0:05 - Opening Remarks
11:32 - The Importance of Seeking Professional Help
17:45 - Community Responsibility in Relationships
23:48 - The Impact of Biohacking on Longevity
29:33 - The Role of Proof in War Ethics
39:17 - Concluding Thoughts on Parenthood and Society
In this episode, we delve into complex familial relationships and personal emotions with a listener who is grappling with feelings of anger and resentment towards their mother. After sharing their traumatic childhood experiences with both parents, it's evident that communication dynamics are strained, particularly with the mother who has remained silent. I emphasize the importance of free will in making personal decisions and stress that I cannot dictate whether the listener should confront their mother or not. The key takeaway here is that owning one's decision-making process, even when it involves potentially painful conversations, is critical for personal growth and understanding.
Throughout the discussion, I explore the nature of negative emotions, particularly in familial relationships. It's vital to recognize that feelings such as anger or hatred do not require validation from those they pertain to. I argue that seeking approval for one's emotions from dysfunctional individuals can lead to a cycle of emotional dependency and frustration. Instead, it's crucial to peel away this need for affirmation, especially when faced with challenging relationships, to foster self-liberation and emotional health.
We venture into the broader implications of community responsibility concerning marital issues, particularly highlighted by the ongoing divorce of Stephen Crowder and his wife. I address the question of whether friends and community members hold any moral obligation to intervene in such personal crises. While individuals involved in a relationship share responsibility for its outcome, I clarify that intervention should be approached with caution and empathy to avoid exacerbating the emotional turmoil involved.
The episode transitions to discussing the implications of societal values on personal relationships, including the intersection of free will, virtue, and the impact of upbringing on relationship choices. A poignant question regarding the potential effects of a woman’s past relationship experiences on her ability to bond is posed, leading us to dissect men's challenges in creating lasting connections. Exploring the role of addictions and societal pressures, I argue that a fixation on status and external validation can hinder real emotional bonds.
We also touch on the use of religion and philosophy as essential tools in moral development and how these systems intersect with personal relationships. Challenging the notion that strict adherence to a singular belief system might limit compatibility, I advocate for a broader understanding of relationships that nurtures growth through mutual learning and exchanges of ideals.
In the latter part of the episode, we discuss emerging topics such as biohacking and longevity, reflecting on the moral implications of extending life. While some might view this pursuit positively, I express skepticism, pointing to the natural desire for resolution and closure in life. We explore the philosophical complexity of living longer while considering the emotional dimensions of maintaining relationships with loved ones as we age.
Finally, we examine the intricate dynamics of parentlessness and fertility rates. Drawing on the effects of societal structures and resource transfers, I postulate that the erosion of stable familial bonds results in lower fertility rates. The episode closes with encouragement for listeners to engage actively with the complexities of their relationships and lives. I invite those interested in thoughtful discourse to contribute their questions for future exploration, fostering a community of shared insights and wisdom.
[0:00] All right. Good morning, everybody. Hope you're doing well. Stefan Molyneux from Freedom, Maine.
[0:06] And we have great questions from a variety of locations across, around, and among the web. First question. Stefan, I'm wondering if I should go to talk with my mother. Since my call-in with you, I wrote my parents both about my entire childhood, the terror, my pain, the suffering, and so on. My father talked with me about it, but my mother stayed silent and hasn't said anything substantial herself. Because of that, I despise and hate her now and don't want to talk with her and don't have to. I still feel a lot of anger and hatred towards her. They're still married, and I think my father is too dangerous to have a meaningful conversation with in person. Now, listen, of course, look, you know it's a central policy, of mine that I wouldn't presume to try and override your free will in any way, shape, or form, by telling you what you should or should not do.
[1:02] So it is one of the, you know, really the grimmest but the most liberating aspects of life is we are desperate to be led.
[1:15] But to be led is to lose our free will. So listen, I know you're wondering about this and you're not asking me to tell you what to do, but it is really, really important in life. You know, you're asking for advice and that's great. Obviously, I can't tell you whether you should or should not talk to your mother. I think there are various considerations involved in the decision, for sure.
