- 13 hours ago
Philosopher Stefan Molyneux joins The Sam Hyde Show for A Blank Slate, grounding reason in sensory evidence and objective reality while rejecting collectivist abstractions like nations or races as tools for elite control. He stresses self-ownership and property rights over mystical claims. In a live in-person call-in segment, he encourages a caller to drop the burden of fixing her neglectful mother.
Watch the full 2h21m show at https://www.mde.tv/series/shs/ep21-a-blank-slate-feat-stefan-molyneux
0:00:00 Introduction
0:03:07 Introducing Stefan Molyneux
0:04:20 Ad: CHOQ
0:05:20 Hidden Truths and Higher Purpose
0:17:04 Ad: Freecash
0:19:27 Two Schools of Philosophy
0:31:20 From Slavery to Freedom
0:33:45 Ad: Red Life
0:34:42 What Do You Do With Beliefs?
0:41:40 Why Anything Exists
0:57:59 Ad: MyPillow
0:58:36 Live Call-Ins
0:58:53 ADHD and Childhood
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https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/FREEDOMAIN2026
Watch the full 2h21m show at https://www.mde.tv/series/shs/ep21-a-blank-slate-feat-stefan-molyneux
0:00:00 Introduction
0:03:07 Introducing Stefan Molyneux
0:04:20 Ad: CHOQ
0:05:20 Hidden Truths and Higher Purpose
0:17:04 Ad: Freecash
0:19:27 Two Schools of Philosophy
0:31:20 From Slavery to Freedom
0:33:45 Ad: Red Life
0:34:42 What Do You Do With Beliefs?
0:41:40 Why Anything Exists
0:57:59 Ad: MyPillow
0:58:36 Live Call-Ins
0:58:53 ADHD and Childhood
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/FREEDOMAIN2026
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00:05Hey Dirtbag, the following conversation's about to be painful.
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00:00:56It's time for Max Mayhem.
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00:01:13If you don't like this next guest, if you don't value what we're bringing to the table, if you don't
00:01:18understand what this means, alright, for people on Libertarian forums, f**k you.
00:01:27If you don't understand what this means for Bitcoiners and anarcho-atheists and all the people, all the people that
00:01:36we know and love, if you don't appreciate what's about to happen, f**k you.
00:01:41And I mean that.
00:01:43And I mean that. I mean that from a place of love.
00:01:48F**k you.
00:01:49Okay, go ahead.
00:01:50From a grandfather clock that stopped during a crime, calibrated inside a fallout shelter that passed inspection, this is The
00:01:58Sam Hyde Show.
00:02:02Tonight, we examine the psychology of men who are always almost done, investigate the federal agency that regulates how silence
00:02:11is used in advertising, and speak with a man who's been training for an emergency he won't describe.
00:02:16And now, your host, is what type is considered a spoiler, Sam Hyde.
00:02:23The Sam Hyde Show.
00:02:27Welcome to The Sam Hyde Show.
00:02:29We're having some technical difficulties right now, you may see some flickering on the screen.
00:02:34That's not my problem, alright, I need to pay for this.
00:02:36Voice actors tip, a tart green apple will get your mouth tangy.
00:02:44What's the big idea?
00:02:46You saw him coming back on the computer and you thought we weren't gonna get him?
00:02:50Are you retarded?
00:02:52Are you a bonehead?
00:02:54Are you that loco in the cabeza?
00:03:00I'm not gonna kill ya.
00:03:02I'm just gonna hurt ya really, really bad.
00:03:07Ladies and gentlemen, Stefan Molyneux.
00:03:17I'm back in the saddle again.
00:03:20I'm back in the saddle again.
00:03:24The two people clapping sounds more pathetic.
00:03:26Don't do it.
00:03:27Back in the saddle again.
00:03:30You don't understand, man.
00:03:33I've been waiting for this moment.
00:03:35Sorry, Steph.
00:03:39Please let me have peace.
00:03:42Please let me die in peace.
00:03:45That's a show wrecker right there.
00:03:47That is not how you want to start your show.
00:03:50He's the founder of Free Domain, known for long form philosophical debates, controversial cultural commentary.
00:03:58More recently for focusing on family, parenting, and what it actually means to live a moral life in a collapsing
00:04:04civilization.
00:04:06Some call him Stefan, Steph, Molyneux.
00:04:10Personally, I call him Hero.
00:04:13Ladies and gentlemen, Stefan Molyneux.
00:04:16Thank you for being here, Steph.
00:04:17Thank you for the invite and the very kind words.
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00:04:44The point is not take this and become a different man by Thursday.
00:04:47The point is support.
00:04:48Energy support, drive support, stress response, support, recovery.
00:04:53And it honestly feels better than placebo.
00:04:57That's as hard of an endorsement as I'm willing to give, but it is realistic.
00:05:01And that's more than you can say for a lot of these things, man.
00:05:05Go to chalk.com.
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00:05:19I feel like there's a good chance that our viewers,
00:05:22they're not necessarily familiar with your work.
00:05:24I think you've got a very interesting and important sort of overview.
00:05:31on how these kind of complicated ideas fit together.
00:05:36Is it too much to ask for you to sort of lay it out for us?
00:05:40Yeah.
00:05:40That's kind of heavy to start off with, but I want people to get right into it here.
00:05:44I appreciate the boil down challenge.
00:05:46That's always, always exciting.
00:05:49So philosophically speaking, come out of the Aristotelian tradition.
00:05:53What's that mean?
00:05:55That objective reality exists independently of our consciousness.
00:05:59That reason is our tool to understand the world, to understand the nature of the universe.
00:06:07There are two general schools of thought in philosophy.
00:06:11One is that we start with kind of nothing and we get our knowledge from our senses.
00:06:20Right?
00:06:20So I know that I'm here talking to you because I took a plane.
00:06:24I took a cab and we're sitting in the chair opposite from each other talking.
00:06:29Right?
00:06:29So that's how I know that this is occurring.
00:06:30How do I know it's not a dream?
00:06:32Well, we can go sort of get into that.
00:06:34So we start with very little and we build our knowledge based upon sense data because,
00:06:40you know, we're actually in a skull prison.
00:06:43Like our brains don't contact the real world.
00:06:46Like our brains don't listen.
00:06:48Our brains don't see.
00:06:49They just get a bunch of electrical impulses in a matrix style.
00:06:52Like we could be a brain in a tank, sort of as an old Cartesian argument.
00:06:55So the Aristotelian side of things could be called the objective side of things is that
00:07:01we start with very little.
00:07:02We build our knowledge up based upon what comes in through the evidence of the senses.
00:07:07Okay.
00:07:07And this is what you believe.
00:07:09This is what is true.
00:07:10And the alternative is?
00:07:11So the alternative view is sort of a mystical view.
00:07:15We start with kind of this perfect knowledge before we're born.
00:07:19So for Plato, we were sort of souls floating in an ideal world.
00:07:24He called it the forms with a capital F.
00:07:26It's like philosophy with a capital F and the form.
00:07:29So we saw this perfect microphone.
00:07:32We saw this perfect chair.
00:07:33We saw this perfect table.
00:07:34We saw this perfect Sam hide.
00:07:36If, if he could be improved upon, uh, we saw this perfect, we saw all these perfect things.
00:07:41And then we were born and how do we know what things are?
00:07:44Because we have this memory of all this perfect stuff we saw before we were born that we start
00:07:47with perfect knowledge.
00:07:49And then we have to kind of regain that.
00:07:50I know this sounds very abstract, the really profound impacts on how we view the world.
00:07:56What would Catholicism be?
00:07:58So Catholicism and all religions says that there's a perfect world of ideal forms, far
00:08:04beyond our consciousness and far beyond our senses.
00:08:07And that the reality of the universe, and guys, correct me if I'm wrong in my theology,
00:08:11I'm not exactly a theologian, but the ideal of the universe is the immaterial.
00:08:15God, the soul, the commandments, the morals, heaven, hell, things which we can't experience
00:08:22through the evidence of our senses.
00:08:23We can't touch, taste, smell.
00:08:25We can't interrogate them.
00:08:26We can't ask them directly.
00:08:27We can pray and see what we get back.
00:08:29But the essence of life is the immaterial.
00:08:32And in particular, in Catholicism, you know, there's an old quote from Shakespeare, you know,
00:08:37but to the girdle to the gods inherit below is all the fiends, like the waist down, the
00:08:42sexual impulse, the body is the devils.
00:08:45And this is the realm of devilish, physical, fleshly temptations, lust, greed, gluttony,
00:08:53overeating, and so on, to escape, in a sense, the prison of the flesh, to escape the prison
00:08:59of the material and rejoin the perfect abstractions as one of the goals of religion as a whole
00:09:04and Catholicism in particular, that the purpose of life is not the material.
00:09:09The purpose of life is the immaterial and the ideal, which we can't directly experience.
00:09:14Now, I felt a pang of guilt when he said overeating.
00:09:18We've all been there.
00:09:19It's just past Christmas.
00:09:20We've all been there.
00:09:21I feel personally attacked by that as well.
00:09:23Rivera, the first part of what he said, does that hold true or is this?
00:09:26No, I was surprised because from my knowledge, and I'm not a theologian either, but one of
00:09:31the misunderstandings is that we're just a husk and that like the material world is like
00:09:36evil and bad.
00:09:37That is, that could be evangelical or Protestant sort of thing.
00:09:41I'm not, that I'm not familiar with, but I think that it's like a heresy even to think
00:09:45that everything physical is evil and wrong and to escape because we are meant to.
00:09:50Well, no, because the body is the creation of God for sure.
00:09:53So it's not that everything, the material is evil, but the flesh tends to pull us down towards
00:09:59the base or lusts, like all the seven deadly sins are all based upon the body to a large,
00:10:04well, mostly based upon the body.
00:10:06So it's the idea that our soul yearns for heaven, but in a sense, our body pulls us down to
00:10:11the
00:10:11the more base and the less divine, the less perfect, less immaterially wonderful.
00:10:16I heard something recently that was interesting.
