0:05 - Life Reflections
1:59 - Breaking Free
3:20 - Seeking Clarity
4:40 - Childhood Memories
7:27 - Finding Connection
11:26 - Cultural Disconnection
20:15 - Navigating Friendships
44:28 - The Cost of Progress
49:25 - Redefining Family Values
1:06:28 - The Nature of Parenting
1:19:21 - Conversations on Peace
1:23:19 - Closing Thoughts
The conversation begins with a candid caller sharing profound personal reflections on his life experiences, expressing feelings of disconnection and restlessness that have intensified over the years. Growing up in Israel under the shadows of conflict, he describes a persistent sense of alienation from the society he was born into. The caller notes that living through wars and constant anxieties has left him feeling trapped, creating a deep longing for peace and belonging. This environment shaped his path, which he now realizes was driven more by external pressures than by his own desires. Despite his skills as a mechanical engineer and achieving success in this career, he confesses that his accomplishments often feel bittersweet because they came at the expense of his authenticity.
The caller continues to explore the relationships that have surrounded him, particularly his longtime friendship group. He acknowledges that these friends have adopted a hedonistic lifestyle, focused on partying and avoiding responsibility, which he recognizes has stagnated his personal growth. While supportive of his friends, he feels the need to distance himself from their choices, seeking to break free from the comfort of familiarity in pursuit of a more fulfilling life.
A significant turning point for the caller is the introduction of his partner, who he praises for showing him love, kindness, and the potential for a shared life that aligns with their values. Inspired by a documentary he saw, he and his partner contemplate a future in Poland, where they feel they could build a life that reflects their dreams and aspirations. While acknowledging the challenges of leaving behind everything familiar, the caller expresses readiness to embrace uncertainty and pursue a path that feels authentic for the first time in his life.
As the conversation delves deeper, the caller reflects on the roots of his desire to leave Israel. He acknowledges that feelings of disconnection have lingered since childhood and that recent events have only intensified this feeling. The trauma stemming from his upbringing, particularly his complicated relationship with his family, plays a significant role in his current emotional state. He shares past experiences of being emotionally and physically abused by his mother, the absence of paternal guidance, and a general lack of positive influences in his early life, contributing to his feelings of being lost.
Stefan encourages the caller to share more about his familial experiences, leading to discussions about the emotional impact of his upbringing on his relationships. He recounts a past problematic relationship that emphasized his trauma but also allowed him to recognize his need for self-discovery and healing. As they talk about family and social pressures, the caller points out that societal expectations in Israel, particularly regarding marriage and children, can create additional stress.
Stefan then prompts the caller to discuss his current relationship with his partner. The caller shares how their mutual interests and shared values have nurtured a healthy dynamic between them, contrasting sharply with his previous experiences. He highlights the importance of open communication in their relationship, noting that they resolve conflicts through conversation rather than anger.
The discussion takes a broader turn as they address the pressures prevalent in Israeli society regarding military obligations and cultural expectations. The caller reflects on the dichotomy between societal pressures to conform and his desire for personal happiness, feeling torn between his cultural identity and the embrace of individual aspirations. Stefan provides insights on the influence of external societal factors, reiterating the value of personal fulfillment while navigating collective obligations.
As they navigate through topics of growth, family, and the tension between individual desires versus societal expectations, the caller expresses concern about the future. There is an evident struggle between the urge to seek fulfillment outside Israel and the ingrained instinct to remain loyal to his community during a time of crisis. The conversation culminates in discussions about the sustainability of their friendships, especially as the caller contemplates fatherhood with his partner.
Throughout the dialogue, Stefan challenges the caller to consider what truly matters in life—the importance of personal happiness, the shared experience of raising children, and the roles of social circles. They address the illusion that wealth and material success are necessary for happiness and family life, emphasizing instead that genuine joy often arises from emotional connections and meaningful experiences rather than financial stability.
In closing, the caller expresses appreciation for Stefan's insights, acknowledging the clarity gained through the discussion. He thanks Stefan for his influence over the years, recognizing that navigating the complexities of his life requires ongoing reflection and courage. The conversation ends on a hopeful note, with the caller committed to embracing a new chapter in his life.
[0:00] All right, so I'm writing this to share some reflections about my life and the path I found myself on.
[0:06] For quite some time now, I've been grappling with feelings of disconnection and restlessness, feelings that I've grown stronger with each passing year. I want to share these thoughts with the hope that it will bring clarity, not just for myself, but perhaps for us as well. Growing up in Israel, I've always felt out of place, despite being born here, I've never truly felt integrated into this society or connected to its values My experiences have been shaped by living through wars, rocket attacks And constant anxiety about what might come next This environment has had a profound impact on me leaving me feeling trapped and longing for a sense of peace and belonging. For years, I followed a path that seemed predetermined, guided more by external influences than my own desires. From my education to my career, I often felt like I was walking someone else's journey, not my own. While I've discovered that I'm skilled as a mechanical engineer, I feel that I've grown to enjoy. I can't shake the feeling that my decisions were never truly my own.
[1:23] Even my success in this field feels bittersweet because it came at the cost of suppressing who I am and who I genuinely want. Adding to this my social circle, which I now recognize has been a source of stagnation. For over 20 years, I've been surrounded by friends who have embraced a hedonistic lifestyle, drinking, partying, and avoiding responsibilities. While I don't hold this against them, but I've realized that their choices and behaviors have influenced me in ways that are not conducted to my growth.
[2:00] I'm beginning to see that I need to break free from this comfort zone and truly become the person I'm inspired to be. Amid all of this, I found a bright light in my partner, someone who has shown me kindness, love, and shared a desire for something greater. Her support has given me the courage to consider a new path, one that takes us away from Israel and towards a future that feels more aligned with our values and dreams. Together we've been exploring the possibility of building a new life. In Poland, Steph, this is because of you. I saw your documentary. It was amazing. A place that feels promising with a strong culture of roots, values, and opportunities to grow. This decision is not without its challenges.
[2:50] It's hard to leave behind everything I've known, my friends, family, and the familiarity of my surroundings. but I believe this is a necessary step for me to find fulfillment and meaning. I'm ready to embrace the uncertainty and face the obstacles ahead because for the first time I feel like I'm making a decision that is truly my own. I'm sharing this with you because it's important for me to acknowledge and own my journey. This isn't an easy path, but it's one that I feel deeply compelled to take.
[3:21] I hope you can understand the reason behind my choices and the courage it takes to pursue this new chapter uh so that's it but with the help of ai kind of you know polished my letter i hope you understood it.
[3:38] Makes sense to me it makes sense to me and um what is the most productive thing for us to discuss at the time that we have.
[3:47] I think that i want to find the roots like the true roots of this uh this uh, desire to live the desire to escape this place because i have this feeling since i was a kid and i always failed to act upon it it's like um you know you heard about the 7th of october since then, things have changed so much in here, so, you know, everything is like politics, military, and war, and stuff like that. And I'm always was curious, why do I have this feeling? Is it because of my friends, which I suspect it has a part in it, and it might be my family. So, if you would ask me some questions about me, about my past, I might get some clarity.
[4:40] Yeah, of course. Of course, of course. So tell me a little bit about your childhood and growing up and what happened within your family and I guess also within the environment you were in.
[4:51] Yeah, so I also have to mention that we talked before. We talked about my, I think it was like two years ago when we talked about my relationship with my family and my mother and my father and the lack of good people in my life. I believe the show was called My Girlfriend is My Mother. It was not funny.
