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https://freedomain.com/freedomain_books/the-future/

Centuries in the future, an old man awakes from cryogenic sleep to face the judgement of a utopian society that barely survived his past abuses of power. In the vein of 'Atlas Shrugged, philosophy, philosopher Stefan Molyneux has created a compelling and powerful work of imagination. He vividly describes the wonderful future that mankind can achieve - and the barriers to getting there - and all that we need to leave behind to finally live in peace...

Transcript
00:00 The future by Stephen Molyneux chapter 18
00:04 David turned to Roman
00:08 You're one of the only people to ever witness that kind of
00:12 Negotiation
00:15 Roman stared at him. Holy hell. I don't really know what to say
00:20 Wait
00:22 Is it true the virus more mRNA really Roman nodded?
00:28 David smiled
00:30 Why would that matter Roman got
00:34 He shook his own head slowly rubbing his gray stubble
00:40 David leaned forward slightly
00:44 It's the extended family thing, isn't it? That did kind of take me by surprise. Yeah, you consider it
00:51 unjust
00:53 harsh
00:54 immoral
00:56 That was my initial impression or emotion
00:59 David nodded slowly
01:02 You came here thinking I am weak that we are weak and you've good reason to given the history of morality
01:09 You also criticize us for our universalism for a universally preferable behavior the foundation of our society and again
01:16 You have good reason to given the rather sad history of ethics. I would always got overpowered by the ruthless and the violent
01:23 but this
01:26 Is a new world and we learned something essential through the cataclysms. Nothing that could make those awful decades worthwhile
01:33 But sometimes in life or in history the best you can do is extract the greatest good from the existing horrors
01:40 Roman sighed rubbing his face. Oh my god, man. You really do dance around a topic
01:46 David smiled
01:49 In the past
01:52 Universal morals were absolute in the abstract usually commanded by God and
01:58 Thus were not conditioned by
02:00 relationships
02:03 We take a different approach
02:05 Treat people the best you can when you first meet them
02:08 After that treat them as they treat you
02:13 He raised his fists if you're in a boxing match and someone starts hitting below the belt. What do you do?
02:20 Well, according to UPB you're no longer obligated to respect the rules of boxing because your opponent has stopped respecting them
02:26 Historically universal morality has always lost because it refused to adapt to the lowest standards of its opponents
02:33 the lesson we so painfully learned from the cataclysms was that morality is not an absolute but
02:42 a relationship
02:44 Roman started as if someone had touched his spine with electricity
02:51 David pursed his lips. I know it's a
02:53 Startling idea the moment we talk about morality is a relationship people think it becomes relative and subjective and loses the name of ethics
03:02 the purpose of modern morality
03:05 Wait
03:08 Let me give you a classical example
03:10 You say that lying is immoral a man breaks into your house. You confront him and your wife hides
03:14 He demands to know where your wife is. Do you lie to him? I kill him David's mouth play with me here like children play
03:21 Which is to say very seriously. He has a weapon. You don't insert something that means you can't kill him. Do you lie to him?
03:28 Roman snorted of course. Ah
03:30 So lying is not always immoral. So it is not an absolute rule. Everything becomes relative and subjective and nothing can be moral anymore, right?
03:39 It's the same with other situations where someone says can a starving man steal a loaf of bread
03:44 If you say yes
03:46 Then you agree that life is more important than property which led to the welfare states of the old world if you say no
03:51 Well, then you're a heartless person who would rather keep a loaf of bread and watch a man die
03:55 Roman scowled this is why I steer clear of abstractions and keep my weapons Andy. I
04:02 agree
04:05 Most moral
04:06 abstractions were just a form of pickpocketing that led to
04:09 Well a society not unlike your own in many ways
04:12 Which I am opposing here and would try to convince you to abandon impossible though
04:17 That probably seems to you at the moment
04:19 Romans eyes narrowed you are welcome to try
04:22 to take the first example
04:25 If we say that lying is immoral
04:28 Then we can contrive a situation where it would be wrong to tell the truth to tell the criminal where your wife was
04:34 Then we have paralyzed universalism and destroyed morality
04:37 however
04:40 If we look at morality as a relationship rather than an absolute
04:44 It's not even a problem
04:47 You just have to ask is the thief a moral person
04:51 Morality is a relationship that rewards morality. It is not an absolute that the immoral will always use to exploit you
04:59 You don't owe the murderous thief the truth because he has a gun to your head
05:04 If you offer me a satoshi for an apple, but I don't actually have an apple
05:08 Are you still obligated to give me the satoshi? Of course not
05:11 Morality
05:15 It's like an economic
05:17 Transaction the obligation is created only when both people act honorably and honestly
05:23 if you have a friend who has
05:26 Reliably and honorably told you the truth for years then you owe him the truth
05:31 He has earned honesty by being honest
05:34 But you don't owe honesty to just anyone and everyone you meet on the street
05:38 If you've borrowed satoshis from a friend and then he asks you at some point to lend him some you have some obligation
05:45 Based on your prior history, but you don't have an obligation to lend satoshis to everyone who asks you
05:51 Morality is like a Bitcoin wallet. You have to make deposits in order to have withdrawals
05:59 Removing morality from relationships and turning it into axiomatic absolutes
06:05 What's the goal of evildoers who wanted to have a way to control moral people?
