Stefan Molyneux takes on a range of philosophical and practical questions from callers. He starts with whether Islam serves as a stronger guide for large-scale social organization than other ideologies, and he compares it with Christianity on topics like state power, in-group preference, and the expansion of government.
He examines how state power has grown through taxation, income tax withholding, public debt, and burdens passed to future generations. This leads into a discussion of whether moral philosophy can justify coercive systems, along with ideas of self-ownership, the non-aggression principle, and universally preferable behavior.
Molyneux also responds to a parenting question about whether a child should keep up with karate after a shoulder injury. He draws on personal examples to explain that genuine passions tend to endure, but children should feel free to step away from activities they do not truly enjoy so they can discover better fits.
In another part, he addresses dating and relationships, particularly a woman who finds it hard to pursue men she gets along with because the chemistry feels absent. He makes the case that strong relationships rest on shared virtues, values, and moral respect rather than fleeting attraction, since desire without admiration often fades.
He explores how value judgments can rest on reason and evidence, and why notions of better and worse go beyond mere personal taste. Questions about meritocracy follow, including legal pressures on hiring practices and why organizations tend to shift away from pure merit selection under discrimination laws.
The episode ends with thoughts on women, risk, accusations, and reactions to violence, then turns to entrepreneurship and family life. Molyneux argues that entrepreneurship rarely suits parents of young children, given its high demands, uncertainty, and intense focus.
0:00:00 - Welcome to Friday Night Live
0:01:34 - Islam and State Power
0:09:39 - A Question of Quitting
0:24:22 - Classes and Chemistry
0:31:32 - Grounding Moral Value
0:35:29 - Freedom, Breeding, and Race
0:38:25 - Vulnerability and Noble Suffering
0:42:09 - Dream of the Woods
0:50:56 - Government and Ruin
0:55:08 - Why Merit Becomes DEI
1:11:38 - Freedom, Risk, and Belief
1:27:51 - Entrepreneurship and Family Balance
[0:00:00] Good evening, good evening, everybody. Welcome to a tiny bit of a layout. We've been working on making it easier for you to donate because I'm all about making it easier to grease the money slide from your wallet to my philosophy show. So tip.freedomain.com, tip.freedomain.com and you will have your tip flash up. I won't be interrupting the OnlyFans models as they do in the whatever podcast, but you will have it flash up as a whole. So I've got some topics. I've got some questions. And I have, in fact, a caller to make it a live show. It's a live show. Let's go to X. Steel, if you'd like to unmute, perhaps we can chat.
[0:01:10] Do you ever think Islam is just better as an evolutionary guide for people than other ideologies? Islam just seems to work at a large scale, even though truth isn't important in Islam. It's just kind of like having babies and dying. You know, but it seems to work and it seems to be kind of subverting large countries. So that's all my questions.
[0:01:35] All right. Well, I appreciate that question. It's something that I think it's pretty hard to, ignore, of course, the growth and spread of Islam versus the relative shrinking and emasculation that is going on in Christianity, right? So, one of the problems is that Christianity was unable to solve the problem, of government expansion. Government expansion was, of course, huge governments in ancient Greece, ancient Rome, huge governments in the Middle Ages, huge governments really up until the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and then there was this Lockean goal to reduce the size and power, of governments, and then governments went down to tiny sizes, you know, 5-10%, if that, of their sort of current size and scope. And then what happened was they grew. They grew and they grew and they grew, really starting, well, the Civil War was a, in America, was, you know, six, seven hundred thousand, people slaughtered, and in particular for, I mean, the nominal argument was for slavery. Of course, it wasn't for slavery. I've got the truth about Abraham Lincoln on my channel at fdrpodcasts.com. If you want more about that, it was really just about the assertion of state power.
[0:02:54] Of course, right after the revolution in America, which was about a two or three percent tax on tea, there was a whiskey tax, I think, in Pennsylvania, and George Washington and 10,000 troops thundered down to slaughter the farmers for not paying the new tax. And then, of course, America survived without an income tax until the 13th Amendment or something like that. And it survived on excise duties and so on, and therefore the government couldn't grow that much. Once the government had the income tax and, of course, introduced in Canada in 1917 as a temporary measure, just a few percentage points on the very richest, because Lord knows that's never changed before. Once the government can printed to own money once you get an income tax. And in particular, I think Milton Friedman, we have to thank for this. Once the government can deduct, your taxes at source, and then maybe give you back some later if you've overpaid, then there is no functional limit to government growth. And once the governments can pass debts down generations, right? I mean, in the Bible, the sins of the fathers cannot be visited upon the sons, but I did the calculations today on X. You should follow me at Stefan Molyneux on X. If you're not following me, you should.
[0:04:07] And I did the calculations that American children are born about $1.75 million in debt, immediate national debt, unfunded liabilities, and so on. And it would take them about two extra lifetimes to pay off anything to do with that debt. So, of course, it's never going to happen. And when you have children born into $1.75 million in debt and increasing all the time, and they can't possibly pay the debt off, then they're indentured slaves. They're indentured servants. They are taxed slaves. I mean, the fact that you get to choose your own job doesn't make you any less of a slave, just makes being a slave slightly more pleasant, or significantly more pleasant, doesn't make you fundamentally any more of a slave. And so, thou shalt not steal is foundational to Christianity. It was not able to resist the growth and expansion of state power. Now, of course, I'm not saying that Islam is much better are doing that. In fact, Islam merges state power and religion together as one to the point where there's not even that much of a concept of secular. There's laws like traffic lights and so on, which are not religious, but everything else has to sort of follow religious motives. And then the big question, of course, for people, and it's a very interesting question, I don't have any big answer because I'm scarcely an expert on Islam. I've read like two or three books, so I'm scarcely an expert on Islam.
[0:05:32] But I will say that the big question is, which religion best understands female nature? Which religion best understands female nature? And we've seen, of course, with the report, I think it was Rupert Lowe's report on the child S.A. Scandal in the United Kingdom, 250,000 girls treated in the most brutal and horrifying manners that can be conceived of over decades.
[0:06:11] Well, who was right about being able to mostly get away with that? Christians are shocked. And which religion is expanding the most? And which religion has strong in-group preferences? Of course, Judaism, Islam, other religions have very strong in-group preferences. Christianity is a universalist religion. And how is that working out for the West as a whole?
[0:06:39] Now, Christianity was unable to stop the growth of state power. In fact, Christianity has been infiltrated in many ways by non-Christians in order to turn Christians towards a revolution or some alternate ideology to Christianity. And so, Christians are unable to and have been unable to stop the growth of state power. This is just a fact. And in fact, Christians are very enthusiastic, about expanding state power through a variety of mechanisms. So the answer will tell in time. To me, it doesn't hugely matter because I'm into philosophy. I'm interested in philosophy. Philosophy, moral, rational philosophy, cannot be used to further the size and power of totalitarianism. Philosophy that is self-ownership. You own yourself, you own the effects of your actions, the non-aggression principle, violence only to be used in a limited way in a focused sense of self-defense...
[0:07:41] Well, rational philosophy, UPB, can never be used to expand state power, because there's no such thing in UPB, universally preferable behavior, rational proof of secular ethics. There's no... There's no way to say in UPB, render unto God what is God's and render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, right? Is paying the tax to Caesar good or bad? Well, of course, who knows? There was no free speech 2,000 years ago in the Middle East, of course, as there isn't now pretty much. Well, some, I suppose, in Israel, of course. But, oh, hang on a sec. I got a message here. Oh, okay, good. Yeah. You don't need to tell me if things are going well, only if they're going badly.
[0:08:40] So, render unto God what is God's, render unto Caesar what is Caesar's. And of course, if you put UPB back in the ancient world, well, there is no God, and Caesar is a dictator. And so it would be immoral for Caesar as a dictator to enact his will upon the people, i.e. To slaughter Jesus, well, not necessarily under Caesar, but under the Roman, powers, to slaughter Caesar because of a doctrinal dispute with his local tribe. That would be, of course, a massive violation of freedom of speech. And so, render unto God what is God's skepticism and an acceptance of non-existence. Whereas, should we render unto Caesar what is Caesar's? Well, Caesar did not have legitimacy, of course, in ancient Rome. So, render unto God what is God's, render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, is not something that's possible under UPB or any kind of rational philosophy.
[0:09:39] Now, let me get to the questions. Hi, Stef. I have a parenting question. My son has been enjoying karate for six months, but he wants to quit because he injured his shoulder. Should I encourage him to keep at it or let him quit? He wants to quit because he injured his shoulder.
[0:10:03] Well, what I would say is, if he wants to quit, you know, in general, people who are going to do something really well, cannot be stopped. You know, you take away a kid's piano and he just draws the keys and practices, like draws the keys on a piece of paper and practice it that way. I have done a tad more than injure my shoulder with regards to my pursuit of philosophy. The pursuit of philosophy has been the greatest and worst thing in my entire life. It's been absolutely wonderful and a complete disaster, but I will not stop. I will not stop. I will not stop. If they were to put me in a tiny cage with soot in the ground, I would rub my nose in the soot and I would write philosophy on the ground.
