0:04 - Introduction and Questions
11:31 - The Nature of Love and Lust
20:22 - Critique of Statism
27:49 - Historical Context of Property Rights
33:12 - Monopolies and Government Control
40:24 - Ethical Complexities and the NAP
52:20 - Conclusion and Farewell
In this episode, I delve into the intricacies of love, virtue, and the superficial nature of modern relationships, all sparked by a lighthearted question about whether someone's crush loves them. I assert that genuine love can only thrive on the foundation of virtue—moral courage, honesty, warmth, and integrity. Lust and codependency often masquerade as love in fleeting crushes, where the wish to possess someone becomes a superficial desire for physicality rather than an appreciation for the person’s character.
Expanding on the concept of advanced civilizations, I share my skepticism about historical notions of superior civilizations leaving no trace. In contrast, I reflect on today’s cultural phenomena, pondering the relative values of music through discussions of artists from Mozart to Taylor Swift. While some claim nostalgia for days past, I express a deeper fascination with vocal qualities that evoke emotion and individuality. Through a critical lens, I analyze Taylor Swift's lyrics, noting the lamentable absence of themes surrounding commitment, partnership, and maturity, which I argue represent a lost opportunity for a more profound connection.
Centrally, I challenge conformity against the backdrop of societal acceptance. I caution against sacrificing individual integrity for the acceptance of the herd, advocating for individuality as the prime precursor for deep love. Short-term comfort from conformity can lead to a lifetime devoid of genuine connection, as I draw parallels between individual uniqueness and the foundation for true love, contrasting it with conformist practices that yield only lust and temporary affection.
I explore the nature of social dynamics and the myriad ways individuals conform to societal pressures, willingly suppressing their individuality. I critically examine the issues surrounding the non-aggression principle (NAP) and its implications in contemporary ethical discussions, addressing its perceived weaknesses and the complexities of collective action.
As I field questions regarding various philosophical and ethical dilemmas, I emphasize the necessity of principled thinking in a complex world. I confront the notion that abandoning principles in favor of convenience or situational ethics leads to moral degradation and societal chaos. Throughout the discourse, I maintain that true virtue is what fosters enduring love and connection amid the temporary distractions of modern life.
Finally, I reflect on the pressing issues of our time, emphasizing the vital need for individuals to remain vigilant and principled against authoritarian influences and the pitfalls of collectivism—reminding listeners that the strength of character and commitment to virtue are not just ideals, but essential elements for cultivating deep, genuine love and resisting the encroachment of mediocrity and conformity.
For those who find value in these discussions, I encourage support through my platform as we continue to explore these critical societal issues together.
[0:00] Hello, hello everybody. Stefan Molyneux from Freedomain. Hope you're doing well.
[0:04] Bunch of questions. Good stuff. Thank you so much to Facebook and freedomain.locals.com. Wonderful, wonderful. All right. Does my crush love me? I really need to know. Okay, I get that's a joke question, but the reality is you and I and everyone under sun and moon can only and forever and ever, amen, ever be loved for our virtues. If you are virtuous, if you have moral courage, if you speak the truth, if you're honest, if you're warm-hearted, if you are, if you have integrity and so on, and your partner has integrity, you will love the virtue in each other. The only thing we can love is virtue. Everything else is lust and codependency. So, if it's a crush, well, a crush and chemistry, these are just, in other words, for the sin of lust. And that is when you wish to possess the flesh, regardless of the person who inhabits the flesh. It is using people as meat. It is being a carnivore of the human soul who ignores the person in order to consume the flesh. All right. Do you think we're living in the most advanced civilization that has ever inhabited Earth? Well, depends what you mean by advanced. Definitions are important. But...
[1:15] Yes, the idea that there were more advanced civilizations in the past that left no record whatsoever is incomprehensible to me. We've explored a lot of the world, and there would have been some signs of a more advanced civilization. Like I know the old thing about halos were actually, you know, spacesuit helmets and so on, but yeah, I don't think so.
[1:36] King Crimson was at their peak with blah, blah, blah, but Taylor Swift is a billionaire. Stef, have you heard Mozart's newly discovered A Very Little Night Music? You know, I used to absolutely sit with headphones and listen to music and be transported and so on. I hate to say it. It's a young man's game. Nothing wrong with it. It's a great thing. Every now and then I'll snatch a little bit and listen to maybe Dark Side of the Moon. But the problem is, it's all the clocks.
[2:03] But maybe Song of Seven by John Anderson or another sort of hypnotic long song like the classic Shine on You Crazy Diamond, parts one to infinity. So I never particularly got into King Crimson. My particular fetish is for the quality of the singer. And the guy who sang for King Crimson, perfectly serviceable voice. But I love that silvery tone. I love really an unusual and magnetic kind of vocal style. So they never quite did it for me. It just sounded like people chanting at a Dungeons and Dragons game. But Taylor Swift is a billionaire, right?
[2:45] So, as an experiment, yesterday, my daughter and I sat down and listened to a bunch of Taylor Swift songs. I know that one album she did that was full of pop songs like Shake It Up and so on. I listened to a couple of those songs. They were pretty good.