06:10 Give people absolutes and you have a perfect mechanism to control them
06:15 If life is more important than property
06:18 Then you can steal money from them with the goal you claim of giving it to the poor thus saving lives with their excess money
06:24 If life is more important than property, how can they oppose your plan?
06:30 David shrugged
06:32 They can't of course and so you gain control over
06:35 What used to be called trillions of dollars, I guess it's a pretty good payoff
06:40 but of course that led to
06:43 the cataclysms and
06:45 The destruction of the old world at least on most of the planet
06:49 Wow said Roman
06:53 That's how we do it. What charity? Yeah, we used the word accurately
06:59 If someone needs charity, we have three simple rules
07:02 The first is that they cannot have been the creator of their own disaster
07:06 The second is that it has to be both temporary and humiliating and the third is that he has to pay it back as soon as possible
07:13 David smiles so
07:16 You wouldn't let someone hold a knife to a hunter's throat to get food. I have to enter with troublesome enough. We might
07:22 David laughed so
07:25 When it comes
07:27 to negotiating with Attica
07:29 we are trying to avoid war or
07:32 More specifically terrorism, which is the way that most conflicts are handled in the modern world because the weaponry has become so
07:39 extreme
07:42 the reason I
07:43 Am perfectly justified in threatening his entire family is because if he started a war
07:48 Thousands or millions of children would get killed if he subsidized terrorism. It might be dozens or hundreds perhaps
07:57 children killed, you know
07:59 If he escalates to armed conflict in any way
08:02 How many children and their mothers and fathers and aunts and uncles and cousins would be maimed or killed?
08:07 Why on earth would we not target his bloodline since he would doubtless target ours
08:12 We don't get anywhere. In fact, we lose continually if we try to maintain higher standards than our opponents
08:20 If there's one thing that the cataclysms taught us it is that losing is absolutely unacceptable
08:27 David's voice grew cold and hard and you could see
08:31 Exactly that kind of crap that he was trying to pull during our negotiations
08:37 He kept saying that he could control us because of our respect for property rights and human life and children
08:42 He was trying to use our morality against us
08:47 Which immediately means that we have no reason to be moral with him to extend moral protections to him
08:54 moral protections to him
08:56 What he was doing is
08:58 about as evil as things can get as evil as a person can be in that he respects and
09:05 recognizes morality but uses it to pursue evil ends a
09:10 Doctor has to be the most trustworthy protector of human life because he knows how to kill patients with almost no possibility of being caught
09:19 the same with morality
09:22 Attica understands morality very well and chooses to use it against moral people
09:29 imagining that we learned nothing from the cataclysms and would just
09:33 Be captured and subjugated and enslaved by that morality, which is designed to give us liberty security and power
09:40 Again Romans started
09:44 David stared at him
09:50 Someone wants to start a war you target their entire bloodline, of course you do
09:57 First of all, it will prevent the war from being started which will save thousands or millions of lives and secondly
10:03 He has no right to condemn us for putting innocent people at risk since he is willing to start a war with the most fantastic
10:10 And indiscriminate weapons including terrorism which will target millions of innocent people
10:14 This
10:18 Sad and pathetic idea that you become evil by doing evil to evil is a stranger saying that you become sick by killing a murderous
10:26 virus
10:27 Doing evil to evil is good
10:30 UBB is
10:34 often misunderstood as an ethical system with abstract absolutes that enslave everybody a
10:39 Kind of computer program that takes away moral free will
10:43 But we have moral free will because we need to evaluate
10:47 individual situations according to the virtues and the vices of
10:53 those we interact with I
10:55 have a
10:58 Relationship with Attica and we'll have one until the day one of us dies
11:01 UBB
11:05 It's not like a
11:06 Train track or a set of rules that everyone has to follow no matter what because that would be to turn human beings into machines
11:13 Slaves said Roman David Scout. Oh, come on. Don't be such a troll. You can't enslave machines
11:20 They don't have free will or morality or human consciousness or anything like that. Let's not waste time with silly statements
11:25 Roman trucked as if to say, okay. Yeah, but your why?
