. But if you've ever been in sales, right? And sales can be a very noble and elevated profession, right? If you've ever been in sales, let's say you're a car salesman, you can't sell anything to anyone without listening to them first. If you're a car salesman and you just, some guy comes in, he's got a wife and he's got four kids and you take him to the most expensive sports car and say, this is what you need. He's not going to buy from you. In fact, he's not going to want to talk to you at all because you're not asking him what he needs. So in order to convince people... You first must listen to them very carefully. And if you don't want to listen to them, you will only do whatever cause you're pursuing some significant harm. All right, big tech did not seem to be around. Let's try one more round. Haggaz. Haggaz, great D&D name for an intermediate demon. Is he here? Is he not?
[1:16:37] Me? Ah, perfect.
[1:16:38] Yes, sir. Go ahead.
[1:16:39] Yes, nice. So I was just going to bounce on something you were exploring before with the person before the last one. It was on your justification for living as an atheist framework. Hang on, hang on.
[1:17:02] Hang on, hang on. Hang on, hang on, hang on. Hold on, hold on, hold on.
[1:17:07] Yeah, sorry.
[1:17:09] Where did i justify it i said there were costs and benefits to both, i talked about my i talked about my decision i talked about my decision and my my calculation but where did and if i did you know i may have forgotten so i'm happy to be reminded but i'm not sure i justified it i talked about the costs and benefits and i seriously avoided the sort of rational empirical arguments for or against an afterlife and i said i'm really going to work on just the cost benefits and there are costs and benefits to both here's my choice i don't think i justified it in that sense like for everyone i just like if if i say well you can have salad you can have cheesecake uh i choose to eat cheesecake i'm not justifying it i'm just saying that's my preference and here's the cost and benefits to both does that make sense yes.
[1:17:50] Yes that was not my intent uh so sorry for that i wanted like you you provided an argument let's say or anyway it was not really the subject what i wanted to go is about how the the argument that was used if i'm not wrong was at least one of the argument was that um you own your body, right and so therefore well you have this right to i guess yeah get rid of it and so here i was actually trying to bump on this on um basically on your conception of property i guess of ownership, yeah and uh for me at least the most concrete way because i hate abstraction as much as i've seen that you seem to also despise it in general uh for me uh the only way i can see property, stripped away from all these abstractions is to see property as what cannot escape your grasp in any sort of way. So, you know, money is a form of grasp, physical grasp, any kind of influence. And so, sorry, hang on.
[1:18:58] Hang on, hang on. You can't just define property without my input and then just move on. I mean, that's a big topic, right? Okay, it's like if I say, okay, so if we assume that two and two make five moving on right then maybe your definition of property has some validity but the definition of property is not a tiny subject and if you say property is that which you which people can't get out of your grasp or which you cannot lose your grasp over it was was that the right definition did i have that correct.
[1:19:24] Yeah what cannot what cannot escape your grasp is your property.
[1:19:29] Okay so if i if if if somebody kidnaps a woman and locks her in his basement she becomes his property because she can't escape his grasp.
[1:19:38] Yes uh until someone else can maybe beat him up and no has grasp over him so for example the state usually tends to be more powerful so it.
[1:19:48] No no hang on hang on hang on hang on let's just do one analogy at a time it's not race all over the analogy woods okay so is there a difference hang on hang on is there a difference or what is your difference between just and unjust property right so if if you're a kid and i'm a kid and you got a halloween you got a bag of halloween candy and i grab it and run away into the woods according to your definition you can't find me or whatever i disappear into the woods it's now my product like your candy is now my property right.
[1:20:23] Yeah, so I don't ascribe a moral value to property itself.
[1:20:28] Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, no, no. So that's all I, so that's you. Okay, is there a difference between just and unjust property? In other words, if you have a candy bar and I have an orange and you're dying of scurvy or some nonsense, right? Then I give you my orange and you give me your candy bar and then I run off into the woods, I haven't stolen, right?
[1:20:51] Yes, yes, yes.
[1:20:52] So is there a difference between stolen and non-stolen property in your framework? Oh, yes. Yes, definitely. Okay. Because it's not encapsulated in your definition of that, which you can hold on to.
[1:21:08] No, of course. Yeah. That's why you add an adjective to it, right? Like stolen or adverb or something. uh so yeah uh.
[1:21:15] So is there hang on hang on so if somebody steals property is that valid property or just something that they can defend.
[1:21:29] Not sure i understand the.
