- 6 months ago
In this episode, I explore a listener's conflict over circumcision for his future son, navigating the clash between cultural norms and bodily autonomy. The caller shares his traumatic experience, prompting a discussion on the ethical implications of the practice and the importance of personal choice. We also address the need for reason over tradition in marital decisions and expand the conversation to societal issues, including free speech in the UK. The episode concludes with insights on relationships and the value of mutual support in partnerships.
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LearningTranscript
00:00:00Yo, yo, everybody. Hope you're doing well. It is Stéphane von Molyneux-Forehead from
00:00:09freedomane.com, and I hope you're doing well. Hope you're having a lovely day. Hope you're
00:00:15enjoying the, well, here in Ontario, the not-so-inconsiderable heatwave. The kind of heatwave
00:00:22that happens when I take off my shirt, assuming I've been microwaved. All right. So,
00:00:30it's your show. Questions, comments, issues, challenges, problems, criticisms,
00:00:35whatever is on your mind that you think is worth running through my chatterbox philosophy brain,
00:00:40I am all ears. In fact, I'm so all ears, I could fly over a circus, Dumbo Elephant style. I'm here
00:00:49for you. All right, let's go straight into Spanish-sounding name person. What's on your mind?
00:00:57How's it going?
00:01:00Pretty good. I didn't expect to get picked, but since I'm here, I guess I would like to ask you
00:01:09a pretty specific question. So, I'm 25 years old. I recently got married, and I'm a Muslim,
00:01:15and my wife is also Muslim, of course, and we're talking about kids and everything and
00:01:22planning about that and thinking about all of that. So, for my wife, she kind of really
00:01:30wants to circumcise my son. If we have a son, she says he should get circumcised. But I'm
00:01:39against it for various reasons. I think maybe you know him, but basically, just the general
00:01:46idea that we cut off males' body parts seems pretty insane, just as a basic reason. But
00:01:56my wife thinks it's normal. I mean, she says it's a cultural thing. It's what we all do
00:02:02and what we're supposed to do. And so, she wants to continue doing that, but I'm against
00:02:09it. And we kind of left it off at the state where, I mean, I gave her all my arguments and
00:02:14told you why we shouldn't do it. And the point where we left off was basically, we said that
00:02:23we're going to, if we have a son, we're going to let him grow up until he's 18. And then
00:02:27we're going to tell him about circumcision. And if he wants to do that, then we can let
00:02:31him do that. But if not, then not. We don't want to make a decision for him if he can't
00:02:37decide by himself. But basically, what she says against that is that, well, you're going
00:02:45to tell him all about the bad things or why you shouldn't do it. And basically, we're going
00:02:54to let him make a decision, but I'm not allowed to tell him all the negatives. So I don't
00:03:00know. I kind of wanted to ask you what you make of all of it, what you would say. Yeah.
00:03:07That's a great question, my friend. And I really appreciate you bringing it up. And I mean,
00:03:14there's just two questions I have up front and forgive me for my lack of knowledge of
00:03:18Islam. Number one is, why on earth would a man listen to a woman about what happens with
00:03:23a penis? I mean, this is nothing specific to Islam. That's just in general, like why on earth
00:03:29would a man listen to a woman about what happens to a penis? I mean, she doesn't have
00:03:34one. Well, I actually told her that too. I said, like, I mean, if it's a son, then it's
00:03:39kind of a male topic. And if we have a daughter, then she's going to have all kinds of female
00:03:43topics that I might not have any input on. And that's one of the things I told her. I said,
00:03:49like, as a man who has also been circumcised, I kind of have like an idea and I have researched
00:03:55this and I know why it's not good. But I mean, yeah, we talk about like a hypothetical son and
00:04:02we, and yeah, I mean, I didn't want to, I mean, I could, I could tell her like, this is male
00:04:10business. You don't have any input on that, but that's, I feel that's just going to be
00:04:14disrespectful. And that's not going to be like productive to kind of convincing her by herself
00:04:19that it's, I mean, I don't want to like be like, okay, it's going to be my way and that's it.
00:04:24I kind of want to like explain it to her and be like, uh, for this and that reason,
00:04:29we shouldn't do it. So, yeah.
00:04:32Okay. All right. I just was wondering about that. Um, of course, I'm sure that, you know,
00:04:37I'm just going to go over them very briefly. I've got a whole presentation called the truth
00:04:40about circumcision, which you can find at fdrpodcasts.com. So circumcision is the anesthesia
00:04:48free slicing of one third of the skin of the penis off a newborn. It's hacking, it's mutilation.
00:04:58It is brutal. It's barbaric. It is removing healthy tissue. It is to me, an absolute brutal
00:05:08violation of any basic medical ethics. It produces very high levels of stress hormones and cortisol
00:05:20in the baby, in the son, in your precious boy. In fact, six months after circumcision,
00:05:28the stress levels are still elevated and you take a child from the womb of the mother,
00:05:37which is a comfortable and beautiful, warm and nutritious environment, straight out into the
00:05:41cold, harsh air. And then you immediately slash off a third of the most sensitive skin on his body
00:05:47without anesthetic or if it's even local anesthetic. I don't know if you've ever tried to have a tooth
00:05:53drilled without Novocaine. It's not fun. I had to once get something incised on my skin without
00:06:03anesthetic and it's brutal. And so it is horrendous. Now, the long-term effects are that there's much
00:06:11more chafing with regards to sexual activity. One of the reasons why there's a foreskin is so that when
00:06:17the man thrusts, there's a cushion, right? So the foreskin slides back and forth with less abrasion
00:06:27against the vagina. So it is more pleasurable often for the woman and it is a horrendous practice.
00:06:39It is a barbaric practice. And of course, it's just another one of these anti-male tropes,
00:06:44right? The anti-male trope is that we would never countenance this in most places, certainly in the
00:06:51West. We would never say that clitorectomies, sorry, I can do the word, I can do the word,
00:06:58clitorectomies and female genital mutilation would be considered barbaric, but male genital mutilation
00:07:02is not considered barbaric. And that's just anti-male prejudice. It can make erections painful
00:07:11because there's not enough skin to stretch. It has health complications at times. And I mean,
00:07:17I actually talked to a man on my show some years ago whose penis was destroyed by a bunch of
00:07:23circumcision. It's risky. And the myth that, oh, you get less penis cancer, it's less with STDs,
00:07:31and it's just really not true. And even if it were true that circumcision were to slightly reduce the
00:07:39chance of illness later on in life, we don't do that as a society. We don't do that. We don't sort
00:07:46of hack off infant girls' breasts because they might have some risk of breast cancer later on in
00:07:53life. We don't remove one testicle because there could be testicular cancer and this halves the odds.
00:07:59We just don't do that. It's not done as a society and carving out these exceptions is brutal.
