This is always the hardest one for me:: To what extent should we let people suffer the consequences of their actions?
The lecture explores the intricate balance between allowing individuals to face the consequences of their actions and the instinct to protect them from harm, particularly in the context of parenting. The discussion begins with a personal anecdote about navigating the challenges of parenting a nearly 17-year-old daughter, emphasizing that while support and guidance are essential, the ultimate responsibility for her choices lies with her. This dilemma is framed within the philosophy of Aristotle's concept of the mean, highlighting that the issue isn't black and white; instead, it requires finding equilibrium between two extremes: allowing everyone to face negative consequences and shielding them entirely.
The conversation delves into the developmental benchmarks of responsibility, questioning when individuals can be deemed capable of handling their own choices. It highlights the sharp contrast in developmental stages between children and adults, illustrating with examples that while toddlers should be protected from severe consequences as they learn and grow, adults should face the ramifications of their decisions. This notion is further examined through different case studies of childhood learning and the methods employed to teach resilience and self-ownership as children mature.
The lecturer also discusses the evolutionary basis for these protective instincts, particularly with regard to mothers, who are biologically equipped to nurture and safeguard children from harm. The unique challenges faced by women, in balancing their protective instincts with the necessity of granting agency to children, is presented as a critical societal dynamic. This aspect transitions into an analysis of gender dynamics, suggesting that men and women naturally complement each other in parenting styles—men may lean towards promoting independence and responsibility, while women are inclined to protect and nurture.
As the lecture progresses, it examines the implications of societal structures, such as welfare, and how they might enable or hinder individual accountability. The discussion posits that empathy, while valuable, must be moderated with a sense of responsibility to prevent enabling negative behaviors. The complexities of social empathy are unpacked, prompting a reevaluation of how we discern genuine need from manipulative behaviors in contexts ranging from criminal justice to social welfare.
Ultimately, the lecture challenges listeners to consider when it is appropriate for people to suffer the consequences of their choices, advocating for a nuanced view that takes into account an individual's understanding of responsibility. The speaker proposes that accountability becomes relevant when individuals actively recognize and inflict consequences on others, marking a pivotal shift in their moral development. The session culminates with a call for introspection on the roles of personal responsibility and societal support, framing it as an ongoing conversation necessary for fostering both individual growth and collective well-being.
0:04 - The Consequences of Actions
1:40 - The Balance of Responsibility
5:05 - The Role of Mothers
8:11 - Gender Dynamics in Parenting
11:44 - Women’s Instincts and Protection
16:04 - The Challenge of Modern Society
18:56 - Welfare and the Aged
21:07 - The Male Perspective on Care
24:06 - Empathy and Scarcity
28:03 - Defining Consequences
32:33 - The Evolution of Responsibility
34:35 - Independence and Consequences
37:22 - Tribalism and Consequences
39:23 - Understanding Morality
[0:00] All right, a great question from a listener on X. This is always the hardest one for me. To what extent should we let people suffer the consequences of their actions? I mean, that's a challenge that I'm facing as a parent at the moment, which is, I mean, my daughter's almost 17, and it's not my job to fix her problems anymore. I mean, I can give her some feedback, some advice, or whatever, but if she has challenges in her life, which we always do, it is not my job to fix the challenges that she has in her life. I'm available as a resource, but I'm not going to fix them. Now, of course, let's look at the good old place to start with these kinds of questions, right? It's not black and white answers, right? So the best place to start with these kinds of questions is the good old Aristotelian mean. Good old Aristotelian mean. So in said good old Aristotelian mean.
[0:54] The question is, where do you sit in the middle? On the one extreme, it's let, everyone, even toddlers, suffer the consequences of their choices. Clearly, that would be wrong, bad, and unjust. On the other hand, it would be the other extreme, don't let anyone, even adults, suffer any negative consequences for their actions, which would also be extreme.
[1:21] So, recognize that it is not a black and white issue, it's a balance issue. And as a balance issue, we have to recognize that there's times when we do not let people suffer the consequences of their actions. And then there are times when we do often, not always, often let people suffer the consequences of their actions.