[0:11:07] So, if a minor setback, well, I shouldn't say, because I don't know how badly he's injured his shoulder. So, if a minor setback stops you, it probably isn't something that you're going to be very good at. Because people who are very good at martial arts, you know, they get injured and so on, of course. I mean, everybody's going to get injured, but they'll keep going almost no matter what, almost, no matter what, they're almost completely and totally unstoppable. And if people are that dedicated, that passionate about what they want to do, then you can't stop them. Like I started writing short stories when I was six. I wrote my first novel when I was 11. And I've just been writing, writing, writing. I've got like 20 books now, which is quite remarkable. But of course, in the business world, I wrote a lot as well. And And I love doing public speaking. It's one of the things I miss the most about sort of the current situation of violence for free speech.
[0:12:07] So you just can't stop. You know, I mean, I've been attacked, slandered, lied about, threatened, and so on, and chased through streets and venues have been attacked. Like, sorry, I love it so much. It's like Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men. He kept doing these takes of you can't handle the truth. He kept doing these takes of that. And the director was like, you know, you don't have to pour everything into every, just hold a little bit in reserve for the actual scene. And he's like, I just love acting. I just love acting so much. So, I mean, if you love something, you can't be stopped no matter what, and you'll do it for free.
[0:12:44] I mean, I did philosophy for free for over 20 years. In fact, it cost me a lot as well. I did philosophy for free for over 20 years and then finally began to make some coins. Freedomain.com/donate. Freedomain.com/donate to help out the show. And of course, I'm not trying to say, you know, ooh, be like me because it's whatever it is. I tried learning guitar. I tried learning piano. I tried singing. I tried acting. I tried academics. And all of these things I did with some enthusiasm, but I kept, you know, like a gravity well, I kept reverting back to just do philosophy. So the problem with encouraging your kids to do something that they're not really, much into, the problem with that is that you're preventing them from finding something that they may be totally into. Like I did a wide variety of sports. My gosh, what did I do? I did tennis for sure, started pretty early.
[0:13:44] Olympic mini golf. Um, no, I did what to do tennis. Uh, I tried rugby, tried football, wasn't very good at those long distance running was pretty good at sprinting was very good at, uh, water polo, uh, swim team, um, baseball. I played every weekend. I was a really good hitter at that. And, uh, anyway, so I, I tried all of these different sports. Now, if one of those sports had clicked and I'd wanted to do it, no matter what, uh, I just woke up and just wanted to do it like computer programming. I'm not a morning person. When I got my first computer at the age of 11 or 12, my Atari 800 with a full-on 8K of RAM, baby, I could do gr.8. So I would get up early to write programs, to write computer programs. I wrote a little Lunalander game I called Lemlander for Lunar something module, Lemlander, and I wrote a Zork-like game. I wrote a Dungeons and Dragons style game and so on. And I wrote these, I wrote these things for free. I never really made any money at them, but there was a lot of fun. And so I did that for free. And then, you know, 15 years after I learned how to program in my early teens, like I'd go in Saturdays and learn how to program computers, even down to machine code level. And then 15 years after that, I became a chief technical officer and then made a good deal of, had a good deal of success in the software world and so on.
[0:15:08] And so let's say that my mom had kept me in karate and I wasn't that into it, I wouldn't have found the computer thing, right? So if you keep your kid in something that they don't hugely enjoy, in other words, the shoulder thing is like, you know, if he really, really totally loved karate and could go the distance with it, then the shoulder injury would be incredibly frustrating for him. He'd work as quickly as possible to solve the shoulder injury and then he would get back into karate.
[0:15:38] So like horse riding, right? And I knew a woman, I still know her. And she, as a kid, saw horses, loved horses, and became somebody who exercised horses and trained horses and so on for decades and so on, right? So sometimes you see something. I remember the first time my teacher, Mr. Robertson in math, wheeled in the Atari 800 and I saw it running. I like, oh, you know, I got to learn all I can about this. Right. And I was just fascinated by it and I loved learning about it. And that became an important thing for me in life. The same thing with philosophy. When I really began to understand how philosophy could clear away the acidic cobwebs of delusion and falsehood and lies that surround us and infest us and besmirch our souls. I was like, I can't, like, I can't not. I remember the first night I played Dungeons and Dragons. I remember there was an orc attack and I, the pig faced humanoids. I saw them vividly in my mind and played Dungeons and Dragons for years. And it was a dungeon master, wrote dungeons, had giant maps with like 20 taped together pieces of graph paper, the shrouded aisles, the screaming damned. And I love creating worlds and, and all of that.
[0:16:46] So, so, you know, what am I doing later on in my life? Like 40 years after I got into this stuff, um, 45, no, almost, you know, sorry, bad math, early teens, uh, I'm pushing 60, so almost 50 years, what am I doing? Well, I'm talking about philosophy, uh, I don't program anymore, um, because there's no particular need to, I have James, who's, uh, much better at these sorts of things than I am, uh, both through talent and through keeping things up, and, uh, I write, and I talk, and I have confidence, I've always loved talking about, uh, people's lives and people's histories. I remember being in a bar in Thunder Bay, in Thunder Bay, when I came out of the bush for the shower, the shit and the shave, which is kind of what you had to do from time to time. And I went to a bar and there was a band and I was chatting with a girl and she was talking about her mom. And I just kept asking more and more questions about her mom when I was like 18 or 19 and really wanted to know what was going on in her family. All of that, like completely blew any chance of going on a date with her, but I was really, really keen to find out about her family and her life. And so what am I doing, right? I mean, I'm talking to people about their families, their histories, their lives, and this is 40 years plus later.
[0:17:59] So if you, quote, make your kid do something that they're not hugely interested in, or they're, you know, one little setback, or whatever, one medium setback has them stop it, then of course we say, well, we don't want our kids to be quitters. It's like, well, but you kind of do. You kind of do. It was pretty good for music as a whole that I stopped trying to sing in a band. I would not say it was a massive loss for the acting world that I decided to go more into the writing. And all of the things that I said no to, that I quit on, paved the way, opened the way for me to do what I'm doing here, which is by far the most important, work that I could be doing, because it's the one thing that is absolutely differentiated.
[0:18:44] Like I do this kind of work and nobody else does. Nobody ties the greatest abstractions down to the earliest childhood experiences. Nobody's universalized theories of ethics. Nobody has done the stuff that I have done, and it is absolutely needed, and it is the most important thing that I could certainly be doing, and it certainly is the most important thing that the world needs as a whole. Although it's not going to show up now in the present, much in the present, hundreds of years from now, it will be as foundational as Einsteinian physics, or, well, Newtonian physics, then Einsteinian physics, then quantum physics and so on, it would just be accepted. So we certainly do want to be quitters if it's not a core passion that is going to be sustainable. Because if your kid, and your kid will find something like that, your kid finds something that is sustainable for their lifetime.
[0:19:33] And I would have stayed in tech. I was better at management than programming. I was a good programmer, don't get me wrong. I was a very good programmer. But I was, because I was very good at managing because i've got a good people sense which is unusual for programmers i kept being moved up to higher and higher management positions and because i was really great, at talking to clients i kept going out for more and more negotiations and dealing with difficult clients and and nailing down contracts and stuff like that so, i sort of moved away or was moved away by the board to more public facing chatty roles and doing presentations and conferences and sales presentations and and so on and... so, but the entree was the programming. That's why we had a product to sell is that I wrote the first four versions of the software myself. And, you know, I think it was, there was two other guys. Yeah, I remember two other guys for the last two versions. One to give specs and one to do back-end database programming. That was more front-end and all of that.
[0:20:32] So I think we definitely do want to quit. And the thing which you can't quit, the thing which you can't quit, that's your life. That's what you should be doing. And teaching kids that you can't quit or you shouldn't quit is a mistake because maybe the first woman that they, well, what are the odds that the first, girl that your son dates when he's of dating age, what are the odds that that's going to be the perfect person for his entire life? Very low, not zero, but very low. So all the relationships that I quit or quit on me led me to my wonderful quarter-century marriage with my wife. And so I'm glad I quit all of those other things. So yeah, quitting is good. If you feel like quitting and you really, really want to quit and the feeling stays, you probably should. You probably should because the opportunity costs, we look at the things we don't quit and we say, I'm already glad I didn't quit that.
[0:21:34] But what if there had been a bunch of other opportunities that would have opened up, that would have been much better for you. So just keep trying different things until, you know, I remember when I was biking, you know, the, the chain would come off the cogs, right? The cogs were turning the bike and you just couldn't get anywhere or the catch and stop and all of that. And then, you know, you'd go down and get your fingers all black and then you'd be able to go, right? Or sometimes, you know, you do a little bunny jump and then it would settle into place and you'd be able to go. So if there's not, you know, joy in your heart, mind, and soul and fascination and curiosity and doing it for free, if you don't have that with something, it's probably not for you and you should keep casting about until you find it. So if a shoulder injury is enough to have him quit, then I would certainly let him quit and then.
