Stefan Molyneux
  • last year
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 36
00:05 Cornelius left me soon after with the useless and annoying suggestion that I get some rest, as if that is a choice for the sickly.
00:16 I retired back to my room with the booklet and decided to enjoy my little secret about myself.
00:27 I don't feel fear.
00:30 Power is fear avoidance. It is escaping the need to please, the need to be of service.
00:39 Oh, I loved how, back in my day, in my heyday, I was referred to as a "public servant".
00:50 I turned the public into servants. I did not serve the public. A servant can get fired. A servant has to be good at his job and requires excellent references.
01:00 The whole point of power is to escape the voluntary, to wrap yourself in propaganda and coercion and charm to the point where you can defy the natural laws of physics and step up and slide down rainbows.
01:18 One of my economic advisors, part-time of course, was a free-market fanatic who literally enjoyed government-protected tenure (he couldn't be fired)
01:31 at a government-funded university, teaching government-funded students.
01:37 He was the furthest thing from the free market that you could find, because at least a gulag guard doesn't obsessively read Milton Friedman.
01:48 Oh, I loved him for that. I loved that he taught principles utterly in opposition to how he actually lived his life.
01:57 I loved that his students would never believe in the free market after being taught by him.
02:03 Oh, but most of all, I loved the security that his life gave to me.
02:12 I slept like a baby every night, secure in the knowledge that even if we gave everyone a Ph.D. in free-market economics,
02:20 they would still run to government protection and government benefits every single time.
02:26 Oh, I loved the vapid stink of his hypocrisy every time he leaned in to tell me to deregulate something.
02:35 I did once play with him, offering to deregulate universities and eliminate tenure, not something I could exactly snap my fingers and achieve,
02:42 but it was so enjoyable to watch him crow with cracking enthusiasm about being cast out into the free market he pretended to love so much.
02:53 This is the thing, one of the things that kept me free of fear.
03:02 Everyone wants the free market when they are the consumer, but nobody wants the free market when they are the producer.
03:09 It's like egalitarianism versus meritocracy.
03:13 Everyone loves egalitarianism in theory, but when a heart surgeon is operating on their beloved daughter,
03:19 oh, they want pure meritocracy all the way.
03:23 I'm not complaining. If people weren't hypocrites, I would have had to get a real job.
03:31 I remember when my father would talk to me when I got into my mid-teens about what he was up to at the state legislature.
03:41 I would be shocked, literally shocked, at what he could get away with.
03:46 He got elected by promising school choice and then strengthened the teachers' unions.
03:51 He promised that he had a solution for rising crime rates, then said that it was a purely local matter.
03:58 He always kept his deals.
04:02 He used to laugh and tell me, "Government is a way of enforcing contracts that runs on contracts that cannot be enforced."
04:09 He kept track of all the backroom haggling with an obscene, abacus brain, and could hold a grudge until it grew a beard.
04:18 But his sunny promises to the electorate, well, they weren't even violated.
04:24 They were just, they just blew away without a sound, without a murmur.
04:29 "People want comfort in the moment, son," he would say, creaking back and forth on an old rocking chair on the back porch,
04:38 his amber cup welded to his hand.
04:41 "They are like baby ducks, very affectionate but easily frightened.
04:46 Now, I can't do much about the fear, that's up to the teachers and the media to keep everybody well-goosed and jumpy,
04:53 but I can do something to make them feel better, which is to smile, give them the hand sandwich,
05:00 stare deeply into their eyes and tell them that everything is going to be all right.
05:05 At the end of the day, that's all people are looking for.
05:09 Life is short and stressful for those under the thumbtack,
05:13 and whatever comfort and security people can grab from others on the fly-by is worth more than gold to them."
05:22 I was never sure why my father dropped all these titbits of dark wisdom in my lap,
05:28 because it sure as hell didn't take any interest in my life as a whole.
05:32 I kissed babies endlessly on the road, but I had no interest in babies or toddlers at home.
05:39 I would constantly tell me that he had to wait for me to reach the age of reason in order to hold his attention.
05:47 And then he never knew what my hobbies were, who my friends were, what bands I liked, whether I tried pot.
05:53 And even once he had to ask me what grade I was in when he was signing a school letter.
05:58 I hated him for that.
06:01 Until I did the same thing with Jake, my eldest son.
06:06 I know, I know. He came from a different generation. Children are to be seen and not heard.
06:14 But it did bother me if I blocked his view of the television and he would grunt,
06:17 "You might be a pain, but you're not a windowpane!"
06:20 Or another favorite of his, "Insanity is hereditary. We get it from our kids."
06:26 I do have vague memories of craving contact with him when I was very young.
06:34 I remember pretending to fall asleep on his lap when I was maybe two,
06:39 while he was laughing at some incomprehensible comedy on the screen,
06:42 and enjoying his belly pressing against my cheek, the few hairs that escaped his shirt tickling my skin.
06:49 Thinking back, I guess I should amend my earlier statement.
06:59 Politics is not about avoiding fear, but displacing it.
07:04 My father had one hell of a temper.
07:13 There was a pattern, you know.
07:18 A bunch of kids would be over at the house, a huge house.
07:22 And we would take over the upstairs and invent our games, our limits, ourselves.
07:27 And the noise would increase, and the dangers would escalate,
07:32 and then something would be broken.
07:34 Someone would crack a knee, someone would burst into tears,
07:37 and my mother would come up the stairs with her usual shrill exasperation,
07:41 which we refused to listen to.
