In this October 17th, 2025, episode of "Friday Night Live," philosopher Stefan Molyneux dives deep into various provocative topics with callers, fostering an engaging discourse on philosophy, morality, and societal issues. The show opens with Stefan's palpable excitement to engage with his audience, expressing his love for discussing philosophy and the complexities that arise in human interactions.
As the conversation unfolds, a caller questions the fluctuation of Bitcoin against gold, leading to a robust discussion about the motivations behind cryptocurrency investments. Stefan articulates the distinction between those in it for financial gain versus those motivated by a larger mission. He explains that although price fluctuations might incite panic, Bitcoin's long-term value fundamentally hinges on conviction and purpose, drawing an insightful analogy comparing this to investing in life-saving medicines.
The conversation shifts with another caller broaching the contentious topic of forgiveness without contrition. This introduces a multifaceted exploration of the implications of forgiveness, morality, and the nuances surrounding interpersonal relationships. The caller endeavors to argue that forgiveness does not necessitate seeing the transgressor again, to which Stefan responds vigorously, asserting that genuine forgiveness could not exist alongside continued grievances and unresolved issues. He lays bare the intricacies of forgiveness, emphasizing the need for accountability and the importance of recognizing the consequences of one's actions.
As the dialogue deepens, Stefan tackles the often-complex relationship between morality and humor, addressing how certain statements can trivialize serious subjects. The next caller brings Christopher Hitchens's perspectives into the mix, adding another layer to the discussion about the essence of virtue—it becomes clear that Stefan believes moral principles must stand firm against the tides of societal humor which risk diluting serious discourse.
A particularly enlightening aspect of the episode emerges from a discussion on the ethics of punishment and forgiveness. Stefan cleverly argues against Kantian ethics, illustrating how commonsense morality can often collide with rigid philosophical doctrines. He posits that real-world situations—such as telling a murderer’s potential victim where to find their assailant—demand a more nuanced understanding of morality than strict adherence to universal laws allows.
The show progresses with calls discussing the challenges of addressing past grievances within familial structures. A guest shares their insights on how personal history predisposes individuals to certain unhealthy habits, drawing attention to the psychological aspects of upbringing and societal influence on behavior.
Additionally, the interplay between free will, decision-making, and moral responsibility stimulates engaging debate. One caller provocatively draws on empirical studies to explore the relationship between desires and decisions, leading to a discussion on whether morality stems from a conscious understanding of ideal standards or whether it's merely a reflection of instinctual impulses.
Throughout the episode, the themes of familial responsibility, societal expectations, and individual accountability weave together seamlessly. Stefan's examination of philosophical perspectives—interlaced with calls exploring personal anecdotes and broader ethical dilemmas—culminates in a series of thought-provoking arguments regarding the complexity of human behavior.
Stefan passionately concludes with reflections on his previously written works, mentioning how despite the myriad moral frameworks explored, he continually advocates for a rational approach to ethics rooted in universally preferable behavior. He encourages his audience to navigate the intricate landscape of morality by grounding their beliefs in logical and consistent frameworks while maintaining a critical awareness of the societal structures that shape individual actions.
This episode of "Friday Night Live" stands as a testament to the power of conversation, showcasing how philosophy intertwines with everyday life, urging listeners to engage deeply with the ethical questions that persist in shaping human relationships and societal norms.
0:04 - Welcome to Friday Night Live
2:25 - Bitcoin and Its Mission
4:27 - Callers Join the Conversation
6:01 - Discussing Forgiveness and Contrition
11:04 - The Nature of Forgiveness
17:16 - Jesus and Forgiveness
22:25 - Righteous Anger Explored
34:39 - The Role of Righteous Anger
47:53 - The Dangers of Righteous Anger
1:10:06 - Personal Experiences and Reflections
1:14:19 - Difficult Conversations
1:19:59 - Consequences of Obesity
1:25:32 - Discussions on Parental Responsibility
1:29:19 - The Nature of Assault
1:35:11 - The Complexity of Forgiveness
1:44:06 - Internalized Criticism
1:56:02 - Philosophical Perspectives on Free Will
2:05:53 - Morality and Ideal Standards
2:16:46 - The Role of Society
2:23:34 - Closing Reflections on Parenting
[0:00] Good evening, everybody. Welcome to the 17th of October, 2025. We are talking Friday Night Live. And of course, I am thrilled, overjoyed, ecstatic, delirious with bliss. I'm not kidding. It's a great privilege to be talking philosophy with you tonight. Looking forward to taking the call to us. And I certainly have some topics, but we'll wait for when there aren't as many. Somebody says, why is gold mooning and Bitcoin dying? Wasn't it supposed to be the other way around in October, LOL? Yeah, I mean, honestly, I don't know if you're joking, but what do you mean it's dying? The fastest growing asset in all of human history.
[0:58] And it's gone back to what, where it was a couple of weeks ago, dying. In general, in general, I would strongly suggest that you refrain from, you know, that kind of talk. Honestly, it's, uh, it's, it's silly. It's foolish. And again, I know you're probably joking and all that kind of stuff. But nonetheless, Bitcoin is not dying. Bitcoin is not dying. There are people who are into Bitcoin because of the money. And there are people who are into Bitcoin because of the mission.
[1:39] Right? There are people into Bitcoin because of the money, and there are people into Bitcoin because of the mission. And no particular harm, no particular foul, that's fine. If there is a company that is coming up with a life-saving medicine, there are some people who invest in that company because they want to make some money. And there are other people who invest in that company because their beloved wife or husband died of that illness and they're in it for the mission. They're in it for the cure. They're in it for the good of humanity. And again, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the people who are in it for the money, but the people who are in it for the money are going to buy and sell.
[2:26] And the people who are in it for the mission are going to buy and buy.
[2:35] And now the people who are in it to buy and sell, that's fine. If there are people who are in it to buy and sell, that's fine. But they're not in it for the mission. And there are times when the people who are in it to buy and sell will overwhelm those who are in it for the mission. And they will take the price down, which again is fine. Bitcoin will accumulate over time to those who are in for the mission. Not those who are in it for the money. And there are shakeout times when the price goes down when Bitcoin is transferring from those who are in it for the money to those who are in it for the mission. Someone says, I just listened to Peter Schiff talking a whole lot of bad on Bitcoin. He is truly anti-Bitcoin. Yeah, I did a debate with Peter Schiff. What was it, 2015 or something like that?
[3:31] And I mean, yeah, he is. I mean, his whole company, his whole everything he does is about promoting gold, which is fine. I'm a big fan of Bitcoin. I don't hate on gold. I don't talk about how terrible gold is. I mean, there's lots of ways to love things without hating other things. Somebody says, oh, the guy who said, gotcha, see where you're coming from. I'm sorry for my immaturity, it was meant to be humorous. Yeah. Mooning and dying, honestly. I mean, I love that you're here and I'm happy to have the conversation, but you got to watch your humor stuff. I know I have to as well. I have to watch my humor stuff because stuff is, you know, kind of serious to a lot of people. So, all right, let's get to the callers again. I'm going to give priority to people who haven't called in before.
[4:27] Jeff, I don't recognize the name. If you wanted to unmute, I'm thrilled to hear what's on your mind.
[4:41] Going once, going twice. It's always wild to me that people call in, get set up, request to talk, and then don't talk. Wild to me. All right, so let us go with ADAS instead. ADAS, what is on your mind, my friend? I hear a squeak yes hello.
[5:16] Can you hear me.
[5:17] Yes, yes i can hear you can you hear me, i'm trying not to make calling into a show an intelligence test but it does seem to be going that way i gotta remove that guy jlw what is on your mind, I mean, I'd like to have a call-in show. I don't think it's hugely complicated. It doesn't seem to be hugely complicated. Hey, can you hear me? Yes.
[5:56] Hey, yeah, did the other guy, well, the screen just flipped. That was a bit strange.
[6:02] Well, apparently talking and listening is a little bit beyond some people's capacities, but that's all right. We're chatting now, so what's on your mind?
[6:09] Hey, yeah, I wanted to come back to this without contrition discussion. You were having it a little while back. Just getting my notes here. And um there was just another it's kind of like it's not a point against you so um so i don't know like listen not against me.
[6:27] It's not against i'm sorry to interrupt it's not against me if i'm incorrect about something please fix it i don't want to have.
[6:33] False it's not personal to me like i'm just making an argument i'm sort of i'm sort of bringing in a point that's sort of like from your side like in your favor almost so i don't know like so obviously you're not having to respond in a certain way. But so this is my thought.
[6:53] When you have this forgiveness against and contrition discussion, you have the first group who are, say, forgiveness without contrition is not good, it's not practical, that kind of thing. And then you have the second group which are saying forgiveness without contrition isn't as good because, say, Jesus said it or whatever particular rationale they have. And then you have a third group, which I don't think's kind of been given enough attention, but they always seem to kind of keep the discussion like alive, like they sort of weasel in there a bit. And this is my idea, like it might not be correct. So I'll say what I think this group's perspective is and perhaps a little of why I don't think it's right or anything like that. There's a third group that say...
[7:47] You can forgive, but if you forgive, you don't then have to see that person again. Effectively, none of your behavior has to change. And it's like, if you forgive, you still don't have to be in an abusive relationship. Or if you forgive, like nothing practically changes. And I've noticed like when there's discussion, like in other places, not just you, like live streams and stuff, the same group of people will come out and they'll sort of sit there with their perspective and it'll just kind of completely derail the discussion. And I mean, I have a few points against that, but I thought I just wanted to bring that up to you.
[8:28] I'll bring one small point, an additional thought on it. It's a very strange idea, this idea of you have a thought in your mind of someone that you don't forgive. You change that to a thought of that person you do forgive, you don't change any of your outward behaviors. But somehow this is meant to give you status or somehow this is meant to change anything. And that was just a point that I wanted to bring up about the whole issue.
[8:57] Yeah, okay. So there's the people who say you have to earn forgiveness. There's people who say forgiveness is unearned. And then there's people who say you can forgive someone and then never see them again. Is that right?
[9:11] Yeah. They kind of want the best of both worlds. So they say you can forgive someone, but you don't change your behaviors, which is a very logical...
[9:19] I don't need you to reiterate your point. I'm just confirming that I've got the point. Is that right?
[9:23] Yeah. Okay. I'll be quiet.
[9:24] No, no. I'm not asking you to be quiet. I just wanted to confirm this is a yes or no confirmation, right? So... There clearly has to be a differentiation between people that you forgive and continue to see, and people that you forgive and don't see anymore. Is that fair to say? Those are different outcomes.
[9:47] That's my point as well. I just wanted to bring this up because I see this a lot in the main conversation about this, just everywhere.
[9:56] Right, right. So, it still doesn't help to me, it doesn't help me to understand people's positions when you say, I forgive you, and you're welcome back into the bosom of my heart, everything's fine, or I forgive you, get out of my life and never come back. And so, you can't use the same word for both events. You can't use the same word which says, I forgive you. Therefore, our relationship is healed and we continue on as if the wrong had not occurred. Because to me, that's what forgiveness means. We continue on as if the wrong had not occurred. Like the example I give, like you borrow my lawnmower and then you break my lawnmower. And if you just hand me back a smoking wreckage with like a foot attached, I'm not happy, right? There's a problem. But if you're like, oh man, I'm so sorry. I got your lawnmower. I broke it. I went over some rocks. I should have seen them, but no worries. I got the blades replaced. It's all fixed. Plus I got it oiled and tuned up. So then I'm fine, right? Like I go on as if the wrong had not occurred. Does that make sense?
[11:05] Yeah.
[11:06] Now, if forgiveness means to go on as if the wrong did not occur, then it cannot also include never talk to me again.
[11:18] Yeah, I would agree with that. Yeah.
[11:19] I mean, if I forgot my wife's birthday and I was like, oh, how terrible, I'm so sorry, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, made up for it and this, that, and the other, then she can't sit there and say, I forgive you and I'm divorcing you. Or I forgive you and you can't talk to me for a week. The forgiveness is you go on as if the wrong did not occur. Somebody has earned their way back into your good graces. so you can't use the same word for two opposite outcomes so if somebody earns forgiveness or let's say you just wave your magic forgiveness wand and forgive them and then it's as if the wrong didn't occur and then other people you claim to use the same word but you act, in a way that in that says the wrong is still occurring i'm certain it's going to recur and i'm going to have nothing to do with you you just can't use the same word like you can't say to someone, um, I forgive your debt. And also I forgive your debt. And I'm never talking to you again. That is not the same word. So you, people just need a different word. That's all.
[12:29] Yeah. Yeah. It just kind of, it just kind of really bugged me. So, uh, like if, if you think about it and also there's another, there's another thing, like if you say you forgive someone and then you don't change your behavior, then what is to say that you've actually done it? Like if the only change, if the only change that is manifest is your word, then who says that someone who's been wronged in some way doesn't go home and get in a bad mood and just feel all the same negative feelings that they said they'd forgiven. But yeah, that was just my point.
[13:06] I just want to make sure I understand that last one. So this is someone who says that they forgive and go home and still feel the same negatives towards the person who did them wrong?
[13:16] Well, if they're not actually changing their behavior, then what's to stop them doing that? That was just my thought.
[13:21] I'm sorry, you're going to have to break that out. If they were to change their behavior, what's to stop them from doing that is a sentence fragment that doesn't unfold with comprehension in my mind. Sorry if I missed something.
[13:31] Sorry, yeah, I'm not used to this massively. But yeah, I'll try to be as clear as possible. I'll use an example. So with the widow example, this is a widow that none of us have met, like a made up one. So she, um, has her, her, her, her like husband killed in, in some manner. And then she says, I forgive this person, but she doesn't change their behavior towards the murderer. And then when they go home, like there's no, because there's no outward changing behavior because they haven't gone to the murderer and said, you know, let's have a picnic or something. When they go home they will probably have all the same negative emotions and the fact that they said they're forgiven doesn't actually change anything, That was just not a thought.
[14:22] Yeah. I really have a strong visceral reaction, which I say not to make it true, but to sort of really talk about my biases or prejudices or at least emotions. I hate luxury beliefs. You know, like all of the people who were like, well, I value diversity while they live in their 99% white neighborhoods or whatever it is, right? Like, I mean, if you if you value diversity you know there are um there are houses for sale in really quote bad areas of town that are dirt cheap in fact there are some houses you can buy in america for a couple of dollars you just have to pay off back taxes or something like that and you'll be surrounded by all the diversity that you claim to like and love and um.
