0:00 - Family Dynamics and Responsibilities
19:39 - The Tidal Wave of Elder Care
32:56 - A Call for Accountability
42:47 - The Cost of Neglect
55:30 - Understanding Family Relationships
1:06:50 - The Price of Choices
1:18:54 - Consequences of Selfishness
In this episode, I delve deep into the complex dynamics of familial obligations, particularly as they relate to the Baby Boomer generation and the responsibilities their children face as they age. A listener poses a thought-provoking question about the attitude of their sibling, who seems resentful when asked to help their elderly parents. This sets the stage for a broader discussion about the generational expectations around caregiving and the moral calculations involved.
I explore the generational context, explaining that Baby Boomers are now entering their 60s and 70s, a stage where they may require substantial care. The narrative of generational obligation often overlooks critical questions: Did these parents invest positively in their children’s lives? Were they responsible stewards of their family? As we examine these considerations, we recognize that issues surrounding caregiving are not merely pragmatic but rooted in deeper familial and societal expectations.
During our discussion, I address the often-overlooked emotional burdens placed on caregivers, particularly women. I highlight the often unacknowledged sacrifices that come with caring for aging parents, which can sometimes exceed those required for raising young children. The question then arises: How do we evaluate whether our parents have "earned" our sacrifice? This necessitates a self-reflective approach that weighs past familial interactions against current obligations.
Throughout the episode, I also tackle the cultural and ethical dimensions of caregiving. The balance of virtue versus material gain comes to the forefront as I contrast the views of Baby Boomers, who often prioritized personal fulfillment, with the ethical teachings of earlier generations. This discussion segues into a critique of societal expectations that demand caregivers for those who may not have acted virtuously in their own lives.
We dive deep into the moral implications of the family dynamic and the parental legacy that shapes the attitudes of siblings toward each other. I urge listeners to consider not only their own feelings of obligation but also the actions and treatment they received as children. I advocate for a necessary reckoning with the choices made by the Boomers, encouraging listeners to apply honest scrutiny to their upbringing when contemplating the care their parents may require in the future.
In closing, I remind listeners that the dynamic of caregiving is not merely a burden but a profound opportunity for reflection on the moral architecture that underpins familial relationships. We end with a call to consider the broader implications of these intergenerational social contracts—examining whether they are built on mutual respect and genuine investment or if they reflect a more transactional nature that results from neglect and disconnection.
As we navigate through this philosophical landscape, it becomes crucial to maintain a balanced perspective, understanding the realities of family, obligation, and the legacies we inherit—from both our parents and the broader societal context.
[0:00] Good morning, everybody. 6th of October, 2024. It's a new day, it's a new dawn, it's a new life. Alright, good morning, everybody, and let's get straight into your questions on this fine day. I have a question for you, Stef. Why is it that family members, particularly my brother, acts like woe is me when asked to do anything to help out elderly parents? It's almost a never-ending complaint session when he is asked to do a quick rebate online that would benefit their overall financial status. I finally had enough of the crying and bitching and said I'd take care of it, and then he insults me by saying, You wouldn't know what to do. What the heck? Yes, well, I suppose... What is it now? What is it now? Average... Average age of boomers. I think it's coming. age of boomers. Ah, what have we got here? You know, it wouldn't be the end of the world if you returned a result. Boba, age ranges.
[1:15] You really wouldn't think that it wouldn't be that hard to get? So 1946 and 1964 so those born in 1964 would be 60 so, 60 to 80s right so in the year 2024 all boomers would be turning 60 to 78 years old, By 2030, all baby boomers will be age 65 or older.
[1:59] So, you are not alone in this at all. You are not alone in this. The giant gray tidal wave of quicksand is coming. And I think the boomers are fairly healthy in many ways. They were sort of one of the last generations to not be raised on poisons and plastics, right? the two P's of the modern world, poisons and plastics. So, helping our elderly parents. Oof. Oof. I saw, oh gosh, I saw, every now and then there's something, it's a social media post, that is so bitter, it like scalds my eyeballs. It scalds my eyeballs. And.
[2:50] One of the ones that I saw was... Someone saying something like, you know, it was an elderly woman complaining that her kids aren't having kids. And somebody was saying like, well, you wanted an economy which was impossible for your children to get ahead. You wanted an economy where they couldn't really get jobs. You wanted an economy where the price of real estate kept going up and up. And so in return, you don't get any grandkids. And it's the end of your line, but enjoy your net worth, Grandma.
[3:32] And it was like, oh, God, that just shiv straight to the widow maker. And I thought that was one of these horrendously, bitterly, bitterly accurate, right? Enjoy your net worth, Grandma, because you pillaged the next generation. Generation i mean every generation is handed a kind of baton right just just keep it going just just keep it going and uh the boomers were the generation for a variety of reasons which we can talk about and it wasn't all their fault of course right i mean they inherited a society just as everyone else does but the boomers were the first people to put uh at least in in western history The boomers were the first people to put sentiment above virtue, to put hedonism above integrity, and to substitute the worship of God, history, and culture, they substituted the worship of the self, the nerve endings, and the greed. They were the ultimate materialists. The Western tradition, I mean, certainly the Christian tradition, is you put virtue above material gain. I mean, this is the whole story of Jesus in the wilderness, tempted by the devil who offered him the entire world, which is a little bit more than the imaginary tripling of the value of your house.
[4:59] But the Western tradition has been to put a virtue over material gain, right? And that's one of the reasons why in the West, cheating is scamming and cheating and so on is bad, whereas in other cultures, it's kind of the norm. If you've ever spent time in other cultures, you'll know that the grift and cheating and so on, because grift and cheating, the sort of scammers from Asia and so on, right? The grift and cheating stuff is putting material gain above integrity, ethics, virtue, honesty, and so on. So the purpose of the Christian tradition, and it's also the... People always say Judeo-Christian. For me, it's more Athenian Christian. You wouldn't include Sparta in this. But the Athenian Christian, because both Socrates and Jesus put integrity and virtue above material or social gain. And that's my history, that I put ethics, integrity, and virtue above social gain. The entire purpose of the Greco-Christian ethos is to say that pleasing your conscience is more important than pleasing the world or your flesh. Right? Pleasing the world or your flesh.
[6:23] If you please the world, then you don't have a conscience, you only have obedience. Because when you please the world, you end up being subjugated to the most aggressive opinions of the most bossy and intrusive people. So your conscience then gets captured and controlled and programmed by the worst elements of society, and you end up serving evil whether you like it or not, whether you want to or not. The moment you start serving people's opinions, then nice people won't inflict their opinions upon you, but bad people will, and therefore you end up being a puppet of the most corrupt in the world, or at least in your society. And if you subjugate your conscience to the flesh, then you end up being driven by desires, fleshly satisfying, fleshly desires. Right, so the ultimate example of this would be.
