Transcript: Understanding the Selfish Mind!

In this subscribers-only portion of Sunday Morning Live on the 26th of October 2025, philosopher Stefan Molyneux dives deep into the concept of selfishness and how it affects our relationships with others. He begins by discussing how selfish individuals tend to view others as mere means to fulfill their own desires, without considering the needs or feelings of those around them. To illustrate this, he draws an analogy between our interactions with people and our experiences in video games, particularly the role of non-player characters (NPCs). These NPCs exist solely to support our quests and fulfill our objectives, much like how selfish individuals see others as tools for their gratification.

Emphasizing this perspective, Stefan encourages listeners to reflect on the number of selfish people they've encountered in their lives, and the impact their actions have had on personal relationships. The conversation becomes more illustrative as he provides examples of how NPCs interact within games compared to interactions with real friends. He highlights the negotiation and empathy involved when playing with friends versus the one-sided, utilitarian approach of engaging with NPCs that only serve our quests.

Stefan continues by drawing parallels between understanding selfish behavior and the way we perceive inanimate objects, such as computers or tools, which we expect to function according to our desires. He shares personal anecdotes concerning moments when selfishness became evident, especially when illness or injury interrupted plans and how those situations often lead to annoyance rather than empathy from others. This sheds light on the societal tendency to view individuals purely as resources, devoid of their own needs, especially in times of vulnerability.

Stefan encourages listeners to consider the emotional toll that interacting with selfish individuals can have on us, while also advocating for a greater awareness of our own needs in relationships. In closing, Stefan reflects on concepts like passive vengeance as a means of maintaining boundaries with selfish individuals, emphasizing that it is both healthy and pragmatic to prioritize oneself when faced with such dynamics. This nuanced exploration offers a deeper understanding of relationships, encouraging a discussion on selfishness in a way that is both relatable and thought-provoking.

Chapters

0:04 - Introduction to Selfishness
0:39 - Exploring Selfish Behavior
1:51 - The Impact of Selfishness
11:57 - NPCs and Relationships
16:25 - Comparing Selfishness to Computers
21:07 - Illness and Selfishness
22:46 - Personal Stories of Selfishness
24:33 - Understanding Passive Vengeance
33:33 - Conclusion and Reflections

Transcript

[0:00] Okay, we're over. And James, if you could do me a favor. I don't know if it's easy. I don't think it's particularly easy for me to get to. Maybe I can. Yeah, maybe I can. You know what? I think I can. So, hi. Donor section. Donor section. And I should be able to get questions from X as well. I shoulda, shoulda, shoulda. Oh, no, I can't. I just can't. All right.

[0:04] Introduction to Selfishness

[0:39] Exploring Selfish Behavior

[0:40] So, good. I didn't close the browser I was streaming from. Always a plus. Always a plus. Okay, so this is your time to chat. This is your time to think and reason. And I'm just trying to, I don't think, I don't think it's going to work if I take calls from the, yeah, there's no Qs on the X. Okay, that's fine. So I'm happy if you want to type any questions in that you want, I'm certainly happy to ask people what it is you want to talk about. I did yesterday. So hit me with a Y if you would like to understand the thought process of a selfish person. I'll just put the Y in here for whatever, right? But if you do want to know about the thought processes of a selfish person, you can, I'm happy to do that. We have other questions, which we can do as well. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Okay.

[1:51] The Impact of Selfishness

[1:52] Okay, okay. Just tell me the number of selfish people, roughly, the number of selfish people you've known in your life. I'm going to type an eight sideways. The number of selfish people that you've known over the course of your life. How many is it? How many is it? Oh. Oh, Bitcoin, almost 159. It went up almost 3K. Canadian. So not real money. Yeah so um i'm trying to i mean honestly it probably is dozens and dozens of people dozens of people eight dozens at least too many to count.