07:43 It was always vaguely shameful to submit to a woman's upset.
07:46 And she would angrily and ineffectually nag at us from the top of the stairs
07:49 while we silently bragged by continuing our mayhem.
07:52 And eventually we would summon the dark force of my father's footsteps,
07:59 and he would hear from the middle of the stairs the phone hanging by his side on mute.
08:02 And he would never say, "Listen to your mother," or anything like that.
08:06 He might as well ask us to play on the ceiling.
08:08 But he would demand that the noise and commotion cease right now.
08:12 We took a deep, visceral pleasure in freezing in place.
08:20 I know now it was a way of humiliating our mother,
08:24 but there was more to it than that.
08:28 I didn't know any children, any sons, who were close to their fathers in my world.
08:36 In fact, I remember a silly joke from those days.
08:40 Two boys sitting on the steps.
08:42 One says to the other, "I bet my dad could beat up your dad."
08:44 The other replies, "Really? How much would that cost me?"
08:48 We wanted our fathers to pay attention to us,
08:57 but they only intervened when we jacked up the chaos to light speed.
09:01 Mothers couldn't teach us how to be men.
09:07 And it was a maternal world in those days.
09:09 Nannies, daycare teachers, school teachers, they were all women, all frazzled,
09:14 all overwhelmed and perpetually frustrated by boys.
09:17 They basically viewed us as broken girls.
09:22 Male authorities were an oasis in the desert, the endless quicksand of the feminine.
09:29 I chased my father like a dog chases the mail truck,
09:33 but no idea what I would do if I actually caught him.
09:36 And he had, let's be frank, a very heavy hand.
09:50 I didn't check the weather when I was young, so every day was a surprise of sun or rain.
09:55 I didn't know the impact of the outside world on my father, so I couldn't predict his moods.
10:02 You know, kids are pretty selfish, boys especially,
10:05 so we take everything personally, as if we are the only influence on those around us.
10:10 I guess my father had his good days and his bad days.
10:18 On his good days you got ice cream, tickles and bad jokes.
10:23 On his bad days, I got beaten.
10:33 No point in beating around the bush, I suppose.
10:37 My friend and I, what was I, five or six years old,
10:45 were playing some imaginary spaceship game,
10:48 and I put a glass of water on an antique cabinet,
10:51 and my mother burst into tears,
10:54 but she was cleaning up later because it left a pale ring on the dark surface of the wood.
10:58 Children know nothing of history.
11:01 Of course, the world was created when they were born,
11:04 but I vaguely understood that this was a family heirloom and a treasure of some kind,
11:09 which made me resentful that I had been allowed to play around it unsupervised.
11:14 And my father came hurtling into the room like a satellite entering the atmosphere.
11:20 With his left hand he slammed the door shut,
11:24 with his right hand he lifted me up by the neck of my T-shirt.
11:28 The fabric on the back cut into my neck savagely, and he hurled me against the wall.
11:32 I couldn't tell whether my mother was crying for the cabinet or for me,
11:35 and he slapped me across the face, back and forth, like a blur,
11:39 I don't know how many times,
11:42 and he told me to take care of my goddamn things!
11:44 I was not in pain.
11:49 That's the great secret of being hit as a child.
11:51 It almost never hurts at the moment.
11:53 But I remember truly understanding that things meant more than people.
12:02 Cabinets meant more than children.
12:06 Stains trumped bruises.
12:10 I sagged against the wall, not even holding up my hands,
12:14 my body signifying bottomless compliance, a total void of resistance.
12:19 I suppose he felt me go limp under his blows.
12:24 This appeased him.
12:27 I thought for a moment that he was going to go and get me a towel,
12:35 throw it at me,
12:38 and tell me to clean myself up, as if I had made the mess.
12:42 Or, in the next moment, I hoped that he would burst into tears and apologize for his rage,
12:48 and that the power would then swing to me, but...
12:51 Nothing of the sort happened.
12:55 He got up, brushed his hands as if they were covered in chalk,
13:02 and walked out of the room.
13:06 I expected my mother to come in, tend to my wounds, and apologize profusely,
13:13 but I didn't want her to do that, because it didn't mean no good to have power over her.
13:20 I have always, always hated small talk.
13:26 Years later, in college, I saw a meme about the trolley problem in philosophy.
13:30 If you threw the switch and saved ten people,
13:34 you then have to engage in small talk about saving them.
13:37 I remember feeling a savage desire to not throw the switch,
13:41 and let everyone die so they wouldn't have to congratulate me on my virtue.
13:45 I then imagined that my mother and father were downstairs,
13:55 racked with guilt and promising to change.
13:59 But when I heard footfalls on the stairs,
14:02 I crept to the snow-white banisters and peered through them like a convict in a prison of icicles.
14:10 And my heart... froze.
14:16 As I saw them step into their tennis shoes, grab an athletic bag, and head out to play a game,
14:25 I knew there was a nanny in the house, I knew that my sister was asleep,
14:31 I knew that I was not being left alone.
14:34 But really I was.
14:39 I was being told, very clearly, that the drama of the assault was not even a comedy.
14:48 It was not out of the ordinary, it gave me no power, it was not unjust, it was not wrong.
14:54 It was the ultimate power play, and it told me a hell of a lot about how the world worked.
15:03 If people believe you aren't bothered by something, they have no power over you.
15:13 Power is just this remote-controlled manipulation of other people's vulnerabilities.