11:30 With an effort David dropped his irritation
11:34 UBB defines
11:41 Universal morality
11:43 We can get to that later if you want
11:44 But it doesn't say anything as silly and nonsensical as violence is bad
11:48 If it did then we would lose the right of self-defense
11:51 the use of violence is
11:53 a relationship if someone is not initiating violence against you you owe them peace if
12:00 Someone is initiating violence against you
12:02 You can blow their head off or arm
12:05 you see
12:08 It's a relationship
12:10 Not an absolute
12:12 Someone willing to use violence cannot morally complain if violence is used against him
12:18 Just as a thief cannot morally complain if someone steals his stolen goods. I
12:22 Can't go steal someone's phone, but if he steals my phone I can damn well steal it back if
12:32 They only have property by violating property rights. I don't have to respect their property rights since they don't actually exist
12:40 Attica
12:42 was stealing several bitcoins worth of fish a
12:45 Staggering sum and he was doing it with the specific goal of provoking a military conflict that would give him internal political
12:52 unity
12:55 He wanted to wage war against us to establish further brutal controls at home
12:58 Damn, right. I will threaten his entire family line
13:04 That is the approach with the greatest chance of saving the most lives and helping those he is enslaved through his government
13:11 If he is willing to kill our families for his own petty political goals, why on earth would we be unwilling to kill his family?
13:19 David sighed
13:22 No, no
13:25 Moral considerations are earned through moral actions. Just as income is earned through productivity. I
13:34 Would risk my life to protect those I love I
13:37 Would much rather risk the lives of others to protect those I love though
13:42 Love is
13:45 Our
13:48 Involuntary relationship to virtue if we are virtuous
13:52 Hatred is our involuntary response to evil if we are virtuous. I
13:57 Hate Attica I
14:03 Hate his system. I hate his politics. I hate his manipulation and threats
14:09 my goal
14:12 my sole goal both personally and professionally is the protection of the innocent the salvation of the virtuous and
14:18 Frankly, I don't care whose face I step on to achieve that
14:22 Roman cocked his head to one side
14:27 Yet you are negotiating with me by your words I am evil
14:33 I negotiated with Attica Roman leaned forward if you can call it that but you are not threatening my bloodline
14:41 Roman
14:43 You are not evil said David simply you exist in a state of nature
14:51 Morality is a form of technology and no one blames a doctor from a thousand years ago for not prescribing antibiotics or a bot clean the
15:01 Technology simply did not exist
15:03 It had to be
15:05 Brought into existence and it had to be proven and then people had to be educated about it
15:09 After a certain amount of time and only after that time could we call a doctor bad for failing to prescribe proven a known cure?
15:19 you are
15:22 Unaware of the modern technology of morality you do not have moral free will as yet
15:27 Because you have not heard and debated the arguments
15:32 David put his hand on the older man's forearm Roman flinched as if shocked
15:37 Genuinely mean this you are not evil you are not immoral you are not even violent a
15:49 Thousand years ago they put leeches on people to cure them they believed in
15:55 Humorous and didn't even know that the blood circulated around the body
16:00 Go even further back and millions of people thought that dancing controlled the rain
16:04 David held up his hands
16:07 Please don't take this as an insult. I don't mean it that way
16:11 If we were out in your land and you were teaching me how to hunt I wouldn't take it as an insult
16:16 If I don't know how to hunt I don't actually have the free will to decide to capture or kill an animal
16:21 If I don't have a fish hook and bait, it's pretty hard for me to fish
16:27 I'm not trying to insult you any more than you would be insulting me by pointing out my deficiencies as a hunter which I guarantee
16:33 You would be considerable
16:34 this
16:36 Society the sieve is based on a relatively new
16:40 Modern moral understanding it it's as big a breakthrough as scientific method was a thousand years ago
16:45 And you are not to blame
16:47 for existing in a state of nature which
16:50 Humanity has for a hundred and fifty thousand years. You don't know what you don't know
16:56 Roman
16:58 gestured at the empty table
17:00 But isn't that true of
17:03 Attica as well
17:05 David paused
17:07 What you saw with Attica
17:09 Was the result of months of him refusing to listen to reason I very much hope
17:15 That you and I can avoid that fate
17:18 Roman opened his mouth to reply when a young woman with startling green eyes materialized at the far end of the table
17:26 The older warrior jumped back in his chair reaching for his non-existent weapon. He snarled. How do you get used to that?
