0:05 - Good morning, good morning. Welcome to your Sunday morning live.
8:19 - Debating Mysticism and Ignorance
10:15 - Understanding Vegan Beliefs
10:53 - Favorite Architectural Styles
12:03 - The Role of Fact Checkers
13:40 - Theories of Alien Collaboration
15:57 - The Stigma of Stupidity
16:33 - The Nature of Financial Analysts
21:55 - Coaching and Intelligence
43:36 - The High Trust Society
45:33 - Preferences in Relationships
51:23 - Navigating Modern Relationships
52:23 - The Future of Society
In this episode, we explore a wide variety of contemporary issues and personal anecdotes that examine the intersection of culture, philosophy, and societal norms. I kick off by addressing questions from the community while expressing gratitude for the support received through donations. One user shares their profound experience with Eugene Ward's enlightening presentation, highlighting how it reshaped their thinking—setting the tone for a thought-provoking discussion.
A significant portion of our dialogue centers around the rise of new age spiritualism among young adults, particularly in their 30s, and the allure of mysticism as a means to achieve a state of emotional well-being without the requisite effort of personal growth. I express concern about this trend, emphasizing the dangers of succumbing to delusions, which often lead individuals into a trap of seeking comfort in unearned beliefs rather than pursuing genuine virtue. We discuss how these beliefs can manifest in absurdities, like the widespread misconception that chocolate milk comes from brown cows, reflecting the larger issue of critical thinking deficits prevalent in society today.
Delving further into the subject of societal ignorance, I recount startling statistics illustrating how many Americans lack basic knowledge about important topics such as history, science, and their own rights. This leads to a broader criticism of the elite's role in perpetuating a cycle where intelligent and capable individuals escape to higher echelons, leaving communities stagnant as mediocrity spreads among the masses. I draw on examples from personal experiences, highlighting how a lack of educational rigor has created a gap in knowledge and reasoning skills that spells trouble for future generations.
We also tackle the underlying dynamics of relationships and communication, particularly between men and women, touching on the concept of coachability and self-improvement. I reflect on a formative experience in theater school that taught me the importance of humility and the ability to learn from criticism. This theme resonates as we navigate topics of attraction and effort within romantic partnerships, ultimately asserting that mutual respect and the willingness to adapt are foundational to any successful relationship.
Towards the conclusion, I encourage listeners to reflect on the nostalgic aspects of simpler times—where trust and community could flourish without the pervasive anxieties of modern life. I relate personal stories of growing up in a high-trust society, lamenting the loss of those values in the contemporary landscape. The episode rounds off with explorations of societal evolution, success and failure, and the philosophical implications of our current trajectory. My aim is to challenge listeners to seek out deeper discussions, fostering a community that values reasoned discourse and genuine self-improvement amidst the noise of misinformation.
[0:00] Good morning, everybody. 24, 11, 24. I hope you're doing well.
[0:05] Good morning, good morning. Welcome to your Sunday morning live. We'll do some public, then we'll do some donors. Thank you to those who have tipped. I really, really appreciate it. And we have a lot to talk about. Yes, we have a lot to talk about. And we are ready to roll. Let me get straight to your questions. What have we got here? Sorry, if you have to retype your questions.
[0:36] Let's see here. Good morning, Stef. I just listened to the full three and a half hours of Eugene Ward's presentation. Then I listened to it again. It was mind-blowing. The way you presented the theories in an engaging fashion was incredible. My brain has been stretched to a new way of thinking. You are amazing. Just donate it to freedomain.com slash donate. Thank you. I really, really appreciate it. Signing up for a one-year subscription on Locals next month. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Somebody say, somebody stop me. I noticed a trend which cousins, friends, female, unmarried, childless 30s got into new age spiritualism. They pay 50 euros for sessions where some vegan plays handpan and sing sad songs, do yoga breathing to open their chakala and dance around a so-called entity until everyone cries and loves each other and is healed from past trauma. There are 3,000 euro weekend retreats with similar stuff. They believe lighting up sage cleans the air of bad energy. How to debate this nonsense before it gets out of hand.
[1:37] People who fuck with mysticism are always absorbed by demons. People who fuck with mysticism are always absorbed by demons. And in this, I am entirely in alignment with the Christians. It is very, very dangerous stuff to mess around with mysticism. I have seen great minds be taken down by mysticism more than any other single drug that is there.
[2:09] And how do you deal with people? Mysticism is the desire for the unearned. Everybody wants to feel good without doing good. Greatest drug that there is. Even Anna Kasparian has talked about politics as a cult and has apologized for all that she wronged along the way. Though I'm sure nobody, nobody specific in particular, because that would be too much responsibility. But everybody wants to feel good without doing good. Everybody wants to feel good without pursuing virtue, without being honest, without confronting evildoers, without promoting goodness. I mean, politics is a massive drug which people trade their actual freedoms in return for feeling good about themselves, right? Like I saw this podcast, I think it's two liberal women, they've got those tight half-smiley faces and the way-too-blonde hair to be conservative, but they, or at least Christian. So they pointed out that over 23 million Americans believe that chocolate milk comes from where? Where do over 23 million Americans think that chocolate milk come from? Where, oh where, where does chocolate milk come from?
