PEACEFUL PARENTING AND UPB - Locals Answers - video Dailymotion

Stefan Molyneux

UpB question: I may be mistaken on the tenets, but if the basis of UPB seems to be offenses against someone's wishes/boundaries (rape being not UPB because it is not possible for it to be consensual, thus always guaranteed to be against someone's wishes/guaranteed to be breaking their boundaries...), then why can something only be immoral if it's part of a category that has to be against someone's wishes?  What if someone does something intentionally sadistic, such as knowing someone's trigger and pushing against it, but that thing is not physical but, let's say, sonic (making a certain noise known to be distressing)? Or lies about someone, to be more general? Just because something can be, in your assessments, not a case of immorality in the Category, why does that mean that the whole category is now off the table to not be UPB?   Emotions have opposites: happy/sad, mad/calm, laughter/serious...  What is the opposite of temptation?   What are some great ways to teach children about evil and how to recognise it? How do you make it age appropriate?   What are your thoughts on the difference between an assertive tone vs a raised voice/yelling. The way my wife speaks to the children sounds sometimes like yelling, but to her it sounds confident and assertive. For example, my son was fooling around going down the stairs while I had my other son in my hands and she saw and spoke harshly to him saying "stop, turn around, go downstairs safely", and he cried. I think he just got scared and was in an already stressful situation going down stairs, but I also thought it sounded very close to yelling.  I have wondered how much my early childhood trauma of being yelled at a lot plays into my current interpretation of her voice, but even then the difference seems to me somewhat subtle. How can I objectively identify these two cases?   How do we stop ourselves becoming corrupt in this now corrupt world? This world and society reminds me of Batman: the dark knight rises.   As a person in my early 20s there was a time before the Internet and tech. Since your daughter is 14, did she have a pre internet and tech life? And how do you think parents should navigate this?   Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!  Get access to the audiobook for my new book 'Peaceful Parenting,' StefBOT-AI, private livestreams, premium call in shows, and the 22 Part History of Philosophers series!  See you soon!  https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022

Transcript

00:00 Well, well, good morning everybody. Hope you're doing well.

00:03 Stephen Molyneux from Free Domain. Let's get on with the questions from

00:07 freedomain.locals.com. Great community. I hope you'll check it out. UPB question.

00:13 Ooh, that's so tasty. That's my favorite. I may be mistaken on the tenets but if

00:19 the basis of UPB seems to be offenses against someone's wishes / boundaries,

00:24 rape being not UPB because it is not possible for it to be consensual, thus

00:29 always guaranteed to be against someone's wishes / guaranteed to be

00:33 breaking their boundaries, then why can something only be immoral if it's part

00:37 of a category that it has to be against someone's wishes? What if someone does

00:40 something intentionally sadistic such as knowing someone's trigger and pushing

00:45 him against it but that thing is not physical but let's say sonic making a

00:50 certain noise known to be distressing or lies about someone to be more general

00:54 just because something can be in your assessment not a case of immorality in

00:59 the category, why does that mean that the whole category is now off the table to

01:02 not be UPB? Great question. I appreciate it. Now I also appreciate that there's a

01:08 lot of static that comes up in people's brains about ethics, morality. So morality

01:14 tends to fall into two categories in our minds, historically sort of the way that

01:19 we've been taught it. Number one is that morality is compelled, right? It is

01:25 compelled because it's a commandment of God, go to heaven, go to hell, it's

01:29 compelled, or the law, do this or go to jail, it's compelled. Or morality is about

01:37 being nice and thoughtful and considerate and diplomatic and not

01:42 upsetting people and being good that way. And these can roughly and broadly be

01:46 categorized into male, female, Old Testament, New Testament views of morality.

01:52 Being forced tends to be a bit more on the male side, being nice tends to be a

01:57 bit more on the female side. Now of course this categorizes itself

02:01 historically or evolutionarily speaking into the two ways that the different

02:06 sexes have of acquiring resources. Men acquire resources through force and this

02:12 of course doesn't necessarily mean war although it definitely includes that but

02:15 hunting and so on. Men tend to acquire resources through the use of violence

02:21 which is why men are fairly good at it and women tend to gain resources

02:25 through being nice, through being I mean historically right, attractive,

02:30 thoughtful, considerate and so on, right? So morality is how you were, it's a sort

02:38 of codification of how men versus women acquire resources and men acquire

02:44 resources through force and therefore morality is imposed through force. Women

02:48 acquire resources through being nice which is why not upsetting people,

02:52 being nice, thoughtful, considerate and so on tend to be the focus that is

02:57 approached. There's tons of different categories and it's a very general

03:03 statement but I think it holds fairly true. So we have these two things when it

03:07 comes to morality. It's forced or it's about being nice. Now what you have here

03:13 is you're falling into the category of morality is about being nice, right? It's

03:17 guaranteed to go against someone's wishes. So you have a moral category

03:22 called going against someone's wishes and that falls into the female category of

03:29 morality of being nice, not upsetting people and so on. This is why men have

03:34 free speech and women have hate speech right? They hate how free speech

03:40 makes people feel. So anyway, so then we will say going against someone's wishes.

03:46 So are you saying that it is immoral to go against someone's wishes? It's

03:53 immoral to go against someone's wishes to do something they don't prefer, to do

03:56 something they don't like. Well to break out of this we just have to apply the

04:01 UPB slide rule and universalize it, right? So just say universal. Forget

04:06 feelings, forget like it's just about the logic of it, right? So if we say it's

04:11 immoral to go against someone's wishes I want you to think about a farmer's

04:15 market. Think about a farmer's market. At the farmer's market, I love going to a

04:19 farmer's market. I really do personally I love going to farmer's markets but I

04:23 also, this is probably a bit over sympathetic, but I feel bad for some of

04:29 the people in the back stalls with the sad jewelry and you just

04:33 know that they're on their last legs and they've been up since 4 a.m. hanging

04:37 their crappy jewelry in the corner and you know it's just it's just kind of sad.

