My Advice to 10-YEAR-OLD ME! Listener Questions

Stefan Molyneux

Philosopher Stefan Molyneux considers what advice he'd give to his 10-year-old self in this listener questions episode. In other questions, he rejects spanking as pointless violence that fails to prepare kids for adult consequences like social avoidance or lost opportunities. He advocates for choosing reason over superstition and force so children grow up honest and capable instead of broken by the old patterns.  0:00:00 Parenting, Truth, and Consequences  0:06:25 Superstition and Social Control  0:12:36 Reason Over Violence  0:15:16 The Charlie Kirk Question  0:20:38 Advice to Younger Self  0:24:04 Refusing to Retract Truth  0:28:00 Gifts and Selfishness  0:30:57 Homeschooling Under Compulsion  0:32:25 The Future of the West  0:35:01 Love Versus Money  0:43:47 How Fame Happened  0:45:52 Diet and Supplements  0:48:21 Politics Beyond Your Control  0:50:55 Talking to Women Differently  0:53:33 Boys, Violence, and Shame  0:56:21 Restitution and Forgiveness  0:58:27 Happiness Through Virtue  0:58:51 Fame, Censorship, and Music  1:00:53 Hidden Despair  1:02:26 Math, Psychiatry, and DEI   GET FREEDOMAIN MERCH! https://shop.freedomain.com/  SUBSCRIBE TO ME ON X! https://x.com/StefanMolyneux  Follow me on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@freedomain1  GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK! https://peacefulparenting.com/  Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!  Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!  You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!  See you soon! https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/FREEDOMAIN2026

Transcript

00:00:00Hello, hello, everybody, Stephen Molyneux from Free Domain.

00:00:04Got some fine questions from the readers on X, which I will answer now.

00:00:14Have you ever looked into how spanking as a behavior evolved?

00:00:19Do other primates spank their offspring?

00:00:23Do children who aren't spanked have higher rates of not understanding that actions have consequences?

00:00:30Well, I hear what you're saying, right? I get what you're saying.

00:00:34Is it natural?

00:00:38Natural is like this Aristotelian mean.

00:00:41You don't want to go totally animal, right?

00:00:42Because that's not human, right?

00:00:45We are the higher animals.

00:00:46We can prepare, propose actions to ideal standards, develop universal concepts, reason, morality, empathy.

00:00:53And so on.

00:00:54So at the same time, we don't want to design or have a society that goes against all of the

00:01:00natural grain of humanity and how we evolved.

00:01:03So, for instance, communists don't like profit.

00:01:07However, human beings have only survived and evolved because of a profit.

00:01:13In other words, we have to figure out whether hunting is going to take a thousand calories to give us

00:01:19500 calories.

00:01:20That would be a deficit.

00:01:21And enough deficit in terms of calories or water means death, right?

00:01:26And so we have to, all organisms are finely tuned to figure out profit and loss.

00:01:33If you just look at a lion hunting a zebra, right?

00:01:38If the zebra is too far away, then the lion is either going to pull something or trip or not

00:01:43catch it or catch a hoof to the face or something.

00:01:46And so the lion gives up, right?

00:01:48If it can't, so then it has a sort of calculation.

00:01:50So all living organisms are kind of finely calibrated to pursue profit versus loss or at least even, even Stephen.

00:02:00So if all animals cuff or hit or brutalize their offspring, maybe that's natural and so on.

00:02:07But the thing is, you want to train your children for adulthood.

00:02:13Adulthood.

00:02:14Actions have consequences.

00:02:16Okay, let me ask you this.

00:02:18If you are late in providing a report to your boss, does your boss get to pull your pants down,

00:02:27put you across his knee and whack, whack, whack you repeatedly?

00:02:32No, that would be assault.

00:02:34That would be illegal.

00:02:35We want to raise our children to live in the world of adulthood.

00:02:42And in the world of adulthood, you don't get hit for failing to do things at work, even in your

00:02:51health.

00:02:51If your doctor says, you need to take these pills, right?

00:02:56I mean, I remember my doctor, when I was a kid, I had a sore throat.

00:03:02He gave me some antibiotics and then I had a sore throat some six months later and I went back

00:03:10and he said, I'm going to need to give you some more antibiotics.

00:03:15And I said, well, I could just finish the ones that I had because I took them till my throat

00:03:18got better.

00:03:19And then I stopped taking them.

00:03:21And so I still have some leftovers.

00:03:22And he got really angry.

00:03:23And he's like, I mean, it's a German doctor.

00:03:25What can I tell you?

00:03:26A little psycho.

00:03:27But he was like, you know, you've got to take them all.

00:03:29Otherwise, you're just training bacteria to become resistant.

00:03:31And I was really angry.

00:03:33Okay, whatever.

00:03:33I mean, it's kind of a stupid thing to do on his part.

00:03:36He could have just been more clear.

00:03:38But, you know, when doctors are unclear, it's always your fault.

00:03:40But what he didn't do was pull me across his knee and whack me or swat me.

00:03:46He didn't hit me at all because that would be assault.

00:03:51So even if you don't follow the instructions of your doctor, which is obviously more important

00:03:59than following the instructions of your boss if it's around health.

00:04:03But if you show up late for work, you don't get spanked.

00:04:06If you miss a shift, you don't get spanked.

00:04:10So what are you doing by creating consequences that are violent and illegal for adults in the

00:04:16adult world and think that you're teaching your children to do anything useful at all?

00:04:20It's like teaching them a language.

00:04:21They'll never, hey, you know what, kid?

00:04:22I'm going to teach a Klingon and Elvish because that's going to come in really helpful when

00:04:26it comes to getting the ladies.

00:04:28So spanking.

00:04:30Actions have consequences.

00:04:34First of all, that's kind of built into human beings to know that actions have consequences.

00:04:39But you want to mirror with your kids the kind of negative feedback

00:04:45as your kids grow that they're going to get out there in the world.

00:04:48So if they do things that are annoying or repetitive or whatever, then you simply say,

00:04:53I find that annoying and repetitive.

00:04:54And if they keep doing it, you just disengage and dissociate, right?

00:04:57If you have a son and he keeps playing too rough, right?

00:05:01With you, if you're his dad or whatever, he keeps elbowing in the face or cracking you

00:05:05with the knee across the nose or something like that.

00:05:06Then you tell him to be careful.

00:05:08If he's not careful, you just stop playing with him because that's what happens in the real

00:05:11world.

00:05:12If you give people repetitive negative stimuli, they just want to stop doing things with you.

00:05:19That's the real world.

00:05:21That's how the world acts as a whole.

00:05:23And so you can train your children in negative consequences.

00:05:28But what you want to do is train your children in negative consequences that mirror what happens

00:05:33in the real world so that the lessons match the outcomes.

00:05:37So spanking is not part of adult negative consequences.

00:05:42So why on earth are you inflicting something that is going to be in no way, shape, or form

00:05:47part of their actual adult life?

00:05:50It doesn't really make any sense.

00:05:52So yeah, just because animals do it, you and me, baby, we're nothing but mammals.

00:05:57So let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel.

00:06:00It's actually a pretty funny song.

00:06:01But we're not animals, so we don't want to act in contravention to animals, but we also

00:06:08don't want to do exactly what animals do, right?

00:06:11So goldfish will eat until their stomachs rupture, like Americans, and that doesn't...

00:06:19So we have to eat because animals eat, and we're animals, but we don't want to eat to the

00:06:23point where our stomachs rupture.

00:06:25So the other thing, too, is that society clawed its way out of infinite falsehood.

00:06:31Right?

00:06:32The cause and effect in almost all of human society's evolution was totally wrong.

00:06:37The rain hasn't come because we haven't sacrificed a goat to the rain gods, right?

00:06:42I mean, we lost the battle because we didn't sacrifice a newborn on the eve of battle, or

00:06:48we didn't pray hard enough, or whatever, right?

00:06:50I mean, my wife fell out of love with me because someone cast a spell on her.

