0:07 - Welcome to Friday Night Live
7:33 - The Politics of Disagreement
12:49 - Male Friendships and Society
14:35 - The Costs of Leadership
19:02 - Exploring True Motivations
21:38 - The Nature of Exploitation
24:33 - The Future of America
29:41 - The Importance of Male Bonds
33:03 - Understanding Exploitation
47:05 - Prioritizing Values and Worship
49:38 - Atheism and the Concept of God
52:25 - Objective vs. Subjective Realities
53:54 - The Nature of Existence
55:51 - Multiple Conceptions of God
58:00 - Foundational Concepts and Their Implementation
59:02 - Evaluating Foundational Principles
1:02:03 - The Role of Logic and Validity
1:05:20 - Iterability and Its Implications
1:11:33 - The Consequences of Ideologies
1:15:18 - Morality Without a System
1:21:19 - The Consistency of Matter and Energy
1:28:20 - Consequentialism and Its Flaws
1:31:24 - Defining Morality and Goodness
1:33:24 - Reflections on Proverbs and Promises
In this episode, Stefan Molyneux engages in a thought-provoking discussion centered around the escalating tensions between Elon Musk and Donald Trump. We dive deep into the implications of their ideological clash—idealism versus realism—illuminating the complexities of governing a nation full of individuals reliant on perceived entitlements. Stefan passionately critiques the political landscape, comparing attempts to implement practical reforms to orchestrating a spelling bee in an environment devoid of rationality. He draws parallels between the dysfunctionality of politics and the overwhelming narratives propagated by the media, which often sensationalize dire consequences, distorting public perception and limiting rational discourse.
Stefan expresses his frustration with the public's trivialization of serious political disagreements, wherein conflicts between influential figures are often framed in a juvenile or flippant manner—he questions why meaningful debates on policy and governance are reduced to playful banter akin to a "bromance." He adamantly argues that genuine confrontations over substantial political ideologies merit respect and cannot be diminished to mere conflict between personalities. This commentary on societal attitudes invites listeners to reevaluate how they perceive power dynamics and disagreements among prominent figures, particularly in the context of the future of American governance.
The episode transitions into the complexities of morality in political discourse, particularly reflecting on contentious figures like Peter Schiff. Stefan critiques Schiff's problematic views on the implications of Jeffrey Epstein's associations, urging listeners to scrutinize the underlying ethical ramifications of such public statements. The conversation underscores the necessity for clarity and accountability in discussions surrounding morality, particularly when notable figures influence public opinion.
As listener questions flow in, Stefan emphasizes the importance of not becoming paralyzed by overanalysis of one's fears and motivations. He promotes the idea that taking actionable steps can lead to greater self-discovery and empowerment. This philosophy of action over endless introspection resonates throughout the episode, advocating for personal responsibility in navigating life's challenges, whether that means confronting fears head-on or grappling with larger societal issues.
Finally, the dialogue transitions to touch on various philosophical perspectives regarding morality, truth, and the foundations of human relationships. Stefan offers intricate insights on the necessity of understanding core values and the interpretation of concepts like love and friendship. He stresses the importance of maintaining honesty in social contracts, encapsulating his views with a firm stance against sophistry, particularly in political or social rhetoric.
Listeners are left with a comprehensive understanding of the interconnectedness of moral ideologies, political discourse, and the complexities of navigating personal motivations amidst societal pressures. This episode not only encourages critical thinking but also fosters a deeper appreciation for the nuanced discussions vital to the fabric of a thriving democracy.
[0:00] Good evening, good evening. Welcome to your Friday Night Live, Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain. And I hope you're doing well.
[0:07] Let me say a couple of things. Happy to get your questions and comments. As always, we say a couple of things. And if you hit me with your questions, I'm happy to take a swing at them. One thing I will say is this kind of bothers me. It's a rant in a bit, half a rant, two thirds of a rant, maybe even three quarters. So the rant is, as you know, Elon and Trump are having some significant disagreements at the moment. And the disagreements are very important, very powerful. It is the idealist versus the realist. The idealist says, well, geez, you got to cut spending. And the realist says, yes, but we also have to pass legislation. And you can't, it's very hard to cut spending when you have an entire country stuffed to the gills with people who are addicted to getting something from nothing, and a media that fuels and fans this psychosis of infinite resources. It's very, very tough to get practical things done. It is like trying to organize a spelling bee in an insane asylum where everyone thinks that they know how to spell everything by using hand gestures and fart noises. So it's really tough to get things done in politics that are sensible because politics is designed for exploitation and immorality.
[1:27] So anytime you cut anything, all of the pathological hangers-on will lie to everyone and say, death results, right? Death results. From all of this, right? Bono farting out of his, still can't find what I'm looking for, rationality, heat-seeking missile on Joe Rogan's fetid elk-fueled armpits. We're talking about 300,000 people dying from these cuts. And it's like, bro, you're worth over $900 million. Go spend some of your own fucking money or shut the fuck up.
[1:59] So, yeah, people would just lie. And if you try to cut Medicaid, oh, my God, people are going to die in the streets and the media will hone in on that one person who's dying photogenically and say, Trump has blood on his hands. This is not who we are. And everybody just loses their shit and their country. so there is a uh a practical versus the ideal right and everybody who's ever gotten involved in politics it's easy to armchair quarterback from the sidelines and say oh my gosh you know you really should just cut spending and it's like easy to say that and it's hard to do, and what was it 1992 i was watching baseball i think i've watched like three baseball games in my entire life because uh otherwise it makes you feel immortal because you're so bored that time virtually comes to a standstill. And I just remember like, just win the game, just hit this, just do that. It's easy from the sidelines to just say, just do this, right?
[2:53] And politics is a filthy game. It was Bismarck in the 1880s in Germany who said, there's two things you don't want to see getting made. Number one, sausages. Number two, laws. It's a vile, bribed and threatened kind of process. You know, like Kash Patel saying, oh no, apparently there's no Epstein videos at all. Right after, what was it, Blondie, who was saying, she was saying, oh yeah, we got videos, there are a lot of kids involved, it's really bad. Oh, no, apparently, apparently there are no videos at all. All the videos that we were talking about with all these kids involved, no, no, those videos don't exist. I guess he got shown the folder, like whatever folder you get shown when you get into power that has everyone, everybody get in line. So, yeah, so Trump and Elon are having a brawl. Whatever, fine. You know, here's what bothers me. It doesn't bother me that they're having a brawl. That's fine. I mean, they're two of the most successful IST men on the planet. They're going to have their brawls. I really don't care. But...
[3:57] What bothers me is that when men, like, what is this thing where everybody's gay? Like, what is this thing where if two men are having a significant conflict, it's like, oh, I guess mommy and daddy are fighting. Oh, I guess the bromance is over. Oh, you just got to put the hug each other shirt on them. Like, why is it that when two powerful men are having substantial disagreements about policy in the future of the country, that everyone and their dog tries to turn it into some cutesy Ken and Barbie shit? Like, what is what is wrong with people about that? I mean, there's very serious issues and everybody's reacting to it like they just have these irrational romance fueled hostilities towards each other. I just, look, I'm a big one for trying to find the funny in life. I'm a big one for trying to find the jokes in life. But holy shit, man, not everything is just goofy Gen A gay stuff. Like, just not, not, like, please, can we just have a serious fucking bone in our bodies from time to time? I mean, this is about the future of the country. And it is a substantial disagreement. And it is an important disagreement.
[5:11] So it just it bothers me so much that everything gets diminished to this sort of spanish soap opera psychodrama stuff, oh yeah peter schiff yeah peter schiff not good not good so peter schiff is you know to be fair he's saying he's not defending jeffrey epstein but peter schiff says that jeffrey epstein was technically having sex with girls 14 to 17. So his argument is that's not pedophilia. Pedophilia is attraction to prepubescent girls. And I've just, you know, I understand it's hebephilia. I get all of that. It just doesn't seem like a very productive argument to get into. Like, what on earth is the point of that? And then unfortunately, Peter Schiff, and this has now got over 4 million views. Peter Schiff then goes on and says, I'm not saying it wasn't a crime. I'm just saying it's not pedophilia. Peter Schiff says, when I was in college, I had sex with underage girls. That doesn't make me a pedophile.
[6:12] Yeah, college is, what, 19 to 23, maybe 18 to 22, or could go further than that. I just, I don't know why you would say things like that. I don't know. It's a mystery to me. It's also a mystery to me. Freedomain.com slash today to help out the show. We'd be very gratefully and humbly and deeply appreciated. But yeah, I would say that certainly some people's approach to telling the truth on social media just seems like odd. I mean, I'm not sure anybody would be able to waterboard out of that out of a sane person. Oh my gosh. My brother is a lawyer and says that Schiff is correct, but retarded.
[7:03] Yeah, I don't think you want to, I don't think you really want to drill down through the layers of moral complexities with regards to Jeffrey Epstein. That just does not seem to be a good idea at all. A good idea at all. All right. So let's get to your comments and issues and questions. Oh, the indirect admissions they make, says Zinf.
[7:33] Nice to see you. Hey, we should require drug testing for welfare recipients, but then people are going to starve. Well, I thought they just needed food, right?