[5:17] A bit Freudian. A tiny bit. A tiny bit. Yeah. So just for people who are listening to this conversation alone, if you could just get people up to speed. You can be brief, of course.
[5:28] Yes, so I was in a relationship with a girl, a problematic girl who had a bad childhood, and she found that I have buttons to push. And she pushed those buttons. She used my, how can I say, trauma from my past, from the relationship with my mother, which was violent and abusive emotionally and physical. She used to beat me up almost every day. and they also score me and you know, just talking bad things about me on me. Like, so I had this girlfriend, she pushed those buttons and I called you to, to clarify things if I should stay with her or not because I always, also I had lack of guidance in my life because my, father just stood aside and just watched it all happen and never say the thing and in general lack of good people in my life which the combination of all of those led me to kind of feeling lost and kind of feeling.
[6:42] How to say how to put it lack of guidance put it that way lack of guidance this is the best phrase, so uh yeah and i i wonder why i failed to act why i failed i'm 34 and i'm still here i don't know why i i simply cannot act maybe i'm afraid of challenges or something like that i don't know but uh i'm afraid to leave i'm afraid to disappoint some of my people that i know.
[7:20] Well tell me a little bit we'll get to that in a sec if that's all right with you but tell me a little bit about how you got to your current partner because that sounds like a huge step in the right direction.
[7:28] Oh yeah that was uh without uh i'm i can say that for uh like for sure this is the the best thing that ever happened to me she's from ukraine and she came to israel with uh, with a program like for Jews stuff but she's Christian so it's like she shares we share Christian values and I'm half Christian half Jewish so we share the same values we met we actually we did martial arts together I still do martial arts and she quit and we met there and then we started dating and we found each other we, never fight we never have anything like we solve every problem with a good conversation we laugh a lot, And she too, she's coming from a bad family, but she goes to church and she also, you know, she's keen on her parents' behavior. And we actually talked about how to treat, how should we treat our children? And she said that almost everything she knew about it, she saw from her parents and what to avoid. And so we shared the same path in life she's really great she's like yeah that's.
[8:55] Great how did you guys meet.
[8:56] Oh uh we both did karate like yeah she quit because it was too harsh on her but i still do it getting beat up every week and i like it i know it's there's a reason why i do it yeah because maybe because of my past but uh i feel good in there right right okay.
[9:22] And how old is she.
[9:25] She's 29 i'm 34 right.
[9:29] And would you i mean you guys obviously you talked about kids and you want to start a family and all that kind of good stuff right.
[9:35] Yeah yeah okay great great it's a.
[9:41] It's a complicated question that you're asking. Of course, right? I mean, I sort of say this, and it reminds me of an old joke, if you'd like to hear a joke that seems to be somewhat relevant to your situation. And it's about a Jewish father who goes...
[9:57] He said, the Jewish father's son goes to his father and says, I've converted to Christianity. And the father is a little shocked, and he goes to his rabbi. The Jewish father goes to his rabbi and says to his rabbi, my son has converted to Christianity. I'm not quite sure what to make of it and what is your advice. And the rabbi says, my son as well has converted to Christianity. I'm not really sure. It's a funny story. This is a strange coincidence. It's a funny story that this should happen to the two of us. So then the rabbi goes and prays to God and says to God, my son has converted to Christianity. One of my synagogue member's sons has also converted to Christianity. What should I do? And God says, a funny story. I've had the same experience. Anyway, you don't need to know. So I thought that was an old joke that was quite funny. It took me a moment when I first read it, but then I'm like, oh yeah, okay. Jesus. Okay. So, tell me a little bit about the obligations that you feel. I mean, in Israel, of course, the sense of Jewish history and Jewish obligations is very strong. And I wouldn't say there's a lot of pressure, but there's a lot of, maybe it's the way to put it, is pressure, but there's a lot of cohesion that is asked for and, in a sense, socially demanded. And I don't obviously want to tell you your experience, but that's been my sense in talking to people I know. So what's your experience of that?
[11:27] At first, when I was a teenager, I felt like I don't belong here. The Jewish culture, let's say Israeli Jews, we're very divided between us in terms of groups, like ethnic groups, like there's Moroccan Jews, European Jews, Russian Jews, Iraqi Jews, Yemenite Jews, like any, and each of them brings its own values, which some of them are good. There was like this thing in high school, it's like Europeans, like basically Russians versus, Africans something like that we always fight big fights fighting fist fight really violent stuff and we always had it but, there's something that always keeps us together which is the Jewish identity but, me myself I don't feel so connected to it I mean, there's certain values that I, uh, see as good, like, uh, um.
[12:49] There's a charity stuff, volunteering for good, uh, for the good of the people. But, you know, as you said, it's a, it's a close group. It's not a, it's not universal. So, uh, yeah.
[13:02] I also read something about, some stuff about Christianity and I kind of resonated with that better than Judaism because it's universal values. And she taught me a lot of things about it. And, you know, it's really beautiful things. It's really beautiful stuff. And what keeps me here? I simply have no idea. Maybe I have no idea. It's like a fear of living. I fear that I will leave to some place the country of Gentiles that will haunt me. And you always get this propaganda in Israel that this is your only place in the world, which is total bullshit. And, you know, there's a lot of Jews in America and Europe. Everybody's scattered across the globe. And there's a lot of propaganda here, like every day.
[13:56] Well yeah i mean i would certainly say that there are seems to be a significant concern among the jews in western europe uh particularly with the muslim gangs and sort of the old blood feuds and so on that there's a certain amount of tension and and so on that i don't think that's just propaganda but again you would know the situation a lot better than i do but there does seem to be some fairly significant concern about some of the detente that happened between christianity and Judaism seems to be a little bit poked at the base with some of the Islamic extremism and activity and so on. So there is some of that kind of stuff, but I mean, obviously not really in Poland, which may be part of what you're thinking about.
[14:38] Yes. So I saw your documentary about Poland, which was simply amazing stuff, I have to say. It clarified me some things about this country. And what a coincidence. My girlfriend, she speaks Polish. She speaks Polish and I was thinking like maybe I have an opportunity here maybe I could just, start studying there for my masters or something like that, it's like an entrance ticket to this country but I also know that I have to respect their culture and, most of my friends and the people that I know are from European descent, and I get along with them better than the other kind.
[15:30] Yeah, listen, I mean, I don't mean to get on a big lecture here, so I'll keep it brief, but I mean, I think you're sort of right in the nexus of a very challenging... Conversation, almost like a paradox but not quite, which is, what do I owe the collective and what do I owe myself, right? So, I mean, I feel, you know, as a person of European heritage and I come from, I mean, I was born in Ireland, my father is Irish, my mother is German, and I grew up in England and so on. So, I sort of feel this sort of Western European heritage stuff And I feel an obligation not to promote Western European culture, but to promote the universals that Western European culture seems to have focused on, you know, since the days of the pre-Socratics, right? So, the Socrates was looking for universal truths, Aristotle, well, Plato was mostly on drugs, but there was a sort of universalism that was being focused on. It decayed quite a bit during the Roman Empire, but of course.
[16:35] Jesus and Christianity brought those universals out of tribalism and made those. So for me, it's like the Western European culture as a whole, not specifically Christianity, because obviously Jews have contributed enormously and have been influenced a lot by Jewish thinkers and Jews also focus on universals, the non-aggression principle under Murray Rothbard and Ayn Rand and so on. But in in the western european culture as a whole there is this focus on universals and i've inherited that tradition and i had all the basic arguments put to me about universals like if you blame the group they always say well if all the kids were jumping off the eiffel tower would you do it too right so you have your own conscience and so on so i sort of feel a very much an obligation, having benefited from the inheritance of you know the anti-slavery property rights free markets and the scientific method and so on, having benefited a lot from universals.