[0:22:29] Have him keep trying other things until he finds a thing. My husband says to let him quit, but I don't want him to give up just because he got hurt. Yes. Well, it's not that he's gotten and hurt, it's that he doesn't love it enough. I can't stop him from drawing, so maybe redirect him to art classes. Yeah, maybe. Maybe, but it's a bit of a female thing, if you don't mind me saying so, because this is a mom I'm talking to. It's a bit of a mom thing to say, my kid likes something, therefore, he needs classes. Why? Why? Why does he need... My mom tried this. Like I loved programming. And so my mom signed me up for this adult computer programming class, which is about reading and writing sectors on five and a quarter inch, floppy disks. And it's not the three and a half, the actual floppy ones, right? And I went to that class and I spent the time in the back programming games, because I didn't care about reading and writing sectors on a floppy disk. It was not of interest to me.
[0:23:42] So it's a bit of a mom thing to say, my kid's into something, therefore he needs classes. Why? Why do you need classes? Why does he, why does he need classes? Why can't he just enjoy the thing itself? I got nothing out of the classes my mom insisted that I take. I just got yelled at by the teacher because I was programming a video game and he's like, stop playing games. And I said, no, this is, uh, I wrote this. And he's like, no, you didn't. And I broke the code. I stepped in through the code and it's like, well, that's not what we want, not what we're teaching here.
[0:24:23] And i ended up not even getting any marks in the class because i didn't go to the exam or anything because i already had i just didn't care about this so i would say especially now like what do you need classes for he's really good at something he needs classes maybe, but if you look at the very best things the very best people in particular fields often haven't taken any classes at all Right. I mean, Freddie Mercury never took a singing lesson. And Marlon Brando studied a bit with Stella Adler and then went and did his thing.
[0:24:54] So. All right. Stef, do you have any advice for my sister? My sister is my sister. My sister who struggles dating guys that she gets along with because they feel like friends to her if they have too much in common.
[0:25:13] Well, your sister is probably addicted to one of the most evil substances in the female heart, that substance called, oh, you know where it's going. You know where I'm going with this, right? What is the substance called that is so dangerous for women? That's right. It's a substance or a process or a state of mind or a heat of loins called chemistry. You know, we just didn't click. We just don't have chemistry. I mean, pogo sticking along on your loins and thinking you're going to get anywhere is absolutely dumb. I mean, I understand it. We've all been there. We've all been there. But from an older guy perspective, pouncing around saying, well, you know, we got to have chemistry. If we don't have chemistry, like if there's not a base attraction? I mean, where are you supposed to go with it? I mean, what's supposed to happen? It's like, well, you're supposed to explore your shared virtues and values, and you're supposed to not figure out whether he makes your netherbits tingle like a taser.
[0:26:18] What you're supposed to do is figure out if he'd be a good husband for your children. Good husband for your children. That's what matters, because that's the only way that sex is going to last in your relationship, right? So, you assume this is a young woman, and if you want sex to last in your relationship, there has to be shared values and virtues, and you have to admire the person. If you don't admire the person, then your discontent will simply continue to invent reasons to dislike them.
[0:27:02] You know, the way he keeps rubbing his nose just drives me crazy, right? Oh, the way he sighs, oh, he's always sighing. Like, if you don't morally respect and admire the person, then your heart will just continue to invent reasons to not like that person. And those reasons will cause you to pick at the person, to nag the person, to withdraw from the person, and you'll get no sex. And you'll want no sex and intimacy and cuddles and romance and all of that. You got to admire the person morally. You have to admire the person morally if you want your loins to do the Bataan long death march to old age with happiness and joy and so on, right? So she's looking for an R-selected mating strategy, a short-term physical lust-based dating strategy, which means that she's dating for sex. And if she doesn't feel that attraction, if there's no chemistry, right, then she's just dating for sex.
[0:28:12] And that means the relationships aren't going to last because the sexual heat will bring short-term pair bonding. But because you don't like or respect the other person, because you don't have things in common and you don't admire them for their moral courage or integrity or honesty, because it's the only thing we can pair. Pair bonding is just virtue. Virtue and pair bonding for human beings, two sides of the same coin. We don't just do it biochemically. Otherwise, there wouldn't be any divorces or breakups from anyone who ever had sex. So pair bonding is virtue because pair bonding is when you want to be with someone forever and the only reason you'd want to be with someone forever is because you can trust them and the only reason you can trust them is because they're consistently virtuous not perfectly but just consistently and if they deviate, you know you get one of those cars you go over the median because you oh you know right so you know you deviate right i mean i have a i have commitments to certain virtues and if i drift and not if when i drift everybody drifts right then i got people in my life, particularly acid tongue, skeptical, and rightly so sometimes teenage daughters, but people will in my life say, whoa, that's not right. That's not right.
[0:29:16] I mean, heaven forbid, I ever, in the presence of my daughter, I ever criticize someone for something that within her living memory, I may have ever done, right? Well, how about the time when you, I don't like that this person did this. What do you remember 14 years ago? You did, right? So, and that's fair, right? I mean, I should be aware of my own limitations when criticizing others. In fact, I'm quite aware of my own limitations, which is why I try not to criticize others too much, at least certainly in my personal life, because I'm old enough now that I've accumulated enough evidence that I'm far from perfect as well.
[0:29:51] So she is dating for reasons of lust. She wants the chemistry. And when she has too much in common, then that's best for the kids, right? You want your parents to have stuff in common, not just lust. Lust is going to burn out. And then when lust burns out, and it is unwatered, it is a plant unwatered by general moral respect, then when lust wears out, you're just left with resentment and pettiness and nagging and discontent and frustration. If you base your relationship on lust, when the lust runs out, there's nothing the other person can do that's right. There's some movie with Zooey Deschanel and something like that where the woman has all these cute little things that he loves, and then after the lust wears out, the exact same things drive him crazy, right?
[0:30:43] So, you want to have things in common, and you want to have virtues, morals, and values in common. And so, she has disconnected lust from virtue. And if you are intelligent about lust, you will base your relationships on virtue, because virtue gives you sustainable lust. Because you admire the person, you don't nag the person, you're not rolling your eyes at the person, you respect the person, and so sex is something you want and enjoy, and you don't constantly erode the relationship with the discontent based upon choosing someone, for flesh rather than virtue. So tell her to stop thinking about her loins and start thinking about what's best for her children because in the long run that's going to be what's best for her loins anyway.
[0:31:33] All right. What else? What else? Stef, how do you ground value judgments like better or worse? Is it just personal preference? You don't believe in religion. If I'm a Muslim, my values would be better, even if you hated them. How do you ground value judgments.
[0:31:58] So value there, and feel free to clarify, value has two meanings in this context in general. The first meaning is, you know, if I'm thirsty, I value a glass of water. There's nothing particularly moral in that. That's just animals who do the same thing, right? Birds got dust in them. They want to bathe to get rid of the mites and all of that. So they'll come to the bird bath and flap around and all that. So value judgments would be relative to particular desires. I value wisdom, so I pursue knowledge and truth and virtue. And so, better or worse? Well, there's better or worse. What is better for slaking your thirst? Is it a cup of water or a cup of sand, right?
[0:32:44] And so, better or worse is relative to that which can empirically or rationally satisfy desires. That's better or worse. Better or worse in terms of science or truth, if there are four coconuts, you say there's five coconuts and I say there's four coconuts, my answer is better than yours because there are only four coconuts. So I say four, I'm accurate, you say five, you're inaccurate. And so better or worse is the relationship between things in the mind and things expressed and communicated and that which they attempt to describe in the real world, right? So if I say, if I drop a ball, it's going to go sideways and then that's wrong. It's worse answer than if I drop a ball, it's going to fall down. With regards to better or worse morally.
[0:33:27] If, well, morals are always claimed to be universally preferable behavior. So, if you're a Muslim or some other religion, then you believe that your religion is true, all other religions are false, your religion is better or best because of divine revelation or some other absolutist system, and other people are wrong, and so on. Now, with regards to virtue, virtue is universally preferable behavior and what is better virtues are those which fulfill the requirement of being universally preferable behavior. In other words, they can be universalized. If they can't be universalized, then it's bad. So a thief is wrong because theft can never be universally preferable behavior because you can't want to steal and be stolen from because if you want to be stolen from, it's not theft.
[0:34:15] And also, of course, the thief is a hypocrite because the thief who steals your wallet will be outraged if someone else steals the wallet from him. So he wants to violate your property rights and then maintain his own property rights over your stolen property, which he doesn't actually have the property right to, but he wishes to maintain control over that which he has stolen. I mean, there's six million caper films, Ocean's Eleven and so on, where you are stealing from a thief. It's a sort of old setup, right? And the thief is outraged. How dare you steal what I stole, right? So there's a kind of hypocrisy in that the thief wants to violate both wants to violate and affirm property rights. So it's just not a rational, it's just not a rational logical system. So better is consistent with reason and evidence, and worse is against reason and evidence. So I hope that makes sense.
[0:35:06] Somebody says, my mom made me do karate when I was about 9, 10, 11-ish. Despite my protest, just made me hate it even more, even though I was good at it.
[0:35:20] Do an interview with Jared Taylor to spike your views. I did do an interview with Jared Taylor many years ago.
[0:35:30] Given IQ and behavior are mostly heritable and ethnically patterned, does anarcho-capitalism need active breeding policies? No, no, you just need freedom. You just need, all you need is property rights and a respect for the non-aggression principle and peaceful parenting. And no, there's no large, the moment you put people in charge of whatever large-scale reproductive strategies, you're giving them way too much power and power will corrupt them and it'll just be a disaster.
