- 2 days ago
Philosopher Stefan Molyneux explores Universally Preferable Behavior (UPB) and its impact on morality and societal coherence. The discussion highlights contradictions in human thought, emphasizing the discomfort these inconsistencies create in rational minds. The relationship between philosophical reasoning and physical coercion is analyzed, questioning the sustainability of principles amidst conflict.
The lecture also examines the role of cultural myths in fostering group solidarity and critiques the narrow assessment of capitalism, advocating for recognition of its broader virtues. Ultimately, UPB serves as a standard for moral integrity, underscoring the importance of self-ownership and moral consistency in society.
SUBSCRIBE TO ME ON X! https://x.com/StefanMolyneux
Follow me on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@freedomain1
GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK!
https://peacefulparenting.com/
Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!
Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!
You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!
See you soon!
https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2025
The lecture also examines the role of cultural myths in fostering group solidarity and critiques the narrow assessment of capitalism, advocating for recognition of its broader virtues. Ultimately, UPB serves as a standard for moral integrity, underscoring the importance of self-ownership and moral consistency in society.
SUBSCRIBE TO ME ON X! https://x.com/StefanMolyneux
Follow me on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@freedomain1
GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK!
https://peacefulparenting.com/
Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!
Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!
You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!
See you soon!
https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2025
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00All right, finishing up with questions from the fine listeners at X.
00:05I hope you're doing well.
00:06Free domain.com slash donate to help out the show.
00:09And you can also go to fdrurl.com slash X to sign up for a subscription on X,
00:16which would be gratefully appreciated.
00:18And we had our first conversation yesterday with the subscribers on X.
00:24It was really great.
00:24So I hope you'll check it out.
00:26And the question is, I don't get why UPB matters.
00:32So a person accepts that they contradict themselves when they advocate theft slash murder in one context,
00:36but not another.
00:37Then what?
00:39Why are they evil slash immoral for defying the logic of UPB from a secular point of view?
00:46Just because you defined morality as UPB?
00:50So it's a great question.
00:51UPB, of course, is, what's the old thing about the Pope?
00:57The Pope is opposed something.
00:59It's like, well, how many divisions does the Pope have, right?
01:03Violence versus ideas.
01:06Philosophy versus weaponry.
01:09I mean, obviously, I'm a philosopher, so I'm going to put my trust in reason,
01:16which, of course, doesn't mean that reason is going to somehow overcome direct violence.
01:23There's, you know, there's those old memes of the two sort of libertarians facing the wall about to get shot.
01:31And it says, well, but at least we have our principles.
01:32And it's like, yeah, well, the principles won't stop the bullet, right?
01:35So I get all of that for sure.
01:37That all makes perfect sense.
01:39Now, the sane human mind is troubled by contradictions.
01:47And this is why people go to great lengths to obscure, to justify, to create social contracts,
01:54to appeal to self-interest in the Hobbesian tradition, you know, what we need,
01:58political tyranny in order to keep ourselves safe from violence and things like that.
02:02So, the human mind is troubled by contradictions.
02:07And we can sort of understand this, that one of the marks of insanity is to be untroubled by contradictions.
02:15So, if you hear a voice and there's no one there, and you go and check around and there's nothing playing,
02:25you go out into the woods without a phone and there's still a voice and so on,
02:29then you're troubled because there's a contradiction.
02:31There is a voice, but no one's talking.
02:36Now, this is sort of what Brian Wilson was complaining about.
02:39So, the human mind is sane to the degree that it is bothered by contradictions.
02:47It's a contradiction such as two and two makes five.
02:51Two and two make five is a contradiction because it's saying four is the same as five.
02:57And if you believe that four is the same as five, you are not long for this world because you're crazy.
03:04And, you know, society has always had this balancing act of a sort of tribalistic violent society.
03:11Always has this balancing act.
03:14And the balancing act is this.
03:17And if you're too crazy, then you don't survive or succeed as a tribe.
03:24But you also need shared cultural or religious or narcissistic delusions about superiority in order to fight for your tribe.
03:36So, in order for tribes to survive in a state of perpetual warfare, which is most of human history,
03:41what you need to do is you need to have the men be willing to expend themselves to die, right?
03:50And how do you get men become willing to die?
03:54And I remember this process, of course, when I was a kid.
03:57And I think it's also genetic at this point, certainly in England and Ireland where I grew up.
04:02It's genetic at this point.
04:04And I remember, you know, Forward for St. George and the flag and the Battle of Britain and nobility and war and combat and fighting and all of the...
04:15I used to read a lot of comic books about World War II, some of which were actually quite sad and tragic, as I remember.
04:22And so, how do you get men to sacrifice themselves?