[17:33] I want to expand and extend people's acceptance of universals, but when you do that, you run straight into these big, giant, chomping, shark jaws of power, because power exists in the pretense of universals, but actually violating the universals. Like, you know, power says, we're here to protect your property, so you better give me half your property so I can protect your property, you know, things like that. And so, I feel a very strong obligation, having inherited and benefited from all these universals, to extend and expand them. And that's the good that I do for the collective, for the world, for mankind, and so on. But at the same time, as you do pursue those universals, you know, it can start to get kind of costly. And so this tension between what's good for the world and what's good for you, what's good for your country or your group or, you know, and again, I don't sort of focus on country and group, I focus on the universals, but they happen to have come out of the sort of Western European tradition.
[18:40] So it's tough, you know, what do you owe the group that has nourished you? This is the question that Socrates asks, you know, around the city. And they say, well, the city is treating you unjustly. And he's like, hey, man, I relied on the protection of the city my whole life. Who am I to say I can now just run away from all the laws that have sustained me? And so on. And so given that, and I was just talking about this this morning in a show, that truth, The pursuit of truth is a collective goal because to even have the language and the concepts and the idea and the philosophy is you have to rely on our social nature and other people. So the pursuit of truth is a social goal, but the pursuit of truth also sets you at odds against significant sections of your society. So these sort of two things are a big challenge. And maybe you're kind of hung in the balance of what do you owe your culture, your country, your group?
[19:37] And we get a lot of that propaganda, and not all of it is propaganda, right? I mean, again, there are some real values in just about every group, some important values. So maybe you're kind of hung on this tension between, I have been raised with a lot of obligations to a group, but I also wish to be happy and pursue values under my own recognizance. And I don't know if I'm phrasing this well or if this lands anywhere near what it is that you're experiencing but that was sort of my thoughts about that.
[20:16] Yes that was a lot but I get your point yes I would say that yes I feel like I'm hanging between two, rocks something like that and I keep holding them, okay these are falling down like escaping or or i uh just uh held the hand that reaches me and this hand is like the government or the society something like that it's something like that i'm also confused about this um, mostly i can describe my childhood as very confused like what i'm doing here and i would say that my friends and my social group my sorry my social circle has a lot to do with it because i never gave myself a chance to know other people lately i found that my friend is doing very bad stuff and you and i asked you oh just as your friend.
[21:27] Is going to prostitutes.
[21:28] Yeah it's horrible and i let i let you find out he told me and i i didn't know how to react and, And I was in shock, in complete shock. And this is, you know, this is not of my values at all. Yeah. I don't see it as a good. And I also confronted him about it. And he also, oh, you and your values, you and your universals, you, you know, it's nothing. It's like a body for me, you know. I don't feel, I don't, there's no emotions in there. I keep my emotions for my wife. and I do bodily stuff with the other girl something like that and this is so stupid I don't know, and this kept me this led me to think that what am I doing with him what am I doing with him why is he like this and my other friend he endorses this behavior he's like yeah yeah he's like, contributing to his action something like that And my third friend, he saw a change in our group behavior, and he kind of distanced himself from us. And another fourth friend left the country because of this whole situation.
[22:48] Which situation do you mean?
[22:50] Ah, the war. You know, since 7th of October, they picked their kid and they just left. And another thing which is fine weird is that my friends are married and they know each other for like 10 years and no kids no kids at all right, it's weird I don't know why, I think it's because of lack of responsibilities and still… Well.
[23:22] He's a hedonist, right?
[23:24] Yes, definitely.
[23:25] And kids are not hedonistic. I mean, their meaning and purpose and value and all kinds of great stuff. But they sure as Sherlock are not hedonistic. Nobody sits there and says, ah, pregnancy, that's super comfortable and fun. Ah, breastfeeding, giving birth, being up at night, you know, that's super fun, right? I mean, there's, quote, sacrifices in having kids. So it's not if you're a hedonist and that's how you you screw up the birth rate is just make people focus on immediate pleasures and then take away negative consequences for not having kids i.e you know you get your free old age pensions and health care and all that kind of stuff right, so yeah i mean wouldn't that be the answer that they're just they're just hedonists.
[24:07] Yeah, definitely right like my other friend is he had a kid a daughter with his wife and I know them pretty well and they just picked up and left the country they escaped us just right after it happened in the 7th of October the war started they just picked up and left, it was really quick, so yeah So I would say the war, the politics in here is just, it's just, I'm, it's constantly, it's like constantly in my surroundings. Everybody's talking about it. It's a, it's a social conversation instead of being together and, you know, just, how do you say it? Cohesive?
[25:00] Mm-hmm.
[25:00] Cohesive? It's like, instead of being cohesive, you just see more divide in Israel. During the war like people fighting each other it's it's up it's it's ridiculous and it's like it's like a server it's like a subversion of of some sort and.
[25:19] What do you mean.
[25:21] Well, I, you know, like, it's like forces from the outsides, like forces from outside of Israel affecting this whole situation. Like, instead of being, like I said, cohesive and love each other during the time of war, everybody is just disconnected. it. You get these protests, you get this opinion and that opinion, and you know, everybody's road blockades and stuff, just total chaos. And you see it and you say like, this is the country that I serve, this is the people that I serve, this is the Jews, the state of the Jews, it's not for me. So I, and then again, I have this thought that always comes up, you should leave you should run away you should leave just get out and I don't do anything just it's very weird, also I don't know strange feeling like, I cannot act simply cannot act even though even though I send my resumes and certificates to some university in Poland and I'm waiting for a response but, probably gonna take a while but even then I get this cold feet how you say, Just run away under your rock and hide. And I don't know why do I have this feeling, like lack of risk-taking.
[26:49] So tell me, there's a lot in what you're saying, and I want to make sure I sort of follow it all. What do you mean when you say lack of risk-taking? The risks of staying, do you mean like staying under the rocket attacks or terrorist attacks or other things coming into Israel? Is that what you mean?
[27:07] Lack of risk-taking. The lack of risk at the the risk of leaving israel that just living to other country, it's like also risky like to like um united states or canada i can go there but i simply cannot, move myself and and rather i just stay here under this uh all mess this uh attacks rocket attacks and terrorist attacks it's like my comfort zone it's like you know there's a, how do you call it? A syndrome where you get used and you Stockholm syndrome, yeah. It's like my relationship government. Something like that.
[27:50] Okay, so I think I understand and I'm just going to start peppering you with questions and hopefully some of them will help and make some sense.
[27:58] Yeah.
[27:58] So tell me a little bit about the social life or social circles that you are embedded in where you are.
[28:08] Right so my social circle my first is uh my friends we are with we were five friends one of them left we are four and then all of us are like engineers and then we have relationships and um, you know like from the outside it looks like decent people like normal people we also play guitar me and my and my other friend and i have another friend who is a physicist so you know just, scientific people with the intelligence but uh driven by a hedonistic lifestyle like travel, drinkings drugs were also were, used in the past smoking marijuana nothing serious but you know, stuff like that we meet each week we talk, we share our opinions but still I feel like getting.