00:10:18And it was that we don't actually yearn for anything evil truly.
00:10:22Like we, we do bad things because we see a lesser good in them.
00:10:27That's attractive.
00:10:28We're under the impression that it's good, but it's just like a lesser good and something
00:10:32more fleeting and temporal, but.
00:10:33It's a transient physical good usually.
00:10:36Right.
00:10:36So the devil would generally tempt you with, you know, the lust, the gluttony and so on,
00:10:40the physical temptations, the temptations of physical pleasure.
00:10:43And it's not that Catholicism is against all physical pleasures, but in excess.
00:10:49And Aristotle would agree with that too, but in excess, they tend to like lust will take
00:10:53you away from marriage, pair bonding and procreation.
00:10:56Have you do, you know, empty sex, uh, to wreck your pair bonding, to be promiscuous.
00:11:01And of course, as we know, the more sex, the fewer babies is one of these weird paradoxes
00:11:05of the modern world.
00:11:06So an excess of physical lust.
00:11:08Of course you need to eat in order to survive.
00:11:10If you eat too little, you die.
00:11:11If you eat too much, you die.
00:11:12And Aristotle's got this lovely Aristotelian mean where you, a lot of things you kind of
00:11:16need to be in the middle.
00:11:17Like courage is good, too little courage and you're a coward, but too much courage.
00:11:21You're just running into gunfire and dying.
00:11:23Right.
00:11:24And so I've sort of tried to live my life with a balance of courage, which means you
00:11:27get called foolhardy by the cowardly and a coward by the, uh, by the foolhardy.
00:11:32It is that our, our flesh, the physical, there's no such thing as too much piety, but there's
00:11:38just such a thing as too much pursuit of physical pleasures.
00:11:42And that tends to obscure and obstruct like an eclipse, like me putting my hand in front
00:11:47of the light here.
00:11:48It, it, it's a way of dragging us away from the divine, which is really the purpose of our
00:11:52life is, is to live in a holy manner so that we can rejoin, uh, God after death.
00:11:59Sure.
00:11:59Are you saying you agree with that?
00:12:01No.
00:12:01Okay.
00:12:02Well, yeah.
00:12:03And I know that our idea of heaven is that we're, we're, we'll be, um, let's not get too
00:12:08deep into that.
00:12:09First, the main distinction is between only having the data that comes from your sense organs
00:12:15and having to build up from there versus there's a world, there is stuff outside of us or that's
00:12:23imperceptible.
00:12:24That is, uh, it doesn't exist in this physical reality in a measurable or observable way.
00:12:28And it's more important.
00:12:29And it's what?
00:12:30More important.
00:12:31Yes.
00:12:31More important.
00:12:32And you, you agree with, you're the first camp.
00:12:34You do not agree with the second thing.
00:12:36You don't believe in any kind of higher power, any, anything outside of observable physical
00:12:42reality.
00:12:42Hey, I am, I mean, as a philosopher, I'm down with abstractions and concepts and universals.
00:12:48Logic doesn't exist, right?
00:12:49It's not like something like this chair, logic doesn't exist.
00:12:52Uh, the truth is not a tangible thing.
00:12:54It's a relationship between the ideas in our mind and what we're describing in reality.
00:12:58So I'm very keen on abstractions.
00:13:01It's just that abstractions cannot go against the evidence of the senses and they can't go
00:13:08against empirical reason.
00:13:09So the way that I formulate it is that all concepts are imperfectly derived from sense
00:13:17data.
00:13:18I know that sounds a little technical.
00:13:19So what I mean by that is if we have an idea about the world and it contradicts what actually
00:13:25comes through the evidence of the senses and reason it's wrong.
00:13:27And that's just basic science, right?
00:13:29So if you have a conjecture or a hypothesis in science, what happens in the world contradicts
00:13:34that then your conjecture is just wrong.
00:13:36And so our ideas have to follow the evidence of the senses and reason reason is derived from
00:13:43the evidence of the senses.
00:13:45Reason is derived from the evidence of the senses.
00:13:47Sure.
00:13:48Can you break that down for us?
00:13:49The evidence of the senses is absolute and non-contradictory.
00:13:55If you have a ball, it is a ball and not a ball and an elephant.
00:13:59It is not a ball and the opposite of a ball.
00:14:01If you drop something from your hand, it doesn't go down, sideways, up at the same time.
00:14:05What we get through the evidence of the senses is perfectly consistent unless something is
00:14:10wrong with our senses or we're crazy.
00:14:12Well, I would say, what about, is it possible to have reason in the absence of sense data,
00:14:17for example, some sort of, you know, a person that's blind and red, but has some inner workings
00:14:23in their mind.
00:14:23And also, second of all, people who have, you know, something like synesthesia or, or
00:14:29these things where the disorders where their sense data that they're getting is, we know
00:14:33it is up.
00:14:35Two things that flowed into my head to respond to that.
00:14:37The first is we do have some evidence of what the mind is like prior, like when sense
00:14:43data is completely limited.
00:14:44And we think of people like Helen Keller or other people, deaf, blind and dumb, although
00:14:48not a dumb being like mute, not dumb as an unintelligent.
00:14:51And her description, yeah, her description of her mind before she got evidence of the
00:14:57senses given to her by her teacher was just, there's a completely blind chaos of nothingness.
00:15:02And everything was just transient and nothing made any sense.
00:15:05So you can't get reason without the evidence of the senses for the people who have like,
00:15:11I mean, 10% of the male population is colorblind.
00:15:14I remember when I was a user interface designer in the software world, I had to remember that,
00:15:18that 10%.
00:15:19So that doesn't mean that the universe is only black and white to them, but color to us.
00:15:23It just means that there are colors that they can't perceive in the same way that we can't
00:15:26hear certain frequencies or we can't see infrared and so on.
00:15:29So that doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with our senses that they're limited for sure.
00:15:33But everything that they do provide to us is still perfectly consistent.
00:15:36And if, you know, when you were a kid, you probably saw this thing, like you have a cup of
00:15:40water, right?
00:15:41And you put a pencil in it, right?
00:15:43And the pencil looks like it's doing a little dog leg, like it's doing an L-shaped thing, right?
00:15:48And you say, well, that's weird.
00:15:49But if you run your finger down the pencil, it's straight.
00:15:51So it's the eye, like the eye is just, the image of the pencil is changing because of the refraction
00:15:57of the water.
00:15:57The water is acting as a kind of lens.
00:15:59So we have more than one sense so that we can validate and verify the senses.
00:16:04So if you and I were doing the opposite of in this piss cold warehouse, if we were doing the
00:16:09opposite of that and we were in the desert, right?
00:16:12And I say, Sam, look at that beautiful lake on the horizon.
00:16:17And you'd say, ah, Steph.
00:16:18Well, first you'd cough half your lung up and then you'd say, Steph, that could be a mirage.
00:16:23And I'm like, no, no, no.
00:16:24Come on, it's hot.
00:16:25Let's go.
00:16:25Let's go to that lake.
00:16:26Let's go swim, man.
00:16:27There's going to be chicks.
00:16:28We got to go to that lake, bro.
00:16:30And so if we get there and we dive and we drink and we bathe or whatever, then we're going
00:16:34to say, first of all, that's all in slow motion with lots of Greek and Grecian oil.
00:16:38Yeah.
00:16:39But we'd also say, okay, this is real.
00:16:41It's a real lake because all of our senses are saying the same thing.
00:16:45If, however, we walk there and there's nothing but sand and then there's just another pretend lake, we know it's
00:16:49just a mirage, right?
00:16:50So we can validate faulty senses or senses that are giving us some data with the evidence of other senses.
00:16:57But if all of our senses are saying the same thing and it conforms with reason, there's no higher standard
00:17:02of truth that we can get a hold of.
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00:19:26The good of society.
00:19:28So this would be an example of the difference between Aristotelianism and Platonism.
00:19:32So in Aristotelianism, the individual exists.
00:19:36Only the individual exists.
00:19:38If you have a crowd, it's a description of a group of people.
00:19:41The individual people, they all exist.
00:19:43The crowd does not exist.
00:19:46The collective name for it does not exist.
00:19:49So you look at a forest, you say, oh, that's a beautiful forest.
00:19:52You know, some German hillscape of pine trees or whatever.
00:19:56It's just a beautiful forest, right?
00:19:57Each individual tree exists.
00:20:00The forest is a concept.
00:20:01The concept exists in our mind as a descriptor of a group of trees, but it doesn't exist.
00:20:06And the reason why this is important, Sam, is that when they say the social good that you have to
00:20:11sacrifice yourself for,
00:20:13there's no such thing as the social good.
00:20:16There's the good of individuals, but there's no such thing as the social good.
00:20:20Collectives are used to crush you because you're told, well, there's a larger good, a greater good, a social good,
00:20:27a country good.
00:20:28You have to sacrifice yourself for the nation or the tribe.
00:20:30And so if the concepts are more important than the individuals, the individuals get crushed and ground under by these
00:20:37giant concepts that don't exist.
00:20:40Is it not possible to have a collective descriptor like a nation or a race that functions positively to protect
00:20:48the people that that descriptor contains?
00:20:52Yes, but like all powers, it gets corrupted.
00:20:55So you could say, oh, well, we have this tribe and we've got to do things for the good of
00:20:59the tribe.
00:21:01But because there is no good of the tribe, and this sort of comes back to the religious question, right?
00:21:06If you could talk to the good of the tribe, let's just say one guy, his name is Good, and
00:21:10he's the good of the tribe.
00:21:11And you can say, OK, is this good for the tribe?
00:21:13You can cross-examine him and so on.
00:21:14But the good of the tribe, because it doesn't exist, you need an elite class of people to tell you
00:21:20what the good of the tribe is.
00:21:22And then they can make you do stuff for the good of the tribe.
00:21:24Think of the First World War.
00:21:25Well, to save civilization, it's the war to end all war.
00:21:27Well, you've got to go and march off into gunfire or get shot by your sergeant if you don't put
00:21:32your head over the side of the trench.