15:21 Virtuous men care about their reputation, so you control them by attacking that.
15:25 Take control away from the power-hungry, you control them.
15:30 Strip hope from the depressed, you own them.
15:34 By casually sauntering off to play tennis, my parents clearly informed me that I gained no power over them by being beaten.
15:49 In fact, when they returned, I apologized.
15:55 I apologized for being hit.
15:59 That's power.
16:03 But I didn't know the half of it.
16:07 My father's hand had loosened one of my teeth to the point where it popped out the next day.
16:13 It's a feeling that children get when they expect a present, a hungry glow in the chest, an expectation of imminent joy.
16:19 And I told my parents that my tooth had come out, and I put it under my pillow with the expectation of extra money for Dad beating it out of my head.
16:27 But the next morning, the tooth was just gone.
16:34 And instead I got a long lecture from my father about how Santa Claus was not real, the tooth fairy was not real,
16:41 the kids could not talk, and it was time for me to grow the hell up and stop expecting everything for free.
16:45 My mother hardened as well in those years.
16:50 She was endlessly frustrated that I would comply with strangers while defying her.
16:55 But she married a man who didn't seem to give a crap about her feelings, so I knew deep down that she was just trying to keep me a child, control me.
17:02 She did not love obedient males. Rebellion was my only chance.
17:09 I remember when I was about nine, becoming quite fascinated by my parents' relationship and trying to eavesdrop on them whenever I could.
17:17 They were cautiously reserved, and I could usually only hear murmurs through the ventilation.
17:23 I suppose they were always concerned that someone could hijack their phones and listen in.
17:27 But I did hear them talking once, at the foot of the garden, when I pretended to nap on a lounge chair,
17:34 but was surreptitiously cupping my ear to hear the words that strangely echoed off a stone statue.
17:39 "Twenty years I feel I barely know you," said my mother. Her tone was aggrieved, as it so often was.
17:47 That morning she had turned on a blender, but it had sparked and died in her hands, and she had lifted it off the counter,
17:52 as if to hurl it, before dropping it and crying out to no one that "Nothing worked!"
17:57 My father, disgruntled, "You've got to stop talking to Joan.
18:03 It isn't about Joan." "Of course it is. Divorce is spread like the flu, you know that.
18:07 You've got to cut her off, like a tourniquet, or we'll both bleed out."
18:10 I could see her biting her thumbnail in the shaded green distance.
18:14 "But they were together, so long, longer than us." My father shrugged.
18:18 "People die younger than us, so we're still breathing. Stop measuring yourself by others."
18:22 She looked at him savagely. "Oh, hell, you're one to talk. All you do is measure your dick against everyone else."
18:27 "Maybe, but you don't seem to mind the beautiful house and dresses it buys. It always comes down to money.
18:32 My father extended his hand. "Oh, you might remember me from our first date, when I told you how ambitious I was.
18:38 Isn't it enough now, though?" "Not according to your visa bill."
18:42 They were circling each other like wounded sharks, snapping for a kill shot.
18:47 "Joan got the virus," my father said. He imitated a woman, I don't know who.
18:55 "You're just a broodmare, cooking and cleaning and wiping asses.
19:00 Why do you let your husband take all the glory and run the world?
19:02 Get out there, girl. You go and be brave and stunning. Show the world what you're made of.
19:06 Take the bull by the horns. Go be a girl boss, you empowered woman about to find her voice."
19:11 My mother laughed, despite herself. "I married an ape," agreed.
19:16 "And you're going to stay married? And you're going to drop Joan, because drowning people just pull you down?
19:21 Divorced people hate seeing happy marriages." "Are we happy, though?"
19:27 My father's face crumpled as he scowled, and I realized how rarely I saw him in full sunlight.
19:33 "That's the kind of open-ended crap question that turns concrete into quicksand.
19:37 Before you talked to Joan this morning, were you unhappy? Be honest," he warned.
19:42 She paused. "I wasn't unhappy." "Good enough.
19:47 Not being unhappy is like not being in pain. We don't get euphoria all day long.
19:52 But she puts this worm in your ear." His voice dropped low and conspiratorial.
19:57 "Maybe you are unhappy. Maybe your husband is selfish. Oh, perish the thought.
20:02 And maybe there is some undefined something more out there.
20:06 And maybe you think being 5'10" is tall, but there are people out there who are 50 feet tall,
20:11 so you're really short after all. Oh, come on. You had me until..."
20:15 My mother waved her hand. "Maybe, maybe, maybe.
20:20 That's just acid conjecture, like the we're in a simulation, lunatics.
20:24 Here are the facts. Joan is a plain woman in her 50s
20:29 who's going to find out that the wonderful world she is setting out to join
20:32 is just a refugee ship of broken people with broken lives.
20:36 And she doesn't have the sexual power she had in her 20s,
20:39 and she's going to end up burying her regrets in cat litter.
20:42 And all the money she thinks she's going to get from Bill
20:46 is just going to go to lawyers and two houses and 18 vacations.
20:49 It's pathetic, and I hate her with all my heart
20:52 for sowing this stupidity in the minds of her friends.
20:55 She screwed up. She got greedy. She overreached.
20:58 And now she's fallen out of the cruise ship, and we cannot circle back to find her."
21:02 My mother gnawed at her thumb. "She's so sad. She needs someone.
21:07 She had someone. She had Bill and a decent marriage.
