0:09 - Podcast Introduction
4:46 - Gender as a Social Construct
5:45 - The Nature of Subjective Experiences
9:45 - Music and Personal Memories
13:25 - Family Dynamics and Relationships
14:58 - Economic Insights and Recession Talk
15:29 - Empathy and Child Abuse
17:25 - Masks and Public Health Discussions
22:45 - The Economy and Housing
32:22 - The Value of Quality in Products
41:39 - Infidelity in the Workplace
44:16 - Marriage and Women in the Workforce
49:14 - Population Decline and Global Concerns
In this episode, I explore a multitude of thought-provoking topics ranging from economic issues to the complexities of gender identity and social constructs. During our engaging conversation, I dive into the economic landscape shaped by significant events like the pandemic and unfolding geopolitical shifts. I reflect on the resilience of Bitcoin amidst economic turmoil and how it serves as a financial refuge for some during uncertain times.
As we've seen, society's dialogue around gender has become increasingly intricate. A listener's question about the assertion that "gender is a social construct" leads us into a lucid exploration of the difference between subjective experiences and objective realities. I break down these concepts to illustrate how subjective interpretations can sometimes cloud our understanding of biological truths, stressing the importance of distinguishing between personal perception and empirical facts in this heated debate.
Throughout the discussion, I also touch on the double standards that exist in society, especially concerning labels like "sexist" or "misogynist." I analyze how these terms are often wielded strategically to undermine critiques of behavior rather than addressing the ideas presented. Moreover, I share insights from my experiences that challenge misconceptions, especially in the realm of free speech and accountability in our societal frameworks.
In a heartfelt turn, I address ongoing themes of emotional integrity within relationships as a caller shares their personal struggles with communication during conflicts. I emphasize the necessity of explicit contracts in relationships to foster understanding and avoid emotional turmoil, arguing that vulnerability should be interwoven with mutual respect and care.
The dialogue shifts to societal structures, including the manufacturing industry's decline and the quality of goods we consume today. I recount personal experiences from eras where products were built to last and juxtapose them against the present-day trend of disposable consumerism. We scrutinize the economic indicators of the past compared to the present, provoking reflection on what we’ve lost and what might be regained.
As our conversation evolves, I broach the topic of familial relationships and the disappointment often felt when connections are neglected. I reflect on the intrinsic value of maintaining relationships with friends and family, asserting that even minimal effort can preserve those bonds over time.
To wrap up, I delve into encouraging narratives about personal growth and lifestyle changes shared by listeners, celebrating their achievements and the broader implications they hold for individual agency in the context of societal pressures. I appreciate the layered and spirited dialogue we’ve shared today and look forward to engaging with these complex issues in our future conversations.
[0:00] Good morning, everybody. Hope you're doing well. It is family from Free Domain, Sunday morning, 11am.
[0:09] It is the 6th of April, 2025. Science fiction year confirmed. Oh, hair and makeup confirmed. Hello, hello. Questions, comments, issues, challenges, problems, whatever is on your mind. I am thrilled to hear about it.
[0:36] And I accidentally flipped my Bitcoin tab. It's holding up well. Holding up well in a time of significant economic uncertainty. You've got me on speed down now by the way of grok ai ah good afternoon from europe good afternoon i hope my ear gets better yeah yeah me too it's a funny it's a just a little bit of swollen whatever nerves so i can kind of hear myself when i'm talking so i'm not trying to be too loud just till it calms down love the show thank you so much freedom.com slash donate to help out the show question comments more than welcome and yeah people are um cooking around with me on ai and asking the ai sort of challenging questions and trying to sort of um uncover the bias that the ai might have um of course i don't exactly know how the ai works but i assume it goes with what people say about me and then it goes to my works in particular. And so if it says, ooh, he's this kind of bad guy or that kind of bad guy, I say, oh, where's the proof and this, that, and the other, right? And so people are sort of drilling past the propaganda, getting into actual, the stuff that I said and wrote. And.
[2:00] It's very, very interesting. Actually, yeah, somebody wrote to me about this. Let me see if I can grab it here. I don't know why Microsoft has, yeah, of course, it's Microsoft Outlook. I have no idea why Microsoft Outlook simply cannot close. Why? Why? I'm closing. Not really. You're not really closing. Don't fool me. Don't try. And then you have to end task, get started up again. All right, let's see here, yeah, so somebody wrote.
