Stefan Molyneux speaks with a Mexican man who has lived his entire life in the country and who lays out, plainly and without exaggeration, what he sees happening there.
The caller explains that the government has no real answers for the violence and corruption eating away at Mexico. He suggests the only path forward would require deep cultural change—something that could take generations. Stefan asks him to expand on that idea.
He describes corruption so widespread that it reaches into public works, police, the military, and drug enforcement itself. He traces much of the current chaos back to 2006, when President Felipe Calderón launched the so-called war on drugs and turned the country into a battlefield. Since then, the violence has never really subsided.
The man shares what he has seen up close: his parents’ small store robbed again and again, friends who vanished without explanation, the constant low-level dread that ordinary people carry. Stefan points out the official line that murder rates have dropped in recent years, then asks why disappearances have exploded at the same time. The numbers, he suggests, hide as much as they reveal.
They move on to family structure. The caller has looked at data and written about it online: places with higher rates of children born outside marriage also show higher murder rates. He ties this to early childhood—widespread abuse, neglect, and instability that leave lasting marks. Stefan agrees that trauma at that age tends to reproduce itself in aggression and disorder later on.
The conversation turns to daily life under the shadow of the cartels. Legitimate business is routinely choked by extortion; success invites threats rather than security. Many young men now look at narco life as the only realistic route to status and money. Conventional paths feel pointless by comparison.
They discuss what used to anchor people. The Catholic Church once held real moral authority, but repeated abuse scandals have gutted its credibility. Traditional families have eroded too, replaced by norms that shrug at crime and chase short-term pleasure. The caller sees both developments as leaving a vacuum that violence and hedonism have filled.
Toward the end he returns to the long view: real improvement would mean giving young people reasons to hope, reasons to plan decades ahead instead of grabbing what they can today. Both men recognize how hard that is when the basic building blocks—trustworthy families, respected institutions—are already broken.
Finally, the caller warns that Mexico’s pattern is not sealed off by borders. Other countries, especially neighbors, face the same risks whenever individual rights weaken and the same family and cultural breakdowns take hold. The discussion stays grounded in what one man has watched unfold in his own society, and what that might mean for anyone paying attention.
0:00:00 - Cultural Solutions for Mexico
0:00:59 - Overview of Violence and Corruption
0:03:26 - Personal Experiences with Crime
0:05:17 - Government Policies and Crime Rates
0:07:38 - Violence and Family Dynamics
0:11:54 - Child Abuse and its Impact
0:14:19 - The Role of Religion and Scandals
0:20:01 - Society's Shift in Values
0:28:09 - The State and Organized Crime
0:30:59 - Corruption and Law Enforcement
0:35:26 - The Influence of the Welfare State
0:46:11 - Challenges of Single Motherhood
0:50:25 - Social Dynamics and Young Men
0:58:47 - The Impact of the Narco Culture
1:00:53 - Positives of Life in Mexico
1:05:05 - Solutions for Cultural Change
1:11:40 - The Importance of Family Structures
1:21:32 - Warnings for North America
[0:00:00] All right, so I've got the note. If you want to launch us in, I am all ears.
[0:00:06] Well, the other day I was thinking, there's no solution for the current troubles in Mexico, at least not from a government perspective. But I thought, what if we modify the culture? And after several years, maybe 10, 20 years, That modification of the culture can influence the government and bring us to a better country.
[0:00:33] Well, I mean, that's a bit of a wish list. I'm certainly happy to hear more about how this might be accomplished.
[0:00:40] Well, I was hoping for you to give me some cues, too. I mean, the work you've done over these 15, 20 years is pretty impressive.
[0:00:52] Okay, and do you live in Mexico at the moment?
[0:00:55] Yeah, I'm Mexican, and I've lived here all my life.
[0:00:59] Okay, so for those of you, well, I guess for those of the audience who don't know much about Mexico and the problems with the violence and dysfunction, do you want to give people a sort of brief overview of what you've seen?
[0:01:13] Yeah, sure. Here, the government corruption is rampant in all the spheres of the government, from public infrastructure to deals with the drug laws, it's everywhere. I mean, I believe that many of your audience saw the news this past Sunday. They captured El Mencho, and half of the country was on fire.
[0:01:43] It seems to be a systemic issue, but I don't know. I remember when I was young, there was certainly some narcos all over the place, but there was not this kind of violence and this level of brutality. When I was young, yeah, from time to time you hear about some drug dealers getting caught by police and that's all. And maybe some money laundering, but not at the level that we see today.
[0:02:17] There were several phases of this drug war. It began in 2006 with Felipe Calderón, who declared the war on drugs and drug cartels when he claimed that the drug money was running high, up to senators, governors, representatives, and even the presidency. After Calderón, Peña Nieto, in 2012, continued the war on drugs. And after that, we see a complete reversing policy with Andrés Manuel, AMLO. And Andrés Manuel just let all the drug lords and all the narco guys do whatever they want. And there's a running conspiracy that he was in cahoot with the Cartel de Sinaloa and the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación. And they enjoyed his protection. So they expanded their business. And now they don't only sell drugs. They extort, kidnapped. Even slavery is rampant right now in Mexico.
[0:03:26] Right. And what have you noticed sort of in your personal life has changed over the course of the events that you're talking about?
[0:03:34] Well, I myself have been victim of the criminality here in Mexico. My parents' store was dropped several times. A friend of mine was disappeared by some cartel members. I've seen, I mean, I've seen the vehicles burn, blocking the road several times. I just stayed home from Sunday until today with these events. And you see it all over the place. Someone, everybody knows someone who disappeared, disappeared. Everyone knows someone who was killed or kidnapped or extorted by those criminals.
[0:04:24] Yeah, they say that the murder rate is down a little bit, but the disappearance rate is way up. So I assume that stuff just isn't getting solved or reported. So people are just sort of give up, right? Because, I mean, if, you know, it's the relationship between the community and police is kind of essential. So if people are like, well, the police can't do much or the police are corrupt and they don't even bother reporting stuff. And then people are like, hey, the crime rate is down. It's like, eh, not really. Not really.
[0:04:47] Yeah, not really. Also, they changed the definition of disappearing and murdering. So you now disappear, and after two years, I think, you are reported as still disappear, probably dead. So that's why you see the downward spiral on murder rate and the big, big increase in the disappearing rate.
[0:05:12] One of those government policies to look good, but we all know is BS.
[0:05:17] Oh, yeah. I mean, anytime you see a major change in crime rates in a short amount of time, And everybody assumes it's just jiggling the numbers. That's almost a foregone conclusion. Okay. Well, I'm sorry to hear about that. Do you know what your friend disappeared for or why? I mean, how easy is it to sort of stay away from these sorts of troubles if you lay low?
[0:05:42] It depends. It depends really on the region and the job you have. He disappeared because he was a real estate agent and he was contacted by some money launderers to they want to buy some real estate for from his company. He was like, oh, OK, I suppose I'm compelled to sell you that. But there was no agreement between them and he was invited to a dinner and he just disappeared. We never knew anything about him afterwards.