04:26Well, you have to tell them that there's a bigger reward.
04:30They'll go to Valhalla.
04:31They'll go to heaven.
04:33Their family will be taken care of.
04:37You know, it's the same way that you...
04:38How do you get people to...
04:40In the mafia, how do you get people to go to prison instead of informing on others?
04:45Well, they say, well, take care of your family and we'll have a big celebration when you get out and everything will be good.
04:52But if you, you know, if you do inform, then we'll get you killed in prison or harm your family or whatever it is, right?
04:59So, how do you get people to make sacrifices?
05:02Well, you make them promises that are not empirical.
05:07If you die gloriously in battle, you go to heaven, you go to Valhalla, you get to nirvana, you are, you know, the self-sacrifice is noble and good.
05:15And you put up all these statues and you give people ticket-tape parades and you give them medals.
05:19And you give their wives posthumous medals and so on, right?
05:25And it's a sort of chilling sentence, I remember, from some woman who was being interviewed in the 50s, I think it was.
05:32And she was married to, for a short amount of time, to a young man who was killed in the First World War.
05:40And she said, I don't even remember him that well.
05:42He was just this terribly nice young man I was married to for a few months.
05:45And he went away and he never came back.
05:48Just a little blur, a smudge in passing.
05:50And that's what she remembers.
05:54So, again, throughout a sort of evolution, you can not be saying if everything, if you're not at all troubled by contradictions, right?
06:05And this is sort of the balance that we evolved to.
06:08If you're not at all bothered by contradictions, you're crazy.
06:10And then you're not, no one's going to marry you, no one's going to have kids with you, and you probably will be expelled or whatever, at least confined somewhere.
06:19Or, you know, because you're truly crazy, like you don't know the real from the unreal, and you think that two and two make five.
06:25So, if you are too crazy, you don't succeed, you don't survive, or your genes don't.
06:33But if you're not crazy enough, and you start to question the shared delusions of the tribe, well, then you're also a threat.
06:43And this is sort of the conflict that's going on in the West.
06:48It's a bit subterranean, but it's, you know, you can definitely feel it's definitely real, which is, you know, if we are too individualistic, then how do we deal with other people who are more tribal?
07:04And, again, this is all based on statism, and, I mean, I'm just giving you an analysis.
07:09None of this is a recommendation or a moral analysis.
07:11I'm just saying that you have to walk this balance, or human beings had to walk this balance throughout human history, which is, if you're too crazy, it's bad.
07:22If you're too sane, it's bad.
07:25And so, we have to have this middle ground.
07:28We have to walk this middle ground.
07:30I have to walk it.
07:31You have to walk it.
07:32We all have to walk this middle ground.
07:36And this is why the battle of reason is incremental.
07:40Unfortunately, the battle of craziness or the battle of subjugation tends to be massive, but the battle of reason tends to be incremental.
07:48It's the old Malthusian thing where human populations go up exponentially, but food production is only linear, therefore starvation is always the result.
07:56Craziness goes up exponentially, and sanity goes up linear, at best.
08:02And this is not because craziness is easier, it's just because, I mean, the people who are sane don't control the entire media and educational systems and currency systems and legal systems.
08:16I mean, that's just not the way that it is.
08:17And in particular, the indoctrination of the young.
08:19So, there is a line from an old Walt Whitman poem.
08:26Well, there's two.
08:26One is, sorry, it's not a poem.
08:28I think this is Ambrose Bierce's Hobgoblin.
08:31Consistency is the Hobgoblin of little minds.
08:34And in Walt Whitman, I don't know if it's in Leaves of Grass or somewhere else, he says,
08:38You say I contradict myself.
08:40Very well, I contradict myself.
08:42And that's, I mean, to me, that's a famous line, because it is very, very powerful.
08:48So, if you look at the witch doctor, right, with his bone through his nose and his big headdress and all of that, and he's dancing around, and it's like, well, that's just a crazy guy.
08:59Right, it's just a crazy guy.
09:00But the witch doctor is the one who commands allegiance to the warlord.
09:05So, if you say to the witch doctor, you're just a crazy guy, the warlord will probably kill you,
09:09because the witch doctor is the person who indoctrinates you to worship the warlord and sacrifice yourself for, they say, the good of the tribe, which always ends up being the good of the warlord.
09:19So, if you're too crazy, you're not of use to the rulers, because you're too crazy to go hunting, you're too crazy to plant crops, you're too crazy to be a shoemaker or a mason or a blacksmith, you're too crazy, right?
09:36So, you have no good to anybody, and you tend to get expelled or killed or ostracized or whatever, right?
