STRENGTH DRAWS DYSFUNCTION

Name: STRENGTH DRAWS DYSFUNCTION
Uploaded: 2023-11-26T19:27:51+00:00
Duration: 1 h 47 s
Channel: Stefan Molyneux

00:00:00 All right, good morning everybody. Welcome to your November 5th, 2023. We're doing our 11 a.m. thing.

00:00:06 And much so I like the voice channel, unfortunately you guys are just more generous

00:00:12 and all of that. So we're here. If you want to donate, that would be fantastic. Somebody wrote to me

00:00:18 something interesting about the Peaceful Parent, a peaceful parenting book, which of course if

00:00:27 you're a donor you can get at freedomain.locals.com. You can also get it at subscribestar.com/freedomain

00:00:34 and he said, oh wait, those are all my notes for the French Revolution.

00:00:43 Oh, that's an address of a guy I'm sending some money to so he can do some therapy. That stuff

00:00:50 is still going on. Here we go. Just finished chapter six of Peaceful Parenting, your steel

00:00:55 man argument for aggressive parenting blew me away. So I just really dug into why you need to

00:01:03 be aggressive with your children. Your steel man argument for aggressive parenting blew me away.

00:01:10 So here's the thing, if you want to change people's minds, if you can represent their position fairly,

00:01:16 it really opens up the listening. It really, really opens up the listening. Thanks Joe. Yes,

00:01:24 let's start off the morning with a tip. If you can present someone's argument to them in a way

00:01:32 that doesn't mock, doesn't caricature, doesn't straw man, then they're going to listen. Because

00:01:40 if you give someone's argument and you straw man or you misrepresent, then you never get to the

00:01:46 actual argument. You just get to definitions and it's sort of, "Paul, you broke your wrist."

00:01:52 What? How did you break your wrist? I know how some of my male listeners may get carpal tunnel

00:02:00 syndrome, but I don't know how my female listeners break their wrist. That I don't know. Anyway,

00:02:06 we'll get to that. He says, "Despite being a somewhat seasoned listener, I almost fell for it."

00:02:13 Your steel man argument for aggressive parenting. "The argument is cunningly crafted on the basis

00:02:18 of false presuppositions that are never examined, but very much embedded in our culture.

00:02:22 The total reversal of ethics, when you talk about peaceful parents as people unwilling to do what's

00:02:28 right in the long term for the sake of what's easy in the moment, i.e. unwilling to discipline

00:02:33 their children for fear of the discomfort that will inevitably follow, sent my head spinning.

00:02:38 You took playing the devil's advocate to an entirely new level. After listening to this

00:02:42 chapter, I feel this argument had to be in this book. It would have been

00:02:46 sorely incomplete without it. Thank you so much." Yeah. Yes. Well, Roman is an update of my dream

00:02:54 character from many years ago in therapy called Lord Gruel. Roman, the character in the future,

00:03:00 who is a primitive tribal chieftain and a hyper-aggressive parent.

00:03:04 And David being somewhat of a stand-in for me, Roman really, really makes fun of David,

00:03:14 really mocks and attacks David. And David, of course, has a daughter and Roman says, "Oh,

00:03:22 you just want to be her little buddy. You just want to be her friend. You don't want to be a

00:03:26 parent. You don't want to be an authority figure. You've just created a live-in friend rather than

00:03:32 a child." And yeah. So that's... You've got to... You know, you're inner critics,

00:03:39 you've got to really listen to them. Otherwise, they will just trip you up and mess you up.

00:03:43 Playing with a dog on a... So, "Playing with dog on a long green cord on 10 acres of green grass.

00:03:53 Now have green cast. And of course, if you fell on the green grass, you would also have a green..."

00:03:59 Oh, well, I think everybody knows how that sentence ends.

00:04:02 So, "I'm sorry to hear that. Playing with a dog on a long green cord. I don't quite... Is a dog

00:04:15 on a long green cord? If you're on 10 acres of green grass, why would your dog be on a cord?

00:04:20 I don't... I mean, doesn't the dog run and roam and all of that?" Don't know.

00:04:25 "Tripped cord should be orange. Tripped. Tripped cord should be orange. Tripped."

00:04:31 I'm sorry. Are you having a stroke as well? I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means.

00:04:38 But yeah, well, "I'm sorry to hear that. There is a..."

00:04:54 I should get started on pets. I already had that rant. I already had that. I already had that rant.

00:05:00 All right. Let's get to your questions, comments, issues, challenges, criticisms,

00:05:05 anything that is on your minds. "How many cups of coffee today?"

00:05:09 One cup of coffee. And this is a second cup, but it's decaf.

00:05:13 "I will have four cups of coffee usually the day. Two caffeinated, two decaf."

00:05:22 "Do you know why there is a constant deluge..." That's a good word. "Constant

00:05:27 deluge of people who join Freedomain who do the following. They post about an atrocity of their

00:05:35 life. Example, still calling their child a fetus after many years, then insult all who question

00:05:41 them about it. Afterwards, they continue to post about their daily lives and even have the goal

00:05:45 to ask people wish them luck in their endeavors. It feels like a sabotage of helplessness."

00:05:50 I'm not sure. I'm sure you've seen this. I, of course, check in on the community,

00:05:55 but I haven't seen this. Oh, and by the way, a second hour will be donor only.

00:06:00 A second hour will be donor only. Okay. Someone's posted something.

00:06:15 Yeah, so I'm not sure if that's something for someone else. Well, let's have a look at this.

00:06:23 Right? "Constant deluge of people who join Freedomain do the following. They post about

00:06:27 an atrocity of their life. Example, still calling their child a fetus after many years."

00:06:32 I've never seen that. Can someone link to that if you know it? They call their child a fetus

00:06:40 after many years? "Fetus example." Thank you. I appreciate that. All right. Let's see.

00:06:49 Oh, okay. Okay. Right, right. Well, okay.

00:07:04 "Strength draws dysfunction." Of course, right? Strength draws dysfunction. So imagine this.

