In this 16th November 2025 Sunday Night Live Subscriber stream, philosopher Stefan Molyneux dives deep into his latest literary endeavors while engaging with his audience on various philosophical and moral topics. Kicking off with an announcement about the release of the ebook version of his novel "Dissolution", he shares insights into the creative process, including his thoughts on character development and story structure.
Within the realm of fiction writing, Stefan contemplates his future projects, expressing an interest in venturing into the horror genre for the first time. He outlines his creative struggles, noting how the dynamic between characters and the moral lessons he aims to convey often leads to internal conflict during the writing process. He likens his relationship with his characters to a negotiation, where their desires sometimes clash with the moral frameworks he tries to instill, emphasizing the tension that arises from wanting to balance naturalism with didacticism in storytelling.
As the conversation unfolds, a caller shares their experiences with emotional struggles, prompting Stefan to reflect on the complexities of human relationships and the role of forgiveness. They discuss the nature of debts—both monetary and emotional—and unpack the implications of unmet expectations in various bonds. The discussion spirals into a broader conversation about the societal impact of emotional and psychological relationships, revealing the nuances of reciprocal kindness and the ramifications of exploitation in human interactions.
An engrossing part of the episode is dedicated to exploring the ethics of passive-aggressive behavior in discussions and debates. Stefan delves into personal experiences from recent public debates, lamenting how passive aggression can derail constructive discourse. He articulates the challenges faced when responding to underhanded tactics in conversation, spotlighting how those who employ such techniques often aim to provoke hostility in order to assume moral superiority. This leads into a detailed examination of how one can address passive aggressiveness while maintaining integrity and respect during discussions.
The latter part of the show takes a reflective turn as Stefan addresses themes of childhood nostalgia and returning to the roots of one’s passions. He shares anecdotes regarding his early experiences with technology and programming, illustrating how these formative moments have shaped his analytical thinking and problem-solving skills. He intertwines these personal stories with philosophical musings about balance in life, emphasizing the importance of forgiveness and understanding in maintaining relationships, even amidst inevitable human flaws.
Through engaging dialogues, personal anecdotes, and philosophical inquiries, this rendition of Stefan Molyneux's podcast not only highlights the multifaceted nature of writing and creativity but also provides deep insights into the moral fabric of human interactions. With a firm belief that the essence of life lies within the tensions and frictions experienced in relationships, Stefan encourages listeners to embrace both self-awareness and empathy in their everyday interactions. The episode wraps up with an open call for audience participation, inviting thoughts and questions that might foster continued discussions in future episodes.
4:11 - Characters and Their Struggles
7:28 - The Challenge of Writing
14:18 - Passive-Aggressive Conversations
22:51 - The Nature of Manipulation
27:59 - COVID-19 Testing and Vaccines
31:22 - Relationships and Therapy
38:02 - The Hypocrisy of Characters
43:58 - The Balance of Self and Others
47:56 - Earned Credibility and Advice
50:14 - The Psychology of Class
54:57 - The BBC and Public Trust
1:01:42 - The Dynamics of Forgiveness
1:17:06 - Restitution and Relationships
1:21:30 - Conclusion and Closing Thoughts
[0:00] Good morning, good morning, everybody. It is, oh my gosh, 16th of November 2025, I just wanted to remind you a couple of cool things just for you guys as donors, some wee bonuses. And of course, one of them is that I have released the ebook version of Dissolution. I added one sentence. I added one sentence about vengeance to tie the whole novel altogether, believe it or not. There was one sentence that was missing at the end of chapter 17. So I've added that. I've added it into the audio book.
[0:45] But you can go, of course, to all of your bonus areas and you can get your dissolution. Somebody says, good morning, just finished dissolution. Incredible book. Yeah, I'm actually interested in doing a horror novel next because I've never tried that, but I'm still sort of kicking around some various ideas. You just need one sort of central themed idea, and then you can start building it from there. And then after that, I want to try a novel where I do not try to have a moral. In other words, I do want to try a novel where I'm not, in a sense, pushing or goading the characters or shaping them in terms, I'm always in a negotiation with the characters, right? I'm always in a negotiation with the characters because the characters want to do what they want to do, like characters in Dreams, they do what they want to do. Whereas I'm saying that the only point I'm writing, the only point of writing the book is some sort of moral lesson. So I'm in a sort of tug of war with the characters. But I would be interested, having done, you know, a whole bunch of moral lesson stories, I would be really fascinated to try a novel where I just let the characters do what they want it would be very interesting.
[2:02] To not have that tension for once between the moral goal and, I mean, this is, and that's because the characters are like my instincts, my instincts want to do what they want to do, but I try to shape my instincts according to morality, but it would be interesting to try. I mean, I think I've always sort of been halfway between, I mean, this Dostoevsky was the same sort of thing, but I've always sort of been halfway between pure naturalism and Ayn Rand. And Ayn Rand, the moral needle is way too high in my view. And it just, there's a certain lifelessness to the characters, but I want the richness and spontaneity of the characters, but I also want to guide them roughly in some moral story. So it is tough. But yeah, I was very pleased with Dissolution, I really feel. I try different ways of writing all the time. I really kind of find that I have to. I remember when I rented a cottage in England many years ago to finish. I wanted to rewrite the second half of Just Poor, which I'm not sure I've ever quite got right, but maybe that's a project for my dotage.
[3:10] But I fired up my computer, and I got nothing. I flew all the way out there, rented a cottage for a couple of weeks to finish a book. I think it was two weeks, and I had nothing. The reason I went to England is that the novel was set in England, of course. And so I went there and I ended up having to write it out by hand. And then the present and the future I dictated, but this one I typed out again and I haven't typed out a book, a novel in, gosh, probably since almost. If any of your characters resisted the moral message, Um...
[3:54] I mean, sorry if this is some spoilers, but the toughest one was Shane. You know, I really, I mean, this sounds foolish, I know, because they're just made up characters, but you get really involved with them, like your Dungeons and Dragons characters, I suppose.
[4:11] I really wanted to rescue Shane, but he fought like freaking hell. You know, I gave him...
[4:24] Well, I gave him people around him who cared about him. I gave him a therapist. I gave him almost everything, a family who wanted to spend time with him, some slightly better, well, I gave him access to even Chloe, who's sort of the heart and Beatrice of the novel. And he, yeah, he just, he wouldn't go there. He would not go there. I mean, I really, really tried to save that guy. Of course, you can force it if you want, but then you just kill the character. In terms of his energy, so I really wanted to save that guy. But unfortunately, he had just, he had wasted too much. And I suppose he is the, you know, if you just live day to day, your life is destroyed because you have no larger or longer goals or plans.
[5:18] And so, yeah, I mean, definitely. Who else? Um, Robert, no, was never particularly tempted by anything I had to offer. Helen, too full of vanity and self-pity. She wouldn't listen. Um, I won't say that Chloe listened, but Chloe got the vanity of her relationship with Robert very early in the book and managed to get away from him. And she also was able to like I enjoyed the journey of her husband and how he went from sort of this Paul Schaefer cynic to a really warm hearted guy chasing around kids in a pirate outfit it was really great.
[6:06] Yeah, I think I tried to resist. It's funny, you know, because I had a whole plan. There's a sort of big dinner scene or lunch scene in a restaurant. And that went in directions I had absolutely zero anticipation. I had a vague idea of what it is I wanted to write. And I just tried to let the characters do what they wanted. And they just, they took it. The intervention thing came out of nowhere. And so, you know, it's always kind of tough. It's always kind of tough to, if you let the character simply do their own thing, it just turns into a documentary with no moral content. I think, I think, I mean, I've never, I mean, this is, yeah, this is why the reason why the second half of Just Poor was so tough. I remember when I was writing Just Poor, after I got about a third of the way in, I had absolutely zero idea what to do next. Zero, zero idea what to do next. Because the characters wanted to have their journey, and I wanted it to be a novel about the perils of socialism. So it's a giant battle.