[1:41] And then there's something in between. It's sort of like, when are people responsible? Like, when can someone sign a contract? When can someone rent a car and that kind of stuff, right? Well, there's no particularly clear answer except at the extremes, right? So obviously, a five-year-old can't sign a contract. Obviously, a 50-year-old, you know, assuming mental competence, can sign a contract. And somewhere in between, there is a tipping point. Now, we have to sort of make these decisions as a whole based upon, at the moment, generally seems to be 18, you're an adult, right? That's sort of the general argument at the moment. Maybe in the future, we would have brain scans or, I don't know, some sort of intelligent questionnaire that would give people who were younger, maybe more ability to sign contracts or be an adult and maybe older people, we'd be delayed a little bit, but whatever. If we just come up with something in the absence of that technology, we've just come up with something which is 18. Now, again, you think about it, you know, right before, like I think about this with that sort of creepy OnlyFans stuff, you know, the countdown to so-and-so turning 18.
[2:49] Like they just, you know, one second after they turn 18, they can now make a decision. But I get that's kind of how we have to make decisions in society. Somebody has to be an adult. Now, I clearly... Babies and toddlers should not suffer the consequences of their own bad actions, at least, you know, so very, very early on, right? So, we would not say of a toddler just learning how to walk that we should, you know, have him learn how to walk on sharp rocks or concrete or something crazy like that. We wouldn't want to say that because they're learning how to walk and therefore because they're learning how to walk, their falling is not anything that is the result of a negative choice, right? If somebody is an adult, right, let's say, and they foolishly decide to carry too much, you know, and they trip or they fall or they carry, then we'd say that was not a wise decision or something like that. But when they're a toddler just learning how to walk, we would not want to say to them well you have to suffer the negative consequences of falling we're going to have you learn to walk in a bathing suit on sharp rocks or something like that I mean it's the training wheels argument when I taught my daughter, how to ride a bike I taught her of course.
[4:16] On grass so that when she fell she didn't fall on concrete or something like that so that's how we do That's how we do it. And then at some point, you have to take the training wheels off, and you can give them advice, and they then have to make their own decisions or choices, and so on. So the purpose, of course, of parenting is to transfer as much self-ownership as possible, to your child as you go forward. So, when your children are very young, they have little self-ownership or self-responsibility, and as they get older, you give them more and more.
[5:05] Self-responsibility. But it's tough, and it's particularly tough for mothers. I think we sort of all understand that. It's particularly tough for mothers because, remember, women as a whole were programmed by sort of nature and evolution to be constantly dealing with babies and toddlers, right? So a woman's sort of 20-year fertility cycle from 18 to 38, she'd basically be having kids that whole time. And then when her kids were grown up, she would be dealing with grandchildren. So a woman's entire evolutionary arc was dealing with babies and toddlers. And generally, the babies and toddlers would then move on often to the man's, if it was sons often, although sometimes daughters as well, would move on to the man's sphere as a whole. And so, that's sort of the reality. So, women find it very tough to give children agency.
[6:02] Now, I find it a little challenging, but it's not too bad. I'm sort of aware of the sort of process, right? So, women have a tough time giving people agency. Women are programmed to forgive. Women are programmed to not take offense at what children do, and so on, right? And this is one of the reasons why women, to sort of understand sort of modern democracy, women as a whole have of a lens through which they view people as children.
[6:36] And you can see this when boys and their toys, right? So they look at their husbands as kind of goofy children and so on. And you will see women, and it's not necessarily terrible or anything like that, but you will see women sort of making fun of men for being sort of goofy and silly and overcompetitive and things that don't matter, and so on, right? And so, women view people as children, with one exception, which we'll get to in a second. So, when women look at criminals, they see the childhood.
[7:15] And they say, gosh, that criminal had a bad childhood. And because women process people through the lens of they are children, or they are not responsible for their own behavior or actions, then they are sympathetic, or they can be manipulated into sympathy for the criminal. And it's the same thing with illegal immigration, and they just have this, you know, they're just looking for a better life and there's sympathy and so on. And that's because women view humanity through the lens of motherhood and through the lens of they are children, the people that I'm dealing with as a whole, because that's what they were raised with, right? And this childlike mentality, and I mean that with all respect. I mean, it's absolutely essential for the evolution of our species that women deal with, the people they interact with largely as children, because that's what they interacted with for the most part throughout their life.
[8:12] So they have to retain, to some degree, a child-adjacent mentality, which you have to do as a stay-at-home dad. I did the same thing when my daughter was very little. I had a child-adjacent mentality because that's how you relate to your children.