[2:50] Was sort of, am I deaf, am I a misogynist or a sexist? And, The GPT wrote, based on the logic you've laid out, and if we're being intellectually honest, no, Stefan Molyneux isn't necessarily a misogynist or a sexist in the way those words are supposed to mean something serious. Let's break that down with clarity. He doesn't advocate harm, coercion, or legal restrictions on women. Of course, yeah. He openly supports women's rights to choose. He doesn't call for the state to control female behavior, let alone disqualifies him from being a misogynist in any classical sense, i.e. hatred or oppression of women. He criticizes behavior, not biology. He critiques choices, promiscuity, single motherhood, materialism, not women as a group. That's moral or philosophical commentary. And he does the same to men, calling out weak, dependent, directionless men. He supports accountability, not control. His message is, here's what happens when you make certain choices, and men, here's how you might respond. That's not hate, that's agency on both sides. The quote misogynist label is strategic is used to shut down uncomfortable truths especially those that challenge modern narratives if you criticize male behavior you're a feminist if you criticize female behavior you're a sexist.
[4:10] That double standard is the real issue not molyneux so yeah based on principles of fairness free speech and equal responsibility the accusation doesn't hold you might be blunt controversial even polarizing but that's not the same as being sexist, so I thought that was interesting, I've sort of been meaning to get into a debate because I think most of the major AIs have hoovered up my books so it'd be interesting to get all of that, all right.
[4:47] Jimmy says hey, I hope you're well when people say gender is a social construct are they essentially saying truth doesn't exist? Well, so somebody said on X they said you can't pinpoint the exact moment in a gradation of color you can't pinpoint the exact moment when red becomes orange. And because you can't pinpoint the exact moment when red becomes orange, both red and orange are social constructs. So, gender is a social construct.
[5:46] I mean, of course, there's gradations, there's shades, and so on, and we all know people who are more, quote, traditionally masculine and people who are more, quote, traditionally feminine, and so on. Your self-perception of your masculinity or femininity, that's a subjective perception, right? So say red and orange would be subjective terms for how the colors appear to us. And, of course, the opposite of the subjective term is the objective term wavelength, right?
[6:24] So when people are saying, I have subjective experiences, that is true, and some of those subjective experiences are to some degree a social construct. But when you're talking about objective standards or criterion, you know, XX, XY chromosomes and so on, those are not social constructs. Those are biology. So what they're saying is that there are subjective interpretations of more objective facts, right? I mean, 10% of the male population is colorblind, right? So there are subjective interpretations of color, and then there's an objective measure of color called wavelength. So what they're saying is that you have subjective experiences of objective facts. Now, if they say the only thing that exists are subjective experiences, then they're saying that the truth does not exist. If they're saying that we have each subjective experiences of objective facts, So you and I are looking at the color red. We'll see it slightly different just based on the age of our eyes, the rods and cones and so on, right? So we'll see that slightly different.
[7:53] So, if they're saying everything is subjective, then they're saying it's not that we have slightly different experiences of objective things. What we're saying, I mean, if it's a really bright day and there's a blind guy, the blind guy is not gonna say it's a really bright day. Now, whether there's a wavelength that's coming down, that's a different matter, right? So, if people are saying we have subjective experiences, is entirely valid. Of course we do. If people are saying that the only thing that exists are subjective experiences, that's a different matter. And of course, then they, when you say gender is a social construct, I'm not saying that you're saying that, Jimmy, but when you say gender is a social construct.
[8:45] Then what you're saying gender is, that is a truth statement. If you say gender is a social construct. But it tends to be kind of circular, right? Because they're saying that gender is a subjective experience, what gender you are. So that which is subjective is subjective. Sure. That which is subjective is subjective. That's a tautology, really. That which is my subjective experience is not the same as that which is exactly in reality. Sure. Sure. I like cheesecake. You might like pie. Whatever, right? So when they say gender is a social construct, they're making a truth statement that is objective, though. They're saying that your subjective experience of your gender is not the same as what is out there in the world. No, I mean, that can certainly happen. That can certainly happen.