09:41If you're too sane, and you say, well, the witch doctor is just a crazy guy with a bone through his nose, then you're also dangerous, and you will be ostracized and killed and so on, right?
09:52So, we have an uneasy relationship with consistency, right?
09:57Which is the old, you go to some school teacher, and the teacher says, you don't use violence to get what you want.
10:04And then you say, well, hang on, aren't you paid through property taxes, which are, you know, if you don't pay, you go to jail?
10:11Well, so, that's, you know, consistency, we have an uneasy relationship with consistency, and not being able to be consistent is really the mark of dominance, right?
10:25So, if somebody can force you to lie, which is, you know, a lot of the humiliation rituals floating around the public space of, quote, ideas these days, they're just humiliation rituals, which you're forced to lie, and the people who force you to lie enjoy that you are forced to lie, enjoy that you know the truth, but you can't speak the truth because it is a mark of their power over you.
10:50And sadists and power seekers love to force other people to comply, they get a great deal of pleasure and joy and thrill and quasi-sexual excitement out of forcing people to lie.
11:02This is the, uh, a bit of the story of the Emperor's New Clothes.
11:05So, UPB is both a future basis for societal morality, but what it is right now is a test of moral sanity.
11:22I mean, right now, that's what it's for.
11:25I mean, obviously, UPB isn't going to fundamentally alter the power structures, I mean, what it's been close to 20 years since I first came up with the argument,
11:35and it certainly has helped a lot of individuals, for sure, but, of course, it hasn't fundamentally altered the power structures in society.
11:44So, what UPB is for right now, say, what's the, why does UPB matter?
11:49Well, the reason that UPB matters is it is a great way of teasing out and finding people to whom moral contradictions don't matter.
12:04So, somebody who wants to be good would care about moral consistency.
12:10Like, somebody who wants to be good genuinely has a desire for consistency and virtue.
12:16Someone like that will be troubled if you come up and say,
12:20well, you approve of murder in this context, but you disapprove of murder in that context.
12:25Help me understand the difference.
12:26They'll be troubled by that.
12:27So, if you put forward a business plan that's supposed to get you $5 million of investment, right,
12:35if you are an honest businessman and somebody says, hey, this number contradicts this number,
12:41then it'd be like, oh, gosh, I should resolve that because I don't want to hand over anything that's wrong
12:47to people who are going to give me millions of dollars of investment.
12:49That's an honest businessman or businesswoman.
12:54However, if you point out, hey, this number doesn't match that number,
12:58and they just say, oh, shut up.
13:01Shut up about it.
13:02We'll deal with it later.
13:04It's not important.
13:05It doesn't matter.
13:05It's not important.
13:07And if you bring this to the attention of the investors, you're fired.
13:11And I'm going to give you a terrible reference, and you'll never work in this industry again.
13:15Now, if you're an investor, and you point out a contradiction in a business plan,
13:24and you say, you know, on this page, it says that you'll get 70% of your income from Europe,
13:28and on this page, it says you're going to get 70% of your income from Asia.
13:32Well, it's a contradiction, right?
13:34Can't get 140% of income.
13:36So, if you point out a contradiction, and someone is troubled by it and says, oh, you know what?
13:43That does seem important.
13:45Let me mull that over.
13:46Let me think about it.
13:47Oh, let's talk about it.
13:48That's important.
13:49That means that somebody is genuinely interested in virtue, and integrity, and consistency,
13:54and all the other kind of good stuff, right?
13:57If, on the other hand, you point out this contradiction, and somebody says, who cares?
14:04It doesn't matter.
14:05It doesn't matter that there are contradictions in a moral theory.
14:08Who cares?
14:09Well, that's somebody who has no interest in being good.
14:11And that's a fraudulent businessman.
14:13That's a dangerous person to be around, right?
14:16I posted this on Access Morning.
14:18Power for me, principles for my enemies, right?
14:21So, power for me is, when I have power, I will silence my enemies.
14:26But when I don't have power, I will cry out for free speech, so that my enemies won't try
14:33to silence me.
14:34So, UPB is a great way to find out who are cheats, and liars, and hypocrites, and people
14:44so morally or emotionally damaged that contradictions don't bother them.
14:49Those are really, really good people to figure out in your life.
14:53All right.
14:54How does full free market capitalism benefit the low IQ, the infirm, those who cannot help
14:58themselves for one reason or another?
14:59However, I'd have my own answers for it, but I'd like it fleshed out.
15:03Yeah.
15:05It's obviously an honest.
15:06Police would be nice, but it's not the end of the world.
15:08All right.
15:09So, first of all, a system is not designed by who it helps, but it's designed by the morals
15:16of it, right?