04:41 It's just kind of sad and I just I mean I know it's the market and so but I just

04:47 I have this I don't know maybe somewhat feminine sympathy for that that kind of

04:53 stuff. I think we've all been in the situation of something's not working and

04:56 we feel rejected and sad but it's hard to stop because we've invested so much

04:59 and I get that it's you know bad decision misallocation of capital

05:03 resources right but you know it's still kind of heartbreaking and sad. Now not to

05:06 the point where I'll buy crappy jewelry or anything like that I feel it but I

05:10 feel it. Now if I walk past one of these sad booths with the crappy jewelry then

05:15 the woman says hi how you doing now does she care how I'm doing no she wants me

05:20 to buy her jewelry which is fine I mean that's an economic transaction we're not

05:23 best buds. So I'm walking past Sally the sad jewelry girl and she says hi now she

05:30 really wants me to buy some jewelry but I don't want to buy the jewelry right

05:35 going against someone's wishes now by not buying the jewelry I'm going against

05:40 Sally's wishes right again just break it down to local natural normal

05:44 interactions forget about all these heady abstractions just take it personal

05:49 right so I'm walking past Sally's sad jewelry booth she wants me to buy her

05:53 jewelry I don't want to buy her jewelry now if I buy my jewelry against my

05:58 wishes I have not gone against her wishes her wishes is that I buy her

06:04 jewelry right now my wish is to not buy her jewelry how can this both be

06:06 achieved can we achieve both of these things at the same time can Sally get

06:11 her wish that I buy her jewelry and I get my wish to not buy her jewelry can

06:17 these both be achieved simultaneously no they cannot one of us has to cave in a

06:25 sense right so she has to just let me walk past not buying the jewelry or I

06:28 have to stop and dig out my wallet and buy some jewelry so we can't both get

06:34 what we want so you can't have a moral standard called don't go against other

06:42 people's preferences or wishes or as you have said it here it is not possible for

06:47 it to be consensual that's always guaranteed to be against someone's

06:50 wishes guaranteed to be breaking their boundaries I don't know what breaking

06:53 their boundaries means in particular that's just psychological speak that

06:56 doesn't have much relevance to rigorous moral analysis but going against

07:01 someone's wishes we do that all the time all the time I mean if you're a

07:07 beautiful woman then and you're single or whatever or even if you're not I

07:11 guess right men want to date you they fervently wish to date you and if

07:17 you don't date them you don't go you're going against their wishes so it's kind

07:24 of the reverse of the sad jewelry farmers market scenario because this is

07:28 a high-demand situation some beautiful one really sexy smart you know

07:32 attractive you name it men lust after her and want to date her is she allowed

07:38 to go against their wishes they wish to date her she doesn't wish to date most

07:42 of them right so one of those no neck guys built like a fridge comes up and

07:50 asks out the beautiful woman and she says no well she's going against his

07:56 wishes is that allowed well of course it's allowed of course it's allowed is

08:02 it breaking his boundaries I don't know what that means going against someone's

08:08 wishes oh again this is sort of the the girly the girly stuff right what is it

08:15 that causes you to lose property for men losing property generally has to do with

08:20 an incapacity for violence again with sort of counting hunting as violence and

08:25 so on and of course even if you're a farmer you have to commit a fair amount

08:29 of violence against all of the creatures that would prey upon your crops right to

08:33 shoot at the birds or you know hunt out the coyotes that might take your

08:37 chickens and so on so from a man protects his property through violence

08:41 therefore a man thinks of morality as violence and a woman protects her

08:45 property by being nice because if she's like her property comes from the man in

08:52 general and if she's not nice then the man leaves and she doesn't have access

08:57 to his property anymore he takes off remember for most of certainly a lot of

09:01 the a lot of history a man abandoning his family was certainly not unknown I

09:06 mean it would be more difficult in a small tribe but in a small tribe she

09:10 gets her resources more from the collective because individual nuclear

09:15 families are not as important but when you have farms you get separated from

09:19 the tribe right a tribe is everyone's at a hunter gathering together when you get

09:22 a farm then you need a lot of farmland so you kind of get more separate and

09:26 isolated if the man takes off from that situation then the woman loses her

09:29 access to resources so the woman says I protect my property by being nice by

09:33 being helpful a good partner and so on right I get my resources by being nice

09:38 therefore the way that I protect my property is being nice the man protects

09:42 his property with violence the woman protects her property by being nice

09:44 which is why men tend to look at morality as coercive as coercion and

09:49 women tend to look at morality as being nice diplomatic inoffensive not

09:54 upsetting people and so on right and the woman of course gets her support as well

09:58 from other women by being nice which is why women tend to have a little bit more

10:01 of a hive mind when it comes to this kind of stuff so this is the reason why

10:05 we have all of this static so UPB would say is it possible for two people who

10:13 disagree to both do what the other person wants no woman wants me to buy

10:19 her jewelry I don't want to buy it that's win-lose if I get my way she

10:25 doesn't get what she wants if she gets her way I don't get what I want now if

10:29 you look at the that's sort of low demand situation a high demand situation

10:33 is around every beautiful woman there are probably 100 men who would love to

10:38 have her as a girlfriend to partner a wife or whatever and she's got to be

10:42 really really choosy so is it possible in a monogamous marriage scenario for a

10:49 thousand women to have the one woman as their wife it is not possible right it's

10:56 monogamy I'll pull the gimme but it ain't gonna be that so you can't

11:01 logically in a monogamous situation you can't logically have everybody

11:06 satisfied at the same time I use the word satisfied advisedly but you know

11:11 what I mean it's not possible if the woman doesn't want to date 999 of the

11:16 guys it's not possible for them to get their wishes fulfilled and for her to

11:20 get her wishes fulfilled and because it's impossible we discard it because

11:25 it's impossible we discard it in the same way that in science if I were to

11:29 say I have a theory by which gases both expand and contract when heated people

11:35 wouldn't test for it they wouldn't do that's interesting I I must really

11:38 puzzle that one through it hmm let me know they'd say look it's not possible

11:43 for something to expand and contract simultaneously therefore I'm not going

11:47 to test for it and so this is the same thing with UPB you don't need to get

11:52 into is it possible in just use the Bob and Doug thing I talk about in the book

11:57 right if if Bob wants Doug to do a cartwheel and Doug doesn't want to do a

12:03 cartwheel can they both get their wishes fulfilled simultaneously they cannot they

