Stefan Molyneux starts by going over the murder of 18-year-old Henry Nowak in the Portsmouth area. He describes the stabbing, the police response that came later, and the role body camera footage played. He explains that Nowak was treated as the aggressor once the attacker claimed racism, and he argues that the delay in medical help contributed to Nowak's death.
He then broadens the conversation to policing, anti-racism training, and what he sees as a two-tier system. He contrasts the handling of white victims with minority suspects, mentions the attacker's family allegedly hiding the weapon, and covers the court proceedings along with the convictions that followed.
From there he turns to a philosophical and historical discussion of Christianity, Greco-Roman thought, reason, and the development of the modern world. He connects the end of slavery, equality before the law, property rights, and industrial development to the blending of these traditions. He also argues that Europe grew more peaceful after centuries of violent conflict and war.
A caller raises questions about allegations of child exploitation and occult ideas in elite circles. Stefan responds by noting that the protection of children represents a specifically Western moral development. He also comments on forms of hedonism and Satanism that he views as destructive.
The episode concludes with an exchange about his book on Universally Preferable Behavior and secular morality. Stefan debates a caller who challenges his use of "preference" in the context of evolution and animal behavior. He contends that rape, theft, assault, and murder cannot be universalized because they only exist as categories when victims do not want them to occur. He finishes by criticizing the caller for not restating the argument accurately and emphasizes that serious debate demands careful preparation, respect, and the ability to identify specific errors rather than vague objections.
0:00:00 - Savage Truth Unfolds
0:04:09 - Police and Race Allegations
0:09:08 - London, Violence, and Duty
0:16:49 - Christianity and Modernity
0:26:42 - Reason Under Assault
0:32:19 - Equality and Resentment
0:38:34 - Protecting Children
0:44:41 - Morality Debate Begins
0:50:15 - Animals and Survival Preferences
0:52:25 - Agency, Evolution, and Misunderstanding
1:05:19 - Defending the Proofs
1:18:36 - Theft Cannot Be Universalized
1:21:12 - Rape, Murder, and Moral Categories
1:26:04 - How to Debate Properly
[0:00:00] Okay, this is a truth about... It's going to be savage. I am foundationally enraged at a wide variety of things here. So, we'll start. Happy to take your questions and comments. Let's dive right in. December the 3rd, 2025, and we're only hearing about it now. Really, an 18-year-old British-Polish student named Henry Nowak was murdered in cold blood in the Portsmouth area of Southampton. He was a first-year finance and accountancy student at the University of Southampton. He'd been out with friends who was walking home alone when he was attacked. His killer, 23-year-old Vikram Digva, stabbed him five times with an eight-inch ceremonial Sikh kirpan blade after a brief verbal exchange. And people seemed kind of obsessed about whether there were any terms of racial abuse hurled at Vikram, as if that matters at all. Let's say.
[0:01:10] He had called Vikram some derogatory racial term. Well, grow the fuck up, everyone. Bad words fly around this world. We don't fucking kill people for them. I've been called bad words, even racially charged bad words over the course of my life, managed not to stab anyone in my entire time. alive. Because people are bringing this up. Like it means something. Like it matters. It doesn't matter.
[0:01:47] Sticks and stones and ceremonial blades can hurt my bones. Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me. Words, unlike knives, require your participation to cause you harm. My brother, when I was growing up, as a teenager, he had an odd habit of calling me fatty. I wasn't fat. I was on the swim team, water polo team, cross-country team, tennis team. I thought it was weird. Doesn't really matter. Because it doesn't do me any harm unless I believe it. And even then, it only does me psychological harm. White people have been called the scourge of the earth for decades now. The only ones responsible for colonialism, the only ones responsible for sexism, patriarchy, racism, slavery, empire, have been called all kinds of terrible words.
[0:02:45] Now, the Sikh murderer, Digva, stabbed him five times and then claimed self-defense and played the racism card with the police. Oh, I've been racially abused. I've been racially assaulted. I've been racially harmed. It's a racially motivated attack. Why did he do that? Because immigrants know the law. Immigrants know the law. We'll get to that in a second. Henry, young, fresh-faced, brilliant, white boy, was stabbed in the chest and the legs. Lung was punctured, as far as I understand it, and he claimed eight or nine times, I can't breathe. Help me. Help me. I can't breathe. Now, because Digvar said, oh, I've been racially abused, and it's the worst thing ever, and This young white boy is a racist, right? The officers treated the dying Henry as the aggressor. The body cam footage shows them handcuffing him while he pleaded, I've been stabbed and I can't breathe. They delayed proper medical help, and he passed away. Oh, wow.
[0:04:05] He passed away about 67 minutes after being stabbed.
[0:04:10] There was something called the McPherson Report, pushed police forces to treat racism allegations with extreme caution, especially when made by ethnic minorities against white individuals. Anti-racism training, DEI initiatives, the Police Race Action Plan, which emphasized disproportionality and institutional bias against minorities, often leading officers to err on the side of believing, minority suspects', claims to avoid career-ending racist labels. I mean, it's reasonable, in my view, to view this a two-tier policing.
[0:04:42] White victims like Henry get presumed guilt, assumed guilty, when race is involved. While the same scrutiny generally doesn't apply in reverse, in this case, it cost a young man his life, in my opinion. The stabber, Digua, was convicted of murder, and on June 1st, 2026, a couple of days ago, was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum of 21 years. He was also convicted of carrying a bladed article. A little confusing. So, in England, I do believe you can carry a giant ceremonial dagger, if you're Sikh, around. Ah, but if you are not a Sikh, and let's say you're a woman, a white woman, you can't even carry pepper spray to protect yourself.
[0:05:39] Right after the stabbing, Digva called his parents who arrived at the scene before the police. His mother, Kiran Kaur, who's 53, took the murder weapon from him and hid it at their family home, along with more than twenty other weapons, later found by police. This is coming out of Grok.
[0:06:01] She was convicted of assisting an offender and is awaiting sentencing. Digvar's father and brother also face weapons charges. Court proceedings reportedly included shouting between the families with some of Digvar's relatives allegedly calling Henry's family racists. Timeline. Evening of December 3rd, 2025, Henry is out with friends. CCTV and video show him walking home sober in the Portsford-Belmont Road area, where he briefly interacts with Digvar, who was openly carrying the large blade. Around 11.30pm, the confrontation happens. Digvar stabs Henry five times. Oh, it's almost the same age as my daughter. Digvar stabs Henry five times. Henry tries to flee, climbs a fence and calls for help. Neighbors hear him saying he's dying. Digvar films him on the ground, then calls his family. Hmm. Doesn't call the police, doesn't call an ambulance. Calls his family to try and get away with murder. Most foul. Before the police arrive, Digvar's parents show up. His mother, Gidangawa, takes the knife and hides it at home. The police arrive. Digvar claims a racist attack. Offers his handcuff the bleeding Henry while he pleads for his life.
[0:07:22] Repeatedly over and over. He can't breathe. I've been stabbed. How the living fuck do you not know that a young man has been stabbed five times over the course of 67 minutes? What the ever-loving fuck? December 2025, May 2026, investigation proceeds. Digva and his mother are charged. May 2026, trial details come out. Digva and Kaura, the mother, are found guilty. June 1st, 2026.
[0:07:55] Sentencing. Body cam footage is released, sparking outrage, family statements are made, and tensions erupt in court. June 2nd, 2026. Onward, Diggva's father and brother appear in court on weapons charges. Gidankawa awaits sentencing. The IOPC investigation continues. Can you imagine a magic word that has the police on your side? He's racist. Imagine a magic word that has the police on your side. Who caused the boy's death? Necessary, but not sufficient, was the stabbing. It is my belief, I'm obviously not a doctor, but I've seen some shows, I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure if someone can live for 67 minutes, they can be helped, considerably, if not saved. If he couldn't breathe, you supply oxygen, patch up the lung. He didn't bleed out as far as I know, and if he had planned out, let's say the femoral artery, one of the biggest arteries and the body in the leg had been punctured, he would have bled out within a minute or two.
[0:09:09] Directives train officers to see race first, and facts second. If this had happened to an enemy combatant in war, I believe, if the police were soldiers, they would have been charged with war crimes. And I cannot overemphasize how safe London was when I grew up there. From the age of four or five, my friends, my brother, myself, roamed all over the city. No danger, no fear, no problems, no crime, no threats. It was actually shortly before we came to Canada that my friends and I went down to the Imperial War Museum for one last visit before I left the country forever.