00:08:03So, I mean, you wash, you use soap, and everything's perfectly fine. I was not circumcised. I have an
00:08:13intact organ, and it's never been an issue. I mean, no woman has ever said, oh, whatever. I mean,
00:08:20it is just a strange aesthetic that's put forward, and it is monstrous. And, you know, I guess my major
00:08:28concern with regards to your marriage, congratulations, of course, by the way, my major concern is that
00:08:34I would have a conversation with my wife, not so much about circumcision, but just about empathy,
00:08:41which is why would you want to inflict this on a child? Why would you want to take a boy and
00:08:49without anesthetic, slice off a third of his most sensitive skin and leaving him, I mean, it's
00:08:55disfigured. It is disfigured because it's not the way that God made the body or evolution carved the
00:09:00body. So, I think really the conversation is not around circumcision, but just about, I mean,
00:09:07authority as a whole. Like, I get that you want to negotiate with your wife, and I think that's a
00:09:11fine thing in many ways, but when it comes to female issues, women should have authority. And when it
00:09:20comes to male issues, men should have authority. The division of labor in a marriage is really essential.
00:09:24This is my sort of tip to having a happy marriage. I talked about this on X not too long ago.
00:09:30The division of labor is really important. My wife is really great at some things. I don't
00:09:36necessarily understand them because women are delightfully incomprehensible. So, my wife is
00:09:41really great at some things, and she has authority in those things. I'm better at some things than she
00:09:47is, so I have authority in those things. Like, you're a team, and you're a team with different skills
00:09:53because you're man and woman, and we have evolved to have complementary but to different skills and
00:10:01abilities. So, letting your wife have authority in the things that she's best at, and these are fairly
00:10:08predictable things, things around maintaining social contacts, being appropriate, being nice,
00:10:16you know, which is sometimes underrated by men, certainly by me. And she, you know, softens the edges
00:10:21and creates a beautiful home and runs the social life and does a lot of great things that she's
00:10:26just naturally really good at. She keeps all of the appointments in her head. She makes sure
00:10:30that my daughter and I, you know, get our checkups and our blah, blah, blahs. And she's just really
00:10:35fantastic at running the household, and she knows everything that's in the fridge, and she's got a
00:10:39giant conveyor belt of things in her mind that need to go from the store to the fridge to our bellies,
00:10:43and so on. She's just really great, and I'm terrible at that stuff. Like, unavowedly, unabashedly,
00:10:50unregretfully, just appalling. It's the old thing that, you know, bachelors live on a broken futon
00:10:56with a giant TV that's sitting on the box that came in. And so, yeah, she makes the house a beautiful
00:11:02home. She keeps us healthy. She is really devoted to our well-being. And there are other things that I'm
00:11:08better at. And I have some authority. No, it doesn't mean we don't tell each other about things.
00:11:14You know, if I need to buy something for what it is I do for the show, then I will tell her about it.
00:11:21But I'm not going to ask her about it. Because, like, now I'm doing these spaces. I wanted a
00:11:29computer machine that allows me to record dual channel off an iPhone. So, I had to spend some
00:11:37money to get that. And, you know, I'm sort of explaining to her what it's about. But I'm not
00:11:42like, ooh, can I? You know, because she trusts that I am not a big spendthrift in these areas.
00:11:47And if I buy something, it's needed. And, you know, when you get older, you have more,
00:11:52your time becomes more precious, right? So, whatever you can do to cut your time.
00:11:56Whereas if she says, we need something for the house, or we need whatever, women get a hate on for
00:12:02the current environment every couple of years and feel the urge to redo it and so on. And I've
00:12:07managed to stave that off for a while by, you know, do we need it right now kind of thing. But,
00:12:10you know, she's going to get some new furniture in the house, some rooms in the house repainted.
00:12:15Apparently, it needs something called freshening up, which I don't really understand. But
00:12:18that's fine. She has authority in that and good for her. And so, you've got to divide labor and give
00:12:28people authority. Otherwise, you end up negotiating everything. Everything goes to a standstill.
00:12:33You know, like if you have, I was chief technical officer in a software company.
00:12:38And later on, I was a director of marketing, because I was pretty good at chatting and sales
00:12:44and stuff like that. So, you have a technology guy, and you have a marketing guy. And I've been
00:12:48in both roles. And they may inform each other of stuff, but they don't negotiate on everything.
00:12:54Like the tech guy doesn't go to the marketing guy and says, we need to upgrade the server.
00:12:57And the marketing guy doesn't go to the tech guy and says, I need budget for a mail-in
00:13:02campaign, right? I mean, they will inform each other, but
00:13:05they each have their areas of specialty. So, that would be my
00:13:09general argument. What do you think?
00:13:13I mean, you're definitely right. So, we've been married for like, I think it's been like three or
00:13:18four months. And I mean, kids are definitely in the future. This isn't something that's going to be
00:13:24like, important pretty soon. But the reason I brought it up to her is because, and wanted to
00:13:32talk to her about it, because it's a very important topic to me. And I, like you said,
00:13:38like, I've been circumcised at seven years old without anesthesia. So, I mean, the usual way is
00:13:45you go to the doctor, you get like anesthetics, and you like do it the proper way. But for me
00:13:50personally, I remember my own circumcision. And I kind of, I guess I was traumatized by it. I
00:13:58didn't, I, like sometimes I think about it at night and I don't, I'm like unable to sleep or
00:14:03like I kind of get this like cringy feeling whenever I even read the word somewhere. And
00:14:09yeah, for that reason, I kind of, this is like a topic for me personally that I wanted to make
00:14:14sure that if I ever have a son, I don't do that to them. And you're definitely right. Like this is
00:14:21a male topic. This is something that like, even if you think about it in the most basic sense, you
00:14:27like, it's insane that you just cut off a part of a human body that's completely normal and fully
00:14:33functional. And I guess, I mean, she's Muslim. I mean, it's cultural for her. It's like something
00:14:40that she, uh, heard about and knows that it's like something Muslims do and something that's
00:14:46kind of encouraged. It's not forced. This is not something that is like for Muslims that is
00:14:50a forced thing that they have to like, uh, get circumcised, but it's like highly, highly
00:14:54encouraged. And so because of that, like, I don't, I don't, I don't, I kind of have to
00:15:00like, uh, be careful that I don't like kind of get angry and just like get mad at the religious
00:15:06part of it and kind of disrespect the fact that she's like, I mean, she, she cares about
00:15:11her religion. She, she wants to follow it as best as possible and her kids to follow
00:15:15it as best as possible. And I want that too. But, um, this is like the one thing that I
00:15:21completely disagree with. And I have to like, kind of make an argument and not, uh, say that
00:15:27it's a barbaric thing and it's insane and this and that, because that's not going to stick.
00:15:31It's not going to convince her. And I mean, maybe it's, it was a mistake that I told her
00:15:36that I talked to her about it at this point, maybe I should have, um, uh, waited until
00:15:43there is even a son. But, uh, because of my own experience, I kind of really, really wanted
00:15:49to make sure that she knows what I think about this topic and that I, uh, either way, I mean,
00:15:55it's kind of, yeah, I talked to her about it. I kind of get her input. I try to convince
00:15:59her, but at the end of the day, I plan to not let that happen in any, like, in any
00:16:06world, like in no way is this ever going to happen to my hypothetical son. Um, but yeah,
00:16:13I mean, that's kind of my thoughts.
00:16:15Well, and, uh, sorry, but the principle of disagreement is essential in a marriage, right?
00:16:20Which is how do you resolve disagreements, right? She has the opinion of circumcision.
