0:03 - Welcome to Wednesday Night Live
7:30 - Autism and Rising Prevalence
17:13 - Modern Psychiatry and ADHD
30:44 - Parenting and Child Behavior
41:33 - The Search for Meaning
49:48 - Just War Theory and Ethics
1:09:22 - The Cost of War and Innocence
1:14:20 - Closing Thoughts and Reflections
In this episode, we dive deep into a compelling discussion surrounding the political economy of autism, framed through the lens of Toby Rogers' work. While the original data is dated back to 2019, its implications resonate deeply with current events, particularly in light of recent statements from figures like Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who asserts that the rising rates of autism prevalence are largely tied to environmental factors. We examine astonishing statistics that highlight the alarming increases in autism diagnoses across the globe—ranging from 1 in 40 children in Australia to 1 in 36 in the United States—underscoring the notion that this isn't merely a case of better diagnosis but potentially a serious public health crisis.
We explore the financial implications of autism, noting how costs associated with autism spectrum disorder can reach staggering figures—upwards of a trillion dollars—if current trends continue. This economic perspective raises critical questions about government spending and societal priorities. We delve into the consensus among leading epidemiologists and health experts who argue that toxic environmental factors contribute to these rising prevalence rates, while also addressing why regulatory actions to mitigate these risks have yet to be prioritized by public health authorities.
As the conversation progresses, we engage with audience comments and fears that provide personal insight into how the rise of autism impacts families. Numerous viewers share their experiences, leading us into a discussion about societal responsibilities and the stigma surrounding mental health diagnosis in children. The emotional toll on families becomes a recurring theme, emphasizing the need for understanding rather than blame.
Shifting gears, we open up the dialogue to touch on various societal issues, including the recent revelations about new diagnostic trends in ADHD and the cultural shifts that accompany them. This segues into an examination of today's educational landscape and the anxieties surrounding parenting in a demanding world where mental health conversations are often drowned out by parental challenges and institutional pressures.
As we close out the episode, we navigate the broader social implications of these discussions, linking the rising rates of mental health disorders in youth with societal trends in parenting, healthcare, and economics. By encouraging listener engagement, we underscore the importance of building a community that is informed, compassionate, and proactive in addressing these complex challenges surrounding autism, mental health, and societal health in general. The focus remains on fostering dialogue that promotes awareness and healing rather than division. Through collective understanding and action, we can make strides toward a healthier future for all individuals on the spectrum.
[0:00] Good evening. Welcome to Wednesday Night Live. Hope you're doing well.
[0:04] Voice is returning to normal, 16th of April, 2025. And we are on the Wednesday Night Live. I'm going to go out on a limb here and assume the audio and video going well.
[0:20] Going well. Testing. Testing, one, two, three. Testing, one, two, three. All right. Just going to double check, and that looks good. All right.
[0:33] So I wanted to—we'll do your questions and comments, of course, as always. But Toby Rogers, The Political Economy of Autism, is something that was posted. This is kind of out of date. It's 2019, so it's six years ago. But the numbers kind of blew my mind. And it blew my mind. Again, this is old, and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Just did a whole press conference today saying that they're weeks away from, I think, getting the kinds of data that is going to point the way towards the cause of the astonishing increases in autism over the past, say, half century. And he says he's convinced it's environmental. Who knows what that means? I think most of us have some idea what that means or what it might mean, but I just think it's absolutely astounding. So that's, again, this is 2019. The numbers blew my mind, and of course, they're worse now. So he wrote, autism is a global epidemic, an estimated 1 in 40 children in Australia, 1 in 64 children in the UK, and 1 in 36 children in the US have an autism spectrum disorder, or ASD.
[1:54] This is an enormous increase from the first known autism prevalence study in the U.S. In 1970 that established an autism prevalence of less than 1 per 10,000. Several studies have shown that changes in diagnostic criteria account for only a small fraction of the increased prevalence. And I think Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Did reference that they went back and retested everyone from an old study and found that they'd only missed one kid. Sorry, that's not the most detailed summary of a scientific study, but... So, I knew these numbers in general, but he goes on to write, families of children on the spectrum face extraordinary additional expenses and decreased earnings as one parent often becomes a caregiver. Autism, autism costs the U.S. $268 billion, 1.5% of GDP in 2015. If autism continues to increase at its current rate, autism will cost the U.S. Over a trillion dollars, or 3.6% of GDP, in 2025. As a point of comparison, he says U.S. Department spending is 3.1% of GDP. Wow.
[3:18] That is wild. He goes on to write, over the last decade, several groups of leading epidemiologists epidemiologists, doctors, and public health experts have published consensus statements declaring that toxicants in the environment are contributing to the rising prevalence, of neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism. Beyond the consensus statement, a range of independent researchers have identified many additional factors that appear to increase autism risk. Given rising prevalence rates and the extraordinary impacts of ASD on individuals, families, and communities, what explains why public health authorities thus far have failed to ban or restrict toxicants that may have and trying to increase autism risk. He says, I argue that autism is not only a public health issue, it also represents a crisis of political economy. In this thesis, I will show that capitalism has transformed science and medicine from a focus on use values to a focus on exchange values. Regulation is largely a reflection of political power, not scientific evidence. And cultural and financial capture are blocking the sorts of regulatory responses that are necessary to stop the autism epidemic. And if you want to look for this, I found it on X. It's called The Political Economy of Autism by Toby Rogers. It's well worth reading. It's obviously, you can imagine, chock full of acronyms, but well worth reading.
[4:46] And I'm just going to ask this as a whole. Oh dear, I seem to have lost my... What, do you just have to cycle through all the tabs to get the icons back, right? Control-tab, control-tab. Swirly, swirly, swirly. And here we go. Because I'm curious. I mean, this was all the data as of 2019, And where is it at now? It's got to be even wilder. Yeah, okay. Let's crock it. When I hear that rock and roll. All right. What percent of U.S. GDP is autism costs? That's not the most elegant way to put it.
[5:44] Ah it's 2015 hmm, oh so his 20 25 projections 461 billion range 276 to over a trillion yeah okay so he took the very high end of that.