[0:06:23] Well, that's another thing, too, about a high-crime society is that who wants to be successful? Because the moment you're successful, you kind of get hoovered up into this crime vortex because you're of utility to people. And that's not particularly fun.
[0:06:39] I mean, it's everywhere. In the convenience stores, you see some – the coin machines you see in Las Vegas. Every store here in Mexico has them, and we all know they're controlled by the drug lords. And convenience stores, they dictate the price of tortillas or chicken or even beans. It's going crazy. And why would you like to open a new store if you're probably going to get mocked or extorted?
[0:07:18] Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, it really cripples economic growth. It's sort of like if you come from a very poor family and you start to do well, everybody wants money from you. And so it's almost like this is another reason why it's tough to get out of poverty is everybody else would just kind of claw you down. So yeah, I think that's really tough.
[0:07:38] Did you want to, I did some research this morning before the call about rates of violence in Mexico compared to, say, your average European country. Is that worth mentioning again, just for people who don't necessarily understand the scope of the issue?
[0:07:57] Yeah, I understand. I actually, a couple months ago, made a study linking out-of-wedlock babies and the murder rate here in Mexico. And you can see a correlation if you delay the out-of-wedlock as percentage of total babies born in Mexico. If you delay that time series by 16 to 18 years with the murder rate, you get a correlation of 0.77 to 0.8.
[0:08:31] That's crazy. Yeah, I mean, that's an insanely high correlation just for those who don't sort of know what that means. Okay. Yeah, probably. No, go ahead. Sorry.
[0:08:40] I published that on Reddit and everyone was Oh, but correlation does not mean causation And I was like, Come on, man. Come on. I mean, that's a standard midwif thing.
[0:08:52] But even if correlation doesn't equal causation, but nonetheless, even if they're both overlays of some deeper issue, the correlation is insanely high. And the higher the correlation to me, the more it would seem that there is causation involved.
[0:09:10] Yeah, and poverty-ridden single-parent homes are the breeding grounds for the cartels.
[0:09:19] Right, right, right, right. Yeah, I mean, I actually think that sort of at a deep psychological level, the cartels are the revenge of women for childhood sexual abuse, because even by official numbers, half of girls in Mexico are sexually abused as children. That's going to give them a lot of anger towards men. And then women who are angry towards men generally provoke anger in their sons, and the sons become their proxy weapons against a masculinity that is very destructive.
[0:09:49] I've seen it a hundred times here.
[0:09:52] And so I just wanted to let people know, like, it's almost beyond comprehension. So in Canada, the homicide rates are 1.9 per 100,000 in 2024. In Mexico, almost 20. So it's 10 times higher. And again, I think that the reporting is probably a little bit more accurate because you said there's all these disappearances and so on. And in 2023, it is...
[0:10:26] Mexico is high-impact crimes. They say they fell 14.4% daily from 2025 to 2024, and that is not particularly believable. So Canada has the lowest rates. The U.S., of course, is higher, about four to five times the murder rate. But yeah, Mexico has significantly higher violence as a whole. And the number one is the organized crime and cartels. And of course, it's funny because people say, you know, the leftists tend to be open borders. But of course, about 70% of crime guns are smuggled in from the US, including high powered weapons. I'm sure you've seen the picture, which people saw on X and other places, of the militarization of the cartels. They look like full-on military.
[0:11:23] I mean, they use an RPG in my hometown to take out one of the leaders of the National Guard. An RPG from Ukraine. Come on, man.
[0:11:36] So, I looked at child abuse, of course, in Mexico. So, in Mexico, 92.4% of children report four or more adverse childhood experiences.
[0:11:49] Yep.
[0:11:50] And almost 100% had at least one. Family violence, 83.3%. Community violence, 76.1%. Bullying, 78.3%. And it's hard to even comprehend just how bad childhoods are as a whole in Mexico and of course that's going to have a lot to do with the adult violence rate, right?
[0:12:15] Yeah, it's almost customary to hit your children if they perform bad in school or they misbehave at a public place which is such a terrible idea.
[0:12:29] It is terrible. And I looked into sexual abuse, Mexico, 39.9% prevalence in ACE studies, and that is 45.4% women, 18.9% men. And that is wild. Among female interpersonal violence victims, 44.4% experienced sexual abuse. And this went way up in Mexico City. This went way up during COVID. Of course, this is one of the horrible shadows cast by COVID was the increase in child abuse for people trapped at home. I mean, in a lot of places, school is kind of a relief and all of that.
[0:13:06] I mean, there's even some reporting of fathers or grandparents selling their children in Oaxaca.
[0:13:16] Right, right.
[0:13:17] And selling them, got to say, to some Americans or Canadian tourists in Oaxaca. I mean, that's terrible.
[0:13:25] Yeah. So in Europe, the sexual abuse for girls is less than one in five. In Mexico, it's almost one in two, 45% versus 9.7%. And in Europe, though, it's online risks that are pretty high. Mexico, it's in-person and family abuse. What I found wild, too, in Mexico, so the emotional abuse, 78.6% of kids. Emotional neglect, 95.1%, which, of course, you know, there's one in 20 kids, a little less than one in 20 kids that get emotional attention and sustenance or nutrition, I guess you could say. Bullying in schools, of course, is crazy high compared to other countries. So yeah, I just wanted to sort of mention that that is a huge,
[0:14:17] heartbreaking, really tragic issue. And I'm sure that we could go for quite some time talking about these sorts of things. Is there anything that you wanted to mention more in particular about the violence that you see or experience or what it's like for you where you live?
[0:14:35] Yeah, it has gone up, or at least we now get to know about it because of social media. I mean, I don't know if you heard about El Prieto Valencia. He was a business leader here in... In Guadalajara, he was killed by 30 guys with heavy weapons. Middle of the town, Monday, 9 a.m. Come on, man.
[0:15:05] How do you coordinate 30 guys to take out another guy with seven bodyguards in the middle of the town and no police, no National Guard, no army, no nothing? It has gone way up, and there are several different behaviors, I mean, between cartels. Cartel de Sinaloa was known to not mess with the local population, and they came to fight the Cetas. The Cetas were ex-militaries who formed their own cartel and were pretty violent. They came to town and talked with the local police officer and tell them okay you're with us or you're against us and we're going to kill you right now so what do you think, and to fight against the Zetas the Sinaloa cartel, created an alliance with the Jalisco New Generation Cartel and El Mencho policy was the same as the Zetas we're going to come to your town we're going to talk to the police, everyone who opposes us is going to be killed on the spot and we also are going to.
[0:16:27] Practically kill everyone that look bad at us priests business leaders whatever they don't care they just want to extract money and keep power and it has gone quite feudal i say sorry.
[0:16:47] Did you say feudal.
