In this Wednesday Night Live on 26 November 2025, philosopher Stefan Molyneux addresses a wide array of topics, weaving through discussions on morality, confidence, social dynamics, and interpersonal relationships. As the session begins, Stefan invites attendees to share their questions and challenges, setting a welcoming tone for an engaging dialogue. He reflects humorously on an interaction with his wife concerning the movie "Spinal Tap," hinting at a light-hearted start that quickly transitions into deeper philosophical territory.
Stefan then pivots to a serious discussion on the nature of morality and the thoughts of prominent atheist philosophers. He provides critical analysis of their views, referencing figures such as Alex O'Connor and J.L. Mackey, who argue against the existence of objective moral truths. He outlines how these thinkers contend that morality is constructed from societal norms and human psychology rather than stemming from any divine or objective source. This leads Stefan to question the implications of these beliefs and the stark moral relativism they suggest, sparking an exploration of the intrinsic value of moral claims in light of atheism.
As he dives deeper into the topic, Stefan challenges the audience to reconsider the nuances of moral reasoning. He emphasizes the importance of logic and evidence, pointing out the paradoxes and inconsistencies often present in philosophical debates about morality. He provocatively asks why morality should be considered any less valid than other forms of rationality if it is rejected purely on the grounds that it cannot be empirically verified. This rhetorical provocation urges the audience to reflect on their values and the foundations of their ethical principles, igniting a lively discourse on how human beings navigate moral landscapes.
In a more personal discussion, a caller raises their struggles with confidence, particularly in social and competitive situations such as basketball. Stefan engages deeply with this caller, using their experiences to unravel the complications surrounding self-perception and the fear of judgment. He guides the caller toward understanding the societal expectations and pressures that often accompany sports, emphasizing the sometimes fraught interactions between male aggression and competitive spirit.
Throughout the conversation, Stefan encourages curiosity as a means of overcoming personal challenges and misunderstandings within relationships. He thoughtfully critiques the caller's interactions with their spouse regarding their perceived lack of confidence, suggesting that empathy and curiosity could transform contention into constructive dialogue. By doing so, he highlights the potential resolution through understanding rather than judgment, paving the way for deeper connections and growth.
Concluding the session, Stefan reiterates the complexity of navigating personal dynamics while championing authenticity and self-awareness. He emphasizes that while the road to confidence and moral wisdom is fraught with challenges, embracing curiosity and remaining open to understanding both oneself and others can lead to meaningful transformation. The caller appreciates the insights provided, expressing newfound confidence in navigating their relationship and personal challenges.
Finally, Stefan wraps up the session with reminders of resources available through his website, inviting further exploration of the topics discussed while encouraging a spirit of inquiry and philosophical engagement among participants. His lecture encapsulates a rich blend of theoretical debate and practical advice, leaving attendees with valuable tools to enhance their understanding of morality, self-confidence, and interpersonal relationships.
0:11 - Welcome to Wednesday Night Live
18:32 - The Morality Debate: Atheists and Ethics
22:01 - The Concept of Family of Origin
32:26 - The Nature of Self-Deception
43:14 - The Placebo Effect and Meditation
51:46 - The NPC Phenomenon: Lying to Oneself
59:53 - The Path to Awareness and Enlightenment
1:08:47 - Mirrors of Self: The Illusion of Reality
1:31:40 - The Burden of Truth
1:39:31 - The Confidence Conundrum
1:52:25 - Aggression and Its Consequences
2:09:03 - Navigating Male Dynamics
2:15:13 - Finding Common Ground
[0:00] Good evening, everybody. Welcome to your Wednesday Night Live on this glorious day, 26th of November, 2025.
[0:12] I'm looking forward to getting your questions, comments, issues, challenges, problems, whatever is on your mind. Oh, let me just see if I can detach the microphone here from the headset. I finally got around to showing my wife the movie Spinal Tap, which is very funny. It's a very funny movie. Bit of an anti-white movie, of course, but very funny. So, yeah, if you have questions, comments, issues, challenges, type them into the chat. Call me on X, whatever is on your mind. I am thrilled to chat, listen, and talk about. And one of the things I saw, one of the things I saw on X, and this was from Darwin to Jesus. Said earlier today, I posted this meme saying that many atheists claim that it's not actually objectively wrong to rape a child. Since then, I've been asked repeatedly, what atheists actually hold that view? These atheists all hold that view and countless more.
[1:16] So, I haven't verified all these claims, of course, but I'm just repeating them because they're an interesting talking point to jump off with the question of morality. So, Alex O'Connor writes Darwin to Jesus. I'm just quoting here. Alex O'Connor is a prominent atheist YouTuber, debater, and public intellectual best known for the Cosmic Skeptic channel. He's a defender of atheism, secular ethics, and philosophical naturalism. In his discussions on morality, he openly rejects the idea that moral truths exist objectively in the world in the same way that physical facts do. He consistently argues that without God, moral values do not have a mind-independent foundation, and that what we call morality ultimately comes from human psychology, evolution, and social agreement rather than from objective moral facts. Quote, without God, I don't see how you get objective moral values in the strong metaphysical sense.
[2:10] J.L. Mackey was an Australian, Australian, atheist philosopher, and one of the most influential moral philosophers of the 20th century. As an atheist and metaphysical naturalist, he argued that while ordinary people think moral claims describe objective truths, the world does not actually contain any such objective moral properties. Because of that, he concluded that all moral claims are systematically false. This position is now known as moral error theory and is one of the most important anti-realist views in modern philosophy. There are no objective values.
[2:50] Tasty relativism. Richard Joyce is a contemporary atheist philosopher who works in evolutionary ethics and metaphysics because I never met of physics I didn't like. He argues that our moral beliefs were shaped by natural selection to promote survival and cooperation, not because they track any objective moral truths. Because of this, he concludes that moral realism is false and that morality is better understood as a useful fiction that helps societies function. Quote, there are no moral facts. Facts. Jonas Olson was a well-known atheist meta-ethicist and one of the leading modern defenders of moral error theory. He argues that when people make moral claims, they're trying to state facts about the world, but the world contains no such moral facts. As a result, he concludes that all positive moral claims are false. Quote, moral error theory is the view that all positive moral claims are false.
[3:52] This guy's got a creepy smile. Alex Rosenberg is an atheist philosopher of science and one of the strongest defenders of scientific or scientific naturalism. He argues that if only physics is fundamentally real, then there is no room in reality for meaning, purpose, or moral truth. On his view, morality is not objectively real at all, and there is no true right or wrong in the universe. Quote, there is no moral truth. There is no right or wrong. Michael Ruse, R-U-S-E, is an atheist philosopher of biology and one of the most influential evolutionary ethicists. He argues that morality is entirely the product of natural selection and social evolution. According to him, we experience morality as if it were objective, but that sense of objectivity is an illusion created by our genes to help us survive and cooperate. Quote, morality is a biological adaptation no less than our hands and feet and teeth. It is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes.
[5:03] A.J. Eyre, A-Y-E-R, was an atheist logical positivist and one of the most important philosophers of the analytic tradition. He argued that only statements that can be empirically verified are meaningful. Since moral claims cannot be empirically tested, he concluded that they do not describe facts at all, but merely express emotions or personal attitudes. Quote, The presence of an ethical symbol in a proposition adds nothing to its factual content. Simon Black. Byrne is an atheist British philosopher known for developing quasi-realism. He argues that while we talk as if morality were objectively true, moral judgments do not actually describe real facts in the world. Instead, they express our attitudes, commitments, and social practices. Quote, We do not need to suppose that moral judgments represent facts in the world.
[5:58] Ah, good old horse-kissing, syphilis, mad, giant, mustachioed Friedrich Nietzsche was an explicitly anti-Christian atheist philosopher whose work laid the foundation for modern nihilism. He believed that morality was a human construction created for psychological and social control, not something crowded in objective reality. Quote, there are no moral facts. And this, of course, you see. When I came back to ex-formally Twitter, when he.
[6:36] Came back, when I came back, one of the things that got me viral fairly quickly was the question to atheists, why not lie? Why wouldn't you lie? Why not lie? Come on. It's advantageous. All war, all nature, all propaganda is based upon deception. And if you lie to people, you can get stuff from them. And what do people say? Well, I don't like to lie. Well, clearly, there are some people who claim that they don't like to lie. But there are other people who very much like to lie and have adapted to it and like it and are sophists and are propagandists and are trickly mouth bootlickers of the horned hooves of the goats of power. And they're fine with it. People say, I don't like to lie. Okay, but it's not all about you, bro. Even if you don't like to lie. Yeah, well, I don't like to lie. He said lying, right? So the idea that you're moral because you just like being moral and that's what morality is. It's like, okay, well, what do you say to the people to whom they do not like to tell the truth? In fact, they like and enjoy lying.
[7:52] It's like saying, well, we don't need diets because I don't like to overeat. Scott Adams said many moons ago, he said to some guy he was taking a training course from who was overweight, he says, why do you think you're so overweight? The guy said, I like to eat. Scott Adams is like, I don't really like to eat. It's kind of boring, just refueling. Maybe I'm missing taste buds or something. He says, I don't really like to eat.
[8:17] So we need diet books because people like to overeat. We need reason because people can be pretty slippery in their anti-rational arguments. And so it's kind of narcissistic to the extreme to say, well, I don't lie because I don't like to lie. What has it got to do with you? The whole point of morality is that there are people who like to do evil things. There are people who really like to rape, steal, murder, assault, liars, all of them. And that's actually the majority of people. The majority of people will make up moral rules on the fly. I did this presentation many years ago called The Death of Reason, which you should check out. If thou hast not checketh it out already. And The Death of Reason, in it, there was there was a study. And in that study, what they did was, sorry, let me just turn that off.
[9:30] Get no distracting beeps from social media. So what they did was they put forth a moral proposition on a piece of paper, and then they turned it, and the people turned it, and then they were asked to argue for that moral position. And then they engaged in some other conversation, and they then were asked to turn back. And what had been done is there was a little piece of glue or sticky stuff so that the opposite of moral argument showed when they went back and said, sorry, could you just repeat that moral argument? And it would be something like, be pro-abortion. Okay, argue for abortion. Okay, be anti-abortion, be pro-life, argue for that. And what happened was, people would, they made this moral argument and.
[10:11] And then there was some conversation and then they said, oh, can you just flip back and repeat that moral argument? And they've read the exact opposite moral argument and made that. And not one of them, to my memory, or very few of them said, oh, wait, hang on. That's weird. That's just like the total opposite of what I argued for just now. Like what? I just argued pro. Now I'm arguing anti. Am I, did I lose my mind? Did I just completely? What? Did I miss on? Right. I didn't care. I didn't care.
[10:43] They careth not. And the show number is 3055, the death of reason. People will argue whatever's popular, they will argue whatever they like, and they don't care. They don't care in particular. And I'm not saying this is human nature, but it certainly is propagandized and programmed human nature. I mean, we saw this over COVID. 50, 60 million people were slaughtered in the Second World War. And one of the things that was supposed to come out of the Second World War based upon the Nazi experiments and the Japanese experiments was you have to have full disclosure. You can't be forced into medical experiments. You can't be forced into medical procedures. That voluntarism is the entire thing. And then people were just scared into turning on the unvaccinated and wanting to force and bully and control and coerce them and taking this shitty mystery gloop DNA slop straight to the veins.
[11:49] Permanent change. They didn't care. I mean, apparently the worst thing in the world, and I understand the argument. I mean, headcount communism is worse than Nazism, but Nazism was pretty virulent. And being a Nazi is the worst goddamn thing in the known universe, you Nazi, you fascist. Well, the Nazis forced medical experiments on people and didn't give them full disclosure and didn't allow them to opt out. So apparently, being a Nazi is the worst fucking thing in the world. Oh, except if there's a cold and a half that comes out of Wuhan. Then, apparently, being a Nazi is the best thing in the world for people. They don't care. Doesn't matter. They don't notice it. They don't notice that they are absolutely dishonoring the sacrifices of their ancestors by forcing medical, untested medical procedures or barely tested medical procedures on people. They don't care. they don't care. When they said the COVID chart is safe for pregnant people when they only tested it for a couple of months.
[13:00] Because nothing says trustworthy like we're immune from liability. We're not going to give you full disclosure and you can't see the test data for 50 years or 70 years or whenever the hell it was supposed to be until it was overturned. I think Naomi Wolf did that quite well. So people don't care. They just argue whatever they're told to argue, they consider themselves good, and they do whatever. I mean, I noticed this fairly vividly when I started talking about, oh, be careful, be alarmed, be aware, be scared, be nervous, because I'm about to use two syllables that strike heart into the fear of 99.9% of humanity, and I'm not going to be scared of.