[6:04] It looks like the study that said costs could reach a little over a trillion or 3.6 has been retracted So it's just important. So given the 2025 projection of $461 billion and an estimated GDP of $25 trillion, autism costs likely represent 1.82% of U.S. GDP. Wow. That's jaw-dropping to me. And of course, of course, of course, that is just the financial costs. The emotional costs are absolutely wild. So let's get to your comments and questions. Somebody says, I wonder if some part of the rise in autism is the result of the shift in the priorities of education in civilizations with large amounts of specialized labor. Don't think that would be it. I don't think that would be it. I mean, if mothers and fathers are older now, maybe that has an effect. There could be environmental toxins. I know the vaccines are in the targets for a lot of people.
[7:14] So, it's some wild, wild numbers, though. And do you know? Do you know a family with somebody who has autism? Do you know a family with somebody who has a child? Or I guess it could be anyone who has autism.
[7:31] Or it's a spectrum, right? I get there's a spectrum, but I'm just curious whether you know people like that.
[7:53] A carnivore aurelius wrote modern psychiatry be like oh you can't sit down in class okay here's meth and peter mccullough uh the obviously very brave peter mccullough wrote um just yesterday Okay, autism prevalence in the U.S. Kids jumps 16.1% in just two years. New CDC data reveals one in 31, 3.22% of Americans, eight-year-olds, were autistic in 2022, a staggering 384% increase since 2000. Now, I get that there's financial incentives and money involved, and I get all of that, but holy crap.
[8:36] Chuck Colest wrote, and this is just today, one in nine children now diagnosed with ADHD. Ah, the medication generation. The medication generation. Ah, yeah, so the Vigilant Fox wrote, RFK Jr. Just completely dismantled the better diagnosis excuse used to downplay the autism epidemic, and he bought the receipts. Kennedy cited a peer-reviewed 1987 study from North Dakota that set out to find every child in the state with a developmental disorder. Researchers combed through medical records, verified diagnoses, and conducted in-person evaluations across a population of 180,000 children. Then they followed that same group for 12 years. If you still believe autism rates are only rising because of improved diagnosis, Kennedy said, you'd have to believe those researchers somehow overlooked 98.8% of autistic children. But they didn't. They went back to 2000 and found that they had missed exactly one child. They weren't missing all these cases, he said. The epidemic is real. Wild.
[10:03] Somebody says, I do not know anyone in personal life, but troubled families are looking for any diagnosis to get their children medicated and compliant. I think there's some truth in that for sure. Just jump topics a little bit. Murray Hill guy wrote, 7.5 guy versus a 5.5 girl experience on dating apps. 7.5 guy, two likes this week, one was a bot. One, the other unmatched after, hey, got told he's too nice. Thought he had a connection. She said, sorry, not feeling a connection, but best of luck. 5.5 girl, 143 likes in 24 hours, as opposed to two likes this week for the guy, wrote, let's find the best espresso martini and got 50 or more date offers. One guy offered to fly her to Miami just for the weekend. Another had courtside nix tickets and said pick the game her ex wants her back and offered to pay her rent, isn't that wild, bitcoin teddy wrote 80% of all dollars were created in the last five years have a good night 80%.
[11:25] Starter home prices have risen by 87% over the past seven years from $156,000 in 2017 to $292,000 and change in 2024. Oof. All right, let's get to your questions and comments.
[11:49] Somebody says, I was a high school teacher, and I felt a lot of students were claiming autism just to have an excuse to shield themselves from responsibility and social interaction. Perhaps some of the faux claims undermine the real cases. I don't know. Yeah, only 15% of women show interest in 5-8 men on dating apps, according to a survey. Yeah. Well women can afford to be picky because they have the state as their backup right, somebody says my friend's dad has Asperger's apparently although he is an engineer fair point Kayla says I have a friend with an eight-year-old that has her medicated says in the mornings the eight-year-old just yells and screams at her until her meds kick in and she calms down. She's learning at a grade one level. Mom chooses not to stay home because work is her escape from home life. Husband works out of town for weeks at a time. Yeah.
[12:57] The um The, Did you know that since October the 31st, 2000, there has always been at least one human being in space at all times? I like this joke. Do you think I reference dinosaurs too much when I write? I asked. She was silent, like the P in Pterodactyl, but it said everything. That's good. In boomer rage data. What do we have here? I saw a video the other night from a boomer talking about working at a plant with no degree at 24 years old. He earned $18 an hour in 1980. His mortgage was $193 a month. To achieve that ratio now, you'd have to earn about $198 per hour at a plant and no college bullshit.
[14:09] These i thought were cute the laws of the internet from world of engineering, one the streisand effect any attempt to sense the info on the web will lead to said info being widely spread and muffries law if you leave a comment correcting someone there will always be a mistake in it. Cunningham's Law. The best way to get an answer to a question is to answer it wrongly yourself and wait for someone to correct you. Armstrong's Law. The longer a conversation goes without mention of America, the more likely an American is to arbitrarily bring up the moon landing. Cade's Theory of Topic Culture. A smart post is less likely to receive a reply than a stupid post because it leaves left to be said, but a really full and comprehensive post will bring the conversation to a halt. What's worth content? The first 30% of any video contains no worthwhile information. I'm not saying that's entirely right.
[15:11] Have you seen this? I'm obviously not an expert in this, but it's pretty wild to see the blowback that's coming out of China for these tariffs. I don't know if you've seen these videos. It's wild. You never know what's coming in out of left field or right field. So what's wild is, I think that a lot of the Chinese manufacturers have contracts that say you can't talk about who you're manufacturing for. Like if you're manufacturing for Hermes or something like that, you can't say who you're manufacturing for. And I think the government has liberated them, quote, liberated them from these contracts. And so now you've got all of these Chinese manufacturers who are out there and they're saying, oh, you know, here's how much it costs us to manufacture. It costs us $300. And then you buy it for $10,000. Like, look at this markup. It's crazy. And, you know, I did not have that in my tariff bingo card, that the Chinese manufacturers were going to end up toasting the reputation.
[16:20] Of the high-end manufacturers or high-end retailers in America. And you can see just endless, endless amounts of these videos with, I think, quite a significant amount of glee. Adam wrote, The world is about to realize that Louis Vuitton, Gucci, and Dior are just rebranded Shenzhen factory products. The luxury illusion is about to collapse. What a time to be alive. It's true. Somebody else wrote, Neat World Order, When you add up all the hours, boomers have spent something like nine years of their lives in front of the television. If you think you can reason with such an entity, you're gravely mistaken. .