[7:11] And I sort of say to the characters, well, you're only alive because of the moral mission, like I wouldn't write about you otherwise. So you're going to have to serve the moral mission. And they're like, but I want to serve the moral mission. I want to have free will. I want to do my own thing. And that tension is a challenge.
[7:28] And I try to give them as much leeway as humanly possible to do their own thing. And make their own choices, but with the recognition that they are part of a general moral story. So it's tough, but exciting. I mean, that kind of tension, I mean, that's life, isn't it? That's life as a whole.
[7:53] Alright, so if you have, of course, questions or comments, I would love you to type them right in here. If you are on X and you want to ask anything, and remember this is going to be shielded from the gen pop. I mean, it doesn't mean it's completely invisible, who knows, but people can repost stuff. But as a whole, it's very much behind the paywall, so to speak. so, and I mean Helen yeah the end of the book just broke my heart I mean Helen just broke my heart.
[8:31] Because I find that for myself, I am returning to childhood as I age. It is a funny kind of thing how life just kind of loops around the back.
[8:44] When I have some idle moments, I'll throw on a video about, hey, here's the hardware of my first computer. The first computer I programmed on was a pet and then i would borrow the atari 400 from school for the weekend to learn to code and then i would i bought an atari 800 and i'm like oh here's the hardware of the atari 800 and i'm like, then i had an atari st and then i got my first 286 with a hard drive and yeah i don't really care about that but the old atari architecture was just you know just and i was um this morning i I was just looking at a video of a gameplay of a game called Ultima 8. I played Ultima 3 and Ultima 4.
[9:32] And I remember I was just looking at the gameplay. I doubt I'll ever play it because I don't really have that kind of time anymore. But I don't know. I just find that somebody posted a video of a game called Defender, which was an 80s arcade game. And it got me into trouble once, actually, which I'll talk about perhaps another time. But I remember I remember a description of the game Defender that it was like having a bag of angry bees tied around your head which is actually quite accurate it was a pretty hysterical game but somebody was doing the gameplay, and I picked up on sale a bunch of old arcade games and even booted up Star Raiders which I haven't you know looked at in decades, which was the original 8k game which was the it really was the sales pitch for the Atari 400 and 800 and the.
[10:23] Ah, I'm just kind of full circle. I played Lunar Lander the other day, which is a game. I actually programmed that. I programmed Lunar Lander for the Atari 800. I called it LEM Lander, the Lunar Emission Modules, LEM Lander. And I remember I had that little spaceship that you could tilt back and forth and do your gas and all of that and your fuel. And I remember one of the first programming things was like, oh, you got this black background. I had the randomly generated mountains with the little landing spots. I had to make sure there were five landing spots of various widths.
[10:59] And I remember when I was programming it, I would have the, when the spaceship touched anything white, then I would check the speed and so on. And if that was the case, if it touched anything white and was going too fast, it would explode and blah, blah, blah. And I remember that one of the first things I noticed, It took me a little while because I was obviously playtesting it a lot. And one of the things I noticed was that when it would touch a randomly generated star, like a little dot, right? Hey, it's touching something white. So, of course, I had to do a little piece of code that when it touched anything white, I had to make sure that all the pixels around it weren't blank. Because if they were, then it was a star. And then I had to have it replace the star after it went past because it would erase it when it went past. Anyway, so just little programming things that you had to figure out. When I was in my early teens. And it's great training, great training for programming and for great training for my career as a coder and great training for just sort of logic and thinking things through. And I was actually just thinking about, again, happy to take your questions and comments, but I was thinking about the debate, was it Friday, Friday's debate. I do review myself pretty harshly when it comes to debates. I may have gone with that guy a little bit longer.
[12:22] Than I should have. And I'm certainly happy to hear your feedback. But if I were to give myself sort of feedback on the debate, again, I'd give myself a seven or an eight. And I would, I think when people say, I don't like, there's no way that justice can function without the state. I'd be like, well, have you, I mean, I think my question would be like, have you, have you studied that? Have you looked into that? Well, no, it's like, well, why would I, well, I don't want to listen to something you haven't studied. Well, I just don't think you can. It's like, well, but you haven't studied it. So I think, uh, the assertion of knowledge, but I do want for people who listen to that debate, I do want people to hear that there are sort of counter examples. And again, I should have, I think I should have brought up the slavery thing more. Like how do you do slavery without, sorry, how do you pick vegetables without slaves? How do you pick cotton without slaves? Right? So I got that nearly. And I think I could have moved that a little bit earlier, but it was interesting. I also wasn't expecting it to be a debate. And, you know, it's funny because I just have a...
[13:25] I have a visceral dislike of passive aggression. Ooh, I tell you, it just heats my cockles with a fiery satanic hatred from the bowels of hell itself. And I just, you know, when people just put this snarky little stuff in, this snarky little, like, you're a utopian fantasy, you know, you're a utopian, like, just this little snarky little stuff. Or when they don't understand something and they say, well, that doesn't make any sense. And then I got him to clarify, well, no, you, it doesn't make any sense to you. That doesn't mean that it doesn't make any sense, right? Quantum physics doesn't make much sense to me, but I'm not going to say they're wrong because it's what computers run on. So, and then when you point that out, he's like, okay, you know, hey, okay. If, if that's the, if you want that particular set of words, I guess I can like.
[14:18] And you know it could be rampantly sexist of me but the reality is I don't particularly mind when it comes to women which actually comes more from men in this conversation from women so it probably is just a cliche in my mind but it just bothers me and you know it's hard to know what to do for me it's hard to know what to do in a conversation where somebody's being that kind of bitchy and passive-aggressive, you know, where they're just putting stupid little snipes at you, and then you call them out, and then they're like, well, okay, if you want it worded that way, if you're so fragile that you want it worded, it's like, no, but it's an accurate way of wording it.
[14:57] Okay, if you want me to say that two and two make four for the sake of the argument, I guess I'll comply with your crazy preferences. This is like, and what do you do? Do you call the person out on just being a bitchy and, uh, and so on? Uh, generally I would say, I'm sorry that you grew up without a father. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that you grew up without a father. Uh, as it says, You showed a tremendous amount of patience with that location. Yes, but I did feel, whether this is right or wrong, I mean, I felt that I was sort of being, I always have this image of, you know, like there's this torture in the south of the US where they tie you to the back of a pickup truck and just drag you along the road. I sort of felt like I was being dragged along by the other person's initiative. And it's hard to know how do you regain the reins?
[15:50] And that's just something that I felt I was reacting, you know, he was pitching and I was hitting and that's a reactive phenomenon.
[15:58] So, yeah, when people are passive aggressive, it's funny because what they're, this is an unconscious thing. So what they're trying to do is that they're trying to provoke you into being hostile so that they can claim, they can claim the higher ground, right? And they can, so they provoke you into hostility. So when somebody says, you know, well, Stef, your philosophy, blah, blah, blah. And I say, no, no, if it's mine, it's not philosophy. That would be a personal taste or preference or something like that. I like eggs.
[16:33] So when they say you're a philosophy or you're a utopian vision, utopian is a passive aggressive term, which means that it's impossible to achieve and you don't have any real understanding of human nature. And so when they say things like that, it's sort of an impossible situation that they're putting you into, right? Because either you call them on it, in which case they can say, whoa, okay, hey, I mean, if you want me to say it a certain way, I guess I'll, like, they then become somebody who's placating somebody who's got irrational preferences and is just fussy and controlling and reactive and so on, right? Or if you let it go, then you dissociate. Because when someone does something that's annoying, if you don't call them out on it, you've dissociated a little bit and they've separated you from your honesty and directness because you're annoyed, but you're not calling them out on it. And so it is an impossible situation, right?
[17:29] And you can talk about that with somebody who has self-knowledge, but this guy clearly was emotionally reactive and had no self-knowledge. So what do you do, right? If somebody is needling and provocative, then you either call them out on it, in which case they're like, whoa, hey, okay, if that's the way you want it, I guess I can accommodate you, crazy person, right? And then, so then they get higher status from that, or they get higher status from someone.