17:33 David smiles
17:35 The same way you get used to sleeping in the woods, I suppose but look at her eyes and mouth
17:39 Roman squinted leaning forward
17:42 She had ancient mottled coins over her eyes and a zipper over her mouth
17:45 She also wore the earmuffs he had seen earlier
17:48 David smiles you can customize these for everyone. This is my assistant. She can't see or hear us yet
17:55 Unlock Sasha he commanded
17:57 The coins zipper and earmuffs all disappeared and the woman spoke
18:02 David Attica has indicated he will get back to us before the end of business today
18:07 But we've had a request for a sudden review of the angle family by their kids
18:12 Okay. Now they have that right by the contract
18:15 David sighed
18:18 I hate these ones, but
18:22 Okay, we will be right over please ask them if an observer is permitted Sasha nodded and vanished
18:29 David turned to Roman
18:32 How do you deal with your crazy people
18:36 We have a word nimble on which describes the kind of man who pretends to be injured when the hunting party is setting out
18:43 Then eats your food and tries to sleep with your wife
18:47 There are others particularly the older longer the teeth, but he is the most dangerous and
18:52 Roman shrugged well we go through the
18:56 Formality of reasoning with him by never works the nimble on just lies and makes promises and never changes
19:03 So we take him out hunting and mistake him for a deer
19:07 Roman pretended to shoot a bow and arrow
19:10 Walk you fine and his family
19:16 There are lots of ways to communicate
19:18 We let everyone know that there was a terrible accident and offer some mild compensation to his widow and children if he has any
19:25 Everyone knows no one says anything
19:28 That's the best way
19:31 And if his children seek revenge thought David but decided to wait
19:35 It was too soon to bring children into the most essential negotiation
19:39 You want to see how we do it
19:44 Only if I can ask questions on the way said Roman in an oddly belligerent tone. I
19:49 Assume you want to go there for real. I
19:52 Want to see it with my own eyes Roman held up his hands, I know I know the illusion is real, but you know what I mean
20:00 I
20:01 Wouldn't actually want to do this remotely said David
20:05 This is an eyeball to eyeball thing
20:13 Chapter 19
20:15 They took a slow-moving sky taxi over the city
20:18 Buildings poked out of endless forests of high trees like glass mountains out of green clouds
20:24 David said most people take sky taxis, but some of the older people still love walking. So we built some
20:32 Walkways for them David's mouth. Sorry. I couldn't remember the word for a moment. Let's drop down so you can see better
20:38 They descended to the treetops
20:42 Romans stared at the slender shining buildings passing by
20:45 There were mostly composed of horizontal glass strips for solid ceilings and floors
20:50 He could see into beautiful interiors various arrays of wood and glass and marble pleased the eye
20:57 He shivered. I
20:59 Can't see any people in those
21:01 dwellings
21:03 David not it. Oh, you won't be able to who knows what's going on in there
21:07 Everyone wants the view and to display their own homes, but they don't want their neighbors to see what they're up to
21:12 So everyone has blinds like a hologram of what people see when they look in your windows
21:17 There are people in there, but you won't be able to see them through the blinds
21:20 It's like an empty zoo
21:23 moment Roman
21:25 David shrugged
21:27 well
21:28 We work very hard to make sure everyone has good relationships because there's no way you get to live to 130 or would even want
21:35 to without friendship and love
21:37 Loneliness is just about the most
21:39 Extreme sport there is kills more than smoking used to centuries ago
21:44 They drifted by a flat floating court where two elderly men pounded a glowing winged ball back and forth over a net
21:51 It changed direction seemingly at random
21:54 Now feather ball said David you can curve the ball a little with your eyes. He turned to Roman
22:01 It actually
22:04 makes me quite sad thinking back to the old world how
22:08 Lonely and isolated so many people were and how few of them wanted or had kids
22:14 Towards the end. I guess they
22:17 Felt the cataclysms coming. I
22:21 Know that you complain to me about our virtual reality addicts
22:26 But they do have a community which feels as real to them as anything else, but in the past
22:31 People sat in sad little basement apartments and complained their lonely lives into
22:36 nothing
22:39 In old Japan, there were entire crews that had to go and clean out the apartments of old dead people
22:44 People only noticed they were gone because of the smell
22:47 David's eyes got a faraway look
22:51 And these crews would always try to find some relative and maybe there would be a long-lost daughter who lived a thousand miles away
22:58 and they'd call her and report that her mother was dead and
23:01 She would sigh and tell them to pack up her dead mother's belongings and donate them to charity
23:06 She wouldn't even bother to come back. That's how broken and isolated people became towards the end
23:13 And everyone knew
23:18 everyone
23:19 Felt it. Everyone saw it coming
23:21 the end
23:23 But no one could do anything. The system was so
23:27 Entrenched the tentacles of fake currency and real control had wound around everyone's neck so tight that no one could breathe anymore
23:33 not even