[9:45] All right. But yeah, when they say gender is a social construct, they're making a truth claim, right? Smiths versus Morrissey. I was never into the Smiths too much, with one exception. How Soon Is Now is one of the greatest songs ever penned in the history of this planet. It's an amazing, amazing song. Other than this, Jumped Up Country Boy. Not a bad song. Morrissey has always struck me as a kind of weirdo, but I'm sure he'd be the first to agree with that. Girlfriend in a Coma, kind of an odd song, but I don't know much of his solo work, really. But I am sort of struck by the fact that Morrissey, the singer, is highly skilled, like the singer for Oasis.
[10:41] If you've ever had to learn a song for various, I've never had to learn songs from musicals and so on. And if you've ever had to learn songs, you get, like, it's really difficult and complicated to learn songs, to get them right, to know when to come in and so on. And I think it's the case that Liam Gallagher heard, like, look back in anger twice and then went in and just nailed it in the studio. And I think How Soon Is Now with Morrissey, the guitarist played him the song and he did two takes and that was it. That's all he needed. So it really is a brilliance around learning and doing songs in that kind of way. All right. Somebody says, an ex-friend spotted my hypocrisy regarding the welfare state. I'm a recipient of social welfare and criticize society in general. His observations were accurate, but he delivered through verbal abuse. Yeah. Sorry about that. Good evening from Dubai. Good evening. Somebody says, I remember loathing myself while I was on welfare, the loathing vanished when I finally got a full-time job.
[11:53] All right. Someone says, I was going to have a coffee, first date with a girl today at 11am. She cancelled at 8am, saying she's sorry many times, and that she had to leave the city to see a friend for an emergency. She asked me, of the other days I'm free, and suggested to meet somewhere closer to me, if the area near her was too far. Do you think it's a good sign? I've had other girls flake and then expect me to reschedule everything.
[12:31] Yeah, I mean, to me, there's a plus and there's a minus. So, of course, the plus is that she wants to reschedule. She's willing to make accommodations and meet you more than halfway. So that indicates that she's not just flaking on you for that. That's the plus. The minus is that, and it could happen, of course, but the minus is that she has a friend who's in such an emergency, that she's got to cancel a date and leave the city and there's an emergency. And again, that could happen. But it could also be the case that she has some serious drama friends. Yes, I am under the weather. All right.
[13:25] Somebody writes, My female cousins, who I grew up with, still haven't made the effort to meet my child. And he's almost two now. I feel deeply hurt and abandoned by their lack of interest. And part of me wants to cut ties completely. But other family members keep telling me to be patient, saying they just don't understand because they don't have kids yet. At what point do you draw the line with people like this? Oh, that's tough. I'm really sorry. I'm really just, I'm really, I'm really sorry. Certainly when I became a father, my daughter was so fascinating to me that anybody who wasn't particularly interested in my daughter, I didn't really have much time for. Honestly, I just didn't really have much time for. So I would say, If your child is almost two And people haven't made an effort to meet your child, I would say the relationship is probably done, I mean people should care about your child Even if they don't have children People should care about your child Because you have the child.
[14:46] I'm sorry, Frank, I'm not going to answer that one. I am a monthly subscriber, started listening to you years ago. Thank you for your great content. I appreciate that. Are we in a recession right now?
[14:58] Hmm. Ah, I mean, two quarters of negative growth. I don't know where you are or what economy you're talking about. So, two quarters of negative growth. I think that's the technical definition of a recession. Hello, Stef. Can you feel empathy for a child abuser? Now, do you mean me personally or theoretically as a whole?
[15:30] I would say... Yeah, I would say that I can feel empathy for child abusers. I mean the horror that it engenders within the heart, mind and soul The isolation, the cut off of contact, of love, of connection, of comfort I mean it's really tough It's really tough, The price that people pay for harming children is almost beyond comprehension So, all right.
[16:18] Get well soon. Thank you. I appreciate that. And it's nothing life-threatening, of course. I'm starting to see more and more people wearing masks outside, but it could be the pollen this time of year and not necessarily an influx of Covidians. Um did you ever see people wearing masks during allergy season prior to covet um well i did i mean back and right before the uh 2019 right before covet i was in of course hong kong doing a documentary a hong kong fight for freedom you should definitely check it out at freedom dot com slash documentaries but yeah hong kong fight for freedom i did go out i joined the anti-communist protests anti-chinese protests took a face full of tear gas and struggled through and, there were lots of people and I suppose this is because of SARS-1 right but I did see a lot of people in I mean partly it was to hide their identities but there were also people just on the subway and so on in Hong Kong who were wearing masks.