[7:24] The drug addict who lies, cheats, and steals in order to feed his addiction, right? He's feeding his physical preferences, his physical needs, his physical addiction over a virtue and integrity. He wants the shortcut. He wants the easier way of gaining happiness than self-knowledge and virtue. you. And of course, if you serve the crowd or you serve the flesh, you end up with temporary relief, and long-term, it's hell. And it's not just hell for you. Everyone who serves the crowd and the flesh makes the world hell for not just themselves, which is certainly true, but for everyone. And the only way, really, that we can return to a moral world, and I've been talking about this for decades, right? You may not have heard it put in quite this way before, but the only way that we can return to a moral world is to stop pretending that bad people aren't bad.
[8:42] I mean, this is one of the reasons, and I'm not trying to project my experience into your experience, but this is one of the reasons why I have not talked to my mother in close to a quarter century, because she did some great evils. And that's not terrible. I mean, I think we've all done wrong or bad things over time. I mean, she's a little bit more than your average median, but she won't admit. She won't admit these things. She won't admit fault. And people who, excuses are promises of repetition, right? People who won't admit fault are simply promising to repeat the behavior. So I will not pretend that an unrepentant evildoer is a decent and good person. And I will not pretend that the boomers, now my mother is not a boomer. She was one of the greatest generation or what they came before because she was born in 1937 and the boomers only started 1945, 1946.
[9:56] But I won't call evil a good. Now, if people have done me a great service, and you know that, you know, for the people who support what it is that I do, I thank you, thank you, thank you. And I hope that I show my appreciation often enough, and I hope that I, you know, I've really been a little remiss over the last couple of weeks, so let me just do that again, and I apologize for that. That I can't even tell you how much I truly thank you for the support of what it is that I do. It means the world to me. I think it means the world to the future, that we are a small group of happy few jazz club enthusiasts. Now it will be almost infinitely larger in the future, and I really thank you for your support and help. And this doesn't just mean financial. It means your interest, your questions, your concerns, your affection your um spreading of the ideas or of the shows themselves i just i'm i'm truly humbly and deeply fanatically grateful for what it is that you're doing thank you and i really want to make sure that you you get that and understand that and i'm sorry that i haven't said that enough over the last couple of weeks that's my see i said we all do things that are not ideal from time to time so sorry for that but i just wanted to remind you of that and and thank you for that.
[11:22] So, this great tidal wave of elderly quicksand requirements. The bill is coming due, right? The elderly are going to need massive amounts of resources over the next decade. And I mean, two stretching it, but definitely over the next decade or two, let's just say. The elderly, the boomers, are going to need enormous amounts of time, energy, resources, money, attention, comfort, care. People can take a very long time to die these days in particular. Particularly if it's the Alzheimer's and dementia and other things. Things, they can take a very long time to die. There's not a lot of medication that can help. And the amount of time and energy and sleep that you have to sacrifice to help people who are losing their cognitive faculties or their physical faculties, the amount of time is enormous. It often takes more time and energy to care for the elderly than it does to care for toddlers. The high requirement of birth is to about maybe two years old, maybe two, three years old.
[12:52] But people can take 10 or more years of resources. And we men, you know, we have our strengths. One of our weaknesses, of course, is that we don't really see this because a lot of times, and this is why all the people who are crabbing on women, oh, yes, women, blah, blah, blah, so bad. But women often take this bullet. And it is a soft, slow tissue tearing bullet that goes on for a decade or more sometimes. Who is it who moves in to take care of the elderly? Who is it who thinks about it, focuses on it, makes sure the appointments are kept, makes sure the dental care is maintained, makes sure that the medicines are taken, makes sure that the scans are done, right? Who is it? It's mostly the women.
[13:46] So, of course, the big question that has to be faced in society, with regards to the boomers and there's no obviously it's no central answer there's just a general trend answer is have they earned that level of sacrifice from their children, i mean with regards to your parents and you got to think about this ahead of time i really really intensely strongly suggest that you think about this ahead of time. I'd demand it if I could, but I can't and I won't even if I could, but I would if I could. So before your parents get old, or if they're old before they become infirm and in need of your help, you have to ask yourself, will you be willing to sacrifice five to ten years of your independence and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars for your parents.
[14:57] This is a very, very important point. You need to not wing this. You need to think about this very deeply ahead of time. Very deeply ahead of time. Will you be willing to sacrifice your time, care, attention, peace of mind, sleep, money, career success, time with your own kids in order to dedicate and devote yourself to caring for your elderly parents. So, a friend of mine that I grew up with and was best man at my wedding, and we were friends for decades, a friend of mine lived with his mother and his grandmother. Now, his grandmother was a singer, and she told us once the story of how she was singing to a burn and warred in the Second World War, but they could not applaud because their hands were burned often, right? You shield yourself from the fire. Hands were burned, so all they could do was make a hissing sound to show their appreciation. Now, this grandmother lost her mind, really, over the period of about 10 to 12 years.
[16:19] And she didn't sleep. Very much and she thought she was in another time and she kept referring to my friend as her late husband and eventually she wasn't even eventually she lost a lot of her hearing i remember they had a phone that flashed because she couldn't really hear the phone, and of course her eyesight went and she still had all of the muscle memory so she still wanted to cook for everyone, but she would put stuff on the stove, crank up the element, and then it would just, she would forget about it and go and, you know, pass out because she was tired from not sleeping at night. And it was a constant, constant, I mean, the mother couldn't go out because if she went out, she didn't know if she'd come back to the entire apartment building burnt down to the ground because the mother had put, her mother had put on some food and forgotten about it and it had caught fire. She left the fridge door open, which caused the food to spoil, which was very tough on a fixed budget. And this went on for well over a decade.
[17:33] Man, it's rough. And you have to, you really, really have to be deep and solid and frank with yourself about whether they've earned it from you.
[17:51] Because this is the time of the Great Reckoning. This is the time of the Great Reckoning.
[18:00] Now, of course, if your parents were kind and thoughtful, considerate and invested in you and really made their own sacrifices for your happiness and took care of you and gave you great advice and loved you and you knew just how important you were to them and how much they enjoyed having you in their lives and they did all of that wonderful stuff. Kudos to them. Like, wonderful in my view, right? In my view, they have deposited when you were younger. You know, did they save for your education? Did they protect you in school if you were being bullied? Did they make sure that you got good food, sunlight, and exercise? Did they put aside their own particular needs and preferences outside of the family in order to take care of you within the family? Or did they kind of neglect you? Maybe were aggressive towards you? Did they just come home and watch TV and leave you to fend for yourself? Were you raised by the internet, pornography, and violent video games? Were you fending for yourself out there? Did you have to figure out how to date all on your own? Did you have to figure out life and circumstances and progress and decisions and careers and education all on your own?
