Stefan Molyneux
  • 20 hours ago
In this episode, I explore pressing themes such as the decline of cultural beauty and its implications for societal vulnerability, drawing parallels to historical demoralization tactics. I discuss the conflict between truth-seeking and social acceptance, share insights on the emotional impact of narcissistic parenting, and address societal apathy towards child abuse. Additionally, I analyze workplace dynamics regarding job security in unions versus individual scenarios. Ultimately, I encourage listeners to reevaluate their expectations of happiness by recognizing modern advantages relative to historical challenges.

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Transcript
00:00Good morning everybody, Stephen Hollenieu from Free Domain, hope you're doing well.
00:04So, questions from over the holidays, sorry it took me a little time to get to
00:08them. I did the single Mom won and then somebody writes, how did we become such
00:14a vulgar society? I listen to classical and 50s music, the music used to be so
00:18beautiful and the lyrics focused on love, marriage and children. Virtually no
00:22references to sexuality or money were made, unless the message was a wanting to
00:26avoid valuing these things. I can't listen to modern music without revulsion
00:30now, I've even noticed how bad much of the rock and roll I used to like is. This
00:34is quite a black pill experience and I'm not sure how to interpret it. Well, none
00:38of this is by, none of this is by accident. The coarsening and vulgarization
00:44of a culture is there to weaken it. Men, you know, we work for beauty, we defend
00:55beauty and love and a culture that is beautiful and full of love of beauty and
01:04of virtue is impossible to take over, because men in general will fight like
01:11crazy to protect it. But if the culture is ugly and fetid and gross and bestial
01:18then people will not fight in particular to protect it. So, you know,
01:26there's an old sort of trick of warfare which is not to fight the enemy but to
01:31poison his water supply. Or as the old saying goes, an army marches on its belly
01:37and if you can cut off the food supply to an army you don't need to fight the
01:42army, you can just let the army starve. And of course this is what Russians did
01:46when they get invaded and they do the scorched earth policy and so on. So they
01:51simply let winter take care of the troops. The best way to win a war is not
01:58to fight the enemy and this is what demoralization is all about. The scandals
02:07in the UK, the Rotherham and so on, have a lot to do with simply demoralizing
02:12people and having them not want to fight for an existing regime. And then
02:19you can see this happening a lot of ex-soldiers, like a lot of ex-military
02:22like, well I wouldn't fight for what America has become, you know, that kind of
02:26stuff. So you want to make it as vulgar as possible so that it can be, that
02:32the beauty and the virtue and the honor can all be lost and then the culture and
02:39therefore the country can be. It's not exactly taken over but the existing
02:44power structures can be fairly easily displaced. All right, somebody says, I
02:48truly wish that messaging in the culture war and political arenas could be
02:52steered away from such blatant religious tones towards more specific values-based
02:56specific values-based language and ideals. How do we fix this? Messaging in
03:01the culture war and political arenas could be steered away from such blatant
03:04religious tones. Well, you're asking people to become philosophical and of
03:10course to become philosophical is to pursue the truth in a tribal animal.
03:17Human beings are social animals. So it is a sort of core paradox of society
03:24as it stands, of humanity as it stands. The core paradox is this. The truth is a
03:32social pursuit. Pursuing the truth is social. We do it through conversation. We
03:40do it through reading. We do it through language and conversation, reading and
03:46language, negotiation, debate. These are all social constructs. They don't exist
03:53in nature in that way, in the way that trees and rocks do. So the pursuit of
03:59truth is a social endeavor and it is because of our social nature that we are
04:05able to have language and philosophy and the pursuit of truth, debate and so on. So
04:12it is because of our social nature that we have these things but our social
04:15nature doesn't want to be ostracized. You see the paradox? It is only because we
04:21are social that we get to pursue truth at all. But the pursuit of truth
04:28generally harms our social bonds. So our social life, and I don't just mean of
04:35course going out, but all of the collective language books, endeavors in
04:40history and thought that we get because we're social animals. We only have
04:43language, right, in the way that we do. Certainly conceptual language, written
04:47language, because we're social animals. We want to tell our stories. We want to
04:50remember stories. So society is required to serve us up the pursuit of truth but
04:58our society is often the last casualty in our pursuit of truth. Our social bonds
05:05provide us the tools which cut our social bonds. So it is because of society
05:12that I am able to pursue truth because of social constructs such as language
05:20and debate and so on. It is because of society that I'm able to pursue truth
05:26but the pursuit of truth destroyed my personal society as it stood when I was
05:31younger. So you're asking people to become philosophical, which is only
05:35possible because of social bonds, but social bonds are generally the last
05:40casualty of being philosophical. I don't have an answer to this other than that I
05:47prefer the truth to habit. I prefer the truth to social bonds. I prefer facts,
05:52reality, and virtue to accidental social bonds I happen to be born into. I
06:00prefer infinitely really now that which I have chosen rather than what the
06:06fates chose for me. I do not want to play the hand I was dealt. I do not want to
06:13play the game at all. Play the hands that you were dealt implies that there's
06:18a card game. I know it's an analogy but it implies that there's a card game that
06:23you kind of have to play according to somebody else's rules. Well I don't want
06:27to do that. I don't want to. I will not do it. So if it is a religious revelation
06:36that you were in pursuit of, well there are millions and millions and millions
06:41of people who have that same religiosity and therefore the pursuit of that truth
06:46does not harm but in fact reinforces your social bonds. The pursuit of truth
06:51philosophically though harms social bonds. Remember moral language was
06:57invented to control. Trying to use it to actually promote virtue is trying to
07:02wrestle the biggest weapon away from the most dangerous enemy. It is not an easy
07:05thing. All right. Could you talk a little bit about how having a
07:11narcissistic mother might result in a child, in this case a boy,
07:15experiencing feelings of inferiority when young and superiority when older.