[3:00] But Taylor Swift is a mournful, soft-voiced elegy for the girls who don't get picked to be wives. The NPC, copy-paste, undifferentiated, indistinguishable, blend in with the herd, like thumbprints in the back of a Matisse painting, the girls who don't get picked, who don't inspire passion, who may inspire lust among losers, but don't inspire a lifelong passion, who have taken the fork in the road, right? So we take the fork in the road, at some point in our life, you'll be faced with this choice, hopefully earlier rather than later, but at some point in your life, you'll be faced with this choice. And the choice is, think for yourself, follow the herd. Be individuated, be who you are with your own thoughts, or copy-paste the opinions of others in order to surrender your own integrity and individuality and get along. I understand and sympathize with the choice to follow the herd, right? There's great short-term benefits in following the herd, in repeating, yeah, the vaccines are safe and effective, and tariffs are, Trump's tariffs are bad and the weather is going to kill us all and the only way we can save ourselves from the weather killing us all is to hand trillions of dollars to sociopaths to start wars. That's going to solve the problem, right?
[4:17] I mean, of course, all the people concerned about global warming should be working feverishly day and night to stop the war in Ukraine because that's incredibly bad for the environment, let alone, of course, all the human beings being repetitively disassembled. So, yeah, if you go with the herd, you get a lot of short-term benefits. People don't give you that, you know, what are you talking about, side-eye? Like, what do you mean? You don't even believe this? Like, what's the matter with you? You're a skeptic. You're an anti-vaxxer. You're a denier, you know. So, yeah, you'll be rejected by shallow skim milk surface idiots. I get that.
[4:55] So, why would you not do that? Because the price of conformity is integrity and love, right? You see, if someone's going to love you, like genuinely love you, deeply love you, to the core of their soul, from here to eternity, you have to be different from other people, right? You have to be different. I mean, imagine you go to a pet store and there are like, I don't know, six beagle puppies and they're all identical and they're all, they all act the same and they, you know, maybe a couple of different spots here and there, but they're all the same. You'll just pick one, right? And maybe you'll pick one, oh, I like the look of this one, but you're not, there's no fundamental differentiation, right? Right? If it's like two beagles, three pit bulls and a greyhound and you want a soft, cute dog that's cuddly, you probably go with the beagles because then they're differentiated right if you want to be loved right.
[5:54] There are, I love you, the two most important words of the I and the you, not the love. The love is the consequence of two people admiring the virtue in each other. See, love has to last a lifetime. Love has to outgrow youthful beauty. What is it the only thing that grows over the course of your lifetime is your virtues, right? And your ear hair, if you're in your 50s. It's still worth it. The only thing that is worse than aging is the alternative.
[6:25] So yeah you you'll go with the herd you'll go with the general goo of everybody's npcness you'll be, programmed and you'll gain acceptance from other people who don't have a soul or a self or identity or thoughts of their own and and you'll get some comfort sure you'll blend in with the herd, and that's an understandable thing right like if you're a bunch of zebras you think there's lions around you're going to crowd together so you blend in with the herd harder for you to catch birds do that when they do that swirly dust moat thing the iron filings with the magnet on the other side of the paper flowing around the sky like the scattered thoughts of adhd kids so.
[7:08] You'll be protected from dislike by merging with the herd but when you protect yourself from dislike the price you pay is to be loved you have to be yourself to be loved you have to be different from other people in order to be loved for who you are. Otherwise, you can just go to the gym, work on your flesh, and be lusted after, which is a sad substitute for genuine love, because genuine love fills you up and makes you stronger. Being lusted after, screwed and discarded, hollows you out from the inside and makes you resentful of the opposite sex, which means that you can't be loved. So conformity is sterility. Conformity is emptying your life out of love. And you know if you've been genuinely loved what it does is it makes you not really fearful of the hostility or opprobrium of the horde.
[7:58] To be genuinely loved. Like, if being scorned and rejected and attacked and lied about and slandered by society as a whole means that I get the love of the people in my life.
[8:14] I mean, it's a consummation devoutly to be wished. I mean, take my Wikipedia page, it gives me the love of the people in my life. Absolutely, absolutely a great deal. absolutely a great deal so yeah taylor swift is a billionaire so i listened to this one song called lover lover i won't sing it for you uh count yourself lucky so this was a song written in 1990 you know 29 2019 sorry 1990 what was she wasn't even born so this is lover so this is the lyrics we could leave the christmas lights up till january and this is our place we make the rules and there's a dazzling haze, a mysterious way about you dear, have I known you for 20 seconds or 20 years, right? Okay. So this is a house without rules, this is a house without standards, this is a teenager's party of five style living, like pretend adults, right? We make the rules, right? Just make it up, right? Can I go where you go? Can we always be this close forever and ever? Take me out and take me home, you're my, my, my, my lover. Okay.