00:21:34So because the good of the tribe, the good of the nation, the good of the group does not exist,
00:21:39you need people who say, oh, I know what that is.
00:21:43Like, oh, I know what the good of the group is.
00:21:45And, of course, what does it always turn out to be?
00:21:47That the good of the group said by some guy is always, always, always the good of the ruling class,
00:21:53is the good of the people in charge, what's best.
00:21:55If people are going to say, this is the good, I need to be able to interrogate it.
00:21:58I need to be able to cross-examine it.
00:22:00I need to pull that Socratic reasoning out of my armpit and lay it on that person.
00:22:05But the collective good, it has to have someone to speak for, and that person is always corrupted by that
00:22:10power.
00:22:10I understand that if power exists, you would want to corrupt it.
00:22:16You would want to infiltrate it, sort of surreptitiously take the reins, and that there's always going to be people
00:22:22who are parasites and have kind of beta male strategies for ascending the hierarchy.
00:22:30I don't know if that negates the idea that there are, like, nations and peoples who have this kind of
00:22:40interest in protecting themselves, though.
00:22:43Well, sure.
00:22:44Listen, there are groups of people who absolutely need to band together to protect themselves, and they should do that,
00:22:50but not according to mysticism, not according to a wisdom that nobody can interrogate or cross-examine that is held
00:22:57by one or a small group of elites that then just have to tell you what to do.
00:23:02And they have this big, giant, ghostly club called the common good, the social good, the good in the nation
00:23:06or the state or whatever it is.
00:23:07If there's somebody claiming that there's a good, then I want to be able to interrogate that person.
00:23:12They can't claim some abstract social good.
00:23:14They've got to make a rational case in an objective sense.
00:23:18Let me know if this is true.
00:23:19What you would want to see is a world where people are kind of atomized individuals and they're not, they
00:23:26don't have any kind of collective identity?
00:23:28I don't think that's possible.
00:23:30I mean, we're a tribal species, right?
00:23:32So I don't think it's possible for there to be atomized individuals.
00:23:36What I don't like, though, is when people say, let's say race, right?
00:23:40So race is a big topic in the world, of course, at the moment.
00:23:44There are certain, you know, haplogroups and there are certain genetic commonalities to various different races, as I sort of
00:23:50talked about for many years.
00:23:52So race describes objective genetic differences between different groups.
00:23:57That is an objective scientific metric, and those people will have something genetically in common.
00:24:03And they may want to work together, whether black, white, or Hispanic, or whatever.
00:24:07They may want to work together for their collective goals.
00:24:09But if I don't want somebody to say, well, I represent the race.
00:24:15Or what are they, in La Raza, there's an entire group of Hispanic advocacy called La Raza.
00:24:22I don't want somebody saying, well, I speak for the race and you have to do what I say because
00:24:26of this magical concept called the race.
00:24:27If somebody says, well, I want to organize for blacks or Hispanics or whites or whatever, I want them to
00:24:32make a rational case and not have a big, giant, ghostly club that makes them right no matter what because
00:24:38they speak for the race.
00:24:40They just have to make a rational case for their goals or plans.
00:24:44It would be like if there was a court case and I said, well, I have an invisible judge who's
00:24:49going to tell me whether you're innocent or guilty.
00:24:51Like nobody would want to design a legal system like that, right?
00:24:55My invisible judge friend will tell me whether you're innocent or guilty that would be lynching or something like that,
00:25:01right?
00:25:01So you'd want to say if there's going to be a court case, you need to have witnesses, you need
00:25:06to have evidence, you need to be able to confront your accusers and ask them the tough questions and cross
00:25:11-examine witnesses and so on.
00:25:12And so with Platonism, you end up with this invisible judge friend who's going to tell you what's right and
00:25:18wrong.
00:25:18And everyone else just has to kind of go along with it or fight you like crazy, which is obviously
00:25:22quite dangerous.
00:25:23So what I want is that people can make the reasoned case, but they don't get a giant invisible friend
00:25:30that tells them that they're right, that I just have to believe or take them on in some sort of
00:25:34armed combat or something.
00:25:36I think if I were black, I would just look for the leader and I would be like, yeah, that's
00:25:42my dude.
00:25:44And then I would just be good to go.
00:25:47You know what I mean?
00:25:48If I were black, I would just find whatever the strongest, richest, whoever had the most watches on.
00:25:53With glasses.
00:25:54Yeah, that's my boy right there.
00:25:55Yeah, let's do this.
00:25:56All right, we taking over.
00:25:59We good.
00:26:00And then I wouldn't think about it.
00:26:02That's very dangerous, right?
00:26:04That guy, if he has the giant invisible friend called the race or the country or...
00:26:11You've got to rep your race.
00:26:12But if somebody says, I'm right because of some giant concept that you can't question...
00:26:19Is that giant concept race?
00:26:21They could claim to do it in the name of race or in the name of the nation or in
00:26:25the name of a class or in the name of the Democrats or the Republicans or the liberals or whatever
00:26:29it is.
00:26:29So if they say, you can't cross-examine me in a rational context because I have the good of the
00:26:36nation on my side, that's just a big giant club to silence people.
00:26:40Well, what if they say, you can cross-examine me?
00:26:42Great.
00:26:43Because I'm repping this race and I'm on top and I'm leading my race.
00:26:47Then you can cross-examine them, but they can't claim to be right because of a concept, because of some
00:26:51abstraction that you can't question.
00:26:53Well, the rightness is just like we gots to get ours and be up there.
00:27:00And it doesn't...
00:27:00I don't know if it even matters if we're right.
00:27:02As long as we eat.
00:27:03Honestly, what I would say, and this is not a joke, I would say it don't matter if we're right
00:27:09as long as we eat.
00:27:09Well, of course.
00:27:11I mean, that's how the animal kingdom works.
00:27:14That's how most of humanity works at the moment.
00:27:17However, I would say that if you take away the invisible friend that makes me right, it's a lot tougher
00:27:24for people to dominate others.
00:27:26If you take away...
00:27:29Well, I speak for the nation and you have to sacrifice yourself for the national good.
00:27:35And I know the will of the people and nobody knows the will of the people.
00:27:40Nobody knows what's good for the collective because the collective is a bunch of people who quite often disagree with
00:27:44each other and need to kind of reason things out.
00:27:46So if you take away that I speak for the nation, I speak for the group, I speak for the
00:27:52tribe, then it's a lot tougher to get people to do what you want, which is good.
00:27:56Has anyone ever escaped that though?
00:27:58I feel like the animal kingdom kind of reigns supreme and any example that I can think of where there's
00:28:05been public discourse or logic that whatever the surface of the verbal surface layer of reason is,
00:28:15the underpinnings are always racial, group-based animal kingdom.
00:28:21Has there ever been some community or upright, the type of civilization that is more in line with your ideas?
00:28:30Has there been moral progress over the course of humanity or are we just apes with spaceships, right?
00:28:36If we can say that there has been moral progress, then we can keep going.
00:28:40If there hasn't been any moral progress, then it's just a circle jerk, right?
00:28:44We're not really, I'm just making sounds for no particular purpose.
00:28:46Do you mean you right now?
00:28:48Yeah, yeah, me.
00:28:48No, me for my entire career would be a complete fraud, right?
00:28:51Because it's like if I'm selling progress, like if I said, ah, Sam, give me your left kidney and you'll
00:28:57live forever,
00:28:58you know, I'd be a con man selling something that I couldn't provide, right?
00:29:01Okay.
00:29:01So if there hasn't been moral progress in the species, then philosophy is a con, right?
00:29:07It's offering you something that, it'd be like me being a witch doctor saying I can do a particular dance,
00:29:12I can twerk and you'll get a monsoon.
00:29:14Like I can't do that.
00:29:15That's funny.
00:29:15I've tried.
00:29:16Obviously, most people have.
00:29:18So if there has been moral progress, then we can keep going.
00:29:21And I would make the case that there has been moral progress.
00:29:25A couple of things that popped to mind.
00:29:26The end of formal slavery, you know, actually owning other human beings like livestock, that has largely gone away.
00:29:34In most of the world, there are still like 15 million slaves around the world,
00:29:37but 80% of the world's population was enslaved in the past and it's down now to 15 million out
00:29:42of how many billion?
00:29:43So that's some kind of progress.
00:29:45If you look at human history, it was like brute, close to the bone subsistence living for almost all of
00:29:53our history.
00:29:53100,000, 200,000 years.
00:29:55We got by on about a dollar a day if we were lucky.
00:29:58How much of ending slavery can be attributed to Christianity?
00:30:01I would say virtually all of it.
00:30:03Yeah, I mean, it was the Quakers and the Catholics as well and some Protestants who really made it a
00:30:09worldwide crusade
00:30:10to bring people into the dignity of free will in the image of God.
00:30:15And Christianity, plus the technology that came out of the scientific revolution,
00:30:19because there was a lot of force involved in the ending of slavery,
00:30:22I mean, they literally had to go and take slaves from the ships and free it.
00:30:26And there was a huge amount of debt.
00:30:27A lot of people don't.
00:30:28Slavery is pretty crazy.
00:30:29It's insane.
00:30:30I haven't thought about that probably since high school, but keeping somebody in chains, that's crazy.
00:30:37The fact is that I think it was 2010 that the British public finally stopped paying for slavery.
00:30:43Via what?
00:30:44They bought the slaves from a lot of slavers, and they took on a huge amount of debt,
00:30:48the British government, to end slavery in the 19th century.
00:30:51Oh, they've been paying that debt?
00:30:51They've been paying that down.
00:30:52I think they finally finished around 2010.
00:30:54They bought them to end slavery?
00:30:56Uh-huh.
00:30:56Wow.
00:30:56They bought them out.
00:30:57Wow.
00:30:58And so that massive sacrifice, which went on for 150-plus years for the British taxpayers,
00:31:03is why when people blame whites for slavery, it's the absolute reversal of the truth.
00:31:08Making London fun to live in.
00:31:10Yes.
00:31:11It's progress.