[15:06] They won't do it. Luxury beliefs, I really, really dislike. And hang on. So the point for forgiveness is it's a luxury belief because you can get all dramatic and say, I forgive the murderer. I forgive the guy. But you are relying on other people to not forgive him, to put him on trial, to judge his ass, and maybe to electrocute him to death. So other people have, like, if you say, I forgive the murderer, then, and that's the right thing to do, then everybody should forgive the murderer.
[15:39] And then you don't pursue him. You don't throw him in jail. You don't try him. You don't punish him. But if you're going to say, well, I forgive the murderer, and then, other people have to go out and not forgive the murderer, but instead arrest him and try him and charge him and go through a trial and keep him in jail and so on, then the only way that you're able to say, I forgive him, it's because other people, men generally, specifically don't forgive him and will go and arrest his eyes and punish him for his murder. So if people were to say, I forgive the murderer and I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to make murder legal so that everyone can forgive the murderers, I would think that would be at least consistent. But instead they say, I forgive, I forgive, I'm so good. Now you guys go and arrest him, okay? I forgive. You guys go and kill him if you have to. I forgive. And it just, it bothers me just that contradiction. Sorry, go ahead.
[16:43] Yeah, yeah. You said something very on point, I thought. Like, I've really enjoyed your discussion of this in general. Like, it was something that I was really, really wondering about. Like, when people, I've often been sort of spiritually inclined or like looking at New Age beliefs or Christianity and just looking around a lot. And I could never really quite articulate the sort of anger and confusion around forgiveness and contrition and all that until you actually really talked about
[17:13] it, and that really solved a lot for me. And I liked that you mentioned as well that Jesus didn't actually forgive on the cross despite having the authority to forgive.
[17:25] I just bring up one small, well, one point. It's not a small point. It's actually quite a loaded point potentially. But yeah.
[17:35] It's not something that you can probably get into now because it's a very big subject. But there is disagreement within Christianity about whether Paul's salvation by faith is a legitimate idea, Christian idea. This idea that if you declare Jesus as your savior, you are saved. And there are other people that believe that Jesus had more of a salvation by works idea, like Matthew 25, 37, where he says something like to the disciples, you haven't treated me properly. And they're like, what are you talking about? And he says, well, you didn't feed the homeless. You didn't do all these other things because he related himself to everyone. So, and he also said something like, be perfect as your heavenly father was perfect. and other little things, there is a case that can be made that Jesus taught more that you actually do things and that you don't. He never once said, you have to believe in my resurrection in order to be saved. And there may be some correlation there. The idea that you can say, I am saved of all my sins because of my faith is different to the idea that you actually have to do something. And there may be something that comes from that. But that's quite a big subject, so I understand if you don't want to tackle it or think about it.
[19:01] I like big subjects. I'm going to read, and I rarely do this, but I think it's very well articulated. This is somebody, I think he posted this in response to what I was talking about. The account is Mark W. Douglas on X. And he writes, there isn't a singular biblical example where forgiveness is given without the prior ask or belief that sins be or can be forgiven. The hallmark of Jesus' offered salvation is that, one, we believe He is the one true God and Savior, and two, only with our sincere confession of sins, audibly or with the heart, He grants forgiveness for those sins.
[19:40] This truth is stated over and over again. 1 John 1.9, quote, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. Not confusing mercy with the explicit forgiveness of sins, let's get educated. The few examples where forgiveness was seemingly given without the ask of forgiveness is unmistakably false. From the paralyzed man that was dropped through the roof, to the almost stoned prostitute, to the woman who washed Jesus' feet. With perfume, these individuals had clearly wanted absolution from their sins via their hearts, believing unto righteousness as explained in Romans 10.10. Quote, For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. And Jesus provided their forgiveness of sins. The singular example which you mentioned here, the singular example when Jesus asks Father God to forgive those crucifying him, these people were not in the act of asking for forgiveness, is telling because one, Jesus already had the direct power to forgive them, yet explicitly asked God the Father to do it, and two, it's not in the least bit clear that God forgave them. I would argue he didn't.
[20:53] It is in this spirit I understand the forgiveness of a cold-blooded murderer. I lobbied that these forgiveness statements be made precisely like Jesus did, asking God to forgive them and omitting a weird personal forgiveness statement to an unrepentant villain. But do not be misled. These people will not be forgiven without sincerely asking of God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit for forgiveness. The forgiveness 70 times 7 story is also very easy to understand. Each and every time your transgressor asks for forgiveness, you are to give it limitlessly. But unfathomably, shepherds will admit the obvious duty of the transgressor to firstly ask for the forgiveness so that the forgiveness can be given. They teach forgiveness without a shred of contrition from the perpetrator. Want more basic? For Jesus' sake, why did he allow Himself to be killed, a horrible death, on the cross, if not for replacing the need for a slaughtered lamb, which was the prior price for effective absolution of sin. We simply must ask for forgiveness so that forgiveness may be given. These functions are literally tethered for eternity, solidified repeatedly throughout the New Testament Scripture.
[22:03] The idea that instant forgiveness is expected by God and your neighbor, no matter what the transgression, and without the need for the sincere asking of forgiveness, is the most demonic lie of lies ever told," this writer writes. This is yet another base example of a lukewarm church that has fooled/gaslit the lazy, obfuscating, unstudied laymen. And guess what? They deserve it.
[22:26] Why would Jesus have died if everybody gets forgiveness? The Lord's Prayer in its original Greek, both Matthew and Luke, speak of debts, not sins. Transforming the then-ancient 600 years-prior custom called the year of Jubilee, the forgiveness of debt every 50 years, to instant debt forgiveness every time a debtor asks for debt forgiveness. In effect, this was meant to stop all lending in favor of giving. So that's a pretty good way of putting it. And so I just wanted to mention that. Now, is there something that you wanted to mention about that?
[23:03] Oh, no, no further. I won't go into any further. I've really enjoyed that clarification. You're very good at pushing back against bad concepts in general. And I just wanted to bring that up into the main discussion in general. That there is this kind of third group that's kind of trying to weasel their way in. But thank you very, very much. And I enjoy your work a great deal.
[23:27] Thank you. I also wanted to mention that on both the victim and the evildoer's side, instant forgiveness without contrition to me falls squarely under the sin of pride. On the sin of pride. Now, on the part of the evildoer, the sin of pride is, I'm not going to admit that I'm wrong. I'm not going to admit I did anything wrong. I mean, we've all had conversations. I mean, most of us have had conversations one time or another with somebody who just wanted to admit false. I didn't do it. You misremembered. It didn't happen that way. It wasn't real. You made it up. Never, you know, all of that sort of stuff. And that is a sin of pride. The sin of pride is a refusal to admit that you're wrong. And pride is a sin. So somebody who's done wrong, who refuses to admit that he or she has done wrong is suffering from the sin of pride. On the other hand, thinking that you can grant forgiveness, not God.
[24:27] Is wild to me. That is an absolute sin of pride. Now, what you can do is you can pray that the person finds his conscience, the evildoer finds his conscience and, understands his transgression and begs for forgiveness from God, from the wrongdoer, and so on. You can pray for that. I pray that he finds his conscience and I pray that he understands what he did wrong, and I pray that he asks for forgiveness. Okay, that's fine. I pray that God forgive him. That's fine too. But who can forgive?
[25:14] God, really. Now, you can also, if the person does say, oh, I did wrong and I want your forgiveness and I shot an arrow over a house and hit my brother, sort of Hamlet style, then you can pray to God and say, is this sincere? God, please tell me if I should forgive this person or not, please tell me, because only you can see into their heart, I cannot. So you can pray to God to give you wisdom on whether the person who is crying tears of contrition, if it's real, or if it's just, well, crocodile tears because they got caught, as you can pray for that.
[25:58] You can forgive the person if they genuinely ask for forgiveness and you've prayed to God and God has told you that it is valid and not fake, right? Because you don't forgive fake forgiveness. Like, you know, well, I'm sorry you got upset. I'm sorry you're so immature that you misinterpreted things, right? I mean, you don't forgive that. It has to be real forgiveness.
[26:20] But the idea that a mere mortal can see so deeply into the heart of another, that the mere mortal can forgive on behalf of God. You forgive for the sake of God after conferring with God as to whether the forgiveness being sought and the contrition is genuine. But the idea that you can become God and forgive people, that you yourself can forgive people while going against the demand or the requirement for the person to be sorry, is wild. I mean, what is it that you teach kids when they have a conflict, right? And there's been some roughhousing or some slamming or smacking or grabbing or pushing, say you're sorry, right? And you try to help them sort of understand what an apology means. Not requiring people to apologize is withholding the grace of a good conscience from them. It is an act, I think, of spiritual sabotage, because you are giving people the reward of forgiveness without the growth and conscience of contrition without understanding that they've done wrong. And that is a real sabotage. It is preventing them from having any hurdle of conscience that they need to get over in order to be forgiven. And it is withholding from them the possibility of salvation through genuine repentance. So I, um.
[27:48] I don't respect it, and I think it's very toxic. I think it's very toxic. All right, is there anything else you wanted to mention on that?
[27:57] Well, yeah, actually, just as you were speaking there, I was thinking that free will, the idea of free will, I don't think is a hugely represented thing in Christianity. I mean, maybe it is. I mean, God did give free will in the Garden of Eden and such like that, but it does go very much against their free will. If this other person is like, they've kind of screwed you over and they perceive, well, they probably, or I forgot, I've forgotten the word there, but we would assume that they have the belief that that was the right thing to do. Then it's kind of against their free will to forgive them in a sense. You're kind of saying, your will isn't sufficient in how you want to live your life. I think you should have been nicer. So therefore, I'm telling you in a sense, but that's not a very deeply worked out thought. It's just something that came to me.
[28:53] Well, and it's also the question that I have, which is why didn't God forgive Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? Why did he kick them out and put a flaming sword to bar their re-entry and give Eve the curse of childbirth and Adam the curse of endless labor? Why did God not forgive them? The answer is because they didn't take responsibility, because Eve said, no, no, no, it wasn't me, it was the snake. She didn't take responsibility. And Eve said, well, she was naked, so what can I do, right? Which is a fairly traditional male perspective. So they did not fall to their knees and apologize and God did not forgive them. And I just, I find it very odd when people do what God does not do, or people do the opposite of what God does, commands, shows, exhorts.
[29:52] Why people say, well, God doesn't forgive. He doesn't forgive just about everybody who, you know, the golden calf incident, Noah and the flood, the garden of Eden. God does not forgive the unrepentant.
[30:07] And then when people say, I forgive the unrepentant, they're going directly against God and Jesus.
[30:17] And as I've said before, the argument, forgive them, Father, for they know not what they're doing, is because they're just following the law and they do not know that he is divine. See, they're soldiers. They're soldiers following the law. And the Nuremberg trial after the horrors of World War II was very clear on this, that the average rank-and-file soldier was not to be prosecuted for war crimes because they were just following orders. Now, the people in charge, right, the Goebbels and the Goerings and so on, the people in charge, they were tried and put to death. But the average rank and file soldier was simply following orders and therefore was not to be punished in the Nuremberg trial approach. And so when Jesus says, forgive them, he doesn't mean everybody ever. He means, forgive the soldiers who believe that they are nailing up somebody who's been condemned to death. I mean, let's say that some guy is condemned to death, and it's all lawful, and it's approved, and the governor's call doesn't come through, and the guy is dragged into the gas chamber, or the injection chamber, or the electric chair, or something, and then a guard flicks the switch. And then it turns out that...
[31:43] The verdict was overturned, somebody else confessed, and there's certain proof that this was not the guy, right? I mean, do we punish the guy who flipped the switch? That's a real question, and you answer it, what do you think? Do we punish the guy who flipped the switch if it later turns out that the man was, that it was the wrong person, but he was following the law nonetheless?
[32:10] Yeah, well, do we punish the guy who flipped the switch? No.
[32:14] Um why not he killed the guy and it turned out he wasn't the right guy we.
[32:20] Assume that, we assume that he didn't have the knowledge that's why i think.
[32:26] Right so so what jesus is saying is i'm innocent but they don't know that and they're following the law and if they don't follow the law they're going to get nailed up next to me they are foot soldiers they are following the law, and so forgive them. They don't know what they're doing.
[32:47] And so he's talking about people who believe they're doing the right thing because who was nailed up with Jesus? Like a murderer and a thief and like all other kinds of criminals, right? And that was the law. So he's saying to them, he's saying to God, I'm going to make a plea on behalf of these people because they're like the guy who flips the switch on someone who turns out years later to be innocent. You don't take, you're a murderer. You know, the guy was following the rules. He was following the law. And he was told by the court, by the governor, by the prison warden, by the media, this is the guy, he killed five guys, he pays the death penalty. He was told that that's all he knew. He didn't, you can't have your own trial, right? You can't say, well, you know, before I flip the switch, we're going to have a two-month trial. Oh, and also I'm going to become a lawyer. No, he's just a guy who flips the switch. The trial has already happened. He's just enforcing the law. We don't throw the guy in jail or kill him who flipped the switch and followed the law. And that's what Jesus means by, forgive them, Father, they know not what they do. He didn't mean forgive everyone.
[33:59] He didn't mean forgive the guy who let this guy take the rap. He didn't mean forgive the lawyer who may have withheld exculpatory evidence. He didn't mean forgive the judge who maybe took a bribe or whatever, right? He didn't mean that. He meant just the guy flipping the switch. He doesn't know what he's doing. He's just following the law. Don't punish him. Punish the corrupt. Not the people who are following the law. So it doesn't mean forgive everyone. And it's not even close. Now you got me all hot and bothered all right it's.
[34:33] An important discussion isn't it but anyway yeah uh thank you very much i'll uh i'll be off now.
[34:39] I appreciate that thank you for calling in all right there's people who want to talk again am i going to get suckered into this i probably am all right adis blue if you want to unmute We'll see you next time. Don't make me ban you. Yes, sir.
[34:58] Hi, Stefan. My name is Adam, long-time listener, first-time caller. Thanks for taking my call.
[35:02] Thank you. Welcome.
[35:04] Thanks. Okay. I have a quick question. It's going to tail off the last conversation that you just had and also your show from a couple, from maybe two days ago with Christianity and Forgiveness. I was wondering, Stefan, and forgive me, I've been tuned out of your pocket for a few years and I'm first coming back. I remember you were an atheist for a long time. So I was wondering, why are you arguing this from a religious or Christianity standpoint instead of more of just a psychological or a philosophical standpoint? Because I agree with you. Well, how can we scream, arrest the guy, yet we forgive them at the same time? So I was wondering why you're going down the more Christianity, religious route on this to begin with, unless you've changed and you've become religious or something that I'm not aware of. I've been out of touch for a few years.