[9:23] Right. What's the word that's missing there? The words that are missing there is husband and father of my children, lover. Right? This is a teenager's view of romance. She goes on to sing, we could let our friends crash in the living room. This is our place. We make the call. Our friends crash in the living room. So this is a chaotic, young, early to mid 20s life and there are no kids there's no marriage there's no life that's built forward there's no careers it's uh yeah we can leave the christmas lights up doesn't matter we don't have to take them down we don't have any rules friends can crash in the living room so this is a very immature life right which is fine if you're in your late teens i mean i had friends crash when i was in my teens and i crashed at friends place in my early 20s but you're supposed to outgrow that right? She says, uh, I'm highly, and I'm highly suspicious that everyone who sees you wants you. I loved you three summers now, honey, but I want them all.
[10:24] So, uh, this is, um, uh, an appeal to female vanity that the woman gets the man that everyone else wants. And of course it's part of male vanity too, that the man gets the woman that everyone else wants, but they want you. Um, there's no virtues here, right? There's just chaos, a lack of rules, and immaturity. Can I go where you go? Can we always be this close forever and ever? Take me out and take me home forever and ever. You're my, my, my, my lover.
[10:55] So this is a woman who wants to be with the man forever and ever and never mentions anything about being a husband, never mentions anything about kids. It's just lover. Goes on to sing, Ladies and gentlemen, will you please stand with every guitar string scar on my hand? I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover. My heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue. All's well that ends well to end up with you. Swear to be overdramatic and true to my lover and you'll save all your dirty jokes from me and at every table, I'll save you a seat, lover.
[11:31] So, yeah, overdramatic, dirty jokes. This is teenage stuff, right? Can I go where you go? Can we always be this close forever and ever? Take me out and take me home forever and ever. You're my, my, my, oh, you're my, my, my, darling. You're my, my, my, lover. Right. That's very sad. That's a very, and again, they're adults because they're living together but there's no marriage there's no kids there's no social obligations there's no virtue she doesn't say what she loves about him, a dazzling haze a mysterious way about you there dear that's just lust i'm highly suspicious everyone who sees you wants you not admires you wants you that's lust high status, so if you want all of the summers then you get married right will you be my husband will you ask me to marry you right I take this magnetic force of a man to be my lover so magnet is being drawn to someone not through their virtues right what is admirable or noble or heroic or powerful or moral about this man right my heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue so she slept around and he's been depressed yeah.
[12:47] So yeah it's um it's the people who get stuck in in time it's the people who get stuck in like teenage years there's so many people they just get stuck and they get stuck, when they stop learning and growing right when they come up against usually some trauma or something that they can't or won't move past they can't or won't process then you get stuck and this is people who get stuck in their mid to late teens and end up living these idiotic immature your lives forever and ever. Amen. And they choose to conform and then are wretched at their lack of love. Because they conform, they can't be loved. And therefore, they cling to each other. They enforce conformity on newcomers to make sure that they don't get the love that these people didn't get. And then they hope to evoke lust in people. And lust is the satanic substitute for love okay uh what's your opinion of jordan peterson's work um i mean i've interviewed him a couple of times um smart guy obviously very smart guy a very strong willed uh i have doubts that he stayed awake as long as he did i you know uh didn't he end up addicted to benzodiazepines which is something that i'm sure he would know ahead of time does not seem ideal and um.
[14:09] I'm pretty sure he knows the stuff that needs to be said to save the world i don't think he's saying it. But he's not a philosopher. He's a psychologist, right? So he doesn't have to work from first principles with that level of integrity. Is statism collapsing? Yes, the beliefs are collapsing. But one of the reasons why the beliefs are collapsing is the state has gathered so much power and is going to continue to do so, right? So, I mean, the ultimate goal, of course, is your cell phone alerts you that the person you're talking to is a bad person, right? They get labeled a racist or a sexist or whatever. And then, right, this sort of social ostracism is going to kick in, right? Is your book available in hardcover? I don't have any books available in hardcover. What's your favorite heavy metal band?
[14:53] My favorite heavy metal band. I don't know. It's been a long time since I've really gotten into music and new stuff. Is the traditional Catholicism the most based thing on the earth? No. Voluntarism and anarcho-capitalism is the most based thing on the earth. What happened to your YouTube channel? There was an election. Do you think these problems with the NAP can be resolved? The non-aggression principle is a libertarian ethical stance that argues that aggression defined as the initiation of force or fraud against another person's property or person's is inherently immoral. While the principle has intuitive appeal, it faces significant philosophical, practical, and ethical challenges that undermine its universality and application. Ambiguity in defining aggression. Subjectivity of aggression. The NEP relies on a clear definition of aggression, yet many actions can be interpreted as aggression or non-aggression depending on the perspective. For instance, if somebody refuses to vaccinate during a pandemic, is that an act of aggression by endangering others' health or is it forcing them to vaccinate aggression?
[16:01] Well, of course it's an initiation of the use of force to inject someone against their will. Of course it is. Of course it is. So, now, the way that it would work, of course, is that if you transmit a virus to someone else, like, let's take a scenario where there's a pandemic. The vaccines that have developed during a pandemic, by definition, have not been safety tested for multi-year situations, right? I mean, what do they test the COVID vaccine? And I said this at the time, you know, okay, just normally a vaccine takes 10 years to approve and there's a 93% failure rate. If you do it in four months, you need to tell me what steps you skipped, right? So by definition, if something is tested in In four months, you don't have anything more than four months worth of data, right? So you don't have long-term safety data. So, um...
