0:00 - Introduction to the Conversation
15:06 - The Nature of Morality
37:42 - Exploring Peaceful Parenting
39:32 - The Consequences of Parenting Choices
42:59 - Parent-Child Relationships
44:22 - The Foster Care Debate
44:57 - Overcoming Childhood Challenges
46:06 - The Impact of Education
47:51 - Dialogue as a Solution
50:54 - Politics and Fear
54:36 - The Nature of Voting
56:00 - Elon Musk's Controversial Views
59:56 - The Role of Government
1:10:07 - Advocating for Bitcoin
1:14:43 - The Importance of Choices
1:17:31 - Future Projects and Aspirations
In this in-depth conversation between Jeffrey Wernick and Stefan Molyneux, the two discuss a range of themes centered around morality, peaceful parenting, and philosophy. Wernick opens with a nod to Molyneux's early influence on him as a listener of the "Free Domain" podcast, highlighting the lack of anarcho-capitalist perspectives in the podcasting world. He introduces the theme of the discussion, which is centered on the concept of peaceful parenting, and seeks Molyneux's definition of morality and moral philosophy.
Molyneux offers an extensive definition of morality as "universally preferable behavior," which he asserts is grounded in internal consistency akin to scientific theories. He discusses how, within the spectrum of morality, universally preferable behaviors have to be logically coherent in their application. Molyneux emphasizes that self-contradictory moral arguments must be dismissed, explaining his reasoning through examples such as theft, assault, rape, and murder—showing that these actions violate the parameters of universally acceptable behavior.
Wernick then aligns the conversation with the moral teachings of the Ten Commandments, discussing how the violations of personal autonomy and property rights echo ancient wisdom. Molyneux expands on this by stating that the essence of morality revolves around respecting bodily autonomy and property rights, which, when violated, lead to universally negative outcomes.
The discussion naturally transitions into parenting when Wernick asks how to apply Molyneux's principles to child-rearing. Molyneux stresses the importance of granting children increasing autonomy commensurate with their ability to foresee consequences, arguing that parents should focus on teaching children the connection between freedom and responsibility. His views on parenting stem from his belief that instilling non-violent approaches in childhood is crucial to cultivating a future generation that understands the importance of negotiation and conflict resolution without recourse to force.
Wernick and Molyneux explore the implications of abusive or coercive parenting and how societal norms often enable violent disciplinary methods that would not be tolerated in adult interactions. They discuss the paradox of parenting and legal frameworks that allow for coercion against children but are unacceptable among adults. Wernick draws from his experiences of growing up in a dysfunctional household and discusses how these moments shaped his character and beliefs about parenting.
The conversation shifts to the role of government and societal structures in perpetuating unhealthy environments for children, where Wernick and Molyneux share their skepticism toward state systems like foster care, advocating instead for non-violent, voluntary arrangements based on mutual consent. This leads them to ponder the long-standing patterns of fear propagated by politicians and how it affects individuals' sense of agency in making their choices.
Towards the end of the interview, Molyneux shares his passion for Bitcoin and its potential for reducing government coercion, drawing a parallel between financial freedom and moral agency. He emphasizes the importance of educating society, particularly the youth, on virtues, personal responsibility, and the significance of making thoughtful decisions throughout life.
As they wrap up, Molyneux reveals his current writing project—a novel aiming to illustrate how small decisions lead to significant life consequences, thus emphasizing the importance of mindfulness in everyday choices. Wernick encourages listeners to explore Molyneux's extensive work, appreciating the dialogue's uplifting and thoughtful nature as both men reinforce their commitment to engaging in meaningful conversations grounded in truth and reason.
The interview stands as a rich exploration of morality, philosophy, the dynamics of parenting, and the implications of contemporary societal issues, enveloped in encouraging a constructive dialogue towards positive change.
[0:00] Hi, I am Jeffrey Wernick, and I'm pleased to have my guest here with me, Stefan Molyneux. If I mispronounce that, please correct me.
[0:09] That's fine.
[0:10] Okay, I did good. Okay, good. First, I'd like to apologize for starting actually 10 minutes late.
[0:17] It's on me, entirely on me. They were ready. I had tech issues. It's totally on me. Sorry.
[0:21] Well, this stuff happens, and we apologize for being on late, but here we are. Uh, I, I, I was a listener, uh, early on to, uh, uh, free domain, uh, at the, I, I characterize myself as an anarcho-capitalist and there were not many, uh, anarcho-capitalist podcasters. Uh, you know, there still aren't many, but I remember that, uh, Stefan was, um, I guess he might have had the most widely listened to podcast among people who might have been self-described as anarcho-capitalists. And so I listened to some of the episodes. I wasn't necessarily a faithful listener to any podcast or many podcasts at all, but I did occasionally listen when I found myself with nothing better to do. No offense, Stefan, but I prefer reading and I was also busy working, but I did find your podcast interesting and probably listened to it more than most podcasts that I listened to, which was not many. So I understand the topic that you want to discuss today is upon peaceful parenting.
[1:40] I also described what you do as philosophy. I think sometimes you describe it as moral philosophy, but I would I would like to start off questioning you is how do you define.
[1:56] Morality and moral philosophy i think many people consider themselves moral philosophy and many many people who describe themselves as moral philosophers other people would describe as either immoral or amoral philosophers so the question is is who controls the definition of of what it means what moral means and who defines what a moral person is right.
[2:19] That's a great question. And the reason that I do that is that morality is the one area in philosophy that is exclusive to philosophy. Now, philosophy is like the all-discipline. You have a philosophy of science. You have a philosophy of morals. You have a philosophy of politics. You have a philosophy of self-defense and property rights. But the one thing that philosophy should focus and center on is the primary differentiator in the general spread of human knowledge, which is morals and virtues and so on. So it's not who gets to define morality, it's what is morality. So my definition of morality is it is universally preferable behavior, behavior that can be achieved by everyone at all times, under all circumstances, and does not logically self-contradict. Now, this is taken to some degree out of science and physics, right? So if you have...
[3:18] Well, it's kind of Kantian.
[3:21] Yes, I'm sorry, I hate to say yes and no, but... So Kant would say, act as if the maxim of your action becomes a universal moral rule, but that is not objective, because let's say you're the strongest guy in the village, and you say arm wrestling is how we should determine who gets the bride, well, you'd be happy to have that be a universal rule because you are the strongest guy, so you're going to win that contest. Or the tallest guy saying the tallest guy should get all of the wheat or grain or something. So in terms of universality, for sure, but what I'm looking for is a rigorous, logical universality. So if you're in physics and you say, I want to come up with some conjecture or hypothesis about the behavior of matter and energy, well, the first thing that you have to do is show that your.
[4:14] Proof, or your conjecture, really, your proof comes later, that your hypothesis is logically consistent, right? So you can't say, well, the basis of my physical theory is that gases both expand and contract when heated. It's like, well, no, no, they can't do both. You can't say, well, the foundation of my approach to how the universe works is that gravity is when mass both repels and attracts each other simultaneously. It's like, well, no, no. So it has to have an internal logic to it. That's the first test. Now, once the physics theory passed the test of internal consistency and logic, then we can start to say, does it accurately describe and predict what occurs in the world, right? And it's the same thing with a mathematical theory or even a business theory, right? A business theory can't say, well, we're going to go from 5 million to 50 million by expanding and contracting the business at the same time. Like that would be the actions of a lunatic who's probably writing with poop on the walls of his padded cell. So you'd have to have some kind of consistency, and then your business plan should accurately predict and describe what happens to a large degree, right? So internal consistency, accuracy in the world is the standard we use for everything.