[1:21:30] Sorry i was like yeah let me let me let me take another run at it sorry that was that was not my bad okay so if you steal like we're kids right you steal my bike Yes. Is it fair for me to take it back by force if need be?
[1:21:47] I will not ascribe a universal morality, so I will not say fairness is universal here. For me, if you start to talk of fairness in such terms right now, it seems that you're trying to establish there is a universal moral standard.
[1:22:06] Well i i'm a moral philosopher so of course i'm going to try and establish that there's a universal moral standard of course i am okay.
[1:22:13] Okay not nietzschean.
[1:22:16] God no okay.
[1:22:17] All right but at least well that's good so there so so you can understand more.
[1:22:22] Okay so let me ask you hang on let me let me let me ask you this then so if you have a kid and you buy him a 200 bike and you don't have a lot of money and then some he comes home and he says dad dad bob bob took my bike he pushed me over and he took my bike and bob lives like two doors house down, right? What do you do?
[1:22:43] Well, it depends on the state, but of course I'll try to defend my property extended.
[1:22:49] Okay, so you would go and get the bike back, right?
[1:22:51] Yeah, in general, yes.
[1:22:53] I'm not sure what you mean by in general.
[1:22:55] No, it depends on the context, but like here, no, it's like...
[1:22:59] No, no, this is the context. I'm giving you the theoretical. Your son's bike is stolen by Bob, who lives two doors down. Do you go and get it back?
[1:23:09] Yes, yes.
[1:23:11] Okay so in practical terms there is just an unjust property whereas if if your son comes home and says bob got a new bike i really like it i want you to go and take bob's bike from him and give it to me would you do that oh.
[1:23:26] No good work yes it that's that's why uh i've said there's.
[1:23:30] Some so you would hang on hang on you would go and steal bob's bike and give it to your.
[1:23:39] That's what i meant it here you are asking for this kind of um in today's society no i would not for example.
[1:23:47] Okay so so your actions hang on your actions are entirely different based upon whether the property is justly acquired or unjustly acquired in other words if bob takes your kid's bike you'll go get it back if bob has a bike and your kid wants you to go and take it you won't do it. So your actions are opposite, going to retrieve the bike versus refusing to retrieve the bike based upon whether the property was justly acquired or not. If Bob steals the property, you'll go get it back. If it is his property justly acquired by giving to him by his parents, then you won't steal it. So when you say, I don't really create a distinction, that's just not true because that's not how you would live. Empirically, you do have a distinction on just versus unjust property.
[1:24:31] Well it depends on who the child is whose child it is what kind of bike and all these different.
[1:24:38] It does not come on man don't give me that crap it does not depend on what kind of bike it is are you saying that the the property rights and just and unjust depends on whether it's a tricycle or a bike or a mountain bike or a 10 speed that doesn't make any damn bit of difference at all.
[1:24:52] Well uh it's a risk uh cost and benefits analysis that you do as well for these kind of things.
[1:25:00] No, no, no. The cost benefit analysis is not about the justice, but about the practicality. So let's say that Bob's dad is a trigger happy shooting guy who might, who might gun you down if you go and get, well, maybe you'd go to the police in that case and let them handle it. Or maybe you'd, maybe you'd give up the bike, but that wouldn't take the justice. That would simply take the practicality of action out of it, but the impulse would still be the same. You'd want to get the bike back, but it might be too dangerous for whatever reason. I mean, to take a silly example, if Bob steals your kid's bike, and then he keeps it in his house, and you go over to Bob's house, and it's currently burning down, you're probably not going to go in to get the bike, right? But we're talking about the morals of the situation, that you would be justified in retrieving the stolen bike, but not in stealing the bike that was justly owned. so we both agree on that and it doesn't matter what kind of bike it is or anything like that that's.
[1:25:56] An absolute it assumes of of the equality of bob that you ascribe to him that you if you value him sorry sorry i didn't.
[1:26:04] I didn't sorry i didn't for the quality of bob or the equality of bob.
[1:26:08] The uh actually both in a sense uh the uh if you value bob as some kind of an equal to you and And that's why you ascribe this kind of justice and fairness. And this, at least...
[1:26:20] Sorry, I don't know what that means. What does that mean? Bob is not an equal to you as the father because Bob is a kid.
[1:26:26] Yeah, or just as a human. No, like today, most people tend to value every human as equal of some sort because they are human. And that's why we tend to ascribe this kind of justice and fairness.
