Don't Force Yourself to be GOOD! Twitter/X Space

Stefan Molyneux

Philosopher Stefan Molyneux talks about forcing yourself to be good by showing how truth-telling or generosity loses all moral value when done out of obligation, fear, or self-pressure instead of free choice.  Chapters: 0:00:00 Truth and Choice  0:05:11 Why Ask How?  0:10:14 Lies and Politeness  0:16:27 Haircuts and Habits  0:24:47 Musts Destroy Morality  0:32:35 Honesty Without Choice  0:44:35 Why Before How  0:52:08 Compulsion Kills Virtue  1:03:22 Choose Good Freely   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

Transcript

00:00:00Good morning, good morning, everybody. Welcome to Sunday Morning Philosophy, the church of

00:00:07the endless brain. I hope you are doing well, and I hope you're looking forward to a great

00:00:13day of progress. Doesn't always mean a great day. Doesn't always mean a great day, of course,

00:00:19but a great day of progress. So, a bit of an unusual circumstance here today. A bit

00:00:27of an unusual circumstance. So, I actually got permission from a private caller to talk

00:00:35about something. So, of course, I do these private calls, call.freedomain.com, and they

00:00:41are one-off, and they are entirely private, which means, of course, I can be certainly

00:00:47a little bit more blunt. And I had a private caller who said that he was fine with me talking

00:00:54about something important that came up, or that I passed along over the content of the

00:01:00call. So, obviously, I'm not going to go into any details about the person, but I did want

00:01:05to talk about the lesson that came out of the private caller, because I've talked about it

00:01:09here and there scattered, but I really did want to get it in-depth across. So, again,

00:01:16happy to take calls, but give me a couple of minutes and I can change your mind, world, future,

00:01:24being, neurons, patterns, and I think level of happiness. So, we'll call him Bob, although

00:01:34it wasn't even necessarily a male. So, Bob has a problem with someone in his life, someone

00:01:43important. And Bob wanted to go over how best to approach that person. And I thought that

00:01:54was very interesting, because you always have to make sure that your premises are correct.

00:02:02So, I am 99% Cartesian in a way. Cartesian is sort of out of René Descartes, who sat in

00:02:09a room alone and tried to figure out what he could say that was true beyond all certain,

00:02:17beyond all doubt, beyond all doubt. You know, I mentioned this on the Sam Hyde show, you know,

00:02:21you know, wipe the entire slate clean of everything in your mind. So, if you say, I'm willing to doubt

00:02:31everything, I'm willing to wipe the slate clean of everything that I know, what can I build

00:02:39with absolute certainty? Because, you know, the premises, axioms, you know, sort of the roots of

00:02:45thought, we say, okay, well, assuming the senses are valid, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They used to

00:02:49do this in math sometimes. I can't remember the name of the proof, but it was like, assuming Alexander's

00:02:56proof is true, we can blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And they found it worked every time, but they

00:03:02didn't have a proof for it. Eventually, they came up with the proof, but they would say, well, assuming

00:03:05this is true, we can now do X, Y, and Z. So, the Cartesian approach is to say, I assume

00:03:12that nothing

00:03:12is true, and this is why, this is sort of famous, I think, therefore I am, this is why it

00:03:18comes from

00:03:19that. And he said, look, even if I'm a brain in a tank being controlled by some demon, even if

00:03:24all of my

00:03:24sensory input is invalid, even if I'm in a waking dream and then a nightly dream, and even if I

00:03:31don't

00:03:32know anything true about anything outside of myself, even if I'm being fooled by everything

00:03:37around me, I can for an absolute certainty know that I exist because I am being fooled. Even if I'm

00:03:44brain in a tank, the I is the only part of that sentence that is absolutely true. I am being

00:03:54fooled. If someone, when I used to live in the business world, I would get these calls, you know,

00:04:01from these skeevy little parasitical Wall Street type vermin, oh, we got the stock, it's about to

00:04:10pop, you can double your money in six months, three months, I'm just trying to help you, you want to

00:04:15get in on this, you know, this is a ground floor opportunity, this is like being the third guy in

00:04:21Facebook, you know, you can become rich, like just absolute skeevy, toady, wretched con men.

00:04:30I mean, this is where our ability to act comes from conning people, simulating emotion in order

00:04:38to gain resources. Matt Damon is, well, politically just about the lowest whore around, but yeah,

00:04:45willing to participate in the attempt to retroactively abort European culture with the

00:04:53sloggercy. These people would, they would call up and they'd be sort of very passionate, and of course,

00:05:01the only thing I know is that they're trying to fool me, right? They're calling me, they're trying

00:05:05to fool me, even if the whole thing is an illusion, not just the stock value, but the phones, the

00:05:10person, right? So when you have choices in your life, how do I approach this person with whom I've

00:05:20had many, many years of bad treatment, right? How do I confront this person who's done me wrong?

