0:41 - Introductory Thoughts on Politics
0:52 - The Boredom of Political Discussions
1:57 - Zelensky's Peace Deal Drama
3:57 - An Analogy for Understanding
8:12 - The Dangers of Ideological Fanaticism
11:52 - The Lack of Leadership Integrity
13:17 - The Complexity of Courage
13:53 - The Issue of Accountability in Aid
16:31 - Historical Context of War
19:36 - The Illusion of Interventionism
22:48 - Hope for Peace and Accountability
23:53 - Transition to Audience Interaction
24:28 - Seeking Unconditional Love
25:48 - The Impact of Past Relationships
30:45 - The Nature of Manipulation
42:46 - The Consequences of Selfishness
48:32 - Recognizing Personal Responsibility
59:26 - The Influence of Narcissism
1:05:26 - The Complexity of Victimhood
1:11:15 - The Illusion of Subservience
1:25:04 - Coercion and Accountability
1:30:32 - The Victim Mentality
1:41:26 - The Challenge of Communication
1:52:57 - The Nature of Germ Theory
2:05:27 - Understanding Terrain Theory
2:17:07 - Fear and Social Control
In this episode, I delve into a range of political and psychological topics, starting with the recent interaction involving Zelensky, Vance, and Trump, which I observed closely. My interest lies not solely in the politics but in the nuances of negotiation and human behavior that surfaced during this encounter. Zelensky's behavior raised a significant question for me: how can a leader put their personal ideology or political alliances above the welfare of their nation?
I use an analogy to explain my perspective, likening it to a desperate husband trying to save his wife from illness while belittling the one doctor who can help her because of their differing views. The crux of my argument is that if Zelensky prioritizes his disdain for Republicans over his duty to his country, the implications for Ukraine are dire. His interactions displayed a lack of gratitude and respect, which leads to my broader point: political leaders often sacrifice national interest on the altar of ideology.
Moving further, I explore how the dialogue around intelligence—which can often be dismissed or deemed "boring" by some—plays a critical role in understanding political strategies, societal structure, and interpersonal relationships. Drawing on historical references, such as Churchill's flexibility in alliances during World War II, I illustrate the necessity of pragmatism over ideological purity in leadership.
As I shift topics, I transition into discussions about the broader context of American interventionism and how it perpetuates global conflicts. I critique how such interventions have historically led to long-lasting turmoil rather than peace, posing the question of whether doing so increases or decreases suffering globally. I want listeners to grapple with the ethical implications of interventionism in light of the complex socio-political tapestry.
The episode concludes with a candid conversation with a caller who shares their struggles with personal relationships and the concept of being loved unconditionally. This exploration ties personal anecdotes and psychological motifs back to the broader themes of human behavior discussed earlier. By dissecting their past experiences, we uncover layers of manipulation and victimization that often inform our adult relationships. I emphasize the importance of self-awareness and accountability, encouraging listeners to not only reflect on their narratives but to actively engage in their moral development.
Overall, this episode is an invitation to interrogate the intersection of politics, psychology, and personal relationships—advocating for a deeper understanding of self and societal dynamics for meaningful change. If you wish to contribute your thoughts on these complexities, I welcome your feedback and encourage ongoing dialogue.
[0:00] Welcome to your impromptu hey pinch punch first of the month as usual march 2025 the first noon-ish and i of course i have some thoughts as i often do and i also have some ears as i always do if you have anything that you wanted to talk to me ask me about chat me about criticize me about harangue me about harass me about i'm all ears as always i certainly have a couple of thoughts and I really did watch with very close attention the Zelensky-Vance-Trump interaction from the other day.
[0:42] And I think just while I'm waiting to see who wants to chat, I think I'll tell you what's going on because I do get exasperated, right?
[0:53] Like I enjoyed, I found politics interesting to talk about, but I got really bored talking about politics when everybody was rejecting IQ, right? And you can't really understand the world without understanding IQ. It's sort of like trying to discuss geography with people who think the world is flat. Like you just can't really, you can't really get very far. You can't really do very much with it. And it's sort of a round in circles conversation. And it did get as a whole, just kind of boring to talk about stuff when the central topic of discussion that's most relevant usually to these discussions is disallowed, is a disallowed. So I didn't get very far with that. I also find I still, you know, dip into the political realm from time to time. And I do find it quite...
[1:44] Annoying that, you know, there's this sort of meme, few understand, few get it, few understand. So for those of you who didn't watch it yesterday, it's more, to me, it's not about politics, it's about negotiations and psychology.
[1:58] So for those of you who didn't see it yesterday, what happened was there was a very interesting, normally this stuff happens deep behind closed doors or in encrypted chats or whatever, but there was a very interesting conflict that Zelensky, as far as I understand it, was brought to America in order to, well, I guess the general idea was to broker a peace deal. And as far as I understand it, Zelensky kind of backed out of the peace deal, at the last moment. Now, of course, Zelensky stays in power because there is a war. If the war ends, then he has to have elections. And I doubt the guy who's been dragging young men off the streets to go and fight at the war would be massively popular. So, I mean, it's a bunch of stuff going on geopolitically, not particularly interesting. What was interesting, though, was the conflict.
[2:54] And I'm not even sure the participants understand what was going on. I know that sounds lofty, but, you know, bear with me as I make the case, and we'll see if I can back it up. So, in order to understand this conflict where Zelensky was, you know, vaguely threatening and obstructionist and rolled his eyes and, of course, rubbed his nose quite a bit, as you would expect somebody who might have a bit of a predilection for the booger sugar, but, you know, very disrespectful, somewhat contemptuous, vaguely threatening, and so on. And, you know, showed up in his usual homeless attire and all of that. So, you.
[3:33] He was treating Trump and Vance disrespectfully, which meant he was treating the office disrespectfully. And one of the things that they talked about was his lack of gratitude. Now, of course, the mainstream media played back when Zelensky visited Biden and Harris, that he was grateful and humble and so on. But with Trump and Vance, he was belligerent and obstructionist and negative.
[3:57] And it got so bad that the Ukrainian ambassador, this woman, like just buried her face in her hands like it was just she knew she could see just how badly, it was going now people again i hate to sound this way but i'm going to be honest with my thoughts i was trying to be honest with you guys that people don't understand the mechanics of what was going on what was really going on so in order to help get at least my perspective across i think it'll be helpful i'll give you an analogy and the analogy goes something like this, You have a man named Bob And he has a wife Named Alice Alice is dying of cancer, Alice is dying of cancer And Bob Is just absolutely Desperate To save Alice's life.
[4:51] Right And there are two doctors That can save Alice's life One is far away One is close And he works with the doctor To save his wife's life And, you know, they're doing the chemo, the radiation, I don't know, whatever they throw at this kind of stuff. And Alice is hanging on. She's not exactly getting better. She's kind of in a state of limbo. She's not dying. She's not getting better. Alice is hanging on. And Bob is just every night, prayer vigils, candlelight. I've just got to save Alice. Alice is the greatest human being ever to exist. I can't be happy without her. She's the love of my life. I would do anything to save Alice, right?
[5:30] And then what happens is, the first doctor, let's make this politically accurate, the first doctor gets dementia, and is unable to treat Alice, so then the other doctor, is put on the case, the doctor returns from far away, he's put on the case, right? And in conversation, Bob, who is an ardent environmentalist, finds out that the new doctor, the new doctor is skeptical of anthropogenic catastrophic global warming right he's just skeptical of it he's like i don't know seems like the data's not really there it hasn't really happened yet and so on right so bob finds out that the new doctor doesn't believe in catastrophic, anthropogenic global warming this man-made co2 is destroying the planet.
[6:27] And then, he's incredibly rude and aggressive towards the new doctor, who's, by the way, who is treating Alice for free, because, you know, he cares about Bob and, you know, doesn't want Bob to be unhappy and so on, right? So then Bob gets incredibly rude at the new doctor, because he doesn't share his views on environmentalism, insults him, scorns him, mocks him, and starts trashing him, trash-talking him publicly, and calls him a little bitch.
[7:10] Now, if we were to observe this, Bob, remember, claims that Alice is the love of his life, he just, she's desperate to have her, he'd do anything to have her survive. But then, when there's a new doctor who he has some ideological disagreements with, he gets enraged, scorns the doctor who's giving his work for free, calls him a little bitch, and just alienates the doctor as much as humanly possible. Well, what would we What would we think of Bob? Does he love Alice? Or is he an ideological fanatic? In other words, he's willing to put Alice at massive risk by scorning, attacking, insulting, and denigrating the only doctor who can save her. Would we have a sympathy? And I think, like for Bob, would we believe Bob's protestations that he just loves Alice so, so, so much and cares about her so much, right?
[8:13] We would look at Bob as a deranged, cold-hearted, ideological lunatic.
[8:24] And we would no longer believe his protestations, that he loved his wife so, so much. And if he even threatened the doctor, well, I mean, we would recognize that he was putting ideology above that which he claims to love. And we would have sympathy for Alice. We might have some sympathy for the doctor he's insulting, but we would not have much love or sympathy left for Bob and we certainly wouldn't believe all his protestations that his wife meant everything to him and he would do anything to save her.
[9:06] In a nutshell, to me, that's what was going on yesterday. Like Zelensky thanked and was very positive towards the Biden administration and as J.D. Vance pointed out, Zelensky went and campaigned last fall for the Biden-Harris, well, for the Harris presidential campaign. So, does Zelensky hate Republicans or hate Trump and Vance more than he loves his country? Does Bob hate the doctor more than he loves his wife, Alice, since the doctor is the only one who can save him, and he's threatening and insulting and scorning and deriding him? and going back on his word. So really, that's all it comes down to. Now, if Zelensky hates Republicans more than he loves Ukraine, that's a problem, to put it mildly. That's a problem, because then love of country is not his fundamental motivation. I mean, if you love your wife, what do you care about the politics of the doctor who's going to save her life? Be a communist, be a socialist. I don't care, just save my wife's life. So, this is a test of virtue and integrity.
[10:26] If Zelensky was positive and friendly with Biden-Harris But is hostile and insulting to Trump-Vance That means that he is ideological, and he is willing to sacrifice the interests of his country for the sake of petty ideology. And that is not an inspiring leader. I mean, even Churchill, I mean, Lord knows the man had his faults, to put it mildly. But when Churchill, who was an avowed anti-communist, was confronted with working with Stalin to defeat the Nazis, He said, well, if Hitler should invade hell itself I'm sure I could find something good to say about the devil, So, that is the question. Is he a noble leader who is putting the interests of his country first? Or is he an ideologue willing to sacrifice his, not just his country, sacrificing a country is sort of an abstract concept. Is he willing to prolong a war because of his hatred of Republicans?
[11:45] Well, then he's willing to sacrifice untold, uncountable numbers.
[11:52] Of you know often teenage or elderly boys on the altar of his own ideological perversions, that's not super inspiring as a whole so that's really what was going on and that's what people got deep down i think in their gut about what happened yesterday that if you're willing to threaten and insult a doctor who can save your wife's life because you disagree with him about global warming, you're kind of a lunatic. Not a moral leader, not a virtuous person, but, you know, a semi-hate-filled ideological robot of blind praise and opposition depending on the shifting sands of the ideologies of those you're sitting across from. No particular abstract integrities, no commitment to virtues, and certainly no commitment to that which is best for your country and its inhabitants. You know, it's very, this is an old line from a Pink Floyd song. General sat and the lines on the map moved from side to side. It's very easy to say, we'll fight to the last man.
[13:04] When you're not fighting, and you'll never be the last man. It's very easy to be brave and proxy. You know, this would happen, I mean, obviously, a completely different moral sphere. But this would happen in my life continuously.
[13:18] That people would say, oh, Stef, you should talk about this. You should do that. All these anonymous accounts, you know, on their VPNs. Oh, Stef, you should do this brave thing. I'm like, hey, man, if you think it's an important topic, man, go for it. But I don't have as big an audience. Well, that's because you're not talking about these big topics. If you want to talk about a big topic, don't let me stop you. And so it's very easy to be courageous, right? There's this line. It's a great line from Shrek, Lord Farquaad. Many of you may die, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.
[13:54] And it's tragically true, right so yeah for zelensky to talk about being uh brave and and like you know what what risk is he at what risk is he you know i mean he's being handed hundreds of billions of dollars of which a massive amount seems to fall through the couch cushions that seems like the money just doesn't get where it's supposed to go and that's uh that's not ideal right i mean if you're handing people money you know if you if you say uh oh you know bob says i'm desperate to save my wife's life i'm gonna save my wife's life you know she needs money for her cancer treatment she needs she needs fifty thousand dollars for her cancer treatment and then you give him the money, and then you know later you say well you know i did give this as charity and i need this i need a receipt and i need to know how it was spent you know for for my accountant and he's like oh yeah I, uh, I seem to have lost about 30, 30,000 or that 50,000. I can't really tell you where the rest went. I can tell you that, you know, a lot of it was lost. And it's like, well, what do you mean lost? You said you were desperate for this money to save your wife's life. So how could you have lost the money?
[15:10] And why does your mistress have a new car, right? I mean, so it's very, obviously, beyond suspicious, right? It's, you know, if there's a leader who's genuinely, you know, whoever's going to help. And America's really the only country that will help. And, of course, whether America's help is actually help is a whole other question, right? If America hadn't helped, the war would have been negotiated to a resolution in the first couple of days, or a week or two. America's help has prolonged it. And this is, you know, part of, I just, I rail against Trump for this kind of stuff, which is hands over all of this weaponry and money.
[15:54] And it wasn't just him, of course, right? But Trump was bragging about how he gave Zelensky javelins and Obama gave him only sheets. I'm not quite sure what the Obama reference is about. Pretty sure it's not a KKK reference. But the fact that Trump is saying, well, without our help, the war would have been resolved years ago. And then Trump is taking pride at giving the weapons that prolonged the war. I mean, this is the awful thing that happened, of course, with the First World War, is that everybody was fighting for a standstill, right? You'd spend 10,000 soldiers taking a hill, then the other side would spend 10,000 soldiers taking it back.