00:06:57Well, actually, it's kind of feminism, so maybe that's a little bit more accurate.

00:07:00But, you know, feminism is just witchy 2.0.

00:07:07So the cause and effect in almost all of history was incorrect.

00:07:15I mean, Aristotle went half mad trying to figure out, why are there tides?

00:07:19They couldn't figure out that the moon would do it.

00:07:22Because a moon that big, having that much effect, the moon would be called Kardashian.

00:07:29It would be a totally different situation.

00:07:32So we arose, we tunneled our way out of completely wild, mystical, superstitious, endless error.

00:07:43Oh, we got to pray for a good tide, a good current.

00:07:47It's like the praying won't do anything.

00:07:49So we were helpless, so we prayed.

00:07:52But because we prayed, we remained helpless.

00:07:56So if you pray to a rain god, and then there's these priests who run the rain god cult or

00:08:02whatever,

00:08:02you pray to the rain god, then you have to give stuff to the priests, and then they will plead

00:08:13your case to their rain god and get the rain.

00:08:15If the rain comes, obviously it worked.

00:08:17If the rain didn't come, you did something wrong.

00:08:18It's your fault, and you got to do something different.

00:08:22So the problem is, if you start bypassing the rain god priesthood, and you start saying, you know,

00:08:27I think we've just got to start building irrigation, we've got to, you know, sort of figure out how to

00:08:31get the water to the crops,

00:08:32we've got to plant different crops, we've got to plant closer to the water source,

00:08:36then this is considered an act of blasphemy against the rain god, and they'll try and get you killed.

00:08:42Because if you start taking control of your own water delivery mechanisms to the crops,

00:08:47then you don't need the rain god priesthood, and then they would have to get real jobs,

00:08:52rather than just being liars, actors, and con men, for the most part, I mean, almost exclusively.

00:08:59So the problem is helplessness leads to superstitious pretend cause and effect, you pray to the rain gods.

00:09:07But then once that solution is there, society tends to stagnate horribly.

00:09:12Because the moment you start to deliver your own water, you bypass the rain god people,

00:09:19they'll call you an unbeliever, a blasphemer, a heretic, and they'll get you killed or driven off.

00:09:24So the helplessness leads to superstitious cause and effect.

00:09:29Reliance on superstitious causes and effect creates a class of people who profit from that and don't want to get

00:09:35real jobs.

00:09:36And then they'll kill you or ostracize you if you start to do something that is effective and actually helpful.

00:09:43So because we emerged or tunneled our way out of endless fantastical, mystical, superstitious bullshite,

00:09:54then how do you get children to believe things that aren't true?

00:09:57How do you get anyone to believe things that aren't true?

00:10:00Well, the things that aren't true are almost always measured.

00:10:06Their untruthfulness, their lying nature, their falsehood is directly proportional to the amount of aggression, threats, and violence it takes

00:10:16to put them into place, right?

00:10:20So if you want your children to believe in things that are counter-rational, counter-factual, counter-empirical, counter-evidence,

00:10:29then you have to use aggression.

00:10:31You can't get people to believe things that are false without threatening them for their common sense, right?

00:10:37That's just the basic.

00:10:38And most of human society evolved out of predatory error, right?

00:10:44It's predatory error.

00:10:44The king is put there by God.

00:10:47The priesthood is there to save your soul.

00:10:49They're going to infect you with an illness called original sin, and then you will pay forever and ever, amen,

00:10:55for a cure, right?

00:10:57Because in order to save you, they have to damn you first.

00:10:59And so you are going to be indoctrinated with cultish, false, predatory, exploitive lies of a political and theological and

00:11:14ideological kind.

00:11:15And if you don't believe those lies, you will be threatened, your soul will be threatened, your life will be

00:11:24threatened, your genes will be threatened through ostracism or banishment or prison or straight up being killed.

00:11:28And so truth is always met with violence, and lies always rely upon violence.

00:11:40And so, of course, we evolved with endless exploitive predatory error, and because we evolved out of lies, violence against

00:11:50children needed, was needed, in order to sustain those lies, right?

00:11:56And we can say it's good or bad, and we can say it's good or bad, obviously it's false, and

00:12:00to me, I don't care where society goes as long as I tell the truth.

00:12:04I mean, I don't, I have zero, zero concern for outcomes in society.

00:12:10I just need to tell the truth because I simply can't stand for mankind to have another thousand years of

00:12:16utter bullshit, violence, lies, predatory exploitation, and hundreds of millions or billions of bodies.

00:12:24I can't do it, I can't do it, I can't do it, tell the truth, though the skies fall, tell

00:12:27the truth, and shame the devil, thou shalt not bear false witness, that's all I'm about.

00:12:34So, if you remove violence from the raising of your children, you know what?

00:12:44Do you know what you have to do?

00:12:45It's a pretty wild thing.

00:12:45If you take violence off the table, you have to reason with your children, and children are factual, empirical, and

00:12:58rational.

00:12:59If you have to reason with your children, and you can't use violence, the world has a slim chance of

00:13:07somewhat sanity.

00:13:10It is a consummation devoutly to be wished.

00:13:13The world has a slim little chance of actual truth, actual reason.

00:13:26Now, of course, there's advertising and so on, and people are like, you know, if you wear these cool glasses,

00:13:33you'll look exactly like this model who's wearing these glasses.

00:13:36I mean, that's not a threat, right?

00:13:38That's a little bit of a vanity bribe or whatever it is.

00:13:41But, you know, the one thing that's beautiful about the free market, I mean, obviously, the free market is a

00:13:47property rights, self-ownership, voluntary trade, is that the free market or the absence of violence, by definition, both people

00:13:57end up better off.

00:13:59So, you know, I went to buy glasses.

00:14:02Now, every two years, I need a slight adjustment in my prescription.

00:14:05So, I went to buy glasses, and the place that sold the glasses wanted my money more than it wanted

00:14:11the glasses.

00:14:11And I wanted the glasses more than I wanted my money.

00:14:14This is why the trade occurred, because they are better off with money, not glasses, and I'm better off with

00:14:21glasses, not money.

00:14:22So, I paid, what, 200 bucks or whatever it was for my glasses, and they're 200 bucks happier, and I'm

00:14:29one set of glasses happier.

00:14:33It's win-win.

00:14:34Reason, reason, reason is win-win.

00:14:37When I'm in a debate with someone, if we're both following reason, we both win.

00:14:43It's like if one country has a cure for AIDS, and one country has a cure for cancer, and another

00:14:47country has a cure for heart disease, and they all trade, everyone's better off.

00:14:53So, violence is win-lose, reason is win-win, and the only stable society is founded on win-win.

00:15:01All societies that are founded on win-lose collapse.

00:15:05So, you can measure a society's rationality by its levels of aggression against children.

00:15:16All right.

00:15:17Let's see here.

00:15:21Let me get to this next one.

00:15:25It seems obvious that Charlie Kirk's murder will not be pinned on the Israel lobby.

00:15:29Are these people walking into a trap?

00:15:31What are the consequences of this downstream?

00:15:34I mean, it seems like, Tyler Robinson, the trial is going on at the moment.

00:15:38I'm not following it closely, but it seems like Tyler Robinson is pretty much the guilty party,

00:15:44absent some completely unforeseen circumstance.

00:15:47I have to say alleged, because it's not proven in a court of law.

00:15:49But, you know, he confessed, his parents turned him in, his, you know, he's got video of him shooting and

00:15:55packing up the gun.

00:15:56I mean, so, the cause and effect is pretty simple.

00:16:04To get people attacked in society is pretty easy.

00:16:14Sadly.

00:16:15I mean, it is pretty easy.

00:16:15So, what you do to get someone attacked, how you get those lasers on their forehead?

00:16:21Well, you say, this is an evil guy whose words are causing immense harm, hurt, pain, and destruction to others.

00:16:31That's really, so, you will create a group, let's call them the Elbonians, right?

00:16:39It's a sort of made up country from Scott Adams, who I still miss.

