Dead Parent - Don't Care! Listener Questions - video Dailymotion

Stefan Molyneux

Stefan Molyneux starts with a fan’s question about Star Wars and discusses its storytelling along with its wider societal implications. He explores what makes a life well lived, placing virtue at the center while examining how demographics and government programs shape urban culture. He reflects on mental health under societal pressures, the way COVID-19 affected public trust, and Bitcoin’s role as a possible financial safeguard. He also shares thoughts on emotional authenticity, grief, and the responsibility parents have to model genuine happiness for their children. Throughout, he encourages listeners to think critically about these ideas and question the structures that shape society.  0:00:00 Thoughts on Star Wars  0:01:11 Cities Turning Blue  0:04:49 Parents and Public Content  0:07:18 The Ethics of Debate  0:09:27 Moral Subjectivism Explained  0:12:40 Gullibility in Society  0:13:56 Bitcoin and Government Control  0:15:30 Navigating Grief  0:18:15 Long-Term Effects of Cancer  0:20:28 Parents' Obligations to Live Well  0:22:44 Closing Thoughts and Donations   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

00:00All right, sorry, it took me a little while to get these questions. My apologies.

00:03This is from Facebook. In honor of May the 4th, what are your thoughts on Star Wars' favorite,

00:07least favorite film and character? I like the second The Empire Strikes Back. I thought was

00:13a good, solid storytelling and movie. If you would like to know more about my thoughts on Star Wars,

00:19FVRpodcast.com. You can do a search for Star Wars. Very briefly, the story that a lonely,

00:28depressed, anxious young man is visited by an older warrior who recruits him for war

00:33is a tale that is told by the elites to make young men fall in love with war and not

00:39have children.

00:40It's a depopulation agenda. Who's trying to have kids in the Star Wars series? Not many people,

00:46and so on. So, I mean, you could say the same as Star Trek. It's kind of the same thing.

00:50So, training young men to respond to the draft in the way that Luke Skywalker responds to

00:56Obi-Wan Kenobi is basic imperialism 101. All right. How would you define a life well lived?

01:04Promote virtue, fight evil. Why do cities, areas inevitably turn blue once the population reaches

01:10a certain point? Well, it's not that cities or areas turning blue. It's that what happens is

01:18there's a whole system that is put in place to say, there but for the grace of God, go I.

01:25That that

01:26poor homeless guy is just like you, but with some bad luck. And that way, you are given empathy.

01:33Most homeless people are violent, horrible, corrupt drug addicts who would sell their own grandmother

01:40for a hit. And we can sort of talk about child abuse and how they end up that way.

01:45But nonetheless, they do end up that way as a whole. So, it is a nasty situation as a whole.

01:51Most people who have genuinely spent a life trying to help others understand that there are very few

01:57people you can actually help. Some people you can give encouragement to and so on. But there's very

02:02few people you can actually help, particularly those who've wrecked their brains through drugs and

02:08alcohol and so on. So, what happens is people get told that you have to help the less fortunate by

02:15force, right? By force. Charity is like lovemaking. It turns into rape when force is applied. And then

02:23what happens is you end up with this welfare state and the help people and all the childless women

02:27try to mother all of the, quote, unfortunates. And then you end up with all this generosity and this

02:34draws more poor people. And then if you, I mean, most people, they just, they make decisions not

02:40according to any principles, but just according to hedonism, right? Like, Europe opened up its borders

02:47as a result of hedonism, which is that terrible Turkish father overloaded his kid on a boat because

02:55he wanted to get to Canada for free dental care. And the boat sank and the kid drowned. And then

03:01there was

03:02this picture of the kid on the beach. And then nobody had any principles or very few people. And

03:07the media pumped all of this because the media just wants to destroy white countries. And so then

03:14people made these sentimental feelings. It's all based on feelings and sentiment. This image makes

03:21me feel bad. Therefore, we have to do something. And they have to do something is always something

03:26against virtue and common sense and rationality and so on. So once you get the homeless in the city,

03:34you can't do much with them. Therefore, you just keep giving them more money, which draws more and

03:40more people. That's why California has such a big homeless population. Now, of course, you can do

03:44something. I mean, was it Los Angeles? I think it was totally cleaned up when the premier of China came

03:49to visit, which tells you the priorities of the politicians. But in order to stay sane, we need

03:55continual, robust abrasions and interactions with actual reality. Human beings thrive on

04:03limitations. Sanity thrives on limitations. Rationality thrives on resistance. And so it's

04:10like bustles, right? You've got to have a heavy weight to build a muscle. And when you get money

04:15shoveled at you through debt and through the government, the population becomes generally