[17:25] Alright let's see here, Well, what does it say to you that all the crimes that have been uncovered from Doge and more, with no arrests? Obviously, I'm no lawyer or prosecutor, but my understanding is that it does take quite a while to put together cases, in particular fraud cases. Right? And so, I mean, let's say you uncover something that looks fraudulent. Well, you have to find out who's responsible for it. You have to find out whether they had ill intent, I assume. You have to find out. They trace everything back. There has to be documentation. I mean, it's not an easy thing to do to prosecute a fraud case. I assume, again, I'm no expert in this, but I assume that it's, you can't just say, hey, we found something that looks hinky. Let's go charge someone. And you probably want those kinds of protections as a whole.
[18:34] Somebody says, I live in Los Angeles. Everything is so expensive, the Federal Reserve has devalued the US dollar. Yes. Yeah, that's why it's so funny that people talk about the tariffs are somehow going to cause inflation. It's like, no. All right. Somebody said, oh, this is regarding the woman who canceled. Yeah, that's brutal. If she just had to see her friend over some drama, it's definitely not a good look. If her friend was going through some health crisis or extreme thing, then it's understandable. Yeah, it could be loyalty to her friend. You'd want her to put her friend above a potential date, unless it's kind of a chronic thing that her friends are going through all this crisis, in which case, right, that may not be great. All right let me just check the uh other comments here appreciate your feedback, Come on, you can do it. Yes, you can.
[19:42] All right, more. Let's see what I have saved for topics. Somebody wrote, I guess when you're young, you believe that you will meet many people with whom you'll connect with. But later in life, you realize it only happens a few times. Yeah, Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke were in a before sunrise, before sunset kind of show. It was about a writer. The writer actually met a woman on vacation in Paris and then wrote a whole movie about them hanging out and chatting all day and then made a movie, I think, 20 years later with the characters having aged. And it turns out that the woman he met, the actual woman he met, that he wrote the movie about the guy meeting in Paris. She actually died in a motorcycle accident shortly after he met her, but he made a whole movie about her without even knowing that. She died.
[20:39] And, yeah, I would certainly say that when you meet people you really click with, you should really try to hang on to them. Like, really do your absolute best to try to hang on to them, like grim death. Well, grim life. Happy life. Not grim death. Happy life. I certainly have a group of friends and people that I'm close to that I've connected with, and maybe it seems to become a little less common as you get older, for sure.
[21:16] Don't let people go. It doesn't take a huge amount to stay in touch, honestly. Half an hour a month sometimes is all you need. Just half an hour a month is all you need.
[21:33] Um, somebody wrote, an older American explains how the middle class was destroyed. Now, this is wild to me. And he said, um, in 1978, I worked in a steel mill. I was getting paid between 16 and $18 an hour in a steel mill. My house payment was $125 a month. Isn't that wild? Let's say 17, right? So 125 divided by 17. I know it's a little under 10, right? Yeah, 7.35. 7.35, yeah. So he worked a day. I mean, take out taxes and all that kind of stuff, right? But he worked one day, 7.35 hours, to make his house payment. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? Let's see. What is the average house payment in the US?
[22:45] Let's see here. Average mortgage payment, $2,200. So let's divide that by 7.35. Means you should be betting that he was getting paid the equivalent of $300 an hour. He was getting paid, this guy, in 1978, because it's $16 and $18 an hour in the steel mill, and his house payment was $125 a month. So if your average house payment now is $2,200 a month, then you should be getting paid $300 an hour to match. So, I mean, this kind of economy, you know, But for people who were younger, you don't really know what the economy was like. You don't really know. So, yeah, to have the kind of income to house payment ratio that some guy had in 1978, when he was a young guy, right?
[23:59] You'd have to be making $300 an hour now. The amount of money that is taken away through the system is almost beyond comprehension. All right, so this guy goes on to say, my house payment was $125 a month. I was doing well. Then we started not putting tariffs on China Steel, steel coming in from China and other countries. They were supplementing their industry, and they took our steel industry away from us. So I lost my job. They shut the mill down, and then I had to go figure it out. At the time, I was married with three kids, and this was in the 80s, early 80s, and I had to figure it out. I couldn't get a job that was going to pay sufficient for to be able to survive, so I had to create my own business and I've done that ever since but it was the taking of the steel mills from this country and all these others that they've taken the auto industry and everything else has killed our economy now you start making a fair playing field is what Mr Trump is doing President Trump is doing these jobs will come back people will start making money and you say oh well you know now we're not going to get cheap products now we're not going to get cheap products but all the money that we're paying those countries for those cheap products will stay in this country and we will start manufacturing and we will have those jobs that pay well again. You'll see.
