In this flash X Space on 27 October 2025, philosopher Stefan Molyneux hosts a thought-provoking discussion addressing various socio-political themes, particularly centered on the implications of rising leftist ideologies and the financial future of America, especially in light of the potential election of a leftist mayor in New York City. The conversation begins with a call from a listener who raises concerns about Zohran Mamdani, a character now on the political scene, speculating on how his election could lead to financial turmoil in New York and beyond. Stefan, caught off-guard initially, quickly dives deeper into the inherent class struggle that fuels divisions between the wealthy and the impoverished, tracing the roots back to socialists who instigate resentment towards the rich.
Stefan elaborates on how certain realms—movies, sports, and music—do not evoke the same disdain for the wealthy, suggesting that genuine talent and entertainment value cultivate admiration rather than resentment. This sets the stage for a larger commentary on societal dynamics, as he emphasizes how individuals often envy wealthy figures, particularly when they misunderstand the nature of wealth creation. Citing icons like Taylor Swift, LeBron James, and the Kardashians, he argues that admiration stems from valuing the arts and their contributors, a stark contrast to the political class that often promotes jealousy and division.
As the conversation unfolds, the episode delves into the complexities of government intervention, education systems, and social welfare. Highlighting that government schools are inherently socialist, Molyneux argues that this model breeds generations more inclined to accept socialist principles due to systemic indoctrination. He illustrates the long-standing imbalance between the rich and poor, rooted in simplistic economic misconceptions, and warns against the dire consequences of a society that becomes increasingly reliant on wealth redistribution without fostering personal responsibility and value creation.
The discussion also touches on personal anecdotes and the psychological underpinnings of societal sentiment toward wealth, exploring why individuals often advocate for the destruction of socio-economic structures that embody capitalism while simultaneously yearning for their benefits. Throughout the episode, Stefan encourages listeners to preserve their empathy for genuine victims of circumstance while recognizing the self-inflicted wounds of those who vote against their own best interests.
This philosophical inquiry transitions into a broader critique of societal behavior: the social contract that incentivizes work, marriage, and family-building as foundational to societal stability. However, with contemporary shifts leading to increased chaotic ideologies that challenge traditional institutions, the result is a growing sense of nihilism among the youth—a ‘vengeful son’ who feels deceived by the systems that promised prosperity.
Towards the end of the episode, Molyneux engages directly with callers who present various philosophical conundrums, such as the nature of faith and belief, continually stressing that the acceptance of seemingly mystical entities must not violate the principles of logic and reason. His exploration of the human condition leads to a rich dialogue that highlights the need for a finite understanding of reality amidst infinite complexities. He posits that society must grapple with the consequences of its choices and reiterates a call to action for the individual—encouraging self-sufficiency over dependency—while closing with reflections on how history’s lessons can guide current and future societal structures.
Join Stefan in this episode as he passionately argues for personal responsibility, philosophical literacy, and a return to valuing merit and creativity amidst an era riddled with ideological turmoil and economic uncertainty.
0:16 - Opening Thoughts on Mamdani
0:58 - The Rich and the Poor Divide
1:57 - The Entertainment Industry's Wealth
6:15 - The Complexity of Wealth Perception
9:11 - The Flaws in Education Systems
13:35 - Disconnecting Empathy for Sanity
15:36 - The Cycle of Sympathy and Consequences
17:03 - Compassion for Self-Inflicted Wounds
21:29 - The Role of Private Charity
25:27 - The Titanic Analogy
29:18 - The Cost of Ignoring History
34:46 - Noblesse Oblige and the Wealthy
42:06 - The Fuzzy Nature of Truth
1:00:06 - The Rebellious Energy of Youth
1:15:39 - The Limits of Human Knowledge
1:25:15 - Closing Reflections and Gratitude
[0:00] I just wanted to get your thoughts on what happens if Mamdani, I believe the character in New York City gets elected,
[0:08] and what kind of thing or what kind of financial turmoil do you think that could potentially pull out? I don't know. That might be a little bit deviant from what you want to discuss today. That's just kind of all the ones
[0:21] To do now. I didn't catch the question. I mean, so a financial thing, your mic is not particularly great. Oh, I'm sorry. A little more slowly.
[0:29] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you hear me now?
[0:30] Yeah, it's okay, but go ahead.
[0:33] Okay. So basically, my thoughts are kind of on Mamdani in New York City for the mayoral election.
[0:42] Oh, the guy who's alleged to be a communist or something like that, right? Yeah.
[0:47] I'm just kind of wondering what kind of effects that could spiral into in terms of how it could impact the financial markets, especially since Walshry is,
[0:57] you know, localized in New York City. So, I don't know. That's just kind of what's on my mind right now.
[1:03] Okay. I'm happy to give some thoughts on that. And again, if anybody else has issues that they want to raise, I'm certainly happy to hear that. So, it's just got to be the same fracking lesson over and over again. It's the same lesson, the same lesson. You got a bunch of poor people and you got a bunch of wealthy people. And the poor people hate and resent the wealthy people. And why? Well, there's the sort of natural human competition as well as the fact that these endless socialist sophists come in, and as I've said a zillion times before, and I'll keep it brief here, they come in and say, ah, that rich guy, he's only wealthy because he stole from you and he stole from your father and he ripped off your grandfather. And they just provoke all this hatred.
[1:52] And I'm not talking about the politically rich military industrial complex a-holes. I'm talking about, you know, people who've, you know, worked and built companies and earned some money and created jobs and so on, right? See, it's a funny thing that happens in the world. It doesn't have to happen. People say, oh, well, the poor are always going to resent the rich. Nope. Nope. Because there's three areas where that doesn't happen. For the most part, there's three areas. where people don't endlessly resent the rich.
[2:26] Number one, movies, TV, actors. Those guys are fantastically wealthy. And yet, people go and see their movies because they're fans. Denzel Washington and Brad Pitt and, you know, whoever it is for the younger, Padro, whatever his name is, the younger generation. They love those guys. They cheer them on. Movies, TV, actors, very wealthy. Very wealthy. and cheered on. People don't resent them. What else? Oh, I know. Sports. Is it Michael B. Jordan and Michael Jordan? So in sports, LeBron James, King James, fantastically wealthy. People don't resent him. They love him. They wear pictures of him on their t-shirts. They get his number and play basketball. They pay outrageous prices for tickets. The Knicks, the Jack Nicholson's team anyway so uh in movies tv sports where oh i know music as anybody out there bitching and moaning that taylor swift is a what billionaire at this point the kardashians i mean there's probably a little bit of hate watching there good luck with your aneurysm kim but people have no problem with the wealthy as a whole if they don't.
[3:51] Have any illusions
[3:52] About it i don't sit there and look at taylor swift and say it should be me up there i did some karaoke with my daughter last night she did well i did not, So, it's just astounding.
[4:09] It really is.
[4:10] Yeah. So, all the women who are probably on the left are thrilled that Taylor Swift is touring. Now, what's the only reason Taylor Swift is touring? Well, A, she writes great songs. B, she likes to tour. And C, she makes a frack ton of money doing it. And there's no.
[4:29] Big petitions of
[4:31] All of these white women or whoever the liberal women are. There's not these big petitions saying, well, come on, man. It's not fair. Taylor Swift should be limited to 650 seats. She shouldn't be in stadiums. That's elitist.
[4:45] And she should be on tour buses and shouldn't be flying around either. Yeah, yeah.
[4:51] There's just a bunch of stories. Yeah, they don't say she's not allowed to have backup dances. That's unfair. fair she's not allowed like pink is not allowed to fly around like a monkey on a sling uh because that's not fair to all of the old i mean the rolling stones aren't doing that mick jagger i mean still a pretty spry guy pretty spry for a white guy in his 80s or whatever it is right so, they're not saying well i mean at least at least what we have to do to even things out is give, taylor swift a bad microphone and some reverse auto tune which throws a slightly off key you no, just make things equal because we can't compete with that. They love it. They love it, Jerry. They love it. So they're really keen, really thrilled, really happy. They're fans of these bands, right? They love the music. They love the singing. They want people to do really well.
[5:43] And was it Olivia Rodriguez? I was listening to a song called Vampire. I never really thought of her as much of a serious singer, but girl has pipes and a half for days. Amazing. Amazing. How many people can do that? Maybe one in 10,000, one in 100,000. Perfect pitch, great musicality, great emotional connectivity, great ability to act because singing is a form of acting. Need the passion. Pretty, talented, good performer, reasonable health.
[6:16] So people don't hate the rich. People love the rich.
[6:21] They love the rich.
[6:22] People love and hate, Well, people love who their instincts tell them to love, and people hate who they're trained to hate. So, you know, when people are like, I can't believe I accidentally tripped up some secret socialist wire on X, and now I'm getting all of this nonsense flooding in about how can there be billionaires and the homeless, right? And when people say billionaires, generally what they're thinking of is white men. It's just another proxy. Let's be honest, right? Because nobody's saying that there ought to be a special Taylor Swift tax because she's so, you know, talented and pretty and blah, blah, blah, whatever it is.