[0:36:05] Uh, oh, this woman who asked about the karate, my son just said, thank you, Stefan. I'm proud of you. Ah, thank you very much. Uh, thank you very much. I appreciate that. I hope that, uh, helps. Uh, it's awesome that Elon follows and responds to your Twitter. Well, I don't know that he follows. I've had, I don't know, probably three or four Elon Musk comments or, uh, uh, so on. So, uh, It is, obviously, I'm not going to lie. I posted about when did racist become worse than rapist? And it's true. In England, where these horrifying crimes were committed against children, quarter million little British girls, one of the reasons these crimes were allowed to continue was because people were afraid of being called racist. So when did racist become worse than rapist? And Elon Musk wrote, good question, which I'm going to actually agree with him. It is a good question.
[0:37:09] All right. Not the teen girl voice again. You have to like the way the person smells, at least. Why? Why do you have to? Oh, you mean like pheronomes and stuff like that? Well, that can be a value because your pheronomes can indicate genetic compatibility and so on, right? So, but, you know, if the person that you can always... I had a... I don't know if this is at all interesting, but I had a many years long opposition, decades long opposition to antiperspirant because I thought it was kind of weird. Like, I need to sweat. And so I used deodorant, which is, you know, makes it smell better and all of that, but doesn't stop the sweating. And then I just finally gave up the ghost. I had some interview or something like that where I put on antiperspirant because I hate being in an interview and having any kind of sweat in it, right? And so... I recently just switched to, antiperspirant. So with antiperspirant, I don't have any particular odor. I mean, obviously there's some natural stuff or whatever it is, right? But I mean, just person bathes, put on some aftershave and whatever it is, and I'll be fine, right?
[0:38:25] So, all right. Somebody says, pro tip to all men, never, ever, ever, ever show any quote negative feelings to your girlfriend or wife ever, no matter how depressed you are, pretend to be happy or avoid showing tears or sadness or anything, or she'll instantly get the ick.
[0:38:45] I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh. Who hurt you, man? No, I'm sorry, just kidding. That's a feminist thing. Sorry, Justin, I'll get you in a sec. No. So if you are with a woman who loves you for you, then, you know, tears, vulnerability, sadness, unhappiness, these are important things. You can't have a relationship with people and pretend to be someone other than who you are and so on so i know there's this general idea like well women don't care for men and they just want to use us for money and well you know, if you are a noble person noble people suffer like it's just a fact noble people, suffer because to be noble in this world is to arouse the enmity of two groups of people. Number one, evildoers, who your nobility will threaten. And number two, the people who are, in general and as a whole, lazy and indifferent to any higher state of being, right? These are the people who, they won't stop drinking into their mid-20s. They have to always drink to get together. They won't stop doing drugs, stop playing video games. They won't have a higher or better standard which they want to strive towards. They just want to keep playing around like a mudskipper in the low rent, low trash, bottom feeding vomit of the world and never particularly rise up.
[0:40:15] And so they will resent you for showing you a better or higher path. So if you are noble and if you are virtuous, you will suffer in this world. And if you're not honest about your suffering in this world, then you are lying to people, which is not noble, right? You got to be noble about the things that are difficult or hard in this world. I mean, if you just said, was it Prince was saying about the guitar? He's saying like learning the guitar is really difficult. It's incredibly frustrating because, you know, you know what you want to hear and you can't make it work, right?
[0:40:47] And if you're just like, oh, no, I picked up the guitar and, you know, I started immediately playing like Jimi Hendrix or Prince or, you know, Eric Clapton or something like that, then you're lying to people and then you are training them to not be ready for the inevitable frustration that's going to happen, right? So I was doing philosophy for over 20 years before I made a single penny and it cost me tens of thousands of hours and job opportunities and relationships and friendships and even my entire family and all of that. So it's like, yeah, kind of sucks. And I said from the very beginning of the show, philosophy will put you into bucket loads of hell before it gives you even a slice of heaven. And that's just the way that it is. If you were to say to someone that eating well and exercising hard is going to be fun and easy from the very beginning, you'd be lying to people. So if you are noble, then you want to tell the truth. And it is important to tell the truth about how being noble can be very difficult at times. Sometimes it's wonderful, but it is difficult at times, for sure.
[0:41:52] So, if you lie to your woman, you're no longer noble and honest, and she won't respect you. So, do not lie.
[0:42:04] All right. All right. Sorry, Justin. Thank you for your patience. If you want to tell me what is on your mind.
[0:42:15] Well, hello, Stef. Can you hear me?
[0:42:17] Yes, sir.
[0:42:18] An honor to speak with you, my friend.
[0:42:20] Thank you.
[0:42:21] Uh, I had a couple of dreams that I've had over the last, uh, year. I didn't know if you'd be interested in interpreting them.
[0:42:29] I dunno about a couple. Why don't you pick the most vivid one?
[0:42:36] Uh, the, uh, most recent one and the one that I, I don't understand. The first one I think I got. The second one, I have no clue. But I'm in the house with my family and my four kids. I tell them I have to go somewhere. I go out into the woods, and I find a cave. I go down into it deep underground, and there's ruins of an ancient civilization. That are moss-covered, like Roman-style architecture covered in moss. And I'm sitting on the edge of one looking out over a deep, like a cliff. And then my two middle children, my younger daughter and my older son, come out, have followed me in there. And they sit down next to me and I tell them to stay back from the edge and then, my son starts to slip off and fall and as he's falling he grabs my daughter to try and catch himself I grab her and keep her from falling but he falls down and lands, in the bottom and then gets up seemingly unharmed and then I wake up.
[0:44:15] Got it. How old are your kids?
[0:44:19] The two in the dream would be eight and six. The son is eight, the daughter is six.
[0:44:27] And how are they being educated?
[0:44:29] Homeschooled.
[0:44:31] And are you religious?
[0:44:33] Yes, we're Christian.
[0:44:35] Okay. And are there any difficult or troublesome relationships in you or your wife's life or your kid's life or people you're uncertain of or whose virtue you question or something like that?
[0:44:55] None that immediately come to mind. Our circle is pretty small.
[0:44:59] Okay, so family of origin issues are fine, and there's no janky friendships or extended family. I mean, listen, man, you either have a very small family situation, or you're incredibly lucky. And I'm not saying you're wrong, obviously, but the idea that you have, no problematic relationships, even including in your family of origin, odds are very low. Not saying it's impossible. And I'm totally fine. If there aren't, I just want to double check on that.
[0:45:30] No, I mean, 8 out of 10, I'd give it.
[0:45:34] Okay.
[0:45:36] Our circles, we keep a tight circle around here where there's no, you know, my wife doesn't have that many friends. I don't have many friends. If there's problems with people like that, they're out.
[0:45:51] And what about family, though?
[0:45:53] Yep, yep. The closest I can think is my grandma and my aunt. They're kind of, the stereotypical boomer type, but we really do not have much to do with them. We see them on holidays. That's about it.
[0:46:15] Okay. And do you live in America, and are you white?
[0:46:19] Yes.
[0:46:20] Are you concerned about your son's future in an increasingly anti-male and anti-white society?
[0:46:27] Oh, yeah, most definitely every day.
[0:46:29] Okay, so tell me what you think about that.
[0:46:32] I wonder how they're going to live. I'm trying to build a company where he can work and not have to worry about the corporate nonsense and stay away from the anti-white, anti-male, stuff that's out there. I don't want him to end up in a job he feels like he has to do and be slave to an employer. I'm very concerned about the future with, the printing of money and all that I've been into Bitcoin ever since you started talking about it and trying to save up have something to land in in that regard.
[0:47:28] Okay, so you have four kids, you go somewhere, you go to the woods, you find a cave. What's your motivation in the dream for going into the cave?
[0:47:37] I don't know. I just kind of end up there.
[0:47:40] No, you just, there's a decision point, right? I saw the movie The Backrooms recently, and, you know, this guy walks through the wall, I'm not going to give you any spoilers, and he decides to explore this alternate dimension of, like, infinite, creepy, liminal spaces and so on, right? And, of course, it's the big question. Why in horror movies it's like, well, you go for help. I'll follow the bloody footprints, right? Like, why would you follow the bloody footprints? People need to continually put themselves in danger. So why are you going to the woods? Do you know why you're going to the woods?
[0:48:16] It feels like I just need to leave for some reason.
[0:48:19] What's the reason?
[0:48:22] I don't know. So after I get there, I feel like I'm staring at this ancient ruin looking for answers, but I don't know why I went there in the first place.
[0:48:36] So if you are somewhere in the woods, I mean, you don't live in the woods currently, is that right?
[0:48:44] We're about 30 feet away from the woods.
[0:48:47] Okay. So the woods that you go to, are they near your house?
[0:48:52] Yes they're in the backyard.
[0:48:53] Okay so you are going into the backyard. So you're going to your woods. So this could just be a walk, right?
[0:49:01] Yeah.
[0:49:01] What time of day is it?
[0:49:04] Uh... late evening, sunset.
[0:49:07] Okay so the six-year-old may be getting ready for bed. If you were to try and leave in the real world to go for the woods at sunset, what would your kids say?