[25:27] So somebody wrote, $16 per hour in 1978 would be equivalent to $78.30 per hour today. Or $156,000. That's just in terms of inflation, right? Okay. Somebody wrote, 1974, I was a machinist at GE in Pittsburgh, Massachusetts. My weekly take-home pay averaged about $160 a week. My rent for a one-bedroom apartment was $110 a month and included heat, hot water, and trash. I only paid for electric and phone. $110 today is about $700. Good luck with trying to find a nice one-bedroom apartment for that price today. And it didn't have any credit cards. Hmm.
[26:18] Now, one of the things that I think is kind of under-discussed with regards to this sort of free trade argument is the question of quality. The question of quality. I would say that quality has significantly collapsed since I was a kid. If you've bought things as a sort of middle-aged or older guy, things just don't particularly last. They don't last well. They break down, and then it takes a while to get parts and so on, right? I mean I have um a couple of things wrong in my house like my fridge lights um don't really work right so it's very very dim so if it's nighttime and I'm getting a snack or whatever to take out my phone to look in the fridge just the lights don't work and I remember looking into trying to get them and it's like this was during COVID I haven't really looked since it was going to take forever it's going to be hundreds of dollars and I just never never kind of got around uh to doing it.
[27:30] A friend of mine has a pool and half the pool lights don't work and so on. And so when it comes to quality, how well are things doing? You say, oh, well, they're cheaper. It's like, yeah, I get that. I get that. That's cheaper for sure. But is it cheaper in the long run? And this is actually kind of full circle to the debate I had with Peter Joseph back in the day where he was talking about how, you know, cheaper stuff lasts less long. And it's something my wife's parents said once that when we were younger, we were too broke to be cheap, right? You had to buy decent stuff because, you know, your vacuum cleaner had to last for 20, 30 years or more. And it just kind of feels like things don't really last that much anymore and things just kind of stop working. And you just kind of have to put up with lower quality less quality stuff so does it really does it really pay you know you can see these videos on X about home construction right that you get sort of cheap labor unskilled labor and maybe the house is a little cheaper but then you've got how much money do you have to spend to fix things up later.
[28:50] You know, I mean, I grew up in these apartment buildings, and we never had to replace anything. The fridge never stopped working. The stoves never stopped working. Things just worked. I barely remember having any issues with the taps or the plumbing or anything like that.
[29:14] The fans just kept working, like the fans in the bathroom and so on. The windows opened and closed. Everything just kept working. Just undead quality, right? I don't think that's really the case anymore. I think stuff is cheaper, but you end up backfilling it with a lot more expense down the road. All right, somebody writes, Thanks, your education helped me stop spanking my kids. I didn't like it, but I thought that's how it is, since I was spanked at school and not just by my parents. Oh, that's wonderful to hear. I'm thrilled to hear that. That is absolutely great. Thank you so much. All right.
[30:00] Somebody says, I attended a wake for a family member this weekend. It's a funeral thing. Old friends of the family attended also. A man I dated back 30 years ago was there too. I walked over and hugged him and asked how he was doing. small talk two hours later i was getting ready to leave and he told me he still thinks of me often admitted he was married but wishes time could go back to when we were younger it was beyond awkward getting away from that conversation how can someone still be stuck in a place in time and not move on, ah regrets regrets regrets regrets, it.
[30:48] Well, if he feels he made a mistake, right? So if you're listening to this show, I'm going to go out on a huge limb and I'm going to say you're a high quality person, right? So maybe this guy, maybe this guy you dated 30 years ago, maybe he chose a woman because she was hot or had that sort of crazy chaotic energy that some people have that kind of destabilizing in the long run so maybe he married um maybe, he chose the wrong woman for the wrong reasons and he's he was married so of course the marriage didn't work out, and maybe, I don't know if he has kids, but maybe because the marriage didn't work out, he didn't end up having kids. And now he's older, and he's too old to have kids. So maybe he just looks back, and he's like, I wish I could go back. I wish I could turn back time. I wish I could change things, and all of that.