07:19Did you ever experience these feelings having been raised by your mother? Well
07:24Robert, that is a very very big situation. That is a very very big
07:30situation. So if you have a narcissistic mother, if you have a cruel and a cold
07:40and selfish and narcissists are often sentimental and you can always tell the
07:46narcissist by the slight smirk, but if you have a narcissistic parent and this
07:54really could be expanded to all abusive parents but the more subtle the better
07:59right? In terms of this particular path. So if you have a narcissistic mother
08:04then she belittles you because you only exist to serve her needs. You only exist
08:11to serve her needs. I thought my mother took great pleasure in my writing but
08:17she took great pleasure in telling people I was writing. My mother took
08:23great pleasure in the fact that I was taking adult computer science courses
08:28when I was about 12. But she didn't ever care to figure out what I was learning. I
08:36was actually learning how to read and write blocks on a five and a quarter
08:39inch floppy. She, and I actually remember got in trouble because I got bored in
08:44one of the classes. These were just night courses, just side stuff. But I
08:49remember the teacher got mad at me because the teacher thought I was
08:53playing a game on the computer but I was actually programming a game on the
08:57computer and testing it. I just got bored with it. So my mother did not take
09:03interest in me. She took interest in feeling good or being able to brag about
09:11what I was doing. This is quite a common phenomenon of course among selfish
09:16parents that the child exists for the vanity of the parents. You know usually
09:22the mother in this case. So the feelings of inferiority are because to a selfish
09:30mother you do not exist as an independent entity. You are an object
09:36designed to provide pleasure. The closest analogy would be a television. So you
09:43have a television and you've never asked the television or think about what the
09:47television might like to watch. The television exists to serve your
09:51preferences and pleasures. If you want to play a video game you turn on the
09:55television and you play the game. If you want to watch a show you maybe you want
09:59to browse the internet and some people do apparently on their TVs. But the TV
10:04only exists to serve your pleasures and your preferences and you don't ever
10:08think about what the TV might or might not want to do because it is an object
10:11that serves your pleasures and your preferences. In the same way that you
10:18know and most people have a drawer full of old cell phones right? So you had a
10:23cell phone and you unwrapped it and you got it and you were excited to get it
10:26and it turned out over time you know it slowed down or the battery didn't work
10:32as well or there was new features or speed or whatever that you wanted and so
10:38you took your old cell phone and you tossed it in a drawer. You didn't sit
10:43there and think oh boy that the cell phone has its own preferences and
10:48pleasures and doesn't want to get tossed into a drawer and loves listening to me
10:52chat and wants to play me videos and see me smile with a video game or a
10:56phone game or something like that. No you just know this this thing is not of
10:59utility to me anymore and so I'm gonna toss it in a drawer. And that actually
11:05just struck me while I was talking here that I bet you the Toy Story narrative
11:12right? There's a movie Toy Story from that was it from the 90s I think where
11:16the toys are actually alive and don't want to get tossed in the corner but
11:21have to play dead when the boy Andy comes to play right? So they have this
11:27whole life but then they have to play dead when Andy comes by and there's a
11:32massive plot hole in the Buzz Lightyear doesn't know that he's a toy but still
11:36plays dead when Andy comes by. It's a massive plot hole that's never explained
11:39but you know whatever right? So I bet you that was conceived of or written by
11:45someone with a narcissistic mother because the toys only being alive when
11:53the owner is not around and then playing dead when the owner is around and being
11:59used for the owners pleasure that is the child of a narcissistic mother or even
12:07darker the child of a pedophile or some sort of other catastrophic abuser. You're
12:14only alive when that person's not around and you have to play dead when that
12:17person is around that's the narcissistic mother's child. So the reason why you end
12:27up feeling like you're not worth much when you're young is because you're not
12:34worth much when you're young. If you can imagine that your television or your
12:39phone or your computer did have consciousness it would feel very
12:43unimportant to you because you would simply sit down and use that computer
12:47for your own pleasure and purposes and never think about what the computer
12:52wanted. The computer would feel worthless and the computer's preferences are
12:57worthless to you because you don't ever think of the computer's preferences it
13:01is simply an object like a livestock right? Livestock is another kind of
13:06analogy right? So a farmer who has a cows cares about his cows only in so far as
13:14caring about the cows serves his economic needs because the cows are
13:20livestock. If people want free-range grass-fed cows you can sell it for more
13:25than he'll do that but not because he wants to make the cows happy but because