21:12 But someone put the worm in her ear, and now she's trying to put the worm in your ear.
21:18 Don't let her. Don't do it. It's a hole with no bottom. You know it.
21:21 So I'm supposed to just abandon her in her hour of need?"
21:25 My father shrugged angrily. "She abandoned Bill.
21:28 She's got nothing to complain about."
21:31 They moved on, and their voices no longer slid round
21:36 the semicircle of the stone statue's outstretched hands to my cupped ears.
21:45 "Ah, I'd heard enough. Women had to be wrangled.
21:51 Their sympathies were their weakness.
21:54 Or, as my father once told me, women will always find someone or something to mother.
22:01 If they don't have kids, it's cats or immigrants.
22:04 I sometimes wished that the whole world was women when I was running for office."
22:12 Anyway, I grew sick of my own inner ramblings.
22:18 I felt a sudden savage yearning for action,
22:22 and instantly remembered my own eldest son,
22:25 who I had grudgingly taken to a petting zoo when he was young,
22:29 because, according to my wife, he was turning into a little brat in pre-K.
22:34 Oh, he was so goddamn mournful.
22:39 That boy, almost from the beginning, he moped and sighed and was congenitally ungrateful,
22:43 which drove me quite mad.
22:45 I fantasized that my wife had had an affair with some man-bun-soy-drip barista at the local coffee shop.
22:51 "Oh, Jake just talked and talked. He once complained that he was dying of boredom."
22:58 "You can't die of boredom," I snapped. "How do you know?"
23:01 "Because I've spent months listening to you go on and on about that Robocraft game."
23:07 I had to savagely cut him off when he went on these ramble-tangents, I called them,
23:12 endless stories of his dreams and ideas and plans.
23:17 I didn't even bother to listen, just thought my own thoughts and went all Zen and into the future,
23:22 like he was a trickling brook of vapid nonsense.
23:25 My daughter was a talker, too, but you could get a word in edgewise.
23:30 I remember her describing her ideal restaurant once,
23:35 in the woods, high in a treetop, birds on the leaves, rope swings and koi ponds.
23:40 It was entertaining enough to interest me.
23:44 I added in some robot waiters, and it was actually kind of fun.
23:48 But my eldest son, the whiner, who wouldn't get a haircut until I held him down,
23:55 I spent most of his childhood just shutting him up.
23:58 He was like an impossible, leaky house, every hole you patched just bled back.
24:04 Every new patch just bled drippy water somewhere else.
24:07 He did, though, eventually, shut the hell up.
24:15 I had pretended to read a few books on parenting,
24:21 slipping my cell phone between the pages so I could actually get something done,
24:24 and knew that I wasn't supposed to make him like me,
24:28 which would have been all right if he had wanted to be anything at all.
24:34 But he was born silent.
24:36 I thought he was retarded at first, or whatever word you're supposed to use in the current minute,
24:41 but I could tell his perceptiveness from across the room.
24:45 He was silent. He moped. He was adrip.
24:51 But he was... he judged, too.
24:56 Judged me in that involuntary way that some children have,
25:02 like they're little conscious computers that chatter without control, like dreams.
25:05 Thank God my second son was a mindless, charismatic, athletic ape
25:11 who poured himself like Quicksilver into whatever popular container
25:14 came jostling along the cultural conveyor belt.
25:17 I was at... damn these memories!
25:22 Last one. This petting zoo.
25:26 When my eldest son, who was inexplicably obsessed with ducks,
25:32 his face lit up when he saw two of the foot-sized white birds in an enclosure
25:38 next to some African cow with a tumor for a neck,
25:41 and he ran towards the gate, waving his arms like a conductor windmilling at the edge of a cliff,
25:46 then wrestling with some vaguely complicated latch,
25:50 and he turned to me with a contemptible, agonized, begging expression.
25:55 And I can still feel the cold rage, even now, hundreds of years after Jake's demise.
26:00 Because he loved the ducks. He cared about the ducks.
26:04 But he only regretfully needed me to open the latch, swing the gate,
26:08 and give him access to that which he treasured.
26:10 I was only a means to his end. His end was never me. His love was never for me.
26:15 And if he could have opened that latch himself,
26:17 he would have poured his heart into those stupid birds and forgotten me entirely.
26:23 And what sort of boy wants to pick up and caress fluffy little birds?
26:30 Oh, I made a mistake that day, which I worried about for over a week.
26:38 I did not hit him. I did. At other times. Many times.
26:44 I felt I wanted to drive the softness out of him,
26:49 like hammering a nail can push wood out from the bottom of a plank.
26:53 But my cold calculations led me to a public error that day.
26:58 I watched as my son cooed over and petted the ducks.
27:04 I did not enter the enclosure. I really liked my shoes.
27:07 They were a rare gift from me to me.
27:10 Jake was picking up tiny leaves and plants,
27:13 trying to feed them to the ducks, which showed little interest.
27:16 "We've got food, you know," said a bored, blonde teenage girl.
27:21 scrolling through her phone, surely against protocol.
27:24 "Cones are two dollars, three for five."
27:28 She pointed at a sign which said exactly the same thing,
27:32 which irritated me even more.
27:35 Jake begged for a cone once more.
27:39 I was just a doorway he grabbed through to get what he wanted.
27:43 I was a wallet and a driver, an unappreciated builder of shelters and savings.
27:50 I bought him a cone.
27:52 He asked for three, wanting me to take one,
27:55 but it was just for show. He didn't want me in there with his precious ducks.