[8:25] So men want to give more responsibility and women want to give less responsibility. And because we evolved to balance out each other, right? So, this is really, really important. So, we evolved to balance out each other. So, why do teenage boys have such a crazy high sex drive? Well, because the women would say, well, you can't have sex until you get married.
[8:59] And so, think of two people in a rope pulling contest, right? They're each pulling because the other person is pulling the other way, so they can pull and not fall over. But if somebody were to cut that rope in the middle, both parties fall over. So we are aimed or aiming to balance each other out as male and female. And when males and females are separated, we fall over. Men tend to get overly abstract, overly analytical, and sometimes bitter. And women tend to get over-maternal and pathological atroistic, because the woman will say, we should not give too much responsibility to our children, and the man will say, we should give more responsibility to our children, and the balance of those two things is where the truth is. And this is why men and women, in their negotiations, in their conflicts, sometimes produce, in general, that which is best for children.
[9:57] So, women are programmed to not take offense. Women are programmed to forgive, right? Which is why Samuel L. Jackson in some old movie, I hope he burns in hell, you know, sort of vengeance, right? And this was the Charlie Kirk Memorial with Erica Kirk forgiving. And the man like, nope, I mean, he's got to pay. And forgiving is perfectly appropriate for children. And even when they do something, like even when a child gets angry and hits your leg, right, we don't take it with the same offense as an adult hitting, because they're just trying to get what they want and experimenting with choices. And they are amoral, right? In the same way, a child who leaves a store clutching a candy bar that nobody noticed is not the same as a thief who steals a candy bar, right? So, we understand all this. So, the exception, though, where women do not forgive, in general, is when men, generally men, when men enforce upon women that you have to give, toddlers and babies agency. So, for instance, let's say you've got a two-year-old, and the two-year-old is doing something physically dangerous.
[11:21] The two-year-old is dawdling about at the top of a set of steep stairs. Now, women, as a whole, will rush up and protect the child, and that's exactly what they should do. That's the instincts that have kept us all alive, and thank heavens for women doing that over the course of human history. It's kind of why we're all here, right?
[11:41] And good. Thank you. Thank you, ladies, for your service and your anxiety. It's beautiful and wonderful and absolutely necessary. Now, if a woman sees her child dawdling around at the top of a set of steep stairs, and a man says, let him learn by falling, the woman will be very angry at the man. She's programmed to get very angry at the man who says, let that person learn through consequences, right? And she should, should be angry at him because he's putting her entire investment.
[12:22] An entire genetic love investment at a risk, right, by the child falls down. And not only might the child fall down, but the child might fall down and also maybe not even die, but maybe get some permanent brain injury and end up like Lenny of Mice and Men, and, you know, that harms her entire bloodline and the amount of resources that are needed. So when women see imminent disaster, when women see bad things about to happen, when women get anxious over negative consequences accruing to someone else, they want to rush in and protect. And any man who says, let them suffer their negative consequences, she views that man with hostility. She can forgive anything except that. Again, I'm sort of exaggerating a little bit, but she can forgive just about anything except that, again, for sort of evolutionary biological reasons, which are pretty obvious.
[13:28] So women want to shield others from negative consequences because they're dealing with babies and toddlers and anyone who says that person should suffer negative consequences is viewed with great hostility by the woman i think we uh i want to labor the point but that's that's sort of what's what's going on as a whole so men will come in and say and there's this fairly funny.
[13:56] Obvious meme of a kid who's playing around with an electrical socket. And the mom is like, don't, right? And the dad is like, no, no, let him, if you want to do it, go ahead. And then there's this, you know, and then the dad is like, well, he's not going to do that again, now is he, right? So pain, of course, exists because we can't just have our mothers hover around us for our whole lives, making sure we don't do ridiculous things. The pain is there to make sure that we get the sort of negative feedback. Now, we are kept alive by having negative consequences removed from us or prevented from us or we're shielded from those negative consequences when we're babies, toddlers, younger, and so on. It's the old thing that a boy who's climbing a tree, the man looks on with pride, the woman, the mother looks on with anxiety and fear, and both are fine, both are necessary, and the yin and yang of those things is very important as a whole. So, the problem, though, is that when women gain control over society's resources, and women have control over society's resources, and they have so much power, both through sexual desirability when they're young, and, I mean, I'm just talking about sort of the mating phase. I'm not saying women aren't sexually attractive when they get older.