00:16:25You have the opinion against circumcision. And it's always a big question in marriage
00:16:29as it is in all relationships is how do you resolve disputes? And to me, it has to be reason
00:16:35and evidence because otherwise it's just willpower and willpower usually accumulates to the person
00:16:40who's just next, the longest or resists the longest or anything like that. And so you have
00:16:46to have the reason and evidence thing. How do we make the decision on circumcision reason
00:16:49and evidence? Is it rational to circumcise? No. Is there any evidence that circumcision, uh,
00:16:55the benefits outweigh the risks and the, the, the detriments? Uh, no, right? The fact that
00:17:02it's cultural, well, that's not an argument. I mean, culture, uh, throughout human history
00:17:06has included female genital mutilation and still does around the world has included slavery
00:17:10and still does around the world has included, uh, beating children, beating wives, uh, and,
00:17:16and so on. Uh, so, uh, it is it culture, you know, in the Aztecs included the torture and
00:17:21mutilation and murder of children. So culture is not an argument for anything other than vague
00:17:27familiarity. So I think that you have to sit down and say, well, how are we going to resolve
00:17:30these disagreements, right? You can't just say, I like it. And then insert the word culture
00:17:36and think that you've won an argument. You have to go according to, you know, facts, reason
00:17:40and evidence. I, I never try to convince people of my perspective. I will always try to tell
00:17:47them here's the reason and evidence behind what it is that I'm saying, because otherwise
00:17:51it's just a matter of willpower and dominance. And you have to both have objective standards
00:17:57for resolving disputes in a marriage, right? So hopefully that helps. And I certainly appreciate
00:18:03you bringing up the topic. And also, you know, just want to thank you like man to man, father
00:18:07to father, husband to husband for the stance that you're taking to protect your son. Uh,
00:18:13it's a beautiful thing. And, um, it's, it's, you know, it's funny because it's such a non-issue.
00:18:19I mean, circumcised or not, um, and nobody's ever said anything. There's nothing in the
00:18:24locker room. Nobody cares. You know, like men don't comment on each other's penises. I don't
00:18:29know what kind of weird society it is that people live in where they think that's a thing. Uh,
00:18:34women don't care, but I've always been, uh, very grateful and thankful, uh, to my mother
00:18:39for, for that decision. Or maybe it was my father too. I don't know, but, uh, I really do, uh,
00:18:44appreciate that. And I really do thank you for standing up for your son in this way.
00:18:49Thanks for having me on.
00:18:50You're welcome. You're welcome. Great topic. All right. So let us move to a whomp. It's
00:18:56funny because if there were two of you and you don't answer, it'd be whomp whomp. Hello.
00:19:02Hey, hi, Stefan.
00:19:03Yes, sir.
00:19:04Hi there. Uh, this is a Callum from Scotland. I'm, uh, just wanting to ask you about what you
00:19:09think about the new online safety bill for the UK.
00:19:13Oh, it's horrendous.
00:19:14It's horrendous.
00:19:16Yeah, absolutely horrendous.
00:19:17It's, it's, uh, you know, America has free speech embedded in its constitution, which I
00:19:24mean, it doesn't mean you have real free speech because in the absence, like, so the, of course,
00:19:28America has the first amendment that the government cannot compel or deny speech, but all that
00:19:33happens is NGOs pressure social media companies into de-platforming. So, but again, the government
00:19:38can't technically go after you. Uh, it is, uh, you know, uh, England was the birthplace of
00:19:43free speech. I've mentioned this before. Of course, John Milton wrote a great essay called
00:19:47Ariopagitica, I think, I mean, hundreds of years ago in the defense of free speech and
00:19:55free speech is always restricted by people who have the shittiest fucking arguments in
00:19:59the world. They have no evidence. They have no reason. They have no facts. All they have
00:20:04is the desire for throat throttling control and domination. So you have to shut up and
00:20:11you have to nod and you have to smile and you get padded on the head with a few remaining
00:20:17scraps of liberty because the people in charge have no facts, no reason, no evidence. And what
00:20:26has happened to England with regards to free speech is an absolute crime against the population.
00:20:31It is horrendous that these, you know, pimple asked assholes in centralized bureaucracies and,
00:20:41and legislatures are telling people what they can and cannot say. You know, if you're so wise that
00:20:46you know what a population of tens of millions of people are allowed to talk about, then you must
00:20:51be so wise that you can convince them with your rhetorical powers and your capacity for reason
00:20:57and the huge amounts of evidence. Also, it is an absolute condemnation of the school system.
00:21:05Why is it that you need to punish people for free speech if you've taught them how to think
00:21:09and reason and negotiate in schools? But, uh, I watched, uh, God help me that, uh, show Adolescence,
00:21:17which has, uh, one of the episodes takes place in schools, which are all just terrible, trashy garbage.
00:21:23And so the government is in control of teaching people how to think, negotiate, and reason.
00:21:29So why would you need to control people's speech and punish them for what they said?
00:21:32So, well, there are these extremists. It's like, bro, in the government, you have like a dozen years
00:21:36to teach people how to think and reason. And if they come out of that unable to think and reason,
00:21:41that means that you've got to reform the educational system, not control their speech after the fact.
00:21:47So I think it's all just, uh, horrendous and wrong. And I can't even express like the amount of sorrow
00:21:54that I experienced for the England that I grew up in. I lived in England from 1967 until 1977.
00:22:05I was born in Ireland, but I spent most of my early childhood in England. I mean, it was a paradise.
00:22:12It was paradise, clean, safe. You know, I posted this on X. I would roam with my friends from the age of
00:22:19four or five onwards all over the city, no problems. No, never had a shred of problems, never had a shred
00:22:25of difficulty, never had a shred of danger. I mean, it was, it was paradise. You go and read, uh,
00:22:31Enid Blyton's famous five stories. And you get a sense of what England was like back in the day.
00:22:38She was before my time, but it bled into my time. And you could say what you wanted. You know,
00:22:44in Canada, there was free speech until I think it was the late seventies, uh, as a sort of default
00:22:50position. And, you know, of course the, the very sad thing is that people growing up in England now,
00:22:56they don't remember what it was like. They don't know what it was like. They don't know how safe and
00:23:01clean and beautiful it all was. And how many freedoms you had compared to the present. It's,
00:23:07um, it's really heartbreaking. It's, it's one of the things that I have to kind of not dwell on
00:23:12because it takes me to some pretty dark places and you kind of have to ration your black pills
00:23:17in the world. So, uh, anyway, that's my thoughts. What do you think?
00:23:21Uh, I just, I think it is the, the hide behind the excuse that, oh, we're doing it to protect
00:23:26children from watching porn, which I think is a good thing. I think, um, porn's an evil
00:23:32that we should really try and get rid of, uh, from the earth. But, you know, hours into it,
00:23:37they were already banning posts about a certain protest. I don't want to say it out loud.
00:23:41I'm sure you all know, but, um, yeah, it's very worrying, very worrying.
00:23:45There is such a savage disconnect in most of the West, not all of the West between what the people
00:23:53want and what is being inflicted upon them. And that, uh, you know, is, is not a good trajectory
00:24:00for any society to be on. It's one of the main reasons I got out of politics, uh, five or six
00:24:06years ago is that if the leaders are constantly suppressing the will of the people and acting in
00:24:13direct opposition to the will of the people, and we can think of a number of topics where that
00:24:17could come up. Well, it, uh, it doesn't go well. I mean, we all know what happens and I don't need
00:24:23to get into any particular details, but it is, uh, it's very sad. It's, it's very sad that the
00:24:30governments are acting in diametrical opposition in many ways and areas to what their populations as a
00:24:36whole, uh, actually want. And, uh, the further that the leadership goes from the wishes and will of
00:24:43the people, the more censorship there tends to be. So whenever I see increasing censorship,
00:24:48I see in general leadership that is not listening to the people and doesn't want to listen to the
00:24:55people and doesn't want to be criticized. So yeah, I think it's, I think it's very sad.