[17:13] Clint Russell wrote, he's at Liberty Lockpot, he wrote, going to school in the 90s, I witnessed the first generation of young boys receiving a mass diagnosis of ADHD. I watched as friend after friend, all good kids, got hooked on this low-dose cocaine like Ritalin or Adderall. By high school, most were depressed. Then came the SSRI wave. By college, many turned to booze or hard drugs. A few went down the OxyContin path. Some never made it out. Most of those who survived to still on SSRIs or anxiety meds to this day. They got strapped to the pharma conveyor belt in elementary school. I'll never forgive the doctors who effed these kids up. It's stories like these that led to Maha and Make America Healthy Again. We all have our own. Mm. Wild. Corporations this is from the bitcoin historian pete rizzo corporations bought over 95 000 bitcoin in q1 the most of any quarter ever, nice very nice.
[18:43] The congressman Kurt Weldon was on Tucker Carlson I don't know him his credibility whatever but this is something that I've heard about before that Mahmoud Gaddafi was planning to launch a gold-backed currency to unite Africa and that's one of the reasons why he was taken it out in such a brutal, brutal fashion. All right. Happy to take your questions and comments, of course, freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show. It would be gratefully appreciated. Thank you, Dorbans. You can, of course, tip on the Rumble and Locals apps as well, freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show. So somebody wrote, I went out with a girl a few days ago. And she said she has a huge problem with daycare and thinks child neglect lowers intelligence. We even spoke about breastfeeding. Lowering IQ on our first date. It was refreshing. Oh, that's good to hear, but I think you mean breastfeeding raising IQ. Yeah, 193 bucks a month. Yeah, it's back in the day, man. Back in the day. I remember when I first came to Canada in 1977, 1977. Candy Ma was a dime. Ten cents.
[20:11] Alright, government spent 1.3 trillion in the past six months. How can Doge compete with that? Yeah, well, it's pretty tough to pay whack-a-mole with government spending, right? I mean, the best way to lower spending is to cut off things from the source. But that's pretty tough. Here's another little interesting fact. After all the employees go home, tall office buildings get just a little taller. A 1,300-foot-tall skyscraper shrinks about 1.5 millimeters under the way to 50,000 occupants, assuming they weigh about the human average. Isn't that wild? Little things I'd never really thought of. And there was a post that said, Did you know you should always wash your bread before you eat it? I'm like, I'm afraid that's a hard no. Oh, daddy likes it. Crunchy.
[21:19] All right, see your questions, comments.
[21:26] Yeah, I don't know how people just drug kids for these descriptive-based behavioral disorders. I mean the drugs are real but the disorders are just descriptions there's no blood test for this stuff as a whole, right?
[21:49] This was so good. John Carter wrote this. He wrote, The COVID lockdowns dipped our social bonds in acid. I've moved around a lot throughout my life, he writes, and I found that I keep very few friends. I never had a problem making friends. It was just a matter of meet a couple of good guys and plug into their friend network. Worked the same everywhere. But once you leave, you lose touch because friendships, any sort of human relationship, require regular interaction to maintain. So once you leave, you lose touch, except maybe with a very small fraction of guys you become extremely tight with. By and large, though, you drift apart, and that's natural. Whenever I've returned to the same locale after long enough, the friend group I left behind has dissolved. People move away, they get in fights, they start hanging out with other friends. Again, that's fine. Human sociability is a fluid thing. It's a flow. As long as the flow continues, there's no problem. You just need to jump in. COVID, he wrote, it's really, really well written and very passionate. COVID, he wrote, stopped the flow.
[22:59] People were held apart long enough that their social bonds dissolved, just as though they'd all been sent to live on the other side of the world. Then they were bombarded with relentless brain-melting propaganda. The ones who succumbed would have been mad. The ones who didn't succumb went, down, do your own research, rabbit holes, and also, by and large, went mad, he writes. And everyone was forcibly hooked on screens. You know those addiction studies where you put rats in cages and let them have all the heroin they want? Turns out it's a combination of cage and heroin that's addictive. The rat is bored, it has nothing to do, and it is lonely. But here, this morphine-laced water will make it all go away for a while.
[23:43] That was done to every single one of us. We were turned into screen junkies. I'm swiping this on my screen now instead of talking to people. Sound familiar? We went from a world with an active social flaw, dysfunctional as it was. And let's face it, it was the effing Ganges of social rivers. At least it was there. At least we were sort of connected to the people in our physical presence. Then we crossed the river Styx and emerged into a world of shades lonely crazy people who can't talk to one another even if they wanted to which they largely don't because they no longer have anything in common with all these strangers surrounding them except for the screens and the loneliness the leaf waters were poured down our throats whether we wanted to drink them or not, the old world the human world faded from our memories like morning mist and now we wander a grey and barren waste, unrecognized and unrecognizing, searching for something we no longer even really know how to articulate, I mean a bit strong of course and uh, but yeah very well written.
[25:05] Um hey Stef could you briefly share your thoughts on the substance movie and why it sucks us i think it sucks because it has little dialogue and runs like a cheesy music video also that it uses nauseating fisheye lens close-up shots like the one of the guy eating shrimp he's the gross bad guy isn't he haven't we made it obvious enough that he's the gross bad guy. Yeah, that is the horror of the flesh. It's the horror of hedonism. It's the horror of chasing nerve endings and dopamine rather than virtue of love. And I, you know, everyone said DeMar was great. She's just frozen-faced, I guess, a little bit irregularly that way. But yeah, it's the horror of living for the flesh, which is seductive to the young and destructive to the aged. Somebody says, I'm a regular at a hipster cafe. Should I be honest with the barista and tell him what I really think or avoid talking about big issues? Or should I avoid being a regular at a hipster cafe? I mean, I think in general, be honest with your thoughts and feelings with people as a whole. But, you know, obviously be prepared for blowback, but...
[26:30] All right.