[15:18] So, when they're young, they have the power of choice in a free society of who they marry, and then they have the power of shaping culture and language and responses among infants. So, women have an extraordinary, extraordinary levels of power in society. And if you combine that also with political power, then the problem is that people who know this hack, right, which is appear a child to a woman and she will want to shield you from negative consequences, appear helpless to women and they will want to protect you from negative consequences.
[15:58] Appear childlike to women and they will want to give you resources and nurturing and care. And if you hack women's biological mechanism of sympathy and non-accountability, right, if you hack that in women, and women have the power to transfer resources, then women will be seduced into handing over resources by those who claim no responsibility for their choices. And of course, a lot of these will be, and women know this, right? Which is why it generally comes out of women, sort of the welfare state, right?
[16:42] So, the way that you hack women's baby toddler care mechanism is you say, it happened to me, I was deceived, I couldn't possibly know, it was an accident, you know, things occurred, I'm a victim, and so on. So, you shed agency in order to get women to give you resources as if you were a toddler. Because women did not evolve to be in charge of society's resources. That was a male job. Because men...
[17:23] Train each other into agency early on by saying, you know, you throw the spear and you miss the deer and it's like, you suck. And nobody's going to trust you. And, you know, we're all going to go hungry because of you. Even if you're 12, then what do you do to gain back? Well, you've got to go and get male respect. What do you have to do? You have to go and practice like crazy with a spear. And then you have to demonstrate that you've learned your lesson. And now you can throw a spear accurately and, you know, you throw it at a squirrel and hit a squirrel or whatever you do, right? So you have to, you know, you're told you suck and you have to go and practice and work and improve yourself in order to regain male respect.
[18:06] So if you give women control of society's resources, and of course, you know, women should have property rights, blah, blah, blah. I'm just talking about through the power of the state and debt. If you give women control of society's resources, then you open up this hellscape of both men and women, feminized men and women as a whole, that they will hack women's sympathy for the helpless by pretending to be helpless in order to get, to sort of trigger this response and to get women to give them resources. And women, of course, are used to giving other people's resources because the man goes and hunts and builds and all the women handed out themselves, which again, totally fine within the family, how we evolved, not only totally fine, but I would argue absolutely necessary and healthy, and good. So, that is the big challenge of the modern world.
[18:57] So, what happens is, let's look at the old, right? So, the aged, right? So, one of the first things that happened with regards to the welfare state is welfare for old people, right? Old age pensions, right? That's one of the things that happens. So, the way that it works is, old people who don't have any money, right? They've spent their money, they've loaned their money, whatever, right? Old people will appear doddering and helpless and foolish and feeble, and that is, of course, their manipulative strength and power. So there'll be old people who are hungry and so on, and they have not saved for their retirement. They don't have people in their lives who love them. They didn't have children, or they were so horrible to their children that their children don't want to have anything to do with them, and so they're old and they're sad. Or maybe they've been alcoholics, or maybe they've been thieves, or maybe they were pedophiles, or maybe they were, you know, rampant abusers, or just nasty people as a whole, right? And so they don't, of course, do any of that. And homeless people do the same thing. Like, just think about how many layers of goodwill you have to fall through in order to end up homeless, right?
[20:11] It's not pretty. It's not good. And so, old people will be doddering and sad and need things, and then women are like, oh gosh, the old, well, they're helpless, and they can't go out and work, and they can't generate the money they need to retire on, and so they are very sad, and so please, God, give them pensions. Just take them out of poverty, right? And sorry, I also mentioned that I forgot to mention earlier, women deal with toddlers and with the aged, right? So women take care of babies and toddlers and the aged. And of course, when somebody is 75 and they're broke, what do you do? What do you do? Now, for men, I don't want to speak for all men, but I think in general,
[21:03] the male instinct in that situation is to say something like this. Okay, well, you know, we can't have the old people just dying and falling over. Okay, I accept that. We can't just have the old people starving to death and being eaten by their cats. However, we also don't want to make them too comfortable, because if we make them too comfortable, nobody's going to bother saving for their retirement, right? So, I don't think it's an IQ thing, but this sort of second order, third order thinking.