00:25:00Yeah, agreed. Um, I just think it's really sad as well how you mentioned that the UK was
00:25:05the birthplace of the free speech movement and, uh, you know, they're the first ones,
00:25:09you know, kind of democratic countries to, to remove it. Um, and I feel that the rest of Europe,
00:25:16Canada, hopefully not the U S cause they've got the first amendment, right? But I think that
00:25:21everybody else will follow suit. Well, I mean, hopefully, hopefully people will be able to get
00:25:27leaders in who do what the people want, because when there is this disconnect between the leadership
00:25:35and the population, uh, people get increasingly desperate and that's a very, very sad thing.
00:25:39And we all want to avoid violence. We want to avoid extremism. We want to avoid escalation,
00:25:44but people do get pretty desperate if they get the perception that their leaders not only are not
00:25:50listening to them, but in sometimes doing the opposite. And it is a sad sort of fact of democracy
00:25:54that it's really tough to find any particular correlation between what the people want and what
00:25:59gets implemented. But of course, if you want more on that, you can go to freedomand.com slash books
00:26:05and look at my solutions for that kind of stuff. It's all peaceful and reasonable. And at the
00:26:11moment involves peaceful parenting. So peaceful parenting.com. I never want to avoid the opportunity
00:26:15to give that wee plug. Is there anything else you wanted to mention? Uh, no, I just wanted to say
00:26:20thanks for your time and keep up the great work. You're an inspiration. Well, thank you very much.
00:26:24I appreciate it. All the best. Bye-bye. God, I love that accent. I don't know why. I just
00:26:29love that accent. I really do. All right. It's Rolf Craig. The words and syllables that
00:26:35I speak. Rolf Cake. What's on your mind, my friend? Um, it's not so deep philosophical,
00:26:40uh, but, uh, the, the new trend with the American Eagle advertisement with, uh, um, with Sidney
00:26:47Sweeney, where suddenly now it's okay to show pride in one's white ancestry, where she makes
00:26:54a pun on genes and genetics, where she shows her great attributes and highlights that she
00:27:01has blonde hair and, and blue eyes. And, and that kind of trend could, um, go somewhere
00:27:07where suddenly it's, uh, you know, because the decay about this guilt trip, uh, the white
00:27:12population of Europe have done seems to be, you know, what are the things that indoctrination
00:27:17is wanting to imprint? Sorry, did you have a specific question? Yeah. So if I got to boil
00:27:24it down to a specific questions, like, um, I, what do you think about this trend? Do you
00:27:29think it, uh, uh, will catch on? Do you think this will, uh, change the way that we perceive
00:27:35our own identity where suddenly you see like the suicidal empathy kind of thing taking over
00:27:41Europe and America? You think this kind of trend with advertisement will lead to a change
00:27:46where suddenly there is more pride and protection of one's, uh, ancestry and culture?
00:27:53Oh, I think, I think we're losing you a little bit. Yeah. I mean, I, I think that's a lot to
00:27:57rest on Sidney Sweeney, uh, sort of a big turnaround in sort of cultural pride, but, uh, I do, I
00:28:03do think it's interesting. And I think that advertisers don't have any particular ideological
00:28:08bands. They just do what they think is edgy, interesting and cool and what works. So of
00:28:17course, up until probably 2008 to 2010, you would sell your clothing by putting super attractive
00:28:26people into the clothing. I mean, it's kind of a lie, obviously like, uh, but it's something
00:28:33that, you know, everybody goes to the, if you go to an optometrist, you have all these pictures
00:28:37of all these super handsome, beautiful people wearing glasses, right? And you think, of course,
00:28:43you know, you know, you put those glasses on, you don't look like that guy. You don't look
00:28:47like that woman, but it works. Sorry, go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. But I follow, uh, you know, like
00:28:55math and ownership of companies and the whole thing about this ESG indoctrination where it's
00:29:01kind of that way it's in inclusivity. It's, it used in a way that it sounds so nice when they
00:29:07do it, right? But this is like, uh, you know, a private equity firms that is wanting to like
00:29:12the same that owns the media. So it's definitely deliberately where it's not.
00:29:16Well, but, but hang on, hang on. So, so advertising people want to stand out and there is a kind of
00:29:25funny economic metric in businesses called goodwill, which is, you know, basically what people think
00:29:30of your company. So if you just constantly parade beautiful people, it becomes kind of bland and,
00:29:37and repetitive and people sort of stop seeing it. If you then show somebody who's not sort of
00:29:41traditionally or classically attractive, then it can generate goodwill. People can say, oh, look,
00:29:47it's nice that being inclusive of people who aren't traditionally lean or fit or beautiful and so on.
00:29:52And it can be beneficial to a company. Of course, if it goes too far, then it becomes political and
00:29:59people don't want to buy. And of course we saw this with, um, uh, Mulroney, uh, Mulvaney, Mulvaney,
00:30:06Mulvaney, um, in, in sort of a beer ad and so on. So it can go too far. And so now what's edgy and
00:30:14cutting and different, and it's going to get a lot of attention is the standards from 20 years ago,
00:30:19right? So, so they're just advertisers. They have an, an, a tendency to go with the current
00:30:25and then they have a tendency to buck the current, to go against the current. And that gets them
00:30:30noticed and that gets them free advertising. So, you know, I'm sure that somebody at American Eagle,
00:30:35I'm guessing, I don't know, right? I'm sure that somebody at American Eagle said, you know,
00:30:39people are kind of tired of all of this woke advertising. Why don't we just do a traditional
00:30:44ad with, you know, cleavage and, and tight jeans or something like that, right? Both of which I can
00:30:51supply, but I'm just not getting the phone calls. It's just wrong. Come on. Cleavage and hair. That's
00:30:56a gorgeous combo. But so, so they're just, they're just bucking the trend and it's working,
00:31:02right? They're, they're getting great word of mouth and great goodwill. Sorry, go ahead.
00:31:05I believe your view on this is a bit too simplistic. I understand where at first glance,
00:31:10it may seem so, but if you follow the money, like also like the Jaguar, like it's like the
00:31:17companies is like doing self-harm. They are self-sabotaging in doing this kind of thing.
00:31:22And by thinking it's because, um, because it also follows the pattern of ESG, which is like
00:31:29BlackRock and Vanguard and this kind of pattern that's the same ones that kind of owns our media
00:31:34and, uh, and our thoughts in this kind of sphere. So I believe that it's more deliberate,
00:31:40uh, it's more deliberate than you get it credit. No, no, no. It's very deliberate for sure. I mean,
00:31:44I'm aware that there are a lot of investment companies that give that base their investment
00:31:48upon ESG points and DEI mandates and so on. Like I actually worked in a, in my early twenties,
00:31:55I worked in a major Canadian corporation in the HR department on diversity, uh, and mandates and so
00:32:01on. So I've been aware of this stuff for, I mean, coming on 40 years. So, and, and there are
00:32:06certainly, I mean, there are investors and investment companies and invest giant investment
00:32:10organizations that are awarding, um, particular Brownie points for companies that follow woke
00:32:17principles and woke ideology. And so, yeah, I'm, I'm aware of all that, but the companies in the long
00:32:26run have looked at the smoking craters of other companies and said, well, if you go too far in that
00:32:30direction, it doesn't matter if you have investment, if you don't have customers, right?