00:07:12 You are from a poor family, and you win the lottery, right? How many people are going to

00:07:18 be drawn towards you? How many people are going to be drawn to connect with you, to ask you to...

00:07:24 I mean, Bill Gates ended up having to have an underground parking lot pretty early in his

00:07:28 Microsoft days, because if he'd park in the employee parking lot, people would be lined

00:07:32 up between him and the Microsoft doors in order to ask him for money, to ask him for help, people

00:07:39 who are desperate. So excess draws deficiency. I mean, you can see this happening with entire

00:07:46 countries, right? Excess draws deficiency. And it's very, very destructive. Or to put it another

00:07:53 way, if you're perceived as a parent, people will act out their dysfunction. So we have a community

00:08:07 full of people who are pretty successful, good self-knowledge, they understand philosophy,

00:08:12 they're happy. Most of you all seem to have good relationships, or at least you're not in

00:08:17 bad relationships. So strength, excess, wealth, confidence will all draw deficiency.

00:08:26 Or to put it another way, if you're strong, you're viewed as prey by those who are not strong,

00:08:35 those who are needy, those who are unstable, those who are chaotic, and so on, right?

00:08:41 And it is one of the great challenges of strength to not provide access to the deficient.

00:08:48 Yeah, that's a great question about corporate jobs. It's a great challenge of strength to

00:08:56 not provide your excess to the deficient. And this doesn't mean don't be kind,

00:09:01 it doesn't mean don't be helpful. I think all of that is the case.

00:09:06 But hit me with a why if you've ever, when you're in a state of success or excess, had people

00:09:11 kind of float around wanting things, needing things, asking for things, either explicitly

00:09:16 or implicitly. Whenever you have an excess, it just draws people to get things from you,

00:09:23 to want things from you, to, you know? I mean, this can be as simple as, you know,

00:09:29 buy me lunch, I'm broke. It can be as complex as, well, you're really good with women,

00:09:35 so I want to go out with you so that I can be your wingman and I can meet women because you're

00:09:40 good with women, or whatever it is. This is why having an excess sucks a lot of time, doesn't it?

00:09:48 Having an excess of love, of wisdom, of money, of success, of confidence, it's like,

00:09:55 the black hole and all the people come in, they're like sperm trying to get into the egg.

00:10:02 [gurgling]

00:10:10 This is why showing your excess, oh my god!

00:10:13 I genuinely don't understand people who parade their excess on social media.

00:10:25 Hey, I love to get robbed and swarmed by people who don't have stuff because they want things.

00:10:31 I don't know, it's just weird to me. It's just weird to me.

00:10:35 What do they say? Stack sacks and stay humble.

00:10:38 Because you understand, when you have excess and people want things from you,

00:10:48 it's dangerous. Do you know why? Have you ever had this experience? You're doing well,

00:10:56 somebody wants something from you, you say no, what happens? What happens?

00:11:01 Parading excess on social media isn't necessarily bad if it's done in an artful/tasteful manner.

00:11:08 Okay, good luck with that. Yeah, anger, rage, attack, right? People are nice to you

00:11:15 until you don't fall for their manipulations, right? And then you find out if they really like you.

00:11:23 And then you find out if they really like you. You're doing well, somebody wants something,

00:11:29 you say no. And why do you say no? Because you hate them? No, because you care about them.

00:11:34 Right? You say no to someone who wants something from you that's just like a freebie, you say no

00:11:42 because you don't want to end up in a parent-infant relationship with them. You don't want to

00:11:48 infantilize them. You don't want to pretend to be their parent. You don't want to cripple their

00:11:54 ability to get things for themselves. Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day, teach a man to fish,

00:12:04 you feed him for a lifetime. Okay, why do you need to teach a man to fish? I mean, I get the quote,

00:12:11 I understand the quote, blah, blah, blah, but it still puts an obligation on you.

00:12:15 I do this funny little thing in my life. Let me tell you, I do this funny little thing

00:12:20 in my life. And maybe this is helpful to you.

00:12:22 Maybe this is helpful to you. What I do as a whole is I treat everyone who's an adult in my life

00:12:35 as an adult. I treat everyone in my life who's an adult as an adult.

00:12:44 It's a pretty wild thing to do. If somebody makes a good decision, hey, fantastic, man. If somebody

00:12:50 makes a bad decision, oh, there's some sympathies, but I'm not rushing in to dig anyone out of holes

00:12:54 because everyone in my life who's an adult, I treat them as an adult.

00:13:00 Which means that if they do well, they should be proud of it. And if they do badly,

00:13:08 they should learn from it. But I'm not going to sit there and police people and endlessly guide

00:13:16 people and tell them this. I mean, yeah, if they want advice, I'm happy to provide advice. I can

00:13:19 ask them for advice and so on. But the advice is, you know, man, it's your sovereign life. If you

00:13:23 want pride at doing well, you've got to accept the opposite for doing badly. And you know,

00:13:36 you know generally what happens. Let's take that fishing analogy, right? You know what generally

00:13:42 happens when somebody says, hey, man, you got a lot of fish. I just wanted, I just wanted you to

00:13:48 teach me how to fish, man. And everything will, I just teach me how to fish, man. Just teach me

00:13:51 how to fish and I'll be fine. It's just a trap, right? You teach them how to fish and you catch

00:14:05 a couple of fish for them. They're like, hey man, thanks. I think I got it. And then the next time

00:14:08 they're like, ah man, I'm not catching any fish. Can you just give me one? And they just keep

00:14:11 trying. They just keep trying to get stuff. Insanity is like a parachute. Just because

00:14:20 you lost yours doesn't mean you can borrow mine. Yeah, my mother used to say, insanity is hereditary.