[7:45] People have been trained to be frightened of strong personalities nowadays. Yeah, I think that's true. But didn't Elon respond with humor too? No, no, he did not. Elon said that the reason that Trump is named in the Epstein papers or files, and that's why they're not being released. Now, I think it's fairly common knowledge that Trump flew on the Epstein jet, not to what was called Lolita Island, but that Trump was on the Epstein, took a bunch of rides from Epstein from time to time. But Trump also kicked Epstein out of Mar-a-Lago for hitting on a teenage girl. And as you know, if you're wealthy, there's a very sort of telling clip from Courtney Love regarding Harvey Weinstein, where she says, people, someone asked her about Harvey Weinstein, and she says, oh God, how am I going to, how can I phrase this without getting sued, right? Because it's a sort of big thing when you're highfalutin, people want to sue you, right? And that's sort of a theory that Trump is not responding to Elon Musk trying to tie him into the Epstein crimes, uh, that is defamation by implication, but, and then that there may be a law. I don't think there would be, but maybe there would be, I don't know. Trump has like been involved in like 400 lawsuits or so over the course of his life. The man is, uh, carrying a lot of lawyers, um, some voluntarily, some not, but I mean, Trump's so.
[9:12] When Elon responds by trying to tie Trump into the Epstein crimes, that's not a comedy. That's not comedy. That is, yeah, that's not good. All right. Take me to church. All right. So, Chalks, thank you for the donation. Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show would be gratefully, deeply, deeply and humbly appreciated. Hey, Stef, I want to go to church. Something in my mind stops me. It feels like an environment I won't fit in. And as I am being disingenuous and as if I'm being disingenuous, could this be past people in my mind sabotaging me or is it possibly an irrational fear? I have read the present again, and it is what sparked this will in me. Thanks. Yeah, this is my novel, a bit of a love letter to Christianity, my novel called The Present, which you should definitely check out.
[10:10] So, I'll give you a general philosophical take on this, because of course, I don't know the details of what might be preventing you from this. I don't know what's going on deep down. I wouldn't pretend to know because I don't know your history. Of course, if you want to talk to me one-on-one, you can go to freedomain.com slash call. We can have a public or a private call. It's entirely up to you. But what I would say is this. You do not need to figure out where your fears are coming from in order to overcome them. You do not need to know where your fears are coming from in order to overcome them. Sometimes you just need to do stuff. And through that doing of things, you will find out the truth of your motivations. You will find out the truth of your history through doing things. You will find out quite quickly what your resistance is. So you go to church and see what happens emotionally. You don't need to figure all of this stuff out ahead of time in order to, you don't need to get all your ducks in a row and figure out all your unconscious motivations, blah, blah, blah. That's a form of paralysis. Just get thee to a nunnery. Just go to church and deal with the fallout that comes up emotionally.
[11:29] Good question, Stef. The way some guys are reacting to Trump versus Musk is pretty emasculating for them. The same thing struck me. Yeah, it's saying that all powerful people with substantial moral disagreements are just like bickering tween girl guides. It is a way of just absolutely crushing down to nothing the depth, complexity, and power of moral disagreements and arguments. It's female in its essence, that men who are fighting, oh, boys will be boys. And you know how boys are. And it's just, it's toxic, matriarchal, ball-busting, diminishing of male power and conflict. It's really terrible. Honestly, I would try to stay away from people who minimize this kind of thing and just try and chalk it up to, oh, boys will fight, you know, it's like two boys in a sandbox, like two boys in a mud pit, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like, oh, I hate that stuff. I hate that stuff with a deep, visceral hatred, passion. I hate that stuff. Some conflicts are bloody worth having and very powerful.
[12:44] And important and meaningful. It's not just, eh, fight, fight, fight.
[12:49] It's just this diminishing shit. It's so unbelievably toxic.
[12:59] All right so panter nice to see you says maybe they're framing it as some gay bromance fight to feel powerful special and important they've got a judgment and an opinion so they feel they have one up the situation i've met plenty of people who do this sorts of things yeah i mean i mean they they are well i mean whatever you think of them sort of plus or minus it is an absolute fact that the most powerful man in the world trump the richest man in the world musk are doing things out of passionate patriotism to save the american system and to save the economy and to save the country they are acting to save the country and to me it's sort of like.
[13:42] If your house has been broken into and the cop is coming in through the window and taking on the robber who's there to you know kill your family and torture your children or torture your children kill your family. If the cop is fine, you say, oh, well, they're just, and your wife is like, oh, well, boys will be boys. The cop and the criminal are just fighting. It's like, it's a little more serious than that. What the fuck is wrong with people that they can't have any seriousness at all? Everything's got to be this mocking, ironic, obscene, stupid joke. Everything's a fucking joke. People risking their lives. Like you understand, Trump and Musk are risking their lives to try and save your greedy ass, or at least the asses of the greedy people in the country. Again, you can say right or wrong, good or bad, but that's what they're doing, and they sure as shit don't need to. Trump could have sailed off into the sunset, enjoyed his grandchildren and his money and his incredibly high IQ factor.
[14:35] Musk could have continued on with his businesses, which is what he prefers to do, but no, they stepped out of their comfort, but they stepped out of their happy, pleasurable, wealthy, and productive zone in order to try and save the country.
[14:53] And how do people? Do people betray them? They pay them back by diminishing them to, like, tween spats over some silly boy. Oh, it's sad. It's really sad. In the lord of the rings do you think there is any meaning or symbolism of the one ring granting invisibility to its user yeah so i did a whole show with dr duke pester on lord of the rings which you should check out the ring is sophistry and sophistry is the source of sophistry is almost always invisible. Like who's responsible for pushing X, Y, and Z toxic ideology in the West? Which individual is responsible? They're almost impossible to find. They, in fifth generation warfare, you don't even know who your enemy is.
[15:55] All right. Alil Salih says, I really enjoyed your breakdown of the Jordan Peterson versus atheists debate explaining how philosophy would have answered the various points made. Jordan Peterson seems so hostile and angry. Yes, my personal opinion is that Jordan Peterson kind of sold out and has a bad conscience, but that's a topic for another time. Thank you, Stefan says, the listener, for always keeping it upbeat. I aspire to your level of humor and lightheartedness that you can bring while still respecting serious topics. Thank you. New subscriber. Thank you, Jeffrey. I appreciate that.
[16:30] Somebody says, being in an FBI file doesn't automatically implicate the person as being involved in a specific crime, not any criminal activity at all. Well, this is why defamation by implication. I'm like, I'm no lawyer, but that's my sort of understanding of it. Defamation by implication. It's like, well, technically it may not be true, but how is everyone going to interpret it? Everyone's going to interpret. And when Musk says Trump is in the Epstein files. That's why they're not getting released. That is an implication that there's something very negative there, right? I don't like the way they're doing it on social media, though, Stef. Why not? Why don't you like it? Why don't you like it? What's wrong with them doing it on social media? Oh, well, they should get together privately. It's like, no, because they're public figures, right? I mean, Trump is the president, right? So his conflicts, and they are two people who've worked together. And Elon Musk said about Trump, like he wouldn't have gotten elected if it wasn't for me and blah, blah, blah.
[17:29] How large do you think the riots will be if we implement Elon's government cuts? Well, it depends. If you quell riots using force, there are no real riots. If you let the riots rage, as in the Rodney King thing, as the Summer of Love 2020, then the riots are very big and very dangerous and very destructive and very murderous. So the riots are not a force of nature. The riots are the result of a specific kind of lawlessness. And if the lawlessness is allowed to breed, then the riots will be very big and problematic. And if it's not allowed, then it will be very small. Because of the punishment people receive from the mob when they take things seriously.
[18:18] Oh, I get that. Everything's a joke. I'm not saying to you, but everything's a joke. Oh, yeah, they put a lot on the line. Trump took a bullet and Elon Musk. Put his prized company in jeopardy. Well, I mean, if you remember Elon's messages to Ashley Sinclair, he was saying like, the security situation is insane. There are a lot of people who, and it would only go get worse if the cuts were actually moving forward in a congressional kind of way. But he's like, the security situation is insane. We are in the realm of murder as as policy, right? I mean, we can sort of see that coming in with this.
[19:03] People are not really having debates. It's just about bribery and death threats these days, right?
[19:13] That's interesting regarding doing things to discover your true motivations and related history. And to try and figure it all out before you do things is paralyzing. Yeah, I've tried to do that, figure it all out before I act, and that approach is absolutely paralyzing. Thank you for pointing this out. Yeah, it's very, very important. You have to try things in order to find out your weaknesses and your resistances. And if you try to figure out, because we have this fantasy, right? We have this fantasy and I'm prone to it too. So again, not as usual, not coming from any big place of superiority. We have this fantasy and the fantasy goes something like this. Hey man, I got this really difficult and dangerous and terrifying thing to do. Man, it's goosing me like the jolly green giant giving me an icy finger up the rectum. We've all been there. So I've got this terrifying thing to do.
[20:05] But if I figure out all of my deep-rooted motivations and unconscious resistances, if I just work to untangle and dismantle all of that, then I'll be able to do this thing that is very scary. I'll be able to do this thing, and it'll be fine. It won't be scary.