[16:31] It used to go back and forth, like the narrowest, bloodiest crimson tide in the known universe. And this is another reason why they were desperate to get the Americans in and why they funded the Russian revolutionaries to take Russia out of the war is that there would have been, I think, and you know, I can understand why there would have been a bloody revolution at the end of the First World War if it had turned out that they simply had fought over nothing. The 10 million plus lives and entire regions had been destroyed for the sake of ending up.
[17:05] Pretty much where you started. That is not, this is why there usually has to be some kind of decisive victory, however horribly attained. I mean, as I'm sure you know, as I've talked about it before, the Germans funded Lenin and went up through Finland with arms and weapons and money to, to create the Russian Revolution, the communist takeover, which, you know, killed 70 million plus.
[17:32] Russians. And they did that to take Russia out of the war because they could not have a standstill. They can't, you can't spend three years and 10 million bodies for nothing. So you have to have some kind of resolution. And so one of the reasons why the war in Ukraine can't be resolved at the moment is if it's pretty much was going to be the same as what would have been negotiated a couple of years ago, people get a true sense of how pointless and horrifying and useless these wars can be.
[18:08] So it is, again, a desperately sad situation. And American interventionism, I mean, America's been intervening in Ukraine, I mean, certainly since 2014. And you can find my old videos on that if you're interested. But this American interventionism, oof, it is a bad scene. I mean, American interventionism in World War I led with a fairly direct trace to World War II.
[18:37] Because they were running out of troops, they were running out of money, they would have to have fought to a standstill and would have ended up pretty much where they started in 1914. But because they got America in, they could impose such a draconian set of peace terms on Germany that was partly responsible for the rise of Hitler and then World War II. So yeah, interventionism is the war to end wars, right? That was the Woodrow Wilson cry. Oh, the First World War will intervene because this is the war to end wars, right? How did that go? How was the 20th century in terms of war and combat and conflict after they had, after mostly a century of Franco-Prussian war excluded, but mostly a century of peace in Western Europe for really the first time in its history. And then this massive bloody war, but don't worry, man, this would be the last war we have in this war. So we never have a war again. And, uh, well, how did that go?
[19:36] There was war in Russia, and then, of course, the Second World War, which, as Marshal Fox said about the German peace, the armistice, the peace treaty, he said, this is, uh.
[19:52] This is not the end of war. This is just a pause in the First World War for 20 years, which, of course, he turned out to be extremely prophetic with regards to that.
[20:04] And you can, of course, look at the map of Ukraine over the last 100, 150 years and look at its original size and see how much territory it's invaded and absorbed. It's really quite fascinating. It's really because apparently, you know, just invading and absorbing territory is the worst thing in the world. But if you look at the current borders of ukraine and compare it to 100 150 years ago it's uh it's grown by 10 12 14 times its original size largely as the result of seizures and all of that so but this is you know people are conditioned to this mindset of cartoons and and, superman and lex luther and the all good and the all evil the plucky defenders and the rapacious villainous invaders and it's all it's like the level of ethics of a transformers movie good robots bad robots all good robots all evil machinery it's um it's uh it's sad but this is the level of like you either have straight up retarded good versus evil and there is good versus evil in the world it's you know just not usually in the armed conflict it's more complex, or you have these there is no such thing as good and evil endless shades of, moral ambiguity and nihilism and so on and it's really really sad.
[21:31] So I think of course we can all hope that.
[21:38] Oh, we can all hope that this war will come to a speedy resolution. I just did throwing more trapped and helpless slaves, men dragged off the streets, thrown into the front lines and told kill or die with little training. We can all hope that that comes to a swift end. And it's just amazing to me just how all the people who claim to be so caring are not caring about that. And no doubt the same thing is happening in Russia too. I'm sure Russia has conscription, is dragging people off the streets, throwing them into these endless flesh furnaces of young man disassembly conveyor belts. It's just absolutely horrifying. Absolutely horrifying. But I guess the other good thing is that the Department of Government Efficiency, by taking endless amounts of money away from all of these chess piece, bloody chess board moves from governments around the world, or certainly in America, but therefore governments around the world.
[22:49] Well, it is the hope that that which is not funded, the evil which is not funded, has less capacity to express itself.
[23:04] And evil has projects in order to extract money. If the money is not there, the projects diminish. And of course, it is, I think, a great hope and goal that there can be some peace in the region, and the native Russian speakers on the eastern part of Ukraine, the native Russian speakers will no longer be harassed, oppressed, have their languages and books banned and be shelled randomly. And the endless slaughter that is the razor-bladed chessboard of the elites, can draw to a close and we can learn something. I'm not holding out a massive amount of hope, but I'll certainly do my little bit to move that forward. All right, so if you have questions, comments, issues, challenges, I'm thrilled to hear.
[23:53] If you've got stuff on your mind, i'd be happy to a chat and i'm just going to give people a second here very nice to have everyone in today thank you for dropping by freedomain.com slash donate if you'd like to help out the show i would really appreciate it but i'm all ears uh yes my friend arcanaut what is on your mind.
[24:18] Holy cow, is this real life, man?
[24:22] Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? Yes, my friend, what's on your mind?
[24:29] Oh, man. I've been struggling with something for a long time, but it just really came up to a head kind of last night. But anyway, I struggle with the idea of being loved. Like, um, you know, I've got familial love. I have, I have a mom that really cares for me. And, uh, my, my dad is, he's, he's an okay guy sometimes, but you know, I have always had this desire to like be loved unconditionally by someone that didn't actually have to, you know? So that's something that I've struggled with. Does that make sense?
[25:08] I mean, all the words make sense. I'm not sure I grasp the deeper emotional meaning as yet. Uh, that's just because we're just meeting and there's nothing, no deficiency on your part, but.
[25:16] Tell me more about uh.
[25:18] About what you mean.
[25:18] Um i've never been really good at the dating and romantic relationship angle of life um i had a pretty traumatic kind of early on first relationship that caused me to stop wanting to date for a long time i figured i wanted to work on myself okay well let's uh don't give me.
[25:39] The flyby let's uh.
[25:40] Let's uh.
[25:41] Let's hop off the tour bus and explore the lion park uh tell me what.
[25:45] Happened in.
[25:46] That first relationship how old were you how long did it last and how did it go.
[25:49] Well um i was about i was about 19 and uh i felt like a late bloomer at that time already so i was you know very interested in you know getting late as soon as possible and you know having um an awesome relationship and all this so i kind of mistook all the red flags that came up and uh essentially what what happened was um it was it was a bit of a, narcissistic relationship where oh bro are.
[26:21] You killing me okay so.
[26:22] You just you're giving me.
[26:23] All these descriptors right right like narcissist.
[26:27] And i.
[26:27] Had these hopes and dreams and i wanted this what happens okay just just give me the facts first i guess if your.
[26:33] Interpretation was.
[26:34] Helpful you wouldn't be calling me. Right. So I know that your interpretation is incorrect because otherwise it wouldn't be torturing you. So, and I, you know, I say that with all respect and affection, but just that's, you just got to give me the facts first, because I can't find reality through your interpretation. I can only find reality with the facts. So just, you know, what, when did you meet? How long did it go on for? And I tried to prompt you with that kind of stuff, but you went Storyville, which is fine, but give me a facts and what happened. Did she cheat? Did she physically attack you? Like, just give me the facts first.
[27:07] Okay. Okay. I was in my undergrad. I met her during the time we were doing music together. And she was a bit younger. She was like 17 turning 18. And she had gotten in to, well, that's when we had first met, but we started dating a bit later. She was in university though so i'm not sure how that and out um regardless um we were doing the program together i started you know having lunch with her chatting we started dating and when she was younger i guess yeah yeah i think my wife went to university.
[27:44] About the age of 12 or 13 she skipped so many grades so.
[27:47] And she was from the states too and and this is not in the states now so yeah anyway sorry i don't know she was from the states.
[27:54] Too this is not in the states now i don't know what that means.
[27:57] Oh, well, I am in Canada.
[28:03] Okay, so you met in university and you and her were in the States?
[28:08] No, no, no, no, no. She had grown up in the States, I should say. So maybe she did her education, public education there, and that's how she skipped a grade.
[28:15] Okay, which university?
[28:16] We were doing university in Canada.
[28:17] Not which university, in which country was the university that you met?
[28:21] In Canada.
[28:23] Okay, so she was an international student from the States studying in Canada.
[28:28] I guess so like i'm not really sure her father has were had worked at the university, so it was a divorce hang on hang on i don't so she.
[28:38] Was from the states and she was studying at a university in canada.
[28:41] Yeah i think it was like a split custody kind of thing between parents her mom was in the states her dad lived in canada so i'm not sure if her um a citizenship situation or how that all panned out.
[28:55] Okay. So was she based in the States or split between States and Canada?
[29:00] Um she was based in canada like she was living in my hometown that i was doing my programming okay.
[29:05] But she spent some time in the states because of split custody is that right.
[29:09] Yes yes i believe so okay.
[29:12] Got it all right so.
[29:13] Um so you met and so you.
[29:15] Said you met doing music together does that mean you were in a band together or studying music or both.
[29:19] We were we were studying music um she was much more into the uh the recording art stuff that i was doing um I was taking basically a classical degree in voice at this one university.
[29:32] Okay.
[29:33] And anyway, so we met, we got along. It was really kind of cool. And essentially, what kind of started happening after a certain amount of time where everything was super ideal, she would just say things. And there were just all these really weird manipulations. And I was very naive at the time. I didn't really clock them. As they happened. And then eventually...
[29:59] Okay, so I don't know what that means. Super manipulations is another descriptor. Or subtle manipulations or whatever it was. So again, just tell me what she said and so on.
[30:11] Well, there was like a lot of kind of gaslighting moments. This was, you know, 10 years ago.
[30:16] Gaslighting is another description. I know, I'm just going to keep hammering on you this, right? Because gaslighting is a conclusion. And I'm not saying you're wrong. But gaslighting could be, I didn't kill your dog. or you did say you would pick me up at seven, right? So this is such a range. I don't know. Gaslighting is such a range of mild to egregious activities that when you say gaslighting, it's like you say, well, she did something wrong, like according to the eyes of the law. It's like, okay, did she jaywork or kill a football team, right?
[30:46] So just tell me the kind of interaction that would give you these perceptions.
[30:53] So there there was there was a lot and because i wasn't really aware uh of any of this stuff when.
[31:01] I was okay no no i'm gonna wait wait wait no no no no listen to me listen to me listen to me okay there was a lot and i didn't know how to this that the other you're still not giving me facts.
[31:13] Um okay she stole a cat.
[31:15] Okay fantastic we got to a fact yay we have got through the fog, She stole a cat, so tell me about that Yeah.
[31:27] So She came to me one day And she was like, I found this cat And I'm trying to find the home for it Or whatever, blah blah blah It's got like a tattoo on it's ear Or I think maybe I found the tattoo on it's ear And usually those tattoos are like either shots Or like some sort of ownership kind of thing I believe, Anyway, so I had kind of mentioned to her, oh, this is probably the way you can find the owner of this animal. And she's like, oh, yeah, that's a great idea, a great idea. And then a couple days go by, I talked to her again, whatever had happened. Again, this is 10 years ago. And she said, yeah, I went to the vet, and there was no nothing. I couldn't find anything. I've just decided to keep the cat. And uh it was like just a very odd scenario where okay you can keep this cat but it's not yours and yes she would never let it outside you know she found it outside it probably did want to go home but she um and sorry and how long into the.
[32:30] Relationship did she steal the cat how long had you known her for like how long had you been dating for.
[32:34] Oh um overall we dated for about four months and um this was probably month one or two i'm.
[32:43] Sorry how old are you now Yeah.
[32:45] I am 29.
[32:47] Okay. What are you talking about here? Are you saying you had a relationship 10 years ago for four months and you don't date because of that?
[32:56] Yeah. It was, it was.
[32:58] Um, that's an excuse. I mean, that's a little, you got to understand how shocking that is to hear, right?
[33:07] It is an excuse. And that's been my, I've been like a big, you're about all this stuff. And I, you've been a what? What? Okay. A big E or, you know, like Winnie the Pooh stuff.
[33:18] Okay. All right. So sorry. I interrupted your story. So how did the cat theft play out?
[33:25] She took it in. She renamed it. She didn't really ever address it further. And I guess I didn't either because I was a bit, I was always put off by it, but I didn't want to impede on her kind of thing. Um, the reason that this was such a big issue for me and the reason that it caused such a problem and a rift in my life.
[33:49] Hang on, hang on before, before you get back to narrative land. So how do you know, I mean, did she steal the cat? Like she took it from someone's backyard or, or did she steal the cat? Like she found a cat wandering around and never found the owner.
[34:05] I think it was an outdoor cat. Yeah. So she found the cat wandering around and I don't think she even put in the effort to find the owner, even though she said she did.
[34:14] Okay, so why didn't you do it?
[34:17] Great question. I was young, dumb, and I really wanted to be with this girl. And I was afraid that it wouldn't have panned out.
[34:27] Okay, how pretty was she?
[34:31] I mean, at the time, she was very, very pretty. I don't know what she looks like now, but like, yeah.
[34:37] Why would I be talking about her now? Come on, man. Do you think you looked through the tunnel of time And saw her in 10 years When you were 19 Okay so she was hot right 1 to 10 what are we talking Just body and face Like 7.
[34:54] 7 and a half.
[34:57] So she's hang on If you had 4 girls She'd be the prettiest And if you had 100 girls She'd be about 25 Prettiest So not stunning.
[35:10] Not like deathly stunning.