[5:25] And why not morality? So when it comes to internal consistency, we have to say, okay, morality has to accept that there's universally preferable behavior. And if you argue against that, you agree with it. You cannot argue against the validity of universally preferable behavior. Because if someone comes along to me and says, Stef, there's no such thing as universally preferable behavior, therefore you shouldn't argue for it. Well, they're saying that there is that which exists and is valid, and that which does not exist and is not valid. And you should never argue for that which does not exist or is not valid. And you should always argue for things that exist and are valid. So that's universally preferable behavior. It's impossible to argue against the validity of universal preferable behavior because you'd have to deploy it in order to disprove something. So once we accept that there is universally preferable behavior, which can't be denied, then the only question is, what is universally preferable behavior. Now, if we look at the four main aspects of morality that are consistently upheld and no sane person would disagree with, which I know is not a proof, but let's just do a little shorthand here for a moment. And you say, well, the big four bands are rape, theft, assault, and murder, right? So rape is the violation of bodily autonomy, theft is the violation of property rights, assault is another violation of bodily autonomy, and murder, of course, is the ultimate denial of bodily autonomy by making the person unaligned.
[6:51] We're talking about basically part of the Ten Commandments, which basically, so don't covet anything that's not yours.
[6:57] Right. And thou shalt not murder, thou shalt not steal, and rape and assault would be included. Assault is a minor form of physical damage compared to murder. So then we have to say, okay, so let's just.
[7:10] Say- Because we have property in ourselves like we have property in any other asset. So any violation of us, our body, or our body is a violation of us. Madison said we have rights in our property and property in our rights. So in that respect, anything that's a deprivation of our rights, which is our property, is a violation of us. So it would fall into that principle of, you know, kind of consistent with the Ten Commandments is that if it's not yours, you know, not only don't take it, don't even covet it, don't even desire it.
[7:46] Right.
[7:47] So to the extent that that's possible to do, but that's the obligation. The obligation is not only to not do the act, the obligation is not to even think about doing the act because coveting is more than just doing it. It means even thinking about it and contemplating it and having a desire to do it. And we're not supposed to even have the desires on anything that's not ours.
[8:08] Right. Yeah. I mean, it's a lot easier to stop evil in the mind than it is in the hands, right? So let's look at stealing.
[8:19] So if somebody says stealing is moral, stealing is universally preferable behavior. It is universally preferable that everyone steal at all times, under all circumstances, everywhere, no matter what. Okay, so that's a hypothesis, right? And if that hypothesis or that argument, that moral argument, if what it does is it results in immediate self-contradictions, then it's invalid. Because self-contradictions... Are exactly what Socratic reasoning is designed to tease out and reject, right? So in the same way that science, if your theory contradicts itself, it cannot be valid. So then we say, okay, so let's look at stealing. What is stealing? Well, stealing is the unwanted taking of someone else's property. Now, you can take other people's property and they want you to, right? So if you are at a um a restaurant and they are like hey free samples right there's someone out front with a little tray they got the chicken and the little toothpick in it and they say here's here's your free it's their chicken but they want you to take it if you take a an old couch and you put it out on the side of the road with a sign that says take me then someone comes and takes your property right so it has to be the unwanted taking of somebody else taking.
[9:40] Then that's not a taking you're being given and and you're accepting a gift.
[9:45] Right you're removing the property but the person wants you to right yes so that's.
[9:49] Not i wouldn't consider that a taking.
[9:50] Okay but you are transferring property um it has to be the transfer of property against will.
[9:56] It's it's transfer of property based upon mutual voluntary consent.
[10:01] Right and so that's love making as opposed to there's.
[10:05] No there's no coercion involved there's a complete absence of coercion.
[10:08] Right yeah so i mean I appreciate that clarification. That's a very good way to put it. So if we say that there's a moral theory called theft is universally preferable behavior, can this be logically sustained? And the answer is an emphatic no, completely. And this is at two levels. One is that if theft is the good, then anybody who's not actively stealing must be doing the bad. Because if theft is the good, the opposite of theft, which is respecting property rights, must be the bad. Now, there's a general principle, which is a common sense principle. I call it the coma test, which is a guy in a coma can't be evil, because he can't act. He can't make any choices. He can't execute on any of his choices. He's in a coma. A guy who's asleep, a guy who's can't be evil while you're in a coma. Now, if theft is the good, then the respecting of property rights, i.e. not stealing, must be the evil. But a guy in a coma isn't stealing anything. He can't steal anything, and therefore he must be evil because he's not engaging in the act of theft. Therefore, he's respecting property rights in that he's not stealing anything. And that's just a kind of common sense thing. So that's the first layer. The second layer is it's like ontologically by its very definition, tautologically almost, it is impossible for theft to be universally preferable behavior because theft, is the unwanted transfer of property the.
[11:37] Undecided unagreed.
[11:38] To unwanted transfer of.
[11:40] Property sorry you wanted to mention i think there's something this is this is a this is a moral argument on why many people say which i would assert as well that a free market capitalist system or not not the phony system that we have in the u.s which is not a capitalist system uh there are very few capitalists in the united states anybody you know i i my definition anybody that knocks on the door of government and ask for a privilege or a benefit is not a capital. They're a crony.
[12:06] So anyone who wants to tilt the playing field, you know, outside of the context of the marketplace, to me, is a crony. So real capitalists, you know, wouldn't, you know, rely upon all transactions being voluntary and mutually agreed upon. And if all transactions are voluntary and mutually agreed upon, then there's nothing done by coercion. Everybody is doing a trade. They're doing it based upon their own free will. And they're doing it because they're satisfied with the results of the exchange because if they weren't satisfied, they wouldn't do it. And maybe sometimes after the fact, they might not be satisfied, but at least they won't think there was anything inappropriate about it. They just might've said, gee, I made a bad decision and I hopefully will learn something that the next time I engage in exchange and trade, I'll be smarter than I did the last time. But the only person I have to blame is myself, not the other person, as long as there's not an act of deception. And if there's an act of deception, there's usually some recourse associated based upon the documents that are agreed upon at the time the exchange is entered into. So that makes capitalism, in my opinion, the most moral system in the world.
[13:26] I agree. So let's just finish the proof for theft, and the other ones are very easy after that. So can theft be universally preferable behavior? No. Because... For theft to be universally preferable behavior, everybody must want to steal and be stolen from at the same time. But that's impossible. Because if I want...
[13:48] And many people want to steal, they just don't want to be stolen from.
[13:51] Well, if I say...
[13:53] Then you're getting into lack of internal consistency, but lack of internal consistency is a very human attribute. So...
[14:03] Well, no, but we're talking about not individual scientists, but a scientific theory, right? So individual scientists can be bad at science, but that doesn't invalidate the scientific method or the logic of the proposed hypothesis.
[14:15] So if, let's say, two guys, Bob and Doug, right? So if we say Bob and Doug must both want to steal and be stolen from at the same time, it's impossible. Because, first of all, they can't just keep stealing from each other because there's, you know, the property, let's say it's a phone. They keep stealing the phone back and forth from each other. But if Bob wants Doug to take his property, it's not theft. If Doug wants Bob to take his property, it's not theft. Then it's in the realm of a gift or something by the roadside or a food sample or something like that. So theft is when one person does not want the property transfer to occur. But if you say theft is universally preferable behavior, then everybody must want to steal and be stolen from at the same time. But if you want to be stolen from, it's not theft. And therefore, the category completely disappears in a giant flailing of self-contradiction.
[15:07] So you cannot ever say, with any logical consistency, theft is a universally preferable behavior. Now, the opposite of theft is respect to property rights. Is it possible, in other words, do no logical contradictions arise from everyone respecting property rights all the time? Like, let's just take the phone and Bob and Doug, right? So it's Doug's phone and Bob doesn't take it. Can both people achieve that without self-contradiction? Of course.
[15:39] Absolutely. So the fact that respect for property rights is universally preferable behavior that results in no self-contradiction because it is possible, the guy in the coma, is the guy in the coma stealing Bob's phone? No, he's not, right? Therefore, he cannot be categorized as evil, so it passes just that common sense coma test.