[2:37] Right, 30 to 40 four oh that's good that's good let me ask you this that's the first round of the question The second round of the question is, how many people do you still have in your life who are selfish, who are still, you're still interacting with? And again, it doesn't really count work, but where you have a choice, right? Where you have a choice in your personal life. How many selfish people? That's round one, right? We'll just start a new one, new one. I put it in here, new one. How many selfish people do you have in your life at the moment? Oh that's a lot of zeros that's a lot of zeros one right zero okay that's good that's good okay excellent nice to see you on x people gary always always a pleasure uh thank you for your contributions as always and again if you're on x and you want to raise your hand to talk we can have a wechat wechat okay so there's a couple of people all right.

[3:44] So, selfish people use you as a means to gratify themselves. They do not think about your pleasure independent of their own preferences. You are a means to an end to satisfy their own needs and their own preferences. So I'm going to recycle and I'll make it much shorter, but this is something that was in a call-in show. I don't know if it's gone out or not. I can't remember, but there's a call-in show. Oh, and by the way, I had a call-in show where I completely failed. Two hours, couldn't make headway. Wild man. Anyway, I'll put that out this week. But so, um, have you, have you played, video games with an NPC, a non-player character. Somebody who goes along with you on the quest, it could even be a pet, I guess it is, right? But someone who follows you on the quest, someone you can hire, someone you can, like on Skyrim, you can get companions. And do you have people that you can, have you played video games where you have NPCs, right? Yes. Okay. So, Paula has not.

[5:13] So when you play the game, do you think of the needs of the NPC, right? So let's say you've got two games you can play. One, you're playing with a friend of yours. The other, it's just an NPC. So think of the difference, right? If you want to play with a friend of yours, let's say Skyrim is not multiplayer. Baldur's Gate 3 is multiplayer, right? So let's say you're playing Baldur's Gate 3 with a friend. And there are NPCs too, but let's just say you're with a friend, right? Or you're playing Skyrim with just an NPC, a computer character. So what are the differences? Well, you can only play Baldur's Gate when your friend can play. Let's say you've committed to playing through it together, right? So you can only play Baldur's Gate when your friend is, and you've got to negotiate with him. Well, maybe you can do it here, maybe you can do it there, and so on. And you have to go back and forth. You have to go back and forth to negotiate. Should we go here? Should we go there? What do you think of this dialogue option? You are negotiating with your friend because your friend has needs and pleasures and preferences and you want to play through it with him, which means you both got to enjoy it. So his personality, his presence, his being is essential to playing the game. Does that make sense?

[6:24] You have to think about what he needs because you can't play the game if it doesn't show up. So you have to at least think when he's available and then, you know, hopefully you don't scream at him for getting things wrong and thump the table or something immature like that, right? Because if you make it too unpleasant for him to play, he's just not going to play as a whole, right? So if you're playing Baldur's Gate 3 with your friend Bob, you have to think about, and you're in continual, oh, should we go here? Oh, that was funny. Oh, what do you think? Oh, you make jokes. So his mind is integral to the game, right? On the other hand, we go to Skyrim, right? So Skyrim, you have an NPC.

[7:04] And when you want to play Skyrim, you don't ask the NPC when they're available, right? You don't say to the NPC, would you rather go here or would you rather go there? You don't have to make jokes with the NPC to keep the NPC entertained and engaged. And if the NPC does something frustrating, right, they're always in the way. Everywhere you want to go, the NPC is in the way and they shudder out of the doorway and so on. So you might get mildly annoyed or whatever. Done and dusted or something like that. There was some old Neverwinter Nights NPC, or there was an old, gosh, Baldur's Gate 2. Boo! There was some sort of fighter, tank fighter, who had a hamster named Boo that he kept with him, right? And so, yeah, kind of amusing, but it's the voice actors and all of that. But you don't sit there and say, well, gosh, when can we all get together, right? In the old Baldur's Gate, which wasn't multiplayer, you could have like three or four different people come along with you to Wizard and your Claire. And your fighter and your thief and all of that. But you're just like, oh, I'm booting up. And they're just like, you never think about what they need. They're just there to help you serve your quest. That's all they are. They're just machines with no needs of their own. And their only purpose is to help you.