[7:04] Nobody's saying that because
[7:06] They like Taylor Swift. The women love Taylor Swift. And if you were to say, because they want to see her tour.
[7:12] Right?
[7:13] And if you were to say to them, well, you know, if you enact a special tax on very rich people, Taylor Swift will be too poor to tour. They'd be like, oh, no, that's no good.
[7:23] Meanwhile, there's a lot of disdain against people like Elon Musk for launching rockets and building these amazing white guitars and all that stuff. It's just so wild.
[7:37] Yeah, I mean, who's doing more good for humanity in material sense? I mean, obviously, music is important. Happiness is important. But who's doing more good for humanity?
[7:46] Yeah.
[7:48] Taylor swift but elon musk i mean certainly with regards to free sounds absolutely yeah elon musk has done i mean we know that also that she has more economic value because he's worth hundreds of billions of dollars and so but if the schools simply taught people from the beginning some basic economics they'd be thrilled about the poor they'd be as happy with elon musk as they are with taylor swift which.
[8:15] Is means i think it's by design i don't know yeah
[8:19] At the moment the moment you let government take over the education of the youth the youth inexorably move towards communism inexorably because you can't hand over children to a communist or socialist system and then expect that communist or socialist system to criticize communist or socialist principles, government schools are explicitly socialistic/communistic from each according to their ability, property taxes, higher taxes, to each according to their need. That's how it works. No competition. You can't fire people. It's all government work, and it's all socialist in principle. And America had a very brief, I mean, just to pick on America, had a very brief, brief flourishing of being a free society. I mean, it took 80 years to break the bonds of the Constitution foundationally.
[9:11] And, yeah, you want to look for a real fascist, you look at Abraham Lincoln. You don't look at Donald Trump.
[9:18] Yeah, Razor Fist actually made a really good video on Abraham Lincoln. Oh, love the Fist.
[9:27] We love the Fist.
[9:29] He's great. i always i liked him for his his his verbal acuity is astonishing it's uh really like watching a master a scimitar wielder oh it's.
[9:39] Very understanding it's very understanding you know monologues for days it's so fun
[9:43] He also did one very funny video which i always remember of him falling over backwards in a chair so he didn't take himself too seriously which is always a pleasure for me but yeah extremely talented verbal magician and yeah i've done my own little entree into the criticizing lincoln sort of stuff but so yeah if they yeah if they taught children that people don't have money they create value that's number one you don't just have money you create value i mean i'm sure that there are a bunch of people in taylor swift's hometown who did karaoke, And Taylor Swift did not steal their money.
[10:26] Right?
[10:27] Because they can't do what Taylor Swift does.
[10:31] So people don't just... No, you're good. People saw that she was entertaining in terms of the value she was providing. I mean, it's pretty obvious, right? That's just how it works out in the entertainment land is more or less, they don't steal your money. You're basically giving them your money, your hard-earned money because they provide some sort of value. It just seems so obvious to me, maybe not so much to
[10:58] What people we're talking about.
[11:01] Right. So, yeah, I mean, if you're a model-looking person who can sing well and write good songs, I mean, you can write your own ticket, right? So, yeah, people don't have money. They provide value. And that's number one. And number two, billionaires don't have a bunch of dollar bills in a vault. Billionaires do not have a bunch of dollars.
[11:27] No, they have a lot of way in their companies, investments, all sorts of stuff. If they know better, they know that cash is generally trash. And you shouldn't hold on to too much of it because it's just going to erode away from inflation.
[11:41] Yeah, so Elon Musk does not have hundreds of billions of dollars. He doesn't.
[11:46] Thank you.
[11:47] And, I mean, the only way he could get the access to those hundreds of billions of dollars would be to sell all of his shares. But the moment he sold his shares, their value would evaporate and he wouldn't have hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars because if he was on a selling spree, people would sell as fast as he was and drive down the price of the shares to very low levels. And, of course, even if he sold all of this money, sorry, even if he sold all of his shares and somehow was able to get a good chunk of money for it, there'd be capital gains, taxes, and then what? He'd have all of this money. He'd have to put it somewhere. If he'd just put it in the bank, he'd lose money. He'd lose tens of millions of dollars a year or more just to inflation. So it's an obscene amount of wealth. It's not wealth. It's not real. It's not totally fake. It's not made up. It's not like he's a fiat bank or anything like that. But no, he doesn't have this money. And he doesn't have money. He provides value. Taylor Swift is not a thief. Taylor Swift provides value. Some people will pay hundreds of dollars to see Taylor Swift. I mean, if I were given free tickets, I'd go. I think there's like three songs of hers that I like in sort of the Katy Perry category.
[13:08] And Blank Space, I think, is a great song. It's a great song, very clever, very catchy, and entertaining.
[13:18] So, like Katy Perry's Raw, great song, and so on, right? But then, you know, every artist ends up with breathy vocals, rap in the middle, breathy vocals, it just seems to be a law of nature. So, yeah, so, there's just hatred. I mean, they're just taught to have hatred.
[13:35] It's just disturbing that New York City is almost certainly going to a lifeless person.
[13:46] Sorry, why is it unsettling?
[13:49] I mean, New York City is considered the global financial capital in some regards, right? Well, not for long. Well, yeah, definitely not.
[13:59] Yeah, so I have no pity or patience for people who learn these fucking lessons now. I have no pity or patience. But the entire 20th century, I mean, go back to Spain and then 400 years ago, go back to Spain and its experiments with inflationary goals from the new world, put it into a 400-year depression. So I have no patience. If people want to vote for this shit, okay. I'm not going to New York.
[14:25] Yeah, I know some people, but it's just like, I really want them to leave. I know they kind of feel married to the city. And, you know, that's on them, I guess. But I don't care.
[14:39] And I would strongly suggest people start unplugging your empathy circuits.
[14:45] For what's coming
[14:46] In the world. I seriously, strongly urge for the sake of your sanity you must, disconnect your empathy.
[14:57] People are going to just hijack and then they're going to manipulate you because that's what they do.
[15:03] Well, there's no excuse. The internet and the 20th century, if people want to vote socialist, if they want free stuff, if they want to go full communist, if they Then, yeah, the rich will leave, and they'll have no money, and then they'll beg for bailouts, and crime will surge. And it's like, I don't have any sympathy left over for self-inflicted wounds. Did you know what I mean?
[15:32] 100%. I absolutely do agree. I just wish it didn't have to be this way. But I know it's it might have to be this way because ultimately this is how people learn. It's either through philosophy, which is not providing the cure but prevention, or through, well, what's happening right now. So, again, I totally get where you're coming from. Absolutely. And I think it is wise to keep empathy.
[15:59] I do blame the Christians a lot because Because, I mean, with the idea that 41 million people in America are going to be without SNAP benefits next month.
[16:08] And that's another thing. That's another bomb that's going to pop off possibly. I don't know what's going to happen without them. That's also kind of scary.
[16:16] I don't. I'm out of sympathy. I really am. And I'm not exhausted. I'm actually preserving my energy by resolutely. I mean, if you've got three generations of people who've been ripping off the taxpayer through the power of the state, what sympathy am I supposed to have?
[16:33] Yeah, there was a video I saw of that. That was insane.
[16:36] Yeah, I have as much sympathy for people. And of course, I'm not an American, right? So I'm just putting myself in this mindset, right? But have as much sympathy for people as they have for you. Do not have more sympathy for people than they have for you. And the people who have been on government assistance for many years without really trying and working hard to get off, they have no sympathy for the taxpayer. In fact, they're exploiting the taxpayer.
[17:04] And so if people are exploiting the taxpayer, if they've gotten lazy and entitled and they don't want to work even when they could, why on earth would the taxpayer have more sympathy for people than the people have for the taxpayer.
[17:21] So I have no,
[17:23] I'm reserving my compassion as a just man, and I strive for justice and I strive for fairness. I am reserving my compassion for the victims, not for the self-inflicted. If I had money to, like, whatever, to donate to, I mean, I do some charitable donations and so on, But let's say, you know, you've got some money to donate to a cause. Do you donate it to genetic diabetes, or do you donate it to self-inflicted diabetes?
[17:57] And it's pretty clear. You give it to people who can't roll the dice well enough, which would be the genetic advocate.
[18:05] Yeah, because if you get diabetes as the result of lifestyle choices, I think it was Tom Hanks, doctor, some years ago was saying, if you keep gaining weight or you keep not exercising, you're going to get diabetes. So if you voluntarily make yourself ill, right? Obesity, give yourself joint problems, diabetes, smoking like crazy, then that's a very selfish act. And it would be a selfish act even in a free society. because when you make yourself sick and like three quarters of health issues are lifestyle related, which means they're kind of chosen. So if you make yourself sick, then you are taking away healthcare resources from other people.
[18:48] And specifically from people who didn't have a choice in the matter because they didn't have a genetic disease or disorder, but they did not care.