[17:55] You're dissociating because you are annoyed, but then you say, well, okay, I'm not going to deal with the annoyance. I'm going to just, I'm going to self-mine. And then you're detached from your instincts and you're detached from your feelings and they gain the higher ground that way, right? So what do you do? What do you do?
[18:12] And of course, if you keep pushing on the passive-aggressive, that is passive-aggressive, that is provocative, that is annoying, that's not honorable, that's not direct and honest speech, then what they do is they claim, of course, later, because you don't get to the substance of the debate because you're just talking about their mechanics of passive aggression, then what they get to do later is they say, well, Stef couldn't answer my questions. He just attacked my character. Stef got triggered. And so, again, it's, I don't know. What do you do? What do you do? I think for me, whether this is the right or wrong way to do it, I don't let it pass by because that would be to dissociate from myself and it would be an act of submission. If somebody's needling you and provoking you and you don't call them out on it.
[18:55] Then they have dominated, right? They've won in that way. And if you call them out on it, then they'll attempt to get to the higher ground by, whoa, okay, hey, if that's what you would, okay, I guess I can accommodate your crazy preferences. And they won't admit false, right? So maybe it was the right approach, which was to call it out. And then when he wouldn't comply to anything, when he wouldn't comply to anything, or wouldn't, not comply, When he wouldn't admit to anything, then I moved on with the debate. And then when I pointed out that, hey, we'll get magic new technology that allows to pay off the debt. Is it Optimist? Like I was reading about that. Oh, people think, oh, well, we'll get magic robots who will be able to pay off the debt. It's like, no, we won't. No, we won't. No, we won't at all. And the magic robots will simply be used.
[19:48] As leverage to buy more votes and more votes and more votes. So yeah i'm curious what you guys think if you have any sort of have you dealt i mean how do you guys deal with the passive aggressive stuff how do you deal with the passive aggressive stuff it is extremely dishonorable it's extremely dishonorable and i don't even know i don't even know of course i never would know really because people who don't have self-knowledge can never really be honest with you all they can do is manipulate uh because in people who don't have self-knowledge whenever there's a problem in communication it's always the other person's fault. If somebody was ever night-needling and provocative that way, and.
[20:27] I called them out and they were like, ooh, you know what? That was a little bitchy. I'm really sorry. Yeah, let's, let's, I will really aim to refrain from doing that. That was not, that was not an honorable way to communicate. Then I would be shocked beyond words. I personally have never, I mean, I'm pushing 60, right? I've never had, never had a conversation with someone where they're being passive aggressive. And I call them out on it. and like this guy, I mean, this guy was amazing. It's just a wild example of it, right? Because this guy was, well, he was basically saying, what you're saying doesn't make any sense, right? And then I got him to admit that it doesn't make any sense to him, which is about as big a difference as you can imagine.
[21:20] Your position is self-contradictory and illogical as opposed to, I don't follow your argument. Those two things are epistemologically, they're almost complete opposites. They're about as opposed as things could be. And then it's like, hey, okay, if you want that distinction.
[21:41] You know, if Las Vegas is north and you're supposed to get to Las Vegas and the Uber driver's driving south, he's going to take you to Tijuana, and you say, hey, you've got to turn around and go north, and the driver's like, hey, okay, if you want to go north, you know, it's no difference, but okay. It's like, I don't know, it's wild. It's wild. But, yeah. Sorry, somebody says, thank you again, guys, for all your support. I don't know if it's dissociating to not push back. I tend to view the other person as being possessed, perhaps temporarily, by something like a complex. Whereas I view myself as a solid grounded. As sure, for the most part, as to who I am, not sure if this makes sense. Texting is limiting. Possessed? Possessed. Possessed. Well, okay, but if you view the person as possessed, which means, and I sort of get what you're saying, we'll go with the analogy, and you could be right, but my sort of first thought is that if you view the person as possessed, you wouldn't have to debate. Like you either identify the devil, because you're talking to a manipulative devil rather than an actual human being.
[22:51] So why would you want to talk to a manipulative devil? Why would you want to give a manipulative devil the essential humanity granted to somebody you're debating with.
[23:06] So, then I would simply say, you are manipulative and false, and I'm not going to have a conversation with you. Right? Because I'm like, what do you mean there's no difference between you make no sense and I don't understand you?
[23:27] Because the other thing, too, is that everyone feels the provocation, right? This is why it is such a bitch move, right? So, everyone feels the lack of respect and the provocation. Everyone feels it. At least, I think everyone does. It could be unconscious, which I know is not falsifiable, but everyone feels that petty passive aggression, right? A lack of respect, the needling, right? And if I ignore it, then it causes other people to doubt their own perceptions. So Bob, I don't know what the hell the guy's name was. It was Bob. So Bob was needling me in the debate. And everyone feels it. And if I act as if he's not needling me, then it causes people in the audience, well, it's not bothering Stef, maybe he's not needling, right? And so that is, I don't want you guys, like, you're annoyed at the guy, and if I'm perfectly zen, right, and rising above it all and so on, then I'm not supposed to address something that's right in front of my face, which is the passive aggression, right?
[24:54] Oh, yeah, don't forget to go to.
[25:00] James, do we have a URL? FDR URL for the swag, the merch. But yeah, you can go to locals and Subscribestar. And on X, you can go to recent posts and you can pick up some swag, free domain. Swag for yourself, for others. For Christmas, whatever you like. So I hope that you will do that. It's really, really great. All right. It's a great conversation. Thanks, guys. Oh, it's so nice. All right.
[25:38] Somebody, oh, Zim says, well, you're in a public debate kind of situation. So I think that changes things. But in interpersonal situations, I just refuse to call out little petty bullshit behavior like that. I view it akin to people seeking a drug and then giving them a particularly powerful, maybe even lethal amount of the drug. This will only ever continue to escalate and waste your time and energy. Yeah, I honestly cannot remember the last time in my personal life where I had to deal with passive aggression. I mean, my friends and family are honest and direct. You guys are honest and direct. I can't remember the last time because it really is only, I mean, when people do call-in shows, I usually don't get passive aggression from call-in shows. So, yeah, it's been a while. And that's what's interesting about being back on X is to deal with people who don't have a history of self-knowledge or understanding, right?
[26:33] So, and, oh, I did look up, so I couldn't find it at the time, but he was talking about the value of the flu vaccine. And this is just what I read, of course, it's not health advice, but I'd read that the vaccine, first of all, it changes the flu. They have to predict what the flu is going to mutate to or something like that. So sometimes it only has 25% efficacy. And also it tends to mess up your immune system according to RFK making you more susceptible to other particularly upper respiratory chest infections.
[27:10] Oh, Sim says, so I'll just nod and say, okay, oh sure, without completely conceding. Yeah. I also have, he says, I also have a very low level of patience for those and can be highly reactive. I truly take the lessons you share about it to heart. Somebody else says, passive-aggressive behavior grates my nerves. It's inauthentic, cowardly, and displays bad faith. I was uncomfortable during your debate. Yeah. He says, you're describing my exact reaction. I typically dissociate and stop having conversation. So you can go to freedomain-shop.fourthwall.com. freedomain-shop.fourthwall.com. And we'll try and come up with something,
[27:54] something a little more user-friendly. The access password is FDR Merch or lowercase FDR Merch. So freedomain-shop.fourthwall.com access password is a lowercase FDR Merch.
[28:13] Oh, so the person who says I was uncomfortable during your debate or rather more accurately annoyed without being able to voice an opinion. Yeah, yeah. Public and personal, very different. I agree with what Zim said there. Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. The merch looks great. Well, thanks to Zim for all of that. He did a great job there, and I really, really appreciate that. If that antibody-dependent enhancement, yeah, I was just reading that the British government is suppressing data, literally suppressing data.