[16:59] To force people to take medicine that is new in a novel medical architecture, that is not a traditional vaccine, which is an inactive virus that your immune system recognizes when the active virus shows up and combats. So in a pandemic, a newly developed new technology vaccine cannot be forcefully injected into people. Now, in a free society, the way that it would work is let's go with something a little less complicated. Let's say that you have, well, this is even the case in our society, let's say that you have herpes and you don't tell the sexual partner that you have herpes, they then get herpes, which as far as I understand, it sticks with you for the rest of your life off and on, then you would sue that person for harming you, right? So if somebody doesn't take a medicine that prevents transmission of an illness, then they would be liable for people they transmit that illness to, unless they tell those people ahead of time, I could be carrying and transmitting this virus, right? So it would be like a sexually transmitted disease. So not that complicated. All right. Pollution from a factory might harm others, but is it aggression if the harm is indirect and unintended?
[18:14] This ambiguity makes it difficult to apply the NAP consistently. So this is a prime example of a midwit, right? This is just somebody who thinks they're intelligent. I'm not talking about the a listener, I'm talking about whoever's coming up with these ridiculous and embarrassing questions. So, midwits are revealed, and midwits are not people of average intelligence. Midwits are people of average intelligence who think that they're smart. So, one way you identify a midwit is you say, here's a general statement, and the midwit says, well, I can think of an exception. I'm so valuable. Yeah, women are generally taller than men. Well, I know a woman who's taller than a man and the average man, she's like six foot two. So when you have a general rule saying that there's an exception is stupid. It's genuinely stupid in the way that stupid people are not stupid because they don't think that they're smart. So if somebody says, well, there could be really complicated and difficult situations wherein somebody burns a fire in their backyard and, you know, 14 houses over through some trick of the wind, the smoke dumps on someone who's got asthma and, yeah, yeah, guess what? Every moral rule is going to have edge cases that are hard to figure out.
[19:36] But who cares? It's completely unimportant. God above! Oh my God.
[19:44] So we literally have a society now. Right now. Where children are born into millions of dollars of debt. They are financial fucking slaves.
[19:58] The government has the power to incarcerate virtually at will. It has the power to start wars. Right now, NATO is discussing, from what I've read, I can't verify it, NATO is discussing preemptive strikes within Russia. America's delivering missiles to Ukraine that are striking within Russia.
[20:23] The fuck is wrong with you people? Well, but you see, there could be some conceivable edge case 50 years from now that might be kind of ambiguous and would require a... Oh, my God!
[20:41] Well, you have a terminal illness and you're 20, and you say, I'm not going to take treatment because it could be the case that I get a hangnail when I'm 60. Who cares about these edge cases in a hundred years we're facing monumental disaster through statism at the moment it's like people's amygdala is just not even functioning they have no sense of danger their danger is possible air pollution in a free society a hundred years from now rather than a fucking rain down of chernobyl style nuclear warheads in the world this fucking week, I don't even know what to say to people like that. I don't. I don't. Like, we're living in completely different realities.
[21:32] It's completely different realities. It's like you have, a bunch of zebras surrounded by lions, and they're saying, you know, I'm concerned that in my old age, I might stumble and fall on a little hole in the ground. And it's like, what what do you even say like you're surrounded by lions, you're surrounded by lions and even if you're not even if you can discard the world war three shit, from a lame duck president who's barely there even if you discard the world war three shit the other stuff's indisputable the children are born into millions of dollars of debt that they can't pay off unfunded liabilities in america run into the close to 200 trillion dollar range probably higher now. So children are born enslaved to foreign banksters. That's right now. And they're indoctrinated and taught to hate themselves in schools. Like, that's right now. And you're like, oh, but what if there's air pollution in an ambiguous situation 100 years from now in free society? So...
[22:39] I mean, there's midwits and then there's suicidally dangerous midwits. Okay, a lack of a mechanism for collective action addressing collective problems. The NEP is highly individualistic and struggles to address issues that require collective solutions such as environmental protection, public health, or infrastructure. For example, climate change results from aggregate actions that harm others, yet enforcing emissions reductions could be seen as an initiation of force against individuals or corporations, public goods like roads, education and defense require taxation, which the NAP might, label as aggression, leaving no clear path to fund or manage such necessities, right? So, I mean, let's look at America, right? What is the military doing in America? Is it protecting the border? No. No. It is, in general, invading and provoking conflicts in other countries that end up often with blowback in America. Do you just know what national defense is occurring in America?
[23:42] I mean, it's incomprehensible to me. Roads can be paid for. You've got GPSs. Roads can be paid for. Roads were paid for before the government came along. And let's say climate change. Okay, so let's say climate change. Let's say it's real. Let's say it's man-made. And let's say you need collective action to deal with it. Okay, what's the most in, you want the cheapest and most effective way to deal with climate change. How's that going to happen? Well, the way it's going to happen is people have insurance against property damage when climate change is projected to do significant property damage or damage to people's health. Insurance companies will give people incentives to take actions that are going to minimize damage in the future it's really not complicated at all public health okay since the government has taken over more and more in public health americans and other places around the world the health has gotten worse and worse so this is just magic npc words that well you know you need environmental protection like you know that the government literally prevented the market from dealing with environmental protection so way back in the day in the 19th century the satanic mills right There are all these mills producing all of this air pollution, and it was harming the orchards, it was harming the farms, right? The air was coating the farmers' apples and soot. So the farmers took, the capitalists, the factory owners, took them to court for property damage, right? It's all well documented, it's all well known, Murray Rothbard writes about the law, so you go look it up.