[35:46] Yeah, I mean, I certainly have been going to church and I've been doing the sermons. I await any kind of grace or touch of God in my heart, mind, and soul. So I am not as anti-religious as I've been in the past. And of course, as a communicator, I meet people where they are. I mean, I don't know if you remember back in the day, if there were people who had accents, I would slow down my speaking to make sure I wasn't giving my sort of rapid fire machine gun molly kind of speech. And so you meet people where they are. I mean, if I'm talking to an eight-year-old, I'll go down to their level. I'll use simpler words. If I'm debating as I did with a philosophy professor, we could go a little harder and so on. So I...
[36:33] Want to meet people where they are. Now, the reason that I talk to religious people in religious terms is that the choices that religious people make, because the majority of people in the West are Christian, and certainly religious, the choices that religious people make shape and define the society that I, my family, and in particular, my daughter lives in. And so if there is this idea that you forgive people no matter what, whether they admit fault or not, that it's just a willed thing, then that benefits evildoers. Evildoers can then get the benefit of forgiveness without having to earn it. I don't like socialism in economics, and I don't like socialism or communism in spirit. People have to earn their virtues. I don't pay for things that aren't delivered, right? I don't deliver things that aren't paid for. And I certainly, one of the biggest things that you can do in a human relationship, one of the most positive and powerful things you can do in a human relationship is forgive someone.
[37:50] Is forgive someone it's a very big and powerful thing in a in a in all of our relationships we all make mistakes we do wrong we're short-tempered we're irritable we um, are self-absorbed we um you know thumb scroll rather than talk to people sometimes, we get over involved in video games we don't look up from some stupid mindless brain right short that we're looking at in order to converse with people we all do it and it happens all the time. Now, forgiveness is a mark of great humility to say, I'm not perfect, you're not perfect, but I'm going to notice when we stray from imperfection, and we're going to work to try and close the gap between who we are and ideal behavior to compare proposed actions to ideal standards is the essence of humanity. And forgiveness is a very important and powerful lubricant in the inevitable rear-guiding friction of human relations. We need to be able to extend forgiveness, we need to humbly ask for it, and we need to be able to receive forgiveness, and other people need to humbly ask for it. It is a way of saying, virtues and principles matter more than ego and vanity. To humble yourself to the reality that.
[39:11] You are not perfect, the other person is not perfect, and you need to have humility with that and work as best everyone can to approach the ideals of virtue. So, it is a beautiful, wonderful thing that you earn by being a good person, right? So, my wife goes somewhere, I'm not sitting there going, she's having an affair, right? Because we've been married almost a quarter century, and we trust each other, and I never have any concerns about that, you never have any concerns about that with me. So we've earned each other's trust and to not give trust when it's earned as a form of stinginess and paranoia and whatever you want, it's a negative thing, right? So forgiveness is a truly beautiful thing that when it's earned, when it's handed out, it is a form of spiritual, I almost say prostitution, because at least prostitutes get paid. It is a form of sacrifice of the good for the sake of pride. And so because it is such a beautiful act to forgive and be forgiven.
[40:12] And because I hate the paying people what they have not earned, because I think that it's like, you know, giving everyone gets an A, everyone gets an A, whether you, it just degrades people. They don't study, they don't learn, they don't care. They just move on. Right. And so I don't think everyone gets an A. I don't think everyone gets on the basketball team. I don't think everyone gets to be the best singer. I don't think everyone gets to be the wisest person. I don't think these things should be handed out. And that's a peculiarly female thing that is fine when you're talking about encouraging babies and toddlers, but it's not fine when you're actually looking at the image of a murderer across a stadium.
[40:48] So the reason why is that if there is this idea that you forgive everyone without any requirement for them to even admit fault, in fact, they can be cheering and dancing and rubbing themselves with the blood of your loved ones, and you forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive, forgive.
[41:05] It's wrong. It's deeply corrupt. Because if you say to evildoers, I'm going to forgive you just as if, A, you didn't do evil, or B, you did evil and searched in your heart like Raskolnikov style and found your conscience and realized after weeks or months or years that you did wrong and so on, and when you rely on other people to hunt down, capture, and punish those people, not forgive them, then you are subsidizing bad people. Bad people should be ostracized until they learn the humility of forgiveness. And we do that not because we hate them, although certainly there are some people who hate them, and I wouldn't argue with that. But we do that. We withhold our good graces from people who are unrepentant because we're not going to be.
[41:53] It's bad for them and we care. We care for them. We care for them, which means you have to change your behavior in order to get back at my good graces because I care about your goodness. I care about your heart, your mind. In Christian terms, I care about your soul and I'm not going to extend to you forgiveness unless you find your conscience. And so if this idea that forgiveness, forgiveness, forgiveness without any demand or requirement for any apology or restitution or even an admission of fault, then evildoers get access to all of society's resources. And people have almost no incentive to humble themselves and actually genuinely ask for forgiveness because they're going to get it anyway. It's like saying to someone who's got a really horrible, difficult, dangerous job, right? There's some crab fisherman or some sewage worker or, I mean, I think the worst job I ever had was as a dishwasher. And so it's like giving someone $10 million and expecting them to show up at work the next day. They're not going to. So if you extend forgiveness prior to people actually admitting false and asking for.
[43:02] Forgiveness and offering restitution, if you hand that out, people will no longer look inward and try and figure out what they did wrong and try and get in contact with their conscience and try to do better. You're actually preventing people. Like if you knew at the beginning of a difficult, like say advanced physics in, you know, in, in university, if, if the professor said to you at the beginning, everyone's going to get an A no matter what, I guarantee you, you don't even have to show up. Everyone's going to get an A. What would that do to the work ethic of the class? It would collapse. And so when you give people the reward without requiring the effort, you simply collapse their standards and keep them in a state of primitive narcissism and pride and selfishness. And I don't want to live in that kind of society. I think it's really, really terrible. So I fight like hell against it, if that makes sense.
[43:51] Absolutely. And I'm sure, like me, you also did not really understand Erica Kirk's forgiveness on day number two. I was with you on that, and I totally agree. I guess I was just wondering from your perspective why it was in the context of religion. Like I said, I haven't listened to you in a few years, so I didn't know that you actually— so do you actually believe the stories of the Bible, that they're actually true now, that Jesus existed and all that?
[44:14] Oh, I've never rejected the existence of Jesus. I wouldn't say that all the stories in the Bible I accept as true, but I certainly believe that Jesus existed. I believe that he was a brave, courageous, resourceful, intelligent, wise man with amazing teachings. And I accept all of that. But as far as, you know, the miracles, that's a little tricky. Now, you did say that you said, I forgot, uh oh i didn't understand erica kirk's forgiveness and if i there's something i didn't understand about that you know please please let me know.
[44:51] Well well i'm not sure what you didn't i didn't mean that you didn't understand that i think you just didn't kind of agree with it obviously because we're still calling for his his uh his assassin's uh arrest or i mean he obviously was arrested but we're not looking to free him obviously so how can she forgive him so i i get you on that if my question was more or less just why is it in the context of religion and not just philosophy in general, because this can also apply to an atheist who might be too easily to forgive. So that's more along lines where I was coming with that.
[45:20] Well, but atheists, and it's funny because atheists have their own mechanism to avoid forgiveness. And the way that the atheists avoid forgiveness is through circumstances. Well, you know, this person grew up in the ghetto, they didn't have a father, but they had bad schooling, they had bad role models, you know, that the media was telling them this, what chance did So they have their, quote, forgiveness thing, which is to look at sort of socioeconomic factors and say the person is not responsible because of X, Y, and Z. And so they forgive without requiring forgiveness.
[45:56] A conscience or apologies or restitution or anything like that. They forgive by invoking the blank slate socioeconomic theory of people being conditioned by their environment. So there's lots of ways that people avoid judging. And to me, it is stolen virtue. It is stolen virtue. And I did say this at the time. And again, I have nothing but sympathy for what happened to Erica Kirk, absolutely monstrous. My heart goes out to her. None of this is to call her out or call her bad or anything like that. Because she was, I mean, dealing with an absolutely appalling.
[46:33] Murderous, literally murderous situation. So I have nothing but sympathy for her. But what I will say is that the energy is gone. Because as soon as you forgive, the energy goes. The energy for reform, the energy for righteous anger, the energy for righteous reform, the energy to change all of the circumstances that led to Charlie Kirk's murder, the energy for educational reform, the energy to diminish the welfare state, all of that energy has dissipated. I mean, it was a little over a month ago, and honestly, it's like it never happened. And that's because of the forgiveness. Once things are forgiven, you have to let it go. And unfortunately, Charlie Kirk's death has been to some degree in vain because of all of this forgiveness stuff. And again, I'm not talking about Erica. I have nothing but sympathy for her. But the reform movement and energy, people have to change until they're forgiven. And if they're forgiven, what else is there to do? You don't continue to punish people after you've forgiven them, right? If your kid drops something, a favorite cup of yours, and you say, I forgive you, you don't get to keep yelling at him for four days. So once you forgive, you have to go back like the wrong never happened. That's what forgiveness is. The wrong never happened. It's like it never happened. and because of this forgiveness thing, it's like Charlie Kirk's murder never happened. Drives me crazy. I agree. There was so much energy for reform in that moment and it all got dissipated.
[47:54] So why do you think society places such a bad rap on righteous anger? Like, what you just said, righteous anger is so important to fight evil on this planet. And I'm not just talking Christians. I know agnostics and atheists who are against, people are afraid of their own anger. And it's like, no, learn to love your anger. Why do you think that, I would say, like 80% of people I meet on a day-to-day basis don't like righteous anger? And I think that's wrong. Where do you think that actually comes from? Do you think that stems from religion to begin with, Stefan?
[48:22] Fun or no I don't think so I mean the old testament and I think of Jesus with the money changers I mean righteous anger is all over the bible both old and new testaments so I think that there's two two ways or two reasons for it and of course this is not any sort of final answer so please let me know what you think so number one it's a sigh up because righteous anger is bad for evildoers and so the first thing that evildoers do is preach infinite forgiveness so that they can get away with their crimes, of course, right? And that's number one. Number two is that righteous anger is dangerous because righteous anger, and I say this from personal experience, of course, righteous anger has you go out into the world and interfere with the evil designs of evil people. Come not between the dragon and his wrath, right, is the old King Lear statement, right? And so when you have righteous anger, you go out into the world and you thwart the designs and exploitations of evildoers, which then they attack you. So it's easier to forgive than it is to fight. And it's easier to feel that you're good for forgiving rather than you have to earn good by actually going out there and, you know, taking up rhetorical arms against evildoers, which will cause a lot of blowback. I mean, I had some very, very good effect in the world and received.
[49:44] You know, 15 plus years of relentless blowback. So if I had just forgiven everyone and hadn't taken up any arms, right? Whether it is nobler than the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. There's a reason why that's one of the most famous speeches in all of English, all of world theater, all of world literature, right? Whether it is nobler than the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, right? Which is not just bad accidents, but things you can do something about, evildoers and so on, right? So whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles, and by opposing, end them. Because Hamlet is very clearly saying, you know, the law is delayed, hey, the proud man's culturally the, you know, the thousand natural shocks the flesh is heir to, bad, bad people, bad events, bad circumstances, bad situations. Do we just suffer and let them roll over to a roll over us and call us virtuous? Or do we fight and do something about the wrongs in the world? Now, traditionally, women forgive because women are programmed to be around babies and toddlers, and you don't get mad at babies and toddlers, because they're babies and toddlers.
[51:08] You get mad at adults, and it's the men's job to not forgive, and it's the women's job to forgive, because the forgiveness is about, you know, if you're changing some kid's diaper and he pees in your face, right? He's going to be a fireman, right? You don't get mad. Oh, he's so offensive, right? Like, you've heard of these videos of these little kids accidentally saying swear words, it's funny.
[51:33] And, and they're not, they don't know what they're saying, right? Maybe they're just copying their parents. So, so if, if a little baby pees in your eye, you don't get mad if you're reasonable. I mean, you may be a little annoyed, but you don't like how rude. I mean, there's assault. I'm taking you to jail. You know, whereas in The Sopranos, there was this scene where one of the gasters, after he beats the hell out of a guy, pees on him, like unzips and pees on him. That is an act of contempt, degradation, assault, and humiliation.
[52:04] So women are designed to be around babies and toddlers, so they are programmed to forgive. And that's entirely appropriate to babies and toddlers. Men deal with adults and dangerous men and dangerous women sometimes. And so we don't forgive because we're dealing with people who have free will and free choice. So it is easier in the short run to feel good by forgiving than to take arms and try and oppose the evils in the world. And people like to feel good without actually doing good because doing good is dangerous. Doing good provokes. I mean, if you're just doing good and you're not harming the interests of bad people, oh, I forgive you, I forgive you, this is a strength. You're just repeating the NPC slogans. you're not interfering with the goals, plans, and executions of any evildoers. So if I let them wobble, you can have free speech as long as you don't say anything that's going to interfere with the patterns and plans of evildoers. But when you stand between the evildoers and what they want to do, they're going to get mad at you, and they're going to attack you, they're going to undermine you, they're going to, you know, do the two things that the evildoers always do before they resort to violence, they'll destroy your reputation and try and take away your income. And so, which I've experience, of course. So it's just, it's easier to.
[53:25] Convince yourself that inaction is virtue because action is dangerous and again it's more of a male province than a female province women are prone to forgiveness it's just why you go to these judges all over the place just letting criminals out because they you know they're designed to be dealing with babies and toddlers emotionally and and so not so and this is why the atheists go for the blank slate and environmental stuff it wasn't his fault it's not his fault it was his environment blah blah blah sorry you were going to say oh.
[53:50] I was just saying not judge judy the exception though to the rules.
[53:54] Right, right, right. I don't think she was a Christian, if I remember rightly.
[54:00] Oh, well, no, she's Jewish, but she just has no tolerance for anything. She has no tolerance for anything, you know. But I was just making a joke there. But I agree with you on your two points, but I think there's also a third point, and it's actually one of the reasons I actually stopped listening to your podcast for a while. And I'll tell you why real quick, and if you feel like talking about it, fine, if not, totally cool as well. But I also think the third reason why people are scared of righteous anger is because sometimes people get it wrong. And there was one point where you had a caller about five years ago, I would say, who was struggling with obesity. And you spoke to them about their parents and how their mother, I believe, kept feeding them candy and cake. And it's just one of these, the mother really didn't, I don't think, meant harm. I have a mother who was like that as well. And I know my mother would give her life for me. And I felt you were being a little too, a little too much with a righteous anger. And you basically were almost convincing her that her mother doesn't love her. And then I feel like, you know, people can kind of take the righteous anger too far, a little too much with the black and white thinking. It's actually one of the reasons I stopped listening for a while. But by the way, I came back because I know you're a good person. I think that sometimes, very rarely you get it wrong. But I think at that point, I didn't agree with it.