[19:24] Because life is a series of deposits and withdrawals. Life is a series of deposits and withdrawals. Did they deposit enough goodwill, sacrifice, charity, love, and support and wisdom?
[19:40] Did they deposit enough of that in your first 20 years or 25 years in order to withdraw for their last 10 or 15 or 20 years?
[19:57] Did they save for their old age or did they spend a lot of money on useless things and then are going to require that you spend your money, which really should be your children, for your children on them? This is a big reckoning. And I'm sorry for this long-winded answer, but this is really, really important. And I say this as a guy, I'm 58 years old, so I'm seeing this. You may not be seeing this this is hidden from you by the media right the resource requirements of elderly parents i guess there was that movie the judge with robert downey jr but, it's often not shown or if it is shown it's shown in passing like some oh my gosh uh i i i have alzheimer's or i have parkinson's or something and then you know there's a sort of flash forward to the funeral and it's like well that could be a decade man and that's a decade from hell.
[21:02] So the great resource requirement is coming i mean in some ways it's already here but it's it's coming for the older boomers it's coming oh it's here to some degree for the younger boomers, yeah some people are generally okay if they've been reasonably decent with their health they're usually okay into their sixties and seventies, uh, mid seventies, uh, you know, you're really starting to see some problems.
[21:33] When you are particularly when you're a man life doesn't change much from like 20 to 60 in terms of your body i mean you lose your hair or whatever it is but for me at least i'm pretty much just i mean i weigh a little bit less now than i did when i was uh in my 20s um and uh but i i could do pretty much the same stuff as a whole so we don't really get the passage of time when we see our elders, and this is what, you know, when I talk to people about you're not marrying a woman, you're marrying a clan, a family, right? You're marrying a woman, you have to think about, with her parents, right? If her parents are mean or selfish or whatever it is, aggressive, abusive, well, you are going to be asked as a man to give up your wife for five to ten years when they get old so she can take care of them. Will you be happy with that? Is that fair, right, and just? If your parents dumped you in daycare and went off to work and let strangers raise you and the internet raise you, what do you owe them when they get old?
[22:44] Now, I can't tell you your feelings, of course, right? The last thing I'd want to do in the world is tell you what you feel. But what I always want to do is tell you, you are free to be just outside of rank sentimentality. I always want you, as I always want myself, I always want you to make a choice. Make a choice. Don't just be on the train tracks of, well, I have to take care of these people who didn't take care of me. Really. Really. So you are going to reward with a million dollars worth of time, effort, energy, and money, a million dollars to people who barely invested in you and ignored you and neglected you if that's what happened as a child.
[23:36] People, neglect is one of the worst forms of abuse. And if you were neglected as a child, you were socially, romantically crippled for some time. Because you had to try to figure out how to interact with people when you were barely interacted with at home. So if your parents put you in daycare.
[24:10] Then what is the fair response? Like, I mean, from like, you know, a couple of months of age or maybe even a couple of weeks, a couple of months of age, your parents put you in daycare. Well, if you hire someone to take care of your parents paying an inflation-adjusted equivalent of daycare, would they be fine with that? Would they be fine with a series of strangers who probably didn't speak their language very well? Would they be fine with a series of strangers taking care of them, which you were paying for? Or would they say, no, I want you to take care of me? How do we get people to improve? If they never suffer any negative consequences for bad behavior. If bad people get all of your resources despite having done bad things and being unapologetic for them or only apologizing when they need something, fine, I'm sorry, now come move in, or I want to move in with you. I'm sorry, yeah, fine. Right then, that's not credible, right?
[25:31] And even if your parents personally were nice to you and loving and affectionate, there is still the question of the national debt. I mean, one of many problems that the boomers voted into existence, there was still a problem with the national debt. See, I'm young enough, sorry I'm old enough to remember when the boomers were in charge you couldn't tell them a goddamn thing, you couldn't tell them when the boomers were in charge of the public schools when the boomers were in charge of the media when the boomers were in charge of higher education you couldn't tell them smack they wouldn't listen to anything.
[26:23] They were absolutely certain that they were 100% moral, and anyone and everyone who disagreed with their assessment or had counter-evidence was bad and evil, and had to be punished. So it's easy to feel a lot of sympathy for people when they get old and they're frail, but that's only if you forget what they were like when they were younger and in power. In power. If you were taught by boomers, were you ever allowed to disagree? I mean, I remember taking a course on race relations in university. And, of course, the boomer teacher, this white guy, was all about, oh, it's all racism, blah, blah, blah. And I said, well, you know, but West African blacks come to America and have a higher per capita income even than whites. How do you explain that? Wouldn't listen. Oh, because slavery. It's like, well, but, you know, slavery occurred on the African continent and blah, blah, blah. Well, but, you know, like you just, you couldn't tell them anything. It was like talking to a television. You couldn't tell them anything. They didn't listen.
[27:49] So when I asked boomers to listen and at least debate rather than just give me these pre-programmed NPC answers.
[28:02] And that guy, I mean, I remember this, this happened a lot, right? I'm sure you've all experienced it. That guy marked me down quite a bit just for disagreeing with him, you know, based on reason and evidence. These are interesting and important questions. I mean, if you ever tried bringing up something like the bell curve with a boomer professors, right?
[28:31] So the boomers in general, and this was very common across the older, the older, older professors were more reasonable. And I could see that difference. The older professors, you could disagree with them, and it was more reasonable. But the boomer professors and teachers, uh-uh, no way. You couldn't tell them a goddamn thing. They knew everything. They were perfect, and they were moral. And if you disagreed with them, it wasn't just a difference of opinion. You were a bad person. You were a bad person for disagreeing with the boomers. And I found this to be consistent. You know, as you know, I went to school in three different countries and have talked to a lot of people over the years, as you know, and it's consistent. They don't listen. They have their perspectives, and there's this weird, freaky, ripple-of-the-universe, Matrix-style tension if you contradict them at all. And you know that the boomers are still massively influencing politics Because the one thing you don't hear squat about Over the course of any debates in politics Is the national debt.
[29:48] And you can't talk about the national debt because the national debt is an absolute savage hacking and breaking of the social covenant between the generations.
[30:07] To be so greedy for pretend virtue that you're willing to enslave your children to a million dollars plus of debt to foreign banksters is unholy and corrupt almost beyond words. And this is why it really can't be talked about. You can't talk about the national debt. I mean, people try. eye. But the national debt should be gnawing at the conscience of the boomers and they would say, well, my gosh, what have we done? And it should have been gnawing at them all the way along. They should have said, oh my gosh, we have to vote in a politician who's going to rein in this spending because this is utterly unfair to our children. To hand them the smoking wreckage of a formerly glorious economy that we've pillaged for our moral narcissism. Fields over reels virtue signaling over debt enslavement and a few people tried Ross Perot tried to talk about this.