[35:12] So she's Beyond cute And just on the fringes of, yeah okay all right so so hang on so um did you have a sort of special you know the pharonoms the biological connection the chemistry did you did you would just lust did you lust after her were you drawn to her in that kind of way or that could be independent just of looks.
[35:38] Yeah yeah i i was i was pretty drawn to her and and um it was it was a bit of a challenge at points because she was a bit of an interesting person. And, you know, at some point she said she was asexual. And at other points she would paint, like, a blue mustache on her face and walk around university that day with a mustache. And it was, you know, a bit, like, demeaning to me. Or, like, you know, I just felt...
[36:06] Okay, hang on, hang on. I'm sorry, I'm sorry. My spider sense...
[36:10] One more thing.
[36:11] Hang on. No, no, no. I think you're trolling me. I think you're trolling me.
[36:14] No. I'm not, man. She was a witch as well.
[36:19] Okay. I think she was like, I didn't wake up. No, it's not because she walked around with a blue mustache, which is pretty funny in a way.
[36:27] Well, that only happened the one day to be sure.
[36:29] Okay, you got to let me talk, right? Did you call up to listen or just to talk?
[36:35] I called up to do a little bit of both, but mostly to get your perspective.
[36:39] Okay, so can you do a little bit in a second?
[36:42] I will.
[36:42] Okay. so the reason why i think you're trolling me is not because you're saying these outlandish things, but you're saying them as if they're not outlandish well she did this you know she walked around with a blue mustache she's asexual uh she stole a cat you know like these things are just normal right or or within the realm of normality but this woman's insane, i mean she's deeply disturbed from what you're talking about and yet you're talking about like Well, yeah, she walked around with a blue mustache. Right? So that's why I think you're trolling me in that you're saying these things. You know, like being like me saying, yeah, yeah, I dated this girl. She thought she could fly. She would occasionally wake up and think that she had lobster claws. You know, the usual.
[37:26] Yeah um i i promise i'm being legit um i had like a hole in me that made me feel unlovable even at that time and uh this girl showing even the slightest bit of interest even though she was off the wall wacko now when you said she was a witch and she's like a genuine like she.
[37:47] Was a genuine witch like she was she believed she was a witch.
[37:50] Yeah i forget i remember she was clarifying to me once she was like uh i'm like wicca and not wiccan or wiccan and not wicca i forget which yeah and that's.
[37:59] A big difference.
[38:00] To them it is allegedly i don't know i know but just outside it's not yeah yeah okay so uh.
[38:09] So you dated for four months and uh did you.
[38:12] Yeah you intimate yeah we were intimate which um i guess would have been you know the goal for me at that time right was sure.
[38:20] Yeah you're 19 yeah.
[38:21] I felt behind yeah anyway so we were intimate a few times um, there were it was it was not always the most pleasurable because she wasn't really she would either pretend not to be into it or like just wasn't really into it um asexual right, well she she said that yeah it's.
[38:42] Like dragging your pacifist girlfriend to a war movie she might sit there but you'd.
[38:45] Be pretty clear.
[38:46] That you're not enjoying it.
[38:47] She's not enjoying it right okay Yeah.
[38:50] All right. And was this the first woman you had sex with?
[38:56] Yeah. Yeah, it was.
[38:58] Okay. And then what happened at four months?
[39:03] She had become really quite cruel in her speech towards me. I wish I could remember a specific example. But eventually at some point she mentioned that she had to end things because I was being very toxic.
[39:20] Right which i agree with yeah i agree with that i mean she was right about that.
[39:27] Uh i i wouldn't really say so but.
[39:29] No no no it's not that's sorry this is this is not open to interpretation you were being i'm not saying she wasn't being toxic but you were being toxic for sure because you were just there for the sex, You didn't like her as a person. You didn't respect her as a person. You didn't value her morals and her integrity and her virtue and her honesty. You were just there to get laid. And I'm sure you lied. You're asked, oh, I like you, I care about you, I love you, which is not true. You were just horny. And I'm not condemning that. I'm just saying that that's a fact, though, because this woman did not have qualities of character that would arouse great moral admiration on your part, right? And like, I say this with humility. I'm not like, I'm not saying, oh my, I never, ever told a woman I liked her when I was just there for sex. Right. So I'm not, I'm, I say this with all humility. I'm certainly not condemning you, but you weren't there for the qualities of her character. You were there for sexual access.
[40:31] Um so this is uh i i exactly understand where you're coming from i think i haven't been like totally 100 maybe clear i was actually quite spiritual at the time and uh i was i was all with her on the spiritual element i was actually quite um with her to be with her in some ways Okay.
[40:52] Do you want me to run through a few things that you've told me that she was verbally harsh or abusive towards you, that she stole a cat, which I know sounds kind of funny, but that's really heartbreaking for someone. Like people get really attached to their pets. She stole a cat. That's deeply, deeply immoral. I mean, that's worse than stealing someone's bicycle or whatever, right? Because people have a relationship with their pets that is very strong. And this pet was obviously cared enough for to have a tattoo and all of that so she stole someone's beloved pet that's monstrous and then she of course paraded around with blue mustaches and whatever else so yeah verbally abusive uh a thief uh presenting herself as deeply disturbed and she's asexual but still has sex but doesn't enjoy it i mean this is a deeply disturbed and immoral woman.
[41:48] Yeah.
[41:48] So you saying that you were spiritual doesn't mean shit to me. And if we're going to be frank, I mean, you're pushing 30, right? You got to be frank about this stuff.
[41:57] Yeah. Yeah. True.
[41:58] So if you weren't there because she was a deeply corrupt, vicious, and immoral woman, so what were you there for? Right. That's a huge minus. So what was it that made it a plus? Sexual access. That's it. And what else was there? Did she lavish you with expensive gifts?
[42:17] No that definitely not.
[42:19] Right did she help you uh did she help you with your homework and help you get great grades no you were there so she has these massive massive minuses right so she had minus 100 but she she had plus 110 because of sexual access so you hung around her to get in her pants and you lied to her about how much you like her just so you could sleep with her, I mean, to be honest, right? I'm not condemning, but that's what it was.
[42:43] I guess 19-year-old me probably would agree with that.
[42:47] I don't, I'm asking you at 29, was that what was going on?
[42:51] Yeah. I mean, I guess, you know, I think you're right in a lot of ways. You know, there's always more and more context that could be added, because I did have really strong feelings for her. I said, I love you to her first, and that was after.
[43:07] Okay, all right. Hang on How long into the relationship Because you're only there for four months right How long into the relationship did you say I love you.
[43:18] I wish I could tell you I would say it would be about the halfway mark Guessing but.
[43:22] I really don't know So you've been going out for eight weeks Right yeah When did she steal the cat When in the relationship just remind me.
[43:33] Um I mean it would have been after the i love you point so maybe uh again like i don't know.
[43:41] Okay but.
[43:42] Let's say for simplicity's sake i said i love you a month and a half in and then she stole the cat at the two month mark.
[43:49] Okay so six weeks into the relationship six weeks after starting dating her you say i i love you which is you know a little bit bullshit but okay so uh so tell me what you what you loved about her what what because you know me like i'm the philosopher guy so love is our involuntary response to virtue if we're virtuous. So anything that's not based upon virtue is a manipulation. All claims of love not based on virtue are manipulations. So what did you love about her? Personality, character, morals, integrity, whatever. What did you love about her other than the fact that she had two legs, she was willing to spread like cheap buttons?
[44:31] Yeah, it was the sex. You know, making me go back. I said I love you under duress. She was threatening this, threatening that. I don't remember the specific thing, but obviously it's like a relationship.
[44:43] Okay, do you talk to human beings much? Are you really isolated in your life?
[44:52] Not terribly, but romantically, sure.
[44:56] Do you talk about deep thoughts and feelings with people much? Because you're really confusing to listen to.
[45:07] The funny thing is I do, and I've always kind of considered it to be something I'm good at articulating.
[45:14] I apologize for not doing that. I'll just give you an example, right? I don't want to, and again, this is not a condemnation or anything. I'm just sort of pointing something out. I'll give you an example. So you said, we just had a few minutes talking about how you said you left her first it was eight weeks, then it was six weeks. That's fine. I mean, it's 10 years ago. I'm not expecting granular levels of time detail, but you said, I told her I loved her, right? And then a few minutes later, you now say it was under duress. Right like if someone says if someone says i robbed a bank and then later says i was kidnapped and forced to rob a bank those are two completely different things do you understand yeah yeah so when you say i love i said i loved her and then you say well i said it under duress or compulsion, that completely erases the earlier statement, and yeah okay why are you laughing why are you laughing this is not funny i don't understand why this is funny i'm.
[46:15] Laughing it i'm laughing at my stupidity like at how um how i frame things right it's it's it's not honest.
[46:23] And i don't know what i don't know what it is i don't know what it is but i can tell you that it's confusing like i feel like yanked all over the place here and i've been doing this for like decades so i i have some experience in these conversations okay so in what way were you under duress when she got the words i love you out of you please don't tell me it was no.
[46:49] Well she was threatening you know a lack of access to sex and like you were saying I was kind of in that.
[46:59] Relationship for that. What did she say?
[47:02] Man, I wish I could tell you, but the essence of it was that she was going to probably break up. And for me to not make that happen, I decided to say the I love you words. Oh, hang on, hang on.
[47:15] Hang on, hang on, hang on. So this is the third iteration of this screwed up merry-go-round in that you claimed to be under duress.
[47:26] I think that was a bad Verd choice on my side You think?
[47:30] Because that makes you the victim Now you're the victimizer Because she wants to break up with you And then you lie to her and tell her That you love her just to keep access to sex That makes you the asshole Back then, You're the manipulator. Like, all you've done is complain about her. But if she wants to break up with you and you're like, oh, man, I better keep access to sex so I'm going to lie to this woman and tell her I love her so I can keep banging her, you're an exploitive jerk back then.
[48:00] Yeah, and I was acting selfishly.
[48:03] For sure. Okay, so you weren't under duress. You were actually manipulating her.
[48:09] Well i mean like the the element that might not have been so apparent at the moment was that was part of her manipulation game two um she's she's quite played an unkind person and uh i don't think her plan was really to break up with me as much as it was to like emotional hooks. Okay, go ahead.
[48:33] So you keep focusing on her moral deficiencies. In this conversation, we've pointed out, and I say this again with sympathy and understanding, I was a young man once too, back in the antediluvian era when we were trying to get out of the water and involve some legs. So I understand lust. I understand not being straight or upfront with women or lying to women for sexual access right it's every man's temptation this is why there's a sin called lust and thou shalt not bear false witness right so you lied to her and told her you loved her in order to get into her pants and then you have the gall to tell me she's an unkind person are you kidding me.
[49:16] Well i mean there's just a lot of history that we're skipping over. I don't care what history was skipping over.
[49:22] Hang on. What statement did I just make that I got wrong? If I got something wrong, please correct me.
[49:29] You didn't get it wrong. I was acting selfishly.
[49:33] Well, yeah. So you were being unkind. You were lying to this obviously disturbed woman offering her love, which was false, in return for sex, which was real. You were selling a bill of false goods in order to get the real goods called sexual access, the false goods being that you loved her.
[49:49] Yep.
[49:50] Yep, 100%. So what happened then in the last two months of the relationship?
[50:02] So I either have like a wacky story or I have the conclusion. Which one would you rather hear?
[50:10] I just want facts, as I keep telling you. I don't want wacky stories or conclusions. I just want facts. Right? Because when you tell me, well, I was under coercion, and I was under duress, and it turns out you weren't, I just need the facts. So what happened? How did the relationship end?
[50:29] Well, so let's go to that then. She mentioned that I was being toxic, and I took that very much to heart, and I did a lot of research, and I did a lot of self-work, and I did work on correcting the parts of me that seemed to be ungenuine and disgenuous. I'm sorry, what?
[50:50] No, disingenuous, that's fine. So what did she refer to as toxic in your actions? What was she describing?
[50:58] Not a single thing there was not a single specific thing um the conclusion i arrived at after the fact and and i mean you're not going to like this and i just wish i had the, the memory to to kind of describe some of the the circumstances but uh i i found out that it must have been some sort of projection that somebody that she had dated prior called her toxic and and for her to um kind of get rid of that label she she chucked it onto me to be fair like you mentioned i was only in it for the sex there was a toxic element i was like 19, and um i didn't really know better hang on hang on hang on hang.
[51:38] On so you claim moral excuses because you were young i understand that i'm not you know i mean you're still six years away from brain maturity, right? Because brain maturity for men is around mid-20s, right? So, but you say, well, I was, you've said this a number of times, like I was, I was young, I was dumb, I was this, I was that, right? I mean, so you claim, and I'm not disagreeing with you, but just to establish the principle, you claim that youth is an excuse for bad behavior, right? I'm not trying to trap you. I just want to make sure that we understand that's a principle, right?
[52:19] I guess.
[52:20] No, no, no. This is not a guess. You have repeatedly said in defense, and I'm not trying to pull down that defense. I'm not. I'm not trying to trap you here. You've repeatedly said, look, I was young. And now you just said, well, I was only 19, right? So youth is an excuse for bad behavior.
[52:39] I think my biggest...
[52:40] No, no, just God's sakes, man. just give me a yes or no is that a principle that we've established in the conversation, yes okay yeah now she was younger than you, yes so what excuses have you given her for her bad behavior given that youth is an excuse for bad behavior and she was younger than you by two years yeah yeah so so and those are two big years right they.
[53:15] Are two big.
[53:15] Years yeah that's like that's like 10 percent of your age so that would be like you know that that's that's quite quite a lot of years right at that age right okay so because you haven't said well she was doing bad things but of course she was only 17 or 18 or whatever it was 17 i guess right so why is it that you get excuses for bad behavior at 19 but you've not given her any excuses for bad behavior at 17, or just is it just for you she's fully responsible at 17 but you're just a young idiot at 19.
[53:56] I mean i i kind of feel feel trapped here like um i i know what you're getting at and and i.