27:58 I turned my genial charm to the girl sitting and scrolling endlessly,
28:04 as if she could somehow get to the bottom of the Internet.
28:07 "Work here long?" I asked.
28:10 She took a moment to answer, to indicate her unwillingness,
28:14 and to put me in the category of dads who awkwardly flirt with teenage girls.
28:19 "Oh, yeah," she said in her nasal voice.
28:23 She wasn't exactly pretty, but had a kind of rural meatiness
28:28 that I supposed could be attractive if you had a barn to raise.
28:32 "Do you like working here?" I asked.
28:35 She shrugged. "It's okay."
28:37 She thought of something, then added, "I like animals."
28:41 "Not too busy," I said in a pleasant voice. "Gonna rain."
28:47 "I'm not one for checking the weather or the traffic. Drives my wife crazy,"
28:50 I added, mentioning my wife, to show that I was not flirting with her.
28:54 She leaned forward and said to my son, "Don't let them jump up on you."
28:58 Turning to me, she added, "We got a lawsuit."
29:01 "It's good with the animals," I said.
29:04 She nodded indifferently, her hand creeping to her phone like a stalking spider.
29:08 I nodded towards my son. He loves animals.
29:13 I knew she was bored. I intended to be boring.
29:17 But I also knew that she was supposed to keep the customers happy.
29:22 I said, "Has anyone ever been cruel to the animals?"
29:26 She sighed. "Some of the kids can be rough, but your boy is an angel."
29:30 "Oh, he is. He'd love to work here."
29:33 She sniggered. "Maybe once he figures out the fence."
29:36 I nodded.
29:39 "He wants a little time off from me, so I'm going to go and get some lunch. I have some calls."
29:44 "You're not supposed to leave him here unattended."
29:47 Again, she pointed to a sign that said exactly the same thing.
29:51 I leaned forward. "But I will."
29:55 She shivered slightly. "You can't. You're not supposed to."
29:59 "But I will."
30:02 She blinked at me.
30:06 This was always a moment I loved. When the little verbal nonsense that people spout to try and keep a conversation on a familiar track...
30:13 When they realize that those little tricks don't work with me.
30:19 And they are off the tracks in the wilderness where they might actually have to think for themselves for a moment to evaluate risk and reward.
30:28 It's like you go to pet a dog and the dog growls and corners you.
30:33 You get to live intensely for a moment.
30:36 Charisma is a kind of danger.
30:40 I turned to walk away. The girl said, "I'll have to call security."
30:45 I laughed, then turned around.
30:48 "You got a crack guard on duty here? And what will he say when I tell him that you made fun of my son?"
30:55 "You did," I said as her eyes widened. "You mocked him for having trouble with the latch.
31:01 And you spent almost your entire time here scrolling through your phone. There's no sign for that here, but I'm pretty sure that is not allowed.
31:07 And you've also complained about the children who come here, that they're cruel to the animals.
31:11 Not a good look. Not very good for the position."
31:15 I lifted my phone. "Should I leave a review? What is your name?"
31:19 Her eyes refused to fix on mine and darted around as people always did, looking for rescue from the results of their own crappy behavior.
31:29 "I'll get in trouble if you leave him."
31:31 A voice trailed off, and my estimation of her rose a little.
31:36 The usual girly trick of appealing to a man's protective nature faded in her throat,
31:41 because I obviously had no trouble making her uncomfortable.
31:44 But she earned the behavior. I was just paying her.
31:48 I stared at her, and slowly she began to truly panic.
31:55 "God, it was good to help people grow. What do I say?" she whined.
32:02 "It's kind of an eternal question," I replied softly. "And I'd better not get paged about an upset child."
32:09 Her eyes narrowed, and she nodded slightly.
32:15 She got it.
32:20 I went and had a leisurely lunch at the park's low-rent outdoor cafe,
32:25 gnawing on what was advertised as a Gator Burger and feeding most of it to the roaming peacocks.
32:31 I went and walked the boardwalks in some nearby woods, made a few calls.
32:38 I eventually made my way back to the petting zoo around closing time.
32:43 The girl was quite hysterical, and a pleasing number of cones were missing,
32:48 and my son was extraordinarily agitated, though he hid it well.
32:52 He made it to the car before bursting into wailing tears.
32:56 "You ignore me, I ignore you," I said, before turning on some half-deafening thrash metal on the radio.
33:05 Chapter 37
33:17 Bored of the useless memories, I roll over and open the pamphlet Cornelius gave me.
33:23 "The Laws!"
33:26 (Steal from Plato, much?)
33:29 I am mildly curious about whether this brave new world enforces intellectual property rights, so I open it up.
33:37 Introduction
33:42 The Law is the practical implementation of universal morality.
33:47 It has the same relationship to morality that engineering has to physics.
33:53 Physics aims to synthesize immediate experience and abstract it into the universal laws of matter and energy.
34:01 Engineering takes the laws of physics and uses them to create practical objects that serve the needs of humanity in the present.
34:11 Morality aims to define universally preferable behavior.
34:17 The Law translates morality into practical rules that enforce UPB.
34:25 The basis of the Law is as follows.
34:29 1. No law is valid if it is not taught to children.
34:36 2. Any law which cannot be comprehended by children cannot be inflicted on adults.
34:43 3. No law which violates the non-aggression principle is valid.
34:49 4. No law which violates property rights is valid.
34:55 5. No law which requires an expert to interpret is valid.