15:18Particularly if it is a moral system, such as free market capitalism.
15:22Free market capitalism is simply consistency and universality in property rights and self-ownership.
15:28Owning yourself, owning the effects of your actions, those are property rights, and it's
15:34just consistency in those things.
15:36So, it doesn't matter who it helps or who it harms in any individual context.
15:42Of course, full free market capitalism will produce massive benefits and wealth aggregations
15:48to society as a whole.
15:49We've seen that proven repeatedly and so on.
15:52So, that's North Korea, South Korea, that kind of stuff.
15:55East Germany, West Germany, blah, blah, blah, right?
15:57So, who it benefits and who it hurts is not how you judge a system, because every system
16:05benefits and harms some particular individual or set of individuals.
16:11So, if you are a sociopathic power monger, totalitarianism is a good system for you.
16:17If you are a sophist, then the university system is great for you.
16:23If you are a tyrant of little minds, being head of the teachers' union is a good system
16:29for you.
16:30If you are a slave catcher, and you are a slave seller, and a slave transporter, slavery is
16:37a good system for you, right?
16:39And so, if you end slavery, and, you know, I can imagine, I can imagine that there are
16:45certain, let's say, elderly slaves that might have been taken care of out of sentimentality
16:51by their slave owners, might have fallen on hard times after the end of slavery.
16:55So, the reason that you have to be robust and judge a system by its virtues and its consistency,
17:02virtue and consistency kind of two sides of the same coin, is because it renders you far
17:08less susceptible to propaganda if you avoid judging a system by its individual consequences.
17:16So, to take an example, it was a little over 10 years ago, that Europe opened its borders
17:21because of the Turkish boy, whose father irresponsibly put him on an overcrowded vessel, trying to
17:27cross the Mediterranean.
17:29And so, people will say, well, closed borders caused that boy to die on the beach, to be
17:37drowned, right?
17:39And people have that sort of emotional, which I understand, have that emotion, I mean, it's
17:43an ugly thing to see.
17:45And because people say, well, I'm going to judge a system by who it helps and who it
17:52harms, then you don't have any principles because most people are so easy to manipulate.
17:58So, if you don't like a system, you will simply broadcast endlessly the people who have not
18:05benefited but may have, in fact, been harmed by that system, and then people will turn against
18:10the system.
18:11Whereas, if you like a system, then you will simply broadcast and focus on and repeat the
18:17stories of those who have benefited from the system.
18:20And if you can't find any, you'll just invent them.
18:22Right, like the Potemkin villages, sort of famously, was it, I think it was under Stalin,
18:27could have been Lenin, where they fattened up a bunch of gulag prisoners, put them in a
18:32village, gave them a lot of great equipment, and so on.
18:36And then they let all of the Western intellectuals and journalists come over and see just how
18:42wonderful, how wonderful communism was, how healthy, happy, and wealthy the workers were,
18:48the peasants.
18:50So, if you try to judge a system by its consequences, you can't have any principles at all as a society,
18:57because propagandists will simply cherry-pick people, and if they like the system, they'll
19:02show how it benefits people, and if they don't like the system, they'll find those people who
19:07are negatively impacted by the system and broadcast their stories, and then nobody can have any
19:11principles at all.
19:13You're just yanked back and forth by various propaganda foci.
19:17So, there are people who will be harmed in the short run, let's say, I mean, take an obvious
19:24example, the end of the welfare state, there will be people who are harmed, no question.
19:30There will be people who have a very great deal of difficulty because, let's say, they
19:34have three kids by three different men, and they're obese, and their kids are young, let's
19:40say there's an end of the welfare state.
19:42Now, people will rush in, and they will try and help, and they will get people, and I think
19:46in a relatively short order, those people will be better off, because the problem, one of
19:50the big problems of the welfare state is it isolates people.
19:53I can see this with my mother, right?
19:55My mother gets money from the welfare state, well, I guess now, pensions and so on, but
20:01before that, it was, I think it was disability or welfare or something like that.
20:05I mean, I know it was disability, I don't know if she also got welfare supplements as well,
20:08but it isolates people, because the money just comes in, and then mysteriously doesn't,
20:15you've got to make a bunch of phone calls, but the money just comes in, and you don't
20:21have, like, there's no community, there's no attempt to get you back into society, there's
20:24no attempt to connect you with others, there's nothing of that, right?
20:28Whereas if it's a charity, they won't just send you money and forget about you, like you're
20:31a body in the bottom of a soprano garden.
20:36They will come and visit you and try and get you back in the community, try and get you back
20:40on your feet, figure out what the issues are, so that they can help you through hard times
20:44without making those hard times isolated and permanent through endless wheelbarrows of
20:50money.