[26:35] Gagusta says, Hi, Stef, I hope all is well. I just experienced one of those heartbreaking things in my life. Sorry to hear that. I'm really close with my younger cousin. He is an 18-year-old male, and I'm a 25-year-old female. He was drunk for the first time and had a really aggressive flip where he was saying really nasty stuff to his dad, and people were holding him so he wouldn't hurt him. He was never aggressive like that in front of me. When I tried stepping up, he called me a whore, tried to hurt me, but people were holding him. What do you think I should do? Oof, I'm sorry to hear that. That's a very tough situation.
[27:20] So, of course, alcohol is a disinhibitor. The Latin, in vino veritas. In wine, there is truth. In wine, there is truth. So I imagine that he has had some big, difficult, ugly, nasty, significant issues with his father and they've been bottled up in this wall of denial and avoidance, and what has happened is, the alcohol has dissolved some of the ego barriers between the trauma and the expression.
[28:05] So if you bottle up aggression for too long, it's going to come out in random and often destructive ways. So I would say when, I mean, I assume he's calmer now, right? The alcohol has passed. So what I would do if I were in your shoes, and again, I'm really sorry for the situation. What I would do if I were in your shoes is I would sit down with him and say, tell me what was going on for you. I mean, I'm sure you remember some of it I don't know how drunk he was Oh, he was drunk, so he didn't just have a couple of drinks, he was drunk So, yeah, what do you think was going on? Where was that coming from? What do you think? Tell me about... The thoughts behind the words. Or even deeper, tell me about the memories behind the feelings, behind the thoughts, behind the words.
[28:58] Relentless curiosity is one of the most powerful things in the world. Just relentless curiosity. Just keep asking. Just keep asking. And don't take offense. I mean, I'm sure you don't need to have me say that to you, but he called you a whore. It's a terrible thing to say. He was drunk, and we can forgive people what they say when they're first drunk, because he didn't know this was going to happen. He didn't know this was going to be his experience, and so I think forgiveness is important. Don't take it personally. It's something talking that's not his kind of conscious mind, if that makes sense. And just keep asking, keep asking what, was going on for him, what he was thinking, get back into politics, Stef I don't think I will I appreciate the feedback.
[29:59] Let's see here yeah, just ask a bunch of questions and do your very best to just be open-hearted, open-minded, and not judgmental. All right, somebody says, I was at a friend's house who has three kids, all under four years old, the youngest child, roughly 14 months. She cannot talk yet, but can communicate. When she doesn't get her way, she will lay down on the floor and cry in obvious protest. I notice she's also very demanding at dinner. I'm not blaming her at all for the behavior because I think she's just doing what is most effective to get what she wants. It was strange to me because my daughter never did that and my friend doesn't believe me. Any advice? Yeah.
[30:45] Yeah.
[30:58] Children, people think that children escalate until they get what they want. I don't think that's true, at least not in my experience. And I've had a lot of experience with kids. You probably remember I worked in a daycare for many years as a teenager. Children, and most people, they don't escalate until they get what they want. They escalate until they feel heard. I mean, the difference is really important. This is why listening is so powerful. If people feel heard, they mind a lot less being told no. If people are told no without feeling heard, they escalate in general.
[31:43] So people think that, oh, well, if I listen to my kid, my kid wants a cookie, right? If I listen to my kid, I've got to give her a cookie. So they just don't even listen. And then the kid escalates. She's having a tantrum or something. But if your kid wants a cookie, you can absolutely listen to that. You can absolutely sympathize with your kid wanting a cookie. And you can say, no cookie. If the kid is heard and understood, it deflates the escalation. I mean, this isn't true for everyone at all times, obviously, but with kids in particular, if they feel heard, they tend to de-escalate. Jared says, true for people calling into a customer service line, being heard is worth three solutions. That's a great point. Feeling heard is lacking. How would you show a 14-month-old that she was heard?
[32:44] Well, you'll have to give me the scenario of what she's complaining about. But, I mean, obviously, comfort is key. If you comfort the child, then you're showing that the child's upset means something to you. You know, I mean, I've mentioned this before, and I think I wrote about this in Peaceful Parenting, PeacefulParenting.com. Please share the book. But when my daughter would be in the store, you know, they put all of this evil fruit-colored candy at eye level for kids, right? And my daughter would be like I want the candy and I'd be like yeah it looks great doesn't it I want the candy too I could scoop that whole thing up I could eat the whole thing I would even eat the wrappers I wouldn't even care I would just pass those through, and so I empathized and sympathized I said yeah I mean I have to say no to candy I like it too much I have to say no to candy and, so you're modeling you understand that they want the candy, you understand that it's attractive, that it's appealing, that you're drooling even thinking about it.
[33:55] So when kids want something, you can empathize with them wanting it. Yeah. Whereas people think that the kid says, I want candy. And the parents then say, well, you can't have the candy. But the kid's saying, I want the candy. Not, give me the candy. Now, if the kid's saying, I want candy, you can say, I completely understand. I want candy too I want candy Alright So I empathize with the feelings So that the kid feels understood and hurt And de-escalation is almost always the result.
[34:39] So he says When I was over she was pointing and demanding stuff to hold Just various things The parents were just refusing Yeah So I mean particularly with toddlers You just have to multitask, So if she's pointing at something on the shelf, you're chatting away as the parent, you go get the thing from the shelf, and you give it to the kid. There's no reason to say no. I mean, you say yes as much as possible to your kids. Wouldn't you? I mean, you say yes as much as possible to your wife. You say yes as much as possible to your boss. You say yes as much as possible. I mean, how many questions do I not answer? Like 1% of questions I don't answer. So with your kids, you say yes as much as possible.
[35:33] Ajumi says, hey, we have elections coming up here in Australia. Do you personally think financially supporting a political party is a good way to spend your money? Thanks. I mean, I really can't answer that. I'm a Bitcoin guy. I can't answer what is of value to you. What would be your response if someone looks really sad when they're talking to you? Would you not mention it? Sure. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of distracting if you don't, right? If somebody's really sad and hollow-eyed, and then it'd be kind of distracting and dissociating to not notice that. Just pause for a second. You seem to be kind of down. and something you want to talk about or anything that I can do to help. But yeah, you should mention it. It's a cry for help or a cry for recognition or a plea for understanding or curiosity or something like that.