[0:16:47] Yeah yeah yeah yeah i get that i mean from indent and servitude to slavery to, it's called Cobra de Pisa. It's extortion for businesses and people. You got to pay the cartel as a feudal lord to be able to run your business or to live in your home. And the problem is that cartel guys do not care. Cartel guys are like, well, I'm 16 or 18 and I'm going to be dead by 25. So whatever. I don't care. I just want my money. I want to ride a big American truck and get high on booze and drugs and hire some prostitutes. And I don't care if your convenience store was here for 20 years. I don't care if your restaurant was here giving jobs to 20 people. I just want my money.
[0:17:48] Right. And now, is there a religious element? Because, you know, one of the things that you would think is that if there's Christianity, that that's going to put a bit of a brakes on that kind of mindset. But that doesn't seem to be the case. Do you know if there's a religious element to it? Is there something more primitive in the belief system as a whole? Or what do you think is driving the mindset of this kind of nihilism or short-term thinking?
[0:18:14] I would say it's a combination of several factors. Religion for certain. Mexico was quite, quite, quite Catholic about 30 to 40 years ago. I mean, I think we all have this idea of the abuelito was praying for her sons and daughters to be good people and all of that. But the church had quite a public relations blast with all the child sex abusers. Scandals here in Mexico. And I would say now Mexico is less religious than the U.S. or Canada by far. I don't think that even 30% of the population attends church service on Sundays or even cares about religion.
[0:19:08] And I assume it tends to be the older people too, right?
[0:19:11] Yeah. You never see younger folks on the church on Sundays.
[0:19:15] So tell me a little bit about the sex abuse scandals. I assume it followed a similar pattern as in the U.S., which is that the left-wing media attacks the church using some legitimate instances of childhood sexual abuse, but of course completely ignores the family and government schools where the sexual abuse is far more prevalent.
[0:19:38] Yeah, it's the same case that in Canada, you cut some bad apples. I mean, I'm pretty sure there are good priests and bad priests like everywhere. And you got some scandals like Padre Maciel from the Legionaries of Christ. He was a Mexican who founded the Legionaries of Christ, Legionarios de Cristo.
[0:20:02] And he was known to have like two or three families in Mexico and Spain and to abuse priests and children after service. That was the first hit. Then the whole news report, even from Canada and even from Europe, the scams with the priests over there made a dent here in Mexico. Everyone was like, oh, the church was always covering the abuse. All the priests are pedophiles and all that stuff.
[0:20:42] And to be fair, there was some cover-up. And, you know, there's legitimate criticisms, but of course, they don't care about pedophilia because if they did, what they would do is they would say, gee, okay, well, where are the most children abused? Well, it's the home and government schools. And so let's focus on those. It's not about concern about pedophilia. It's just a way. It's a lever through which to attack the church.
[0:21:07] And there has always been a historical rift between the state and the church here in Mexico. They came from like... The time Mexico became independent, the official public school history books said that the church and all the wealthy landowners want to keep their privileges. So the liberal state fight them to give their average Joe a chance to succeed. But it was not true. And you get all this indoctrination in public school from six-year-old to 18-year-olds that the church was always in cahoots with the upper class to take the land and exploit the workers and the natives somewhere.
[0:21:58] And it's not that true. I mean, the church had certainly, the church was in Mexico the largest landowner through the whole colonial period and good part of the 19th century. And communities remained mostly intact. And the church was quite an engine to promote the rights of the natives, the rights of the lower castes in Mexico. And Benito Juarez, who is claimed to be a national hero, was the main destroyer of the church because he wanted the money.
[0:22:38] He expropriated all the church property to fund his wars against the conservatives. And afterwards, indigenous communities, for example, were destroyed.
[0:22:51] The indigenous community who have worked in the church lands and in the highlands and ranches just had to migrate to cities because they got no jobs. And then you get all this propaganda from the government to make you think that it's okay, nothing happens. Or narcos are just like you and me and child abuse is bad but it's it's quite curious because you got this big jump from the macho mexican in the 90s to the woke mexican in the 2020s one generational change oh.
[0:23:42] Yeah yeah now when you of course when when you have government schools then you have one central place through which to program the entire population and it just takes one generation yeah.
[0:23:53] Yeah and sexual education was not prevalent at all in mexico before the 2010s i think so you got no way for the children to know they were being abused, and enough even compounding the effect was the fact that many parents do not talk about sexuality sexuality with your children because they think it's like, oh man, such a sin to talk about sexuality. You just abstain and that's all.
[0:24:28] Well, I don't have to abstain at all. I would say it's not the sin thing. Few people are religious. They just don't want to talk to their children about sexual matters because there are family members who are abusing the children.
[0:24:42] Yeah, and many times when the children report like Like, oh, my uncle is making me feel uncomfortable. Their parents are like, how you dare talk that about your uncle? He's saying he's my brother, for God's sakes.
[0:24:59] Yeah, it's tragically, tragically common. Okay. All right. So I wanted to talk a little bit. This is sort of an ANCAP theory because I find it quite fascinating to look at the relationship between the state. And organized crime as a whole. And one of the things, of course, that is always talked about in sort of Hobbesian political science theory is that, well, you need the government, because if you don't have the government, then you have all of these warlords and these terrible crime lords that will take over society. I'm not sure I quite see it following that way. What generally seems to happen is that what the state does is, is it provides a monopoly on protection against crime, which means that there's only one institution you need to take over if you're a criminal.
[0:25:58] And that's a state, right? I mean, talking about sort of in Mexico and other places. And that's number one. And number two is that the government, and this is true in a lot of countries around the world, the government also seems to be quite obsessed, which is exactly what you'd expect if criminals have taken over the government, quite obsessed with stripping the population of its right and capacity for self-defense and also to punish any citizens who do actually use self-defense. So, of course, you take away gun rights, you take away rights to self-defense. And then if somebody does actually exercise self-defense and harms a criminal, then they will often, I mean, the criminal may get punished, but often the person who tries to act in self-defense will get punished. So I sort of look at if governments are taken over by criminals, what would they look like? And what they would look like is, Well, they would want to disarm the population, and so they would go for gun control because criminals obviously don't like an armed population because it makes the job of the criminals much more difficult and dangerous. So they would do that, and then they would make sure that self-defense became progressively more difficult. I mean, it's difficult if guns are banned anyway.
[0:27:27] And it's then even more difficult if people hesitate to defend themselves because they're concerned about being punished by the state for defending themselves. So I sort of look at that game theory. And then I sort of say, okay, so if I was, I try to put myself in the mindset of like some evil criminal mastermind. I say, okay, if I was, if I was an evil criminal mastermind, then would I want there to be a government or would I want there to not be a government? And I'm like, I think I would prefer there to be a government. Now, of course, there is always the risk that someone like Bukele in El Salvador
[0:28:06] is going to come along and just start arresting everyone. That's a risk. But I would say that it's not a very high risk historically. And it's not really. Yeah, it's not. And of course, you can always flee, right? If you see that kind of stuff coming, certainly at the top levels of organized crime. It's mostly the henchmen who get scooped up and so on.