00:31:12And what's the interest on that, by the way?
00:31:15Oh, let's not go into those who are charging all the interest.
00:31:19But anyway, so I think that the end of slavery is a big progress.
00:31:23If you look again at the sort of economic brutality of most of human history,
00:31:27you know, half of people dying before the age of five,
00:31:30and the endless plagues and famines and wars and, like, human lifespan was just brutal.
00:31:35Starting with the Agricultural Revolution, late 18th century,
00:31:38to the capitalist revolution, 19th century, human well-being and wealth has taken off.
00:31:42And that's, to me, significant progress because we've had a widening of property rights
00:31:46and more free markets, you were going to say.
00:31:48I feel that inhalation.
00:31:50Well, I don't know if that's how attributable that is to philosophy.
00:31:53The, like, technology, assembly lines, agricultural,
00:31:58just the stuff that's kind of propelled the standard of living for people is,
00:32:04I don't know if that's attributable to philosophy.
00:32:06Oh, I would make the case that it is.
00:32:09And I've got a whole History of Philosopher's series for people on my show,
00:32:13which is to say that the expansion of self-ownership, which ended slavery,
00:32:19was also the expansion of self-ownership in terms of property rights.
00:32:23We own ourselves and we own the effects of our actions, right?
00:32:27So I own myself, and if I make some bad argument, I own that argument.
00:32:31You know, if I build a bridge, I own the bridge because that's the effect of my actions.
00:32:36And so the same impulse that drove Christianity to end slavery,
00:32:41which was you can't own yourself and be owned by another,
00:32:46also helped to extend property rights so that it was the end,
00:32:49not just of slavery, which we know more obvious in America
00:32:53and in the Middle East in particular,
00:32:55but serfdom was a big problem in both Russia and many places in Europe
00:33:01where you had some private property,
00:33:04but you were bought and sold with the land like livestock.
00:33:07The rationalization and privatization of land in the agricultural revolution
00:33:12was the beginning of the rollout of property rights across the West,
00:33:17which was really the foundation for the Industrial Revolution.
00:33:19That all came philosophically that all human beings should be equal in the eyes of God.
00:33:24All human beings should share the same rights.
00:33:26There aren't masters and rulers in the same way that you would have slave owners and slaves
00:33:30or lords and serfs.
00:33:32And so that equalization had very strong roots in the Enlightenment
00:33:36and spread through Christianity and through the state to property rights
00:33:42and the end of slavery, which was the foundation, I think, of the Industrial Revolution.
00:34:01Let's get started.
00:34:35Take Red Light
00:34:42It does sound like God is pretty integral to this process here.
00:34:46How do you kind of reconcile that with your own religious views
00:34:50or lack of religious views or however you would characterize that?
00:34:54Godlessness.
00:34:55How do you reconcile that?
00:34:56Elon!
00:34:58Well, because if God were to give somebody a vision that says two and two make four,
00:35:06that would not be wrong, right?
00:35:07They still need to prove it.
00:35:09And so if God says to people,
00:35:11thou shalt not steal means everybody has property rights.
00:35:14Well, philosophically, there's a very strong argument, of course,
00:35:17that everybody does have property rights.
00:35:19So if correct philosophical conclusions come out of religion, that's a plus.
00:35:25I mean, it's the old argument for me, at least.
00:35:27It was like if you have an illness and there's a doctor who writes down the wrong medicine,
00:35:33but it turns out to be the right medicine for your illness, hey, you're happy you're cured, right?
00:35:37So that's kind of in your view what has happened?
00:35:40Philosophically, human beings have the same properties and the same characteristics.
00:35:44That's how we know that they're human beings and not, you know, apes or pigs.
00:35:48And philosophically speaking, that's the case for self-ownership and property rights.
00:35:53If a religious person, if a Christian says that all human beings are equal in the eyes of God,
00:36:00that's for me a poetic and quite beautiful way of saying what is philosophically true.
00:36:05And if Christians really work to achieve that in the world,
00:36:09which has been an amazing and beautiful progress in humanity,
00:36:12the fact that they've done a lot more good than most atheists have done means that they have an energy
00:36:19and emotional driving passion behind the equality that they believe all human beings have in the eyes of God.
00:36:26Because God being eternal, omniscient, all good, all humanity is like flat relative to the glory of God.
00:36:35So there's an equality there because you're so far from the perfection of God.
00:36:38Like in an infinite length, being taller or shorter doesn't matter.
00:36:43It's infinitely small.
00:36:44So if the, what to me is a poetic way of understanding the world and of humanity through religion
00:36:52gets to very important and core philosophical truths, I think that's a beautiful thing.
00:36:56In the same way that there's a lot of people who are,
00:36:59I think the guy who ran the Human Genome Project is a very staunch Christian.
00:37:03And he says, as many scientists have said, and particularly the growth of the scientific revolution,
00:37:09they said, we are discovering the laws of God.
00:37:11God did not create a universe incomprehensible to man.
00:37:14God did not design man to have a rational faculty and to live in a rational universe
00:37:19and then be opposed to the exercise of reason.
00:37:23And so the studying of God's laws as a tribute to God has produced some amazing scientists.
00:37:29And the pursuit of Christian morals that happened to accord with rational morals
00:37:35has produced a beautiful world.
00:37:37But you don't agree with the sort of the impetus for their, all that they've done.
00:37:45You don't believe in it.
00:37:47Believe.
00:37:48That's funny.
00:37:49You know, that's a, I mean, that's an interesting way to put it.
00:37:50And of course, that is how most people put it.
00:37:52There's no, no fault in that.
00:37:53So I just start with a blank slate.
00:37:55Like, so with philosophy, you've got to just, everything you know, you've got to throw out.
00:37:58But what if you can intuit things and know that they're true without starting from a blank slate?
00:38:05Then you have to prove that they're true.
00:38:06You can't just know things are true.
00:38:08You have to prove that they're true?
00:38:09You have to prove that they're true.
00:38:10Why?
00:38:11Because otherwise it's just an instinct.
00:38:12It could be a prejudice.
00:38:13It could be demonic.
00:38:14It could be anything.
00:38:15I don't want to know that it's true badly enough to attempt to prove it.
00:38:19Well, then I would say you don't trust your beliefs because your beliefs should be provable.
00:38:24If they're not provable, they just remain blind prejudices.
00:38:27Yeah, I would call it a blind prejudice.
00:38:29Is that accurate according to Catholicism?
00:38:31No.
00:38:31Do I have to say it's faith, right?
00:38:33It's magic.
00:38:34I think, well, no, that we think that God is reasonable and God is reason so he can be reached
00:38:40with reason.
00:38:40And so if it's logical and reasonable, it's for a reason.
00:38:44Like the whole, you know, God created a universe that could be studied and logical and comprehensible.
00:38:49It would not be a sin for a scientific Christian to study the laws of nature.
00:38:55Oh, yeah, no.
00:38:56Because the laws of nature would have spun from the mind of God.
00:38:58Catholicism especially, they're very ordered and detailed about even canonizing saints, you know, like there's a process, you know, to
00:39:05all that stuff.
00:39:06You start from a blank slate and you've arrived somewhere where there is no God.
00:39:13Well, no, you start with there is nothing but what is and can be proved.
00:39:19And the is is the evidence of the senses, the things that we understand in the real world through the
00:39:23evidence of our senses, the things that are.
00:39:25That is.
00:39:27Maybe help me.
00:39:28Why do I bristle at that?
00:39:30Why do you bristle at that?
00:39:31Not in an anti-Stéphane Molyneux way.
00:39:34Because you're a Platonist.
00:39:35Because you start with abstracts and ideals as assumptions.
00:39:40And this is not a criticism.
00:39:41That's just a description of faith.
00:39:43And again, correct me if I go astray.
00:39:45But you start and it's a beautiful thing.
00:39:47I mean, philosophically, it's a challenge, but it's a beautiful thing in many ways.
00:39:51But you start with the assumption of an ideal and of a universal and of an abstract.
00:39:58Okay.
00:39:58And then you derive from there.
00:40:00Right.
00:40:00I mean, God exists is even more primary than existence exists because God preceded existence.
00:40:07Right.
00:40:07Like you can have a watch and you have a watchmaker.
00:40:10The watch is inferior to the watchmaker because the watchmaker can exist without the watch, but the watch can't exist
00:40:16without the watchmaker.
00:40:17So God is more vivid and real and true than, you know, evidence of the senses, if I understand the
00:40:23belief system correctly.
00:40:25Right.
00:40:25So you start with the abstractions and the ideals and the perfection, and then you derive everything from that.
00:40:31Whereas I start with nothing other than the evidence of the senses and the reason that comes from that.
00:40:35I don't know if I start with the ideals because I was, I was an atheist up until my, probably
00:40:42my, you know, my 20, I was a retard.
00:40:44I don't even think I thought about it after up until maybe 28.
00:40:48But I think that what I would start with is I would look at everything I know about the physical
00:40:56world, systems, math, just the varying layers and spheres of complexity that are all interlinked in this absurdly tight.
00:41:09It like defies comprehension that anything works or that anything exists.
00:41:16I would, I would look at that.
00:41:18Imagine that this sprung from nothingness or just exist, just exists somehow without some type of design is, is not
00:41:32retarded, but super retarded.
00:41:34Right.
00:41:34And I would say, listen, I would also, I would also, I would also think about like, Richard Dawkins and
00:41:47evolution.
00:41:48And I, the, the, the challenges to evolution would, classically were, Mr. Dawkins proved to me how a wing evolved.
00:41:56There's no possible way a wing could evolve or an eyeball.
00:42:00There's no way that an eye could evolve.
00:42:01I've heard the, the arguments that Richard Dawkins has made for the evolution of an eye and a wing, which
00:42:07were very, it's very smart.
00:42:09And an eye would be light sensing tissue that has a calcified ridge that starts to grow around it.
00:42:15And that gives you angle, like where's the light coming from.
00:42:20And that forms eventually into something like a nautilus eye where you've got a pinhole camera that actually gives you
00:42:25good detail.