[13:43] I just want to make sure everybody's listening. Okay. The foo. The foo. So foo stands for family of origin. And it's a term that's used in the mental health profession. Not that I'm in the mental health profession, but it's a term that's used in the mental health profession, to talk about if a married man is talking about his family, it's hard to know often whether he's talking about his current family or his family of origin, his mother and his father. Well, in my of family, we did this, that, and the other. And it's like, well, are you talking about your current family with your wife and kids or your parents and your siblings? So, a family of origin, as opposed to current family, right? And Difu is simply choosing not to associate with relentlessly abusive and destructive family members. And when, I mean, there were people who'd written about it before, it certainly didn't originate the .
[14:44] Term, uh, defu was more, uh, putting the two together, right? Divorce and defu. And I mean, I remember seeing mental health professionals, uh, talking about this decades ago. Oh, you know, if the family can't be fixed, you don't have to see them. I mean, it's, you know, it's one of these things that's talked about, but, but apparently you, you can't talk about it. It's both talked about and not talked about. And so when people would call me up back in the day, Well, even now, I mean, I haven't, I will never, I would rather go live under a bridge than disavow something I know to be true. And you've never, ever seen me reject or repeat, sorry, reject or retreat from a position or fact I know to be true. I won't do it. I'd rather not do a show. I'm not doing this for shits and giggles. I'm doing this for truth and virtue. So, when I started talking about this, you know, the media lost their mind as a cult leader and, you know, breaking up families for fun and profit, you know, that kind of stuff, right?
[15:59] And even when talking to reporters at the time, I made the basic obvious and logical point that there are lots of people who say you should leave your abusive husband. You should leave your abusive wife. mostly it was you should leave your abusive husband, right? And nobody calls those people calm leaders.
[16:22] That if you choose to marry someone who turns out to be abusive, you should leave the abusive person, even though you got to vet them, test drive them, date them usually for years before you get married to them. And it was like you go girl and there are tons of movies about leaving your abusive husband sleeping with the enemy, the one where the woman talks about talks to the wall and ends up you know they always end up either banging some rock-lipped glistening sculpture in a loft apartment down by the beach who's 20 years their junior, or they end up going to open up a coffee shop in Greece on the Mediterranean, or what's that song? Goodbye Earl. They sell Tennessee ham down on the highway. They've got a stall. They're all happy, right? Leave that abusive guy. Leave the guy even if he's boring. Leave the guy even if he's uninspiring. Leave the guy even if you're just not really enjoying it that much, if he seems a bit repetitive or whatever it is, right? I mean, I saw the movie Kramer vs. Kramer in the theaters. I actually paid to go and see it three times when I was kind of broke because I just wanted to absorb this, right?
[17:44] And in the movie, the Meryl Streep character leaves the Dustin Hoffman character. He's not abusive. He just works late. He works hard. He works late. And apparently she just goes nuts in the apartment trying to be a mom and all of that. And she just leaves. And she was considered perfectly justified. It was perfectly valid to do that. Yeah, it was not abusive. She just said, oh, if I have to spend one more day in the apartment with that kid, I'm going to jump out the window. I mean, she's obviously crazy unstable, and it was anti-family nonsense, but she left. She left.
[18:33] And that was not horrifying. That was not terrible. That was not bad. There was no, the movie wasn't like a cult recruitment thing to break up families. It was like, hey, man, stuff happens, you know? He kind of works too long. He's kind of emotionally unavailable. And so get out, run. You see this all over the place when I was growing up, right? I grew up in the seventies, which were the peak, peak divorce, right? Peak divorce. So, so I put forward the argument and said, um, cause I'd never told anyone to leave their family. I just said, you don't have to stay. I mean, you don't, I mean, I'm, I don't tell anyone to leave their family. You know, if you've tried to work things out and you can't work things out with them and they're toxic and negative and abusive, you don't have to stay.
[19:21] So to me, it's like the difference between a voluntary marriage and an arranged marriage. So if someone, you know, came to the country and had been married off to their husband when they were 14 in some backwater culture and they came to your country and they said, my husband is relentlessly abusive, but I can't leave him. I cannot leave him. You would say, no, you can't. This is the West. You can leave him. You didn't choose to be married to him. He's relentlessly abusive. You can leave him. I don't know whether you should or shouldn't, but you can. That's permissible. That's possible and maybe healthy. I don't know, right? But you can. If somebody says something, you know, that's kind of the key. It's kind of the job when somebody says something false, you kind of have to correct them. So, if somebody says, well, I can't leave my abusive family of origin, and they're adults, right? I mean, I can't not see my abusive family of origin. It's like, no, you can not see them. I don't know whether you should or shouldn't, but it's possible. It's within the realm of possibility to not see a relentlessly abusive family of origin. I mean, you should go talk to them. you should get a therapist, but it's a factual statement, right?
[20:42] Nobody cared, right? It didn't matter that it's a perfectly rational argument, because they're saying, if you can't leave an abusive family of origin, what they're saying is, you can totally virtuously and in a healthy and positive fashion, good for you, you can leave an abusive relationship that you voluntarily chose to get into. But boy, if you didn't voluntarily choose to get into that relationship, you can't, you can't leave. Right. If you chose to marry a guy and he's boring, negative, mean, or whatever, right? Then yeah, get out. People say, right. But if you had an arranged marriage where you never chose, to marry the guy, you got to stay. You got to stay. No possibility, right? I think in Kramer vs. Kramer, he did, because I remember reading a little thing. Dustin Hoffman did slap Meryl Streep in the face or something like that, because you can see the red marks, and she was really mad at him for that.
[22:01] Oh, somebody says, I use the look at the phone and see how you feel technique a lot, and it's great. Thank you. You're welcome. How do you feel when people call you? Right? Good, bad, plus, minus, right? So people, they don't care that it's an irrational argument. They don't care. It doesn't matter. They don't care that it's like if society is saying, you should leave a boring husband, but you can't leave abusive parents, that's completely irrational argument. They don't care.
[22:32] So it would help if people fall of reason. But so what I wanted to say with the atheist arguments is they're saying that the argument that morality exists is irrational, therefore you should reject it. But why does morality exist any more or less than logic, than reason? All of these people are arguments. You can't get the ought from the is and there's no objective physical facts about morality in the universe and all of that. And therefore, right, it's ironclad. You must not make moral statements. Why, why would it be the case that morality is any less valid than logic, reason? Well, moral arguments are inconsistent with physics and rationality and reason and evidence and empiricism. Therefore, you must not make moral statements. Well, okay, you just made a moral statement, but you should always say things in accordance with reason and evidence. But it's weird. It's the carve-out. I hate this carve-out stuff in philosophy, man. I hate it. I hate it with a burning, yearning, biblical, Mount Doom passion. Vesuvius could not contain my molten hatred of this carve-out.
[23:56] You must conform to logic and logic does not prove morality, why must you conform to logic, atheists why, why do you have to conform to logic, because they're making logical arguments to disprove morality, Why do you have to conform to logic? Thank you for the tip. I appreciate that. Why? The scientific, why do you have to conform to science? Logic, reason, evidence, empiricism, any of it.
[24:45] Why? Ah, because you have to make logical statements. Your statements have to agree and conform to reason and evidence. Why? Well, because they must. Oh, did you just get an ought from an is? Oh, how interesting. So you must conform to reason and evidence, although reason and evidence are not things that exist in the world, but morality, screw that. You don't have to do any of that at all. Oh why don't people see this obvious stuff i feel i feel like either the sanest or the craziest person in the world i think after 44 years i can err on the side of the former but why.
[25:34] Well you gotta follow science why science doesn't exist in the world like a tree right doesn't exist, like, uh, this ball exists. Can't put it through my head. Can't stuff it up my nose, and God knows I've tried. There's no place in the world that I can comfortably insert this into my body. No matter, I could open it, the lip balm. I can't. Can't put it up my nose. I guess I could try and swallow it, but probably would be a pretty bad day. Uh, can't put it up my butt. Boogie in the butt, butt, butt, boogie in the butt. No, that exists. That exists. Bunk, bunk, bunk. Real thing. Physics conforms with all the evidence if the census conforms with matter and energy, stable properties. I can roll it in the way I can't roll a d4.
[26:37] Where does science exist? Nowhere. Where does logic exist as a thing? Nowhere. Sorry, I know everybody thinks I go from whisper to screaming like the Pope. Where does the demand or requirement that statements conform to reason and evidence, where does that exist in the world? Atheists. Where? Logic doesn't exist. Reason doesn't exist. Empiricism doesn't exist. Science doesn't exist. Hell, fiat currency doesn't even exist, but the scientists sure want to get their grubby little hands on that, doesn't it?
[27:32] Reason, morality doesn't exist, but you better not cut my funding! You anti-science bigot. You superstitious zealot. You heretic to the modern, white-coated mystery religion of government sccience. Oh, Neil deGrasse Tyson was like, oh, if people from foreign governments cut our funding to science and education, we'd consider it an act of war. You insufferable. Oh, God. pompous, insufferable, don't know what a woman is. Absolute, bloody, toe-licking sycophant of science and government and money and taxpayers.
[28:22] Not only does logic not exist as a thing, but the demand or requirement or request even to conform to logic, that sure as hell doesn't exist. People can do illogical things all the time and flourish very well. Thank you very much.
[28:48] You must be logical. Logic doesn't exist and the must doesn't exist. Well, uh, moral arguments from religion don't conform to science, reason, and evidence. Oh, so it's really important to conform to something that doesn't exist, but the thing that doesn't exist that you want to conform to is somehow superior than the thing that doesn't exist that religious people want to conform to. Ah, yes, but mine is consistent. Who cares? Consistency doesn't exist. The requirement to be consistent does not exist in the world. It's not a law of physics. Otherwise, most people would be. Spinal tap. Globular stains on the drummers. Seat. God, dust vomit. It's a funny movie. So...
[29:40] You must conform to reason and evidence. And religious propositions do not conform to reason and evidence. Kirk style. And it's wrong. You've got to reject things that don't conform to reason and evidence. Why? Reason and evidence doesn't exist. The requirement to conform to them doesn't exist. But if you say reason and evidence exist and are valid, and the requirement to conform to them is absolute and universal, oh, look, you got an ought from an is. Assholes. Ooh, and, come on, is this, tell me, be honest, is this obvious? It seems obvious to me. Science doesn't exist, the scientific method doesn't exist, the requirement of reason and evidence doesn't exist. We must fund science, why? Science doesn't exist, there's no ought from an is, be it currency doesn't exist, the only thing that exists, the gun in the taxpayer's face to fund everything.
[30:42] It's the carve-out. The only oughts that exist are the oughts that I like, I'm good at, and fund me by force. Those are the oughts that really exist. We ought to fund science, you know. I mean, how dare a scientist who rejects morality say that we have to fund science? It's embarrassing. Oh, my gosh. Deepak Chopra would say, all of these abstract concepts are just stories we tell ourselves about reality. Yeah, try stealing one of, no, don't do this for real, but try stealing one of Deepak Chopra's books. Try copying, pasting it, and selling it for less money. Right? He'll launch. I assume he would launch or people like him. I don't know him particularly directly, but, you know, try that.
[31:44] Try getting a socialist professor's economics textbook and copy pasting it and selling it for half price. Try taking one of Deepak Chopra's books. You know, there's no rules. There's no reality. There's no truth. There's no virtue. But if you take my intellectual property, I will bring charges against you. I will sue you. It's just so embarrassing how can you possibly live the opposite of what you preach i mean i know most people do most people do they absolutely do they live the opposite of what they preach in yammer and talk about my body my choice oh so did you circumcise your son yeah.
[32:26] Oh my gosh just mad i don't know how people do it, I don't know how people do it. You ought to conform to reason and evidence. But there's no oughts in the universe. And because there are no oughts in the universe, you ought not say that there are. Because conformity to reason and evidence is an absolute and it's universal and you must do it because there's no oughts in the universe.
[32:57] It's a madhouse, man. It's a greedy, grasping, squid-fingered, taxpayer-pick-pocketing bunch of thieving assholes out there pretending to be scientists. All is vile. It is new sophistry. It is worse than religion, because at least religion relies on faith, not pretends to rely on reason. So, UPB, I posted the book, UPB. I should probably, well, I've done a shortened version. Maybe I should carve it out and do a shortened, concise version of UPB, the part sitting in the last half of, or the last third of Essential Philosophy, EssentialPhilosophy.com. All right, let us get to the secondary ping-pong brains of the outfit. Lieutenant or as they say Lieutenant what what Lieutenant thank you for your patience if you want I'm mute I'm all ears.
[34:01] Hey uh can you hear me, um i didn't really have a question i just wanted to let you know that there's a monetized youtube channel impersonating you.