[36:41] All right. What did I miss? Oh, yes. freedomain.com slash an eight. Somebody says, I recently rewatched Blue Velvet since you'd mentioned the opening scene. As you may know, from the 70s onward, Lynch lived in Los Angeles. Do you think some of his portrayal of American society in this movie is informed by his life in Hollywood? Incidentally, I was horrified to find he had a relationship with the lead actress. Yes. David Lynch, you know, Dove into the dregs. He went straight to the dregs, to the biting insects underneath the grass. And I talk about this more in the French Revolution. Like, you leave the wounded behind in society. You leave the wounded behind at your very great peril. Very, very, very great peril.
[37:38] There's almost no spirit more spiteful aggressive and sometimes hateful than the spirit left behind on a broken refuse of childhood while society marches ahead in joy and glee, the urge to backstrike is almost overwhelming, and the equation, and we saw this played out in the French Revolution, other revolutions as well. The playbook is something like this. If you leave me behind, you're worthless to me. You mean nothing to me. If you leave me behind. If society moves ahead and leaves the victims of child abuse behind, or blames them for their own dysfunctions, If society marches on and leaves the broken behind, the broken will break back. It will break society back. A lot of vengeance in that.
[39:03] All right.
[39:11] Tim Pool posted about a successful PhD woman who traveled the world says she's missing something from her life. Family, you're missing your family. Billions of years of evolution and one day feminists just decided we can live without family. So this woman wrote, let me just zoom this up a little.
[39:33] Apparently, I can't zoom. All right. Something is missing from my adult life. I don't know what it is, 31-year-old female. So I did the crazy things. I worked my ass off through 12 years of education and training through my PhD. I've traveled to like 30-plus countries, have a few close-ish friends, a 15-year monogamous relationship with a man that makes me laugh every day. I've pulled myself out of poverty and feel like I've accomplished a lot of my initial goals. The others will take time. I have a good-paying but stressful job that takes up most of my time. Most days I get up at about 5 a.m., come home at about 7.30 or 8 p.m., make dinner, go to bed. On the weekends, I don't really know what to do besides groceries, chores, and meal prep. It just feels like something is missing. I'm bored, despite how hectic my life is. I don't have time or resources to start a family. I make good money, but not enough to pay for child care 12 hours a day. I don't live in an area with any sense of community. With my schedule, there are no classes or activities I can join in my area. I'm not religious. So I suppose there isn't a spiritual aspect of my life either. Is this really what adulthood is?
[40:50] Just working and coming home until you can afford to retire? I just keep trying to get back into the things I used to enjoy, but I just feel so uninterested and apathetic. Video games aren't doing it. I can't get into new books. I'm increasingly distancing myself from doom scrolling and social media. I'm not permitted to take vacations at my job, so anything but work-specific travel is off the table. I'm an American scientist. So life is quite stressful right now from multiple angles, but it feels like this has been going on for at least a year. I just don't know what else to do or look forward to.
[41:34] It's a very unsettling, hollow feeling.
[41:55] I needed my fix. Buy Stef's books. FreeDomain.com slash books. I mean, they're mostly free, but I appreciate that. Become an American, Stef. Well, let's see. I'll just check and see if the $5 million for Trump's gold card has been deposited. We'll see. We'll see. Yeah, that was a great line from Shadowlands with Anthony Hopkins and Deborah Winger, where Anthony Hopkins plays a C.S. Lewis, I think. And if you get a sense of futility, a sense of waste, of course, right? The academics, all the academics just feel pointless. I'll tell you that. I've experienced a lot of things in my life, a very interesting and rich life. I have experienced a lot of things in my life, but I have not experienced that kind of emptiness at least not that I can recall I'm sure occasionally but nothing that I can really nothing I can really recall.
[43:03] Do you guys have that? what this woman is talking about the sense of repetition waste, emptiness, I mean I think if you're a scientist and you forego having children because you're going to work on some, you know, big advancement or, but if it's just a bunch of make-work, government normie slop, I don't know. I think it's pretty hard. I think deep down people process whether they're adding virtue and goodness to the world or not. And, if you're not adding goodness to the world in some manner, I think you're just gonna do a slow burn into inconsequentiality in your mind. We're here to do good. It's the one thing that we can do that no other creature can do. It's good. It's the one thing. One thing.
[44:05] Do you think this is true? This is from Amy Therese. She wrote, I believed for a long time that most people shy of psychopaths could be reasoned with, but many ordinary people can't. The things they say in conversation aren't their own considered responses to the queries of their interlocutor. Often they are a pastiche of other people's half-masticated thought. They don't really understand. They just chew them up, swallow, and regurgitate them on call, like Pavlov's dog when something similar is discussed. But that's Ayn Rand's second-handers, right? Social metaphysicians.
[44:45] There's a big debate that's going on, comes out of the Douglas Murray and Dave Smith debate. And just war theory, I've been quite fascinated with for many years. It's a very sort of, I mean, in this sort of status concept, it would still apply in a free society, in a voluntary society. But I do find just war theory very interesting. Yeah, bombinthebrain.com. Thanks, Karis. airbombinthebrain.com. It's very important. All right, so let me just get to your questions.
[45:23] I have wide, anxious eyes when talking to people often. Do you think allowing myself to feel more emotion when talking to people will help prevent that? Oh, like Kash Patel has that, this sort of slight deer-in-the-headlights look when talking to people. I had that too. I think my pupils, or my eyes would dilate. I would see that when I was up giving speeches, that I just a little scary but, I have white anxious eyes when talking to people so but you do that as a mark of submission right if you're talking to people and your shoulders are up and right you're doing that as a mark of submission, so you should probably stop signaling submission to people and just you know, you don't have to narrow your eyes and use tough guy voice but I would say, calm down the startled dear response and people who are physically relaxed signal equality, right? People who are tense signal either dominance or submission, right? But people who are physically relaxed, you are signaling a comfort level and a win-win negotiation situation.