[25:11] So they took, under common law, right, they took the factory owners to court, because the factory owners were screwing up their farms. And the court said, It's true that they are, but we're getting more taxes from the factory owners than we are from the farmers, so fuck you farmers, you're going to have to move. So the government literally prevented it.
[25:32] Property rights and defense against property damage from being enforced, and then without the government you can't get environmental protection. Like you understand, the national debt is entirely anti-environmental because the national debt is buying, creating, and consuming shit in the here and now that otherwise would not be bought, created, or consumed. The national debt is conspicuous consumption in the present for the sake of less consumption. All debt is more consumption in the present for the sake of less consumption in the future. So the national debt is taking nature's scarce resources and buying and burning and wasting them, and you never see environmentalists talk about the national debt or mass immigration. Anyway, it's all boring, all boring stuff. All right, so it's all unbelievable. Okay, assumes absolute property rights. property rights are not universally agreed upon. The NAP assumes that property rights are fundamental and self-evident, yet property systems are human constructs that vary across cultures and contexts. Yeah, so is language, but you're still using your language to communicate your point, idiot. Not the reader, but, right? For example, indigenous communities often view land as communal rather than private, making the enforcement of private property rights in such context potentially aggressive.
[26:56] Historical injustice many property holdings result from historical aggression e.g. Colonization and slavery the NAP offers no clear guidance on addressing these injustices because enforcing reparations would violate the principle, yeah yeah okay so you don't have to enforce property rights you don't you don't have to enforce property rights You can buy land and you can hold it all in common. You can be one giant flesh pit of scabies sharing, culty, orgy stuff. You don't have to enforce private property rights.
[27:35] Slavery, yeah. Slavery is really, really bad. See, slavery is when you take people's property without their consent. When you own people. Okay. So if children are born into financial enslavement to foreign banksters, isn't that slavery?
[27:49] So that's a function of the state see the state enforces slavery, if the state didn't enforce slavery slavery was a statist phenomenon, so saying well we have to have a government because of slavery is saying we have to have a government because governments did evil in the past well why wouldn't governments continue to do evil in the present we know that they are, I don't know, Reparations.
[28:32] So there is a principle in general that after a certain amount of time like obviously if if someone steals your bike you can go and get your bike back right if they stole your bike 200 years ago i mean at some point uh it becomes like there's a statute of limitations for crimes right There's a statute of limitations for crimes, not murder, except you don't prosecute someone who's dead. So there are statutes of limitations for crimes in general because the records go, the witnesses are gone and so on, right? So there's a statute of limitations for crimes. And in general, it's a whole lot less than a couple of hundred years. So, all right. Fails to account for power imbalances. Oh no, power imbalances are bad. So we need a social agency with a monopoly on the use of force to deal with power imbalances. Oh my God.
[29:27] I have a headache. I'm going to solve it with a guillotine. All right. The NAP does not account for systemic power imbalances that can lead to de facto coercion without overt aggression. For example, a worker choosing between starvation and accepting exploitative labor conditions may not face physical aggression, but their choices are constrained by economic coercion. Oh my God, it's violence that human beings need food. Nature is just a psycho bully, man. I'm being bullied. You know, gravity is a bully, man, because I want to fly. And the fact that I need to breathe is nature imposing its violent will on me. The fact that in order to consume, I have to produce or trade or beg or borrow. That's... Okay, so reality is... Reality is abusive. Human beings need food and shelter well that's just abusive okay so oh my god uh okay.
[30:36] Oh god um a worker choosing between starvation and accepting exploitive labor conditions, so what do you mean what do you mean choosing starvation well he he can start his own business He can go work somewhere else. If he's got reasonable skills, then people will vie for his labor and so on. So, why doesn't he have any skills? So, why doesn't he have any skills? like we all know that you need a minimum wage because the government schools are completely retarded and don't teach you anything of economic value right they don't teach you entrepreneurship they don't teach you negotiation they don't teach you economics they don't tell you teach you valuable skills acquisition they don't teach you how to pay your taxes they don't teach you how to apply for a job they don't teach you anything that's actually they don't teach you any work usable skills so governments will teach you geometry and self-hatred and that's it it's all terrible So why a worker, let's say this guy is 25, why doesn't he have any skills? Because he went to government schools, right?