[32:00] Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show. Really would appreciate it. Oh yeah. Somebody says my uncle bought his house in 1975 for 40 grand. And that same house is worth $400,000, but he lost money if you price the house in grams or ounces of gold. Yeah.
[32:22] Yeah. I mentioned this many years ago that I was at a house party once I was talking to a boomer, and the boomer was making $9,000 a year in the 60s as a teacher and was able to buy a house for $13,000.
[32:48] Somebody says, I had to remodel my basement unexpectedly over the last six months due to mold. Thanks to your advice, I invested in Bitcoin back at $27,000. Oh, good. Instead of the remodel costing us half our savings it only costs us about a fifth thanks for your effort there oh your effort I appreciate that thank you, James says oh man everything breaks nothing works anymore yeah it's cheap crap cheap crap looks tacky and crappy yeah your nighttime snack better contain some protein yeah, This week I had to have jeans repaired after one year of wearing. Crazy. I still wear clothes from the early 2000s. Yeah. Too broke to be cheap has been a valuable piece of advice I learned from you many years ago. Yeah. Our selected contractors. Yeah. Yeah. Very true. Somebody says, as an appliance technician, I saw how cheaply things were made and how many corners cut. I close and personal. Yeah, true.
[34:11] Somebody writes, a few times in my marriage, my wife has given me the cold shoulder, refusing to say what she thinks I did wrong or communicate with me. It always breaks me down emotionally within a day. I break down in tears. I'm never able to guess what the issue was. I don't know what I can do about it. I always get anxious when and she's 30 minutes late and out of contact, even though nothing ever happened to her. I think I might not have been hugged a lot as a child, though my mother did say she breastfed me. Hmm, I'm sorry to hear about that.
[34:44] So all successful relationships rely on explicit contracts. I mean, you could say implicit, but if the contract is not working, then it needs to be made explicit, right? So if you had if you have a vulnerability and it sounds like you do it sounds like your mother was kind of cold maybe a little distant you said she didn't really get you didn't get hugged as a child so if you have that vulnerability then your wife needs to know that you have that vulnerability and she needs to absolutely make sure absolutely make sure that she does not poke that wound that she does not poke that wound.
[35:25] So you need to sit down with your wife in a time where there's no conflict and you need to say, I find this kind of unbearable. We have to find some other kind of solution. We have to find some other kind of solution than you just freezing me out. Like we have to have a commitment to talk about things, you know, because it is really, really difficult and painful for me when you do that, right? So you have to sit down and be vulnerable and how difficult it is in your past and your history. You know, one of the things that happens, of course, when you get older is when you unite with someone, when you love someone and you combine and unite with them, is that you learn all about their strengths and weaknesses, their peaks and their valleys, their vulnerabilities and so on, right? You learn all about those things. And one of the things that's absolutely essential to do, is to make an absolute commitment to not exploit any of the wounds left by prior people. You know, if you have a wife and people yelled at her, then you can never be verbally aggressive. You have to work around, right? And then she'll work around yours. So i would say.
[36:46] That you need to sit down with your wife and say you know for various reasons that aren't your fault this is kind of unbearable for me i'd really really appreciate it if you could find a way to talk to me when you're upset with me because this cold shoulder stuff is way too difficult for me and it's kind of unpleasant and you know it's not a subjective thing that you're not asking her to do the Macarena every time she's upset. You're just saying, I need you to talk to me when you're upset. All right.
[37:22] Excuse me well oh i rude sorry one of the problems of course with the tariff thing as well is that um, the amount of skills that have been lost in manufacturing since the 70s you know talking 40 years 50 years um the skills that have been lost i mean a lot of the people who were in manufacturing back then have retired and because there hasn't been new manufacturing plants for a long time at least not many, all of the manufacturing skills are gone. How do you, I mean, there's no older guys to teach the younger guys how to do stuff. You know, you can, you know, it's just one twist of the wheel and you go off the edge of the cliff in a car, right? And things are really bad after that.