[46:30] So, as far as, you know, I'm a big fan of bodywork, not the store. I'm a big fan of bodywork. When I was in theater school, I did the Alexander Technique. I did, I've done yoga, aromatherapy, tai chi, all kinds of things. Especially, you know, we who are in this kind of conversation, we do a lot of head stuff, right? A lot of thinking, a lot of abstracts. to fly the pterodactyls of concepts to the far, windy, platonic reaches of ultimate ideals. And it's really important to ground your mind back in the body, to connect with the gut, you know, the gut instincts. To ground your mind back in the body is really, really important. So, saunas, even things like that can be really, really good. So, I'm a big fan of bodywork. Get your massages done and do some yoga. And the Alexander technique with me was very good for posture. The guy could tell I was beaten as a child. Like the moment he saw me, he's like, no, your head's forward, your shoulders are up, you're beaten as a child. I'm like, get out of my head.
[47:42] Somebody says, I can see what she means. It feels a bit like stagnation to me. Yeah. Groundhog Day sometimes. Yeah, that can certainly happen. Though i mean and i i mean enormously deeply and humbly grateful to you guys, for all of this um that i get to do such different work on a continual basis i mean i've loved doing the bible work the bible analyses i've really loved doing that and i still get to do these great call-ins freedomain.com slash call if you'd like a call-in you're certainly welcome to send in your messages. Chris, use Skype. But... Alay says, I decided to start going to church when I felt that way. It has really helped me interact with people with a positive and secure mindset, even though I'm still a very rational person. I'm glad it helped. Thank you for the tips. I appreciate that. Somebody says, church has had the opposite effect in my life. I found just control mechanisms at play join in with the crowd or feel ostracized, if you challenge the power you will be condemned.
[49:03] Totally agree Stef you always seem to be moving around out in nature and staying in the moment with your daughter etc yeah james says we put out a call for donors today i want to be an artist Yeah, it was a good call-in. It was a good call-in. We got some... Yeah. Somebody says, the Bible series is great. I get a lot of catching up to do, but the episodes I've seen so far were very insightful. Thank you. So bodywork is like yoga. What about being still as a statue during conversations? Is that bodywork? You talking like this in the middle of a conversation? I don't know. Now, ventriloquism is more of an act than a conversational art.
[49:48] Yeah, church is the people. Church is, you will find a good church for yourself, I'm sure.
[50:07] So, happy to take more questions. Hit me with a why if you're interested in the just war theory. What is a just, what is just war? What are the rules of war? The rules of engagement, which is currently being hotly debated all over social media at the moment. But I want to make sure it's interesting to you. To you, my friends. Yes. Yes. Sean Connery. All right. Um. You enjoy the Bible analysis? Yeah, thanks, I'm still... Okay, so this is from Dr. Brian L. Cox.
[50:54] So Dave Smith, of course, we talked about this a week or two ago, got into a debate with Douglas Murray. And Dave Smith is saying, you know, well, if you murder a bunch of kids, you're going to just create more enemies and all of that. So I get where he's coming from, obviously. But what I would say, so he said, hey, Dave Smith, I'm your Huckleberry. Because Dave Smith's saying, I'm making a moral argument about violence, and other people are saying, I'm invoking legalities and doctrine.
[51:36] And agree with it or not, I think this is a very good explanation. He said, the reason actual experts like Spencer Gard keep, quote, invoking legalities and doctrine is because these are the rules that govern warfare. Just like domestic laws prohibiting murder, your term from previous posts on topic, and other categories of homicide conduct, of armed hostilities is governed by rules as well. There is a philosophical reason for having two general different sets of rules. And Dave Smith is saying, look, I mean, if, you know, if somebody does harm to you and then runs into a building, you can't just blow up the whole building with other people in it, right? And he's saying there's a moral argument. So he says, there is a philosophical reason for having two general different sets of rules. The reason involves the divergent context of domestic law enforcement and war. Your focus on the outcome, essentially people die in both, so what's the difference, fails to account for the divergent context. Thank you.
[52:38] He said, in a domestic law enforcement setting, you can use force, but only if absolutely necessary, and only the degree of force that is actually required. So if someone breaks into your house and you feel like your life is threatened, in most cases you can kill them to protect yourself. But if they broke into your house while you weren't home and you encountered them on the sidewalk days later, you can no longer use force against them. Now your life isn't being threatened, so you need to report them to the police and let the law enforcement process play out. When the police arrest the suspects they can only use the minimum force necessary as well the reason minimum force if any is allowed by you as the victim or the police as the agents of the state is because you're all operating in an environment where the government has a general monopoly on the use of force the government is supposed to function on behalf of the people while maintaining law and order so using force to defend one's interests or vindicate one's rights is supposed to be the exception rather than the rule. Again, we'll take the status considerations. Some of this would certainly apply in a free society.
[53:43] So he writes, In armed conflict, nothing I just wrote immediately above about the domestic law enforcement setting applies. Nothing, he says. Combatants have to use force to achieve the strategic aim of the elected officials who sent them to war. There is no monopoly on the use of force. The adversary can and will use force to achieve their strategic goals. In this context, any amount of force that is necessary to bring about the surrender of the adversary as rapidly as possible on terms most favorable to the victor is allowed philosophically and legally. You don't have to like it, and clearly you don't, but you also don't have a say in what international law involving armed conflict is. I mean, I think what he's saying is that the purpose of the police is the prevention of violence as much as possible, whereas the purpose of the army is the initiation and escalation of violence in order to win the war as quickly as possible, which you could argue would reduce violence in the long run anyway. Thank you, Isaac. Freedomain.com slash donate.
[55:01] So he writes the philosophical difference between contexts explains why intent works differently in both and the philosophical reason for this difference is a function of different concepts of necessity.
[55:15] He said before i retired from u.s military in 2018 i was subject to uniform code of military Justice, UCMJ. If I killed someone when standard domestic law applied to me, I might be found guilty of murder in violation of Article 118 of UCMJ. If I killed someone in combat, Article 118 doesn't apply to that conduct. In standard domestic setting, presumption is that using lethal force isn't necessary. In combat, using force is necessary. The standard I'm held to there in combat is whether I intentionally, knowingly, and on purpose directed attack against civilian persons or objects. That standard is reflected in war crime sections of Rome statute, which the U.S. hasn't ratified, but our use of force doctrine is substantially similar. And U.S. delegation played a central role in negotiating the attacks of the Rome statute, but we haven't ratified, due to jurisdictional concerns. So if someone knowingly directs attacks against civilian populations, she or he likely committed war crime, even if no civilian is killed or injured. The purpose of this law is to ensure any use of force is actually militarily necessary.