[55:09] Hang on, hang on, hang on. The vibe. I'm afraid you've opened up a flank here, so I'm going to be nice about it.
[55:15] No problem.
[55:15] So the only time that you felt I was just wrong and harsh was when I was describing someone like your mom.
[55:25] Yeah, well, because I can relate to it.
[55:27] Do you think that's a bit of a coincidence? That's really right. His righteous anger is great. Oh, wait, he's criticizing someone like my mom. Oh, no, he's wrong. He's wrong, and I'm not listening.
[55:40] I'll be honest with you. If my mother, if I truly felt, and I know I have the only members that don't give a shit about me, but my mother, actually, I do know, she would lay down her life for her kids. She was not self-aware. She's old-fashioned. She grew up in a household where there was a lot of eating going on. And it was her way of just expressing things, expressing love and cooking. She didn't mean any harm by it. Okay, hang on, hang on.
[56:05] Hang on.
[56:05] Sure, sure, sure.
[56:08] So did you, were you overweight as a child?
[56:11] Just a little chubby, just maybe 10, 15 pounds overweight, nothing, nothing terrible. Okay.
[56:16] So was the guy, I don't remember the call, of course, but was the guy I was talking to, was he just a tiny bit chubby?
[56:22] Yeah, no, he was, he was pretty big. He was pretty big. I remember it affecting his life. He was like 30 years old.
[56:27] Okay. So he was obese as a child, right?
[56:31] Yes, I believe so.
[56:32] Okay. So do you think that women don't know anything about the dangers of obesity?
[56:41] Of course they do.
[56:43] Okay. So if you're doing something, encouraging your children to keep eating and keep eating and feeding them all the worst stuff, and you know that it harms your child, how is it possible for you or me to say she had no idea that what she was doing was harmful?
[57:01] I agree. But then here's the other side of the token. If you believe me that I know my mother well enough, that she would literally stand in front of a bullet in front of me to save my life, how could someone who doesn't love me do that? At the same time, while she fed me horrible foods, and my sister is obese because of it. I just happen to get, you know, I'm not as obese.
[57:25] Maybe you got into sports or something. What were the horrible foods that she fed you?
[57:29] Just horrible foods Stefan like she would cook all sorts of, lasagna and cakes and cookies. She was, she's half Italian, half Jewish, the way, you know, they're just really into food and it's just how they express. It's an old fashioned way of being, especially in the New York area where I grew up. It's just a way of being and they didn't mean any harm. I think it just comes from lack of self-awareness. And I felt at that point, and by the way, like I said, I think you're a good person and that's why I'm back here listening to you. And I missed you listening to you because you make great points all the time. A few times here and there, I heard you say things that I felt like, you know, I felt like his righteous anger because you do have a lot of righteous anger in you. And I, and I respect that. But I think sometimes you're taking a little too overboard. And by the way, I haven't noticed that lately, actually.
[58:18] Maybe you'll get it in this call now. So let me ask you this. Have you seen pictures of your grandparents?
[58:28] Yes.
[58:29] Were they obese?
[58:31] One was pretty obese. Yeah, they both were overweight. Yes, one was more than the other, but yes.
[58:35] Okay. What about your great-grandparents?
[58:39] I saw, I knew one. She was a little obese. Not hard. 20 pounds over. I can't call it obese.
[58:45] No, that's not obese. Okay. So if it's a tradition, oh, this is just the way that people show affection and blah, blah, blah, right? If this baking and feeding and eat, eat, eat, if this is just how people show affection, then why were our ancestors not obese? Okay. Why has obesity been rising and rising and rising if it's this age-old tradition?
[59:06] Easy. Culture changed. It wasn't, the food wasn't an expression of love in the 400, 500 years ago, probably.
[59:14] Okay, I'm not talking 400, 500 years ago. I mean, I'm talking about, like, the boomers were not obese as kids.
[59:21] You know what? I think this kind of started maybe in the 60s and 70s and 80s in kind of Italian families. It just is, you know. I mean, if you remember the movie Fatso with Dom DeLuise, it's just kind of a thing that people did. And again, your argument, here's the thing, going back to your argument was, how could your mother, and I remember you saying this, how could your mother have loved you while feeding you poison and you were angry at this mother? And I always said, but how do you know that mother? Well, we don't know about that mother, but I know my mother. You have to trust me, I'm a very self-aware person. My mother would step in front of a bullet for her kids. Yeah, you keep saying that.
[59:59] I don't know what that means. Has your mother ever have to? I mean, why doesn't she step in front of an ice cream truck? Someone said. But that's just honestly, like all love to you. This is just a piece of propaganda. You keep repeating it. Like, what does that mean? Has she sacrificed her life for her children? Has she stood in front of bullets? I mean, if you say my mother would do anything to keep her children safe and healthy, she'd step in front of a bullet. Then clearly she would also stop overfeeding them if they're gaining weight significantly.
[1:00:32] But what if that's not the case, Stefan? That's the problem.
[1:00:35] You said your sister is obese.
[1:00:37] I know. No, I know. I know. I'm saying she let her daughter become obese. Yes, I admit that.
[1:00:43] No, no, bro. Are you a parent?
[1:00:46] No.
[1:00:47] Okay, so I'm sorry. You're talking to a parent of 17 years experience who's a stay-at-home parent too. You don't let your children do anything. You are in charge. You are in charge. Hang on, bro, slow down. You buy the food, you plan the meals, you do the cooking, you do the cleanup, you take your children to the doctorate, you get them weighed, you keep an eye on their weight. You don't just let your children. You are in charge of the entire scenario, the entire environment. They can't, when they're younger in particular, when a lot of this fat goes on, your children can't get to the store on their own. They don't have any money of their own. They can only eat what's in the house. So everything you bring home is what, you're in charge of everything. It's not a matter of letting your children become obese. It is making your children obese through the decisions that you make.
[1:01:41] I used the wrong word. I was too weak using the word let. However, if my mother, so I have to say if, because there was no bullet that ever came to me that she had to step in front of, but if she would, how do you correlate that How do you put that together in your head with, she fed us crap, but she would take a bullet for us? Or are you saying she definitely wouldn't take a bullet for us because of the fact that you know that she fed us crap?
[1:02:02] I don't know what take a bullet for your children means. I have no idea what that means.
[1:02:06] It means literally take a bullet.
[1:02:07] No, I know what it means. I understand what the words mean. Don't treat me like an idiot. I understand what the physical words mean. What I'm asking is that I don't know what, I mean, people can say anything. Oh, I'd take a bullet for you. And they can say, I would do anything for you. I would do anything for love, but I won't do that. People can say whatever they want. I'm an empiricist, right? So all I care about is what people do. Are you a religious man at all?
[1:02:34] I'm agnostic and slightly spiritual, but not really, no.
[1:02:37] So do you think that people should be more judged by what they say or what they do?
[1:02:44] You know, what they do, I agree. What they do, but also the emotion that they show. I know my mother loves her kids.
[1:02:53] I know it's hard, but do you judge people by, again, like I'm talking to people, I can't see them, I don't know their history, I mean, from what they tell me, right? Other than what they tell me. So, is it a loving action to overfeed your children to the point where they become obese?
[1:03:16] It's not that it's not great okay it's not hateful it's not done out of hate and it's not that it's not done i i can't it's hard to Stefan it's so hard to explain this because you don't know her and i can't explain it to her to you that that great but you so you're basically saying let me ask you this here's the thing okay because it's very black and white are you saying that a mother who feeds her kids bad food definitely wouldn't step in front of a bullet for her children and.
[1:03:44] What is this obsession with bullets? Are you in Ukraine? Hang on, what bullets are flying around your neighborhood that this is even a test of love?
[1:03:53] Well, I'm sure you would step in front of a bullet for your child because you love your child very much.
[1:03:58] No, but that's not how I judge things. How I judge things is not whether I would step in front of some theoretical bullet that's never going to happen to you or to me or to anyone that we know. So the question is not, it's kind of hysterical and hyperdramatic. I'd step in front of a bullet. It's like, Well, I mean, I am responsible for my child's health. I am responsible for my child's health. I mean, do you agree with that? Parents are responsible for their children's health.
[1:04:25] I agree. So forget the bullet. Are you saying that there's no way our mother could actually love her kids? Do you still believe in that notion, that very black and white, kind of righteous-fueled decision that because my mother kind of overfed her kids, that there's no way she can love her kids, even though that in and of itself may not be the most loving act in the world.
[1:04:48] May not be. No, this is where you're a suspect, bro. This is where you're too emotional. And I understand it. It's your mother, and I'm emotional about my mother, so that's all understandable.
[1:04:59] Even about other mothers.
[1:05:00] Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. So if a child is obese, how negative is that for the child you're negative it's extremely negative health outcomes are really bad they have a lifelong problem with fat because you know fat cells they don't go away they just shrink right so they they now have lifelong health and obesity battles, Are they welcome in sports teams?
[1:05:37] Of course not.
[1:05:39] Are they asked out at the dance? Are they asked to dance?
[1:05:44] Usually not.
[1:05:45] Usually not.
[1:05:47] Yeah.
[1:05:48] Are they able to socialize with the cool kids?
[1:05:52] Usually not.
[1:05:53] Are they called names?
[1:05:55] Sometimes, yes.
[1:05:56] Are they mocked or at least eyes rolled when it comes to team sports in school? Because, you know, there's sports that you voluntarily participate in, which they wouldn't be asked to. But then there's also, oh, do I have to take so-and-so on my team? You know, they can't even run. Like, do they feel terrible when they have to change, and shower after the sports team. What is their dating life like? What is their lifelong income like? It goes down. If you're obese, you make less money. You're less healthy. How many years does obesity take off someone's lifespan?
[1:06:32] Of course.
[1:06:33] I mean, 10 to 20 years sometimes, right?
[1:06:36] Of course. I know. I know.
[1:06:38] So it ruins childhood. It ruins self-esteem. It ruins dating. It ruins friendships, it ruins sports, and it gives people a lifelong disability. It harms joints, it harms backs, and it harms skin. It also harms fertility, right? Because women, in particular obese women, have trouble with fertility. It interferes with income, and it takes the 10 to 20 years off lifespan sometimes, right?
[1:07:08] In all fairness, my sister wasn't obese until after she was like 21, but we believe that it's because of the upbringing with the food. So, you know, we were just maybe 20 pounds over. So it wasn't like there was a chronic issue, at least when me and my sister were children and teenagers growing up. The caller that you were listening to or talking to that time years ago, I believe they were obese from a very young age and I do see your point there. Listen, if I had a child and they were, you know, 50, 100 pounds over, I would definitely be stopping my wife from overfeeding them. So I understand your point.
[1:07:38] You would never let it get to that point.
[1:07:40] Of course, of course, of course. I guess I just felt at that point that it's more about the intention. I don't think my mother was trying to damage my sisters and my life. I really don't think so. So that's why I was just a little taken back.
[1:07:58] But like I said.
[1:07:59] I think you're a moral.
[1:08:01] No, but you've got that real pressured speech here, which is fine.
[1:08:06] Yeah, I'm a little nervous.
[1:08:07] So look, I can't possibly know what your mother's intentions. So, let's say, how much overweight was your sister when she was 14 or 15?
[1:08:21] Maybe 25, 30 pounds. That's quite a bit. And she was tall. She was tall, so. Okay.
[1:08:27] And for you, the same?
[1:08:30] About the same. Yeah, about the same height, too.
[1:08:33] Okay.
[1:08:33] And I'm still about 20, 30 over. And she's maybe now 100 over, actually. So, she's got a problem for sure.
[1:08:40] Wow.
[1:08:40] And, you know, I believe, just from doing enough, you know, psychological work on myself and her, we talked about it, it's probably because of how our mother was with food.
[1:08:51] It sets you off on eating back.
[1:08:53] You know what I mean? It sets you off.
[1:08:54] And how tall are you?
[1:08:56] 5'11".
[1:08:57] You're 5'11". And what do you weigh?
[1:08:59] My sister's 5'9". I'm 210. My sister is about probably 300, I would say. We're close to it.
[1:09:09] And how old is your sister?
[1:09:13] She's 38.
[1:09:16] Oh, God.
[1:09:16] Yeah, I'm 34.
[1:09:18] Oh, God.
[1:09:19] So, yeah, yeah. She's married, she has a kid, you know, but she's just heavy, you know, and we just believe it came from our mother, and it just kind of took me back to that phone call with you, and I just, it just didn't sit right in my head that, I just felt it was too black and white of an argument, and I feel that there has to be some room given for non-self-awareness. There's a lot of parents out there that are just not self-aware, you know? And again, not talking about my family. Like I said, my sister was only 20 pounds overweight, 30 pounds. The person you were talking to years ago, I think they were morbidly obese from a very young age. I just, you know, it's just that righteous anger that you had at that time.
[1:09:57] So do you disagree with my criticism of the caller's mother, given that the caller was morbidly obese as a child?
[1:10:07] No, I don't. I more disagreed with the fact when you kept insisting she can't love you. It was done. I remember the way you said it. She can't love you. And I'm like, he can't really know that for sure. And maybe you've changed your way since then. I'm not sure.
[1:10:24] Okay, so you're reporting on what I said. I doubt I put it like that, but whatever, right? Okay, let's say that I did.
[1:10:31] Let's say that I did. Maybe you could keyword search your shows. I don't know. But anyway.
[1:10:36] Okay, so... Morbidly obese as a child is catastrophic, right?
[1:10:43] Of course.
[1:10:44] Now, if somebody gave you a pill, that caused myriad catastrophic health problems, took 20 years off your lifespan, gave you joint pain and rendered you mostly undateable, would you consider that an act of hostility? Somebody put that in your drink, would you consider that an act of hostility?
[1:11:09] I'm going to answer no, but. No, but. It's not the exact same thing. I'm sure my mother, if she opened them a box of pills.
[1:11:18] No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you can't finish a sentence because it's an analogy. Of course, it's not exactly the same thing. It's an analogy.
[1:11:28] Okay, fine. Yeah, but I think it's a poor analogy because my mother would not give us a pill like that. You know what I'm saying?
[1:11:34] I know. No, no.
[1:11:35] It would be hard.