00:42:27And then a wing would be like a flap of skin or something that slows your descent as you fall
00:42:31out of a tree.
00:42:32And that over time that develops into an appendage that enables you to fly.
00:42:36I don't think that that's like fantasy or something, but I don't think that negates the existence of God.
00:42:45I think that for something like that to even be possible is like flabbergasting.
00:42:50I feel like there's this cavalier sort of, like when people can understand the mechanism, there's this cavalier like, oh,
00:42:57I know how it works.
00:42:58It's got a thing in it.
00:43:00Of course, it was like that the whole time.
00:43:03These guys that have like 130 IQ, they just don't, they don't acknowledge what comes after that, which is like,
00:43:14this thing is f***ing crazy.
00:43:15Do you realize that?
00:43:16Like the thing that you just, you accurately described it.
00:43:18Like I get that you understand how it works.
00:43:20I know that you get quantum physics and you can have a computer that has flips qubits.
00:43:26Like I get that you did that.
00:43:27You've mastered some degree of nature here.
00:43:31You're not acknowledging that this is f***ing crazy.
00:43:35The awe is missing.
00:43:36Literally, the awe is missing.
00:43:39It's an absurdity that these things are possible.
00:43:43Like Neil deGrasse Tyson, he'll be like, they do acknowledge it a little bit in a like Rick and Morty.
00:43:51We're physicists.
00:43:52Of course we do magic.
00:43:54Like that's how they'll acknowledge it.
00:43:55But I don't believe that they really understand what they're tampering with.
00:43:59There's no reverence there.
00:44:00But can I say one thing?
00:44:01Because I was thinking too, like if you start with the blank slate, who made the slate?
00:44:06That is good though.
00:44:07The material world.
00:44:08Yeah.
00:44:08Like if you start with the material world, aren't there presuppositions in it existing in the first place?
00:44:13The issue is existence existing to begin with.
00:44:16Right?
00:44:16Right.
00:44:17The awe is the time frame.
00:44:19One of the reasons that people, myself included, of course, have such trouble with evolution is we can't really comprehend
00:44:264 billion years.
00:44:27Like how much is possible in that amount of selection pressure?
00:44:31Because we live a lifespan that is like 0.00001% of that.
00:44:35So the distance of time is really quite astounding what can happen over 4 billion years.
00:44:42Now, the issue that you had, which is a good issue, not that I'm giving out points here, but the
00:44:48issue is that existence exists in the first place.
00:44:50Right.
00:44:51You have that God exists in the first place.
00:44:54So you have no problem with things existing.
00:44:56You would need a starting point that one claims to have a starting point, which is God.
00:45:00Sorry, you mean the material universe.
00:45:02Right.
00:45:02Would need a starting point.
00:45:03I mean, that's still heavily under debate.
00:45:05I mean, it was called the Big Bang kind of in a derogatory way.
00:45:08Matter can neither be created nor destroyed, only converted to energy and back.
00:45:12So, so far, matter appears to be eternal and just has always been, and maybe it's had different forms.
00:45:18So saying that the problem is that existence exists, to me, adding God to that is just adding another one
00:45:25of those problems, which is that God exists and has always existed.
00:45:28And I'd rather just say reality has always existed rather than putting in another one, which is causeless, which is
00:45:34God.
00:45:34I don't think that.
00:45:35There's no way we're going to get to the end of that one.
00:45:37That one seems to be.
00:45:38But what about, it seems weird that humankind has a proclivity to search for God and have love, which both
00:45:46seem not like benefits to existing or evolving.
00:45:52So if I love you, which I do, of course, and you die, if we're, I don't know why I'm
00:45:59making this us, but if we're married, let's not do this.
00:46:02Come on.
00:46:02If I'm married, I'm sorry.
00:46:04I've been waiting a long time.
00:46:07You can make an atheist argument for love.
00:46:10So pair bonding is needed for the raising of children and the transmission of culture.
00:46:15If my wife dies and I mourn her the rest of my life versus just going back at it, reproducing,
00:46:20reproducing, reproducing.
00:46:21So it doesn't seem like reproduction is the end.
00:46:23It seems like it's interrupted by this weird defect of love.
00:46:27But it's just strong pair bonding like that is like, what is it, K-type versus R-type reproductive strategy?
00:46:33We have so much knowledge we need to transfer to children, and they take forever to grow up.
00:46:37Brain maturity for males is like 25.
00:46:39It's a quarter century.
00:46:40It takes a year for kids to walk.
00:46:43You know, foals can do it like three minutes after dropping out of the horse, right?
00:46:45So we need that pair bonding to transmit all of the information, the language, the culture, the religion, and so
00:46:51on for our children to succeed in our society.
00:46:54So the best way to do that is to have a strong pair bonding.
00:46:56Now, I believe that the best pair bonding, that the true love is our response to virtue if we're virtuous.
00:47:03And that tends to be the best pair bonding and the most reliable and safe pair bonding is if we
00:47:09have a man and a woman who are honest and have courage and integrity because marriage is a vow, right?
00:47:16And the best way to keep a marriage is to have people who keep their word, which is a form
00:47:21of integrity and honesty and honor.
00:47:23And so love in its relationship to virtue is important.
00:47:28Otherwise, it is just, you know, oxytocin pair bonding.
00:47:30Those virtues, do they exist outside of the two people agreeing that those are virtues?
00:47:35Yes.
00:47:35So there are like alternate virtues.
00:47:37They don't exist.
00:47:38Abstractions don't exist like tangibly.
00:47:41They exist because two people agreed.
00:47:43Right.
00:47:44So if I pointed a bunch of penguins and say that's a nice forest, clearly I may need to have
00:47:50my eyesight adjusted or something like that because that's incorrect.
00:47:52What if the penguins are wearing leaves and branches?
00:47:55So then the ayahuasca is kicked in and I think we're beyond philosophy at that point.
00:47:59So, but no, I mean, I can be objectively wrong.
00:48:02So love, certainly you can measure it in terms of, you know, biochemical responses and happiness.
00:48:08And you can measure the, you know, release of oxytocin or dopamine within the system and so on.
00:48:13So you can certainly measure it, but abstractions don't exist outside the mind.
00:48:19That doesn't mean they're subjective.
00:48:20Oh, I see what you're saying.
00:48:21If you've got two coconuts on a table, you've got two coconuts.
00:48:24They're real and you can count them.
00:48:26The number one and two exists in your mind.
00:48:29It doesn't mean it's subjective because it's still one.
00:48:30You can't say there's five coconuts when there's only two or you can, but you'd be wrong.
00:48:34Can we get back to the blank slate thing?
00:48:36You said that it's possible that matter is infinite.
00:48:40It's not saying whether that's right or wrong or whether you believe that or not.
00:48:42That's what science is saying so far.
00:48:43Just like to say like the matter is infinite, that's eternal, that's nuts.
00:48:50Why?
00:48:51You've got an eternal God.
00:48:52What's the difference?
00:48:52The awe and the heaviness of it.
00:48:54Why?
00:48:54To think about matter being eternal, it's just a heady concept.
00:49:01The bits of you and I were stars a billion and a half years ago or whatever.
00:49:05What that makes me want to ask you, though, is it makes me want to ask you is, do you
00:49:09have a guesstimate or an idea or a notion of things like why we're here, how it started?
00:49:23You don't believe there's any, you've arrived at the fact that you don't, conclusion, you don't believe there's anything outside
00:49:29of observable physical reality.
00:49:32Well, anything that is outside of physical reality would be defined as not existing, right?
00:49:39I mean, we came down a corridor, right?
00:49:41We didn't try and walk through the wall because we can't, right?
00:49:43So we came down a corridor, so we came where the wall wasn't, right?
00:49:46So we, well, there's no evidence that there's a wall there.
00:49:48That's how we know it's a corridor.
00:49:50So when you say outside of material existence, that would be the same as non-existence.
00:49:54How do you think it all started?
00:49:56What all started?
00:49:58Material, physical reality.
00:49:59It's eternal.
00:50:00It's eternal.
00:50:02Do you think there's any reason why we're here?
00:50:04Well, you'll have to, I hate to be that annoying guy, but you'd have to define your terms.
00:50:08What do you mean by reason why we're here?
00:50:10Well, so there's the reasons why we're here.
00:50:12We could make up reasons on our own, like we want to collect Xbox game points.
00:50:18I would say that if you, like you, you've dedicated yourself to virtue.
00:50:27Could we say that?
00:50:28Would we say that?
00:50:29Yeah.
00:50:29Virtue and reason?
00:50:31Yeah.
00:50:32So the general formulation is reason leads to virtue, leads to happiness.
00:50:37Okay.
00:50:38And so is it ultimately the leading to happiness that you're interested in?
00:50:42I mean, happiness is the end goal of most of our purpose, right?
00:50:48So, I mean, happiness is the one thing that you do, you don't do it for the sake of something
00:50:52else, right?
00:50:53So, you know, most people, why do you get up?
00:50:55Well, I got to go to work.
00:50:56Why do you have to go to work?
00:50:57Well, you got to make money.
00:50:58Well, why do you have to make money?
00:50:58Well, you got to spend money, right?
00:51:00And when I spend money, I'm happy, or at least I'm not anxious.
00:51:02So happiness is the one thing in general that we do not for the sake of something else.
00:51:07That's sort of the end purpose or the end point.
00:51:09So those are your reasons for existing.
00:51:12Is that accurate or not?
00:51:13Well, but again, tell me what you mean by reasons for existing.
00:51:16The reason I exist is my parents had sex.
00:51:18Okay.
00:51:19So what I mean is you're like, you're, could I call it the purpose of your life?
00:51:23Or would you say that that's procreation or something like that?
00:51:26No.
00:51:27The purpose of my life is maximum philosophy, which means do enough philosophy that you make
00:51:34a difference, but not so much that they just kill you, right?
00:51:37Because that's generally what happens to philosophers who go that little bit too far, right?