[18:59] Right. And you say, oh, well, it's supply and demand. The more people are sick. Well, OK, then the more people go into health care. Sure. But that's fewer smart people who are available for other things. I mean, imagine if we had a world with 75 percent less health care spending. Well, that would be a world where people took responsibility for their health and acted reasonably in a way to make themselves healthy. And.
[19:18] If people don't
[19:20] Have compassion for others to the point where they pile on the pounds they don't exercise you know they don't do basic sleep hygiene you know they don't get enough sunlight they just don't do the basic things that you need to do they don't get their checkups they don't get blood work done you know all the things that basic things you need to do to maintain your health, well, then they are causing other people to get sick and die because they are taking away healthcare resources from people who are sick through no fault of their own.
[19:52] And that's just
[19:53] Health care alone. That's not even factoring or considering the impact on, say, travel, like airplanes, the extra amount of weight, the amount of food they consume. Like, it just kind of spiraled up in there, too. Yeah, why haven't
[20:11] Environmentalists targeted the obese for over-consuming resources that are very scarce in nature? And, you know, food requires a huge amount of carbon to produce because they don't care. because the OBs are dependent on the state and can be reliably voted to have more and more government. Yeah, exactly.
[20:29] It's just a vector in control.
[20:31] Yeah, for over 40 years, I have poured out, like, this stuff is bad, it's going to end badly, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, we shouldn't be using force to try and solve complex social problems. And so I'm out. Like, I'm tapped out. And I don't, sorry, I'm tapping out. I'm not tapped out. But I still have a lot of great compassion and empathy for people who are undergoing misfortune through no fault of their own. But, yeah, with regards to the people who've caused their own problems, you know, especially people who are like, you should not be obese when you're on charity. When you're on charity food, you should not be obese. That means you're missing out on the program. You're buying more than you need to live.
[21:13] That program should be just to get people back on their feet. Maybe. I do think we should have these social systems in place, but there's definitely a lot of abuse, and that means reform.
[21:23] But you can't reform it. Everything that is coercive is corrupt. Everything.
[21:29] So the only way that you can actually help the poor is through voluntary private charity. Because I want to donate to a charity that gets people back on their feet, whereas the government charity relies upon people never getting back on their feet, because that's where their power.
[21:43] Control, authority, and spending comes from.
[21:46] Because they can pull the strings of their voting behavior, and then they can stay in power almost indefinitely. So no, I do agree with you on that.
[21:56] And of course, a lot of the, I mean, you can see a lot of people in America who are like, well, if we're not going to get free food, we're just going to riot and steal things. So basically, it's just become a kind of protection money to just give. And what was it Fidel Castro said about the welfare programs in the U.S. That they were the most amazing pacifiers of the population that could be conceived of so basically you're just paying people not to riot it's just you know be sure be nice uh uh nice nice store you have in in the mafia neighborhood be real shame if something bad on.
[22:27] The backs on the backs of the taxpayers
[22:29] Yeah yeah well and not even on the back of the taxpayers on the back of the children being born millions of dollars in debt and unfunded liabilities it's not not even the current tax pay. You're literally enslaved. Yeah, people are born into debt they can't pay off, which is really enslavement. Just because you get to choose your own job doesn't mean you're not enslaved. So yeah, with regards to New York, I mean, I won't even say good luck. I just, okay, you get what you get. You get what you want. You get what you deserve. And all of the people like myself, and of course, you know, countless others, and for a long time before I became a public figure, we've all been saying the wages of sin is death and this is bad stuff. And it's like, okay, so if people want, if they feel the need to learn this lesson again, then let them learn this lesson again.
[23:18] I don't care. I don't care.
[23:20] I mean, I guess I could say I wish it didn't happen, but yeah, I mean, that's what does that mean? What does it mean? Like, uh, does the doctor say to the guy with lung cancer, I wish you stopped smoking 40 years ago. Like, what does that even mean? It's, it's, uh, it's a fantasy.
[23:38] Kind of a moot point. It's a moot point at that point. We're here. We're here now. There's nothing we can do about the past right now. so it's just buckle up buttercup right like that's kind of my attitude well i kind of i feel bad for
[23:52] That yeah well don't but don't feel bad for the don't feel bad i mean you could say ah the kids this that but i'm not i'm not even going to care more about for people's kids than they care about themselves right i'm just not yeah and yeah so uh i i don't even feel bad for them i i i am oh okay so that's that's their choice okay well i don't even i'm not even checking i'm not even in a check-in to see how it plays out, because I know exactly how it's going. I mean, I've already watched this movie 50 times before, as the whole world has watched it 50 to 100 times before, and they want to do it again, and they're motivated by greed.
[24:25] And they want to pillage the taxpayer. They want to pillage the unborn. They want something for nothing. And, you know, the ladies are taken in by this fairly oily guy with his, hey, baby, campaign ads, his sort of Barry White campaign ads. It's like, okay, well, if you want to vote for some pretty guy promising you everything for nothing, okay. I mean, I'm not going to argue. I'm not going to track it. And, you know, there will be these occasional bursts of terrible news coming out of New York, and I don't care. I i don't i don't even angrily like i don't care like i don't even it's like i don't care this is the this is the choice that they have made i have put 44 years into telling people about this i have you know i've received my bomb threats my death threats my physical attacks i have been deplatformed i've been slandered and lied about all across the multiverse and so I have poured everything that
[25:24] I conceivably have outside of my life itself.
[25:27] Like a doctor like an oncologist or a doctor saying hey you know you should probably get this bad habit or you're going to suffer very bad.
[25:36] No bro it's not like that at all an oncologist doesn't get bomb and death threats for telling people to stop smoking.
[25:43] It's much worse much worse than that it is much worse friend.
[25:47] No you're right you're absolutely right Be kind about what I've suffered Right So I have risked Almost everything.
[25:58] To bring the truth to people.
[25:59] And, you know, I mean, there are lots of people in New York who are going to be dressing up as Charlie Kirk this Halloween, right?
[26:07] And there are lots
[26:07] Of people who are like, you know, F-mugger, man, you know. It's like, okay, well, I have put great honor into the field of battle for almost half a century, that's a long time. That's a long time. So I've acquitted myself with honor. I have put as much and as entertaining a series of philosophical and moral and economic arguments out into the world in the language of the common man with some jokes, with some engagement, with some good humor, with some passion, with some energy. I've made it all available for free. There aren't even any ads, freedomain.com/donate. So I've done as much as I possibly can to avert this disaster. I mean, it's like somebody, it's like if you could get to Jack at the beginning of the movie Titanic, right, you, Jack, while you're gambling.
[27:02] Don't go on.
[27:04] No, it's not even don't go on. It's like, this is the movie. I'm going to, Jack, I'm going to play you the movie called the Titanic. And that's going to tell you to not get on the Titanic. Like I'm literally playing the movie, right? I've done detailed documentaries about how badly all of this stuff turns out. Sorry, presentations and some documentaries too. But this is how badly it all turns out. So if you play the movie Titanic to the main character in the movie Titanic and Jack still decides to get on the Titanic, it's like, okay, incomprehensible to me, but he just wants to die. It's been too hard living. He's not afraid to die. And off he goes.
[27:44] And, I mean, what can you do? You can't chain him up. You can't lock him up.
[27:49] It's not even worth exerting the mental effort.
[27:51] Yeah. It's like, hey, man, I told you exactly how it was going to go. I proved it. I had every expert in the known universe tell you how it's going to go. And people are just so dumb, greedy, and or evil that this is the path they want to pursue. This is the road they want to take. Fine. you know I saw this picture of what there's a this guy the New Yorker mayor and AOC and, And Bernie Sanders, grinning away, looking confident and happy, tax the rich. And it's like, hey, if these are the sophists, if you've got a philosopher saying eat your veggies and you've got all of these sophists saying candy is great for you and vegetables and meat is terrible for you. Okay, well, then if you go with them.
[28:37] Off you go.
[28:38] And actually, I got to tell you, it's kind of a relief for me. Because if you put maximum effort into you know you've got some uncle who can't quit the hookers and blow and you say to him man this is going to end badly and and you you try to get him to stop and you you know that the mafia threatens you because they want to keep getting access to his money and and you know the the hookers who want his money they they start threatening you and the pimps come over and they threaten you and and beat up your dog or something like that and then eventually, if he's just like, nope, I'm committed, I'm going to keep doing the hookers and blow, it's a relief, because now you're not going to get threatened anymore. Like, you've done everything you can.
[29:18] And honestly, I'm not quite glad, but I'm not unrelieved. Because it's like, when you're a diplomat.
[29:28] And you're trying to stop a war,
[29:29] And you're working, you know, for years and years to stop a war, and you get a lot of threats and stress and blah, blah, blah. And then, you know once the war breaks out you're like okay well at least i don't have to worry about stopping the war anymore at least that is off my plate so yeah they choose this stuff i i no longer am interested since i won't compel anyone i'm no longer interested in what happens to people who make these obviously terrible decisions uh with all of the full knowledge of history and the internet has removed everybody's excuse it's like somebody who still uses.