[0:49:16] I wonder where i was going and ask if they could come along.
[0:49:19] Of course they would. Yeah. Oh, you're going to the woods. Let's go to the woods, right? So do you know if you sneak out of the house so that your kids don't follow?
[0:49:29] I tell them I will be back. Wait here.
[0:49:33] And they accept that?
[0:49:35] At first, but then the two middle ones get curious and follow them.
[0:49:41] So it would have been better if you had taken your children along because they're going to come anyway. And they're obviously in more danger, quote, danger in the woods if they're not with their father, especially at eight and six, right?
[0:49:56] Yeah.
[0:49:56] Okay. So you made a mistake, which is fine. It's just a dream, right? So you made a mistake and you said to your kids, don't come, but they came anyway. And that was a mistake, right?
[0:50:09] Yes.
[0:50:09] Okay. So you find a cave and you go in and do you have a flashlight or use your cell phone light? I mean, how do you see things? Cause it's late evening by this point, right? So it's pretty dark out.
[0:50:22] I i go to the mouth of the cave and i walk in and in the dream it's almost like a Skyrim loading screen. I just pop out the other side and it's somehow lit underground in these ruins and i can see these moss covered ruins.
[0:50:40] Do you believe that America was a better place say 50 years ago in the 1970s?
[0:50:48] Yes.
[0:50:49] Okay. Has it fallen to ruin in your perception?
[0:50:56] Yeah, especially on the governmental side of things, yes.
[0:51:00] Sure. I mean, that's generally the way that it goes, right? Okay, so the former society is in ruins, and it's a wild thing. It's a wild thing that America is, what, 250 years old? And there's almost no celebrations. And that the amount of people, particularly on the left, who've got any pride in America, it used to be pretty similar between Republicans and Democrats. Now, we're still pretty high among Republicans and Democrats. Fewer than a quarter have any pride in America. So they've been colonized or conquered by ideology and have turned against the founding fathers, the free speech, the principles. And COVID really revealed that, right? I mean, your six-year-old is almost as old as COVID, right? And so she grew up in a very different world than you and I did. And so I would say that the cave is the past. You go in and there's just ruins and you're looking over a cliff and you find that three kids have followed. So do your kids know anything about your nostalgia for the past and how things used to be?
[0:52:04] Hmm. No, I'd say they know my disgust at the way it's going, but I don't think they know. I don't think they have any understanding of nostalgia for the past.
[0:52:17] You're wrong about that. If you have disgust for the way things are going, then by extension, you must have preferred the past.
[0:52:24] Okay.
[0:52:25] Like if I say I'm so disgusted by aging, then by definition, I prefer being younger, right?
[0:52:34] Right. Okay.
[0:52:35] So how do they know, and it's not a criticism, I'm just curious, how do they know about your disgust at the way things are going? What do they hear? What do they see?
[0:52:48] I would talk about it, talk about it with my wife. I talk about it with my oldest who just turned 13, and I don't hide my conversations from them.
[0:52:58] Okay. And what are the ages that three kids have followed? Is it the youngest?
[0:53:04] Two follow. The two middle ones.
[0:53:06] Oh, the eight and six, right?
[0:53:08] Yes.
[0:53:08] Okay, so my guess is that... I'm sorry, go ahead. Go ahead.
[0:53:12] The youngest and the oldest didn't follow.
[0:53:14] Right, got it. Okay, so the oldest, you've already shown the ruins because you've talked to him about how things are going and what he needs to be cautious about, right? And whether America goes the way of Rhodesia or South Africa or, God forbid, Haiti or something like that, we don't know. Or something else, right? We don't know. But your youngest kids understand this sorry your two middle kids the eight and a six-year-old they understand the conversation but you haven't been explicit with them. Is that right?
[0:53:44] Yeah.
[0:53:45] So I think that you're going in, you're looking at the ruins, and the two kids are followed. The younger one is too young to understand, because if he's under six. The eldest one you've already talked to, so it's the two middle, right?
[0:53:57] Right.
[0:53:58] Now, I would imagine that you think that it's more dangerous for your son than for your daughter.
[0:54:05] Yeah.
[0:54:06] Okay, so your son falls first, because your son's more at risk.
[0:54:10] Yes.
[0:54:11] And he falls and lands and gets up unharmed. And I think your dream is telling you that is your son is eight. Is that right?
[0:54:19] Yes.
[0:54:19] Yeah. I think your dream is telling you that it's time to be a bit more clear with your son about your concerns and what you're doing to alleviate them. Because I think the dream is more about your kids, particularly the eight-year-old hearing these conversations, having some alarm, but not being brought into the solutions and how you're working to solve it and that way he probably is feeling more anxiety than he should.
[0:54:43] Okay that makes some sense.
[0:54:46] All right. All right
[0:54:49] Well, i appreciate it.
[0:54:50] You're very welcome. i appreciate the uh question dreams are always absolutely fascinating to have a look at and of course freedomain.com/call or call.freedomain.com also tip... is it tip or tips? tip.freedomain.com if you'd like to tip during the live stream. I would very much appreciate that.
[0:55:08] And we have another, another caller.
[0:55:15] Hi, good evening, Stef.
[0:55:16] Good evening.
[0:55:18] How are you doing today? Thanks for taking my question.
[0:55:19] My pleasure. What's up?
[0:55:23] I wanted to pick your brain on, or get your thoughts on the concept or the topic of appeasement, how it happens, or why does it happen. So if I could make a couple of points. If you think about America, it's a great country. It's not perfect, but it's a great country. And generally speaking, what makes the country great, I think, was the strong meritocratic principles. And I want to go out on a limb and say that meritocracy is somewhat of a universal thing, I would think, because most people... When they're on a plane, they want the best pilot flying the plane, especially when they're on a plane or when they're having surgery, they want the best doctor, especially when they're going underneath the knife. So if that's a correct assessment, then how do we have something like DEI? How does that happen?
[0:56:33] What makes a person like a movie producer decide that he's going to make a movie and have a historically, white person played by a black character or a black person or an action film where you have like a slim woman and she's beating up a room full of beefy guys, you know, and she's like 110 pounds at best and she's just beating up people?
[0:57:03] Why do these things happen? You mentioned Milton Friedman earlier, and he talked about, he mentioned that, let's say, for example, if a company, an organization, if they're racist, they don't want to hire a certain group of people, or if they don't want to hire, women, for example. People, it's to their detriment because if you can hire these people, or those people may work for your competitors at a lower salary. And over time, you might go out of business because your payroll is higher than your competitors. So why do these things happen if you weren't an employer? And why would you say, for example, I'm not going to hire white males or something like that? But exclude yourself from the possibility of maybe the perfect candidate could be a white male. Why do people go against their best interests to appease others?
[0:58:04] Yeah, it's a big question. I'll talk, in particular, the women beating up the men is particularly egregious, in my view. And the reason that I think it's particularly egregious is if you were to have, a male character who was short, fat, bald, and ugly, and he kept pulling all these and awkward and shy and couldn't make eye contact and didn't bathe and didn't cut his hair or anything like that and wore bad clothes. If this troll or goblin was going out and getting all of the hot girls, men would be like, come on, this is ridiculous, right? This doesn't happen, right? I mean, if you're going to pull hot girls or whatever it is, you're going to have to have some particular kind of positive quality that they want and so on, right? And so...
[0:59:01] There was an, uh, an old Mike Myers, uh, movie. It was one of the Austin. Was it one of the Austin Power? Anyway, Dana Carvey plays this guy. Oh no. Uh, Wayne's world. Sorry. Uh, and Dana Carvey plays, um, Garth. I think his name is, um, I think a Michael Myers or Mike Myers is a Canadian. He grew up in Scarborough or Scarberia as it's called, cause it's kind of a wasteland, or at least it used to be of quality. And it's all just full of like head banging rock and rollers and tattoo chicks, who enjoy vomiting on the lawn at three o'clock in the morning on a Sunday. So he kind of grew up with this sort of headbanging culture, which is where Wayne's World came from.
[0:59:40] And in one of the Wayne's World movies, Garth, played by Dana Carvey, is in the laundromat and this incredibly hot woman starts coming on to him. And Garth, you know, kind of frizzy-haired, goofy looking guy. And the men are all like, okay, like, why is this hot girl coming on to this guy who's kind of a doofus and goofy and, and obviously not super successful because he's in a laundromat and he's in his thirties. Right. So that's not a big sign of success. So the men look at that and say, what's the real story here? Like, there's no way that this hot girl is coming on to this goofy looking guy who's broke in his thirties and who's also kind of shy and insecure and all of that. And of course, the answer is, it's an old movie, so I think the spoilers are okay. The answer is that she's trying to rope him into killing her husband for money or something like that. So she's trying to seduce him so that she can use him for evil purposes or something. It's been a long time since I saw the movie, but I could remember thinking that.