[29:25] Disconnected more and more. So this is my first circle. My other circle of friends are my sport group. We do martial arts together. These people are with families, all married. Most of them came from Ukraine, from the war. Also, with the help because of the war, there's programs for Jews, so they came here. And we got the assistantship. And this is the group. And in general, we're just like five friends. I would say they're not so close. But we share our laughs. We meet once a month. And we do martial arts together. We fight and we do fun stuff like that. And that's about it. My family, I try not to speak with them a lot. I try not to visit them a lot because it's hard for me to forgive them and to mention them about the stuff that they did to me when I was a kid.
[30:35] Right. Sorry, go ahead.
[30:38] Yeah, so my third circle is my family, my brother, which is a good boy. He's a good man. But my mother and father, I try to avoid, like, I don't show it. I don't talk to them about it, but they, I'm pretty sure they know about it. They know about my past with them and they act like, like, you know, nothing happened. And my mother, she's, she changed her entire behavior when I turned, like when I left the house, the home, she changed like, Oh, where are you? I miss you. you should come more often you should bring me some laundry I do laundry for you I cook for you and stuff like that and my father my father is just, he's like furniture something like that but he's a hardworking man and I, we talk also but not like we don't have like a strong bond we talk like politics and archaeology and scientific stuff basically like that nothing deep either with my mother, okay so that's so.
[31:48] With your you said you have uh five friends but is it four the one of them left or is it.
[31:53] Four and then three no it's five and one of them left and four of us are still here.
[32:00] Okay got it got it so how many kids are there in this situation like of these four including the person who left how many kids are there.
[32:15] One so.
[32:18] You got five friends so including you that's six you got one kid.
[32:26] Yeah.
[32:27] Why do you think.
[32:31] Why I think we feel yeah it's like, there's a phenomenon where everybody's just pushing 30 and beyond and no kids, this stupid idea. I think everybody's just influencing one another. We're just feeding one another with this idea. Or we have a rotten apple in a basket. I don't know. Am I right? I don't know.
[33:05] I don't know. Why do you think that is the case? I mean, is there social pressure to have kids?
[33:16] No. They have money. Like a program.
[33:20] Parents, come on. I mean, are you saying that there's no Jewish mother in the environment who's saying you've got to have kids? 5,000-year history. Don't continue the work of the bad guys, right? I mean, there's got to be some of that, a little. Am I completely projecting here or based upon other anecdotal experience or there's no pressure to have kids?
[33:42] There is pressure, but they tend to ignore it.
[33:45] Okay, so there is pressure, but they just say, forget it. I don't care, right?
[33:52] They postpone it to someday in the future.
[33:54] Okay.
[33:55] Which I don't know if it ever happened.
[33:57] Got it. Okay. All right.
[33:59] And it's like 10 years of this thing, which is a lot of time for a couple without kids.
[34:06] Right. Okay.
[34:10] I honestly don't know. Maybe I can assume some stuff, but I think it's hedonism, animalistic behavior, in my opinion.
[34:26] And they're all mid-30s, is that right? Sort of your age?
[34:31] 33, 34, 35. Okay.
[34:35] And are they talking, I mean, obviously not the guy who's visiting prostitutes who's been together with his wife for 10 years, but are they talking about having kids? Is it like, I've got to settle down or is it basically just, yep, keep going, keep chasing the dopamine off a cliff?
[34:57] It's more of that, yeah. Less talk about kids, more talk about...
[35:01] So they're dating for sex and fun and travel, not for a good mother for their kids and some sort of stability. Is that right?
[35:09] Yes.
[35:10] Okay. And you want to have kids with your Ukrainian partner, right?
[35:14] Yes, of course.
[35:14] Okay. So you're going to lose these friends.
[35:20] I know. Yes.
[35:21] Okay. Tell me what you know, because I sure as heck don't want to lecture you about something you already know. Go ahead.
[35:26] Why do I know why I'm going to lose them? Because if I'm going to have a kid within a year so I have to, take care of the kid instead of being hedonistic with them and they just continue on maybe they all do have kids or two but it will probably happen it will probably happen after me, Right.
[35:56] Okay. Yeah. So, of course, the reason that you're going to lose them is that if you have kids, right, then you're just going to have progressively less and less in common.
[36:10] Right.
[36:12] And when you have kids you know and I sort of hate to be this, this guy but you know it is just the way that it is so I might as well just be honest about it but when you have kids people who don't have kids they just start to look more and more silly frivolous and kind of pathetic, I mean you just I mean it's almost impossible to escape that and I wouldn't even say, that I would try.
[36:45] It just is the way that it is. It's kind of like, I don't know if you had friends when you were younger who didn't pursue any, I don't want to say higher education because it doesn't mean that they have to go to university, but they're just kind of doing the same old doofus teenage jobs that they've always done, you know, like they're waiters or maybe they work a bit in construction or whatever it is. But the people who don't progress in life, if you are going to progress in life, then people who don't progress in life, they just start to look more and more frivolous and silly. You know, like, I have a friend, he's, I had a friend, I haven't obviously talked to him in a while, but, you know, he was in his early 40s, late 30s, early 40s, you know, still playing Dungeons and Dragons, living in his mother's apartment and not dating, and it's like, you just run out of stuff in common.
[37:47] And it's even worse or better, I guess, when you have kids. So when you have kids and you actually have the responsibility to keep entire human beings alive, other people's problems just become kind of, eh, whatever, right? You know, like your kid gets sick and, you know, you're up all night and then your friend is like complaining because some girl is ghosting him. And you're like, I've just, you know, I've just tended to keep an entire human being alive all night. I really could care less about some girl on Tinder ghosting you. And it's not to say that the issues aren't real, but the whole point of life is to start getting more and more important issues. You know, when I was a kid, it's like, will this girl go out with me? Oh, no, I'm going on a date and I have a giant pimple on my nose. These things were important. And I'm not trying to diminish that because it was a real thing. But the whole point is you're supposed to get more and more responsibilities in life and the ultimate responsibility is raising actual human beings, keeping them alive, healthy, happy, wise, all that kind of stuff, right? So your friends sound like they're stuck in the Peter Pan land, like they're not growing up. And so if you get married, you have kids.
[39:10] I'm trying to think. I don't, yeah, most of my friends, one or two exceptions, and these are people I work with, they have kids, or they're trying to have kids, or that's their goal. So if you've got a bunch of friends in their 30s, you know, like, you can pull this stuff off. 40 plus is where things start to look pretty grisly, pretty bad. Grizzly as in zz and sly so it's just going to start to look kind of sad because you can live that hedonistic life and especially you know if you keep your hair and you look relatively young and you stay relatively slender or healthy or whatever fit you can pull it off for a while, but it just starts to look kind of sad and the other thing too is that the people who don't it's progression or depression that's all we got in life you progress or you get depressed, uh you know i you have to take it up with the creator or evolution or whatever but we are a restless species and if you're not progressing it's depressing and you can't really even fight that you can talk yourself out of it and so on i mean can you imagine like if you hadn't met this ukrainian girl pursuing this life of hedonism with you know fairly trashy girlfriends Can you imagine being 50, 60? I mean, what would your life be like?
[40:39] That's a real question, by the way. Sorry, I know I'm on a ramble tear, but...
[40:42] Actually, I had a really crazy plan because I could not imagine myself to live here in the future. So I had a really suicidal plan, which is taking a motorcycle trip, like a long one, across Europe and America and back. But then I said, okay, so I come back if I survive this. So I come back to Israel, then what? That's like another form of uh you know uh how do you say hedonism right so i get to see those to meet the all these people see those amazing views spend all this money and then what right so this is that was kind of like a depressing escape plan right well yes yeah dopamine Dopamine diminishes.