[31:47] So the fact that human beings need to eat, like, you can just, you can get some chickens, right? You can put a little farm together in your backyard. You can work to increase your skills so that you're in higher demand, and therefore you won't need to accept exploitive labor conditions. What are exploitive labor conditions? You want to get paid more? Well, everyone wants to get paid more. FreeDomain.com slash donate. Everyone wants to get paid more. Sure. Is it exploitive? Does that mean dangerous or bad labor conditions? Well, dangerous or bad labor conditions would be dealt with by insurance companies in a free society that would require that workers not be subject to terrible and dangerous labor conditions because the company would get sued or be liable for deaths and that would be very bad for their economics and so on right so oh gosh almighty what can i even say oh my gosh corporate monopolies can dominate markets and restrict freedom without violating the nap yet they create conditions of harm oh my god this has got to be a troll, so monopolies are really monopolies are really bad so let's give the government a violent monopoly on just about everything.
[33:12] Oh, my gosh. Voluntary monopolies are bad, so let's make a giant, violent, involuntary monopoly. His monopolies are bad, so let's give the government control over education and roads and defense and environmental protection and law enforcement. Monopolies are terrible, you see. I'm sorry. Do people, I don't get, this is not complicated. This is not like learning ancient Aramaic or trying to follow Sam Harris. This is not like ridiculously complicated, right? This is like, oh, monopolies are bad, so let's create a violent monopoly with the ability to print money and indoctrinate children, and borrow against the unborn.
[34:08] And they can control interest rates and start wars at will. But you see only having one McDonald's in a town is really bad, oh my god I'm gonna I should stop before I pee myself oh oh oh it's too late, incompatibility with emergency situations, moral exceptions the NAP struggles with situations where initiating force might be morally justified or necessary to prevent greater harm, For example, breaking into a cabin to survive in a blizzard technically violates the NEP but might be considered ethically justifiable. No, it doesn't violate the NEP.
[34:52] Nope. It doesn't matter if you get permission before or after the use of property. It doesn't matter. So if I had a cabin and somebody was freezing to death and they had to break a window to get into my cabin or I had to pick the lock of a door or whatever it is to get into my cabin so that they didn't die, I would want them to do that. Like if they phoned me and they said, I'm outside your cabin, I'll pay you back. I'll, you know, whatever, right? But I need to get inside because I'm going to die, right? I don't want them to die. I don't want, even if I'm some cold-hearted guy. I don't want the messy legal complications and finding a frozen dead body on my property and having to deal with that. Even if I'm just a cold-hearted guy, I want him to use my property. Yeah, absolutely, man. Get in there, phone for help. And, you know, yes, it would be nice if you got, you know, paid me to get the window repaired or whatever it is. Sure. So, I would give permission. And, you know, if you have a reasonable belief.
[35:47] That you will get permission after the fact it's not a violation of the non-aggression principle, right right it's not a violation of the non-aggression principle if you get property if you get um permission to use the property after the fact like if your kid is drowning and you can't swim and there's like a a life jacket or some flotation device on the dock and you grab it and you throw it you haven't got permission are you stealing no because the person would, without a doubt, give you permission to use that. If you said, hey, can I use your flotation device to save my kid? They'd say, well, yes, of course, please. I don't even ask, right?
[36:26] So, I don't know. I don't know what that means.
[36:31] I mean, this is how society works. Like you go into a restaurant, you don't sign a contract, so you're going to pay for the meal. You just go into the restaurant, you order the food, right? So, you know, the quote contract to pay is after. Anyway, anyway. All right, preventive action, such as disarming someone threatening violence, could be seen as a digression under the NAP, even if it avoids greater harm. No. If somebody says, they pull out a gun, and they say, I'm going to shoot you, then you can shoot them.
[37:02] Because it is reasonable to assume that they're going to shoot you because they're just telling you they're going to shoot you. So I don't... Self-defense does not require you actually get stabbed, right? Self-defense is, is there a reasonable belief that you're about to encounter grievous bodily harm or death, right? And if somebody is threatening you and pulling out a weapon, that is enough. So I don't understand that. Now, again, you can always come up with some ambiguous edge case, it doesn't matter. Because they're so rare that they don't have any foundational impact on society as a whole. And that's what courts are for. Courts are, and courts are going to have edge cases, you know, edge cases make bad precedent, right? So the fact that you can construct something where it's hard to figure out is completely irrelevant. It's completely irrelevant to the principle as a whole, right? The principle is independent of the edge case. So yes, you can come up with some situation where it's kind of ambiguous. I'm going to mess you up and he reaches in, but he's actually pulling out a small knife because he wants to dig something out of it. Like, you can come up with something where there could be a misinterpretation, but it doesn't affect the principle as a whole, right? It doesn't affect the principle as a whole.
[38:15] All right. Six, oversimplification of ethics, moral complexity, Ethical decision-making often involves balancing competing values such as individual rights, collective welfare, and justice. The NAP reduces morality to a single principle, ignoring the complexity of real-world dilemmas. Right, so apparently, you see, the more complicated things become, the less you need principles.
[38:39] That's unbelievably stupid. The more complicated things become, the more you need principles. Not the less, right? It's like saying, well, a really complicated mathematical equation should get rid of mathematical principles. It's like, no, the more complicated the mathematical equation, the more you need to stick to mathematical principles, right?