[3:33] While we're answering that, no, once people go the mysticism route, they're saying, well, I desperately want to avoid unhappiness. Yeah, they believe it comes from brown cows. They believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows. Can't believe I'm pushing 60, man. Pretty good. So yeah, they believe it comes from brown cows. You tell me how you reason with that. How do you reason with that? You can't reason with that. And they're, you know, it's like the per capita problem.
[4:04] It's because of the per capita. It's like the per capita issue or the, how would you feel if you didn't eat breakfast this morning? But I did eat breakfast this morning. Or the people who say, oh, you have a general rule. I can think of an exception. Therefore, your rule is disproven. Well, you can't. Spock Eyebrow 101. I can do it on this side. I can't do it on this side. I can curl this lip. Can't curl this lip. Curl this lip. Can't curl this lip. Yeah, they believe chocolate milk comes from brown cows. See, when you're a smart person, you generally hang around with smart people, and you lose track of how unbelievably unintelligent most people are, right?
[4:53] You just forget how much stuff, how much crazy stuff is believed by people as a whole. What's a Scott Adams thinks 25% of the population gets things completely wrong.
[5:16] So what do people believe, right? 7% of Americans think chocolate milk comes from brown cows, There's a fairly large number of Americans Who believe they're being systematically harassed and stalked by groups of people This is called gang stalking I actually did a call-in show with a gang stalking victim many years ago Who believed that because he heard thumps coming from his cupboard That he was being followed and controlled by people as a home, Ah, let's see here. A quarter of Americans believe God has a role to play in who wins the Super Bowl. 12 million Americans believe lizard people secretly run the U.S. Let's see here. 11% of Americans 18 and older thought that HTML was the name of a terrifying sexually transmitted disease, when it actually generally is propaganda transmission. As many Americans believe in Bigfoot as the Big Bang Theory. And a significant portion of Americans, 41% of adult Americans, believe that dinosaurs and humans roam the earth at the same time.
[6:38] Barely anyone in America knows anything about the Constitution, right? But of course, everybody knows who Kim Kardashian is. Big boob Satan. So yeah, that's the world that you live in, right? That's the world. So, you know, this is another reason why I don't particularly miss debating people on social media.
[7:06] Somebody says, I met a guy who believes using yogurt is as good as using sunscreen because, quote, if it helps you when you're sunburned, why would it not protect you from sunburn? Yeah. No, and I, we can sort of make fun of these people and I get that. And there is that temptation. I view these people as intentionally crippled by parents and teachers and extended family, right? They have been maimed. They have been crippled. They have been abused. They have been destroyed. Because less intelligent people can absolutely believe true things. It's just that they are really, really wrecked and destroyed by just absolutely terrible behavior. 37% of Americans could not name a single right protected by the Bill of Rights. Only 26% of Americans can name all three branches of government. And 33%, a third of Americans, could not name a single branch of government.
[8:20] More than half said undocumented immigrants. I don't know what undocumented immigrants that's like undocumented taxpayers with people who aren't paying through taxes, just strange. But the courts have ruled that some rights apply to undocumented immigrants, due process of law and so on, right? One in four Americans think that the sun orbits the earth. In 2018, there are still Americans who believe that if you venture too far off the horizon, you'll slip off the edge of the earth.
[9:00] 34% of Americans reject evolution entirely. So what can I tell you what can I tell you now of course they throw in vaccine skepticism and climate change among all of the stuff like that's all settled science oh well so yeah there's stuff that we wouldn't take particularly seriously, so I mean And these people have been intentionally wrecked and destroyed, right? Okay, somebody writes, Because I discovered Ayn Rand late in life, how early in the life of a young adult should Atlas Shrugged be mandatory reading? Well, not mandatory, but Atlas Shrugged is an amusing and interesting and engaging fairy tale, right? It is a fairy tale. I mean, it's good. It's well done. It's well written. I prefer The Fountainhead myself, but it's still, it's a great book, but it's fundamentally wrong. It's fundamentally wrong about how the war was going to be waged against the productive, right? She doesn't get DEI in there, and so on, right?
[10:16] So, yeah, there's just a bunch of stuff that she didn't understand and didn't process and understand, right?
[10:30] Somebody says, I tried educating vegans about how some, or at least one, amino acid can't be found in vegan protein. And they said they could get their protein from mushrooms. I looked it up and it would take 18 cups of cooked mushrooms for 40 grams. Maybe they just really like mushrooms.
[10:54] What is your favorite time period for family home architecture? I got to tell you, I'm really partial to country cottages. I just really, I like country cottages as a whole. Edwardian is nice. I don't like the modern brutalism. I think it's just appalling. The vertical ice cube trays, you know, because I used to work, I never worked in one of those really, really tall buildings, but I used to work in offices. Now when I drive by and I see the people kind of hunched over in their chairs and so on, staring at their screens, turning into a question mark as a whole, it's brutal to see. Brutal to see. Horrible to see, I stay alive to keep watching Stefan and spite my enemies well both of those should be equally valid both of those should be equally valid, what else have we got I'm sure you've seen those videos of the guy just asking like really basic question and just saying yes.
[12:04] I'm just looking for numbers as a whole. I mean, people believe fact checkers, right? It's the ministry of truth. People actually believe fact checkers. Like there's such a thing as a fact checker. You know, if somebody had the kind of epistemology where they just knew what was true, the last place they'd be working is for a fact checking organization. If you just absolutely knew what was true and were able to differentiate truth from falsehood, you would use that power to evaluate business proposals and know which ones were valid or invalid, which marketing plans were true or false, and so on. I mean, for a culture that let Theranos flourish for year after year after year, despite the fact that it was all completely ridiculous and obviously ridiculous. Well, it's crazy. 15% of Americans were unsure of the Earth's shape. 56 million people take to this theory.