[0:09:54] And we were sat upon by three black teenagers who quite merrily, with big smiles on their faces, took all our money. Never happened to me before. I will say it may have had a slight impact on the reality processing that I'm kind of famous for. Now, if, heaven forbid, heaven forbid, if you were to get a frantic phone call from your son, and he were to say, I've stabbed someone, what should I do? What would you do? You know, as a reasonable, decent human being. Well, what you would do, of course, is you would say, for God's sakes, call an ambulance. Now, call the police, call an ambulance. Ask around in the crowd if there's anyone who knows CPR, or anyone who's a doctor, or anyone with EMT or medical training. Keep the boy alive, whatever you do. Whatever you do. And it would be horrible and it would be agonizing. And you would do it for two reasons. One, basic fucking humanity, number one. Number two, you would want to keep the boy alive for reasons of preventing a murder charge. Maybe it would be attempted murder, grievous bodily harm, but you would want to do it for moral and practical reasons.
[0:11:23] Don't imagine we know the contents of the phone call between the young man, the young murderer, and his family. You know what I couldn't imagine? I'm not even. Let's put you in that situation. Or Bob. Let's make it Bob. Eponymous Bob. Bob's son calls him up. Nah, Mavis. Maeve, Maeve. Maeve gets called up. Her son says, I've stabbed someone. What am I going to do? what should I do? It's not specifically Geordie, but what the hell? Maeve, can you imagine Maeve, his mother, saying, okay, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to come down there. I'm going to take the knife, going to hide the knife. We're going to do this. You're going to do that. Tell the police it was racism, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, to immediately plot and plan to hide the crime and blame the victim.
[0:12:15] I think that there are very few white and East Asian Europeans who would immediately close ranks to cover up the crime and blame the victim. Well, let's just say it might be a slightly different culture. What the fuck is going on? People are saying that poor young Henry is like George Floyd. Nope. Not even a teeny tiny little bit. George Floyd was a drug addict, a habitual criminal who had held a gun to the pregnant belly of a woman because he and his friends were robbing her for drugs, sorry, for money for drugs. He was a counterfeiter who, according to some interpretations of the body cam footage, swallowed drugs in order to avoid going back to prison, also had what many consider a lethal dose of fentanyl in his system, and the police were using what I understand to be an approved restraining technique, which is kneeling on the shoulder, because, of course, a lot of criminals fake injury in order to flee or attack police. And he said, and this is right there in the body game footage, George Floyd said. Survey says George Floyd said he couldn't breathe long before he was on the ground.
[0:13:44] Now, people say, ah, yes, but he'd been a habitual drug user, so the drug wouldn't have been an overdose, but my understanding is that George Floyd was also clean for a while, and when you get clean, your body resets, and a dose that you might have tolerated, when you were a habitual user, you can no longer tolerate. Young Henry was not a criminal, had never held a gun to the belly of a pregnant woman in a desperate hunt for drug money, did not ingest, potentially, large amounts of drugs, did not have heart disease, hypertension, COVID, did not say he couldn't breathe before being attacked. It's not the same, even remotely, one little bit.
[0:14:38] Now, of course, the left went completely deranged, apeshit mental over St. George Floyd. And with grinding predictability, there is nothing about poor, stabbed, brutalized, murdered young Henry bleeding out under the loving scorn of the indifferent police. I can't breathe. I can't breathe. I'm dying. I don't think you are, mate. No, not you. You're fine. you're a racist. You know, they went through his phone looking for indications of racism. Now, of course, they're releasing the body cam footage with the fairly certain knowledge that not much really is going to happen. I mean, it's sad. I mean, let's be honest, though. If this had happened to a young Jewish boy, if this had happened to a young black boy, if this had happened to, I mean, we could just sort of pick. I mean, they would be going absolutely wild. It's a tough call, man. Unfortunately, we just live in a society where if you don't make any trouble, you just get more trouble. I wish it wasn't the case. I wish people listened to reason and evidence. It's certainly what I've been fighting. Lo, these 45 years I've been into philosophy, but we have to deal with and look at the world as it is, not the world as you'd like it to be, or if the world was better.
[0:16:04] So, so, so, so, so, so, I will tell you what's going on, and then you can tell me if I'm wrong, or that I am wrong, and all of that. The simple facts and reality of the situation. I mean, we've talked about the IQ stuff. The caste system is an IQ filtering system in India. I know this is Pakistan, but let's talk about what's going on that you may not really understand. And I say this knowing that it's an annoying thing to say, but I have studied these things in great detail for quite a long time. So hopefully I'll have something of value to add, and then you can tell me what you think?
[0:16:49] Christianity, of course, started in the Middle East in non-European contexts and so on, and where Christianity has spread to non-Greco-Roman-derived cultures, we'll get to that in a second, it has not tended to be particularly remarkable. However, however, Christianity, when merged with Greco-Roman culture has produced the modern world. Greco-Roman culture, with its emphasis and focus on logic, rationality, debate, and universalism in concepts, combined with Christianity's emphasis on universality in humanity. The Romans had universality, and the Greeks, ancient Greeks, had universality in concepts, but they did not translate into universality in law, in that women were lesser beings, slaves, of course, were livestock, and soldiers were forced to fight for 20 years, and then, given a postage stamp and a half.
[0:17:56] Barely arable land at the end of it all. So they had universality in concepts, but not in what we would call human rights. The concept would have been entirely foreign to them. Universality of concepts, universality of rationality, combined with Christianity's universality of human rights, produced the modern world. Ended slavery, produced universal conceptions of property rights, equality under the law, which was, again, incomprehensible. To the ancient world. The merging of these two rivers produced all the modern.
[0:18:33] Mental approaches to the world that we take for granted. All men are created equal, all women are created equal, everybody should be equal under the law, property rights are universal, thou shalt not steal, and we should reason together, saith the Lord. Let us reason together, saith the Lord, to some degree the story of Job. That in the conflict between muscle and mind, mind must dominate. That combination of Christianity's emphasis on the universality of rights and the commonality of the soul to all hairless bipeds, combined with universality of concepts, the absolutism of reason, and the need to negotiate rather than use naked violence as the solution to every conflict, produced the modern world with one other toasty-tasty special ingredient. That one other tasty-toasty special ingredient was the wholesale destruction of, or at least rendering reproductively inert, one to two percent of the population, this is most studied in England, but it did occur in other places as well, for a couple of hundred years. 14th, 15th, the 17th-18th century, about 1-2% of the population was culled.
[0:19:57] If you know anything about crime, then there's no reason why you would. I've got The Truth About Crime as a presentation at FDpodcasts, Freedomain podcast, fdpodcasts.com. Just do a search for crime, Truth About Crime, it's a very good presentation.
[0:20:10] Most crime is committed by 1-2% of the population. For whatever reason, 1-2% of the population, I'm really talking about England and Northwestern Europe, 1-2% of the population comes out pretty feral. It's a scattershot, eh? We can say genetic lottery, whether it's genes plus environment plus moral choice, doesn't really matter because we're looking at the effects. One to two percent of the population commits the majority of crimes. I mean, we just saw this in El Salvador, right? I mean, Bacchali gets in, looks around and says, hey, that's interesting. People have literally tattooed on their faces how many people they've killed. Huh. I wonder if it's going to be tough to figure out who the criminals are. Guilty. has been tattooed on the swarthy foreheads, and he's able to sort it out. If you take out of society one to two percent per year of the most criminal and violent, and you do this for a couple of hundred years, you get a pretty reasonable population. Now, I'm not talking, I mean, of course, a lot of the criminals were hanged.
[0:21:17] Executed in other ways, but we're just talking about reproductively disabled. Now, whether the reproduction is the genetic transmission of criminality, which I don't like and you don't like, and nobody likes the idea that it's genetic, or whether it's just, well, these people would have brutalized and, been bad parents themselves, and it's not genes, it's the environment, who knows, right? But for whatever reason, culling one to two percent of the population, the most violent, the most brutal, the serial killer, the rapists, the brutal thieves, the home invaders, and people with hair-trigger tempers, no conscience, and low to medium levels of dangerous culling. Sorry, dangerous cunning. Cunning. There we go. I can speak. I know it. Well, you see, one to two percent of my words come out deranged as well. If I can keep it down to that. Low single digits. I'm a happy guy. It's not like I'm working from a script here. You do this for a couple of hundred years, and you end up with a pretty peaceful population, a pretty obedient.
[0:22:28] Population. Now, perhaps a little bit too pacifist in its own way, but that is basically the reality of what we're dealing with. Now, then what you do is, unfortunately, or what happens to you, or what is done unto you, is, tragically and unfortunately, you end up with two world wars. So you have a morally strong but overly obedient population, because all of those who disobey, right societies progress when the majority of people obey and a minority of people disobey in the same way that most people want to work for someone else because it's more stable but if everyone works for someone else and nobody's an entrepreneur you end up with a stagnant society like the 6 000 year groundhog day copy paste sequence of ancient china well ancient China up until the opium wars that I talked about in my documentary on Hong Kong.