04:19psychotic. I'm not kidding about that. Like psychotic. They don't process reality anymore because the

04:24government and the money printing and all of that has given everyone the illusion of infinity and

04:29leftists treat money like it's air. Like, why would you want to deprive someone of air? You must hate

04:34them. And it's like, there's no balance. There's no either or. There's no, there are these magical

04:38solutions with no limitations. I mean, if you ever want to find out if someone's a leftist, just ask

04:43them what are the potential downsides of the program they want. And if they say, well, there aren't

04:47any, then they're psychotic. All right. What's the UPB take on parents of medically complex kids

04:52making content around the child's medical well-being? For context, I have a medically

04:57complex child after multi-organ failure. I'm sorry to hear that. You can search medical mom, medical

05:02parents as examples to see. I don't know if it's right or wrong. Sometimes it's nice to see people

05:07go through similar struggles. Needles, tubes, multi-surgery scans, etc. Other times I'm uncomfortable

05:12with the ad drops or promos. I don't think you can really make the choice to put your kids online.

05:19I didn't until Izzy was much older. I didn't really make the choice to have her image online

05:25to post pictures of her. This is just, I don't think you have the right to make that decision for

05:31your kids. So I don't, I don't think it's right. You can talk about it. You can write about it.

05:37I just

05:37don't think you should video about it. Or if you are going to video about it, don't include your kids.

05:42Uh, where can we find your old videos, a Truth About series that were taken off YouTube?

05:46So just go to FDR, Free Domain Radio, FDRpodcasts.com and do a search Truth About.

05:53Um, how bad did it get that you gave up talking politics, my brother and fellow teacher? I can

05:58only imagine. Respect for what you taught so many, including me. Don't answer and feel free to delete

06:03this comment until we restore this justice we were once used to. Respect. Uh, thank you. Um,

06:09I mean, it was, it was pretty easy to see where things were going, you know, bomb threats, death

06:13threats, uh, legal threats, uh, all these kinds of things. Right. And of course you can read

06:19Lauren Southern's book. This is not the real life or this is not real life or something like that.

06:24And, uh, you know, she, she had a very, very tough time with a whole bunch of, uh, systems,

06:30both in Canada and in Australia. And of course was banned from England and, and so on. So it was

06:36very tough. And, uh, I don't mind a fight if it's a fair fight, right? I'm happy to debate. I'm

06:45happy

06:45to match wits. I'm happy to, uh, you know, engage in these kinds of things. But if I'm going to

06:51fight,

06:51I expect people to follow the rules. In other words, if I'm going to be a boxer,

06:56I'm not going to get into the boxing ring with someone who's going to drug me beforehand,

07:01who's going to call in an airstrike while running for the exit, who's going to bring a gun or a

07:06bat.

07:07Like that's just not like, I play chess with people who respect the rules of chess. I don't

07:11play chess with people who just make up rules. So I'm happy to debate, but only when people are

07:17willing to follow the rules of debate, I'm not going to insult reason by pretending you can be

07:21irrational when other people are just violent. All right. Um, uh, a question. One of the reasons

07:26I wouldn't call into your show is because you asked, what are my wife's virtues? It feels to me

07:31that if your wife isn't actively fighting against evil, she lacks virtue, and I can't get that out

07:35of my head. Most people are generally good, but not virtuous. But how can you be put on the spot

07:41like

07:41that? Then you get the inevitable Hitler was hardworking, etc. So that's not a virtue. That's

07:47why I consume your content without donating. I challenge you to make a paywall to see what

07:52happens. I don't quite understand that, but I'm not sure why me asking challenging questions is why

07:59you don't donate. That's why I consume your content without donating. I mean, honestly, after a certain

08:05amount of time, it is just dishonorable to take somebody's hard earned work and just consume and

08:11consume and consume because it costs me money, right? I got to pay for a service. I have employees. I

08:16have

08:17to obviously make some money myself. Uh, I have to pay for, uh, equipment, I have cameras, microphones,

08:23computers, uh, editing software and expertise and training. Uh, so it's expensive. And honestly,

08:30if you just keep consuming my content after a certain amount of time without helping out the show,

08:35it's just kind of, it's extremely dishonorable. It's extremely dishonorable because you're also

08:42getting your time back because I don't do ads, right? And you're relying on other people to support

08:47what you find valuable. So it's kind of funny how you consume my content without donating. And then

08:53you're concerned that I might question your wife's ethics. How about we look at your ethics, bro,

08:57instead of your wife, uh, instead of your wife's. Do you still think that Americans should have voted

09:02Trump? When did I ever say Americans should have voted Trump? I think that Trump was a positive