[30:03] The word mccarthyism
[30:04] Unironically so.
[30:06] All right. Is there anything else? I strongly suggest just getting that skilled indifference,
[30:11] But sorry, go ahead.
[30:12] No, you're good. Yeah, that's all I really have. Thanks again for having me up and having that deep dive. That was very good.
[30:19] My pleasure. And I'm not sorry that it's happening. It's fine that it's happening. This is what people are choosing, and they're going to have to live with the consequences of their choices. And, you know, it would be nice if people were as anti-communist as Eastern Europe, but apparently you have to go through.
[30:36] 40 to 70
[30:37] Years of communism in order to be anti-communist, and even then it doesn't seem to last for too long, and that's because of people's bad childhoods. All right, so if there's anybody else who has... Sorry?
[30:49] No, you're good. I just said, time to batter up then,
[30:51] I guess. I'm not sure. I'm not sure what you mean.
[30:56] Basically, just letting whatever's going to happen can happen and
[30:59] Uh well no it's not whatever's gonna happen happen it's all gonna be a disaster, it's not whatever's gonna happen happen you know it's like if once the titanic has had its side ripped open there's no like hey let's whatever happened it's gonna sink like you still have this neutral like hey whatever's gonna happen it's gonna be a disaster, And it is a self-inflicted disaster with all of the best information available to human beings known to man. We literally have the sum total of human knowledge is being carried around, nestled next to everybody's ass crack in their back pocket. They have the sum total of human information around available to them, and they're still choosing.
[31:40] You know, you
[31:41] Can understand people before smoking was understood to be dangerous saying, well, it's nicotine is fun or something like that, right? But now like now somebody who smokes is like well it's full knowledge right i mean so it's not whatever's going to happen let whatever happens it's going to be a disaster if somebody just decides to jump off a cliff you say well what's if it's going to fall not whatever's going to happen sorry to be annoying nag no you're fine you're still resisting i think you're still resisting no you're the facts yeah.
[32:12] No it's i don't know it's just been it's been very wild and it's kind of hard to
[32:18] Care for it. Hey, that's all right. Yeah, sorry, I'll stop this because we keep having these kinds of conversations.
[32:24] Very good, absolutely.
[32:25] Thank you, I appreciate it. But yeah, so I was posting about that this morning, and I mentioned it briefly, so I'll touch on it here. And then if you have questions, if not, Drago, I see you up there. But the rich used to have a fair amount of noblesse oblige towards the poor, right? They used to have a fair amount of it. It wasn't perfect, but you sort of think of the Carnegies and the Rockefellers and so on. Public libraries came from this, charitable hospitals came out of this, subsidies to education came out of this, donations to universities came out of this, scholarships came out of this. There was this noblesse oblige because everybody understands to some degree that, you know, if you're wealthy, it has a little bit to do with the luck of the draw. Not everybody who's super smart becomes wealthy, but everybody who's wealthy or who becomes wealthy is super smart and has other moral qualities, such as the courage and the ability to defer gratification and so on, right? So there's a certain amount of good luck that you have. I mean, there's lots of people who are in the music industry for just as long as Taylor Swift, but they aren't as pretty, they aren't as good at singing, they aren't as good at performing, they don't happen to have the magic brain juice to write great songs. So she's obviously skilled and has worked hard and deserves everything that she has. But there's a certain amount of just good luck in it. Just a, I mean, everybody at some point tries to sit along with the radio, and some people do it really well.
[33:54] That's just kind of luck.
[33:55] You just have the voice that sounds good, or you don't have the voice that sounds good. So that certain amount of luck translated into, okay, well, I've done fairly well with a certain amount of luck.
[34:07] With a little luck,
[34:09] Right? Sort of Paul McCartney style. And so I should spread that good luck. I mean, I felt that I had a good ability to do pretty well in the podcasting vlog space. And so I'm like, oh, it's kind of lucky. I happen to have an accent, happen to have a pleasant voice, happen to have, you know, fairly photogenic features, happen to have a good sense of humor and happen to have been well prepared. Voice training, acting training, blah, blah, blah, improv. So I thought, okay, well, if I have this platform, there's lots of people out there who are
[34:44] good and don't have the opportunity. So, of course, I opened up my platform to a wide variety of other people so that other people could be introduced to people who were, you know, good thinkers and speakers. And, of course, everybody sort of knows that sort of list. So I would say noblesse oblige, but because I was pretty early on in the space and pretty popular in the space, I wanted to bring other people.
[35:08] On board.
[35:08] And a lot of times I just let them talk. So a little bit of noblesse oblige and the fact that I have discovered some pretty good principles of relationships. So I wrote a book, Real-Time Relationships, to help people have better relationships and made it free, all that kind of good stuff. So there's a certain amount of noblesse oblige that comes from having talents, which you have some degree of responsibility for, but a lot of it is just luck. I didn't choose my genetics. They just are. So... Noblesse oblige is when you want to help the poor, but unfortunately, now we've had three plus generations of the poor ripping off the wealthy. I don't know that sounds kind of odd and kind of strange, but it's a very real phenomenon that every time you got to think about it from the other person's perspective. This is empathy, right?
[35:59] So if you're a rich guy and
[36:01] All you see online is we hate the rich, tax the rich, it's obscene, you know the rich should inheritance taxes and all kinds of taxes taxes for just, being right you're going to raise the capital gains tax arrange the corporate taxes right because everybody has this fantasy that somehow somebody else is going to pay the taxes raise corporate taxes it just means the workers get paid less or the price of goods goes up the consumer has to pay more and so on right because if you cut all the wealth of the people in charge they'll to stop running the businesses and the businesses will collapse. So you've got to think about it from the rich people's perspective. And I imagine it's kind of frightening. This is one of the reasons why the rich will fund the left, but not the right. Because if the rich fund the right, then they will probably get into some pretty serious trouble. This is sort of to Mike Surinovich's point is, why don't the billionaires fund the rate? Well, because... Will have a pretty tough time of it probably in many ways if they do that in the way that doesn't really happen with the left.
[37:13] Right?
[37:15] So thinking of it from the perspective of the wealthy is really important. You know, like for women, right? This is the question of body count. Sort of try and put it into a little bit more personal before we take it to the abstract, and then I will get to the next quarter. Thank you for your patience. But, you know, for women, a high body count, right? high body count, look at it from the perspective of a man. How does a man benefit from you sleeping around with other men? How does, oh, well, you know, maybe you've got some sexual skills. It's like, you could have got those sexual skills with one man. There's no reason for that. No need for that.
[37:48] How does it benefit a man? We understand how it benefits the women.
[37:51] They get.
[37:52] To go through their whole
[37:52] Phase and have a lot of variety and spice and excitement and lust, men lusting after them and buying them dinners and taking them on vacation. Yeah, that's fun. I get that. That's fun. Yeah, absolutely. But how does it benefit a man? How does it benefit a man that you slept with a lot of other men? He gets to take you around town and constantly run into guys who.
[38:12] Who've slept with you,
[38:13] How does it benefit a man? I mean, you then have pair bonding issues, right? Because every man's going to have some aspect that you like and some aspect that you don't, right? This guy's taller, this guy has more money, this guy's better in bed, this guy has a bigger penis, whatever it is, right? And so you're going to be comparing the highlights rather than a person with their strengths and weaknesses. You're.
[38:36] Going to be
[38:36] Picking from all these highlights and being dissatisfied with everyone that you end up with, any individual that you end up with. So you've got to think, what's the benefit? What's the benefit to a man of.
[38:47] A woman sleeping
[38:48] Around? Pair bonding issues, potential STDs, a lot of exes, some drama, and a perpetual sense of dissatisfaction. And it's the same thing, sort of looking at it, looking at the world from the perspective of the wealthy. How does the world look from the perspective of the wealthy? How does the man look?
[39:09] How does the world look from
[39:10] The perspective of the wealthy? Well, it looks like a bunch of people who are just dying to tar and feather them, throw them in jail, rob them blind, and string them up. And, of course, people can do that. They can do that all they want. They can have all of this hatred towards the wealthy, and they can constantly threaten the wealthy and get mad at the wealthy and tar and feather the wealthy and want to tax the rich, written all over AOC's butt. And they can do all of that. And they can see. I don't know if you've ever been targeted by people, but, you know, it can be a smidge unnerving, right? Obviously, it's kind of what it's designed for, right? And if everybody is just to hate the rich and so on, well, then the rich are going to view you, they're going to view the population.
[39:57] As a whole
[39:58] As dangerous, volatile enemies, right? And that's not a great position to be in. And the rich will no longer have the noblest oblige. They won't really want to start companies. They'll enjoy their money and they'll leave it to their children. And they won't go out there in the world and try to make money and try to create jobs and provide value because it starts to look increasingly like terrorism, not economics. Because why would you want to benefit people who want to rob you blind and put your head on a pike, so to speak, right? I mean, literally, if the communists take over, but, you know, in general, it's just an analogy, but why? Why would you want to work really hard to benefit people who are loping through the streets, sword in hand, baying for your entrails?