00:16:44But, you create this group of people in society, you call them the Elbonians.

00:16:50And then you say, the Elbonians are children.

00:16:55They're like children.

00:16:56They're taken advantage of.

00:16:57They're manipulated, bullied.

00:16:59They're just striving for a better life.

00:17:00They just want nothing but the best.

00:17:02You know, they're just trying and striving and hoping and praying.

00:17:06And they just want to contribute and all of this, right?

00:17:09And then, so you create, and this is womanly stuff, right?

00:17:13Women see the child inside the criminal.

00:17:19Men see the child harmed by the criminal.

00:17:23Women see the child in the criminal, which is why women tend to thwart punishment in that sense, right?

00:17:30So, what you do is you say, well, these Elbonians are just, they're wonderful, striving people.

00:17:35They just want nothing but the best.

00:17:36And then you put them in TV shows, and you put them in movies, and they're all just wonderful, amazing,

00:17:42fantastic, excellent, beautiful, noble, blah, blah, suffering people.

00:17:46So, you elevate the Elbonians to like angel status, and then you say that anyone who criticizes the Elbonians is

00:17:56a vicious, hate-spewing, bigoted, whatever.

00:18:01And then you have, in all the media, you know, the Elbonians are walking serenely with their angel wings trailing

00:18:07behind them, trying to heal the sick, and trying to do all these wonderful things, and just hold it together

00:18:11in the face of this crazy hatred that comes out of nowhere, and it's just evil.

00:18:15And so, yeah, so you say that you elevate, it's just, maybe the world runs on fiction, not facts, at

00:18:22least for now, or it always has.

00:18:24We hope to change that over time.

00:18:25So, you elevate the Elbonians to both wonderful, amazing people, and then there are just these anti-Elbonian hateful people,

00:18:41you know, like, you just wake up and hate them, and hatred, they spew, always the word spew, right?

00:18:47They're spewing hatred, and they're just incoherent.

00:18:52And the Elbonians are all portrayed as noble and sort of helpless.

00:18:58And so, the hatred of the anti-Elbonians is just this toxic, corrosive force that is just causing the Elbonians

00:19:08to drop like flies, and they're rousing up hatred.

00:19:11And so, then, what you do is you say, there are these noble Elbonians, there are these hateful people who

00:19:17just randomly, mysteriously hate Elbonians, and the hatred of the anti-Elbonians is causing the Elbonians to die.

00:19:25And then, it just becomes self-defense.

00:19:27It programs people to view any anti-Elbonian sentiment as irrational hatred that will get people killed, and then you

00:19:36can either do, you just do self-defense on the part of the Elbonians.

00:19:38It's really, it's really a sad, but kind of inevitable process that goes on, and this process has been going

00:19:47on for, I mean, geez, pretty much all of human history, right?

00:19:54So, those who ask questions, those who point out inconvenient facts are just, they're full of hatred.

00:20:00They hate speech, it's called hate speech, right?

00:20:02Which is not an argument, of course, right?

00:20:05Speech you hate is not hate speech.

00:20:06You could hate it because, so, and if the Elbonians are actually exploiting society but playing the victim, then you

00:20:15get the closed loop.

00:20:16Because the Elbonians don't want people to point out their own exploitation of society as a whole, and therefore anyone

00:20:22who criticizes the Elbonians, the Elbonians want those persons taken out of the public square, taken out of society as

00:20:30a whole.

00:20:30So, I don't know about the Israel lobby, I don't really know anything about it, some people say he was

00:20:34killed by the Israel lobby, I don't believe that, but anyway.

00:20:38If you could write a letter to 10-year-old Stefan, what would you tell him?

00:20:43If you could write a letter to 10-year-old, that's a tough call, man, that's a butterfly effect question.

00:20:49Because I am, I am, I am, I am so immensely proud of what I've done with my life that

00:21:04I'm not sure I'd want to do anything going back in time that would alter my trajectory.

00:21:14I mean, obviously I've made mistakes, blah, blah, blah, for sure, but, so, I mean, let me, let me sort

00:21:21of give you an example, right?

00:21:24So, I met my wife in my early 30s, and we met, and dated, and became boyfriend-girlfriend, got engaged,

00:21:33and got married, and started trying to have kids in 11 months.

00:21:42Now, if I had said to my younger self, don't worry, the love of your life will come along in

00:21:50your early 30s, what would that have changed?

00:21:55I had to be in the right place in my life.

00:21:57I'm very glad I met my wife, and my wife practiced psychology for like 27 years.

00:22:03She was a mental health professional and expert, and worked in hospitals and private practice, and was massively influential in

00:22:10pointing my philosophical mind at the family, rather than just at abstractions and politics and ethics.

00:22:16But it all starts with the family, was what she said, and she was completely right.

00:22:21And so, I had to be in the right place.

00:22:24I had to have already gone through therapy.

00:22:26What triggered me going into therapy was the breakup of a long-term relationship with a woman I was engaged

00:22:31to.

00:22:31Should I not have had that relationship?

00:22:34If I didn't have that relationship, would I have gone into therapy?

00:22:36If I hadn't gone into therapy, I wouldn't have succeeded in wooing and winning my wife, who's very knowledgeable and

00:22:43very robust when it comes to self-knowledge and mental health.

00:22:46I don't know, man.

00:22:49If I were to go back to my 10-year-old self and say, don't worry, it's all going to

00:22:53work out well, would I have put less effort into things?

00:22:58I mean, do you save much money if a message comes back from your 60-year-old self saying, don't

00:23:04worry, when you are 50, you'll win the lottery?

00:23:08Okay, so let's say you did win the lottery at 50.

00:23:12If you had sent that message back saying, it's all going to work out well, which it has, if you

00:23:20sort of go back and say, hey, man, don't worry, it's all going to work out well, you're going to

00:23:24be happily married, you're going to have a very, like, the most meaningful career that you can conceive of, but

00:23:32don't talk about IQ too much.

00:23:33I mean, that needed to be talked about, sorry, you cannot fight communism and totalitarianism, you cannot fight totalitarianism and

00:23:42political power without talking about IQ, you just can't, because IQ explains why some people do better and some people

00:23:48do worse, to a large degree, not obviously 100%, I'm not a determinist, but, like, not everyone who's tall has

00:23:57to be a basketball player, but almost all basketball players are pretty tall.

00:24:04So, when I look back and I say, well, I, you know, when I talked about the voluntary family back

00:24:11in 2006, man, we got, I mean, we, the freedom and community, myself, of course, we just got savaged, just,

00:24:19but now people talk about it, like, going no contact, and it's good for your mental health if you have

00:24:24really toxic parents.

00:24:26Can you get, can you get the later progress, can you move the Overton window without, can you move the

00:24:36window without bad cuts from the glass?

00:24:39Oh, I don't know, I don't think you can, I don't think you can.

00:24:43Society, when someone comes along with ideas that are consistent, but shocking, rational, but upsetting, society doesn't judge the ideas,

00:24:51it judges the commitment or the tenacity of the person who has the ideas, who are, and I have never,

00:24:58never will I, I have never retracted anything I know to be true.

00:25:05And I have been under, not inconsiderable pressure to retract things that I know to be true, and I just,

00:25:17I just won't.

00:25:20I would rather withdraw from all public life than retract things that I know to be true, that would be

00:25:26an act of foundational cowardice, and, I mean, I know my history, Sigmund Freud realized that in the upper society

00:25:35in Vienna, where he practiced in the 19th century, child sexual abuse was rampant.

00:25:45And he betrayed those children, and that set humanity back, catastrophically, and that made the case that Sigmund Freud betraying

00:25:55the children, who said that they were assaulted in the most horrendous ways by adults around them, mothers and fathers

00:26:04in particular, and he said, no, well, he, first of all, he said this, and then he was threatened, and

00:26:09then he retracted it and said, ah, you know what, I bet you they're just really,

00:26:13you want it, you know, the Oedipus complex, the Oedipus complex, the Oedipus complex, they're just fantasizing about these kinds

00:26:19of horrifying interactions with mother and father, ah, it's not real, they're just fantasizing about it, one of the most

00:26:26foundational betrayals in human history.