00:51:42So to me, it's the purpose is sort of maximum philosophy, which means, you know, walk in that
00:51:46tightrope, that balance beam of saying enough truth that you have an effect on the world,
00:51:52but not so much truth that you have to be taken out.
00:51:54You know, which of course, Jesus and Socrates and Aristotle and Charlie Kirk, sadly, and so
00:51:59on, definitely happens.
00:52:00Now, would you say that this is a purpose that you have created for yourself?
00:52:05Yes, I have created that purpose for myself because I would say that we are the only creatures
00:52:13that we know of capable of even conceiving of something like meaning or purpose.
00:52:18Everything else is just avoiding predators, trying to have sex and eat, right?
00:52:22So that that's all instinctual preferences, right?
00:52:25The rabbit doesn't want to get eaten.
00:52:26It doesn't even know why.
00:52:27It just has a fear response and it runs.
00:52:29And the wolf wants to eat the rabbit because it's hungry and it thinks it's going to taste
00:52:34good, which it's right about.
00:52:36So we are the only creatures that we know that can act above animalistic preferences, you
00:52:44know, sort of base hormonal evolutionary programming.
00:52:47And so if there is anything that means anything to a human being, it is the fact that we are
00:52:52capable of asking the question of what is the purpose of my life and what is the meaning
00:52:56of my life?
00:52:57So you have, you've created this purpose, you've for yourself, bigger picture, the purpose of
00:53:05reality or the reason for physical reality existing, you would say that there's, there
00:53:12is none, there is none.
00:53:14The purpose of existing outside of what we generate for ourselves, is that what you mean?
00:53:20Sorry, I just want to make sure I'm clear about what you're asking.
00:53:22Just not even considering ourselves or human individuals, just existence, the reason that
00:53:30this stuff is here, there is no reason.
00:53:36There is no external reason that is like a puppet stringing us, that we do have the challenge
00:53:44of figuring out what the purpose of our life is.
00:53:46And I think that the goal of philosophy is to give you a rational and moral purpose so that
00:53:50it's not hedonism or so you're not lying to yourself, not you particularly, but people
00:53:54as a whole.
00:53:55Yeah, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say puppet stringing, but I would just, uh, I don't know what I'm
00:53:59getting at here, Rivera, you got anything?
00:54:01Well, like the, not a puppet string, but like, you know, the, like Sesame Street style where
00:54:05they have like a rod.
00:54:06Yeah.
00:54:07And it does like this.
00:54:09That's cool.
00:54:09That's all I got.
00:54:10The purpose of the blank slates, how do we know what is true?
00:54:12So the first thing that we do when we're little kids is we have, you know, things like object
00:54:16constancy.
00:54:17Like you roll a ball under a couch and the kid, the baby originally just thinks it's
00:54:21completely disappeared.
00:54:22After a while, it's like goes and looks under the couch and, you know, dogs with balls would
00:54:26do the same thing.
00:54:26Object permanence.
00:54:27Yeah.
00:54:27So we start with, we don't know anything.
00:54:29And then we build up our knowledge based on the evidence of the senses.
00:54:32And then we end up, and this is where the God part comes into me.
00:54:35And I think in a very powerful way, at least for me, is that we absolutely do, do partake
00:54:41of universal, eternal, I would argue, almost divine consciousness, because we have concepts
00:54:47and concepts are true forever.
00:54:50Two plus two equals four has been true forever.
00:54:53Gases expand when heated is true forever.
00:54:55Right?
00:54:56And you can't ever have a square circle.
00:54:59Something can't be both a square and a circle at the same time.
00:55:01That's been true forever.
00:55:02And I think that's where a lot of our ideas about God come from, is that we actually hook
00:55:06into universal consciousness that is true forever.
00:55:10And that's why we think that there's a consciousness out there that is universal and perfect.
00:55:15No, not that God made.
00:55:16But what Pythagorean theorem has been true since the beginning of the universe, and Pythagoras
00:55:21now lives forever, as long as there's people talking about it.
00:55:24Well, his concepts that he found that God made.
00:55:27Well, but what I'm saying is that one of the reasons why we think that there's a fragment
00:55:31of consciousness that's out there, that's perfect and eternal, is we actually get to
00:55:34participate that alone of all of the animals.
00:55:37We get to participate in that eternal consciousness through the incredible power of concepts.
00:55:43And that is all derived from the evidence of the senses, which God does not partake in.
00:55:48Right?
00:55:48We cannot find.
00:55:49I thought of this creative little flourish.
00:55:51When you mentioned corridor, like we're walking here through a corridor, that like what
00:55:55makes an arch an arch or a corridor a corridor?
00:55:59Partially the space that you can't see, you know?
00:56:02And so much like anything, that what isn't there and isn't visible is a part of the form
00:56:09of the thing that does exist materially.
00:56:12Well, but the corridor is what doesn't exist materially.
00:56:16It's defined as the absence.
00:56:18I walked through it fair and square.
00:56:19No, but I mean, there's air there, but there's not a wall.
00:56:22Like if you have an archway in a wall, you walk through that because that's where the wall
00:56:26isn't, so the archway is defined as that which is absent.
00:56:29It's a marker for something that is absent.
00:56:31You are correctly identifying where the wall isn't and walking through that, which requires
00:56:36the evidence of the senses and the understanding that you can walk through something that is
00:56:41not there.
00:56:42And you can't walk through something that is there like a wall.
00:56:45So the purpose, and we haven't got to the ethics and virtue stuff, which is fine, but
00:56:49the purpose is to say we get absolute facts about the material universe through the evidence
00:56:53of the senses.
00:56:54We use that to extrapolate universal concepts.
00:56:57The purpose of a human being has to be that which is most human.
00:57:01That which is the most human has to be involved in our purpose.
00:57:05And the most human thing we can do is create universal abstractions and reason.
00:57:09That is the one thing that we can do that no other creature can do.
00:57:12And the purpose of a thing has to be what only it can do.
00:57:16The purpose of a guy running in a running race is to run the race the fastest.
00:57:19And the guy's going to win.
00:57:21Who can do it best?
00:57:21And we, of all the animals, of all the creatures, can take sense data and create universal abstractions,
00:57:28concepts, hypothesis, reasons, arguments, debates.
00:57:32Only we can do that.
00:57:34And so if there's a purpose to humanity, it has to be that which is the most essential aspect
00:57:38of humanity, which is our ability to conceive.
00:57:40Sorry.
00:57:40But what if the purpose of the man running the race isn't to win?
00:57:44What if he wants to prove to his nagging brother that he can get off his butt and do something?
00:57:50And it's still an abstract purpose.
00:57:52Yeah.
00:57:53It's still not to win, but to show something to his brother.
00:57:59Forget your bad dreams.
00:58:00It's about your bad dreams.
00:58:04You only need one dream.
00:58:06You only need one dream.
00:58:09And that...
00:58:10And that...
00:58:11Is the American dream.
00:58:15It is the American dream.
00:58:31Oh, I'm feeling a whole lot better now that we're underway with this project here.
00:58:36You guys are sort of the young hot shots.
00:58:39I'm just an old timer here to give you advice, Valentine.
00:58:43Don't end up like me, kid.
00:58:44It's not worth it.
00:58:45You got to take care of yourself.
00:58:47Make the right decisions.
00:58:48Don't fuck up.
00:58:50What about me?
00:58:51You're good to go.
00:58:52Nice.
00:58:53All right.
00:58:53You guys go ahead.
00:58:54All right.
00:58:55Hi.
00:58:55Nice to meet you.
00:58:56Nice to meet you.
00:58:57So I'm Amber.
00:59:00And I wanted to ask, my boyfriend and I both have ADHD.
00:59:06So when neither of us is having symptoms, great.
00:59:09When one of us is having symptoms, the other one can kind of be supportive.
00:59:13But if we're both like in it, how do you like support one another and like kind of get to
00:59:20a place of like functioning again,
00:59:22where you're at least like not, you know, the house isn't a mess.
00:59:27What sort of symptoms do you have at the sort of height of the ADHD?
00:59:31So with him, like he's like a chameleon where like he'll have something in his hand and he's like,
00:59:35how did I get this in my hand?
00:59:36And then can't find things and like stuff like that.
00:59:41With me, I also, on top of the ADHD, it's like complex PTSD.
00:59:47So it's either going to be like kind of the anxious side, usually, of ADHD, where I get a little
00:59:54manic,
00:59:55where I'm just like, yeah, we can totally like buy a 3D printer and start a 3D printing business with
01:00:02no experience
01:00:03and no marketing or like, you know, just very like easily triggered.
01:00:10So like if he leaves stuff around and I feel like I'm picking up a mess and it like, you
01:00:18know,
01:00:18brings back stuff about an ex, it's like, okay.
01:00:21Were your childhoods chaotic?
01:00:23Yeah.
01:00:24But is that where the PTSD comes from?
01:00:27Partly from that.
01:00:28I've had one very abusive relationship and then just a few toxic ones that, yeah.
01:00:35What's the first abusive relationship with your parents?
01:00:38Not physically.
01:00:39How so?
01:00:43My mom is a recovering addict.
01:00:46So heroin, alcohol.
01:00:48I'm so sorry.
01:00:49I'm so sorry.
01:00:50Was that from when you were very little?
01:00:52Yeah.
01:00:52Gosh.
01:00:53Was she non-functional for most of your childhood?
01:00:55My aunt became my, I guess it would be a ward technically, of me and my brother.
01:01:04She did her best, but she definitely like, she had her own issues as far as like, she didn't necessarily
01:01:11want kids.
01:01:11So she was trying to raise one kid who was just like very hot and cold because of everything that
01:01:19I experienced.
01:01:20And then my brother was more lovey-dovey, but like still had his own issues.
01:01:26So I've been talking to people about their childhoods, as you probably know, for decades.
01:01:30And one of the things I think that really happens, and that's the question I want to ask you, it's
01:01:35not so much what happens to us in our childhood that really affects us into adulthood.
01:01:39It's what we believe that means about ourselves.
01:01:42When you were going through that level of, what age were you when you were made the ward?
01:01:4811.