09:07figure in the political landscape because he exposed both the callowness and shallowness and

09:13falseness of the media. And also it was just fascinating to see his, you know, giant ego,

09:19which has its strengths and weaknesses, go crashing into the fragile fantasy land of contemporary

09:23politics. So I would like to, I've never told anyone how to vote. Um, I would like to hear your

09:28thoughts about moral subjectivism and what kind of person would be drawn to the

09:32idea that moral rules can be formed from a subject's opinion. Well, opinions. Well, there's

09:37no such thing as moral subjectivism. If it's subjective, it's not moral. That's like saying

09:42subjectivist physics. It's like, well, no, if it's subjective, it's not physics. And if it's

09:45physics, it's not subjective. So if people say morals can be whatever you want them to be,

09:50that's like saying the rules of physics can be whatever you want them to be, or the rules of

09:55numbers or the rules of chess can be whatever you want them to be. So, uh, it's not, it's a

10:02basic

10:02sort of sanity test that if somebody says that which is universal, objective and enforceable,

10:08which is like morals, at least in a geographical region, most people accept that that which is

10:12universal, universal, acceptable and enforceable, sorry, acceptable, not quite right. That which is

10:18universal and enforceable, right? Universally preferable behavior, that that's just completely

10:24subjective. Then they're saying that that which is objective is subjective. And that's just not,

10:30it doesn't, it's not a statement that makes any sense. It's just, well, it's a dodge that people

10:34use when they have a bad conscience. And the bad conscience says you did wrong. And how did they

10:39react to their conscience saying you did wrong? How did they deal with their conscience saying you

10:43did wrong? Because our conscience is going to say that from time to time you did wrong, or you hurt

10:46someone and you did something unjust, or you were false when you really had a responsibility to be

10:52honest or truthful, and you weaseled out of something that you really should have stood up for. And it

10:58happens, our conscience is supposed to guide us. And how do we deal with our conscience? Well, either we

11:02listen to our conscience, in which case, we retain some integrity, and it doesn't mean we become the

11:07slave to our conscience. Our conscience can generally make mistakes. But this is why people react so

11:13strongly against UPB. When cornered, it's because UPB represents the conscience. The conscience is that which

11:18takes your moral statements and universalizes them. That's all it does. In the same way that

11:23if you're a baseball player, the next time a ball comes flying towards you, you don't say,

11:27well, what the hell is that? What am I supposed to do? Because you've universalized all of the

11:31physics and skills and abilities from a billion balls or a million balls that you've caught,

11:35and so on. And so UPB just takes the moral rules that you inflict on others and believe to be

11:42true

11:43and applies them against you. And when people get uneasy, they can either listen to their conscience

11:48and hopefully improve, or they can just say, oh, everything's subjective, nothing is true,

11:53blah, blah, blah. And that's their way of hoping to escape their conscience. But it just drives their

11:58conscience underground and wrecks their life. All right. Ah, Steph, according to UPB, why is respecting

12:04property rights morally good? Is it because it is opposite of theft, which UPB proves is morally evil?

12:09I feel like I'm missing something from UPB, even though I did read the book and have been listening

12:13to it for years. Well, can theft ever be universally preferable behavior? Which means, can everyone want

12:19to steal and be stolen from at all times? Well, no, because if you want to be stolen from,

12:22it's not theft. So theft can never be universally preferable behavior. Hey, Steph, do you have round

12:28the clock personal protection? I hope you have got that given recent events. I will not talk about my

12:34security and so on, right? Okay. And this is from locals, freedomain.locals.com. Why are so many

12:42people so gullible? Because it's easier to be told what to do than think for yourself. And whenever you

12:47are told what to do, you will find a ready-made group of people who agree with you and accept

12:52you

12:52out of relief, because misery loves company and thinking for yourself brings a lot of hostility.

12:58Uh, hi, Steph. When I reflect on the COVID times, I personally felt that the response to the virus

13:04was totally wrong, and I was beyond skeptical of the COVID charts. I do not believe the government

13:09data on cases, etc. However, there was a large cohort of individuals that said there would be

13:13massive complications and side effects of taking the COVID charts, and although there are vaccine

13:17injuries, to which it's possible that the government could be hiding the data on that as well,

13:21all in all, taking the vaccine so far did not result in massive problems as well. With that said,

13:25I am wondering about Bitcoin. Fractional reserve banking, printing money, and other strategies

13:30is a problem, and we see all of the problems, like the national debt, etc. But is it possible

13:35that somehow, some way, governments will find a way to inhibit the effects of Bitcoin being

13:40some kind of financial salvation? Will the government simply put guardrails on the on and off ramps

13:45of converting Bitcoin so that they still indirectly control Bitcoin? Is it possible that the government

13:50will just continue to play the game of manipulating interest rates so that people will still be able

13:54to buy homes, even though housing prices may be off the charts? Perhaps the government will use

13:59incentives to promote family formation, etc., even though the track record is abysmal so far.