[0:23:33] So you need the majority of people go along with the rules, the majority of people obey the rules and don't really question that much. And that's fine. The majority of your genes should replicate accurately. But there's no evolution if it's simply copy-paste. There has to be some variability in the copy-paste in order to allow for advantageous mutations. If nothing changes, you end up with the billion-year history of the earthworm, give or take. If things change too much, you've got thalidomide babies with no arms. So you've got to have the vast majority of things stable. A small minority of people disagree, and some of those people disagree with the laws and become violent criminals, and some of those people disagree with the laws and end slavery and move society forward in productive, healthy, and positive ways. So you ended up with a very compliant society, and unfortunately, they were then betrayed. society was betrayed by, well, coke addict and child abuse cover-upper, Sigmund Freud. And I've talked about that in the Night for Freedom speech, you can find that out.
[0:24:42] And the relative peace and stability of Europe, 100 years of close to universal peace in Western Europe, unprecedented after the 300 years of religious warfare, characterized by the post-Protestant Reformation world. Then you scoop up all of these maybe slightly over-compliant young men, and you shovel them into the bottomless satanic furnace of World War I. 10 plus million people killed, and then after that the Spanish flu, which killed as many if not more. And then you shovel 40 to 50 million into the even larger and eventually radioactive furnace of the Second World War, and then you take the flower of some of those youth, and you shove them into Korea, and you shove them into Vietnam, First Gulf War, Second Gulf War, Iran, you name it. And whites go from being a third of the population of the planet to one to two percent of humanity, is white women of childbearing age, and half of those aren't going to have kids. So we're a little screwed.
[0:25:51] So the tension of the universality of rights promoted by Christianity and the universality of concepts, philosophy, and reason, promoted by the Greco-Roman tradition, collide to produce the modern world, the end of slavery, produces the Industrial Revolution because you don't invest in labor-saving devices when all of your investments are in labor. When you buy a bunch of slaves, you're not going to invest in labor-saving devices because that lowers the value of your slaves. It's like investing in both horse and buggies and internal combustion engine and automobiles at the same time, it no worky logically. So you had to get rid of slavery in order to have the modern industrial revolution and capitalism and all of the glories that had come out of that. So...
[0:26:42] Since the Second World War, you could argue before, but since the Second World War, there has been this unending assault upon reason.
[0:26:51] The dataists, the babblers, the postmodernists, the relativists, the subjectivists, there's been endless assault on reason. And the reason that there is this endless assault on reason is to destroy rational moral universals so that you could be pushed around and bullied and everything is subjective. I don't know if you've ever had this where you're in a conflict with someone and you're trying to reason with them, and they just go nuts, and you get that weird, creepy feeling like you're leaning over the edge of a press of piss into a bottomless hellhole of manipulation. I've had this a couple of times, and more than a couple of times. You're debating with someone, you're arguing with someone, you're having a conflict with someone, and you're like, oh, oh, oh, shit, they're nuts. Damn, they crazy, man. Well, that's not good. That is not a plus. Well, that's where we're at. Christianity has, to a large degree, in the modern world, become eschatological, means end of the world. I'm not just talking about those cheesy left-behind movies. If my car is empty, I've joined the rapture, says the empty car on the highway, where only the sinners remain. Everyone else has clavicular-style ascended, but without having to take a hammer to their jawlines.
[0:28:10] Christianity in the modern context is, as the old saying goes, the old poetic saying goes, half in love with easeful death. It wishes for the end of the world. The struggle is too much. And it's like a dying man looking at an overgrown garden. What's the point? I'm not going to live long. I'm exhausted. I'm enervated. I'm drained and tapped out. I'm not going to take a big giant clipper to those hedgerows and pull up all those weeds. Let it all get taken over by blind nature. I am entirely out of jet-streamed civilization or joy juice and energy. All done. All gone. Like some depressed guy looking at the clutter. Why bother? Doesn't matter. Because the energy and the tension between faith and reason that drew the modern world out of the highly culled, unviolented populations of the semi-modern West, that tension is gone. And all that's left is exhausting faith and mysticism. On both the left and the right.
[0:29:19] And because Christianity looks at the universality of the soul, that all people are created in the image of God, all races are created in the image of God, and because Christianity has lived in a fairly safe environment for a long time, sure, yeah, you can absolutely, you can turn the other cheek. You can love your neighbor, because your neighbor's pretty nice, because all the neighbors who weren't nice were either executed or sent to Australia to be executed by giant spiders and punchy kangaroos. So, yes, you could afford to be nice, you could afford to love your neighbor, and you are safe in the bosom of a post-criminal society. And because you're a Christian, you think, well, everyone's made in the image of God. The people on the other side of the world, they're just like me. They just haven't received the good news of the benevolence of Jesus yet. Well, let's look around the world, and let's look at cultures and societies as a whole.
[0:30:20] Have they, through whatever level of self-defense aggression, have they worked hard to lower the violent tendencies of their populations? Well, I would argue that in a lot of places around the world, we don't have to get specific, but in a lot of not gone through that process of aiming for a more peaceful set of interactions, but instead have promoted sometimes the most aggressive, the most tribal. And it has become a.
[0:30:57] An article of faith about the blind interchangeability of all human beings, that to question it, to say, look, there are different social, cultural, temperature pressures on human beings. Oh, I mean, can't be spoken of. And of course, it's funny in the UK and in other places where they say, well, everyone's just the same, but then they import people who reliably vote for the left, who reliably vote for socialism, if not downright communism. And it's like, well, if everyone's the same, then why do you need people to come in? Well, because everyone's not the same, at least in terms of their voting habits, that immigrants as a whole tend to vote reliably left in every place that immigrants are. And so they say, well, everyone's the same, but we're importing people because they're different from the general population that is local. And again, Can you talk about these things? Well, I can, I suppose. I think it's important. I say this out of a generalized love of humanity as a whole, and I love humanity to the point where I have to tell the truth. As Plato said thousands of years ago, we must love our friends, but we must love the truth even more, because without the truth, we cannot have good friendships.
[0:32:19] So, of course, what do we need? What do we need? Of course, we need equality before the law. Of course, we should recognize that hostility to other ethnicities is not solely the province of white people, but is, in fact, higher in most populations. White people have been regularly polled as the least racist people on the planet. So having fewer white people around generally means more racism, not less statistically. Again, we don't judge individuals, but we're just looking at the general trends. Of course, we need equality before the law. Of course, we should remove restrictions upon free speech so that we can seasonably and reasonably discuss these issues, come together and reason together. And of course, one of the best ways to create resentment is to force people to pay for other people, right? Slavery was forcing.
[0:33:22] The hapless and helpless blacks in the South, of course, and, well, there's not much evidence of them in the Middle East, even though they took 20 times the number of slaves to the Middle East as they took to the antebellum South, but they castrated them all, and therefore there's not really a black population there anymore, and a significant proportion of those blacks died in the process of being castrated, which we can scarcely imagine the brutality of. But the helpless and hapless black slaves and two million slaves were taken also to the Middle East and to Africa, white slaves, European slaves, which is five times the amount that were taken to the South. But of course, that's inconvenient, as is the fact that only a few percentage points of whites ever owned any slaves in the South, blah, blah, blah. We've done all this good truth about slavery. It's an old presentation of mine, well worth watching.
[0:34:13] So the slaves were forced to pay for the masters. Women complain that they're forced to do unpaid labor. Unpaid labor. And occasional, somewhat hysterical, resentful wives will present bills to their husbands for all of this labor that they have done, that they need to be compensated for. As if women who have children aren't paid for, because if they're not paid for, they tend to not do very well in terms of longevity. So one of the greatest and most tragic ways to create resentment is to force people to pay for other people. Force the workers to pay for the unemployed.
[0:34:53] Force the people who don't have children to pay for the people who do have children when they're younger, and then force the people who do have children to have their children pay for the retirements of those without children. And, I mean, should you even really get a government pension if you didn't have kids? I mean, saved half a million dollars over the course of your life when you're younger because you didn't have kids. You saved a lot of money and time and energy. So you should be responsible for your own retirement if you didn't have kids. But yeah, good luck with that, right? Because it would mostly affect women. If you save half a million dollars from the age of 25 or 30 onwards and you invest it, you'd have more than enough for retirement. So force people to pay for other people. Use the government to create this big, rolling lava lamp back and forth. You know those things that swivel up and down like seesaws. It's rolling the money from one group to another. Roll the money from the employed to the unemployed. Roll the money from men to women. Roll the money from the young to the old. Without choice, without restraint, without any control, because it's all just money, printing, debt, and borrowing.