20:51So, in the short run, people who are on welfare, or let's say the disability system is ended,
21:01well, there are people who will, and of course you would do this with some extra payments to
21:06hide them over until private charity can take over and stuff like that.
21:10But there will be people who will weep and wail and cry and moan, and some of whom are
21:16in genuine challenges, for sure.
21:20And of course, one of the great tragedies of the welfare state is, because of the welfare
21:24state, people have not had to maintain their social networks.
21:27So, the ultimate welfare state used to be the family, and because other people had the
21:36ability to take care of you in an emergency, or had the obligation to take care of you in
21:41an emergency, you had obligations back, right?
21:43So, the welfare state has created this weird, isolated in society, lonely planet, solitude in
21:51a crowd, place where people get benefits without having to provide any benefits.
21:55So, in general, in families, or clans, if you fall on hard times, people will help you out.
22:03But, you also owe the people who helped you out, or who help you out, something.
22:07So, when you were doing well, and other people were on hard times, you should have helped them,
22:11and you probably have to do something to be a positive contributor into that community,
22:19right?
22:20So, let's say that you've got carpal tunnel syndrome, and you can't work at a particular job,
22:25then your clan will help you out.
22:27But, you know, they'll maybe fund some rehab, or fund some job training that doesn't involve
22:33that risk movement, or something like that.
22:35And, you know, maybe they'll say, well, while we're helping you out, it would be great if
22:38you could watch the kids from this family who's currently going through a hard time.
22:43You know, something.
22:43So, you're sort of kept in the flow of society by the welfare state, and people end up crushingly
22:50isolated because they don't need each other anymore.
22:55So, yeah, there's going to be difficulties with the transition.
22:58But to help people, first of all, so, just very briefly, to help people, you need excess
23:04resources, and there's no better system for creating excess resources than the free market.
23:10To simply give people money when they claim to be out of choices, out of options, disabled,
23:19right?
23:19I mentioned this before, that I remember being out in California many years ago.
23:22So, I was taking a bus with my daughter to go to, that doesn't really matter, and there
23:27was a guy.
23:28He was, you know, he'd been on disability for many years, looked hale and hearty, and
23:32he was going to go surfing.
23:35He was meeting some friends who were bringing his surfboard.
23:37He was going to go surfing, but he'd been on disability for many years because of a back
23:40injury.
23:41Because that's the other thing, too, right?
23:42I mean, when you just give people, quote, free money, well, it's free to them, right?
23:47You give people free money for claiming disability, then people will claim disability.
23:53Rather than work to get better.
23:55And once they're in that sticky trap, then the sort of sap flows over them, a fiat currency,
24:01and they get trapped, and they get soft and weak and weird, isolated, lose their social
24:06skills, job skills, and their work ethic and so on, right?
24:11So, yeah, if you want to help people, you need excess resources and you need standards.
24:16And voluntary charity provides the standards, which is you should really try to prevent yourself
24:24from ending up on disability or with three kids by three different men, number one.
24:29And number two, if you do end up in a situation where you need that kind of help, then you
24:34should get the help that you need and people should work as quickly and as hard as possible
24:38to get you off that help and get you back into society because that's what's going to
24:41be good for you in the long run.
24:43Like the guy I met on the bus, no girlfriend, I mean, I think he's slept around from place
24:48to place, but yeah, no girlfriend, no future, no family, no work ethic.
24:52And yeah, he'd been rotted out from the inside with all this free stuff.
24:57Uh, people, people tend to stop growing emotionally once resistance is taken away and, uh, muscles,
25:04integrity, virtue, these are muscles that require resistance.
25:09And just as if you stop working out, then you end up in a situation where your muscles
25:16atrophy and if you're old enough, they, it's very, very hard, if not impossible to get them
25:20to come back.
25:21And the same thing happens, of course, with your work ethic and your virtues and so on.
25:25And so this guy, and you, you stop emotionally growing when you no longer have any challenges
25:30or resistance or things to overcome or things to grow towards.
25:33So the people on welfare and on disability and so on, and you know, I wouldn't say everyone,
25:39but to a large degree, I mean, I remember a friend of mine's mother who was on welfare.
25:44I mean, a lot of my friend's mothers were on welfare and, uh, just immature.
25:48Yeah, just didn't grow up, uh, petty and, uh, childish and, you know, not necessarily
25:54mean nasty, but they just didn't grow up because they didn't have to.
25:58In this amniotic sack of free stuff, they just don't have to grow and progress.
26:03So, uh, that, yeah, you want standards and you want excess resources and free market private
26:09charities provide both in great abundance and that's to actually help people.