[13:18] So uh 7% of Americans think the moon landing is faked, 15% uh well the JFK stuff who knows right who knows.
[13:41] Um anyway you can sort of look this stuff up, Yeah, the lizard people stuff is, I mean, it's pretty wild. It's pretty wild. The idea that the governments around the world are working with space aliens. I mean, the only way that space aliens get here is if they're a totally free society. And so the idea that space aliens would get here and then work with governments would be like saying that Malcolm X is going to go back in time and work with slave owners. I do not think so. I do not think so.
[14:26] Yeah, so the sort of modern architecture, you can argue that it's more efficient. But to give up beauty for money is fundamentally demonic, right? To give up beauty for money, to say, well, I can save a little bit of money by having windows that won't open and ugly architecture and so on. An undifferentiated brick of windows wall building without any beauty, without any inspiration, without it. It is to trade beauty for money is ugly materialism that is aimed to bribe you with money so that you give up on happiness, right? To take money instead of happiness, right? Take money instead of happiness.
[15:17] Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the percentages, I did a whole series of, you know, untruths about Donald Trump. Yeah, Donald Trump told people to drink bleach and he dumped out the, the koi feeder on, on his own. And oh my God, it's just, yeah, it's just terrible. But it's very easy for stupid people to think that other people are just stupid, right? That Trump, who is obviously very intelligent, very intelligent, that he's just an idiot, right? If you don't know any smart people, it's easy to believe that everyone is dumb.
[15:58] Oh yeah the mccarthyism yeah yeah people still i mean there are still conservatives who use the phrase mccarthyism as an impractical or witch witch hunt or something like that right crazy, all right uh let's uh, Anymore?
[16:33] All right.
[16:36] Yeah, Jim Cramer did say that Bitcoin is good, right? Right. So I'm not talking about him in particular, but most financial analysts, quote, financial analysts, in my particular thoughts and opinion, most financial analysts simply are parroting what their friends want, So if Bob, not Jim, if Bob says Bitcoin is a scam, it means that his friends want to buy Bitcoin. And if Bob, not Jim, if Bob says Bitcoin is great, it means that his friends want to sell Bitcoin. So I don't view this as anything objective at all. Do stupid people even know that they're stupid, right? Well, you know that old saying that when you die, you don't suffer, but everyone around you suffers. It's the same thing when you're stupid, right? And stupid is derogatory, right? But it's just like saying short, right? There's just some people who are less intelligent. They have an instinct about it, but it's tough for the ego. It's tough. Like everybody is, you know, the main character syndrome. Everybody thinks that they're great and everyone's life revolves around themselves. And then there's nothing in particular wrong with that. I mean, that's just the way that the mind works. But...
[18:03] Like, if you've ever been around somebody who's way more competent than you are, it is kind of humbling. It is kind of humbling. It's important to do that. You know, I mean, one of the things that's wild about Elon Musk is how little ego he has. Like, there was somebody who said, oh, he was showing somebody his rocket setup and he said, oh, you should try this. And he's like, you know what? You're right. We probably should. And he smiled about it. And then he, right. So he's not like, well, no, we're doing it this way. He's got no ego. And without ego, you can't be coached. without being coached, you can't improve. So do you want to be good or do you want to think that you're good? I mean, so I'll tell you a sort of a little example about this. So, when I was in theater school, there was this woman who came up from New York and she was from the Stanislavski School of Acting and the sort of Ute Hagen School of Acting. And she was very harsh. And she gave us the assignment of just spend five minutes doing something you would normally do and that's your assignment. Don't try to act, don't try to perform, don't try to whatever, right?
[19:19] So embarrassing looking back. I was a young man and so what I did was I pretended to be sorting my... I brought in a bunch of laundry, and I pretended to be sorting my laundry, and then I ended up putting my hand in my sock and singing, I missed the Saturday dance, heard they crowded the floor, couldn't bear it without you, I don't get around much anymore. And I pretended to be singing, with the sock.
[19:56] Now, she enjoyed my singing, so she let me finish the song, and she said, that's a lovely instrument, but you have completely failed the assignment. She was very harsh about it. That was terrible. You've never done anything like that in your life. You were self-conscious. You were showy. It was vain. You wanted to show off your singing, which was nice, but not the assignment. And she was very harsh about it. And I felt, you know oh no right so anyway so and and if it's any consolation just about everyone failed the assignment so the next thing i did because we got to do it again the next day she's like you all suck do it again so what i did the next day was i wet my hair i pretended i brought in a a little cot and i pretended to be coming out of the shower and then choosing a cd to play putting it in a cd player, putting on my headphones and lying back and listening to some music.
[20:54] And I remember a friend of mine was like, you have a CD player? Because they were pretty rare back then. And yes, I was a bit of an audiophile. I had a CD player. It was secondhand, but it was good. Anyway, so I remember the teacher said, I've actually never seen anyone get it so wrong and then so right. That was perfect. You weren't acting. It was like we weren't even here. We got a little window into something you genuinely did in your life. And there was none of this singing Sam Cook sock stuff. So that's about being coachable. Realizing that you've done something completely wrong. She was totally right. I was hamming it up and all of that. So are you coachable?