[0:36:04] Roll the money from group to group. And you, of course, hear these stories of people come into a country, they get put up in five-star hotels, they get MacBooks and internet access and meal vouchers and free healthcare and so on. Well, that's going to create resentment. All that is voluntary is done out of love. All that is coerced is done out of control. Whatever the problem is in society. Here's a nice simple formula. I'll get your questions in a second. I appreciate everybody listening in. Whatever the problems are in society, the solution is simple, clear, obvious, and actually easier to implement than any other alternative. Whatever the problems are in society, the solution is more freedom, more peace, less violence. More freedom, more peace, less violence, more freedom, more peace, less violence. That's all. People can give you all kinds of complicated problems. What should we do about low birth rates? More peace, less violence. What should we do about vaccines? More peace, less violence. Thou shalt not initiate the use of force against their fellow carbon-based bald-biped lifeforms.
[0:37:32] Which we do about the potential for foreign governments to obtain nuclear weapons.
[0:37:40] More peace, more voluntarism, less violence. What should we do about ethnic tensions? More peace, less violence. What should we do about parenting? More peace, less violence. That's all. It's a simple formula. It has birthed the modern world, and it can birth an even greater world in the future if we have the courage to promote peace, voluntarism, negotiation, and we oppose the endless violence, coercion, and brutality that characterizes the modern world. Luke, Luke, if you want to unmute, I'm all ears.
[0:38:23] Stefan, how are you? Yeah, I was trying to talk to you before about what it was like at the University of Toronto.
[0:38:30] And did you have any experience with James Cantor, PhD? Because you're talking about psychology and psychiatry, normalizing pedophilia. And he invented the term minor attracted person and was on CNN sitting next to Don Lemon when he said, I feel sorry for Jerry Sandusky being arrested. Do you know any more about this character from the University of Toronto?
[0:38:57] I have heard of him and I've heard, of course, a lot of this stuff that's floating around. I haven't verified at all. I will say though, that in general, there is a curse and plague of PDF files in the world. And it seems that the groups that the left is most enamored of tend to be those with the fewest boundaries against children. The idea that there's a childhood that's morally separate from adulthood, that children are deserving of special protection and not exploitation, again, is a combination of Christianity and the Greco-Roman tradition or the philosophical tradition, the tension between faith and science that exists uniquely in the Western world as the result of various coincidences and willpowers on the part of thinkers. And so the idea that children are uniquely precious beings who are not just worthy of, but highly deserving of society's special protections, however imperfectly enacted, of course, in the West, is kind of a modern phenomenon. I mean, there's a saying I.
[0:40:09] Have pretty good contact with the Indian community, or at least I did when I was younger. And of course, there is a saying that a girl in some cultures who reaches puberty with her hymen intact must live in a house with no father's uncles or older brothers. And this is a tragically common thing in some cultures. And it is, of course, also tragically common in the indigenous cultures in many places in the world. So there is this battle between the protection of children and the exploitation of children. Children as special creatures worthy and deserving of society's excessive or excess or excess to the general population protection versus, well, they're small and they're helpless. We can do what we want with them. As in the video recently released about the man in Afghanistan selling his daughter as pretty much a sex slave to the highest bidder. The idea that children are precious resources worthy of far greater protection than adults, as opposed to exploitable resources with no power of their own that you can do whatever you will to them, which is common in many ideologies and in particular in religions, is, Well, that's, I mean, Jesus coming along and saying protect the children was pretty new. I mean, radically new. One of the greatest radically.
[0:41:31] I was just involved in a lawsuit in Australia, which the mainstream news isn't talking about it because I was critical of Alistair Crowley's cult. And if you ask the AI for one of his most famous quotes, it's children must be exposed to every kind of sexual act from birth, lest falsehood fog their minds. And these people are suing people in Australia just for listening to me in a space. And the mainstream news can't even get the case law right, that I was the person speaking. And they're trying to sue space's hosts for opposition to pedophilia. I mean, this is basically a court case against Elon Musk's Twitter in the public square. And it's insane. I mean, the courts in America, like the Wisconsin District Court, when there was a USC 42, I think 1984 prisoners' rights motion, when one of these occultists wanted to have Alistair Crowley's book that says, sacrifice cattle, little and big, after a child, and child's blood is the ingredients in the cakes of light, also known as Hillary Clinton's spirit cooking, when you look at those little facts of the equation, everything you just said makes a little bit more sense. Do you agree with me on that?
[0:42:47] I mean, you've said a lot, a lot of which I don't have any knowledge about. So I do think that there's a funny kind of, I shouldn't say funny, but there's a streak of Satanism that runs through the elites that seem, some elites, obviously, not all. I don't think Elon Musk is involved in many of this Maria Abramovich stuff, but there is a kind of cool and edgy form of Satanism. Of course, you're right. I mean, some indications of it seemed to come out of the Podesta emails and other things, but it is something that I do keep half an eye on, because do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law is pure, distilled, predatory hedonism.
[0:43:29] And do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law, in other words, whatever you feel like doing, that's the only rule you should live by, is an animal's existence. And it's also an insult to animals, because animals can't have abstract moral values and virtues that they can follow. So it is a brutal and predatory, because you get the cunning and thirst and desire of an animal combined with the brilliant manipulative strategies of the human mind. And the human mind developed and gained its intelligence through abstract universal principles of which morality is foundational and particularly to the modern world, as I was talking about earlier. So when you get hedonism you get in a strength in a sense the strength of a guerrilla with the cunning of a military general and that is a very very bad combination as a whole so i'll move on to the next caller i appreciate your call but i can't really speak to the other legal issues since i don't really know anything about them so uh freke freke if you wanted to unmute uh yeah hello.
[0:44:42] Hi, how are you? Good, good. I've been going for my PhD in philosophy. I have some questions about, you're talking a lot about morality and other stuff. So what, you have your own system, I think. I don't know if it'd be a system or an idea for values.
[0:45:04] I have a rational proof of secular morality, which is really the holy grail of philosophy and has been low for many thousands of years. So yeah, I have a rational proof of secular morality requiring no gods and no implicit assumptions, no axioms that are questionable and so on. So yes, it's called Universally Preferable Behavior. The book is for free at freedomain.com/books, but I'm certainly happy to discuss it. It is one of my favorite topics and I appreciate the question.
[0:45:34] Yeah, I was kind of reading or going through it, but I stopped at, you make a lot of assumptions and assertions, then you get to a part where it's held up by these proofs. Is that what the whole thing is, the base of it is? i'm sorry i'm.
[0:45:56] Not sure of what your question is i think there's evidence for universally preferable behavior i think i would use the word evidence rather than proofs if i were writing it all again and i did write a second version of it for my book essential philosophy but i can step you through the proof if you like it's pretty quick.
[0:46:11] Uh yeah before that that you make these assumptions about which is really confusing you're talking about preferable behavior and from there you jump to these proofs but when you're talking about preferable behavior like in, you say that the humanity is our human has preferable behavior to survive that's really weird sorry.
[0:46:39] Sorry why is that weird.
[0:46:40] It's weird terminology to say preferable or like any sort of organism or, going from whatever bacteria to a human being we talk about how their preference is to survive when it's not a, that's not, uh, preference has nothing to do with it. Uh, but even for a human being, uh, it's instinctual to want to continue surviving. And then, um, the only cases in where like someone could stop wanting to live are altered mental states.
[0:47:18] Okay. Hang on. So hang on. You gotta, you gotta do one argument at a time. You should, I mean, you're studying a PhD in philosophy. You should know well enough to not do a gish gallop, right? to just give me a bunch of arguments without giving me a chance to respond to any individual one. Hang on, hang on, hang on. This is the part where I talk. Remember, philosophy is a dialogue, right? So we got to both be able to talk, right? So don't over-talk me. I'll try not to over-talk you unless you're doing something that I really disagree with. Okay, so let me ask you a question. Is it possible to prefer to live but to not breathe?
[0:47:53] Prefer to live but not breathe no but breathing again that's why there's you got to change your whole terminology with preference because breathing eating and other actions by an animal whatever animal and a human they're not preferences in a way like the only hang.
[0:48:13] On hang on hang on again so this is a book about morality which applies to human beings because morality is our capacity to compare proposed actions to ideal standards, which is a singular ability of most humanity. Of course, there's some people who are not very smart at all, and some people who have brain damage or physical damage and so on. But with regards to UPB, is it possible to live without food, water, and air?