[20:31] I mean i remember when um i first was like you know we have to talk about, iq i have to talk about iq can't understand the world without it and and it's essential to the decisions that society's trying to make had to talk about iq and i was like stepping off a cliff right now i could have sit there and say well i'm going to dismantle all my i knew what my resistances were and i knew what the fears were and i just but you just got to do it, because the fantasy is, I won't need courage, man. I'm not going to need courage. If I just introspect enough, if I just dig down deep into my spinal fluid and uncover all of my hidden motivations and histories, I'll walk forward with pure Zen-like serenity, and I won't need any courage at all. And this is not true. The reason we need the virtue of called courage is you can't dismantle all of your resistances and stride forward without fear when you're entering a dangerous situation, right? It's like if you have a duel in the morning because you insulted someone or they insulted you, you've got some duel in the morning, you say, well, you won't be able to sleep very well, right? Because you're nervous about how the duel is going to go because it could maim or kill you, right? So is there enough introspection? Well, if I introspect enough, I'll be fine about the duel. It's like, nope, no, you won't.
[21:39] Just go do the duel. Just go do it.
[21:49] At the turn of a trendy card. All right. This Trump mask spin feels similar to modern English courses making deep male friendships in books into gay romances. So this is the other thing too. Again, this is why I say it's female, is that if you have a close male friendship, women will often, not always, if you have a close male friendship, women will often call you gay. Oh, the bromance. Oh, your boyfriend's here. Like they're always, a lot of women will call you gay about this. Now, do you know why? Do you know why women will call you gay for having a close male friendship? Come on, you can do it. You can do it.
[22:38] You can do it. You can tell me. You can tell me. The great rant poet Razor Fist did warn people about Elon. He, Elon, has some questions, political ideas, such as carbon taxes. Yeah, I get it. I get it. Well, I mean, of course, Elon would like there to be carbon taxes because that would benefit electric vehicles, right? To be doing this in public, smack talk, back and forth, they can both be correct. Elon to slash the budget. Trump is a dealmaker. He cannot slash and Byrne making the gap, making the GOP unelectable. Right. But you understand, Taylor, and I appreciate your comments as always, but you understand that this is very significant for the American electorate, right? The American electorate deeply believes, for the most part, that they can vote their way out of these problems. Now, if Trump, the best dealmaker on the planet and Elon Musk, the best and most competent businessman on the planet, if they can't solve these problems, who's next? Who they got in backup? Who's like, well, you know, this person can't do it, but don't worry. Somebody else we can find who's more dedicated, more competent, more experienced, more wealth. They'll do it. If you've already got your best man on the job and the job can't be done, then you got to give up on the job, right?
[24:04] If you have your dream team of amazing basketball players and they can't win, then whoever's on the other side is better. And therefore, your dream team can't get the job done, right? Sorry, that's a pretty bad analogy. My apologies, because the best, you'd look for the best, right? But if the strongest man in the world can't lift something, who can? Jennifer Garner? No, right? If the strongest man in the world can't lift something.
[24:33] And and if these two guys can't solve the problem of government spending then what's what is difficult for people and this is why they're reacting in this bromance kind of way right calling it some stupid breakup bromance stuff like these are legitimate policy disagreements that are decisive to the future of america whether there is a future to what we call america right now.
[25:00] So people believe that they can vote their way into having the government do the sensible thing and spend less than it takes in, right? Next year. Not happening. Big, beautiful bill adds trillions of dollars to the debt. Even Trump is bragging and crowing about moving the budget of the Pentagon from $700 billion and change to a trillion. And I don't think they ended up ordering either the Fed or the Pentagon, right? The Doge team, big balls and co. Although who knows what they got into in terms of data with regards to the Epstein files. I doubt anything, but. So if this is why people are reacting and minimizing it to some degree, because it's pretty terrifying when you think about it. That like if the spending, particularly post-COVID, or during and post-COVID, the spending is completely deranged. I mean, it's absolutely deranged. It is a final stage addict selling an eyeball for another hit of drugs. Madness. And so if these guys can't solve it, despite their dedication, their obvious brilliance, their deal-making capacities, their business-making capacities, their platform, their charisma, their whatever, right? Well, how's it going to be done? How's it going to be done? Arrived late did you already talk about peter schiff's tweet.
[26:29] I'm entitled please rewind because i'm not here on hey hey could you just start the movie again i was you know i was getting some popcorn i missed the beginning can hey projectionist could you just go start the movie again entitled much maybe maybe oh my gosh because they want oh So why do women attack male friendships, calling them gay? Some women. Because they want to shame you for not giving them attention? Nope. Thank you for your insightful answer to my query, Stef. Donation inbound? Thank you very much. Jealousy? Nope. Separate you from them? Nope. They want me to be isolated? Yes, of course. But why? Because good male friends are a threat to a toxic relationship. Boom! John, all is forgiven. Well done. They're candid with all their friends. Separate you from your male friendship is what I meant. I figure if deep friendships could exist, narcissistic women couldn't get their claws into men as deep. Yeah. Yeah. Try to sabotage the bond two men have. Right. Jealousy because they can't have such close relationships with other females. There's probably some truth in that for sure. For sure.
[27:31] So, yes, so the reason why a lot of women will mock male friendships is because if you're close to a man who genuinely cares about you, he's going to point out any toxic behavior on the part of your girlfriend, right? This is why women, a lot of women, are allergic to the idea of men having their own spaces. Like the moment that men try to have their own spaces, women sue and complain and bitch and moan to be included, right? You can't have a cigar room unless there are women there, right? And that's because women as a class, right? Women as a sex are, in general, based on voting patterns, not all, but a significant majority are exploiting the living shit out of men through the state, right? They are taking massive trillions of dollars of male taxpayers. They are murdering children by the tens of millions, and they are driving up the debt on the few children that they do deem worthy of giving birth to and raising. They're burying them in debt as a whole.
[28:49] So they are exploiting men. And those you exploit, you cannot allow to have close relationships. You can't have strength among those you are conquering, right? I'm sure you know this, but of course, in the ancient world, in Greece, slaves were not allowed to exercise. You weren't allowed to work out. You can't be strong. You can't be strong. And so there is a great fear among the exploiters that their victims are going to get together. And therefore you have to keep the victims separated and alienated and isolated, which is of course what a lot of de-platforming is about, but you have to keep your victims separated and isolated from all of their support systems. All of them.
[29:41] So abusers isolate. And one of the ways that they do isolate, one of the ways that women isolate, is to say to men that all close male friendships are latent homosexuality, which has people kind of jump back. Okay, well, I'm going that close. Become self-conscious and, you know, all of that. Like the true madness of women raised without fathers telling men what real men are, what real men do. Oh my God, it's so ridiculous. It's so sad. It's so foolish.
[30:12] So yeah, that's why they do it. That's why they do it. I mean, you understand that in the sort of Marxist analysis, the capitalist doesn't want all his workers getting together outside of work and hanging out and talking about things and complaining about things. He doesn't want any of that because it's tough if he's exploiting them. He doesn't want them talking to their friends and finding out that their friends are getting paid more and that there are better jobs, all of that.
[30:43] So, I mean, I remember when I was a manager once, my employees complained that they were being underpaid relative to their friends. They were talking to their friends and so I went through a whole process, added a million dollars to the payroll. Helping the poor, helping the lower middle class. When you've actually done it, you're not impressed by people yelling for political solutions. So all of that. All right. Questions, comments, happy to take them. Happy to take them. Otherwise, we are going to Jordan Peterson up. It's not a threat to use inf. Okay, it is. But you know, you can come up with your questions. Don't just type anything, of course, right? But yeah, and people who want to separate you from quality relationships, do so because they want to exploit you, right?
[31:33] Oh, I also wanted to thank a listener. This is going to come out, um, over the next couple of days, but, uh, there was a listener who's a young man. He has gone no contact with his family of origin. He's D food and he is keeping it secret from the women he's dating. And so I did a role play where I was explaining as him, like he, he was a skeptical. He had, we pretended he was on a a skeptical date, right? Like a date where the woman was kind of skeptical of him or of things.
[32:08] And I played him explaining the family separation topic in a way that was positive for her. Thank you, Chris. Chris says, thanks, Stef. Here's to another great Friday night stream. Your thoughts about sorting it all out ahead of time versus doing things and discovering your motivations are a big help. Thank you. I appreciate that. And thank you, Matt. I appreciate that. Let my love open the door. All right. Do your heart. All right. Going once, going twice. Help me. Help me. This is a man's world. All right. My voice is almost back to normal. I am thrilled beyond words. Thank you for your patience over the last almost three months as I had to rescue my voice from a horrendous ear infection.
[33:03] All right. Atlas Shrugged's ending has me reeling. No spoilers, but I'm struggling with how one applies practically the teachings in the book that exploitation of the capable is only possible with their consent.
[33:18] That's an interesting question. So...
[33:26] This goes back to the real change into society is not a central collectivist thing where some big genius makes a statement and everybody gets along. Somebody can put out something very smart, very innovative, very powerful, but it takes about a billion small conversations for true change to happen within society. And it's whether people have those billion small conversations in society. That's whether change happens or not. So, of course, people are not voluntarily taxed, so to speak, where tax is coercive. But are you exploited in your life as a whole, in your personal life, where no direct force is involved? That is in your consent, right? That is within your... If you've got some girlfriend who keeps demanding you spend more and more money on her, and she doesn't provide much value outside of sex, which is a mutual value, you're being exploited with your consent. If your parents are, you know, mean and vicious and nasty and all of that, and you continue to see them and not confronting them and not talking about things and not resolving things, and then you are being exploited as an adult, not as a kid, but you're being exploited with your consent. So certainly in your personal life, your consent is required for exploitation to occur, not so really in the political realm. I mean.