01:01:4811.
01:01:49So that is a long time because, you know, the sort of childhood formation years is sort of zero to
01:01:55five.
01:01:56So, and then you had twice that, right?
01:01:59Plus, what do you think it meant about you or what did you believe about yourself in the midst of
01:02:06this chaos and neglect and all of that?
01:02:09I think I put a lot of responsibility on my shoulders.
01:02:13Well, there was a lot of responsibility on your shoulders.
01:02:15But what did you think it meant about you being so different from everyone else having such a different history
01:02:22and home life?
01:02:24I don't think I really was aware of how different it was.
01:02:27Like, I think the first time I hung out with somebody whose parents were still together, I was kind of
01:02:32surprised.
01:02:33And actually, I should correct something.
01:02:34Hey, these come in pairs.
01:02:35I never knew that phrase.
01:02:37My mom was functioning on and off.
01:02:39So she'd have, like, periods of sobriety and then, like, she wouldn't.
01:02:42And when she wasn't sober, sometimes we'd be at my grandmother's house.
01:02:46But then, like, it was a lot.
01:02:49Do you think it's possible that you perhaps experienced that if your mother loved you more,
01:02:56she wouldn't choose the drugs?
01:02:58That was a frequent thing, yeah.
01:03:00Right.
01:03:01So that meant that you were less lovable than her self-destructive drugs to her,
01:03:08which is pretty rough on the self-esteem, isn't it?
01:03:11Yeah.
01:03:12She's choosing self-destruction over you, which means you're lower in the hierarchy
01:03:17than self-destruction, which is a brutal thing to experience.
01:03:21I've never thought of it that way.
01:03:24And that just, like, really resonated with me.
01:03:29Tell me, what are you feeling?
01:03:33Just, I've always thought of it as just, like, drugs, like, broad spectrum,
01:03:36or, like, the disease of addiction or whatever.
01:03:39But I haven't really thought about it as, like, self-destructiveness of being
01:03:46below something, like, so utterly toxic to, it's like, okay, no wonder I feel like I'm a dumpster
01:03:52fire sometimes.
01:03:53There's the sewers, which are bad, and then there's me even below that.
01:03:57And I say this, you know, with sympathy.
01:03:59Because my mother chose delusions over me.
01:04:04And I knew that her delusions were self-destructive.
01:04:07I knew that the things that she believed were self-destructive.
01:04:10And she just went back to them, insists she was an addict to lies,
01:04:14in a way, I guess, that your mother was addict to drugs and things.
01:04:16And so, when your mother chooses self-destructive lies, or in this case,
01:04:19self-destructive drugs, over you, it means, I mean, from my experience, it was like,
01:04:25why wouldn't you just choose me?
01:04:27Like, I'm a fun kid, I'm a good kid, I'm an enjoyable person to spend time with.
01:04:31Why would you go back to that deadly well over and over again,
01:04:35abandoning me when I'm, like, fresh water, so to speak, right?
01:04:39And that's so confusing for kids as to why adults are setting themselves on fire
01:04:45rather than hugging their children.
01:04:47And I think that has a real impact on just our entire sense of how we feel about ourselves
01:04:55and whether we're worth anything to anyone.
01:04:58Because if the person who gave us birth is choosing self-destruction over us,
01:05:03how is it possible to have a good relationship with ourselves as children, if that makes sense?
01:05:08Yeah.
01:05:10Was it ever explained to you why she would do this?
01:05:13I think she had something happen to her when she was a kid, I'm not really sure.
01:05:17Basically, I guess, like, as a teenager, she started partying, and she, like, just on and off, never stopped.
01:05:23Like, and she tries, like, she still tries.
01:05:26She's had a pretty good stint of sobriety of late, which is, like, good to see.
01:05:33But it definitely, like, it was, I think, harder when she was younger.
01:05:37Maybe it's getting easier and more mellow with age.
01:05:40I don't know.
01:05:41In general, people are not addicts because they want to feel good.
01:05:47They're addicts because they don't want to feel like hell.
01:05:50So the general way that it works is people, like, let's say you have a happiness level of 100.
01:05:55Like, average people, you know, you're up and down a bit, but you kind of center around 100.
01:05:58The problem is that addicts have a happiness of minus 50.
01:06:03Like, they're just miserable and wretched.
01:06:06And then what they do is they take drugs because they're, what have I got to lose?
01:06:11I feel miserable and wretched, right?
01:06:13And for the first time in their life, they're like, oh, my God, I'm not in pain.
01:06:18Oh, this is close to what normal people feel like.
01:06:22But then they crash, and they're now no longer at minus 50.
01:06:27They're at, like, minus 70.
01:06:29So then they take the drug, and they get to plus 60.
01:06:32That's the cycle that happens.
01:06:34And usually it comes from absolutely appalling early trauma.
01:06:38My mother's addiction to delusions came because she was a war baby, Second World War.
01:06:43Germany, I mean, just, I'm sure she was raped half into oblivion as a child.
01:06:47And sexual abuse is a lot of the foundation for why people do drugs.
01:06:51And maybe that's what was happening with your mother.
01:06:53But it is self-medication for horrendous amounts of early trauma.
01:06:58And it is to your credit that you have some ADHD, you have some PTSD, as you say, but that
01:07:05you're not a drug addict, that you're not an alcoholic, that you're not, you know, a gambling addict or a
01:07:09sex addict or something like that.
01:07:10And to your massive and absolute and amazing credit, that's a wonderful survival.
01:07:15And the reason I'm sort of asking all of this, I think that ADHD comes out of a certain inability
01:07:21to feel centered and at peace with yourself.
01:07:25And that's why I was sort of asking about the childhood, because we distract ourselves.
01:07:30You ever go to the dentist, and they have the TV up there, and you get really fascinated by, like,
01:07:35daytime soap operas because you're waiting for that, you know, this, please don't have a problem with my gums or
01:07:39something like that, right?
01:07:40So we tend to want to distract ourselves when we're discontented, not necessarily when we're unhappy, because sadness can be
01:07:48a rich and fine experience and all of that.
01:07:51But when we are jangled and discontented and negative about ourselves, we tend to want to distract ourselves.
01:07:57And I think that ADHD sometimes has a sort of essential component to do with dancing on Lego bits or
01:08:05thorns or something like that.
01:08:06And that's why I think the childhood stuff is really important.
01:08:11And you said you had these, I think you said two toxic relationships in the past, which I think would
01:08:17have to do with the feeling that you were such a negative that your mother continued to choose drugs.
01:08:27That if you had been more lovable or if you had been more positive for your mother, that she would
01:08:32have turned away from that devil and towards you.
01:08:36Because when you have parents who are really dysfunctional, you become this crazy wooing person.
01:08:42You try to woo them, don't you?
01:08:43You try to woo them back.
01:08:45Come on, have fun.
01:08:46Come on, let's play a game.
01:08:47Come on, mom, let's do something fun.
01:08:48Let's go for a walk.
01:08:49And you're constantly in this state of trying to woo someone back from a cliff edge or back from something
01:08:55really self-destructive.
01:08:56And that's the only thing you can do as a kid, right?
01:08:59What else can you do?
01:09:00You can't stop her from doing it.
01:09:03But you can always try to woo her back and woo her back and woo her back.
01:09:06That gives you a sense of will and control.
01:09:08But the problem is it comes at a great personal cost of self-esteem.
01:09:12Because you're saying, I can do something to stop mom from doing the drugs.
01:09:16I can do something to stop my mother from going mad.
01:09:19It gives you a sense of control, which is illusory.
01:09:23But it comes at great cost because then you fail and you fail and you fail and you fail.
01:09:29And I think that's brutal on the self-esteem and the sense of ease and comfort within yourself, if that
01:09:35makes sense.
01:09:36Yeah.
01:09:36So sorry for the big long yap, but does that seem to, does that capture anything about what happened?
01:09:43No, that definitely makes sense.
01:09:46When she was around, like she was very present.
01:09:50That's the weird thing about it.
01:09:52But when like she was just, when she would relapse, it was like, all right, you know, going to grandma's
01:09:59house or whatever, you know.
01:10:00But that would mean something to you though, the relapse.
01:10:03Because if you're, if, if in a sense, you are partly responsible for keeping her sober when she relapses, that's
01:10:08a rejection of you.
01:10:09Yeah.
01:10:10What do you think that felt like if that's a reasonable way to approach it?
01:10:14Probably like, if that's like the echo of what I felt in the one really abusive relationship, probably just the
01:10:21sense of like utter, like, why can't you just love me?
01:10:25Right.
01:10:26What's the answer?
01:10:27Why can't you just love me?
01:10:29What's the answer that you have in your head as to why you can't be loved?
01:10:32The answer that I like now after years of healing or just.
01:10:36What did you have at the time?
01:10:37Why couldn't you be loved?
01:10:38At the time, I thought there was something wrong with me.
01:10:41Okay.
01:10:41And what was, what was wrong with you that you couldn't be loved?
01:10:43I don't know.
01:10:45Sure you do.
01:10:46Everybody has a thesis.
01:10:47I mean, it may not, I'm not saying you're lying, but it may not be present in your mind.
01:10:50But there's something about you that was negative for your mother in this.
01:10:55I'm not saying objectively, of course, right?
01:10:57You were just a victim.
01:10:58But we all have to make reasons why things happen to us happen.
01:11:02That's what we do as human beings.
01:11:04And particularly as children, there has to be a reason why.
01:11:06And the reason is always, what can I do?
01:11:09Because if, I mean, gosh, if at five or six or seven, you'd have said, well, I have no control
01:11:13over my mother.
01:11:14She's going to go back to drugs.
01:11:15My life is going to be hell and chaotic.
01:11:17You just wouldn't have been able to get out of bed.
01:11:18You have to give yourself a mission.
01:11:20You have to give yourself some control, some power.
01:11:23You know, like the people who live at the bottom of a volcano who can't leave.
01:11:27They imagine some dance is going to appease the volcano gob.
01:11:30Like they have to make up something.