[0:48:42] No, that's not possible. Okay. Is it possible for any human being to live without food, water, or air? No. Okay. So, if you wish to live, it is universally preferable, absolute universally preferable, to obtain food.
[0:48:59] Water, and air. And there's no other way to survive.
[0:49:02] Is that something you would agree with? Yeah, I would agree that it's not possible for…, Any mammal that lives without food, water, or air.
[0:49:11] Okay, so all human beings that I talked to, including yourself, have pursued universally preferable behavior in obtaining food, water, air, shelter, whatever it is. The cluster of things necessary for the survival of humanity. So everybody who is alive has followed universally preferable behavior in order to continue staying alive and to have a conversation. So if we only are alive because of our pursuit and achievement of universally preferable behavior, such as breathing and eating and sleeping and so on, then it's kind of tough to argue against universally preferable behavior if you're only alive to debate because of your pursuit of absolute universally preferable behavior.
[0:50:02] Yeah, but again, it's not, preferable it's what's like required for like you wouldn't say it a lion or something else prefers to do something it's doing
[0:50:13] it out of instinct because it.
[0:50:15] Has to but the instinct has developed for the preferences that most serve the survival of lions right so lions don't stalk and eat boulders because they can't gain any nutrition they do it with zebras and deer and and spring bark and things like that. So, a lion prefers to hunt food that it can eat, and a lion prefers to mate and to not eat its own cubs and so on, right? Now, of course, we don't say that this is a universal moral abstract preference. It is a preference that has been baked into the genetics of the lion by various hormonal things and so on. Birds, even if they're starving have been programmed by nature to feed their young, because the birds can more easily survive the lack of food compared to the babies.
[0:51:07] And so, animals definitely have preferences. Now, those preferences are built into the genetics, the hormones, the instincts, and so on. And so, they do have preferences in that they prefer to live. Now, they're not abstract moral preferences at all, but there's no way that life could survive if it had no... Preference for one thing over another. In other words, if a lion did not experience hunger, which drove it to hunt, which means that it prefers to satisfy its hunger and to eat. If you and I didn't experience hunger or anything like that, it would be a little bit more difficult to eat. We'd have to sort of set a timer and remind ourselves. So life could not survive if it had no preferences. And again, I fully understand that some of these preferences are instinctual. And of course, a lot of them we share with the animals, such as a sex drive and a drive for water when we're thirsty and food when we're hungry and so on. But we, of course, as human beings have the capacity for universally preferable behavior in the abstract moral realm. And so the establishment of universally preferable behavior is really just a basic description of Darwinian evolution. In other words, animals could not survive if they did not prefer one state over
[0:52:24] another, such as reproduction or food sorry go ahead.
[0:52:26] No that's it's bizarre because you're giving like sort of it's a weird.
[0:52:31] Okay stop that that's rude that's rude don't pull that bullshit with me no it's don't know no you are a phd student in philosophy yeah so you better show some respect for philosophy don't just say hang on do not say something is just bizarre it's that's a ridiculous non-argument i don't even believe you're a student in philosophy because starting off something by saying bizarre is a terrible non-argument so let's start not with insults that's just an ad hominem so don't do that nonsense just give me a respectful argument and let's have a decent conversation i'm.
[0:53:04] I'm doubling in biology that's why it's not it's for me it's a weird thing because you're giving agency to the way you say preference it's like you're giving agency to evolution which is weird it's Evolution has no agency. It's just giving animals in their... Their particular arenas survive, the instincts to survive, there's no preference involved. Which ones died out and which continued best utilize the environment to survive? That's all that happens. There's no agents involved in this.
[0:53:46] Hang on, when did I ever say that there was an external agency?
[0:53:50] Well, when you say preference, that implies a sort of agency.
[0:53:55] Okay, hang on, hang on, hang on. No, that's rude. That's rude as well. You can't say what you're saying, Stef, implies something else. That's you making something up and then injecting it into my argument. You have to deal, this is philosophical rigor, you have to deal with the arguments that I've made. You can't just say, well, the thing that I imputed to your argument, that it implies something that I've made up, is bizarre. That's you making up something bizarre. It's not what I said.
[0:54:22] But the problem is I don't even understand, I don't understand the argument or what you mean. No biologist would understand what you mean by preferential behavior. They would understand evolution and like that acting to give fitness to certain animals in their environment, but not preference. They just, these animals that have continued to flourish and survive today have done so out of instinct. There's no, even, that's why I'm saying, then you move on to humans. You make a jump into humanity and giving the same terminology with preferences, which is even humans are.
[0:55:01] So if you're not going to listen, then there's not really any point. You may need to write some things down because you're just, you're coming in with a negative viewpoint of the argument and you're not listening. So I said, of course, that animals have developed instincts that best serve their survival. Can we agree on that?
[0:55:18] That animals have come up with it?
[0:55:20] No, no. They have developed. Through the process of evolution and trial and error and whatever, animals have developed or have accrued instincts which best serve their survival. So, for instance, if an animal is born with an aversion to mating, then that aversion will not be passed on in general to the next generation because that animal will not mate. So animals that develop through trial and error and evolution and all these kinds of things, the random mutations or whatever you want to call it, animals that, develop instinctual prompts for behavior that best serve their survival will tend to flourish the most.
[0:56:03] Yeah, but you're not a creationist, right? You believe in evolution.
[0:56:06] I am absolutely not a creationist. I do not believe there is any external agent guiding evolution. It's just, you know, billions of years of trial and error and random mutations and, you know, survival and, you know, the giraffes that could get to the slightly higher trees that ended up with slightly longer necks. And that continues until the necks become too long. And when they lean over, their heads blow off because of all of the blood pumping to their skulls. So no, no, there's no external agency. It's simply a description that animals will tend to evolve preferences or guided behaviors through instincts, if you want to put it that way, that best serve their survival.
[0:56:45] If you believe in evolution just without anything backing it, It's a completely random process in which, in this environment on Earth, it just gives special characteristics to the species that have flourished. So they're able to flourish in their niche very well. Preference has nothing to do with it. They've been guided by evolution. And that's not even, guidedism isn't even right if you believe in evolution as just a blind process. It just, giving agency to any of this is, that's why I say it's bizarre, because if, unless you're a creationist, you shouldn't, there's no agency at all on this stuff. Okay, I'm sorry. It's just not, like I said, unless you're a creationist in which you believe.
[0:57:41] No, no, no. I need you to explain to me because I'm putting a lot of work into trying to explain what I'm talking about. Now, what I'm talking about is not always the easiest thing. If explaining secular ethics was easy, it would have been done thousands of years ago. So you're kind of like a creationist when they first hear about evolution saying, well, that's bizarre. It's like, well, just take a little while and try to understand what I'm talking about before just labeling it as bizarre, because that's quite presumptuous. I've been studying philosophy, and I have a graduate degree in the history of philosophy. I've been studying philosophy for over 40 years. I kind of know what I'm talking about. That doesn't mean I'm always right, but it means that I've gone through a lot of flack and challenge to get my perspectives across. So to me, if, hang on. So if you had been studying biology for 40 years and I was kind of jumping in, I would not have the arrogance to simply label your perspectives as bizarre, because that's not an argument. It just means that you don't understand something. But you not understanding something doesn't make it bizarre.
[0:58:47] I haven't been studying biology for four years. I just go off what other biologists have said and what they... Their knowledge. So there's no biologist.
[0:59:02] No, but this is philosophy. So I'm working on a proof of secular ethics and there are universally preferable behaviors. That doesn't mean that every subjective person or every subjective animal chooses these behaviors out of a variety abstract options. But evolution has programmed animals to pursue the courses of action that are best suited for the survival and reproduction of their genetics. Would you agree with that statement?
[0:59:36] No, because again, you're giving sort of an agency.
[0:59:39] No, I've already told you. I'm not a creationist. I don't even believe in God. So saying that I'm implying a sort of agency is an inaccurate restatement of my position. So put that out of your mind. I am not talking about agency in any way, shape, or form. Let me put it another way. Those animals that are programmed by genetics, by hormones, by nature, whatever it is, those animals that are programmed to better pursue survival and reproduction tend to survive better than those who are not programmed as well to pursue actions that enhance survival and reputation.
[1:00:22] Replication or yeah but it just means that in a fitness environment the animal has nothing to do with them choosing something it just means that they did something oh my god bro.
[1:00:34] Can you fucking listen did i say the word choose i said program.
[1:00:38] Well then why does preference go into this did i say the word choose when you talk about preference you're implying did.
[1:00:47] I say the word choosed.
[1:00:51] No.
[1:00:52] Then why are you bringing it up? See, I'm very precise about the language that I use. I'm very conscious of the language that I use. I gotta tell you, it's kind of annoying when I keep being very precise, and then you just inject your own words into it. That's called a straw man.