[28:47] That shows the relationship between the vaccine and health damage. Crazy. Somebody else was posting, there's a German study, 90% inaccurate. Bombshell German study exposes the PCR test fraud that locked down the world. A seismic new study out of Germany has just dropped a truth bomb on the entire COVID-19 narrative. The implications are staggering. Remember the PCR tests, and that's the one that the actual founder of the PCR test said is never supposed to be used for diagnosis, right? The PCR tests, the ones that decided if you were locked down, forced into a quarantine hotel, or stripped of your freedoms. They were the cornerstone of the global pandemic response. Now, a major analysis of Germany's lab data, representing 90% of all tests, has conducted a simple devastating check. They compared PCR-positive results with actual blood tests for IgG antibodies to see who was truly infected. Only 10% to 14% of people who tested positive on a PCR test actually had antibodies proving a real infection. They were up to 90% inaccurate for every 10 quote cases reported only one was likely real.
[29:57] And this is because they kept doing the cycle, right? They kept spinning up the cycles till they could find anything they wanted, right? This confirms what many warned about in 2020. Inflated cycle thresholds were creating a pandemic of false positives. A separate paper at the time stated that at 35 cycles, the false positive rate was 97%. They had the antibody data all along. They could have calibrated the tests and stopped the fear cycle. Instead, they chose to run millions of flawed tests, terrorizing the population with case numbers they knew were scientifically meaningless. Lockdowns based on false data, school closures over phantom cases, vaccine mandates for a threat that was wildly overstated.
[30:37] And the ultimate irony, the one place you were guaranteed not to get a PCR test was in the COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials. They never tested participants to see if the vaccine actually stopped infection or transmission. That is wild. And again, I was I was talking about all of this stuff. I can't remember exactly when, but a while and a ways back. There's another study that says when couples are struggling, emotionally focused therapy is the best solution ever tested in relationships. It shows about a 70% recovery within three months, one of the strongest outcomes in all of social sciences. Isn't that wild?
[31:22] Uh the um the data is very interesting and now it's not a huge number right so this is but this is from the 90s uh this is a study examined 36 couples receiving emotionally focused therapy measured measured relationship satisfaction at pre-therapy post-therapy and at three months follow-up significant improvement in relationship satisfaction at post-therapy with 50 of couples classified as reliably recovered in terms of relationship distress at post-therapy and 70 presented a three-month follow-up.
[31:56] Uh, what else do we have? Oh, yeah, the rough sex, man. The rough sex data is just wild. Just wild. Uh, James says, I had experience dating with quite a lot of passive aggression very recently. It was a challenging for sure. Personal, not public. And when I would point it out, she would do the hands up. Okay, kind of response. Like I was oversensitive or overly picky or whatever. Right? Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I don't believe any data beyond 35 cycle. Well, but they made a lot of money, right? It was necessary for the pandemic to be dangerous in order for them to make their tens of billions of dollars off the vaccine.
[32:45] Rough sex behaviors in a nationally representative sample of over 9,000 U.S. adults. Hair pulling. For me, it would be armpit hair or butt hair. 27.4% of women and 39.6% of men have ever pulled their partner's hair. 31.2% of women, 33.1% of men have bit their partner. Face slapping. 5.2% of women and 8.9% of men have ever slapped their partner's face. Spanking. Light. 29.5% of women, 53% of men. Spanking hard, 8.5% of women and 19.5% of men. They spanked their partner hard enough to leave a mark. So you're in a room with five guys and one of them has half beaten his partner sexually. Choking, 9.2% of women and 15.8% of men have ever choked their partner. Just so dangerous, man. I mean, it's what took out Michael Hutchins, wasn't it? Names 5.9% of women and 13.1% of men have called their partner dirty names. Any 47.8% of women and 60.8% of men have ever done one or more of the behaviors to a partner.
[33:59] That is wild. But it sounds like the women like it more than the men. Which would explain some female romance, right? Romance novels.
[34:16] A newly uncovered video reveals the moment House Oversight Democrat Stacey Plaskett was being coached by Jeffrey Epstein via text, being told what to ask in the middle of a 2019 hearing. Isn't that wild?
[34:35] This was some stuff to do with the BBC, the British Broadcasting Corporation. And it's funny because it's a state-protected corporation. And fascism is when the government protects and promotes and pays corporations, right? Because the corporations are the nominal owners, but the government is the protector and controller. And so seeing all of these people in England, absolutely, would hate fascism, but by defending the BBC, they're defending fascism. But this person wrote, the BBC is not a pillar of goodness.
[35:15] The BBC did this to itself just over the last 20 years. Jimmy Saville abuse cover-up. 2012, BBC ignored decades of allegations against presenter Saville who abused hundreds. Internal review found chaos enabled protection on celebrities. Martin Basher, Diana deception. Basher forged documents for a 1995 interview. BBC concealed it for 26 years. Dyson inquiry condemned deceit. You, Edwards, scandal 2023 to 2024. Star paid teen for explicit images. BBC knew of arrest but delayed disclosure. Review exposed cover-up. Brand Ross prank calls, 2008. Obscene voicemails to Andrew Sachs led to suspensions, £150,000 fine. Controller resignation. Strictly come-dancing abuse claims, 2023-2025. Posts like Pernice accused of bullying. BBC upheld some complaints. Pulled episodes. Bias Allegations Left-wing Tilt Accused of favoring labor, e.g. 2019 anti-Semitism dark-smeared Corbyn, Brexit coverage downplayed leave, Complaints up 50% in 2023, Israel-Palestine 2004 Bail-in Report on Mideast Bias Suppressed 330,000-pound legal fight 2024 Astroson Report 15,000 or more violations in Gaza coverage pro-Israel skew B2B-C Arabic used Hamas link linked narrator Excellent.
[36:39] Ah. Scottish independence 2014. SNP claimed anti-yes bias. Study found unionist slight.
[36:47] Richard Sharp loan chairman facilitated PM Johnson's loan. Undisclosed conflict resigned. Overall repeated Oxfam, Ofcom breaches. Internal review confirmed systemic issues trust eroded per Reuters institution.
[37:05] Yeah it's uh it's master uh monstrous, monstrous as an institution as a whole all right let me get back to you your comments, uh let's see here, uh not for somebody says not finished dissolution the novel yet but the conversation between greg Greg and John reminds me of many interactions I had growing up in that it was tough to tell the difference between genuine perception and when it was projection or hypocrisy. Both John and Greg weren't completely wrong about the other, in my view, and appreciated that realism in that chapter. Do you have advice for how to consistently recognize when advice someone is giving you is coming from a place of genuine perception and when it's not?
[38:02] Okay, let me just bring ye olde chapter up-y. All right. John.
[38:22] Yes, John and Greg. Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. Okay so yeah so they did have each other's number in a way but the very powerful thing for me about the scene with John and Greg the reason why it's in there right but the reason why the scene is in there is.
[38:49] That we see just how ferocious John is in protecting Robert, but not Shane. So the real slate of hand in that chapter is that when there's something that's threatening his preferred son, Robert, he acts decisively and ferociously to deal with the threat, which isn't even that great a threat, right? So you see how John moves aggressively, like very aggressively, almost violently to protect his preferred son, Robert. What's missing from the book is the fact that he never did anything like that with the woman who destroyed his less preferred son. So he didn't do that with his wife who was sucking the nads, testosterone and innards out of Shane. But he also, the woman who wrecked Shane was Regina and John never confronted her. Never. Right. So you've got a kind of creep muscling in on the marriage of his preferred son. And he just gets rid of that like absolutely decisively. And yet there's a woman who takes apart his youngest, sorry, his eldest son, who he doesn't prefer, he doesn't do anything.
[40:17] Doesn't do anything. So that scene is, to me, very powerful in what's missing, which is he doesn't do any of that to protect a far greater danger that's taking apart and destroys his eldest son. Uh, advice, uh, someone is giving you coming from a place of genuine perception and when it's not. That's a good question. It's a good question. I want to, I don't want to be glib. I never want to be glib. Barry Gibb, maybe from time to time, but not Stefan glib. Um.