[1:11:36] Listen, listen, bro. She'd be a sociopath at that point. is about your mother. Okay. I'm asking you, no, you're, you're accusing me, which is fine. You, you're absolutely welcome. Hang on, hang on. You're accusing me of being overly harsh or critical or negative, or in some way too angry or about this guy's mother. And you've got to give me the chance to defend myself, right? I mean, you're making a public accusation on a live stream, which is fine. You can do that, but you also have to give me a chance to defend myself. So if somebody gave your child a pill or gave you a pill that had all of the negative effects that I talked about earlier.
[1:12:14] Yes.
[1:12:17] Would that be an act of hostility or love?
[1:12:22] Not only an act of hostility, I would call them a sociopath as well, and an evil person who should be put in jail.
[1:12:28] Okay.
[1:12:28] Or worse.
[1:12:29] I think that if you put a pill into a child's mouth that gave them incredibly negative health effects and isolation and shame and no sports and no dating and all of that, right? Then that would be an act of assault, right?
[1:12:44] Absolutely.
[1:12:45] Okay. So if you put something in someone's mouth that gives them all of this negative outcomes and you would say this person should be put in jail, can you understand why I would say, I can't really believe that someone who loves someone would do that to them?
[1:13:03] I understand that if you are thinking too black and white.
[1:13:07] That's not an argument.
[1:13:09] It's not an argument. I know.
[1:13:11] So how about you make an argument rather than just characterizing something in a negative way?
[1:13:16] I'm not able to articulate my, if I had more time, but I don't. But unfortunately, I do. I think it's a little too black and white. That's what I have to say. It's not as black and white as a pill.
[1:13:27] That's not an argument. It's not an argument. If somebody puts something into somebody else's body that has all the negative health effects of obesity, we would call that assault and you would put them in jail, right?
[1:13:38] Yes.
[1:13:38] And would you ever say to someone who was poisoned in that way, no, no, no, the person who gave you this horrible outcome in life loves you?
[1:13:47] Absolutely not.
[1:13:48] Okay. So what are we disagreeing about?
[1:13:51] You don't see the difference?
[1:13:55] The rhetorical questions are also not an argument.
[1:13:58] Okay, that's fair. That's fair. I love your not an argument point, and I use it all the time, so you're going on.
[1:14:03] How about you use it now?
[1:14:05] You're right. I wish I could articulate into words. It doesn't, you know.
[1:14:10] It doesn't feel... It bothers your mother that I said this. It bothers your mother, and it bothers you because you might have to have a difficult conversation
[1:14:16] with your mother about how the hell did your kid end up 300 pounds?
[1:14:20] Honestly, I'm not even taking it personally, even if this wasn't my family. Oh, come on.
[1:14:23] Of course you are.
[1:14:24] No, no, no, no, no, because I actually have other things that you've said about things that don't relate to me at all that I also, but I'm just bringing this one up because it's something I can relate to. But they're very similar. They're similar, you know. And you know that some people have criticized you over the years for, you know, trying to, you know, sometimes tell people like, your parents couldn't love you because of this.
[1:14:45] No, no, you have agreed with me on that. No, no, listen, bro, bro. So, I mean, listen, maybe you need to take a breather and go and work on the arguments, and you're certainly welcome to come back. But right now, you've lost the argument because you've agreed with me that it's an act of criminal sabotage to poison people with the effects of obesity. And you've also agreed with me, this was not an accidental debate. You've also agreed with me that parents are 100% in charge of their children's health. And so if you bring substances into the child that causes massive health, social, physical, and self-esteem issues, that that's like poisoning and that person should go to jail. And you've said parents are 100% responsible. You've lost this argument. I'm not saying you're totally wrong and I'm totally right, but this argument you've lost. And again, you're welcome to sort of go and think about it and come back with other arguments. But this one, you agree with me. I get that you don't like that you agree with me, but you do.
[1:15:41] Sure. So would you put someone like, forget my mother, would you put someone like that caller's mother or my mother in jail then, if you had your way?
[1:15:49] No, good Lord, no. What I want is a free society.
[1:15:53] Because it is assault.
[1:15:53] Okay. So hang on. Are you going to let me answer?
[1:15:56] Of course.
[1:15:56] Okay. So I don't want your mother thrown in jail. I don't want this other mother thrown in jail. What I do want is a free society where people are responsible for their own healthcare costs or have an insurance company that will pay for those healthcare costs. At which point, what happens is when the children are gaining weight, which would be in the annual weigh-in or the, biannual weigh-in, the insurance companies would sit the parents down or the doctor would sit the parents down and say, or their own financial common sense would sit them down and say, this is going in a very bad direction. It's very bad for your kids. What is it that you need to know? What is it that you don't understand about diet or exercise or calories or input output or anything like that, because this is really, really bad for your children, someone who would have some kind of authority in the matter. You know, the fact that your extended family didn't say something, the fact that your sister at 38 is 300 pounds, this is an absolute catastrophe for health, and the entire family should have been involved in preventing that from getting to that, to go say swelling to that degree. But no, I'm about prevention. I'm not about throwing people in jail. I want a system where.
[1:17:07] Um, the, the parents get the kind of help and support that they need in order to have this not be brought to bear. If a parent is, uh, if a parent gets all the right information and all the right advice and continues to cause the children to be morbidly obese, I don't think that the parent should retain a custody.
[1:17:30] Okay. But, but you feel, but before you said that if someone gave my sister a pill, that that would be considered assault. And I know that you believe of assaulters should be in prison. Any assault is a prisonable offense, no? So then now this kind of goes against your pill argument, no?
[1:17:45] Well, I'm talking about prevention.
[1:17:47] Now, if- Well, let's say it's already happened.
[1:17:50] Well, so yeah, if it's already happened, then the purpose.
[1:17:53] Of- So you believe my mother should be in jail?
[1:17:56] No, let me finish the point.
[1:17:58] Sure.
[1:17:59] So if the children are taken away from a parent who is abusive, the parent no longer has the power to harm them.
[1:18:06] Right.
[1:18:07] And the purpose of the law is to prevent harm from continuing. So sometimes if there's some serial killer, you've got to throw him in jail because he's just going to keep killing people. If you take the children away from the parent, then the parent no longer has the ability to harm the children. And therefore, it may not be necessary. And I would not particularly support the parents going to jail. If it turns out that the parents have sort of slipped through the cracks and their children are morbidly obese. The problem is, of course, is that it's very traumatic for the children to have the parents taken away and thrown in jail. So you don't want to add more trauma to the children because it's not their fault. It's not traumatic for somebody who is living in danger because there's a serial killer around. If the serial killer is taken and thrown in jail, everyone breathes a big sigh of relief and nobody's traumatized, except maybe the serial killer, but that's too bad, right? But the problem is if you've got kids and you take the children away, you throw the children in jail and so on, sorry, you throw the parents in jail, you know, that's the problem. That's the really delicate thing with families. This is why I don't talk to kids, but only adults because they're out of that situation. But the problem is, is that children, because they're so dependent on their parents and so bonded with their parents, you have to be pretty delicate with this, with this kind of stuff.
[1:19:29] But the one area where the logic of cane now breaks now, Stefan, is the magic pill that you talked about, that if someone gave your sister a magic pill that would decrease her life by 20 years and cause her to be obese, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, that you actually said just on this call, you said that would be assault, no? So I'm sure that you believe assaulters should be in prison. So if a father- No.
[1:19:51] No, but I just answered this because now, it wasn't your mother who made your
[1:19:57] daughter 300 pounds. because, right?
[1:19:59] My sister.
[1:20:00] Sorry, her daughter, right? It wasn't your mother who made your sister 300 pounds because she said she was only 20 or 30 pounds plus she's tall. Only 20 or 30 pounds at the end of your mother's tenure and in her early 20s, she started to gain the weight on her own. I mean, she had some...
[1:20:18] More in the 30s, more in the 30s, but we believe it came from the love of food from the way we were raised. That's all.
[1:20:24] Well, but you had that too, but you're not 300 pounds, right?
[1:20:27] Yeah, you know, different metabolisms. Who knows? I'm not sure.
[1:20:30] Yeah. So by the time your sister is in her 30s, she can't morally blame her mother for her weight gain.
[1:20:39] No. So let's take the caller from five years ago. I know you can't remember the call, but are you saying though that woman should be in prison? Because again, the magic pill, the argument that you gave before is assault. Anyone who assaults their children should be in prison. So are you saying that someone who has an obese child because they're not taking care of the guy probably should be in prison.
[1:20:58] Okay, I've given you two answers to this. I'm not even sure if you remember what they are.
[1:21:03] I do.
[1:21:04] Okay, so why are you not referencing my answers when you keep repeating the question?
[1:21:11] Because the thing is, I think a father or a mother who punches their child in the face would be going to prison, correct?
[1:21:18] That's a tough call, man. It's a tough call because if it's a husband assaulting his wife, she's a legal adult, she's independent, she can go to a shelter.
[1:21:27] No, the trial.
[1:21:27] No, no, hang on. You've got to slow your roll, man. Let me answer the fucking question. You keep interrupting everything I'm saying.
[1:21:32] I'm sorry about that.
[1:21:33] Okay, so I'm giving you a different example. I know that we're talking, so I'm giving you, if it's a husband beating up his wife, she's a legal adult, she can go to a shelter, she can get welfare, she can get charity, she can live on her own. But if it's an eight or a 10-year-old kid, I think, because it's very traumatic for the kid if the parents are, you know, ripped away and thrown in prison, that's really tough, right, on the kid, and you don't want to give additional trauma. I mean, kids are almost like hostages in bad households because.
[1:22:03] They are so dependent on their parents. So as I said, what I want is a system where the parents get the requisite help and support and nutritional advice and health information and all of that, so that they don't go that route. And I also said that if in a free society, if children are relentlessly overfed and the parents bar them from exercise or whatever it is that's causing the children to become morbidly obese, not a little bit overweight, but morbidly obese, then I would absolutely be in support of children getting it to another home. Now, whether that means throwing the parents in jail or not, I think it would be pretty traumatic because that would be that the children simply can't see the parents anymore. But I'm about prevention and this is a very preventable situation, right? This is a very preventable. Now, if the parents, they get all the information and they've got all the education and they've got all the nutritional facts and the exercise and calories and they've been educated and all of that and they continue to overfeed their children, yeah, I think the children should not be with them. And, you know, does it end up in jail? I mean, again, I'm sort of giving you a whole bunch of layers of prevention. What's in the best interest of the child is for the child not to be overfed. And if the child is taken away from the overfeeding parents, and again, I'm not talking about a little heavy, I'm talking like morbidly obese, like asthma and early onset diabetes for kids, like all of that really terrible stuff.
[1:23:31] So if the parents get the education, I'm sure 99 times out of 100 or 95 times out of 100, that will solve the issue. If they continue to do it, you take the kids away. But if the parents go to jail, then the kids will never see their parents at all. And that's also traumatic for the kids. So you would try and minimize that as much. Again, I can't give you every conceivable answer for how this would work. But what I can say, because the original argument was, can you love someone and poison them? And you said they should go to jail. And I said, well, it can't be a loving act to poison someone. It cannot be a loving act to poison someone. And morbid obesity for children, in my opinion, is the result of poisoning children with food and lack of exercise or whatever it is. So my argument wasn't they should go in jail, right? That was you said they should go to jail. My argument is it's not loving.
[1:24:23] But people who poison people go to jail. And you know that, and I'm sure you agree with that.
[1:24:27] Okay, we're just going in circles because I keep answering this and you just keep going back to the same point.
[1:24:31] I know, but Stefan, the logic is, you're basically saying it can't be love.
[1:24:36] You've got to address the way the debate works, bro. You've got to answer my objections, not just repeat what you say. You've got to answer what I say.
[1:24:45] Okay.
[1:24:46] Okay, will prevention deal with this for the most part?
[1:24:50] Yes.
[1:24:51] Okay, good. So that solved a huge number of the issues, right? Now, do you agree that children who are morbidly obese, even after the children are educated, the parents are educated and the children too if necessary, do you agree that those children should be taken out of a home where they are morbidly obese if the parents don't respond to any kind of education, coaching or training?
[1:25:11] I'm not sure because I don't see it the same way as the magic pill argument. I just don't. That's more assault. That's more assault than overfeeding. Wouldn't you agree?
[1:25:21] What do you mean it's more assault than overfeeding?
[1:25:24] It's more, if someone were, that pill argument that you gave that says, oh, here's one pill, it's going to ruin your life.
[1:25:29] Overweight, whatever, bones, you know, all that stuff that you said. That's assault. There's someone, it was willingly giving a pill. Oh, as instead of just overeating for many, many years, one meal at a time, slowly. You know, it's just, it's just, it's just different.
[1:25:43] And it doesn't feel like it's lost. Hang on, hang on. Slow poison is different from fast poison. I agree.
[1:25:48] I know. Yes. Okay. I knew you were going to say that, too. But in your heart of hearts, do you think it's exactly the same level of assault?
[1:25:59] Okay, I'm going to have to move on because I keep giving you these answers and you just keep saying, is it exactly the same level of assault? And I've given you all of the reasons. No, no, no, I'm not going to do it.
[1:26:09] In your heart of hearts, is it the same level?
[1:26:10] No, heart of hearts, good Lord, what a proper propaganda. So, yeah, I'm going to move on just because it is just circular, right? I've said it's not exactly the same. And he just keeps repeating the same points in this sort of really wound up way. So I don't think it's an excess of self-knowledge. And again, I do really sympathize with this. It is a tough situation for sure. But all right, let us chat with somebody who we have not chatted with before. And again, I appreciate these conversations. And, you know, sorry, I'm not even sorry for raising my voice, but at some point you have to cut through the insistent New York noise. All right. Milk, M-I-L-K. What is on your mind?
[1:26:54] Hey, Stef. I've been a fan of the show for years, and I'm finally talking to you, which is nice.
[1:27:01] Well, thank you. Welcome to the conversation. What's on your mind?
[1:27:05] So I just want to know how you reconcile in your worldview the fact... I'm going to give you a thought experiment, a hypothetical. All right. So let's say that, you know, one of your principles is the non-aggression principle, and it's one of the bedrock of your worldview. Would you say that's correct?
[1:27:34] Why do you keep saying my principle or my worldview?
[1:27:39] Like, I mean, like everyone has their personal worldview, right?
[1:27:43] No, no, but I'm a philosopher. Why would you talk about my personal worldview? You. I mean, you wouldn't say a physicist, you know, your worldview called physics, right? Physics is either valid and universal or it's not. And I'm just trying to, I'm not trying to be a nitpicker here. I'm just trying to understand why you keep putting my, you know, two and two make four is not my personal worldview, right? That's just a fact, right? The world is a sphere is not my personal perspective or a dream I had last night. It's a fact, right? So I'm just trying to understand if you've listened to me for a long time, you've heard me, I'm sure say, I don't say my philosophy because philosophy is supposed to be universal and objective, right?
