Do Unions Equal CULTS? X Space

Stefan Molyneux

Philosopher Stefan Molyneux's 1 April 2026 Wednesday Night Live livestream breaks down unions as cults, state coercion vs true voluntarism, greed's ethics and faith in dating calls to forge libertarian freedom and personal responsibility.  0:00:00 Welcome to the Stream  0:00:30 Cults and Unions: A Comparison  0:02:54 The Power of Collective Bargaining  0:05:24 The Nature of Unions  0:09:18 Economic Implications of Unions  0:13:23 Public Sector Unions and Their Impact  0:16:22 Promises and Consequences  0:17:33 The Role of Unions in Society  0:20:12 Philosophical Reflections on Morality  0:21:44 Greed and Unloved Hearts  0:26:09 Conversations on Faith and Identity  0:32:35 The Intersection of Philosophy and Good Works  0:38:22 Understanding Religion and Reason  0:51:20 Overthinking and Courtship  1:01:38 Sexual Access and Predatory Motives  1:07:09 Grooming Gangs and Societal Impacts  1:08:00 Greed, Vanity, and Sloth  1:21:12 Intellectual Conformity and Societal Progress   GET FREEDOMAIN MERCH! https://shop.freedomain.com/  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

Transcript

00:00:00Good evening, good evening, my friends. Welcome back, my friends, to the show that really ends.

00:00:05Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain, freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show very much

00:00:11gratefully and deeply and humbly appreciated, appreciated. And let us

00:00:21talk to Pity Patty El Gordel. Are you on the line? Don't forget to unmute.

00:00:31Hey, Steph, can you hear me? I certainly can. How are you doing?

00:00:34Quite well. How are you? I'm well, thank you.

00:00:37Hey, I wasn't sure if you had a chance to check out my comments. It gets to philosophical points.

00:00:45I know you're off politics, but I had a discussion about, I asked Groff, and I thought

00:00:52it wasn't going to agree with me. I asked him, can you make a good argument that unions and cults

00:01:00are the same? And it came up with some surprising similarities in that I've gotten actually

00:01:05surprisingly good. I've been posting it all over the internet about different union groups.

00:01:11I've gotten pretty good feedback, and I'm wondering your take on that since you've been accused of

00:01:16being a cult leader for so long. And I know, obviously, you're not. You deprogrammed people

00:01:20out of the cults of family and opened their eyes. I kind of just wondered your take on that

00:01:25if you have any thoughts on that. All right. So, the question is,

00:01:31cults and unions. Now, there's two ways to look at unions. And one of them, of course,

00:01:40is just it's a voluntary association of workers who gather together for collective bargaining

00:01:45purposes, right? Perfectly fair, perfectly valid, nothing wrong with it. It is not a violation of the

00:01:51NAP to get together with a bunch of other people and bargain collectively, right? So,

00:01:58if you are working in a restaurant, there's like one manager, let's say there's 10 waiters,

00:02:05one manager, 10 waiters. Now, the 10 waiters can all get together and say, we want to put forward

00:02:09these collective demands. Maybe we want a 25% wage increase. So, the waiters can put forward that

00:02:16request. Request, totally fine. And they can also say, we're all going to quit if we don't get

00:02:25this 25% wage increase. No violation of the non-aggression principle. It's perfectly fine,

00:02:31fair, and valid for people to want that kind of raise and to organize collectively to get it.

00:02:39No problem, no fault, no unfair, no fail. Now, if you've ever been a manager, if a bunch of your

00:02:47workers want to quit all at the same time, you have a big problem with business continuity. So,

00:02:52they have leverage. They have leverage. Now, if you overextend that leverage, in other words,

00:02:57if you say, we want double our wages, or we're all going to quit at the same time,

00:03:02if the wages are too high for the business to continue, then the manager will just fire you

00:03:10all and try desperately to replace you. He might shut down for a week or two, you know,

00:03:14and try and sort that out. Because if you ask for more than the business can sustain,

00:03:18the business manager will just cancel the business until he can reconfigure. Now, hopefully,

00:03:25if you're a manager, you work to keep your employees happy, and you say, are you happy with

00:03:29your wages? Do you think that you're underpaid? Nobody ever thinks they're overpaid, but do you

00:03:32think you're underpaid, and you'll work with that proactively? If you get into a hostile situation,

00:03:36though, all of the 10 waiters can say, we're quitting because you're not going to give us

00:03:41a 25% wage increase. Totally fine, totally fair, totally valid. The problem becomes when the 10 waiters

00:03:49can use force to prevent the manager from firing them or hiring other workers. So, in the union

00:03:59movement, which is largely socialist slash communist, they're called scabs or strike breakers. So, a

00:04:06bunch of factory workers go on strike for better wages, better working conditions, and, you know,

00:04:11maybe their requests are, quote, fair, although I don't really know what fair means in this world,

00:04:16other than what you can negotiate. So, fair is just a word for little children to try and get extra

00:04:21candy, and adults to pretend that they're owed something that they haven't earned, for the most part.

00:04:26Now, if these 10 waiters in the restaurant can not only all quit at the same time, which they can

00:04:32certainly do, perfectly validly and peacefully, if, however, they can use force to prevent other

00:04:39waiters from being hired, then you're not in a negotiation situation, you're in a hostage

00:04:45situation. So, if you say to a woman, will you marry me? And she says no, that's fine. If you

00:04:53then

00:04:54threaten to kill anyone else who might want to marry her, you're in a different situation morally,

00:05:00right? So, that's the general argument and idea. So, unions, in the modern sense, are far worse than

00:05:08cults. Far worse than cults. Because a cult, in general, will not forcefully bring you in. A cult,

00:05:16in general, will not forcefully prevent you from leaving. You might sign some slightly lengthy

00:05:23contract or things like that. But the cult won't sit there and say, if you leave, we will destroy

00:05:29you. I mean, some cults might, and of course, that's wrong and immoral. But it is, a cult will

00:05:35sort of woo you in and keep you in with extravagant promises. And maybe they'll gather information on you,

00:05:42tell us all your dirtiest and darkest secrets, and then maybe they'll hint that they might release it

00:05:47and so on. And, you know, that's sinister and bad and wrong. So, it's a kind of blackmail. But for

00:05:50the

00:05:50most part, cults are a voluntary. They're voluntary to get in. And usually, you can leave. Like, if you

00:05:57leave some cult and go somewhere else, they're not usually going to hunt you down. If they do, of course,

00:06:01that's immoral and evil and bad and wrong and all that kind of stuff. So, unions, in other words,

00:06:07collective bargaining, totally fine. Unions that run to the government and say it is now illegal to

00:06:16bring in outside workers, right? They form a ring, as they often do. They form a ring around the

00:06:20factory. They march around the factory. And anyone who tries to cross the picket lines,

00:06:26anyone who tries to cross the picket lines will

00:06:31be beaten up, strike scabs. They're called scabs as a vile term. So, they're physically attacked and

00:06:38beaten up to discourage them from crossing the picket lines. So, if the workers who are making

00:06:42$25 an hour want $50 an hour and crazy benefits and job security and all, but, you know, the greed,

00:06:51greed runs both ways. Everyone thinks that only the capitalists are greedy, but the workers are greedy

00:06:55as well. It's a human problem of greed. And so, if the workers form a ring around the factory

00:07:02and then someone else comes in and is willing to work for the $25 an hour, and if there's lots

00:07:07of

00:07:07people willing to work for the $25 an hour, then the factory owner will take those people and will

00:07:16train them to do the job, particularly if the job is not that difficult, right? I mean, if it's just

00:07:19running a lathe or, you know, stacking boxes or using a forklift, you can train someone to do that

00:07:24kind of stuff in a week or two for the most part. It's not so much if you're a vascular

00:07:28surgeon or

00:07:29something like that. That's sort of a different matter. So, unions, as far as voluntary associations,

00:07:36are great. Now, unions can also perfectly morally use ostracism, right? So, if there's a bunch of

00:07:47waiters, they all quit at the same time. And if there's another friend of theirs who's a waiter,

00:07:51who's out of work, who then says, oh, I want a job in that restaurant. I really need to be

00:07:55a waiter,

00:07:56and I need, it's my skill set. Then if that person decides to cross the picket lines and go and

00:08:01work

00:08:02in the restaurant, then the other waiters, the waiters who are on strike, it's perfectly morally

00:08:07fine to ostracize that person. You're dead to us. We're never going to socialize again. Your kids can't

00:08:13play with our kids. We're going to cross the street. If we see you coming, like all of that stuff,

00:08:18totally fine, totally valid, totally no problem, because that's all voluntary, and it's peaceful,

00:08:23and I'm a huge fan of ostracism as a method of social control, as I sacrificed myself to be

00:08:31deep platform to prove that very point. I was hoist by my own petard. I was punished by the

00:08:36same social mechanism I say runs society for perfectly legal and moral speech. I mean, I think

00:08:43that the ostracism was not based on truth, but that's a different matter. But yeah, ostracism is

00:08:49great. Because it's ostracism or violence, right? So unions, great, no problem. Unions that use

00:08:58violence, big problem. And of course, one of the things that's hollowed out America's industrial

00:09:03base and a lot of the West's industrial base is the fundamental problem of voting-based social

00:09:11systems is that the dependents vastly outnumber those they're dependent on, right? So tenants

00:09:19vastly outnumber landlords. Workers vastly outnumber managers and owners, right? The crowd in the stadium

00:09:29outnumbers the players on the field. So they're a very small number. I really think that about 15%

00:09:37of an economy is composed of productive people adding value. And everyone else is either neutral

00:09:44or a net taker. Because of course, you know, I mean, there are children, that's inevitable.