[56:33] He says, now folks like Spencer Gard and I take this law seriously, because that's the standard to which we're held, if and when we do go to war. Many of us, John and I included, think about philosophical underpinnings of international law. But LOAC, law of, sorry, I missed that. I think he's just talking about international law. sorry LOAC is structured so military members don't have to reflect on theoretical foundations if they're not interested in doing so. LOAC and rules of engagement set limits on our conduct and we're expected to comply with these requirements regardless of whether we agree philosophically or even if we've ever pondered theoretical concerns. LOAC rules set both legal, and ethical standards whether or not you like them or agree with them. Thankfully, we have an all-volunteer military, so unless there's a draft, you can live in blissful ignorance regarding differences between murder and war crimes. But if you do choose to remain blissfully ignorant, maybe think about not sharing your ignorant thoughts to a huge public audience. If you do, don't be surprised when someone like John or me challenges your ignorant assertions. And when we do, you should consider acknowledging you're out of your depth, taking the L, and just moving on with your life, and with a bit more knowledge than when you started.
[57:51] Very interesting. the law of armed combat thank you law of armed combat appreciate it i was going to guess but i might have missed it i might have got it wrong.
[58:05] And so the big challenge, we see this, of course, throughout the history of combat. The big challenge is, what do you do? Like, if you have two armies facing each other across the battlefield, you know, sort of trench warfare style or Napoleon style, and they clash together and there's no civilians around and so on. We accept and understand that.
[58:36] This is war and there's no problems. I mean, obviously there are problems, but there's no foundational moral problems because there aren't civilians in the environment. So it's just soldiers fighting soldiers, and we may hate it, we may revile it, it may be slavery, draft, whatever, right? But we can understand that this is a army-on-army fight. Um the challenge of course is when combatants are no longer following the rules of war right so in the rules of war and there's obviously a whole bunch of them uh a good treatment of pow's you have to wear a uniform you have to uh give your name rank and serial number things i mean don't target civilians i mean obviously i'm no expert on these but what do you do when people don't obey the generally accepted rules of war? What if they don't wear uniforms? What if they launch missiles from inside of hospitals? What if they capture children and use them as human shield? What do you do?
[59:44] That's the challenge. The challenge is not the rules of war when you're talking about clearly identified uniformed armies in a field with no civilians, right? That's not the issue. The issue is, what do you do with people who aren't following the rules of war? Yeah, sometimes they wear the uniforms of their opponents even. Yeah. What do you do? That's the foundational question.
[1:00:28] That's the essential question. And there seem to be two answers. One is, and we can sort of puzzle this out together philosophically if you're interested, But one is you say, if somebody is launching missiles from inside a hospital, you have to take out the hospital because you're not taking out the hospital because it's a hospital. You're taking out the hospital because they're using it as a launching pad for their missiles. Then, of course, the challenge is, as we've seen this happen countless times, they say, oh, look, they hit a hospital. How terrible. Look, how terrible they are. They hit a hospital. And then you get the negative publicity and propaganda and all of that, right? So who is responsible for bringing children into combat? I mean, clearly the people who are firing rockets from hospitals are putting the hospital at risk.
[1:01:34] Because you have to strike in a war, right? You have to strike where the missiles are coming from. And if they put it in a hospital, who's responsible for the hospital getting struck? Who are the people who put the rocket launchers in the hospital? Tell me, I mean, if I'm wrong about that, do you disagree? Yes or no? Now, I'm happy to be corrected on this, but the responsibility is, to me, on the people who are commandeering civilian buildings for military purposes.
[1:02:23] So, if a soldier grabs a child and is shooting at you, if a soldier grabs a child, a combatant, whatever, right? They grab a child and they're shooting at you, who is responsible for what happens to the child? I mean, these are very ugly things to deal with. And maybe I'm just a big old brutish Anglo-Saxon guy, but for me, the moral responsibility lies on those who are bringing civilians into the combat zone or bringing the combat zone to civilians.
[1:03:32] And I'm not sure how that can, in particular, be avoided. I mean, one of the things I think is pretty important to living a moral life is that evil, it shouldn't work. It shouldn't win. It shouldn't, you know, kind of get what it wants in that way. You, I think, do your very best to have immorality not succeed in its goals, if that makes sense. Now, again, I mean, to reiterate, I'm obviously a prevention guy, a peaceful parenting guy, and so on. But as far as just war theory goes, I mean, it's a brutal calculus. It's absolutely brutal calculus. But if you let enemy combatants grab children and then you don't shoot, then they will just grab more and more children. I mean, am I wrong? I mean, they're going to strap a whole bunch of kids to themselves and go into combat.
[1:04:57] James says, isn't the same principle at play when there's a guy who robs a convenience store and the clerk fires a shotgun based on the bystander? Is that the responsibility falls upon the thief? Yeah, because he initiated the sequence which led to the bystander being shot.
[1:05:16] So, I mean, the other thing too, of course, is that in peacetime, in a state, in a free society, or in a state that's not currently in a geographical region, not currently at war, you have time. You have time. If you have a guy with hostages in a bank in a time of peace, you have time. He's not calling for airstrikes. He's not calling for backup. He's, you know, he's, you have time. Maybe you can wait him out. Maybe you can starve him out. You can talk him out. You can, whatever. There's a bunch of different options. You don't have, really, the luxury of quarantining, isolation, and time in a state of war. In a state of war.
[1:06:11] So, time is of the essence.
[1:06:21] A long theological point made short Satan rules this world Feels that way sometimes for sure, Stef is not wrong They will just tie kids to their tanks The ultimate armor, There are cases where one side Will bomb civilians on their own side Point fingers at their opponents Just to make the opponents look bad Yeah for sure For sure, I mean, that's one of the false flags that got the invasion of Poland going. September 1939, they shot up and threw some bodies around a German radio station, if I remember rightly, something like that. False flags are very common, tragically common. I mean, in general, I think, in general, get it? But I think in general, what you want to do is get the war done as quickly as possible. And have as minimally damaged a civilian population as possible.
[1:07:40] Did you know all 27 of uranus moons are named after william shakespeare and alexander pope characters i did not know that i did not know that.