14:03But all in all, the government will just continue to intervene and just delay the proposed crash

14:07indefinitely. Thoughts? Oh, no. Well, they can't. I mean, they can't do it indefinitely, right? I mean,

14:13that which cannot continue mathematically will not continue at some point every single culture

14:17throughout history. I mean, look, I don't know. I don't know the future. I think Bitcoin is an absolute

14:23lifeboat salvation vessel. It's like, instead of getting off the Titanic into a lifeboat,

14:28you get off the Titanic into a intergalactic star cruiser that can take you all over the universe

14:33in perfect comfort. So my belief is that governments will not want to crush Bitcoin because they will

14:39want to accumulate Bitcoin and use it to pay off their debt. Bitcoin is a way of the government

14:46having, like, a gold reserve, in a sense. But I don't think many governments have much gold left

14:52in the basements. So I think that people in government, governments as a whole, will want

14:56Bitcoin because they'll use it to minimize their debt. Was it Bulgaria? If they'd just hung onto the

15:01Bitcoin they'd seized, could have actually paid off their entire national debt by now.

15:06But politicians will get into Bitcoin as a way of... I mean, politicians, they don't go down with the

15:11ship, right? Politicians will get into Bitcoin as a way of saving their own family fortunes from

15:16hyperinflation. Hi, Steph. My mom, who I have been estranged from for three years due to emotional

15:21neglect I experienced as a child and an adult, passed away recently. I'm struggling feeling

15:25anything for her death. I found out via a public Facebook post that nobody from my family has

15:29contacted me. I'm angry, but don't feel sad. She has passed. What is your advice for navigating

15:34these emotions and what I'm going through? So trust your feelings. Trust your feelings. You know,

15:39everybody tells you what you should feel. Oh, your mother passed. You must feel so sad. Blah,

15:44blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, I've gone through a bunch of older relative deaths and I didn't

15:52have particularly close relationships to them. I didn't particularly respect them. They didn't

15:56protect me or help me as a child. I don't care. I don't care. I'm not going to be sentimental.

16:01Like my father died a couple of years ago. I mean, I was a little sad at the time for

16:06what I missed,

16:07but I'm not going to, and I'm not saying you're doing this, but just for myself,

16:12I'm not going to pretend that I should feel something. I'm not going to order my feelings

16:18around. I'm receptive to them. I'm open to my feelings. I check in with myself. How am I feeling

16:22about my father being dead? Or I don't know if my mother's dead. I think I would find out by

16:26now and

16:26every now and then I check to see if there's any obituaries for her. But because she's in her late

16:3180s now, it's amazing, really. She's lived on cigarettes and Nescafe for decades. But I'm not

16:38going to tell my emotions what they should or shouldn't do. I'm not going to repress them.

16:43I'm going to listen to them and check in with my emotions. Do we feel anything? But, you know,

16:47your father has died. And hey, look, I mean, if I was close to my father and I love my

16:51father and so

16:52on, you know, I'd feel very sad, of course, right? I mean, if my, you know, when my wife dies,

16:57if she dies before me, I will be heartbroken beyond words. And I will miss her every day,

17:02every day. But I'm not going to miss people who betrayed me. I'm not going to miss people who are

17:06cruel to me and so on. And, you know, people have had tons of time. I'm not hard to find.

17:12People have had tons of time to figure out how to contact me and apologize or try and repair the

17:17relationship. I'm not going to, I'm not going to do it. All right. Oh, he says, I will be a

17:24bit

17:24clear. And by feelings, I refer to what wider society expects you to feel when a parent passes.

17:28I'm just feeling anger and so on. Right. Um, yes. Yeah, it's fine. You can feel anger. You can feel

17:34anger at what was missed and what was lost. You can feel anger at the people who didn't even bother

17:38to tell you. That's kind of a passive aggressive engine thing and so on. So, um, how did you and

17:44your wife cope with the long-term impacts of cancer? Did you experience side effects from the

17:49treatment? Uh, I did. I did actually. Um, what happened? So it was, um, it's a terrible story,

17:55really. I had a lump in my throat found by my dentist and it wasn't going away. So I had

18:00a

18:00biopsy and it was clear. It was just a non-malignant, but then it took over a year to try

18:06and get any kind

18:07of operation. I ended up basically going to the States to get the operation done. By that time,

18:10it had turned cancerous. I had to have cancer treatments, chemotherapy and radiation. And the only

18:16long-term impact has been that my left ear got kind of fried from the treatments, which gave me

18:20some tinnitus and sort of other issues, nothing too horrible, but it's certainly inconvenient at

18:26times. So the long-term impacts, look, I, I got sick when my daughter was very little. I've gotten

18:34to watch her grow up. I have no complaints at all. I have no complaints at all. Uh, he says,

18:40my wife finished ovarian cancer treatments in 2011 and still has side effects, vision and neuropathy.