00:09:50There are retired people, government workers, neats, not in education, employment, or training,

00:09:57video game addicts, porn addicts, basement addicts, just lots of people who aren't particularly

00:10:02productive who are living off the system as a whole. And so if you look at the number of people

00:10:08who are net taxpayers in the private sector, the free market, it's actually quite few. The

00:10:18slave-owning class, which is those on the receiving end of government money, the slave-owning class is

00:10:24far outnumbering the slaves who are those being pillaged of their income for the sake of keeping

00:10:30everyone else from rioting. So the problem is that the workers outnumber the managers, the tenants

00:10:37outnumber the landlords, and so on. So in any democratic system, the needs of the many,

00:10:44or the preferences of the many, destroy the rights of the few. Because they can just vote to take away

00:10:49the rights. They can vote to take away, they can vote for rent control, they can vote for additional

00:10:58benefits and retirement plans and packages. They can vote for additional wages. But of course,

00:11:04that's only domestically, right? So in America, the unions just kept exceeding and exceeding and

00:11:10exceeding their demands. And in my view, one of the things that happened with China and with Russia

00:11:18America was that they saw a massive economic opportunity to take over manufacturing because

00:11:27they saw, as enemies of America do and the West as a whole do, they see the politicians bending to

00:11:34the will of these unions and goods becoming more and more expensive. Union members who raise their

00:11:40wages, if everyone who's a union member gets double their wages, well, I mean, all that happens is the

00:11:45price of a lot of goods goes up twice. So they don't actually end up with more money. Everything

00:11:50you ask for over and above fair market value or negotiated market value just adds to inflation

00:11:55and reduces the purchasing power of your wages anyway. So you get double the money at half the

00:12:00value. That's just the way these things work. But as the demands, particularly in the public sector,

00:12:06as the demands in the West got higher and higher and higher for unions, the wages, the benefits,

00:12:12the job security, the pensions in particular, the healthcare, you know, like a lot of American

00:12:17motor companies sell cars because what they really are in the, they're in the business of delivering

00:12:23healthcare and retirement benefits to their current and prior workers. They're not in the business

00:12:28selling cars anymore. They just sell cars in order to fund all of the pension schemes that they signed

00:12:32up for. So as the price of, and benefits of American labor went higher and higher and higher,

00:12:39this created a massive arbitrage market opportunity for other countries to sign free trade agreements

00:12:47or to, as China did get into the World Trade Organization, and then just crank out manufactured

00:12:53products and destroy the American industrial base and thus weaken its entire capacity to sustain itself,

00:13:00keep its citizens employed and wage war. So at the same time as you're stealing American jobs,

00:13:05because the American workers are stealing from the consumers through the power of the state,

00:13:08you then are also delivering drugs to the hollowed out towns, which remain somewhat stagnant because

00:13:14of welfare, right? So it's really horrendous. And then there's a whole question, I'll try and keep

00:13:19this brief, of course, the whole question of government unions. So unions are supposed to exist because

00:13:26the capitalist owners are greedy and avaricious and want to just grind down the wages of the employees

00:13:32and so on. It's like, yeah, it's not how productive business works as a team. You know, I would always

00:13:38tell my employees, I managed about 30, 35 people at one point, and I always told them like, you're paying

00:13:42my wages, I need to be a value to you. If there's a technical problem I can help you with,

00:13:46if you've got

00:13:47a difficult customer you want me to take over, if there's anything that you need to be, I'm working

00:13:51for you, as well as you working for me. And I worked very hard, I got about a million dollar

00:13:56raises for

00:13:57my people from the board by doing a salary comparison after they complained about low wages. I did a, I

00:14:03hired

00:14:04an outside consultant, got a salary comparison that was objective, and then lobbied and got about a million

00:14:09dollars worth of raises for my people. And you know, I said, so for instance, that that's one thing that

00:14:14I can do

00:14:14for you. And everybody was very happy and productivity went up. I also fired difficult employees,

00:14:20particularly a very aggressive and insulting team lead that was making people cry. And so, you know,

00:14:25I try to sort of help the workers out, and the workers have a good deal of loyalty to me,

00:14:30and I

00:14:30have a good deal of loyalty. That's how, like, productive capitalism is supposed to work as a whole.

00:14:35Now, of course, unions are supposed to exist because the greedy, monocle, fat capitalist guy just

00:14:43wants to steal all the money, so you need a union. There's not any of that pressure. There's not that

00:14:48competitive pressure. There's not that exploitive pressure in the public sector. So unions in the

00:14:54public sector are absolutely horrendous, because the public sector often has a monopoly. You can't,

00:15:00like a public sector union where it's very expensive, or where you're charged for the

00:15:06service anyway, like a public sector union for teachers. I mean, the teachers get paid whether you

00:15:10send your kids to them or not, whether you send your kids to private school. The teachers get paid

00:15:14whether you don't have any kids at all, whether you're overseas, you still get paid, right?

00:15:19And so, when you have a union, and you have no competition, and you have enforced income,

00:15:25then you end up with a truly horrendous situation where workers have a stranglehold on the economy

00:15:32because of a government-enforced monopoly, and then they can also unionize, and then you get,

00:15:37you know, these garbage workers strike, their public teachers strike, various, HR never goes on strike

00:15:42because, I mean, who the hell would notice? So, public sector unions have been horrendous. And

00:15:47the other thing that happens, of course, in the eternal kick-the-can-down-the-road situation of

00:15:52modern economics, what happens is politicians, when they're faced with a strike, you know, the garbage

00:15:59piles up, or the schools are closed, and the entire economy is scrambling, then what they do is they

00:16:05don't want to give the workers, particularly the public sector, it can happen in private sector too,

00:16:10they don't want to give those workers wage increases in the here and now, because the math

00:16:16just doesn't math, right? They're just, as a government, you don't have the income, and there's

00:16:19only a certain amount of bonds you can float, particularly at the municipal level. So, what

00:16:23they do instead is they say, man, don't sweat it. No problem, bro. I got you. I'm going to give

00:16:30you

00:16:31massive retirement benefits in 20 or 30 years, right, to the average worker, right? The average

00:16:35worker, say, 40. So, when you're 60, you're going to get massive pensions and healthcare

00:16:40benefits and dental and all of this kind of stuff, and that's just kicking the can down the road,

00:16:46right? So, they then promise all of these crazy benefits that future taxpayers are on the hook

00:16:50for, and then the union leaders say, hey, man, we secured this great deal. You can retire a couple

00:16:56of years earlier. You get 25% more retirement, full health benefits, dental, whatever it is you're

00:17:00going to get. And then everybody pretends that they're happy, or I guess everyone is happy,

00:17:05and then, you know, 20 years later, the city goes bankrupt because all these promises have

00:17:10been made. So, yeah, cults are largely voluntary. Cults will love bomb you and seduce you and so

00:17:15on, but it's still, I mean, mostly voluntary. There are a couple of violent cults, but then they would

00:17:19be just criminal organizations. But government unions and unions that are protected by the government

00:17:24are violent, thug enterprises that bribe people with largely coerced, hostage-taken, in a sense,

00:17:33and stolen money, and you don't really have a choice. And I remember first being interested in

00:17:38this just by the by. I worked at two restaurants as a teenager, well, more than two, but the two

00:17:42that are important. One was Pizza Hut, and the other was Swiss Chalet. Now, Pizza Hut, non-unionized.

00:17:50Non-unionized, at least back in the day. And Pizza Hut, I didn't have to pay for my uniform.

00:17:56I didn't have to pay for my name tag. I didn't. None of that. And all my meals were free.

00:18:00And

00:18:00anything that I wanted to eat, I could just go and get it. I mean, not some big, large pizza,

00:18:05but, you know, at the end of every shift, they used to have this great fattuccine Alfredo. I would

00:18:08get some of that, or I would take a hot chocolate and go with it. Anything you could eat at

00:18:13lunch,

00:18:14there were these pizzas left over from the five-minute lunches, and I could just eat anything you

00:18:17wanted. At Swiss Chalet, I had to pay for my own uniform, and I also had to pay for meals.

00:18:22And it was unionized, and they took, I don't know, three or four or five, or maybe it was six

00:18:26percent

00:18:26of my income, and it was just, I just made less money at the unionized place than at the non

00:18:32-unionized

00:18:32place. So, yeah, I mean, if they really wanted to insult me, they wouldn't call me a cult leader,

00:18:38they'd call me a union leader. That would be much more insulting. Does that help at all?

00:18:45That's so beautifully said, and like how you stated, the greed of the workers is something

00:18:50that's often overlooked. And you spoke with a debate with the other guy, the guy who wasn't

00:18:55listening, which blows me away. How many people don't listen to what you have to say? You said

00:19:00so much. I'm trying to unpack it so much.

00:19:05that it's people like I guess perhaps because you've been a business owner and a manager that

00:19:11you get that perspective. Like how you said that, sure, that your wages are doubled, but

00:19:17they can't see the, like you said, taking the can down the road that it's going to, the value

00:19:23of what you're doing isn't going up. It's just you're getting paid more, and it's causing

00:19:27the value of everything else to go down. And I view it as like a larger societal problem.

00:19:33And I know I'm trying to get ahead of this. I know you're not about politics, like you

00:19:36said, but next year, I believe in the US and Europe, and I believe in Canada too. In

00:19:422027, they're having a large labor strikes. And I believe if we can get ahead of, and maybe

00:19:48I'm being too optimistic, but if we can kind of point out the overall morality, like you

00:19:54said, especially with the public sector unions, that maybe we could sort of have a national

00:19:59conversation. And I know that's kind of cliched, but maybe we can sort of get ahead of these

00:20:04things before, philosophically, and have them point out that they're immoral before they

00:20:09become a larger, like you said, riots and further problems.