[1:39] And I hope I'm not coming across too heavy here, but you have to, have to, have to make your own choices in life according to rational values. And again, you know, I mean, you're asking for feedback, I'll give you feedback, but I can't tell you whether you should or shouldn't talk to her. And I know you're wondering. I just want to sort of make that clear. Life is glorious and terrifying when you own all your own decisions. I prefer the glory. Okay, there can be a little bit of the terror at times, but you have to own your own decisions. And I think, of course, you're asking me for various principles by which you might help make those decisions, which I'm happy to provide, but it has to be your decision for better or for worse. And, I mean, there are certain exceptions in general, of course, but you cannot make, only bad decisions, can't make wholly bad decisions. Let's say you decide to go and talk to your mother. Let's say it goes really badly. Well, you've learned something really important. You've learned something really important. So even bad decisions, quote bad decisions, are educational. And sometimes you need the bad decisions to get the best education.
[2:54] So let me just look at this in sort of more detail. So you suffered a lot throughout the course of your childhood, suffering terror. Oh, it's a powerful word, terror, and so on.
[3:08] My father talked with me about it, but my mother stayed silent and hasn't said anything substantial herself. Because of that, you say I despise and hate her now and don't want to talk with her and don't have to. I still feel a lot of anger and hatred towards her. They're still married, and I think my father is too dangerous to have a meaningful conversation with in person. So in general i would recommend avoiding situations where conversations could escalate to physical violence because then it's not a conversation it's a sort of conversation under threat so to speak right and if it's a conversation under threat it's not really a conversation at all so i would definitely work to avoid that if you say your father is too dangerous, then I would recommend avoiding those kinds of conversations. It's not a conversation, right? I mean, if some guy's got a knife to your ribs in an alley and saying, give me your wallet, that's not a conversation, right? That's a compliance or resistance. In general, you can replace your wallet, but not your kidney very easily. So I would comply. So if your mother is not accepting any responsibility for the train wreck of your childhood, and if she has remained married to a man who poses, I assume, physical danger to you, if you have any kind of honest conversation, then I'm not sure what is to be gained from all of that.
[4:35] The feelings you have for people do not require their assent or participation. So if you feel very strong emotions towards your mother, I sympathize, I think I understand, but your feelings do not need validation from the people they attach to.
[5:00] If you feel anger and hatred towards your mother, it's a terrible experience to go through, and I really sympathize with that. But if you feel those things, you do not need your mother's permission or consent in order to have those feelings, to experience those feelings. You don't need her to agree with you. You don't need her to validate your feelings. You don't need her to give her assent and approval to what you feel. In fact, in general, if your mother is dysfunctional to the point where you have these very strong negative feelings towards her, probably the last thing you want to really do is put yourself.
[5:39] In a situation of need and very dangerous. So one of the ways that cruel people gain power over you is they provoke a need then defy and then defy the need right so i mean obviously a kidnapper steals you away locks you up in some basement or dungeon knowing that you want to be free and reunited with your loved ones so he provokes a need and then denies the need. So, working with that is very tough as a whole. Provoke a need, deny a need. So, if you have the feeling that the way it should work with your mother is that you need her to listen to your upset and your anger and all of that, and then and you need her to give some sort of approval or assent to that anger that you feel towards her, then she has provoked in you a need, which is her listening to or approval of your anger. And then you go to her and she gaslights or jacks, you sort of, you name it.
[6:54] And you are then frustrated and thwarted in your emotional self-expression. So peeling away the need for people to agree with your feelings is one of the most foundational steps towards liberation in the world. If you have negative feelings towards someone, angry towards them.
[7:17] You don't need them to agree with your anger. In fact, it would probably be quite unhealthy to try to get them to agree with your anger. Now, if you have a healthy relationship, that's kind of a different matter, right? Because if you have a healthy relationship, then if you're angry with someone, if they agree with your anger, right? Let's say somebody does something thoughtless or mean or whatever, I mean, you know, it happens, right?
[7:48] Then if you're angry towards that person, and they then agree with that anger, oh, you know, you're right to be angry, that makes sense, I'm so sorry, then you have repaired the relationship. And, you know, you probably have gotten closer, you've gotten, the other person has more self-knowledge and all kinds of good stuff. So in a healthy relationship, being angry with someone, it would require, oh, sorry, it would benefit from you communicating your anger, them understanding and agreeing with it, or if they don't agree with it, telling you why your anger was unjust, right? So, I mean, if you arrange to meet someone at a certain place and location and they're not there, that could be annoying. But if it turns out you messaged the wrong person, then your anger would be unjust, right? So, having agreement on your negative feelings, it repairs things in a healthy relationship. In a toxic or unhealthy relationship.