[1:01:08] No, because you're talking about program behavior, and then talking about referential behavior. So, which, that's not, that doesn't go together.
[1:01:18] Do you think that programming in terms of genetics, do you think that programming produces over the course of billions of years of evolution behaviors that better serve survival and reproduction?
[1:01:39] Yeah. The animals that are alive today have conformed to their fitness niche. That's all. It's not because of the programming. They didn't do what the other animal did that didn't survive. It has nothing to do with their choice. They just follow a different behavior.
[1:02:03] When animals are hungry, are they stimulated to eat?
[1:02:09] Yeah, it's instinctual, yeah.
[1:02:11] Okay, I didn't say it wasn't, right? So when animals are hungry, they are stimulated to pursue food. And when animals have finished eating, they, I mean, they don't pursue food. Like a full lion doesn't immediately go and try and chase down another animal. So hunger is a stimulant for the animal to hunt, and satiety is a stimulant for the animal to stop hunting. Do we agree on that?
[1:02:39] Yes.
[1:02:41] So, it is, again, I'm not saying there's anyone choosing for the animal, but an animal that has hunger when it's hungry has a better chance of survival than an animal that does not have hunger when it's hungry. Do we agree on that?
[1:02:57] Yeah. Yeah.
[1:02:59] So, animals that develop the sensation, the uncomfortable sensation of being hungry when they're hungry, have a better chance of survival. Now, we can say that over the course of evolution, those animals that develop survival-enhancing preferences. Now, the preferences evolved. They're not chosen from an abstract buffet of choices in the way that human beings can choose. You know, birds fly south for the winter, the butterflies fly down to Mexico for the winter. But we can say, I want to go on a cruise to Alaska in the winter. We can choose where we go. And so human beings have much more, almost an infinity of greater abstract choices than animals do. But so when I'm talking about universally preferable behavior, it is from an evolutionary standpoint, universally preferable behavior for animals to eat and to reproduce. Because if they don't, those genes won't survive.
[1:03:57] Now, again, I'm not saying that animals are using, I'm not using the word preferential with animals, which I said like 15 minutes ago, I said I'm not using it in the same way. But it is an example that all life has to pursue preferred behavior behavior that is preferential for survival and reproduction even if it's programmed by genetics and of course animals in general are programmed by genetics but animals have to pursue behavior that is universally preferable in order to survive and reproduce because if they don't eat they don't reproduce.
[1:04:33] They don't maintain a temperature lizards through the environment and often mammals of course through internal regulation of temperature they won't survive and it is universally from a standpoint of a human looking at the animal kingdom the animals that best pursue universally preferable behavior and again i'm not saying they're choosing it but it's evolved that way for them, have the best chance of survival and they do in fact survive and an animal that pursues the The opposite of what it needs to survive will not survive.
[1:05:04] Yeah, you're just, for me, I'll leave it there. I mean, you're just describing, especially in your case, you don't believe in anything metaphysical. You're describing blind forces.
[1:05:16] But that's not really what I wanted to get to. The proofs that you have for the, there were, you select rape, theft, assault, murder. What was the, and then?
[1:05:30] No, that's good. Yeah, rape, theft, assault, murder. Sure.
[1:05:32] When you get to the proof section though i want to what in what sense do you mean proofs because what you gave weren't like a logical proof you talked about rape i'm not you have to walk me through it so like what is it.
[1:05:46] No no no hang on you've already told me that i didn't prove it.
[1:05:49] So no analyze my argument hang on hang.
[1:05:52] On hang on i'm still talking i'm still talking we don't we don't talk at the same time unless one of us is getting something egregiously wrong So, you've told me that you don't follow my proofs, so... Do a steel man for me, right? This is a good way to understand intellectual maturity. I'm not saying you don't have it. I'm just saying it's a good way to test it. So give me the argument for theft that's in my book as if you're me, just to make sure that we're on the same page.
[1:06:19] The problem is I'm not even sure I understood it because when you went to the proof section...
[1:06:24] Well, if you didn't understand it, you can't call it wrong, can you?
[1:06:27] No, what I'm trying to explain is that when I got to the section of proofs, I was expecting a logical proof, but what you said was that a man cannot steal and then want to be stolen from at the same time, or you set up sort of a moral negation between them?
[1:06:51] Okay, fantastic. So, step me through the argument, and then you can tell me where I've made a mistake.
[1:06:56] I'm trying to remember, because my question was in what?
[1:06:59] No, hang on, bro. you called me up in a public forum and called me wrong and bizarre. So you better know what you're talking about, because otherwise you're just being a jerk.
[1:07:10] Well, first, I want to ask, in what sense are you talking about proofs? Like in a logical sense or just...
[1:07:17] No, no. What do you mean by proofs? You've called me up publicly and you have taken a glove across my face and you have said, Stef, you're wrong. Okay. Hey, that's fine. It's always a possibility. I'm always open to being corrected. Being corrected is a very good thing.
[1:07:32] Well, yeah, but I need some clarification.
[1:07:34] So now you need now, now, no, you can't say that I'm wrong and then say that you don't understand something. Like, that's not logical, right?
[1:07:42] No, but the thing is that what you presented as a proof wasn't a logical proof. So it's like...
[1:07:48] Fantastic. Okay, good. So step me through where the logic fails or how it's not logical.
[1:07:53] Well, you said in the first one, what makes it wrong, this is like the base of what you're trying to set up, is that if somebody were to steal and then... If morality was such that it would... Someone who wanted to steal and it was also right for someone else to steal from them or theft was like a moral good or something for everybody.
[1:08:17] Okay, do you think that you're giving an accurate depiction of my argument?
[1:08:21] I thought that's how you were framing it. In a world where theft...
[1:08:25] No, no, do you think that you're giving an accurate description of my argument? Because you said it's moral or something, there's lots of vague terms. I mean, you know you're just kind of scattered here.
[1:08:36] Right? Moral, ethical, I mean, you give a lot of different terms for like, what... I'm just saying that in a world where it's moral for everyone to steal, this falls apart. because...
[1:08:48] Okay, good. So, that's good. So, at least you don't have to agree with my argument. Like, this is something that I went through when studying theology and creationism and so on. You have to be able to state the argument accurately in order to rebut it, right? I mean, you understand that, right? I mean, if a creationist mischaracterizes evolution and then says that it's wrong, that's not very satisfying, right? A creationist has to be able to accurately state the arguments for evolution and then disprove them. Because if you can't accurately state an argument, then you can't really disprove it. So I'm just asking, since you're publicly calling me wrong, if this was a private conversation, it'd be a little different, but you're publicly calling me wrong, which is fine, but you better be able to back it up or you need to apologize to me. So tell me in detail or at least approximately where my argument is incorrect.
[1:09:38] Well, the problem is that if you're stating these things, you're presenting them as proofs, you have to present them in as logical proofs, which is sort of like a mathematical formula.
[1:09:51] Listen, I wrote a whole book on argumentation and logic. You don't need to fucking tell me that I need to provide logical proofs. Okay, but... Because that's insulting to me. Like, I've studied this stuff at a graduate school level. I've written entire books. I've done tons of debates. You don't need to insult me by telling me that I need to provide a logical proof. So, tell me where the illogic is.
[1:10:12] That's not an insult. It's just that it's not there when you talk about hoops. So, I'm just confused.
[1:10:18] Okay, so prove to me, right? You're into proofs, right? So prove to me and prove to the audience that what I have stated is not logical.
[1:10:28] Well, that's why I'm asking in what sense you mean proofs, because if you...
[1:10:32] No, you can't ask me. You can't ask me. You've already told me that what I've said is illogical, so just prove it.
[1:10:39] Well, if you put what you're saying as a logical proof, it will be valid. You can make it valid. It's not...
[1:10:48] Okay, you're just talking. You're just saying stuff. No, I'm not. Do the actual deal. Don't just say, well, it's illogical, and if you did it logically, it'd be better. Just tell me where the error is. Just do me a favor. Tell me where the error is. Tell me where the illogic is.
[1:11:02] If you go premise by premise, and you have an annotated proof, and the conclusion, something like that, you say, well, in this world, let's say it's moral for everyone to steal. So, Bill steals something, and the next premise will be Mike steals from Bill. The conclusion can be both men have practiced moral behavior in X world.
[1:11:32] Okay, that's nothing to do with what I've written in the book, so how about you address what's written in the book? Because you've told me I'm wrong, so it should be an easy matter to prove me wrong.
[1:11:40] Well, what you've written in the book is that, In a world where everyone steals from each other, it just falls apart logically, which is not...