[34:55] I'll stick around for the JP stuff this evening. Thanks again for everything you've done, Stef. I appreciate that. I hope everything in your life with your wife and all of that is going well. Great material, Stef. You made me realize I should seek therapy. Will do. Thank you. I appreciate that. I'm a big fan of talk therapy. Although I'm not sure about the current crop of woke-ass hyper-feminist therapists. If I were in your shoes, I'd look for an older one prior to all of this modern nonsense. So...
[35:26] Parenthood is completely ignored for the good characters. Parents have too much to lose. Certainly, Ayn Rand did not talk about parenthood or children, really. All right. I will just see if I can do this part without messing it up. All right. Okay, sorry. That's annoying. That's annoying. Kind of annoying. All right. also share system audio hells to the yeah oh and i need to have my little porty recorder here too, all right here we go share and presentation and i'm sorry to be annoying just going to check the audio.
[36:14] Now by the majority, how you doing nice to meet you all.
[36:27] Right it's not quite broccoli head but we'll we'll count it all right here we go what do we got to say is this can this be a little louder not really all right.
[36:35] I guess since you said morality and purpose cannot be found in science um it would just depend on like what you're referencing if you're saying a description of your psychological preferences would be considered within science sure but i don't think that you have to say that it comes from science in order to be like an atheist as an agnostic.
[36:46] Okay sorry this guy is um i'm not gonna he's a fast talker so i'm gonna go back a smidge here.
[36:54] Because he was defining god with more important by your own voted out by you and nice to meet you nice to meet you i guess since you said morality and purpose cannot be found in science um it would just depend on like what you're referencing if you're saying a description of your psychological preferences would be considered within science, sure.
[37:12] Description of your psychological preferences. I don't know how that would be. Morality? But let's see what he has to say. Boy, that's a fresh-faced youth, isn't it? What is it? Is it seem congenitally impossible? You can even see the ghost of the beard behind him. Is it congenitally impossible for young men to grow beards these days? I mean, I'm not a massive beard guy, but I'm a decent beard guy. I just find it wild. Like, you can't imagine this guy. You know, here's $5,000, grow a beard. No.
[37:46] But I don't think that you have to say that it comes from science in order to be like an atheist. As an agnostic atheist, I don't know if God exists and I don't believe that a God exists. And the only ones that I would really reject would be like the all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good, perfect notion of God that plenty of Christians prescribe themselves. How is that relevant to this claim? You're basing a position of morality and purpose in some notion of God that isn't the same type of notion of God that typical Christians would prescribe. Your notion of God is...
[38:14] What does he mean by prescribe? What does he mean by prescribe? I'm not quite sure I understand this young man, but let's give it a shot.
[38:23] That isn't the same type of notion of God that typical Christians would prescribe. Your notion of God is... What typical Christians? Yeah, typically when I talk to Christians, they say that they believe in an all-knowing... How about Cardinal Newman, who defined God as conscience? He's a major influence on all of...
[38:39] Okay, so God as the source of the conscience is one thing, God as the actual conscience, God as synonymous with the conscience, that doesn't make it, that doesn't make sense. That doesn't make sense because I really, really dislike it when people, and again, I'm no expert on Carlton and Newman. I'm just going with what Dr. Peterson is saying, but I really dislike it when people say, God is the conscience. It's like, well, we already have the word conscience. Why do we need the word God?
[39:19] Right? And would you say Jesus died for my conscience and God is within me? And when I die, my conscience dies. Does that mean God also dies? Like when people say God is conscience, they're saying we need two words for the same thing that don't mean the same thing. Conscience is mortal and within my mind and an operation of consciousness that is personal to me. God is omnipotent, all powerful, universal, and so on. So if the conscience is certainly within me, God is considered to be outside of me. So saying God is the conscience is, yeah, God is love, God is truth. It's like, we already have these words. So why would you, if I have a two and two make four, right? There's my handy dandy little equation. And if I say this ghost is two and two makes four, it's like, well, where do you have two and two makes four? Why do we need to staple a ghost onto something that is true, right?
[40:18] So if we have something that encapsulates and contains truth within it. You don't need to staple an infinite ghost to it and say, well, the conscience is an operation of the mortal consciousness based upon, you know, I mean, that's to some degree based upon how you're raised and so on and some philosophy that you have. I mean, I certainly went through a phase in my early teens where I was not overly burdened with a conscience, certainly with regards to society. I considered myself in a state of nature with regards to society, didn't care about social rules because society had done sweet F all to protect me.
[40:52] But then through philosophy, I awakened and restored my conscience, which was a very good thing for me, I think, for the world, for my family. Well, I wouldn't have my family if I didn't have a robust conscience. So when Jordan Peterson says, well, Cardinal Newman, again, argument from authority, Cardinal Newman has said that God is the conscience. It's like, but that can't be a valid thing. And I don't like taking natural forces, stapling a ghost on them and thinking that you've added something to anything.
[41:24] It's like social theory. How about that, Christian? Sure, I'm, so do you believe in the all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good notion of God? What do you mean by believe?
[41:34] Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, no. Oh, no, we're back here. Oh.
[41:43] Accept to be true. Oh, hold as a fact that exists independent of consciousness. Oh, my God. Oh, man, playing these epistemological semantic games. Oh, my God. I mean, Jordan Peterson has to know what is true because Jordan Peterson makes truth claims all the time. All the time. Jordan Peterson makes truth claims. The Pareto principle, he says smacking kids can be a value in his book, 12 Rules for Life or whatever it is. So Jordan Peterson is making truth claims all the time. He just made a truth claim that Cardinal Newman said that conscience is God and God is conscience. So he just made a whole truth claim. He didn't say, well, there's a rumor. I've heard that Cardinal Newman says this. Cardinal Newman has said this, X. So he believes that Cardinal Newman has said God is conscience. He knows what a fact is. He knows what is true. He knows what he believes. He knows what Cardinal Newman believes, or he claims that. So he knows what belief is. So right after making 50 truth statements that he believes to be true, somebody asks him the direct question about his faith. And he says, well, I don't know. What do you mean by believe? Halala. Sorry. Halala is not an argument. But oh my God. Let's go back. Let's just see this again. This is glorious.
[43:05] On all of Catholic social theory. How about that, Christian? Sure. So do you believe in the all-knowing, all-powerful, all-good notion of God?
[43:13] Okay. Do you believe in the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good notion of God? Right? That is a very clear statement.
[43:21] What do you mean by believe? Do you think it to be true?
[43:24] There you go. do you think it would be true?
[43:27] That's the circular definition. What do you mean? How is that circular? How is that circular? Because you added no content to the answer by substituting, the word true and belief.
[43:40] No, belief is something that you know to be true. Belief and truth are not the same things because you can believe things that aren't true. There can be things that are true that you don't believe in. So belief and truth are overlapping circles. What is valid is a belief that is true. Ah, what do I mean by truth, Stef? Yeah, truth is in accordance with reason and evidence, existing independently of consciousness.
[44:05] And you'd die for it okay so we did all of this uh i did this before i don't know about me i didn't lie to save my legs i did this before so many was never, everybody worships something including atheists.
[44:30] Even though they might not know it Okay, so the word belief apparently needs to be defined. Apparently, the word belief is so tricky that Jordan Peterson needs to have it defined when asked a direct question. However, the word worship can be just used willy-nilly. It doesn't need to be defined. If I say I worship my wife, which I do, I mean, I'm not saying that she is an immortal deity that I bowed down before in the hopes that she'll let me into heaven. Well, maybe later. But I'm not saying she's an immortal goddess. What do you mean by the word? You can play those games forever, right?
[45:13] ...atheists, even though they might not know it.
[45:19] Oops. Sorry, a little thumb.
[45:20] Yeah. Hi. Good work. Thank you. Hi there. I'm Zina. So I want to start off with like defining terms. Yeah. How do you define worship? Priority.
[45:27] Good.
[45:28] Prioritize, prioritize.
[45:29] Worship is prioritize. Wow. That kind of hits me sideways, spear through the ear. That kind of hits me sideways. So worship is prioritize. So if I have two things to do today, one is due at 10 a.m., the other is due at 2 p.m. And I prioritize the first task, I worship the first task? It can't be synonymous. It can't be that worship and prioritize are the same thing.
[46:11] Because why would we need two words, right? And is it possible to prioritize? This is basic Socratic reasoning, right? Is it possible to prioritize things without worshiping them? So I have prioritized doing this show, 7.52 p.m., 6th of June, 2025. I have prioritized doing this show over all other things that I could be doing. I was having a lovely game of Catan with my wife and chatting with my daughter. And then I'm like, oh, 7 o'clock, you know, 10 to 7, I'm going to go down and do the show. So I've prioritized this. Does that mean I worship the show? Does it mean I worship the audience? Does it mean I worship the camera? Does it mean I worship the microphone? What is it that I'm worshiping by prioritizing this show over everything else that I could be doing? I don't know. So hopefully this is just the beginning, but prioritize is not the same as worship.