13:29there's a market for it. And of course you know there are some people who do
13:32care about their cows and so on but they tend not to be the larger more efficient
13:36and productive economic concerns. So you are treated as an object when you are
13:42young and you are not cared about and your value is only in so far as you
13:48serve the preferences of the narcissistic mother. So that's your
13:52insecurity when you get when you're young. Now the great and dark secret of
13:59victims of child abuse is not just the children of narcissistic mothers but the
14:03great and dark secret is that people who are abused as children know very very
14:10deeply that society is bullshit. That society is bullshit because society
14:20cares or claims to care so much about the children and the future and there's
14:25all this sentimentality and hug your children and so on right and the
14:30teachers claim to care about the children and you see their government
14:34education exists because the children are so precious and such a wonderful
14:38resource and and they need to be trained up into the next generation and they
14:42have to be and then children need health care and and and love and and all of
14:48these wonderful things so society claims to be dedicated to the well-being
14:54and protection of children. That's what society claims and all sorts of tyrannies
15:02are justified or quote justified on the grounds of protect the children right
15:08but everybody who's been abused by parents or other authority figures in
15:15society knows that that's all a complete and total lie. That society
15:23doesn't really care. I mean how many people of the course of my childhood had
15:28reason to believe that something bad was happening in my house. Something very bad
15:35was happening in my house. How many priests when I was younger went to
15:40church, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, teachers. I mean from the age of
15:5115 onwards all of my friends parents knew that I was paying my own bills and
15:57not only did all of my friends parents know that but one of my friends came to
16:03live with me. I mean a real lost boys island of premature maturity. Everybody
16:10knew and no one came by and said hey where is your mother? Why are you paying
16:15the bills? Why is my son come to live with you? Why why is this happening?
16:21What's going on? Are you okay? Do you have enough money? Do you have access to
16:25dental? Like nobody cared. Nobody cared. They're off doing their own thing and
16:30and all of that right. So if people and this was universal everywhere I went no
16:37matter what. Everywhere I went no matter what. My father of course I mean I spent
16:46months with him at a time. Well not with him but with him in the vicinity I
16:50suppose you could say. Off and on as a kid every you know he'd be in a week or
16:56two in Ireland and I'd be out there as well and then I spent some time with him
17:00at the age of six and at the age of 16 in Africa and not not once did he ever
17:07asked me what it was like growing up with my mother. I mean he knew she was
17:10dangerous and violent and criminal. Never asked. His second wife never asked. When
17:18my brother was airlifted back to England for a couple of years when my mother was
17:23going mad and being institutionalized I have relatives they had grown up with me.
17:27I visited them a lot as a kid. They didn't live too far one train ride away.
17:32I visited them a lot as a kid. Not one phone call. Not one letter. Now you could
17:40say well but maybe maybe they sent letters but my mother destroyed them. No
17:44no I mean for significant portions of that time my mother barely got out of
17:47bed. Right the mother in almost doesn't come out of nowhere my friends. Nobody
17:53phoned and of course even if you did send letters and didn't get a reply then
17:57you'd phone. It was certainly possible to phone. It wasn't that expensive. You know
18:01five minutes right to see how are you doing? How is your mother doing? Does
18:05like nobody cared. Nobody cared. I mean I would hang around friends places around
18:12dinnertime hoping to get a bite to eat. Nobody cared. Not one friend. Not one
18:18friend's parents. Not one priest. Not one teacher. Not one of my relatives. Extended
18:24you know at least 10 to 20 people in my family knew about all of this sort of
18:30stuff. Not one person. Not one person and you could say ah well you know but you
18:35were a kid and even when I met them when I was older. Nobody asked. Nobody
18:38cared. Nobody's ever inquired. I've been very public about the child abuse I
18:43suffered. Not one relative over the last 20 years since I went public. So boring
18:48right? So not one relative has not one relative has ever contacted me to say
18:54kind of sorry we let you down or how you doing now. You know anything like that
18:58right? Nothing. So when you are a child and you suffer from child abuse and I'm
19:05not an isolated case. You understand? I'm not an isolated case and so when I got
19:11older I said well if I'm ever in a position to help people with regards to
19:15their child abuse I will never hesitate nor will I reject anyone who wants and
19:21needs help and if all I can offer them as a sympathetic witness that is what I
19:25will do. So the matrix in a sense is self-congratulatory
19:35vainglorious sentimental bullshit about how moral society is and how much it
19:40cares about things and you could say it gives you a certain kind of
19:45arrogance but what it does do is I mean I'm going to give you an example right?