[1:11:50] Okay, I can't just say something falls apart logically. I have to prove that it falls apart logically. And even if you disagree with my proof, what is my proof?
[1:11:59] The problem is you...
[1:12:00] For theft not being universally paraffordable behavior.
[1:12:03] Because you just switched to saying, well, in a world where everyone steals from each other, it's not really theft anymore.
[1:12:11] What do you mean it's not really theft anymore? That's not an argument. That's just a statement. What's my logic?
[1:12:16] Because everyone steals it from each other. It stops being an immoral behavior. That's what you're talking about?
[1:12:21] No, so you don't understand. You don't understand the argument, and here you are confidently telling me that I'm wrong. I mean, that's not nice.
[1:12:29] That's the gist I got from where everyone steals. It would be normal behavior, not immoral behavior.
[1:12:36] You can't just say, that's the gist I got, and then confidently say, that i'm wrong.
[1:12:42] Yeah but that's that's kind of just i got because none of this stuff is like you didn't put a logical proof there you just said this is the way that you described a world where everyone steals from each other as not being immoral anymore because theft would stop being theft so that's what i understood from it if that's wrong okay so what.
[1:13:05] Is my what is my argument as to why, if theft is universally preferable behavior, it ceases to exist as a category. What's my argument for that?
[1:13:14] If theft is the preferred behavior. I mean, you could say that as a normative case in our world. Where everyone's still, like, we're imagining...
[1:13:26] Sorry, what do you mean? Sorry, hang on. What do you mean in our world?
[1:13:29] In our world...
[1:13:29] What other world are you living in?
[1:13:31] In our world, where, like, yeah, theft is wrong. So, it's a normative thing.
[1:13:37] Okay, just step me through the argument, because you're very confident that I'm wrong, which is fine. I'm open to being wrong.
[1:13:43] In our world...
[1:13:44] Just step me, hang on, hang on. In our world is not a philosophical statement. That's just a bunch of nonsense.
[1:13:49] Yeah, it is in a logical sense, because anything... The thing is, anything is... logically possible. I don't know if you know what that means, but it just means that you can- Anything is logically possible? Right.
[1:14:01] What are you talking about?
[1:14:02] In logic, you can make any argument. And as long as the premises follow, as they're valid, and the conclusion follows from them, it's a logical argument.
[1:14:15] Oh, like a logical structure. Right. Yeah, that's what- So you could say all men are immortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is immortal. That follows a logical structure. But the premise, of course, that all men are immortal is false, and therefore the argument, while logical in structure, is not valid and sound in its reasoning.
[1:14:32] Yeah, you can say dogs have all eight legs, Fido is a dog, etc. Fido has eight legs, Fido is a dog.
[1:14:38] Okay, but what does this have to, what does this have to, I understand the basics of logic. I've studied my Aristotle, I've written logical trees, I've got a whole book on the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning. Okay, hang on, so I'm still talking, This is where you don't talk. So this is all very interesting, I suppose, for people who've had no introduction to logic. But you have publicly called me out. And I'll give you one more chance to do the – hang on. You've publicly called me out as being bizarre and wrong and getting everything wrong and not understanding basic logic and so on. And that's fine. So now, please prove it.
[1:15:11] You're taking this way too personally. Like, I got bashed horribly when I made a bad argument in class. So this is like – Well.
[1:15:19] Isn't that nice for you, but I need you to tell me where I'm wrong. Rease the argument and then prove the incorrect logic.
[1:15:28] I just, I explained it to you. Like in the logic, anything is possible logically. So if you're going to- Oh my God.
[1:15:35] Tell me my argument and how it's wrong. Come on, what's the matter with you?
[1:15:39] Because you could present- Tell me my argument.
[1:15:41] It's like you've never been to school before or maybe you've just been intellectually dominating everyone around you. I don't know.
[1:15:47] Not at all.
[1:15:47] But if you come and say, Stef, your argument is wrong. At some point, you have to show me how my argument is wrong. Not just calling it bizarre or saying it's not logical like that's it those are just statements.
[1:15:59] Well i did so i mean you can start with me the argument is wrong you could start from if you're in a purely logical way you could say world x in world x theft is preferable or a moral good or whatever and then you move on uh robert or whoever is somebody who lives in this world Robert Steele has stolen Michael's television. The next premise, Michael steals his television back from Robert. Conclusion, both men have practiced moral behavior in world text. That's the problem.
[1:16:35] Sorry, do you think that's my argument?
[1:16:37] No, that's just a way you could, in a logical proof, you could put that.
[1:16:42] Okay, so I'm asking you, again, one last try. I mean, I'm almost given up because I think you're just the sophist. I think you're a total bullshit artist. But I'm willing to give you one more try because you've publicly called me wrong. I just need you to give me where my argument is wrong.
[1:16:59] Well, in that way, in a logical way, like unless you're that's why I asked what in what sense do you mean proof? You have to tell me. I mean, I'm asking you how this constitutes a proof for the rest of your enterprise, which is trying to set up a moral whole moral system on these things. Okay.
[1:17:19] So obviously you're just saying a bunch of stupid syllables and you're not willing to.
[1:17:24] No.
[1:17:25] I've given you like 10 or 15 minutes to prove me wrong. So if somebody says to me, I proved that Socrates is immortal, and I say, oh, tell me your proof, and let's say that they've written about it, right? Somebody says, I proved that Socrates is immortal, and I'd say, oh, I read your book, and I don't think you've proved that Socrates is immortal, and they say, well, why have you not accepted my argument? And they'd say, well, your argument follows a logical structure because you say all men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates is immortal. However, the first premise that all men are immortal is false, because all men are mortal, not immortal. Therefore, your argument fails, and it would be a cozy 20 seconds to disprove that, right? And so I've simply asked you for that, and you have given me a whole bunch of kerfuffle and nonsense and noise rather than actually, hang on, hang on, rather than actually give me an argument. So I will give you the argument that you're so studiously avoiding or failing to understand. And then hopefully you will learn something, also how to conduct yourself in a professional and mature way when it comes to intellectual discussions.
[1:18:31] I just gave you like a syllogism.
[1:18:33] Here we go. No, no, I don't. You just gave me something that is not in my book. So that doesn't work. So here's the argument. Are you ready? Actually, I'm not scratching that. I'm asking the audience as a whole. Are you ready? So if we were to make the argument that theft is universally preferable behavior, then we would say everybody must want to steal and be stolen from at the same time, because it's universally preferable behavior. Everybody must want to steal and be stolen from at the same time. Now, is it possible to want to be stolen from? If I want you to take my property, is it possible to be stolen from? In other words, if it's your birthday... And I buy you, I don't know, let's say I'm feeling crazy extravagant, and you're my most, you're my favorite person in the whole world, and I buy you a car, and I have the car with a big ribbon on it, and I give you the car, I want you to take my property, the property, I bought the car, so it's my property, and then I voluntarily transferred the property to you, I want you to take my property, is it possible to characterize a birthday present as theft?
[1:19:51] A present is theft, no.
[1:19:54] Okay, so that's the answer. So if you say theft is universally preferable behavior, then you're saying everybody must want to steal and be stolen from at the same time. However, if you want someone to take your property, it is no longer theft. Therefore, theft can never be universally preferable behavior, because the moment you universalize it, it ceases to exist as a category, because you cannot want people to steal from you. Therefore, theft can never be universally preferable behavior. And that's the argument. See, it's not that tough.
[1:20:27] Yeah, but the problem is you're just... That's, you're setting up a world where theft is no longer a category. It's not a moral right or wrong.
[1:20:38] It's just, no, no, no, no. That's not what I'm doing. So what I'm saying is that theft cannot be universally preferable behavior. I'm not saying that theft doesn't exist as a category because theft does exist as a category in a world where respect for property rights is universally preferable behavior. There is no self-contradiction in a universal respect for property rights. There is self-contradiction in universal theft, universal preference for theft. So theft certainly does exist as a violation of the UPB absolute or universally
[1:21:10] preferable behavior called respect property rights. In the same way, if we look at the argument for rape, so rape is violently unwanted sexual behavior. So if some sociopath, not you obviously, but if some sociopath or evil guy were to say, rape is universally preferable behavior, that would mean that everyone would want to rape and be raped at the same time. But you can't. It's asymmetrical, right? Moral categories like rape, theft, assault, and murder only occur when one person violently does not want the behavior to occur. Therefore, by definition, it cannot be universalized. Everyone cannot want behavior which only exists as a category when one person really doesn't want it. So it's the same thing with rape theft assault and murder they cannot be universally preferable behavior because they're desperately not wanted by the victims so it cannot be universalized.
[1:22:02] Okay i'll just say i'll take one like one final thing if you present these things.