[47:06] So yeah, thank you for your worship. Thank you for your worship, your lordship. freedomaine.com slash donate if you would like to worship at the altar of donations to Freedomaine. All right, let's go on.
[47:20] So almost like having a preference over something. It's a hierarchy of preferences and you use it to direct your attention. Right.
[47:28] Okay, so it's a hierarchy of preferences and you use it to direct your attention, okay?
[47:33] Whatever you're attending to, you're worshiping. Right.
[47:36] Oh my God. Whatever you're attending to, you're worshiping. So he is now attending to this woman, having a conversation with her. That's some lovely skin, by the way. So I didn't mean to get all Hannibal Lecter on you. But so he is attending to this woman because he's having a conversation with her. He's not having a conversation with the other 19 atheists around. He's not doing cartwheels. He's not getting his teeth checked by his dentist. He's He's attending to this conversation, and clearly, because he's doing this rather than everything else, this is his highest priority. Does this mean he worships this woman? Does he mean this worships this conversation? I don't. Yeah, do I worship driving to work in the morning? It's what you're doing. So whatever you're doing is your highest priority. So it's not enough of a definition, and it's not even close enough of a definition. And this is why, you know, if these people have been trained, I hate to be air if these people have just been around, but if these people have been trained more in just sort basic philosophy, you're saying, okay, are you saying that worship is synonymous to prioritization or how do you differentiate the two?
[48:45] So I've kind of become a little bit familiar with your idea of like this value-laden hierarchy, right? And you kind of posit that at the bottom of this hierarchy, or you call it top or bottom, I suppose, at the bottom of this hierarchy, this foundational priority in your life is going to be considered God.
[49:02] At the bottom? Hang on. She's a normal speed talker, so I'm going to zoom her up a little bit.
[49:10] At the bottom of this hierarchy, this foundational priority in your life is going to be considered God.
[49:15] Okay, so at the bottom, the foundation of the bottom of a priority would not be worship. That would be the least, like, I guess, invading Haiti, which apparently is a thing kind of on Twitter. Invading Haiti is really at the bottom of my list of priorities. I'm sure there's a bunch of stuff, things I'll never do, right? Things that I would never consider, right? So I'm not sure where the bottom part comes in.
[49:39] Oh, I just noticed that she's an atheist and she has two thirds of 666 six on her shirt. All right.
[49:46] That's correct. Yes. Right. I'm trying to imagine a situation in which could there be that someone has a priority at their foundation that is different from someone else's? Oh, definitely. Right. So we can have different conceptions of God. That's why we fight. Right.
[49:58] We have different conceptions of God. That's why we fight. Okay. So then if Jordan is saying that there's not an objective definition of God, then he's saying that God is subjective and personal. We don't have a subjective definition of gravity. I can't, you know, la, la, la, close my eyes, put my fingers in my ears and close my eyes and say, um, that gravity is no longer existing. Gravity is no longer valid, right? I can't hold my head underwater and say, oh, I can breathe, right? So, there's objective facts of reality that we measure according to empirical observation, and they're not subject to our willpower. So, if he's saying that God is a concept that exists in the mind, very true, absolutely a valid argument, right? That God is a concept that exists in our mind, perfectly true. But if it can't be compared to any external proof, then it remains a concept that only exists within the mind and therefore does not exist out there in reality, right? Because we all have concepts in the mind that don't exist in reality. Well, there's three categories, right? The first is things we know that do exist. Secondly, is things that could exist. And thirdly, is things that can't exist, right? So we know that giraffes exist, right?
[51:14] We cannot rule out that there are no dragons anywhere in the universe. It's completely impossible because dragons are not self-contradictory entities, right? Giant flying lizards are not self-contradictory entities by their nature, right? Because we know that the things that fly, we know that there are lizards and so on. Can they breathe fire? I mean, that seems kind of unlikely because it would melt the enamel off the teeth or something like that. But we could imagine that, I mean, there are electric eels that produce 400 watts or volts of electricity. So is it possible that there is a creature somewhere in the universe that can spark up something and has methane exhalations and can breathe fire, it's not beyond the realm. It's not innately self-contradictory. We're not saying it breathes, its breath is both fire and ice at the same time. That would be a self-contradictory statement. So yeah, things we know exist, things that we can't rule out because they do not contradict their own natures, and things like a square circle or something that lives in both air and water simultaneously, because that would be a contradiction. So, um.
[52:26] So does God exist in the realm of that which we know exists? Nope. Does God exist in the realm of could exist? Well, only if God is not a self-contradictory entity, but because God is a self-contradictory entity, God has to be in the category of things that do not exist, right? And so the reason why you couldn't ever know, you could never know if dragons exist or not. Like, let's say that somehow you were able to go to the hundred billion stars in each of the hundred billion galaxies or whatever and check all of the planets and look everywhere and blah, blah, blah. Well, that would take you an almost infinite amount of time. And so by the time you'd gotten to the end of the universe, if you were immortal, it might have evolved in the first planet you checked. It might have evolved by then because you'd be billions of years later. So you can never say for sure that these things don't exist. I am agnostic as to, if we take out the sort of like, if dragons are just big flying lizards, right? And we forget about the, you know, obviously they don't have magic because magic is in effect without a cause. And, you know, can big giant dragons exist in the world, in the universe? Yeah. I'm agnostic to it because I can't say they don't exist because they conceivably could exist. They're not self-contradictory entities. So, but I know that a square circle doesn't exist anywhere in the universe because that's a self-contradictory entity right.
[53:44] So essentially there is no there's not one god but there are multiple gods and these gods exist in some realm of truth like like it's true that this person has one god and it exists yeah probably what.
[53:55] Mary from just paul would mop the floor with him in this debate yeah i think so okay i don't follow this.
[54:01] At all exist in some realm of way so essentially there is no there's not one god but there are multiple gods and these gods exist in some realm of truth.
[54:09] This These gods exist in some realm of true. Oh, it hurts. Going through these, it hurts. It hurts. It's like a dietician watching the average person at a Chinese buffet gravitating towards the deep fried cheesecake. It's like, oh, it hurts my soul. What is this? Okay, I don't know what the hell she's talking about.
[54:31] Essentially, there's not one god, but there are multiple gods.
[54:34] Okay, essentially, it's not an argument. There's not one god, there's multiple gods. I don't know what that means. is she saying that everybody has multiple conceptions of God? Nope. Because if that's the case, right? So everyone has a different idea of what a dragon is, right? I mean, you might look at a picture and say, that's a great dragon. I used to show these, my daughter's big on dragons, right? And, if I were to say to her, is this a good picture of this type of dragon? She'd say, it's not bad. And she'd draw her own pictures, which would be slightly different from what I would say. Everyone has a different view of what a dragon is, right? So let's say a green dragon, right? And so if everyone has a different idea of what dragons are or look like, and everyone would dream about dragons in a slightly different way. So if everyone has a different idea of what dragons are in their mind, would we say there are multiple dragons that exist in the realm of truth? We would say, no, people have different ideas of what dragons look like, but no amount of people's conceptions of dragons add up to a dragon existing in the external world, like in the world beyond our imagination. So I'm not sure what she's talking about. And I just need to hear it again. Sorry.
[55:51] That's why we fight. right so essentially there is no there's not one god but there are multiple gods and these gods exist in some realm of truth.
[55:58] In i don't know in some realm of truth um that's not proven.
[56:03] Like like it's true that this person has one god and it exists yeah probably it's.
[56:07] True that this person has one god and it exists what.
[56:12] Better to think about it as multiple values but that there's a hierarchy of values with something at the bottom right but the bottom is god and there's a definition Yeah, so at the bottom is God, and there can be multiple people with different conceptions of God, and they're each valid and being called God. So there are multiple gods that exist.
[56:28] Okay, so we've gone from people having different opinions to those opinions somehow being translated into empirical, factual, material existence in the external universe. What? What? Well, people have different interpretations as to the meaning of Lord of the Rings. And those different interpretations wander around the universe wearing polyester slacks and exist out there in the world. What? I mean, I would just stop her and say, okay, hang on. And how do you know whether something exists or not? Like you're using the word existence in gods, which is a highly controversial. How do you know what exists or not? Oh, my gosh.
[57:18] It depends on what you mean by valid. So far, so they are each valid and being called God. So there are multiple gods that exist. It depends on what you mean by valid. So far, so good.
[57:26] So far, so good. So, so far, Jordan Peterson has absolutely no problem with this young woman saying that everyone has different views on God. Therefore, these different views of God all exist as gods in the external universe. And it's like, what the living hell is going on here? I feel like I'm being flushed down a intergalactic wolf lodge to a toilet into a madhouse. I got to tell you, like, oh, my God. What do you say? Oh, my gosh, that's wild.
[58:00] Depends on what you mean by valid, because I would say that some foundational conceptions don't play out when they're implemented.
[58:07] Okay, some foundational conceptions. Some foundational conceptions don't play out when they're implemented, what does it mean to implement a foundational conception, oh don't play out when they're implemented i'm sorry don't be the laugh there's not an argument because i.
[58:35] Would say that some foundational conceptions don't play out when they're implemented.
[58:39] Does he mean communism what does he mean something that don't play out when they're jordan peterson is not going to debate me come on man so.
[58:49] If you put the wrong thing at the foundation you end up in hell for example that's what happens in totalitarian states.