00:05:27How do I approach this person? What's the best way to approach this person? And I asked him for his

00:05:37reasoning, because, you know, I'm always eager to hear people's reasoning. People's reasoning can

00:05:43obviously be better than mine, because, especially when it comes to something personal, because they

00:05:48know the situation, I'm just finding out about it for the first time, they've lived with it, in this

00:05:52case, for decades. And he said, well, I'm obligated to tell this person the truth. And, you know, I've

00:06:03tried in the past, it hasn't really worked, but I'm obligated to tell this person the truth. And if I

00:06:08decide I don't want to talk to this person anymore, I'm obligated to tell them that, because it's the

00:06:14truth, and I'm obligated to tell the truth, and I have to tell the truth, and I have to be

00:06:17honest,

00:06:18so I have to figure out how to talk to this person. And if I decide not to see this

00:06:23person anymore,

00:06:23I'm obligated to tell them why, and what's happening, and so on. And that's, that's very

00:06:30interesting. That's very interesting. And I wouldn't say that I disagreed. Because, you know,

00:06:39if somebody says, well, I, I must tell the truth, I want to tell, of course, we want to tell

00:06:45the truth.

00:06:45Yes, I get that. That's an important thing. But the problem is, for me, if somebody puts some weapon

00:06:55to your head and makes you do something, is it virtue? I don't think so. I don't think so.

00:07:04I mean, if somebody puts a weapon to your head and makes you rob a bank, then clearly you would

00:07:11not go

00:07:11to jail for robbing the bank, at least in a just legal system, because, well, obviously, right,

00:07:18you didn't choose to rob the bank, you're under compulsion, and so on, right? It's one of the

00:07:22general principles behind something like the Nuremberg trials after World War II, the men who

00:07:28were drafted, who were forced to fight, and so on, were not found guilty of any crimes, they were under

00:07:33a state of compulsion. However, the leadership who didn't have to be there and were making a choice,

00:07:37right? So where there is choice, where there is choice, so is there virtue. Where there is choice,

00:07:49so is there virtue. Now, of course, if we're talking about UPB violations, non-aggression principle

00:07:59violations, I mean, that's a different matter, right? But, like, I mean, you can choose to tell

00:08:05the truth or not to someone, and that's not a UPB violation, that's not necessarily good or evil,

00:08:11unless it's a kind of desperate fraud, which, of course, isn't the case with us lovely philosophy

00:08:16people. So I'm not talking about the four major UPB categories, I'm talking about something as

00:08:24complicated as how much truth to tell in a corrupt quote relationship. So when the people would call

00:08:32me with these stock offers, now, listen, I was young, I was excited, and I would sometimes listen

00:08:40for a little bit, I never, you know, was I vaguely tempted? Sure, but once I realized, overall, it was

00:08:48all just nonsense, and of course, it doesn't really take more than a moment, it's like, you can overcome

00:08:52irrational greed with rationality, right? You can't overcome greed, that's a human emotion, you can't just

00:08:58switch it off, but you can overcome irrational greed with rationality, and you say to yourself, you say,

00:09:04well, if these shares were a sure thing, baby, and they were going to go to the moon and 10x

00:09:12in 10

00:09:13months, right, then they would not be calling people, random people, to get them to buy this stock.

00:09:21They would be buying the stock themselves, right? No, no, no, I just want to share the, you know,

00:09:28I'm going to share this bounty, I want to, yeah, yeah, yeah, because parasitical fiat-based finance

00:09:34is well known for sharing all of its bounty with the common man. You can tell that just by looking

00:09:40at your bank fees. So I would have to say to them that if you just hung up, they'd call

00:09:47back and say,

00:09:47hey, man, I think we got disconnected, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I would listen for a minute

00:09:53or two and say, I've got a meeting, it sounds fantastic, let me get your number, I'll run some

00:09:58numbers, I'll call you back. And then that was the best way to get them off the line. Now, did

00:10:02I have

00:10:03any intention of calling them back? Was I telling the truth when I said, this sounds like a great

00:10:11opportunity? No. I lied. I pervaricated, I falsified. I lied. Lies! Thou shalt not bear false witness.

00:10:27Women do this, of course, as do men. Maybe men do this too. The famous, I have a boyfriend.