[54:05] Understand i'm not getting at anything i'm stating it very clearly i'm not trying to hint at anything here i'm just curious i'm curious i'm curious how you get an excuse for youth at 19 but you've not given her a single excuse for youth when she's still legally a child, Because people.
[54:27] In my research after that breakup and everything, I went down a deep rabbit hole towards narcissism and understanding it. And I got at the point, at that point in my life, where I felt that basically people with the dark triad, personality, narcissistic, borderline, sociopathy, I don't consider them narcissistic. People as much as other people. And I know that's very cruel to say, but I don't even know what you're saying.
[54:56] So a narcissist will generally have a moral standard that excuses himself or herself.
[55:04] She then can ignore to condemn other people.
[55:08] Right. So the typical narcissistic, and again, I'm just using this term as an amateur, right? But the typical narcissistic statement is if you confront a narcissistic mother, she will say, I did the best I could, but the knowledge I had, you shouldn't be upset with me. I was doing the best I could with the knowledge I had. But at the same time, when you were a child, if you failed to study for an exam and failed it, she would never accept that excuse from you well i i did the best i could with the knowledge i had and she would say no well you should have studied you should have learned more you should have done better right so she has a standard which excuses her own behavior which she then suspends in order to condemn other people does that make sense yes and or the narcissist will say the narcissist will say you should let go of the past and you should move on right but when you were a child the narcissist would get angry at things you did last week or last month, right? So when you're criticizing the narcissist, you should be more mature and move on and not be upset about the past. Like my mother would say this to me sometimes, right? My mother would still be angry at my father, you know, 25 years after their divorce, and then she would have the gall to tell me to let go of the past and move on, right? So it's a double standard where the narcissist gets all the excuses and then they suspend that rule for somebody that they're criticizing.
[56:36] Yeah okay and i'm not calling you i'm not calling you a narcissist but what i am saying is that you have kind of the same thing where you excuse your own bad behavior because you're young but you don't excuse any of your girlfriend's bad behavior even though she was even younger.
[56:52] So, everything you described about narcissism is something I've experienced personally. I had a narcissistic father, and I wasn't aware of it at that time during that relationship. And after dating that girl, it all kind of came into focus why I was this way. In the literature, there is a system of... I'll just get right... I'm getting right there. There is codependence, and then there's counterdependence, right? Counter-dependence would be the narcissist would be the whatever counter-dependence kind of seek codependence for this narcissistic supply because it's a lot easier to get um emotional energy and like what you want out of people that need um uh have an external locus of control which means.
[57:40] Sorry i'm just gonna let me just make sure i d uh technical this for the because we're talking to a general audience here so i think i follow what you're saying if i understand this so let's say that as a narcissist you want a lot of praise you want people to praise you and so what you do is you find people who are susceptible to disapproval you bind them to you with sex or money and then you withhold approval or inflict disapproval if they don't praise you and that way you get your narcissistic supply of praise based upon threats and rewards of those who are dependent upon your resources or approval is it something like that yes and that is.
[58:18] What she did to me And I understand everything we've been talking prior has framed me as also a bit selfish. And I agree, at that time, I certainly was. I was unaware and unaware.
[58:31] Hang on.
[58:31] A bit selfish?
[58:33] You told the disturbed woman you loved her when you didn't in order to get in her pants. Is that just a bit selfish? Again, it's not some big blanket condemnation, but that's pretty selfish, isn't it?
[58:44] At the time, I thought that's what love was.
[58:47] What, lying women get in their pants? Yeah.
[58:51] I mean, just getting any attention from women at all. I was very sheltered when I was young, and I didn't have much of a career.
[59:00] Oh, so she's narcissistic when she's cruel and manipulative, but you're just sheltered.
[59:09] I'm codependent.
[59:12] But codependent is a fancy word for victim. And you're trying to portray yourself as the victim of this cruel 17-year-old legal child, your helpless, sheltered victim.
[59:27] And I'm pointing out that probably the reason you're not dating is because you haven't recognized your capacity to victimize others.
[59:37] I think in the past 10 years, I have recognized that capacity.
[59:42] At that time, I certainly did not. I've got to tell you, I just don't believe you because, and this is all recorded, right? So you can go back and listen to this, and you can listen to how much responsibility you took for inflicting harm on the 17-year-old girl when you told this story. You portrayed yourself as a complete victim.
[1:00:07] I mean, like, how do you describe, you know, different instances of, like, manipulation and gaslighting 10 years after the fact? It was a constant battle for my sanity.
[1:00:18] You say the following. You know, I'm 150% moral responsibility guy. You say, well, you know, when I was 19, I dated this woman a couple of years younger than me, who was disturbed from a bad childhood, was also inexperienced. And I manipulated her. I lied to her. I told her I loved her just so I could continue to have sex with her. I told her that I really liked her when all I wanted was sexual access. It was cheap and shallow and wrong of me. and my God, have I learned to treat women better. That's how you describe it. But that's not at all how you described it.
[1:00:55] Because there was abuse involved from her as well, like a quite significant amount. And that's the challenge that I'm, like what you said.
[1:01:06] But you're like two thieves complaining about the other person being immoral. That's bullshit. You're like two people engaged in a criminal enterprise saying, well, I was a victim and they're the criminal. And the other person said, well, I'm the victim and they're the criminal. It's like, no. Yeah. Did she do things that were wrong? Sure. Absolutely. I accept that. But I'm not talking to her. I'm talking to you. If I was talking to her, even though she was 17 and therefore would have more of an excuse of youth, I would tell her the same things. But I'm talking to you. And you came to me, I hope, to get some truth. And everything that I'm saying, I backed up by what you've told me. So you can continue to pretend that at the age of 19 you were just a foolish and youthful uh victim of this scheming evil 17 year old child or you can say i did i did wrong now does that mean she didn't do wrong, no it doesn't mean she didn't do wrong but this is 10 years later into your own conscience i'm working with not hers that.
[1:02:11] That makes sense to me that makes sense to me.
[1:02:14] So how did it finally end at the four-month mark.
[1:02:17] Um uh essentially i, we we we stopped talking um we happened to live near each other and ride the same city bus to school or whatever and i would just kind of not regard her and she would not regard me and that went along for about.
[1:02:39] No no but that tells me what happened after it ended and I'm sorry if I missed this because we just were getting into it before but what was the final straw how did you go from boyfriend girlfriend to ghosting each other on the bus.
[1:02:56] I mean, it was over text, and I'm sure it was something, you know, she was the one who ended it, I guess, if that is more what you're looking for.
[1:03:03] Oh, yeah, sorry, she said you were toxic, and then you said you read a bunch of stuff and you worked on your toxicity, and then what?
[1:03:13] And then I learned that there was a lot of people in my life that were that way, that I was this kind of individual that attracts people that want to take advantage. I was very naive. I grew up Mormon.
[1:03:29] Oh, my God. Honestly, this is just fucking relentless. Oh, I was taken advantage of. You lied to a woman to have sex, and you claimed to be a victim who was just taken advantage of? I mean, seriously, bro.
[1:03:46] No, I'm holding myself to task for all of that.
[1:03:50] For sure. No, what you just said was, I attract the kind of people who take advantage of me, and I grew up very inexperienced. And listen, I sympathize with that. I really do. And by the way, I sympathize with you for all of this. I really do. I'm not condemning you. I haven't called you any bad names, and I won't, right? I've specifically said, I'm not calling you a narcissist or anything, so I haven't called you any bad names. I'm not condemning you, but we do need to look at things as they really are. And this is the rare time in your life where you'll talk with someone who will give you the straight goods. This will probably never happen again in your life. This is why I put so much effort into these conversations, because this is a now or never scenario. You exploited this woman and you were older and you had less excuse.
[1:04:36] You exploited this woman. It doesn't mean you're a terrible guy. It doesn't mean you're going to hell. It doesn't mean you're evil or anything like that. You were lustful. You were horny. She was offering sexual access. And, you know, we evolved this way, right? I mean, men evolved. We have to get sexual access because, you know, at certain times in history, many times more women reproduced than men. So men was rare. So whatever sexual, Whatever we need to say to get sexual access is kind of how we're involved, so I'm not giving you any kind of condemnation. But you can't play the victim with me when you also lied to this woman to maintain your sexual access. You can't claim that you were exploited and that she just took advantage of you and so on, right? And you were just naive.
[1:05:26] No, you were calculating. You knew what to say to get into her pants And you lied to her and told you, That you loved her When you just wanted to keep getting in her pants And again, there's not some big condemnation But that's the facts of the matter So when you tell me that, well, you know, people take advantage of me And I'm just naive, and it's like, nope, that's not it, I'm not saying that people don't take advantage of you, sure But you take advantage of people too, Yes.
[1:05:52] It's like a It takes two to tango kind of thing Is what you're saying, right?
[1:05:56] Are you still a Christian?
[1:05:59] Um great question i'm i definitely not mormon.
[1:06:03] Okay let me ask you this when it comes to the biblical injunction why are you looking at the speck of dust in your brother's eye and ignoring the beam in your own do you think that it is better for your moral development to focus on the failings of others which you cannot change or yourself or to focus on things that you yourself can improve.
[1:06:23] And this is why i took my 10-year hiatus in dating because i i think.
[1:06:31] You're really good at answering questions do you remember like literally 10 seconds ago i just asked you a question.
[1:06:40] Yeah, and you asked if it's better to morally judge others or to work on yourself, kind of. And what was your answer?
[1:06:46] Did you answer? No. You said, this is why, blah, blah, blah, but I don't know what your answer is.
[1:06:51] To work on myself.
[1:06:52] Okay. So if you believe that it is better to work on your own moral failings than to criticize others, particularly when they're younger than you, then why did you not begin this conversation by focusing on your own moral failings, but instead just complaining about... Your 17-year-old ex-girlfriend and kind of playing the victim, right? Because that's complaining about others and not saying, here's the things that I did wrong.
[1:07:22] Because I have this stupid victim mindset. And I know that I just come up against this. And it's not just with you, but it's my life. It's this whole problem where I feel victim all the time. And, you know, after these 10 years, after that traumatic experience back then, it was traumatic for me.
[1:07:45] Okay, so I sympathize with that. I'm sorry to interrupt. I really am sorry to interrupt. But when you say it was traumatic for me, I'm not disagreeing with you and I sympathize with that. But tell me what was traumatic about it? What was the specific traumas that you experienced that had you off the dating market for a decade? And again, I say this was sympathy and open-heartedness and open-mindedness. What were the traumas?
[1:08:07] Um, well, the biggest thing was that was, I mean, there, there were so many, you know, in my, in my research, but the biggest thing was basically learning that I'd been, um, kind of pegged as a, as a loser amongst certain people. And, you know, somebody who was easy to get a rise out of. And, uh, I, I fought for a long time to kind of correct that part of my personality and I still have, you know, weak spots. Sorry the trauma was that as.
[1:08:40] A result of you dating the witch people called you a loser.
[1:08:44] No so this is it was a realization that I was surrounded by people almost exactly like her that, fostered unkindness and I'll give you a quick example you know I wish we didn't have to linger on the examples all that much but this one was a bit of a hell I bet you do.
[1:09:06] Because then you can stay safe in the world of manipulative narrative. All narratives have elements of manipulation. As the old saying goes in law, people lie, documents don't. Just the facts, right? So you'd like to stay in the realm of narrative because then you can control my perceptions. Whereas if I get the facts, then I can come to my own conclusions, which may be different from yours. So this is part of you not being a victim. Wanting to stay in narrative is wanting to stay in control of the information. Like you can't see the source documents. You can only tell, you can only get what I say are in the source documents. It's like, no, I just want to look at the source documents. Why won't you let me look at the source documents? I don't want you to look at the source documents. That's because you don't want me coming to my own conclusions based on the facts. So I understand that, but I won't.
[1:09:49] Okay.
[1:09:50] Okay. So the trauma was that you, because I thought you said the trauma was that you were called a loser by some people around you. And then you say that the trauma, sorry, no, you did say that.
[1:10:02] Well, I don't, I didn't mean for that to come across that way, I guess.
[1:10:06] I don't know. Sorry. This, you said, I may not get this verbatim, but pretty good listener. It's kind of my gig, right? So I asked what the trauma was and you said, well, there were certain people around me who thought I was a loser.
[1:10:19] Yes, yeah. So thinking, yes. Calling, no. Well, hang on.
[1:10:22] How did you know they thought you were a loser if they never said it?
[1:10:29] Basically, that was my red pill moment on like what manipulation was and, you know, how I act in the world and how others act in the world. And I had placed myself in a number of friendships, relationships.
[1:10:41] And I mean, I realized my own father. I'm telling you, man. I know. No, I'm telling you right now. Try not answering my question one more time, and I will bid you a good day. I'm not having a conversation with a fiction machine. Now, you don't have to answer any of my questions, but it's really rude to pretend I didn't ask them. What was the question I just asked?
[1:11:13] I'm sorry i don't i don't remember.
[1:11:16] Okay the question i just asked was, you said that people never called you a loser but you knew that they thought you were a loser and i asked how do you know they thought you were a loser if they never expressed it that was my question then you went off on some narrative bullshit so i just i need an answer to my question or if you don't want to answer it that's fine i at least need an acknowledgement that i asked the question so what is the answer you say people thought i was a loser and then you say but they never said that so then my question is how did you know that they thought you were a loser if they never said that you were a loser.
[1:11:58] It was the manipulations in the friendships. And allow me to just say, this is an example, a personal example of this specific moment. I'm not trying to spin a yarn here. I was friends at university at the same time with this alcoholic kid, and we would drink quite a lot. It was my first experience drinking. I was just ex-Mormon. And he would basically make me walk around as his shopping cart. So he would say, hey, what do you want? And then I'd say, oh, well, why don't we try this rum? He said, okay, grab it. And then he'd say, hey, what do you want? I would carry everything. And so there's a subservient element.