[1:08:00] The false flag that has said gassed his own people. Not only do I remember that, I remember reporting on that back in the day. And you see what's happened to Christians after that, right? Somebody says, in World War II, the Japanese would purposefully target medics and would hide military assets under Red Cross symbols. Banzai charges, fake surrenders, followed by grenade attacks. The barbarity of the Japanese was countered with the barbarity of the Marines. Precision munitions are a luxury people will have to get used to unrestricted warfare once again. Yeah. I mean, the brutal sacrifices and compromises that war requires is an easy thing to lecture and bloviate upon when you're not trying to win a war. It is. I mean, I am thankful every day that I'm not in a situation where I've had to make those kinds of choices with weaponry.
[1:09:22] So, the deaths of children in war is... Very sad. Very terrible. Terrible. Terrible. And of course the purpose is to not start the war, or if the war is underway, to conclude it as decisively and quickly as possible and return to a state of peace. All right. Any other questions, comments? Issues challenges you'll wait a long time for me all right.
[1:10:24] This is interesting from Katie Faust. She wrote, Wherever Christians went, children's lives got better. They fought abuse, ended deadly customs, and transformed entire cultures to protect the vulnerable. Amy Carmichael rescued thousands of girls from temple prostitution in India. She founded the Donavur Fellowship, a safe home and school that gave these children dignity, education, and a future. Mary Slasser saved hundreds of twins in Nigeria from being killed due to tribal superstition. She adopted many, raised them as her own, and helped change local attitudes towards children and women.
[1:10:55] Gladys Aylward led 100-plus orphans across war-torn China to safety during the Japanese invasion. She opened orphanages, taught children, and became a beloved figure in her adopted home. George Muller cared for over 10,000 orphans in 19th-century England. He provided housing, food, and education, all by faith, never asking for donations. Lillian Trasher, the mother of the Nile, founded the first orphanage in Egypt. She cared for thousands of abandoned children over 50 years offering love, education, and stability in a chaotic world. William Carey fought child sacrifice, female infanticide, and child marriage in India. His Christian convictions drove social reform and helped to spark legal protections for children. Christian missionaries in China helped end footbinding. The footbinding is unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable. And I remember reading a woman's report on footbinding is that they would curl the toes under the foot for some bizarre sexual fetish for the Chinese men. Oh, it was just repulsive. Anyway, it just ended like that. Like one generation was there, next generation wasn't.
[1:12:02] So Christian missionaries in China helped end foot binding. They refused to admit bound feet girls to schools and launched the Natural Foot Society, which led to cultural change and eventual legal bans. David Livingstone exposed the brutal Arab slave trade in East Africa, freed captives, and challenged slave traders directly. His reports shocked Britain, fueling abolitionistic action and efforts to replace slavery with trade and gospel-driven reform. Horace Mann, inspired by Christian ideals, helped build America's public school system.
[1:12:37] Christians like Lord Shaftesbury and Dr. Bernardo led campaigns to end child labour in Victorian England, founding homeschools and pushing for laws to protect street kids from exploitation. And anyway, it goes on and on. But uh credit where credit is due in my opinion, how is your esf all better i would say mostly yeah it's mostly better i have a i got hit with a nasty year virus and uh for a while there like a month or whatever i could hear my voice in my own ear it's mostly better it's getting better just it's like three months for these things to get better. It's crazy.
[1:13:33] The connection between, so Kairos says, the connection between bettering the lives of children and Christianity is detailed extensively in the rise and fall of childhood. Lloyd DeMoss talks about foot binding in his essay, The Universality of Incest. Yeah. That ain't great. Lloyd DeMoss. The origins of war and child abuse definitely is worth, Worth listening to. All right, look at that. Actually, it went over an hour this time. I'm just going to see if I have anything else that's yearning-burning to talk of. Of.
[1:14:20] Ah, yeah. Ayn Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology is a great book. Recommend it. Recommend. I recommend. All right. Yeah, if Texas authorities have the video of the Austin Metcalfe and Carmelo Anthony confrontation, oof, I say. It's nothing that anybody wants to see, but I suppose people will have to see it, right?
[1:14:58] I do not know what the critelion problem is. America's original schools were on private Christian diamond time. Government got their fat foot in the door, kicked God out, and now demand donations even when indoctrinating with offensive anti-American ideas. Thanks for a great stream. Going to donate on Free Domain. Thank you very much, freedomain.com slash donate. Harvard founding motto, Veritas Christo et Ecclesiae, meaning truth for Christ and the church. It's funny to think that nobody knows how Latin is pronounced, right? Nobody knows. Nobody knows how Latin is pronounced, because, of course, there's no audio, right? Don't remember his name, but there was a Christian Englishman who petitioned the British government for years to ban the practice of wife-burning in India. After years of lobbying, the British government finally banned it. I mean, this is the white man's burden, right? It was the idea that we happened to, in the sort of Christian West, come across some really good morals and principles and systems of government and economics, and we were going to go and bring that to the world. Like you can just go and transplant Dorset to Mumbai. That was a great delusion. I mean, a very powerful delusion, but a false thing.
[1:16:21] All right, let me see if you have any last questions, comments. Last questions. Second round of a job interview tomorrow. Appreciate that.
[1:16:42] Good luck with your job interview. Just remember to remember it's an exchange of value, that you're there to get value as well, and not just begging for a job. A little tip more if all goes well. Thanks for the stream, Stef. I appreciate that. Thank you guys for dropping by tonight. A real deep and humble pleasure to have this chat with you. And we do know how Latin was pronounced. We know indirectly through misspellings of texts of the time. Oh, so people tried to spell it fanatically. How do you think the economy is going? It's no economy. It's a bubble. It's all a bubble. It's all a bubble. It's all the money printing and debt. And, I mean, obviously some real things. But that's very much occluded by the giant farty waste gas of inflated currency. So I'm a hard money guy. You know, like that guy who said, you know, my girlfriend says, like, I'm the worst she's ever had in bed. I'm like, there's no way you can come to that conclusion in like 23 seconds. Crazy. All right have a wonderful evening everybody thank you so much for dropping by tonight lots of love we will talk to you on friday and uh freedom.com slash donate to help out the show and uh i appreciate your time here tonight bye.
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