23:34 enough to take a breath or scream and
23:37 There were these soft
23:40 predators the media that
23:42 Sniffed for any rebellion or opposition and felt like a pack of jackals on anyone who tried to break free of the madness at the moment
23:47 I was an asylum back then they got everything wrong
23:53 But anyone who noticed that the world was a madhouse was called evil and forced
23:57 out of society
24:00 they
24:02 Broke their thinkers the immune system of society and then wondered why they kept getting sicker and sicker
24:08 David felt the words bubbling out from the depths of his being and decided not to stop them
24:14 They turned the education of their children over to evil doers and wondered why evil kept growing in their midst
24:22 I'm sure that's for me
24:24 Whispered Roman then raised his voice slightly pointing
24:28 There is a
24:31 river
24:33 flowing through the air
24:35 David glanced over
24:37 Yeah, that's a skypipe held up by air blowing bots that way it can be rerouted at will
24:41 We don't have to build or install any actual piping
24:44 David laughed
24:47 Some truly adventurous souls have tried creating entire houses and buildings that way the bots keep the furniture in place and you can literally walk
24:54 on air
24:56 but we have found that there's a
24:58 limit to the amount of weird anti-sensual unreality that the human brain can
25:03 coexist with
25:06 People never got quite used to walking on air. So it's more of a novelty than anything else
25:11 Look, the kids love it though. Those trampoline parks is something else. We should check them out sometime
25:16 Roman stared at the slightly sloping sky river
25:19 It's actually kind of a relief to know that there are limits to this
25:23 shared madness of a city
25:26 David smiled
25:29 Well, we have folks who believe that anything that holds us back from a complete merge with the machines is weird and
25:34 retroactive or or conservative
25:37 They call machines the overman from an old philosopher
25:41 and we're supposed to be just the evolutionary bridge to the perfection of metal
25:45 I'm making a bit of fun of it, but they're pretty serious these gearheads
25:49 They view any hesitation about merging with the machines as a barrier to perfection to be overcome like sin
25:54 Roman frowned
25:57 And you asked me what we do with crazy people
26:00 David smiles. They're not crazy. They can do some amazing things, but it's too far for me for sure
26:06 It started a long time ago. Gosh
26:10 When there were analog phones some people spent half their lives with the telephone glued to their ear like an extra sense
26:16 And then there was the mad addiction to screen technology in the early 21st century
26:20 People used phones and tablets more than their own senses sometimes so that kind of merging is nothing new
26:26 Go back even further to the invention of guns or swords even and people used them as an extension of their own limbs and
26:33 capacity for violence a
26:35 Warrior without a sword. It's just a guy swinging it air
26:38 Swinging it air. You don't chase down deer with your bare hands extending humanity with technology is nothing new
26:45 Roman scowled. Oh, we still use our own hands our own eyes our own touches smell
26:50 Of course, you're much closer to the original human than we are, but the original human includes the capacity
26:56 to extend humanity through technology and you take part in that a little we just
27:02 Do it a whole lot more and some way more than me
27:06 David lowered his voice slightly
27:09 I do have some concerns about how we are messing with our own sense of reality with all of this technology, but
27:14 We are nothing if not adaptable and people aren't going mad as yet. So
27:19 fingers crossed
27:21 David saw something over David's shoulder and involuntarily gripped the younger man's arms. What the hell?
27:28 David turned and saw an enormous
27:31 Slender curling dragon winging its way through the sky towards them
27:37 Its sinuous body was dappled with golden scales and its wings
27:41 Impossibly small beat in a rapid blur like a hummingbird
27:45 Its black eyes seemed to stare at them its mouth opening and closing like a deep-sea monster gasping for air
27:52 Long silver tendrils grew from behind the ears floating in the air being pulled forward randomly like the red ribbons of a gymnast in flight
28:03 You have drugged me
28:05 Gasped Roman. I'm so sorry
28:07 Said David staring up at the golden scales as a slender dragon silently coursed overhead
28:13 the tail
28:15 Ending in rainbow spikes rippled as if swimming
28:19 That's a Chinese dragon said David
28:23 We've tried to find enjoyable ways to deliver energy and this year the engineers from Chinatown look look down
28:30 You can see the pagodas won the contest and the kids just love it last year. It was a giant manta ray from the aquanauts
28:35 Roman watched
28:38 Open mouthed as the dragon attached itself to a tall silver spire
28:43 It inserted its tail into a receptacle and as they passed by
28:48 The golden scales vanished under a descending blackness starting from the head
28:53 It's discharging said David wave. He said pumping his hand
28:59 Roman stood in silent stiffness as the Chinese dragon waved its tendrils back at them burbling merrily
29:06 After a minute or two he turned to David
29:11 So tell me about the place we are going
29:15 It's an asylum for people who have broken their brains or had their brains broken by drugs or illness or injury
29:23 How do they break their own brains?