[41:33] Right? I mean, that's that, you know, hedonistic treadmill, right? So dopamine diminishes over time, and meaning increases, right? So meaning and virtue and happiness, those all increase in time, over time, dopamine diminishes over time.
[41:49] Uh it's sort of like i remember when i first when i bought my first computer like just i was so excited and happy and you know and and you know if i buy a computer now for business or whatever it's really not that exciting it's really not that cool so your friends will become progressively more depressed and it will be progressively more pathetic uh in in life um there's really just not there's no way around it there's no way to avoid it it just is what it is and so where you're at now is not a sustainable situation like it's just not it's like saying i'm going to spend the rest of my life in high school it's like well okay no and and if you do spend the rest of your life in high school that's really tragic you know like either like no you won't unless you do in which case, that's really the saddest thing in the world, right? That would be somebody who had some sort of mental handicap or something like that, right? So, your relationship with your friends, if you get married and have kids and move on to the natural next phase in life, you will have less and less in common with your friends and they will just seem silly, hedonistic, and frivolous, because they are.
[43:08] And if you embrace deep meaning and childhood and virtue and raising the next generation and instilling rational, healthy values in kids and loving your wife and building a community in Poland or wherever, and your friends are like, I went to another rave. I mean, I'm not saying that they would say that, but something like that. I met a hot new girl. It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, okay, so you're dipping your wick and you're getting your penis wet. That's about it. uh it just seems progressively more pathetic because it is so if you are moving forward in life and it sounds like you are right how long have you been dating this woman one year one year okay and it's going well and there's no handicap you guys are talking marriage and kids so congratulations and you know once you've been in a really good relationship it's incomprehensible how bad and pointlessly bad the other relationships were. Like now you're with a healthy woman who's got self-knowledge and virtue, and you're like, what the hell was I doing in the past? It made no sense, right? So you move forward in life, whether you stay where you are or go somewhere else, the friendships are toast.
[44:29] Which is why a lot of people don't want to move on, Because I think everyone gets, you know, starting out, everyone gets that moving on is going to cost you the people who don't move on. That's what happens. Moving on means you lose the people who don't move on. And there's that tension, right? Which is, I want things to stay the same. And I really understand that. I was talking with some friends the other day about how they said, my daughter had a question in a social gathering, which was like, Which Puritan history would you most like to live in?
[45:07] And I said, you know, like, I kind of like the Middle Ages, because I really feel, I see the appeal, and I wrote about this in my novel, Just Poor, like, I see the appeal of, you grow up, you have the same community, the same belief systems, the same life, the same skills, the same town, the same everything, and you've got this certainty in life. And I can really see the appeal in that.
[45:31] The world is constantly dying. There's no childhood place for me to go back to. Like if I went back to my place where I grew up in England, it would be absolutely unrecognizable. I'm sure the demographics have completely changed. so the world is just constantly erasing everything to do with the past and replacing it with some stuff that's better and some stuff that's worse and so on but we're not kind of built for this kind of change we're not really built for this kind of change so i really understand that desire to stay with the familiar because that's kind of what we're built for but at the same time, we have this if you have this particular i've got to progress you know like sharks you swim or you sink, you swim, sharks have to keep swimming or they die, with the exception of the nurse shark or a couple of ones that sit in the sandy bottom. But sharks, they don't have flotation devices, so it's a really labored analogy, but sharks don't have flotation devices like most fish do. They don't have air bladders. So the only way that they can not sink to the bottom and die is just keep swimming. And if you happen to be one of those people who, with the restless spirit and the growth and so on.
[46:42] Then the cost of growth is always the people who don't grow. And I don't have anyone in my life left who's not in some significant pursuit of growth and some significant level of achievement. It's sort of like, you know, like whatever band you like, I don't know, U2 or whatever, right? So they started out with a bunch of high school friends and, you know, they had a bunch of, there were a bunch of garage bands floating around and stuff like that. And then some people just kind of dabbled in it. I think Brian Adams has a whole song about this, right? Some people kind of dabbled in it and, you know, maybe they play coffee shops once in a while, but how much do they have in common with U2 that's filling stadiums of 10,000 people or more, right? They're just going to hang out in garage band again, right? It's just not the same thing at all. So the price of progress is losing those who don't progress. So whatever you deciding i'm just telling you from like a annoying older guy perspective like i'm almost a quarter century past you in the old life race you get married you have kids.
[47:53] Those friendships are done i mean you you can stick around if you want where you are, but you just don't stick around for your friendships if you're going to progress because your friendships with the people who don't progress will will die will die and it sometimes it's not particularly pretty does that make sense yes.
[48:13] Yes always wanted to know how do you raise children how do you make children if you don't have enough money it's always something that bother me.
[48:26] Tell me what you mean?
[48:29] Well, even though I'm an engineer, a mechanical engineer, and I make decent money, but it's like, this feeling that it's never enough. It's never enough even for a house. I'm destined to rent for my entire life, and this is kind of discouraging even me to have it but i know it's it's nonsense but why is this nonsense i know this is this kind of thought line is it's not so good but you know what i mean i.
[49:10] Do know what you mean i just didn't want to interrupt you.
[49:12] Oh yeah so if you could explain it like okay well let me.
[49:17] Let me ask you this so how many of the great memories that you have as a kid and even if we had bad childhoods usually there's some positive or good memories.
[49:26] So how many of the great memories that you had as a kid involved your family spending a lot of money?
[49:39] Maybe a flight to Ukraine. That's it. I mean, like stuff like that, like maybe a flight to like a trip.
[49:49] Okay, so what percentage of good memories that you have as a child involve your parents or someone else spending a lot of money?
[50:06] Less than 1%?
[50:07] I mean, I think that's true. I mean, my daughter, if you were to ask her what her favorite memories are of childhood, I mean, it would be, we played this role-playing game for like six years where we just talked our way through a story, which was great fun. We would have these epic two-week games of Monopoly, which obviously were free after you spend a couple of bucks on Monopoly, and so on, right? So it wasn't, and she didn't really care. She obviously came with me on a bunch of free-domain business trips, so to speak, and she didn't particularly care about those. Well, she enjoyed Australia, as did I. But when it comes to the big memories that you have as a kid, for me, it did not involve money. You know, the great memories that I have of playing together with friends, none of it involved spending money. It was always just coming up with their own games and playing that way.
[51:08] So somehow, and maybe this is just some marketing bullshit that we get, but somehow we have redefined a quality. Quality parenting is no longer having fun and connecting with your kids. You know, for one pack of cards, you can get a thousand hours of great fun. And a pack of cards costs like five bucks, maybe three bucks. So it's not about money.
[51:33] And we have been propagandized into believing that a family costs a lot of money, or you need to spend a lot of money to have a quality family life. And it's just not true. I mean, it's not true, obviously, throughout most of our evolution as a species. We had nothing, we had no resources compared to today. That's number one. And number two, if you've ever spent time around rich kids, holy crap, it's pretty horrible. Because how does that family become rich? And there's exceptions, right? But how does that family become rich? The family becomes rich because the parents are workaholics. I mean, most people have to work their asses off to get money. So the family becomes rich because the parents are workaholics which means that someone other than the parents is raising the kids.