00:20:13Yeah, I mean, I've been sort of trying to mull over what is the biggest sin in the modern

00:20:17world. I think it's a toss-up between vanity and greed. And vanity and greed are both desire

00:20:24for the unearthed. If I say I'm going to sell you something for 500 bucks, and you agree

00:20:30to pay me 500 bucks for it at freedomain.com slash donate, sell you my gratitude for a support

00:20:34of the show so we can stay commercial free. But if I say I'll sell you something for 500

00:20:39bones, and then you say, sure, I'm happy to pay 500 bones and 100 fins. I had a friend

00:20:46who used to call $5 bills fins. And that's fine. It's not greedy, right? But if I overcharge

00:20:53you, if I double charge you or whatever, because I'm entitled... So greed and vanity

00:20:57are both the desire for the unearned. Vanity is, I want people's good regard without having

00:21:03to earn it. And greed is, I want more than people have bargained for just because I'm

00:21:08so gosh darn special that everyone should give me everything. And why is it that people want

00:21:15more and more and more? Why is it that they're so easily stimulated into feeling resentment

00:21:19for being, quote, underpaid? Like I see this all the time on X. You see it everywhere. All

00:21:25of these women bawling and cattlewalling into the four winds of testosterone indifference

00:21:31about all of their unpaid labor. All of the women's unpaid labor. Oh, the value of women's

00:21:38unpaid labor. It's like, damn, someone's got to be paying you or you'd be starving to death.

00:21:44Someone's got to be paying you. I mean, women don't get paid for housework. It's like,

00:21:49you know, the answer's in the word housework. What you're getting paid is having a house around

00:21:54you. You can't do work and not get paid without starving to death. If I go out into the woods

00:22:01in Canada and I decide to move bushes around for some reason, am I getting paid? Nope.

00:22:09So let's say I'm a waiter. And I remember, you know, eternal, I thought of this the other day,

00:22:13like eternal thanks to the guy. When I was, I remember this very clearly. I was new to Canada.

00:22:19It was a horrible winter and I was in a group of kids and there was an older guy there.

00:22:26I like, there was my friends who were 11 or 12. I just sort of made new friends when I

00:22:29came to

00:22:30Canada. And there was this guy who was like 14 or 15 and a smart guy. And one of the

00:22:35guys was

00:22:35talking about, you know, Hey man, you know, it costs like 15 cents for a can of Coke and it

00:22:40costs

00:22:40a quarter for a can of Coke, but you know, that the ingredients only cost three cents.

00:22:44And I was like, Ooh, ah, now of course you get a feeling that something's not quite right about

00:22:49that, but you can't really articulate. At least I couldn't articulate it back then. Like that doesn't

00:22:53seem quite right. They're really making 20, 22 cents profit off a quarter can of Coke.

00:22:57Coke. And the older guy was like, come on, don't be such a kid. Think about it. The cost of

00:23:05the

00:23:05ingredients is not much in the can of Coke, but you got the actual can of Coke you got to

00:23:10make.

00:23:11You got to pay for all the workers. You got to pay to have a more transported. You got to

00:23:16pay for

00:23:16the heating. You got to pay for the factory. You got to pay for the management. You got to pay

00:23:20for

00:23:20the advertising. And he just went through this whole list, right? I mean, literally that 14 year old

00:23:25kid, God bless you. God bless you, wherever you are, man. Saved me from a life of pathetic,

00:23:32socialist, idiot resentment. Right? Because, and it's like, well, oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh,

00:23:39that's right. And so I thought that was just, that was just beautiful. And so I, the greed,

00:23:50the resentment, the, the, the, the, the end of the vanity, my, my work is worth more.

00:23:57And of course it's a bit of a low IQ thing too, because when you're a worker, you can see

00:24:02all the

00:24:02work that you and your friends are doing, but you take the factory, the lathe, the forklift,

00:24:07whatever it is that you're working with, you take all of that for granted. And it's just kind of there

00:24:12like a tree or like a river or whatever it is. Right? And so you don't see the boss working,

00:24:18right? You're out there, you're cutting stuff around, you're moving stuff, you're spot welding,

00:24:22you're doing all of this kind of stuff. And you don't see the boss is just in his office somewhere

00:24:26and it looks like he's on the phone a lot. And it looks like he's typing a lot. That ain't

00:24:29working.

00:24:29That's the way you do it. Right? And it's like, well, we're doing the working, what the hell's

00:24:33he doing? And it's like, well, he's making sure that the entire factory runs because you doing all

00:24:37of these movements in the middle of nowhere doesn't make you a damn penny. Someone's got to build

00:24:42all the machinery around you and then do the marketing and ship everything off and get paid and make

00:24:46sure that the taxes are paid and all of that. So yeah. And why, why are people so greedy? I

00:24:53think

00:24:53they're greedy because they're unloved. You know, if you're unloved, you tend towards materialism

00:24:59because if you're like, as a kid, if you're unloved, if you're unappreciated, if no one takes

00:25:02delight in your presence and wants to know what you think and feel, if you're a little kid

00:25:08and you're unloved, you tend to want status. And then you associate value with material term,

00:25:20immaterial terms, not value in moral terms, not value in respect and not value in love

00:25:26and appreciation and so on. And if you're not loved, you tend to be more and more status

00:25:33driven materially greedy. And then you're very susceptible to this kind of socialist resentment,

00:25:37which is why, again, I try to solve everything at the realm of family and love.

00:25:45That's so beautifully said. I mean, I wish I, I don't want to annoy or I don't want to change

00:25:52topics. I mean, shouldn't Christianity have made you an honorary saint for all you've done to help

00:25:57children at this point. I mean, shouldn't, instead of, I mean, you've done more to help

00:26:01with peaceful parenting that you saved millions of children from being abused than any sort of

00:26:05religious figure in the past. I don't know, perhaps ever. I, perhaps we should go that route

00:26:11too. I didn't mean, I'll, I'll let the next person speak, but thank you so much for that

00:26:14breakdown. That was beautiful.

00:26:15I'm very glad. Somebody says, I asked Socrates, how does it feel to be the world's greatest

00:26:21philosopher? He said, I don't know. You need to ask to defend more on you. That's very kind.

00:26:26I appreciate that. Thank you. Let's get, if you have, if you want to talk, that's fine

00:26:30too. Oh yeah, we do have someone. Uh, let's give Mike the mic, Mike squared. If you want

00:26:39to unmute, I'm all ears. Hi there. Can you hear me?

00:26:43Yes, sir. Go ahead.

00:26:45Stefan, it's, uh, an honor to speak to you. I, uh, am a first time caller. Um, been a subscriber

00:26:53for a while. Thank you. Been listening to you for a long time. If you're ever in Colorado or you

00:27:00ever want to visit Colorado, uh, we'd love to host you at our house and in our guest bedroom.

00:27:05Um, it would be our pleasure. You've been such a big impact on me and my family. We, uh, peacefully

00:27:11parented two kiddos. Um, and it's just been a game changer. So I wanted to say thank you for that.

00:27:17I appreciate that. And thank you for the very kind offer. That is very nice. Colorado is one

00:27:21beautiful state. And, uh, as I get older, my bucket list gets smaller and more intense,

00:27:27but returning to Colorado has always been on the list. So I appreciate the offer. Thank you.

00:27:32I had one question, if I may. Um, my daughter is, she's 17 and, you know, she's again, been peacefully

00:27:41parented. Um, both my wife and I have been, um, you know, in conversations with her, obviously,

00:27:47as far as, um, um, religions concerned, obviously a lot of her fan, uh, friends and family that we

00:27:53interact with, um, have a faith, um, based background and, uh, a belief. And I think she's,

00:28:02um, I would, I would, I would probably say she's, um, still searching. She would probably say she's an

00:28:09unbeliever at this time, but the concern she has is that she's entering the dating scene. What is the

00:28:16best? And I wanted to hear what you would, you would recommend for her. What would be the best

00:28:22way to start conversations with, um, you know, a guy she's potentially dating or she's around

00:28:31when that question of faith comes up, particularly if it's somebody who comes from a Christian

00:28:35background. You mean if she's dating someone from a Christian background? Correct. Correct. Yeah. And

00:28:40again, you know, her family's fairly Christian, so I think she's exposed to the ideas, but without,

00:28:47without stepping on any landmines, I just wanted to see how your daughter perhaps, um, is addressing

00:28:52that, um, or you, any of your recommendations would be. Yeah. Very kind. I will answer this without

00:29:00reference, uh, to, uh, my daughter because that's more sort of personal to her, but it's an interesting

00:29:08question. It's the question of faith versus works. Is the belief in God, what is needed to make you

00:29:20good, or must that belief in God manifest in actual works in the world? It's a big question. Faith versus

00:29:29works. It's an old argument in Christianity. If you have faith, but the faith does not manifest in good

00:29:37works. Do you go to heaven? If you do good works without the faith, do you go to heaven? And

00:29:48that is a very

00:29:49interesting question. Now, I prefer good works to mere belief. A belief that is not manifested in action is

00:30:05hypocrisy in practice. Because if I said, oh, peaceful parenting is very good. And then I yelled at and

00:30:12hit my kids, uh, that would be, that would be terrible. That would be, uh, just appalling. That

00:30:18would be like the Christian preacher who rails against people having an affairs while himself having

00:30:23affairs often through grinder or something like that. So I prefer good deeds to good

00:30:35ideas. Now, of course, it's very hard to consistently have good deeds without good ideas.