[21:39] Are you coachable? If you're not coachable, you can't improve.
[21:56] So, less intelligent people, if they're around really smart people, they get lost and confused pretty quickly, and they generally want to retreat to where they feel on an even level. So, society segregates by IQ, and this is an old Charles Murray argument that you used to have a small town, and the people would mix in terms of IQ, but what happened is, the elites through the colleges and the businesses they go through and they relentlessly scoop people up out of communities so the really smart guy in a sort of small town would have become the local lawyer or doctor or something like that or maybe a businessman and so there would be there would have been a mix right but now what happens is there's this scoop right and then the scoop comes through and it takes all the smart people out of local communities and so you end up, with a bunch of, you know, half dummies left behind, all the smart people have gone. And everybody knows this if you've been around small towns, that the smart people are just chomping at the bit and dying, dying to get out of their small towns. And so it used to be that there was more commingling.
[23:04] That there was more commingling of levels of intelligence. So there's a smart guy would be in the same kind of club as the not so smart guy and they'd mingle and mix and what would happen is the smart guy would help to educate the less smart guy and so on you'd be a mentor and so the the the intelligence stuff would kind of mix into the community but if you've got this scoop coming through all the smart people get taken off to harvard and mit and princeton and and all yale then they're all gone and then there's nobody left, in a sense, to guide the community towards something better. And the other thing that happens, of course, is the welfare towns, right? When I worked up north, there were all these welfare towns. So what would happen is there'd be a mine or some natural resource, a town would grow up around it, and then the mine would be exhausted, or the government would change the rules, and you couldn't mine anymore. And normally, people would just leave. They'd end up at the ghost town. But because of the welfare state, and so on, and unemployment insurance, they just stay. They just stay and just kind of rot. And they feel like a long, long way away. What do you think of participating in a TikTok live stream with a smart host? I don't know what to think about that. Stef, why do people use TheaterKit as an insult? As someone who didn't really hang around them growing up and didn't think about them, I don't get it.
[24:22] So, Theatre Kid, so my sort of earlier example about singing Don't Get Around Much Anymore by mouthing a sock and pretending that's something I do want to write. It's self-conscious performance for the sake of gaining attention. He said, hoping that people are watching the live stream. No, but it's self-conscious performance for the sake of gaining attention and being admired. That's what the Theatre Kid problem is. So an artist should be generous with his humanity and not do what he's doing for the sake of, like there was this woman who was going to run the Ministry of Information or whatever it was called. And she was a theater kid. She wrote these sort of anti-disinformation songs and, you know, this sort of self-conscious, look, look how, look what a great singer I am. Look how engaging, look how much talent I have and so on. Whereas the people who are really good artists are generous with their humanity to the point where you're not admiring them, you're just enjoying the story, right? You're just enjoying the story. You're not admiring how talented the actor is.
[25:21] So that is, it's kind of narcissistic to say that you should watch me. It would be like if I was doing live streams and I just wanted everyone to praise just how smart I am, what a great communicator I am, how good I am with analogies, and I just want to praise, praise, praise. No, no, no. I mean, I don't mind a little bit of praise, but the purpose of what I'm doing is to try and bring philosophy alive and to light in your mind, right? That's the goal of what it is that I'm doing. I'm not trying to have you think about me. I'm trying to have you think about philosophy. In the same way, really good artists don't want you to think about them. They want you to think about, they want you to enjoy the story, if that makes sense. So the theater kids are the ones who make performance all about them rather than serving the story. Yeah, he's the number one player in the world in Diablo 4. I mean, but then that's just an IQ and reflexes thing, right? People who have higher IQ tend to have more reflexes, tend to be healthier, tend to be more moral. They tend to be, you know, just whatever you want to say better. Doesn't mean that there are, you know, any sort of fundamental differences in terms of humanity, but...
[26:43] So. So I've been thinking about fetishes. Let's see here. Anyone on Blue Sky left Safe Space Echo Chamber Ghetto? Can you imagine? Can you imagine if I tried to get a... If I tried to get on Blue Sky? I think that's pretty funny. Now, Blue Sky, yeah. Robert Johnson. Some early era Clapton. Blue Sky, yeah, but not Blue Sky. Excuse me while I kiss this guy. Software engineering dooms? Well, God, I hope so. More than a quarter of all new code at Google is generated by AI, then reviewed and accepted by engineers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, software engineering is doomed, for sure. Well, and this has always been the case, is that the purpose of a programming environment is to have you write as little code as possible.
[27:45] Yeah, Blue Sky, Mr. Blue Sky. So, yeah, so the first coding that I did was, well, I mean, the first coding I did was on a PET 2K computer, then I programmed on an Atari 400, then I programmed on a 286, and I programmed in DOS. And once I got to Windows, it was great, right? I wrote I.O. programs for floppy disks way back in the day, where you had to read and write the sectors of the disk. And then you basically just say, save this file, open this file, right? I mean, I remember when I wrote a program many years ago to help people find and filter podcasts.