[8:27] Complete your quest. And you can take them over when you need them. Like if they're not doing what you want, right? Let's say your thief has a backstab ability, which he never seems to use. Then you just take over manual control Minsk. Yeah, that's right. That was even boo, right? So you just take over the character, right? You just take over the character, right? I mean, if you're teaching someone how to cook and they're doing it wrong, you might say, oh, can you step aside or, you know, you need to do it this way and not that way or whatever it is, right? It sounds like a pretty sinister gif. But.

[9:03] But if you take over, you sort of have to displace them, right? But in video games, if you want to take over an NPC, you just right-click and say manual or whatever it is, right? Take over. And you don't think about them, right? You have to, I mean, if you're saying to someone, you're doing it wrong, right? Like when I was teaching my wife how to play tennis, right? You know, you reach for the top and, you know, the server did all of this training when I was a kid, right? So you're going to teach her how to do it. It's like, oh, you know, you're coaching, you're teaching, right? But there's not a right click on people's bodies in the real world, but you just see I'm taking over and you just, your brain becomes their brain because that's what you're doing, right? When you are taking over an NPC, the AI or the coding is being replaced by your brain. You're just taking them over. They don't exist for you except in, you know, they're just machines to serve your needs. You don't need to negotiate. They just do whatever you want. And if they're not serving your needs, you just take them over.

[10:03] The code is doing badly. Just taking it over. So I play online Catan with some friends from time to time. And if we have an AI care, the AI is terrible. The AI, like there's a robber, right, which blocks resource acquisition. And it just puts it on the square or the hex that has the most cities and settlements, roads, towns, and settlements on it, and it'll put it on even if the person is the lowest scoring. It should put it on the highest scorer. Anyway, so the AI is pretty bad, so people always play better than the AI. On the other hand, AI chess is pretty good, or computer chess is pretty good. So if you want to understand the difference between you and a selfish person, think of the difference in mindset you have between playing a game with someone who's real and playing with NPCs.

[10:59] It's as simple as that. That's the mind. You're an NPC to them. You're there to serve their needs. You have no needs of your own. And if you have a, quote, need of your own that interferes with them, they just get annoyed. Like if they want to walk through a doorway and just standing there, it's like, oh, get out of the way. I remember there was some D&D style game where it was kind of famous that the NPCs would get in the way. Ah, get out of the way, right? My need to flee is the only thing that matters, right? Right. You're in the way. Get out of the way.

[11:34] Hit me with a why if this makes sense to you. You are an NPC to selfish people. Everyone is but them. You're there to serve their needs, and if you have any needs of your own that interfere with their needs, they're just going to get annoyed, and they'll also take you over if you're not doing the right thing.

[11:54] Good. I don't want to oversell it, but that is how to understand. You are to your NPC characters in a game and.

[11:57] NPCs and Relationships

[12:08] You are to the NPCs as selfish people are to you. And even if you've not played some complex NPC game, then think about, I mean, I first played computer chess on an Atari 800. It's actually pretty good, pretty good chess program. So you just boot up chess, and you don't sit there and say, oh, I wonder if the computer feels like playing. No?

[12:43] You know, the computer is not teaching me in the right way. It should let me win once in a while. You know, you just choose that with your difficulty level, right? Or you boot up the computer and you don't say, I wonder if the computer would rather do email or play a game or write a letter or browse the web or open social media. You don't sit there and say, well, the computer, what do I feel like doing? What do I feel like doing? You don't ever think what the computer feels like doing, ever. Oh, computer, right? What's that old, right? Just, the computer is there to serve you, right? Right now. I started the show 45 minutes ago, and I booted up the computer. Actually, no, this is a computer I have to leave running, because when I boot it up, there's a horrible grinding noise, and some fan thing goes horrible for a while, and it's like 10 minutes, and then it settles down, so this is one It's the only computers I keep running. I should probably take it in and get the fans fixed, but... Eh. Eh. I'm old. Less time out of me. I don't want to spend it doing that. So, you boot up the computer. Yeah, the scene with Scotty from Star Trek, where Spohr, you say, Computer, computer, voice activated. So...