[1:28:20] Okay. Sure. Right. But would you say that a morality can exist that like, Hmm. Like, would it ever be moral to break the rules that are preexisting? Is there ever a case where that's okay?
[1:28:41] I'm not sure what you mean by rules. Rules is a, I mean, do you mean chess rules? Do you mean moral rules? Do you mean the laws of physics? Do you mean laws? I'm not sure what you mean.
[1:28:51] Moral rules?
[1:28:53] Moral rules.
[1:28:55] Yeah.
[1:28:56] Okay. So let me ask you this. Do you think it can ever be moral to rape?
[1:29:01] You know, that's actually where I was leading to. I was actually, I'm glad that you prompted me with that because it leads me to the hypothetical I wanted to postulate.
[1:29:14] Okay, but you're not answering the question. So do you think that it could be moral to rape?
[1:29:19] Under specific circumstances, I would say I'm experimenting with the thought of that as yes. Yes.
[1:29:28] I mean, I would argue that you're completely wrong, that it could never be wrong. It could never be moral to rape. It's always evil. No question. It's like stealing. You can say, well, you know, but I'm starving and whatever it is, right? But rape is nothing like that, which is why it's an ugly example to use, but it is one of the most obvious moral ones. And there's no self-defense argument or no I'm starving argument or anything like that. Or mistaken identity argument. So yeah, I would argue that rape is always evil and immoral. And you say, oh, well, what if I'm forced to? But then the evil is the person forcing you. It's not the same situation. This is a voluntary thing. So I wouldn't say I'm happy to hear the argument, but I'm willing to hear the argument that rape could be moral in some circumstances.
[1:30:22] Um, sure. Let's like flesh out the, you know, all the personal ontology of this subject matter. Like, for instance, would you, I'm going to kind of like wait off on my postulation or on my, um.
[1:30:39] Also, sorry, I turn to interrupt. I apologize for that. Why is it important for you to find some circumstance in which rape could be justified? That seems a bit odd and frankly just gives me the willies. Um why would this be important there's a lot of moral issues in the world some of which are more practical and real like spanking and stuff like that so why would this be your focus do you think.
[1:31:01] Okay I'll just get to the meat of the matter so imagine if there's a conflict of interest right.
[1:31:08] No no but you're not answering the question why is this important to you.
[1:31:12] Why is this important to me because I like philosophizing.
[1:31:17] No no but why is justifying rape something that would be important to you?
[1:31:24] Because I value my race and my nation existing.
[1:31:34] Okay, are you talking about some sort of eugenics program where people are forced to have sex in order to preserve some purity bloodline?
[1:31:42] I'm saying in a long enough time frame, right, the trajectory that white people, you know, the race I identify with, will be, you know, we're going to be put in a very uncomfortable, disadvantageous, militarily strategic position geopolitically in the future if this declining birth rates will continue, which it will as a forecast.
[1:32:10] But that's true for almost every race i think outside of africa it's true for the japanese it's true for the chinese it's even more true for the south koreans than just about everyone so the the collapsing birth rate is something that that all races i would say.
[1:32:29] Not necessarily because um middle east has great birth rates and israel has great birth rates those are just too.
[1:32:38] But they're also falling there as well. So, um, so listen, I'm, I'm not going to engage or entertain in a conversation about some sort of forced eugenics program. I find that to be, and listen, I mean, I know that just about every topic is a value to, to someone, but if you're going to start talking about, you know, eugenics programs and things like that, uh, I'm rapidly anti-eugenics, as you can imagine, they're all violations of the non-aggression principle. And I mean by this both forcing people to pay for other people having children and forcibly barring people from having children or forcing people to have children and so on. It's all violations of the non-aggression principle. So I just really wanted to, I'm not going to start entertaining emergency scenarios where rape could conceivably be justified. That's just not something that a moral philosophy show is going to engage in or entertain. God forbid ever society ever gets to that point. But if it does, there won't be any reason to arguments to be had anywhere. All right, Jeff, you had something that you wanted to bring up and talk about?
[1:33:49] Yes, thank you very much. A long-time listener, first-time caller.
[1:33:52] Welcome.
[1:33:54] Yes, sir. If I may be permitted just a moment to thank you as a long-time listener for all the good work you've done for me and millions of other listeners, particularly in the area of parenting. I've taken a lot of points from what you've taught and applied them in my own family with great results, and I just want to thank you for that.
[1:34:13] I appreciate that. Thank you for your dedication to peaceful parenting.
[1:34:17] Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And so many great points tonight I've enjoyed listening to, but just two, if I may. Number one, perhaps a rhetorical question, but I enjoy getting your answer nonetheless. Number one, why is it that a gentleman like yourself gives a better sermon on the issue of forgiveness than 99% of ministers in the Christian church? And number two, why is it so difficult for so many men like our, the gentleman before the gentleman who was just on just to say, yeah, you know what? My mom made some really crappy choices and I got to live with that. So does she, why is that just so hard?
[1:35:00] Well, that's a fine question. As to the former, I mean, of course, I was raised a Christian, and I have a great affection and affinity with,
[1:35:08] of course, because of my origin story for Christianity. And there is, of course, a massive overlapping set of circles between Christianity and philosophy. Christianity is the closest thing to a philosophical religion that I know of, because of its true dedication to universality. And so a lot of what I was taught and the questions that I was asked as a Christian child are things that I've wrestled with as an adult. So I think there's a lot of overlap. So, I mean, I really do appreciate your kind words and I don't want to gloss over the compliment. And so I think that there is a lot of very important things that I think about that Christians also think about. And I've had a lot of practice talking about them, as you know, over the last, you know, 44 years of being into philosophy. So I appreciate that. But your second question, again, really fascinating, which is, you know, and I think everyone could hear this, and this is no disrespect to the prior caller. I'm really glad he called in, and it was a very engaging and enjoyable conversation, and I appreciated the challenge. I really do.
[1:36:08] And it's like similar to the abortion question. It's like, do you think women who have an abortion should be thrown in prison? And it's like, you know, if you say yes, then, you know, if you say, right. So, but it is an interesting question. You can hear the pressure tension, right, in some people's language, right? And I do have to, to some degree, match energy. Some people say, you know, well, if you go, if they get more cranked, then you go down and you try to bring them down. I did try that a little bit by, you know, reason. But after a while, you just have to, if people don't come down, you just have to match their energy, right? And so you can feel the pressured speech and the pressured speech is very interesting which is he still struggles with weight and his sister is you know 300 pounds and he's she says he says tall right so maybe she's 5'9 5'10 but that's still a fairly a fairly disastrous weight in my amateur opinion but yeah the why so why well.
[1:37:04] In general, we internalize everyone we spend time with. I make jokes with my wife because she's quite short, right? So in a wifelet, right? It's like, don't put that cup down without a coaster. Like I could hear her voice and she's not a nag at all, right? But, you know, she cares about these things. And if I leave a smudge of fingerprint on the, well, anyway, on the fridge door, like, oh, wipe it down and all of that. And she's always working for the family, always, always, always working for the family and just wonderful that way. And she's taught me a lot about really thinking about others and what's best for them and what works for them and what makes them happier. And so, you know, if I have a, oh, the dishwasher's done and I'll empty it out and, you know, just always try and get these kinds of things. But, you know, my wife is in my head. I know what she's going to say. I mean, you want predictability without being an NPC, right? So you don't want people saying random stuff in your life because then they have no particular character or consistency. So I don't know exactly what she's going to say, but it's pretty delightful whatever she does say. It's consistent, but also original, which is a good combo, I think.
[1:38:14] So the reason I'm saying that is that we internalize everyone. My friends, you know, I had a dream, I won't get into it all, but I had a dream last night about my brother and a friend of mine from when I was in my teens that I have not spoken to in... Over a quarter century. They just showed up in my dreams acting exactly as they did when I knew them. So they're internalized. And by the way, I just wanted to point this out about the unconscious, amazing thing.
[1:38:43] A house I used to live in and the house I live in now were put together so that they had features of both perfectly blended. Like I couldn't do that if you asked me to draw it or design it. I couldn't do that in a million years, but my unconscious does that. Like just no thing. So I'm dreaming about people I haven't talked to in like over a quarter century. And I had a long discussion with my wife about the dream this morning over breakfast and, they're still in here. I haven't talked to them for, you know, once a year, twice a year, I dream about my mother and she's like right there. So we have people in our minds, right? I call it the MECO system. There's a guy named Richard Schwartz, Dr. Richard Schwartz. He was on the show many years ago, family systems therapy, that we all have these alter egos of people we internalize. So a lot of times when I'm talking to people and particularly when I'm involved in this kind of conflict.
[1:39:35] What I ask myself is, am I talking to the person or an alter ego within their mind? Now, I think this guy was a listener, and I think he listened five years ago to me criticizing whether a mother loves, loves a child that she makes morbidly obese. Now, I'm not just trying to blame the mother and the father's involved too, but let's say the father's not around for whatever reason, right? So the mother's fully in charge. To me, you cannot love someone and deeply harm them consistently. I hope that's not super controversial. I'm not saying she wakes up like some Machiavellian, ooh, ha ha, how many ding-dongs can I feed my kid to make him unattractive to women because I lost his father. But I'm not saying anything. But I hope it's not super controversial to say it is not an aspect of love to poison someone. It is not an aspect of love to do great harm to someone.
[1:40:39] And that's why I say, but she can't love you and make you morbidly obese at the same time. I mean, maybe that's controversial. I'm certainly happy to hear arguments. But so he listened to a show five years ago where this came up. And in my view, his mother, again, I'm just saying it's my theory, I don't know for sure, right? But his mother, his mother's alter ego, right? Emerged in his mind and said, that guy is not right. He's too angry. He's unjust. He's unfair. Like his mother, right? Because it was a feminine kind of conversation, right? Which is you just keep repeating the same points. You try all these gotchas. You don't listen. You don't respond to arguments, right? So I was not talking to this guy. I was talking to his mom, in my view.
[1:41:27] And you try to get past the alter egos, right? But when people, when you have people in your life who can't handle being criticized, when you hear similar criticisms, they rise up and rail against it. In other words, I was saying to the listener five years ago, what this guy has always wanted to say to his mother, but hasn't because she's too aggressive, as we saw when, in my view, the mother alter ego came out in the conversation and wouldn't listen.
[1:41:52] And, you know, I tried being calmer. I tried repeating. I tried asking. I tried, you know, repeat my arguments back to me to try basic empathy stuff. And then eventually I tried getting more angry because I had to find some way past this incredibly nimble and nubile, nubile, nimble ninja of the mother. So he heard a criticism that he secretly had about his mother and his mother rose up in his mind and said, you better stop listening to this guy. And now he's taking these calls and he's back on X and you got to call in and you got to set him straight and you got to, right? So this was his mother attacking me through him. And that was sort of the answer. Now, why do people do that? I think because they're not particularly honest is one of the reasons I asked him whether he was a Christian and he was an agnostic, right? So if he had had honest criticisms with his mother, I mean, to look at the ruin of his sister at 38, 300 pounds and say, geez, mom, something went wrong here. Like we got to talk about this. And it's not just his mother. It's his father. It's himself at this point. It's his whole extended family. They cannot criticize the overeating. They cannot criticize the food as comfort that turns to poison, right? They can't, right? So to me, why do people, why are they unable to say, you know, boy, that was really powerful insight. It is hard to make the argument that.
[1:43:15] You can love someone and do great and desperate harm to just about every aspect of their existence over a period of 20 years, right? Or 18 years or however long you're responsible for your kids. So the reason they can't do that is they have people in their lives who can't be criticized and they have not screwed their courage to the sticking place to say, I'm going to have this difficult conversation because what I've always recommended to people, if you have a difficult time with your parents, sit down and talk to them about it. Be honest, be open, be curious, be direct and see how it goes. And now he hadn't done that. And so because he hadn't done that, he hadn't confronted his outer mother, his inner mother, still ran the show. And when she heard something she didn't like, she cut him off from me for five years. And then she came in like a screaming demon because I'm not allowed to criticize her.
[1:44:05] And I think that's what was going on. Hopefully that makes some sense. I'd love to hear your thoughts, Jeff.
[1:44:10] Yes, that's very, very interesting. And having known something of the Italian community, I've had friends who are of an Italian-American background. They do like their food, but it is by no means a universal that they feed their kids to obesity. I've known a family, for example, where the women usually only eat two meals a day, even though they feed three meals a day. They prepare three meals a day. They'll only serve to eat themselves one or two meals a day because they don't want to get fat.
[1:44:42] Well, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I love food. I love food. So I want to live as long as possible to eat more of it. Right. So loving food is fine. It's not like everyone who loves food is obese. I have a friend, she's a Cordon Bleu chef and an incredible baker. She's not fat, right?
[1:45:03] Exactly.
[1:45:04] So it's loving food doesn't mean overeating. Loving food can be like, oh, savoring and slow. Like, you know, people who love wine often will sip and like, oh, I love the flavor and the hint of blah, blah, blah, the sommelier stuff. And so they're not going to get drunk every night because they love wine. They love wine, so they want to love it, Want to love wine long time. So I want to be enjoying food in my 80s and 90s, which means I can't get fat now, if that makes sense.
[1:45:34] Absolutely. And just as I was saying, just to your point exactly, there are people who like food and who have fellowship around food, as the Italians like to do. They're not all fat. And there are plenty of Italian people, Italian Americans, who like food, who fellowship around food, who have long dinners and such, who are not obese. And I looked up the BMI just for the hoot of it, so to speak. And that poor sister of that gentleman, she would be classified as an obese class three, which you got overweight, obese class one, obese class two, and obese class three. That's the highest on the scale. That's basically, you know, stick a fork in it.
[1:46:24] Highest on the scale. I get it. Yeah. No, that is really tragic. And that's a systemic issue, right? So if the family has somebody who has a problem, it's the whole family's problem. And if the sister is gaining weight to that degree, people need to sit down with the sister and say, what is going on? And why has that not happened? Because the mother can't handle criticism. And because the mother can't handle criticism, he can't handle feedback. He's very aggressive and he sort of twists and manipulates and again i'm not blaming him or anything like that but you know he doesn't listen and you just say oh so you want me thrown in jail like something like that right and so you know i mean if if there was somebody a friend of mine i've had conversations like this with people i know like you gotta lose weight man like love you to death you know i know i know five fat guys and you're four of them i've never had that conversation. I just find that a funny joke. And I also had to do this myself years ago. I lost, I dropped about 30 pounds or so. And, you know, I've worked hard to keep it off, which is not the easiest thing to do as you age, but you just have to change everything and all of that. So you just need to be strict with yourself and you need to think of the long term. You know, I'm an older father, so I have to stay healthy for my daughter. I don't want her to have to take care of me or anything when she's launching out in her life. And so.