35:02 6. No law which cannot be universalized is valid.
35:06 7. The purpose of the Law is to prevent violations of UPB.
35:13 I chuckle. Idealistic scribbles.
35:20 I succumbed to them too when I was about 14. Then I grew a beard and cynicism.
35:28 "Oh, children frightened by monsters make up rituals. These children make up rules to manage the savagery of man.
35:37 Silly magic in the face of bloody mammals."
35:41 I read on, wishing I had a glass of whiskey.
35:45 Human beings own themselves and own the effects of their actions.
35:51 Owning the effects of our actions is the basis for property rights as well as morality and the Law.
35:57 When a man catches a fish -- I snort but continue --
36:03 When a man catches a fish, he is creating the fish as property.
36:08 A fish at the bottom of a lake is unowned, which means that it cannot be used to serve human needs.
36:14 When a man invests his labor into catching the fish, he creates his property right over the fish,
36:21 because he has converted it from unusable to usable.
36:26 If a man builds a shelter, he has transformed the raw materials, which do not serve human needs, into a shelter, which does.
36:35 Since a man owns the effects of his actions, he owns what he has transformed into human utility.
36:44 It is impossible to argue that a man does not own the effects of his actions,
36:51 and that both participants in the debate must be assumed to own their own arguments.
36:56 Otherwise, the debate becomes impossible.
36:59 A man who creates property owns that property.
37:04 A man who destroys property owns the act of destruction.
37:09 A woman who creates life owns that life.
37:13 A man who destroys life owns that murder.
37:19 A man who assaults a woman owns the resulting harm to her body.
37:24 It is a falsehood to say that someone else committed your murder,
37:29 just as it is a falsehood to say that you own someone else's property.
37:35 Property rights and the non-aggression principle are two sides of the same coin.
37:43 Since morality is universal, it doesn't matter whether you enslave someone in the present or in the past.
37:50 If you steal the product of a month's labor, you have enslaved the creator for a month.
37:57 Theft is a form of enslavement. It is an exercise of property rights without creation or trade.
38:05 The commandments given to children throughout history were always the same.
38:12 Don't hit, don't steal, don't lie.
38:17 Don't hit equals the non-aggression principle.
38:22 Don't steal equals respect property rights.
38:26 Don't lie equals contract enforcement.
38:30 A contract is a formalized promise with incentives for fulfillment and punishments for non-fulfillment.
38:40 Failing to fulfill a contract is identical to stealing, a form of enslavement.
38:46 Violations of the non-aggression principle (NAP)
38:52 Violations of the NAP fall into the categories of rape, assault and murder.
39:00 Violations of the NAP are categorized as unchosen injuries.
39:07 There are circumstances in which people choose at least the potential for injury, such as contact sports or invasive medical procedures.
39:14 Self-defense is not a violation of the NAP, since it aims to maintain an existing circumstance, non-injury,
39:24 rather than create a new circumstance, which is the infliction of injury.
39:29 Violations of property rights
39:35 Since we own the effects of our actions, property is an extension of the body.
39:41 The NAP covers violations of the body, while property rights cover violations of the effects of the body, which is property.
39:50 It is no more permissible to steal a man's labor than it is to steal one of his internal organs.
39:59 Universal morality does not differentiate between property held inside the body and property held outside the body.
40:06 Theft of property requires restitution to the point where the holder of the property is satisfied but not overjoyed.
40:16 The goal is to restore the property and reasonably compensate the owner for the lost value, but not create a situation of profit.
40:27 Punishments
40:31 In the extraordinarily unlikely situation where a violation of the law has been established and a punishment has been determined,
40:40 but the criminal does not submit, punishments are left up to the Dispute Resolution Organization (DRO) that represents the criminal.
40:49 In general, DROs will refuse to enforce any and all contracts held by the criminal.
40:56 Furthermore, DROs will apply sanctions against any members who trade with the criminal.
41:03 The criminal can restore his contract rating by performing the actions required by his or her DRO for restitution.
41:11 Slander, libel
41:15 Anyone who lies about the character of another, producing quantifiable material damage, is liable for restitution.
41:25 If a restaurant lies about finding repulsive material in the food of a competing restaurant, restitution is required.
41:32 Statements of opinion must be clearly marked as such and cannot reference objective facts.
41:41 Intellectual property (copyrights, trademarks, etc.)
41:47 Intellectual property is handled differently by different DROs.
41:52 Most DROs will not enforce intellectual property, but a few do.
41:57 It is incumbent on those who wish to enforce intellectual property to inform consumers.
42:02 Parenting
42:06 Parents are responsible for raising their children to be empathetic, courageous and moral.
42:12 All DROs require medical scans of children from conception onwards to ensure healthy brain development.
42:21 All parents of children who show signs of neglect and/or abuse will be instructed in better parenting techniques.
42:28 If the developmental problems persist, children are removed from parents and placed in the homes of people with a successful track record of raising children well.
42:38 The costs to be born by the original parents.
42:42 Contracts
42:46 Generally, if a contract is violated, DROs will perform an investigation and provide restitution to the wronged party.
42:54 The DRO will then retrieve the restitution from the party in the wrong.
42:59 Timeliness
43:02 DROs that take longer than a month to provide judgment will pay the salary equivalent for all parties involved until the judgment is achieved.
43:13 The pamphlet continues in its earnest undergraduate idiotic tone, as if these words on paper can magically reshape a society full of feral self-interest.