26:14And the other thing too, is that a fiat currency is kind of like a drug, right?
26:18So with fiat currency, you get people addicted to it and then the drug stops and then people
26:25crash out, right?
26:28So, uh, this guy, uh, on the bus many years ago, been on disability for a bad back for 10
26:35years, Hale and Hardy.
26:36And, you know, fairly good natures in the way that people immune from responsibilities
26:41can sometimes be.
26:42And, uh, so let's say it all ends tomorrow, right?
26:45Government runs out of money or inflation wastes away his cavalcade of free stuff.
26:52Well, then what?
26:54I mean, he hasn't had to maintain any strong social bonds.
26:57He hasn't been charitable, kind to others.
26:59He's lost his work ethic.
27:01He's got a 10 year gap since he last had a job.
27:05And then what?
27:07Right.
27:07It's not.
27:07So first of all, we have to question whether the welfare state is helping people at the
27:11moment.
27:11And I would say not, right?
27:14I mean, again, it's the old analogy that I've used.
27:17This is like, it's like heroin for a toothache.
27:21Does it make you feel better in the moment?
27:22Yes.
27:23Does it help you in the long run?
27:24No.
27:25So yeah, there are people when it, uh, when it ends as mathematically it will, what's going
27:30to happen to those people, right?
27:32All right.
27:33Explain in rational philosophical terms, what satanic means in terms of the
27:36ideology.
27:38That's interesting.
27:39You know, and I, maybe I'm just noticing this at the moment.
27:44Uh, these are not subscribers and they're kind of giving me orders.
27:48They ask me questions.
27:49Would you mind if, or would I, I'd appreciate it if, or thank you, you know, a little bit
27:52of, but you know, explain in rational philosophical terms, what satanic means in terms of ideology.
27:57I think that's an interesting question, but I'm not going to reward that kind of declaratory
28:02rudeness.
28:02All right.
28:03Stephan, is bullying ever justified amongst kids and teens?
28:08Well, the question is, and I've seen that meme, right?
28:12Which is, uh, you know, crazy people, 80s bullies, and then civilization below 80s bullies.
28:181980s bullies were keeping the weirdos and the freaks from society as a whole.
28:22Uh, I don't think bullying is the answer.
28:25Uh, I think that kids can certainly ostracize and should have the right to ostracize.
28:30Right?
28:30If, I mean, we did this all the time as kids, which is if we had a game and some kid didn't
28:35follow the rules, we just wouldn't invite that kid anymore.
28:40Right?
28:40You gotta follow the rules, man.
28:42I'm not going to follow the rules.
28:43Right?
28:43So, you know, the big one is, uh, uh, being tagged, right?
28:48In, in the game of tag, right?
28:50So being tagged means somebody touches you.
28:53Now, if some kid is chasing you and you don't feel them touch you and they say, I touched
28:57you and you say, no, you didn't.
28:59I didn't feel anything.
29:00And then they continue to insist that they touched you.
29:03And then the debate was, well, what if it's just the clothing?
29:06I touched your clothing.
29:07Right?
29:07So we had to have it that you had to feel the touch, right?
29:10Now, it could work both ways.
29:13So some kid claims they touched you in a game of tag and you didn't feel it, then it wouldn't
29:21count.
29:22So it could work that they didn't tag you, but claimed that they did.
29:25It could also be that they did tag you, like they, they touched you directly on the back
29:29and you claim that you didn't feel it.
29:32So then you get into these arguments and it doesn't take long to figure out the pattern.
29:40You don't have a conflict the first time that's particularly suspenseful, like, okay, well,
29:43we'll just reset and we'll, we'll start again.
29:45Right?
29:45However, the kids who repeatedly have these problems are kids who are not fun to play
29:53with.
29:54So the kid who continually says that he was never tagged, even when other people see
29:59the tag, well, those are kids who aren't fun to play with.
30:03Now, the kids can't go and solve whatever's going on in the family that's causing this.
30:08The kids can't go and fix that, but they can ostracize those kids, which means you don't
30:12get to play unless you obey the rules.
30:15And so it doesn't take long for our general statistical brains to say, every time Bob
30:22plays, every time that kid Bob plays, there's a problem and that problem always involves
30:28Bob.
30:29So let's not have Bob come.
30:31And that's just a cost benefit analysis.
30:33I mean, I grew up sort of tail end of the baby boom.
30:35Every time I walked out of the council estate I lived in in England, there were like 10 or
30:3920 kids to set up a game with and no adults around and there were roads and nobody ever
30:46got killed.