[40:52] Yeah, because you see this all the time. Uh, it's funny. Uh, I sort of, it will occasionally go into the camp of the enemy, like I'll watch something like The Morning Show just to see the wild mindset. Or I was reading The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, age 13 and three quarters, which came out in the early 80s, I think, by a writer named Sue Townsend. And it's kind of funny, but it is so propaganda, so propaganda. The leftists are all great. The immigrants are all completely fantastic. The only bad people are white people. And it's just wild how much propaganda was in that supposed comedy book, right? But same thing was true with Fawlty Towers. All right. So what you see on the left is this very cheap and petty psychologizing all the time. Oh, you just can't stand to see me get ahead. Oh, you only have a problem with me because of X, Y, and Z, or you can't, you can't stand that I'm dating a woman who's prettier than you are. You know, it's all this like cheap, petty, diminishing and negative.
[42:04] Quote, psychologizing. So I call it psychologizing when it diminishes the other person without admitting any vulnerability yourself, right? So there are probably a thousand times where I've said in call-in shows, listen, I'm right down there in the trenches with you. I'm not coming from any superior place. I struggle with this stuff too, right? So when somebody is, they supposedly have your number and it's really contemptuous towards you, they don't admit any struggles themselves.
[42:32] And it denies the reality or existence or value of the relationship completely. So if you have a friend who's in a bad mood and you say, oh, you just hate it that I'm happy. You just hate it that I got a raise. You just hate it that the girl's going out with me, not you, or whatever it is. You just can't stand it or whatever it is. If it's true, if that's how the person is, then you shouldn't be in a relationship with them if they're that petty. right? So, I think that the psychologizing where you say, oh, you just because of X, Y, and Z, right? Now, the funny thing, of course, is that Greg is a dangerous weasel. I have no question, Greg is a dangerous weasel. And John is right in many ways to be that blunt with him. And Greg does have criticisms of John's family that are valid, but do not come from a good place. And so one of the things that I think is important is you try to take advice.
[43:41] From people who have some credibility and some success. I mean, Tom Likas used to say this all the time. He'd be married like three or four times and people would say, well, what do you have to say about relationships? And he's like, you should never take marriage advice from me because I'm bad at marriage. I don't know how to, but hey, I can tell you how to get laid or whatever, right?
[43:59] So when the person is condemning you for, you know, absolute psychological reasons, that are contemptuous towards you without admitting any fault or struggle or difficulty themselves. I mean, saying that you are unhappy because someone you're competing with has succeeded, envy is a natural phenomenon. I mean, I'll be straight up with you. I'll see the live stream numbers for other people and it can be a little tricky. Again, I like the jazz club thing, but sometimes it was nice when I was streaming to two more people. Now, again, this is an intimate club situation and all of that.
[44:45] But envy is an interesting challenge for all of us. I think envy is when you look at what someone else has and think you can get it. Jealousy is when you think you can't and you just need to take them down, right? So envy is like, oh, that guy's got abs and I want abs, right? But jealousy is when, you know, that guy's taller and I can't become taller or something like that. And we all struggle with it. At least maybe you don't. I think we all do. I certainly do. And so if you say, well, you're only unhappy because I succeeded or whatever it is, it's like.
[45:29] I remember in the business world, there was a guy I was mentoring who basically said, the reality is I'm always going to be the second guy coming through the door in the action movie. You know, the first guy's the hero, the second guy's the sidekick. And he says, hey man, I'm always going to be the second guy coming through the door. He was okay with that, I guess. All right. He says, oh, this is regarding the passive aggression. Oh man, it's like they're covertly trying to cannibalize you. Well, they are doing an underhanded status move. An underhanded status move. An underhanded status move is when you put the other person in an impossible situation and watch them squirm. All right.
[46:21] Oh, you just always have to be right, don't you? Yeah, you can't stand admitting that you're ever wrong. And it's like, okay, well, if that's true, then don't be within a relationship with the person, right? Like the reply guys on X who have 50 followers and give Stef advice on how to do social media. Oh boy, I will never stop pointing that out. I know it bothers people, but I would never stop pointing that out because I don't really care how many people. I mean, I gain and lose people on X all the time because I just regularly annoy people. But I will never stop pointing that out because if you want to have credibility, you have to earn it. I mean, just the reply guys are like, well, here's why you do this. And here's how you do this. Like, oh, shut up. You don't, you know, you don't know. You don't know. You don't do it. You don't do it. You don't actually do it. And so why would I listen to you? But for most people, they just want to waffle on, right? They just want a waffle burger.
[47:21] And it's like that meme, like, I'm overweight on three different kinds of SSRIs. I'm chronically depressed. But let me tell you how society should be run. Okay. Okay, Galileo. And it's tough. It's tough. It's tough for people to know the pecking order of credibility, because everybody wants to be listened to and to be able to give advice. Everybody wants that for sure because people will listen to you. You have an effect on the world and you can, I wouldn't say control people,
[47:55] influence people, right? You can influence people, right? And.
[48:05] To actually have to earn credibility is tough. If you want to tell me how to get abs, have abs. That's all. That's all. All right, so let's see what else do we have here. Oh, this was kind of funny too. This guy says, I'm going to be real. If the men and boys in your household are eating leftovers quickly without even asking anyone else, first, you are not feeding them enough. Girl dinner is not going to cut it. I don't think many of us realize how much more food guys need. It took me a bit too. Yeah, that's true. My wife and I sort of joke about how her grocery bill would be like a third if she wasn't married. Oh yeah, this was a study. The correlation between tattoos and mental illness increases with the number and size of tattoos. In other words, it's dose dependent. Greater skin coverage predicts increased quantity and severity of psychological disorders, which I was talking about like 15 years ago. Everyone's bitching me about it. No, it's just decoration. It's like, no, it's a very real thing. Megyn Kelly and she says that she and Tucker Carlson are under serious threat at the moment. It's tough.
[49:12] So that's interesting. If you're born poor and succeed, you're a conservative. If you're born rich and fail, you're communist. Wherever we have data, we see this repeated. Communists tend to be downwardly mobile. They are, always and everywhere, disproportionately likely to be their generation's losers. I'm just sort of following this thread. Those born in a high social class and who have inherited low ability and thus fall a social class are the most resentful and vocal. They also are the least impactful people on long-term trends, yet are deceptive in their overcrowding of the present zeitgeist, Occupy Wall Street. And that's very interesting, right? So the argument is that, regression to the mean, right? So if you are very successful, you make a lot of money and you're top of your career, whatever it is, then you have kids. Those kids are likely to be above average, but not as high as you. And then those kids struggle, they can't reproduce your success.
[50:14] And then they get resentful. And then they, quote, hate the rich, right? So that's very interesting.
[50:26] I thought this was interesting. This guy wrote, there's a guy at BJJ, that's Brazilian, Brazilian, Brazilian, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. There's a guy at BJJ who always rushes home from the last rolls because his girlfriend is angry at him for staying late. Today we convinced him to stay until the end. He didn't answer his phone to the girlfriend, so she got the gym's phone number, called the coach, and asked if a man is indeed there, and if he is, he should go home immediately. Guys, don't put up with bullshit like this. It will only get worse. And women, please don't behave like this. if you can't let your man be away for one and a half hours, twice a week, because you think he's cheating on you, you are crazy. And it's all so wild to me. It's all so wild to me because.
[51:07] What this means is that people are just, they're not dating in terms of like thinking about their future kids. So if you don't think about your future kids, crazy women get a lot more dating opportunities. If you're thinking about, okay, so she's nuts with me, how's she going to be with the kids? That's a whole different thing, right? All right. Zim says, I think some basic questions that never cross people's mind. Could I be wrong? What are my intentions here? Am I missing anything? Yeah. Maybe the criticisms are valid, right? Looking to move soon, Stef. Setting down roots with new wife. What's the best way to make sure your community or neighbors are reasonable? I think demographics plus religiosity is important. Thank you for the additional insight. Oh, about the book. I did have the sense John was being a massive hypocrite in that scene, but couldn't put my finger on exactly why so appreciate that very important clarity on that scene well also think of the scene, where there's there's two other themes scenes i think that are relevant one is a scene between, john and the unknown business person who's trying to who wants to sue him and john has like this this fairly terrifying story i'll read it in case you haven't uh in case you haven't um, Heard it.