[34:11] It has like 20 okay i know and i've told i've told youtube about it they don't seem to care oh.
[34:18] Okay i just wanted to let you know that was all.
[34:20] I appreciate that thank you all right um thomas am i giddy because bitcoin's back up no because i didn't even notice it till just now. I just got a little flash up there. 126, 750.
[34:34] Hola.
[34:34] Hello.
[34:36] Hola, Stefan. I hope you're doing well and your family as well.
[34:39] We are all well. Thank you.
[34:41] You're welcome. I come with a question about, NPCs, so to say. I just cannot imagine that there are people that I don't, believe in NPCs to say at first, but so many people do and honestly they are convincing me in a way, because I have also a friend that is Buddhist and there are these levels of awareness in Buddhism or something like that, and it's very similar to what people say NPCs are so there are people that are less aware and have trouble noticing stuff outside of themselves, their ego. So I wonder what you think about that. What can you tell me?
[35:33] Well, why don't you tell me a little bit about, I know you're not an expert on Buddhism, neither am I, but what is it that you've sort of got from your friend about these sort of levels of awareness?
[35:46] Well, we were speaking about meditation and how meditation is the path or the way how you increase your awareness. And I truly could sense that because how I see awareness is that it's not a constant level for all of us. So, for example, when we are doomscrolling on Instagram or on social media, we are at a low level of awareness. But then maybe after I meditate, I feel like my awareness goes up and I feel much clearer. I think I can focus better on what I want to do because I don't know if I have a PhD, but I certainly have some of the symptoms and meditating certainly helps with that. So that's all I know about Buddhism. I'm not a Buddhist, but that's how it got to the topic.
[36:44] Okay, and listen, I ask this with no cynicism whatsoever, but if you can tell me what your experiences of meditation, what you get out of it, and how it benefits you. And again, I say this with no cynicism, no skepticism. I just really want to understand what it does for you.
[37:07] I wouldn't know how to say that I feel like after I finish I can there are no distractions in my mind it leaves me focusing on what I really want if I want to do something I can do it without hesitating, like i usually do does it help in a sense okay.
[37:35] But what do you think it reduces in you or increases in you that has you be less distracted and more decisive.
[37:46] Stimuli, maybe. I have the, I think I'm, we are overly stimulated and I think meditating, understimulates me and that helps me to be more aware somehow.
[38:05] Okay, I appreciate that. And when you say more aware, what do you mean?
[38:14] In my case, I mean that I can focus more on stuff. I can think outside of my primary necessities, outside of my ego, as Buddhists call it. So it's not all about me, it's more about the world. And I do believe that I'm not an egocentric person. I don't know if that's the correct term, but it makes me even less egocentric when I meditate. So that's awareness for me.
[38:55] And can you think of or remember a decision or a benefit that you got out of meditation specifically?
[39:09] Not yet, because I'm not meditating a lot. I've done it maybe two or three times. And when I speak to people, because whenever I speak, I also feel like there's a lot of disorder in my mind. But when I meditate...
[39:27] Sorry, a lot of what in your mode of disorder?
[39:29] Disorder, yeah. My mind is really disorganized most of the time. So when I meditate, I think my mind is clearer and I can speak more orderly in that sense because I can truly think before speaking, in a sense.
[39:47] And when were you first interested in the benefits of meditation?
[39:54] Well, my friend, he told us that he got a lot of benefits from meditating. So he promoted it to us in a sense. And we decided to try and maybe not all of us got the benefits, so to say, if there is a benefit. but i i'm skeptical now because i i.
[40:23] I do think that what was my question.
[40:31] Um sorry i lost it.
[40:35] Yeah see it's important to know when you start rambling i know i say this with humility as a inveterate rambler myself but it's important to know when you start rambling because otherwise you just keep talking and the other person gets alienated right so my question was when my question was when did you first when were you first convinced of the potential benefits at least of of meditation after.
[41:00] Meditating for the first time after.
[41:03] But when i don't know when that was ah.
[41:09] And a time okay that maybe that.
[41:11] Was that's what it means meaning sorry.
[41:17] And spanish is a little bit different so maybe i it's okay um three months ago around three three months ago.
[41:24] Okay so three months ago you were convinced of the potential benefits you've got very great benefits and you've done it two or three times yes sir why so little.
[41:38] Hmm, because I'm not sure, totally convinced. And I, maybe I came, I come here.
[41:45] Sorry, hang on. Hang on, hang on. What do you mean by totally convinced? You're trying something new, right? So there's going to be, it's going to take you a while to get good at it and so on, right? Like if I say, oh, I've been totally convinced about the value of racket sports. And I started, right? But I'm not totally convinced. It's like, well, because I'm just starting, right? So I'm not sure what you mean by totally convinced. in the context of a challenging mental discipline like meditation.
[42:15] So maybe what I'm suggesting here is that I am still trying meditating. But you're not.
[42:22] Two or three times in three months.
[42:26] Well, the first time was three months ago, but the last two times was last week and this week. So I'm starting now to think more frequently about it. Last time was maybe three days ago.
[42:41] Okay, when is it recommended? How often should you meditate? What's the recommended?
[42:46] I don't know.
[42:47] Daily?
[42:48] I don't know. Daily, yeah.
[42:50] Yeah. Maybe not for an hour a day, but daily, right? And listen, I'm not criticizing. I'm just curious. Like if you get benefits from it and you've been convinced of the value and you've gotten consistent benefits from it, I'm just curious. guess, why not do it more?
[43:14] Well, when it comes to a question, maybe it's a placebo, but if the placebo works for me, should I still do it?
[43:23] It's not answering the question.
[43:27] But that's what comes to my mind when you ask that question.
[43:32] If you get a benefit from it, why not do it more?
[43:38] I probably don't do it more because i think that uh it's a placebo effect and maybe it doesn't really get me the benefits it's just uh like a pill.
[43:48] But a placebo effect is when you get a sugar pill instead of the actual medicine now i don't know what the placebo effect has to do with an internal mental state right so an internal mental state of you know clear your thoughts and relax into your body and try not to think and worry and be concerned and sort of connect with yourself, like the meditation stuff. I'm not sure what you mean by the placebo effect. I mean, if you're getting a benefit from an internal focus, what would be placebo about that? Because placebo is either you're getting external medicine or you're not. But there's no external medicine in meditation. I'm just curious what your caution is about it. Are you afraid of demonic possession? Some people are. And I'm not saying that's you, but what is the, if you get a benefit from it and you understand the value and it's really good for your ADHD, as you say, why would you not do it for months?
[44:54] Yeah, I should certainly try it. And I think by asking you all of these questions, I was actually trying to get to what I first asked, to the NPC question, to the consciousness level of people. Do you think that people have indeed different levels of consciousness? That's what I wanted to get.
[45:18] Yeah, I suppose that there are different layers, but it's all one cause. There's only one cause that has you be aware or not aware and that's just lying to people lie to themselves that's all that happens in terms of wisdom or the truth of virtue or value, are you lying to yourself what.
[45:38] Do you mean.
[45:39] Well so uh, If people make up ex post facto reasoning, which makes them the good guys, no matter what. Right. Like, so to take my earlier example from COVID, if people say, well, Nazis are really bad. Right. And one of the things that Nazis did that was unacceptable, that the Nuremberg trials were all about one of the, well, somewhat about one of the things that Nazis did was unacceptable was to force medical procedures on people. That was terrible. Right. And they say that. Right. So then when media and the government start coming along and saying, we should really try and force medical procedures on people, then people should say, wait, hang on, that seems kind of Nazi.
[46:27] So we shouldn't do that, right? I mean, one of the things, there's a new movie out about Nuremberg, Herman Goering played powerfully and terrifyingly by Russell Crowe. They're saying, oh, but you had these concentration camps. He says, well, we had these concentration camps because the communists are very violent. And you allied, later he says, you allied with the Soviets who have even more concentration camps. So you don't care about concentration camps as a whole, like on principle. And those are just arguments. You can agree or disagree with them, but his arguments about that. Well, we put prisoners to work for the war effort, as every country does in a war, as America did in the Japanese internment camps and so on, right? So do people lie to themselves or do they just say, well.
[47:23] Whatever I'm doing is I can just justify is right. Right. So, so forced medical experiments or forced medical procedures are really bad, but I'm a good guy for wanting to force medical procedures on people say, oh, well, they weren't forced. It's like, yeah, well, their human rights are stripped away. A lot of people were going to lose their jobs and their incomes and, and so on. And, and doctors were threatened with license loss for a wide variety of things that would be in conformity with the Nuremberg Codes. So do people lie to themselves? I mean, take another example and then I'll let you tell me what you think. Another very common example is racism is bad, but you can't be racist against white people. It's like, that's a carve out. I mean, if racism is bad, negatively judging a race for immutable characteristics, then if racism is bad but you can't be racist against white people then racism is both good and bad or neutral and bad and it can't be both right so that's an example like fight racism by attacking white people and excluding white males from employment opportunities, well then you're lying to yourself because if racism is bad then racism is bad to whatever group that you want to talk about, right?
[48:45] Or ethnic supremacy is really bad. It's like, well, I mean, there are ethnic supremacists in every creed and culture and ethnicity and race. But if you're only calling out white people, blah, blah, blah. So are people just lying to themselves? And if you lie to yourself, you're an NPC. That's the fundamental characteristic because you have no free will. Because you do whatever the hell you want and then you justify it after the fact.
[49:09] Justified after the fact, which means you're impulse-driven, you are programmed by your nature, you're programmed by your instincts, your hormones, you're programmed by propaganda, and you just do what you feel like, which could be conformity with authority and so on. And then you say, well, that's the right thing to do. So Nazis are really bad, unless I'm frightened of a pandemic and I'm told that the unvaccinated are endangering people, right? And then you just do that. And then you say, well, I was good. Nazism is bad. That's good. And then, oh, forced medical procedures are good, even though the Nazis did them. Now I'm good for that. So you just lie to yourself and you make whatever you're doing the good. And then you're an NPC of no free will because you have no ideal standards that you need to conform to. You just do whatever the fuck you want, not you, but people just do whatever the fuck they want. And then they just justify it after the fact. And if people say, well, forced medical procedures are really evil. Oh, wait, no, hang on, forced medical procedures are really good. Because the unvaccinated will spread the virus. And it's like, and then they find out that the vaccine was never tested for spread. And it doesn't actually prevent, in fact, by suppressing symptoms, you could argue it actually helps spread the virus. Well, we didn't know that at the time, and blah, blah. Like they just, and parents do this all the time.
[50:33] You know, if the parents will say either I didn't do anything wrong, or if I did do something wrong, well, I had a bad childhood and I did the best I could with the knowledge I had. I was perfect at the time, now I have better knowledge.
[50:44] So they do whatever they want, whatever gives them the best feeling in the moment, or at least.
[50:52] Removes or reduces the worst feeling in the moment. They're just navigating through hedonism. They're just hedonists. And then afterwards, or sometimes in the moment, but always afterwards, they just paint themselves as the good guys, no matter what. So that the NPC is just lie to yourself. I'm good. No matter what. If someone gives me a justification for this, then it's good. If it turns out that justification is false, well, I did the best I could and I was trying to do the right thing and I'm not an omniscient. So whatever the, and we've all, everybody, everybody in this chat. Everybody in this chat has had this experience, has known people like this. We've all done it. We've all done it. Everybody in this chat has known people like this. No matter what they do, they're in the right. So there's different layers of lying to yourself. But when you lie to yourself and you say.
[51:43] I'm not a conformist. I'm a good guy.
[51:46] I'm not just doing what the media tells me to. I'm a good guy, right? Oh, I'm against slavery. So I'm going to attack white people. Well, white people were one of the lowest levels of slave-ownering in all of human history. And white people, white Western Europeans, fought very hard to end slavery. And England was still paying off the debt of slavery into the year 2000s, 150 years after the fact, right? So I'm against slavery. and I'm only going to focus on white people, but like, bro, there are 15 million, there are 400,000 slaves were taken from Africa, bought from other blacks, by the way, of course, right? The Islamic slave trade was 20 times bigger, but they castrated all their slaves, so they ended up with a big, bad population. And 400,000 slaves were taken from Africa to, well, I guess the south of America and so on.