00:26:30I won't, I won't, I won't, there is no force on earth that would compel me to, I don't say

00:26:42everything that is true, because I'm for maximum philosophy, and at the Overton window, I don't mind getting some cuts,

00:26:49but I don't want to get beheaded.

00:26:50But I will not retract anything that I know to be true.

00:26:56That's not the deal.

00:26:58I've been given an immense gift in my mind.

00:27:05That sounds like in my fantasies.

00:27:07My mind is just an amazing place to be.

00:27:14And the gift and joy and pleasure of what I'm able to conceive of, reason out, and communicate is such

00:27:24an amazing gift that the idea that I would use it for my own advancement or my own selfish pleasures

00:27:30or, you know, mere money-making or control or power, influence or politics, would be horrendous to me.

00:27:42You know, billions of years of evolution have given you and I these brains.

00:27:46My brain is quite remarkable.

00:27:48And I say this with humility.

00:27:50I didn't earn it.

00:27:51It just is the way I didn't earn it any more than I earned having blue eyes.

00:27:53It just is what it is.

00:28:00And it is really, really important when you have gifts that you did not earn, that you recognize that they

00:28:06are a collective benefit not to be used.

00:28:09For your own selfish pleasure.

00:28:11Like, I say this with regards to if you are just some incredibly physically attractive woman.

00:28:20That is there for you to have a big, wonderful family with a high-quality man.

00:28:26And good for you, right?

00:28:27You didn't earn it, though, for the most part.

00:28:29I mean, you didn't earn the base genetics.

00:28:32Of course, you exercise and all of that to probably keep yourself slender and healthy.

00:28:36But when women take their significant physical attractiveness and turn it towards, I'm going to go travel, I'm going to

00:28:48go to Dubai, I'm going to get some purses from a sugar daddy.

00:28:51Like, they are taking this immense gift that's evolved over billions of years, that is there for the collective good

00:28:58of mankind, and they have turned it towards their own selfish consumption pleasures, which is horrendous.

00:29:07It's just horrendous.

00:29:12So, I have achieved what I have achieved on the, and again, this is why I always thank everyone here

00:29:21in the community for giving me these great questions.

00:29:25And also for, I mean, support, freedomain.com slash donate.

00:29:29Summers are kind of rough for income, so if you could help out, man, I would really, really appreciate it.

00:29:34Again, I also understand people are hurting, so if you can't afford to continue to enjoy the shows, don't feel

00:29:40bad about it at all.

00:29:41I really sympathize with that.

00:29:42I've been broke a lot in my life.

00:29:47But, I have achieved what I wanted, and continue to expand what I want, which is a pretty good situation

00:29:58to be in.

00:30:00So, I'm not sure that I would go back and say anything to my 10-year-old self.

00:30:09If you shoot an arrow over a house and land right in the bullseye, would you go back and say

00:30:18aim differently?

00:30:19I don't think so.

00:30:20So, I sort of hate, I mean, of course, you can't go back in time anyway, but I wouldn't tell

00:30:27anyone, oh, everything's going to work out.

00:30:29Because one of the main reasons why everything works out is because you don't think it will, or you don't

00:30:36know that it will.

00:30:40If you're in high risk for heart disease, you should obviously maintain a healthy weight and exercise and get checkups

00:30:46and all that kind of stuff.

00:30:49And if somebody said to you, oh, don't worry, your heart's going to be fine, you'd stop doing that, and

00:30:53then your heart wouldn't be fine.

00:30:54So, not much would I change.

00:30:57All right, in countries where homeschooling is illegal, what's the best thing we can do for our kids?

00:31:02I'm keeping them in school as little as possible and to do minimum amount of homework, no pressure to succeed.

00:31:07It's tough.

00:31:08It's a tough situation.

00:31:10Move.

00:31:10Just move.

00:31:11Just move.

00:31:13Move to a place where you can homeschool.

00:31:15You can get a new community because, I mean, really, it's just torment.

00:31:19It's torment for kids.

00:31:20What are you going to do?

00:31:20Are you going to tell them, well, the teacher is just a cucked, spineless, paid propagandist who doesn't really care

00:31:27about children, only cares about three things, ideology, time off, and her pension?

00:31:33So, what are you going to do?

00:31:34The teachers are not worthy of respect, but you should go there anyway.

00:31:38Everything they're teaching you is lies, and they're incompetent people and not very intelligent, which is the case in general

00:31:45for teachers, particularly in government schools, and they will throw as many children into the brain blender as humanly possible,

00:31:55as long as they get to suck up some of that fiat currency juice from the remnants.

00:32:00So, there is no good answer.

00:32:04There is no good answer in the situation of compulsion, right?

00:32:11If you were forcibly married to someone you hated and you were forced to stay married, people say, well, what

00:32:17should I do?

00:32:17I say, well, get away.

00:32:19And if you've got to go to the other end of the planet in order to get away, do that.

00:32:25What do you think the West looks like in 25 years?

00:32:27That one I'm not going to answer.

00:32:30Because it really is dependent upon everyone's choice.

00:32:35It really is dependent on everyone's choice.

00:32:37If you have corrupt people in your life, and you're willing to break bread with them and continue to spend

00:32:42time with them, then the West will be a terrible place.

00:32:45If you yourself are willing to take a stand for that which is right and true and good, and try

00:32:50to reform the corrupt, inform the corrupt, and if they refuse to drop their corruption, drop them in the same

00:32:56way that you would drop a piece of rotting fruit you were about to eat.

00:33:00Then the West goes well.

00:33:02If people don't do that, which I can't control, I can just say you should do it, and it's the

00:33:06right thing to do.

00:33:06Whether you actually do it and whether other people do it is up to them.

00:33:10What is your theory of consciousness?

00:33:12Do you think the brain is a receiver for it or of it?

00:33:18Or does it originate in the brain?

00:33:21Yeah, well, of course consciousness originates in the brain.

00:33:23Come on.

00:33:24Come on.

00:33:26You know, if I said to you, I'm at the gym and a heavy weight is going up and down,

00:33:35would you think it would be going up and down on its own or ghosts would be lifting it?

00:33:38No.

00:33:38You would say, well, somebody must be lifting the weight up and down.

00:33:43Of course you would, right?

00:33:45If I were to say to you, I hear the joyful sounds of a saxophone floating, or is it raining

00:33:51in New York down Fifth Avenue, if I hear the lovely strains of a saxophone drifting across the night air,

00:34:01would you think that the saxophone was playing itself or a ghost was blowing into the saxophone?

00:34:05No, you would say there's an effect called the saxophone noise, and assuming it was a live saxophone, not a

00:34:10recording, blah, blah, blah, right?

00:34:12Then you would assume that somebody was blowing the saxophone.

00:34:14Well, somebody had to be blowing the saxophone at some point, even if it's a recording.

00:34:17So the effect is proximate to the course.

00:34:20You can't get the sound out of a saxophone without a saxophone.

00:34:25Weights don't lift themselves.

00:34:27Somebody has to be moving them in one way or another.

00:34:31And so, you know, if I lift my hat, right, then my hat is lifted by me and it's put

00:34:37down by me.

00:34:37I guess I could let gravity put it down, but I put it down snug, evenly.

00:34:43So, of course, consciousness is an effect of the brain because we never see consciousness without a brain originating it,

00:34:49right?

00:34:49So this is not, I don't even find this room, I mean, I guess it's controversial if you believe in

00:34:54the soul or things like that, but the ghost in the machine is not an answer to anything real.

00:34:58So, yeah, of course, it's an effect of the brain.

00:35:02What is more important, being truly loved by a woman or having a lot of money?

00:35:10I mean, I pause not because it's a difficult thing, but if you're truly loved by a woman, your odds

00:35:15of making a lot of money go up considerably, right?