[1:12:36] You mean in a store? Is that what you mean by shopping? I don't understand.
[1:12:39] Yeah. Oh, yeah, like in a liquor store, right? Okay, so he would say.
[1:12:43] Carry these drinks, and you would carry the drinks.
[1:12:46] Yeah. And my whole life up to that point, I had realized was a succession of those kind of subservient impulses.
[1:12:56] Sorry who paid for the drinks yes.
[1:13:00] He did um.
[1:13:01] So hang on hang on so again this is another victim narrative i had to carry some drinks it was so humiliating but you got no okay do you do you want to interrupt me again i'm sorry can i continue please okay so you got hundreds or maybe thousands of dollars of free drinks. And your complaint is that you had to carry the bottles for five minutes or 10 minutes, right? Now, that's a pretty good deal. Let's say that he bought $30 worth of liquor or $40 worth of liquor. You got 20 bucks worth of liquor for carrying some bottles for 10 minutes, right? So 20 bucks worth of liquor for carrying bottles for 10 minutes is a lot of money that's 180 dollars an hour you're getting paid like good good rates there right that's 360 000 a year that's crazy money so you claim to be a victim but you were scamming free drinks off a guy why was he paying for the drinks why didn't you have to pay for any of the drinks.
[1:14:13] Um, because I didn't drink as much as him, I guess. Um, and, and I wish, you know, that was just the one issue that, that I ever had, you know, but, uh, I was, that's like a microcosm of many such cases and not all are so.
[1:14:32] You can't complain about an example when you, the one who delivered it. Right. But you understand you were getting free drinks from the guy and you were complaining that you had to hold the liquor bottles. For a few minutes. Now, he could say, this guy never once offered to pay for drinks. He was a real exploiter. He totally took advantage of me. Do you understand how, from his perspective, like, would you rather hold drinks for five or ten minutes or pay 40 bucks for the drinks? Well, I'd rather hold the drinks for five minutes, so you got the better end of that deal, but you're claiming to be a victim.
[1:15:09] I mean, like, it's not... It's not the case that every single time, I never bought this guy a drink in my life. There was give and take, for sure. I admit he was on more of the giving end, but he was also the kind of guy that could finish a whole bottle in one night. He would go daily, basically, to the liquor store. And again, that's not a really helpful... I'm not trying to morally condemn. I'm actually, I'm really happy to mention that he's clean now from booze and stuff. I'm very happy for him. But it was that using Element, he gathered a lot of people around him, me included, that were treated in a very subservient way. It's almost like he was a bit of a cult leader. Yeah.
[1:16:07] He was a cult leader i i there are no facts to support that other than he bought you some drinks when.
[1:16:12] I say i i said a bit of a cult leader right i didn't say that he was a cult leader but i'm saying you know some.
[1:16:18] No but there's cult leaders subservient this that and the other i mean you're just i mean you're spinning a narrative i can't have any input in your narrative so i mean i have nothing to say about that i mean well see i don't know i don't particularly trust anything that you say because i just spent five minutes pointing out how you also victimized him by getting free drinks, and this was never addressed. You just go off on some other tangent. It's like trying to push two opposing magnets together. Trying to get you to take accountability seems to be practically impossible. You exploited him too. You got free drinks from the guy. You didn't offer to pay very often. Now, he drank more. I get that, but you still got free drinks from the guy, which is kind of exploitive. And yet, you're still the victim. You're still the victim. He's kind of a cult leader. He treated people badly. You got free drinks, and you were there by choice, but you're a victim. He paid for stuff, you consumed it, but you're a victim, right? So I get that this is something you're so wedded to, you can't even see the other side. You can't see how you could possibly exploit people. Like I told you, you lied to a woman who was clearly disturbed. You lied to a girl. She was 17. You lied to a girl who was clearly disturbed in order to get into her pants. That's exploitive. I mean, it's pretty horrible. And yet you're still spinning me this narrative that because although you got free drinks and free parties from the guy you had to hold the bottles for a couple of minutes therefore he was an exploiter and you were just a victim you can't even i don't know that can you can you understand how from the outside you also might look like you're exploiting him for free drinks.
[1:17:48] Yes i do.
[1:17:51] Okay i just i just need that acknowledgement because you keep skating past it like i didn't say anything.
[1:17:58] Yeah well yes i i from everything that has happened from everything the way that the conversation has has evolved i entirely understand that and.
[1:18:09] No it's not from the way the conversation has evolved it's from the empirical facts you've given me and you also made a promise to me which you've broken, which is dishonorable i'll be straight up with you do you remember what the promise was.
[1:18:28] To not spin narratives?
[1:18:32] The promise was, I asked you, how did you know people thought you were a loser if they never expressed it? And you said, I'm going to tell you, I'm going to get there. And then you told me some story about carrying drinks and getting free drinks and you never actually answered my question. So I trusted you, right? You're like, I need an answer to this question, right? And you don't give me an answer to the question. And I say, no, no, no, I need an answer to this question. I'm like, no, no, no. I'm going to give you an answer to the question. Just let me do it my way. And then you take me on some bullshit story, which doesn't answer my question. Do you see what I mean? How did you know your friends thought you were a loser if they never expressed it? I mean, you forgot that question entirely, right? Now, for me, when somebody makes a commitment to me, I take it very seriously. I mean, I make a commitment to you to tell you the truth and to provide reason and evidence as to why I'm saying what I'm saying. When you make a commitment to me, when I say, hey, man, you didn't answer my question. No, no, no, I'm going to answer it. And then you start off on some story and I say, damn, man, this is not going to answer my question. And you're like, hey, man, let me answer the question. I'm going to answer the question. And then you completely forget about the question and take me on some ride of language, which has nothing to do with either the question or the answer. And then you completely forget that you made that commitment. I'm just pointing it out. This is why it's very tough to communicate with you to keep asking you questions and then you get offended when i tell you you're not answering i'm not you're not answering them and then you promise to answer them and then you don't answer them.
[1:20:01] I'm very sorry i wish i was able to be a bit more um direct and clear and less yarny um this is actually something i criticized my dad for quite a lot it's it's just something that um.
[1:20:13] Well it just means people aren't going to want to talk to you because unless you're paying someone, nobody's going to want to chase these ghosts all over the landscape and this is a bit of a feminine thing and also it indicates a weakness manipulation and self-doubt right so you made a claim my friends all thought i was loser and then i say well did they call you a loser no but i knew that they thought it okay well how did you know that they thought you were a loser if they never called to. That's a genuine question. Honestly, it's been 20 minutes. I still don't have an answer. Who on earth is going to bother communicating with you if after 20 minutes, you still don't have an answer to a basic question? Honestly, who's going to bother? I'll do it. It's kind of my gig. It's my job, but I'm telling you, most people won't. They'll just give up. Oh, forget it. It's just a maze. It's just a foggy maze with no entrance and no exit. It's too much work. You're like some politician You know like you see politicians You ask them a simple question And they just take you all over the hell's half acre With the answer And it's exhausting And nobody wants to deal with that, Just get used to answering questions. Get used to answering questions directly, and the quality of your relationships will go through the roof.
[1:21:41] So if you say, my friends called me a loser or thought I was a loser, and then you say, well, they never called me that, and I said, well, then how did you know? Then you could say, huh, you know what? I don't have a good answer to that. You're right. I don't know that, so let me withdraw that. That's totally fine. Or you can say, well, they didn't say it, but they spray painted it on the wall, or my garage doors. Okay, well, then I answer, right? But when you don't answer direct questions, quality people will not want to be around you because quality people recognize that they're mortal and don't have forever to chase around your avoidances and evations. So if you want to have quality people in your life, you need to answer questions directly. Otherwise, it's just manipulation, fogging, and gaslighting.
[1:22:33] And i'm saying this out of genuine affection for you and sympathy for how you were raised right you weren't raised in a direct way you said your father was kind of narcissistic and and so on so i i i say this with great sympathy i'm really trying to kind of shock you out of this fog bank that you live in and saying if you contact people directly answer questions directly and honestly and, don't take people on some narrative journey that leads nowhere because they'll just give up on communicating with you because it's my job but it's not most people's job most people have the choice between talking to people who aren't direct and don't answer questions and talking to people who are direct and do answer questions does that make sense like you're in competition with people who are clear and direct.
[1:23:23] Yeah yeah um.
[1:23:28] And you've done a lot of reading it sounds like in psychology and self-knowledge right you've got a codependence and counter-dependence and narcissism and right so you've done a lot of reading in this stuff and i don't know what you've been reading or who you've been reading but the first thing to do when you start to develop higher standards than you were raised with is to look in the mirror. And listen, having been raised religious, having been raised religious, you would know that. You would know that virtue starts from within. That virtue starts with self-criticism, not endlessly complaining about a 17-year-old girl from 10 years ago.
[1:24:20] And I do know that, and it's been a journey. You know, the only reason, yeah, I agree. The only reason they called in was because I want to get further along that path, right? The answer to why I felt that my friends at that time thought I was a loser, was because I was being placed in circumstances where I was either derided or put in like a subservient position. And I'm sure that's not the answer you were looking for.
[1:24:55] Sorry, you were placed? Sorry, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. Sorry to interrupt. So you were, I just, because I don't know what you mean by you were placed in situations.
[1:25:04] Did you choose to go to the liquor store with your friend who asked you to carry the bottles?
[1:25:14] Sometimes it was a bit more coerced, but yeah.
[1:25:16] Okay, great.
[1:25:17] Okay, so tell me.
[1:25:18] Hang on, if you're going to use the word coercion, I need to know what you're talking about. Because the last time you said coercion, you weren't really direct and honest about it. It was just a girl who wanted to break up with you. That's not coercive, right?
[1:25:30] So I would drive him to the liquor store. And oftentimes, I wouldn't even be drinking that day. He would, in exchange, he would offer to, you know, cook mission noodles or something, you know, like cook food after we got booze or whatever. But it was very much a case of a transactional friendship. Maybe what I, yeah, I'll stop now because I don't want to continue spinning narratives. But does that make sense? Is that more along the lines of what you wanted to hear?
[1:26:02] Okay, the way you phrase things, the lines of what I, I just want to hear the truth. If you're telling me you were coerced, that's serious business. Right? If a woman says, I was coerced into sexual activity, that's sexual assault or rape. Right? Coercion is serious business. That's the initiation of the use of force. That's deeply immoral. So if you're going to say, I was coerced, I'm alarmed that you had a friend who used violence or threats to get you to do stuff, that's scary as hell. So when you say i was coerced and then you say well he made me dinner in exchange for me driving him to the liquor store i'm like what the fuck is going on so how were you coerced, into going to the liquor store and drinking and hanging out with this guy how were you coerced, um
[1:27:07] You know, I think, again, maybe my vocabulary isn't the best.
[1:27:11] No, no, don't make excuses. Don't do it. Well, there was no coercion. No, don't go down that road, man. Do not do it. Did you grow up speaking English?
[1:27:24] Apparently not, man.
[1:27:24] No, don't give me apparently not. Give me direct answers or this conversation will not continue. Now, that's not a coercive threat. I'm just telling you that's my standard. Did you grow up speaking English?
[1:27:36] Yes.
[1:27:36] Okay. You listen to a philosophy show, right?
[1:27:41] Yes.
[1:27:42] You didn't just randomly dial, right? So you listen to a philosophy show that is highly complex in its use of language. Are you saying that you don't know what the word coercive means when you listen to a moral philosopher who's defined it about 8,000 times over the course of 20 years? Obviously, you haven't listened to every show. but when you say coercive that means force or the threat thereof to coerce someone is to bully them with threats or violence, so when you said you were coerced i need to know what you mean, now offering to to make you dinner in return and you said this okay are you am i still talking So offering to make someone dinner In return for you You drive him to the liquor store He makes you dinner Is that coercion? No Okay Saying will you hold these bottles As you go through the store Is that coercion? No Alright Buying you drinks Is that coercion? No So what is coercion? How do you say I was coerced?
[1:28:59] I wasn't aware that coercion only explicitly means physical threat of some sort.
[1:29:07] Okay, what does coercion mean to you?
[1:29:09] I'm a person.
[1:29:10] Hang on. Oh, it's fine. What does coercion mean to you?
[1:29:13] Go ahead. I'm a person that can get steamrolled quite easily in conversations, and I get steamrolled quite easily in frames. And the coercion element for me is basically being guided towards certain outcomes that somebody else wants. That's what the coercive element is. You know what I mean? And you might want to say it's, I'm trying to argue a lack of free will or something. At that time, I would argue it was closer to that. And when I became aware of those relationships and those circumstances, I backed away. And that's not the answer you wanted to hear.
[1:29:59] Okay, so being guided towards a particular outcome. I don't know what that means. Like if you have a tutor who's teaching you some math thing, he's guiding you towards a particular outcome. But I don't think we would call that coercive, would we?
[1:30:14] I guess not, but what would be the term you use?
[1:30:18] Well you use the term you must know what it means you also know i guarantee you know that it's going to get you sympathy because somebody who's being coerced is a victim.
[1:30:32] And then there's that victim mentality thing. Shoot.
[1:30:41] All right. Let's look up the definition of coercion.
[1:30:45] I'm looking at it.
[1:30:46] Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. I'm still talking. So, actual or threatened force for the purpose of compelling action by another person, the act of coercing. Use of physical or moral force to compel a person to do something or to abstain, thereby depriving that person of the exercise of free will. so that's coercion.
[1:31:03] Moral force do you could could you do me a real solid and describe to me what that would mean.
[1:31:11] I would assume moral force would be something like um uh have sex with me or i'm going to tell everyone that uh you had sex with me anyway and you have herpes and gave me herpes or something like that or uh do what i say or i'm going to condemn you as evil publicly i would assume it's something like that but it's you know some particular act of aggression it's not encouraging people right because we can't i mean when you go to a car dealership they want you to buy a car and they encourage you to buy a car it's not coercion right the restaurant wants you to like they say hey uh would you like any drinks uh they're trying to upsell you right or would you like some dessert their desserts here are really really good i used to uh describe perfeterols when i worked at a seafood restaurant and i had this way of describing them that just when i would describe them that way just about everyone bought them am i coercing no i'm selling, So, when you say coercion.