[52:39] And government, yes, well, it's a nanny, it's daycare, it's the government, it's, you know, maybe relatives or something like that. And, you know, relatives is not so bad, but kids are not designed really to be raised by grandparents, because grandparents are too freaking old, especially if you've got boys. I mean i i had a very active daughter i had a i became a father in my early 40s i have a very active daughter and i was like right at the edge of what i could do in terms of sprinting all over the place in terms of climbing trees in terms of going to place centers uh and and all of that kind of stuff i mean holy crap uh i wouldn't have wanted to become a father any later than i did because I just wouldn't have been able to roughhouse and do all of the active things that my daughter loved to do, which we should do together, because, you know, your kids should be active for health reasons, as you know. So if you got grandparents, and I, for one summer, I was, my brother went to England and stayed there, my mother went to Germany, and I stayed with a friend of mine's grandparents. I didn't even know these people.
[53:47] And the mother, the grandmother was kind of ill. and they never went anywhere. They never did anything. I went for a couple of walks with the grandfather, but they couldn't do anything. They couldn't run with me. They couldn't go play baseball. They couldn't play tennis. They couldn't climb trees. They were old. They were old. It's not a sin. But it sucks, particularly if you're a young, active boy. Like, I've been involved with sports since I was, like, started picking up a tennis racket when I was, like, five years old.
[54:20] So, if you're raised by grandparents, especially, and it's true for girls, too. It depends on the level of activity. Boys are generally a little more active than girls. But if you are raised by grandparents, you're really stifled because they just can't do anything relative to younger parents, right? You're supposed to have kids in your 20s, right? I mean, you're late, I'm later. So you're supposed to have kids in your 20s because you're supposed to be active as hell.
[54:49] And so if it's relatives usually it's older relatives and they just they can't even remotely keep up with the kids and you know they need their naps in the afternoon and they're they're creaky and all of that kind of stuff so the reason why families become wealthy is because they don't parent their kids and then their kids go through a bunch of nannies which is like basically a whole series of deaths, right? Because if you keep having new caregivers, your body interprets that as your mothers are dropping like flies and the world is seriously dangerous, which gives you this are-selected mindset of hedonism, right? Which is, I assume that your friends to some degree were raised by the state, which means that you don't defer gratification. You don't defer gratification because you're are-selected. And you're are-selected because your body experiences the world as very dangerous and unpredictable. And so you just go for short-term pleasures, because what's the point of deferring? It's like saving money during the Weimar Republic, you know, when inflation is, printing your dollars into, or your, I guess, your Reichmarks, no, their marks, into nothing, right?
[55:56] So, the kids of rich parents, everybody knows, the poor little rich girl, the rich girl, the rich boy who was abandoned. I mean, I knew, I dated a girl once who went to one of these international baccalaureate schools, and there was a reunion that we went to, and those kids who, were obviously you have to have a lot of money to send your kids to international baccalaureate schools and those kids were about as messed up as anybody i've ever met and more so they were more messed up than the poorest kids i knew because they had been abandoned neglected raised by a series of indifferent nannies no knowing deep down that their parents pursued the filthy dollar over the happy heart so the idea we've just sort of been propagandized into well you need a lot of money to raise kids. Bullshit. Most of the greatest memories that you or I or anyone has is shits and giggles with our friends that cost nothing. You know, my friends and I would, we'd pick up some dented tins of beans. We'd go cook them in the woods, have a camp out, go hiking. We'd repair bikes, put together, we'd go garbage picking. All of that stuff was a blast. Would I have had more fun at Chuck E. Cheese at 50 bucks a pop? I don't think so. Because my daughter, we went to Chuck E. Cheese and she liked it for sure. But her greatest memories are of fun we had. And I don't think she has the greatest memory of anything that cost really any money at all.
[57:23] So that's just, it's just a psyop. All that the bad guys want smart people to do is to delay having children so they get few or none. Oh, later. Oh, no, no. You need to get educated. Oh, you need to get an apartment. Oh, you need to get a car. Oh, you need to blah, blah, it up, right?
[57:40] Meanwhile, the poorer people are just pumping out babies like chocolates on a conveyor belt. But it's just to get smart people to delay. Just delay, just delay. Get your career sorted out, pay off your student loans, make sure you can afford a house, blah, blah, blah. Delay, delay, delay. It is an absolute form of terrifying depopulation. So, no, fuck that. You don't need a whole bunch of money to have a family. You'll figure it out. Just as everyone throughout all of you. Can you imagine going back a thousand years, showing people all of these modern conveniences and say, well, I know that you're in a hovel.
[58:24] I know that uh the visigoths are storming back and forth i know that uh if you get one cut you can get infected and die i know that half your teeth are falling out but i don't have quite a big enough house with quite the right amount of air conditioning in order to have children, i mean they kick you in the balls like why on earth why on earth did we sacrifice all of this and raise kids in this kind of chaos so that you could get all kinds of fussy, and like, what are you, some sort of hothouse orchid? Needs just the right temperature, you know? I'm like, don't be orchid, be potato. You know, potato is like, there's that meme of like the hothouse flowers that, you know, well, I didn't get quite the right soil and quite the right temperature and I got 1% too much sunlight, so I'm dead. Whereas the potatoes are spreading there, like they're in a corner of a laundry room, spreading out their feelers and stalks. Where is soil? You know, they're making it. So be the potato, not the orchid. Orchids are pretty, but potatoes actually breed. So yeah, sorry, fairly long speech. But this idea that you have to have all of this money in order to have kids, no. Because then it would be that all of the rich kids are happy and it's not the case. Rich kids are famous for debauchery and drugs because they're not raised by their parents and they're not connected with their parents so often, and that creates a pretty miserable existence. Does that sort of make sense?
[59:52] Yeah, I've seen this phenomenon before. I actually hang out with rich kids and I see this type of behavior. Actually, what you just said, it's really made me calm. It made me calm, like really soothing words. So that was really encouraging.
[1:00:14] So this is an article from, gosh, this is like 11 years ago, right? In a surprising switch, the offspring of the affluent today are more distressed than other youth. They show disturbingly high rates of substance use, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, cheating, and stealing. It gives a whole new meaning to having it all. If you have an annual income of $150,000 or more, which is back then well over twice the income your kids do badly. They do badly as a whole. And so the money hasn't solved the problems at all.
[1:01:05] Now, of course, extreme poverty and extreme wealth can both produce that are selected stuff and all of that. But extreme poverty tends to be associated with just chaos in the mental and relationship issues. So the wealthier families have less chaos in the relationship and economic issues, but that lack of connection is just crazy. So they say here, such problems are not confined to the East Coast or the schools in the suburbs.
[1:01:35] Um so sorry let me just go back for a second here so this 150k a year family or more, significant depression in one in five girls i think it's even worse now this is from 1999 so it's a quarter century ago since then studies this person has conducted show that on average serious levels of depression anxiety or somatic symptoms occur twice as often or more among these boys and girls compared to national rates. So depression, anxiety, somatic symptoms are medical issues, as you know, without a specific etiological or biological cause. So rich kids are screwed up. Rich kids are self-injury, cutting, burning, rule-breaking behaviors, and so on, right? Across geographical areas and public and private schools, upper middle-class youngsters show alarmingly high rates of serious disturbance. Now, of course, most people will never actually say what it is to do with, but, you know, this, I mean, obviously it's kind of goofy show, but Gossip Girl sort of talks about this quite a bit, just how messed up this stuff is. And so, yeah, money does not make for better parenting. And if you want statistically the best outcomes for your kids, don't be rich and don't be broke.