00:30:43And the way that I generally work it is something like this. So if you're operating at a very abstract

00:30:47realm and you're trying to solve a lot of problems in the world as a whole, then you need the

00:30:51most

00:30:51refined abstractions. If on the other hand, you're just trying to do basic good in your life, you don't

00:30:57need all of the refined abstractions. And the analogy, which is actually kind of close, is the

00:31:01difference between a NASA engineer trying to send a probe to Jupiter as opposed to a baseball hitter

00:31:08who's just kind of hit the ball or catch the ball or throw the ball. Now the baseball hitter is

00:31:12just

00:31:12working locally. He can practice a whole bunch of times. He doesn't need to know the math. He

00:31:16doesn't need to know the quadratic equations or the air resistance, frictional, whatever it is,

00:31:20coefficient. And so he just practices and then he becomes really good. You don't say, oh, well,

00:31:26if you want to be a really good baseball player, you need to study physics. No, you just need to

00:31:31practice. That's your localized environment for doing good. But if you want to send a probe to

00:31:37Uranus, then you need to put on the rubber gloves. No, you need to have the, actually, you can't even

00:31:43do that on Newtonian physics. You need Einsteinian physics to do that. And you need to do all the math

00:31:47that you need to have. So the more broad, wider, and generalized your application of virtue,

00:31:53the more you need the actual detailed theories. And so if somebody is a baseball player and they

00:32:02want to join your team, then what you do is you, and let's say you've not met them before,

00:32:07you'll throw some balls. You'll see how they hit. You'll see how they catch. You'll see if they

00:32:11understand the rules of the game. And that's going to be enough. You don't sit there and say, well,

00:32:14I'm going to need your PhD in quantum mechanics in order to know whether you'll be a good baseball

00:32:19player. So good deeds in the local sense arise without the necessity of strongly abstract and

00:32:28detailed and universal theories. If you want to do really great good in the world, then you need to

00:32:32have the broader spectrum of abstract theories. UPB is necessary for promoting peaceful parenting in

00:32:39the world, but to not hit your children locally, you just need to have some basic compassion and

00:32:43empathy and remember what it was like to be a child and respect that your children want to love

00:32:48you and want to respect you, therefore don't hit them. So the reason I'm saying all of this is that

00:32:53if your daughter dates a guy for whom the theory is everything, then she's not going to have much

00:33:03luck in dating him as a whole, unless he's going to try and convert her, which of course he's welcome

00:33:08to do and all of that. But if, if he's a theory only kind of guy, then it's going to

00:33:13be tough to date

00:33:14him unless she can talk him into believing something perhaps a little bit more rational or a little bit

00:33:19more empirical or something like that. However, if he's as most people should be, because most of us

00:33:24are not NASA engineers and, and so on, and we're not doing double slit experiments, what is that a

00:33:30threesome? Anyway. So, so what you want to do is a not have her listen to this, but B, if

00:33:36she's dating

00:33:37a guy who's good works, fantastic. Then you can say, I do good works. You do good works. We're both

00:33:44really good at baseball. You, you pray to God before every game. I don't, but we both practice the same

00:33:51amount and we can both be on the same team because we're both doing good practical things in the world.

00:33:56And so if it's not, if the quote virtue is not driven by heavy abstract theories,

00:34:03which is a little tricky. Like if somebody says, I only do good because I've worked it out

00:34:07according to theory and theology and so on, it's kind of questionable how good they really are.

00:34:14But if somebody just enjoys doing good at a practical level, then in a sense, it doesn't matter

00:34:20too much how you're there. Like if, if as, as happens for me on occasion, I see someone, you

00:34:27know, yelling at their kid or shaking their kid. And I sort of run up and say, Hey, like, that's

00:34:32not

00:34:32a good idea. And you know, I'm happy to help out. If you want to take a breather, uh, you

00:34:36know, um,

00:34:37let me, you know, be a buffer and, you know, try and do some nice thing to lower the temperature.

00:34:42I mean, you don't need to be a rational philosopher with a theory of universally preferable behavior

00:34:48in order to run up to someone and try and get them to calm down. If they're aggressing against

00:34:52their kid, you just need to be somebody with a basic heart who remembers what it's like to be a

00:34:56kid and doesn't like to see that kind of stuff. So if she's dating someone who's abstract, heavy,

00:35:02a theory and theology and so on, probably not much of an entree. If it is

00:35:11a different belief system, but the practical virtues are enacted both the same, uh, then you

00:35:17would have a lot more in common, if that makes sense.

00:35:20It does. Thank you so much. I love that. And just so you know, she's going to be listening to

00:35:24this. Uh, it's, it's a lovely thing to be a dad and to have a daughter who is, uh, listening

00:35:31to the

00:35:31same philosopher you listen to.

00:35:32Yeah. I appreciate that. Just edit out the threesome joke and we're good to go.

00:35:36Can I impose on you one more question?

00:35:38Of course, of course. Um, how do you, uh, handle the identification? So, you know, when I, uh,

00:35:45turned from belief, you know, it was, uh, atheist and obviously that term has a negative connotation

00:35:53in, in our culture. Um, non-believer, humanist, there's a lot of terms for somebody at her age,

00:35:58particularly, um, in, in a social circle, it's not necessarily the best way to be identified

00:36:05immediately. What would be a good way for her to kind of start, Hey, wait, you know, what church

00:36:10do you go to? Where do you, where do you attend? What would be the best way to kind of

00:36:14start that

00:36:15conversation for her to identify herself or where she's at, if that makes sense?

00:36:19Yeah. I would say that if somebody says, what's your denomination to say, um, my, my favorite thing to

00:36:27do is I love philosophy and that includes theology. And I love studying that. I love thinking about that,

00:36:32but, um, I try to approach everything from a reason and evidence standpoint, you know,

00:36:37like scientists do and, and so on. And, um, I mean, that includes a lot of ethics that includes a

00:36:43lot

00:36:43of religiosity and so on, but yeah, I'm, I'm approaching things from a reason and evidence

00:36:47philosophical lens, you know, and really in the Aristotelian tradition. And I mean, that may sound

00:36:52a little pompous, however, she wants to word it to include a couple of skibbity toilets and six,

00:36:57seven references. Um, obviously that's not her, but I'm just showing my grasp, firm grasp of teen

00:37:03Argot these days. But yeah, I would say, um, interested in philosophy, interested in reason,

00:37:09interested in evidence, interested in empiricism and, you know, the, the big challenge of how to

00:37:14be good. You know, I don't want to just be ordered around to be good. I really, really want to

00:37:18understand it. I don't want to just follow commandments because that turns me kind of like

00:37:22a computer. And I, I really want to exercise my free will, not just to be good, but to know

00:37:27why

00:37:27and to understand it better. And so I spent a lot of my time thinking about what's good and bad,

00:37:33what's right and what's wrong. And this allows me to avoid social consensus and, and allows me to

00:37:38avoid peer pressure. And, uh, I don't, you know, like a lot of people just look at the universe and

00:37:43say, it is what it is. And I'm very much a, but, but why, but why, why is it my

00:37:50daughter with the

00:37:51other day standing with her, uh, her legs far apart and sliding down? And I said, why? And

00:37:56of course everyone laughed because she was an upside down. Why? So, yeah. So, I mean, the,

00:38:01the why of things is where human beings are animals live at the length, at the, at the level of

00:38:05sense

00:38:06perception and human beings live at the level of abstraction and curiosity. So, yeah, I mean, I,

00:38:11I, I, I find religion completely fascinating. I just did a whole thing on the particle sun the other

00:38:15day. And, um, we're going back to Noah's Ark, I think at some point soon, and I find it completely

00:38:22fascinating. Uh, but I, I am not a person who is going to consider myself a realized or self-actualized

00:38:30human being if I'm just taking orders and obeying commandments.

00:38:33Thank you for that. Thank you for that. Um, I'll let the next, uh, next person go. I just want

00:38:38to

00:38:38again say, thank you so much for everything. Your physical books are amazing. The condensed version,

00:38:42version of peaceful parenting is awesome. Um, can't say, but I can't say enough about how great

00:38:49you've been to our, our family and to my life. So thank you so much. Thank you very much. I

00:38:54really,

00:38:54really appreciate that. And thank you for your support of the show over the years. Without you,

00:39:00as an old Sandra Bernhardt, uh, uh, without you, I'm nothing without you. I'm just screaming into a

00:39:05void. So thank you. Thank you very much. Uh, somebody is asking, is a debate about rights with Andrew

00:39:11Wilson in the future. So nothing is scheduled. Uh, he's a very busy guy and, um, I'm medium busy.

00:39:22So nothing is scheduled, but I certainly would be happy to do that at any particular, uh, time.

00:39:29So, uh, and you know, there's that, that a tough life, you know, I'm not saying anything

00:39:33that, that isn't publicly available. I don't have any private pipeline to Andrew Wilson, but,

00:39:38you know, I hope that people will have some, you know, real, real sympathy for, for what's going

00:39:42on. He was, uh, I think he was married and he had a stepson that he raised from the age

00:39:46of two who

00:39:47ended up dying at the age of 10 in some horrible car crash from some kid who was 14. And

00:39:52I was just,

00:39:52yeah, it was a real, uh, awful, just, you know, completely heartbreaking situation. And then,

00:39:56uh, he and Rachel Wilson, I think they have three kids, two of whom are autistic and not like a

00:40:02tiny

00:40:03bit. Uh, and so, you know, lots of big hugs and, and sympathies. Those are big challenges.

00:40:08They've written about a book about this. So again, I'm not, but, you know, I hope that people will,

00:40:11um, interrupt them a line and wish them the best. And, you know, they've, they've got some,

00:40:16uh, real challenges for which we should all have great, uh, sympathies. And so I just wanted to

00:40:24mention that. Okay. Um, let's see, what was the last five good things Steffi did?