[28:28] You know, there was some way of working with XML that you could add bits to the XML and take them away and add properties. And I just, I was trying to figure it out. There was no particular documentation. And I'm like, screw it. I'm just gonna write the XML as a text file and just format it. Format the text file as XML. So I just created it and then wrote in disk.io the text file rather than use the interface for building XML through an abstraction layer. So yeah. So in Windows, if you want to get input from a listener, sorry, if you want to get input from a watcher and you want to say, do you want to exit yes or no? You just say y equals message box bracket and then you give all the parameters. Do you want to quit? And then you choose, is it yes, no, cancel or whatever it is, right? And so you don't have to write the code to bring up a message box. Whereas in DOS, you did have to do that kind of stuff, right? So yeah, the whole point is to code less and less and less. And if AI can handle most of the stuff you have to do, then you can just figure stuff out. It wasn't just DOS, just a cheap imitation of Unix. Well, DOS was bought from a guy for $75,000, right?
[29:37] All right. Did you see the horrendous stuff coming out of the Destiny leaks? I did have the sole catastrophe of reading a couple of posts from the Destiny leaks. And there is not enough bleach from my soul to undo that tinked. Who turned you on to Bitcoin? It was listeners. So, yeah.
[30:12] The fastest way to kill a good game or competent industry is to make it work a game i used to play bans negative judgments now even a word like bad yeah the story of how microsoft and apple ripped off xerox back in the 70s is very interesting i mean everyone builds on everyone else right i don't know i mean i'm not a big one into intellectual property as a whole, I love classical music, and classical music only arose in countries which didn't have strong copyright laws so that you could actually work with and adapt other people's music without getting sued into oblivion. So, I mean, ripped off. I mean, everyone builds off everyone else. Do you think ChatGPT is a good dating coach? I was actually chatting about this with a friend of mine the other day. He was having trouble figuring out how to talk to girls online. I'm like, well, why don't you just ask the AI, you know, to get things started, right? Ask the AI to jumpstart your conversations. So I don't know. I don't know.
[31:18] So, yeah, fetishists, I think it's interesting. One thing I've kind of noticed, if you look at polyamorous relationships or something like that, or you look at fetishists as a whole, you know, Tarantino and feet, well, it would be feet because he lives in America and America is not metric. Otherwise, he'd really be into meters, but or miters if he was really into chemistry. So, the polyamorous tend not to be very attractive, right? And fetishes tend to be less attractive. So I think a fetish is a way of raising your sexual market value within a small niche group of people because you can't compete in the general arena of attractiveness. So I just had that sort of thought. All right, questions, comments, issues, of course, absolutely welcome. NPR CEO Catherine Mayer Maher, it's like Bill Maher, anyway truth is a distraction from getting things done, the very confident and I guess she's quite pretty for the business but yeah, just truth is a distraction from getting things done.
[32:35] That's just appalling that's just absolutely, absolutely horrible absolutely horrible as a whole, I mean, I know that's not really much of an argument, but the idea that you can get things done in the opposition of truth means that you wish to achieve a tangible lie. Ooh, horrible. So this was interesting. There's the effect of conspicuous consumption on men's testosterone levels. A study reports that men's testosterone levels increased and decreased partially directionally after driving an expensive sports car and an old family sedan, respectively. So driving an expensive sports car raised your testosterone levels. Isn't that wild? Additionally, the location of the drive, either a busy downtown area or a semi-deserted highway, partially moderated this response.
[33:32] When men's social status was threatened by the wealth displays of a male confederate in the presence of a female moderator their testosterone levels increased, Isn't that wild?
[33:45] So, I wonder if estrogen increases for women when they buy shoes or purses, because that's a mystery that is too deep. Care to comment on the new Jaguar car marketing? Yeah. So, success is failure in a state of society, right? Success is failure in a state of society, because whatever becomes really successful gets hijacked by ideologues to push socialism or communism. So you can't, like, if you get a really successful show, then people will jump on it to push their ideological messages, which is why success is failure. Whatever becomes successful then destroys itself, because if a lot of people are watching something because it's quality, then ideologues hijack it in order to push their horrible messages, their lies, and because they wish to. Ideology is that which has to be presented through propaganda because it's not experienced in life. Ideology is that which has to be presented through propaganda because it's not presented through life. So whatever's being pushed, through the propagandistic arms is being pushed because people are not experiencing it in their life and they want to substitute the false empiricism of art for the true empiricism of life.
[35:13] And Jaguar was just one of the most macho brands when I was around. And, you know, there's this battle in society, right? And I'm part of this battle, so I'm not condemning it or putting it down. I'm just sort of observing it. So there's this battle in society between normal and new, right? The progressive versus the conservative. Conservative is to pretend you're going to conserve that maturity is, but you fail that you simply are the left, but on a time delay for the most part. So there is a battle between the conservative and the new, and this is mirrored in evolution, right? So there is a battle between the stability of the organism and the evolution of random genes. So the human mind evolved through a whole series, thousands of genes each contribute a little bit towards intelligence and the human mind is destabilized by progression in terms of evolution. And yet the net result of it has been positive. If you look at animals that have not evolved as a whole, literally hundreds of millions of years for like what sharks and crocodiles and stuff they can't win against human beings so they have chosen stability over evolution or rather evolution has picked that for them in a sense right i mean human beings can wipe out any species in the world.