[52:35] And it says, John started his company, shamelessly stole customers from his former employers and took out a second mortgage to fund his very expensive offices. He was threatened with lawsuits for poaching, but he had such a perfect frozen face of rage and cruelty that people flinched and blinked at the idea of taking him on in court. They feared the kinds of lawyers he would hire, the kinds of countersuits he would file, and the vicious rumors he would spread. Like a shark in the ocean, frictionless hunting was his element. Once when legal action was threatened over lunch, John replied, hey, would you rather face a big dog on land, like a rabbit husky or a pit bull, or a tiny two-foot shark in the deep ocean? His aggressor had been bewildered. What? John had picked at his white teeth with a toothpick, stretching back his cheeks so his molars were visible. Right, that's a nice shark image. And he says, most people choose the shark. That's stupid. but that will get you killed. With the dog, you can climb a tree, get to safety, throw a rock hit it with a stick. Even if it gets on you, you can gouge an eye. He laughed. Both of you are lucky. You're both in your element, right? On land, used to gravity and momentum. John leaned forward. But in the ocean, you're in the shark's world.
[53:52] What are you going to do? It can just circle you and be patient. One little chomp every half hour, every hour. Then you're bleeding. Even if more sharks don't come, you can't really find it. It can come up from below. And when it bites, you get weaker and the shark gets stronger. You've got to use your arms to stay afloat. No trees to climb, no rocks to throw.
[54:21] Just pleading and waiting and panicking. John leaned further forward. You just have to think about it. Right. The lunch ended abruptly. No legal action ensued, right? So that is John protecting his business and his income with that level of, you know, concentrated ferocity and threat, right? Because obviously John is saying, well, I'm a sociopath, so if you come into my element, I'm the shark. I'm not a mammal. I'm a cold-blooded attack shark.
[54:57] And you're in my element, and I'm patient, and I'm cold, and I'm cruel, and I'm implacable, and you're Balooze, right? And he doesn't do anything to protect his son. And the other one is, of course, where he's defending his own interests when Shane wants to go to art school.
[55:20] So, yeah, he's very, very ferocious defending his interests and his interests because he's ego wedded to his youngest son, Robert. He protects Robert. He protects himself. He protects his business. He just, what's missing is any protection of Shane whatsoever. So, yeah. All right. Any other questions, comments? Let me see if I'm missing anything here. Since 2020, 904,000 white Americans fired, 2 million Hispanics, and 882 Chinese and Indians hired, all to prevent family formation for Europeans. Crazy. All right any other questions comments issues challenges or problems, see if there's anything else that's coming in that i need to know about, All right, well, I think we're done. I think we're done. Oh, wait, wait, wait. Somebody wishes to Von Chatty Head. Let us. Do it. Drago, what's on your mind?
[56:48] Hey, Stefan. I think on forgiveness, you've contributed a lot to the public discussion recently, stimulating a lot of thoughts, certainly myself. And then I think in general. So I had some distinctions I wanted to get your thoughts on if you have time. And the first distinction I wanted to know when you think about how you would, how you talk through the difference between the commission of a wrong versus the omission of a good. And what I mean is specifically in Christianity, we do see the clear passages, as you pointed out, where if someone repents, then you forgive them because they need to repent. If someone causes harm, does a wrongdoing, they need to repent and you forgive them. But then also on the flip side with the passage of.
[57:43] Forgive us our debts as we forgive others' debts, the concept of debt seems to suggest a different category, which is you do something good, you give something to someone, and they don't reciprocate. It's a failure in reciprocity. And so in this sense, there's a difference between when someone harms you, they repent for the harm, you forgive them. But then to the extent that someone isn't reciprocating your goodness where you do something good and they're just not kind in response, would you make a distinction between that? The commission versus the omission, how would you think about those?
[58:24] Well, I think it's not healthy to stay in relationships where you're being exploited, where you're providing all the value and the other person is just taking. So I don't think it means just keep providing value to people who never return, any value because that's being exploited. So I don't think that the Bible can be talking about that. It's not talking about lending money because you can't just lend all of your money to people who never pay you back because then everybody ends up broke. So I think what it's talking about, and again, this is obviously my interpretation, but I think it makes sense as a whole. I think what it's talking about is that there are small frictions in every relationship.
[59:02] They're a small, I mean, as I mentioned before, my wife, you know, she makes wonderful dinners, and she never remembers to bring me anything to drink. So I'll do this sort of sad, pitiful shuffle to the kitchen, and it's funny, right? Now, I could take this personally. Well, if you really cared about me, you'd bring me something to drink. I can't eat without drinking, but I just go and get a cup of water or whatever. I mean, it's funny. Like, it's a joke, right? She will never return the we have one set of car keys right um because we bought the car second handed it was only one set of keys so so so she will always uh she will never we have a hook right when you come into the house there's a little hook to hang the car keys she will never hang them ever.
[59:50] And they're in one of her she doesn't have a huge number of purses but it doesn't really matter they're in some purse somewhere and she's like they're in my purse and i'm like which purse where there's like 18 different pockets, right? So, uh, it's a continual thing and I don't know why doesn't really matter. It's been 23 years. Uh, she doesn't do it. Let's do it now. Uh, look, there are things that I do. Uh, you know, she, uh, you know, I have, um, you know, tooth, toothbrushes and a little tooth cleaner for my sort of corner of the missing, missing tooth and, and so on I have nightguards right to make sure my teeth don't drift and I'll leave them on the kitchen on the, on the the bathroom sink area right and she puts them away and all of that.
[1:00:38] And so these are sort of little frictions that are just in relationships. And I think what it's saying is don't take the little things personally. Don't exaggerate them into big problems or flaws. My wife knows how much I adore her. I know how much she loves me. And so don't take these little things. Like forgive. Forgive where it's mutual, right? Where it's mutual, right? So if you forget your wife's birthday, you can't then be mad if at some point she forgets an anniversary or your birthday or something like that. So forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. So where these little frictions are mutual. And I think that stuff is important. You have to have to have to forgive the stuff like I'm not perfect. My wife's not perfect. We're perfect for each other. I'm not perfect. My wife's not perfect. So I'm not going to focus on her personally.
[1:01:43] I'm not going to focus on her, quote, imperfections or, quote, thoughtlessness or whatever, when I also have my imperfections and my thoughtlessness.
[1:01:55] So, oh, thank you. Welcome, Arus. I appreciate your subscription. So, there are times when my wife asks me to do something and I forget.
[1:02:09] It happens, right? and i mean there are times when i i'm like was it just yesterday just yesterday um uh james sent me a text saying and it's ridiculous like james has to remind me to to create the live streams on x because you can't right so i was downstairs i was doing some work i was in the basement and james texted me and uh hey can you create the live stream for 10 a.m tomorrow and i was like yeah, and then i was i started like i'm just going to finish this thing and then i finished and then I was like, I got to go upstairs. And I go upstairs. I'm like, what am I doing here? I know it was urgent. I cannot remember. And then it sort of came back to me. I'm supposed to create the live stream. Now the, so James could say like, bro, why is it every single week? I almost always need to remind you to create the live streams. Why? Well, one of the reasons is because sometimes the live stream time changes and like we were an hour earlier today. And so I have some concern about starting the live streams ahead of time because sometimes the time changes if other stuff comes up. But nonetheless, I should put my reminders up to say, create the live stream so that James doesn't have to remind me, right? Now, James could say, oh, God, I mean, such a such a prima donna, why do I have to get more mad each time, right? To step up, right? To step up. And, you know, I mean, what can I say? I mean, he's got some, right? Now, occasionally, James, God love him, will forget to do something that I've asked him to do.