00:14:26 We get it from our kids. It's kind of true in a twisted way for her, right? Steph, have you ever

00:14:34 found yourself babysitting an adult with the temperament of a child that had to correct

00:14:37 yourself? Sure. I mean, it's a constant challenge in call-in shows for sure. A friend of mine

00:14:47 many years ago, he's not a friend anymore, was not doing well. And I got him a job. I got him

00:14:57 a job interview, right? Where I was working, right? Because I was in the position of being able to

00:15:02 hand out employment. Because I've interviewed like a thousand people. I've hired like a hundred people

00:15:06 over the course of my career. And so as a chief technical officer, I was in the position of being

00:15:12 able to give people jobs. And here's the thing, right? I mean, if a friend got me a job, then I

00:15:23 would consider it really incumbent upon me to do super extra well. Because my friend had put his

00:15:30 reputation on the line to get me a job, which would mean that I would have to do like I'd have

00:15:36 to go above and beyond. I'd have to do super incredibly fantastically well because my friend

00:15:41 had gotten me the job. Does this sort of make sense? However, some of my former friends did

00:15:50 not particularly feel that way. They were like, "Hey man, I'm friends with the boss. I can just

00:15:56 show up whenever I want." I don't know. It's just weird to me. It's just, it's a different mindset.

00:16:01 It's just a different mindset. I have a mindset of... I think, I mean, I was thinking, I was reading

00:16:11 about this the other day, how sort of a mindset of gratitude is actually physically good for your

00:16:14 heart. I do have a mindset of gratitude. I'm grateful for my wife. I'm grateful for these

00:16:20 great conversations. I'm grateful for my health, of course, post-cancer and all of that. So

00:16:26 I'm just grateful. And if someone gets me a job, I'm grateful. And I want to do extra well too.

00:16:35 And also you may want that friend at some point to get you another job, right? In which case,

00:16:39 well, maybe you should do a good job, right? I got a job interview at a company I was working at for

00:16:47 a friend. And the manager who was going to hire him sent him an email, sent him another email. Guy

00:16:56 never even responded to the email. And then he was running low on cash. And I'm like, "Man, I did my

00:17:10 part. I mean, you didn't even respond to that guy's email." "Oh yeah, I just, I guess I just

00:17:14 kind of forgot." It's like, well, you know, if you're kind of low on money and you want someone

00:17:21 to help get you a job, but you don't even respond to the email to get the job, then you wouldn't

00:17:25 have been a good employee anyway, right? I also got a woman, I guess I was in my early twenties.

00:17:35 I got a woman a job and I said, "But you can't quit. Like you have to work at least four months

00:17:44 at the job. Like I'm willing to recommend you for the job, but they just had someone quit.

00:17:49 So I really need you to not quit, right? Because if I'm going to recommend you off right after

00:17:53 they had someone quit, you need to at least work the summer or whatever it was, right?"

00:17:56 And a weekend she got a better job offer and quit. And it was like, "Well, okay, that's

00:18:02 then what do I know? What do you say? What do you say? Okay. So you can,

00:18:09 you've made a commitment to me and therefore I recommend it to you and

00:18:11 it just, it teaches you about integrity. It teaches you about empathy. But yeah, I mean,

00:18:20 the number of times I have tried to help people, even through this show, right? Give people money

00:18:25 and so on. And sometimes it works out really well. Some people do responsibly. They, like,

00:18:28 I'm just sending a check off today to a guy who needs help with his therapy bills. He was a caller

00:18:34 from a while ago. Yeah, fantastic, right? Other people, it just doesn't work out, right?

00:18:39 When I interview a candidate for our company, at least two minutes later, the interview,

00:18:45 it's already a bad start. Yeah. I mean, these things could happen. They can,

00:18:49 it really depends on how he handles it, right? If he's like, "Oh, I'm so sorry, blah, blah, blah,"

00:18:52 right? I mean, there can't just be weird stuff on the highway. There's just, you know, "Oh,

00:18:57 you should have left a day before" or something. I mean, I get that it's important, but you know,

00:19:01 the lateness thing. I mean, I was a minute late for the show this morning. I was just,

00:19:09 I just got completely messed up this morning because, you know, we lost an hour or gained an

00:19:14 hour or whatever it was. And so I'm like, "Oh, I have time." And I wanted to expand on something.

00:19:19 I wanted to expand on the Jacobins in the French Revolution. So I did more research and I

00:19:22 recorded a bit and then I had to fix that up and then insert it into the right place in the main

00:19:30 show, because I'm on show four of the French Revolution, which is almost four hours, I guess,

00:19:34 at this point. It's going to be a lot longer by the time we're done, but man, it's great stuff.

00:19:38 Of course, you can get that at freedomain.locals.com. So I was just like, "Oh God, what have

00:19:44 I done?" And then I'm like, "Oh my God, I haven't even eaten anything." So I had to have a banana

00:19:49 and right, so. All right. So yeah, sorry it was a little late, but it's worth it. It'll be worth it.

00:19:57 When you were doing research for the Peaceful Parenting book, did you come across RIE

00:20:01 parenting? If so, what are your thoughts on it? No, I didn't. I didn't.

00:20:05 I didn't research other parenting methods. This is not a review of other parenting methods,

00:20:16 because no other parent... What is the one thing that every other parenting method is going to

00:20:23 miss? What is the one thing that they don't have? Yeah, UPB, Non-Aggression Principle Philosophy.

00:20:34 They'll have practicality, right? Well, your kids will turn out better if you do this,

00:20:39 and kids will blah, blah, blah. But that's all pragmatism.

00:20:46 I need arguments. You're ready for a statement that's going to blow your mind. I can tell you

00:20:54 the whole business plan of what I've been doing here for so long.

00:20:56 No, no, not the 500-year thing. So people say, "Well, you should treat your children well because

00:21:14 you know, it's nice and it's practical and they'll be happier and they'll turn out better," and so on.

00:21:19 But "there are good outcomes" is not a moral argument.

00:21:30 "There are good outcomes" is not a moral argument. Things will be better. Your children will be

00:21:39 happier. They'll like you more. You'll have a better relationship with them and blah, blah,

00:21:42 blah, blah, blah, right? Why is that not a moral argument?

00:21:49 You should be nice to your babies and kill children. You should negotiate with them because

00:22:04 they'll turn out better. You'll be happier. It'll be nicer.