[8:52] Does not fix or solve things as a whole. Because if you're in a relationship where the person is foundationally cruel, not, you know, thoughtlessly mean or whatever it is, like, it's just, it's an accident rather than a sort of central driving force. Somebody can be thoughtless rather than, say, sadistic. But if you're in a relationship, it's not really a relationship, if you're in a situation of exploitation, where the person is driving that particular approach of provoke a need and then deny a need. To be in a position of someone needing something from you and then denying that need puts people in a situation of power. And this is why so many people pursue or they pump up the virtue of family, right? So if you have a desire for a good meal, right? A nice meal. You go to a nice restaurant and you order and either you don't get what you want, you get something bad or you just don't get anything at all.
[10:01] Well, then you are not going to go back to that restaurant. So if people provoke a need, oh, here's some mouth-watering descriptions and photos of our food, they provoke a need. And then they deny that need by not bringing you what you want or bringing you something bad or bringing you nothing at all. Then you just don't go back to that restaurant, right? Like that sort of famous Seinfeld episode where he's reserved a car, but there's no car, right? You know, the important thing is not to just take the reservations. Anyone can take the reservations. the important thing is to actually have the car. And most people who've traveled, you know, for business or extensively even for your personal life, you've had some experience, some negative experience usually with a car rental place. And you just, you know, generally don't go back.
[10:51] Now, people in the business world who provoke a need and then refuse to satisfy that need go out of business pretty quickly, which is why, you know, people like working for the government, and people like working in academia, and people like families, they pump up the sort of families, everything stuff, because they don't want to be subject to the free market principles that drive quality. There is no quality without the voluntary. Voluntary and quality are the same thing. So when you are locked into a particular relationship that is not based upon the provision of virtues and values, which is generally the pumped-up tradition of family relations, Thank you.
[11:32] Quality is almost impossible to come by. So, I would recommend working with a therapist to deal with the feelings because, you know, having this degree of negative feelings towards your mother and father is a challenge. And I'm really, really incredibly and deeply sorry that you're in this situation at all. I mean, it's really tough and I really sympathize. You can get to a wonderfully great, a wonderful and great place in life as a whole from here.
[12:03] And, I'm really sorry, a therapist I think would be great to work through these things. But remember, you do not have to have cruel people agree with your negative feelings in order for your negative feelings to be of great value and positive effect in your life. All right. Somebody writes, Good morning. Do you remember the Stephen Crowder situation with his wife? The two were engaging in an unpleasant public divorce battle I remember you covering the story and asking the question where were their fellow Christian family members slash friends etc.
[12:43] People could have acted as guardrails and reminded them that they were not behaving like good Christians and looking out for the welfare of their children. It makes me think about the abuse parents who only abuse their children, sorry, it makes me think about the abuse parents who only abuse their children at home, but know better than to abuse their children in, I think that means in public, and makes me wonder about responsibility. We do not know the ins and outs of their relationship. But what if someone approached Stephen, for example, and questioned him about not having a car for his pregnant wife, shamed him for his behavior? What if that took place and in general people intervened? I believe there is a line that says that the hottest places in hell is reserved for those who observe a moral injustice and choose to remain neutral.
[13:33] So let's say that they get divorced. Can we say that, of course, his wife made the decision to marry him and should have chosen better? But does the community bear any responsibility at all for not intervening? Is what happened between the two of them 100% their faults slash responsibilities? Well, I actually haven't kept track of this as a whole. Okay, so there's no definitive answer, although, of course, it could have been answered if they have sorted things out privately. But there does not appear to be a definitive answer. At the moment, as to what's going on with that divorce, March 2024 report discussed ongoing legal battles, including a lawsuit filed by Crowder's company against Hillary and a former employee. So, I guess as of a little over a year ago, it was still unresolved.