29:25 David stared at him for a moment
29:28 That is a very big question
29:30 We
29:34 Prepare everyone for sanity and reason right from the start. We teach them to trust their senses
29:39 we feed them well as nature intended you'll be pleased to know with breast milk and
29:42 Make sure that they bond with their parents
29:45 We teach them as much language as they can handle as early as possible
29:49 So we can start negotiating with babies at about 14 to 16 months
29:54 We don't yell at them. We don't hit them. We don't punish them. We don't confine them
29:59 We prepare them for the sieve and most times they grow up speaking the language of reason in the same way that you know
30:05 Your language and I know mine
30:07 Roman scoffed, you know punish your children, so there are no consequences for any bad deeds
30:13 David jumped to the edge of the sky taxi and pointed down look a sky park
30:19 Creeping up behind David Roman looked tentatively down
30:24 Below them children's voices bellowed with delight as they leaped between various brightly colored structures giant
30:31 animals and planets and geometric shapes
30:33 Each time they landed the surface compressed inwards then threw them back out into the air or if they fall
30:40 David laughed come on every question you have we had decades ago the guards picked them up and put them back
30:48 One young boy missed his grab at the white udders of a giant cow and giggled his plummeting way down to the trees
30:54 Roman flinched David said waits a
30:57 tiny silver machine barely bigger than a watermelon immediately zoomed down and
31:02 Extending cushioned arms picked the boy up and dropped him on the woolly back of an enormous sheep
31:08 David murmured man when Alice was small
31:12 total memories
31:14 Roman scowled I should have
31:17 Consequences they learn nothing
31:19 It's an odd thing
31:22 Mermaid David turning to the older man and staring at him directly
31:25 Do you really think that the only consequences for negative behavior are
31:30 punishments
31:33 Let's say you do. What does that teach a child?
31:35 It doesn't teach the child that the behavior is wrong only that it is disapproved of and punished
31:41 If a boy hits a girl and you hit him can you logically tell him that hitting is wrong?
31:46 If a child takes another child's toy, and you rip the toy from his hand can you really say that taking things is wrong?
31:52 All you're doing is teaching the child that he would get punished for certain behaviors. Not that those behaviors are wrong, so
32:00 He still wants to do these things he just wants to avoid punishment
32:04 So he becomes furtive and and avoidant and he learns how to lie and well
32:08 You know you're a parent sure it works the same way in your tribe
32:11 You yell at your kids you hit your kids and you get immediate compliance
32:15 followed by disobedience and
32:18 escalation and lying which you have to punish more and more and
32:22 Before you know it you end up with adults who are criminals
32:24 So you punish them more or turn them into warriors and teach them to attack those around you
32:28 This is almost all of human history mindlessly boring in my opinion
32:34 blindingly obvious in light of the present
32:39 Roman jumped back seemingly involuntarily gripping the back of a white pew
32:42 That's crap total
32:45 Children who play with knives have to be taught not to play with knives or they slice off a finger or stab their brother
32:50 He pointed a ferocious finger at David
32:53 Children in the wilderness have to be taught to stay close to avoid the poisonous fruit to not run where the ground is unstable
32:58 In your weird universe of maternal safety airless to me and any other sane person
33:04 I guess you can let your children run wild because robots keep them safe
33:08 But at where we are actions have real consequences and those consequences can be infection or death
33:13 So we have to keep our children tough and control so that they stay alive
33:16 David nodded slowly. Yeah
33:21 In the old world they talked about boiling water on a stove and children running into streets with cars
33:28 You talk about children playing with knives
33:31 Why not just keep the knives away from them until they're old enough to understand the danger in the old world
33:36 Why didn't they just turn the handles of the boiling pots away from the kids?
33:39 Why didn't they just build fences between their children and the roads?