[1:26:36] What the hell are you talking about? You think I'm talking about if a squirrel stole some nuts from your table that you'd take him to court? I don't know what you're talking about. Of course, we're talking about human beings. Every analogy has been about a human being. So what are you thinking about human beings for? Like, it's like there's some option.
[1:26:51] Yeah, in certain frameworks, you judge human beings differently based on, not because they're, the fact that they are human is irrelevant to moral judgment.
[1:27:01] The fact that they're human is irrelevant to your moral judgment. I don't know what that means.
[1:27:06] Okay. Okay, well, maybe I'll get an example. Like in lots of tribes, they tend to call themselves, literally by the word that means human. So they are called the human in their language. And all the other Nehruaric tribes are monsters. They're non-humans. Even they transform into masts as the devils and the monsters they kill. And it's morally justified for them to exploit and kill and do whatever these kind of things to them because they're simply not considered in any kind of their perspective is irrelevant so there's not this sense of fairness or because so you're talking about you're.
[1:27:42] Talking about sorry you're talking about very primitive tribes pre-reason pre usually pre-written language pre-argumentation pre-conceptual definition of just about anything you're talking about like really primitive tribes, like pygmies and something, right?
[1:27:59] I would say the Greeks too, the ancient Greeks. For example, I would just expand it and then you will counteract it. I know I'm not making an appeal to nature. That's also what I'm trying. I'm not trying to make an appeal to nature, not necessarily. So, for example, what I would say for the ancient Greeks, they more than often disregarded the values, judgment of all the other people around them. And they might say, oh, yeah, the Persians, they are inbreed with their sisters, but no, that's their way. It doesn't matter. And so, I mean, you can find that in a lot of different civilized groups where the fact that another person is a human being is irrelevant to necessary or moral judgment.
[1:28:55] Yes, but the Greeks, the ancient Greeks and Romans and just about every other tribe and culture in the ancient world, in fact, all of them that we know of, had no system of universal morality for the simple reason we know of that, because they owned slaves.
[1:29:09] Okay okay yeah.
[1:29:10] So you're talking about people who who who don't have a system of universal morality right yes.
[1:29:18] Yes yes yes yes but i mean like.
[1:29:20] Okay people.
[1:29:20] Tend to value still the ancient greeks for a lot of things so it's just trying to counter the point that i'm not just talking about primitive people that maybe we might want to disvalue.
[1:29:28] Because well no but with regard with regards to universal ethics they were primitive because they didn't even recognize them so this is like they thought the world was flat and they thought that the sun went around the earth and they thought the sun and the moon were the same size and they didn't know what caused the tides because they didn't understand the pull of the moon on the ocean. So with regards to science, we would say they were quite primitive. With regards to ethics, we would say that they were extremely primitive because they did not recognize even that the slaves in their household were human beings.
[1:30:00] Yeah, well, I would say the difference is that science is empirical where most of philosophy is the result of the abstraction of language circling its way.
[1:30:12] So most of philosophy is the abstraction of language circling its way. Do you feel that that communicates much?
[1:30:22] Okay, yes. Yeah, I will. Yes. That's because I'm too much into these things. I can go further.
[1:30:28] Let's get back to property. Let's get back to property. Because if you were to judge a scientific theory, a modern scientific theory, let's say something to do with relativity or quantum mechanics or something like that. If you were to judge a modern scientific theory by what the Greeks believed, would that be valid?
[1:30:46] No, but here I would say it's a different kind of, I'll say, a false equivalent, I would say.
[1:30:52] Hang on. Is it fair then to judge a universal moral system by what the Greeks believed?
[1:30:58] Here I would say yes, for example, or others. But I would say for me, because morality, okay, if I can expand, I would say morality is, it's a solution or a set of solutions to problems which became unconscious. And so, hang on.
[1:31:19] Hang on, hang on. Again, you come up with these definitions and like, I agree with them. A definition, so your morality is a set of solutions to problems that became unconscious?
[1:31:29] Yes, contrary to ethics, I would say.
[1:31:31] Hang on, I don't even know what that means.
[1:31:35] Well, okay. I don't know, for example, well, I'll take something stupid. I don't have anything else in mind. But maybe people realize that killing their own children is not a very successful strategy. So eventually it became a solution and some kind of moral behavior to not kill your children. And you don't even think about it. you don't argue and you call that it's good not to kill your children or whether it's evil to kill your children, usually.
[1:32:09] Okay so, help me understand if you don't believe in morality.