[1:22:08] As no hang on hang on hang on where is the logical error in what i have said i don't know if you it's like the first time you've talked to anyone intelligent in your whole life i don't know who you've been hanging out with.
[1:22:19] That just professors so yeah if.
[1:22:24] Oh god help you then okay so where's the logical error in what i said, Is it possible to universalize behavior that is not wanted, to universalize preference for behavior that only exists as a category when some people desperately don't want it?
[1:22:41] It's not a good base because you're creating an ontology where in this certain world, this action or whatever is preferred.
[1:22:53] What kind of drugs are you on? I don't know what in a certain world is. This is logic. It's universal.
[1:22:58] In the world that you're presenting, let's say in this- No.
[1:23:01] No. This is a logical argument. You need to show me the floor.
[1:23:04] Yeah. You're making a different world where in this world, murder is preferred behavior. No, it is.
[1:23:11] No. This is a logical analysis of the proposition that rape, theft, assault, and murder can be universally preferable behavior. And they cannot be because they only exist as a category when people violently don't want them or want the opposite of that.
[1:23:26] Yeah, you're trying to do that by using a parallel world where these behaviors are preferred.
[1:23:32] And no, no, it's not. I don't know. I don't know what drugs you're on or whether this is parallel world. This is a logical analysis. If I say two and two make five, that's an error. If I say two and two make four, that is true. That is accurate. That is valid. And if you say, if I say two and two make four and you say, well, in the world that you've created, two and two make, it's like, no, no, that's just universal. Philosophy is universal.
[1:23:54] That's what is meant by logical possibilities. You can create any world in the premises, as long as they fall from one another. from one another.
[1:24:05] Okay, I'm done with this douchebag. It's really sad, man. This is the state of modern education. This is people who come on strong and they're so tough and your argument is so bizarre and I believe that I'm imbuing your argument with agency that you have specifically said does not exist and I can create another world and everything's possible logically. It's just analyze the fucking argument, bro. It's all you've got to do. I gave him a very succinct argument about rape, theft, assault, and murder. And he just can't do it. He can't admit fault. All you get is sophistry. All you get, it's like, you know, when you reach for a squid, you know, you reach for a squid on the coral reef and all it does is cloud up the water with a bunch of ink. They call it ink. I guess it's not real ink or whatever, right? Inky sort of substance.
[1:24:57] So being unable to actually grapple with a real argument, being unable to bring anything other than mindless cliches and useless statements and irrelevant topics. Well, you know, there are such things as logical structures that aren't valid. Yeah, got it. I absolutely understand that. So, rebutting it doesn't matter. Asking him to make his case doesn't matter. He comes on publicly with great confidence and calls my arguments bizarre and wrong, and he cannot even restate the arguments, and he cannot show me where they're wrong. Now, I'm sorry, I know I drew that out as kind of an exercise, and I hope that your balls are not rotating like castanets, but it was instructive. Listen, I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. I like to give people every opportunity to try to do the right thing. I really do. So, listen, this guy, you know, he's just dealing with some podcaster on the internet who thinks he solved the problem of secular ethics and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
[1:26:04] Now, let me tell you what you need to do. I mean, if you're a mature person, if you don't want to be a turbo douchebag like this last guy, what you want to do is if someone has written a fairly rigorous book.
[1:26:19] And this is what I had to do when I was studying. I did a whole class on the Protestant Reformation and the Catholic response where I had to analyze theological arguments in great detail. I did an entire week on one paragraph in Aristotle where I had to write down the entire logic tree of his arguments and so on. So what you want to do if you are a reasonable person who wishes to advance human dialogue and not be a pompous windbag who just throws around aspersions without being able to prove a goddamn thing what you want to do is you want to write down my arguments and then be prepared when you publicly call out someone for being wrong you want to have your the arguments that I've made ready, you have to, you can run them through AI if you want. I don't particularly care. I mean, AI can analyze these kinds of things. I think that would be an interesting thing. But if you're going to call someone wrong, who's got over 40 years experience in something that I don't think he had ever talked to anybody with any assertiveness or intelligence before, Or if you're going to call out someone for being wrong, which is fine, you have to be prepared. You have to say, here's your premise, here's your argument, here's your syllogisms, and here's where it doesn't work. Here's where you make an assumption, here's where this contradicts that, here's where this doesn't follow from that, and so on, right?
[1:27:48] So that's what you have to do if you're going to prove someone wrong. Like when I have a debate with someone, I don't just sit down and say, well, I think you're wrong and you're wrong because it's bizarre what you say and it's just not logical and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? That's just, it's an embarrassing waste of scant intellectual energy and this guy probably wants to retain his energy for, I don't know, having his heart continue to beat. Nod lows, that's not universally preferable behavior apparently though. So you need to be prepared. When I'm debating with someone, I will read their books, I will watch their videos, I will take deep notes of their arguments, and I will be thoroughly prepared, as best as I can, to prove them wrong. And if I'm wrong, I'm obviously quite an influential guy, and if I'm wrong, then this person, and it's just general respect for people, or respect for the time of the audience and so on, like everyone in the audience could hear him squirming. Everyone in the audience could hear him not having answers. Everyone in the audience could hear him just throwing ad hominems rather than actually engaging with arguments. Everyone could hear the uncertainty and confusion in his voice when I asked him to restate my argument. I mean, restating an argument isn't like ingesting anthrax, for God's sakes. Restating an argument. I can make a strong case for communism.
[1:29:05] I can make a strong case for lots of things. I can make a strong case for the existence of God. I can make a strong case for lots of things I don't believe in. Because it's a mark of intelligence to be able to entertain and argue for a proposition that you don't believe in. And so, this is a basic comprehension test. Can you restate my argument as if you're me? Now, if he'd been able to do that, that would have been fantastic. But he wasn't able to do that, and he wasn't able to admit, fault or wrongness and i think that's just a very sad and pitiable thing and don't do that you know what's that line from goodwill hunting number one don't do that and this is number one don't do that engage with people with respect don't just say your argument is just so bizarre and i don't know any biologist blah blah blah and don't straw man and don't project and don't say well your argument implies some external creator it's like never said that.
[1:30:03] Never said that. And so you can have a debate with someone, but you can't have a debate with someone while teaching them the basic rules of human communication and debating. That you can't do. And I hope I didn't drag it on for too long. Of course, I knew within about 20 seconds that this guy wasn't going to provide any intellectual virtues or values. However, I thought it was interesting to see whether he would at some point say, you know what, I do think I'm a bit confused. Let me just take a moment here.
[1:30:36] And here's the thing too, if you get yourself in a situation, I've been there, I think everyone who's intellectually or morally honest will admit to being there. Every now and then, I will come on too strong, and I will get in over my head. So if this guy came on too strong and said, well, Stef, you're just wrong, and then I asked him to restate his argument and he can't my argument and he can't then what do you do well you just do the honorable thing and you say oh uh you know what i came on really strong there for some reason i'm blanking out on your argument and that does not make me look good i'm i'm sorry like i'm i'm came on strong i told you you were wrong now i can't actually show that you're wrong and listen it's not a that's not a big problem that's not a huge oh my gosh you're the worst person ever how dare you blah blah blah right and of course i care about being right and it's so funny too this is something that people who are really dysfunctional do is they will insult you by explaining basic logic to someone who's been studying philosophy for 45 years and and then when i react with some anger right so they will insult you publicly and then when you react with i think healthy anger.
[1:31:52] They'll say well you're just taking this way too personally and, It's like, well, no, I care about being right. I care about the truth. I care about my system of ethics because getting things wrong in the realm of ethics gets hundreds of millions of people slaughtered. So yeah, it fucking matters to me that I'm right. And if people publicly come out shitting fear, uncertainty, and doubt on my ethical theories and won't give me any rational arguments and won't give me any disproof of that which they claim I've gotten wrong, yeah, I take that pretty fucking personally. And I'm going to take that personally. And if people don't like that, then they are bloodless people who don't care about the truth and don't care about virtue. So anyway, sorry, I hope that helps. I forgot to eat since this morning, so I should go get some food. I really, really do appreciate everybody dropping by tonight. Freedomain.com/donate to help out the show, freedomain.com/donate. And you can go to shop.freedomain.com for your merch. You can go to freedomain.com/books for all of the tasty books that I have out, peacefulparenting.com. And last but not least, we have call.freedomain.com if you want to book a call in. I'd love to chat, public or private. I'm thrilled either way. And I hope that you will take up that offer. Man, you get hours with a pretty great philosopher for free if you want it. And I hope that you will take it. So thanks a little, everyone. Have yourself a glorious, glorious evening. Lots of love, my friends. Bye.
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