00:22:08 But what happens if somebody says, "I don't agree"?

00:22:10 I don't agree. You're pampering them. You're turning them into spoiled brats.

00:22:17 They don't have any consequences. They won't ever learn any discipline.

00:22:20 What if somebody disagrees?

00:22:24 What if somebody just, "Nope, I don't agree. I don't agree.

00:22:38 I don't agree." Now, people have always tried to overcome this "I don't agree,"

00:22:43 right? I mean, some religions overcome by saying, "Oh, you don't agree? Well,

00:22:47 you're going to hell then. Okay, well, then you should agree," right? Or some people say, "Well,

00:22:51 it can't be universalized. If you cheat on your exams, what if everyone cheated on their exams?"

00:23:05 What if you don't agree with the universalization stuff?

00:23:07 What if you don't agree?

00:23:11 The entire purpose of what I'm doing is to make arguments that you can't reject without being

00:23:19 insane. To make arguments that you can't reject without being insane, without courting insanity.

00:23:30 And this is why even the people I disagree with the most,

00:23:33 when I give them the argument for UPB, they can't disagree.

00:23:38 There's no way out. "Oh, I hate that little escape hole, the fog, the spawn spell, the

00:23:47 misty step. They're gone." They just go, "Whist." And you grab and so, "Whist." Off it goes. No

00:23:54 loophole. No loophole. If there's a loophole, I've done something wrong. I've done something wrong.

00:24:02 I have made a foundational error. I'm not interested in preaching to the choir.

00:24:08 I mean, who's going to be drawn to treating babies nicely? Nice people.

00:24:14 Okay, great. So you've just written a diet book for thin people.

00:24:21 You have written a book trying to convince people to exercise and you're handing it out at a

00:24:25 bodybuilder competition. "Oh, what a great person you are. How amazing. How fantastic."

00:24:30 I want the people who violently disagree with me to have no escape.

00:24:35 No escape. Now, what they can do is they can rage quit, they can storm out, but that's fine. I mean,

00:24:44 everybody can do that, right? But there's no... Like the exploitation, right? "Exploitation. I'm

00:24:53 being exploited." Well, that's not an objective definition. I mean, anybody can feel exploited.

00:25:02 "I'm underpaid. You're overcharging." These are all just feelings.

00:25:05 "Manuel, why do you keep repeating this thing that I've already answered? I don't understand this.

00:25:11 Like you've now repeated this three times." "Did you not notice that I actually responded to that?

00:25:16 It's kind of annoying, to be honest with you." "I don't know why you keep repeating this.

00:25:20 Just finished chapter six of peaceful parenting. You're still in an argument. Why do you keep

00:25:25 copy-pasting it? I don't understand. I'm trying to get people's comments and questions. And if

00:25:31 you keep copy-pasting this wall of text..." Anyway. Yeah, there's no way out except insanity.

00:25:40 Right? There's no way out except insanity. Now, I say, "Ah, but they don't feel crazy." It's like,

00:25:45 "Well, that's... I don't care. I mean, what do I care about their feeling?" But if somebody

00:25:48 says that two and two make five openly, directly, then clearly they're crazy, right?

00:25:54 All right. Somebody Sayers. "Do you have any comments on the massive increase in

00:26:00 dissatisfaction with working corporate jobs? I notice this on X a lot. I find it annoying.

00:26:06 As I just got my first job, I feel very grateful and have lots of excitement about the future."

00:26:10 Right. Right. Right.

00:26:15 I was always perfectly thrilled to get jobs myself. I was always perfectly thrilled to get

00:26:21 jobs. I mean, even when I got a job weeding people's gardens and I've got a job washing

00:26:27 cars and dishwashers, I was... I didn't stay at the dishwasher job. That was too much even for me.

00:26:32 But I was always grateful to get the jobs. And particularly when I got to work in offices and

00:26:37 all of that. So there's a couple of things going on with people's dissatisfaction about work,

00:26:43 some of which in my view are legitimate and some of them are illegitimate. But is this an

00:26:48 interesting topic? Hit me with a "why" if this is an interesting topic about this quiet quitting,

00:26:53 this job dissatisfaction stuff. Right. Okay. Hit me with one to 10,

00:27:06 "How bored were you regularly as a child?"

00:27:09 Were you bored? Were you 10, 9, 8, 0? Right. Most of the time? Right.

00:27:22 Trying to explain to my daughter what was going on in my childhood is

00:27:35 really hard. I mean, I grew up in England. Of course, I was in boarding school. There was no

00:27:38 television, no radio, no music, no board games. I mean, there was a game. Occasionally we would

00:27:44 play games, but that's about it. We would see a movie maybe once a month. But you just had to

00:27:51 figure out your own stuff. Of course, being broke and in an apartment building, you just got to try

00:27:56 and find some way to entertain yourself. This is why Dungeons and Dragons was so cool because

00:28:00 one guy had a couple of books and we just went from there. I was willing to spend a couple of

00:28:05 bucks on dice because I got years and years of entertainment out of it. My friends and I,

00:28:10 we would go garbage picking and create our own games. I mean, yeah, we were bored. We were bored.

00:28:24 Who's bored now? Who's bored now?

00:28:27 Yeah, we played for sure, but sometimes you just... I remember my friends and I sitting

00:28:43 out back of the Don Mills Mall for like an hour or an hour and a half trying to figure

00:28:46 out the name for our bicycle gang. So our kids grow up with tablets. They grow up with

00:28:55 flashing light board games. They grow up with giant screen movies and infinite video.

00:29:04 And I mean, the opportunities for stillness, for quiet, for contemplation, for self-reflection,

00:29:12 for boredom. Yeah, Manhunt was very fun. We used to call it Red Rover. Red Rover, Red Rover,

00:29:22 I call Billy over. Yeah, we would. I mean, I'd write about this in my novel almost about the

00:29:26 games that we would create, the war games that we would create and all the elaborate rules we

00:29:29 would create and how we would enforce them and all of that because we had no money. We had no money.