00:35:17So if you're truly loved by a woman, she wants to bear your children, she wants to run your household,

00:35:21she wants to support you in your career, she wants to do all of these wonderful things,

00:35:27then your status is very high.

00:35:29If you're truly loved by a woman, she'll work to stay attractive, which means you're high status because of that,

00:35:34and the fact that you are loved means that you're confident.

00:35:39I mean, being loved is a superpower because if you are truly loved,

00:35:45then those who hate you are irrelevant, if that makes sense, if you're truly loved.

00:35:54Like, let's say you are the Beatles in their prime, right?

00:35:58Let's say you're the Beatles, the band, the Beatles in their prime, like 67 or whatever it was, right?

00:36:04And then you come across, you know, you're Paul McCartney, and you come across someone who says,

00:36:13the Beatles suck, right?

00:36:15But everywhere you go, millions of screaming fans, your records are flying off the shelves, you're called,

00:36:22I mean, Sgt. Peppers is a brilliant album and so on, and you're innovative and creative,

00:36:27you're a multi-zillionaire, you're at the top of your game.

00:36:31I mean, I know, so if you're truly loved, it's a superpower that's kind of incomprehensible to other people.

00:36:39I mean, the people who love me in my life matter infinitely more than people who fetch, bitch, and moan

00:36:45at me online.

00:36:47I mean, why would that matter, right?

00:36:49It's funny, in a way.

00:36:51There is Monty Python.

00:36:53John Cleese, I think, was talking about, somebody was saying,

00:36:58oh, the parrot sketch is derivative and repetitive, or whatever it is.

00:37:01And he's like, yeah, well, you know, but it was, it's been very famous for decades,

00:37:06and it was voted like the funniest sketch, and people still reference it, and I see it.

00:37:11So, you know, if you have enough evidence in one direction,

00:37:19then the few counterpoints in the other direction don't really mean anything.

00:37:24I know, I know that I'm a good person.

00:37:28I know that I tell the truth, and I know that I try to benefit humanity as much as possible

00:37:36in all the ways that I can.

00:37:39I also know that the degree to which I can affect humanity

00:37:45is directly proportional to the willpower of you, of you.

00:37:50I mean, I can come up with the ideas, the arguments, and make the case.

00:37:55You're the one who has to spread it.

00:37:56And you're the one who has to live it, right?

00:37:57I can write a diet book.

00:37:59You're the one who has to put down the fork with four cheesecakes on it, right?

00:38:05So, I'm loved by good people.

00:38:07I love good people.

00:38:10I examine my conscience, like, every day.

00:38:15Don't you? Don't you?

00:38:16Am I doing the right thing?

00:38:17Is there a better thing I could do with my time?

00:38:19Is this the right approach?

00:38:20Is this the most valuable and useful thing that I could do?

00:38:22Could I try something else?

00:38:24I examine my conscience and my purpose.

00:38:27I mean, I'm not like the Dalai Lama who shapes his intention for like an hour every morning,

00:38:31but I think every day about what I can do to bring maximum philosophy in the short, medium, and long

00:38:41term.

00:38:41Sometimes, if I'm a little burnt out on philosophy, I'll take a little bit of time,

00:38:45and I'll exercise, or go for a walk, or do something else.

00:38:49And that's partly to recharge, so I can do it more over the long run.

00:38:55I take time off from philosophy to exercise, of course.

00:38:59And I do that because I want to be able to do philosophy into my dotage, right?

00:39:03Or my old age.

00:39:04Hopefully, it won't be a dotage.

00:39:08So, it's a false dichotomy to say being loved by a woman versus having a lot of money.

00:39:14If I had to choose, of course love.

00:39:18Of course love.

00:39:21Love is not a hedonic treadmill.

00:39:23Now, the hedonic treadmill, of course, is you buy something that you want,

00:39:29and you're very happy about it for a day, a week, or whatever it is, right?

00:39:34And then you just kind of, you settle back to normal.

00:39:37Love just keeps getting better.

00:39:38Love just keeps getting more enjoyable.

00:39:40So, you can't buy love, and we're social animals, not material animals.

00:39:48We're not acquisitive animals.

00:39:49In other words, our most sustained happiness comes from our relationships,

00:39:53not from the stuff that we have.

00:39:55And, you know, of course you know this.

00:39:58Everything that you have will lose meaning,

00:40:04will lose form, lose substance, lose shape, right?

00:40:09By everything.

00:40:11Everything you have is destined to be dumped, burnt, buried, recycled.

00:40:19You know, let's say a little closet back here.

00:40:23It's a nice little closet.

00:40:24I don't really think about it that much, but it's a nice little closet.

00:40:29It's going the way of the dodo, right?

00:40:31Maybe this will last 50 years.

00:40:33Maybe it'll last 100 years.

00:40:34It'll end up in somebody's house.

00:40:35It might end up in my daughter's basement, or maybe she'll give it to a friend of hers,

00:40:40or whatever it is.

00:40:41So, it'll end up someplace.

00:40:42It won't be my closet.

00:40:44It'll just be some closet out there with stuff in it.

00:40:47And then, eventually, it'll just sort of wear out or wear down or whatever it is.

00:40:51And then, people will just, they'll put it on the sidewalk and take me,

00:40:55and maybe someone will take it and some student.

00:40:57But eventually, you know, whatever, 50, 100 years or whatever,

00:41:00it's just going to fall apart.

00:41:01It's going to go to nothing.

00:41:02It's going to go to nothing.

00:41:05It's true of everything that you have.

00:41:06Everything you have is subject to the law of entropy and is devoid of meaning.

00:41:16So, I write about this in my novel, Almost.

00:41:20It's a great book.

00:41:21You should absolutely read it.

00:41:22But, you know, your very first computer, you know, had a lot of meaning to you.

00:41:26My various computer was an 8K, Atari 800.

00:41:30It was an Atari 800 because it was 8K and had a real keyboard.

00:41:33Atari 400 had 4K and a membrane keyboard.

00:41:35But that meant a lot to me.

00:41:37Now, if I still had it, I sold it many years ago.

00:41:39But if I still had it, it would be, oh, that was my very first computer.

00:41:42But if it's in some garage sale, somebody buys it, it's just some old computer.

00:41:47It doesn't have the, everything that you imbue things with that have meaning to you, right?

00:41:53Oh, yes, this was the first dollar I earned and I had it framed.

00:41:56Okay, fine, it's just a dollar to someone else, not your first dollar or something like that.

00:42:01Or, you know, in my basement, I've got some little carvings that my wife and I got on vacation.

00:42:08I mean, they're kind of ugly.

00:42:09But, you know, if I'm down there, I remember that vacation.

00:42:13But they're just going to be ugly carvings to people who weren't there.

00:42:15And they'll just be thrown out.

00:42:18They'll just be thrown out.

00:42:23Now, some people, you know, achieve prominence and so on, and then their stuff has more meaning to other people.

00:42:29I get all of that.

00:42:29But that's like one in 10 million people, right?

00:42:36So all the stuff that you have has meaning to you, but the meaning dies with you.

00:42:41The meaning dies with you.

00:42:45You know, if you have a lock of hair from your first girlfriend or something like that, I mean, it

00:42:49means something for you, I guess.

00:42:54But for someone else, it's just going to be some kind of icky strands of protein and just going to

00:42:59throw it out.

00:43:00Everything that you have.

00:43:01It's going to be fought over by strangers.

00:43:03It's going to be junked and grossed out and thrown out.

00:43:12And your first car is now a cube somewhere in landfill.

00:43:18None of it matters.

00:43:20But with love, you can build relationships.

00:43:22You can build children.

00:43:24You can do amazing things that will outlast you.

00:43:26But the stuff itself doesn't matter.

00:43:32None of it matters.

00:43:33So the stuff that you accumulate dies with you.

00:43:35The love that you use to generate outlives you.

00:43:38Love is the closest thing we get to immortality.

00:43:42Love of wisdom.

00:43:43That's what philosophy means.

00:43:44Fundamentally, it's love of wisdom.