19:51Who's been in the show before right? I'll give you an example. So it's not
19:56funny but it's a little funny. So when you've gone through this kind of
20:02experience on three different continents nobody giving a shit about flagrant
20:06child abuse abandonment and neglect and violence happening within its own
20:10community right? Paper-thin walls all through my childhood nobody called the
20:14cops when I was being assaulted nobody called Child Protective Services and
20:18this is true in Canada and in the UK nobody nobody lifted a finger. One
20:25anonymous phone call could have saved me it really could have and it would have
20:32stopped the beatings for sure right? My mother would be frightened of authority
20:35right? So I don't view my mother as an abuser I view society as abusers because
20:41my mother only abused because she knew she could get away with it. She knew that
20:45nobody would lift a goddamn finger and everybody would just turn up
20:48the TV when they heard a child being assaulted in the building right? So it's
20:52not my mother who abused me it's society. It's society. So again this is the part
21:00it's darkly funny so forgive me if it seems a bitter bitterly humorous but the
21:06reality is this. When you've gone through something like that and you know I'm
21:13pushing 60 years of age I have been public about the violent and deranged
21:21abuse I suffered the hands of my mother the fists of my mother for you know I
21:25guess I put a stop to it when I was I don't know maybe 14 or 15 maybe 13 I
21:32can't remember exactly when but I put it I put a stop to it when I got big enough
21:36so I went through all of that for you know close to a decade and a half no
21:41protection from anyone nobody cared not no sympathy no acknowledgement no
21:45protection nothing right and then nothing from family and friends over the
21:52years over the decades I've been public in talking about the abuse I suffered as
21:58a child for 20 years and generally all society does is abuse me further like
22:04I've never received a shred of sympathy in fact people have simply in the public
22:08have in general just piled on the abuse right so that's where society is right
22:14that's where society is it's a cesspool as a whole right it's a cesspool of
22:20imagined virtues and very real and enacted betrayals of all that is good
22:25and noble in reality so what that gives you is this amazing perspective it's
22:33truly dizzying it's a little terrifying deeply empowering which is when to take
22:40an example right but it's so absurd when you understand this perspective and it's
22:47not even a perspective this just straight-up facts right so when society
22:52says well you know we really care about what the temperature is gonna be in a
22:58hundred years it's beyond absurd it's like somebody smearing shit on the wall
23:07of their asylum box and claiming to be Michelangelo when society says well you
23:16see we have to lock you in your house because we just we care about the
23:20children getting COVID it's like well no you don't care about that like whatever
23:27you care about it's not that whatever you care about it's not whether the
23:31temperature is half a degree higher on average in a hundred years like it's not
23:39that for sure I mean everybody says well we we care about education you see we
23:45get a children have to be educated and and and children need socialization you
23:49can't you can't just homeschooled and relax socialization well or or or
23:53alternatively we could lock them in their houses often with terrifying
24:00abusers where they get no education really and no socialization and they get
24:04depressed and anxious and lose IQ points and all of that for you know a
24:09year or two years because of a disease with a fairly tiny mortality rate and a
24:16virtually non-existent mortality rate among kids right so the reason that
24:22there seems to be a certain arrogance is you know that I've never seen the
24:26movie anchorman but you know this I don't believe you I don't believe you
24:30and then gets you a cynical look while he lights a cigarette right the Ron
24:33Burgundy is the name of the character played by Will Ferrell and so you just
24:38don't believe anything that society says you see you see all these editorials
24:43about how Oh women's rights and and the the women of Afghanistan and the the
24:49temperature in a hundred years and I mean it's all absolute nonsense people
24:57don't care about others we live in a profoundly self-obsessed and selfish
25:03society which doesn't even have the courage to admit that it doesn't care
25:09about these things because if you don't actually care about the abuse of
25:13children in your environment that you could do something about that's
25:15something being one anonymous phone call and look I'm not saying that the
25:19status solutions to child abuse are ideal far from it but in the minds of
25:23most people the status dare to protect children and it's one anonymous phone
25:26call can get a wellness check on a kid right so it is an absolute constant that
25:34people do not care at all about abused children in their immediate environment
25:40they do not care they do not lift a finger they do not ask a question they
25:45do not get involved they go about their days they watch this stupid fucking
25:49sports ball they drink their beers they play with their belly lint and they
25:54ignore the screams of children being devoured by psychological monsters in
25:57their immediate vicinity and then these intergalactic assholes have the
26:04temerity to claim that they care about refugees at the temperature in a hundred
26:10years and what's going on in Afghanistan and oh my gosh he's terrible you don't
26:15you don't because that to me is the litmus test do you care about and have
26:21you done something about the victims of abuse in your environment so well but
26:26there's blowback from the the parents well no not with an anonymous phone call
26:30there isn't or any shred of sympathy but even if that's true
26:34oh I fear the blowback from the parents okay let's say that that's true then
26:38when the children become adults why not give them sympathy and apologize for not
26:42intervening before oh because then you'd have to face your own conscience
26:46and people would rather massage their own conscience into submission with the
26:51imaginary joy's use of moral heroism by caring about the temperature in a hundred
26:54years rather than doing something good in the here and now and helping the