00:10:34And I have, I'm sorry, I have a boyfriend. I'm sorry, I have a boyfriend. There was some woman

00:10:41in a bikini at some, I think it was a festival of soap suds or something like that. There was

00:10:46sort

00:10:46of soap suds flying around. And some guy came up and she gave him a sort of coy, wry look.

00:10:51I have

00:10:52a boyfriend, went back to her dancing and so on. And just because she had an animated face and was

00:10:57willing to engage, she apparently has become some kind of sex symbol now. She's the 20-year-old woman

00:11:03who's not obese and has lively expressions. Apparently that's all you need these days.

00:11:11I mean, that's it. She could still be dancing provocatively at some soap suds festival with

00:11:17her butt hanging off her bikini, but apparently, because she's got an animated face and she's

00:11:23not obese, that's all you need. So I lied to these people trying to sell me these.

00:11:32Shite junk penny stocks, right? I lied. It really sounds like a great opportunity and I

00:11:38appreciate you calling me. It's very nice for you to rope me in on this. Let me just run some

00:11:41numbers

00:11:42and I've got a meeting right now, but I will get back to you. Are you sure? Absolutely,

00:11:46I will get back to you. And I never called them back. And usually that was the best way I

00:11:49sort of

00:11:49found over time to get rid of them. So I lied. And if you're honest, you know, I like to

00:11:58put in

00:11:59there. Maybe you're the absolute purist who never lies. I doubt it. I mean, to tell the truth

00:12:04constantly wouldn't even make any sense. You couldn't possibly tell the truth all the time

00:12:10because you wouldn't get anything else done. Here's the truth. Here's how I feel about feeling

00:12:14the truth. Here are the feelings that the feelings of the feelings I had about telling the truth are

00:12:18occurring. Oh, no. Now one of them is to admit like you just, if you're trying to communicate

00:12:21everything that's going on in your mind as honestly as possible, you'd never get anything done.

00:12:25And words will only ever be an approximation of what is going on in your mind. I mean,

00:12:31if you've ever had a complicated feeling, I remember there was an old Dave Letterman book

00:12:35of jokes and there was an actress named Pia Zadora and she had like one expression and they were

00:12:43making jokes about Pia Zadora's acting expression. And one of them was bemused resignation. I always

00:12:48remember that. Bemused resignation. It was the same as anger. It's like the many emotions of spark

00:12:53kind of thing. It was actually a fairly funny book. This is from the 80s, I think.

00:13:00Bemused resignation. So if you've ever woken up with a soft kind of complex cobwebby ashy nostalgia

00:13:09for bad times in your childhood, how do you communicate all of that? I mean, you can squeeze

00:13:15it through the narrow aperture of language, but you can't get the entire thing across. You can't

00:13:19reproduce the experience for others. So I lied. You lie. You ever walk past someone who's asked

00:13:28you for money and you say, I don't have any money on me? You ever go into a store, you're

00:13:34looking for

00:13:35something in particular, but you don't feel like interacting with a sales clerk and they say,

00:13:39can I help you with anything? And you say, no, I'm just browsing because you want to take your own

00:13:42time. You want them all around. Or maybe you're a little shy. You don't like engaging in much

00:13:46conversation with strangers. Anything. When I go to get a haircut, easiest haircut known to man.

00:13:54Number one, square back and sides. Shave down my Congo neck just a little, if you don't mind,

00:14:01monsieur. And with seemingly great pride and happiness, they say, they hold up that mirror and

00:14:09I look at my giant half-arse cheek of the back of my head and they say, what do you

00:14:14think? Well,

00:14:15what I think is, I look mostly bald. That's what I think. I mean, they seem to want to have

00:14:25me

00:14:26admire the artistry of me, me, me, buzzing the giant double D half-boob at the back of my head.

00:14:35Well done. You have made that which is longer, shorter. Amazing. What an artist you are. It's about

00:14:44as much art as bricklaying compared to carving Michelangelo's David. Oh, what do you think?

00:14:53Oh, it's magnificent, sir. You have made that which is long, shorter with your buzz-buzz machine.

00:15:00Well done. Now, maybe they're engaging in a ritual like to make me feel better or something like that.

00:15:07Oh, the last time I got a haircut, the very eager barber put his card in my hand. When you

00:15:15want your

00:15:16haircut, you'll come back to me. You'll come back to me. And I'm like, sure. I'm never going to call

00:15:24the guy. Like, I'm not, I don't have that in my head. I get a haircut when my wife says,

00:15:30you look ridiculous. You look like a wounded dandelion. It's kind of true. I'm not going to

00:15:39argue. She's pithy and accurate. And, but the idea that I, ah, I remember Luigi from the place

00:15:47with the buzz. I must go back to only I, only Luigi can handle my mane. I have a mane,

00:15:56but it's with an

00:15:57N-G, right, G-E at the end, right? My mange. So, I'm like, yeah, sounds great.