[16:01] And also, there's no logical self-contradiction in the respect for property rights. However, if you say theft is universally preferable behavior, there is an immediate self-contradiction in that theft vanishes as a category if everybody wants to steal and be stolen from, and therefore you have a self. You're saying that this is a valid principle, but the principle evaporates the moment you try to apply it universally. So, it's asymmetrical, is sort of what I'm saying, that two people cannot both achieve the morals at the same time. Let's look at rape. So, I mean, it's a sordid example, but it's one of the few unambiguously evil things. Like you could say, well, I'm stealing something back, or, you know, the guy hit me first and therefore assault, or it's a boxing, like rape is one of these things, it's unsavory to talk about, but of course it is one of the few things where there's no moral ambiguity. So if we were to say something as evil as rape is universally preferable behavior, then everybody must want to rape and be raped at the same time. But if you want to be raped, it's not rape. it's then some i don't know weird kinky sexual thing or something like that but it's not rape if you sign a consent form saying this person is allowed to have sex with me then it's not rape, and it's the same thing with assault it's the same thing with murder so rape theft assault and murder are all completely sorry go ahead same.
[17:16] Concept is is if if it is mutual consent among consenting adults who have the capacity the mental capacity and to know what they're doing and they mutually consent, then it's okay. It's not okay when one party does not consent and there's coercion involved. So it's the introduction of coercion that makes the act evil and amoral and immoral.
[17:46] Right. So when it comes to defining what morality is, morality is universally preferable behavior, and a respect for persons and property is the only ethical system that, accords with the need for universally preferable behavior. All other moral systems, are not consistent with the requirements of universally preferable behavior. They all self-contradict to one way or another. And of course, if you try to enact a self-contradictory, goal, you will simply fail, which is why coercion fails, which is why government systems fail, which is why fiat currency fails, and national debts, and government education, and just everything that is based upon asymmetrical coercion, none of it accords with universally preferable behavior and objective proof of secular morality, a morality that does not need the guns of the government.
[18:34] It's generally, it's not voluntary. There is coercion involved, but many of these things are generally accepted acts of coercion. People accept, parents accept the school system. They send their kids to school. Of course, there's coercion involved because there's a consequence associated with not going if you well there's more people are homeschooling now but the reality is you know if you have to show up if you have to show up or uh like when i was when i was a student i was in school you know i i try and cut as many days as i could, their minimum bid you that i was i was i was i was a good student so you know i got high test scores um uh you know so i didn't need to be in the classroom but why was i in the classroom and Why did the schools force me to be in the classroom? Because how much money they get from the government each day is a function of how many people are sitting in the seat in the classroom. So I was forced to be in the classroom against my will. You know, it was an act of coercion. And, you know, for me, I was a rebel. So teachers, you know, on the one hand, they probably would have preferred I was not in the classroom either. Right.
[19:49] But, yeah. Uh, you know, so, but that, that is a generally accepted principle, even though it's an act of coercion, like government is, is, is considered, you know, people have a trade-off where they say, you know, I'd rather have this government than I'd have. What they think would be the consequences of living under an anarchist system, which they probably don't even understand very well. They understand the caricature of it, but they don't understand that with respect to anarchy, anarchy doesn't necessarily mean an absence of rules. It means an application of rules where all the parties who are in that ecosystem system, agree to live under those rules. And there's free entry and free exit from that if they decide they don't want to follow those rules.
[20:38] So they enter with consent and there's no party that can force them to consent, nor can they force them to withdraw their consent. So these are rules that people mutually agree upon because they think there's a benefit for doing so. So they think it's a trade-off that they think they benefit from that trade-off. And when they think they no longer benefit from that trade-off you know the transaction cost of exiting that community and going to another community is very low so but the what the world accepts a system where the transaction cost associated with deciding to exit a community and enter a new community when there are a lot of restrictions on you entering into a new community and there's a high cost associated with exiting community um well unless you vote for bigger.
[21:24] Government then you're welcome to cross the border.
[21:26] So um uh so um uh you know so i think one one of the questions asked and also get into audience comment children cannot consent they do not have the maturity needed to do so so here we have a system where except hierarchy where you have kids don't have the development to uh you You know, I think many psychological studies show that, you know, our cognitive skills we develop, well, it seems to me, I think most of society never develops cognitive skills. So that are free of, you know, significant amount of biases. So I think we're not a cognitively advanced species. But I think what I've seen in scientific studies that we don't become really cognitively be aware, maybe there's a better term than that, until we're in our late teens. So the question is, is when people are developing their cognitive skills, you know, what degree of autonomy should they have? And to what extent, you know, to what extent should they have to be, and what's to say that the parent necessarily is more mature than the child?
[22:45] Well, I guess we would cross our fingers on that one. I think the general principle should be you should get maximum liberty based upon your capacity to foresee the consequences of your actions, right? So when we're adults and we see a bunch of candy at Halloween, we're like, oh, well, I don't want to get a cavity and I don't want to gain weight and I don't want to court diabetes because we can see the consequences of that. So we're not just based on this mammalian taste good kind of eat as much as you can. But as kids, they don't really see that. The future is a bit of a blur, they live in this kind of hooded moment-to-moment existence, so the parents have to be the future selves of the children restraining the appetites of the children in the here and now, because children will just eat until they get sick, for the most part, right? So, as soon as children begin to develop a sense of consequences, then we let them have more and more liberty, and then, of course, the goal is by the time they reach, as you say they're late teens, they are able to navigate their way through life knowing that there are consequences to particular actions which kids wouldn't experience.
[23:48] I always told my daughter the same thing over and over again. I said, you know, with freedom comes responsibility. The more responsible your behavior, the more freedom you have. So as she developed better and better, as she became a more and more responsible person, I gave her more and more freedom and i wanted her to have as much freedom as quickly as possible you know and i wanted her to demonstrate the responsibility that she understood that freedom and responsibility are two sides of the same coin so uh you know in the real world what happens if i have freedom and i go rob somebody rape somebody murder somebody or commit something where i violate somebody i use my freedom to deprive somebody else of their freedom then i ultimately lose my own freedom myself.
[24:39] And so... In society, it works pretty much the same way. If you behave responsibly, you have a lot of freedom. If you behave irresponsibly, you know, that freedom is constrained and restrained, so suppressed. So ultimately, how much freedom we have. And I think that's, you know, if people look at the literature of, you know, the founders of America, who hoped that we would succeed in this exercise and experiment in self-government, one of the things they talked about, there are several things they talked about. Uh they said ultimately the the the constitutional republic uh would not last if people were not virtuous so uh they thought you can't have self-government with people who lack virtue so um you know you could say you know virtue or morality uh but if people lack virtue and morality then ultimately the consequence will be the the exercise in self-government is not going to succeed. And they also expected people to be well-educated. So they expected people to be literate, well-read.
[25:56] You know, Benjamin Franklin said the responsibility of every citizen was to be knowledgeable on politics, economics, rhetoric, and law. And if you looked at a lot of the stuff that, you know, like Thomas Jefferson and George Washington talked about, they were big advocates for what now would be considered, you know, a STEM curriculum. So they wanted people to pursue science. I mean, and look at the brilliance of, you know, Thomas Jefferson, who designed and engineered, you know, Monticello. So he was not just a great writer of a Declaration of Independence. You know, he was a polymath, as many people were polymaths at that point in time, because they had a different form of education than we have today. They were taught to think can develop their mind. You know, now we teach people skills so they become good employees or mediocre employees. So probably is a better description. You were going to say something, sorry.
[26:52] Oh, yeah. I was just saying, if you look at the legal system, the legal system that was developed in the common law traditions of the West was a very complicated legal system with lawyers and advocates and evidence and rules of evidence and chain of custody and all kinds of complicated stuff, which can only work if you have a few crimes. If you go over a certain number of crimes or a certain percentage of crimes, you, the system can't work. And this is why you end up with this horrible travesty of plea bargaining, where you go to jail for bribing a judge, but the prosecution can bribe you with 10 years additional sentence in order to plead guilty. And this is why 2% of criminal cases go to trial these days, because the system was built for people who are mostly moral, with a few exceptions. And that's why it can be so focused on all of these complicated rules to try and get to the truth. But when you have an overwhelming sort of tsunami of criminality, then the system completely breaks down. And so where we lose morality, we lose justice in that sense.