26:59victims of child abuse even if you chicken out and wait till they're adults
27:04right so if you say well how do you go from the
27:09insecurity to the arrogance it's just that I personally get as much moral
27:16content from people's ethical posturing in the world I get as much moral content
27:24from that as I do from a chihuahua yapping at a squirrel that's all I hear
27:30all I hear because I know the truth and they know the truth that they don't care
27:37about the victims of child abuse in their own family in their immediate
27:41environment so nobody with half a brain cell gives a flying fuck at a rolling
27:46donut what they care about what they say they care about in abstract terms if you
27:51don't care about child abuse in your vicinity in fact not only do you not
27:58care about it but if somebody brings it up you will hate them for it then don't
28:03tell me that you care about what's going on in Ukraine or Afghanistan or
28:07Syria or anything like that like I remember when I was a kid was it Sally
28:13Struther is anyway when I was a kid there were these endless specials on on
28:18TV about the starving kids in Africa right and everybody was turning
28:26themselves inside out because of the hungry kids in Africa now of course this
28:30was usually the kids were hungry in Africa because of the result of
28:33socialist policies that were currently being implemented in the West but that's
28:37neither here nor there so people was just like turning themselves inside out
28:40and and crying and beating their chests about the hungry kids in Africa while I
28:44was being beaten right in their environment do you see oh oh those
28:50hungry kids on the other side of the world is really terrible you know there's
28:53a kid being tortured tormented bullied and beaten right here no no but but the
28:59children overseas right so sending money to kids in Africa I'm not saying
29:05that's a bad thing or anything like that but that's a whole lot easier than
29:09actually doing something moral in the here and now and people just want that
29:12greasy evil nasty virtue signaling rather than doing some actual good in
29:19their own country in the here and now they want all of the virtue that comes
29:23with zero risk whatsoever and they don't want any of the actual virtue that comes
29:29from opposing the interests of evil people in their actual vicinity and
29:35environment and others of course always told do the right thing no matter what
29:38tell the truth though the skies fall tell the truth and shame the devil don't
29:42you dare go along with the crowd you have your own conscience your own
29:44integrity and so on right there are infinitely more people who care about
29:50stray cats than there are who will do anything about the victims of child
29:55abuse so that's just fact and it's a grotesque pantomime of imaginary virtue
30:03society is involved and people are just led around by the noses and told what to
30:09be virtuous quote virtuous about and they never think for themselves and they
30:14don't actually work out their own first principles so is it arrogance it's just
30:21like well I just I don't believe I don't believe that society cares about
30:24the things that claims to care about because as a victim of child abuse I
30:29know that society for now almost 60 years has not cared about me being
30:36abused and in fact has been happy to pile on the abuse that I suffered as a
30:43kid as an adult right so yeah it's it's it's a bunch of yapping chihuahuas
30:49looking for meat it is not any kind of reasoned moral discourse does that make
30:54me arrogant I don't think so it just makes me skeptical just makes me
31:00skeptical has the atheist community done anything the science is very clear on
31:05the effects of child abuse I've detailed it in in endless presentations and so
31:11follow the science means that we should stop really work hard to stop the child
31:16abuse and the child abusers continue to do what they do because they know that
31:20nobody's gonna say a goddamn thing but is instead going to expend all of their
31:24imaginary moral energies on giving billions of dollars to governments to
31:28change the temperature in a hundred years oh my god it is such a it is in
31:35the future this will not be looked upon as a society but an asylum it's an
31:41asylum and it's full of very dangerous volatile people that if you take away
31:46their drug of self-righteousness they will fuck you up and it's one of these
31:51sad but true situations so do you go from insecurity to arrogance no you
31:57realize that society doesn't care about anything really other than feeling good
32:01so you don't believe any of its small commands so I hope that that helps all
32:05right immigration debates too boring let's see here so sorry a lot of
32:13questions but I have a bunch of stuff to do before my call and I'll do one
32:17more I'll do one more stuff I've worked in the private sector my whole life I've
32:21never had a union the one thing that makes me jealous about them is that they
32:24cannot be arbitrarily let go I've had it happen to me once where I was let go
32:29based on a personality conflict between me and the boss and not due to my work
32:34performance I sometimes worry the same thing may happen again in my current
32:37position despite me trying to keep my head down any thoughts what do you mean
32:42any what do you mean any thoughts I'm not sure what you're I'm not sure what
32:46you're asking me here my friend are you saying that the Union let's say a
32:51government union or a private sector union you can't be let go arbitrarily
32:55and you think that solves the problem of having jerks at work that you can't fire
33:00anyone and therefore the there aren't any jerks at work tell me you're kidding
33:07me like tell me you're wise and smart enough in philosophy to know that making
33:13it virtually impossible to fire anyone does not eliminate jerks in the
33:17workplace in fact it means that there are far more of them because then the
33:21jerk the jerkiness is not just your boss but it extends to all of your
33:25co-workers who tend to get kind of pompous and arrogant and inefficient and
33:29lazy and entitled and aggressive because they can't get fired right people can't
33:34handle power nobody can handle power nobody can handle power and so if you
33:41take away the right to fire people then instead of having a possible asshole
33:46boss you end up with generally asshole co-workers so I do you smarter than this
33:52and do better just do better do better
33:56alright let's see here