[0:28:28] So yeah, it's like the Jimmy Savile phenomenon in England that Jimmy Savile was interviewed under caution way back in the day with suspicion that he had sexually assaulted a number of developmentally disabled girls, and it was all referred. But, I mean, he can't be prosecuted because he's just going to start naming names of all the people he knows, and this is not going to happen. So, I think, because if you're just a crime, let's say this is some NCAP society, if you're just someone who wants to do organized crime, it's kind of tough because you're going to have 10 or 20 different dispute resolution agencies looking to find you, and you can't just take one over and then solve the problem because there's not that single choke point of power in society. You can't pass any laws to take away people's guns or other weapons of self-defense, violence, and you can't punish people other than through your own direct violence. You can't punish people for defending themselves. To do all of that, you need the power of the state.
[0:29:49] And so I think that, what was it, Sheinbaum is the woman in charge of Mexico at the moment. And it was 2024 was like the most violent election in all of Mexico's history. I mean, large numbers of candidates just got wiped out.
[0:30:04] Yeah, we're on over 50 candidates.
[0:30:06] Yeah, and then this woman says, well, you know, we can't do anything about the cartels because that would violate human rights and, you know, outside the scope of the law and so on. And so, yeah, it is to the advantage, I think, of organized crime that they get their helpmate in a corrupt government to disarm their victims and punish anybody who defends themselves. And that way they can operate with their impunity. And that's a sort of very big, that's a very big issue. And of course, I'm not telling you anything you don't know a lot more vividly than I do. But, yeah, I've always sort of thought about this relationship between organized crime and the state and how mutually beneficial it can be.
[0:30:52] Yeah, I mean, organized crime is just a state without elected officials, isn't it?
[0:30:59] I'm sorry, what did you mean?
[0:31:02] Organized crime is mostly...
[0:31:04] Oh, a state without elected officials.
[0:31:06] Yeah, a state without elected officials. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, here in Mexico, it's quite easy to write a police officer. Yeah. I don't blame them. Would you risk your life for a salary over about maybe $1,000 a month? Would you like to contend with guys who have a 50 cal mounted on top of an armored car? Of course not. You're not going to... Stop them.
[0:31:37] Right. Right.
[0:31:38] And after that...
[0:31:39] No, go ahead.
[0:31:41] Mexico has a constitutional right to keep and bear arms, but it's not really practical because there's only one gun store in the whole country and it's controlled by the army and you get to do a horrendously long process to apply for a weapon. And you can only buy the weapons that the military says you are not going to use for crime, right? Like a .22 or a shotgun if you live in a rural area, but you cannot own a semi-automatic rifle in most of the urban areas or a concealed weapon. I mean, you cannot even own a 9mm gun, which would be a good deterrent against the henchmen of the cartels.
[0:32:36] Well, and that's also something which allows the government to say that crime is lower than it otherwise would be. Because if the population is largely disarmed, then the criminals don't face any opposition, and therefore people just comply, and therefore the crime numbers look better. You know, if people had strong weapons and could fight back, then the murder rate would go through the roof i mean in the short run right because all the death homicide rate i guess you could say would go through the roof and that would look oh my god chaos you know and then the media would be like oh this is the fruits of voting this person in look at all of this extra we got blood in the streets and it's like well yeah but at least that's because people are fighting back before they couldn't fight back it's like if you disarm your slaves and you say well look there's no rebellion i guess they're happy with their state it's like no they're just disarmed so uh it is uh It's one of these things where these short-term numbers can get worse before they get better.
[0:33:31] Yeah, every time the debate comes to gun ownership in Mexico, everyone is like, oh, but if everyone has a gun, you're going to get killed by a traffic accident or your neighbor is going to get mad at you because you park on their spot and they're going to shoot you. And I'm like, come on, man.
[0:33:53] Not if everyone has a gun. I mean, I did a show, gosh, almost 20 years ago called Will Kill that imagine how polite society would be if everyone could will each other to die at a moment's notice. I mean, everybody would be super nice to each other and so on. And let's say you had a minute before you died so that you could will the other person back. And it would be a very, very, and sort of a nice and polite society is kind of the one that I grew up in because, of course, I grew up in England in the 60s and 70s in London and it was a terrifically pleasant, nice and polite society and I could wander the neighborhood from the age of sort of four and five with absolutely zero concerns or worries about safety. And, yeah, that's all gone. Anyway, so, yeah, so I think that that's the government stuff and the organized crime stuff is very interesting. The criminals get to outsource a lot of the costs of enforcement to the power of the state. Now, do you know what happened to this latest? Like, how did they take out this latest guy?
[0:35:06] I always think, well, he must have been about to squeal. He must have been about to spill his guts. There must have been something that he was taking out and people are willing to go through this level of, of violence. And of course, this is going to do a lot of damage to Mexico's
[0:35:23] tourist industry, which is like almost 10% of the economy, I think. The other 90% appears to be money being sent from America.
[0:35:32] But do you know what the backstory is between why this latest guy was taken out? Because these things usually are evidence of some other machinery that's not being seen.
[0:35:45] Yeah, there are several theories. One theory claims that it was Trump pressing Shane Bum to do something to say, like, we're pressing Mexico and they're behaving well because we are telling them to do it. And I believe it's somewhat true, maybe 50% true, because since Trump came to office, I don't know if you have listened about that, but there's been a yearly tribute of drug lords to Trump. They extradite about 20 to 40 guys each year to face charges for drug trafficking and murder in the U.S. and all of that.
[0:36:36] And I've heard some of that sort of stuff, but I didn't realize it was that high, so I appreciate the update.
[0:36:40] Yeah. Every year, like two or three weeks after January started, they send like 20 to 40 guys. Big guys. Not the average street henchmen. Operatives, money launderers, heads of cartels. And there has been a couple of big hits in the last couple of years. They took El Chapo Guzman again. They took El Mayo Zambada, who was after El Mencho, who was killed this past Sunday, the biggest drug lord. and the coordinator of the Sinaloa cartel. And now he's El Mencho. And everyone here in Mexico is like, of course they killed him. He was going to spill his guts in a New York court or a Chicago court like El Mencho or El Chapo Guzman did.
[0:37:46] And everyone is going to get involved within the high ranks of the government. I mean, it's well known by all the Mexicans that most of the police is corrupt, and a big part of the Navy and the Army are also corrupt, receiving bribes from the drug lords. So who knows what a high-level guy like El Mincho could say.
[0:38:15] Yeah, because, I mean, he would obviously try and avoid the death penalty by naming all of his contacts in the government, which would be pretty, pretty obviously bad for them. So I always assume that it's something like that. They're not 100%. But if it's coming from inside, it just means that there's negatives to whatever his next step is going to be. And I don't, you know, I was reading about this the other day. Maybe you've heard these kinds of stories, too. I don't know if they're apocryphal or real. But I was reading these reports. that this guy who was just killed, he lost tens of millions of dollars to rats, because they have so much physical cash stored in warehouses and the rats break in and chew through them and that this is the amount of money that is in these kinds of organizations and it is almost incomprehensible to the average person just how lucrative this kind of stuff can be.