00:32:34Because the investors are fundamentally investing in a company's ability to attract customers. And so
00:32:39if you get boycotts and you lose customers, then there will be pushback with regards to these
00:32:46mandates. So, uh, I'm aware and it's a tough dance. You know, I, I had significant ambitions
00:32:51when I was in the business world, right? I co-founded the company, grew it to a fairly decent size
00:32:57business and, uh, was the chief technical officer and, uh, and so on. So I had significant interest
00:33:04in the business world, but the problem is when you start to become successful and you're sort of
00:33:10high up in the business world, you start having to deal with all of these weird political non-business
00:33:16mandates and, and these sort of creepy regulations. And, and it just was like repulsive to me. I could
00:33:22just, I need to be able to speak my mind. I cannot be tied up in red tape and I do not like being told
00:33:29what to peacefully do with my own resources and choices. And so it is, uh, you, you still,
00:33:37yes, you start to sort of float up in the business world. You have to deal with just a lot of stuff
00:33:43that is not to do with why you got into business in the first place. I mean, I got into business
00:33:49because I love solving problems. I care about the environment. I had an environmental and health
00:33:54and safety, a company that helped companies reduce pollution and keep workers safe. And so,
00:33:59you know, it's passionate things. Uh, I love developing people's talents. Uh, I love going
00:34:03out and the challenges of trying to get sales. Uh, I love, uh, you know, it's kind of like sports,
00:34:08kind of like competition because you're going up against, we were going up against giant companies
00:34:12with our little startup and, you know, how do you find a way to, to win and, and, and all of that.
00:34:18So I loved all of that stuff in business. And then, uh, as you, as you move up and you get
00:34:25bigger, uh, things just get weirder and weirder. And the more successful you become, the more people
00:34:30want to latch onto your success, latch onto your success to push their own agendas, whether it's
00:34:35political or, uh, some sort of woke stuff. And it is, uh, it's, it becomes less and less fun,
00:34:42the more successful you become, at least it was for me, because it was no longer about the thing
00:34:45itself. It then became about, uh, people wanting to hijack your success to push their
00:34:53own agenda. And of course you can see this happening on X all the time. People sort of
00:34:57trying to hijack what it is that I do to push their own agenda, which, you know, it's fine
00:35:01in some, to some degree, but yeah, it's not, not a lot of fun at the, uh, at the loftier
00:35:04areas.
00:35:06Can I ask you a follow-up?
00:35:07Uh, yeah, let's make it quick.
00:35:08Okay. So subscribe, I subscribe to the idea that this wokeness nonsense, all the
00:35:13retardation, you can like the climate history, everything is to a strip of freedom. Um, but
00:35:18what I don't get is why is this suicidal empathy seems to be delivered to, uh, wards like the,
00:35:25the white Europe and, and, uh, white America. Why is it? It seems to be racist targeted towards
00:35:33white with this indoctrination and the, the ads we've seen the last 10 or 20 years.
00:35:37Yeah. I mean, there's a, I mean, there's sort of unmistakable and I've got the truth
00:35:43about free speech is a presentation that I've done. Everyone should check it out. FDR podcast.com.
00:35:48Just do a search for free speech. So, I mean, they've, they've asked a bunch of people,
00:35:53what is your relationship to free speech? Are you a free speech absolutist? A free speech
00:36:01absolutist of course is everything should be allowed except direct incitements to violence or
00:36:07provocations for illegal action. And Christians and whites and males, you put sort of those three
00:36:14circles together, you get the strongest advocacy for free speech for whatever reason. It doesn't
00:36:19really matter why. I suspect it has a lot to do with, uh, the free will, free will requirements
00:36:25of Christianity along with Greco-Roman philosophical traditions, but the causality is not super important,
00:36:32but the facts are that Christians are very pro-free speech. White males are very pro-free
00:36:38speech. And of course, when you see who's being attacked, it's generally, uh, Christians being
00:36:45the most persecuted people on the planet these days and, uh, white males, white males and Christians
00:36:50also tend to be small government, free market, again, because of the sort of free will requirement
00:36:57and so on. And so, um, of course, Christianity has a, a fairly good history of promoting freedom
00:37:05around the world. I mean, given that it was Christians who entered the world by practice
00:37:08of slavery, um, Christian white males in general, not to diss the females, they weren't really allowed
00:37:13to participate that much, but that's just sort of the demographics of, of how it came about.
00:37:17So if you look at the most sort of pro-freedom, pro-free speech, smallest government, most free
00:37:21market groups, well, if you want to destroy the free market and impose economic and political
00:37:27and language totalitarianism, then those are the groups that you would target. And so I think that's
00:37:33what's, what's going on as a whole. Yeah. Thank you so much, Stephen, for talking with me. I appreciate
00:37:39it. My pleasure. Thank you so much. Sigma, I got about another 20 minutes, my friends. Sigma,
00:37:46what's on your mind? Hey, Stephon, how's it going? Um, yeah, no, I just wanted to circle back to
00:37:52another topic we spoke on previously, um, on dating. Actually, I wanted to ask you, how did you find
00:38:00the love of your life, your wife, and how did you meet? And then how did it proceed from there?
00:38:07Great question. So I met her in particular, and I'm very thankful that I met her after I went through
00:38:13like almost two years of therapy, three hours a week, because I needed to get some grounding and
00:38:19do some emotional processing. So we actually met playing volleyball. And she's all like a shade
00:38:25under five foot two. I'm a shade under six foot. And we met playing volleyball. And I enjoyed the
00:38:33enthusiasm into which she threw herself into the game. And anyway, we were standing around at the end
00:38:41of a game once. And she gave me, she's got the most amazing smile. Like it's truly like,
00:38:45it's like the sun coming up, right? So she gave me this big, bing, this smile. She says,
00:38:48how was your day? And it happened to be the day when I got my first book published. And I said,
00:38:52I had a great day. I got my first book published. And she said, oh, and then we talked a little bit
00:38:56about the book. And she said, I'd be interested to read it. And I said, no, no, no. I was going to
00:39:01say you can't read it so that you'd want it more. And she said, reverse psychology doesn't work on me.
00:39:07I practice psychology. So then we talked about her career as a mental health professional.
00:39:12And it was really nice. So then the next time that the volleyball team met,
00:39:17we were all supposed to go out for dinner as a team. And sort of by coincidence, everyone else had
00:39:23to cancel. And my wife and I went for dinner, or my future wife and I went for dinner. And just like,
00:39:29we had the most incredible conversation. Like, just kind of, this conversation has been going on for
00:39:35almost a quarter century now. And it's just fantastic. And after that, we just, we spent
00:39:40every day together whenever we could. And I proposed within a couple of months and we got married
00:39:45by 11 months. And that's how it was. And I remember, of course, I mean, I'd say of course,
00:39:53but I remember we went on a hike in Don Mills in my old neighborhood. I wanted to sort of show her
00:39:58some of the places I grew up in. And I remember watching her. She was climbing the hill ahead of me.