00:29:37 I really didn't have toys as a kid. I painted. I had a chalkboard and I would do elaborate

00:29:45 drawings and I painted and all of that, but I didn't really have... I had a box of hand-me-down.

00:29:51 You have to get this Franken-Lego, like just nothing ever fits together,

00:29:55 things are different sizes, but I had this box of Lego and I'd play with that sometimes.

00:29:59 We'd play in a grove of trees, pretend we had a great fort that needed to be maintained. Yeah,

00:30:06 you create all of this sort of stuff. Yeah. Logic puzzles with matchsticks. Yeah.

00:30:10 When I lived in Canada, there were some really great Indian girls who lived down the hall and

00:30:19 they had a game of Monopoly and we would play Monopoly. We didn't have Monopoly at my place, but

00:30:24 yeah. So, kids are... I mean, they're growing up hyper-stimulated and well, they're hyper-stimulated

00:30:36 at home and they're incredibly bored at school. When I lived in Canada, yeah, yeah. They're

00:30:42 incredibly bored at school. School is just mind-crushing. It's like this soft, velvet,

00:30:51 vice-like fog that just squeezes the life out of you, like blood coming out of an accordion.

00:30:56 Oh my gosh. It's just horrifying. It's just horrifying. No, I say when I lived in Canada,

00:31:05 because I lived in England. I also lived for a short period in South Africa. So,

00:31:08 yeah. When I lived in Canada, just so you understand.

00:31:12 Does growing up in an apartment make it worse? No, I loved growing up in an apartment in many ways,

00:31:18 because we were on an apartment which had a whole bunch of apartments around on what's called an

00:31:23 estate. And so everywhere you went out, there were kids to play with. And of course, I was just at

00:31:28 the tail end of the baby boomer, beginning of Gen X. So everywhere I went, there were just

00:31:33 hordes of kids to play with. So when young people get a job, well, they get a lot of vanity. They

00:31:47 get a lot of praise. Well, not the boys so much, but the girls in particular. They get a job,

00:31:52 and they feel like they shouldn't have to work. Why also we defer working for so long now. It's

00:31:57 one of the things that happens with mass immigration is the jobs that used to go to

00:32:00 teenagers now go to immigrants. And so teenagers used to get jobs. And of course, those on the

00:32:05 left want to keep teenagers from getting jobs. They want to keep young people from getting jobs

00:32:09 as long as humanly possible so they don't get that. Everybody remember that free fall feeling

00:32:16 when you get your first paycheck, like your first real paycheck with deductions? Do you ever,

00:32:20 you remember that? I remember when I got my first job at $40,000 a year, it seemed like all the

00:32:25 money in the world. And then you get that paycheck and it's like, what the ever living hell.

00:32:30 So, you know, they want to, you want to keep people on the receiving end of government money

00:32:36 for as long as possible. That way you bypass their critical faculties and you wrap them in with guilt

00:32:41 for receiving stuff, right? So when they get to work, they have to subject themselves to some

00:32:52 kind of discipline. Pay is not great. Housing prices are ungodly. Housing prices are absolutely

00:33:03 ungodly. And I mean, for me, it wasn't so bad because I mean, I was still in my mid twenties,

00:33:15 I was living in a room in a house with like five other people

00:33:18 because I was doing my graduate school and all of that. And I never bought a place.

00:33:27 I never bought, I moved in with my wife. She had a condo when we got married, but no, I've never,

00:33:34 um, I never, I never bought a place and never really thought about it. Didn't have a car.

00:33:38 So I was just, I mean, thrilled to be doing graduate school. Then I was thrilled to have a job

00:33:44 and then thrilled to be an entrepreneur. But yeah, I didn't, I didn't particularly care

00:33:51 how expensive houses were to buy or condos were to buy it. But of course, even rent now

00:33:56 is completely mental, right? Which is inevitable, right? Given the policies. So what's happened is

00:34:04 kids are overstimulated. They get to work. They're understimulated. They get their first deductions.

00:34:08 They're horrified. There's a lot of discipline. They actually have to produce. Although I know

00:34:13 that there's a lot of frou-frou HR jobs, but you don't have to, but you know, uh, and, and then

00:34:17 what are they, what are they working for? What are they working for? You ever have that thing

00:34:23 where it's like, you get that zoom out in your life. You get the zoom out. Like I'm getting up

00:34:28 and going to work. I'm coming home, playing a couple of video games, you know, chat with some

00:34:32 friends. I go to sleep. I get up, I go to work. Like it feels a little bit like Groundhog day.

00:34:36 And there's this zoom out. You say, okay, the fuck am I doing all this for?

00:34:42 What am I, uh, what am I doing? Where's this going?

00:34:46 And you know what that is? That's the first necrotic sniff of the tsunami of mortality

00:34:54 rolling down from the end of your life saying, would you like to build towards something?

00:34:57 Anything? Anything? What's the goal here? What's the plan? What are we doing all this for? Why are

00:35:02 we drawing breath? What's the purpose of all of this? I produce, I consume, I sleep, I wake,

00:35:11 I produce, I consume, I sleep, I wake, I produce, I consume, I sleep, I wake.

00:35:15 Why? Why? Why? Now, of course, some people can answer that why with big moral crusades and so

00:35:32 on, but that's not the case for most of us. Why? Why? Produce, consume, sleep, wake, produce,

00:35:46 consume, sleep, wake, produce, consume, sleep, wake. You can keep that voice quieted for years

00:35:51 with addiction, yeah. Yeah, why? What's the answer for most people as to why they work?

00:35:58 Why do most people, I mean, why do most men go to work? Why do most men

00:36:06 build things? Why do they produce more than they consume? No, not to survive. Animals do that.

00:36:19 Yeah, for the family.

00:36:20 There are still so many people stuck in the toddler mindset that happiness

00:36:28 is the serving of the self. Do you follow? To be happy is to serve yourself. To be happy

00:36:36 is to buy something for yourself. To be happy is to achieve something for yourself. To be happy is

00:36:42 to go on a vacation that you enjoy. To be happy is to get someone to date you. To be happy is

00:36:48 to serve the self. Does that make sense? Do you know people like that? Are you

00:36:54 someone like that? That the happiness is service of the self? Right.