[36:39] So, it's like society wants what is familiar, but societies that only choose what is familiar lose to societies that progress. And I talk about this in my documentary on Hong Kong and China and history. So, the Chinese were 6,000 years of relentless stability. And one of the reasons that China lost to the West was the ships were all destroyed, the plans, the architecture, the schematics, the expertise, all of it was destroyed because it was considered destabilizing to have ships in society, right? If you look at like an aboriginal society in Australia, it was basically the same for about 40,000 years. Whereas in the West, we have all of these creative destruction, this destabilization and so on. So people want what is familiar. And I understand that. I really, I've got a whole novel about this called Just Poor, which is a love for that which is familiar, right? To grow up in a small town in the Middle Ages, To know everyone, to have a sense of your place in the world and in the universe, to have a guaranteed access, for the most part, to a wife, a husband, children, offspring, to be part of a community that you know your whole life, to have that familiarity is really, I yearn, as most people do, I yearn for that. I yearn for that.
[37:59] Because so much of your life in the modern world is trying to figure out what to do, where you fit in, to gather friends, to try and date in this sort of chaotic maelstrom, this sort of tumbling sock rotation of laundry chaos, trying to figure out where you fit, where you sit, who you're going to marry, what you're going to do. So many options, so many choices, as opposed to, well, your father was a blacksmith. You're going to be a blacksmith, and you're going to go to church twice a week, and you're going to have a wife and kids and you're going to know your place in society. You're going to know your place in the universe.
[38:32] We have an appeal for that. I achingly think back sometimes on all of the parts of my childhood that are gone. I was telling my daughter about some of the jobs I had the other day.
[38:44] One of the jobs I had was I was an office cleaner in my early mid-teens. I actually cleaned my doctor's office. I cleaned a travel agent's office and some other business office. And so I'd go into the mall late at night. I had my own keys for the mall. And I'd go in and I would clean offices. It was nice. I just put my headphones on, sing. And I remember listening to live police and a Crooked Cops album. I remember listening to Habby Road. And just having a great old time. It was fine. Just doing the cleaning. Emptying the garbage and all that. But that mall is long gone. That mall, I mean, I was actually back there a couple of years ago, taking my daughter to the science center. we roamed around my old neighborhood and I bought her with things that don't mean much to her, but it's, it's all gone. It's all gone. And I have nostalgia for a world that has been scrubbed from existence. Like there was this woman in, she did a video, she went to sort of rural Ireland, and she went to, she's from America and she went to go and pay for her gas. And she's like, why don't, where do I put my credit card? And so she couldn't figure it out. She went into the gas station. And she said, well, where do I put my credit card? And they're like, oh, you just get your gas and you get your gas and just come in and pay. Right.
[40:02] And she's like, well, what's to stop me from just pumping my gas and driving off? And she's like, well, we trust you. We trust you. I grew up in that high trust society. And for the younger people, like, I'm really sorry that you never experienced it. I'm really sorry that you never experienced what it's like to be trusted as a whole. There were no tags on clothing. Nothing was locked up. The price stickers for everything were just put on it. You could switch them around if you wanted. There was very little shoplifting. Everybody trusted each other. I could roam the neighborhood. You know, a lot of times you just weren't allowed. I don't care where you're going. Just don't be at home, right? You know, drink from the hose. Nobody ever got any swimming lessons, right? There were no car seats. You just... It was an old Jess Foxworthy thing when he was coming up with the show and the writer said, well, what do you remember as a kid? And he's like, I remember lying on the front of the car. And my dad driving and, you know, every now and then he'd speed up. He'd just hold me from like, what am I doing lying on the front, like dash of the car as a little toddler?
[41:17] I mean, there were. What was it? Cheektowaga. Cheektowaga. We've turned Buffalo Auditorium into a mud pit. Cheektowaga, Tonawanda. they always seemed to be on fire because WNED, whatever it was, it was Channel 7 from Buffalo, everything was always on fire. It seemed like there was nothing but airstrikes and arson going on there. But I just remember 11 o'clock, it's 11 o'clock. Do you know where your children are? We could roam anywhere, do anything. And there was nothing to do at home.
[41:54] There's nothing to do at home. There's nothing on TV. I mean, it changed with video games a little bit, but video games back in the day were kind of boring.
[42:05] They certainly weren't as immersive as they are now or as complicated. So we had no money and there was nothing to do at home. So you'd just, you'd go out and roam around. And yes, I would find, my brother and I knew where creeks were. I was going to drink from creeks. And toughen up your immune system. So the endless inventiveness of having to come up with things to do with no money was wild, right? So we'd build forts in the woods, build tree houses, we'd go garbage picking and assemble bikes and just, you know, just come up with stuff to do. I mean, of course, and we worked because things got pretty boring. And certainly when your friends got jobs, they would do things that cost some money. Like I still remember it was $1.90 to go see a movie because it was $0.20 on the bus to go downtown or to Young and Egg and it was $1.50 to get into the movie and then it was $0.20 to get back. It was your $1.90, right? So when your friends got jobs and had money you had to get a job and get money because they would all be doing stuff that cost money and you couldn't go. So it kind of flowed all that way. So the High Trust Society You don't know, man You don't know It's really, really sad.
[43:26] It's really sad I had the first Pong video game And we were amused by it Yeah, I remember the Pong video game My uncle had it My uncle had it.
[43:36] We used to leave our doors unlocked Yeah, for sure Yes, for sure, Yeah, I mean, and there was a high-trust society between men and women as well. I mean, the Me Too movement, I think, as a whole is just a way to weaponize women against disfavored men. Not that women don't have complaints, they certainly do. But men have complaints as well, and nobody seems to care about that at all.