[1:47:47] That it's a family structural issue. There's no one person, I mean, unless they've completely split from the family, there's no one person in a family who just gets fat on their own. Like every time she's over, people see what she eats. If she's not eating much, but she's still gaining weight, then she's a secret eater, as a lot of people tend to be. Like they won't eat much during the day. They pretend they exist on, you know, salads and three croutons, and then they go and gorge themselves at night. And a lot of times obesity, and I'm not saying this is true with this guy's family. What do I know? I doubt it. But a lot of times, obesity is a breadcrumb to a real crime scene. A lot of women, and you know, it's one in three girls are sexually abused, right? One in five boys, one in three girls, right? And a lot of times, women become obese because when they were skinny, they were abused, and they put on layers of flesh to become less attractive to men.
[1:48:41] To ward off predators.
[1:48:41] Yeah, to ward off predators, to have that flesh suit that makes you less attractive and so on. And so sometimes a lot of people don't want to deal with obesity within a family because it leads back to sexual predation of the young. And again, I'm not saying this about this guy's family, but, because I don't know, but I've had those conversations a whole bunch of times with people. And so if there is a crime in the family that is exposed, if there's an honest conversation about weight, people really don't want to have that conversation. And that's why, another reason why they let people get fed.
[1:49:13] Tattoos, disgusting haircuts, ridiculous hair colors. You just look at the average American, you know, 19, 20, 25-year-old woman 20 years ago, 30 years ago, and look at where we are today. That's not all related to, you know, abuse. It's a lot of factors, the garbage they eat, but we all eat. But it's just sad.
[1:49:37] You just look at an average woman. Sexual abuse in single mother homes can be 30 times higher because there's no father to protect from predators. And a lot of guys will date single mothers just to get access to their children. Sad, sad, and gross and true. So as you take fathers out of the home, a lot of times the sexual predators move in, which is why, to me, anyone who suggests things that destroy the nuclear family in its sort of foundational, like the welfare state and palimony, alimony, child support, excessive kind of repayments and no fault and all of that. To me, they're just, child exploitation aligned because that's what they're setting up and the data's been out for a long time we know that now.
[1:50:20] Well yes, you mentioned that one of your previous shows you talked about how the two best ways to ensure that there's going to be no childhood sexual abuse in your household is number one, make sure that the biological father is present in the home and number two make sure that the children have a relationship with the adult in their life, so that if anyone ever made a pass at them, if a predator ever came around, they would immediately go to that person, whether it's their parent or their grandparent, whoever, and immediately tell them what happened. If they've got a good relationship and the biological father's present, the chance of abuse is basically zero.
[1:50:57] Yeah, and I mean, this is not even my theory. This is exactly what pedophiles say. The average pedophile has well over 100 victims, and they're always looking for the same thing. They're looking for the kids who are not close to their parents. They're looking for the kids who are left alone, who are isolated, who are lonely, who are distant from their parents and they in particular look for no data rent.
[1:51:17] Which is the same theory as the predators on the savannah in Africa.
[1:51:22] Right. The calves separated from the parents, right?
[1:51:25] Exactly. This is not that complicated. It's not really rocket science. And I'll hand it off to the next caller. I don't want to hog the conversation. If I may, just one last question, and you tell me what you prefer. Would you prefer to answer a question about the past or the future? And I want to ask you about your one or two of the moments in history where if you could have turned it in a better direction you would have picked it even if you only had two or three choices or in the future if I were to ask you about something in the future because I loved your book, The Future. Everyone should read your novel. It's fascinating.
[1:52:03] Thank you. Yeah, I mean a couple of, there's a great, I'll probably do a solo show on that sort of moments in history. I wish that, the West had not been seduced into handing over education of the children to the state. That really was the end of the experiments for freedom in the West. I wish that was the case. I wish that the biggest disaster in the world and in the West was World War I. I wish that people had worked to avoid that. And I wish that people had woken up to the massive dangers of communism in the late 19th, early 20th century. I wrote a whole novel about this called Revolutions, about how people just missed the entire danger of communism, because it seems like we're just trapped in this nightmare wheel where we just have to keep redoing this communism. You know, you can vote your way in, but you can't vote your way out. And we just keep going over and over this thing. Like even the Romanovs in Russia, they didn't take it seriously enough. They didn't deal with it seriously enough and it's really happening all over again and all of the things that could be used to fight communism have been now deemed hate speech and again it's a brilliant move and so I wish that.
[1:53:25] If communism had been dealt with as the extremely dangerous mind virus that it was in the 19th century, and again, I'm not talking violence, I'm just talking about people going, you know, balls to the walls to argue against it and drive it out, you know, like Nazism, right? The evil ideology driven out of the public square, same thing should be done with socialism, communism, but people didn't really do it. They had a bunch of civilized von Mises Austrian types who wrote endless tomes about it, but didn't have the same level of popular connection and support as there's no manifesto in the way that there is with some truly brilliant language that Marx and Engels came up with, right? The workers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chains. I mean, just brilliant, brilliant, evocative stuff. And so, of course, if communism had been dealt with, there wouldn't be the fall of the Soviet Union with no fall of the Soviet Union, There's no transmission of the socialist ideas to FDR in the 1930s. There's no fall of China to communism, no fall of Cambodia or Korea, South Korea, Vietnam, Cuba, China, of course, and other places.
[1:54:44] And if the virus hadn't been transmitted from the Soviet Union, then Germany wouldn't have felt so threatened by communism in the 1930s. And its likelihood that the Second World War would have emerged would have been almost zero. So those are some of the basics that I would say I wish had gone differently. Now, of course, it's very embedded now and it's pretty risky to oppose, but it's still worth doing because my gosh is it ever terrible when that ideology, I mean I'm fighting for my life I mean if the ideology gets in power I'm not going to have, a good day. Well, be a short day. All right. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate the questions. I think we've got time. Yeah, let's do one more. The guys are giving me a good workout tonight and I appreciate that. I would also recommend an inconvenient study, an inconvenient study by Del Bigtree, one of the greatest names on the planet, Del Bigtree. You can look it up, an inconvenient study well worth having a look all right let us go with jason uh i think there'll be a last caller jason what's on your mind, Come on, Mime is money.
[1:56:03] Hey.
[1:56:03] Yes, sir.
[1:56:05] Hey, sorry.
[1:56:05] No, no problem.
[1:56:07] Yeah, so I'm just curious if you have any thoughts on the philosopher Immanuel Kant. I'm reading his critique of pure reason. Find it pretty interesting.
[1:56:17] What do you find interesting? I'm not disagreeing with you. I just want to know what you think. What do you find interesting? I mean, he's, of course, one of the most famous and influential philosophers in history. So what do you find the most interesting and compelling about his arguments?
[1:56:30] Well, I find the idealism very interesting. I followed some other idealist thinkers, and I find that... I'll let you think of the word, but it's definitely thought-provoking, and it's definitely a difficult philosophical school to kind of contend with. I've been researching some of Bonaro-Castroop's stuff, and that's more analytic idealism, But I like the transcendental idealism more because I feel like it's a bit more grounded in reality and kind of a bit less logical leaps. You know what I mean? I really like his systemizing, how he breaks everything up, his a priori, a posteriori, analytic, synthetic. Yeah, do you have any thoughts on Immanuel Kant? Have you read any of his stuff?
[1:57:21] Yeah, I actually did quite a bit of reading of Kant. He was central to my graduate school thesis, so I've done quite a bit, and I've stalled on the history of philosophers until I grappled with Kant, who was, of course, an enormous thinker.
[1:57:38] One of the major issues that I have with Immanuel Kant is his anti-empiricism. So in the empirical world, at least the way that I would work with the empirical world, a reason comes from the evidence of the senses. And what that means is that there's no postulate of reason that can contradict the evidence of the senses. So the reason that we have reason, the reason we have such a thing as logic is because logic is a abstraction of the way that matter and energy behave in the world. And so, because the world is rational, universal, and consistent, reason is rational, universal, and consistent. Contradictions don't exist in reality. There's no such thing as a dolphin elephant, right? There's no such thing as an ice vapor, right? Contradictions don't exist in the real world. Therefore, contradictions can't exist in logic. Logic is derived from the real world. And so, you can't have a conception in the mind that contradicts any properties of matter and energy. And that's really the essence of science as well. But that's not the way it is for Immanuel Kant, because he has a higher reality. And the higher reality can utterly contradict the evidence of the senses and can contain truth, which defies rational analysis. And this is similar to Plato's world of forms, or it's just the new aminal realm or the higher realm of the Buddhist and so on, that there's a realm of foundational truth.
[1:59:08] That cannot be explored, defined, or understood.
[1:59:13] By reason and also that our world is shaped by our perceptions okay.
[1:59:23] So you don't like the fact that the phenomenal in the numeral world are there's an irreparable rift between the two.
[1:59:30] It's not that i don't like it why does everyone talk like girls it's not that i don't like it it's false it's wrong it's it's not proven it is a fantasy it is a delusion it's not that i don't like it it's just false it's like if somebody says well you don't like the two and you don't like the proposition that two and two make unicorn it's like it's incomprehensible and not true two and two make four not unicorn so it's not whether i like it or not.
[1:59:58] Well yeah i mean it's just a colloquialism.
[2:00:00] No but it's an important colloquialism because it says that it's something is personal and emotional right i just gave you a whole rational argument And he'd say, oh, so you just don't like it.
[2:00:11] No, that's not what I meant by that.
[2:00:12] Go ahead.
[2:00:13] That's not what I meant by that. But no, I did like what you said there. And I think that the contradiction between our mind and reality and acting in a way that's consistent with that contradiction is what the true meaning of a sin is. Do you have any thoughts on that? you have to break that.
[2:00:35] Idea out a little bit more for me.
[2:00:37] Okay of course yeah sorry um yeah so i think that if you act in a way that's consistent with reality on true premises and then you do the most logical thing and you're looking out for other people and um then i think that's acting righteously and i think if you're acting based on false information, then in some sense, that is a sin. It's a difficult idea for me to elaborate, but it's like the closer you align your own internal model of reality with reality, the more spiritually advanced you become, the more mature you become, or the more developed you become. There's stages of development that Piaget talked about, and you have object permanence, and the one where you have the kids looking at the glasses of water of different heights, They're unable to tell which is which. That's because they're operating within a false version of reality in their minds. They can't quite grasp it yet. And it seems to me like the more we grow and the more we mature, the more accurate our model of reality is in our head. Therefore, the more accurate predictions we are able to make, then we can act more truthfully.
[2:01:51] Okay. I mean, having an accurate model of the world that is as available through the evidence of the senses is not a specifically human trait though, right? I mean, a hawk that is trying to hunt a rabbit has an accurate model of reality. It doesn't try and rip up a tree and take it to feed its young, right? So there are obviously non-human creatures, and I would say most creatures, certainly those with senses, have to have an accurate model of the universe, right? I mean, a zebra has to figure out if it's a lion chasing him or just a tumbleweed blowing down the lane or whatever, right? So if you're going to say an accurate representation of reality, you have to say why it would be different for humans than it would be for animals.
[2:02:36] Okay, that's interesting. I think that might go into the free will conversation about what makes us act in a way that's according to whatever this ethos is, instead of in the other way we would act. And I think that a choice is something that goes against your desires towards whatever you think is the most true. Or, you know, in other words, whatever you think is the most in line with reality. And the reason I think that is because of Live Bay's free will experience. Have you heard of those?
[2:03:10] No, but feel free to detail them. I might know them in terms of the content, but not the author.
[2:03:16] Okay. Yeah, it's where he hooks up some readers to your brain. This was done a couple of decades ago.
[2:03:23] Oh, this is the guy who, like, you think your choosing is right, but the impulse comes from deep within your brain before you decide.
[2:03:29] Yeah, exactly. Like you have the impulse and you have the ability to veto that impulse. And so it's like you have the free won't.
[2:03:36] Yep.
[2:03:37] But not necessarily the free will. And so I find that to be very interesting and that leads me to the conclusion.
[2:03:42] Do you not believe in free will?
[2:03:45] No, I do.
[2:03:46] You do, okay.
[2:03:47] But I'm saying, yeah, I'm saying what I think free will is it's a choice that you make against your nature. Like I think if you go to the fridge and you're just asking yourself, okay, what do I want? chocolate milk or white milk, you're not making a choice there. You're just doing whichever in line with your desires. But if you feel the urge to drink a certain thing and you're like, oh, no, I'm going to do the other thing because it's healthy and you're acting against your desires, it's like you're vetoing that impulse.
[2:04:16] Sure. Okay. But that's not moral, right?
[2:04:21] No, but you think it's moral.
[2:04:24] It may be moral. It may not be moral. I mean, someone who's a serial killer may have flashes of pity for his prey, but goes against his preferences or his nature or his emotions and kills the person anyway. Like just going against what you want doesn't necessarily mean that moral. I would argue that free will is our ability to compare our proposed actions to ideal standards. And what separates us from the animals is our capacity to abstract universal principles from immediate sense data. So a hawk knows that a rabbit is prey, sort of instinctively programmed or evolved, or he knows that a rabbit is prey, but he doesn't know that a rabbit is a mammal. He just knows it's tasty.
[2:05:09] Right? So, human beings have the ability to take immediate sense data and abstract it to universal principles, the principles of mathematics, principles of logic, principles of physics, chemistry, biology, and so on. So, we have the ability to create universal abstractions from direct sense data, and there's no evidence that animals are able to do that in any way, because it's really impossible to do that without language, and animals don't have conceptual language. They don't have languages of abstractions. And so, I would say that free will is our ability to compare proposed actions to ideal standards, the ideal standards hopefully being, you know, moral standards or whatever it is. But so I would say that the idea of perfection or ideal or the good is something
[2:05:51] that we have abstracted from reality. And I think to your earlier point about we need to act in ways that are consistent with reality. Well, reality is not self-contradictory. Therefore, our system of ethics needs to be not self-contradictory. Reality, the principles of reality are universal. Gravity works the same on Pluto as it does here.