43:23 I idly turn to the back, which has a detailed table.
43:30 Current Crime Statistics
43:35 It's all quite mad, and I snort again, but more self-consciously this time.
43:43 According to this information, this fantasy, there were only 347 murders in the previous year across a population of over 700 million.
43:57 312 of those resulted from brain damage, 30 of them resulted from immigrants, which left only 5 actual murderers that had been raised in this society?
44:10 The numbers were even lower for rape, slightly higher for theft and assault, but crime was almost non-existent?
44:20 My brain races to create explanations because I am an expert at sniffing out corruption.
44:26 Of course these DROs have an incentive to understate crime because they don't have to charge as much,
44:32 and it costs them to investigate crime and run around trying to get restitution from criminals, so of course they guessed low.
44:40 My mind strives to come up with other explanations, and then that strange voice emerges again.
44:46 Any DRO that under-reported crime would lose customers.
44:51 I suck in hard on the left side of my mouth, causing a twinge in my gums.
44:56 I am genuinely shocked at myself, at my reaction.
45:03 I am disgusted at my lack of cynicism.
45:08 I rode at the very helm of the largest and most powerful government the world has ever seen.
45:15 I had trillions of dollars at my fingertips. I ruled a military that could destroy the planet endless times over.
45:21 I could point at a map and vaporize its color.
45:24 I was the most powerful man in the world, in the universe, as far as we knew.
45:29 I was a superhero. I strode oceans at a step. Everyone deferred to me, even my haters.
45:38 I was the center. I was the black hole, the gravity well, the puller of influence and pusher of gifts.
45:45 And now these nerds claim to have solved the problem of crime.
45:53 And I'm not inhuman. I wanted crime to go down in my way.
45:58 I knew that a frightened population was easier to control, but I didn't want little kids shot in their cribs in turf wars.
46:04 I have a heart. I wanted power because power is glorious.
46:10 But I also wanted to do good, to go to my grave with a better world behind me.
46:15 Not to just be dug up and spat at because I'm a giant freaking idiot.
46:21 And I had my advisors.
46:25 This endless procession of earnest, closely shaved men and laser-lipsticked women
46:31 with their sly decks and business cards you felt you had to unfold for all the letters behind their names.
46:36 And not one of these goddamned empty suits and rustling pantyhose creatures ever said,
46:42 "Oh, Mr. President, it's simple. We just have to turn parents into... into..."
46:48 "The opposite of you," said the voice.
46:53 I feel a shock. And a faint, unpleasant sensation that I guess might be fear.
47:02 And then mad rage swells my biceps.
47:06 "Oh, this is a great time for you to make your voice heard! How many centuries too late!
47:11 You don't get any points! I will not submit! You have no credibility because you were silent then!
47:18 And now want me to bow down before your wisdom after the cure has been found?!
47:23 I cannot sit in bed like a child.
47:25 "Don't insult children! Shut up!" I threw the pamphlet across the room.
47:30 I had been in the way.
47:33 "These numbers can't be real! This is an asylum trying to make me mad.
47:37 The devil makes up numbers for you to serve. It can't possibly have been that simple.
47:42 Everything starts with the family."
47:47 And then I remember my son. My oldest son.
47:53 And how I had to threaten him to never tell his mother about the petting zoo.
47:58 And how he withdrew from me even further.
48:04 And my aggression did nothing to have him...
48:08 "Serve me or want to be with me. You can't have both. Shut up!"
48:15 And then the first time that I really belted him.
48:19 Not with a belt, but I struggled to keep my hand open, I'll be honest.
48:24 The little bastard tried to run away.
48:28 That night, lost in the murky depths of my brain.
48:37 He had been roundly yelled at by his mother for sneaking cookies.
48:41 She was terrified that he might end up fat. How that would look.
48:45 I understand we were all obsessively photographed and you couldn't hide anything on social media anymore.
48:50 But she didn't hit him, I'm pretty sure of that.
48:53 And then the little weasel tried to make a run for it.
48:57 I used to be nervous of night noises before my security detail.
49:03 Since they ringed me with guns and earpieces, I slept soundly.
49:07 So I didn't hear him as he went into the kitchen with a pillowcase and stole, stole,
49:14 half a bag of cookies and then stealthily made his way to the door.
49:19 It was an annoying part of middle age.
49:23 You don't wake up having to pee, but since you wake up anyway, you end up peeing, just in case.
49:29 I did wake up and went to the washroom, shielding my eyes from the automatic lights under the counter.
49:37 And after I flushed, I saw his bedroom door ajar.
49:42 I had a sudden stab of sentimentality and went to close it,
49:50 hoping to find some shred of affection at the sight of his tousled head passed out on his pillow.
49:55 A parent who can't feel sweetness at the sight of a sleeping toddler has something very wrong with him.
50:03 But his pillow was on the floor and it had no pillowcase on it,
50:08 which I have no idea why I noticed. That's not the sort of thing I would...
50:11 And I heard a soft click from downstairs from the...
50:17 I don't know where exactly the sounds bounce around like a canyon.
50:21 And I had a sudden stab of panic.
50:23 I know I said I never felt fear, but this was different.
50:27 It was panic at the idea of exposure.
50:30 You can think of it as an excess sense of caution rather than something pathetic like fear.
50:34 "He's trying to get away," I thought grimly.
50:38 "Why would he stay?"
50:40 "Shut up with being too late!"