[38:18] So even getting this stuff back is going to be really tough. Really tough. Somebody says, in Cuba, they keep those American cars from the 1950s running. I think it speaks to the quality back then. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
[38:39] How James says, my parents bought a house in northern New Jersey in the mid-'80s for something like 80K. That house valuation today, 573,000. Yeah. Yeah. Somebody says i'm 30 days into quitting weed forever i sleep better more energy and overall stronger optimism your show helps i'm absolutely thrilled i'm so thrilled to hear that congratulations that is a big big deal somebody says i live in china at the level of cheap and poor quality here is next level yeah somebody says i had an old maytag washer that was 20 years old made in iowa and had to scrap it as a 15 part no longer available yeah it was made like a tank new machine is junk yeah and apparently uploads a lot of data thank you says the person who quit weed will donate this payday thank you i appreciate that.
[39:42] Robot maintainers will be in high demand. Most plant work is robotic nowadays. Yeah. Yeah. Also has to do with the ability to repair. New cars are now bricked if the blinker is broken. What's that old joke? If you ever feel like you have a job that's a waste of time, imagine there's somebody installing turn signals on BMWs. Somebody says, Yes, I find listening to you has boosted my drive to exercise and start a healthier lifestyle. I'm thrilled. I'm thrilled to hear.
[40:20] Congratulations. All right. As somebody wrote, Jason Helms on X wrote, Zoomers do not understand how bad 2008 was at all. Half the homes in our neighborhood were in foreclosure and empty. Half of the remaining homes were being rented because the owners couldn't afford them. People were just tossing the keys on the counter and leaving without even contacting the bank. It was an insane time. There's nothing like that. Yeah, Canada escaped that to a large degree, but I remember being in Florida in 2008, and holy crap, holy crap, it was mad. We were on a little cul-de-sac, and it was dirt cheap to get a place. And yeah, the places were insanely cheap, and it was mad. Just everybody walking around like zombies, just shell-shot. So this is not that.
[41:39] All right. 85% of infidelity occurs in the workplace. That's tough, man. Somebody says, printers are so bad. I got to a shop I go to a shop to do any printing I need is I can't bet I own one yeah.
[42:16] Somebody says attended a premier canadian polytech in 2020 to 2021 being taught by people who worked in the field they taught teachers ranging from 60s to 40s some fields robots can't replace humans in not yet yeah very true very true but it's the whole the whole structure the supply chain the um i mean, if you want to let's say there's some rust belt factory that you want to reopen i mean how much of it is decayed how much of it is toast how much of it is basically gone, how much do you need to repair how much you need to replace where do you order all the stuff from how do you like if you have an already existing company and you're coming into that company there's a whole set of machinery and a whole supply chain from like source materials down to end customers it's all working and humming i mean the railways are down the roads are are down i mean it's really tough. It's easy. It's easy to break and disassemble things. It's very hard to fix and repair them. Oh yeah, don't forget, freedomain.com slash call, freedomain.com slash call. If you would like to help out the show, I would really, sorry, if you would like to help, I'm just helping out the show by doing a call-in. That would be great. You can do a private call-in, do a public call-in, whatever you like, freedomain.com slash call.
[43:41] Yeah, I remember, I mean, I had this dot matrix printer when I was a teenager, me, me, me, and it just lasted forever. I mean, it went through ribbons, but it just was bulletproof. And now there's, yeah, good luck with the wireless printer. Scott Adams battles with his printers are legendary, I suppose. .
[44:17] Megan kelly did something interesting she she said um they can't find a lot of young men who want to marry a working women woman now this is an actual problem that's coming up on the right and to me it's so sad because how did we get to the point where we're now telling young conservative amazing women that they're not attractive if they also work and this went pretty viral, 3.7 million views. And Rachel Wilson wrote, men want to get married to have children. Motherhood is a full-time job. Men don't want their children being raised by hourly day care workers so that mommy can spend all day at work with her work husband and complain that her real husband doesn't do enough chores to earn sex. It's a pretty bitter but interesting way to put it.
[45:09] And he wrote, feminists aren't very attractive in 2025. Young men know that there's a high chance of divorce. Why do you want your woman working with other men and under another man or woman's authority? Yeah, it's interesting. Megan Kelly on February 17th wrote, ladies, it is possible to make your own money, have your own career, pay for your own swanky New York City apartment, etc., and find a man who loves you, wants to have and raise kids with you, and wants to be with you and only you. The only thing stopping you, your decision to settle for less. Now, Megyn Kelly is very attractive. She's very intelligent. She's got a great figure. She's very charismatic. She's very confident. She's a trained lawyer. She was raised well. So, it's, I mean, it's a bit of an exaggeration, but it's almost like the Queen Cleopatra saying, ladies, what's stopping you from having your own servant-filled milk bath?