[1:00:38] So men wouldn't believe that. So someone like, um... Jennifer Garner. She was in Alias, and she's been in a bunch of action movies and so on. And so playing this, you know, her character was named Sid. And, you know, so the character giving a Sidalicious butt-kicking to all hosts of guys. This is the equivalent of some shy, fat, bald, ugly guy with nose hair going into the bar and all the women throwing themselves at it. Like, men would be just like, no, that's not a real thing. That's not what happens. I don't know you know, and I'm not often a big one to say, I don't know. And maybe women can explain it to me. I don't know why women don't roll their eyes at the idea that some 97 pound woman is going to kick the ass of all these 200 pound guys, particularly if they're criminals and thugs and they're the street fighters and they've got tons of experience and so on. Right. I mean, in Russia, they will put up a trained female fighter against some guy. They just pick randomly from the audience and the guy from the audience always wins. I mean, this is a trained fighter and just some guy from the audience who's not a trained fighter. And so I don't know why it is that men have this reality processing where if you try to blow smoke up our ass, we'll zip our pants and wander off, right?
[1:01:58] Because again, if there's some broke, fat, loser, shy guy, and all the hot women are throwing themselves at him, men would be like, oh, come on, this is so transparent. You're just trying to, you're trying to appeal to just complete nonsense, crazy, silly thinking, and so on, right? And I don't know. I don't know why women, you know, I mean, if women were so good at combat, then why didn't all the moms come down on the people who were, sexually assaulting their children in England over the last 50 years? Doesn't really happen. Now, men tried. Men tried, but they generally got arrested and so on.
[1:02:35] By the way, you got to read that report. It's just, it's beyond horrifying. It's absolutely beyond horrifying, but it's important. We got to look at the face of evil directly if we really want to understand the world. So I don't know why there's not a ceiling where women say, oh, come on, that's just too much. This is not realistic. That's silly. Because men have that to a large degree. Men have that to a large degree. So if a man is going to beat up a bunch of men, like there's a scene in some movie, is it Jack Reacher or something like that with Tom Cruise? And Tom Cruise is in a bar and all these guys want to start picking on him. And he's like, you don't want to do this. you don't want to do this and he goes out and they say he says uh you know this is your last chance to back out and they're like hey man it's five to one we're gonna beat you and he's like nah it's not really five to one because after i take the first two guys out third guy's gonna hesitate the last two guys are gonna run so it's really only two and a half or three to one and all of that is so but the reason is that that, tom cruise's character jack reacher has a backstory of being like this he's incredibly fit of course he's been in the army he's been a special forces ranger or whatever, like he's been trained in combat. And these guys are just goofy bar fighters, right? And so he is a trained fighter and a trained killer with like 15, 20 years of experience. And these guys are just guys who brawl a couple of times a year against amateurs.
[1:03:57] So we can understand that he could win. But that's a back story. He's not just some fat, schlubby guy, like his Les Grossman character in Tropic Thunder. He's not just some fat, schlubby guy who can take on five trained fighters. He's a trained fighter taking on some street fighters. And so you have to make it believable for men. And if you make it believable for men, they'll accept it. But for women, they don't look at it and say, come on, of course you can't do that. And it's too ridiculous. And there's no backstory. There's no explanation and so on. There's sort of Mary Sue characters who are just perfect at everything and know every language and so on. So, yeah, I don't honestly know why women, there's no ceiling to the praise that women will accept as a whole. I mean, of course, some women will say that's ridiculous and all of that. But as far as to why people hire outside of meritocracy, and certainly in America, that's not too complicated. It's because they'll be sued if they don't, right? That's generally the reason why.
[1:05:06] So, of course, Griggs/Power in 1971 was a ruling that said it is wrong to use an IQ test to screen for candidates because the IQ test was perceived to be, biased in favor of whites and East Asians and biased against the native population, indigenous population and Hispanics and blacks, because there's that IQ hierarchy we've talked about a million times. So it's considered to be wrong. Now, the problem is, of course, that the IQ test is just about the most accurate test to figure out if somebody is going to be good at a complex job. It's like 80% reliable, way more than HR and way more than any kind of interview technique or even work history and so on. IQ test is like bang on and so on, right?
[1:05:52] So the reason why is that IQ tests are illegal to use as a hiring mechanism because, they're considered to be biased against certain ethnicities. And so what happens is instead of a simple IQ test, you have to go to four years of college and spend $100,000 because college you can manipulate. IQ tests you can't really manipulate, but college you can manipulate. You can give people extra points to come in based upon various standards. You can push people ahead. you can mark some people better than others and worse than others and so on. So you can manipulate all of that. And of course, the Marxists don't want to have an IQ test because even though the Marxists claim to want to help the poor, an IQ test would absolutely help the poor because, you know, there's lots of raw talent among the poor. And if you just have an IQ test, then the poor people don't have to go to four years of college and so on. But the Marxists don't care about the poor. They care about indoctrinating people in Marxist ideology, which you can't do through an IQ test, but you sure as hell can do through four years of college and then have you indebted and without particular skills. And then the Marxists can say, oh, look, capitalism is failing, right? And so in America, again, this is not legal advice. I'm not a lawyer. This is just my general understanding. There's a principle of disparate impact, which means that if your workforce is different from the population around you, right? So let's say that there are, let's take a non-controversial example, because otherwise people's brains tend to short circuit it a little bit.
[1:07:18] So, um, if you've got 10% redheads in your environment, like in your neighborhood, and you only have 3% redheads in your workforce, then you can get sued for discrimination because you have disparate workforces. And I worked in a major corporation in my early 20s in the HR department and put together some of these reports about, you know, here's the general population, here's what we have in our workforce here's the gaps and and so on and so and this is like, almost 40 years ago so this has been going on for a long time you know I mean the uh the Griggs thing was uh gosh I mean more than half a century ago, right?
[1:08:04] So, the reason why people do something other than a meritocracy is that a raw meritocracy is going to have uneven outcomes for men and women and various ethnicities. Again, not individually. You can never ever judge individuals by group averages, right? You never will say men are in general taller than women, so you can't ever say, I bet you this woman's short, this individual woman, like that's completely irrational, right? We're just talking about zoom out, big perspective. And it's the NBA question, right? Which is why aren't there more Indians or East Asians in the NBA? And I did a whole interview with a guy who talked about the biology of sports and ethnicity and so on many years ago.
[1:08:50] And there's answers you can sort of look it up yourself, but if you were to say, to one team, you've got to have, well, you know, the Chinese are, you know, 15% of your neighborhood. And so the Chinese have to be 15% of your NBA team. Well, was it Yao Ma? There's one Ming Yao. There's some really tall, really great Asian basketball player and so on. And that's, you know, obviously that's possible and certainly happens. But if you were to say to an NBA team, you have to have the same proportion, of ethnicities on your basketball team as is in your general neighborhood, well, then you would have a particular challenge as the owner or manager of a basketball team or, you know, lots of different ways that you could look at this kind of stuff.
[1:09:44] So, yeah, I mean, the reason in general is because racial discrimination has been both banned and enforced in these sort of contradictory ways that these things often go with the government as a whole in that racial discrimination has been banned, but of course, because you can't read people's minds, it's like a thought crime, right? It's like defamation against public figures is like a thought crime. Like you have to prove not just that it was false, but that the person knew it was false. And of course, and they did it with a reckless disregard for the truth. And they emailed their best buddy saying, wow, I know this is false, but I'm going to say it anyway to harm which nobody ever does, right? So discrimination is a thought crime. And so because it's a thought crime and you can't read people's minds and people aren't going to sit there and say, well, I don't want to hire redheaded people because I just hate redheaded people. People don't say that, especially if they know it's socially unacceptable. So because it's a thought crime, you have to have some other way of catching people. And the way that you catch people is this question of disparate impact, this question of, well, this is your environment and your workforce looks different and therefore, you know, that's how we caught you with this discrimination and so on. And so the government for, you know, well over 50 years has been, um, pursuing that policy, which means that people have to hire based on something other than a meritocracy. Otherwise, they face significant legal and fiscal, challenges. Does that make sense?
[1:11:14] Yeah, that makes sense. The explanation makes sense. Really quickly, I was just thinking about a situation where a football player years ago, years ago, he got into a fight with his fiance say at a hotel.
[1:11:31] I'm sorry, I just missed it. I apologize. I gapped out for a second. I was caught by a comment. Could you start the story again with my sincere apologies?
[1:11:38] Sure, sure. Just quickly, I'm telling a story of a football player years ago, in Atlantic City, got into a little, well, he got into a fight with his fiance at the time, and the surveillance footage showed him dragging his fiance out of the elevator, and I guess he hit her and knocked her out. The police came and nothing happened. And the reason why nothing happened is that the police looked at the video in totality and saw that the wife had, or the fiance had escalated, hit him, he hit her back. And that's what happened. He tried to preempt the situation by going to the NFL. And he said, Hey, I had the situation with my fiance. The NFL looked at the tape and they said, you're okay. The police said he was okay. But when it got out to the public, basically ended up getting kicked out of the NFL. He ended up marrying his fiancee, their husband and wife. So it wasn't a problem for the police, it wasn't a problem for the NFL, but I guess I don't know if it's violence against women groups or whatever the case may be. The guy lost his job, lost his career, and why didn't they just say, no, no, I mean, the police don't have a problem with him, the NFL. For some reason, he just lost his entire career. So I was just trying to figure out, like, why do these things happen when... why don't people just say no?