50:42 My heart was in my throat and I bounded down the stairs,
50:46 remembering that Jake always knew when I entered the room, no matter how quietly I moved.
50:50 I raced from room to room looking for him,
50:53 until I saw his little body outlined like a dark smudge against the tall white of a side door.
51:00 There were a number of locks and latches.
51:03 I remembered him at the petting zoo, struggling with the gate.
51:06 And I could see in a flash that he was almost done, that he was about to escape the...
51:10 I had an image that we were not in a house, but a spaceship in orbit,
51:14 and he was about to break out through an airlock where he would freeze and burst in the airless waste of space.
51:19 And I did feel an ache then, deep in my heart,
51:27 like when I started playing tennis again after two decades and had to stop.
51:31 This little smudge, this tiny being,
51:36 taking his chances in the wider world rather than...
51:39 rather than...
51:41 "Stay with, he is escaping you."
51:44 "I will cut your voice out!" I screamed mentally.
51:47 And I thought of the number of times I had held him aloft for the cameras,
51:53 like a lion cub held up by a monkey,
51:56 and the endless starburst of flashing bulbs,
51:58 and all the women cooing, "How cute he was!"
52:01 and all the men exclaiming how big and strong he was going to grow up to be,
52:05 and how unhappy he looked in his little tuxedo,
52:09 and how little he looked like me.
52:12 And I imagined that he was going to break out of this house, out of our house,
52:18 into a constellation, a starfield of flashing cameras,
52:22 and headlines would be splashed across the phones and tablets
52:25 and lingering print of the world, "Presidential runaway!"
52:28 And that could not be managed at all.
52:31 I could coach him to shut up, to keep his counsel,
52:35 but I couldn't teach him to answer all the questions about why he wanted to run away,
52:39 where he thought he was going.
52:41 And I imagined that I could laugh about it,
52:46 saying he was unhappy he couldn't eat more cookies,
52:48 so I packed him a bag to teach him a lesson.
52:50 But sooner or later, his morose face, his gravitational unhappiness,
52:57 his somber eyes and still cheeks,
53:00 this would reveal what could not be stated,
53:04 what could not be allowed to exist,
53:07 any imperfection in the heart of the first family.
53:11 His mother would beg. I would not.
53:19 True to form, he heard me coming and turned around, his eyes wide.
53:26 I felt on my feet the soft sandy crunch of a trail of cookie dust
53:32 and saw his cheeks distended with selfish sugar.
53:35 And I felt an anger that even for me was unprecedented.
53:41 I said nothing.
53:44 I pushed the door to make sure it was closed
53:48 and imagined the guards on the other side of my security detail.
53:52 And I knew that I could not pound him there,
53:55 but I grabbed him with strenuous gentleness and pulled him up the stairs,
54:00 feeling his legs tremble as they bounced on the soft steps.
54:03 "Say nothing!" I hissed.
54:06 My mind scrambled to find a way to keep his injuries hidden
54:10 and realize that I had to lift him by his shoulders
54:14 and pound his head against the door frame,
54:16 not hard enough to break the skin, but hard enough to daze and terrify him.
54:21 I was the most successful man in the entire world
54:24 and I would be goddamned if he would resist my will.
54:27 Everything, every breadcrumb I put on the ground to lead him to a better place,
54:31 he damn well owed me obedience,
54:33 or even overt disobedience, rebellion, something!
54:39 That night, pounding his head against the door frame
54:43 was the most strenuous self-control I ever had to master.
54:48 I honestly wanted to grind him into a pulp.
54:53 I had stepped or been pushed into the Old Testament
54:58 where patriarchs smashed the hesitant with stone tablets and flying beards.
55:04 And I wanted that old world where puppies could be drowned
55:09 and children corrected without a silly mob of bored and hypersentimental fieldbots
55:13 streaming out their pathological sympathy for any underdog they cared to invent.
55:18 I wanted to hold up his broken pieces as an example to me,
55:27 to my other children, to my wife, of course,
55:30 and to the world, that if you don't have the power to do this,
55:36 what's the point of having power at all?
55:40 Jake went limp in my hands and seemed to become even heavier.
55:48 I had to bite my cheeks, break blood in order to slow and stop my pounding arms.
55:59 I pulled him close to me, still feeling rage and hatred,
56:07 and caressed the back of his head.
56:10 I suppose he felt it was affectionate in his days,
56:13 but I was just checking for blood for broken skin and bubbling brains.
56:19 He did not cry. I'll give him that.
56:26 And the night of secrets that bind father and son together,
56:32 parent and child, wound around us like the embrace of a witch.
56:38 He now knew that he could drive me to desperation.
56:45 And I knew...
56:47 What did I know?
56:52 I knew he hated me.
56:57 I licked the inside of my broken and bloody cheeks,
57:02 and also circled certain knowledge of my son's hatred for me in my mind.
57:08 God, God.
57:12 I knew I had one son who was blind enough to love me.
57:19 Having one who was awake enough to hate me was no great problem.
57:25 In fact, haters defined my political career direly.
57:29 Everyone who votes for you is matched by someone who hates you.
57:33 The whole point is to set them against each other.
57:37 I ended up with two children who liked me,
57:44 and one child who knew me, knew me completely,
57:50 and hated my guts.
57:53 But he never tried to run away again.
57:59 He was never indifferent again.
58:03 He grew to hate.
58:10 And as the object of his hatred, I had value to him forever.
58:19 [BLANK_AUDIO]