00:37:10 Why is that such a contradiction? Happiness is service to the self.

00:37:17 Why is that such a contradiction? Why is that such a paradox? Can't be happy alone?

00:37:28 It does not lead to happiness by definition. Why?

00:37:33 Why is it such a paradox to say service to the self will make me happy?

00:37:37 Because short-term happiness does not last. I've never thought about it, but it's true.

00:37:51 Happiness is serving myself. Wow. You can't receive love without providing value to others.

00:37:56 Well, I mean, but if you buy stuff, you're providing value to whoever is selling it to you.

00:38:03 There you go. P-dot. Boom. Laser target right at the core. Because the reason you exist is

00:38:08 because someone else did not only think about themselves. Right. Right.

00:38:13 No matter how bad your parents, there was sacrifice in having you. There was. My mom

00:38:22 was not a great mom to put it mildly, but my dad was not a great dad. Did they sacrifice

00:38:28 things to have me? Yes, they did. Yes, they did. Did they like that sacrifice? No. Did they resent

00:38:34 it? No. Yes. Did they get enraged about it sometimes? Yeah, I guess. But nonetheless,

00:38:40 why are we here? Because other people didn't only live for themselves.

00:38:46 Stop stealing from eternity to serve your nerve endings.

00:38:55 Stop stealing from sacrifice in order to sacrifice your future.

00:39:05 It's selfish because you only exist because your parents sacrificed things to have you.

00:39:20 And if all you do is serve yourself, you are consuming about 14 billion years. Not kidding.

00:39:26 14 billion years. Sorry. Four billion years of sacrifice. You're consuming four billion

00:39:30 years of sacrifice to tickle your own dopamine receptors and fall off the cliff to nothingness.

00:39:35 If life is a joy, create joy. If life is happiness, create happiness.

00:39:47 If life is a blessing, create the blessing. Pass it on. If life is misery, well, maybe it's because

00:39:53 you're only living for yourself and not doing it for anything else. Now, do you know why people

00:40:03 are so tempted to live only for their own satisfaction? Why is it that people don't want to

00:40:13 serve others? Children, community, family, whoever, right? Easy? Maybe.

00:40:21 Because their parents didn't serve them. Well, all parents serve you to some degree.

00:40:31 All parents serve you to some degree.

00:40:42 Have you heard about the way that I talk about where people get stuck, where people get stopped?

00:40:50 When I meet people, I look at their mental age, and very few people get to maturity. Very few

00:40:58 people get to adulthood, like true adulthood, and particularly as you age, right? We all know the

00:41:03 people in their 60s or even their 70s who are still kind of giddy idiots, right?

00:41:11 And of course, you see women in their 30s who are still acting like they're 18.

00:41:14 The age stop. The age stop.

00:41:18 Where do people get stuck? Where do people get stopped?

00:41:26 Yeah, permanent adolescence. There's some reason they're not able to get to the next stage in life.

00:41:40 And I saw these people all the time in the business world.

00:41:42 You know where they got stopped. You know where they get stopped, you know where they get stuck.

00:41:47 Peter Pan symbol syndrome is real. Yes, that's right.

00:41:53 They didn't get what they needed as children. Oh my gosh, are you guys still doing dominoes?

00:42:01 Well, this person is the way they are because of their childhood.

00:42:08 Is this really where we are? How many people think that,

00:42:12 "Oh, this person is the way they are because of their childhood."

00:42:14 Let me ask you, am I the way, am I a peaceful parent because of my childhood? Am I the way I

00:42:24 am because of my childhood?

00:42:28 Ah.

00:42:32 It's not what happens to you that defines you. It's not what happens to you that defines you.

00:42:48 Please, people, I'm begging. Cast that out like the demon it is. It's not what happens to you

00:42:54 that defines you. What defines you?

00:42:59 Not how you react. A reaction is a passive thing. I push you, you fall back. That's a reaction.

00:43:09 I yell at you, you yell back. That's a reaction.

00:43:11 Well, you're not defined by anything that happens to you as a child. You know that, right?

00:43:17 You're not defined by anything that happens to you as a child.

00:43:23 How could you be defined by things you did not choose? Am I defined by having a crazy mother?

00:43:28 No, I didn't choose having a crazy mother and I chose to fight it as much as possible.

00:43:32 Nothing that happens to you as a child defines you. And this is true even for all the great

00:43:42 successes, if you have a wonderful, loving family and so on. I do, you know, say to my daughter,

00:43:45 "Remember how lucky you are. You pulled some great parents, you're lucky."

00:43:51 Other people are unlucky and make sure you don't feel automatically superior to people

00:43:57 with whom you have better luck. Do not feel automatically superior to people if you have

00:44:03 better luck and do not feel automatically inferior to people if you have worse luck.

00:44:18 "Stef, has your daughter seen bad parenting in real life?"

00:44:22 Yeah. Nobody we know, of course, but yeah, I mean, around the world we see it.

00:44:29 The only thing that defines you, and I mean, I know it's tempting to say your choices define you,

00:44:46 but a lot of choices are reactions.

00:44:49 And people still make choices who don't think. The only thing that defines you

00:45:01 is whether you think or not.

00:45:02 The only thing that defines you is whether you think or not.

00:45:14 That's it. Now, you'll make choices, of course, but even people who don't think make choices,

00:45:19 right? I mean, a lot of it's reactive, but they make choices.

00:45:21 Thanks for your tip, Wallace. I appreciate that.

00:45:25 I mean, I had a bad childhood. My choice or my thought was,

00:45:39 "I want to avoid that. I want to get away from it. I want to avoid it. I want to put it behind me.

00:45:43 I want to move on like it didn't happen, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah," right?