[13:57] You don't ask your computer what it wants to do. You don't boot up your phone and say, hey, do you want to listen to some YouTube? Do you want to read some emails? What do you feel like doing? Want to play some Candy Crush? Block Blast, right? Sparkle Unleashed. Like, you don't ask that. Just, hey, the computer is a machine to serve my needs. It doesn't cross your mind. It does not cross your mind to ask what the computer does. Now, let's say the computer has a problem. I did something retarded. Actually, just yesterday. Just yesterday. So I updated some drivers on a computer, and it stopped working. So I rolled them back. This was a week or two ago. And then there was some automated... I forgot to disable the automatic updates, so it updated. And then I disabled one of the drivers that seemed to be working fine, so then I uninstalled the updating program, and then the computer was masked. I ended up having to completely reinstall. Not a big deal. But, you know, it was kind of stupid. But when the computer wasn't doing what I wanted, and it drives me a little nuts, because Windows doesn't just crash, right? It just gets slower. Oh, it just takes forever. Oh, the mouse is not responding, but it might respond in a little bit. Oh, I can't get Windows Explorer. It's just a black bar along the bottom. You know, just this kind of, it's just kind of half working and sort of working and blah, blah, blah, blah, right? So...

[15:23] It's just annoying when the computer doesn't do what you want it to do, right? And that's, so you are a computer to people, to selfish people. You just do what I want. What do you mean you have needs? You having needs is like the computer being infected with a virus and not being responsive or not doing what you want. I had a computer years ago where I had to disable the touchscreen. It was a little, a notebook computer with a touchscreen. I had to disable the touchscreen because there was an issue where, I mean, the screen had a total, you know, infinite Hollywood producer Me Too moment because there was just fingerprints all over the screen. Like it would just go completely nuts. And eventually it's just going to delete something you want. So you'd have to disable the screen. The screen disabled. I just had to use a touchscreen. Like I bought it for the touchscreen. I had to use a touchpad. Sorry, touchpad. So the computer wasn't doing what I didn't. But, you know, it was like kind of annoying, but I'm not like, I just got to get it fixed or, you know, use a different computer or just turn off the touchscreen or something like that, right?

[16:25] Comparing Selfishness to Computers

[16:26] You're not a person to selfish people. You are a computer. You are an NPC. You are something that's supposed to work. And if you've ever had this experience where, this is personal to me, right? And it's funny, it's been so long, I still feel a tiny bit emotional about it. Hit me with a why if you've ever had the experience where you get sick or injured, and other people are just annoyed with you. You ever had that? What do you mean you have a cold? We're supposed to be going somewhere.

[17:04] Or, you know, what do you mean you pulled a muscle? We're supposed to go play tennis. Where they're kind of annoyed that you are, it can really give you a complex, I'll tell you, man. You ever had this where people are just kind of annoyed when you're sick or injured, you know? Like your girlfriend has a really bad headache and you want to have sex, right? People are just annoyed, right? You ever had that? Yeah. Isn't that a horrible experience, right? Absolutely horrible experience. So would you like to understand that one? It's a slightly different analogy. Would you like to? I mean, you could say the computer that doesn't work, right? You don't have sympathy. Oh, oh, computer, do you have a driver conflict? Is Windows doing this bizarre input-output thing where DMA conflicts used to be the thing? You don't sit there and say, oh, the computer, you're not feeling well. Oh, it must be very frustrating for you to not be able to serve my needs. Oh, you must be very annoyed that this bad thing has happened or you've got a virus or whatever it is, right? You don't sit there and think that. You just, that's kind of annoying. You've got to fix it. But you don't have no sympathy for the computer.

[18:18] Right? You have a hard drive fail. I had a hard drive fail catastrophically once. And I didn't sit there and say, ooh, boy, that must be tough for you not to be able to boot up. Ooh, that must be tough for you there, but a lot of bad sectors. Oh, are you okay? Gosh, this must be very disappointing for you not to be able to serve up my data, blah, blah, blah, blah, right? So you don't. You're just kind of annoying that the computer is not doing what you need it to do. Let me ask you another question. If you've ever lived in a house with a lawn, right? You have a hose because you need to water the lawn from time to time, right? And one of the things that can happen is if you are mowing your lawn and you mow over the hose, your hose is now ripped up.