00:43:47All right.

00:43:48How did you become famous?

00:43:49Your name has always sounded familiar, but all I know is that your takes are very good.

00:43:55Could Google it, but I wonder how you see it.

00:43:58Apologies, if dumb question.

00:44:00No.

00:44:01There's no dumb questions.

00:44:02There are only bad typos.

00:44:06So here's a little tip, my friend.

00:44:08Are you ready?

00:44:09A little tip.

00:44:10I'm going to get nice and close up here, but I won't yell, I promise.

00:44:12A little tip.

00:44:13A little tip.

00:44:17Please don't say Google it.

00:44:21So if somebody says to you, I get all of my information from a pathological lying con man, well, you

00:44:32probably wouldn't take anybody's information very seriously at that point now, would you?

00:44:36Right?

00:44:37Of course not.

00:44:38Of course not.

00:44:40Of course not.

00:44:41So, yeah.

00:44:47Don't Google things.

00:44:50Grok AI, I think, is pretty good.

00:44:52Maybe there are others out there that you like.

00:44:54But, yeah, don't Google things, man.

00:44:56I'm not just talking about me, of course.

00:44:57You know, Wikipedia is used to sort of launder horrible false statements to people, and then it goes through Google,

00:45:04and that keeps people away from philosophy.

00:45:05So, how did I become famous?

00:45:09I became famous for great passion, solid reasoning, good evidence, and reckless courage.

00:45:20I say reckless.

00:45:21Like, oh, I'm just so courageous.

00:45:23Sounds like I'm too sexy for my heart.

00:45:25But, no, it's, I rushed in where angels feared to tread, and people were just like,

00:45:35I can't look away.

00:45:37I don't want to watch what's going to happen to this guy.

00:45:39And then, of course, I hit the despawning.

00:45:42I got canceled from, like, everywhere.

00:45:45And so on, right?

00:45:47So, how did I become famous?

00:45:48Just telling uncomfortable truths way ahead of my time.

00:45:51That's all.

00:45:53All right.

00:45:53What does your diet look like, and do you take any supplements?

00:45:57All right.

00:45:58What does my diet look like?

00:45:59Well, my wife is a fantastic cook, and she's very, very keen on cooking from ingredients.

00:46:05She doesn't use tinned stuff or canned stuff.

00:46:07She just buys stuff raw and whips up these amazing meals and so on.

00:46:12I am an eater.

00:46:16I am an eater.

00:46:18I exercise, blah, blah, blah.

00:46:19I've maintained a healthy weight.

00:46:21In fact, I weigh less now than I did when I was 20.

00:46:23So, I weigh about 188.

00:46:26I'm just a shade under six foot tall.

00:46:30And my diet, I don't know.

00:46:33I mean, so I don't eat much in the morning.

00:46:36I will usually not eat much in the morning, if anything.

00:46:39I just generally try to wait till I'm hungry, which is usually around maybe two or three o'clock.

00:46:44I'll eat something.

00:46:45I'll have a fairly big meal.

00:46:47Evenings, I eat.

00:46:48Like, I'll have a meal, and then I'll have a bowl of yogurt and berries and a little granola, a

00:46:54little bit of honey.

00:46:55And then maybe I'll have a piece of cheese before bed.

00:46:59But I like to eat.

00:47:00I like to eat.

00:47:01And it's always been a bit of a shock to me that I haven't gained as much weight.

00:47:06Because, yeah, I like to eat.

00:47:07Supplements.

00:47:08Ah, what do I take?

00:47:09I take lutein.

00:47:14Optometrist recommended for eyes.

00:47:17Coenzymes for heart.

00:47:20I take some supplements that are supposed to help with hearing and tinnitus.

00:47:25I have a little bit of tinnitus in my left ear.

00:47:28Oh, anything else?

00:47:30I mean, I take a little creatine.

00:47:32People say the creatine is really good.

00:47:34I have not really noticed any difference.

00:47:37Yeah, I mean, I get pretty good food as a whole.

00:47:43So I don't really find the supplements do much.

00:47:45I just, you know, take a few for reasons of prevention of things getting worse.

00:47:51And that's about it.

00:47:52I try to get some sunlight.

00:47:55And I try to get 10,000 steps and all of that.

00:47:58So, yeah, my diet, it's kind of carby.

00:48:05I do love bread, although I've switched to sourdough bread over the last couple of years,

00:48:08which I find is a little easier as a whole.

00:48:12People like pastas and I like meat for sure.

00:48:17And my wife, though she's a vegetarian, is very good.

00:48:20She's very good with the meat.

00:48:21All right.

00:48:24When will the pain of inaction exceed the pain of action?

00:48:27What's it going to take?

00:48:29Hyperinflation, child brothels?

00:48:30I don't know.

00:48:31I don't know.

00:48:32I mean, most people distract themselves from the state of the world and just kind of hope

00:48:40that things will not get worse much or maybe we'll get a little better.

00:48:45And I can kind of understand that.

00:48:47I can kind of understand that.

00:48:49I mean, if I woke up every day, you know, looking at how much money has been printed by central

00:48:53banking

00:48:53and knowing the disaster, I mean, I wouldn't really have much happiness.

00:48:56So most people can't do anything about politics.

00:49:01Once something moves into the realm of politics, right?

00:49:04Once it moves into the realm of politics, it is outside of the control.

00:49:08People are always like, well, how did men let it get to this state?

00:49:10And how did the West let this?

00:49:12Nobody let anything.

00:49:13I mean, the governments print and bribe and borrow and take.

00:49:20And...

00:49:23What do you do when they control things, right?

00:49:27I mean, if your government is sending a bunch of foreign aid to some country, I mean, is it

00:49:36worth really getting that upset about?

00:49:37You can't do anything about it.

00:49:39I mean, you can't.

00:49:40I mean, just let's be honest about it.

00:49:41If I thought that we could do things about politics, I wouldn't be a voluntarist.

00:49:48I wouldn't be an anarcho-capitalist.

00:49:50But once things pass into the realm of state coercion, they are beyond your power.

00:49:56Once, was it Jimmy Carter, the Department of Education at the federal level?

00:50:00So once you've got the Department of Education setting the curriculum for a lot of schools,

00:50:05most schools maybe, in some areas for sure.

00:50:07And like, what can you do?

00:50:09I mean, you can go and you can thump the table and you can try.

00:50:12And, you know, maybe a few people can budge the needle a little bit, but that's only if

00:50:15they've got kind of OCD and don't know statistics and are willing to devote years and years of

00:50:21their life and so on.

00:50:22And the government will always be happy to help you, like if you help it expand its powers.

00:50:29But most people, I mean, we know this from the Milgram experiments, right?

00:50:33Most people will just do what they're told.

00:50:37They'll do what they're told and they'll call it good.

00:50:39And they'll just go with the flow and they're like the ballast of the species, right?

00:50:44They're needed for historical productivity, but they don't change much in the world.

00:50:50Whether that's right or wrong, good or bad, it is what it is, so.

00:50:55Steph, you have a different tone talking to women versus men.

00:50:58There's a bit of infantilization compared to men.

00:51:00Even I, as a woman, I have to start my sentences with,

00:51:04Hi, girl, you're so beautiful.

00:51:05Do you know where I can find or else I don't get a response?

00:51:07What the hell is that?

00:51:11So, I mean, people say this to me.

00:51:13I mean, I don't know.

00:51:15I mean, they don't give me particular examples, so I don't know if it's true or not.

00:51:19But, of course, I'm going to speak different to different types of people.

00:51:23I try to suss out people's personality.

00:51:25It's something that Mick Jagger said, you know,

00:51:26it depends whether you're playing a stadium or a club.

00:51:28Like, it's a whole different scenario and so on.

00:51:31So, with women, it's not that I say,

00:51:35Oh, this is a woman, I need to talk in a different manner.

00:51:38It is, I will probe what they respond to in conversation,

00:51:42and I will tend to focus on that which they respond to the best.