[1:32:19] Continue do.
[1:32:20] You believe or do you think that there's a validity to objective morality.
[1:32:26] I will say morality is a very useful tool. Success of solution, as I said, so it's a very useful tool. So I'm not saying people should be immoral. It's just that they would say morality is dependent. It has evolved, let's say, in a given context from a given people at a given time. And sometimes, no, they need to shift because the environment might change. And so the solutions might be wrong. A bit of science process, right?
[1:32:51] Okay, so why should people not be immoral?
[1:32:56] I think that's the thing. This is just for me, so I agree this is me being not normal.
[1:33:03] No, no, no. This is philosophy. Your opinion is irrelevant. Right, so if you're going to say this is just for me, you're making an argument about... Okay, you go ahead, finish your thought, because you keep interrupting me.
[1:33:19] I mean, when you say morality, for me, as a term, morality itself today is a term that is universal. So for me, if you, okay, I have no respect for me. When you say morality, it's a loaded word that already assumes universality. It does not try to say a morality. You know, I am for moralities, let's say. You have different morals, but not like, oh, I'm for morality itself, because that usually assumes this thing. I could say, I'm for moral behavior, but it also has this kind of universalism in it, which for me becomes a very bad term, an inefficient term, let's say, because it hides.
[1:34:08] This is just a bunch of syllables. Do you feel like you're making a coherent case?
[1:34:13] I felt so.
[1:34:16] Okay you're not you're not okay no because you need you need to have definitions and and so on so you said that morality is just like a useful tool or the certain efficiencies and so on so if people let's say someone can get away with it right why should they not be immoral.
[1:34:30] Get away with what with like uh okay they kill someone and.
[1:34:34] Let's say somebody can steal and they won't be caught they know they know they won't be caught uh why should they not steal.
[1:34:43] Well, there are lots of different cost-benefit analysis in general, I would say. And in general, you also have this, that's why I said this, inner instinctual responses, which we call morality, which drives you not to do these things, which allows a society to thrive.
[1:34:59] No, no, no. Because if human beings had morality as an instinct, we would expect it to be universal. Because all human beings would have this moral...
[1:35:08] No.
[1:35:09] Let me finish. Let me finish.
[1:35:10] Sorry. Yes.
[1:35:11] All human beings have this moral instinct, and therefore, we would expect all human beings to have the same morality, but they don't. There are people who exploit, and people who steal, and people who rape, and people who kill, and people who start wars, and people who borrow on behalf of others through central banking, and people who do all other kinds. They propagandize people, they lie, they cheat, right? So, if we are to say human beings have a moral instinct like human beings are mammals, well, then all human beings would be mammals and all human beings would have the same moral instinct, which they clearly don't.
[1:35:43] Okay, I would say then they have an instinct for moral behavior and not say for the ability to evolve, develop morals.
[1:35:52] No, because there are people who are well-studied in psychology called psychopaths or sociopaths who don't have a conscience. They show no psychological distress they show no psychological distress when they see cruelty brutality torture there are sadists who enjoy causing pain and get deep spiritual or sexual pleasure from causing pain to others.
[1:36:18] So tell me again about this moral instinct unconscious rather than instinct it becomes an unconscious acceptance if you read the royal term that instinct is a bit of a misnomer I agree because it's more it has this kind of even deeper thing but morality is this kind of unconscious set of, filters that makes you act a certain way. And that is something I would say is innate, this ability to develop the system of values, which may be different, that's the thing. But then it's very useful to have this system of values because usually it allows a group to survive. It's a group. Morality is a very...
[1:36:56] Oh, yeah. So this is the standard atheist argument that a common set of rules in a tribe and reciprocal altruism aids in survival, right?
[1:37:05] Yeah, to some extent, but I would not say altruism, because it could be the opposite.
[1:37:11] So both altruism and its opposite are moral?
[1:37:16] I have to find out, but it could be in the sense that if this becomes... So this definition more or less comes from this ethicist quite recently, but maybe there are better ones. But yeah, that's the one they used. I believe it's useful too.
[1:37:32] So that which allows or causes a tribe to survive or flourish or spread is the good. So you're just talking about evolutionary success is the good. And if, quote, morals serve that evolutionary success, then they're positive. And if they inhibit that evolutionary success, then they're negative. Is it something like that?
[1:37:52] Yes, they're negative unless you believe in some kind of afterworld, of course.