00:40:34You know, it's just funny. It's just kind of funny, you know, to, to, Oh, Steffi. It's,

00:40:42it's just a very sad little diminutive thing. The most important thing is not to worry about the

00:40:48good that I'm doing, but to focus on the good that you can do as a whole. And, you know,

00:40:53putting

00:40:54down philosophers who are working to bring peace, reason, and evidence to the world by putting a fee

00:41:01at the end, take the name Steph. Well, take Stefan, shorten it to Steph, and then say,

00:41:08Steffi. Where's Steffi then? Oh, it's so sad. Oh my God. Oh my God. This is like watching an ant

00:41:16run its head into the wall of a sidewalk. All right. Uh, thank you for your patience. We have,

00:41:24can I be frank with you? You can be anyone you want with me. I'm trying to stay off automatic

00:41:29jokes. I'm failing. Frank, if you wanted to tell me what's on your mind, I'd be happy to

00:41:34hear. Yeah. Um, I was thinking about, um, some of your gene war stuff and I had, it, uh, gave

00:41:44me a thought, uh, related to pornography and I wanted to run it by you and see if it, uh,

00:41:51made

00:41:51sense. Um, it's, it's very brief, I guess. It's just that, uh, my general theory is that,

00:41:58uh, it kind of works like a double-edged sword, at least in our contemporary circumstance, but

00:42:04all negatives where, um, it would appear to make K selected individuals, uh, more sexually

00:42:12apprehensive or anxious, or like, you know, there's, there's all these things about erectile

00:42:16dysfunction and so on, uh, happening in, uh, the West. I don't know if it's exclusive

00:42:22to Westerners, but then the flip side of this theory is that, uh, it might make our selected,

00:42:28uh, individuals more sexually aggressive. And I just wondered, uh, if you had any thoughts

00:42:34on that.

00:42:35I mean, pornography, of course, is a big and complex challenge. One of the things that does

00:42:39appear to be the case is that as pornography becomes more widespread, sexual attacks, at

00:42:47least in the white community, tend to go down. And we assume it's because the people who are

00:42:54sexually aggressive are getting their gratification from pornography rather than the real world,

00:43:00which of course doesn't mean that it's not a problem because, again, the women who are doing

00:43:04pornography are themselves usually victims of significant control and abuse. Although, again,

00:43:09the OnlyFans thing has really blown people's minds as a whole because, you know, according to some

00:43:17metrics, like 10% of American women aged 18 to 24 are on OnlyFans and trying to sell pictures of

00:43:27unmentionables for a couple of bucks, most of them making $100 to $200 a month. It's really sad and

00:43:33not worth it. Uh, because, again, in OnlyFans, 98% of the money goes to 2% of the people,

00:43:38as is the

00:43:39case with most more raw meritocracies. And if you think, well, so is 10% of women 18 to 24,

00:43:4518 to 30,

00:43:46I can't remember the exact number, are on OnlyFans. And then you think, well, but what percentage of

00:43:51the top 10 to 20% of attractive women is that? And of course, the answer would be a lot

00:43:57higher,

00:43:58right? I mean, if a woman is 18 to 30 or 18 to 24 and is severely obese or has

00:44:04bad hair or bad skin

00:44:05or whatever it is, then she's less likely to be on OnlyFans. So in the top levels of attractiveness,

00:44:12the percentage of women on OnlyFans is very high. I mean, very high. I, you know, could be 30,

00:44:2140, could be as high as 50% when you start to get to the top levels of attractiveness, because

00:44:25that's

00:44:26where the cost benefit is potentially the highest. And so when you have a quarter to a half of very

00:44:33attractive women, uh, voluntarily doing pornography in a sense, or sexually explicit material in a

00:44:39sense, and then, you know, even the overlap of the Instagram girls who it's all like tiny bikini

00:44:44and butt floss bikini shots and so on, highly, highly sexualized. What's really fascinating is

00:44:50what this shows about female nature, that women are completely thrilled to sexualize themselves for

00:45:01money without, you know, the, the typical route for prostitutes, like for physical prostitutes is,

00:45:07you know, they get kicked out of home, uh, or they run away from home because of abuse at the

00:45:12age of,

00:45:12you know, 13 or 14 or 15, and then they're living on the streets and then they get taken in

00:45:16by a pimp

00:45:16who then gets them addicted to drugs and turns them into a prostitute through a grooming process.

00:45:20Listen, it's all just a horrendous meat grinder of shredded and ground under heel human potential,

00:45:27but, uh, that's not the path of course, for the OnlyFans thing. I remember many years ago seeing

00:45:35a video of someone who was trying to promote OnlyFans at a college and he was saying to these

00:45:44attractive women passing by, you know, you should do OnlyFans. And the woman said, uh, I don't think my

00:45:49father would approve. And he said, your father wouldn't have any problem with it. If you give

00:45:53him a Lamborghini, which is horrendous, of course, and only tempting to the shallow and soul destroyed,

00:46:02but they, uh, women are, are happy to hyper-sexualize themselves, right? This isn't a

00:46:09woman. Um, I can't remember many years ago when I worked in a place with a bar, if the tips

00:46:16were slow,

00:46:16they would, all of the women would beg to, to have the woman with the giant boobs and the low

00:46:23cut tops

00:46:24come in because that would be guaranteed to get them more tips. And so, uh, I guess women tools of

00:46:30the trade, right? As I, I took a photo of this many years ago at a store, uh, advertising makeup

00:46:35tools of

00:46:35the trade, right? And so, uh, young women are for reasons that perhaps pass understanding. I mean,

00:46:42I, I sort of put myself in this alternate universe where how many people would pay me for a picture

00:46:48of my butt? I mean, maybe I could set up a service, which is like stiff butt a day, unless

00:46:56you pay.

00:46:57If you don't pay, you get a picture of my butt every day. That would be stop the flow of,

00:47:05uh, of,

00:47:06of pasty orbs. So I can't imagine a universe where people, like if I took my top off right now,

00:47:13you know, and people were like, here's the money, here's the money, buddy. And so on, uh, you know,

00:47:19hiring, I don't know, Indian scammers to type in the keyboard about sexual fantasies about me with

00:47:25people. And I'd get like, I don't know, $20,000 a month or something from, from taking my top off

00:47:30and

00:47:31pretending to be sexually interested in housebound neckbeard simps or whatever it is. I just, I can't

00:47:37imagine that universe. I can't imagine. I mean, I've had a couple of offers of selling out, you

00:47:42know, people have said a couple of times over the last 20 years, Hey, I'd love to put you in

00:47:47my

00:47:47documentary. Hey, I'd love to follow you around. Hey, I'd love to see what your life is just like.

00:47:50It's like, no, you don't. You just want to edit things to make me look bad. And no, I'm not,

00:47:54I'm not an idiot that way. So thanks, but no thanks. And other people have offered me, um, money for,

00:48:00an even more advanced and beautiful studio. And what it is they've offered to sort of fund me,

00:48:05but then there would be some editorial control. And I'm like, nah, I'd rather, I'd rather not.

00:48:10Thanks. I'd rather just have three chords of the truth rather than a whole stadium, a philharmonic

00:48:15and lies. So yeah, pornography is, is, is a big challenge. Again, it does seem to reduce

00:48:23some levels of sexual aggression in practical terms. It does, uh, hypersexuality and, and

00:48:30seeing sexuality everywhere is a mark of primitive tribes. The civilization is defined largely by

00:48:36our commitment to privacy. And so when people see massive amount of sexual activity, they do get

00:48:44programmed to be, uh, are selected. And yes, the erectile dysfunction stuff is a very real thing.

00:48:49There are some men who've actually completely liked, it seems permanently destroyed their capacity to

00:48:54have, uh, maintain an erection due to overconsumption of pornography and, and so on. So yeah, it is, uh,

00:49:02it is a big challenge. And of course, we all know that if it wasn't for like the incel and

00:49:08the pornography

00:49:08is very much intertwined. They are bonded together, you might say, because when, um,

00:49:17um, when, when, when masturbation and what was, was strongly discouraged, uh, through religious

00:49:24doctrine and so on, and, um, Kellogg, I think it was introduced circumcision to help men refrain from

00:49:32touching their unmentionables. But when hypersexuality in terms of omnipresent, um, pornography and

00:49:45masturbation, when that was limited and there was no, in no particular pornography, or at least it was

00:49:49very hard to get ahold of, then, um, men would date women and get married in order to have sex.

00:49:56It's not

00:49:56the only reason, but it was pretty important reason. But if you have, I don't know, the infinite sexual

00:50:00playground and there's no prohibitions on masturbation, then you can just delay, delay, delay. And this

00:50:05is, you've heard me say this a million times to, uh, young men or not so young men on my

00:50:09show that if

00:50:10you're, you know, mid twenties, late twenties, early thirties, and you don't have much of a dating

00:50:14history, uh, any woman with any brains will simply assume and probably be quite right that you're just

00:50:18a pornography addict. So does that help at all? Uh, yeah, I suppose so. I mean, part of what I

00:50:26was,

00:50:27uh, thinking as well is that perhaps in case selected individuals or it, there might be some of the

00:50:39inhibiting effects might arise from overthinking, um, you know, or it's like if you excessively,

00:50:48when thinking about like incels and stuff, um, the people who cannot get laid are often, uh, trying

00:50:55too hard and they're like thinking about it way, way too hard. And it's almost like, uh,

00:51:01Sorry, when you're thinking about it, I'm not sure what it refers to thinking about it.

00:51:04Sexual access or sex in general. Okay. Hang on, hang on, hang on. So you just, when you come up

00:51:11with complex thoughts, don't just skate past them as if I know what you mean. So help me understand

00:51:16the overthinking part. So, and I'm not disagreeing with you. I just want to make sure I understand.

00:51:20So give me a sort of practical example of how somebody let's, I'm sorry to use the word incel,

00:51:26but it's kind of well-recognized how an incel is overthinking. What are they overthinking in what,

00:51:30way? Um, just perhaps even how to, uh, approach a woman, um, how to start the conversation. Uh,

00:51:45I'll give an example from my own life when I was very young and was exposed to pornography. Um,

00:51:53it was kind of like in elementary school, I would have no trouble talking to any of my, uh, uh,

00:52:01female classmates. And, uh, then the moment that I started seeing and using pornography,

00:52:10the ability to socialize with them just vanished.