12:09 cannot right so recognize if you're talking about just force or if you're

12:14 talking about just niceness you're falling into the male-female category or

12:19 continuum of quote morality so then you create a straw man and I'm not saying

12:25 you're doing this meanly or consciously or anything like that but it's not what

12:27 I say in the book and then you quite rightly say why can something only be a

12:32 moral if it's part of a category that has to be against someone's wishes what

12:36 if someone does something intentionally sadistic such as knowing someone's

12:39 trigger and pushing against it but that thing is not physical but let's say a

12:43 sonic making a certain noise known to be distressing well you're in the realm of

12:48 soft coercion right now this is really important to understand it's really

12:55 important to understand rape is immoral theft is immoral murder is immoral

13:00 assault is immoral why is rape immoral because rape cannot be universally

13:06 preferable behavior because rape is an asymmetric category one person gets what

13:11 they want the rapist the other person gets what the other person desperately

13:14 does not want which is to be raped it's asymmetric at the expense of means not

13:19 UPB right so for something to be universally preferable it means all

13:24 people can prefer it simultaneously everywhere all people all the time can

13:31 prefer and enact this behavior rape cannot be universally preferable

13:35 behavior because rape is asymmetric one person wants to rape the other person

13:39 desperately does not want to be raped and if the person wants to be raped

13:42 then the category disappears. I mean in boxing in the ring you can't

13:50 charge someone for assault afterwards because the whole point is to belt each

13:53 other assuming that people are following the rules right so if it's

13:59 chosen it's not assault if you go in there saying I'm going to box I'm going

14:03 to fight or punching with my gloves and then someone hits you and you want to

14:08 call the cops people would be like they would be incomprehensible right

14:12 incomprehensible like it'd be like if someone tackles you in the street that's

14:17 assault if someone tackles you in football that's not assault because

14:21 you're there that's part of the game that's the way it works if I belt

14:25 someone with a tennis ball at high speed that is assault if I'm playing doubles

14:31 and I accidentally hit my partner while I'm serving or just hit someone when I

14:34 hit hard that is not assault that's just kind of an accident right so coercion

14:43 the initiation of force is immoral because the initiation of force can't be

14:48 universalized that which cannot be UPP is immoral now we can all respect

14:54 property rights we can all not rape each other we can all respect bodily

14:57 boundaries this can all be achieved at the same time by everyone all the time

15:00 it's not asymmetric two people respecting each other's property rights

15:03 is not win-lose it's win-win the UPP details win-win and says win-lose is

15:08 immoral because win-lose by its very definition can't be universalized if you

15:11 had a sports league where you say every team has to win every game all the time

15:17 it would be nonsense right wouldn't be nonsense it would be impossible the

15:23 whole point of a team is one person wins one person loses right so win-lose is

15:30 not UPP right sort of now so when we say coercion is immoral right let's let's

15:36 take the example of assault right so UPP says assault is immoral right and then

15:43 what people do is they immediately want to create these gray areas well what if

15:46 it's just I'm riding my lawnmower at 8 in the morning next to someone who's got

15:53 a very sensitive hearing and needs to like am I interfering like coming up

15:57 with with just these edge case scenarios and UPP don't care UPP don't care UPP

16:04 don't care so assault is immoral oh but I can come up with a definition of

16:11 assault that's a gray area UPP don't care that's for the courts to decide

16:14 right there's a reason why we have a court system we can look at the sort of

16:21 free market evolution of common law and so on but there's a reason why we have a

16:24 court system because everybody knows that assault is immoral and everybody

16:30 knows that I don't know 95 98 99 percent of assaults are pretty simple one guy

16:36 holds off and punches another guy there are witnesses and whatever right so that

16:40 now are there edge cases sure but they're not important to philosophy

16:44 that's for the courts to decide that's why we have rules of evidence that's why

16:49 we have discovery that's why we have witnesses that all of these things so

16:53 edge cases don't change principles assault is immoral well what about this

16:59 would this be defined in the category of assault doesn't matter well what about

17:05 somebody who plays their music too loud after 9 p.m. is that assault I don't know

17:12 doesn't matter well but if you can't define everything according to objective

17:17 principles no matter what edge case scenarios I come up come up with then

17:21 then then your morality is it doesn't doesn't work doesn't matter it's

17:25 irrelevant my gosh my gosh so theft is immoral and certainly stealing from the

17:36 unborn is immoral national debts are immoral and then you want to create and

17:40 this is huge right I mean your kid my kid all born into like a million dollars

17:45 plus of debt right and you want to create some effing edge case scenario I

17:50 mean do you understand I mean I'm not trying to be mean I just want to be

17:54 blunt about this the edge case scenarios when you're facing even if we just talk

18:00 about the national debt when we're facing a catastrophic theft of an entire

18:05 generation and you're like well but what if somebody just you know find someone's

18:10 trigger or plays an annoying sound and it's like what the what the ever-loving

18:15 hell are you talking about it's wild I mean these edge case scenarios against

18:19 always been kind of wild to me honestly like we're in the middle of a plague of

18:23 theft in the middle of a plague that's consuming the planet and you're like

18:29 well but what if somebody gets a hangnail slightly infected you know what

18:33 would you do and it's like you know we're in the middle of a plague we have

18:37 a cure called UPB and you're paralyzing it all by going to edge cases. Edge cases

18:42 are for the courts 500 years in the future the idea that this would consume

18:48 your intellectual energies at the moment is wild it's wild you're debating

18:57 internet copyright law in the Middle Ages it's irrelevant to the time that is

19:02 and it would be solved by the time to come. You can't have a category called

19:07 making noises known to be distressing well that just tells me you've never had

19:11 a baby babies make noises exactly designed to be distressing so I have a

19:18 minute of the general theory that I have as to why people go to edge cases is

19:26 they want to be moral in their minds they want to be moral in their minds

19:34 they don't want to be moral in the world and listen I understand that my gosh

19:39 being moral in the world is a pretty dangerous sport evil people don't care

19:45 if you're debating edge cases in your study or arguing about whether annoying

19:51 sounds are a violation of UPB that's totally fine with them I mean bank

19:59 robbers under the bank currently taking away all its gold they don't care if the