[27:51] How much of a tsunami of criminality do we have is because of the facts that we have a proliferation of a criminal code where much activity is, I mean, people might not like it, But if I decide I want to consume drugs, you know, as long as I don't do anything bad while under the influence of drugs, it might be bad for me. You know, it might be bad for my family. But, you know, my wife could divorce me. She would get custody of the kids. So there'd be consequences.
[28:25] Ultimately, I would suffer the consequences of my own behavior. So a lot of people are in prison for actions, you know, that might not have a victim other than themselves. So how much of this criminality is associated with really a system designed to have a lot of criminals? So is the goal of that criminal code to prevent criminality or to call many people criminals because they engage in activity that somebody desires that they not engage in from their own sense of morality that they want to impose on other people? You know, prostitution, the same thing. If you have two parties willing, you know, to consent, you know, what's wrong with that? So money is exchanged, but it seems to be that they're each getting the value that they negotiate, and it's a voluntary act. So, I mean, what would a criminal code look like if basically all activities done by mutually consenting adults were legal? So how much less crimes would we have if that's the case? Why is it their right to I had a very good I had a very good friend he passed away a number of years ago.
[29:50] One of my closest friends in my life and a mentor to me and I remember one day we were at a restaurant and we were talking about freedom of association and Uh, you know, and I'm someone who my, my ex-wife is, is, is black. Um, you know, so I would consider myself, you know, someone that, uh, is very accepting of anybody. I just, I judge the person. I don't judge any other attribute besides who they are. Um, not, not, not, uh, not how they, not how the, you know, their, the history of their birth, uh, and their race and religion. I don't give a, I don't care about any of that stuff. um you know and yet i told him that people had a right to discriminate like you know as me as a jew if i go to a restaurant that's somebody who hates jews i want to know that they hate jews and i won't go to that restaurant because why do i want to give money to somebody that hates jews you know so if people want to ban me because i'm jewish i'm happy to know that they're jew they they don't like me for jewish and then now i know not to give them my business you know and uh you know, and vice versa. If somebody doesn't want to, you know, somebody doesn't want to do business with me, you know, for whatever reason, they have the right, they have the right to do that. We have freedom of association. So I think there's a fundamental right, you know, to discriminate. I don't like discrimination. I personally, I personally think it's horrible, but a lot of things I think are horrible that people have a right to do.
[31:13] Well, and you would want to let the economy punish those who have irrational discriminations, right? So if I run a business and I say, I'm never hiring a redheaded person because a redheaded guy beat me up when I was a kid. The last thing I, okay, well, I've just reduced the talent pool for my business by whatever percentage there are of redheaded people. I guess it's different in Ireland than it would be in Somalia. So if I'm discriminating in an irrational basis, and then I say, I'm reducing my talent pool, my business is going to do worse. Right. And if I want to run an NBA team and I'm never.
[31:47] There's a market consequence to it.
[31:48] Yeah, there's a financial consequence to market.
[31:51] What will happen is if I have a mentality that I don't hire the best, I just hire people because of the way they look and, you know, what religion they might be or any other attribute other than are they really the best at what they do for what for what I need. You know, ultimately, the talented people that might come into that company will not stay there. So ultimately you know they'll they'll they'll they'll they'll keep the worst element and they'll be an unproductive business and they'll be a business of a bunch of people who are losers uh you know either being marginally profitable or going bankrupt and and you know and then the business owner will have to figure out what to do with their life and the employees who lived in that environment you know will also have to have to you know live with the consequences of of of doing that well and boycotts.
[32:39] Are perfectly fine as well and if you find somebody be discriminatory in business. You can publicize that. It's not defamation if you're telling the truth, and the market can punish them, and the lack of talent can punish them, and let's decentralize the punishment of people who are not committing direct violent crimes. Just decentralize it, make it part of the community standards so that people can deal with it in a peaceful fashion rather than giving power to a small group of people which will always end up being abused.
[33:05] Correct. At least I strongly agree with that. Now, going back to the topic, even though know i find this more an interesting topic than peaceful it's your show man wherever you want to take me i'm on i'm on the train you want to talk about peaceful how did you come up with the name peaceful parenting and what inspired you to you know to to write this book what do you what do you think you have to contribute to uh you know for me being a parent is too late my daughter's grown up and uh you know so but you have you have kids in the environment yeah you everyone has kids in the environment there's always kids that you can you can talk about and.
[33:38] Parents that you can influence. So I come from... A very business background, right? I was an entrepreneur in the software field for a long time. Before that, I had various jobs. I did manual labor. I gold-panned and prospected up north, which sounds irrelevant, but it's really not. So I'm used to sort of very practical, solutions-based, prediction-based, actionable things. So when I was writing business plans in the business world, I was a chief technical officer for many years in a software company I co-founded. I had to have practical solutions. I had to say, here's how we're going to market. Here's how here the conferences we're going to go to. Here's the price point. Here's how it covers the payroll. Here's the growth scenario. Here's the market opportunities. Here's the competition, you know, your standard strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis. So I'm used to very practical things and I'm used to working with what is rather than very big abstract, you know, because when it comes to ethics, a lot of people are like, well, there's a trolley coming down the road and, and there's this. And it's like, you're never going to experience that in your life. It's not a real scenario, right? It's like me saying, well, I have a business plan for how we're going to open our first software office on Mars. It's like, that's not going to happen. Let's deal with what is in the world. Let's deal with what we can actually act on rather than these bizarre academic abstractions. I mean, I spend time in academia. I got a graduate degree.
[34:58] So what are the main advices you would give to a parent?
[35:02] Right, right. So, but I'm just giving you why I started down this whole road to begin with. So like yourself, I think we're both on the same page, Jeff, regarding the non-aggression principle, right? Thou shalt not initiate force against others, right? Now, I love the non-aggression principle. I kneel before it. I light candles to it. I do incense. I'd make sweet love to it if I could. I'm very, very much down for the non-aggression principle. But as a practical entrepreneur, what I have to say is, okay, okay, I want to advocate for the expansion of the non-aggression principle. What can I do about central banking? Nothing. What can I do about foreign policy?
[35:40] You can advocate for Bitcoin.
[35:42] Well, okay, I can do that. But in terms of direct changes to violations of the non-aggression principle, I can't change foreign aid. I can't uproot government schools, though I'd love to. So what can I do? So what I did was I looked at what is the widest violation of the non-aggression principle that we can do something about, that we can act on immediately if we want, right? So it's not that hard, I mean, to figure this stuff out, at least for me, is I say, okay, well, the biggest violation of the non-aggression principle would be, say, child abuse.
[36:15] And that's something we can do something about, right? You cannot beat your kids. That you can do, and nobody's going to throw you in jail for it. You don't have to protest. You don't have to risk people turning off your bank account. You can advocate for the peaceful treatment of children, reasoning with children, negotiating with children, rather than initiating the use of force against children, because the only way you can reasonably use force is in self-defense, and children, hopefully, are not running at you with a chainsaw. So you're probably okay with not initiating the use of force against children. So then I realized, of course, much though I love politics, economics, and law, and all the stuff that we're talking about here, if I want to have the biggest effect on reducing violations of the non-aggression principle, I need to talk about parenting. I need to talk about how to not initiate the use of force against your children. And I did a sort of back of the napkin calculation because I've been doing this for almost 20 years and I have over a billion views and downloads of my shows.
[37:12] I think it's about a billion to a billion and a half reductions in violations of the non-aggression principle through what I'm talking about with regards to parenting. And I could have spent the whole time railing against government education, but I wouldn't have closed any schools. I wouldn't have privatized anything. So I really want to depart this veil of joy and pain with having tangible, measurable results, because that's, you know, manual labor. You need tangible, measurable results.