01:11:31Can you imagine a child who could have, because you were trying at that every time.
01:11:37Could you imagine a child who could have saved your mother?
01:11:40No.
01:11:41At the time, could you imagine back then?
01:11:44I wanted to.
01:11:45I didn't really know how, but.
01:11:47What did you try?
01:11:48It's where like the OCD came in.
01:11:50It was one of those, like she would go out and use drugs.
01:11:52And I had this one very irrational, like whatever the last outfit was that I wore with her,
01:11:58I wouldn't let anybody like wash that outfit because I thought it would be like,
01:12:03like the beacon that would bring her back kind of thing.
01:12:05So that's where like the OCD stuff comes in.
01:12:07Because that's so utterly irrational.
01:12:09But like as a child, it was like this like whimsical thing that could bring her back.
01:12:15So you wouldn't let the laundry hit the clothes that you were on
01:12:18when she left to do drugs?
01:12:20Basically, I'd just be like, I wouldn't let them like clean those specific ones.
01:12:25Right, right.
01:12:25Okay.
01:12:26So she could almost like a scent.
01:12:27She would almost find her way back.
01:12:29Yeah.
01:12:29You said that was irrational.
01:12:30Why is that irrational?
01:12:31I mean, I understand the scientific cause and effect, but why is it irrational?
01:12:35Because it gives you a sense of control in a helpless situation, which keeps your muscle
01:12:38of will going.
01:12:40Yeah.
01:12:40Because if you'd have accepted that you couldn't do anything, then your muscle of will would
01:12:45have collapsed.
01:12:46Yeah.
01:12:46And you wouldn't be able to will anything.
01:12:47Right?
01:12:47We have to imagine we can do something even if we can't.
01:12:50Because A, we don't know if we can.
01:12:52And B, we need to keep that will, that muscle of will going.
01:12:55So I don't think it was irrational at all.
01:12:57But I do think that you gave yourself a negative because you failed to save your mother.
01:13:05And I would assume also in the abusive relationships that you had a mission of saving someone too.
01:13:11Yeah.
01:13:12That you are there to bind people's wounds and to prop them up and to get them to work
01:13:17on time and to have them not fall into other addictions or problems.
01:13:22That you are sort of an abuse service animal, if I can put it that kind of way.
01:13:27That your only value is to be propping up people who can't be fixed.
01:13:33And that is a brutal thing to experience.
01:13:36And I just, you know, my heart goes out to everything that you suffered because it didn't
01:13:40end at the age of 11.
01:13:42I mean, what decade of life is your mother in?
01:13:47She's six.
01:13:48She was born in 62.
01:13:50So she's 64.
01:13:52She's going to be 64 this year.
01:13:54When was the last time you had consistent positive interactions with your mother?
01:13:57This weekend.
01:13:58It's been, it's like I said, it's been like, I mean, I think I've gotten to a place of
01:14:03acceptance that like, she's just, we went to like my stepdad's funeral.
01:14:08She talked about him a little bit, but then she was like bitching about work.
01:14:10And then I was like, can we get some stories about, about him for a little bit?
01:14:16So kind of not like self-involved, but kind of.
01:14:22Do you think she understands how much she cost you?
01:14:26Yeah, maybe.
01:14:27Maybe?
01:14:28In a way.
01:14:28Has she ever done any therapy or done anything to?
01:14:30She, that I do give to her credit is that she like, she has, she goes to therapy.
01:14:35She like, has tried a lot to try to feel better.
01:14:41But you don't know what she's self-medicating, right?
01:14:44Because you don't know what happened in her childhood that may have given her that minus
01:14:4750 that she had to self-medicate.
01:14:50Yeah.
01:14:50I think that would be important to know if you knew what happened with your mother, which
01:14:55I assume would be some very severe abuse, I would imagine, I don't know, of course, but
01:14:58sexual abuse, when you realize what she was self-medicating, you would realize just how
01:15:05absolutely helpless you were in that situation.
01:15:08And that takes the weight off.
01:15:11Could I have fixed it?
01:15:12Could I have done something different?
01:15:13Because then once you realize something's impossible, that negative feeling about yourself
01:15:20from failing to do something, when you realize just how impossible it is.
01:15:24And of course, she's been under the care of a therapist, and she's still having relapses
01:15:28from time to time.
01:15:29And she's still, as you say, talking about her work rather than the person who had died.
01:15:33So even her therapist can't fix her.
01:15:35Life hasn't been able to fix her.
01:15:36And of course, you at the age of, you know, five or 10 or 15, absolutely no chance to fix
01:15:42her any more than I assume that these abusive relationships that you were in, I assume you
01:15:45didn't fix them either, right?
01:15:47No, that's okay, though.
01:15:48I would just say, if I were in your shoes, race style of shoes, I might add, if I were
01:15:53in your shoes, then I would say, what is the weight that I'm carrying of being chosen less
01:16:02than the drugs, of having a mission to fix a mother, which you have to have as a kid,
01:16:07you have to have that mission, or you can't even get out of bed.
01:16:10But that mission comes at great cost.
01:16:13And what is it that is remaining?
01:16:15And it might be a good question for your boyfriend as well.
01:16:17Like, what is it that is remaining that is weighing me down?
01:16:21That is a negative view of myself?
01:16:24I mean, it's a cliche, right?
01:16:25But of course, it wasn't your fault.
01:16:27You couldn't have fixed it.
01:16:28It is an impossible thing.
01:16:30Even experts, you know, my mother was institutionalized.
01:16:33They couldn't fix her.
01:16:34They had complete control over her legally, medically, anything.
01:16:37They could not fix her.
01:16:39And so, as a kid, I had no chance to do any of that.
01:16:43When you can step out of that obligation, that weight and that role, and say, I was born
01:16:48into a real shitstorm.
01:16:49I had absolutely no chance of fixing it.
01:16:52But I had to believe that I could just in order to get through, you know, at the age of
01:16:57five or ten, and you say, well, I'll be free when I'm 20.
01:16:59It's like, you might as well be free in, you know, four generations from now, because
01:17:02that time makes no sense.
01:17:05And the real honor is in the surviving and in the not doing it forward, not being an abuser
01:17:13yourself, not doing evil in the world because of the trauma that was done unto you and what
01:17:17was done to your mother.
01:17:18Your mother was evil, in my view.
01:17:21But when you can recognize the impossibility of the mission and the necessity of the mission,
01:17:27then you can let go of anything about yourself that you perceive to be negative because of
01:17:33the failure and because of the fact that you were lower than drugs for your mother.
01:17:36That's on her.
01:17:36That's on the drugs.
01:17:38Nothing to do with the purity and beauty of who you are as a person.
01:17:42And I think with that, maybe some of the distraction habits might subside because you have a more
01:17:51positive relationship with yourself and you can give yourself that honor of having survived
01:17:55a desperate battle.
01:17:56You know, people who have not had, I hope the people here haven't had that kind of difficulty.
01:18:01It's an absolutely desperate battle that goes on day after day, week after week, month after
01:18:07month, year after year.
01:18:08It is exhausting and it's necessary because you have to retain some sense of power and
01:18:14will in your life as a whole.
01:18:16And to let go of all of that, that you were born into a terrible situation, it seems like
01:18:23you've done a magnificent job of flourishing through that and just letting go of those
01:18:27last negatives, I think will have a lot to do with peace of mind, if that makes sense.
01:18:31Again, I'm really sorry for the long speech, but-
01:18:33No, it's been very, like-
01:18:37It's been a, like, nice hearing it because it's a different way than I've heard anyone
01:18:42describe it.
01:18:43I'm really sorry for that.
01:18:44And I'm, if you ever want to call in, just send, it's on the website, freedomain.com slash
01:18:48call.
01:18:49I'd be happy to chat further and congratulations on your survival.
01:18:53And can I get a hug?
01:18:54Can I get a hug?
01:18:58And what's your name?
01:18:59Joe.
01:18:59Joe.
01:18:59Nice to meet you.
01:19:00Joe.
01:19:00What's, what's on your mind?
01:19:02Everything.
01:19:02Men have their challenges these days and it is important to not fall into self-pity and
01:19:07to still remember this is absolutely the best time in history to be alive.
01:19:11We never would have met each other prior to the internet.
01:19:13I never would have had a voice prior to the internet.
01:19:15I would have taken all of these thoughts to the fucking grave with me or maybe I'd have
01:19:19a whole bunch of notebooks in an attic somewhere that nobody would ever care about.
01:19:22I mean, honestly, I would say I'm a very unique person.
01:19:25I'm very nice.
01:19:26I'm very bubbly.
01:19:27But when it comes to defending those.
01:19:28No, no, no.
01:19:28Not nice and bubbly.
01:19:29That's for fucking champagne.
01:19:30It's not champagne.
01:19:32It's called, I have a very outstanding personality.
01:19:35I'm not disagreeing with you, dude.
01:19:36And that's how I see myself.
01:19:37My question is.
01:19:38Your opinion is irrelevant.
01:19:38Do you think for yourself.
01:19:39Your opinion is irrelevant.
01:19:41So you need to stop talking.
01:19:42That's fine.
01:19:42Okay, go ahead.
01:19:43No, the advice was coming from him.
01:19:45But quite frankly, he asked me the question.
01:19:47So why are you answering?
01:19:49Because that's what I thought that's what I was here for.
01:19:51I know you're here for it.
01:19:52But the thing is, is that you're being very negative about it when I'm calling myself unique and bubbly.
01:19:57No.
01:19:57And I didn't get to finish my sentence and you cut me off.
01:20:00That's very ignorant.
01:20:01Okay.
01:20:02Well, I'm just trying to be efficient here because I was told you didn't have any time.
01:20:05I know you're being efficient, but you're being officially rude and I don't tolerate it.
01:20:13I think we would mean the same thing by thank God.
01:20:15So thank God.
01:20:21So that's what I want to say.
01:20:21Thank God.
01:20:22So that's what I want to say.
01:20:22So let me try to stop and share your intelligence.
01:20:23You veryå…³ely.
01:20:23Good to see you.
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