[44:14] The high-trust society was in its dying throes when I was a teenager, but I have a few memories of pumping gas and paying for it afterwards. Yeah. Somebody says, I live in such a high trust society and it's great, really worth the various downsides. Yeah, for sure. In elementary school, my friends and I would find cans to turn in for penny candy at the local general store. Yeah, that's right. I moved to a place where it's still pretty high trust. It's like a different world. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, different cultures. You know, If you grew up in a sort of Christian culture of universalism where you owe moral responsibilities to everyone, then it's tough to understand there's a lot of other cultures where you only owe moral obligations to other members of your own culture and you don't owe it to people outside your culture. So that's sort of inevitable that your trust is going to founder based upon that sort of basic reality. So, yes, just quite sad. I mean, it's going to come back, but it's not going to be the most enjoyable transition. All right, let's do another couple of thoughts. What do we got?
[45:34] So, do you prefer long hair and women?
[45:39] I am in Canada. Do you prefer long hair and women? That to me is sort of a big, it's a big test. It's a big test. If women cut their hair short saying it's just easier, that is a big test. That is a big test. So generally, generally, especially if you're married, if you're in some sort of long-term monogamous relationship, you, one sort of basic aspect of love is do things that your partner finds attractive. Do things that your partner finds attractive. That's pretty important, right? That's pretty, that's pretty important. And you've got no tips today? Zero? I know we started a little late, but let's not forget to tip the old StefBot, would you? So it's one of the things that you want to look for when you're dating is do standards get relaxed and fail and fall away as you continue to date, right? That's important, right? And it sort of reminds me, you know, when you get a new notebook as a kid, right? Your first page, you'd write everything neatly and later it's just epileptic chicken scratch. Like you've just thumped a bunch of inked up Daddy long legs. Thank you for the freedomain.com slash donate tip. I appreciate that.
[47:08] So when you're dating someone, they, you know, they know what you like. Do they continue to do what you like or do they start to relax? That's a really, really important thing. It's a really, really important thing to see if the standards are devolving even before you get married, they're just going to accelerate after marriage. Because some people view a monopoly or monogamy as an additional responsibility, right? And some people view a monopoly or monogamy as a reason to get lazy. So some people say, well, if I'm going to have a monopoly on romantic and sexual activity with you, I better work as hard as I can to stay as attractive as possible because you can't go anywhere else. Therefore, I have an additional responsibility to provide better things, right?
[47:54] And other people are like, whew, wow. I guess I'm locked in. I've got you locked in. You have no options really anymore. So I'm just going to decay my standards, right? Oh, you just renewed your subscription. Thank you very much. Do you think it's possible that society reverts to what we had in the US in the late 1950s or would progressives continue to destroy society? Society well uh that's up to uh that's up to you and again i'm you know to me the united states in the 1950s is not some perfect ideal um but in terms of society yeah it'll it'll end up being in an optimum state because the only like we either end up with an optimum state society like a truly free society or we've got nothing because the end result of statism is is always war and economic collapse, right? It is absolutely inevitable. The inevitable result of statism is always war and or economic collapse. No empire sustains itself. No society sustains itself. So we either get sick and tired of this cycle and start looking for something different.
[49:08] Or we just keep repeating the cycle where wealth leads to a bigger government, leads to war slash economic collapse. So at some point, we'll get tired of this cycle and we'll start looking for alternatives. And I'll be right there. Maybe not in person, but certainly online and in writing. I'll be right there to lead humanity to the promised land. A full acceptance of the non-aggression principle, respect for property rights, and we're there. We can then have a beautiful, sustainable society. Or, you know, we can just continue with this. Success is failure, right? Success in a state of society always leads to destruction.
[49:51] Uh, yeah, if a man starts exercising and dressing in nicer clothes, his wife knows he's cheating on her. Yeah, yeah, for sure. We're just going to maintain that stuff, right? But, uh, you know, it's pretty, I don't know, it's fairly easy. It's fairly easy to have a man not cheat on you, isn't it? I mean, unless you've chosen some total sociopath, in which case, well, don't choose total sociopath. But ladies, um, it's actually fairly easy to have a man not cheat on you. Just so you know, it's really not that complicated. All right, so for men, how is it, how do you get a woman to stop a man from cheating on her?
[50:30] The best gift this season to someone you care about is a subscription to Stef. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. I can't help but agree. I really do appreciate that. Thank you for the tip. I have not listened to the Tears for Fears new album, although I was a fairly big fan of them when they were younger. The bad man song is great the stuff they did with alita adams uh is really really good um, i did try listening to the new david gilmore album and uh it's about as inspiring as the new yes album which is about as inspiring as the new sting album which is about as inspiring as the new paul mccartney album which is like there's no there's no juice left in the squeeze there's no, yeah i mean it's pretty easy to not to have a man not cheat on you just be reasonably attractive and bang his brains out. It's really not that.
[51:23] It's really, you know, men go out to eat when there's nothing to eat at home. Right, you've seen that, you know, shocked Pikachu face like a woman whose husband cheats on him when she hasn't had sex with him for two years. Her husband cheats on her, right.