34:05Dear Steph, The following question is about providing you feedback to a recent
34:08question you answered on your most recent Q&A's Locals podcast and I will
34:12provide that feedback via asking a new question. Does a nuanced question merit a
34:16nuanced answer? I don't know what you mean by nuanced
34:20so I'm hopefully I haven't read this question yet but hopefully you're going
34:24to define to me what you mean by nuanced. For example I previously asked why you
34:29were still living in Canada given the fact that you are pro free speech
34:32libertarian and Canada of course does not have free speech unlike the United
34:35States. Despite my nuanced question you did not read out my question. You did
34:41briefly and I believe inadequately answer my question and I thank you for
34:44taking the time to do so however the purpose of you answering questions is to
34:48educate all free-domain listeners on the philosophy of the question being
34:50asked. Okay so you're telling me now what my job is let's see here. The purpose of
34:57you answering questions is to educate all free-domain listeners on the
35:00philosophy of the question being asked. I'm not sure what that means. I think
35:05it's to answer questions right? So in America you believe that you have all of
35:11this free speech but if you look at the Twitter files and other things you can
35:15see that the government has done quite a lot to pressure companies into
35:19limiting free speech. So if you're just looking at the pieces of paper you'd say
35:24well Canada doesn't have a First Amendment and America does. If all you do
35:29is just look at the but I'm an empiricist I look at the facts right not
35:31the theory. I mean I've always been an empiricist so if you look at the
35:35companies that have deplatformed me how many of them are American and how many
35:40of them are Canadian? I'm just looking at the facts right so as an empiricist
35:44you should look at the facts. I don't think I need to explain that you should
35:47look at the facts not listen to theories. By not reading out the question don't
35:51you think you it is disingenuous. What? By not reading out the question don't you
35:57think you it is disingenuous. So my friend Hegel if you want me to answer a
36:04question in more detail I suppose maybe that's what you're asking for but
36:09lecturing me about what my responsibilities are and answering
36:12questions and not referencing the answer that I gave I'm not sure what to
36:17make of that and also not checking whether what you read what you wrote is
36:21comprehensible. Whilst I know the question being asked the rest of your
36:25audience doesn't so therefore your answer has very little philosophical
36:28value to listeners who don't even want know the question you are answering was
36:33okay this is just turning into word salad here right. Whilst it is perfectly
36:37okay to summarize a question if the question lacks depth or nuance I don't
36:40believe the questioner asked lack to depth and nuance. For example you did
36:43answer my question but you didn't answer the crux of my question. You said
36:48paraphrasing that the United States has free speech in theory but it does not
36:50practically have free speech because private companies such as YouTube and
36:53the old Twitter censored and de-platformed you. While the point is
36:57certainly a very valid and pertinent point ultimately it still stands that you
36:59Steph could be jailed in Canada for speech whilst in the US the government
37:02cannot jail anyone for speech. I don't think that is an insignificant
37:06distinction and you did not address that in your response. Okay well let's
37:12just see here when was the last time Canada jailed someone for I don't know
37:18that I don't even know exactly how to look this up so when was the last time
37:22someone in Canada was jailed for free speech? I mean there was a law I think it
37:28was reformed in 2013 under the last conservative government under Stephen
37:33Harper if I get this right so there was a bad law that people got persecuted for
37:37but that law is gone so it's been a while right? I don't think that is an
37:43insignificant the crux of my question is something that you are all too familiar
37:46with and that is principle Steph you are a libertarian yet you choose to remain in
37:49Canada despite the fact that the United States is arguably the most libertarian
37:52society due to the fact that free speech is guaranteed by the Constitution and
37:56yes Steph you are still subject to speech violations by private companies
38:00but ultimately the government cannot take away speech of individual citizens
38:03well that's just I mean I think that's just naive I think that's just naive. Steph
38:09in principle you should want to leave Canada and go to a country that is more
38:12aligned with your values now I don't want to strawman you and pretend that
38:15Canada is as bad as on free speech as North Korea China or England so I'm not
38:20saying it is necessarily hypocritical of you to not leave Canada I'm just curious
38:23what your justification for staying in Canada is maybe you tried to immigrate
38:27but you were denied maybe you couldn't find a job in the u.s. when you were
38:30younger so it was practically impossible and maybe you were simply short of time
38:34so you did not take time to answer my question in conclusion my feedback is if
38:37you decide to answer a question don't strawman the question and give an
38:41incomplete answer well I didn't strawman the question I talked about the
38:45empirical evidence and here's the thing like it's a matter of of trust right so
38:53just saying well there's theoretically more free speech in the u.s. than there
38:57is in Canada and therefore I should live in the I should move to the to the
39:03u.s. well you might want to go talk to lawyers and accountants and just see
39:10what's involved in changing countries I'm just you should you should look into
39:14that you should look into that and then you should have kids right and then you
39:19should look at the empirical facts of what has happened to me so you can look
39:25all of that stuff up I'm not going to give you a whole lesson on all of that
39:28because I'm not an accountant or a lawyer so you can just look this kind of
39:33stuff up and figure it out for yourself you're a smart person all right after
39:36reading about some of the more famous physicists and scientists from history
39:39they all tend to dip into the realm of philosophy from time to time people also
39:42tend to give them a lot of credence or respect for their philosophical opinions