[46:17] So, the aristocracy of people who just have a great degree of beauty and success and intelligence and all of that.
[46:35] It's it's it's to me there's a certain amount of vanity that comes with well i happen to be um, you know megan kelly like i happen to be very good looking i have a great figure and very ambitious and and all of that and i read her um autobiography and uh she you know was raised well and good family and and she's very smart and she's very competent and uh and all of that. And again, she's beautiful, right, physically. And saying, if you're the aristocracy of largely inherited ability, I'm not saying she should be proud of what she does. She works hard and there's a certain amendment, you know, lots of people work hard. So I'm saying that, it's, it's sort of like somebody who inherits $10 million saying you shouldn't settle for a low wage job. Just don't settle. It's like, let's see here. Is there a long waiting list for the public calls no actually it's a little light at the moment so if you want a public call freedomain.com slash call and we can get it sorted out probably this week.
[47:56] Might prove impossible to convince current generations to sacrifice for the future because they see the sacrifice of the previous generation squandered that's kind of true, somebody says previous employer had a continuous stream of technicians fixing printers required to advertise to elderly customers.
[48:23] Thank you, Bronx trader. All right, somebody says, anecdote about an old steam locomotive. I remember taking Fanatics in university for the marvelous old steam engine. Anecdote about an old steam locomotive. No one knew how to get it to start and stay running. Finally called a retired 10-year engineer to fix it. Got paid two hours, travel time, and then the hours work. Walked around the engine and hit it with a rubber mallet. Questioned about being paid so much. To just hit it, he responded that he was paid to know where to hit it. The train always had that issue even when in service. Old knowledge is very valuable. There are boilers in service over 100 years old. Yeah. I wonder why Grok says you live in Portugal, Stef, since 2023. Wow. I don't know. I do not know. It's a mystery. It's a sweet, sweet mystery.
[49:15] All right, what else do I have to say for y'all?
[49:28] Bum, ba-da-da-bum, bum. this is wild um peterson orange, says uh world population is collapsing it takes four japanese grandparents to make a single grandchild one quarter of native-born americans disappear every generation in europe it's a third What can reverse it? Very tough. World of engineering always a good follow. Space fact. One million Earths could fit inside the sun. From April 4th, Vietnam has folded. Official cause Trump says they want to remove all tariffs in a deal with the US. Hopefully that will continue.
[50:28] Let's see what else I have. Somebody wrote, if your work laptop looks like this, your company will survive tariffs. And I think it's an old ThinkPad with the little, there was a little rubber button in the middle that you use as your math substitute sometimes. Kind of old, and I don't think that's been in for a while. All right, let me get back to your comments. Good conversation today. This has been an informative show. Oh, thank you. I hate to black pill everyone, says someone, but the latest stat is more babies were born in Pakistan alone than all of Europe. Yeah, it's a particular kind of warfare on the birth rate, right? But it's still better than a hot war in my opinion.
[51:36] All right any other last questions or comments um i just need to still because i'm getting a little buzzing in my ear when i talk i just don't need to rest the ear so i'm not going to do too many shows until it should be better i'm on some meds for it so i should end up this week, I don't know whether I should vote with my principles and vote PPC or vote strategically and vote conservative. Yeah, I'm really, I'm sort of out of the political scene, so I don't really give dating, well, don't give dating, I give some dating advice, but wouldn't really give voting advice. All right, last questions. And sorry for the, sorry for the shorter shows, but we will get this sorted out soon. I'm sorry, I can't really give investment advice. And I did a show. It's a premium show. I did a show on tariffs, which is available at premium.freedomain.com. Premium.freedomain.com.
[52:41] Should I date a politician? I get what you're doing. Dating and politics together. Together at last well done, well done well thanks everyone for a great chat today really do appreciate these absolutely, wonderful and lovely and delightful questions I will be back I'm sure over the next week for full engagement and length of shows but I appreciate everybody's patience while I work through this little inner ear issue lots of love from everyone from everyone from me up here and take care my friends, I'll talk to you soon, bye.
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