[31:12] And he was rejected you can't say to the boomers make some sacrifices for the sake of the next generation you just can't I mean you can say it but then you're corrupt and evil and bad and they will, I mean, there's a viciousness to the boomers which I've sort of experienced, right? There's a viciousness to the boomers that if you try and take away their moral self-congratulation, they will F you up.
[31:41] I mean, of course, the boomers, the moment the debt started to really show up, the boomers should have been like, oh, my gosh, we can't do this to the next generation. Let's get together and let's cut. What can we cut? Where can we cut? And politicians would gain massive traction for talking about the national debt and how to rein it in. But you can't talk about that, because that brings a vague, whispery sense of mathematical reality to people whose greed for the unearned knows no bounds. Through the national debt, the boomers have stolen from the next generation more wealth than has ever been produced in human history prior to the boomers. It has been absolutely the biggest wealth transfer in the history of humanity. It dwarfs any other prior theft. Through the national debt and the unfunded liabilities, $180, $200, $220 trillion, 15 times the size of the entire economy. Through the national debt, the boomers have stolen more from the next generation, than has ever been produced in human history. It is the biggest theft in human history.
[32:56] Even if we just count the national debt and the unfunded liabilities, with all the other liabilities.
[33:09] So, this is the big question. I don't have the answer. I have my answer. I don't have your answer. I just wanted to raise this as a question.
[33:19] Now, the chance or the opportunity for an apology still exists, but I wouldn't hold my breath. And the apology would go something like this. Well, we inherited a pretty good economy with great growth, and we could have three to four to five to six kids with only one person working. And you could afford a nice home and a car and health insurance and be able to save for your retirement. and there was upward mobility and relatively low debt. We took that and we eviscerated it, we gutted it, we fed upon it, we feasted upon it, like vampires at a Lady Gaga party. We're really sorry. And I know that this apology comes so late in the game that it seems suspicious. Now that we're in desperate need of your help and support and resources, you're eyeing us suspiciously, you're giving us the side eye. Because it's like, oh, you all need a bunch of stuff from me now. Well, you dumped me in daycare. You ignored me for most of my childhood. You chased the almighty dollar. You were fine with open borders. You were fine with unfunded liabilities. You were fine with national debts. In fact, anybody who questioned any of this stuff was apparently evil and to be destroyed. And now you want a bunch of stuff.
[34:46] They are asking to invoke the covenant of the generations while not having, as a collective themselves, upheld the covenant of the generations. One of the covenants of the generations is invest in your young and don't rob them fucking blind. I mean, that's a covenant of the generations, isn't it? Invest in your young, invest in your offspring, and don't rob them blind. And if you can't make the world better than you found it, at least don't make it almost infinitely worse. Because the boomers have bequeathed to the next generations a system that is mathematically impossible to continue.
[35:30] Why? because they wanted to feel good, and this is the fall of Christianity and there was a lot of alphabet agency programming I get all of that but Boomers held me accountable, ma'am. Boomers held me responsible, and they held me accountable. They did, and I'm sure that was the case with you. So when I was a kid, the boomer teachers, the boomer principals and vice principals, and administrators, and professors, and people in the media, they all held me accountable. If I didn't study for the test, they failed me. When I was 6 years old, 10 years old, 14 years old, and I was threatened with being held back a year. So you're the big kid in the back of the class. Everyone thinks you're on the short bus and you lose a year of your life repeating stuff that is hell.
[36:25] So I was held to account when I was in the slim single digits as a child.
[36:35] If I didn't do the required reading, I was failed. If I didn't pass the test, I was threatened with losing a year of my life. And it happened. I saw it. I know it's less common now, but when I was a kid, that was the deal. When I was a kid, as you know, in boarding school, when our football went over a fence into the sanatorium garden, I climbed the fence to go and get the ball when I was six years old, and I was knocked on by some prefect, and then I was dragged up to the headmaster's office where I was caned. So that is the level of responsibility and punishment that I was held to account at the age of six. And my father sent me to the boarding school and paid for it, so he was in approval of it. he would be a boomer too, although he's passed on. So as a kid, I was held to absolute brutal account as a little kid, six years old, on the other side of the country.
[37:48] I was humiliated for not doing my homework, even though I lived in a household where the homework was virtually impossible to do because of the violence and the noise and the chaos, and the strange men padding around in unholy garb. So I was held to account, and even though I was a kid and even though I was not responsible for my own circumstances, I was held to damn account.
[38:19] I mean, deplatforming is largely a boomer phenomenon. I'm not saying, of course, that everyone who makes those decisions is a boomer, but the boomers hold most of the investment wealth. And if the boomers said, we don't want deplatforming to occur, deplatforming would not occur. If the boomers said, well, we're going to disinvest in any company that deplatforms, deplatforming would not occur. So the deplatforming is also facilitated by the boomers. They could stop it tomorrow if they wanted. They could just simply instruct their investment advisors to sell the shares of any company that engaged in de-platforming.
[38:57] Under boomers, what did we lose? Well, we lost free speech. We lost borders. We lost educational attainment. We lost standards. we lost IQ tests, we lost financial integrity, we lost affordable real estate. I mean, I've said this story before, if you haven't, I'll keep it really brief. I remember talking to a boomer who was talking about, in the 1960s, he made a salary of $9,000 a year as a teacher, and he was able to buy a nice house in the city for $12,000. dollars. Which means, let's say the teachers make $90,000 now, you should be able to buy a nice house in the city for $120,000 rather than well over a million. So the boomers are bribed with imaginary money through rising real estate values, even though relative to gold, nothing's been gained. And they think themselves wealthy because somebody stuffed a bunch of monopoly money down their diapers.
[40:09] What do we do with generations who break the covenant? I don't know. I don't know the answer to that. I know my answer to that. But I don't know your answer to that, because everybody's individual circumstances, the collective circumstances largely one, although, of course, there have been lots of noble boomers who fought against all of this predation, intergenerational predation and theft.
[40:30] And, you know, if I had enthusiastically seal clapped for a system that pillaged the next generation to within an inch of its financial survival and beyond, I'd be a little fucking embarrassed to ask for more money and demand more money and get enraged and try to destroy anyone who said, maybe you guys should pay some of the debt that you have accumulated as voters and as participants in the social system. Because the boomers always told me that you vote because then the system reflects the preferences of the people. You've got a democracy. democracy, and the system represents the will of the people. Voting is important. Voting is magical. Voting is wonderful. Voting is good. That's what I was always told. So, I accept that boomers are responsible for the system, because they all told me that they were, and they told me that I had to vote or I couldn't complain. So, yeah, I accept that. Anytime I brought up have any objections to the democratic mass voting way of doing things, I was told, no, no, no, it's the best system. It reflects the will of the people, and any other system is evil. Okay, so if all the boomers told me that voting reflects the will of the people, then boomers are 100% responsible for the system.