[0:39:12] I think that comes from Pablo Escobar. It's Pablo Escobar's tales that he had so much money, so much $100 bills from his trafficking to Florida that he lost millions to rats chewing the banknotes in Colombia and to humidity and mold in Colombia. But I wouldn't be surprised that El Mencho also lost millions to that. But times have evolved and they do mostly electronic money laundering now through construction to real estate development to through every kind of business can be a facade here in Mexico to launder money. And everyone knows about it.
[0:40:02] Yeah, I don't know if you've heard this recording of the fellow, I think you just died, who was ordering the police around. The police were just like, yes, sir, yes, sir.
[0:40:11] Yeah, yeah. I mean, HSBC, Hong Kong Shanghai Banking Corporation, was money laundering like 3% of Mexico national gross product in 2012, I think. And no one seems to be charged for that.
[0:40:29] Yeah, it's like when the Panama Papers came out. And the thing is, too, is that people say in Mexico that the government is often corrupt, that the police are often corrupt, and so on. And to me, that's a little bit missing the point, which is that the family is often corrupt.
[0:40:46] Yeah.
[0:40:47] Each individual family unit. And the corruption in the larger sense, in the societal sense, flows out of the corruption in the familiar sense. So if there's a lot of sexual abuse, if there's a lot of beatings and neglect and exploitation and verbal abuse and so on in the family, then that is the corruption that is at the heart of everything. As you know, sort of my general theory is that the larger society is a long shadow cast by early childhood experiences. So I would say that the family corruption, and I think this is, if I understand it correctly, this is sort of the point of the call. So look at that, we're getting there. But I think that it is that that needs to be thought of more.
[0:41:32] There are several interviews here in Mexico of moms and sisters and brothers of criminals killed by police and moms are like, oh, my poor baby. He was such a good guy. He only steal but never kill anybody. He just wanted to sell drugs but he meant no harm to anybody and everyone is like, come on lady your son was killing folks and extorting honorable businesses and probably had like three or four bodies on his backyard but oh but he was my son he was such a good guy and of course she's protecting herself because she knows police may come after her because, she probably knew she probably hid him she probably benefited from the money that her son made right right, it's a tribal thing they protect their people even if they do something wrong just because it is their people they're their people like my son, he's a criminal but he's not a criminal so I'll protect him.
[0:42:58] Right right And the other thing, too, so tell me a little bit about the single mother statistics in Mexico. How bad is it?
[0:43:10] It's horrible. I mean, the IMEI or National Statistics Institute has three categories. One. Children born inside a married couple, children born to a single mom, it can mean many things. Children born out of wedlock may involve girls with a boyfriend, plain single moms.
[0:43:46] Widows, anything that is not married. But you see a trend and they have yearly statistics all over the place from like 1960 to today. And in the 60s and 70s, the children born within a stable marriage were about 80% and about 20% were born out of wedlock, whatever that means. And you see a reversal of that tendency to today where only about 20% of the children are born within a marriage and the rest are born to widows or single moms or moms with a boyfriend or moms with a boyfriend who's not the father of the kid born and it's a mess. And also, you have some reduction, but not that significant in the number of teen pregnancies.
[0:44:53] About 20 years ago, the teen pregnancy rate was about 25 to 30 percent. And now it's about 15 to 18 percent. It depends on the state. and I mean if you're a single mom and you're a teenager mom and you're poor in a rural town in Mexico what can you expect? I'm not.
[0:45:20] And the welfare state, I know it's sort of gone up in terms of its generosity in recent years, but is it the welfare state that's driving the collapse of in-marriage wedlocks or something else?
[0:45:34] I would say yes. I listen to it myself. Girls are like, come on, leave your boyfriend. The government will help you. They will give you a handout. There are several handouts programs right now in Mexico for everybody. They started in 2018 with AMLO. And especially for single mothers, they traced back to 2002 with the government of Mexico City.
[0:46:06] The program was called Apoyo a Madres Solteras. It was like support for single moms and they give you money for being a single mom the same thing that in the US you can have a boyfriend because then the kid has a fatherly figure and you're not going to receive the money so they take out the man of the home they.
[0:46:39] Go through boyfriends or husbands or whatever, and they divorce them on first notice. And then you have one kid or several children with a father figure, but their mom gets some handles from the government and it's not that much money, but it's just enough to live a good life here in Mexico.
[0:47:05] Yeah, I mean, I view that as one of the biggest and most silent or overlooked cartels is the cartel of single mothers who constantly want to pillage the taxpayers for their own greed or irresponsibility. And that, to me, is at the root of this kind of violence. Because, I mean, if you grow up with your entire family being dependent upon the coercive redistributionist power of the state, what are you going to say? Violence can never achieve anything. Violence is always wrong. It's like, bro, violence is how your family survived. That's what your single mother's living on. And then the state, in a sense, becomes your father.
[0:47:46] Yeah. And Mexico changed its policy with AMLO in 2018. Before AMLO, there was big social spending here in Mexico, mainly directed to social security, housing, and education. And, I mean, you got these big institutions like in Europe, the National Health Service, or in Canada, where here it's called the IMS. And everyone had to be affiliated to the IMS. And...
[0:48:22] Go and pay Social Security, which is a big chunk of your paycheck. I mean, it can be up to 40% of your paycheck, Social Security, if you're in the lower echelon of income. And after AMLO, it was changed to handouts. Handouts for everybody. They began with handouts for elderly people without pensions. Then they went for single moms Then they were for quote-unquote entrepreneurs Which is just a money-landering scheme And now they're going for teenagers They hand out about $200 a month for teenagers For teenagers? Yeah But why? Because they exist because it's claimed that with that money, they're going to buy a bike or a motorcycle.
[0:49:26] Oh, sports equipment and they're not going to become criminals, right?
[0:49:30] Yeah, I mean, the official government story is that, Oh, many teenagers drop out of school because they have to get a job to support their families. So we're going to hand out them $200 a month, no question asked.
[0:49:49] So that the paying children do not get jobs and they think this is somehow going to benefit society.
[0:49:56] Yeah.
[0:49:57] Hey, criminals want stuff for free. We're going to train you to not become a criminal by giving you stuff for free. Okay.
[0:50:07] Yeah, it's horrible. I mean, we all know what teenagers do with $200 out of nowhere. They spend it on beer and nice tennis shoes and partying.
[0:50:23] And hopefully a condom or two, but yeah, for sure.
[0:50:25] Yeah, I hope to. But it's terrible. And now everyone gets a pension from the state. And that's the formula for morena the party in government right now to to keep win.