18:44Only a few years ago, thanks to listening to you, was I able to cope with the loss of how

18:48ovarian cancer impacted our future? Yeah, I'm sorry about that. I would say that my long-term

18:53effects have been relatively mild and of course I've had no recurrence and so on. So I'm really

18:59sorry about that. And of course, if it was ovarian cancer, perhaps she got her ovaries removed and

19:04that's a very big deal on all of that. So, all right. Uh, next question. If children model their

19:10parents' behavior, sorry, did I answer that one? I don't think I did a good job. Sorry.

19:16Um, long-term impacts of cancer. Uh, you know, let me sort of dig a little deeper. Sorry,

19:21that was a bit of a shallow response. My apologies. I mean, yeah, the long-term effects are a drag

19:26for sure. And the alternative is what? You're just dead. To celebrate surviving an illness,

19:34even with lingering effects, you know, you can be grateful that you lived or you could be sad

19:40at the effects of being sick. I mean, I got a little bit of a whine in my left ear.

19:45It's been

19:46going on for like 11 years. And again, not the end of the world. It kind of comes and goes

19:51a little

19:51bit. One never really goes away, but it is, it's the whine of life. It's the whine of being here.

19:58Like, I mean, I could eat very easily, not have some minor hearing loss and some tinnitus. Well,

20:04not, I guess my ears down about half, I think on my left side, but I could have no tinnitus,

20:10no hearing loss, but only at the price of not being alive and so on. Right. I mean,

20:14was the healthcare system pretty bad to me? Yes, it was. Yes, it was. But at least I had an

20:19option

20:20to go elsewhere. So, yeah, I think you just have to be happy that you're alive rather than focus on

20:27the negative effects of being ill. All right. If children model their parents' behavior, do parents

20:31have an obligation to live not just a moral life, but a happy life as well? I think so. I

20:36think that,

20:36you know, reason equals virtue equals happiness is the long-term equation that Socrates, well,

20:41Nietzsche kind of interpreted Socrates that way, reason equals virtue equals happiness.

20:46rationality should bring some level of happiness. And also, but you have to be relatively open,

20:51at least when your kids get older, that there are some concerns and some fear as well. So,

20:56I think you don't want to give kids the idea that being a moral just makes you unhappy and puts

21:04you

21:04in constant conflict. To some degree, you have to sell your life, right? I mean, if you're a personal

21:10trainer, you have to have the kind of physique that people want. I mean, if you're a model,

21:15you have to have the kind of face and body that people want. And if I'm going to work to

21:19sell

21:20virtue, I do kind of have to have a life that people want to some degree. And I have a

21:25really

21:25great life thanks to you guys and society and all of that. So, I think you have to have a

21:33life that

21:34they want. And that doesn't mean the life that's, well, you're always happy. Sometimes you're in

21:37battle, sometimes you're in combat and so on, right? But to enjoy virtue as a whole. Question,

21:43what is the psychology being entertaining on camera or live stream? When I see people on live news

21:47and on live, I often wonder how they do it and what makes the person a natural being on camera.

21:52Yeah, I try to have a conversation as if we're just chatting. To some degree, it's really hard to

21:57get it just that way. Because if you go too naturalistic, it's kind of confusing to people.

22:03But I think you want to just talk to people like you're talking to people, as opposed to having a

22:08formal camera voice and this kind of stuff, right? So, just try and be natural as if you're talking to

22:12a person. I saw a post recently, it says someone arguing that discipline is built on shame and that

22:17devotion is built on love. Oh, that just sounds kind of vaguely clever, but it doesn't really lead

22:23anywhere. You need discipline in life anyway. But discipline is built on shame? No, I don't necessarily

22:28think so. Would love to hear your thoughts on that. Anything that summarizes things quite that way

22:35is not particularly helpful as a whole. All right. I think there's a bunch more, but some very long

22:44questions. So, I will wait for the next time to do that. And freedommain.com slash donate to help out

22:51the show. Appreciate it. Lots of love. We'll talk to you soon. Bye.

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