00:52:15And it's almost as though the objective or the, uh, the goal of sexual access

00:52:23had, uh, created this, uh, massive gulf, um, between like all the actions that might get you

00:52:30there. This massive gulf between all the actions that might get you there. Again, I'm not disagreeing,

00:52:37but I'm, I'm always trying to translate that into some sort of practical term that I can really

00:52:41understand. Um, if I could put it as simply as possible, if you want to have sex with a woman,

00:52:48you have to, you know, you have to approach her, impress her, court her, go on a date,

00:52:52uh, and so on and work your way in, gain her trust, et cetera, and form a bond. And then

00:53:00you get

00:53:00to have sex. But if you're thinking solely of this goal, it's like this massive gulf, uh, gets created

00:53:10and, uh, all those steps that lead up to the goal, um, they just become overshadowed by it.

00:53:18All the steps that lead up to, I still don't, all the steps that lead up to the goal get

00:53:22overshadowed by it. I'm sorry. I, I, it's very abstract. I mean, I really, really try to understand

00:53:27what it is that you're saying. And again, I'm not disagreeing with you at all. I just don't follow

00:53:31what that means. So yes, of course, if you are attracted to a woman, let's say it's a teenager,

00:53:38right? You're, you're attracted to a girl. You will, you will go up and try and talk with her,

00:53:41right? I mean, you have to do that, right? Does that make sense?

00:53:46Yeah. Now in terms of what to say or how to approach it, I mean, obviously there's tons of

00:53:51guides or ideas online and so on, uh, but you just have to go up and, and, and try talking

00:53:58to her

00:53:59and, and see if she's friendly. If she's friendly, then hopefully you can fall into conversation and

00:54:03you can enjoy each other's company. And then, you know, maybe you can say, let's go for a walk or

00:54:07let's go for a coffee. Like, so you, you, you just have to go up and see if she's friendly.

00:54:12Like most men,

00:54:13most boys have had the experience of going up to a girl and she's, uh, unfriendly. I remember one of

00:54:19the first girls I ever asked out, um, when I said, would you like to go swimming? Which of course

00:54:24was

00:54:24in hindsight, not the wisest move. A lot of girls are quite self-conscious when they're in their teens

00:54:28and, uh, she's like, well, with who? Well, and what she meant by that was which group, right? Or,

00:54:34or boys or men have had the, um, experience. I've had this experience as well. Asking a girl out

00:54:40and, uh, her saying, you know, if she's part of a group of friends that we both know, it's like,

00:54:45well, we could all go out together as a group. Right. And so she's saying, uh, I don't want to

00:54:48go out with you individually on a date. Right. And you just kind of lick your wounds and you just

00:54:55keep talking, uh, to, to girls until you find a girl who's interesting and you're interested in,

00:55:02and the conversation flows relatively easily. And you just kind of take it from there.

00:55:05If I may, if I may interrupt, um, that's not really the present issue. Um, and I,

00:55:12um, it's, I guess I'm trying to think through or develop a theory of how pornography negatively

00:55:21affects different groups. Sorry. Um, sorry. What do you mean by this is not the present issue?

00:55:27Well, what I mean is, uh, I, I'm in a relationship, so I, uh, it's, it sounds as though you're

00:55:34giving,

00:55:34Hang on. We're not, we're talking about incels. What are we, we're not talking about you in

00:55:38particular. I'm not talking about you, you, you, you have a theory about, hang on, hang on.

00:55:43You have a theory about what happens with incels, about how incels overthink things,

00:55:49which I think we're having a discussion about. So why did, if I'm trying to present a general

00:55:54approach to talking to girls and trying to figure out where is the overthinking part?

00:56:00And then you say, that's not the issue because I'm in a relationship. That's a little confusing,

00:56:03right?

00:56:04I misunderstood when you were elaborating. I, I thought that you might be, um, I thought

00:56:11that you might be trying to work your way because you misunderstood me. I thought you

00:56:16were trying to work your way around to explaining, uh, what you might think that I'm trying to

00:56:21get at. So I've misunderstood.

00:56:22All right. Hang on. So you say that I misunderstood you. What do you mean by that?

00:56:31I mean, I've been asking for explanations because while I get a general abstract sense of your

00:56:36meaning, I don't know what it means in practical terms. So help me understand what about what I'm

00:56:40not, I'm not trying to be hostile. I'm just, what do you mean by I've misunderstood you? I'm

00:56:44trying to understand what it is that you're talking about and how it applies. I'm striving

00:56:48to understand. I don't think that's the same as misunderstanding.

00:56:51Hmm. Uh, well, okay. I take another quick run at, um, what my, what I'm trying to explain.

00:56:59Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Now we're getting into contentious territory. Okay. What did I just ask?

00:57:05Well, I don't know how to answer that question. Sorry. I should speak more directly.

00:57:11Okay. So you made a claim that I had misunderstood you. I asked, I was trying to understand you. Help

00:57:17me understand what you mean. And then you ignore my question and just go off on a tangent. That's

00:57:21kind of rude, right? Um, I suppose so. Sorry. I don't mean to be, um, evasive. It could be rude.

00:57:31Okay. I don't do, I don't do meaning. I only do what people are doing. It is rude. If I

00:57:35ask you

00:57:35a question, like if you say, Steph, you miss you, you misunderstand me, then you are saying that I

00:57:41Steph have a failure of understanding. I'm pretty good at understanding things. I'm certainly not

00:57:45perfect. But if you are using very abstract language, like incels overthink the approach,

00:57:52because there's such a distance between introducing yourself and having sex. I need to know what part

00:57:57they're like, I need to know what did you mean by overthinking at what stage in that is overthinking

00:58:02and blah, blah, blah. Right. So in trying to understand what it is that you're saying,

00:58:06if you then say, Steph, you're misunderstanding me, then you are, and it's fine, but publicly you're

00:58:12saying, Steph, you have a failure of understanding. Now you haven't said, I was unclear, right? You've

00:58:18said, Steph, you might understand me. And what that means of course, is that you've been clear,

00:58:22but I have failed to grasp what it is that you're saying. And I, that's why I'm trying to ask,

00:58:28what is it that I have misunderstood? And then if you just ignore that question and go off on

00:58:33something else, then you've made a public accusation that I lack understanding of something

00:58:38that you've explained well. And then when I ask for what that means, you then go off on a tangent.

00:58:43That doesn't seem to me having a good faith conversation, if that makes sense.

00:58:50Okay. I think I understand what you're saying. And what I believe I meant to say

00:58:56is not that you misunderstood me. Uh, when I said that, what I think I meant, or what I did

00:59:04mean

00:59:04is that I was failing to communicate to you adequately. And my perception of when you started

00:59:13explaining the process of courtship and so on, um, my understanding, I, I perceived that as you,

00:59:21uh, guessing what I was getting at.

00:59:26No, I can tell you what I was trying to do. So when you say incels, overthink, and you know,

00:59:32you could be right. I just don't know in what part they're overthinking. Overthinking

00:59:39is a way of paralyzing yourself by providing, by giving yourself so many options in a sense. Like

00:59:44you've, I'm sure you've met people who are like, they're talented in a bunch of areas and they can't

00:59:49figure out what they want to do with their lives because there's so many options. And so there's

00:59:54option paralysis. Sometimes it's called. So overthinking can be that overthinking can also

00:59:58be catastrophizing, right? Well, if I go and talk to this girl, she's going to secretly record the

01:00:05conversation. It's going to be all over school. Everyone's going to make fun of me. Uh, I'll

01:00:09never be able to show my face again. Like just catastrophizing. I used to have this on X when I'd

01:00:12say to guys, you can go talk to a woman in a coffee shop and they'd say, but you'll get

01:00:16arrested

01:00:16and go to jail. And it's like, well, that's just catastrophizing. Maybe that's a form of, uh,

01:00:22overthinking. Uh, maybe, uh, people say, well, you know, if I like this girl, uh, we have sex, uh, I

01:00:28might

01:00:28get an STD or maybe I won't be getting erection or maybe we'll get married and she'll take half my

01:00:32stuff. Like, I'm just not sure what you mean by overthinking in what area, in what context, because

01:00:38the show here, I'm sure you know this, right? The show is designed to help people. And if you just

01:00:43say in general, people are having trouble talking, like getting dates or having sex because they

01:00:48overthink things, we need to know specifically what they're doing in your view that is overthinking

01:00:54and in what context and in what area and in what step so that we can help people rather than

01:00:59just

01:00:59give them a generic thing called overthinking with no context that doesn't actually help people solve

01:01:03any problems, if that makes sense. Yes. And all the examples that you just gave of overthinking are,

01:01:09are perfect examples.

01:01:15Okay. So when you say overthinking, it's every possible thing that could, that you could

01:01:19overthink about in all phases of courtship from asking a girl out to having children.

01:01:31I'm not mocking. I'm just trying to understand what you, what you mean.

01:01:37Um, yeah, the, all the variations on how badly it could go or the failures that, uh, you could

01:01:46run into, uh, in, in your effort to get sexual access or sexual gratification.

01:01:54Well, of course, if your primary goal in talking to girls is sexual gratification,

01:01:59they should reject you and you should be an incel because if the only, I'm not talking about you,

01:02:04but if you're talking about people who's only interest in talking to a girl is to achieve an

01:02:10orgasm with her or at her or on her, I don't know, then, then they should be rejected.

01:02:17Right. It would be like if, if, if you were very wealthy and the only reason anybody would talk to

01:02:22you, or if the only reason someone like Bob, the only reason Bob would talk to you is because he's

01:02:27hoping to get some money out of you, then Bob shouldn't be a friend, right? It's not a question

01:02:31of overthinking. It's a question of horrible motives. If that makes sense.

01:02:36Um, yeah, you might've, um, given me an answer I was looking for because I was trying to think

01:02:43through, um, how the inhibition in, uh, someone who's case selected functions, uh, and by making

01:02:54the goal solely sexual access, it's kind of inherently corruptive, uh, to the whole process.

01:03:04And that might be where, uh, derailment is taking place for these people who end up as incels or

01:03:11Yeah. If the only reason a man will go and talk to a woman is he wants to have sex

01:03:17with her,

01:03:19then the reason why he has difficulty doing it, if he has any shred of a conscience is because he's

01:03:24being a dishonorable asshole because he's going to lie to her. He's going to pretend to be interested

01:03:30in her just to get into her pants, to pump and dump, to have sex with her and then to

01:03:35ghost her.