[40:47] Why?
[40:48] And then, of course, when the wealthy no longer feel any noblest oblige, but instead have mostly fear and contempt for the masses, what happens then? What happens then? Stop creating jobs, people become more and more poor, and everybody will hide that connection.
[41:08] And what they'll do is they'll say, well, workers are
[41:12] Becoming increasingly resentful and dangerous, so I don't want to hire people. I'm going to invest in robotics and AI. If you are in a small town and you're the mill owner and you employ friends and relatives and so on, then you want to keep the mill going. But if a bunch of strangers move into the town and are constantly baying for your blood and having workers around is becoming more and more dangerous because they unionize.
[41:38] They can organize,
[41:38] They keep threatening you and so on. Well, it's like, okay, well, robots are safer than dangerous people. So all of that's going to happen. All right. Drago and Alex, you're on deck. I appreciate that.
[41:51] What is on your mind?
[41:52] Drago, how can philosophy help you today?
[41:54] Oh hello stefan how are you the it just um i was i was listening to your uh what you were saying but when i went to speak i lost the last bit but um yeah how's it going well
[42:06] Thanks what's on.
[42:07] Your mind um yeah no well it's it's hard to imagine a way as you said the titanic sinking it's hard to imagine a patchwork job or what that could entail um but i guess before on that uh i was It's not,
[42:22] It's not, bro, it's not going to happen.
[42:24] Yeah, I don't see it. Yeah, exactly.
[42:26] Stop wishing. Yeah, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, right? You need to stop wishing. It's not going to happen.
[42:32] Sure, sure, yeah. No, I mean, I don't disagree. I'm concurring that it goes beyond imagination to see what would even...
[42:40] You said, I'm sorry to be annoying, right? I have a responsibility for what goes out over my channel. You said, it's hard to imagine a patch job.
[42:48] Yes, yes, which rhetorically, you can't patch a sinking Titanic.
[42:52] I wasn't clear enough with the analogy. No, no, you said it's hard to imagine, which means it's possible. If I said it's hard to imagine, it's hard to imagine X, then it means it's possible, right? Nobody says it's hard to imagine walking off a cliff and not hanging in midair. It's like, no, if you walk off a cliff, you'll fall. Sure, sure, yeah. Right. So I'm sorry to be annoying, but this is a challenge for people as a whole. Knowing when to give up hope is essential for mental health. But anyway, I don't mean to nitpick overly or nag overly. So if you want to go ahead with the general question.
[43:27] Yeah, yeah, sure. I guess, right.
[43:29] Given that we've established it's impossible.
[43:32] Therefore, right, then there's no imagination, right, given that we agree it's impossible, let's say. But by, yeah, I guess, firstly, I wasn't aware, I haven't thought about this thing you said about rich people not being incentivized to fund the right. And I apologize if I misunderstood the thread, but could you please help me understand the logic there, why the rich are disincentivized from supporting the right?
[43:54] Well i mean you just have to go through a list of all the right-wing figures that were arrested under the biden regime okay i mean it's just direct punishment and even if it's not that then the media will just whip up a frenzy about you and you'll have to have increased security and lots of negative things and your kids might be at risk a lot of you know difficult and dangerous stuff that.
[44:17] It doesn't happen when the left funds people,
[44:21] But when the right funds people, or if the right funds people, then it would go pretty badly.
[44:28] God okay i see what you're saying like given the existing system and power structure which rewards it punishes one group of people rewards the other i see it's risky for a rich person to support the right i guess what i was the way i was interpreting the statement was that even without a corrupt system is there something intrinsically about how you can control people through a leftist paradigm and if you like power you're more inclined to support leftist causes because that entrenches your position of power among the higher. Whereas if you're supporting the rights, maybe that's more freedom or more threats, more competition, and maybe your wealth is more under threat if you're lifting up the middle class, let's say.
[45:09] You got to back off from your mic a little bit, man. You're like plosiving my brain into atoms. So I'm going to break out a story I haven't broken out in many years. I'll keep it very brief. This comes out of Down and Out in Paris and London by one George orwell it's a really great book and it's about his travels through the lower classes, with the plongeurs and so on and at one point he spends quite a bit of time with tramps the homeless the people who wander from town to town and he said uh there is uh considerable literature about why these men roam from place to place that they have wanderlust genes that it's part of their culture, their history, they're in a mobile frame of mind. It's all a bunch of like socio-economic, cultural, historical explanations as to why these tramps don't settle down but move from town to town. And George Orwell says that the answer is pretty clear, and it's actually quite simple, is that if they stay in any town for more than three days, they'll get thrown in jail. So, always look for the simplest explanation rather than the most complex one. So, what is the simplest explanation as to why people on the right who are wealthy don't fund courses on the right? I mean, you don't get to be wealthy without being good at risk assessment. Is that fair to say?
[46:32] Yeah. No, I mean, I agree with your risk assessment point.
[46:37] Yeah. So if you're good at risk assessment, then you will assess the risks of funding the right. And you will see what has happened to people on the right. And listen, some people can do it, but not a super great number of people are willing to take that risk. And so what you do is you say, okay, what's the cost benefit? Now, Elon Musk, of course, has gone fairly anti-woke and has rescued.
[47:03] Free speech through Twitter
[47:04] And so on, which is great. That's why we're talking. but that I think is partly because he lost one of his sons I think to what he perceives as some excesses.
[47:13] Of the left and so
[47:13] On and so but for most people uh you know I imagine being super rich is a pretty comfortable life in many ways unless uh you uh get in the crosshairs of, the mob and the media and so on right and then they'll just sort of relentlessly whip up a bunch of sort of hatred and hostility against you and your life. And I think people would even be willing to do that if they could see a particular benefit. If they, okay, I'm willing to do X and suffer Y if I can achieve A, B, and C.
[47:48] But can they achieve that,
[47:51] Whatever it is that they would want to achieve by funding the right or at least funding the non-left?
[47:56] Well, I doubt it because however many people you cure, let's say that you came up with a cure for lung cancer, but let's say government schools were forcing children to smoke 30 cigarettes a day from the age of five onwards, right? Would you ever stop the cancer? No, because you'd be curing people at difficulty and expense and challenge as adults, but there'd be way more people with damaged lungs coming out of the schools than you could have a cure afterwards. And so the prevalence of cancer would still increase. Even if you came up with some relatively easy cure for cancer, the crazy people, like the sick people are being manufactured faster than you can make them healthy. And it's the same thing. Even if you were to fund something in the world that promoted sort of reason and facts and truth and evidence and all that kind of stuff, well, you've still got millions of people pouring out of government schools and universities and so on every year who are directly opposed and have been programmed to be sort of vicious and violent towards your cause of reason and evidence. And so, what's the point? I mean, they're producing far more unstable ideologues than you can ever convert into rational thinkers.
[49:16] So, again, I don't have any idea. I'm not speaking for any wealthy people, but I would imagine that the equation goes something like that. Okay, cost-benefit. Okay, the cost is considerable.
[49:27] What can I achieve?
[49:28] Well, it's not going to be to make money because they already have money, so that's not worth it. Is it to effect and achieve some sort of positive cultural change? Well, unless the educational system is dealt with, you're just, again, you're patching up something that the whole is just getting bigger every year.
[49:46] Yeah, I mean, I agree.
[49:47] I suppose
[49:48] If I were more
[49:48] Precise with my question, the way I ask it, what I'm trying to ask is today, the risk benefit, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense to fund a person on the right. The cost benefit doesn't shake out to do so for the reasons that you mentioned. I guess what I'm wondering is, and especially given your historical background of looking at society through the ages, was it kind of always the case where it's more dangerous or risky to be vocal, to be promoting a right-wing, smaller government kind of position, however we define right-wing? Is there something intrinsic even absent the modern era that would make that a riskier deal or were there some periods of time where actually you could be more vocally right-wing and actually that would be the dominant thing you could fund and support and the risks wouldn't be there?
[50:37] No, it's never been safe because when people are getting their resources from the government through the force of the political process, when people are getting their resources from the government, then it's a matter of incentives, right? So the old example, of course, is the sugar industry, right? So the sugar industry gets a certain amount of subsidies and they get a certain amount of protection because there are tariffs in America. There are tariffs on foreign imports of sugar and there are subsidies to the sugar industry. And that drives up the price of sugar to the point where people start looking for these.
[51:12] You know, cane
[51:13] Sort of weird chemical substitutes for sugar because it's too expensive, right? So they get tens of millions of dollars a year, the sugar industry, but what does it cost the average American? A couple of bucks a year out of there, right? So it's dispersed costs and concentrated benefits are always dangerous to try to overturn because.