[0:50:44] And it's it's really tough as you know to undo that stuff in particular the single mom thing is is a challenge i mean if you take away the money from the teenagers be like oh that's a dragon you know but they'll go and do something else to spend less money the single mom thing though like let's say you have two kids by two different men and you're relying on the government, if the government, money dries up, then what? Right now, I know that in terms of survival, the single moms can all get together. They could rent a big house. They can watch each other's kids when they work. They'll find a way to survive, but it would be a huge transition, and a lot of their emotional and negotiation skills will have deteriorated because they haven't had to negotiate anything because they're getting a bunch of free money. I mean, one of the things that helped me get out of a bad childhood was just having jobs. And when you have jobs, you have to learn how to negotiate, you have to learn how to provide value. But of course, if you've been sitting on government money for 10 years, you've become entitled, you've lost your negotiation skills. And with regards to single moms, I mean, they want guys who can support them, but guys who can support them don't want single moms. As a man, you don't want to take your hard-earned money and apply it to the success of another man's children, particularly if that other man is kind of low quality. Sorry, go ahead.
[0:52:08] Also, one of the parts of the culture that I loathe here in Mexico is the idea that the successful man has three side chicks besides his wife, and he starts children with all of them because he's such a mature that he, of course, has children with several women.
[0:52:30] Right, and then either he pays their bills or they go on welfare, and so this sort of subsidized harem situation is pretty bad because then, of course, it means that there's lots of men who can't settle down, who can't get girlfriends and wives because they're clustered around the wealthy guy, right?
[0:52:50] Yeah, yeah. it's like oh of course the company owner has two side chicks and he screws with the secretary, And everyone is like, that's normal, but that's not normal. That's not healthy.
[0:53:07] No. And how is the unmarried young male? I mean, they call them incels in North America, which I don't think is a particularly healthy or helpful term, but that's the generally accepted one. How is that issue in Mexico?
[0:53:22] Horrible. I mean, you would be amazed by the... Amount of globalization of the terms like incel or passport bros or all these, new ideas coming from the US and Europe, they're all known here in Mexico. Everyone knows what's an incel here in Mexico. Everybody knows what is a passport bro here in Mexico. And now it's not only gringos, the one who go to Philippines or Thailand for a ladyboy. Some wealthy Mexicans also do. But for the average show, it's horrible. It's like, gotta marry a single mom or gotta marry an entire brat. That's the two options.
[0:54:17] Or the obesity, right? What is it they say? The sort of fork in the road, single mom, fat girl, because obesity in Mexico and diabetes in Mexico is, again, something that is hard for people to comprehend. So what the heck is going on with the diet and exercise and all of that sort of stuff in Mexico?
[0:54:38] There are several factors. Number one, Mexican diet is not that bad. I mean, there's a lot of variety. You got hot grains, you got tons of veggies and fruits and beans and meat, but there's a trend to deep fry everything and to drink Coca-Cola like it's holy water. That compounds with the fact that diabetes treatment here in Mexico is free, mostly subsidized by the state. So people don't care. They're like, whatever, I may get diabetes when I'm 50, but I'm going to enjoy myself right now. Who cares? The government pays for the insulin on all the treatments.
[0:55:33] Well, but I mean, if everyone's getting diabetes, I assume that treatments take a while and there's a certain amount of inefficiency there. But again, I mean, that's a sort of thinking down the road, decades down the road, which doesn't seem to be. I mean there is very much a live in the now aspect from what I've seen in the Mexican culture not quite as bad as Jamaica but certainly not like the sort of northern winter climate anxiety plan for the future kind of stuff but there very much is a, Relax, enjoy the now, don't stress, don't worry. And that could be a little annoying, honestly, from sort of a Northern European culture. It's like, hey, man, I'm all for relaxation, but can the cab that I ordered actually show up so I can get to the airport?
[0:56:20] Yeah, you tell me, I was thinking the other day about my projections for a trust fund for my children. And my friends were like, why aren't you planning that instead of a vacation to Cancun? And I'm like, because I'm not that rich and I want my children to have a good college, maybe?
[0:56:41] Yeah, or at least those options.
[0:56:43] Yeah. Yeah. And the Live Now culture has had an incredible rise here in Mexico. Everyone is like, whatever, I'm going to enjoy myself. I'm going to drink booze and party hard and have like several partners and whatever. And especially with the growth of the narco culture, the buchonas is a style of people. For women, it's like, I'm going to fill my leaves and get some plastic surgery to appeal to the rich guy in the town. And for the guys, it's like, oh, I'm a butchon. I have to buy a big ass truck and ride it along with plastic music and a gun showcase for everyone to know that I'm making it. And it's very annoying and it's I mean what can you expect from a society where the top guy is a teenager with a gun hmm.
[0:58:04] Yeah, and it's funny, too, because the sort of, I know it's not an island, but that sort of general close to the equator island culture or sort of warm climate culture, it's funny because everyone is like, relax, enjoy yourself, don't stress, don't this, don't that. But then there's always this hair-trigger violence as well, and it's like, that's kind of, and for me, that was very hard to understand from the outside, that if everyone's so mellow and, you know, hedonistic in a way, then where does this sort of hair-trigger violence come from if somebody perceives insult or something like that? And that is a wild thing, but I guess it's all part of the same hedonism,
[0:58:44] that you don't restrain your temper any more than you restrain your eating.
[0:58:47] Yeah, and it wasn't like that before I mean I blame social media for it a lot But I remember when I was a kid, Everyone wants it to be a businessman or a police officer or an entrepreneur. And now it's like, oh, you go to ask the kids what do they want to do? And they're like, I want to be a YouTuber or I want to be a henchman or I want to be the next drug lord. And I'm like, well, frankly, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[0:59:27] Many years ago, I just had a sort of roadside stand. I took my life in my hands, decided to expose my tender Canadian belly to some roadside Mexican food, which is actually really good. But I just, and over the roadside, there was a picture of Al Pacino in Scarface. And it was obviously there as something aspirational. And I'm like, good Lord, of all the people to want to aspire to be, that is the strange thing.
[0:59:55] I get amazed by the number of young men that think that the Joker is a good role model.
[1:00:05] And actually, you mean the sort of more recent one or the Heath Ledger one?
[1:00:09] The crazier one. The one that burns the city.
[1:00:13] Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[1:00:13] I think.
[1:00:14] Like the Batman one, not the sort of one that Joaquin Phoenix did sort of more recently. Okay, yeah, yeah. Yeah, because it's chaos, right? And it is impulsivity. And also, you get attention. I mean, if you are violent, you will definitely get attention.
[1:00:28] Yeah, yeah. And I'm like, oh, man, how can we flip this? I don't want my children to live in a shithole, and I don't want my children to have to migrate to the U.S. Or Canada or Europe for a better future. I mean, I really like living in Mexico if you take out the narco culture.
[1:00:50] Well, okay, so let's obviously, you know, both sides of the coin. So tell me about the things you love, the pluses, because we don't obviously want to leave the impression with everyone that Mexico is a swirling soup of violence and degradation. So tell me about the pluses. What are the things that you really like?
[1:01:06] The weather is unbeatable, man. I mean, I have some...
[1:01:10] Well, there is that, yeah.
[1:01:12] Yeah, my Canadian friends...
[1:01:14] It's currently minus 16 where I live. So, yeah, I get you there.