01:03:36And so he's kind of predatory and he's definitely a deceiver because he's pretending to be interested

01:03:43because he doesn't just go up to the woman and say, I don't really care about you as a person,

01:03:47but you know, you look attractive enough for me to, you know, dump some fluid on, uh, then,

01:03:53you know, no women really would, would say yes to that unless they were really masochistic.

01:03:58And so it's not so much, I think, overthinking it's that you have to lie and you have to pretend

01:04:05that you're there for some other reason than the one you're actually there for. And of course,

01:04:08women are highly attuned to that. Women are highly attuned to men who only pretend to be interested

01:04:16in them in order to have sex, because that was a huge risk for women, of course, throughout all of

01:04:22our, particularly our European evolution or the Siberian East Asian evolution, uh, because of

01:04:28winter, you need a provider, you need a protector, there are dangerous predators and you know, that

01:04:32you can do stuff about. So, uh, women are very attuned to a guy who's only talking to the woman

01:04:38because he wants to get his rocks off. And so I would say it's not so much overthinking as it

01:04:44is

01:04:44having to hide the fact that you're kind of a predatory jerk who doesn't like women, but just

01:04:48likes their holes and, and so on. Right. So, um, whereas, you know, what you should be doing,

01:04:53of course, is you should be talking to a woman to see if you like each other, like as people,

01:04:57because in relationships, there's, you know, occasions where you're not having,

01:05:01you know, catapult based sex harness, monkey sex. And so you can actually have to get along in ways

01:05:08that you quite like each other. And so you should be talking to women to find out if you like

01:05:13them,

01:05:14if there are these men who only see women as disposable holes of paramilitary convenience,

01:05:21then, uh, women should reject them and they should be incels. And that's real tragedy,

01:05:26but I don't think it's overthinking in that context you're talking about.

01:05:29I think it's just having predatory motives and women being onto you.

01:05:36Not you, but the person we're talking about.

01:05:38No, no, no. I understand. Um, hmm. Well, one thing it makes me think about, and I'm not sure

01:05:45if this is an objection to the premise, uh, is that our selected individuals or lower IQ individuals

01:05:54might have, uh, better chances at getting what they want in spite of their, uh, negative motives.

01:06:02Um, because if you have a shorter, uh, sort of mental timeframe, uh, the, the, um,

01:06:11the weight of a lie is less of a problem. You'll fumble it less. You'll be able to

01:06:18con someone better if you're more in the moment. Um,

01:06:25Well, sorry to interrupt, but it's, it's also true though, that if you approach women primarily

01:06:30for sexual access, you have to steer clear of intelligent, wise, and perceptive women.

01:06:35And you have to go for broken, unstable, desperate women who just desire any kind of approval or

01:06:41contact against their own mental health and wellbeing. So when you approach women as sexual

01:06:47objects, you can only have success with women who are mentally extremely unhealthy and therefore

01:06:56it becomes sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you only want women for sex, you can only be

01:07:00around women who pretend not to know that and are so desperate that you can't have any quality

01:07:04relationships anyway.

01:07:10Or in the case of, um, some of the, this is just a guess anyways, in the case of, uh,

01:07:17some of the activity that's going on in Europe or the UK with the grooming gangs, um, women who are

01:07:23naive.

01:07:28Well, the grooming gangs aren't targeting women.

01:07:32Sorry. Yeah. My, my bad. I kind of an important distinction, would you say?

01:07:37Yes. Yes.

01:07:39Yeah. And of course I've often thought that if you are a British parent and let's say for some reason,

01:07:45you just don't like immigrants and you say to your kids, stay away from the immigrants,

01:07:50um, would your kid be less likely to be groomed? That's a question that kind of answers itself.

01:07:57All right. Is there anything else that you wanted to mention?

01:08:01No, not in particular. Although, um, you were talking just, uh, earlier about, um, the primary evils

01:08:08of the day being, uh, uh, greed and, uh, vanity, um, as being driven by, uh, desire for the unearned.

01:08:16And I wondered what you thought about, um, that, that definitionally, uh, being motivated by sloth.

01:08:28Sloth. Sloth. Yeah. Sloth. Yeah. It's funny though, because certainly the girls who want money from only fans are lazy.

01:08:45I remember having, um, a conversation many years ago with a guy on a plane back when I was in

01:08:52the

01:08:52business world. And I've always had this kind of curiosity about people and people have always told

01:08:58me their life stories. I mean, what I do with this show comes out of a long history of people

01:09:03doing

01:09:03life story stuff with me. And he was talking about how his, um, his girlfriend was a stripper or an

01:09:09ex-stripper, but she was lazy. And I'm like, well, well, she's a sex worker. And again, I'm talking

01:09:15voluntary, not sort of drugged and homeless and all of that sort of stuff. But, um, she got into it

01:09:20just because she didn't like to get up early and she could make a huge amount of money with very

01:09:24little effort. I mean, obviously it has pretty negative things in the long run, uh, pretty negative

01:09:30connotations in the long run, but yeah, he was like, I can't believe she's so lazy. I'm like, but,

01:09:36but she's a stripper. So there is a certain, you're right. There is a certain amount of sloth

01:09:39just in wanting, uh, money for nothing because you haven't earned your butt, your boobs or whatever

01:09:44it is that people are paying for on these sites that you just, I mean, maybe you've done some

01:09:47exercise or whatever, but lots of people do. So yeah, you haven't, you haven't earned lust as a

01:09:53human emotion. You haven't earned, uh, your, your boobs, your butts. You haven't earned the fact that

01:09:57there are simps, uh, you haven't earned any of that. And so, yeah, there definitely is sloth involved in

01:10:01it, I think. All right. Um, no, that's everything. Uh, well, thank you very much.

01:10:08Oh, you're very welcome. And yeah, don't forget to like and share the screen stream if you could

01:10:12and freedom and.com slash tonight to help out the show. Uh, will you not get back on the show,

01:10:16man? Don't even try. And we go to therapy. All right. Uh, we have, oh, let us do a glasses

01:10:23flip.

01:10:24Nick. Whoa. If you wanted to, uh, unmute, Stefan, you're not actually supposed to let me up here.

01:10:33Uh, why is that? I don't know. I just didn't think you would let me up here. I thought

01:10:40like this was for certain members or something. Are you, have you and I had negative interactions

01:10:45before? Is that what you mean? No, no, I just, uh, no, I guess I just wanted to say hello.

01:10:53I didn't,

01:10:53uh, particularly have anything to say, but. Well, we're going to have a negative interaction now

01:10:58because I don't know why you would put yourself in the queue of a show if you don't have anything

01:11:03to talk about. So that would be block and remove. All right. No worries. That's just kind of strange.

01:11:09Like, why would you give me that editing job afterwards? All right, Jeff, if you wanted to

01:11:16give me a shitty, shooty, shouty outie, I'm happy to hear.

01:11:22Yes, sir. Good evening. Thank you again for hosting this. It's very kind of you.

01:11:26My pleasure. Thank you for joining. Yes, sir. I had just a quick question. And my, uh, my question

01:11:33was looking with your study and analysis of history, looking forward into the future, what

01:11:43would you say is most likely take, let's say three future societies in this down the road,

01:11:5310, 20 years, whatever you want to do. And let's say one of them is set up like a libertarian

01:12:00version

01:12:00of Las Vegas. Let's say, you know, do whatever thou wills, as long as you don't get in someone else's

01:12:06way, that kind of thing. Then you have a society that's much more like we have today. And then you

01:12:13have a third society, which is run by someone who is warlords, a harsh word, but you know,

01:12:22who's basically like an absolute monarch, but his, his model is to be the best kind of monarch he can.

01:12:29And in the, with the best parts that stay a King David, a King Solomon, you know, Phil Alfred,

01:12:35the great fill in that in which society do you think are we most likely to see a flourishing of

01:12:42the

01:12:42kind of non-aggression in for the largest number of people in this benevolent monarchy, this Las Vegas

01:12:51style libertarian society, or in some, it's just some, some other way, but mainly those

01:12:59two. I mean, the current society that we have is founded upon violations of the non-aggression

01:13:05principle. It is entirely run on those principles. The only way that non-violations or respect for

01:13:12property rights is maintained is in order to have entrepreneurs generate enough wealth they're worth

01:13:18stealing from. So like the Genghis Khan types will allow farmers to have their crops and have their

01:13:27property rights and so on, but only so that they have just enough incentive to grow enough crops

01:13:32that it's worth stealing from them. So property rights are only maintained so that people produce

01:13:38enough value to keep the debt machine going and produce enough value that they're worth stealing from.

01:13:44So our current system is a kleptocracy based upon minimal property rights, just enough that people

01:13:53make stuff that you can steal. So our current system can't even remotely sustain itself. I mean,

01:13:59if you look at the, the rise in debt is truly staggering. You know, people think that UBI is in

01:14:05the future. It's like in America, like the fourth largest or fifth largest, I think it is item is

01:14:09defense spending, which is a form of welfare for sociopaths. But if you look at the other entitlement

01:14:15programs, Medicare, Medicaid, the welfare state, uh, the hugely abused disability, uh, programs and, uh,

01:14:25old age pensions and, uh, all kinds of crazy stuff, not even counting government spending on useless

01:14:30government email, fertility, crushing jobs. I mean, not to mention the beat, not to mention the VA.