[41:51] That's what they taught me. I just take people at their face value. I take people at what they say. I accept it. I'm just listening Boomers don't, but I do.
[42:07] So, you should think about this ahead of time. If you have aging parents, if you can fix the relationship, if the relationship is dysfunctional in some manner, if you can fix the relationship, fantastic. I would suggest really, really working hard to try and fix the relationship. If you can't fix the relationship, then you have to ask yourself, do I want to spend a million dollars? Because it will be that. It's not just directly, I'm not saying directly you transfer a million dollars, but what I am saying is that, that when you start caring for aging parents, you lose a lot of time and effort and energy. And it interferes with your earning potential.
[42:47] I'm not saying the earning potential is all that there is. I'm just saying that this is the case, that you are going to have to sacrifice a lot to take care of aging parents.
[43:07] And this is going to be a battle between males and females. Males say, men say, that negative actions accrues negative consequences. You don't give up your lung to a guy who damaged his lung by smoking. Right?
[43:29] Negative actions accrue negative consequences, and we have to let that happen. Otherwise we just make society worse. I mean, if we pay people who shoplift a million dollars for shoplifting, then I guess the individual shoplifters for about five minutes are very happy, but then there's no goods, no stores, no economy, and half the people starve to death. So that doesn't work now, does it? So we men say, negative actions accrue negative consequences and we gotta let that happen otherwise civilization falls apart, if you don't save for your retirement well you're gonna have a very uncomfortable life, should we take all the money from the people who did save for retirement and give it to those who didn't save for retirement, well, that solves things in the hedonistic here and now. But what happens in the long run, if we take all the money from the people who saved for retirement and give it to people who didn't save for retirement, everybody stops saving for retirement and the world fucking collapses.
[44:46] You know, I saw this, I saw this tweet And it was a question like, when did you first get your self-esteem crashed?
[44:58] And it was one of these, you know, little Reddit bullet point stories, and it was like, you know, be me, 14 years old, I go to a party. The kids want to play spin the bottle, and the girls say, well, we'll play spin the bottle, and they point at me and say, but if he wins, we only have to hug him. Okay, so then they play spin the bottle, the bottle points, the girl spins the bottle, and it points at this guy who's telling the story, and he sort of leans forward to give her a hug and she backs away and says i i don't want to play anymore and then the girls all say in solidarity they don't want to play spin the bottle anymore so then this kid goes into the bathroom calls his mom mom comes to pick him up he hides in the bathroom for a while so his mom gets there and then when he's walking out for his mom to pick him up he looks over and he sees all the kids are playing spin the bottle because he's not there, right and the comments were divided in males and females right the females all said oh i'm so sorry Oh, that's so sad. Oh, they were so mean. That's so terrible. Blah, blah, blah. Big hugs. And the men were all like, well, I guess that was your signal to go to the gym and brush your teeth more or whatever, right?
[46:06] Now, nothing wrong with women. Beautiful. Women are beautiful. Why do women not let negative consequences accrue to individuals? Because women take care of babies and toddlers. And you can't let negative consequences accrue to babies and toddlers because they die. Right so a woman is programmed that when she feels discomfort she will sacrifice, the future in order to comfort in the present if the new mom is tired and the baby wakes up crying she goes and takes care of the baby even though she's going to be even more tired the next day so she sacrifices the future for the sake of comfort in the present that is absolutely beautiful it's wonderful it's why we're all here love the ladies for that thank you all so much for your or multi-hundred-thousand-year service. I appreciate that. Thank you so much.
[46:59] And that's fine for babies and toddlers. It's not fine, for grown-ass adults. And this is not a conversation that society is really having at the moment, and it's a conversation that, of course, the boomers really don't want to have. Of course, of course, I get it. If I exploited people to hell and back, well, just to hell, not even back, if I exploited the hell out of people, I wouldn't want them questioning whether they liked me either.
[47:41] And then it's like, well, but if they get old, who's going to take care of them if not me? Well, that's not what a lot of the boomers said about their babies. They just put them into institutions. They put them into government-run, controlled, licensed daycares. Or maybe not even. I mean, I remember going to, I shouldn't laugh, but I remember when my mom wanted to go out on her dates, endless dates with endless trash bags masquerading as men, and I was sometimes dropped off at just this woman's house, and she'd just sit and smoke and watch daytime TV while the kids went feral at her footsteps. It wasn't even a daycare. I remember she'd just shake tins of beans into bowls, throw some spoons on the table, and it would be a feeding frenzy of blood, mat, and sharks. On the Heinz bowl of maybe this will help me live through the day. So, yeah, I was very Dickensian in many ways. And then I was at a boarding school that was perpetually cold. There were water shortages at the boarding school. There were meat shortages. We ate a whole lot of doughy, crap, chemical bread and had one little cup of water.
[49:07] So I could get by on that, right? I could get by on that. They can get by on whatever. I mean, they'll have to sell their house and they'll have to put.
[49:19] Their savings into paying strangers to take care of them just as they paid strangers to take care of their children. How could they object? I mean, on what rational grounds? Well, but it's different. It's not different. In fact, if you are old and you haven't sown enough goodwill in your society, community, and family for people to take care of you, that's been your choice. The babies didn't have a goddamn choice at all. Babies didn't have a single shred of a choice in any way, shape, or form. They were just unceremoniously dumped like a sack of potatoes into a daycare. Because the parents wanted to chase the almighty dollar and self-actualize. Okay. But, you know, well, I didn't want to just be a stay-at-home mom. I didn't want to be a broodmare. I didn't want to just wipe children's asses. It's like, okay, well, I don't want to wipe your ass when you're old. Because clearly that's beneath me. And you chose to have children. I didn't choose to have parents. It's a little different. You made a choice and abandoned that choice. I never made a choice to have you as parents.
[50:31] But I don't know if the world is even remotely ready for that kind of conversation so, why is it that family members says this person, particularly my brother acts like woe is me when asked to do anything to help our elderly parents okay.
[50:55] So So, who raised your brother? Who raised your brother? Let's say your brother is this selfish and mean and incomprehensibly bad, and right, let's just say, let's just say that's the case. And I just remind you that you know that what I'm speaking is silvery, shivery gold, and can absolutely liberate you for years or decades. From utterly unjust obligations and i do think and i think it's reasonable to ask uh just remember to tip if you're listening to this later you know this is absolute life-saving almost infinitely liberating sheer platinum gold so if you can tip i would really really appreciate it just think of how much money you might save so yeah who is who raised your brother.