00:16:05And then I left the barbershop and I tossed it in the garbage, not out of any negativity

00:16:12towards the guy. Seemed like a nice guy. No problem with that. But in no universe am I

00:16:18going to devote any part of my brain power to getting the right fricking haircut?

00:16:27I mean, you know, bald sucked a little bit when I was going through it, but now it's absolutely

00:16:32glorious. I don't have, you don't have bad hair days when you have a bad hair life. Like,

00:16:37they're all bad hair days and you don't need to worry about it. So, this guy says to me,

00:16:42ah, you must come back to me and only me. And I'm like, no, I don't really think that's true.

00:16:48I don't really think that's true. You know, like somebody who gives your car an oil change,

00:16:53you must come back to me. It's like, well, you drained out the oil, you put in some new oil.

00:16:56I'm

00:16:56not really sure that it's a just you phenomenon. I mean, if I have delicate surgery and you're the

00:17:02best in the field, then yeah, give me a card. But if it's just like, change my oil, shave back

00:17:09my

00:17:09goofy, late middle-aged, dandelion fluff. Yes, anyone can do it. And I've never had a bad haircut

00:17:17since I lost my hair. Like, I've never had a, I mean, I've never had a bad haircut. I mean,

00:17:22when I was a teenager, my brother came back from England after spending a couple of years there

00:17:26with relatives. Yes, he got me into a decent barber. I used to, when I was younger, I would go

00:17:33to save money. My mother would either sometimes do my haircuts herself, like a literal bowl cut,

00:17:39and once she did it with pinking shears, which are those ones that have the zigzag up and down,

00:17:43and I went to school with my forehead looking like some Italian cafe barbershop awning,

00:17:49but, and she would sometimes take me down, we would go down the pape, and you could get your

00:17:56haircut for two bucks because they were student barbers. And I'm going to immortalize this forever

00:18:02for no particular reason. I remember because I was on the swim team and the water polo team,

00:18:06and my hair had turned slightly green from chlorine, and the student barber who was cutting my hair,

00:18:13and I was like 14 or so, maybe 13, and I said, oh, you swim a lot. And then her

00:18:21supervisor who was

00:18:21passing by says, you know, come back after the shift, she'll tell your whole future. I just remember

00:18:26that joke from, oh my, oh my, many moons ago. That probably would be 1979. So, ramble tangents

00:18:36aside, as if they can be winked or whisked out of existence, I lie. I lie. Have you ever had

00:18:44food

00:18:44that's just okay? It's okay. It's okay. I mean, I picked up a sandwich from Tim Hortons the other day,

00:18:51and it was like genuine ass meat between soggy bread. But of course, for reasons pretty obvious,

00:18:58Tim Hortons has gone down the toilet over the last couple of years. But you know, you go to the

00:19:04restaurant, and the food's okay, right? I mean, maybe it's food that can't be great. Like you just

00:19:09go and you get, you know, eggs and toast. How's your food? Well, it's not currently on fire, so it's

00:19:17fine.

00:19:17I mean, it's eggs and toast, really, really. Can you have fantastic eggs and toast? I mean,

00:19:24I'm talking at a diner. Maybe it's some sort of high-end Hilton you can, but the diner, eggs and

00:19:30toast, and a side of, I hate, I hate, um, not hash brown, home fries, you know, the little,

00:19:37little squares, and the idea of eating fried, deep fried potatoes in the morning is kind of repulsive.

00:19:44But, you know, eggs sunny side up, side of toast, slice of fried tomato. How's your food? It's food.

00:19:56I can digest it, and it doesn't taste anything different than eggs and toast and tomato.

00:20:03We say, that's good. That's good. Thank you. Now, occasionally, I will have a really good meal,

00:20:08and I will really tell people, like, even at a fast food place, I like, when I return the tray

00:20:13or

00:20:13whatever, like, man, that was really good. Like, thank you. That was fantastic, right? But you say,

00:20:17it's good. It's good. Yeah, thanks. Is it good? Uh, it's, it is, it is what it is. It's whatever,

00:20:25right? It's okay. If I'm feeling particularly desperate for caffeine, and I'm in, like,

00:20:32Lord above, help me, a, I can't even say, Lord, Lord God above, help me, if I'm desperate for caffeine,

00:20:38and I'm in a bar. Oh, and I say to the waitress, really, try to be honest with me, how's

00:20:46your coffee?