[14:23] So, with regards to people and their responsibility, if you're part of a community, then you are responsible for, at least to some degree, for the moral outcomes of the people in that community, right? So, if you are a part of a couple that are going through difficult times, they're having trouble in their marriage and so on, then you have some responsibility regarding the outcomes of that couple. Now, you're not definitive, right? You're not 100% responsible because they have their own choices to make and so on, right? So, you're not 100% responsible, but you are responsible to some degree. And the responsibility that you have is, did you work to try to intervene? Did you work to try and bring reason? Did you work to try and resolve things? Did you work to try and have them sit down? Did you work to try and listen to each person's complaints? Did you work to try and find common ground? Now, of course, you know, some of this might be more skilled than others, and nobody's expecting everyone in their vicinity to be some sort of genius, sort of marital therapist or something like that. But yes, I would say that.
[15:42] Trying to think. I don't think I've ever presided over a couple getting divorced. I don't think I've ever gone through that process with anyone. I certainly have listened to couples that are having trouble or problems or issues, right? And what happened, I wouldn't say too often because I haven't done this much. But what's happened a couple of times is I've listened to one party about the issues, given some feedback, but then unfortunately, my feedback got kind of distorted and sort of thrown in the other person's face in a fairly negative and escalating fashion, right? Well, you know what Steph said about you? And, you know, just my sort of feedback got used as a kind of weapon.
[16:34] And that, of course, did, to some degree, diminish my desire to help the couple out. So as far as that went, that was not particularly helpful. I don't think that I've had friends who've really helped me with my own relationship issues, sort of back when I was, before I got married and so on, right? And it is really tragic, of course, because if you can help a couple with their marital issues to the point where they, you know, even if you just guide them towards a counseling or whatever else might be helpful in their marital issues, if you pursue that, I mean, my gosh, because, you know, when couples split up, you know, one or the other parties usually gets custody of the friends and so on, right? So, If you can help a couple do something to stay together, of course, that's way better for the kids. It's way better for the community, for the family, for just about everyone involved.
[17:40] Try and get involved in your friends' relationships, especially if there's something going wrong.
[17:46] And at least have a good conscience, whether they stay together or not, that you did something to help. All right. Somebody asks, if women lose their ability to pair bond after too many sexual partners, then what is the equivalent for men? I'm thinking it's repeated exposure to infidelity.
[18:02] Well, but of course, a woman's repeated exposure to infidelity would do that too. So that wouldn't be particular to men. I would think that for men, a pornography addiction would probably significantly challenge their ability, men's ability to pair bond. And the dissociation that comes with the video game addictions, I think also would have negative effects on a man's ability to pair bond. I mean, addictions as a whole. If a man is over focused on status and money, then pair bonding becomes a real challenge, because he is working on pleasing people outside the family, which you have to do to some degree, of course, right? But if a man gets overly focused on status and money and success, and all of that, then I think pair bonding becomes more tricky. You want to get your primary emotional sustenance from your marriage partner, your life partner, and everything should serve that end. And if a man pursues status, money, success at the expense of pair bonding, then I think that would be negative as well. All right. Let's see here.
[19:14] Hi, Steph. It is my opinion that mankind has always used different tools to figure out the world that he lives in. And the tools that has always been used, sorry, I think that means the tools that have always been used. It's religion, which some consider to be the first science philosophy and science, all right? Please check your questions. Just read them over and see if they make sense. Don't have me try to decipher things on the fly. It's my opinion, says the listener, that there is overlap between the disciplines and some common ground. I believe that using these tools, it's possible to have good ethical and moral principles and arrive at the same conclusion. So, for example, the Bible frowns on divorce, but scientific studies have also shown that divorce, for example, can affect children adversely. So, in my opinion, a Christian, for example, and an atheist have common ground when it comes to the importance of maintaining the family unit. Now, when a Christian decides that they will not pursue and engage in a relationship with a non-Christian, is that a form of bigotry and an ivory tower perspective, where they are not willing to even see if there is a chance of compatibility? We all have free will, but I have seen Christian women be single forever simply because they wanted Christian men? Are they limiting their possibilities or is there really such a large chasm making it impossible for Christians and non-Christians to be involved in romantic relationships?
[20:35] I think this is a subset of a larger question, right? So, I had a conversation with someone not too long ago. Actually, no, this was actually in the live stream that I did yesterday, where somebody said, you know, I was playing Steph's podcast to a woman and, you know, she got upset and, you know, whatever, right? So, in general, you want to be able to grow with each other towards wisdom and virtue. Wisdom and virtue is pretty hard to attain for the young, at least it was when I was young, and I think there's good reasons for that, which is that we tend to be heavily propagandized when we're young. I mean, we are not given a reason, evidence in a blank slate from which to think ourselves up from scratch. We have, of course, our predilections in times of personality. We have those around us who have influence. We have schools. We have the media. We get just, you know, a massive amount of programming.