01:14:36The VA is part of the VA. Uh, Caleb Hammer is doing great work in his shrieky way about that,

01:14:42exposing just, you know, people who've had two years of a desk job are getting $6,000 a month in

01:14:47disability from the army and so on. Like everything that you put together to help people would be

01:14:53exploited by people pretending they need help. And you have to have it privatized because the people

01:14:59have no incentive to, we've already gotten UBI. It's called bullshit jobs that book was written 10

01:15:05years ago. Yeah. So we have all of this and, uh, and so on. And, you know, I mean, I,

01:15:10I think that the

01:15:11elites look at the majority of people now as a disposable biomass. I mean, in general, they have

01:15:15throughout history, but you know, you needed people to, as slaves, you needed people to serve,

01:15:19you needed people as workers. Now with AI and robots, the majority of people are viewed by the

01:15:24elites as a disposable biomass. And, uh, it's not going to go particularly well. Normally we would

01:15:31have had a war long ago for all of this, but because of weapons of mass destruction, the war has

01:15:35to be fought by other means of depopulation agendas and other things like that. So.

01:15:40Exactly. And do you think just based on your study of history and if this, if our society,

01:15:47as you've written in some of your excellent books, everyone should read the future, excellent book,

01:15:53um, in this, in what appears to be something of a succumbing breakdown in some, in so many ways,

01:16:00do you think that as we try to rebuild a peaceful society in the future, reconstruct, if you will,

01:16:08would you, based on your study of history, think that that was more likely, that that ember was more

01:16:13likely to be nourished in a world that's like Las Vegas or a world that's, you know, run by a

01:16:23benevolent kind of, or at least a guy that seeks to be benevolent.

01:16:27I would much rather have a libertarian society than a society of a benevolent dictator,

01:16:31because benevolent dictators are very rare throughout history. And if you are a benevolent

01:16:38king, let's say a King Solomon or King David, if you're a benevolent king and you run your

01:16:43kingdom really well, you do so at the expense of time with your children. And therefore your

01:16:49children will grow up to be not good rulers because they don't have much parental investment or

01:16:54parental time or parental empathy or parental wisdom transfer. So if the king is working 16,

01:16:5917, 18 hours a day running his kingdom, he has no time for his children and his children are more

01:17:04likely to grow up dissociated and cruel. And so it doesn't, it doesn't last. So yeah, libertarian

01:17:10society, uh, I wouldn't say necessarily do what that will, though it harm no others. I think that's

01:17:15more kind of Satanism and so on, but just yeah, respect the property rights and the non-aggression

01:17:20principle. Societies collapse as a whole when self-defense is barred. It's one of the big things

01:17:27that is kind of underreported on when it comes to the destruction of a society, because everybody

01:17:33knows that the welfare state is going to collapse. When the welfare state collapses, there will be

01:17:38rioting and aggression in the streets, but people will not be allowed to defend themselves. If they

01:17:41were allowed to defend themselves, the riots would be pretty short and, and they would start pretty

01:17:46quickly. It's pretty easy to end a riot. You just have to use overwhelming force to jail people or

01:17:52to arrest them. And the riot stops pretty quickly. Uh, all, almost all crime these days is allowed

01:17:58to happen out in California under Newsom 25%. I think of the healthcare budget is just fraud.

01:18:03And that's just a guess it's that's, that's the, that's the floor. It probably goes much higher than

01:18:07that. And, uh, you know, our whole legal system is designed for a very small amount of fraud and

01:18:12violence. And it's easy to overwhelm, which is why only a few percentage points of people in

01:18:17the American justice system actually ever get a trial. Uh, they just get threatened with double

01:18:21or triple the sentence and they plea out. Maybe it's an Alfred plea, but they plea out. So

01:18:28the system as a whole is preventing people from protecting their own property and usually violently.

01:18:34So, um, I mean, think of those people who, um, that there was a bunch of, you know,

01:18:38fairly thuggy looking people who were coming into their private gated community and they were standing

01:18:42out front of their house with, with weapons. They weren't shooting. I don't think they were

01:18:45even pointing them at people and they still had to go through years of, of legal hassles and so on.

01:18:49So yeah, the purpose of destroying a society fundamentally is around preventing rational

01:18:53self-defense, moral self-defense of persons and property. And then that just allows that just

01:18:58emboldens and empowers the criminals to do whatever they want. And that is usually to kill the, uh,

01:19:02golden goose that lays the foundations of the products they need, they want to steal from.

01:19:07So, so yeah, I would, I would definitely go for the, uh, um, the libertarian free market society if I

01:19:13could.

01:19:15Interesting. Yeah, I would, yeah, I would, I was been thinking of examples like the Puritans in

01:19:21New England. They seem to maintain a more free society for a long time, even though they had a

01:19:28lot of restraints on personal bodies.

01:19:30Hang on, hang on. Sorry. Didn't the Puritans almost die because of their experimental socialism?

01:19:36Uh, that was the, uh, pilgrims in Plymouth plantation that lasted about one winter.

01:19:42Yeah. I bet they were kind of saved by the natives if I remember correctly, but no, no,

01:19:46you're right. Puritans and, and pilgrims are not the same. So I appreciate that.

01:19:49Well, yeah, but the problem, the problem, they never went into that.

01:19:53Yeah. But the problem with those, the problem with those communities, sorry to interrupt.

01:19:56The problem with those communities is they enforce such a strict level of conformity that they end up

01:20:04with societies with very little progress, right? It's sort of like the East Asian societies at

01:20:09China, Japan, and so on. There's such a high level of conformity that the society stagnate and

01:20:14eventually are taken over by societies or cultures with a greater openness to non-conventional

01:20:21thinking, which allows for progress. So, um, where you have, you can get a seeming amount of short-term

01:20:26stability from societies that enforce a lot of conformity, but they end up being taken over.

01:20:35I mean, you think of the natives in North America, the indigenous population, they were,

01:20:39and, and this is true. I talked about this in kind of eight years ago, it feels like a lifetime

01:20:43ago when I was in Australia giving speeches with Lauren Southern, but I talked about that, that the, um,

01:20:49the Aboriginal society in Australia, which had existed for like 40,000 years,

01:20:54was, was brutally conformist and incredibly violent and the child abuse was rampant and they didn't

01:21:00progress because they couldn't tolerate dissent and therefore they ended up being taken over by

01:21:04societies that tolerate more dissent like European society. All right. Well, I appreciate that.

01:21:15Oh, well, one other question, if I may, um, in Massachusetts, talking about progress, if I'm not

01:21:24mistaken, isn't it New England that gave the United States most of its academic tradition and pretty

01:21:30much dominated intellectually, the rest of the continent and where the industrial revolution

01:21:35started, uh, sounds like a very innovative region. Sorry, it was New England.

01:21:42Yeah, the, if you're in fact, if you look into some of the histories of the American peoples and the

01:21:50different groups who settled in different parts of America, the purists, the New Englanders are

01:21:56famous for basically minding everyone else's business for them. You know, the Southerners are

01:21:59like, just leave us alone to do our thing. And New Englanders are like, no, no, no, no, we must

01:22:04have

01:22:04progress. We must have progress. They're constantly, you know, that old Calvinist urge to build the

01:22:11New Jerusalem, even later becomes Unitarian and universalism and atheistic, but still that old urge to,

01:22:18uh, we must build, we must have progress. We must have progress. So in terms of, you know, advancement,

01:22:25I think maybe we might need another, another thing to compare, to say what's wrong with that society

01:22:31because, you know, industrial revolution America started there. Intellectual advancement started

01:22:36there. Literacy was like 98% New England. So, well, yeah, I'm, I don't know much about the history of

01:22:44that, so I will defer to your expertise and I appreciate you bringing that up. But yeah, I generally

01:22:49think as a whole that too much intellectual conformity and too much of a requirement for

01:22:56intellectual agreement does tend to stifle curiosity and does tend to stifle exploration. Now, there are

01:23:02some societies where they will disallow it in areas of theology and morality, but will be more encouraging of

01:23:07in areas of technology, engineering, and science. Uh, so that could certainly happen, but as a whole,

01:23:13um, you, you need a balance. Societies that are too, quote, creative, like the sort of hippie communes

01:23:19where everybody's writing poetry and often bad songs, sometimes good ones, you can get an excess

01:23:24of creativity that leads to no cohesion and no standards and no morals, too much experimentation,

01:23:29and you can have a society with too little, uh, creativity that is sort of copy paste, that has a

01:23:35high

01:23:35degree of stability, but it squelches all the free thinkers and ends up being taken over by more

01:23:40creative societies. All right. I appreciate that. And you have a good, you have a good night. And

01:23:47let me leave you with this funny, uh, funny thing. You talk about free, you talk about the free love

01:23:50or

01:23:51the hippie dippy societies. Charles Guiteau, the man who killed James A. Garfield, President Garfield,

01:23:57he was a part of a free love agricultural commune in North state, New York, and for five years and

01:24:02basically, uh, he was so disliked there and no women wanted anything to do with them. He eventually

01:24:08left because they called him Charlie, get out. Right, right, right. No, I mean, I, I think that

01:24:15the, the sweet spot of European culture has been, you know, I think it was Charles Murray who did the

01:24:20study in a great book, human accomplishment, where he pointed out that 98% of the scientific progress

01:24:27of the entire planet and the entire species was from 800 BC to AD 1950, which is a long,

01:24:35long time over 2,500 years, close to 3000, really. So I guess halfway between. So yeah,

01:24:42from 800 BC to AD 1950, 98% of technological and engineering and scientific progress came from

01:24:50a small section of Northern Western Europe. Basic facts. So we did seem to hit the sweet spot of

01:24:56creativity, which is why we cracked the problem of Malthusian limitations on population growth and

01:25:03got through to science, reason, empiricism in the free market. So, um, massive props to the Western

01:25:09culture. Sorry, go ahead. And the rest of it was in, uh, Northern China on China. Yeah, but they also

01:25:15stagnated for thousands of years as well. Oh, no, I'm just, I'm just saying it wasn't like the other

01:25:202% was equally distributed. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. Very true. Very true. All right. Well,

01:25:24thanks everyone so much for a lovely evening's conversation. Freedomain.com to help out the

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