[37:42] When it comes to running a business, you need tangible and measurable results, because otherwise you can't have a payroll. So when it came to moral philosophy, I'm like, hey, I love the theory stuff. I love arguing trolley problems. And, you know, you're hanging from a flagpole and you have to kick in someone's window to survive and can the hungry guy steal a loaf of bread these are all very interesting things but they don't actually happen that much really in our lives and it's getting.
[38:06] Back to the issue of the violence with respect so it is illegal for parents to abuse their kids so.
[38:12] Well not here in canada, Maybe it's, and I don't think in America in most places. So in America, you are allowed to initiate force against your children.
[38:21] What should be the consequence if you have, one is, is mental abuse worse, less, less worse, equal to in badness and evilness compared to physical abuse? I mean, well, okay.
[38:37] So let's get to your first issue.
[38:38] You know, you're focusing on corporal abuse, but, you know, I don't know if kids are more damaged by mental abuse than corporal abuse. So I think there are many forms of parental abuse, but then the question is, is how does a child, how does a young child get recourse, you know, and what's that recourse? I mean, because what's the option? You know, I have my parents who are dysfunctional parents who still might love me, but they're They're dysfunctional because they got their own problems. And so it's not like they are, you know, the consequence of their behavior is evil. It's not that their intent is evil. It's the consequence of their behavior is evil because of their own limitations as individuals. So, you know, but then the question is, if you're not raised by your parents because they behave that way, then what happens to you?
[39:33] Right. So as far as child abuse not being illegal, well, of course, you and I would not want to take the laws as the ultimate arbiters of morality, but it is perfectly acceptable in most places in the world to initiate the use of force against your children by hitting them, by spanking them, by forcibly grabbing them and sitting them down on a stair in a timeout, by locking them in their room, by denying them food, all things that would be completely illegal against any adult in your environment, but which we allow to be perfectly legal with regards to children.
[40:07] How many kids would prefer that to the option of what their option was if they don't have that? Do they prefer that to being in a foster home? You know what I mean? So what's the option available for kids who are completely dependent upon an adult if their parents, again, their parents love them, but their parents are, look, I had personal experience. I mean, I was physically abused and I was mentally abused. so my father wasn't a bad guy he had my parents didn't have a great marriage and you know so sometimes somebody has to suffer the consequences you know of you know so it was a dysfunctional relationship and uh.
[40:45] I think I turned out, you know, reasonably well, many people might argue that, but, um, uh, you know, the point of it is I, if I have to take a look at the options of trying to figure out how to survive in my own house versus, you know, being out there and being picked up by a foster home or stuff like that, I didn't doubt that my parents didn't love me. I mean, so I, I was sure they loved me, uh, you know, but they were just had their problems. So, and, and their problems caused a problem for me. Um, you know, and it was, and it was an effort for me to learn how to deal with those problems. Um, but, uh, but, but, but still, you know, I, I think that, uh, uh, you know, I, I think that to some extent it helped shape me to be a better person having to deal with those problems. So, you know, you have to toughen yourself up when you deal with those problems.
[41:37] Uh, and, uh, you know, and, and, and maybe you can turn out to be a person of greater empathy because you know what it's like to live in an environment where there's an absence of empathy. So I understand all this is bad. The question is, are the options better?
[41:57] So, I mean, me giving the choice, well, I can't say. One day when my father was teaching me how to drive and didn't like how I was driving, he left. He got out he he he had me get out of the car and uh on a highway uh and he took off and he left so so i i walked to a local police station and and i asked to be put in prison so the police asked me what i did wrong i said i i all i want to do is i think i'd rather be in jail than go back home okay so uh.
[42:37] They ended up calling my parents, and my parents came for me, and the police were not sympathetic to keeping me in jail. They felt I was better off at home, and maybe there was a benefit for me going back home, but I actually did at that moment. At that moment, maybe I would have regretted it five months later, but at that moment, I felt I would rather be in jail than go back home.
[42:59] But I think at the end, later in life, my father and I became good friends, and I harbored you know little to no resentment you know towards him because i recognize that he's a human being like i am and we're all flawed and uh but again i i didn't doubt that he he loved me uh you know he had his own way of showing it but i didn't doubt it and is that better off than being in an environment where you get no love but you don't get any corporal punishment either you know.
[43:33] Who's to say which is a better environment yeah as a society as a society and for those individuals what you know what are we what are we better off do we want to do you want to fill up prisons with every parent that that that that abuses their kid in any form uh whether it's yelling at them with insults or or spanking them uh you know i'm not talking about physical violence in a way that's really brutal you know it might be you might sting for a few minutes but it's not living a permanent scar on you it might be an emotional scar but but again the question is is really really what what's what's what's the what's the what's the option to that i still want to know what is the option to just the fact that there are certain problems you know where that things the situation is not great but the alternative is even worse Yes.
[44:23] Well, yes, but of course, the foster care system is a statist invention. There are lots of other options that you can have. I mean, and we certainly would want to take out children from an environment where they would be killed or raped or assaulted with grievous bodily harm. And I just wanted to say, like I know for both of us, childhood is quite a ways ago, but I really am sorry for what happened with you as a kid. That sounds, to want to be in prison is tough.
[44:50] I have, I have no regrets because I think, I think I became a better person because of the challenges.
[44:56] But it could have gone either way.
[44:58] I think the challenges I faced in life, I think, I think that, uh, it's given me a sensitivity to things that I might not have a sensitivity to if I didn't go through what I went through. So I insist, I think it made me a better person. So it wasn't fun going through it, but I think as a, I think the benefit I've had the rest of my life for going through it. I think, of course, at the time I was going through it, I didn't see the benefit. But now, as I'm older and I have more maturity, hopefully, I'm able to now enjoy the benefit of living in a challenging environment. And yes, it could have gone either way, and it's up to us to determine which way it goes. That's life.
[45:42] Yeah, but you're like the Samuel L. Jackson character in Pulp Fiction, where the bullets just happened to go all around him rather than through him. So the fact that you flourished, which is really testament, Jeff, to your great morals and resolution and willpower and maturity, but most people don't, right? Most people do not flourish under situations of maltreatment as a child.
[46:07] So you judoed that adversity into a positive, which is to your eternal credit and massive congratulations for changing that direction. But most people don't. You know, most people don't. And so as far as the solution goes, well, for me, of course, the solution is, you know, advocacy and education, not with the goal of saying, well, everybody who touches a child in anger is irredeemably evil. I understand that people grow up with their own histories. They believe that what they're doing is the right. They may never have heard of the options. In the same way that if I meet a guy who's a big fan of some government program, I don't say, evil, evil. It's a matter of education and listening to people and having them understand that violence is really not the solution to our complex social problems. It's not the solution for charity. It's not the solution for drug addiction. It's not the solution for other forms of social dysfunction. It's not the solution for the military. It's not the solution for children's education. Violence is not the solution. And it's no more the solution in the house than it is in the city. Sorry, go ahead.
[47:12] You and I are having this conversation on BitChute and what's the philosophical principle of BitChute. The philosophical principle on BitChute is that, you know, I view demonetization and de-platforming is acts of violence. So I think however unpleasant any conversation is, the only way to resolve any conflict, even if you don't resolve the conflict, at least you create a better sense of mutual understanding, is through dialogue. And dialogue means what we're having right now. We're each talking and we're each listening to the other person, and that's dialogue.
[47:51] Um and i think the only hope for humanity you know is dialogue so that's what that's what bit shoot represents is the fact is that people should never stop talking and anything that anything that interferes with people being able to speak and somebody willing ability to listen to that person who speaks to me is an act of violence um and uh and and and no acts of violence should be condoned and the fact that we've become so insensitive to many forms and expressions of violence is a sad statement about us as a species, in my opinion.
[48:31] Well, I certainly agree with that and very heartfully spoken. So, yeah, so I would say that educating people about the use of peace in negotiations is really, really important. And negotiation and nonviolence, and I will say, because I'm not a pacifist, I'm, you know, self-defense is fine.