20:04 bank manager is trying to figure out whether two people are trapped in a

20:10 vessel with limited air one person's breathing harder than the other is he

20:14 stealing from the other person? They don't care. Just let us get the gold do whatever you

20:18 want let us get the gold so you are acting and again I sympathize with the

20:22 understand this you're acting as a paralytic in the realm of morality you're

20:26 acting as a paralytic in the realm of morality you're drawing people to the

20:31 edge cases so that they are distracted from the major immoralities in our

20:37 society you're acting as a paralytic you are actually in service of some pretty

20:42 bad ideas and people I'm not kidding about this and I'm really serious and

20:47 I'm not saying this is conscious I'm just saying this is the practical effect

20:50 because when you say that the big questions of morality are about how a

20:55 free society 500 years from now might handle a slightly annoying sound what

21:00 are you saying what are you saying if my doctor if I have a medical right a

21:05 medical exam and blood work and all of that my doctor says oh you know your

21:10 cholesterol is fine but it's just trending tiny tiny tiny bit upwards so

21:15 you know maybe in a couple of years we'll just test it and and see and and

21:21 all of that then what is he saying he's saying that the rest of my health is

21:23 fine because this is all that's needed to focus on right by moving towards the

21:29 edge cases you're managing your own anxiety about actually doing good in the

21:33 world because actually doing good in the world means interfering with the

21:35 interests of bad people who will have something to say about the matter and I

21:40 have no problem if you don't want to do that I mean honestly I have no problem

21:43 we just be honest about it say I'm too scared to really promote virtue because

21:48 that might put me in a collision course with some bad people who have power okay

21:53 I understand that I sympathize with that I have no problem with that but just

21:58 make that decision for yourself don't pretend that the big questions of

22:02 morality that we face in the current world are about maybe mildly annoying

22:08 sounds or triggers or whatever it is right people who are triggered by

22:12 something you're doing is that a violin I mean if I go to the emergency room

22:16 because I have a giant gouge in my side and my intestines are hanging out and

22:20 the doctor says ooh you know I'm gonna draw some blood and I'm gonna run your

22:24 cholesterol levels you look fine you look fit you look healthy but we just

22:27 want to double-check and absolutely make sure I'd be like what what like by him

22:32 spending time on that I'm gonna bleed out and by you moving to the edge cases

22:36 and discussing the edge cases and I'm sure you've talked about it with a bunch

22:39 of people and you're pouring static into their ear and oh I guess it's really

22:42 complicated and yeah that's interesting what is it about annoying sounds that

22:45 might violate assault right then you're paralyzing them in the realm of morality

22:49 I think we can all agree that legally compelling the unborn to pay your debts

22:57 is not good is not good and this is just one of a thousand things that you could

23:02 talk about but why not talk about things that people already agree with you on

23:06 rather than creating staticky edge cases that paralyze people's sense of moral

23:12 purpose so if you don't want to do good in the world again I sympathize I

23:17 understand I'm not condemning you for it not blaming you for it if you've run the

23:22 numbers and it's not worth it the cost-benefit that's fine that's totally

23:25 fine okay then stop talking about morality don't pretend you're being a

23:29 good person by chewing around these edge cases that are irrelevant to the

23:34 principles I mean if I say a successful business is profitable and you say well

23:40 but what about a business that has long-term profitability but it's going

23:43 to be unprofitable for quite some time and it needs a certain amount of capital

23:47 but they can get it at a good interest rate and what does that have to do with

23:50 the principle the principle is the successful business is profitable and

23:55 yes you can invent some scenario where there's an edge case but what if you're

23:59 doing real good in the world that you don't particularly make any money but

24:01 there's a great deal of satisfaction you're just kicking sand over the

24:06 clarity of the principle and again I know this sounds like negative or I'm

24:11 not I'm honestly and genuinely I'm not saying anything negative about your

24:17 desire to avoid doing genuine good in the world by mentally chewing and

24:23 fussing and clouding over everybody's thinking with this nonsense edge stuff

24:26 genuinely I'm no problem with it you just need to be honest with yourself and

24:30 say it's too scary it's too scary I get that then judge your fear not all fear

24:39 is cowardice right like not all courage is virtue and not all fear is cowardice

24:43 this is Aristotelian mean thing right so maybe it's not right for you okay

24:47 that's fine leave it to others who are better suited for the task for whatever

24:51 reason it's not a good or bad thing leave it for others do other things

24:55 obviously you know be moral in your life but don't promote moral morality in the

25:00 world right obviously respect property rights and don't initiate the use of

25:04 force be a peaceful parent if you're a parent treat your partner as well you

25:08 know treat people with integrity in your personal life enact those virtues but in

25:13 your conversation in your public life in your analytical life in your

25:17 theoretical life in your philosophical life don't talk about it because you're

25:22 not talking about it anyway annoying sounds really this is where you're at in

25:27 terms of wow I can't I can't commit to to a moral system unless it answers

25:33 every conceivable question with perfect clarity well it can't so what you're

25:38 saying is I if people can't commit to a clear moral system like UPB unless it

25:43 details and explains every conceivable possible hypothetical scenario then

25:49 you're just inventing reasons to not comply to a clear moral system that's

25:53 all you don't want to advocate UPB I get that I again I sympathize I understand

25:57 you it might be entirely the right decision for you then don't talk about

26:02 it but don't talk about it with the idea that well if it answers every

26:07 conceivable possible hypothetical scenario with perfect clarity then I'll

26:11 commit you'll never commit which could honestly this fundamentally just

26:16 movie the goalpost like if I guarantee you if I answer this question right about

26:20 annoying sounds or whatever it is right if I answer that question do you think

26:25 you'll then be like oh yeah now I'm gonna 100% and clearly explain UPB no I

26:29 know exactly what's gonna happen because I've been doing this 40 years I know

26:33 exactly what's gonna happen and you know exactly what's gonna happen and everyone

26:36 knows exactly what's gonna happen I answer this question what are you gonna

26:40 say okay that's that's good but but what about this scenario and answer that

26:44 question oh yes well what about this you're gonna waste my time waste your

26:47 time and we're all gonna pretend that we're solving moral issues when we're