[21:34] Now, all of that programming means that if we do achieve virtue, it tends to be somewhat coincidental because we are often not given, or we are rarely given, the chance to reason out virtue from first principles.
[21:51] So the purpose of life in its current incarnation I think is to replace the inflicted opinions of others with the genuine thoughts of our own the inflicted opinions of others with the genuine thoughts of our own and when we're young our mental models tend to be the inflicted opinions of others now By opinions, I don't mean that they're necessarily false, as you point out with Christianity frowning upon divorce. Well, there's very good reasons to frown upon divorce, particularly when children are involved. But you want to grow together with your partner in reason and understanding.
[22:34] And so... Just going to, say, reject people because they don't share your thoughts and opinions and perspectives. Well, what you're doing is you are bypassing the possibility of instructing them, instructing them, and being instructed by them. My wife has taught me an enormous amount. I've taught my wife some stuff. I've taught my daughter some stuff. My daughter has taught me some stuff, particularly she's gotten older. So I think if you take a sort of freeze frame of someone, like you meet some woman and she's on the left, right? Okay, well, does that mean that you can't have anything to do with her? I mean, my wife and I obviously did not share each of our opinions or all of our opinions with each other when we met.
[23:24] So, if people have a good methodology for pursuing truth, then they're worth spending time with because you will learn from them, they will learn from you, and so on. So, learning to reason together is one of the great delights of a relationship. Don't view people as fixed entities that you can't change. If you're looking for people to agree with everything that you believe, you are going to be alone. So, all right.
[23:49] Somebody says, recently I've become interested in biohacking. The thought of living longer and with more vitality is attractive. Have you been interested in the subject? Is it in any way immoral? I've never been particularly interested in the subject. I mean, of course, you read all of these people, he's 55 with the heart of a 25-year-old. I mean, I eat well, I exercise and live a reasonably healthy life. But the idea of sort of biohacking, I mean, it doesn't particularly appeal to me. And the idea of living on and on, I mean, past all your friends, past your, I guess you've got kids and grandkids, but maybe past your spouse and all of that. It doesn't seem particularly appealing to me. There's a thing about life as you get older that's kind of hard to.
[24:36] Understand when you're younger, which is, you know, if you've lived a good, healthy, productive, and virtuous life, I mean, I think there comes a time where you're like, okay, I'm ready to go. I'm done my work. I've put my effort in. And I can certainly understand this sort of perspective that it's time. It's time to, you know, pack up and leave. And I assume that's kind of baked into biology. Otherwise, I don't know, the last third of your life would be terrifying and appalling. So I would say that, I mean, the biohackers, you know, maybe they'll get their wish, maybe they will live another decade or two or three, and maybe that's great for them. But as I sort of get close to 60, and I am three quarters, if I'm lucky, right up my way through life, I can certainly see how you'd say, yeah, you know, I made the maximum use of my abilities. I did, you know, great good in the world. I loved, I was loved, I was passionate, I won, I lost, I fought, I failed, I triumphed. I can certainly see at some point you're like, you know, I had a great run and I have no particular complaints. But certainly if there's a lot of repetition in life, Then to me, it would be like being locked in a movie theater, having to watch the same movie over and over again. At some point, you'd want to leave, right?
[26:05] All right. In response to the Just War Theory video, is there a responsibility on the act of striking civilian infrastructure they claim is being used militarily to provide proof as such?
[26:20] A responsibility on the act of striking civilian infrastructure? Well, if you have an opponent or an enemy who is hiding without uniforms among civilians, then the responsibility for strikes on civilian infrastructure is on the part of the person who is not fighting according to the rules of war. The rules of war are you have a uniform and you don't hide and blend in among civilians. So and in in the fog of war i'm not sure who would accept such proof right so if you have a military striking civilian infrastructure they will say well no we have proof that it was being used for war purposes and here's some documents and here's some video and it will be believed by the people on the side of the force striking the civilian infrastructure and it will not be believed by the people who are not on the side of the people striking the civilian infrastructure.