[48:50] When we talk to people about negotiation, communication, and nonviolence as the way to solve human problems, well, we have to start teaching that language to our kids as early as possible, right? Now, of course, you know, like when I have a daughter as well, and, you know, we put her in the baby cage, right? We put her in the crib, right, which has the little bars, and that's because she would roll off and fall over. So, you know, obviously a certain amount of care and restraint and all of that is, you know, if your kid is running towards the traffic, you pick them up and so on, right? And so that's all fine. But the problem is, if we use force to teach our children, then what happens is they grow up thinking that force is good.
[49:33] Because look, force protected me. Force, you know, you've probably heard these people who were beaten within half an inch of their lives. And they say, well, I was a real brat. I deserved it. My kids, my parents were doing the right thing. I would have done very badly without that. And so then they're saying, force in authority is necessary for life. Force in authority is necessary for virtue. Force in authority is necessary for social functioning. And then if you take that approach to children, they grow up thinking, well, we have to have a government, otherwise everything will be chaos. And it's like, but that comes from the fact that they were treated with violence as children, and they've internalized it and said, violence is good in the service of a social good. Violence is good in the service of moral growth. And we need violence, because if my parents didn't beat me, I would have just run into traffic, and then they grew up thinking, well, without a government, everything would be chaos. Nature red in tooth and claw, dogs living with cats, you know, the old jokes, right?
[50:28] So that's why, well, that's the mentality that politicians feel. Feed. I mean, what they sell is fear. That's the product. They sell is fear, and they're the answer to the fears. So they want us to surrender our freedoms, and the best way to get us to surrender our freedoms is to instill fear in us, since the bottom of the Maslow Pyramid is the need to survive.
[50:54] So as long as they keep us at the level of the bottom of the pyramid, where we're always concerned about our survival, and our survival depends upon them okay then they make themselves a lot more important when we're an advanced species you know where we're at the top of the maslow pyramid then they become irrelevant in our lives because we're fulfilled and and we're enlightened individuals and we understand that ultimately this is our personal responsibility and and so once we have that sense of personal responsibility then we don't then then we don't want to then we don't want to engage in coercion against other people nor do we want to be coerced. But if we live in fear, we embrace coercion because it's the coercion that protects us against our fears. So ultimately, that's what they need to sell. They need to sell. There's always the boogeyman out there. There's always the enemy, the terrorist. Somebody's got to be caricatured in a way that makes them somebody that we should be fearful of.
[51:57] And and and and and they're adversely impacting out impacting our life they had the scapegoat and uh and and the and the only people capable of solving this problem for us are the people and politicians and that's what and that that's why these campaigns negative campaigning works much better than people talking about the things they're for so oh you know we know we got it we got to put tariffs on because china is evil you know we gotta every every every person entering the border you know is is is was hand selected you know by maduro uh as a as a rapist or a criminal or a drug dealer and that's why they're being sent to invade the country to overthrow the government you know or you know democrats telling us you know that we that we can't make decisions for ourselves and we should be deprived of free speech because then our democracy can't be preserved because misinformation gets in there and they need to be the gatekeepers to make sure because we don't have the capacity of taking care of ourselves you know ultimately if if the way the politicians describe us we really should not have the right to vote if we are that dumb if our judgments we you know i one one day i was i was at an event and i was sitting next to some some politician And I was trying to speak to them about school choice.
[53:23] And the politician told me, you know, well, what I worried is, is the fact is that, you know, in my district, I think the parents would make bad choices. So have you ever thought about the fact that you're a consequence of that bad choice? You know, if you're telling me the parents, the same parents who you think can't choose a school well, they're the ones that voted you in office. So how confident could I be in your opinion, given the fact that you're acknowledging that you're in office because you got picked by people who you think suck at making decisions? So that's our political process. Our political process is the politicians think we're stupid. They think we make bad choices. And yet they're the ones who are the product of those bad choices with the power of coercion over us. Think about how perverse that is.
[54:14] Well, and people don't really choose in a political sense. They're just bouncing off fear and greed, right? So, well, if this person gets into power, it's going to be the end of democracy, and it's going to be the end of the world, and there'll be World War III, and we'll all be nuclear shadows on the sewage plant wall, as opposed to, well, but if you vote for me, if you vote for me, I'm going to double your income.
[54:37] I'm going to give you free stuff. I'm going to, you know, there's just bribery and threats, bribery and threats, which goes back to bad parenting. Sorry, Jeff, go ahead.
[54:44] I said, we already know right now that the, uh, that, that this is the last election we're ever going to have in the history.
[54:51] Ever, apparently. Yeah.
[54:52] Okay. Both, both parties, both candidates agree with that, you know, for different reasons, but this is the last election. So at least we'll never have to worry about making a decision again in the future about who represents us. So we might be better off if that was the case. I don't know. But, you know, people should go out and register and vote now because, you know, this is your last chance at ever voting in an election ever again in your life.
[55:18] Well, it's a funny thing, too.
[55:20] Anyone who believes that, call me and I would like to make a bet with you, you know, text me, whatever. And I'd like to bet with you that there will be subsequent elections. So I want to know how many people, you know, will back up this claim that they're making, you know, including Elon Musk, that, you know, there won't be another election if, you know, if Trump loses, you know, either way. But come on. Just, just, just, just, I don't care. I just want anyone who's making a claim that after this election, there'll never be another election. You know, that I want to, I want, I want to do a friendly bet with you. I don't want to do anything illegal. but, you know, a dinner, something like that.
[56:00] I want to see how many people are really willing to collateralize that bet and risk something of value to them with that statement.
[56:08] Well, to defend Elon, and I don't want to speak for him, of course, I think his argument is that there will be other elections, but there'll be so many people in the country that have been imported or, incentivized in through a lot of free stuff who were going to vote for the Democrats, that it's kind of like California. Used to be Republican, now it's, you know, almost completely Democrat and will be pretty much until the end of time. So his argument is not that there won't be any elections at all. His argument will be that they're importing so many people who are going to vote for the Democrats that there's no functional chance for the Republicans to win in the future. I think that's his argument.
[56:45] Yeah, I heard this. I heard that argument that basically we're going to, we're going to, that somehow all these people are, we know what that, but it seems Trump is talking about how well he's doing with the Hispanic community. So he seems to be doing with reasonably well with all these people that supposedly only vote Democrats. Apparently they don't only vote Democrats. And from what I see, long-term studies show that when people, you know, that the second and third generation, they tend to represent, they tend to be not any different than any other cohort. So it might be true of those who are coming in now might have a tendency to be more Democratic and Republican, but that doesn't mean their kids and grandchildren will be different. It doesn't mean that they'll have a permanent majority. And I challenge Elon Musk's point of view that what made California a one-party state was illegal immigrants because California became a one-party state before there was a huge influx of illegal immigrants. So it's just – Well.
[57:51] No, but there was the amnesty.
[57:52] It's a factually incorrect statement.
[57:55] But there was the amnesty under Reagan.
[57:56] Illegal immigrants, you know, illegal immigrants, you know, don't don't vote, you know, and that is a myth, you know, and I guess he thinks that they'll all be made legal. But, you know, you know, to be made legal, there needs to be, you know, the president cannot legalize illegal immigrants. So it has to be an act of Congress to do that, and I have not seen there to be that type of majority that the public will find accepting the fact that we're going to take 20 million people who came here illegally and we're going to all in one year make them all citizens. You know, I doubt that that that that will be something that Kamala will be able to implement on her own. So and we should have better trust for the American people. I mean, so Elon Musk's statement is basically says we don't trust the American people at all. So we got to trust an authoritarian leader, you know, rather than the American people and that the American people are that stupid that that basically, you know, all these policies will be implemented and Congress will bless all these policies and the people who do that, you know, will, will end up getting reelected over and over again. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm very skeptical of that. Um.