00:51:45So, of course, you've heard me say it a million times in call-in shows,

00:51:48how long have you been listening to what I do?

00:51:51I don't like to say a show because it sounds like jazz hands,

00:51:54but how long have you been listening to what I do?

00:51:56And if somebody says,

00:51:59Oh, I just heard about you on the Sam Hyde show.

00:52:01I haven't listened to any shows.

00:52:02Then I have a particular approach.

00:52:04If somebody says, I've been listening to you for 10 years or 15 years,

00:52:07I have a different approach.

00:52:10With women, in general, you have to make them laugh in order for them to really listen.

00:52:20Or you have to really show your benevolence in order to get them to listen.

00:52:26This is not a criticism at all.

00:52:28I'm just telling you the way that it is.

00:52:30I've been a professional communicator pretty much my whole life,

00:52:32and certainly for the last 20 plus years in the public square.

00:52:36And I've had thousands and thousands and thousands of these conversations.

00:52:40That's just in the last 20 years.

00:52:41I've had many, many more before.

00:52:44So, if a woman is convinced that you have great affection towards her and her situation

00:52:51and sympathy, she will really listen.

00:52:53With men, it tends to be a little different.

00:52:55With men, they tend to respond to strictness.

00:52:59And women respond to affection.

00:53:01Broad categorizations and so on.

00:53:04So, is it true that I will have a different tone with women than with men?

00:53:08Yeah, I can certainly see that for sure.

00:53:10Also, women tend to be more earthy when it comes to a bit more sort of raunchy statements

00:53:15or raunchy comedy and so on.

00:53:17And women are much less delicate that way.

00:53:19Men tend to be a little bit more romantic.

00:53:21Women, because they squat and give birth to actual human beings and bleed every month,

00:53:25tend to be a little bit more earthy in the physical.

00:53:27So, there's some differences there as well.

00:53:33So, is boys chasing, hitting, or trying to catch animals like dogs and pigeons normal

00:53:37developmental behavior?

00:53:38Does it usually signal abuse or model violence at home?

00:53:40No, I don't think it's bad.

00:53:44Boys are hunters, right?

00:53:46They evolve to be hunters.

00:53:47So, why do people react so strongly and violently when you simply tell them not to hit defenseless

00:53:52children?

00:53:54Because most people are five to ten seconds away from self-hatred.

00:53:58There's a very foundational principle you need to understand in this world if you're going

00:54:02to talk virtue, right, wrong, morality with people at all.

00:54:05Most people are five to ten seconds away from self-hatred.

00:54:11And they're, like, on a tightrope, they're only just sort of dimly aware of it and so on.

00:54:17So, you know, under COVID, if you, you know, if you bring up, like, Sam Neill died as an

00:54:22actor recently.

00:54:25And he was very pro-lockdowns.

00:54:27He was very pro-vaccines and very, the COVID, quote, vaccine and all of that.

00:54:34So, most people, if you point out how they behaved during COVID and that they turned on

00:54:40their fellow citizens who were asking completely rational and sensible questions about what

00:54:44the hell was going on with all of this, like, I opposed lockdowns.

00:54:47I never took that therapeutic goop.

00:54:52So, if you point out this, then they go, you know, if they really get it, they'll say,

00:54:57oh, my God, I would have just gone along with whatever the government told me.

00:54:59I would have been the bad guy in every government lockdown and I'm kind of a soulless automaton.

00:55:06And they'll hate themselves.

00:55:07So, if people have hit their children a lot, I mean, you know, once or twice you apologize,

00:55:12you know, we all make mistakes.

00:55:14But if you've hit your children a lot and if you, somebody really gets you to understand

00:55:18how brutal and violent that is, then they'll hate themselves and you can't go back and fix it.

00:55:26So, this is why people double down.

00:55:29Because it would be like injuring them so that they had a bad back for the rest of their life.

00:55:34I mean, they would view that as a grievous assault, as it would be.

00:55:37And having a bad back is still a whole lot better than having a bad conscience that you're aware of,

00:55:42right?

00:55:44Also, people are lazy, which is why they go with the flow.

00:55:47And if you point out that they've done something wrong, then they're kind of morally obligated to turn around

00:55:50and try and fix it, right?

00:55:52So, if you hit your kids, then you've got to go apologize to your kids.

00:55:54You've got to change.

00:55:55You've got to go to therapy.

00:55:56You've got to talk to other people about not hitting their kids.

00:55:59And people don't want to do that because it's hard work.

00:56:02And it can be unpleasant work, of course, right?

00:56:05So, yeah, people are five to ten seconds away with the right sentences.

00:56:10People are five to ten seconds away from hating themselves forever

00:56:14or being put on a path of redemption that would be absolutely brutal for them.

00:56:18So, all right.

00:56:21How do we cope with people who are unable to reason in a free society?

00:56:25Yes, I answered that question last time.

00:56:28What should I do, says someone, if I'm demonized by the state and for much of society,

00:56:32for my entire life, for a mistake I made when I was 17,

00:56:34when I had an inappropriate relationship, this person says,

00:56:37though consensual and no touching, with a 14-year-old?

00:56:40I've completed all programs and paid every fine.

00:56:43Well, I'm sorry about the situation as a whole, of course.

00:56:48The best thing to do is to really get to the root of how this all came about,

00:56:52how this exploitation came about.

00:56:57And if you figure out the root causes of how it came about,

00:57:00and call.freedomain.com, I would be eager to talk about this.

00:57:04Call.freedomain.com, just set up a call with me.

00:57:08If you figure out the root causes of how it came about,

00:57:11then you can start to help people see these root causes

00:57:14and prevent other people from getting into these kinds of terrible situations.

00:57:18Why does forgiveness with families never work?

00:57:21Because forgiveness within families usually is when the adult child has grown up

00:57:30and is confronting parents about bad behavior.

00:57:32The reason why forgiveness doesn't work is because when you say to someone,

00:57:38you did me wrong, and then they apologize, you're supposed to forgive them.

00:57:42But there's no point really apologizing if restitution is impossible.

00:57:48All right, so restitution is, oh, I broke your lawnmower.

00:57:51Let me go and get it fixed.

00:57:53Okay, here's your lawnmower back like it was never broken.

00:57:55Sorry for the inconvenience, blah, blah, blah.

00:57:56Then you fixed it.

00:57:57But if you're a parent and you were aggressive, abusive, neglectful, avoidant,

00:58:02or abandoned your children, you can't fix it later.

00:58:05You can't go back and fix it later.

00:58:07I mean, if you didn't get enough food as a kid and you grew up to be a foot taller,

00:58:11what's your parent going to do?

00:58:12Give you extra food now?

00:58:13Let's say they starved you as a kid.

00:58:15What, are they going to give you extra food when you're 30?

00:58:17What's that going to do?

00:58:18It's not going to go back and make you taller.

00:58:19You can't fix childhoods after they're over.

00:58:22And because restitution is impossible, forgiveness is meaningless.

00:58:27Happiness is fleeting should it be pursued.

00:58:31Well, happiness is fleeting if it's based on hedonism, if it's based on pleasure.

00:58:37Happiness based on virtue is not fleeting at all.

00:58:40Happiness based on virtue, love, integrity, consistency, truth-telling, and moral courage.

00:58:45I tell you, man, that is not fleeting.

00:58:47I mean, it can be a bit of a rollercoaster at times, but it is not fleeting.

00:58:52Why are the lyrics of songs from most female singers degenerate or self-sabotaging these days?

00:58:58Chapel Rhone, Sabrina Carpenter, Marina, etc.

00:59:03I knew a woman named Marina many years ago, and people called her Worf from Star Trek.

00:59:11Anyway, for obvious reasons.

00:59:14Well, everyone who's allowed to become famous serves the powers that be.

00:59:19Obviously, right?

00:59:21If your book is published and promoted, it's because it is introducing some additional toxic

00:59:26mold syllables to the collective lungs and brain of mankind.