[1:03:32] So, uh, we kind of have a deal. I think we haven't sort of formalized it, but she's like, when neither of us perfect, right? Uh, no, James can't set up the live streams. Uh, that's a technical thing on X. So, I mean, but thank you, Joe, for the completely obvious answer. We're smart. We know. Um, but so, so I think James and I, uh, when we work together, we have sort of a thing, which is like, I will forget things and you will forget things. And it's no uh it's not a big deal because if we start focusing on that stuff all of the enjoyment enjoyment and productivity that we have with working together will kind of go out the window so i think that the forgiveness thing is don't think that you're perfect because yeah it's called grace yeah and and humility which is like yeah my wife never puts the car keys where they're supposed to be and you know half the time we we leave i forget something i'm in the car i'm like oh, my wallet, oh, my phone, oh, I forgot this, oh, I forgot that, whatever it is, right?
[1:04:34] So there are little frictions in relationships, that you forgive the other person because they forgive you, right? So if I was like, I don't know, bitching at James every time he forgot something, then he could bitch at me every time I forgot something. And I think he'd actually have the advantage because I think I forget more than james does so so it's really just because i don't want to get bitched at so much no but i mean i i think those are the little the little graces that you you forget something that's important to the other person and then the other person forgets something that's important to you you just extend that grace to others and the last thing i'll say you know like my wife will say oh listen when you're out could you pick up some milk right and i'll go out and i'll come home and she's like hey did you remember the milk and i'm like, Yes, yes, I did, but I was robbed by a bunch of Tunisians on the way home. That was rough, man. I fought them off, though. You can ask questions here on Locals. You can type them, but I can't do both audio from the phone, which is what's required to run the spaces on X. But you know what I'm going to do this week? Excuse me, this week I'm going to do a chat just with Locals, and you can voice in. So sorry for the long answer. I hope that makes some sense. What do you think?
[1:05:53] Yeah, I think I agree with what you're saying. I wonder if that's all it is, or if there's any extra part of that. And I guess, to your first part about the lender. So I agree that if you just lend and lend, you run out of value, you have nothing left to give, right? You're just being exploited. But I wonder if we separate that into stages. So if you lend to someone, and metaphorically speaking, you're lending, you're doing something good.
[1:06:19] No, let's not do metaphorically because then I don't know what we're talking about in specific. Let's just say money.
[1:06:26] Yeah, I mean, sure. But I mean, relationally, right, we're not necessarily talking about money. But sure, I mean, we could say money. There's a difference between me telling the person I lent the money saying, okay, like, you don't have to pay me back. That's one decision. But then for me to, that doesn't mean I have to keep lending to you.
[1:06:44] Hang on, hang on. Sorry, sorry. I'm not sure what you're talking about. But are you, because if you don't have to pay, it's a gift, right? If I give someone 50 bucks, they don't have to pay me back.
[1:06:53] Well, it's maybe what initially started as an expectation of repayment. But then when you forgive the debt, you say, you know what? I expected you to pay me back, but I'm not expecting that anymore. You keep it. You don't have to pay me back anymore.
[1:07:06] I'm not changing. But hang on. But that has a pretty profound cost to the relationship, doesn't it?
[1:07:13] Uh, that has a cost of relationship.
[1:07:16] So let's say I lend someone 500 bucks.
[1:07:18] Sure.
[1:07:19] And why would I say you don't have to pay me back? Well, I mean, maybe I won the lottery or whatever it is, right? But why would I say you don't have to pay me back? I would say you don't have to pay me back because it's becoming more trouble and bothered to try and get the money back. And I'm just going to write off the loan and say, well, this person promised to pay me back. They've broken their promise. So I'm just going to give up on a belief in their honor and integrity.
[1:07:43] So from a Christian perspective, at least the way the gospel would explain this is because in the same sense that the other person, you know, they're struggling or whatever, they're not paying you back. It's acknowledging that we're not paying God back. We're not reciprocating to God the gifts that he's given us. So it's kind of like, if I expect repayment from everybody, then God will expect repayment from me, of which I will certainly fall short.
[1:08:09] Okay, so saying that relations between humans are analogous to relationships between humans and God is a category error. I'll be straight up with that. So, if somebody says, lend me $500 and I'll pay you back, that's a commitment, right?
[1:08:27] Yes. Okay.
[1:08:28] Now, thou shalt not bear false witness means don't tell lies. Now, if I borrow $500 from you, and the only reason I get that money is because I say I'm going to pay it back, and I don't pay it back, I've broken a commandment. I'm now bearing false witness because I promised to pay it back, and I'm no longer paying it back.
[1:08:50] Uh, well that, I mean, that wouldn't be the, from a Christian perspective, that's not how we would interpret the bare false witness in that category.
[1:08:58] I mean, it's a lie, isn't it? If I say I'm going to pay you back and then I don't pay you back, I've broken my word.
[1:09:04] Uh, it's, it, bare false witness would be more about like an attack on your reputation, like lying about, you know, who you are and, oh, you know, like destroying someone.
[1:09:15] No, no, no, I don't agree with that. Bear false witness is about matters of significant honor. I mean, it doesn't say don't lie. It says don't bear false witness, which means in a matter of import, perhaps a legal matter, perhaps a matter of great moral import that you really struggle and strive to tell the truth. But if you lend someone $500, that's actually a legal matter. I mean, assuming you get, you could take them to court. So I'm not saying you would, but you could. And so thou shalt not bear false witness means it's a matter of integrity and import and perhaps in legal matters, you are honor bound to not purge yourself, to not bear false witness. And so if you say, hey man, I promised to go camping with you this weekend and then something comes up and you can't, that's not a big significant legal matter or a matter of great importance, but $500 is a lot of money. And if you get the money by promising to pay it back and you don't pay it back, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not bear false witness. How does that not come in?
[1:10:17] Yeah, so it does come in, but even if we're going to go back to the Old Testament Torah.
[1:10:24] We're talking about, if I could just elaborate on this, even the concept of the Jubilee year, right, where there's all these outstanding debts, and then people say, you know what, the debts are canceled. Now, I agree that when you say, I'm going to pay you back, and someone can fully intend on that, I think the recognition there is that.
[1:10:47] Something can happen. People can fall on hard times. And so it's just a recognition as a general principle in life that, you know, understanding how there's the suffering and the pain of life, right? It's kind of like pointing to that that can happen. Now, that's different than the Machiavellian exploiter who's just going to pretend, oh, life's so hard, so I can't fulfill my honor. You know, that's a different category, of course. But again, I think the principle here with this whole forgive others' debts as we want God to forgive our debts is more of like understanding of like the suffering and pain of existence that, you know, can sometimes, you know, lead to, yeah, like we're just not repaying what we owe. We're not, you know, I might owe you a good kindness. And if I'm not giving you the kindness and I'm failing in my obligation, you know, socially, right, in some sense. But I might not be aware of it I might not be aware of how I'm failing to give others what they are owed in the same way others are failing to give me what I'm owed so I think that's kind of like the principle at least in the gospel.
[1:11:57] Okay so that's fine and, I can certainly we can imagine scenarios where you lend someone 500 bucks and then they get into some horrible accident maybe they don't have insurance or something and you're like okay forget it And that I can understand that. But the question is sort of honor bound. So with regards to debts, if someone... Owes you $500, and then doesn't have the money, what should they do?
[1:12:32] Someone owes $500. They don't have the money.
[1:12:34] Well, try to get the money. Sorry, I borrowed $500 from you. For some reason, I can't pay it back. What should I do?
[1:12:44] Oh, well, if you truly can't and can't find a way to get it, I guess at least apologize and say, I recognize that I made the mistake, right? I'm sorry that I engaged in this relationship, this contract with you, and I couldn't fulfill my end of the bargain. and I recognize my error, right?
[1:13:02] Okay, and then what? What should they do then?
[1:13:08] Well, what should they do?