39:46why do you think that is and would a scientist have anything worthwhile to
39:49say about the subject that would be of interest to you I mean scientists
39:53depends if they are not paid by the government I would certainly listen to
39:58them but this is scientists have lost
40:04credibility in two waves one to the perceptive and one to the less
40:08perceptive right so the first wave that scientists lost credibility about was a
40:13global warming right it's global warming global cooling global warming and then
40:17climate change and so believing that scientists can take all the variables
40:23into account of the entire solar system and human activity and and then predict
40:30what the temperature is going to be in a hundred years is beyond deranged I mean
40:34that's that's a complete fantasy and I you know I done environmental modeling
40:38as part of my career in as a software entrepreneur so I know a little bit
40:41about this and modeling is just modeling I've done business projections and you
40:45can right next next week a doctor with a flashlight shows you where sales
40:50projections come from I think that's a vivid line from an old Dilbert so a
40:54scientist lost waves that they lost waves in denialism of IQ right just
41:01massive IQ denialism they lost faith in that and then I think under COVID the
41:06trust the science stuff you science is the opposite of trust right all science
41:11is founded upon a skepticism of merely mortal authority so trust the science is
41:16the opposite of science and so and and you know what's happening now with the
41:22dominoes falling with vaccine skepticism starting with COVID and moving to other
41:26vaccines you know the fact that Africa was barely vaccinated and seems to have
41:30survived COVID fairly magnificently the fact that the Swedish lockdowns didn't
41:35seem to produce that much of an ill effect the winter of winter of severe
41:40disease and death predicted by the White House for the unvaccinated did not come
41:44to pass and if you talk to people about what they've experienced post COVID
41:51vaccination you can get some stories let's just put it put it that way so if
41:58somebody was really interested in science was doing their own science
42:01privately funded or in a sort of private industry and they were talking about the
42:04philosophy of science yeah I would be interested in that for sure but listening
42:09to a government scientist I mean come on doctors used to recommend cigarettes
42:13the idea that experts know what they're talking about when they're financially
42:17and morally compromised I mean do you think that your doctor is is giving you
42:22the right treatments or the treatments for which they are subsidized and paid
42:25the most right all right you know what let's finish it up let's finish it off
42:29hey Steph love the show thanks for all the hard work you put into it I listened
42:33to one of your shows recently where you talked about how women view criticism
42:36from themselves and others as a reason to self-doubt and shame themselves for
42:39failing and making mistakes instead of simply using the mistake as a learning
42:42experience and moving on any advice on how to avoid this self-doubt and shaming
42:47well I would say that happiness is in the comparisons happiness is in the
42:55comparisons right so there's an old saying about aging sucks but it beats
42:59the alternative right the alternative to aging is death right you say ah it's you
43:04get older and hey look you've now replaced your financial concerns with
43:09health concerns you're always going to be concerned about something so a guy I
43:15knew some years ago in another life was going through a hernia operation right
43:22apparently this is quite common happens to like 25% of men and 800,000 a year in
43:28the US it's one of these things as well as you don't really know about until you
43:30know about it right he's going through a hernia operation and he was an older
43:36gentleman and he was complaining about it and I said look I mean of course I
43:40understand I understand the complaints but I can tell you how to not complain
43:43about it if you'd like right and he's like okay sure right tell me he said
43:48skeptically and I said okay well the way that you don't complain about it is you
43:53are comparing having a hernia operation to being in perfect health and if you
44:00have as your standard perfect health then all deviations from perfect health
44:04will result in unhappiness however there are other more rational
44:11standards that you can compare things to so I said so if you look at your hernia
44:16operation and you compare it to living in a time where you could not get a
44:24hernia operation or if you got a hernia operation there was virtually no
44:28anesthetic right so there's there's two ways if I understand this correctly two
44:32ways to deal with the hernia one that's called the mesh technique where they
44:35basically put a part of a screen door in underneath the weakened abdominal wall
44:40that's letting the intestines bulge through and the other is called the
44:42shoulders where they take natural sutures and sew it all back together the
44:46mesh one is a quicker recovery but there could be more complications the foreign
44:50object can't go through scanners and the shoulders one is a longer recovery time
44:55but I've heard slightly better long-term outcomes do your own research now this
45:00is medical advice blah blah blah but this is just what the guy told me so I said
45:03look if you're going to compare every deviation from perfect health as a
45:07disaster because your standard is perfect health well there is no rational
45:10standard called perfect health because shit happens in the body even if you do
45:14everything right stuff can happen in the body right so what you want to do is you
45:19want to compare the people who had to live with hernias in the past or maybe
45:25people in the third world who just have to live with hernias which can be
45:28dangerous right the intestinal wall can protrude sorry the bowels can protrude
45:32get pinched off get necrotic it can be bad stuff right again none of this is
45:36medical advice talk to your doctor this is just what my amateur understanding is
45:40do your own research talk to your doctor so you can compare having a hernia to
45:45perfect health and you are unhappy or you can compare a hernia to 99.99999% of
45:52human history when you just had to kind of live with the hernia and have some
45:56sort of weird trust that try to kept it in place and you know it's you know bad