[19:13] Now, if you mowed over a pet, God help you, you'd be appalled, shocked, horrified, you know, it'd be terrible, right? You just mowed over a hose. You don't sit there and say, oh, my hose, right? Oh, my hose, are you okay? I can't believe I ripped you up and blah, blah, blah, right? It's just a thing. It's just a thing. It's annoying. You've got to go get a new hose. You can't really patch that, right? You've got to dispose of the hose. You've got to go buy a new hose and all that, right? So it's just annoying, right? And you probably annoyed it yourself a bit. You should have taken the hose in, right? Leave the hose out, right? Does that make sense?

[19:52] So you're just a hose. You're just a hard drive. And if you're broken, it's just annoying. What are you broken for? Like you're an NPC in the doorway. Get out the, like. I mean, if somebody was blocking, like let's say you were trying to leave and somebody was standing in front of the doorway with an urgent look in their face be like oh do you have something to say to me or like is something going on something important right you'd be concerned right you wouldn't just like out of the way I guess you would if you were a selfish person right, so the reason why people get annoyed when you get sick is that you are a broken tool you're a broken tool that's all, that's all you just even if they did it it's just annoying right i drove i drove the, lawnmower over the hose the hose is now ripped and shredded up oh come on man come on right computer broke there's all these fat fingers on my touch screen without anyone touching the screen it's not working right.

[21:07] Illness and Selfishness

[21:08] And so, you know, if you've got a girlfriend and you want to have sex, but she has a bad headache, it's like, oh, I'm really so sorry. You have a bad, I can't give you a neck rub, but not to get sex, right? But just, because she's, right? She's in pain. She's got a headache. It's like bad, right? So your neck rub or what would you like to do? What's the best thing for you to do? Do you want to just read? Do you want to listen to some music? Do you want to go for a walk? what would be the best thing to help you with your headache, right? Because you care about, right? As opposed to if you have some sort of sex robot that malfunctions, you don't sit there and say, oh, you must be so upset that you're malfunctioning. You must be so unhappy. Is there anything? You're just like, oh, man, reboot the sex robot or get a patch or something. I don't know, whatever. What do you do with sex robots? Like I know.

[22:00] So somebody says, just making sure you see this stuff because I'm about to nap. And it's way up at the top of the chat. New freedom and baby born 1021. Beautiful. Thank you for all of your work. My husband and I met in one of your online communities and our relationship is better than I ever imagined to be possible. What a beautiful baby. Oh, oh. I'm gearing up for grandfather, although obviously it's going to be a while. No, I won't give the name, but I just think that's beautiful. Let me just zoom in here. Oh, oh. Just those beautiful, beautiful babies. I think that is just lovely. Thrills beyond measure. Congratulations so much. I really appreciate that.

[22:46] Personal Stories of Selfishness

[22:46] So, yeah, I remember he wasn't a friend, but he's somebody that I knew. It doesn't really matter. And I remember we went out to play tennis, and I did a big lunch, and my calf hurt. And I'm like, ah, you know, I have to do something to my calf. Sorry, man. And you know you feel the need to apologize when you're hurt, when you're around selfish people. And he's like, oh, we just got here. We just got here I'm like oh is it inconvenient for you that I tore my cuff I'm sorry, and then they all sort of say well somehow you did it to yourself and you're to blame it's like well did I do it to myself yes I did it to myself absolutely but you know, tons of times this is when I was much younger so now I have to be a bit more careful about lunges and I do a lot of cuff exercises so I can do pick a ball without getting hurt but you know this is back in the day I didn't do it to myself.

[23:48] So yeah that's why you're just a broken utility you're a broken machine right, it's sort of like uh the power goes out you need a flashlight you get the flashlight you turn it on it just kind of flickers and fades and you give it a shake give it a thump and and it just kind of flickers and fades it's just annoying but you don't sit to the flower are you okay mr flashlight Gosh, what's going on? This must be very sad. You have one job and you can't even do it and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So that's how you are to them. That's how you understand. Selfish people. All right. Oh, yeah, the man flu thing? Yeah.