33:43 He laughed sadly no
33:46 It was all just an excuse for them as I think it is for you he paused
33:52 You were hit as a child
33:56 Roman stretched himself up proudly I damn well was and I damn well deserved it. I didn't listen. I was defined
34:03 I disobeyed and I paid the consequences and it helped me survive
34:07 Give me an example David's tone was gentle why we are negotiating
34:15 Roman compressed his lips I
34:19 Stole an axe when I was little maybe
34:23 For I cut down a tree that my father had planted in honor of my mother not a tree
34:29 Of course like a sapling he beat me after death. I never took anything after that. He just had to look at me and I knew
34:36 David said
34:39 Did you love your father
34:42 Roman Cockta said who knows wasn't his job to be loved or lovable
34:47 His job was to teach me to survive to keep me safe and be respected and I damn well did respect him
34:54 He was made of
34:56 oak
34:58 You've never seen such an art worker always
35:00 Sacrificing always Romans had snapped up suddenly. Are you digging around in here? You want me to say that I added odd?
35:07 Yeah, I added odd so I became odd which is what is needed
35:11 You're like a rabbit in the woods rolling its eyes at a fish for having gills
35:16 We live in different environments different worlds. You can call your kids because you have the robot guards
35:22 We face nature alone. We have to be strong
35:27 David murmured
35:29 You know my answer to that one, but I will stop digging if it makes you uncomfortable
35:32 Roman held up a warning finger. Don't do that that crap. I don't talk about the past
35:39 I don't dig up my father to parade him in front of your goal to make me a monster. I told you I
35:45 Don't think you're a monster
35:47 Dangerous to kids. Yes, but so as a wolf. I don't think a wolf is a monster
35:52 Roman narrowed his eyes
35:55 Try comparing me to an animal again. Try it. You're right. I'm sorry. That was unfair and unjust
36:02 Roman stared at him then suddenly smiles jewel
36:07 David started what the older warrior laughed. Oh don't sound so scared. I wasn't challenging you I
36:15 Just remembered your question about how we deal with crazy people
36:20 We have duels especially about insults to honor if we were in the woods
36:24 We would have already had about 12 duels you and I but I'm in your ass now. So we go by your softy rules
36:30 What do you do if one man insults another?
36:33 David shook his head and smiled
36:36 We're all about free speech free speech is the early warning system of any healthy society
36:42 But because we don't raise children with verbal abuse verbal harshness
36:47 They don't have that habit like you don't know how to program a computer because you weren't raised with computers
36:53 David walked his fingers up Romans forearm the older man jerked his arm away
36:58 But who knows this whole thing could be one giant virtual reality simulation. Hey
37:03 exclaimed Roman odd fear in his voice you told me that you don't mess with people's belief in their senses I
37:09 Said that about kids and if I treated you like a kid you would challenge me to a duel for sure
37:17 Roman grunted looking away how much longer
37:19 David imitated a child's whine. Are we there yet?
37:23 Roman was silent
37:27 David said
37:29 Everyone in the past thought that they understood human nature, but they didn't
37:35 People said Oh humanity is like this or that
37:38 They were like biologists in a zoo imagining that they know anything about the animals in the wild
37:43 human beings
37:47 Were caged animals until the present until the sieve
37:51 That's not even an analogy if you ever look at a map or a globe of the old world
37:57 David's flat hands sliced the air the world was divided into countries which were really
38:02 Tax farms where people were kept as human livestock for the sick profits of their owners
38:07 they were
38:09 indoctrinated by the state bullied by the media drugged by the doctors and if they questioned or opposed any of this they were
38:17 Insulted slandered and lied about and banished from society
38:19 they were
38:21 crazed animals back then and
38:24 genuinely many of them thought of themselves as
38:28 free
38:30 David shuddered
38:31 It might be a kind of old memory or or something that trickles down the giant staircase of the generations
38:37 but I sometimes have nightmares of
38:41 Waking up in the old world is if I could be frozen and sent back in time 500 years
38:47 And I have to see all of the brain-punching daily disasters of the world that was
38:51 Knowing that the slow-moving tsunami of inevitable horrors was creeping closer every day while I was chained to the sinking ship of my society
39:01 to have knowledge
39:04 about the unstoppable
39:06 dominance of evil and to be able to do absolutely nothing about it
39:12 Well, that's hell
39:13 Hell on earth man, and I don't know how people actually
39:17 Functioned back then. How did they get out of bed? How did they face the day? How could they sleep at night?