[51:44] If you were a single man, And which country would you favor to live plus work in digital work other than Canada? I love the U.S. I love, love the U.S. Love the U.S. Although Canada, well, Canada is going to swing, right? I mean, we can see that sort of coming as a whole. I mean, society does try to restore balance, right? Can capitalism not always become a tool for oppression in a multicultural society? So just read my novel, The Future. I've got a whole novel called The Future, which deals with all of this. And it's engaging and entertaining and enjoyable. And you should check it out.
[52:23] All right. Any other last questions, comments, issues, challenges, problems in our grand $20 donation day? Hey, that's fine. I understand the economy is tough. No problem. No problem.
[52:40] Yeah, we achieve it through peaceful parenting. Yeah, there's no other way. I just did another, I did another review of the gentle parenting argument because it's close and yet it's infinitely close yet infinitely far, right? And in it, I talk about, which I'll sort of mention here because I think that's important as well. Women generally communicate to share feelings and experiences. Men generally communicate in order to change behavior, right? So a man will say to a woman, do you want to, would you like to come out on a date with me this Friday? He's aiming to change her behavior, right? And to have her change her behavior to come out on a date with him. If a man says, can you pass me the salt? He's asking you to change your behavior. So you pass him the salt, right? So men communicate in order to change behavior. Women communicate in order to share feelings and thoughts. So in the peaceful parenting paradigm, the child's upset, right? And the mom says, I can really see that you're upset, right? And it's like, And this is why men and women sometimes communicate in a way that's confusing or frustrating because the woman is sharing her experiences and thoughts and feelings and the man is trying to solve her problem. So if the woman comes home and complains about work, the man is like, well, you should try this and you should try this because men are trying to communicate in order to change behavior. Hey, I'm hungry. We should go hunt. Okay, let's go hunt, right?
[54:05] Whereas women communicate in order to share thoughts, feelings, and experiences. And this mismatch is confusing. And it is confusing with regards to parenting, right? So if the child is upset and the mom is doing this gentle parenting thing of saying, I can really see that you're upset. Okay, and? It's supposed to change behavior. So for men, it's like if your teenage son is lounging around and you say, hey, can you go and, what's it, the asshole son? Was it a weird Al Yankovic takeoff on Black Hole Son? uh soul son mow the lawn so you say hey would you mind going to mow the lawn it's really getting long you said you'd do it right and and if your son says to you like yeah man i can i can totally see that that you really really want me to mow the lawn i can i really get that and he goes back to playing his video games or whatever right that wouldn't be particularly satisfying for you right like well no can you can i really like you to mow the lawn yeah man i totally get that you want me to do that i empathize with that and it's like no no no mow the lawn whatever you're gonna do right.
[55:05] So uh and then the way i sort of tried to explain it to women is if you're on a date and the guy wants to kiss you but you don't want to kiss the guy right and he says oh no so the only reason you don't want to kiss me is you had a little bit too much indian food so you're kind of full feeling a little bloated but otherwise you'd want to kiss me and he comes in to kiss you again you no no no i don't i really don't want to kiss you like i'm just not feeling it it's like i don't want to kiss you and he's like yeah yeah i totally empathize with the fact that you don't want to kiss me i totally understand then he comes in to kiss you again he'll be like you're not listening Don't kiss me, right? You're communicating not to share experiences and thoughts, but to get the man to change his behavior, to have him stop kissing you, right? And so if all you do is validate people's feelings without really listening and changing your behavior, it's kind of manipulative and kind of annoying, which is why it doesn't tend to work. What is up when a man is respected by other men, but not by women?
[55:56] I don't know. You'd have to give me more details about that. Now, listen, don't forget, freedomain.com slash call. Free domain.com slash call. I would really, really appreciate that. I would really, really appreciate that. And helping me out with free domain.com slash donate would be very, very helpful as well. Very, very helpful as well. And I look forward to your support, free domain.com slash donate. I really, really thank everyone for dropping by today. Sorry, we had a slightly late techie tech start, but it's just fine. It's just fine. And you will donate on freedomain.com slash donate. I appreciate that. Have yourselves a wonderful, wonderful week. And remember no shows Wednesday and Friday next week. I'll tell you the story at some point. And yeah, you're welcome to do a call in freedomain.com slash goal. I did a really, I did a really interesting call in yesterday, just before we end here. I did a really interesting call in yesterday. I can't remember a time when I've done this before. This was a guy calling in with significant family dating issues.
[57:07] Uh, yeah, we started a bit late for me to do a supporter only thing, but maybe I'll do one Monday or Tuesday. But it was a guy who called in who wanted to talk about, uh, dating, family, relationship issues. And he was referred to me and knew nothing really about what I do. So I kind of had to, it's really, it might be a good introductory show for people because I had to sort of build up the basic reasoning as to what I do on the fly with no history, because normally people who call in have been listening for a long time, right? And so it was a really interesting call. I'm sure that will go out early this week. It was a really interesting call because it was something that was breaking someone into the entire philosophy of morality, relationships, parent-child, dating, and so on, breaking somebody in over a course of two hours who had no experience whatsoever. So I hope you'll check that out but it was a really really, interesting call as a whole alright well thanks everyone so much have yourself a wonderful wonderful couple of days I will talk to you I'll do a show before Wednesday for sure and then I'll be out for a couple of days and then I'll be back, so alright lots of love everyone take care thanks Emil bye.
Support the show, using a variety of donation methods
Support the show