[52:34] And, you know, 20 million slaves were taken into the Islamic world, and there are still 15 million slaves in the world. So if you're only going to focus on, you know, three or five percent of white households or white individuals in America 150 to 400 years ago, and America had slavery for a very brief amount of time because before that it was a responsibility of the British government. And so from 1776 to the Civil War was when America was and was wracked with guilt with it and all of that. Right. So so so that's just lying. If you're against slavery, you should be out there. Like I said, this is about Black Lives Matter. They got all these donations. It's like, bro, you can, unfortunately, because of Hillary Clinton and other foreign policy psychos, you can buy a black slave in open air slave markets in Libya for $400. So take all of your money and go and liberate the slaves. Because that's why slaves were liberated in the past, is the British government just paid the slave owners the price of the slaves and freed them. So go buy the slaves and free them. Oh, I don't care about that stuff. I don't care. They want to buy their mansions, right? So people just lie to themselves. That's all. They don't sit there. Libertarians do this too, right? I mean, this is sort of my constant complaint. I won't go into it in much detail here. Not a complaint, but an observation.
[53:52] That libertarians, if you want to fight the non-aggression principle, when you want to fight violations, the non-aggressive principle look at parenting. And it's the scientists. The scientists were like, well, we have an ideal standard called reason, evidence, and science and empiricism. It doesn't exist, but you got to follow it. But morality doesn't exist, so you don't have to follow it. It's just lying to yourself.
[54:15] People say, scientists say, well, we've got to be funded by the coercive power of the state, but they won't be honest with it about themselves. They lie to themselves. Well, I'm pursuing science. It's like, no, you're not. You're taking blood money from the government to pursue a political agenda, right? I mean, it's global warming. No, it's global cooling. Wait, no, it's just climate change. Oh, well, it doesn't seem to be happening and we're getting our social credit score anyway, so we can just drop it. And people don't, right? They don't care. Oh, it's an existential crisis. Like, bro, it's been an existential crisis for 60 years. And you can see the sea level hasn't risen and storms have actually decreased and climate injuries have decreased. And they don't care, they just lie. Just lie to themselves all the time. Whatever they're doing, they just make up a reason as to why it's the right thing. And if you lie to yourself, you are lost to morality. You are lost to reason. You are lost to contact because you can't get close to anyone who lies to themselves. You cannot get close to anyone. It's like trying to play chess with someone who just keeps changing the rules. You can't play chess with someone who keeps changing the rules and you can't get close to people who don't conform to any external standards of reason and evidence because they don't exist.
[55:25] As independent free will human beings because if free will is our ability to compare proposed actions to ideal standards and judge your gap between them, I should tell the truth. Oh, I didn't tell the truth. That's bad. Blah, blah, blah. I should not promote violence. Oh, but I supported this, that, and the other government initiative. That's the same thing with the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Well, weapons of mass destruction, smoking gun, mushroom cloud, blah, blah, blah, Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rundsfeld and all these other lunatics. Well, I shouldn't say lunatics. It's kind of an insult to lunatics. But so, oh, it's an existential threat against the United States. They don't find any weapons of mass destruction. It's like, well, you know, but we had to, it's fine. You know, it's good, right? Or 20 years and what's it, $4 trillion to replace the Taliban with the Taliban. People are like, yeah, but, you know, the next foreign policy thing is going to work really well. So people just lie to themselves and and if you if you you give people a counterfact and see if they can process it just give them a counterfact and if they simply absorb and roll with and dodge and judah that counterfact uh then they're an npc because they're just lying to themselves they say i'm in possession of the truth it's like okay have you researched the opposing opinion no have you ever read anything counterfactual and had to deal with it no well then you're not in possession of the truth you're just.
[56:42] Programmed by propagandists. You're not in possession of the truth. No, I am. Okay. But then you're just lying to yourself. Just lying to yourself. And you can't reason with people who lie to themselves. They will never know truth. They will never know reality. They will never know love because they have no choice. They have no pride. They have no independent thought. They have no rational standard to compare any of their programming to. They don't have the capacity to feel shame, except maybe the deep shame of self-abdication. So yeah people who just lie to themselves and say whatever i do is the right is the good and uh if for some reason i didn't do the right and the good i certainly did the best i could with the knowledge that i had and blah blah blah and uh yeah they don't they don't, exist as functional free will reasoning human beings and i view them as npcs and the easiest way to find an npc is to just.
[57:36] Ask them what they've been wrong about, right? Ask them if they've ever been wrong about things or should have done better. And if they don't really have anything, no, no, I think I've always done the best I could with the knowledge I had, blah, blah, blah. Well, then what they can do is they can always be perfect by simply avoiding other knowledge, right? Oh, I did the best I could, but then with the COVID thing, I did the best I could. It's like, okay, did you ever read anything skeptical about the COVID vaccine? Did you ever look up the data? Did you ever follow? I mean, again, Naomi Campbell, I have, Naomi Campbell, slightly different. Naomi Wolf, sorry. Some damn Naomi.
[58:11] Naomi Wolf did fantastic. She drew thousands of researches together to go over the FISA papers and so on. I disagree with her about just about everything, but that was a very impressive work. Did you ever read any of that? Did you ever read any counterfactuals? No. Well, so if people say, well, I did the best I could, but the knowledge I had, all they have to do is avoid getting any knowledge outside what they've been told. And they've got this magic get out of jail free card, but they never have to criticize themselves, I'll say I could have done better. So yeah, NPC is just all, it's an inverted pyramid founded on the willingness to lie to yourself. And I mean, obviously I have faults, but I've really, really worked hard to not bullshit myself, to not lie to myself. It is an uncomfortable truth. You know, I, I mean, I just posted on X. Somebody was saying there's a lot of atheists criticize no religion except for Christianity. And I'm like, yeah, I just posted. I said, yeah, I was that coward. I was that cowardly. I was that cowardly. And you've got to be honest with yourself. If you're honest with yourself, you have the capacity to improve. You.
[59:13] Immoral to contact reality to get in touch with other people because you're going to only meet people in reality and if you lie to yourself and connect with reality it's a kind of internally generated psychosis so yeah sorry that's a long answer i hope that makes some kind of sense that the npcs are just people who lie to themselves that.
[59:31] Was a really good answer i can make now the connection between lying and free will i didn't make exactly that connection and that may leads me to thinking why Buddhism was so interesting to me. It's because this friend said to me that the dissolution of the ego leads you to be a better person.
[59:50] So why do you lie to yourself? He said because you want to be a good person. So if you dissolute your ego then you won't, only care about yourself and you won't be lying and lying gets you to being an NPC because free will and everything you said so that's what made me the the connection that was really good and but i i have maybe one final question so i can leave space some some to some other colors um why do you think this happened why do you think are some people more susceptible to to being npcs or to like themselves are we all susceptible to it how can we get out of it because just to finish uh In Buddhism, my friend says that everyone can get to illumination. Everyone can be enlightened and become the Buddha, in a sense. But I argued back that I'm more of a hereditary, and I'm a little bit more in genetics, and I'm not so optimistic about that fact. So what do you think about it?
[1:00:48] So the why is twofold, and I'll deal with the longer one first, and then the shorter one second, right? so I, the slightly longer one, they're not too dissimilar, is that, is it easier to raise your behavior or to lower your standards, right? So if you're overweight, is it easier to lose weight or just be fat positive? Ah, it's not that bad. It's fine. It's fine. It's healthy. Different body shapes, blah, blah, blah. I'm just big boned, right? It's the old Dennis Leary thing. No, no, dinosaur is a big bone. So is it easier to criticize yourself morally or to take the cocaine of, I did the best I could with the knowledge I had. Hey, I'm not omniscient. I can't know everything, blah, blah, blah. Right. Is it easier to say, I did wrong. I did bad. Or is it easier to just redefine whatever you did is good?
[1:01:58] It's definitely easier to not change yourself and follow how you're dealing with life at the moment, even if it's destructive.
[1:02:08] Yeah. And what you do is to destroy people, you praise them. Because if you praise them, particularly true with women, if you overpraise people, you paralyze them. Because there's no longer any gap between doing better and where they are. When you praise people, oh, you're perfect, you're beautiful, you're lovely, like how do pretty girls bully ugly girls? Well, they tell them they're beautiful just the way you are, right? And if you say to people, you're beautiful just the way you are, they don't have any desire to change. And everybody, of course, was totally positive until the Zenpeg came along and that all collapsed, right? Because then it became easy to lose weight, at least relatively easy than diet and exercise.
[1:02:52] So it's just easier. it's just easier to say what i did is great than to have an objective standard fall short and work to improve and i mean there's a balance right the perfect is the enemy of the good right i mean everybody wants to write a song like yesterday or hey jude or bohemian rhapsody or whatever right smells like teen spirit everybody wants to write that song but not a i mean not everyone is going to write a hit every single time, obviously. But at the same time, you still try to write good songs. You should still try to write good songs while knowing that you're not going to write. Every writer is not going to write Hamlet or Anna Karenina or Fathers and Sons or Crime and Punishment or whatever, right? But you do your best, right? So number one, it's just easy. It's just easier to redefine what you do as the good rather than have a standard that you have are responsible for trying to meet. And of course, because, and it's a circular, it's a self-feeding argument. It's a circular death spiral. Because.
[1:04:03] When you know in the future you will have access to the excuse called, I tried my best, you don't try your hardest. If you can later say, I tried my best, you will never try your hardest. Trying your hardest is, I'm going to try and reach this standard. If it half kills me, I'm going to try and reach it.
[1:04:23] As opposed to if you can say later on, hey man, I ran the best race I could. You never have to train. So it's a circular thing because you have excuses down the road, you never aim or achieve excellence in the present. Number one. Number two, which is shorter and more brutal in many ways, is that you're surrounded by people who lie. Like, you're surrounded by people who lie to themselves. If you lie to yourself, you will end up surrounded by people who lie to themselves. Now, breaking out of a circle of self-deceptors is very hard. And for most people, after a while, it becomes functionally impossible. If you lie to yourself, can you marry, let's say you're a man who lies to himself, can you marry a woman who tells the truth and his high standards? Nope. Because she will see you not meeting those standards and she will say, you've got to improve your behavior. She won't give you those excuses.
[1:05:17] So you either transmit yourself or transfer yourself to some other identity where you stop lying to yourself. This is what I think the Buddhists mean by ego dissolution. Or she's going to break up with you. because she can't stand, right? She can't stand it, being around somebody who's a loser. Losers lie to themselves, and they can make a lot of money doing it. They're still losers. So you end up marrying a woman who also lies to himself, and most marriages, most relationships in the world are just people enabling and festering in agreed-upon falsehoods. That's all they are. Oh, if you let me get away with this bullshit, I'll let you get away with that bullshit. If you accept my lies and reinforce them and don't call me on them, I will accept your lies and reinforce them and don't call you on them.
[1:06:03] And if you've ever been in a relationship based on a falsehood or mutually agreed upon falsehoods, and you start trying to tell the truth, the relationship detonates. And not just that relationship, they all detonate. They all completely collapse, erupt, are destroyed. Start telling the truth. Everyone around you who lies to you, who lies to themselves and lies to you, will attack you. I mean, that was the, battle I was talking about earlier on, where I say you don't have to be in abusive relationships.
[1:06:42] Well, parents who severely mistreat their children do so on the assumption that the children can never leave, in the same way that you can be treated badly by a government office, and what are you going to do? Maybe file a complaint? Who cares, right? And.
[1:07:02] If you have the excuse called, well, if my kid ever, first of all, my kid's never going to call me on it because honor their mother and their father. And that's the deal, right? That's the deal that religion gives parents. You indoctrinate your kids in the religion. And part of that indoctrination will be that they have to respect you no matter how bad you are. They have to respect you as a category, not as an individual mother, father, parents, right? So that's the deal, right? You sell replication of our religion and we'll sell eternal obedience to you no matter how crappy you are. And that's the deal that is inflicted upon the children at the cost of their honesty and integrity. And we'll also justify, spare the rod spawn of the child, you can hit the kid. So it's the relationships. Everybody's bound together in these absolute mutual falsehoods. And if you start becoming curious and you start reasoning from first principles, you will get savagely attacked by the people who lie to themselves. Because you're breaking ranks. You're going in the exact opposite direction and you're exposing their lack of ego. You're exposing their emptiness when you start to think for yourself. They don't feel empty if everyone else is empty. Oh, it's just a human condition. Nihilism, conformity. I'm vaguely depressed. I have dysthymia. I can't really seem to connect with anyone and I can't really seem to find any particular satisfaction. It's like, because you lie to yourself. Oh, it's a human condition. But if somebody is around who doesn't lie to themselves and is pretty happy thereby, me and you, I hope, Thank you.
[1:08:26] Well, then the emptiness of the average person is revealed not as some existential human condition bullshit, but the inevitable result of lying to yourself and being surrounded by people with whom you have to keep lying or they will kick you out of the asylum. And it's sort of like the way that I view most people.