[58:55] Oh yeah so he's talking about communism fascism okay so.
[58:58] You're so they're not all equal like all foundational principles are not equal even though they might be equally foundation right.
[59:03] Yes everything you call a foundation to a house is not as good as everything else. If you make water as the foundation of your house or fish, you're not going to do as well as if you use, say, concrete. So yes, I'm with him on that.
[59:17] Right. So what makes one kind of foundational tenet like better than another one? That's an excellent question. Iterability.
[59:26] I mean, please, God almighty, can we give ideas that are useful to the people, right? I mean, I've worked very hard over the last 40 years to try and develop and communicate complex arguments that are useful to your life. Complex, just complex arguments that are useful to your life. The non-aggression principle, self-ownership, free will, peaceful parenting, you name it, right? Definition of love. I'm like, iterability. Yeah. Okay. So if y'all can just take your foundational concepts and implement them in the world according to iterability, if you could just get that shit done, man. It's like, if your ideas aren't important enough to make comprehensible to the general population, it's bullshit. It's bullshit.
[1:00:17] I don't, I don't, like, stop with the $20 words or the $50 words and just say things that are useful to people. We're facing a massive moral crisis in the world while your foundational concepts need to be implemented according to their iterability. Got that? It's like, how does this help? I aim for sort of a bottom IQ 90, right? And I'm not calling you guys IQ 90, of course, right? But I aim in my communication, like if you're writing instructions for, um i don't know medicines or whatever you have to sort of write to grade eight or some i think it's grade six now you have to write for so i would like i sort of bottom out i aim to, have comprehensible communications to people at about iq 90 and above, below that you're into the uh what did you have if you didn't have breakfast yesterday morning would you what would your experience be well i did have breakfast like you're like below right where you could probably have any kind of abstract discussion. But 90 plus is pretty good. That's the majority of the world. So.
[1:01:25] I don't know, man. It's like if you really care for your computer program, to be used by people, then you should not make your computer program require people to learn assembler to interact with, right? All right.
[1:01:50] Chris says, how can he play around with the definition of valid and still try and make valid arguments? That is one definition that is the basis of logic which coherent language is based on. Okay, well, anyway, so I don't want to be unfair. Maybe he explains what iterability is.
[1:02:04] To me, valid concepts, they follow their own rules. If you claim that people are obligated to follow morality universally, then it should be universally implementable, which is what UPB is, right? If you claim for something to be universal, it should in fact be universal, right? If you say this is a law of physics, then it should occur and work all over the world. It should work on the moon. It should work on Mars. It should work in this lab or that lab, underground, above ground. Like if you're saying this is a law of physics, then you're saying this is universal. This is common to, this is common behavior for all matter and energy. And so, um, if you claim it to be universal, but it's not universal, like this is the fusion in a jar argument from decades ago, right? Oh, we've got fusion in a jar. Well, we try and replicate the experiment, which is foundational to the scientific method. Oh, we can't replicate it. Therefore it is not universal. Therefore it is not valid.
[1:02:59] So imagine that you play a game with someone in your kit and it's fun so you play again and again and again it's yeah it's playability across multiple.
[1:03:12] Look at the brilliance you play again and again and again so repetition yeah that's kind of what again and again and again, i'm sorry oh my gosh.
[1:03:26] All iterations so then you have a friend and a friend is better than having a game right so that's one breadth of application is enough.
[1:03:33] What, i didn't a friend is better than having a game that's one okay what.
[1:03:42] And it's in your kit, um iterability imagine that you play a game with someone and you're a kid and it's fun okay.
[1:03:51] So you're playing a game with someone and you're a kid and it's fun okay got it.
[1:03:55] So you play again and again and again it's yeah it's playability across multiple iterations so then you have a friend and a friend is better than having a game right so that's one okay.
[1:04:07] What okay a game is passive, a friend is active, is he saying that iteration is if you play a game multiple times and then you end up with a friend that is better than a game. And this has what to do with the existence of God and of truth and of what is a valid foundational. Oh, having a friend is having someone who will play more than one game. Okay, maybe I'm missing something. I would run it again. Sorry if I'm being dense. It certainly happens.
[1:04:42] It's a neat play again. Iterability. Imagine that you play a game with someone and you're a kid and it's fun. It's a neat play again and again and again. It's a repetition. Yeah, it's playability across multiple iterations. So then you have a friend and a friend is better than having a game, right? So that's one. Breadth of application is another. So if it's just for me now, it's not as good as something that would be benefit to both of us across time. Right. So we're explaining like characteristics that can be applied to like these types of types of people.
[1:05:09] Okay. So something that benefits two people is better than something that benefits one person, unless you're just passing through and you're selfish, right? Because earlier he was saying that there's, you know, mean, bad people, the monkey that wants all of the grapes and so on.
[1:05:21] So, okay. uh fine.
[1:05:23] Types of like foundational values but why is it that that this iterability makes it better and what does better mean well one hallmark of better is likely to be selected voluntarily.
[1:05:35] Ah okay so that's good that's good, likely to be selected voluntarily sure okay so if you make yourself attractive you're more likely to be selected voluntarily than if you're in some culture where you don't have to be attractive or bathe or use deodorant because you're in a forced marriage environment or scenario. Okay. So that which is likely to be selected voluntarily is better than that which has to be forced upon people. Fantastic. Okay. So this, I didn't know he had these arguments against taxation, but that's interesting. All right.
[1:06:12] So it's invitational. Another descriptive kind of quality. So we're talking about characteristics that in some type of system with a goal, an output being like, we could maybe say happiness, right? Or some type of- Harmony. Harmony. Yeah, that's better. Not happiness precisely because it's too short term.
[1:06:27] Happiness is too short term, but harmony is better. So Jordan Peterson to me has not given a definition of iteration other than providing one example that for me was confusing and it could be because I'm just not getting it. So that's perfectly fine. So, and I tend to get things pretty well and pretty quickly so he gives the example of iteration uh which is and then he's saying something which benefits two people is better than something that only benefits one person okay i'm i'm fine with that uh and then um.
[1:07:04] Something that is more likely to be selected voluntarily. Okay, that's fine. Of course, there's tons of exceptions to this in the world and in life and in politics as a whole, but we're getting somewhere. So now the woman says happiness is a goal, and that's, of course, it's an Aristotelian argument. Happiness is the end goal because it's the one thing we don't choose in order to get something else, right? We work to get money, we get money to buy things, we buy things because they make us happy. Okay, so happiness is the end product, right? So he's saying he disagrees with aristotle which is fine so do i in some ways right but he disagrees with aristotle and he says it's not happiness but it's harmony now maybe he's about to and this would be great maybe he's about to define the word harmony because remember earlier what do you know what do you how do you know what truth is how do you know what belief is well those things are much belief certainly truth is a little bit more tricky but belief something you hold in your mind to be true, independent of your own mind, something that's provable empirically and so on, or at least something that you believe to be true, independent of your belief, right? So he wants people to define belief. I'm curious if he's going to define a very subjectivist and foggy term called.
[1:08:22] Harmony okay exactly so as someone who is an atheist right exactly not happiness precisely because it's too short term exactly so as someone who is an atheist right i can so.
[1:08:33] Are they just moving on from harmony exactly okay.
[1:08:36] And explain that within a system there are things that we can see as better or worse to meet this goal or meet this output but what i what we're interested in though is what could make these things regardless of any system right well imagine that you set up a system and you implement it and it produces the opposite results to which you intent. I mean, that's not a good system. Exactly. Right. So the foundational principles are lacking because when you implement them, the game degenerates instead of moving towards the aim. Right. So we're talking about within a system. When we talk about something being moral, right, just absolutely moral, it means that without a system, right, this thing is simply moral with no reason. Like stance independent, this thing.
[1:09:06] What? I'm so sorry. Either I'm slowing down or she's speeding up. Let's go back to normal. Okay. I don't know what she's talking about. Uh jared says no clue what this has to do with god's existence this idea is one of his go-to lines that god is focusing on being sportman like sportsman like so you're invited to the most games possible over the longest time period yeah that's not a very robust epistemology all right.
[1:09:32] So we're talking about okay within a system that when we talk to them not a good exactly right and it produces the opposite result right so we can see it's better or not happiness precisely because it's too short term exactly so as someone who is an atheist right i can explain that within a system there are things that we can see as better or worse to meet this goal or meet this output but what i what we're interested in though is what could make these things regardless of any system right well imagine that you set up a system and you implement it and it produces the opposite results to which you intend well.
[1:10:05] But the people who set up systems like communism, they want to use it to achieve power and destroy their enemies. That's pretty clear. I mean, just James and I are working, James in particular, is working on research into the Ukrainian communist-inflicted famine, the Holodomor. So the communists starved the Ukrainians because the Ukrainians were resistant to the collectivization of the farmland, and they were resistant to, obviously, a foreign system being imposed upon them through Russia.
[1:10:42] So, I mean, of course, everyone's going to make all of these promises, right? But they don't believe those promises. That's just the lure, right? Bernie Madoff, right, who said, I have a foolproof way for you to make like 15% per year or whatever, something unsustainable or anything like that. I mean, he would say the goal is to have fantastic investments that pay off all of this money, but that's just the con. That's just what he says. So you'll give him money so that he can Ponzi scheme you into bankruptcy, Kevin Bacon style, right? So the intended goal of a system is always sold as, oh, communism will give us freedom and money and happiness and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But that's just, that's the con, right? The communist does not in a million years think that that's true in any particular, certainly not now, right?