[1:37:57] No i i i have a whole book called a rational proof of secular ethics which relies on neither god nor government for the definition of universal virtue and i would strongly suggest that you read it because you sound a little incoherent to me uh and you're basically just talking about evolutionary pressures that there are certain habits that uh creatures have and it's not just human beings but there are certain habits that creatures have that can aid survival in a group context, and there are other habits which might inhibit that survival. And so the most moral man in human history would be Genghis Khan, because Genghis Khan raped his way across Mongolia and good parts of Asia, and like one out of 17 people in that region now can trace their, genetics back to him, and he allowed his soldiers to rape and pillage. And so as far as genetic survival goes and the flourishing and spread of the tribe, Genghis Khan would be the most moral man in human history is that your argument no.
[1:38:53] I would not say entirely because uh you also have these other kinds of aspects that have to survive you know the culture the uh the the feeling of.
[1:39:01] Belonging genghis khan is on the money in mongolia they love him they revere him yes and he was one of the most rapey slaughtery murderous human beings in history but by your moral stand by Hang on, by your moral standard, he is the most moral man because he succeeded the most.
[1:39:21] Well, I would say he's more moral for the Mongolians and he's a genetic line.
[1:39:26] No, evolution, evolution is evolution. It is universal. It is not confined to Mongolia.
[1:39:33] No, but in a sense, the pressures happen everywhere, but they create different kinds of results. No.
[1:39:42] Different environment. Raping is the most efficient way to spread your genetics.
[1:39:49] It's often. There are other ways too, but yes, it could be. It depends. It depends if you have power.
[1:39:57] Does it trouble you that your ethical system calls mass rapists the most moral?
[1:40:03] No, because I don't think it's exactly that, and because I don't really ascribe the value.
[1:40:08] No, it is exactly that. It is exactly that. I asked you very specifically, is moral that which serves the growth and spread of the tribe? You said, yes. I said, Genghis Khan, by raping, murdering, and pillaging, most caused the success of his own tribe. This is not shades of gray. This is entirely based upon your argument. And what I'm asking you is if you have a conscience, does it not trouble you that according to your own definition, mass rape is the most moral action that can be taken?
[1:40:47] That's because you ascribe so much value in the word morality, and so therefore it would make me appear as a monster.
[1:40:53] Does it trouble you? I asked you what was moral. You said that which serves the genetics or the tribe. Mass rape serves the genetics in the tribe. Therefore, mass rape is the most moral. Does that syllogism not trouble you at all?
[1:41:06] It troubles me with the emotional ties that we give to morality. Yes, I would not like to be then ascribed through that. But for me, that's kind of a flaw of the term morality itself.
[1:41:18] So it doesn't really trouble you. It's just a definitional term. Does it trouble you that you may not in fact have a conscience if mass rape, according to your moral system is the most moral thing you can do that that doesn't have you say holy shit that's terrible that's really terrible it's terrible for like you're not you're not bothered by it you're not bothered by it but yes.
[1:41:40] In a sense of course i would not have that to happen to me or to my people or to my tribe.
[1:41:46] Well okay but that doesn't matter what your personal preferences are your moral system defines mass rape as the good the highest good not only and, If that doesn't make you recoil and say, holy shit, have I ever taken a wrong turn at Albuquerque? Have I ever taken a wrong turn?
[1:42:07] Of course, I understand. I understand your point.
[1:42:10] Good, good. No, it's not my point. It's not my point. It's your point. Your point that I'm simply turning the light on. It's your point that I'm illuminating. So here's my homework to you. If you want to avoid being in this absolutely fucking horrible situation of having a moral system that can be used to defend mass murder and rape.
[1:42:30] That's not what you know. That's not what you want. I get that's not what you want. On my website is a free book, and that free book is called Universally Preferable Behavior, a Rational Proof of Secular Ethics. Please, I'm begging you on my knees because your soul is at peril here. I know you're not religious. If you want to say that the conscience, the morality of your entire emotional and mental apparatus is in dire peril, you are serving corruption and immorality at the moment. I don't think that that's your nature. I don't think that's your goal. This is a intervention that is, hang on, well, then I want to save you from what you are doing, which is justifying the grossest acts of evil as moral. I don't want you to be doing that. You don't want to be doing that because you don't want to look in the mirror at some point in your life and saying, I've corrupted my entire being.