[1:08:48] As I say, hey, man, I got this beautiful hotel. as a penthouse hotel, walls, not even walls. I got beautiful windows all the way around. I got on one side, I got a view of the Grand Canyon. Then I got the Eiffel Tower. Right in front of me is the Rockies. And it's beautiful. The view is incredible. And then you go up and what do they have? They have giant mirrors. You can't see out. All they can do is see back in. All they can do is see their own reflection. It's posing and looking cool. And it's like, I'm hanging on. I thought you said you had a view of the outside world. Oh yeah, everywhere I look, it's just beautiful.
[1:09:25] But they're just mirrors. They're just, you're not seeing anyone or anything, outside of yourself. It's just mirrors. That's your big, your big, beautiful view is just mirrors. I mean, if you want to, the movie Working Girl, Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver, it's my Alzheimer's test, and And Sigourney Weaver plays this narcissistic businesswoman. And in her duplex, I think it is, she's got a big giant portrait of herself, right? She doesn't want to see a view. She just wants to see herself. And that kind of narcissism comes from people lying to themselves. Because when you lie to yourself, you don't get your fuel from reality. You get your fuel from your frustration before your own falsehoods. And then everybody else is in the same ridiculous situation of I'll believe your lies if you believe my lies and we'll reinforce each other's lies. And if you ever break ranks and try to tell the truth, I will fuck you up. I will punish you because that's what they call that's the cult in culture, if that makes sense.
[1:10:39] That was a good answer. I thank you for that. I still have one little question that maybe I can call out. Well, I certainly want to say that I decided to stop lying to myself and lying in general because I had a mom that lied a lot and I didn't want to be like her. So I decided not to lie, try to follow my father's steps in that regard. They are separated. it. But I have a final question, Adam. I'm not sure if you said this, if you didn't say this, sorry, but I think maybe you said something like white males are uniquely positioned to go against the current or something like that. Is that something you would say? Because I'm a little bit curious on that statement. What do you mean exactly?
[1:11:29] Well, I mean, statistically, white males support smallest government. White males are the only consistent group that is pro-absolutist free speech and so on. And so for whatever reason, cultural, philosophical, historical, or whatever it is, like English speaking countries are the only countries that really ever dedicated themselves anywhere close to the free market. So, um, and, and white males right now are, uh, being punished and exploited like no other group in society because banned from employment in a lot of ways, soft banning and all that kind of stuff. And, um, yeah. There's sort of a reduction in the white population is being cheered on by most people in groups and so on, right? It's through the state. The state will always end up being populated by people who want your destruction. So I think the sort of historical thing and those who are least benefiting from society are the ones with the most eagerness to change it, right? I mean, if you're the youngest sibling and the shit all rolls downhill and you just get nagged and in a dysfunctional family yelled at and abused by everyone, then you have the least investment in the existing family structure and you're probably striking out for new ground because there's nothing. You haven't been roped into anything. You're just at the bottom of the pecking order. And I think that's probably true for white males as a whole at the moment.
[1:12:53] Hopefully it happens soon and things change because I saw the news in Italy about the pair that they took the woman, the girl, and they raped her and sexual assaulted her and made the boyfriend's watch. That was horrible. I saw the news maybe today or yesterday. So hopefully it changes. So thank you, Stefan, and hope to talk to you again. Hope you're well.
[1:13:17] Thank you, I am. I appreciate that. And let us move on to another caller, a brother from another mother. And this is Kale. I think we've talked before. I think I remember making a salad joke. Back in my green days.
[1:13:38] Hey, good evening.
[1:13:39] Good evening.
[1:13:41] Yes, to stay on the topic of not lying to yourself, I had a question. Do you have any advice or tips to finding the appropriate level of exuding self-confidence that falls in the middle between, influential confidence and off-putting arrogance?
[1:14:10] Hmm yes yes some people may not think i'm the best person to give this advice but i think i'm pretty good at it i think i'm confident where confidence is due and i'm humble where humility is due and so the way that you know whether confidence is positive or negative is if confidence is there to be superior, it's generally negative. If confidence is there to be uplifting, it is generally positive. So if you are, I mean, I'm good at philosophy and I work in my approach to philosophy, not to show off how good I am at philosophy, but rather to work, my sort of mental bellows on the fire of comprehensibility to get as much philosophy across to others in a way that is comprehensible, hopefully engaging and entertaining, and actionable. It's going to be actionable, right? So, if you're a personal trainer.
[1:15:22] And you, let's say you're, you're lean and you're ripped and all of this sort of stuff, right? If you're a personal trainer, then are you a personal trainer because you want to feel superior to your clients? Like in your mind, you're like, oh, you lazy, fat bastard or whatever, right? How pathetic and contempt for them and so on. Well, that would be arrogance and that would be superiority. If on the other hand, you say, listen, I mean, if, if my body type is, is something that you want. I'm glad to be inspiring. Let's put our heads together and figure out how you can best achieve this. And here's the steps I think, and what works for you, right? So, is your confidence there to inspire and energize and, you know, spread the virtues that you have manifested? Or are you just there to feel better than people? There's a character in Freddie, no, Freddie's the brother, Rupert Graves. One of Daniel Day-Lewis's early roles was in one of my favorite movies, Room of the View. Cecil, Cecil, Cecil. I say Cecil. And Cecil...
[1:16:32] Weiss, like Weiss, right? Very sort of superior and arch. And when he's at the National Gallery, he's just looking at everyone and saying, am I better than this? I think I'm superior to this person. Oh, I think I can look down at my nose at this other person. He's just there to feel superior. And it is not inspiring. And it is kind of crushing. In other words, if you have to be around someone who feels superior, and the only way that you can be around them is for you to be inferior, then that's a negative arrogance. If on the other hand, that person is interesting and inspiring and is enthusiastic about your progress and wants to celebrate your achievements as well as you move towards hopefully a sort of better state. I mean, if I'm in a combat position, like I'm with someone who is being a troll or somebody I really deeply oppose, then I'm not trying to inspire that person to be more rational. I'm trying to inspire the audience to respect the rationality and all of that. And so... The arrogance is when your superiority is there to dominate and diminish others. And confidence is there when something you're better at is something you want to inspire other people who are interested to improve in, if that makes sense.
[1:17:59] No, it certainly does. Thank you for that. I think in my personal life, after hearing what you have to say, I guess the odds are that where I'm struggling, it must be people in my life problem, maybe not necessarily myself.
[1:18:16] Go on.
[1:18:20] Well, this topic came up recently between my wife and I because we've been having some arguments lately, and we've been trying to be more open of our communication, being more truthful about how we feel. And she shared with me that a little bit of attractiveness has been lost from myself because I'm lacking some confidence. And it's not necessarily about what I've done action-wise. It's more about how I exude what I've done. Maybe I'm not giving off the correct amount of confidence or, as you said, inspirational vibe. And she's noticed that, and rightfully so. So I'm trying to figure out exactly, well, what strategies can I do to be proud or confident in my abilities and what I've done is particularly around, my peers and her peers so I can kind of regain some respect back from her what.
[1:19:36] Is she criticizing in specifics.
[1:19:41] Well, there's recently two examples. One, I like to go play pickup basketball with some friends of mine. And she knows I'm pretty skilled at that sport. And there'll be times where if I'm playing with my friends, I play very well. I'm the best player. But if we play with new players who are obviously talented, maybe more talented than I do, I kind of fold. I lose confidence in my abilities. My shot gets short-armed, and I just don't play as well and freely as I do among my peers. And so she's noticed that. And then another example would be I had some friends over, and I was cooking, and I was making some fajitas.
[1:20:38] And one of my friends goes, wow this is actually pretty good man and my wife was like, after the event was over was like what you should have just said hey man like of course I know how to cook you know I'm confident in my cooking ability and you know and you just kind of just laughed it off like yeah you know, so she would just want me to just be more confident in my abilities and these aspects I mean there's probably more to it but these are the most recent and fresh examples that I can provide for you.
[1:21:13] Okay. And is your wife good at what she's criticizing you at? Is she good at, um, staying competent and confident and doing her best despite under toes or oppositions or scorn or skepticism from others?
[1:21:36] Yeah, I'm trying to think in areas that are not related to what I provided example-wise. Well, I know that she's also very good at cooking and whatnot. So when we have guests over in the past, she's put on some tasty food that warrants some praise in terms of athletic performance and basketball.
[1:21:55] No, no, I'm not talking about the things that, because they're probably not the same overlap. In other areas in her life, when there are people around who are skeptical of her abilities, does she maintain the kind of poise and confidence that she wants you to maintain?
[1:22:13] Yes, I believe so. I'm trying to think of the best example to provide. And most recently I would have met would be she completed grad school to where, you know, she was in one of those group projects with people who are trying to jostle for that vacuous position of being leader. And, you know, she has a soft voice, kind of has a baby face. So a lot of people don't take her serious from upon a first glance. But she always rises above occasion. She demonstrates her value. She ends up being the best group leader. And, of course, I've seen her get plenty of praise and respect from her peers when it's all said and done because typically she'll be very successful and whether it's a group project or anything along those lines, even with work.
[1:22:54] Okay, so she is, because you don't want to measure her strengths against your weakness, right? So is that something that she, I mean, sure there are areas where you let your light shine, so to speak. So is it consistent that she's able to maintain her confidence and her abilities in the face of skepticism or opposition that she's, I'm not saying she's not, but is she consistently good at that? Or is, you know, that's one example and you've got two where you're bad, but there are examples where she's bad and you're good at that.
[1:23:25] Yeah she has shown consistency and rising to that occasion.
[1:23:29] Okay and how long have you guys been together overall we've.
[1:23:34] Been married since 2017 and we've met each other in 2010.
[1:23:37] Oh wow okay and kids yes three three kids okay and she maintains her um uh her status her authority and so on with the kids, so she doesn't fold in the face of kids' skepticism or hostility.
[1:23:57] Oh, yeah. I mean, we have our lapses here and there, but overall, I would say that she does a great job of, you know, showing off that authority to our children.
[1:24:06] Okay. So, have you been in the situation where your wife has had to teach you a skill that she has?
[1:24:16] Oh, that's interesting. Um not off the top of my head i i would imagine the cooking aspect she's always been the one who initially cooked all our meals in the beginning and now i have taken over that duty so i think she's given me some some tips there here and there yeah okay.
[1:24:35] And have you been in a situation where you have taught your wife something that is a skill that you have that she is learning.
[1:24:44] Yeah i've introduced her to this show um and tried to bring her into a more philosophical mind in terms of um you know philosophy reason politics um when we first started going out i mean she was a staunch liberal and as our relationship progressed i think she's even more writer the writer than center than i am.
[1:25:04] Okay so she's taken the coaching in philosophy and politics you've taken the coaching in cooking and so on.
[1:25:14] Cooking and so on yes sir okay.
[1:25:17] What happened to her friendships with her liberal friends when she became less liberal.
[1:25:24] My wife really doesn't have many friends. I think that's a pain point that she's obviously sensitive about. So there hasn't been really any conflict between her and her would-be liberal friends.
[1:25:37] So did she have more friends and then lost them through this process?
[1:25:42] No, no, not at all. As far as I've known, her friend circle has been very minimal.
[1:25:47] Sorry. So she didn't lose any friends despite going from liberal to conservative or something like that.
[1:25:55] Correct.
[1:25:57] And is that because her friends are not very liberal? Because liberals are famously intolerant of conservatives, right? So I'm not saying you're wrong about this. I'm just trying to sort of understand it. Is it because they don't talk politics or her friends aren't very liberal or she hides her beliefs or what is it?
[1:26:14] I think it might be a combination of the two from the friends that she did have in the past. They were pretty apolitical, and it just never really came up in conversation. But now on this subject itself, I'm trying to think over here clearly, and she really does not have any female peer friends that are really close to her, I would say.
[1:26:38] Does she have male peer friends who are close to her?
[1:26:41] No.
[1:26:42] So she has zero close friends. It's not a criticism, I just want to understand.
[1:26:46] Yeah, I think that's a fair thing to say, yes.
[1:26:49] Do you criticize her for having zero close friends? I'm not saying you should, I'm just wondering if you do.
[1:26:55] I have. I have when we've gotten into some heated back and forth. I've used that as an attack and I'm ashamed of it, but yes, I have.
[1:27:05] So, when you criticized her for having no close friends, do you think that improved or increased her ability to get friends?
[1:27:16] That's a great question. I think in some areas people could be motivated by that criticism and some people could, you know, fold it.
[1:27:24] No, because you wouldn't be ashamed of criticism. You said you used it in a fight, in a sense, to attack her, right? So, that's more of an attack than a criticism, right?
[1:27:32] Most certainly, yes.
[1:27:33] Okay, so when you attacked her, so to speak, in other words, you made her feel negative or bad for her inability to have or maintain friendships, did that improve or lower her ability to have and maintain friendships?
[1:27:46] Well, to go off the empiricism, it obviously did not improve it.