[51:36] Let's say that the average American makes 15 bucks an hour, right? But let's say that it's $15 a year that they lose because sugar is more expensive. So they have no more incentive than one hour to put into preventing the sugar subsidies and tariffs and so on, right? But the sugar industry getting tens of billions of dollars, sorry, tens of millions of dollars a year in benefits could be more. I'm just going with some number like that. Well, they have all of that money and multiples of that money to spend on making sure that those benefits don't stop, right? So the cost to the general public is very small. The benefits to the concentrated minority is very large. And so they have a great incentive to keep it going. And you only have a very small financial incentive to stop it. And if you get close to stopping it, well, you know, people will do a lot for tens of millions of dollars a year, right? Because it's not just a one-time thing. it's tens of millions of dollars a year so that's you know 100 200 million dollars over a decade that's a lot of money right so what would they do well they would do a lot they would do almost everything and almost anything to keep those going now if it was just one industry of course that would be one thing but it's 10 000 industries each of which get a concentrated benefit while the costs are diffused so it's like.
[52:55] Like trying to stay alive when you have 10,000 mosquitoes in the tent, right? I mean, you can swat some, I guess, right? But they're breeding and there's more, there's a hole in the tent, they keep pouring in and you got to sleep at some point and you're just not going to do well over time. So yeah, it's always difficult and dangerous to reduce government because it's not like you spilled some paint and you just kind of mop it up, right? You are withdrawing massive benefits from specific individuals and small concentrated sections of power and only benefiting, and of course, now, this is one of the reasons why debt and deficits and in particular unfunded liabilities are so bad, is because if you were to say to people, we need to cut government, no money would go back into people's pockets because the debt and deficit is so large.
[53:51] So normally if you if you cut your spending you get more money in the bank right but if you cut your spending and you're half a million dollars in debt let's say it's not even a mortgage it's some other crazy thing or let's say a hundred thousand dollars of credit card debt at some insane apr so you you cut all of this spending to the bone and you don't see a penny because it's all going to pay off the debt and that's going to go on for years and years and years and years and years and years and years. And so it's one thing to say to people, well, we're going to cut all of this government spending and you're going to also, you're going to end up with more money in your pocket. But no, because you cut the government spending and all you're doing is paying the deficit, the debt, and trying to save like hell for the unfunded liabilities. So you're asking people to sacrifice for just a massive net negative. So you're asking people who are getting concentrated benefits worth tens of millions of dollars a year to give all of that up. And you're not even handing the savings to the general consumer because it's all going after the debt and deficit. So it is not reversible politically at this point.
[54:53] Yeah, no, that's a very comprehensive, I think, detailing of the dynamic.
[54:58] Well, I guess the last question I had today was, in your survey of history, I'm curious what you would think about the following mapping. It's starting to trend a little bit. And the idea is that since the Enlightenment, when kicking off the revolutionary spirits, we entered first the Ark of the Tyrannical Father, which would be the authoritarian regime Of course, you know, the communist regime, Stalin, and then Hitler. And then we switched from tyrannical father to the devouring mother from the 60s, the overindulgence, the comfort, this kind of hyper feminization. And then the idea now is that we're entering, maybe we've already entered, actually, the era of the vengeful son, which is to say, you know, the new generation where they realize everyone's lying to them, the doctors, the parents, all the institutions, institutions. It's all just a lie. Uh, they have this nihilistic, nothing means anything. Uh, and I'm just want to burn it down. I'm not going to fix it. I'm just going to burn it all down. Kind of vengeful son spirit of the times. And of course we see this in like some of these mass shootings and specifically for the kids who were given the hormone treatments, uh, you know, with, with the gender dysphoria and all this kind of stuff. So that, I mean, would that fit? Is that a fair kind of arc of the stories or would you disagree with some of that framing
[56:26] So are you putting it in sort of um psychohistory terms those are like the mass terms and all of that.
[56:35] Yeah yeah i suppose sure yeah like you're right i guess suppose that would be the category yeah
[56:40] Well, I think, again, the psychohistory stuff is important, but it's not fundamentally psychological. So young men have a lot of rebellious, skeptical, and nihilistic energy, which is good. It's how society is supposed to get challenged and renew itself. You can't get a new snake skin without shedding the old snake skin. So how does society tame the wild, nihilistic, skeptical, and often hostile, rebellious energy of teenagers, and in particular, the boys. Well, society says, yeah, we'd really like you to obey the rules that we have. And here's what you're going to get.
[57:21] I offer you, in return for your compliance with social rules, I offer you income, a wife, kids, a house, a nice neighborhood, good schools, and a pleasant life. That's what I offer you in return. And that's the deal that traditionally has been made to the rebellious youth is curb your rebellion and you get some cool stuff. And fundamentally, it comes down to reproduction.
[57:54] Fundamentally, it comes down to reproduction. Now, if it is the case that reproduction, has become impossible in the system, that is, if it has become the case that reproduction has become impossible, then you can bribe people with casual sex. You can bribe them, I suppose, with masturbation and things like that for a time. But at some point, the genes are like, holy shitballs, bro, we're done. And then there's a sort of, existential panic, or to put it another way, or in my usual reformulation, those genes that didn't have an existential panic at their inability to reproduce, didn't reproduce. And so the ones that have reproduced are those that freak out. And you can see this, of course, you can see this genetically with women who get baby rabies, right? This sort of fever that happens sort of early to mid to late thirties to just have a baby and they're just all they can think of and they just get this kind of fever. That's the gene saying, hey, door's closing. Let's get another generation here. Otherwise, it's dead end after 4 billion years, right? So for the young, the question is.
[59:03] Can I reproduce? And if they can't reproduce,
[59:06] Preventing the young men from reproducing, and the young women, but the young men generally a bit more active this way, but preventing young men from reproducing is a fundamental pressure buildup in a society. And the destabilization of society is essential to the leftist revolutionary spirit, right? The leftist revolution, I mean, there's not much, that's why they hate the 50s so much, right? Not only was there a very sort of high white birth rate, but also there was a stability and a productivity and a level of comfort and ease. You know, the old one guy could have a wife and three kids and a car and a nice house. There was peace and stability, and that tends to produce fewer, less rebellion and so on. And so the way that you destabilize society at its most fundamental is, well, there's two ways. Number one is you prevent the young from reproducing,
[1:00:01] and then their sort of desperation and desire for change kicks in. That's number one.
[1:00:06] And number two,
[1:00:07] You forcibly transfer resources from one group to another. So the interesting question is how does the genetics of a young man in the West, how does it perceive things like the welfare state? Well, it perceives it as having been conquered. Because when you are conquered as a society, your resources are taken from you and given to the conquerors. And so when young men in particular see all of their resources or a lot of their resources being taken away or their opportunities being taken away and given to others, there's a rebellion about that because there is a perception of having been conquered and then there's a sort of revolution, a revolutionary spirit that enters from there, if that makes sense.
[1:00:53] Yeah, that's a great point, right? I guess you could just streamline it down to reproductive access or viability and the attack on the family and male-female relationships and even direct chemical castration.
[1:01:06] I mean, that'll.
[1:01:07] Directly cure your ability to reproduce. Yeah, that does seem to be a good explanatory simplification that works, that predicts.
[1:01:17] Yeah, because the genes say anything but this is an improvement. I'll risk anything because I'm going to die anyway. The genes are going to die at any rate. Some change is necessary. And then, of course, the hard leftists come along with the change. Ah, this is going to get you what you want. And, you know, like, well, if the plane is going down, I might as well jump because I'm going to die if I stay. Right. So, yeah.
[1:01:40] All right.
[1:01:40] Is there anything else you want? Right on.
[1:01:42] Thank you, Stefan. Appreciate you having me up.
[1:01:44] Thank you very much. Appreciate it. All right. Alex Aleksikov, what is on your mind, my friend?
[1:01:51] Hi. Hi, Stefan. So, sorry to derate the conversation a little bit. I just have a question that I wanted to ask you, and I'm not going to debate that or judge or anything. I just want to hear your take on this. What's the most mystical or supernatural thing that you will be willing to believe in?
[1:02:16] Okay, so you know what you have to do now, right?
[1:02:19] No.
[1:02:20] You don't know what you have to do now? How long have you been listening to what I do, bro?
[1:02:25] I don't know. Like from time to time for like two months.
[1:02:29] Two months. Okay. So when you are having a philosophical, even if you don't want to debate, if you just want an answer, the first thing you have to do is define your terms. What do you mean by supernatural?
[1:02:41] Yeah. Something that you cannot explain with science and you will never be able to explain with science.
[1:02:50] Okay.
[1:02:50] Is there an explanation that is possible, but doesn't involve, say.
[1:02:55] Reason and evidence?
[1:02:57] I would say yes.
[1:02:59] Yeah.
[1:03:00] And explain to me,
[1:03:02] If you would be so kind. So that sounds like I'm giving you an order. Explain. But no, tell me what you mean by a methodology that doesn't involve reason and evidence that is a good way to believe in something.
[1:03:16] Yes.
[1:03:18] There are some things you cannot really measure directly,
[1:03:22] But you can.