00:59:30So it's not that, oh, you know, all of these women happen to become famous and happen to

00:59:35have, you know, horrible lyrics about how terrible men are.

00:59:38And like, you can't be famous.

00:59:41You're not allowed to be famous if you promote health, if you promote truth.

00:59:48You're not allowed.

00:59:49I mean, so, I mean, huge demographic changes in England.

00:59:54Imagine that somebody wrote a song with as beautiful a lyric as yesterday, but it was

00:59:59morning demographic changes, and it was talking about these horrible assaults against a quarter

01:00:05million little white British girls.

01:00:08I mean, would that person, I mean, I guess you could release it online and so on.

01:00:12Let's say it went to number one and so on.

01:00:14I mean, what would happen to that person?

01:00:15Think of all the artists in England.

01:00:17Think about Paul McCartney and people like that.

01:00:19I mean, they've seen the huge change.

01:00:20They're never going to write a song about it.

01:00:22Never.

01:00:24I mean, Eric Clapton wrote one song, I think, about vaccine skepticism and, I mean, became...

01:00:30So you're only allowed to be prominent if you're toxic, for the most part.

01:00:35I mean, there's exceptions, somewhat, but even that is becoming less and less common.

01:00:41Like, you were allowed to be right-wing in the 90s, 80s and 90s, if you were an action

01:00:45star, but even that's becoming more and more rare.

01:00:48So it's not a coincidence.

01:00:50It's not a coincidence.

01:00:53All right.

01:00:54Hi, Steph.

01:00:55I am a previous donor of yours, and despite my name here, I'm dead serious.

01:00:58My father had a great life, was expecting another grandson, and said to be the happiest

01:01:02in years, yet he hanged himself a week ago.

01:01:04No health or economic problems.

01:01:05Happily married.

01:01:06Why did he do it?

01:01:07Obviously, I can't tell you that.

01:01:09I don't know him, and I...

01:01:11Call.freedomand.com.

01:01:12We can talk about it.

01:01:15But I think when people have a profoundly positive external presentation, then oftentimes that

01:01:28hides a holiness from within, a lot of people say, I want people to envy me because I don't

01:01:35admire myself.

01:01:37And you can see this, of course, all over social media, Instagram, and other places.

01:01:40I want people to lust after me.

01:01:42I want people to admire me.

01:01:43I want people to think I have the greatest life.

01:01:46I want people to think I'm super cool.

01:01:47I want people to like my abs.

01:01:49I want people to admire me or to envy me because I don't respect and admire myself.

01:01:57And the only thing we can really respect and admire about ourselves is the virtue, integrity,

01:02:01honesty, and all of that kind of good stuff.

01:02:04So if your father was presenting as having this great, wonderful, perfect, amazing life,

01:02:09so happily married, professional success, I got money, I got my health, then the question

01:02:14is a lack of vulnerability hollows people from the inside out.

01:02:20And for more on this, I did a show called The Truth About Robin Williams many years ago.

01:02:26Was math invented or discovered?

01:02:29Well, neither.

01:02:30So invented is when you create something completely new.

01:02:33Discovered is when you come across a treasure chest that was buried 100 years ago, sort

01:02:37of counter-Monte Cristo style.

01:02:40So math was not invented in that it's not an arbitrary thing that is just coming out of

01:02:46nowhere.

01:02:47It is not discovered because it is not something that pre-existed.

01:02:51Math is the correlation of concepts to instances in the world, right?

01:02:56So I have one coaster, right?

01:03:00It's a coaster to put my coffee on.

01:03:01I have one coaster, right?

01:03:03I have two objects, one coaster, one pair of glasses, right?

01:03:06So one and two, these aren't arbitrary.

01:03:09They're not discovered.

01:03:10They're not invented because one and two doesn't exist.

01:03:12They go the other way.

01:03:13It's two and one, right?

01:03:16So numbers of the correlation between concepts in the mind and instances, which means discrete,

01:03:21segregated things.

01:03:22Instances in the world.

01:03:23We have eight planets because there are eight balls of whatever, right?

01:03:26And so math is neither invented nor discovered.

01:03:34Math is a generated set of concepts that must accurately describe instances in the world,

01:03:43aggregations of instances in the world.

01:03:46Are you following Christianity?

01:03:48I don't know what that means.

01:03:49Does that mean, am I a practicing Christian?

01:03:51I am not.

01:03:52What's the best way to restore the grout in my shower?

01:03:58It's very funny.

01:04:00What's the best way to restore the grout in my shower?

01:04:04Well, I assume don't use it for a long time and then rub groin, ass, and armpits into the cracks.

01:04:11Do you know who is Thomas Sass, S-A-Z-S-Z?

01:04:16I'd be curious to know what you think of this psychiatrist who, in my opinion, brought a bit of philosophy

01:04:21into the world of psychiatry and psychology,

01:04:23who, without being bad in itself, I appreciate Carl Jung became a barrier to the free.

01:04:27I'm not quite sure what that means.

01:04:30But, you know, I thought, did I interview him?

01:04:33I know I interviewed a whole bunch of people, even Norm Finkelstein way back.

01:04:37Did I interview Thomas Sass?

01:04:38I'd have to check.

01:04:39Maybe yes, maybe no.

01:04:40But, yeah, I've read his book, and he is very good.

01:04:45I really can't express the horror at the state of psychiatry and medicine these days.

01:04:56I mean, the whole antidepressant thing, right, there is no chemical brain imbalance.

01:05:01It's all just a lie.

01:05:02It's been disproven countless times.

01:05:05Dancing has a much better outcome than SSRIs.

01:05:09SSRIs, SSRIs are virtually indistinguishable from placebos.

01:05:14And even the, you know, they say, ah, but for the most depressed, even for the most depressed, it's barely

01:05:18better than placebo.

01:05:20Exercise, dancing, cognitive behavioral therapy, talk therapy, and so on.

01:05:24Walking is as good or better than SSRIs.

01:05:28It is horrendous.

01:05:31It is horrendous.

01:05:32It is horrendous.

01:05:32How much people are willing to lie for money and how much people are desperate to pop a pill rather

01:05:37than change their lives?

01:05:39It's an unholy union.

01:05:40And it's hard to say which side is better than the worst.

01:05:42Is it a pull economy or a push economy?

01:05:44Well, you need both for the transaction to take place.

01:05:49So I don't think that modern psychiatry can be criticized quite enough.

01:05:55Food is science.

01:05:57Would like to see you on Timcast.

01:05:59Maybe a debate with a D&D campaign with Tim and Ian.

01:06:05Yeah, I'm not.

01:06:06I mean, it's nice.

01:06:08I'm not going to go on Timcast.

01:06:09I'm sure of that.

01:06:10Hey, Steph, I listened to a podcast.

01:06:15Evil Jeff Bezos.

01:06:16May I ask who created the system that is pushing companies to apply DEI?

01:06:21What are their benefits?

01:06:24Why did they build the system?

01:06:26So white Christian males, white males in particular, white males in general, white Christian males are the natural enemies of

01:06:33collectivism and communism, totalitarianism, and so on.

01:06:38And so whatever diminishes the strength, power, authority, incomes, and prestige of white males is good for those who want

01:06:49to expand political power.

01:06:50So DEI is not about giving jobs to non-white males.

01:06:54It's about keeping jobs away from white males so that family formation can't occur.

01:07:00Why do you assume everyone is based?

01:07:02I don't know what that means at all.

01:07:05I'm not sure I would have gotten into so much trouble, all the trouble that I did do if people

01:07:10were actually based.

01:07:10So I think I'm pretty much aware of that.

01:07:12All right.

01:07:12Thank you for the great questions, my friends.

01:07:14Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show.

01:07:17So call me this summer.

01:07:18It's quiet in the summer, so there's room.

01:07:20Call.freedomain.com, shop.freedomain.com for your merch, and Peaceful Parenting.

01:07:24If you could share that link, I'd appreciate that too.

01:07:26Take care, my friends.

01:07:27Bye.

Category

Transcript

Comments

Recommended