[1:32:06] The threat element has to be pretty there and significant. And of course, you have to accept the moral definition. So if somebody says, you need to do what I want you to do, or you're a selfish asshole, and I'm not going to hide that from everyone, right? Okay, maybe that's sort of a moral threat. They're going to call you a bad name or whatever, right? But of course, you have to agree with the moral evaluation, and you also have to respect the people they might talk about in order for that to work so there's still an element of voluntarism in that right so maybe extreme levels of verbal abuse would be considered coercion but that would be more true of course, with parents right so when parents uh morally condemn a child right for not agreeing with them or having a different opinion right if they morally condemn a child but you're just you're just a selfish, selfish, bitter, ungrateful, you know, whelp of a whatever, right? Okay, well, that could be a sort of moral condemnation, but it has to be in order to do something. Just calling someone an asshole is not coercive, but saying, you have to do this, or I'm going to use violence or threat thereof, or some sort of extreme moral condemnation or whatever it is.
[1:33:19] That would be more, the moral condemnation would be more to do with the parents because people can't morally condemn you if you're not their friends, right? At least in a way that really impacts you, right? So you have to be in the orbit of someone. Now, children don't choose to be in the orbit of their parents, right? So children don't have any chance to escape. And of course, children, the words land like craters on the hearts and minds of children because their identity is still in the process of being formed, right? So this is why I do count verbal abuse as a violation of the non-aggression principle against children because it's a form of psychological.
[1:33:57] Poisoning where and children don't have a choice whereas of course adults have a choice in who they hang out with so if somebody condemns you morally i would still wouldn't call that coercion unless they have some kind of direct power over you because you're still choosing to be in that relationship if that makes sense so yeah so that's that's coercion and it's a word that, uh that brings a large right it's a word that brings great sympathy to people So if you say, I was coerced, then in the law, that means you're not guilty. So again, if you rob a bank and then it turns out there was a guy who'd strapped some explosives to you or something and was going to detonate it if you didn't rob the bank, then they go after the guy who strapped you with explosives and you're no longer considered responsible for robbing the bank because you were coerced. You were under a situation of coercion. So coercion means that you're a victim of an unchosen, you weren't part of the gang, you didn't choose to be in that gang. So coercion means that you're a victim and the word for you was not chosen accidentally because it portrays you as a victim So then of course, I must ask because you've already said you've told me I have a problem With portraying myself as a victim. Do you remember telling me that?
[1:35:13] Yes, I do.
[1:35:14] Okay. So I of course I as a kind caring person. I want to help you with your problem And so if you say I was coerced and you've already told me, Please help me with my problem of portraying myself as a victim Then when you say I was coerced guess what i'm gonna try and help you with the problem, You told me to help you with like if you're an alcoholic and you say, okay, i'm going to go to a party Please, please, please i'm begging you help me not to drink too much, and then I tell you Don't drink too much Am I helping you? If I remind you and tell you don't have that drink man, you already told me right This goes back to the Greek story of the sirens, right? That the Greek hero strapped himself he wanted to hear the sirens, right? The women who sang on the dangerous rocks in the ocean. And.
[1:36:09] He wanted to hear their song because it was so beautiful, but the problem was it was so beautiful that men would dive over the ships to swim to see these sirens, and then they would die on the rocks. And so the Greek hero said to his sailors, okay, man, just strap me to the mast. I just want to hear this song, but whatever you do, do not untie me from this mast, right? So then they tie him to the mast. He hears the song, and he begs and pleads and conjoles and demands and threatens. You've got to untie me from the mast. I forget what I said before and they don't untie him from the mask and then later he's like well thank god you didn't untie me from the mask because then I'd be dead right so you say to me Stef please god help me not be a victim help me not have a victim mindset and then you say I was coerced by a friend who offered to make me dinner I'm gonna say okay I'm gonna help you I'm gonna do what you asked I'm gonna try and help you with the victim mindset so then if you say you were coerced, you and I both know that you weren't, but you're going to take me on a half hour journey to try and avoid that fact. Because coerced is, oh yeah, man, he took my dog hostage and was going to kill it if I didn't drive him to the liquor store. He threatened to murder me in my sleep if I didn't drive him to the liquor store. That's coercion.
[1:37:26] Now, you and I both know that's not what happened. What happened was maybe he put some pressure. Oh man, come on. A good friend would drive me to the liquor store he cajoled you he encouraged you he tried to sell you on the idea of driving him to the liquor store that's not coercion that's not coercion i mean this is a famous story of the singer madonna who wanted the lead role of eva perron in uh the musical you know they don't cry for me argentina and and she you know rained audition tapes and she rained.
[1:38:00] Insistence and and here's how i'm going to do it and she really really lobbied hard for that role and she ended up getting the role, And Joe Pesci also lobbied very hard, I think, for the Rolling Casino. And the guy said, no, you're too old. And then he got youthful makeup and sent that audition tape in. And he lobbied really, really insistent. That's not coercion. Being insistent and really working hard to try and get what you want, that's not coercion. Coercion is some deep, important threat.
[1:38:35] And so yeah if madonna had said you cast me as eva perron or you know i'm your brakes might not work in your car okay that's that's a threat or uh you know you cast me as eva perron or i'm going to spread a story that you sexually assaulted me uh in can four years ago that's a threat right now you and i both know you weren't in that liquor store because you were being threatened, now maybe you're a little bit compliant and maybe you wanted people to like you and maybe you wanted to get along i get all of that and i sympathize with that i really do i really sympathize with that but let's not spread this story that's a coercion like this let's not do that because that's that's and that's that's stealing from people who are genuinely coerced right because that you you're taking the sympathy you're taking the sympathy we would reserve for people who are genuinely coerced and then trying to apply it to you just because you wanted to get along by going along so sorry go ahead i.
[1:39:36] Agree i think i chose the wrong verbiage there i um.
[1:39:39] Oh no i shouldn't sorry i don't think this is going to work no you didn't choose the wrong verbiage you manipulated you used a word specifically designed and this is probably the end of the convo just so you know because I really put everything into trying to get you to take responsibility. And now this is passive aggressive. I chose the wrong word. No, you didn't. You chose exactly the right word to play the victim. That was not an accident. You have not once chosen a word that gives you more responsibility and less victimhood. Every single time you tell your stories, you choose the words that give you the most victimhood, coercion being a big one. So you didn't, I mean, this is why you just can't be honest. And like, I'm really sorry about this. I do try to put my best effort into these conversations, but I think I have to recognize when I'm defeated, because you can't even admit to being manipulative with that word. You say, well, I chose the wrong word. And then that's designed to make me look crazy for nitpicking about some, oh, and I just made a mistake and you're haranguing me for 20 minutes. No, I'm really trying to get you to wake up to, the self-pity, the manipulation, the victim narrative, and so on. So the fact that you chose a word that portrays you as a victim every single time, that's not just choosing the wrong word, but I don't think that I can get through. So I'll give you the last word there. So go ahead.
[1:40:54] I'm just very sorry. I'm sorry to end up this way. I really appreciate all the work you've done.
[1:41:00] It didn't end up this way. This is the result of you continuing to manipulate rather than be direct and say, you know what? I use that word. I know it. It's going to evoke sympathy and pity. And that's just part of the bad habit. I could respect that. I really, I could totally respect that. But if you're saying, well, I just, I guess I just picked the wrong word. Right. That's just more, more of the same. It didn't end up. This is the result of your specific choices.
[1:41:24] I'm sorry okay no problem no.
[1:41:26] Problem at all appreciate the conversation all right so let's do one more little chatty chat monsieur le victor if you want to unmute i'm happy to hear what is on your mind.
[1:41:36] Hello hello stefan can you hear me i.
[1:41:39] Sure can how you doing brother.
[1:41:40] Not too bad how's the cloudy weather across the lake uh cloudy yes uh not so fun normal winters are back right, right yeah uh so i just had a quick question um i put in a comment uh on just a post i'd seen members put in but i guess one very interesting topic i've been really learning and researching about still lots to learn but i it's just the idea of i guess when you come to that paradigm of health is what we know and all this kind of stuff so sorry we have the current you.
[1:42:13] Said help or health what was that.
[1:42:15] Health health health okay yes yes so um as you know it's the i guess the term they use for the um health that or system that we have is allopathic and i'm sure you've heard the terms of holistic or whatever other terms but i'm sure you've heard of also germ theory correct uh oh yeah, So have you, I'm sure you have come across, or someone's at least mentioned that. Have you ever heard a little bit about or looked into what is terrain theory?
[1:42:45] What theory?
[1:42:47] Terrain theory.
[1:42:48] Terrain theory, like T-E-R-R-A-I-N?
[1:42:52] Yes, T-E-R-R-A-I-N. Like landscape or whatever. One R or two R's work.
[1:42:58] Sorry?
[1:42:58] Yes, yes.
[1:42:59] I think it's two R's. Okay, so I have not heard a thing, a smidge, a speck, or a particle of terrain theory.
[1:43:06] So uh take it from there okay well i guess the basic gist of um terrain theory versus germ theory germ theory explains that people get sick through microscopic you know germs whether it's bacteria or in this case viruses and that kind of stuff that's what makes people sick whereas terrain theory uh argues that um it is actually not the case that it's you know bacteria germs but it's rather the environment of you know what you put in your body what you're surrounded so basically it's like what you eat what you drink what you breathe you know if the terrain is degraded or poor quality or that kind of stuff that's what makes people sick rather than germs or you know viruses and that kind of thing so that's kind of like very sorry to interrupt but i if.
[1:43:49] I remember rightly so a listener sent me a book some years ago about like.
[1:43:54] There's no such.
[1:43:54] Thing as germs and he was like really really really really keen that i read i read it so i certainly did read some of it. And it was sort of like that the Spanish flu was to do with radio waves that were sort of being introduced. And I don't remember the whole thing because it's been sort of many years. But the idea is that germs, viruses, bacteria, this kind of stuff, they don't really exist, that it tends to be the environment that is causing you to become ill in some fashion. And I'm sure I'm bastardizing it to some degree, but that was my sort of general understanding of that case.
[1:44:31] No worries um so i guess uh well i guess that's one quick example i can give.
[1:44:37] I i guess uh from what i've heard from their argument of terrain theory of let's say spanish flu was that it's actually uh the reason why especially a lot of younger people are getting sick is because of the whole um you know world war one and all these toxic you know gases and everything that was being spread across the whole you know environment in that case and that's why you had so many people getting sick because one very big case study that they like pointing to was um before i guess germ theory was really entrenched in the way of you know how people think was they did an experiment uh i believe by a gentleman named rosenow and it was in conjunction with the u.s navy and what they did is basically took a hundred you know strong strap you know military men of very good health and they subjugated them to all sorts of natural means of exposure of how people would say they get sick so they literally took the the healthy men and put them in these sick people had them coughed sneeze in their face swabbed the you know saliva and snot and implanted in the back of their throat and had them hang around the sick wards and they could not get any of those men sick no matter what they tried and after that you know uh they haven't.
[1:45:44] Really done anything to that magnitude of of basically you know trying to get people sick through natural means because nowadays they say the way it's done it's all in the lab it's all by you know cell cultures and all this kind of stuff but ultimately they say that's not through natural means of methods of getting sick because in turn they take this you know soup that they make in a petri dish and then inject it directly into a spine or into a brain of a mouse or in the sorts and say oh they're sick versus.
[1:46:11] Naturally doesn't happen and even whatever you inject is going to get you sick through that means so basically their big argument about especially virology is they do not follow controls in terms of coke's postulate is you know you need to have a control and this is what they don't do is that they don't try taking these cell cultures and they don't try to basically.
[1:46:30] See if the same effects happen even if they don't add the you know so-called virus and they never have gone done that because i guess they say when they do it has the same effect so ultimately um i was curious like if you would ever consider just like you did a very good uh study in regards to talking to top scientists about you know iq and whatnot um if maybe you'd be interested in looking into this sphere of talking to you know actual doctors who were trained you know traditionally in the system that we have it and now are proponents of this terrain theory after doing their own research so the two like you know a couple doctors that come to mind are dr sam bailey and her husband dr mark bailey but also stefan lonka of his project virology and i was wondering if that's something that would ever interest you to maybe look into because um i know you're not a big government guy i'm not either um but it just seems the way the whole you know, covid19 pandemic was handled is just uh it just it doesn't seem to be getting any better and ultimately uh you know from what i've looked at it's uh it seems to be just consuming more money resources and people aren't getting any healthier and keep on getting sicker and governments keep on getting more powerful with this this whole i guess germ theory paradigm that's kind of like the whole idea well no no hang on hang on hang on but the.
[1:47:51] Germ theory paradigm is not causal or related to people getting sicker and sicker. And the reason I say that is, I mean, obviously the basic example would be surgeons who wash their hands prior to surgery, right? So this was not at all believed. In fact, in the Middle Ages, people believed that dirt and not washing protected you from germs, created like this mud enclosure that germs couldn't get through or illness couldn't get through. And of course, I think it was the 19th century, there was this guy who was like, you know, we should probably wash our hands before we open up people's bodies and root around in their innards and he was considered insane he was attacked his license was taken away and he ended up being beaten to death by an orderly in an insane asylum which is a pretty high price to pay for saving you know hundreds of millions of lives because and so when doctors started washing their hands then the infections among operations went down very considerably and sort of very quickly and so on and i think in general i've certainly noticed i try to wash my hands you know i don't know i'm not obsessive about it but um i don't really don't like getting sick so i wash my hands a lot and generally i don't i don't get sick uh unless i forget from time to time which i think everyone does so uh i do i.