[1:43:24] You don't want to pursue this goal of advocating gross evil under the guise of biological evolutionary quote morality what is good for the genes is not the moral and but anyway if you have a system if you have a point or i'm sorry no i don't want you to i don't want you to make any more points because you've made a lot of points and they're all leading in a very dark they're all no they're all leading to a very dark place it's a.
[1:43:47] Bit sad i just.
[1:43:48] It is very sad i agree with you and i it is very sad it is very sad and i want is a time as a younger man than me i've seen a lot of corruption in my day brother, i've seen people lose their souls to the darkest tendrils of relativism subjectivism atheism, And evolution. Evolution is a giant beast. No, I asked you. Please respect my show. I've had a long conversation with you.
[1:44:20] Sorry.
[1:44:21] Thank you. You are in grave peril. And the grave peril is that you use your obvious intellectual and verbal skills in the service of corruption and immorality. Well, I'm sorry.
[1:44:34] I have not expressed myself accurately.
[1:44:36] Thank you for listening to me. Okay.
[1:44:39] So if you can hang up.
[1:44:41] I would appreciate that. I'll do the speech to someone else. But look into the book, UPB, Universally Preferable Behavior, Irrational Proof of Secular Ethics. You have great skills in rhetoric. You have great skills in debate. You have great skills in language. But you have been co-opted by people with a pretty sinister agenda, which is the, erasure and subjugation of universal ethics to mere evolutionary kill or be killed, rape or don't rape murder myself i'm sorry well that's i'm just going by the arguments that you made i am not this is not this is not okay i need you to stop talking okay i'm sorry i'm just gonna turn down the volume i've asked you so many times i've asked you so many times to let me finish This is not a time for you to talk young man This is a time for you to listen to an elder, Who knows a little bit about virtue, Who has sacrificed More than you may ever achieve In the pursuit of virtue You need to listen To someone other than the sophists Who have corrupted Or are in danger of corrupting your mind.
[1:45:56] There is universal truth. There is universal morality. Rape, theft, assault, and murder are all evil. And if you have a moral system that justifies any of them, you are in the service of corruption. And I'm not saying this consciously. I'm not saying you're a bad guy, wakes up and strokes his mustache, rubs his hands together, and wants to go out there and do immorality or evil in the world. I'm not saying that, but that's the path. And it is a very serious path, my friend, because there are a lot of people out there promoting corruption. and you don't want to be one of them because you will never be loved. Can you imagine a moral, virtuous woman finding out that your moral approach can be used to justify mass rape? Do you not know that she will recoil from you and that the only woman who will hang around is a very dark and twisted woman who's going to make you, I mean, I'm trying to appeal to your greed for happiness and love here. These are very serious matters.
[1:46:52] And like a magic spell, they draw people closer to you or drive people further away and your approach to morality will draw the darkest possible people into your orbit and drive the healthiest and happiest and most moral people away and i know that this is like feels intellectual to you it feels abstract and it's kind of cool to debate but this is some very serious and dark shit that you're working with my friend this is like if you believed in devils and i don't but if you believed in devils this is like, goofily painting a pentagram and trying to summon a beast. It will work, and you will be corrupted. You will be corrupted, and you need to fight against that with all of your might, which means don't go around repeating this kind of nonsense and this dangerous nonsense. Go and learn about true morality, universality, and.
[1:47:50] Pursue your conscience to the point where you are recoiling from your moral arguments that portray Genghis Khan as the most moral man in human history, or whoever it is who was the most genetically successful. So, really, really try to avoid that. Your life, your happiness.
[1:48:09] The love of your heart, and the respect of your children hangs in the balance. Do not go any further down this road, turn back and claw your way back to the sunlight, because modern education has done a number and a half on you. And I say this myself with great sympathy, with great sympathy and great respect for your intellectual and language skills, which are considerable. And this is why I'm very passionate about this, is you can be an enormous force for good, but you have to reject this insouciant Nietzschean amoral worship of evolution and genetic success, which is about as brutal a thing as it's ever existed in human history. And you will never be on the winning side of that. All right.
[1:48:51] Thank you, everybody, so much for a great chat, a great conversation. It is absolutely delightful to be back. And I wish you all the very best with the rest of your day. And thank you all so much. Lots of love from up here. If you find the show helpful, freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show, be gratefully and humbly appreciated. And I will see you tomorrow night, 7 p.m. Eastern Standard for a juicy live stream. Thank you, everyone, for the great questions and comments, and I'm very, very sorry to the people I did not get to, but next time. Next time. All right. Thanks, everyone. Have a great day. Bye.
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