26:50 just avoiding moral clarity moral clarity rape theft assault murder are

26:55 immoral rape theft assault murder now that's that's our work cut out for us

26:59 for the next couple of hundred years honestly that is a work cut out for us

27:04 to spread these ideas for the next couple hundred years long after I'm dead

27:08 and buried long after you're dead and buried that's our next couple hundred

27:11 years is just getting people to understand rape theft assault murder are

27:14 immoral and we have the absolute certain complete and total proof that's our next

27:19 couple of hundred years and you're like well what about mildly annoying sound

27:24 I'm sorry I don't mean to laugh I you don't want to have the conversations

27:30 with people about why rape theft assault murder are immoral again no problem I

27:35 sympathize I understand then don't have those conversations right just don't

27:39 have those conversations but don't pretend to have these conversations and

27:42 create these goalposts right that are gonna shift anyway right all right what

27:48 are the top three things you know now that you wish you knew when you were 30

27:51 I mean I thought about this time machine stuff I honestly I don't know I'm so

27:59 happy with how my life is turning out I won't say has turned out because you

28:03 know I still got some time to go I'm so happy with the way that my life has

28:08 turned out that I wouldn't want to go back and butterfly effect change

28:13 anything because if I go back and butterfly effect change anything then my

28:18 life may not have turned out the way that I turn out now this is different

28:22 for you like if you're 25 or 30 and you're listening to this yeah I want to

28:26 pass along some wisdom I accepted some wisdom because if you want your life to

28:32 end up in a certain kind of way and your life is still starting out then good

28:38 right good I'm not changing anything that's already as good as it can be like

28:42 my life is about as good as it can be honestly I can't think of much that I

28:46 would want to improve about it so if I were to be able to send some sort of

28:53 message in a bottle back through time to when I was 30 something might change to

28:58 the point where I wouldn't end up where I am so I think it was all perfect the

29:03 way that it went and I can't look back oh like if I were to say oh everything's

29:10 gonna turn out well then I wouldn't have worked as hard like you understand I

29:14 would have changed it I said oh you know everything's gonna work out fine don't

29:18 worry right okay well let's say I send that back I believe it of course

29:22 well what happens then well I'm like oh I could relax everything's gonna work

29:25 out fine so then things that work out fine so all right emotions have opposites

29:30 happy sad mad calm laughter serious what is the opposite of temptation well there

29:37 are two opposites to temptation one is probably more of an opposite than the

29:41 other I know that's a bit of a logical category error but forgive me so the

29:47 opposite of temptation is not being tempted is not being tempted another

29:53 opposite of temptation is satisfaction because when you are tempted by

29:58 something and then you do it then you are satisfied then of course you know

30:02 often comes the regret and so on right and you know so if you're an alcoholic

30:07 and you're tempted to have a drink then when you have a drink you feel better

30:10 right so that your temptation has gone away because you've satisfied your

30:13 temptation but of course it just leads to more temptation and so on now you

30:17 could say that the opposite of temptation is resistance resisting

30:21 temptation is the opposite of temptation but it's not the opposite of temptation

30:25 is to not have temptation and the way to not have temptation is through really

30:30 deep self-knowledge to figure out why you want to self-sabotage all right what

30:34 are some great ways to teach children about evil and how to recognize it how

30:36 do you make it age-appropriate well I can't talk about when it's age

30:40 appropriate because children are all different intelligence maturity

30:43 sensitivity wisdom I can certainly see why some people say there are old souls

30:48 some kids just seem sort of preternaturally wise and all of that so I

30:52 certainly can't really talk much about age appropriateness evil and how to

30:57 recognize it well the best way to teach about evil and how to recognize it is to

31:01 be moral to your children so that they recognize the difference when somebody

31:05 is not moral I mean if you want to teach children about what is not English then

31:12 you speak English consistently to them and then when somebody comes up and

31:16 speaks another language they will recognize it as really really different

31:19 from the language they grew up with so the best way to teach children about

31:23 evil is to be you know reasonably and consistently moral yourself and then

31:29 they will see the difference in others when they don't act in that kind of

31:35 consistent and positive way so and of course they will run into every now and

31:38 then I was at a I was at a store not too long ago and I needed to get something

31:44 done obviously so it's kind of pointless to say I was at a store and I had to sit

31:48 for a while to get something done and there was a really cranky negative

31:53 hostile old woman who was berating the staff and really aggressive and they

31:58 threatened to call the cops and they asked her to leave but she wouldn't and

32:02 it was just so wildly dysfunctional it was like what did I refer to as a

32:06 turbo Karen and because of course that's wildly different from anything she's

32:11 ever seen adults in her life do that she knows and any kind of regular basis she

32:16 really was quite fascinated by it and and we talked about it for quite a bit

32:20 so she really recognized the difference in behavior so yeah consistent virtue

32:26 will teach your kids a lot about evil all right what makes a good vacation

32:29 especially for kids I find hiking visiting aquarium and zoos and museum

32:32 hopping to be great things to do vacations while things like cruises or

32:36 Disney World are too canned and expensive again I mean it depends on

32:40 your kids but when you're adults you always think that some big spectacular

32:46 thing and of course this is marketing as well right some big spectacular thing is

32:50 what your kids want to do when I was a kid my mother we were gonna move either

32:55 to Scotland or Canada right when I was a kid we went up to a town in Scotland I

33:01 took an entrance exam about the age of 10 to get into a Scottish school and all

33:06 of that and we spent some time going around Scotland and I very clearly

33:12 remember my brother and I all of the stuff we could do all of the cool things

33:16 museums and all of that and we did go to some but what my brother and I loved to

33:21 do was to run there was a pier that went out of course into the ocean and

33:25 at low tide the sand was soft if it was a hot day it would even dry out so what

33:32 we would do and we would spend like all afternoon doing this is we'd run down

33:35 the pier we jump off the pier and land in the soft sand and we climb back up

33:39 run down the pier and land in the soft sand because you know for a brief moment

33:43 it felt like you were flying and it was just a ball it was just a ball my

33:50 daughter of course has traveled with me when I was able to travel safely my

33:54 daughter was would travel with me of course a lot and when I asked her about