[1:03:23] Observe the effects of such things if they exist. In a way, that's kind of like a measurement as well. But you kind of just go and measure this thing. You know what I mean? But you see that it's like...
[1:03:38] Do you mean like gravity?
[1:03:41] I mean like you go to a beach and then you see the sun and then you see some footsteps.
[1:03:48] You don't really know
[1:03:49] Who made those things but you know someone was there, right? I don't know. Things like that.
[1:03:55] Okay. So that's inference. That's the measurement.
[1:03:59] Yeah, that's the measurement. But that's reason.
[1:04:01] Hang on. But that's reason and evidence, right?
[1:04:03] Yes.
[1:04:04] Okay. So I asked you for something that's not reason and evidence that proves something. Hang on. Let me see if I can, I won't say help you out a little bit because I'm not saying you need help. But let me sort of try it. Sort of explain it this way.
[1:04:20] Yeah.
[1:04:22] So, is it the case that you're saying if you see a bunch of footsteps on the sand, you assume that somebody has walked there, but that assumption may not be correct? It could be somebody in a hot air balloon going low over the beach with shoes on a stick.
[1:04:44] Is that what you mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yes.
[1:04:47] Okay.
[1:04:47] Okay.
[1:04:51] One in a quadrillion chance that the peaks of sand were arranged that way, and then you just believe that there are footsteps or whatever. I mean, you don't really know, so you have to jump into some belief at some point, right? In this very simple case, it's like, okay, I choose to believe that there was a human here, and it was walking, and I see footsteps because of that. And that's actually, it's a plausible explanation, but it involves a very small leap of faith and belief, right? Because you have to, you have that.
[1:05:29] Well, hang on, hang on, hang on. And that's a very interesting question that you bring up. So the differences between, to be mildly technical, is between syllogistical reasoning. So syllogistical reasoning is all men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal. So, that's called deductive reasoning. It's 100%. Now, inductive reasoning is there are footsteps on the beach. The most likely explanation is that someone walked along the beach. Although, it could have been something else, but by far the most likely, you said one in a quadrillion or whatever, by far the most likely explanation is that somebody walked along the beach, right? Yes. Okay. Now, does it take faith to believe that human footsteps were left by human people?
[1:06:23] Um, but I would say yes, a slightly bit of faith because you're, if, if you, only if you can like state that you're absolutely sure that there were humans doing those footsteps and you cannot really ever say that, but then you, you kind of like behave as if, as if that was the case.
[1:06:46] Well, sure. But is it faith, if you see human footsteps, to say a human being walked here, is that a matter of faith?
[1:06:54] I would say yes. Not like religious faith, like believing in God or something like that, but kind of like, do you rely on this kind of like extrapolation from previous experience, what's the most common thing, whatever, but you're still not 100% sure. So, it's like a 0.01% leap of faith or something like that.
[1:07:19] Well, is it a leap? And there's interesting questions, right? Is it a leap of faith?
[1:07:26] I would say...
[1:07:27] Those are human footsteps when it could have been... I mean, a human made them, even if it's somebody in a hot air balloon with boots on a stick.
[1:07:37] Right? Yes.
[1:07:39] So it is not, if you see human footsteps, it's not a leap of faith to say people made them.
[1:07:48] For me, it is slightly.
[1:07:50] Okay, so tell me how human footsteps show up on a beach without people doing it in some manner.
[1:07:58] Well, I mean, there's plenty of alternatives, right? So you're saying human footsteps a priori, but when it actually is like you see shapes in the sun that resemble human footsteps, which is slightly different, right?
[1:08:15] Well, okay, so let's do a couple of layers, and I appreciate the conversation. Let's do a couple of layers of probability. You see a person walking on the sand you know for sure right yeah.
[1:08:27] Yeah yeah okay
[1:08:28] Okay so that's not a leap of faith if.
[1:08:31] You glance up and
[1:08:33] There are a bunch of footsteps right in front of you and then 10 feet away there's a guy walking and the footsteps lead directly to him are you certain.
[1:08:43] Yeah you i i would say like yeah it was
[1:08:46] That guy oh yeah so those are human footsteps right yeah And if you see human footsteps and there's a guy 20 feet away, you're still certain if he's like, I don't know, 100 feet away and it leads to him, you're certain, right, that he made those footsteps.
[1:09:02] Yeah, yeah.
[1:09:03] Okay. Now, if all you see are the footsteps and you don't see the person, maybe you napped for a long time, right, you wake up and you see the footsteps and you don't see the person, how sure are you.
[1:09:15] That a person walked?
[1:09:19] Almost 100%, but not 100%. Because you don't see that person, right?
[1:09:26] You don't see that person, right?
[1:09:28] Yeah. But, I mean, any reasonable human, me, I would say, yeah, they were made by somebody who worked here sometime before.
[1:09:41] Okay. is it faith if it is the maximum possible standard of truth in other words if you see human footsteps and by that i mean you know five toes the hill you know that kind of stuff right so not just like holes in the ground that the tide went in and out of but like actual human footsteps, so if you see human footsteps and you say those are human footsteps that is the most certainty that you can get in that situation, assuming that there's no video that you could rewind. That is the most certainty that you can get in that situation, right?
[1:10:15] Yes. Yeah. Okay.
[1:10:19] Now, is it fair to say that you need faith to achieve a level of certainty that is impossible?
[1:10:27] Yeah, because it's just, yeah, I get the impossible part of that.
[1:10:32] Now, and also, it's sort of a language thing, right? Yeah. So, I'm sure you're aware that in law, there's sort of two standards of proof in most common law systems. The first standard of proof is for criminal behavior, and it is proof beyond a reasonable doubt, which is like 95% or more certain, right? Yes.
[1:10:51] And then there
[1:10:52] Is the preponderance of evidence, which is like 51% certain, which is for civil cases, usually involving just money, monetary damages. Does that make sense? Yeah. Now, if somebody is found guilty of murder, they're proven guilty of murder in a court of law, and we say, he was proven guilty of murder, are we talking 100% or 95% plus?
[1:11:20] I would say 95% plus.
[1:11:23] Right.
[1:11:24] However, we don't put those caveats into what we're saying. We don't say, well, he's proven guilty of murder. I mean, 95% plus, it is proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Like we don't put, he's just like, he was found guilty of murder, right? When you pick up the newspaper and say, so-and-so was found guilty of murder today, and now legally you can call him a murderer. He can't sue you for defamation because it's been proven in the court of law. And so he is treated as a murderer, right? Yes okay however and so we would use that.
[1:12:00] Standard that he's a murderer
[1:12:01] He's guilty of murder he's been proven to be a murderer we would use that in the same language that we would use somebody who was on film killing someone and confessed which would be 100 proof right yeah so everything that we do has gray areas so even you and i having this conversation right we started this conversation which, again, I find very helpful and interesting. So, we started this conversation where you said, what is the minimum amount of superstition or the minimum amount of superstitious entity that you would be willing to accept exists or something like that, right?
[1:12:38] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right.
[1:12:39] And so, I said, well, I don't know what you mean by exists or believe or superstition. I need to define terms. Now, every word that we use.
[1:12:49] It has fuzzy edges.
[1:12:50] Yes.
[1:12:52] Right. So when I say the word word, that has a fuzzy edge. Because there are some foreign intrusions into English that we could use, deja vu and so on. And there also is some slang and nuance that we may or may not accept as being objective or we might not understand them. You know, like my daughter is a teenager, so she needs to come with subtitles. Sometimes because it's a living language that's changed.
[1:13:23] Quite a bit. Yeah. Right?
[1:13:25] So she ate that up. It's like, what does that mean? Right? So even the word word has fuzzy edges, right? Yes. And even the word fuzzy has fuzzy edges because you and I would have different ideas of what a valid word is or not. In fact, there are big debates every year about what makes it into the dictionary, right? Everything that we do involves a fuzziness there is no absolute contact of the mind that can prove everything in terms of a hundred percent right i mean like you might mistake something yeah i might mishear something there could be a hiccup in our internet connection and this has actually happened to me uh somebody says you you can't believe that and i think i hear you can't believe that because the tea gets hiccuped out of the conversation. So there is an almost infinite nature of fuzzy edges. In order for us to have a conversation, we have to accept a lack of absolute certainty in everything that we're doing. And yet we can still do it, right?
[1:14:41] Yeah, I'm thinking of this. So I'm going to ask you the same question. It's the same question from a different facet, but it sounds like a different question. You mentioned this, well, on this example of the sand, you said, let's say you already have all the information that you can have. You mentioned that. So let's say, let's think of the concept that all the information that is there may not necessarily be available to you.
[1:15:14] Like in general.
[1:15:16] Okay, so now humans,
[1:15:17] We humans in this world.
[1:15:19] We can only, disregarding how advanced is our technology or whatever, there has to be a limit on all the information that we can query out of this system.
[1:15:33] I'm sorry, I need to interrupt you for a second. I'm sorry to interrupt.