[1:12:59] Why don't people say, no, he's been cleared, and therefore, we are not going to take any action against him. We're not going to override the opinions of the police or the evidence of our own eyes. That's what you mean?
[1:13:10] Right, right. And let the man, he should have resumed his career in the NFL.
[1:13:15] Right. Again, a very big topic. I'll take a very brief run at it, and then you can let me know what you think. It's just a first pass, just based on gut instincts. So maybe it's correct, maybe it's not. I'll just put it out there as a tentative hypothesis.
[1:13:29] So, women wanted immense freedoms. And I don't mean freedoms to, I mean freedoms from, right? So women wanted to be equal to men in the eyes of the law. Of course, the big problem with that is the draft and other things too as well. But the draft is the big one that women are not very helpful in a war because if a woman is going to be sent to the front where she can't really compete with men, you got these 80 pound packs, you got heavy weaponry, you need a certain amount of endurance and strength and all of that, and aggression and testosterone and all kinds of stuff that men in general possess and women don't. There's not one woman who's completed the highest level of the SEAL training, to my knowledge. They have to lower the standards all the time. So women are not particularly helpful in a war because, again, they're not strong enough in general. They don't have the endurance. And of course, a woman can just get pregnant. And you put men and women together in high-stress environments, they're going to have sex. I mean, it's like the Olympics. Everybody's just this one giant, the O's are just everyone's orgasms all spread together, right? The condom use is like a conveyor belt operating at Mach 12. So, and of course, women would just get pregnant and then they're pregnant so they can't go to war and so on. So women wanted a lot of equality and they didn't want equality before the law because that would have meant the draft and the Equal Rights Amendment that was fought by a lot of feminists and so on.
[1:14:57] Phyllis Schlafly was a woman I interviewed before she died, and I spoke at one of her conferences, I think it was 2019. And she was able to get the Equal Rights Amendment, stopped because she went to all of the states and said, well, but this means that women will be drafted because Equal Rights Amendment means there can't be any discrimination about gender, and that means women will be drafted. And the moment that women realized they could be drafted, they didn't, in general, want that as a whole. And so women... Have wanted a huge amount of freedom from prior restrictions. And of course, it goes without saying that equality before the law is absolutely essential in any rational legal system. It shouldn't matter whether you're male or female. And again, sort of the draft excluded because I'm not a statist, I'm an anarcho-capitalist, so we would look at a totally free society and that's a sort of different matter. But equality before the law, because there would be no draft in a a free society.
[1:16:02] There would be only warrior... the warrior class would be based on pure meritocracy, which would exclude almost all females and would include the sort of top tier of the alpha performing males. And so women wanted a lot of freedoms. And so they wanted a lot of freedom from consequences. Now, women, of course, carry significant risk with regards to sexual assault and other sorts of immoral and evil impositions upon their autonomy. And so when women went out into the world, they got into more risks and more dangers, obviously. And I'm not saying this is the ideal, but obviously if a woman goes from her father to her husband, then she's continually under male protection, right? And there are dangerous men out there in the world and women are peculiarly, I don't mean peculiarly, they're particularly vulnerable because of, I mean, sex and testosterone and all that kind of stuff. And so if a woman passes from her father's protection to her husband's protection, then she goes, and then to her son's protection, should her son die early, then women are protected throughout the whole course of their life. But that doesn't give women much freedom to go to college and have lots of sex and travel and do their alone thing and walk through the streets at night and all of the stuff that women want to do.
[1:17:29] And so, what do we do when women are attacked and there's no proof? What do we do when women are attacked and there's no proof? Well, if we say, sorry, we can't do anything, then women get very upset. And of course, if a woman was attacked or threatened and there's no proof, but she felt intimidated. Obviously, that's wrong, but you can't prove it. And you need, for criminal stuff, you need proof beyond a reasonable doubt, like 95% certainty. And you can't get 95% certainty if there's no physical, like let's talk about sexual assault. If there's no physical evidence, in other words, she's not beaten, she's not bruised, there's no tearing, there's no whatever, right? There's no cuts or scrapes or smashed furniture or anything like that. Then, unfortunately, from a rational, I mean, we can all hate it in the abstract and we all should, but from a sort of practical, moral, legal standpoint, if women want the freedoms to go and wear almost nothing in the middle of the night and walk down the streets and go to strange men's apartments and get into potentially compromised situations and so on, then there's going to be a lot of mess. There's going to be a lot of problems because all prior societies, and we talked about Islam a little earlier, does a lot to try and avoid this for better and for worse in some circumstances.
[1:19:09] But if women want all this freedom, then they're going to be out there in the world, and they're going to be preyed upon from time to time in ways that can't be proven. And so because of that, what have we tried to do? Well, there's one of two strategies that society has tried to deal with, women voluntarily increasingly putting themselves in more and more and more danger. And when women put themselves in danger, male society feels terrible and wants to, have the woman not suffer and not be sad and and and they get mad at people and that's sort of built into protecting the quote women folk and all that sort of stuff so, when women want all this freedom to do things that are, very very risky, then what does society do?
[1:20:03] Well, there's one of two things that society can do. Society can either say to women, you can't do all these risky things, because we can't get proof beyond a reasonable doubt if you make these accusations. So, you're going to have to stop doing these very risky things. Because you can't just go to some strange guy's apartment and maybe get half naked and maybe get him sexually aroused and like, and then like hope and cross your fingers that everything's going to go well, because sometimes it won't. Like every time, like a woman rolls that D20, right? Every time she does this, she rolls that D20, right? And because, you know, 5% of guys are really bad. And so she's 20 guys, you know, sooner or later, she's going to get the bad guy. And it's awful. And it's terrible. It's the last thing we want for anyone. And I wish those bad guys don't exist, but they do. They do exist. Men know that because we live our lives in concern and caution about those bad guys too. The guy, you look at him funny, he's just going to start beating the hell out of you, right? So like we men live in fear and concern and anxiety, particularly when we're younger, about the crazy, violent bully guys out there. So one or two things has to happen if women keep putting themselves in very dangerous situations. Either women need to be told, stop putting yourself in those dangerous situations, or we just have to say, we're just going to believe women.
[1:21:30] That's all... what else can society do? I mean, because the old ways of doing things where good men form a circle around the women to protect them from the bad men, that's all gone. I don't know when it's coming back or if it's coming back. Maybe if we have a giant chaperone flamethrower, laser robots to protect women's purity. I don't know, but that's all gone. That's all gone. There's chaperones and you can't be alone and there's always got to be someone in the room and you can't ever have two. You've got to have two feet on the floor at all times and the door's got to stay open. Like, that's all gone. That's all gone. So what is society going to do with women who keep putting themselves in potentially dangerous and risky situations?
[1:22:10] Well, either we say to women, you've got to stop doing that. Although we sympathize, prevention is much better than cure, right? So you got to stop putting yourself in risky situations. But of course, there's lots of creepy, nasty elements in society that want women to go into those dangerous situations. I mean, I think in general, it's hard to understand the world unless you understand that some of the most evil people are in charge of our most cherished institutions. And so there's a depopulation agenda as well, which is the more you entice women to go out there and woo-woo party and dance in revealing clothing in the middle of the night and grind up against guys and go home with guys and get drunk and pass out, sooner or later, something bad is going to happen. If you go around, I saw this video of this guy who goes up to women, obviously they're with their boyfriends and says, hey, do you have a boyfriend? And she says, yeah, he's right here. And he turns and says, high five, man, you really took one for the team. You really took one for the team, right? Which of course is the implication that his girlfriend is really ugly and he's dating her because women need partners and he's stepping up and taking one for the team. It's a big insult, right? Now, some people will laugh, they're recognized as an insult. There's some guys who got really offended and angry. But someone's just going to punch them in the face.
[1:23:32] Like someone is just going to... And I wish... it shouldn't happen. It shouldn't happen. Free speech, blah, blah, blah. But you just don't do that kind of stuff unless... I mean, maybe you have security with you, but then the whole gag doesn't really work. So if you're going to go and, you know, insult people's mothers to their faces as a man, then sooner or later, you're going to get popped in the nose.
[1:23:55] And what do you say? Say, yeah, it's wrong. You shouldn't get popped in the nose. But you're gonna, because there's bad people in the world. And men know that. And we keep trying to tell women there are bad people in the world, and you shouldn't be doing all these crazy, risky things. But a lot of women, not all, a lot of women want to go do these crazy, risky things. So what do we do? We say, okay, you know what? We're just going to have to believe women.
[1:24:15] Well, unless they're little white British girls.
[1:24:19] So we just have to believe women. What else can we do? Because the only other thing we can do is say to women, stop doing this risky stuff, which the antinatalists don't want to do. The depopulation people don't want to do. The people who, like, there's a huge destabilized society movement that's been going on, which has to do with emptying out the mental hospitals into the streets. It has to do with letting criminals out. It has to do with encouraging destructive behavior. It has to do with all of these Seth Rogen pro-weed movies. It has to do with this glorification of promiscuity. Like in every single fucking Woody Allen movie, there's some couple who meets and falls into bed the same day. And it's this promotion of just this crazy, chaotic, hideous lifestyle that's just going to destroy everyone's side. The promotion of OnlyFans, the promotion of pornography as a whole, the promotion of violence and craziness and the drugs are cool. And it's just this, because you can't take over a society unless you destabilize it first. There's a whole destabilization thing and encouraging women that liberation means making dangerous and foolish and scary choices, which, you know, sometimes are going to work out fine.