39:23 There was a moment's silence as the two men fell back in time
39:31 We know these stories
39:35 moment Roman
39:36 You and I'd a sieve and a clan a force in the road from the cataclysms from the very worst time in history
39:43 You all went up into the clouds with your machines
39:47 Making rivers run through the sky and touching through the breath of tiny robots
39:52 we
39:54 Went down into the earth into the old ways
39:57 We are all just
40:00 Existing in the aftershock of every terrible thing that was
40:05 And I would rather see my entire tribe perished and go anywhere near any pass that led back to that hell
40:11 The two men stared at the slightly reddening Sun
40:17 David had an absurd impulse to take the older man's hand
40:22 As two men staring over the hellscape of human history
40:26 But knew it was an impossible gesture
40:33 Suddenly out of the blinding Sun a group of men and women swooshed down over the white pews whooping and calling out greetings
40:41 They had long sticks on their feet and gripped slender poles in their hands
40:45 Their legs bent from side to side like pendulums their faces were covered with enormous clear masks
40:50 Skyers the David sky skiers the breath bots create the feel of snow under their skis
40:57 Roman Scout again, I cannot fall
41:01 David sugar said oh, oh, no, they can just not all the way down the guy at the front red hat
41:06 he's a client of ours currently training to cross the Pacific on skis as
41:09 The whooping men and women swished down into the treetops Roman turned to David
41:14 What do people do with their time Roman on it David shrugged?
41:22 We are a striving species. We didn't get to the top of the food chain by lazing around that jobs already taken by the alligators
41:30 I have a pretty good view of this since most activities here have to be insured
41:35 People have hobbies they get together for projects big and small
41:39 I know a guy who's trying to figure out time travel with a bunch of his friends
41:42 I think it's a total waste of time, but I'm no expert
41:45 I mean if you travel back a year you just end up exploding in space because the earth has moved on
41:50 There are historians creating entire VR recreation so people can truly understand and learn from history
41:59 We are really
42:01 The first group ever to have a relatively unbiased view of the past because in the past the victors always wrote the history
42:08 Well now the modern world exists only because no one won the cataclysms
42:13 The sieve is what comes into existence when humanity loses completely
42:20 We can
42:23 Finally tell the truth because no one is profiting from lies
42:26 There's no ruling class that needs to control the narrative so we can
42:29 Come the closest to objective history
42:33 Are you actually paid by the word?
42:36 David laughed
42:38 I'm paid at work to be concise this verbosity is more of a hobby
42:42 People have hobbies and artistic pursuits
42:46 They love sports and exploration and there's a whole group of people trying to figure out how to improve the VR experiences on other planets
42:54 We've been to them, but they're unbelievably boring
42:57 Mars is just a red sandbox Venus is hopeless just an acid soup around a big rock
43:03 Mercury is basically just a giant asteroid
43:06 The asteroid belt is like trying to navigate with giant black ship crushing rocks all around you
43:12 Some of the moons of Jupiter can be quite pretty but you really have to enhance what you're looking at because the Sun is so far
43:18 away
43:20 Nobody's tried to land on the surface of Jupiter because there isn't one really
43:24 Out past Jupiter things get too dark to see without assistance and you just end up staring at a computer screen rather than the thing itself
43:31 We've done this solar system for the most part and there's not much there of any interest at least for tourists asteroid mining is massive
43:39 We get a huge amount from that
43:41 It's a good thing that Bitcoin came along and replaced gold because the value of gold would have dissolved into nothing
43:46 With the amount we're finding in asteroids
43:49 Some people are working on human gills
43:52 Don't even ask me how they work and there are other people who want to graft giant wings onto people's shoulders so they can fly
43:57 without mechanical assistance
43:59 David sighed I
44:01 Guess I'm old-fashioned enough to find that just a little creepy, but I bet the experience must be amazing
44:08 some people
44:10 Love to climb. There's an entire sport of climbing under random gravity, which just seems kind of masochistic to me
44:16 But I'm probably too old for it anyway
44:18 There are people who like to explore the oceans aquanauts their calls
44:22 They're finding some amazing life down there that the real aliens are underwater not in outer space
44:26 There's an entire club dedicated to raising shipwrecks and restoring them turning them into restaurants and museums
44:33 There's a huge group that is trying to find
44:37 document and bury all of the victims of democide murder by States an
44:43 Unholy number of people counting the cataclysms. That's a hell of a project that they're pretty somber
44:48 There's another group of hardcore scientists who were looking to repair and enhance human genetics particularly IQ for obvious reasons I
44:57 Could go on but when people are freed from the need to earn their daily bread well
45:03 We get quite a lot of civilization out of that a lot of art and history and knowledge and exploration and science
45:09 After
45:11 While
45:15 The sky taxi gently coasted up to a wide set of white stairs
45:19 That led to a tall peaked pale blue building that looked vaguely like an ancient Cathedral
45:24 David jumped out. Okay, we're here the madhouse awaits
45:32 [BLANK_AUDIO]