[2:06:11] And so our principles of morality also need to be universal. You can't have a system of morality post-Baconian scientific revolution. You can't have a system of morality that does not incorporate scientific principles because science has proven to be so absolutely fantastically foundationally powerful at dealing with the real world at creating comfort technology and benefits from the real world that to me and this is one of the reasons why it's so hard for people to hang on to religion is that in the sort of uh you know hundred thousand year history of religion compared to a couple hundred years of science uh science has provided infinitely more benefit as has the free market than religion did so i would say that moral principles which is why i've got a whole system of ethics called universally preferable behavior, which follows scientific principles as a whole, that it needs to be logical, universal, consistent, actionable, and, So I would say that in terms of free will, you have to have an ideal standard. If you don't have an ideal standard, you just be hedonist. And your only preference then is back to being the animal. A hedonist is a human being, LARPing is an animal. But if you have an ideal standard, then you have the capacity to compare your proposed action to an ideal standard. And your free will is the degree to which you will conformity to ideal standards.
[2:07:32] Okay, exactly. Yes, we seem to be in agreement there. Yeah, you need to have that standard or that truth that you're trying to act towards. And it's only at that point when you have that standard that you're able to act against your immediate impulses or whatever desires you have. And yeah, another thing about the morality having to be self-consistent just like reality is, there's a verse in 1 John that says, God is all light, there is no darkness within him. And what I think that might mean is that there are no contradictions within reality and, hang on, I lost my train of thought there for a second yeah, and so that resolves the paradox, is something good because God says it's good or is it good apart from God same with moralities, and morality exists apart from God I think it's synonymous because there are no contradictions in either one of them.
[2:08:30] Right. And of course, this is the big challenge, is that how do we know God is good? Is God good because he's powerful, in which case we're not worshiping virtue, we're worshiping power, or do we worship God because God is good according to some standard that isn't just God's power? And if God is good because we compare God's nature and actions to an ideal standard of morality, then the problem is, or the solution is, that then we can follow that morality without necessarily involving God.
[2:09:00] And, uh, so, and I did the power versus virtue, a love story. Uh, I did this, uh, almost 20 years ago. So yeah, it's a, it's a fascinating question. And, uh, yeah, the one thing that I find really tricky with Kant and, and it's really, it's a tough one. And it's a great argument where he says that if you benefit from an action, it's not moral, it's just a form of hedonism, right? So why do I give $10 to a homeless guy? Well, if I give $10 to a homeless guy because I just, I want to show off to the girl I'm dating what a great guy I am. I want the guy to bow and scrape before me and tell me what a great guy I am. And I want to feel like a good guy. Then I'm not being generous to the homeless guy. I'm buying a bunch of dopamine by being a quote, nice guy. And that's not really moral. That's a form of hedonism. And he said um and since we can't really be neutral as a whole then the best way to know that you're moral is to know that it's negative to you that it's harmful to you that you really don't want to do it that it's it's not a plus for you that's the only way to know that you are truly being moral rather than just chasing the dopamine of what he would call virtue signaling you know like i just want to be perceived of as good rather than be actually be good.
[2:10:18] Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that's a lot of what Nietzsche was talking about. You know, when he says being nice and being kind to people is more of a reflex. It's like the slave morality. It's just weakness. And it's pretending to be moral when in reality, people just don't have to. Say it again?
[2:10:37] Well, it's pretending to be moral. And it's like a guy with no arms who says, I don't get into fights, is not necessarily, you know a guy who's a you know a black belt in every martial art known to man who says i don't get into fights we can say okay well that's actually kind of noble but a guy with no arms who says well i choose not to get involved in fist fights it's like bro you don't have any fists like and so if you say i'm a good guy and you have no capacity to do any harm to anyone, I mean, I've had revenge fantasies that span generations. There's a lot I could do that I would like to do. I'm not going to do it, but, you know, and I will certainly take my vengeance in peaceful and reasonable ways when the time is right. But it is not a virtue to be good if you have no capacity to be bad. You're just confessing your inadequacy to do harm. And it's like, it's not a virtue. It's not a virtue for a slave who will get killed for defying his master saying, well, I just choose not to define my master. It's like, no, that's not a virtue anymore. So it's a very good argument, but it does lead to virtuous masochism, which, you know, the ancient Socratic argument, reason equals virtue equals happiness. And Kant would say, if your goal is happiness, it ain't virtuous. But then your goal has to be the opposite of happiness, which means you kind of become masochistic and you can't really sell virtue to people by saying, you know, The purpose is to make you as miserable as humanly possible.
[2:12:04] Okay, I think this is kind of the teleology of this argument. Eventually, if you act in accordance with virtue and against your desires for long enough, your desire will become virtuous. Your immediate reflex will become virtuous. And it's a constant perfection through suffering and through choice and through action. And so I think that it is possible to reach this state where all of your drives and impulses are in complete alignment with virtue. And so if you get to that spot, then according to Kant, there would be no virtue left because you would want to be doing everything that is virtuous.
[2:12:47] Right, right. But also the fact that Kant said that there are no exceptions to virtues. There is no, because it's universal and it's like asking for exceptions to laws of physics, that honesty is a virtue, and if people come and say, I want to kill your wife. Where is she? You have to tell them the truth. And your wife's going to get killed, but at least you've been honest. And I think that discredits because people get a very instinctive sense. Like, no, some guy comes and says he wants to kill my wife. I'm lying my ass off. I'm not going to tell him where my wife is. That's an instinct that people have. And it's really hard to say, well, that's immoral. You got to tell the murderer where your wife is so he can go and kill her because you can't lie. And then he'll get punished and the murder is wrong and so on, but you cannot lie under any circumstances. And I think that's almost like OCD or, German toilet trained at gunpoint, anal retentive, have to have to stuff. And it's a way of, in a sense, taking away free will. No, there are times when you're going to lie in this life. There are, you know, I've come up with the example, like, you know, you, you come across some guy's been in a terrible car crash. His, uh, his, his, his wife is dead. His two kids in the back are dead and he's dying. And he says, is my family okay? And you're going to say, yes, they're fine. Because you don't want him to his last few moments on earth to be horror knowing that his whole family has been wiped out. You're going to try and give him some comfort as he slips into the great beyond.
[2:14:13] And I think that we all sort of understand these things and that there is more challenging, you know, there are more challenging answers in the exceptions than in the universal rule, where you just kind of shout down any objection or any rational objection or any, like nobody would actually, like nobody's going to tell the murderer where a beloved wife is. They're just not going to do that. And saying that they're wrong is kind of ridiculous, like, and there's something wrong with your theory. So I think that kind of stuff discredits the ethics and the virtues. But of course, he was dealing with the avoid in, well, the ontological void in morality that came out of the Humean is ought distinction, which I've also wrestled with quite a bit, like you can't get an ought from an is. So um he wanted to create a room for universal ethics and he wanted to discredit uh reason which i found always a bit of a contradiction like there's a higher realm that is inaccessible to reason but your ethics should be perfectly universal and rational and he also said act as if the maximum of your action becomes a universal principle to everyone like if you steal you say well how would you like it if everyone stole well i wouldn't like that well then it's wrong. And it's like, but that's not how life works. Life works on exceptions. Thieves steal because they know not everyone else is going to steal because they're, for whatever reason, they're comfortable with stealing. And most people aren't at least at that level.
[2:15:34] And he also never would say, well, why, why should you do that? Why, why? I mean, the Christians have the answer, which is you do what God says, or you go to hell or you get to heaven. And, you know, act as the principle, if your action becomes a general rule for everyone, it's like, well, why?
[2:15:49] Why should you do that? But then he also said, universally is universal and objective, and you should always do the right thing, even if it's hell. And then he also said, but you have to obey the prince and the laws, no matter what is commanded. And all of this stuff was just a big, giant mess when you try and fit it all together.
[2:16:08] Yeah. Yeah, I find that moral imperative interesting because you need to pay attention to what exactly is the relevant information, what is the relevant effect of this action, and look at it in the context. So, I'm an electrician. If everybody were an electrician, would that be good? No, because society would collapse because we need other people too, right? Or, you could put it this way. I have acquired a skill and I go to work using that skill. If everybody did that, Well, I think society will work out pretty well.
[2:16:42] No, it wouldn't. Because somebody's going to have babies and raise them and breastfeed. So not everyone can go and develop a skill and go and get paid for it. And the other thing, too, is that a sociopath will say whoever is the coldest and cruelest should run society. And the strongest guy in the village will say, whoever the strongest guy is, I'm willing for that to be a universal rule. Whoever the strongest guy is should run society. And the guy who's a pathological liar and really charming and good looking with the Gavin Newsom gel helmet, right? He'll say, whoever is the most charming and best at lying should run society.
[2:17:19] And so- Yeah, we see the world through the lens of our greatest virtue, right?
[2:17:22] Right. So saying that everyone, that I'm willing to act as if the principle of my action becomes a universal virtue. I mean, the mafia, when they're going up and down the street collecting their protection money, they're perfectly willing to say, whoever's willing to use violence should get their way. And they're willing to use violence and the shopkeepers are not. And so they're acting on a principle that the most violent gets the resources. And so I don't think, I mean, I know for a fact, it doesn't answer the question of morality. First of all, there's no reason why you should behave that way. That's really foundational. And secondly, we can look all around and people do this all the time. A guy who beats up his wife says whoever's the most strongest and aggressive should get their way in this relationship, knowing that his wife is never going to be able to beat him up, right? So act as if the principle of your action becomes a general principle for everyone. If you're the best at something or you're willing to go further in evil than other people, you're happy to have that be the general principle because you'll generally win. So I don't think it solves the problem, which is why, again, if you're interested, obviously enjoy your Kant, but I would also suggest it's a free book at freedomain.com/books, universally preferable behavior, a rational proof of secular ethics. If you want a shorter version of it, essentialphilosophy.com, you can get the free book there as well. The last third of it goes over the theory of ethics that is designed to repair what Kant doesn't fix, if that makes sense.
[2:18:47] That's good to know I'll have to check that out yeah, Kant definitely had quite a few holes.
[2:18:53] Well, any moralist, prior to the 20th century, failed to prevent the 20th century, which was an age of absolute psycho bloodshed. And so when I look back at history, I mean, obviously there's an enormous amount to admire, you know, the standing on the shoulders of giant stuff, but any philosopher who has failed to either predict, prevent, or understand the 20th century, and Nietzsche came closest in many ways with his analysis of the will to power and what happens after the death of God. But.
[2:19:28] All philosophical projects failed to prevent the absolute wall-to-wall bloodshed of the 20th century. After a century of relative peace, at least in Western Europe, Franco-Prussian War accepted, fall of Napoleon 1815, start of the First World War 1914, it's almost 100 years of peace. So any philosophers which failed to predict that the free market would bring peace.
[2:19:51] But that the excess resources provided by the free market would breed tyranny, and that government takeover of education would breed a compliant slave-bound population. It's no accident that the First World War happened a generation after the government took over the education of the young, because they bonded with the state, and therefore they were willing and happy to obey the state. Whoever, people are raised by, they bond with. And so all moralists prior to the 20th century failed to prevent the 20th century. And no moralist prior to the 20th century focused on childhood, which is why I've got a whole book, Peaceful Parenting, which is the ethics and science of ethical, the morals and science of ethical child raising. And the fact that the most moral endeavor that almost everyone. The most moral endeavor that 99.999% of human beings embark upon is the raising of children. And philosophers have done almost nothing to deal with and solve that. So that's the sort of hole that I'm trying to fill. Somebody asked me about the book. The book is Universally Preferable Behavior, A Rational Proof of Secular Ethics. And it's available for free at freedomain.com/books. If you don't want to go through a longer book, there's a shorter version of the same theory. It's the last third. In my book, Essential Philosophy, I deal with simulation theory, I deal with free will, and I deal with morality, universal ethics. And so...
[2:21:20] Oh, do you like... Are you... Oh, wait, I need to phrase this in a different way. Are you for or against simulation theory? Or what are your thoughts on it?
[2:21:27] Oh, no, simulation theory is terrible. Yeah, it's... And not only is it terrible, it's the formulation and codification of a mental illness. The idea that we know when we wake up from a dream, whoa, that was wild, man. But it's an attempt to make, but somebody who thinks that they're in a waking dream is mentally ill. It's called psychosis. It's when you hallucinate and you don't know reality. And so if people think that they're in a dream or some sort of constructed reality as when they're waking, that would be a mental illness. And simulation theory is incredibly toxic to the mind because it tells people not that you're an objective empirical material reality, but you're in some sort of matrix VR simulation controlled by some external entity. It is the attempt to spread a form of psychosis. And in many ways, it's even more dangerous than drugs because at least you can quit drugs.
[2:22:22] Yeah. Yeah. I'm also, I think it's cool that you're writing those books on raising children because I think that a lot of people, they think of children as a completely separate category of being instead of thinking of children as pre-adults. You know what I mean?
[2:22:41] Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're just small adults and somehow people just emerge from their childhoods whole cloth and no, it's absolutely essential. You can't have a free society. If we use violence against children, we're going to always try and solve problems with violence, which is the essence of statism. And if we reason with children, they will grow up to be rational and curious and debating, and they won't go to violence. And we have to reason with children. We have to teach them a language called reason and negotiation. Otherwise, they go straight for the gun. And that's what goes on in society.
[2:23:16] Yeah yeah i find child psychology and developmental psychology to be very interesting, and seeing uh how that affects people and like you were saying earlier how a lot of the obesity is just caused by girls being sexually abused as um as kids
[2:23:32] and i mean that's just terrible yeah.
[2:23:34] Yeah okay i appreciate that and um obviously i'm happy to have you come back anytime it's true for all the listeners for the fellow who we talked about the parents he asked if he can come back, on, I'm sorry, it's been like almost two and a half hours and I don't even like to sit for that long, so I'm going to close off the show now, you're absolutely welcome to come back and set me straight about anything I got wrong, which I'm sure is a lot I really do appreciate everyone's time tonight freedomain.com/donate, please, please, please help out the show, October can be a bit of a slow month and I would really, really appreciate it, we are working our butts off here, running the website, all the AIs the X account, a wide variety of social media accounts. I'm still working on the audio book. I'm about halfway through the audio book of my new book. And the next book is going to be, and my next book is going to be a horror novel. I'm going to give Stephen King a run for his money. I've always wanted to try that. I'm going to give it a shot. So if you could help out the show, I would really appreciate it, James and I would both very much appreciate it. He's been doing fantastic work in research and general infrastructure maintenance so that I can focus on the yammering, the yammering. So, uh, we will talk to you donor only Sunday, 11 AM, and we're back on a regular schedule next week and freedomain.com/call. If you want to, um.
[2:24:53] Book a private session or a public call-in show, public call-in shows are free private sessions. You can check out at freedomain.com/call. Lots of love. Take care, my friends. I'll talk to you soon.
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