[51:56] Who raised your brother? And how do you know your brother is wrong? How do you know? Listen to people you disagree with. It's really important. Listen to... Why is your brother... Let's say your brother is so, so selfish. Who raised him? Right? Who raised him? Who taught him that? Did his parents genuinely, did your parents genuinely sacrifice their own interests for the sake of making your brother understand how loved, treasured, worshipped, and adored he is? My God. This sibling turning on sibling stuff is absolutely terrible. And I put that terribleness on you because you've listened to the show for a while. You've been here before. Why don't you talk to your brother and ask him what he dislikes so much about your parents? Maybe he's got a perspective. Maybe he's older. Maybe he was abused. Maybe they failed to protect him in some manner. Maybe he was sexually assaulted by some uncle that you don't know. Maybe there's some reason why he doesn't want to help your parents.
[53:21] Why don't you try listening to him instead of condemning him? Because your parents seem to be relatively content letting you and your brother.
[53:39] Crab at each other almost infinitely, forever and ever. Amen. So if your parents were good, in my opinion, I don't know the details, and I'm happy to do a call in showfreedomain.com slash call. But if your parents were good, here's what they would do. They would say, yes, your brother is being quite difficult. I understand that. Let me tell you why I think that could be. We did this. We kept you home, but we put him in daycare. He's got some valid complaints. You know, we moved a lot of times when he was just in the process of trying to form social bonds and we never explained anything to him and we never asked him about anything. And then at the new school, he was bullied. We didn't really do anything about it. Like, maybe he's got some reasons. People aren't just causelessly terrible as a whole.
[54:30] Right? People, I mean, I hope that I've got, you know, thousands of conversations with people about their absolute deepest, rootest issues. People aren't just causelessly terrible. I mean, they make bad decisions, don't get me wrong. But it doesn't just come out of nowhere and what you're doing is you're sitting up on your high horse and you're like well i'm good because i'm helping my parents and my brother is bad because he's selfish and complain i'm just i'm just good and he's just bad and i'm better and he's worse and i'm the victim and he's the perpetrator and i'm moral and he's corrupt and i'm helpful and he's not, like, oh, my God.
[55:10] So that means that you've been raised by your parents, to sit on your moral high horse, condemn others, and feel almost infinitely smug about how good you are.
[55:30] And maybe, so you have the theory that maybe your brother is this selfish and terrible person, but your parents had absolutely nothing to do with it. The elderly blue-rinse angels, they were just absolutely perfect and wonderful parents. And just mysteriously, your brother turned out to be kind of selfish.
[55:51] But of course, if your parents were good parents, they would be working hard to heal the rift between you and your brother. And they would be sitting down with your brother like absolute grown-ass adults they'd be sitting down with your brother and they'd say um you have look you have an issue with us like we get it we see it i mean we hear about it from your sibling right we get it and you know clearly you don't want to help us and you have some hostility and negativity towards us which we as the parents i mean we have to look at our own causality here because we're the parents we define the entire relationship for decades so uh please tell us what the issue is tell us where our deficiencies were here's the list that we've come up with like i'm just sort of objectively looking, uh and here's the list that we've come up with because you don't want to show up to meetings where you say to people what am i doing wrong well what am i doing wrong i have no idea you'll just have to tell me because i'm such an innocent virtuous little angel that i i've scanned and I've scanned over decades, you see, and I just can't find anything that I could conceivably have done wrong. But if there's something right on the edge of the universe, beyond the pale of human thought that we've somehow mistakenly overcome, we're happy.
[57:07] So why aren't your parents fixing this? Why aren't your parents sitting down with your brother and trying to sort this stuff out? No. They're goading you into hating on your brother. Good job. Well done. Well done. done, excellent. You've now been turned against your sibling because your parents are so great. That is a messed up family, man. That is a messed up family. All right, sorry, I know it's been a long speech, but worthwhile. But worthwhile.
[57:42] Let's get to your questions, comments, issues, and again, tips. The boomers will find out that their goodwill is as negative as the national debt they pushed. Yeah, well, of course, a lot of people are going to hang out with the boomers for inheritance. And because they're so desperate for property, they have to wait for the boomers to die to get their houses. Which is, again, putting virtue and integrity. This is a fucking cult of niceness. Oh, virtue is just about being nice. No, virtue is about being just. And justice sucks a lot of the time. Just despite hairy grease donkey balls a lot of the time it's hard.
[58:26] Yeah, the science is all was settled with the boomers, yeah? Well, and the COVID was driven by the boomers, right? The lockdowns and all, right? We're frightened. Yeah, I remember when Stef got kicked out of the city council in California by asking about the city debt. It wasn't the national debt. Yeah, I just asked how they're going to pay for all this stuff. And they did not want to talk. Yeah, this cult of niceness. So there's this experiment. I don't know if you've ever heard of it. But there's an experiment, the salty jello experiment. Salty jello is not the worst name for a scar band, but anyway. So the salty jello, so they got a bunch of five-year-old boys and girls, and they offered them jello. And they had baked a massive amount of salt, like an eye-watering amount of lip-pinching salt, into the jello. And the girls were all like, Mmm, it's salty, but I like salt. Thank you. They were all just lying, right? Lying. And what did the boys say? Oh, this is gross and salty. Ew. Right? They told the truth. Now, let's play this out, right? So let's say that you make Jell-O for kids, so you're the mom, and you accidentally put a bunch of salt into the Jell-O, and your daughter says, I love this. This is great. I like salt. Then you're going to keep adding salt to her Jell-O for the next 4,000 years.
[59:55] So by not hurting someone's feelings or upsetting someone even if you don't even know if they'll be upset if you say my god this is crazy salty and the mom tastes it's like oh my god i must have put salt instead of sugar in oh my gosh you know thank you don't eat that, whatever you do.
[1:00:14] So what happens in society if we put the hedonism of not hurting anyone's feelings in the moment well, you end up with potentially fatal salty jello for the next 4,000 years, as opposed to the boys who are like, oh, God, this is horrible. Why is it so salty? Ah, look at that. They solved the problem. And even the researchers were characterizing it as, well, you know, the girls, they just know a bit more about social standards and they just know a bit more about politeness. It's like it's a lot of syllables to say they lie through their teeth.
[1:00:59] And when the researcher asked the boy, well, didn't it, what about the feelings of the person who made the jello? He's like, she seemed fine. I'm supposed to lie because it feels over-reels? Somebody says, yeah, boomers, no, nah, boomers lived through the 60s. They think that peace and love will conquer mathematics, the mandatory peace, the mandatory peace and love of the young, that is, yeah. Boomers don't care what happens to their children or the country it seems as long as they live comfortably till they go the way of the dinosaurs yeah.
[1:01:42] Boomers are fine shipping all the manufacturing base to save a couple of bucks, yeah it'd be interesting to say well we saved a couple of bucks by shipping things to china and in return, we got COVID. And how was that? It's always like they saved a couple of bucks here and there. But you see, America could easily have closed the borders to COVID if it had had its own manufacturing base. They had to have open borders because COVID, because the manufacturing base had been shipped overseas. Also puts you at the mercy of the dock workers, right? Boy, if that isn't a cue to automate, I don't know what is, right?