[1:03:01] And of course, the other thing too, sorry to, I don't want to go on a whole rant here, so I'll keep it brief, but the other thing too is that a lot of wealthy kids get pride out of their parents' money, which provokes vainglorious narcissism, right?
[1:03:17] Because they're not close to or connected to their parents, so what they do is they show off all of their possessions. Whoa, look, I've got the latest iPhone. Oh, look, I have a car. Like there was a kids in my high school, they got like Corvettes for their 16th birthday or something like that. And you know, they were the king shits around and everybody looked up to them and everybody envied them. Myself, myself as well. Myself as well. So that's the other thing too, is that everybody envies you, but your life is emotionally hollow and empty and you feel disconnected from everyone and everything. And you can always go back to that dopamine of being envied right and of course given the fact that good looks are associated with higher income some of these rich kids are very good looking and that also is a way of getting dopamine without being uh being virtuous so yeah it's a lot of a lot of problems with the rich kids so uh it is a uh it is just propaganda which is to do with uh just wanting the smartest people to delay having the kids the most by saying well you got to have a lot of money. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I haven't noticed that in Africa. Anyway, sorry, go on. If there's anything else I can help you with, I'm certainly happy to.
[1:04:32] That was actually very profound stuff that's i don't know how you pull it off like with all the connection of the dots you do it amazingly i think that uh, to clarify a lot of things so yeah and also very interesting stuff to talk about but uh yes in israel we have the same uh we try to be like the united states like america we try to have this lifestyle of, the stuff that we need the cars that we drive the annual salary that you have to make in order to buy this kind of house and live in this kind of area in order to you know all this process plus you just add the military service to it all and you get the society of, militant society I would say because most of companies that I work for, you have a military regime because the managers are officers in the army. So we have this weird society of I don't know, it's like competition, but, I don't know how to describe it. But anyway, yes. It's a propaganda stuff. I understand that you don't need a lot of money.
[1:05:55] Well, we evolved without money. And that doesn't mean that money is bad, obviously, right? But we evolved without money, and therefore a lack of money cannot possibly go counter to our evolution. I mean, if you required money to be raised well as a kid or to be whatever, then first of all, the animals don't have any money. I see a lot of beetles and mice. So, yeah, we can't possibly need money because we grew up having nothing as a species.
[1:06:28] And what we evolved was for connection, right? The love hormones that bond the parents and children, which is truly staggering until you experience it. And I don't mean to be Mr. Know-it-all guy, but until you experience that pair bonding between parent and child, you don't even really know what life is. At least I didn't. You know, once I, my daughter was born and, you know, there's that just amazing connection and joy and happiness and your kid is like thrilled to see you every day. And there's nothing better. I mean, you have this with your partner now, the Ukrainian woman, and it's 10 times that with a kid, 100 times that with a kid. And that's the good stuff. And you don't need money to play patty cake with your kid. You don't need money to teach your kid how to walk or teach your kid how to read or tickle your kid or throw them in the air or, you know, all of the great, you don't need money for any of that stuff.
[1:07:24] And that's the stuff that sticks. That's the stuff that makes them happy. That's the stuff that keeps them grounded.
[1:07:31] So that's stuff that I never heard before. This kind of talk everybody's talking about, you need a lot of money. Yeah, it's bullshit. It makes sense. Makes sense, yes.
[1:07:42] Well, I mean, and it filters out people who think about these things and think about consequences and have abstractions. So it's the usual war against the smart people, right? Because smart people tend to undo the levers of power. So, yeah, with regards to, obviously, I can't tell you, and it would be an insult to even try. I can't tell you. Whether you should go to Poland or not. Obviously, but what I can do is say that this tension between what do I owe my culture and what do I owe myself is interesting. And I, of course, was very big on the I owe my culture aspect of things, getting deplatformed, shifted that me towards more of the personal stuff and individualistic stuff, which has its value and may in fact have more value over time than obviously political analysis comes and goes. So recognizing that tension and being able to conceptualize it can really help make that decision.
[1:08:36] If you stay in a place where you don't feel you belong, it will be because of our built-in in-group preference. I try to make my in-group preference around reason and virtue and all that kind of stuff. Of course, I still have nostalgia for patriotism for England as I grew up and even Canada as I grew up. There's sort of some patriotism and nationalism around those ideals, but I tend to focus on those aspects of the ideals that are the most universal and moral. So you have the natural tug to not abandon your group in a time of conflict. That is a completely, I mean, if any culture that didn't have that instinct didn't last, because everybody would just abandon it and it would get taken over. So you have a natural, healthy instinct to not abandon your group in a time of crisis. And certainly we can say in Israel, post-October 7th, the crisis, as you say, escalated an increase for reasons that are perfectly understandable. So you have that natural sense, and am I the male who sacrifices himself for the group, or am I the male?
[1:09:51] Who goes and raises a family in a more peaceful environment. Those are real tensions. And I don't know, you know, again, I can't tell you what to do. But if I sort of pointed out that way, like, there's this meme, it's like the male fantasy of staying behind to guard the rear while your friends and family escape. And there's this guy sitting on a hill with a cigarette, you know, staring steely-eyed into the distance as enemies approach. Like, that's a real thing. When I was a kid, you know, I was fascinated by war and combat and how would I be as a pilot in the Battle of Britain and so on. And we have this sort of deep, my group is in trouble. I must stay or I'm a coward who runs away. It's selfish to focus on my own happiness rather than sacrifice myself for the group. Those are perfectly natural and healthy. I mean, to me, it would be bizarre if somebody didn't have that. That would be kind of low-T, emasculated, non-male behavior.
[1:10:54] The answer to the question of, should you stay in a place where you could conceivably sacrifice yourself for the group? And like, gosh, you know what's happening in Ukraine, where guys as old as me are getting called up. We're not even called up, just dragged off the streets and sent out to try and throw butter knives at drones or whatever they're doing, right? That's, you know, fairly, fairly alarming so we have an instinct to to stay with the group and guard the group and protect the group and fight for the group and that's part of our nature.
[1:11:25] But philosophy makes that more challenging to sustain conceptually, right because fighting for the group often means doing what morally questionable people and authority tell us to do for some seriously questionable outcomes um not necessarily where you are, but certainly in a lot of places in the world, it's the old thing that, you know, what would Europe be like if the majority of men had said, no, I'm not going to go fight in a trench in World War I. I mean, it didn't achieve anything other than the destruction of Europe over time. So, yeah, I mean, we want to help the group. We want to protect the group. We are men. We want to protect the women and children in particular, and we don't want to abandon our post in a time of conflict and danger. But at the same time, we also want to preserve our values and raise our children in a relatively peaceful environment. And I think most men are willing to fight if fighting will bring peace, right? Because that's always the First World War. It was built as the war to end war. Fight this one, boys, fight this one and that's it there'll never be a war again so we're willing to fight if fighting brings peace, but I'm not sure I mean obviously the 20th century proved that to be a total lie.
[1:12:47] I mean, the First World War, not only did it not bring peace, it brought, you know, income tax, fiat currency, Federal Reserve, and it brought all of the ingredients for the next war and the next war and the next war to the point where war now has become so brutal that it might end the planet, right? So we're willing to fight, I think, I don't want to speak for you, but men are willing to fight if it will bring peace, right? That's an old saying that says, if there's to be war, let it come now so that my grandchildren can live in peace. But, you know, it's always promised that fight this war and your grandchildren will live in peace. It just never happens that way. It's just a lie to get men to fight. Dangling the carrot of peace and then next generation, next generation, next generation, they all just run off a cliff chasing the carrot of peace and you just end up with perpetual war, it seems. So there is, I think, a significant amount of skepticism about fighting wars to bring peace these days, right? I mean, after 20 years, what's that old meme? It says, if you ever feel useless, remember, it took the US government 20 years to replace, and like billions and billions or trillions of dollars to replace the Taliban with the Taliban.