[1:27:51] Okay, so is she aware that your criticism has not helped her get friends?
[1:28:01] Perhaps so but probably not consciously because she's not said that to me directly but i believe that might be the case okay.
[1:28:06] When did you first criticize and appreciate your honesty about this of course when did you first criticize her inability to have friends.
[1:28:13] Oh man this might be as early as one of our earliest arguments um you know you probably so so 15 years Certainly, yes.
[1:28:24] Okay. So 15 years off and on, you have criticized or sometimes attacked her for her inability to have friends.
[1:28:34] Yes.
[1:28:35] Okay. Why does she say she doesn't have friends?
[1:28:40] She doesn't really give me a reason per se. She's just, a lot of times, I would say her closest friends are my friends' girlfriends or wives. You know how it is. They kind of force relationships based on my relationships. And a lot of times, she'll be quick to just characterize them as low-rent people. Hey, you know.
[1:29:07] Sorry, she characterizes your friends, wives, and girlfriends as low-rent people.
[1:29:13] Yes.
[1:29:14] Okay.
[1:29:15] And that might be an excuse for her as to why the relationships haven't evolved into stronger bonds, or she'll be like, well, it's hard for me to meet people when I guess...
[1:29:23] Of course, if you call people low-rent people, if you say basically they're trailer park trash, you can't be friends with them.
[1:29:29] Yeah, I don't know. When she says this, I will give her that in some regard. Yes, of course. That, hey, I can't be friends with your friends as wives and girlfriends when they're just so, you know, not great people. So I was like, okay, fair enough. That's why you don't want to be friends with them. I get that.
[1:29:49] Okay. Is she right?
[1:29:52] She is.
[1:29:54] Oh, so they are low-rent people.
[1:29:56] I'm thinking of one friend in particular. Now, she does have a close friend that she's known since middle school, but I wouldn't characterize them as being particularly very close. like they will hang out maybe like three times a year.
[1:30:10] Okay so she has a close friend but she's not close to her okay got it yeah got it got it all right so when she criticizes you about the basketball when you fold because there are better players around or when somebody says hey these fajitas are pretty good right when she views you uh when she criticizes you about that Do you feel inspired and eager to tackle the deficiency or what's your emotional experience of being criticized in this way?
[1:30:43] Well, I take it into consideration because, of course, I want to validate her perspective. And most of the times, I feel kind of bummed about it. I'm just like, yeah, you're right. Maybe I could have been.
[1:30:54] Sorry, why do you want to validate her perspective?
[1:30:57] Well, she's my wife.
[1:30:59] So? That doesn't make her omniscient.
[1:31:02] Certainly, but I don't want to just say, hey, you're immediately wrong. I want to hear what she has to say.
[1:31:07] No, no, no. Hang on. Hang on. How long has she been bringing this up for?
[1:31:14] My overall sense of lack of confidence that she's displeased with. This has been a relatively new thing, but I suppose maybe she's harbored this idea for maybe some time.
[1:31:26] Okay, I just need a rough time frame.
[1:31:29] Well, I can only go off of what she's told me, so I'm going to say within the past two months.
[1:31:34] Okay, so you're not immediately dismissing her if you've let her talk about it for two months.
[1:31:40] Right.
[1:31:46] You said you feel bummed about it. Tell me more about that feeling.
[1:31:52] Oh, yeah. I mean, it's like anybody who points out a deficiency or a flaw in your behavior.
[1:31:58] No, no, no, no. Okay, well, let me ask you this. Do you feel dejected when I point out maybe ways, you know, like, so in the thing where I just said, well, it's not, you're not immediately dismissing her if it's been a conversation of two months, right? Right do you feel depressed or bummed out about me pointing that out no okay so it's not when somebody points out a deficiency does not automatically mean that you're bummed out if you've ever had a really great coach you're like and they say hey you try this you know this is going to really nail this this particular issue you're going to you know wake up inspired and you're going to right then you're eager to go and put it into practice right right so being having a deficiency pointed out is in no way, in no way automatically a negative. In fact, it can be a very enthusiastic positive.
[1:32:56] I see. Yeah, absolutely.
[1:32:58] Like if you're writing some code to do something on a computer system and somebody says, oh, that's already built into the operating system. Just call this. Are you bummed out?
[1:33:09] No.
[1:33:09] No, you're like, fantastic. I'll just do that. And off I go. Right. And then I can work on something more productive. Right. Thank you. You've just saved me time. Right.
[1:33:18] Right.
[1:33:19] If you miss a turn and your GPS says recalculating, do you tell it to F off and throw it out the window?
[1:33:26] No i'm i'm looking at it even harder.
[1:33:28] I'm like thank you thank you for you know i missed my tone off or whatever right so the fact that you feel bummed when your wife points this out is important and it's not automatic in being corrected or you could be inspired right but you feel dejected so when you're going through the basketball thing and the cooking thing, you feel weaker or dejected and then when your wife points it out you feel even more weak and dejected so she's making the problem worse and i'm not saying she's doing it consciously or rubbing her hands together in some triple mcbeth witch situation i'm just saying that what she's doing is making the problem worse you know like if you scream at someone relax right do they do they get relaxed no you're making the problem worse right so i've been there oh yeah i mean we've all been there one time or another right so so that's sorry you're doing some are you writing or something it's some in my oh.
[1:34:35] Sorry i'm really close to a train track i'm trying to walk away from it.
[1:34:38] Okay no no i just wasn't sure what that was okay so when you have identified a problem in someone and you say, oh, this person lacks confidence in this or that area, how do you fix it? How do you help that person gain confidence?
[1:35:01] Well, I suppose you could praise them in a certain way where you try to boost their confidence about what they're doing right and try to emphasize that point before kind of moving on towards a more critical aspect.
[1:35:21] That's a little manipulative.
[1:35:25] Yeah, I see that. I'm just trying to think. Like, you know, the best way would be to say, hey, you know, instead of soften the blow is to begin with a positive and then kind of follow it up with areas of improvement.
[1:35:36] Okay. So let's say you have a friend and every time you're at a fireworks display, he wets himself. How would you deal with that?
[1:35:53] I mean, I guess I'd have to immediately tell him that, hey, you can't be around this environment if it's going to cause this behavior.
[1:36:01] Okay, and how would you help him in the longer term?
[1:36:05] I'd have to ask him, like you would, is, hey, what's going on? Like, maybe be curious and say, hey, why is this happening at a fireworks stand?
[1:36:12] Right.
[1:36:13] And just...
[1:36:14] As opposed to just, hey, pee-pee pants, right?
[1:36:18] Right.
[1:36:18] So you'd have to be curious. So you'd try and find out the source of this and you'd find out that, I don't know, he was an extra in the shooting of Saving Private Ryan or whatever it is. Like he's been to war or something like that. So, okay. So if your wife notices something that appears to be a weakness, what is the most helpful and productive thing she can do?
[1:36:43] Yes. Be curious as to why I behave that way.
[1:36:47] Yeah. Hey, what was your experience? does this remind you of anything in the past? You know, what is your fantasy about? Let's say, let's say that you, you, you rise up and you really beat these basketball guys, right? What is your, what do you think might happen? Like what's, what's, what's causing you to, what, what theory or idea is causing you to hold back on your aggression or your assertiveness or your competence or whatever it is, right? Or what do you think might happen with your friend if he's like, hey, this is pretty good, right? I mean, first of all, there's nothing wrong with saying, hey, thanks, right? Because the guy doesn't know you cook fajitas. So there's nothing wrong with expressing surprise, right? I mean, if my wife made sushi and it was fantastic, my wife doesn't make sushi, but if she'd been studying it secretly or something, I'd be like, oh my God, this is fantastic, right? I'm not putting her down, right? I just didn't know.
[1:37:48] Right. And that's kind of maybe where my confusion lied is that what you're saying is like, yeah, you know, like I surprised them with my ability to cook well for them.
[1:37:57] Yeah.
[1:37:57] I can see why you might take their response as a slight like, hey, man, look at you. You could cook. Well, you're not useless after all that kind of thing. I didn't take it as that. I see that she did. And I told her, well, yeah, I guess she's citing that maybe in my overall body language, my tone, my voice is, you know, I could just be like, yeah, of course it's good. You know, I'm a capable person. Like, you know, in her sense, like, how dare you question that I was going to feed you guys crap? Like, I'm a capable person. What are you talking about?
[1:38:28] Right. So the curiosity is to try and understand that. Now, does she play competitive sports at all?
[1:38:35] No not at all okay.
[1:38:38] So she neither plays competitive sports nor does she understand i assume that this is a male basketball game right.
[1:38:45] Right and perhaps that you know this has been a problem of mine even prior to meeting her so when i've expressed this in terms of sports playing i guess she's just kind of like hey man like i can get maybe folding back in the day when you were a child, but you know, you got self-knowledge now, philosophy, why are you still having these confidence issues may be the reason why she's expressed.
[1:39:09] Well, but if she's really big on self-knowledge and not repeating things in the past, then she wouldn't be sabotaging you by being critical without being curious.
[1:39:19] Hey, you know, that's a fair point. I'd like to use that line with her for sure.
[1:39:23] Now, just for those of you who don't understand what it's like for men in highly competitive sports?
[1:39:32] It can be dangerous. To play your all against people who are very competent, which is to say very aggressive, right? Because basketball has a fair amount of aggression in it, right?
[1:39:45] Oh, yeah, for sure.
[1:39:46] I mean, it's full contact. And I mean, you know, like it's, it's, uh, you know, there's lots of fouls and, uh, and all of that, right? So if you're playing guys who are really good in basketball, really good guys in basketball tend to be very aggressive, right?
[1:40:03] Yes and they can also be very verbally abusive too.
[1:40:07] Yep there's trash talking there's aggression and it's it can be dangerous right oh.
[1:40:14] Yeah you know you're absolutely right it can be right.
[1:40:16] So i personally if i'm in some full contact sport with people i mean i've played i've played i mean let's take something totally gay pick a ball right uh i'm comfortable with it because i have a British accent, right? So, I've been in pickleball tournaments and leagues. I actually won one once, but I've been in pickleball tournaments and leagues where I'm playing against someone who's really, really invested in winning. Like the kind of guy, he misses his serve, he's like, damn it! You know, those kinds of guys, right?
[1:40:50] Yep, I've been there.
[1:40:51] Yeah, and I'm sure that's all over the place in basketball, right? Now, those guys, I mean, it's kind of uncomfortable, right? I mean, I will occasionally get frustrated at how I play, but, you know, whatever. It's not like a big deal. But the guys who are like, damn it! You know, you just know it's their dad or granddad yelling at them for screwing up or something like that, right?
[1:41:14] So yeah i i've even been i've even trash talked in a way saying like i'm i'm really sorry that this is game seven of the nba finals to you what a tough life you must have and that's my form of trash talking and yeah maybe it's not wise to say but yeah it definitely gets under their skin as a form of truth yeah.
[1:41:31] James says guys who channel their inner mackinroe right yeah yeah yeah so So guys like that, I don't like playing with them because I'm a sensitive guy. And it's a form of cheating to be over-invested in the game because it's saying to the other person, you have to take my psychological state of mind into account. It would be like if somebody, every time they lost a point to you, they whacked themselves in the head with their racket. I mean, it's a form of cheating because it's screwing. It's a form of psychological warfare against your opponent, right?
[1:42:19] Yeah, yeah.
[1:42:20] So the guys in basketball, and it's obviously basketball way more dangerous than, I mean, But even if you're playing doubles tennis or doubles pickleball, if the guy you're playing with gets really aggressive, it can be dangerous because he'll dive in to try and take your shots. He'll swing wildly. This used to happen in squash. Like there were guys I would not play in squash because they get way too upset. They get way too tense. I actually wrote about this a little bit in my novel, Dissolution. But they're way too tense. they're way too aggressive, which means that they swing wildly. They're in your, you know, when you're fighting over the T in squash, like the middle of the court, like they're elbowy, they're aggressive, they get way too into it. And the cost benefit is not worth it. Because I don't want to get injured. I don't want to get a racket to the face. Right? I don't want to get elbowed in the nuts because some guy's diving for some stupid shot. right so the cost that they're they're stacking up the cost benefit to the point where you have to take into account something other than just the game does that make sense.
[1:43:31] No it makes great sense as as you're speaking i'm i'm going back in time to when the last time i played with these aggressive type people and yeah i i do feel very timid and like you said there's there's something psychologically blocking that's just beyond the game itself right.
[1:43:48] And so you have to do as all rational people have to do, a cost-benefit analysis, which is, is it worth an injury to play hard against guys who might be psychos?
[1:44:03] Right.