30:47So actually, no, a friend of my brother's got killed, but not because of the road in particular,
30:54but because he got out of the car on the wrong side and jumped out into the street.
30:59So really that was on the parents because whoever the adults were in the car and he got hit by
31:03a car and died, but not because the kids were playing around streets.
31:09So it's just a cost benefit in that you can't really play tag with two people.
31:16You know, four is okay.
31:17Five is good.
31:18Eight is great.
31:19Ten is fantastic, right?
31:21So the more the merrier, to a certain degree, to a certain limit, the more the merrier.
31:27So you want more kids, but you don't want to spend your entire time arguing.
31:30So let's say one extra kid makes the game 10% better, but constant arguing makes the
31:35game 50% worse.
31:36So you're minus 40% in terms of fun.
31:39So you just won't invite that kid, right?
31:42So is that bullying?
31:44I don't think in particular.
31:46If you have some kid who, you know, you invite him to your birthday party and he steals a present
31:51and digs his hand into the cake and eats from there, it's kind of gross.
31:56Well, you're not going to invite that kid back.
31:58And that's just a way of getting the social rules.
32:02And of course, kids don't really have that anymore, which is one of the reasons why kids
32:06become more totalitarian, is that when I was a kid, you know, starting from the age of four
32:12or five, we would all go out, have complicated games.
32:15And I write about this in my novel almost.
32:17But we would go out and we would have complicated games with no adults to enforce the rules.
32:22We would simply enforce the rules through arguments, negotiation, and ostracism.
32:27So if a kid kept causing problems in a game, we wouldn't invite that kid or we say, you
32:32can't play.
32:34And the kid would be like, oh, I'm sorry, you know, blah, blah, blah.
32:36Maybe we can give them another chance.
32:37And if they were okay, then we'd keep them around.
32:40But yeah, that's how we would do it.
32:42All right.
32:44What do we get?
32:45How can it possibly be after Leibniz, Hume, and Kant that the tabula rasa is still very
32:51much part of Western thinking?
32:52It's so ubiquitous, you'd think it was inherent.
32:55So tabula rasa, of course, is the idea that we are born a blank slate.
33:02And we are born as formless clay and society molds us in some manner or another.
33:08A tabula rasa is common both among leftists and Christians.
33:12And for Christians, of course, the tabula rasa is that we're all born with a divine soul
33:18that makes us equal.
33:20And for the leftists, the tabula rasa is important because if they accept innate differences, there's
33:27an explanation for differences in outcome that don't provide them the weapon of resentment
33:34based upon exploitation.
33:35So let's say that you did a study, and this would be the case, right?
33:40So you do a study, and you would say, what's the IQ of those on the board of a large corporation?
33:48And what is the IQ of the janitors?
33:52And you would find that the IQ of the board members would almost certainly be something
33:57like 140 plus.
33:59And you would find that the IQ of the janitors would be a couple of standard deviations lower.
34:05On average, right?
34:07And if IQ is an explanation as to differences, then IQ is not visible like height, right?
34:16So you don't expect to see a lot of short guys on a pro basketball team, right?
34:21So because of that, you don't sit there and say, well, there's all of this weird prejudice
34:26against this group of people, say pygmies, right?
34:30Well, the NBA just systematically hates pygmies, and we've got to have laws to get pygmies onto
34:37the basketball team, because you can see that the pygmies are like four feet tall and can't
34:42do much against a six-foot-eight guy in basketball.
34:45So the leftists need tabula rasa to fertilize the resentment of those who aren't as successful
34:54by saying the only reason you aren't as successful is because other people stole from you, other
34:59people exploited you, right?
35:01As opposed to saying, well, the reason you're not a lead singer in a band is because your voice
35:07sounds terrible, you have no musical sense, and you can't distinguish between various pitches.
35:12So that's why you're not a lead singer.
35:15Don't take it.
35:16Like, everybody has tried this at some time or another, right?
35:18I remember doing this as a little kid.
35:20Hey, I wonder if I can sing.
35:21Like, everybody tries this, right?
35:23Try singing along to something.
35:24I remember, even in my late teens, when I was working up north, I was listening to Home
35:30by the Sea by Genesis, where we relive our lives in what we tell you.
35:34And so he really belts it, right?
35:36Phil Collins had both a nice falsetto and a soft voice, but also was a great belter.
35:41And I could barely do it, right?
35:46I could do it, but it wasn't particularly pleasant.
35:48My voice tends to tighten up when I belt, whereas his was a full-throated command of the vocal
35:53tone.
35:54What's that song?
35:55We work like the devil for our pay.
35:58And through the...
35:59We walk in the...
36:00It doesn't really matter.
36:01But yeah, so he's a big belter.