[24:33] Understanding Passive Vengeance

[24:34] So, yeah, the man, this is sort of annoying, you know, like, oh, when women get sick, they just soldier on, but when men get sick, they just blah, blah, blah, blah, just lie there, oh, man, baby, and it's like, that's all nonsense. Absolute nonsense. It's insulting nonsense.

[24:49] So the reason why the man flu thing, there's two reasons why the man flu thing is a sort of anti-male prejudice. Number one is that, of course, we soldier on. Of course. I mean, do you think you'd have a civilization if men didn't fight and build every time we had a sniffle? No. So when men take to bed, it's because they're really, really, really, really sick. Because men will power through things as a whole, right? Men will just power. I mean, I did countless shows when I was going through chemo and radiation. We're trying to beat cancer. Just shoulder through, right? Just push through. Just push through. walk it off, right? So, I mean, no man is like, oh, I'm in war and I got a boo-boo. I'm going to just lie down and, right? So men push through. So when men can't push through, they're really fucking sick. So when men are like, oh. So women don't see all the times that men push through and power through, but the time when the man is like half delirious with the flu, oh, what a baby. Like, so that's, and number one, that's number one. Number two is that there are a lot of women who are not very nurturing. Sad to say. Because, you know, there are cultures that survive on cruelty to children, right? We can think of them all over the world, right? The children are treated badly, and the cultures are actually doing quite well in terms of spread and growth, but that's because we're halfway between cruelty and peaceful parenting. You've got to choose one or the other, really, if you want to succeed as a culture. So.

[26:14] Uh, that's the other reason is that, uh, the woman feels uncomfortable because she really has to nurture the man, uh, cause she doesn't really know how to do it. She doesn't feel comfortable doing it. Uh, and, uh, she's one of these naggy, get out there and work. What are you doing sitting on the couch? So much to be done. And so again, you're a utility provider and when the utility provider is broken, it's annoying. So you shame men into being generally, uh, genuinely sick.

[26:39] All right, let's do, I'm happy to take questions or comments. Of course. How people's behavior will change after the impending debt crisis and fear collapse. I don't know, man. I get messages from younger people who are dying for the collapse. I don't know. They watch Fallout, the series, and they're like, yeah, that's better than this, right? Better than this. So that is, and you can see a lot of the, a lot of the movies these days are like violent horror movies. And in part because people know they need to gear up and prep for what's coming. All right, let's see here. Have you ever read Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl? Yeah, and I remember nothing of it. I did read it, and if they're not talking about universal virtues and peaceful parenting, I don't really. It's just a bunch of bleh. All right, so somebody says, I know a family whose man in the household is selfish. The rest of the family is selflessly selfish for him. It seems to me, do I see this clear? I don't know what that was. Selflessly selfish for him.

[27:53] Selflessly selfish for him. No, I can't pass that. I've just been making stuff up. So if you want to rephrase, that's great. I would just see if there's, I guess everybody on X is thrilled and deeply content with everything that I'm saying. And by the way, thank you guys all so much. As always, as usual, big kisses. Thank you so much for your support of the show. I have an urge not to do Super Long Show today because I want to keep my voice to some degree for these. Doing these characters is really quite a challenge vocally, and I want to stay somewhat fresh because I have two chapters to read of the book today. We're up to chapter 18 of 24. Yeah, chapter 18 of 24. Somebody says, I have a brother who lost everything, his car, apartment, and his girlfriend. I almost thought to help him, but I didn't. He hated on me, and he and an older brother physically abused me. Not sexually, but fistfights. They're seven or nine years older than me. I'm sorry to hear about that. I'm sorry to hear about that. And I'm a big fan of passive vengeance. I'm a big fan of passive vengeance. So passive vengeance is when you don't actively seek out to harm people.