[1:02:30] And somebody says, somebody stop me. I think most people who criticize UPB, universally preferable behavior, check it out, freedomandacom.com, it's free, think it derives an ought from an is, because they don't realize that it's an if-then argument, where the if holds basically 100% of the time. In one of the five arguments of your treatise, correcting someone shows that they prefer truth to falsehood. While it's true almost 100% of the time, detractors might focus too much on weird exceptions, e.g. Debating to confuse because ought from is must hold 100% of the time. Do you agree? Well, no, just because you're manipulating doesn't mean that the premises you're lying about aren't true. So if you're debating someone not to get to the truth, but in order to frustrate them, well, if you said that up front, hey, man, I'm not interested in the truth. I'm only debating to frustrate you. Well, then the person wouldn't debate with you, right? So you have to provide the appearance that you prefer truth to falsehood in order to engage in troll-like debates.
[1:03:33] But here's the thing. So people who, this is right in the beginning, people who criticize UPB think that it derives an ought from an is. So if there is no such thing as getting an ought from an is, why would I be criticized for that? Because then they say, well, you can't get an ought from an is. Oh, look, you just got an ought from an is, which is you ought not to get an ought from an is. And if there's one, there's more. It's really, really easy. Now, people criticize UPB because UPB is a manifestation of their conscience. The level of systemic inefficiency and theft is incredible, and the last person I would ever blame is my employer. Sorry, I don't know what that's referring to. Somebody says, I don't feel motivated to fix the relationship with my parents because I will never get what they were supposed to give me as a child, but I would have to take care of them. It doesn't seem like a good deal. Yep. Yep. Is this the lady who would have you play dead soldier? It was one of them. Yeah. I can't remember if it's the same one or not, but yeah. When she just wanted some peace and quiet, she'd have all the kids play dead soldier. Right.
[1:04:35] It's an amazing instinct good women have for children, but it's a big problem for women who feel obligated to take care of aging, neglectful boomers. Great contrast. This message needs to go viral. Great message. Well, thank you. I guess it's worth five bucks. My mom stayed home. My dad worked. Okay, good. So they were both, sounds like they were sacrificing, but just staying home. You know, I know a lot of parents who stayed home through my listeners and others. They stayed home, but they didn't do jack shit to really parent. Somebody says, I wish my sister would listen to me as I was able to prove to her that her parents deeply fucked up. She consistently tells my parents that they chose to be with each other when they argue. But on the same token, she seemed to have decided to take my dad's side on a lot over my mom. She doesn't want to fully accept my dad is just as horrible. She has an anger slash temperament problem and refuses to work on it. Yeah. A lot of people, a lot of people choose to manage others rather than be good themselves. The silent generation from 28 to 54 is that right okay thanks greatest generation i guess was the war people right thank you.
[1:05:46] No silent generation from 1928 to 1954 no i don't think so the boomers were 45 right oh 1928 to 1945 oh you just switched to a typo okay we had the the conversation about this this is from rumble my mom is 18 years younger than my boomer dad who was 78 when my dad dies my mom and will probably move in with my fiance and I. If that's what you want to do and they've earned that behavior, I thank them for their service and applaud you for your integrity. My aunt is a 73-year-old boomer and has had MS for years. My cousin is 33 and has basically sacrificed her own life to care for her mother. So what happens to my cousin in 40 years with no children? So all of the people who don't want to have kids, it's like, okay, so who's going to take care of you when you're old if nobody has any kids? If we universalize your approach, then nobody's going to be able to take care of you, right? We lost to meritocracy because it made the boomers feel bad. Boomers want the unearned, though. They'll use the government to take from us what they want, and it will end the economy.
[1:06:51] Well, yeah, that certainly seems to be happening. Certainly seems to be the case.
[1:07:03] My mom is 58, says someone, and already requires significant assistance after a lifetime of self-destructive behaviors. It can come even sooner with some parents. Says she can't live off $2,000 a month, no savings. Reaping season has arrived. Yeah. Yeah.
[1:07:21] I never have a problem holding people to their own standards. Never. I never have a problem. If they're going to hold me to punitive standards, when I'm six, I'm going to hold them to punitive standards when they're 60. But clearly, a 60-year-old adult is infinitely more responsible for his or her life than a six-year-old kid who got born to the parents they didn't choose, in a country they didn't choose, shipped off to boarding school, which I never chose. I had no control over my life and environment, and I was held to account. I was given no sympathy at all for the brutal home life I had that interfered with me. I mean, can you imagine? I mean, I love knowledge. I love studying. I love reading. I love learning and researching. And I couldn't do any of that in school. Well, the coursework was horribly boring. And I was punished for things utterly outside of my control. And really threatened, right? Really threatened. I mean, I was I wasn't put back two grades because I did badly, but when I came to England, I first lived in Whitby where I was in grade eight, and then a couple of months later, we moved to Toronto, I think, because my mom had a big fight with her half-brother, who was a weirdo, of course, right? So then we moved to Toronto, and I was put from grade eight to grade six.
[1:08:50] I had no control over that. So a lot of the work was repetitive. And I was bored. Still, I was punished for being bored, even though a lot of the work was repetitive. For me. And my mom was just like, okay. Okay. So when I'm held to punitive standards and hit and held back a year or two or put back a year or two because of whatever, right? So I'll accept that. I'll accept that, that I was punished, for things almost completely outside of my control when I was six years old.
[1:09:40] I didn't actually know you weren't supposed to climb the fence, but I was punished anyway, because apparently ignorance of the law is no excuse, right? So I was punished severely for things entirely outside of my control when I was a kid. And those same people then want to be excused for all of their bad decisions over 40 years of being an adult. It's like, no, I'm going to hold you to the standard that you held me to. Why wouldn't I? If you're going to punish me as a child for things outside of my control, I'm not even going to punish you as an adult. But I'm not going to pour a million dollars worth of resources into you as an adult.
[1:10:27] Right? I mean, if you choose not to go to the dentist, you're going to have to pay for whatever problems occur. I'm not going to punish you for it. Right? I'm not out there punishing people, but I'm not going to reward them. Jesus, that's crazy.
[1:10:50] Uh, oh, thank you for the feedback. Yeah, you're welcome. They'll have to get reverse mortgages to survive and will leave nothing to their children. Oh no, the boomers are leaving a lot to their kids, if the kids want to listen. The boomers are leaving a huge amount to their kids. The boomers are leaving a deep knowledge of the perils of atheistic, selfish, half-mammalian hedonism. The boomers are... If we're willing to learn, the boomers can teach us everything about virtue. Absolutely everything and everything. How many books have you read, Stef? Oh, thousands and thousands. Thank you for the tip. Appreciate it.