[59:15] Skeptical that ultimately people vote their wallet people are not that there's a small group of people who will vote party no matter what and then there's a lot of independents that will vote what they view as their self-interest and that's including the the the immigrants that come in and become assimilated uh and their values become not much different than anyone else's values so i think i think these statements are are just untrue and and and there's no evidence and to take one state and, and, and generalize the whole country for one state, you know, based upon a very poor evaluation of the data, um, you know, it's a sort of like anecdotal.
[59:57] Uh, I think Elon Musk, I think is smarter than to apply anecdotes, uh, to, to situations for, uh, you know, so I, I heard what he had to say, and I think it's as dumb as his statement that you can have freedom of speech without freedom of reach. If there's no freedom of reach, there's no freedom of speech.
[1:00:21] So if you can say something, but nobody's allowed to hear it, then what's the point of having freedom of speech if the fact is that you're – it's like you and I having a conversation. I say, Stefan, you and I are going to have a conversation. you're here you can talk but i'm muting you so nobody hears any the audience doesn't hear anything that you have to say you can talk you know all you want but you're muted um and you know would that be considered free well elon musk that's elon musk definition of freedom of speech so uh i think that's i think it's an asinine stupid moronic comment uh and i think his comment about california is equally moronic so but i guess he's gone he's gone all in and you know on this on this election and you know i'm all out on the election i don't care who wins uh so uh my bitcoin will be worth more no matter who wins and i'm confident of that and uh you know so i i take responsibility for myself and i don't worry about what washington can or can't do for me i'm more concerned about what it wants to do to me or for me. But if we, you know, if people were really realistic, about the situation now we're getting a little off topic i'm sorry but really how much has the tax code changed from from trump to biden are americans paying significantly higher taxes no i think their capital.
[1:01:50] Gains went up if i remember rightly.
[1:01:52] So yeah capital gains went up but ultimately people are not paying significantly higher tax code the tax code doesn't look doesn't look very different no but it's the.
[1:02:02] Uh the spending right i mean deficit spending is just deferred taxation so if you don't raise the taxes regarding.
[1:02:09] The border but biden over four years increased the deficit more than less than trump increased it and and and as and as people have been scoring as third parties have been scoring who will add more to the deficit in the coming four years based upon the economic proposals you know reasonably responsible it doesn't mean they're right, but people who are considered reasonably neutral third parties who evaluated the proposals have said that Trump will add about $7.5 trillion to the deficit, and Kamala will add about $3.5 trillion to the deficit with the proposals that they've made. So if we're taking a look at spending- Okay.
[1:02:48] Sorry. I'm not sure if we're still- you've raised about 30 points, so I'm not really sure if we're having a dialogue or not anymore.
[1:02:54] Sorry, go ahead.
[1:02:55] All right. So with regards to the deficit, I, of course, criticized Trump at the time for the deficit spending as well. To be fair, he did get hit with COVID, and it was pretty hard to keep the economy going when the governors were shutting everything down. So that's one issue. With regards to, you say, well, but the immigrants in a couple of generations, they might be more conservative, but you understand that the conservative or the Republican Party is not very well satisfied with, well, but maybe in 100 years, you might get some votes back. I mean, that's not something that any responsible party would be down for. Regarding legalizing 20 million people in order to win the election, you don't need to do that. I mean, if Trump won by 70,000 votes, you don't need 20 million people to swing the election. You just need enough because, you know, they're often quite narrow, which is almost partly by design. So there's that aspect. With regards to California, it wasn't an influx of illegals. It was Reagan's amnesty, which he later regretted, that tended to turn the state pretty solidly blue and has remained there forever. And with regards to illegals voting or non-voting, well, we.
[1:04:03] There's no ID requirements, so who knows who's voting? I mean, I think they're actively blocking measures to have people show, I mean, you had to show ID to do just about anything, particularly over COVID. So, with regards to illegals not voting, I mean, yeah, I get that that's the law, though. There does seem to be some trying to get people signed up pretty quickly, but in the absence of a strict voter ID requirement, and again, I'm not a big fan of voting, I'm not a big fan of government ids i mean i understand all of that but just from a sort of practical short-term standpoint the argument is that without strict voter id uh requirements then it's going to be very hard to keep people who are not allowed to vote from voting yeah.
[1:04:46] But i i think, i i i'm not convinced that it was reagan's amnesty that that was the complete reason why or a major reason why California has been basically a democratic haven.
[1:05:06] But let's not dispute that point. I think with respect to the point I tried to make with respect to if we take a look at the size of government and spending, again, Trump's proposals have been scored at adding $7.5 trillion in the deficit. Kamala has been scored at about $3.5 trillion. It's a proposal that we have with respect to Social Security and Medicare and their impending bankruptcies. The Democrats want to increase taxes.
[1:05:38] The Republicans want to do nothing. Okay. So, um, regarding the tax code, uh, I, I don't think if the, if, if, if the, if the Democrats got in power, you know, I don't, I don't think there'd be substantive changes in the tax code because if there were many people who would identify as Democrats would not accept significant increases in the tax code because somebody votes Democratic or Kamala and voted for Biden and voted for Clinton doesn't make, if a Democrat came in, Kamala said, I want to increase taxes to 70%, that everybody's going to go along with that and think they're going to win again when they run for office. And they think that even people who come in illegally are going to be really happy to have their taxes taxed at that rate. So the middle class is not going to allow that type of punitive taxation. This is why I think we haven't had significant changes in the tax code. We have had some. Tax rates are a little bit higher.
[1:06:46] The first three years of Trump's administration, he added more to the deficit than Obama's last three years. So even before COVID, Trump was averaging over a trillion a year in deficit spending. So he was a big deficit spender, more so than Obama was in the last three years. So I trust more. One is we supposedly have a decentralized system. So we have more states governed, I think, by Republican governors than Democratic governors.
[1:07:27] So, you know, so I believe I don't like the policies of I mean, I was I was I was a Reagan supporter. So I was I was I was a fan of Ronald Reagan. You know, I don't the only time I've ever voted in an election was in 1980 when I voted for Reagan. But outside of that, I've never I've never voted. uh you know i've never i've never donated to a democrat uh you know i don't support democrats uh i i don't vote at all um i have no i have no no interest in voting but i have an interest in in in in good policies and i and i don't want to instill fear in people and do i think that i do i think that uh we will move towards a more socialist system uh look we we we have right now, we have now populist parties. We don't have capitalist parties. We have populist parties. Who would ever thought, you know, now that we have a Republican party that wants to talk about having these type of tariffs?
[1:08:27] You know, we basically have parties advocating, you know, industrial policy. Um, so, uh, uh, you know, you know, you went going back and you said you focused in on, on the issue of how to reign in big government. For me, the best way to reign in big government is, is money. People, I think people should all, what's the benefit of holding Bitcoin? Get the money out of the banks. The banks are the main instrument for surveillance. The banks is the main instrument of how government funds itself. The big part of what the money that you go into deposit funds government because government banks hold a lot of government securities. They hold more government debt than lending, than they do lending. So if you want to deprive the government of money, keep your money out of banks. So I think that would shrink government to more and more people just kept their money out of banks and put it into, you know, I don't like the other crypto. I think they're all shit coins, but Bitcoin is different, and I think people should keep their money in Bitcoin and starve the government through starving the banks. So I think there's, I think that's the most effective way. And, and, and even the, you know, people like, like Ben Franklin and, and others, uh, Thomas Jefferson, uh, believed that, uh, and James Madison, that, uh, as long as we have a fiat regime.
[1:09:54] That tyranny is, is, is inevitable. So the question is, if we want to avoid the inevitability of tyranny, it's through the money.
[1:10:08] I mean, I'm very sensitive to people being good parents and people being moral individuals and people being decent human beings and people living by the non-aggression principle and people living in a way that you talk about as being internally consistent behavior. And I think you've been a great spokesperson, you know, on those issues. And I think we got to keep focusing on those specific issues and really avoiding politics, because I think politics brings out the worst in people, not the best in people. I think the work you do in philosophy has an opportunity of bringing out the best in people, you know, not the worst in people, you know, which is why, you know, I'm happy to have you He was a guest and advocating not only peaceful parenting, but peaceful in all attributes of human life and engagement. So what more do you plan on doing to advocate the fact that, you know, your your your your perspective on moral philosophy and how you can continue to influence more people.