[1:25:28] Sometimes you can go and insult some guy's mother and he's going to look at you and there's going to be a big old gimley laugh. Okay. Yeah. Some, but some, some sooner or later, some guy's just going to punch you in the face. And so men recognize that, that every time you do something risky, you're just shortening the time until the bad thing happens, right? Every single time, you know, every single time you'd run through the woods blindfolded, um, it's just, you're going to run into a tree, you're going to break your nose. It's going to happen. It's going to happen. It's just a matter of time. And so society in its infinite wisdom has been convinced that rather than saying to women, stop doing these crazy, risky, dangerous things, find some other way to get your kicks other than going to strange guys' apartments in the middle of the night, half drunk, and then expecting it to just be perfectly wonderful and, amazing no matter what, because it's all kind of confusing because, you know, women say, oh, men are predators and the patriarchy and rape culture and so on. And it's like, well, then shouldn't you be telling women to stop doing this really risky stuff? You know, if the crocodiles are really dangerous, maybe don't go around sticking your head in their mouths, hoping they're just sleepy. But what's happened, of course, is society has the Me Too movement and believe all, hashtag believe all women and so on, that when bad things happen to women, as they will, if they continue to do risky stuff.
[1:26:55] If bad things happen to women and the women get upset, the solution has been not to say, stop doing risky things. We sympathize for sure, but you got it. We can't prosecute. There's no proof. Stop doing risky things. It has been down to believe all women. And of course, the other thing too, is that left likes weaponizing female accusations against their political enemies. That's sort of an understood thing as a whole. So there's a whole culture out there that women are always the victims and you have to believe all women and women can't ever do anything dangerous or risky, like punch a guy first or anything like that. And that's how we've tried to deal with the problem of female thrill-seeking, is that we've just said, well, there are always victims, they're always in the right, and that's a tough thing to fight, I think, I guess, at the NFL level as well, if that makes sense. Sorry, I thought there was going to be a short one, but hopefully that makes sense. All right, I guess it did.
[1:27:51] A ll right, let's talk to one last person. Thank you for your time, and you're up, my friend. If you want to unmute, I'm happy to hear. Going once, going twice.
[1:28:08] Hey, can you hear me?
[1:28:09] Yes, sir, go ahead.
[1:28:11] Hey, Stef. I had a call-in show that I did with you about a week ago. Just want to say thanks again for that. Great advice, good conversation. Actions to be taken. I wanted to ask you specifically about a movie that I watched last night, and I wondered if you'd seen it and wanted to talk about it for a minute.
[1:28:34] Go ahead.
[1:28:34] The movie's Minari. Have you seen that one? Came out a couple years ago.
[1:28:38] No, I haven't seen that.
[1:28:39] Yeah, it was basically the plot of the movie in general, I don't want to spoil anything, was a Korean immigrant family, you know, comes to America, I think in the 60s. And they have, you know, it's a wife and a husband and two kids. And the kind of balance of the movie in general is they go to Arkansas and the husband's choice is to go to Arkansas. They were already in America prior to that, in California, making an okay living, doing kind of maybe degrading work, you would call it, but it was still okay work. They were basically working in the agricultural chicken industry. They were sexing chickens is what they would do, so which ones are the males, which ones are the females throughout the males.
[1:29:27] But yeah, the father wants to move to Arkansas to essentially be an entrepreneur. He leaves the known income of California where he would survive and his family would survive but it would be degrading work he goes to Arkansas to be an entrepreneur and start his own farm, and I guess the entire main struggle of the movie is him taking this risk on, spoiler alert, it doesn't go too well in general a lot of setbacks, a lot of hardship in regard to that but the, I guess the arc of the movie is the battle of this man and his family against his will to be an entrepreneur and be successful based off of his own will while taking a risk. And his wife and his concern of taking this unnecessary risk.
[1:30:21] Sorry, I do need you to get to a philosophical question because just reading of the plot of the movie is not super gripping. So if you can get to the philosophical question, I'd appreciate it.
[1:30:29] Sure, sure. Yeah, the question is essentially the risk of entrepreneurship versus, you know, stability of the family.
[1:30:43] Okay. So what's the question? Sorry. That's just two comparisons. What's the question?
[1:30:48] Sure. Sure. Uh, the question is, you know, is it, uh, is it, uh, reasonable? I guess, I guess I don't have a, an easy philosophical question with this.
[1:31:03] Okay. Let me, let me, let me take over if you don't mind.
[1:31:06] Sure.
[1:31:06] So I think, I think the question is, is it reasonable to become an entrepreneur when you have kids?
[1:31:11] Yeah.
[1:31:13] Yeah. In general, no. Yeah. In general, no. Entrepreneurship tends to be a young man's game. And entrepreneurship tends to be so all-encompassing and so intrusive. I mean, when I was in my entrepreneurial phase, I mean, I've certainly done some crazy weeks. I did like, I don't know, like 30 call-in shows last week or 25 call-in shows last week or something like that. So there are times when my work schedule is kind of crazy. When I was an entrepreneur, though, it was regularly 60, 70, 80-hour weeks and travel. As well. And it's unfair to kids. It's unfair to kids to work that hard for the uncertainty of the outcome. And you can't plan much because you're always the last port of call. Like when I was a chief technical officer, people would try and solve problems, but I would always be the last port of call to solve the problems.
[1:32:04] So, as a whole, you can't really plan things. You're tired, you're distracted, you're stressed, and so on. And you're probably kind of broke. And I think that's unfair to kids as a whole. I think that if you want to do an entrepreneur stuff, then you should do it when you're young, full of piss and vinegar. Most of the entrepreneurs in the tech world came out of a particular year where they're in their early 20s when tech hit. I became an entrepreneur many years before I became a wife, sorry, before I had a wife and became a father. And so it was, gosh, I'm trying to think how many, yeah, I worked there for seven years. Yeah. So it was almost a decade before I got married that I became an entrepreneur in the tech world. And then, of course, I had my wife's income. She practiced psychology for decades. And I had some donations when I first started what it is that I was doing here. And that was, of course, before my daughter came along. And so I think in general, entrepreneurship tends to be so all-consuming that if you've waited until you've had kids, you've probably missed the boat. And the other thing too, as an entrepreneur, it's really tough to compete with people who don't have a wife and kids or a husband and kids, if you're the female entrepreneur, but usually it's the male because the women are breastfeeding and so on as they should.
[1:33:27] So, if you're, I mean, I remember I went into business once with a guy who had a wife and kids and he just couldn't stay late. He couldn't really work weekends. He couldn't travel very easily. And so, I ended up taking on more and more responsibilities and getting more and more pay and equity because I could just do more. I didn't have a wife. I didn't have kids. I dated some, but I didn't have that, kind of stuff. And my career also really took off after I broke up with my long-term girlfriend who didn't like me working that much. So I could just throw everything into that. I mean, entrepreneurship is all-consuming and it's kind of unfair if you have kids. And of course, it's not great for your wife if you're not around a co-parent and it's just generally a bad idea. I mean, there are some exceptions, of course, like if you've done it three times before, like you've opened up three restaurants before, or you've started three, software companies before. And so you know what it's all about and you can do it relatively easily. Or let's say you've got someone you can really trust to outsource things to and so on. So if it's maybe a third or fourth rodeo, fine, you know, but if you're just going to start out being an entrepreneur with little kids, it generally is not a good idea. You can wait till they're older, for sure. And it's not like you'd never be an entrepreneur again, but particularly the first five to seven years, your kids really, really need you. And I think it's kind of tough to be an entrepreneur, especially if it's your first time or second time around in that circumstance, if that makes sense.
[1:34:52] Oh, bless you. Yeah, it sure does, Stef. Yeah, that really kind of answered the question. But yeah, movie was Minari. Pretty good. I'd recommend watching it.
[1:35:01] How do you spell that?
[1:35:02] It is M-I-N-A-R-I.
[1:35:07] All right. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. All right. Well, thank you for the call. And thank you, of course, for your participation in the call-in show. That's call.freedomain.com. Now, let us get to see if there are any other questions, that I wanted to get to before the end of the show. And thank you again so much for your time, care, and attention, support, freedomain.com/donate, or tip.freedomain.com. All right. Good. People are chatting with each other. That's great. So, yeah, freedomain.com/donate to help out the show. Really would appreciate it. It's a tough economy, and I hugely respect that, and I'm sorry for everyone that it's a tough economy. It's a tough economy for me as well, but if there's anything that you can check under the cash cushions, if there's anything you can send my way, I would really, really appreciate that. Remember, you get these incredible bonuses as a subscriber to the show. You get hundreds of premium podcasts. We do private member events. And also, you get access to three or four amazingly programmed AIs to interact with and ask questions of and so on. It's a lot cheaper than a call-in show. We actually have a call-in AI just for that. So I hope that you will avail yourself of those. And don't forget shop.freedomain.com for your merch and peacefulparenting.com if you could share that as always. I would hugely appreciate it. Lots of love, my friends. I will disengage.
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