00:45:47 And I read books, and through Ayn Rand, I got to Nathaniel Brandon, who's a very good psychological

00:45:52 writer, and he was like, "You've got to accept your feelings. Your feelings are there to help

00:45:57 you, and so rather than just push away my feelings, I accepted them. You've got to make

00:46:00 these choices. You've got to think. You've got to research. You've got to learn. You've got to

00:46:03 understand. You've got to be a better person. You've got to be a better person. You've got to

00:46:07 research. You've got to learn. You've got to understand. You've got to penetrate, question,

00:46:13 be skeptical, think, think." That's the choice. That's the choice.

00:46:27 So why don't people want to serve others?

00:46:34 And it's not because nobody served them, and it wasn't because they were exploited as children.

00:46:37 These are all causal things, and you must, in my humble opinion, you must cast out these

00:46:42 causal explanations because they strip people of choice, of free will. And you understand,

00:46:49 if you say to someone, "You are because of your childhood, they will exploit the living shit out

00:46:56 of you," and I'm not kidding about that. If you take away people's free will because of their

00:47:01 bad childhoods, they will use their bad childhoods to exploit you. I mean, have you heard of this

00:47:10 on this show, in call-in shows, in other conversations that I've had or you've had or

00:47:16 people have had where you confront your bad parents and they say, "Well, I had a bad childhood.

00:47:20 I had a bad childhood." So then you say, "Oh, well, you had a bad childhood. So,

00:47:29 okay, I guess I'll continue to see you and I'll forgive you and just get exploited."

00:47:32 Does this make sense?

00:47:39 This is a domino-free zone. We don't give childhood physics over adulthood. Do you follow?

00:47:56 We don't give childhood inescapable laws of physics dictating and dominating adulthood.

00:48:03 No, no, no, no, no, no. Absolutely not. Because that is to say that the bad childhood

00:48:13 will never, ever, ever end.

00:48:21 If my bad childhood produced gravity, I will never escape gravity. It's a law. It's dominoes.

00:48:28 It's physics. The accidents of childhood cannot produce the physics of adulthood.

00:48:35 Cannot. Will not in this conversation.

00:48:50 People only serve themselves because of a false thought, a lazy thought.

00:48:59 One lazy thought.

00:49:10 And the lazy thought is this. I can backfill. My parents didn't serve me, so if I just keep

00:49:36 serving myself, I'll fix it. I don't have to process the feelings. I don't have to get angry.

00:49:49 I don't have to get sad. I don't have to get upset. I don't have to confront everyone.

00:49:54 My parents didn't serve me, so if I just serve myself, I'll fix it.

00:50:04 Whoops. But you know that's why your parents didn't serve you, right?

00:50:07 You're not fixing it, you're reproducing it. Does this make sense? You're not fixing it,

00:50:14 you're reproducing it. And people have because they take the physics thing, right? Oh, if I

00:50:18 didn't eat much, then I can eat more. Like I didn't eat all day, so maybe I'll have a bigger

00:50:23 dinner or whatever, right? Okay, that can work out to some degree. But you don't sit there and say,

00:50:29 "Well, I didn't, right, I do, what do I do, 30 pounds, right? Shoulder lifts, right? Oh,

00:50:39 I didn't work out at all last week. Normally I do three workouts a week, and I'll do two sets of 12,

00:50:49 right?" And say, "Well, I didn't work out at all last week, so what I'll do is,

00:50:56 instead of doing 30 pounds, I'll just do 90 pounds, because I'm just going to backfill."

00:51:00 Oh, I get, I'm careful with the shoulder lifts, I get it. I've been doing them for like 40 years,

00:51:07 I'm good. I appreciate that though. Yeah, it's like, you're good form and you're good. It's

00:51:16 easy to, I get it, it's easy to injure the shoulder, I get it. I appreciate that, but I'm good.

00:51:24 The only time I ever got a permanent injury was in an aerobics class, believe it or not. Anyway,

00:51:28 that's not particularly relevant right now. So you can't backfill. "I didn't get enough

00:51:34 to eat as a child." What is the backfill statement?

00:51:37 "I didn't get enough to eat as a child." What is the backfill statement? "I'll eat a lot now."

00:51:44 Does that solve the problem?

00:51:52 Or, and you can guess how much this is personal to me, "I didn't get a lot of attention as a child,

00:52:00 so I'll be an in-your-face, really funny, loud attention whore now.

00:52:04 I will get your attention now. I didn't get a lot of attention as a child, but I'll be

00:52:09 loud and funny and do karaoke and act and I'll get your attention now."

00:52:21 You know, that's just all, again, perfectly theoretical for me, never had any experience

00:52:24 with that. I've heard of it. I've heard tell and I've read tales, but I showed them. Yeah,

00:52:34 yeah. My mother said, "Don't think." Okay, well, that's actually one of the best commandments she

00:52:40 ever gave me was to not think. Yeah, and of course, the people who produce a lot of content,

00:52:45 they get on this treadmill, they get exhausted, they get burned out, they get depressed, they

00:52:49 get anxious. Why? I produce a lot of content. That doesn't mean that that's the case with me,

00:52:54 because they think that by getting a lot of attention as adults, it'll make up for their

00:52:59 lack of attention they didn't get as children, but it won't. It won't. All they're doing is

00:53:05 reproducing it, but in their audience. "Oh, if I get a million views on this video,

00:53:11 I won't have had a bad childhood." No, all that means is that you're now reproducing

00:53:16 not being paid attention to, because the million people who are paying attention to you,

00:53:20 you're not paying attention to them back. So you're just reproducing not being paid

00:53:23 attention to in your audience. Does that make sense?

00:53:26 My father didn't pay much attention to me as a child, say the women, so

00:53:38 I will now use my skin to get male attention as an adult.

00:53:42 Right.

00:53:51 I mean, we could go through tons of this kind of stuff.

00:54:02 I was broke as a kid, I'll go make a lot of money now.

00:54:12 My parents were over-attentive, so I'm going to isolate myself now.

00:54:17 Pendulum, pendulum, pendulum, pendulum, pendulum, pendulum, pendulum.

00:54:24 Swing, badda, badda, badda, badda.