36:02And you can hear it when he does say something alive, like, Take Me Home, which he originally
36:10did with Peter Gabriel and Sting.
36:12But yeah, he's a great belter.
36:14And so we all try it.
36:15And so the reason I'm not a singer in a rock band is because I don't have a good enough
36:21voice.
36:21I mean, I think musically I'm okay, but I also don't have a massive amount of musical talent.
36:26Like, I've tried to play a couple of instruments.
36:27And unfortunately, philosophy comes easy and piano doesn't, so I gravitate towards philosophy.
36:33But I don't sit there and say, well, I'm just as good as Robert Plant or Freddie Mercury
36:38or Sting.
36:39I'm just as good as those guys.
36:41But those black-balling bastards just keep me out of the music industry.
36:46Well, thank God.
36:47These days, right?
36:49Or maybe always.
36:51I'm not really sure if the music industry exists to supply music to the masses or young,
36:55naive musicians to the giant, chomping, predatory financial moors of the record company executives.
37:04But, so, tabula rasa is necessary for leftists to generate the resentment that allows them
37:13to set society against each other and gain power thereby.
37:17Now, the Iago thing, right?
37:18Iago is not a strong guy compared to Othello, but if he whispers into Othello's ear, he can
37:24get Othello to kill his wife.
37:28So, it's a very sad thing.
37:31The reason why the leftists, who generally are secular and atheists and pro-evolution,
37:35the reason why the leftists hate the IQ arguments is because it provides a rational scientific
37:42explanation for differences in outcome that could cool resentment, right?
37:48All right.
37:50Why do people think humans are worth more than animals?
37:53Because humans have language and negotiation skills and moral sense.
38:00They can compare proposed actions to ideal standards and animals cannot.
38:05Does freedom of speech protect fraudulent speech?
38:07Isn't communist ideology fraudulent?
38:08Well, I mean, I made this post on X some time ago, which is that people talk about hate
38:16speech, you know, a speech that results in hatred or anger towards a particular group.
38:22It's always a protected group, and the protected group is always people who vote for the left,
38:25right?
38:26But if there is any such thing as hate speech, then communists in the Communist Manifesto would
38:32be hate speech.
38:34I mean, it literally talks about violent revolution and the liquidation of entire classes of people,
38:39and it has resulted in well over 100 million deaths.
38:42So, and yet it's openly and proudly taught by avowed Marxists in countless universities dotted
38:48across the West.
38:49So, there's no such thing as hate speech.
38:53Hate speech is, it's a set of laws that is extended by leftists to protect those who
39:00vote for them from criticism.
39:02So, fraudulent speech.
39:05Is it fraudulent?
39:07I mean, obviously it promises a stateless utopia and delivers totalitarian hellscape every
39:11single time.
39:13I don't know.
39:14I mean, obviously I think that communism is a wretched, corrupt, and vicious set of
39:20argumentations, but is it fraudulent?
39:23I don't think so technically.
39:26All right.
39:28Last question.
39:29We're seeing how ideas can possess people and spread like illness without needing to
39:33tie anything supernatural to it.
39:35How likely do you think it is that biblical demons were early attempts at naming social
39:40contagions and or conversion disorders?
39:42And it certainly is true, of course, that ideas take hold and spread like wildfire, but
39:50they are like blowing, they are like blowing seeds, right?
39:57Do they fall on concrete or do they fall on fertile soil?
40:03So, the ideas that spread tend to be those ideas that fall on fertile soil.
40:11So, what is the fertile soil for particular ideas?
40:15Well, the fertile soil for particular ideas tends to be those ideas that are programmed
40:23into people when they're very young.
40:25So, if you've ever had the situation in school where someone says, or the teacher says, did
40:33you bring enough for everyone?
40:34You can't have something of your own if you haven't brought enough for everyone.
40:37Did you bring enough gum for everyone?
40:38Then you can't have any gum of your own.
40:40So, if you get that hammered into your head, then socialism seems more likely so.
40:45I think it is early programming that tends to make these ideas spread like wildfire, and
40:51that's what we need to focus on.
40:53Thank you so much, freedomain.com.
40:55To help out the show, I appreciate these great questions.
40:57Lots of love from up here.
40:58I'll talk to you soon.
40:59Bye.
40:59Bye.
Recommended
2:24:50
|
Up next
15:47
1:49:13
2:03:59
1:20:11
1:26:16
36:45
1:08:44
51:54
1:29:47
2:21:02
1:43:02
43:59
1:49:26
1:44:13
1:18:38
1:58:37
43:13
1:05:32
13:25
5:13
49:11
1:49:04
38:49
Be the first to comment