[21:34] The first order of thinking is, oh my gosh, this old person is broke, give them money, right? Make them comfortable, make them happy. Now that is in the immediate, the old person will be very thankful and happy and yeah, you're certainly creating a benefit to them. The second order of thinking, which tends to be a bit more masculine, is, okay, but hang on, hang on. What are the effects in the long run, what are the effects on society if we give all this money to old people? Well, people will stop saving for their retirement, which, you know, benefits businesses in the here and now because people are spending rather than saving. So people will stop saving for their retirement. And because they stopped saving for their retirement, we're just going to end up at this endless treadmill of transferring resources to the aged. And we're punishing people who are more responsible and rewarding people who are less responsible, and that's bad for society as a whole.
[22:30] But that's like, for women experience that, like, well, if your kid is so dumb that they're dancing around the top of stairs, maybe they deserve to be taken out of the gene pool. I'm not saying that's a good idea, but women experience it that way. And it's inconceivable to women as a whole that that would be an approach. So, women, when they see suffering, are used to nagging men to provide resources to alleviate that suffering. And the men, of course, you know, we're nice people, we want to help, and so we want to provide resources to alleviate suffering, but not at the expense of creating more suffering, which is when you just give people who make bad decisions a lot of money, then people can make money by making bad decisions and things get bad. But also because, you know, we as human beings, this is really essential to understand, this is why I say like debt drives people insane. We as human beings evolved differently. In situations of, at least by modern standards, almost unimaginable scarcity.
[23:37] Almost unimaginable scarcity. And so there just wasn't the magic money that you could just make up to pay for the, quote, empathy of the women. I don't view it as real empathy. And certainly some women are empathetic, some men are empathetic, but this anxiety stuff is just programming. Right? It's like saying that needing to pee is empathy for your bladder.
[24:03] It's like, no, it's just a physical sensation of discomfort relieved by peeing. Or that your hunger is having empathy for your muscles. It's like, no, it's just a... So this sort of driven anxiety stuff is not empathy. People are just looking to reduce negative stimuli, such as anxiety, by removing negative things from their sight, right? Like hungry child. I will take away picture of hungry child if you do what I want. Or, you know, for women who are traumatized by looking at the little Turkish boy who drowned, and I think was positioned in the surf, drowned in the Mediterranean. And so women see that, they're very upset by that. And the media is basically like, well, if you open the borders, we will not print any more of these pictures. And they haven't, right? I mean, this sort of selective stuff is very important.
[24:57] So we grew up in situations of unimaginable scarcity. And so women would say, I want, I want, I want, and you know, for nice things or whatever, helpful things. And men would say, we can't, we can't, we can't. And I talk about this interaction. I wrote a whole scene about this interaction in my novel, the present between Oliver and his mother. And it's a very, very important scene to sort of illustrate this in action or emotion. So women, infinite wants, men, finite resources, and the friction between these two things is very productive in the world as a whole. I mean, honestly, I can't think that there's a straight man alive who's looked at a nice, reasonably nice kitchen and said, this needs remodeling, right? I mean, it's, the women have this fractious and ambivalent relationship with a kitchen and everything could be nicer. And it's great. Listen, I mean, I live in, my wife's a wonderful homemaker. I live in this girly world paradise, as opposed to when I met her, I had leftover plates, a broken futon, and I did not own a vacuum cleaner. Ha ha ha.
[26:08] Can I tell you? I was a bachelor. But I had a nice TV, I'll tell you that. So, that issue that we grew up in scarcity, women developed infinite wants, and men put the cap on those infinite wants according to the resources available. That was the dynamic. That was very productive. When you get fiat currency, though, you liberate the infinite wants to a form of resource psychosis. I'm not kidding about this. It's psychosis that women see, say, an old person who's suffering, right? And they say, well, we should have this person not suffer. Now, in the past, men might say, no, they deserve to suffer because, you know, they were jerks to their kids. They were mean. They were selfish. They drank. They didn't save any money. They were gamblers. They were degenerates. So, yeah, I'm not saying they should starve to death, but, you know, we shouldn't give them more than the bare minimum because, you know, they earned their fate, right? They earned their fate. And women would be upset about this. And that's good. And that's fair because sometimes men can be too harsh. And sometimes men, you know, I hate to use the term because it's kind of overused, but, you know, relative women's hyper-empathy, men can be a little bit autistic and so on.
[27:24] But as a whole, women's desire for more taking care of people, regardless of, you know, well, that was in the past and move on and so on, right? Like, well, they may have been jerks in the past. Maybe they were mean to their children, but we can't just let them starve, right? Okay, well, so women can train men to be a little bit more empathetic. And I think that's healthy and that's good. But also men have to be able to train women to stop being quite so hyper with their empathy, right? So excessive, so pathological when it comes to that.