[1:11:33] But what they want is to sell you on communism so that you'll surrender to their power. So the intended goal of something totalitarianism is power and the destruction of your enemies through the power of the state.
[1:11:51] And that's what it achieves. For the people who are sadistic and megalomaniacal and wish to take vengeance against a society, usually that failed to protect them as children, I know a little bit about this one. So the idea that there's, and this is just consequentialism, we'll know if a system is good or bad if it produces its intended outcome. No, that is not, you have to have a theory that is consistent and logical before you implement it, right? So communism fails because it divides human beings into two opposing or multiple opposing moral classes, right? The capitalists are evil and the proletariat are good by definition, by nature, foundationally. So you've got opposite moral characteristics, good and evil for the same species, which is human beings, right? I mean, it wouldn't make any sense to have a definition of mammal that included both warm-blooded, no-blooded, silicon rock, and cold-blooded too, right? That wouldn't make any sense, right?
[1:12:58] If you say that mammals are defined by being warm-blooded, I mean, I know there's hair and live young and all of that, but we should say warm-blooded. So you say, well, mammals are defined by that, which is warm-blooded. That's the definite defining characteristic of mammals, and also cold-blooded and no-blooded, and they're rocks. Well, then you have contradictory, you need to resolve that before you try and implement anything like that, right? Otherwise, you're going to end up at a barbecue with a bunch of granite on the grill. So.
[1:13:32] You can't just, you don't just go out and try things, right? You don't, you don't just like with business, you have to have a plan. You have to have some sort of conception of how things are going to go. You have to have some ideas, some proof of concept, something. You don't just go out there and start yelling at people or throwing things at people and try and make money. You have to have a theory and a plan. So saying, well, you just try a bunch of stuff and see what works. That's straight up utilitarianism or pragmatism or whatever. There's no moral quality to it whatsoever. And works is a very subjective term, right?
[1:14:03] Doesn't the inevitable failure of communism eventually deprive the communist political class of their power? Yeah, but they're power junkies, they're addicts, right? That's like saying, well, heroin addicts are irrational because heroin is dangerous and will probably kill them. And it's like, well, yeah, I get that. But the addicts don't think that way, right? I mean, if they weren't addicts, they'd be rational. And if they were rational, they wouldn't be communists because they wouldn't divide human beings into the good and evil classes with the same characteristic, which is like warm-blooded and cold-blooded being both defining characteristics of mammals when the temperature of the blood is a defining characteristic. So, yeah, so just trying a bunch of shit and seeing what works, that's straight up pragmatism and it is not morality. And it's not even science. Scientists don't do that. Business people don't do that. Nobody does that. Nobody just sits there and says, I'm going to throw a whole bunch of shit together in the woods and see if I get a cabin or a nuclear reactor or a spaceship, right? You have to have a bunch of blueprints, you plan, you plan, and so on, right?
[1:15:04] That you set up a system and you implement it and it produces the opposite results to which you intend. That's not a good system. Exactly. Right. So the foundational principles are lacking because when you implement them, the game degenerates instead of moving towards the aim. right so we're talking about okay.
[1:15:19] Okay degenerates for who degenerates for who okay you say well communism resulted in you know 90 million uh or 100 million people murdered okay so it didn't work for them but it sure worked for the leaders who had way more power i mean have you ever have you ever heard of a political leader who gets into power and then after like a couple of weeks or month says oh you know what uh this is kind of the opposite of what i intended it's like nope they seek re-election they generally want more and more of it because they're power junkies and that gives them they get a great deal of a pleasure foundational biochemical pleasure out of controlling others so it works beautifully for them within.
[1:16:01] A system when we talk about something being moral right just absolutely moral it means that without a system right this thing is simply moral with no reason like stance independent this thing.
[1:16:11] Sorry and i i don't know what this means.
[1:16:14] It's out a system right this thing is just is simply moral with no reason like stance independent this thing is good so.
[1:16:20] Stance independent this thing is good, So we've got now something new called stance. Now we're dealing with something called stance. Oh, thanks, Jess. I'd appreciate that. Freedomain.com to help out the show.
[1:16:33] I'm trying to figure out if such thing can exist. And if so, do you believe that these things are moral in of themselves, like self-evidently moral, or are they moral in accordance with the system?
[1:16:45] Okay, so now this is just honestly, all due respect, she's nervous and at her age I would have been very nervous too. so this is no disrespect to her. She's obviously very intelligent and cares deeply about these issues, but this is total word salad. I don't know what she's talking about, and I would say, okay, let's start again and tell me what it is that you mean. Is she saying that there are perspectives that are moral in and of themselves intrinsically? I don't know. I don't know exactly.
[1:17:12] I can't define them any more accurately than I already did, really. Okay. In regards to morality, when we talk about the divine, when we talk about God and religion, these moral tenets and religion right and god exists as good because it is god right so it's self-evident right without any kind of.
[1:17:30] Right so okay i get where she's going now so she's saying that if god is defined as all good everything that god says must be good right i mean it doesn't actually it doesn't actually add anything to philosophy but it's a comprehensible argument framework. Here's a fork, a fork in the road, fork off. So here is a fork. Now, if I say that this fork is all moral, then everything the fork communicates, oh, UPB, yeah, everything the fork communicates is going to be good by definition, right? If I have a hand puppet, I have a hand puppet, and I say, my hand puppet, my hand is all good and can never say a lie, then everything I say my hand says must be all good and is never a lie, right? So if you define God as all good, then everything which you believe God says or has communicated must be all good. I mean, you haven't solved any philosophical problems. You've just defined something as all good and then defined something is coming out of that, which therefore must be good, right?
[1:18:45] The goal or output, it is God, right? So it's self-religion. When we talk about the divine, when we talk about God and religion, these moral tenets and religion, right, and God exists as good because it is God, right? So it's self-evident, right? Without any...
[1:18:59] It's not self-evident because there's no evidence. is simply self-defined. If I were to be some megalomaniacal narcissist, and I were to say, everything I say is moral, I mean, capable of saying anything that is not true or moral, then if you believed that, God help you, right? If you believed that, then you would simply take everything I said as gospel. Please never do that, right? But of course, you would take everything I say as gospel, and you say, well, Stef is defined as being right, and therefore everything Stef says is right, like some crazy idea like that, right? So I haven't actually added any truth value. I've just defined something as being true no matter what.
[1:19:36] Kind of goal or output, this thing is good. So I want to figure out how...
[1:19:42] Yes, it's something good in and of itself, or is something good because it has a good outcome?
[1:19:49] There's an element of that that's true. So, for example, in the story of Job, Job is unfairly tortured in consequence of a bet between God and Satan. So Job is emblematic of someone who's being hurt for no apparent reason. So Job's response to that is that he refuses to lose faith in himself.
[1:20:10] I've watched so much Kevin Samuels that I'm like, what kind of wig is she wearing?
[1:20:14] Refuses to lose faith in the ultimate goodness of being. Okay, and those are axiomatic decisions. They're not exactly evidence dependent because he is suffering. There's an arbitrariness in that that's reminiscent of what you claim. So I'm essentially trying to figure out, do you believe that something can be good, like stance independently, something that can be good? I don't know what you mean by stance independent. You mean independent of people? Independent of people, we can use that, or more so, I want to be more specific. Something that can be good.
[1:20:42] Yeah, so I mean, logic exists independent of people insofar as entities in the world are not self-contradictory, right? I mean, I'm not doing this show while sitting on your lap at the same time. That's just for donors as a whole, and that's on my OnlyFans page. But things, objects in the world, right? This thing that I'm holding is a fork, right? It's a fork. It's not a fork and a dragon and a concept and on fire and a gas at the same time, right? So, logic is derived from the stability, predictability, and non-contradictory nature of matter and energy, right?
[1:21:20] Gravity doesn't both attract and repel at the same time. So, and if I leave this fork here, I come back tomorrow, it's still a fork. It hasn't turned into a dove, right? So, the stability and predictability of matter is the basis for the consistency, stability, and predictability of logic, right? Two and two is four, yesterday, today, tomorrow, everywhere in the universe, and so on, right?
[1:21:44] So the consistent behavior of matter and energy exists prior to humanity defining logic in the abstract. Logic is imperfectly derived from the consistency of matter and energy. And by imperfectly, I mean, if you have something that you call logic that is self-contradictory or inconsistent across time and space, then it's not logic, right? Because the behavior of matter and energy is never self-contradictory and is consistent across time and space. So logic is derived from the behavior of matter and of course if matter didn't have that level of stability and predictability and consistency we never could have evolved to develop our brains right there wouldn't be enough like if people just randomly burst into flames whatever right for no reason then all right.
[1:22:25] Right regardless of any end goal it's just good.