[1:11:14] Well i mean of course i've been pro bitcoin since 2011 i think i did my first show on bitcoin i've spoken at a number of bitcoin conferences i would rather replace the phrase orange man bad with trump with orange money good and so i've really focused on that and how bitcoin could end war how Bitcoin can end up the predation on the next generation known as deficit spending. And the hard money that's decentralized is really our only chance to, and it's a technology race, right? Because the technology of Bitcoin and decentralization and places like BitChute and so on, that's racing against centralized social credit scores, 15-minute cities, CDBCs, the Great reset, all of this terrifying anarcho-tyranny that seems to be technologically thundering across the landscape, like the four hellish horsemen of digital death. And so, yeah, keep focusing on wherever you can focus on decentralized solutions, wherever you can focus on non-violent solutions, whether it's parenting or crypto, Bitcoin in particular. I'm really not a huge fan of the other ones either.
[1:12:24] The king is the king and shall not be enthroned. So, yeah, I think focusing on that, ways that you can practically enact virtue within your own life, honest conversations with people about the violence they don't even know that they support. I want to give people the free will to choose between good and evil rather than propagandizing, rather than being, you know, in the matrix of propaganda where they can't really make any decisions other than going with the herd and the flow. So, yeah, just continue to have these kinds of conversations, continue to talk to people about truth, reason, and virtue. And, uh, hopefully that'll be carved on my tombstone and people will occasionally drop a flower or two in the centuries to come.
[1:13:00] How do you think people like you and I and people where we might have differences in, you know, subtle differences, but the overall themes where we're in, we're, I think we're in general agreement on, um, how can, how can we all collaborate together, cooperate together to have more an impact on, on, on, on, on our respective countries and the world? Yeah.
[1:13:22] You mean other than by doing what we're doing and have these kind of conversations? I think this is great. I think this exchange of ideas and perspectives is really important. And, you know, everybody who sees this, you know, if I'm too controversial to share, that's fine. I don't particularly care. Just share the ideas, share the arguments, share the data.
[1:13:40] And we can hopefully, you know, we have this incredible technology, which absolutely unguessed of it our youth. I would have just faded like a comet seen by no one a million years ago through the intellectual landscape. But because of this technology, I can speak and be listened to by tens or hundreds of millions of people over the years and last forever.
[1:14:03] And so we have this incredible technology which should fill us with absolute deep and giddy joy every day. It certainly does for me to have these kinds of conversations. So, you know, enthusiasm, have a life that people want some part of. Don't be the fat guy on the diet book cover who doesn't want anything, makes people not buy the diet book. Have energy, positivity, enthusiasm, virtue, clarity, and look at not telling people that they're wrong, but encouraging them to have a better life through truth, reason, and virtue. And I think that's really the best. After that, it's just in the hands. You can be as engaging as possible. You can be as entertaining as possible.
[1:14:44] You can really try to connect with people but it really does come down to their choices which are fundamentally beyond we can influence a little but foundationally whether they choose virtue over vice is up to them and and i i have only myself to control i cannot control anybody else and as long as i feel i've done the best job in promoting philosophy and virtue and truth and reason and all those good um um trivium virtues then i can sort of rest relatively content with a good conscience, and if evil arises from other people listening, and I've done my best, that's not a responsibility I can take on.
[1:15:20] Excellent answer. I want to just ask a couple more questions. Are you working on a new book?
[1:15:26] Yes. So I actually started off in the art world. I was an actor at the National Theatre School here in Canada for a couple of years. I've produced plays, written plays. I've acted. I played Macbeth and so on. So I'm working on a novel. I'm really, really interested in, so for many, many years now, I've taken call-in shows with people, and they can talk to me about anything, but what they most want to talk to me about is when their life has hit significant problems.
[1:15:55] And what I do is I go through their childhoods, I go through their histories, and we try to unpack which turn they made, you know, which turn they made, like I was talking with you, the turn that you made to become a better parent despite having been badly treated so we go back to the origin story and where you know if you're a couple of degrees off in a very long voyage you can end up in a completely different continent so it's all those little decisions at the beginning of things so i'm working on a novel where a man and a woman's life are terrible and then it's in reverse so it starts at the end and then we go back and we see the decisions that are being made that half them end up in that bad place and then the last chapter in the novel is the first time they make a bad decision so that it really tells people the end. Like, you can then taste the recipe by looking at the recipe book and make better decisions thereby. So, the philosophy is about prevention, not cure. It's like nutrition. Like, if you're having a heart attack, you don't call a nutritionist because the nutritionist is going to say, you got to get to the ER, man. I can't help you. If you call me 10 years ago, Maybe I change your diet and help you, right?
[1:17:01] And so I really want to remind people of it's the small decisions you make today that is the quality of your life in 5 or 10 or 20 years. And trying to get people to remember that and focus more intently on the little decisions they're making now rather than trying to wrangle the big messes that come down the road. That's what I'm working on at the moment.
[1:17:20] That's why I like listening to your podcast when I first got exposed to it. Now, you have a BitChute channel so people can find you on BitChute.
[1:17:31] What's the name of the channel you have here on BitChute?
[1:17:34] Yeah, it's Free Domain. So you can, for people to find me, I'm on a variety of social media platforms. You can go to freedomain.com slash connect and you can find every place that I am. It's still a variety, though I have been significantly wiped. Uh the shadows remain and the the mammals still run through the feet of the giant social media dinosaurs waiting to evolve so.
[1:17:55] You so some of your a lot of your content has been removed from other platforms.
[1:17:59] Oh yes absolutely i went through that uh in the i was in the election cycle in 2020 so yeah i was uh i was yeeted off the planet for the most part.
[1:18:07] And do you have an archive of all this stuff.
[1:18:10] Um yes yeah actually on bit shoot was synchronized with my youtube channel and there's a bunch of other places where uh fdr podcast is where people can go if they're looking for a show they can look for it if there's a video which there usually is it'll be linked uh underneath the show notes and.
[1:18:25] You've been i haven't listened yet but you there's been a couple of other podcasts that you've been doing with some regularly now with uh keith knight is that uh who i've seen.
[1:18:37] Yeah no i mean i'm i'm dipping into uh doing other people's shows i used to do that a lot more then I worked on my own stuff for a while. So yeah, I did a great series of interviews. I think, if I do say so myself, I did a great series of interviews with Keith Knight, and I worked with the Lotus Eaters as well. And of course, now with this wonderful conversation, so yeah, I'm happy to chat with people about all aspects of philosophy anytime, virtually day or night.
[1:19:02] Well, I encourage people to read. One is to go to FDR stands for Free Domain Radio. Is that what the FDR stands for?
[1:19:12] Yes, I dropped the radio, so now it's just freedomain.com.
[1:19:15] Freedomain, okay. But it's still FDR, you referred to it, so.
[1:19:18] Yes, yes, it is. I should probably fix that at some point.
[1:19:21] I encourage everyone to become a lot more familiar with Stefan's work. I find it very, very interesting. I've enjoyed this conversation very much. I'm happy to really have met Stefan now after having been somebody who was a listener of his podcast and now get to know him not actually in person, but face-to-face to some extent. and I appreciate this conversation. I apologize for talking as much as I did. I put it down to enthusiasm.
[1:19:50] And I appreciate that.
[1:19:53] Yes, I'm a little too passionate, a little too enthusiastic. I don't mean to be rude, but I think sometimes I am.
[1:20:00] No, it's not rude. It's enthusiasm. I have no problem with it, and I appreciate the conversation.
[1:20:04] So have a great day, and thank you so much for joining us.
[1:20:08] Thank you so much. Take care. Bye-bye.
[1:20:10] Bye.
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