[1:15:35] So I was starting to make a case here, and I'm not sure what we're doing now. So I was starting to make a case, and my case had a little bit more to go to it, which was around we have.
[1:15:43] To accept physique differences.
[1:15:45] Yeah, let me, because I feel like we're just going off in some other direction now. So that's not your issue. I just need to be sort of finish the case. Yeah. So could you and I have a conversation if we demanded perfect accuracy in everything we were saying, that we absolutely agreed on everything, every definition of every word?
[1:16:01] No, it would be just argumentative without making sense. It would not go forward,
[1:16:07] Whatever. Yeah. Well, it could never
[1:16:10] Work because I would say to you, what's your definition of supernatural and you would say what's your definition of what your, definition right so so it would just go on and on and then we would never never get anywhere uh if if i say uh lend me ten dollars i'll pay you back tomorrow and then you said well you need to pay me back the exact amount that that ten dollars is worth tomorrow i could never pay you back because the value of ten dollars is even at the you know one thousandth of a penny is fluctuating constantly. So I just have to give you a $10 bill back tomorrow, even though it's not worth exactly what you lent to me because the money has changed value, even to a small degree in a day. Is that fair to put?
[1:16:52] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[1:16:54] Right. So you couldn't have... Functionality in the world if you demand perfect levels so for instance uh if you are buying um some cheese and you say give me a quarter pound of cheese can they get you exactly a quarter pound, no no they can't yeah it's impossible it's impossible yeah because even if they get you a perfect quarter pound when they lift it up from the weighing machine some cheese is going to stick to it and now it's no longer a perfect quarter pound right it's it's physically impossible, to get a quarter pound of.
[1:17:31] Cheats right yes yeah
[1:17:32] So everything is fuzzy you say well we need faith because there's fuzzy stuff it's like no we don't because everything is fuzzy we can't interact with anyone about anything if we demand absolute perfection on absolute clarity so if you're going to say, well, we need faith to believe in things where we don't have direct perfect evidence, then I would reply that the fact that you're interacting with me means that you're willing.
[1:18:04] To accept some
[1:18:05] Fuzzy boundaries. And yet we are not asking each other to believe in contradictory things. We are simply negotiating and going back and forth on how to best get to the truth. So for instance, if I'm making this case, I say, well, you can't get a perfect quarter pound of cheese. I do say, yes, I agree that we cannot get a perfect quarter pound of cheese.
[1:18:33] You could even say that a certain amount of the earth is escaping into outer space, right? Wind gets blown, dust gets blown up to the stratosphere. And so the earth's mass is constantly changing and therefore a quarter pound is going to be constantly changed. I mean, you could really go down to levels that would drive you completely insane. And yet we function, and yet we function, right? And so saying we have to accept a certain amount of ambivalence in order to function in society, I mean, if you said, I will only drink water that is pure H2O, you would die of thirst because you're never going to get that water that is pure H2O, right? It's always going to be something else. I'm only going to breathe air that never has whatever. It only has this sort of what they say in the textbooks, you know, the nitrogen, the oxygen, the carbon and so on. And say, I'm only going to, you're never going to breathe that air because it's always going to be mixed in with something, right? So we survive in fuzziness. We live in fuzziness. Fuzziness is life. It is the human condition. And so saying that that's the same level of faith.
[1:19:44] Need, or it's the same category that I need to believe in something like a square circle or something that is self-contradictory or anti-rational or anti-empirical in nature, in its definition, is not the same category. So saying, well, we can get a quarter pound of cheese is pretty accurate, right? And say, well, I can't get the perfect quarter pound of cheese, so I need faith that it's a quarter pound of cheese. It's like, no, no, I can read it on the, read out. I can see the little needle on the weigh scale. It's going to a quarter pound, right? So it's close. It's close enough. It's close enough for government workers to say that something used to be around when I was a kid. So saying, well, it's never a perfect quarter pound of cheese, so I need faith that it's a quarter pound of cheese is not the same category as saying that I also need faith to believe that it is with a quarter pound of cheese, and an elephant and a basketball at the same time. Did you see what I mean?
[1:20:52] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[1:20:53] So one is accurate, but not perfect accuracy, whatever that would mean. And the other is self-contradictory. Something cannot be both a block of cheese, an elephant, and a basketball all at the same time. Can we agree on that? Right. So we have fuzzy boundaries, which are impossible to satisfy, but is good enough to live. And I don't think we need faith for that. I do think that we would need faith to believe that a square circle could exist, or that two and two would make five, things that are logically and empirically self-contradictory. That's where the faith comes in. So if you were to ask me, as you did, and thank you for your patience while I go through this explanation, but if you were to ask me, what is the least supernatural.
[1:21:40] That you would accept,
[1:21:41] I would say, I accept the possibility of any entity that does not contradict reason and evidence. So I accept that there could be what we call dragons living on another planet, giant flying lizards that maybe could exhale methane and spark a fire between their teeth and breathe out fire, like whatever it is, right? I accept that if we define a unicorn horn is a horse with a horn on its head, I accept that there can be things that look like a horse with a horn on their head living somewhere in the universe. Because those entities do not contradict their own nature. So there are things that we know do exist, real horses, we know real horses exist. There are things which could exist, such as horses with horns on their heads, those could exist. And there are things which could not exist. So if a unicorn can fly, not a pegasus but just a then then you would say a unicorn is a horse that has mass but is immune to gravity well then i would say that cannot exist because everything that has mass is subject to gravity so i would accept the possibility that just about anything could exist as long as it does not contradict reason and evidence but i would never accept that self-contradictory entities could exist if that that's my sort of answer to your question if that makes sense.
[1:23:06] Yes but uh but But I would like to know an instance of that. Like, I mean, do you get this example of dragons in another planet where that might be possible? Is there something like that on planet Earth
[1:23:22] That you will be willing to
[1:23:24] Believe in or just none?
[1:23:27] Sorry. Oh, any... Non-self-contradictory entity could exist. Could there be dragons in some underground caves? I mean, I consider it highly unlikely.
[1:23:39] Yeah, okay. But wait, my question was something that you believe in already, like something that you will say, I think this is real on planet Earth. And that does not contradict reason. In the way you constructed the question, make it compatible with that, but something that you already believe in.
[1:24:00] Well, I fully accept that there are undersea creatures that we have yet to discover. Nice. Right? I mean, down the Mariana Trench.
[1:24:08] It takes like an hour
[1:24:09] From the surface to get to the bottom. There's some freaky stuff down there, right? I mean, full on, you know, chasing the Nemo and around the planet. So I fully accept, of course, that there are creatures. I would say the Earth as a whole has been pretty well mapped, so So I'd be kind of, I mean, I'm sure there's still some stuff deep in the jungle that we haven't yet found, but I think for certain in the deep water, there's stuff that we don't know. Sorry, go ahead.
[1:24:37] That's the kind of answer I wanted without getting into all the, yeah.
[1:24:43] But then are supernatural entities.
[1:24:45] They are, yeah.
[1:24:47] No, no, they're not supernatural entities. Supernatural is that which goes against reason and evidence.
[1:24:51] You're right. Yeah, you're right. Just, I don't know, undiscovered, whatever, unexplained, but not necessarily out of the realm of possibility of this universe, right?
[1:25:03] Yeah, absolutely.
[1:25:04] Yeah.
[1:25:05] Interesting. All right. Well, listen, I've got a bunch more callers, but I really appreciate that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thanks, Stefan. That's a very, my pleasure. It's a very interesting topic, and I do love working with this kind of stuff. All right.
[1:25:16] And again, rather than looking at the content of people's arguments, I find it important to look at the form of them and say, what level of proof do we need to accept in order to have the conversation? And if you're willing to accept fuzzy boundaries in order to have a conversation, you can't demand perfect certainty as a result. All right. Ranshid, what is on your mind? Going once, going twice.
[1:25:39] All right.
[1:25:40] I think we'll move on to Scooby. What is on your mind? Don't make me do the rut-row voice. Oh, he's kind of come and gone as well. All right, Draco we already talked to, and Ranchit is not chatting. All right, not the end of the world. We will, yeah, he's not, he's not. Okay, well, I'll stop here, and I really do appreciate people being able to jump in and have a chat. And this short notice, I have a call-in show tonight, so I should probably get a wee bit of dinner before. I'm trying this thing now where I don't eat until I'm desperately hungry. So I'm getting there. So, of course, thank you everyone so much for your time, care, and attention today. We are in our 21st year of philosophy. I'm immensely proud of that and immensely grateful to everyone here who has made this possible.
[1:26:28] And freedomain.com/donate to help out the show. Boy, do you get a really great bunch of goodies. I just finished the recording of one of my favorite chapters in my new book. It's called Chapter 19, which isn't going to teach you much, but it is really, really great stuff. I'm very, very pleased with this book. And I really thank everyone for the opportunity to do what I do. Freedomain.com/donate to help out the show. And we will talk to you for sure Wednesday night, 7 p.m. Bye.
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