[1:44:04] They're so ego invested in winning that they'll do stupid shit and hurt people. I'm not saying conscious they would gouge your eyes out or something like that, but they're just they're not making rational decisions about the cost benefits of playing because it is supposed to be kind of fun if nobody's making bank or anything like that. Right.
[1:44:23] Well, yeah. Yeah, to piggyback on that, when I was playing with my close friends, which I do play very well against, I don't have any type of injury or bruise. But then when I was playing against these aggressive type of players who were stronger than me at the sport where I kind of folded, I showed my wife a nasty bruise I got below my rib because somebody barged into me and it was pretty nasty. So I got an injury playing with those aggressors versus having a fun time and coming away scot-free with my close peers.
[1:44:53] And you can get some seriously bad injuries. Elbow to the nose can break your nose. God forbid you get something sideways on your ankle or your knee. That can be lifelong.
[1:45:06] Right.
[1:45:07] So there's a certain amount of caution that you have to have, especially in a game like basketball, when you're playing against people way too ego invested in winning, because they're not going to make sensible decisions. They're going to be wild cards. And what you do is you either escalate to their level of aggression, which is very dangerous, or you're just like, hey, okay. Hey, man, you want that shot? Take the shot. Okay. Like when I would play squash, because squash is much more physical because you're both on the same side of the net, the wall, right? And you're battling for the tee and you're trying to dink the corner ball to get the guy to go off his game and all of that, right? So, and you're constantly hitting the ball with the other person in front of you. That's just why you have to wear the eye guards, right? And the ball's bouncing all over the place. And you also, you're in a pretty enclosed area and you're swinging these big giant metal rackets, which can, I mean, they can give you a concussion if they hit you the wrong way, right? So with guys in squash in particular, it's really dangerous if they're not making good, sensible, sportsmanlike decisions. And I just won't play with them. I won't play with people like that because it's not worth it to me. I don't want to win that much because I'm there to exercise and have fun. And I do like to win, but not to the point of injury because I like playing squash. And if I get injured, I can't play squash.
[1:46:33] So it's sort of like, if you escalate to their level of aggression, your chance of injury goes up significantly.
[1:46:42] Or, God forbid, if you are really, I mean, I wrote about this and I'll just mention the story briefly. People have heard it before. So my friend, when I was younger, we were biking back to my place and there was a big rock on the sidewalk and I had to swerve and he almost ran into me and he got really angry.
[1:47:04] Because he said, you cut me off, man. And I said, no, no, no, you were tailgating. You were too close. And he was a very aggressive guy. I can remember seeing him throw his mom against a wall. I think he was a very aggressive guy, but very funny. So, you know, whatever. I was doing my mixed bag of early mid-teen friendships. And at that point, I was just like, I've had enough of kowtowing to his aggression. Like I've had enough. I'm not doing it anymore. And I was just, I would not like, no, you were tailgating, man. No, you weren't. He got really angry and he went nuts throwing his bike around. Like he just went nuts. So that was dangerous because he could have gone nuts on me. And this is when I biked home and he was biking after me, screaming at the top of his lungs. And I'm like, it's like a horror movie. I'm like trying to get into the apartment building and close the door. And he's, um, I remember being up on my balcony. I could still hear him screaming. I lived on the fifth floor. I could still hear him screaming down Like he went nuts. And that was, of course, that was the end of the friendship, right? So if you decide to stand up to people and match them aggression for aggression, they can go nuts. You don't know what kind of demons are in there with people when it comes to a pickup game.
[1:48:20] You don't know if they're so ego invested in winning that they're going to get lunatic aggressive. They also may be sadists and they might do something to you that they say, hey, hey man, oh, so sorry, right? And it's unprovable, right? That they might be lunatics. And so when it comes to aggression, I remember playing beach volleyball with a guy and uh there were some early mid-teens around and this guy was smashing the ball, like he was spiking it i remember it hit my hand and and hit my finger and it wrecked my finger for like two months like this just a game with some half kids around, like what are you doing that level of aggression is lunatic.
[1:49:14] And so she doesn't play competitive sports. She doesn't play contact sports and she's not a, she's not a dude. So she's not going to understand this. You say, well, so you say, well, if you ask, I noticed that you are pulling back with these guys and they were kind of, you're kind of dominating. Right. And you know, what are your thoughts about that? What's your experience with that? You know, and maybe you grew up with someone who was so invested in winning that it was just dangerous to play at your full strength or your full competence. And there's a lot to unpack in pulling back in a pickup game from really aggressive people. There's a lot to unpack in that because there's male pride, there's testosterone, there's ego, there's victory, there's loss, there's, you know, I won, but at what cost? You know, like I won the game, but now I have to have rehab on my knee for six months or something like that. Or maybe it's such a bad injury that 10 years from now I need a knee replacement. You look back and you say, well, that was stupid, wasn't it? I should have played less hard because I got really injured. And for what? No money in it?
[1:50:23] So when you, like all of us, when, yeah, somebody says like getting punched when grappling. Yeah. Like in grappling and in wrestling, we've all, because I did wrestling when I was in junior high school and high school. And there's always that lunatic who just will do dangerous things and not let go when they're supposed to. And maybe give you that little bit of extra twist that's just going to screw up your cartilage or your tendons, right? So, There are some sports you can do that. You know, tennis is not a contact sport and they're not going to throw their racket at you or anything like that. But no, I shouldn't say that because even in tennis, even in tennis, it can happen that the person smashes the ball right at your face.
[1:51:14] If you push them too far and if they are a sociopath or a psychopath, you know, I mean, at the higher levels of sport, those people, those personalities are not unknown. So I don't mean to overly stretch out the topic, but there's a lot to unpack when it comes to a, quote, friendly game with unfriendly people, right? Part of you wants to assert your territory, part of you wants to fight back, part of you wants to, I mean, I've certainly had this experience with somebody who's like, damn it, and they're cursing themselves. I'm like, I want them to deal with this. I want to just, you're going to lose and you're going to learn how to deal with losing because you should not be in your 40s or your 50s and still be a bad loser. I mean, I was a bad loser when I was eight or nine. I remember throwing my racket, hitting my racket when frustration, um mostly with my brother because my brother was not uh not the best person to play with but anyway so all men and some women of course but all men have faced this problem of somebody who's way too aggressive way too um uh maybe abusive way too dominant in a pickup game they're taking it way too seriously what do you do what do
[1:52:20] you do it's not an easy answer because you don't want to just completely fold and walk off. But at the same time, if you match their level of escalating aggression, it can go really badly.
[1:52:32] And it's a complicated question. So I don't have an answer for you. I think that you probably followed your instincts and withdrew your aggression because the cost benefit was no longer worth it. Because what do you win? Nothing. But what could you lose? A lot, if that makes sense.
[1:52:52] No, it certainly does. And I really appreciate you going in this depth. I didn't think it was going to be that enriching, but it really put a lot of perspective. I guess I need to give myself a little bit more credit and going back to the topic of not lying to yourself and confidence. Then it sounds like I did the right thing unknowingly about holding back in terms of just respectful self-preservation.
[1:53:17] You've seen Star Wars, right?
[1:53:20] Yes, of course.
[1:53:21] Okay, so in the very first one from 1977, do you remember the scene on the Millennium Falcon where R2-D2 is playing that holographic chess with Chewbacca?
[1:53:35] Oh, yeah, that's a great example. Yeah, I see where you're going. Of course.
[1:53:38] So give me the dialogue. What happens?
[1:53:41] Well, he says Han Solo walks in and says, hey, you know, rookies will rip your arms off as opposed to droids. So C-3PO says, fair point. You might as well let the rookie win because.
[1:53:54] You know. The wookie, not the rookie.
[1:53:55] Sorry, the wookie. I beg your pardon.
[1:53:58] Yeah, he says, let him have it. Well, that's not right. He shouldn't, right? Why should? Why should he let him have it? Because he'll rip your arms off if he loses.
[1:54:10] Right.
[1:54:12] So that moment is, you know, an encapsulation of the complexity, and it works because the Wookiee is violent. The robot lets him win the chess. I suggest a new strategy. I suggest whatever it is, right? Let the Wookiee win, right?
[1:54:31] And we've all been there. We've all been there with older kids, with bigger kids, with meaner kids, right? I mean, this is what bullying relies on is, you know, the bully pushes you around or, you know, I remember when the 17-year-old kid, I still remember his name, the 17-year-old kid was bullying me when I was 12 or maybe 13. I think I was 12 and a half or something like that. And he's like almost twice my size. What, am I going to fight? No. No because i can't i'm not going to kill him right and if i'm not going to injure him significantly because then he's just going to have to face save so i i'm i'm crippled what am i going to do.
[1:55:16] I can't pull a knife right because then i'll go to jail or i don't know whatever i was thinking right so i'm like okay i just i just have to avoid the guy i have to um you know scurry from room to room, like some rat being hunted by a hawk. Okay, fine, whatever. But what's the cost benefit here? I can't go to a teacher. And the guys who bullied my friend and I when we were in the woods, they said, if you tell, yeah, we might go to jail, we'll just come out and kill you. And it's like, okay, well, that's a console. What am I going to win? Society is not going to protect me because society never had protected me as a kid. So we all make these cost-benefit decisions, right? I'll talk about some things. There are some topics I'm not going to touch.
[1:56:07] Which I've actually been pretty open about. So when it comes to status, if the status is win-lose, then if you win and they lose, what do they do in return, right? It's the old thing, like if you win at war and you completely crush and humiliate the enemy, you go from World War I to World War II. And with your friends, if they're saying, this is really good with a note of surprise, and you say, oh, you think I can't do anything? You think I'm just incompetent? It's like, does that raise or lower your status with your friends? Because they're going to be, what are they going to say to that?
[1:56:50] Right yeah dude all right take it easy dude like.
[1:56:53] Yeah listen i gave you a compliment i don't know what you're getting all bent out of shape for right and then you have to be like oh i'm sorry you know that was well but like you you don't like women should not talk to men about status i'm telling you man and men should not talk to women about status we should be curious because female status is very complicated male status is very complicated and the cost benefit is interesting. So when she says, when she sees you playing less well in a basketball game, it's a fascinating question. What's going through your mind? And it's complicated. I don't, I have no, I have no automatic belief that you made the wrong decision, because she's not going to get injured. She's not going to get her nose broken. She's not going to get her knee mashed. She's not going to get some basketball to the face that knocks you unconscious or whatever, right? So I certainly don't judge the people in the arena if I'm not in the arena, right? I mean, did you see me telling a lot of politicians what they should and shouldn't do? It's like, I'm not, you know, getting calls from sinister alphabet agencies around the world. So, the curiosity is interesting. I mean, I get that there's women who are like, well, I want my man to be dominant in all situations, it's like, that's a great way to get no man at all because he's dead, like evolutionarily speaking, right? Or he's disabled or he's injured, right?
[1:58:22] And James says, well, and what happens on the other side of getting injured if you went too hard? Without curiosity, would she just criticize you for going too hard? Yeah. So let's say you go too hard and you get an elbow to the face and then you limp off. Well, that's much lower status than just playing a little less hard and letting the other person win. The Wookiee is going to rip your arms off, right? So navigating status is really interesting and complicated.
[1:58:49] It's like going into a fistfight, right? If you go into a fistfight with someone who you don't really know, you know, maybe you'll get that fantasy and you'll beat them up and you'll win and they'll walk home and be sad and there'll never be any blowback and your status will go through the roof. But that's like winning the lottery, right? You don't know how experienced the other person is. You don't know if they have, you know, normal people in a situation of violence have a fuse, like a cutoff, right? I'm not going to go, I'm not going to gouge eyes. I'm not going to kick in the groin. I'm not going to whatever, right? I'm not going to repeatedly punch the kidneys until the person has permanent damage. I'm not going to try and crunch the knee sideways or bend the arm backwards until it snaps. I'm not going to do twist breaks. You know, most people have a, you know, we'll trade some blows and call it a day, but you don't know. You don't know if he's a psycho and you don't know if his friends are going to jump you if he starts to lose. And you don't know if he loses. He's going to be so humiliated that he's going to plan to hit you in the back of the head with a baseball bat the next time he sees you and sneak away. You don't know if he's going to loosen the brakes on your bike and not tell you. Obviously, he wouldn't tell you. You don't know. You don't know if he's going to pour a bunch of water into your locker at school and destroy all of your notes and homework. I mean, you don't know. You don't know what you're dealing with. So what's the cost? I'm not saying all was fault. I'm not saying all was fault, but it's complicated.
[2:00:18] It sure is.
[2:00:20] So, you know, she could learn a lot by not judging what men go through, right? She could learn a lot. And wouldn't that bring you closer? And wouldn't she have some sympathy and some understanding of what it's like to be a man? And you guys would be closer. But this judgment stuff and, you know, it seemed kind of weak or you just folded or stuff like that. Yeah, you know, doesn't mean anything. It's just a bunch of silly judgment without understanding, right?