[1:01:17] Yeah. A good friend of mine lives in Niagara, and he's always like, oh, man, two feet of snow last night. No, I'm freezing, man. And I'm like, it's sunny here. It's pretty good. than after the weather is food and the people. People are generally quite kind here, unless you come across the drug lords.
[1:01:50] Or your child, because it's not too kind in the family.
[1:01:54] Yeah, but the public face of the people is very kind here. I mean, I've been to the U.S. And Europe several times, and they don't even greet you in the morning sometimes, mostly in Europe. I would say that the Americans and Canadians are far, far, far more engaging than the Europeans in the small talk.
[1:02:20] Yes, that's true, for sure.
[1:02:23] And, I mean, food, the weather is good. The infrastructure was pretty good before AMLO, actually. Roads were very good. You got highways, you got airports, you got seaports, which are expanding right now, but corruption has taken their toll on them. And life isn't that expensive, too. I mean, I've heard thousands of stories of Americans and Canadians coming to live here because they're like, really? A full house for $1,000 a month? I cannot believe it. A three-bedroom house for $1,000? That's pretty good, man. That's quite a deal.
[1:03:13] Oh, yeah, yeah. The cost of living in Canada is mental.
[1:03:17] Yeah, yeah. Even cars, man. And I'm like, what? $40,000 new average car in Canada? That's crazy, man. Here in Mexico is about $25,000, I think.
[1:03:35] And when you take out the violence, I think Mexico is quite a paradise. Also, because our government is so, so, so corrupt, We enjoy many liberties here that I don't see you guys enjoy in Canada or in the U.S., even in Europe. I mean, freedom of speech is incredible here in Mexico. You can criticize the government all the time. And nobody is going to tell you anything. The other side of the coin is you cannot criticize the drug lords because you may get a visit or two and the other parts of, of Liberty are very good here in Mexico. I mean, I was talking with a friend from California about building your home here in Mexico. You just buy a plot of land and talk with an architect and a civil engineer, and you build yourself your home. And he was like, really, man, you got to get like 50 different permits here in California just to change a window.
[1:04:51] Oh, yeah. Or God forbid you want to build a shed on your own property. I mean, they've literally forced people to fill in their own swimming pools if they don't have their permits. It's really crippling.
[1:05:06] Yeah, and opening a business is relatively easy also here in Mexico. I mean, you just have to wait some, period for the government agencies to give you the permissions but it's almost always a jest in more developed countries where you have to comply, with like 100,000 regulations for just a restaurant it's crazy Okay.
[1:05:46] Well, and no bribe culture. So the rules mean something. So that's a drag. In terms of efficiency, not that I'm recommending bribing, but at least in Mexico, the rules are there usually to get money rather than to almost rather have somebody who's corrupt than these endless Karens who enforce everything and paralyze everything.
[1:06:11] Yeah, for sure. I would gladly pay $1,000 in corruption, bribing an official then to get daily care and trying to close my business because she didn't feel well attended here.
[1:06:28] Right, right. So, okay, we can spend a few minutes. I mean, the sort of question of how to change all of this. I mean, obviously, I have a Spanish version. I think I have a Spanish version of peaceful parenting. So I'm very keen to get that. I'm sorry?
[1:06:46] I've recommended your Spanish version to several of my friends who have their babies right now, and they're pretty happy with the material.
[1:06:56] Oh, good. I'm very glad for that. So I definitely do want Spanish-speaking cultures, which don't seem to have a lot of the peaceful parenting stuff sort of baked in. I definitely wanted to sort of get that out to people so i appreciate you recommending that and please ask them to recommend it onward if they're parenting groups or whatever it is that they're meeting up with so yeah i mean it really does have to it really does have to start in the family this is why social change doesn't tend to progress too much because people aren't dealing with the source they're all playing whack-a-mole with the effects of bad family life so, It's going to be always you're facing the undertow because you're trying to build strong families at the same time as the government is trying to destroy them for votes.
[1:07:43] Yeah, for sure.
[1:07:44] Yeah. I mean, if you're on the left, then single moms are one of your most reliable voting blocks. So you want to produce more and more single moms. So, of course, you get all of the don't trust men and you should have a career and you need to get educated. And, you know, with all the attendant debt, I don't know how bad that is in Mexico, the student debt stuff and all of that. And then the welfare state where you can't have a man in the house. So switching the allegiance of women, and in particular mothers, from husbands to the state is foundational. And there's not much that my book can do to stop that in the short run. I think that's one of the big undertones that people are facing.
[1:08:23] Yeah, I mean, you get the government for everything like a socialist country. Actually, the older model in Mexico was based on Sweden and Denmark, socialist model. Like from the moment you were born in a public health hospital, hospital to public school, to public housing, you were always a friend with the state. And you were always taken care of by the state, like a big grandpa helping you all the way through life. And I think that doesn't promote maturity within people because they're always like, oh, I got sick, whatever, medicine is free and things, I'll get some.
[1:09:15] Yeah, I mean, people get more wealth from the government than the wealthiest children in all of history, from the wealthiest kings and all of that, because, you know, I'd rather be on welfare in a relatively modern country than be the king's son, you know, 500 years ago, because, I mean, just dentistry and healthcare and air conditioning and all that sort of stuff. So, yeah, the life of the, quote, poor these days is unimaginable privilege and almost incomprehensible separation from basic reality. Because, you know, you have to produce in order to consume. And the fact that people can produce endlessly without, they can consume endlessly without having to produce anything other than their votes, which is not economically productive. There is a life of almost unimaginable privilege for so many people these days and it really does.
[1:10:14] Disconnect you from reality you know that sort of cliche of the the son that the prince doesn't understand the troubles of the common people because he just you know snaps his fingers and things appear and everyone defers to him and so on i mean that's kind of what's going on i think for a lot of the poor these days you know the quote poor in that they have a separation from, reality that is only matched by the boomers separation from reality because all they do is watch tv and get programmed that way and that level of privilege and disconnection from reality is really tough because it doesn't breed a lot of reality processing on the part of the kids and to i mean somebody who believed that they could endlessly consume without having to produce anything would normally be called psychotic that would be like somebody who somebody who believed Well, you know, I can just get by on life. I don't need to eat.
[1:11:08] Yeah.
[1:11:09] I mean, that would be like a mark of psychosis. And people who just sort of sail along, cash in government checks, and it never even really crosses their mind where the money's coming from or what the cost is to their soul or their morals or whatever. It's a sort of moral psychosis that is bred by wealth transfer of this kind. And until that gets confronted, it's pretty tough. And it's tough to confront people. I mean, what are you going to say to, let's say, a single mom, two kids, two different guys, the guys are all gone.
[1:11:40] What are you going to say to her? Don't take government money. She's going to be like, well, I can't. I can't not take government money. I mean, I can't get a job because I have kids at home. And if I get a job, you know, then half my money is going to go to taxes and the other half is going to go to people taking care of my kids. And I don't get to see my kids and like why that would be like asking a guy who's very wealthy to spend his entire time shoveling snow in a field for no reason that would be like well what no yeah it's.