46:01right it gets worse over time they don't self-repair so you can say oh well you
46:05know but I have the health care access to health care where you can get it fixed
46:11under a local anesthetic it don't even put you all the way under usually and
46:14you know it takes a couple of weeks to recover but then you're fine right or I
46:18said alternatively if you have this weakness in your abdominal wall then
46:23what you can do is you can get it fixed now I think he was in his 50s or early
46:3060s or something like that so I said look it's happening now and isn't it
46:36better to have it happen now rather than 20 years from now when you're in your
46:4170s or your 80s right in other words isn't it better to have this happen now
46:48when you can recover fairly easily or at least a lot more easily than you would
46:53if it happened later on in your life so it's all fixed and sorted you're back on
46:59your feet and you're recovered quicker because you know from what I've talked
47:02about with older people recovery from significant surgery is a lot slower and
47:07more difficult when you're much older so it's really what you compare things to
47:13what do you compare things to I mean everybody who who compares their wealth
47:18to Elon Musk feels broke right everyone who compares their wealth to a homeless
47:25guy feels wealthy so happiness is in what you compare things to right this is
47:33my fundamental question compared to what right when I go to the dentist I
47:38always praise the dentist and thank the dentist and I said you know one of the
47:43great unsung joys in the world is modern dentistry modern dentistry is in general
47:50a truly beautiful thing and if you don't appreciate that go read the book Angela's
47:56ashes where the characters are regularly in agonizing tooth decay
48:03problems and spitting out teeth like used-up gum so just anesthetic
48:10anesthetic is a glorious glorious thing right so it is in what you compare
48:17things to is where happiness lies happiness is the net result of two
48:26variables or rather sorry happiness is the net result of one fact and one
48:31variable now the fact this guy had a hernia is that a drag certainly is but
48:37it's not usually life-threatening it's fairly simple to solve and with the mesh
48:42stuff you can leave the same day couple of weeks to recover and you're good as
48:48new so you have the facts of what is happening and then you have the variable
48:53called what you're comparing it to what are you comparing it to so if you say
49:00take all of the disadvantages of age and you compare them to all of the
49:05advantages of youth you will hate getting older am I as limber and as
49:11flexible as I was when I was 20 well of course not of course not I'm doing
49:17pretty well I can still do I can still you know walk 20 25,000 steps I can hike
49:22I can play a solid hour of pickleball I work out so but you know obviously I've
49:27slowed down right I mean I'm gonna be 59 this year right so getting out of a car
49:32is a little slower than it used to be however I also when I was 20 I didn't
49:38know who I was gonna marry I didn't know what I was gonna do with my life in
49:42any sort of fundamental way I didn't I was completely broke right so those are
49:47disadvantages now I know who I'm spending my life with and who I'm
49:52growing old with it's my lovely wife of 22 years plus and counting and I also
49:58know that I have absolutely broken and reversed the curse of abusive parenting
50:04in my life and I now know my daughter is 16 right so still some parenting to do
50:12but not much I know that I've broken that curse so and I also know what I'm
50:18gonna be doing with my life I've been doing it for the last 20 years and I
50:23will continue to do it hopefully for the next 30 or 40 years if I'm lucky so that
50:29is a plus and what I do is of course as I say to myself back in time right this
50:34is a good good thing to do right so if you say to yourself back in time hey
50:37this is where you are at 58 right this is where you are at 58 would you be
50:43happy so only happily married you got a great family life good friends and a
50:48meaningful way to spend your time and all of that would you say oh that's
50:54terrible no I would honestly if I were to throw a view back of my life now to
50:59when I was 20 my 20 year old self would be like damn son damn son you did all
51:07right you did all right so that's an important thing to remember as a whole
51:11as you cruise through life it's what you compare things to now if I were to
51:15compare only the advantages of being older with the disadvantages of being
51:19younger then I would look at youth negatively in myself but it's a balance
51:23right and you can compare yourself to just about anything in this world and
51:27what you compare yourself to will absolutely determine your happiness so I
51:33mean you can always compare your romantic partner to the most beautiful
51:38person in the world right it's like okay so then they just look less attractive
51:44right and then of course you handing them the card to do the same thing to
51:49you and I ain't no Brad Pitt so yeah just what you compare yourself to what
51:54you compare your circumstances to you know I had to have a tooth drilled out
51:58which gave me a little droop on my on the right of my my lip because it went
52:03through a bunch of nerves and I can say well that was a drag that they didn't
52:06fix that when I was a kid in England but or or I can say well thank goodness
52:10there's this surgery where I didn't feel any pain they put a bunch of bone
52:14fragments in to make the bone whole again and like just great stuff right so
52:20instead of comparing yourself to the very best or the very optimum which is
52:27a guarantee of and happiness into satisfaction compare yourself to at
52:32least the medium negatives that existed throughout almost all of human history
52:36or as a friend of my member remember we said in my teens can you imagine kissing
52:41a woman who'd never brushed your teeth now we have all of this stuff so it's a
52:45big plus right you get an infection you can take antibiotics generally get
52:48better that's a good thing so this is why it is a a blessed blessed life
52:57having this technology being about able to have these conversations it is a
53:00consummation devoutly to be wished all right free domain comm slash donate to
53:04help out the show love to love from up here big kisses to everyone big hugs
53:09everyone it is the year of frankness I will talk to you soon bye