[39:02] So, let's just talk about rape, right? So, ethical decision-making. Should someone rape or not? Should rape, is rape evil? Is rape evil immoral? Well, it's competing values, individual rights, collective welfare, justice. You can't just reduce anti-rape to a single principle. Ignoring the complexity of real world dilemmas is like, you really fucking can. Rape is just stone evil. And the moment somebody starts to say, well, it's complicated, I just view them as somebody who wants to be a rapist. It's not complicated. Pedophilia, not complicated. Oh, my God. Kidnapping. Not complicated.
[39:43] Assault. Beating up a child. Not complicated. Anyway, utilitarian concerns following. And of course, so the more complicated things are, the more you need moral principles. Now, violence is a way of dealing with complexity, which is what generally governments do. So you're going to end up with something simple or the other. It's either going to be just some government law that you have to follow or get thrown in jail, or you're going to have principles. So all complexity resolves down to simplicity. It's either moral principles or government force or some other kind of force, right? So you don't get rid of complexity by putting the government in place.
[40:24] You simply render it susceptible to political manipulations and the basic violence of the state.
[40:37] Oh, God, what did we get here? Utilitarian. Following the NAP rigidly. See, rigidly is just one of these words that's supposed to be negative without any actual explanation. I mean, rigidly, rigidly opposing slavery and rape. It's like, no, that's just called being principled. It's rigid. No, it's called having a fucking principle. Could lead to suboptimal outcomes, such as allowing preventable suffering or harm if addressing it would require, quote, aggression.
[41:08] And that's just, I want to be a bad guy. I want to be a bad guy, so I'm going to throw a bunch of cloudy words out there with negative connotations, so you just let me be a bad guy and use force. Yeah, I'm a lover of violence, and your principles are getting in my way, so I'm just going to kind of diss them and say that they lead to bad outcomes, which apparently my violence will never do. Okay. Seven, practical limitations. Enforcement dilemma. Even within a system governed by the NAP, enforcing the principle requires some authority to define and address aggression. For example, resolving disputes over property boundaries or contractual breaches might involve coercive mechanisms contradicting the NAP. What? Okay, I mean, this is just somebody who's come up with a bunch of words because they want to use violence and has not looked into, I mean, I've got a whole book called Practical Anarchy about this, I've got a novel called, that's not they have to go to me, there's tons of people who've worked on these issues. So, apparently, you see, apparently, you see, it's really bad to have a coercive mechanism to resolve property boundaries. Oh my gosh, can you imagine having a coercive mechanism to resolve property boundaries? Wait, wait a minute. Isn't the government a coercive mechanism? So, it's really bad to have a coercive mechanism to resolve property disputes. So, I know what we'll do is we'll have a government which is a coercive mechanism resolve property disputes.
[42:33] It's really bad that you could your building could catch fire so what we'll do is hire an arsonist to set fire to it and that's going to solve the problem at least you won't have to worry about whether your building's going to burn i mean my god what do these people think, i mean so you economic ostracism is the way that you deal with things right you just economic ostracism, right? I mean, if somebody won't keep their contracts, they get a bad contract rating, they have to pay extra for their contracts, or nobody will enter into a contract with them, and then they can't really do much to do well in society. So, you don't, ostracism, economic ostracism is very powerful, and economic ostracism is not a violation of the non-aggression principle. Very dead simple. Very, very dead simple. All right.
[43:21] A purely voluntary system lacks a practical means of ensuring compliance or protecting vulnerable individuals from exploitation or harm. Ah, yes, that's right. That's right.
[43:36] So, when the government wants to go to war and drafts people, to the point where some people will shoot themselves literally in the foot to avoid being drafted, I mean, you see these poor people in Russia and Ukraine, these poor middle Asian old men getting dragged off the streets, fighting like hell. So, yeah, you see, a purely voluntary system, you know, people could get exploited or harmed. So, for instance, in a state of society, children are never exploited for economic gain. In other words, their future productivity is never sold to foreign banksters in return for bribe money for the majority and mob in the here and now. That never happens. Children are never exploited. Children who are put in really, really boring and soul-destroying government lack of concentration, miseducation camps, this government education, such children are never drugged. Can you imagine children being drugged because they're bored, particularly boys in girl-centric sitting kumbaya and cut fucking princess outfits out of cardboard? Boys are bored. Can you imagine? Vulnerable people being, I mean, they're never sold off for foreign banksters. They're never drugged. They're never exploited. They're never indoctrinated because that just doesn't happen. So you see, in a purely voluntary society, how do you stop the vulnerable from being exploited? Yeah, that's tough.
[45:00] It's unbelievable. It's like people don't even live in the real world and have made up some imaginary world where the vulnerable are never exploited now. Never.
[45:10] Historical and theoretical criticism. Historical evidence. Societies that have operated on principles akin to the NAP, e.g. Laissez-faire capitalism, have often resulted in significant inequality, exploitation, and harm, suggesting that the principle is insufficient for creating equitable or stable society.