[29:07] But when the harm comes, you don't help. Or if there's a little something you can put in, right? So let's say there's a guy named Bob who I don't like, who did me wrong. It's a guy named Bob. Let's say he's somewhat prominent. Could be anyone. Let's say there's a guy named Bob. Now, I'm not going to wake up every morning, ooh, I got to do X, Y, and Z to get Bob. But every time there's something negative about Bob, maybe I'll repost it. Every time there's something negative about Bob, maybe I'll amplify it. Or maybe I'll put my two cents in. Or maybe every time there's an attack on Bob, I don't defend him. I don't actively. So passive vengeance, to me, is the most cost-efficient way to enforce punishments for bad behavior. I don't pursue this. I don't like, oh, I got to whip up this. I'm going to whip up a campaign against Bob or something. Who cares? I mean, I've got lots of stuff to do and lots of people to chat with and lots of cool and fun things to do, so I'm not in hot pursuit of Bob. But if Bob makes a mistake, I'll amplify it. I'll broadcast it. If Bob is under attack, I don't care. I'm not going to defend him, right?

[30:24] But enough about Mike Cernovich and Joe Rogan. But that's just a fact. So passive vengeance, it's not like you're going to try and engineer something negative for your brother. At least that doesn't sound that way, and I get that. But if bad things happen to him, you're not obligated to intervene at all. You're not obligated to intervene at all.

[30:49] And if someone is bad-mouthing, maybe you don't say anything, right? If somebody says something negative, maybe you'll mention it to someone else, assuming that, you know, it's true, which you know it's true. So the passive vengeance is the way to go. It's the most cost-efficient way to get revenge. And revenge is important. Revenge is an important and good and healthy virtue and value in life. And I have pursued this passive vengeance stuff since I was in my 20s. And it works really well. I mean, I'm just telling you, from my experience, it works really well because it's the most, it doesn't consume my time, energy, focus. But if it's there, I'm like, it's like a terminate and stay resident program. I used to high load these things above 760K or whatever it was. And so a terminate and stay residence, right? So it's a passive program, like the print program's not constantly running, It's just, oh, if you need to print something, okay, it pings and off you go, right? Goes and prints and then it stops, shuts down again, right? So you want terminate and stay running. You don't want to like completely forgive and forget. That's no good because bad people should be punished for the bad things they do. But you also don't want to put a lot of your life into punishing bad people unless it's your job because that subtracts from the fun you can have and the good things that you can do.

[32:06] So passive vengeance where, and I've taken this not just with individuals but with entire groups, just passive vengeance. I don't defend. I don't attack.

[32:22] And I may pass along negative things. But yeah, I don't. Passive vengeance is the most cost-effective. I never forget and I don't focus on. I never forget and I don't focus on, right? So let's say, again, this fictional guy, Bob, I don't sit there every day, oh, Bob, gotta get Bob, right? But if Bob's names come up, I'm like, oh, yeah, that guy. I don't like that guy. So I'm either going to amplify the negative passively or I'm going to not defend against attacks or I'm certainly not going to repurpose anything that's positive. So, yeah, I don't focus on it. It's not part of my thinking, but when it comes along, I guess this is like my wife, it comes along, I'm like, oh yeah, I really dislike that guy.

[33:11] I could go through the list. It's not that long. It doesn't really matter. But yeah, this is more important for you, right? So yeah, if bad things happen to your brother, I assume you didn't engineer them, but you're not going to intervene, right? Why would you? He did terrible things to you, and why would you, again, And unless they somehow earn it with apologies and restitution and all that kind of stuff, why would you? Wouldn't make any sense.

[33:33] Conclusion and Reflections

[33:33] All right. I think we're down for questions. Thank you, everyone, so much. Big love from up here. Thank you for your support and your very kind thoughts and wishes. Working on a bunch of stuff at the moment. I'm really enjoying this book. It's a wild risk to take, writing this book. I'll go into that. When the book is done, we'll do a book club on it, and I'll sort of tell you my thoughts and get your thoughts on it. I don't know that I've taken a bigger risk in a book in this way. So, freedomain.com/donate if you'd like to throw in any particular tippy tips. I would appreciate that enormously and have yourself a glorious afternoon, my friends. Lots of love from up here. Talk to you soon. Bye.

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