[1:49:07] Have that uh it seems to be a fairly established fact the guy of course remember stomach ulcers in the 50s were considered to be caused by stress and then it turned out that a guy thought they were caused by a particular type of bacteria and he ended up proving it by ingesting that bacteria having all the symptoms of a stomach ulcer and then taking the um antibiotics to kill off that bacteria and thus resolving his symptoms and again this is just two examples that pop to mind And so I don't see any particular, I mean, I'm as skeptical of mainstream merit as just about everyone. I think the germ theory is pretty well established, which is not to say that environment is not an issue, but basically the illness model is the result to me, not of terrain versus germ theory. The illness that is so prevalent in Western countries and in particular in America is simply the results of economic incentives that doctors make no money when you're healthy and doctors make infinity money when you are sick and on government paid healthcare regimens right so so if if somebody individually like if if if you had a private insurance system then if somebody ended up with a chronic ailment the insurance company loses a massive amount of money but But because government, you know, they print money, they borrow money, they tax money, and they can pay for infinity pills.
[1:50:30] Then doctors make their money and the pharmaceutical companies make their money not from health, but from illness. And of course, any system that makes its money from illness and not health will get a progressively more ill society. And of course, in Canada here.
[1:50:52] Your surgeon, sorry, your doctor doesn't make any money if you're well, right? Because they only get paid if you come in to see them and they get paid if you keep coming back to see them. And the pharmaceutical companies make money when you buy all of their pills and so on. And again, a lot of this stuff is funded or subsidized by the government. Or, of course, as we saw with the case of COVID, there were liability protections from the medical intervention. I really can't even call it a vaccine because they had to keep shifting that definition like sand.
[1:51:22] So to me, the question, I'm sorry, I'll stop in a sec, but the question of why people chronically ill, they just follow the money. And it's sad to say, right? But people respond to incentives, right? The basic principle of economics. It's sad to say, and there are heroic doctors out there trying to do the right thing, but that's sort of like saying they were hard working people under communism. Sure they were, but the system as a whole just rewarded corruption and sloth and so on. So people respond to incentives and most people don't have this magical inner integrity. And I'm not saying you suggesting that they are, but most people don't have this magical inner integrity that they do the right thing no matter what. Most people would just respond to incentives. And if doctors get paid a fortune for X, Y, and Z procedure, then shockingly X, Y, and Z procedure becomes enormously common. So that's on the supply side. On the demand side, of course, people would rather take pills than fix their lifestyle a lot of times, right? So there's not just the supply side, there's the demand side. Like maybe you're depressed because you're surrounded by abusive, dysfunctional people. No, it's a brain imbalance. It's a chemical imbalance. I'm going to take a pill, even though there's no test for it. Nobody knows. They just scattershot these pills until you, I don't know, get stupefied into some sort of coherence.
[1:52:36] Yeah. So there is the supply side, which is those all government funded only makes money if you're sick. And then there's the demand side, which is that people would rather take 40 pills a day than get on a treadmill. So a lot of people, right? So I think those two things are combining. I don't know that it's particularly correlated with the rise of the germ theory, which has been around since ancient times. But sorry, I had a long speech there. So please go ahead.
[1:52:57] No worries. You let me go, I'll let you go. So no, you're definitely 100% correct in regards that that's part of it i guess the way to like the way at least i'm understanding it is that the germ theory is basically like it's the vehicle that allows the current system to drive it on that's like that allows the whole you know well uh you know go to the doctor and they prescribe you some drugs and then this and that's you know it's it's all because of this you know germ virus or you know whatever like basically they have well hang on hang on hang on.
[1:53:28] Just a sec just a sec so because the three big money makers are psychotropics, statins, and diabetes treatment. Now, none of those, as far as I'm no doctor, obviously, I don't think any of those rely on the germ theory.
[1:53:45] Well, that would, yes, that would also be environmental. But I guess my focus in on is when it comes to like, you know, the past five years of seeing the whole pandemic and how, you know, just the amount of control that governments were able to exercise over this idea of, you know, of a virus, which is in line with germ theory. And basically, you know, I don't see them slowing down anytime soon. That's kind of like where I'm coming from the concern of, you know, this germ theory is what basically allows the whole, you know, that system to ride on and not saying that there's other factors such as, you know, obesity and all that stuff that's, you know, directly correlated with, you know, environmental factors are within their, within their direct control. Control but when it comes to stuff that's not within their control such as oh then this new flu is out this new bird flu is out and all this stuff that you can't control and keep people in a state of fear and paralysis that only they have the answer and can do it when in reality that's what germ theory explains that that's just how it is versus when terrain theory explains it's actually not due to germs but it's actually all within a person's control of their environment of what they put in their body what they you know what are they eating and all this kind of things or it's basically the idea that the human body of health is all perfectly there it's no no i'm sorry i.
[1:55:02] I get the theory but i i guess just my basic question is how how.
[1:55:07] Do they overturn.
[1:55:09] You know thousands of years of theory and 150 years of specific scientific research showing, de-identification of germs, showing germs attached to water droplets in the air, showing germs attacking healthy cells, showing immune system responses that kill the germs. Like, I'm, you know, this, to me, you know, to be frank, I'm kind of in flat earth territory for, with this kind of stuff. It's like, hey, I'm skeptical. Hang on, let me finish. I'm skeptical and I'm, you know, I get all of that. And, but you know, there's, I've seen the videos, there's a lot of science, you know, there's like, it's, I just curious, how, how do they overcome all of this uh what seems to be pretty clear empirical evidence of germs and infection.
[1:55:50] So i guess it's all about the context is that it's like all right you've seen a video you said germs like you said attaching on like but do you actually know what the exact concept or the context of that you know video like what is it actually is what is this germ or that because um i was in the same category and like i said i'm not 100 percent there in terms of fully accepting it I fully believe that perhaps the truth might be somewhere in the middle.
[1:56:14] No, no, no, you're dodging. I'm asking, you say, well, what's the context? And I'm not fully there. That's not answering the question. How do they overturn all of these specific clear infections, stuff, bacteria, right? I mean, everybody's had this thing where you eat a slice of bread and you're like, oh man, it's moldy. And then you get sick.
[1:56:35] I mean, that would be a kind of infection, wouldn't it? I mean, so there's, you know, everybody's had their personal issues. You know, somebody comes home with a cold. Everyone in the family who's in the same house generally gets the same cold. Some kid comes home from daycare with a cold. Everyone gets the same cold. So everybody has both personal experience that's consistent with germ theory. There's tons of scientific evidence. I mean, that's asking a lot to overcome because it would be like you and I in space looking at a sphere of the earth and you saying it's a flat earth. Like, I understand the flat earth, it looks flat when you're sort of down among the weeds and looking at the horizon, it looks flat. I get all of that. But we all have personal experience of, you know, infections and so on. I've had, I remember when I was a kid, I scraped my knee and it got infected and I had to have, they put iodine back on it, which is a bit of a nuclear option when it comes to, it kills healthy cells too. I think it's painful as hell. But I remember, and it cleared up and all of that. So I've sort of seen the infections and, you know, we see the mold on the bread and heaven help us if we eat some food that's infected with bacteria we get sick and listeria outbreaks and and uh salmonella and so on so you know we generally have experienced all of these things and there's you know seems to be pretty endless amounts of scientific evidence that's a lot to overturn and of course you know the more extraordinary claim the more extraordinary the counter evidence that is needed so and of course this the germ theory i mean it was like think at the end of the 19th century that it was really fairly established.
[1:58:04] So this is long before government healthcare in the way that we would understand it today, or modern financial incentives and so on. So that is the challenge.
[1:58:12] I have an infection.
[1:58:13] I take a bunch of antibiotics, it gets better, right? So again, it's a high bar, but you can't just say, well, there's context, because context is not an argument, and you can't say.
[1:58:24] Well, I'm not 100% there either.
[1:58:26] That that's not an argument. My argument is how is the both the personal anecdotal lived experience and the consistent scientific examinations, how is that overturned?
[1:58:36] Okay. Yeah. I can provide some examples of directly that. So let's use your example of, let's say moldy bread. Of course, I wouldn't eat moldy bread as well, but in some cases, you might eat some mold and bread they didn't notice and you don't get sick. And I guess, well okay.
[1:58:50] Well hang on hang on hang on hang on you do get sick but just very little like in other words it's it's not enough to overcome your body's bacteria fighting agents right so it's not like you don't get sick like it's not like you ingest a bunch of bacteria and it doesn't affect you at all they don't die as they go down your throat it's just that your immune system handles it to the point where you don't notice it at least that's i think what would be recorded so it's not that you don't get sick it's that you don't get noticeably sick if that makes sense.
[1:59:19] Well i I guess I just want to ask, so what is your definition of getting sick?
[1:59:24] No, no, bro, I'm asking you, you said you don't get sick, and I just want to make sure that we're differentiating from what you perceive and what's actually going on biologically, right? So, cancer cells, as far as I understand it, cancer cells are being formed in the body all the time, it's just sometimes your immune system doesn't overcome them or kill them or whatever it is, right? So uh so when you if you say you don't get sick do you mean the bacteria doesn't affect you in any way shape or form at all or do you mean your immune system handles it to the point where you don't feel sick or you don't get sick in a way that that really impacts your consciousness.
[2:00:03] I guess yeah it would be your former explanation that you wouldn't feel the effects because as long as the body is in good health in terms of germ theory being good health your immune system fights it off well no that's sorry to.
[2:00:14] Be annoying but that's not true either because if it's a small amount of bacteria your body can handle it if it's a very large amount of bacteria it doesn't really matter how healthy you are you're going to get sick i mean that's the general theory right if you just have a little nibble of toast and we've all done this right like uh you.
[2:00:31] Take a.
[2:00:31] Bite of bread it tastes funny you know that weird chalky sour taste and you you you spit it out and you rinse your mouth right now have you swallowed some bacteria sure i'm sure you have but if you eat the whole thing or two slices of it like that's going to be more bacteria than your immune system can handle and listen being generally healthy certainly has an effect on your immune system but health is not the only factor it also has to do with the volume of bacteria that you would consume.
[2:00:59] The dosage yeah yeah yeah no and that's that's that's perfectly that's true you know but like but is it the bacteria that's causing you to get sick or is it the toxins that they're producing you know that's why it's like there's a lot of overlap in terms of what terrain theory explains a certain situation and germ theory but they just describe it differently and you look at it in a different angle and basically in some situations where the germ theory just can't explain something like oh you're asymptomatic you're sick but you're not actually showing symptoms and versus like well terrain theory says well i mean it's not actually a germ that's causing people to get sick it's due to something they you know from an environmental factor whether it's you know with something you're breathing in or drinking or eating like in this case COVID-19 in China the Wuhan has very poor air quality and it was very known to have high cases of pneumonia there and what made it so special that it's now this novel virus that suddenly popped up that was different than the pneumonia that was there well the answer to that would be.
[2:01:59] That it was bioengineered with HIV inserts and, you know, that that would be the answer to that, or at least that would be an answer to that. It wouldn't just be sort of air quality. So I still don't have an answer as to how anecdotal experience and, you know, thousands of scientific experiments are overturned.
[2:02:16] Okay, I'll provide my anecdotal experience. So my anecdotal experience, I basically started experimenting on myself in terms of theory. So, for example, anytime a family member would get sick with something...
[2:02:26] Sorry to be annoying. I know I use the term anecdotal experience, but the plural of anecdote, as you know, is not data, right? So when I say anecdotal experience, I'm simply saying we've all had the experience of being exposed to something, getting sick, and it's dose-dependent and so on, and that conforms with the scientific experiments. But your personal lived experience, whatever you're claiming to be, cannot overturn, you know, double-blind scientific studies going back more than 100 years, right? So I need to know how the science is explained away and overturned. Is it that the scientists are all lying? And listen, I know that sounds like an impossible standard. I get like, you know, the global warming stuff. Everybody knows how corruptible scientists are and all of that kind of stuff. But we're talking about, but that's all post-government funding of science, right? So when we're talking about going back 150 years or so, that's long before there was modern government funding of science and the corruption of Fauci and crew and all of that. So, how is the older science prior to the bad incentives of the modern system, how is that all overturned? Or how is that said to be false?
[2:03:34] Are you referring to the older science of like germ theory? Okay. Well, in that case, they did have studies back then, and they do refer to them there. But ultimately, you know, the idea is that the way they were done is primarily you have to look at, well, when it came to plague, you know, what were the metrics for contagion? Well, they take a couple of rats in a lab and they put them beside each other and see if one dies when they're in tiny confined cages under a lot of stress. Well, was there, you know, was there a control done? Were there two rats with no proposed virus done and there wasn't? So just basically.
[2:04:19] Sorry, are you saying that in general, the scientific studies that established germ theories had no control groups?
[2:04:29] Well many of them did not have control groups and ultimately the way they were done was it was in a lab rather than why not just you know like human human contact like in this case rosenau's, experiment of spanish flu is a very well documented one but never talked about because it doesn't line up with the current online germ theory where if the spanish flu is very infectious through, you know through air particulates and if they were doing everything in the means of how someone typically gets sick but no one was getting sick then how come another study of that magnitude how come it hasn't been tried again in the modern era i mean because i don't think it's really that hard to do it now but um typically you won't see them funding studies of that same you know format nowadays everything is done within a lab through either peachy dish cell cultures or through you know, injections of, you know, these viruses that they call them directly into mice rather than why not take saliva?
[2:05:28] Okay, but sorry, so you're saying, sorry to interrupt, so some of the germ theory experiments did not have a control group, but some did, right?
[2:05:37] Correct okay so do.
[2:05:38] You have a rough idea of what percent i'm not saying you'd know this off the top of your head but i'm just curious do you is it like a.
[2:05:43] Third of them didn't.