00:40:04I know it sounds a bit more prurient than it is. And we were just having a great day of great chats.
00:40:09She had a great sense of humor. And she is incredibly warm and very thoughtful. I mean,
00:40:15I mentioned this story before, but I had a pair of sandals downtown. I lived in uptown. And I said,
00:40:24oh, I, you know, tomorrow I have to go and get these sandals. They were ordered, but they've been
00:40:28delivered. And she's like, oh, no, you're writing. Go do your writing. I'm, I'm, I'm downtown anyway.
00:40:34I'll pick them up for you. And, you know, as a man having dealt with a lot of, uh, sort of modern
00:40:40women who, you know, a kind of a borky when it comes to offering, you know, they don't want to
00:40:45serve the patriarchy. I don't know whatever it is. Right. But the fact that she was just, you know,
00:40:48I'm down there. I'm, I'm happy to pick them up for you. Go do your writing. And it's just like,
00:40:52wow, she was really helpful. Kind of sort of incomprehensible to me at the time. And I remember
00:40:57when I was on the hike, just looking at her and said, look, there's no upgrade from here.
00:40:59I mean, there's no upgrade from here. And, uh, that was like, that was the pair bond that
00:41:05sort of locked in and, and all of that. And, uh, it's been, it's been, you know, honestly,
00:41:10a delight and a pleasure. I mean, we weathered some storms, of course. Right. I mean, that's
00:41:14part of life. That is life, but, uh, it is, uh, it's been just a beautiful, beautiful experience.
00:41:20And, you know, that's one of the reasons why I want to share how amazing love and marriage
00:41:23is. Does that help?
00:41:25Yeah, no, that definitely helps. Um, it's interesting that you mentioned she did something
00:41:30for you that, you know, it was a small favor, but in reality, it was actually something that
00:41:35stood out from the rest of the women because I went on a date recently and this girl definitely
00:41:40stood out from the rest. I was like very taken aback. We went to a Japanese restaurant.
00:41:45She actually put the napkin on my lap and, you know, pulled my chair out for me. So I was just
00:41:51like stunned, you know, such a simple thing that a woman could do for a man. And to me,
00:41:58it's like, this woman stands out from the rest of the women I've ever dated just from
00:42:03those two simple actions.
00:42:06Yeah, it is wild. It is wild just how starved for helpfulness men have become. And, uh, it's,
00:42:12uh, I read this book by a woman named Daniel Crittenden before I got married called what our
00:42:17mothers didn't tell us or something like that. And she's got this bit where she talks about
00:42:22how she was playing tennis with her husband and there was this other woman and they were playing
00:42:28couples tennis, like doubles tennis. And there was this other woman and her husband had forgotten
00:42:36his tennis racket in the car and he was stretching and he just said, you know, I have something like,
00:42:41can you, can you go and grab the racket or something? She's like, no, get it yourself. I didn't
00:42:44forget it. And that sort of guarding of your, you know, blaming the other person and guarding,
00:42:51I'm not going to do it, you know, like, and it's like gross, you know, if my wife is stretching and
00:42:57she asked me to go get her tennis racket, I'm going to go get her tennis racket and happily too.
00:43:02And she does so much for our family. And I mean, I like to think that I, and I know that I do a lot
00:43:07for our family too. And just that generosity, you know, generosity begets generosity.
00:43:13And, you know, we both made each other, you know, joyfully happy over the course of our lives in
00:43:19part because she spent 10 minutes picking up a pair of sandals for me. Because for me, it was like
00:43:24an hour down, an hour back, and she was like right there. So she just, it was five minutes out of her
00:43:28way. She spent a grand total of 10 minutes picking up my sandals and the reward, so to speak, for
00:43:35spending 10 minutes to pick up my sandals and saving me two hours was a lifetime of happy marriage and
00:43:41being a wonderful mother and wife and all of that. So yeah, this generosity stuff, I think is
00:43:48really important. I mean, that's really been my whole approach to philosophy is just to be generous,
00:43:54right? I don't charge ads. And I don't have sponsors. I just talk philosophy. And if you want
00:44:02to help out the show, freedomman.com slash donate. And I just think that that generosity in life is a
00:44:07highly underappreciated virtue. A lot of people kind of hedge stuff and they say,
00:44:11well, I'll give 5% more and I'm going to see if you give 5% more. And it never works out. You just
00:44:17end up with two people on the opposing sides of like a World War I trench eyeing each other
00:44:21suspiciously waiting for the other person to become more generous. It doesn't work. What I've found works
00:44:26is give 150% of yourself and see who reciprocates. And that has been a very winning strategy for me
00:44:34in life. Because, you know, it's important to have your morals and it's also important to have
00:44:39your winning strategies. I mean, the two, of course, should align. But I've just found in life,
00:44:44you know, like I would just offer to pay for dinner and then there's times when she would
00:44:47demand to pay for dinner and it just worked out. So when you're in a relationship where two people
00:44:53are relentlessly trying to be over generous to the other, I mean, you really can't get better than
00:44:58that. And a lot of people hoard their generosity because they're like, oh, I don't want to be
00:45:02exploited. And it's like, but if you hoard your generosity, you never really find out if the
00:45:06other person is grateful and reciprocal and generous. And I mean, I think that's one of the
00:45:13things that's happened in the modern world that's really tragic for women and for men, of course,
00:45:18is that women have been trained to be resentful and not appreciative and not happy. And because
00:45:25women have been trained to be resentful, their natural spirit of generosity gets channeled into
00:45:31other things, you know, like welfare and other, you know, terrible government programs and so on.
00:45:37So generosity arises out of benevolence, it arises out of happiness, and it arises out of
00:45:43appreciation. My wife does so much for our family that there's nothing she couldn't ask me for that
00:45:48I wouldn't do. And of course, I trust her implicitly, so she wouldn't ever ask me to do anything against
00:45:53my values or against our shared values. But you cannot be happy without a benevolent spirit of
00:46:00generosity and appreciation. So you need to be generous, I would argue in life, but not slavishly
00:46:06so, right? So you need to be generous and then see who reciprocates. And if people don't reciprocate or
00:46:12they take, strip things from you, then you should absolutely try to extricate yourself from those
00:46:21situations, right? So it's the old thing that, you know, if your friend asks you to help him move,
00:46:26show up early, work hard, and help him move, and then ask him for a favor. And if he doesn't
00:46:34provide that favor, if he, you know, he's just busy, well, then you found out that he's not a good
00:46:39friend. So I find that generosity is the key when it comes to relationships. Be generous,
00:46:48see who reciprocates, and be pretty ruthless with those who exploit you, if that makes sense.
00:46:52Yeah, no, that definitely makes sense. You know, and I think for this generation in particular,
00:46:58say millennial, well, it's for all generations, but particularly millennials and Gen Z, who were
00:47:04growing up in the media age and the social media age, that particular skill set or value
00:47:10shines through more brightly because everyone, especially women, are programmed and indoctrinated
00:47:16from a young age to be independent and, you know, self-sovereign and powerful, right? And
00:47:21it's like, it behooves them to ever even think about doing something small, you know, as a generous
00:47:28action towards a man. And it's like the biblical story of Jesus at the well.