[1:13:56] And so, the lie is like, Iraq is not perfect now. Syria is not perfect, even though there's been a huge amount of arms and so on poured into the conflict. And Zelensky now in Ukraine is talking about, well now Putin's in we can have sorry now now Trump is in now we can have some peace, and so wouldn't that be the case that it could have been achieved all along why not so what are they fighting for so I think having that skepticism of hey man I'll fight if it'll bring peace but I'm not fighting if it doesn't bring peace and I think that we men as a whole post 20th century and with all that the new information that we have now through the internet in particular through through x i think we're saying i think we're saying and i don't want to speak for you but i think there's a certain amount of peace bullshit fighting ain't going to bring peace, because there's been more fighting over the last fucking hundred years than throughout all the human history more fighting more war more destruction more slaughter over the past hundred years than all of human history combined.
[1:15:05] I mean, the death toll of previous battles was in the thousands. The death toll of modern battles is in the millions, if they get large, right? So there's been more war over the last hundred years than any other time in human history. All of it put together, all of it squished together, all of it accordioned together. Do we have peace? nope no we don't so I think that this fight for peace stuff is kind of exposed as the monolithic bullshit that most men don't believe anymore and then if it's not fighting for peace.
[1:15:45] Then what do you fight for? Well, if there's no amount of fighting that will bring peace, why not find peace in the world somewhere? If you can't fight for it to get it where you are, why not fly to get it where it's possible? Does that make sense?
[1:16:06] You just nailed it. Yeah. Actually, I can see it in my own country. Like there's always thing with gaza i mean how many years have passed since uh since all these uh operations in in in gaza like like over and over just never ending and i can see like why what is this.
[1:16:29] Well i mean war as we know war is a very profitable business to sociopaths and actually nobody wants to fight for uh you know i'm not talking about your country specifically but like who wants to fight for blackrock who wants to fight for some corporate sociopath right i mean or some politician to don't change horses in midstream to stay in power sorry i've talked a lot so please go ahead.
[1:16:54] Actually i work in defense so i always have a contradiction well you know what i'm doing I'm making money but I'm making money of you know, checking the quality of rockets and other mechanisms that kill people so it's like I have.
[1:17:11] This kind that having been said of course if people had to live in the Middle East they'd want to live in Israel yeah right so it's a complicated situation so but, I personally do not believe that given the current system that Thank you. Fighting will bring peace.
[1:17:35] Did you ever think that there's going to be peace in the Middle East somewhere in the near 50 years, 30 years?
[1:17:43] Yeah, but in order for there to be peace anywhere in the world, people have to give up beliefs that are not true. I mean, you don't see civil war in the scientific community. Like pitched battles with rockets and drones and people parachuting into music festivals and slaughtering people, right? And so you don't see that in the mathematical community. You don't really see that in the scientific community as a whole. So wherever people have an objective discipline and methodology for resolving disputes, they do that. I mean, you'll see people haggle over the price of a car or a house or whatever, but they don't slaughter each other usually. So, because they have an objective...
[1:18:29] Metric called price. If you can figure out a price that both parties can live with, then the transaction is completed, right? So, wherever there's an objective methodology, reason, science, logic, math, price, wherever you have an objective methodology, people can live in peace. But if people want to keep their subjective worldviews, then there's going to be, it's going to be conflict and so you know by promoting reason i'm actually fighting to end war but uh it's not going to happen in my lifetime and not yours and not my daughter's but you know hopefully the span of human history is long enough that reason and philosophy will win in the long run because at some point at some point at some point people get tired of slaughter, and it's just how long does it take.
[1:19:21] Yeah. No negotiation. If you don't have negotiation, you cannot have peace.
[1:19:28] Yeah. If there's no negotiation, all there is is escalation. I mean, you had that with your, I mean, to go from the macro in the world to the macro in your personal life with your last girlfriend and with your parents, there's no negotiation, right?
[1:19:43] Right.
[1:19:43] There was only escalation. And that is very rough.
[1:19:54] I know we've covered a lot of ground in a fairly short amount of time. Is there anything else that you wanted to mention or talk about, or should we close things up here? And I really do feel for you. I mean, it's tough to grow up in that environment, to put it mildly. I mean, it's a tiny, tiny slice of what you went through, but I certainly remember when I was a kid, the IRA bombings in England were quite a thing and you know we were all instructed to look out for plastic bags left unattended in the, bus shelter and look for suspicious people because there were bombings going off throughout England, and it's wild to me that they fought for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years to keep the British out and now they're letting everyone else in, it's bizarre to me but that's a whole other topic so, And so having had a tiny, tiny, tiny, a tenth of a percent exposure to what you grew up with, it certainly is kind of destabilizing. It does make you kind of jumpy. And how long do you live with that? That's a question that doesn't have an objective answer. But for me, if you're going to get married and have kids, the real question is not what do you want, but where do your kids want to grow up? What's best for your kids right i mean that's when you become a parent life gets pretty simple that way it's what's best for my kids do your kids want to grow up where you are do they want to grow up in poland and if you can answer that question that might be going a long way towards figuring this out.
[1:21:23] Actually in the i remember uh in the first of october 24 like how was how long it was like two three months ago and there was iranian attack on israel so i saw i actually saw it live i stood outside and i saw in with my own eyes like meteorites like falling from the sky and part of them were uh intercepted part of them weren't but i had this feeling of fear like i want to run away but in the same time it was so exciting to see it like, I almost turned into like an animal it was so exciting and in the same time I told myself I don't want my children to see it I definitely don't want it it's like pulling me towards it but in the same time I want to run away it's very strange feeling I saw it with my own eyes I heard the explosions I saw the explosions in space it was like a bubble of, like a sphere of something glowing it was really scary well and throughout most of throughout.
[1:22:36] Most of our history as a species there was no place to go.
[1:22:39] Yeah yeah yeah and.
[1:22:41] So we're used to just like fighting no matter what because you couldn't just go and join some other group or tribe or country and and be accepted with honor among them so uh that is a that's a whole different it's a whole different thing where we have options now to not engage in what may not be the most productive conflict around we have options now, that never existed before I mean like being able to have this conversation it's amazing it's amazing.
[1:23:14] Amazing, yes. Indeed.
[1:23:20] All right. So I think we're done. Is there anything else that you wanted to mention? Would you keep me posted about how things are going? And will you accept my congratulations? I'm sure you will for finding a great woman to be with.
[1:23:33] Yeah, I cannot be happy. I'm more than happy than this. And also, Steph, I also want to thank you for all these years. I've been listening to you since I was 20 years old. Almost 15 years and wow you check a lot a lot of my opinions and a lot of my uh decisions in life i uh with your help i mean i have a lot thank you a lot of baggage in me but you know i'm trying to, to behave how you can do a great.
[1:24:05] Job and congratulations on overcoming so much of your history and i hope you'll keep me posted whatever your decision is and let me know how things are going.
[1:24:13] Of course. It was very helpful.
[1:24:14] All right. Thanks, brother. Great chat. I appreciate it.
[1:24:17] Thank you.
[1:24:17] Bye-bye.
[1:24:18] Bye-bye.
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