[27:59] Empathy, kindness, that's again all in the Aristotelian mean. A deficiency of empathy is coldness, an excess of empathy is self-destructive. So, when should people suffer the consequences of their own actions? Well, in my view, and I think this is reasonable, but you could let me know what you think. In my view, it is when they can reasonably foresee the consequences of their actions. And, you know, I know that putting the word reasonably in there is not particularly helpful because, you know, reasonably is not much of an argument. But one of the things that happens with teenagers is they start to hold each other and their parents responsible for the consequences of their own actions. So, one of the things that happens in most households with teenagers is the teenagers start being very critical of the parents.
[29:00] And I mean, this is the old Mark Twain thing where he said, when I left home at 16, because my dad was such an idiot, you know, when I returned home at 20, I was amazed at how much he'd learned in a few short years, right? It's a kind of a joke, right? So when teenagers start criticizing each other and start criticizing their parents, then they are holding each other and their parents responsible for the consequences of their own actions. Right, so when kids are little, you know, every kid in the neighborhood comes over for the party. I remember my daughter had a birthday party when she was quite young, house for the kids, a lot of fun.
[29:44] And then we house, a lot of fun, a lot of screaming, a lot of excitement. And the woman, we'd hired a woman to do face painting. She had to do it by the light of her phone. And it was actually very, very memorable. These things aren't even a problem. On the other hand, a friend of mine many, many years ago had a sleepover and there was torrential rains and the sewers backed up into the basement. Oh my gosh. Screaming, throwing the air mattresses up the stairs, helping out the kids, freaking out the stench. It was a vivid night. One was memorable and fun. The other was memorable and not quite so fun. But at least, you know, these things happen in life. And it's good to have these bookmarks in your brain, I think. It means you've done more than just blind repetition over the course of your life.
[30:31] So when kids, everyone comes over to the party, so on. Now, when your kids get older, let's say they're, you know, 14 or 13 or 15 or whatever, then what happens is they say, I don't want to spend time with, I'll just make up a name here, Bobsy, some girl. I don't want to spend time with Bobsy. She's mean or negative or something like that. It's like, okay, okay. So the inflicting of negative consequences on others is now happening. With guys, it's like, oh, don't invite Josh. He's always so weird or whatever it is, right? Like there's now the infliction of negative consequences on others. Now, that means that the kids, the teenagers and so on are now processing negative consequences, right? And they are saying other people should be, should suffer negative effects of negative consequences, right? Or when the boys say, I don't want Alex, again, these aren't names of anybody I know, I don't want Alex to be on the baseball team because Alex is bad at hitting and throwing and catching. Okay, so negative consequences.
[31:49] Can happen younger. If kids cheat at Marco Polo or grounders or something like that, then other kids don't really want to play with them. So those are negative consequences. So when does someone become subject to negative consequences? Well, the moment that they start showing that they understand negative consequences and wish to inflict negative consequences on others. Then they can't say, well, gee, I had no idea there was any such thing as negative consequences. When they say, I don't want Bobsley to come to the party because X, Y, and Z, or I don't want Alex on the baseball team, then they're saying other
[32:28] people should suffer negative consequences for, it doesn't have to be bad behavior. You know, maybe Alex is just really uncoordinated, but it still doesn't mean he can throw and catch and hit a baseball or anything like that.
[32:40] So when people, the kids, teenagers, when they start inflicting negative consequences on others, for negative behaviors, then they are showing and signaling that they understand negative consequences, they want to inflict negative consequences, and therefore they cannot rationally complain about being subject to negative consequences, right? So this is something that a lot of parents need to explain to kids over the time. So they say, I don't want Bobsy to come to my party because I don't like Bobsy for X, Y, and Z reason. And then maybe Bobsy has a big party and Bobsy doesn't invite the parent's child to Bobsy's big party and maybe the parent's child is upset, at which point the parent will sit down and say, well, you know, remember you didn't want Bobsy to come to your party, so it's not too shocking that Bobsy doesn't want you to come to her party. And remember, the ability to inflict negative consequences is not specific to you. And when you start using the negative consequences weapon, so to speak, well, it's going to be used back on you.