[2:05:44] Have control groups or a quarter or half or like do you have any sort of sense of you know thousands and thousands tens of thousands of these experiments and if even.
[2:05:52] Half of them.
[2:05:53] Had control groups we we'd have some skepticism for the half that didn't but not the half that did so i'm not sure what proportion and i again i'm not saying you would know this individually but that would be.
[2:06:03] A question that i would have no i i understand yeah obviously as you said it i i am not you know someone that is knowing of all every single study i'm only knowing of these key studies that i have read myself from these proposed terrain theorists of what they use to support their scientists but certainly with ai you could.
[2:06:21] Lose ai on a bunch of studies and say okay look for germ germ studies that didn't have a control group and.
[2:06:29] Sure and all of that i guess ultimately modern day virology like when it comes to viruses that is actually the case that most uh actually i'm trying to think if i think all of them do not contain a control group in terms of when they basically try to isolate the virus which you got to look at terms when they mean by isolate viruses they don't actually have the viruses by themselves they're contained within a whole if you want to call it biological gene slop of different like you know you know dna strands, whatever you call it. Basically, they have never been able to take a virus and completely isolate just a virus on its own. So when you got to look at the term of when they mean virus isolation, that's what they mean by virus isolation. It's still contained within a fragment of other gene sequences and genomes. And in turn, what they do is they, you know, add in your monkey kidney cells, your bovine serum, and you know, all your, you know, your antibiotics and all these type of stress components that in turn, will, of course, make a cell sick when you add that to it. And any of these studies do not contain basically the same procedure, but without the alleged virus.
[2:07:36] Okay.
[2:07:37] They never have that control.
[2:07:38] The identification of viruses was not what I was asking about. No, let me just ask you a general question. And this is sort of a larger philosophical question. And I'll just tell you, this is a filter by which I put these kinds of questions. So just so you know where I'm coming from, maybe it will be helpful to others as well. Right so i compare everything to something like peaceful parenting so or upb right these are two two big things that i've worked on over the years so what i do is i say okay so everyone says we should treat our children well and we should be good parents right and then when i provide the, moral uh physical medical biological proof and practical proof of how to be good parents and most people recoil and run away. Everyone says, you know, we need a certain proof of ethics that doesn't rely just on the commandment of, of the government because of course everyone knows the governments can command tremendously evil stuff and also on religious authority because people disagree enormously not just between religions but even within religions what god means by morals so everyone says we need objective morality and then you know like close to 20 years ago i proved objective morality.
[2:08:48] And nobody wants to have anything to do with it so when people say they're desperate for something and then you provide it and it's exactly in conformity with what they say they want and what they have praying for and what they need and what will make the world a better place and then they'd run away from it well that's interesting to me and it tells me of course how difficult it is to change people's minds about things that they claim they value claim they want claim they need claim that will make the world a better place you know everyone says uh you know this is from kindergarten onwards right so everyone says we should solve our disputes with reason not force right we should not use force to resolve our disputes this goes all the way back to kindergarten right don't push don't shove don't hit don't steal don't yell right you should you should reason not don't grab you know just ask right so we should use and then you know when i put forward you know my books practical anarchy everyday anarchy and of course my novel the future i lay out exactly how society could work with the morals that everyone claims is good right and then people run screaming from that too right so so what i'm saying is that so when you come up with something like this and i listen i appreciate the conversation i find it very interesting but i'll just tell you my processing about this it's like okay so even or just look at sorry last example i'll keep it brief uh dieting right everybody says who's overweight man i should really lose weight It's bad for my joints, bad for my health, bad for my back.
[2:10:16] You know, I really got to lose weight. And yet, you know, 90 to 95% of people...
[2:10:22] Either don't lose weight or lose weight and then gain it all back or more like a few percentage points of people actually lose weight and keep it off i mean absent things like stomach stapling and other kinds of semi-creepy interventions right yeah so even and of course so and this is not a moral thing so people they say oh man i want to lose weight and they don't lose weight and even though if they do lose weight everyone tells them exactly how fantastic they look i'm so proud of you that's so wonderful that doctor praises them their health improves their knee stock like so even with these incredible positive incentives and it's cheaper because you know to eat healthier and better is cheaper than to eat badly uh because you save money you save money on your clothes cheap better and you can dress more fashionably so there's almost nothing but upside to losing weight.
[2:11:13] And you know it extends your lifespan considerably so you couldn't you couldn't really have more of upside to losing weight and yet almost no and everyone praises it and you see these transformation videos online everyone's like oh it's so cool you know except for a few i don't know chubby chasers or whatever right so so i say okay so even even if people you know upb peaceful parenting uh stateless society even when people say this is exactly what we want this is exactly what is in line with what we think is right and good and virtuous and amazing and wonderful they run screaming now the problem is you're trying to get people to overthrow an entire worldview which they don't have and then you're expecting them i assume the purpose of belief is to change behavior right a belief that doesn't change behavior is uh nonsense just mental masturbation right so you're trying to get people to change their behavior as am i now i can't get people most people not everyone of course i can't get people to change behavior even when they fully agree with the worldview, the morals, the ethics, and can't argue against the process, right? I can't get people to change their behavior. Again, not everyone, but some people, right?
[2:12:24] So everyone says we should use reason, not force. And I'm like, oh, here's how we do it. Oh, God, no. Right. Or, you know, everyone says we should not have abusive people in our life. And I say, yeah, okay. And that includes parents. Oh, God, no, he's a cult leader. Right. So, or, you know, we need an objective proof of ethics. Here it is. No, that's bad.
[2:12:46] Because, you know, I could interpret you as using the word ethics in different ways in different parts of the book or whatever, right? Just nonsense, right? So I guess my question is, I assume that you're trying to get people's behavior to change, but my concern is I can't get people's behavior to change even when they fully agree with the goals, intentions, and reasoning, they still won't change. And you can't get people to lose weight or exercise even when they themselves will massively benefit from it and just about everyone will praise them. So given that you're trying to not just change people's behavior but they don't even agree with the world.
[2:13:19] To begin with it just feels like man this is like a complete task that just can't be achieved well.
[2:13:25] It's an up cliff battle it's not even uphill.
[2:13:27] There you go yep yep so sorry no i that's what.
[2:13:31] I put things through.
[2:13:31] No you're that is something i did think about because it's even from my point like i thought this is wild and granted like you said there are always going to be a small select few people who maybe see like okay this actually does make sense and lines up okay i'm now gonna change my viewpoint and in turn the actions but most people won't do that and that's kind of the thing where well it's i guess it's to be expected but ultimately you know the least thing you could do is just well hey at least now you've heard of terrain theory and know that there is something else out there to explain you know how people health and for example if there's a point in time where i guess it piques your interest where something doesn't add up in germ theory, well, maybe it might, you know, interest you to perhaps look at it through a different viewpoint. That's kind of like ultimately my goal is.
[2:14:17] Well, I think a lot of it, sorry, I don't mean to explain you to you. I could be wrong. I think a lot of it comes out of the shock and horror of the COVID era. Which is like, okay, well, maybe if I get people to stop believing in germs, then they won't bow down to the government about this stuff.
[2:14:32] It's in part. It's in part. But it's like you said, like, you know, if the goal is a stateless society, ultimately, then, I mean, the current shackles we have on now is not going to allow us to get there. So it's.
[2:14:47] Well, I mean, but I think, you know, I mean, I think, you know, man to man. Right. I mean, if we're just really base and honest about this, fear mongering is kind of a new phenomenon in this kind of way. I mean, men are generally not that susceptible to fear mongering. We just kind of roll the dice, right? And the fear mongering now is largely because women are more sensitive to fear mongering than men are. And so, you know, as women get the vote and women control more and more of the finances, like women make like 85% of the household purchase decisions and so on. And women drive the desire to have bigger houses and all of them. And guys, sometimes we get nicer cars to impress women. So as women gain more and more control over media, academia, the economy and government, because the majority of workers in the government are female, then unfortunately, we just end up in a situation where women are more sensitive to negative stimuli women are more sensitive to fear-mongering and so and and that's entirely good i love that about women i do i absolutely love that about women i mean it was my wife's it was my wife's drive and desire to child-proof the house before my daughter was born i'm very glad she did but it wouldn't have crossed my mind because it might it's.
[2:16:12] A balancing act it's a balancing.
[2:16:13] Act yeah yeah no it's great you know with women stuff that's great great in the home is terrible in politics, And for men, stuff that's made at work is terrible at home. Sorry?
[2:16:25] That seems to be the general gist of how it is, I guess. But I guess ultimately...
[2:16:31] So I'm just saying that I don't know that if the major essence of COVID was fear-mongering, and it was, then unfortunately it's just going to hit the female population harder. A little bit, but enough to make a big difference. It is enough to...
[2:16:46] It still affects everyone, though.
[2:16:47] Well, and women are, women are paranoid of disease. And again, I don't consider that a fault at all. You know, it's my wife who hits me with a cattle prod to go, oh, go get your eyes tested. And oh, go get your blood work done. I'm like, yeah, roll the dice, whatever. We'll see what happens. Right. And I appreciate that about her. I think that's great. I really do. I think that's good for her and so on.
[2:17:07] Right. but women are more nervous about disease because women i mean it's a survival mechanism because women take care of the sick and if germ theory is right then women are going to get sick from taking care of the sick so if it's survival for women that people don't get sick so yeah i would say that as far as covet goes um the matriarchal gynocracy that democracy has cornered us into living in but that's just going to have to change before fear-mongering stops working at least as much or or rather fear-mongering stays in the home like it's sort of an often a complaint from women like they get some alpha guy like some really big tough guy and, they then complain that he's too bossy and emotionally unavailable at home right so for men what works in the workplace doesn't work at home and for women what works at home doesn't work in politics. And so just politics messes everything up as far as that goes. So I would sort of, we're just going to have to write it out, I think, and hoping to disabuse people of a germ theory probably ain't going to work.
[2:18:14] Yeah, well, I guess if you ever, I know you're a busy man, but I mean, if you ever feel like you want to have your viewpoint, I don't think I'm trying to think of a term for it, tickled, whatever you want to say. I know the Dr. Sam Bailey just very much puts it in a concise, you know, 15, 20 video formats of whatever it might be. Like you were saying, you're like, well, what about this disease? What about that? What is their explanation for it? What did they say has to be?
[2:18:43] No, of course, and I'm not expecting you to know the answers to an entire movement. I get that.
[2:18:47] Right.
[2:18:47] Sure. Maybe I'll look into it. I just tell you, I'm not going to have doctors on with medical advice because I'm just not that show. I just don't have doctors on with medical advice as a whole just because I can't judge whether it's valid or invalid, and I don't want to expose my audience to stuff that I can't judge. Right?
[2:19:05] No, that's fair. That's fair.
[2:19:06] So I think it's interesting. What I will say, though, I do love the environmental explanation for a lot of illnesses. It's great because it tells people to improve their environment, improve their social environment, their psychological environment. Yeah, personal accountability. Don't just, you know, to me, this is not medical advice to anyone. My own personal thing is look at my lifestyle, look at my food, look at my exercise, look at my movement and all of that. And, and, and also look at, you know, for me, my health is intensely and innately bound up to the people around me. I cannot be healthier than the most stressful person around me, the person who gives me the most problems or the most difficulties or the most stress or whatever it is, right? Which is why I don't have stressful people in my life. I don't have people in my life that cause chaos and stress, because that to me is giving them a remote control, make me sick, or make me feel unwell or make me whatever, right? I just don't give people that remote control stuff. It's like having a slow motion assassin in your house. It's like you're going to get like Cato or whatever his name is from the old Peter Sellers, Inspector Clouseau stuff, right? The guy that I can't remember, what was his name? Cato? The guy that Bruce Lee played? You're too young for all of this. Anyway. But yeah, I don't want any slow motion assassins in my environment, which is why I don't have. Again, I've said this a million times, but it's a business partner I had like 30 years ago said, Well, if you have difficult people in your life, your life becomes difficult.
[2:20:33] If you have easy people in your life, your life is easy. And, uh, so if it gets people to check their environment and make better decisions, I'm all for it. But I think that's not a, um, a hill that I'm going to invest stuff in because if I could invest in changing people's minds, I'd do it with peaceful parenting and I would do it with a UPB and I would do it with state of society, not that other stuff. Does that make sense?
[2:20:54] Yes. No, no, no, that's very valid for sure. I just figured, you know, if you, you know, that's, I fully understand that. Yeah. You don't want to bring that on your show because you said you have your uh your your supporters and listeners to be you know you want you want the best for them and uh as far as uh maybe just for your own interest hey i guess that now you know about there's a there's a thing called terrain theory and there's you know there's doctors out there such as sam bailey stefan lonka who put it in a very much more better you know explanation than i could ever do that second guy sounds innately credible.
[2:21:28] Just based on his name so i'm definitely gonna gonna.
[2:21:30] Check him out all right well it's I'm.
[2:21:32] Afraid philosophy has to stop for the growling of the stomach because it'd be lunchtime. So I really do appreciate it.
[2:21:38] What are you having for lunch?
[2:21:39] I am going to have a little slice of pizza and then some yogurt and fruit. So it's going to be very nice. That sounds good. I appreciate it. My wife makes this sort of flat bread pizza. It's like very little dough and tons of veggies. It's basically a salad and very little crust.
[2:21:54] Thin crust is the way to go, man.
[2:21:56] I can't do much dough without myself. It doesn't sit too well.
[2:21:58] Oh, yeah.
[2:21:59] Well, thanks, everyone. I appreciate your time. Have yourself a great, great day. We will talk to you tomorrow. Remember, the show is not at 11 a.m., but at 1 p.m. So I hope you will check that out. I might have some interesting news for tomorrow. So freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show. I'd really appreciate your support on this lovely month of March. And have yourself a beautiful afternoon, my friends. Appreciate your time today. And to all the callers, thank you so much for these fascinating conversations. Take care, my friends. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.
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