00:47:33Um, the, the Sumerian woman gives him water. Um, yeah, there's several biblical stories like
00:47:40this in the Old Testament as well, where I can't remember if it was Joseph or one of the,
00:47:45one of the fathers. Um, she simply gave him water and that was the one he married. He knew
00:47:51that was the one to marry immediately.
00:47:54Yeah, it works out well. You should not need to have to do a dance to extract generosity from
00:48:01people who claim to love you. You should all be enthusiastic about making life better for the
00:48:08other person. And, you know, your happiness is my happiness. There's no such thing as sacrifice.
00:48:14You know, I mean, I gave up writing books for like 10 years when my daughter was little to stay at home
00:48:17dad. I look upon those years as like absolute treasures. I'm thrilled that I did that. Having
00:48:24another five or 10 books would be meaningless relative to that time with my daughter. So
00:48:31you just devote yourself to the happiness of others and see who reciprocates. And if you're
00:48:37hedging already, it's, it's a bad, it's a bad situation.
00:48:42Yeah. Thank you for that stuff on appreciate the story and the insight there. Awesome stuff
00:48:46and keep up the good work. Thank you very much. Oh, I thought we had someone. Hang on.
00:48:51All right. Christian King. You should see him in a crown. What's on your mind, my friend?
00:48:58Hello. Hello. Going once, going twice. Are you with us? Do not make me holler into a Christian
00:49:04voice. Yes, sir. Go ahead. Yeah.
00:49:07Oh, well, it's such a, first of all, it's such an honor to speak to you. I admire everything you
00:49:12stand for so much. Oh, thank you. That's right. I wanted to go back to the, uh, I wanted to go
00:49:18back to the Alan Watts quote that you had. I'm, I'm can't remember exactly. I think it was,
00:49:24if something was inevitable in the future that no amount of worrying was ever going to.
00:49:29No, no. He said, no, he said something. No, it wasn't that he said no amount of anxiety
00:49:34has ever changed anything in the future. Hmm. Okay. Well, no, that's probably true that a
00:49:41certain amount of anxiety has changed things, but I, I, I don't know if you've read, um,
00:49:48the power of now by Eckhart Tolle, but there's a, I don't know if it's a theory, but what they say is
00:49:55that first we had the reptilian brain, which learned to scan the environment for threats.
00:50:02But then when we developed the human brain, we developed the concept of the future and we learned
00:50:08to predict threats in the future. But the issue is that our reptilian brain is still going out of
00:50:16control, looking for threats in the future. And it creates an artificial world of infinite
00:50:23things that can go wrong in the future and that the future doesn't exist. It's in, in the now we're
00:50:32imagining a future in the now we're imagining the past, but really the only thing we can put our hands
00:50:38on is the now. And so, um, how do we put this? You can always handle the now, but anxiety is where
00:50:48you start to imagine infinite possibilities of what could go wrong in the future. And so I guess I would
00:50:55say just because according to your theory, anxiety benefited our ancestors in the past, you know,
00:51:03predicting the future, you know, what could go wrong, doesn't mean that that is still going to be
00:51:10evolutionarily correct in the future. As we go further, there could be a point where actually we
00:51:17need to stop like, you know, the, the, the mind going off into this constant future and we need to
00:51:26actually come into the now because it's, it's true that from a standpoint of spiritual realization
00:51:32now is now that's all that exists. I mean, you have to shut off the intellect and come into
00:51:40the subconscious, you know, like the intellect is, it's a small part of our brain, you know,
00:51:47the intellect that goes from one thought to the next.
00:51:49Okay. I need you to sort of, you're, you're just going on a little bit and I apologize for that,
00:51:53but I just need you to sort of wrap it up because I need to be able to respond. And you're just saying
00:51:56a bunch of stuff and I'm fine, but I mean, I just need to be able to have a chance to respond.
00:52:02So, all right. Well, I guess your argument was that anxiety was a good thing because it allowed
00:52:08us to go to, uh, to protect, uh, problems in the future, but I'm saying that maybe it's not a good
00:52:13thing. Maybe. Well, let me, let me ask you this. Let me ask you this. Hang on. Hang on. Okay. So let me
00:52:18ask you this. Okay. When you first started your speech and I say speech, I don't mean this is an
00:52:23negative, right? But it was a long, long speech. So when you first started your speech,
00:52:27you ended in the future from when you started, right? No. Yes, you did. No, I'm in the now.
00:52:33No, no. You started your speech and then you ended it in the future from when you started, right?
00:52:40Not, we can't put our hands on that. Okay. Yeah. I need you to just be sensible. No,
00:52:45I need you to just be sensible. So let's say your speech was five minutes long, right? So when you
00:52:51ended your speech, you were five minutes in the future from when you started, right?
00:52:56Or was, did I start at five minutes in the past?
00:52:59No, you can't start in the past. Okay. Let me, let me, let me, let me do this for you. If you
00:53:03think you can start a speech in the past, do it now. And then you'll show up on the recording
00:53:07as having started in the past. So go ahead.
00:53:10Even if we pulled up the recording, we'd be listening to the recording in the now.
00:53:14Right. But you would show up in the past because your theory, hang on, hang on. Your theory,
00:53:18your theory is that you can start a speech in the past. Well, we can look at evidence of things
00:53:24that occurred in the past, but we're still looking at that from the perspective of the now.
00:53:28Right. But if you can start a speech in the past, I want you to go back and insert at the beginning
00:53:33of my show, which started at 1230 Eastern. I want you to go back and insert a speech at the beginning
00:53:38because you can start a speech in the past. No, we can't. I can't go back to the past. Okay,
00:53:43good, good. So saying that your speech began five minutes in the past, when you first started your
00:53:49speech, you had to plan the speech and have it communicate information and end in the future
00:53:57from when you started, right? Well, I definitely was thinking about the future. So the human mind
00:54:02is thinking about the future, but I can't actually touch that. I can only be here right now. I mean,
00:54:08it's amazing how fast it now slips into the past. It's almost instantaneous. I mean, I'm not sure
00:54:13what you can't touch the future. I don't know what that means. I mean, why is that? I mean,
00:54:17who would ever argue that you can? Yes. So in order to make your speech, you had to plan from the
00:54:26present to the future. In order to be able to make your speech, you had to plan from the present to
00:54:31the future in order to have your words follow sequentially. Because if we took all of your words in
00:54:37your speech and we shook them up in a big giant scrabble bag and then took them out and arranged
00:54:41them randomly, it wouldn't make any sense. So you had to be concerned and focus on making
00:54:48comprehensible speech tracking from now into the future. Is that fair to say? Yes, but it existed
00:54:56inside my head. What? The speech that you gave to me only exists inside your head? We can't.