33:58 things you know we went we went to place X you know I do in some speech or

34:02 something we went to place X and what does she remember does she remember all

34:06 of the cool things we did and you know stuff that's not always super cheap or

34:10 anything no catching lizards so the idea that you need to put on a show need to

34:17 spend a lot of money it's not not the case when I sort of asked my daughter

34:20 her fondest memories of X Y & Z it's almost never oh that thing we did that

34:25 was expensive or that thing we did that was you know she's like okay but that

34:29 stuff doesn't but she just has these little things oh you know that time that

34:33 we were you know sitting sitting and we were sitting and chatting about X Y & Z

34:39 or that time when we used to Tilly hat to catch lizards in wherever it was

34:43 right that's what she remembers oh man that stuff is generally free that stuff

34:49 is generally free so what she remembers the times which were not what I would

34:54 consider to be the best times but so you don't need a big a big thing for kids

34:58 hiking is good but she'll remember the conversation more than the hiking so

35:02 alright what are your thoughts on the difference between an assertive tone

35:06 versus a raised voice / yelling the way my wife speaks to the children sounds

35:10 sometimes like yelling but to her it sounds confident and assertive for

35:13 example my son was fooling around going down the stairs while I had my other son

35:17 in my hands and she saw him and spoke harshly to him saying stop turn around

35:20 go downstairs safely and he cried I think he just got scared and was in an

35:25 already stressful situation going down the stairs but I also thought it

35:28 sounded very close to yelling I have wondered how much my early childhood

35:32 trauma of being yelled at a lot plays into my current interpretation of her

35:35 voice but even then the difference seems to me somewhat subtle how can I

35:40 objectively identify these two cases well I understand like if your kids

35:47 running towards the road or whatever you you yell stop like really emphatically

35:50 so that the child changes behavior right away so I can understand in these in

35:56 these kinds of situations but of course as peaceful parents what you want to do

35:59 is you want to avoid these kinds of situations arising where you have to

36:03 yell at or raise your voice or something like that you want to avoid these

36:06 situations arising in the first place right so the question is I don't know

36:12 how old your son is this is a couple of years old four or whatever right so the

36:17 question is why is your son playing on the stairs while you're coming down the

36:21 stairs holding a baby you say oh well that's what children do and it's like

36:25 well children are pretty sensitive to their environment and have you had

36:29 conversations about you know listen we have a baby baby's a super fragile I

36:32 need you to just really be careful about what you're doing around the baby and

36:36 just as I have to be really careful about what I'm doing around the baby and

36:38 you know this that the other and so on and so forth you have those

36:41 conversations right is your wife having long involved conversations if you have

36:48 to use chess pieces to explain right is she having long and involved

36:53 conversations or is she just snapping at symptoms well snapping at symptoms is

36:57 just creating the kids the kids consciousness turns into a kind of

37:00 pinball just being being being being just bouncing around all over the place

37:03 right oh mom's upset at me about this okay I won't do that oh mom's upset at

37:07 me about that I won't do that not learning anything other than avoidance

37:10 of negative stimuli which he's already programmed to do and he doesn't learn

37:13 anything and then of course you're training your son to avoid negative

37:16 stimuli rather than understand what's going on so a lot of time if you don't

37:22 have those deep conversations with your kids about how to live with others in a

37:28 productive and positive way then you're gonna end up just playing whack-a-mole

37:32 with these behaviors and slowly constricting him based on negative

37:37 stimuli to the point where he ends up a kind of void of reaction without the

37:42 internalization of any deep principles. The peaceful parenting is about

37:47 reminding. Reminding is essential for peaceful parenting right reminding right

37:54 so if we with my daughter we of course when she was young and if there was you

37:59 know it was Halloween or something we don't want to obviously deny that fun

38:02 and Halloween is a blast so there would be candies in the house right be candies

38:07 in the house of course you know I won't give you the whole conversation but you

38:11 sit down and you have a long conversation it can be an hour or two

38:14 and kids are interested in this stuff as long as they get that it's not coming

38:18 from a place of hostility or anything like that or anger or you better not or

38:21 threats or whatever right but it's like you know hey we got this candy in the

38:26 house now look how much do I love candy man it like a mouth is watering just

38:30 talking about it I love candy but candy doesn't love me back in the same way and

38:34 you do the whole difference between the tongue and the belly what your tongue

38:37 loves your belly doesn't love often and vice versa and you know you tell her why

38:42 you know we evolved to love candy because those who ate fruit did much

38:49 better than those who didn't eat fruit because fruit has sort of these

38:52 essential vitamins and nutrients that keep you alive and you can tell her the

38:56 story of the sailors and scurvy and you know that the Navy lost more sailors to

39:01 scurvy because they didn't know about vitamin C than they did even to like the

39:06 lack of the lack of fruit was more dangerous than cannibals it was crazy

39:10 right so we've evolved to love sugar because fruit lures us into eating it

39:15 with sugar and of course the reason why we eat fruit is so that when we poop the

39:18 seeds have not just said further away right because the trees often too much

39:24 shade to conquer on just a guy you got to get their seeds away which is why

39:27 some seeds blow and and so when we poop not only does the seed go somewhere else

39:32 but it already has its built-in fertilizer like it's perfect they're

39:35 using us to grow more trees and and all of that and so you go and the kids are

39:39 really interested by that stuff right and and you say so we evolved like we

39:43 love sugar and sugar is normally fantastic for us and worth pursuing but

39:47 now we have way too much sugar right and sugar is being kind of concentrated it's

39:52 become like a drug right been really concentrated like you know we like to

39:56 breathe oxygen of course and now there are these oxygen bars you can mainline

40:00 oxygen so on so you just tell the whole story of all of this and you know this

40:04 is part of life and you got a balance you know you don't want to just eat

40:08 bland foods your whole life because food is a great pleasure but at the same time

40:11 you don't want to get fat and have bad teeth and diabetes and all that so yeah

40:15 it's a it's a challenge and you know this is adulthood welcome to you know

40:18 and I've tell her the story like when I was a kid I was like I can't wait to get

40:22 my first job I'll just buy all the candy and eat all the candy I wanted all that