[1:12:12] Quite a vicious circle because if a single mom goes and get gets a job outside her home, she has to either rely on daily care for her children or leave them with a family member, given the child abuse statistics, you know where that goes to? It's a vicious circle here. I mean, I think the only reasonable solution is to promote healthy families again, healthy nuclear families again, because it's the only frame within America. In which a kid can grow reasonable, seeing a fatherly role and a motherly role.
[1:13:10] And many times the fathers also keep their children out of trouble. It's the same thing you see in the U.S. with some populations where a single mom lives her children in the neighborhood all day long. And the children go to the local gang to get some cues on how to be a man. But what can you expect from a 15-year-old teaching a 60-year-old or a 90-year-old how to be a man if he himself does not have a father role?
[1:13:46] Yeah, and instead of going to virtue, they go for status. And the status involves criminality. And that is really tragic.
[1:13:55] Being the tough guy on the neighborhood you you can see the same thing here in mexico being the tough guy the favorite of the local henchmen of of the cartel well and he's the guy with.
[1:14:08] The snappy clothes he's the guy with the nice car he's the guy with the pretty girlfriend and all of that and to a young man i mean that's that's.
[1:14:16] Pretty appealing that's.
[1:14:17] Very appealing right.
[1:14:18] Yeah yeah for sure and the other problem here in mexico is that everyone wants the government to to give you a solution everyone is like uh we gotta create a new law to prevent this and i mean it's like, we've created thousands of laws about everything which are not enforced because our government is so inefficient that they can't be enforced and, And nothing ever happens. Nothing ever happens. I mean, if our laws were applied, we would be Switzerland, man.
[1:14:58] Well, that's like the old statement that the Soviet Union had a wonderful constitution. It's just that it was never followed in any sort of practical way. So, yeah, the laws that are written down are sort of irrelevant.
[1:15:13] Yeah, it doesn't work. And that's why I thought, well, government is not going to do anything for us. We have to maybe try to change culture through social media, through different aspirations for the children. Try to pull away children from thinking, oh, that guy with the big truck and the guns and the girls, he's a champ to... I would rather study and be an entrepreneur or a businessman or a high-level skilled worker than be killed at 25 in a shootout with the police.
[1:16:02] Yeah, no, because young men are famously not big on forethought or foresight. I mean, this is true of sort of any culture. I mean, young man's frontal lobes don't really finally develop until he's in his mid-20s. So yeah, the sort of lack of forethought among young men is pretty important. But for young men, they generally focus on what succeeds, and what fails. And as long as the criminals are succeeding, you know, untold numbers of young men are going to gravitate towards that direction. And if the criminals are colluding or using the state and its power in order to help their success, then the young men will be drawn to that which works, that which succeeds. And for a young man to see a guy with, again, had this sort of nice car, the shiny shoes, the hot girlfriend or whatever, then, I mean, that's irresistible for so many young men.
[1:17:03] It's such a shame, because I know... I've met some incredibly talented young men that were just destroyed by their conditions. Single-parent homes or abusive environments at home, at school, at their jobs. And they're like, screw it, man. I'm going to work for the cartel, earn twice the money I was making bricklayering or at the factory. Live a good life. live it quickly and they're dead by 25 or 30 at most and probably left behind your children if.
[1:17:49] They don't feel like they can have children, if they don't feel like they can that's how society is supposed to tame young men society is supposed to say to young men well listen, tame your wilder nature and get a job and be responsible and get up at dawn and go to work and you, my friend can have a wife and children yay uh but if that's not you know if a lot of women are going to single mother route uh and getting money from the government then there's really just not that many women of quality who are available for the young men and then the young men are like okay well if i'm not gonna have kids if i'm not gonna be a family man then i guess i'll have fun instead yeah.
[1:18:30] Totally are selected are selected, That's a problem here in Mexico.
[1:18:35] Yeah, if you turn the women are selected through the welfare state, then the men will become, are selected in response. Because male choices generally follow female preferences. And so if you can get the women to change their preferences through the welfare state, then the men will end up becoming hedonists. Because the deferral of gratification for men is generally for the sake of women, of what women want or like. And if women are happy with our selected behavior and they're fine with it, then men will generally follow suit.
[1:19:09] Yeah, that's so sad. I don't know if you see any path forward. I mean, great social media campaigns promoting long-term thinking, promoting better to get the job than to get shot. I don't know.
[1:19:32] Yeah. I mean, to search for maximum happiness is a challenge. If young men can't get sustained happiness, they would go for short-term happiness. If they can't get happiness, they'll go for pleasure. And going for pleasure means avoiding the deferral of gratification and changing all of that. I mean, of course, it does have to just go down to the issue of better parenting and hope, right? Because people who go for short-term pleasures over long-term happiness do so because it's like the last meal, right? Who worries about, dessert if it's your last meal right if there's no long term then you just go for pleasure in the moment and provoking despair is a great way to lower the birth rate and produce criminality because criminals are fundamentally well every day is my last meal every day is my last meal and so why would i why would i diet why would i just deny myself pleasure and gratification in that way.
[1:20:40] Promotion through hope sounds good. Hoping in a better future. Hoping that there's a chance for you if you're not a criminal to get a good life in this country too. And I mean I think it's going to be a Herculean effort to try to change some aspects of culture here in Mexico but it's worth it a shot.
[1:21:08] Right, right. Okay. All right. Is there anything else? I appreciate the chat today. It's very interesting. And I do love opening up these views into other cultures. And I really do appreciate you sharing your thoughts. Of course, I wish, like all of us, we could have a wonderful solution that was immediately implementable. But that's not, of course, that's not how philosophy works. But is there anything else that you wanted to mention?
[1:21:32] Yeah, I would like to warn the people in the U.S. and Canada about their rights. Gotta keep their gun rights, especially. If you carefully read the news about the troubles that the Cartel Jalisco Nueva Generación made these couple of days ago, They were burning convenience stores and cars and trucks because they know they won't get retaliation. They can go to the corner store and they know they're not alarmed, so whatever. We're just going to burn the store and make a mess because nobody is going to tell us nothing. Number two, I would like to warn people in Canada, the U.S., and everyone listening to take note of what we do wrong in Mexico so you don't repeat it.
[1:22:35] Right right no i appreciate that and um i think in canada here only one percent of guns have been turned in i think only canadian tire complied so there's a fair amount of resistance uh and of course canada had the most successful protests against covet in the world and that was really the trucker convoy so i appreciate the reminder but canada is actually pretty good pretty good that way as a whole so we shall see it's.
[1:23:00] Pretty good i hope that you stay that way because you can see the consequences here in Mexico.
[1:23:06] Right, right. Okay, well, listen, I really appreciate the convo this morning. I hope you'll stay in touch and obviously stay safe out there. And what great insights into the Mexican culture and life. And I hope you'll stay in touch.
[1:23:18] Sure, Stef, whenever you want.
[1:23:20] Thanks, man. All the best.
[1:23:21] All the best to you.
[1:23:22] Bye.
[1:23:23] See you.
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