[27:22] People believe what they want in general. I mean, this shouldn't be a huge shock or surprise to people who've been part of this conversation for a while, but people believe what they want. I mean, we can see this all over the place, right? I mean, you see this with Trump, you see this with COVID, you see this with Doge, you see this with all over. People, they just believe what they want. It's all ex post facto reasoning, reasoning after the fact. This is what I like, this is what I prefer, this is what makes me popular, this is what keeps my social circle intact, this is what gets me praised. So I'll just believe that. And that's what people do.
[27:58] What you're looking at is, and in particular, in such a contentious and fractious topic as war, what you're looking for is, well, I mean, if this person has proof that they were, striking a military target masquerading as civilian infrastructure, if they have proof, then people will accept that proof. Now, maybe you live at a slightly different planet than I do, but in the planet that I've lived in, lo these many moons, people do not accept proof that goes against what they already believe. Most people will reject proof that goes against what they believe. So there was a study, I think I called the presentation The Death of Reason. This was many years ago, I did a study, I did a presentation, and in it was a study where people were asked to argue for a particular moral position. They then moved on, and then they went back and asked them to argue for that moral position again. But a certain glue had been put on the paper so that the opposite moral opinion showed up. And most people just completely reasoned out that opposite moral opinion with no reference to the fact that not too long before, sometimes even a matter of minutes, they'd argued the exact opposite moral position. So you have this belief, faith, in a God called proof.
[29:24] People are atheists to the God called proof. So you say, oh, well, but if they prove it, all right, if they prove it, then that would change people's minds.
[29:33] And proof doesn't do much to change people's minds. All right. Hello, Steph. Recently, in one of your shows, you put the theory forward that the decline in fertility rates is caused by the transfer of resources to women through the state. You mentioned, for example, Japan has a feminist society. I have an alternative. Well, it's not the only thing, right? It's not the only thing, but it's one of the important things. One of the transfer of resources from women to the state is higher education. Now, of course, not really education, particularly in what women go into, which tends to be away from the STEM side of things, but it's, you know, it's just heavy propaganda stuff, right? So in a free society, what would the economic value of young women be? Knowing that in a free society, most women would choose to have children rather than work, right? So in the status society, employers are forbidden to ask about marriage or baby plans, and they're forbidden to discriminate against women of childbearing age, and they have to provide.
[30:41] Maternity leaves and all kinds of complicated stuff and hold their jobs open for a year, in which case they may choose to not come back and if the woman is kind of senior then you have to hire someone to get up to speed with what they're doing complicated stuff project management court cases whatever accounting stuff you have to hire someone to be around for it depends where you are in Canada I think it's up to a year or something like that and maybe they'll come back maybe they won't and it's really a big complicated mess it's a real challenge right so one of the reasons why women enjoy higher education is higher education gives them access to jobs that in a free market, they would have less of a chance to get. It doesn't mean no, it just means less of a chance to get. Because if you're the average employer and you have the choice, let's say, between a 25-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman, all other things being equal, you would be more likely.
[31:43] The man, because the man, or at least up until recently, the man was, you know, slightly less likely to get pregnant and then be breastfeeding and maybe have more kids and so on, right? So, all right. He says, I have an alternative theory that is completely to your, sorry, complementary to yours. I think the causal reason for reduced fertility is parentlessness. Let me explain in detail. Abstract. Kids who are raised without strong, stable bonds are not having kids. Strong stable bonds can be parents, grandparents, or another people. As long as they are present and take care of the kid, there is an inverse correlation between strong bonds and daycare. Why do I think that? Data collected by personal experience. I was born and raised in Greece. Until I was 15, I was living in a rural area in a village of 1,000 to 2,000 people where I went to elementary school. And the big village in the area was 8,000 people where I went to 12 to 15 years old high school. Back in the 90s, there was no public daycare programs. All the kids were raised either by their parents or grandparents, especially the grandparents, were there all the time for the kids.
[32:49] 15 to 18 years old, I moved to the big city in a rich private school. Kids were definitely smarter and the environment more civilized, but they mostly grew up in private daycares. The fertility rate between those two groups is not even close. At 32 to 33 years old, I'm the only one who has had kids from the private school class, but from the rural class, most of them have kids. From the private school, there's probably like 100 kids split in four classes. I have most of them on Facebook as friends and there are a handful with kids, but one of them that I knew a bit better was raised by their grandparents and she had a scholarship there. The private school, now men, the vast majority do not even comprehend of having kids and getting married. I understand that there might be other factors, obviously wealth is one of them that might have played a role. All right. Let's see here. So...