[33:49] So this happens, of course, in the dating world. If some guy's dating a girl and he says, oh, broke up with her because she was too needy or whatever it is, some negative thing, or she cheated or some negative things. Okay, well, so you're inflicting negative consequences breaking up with the girl because of something negative she did. And therefore, if you're inflicting negative consequences on others based upon negative behavior, then you understand this and therefore you should yourself be subject to negative consequences. And, you know, parents also often need to explain this to their kids. If you want independence, that's fine. I mean, your nature is going to grow you to be an adult and you're going to go get independence anyway. But if you want independence, that's fine. But independence comes with responsibilities.
[34:35] And if you don't want to, if you want to be independent of your parents, that's fine. Then you have to earn your own money.
[34:44] That's what you need to do when you become an adult. Anyway, usually, right? So, independence is great. Independence means being responsible for your own life and suffering the negative consequences of your own bad decisions, which we all have to do. I mean, I'm pushing 60 and I have to suffer the negative consequences of my own bad decisions. So, that's life. That makes life more interesting. Who wants to play a game on guard mode other than central bankers, right? So, when people say so-and-so should experience negative consequences, then they're accepting that negative consequences are valid and should be inflicted. So, for instance, if somebody says, oh, I, you know, so-and-so said something that was not politically correct, he, usually he or she, should be deplatformed.
[35:42] You know, F-A-F-O. Frick around, find out, as the saying goes. And so, when you have the mob cheering for negative consequences, this person should lose his job because I heard he said something mean about whatever, X, Y, and Z. This person should, okay, so then you're saying that this person should have no income because you don't like what they said. It's freedom of speech, not freedom from consequences. Okay, that's fine. That's fine. So then those same people, if people should suffer negative consequences of bad decisions, then we should get rid of the welfare state. So the same argument for deplatforming people is the same argument for getting rid of the welfare state. But of course, people are often mindless, hypocritical drones of propaganda, so they don't see that connection, right? So this is where you see the rank hypocrisy, right? Which is, uh, well, you know, Charlie Kirk did say some divisive things. It's like, what? So he should get killed? He should get murdered?
[36:44] So then people should die just for saying things that other people don't like, which means what if somebody has taken no care of their health, not saved any money, they're obese, they're chain smokers, they're alcoholics, they've never gone into rehab, they've never dealt with it, then why should other people be forced to pay for everything needed to keep that person alive? If, you know, people want to keep that person alive and it costs, I don't know, $3,000 a month for, you know, insulin and medicine and whatever it is, right? So, if their friends and family want to chip around and keep that person alive, that's fine, obviously, that's voluntary.
[37:19] But should people be forced to keep that other person alive, right? So, if people are saying, well, so-and-so should get fired or deplatformed or perhaps even killed for their arguments or opinions, then you're saying that people should not be shielded from even the most brutal negative consequences of fairly innocuous things, like making arguments in the public square.
[37:39] Then if people don't take care of their health or let's say they'd never deal with their gambling they gamble a lot and they blow their money and they have no kids and then they're old and poor it's like well i mean you said you're the same person who said people should get fired just for expressing an opinion or maybe even shot or deplatformed or lose their income so that's just so that's just for that's just for expressing an opinion or making an argument so if you've alienated all your friends and family, and nobody likes you, and you didn't have any kids, and you didn't save any money, and you had all the fun of gambling. It was fun, right?
[38:16] Exciting. So, this is part of the paradox of the left, is that people both should and should not suffer negative consequences. And basically, it means that people who oppose the left should suffer the most horrendous negative consequences up too often, and including being murdered. But people who support the left should never suffer any negative consequences. That's just tribalism, and it's kind of boring. So yeah, once people start inflicting negative consequences on others, then they can't say that they don't understand it. How do we know when children are subject to morality? Well, the moment they start using moral arguments, proving that they understand morality, which is actually quite young. So when a kid says that's unfair, well, the kid is saying that there's something, there's a moral argument called fairness, and this is a deviation from it, and we should follow moral ideals like fairness, and so they start to become subject. They start becoming subject to moral arguments when they themselves make moral arguments. And people are subject to consequences when they accept the value of negative
[39:18] consequences by inflicting negative consequences on others. And that's how you know they're ready. So I hope that makes sense. Freedomain.com. Come on, inflict a positive consequence on me for a great podcast. Freedomain.com freedomain freedomain.com/donate lots of love I'm up here I'll talk to you soon bye.
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