40:26 and tell the joke about that and of course you get older and you can't and

40:29 you tell the I tell the joke about the comedian who was talking he was looking

40:34 at his daughter he's driving the daughter and his daughter's looking out

40:37 the window and the comedian is saying you know I'm like hey she's smiling and

40:41 what do you think enough candy I'm thinking of candy and he's like I can't

40:45 just think of candy I think candy I'm like oh man I gotta get to the dentist

40:48 and you know I think I put on a couple of pounds and one of my teeth hurts and

40:52 like he can't just enjoy the thought of candy but his kid is like I'm thinking

40:55 of candy so you have all these conversations and you say look I I

41:01 manage sometimes my sugar by just not buying it like if it's in the house I

41:06 might nibble on it but if it's not in the house I won't go out and get it so

41:09 sometimes I just don't have it in the house and sometimes that's how I sort of

41:12 manage my desires or cravings or you know if I have I'll have a bag of dark

41:17 chocolate covered almonds and if I've got a real sweet craving I'll grab a

41:21 couple of those and and so on and you know I know dark chocolate who knows

41:24 right it's not like this magic spell that makes chocolate good for you but

41:27 it's probably better than the alternative and so all of these things

41:30 and all of that and you see and of course you have to model saying no right

41:34 kids want to emulate adults and as adults we all have temptations that we

41:39 have to say no to and you model that right you don't just not have dessert

41:42 right if you're at a restaurant right over in the waiter comes and says can I

41:47 tempt you with dessert and you're like I'm really tempted oh I want to I want

41:52 to see even if you're not gonna have it I want to see the dessert menu and you

41:54 look at oh so good but I'm gonna have to say no ah I mean I really want to but

41:59 I'm gonna have to say no right and that way your kid sees you being tempted and

42:04 saying no and of course your kid wants to be like an adult and so they'll

42:08 internalize that and you get all of this stuff I see it's around temptation and

42:12 so on there's candy in the house you got to sit down and talk to all your kids

42:17 about all of that and just be honest about the genuine and general human

42:20 experience that we want stuff that's not good for us and yet we can't be total

42:25 monks and not have anything that's nice to in our mouth or anything like that so

42:28 so you have you know just big conversations with your kids about stuff

42:32 and that way your kid doesn't sit there and say well I want candy and if I can

42:39 get it past my parents that's the only thing that matters right you want to

42:43 internalize in them the balance between hedonism and long-term happiness that we

42:50 all have to I'm gonna say wrestle with but you know everybody knows it's just

42:53 part of life it's just part of life I mean especially in the modern world but

42:57 there's all this tasty stuff all over the place right? Shop on the outside of

43:00 the aisles, don't go in the aisles, shop on the outside of the grocery store. So

43:04 with my daughter it wasn't like well you better not take any of this candy or you

43:10 know because then then what's her goal? Her goal is well the only barrier

43:14 between me and candy is my parents finding out like that's the only barrier

43:18 there's nothing is internalized if she can get it past her parents there's no

43:21 problem as opposed to yeah candy is really good you know once on the lips

43:26 forever on the hips right and so candy is really good but it has long-term

43:29 health effects that aren't good. At the same time you know we do need some sugar

43:34 in our diet and so maybe not refined sugar but we do need some you know I

43:37 don't need to tell you guys all this stuff we know all of this. So you

43:41 introduce her to the complexity of the issue and then she's like yeah you

43:47 know just like dad I want candy but I should say no and you know every now and

43:51 then you'll give in to temptation I mean I will allow myself some bread

43:54 pudding on my birthday every now and then you'll give in to temptation and

43:58 you can also talk you know why do people yo-yo diet why do they lose weight

44:01 and then gain weight? Because they lose weight and then they reward themselves

44:04 with food and they gain the weight and then they panic and they get a BMI

44:07 reading from their doctor and then they lose the weight and then they've been so

44:10 good I'll have food to reward or whatever right? So you know that's it's a

44:14 it's a tension in life and you know there's nothing wrong with that. It's a

44:18 totally stress-free life is what was happening before you were born when your

44:22 atoms weren't even assembled to do a brain. So is your wife having these

44:27 long lengthy detailed conversations with your son about you know okay there's a

44:33 baby here and you know it's gonna be it's gonna be really different and we're

44:37 you know the I didn't have this conversation with Lizzie because she's

44:41 an only child but you know the baby's gonna take away a lot of her time and

44:46 attention and that's a drag and you know it's just been you and the baby's

44:51 gonna take away a lot of our time and attention but here's the plus when the

44:55 baby gets a little older I know it doesn't seem like you can play with him

44:58 now it's sort of incomprehensible he's just a farting burping crying machine

45:02 and laughter too but when you get like you'll have you'll have someone to go

45:07 through all of your life with right you'll lose your parents a little bit

45:10 for a while at the beginning but you gain a total companion to go through all

45:15 of life with you and when you're I know this is crazy because you're so young

45:19 but when you're really old you'll have someone around who remembers you and

45:23 being a child and everything that shaped you and everything you'll never be

45:26 closer to anyone than you will with a brother or a sister. Siblings are the

45:31 closest you can get to because they're the whole journey people right you meet

45:34 your wife at 25 she didn't know you for the first 25 years even if you spend 50

45:39 60 years together she's still never but your brother will go the whole journey

45:42 with you your sister will go the whole journey with you and it's worth it I

45:47 know it won't seem worth it when you want to have someone busy with the baby

45:49 I get that and I totally oh my gosh do I understand that it's gonna be annoying

45:53 and you're gonna view negatively your sibling but I'm telling you it's gonna

45:59 be so great for you your whole life you'll never be closer to anyone than

46:02 your siblings if if that can be supported. All right I've wondered how

46:08 much of my early childhood trauma of being oh sorry that's the same one how

46:12 do we stop ourselves becoming corrupt in this now corrupt world this world and

46:15 society reminds me of Batman the Dark Knight Rises well I obviously can't

46:21 answer that as a whole because I don't know your life circumstances but you

46:25 surround yourself with corruption is not a willed thing like just on your own you

46:29 have to surround yourself with people who will notice any drift towards

46:33 corruption and call you out on it and in a positive sort of encouraging way and