[45:30] Oh, yes. You look at the cycle of empires. Yes, statism is inherently unstable because no state of society lasts more really than a couple of hundred years without devolving into tyranny and economic collapse. Every single fucking one. So the US dollar has lost 99% of its value in a little over 100 years. But don't worry. Don't worry. A free society might not be perfectly stable. I mean, look at the American experiment, right? Just the American, right? Federal Reserve, 1913, income tax, 1913, First World War, the hypomania of the money-printing stock market bubble followed by a 14-year Great Depression leading to the Second World War, leading to the Korean War, leading to the Cold War, leading to the Vietnam War. Leading to the bubble of the 80s, the crash of the early 90s, the bubble of the 90s, followed by 9-11, followed by wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, government overthrows in Ukraine, 2014. I mean, but don't worry, a free society might be kind of unstable.
[46:36] Ah, unbelievable. Okay, inequality. So inequality just means other people produce value in society that I can't or choose not to. That's all. Some people are tall. Some people are short. Some people have great singing voices. Some people don't. Some people are smarter than others. Some people are more attractive than others. So, yeah, there's inequality in nature. Right? A free market society doesn't violate the inequalities in nature by forcing redistribution of resources. So, believe it or not, right, I've never been invited to be a hair model because I had like maybe 18 months of good hair in my life. I had a bowl cut, then I had a cool cut, then I started losing my hair. So, it's unequal that Brad Pitt has great hair. It's wrong. It's unequal that all the Beatles kept their hair and the people, the guys that met at work didn't. Right? That's just unequal. It's wrong.
[47:44] So what so what does that mean that someone should point a gun at brad pitt and say you have great hair Stef doesn't have great hair you got to give him some money that would be repulsive that would be horrible it's great it's he's got great hair freddie mercury is a great singing voice uh katie perry's a great songwriter and a great performer and a great singer and she's very pretty is that fair? What does that even mean? Fair is just the youngest sibling's whining that he's not getting his share of the pie. What does it mean to be fair? Inequality is the loser's cry to get something he didn't earn. Go find something you're good at and stop whining that other people are better at you at things. Inequality. Oh my god, it's insane. Exploitation. Oh, and inequality. You want to talk inequality, then talk about the relationship between government enforcers and private citizens. That's inequality if you're concerned about inequality you got to look at that and if you're not looking at that i don't give a shit what you have to say about inequality all if you're not talking about the difference in government coercion and private citizens who are often legally disarmed right if you're not talking about say in england the fact that police are coming into people's homes and dragging them off to jail for memes that's inequality, if you're not talking about that but you're talking about inequality in a free society a voluntary society, a non-aggression principle society.
[49:14] Then you're just a rank asshole propagandist who's justifying violence it's repulsive, oh harm oh real world harm, oh look these ideas could lead to real world harm and everybody who says that never says well we've got to get communists out of government subsidized and sponsored and enforced schools got to get communists out because communism just in the 20th century slaughtered 100 million people and incarcerated countless people. Gulag Archipelago comes to mind.
[49:46] So there's an idea that leads to real-world harm, but nobody ever talks about that because they don't care about this stuff. They just care about justifying violence because they're sociopaths, in my humble opinion. All right. Do we care philosophical counter-arguments? Thinkers like Karl Marx or John Rawls argue that focusing solely on individual rights and property ignores the broader social and structural forces that shape human relationships and justice. I mean, let's just put in rape, right? Right, so you would say, well, focusing solely on not having rape, right? Focusing solely on anti-rape ignores the broader social and structural forces that shape human relationships in justice. It's bullshit. You don't have a relationship if you have a gun to your head. You have subjugation, right? The slave doesn't have a relationship with his owner. It's just, it's not a, a relationship's a voluntary. And justice, well, justice is just one of these words that people use when they don't have a moral argument and want to do evil. Well, it doesn't help justice. Justice is a gun, right? While the non-aggression principle provides a simple and appealing ethical framework, its oversimplification of complex moral and social issues renders it problematic in practice.
[51:04] Life is too complicated for negotiation, so let's just get a gun. You know, this would be like somebody saying, well, asking the girl out is complicated and difficult, and she might say no, so I'm just going to kidnap her, because, you know, it's that way I get the date. It's like, that's just evil, right? Whenever people want to complicate moral issues by getting rid of principles, they just want a pathway to doing evil. It fails to account for ambiguous definitions of aggression, systemic power imbalances, collective action needs, and situations where initiating force might prevent greater harm. Ultimately, the NEP's rigid, rigid adherence to individual rights and property neglects the interconnected and nuanced realities of human society. Right, so let's just give a small minority of sociopaths all the guns in the world, and that then you're going to have a real fucking nuanced reality of human society. Jesus, H. I can't, I can't, I can't with these people. I can't even with these people. You know, society is a complex interweb of, it's very nuanced, and so we'll just give a small bunch of people all the weaponry in the known universe and a free reign to do whatever the fuck they want. Well, you're not going to end up with much nuanced shit there unless you consider concentration camps and mass graves nuanced.
[52:21] All right, I got to stop here. I got to go detox with a strong workout because I've just had my face full in the asshole armpit of evil justifications for the last half hour. So if you find my work valuable, thank you so much. Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show. Would massively appreciate it. Love you guys to death. Thank you so much. Remember, no shows. It would be a show tonight, 7 p.m. No shows tomorrow, Friday. I'm back on the wagon, I think, on Sunday. So lots of love. Take care. Freedomain.com slash donate. Bye.
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