00:55:02No, the theory of a plan moving into the future is a theoretical concept I have in my head of how
00:55:11I'm going to play that out. But as far as how it exists, what I'm saying to you, it only exists
00:55:16right here, right now. Even when you look at evidence of the past, what's happened, you're still
00:55:22looking at only what exists right there, right now. You look at the... No, no, but I... Hang on,
00:55:26hang on, hang on. We don't... Okay, hang on, hang on. I can't understand anything that you're saying
00:55:31if all I do is focus on the right now. It has to be a flow, right? So for instance, if I just take
00:55:38one millisecond of your argument and only play that in my mind, right? Your argument would be
00:55:45incomprehensible, right? Well, I think the key word there is in your mind, which is that time only
00:55:51exists in your mind. Sorry, are you saying that... Hang on, hang on, hang on. You keep saying
00:55:56these things like they're taken for granted. I don't know if you've ever spoken with people
00:55:59who disagree with you. Are you saying that time... Okay, can you... Okay, I'm not talking
00:56:06to Eckhart Tolle, I'm talking to you. Is it true, or is it your theory that time is not objective,
00:56:14time does not exist outside of your mind, but time only exists in your mind?
00:56:19As far as we can evidently put our fingers on, that would make sense. I mean, if I'm thinking
00:56:24of the future, I'm just thinking of the future and the now. If I'm thinking about the past,
00:56:29I'm just remembering the past and the now. But I'm not actually in the past, that's gone.
00:56:34Sorry, are you saying that... Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. Are you saying that because
00:56:39we cannot travel through time, that time does not exist, or time is not a valid concept?
00:56:46It doesn't exist. It doesn't exist.
00:56:49Well, the concept doesn't exist in the real world, but would you say that there's cause and
00:56:52effect in the universe? Yes, but the point is that the only effect that we're going to have
00:56:57on the universe will be in the now. The only effect we're going to have in the... Okay,
00:57:02so the only effect we're going to have in the universe is in the now. Okay, so let me ask you
00:57:06this. If the effect that you want to have in the universe is being a good surgeon, do you need to
00:57:12plan for that? Yes, but the only way you'll play it out is in the now. You keep not answering my
00:57:19questions. Okay, so if you want to be a surgeon, it takes you... Hang on, I'm still talking. So if
00:57:25you want to be a surgeon, it takes you a significant number of years to train to be a surgeon. You
00:57:32don't just grab a knife and start cutting people, right? That's true. Now, if you want to be a
00:57:37surgeon, in other words, if the effect that you want to have in the now is to be a good surgeon,
00:57:42you need to plan ahead for that, right? That's true. You also need to be concerned that you are
00:57:48gaining the appropriate skill set that you know where the organs are, you practice, I don't know,
00:57:53on your oranges or peaches or whatever you do, you know which scalpel to use, you know something
00:57:58about anesthetics and so on, right? So you need to be concerned that you have the right skill set,
00:58:06otherwise you're probably going to get people killed, right? That's true. Okay, so concern is to
00:58:13some degree another form of worry, right? In other words, if you're a surgeon, should you worry
00:58:18that you might kill people? Or should you be, should you be indifferent? Should you be indifferent
00:58:24as to whether you heal people or kill people? No, you should not be indifferent, but... Okay,
00:58:29good, good. One is you accept it and the other one is that your mind is running out of control
00:58:35into the future endlessly. Okay, but listen, that's a complete straw man. Hang on, that's a complete
00:58:42straw man. Everybody knows that there's such a thing as an excess of worry. Can we agree on that?
00:58:49People can worry too much. Well, what does it mean to worry, though? Well, to be concerned about
00:58:54negative outcomes. But it's, yeah, but outcomes that don't exist. Okay, okay, stop, stop. I just,
00:59:02I just, I just need some common sense shit from you here, brother. I really do. Okay, is it possible
00:59:08to be too worried about negative things happening in the future? Okay, great. I agree with you.
00:59:15Worry falls in the Aristotelian mean. Is it also the case that it is possible to have too little
00:59:24concern about what happens in the future and just live in the moment, kind of like an animal,
00:59:30without making any plans for the future? So, for instance, if somebody enjoys eating a lot of sort
00:59:36of fat and sugar and stuff that may not be great for you in the long run, if they only focus on the
00:59:41now and they don't have any concern or worry in the future about being obese or unhealthy,
00:59:47is it possible to have too little concern about negative outcomes in the future?
00:59:53That's also true. Fantastic. Well, then we're in perfect agreement. So, you can worry too little,
00:59:58you can worry too much. So, when Alan Watts says no amount of worry has ever changed anything in the
01:00:05future, first of all, that's false. And secondly, saying that worry is always bad is like saying
01:00:13food is always bad. Can you undereat? Yes, you can. Can you overeat? Yes, you can. It's like saying
01:00:20exercise is always bad. Is too little exercise bad for you? Yes, it is. Is too much exercise bad for you?
01:00:26Yes, it is, right? There was a black guy on stage. He was like Mr. Olympia six times and he had to
01:00:32crawl on stage because he's got so many back problems from overexercising, right? So, if somebody
01:00:39were to come along to you and say that all eating is bad, would you say that's kind of ridiculous and
01:00:46saying there is too much eating, there's too little eating, and you want to eat more or less the right
01:00:51amount? Is that a fair thing to say? That's true. Okay. So, then we're in perfect agreement. You can worry
01:00:56too little, you can worry too much, but saying that all worry is pointless is a false statement.
01:01:02All worry is pointless. I would agree. I think Alan's, I mean, saying that you repeated Alan
01:01:09Watt's quotes, I can see why you would say that, but...
01:01:13No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't weasel me, bro. Don't weasel me, bro. Don't weasel me.
01:01:19No, no, you are absolutely... You just agreed with me and then you're saying, well, I can see why you
01:01:25would say that. No, no, no. You agreed with me. So, it's what we agree on, not what I specifically am
01:01:31saying. That's what I mean by weaseling. You just agreed with me and you're saying, well, I can see why
01:01:35you would say that. It's like, no, no, no. You agreed with me, which means you accept that perspective as
01:01:39well. Well, that doesn't mean that you're ubiquitously right. We have two different points
01:01:44here, too. We're talking about different things. But my... Yeah, I'm done. Sorry. I can't continue
01:01:50that. That's just not somebody who's debating in good faith. So, yeah, don't do that kind of stuff
01:01:55with people. I mean, that's somebody who just wants to be right and is moving the goalposts and changing
01:01:59definitions, right? So, if I say, you agreed with me in this particular argument, to then say, well,
01:02:05that doesn't mean that you're right about everything all the time is total bullshit.
01:02:09I mean, just don't do that kind of stuff. Don't be ego invested to the point where you can't admit
01:02:16that you've changed your mind. Like, I just did this last night on X. I posted something that was
01:02:19a bit more enthusiastic than accurate and I apologize and all of that. So, yeah, just don't
01:02:24do that kind of stuff. Don't just have to win because you just won't be surrounded by quality people
01:02:29as a whole and it kind of traps you in a pretty negative life and mindset. So, yeah, just, you know,
01:02:35he's a young guy, so I say this with sympathy and so on. But, yeah, don't just want to be right
01:02:41and want to be accurate and truthful and connected and corrected is the way to go.
01:02:48All right. Sorry for the people who, I have a bit of a shorter show today because I have a call
01:02:52this afternoon. Oh, yeah, don't forget, you can go to freedomain.com slash colon,
01:02:55C-A-L-L-I-N, not colon, freedomain.com slash colon. And I would love to have a public or
01:03:02private conversation with you about whatever is on your mind. And I hope that you will avail
01:03:07yourself of that and have yourself a beautiful, beautiful afternoon, my friends. Lots of love
01:03:10from my PR. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.
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