46:36 you'll do the same for them right we tend to go kind of crazy in isolation

46:40 sanity is a social construct and it requires having sane people around us so

46:45 all right what are your thoughts about genetically engineering human beings I've

46:48 wrote about that before or talked about that before to me if you are removing a

46:54 negative then I think the genetics is fine if you're trying to create a

46:57 positive that's an unknown and I would not be in support of that all right what

47:02 do you think some of the greatest temptations in life are I think the

47:05 greatest temptation offered to us is to believe that there are no trade-offs

47:08 when we make decisions that sow the seeds for our habits characters and

47:11 eventual destiny perhaps this is also a different great differentiates great

47:15 fiction from propaganda or bad fiction great fiction is accurate in its

47:18 depiction of the trade-offs that characters make whereas propaganda is

47:22 inaccurate in its depiction of trade-offs Lord of the Rings for example

47:26 shows that with the creation of the ring of power came the corruptive nature of

47:29 its authority the present shows the trade-offs of pursuing careerism versus

47:34 family as well as vanity and virtue I've only started reading Atlas Shrugged but

47:37 the story appears to me about the trade-offs of not using a meritocratic

47:41 system to organize society as well as personal relationships what do you think

47:45 is there a core of is this the core of good fiction in alignment with the real

47:49 life trade-offs and consequences the human beings have to make yeah so the

47:55 greatest temptation I think in life is to think that people think and to

48:00 imagine that reason can reshape the world just through the force of its

48:04 eloquence and accuracy unfortunately it tends to bounce off most people and the

48:09 greatest temptation is I think the belief that virtue alone and reason and

48:15 eloquence alone will fix the world unfortunately just the world seems to

48:20 just crash between disaster to disaster and I often think myself enormously

48:24 lucky as a healthy male that I got through life got to my late 50s mid to

48:30 late 50s never got drafted I know how rare that is never got drafted never got

48:35 drafted I mean talk about dodging the bullets like literally dodging the

48:39 bullets so the world in general I mean when peaceful parenting arises and

48:43 spreads things will be different but right now people reject reason and

48:47 reject evidence and arguments and that's just a fact and speaking to people like

48:58 speaking what's that phrase they always use on the left speaking truth to power

49:02 speaking truth to power yet of course when you actually speak truth to power

49:06 they work to get you deplatformed it's just you know virtue signaling and the

49:10 pretence of virtue rather than the manifestation of virtue which is very

49:13 common of course so yeah I think the greatest temptation that would face us

49:17 is the idea that we reason with people and they will listen to reason again

49:22 there'll be some people like this for sure there'll be some people like this

49:25 but those people you would hold close and other people you would not waste

49:32 your time with so don't waste your time protect yourself the world is probably

49:36 gonna have to go through some kind of convulsion to find reason right because

49:40 it's gonna have to learn it's gonna have to hit rock bottom and then people who

49:43 have made rational arguments and predicted all of this that we have a

49:46 chance of being listened to like you know you say to someone you got a

49:49 gambling problem and they just sneer and you and laugh at you and call you a

49:52 square and mock you and attack you and spread bad rumors about you and then

49:56 eventually they hit rock bottom maybe they'll listen. All right as a person in

50:01 my early 20s there was a time before the Internet and tech since your daughter is

50:05 14 did she have a pre-internet and tech life how do you think parents should

50:08 navigate this? So yeah I mean tech is part of life and I mean I sadly remember

50:15 that there was a kid when I was growing up in England post boarding school this

50:19 was in public school he didn't have a TV his family didn't have a TV and so he

50:24 couldn't watch Doctor Who and he couldn't talk about it with the kids and

50:26 all of that like it's just tech is part of kids lives they need to learn how to

50:31 use it and and all of that and you just need to be interesting to your kids to

50:36 the point where they'll you know when I never once went down to my daughter and

50:40 said hey let's do some of our role-playing games right where we just

50:42 sort of talk about all these various adventures and we had these physical

50:45 tests like you had to jump over something in order to escape a blow in

50:51 sort of combat or whatever it is like so we'd have so much fun doing that that

50:55 there was never a time when she was on her tablet and I'd say let's roleplay

50:58 and she wouldn't say yes let's jump up and I put down the tablet so you just

51:01 have to find some way to be more interesting and engaging. Right I learned

51:04 about RK from your channel about seven years ago to me this is great

51:07 explanation for the rise and fall of civilizations is philosophy specifically

51:10 UPB meant to stop this cycle can it stop K from becoming R? Well sure because R

51:15 is money printing right R is is the creatures who are limited not by

51:22 scarcity of food but by predation and so when you print money you are printing in

51:30 a sense are selected people you are creating because you are creating this

51:34 illusion of infinite resources like the rabbits never run out of grass they just

51:39 get hunted right so yeah I mean privatizing a Bitcoin is the ultimate K

51:44 selection machine right Bitcoin is the ultimate K selection machinery because

51:48 you can't just create more and more and more of it and so yeah certainly a free

51:53 market in money and currency in interest rates in society as a whole

51:58 voluntarism will absolutely produce K selected people now you could say of

52:02 course ah yes but will become so wealthy that it will all feel like infinite

52:06 resources and so on okay that's I don't know how to answer that I'm not a

52:10 geneticist of course I don't know what that's gonna do maybe there'll be a

52:14 cycle but the cycle won't be back to violence right so and wouldn't these be

52:18 great problems to have what problems could arise in a free society I will

52:23 love every single problem that arises in a free society because it's a free

52:26 society so it's infinitely better right because if you say well if I get out of

52:31 this really abusive relationship maybe I'll have other problems it's like well

52:35 yeah but you you won't have the abusive relationship problem and all of the

52:38 other problems will probably be much more manageable thereby so anyway I hope

52:42 this helps freedom a.com slash donate if you would like to help out the show I

52:46 think it's a good thing to do for you and for me so freedom a.com slash tonight

52:51 don't forget to check out freedom a.com and I just did put out my novel just

52:58 poor in podcast format in feed format so you can get that at freedom a.com slash

53:05 books all right lots of love everyone take care thanks for this great life I

53:09 hope philosophy is helping make your life better too and we'll talk soon bye

PEACEFUL PARENTING AND UPB - Locals Answers

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