[33:44] Be, of course, that the kids in the private school in the big city would have a higher IQ and therefore more access to higher education and more access to better paying jobs, largely funded by the state, right? So that certainly could be an issue. All right. From the documentary Birth Gap, it looks like even countries that are Muslim, hence less prone to feminism, at least to my understanding, also suffer from below rate replacement birth rates. Is that right? It says, I agree with you that the transfer of wealth to women can assist in the decline, with examples like a woman gives a child to state-sponsored daycare to go to work in a government job. Childcare costs and income are both states subsidized, hence making it financially profitable. Then the kid is experiencing parental parentlessness, which then causes the lower fertility rate of the next generation. Interesting. So, in my understanding, then, what you're saying is that if a kid is not raised by a close family member, they are less likely to have kids themselves. And I certainly think that's true because in order to want to have kids yourself, you in general have to have enjoyed being a kid yourself. And I think it's a lot less likely that people enjoy their childhoods if they're, you know, move from daycare to daycare and.
[35:04] Or have nannies that come and go or whatever, right? So if you yourself did not have a fun childhood, then you probably are less likely to want to have kids, right? But I will make a sort of spirited defense of my first point. My first point being that the fact that children can experience parentlessness, is the result largely of transfers of resources. Which is money, the value of education, jobs, particularly in the public sector, and subsidized daycare and government schools for the kids and all that kind of stuff, right? So, I would argue that the reason why children experience parentlessness is because the government bribes women to abandon their children, for the most part. Because, or not have children. If.
[36:07] Female employment was left to the free market, then women would make a rational decision, for the most part, to have children rather than work. Because young women would be less likely to secure high-value jobs. Now, this has nothing to do with thinking that women can't do wonderful things. This has nothing to do with sexism or anything like that. I'm simply talking cause and effect. Women would be less likely to secure, you know, great cool plum jobs. Now, they may have them after their kids are grown, and there will be some women who don't want to have kids, don't want to get married, and they might be, I mean, they would be of great value in the workforce. So, this is nothing negative. It's just that as an employer, you generally would rather hire people who aren't going to have a bunch of kids and be responsible for taking care of those babies, breastfeeding those babies, raising those babies, and so on, right?
[37:09] Because even if we just look at two kids, right? Sorry, two kids a couple of years apart, and then we're talking, you know, late pregnancy, the woman is probably not super productive. So she has a kid. And then a couple of years later, she has another kid. So, and then if you wait until those kids are sort of school age. And five, then we're talking, see, second kid, two years in, first kid is five, second kid is three. So yeah, we're talking a lot of years. Is that seven years? Seven years until the kids are school age. If you want to sort of stay home and raise the kids, breastfeed the kids and so on, right? And it's less likely, of course, if the woman is very ambitious and career-driven, And for some reason, there seems to be a correlation between that and sort of less of or lack of an involvement from the grandparents.
[38:06] So, parentlessness comes about because the government is using its powers to transfer resources to young women. If young women faced a, quote, penalty. And listen, I'm sensitive to the fact that this is volatile for people and it's fair, it's unfair. Like, it's just nature. It's just biology. Someone's got to raise the kids. And in a free market, there would be less of an incentive to hire young women of childbearing age because they're going to take, you know, X number of years, right? If they have three kids two years apart, we're talking nine years, right, out of the work in place.
[38:49] Actually, right? So, at least, right? So, the parentlessness, which is women choosing to put their kids in daycare and pursue jobs and careers, well, the jobs and careers are to some degree subsidized by the state, the daycare is subsidized by the state, so I would put parentlessness as a subset or second order effect or a shadow cast by the transfer of resources through the state, from men as a whole to women as a whole.
[39:17] So I hope that helps. And I really do appreciate everybody's great questions. Just wonderful. Good brain tickles. I really do appreciate you sending those questions in. Freedomain.com slash donate. If you would like to help out the show, it would be deeply humbly and gratefully appreciated. Don't forget to check out my free books at freedomain.com slash books. Don't forget to check out my documentaries at fredomain.com slash documentaries and fdrurl.com slash locals to sign up for a subscription or subscribestar.com slash fredomain. Lots of love, my friends. Thank you so much. I look forward to your next round of questions. Bye.
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