[1:13:10] Because an apology is fine, but you need more than an apology because an apology is just words, and that's fine, but you, especially if somebody's a good actor, you can't tell if they're sincere usually. So what should they do to retain their honor if they cannot pay the money back?
[1:13:29] If they cannot. so we're assuming that there's no way to pay it back. Well, the parable, Jesus tells a parable in this case, if you can't pay back, then you're obligated to forgive other people who can't pay you back either. And it would be hypocritical to demand. So let's say in this example, you couldn't pay me back, but now let's say James owes you some money. It would be hypocritical for you to thump your fist at James, say, hey man, you haven't paid me back. What's the matter with you? But then simultaneously, you haven't paid me back.
[1:13:59] Okay, I understand that, and that's hypocrisy. But what is the person who can't pay a monetary debt on a bound to do?
[1:14:11] If they literally can't, then what action do they have left at their disposal? If they literally can't recoup you, so we're saying they cannot give you the money in any kind of way for whatever reason, then what other action can they do to keep the honor?
[1:14:26] Uh...
[1:14:30] I mean, I don't know, work for you until they make it. Yeah, that's right.
[1:14:33] They will offer a service. Like, let's say that it's your neighbor, right? So they say, hey, you know, I can't pay you the money back, but at least let me mow your lawn this summer.
[1:14:44] Yeah.
[1:14:45] Or, you know, I remember when I was over, your basement was a total mess. Listen, I'd be happy to help you clean out the basement or I'll wash your car. Or you provide some labor to retain your honor in the interaction. And that's how you know the person is really sorry.
[1:15:05] Yeah, yeah.
[1:15:05] So it is the apology is fine. But then what I've also talked about is restitution. You need restitution. You need to provide some kind of restitution. And I remember someone I lent money to when I was a student couldn't pay me back. And uh so she ended up uh proofreading one of my books and i said i said hey you know what um i really need a book proofread uh proofread the book and we'll call it even and she did did a great job and i was fine with it so i that's how you know whether somebody is sincere i mean if i owed someone money and i couldn't pay i'd be so wretched i'd be like well what can i do what can i do to I, I, I demand, I demand that you give me some work. I demand that I do something for you. Uh, do you, do you need, uh, your rooms? Do you need some, do you need a room in your house painted? Do you like anything? I can't even afford the paint, but please let me do, I mean, I will detail your car, uh, with, uh, with a microscope. I like whatever you need to, to do that. I can do, I will do it. Uh, and, um, I would teach you anything that I know, that you find a value. And so the way that you deal with those non-payment of debts is you pay in some other form of value.
[1:16:27] Boy, this sounds like the opening to a sexy movie, you know? Well, I can't pay my rent, landlord. What else can I, you know what I mean? But no, I mean, that's honor bound. If somebody just says, hey, man, I'm sorry I can't pay you back, and then doesn't offer anything else. Hey, I'm sorry I can't pay you back, but I know you've always loved this painting. Can I at least give you the painting? I can't pay you back, but I'm really good at massages. Can I give you a couple of massages for free? Or, you know, whatever. I don't know. It's just something to say that, yeah, it's fine. I've recognized my debt. I can't pay it back in one form. Let me try and pay it back in another form. That's how you know the person is honorable, don't you?
[1:17:07] Yeah, absolutely. The last thing, and then I'll have to hop up, and I appreciate you explaining that because I agree. So interestingly enough, this kind of, when you talk about Christianity, what you just described is the difference between a Catholic approach and a Protestant approach because from a Catholic approach, that's the concept of penance, right? The person who's seeking forgiveness has to do some kind of restitution to restore the relationship with God. Now, of course, we'll say, well, what about grace? The grace is that the restitution, the leverage of what, like for God, they say it's an infinite offense, but I can just do a little bit of penance and I'm restored because I could never truly make it right. So in that sense, that's the grace, but that's different than the Protestant conception, which is like, eh, no restitution required, you know, just say the thing and you're all good. So I think that's interesting.
[1:18:04] Yeah, the restitution is there so that you don't reward immorality, right? So if somebody just says, hey man, I can't pay you back, I'm really sorry, I'm so sorry, and then they wander off, well, then you've just.
[1:18:16] Rewarded somebody who's not being honest and direct. Because again, if you owe someone money and you can't pay them, offer them your labor, Lincoln lawyer style, right? And so the reason why the restitution is important is to make sure that you are not, quote, forgiving people who are exploiting you and thus rewarding immorality and making the world a worse place. So yeah, but the grace is the natural friction. So we have to think about ourselves, we have to think about other people. And there's tensions between thinking about ourselves and thinking about other people. If you are pathologically altruistic, then you only think about other people and then you get weird and passive aggressive. If you're too selfish, you only think about yourself and not other people. So there's these overlapping diagrams. You have to be yourself, but also think about other people. They have to be themselves, which means focusing on their own thoughts, preferences, but also think about you. So this is a very exciting and wonderful part of life. It's an Aristotelian mean. You can't just live for others. You can't just live for yourself. There's a balance. And in that balance, like all things that are balanced, it's not a single point, like the top of the bell curve, right in the middle of the Aristotelian mean, right? It's a wavering point. And in that wavering point, sometimes we think too much about others. Sometimes we think too much about ourselves.
[1:19:33] So for instance, in my career, I spent 2015 to 2020 thinking way too much about others and not enough about what I needed. That was the great positive thing that came out of the deplatforming was I got to think about myself more and what was enjoyable for me more and not feel like this burrow that was hauling the world's sorrows and troubles behind him.
[1:19:55] And maybe the X thing is a balance between the two, right? So in that natural friction of thinking about ourselves and thinking about others, it's going to waver, it's going to go back and forth. Sorry, that's redundant. And you're going to make mistakes, so to speak, because it's like when you're standing on something wobbly, you don't stand perfectly still. The only way you can stay balanced is to move your arms and shimmy, and you don't stand perfectly still when you're standing on something totally wobbly. Uh, like if you ever go to rent fairs, they, they do these, they put these balls and then they have these planks on top and they stand on top of the planks on top of the balls. And it's really cool. And so, uh, but you wobble and, and in that wobble, we should understand that there's going to be a friction and you don't want someone who just thinks about you because that's not universal, right? If they're just thinking about you and serving you, you're not really thinking about them anymore. You're not serving them. And if it's good to think about others and serve others, then it's non-reciprocal. So you have to have that balance. in that balance comes the wobble and comes the friction and we should forgive everyone because that's just the human condition is that we need to think about ourselves and we also need to think about others and we can't just it's too easy to simply be selfish and it's too easy to simply only think about and serve others because we need to have that that friction that's where.
[1:21:12] The real essence of life is in in managing these these complications so in that friction there'll be times where you think too much of others there'll be times when you think too much of yourself same thing's true of the other person and we all need to forgive that because we're all going through that process if that makes sense.
[1:21:31] All right, I think he did have to go. James says, another element of live stream scheduling is that fairly often Stef will have a topic he wants to discuss. A lot of the setup is formulaic, but if there's anything I can do to break up the repetition, I also want that information. So Stef setting up the X spaces also conveys special topics, which I would want to ask about anyway. Yeah, yeah, for sure. We don't know necessarily like what's Bitcoin doing another plunge today, right? Largely to do, I think, with the government slowdown, but yeah, so then we'll be like, oh my gosh, we got to talk about Bitcoin or something like that, right? zone. All right. Okay. I think our caller is gone and I forgot to eat today, so I should probably get a little nutrition in the old noggin. Obviously, massive thanks to you all for supporting the show. Really do appreciate that. And I will get a, this week, I will get a locals only live stream for callers. And I have a way of setting this up technically. I really do. I have a way of setting this up technically, but I just need to figure it out. So that local people can call, but people on X can listen. It's quite challenging. Yes. Thank you, everyone, so much. And, James, if you can set up fdrurl.com/merch, fdrurl.com/merch, I would appreciate that. FDR merch, all lowercase, is the password to get in, and I hope you will order. Lots of love, guys. Bye.
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