00:54:28 The most famous streamer, XQC, his father used to tell him he would never amount to anything,

00:54:36 and general abuse now that XQC is rich, he loves him.

00:54:40 I mean, there's a lot of falsehoods in that statement, but I'm sure you're aware of it now.

00:54:43 I'm sure you're aware of it, right?

00:54:45 So, people don't want to go through the pain of having been ignored by their parents,

00:54:56 and having been

00:54:59 unprovided for by their parents. So they say, "Oh, well, I'll just provide for myself now,

00:55:06 because my parents didn't care for me that much, I'll just care for myself and it'll fix it.

00:55:11 Because I was starved, I'll overeat."

00:55:13 But it's not caring for yourself to only live for yourself. It's not caring for yourself to only

00:55:22 live for yourself. My parents loved TV more than me. Well, there's a lot of soft sadism in

00:55:29 dysfunctional parents, a lot of soft sadism, a lot of soft sadism. Did you know that?

00:55:36 I don't know. I don't want to repeat stuff if you've heard it before. Do you know what the

00:55:40 soft sadism stuff is? It's when they clearly communicate to you how unimportant you are,

00:55:47 but without saying you're unimportant.

00:55:50 Right? So if your mom's yelling at you, the phone rings, "Hi, you know, hi, how are you?"

00:55:57 Right? And then she's saying, "Oh, yeah, no, I could change my mood anytime, but you're not

00:56:00 worth it. I'm just going to act out on you." "Oh, television's really interesting." "Well,

00:56:04 I'm just going to watch television when you're upset about something." And it's soft sadism

00:56:07 because they feel power. You wanting them and them not providing gives them a sense of power.

00:56:14 My mom would tell me multiple times she would rather be at work all day than with me.

00:56:19 Right. Right. Right. Soft sadism. Wait until the commercial break.

00:56:31 "Wow, I find this candy crush really fascinating. Much more interesting than you." Right?

00:56:36 Acting bored whenever you express enthusiasm. Absolutely. Not listening to you at all. Not

00:56:44 asking you how your day was. Being dissociated and blank-faced when you're trying to tell them

00:56:50 something. Oh, yeah, it's all soft sadism. It's the elevation of one personality at the expense

00:56:56 of another, right? Which is parasitical and predatory. Yeah, sports are on to make some sound.

00:57:02 Yeah. Sports are really important because I'm absolutely sure that these athletes will come

00:57:08 and visit me in the old age home. I'll just call them up and say, "Hey, man, part of your paycheck

00:57:13 was me watching the sports game, so you got to come and wipe my ass in the old age home." And

00:57:16 they'll be like, "Who are you?" "I don't know." "What?" "Are the news always hush?" "Yeah."

00:57:23 I mean, I was guilty of this a little bit myself, of course, when I was younger, where,

00:57:26 you know, track of the show and dealing with problems. I mean, you know,

00:57:29 you got to work, so it's not the end of the world, but yeah.

00:57:32 Or when your parents have much stronger emotional reactions to other things than you,

00:57:39 they cry at a movie, or they yell really passionately at the sports game, or like,

00:57:45 they just have a really strong emotional reaction and involvement and connection with things that

00:57:49 aren't even you. "The Kardashians, did you know what she said?" It's like, "You know,

00:57:55 I was saying something to you yesterday and you yawned, but the Kardashians..." I don't know.

00:57:59 Wild. Wild. Oh, with my mother, it was always the latest guy, right? The new guy. The guy.

00:58:08 He's really important because he'll be gone in a month.

00:58:12 Well, that means I'll be gone in 20 years, so I guess I'll just be patient.

00:58:16 So, "Politics was really important to my dad, much more so than talking to my brother and I."

00:58:22 Yeah, I just, I had a call-in show with, it was a pretty wild show. It's not been published yet,

00:58:27 and it was a woman who was having problems with her husband, and her husband had never

00:58:32 even heard the show, had no idea who I was, and decided to join the call anyway, which was

00:58:36 interesting. It was a real two different levels of knowledge and all of that. It was quite a

00:58:40 navigation thing. And I was like, "Oh, I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do this."

00:58:44 It was a real two different levels of knowledge and all of that. It was quite a navigation.

00:58:46 And yeah, and that was it. "Politics! We talk about politics! We just talked about

00:58:50 politics and economics!" It's not up to listen to yet, no. I mean, I'm producing a multitude.

00:58:59 Where can I find all the call-ins? In one place. You can just go to FDRpodcast.com and search for

00:59:04 call-in, although we're working on more of a natural language query for all of that, right?

00:59:08 I heard some dude yesterday saying, "Raising kids is boring, and it's a woman's job to do."

00:59:13 Hey man, who's got a problem with that? Totally fine, as long as he's willing to universalize it.

00:59:17 You know what? Taking care of elderly parents is also boring, right? And it's a nurse's job to do.

00:59:22 I mean, as long as he's willing to be like, "Hey man, if you're kind of old and daughtery

00:59:28 and repeating yourself a bit and having senior moments and you're incontinent, that's kind of

00:59:32 boring. So hey man, if he's willing to live and die by the sword, I can at least respect the

00:59:37 integrity." She keeps a mo- Okay, let's see here. Yes, so I got a bunch of questions. We're going to

00:59:52 go to donors now, and this won't be published in the general stream. I'm going to go donors now.

00:59:59 And of course, if you want to, you've got a minute. And if you want to join, I will give you

01:00:07 the link if you want to sign up. Again, you can sign up, you can listen, and all of that.

01:00:12 It's free to try, and I'll post the link right here, right now.

01:00:19 You can join in 22-part history of philosophy, serious to staff, but AI private live streams,

01:00:27 premium call-in shows, audiobooks, my new book, Peaceful Parenting, and now also

01:00:31 the multi-hour presentation on the truth about the French Revolution, which is my

01:00:35 Roman Empire update. It is where I think some of the juiciest parts of my brain

01:00:41 mash together in terms of philosophy, family, history, politics, and all of that.

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