[1:22:31] Yeah something that is intrinsically good in and of itself without being goal oriented right because the problem with making morality i I mean, you guys know, right? What is the problem with morality being outcome dependent? Why can something not be moral based upon Jordan Peterson's argument for good or bad outcomes? What's the problem with consequentialism with regards to morality? Tell me. I know, people are going to have to type now. I used to tell all these Bible stories to my daughter when she was very little, and we have a hilarious, we used to have a pretty hilarious retelling of these various stories and so on, right? So, I worship the consistency of matter and energy. What we kind of do, in a way, right? Because if matter and energy were not perfectly consistent, perfectly consistent, perfectly consistent, then we wouldn't be here we wouldn't have any foundation to build our brains on the stability of matter and energy is the whole reason we have existence.
[1:23:44] All right so i'm sorry just for the sake of time and an argument i'm going to give you the answer so the problem with consequentialism is it is a mysticism, because the future is to a large degree unknowable and because costs and benefits are particular to individuals. So it is subjective to say we should judge a system by its outcomes. Now, some systems are better than others for sure in general sense and trends and so on, right? I get that. But the problem is, is that the future is unknowable.
[1:24:30] Because of free will. General trends can be understood, but the future is unknowable because of free will. So if you say, I'm going to judge the morality of a system by its outcome, then you're saying that morality is dependent upon variations of choice. And you wouldn't say that about science, right? You wouldn't say, well, the experiment will work or won't work depending on people's free will and choices, right? The other problem of course with consequentialism is it lends itself enormously to the power of sophistry right there's a big problem with consequentialism is that it lends itself so sophists are really great storytellers right so i'll give you sort of the example we're all familiar with global warming right so global warming is well if you burn too much carbon and put too much carbon in the air. You're going to drown. Extreme weather, millions of people are going to die. Billions of people might die. You're not going to have any crops. You're going to be melting in your own. Like there was a movie, what was it, The Day After Tomorrow and so on. I think Ian Holm was in it, God help him. And in it was just like, oh, the helicopters are going to freeze to death in midair and there's going to be endless amounts of snow. And I remember reading one of these books about the ice age coming in the 70s and so on. And I remember the passage where.
[1:25:56] They were like, oh, bodies are already beginning to adapt to the cold by storing more fat and this. And it was very vivid and very powerful. So if you can convince people, hell is another one, right? You can listen to a portrait of James Joyce, portrait of the artist as a young man. He has an incredibly powerful depiction or description of hell. It's incredibly sadistic and horrible and horrifying and you name it, right?
[1:26:22] Now the problem with consequentialism is it doesn't exist in the present the consequences don't exist in the present so it comes down to whoever is the best storyteller and the people who are the best storytellers are the best liars because they're claiming knowledge they don't have which is a long-term outcome of a particular system yeah some people are convinced of the value of carbon taxes for sure and so uh or or you know there were there were these i talked about this in a show today that I did this morning, all these people who are like, you know, ZPG, zero population growth, right? We're just going to drown in a Malthusian starvation scenario. You got to have fewer children. And then it turns out you just need a lot of immigrants because you didn't have enough children. The very sinister pivot in society that I've talked about forever and ever. Amen. So the problem with consequentialism is the future is unknowable. And therefore you tend to get swayed by the best storyteller. And the best storytellers tend to terrify you because people respond much more strongly to negative stimuli than positive stimuli for reasons that we understand. If your milk is only slightly rotten, you're going to taste it, right? If there's only three rotten peas in your mouth full of food, you're going to.
[1:27:42] Much more sensitive to negative stimuli than to positive stimuli, and therefore the future is dictated and dominated by those who can paint the most disastrous scenario for the future, they will control the narrative, right? So, of course, the communists did all of this very powerfully and effectively, wherein they said, well, without communism, the world is going to be bifurcated into a massive amount of starvation-level poor and a few tiny wealthy capitalists at the top. And then they put this forward very passionately, very, very, very powerfully, and therefore they won.
[1:28:20] So consequentialism, since people are mystically talking about a future that they do not know, and it doesn't matter if they get it wrong, because when sophists lie to you about the future and get you to surrender your power, by the time it turns out that they're wrong, they already have your power, right? I mean, the Marxists got just about everything wrong. They didn't certainly, this is why they hate the bourgeoisie, because the bourgeoisie are not supposed to exist, and they became the most powerful economic and political force in the world. Certainly boomer time, post-Second World War, sure, even before that in many ways. So, but by the time you figured out that they were just lying to you, they already have the power. Like by, you know, when I was a kid, it was global cooling, then global warming. Now it's just climate change, because climate by definition is going to change, so they're never wrong.
[1:29:02] But you see they they get all of these taxes and controls and and all of that in and then by the time you find out that they're full of shit uh they're just a bunch of sophists they already have the power and you can't get it away from them except through you know well things that we don't talk about here so uh this is why consequentialism is not a moral uh and is not rational it's a claim of knowledge that doesn't exist which is outcome for the future it says a system can be determined whether it's good or bad whereas even the most brutal systems are positive for some people you don't see um the the leader of north korea waking up every day and saying i can't stand it i've got to liberate these people because blah blah blah right they he loves having the power and it's good for him and so on right oh it's not good for the majority it's like yeah well but then you've split people into things it's good for and things it's bad for and again you have general definitions uh called a human being and then opposite benefits and costs to each individual. So none of it works.
[1:29:59] No, I think good is tied up with goal. Goal. Okay. I completely agree. So.
[1:30:04] Good is tied up with goal. All right. So good is something that manifests in the future if you're omniscient, which human beings aren't.
[1:30:12] In a sense. This is why. That's why the religious goal in Christianity is the establishment of the kingdom of heaven on earth. It's goal dependent. Okay, right. So it's in reference to a goal. So. Or the goal would be the imitation of Christ. Someone's goal, right?
[1:30:27] No, the goal is not the imitation of Christ. The goal is the heaven or the virtue that results from that. All right, we'll just finish up this, young lady.
[1:30:34] Can be something that doesn't encompass being in congruence with God or being with God. No, the thing that they want to be in congruence. Oh, right, right, okay. That's right. Sorry, sorry. That's right. That's good. Something that doesn't encompass being in congruence. Someone's goal, right, can be something that doesn't encompass being in congruence with God or being with God. No, the thing that they want to be in congruence. Oh, right, right, okay. That's right. That's right. That's good. That's great. The thing they want to be in congruence with is fundamentally equivalent to their God. So what makes someone a Christian and what makes someone not a Christian? That's what I'm trying to figure out. That's a good question. Yes. Yeah, well.
[1:31:14] Okay, I mean, I don't know that I know anything more about morality in an objective sense. Morality is universally preferable behavior. That's what it is, right?
[1:31:24] And then it needs to be universalizable and consistent and logical and achievable and pass the coma test. I mean, this is all stuff that's in UPB as a whole. So I still don't know what God is in this formulation. I certainly don't know what morality is other than the stuff which has a good outcome.
[1:31:46] I mean, that's the very subjective measure, right? What is a good outcome, for who, based on what, for how long, you know, and so on, right? So, I mean, an evil man, like a woman, I suppose, an evil man is a rapist. A rapist, of course, prefers to be a rapist than not be a rapist, which is what he does, right? And the evil work that he does. And so, the system of, let's say, institutionalized rape benefits him. Less attractive people benefit from forced marriage. More attractive people benefit from voluntary marriage.
[1:32:23] So, yeah, it is, none of this really goes past basic Socratic skepticism. So, all right, well, I'll stop here. Maybe we'll continue. I do find this stuff interesting. It is like trying to unravel the Gordian knot of generalized confusion, but that's where the world is. And it's great to have these kinds of debates going on. If you have any other last questions or comments, I'm very happy to get them. Otherwise, I will just remind you, please, freedom.com to help out the show. Would humbly, deeply and gratefully appreciate it. And don't forget, if you subscribe, fdrurl.com slash locals or subscribestar.com slash free domain, man, you get some great AI, some great benefits, 100 plus spicy shows, stuff that's too spicy for the main feed. And we do private live streams from time to time and so on. So if you subscribe, which is very helpful to me in terms of planning, I really would appreciate that. and you can do that at fdrurl.com slash locals.
[1:33:25] You can try it out for a month and see if you like it for free and subscribe, store.com slash free domain. So let's see here. What do we have?
[1:33:38] Have you done a review or analysis of the book of Proverbs? I have not, but I am very proverbs. I'm very proverbs, better than nouns. Nouns are just things. Verbs are action. Knowing the best outcomes for everyone is akin to mysticism. it is a count of it. Well, it just invites sophistry. Whoever can convince you of the glories of their system end up ruling the world and usually destroying it. So, all right. Good faith is a contractual legal term. Contracts are promises of future actions. Everyone here signed TOS and made and accepted promises of future actions.
[1:34:11] Contracts are promises of future actions. Yeah, but sophists who come along and promise you all of these wonderful things aren't signing contracts with any penalties if they failed to deliver. I mean, how many people would have been pro-global warming if they were on the hook for $5 million if global warming failed to materialize? If they lost everything and were put into bankruptcy and all of that and lost everything, all of their property, if their predictions failed to materialize? I mean, the communists, when they failed to produce greater wealth and capitalism, they didn't sit there and say, oh, well, you know, I have a contract and therefore there are penalties if I'm wrong, right? They already have their power and they just lie to get the power. All right. I will look at an analysis of the book of Proverbs. I think that's very interesting and I appreciate that. I appreciate that. All right. Thank you everyone so much. Have yourself a glorious evening. I appreciate your time tonight and I will talk to you Sunday. Bye.
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