[1:11:36] All right. Let's see. How would you handle parents who aren't taking care of themselves physically? Well, it depends if it's in the present, right? I mean, if it's in the present, and they were great parents and fought the good fight, and even though they weren't able to change the political system, which I understand, but they fought the good fight and they railed against it and would have voted for and tried to support politicians who would reign in the national debt. If they did all of the, and they took care of me as a kid and they were good parents as a whole, right? It's a corrupt system, but we do our best, right? So if they're not taking care of themselves physically, Statistically, I would look into, are they losing their cognitive faculties and so on, and I would absolutely move heaven and earth to take care of them. Of course, I mean, they took care of me, they fought the good fight, they didn't win, but, you know, it's not like I have massively triumphed in my fight for the world becoming more rational. It'll happen in the future, it's just not going to happen now. Now, so I would move heaven and earth. I mean, when I get old with my wife, I mean, one of us is probably going to decay a little faster than the other just statistically. And I will move heaven and earth to make sure she's comfortable and happy. Or she'll do the same thing for me because we have almost infinite deposits in each other's bank of goodwill. So if parents aren't taking care of themselves physically...
[1:12:55] And they have cognitive impairments, I would absolutely move heaven and earth and do whatever it took to take care of them. If parents, though, just aren't taking, like they're cognitively not decaying, right? Their brains are fine as a whole, and they're not exercising, they're overeating, they're, you know, whatever, right? It'd be like, well, if you're going to choose illness, I'm not going to support that. That like if you choose like because people who are hedonistic can only learn from consequences they're not principle-based life forms like we try to learn from principles right we try to learn from reason and evidence and virtue and goodness and moral standards and upb like we try to learn and plan our lives according to not shitty consequences but shining virtues.
[1:13:46] But hedonists can only learn from consequences consequences. And when I was a kid, nobody inspired me to virtue. They just punished me for non-compliance.
[1:13:59] So, hedonists aren't going, if you want to help your parents and they're not taking care of themselves physically, and they're not moral people, then you would say to them, if you cause your own health issues, I'm not going to take care of you. Right. If you cause your own health problems i'm not taking care of you and then so they can't live according to principles right i mean there's a a lovely japanese way of looking at morality which says you take care of yourself in order to help society as a whole right you don't get fat, because that will put a burden on others right it will put a burden on others it will put a burden on the healthcare system as a whole. So you take care of yourself in order to take care of the whole. Now, I get it's a bit borgie, hive-mindy, but it is a good ethos, right? For people who don't take care of their health, and again, that doesn't guarantee that you won't get sick, but, you know, 70, 75% of health problems are the result of bad choices. So the people who don't take care of their health, are harming society as a whole. Thank you, Bill. They're harming society as a whole.
[1:15:20] Because they're harming their children's opportunities to live a happy life. They're harming their partner who have to take care of them. They're harming the healthcare system as a whole because you have to pour massive amounts of resources and time, expense, and expertise. Every person who doesn't take care of their health is taking healthcare away from people who are ill through no fault of their own.
[1:15:50] So, the way that you get people to make better health care decisions when they're hedonists is to say, if you cause your own health problems, I'm not taking care of you. Right? If you keep smoking and you get sick from smoking, I mean, half of people who smoke die from smoking. So if you've got a dad who smokes and you say to him, you need to quit smoking and he won't quit smoking, then you say, okay, I'm telling you this though. I'm telling you this. If you get sick from smoking and I keep telling you to quit, if you get sick from smoking, you can rely on the government, but I'm not going to take care of you.
[1:16:43] And hopefully that will shock him into quitting smoking. But he's not quitting smoking because he doesn't want to burden you, right? If you're going to be selfless, sorry, this is the basic principle I'm talking about. And let me sort of encapsulate it here. If you're going to be selfish, I'm not going to be selfless. If you're going to be selfish and put your own pleasures ahead of my happiness and needs, I am not going to be selfless and put your happiness above my happiness and needs. If you choose to smoke and you get sick from smoking, I am not going to neglect my own children to take care of you.
[1:17:35] If you tell me that the government can solve all the problems and private charity is evil relative to, like if you say, well, we should not have the welfare state, we should rely on private charity. And if your boomer parents say your whole life, well, that's just evil, corrupt, people will die in the streets, you need the government, private charity is terrible, it won't be enough, it's like you need the government. Government is like, okay, well then when they get old, they can rely on the government because they wouldn't want to take your stupid private charity, would they? Because that's just wrong and corrupt and bad and mean. Don't let me tempt you and taint you with my vicious, ugly, selfish, private charity. My God, I would not want to stain your conscience with voluntary help because you want the government to solve everything. So go talk to the government. Go talk to the government. That's your family, isn't it? That's your family. You said they were the moral ones and private charity was really bad. Okay, well then let me not stain your moral purity with my private charity. You can go and run to the government. And in order for the world to right itself, very sadly, people are just going to have to suffer.
[1:18:55] People People who've made bad decisions are just going to have to suffer, right?
[1:19:03] How could it be different? That's what, I mean, in order for people to do well, a lot of people have to do badly. We understand that. We understand that. In order for the band to get the best singer, they have to reject a lot of singers who aren't the best, right? Right. In order for kids to want to do well in school, kids who do badly in school have to be punished.
[1:19:33] And, uh, I mean, with the hyper-feminization plus the state, right, we've lost, we've lost all of that, but it'll come back and it'll come back in a way that is going to be irrefutable, right? As I've said before, the biggest thing that's happening in the world right now is a permanent inoculation against rank hypocritical moral sentimentality. It will never happen again.
[1:19:57] Never. All right. Well, any other last questions, issues, challenges? It's just, oh, I do believe that is good lighting. Finally. I don't know why it is so hard for me. Maybe it's the lighting of the giant forehead. If you're listening to this later, of course, freedomain.com slash donate. I would hugely, hugely appreciate your help and support for the show. I would love it if you could help the show at freedomain.com slash donate. Of course, if you sign up for lovely subscriptions at freedomain.locals.com, and subscribe to freedomain.com slash freedomain, you can join two great communities that, you know, don't be alone in philosophy. Join a community. That is very helpful, very important, very useful, and I think wise, right? I mean, we can think together far better than we can think alone. And I learn a lot from your questions and your comments, and I just want to thank you so much for absolutely everything to do with the incredible life that I've had, the ups and downs, the amazing impact we're going to have on the future, and, of course, on the present. A billion to a billion and a half reductions in violations of the non-aggression principle.
[1:21:07] That is incredible. And it is the greatest advance, it is the greatest practical advance that philosophy has had since the abolition of slavery. All right. Lots of love, everyone. Take care. I will talk to you Wednesday night. Bye.
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