[2:00:50] Yeah no you made that case so yeah i guess going back to confidence yeah then i guess i need to have a little bit more confidence in the bit in the choices that i made and not see so i guess, hypercritical in second guessing them because it kind of sounds like i did what was probably the what was best in that situation in both those situations well.
[2:01:09] You don't know for sure that's what makes it complicated because we.
[2:01:12] Don't have.
[2:01:12] A b testing well here's where i escalate the aggression to the same level. And here's where I don't, right? You don't know, but you just have to make the best decision based on the instincts, right? And I bet you've got pretty good instincts. The problem you have though, is you are over-reasonable with your wife. Now, I don't want to just dismiss her perspective. And that's why I said, well, why not? She's trying to tell you about a male status violence power game. What does she know about it, right?
[2:01:44] Uh, yes.
[2:01:45] You know, like if I'm programming something, not that I programmed in a while, right? If I'm programming something and my wife comes up and tries to give me suggestions and she's not a programmer, do I say, well, I don't want to dismiss her perspective. It's like, I kind of do because she doesn't know what she's talking about. She wouldn't do that. But like, imagine that, that situation, right?
[2:02:04] I can imagine it. Yes, I can.
[2:02:05] So, so absolutely dismiss people who don't know what they're talking about. That's really important. Right. And and you know and if if she says listen i know how to i know how to navigate complicated, violent male status games be like really did you dress up and try that feminist experiment of living like a man for six months and get involved in these kinds of things like tell me tell me tell me your experience right this is the thing that drives people nuts on x right somebody tells me how to do social media and they've got 80 followers in five years i don't care what they have to say? While you don't want to dismiss people, you kind of do.
[2:02:45] And if your girlfriend says, oh, sorry, your wife, the mother of your children, sorry. If your wife says you kind of folded, be like, go on. Yeah, tell me more. Well, I don't think you should have. It's like, based on what knowledge and expertise, like, tell me how you know what I should have done, right? And if she doesn't, hopefully she'll have the humility, and I'm sure she would. She'd have the humility to say, you know what, I guess I just felt uncomfortable seeing you sort of back down, but tell me your experience. It's like, hey, I don't like backing down either. No man likes backing down. We all want to rise to escalate the level of aggression. But I do on the social media. I will escalate back. If people come at me very aggressively, I'll come back at them. But if they start saying, you know, I don't know, I'm going to dox you and X, Y, and Z, it'd be like, okay, all right, I'm tapping out. Peace out, right? You win. You win your lonely psycho life, right? So...
[2:03:47] Escalation. No man wants to back down, but we also have to be there and provide for our families. You know what I mean? So it's complicated. It's complicated. And sometimes you can help people by not backing down. And sometimes it's really dangerous physically for no particular purpose. I mean, physical danger is one thing. You know, if, if, I don't know, like if you've ever been walking with your kids and some dog starts approaching them, you get between your kids and the dog and you grab a stick, you grab a rock and you get ready because that's worth it. I don't want my kid to get mauled, right? But this is just to pick up game of basketball. What do you want to get injured for? Like, what's the point of that? You don't win anything. So the cost benefit is something that men have to calculate and she should have respect for your cost benefit. Now, she can also have questions about your cost benefit, right? If it's a five-year-old girl and you're like, she's too scary for me, right? Then maybe that's too far, right? I mean, so maybe there's more in the Aristotelian mean, But we, as men, we have to navigate a world of violence that women don't have to navigate. Because women rarely beat each other up. Boys rarely beat up girls. But boys are physically aggressive with other boys all the time when we're growing up. The constant threat of violence from other boys is healthy, natural, important, and incomprehensible to women.
[2:05:12] This is why women mouth off so much in situations of conflict. Not all women, right?
[2:05:18] Because some of the things that women say in conflict, if you said that kind of stuff to a male friend when you were 13, you just get punched. You just get popped in the face, right? So there's a certain amount of just self-restraint, and I'm not going to say that, and I'm not going to escalate, because beyond that is just the paradise of pain, right? And for what benefit, right? and so a lot of times um you can think of the the the female character in do the right thing uh the spike lee movie uh where she's just, like you can't do that as a man because you just get punched you know like the trash talking stuff it's it's fun it can be funny and it can be engaging and enjoyable but at the same time you can't say and this means your your mother's a whore because you're just going to get punched. Yeah, James is right. Those are fighting words.
[2:06:16] So men, this is why we have the whole free speech thing, because we have limits, right? But there's certain, and it's not just women, it's feminine cultures as a whole, which there can be a lot of men in the sort of feminine culture, is that they just haven't grown up with that physical violence thing. That if you trash talk a guy too much, you're going to get in a fight. And women don't really process that. Now they know, but women fight in other ways. It's women fight with rumors and ostracism, but men fight with like a fist to the face, right?
[2:06:51] And it's important for women to be curious about the male experience with violence, which we all grew up with. And it's important for men to be aware of the female ostracism and rumor spreading and whether women fight that way, right? Women fight with words, but it stops with words. Men fight with words and it ends with fists if it goes too far. And the fist can be really dangerous, right? Right. And again, one punch from the bottom can drive the bridge of your nose into your brain and you can die. Like one fight. I don't know if you've ever, um, I mean, I had a friend who was once in a, on a jury with a guy who, you know, popped a guy in a bar, guy stumbled backwards, fell down some concrete steps, hit his head on a bucket and died. And it's like, okay, well, you're just going to jail for 10 years now, right? Or whatever. I don't know what happened, But, but so physical violence is uncorking a very, very bad genie that can go really badly. It can go really, really badly and it can ruin your whole life. And for what? Which is why, you know, the walk away thing, the prevention, the minimization, you know, I grew up in a pretty rough neighborhood, in a number of pretty rough neighborhoods, and I'm very proud of the fact that I never got in a fistfight. Now, partly it's because I worked out, partly it's because I was good at sports, partly because I was pretty high status and all of that.
[2:08:17] But I'm not getting into fights. You can lose teeth, and if they're adult teeth, then you've got to go in a world of pain. I remember there was a photographer who was taking a picture of Marlon Brando back in the day. Marlon Brando punched him in the face. And the guy spent the next couple of years trying to get dentists to fix the pain in his jaw because his teeth got all screwed up, right? And they never got it right. So bro had to live with chronic pain for the rest of his life because of one punch. And I'm not saying that's totally common, but it's a possibility. And I'm also not saying always back down, right? Because, you know, if somebody's threatening your family, you do what you can and do whatever is necessary to keep them safe. But the cost benefit of violence, you know, there has to be some pretty grave
[2:09:01] threats and there has to be some pretty big benefits. Otherwise, man, it's just not worth it. It's the old thing about like some guy says, hey, give me your wallet, you know, and he's got a knife to your ribs and everyone's like, I should be Batman. I should disarm him. I should, you know, reverse this. I should beat him up. I should hold him till the cops come and it's like, hey, if you can pull that off, good for you, man. Well, first of all, the criminal will probably just be let out and hunt you down. But if you get stabbed and bleed out, that was really stupid because it only takes a week or two to replace the contents of a wallet.
[2:09:38] And you just died. You just, or, you know, some permanent injury, or you, you know, got some bowel perforation, or they stabbed you right through the kidney and you need a transplant. I don't know, whatever, like just some of your sucking lung stuff, right? Or just, you know, they nick an artery. Or even if they don't mean to, in the fight, the knife accidentally goes into your jugular or your eyeball or damages your ear. I don't know what, right? Ryan Wilson, the Beach Boys guy who just died recently, was in a fight and he got hit and lost his ear. Like lost all hearing in his ear for the rest of his life. Like what Paul Simon's going through right now. So yeah, it's a complicated topic. The cost benefit is complicated and there aren't easy, simple answers. You have to go on your gut and you have to say, if I get into this fight, what's the upside? What's the downside? What's the benefits? What's the risk? Yeah. Somebody says here, my jaw still clicks from getting beaten up 13 years ago. Yeah. And some tinnitus. Yeah. Yeah. One blow to the head, right? Can just mess up your ear, can mess up your inner ear.
[2:10:50] So again, you know, prevention and avoidance is the key, you know, get to a good neighborhood, don't trash talk, don't go to bed, sections of town, and so on. And walking away, it's tough on the ego. It's tough on the ego. I get that because we don't want to be a coward. But the Aristotelian mean, right? Too little courage is cowardice. Too much courage is foolhardiness and can lead to extremely bad outcomes. And so this aggression in basketball, absolutely fascinating. I mean, what a complicated situation. And I'm sure that your read on the situation was really good, Where is the balance in the Aristotelian mean? Well, there isn't one. It's highly variable. There's extremes, which are obvious, right? You run away from, I don't know, anybody who bounces the ball too hard. That's too much, too much fear, but too little fear. You know, fear is really important. You know, people who don't feel fear are either dead or sociopaths. And you don't want to be a person without fear. You know, they always have this as the cool thing, right? So, yeah, so I, you know, as far as getting to know each other.
[2:12:13] It's really fascinating. And, you know, maybe when you grew up, you weren't allowed, you need to encourage and permit and help your kids by allowing them a certain amount of aggression, not so they dominate. You know, my daughter is a great debater and she's pretty punchy. And obviously I want to be treated with respect and I expect that, but you know, she can get pretty punchy. And I think that's good because you need that in life. So you want to let your kids come at you and you want to let your kids have a certain amount of aggression and learn how to manage it and tell them when they've gone too far and all that kind of stuff. And, uh, you probably didn't have that very few of us do, and you certainly can't get it from a single mother. So yeah, it's a very interesting topic and it's very complicated. And I think that's something that you, could have very productive conversations with your wife about.
[2:13:12] No, no, I appreciate it. I did not expect it to be so insightful, so I really appreciate you going the lengths of explaining all that to me. I found it very beneficial. Going back to confidence, I guess what I need to do as a solution is just be more confident in my choices that I've made and not necessarily be critical of the people, like my friends or the people in the basketball court, but also just be critical of my relationship. And that's probably where I need to focus my energy, not necessarily trying to win out against these people. I think it's more about, you know, winning out and trusting my judgment.
[2:13:54] Well, and don't surrender your judgment to your wife.
[2:14:01] Yeah.
[2:14:01] You know, I mean, be curious. So you thought I was backing down. Tell me more. How did you feel? What did you think? Or have you ever been in a situation? Like, don't just say you're right or you're wrong, right? But just try to understand her perspective. But of course, for men, if women criticize our dominance, if women criticize our assertiveness or our aggression or our authority, it feels bad, man, right? It feels bad. And women shouldn't do that. They should be curious. But, you know, we all have our weaknesses and we all jump to conclusions sometimes. But if she's not showing curiosity, you just have to grit your teeth and maintain yours and tell me, well, how did you feel? Or did you know, maybe her dad backed away from every fight and there's something that's coming out from there. But don't take it personally. Don't assume she's right. Don't assume she's wrong. Just keep asking questions because you can unpack a really great series of conversations.
[2:14:53] Yeah, no, absolutely. You had me with the curiosity aspect, because you're totally right. I mean, it does hurt. I need to try to take that time in terms I've asked you what tips or strategies I could do. Yeah, I just need to be able to remain curious. Maybe it's just take a deep
[2:15:09] breath, look at the big picture and just be curious as opposed to defensive. Right right easier easier said than done of course but that's i will go in with that strategy in the future and like i said uh this this conversation helped me um be more confident in myself um and in the decisions i made so and i think if i can be curious and convey that to my wife we won't be so contentious in pointing out these things we'll just like you said we'll just be curious and hopefully have a good conversation about it.
[2:15:40] Yeah it's it's that's the beauty of which I'm sure you have most of. And I'm sorry to the other callers. I'm going to stop here. I really do appreciate everyone's time tonight. Don't forget freedomain.com/donate to help out the show. Also shop.freedomain.com. Great merch. We're going to do a Friday sale. So, but you know, no reason. It's not going to be massive, but you can go and at least have a look at the merch. There's some really great stuff there. Shop.freedomain.com. And don't forget to join the conversation. Freedomain.com/donate. All of these subscriptions just get a massive amount of bonuses. You can actually look at them at premium.freedomain.com. Thanks, everyone. Have yourself a great night.
[2:16:18] Thanks, everybody. Have a great Thanksgiving. Thank you, Stef, very much for your advice and your great advice.
[2:16:24] You're very welcome. And happy Thanksgiving to all our American friends. And we'll talk to you Friday night. So for the people who couldn't get in tonight, you get first in the queue Friday night and we'll talk then. Lots of love. Take care, everyone. Good night.
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