00:20:47I mean, you go to a cafe, you'll get a good coffee. You go to a bar, you're going to

00:20:52get

00:20:53industrial bilge water flecked with Guinness leftovers. It's not going to be pretty, but, you know,

00:21:00if you're an addict, as it could be conceived that I am, fine. If I can't get the good stuff,

00:21:06I'll get the bad stuff as long as I get the stuff. And then you get the coffee, and it

00:21:12is,

00:21:13as you expected, industrial sludge with that strange leftover from Nescafe from some tin

00:21:24in London from 1979. And she says, how is the coffee? You say, it's not bad. It's not bad.

00:21:30When it is, in fact, bad, what are you going to say? I mean, actual truth, direct truth?

00:21:36And, you know, maybe this is bad. I don't know. I mean, I don't know. But I do generally,

00:21:40I am generally of the opinion that it is, in fact, quite important to be polite. I mean,

00:21:50we've all done it. Come on. You have a headache. You slept badly. You woke up. Oh, my neck was

00:21:57at

00:21:57one degree away from normal. And now I have a crick. Oh, no. And I got up at night to

00:22:06use the

00:22:06bathroom, and I stubbed my toe. And I had the clawfoot of sleepless agony. And, you know,

00:22:12you're having a bad morning. And, you know, you're getting something or talking to someone.

00:22:17How are you doing? Good. I'm good. I mean, you don't want to unpack your tale of nightly woe and

00:22:23exhaustion. Last night, I was lured into eating something that I could have easily digested

00:22:30when I was younger. I remember one of my, I had a pretty good relationship with one of my

00:22:36professors at York University because he cast me on all the plays he was directing. He really liked

00:22:41my acting, so I got the lead in all of his plays. And I remember because he had me start

00:22:46coming in to

00:22:47talk about a play and so on. And he never auditioned me. And he's like, you got it, man.

00:22:53You're the best actor in the university. So that was nice. I didn't really, I never take things for

00:22:58granted. Anyway, I remember once after a rehearsal, we were chatting about the play or something. And

00:23:04there was a hot dog cart. And I went out and it was two bucks. And I used to do

00:23:09this a lot because,

00:23:09you know, I was broke. And so I would go to the hot dog cart. I'd pay my two bucks.

00:23:14And I would get a hot dog and I would load it up, right? Load it up. This guy had

00:23:18amazing stuff.

00:23:19You ever come to this hot dog vendors with the infinite buffet of toppings? It's incredible.

00:23:23So I put some cheese on top, put some onions on top. He even had tomatoes, which is kind of

00:23:27unusual.

00:23:28Put the relish, put the mustard, squirt some mayo, a couple of other things. Olives. Oh yeah,

00:23:33he had olives, black and green olives. Like it was amazing. The guy was just an infinite cavalcade of

00:23:38cruise line buffet stuff to put on the hot dog. And so I'd pay my two bucks and I'd get

00:23:45this mountain

00:23:45of food. And I would, you know, I'm a polite guy. So I would wait for the professor to start

00:23:52talking.

00:23:53And, you know, he was a long-winded fellow. Not that I'm going to throw any stones in my giant

00:23:57Billy Joel glass house, but I'd wait for him to start talking. And I would take a big bite

00:24:06of my hot dog and salad and mountain of everything. And I remember he looked at me

00:24:12and he's like, enjoy that while you can enjoy that while you're young. Cause I guess the idea

00:24:18that he would eat it and I don't have too sensitive a stomach, but last night I picked up a

00:24:23burger and

00:24:23fries kind of unusual. I don't normally eat something like that, but you know, you have a hankering or

00:24:28whatever. And I said, I'll just eat half, but it was so good. And anyway, so I think that may

00:24:32have

00:24:32had something to do with a slightly, slightly tepid sleep schedule or whatever it is, right?

00:24:36So you wake up and maybe you're not feeling super alert or super happy. And people say,

00:24:41how are you doing? I say, fine. Anyway, so lies, lies, lies, foul lies, foul lies.

00:24:48So back to my caller, back to my caller, Bob. Bob says, well, I got to talk to this person

00:24:59because I, I got to tell the truth. I got to be honest. Now, the moment you say, I have

00:25:07to,

00:25:08you can't be moral. Look at that. Only half an hour in and I get to the point, Ooh, personal

00:25:14best,

00:25:16light off the fireworks, release the doves. The moment you say, I have to, I must, you can't be

00:25:25moral because then you're just following orders. Do you see? You're just following orders and you

00:25:31can neither be good nor bad. You're like someone in the Ukrainian front, skulking down the street,

00:25:38hiding at home. You have to go out for some reason, got to renew your driver's license or pay

00:25:42your taxes or whatever it is. And then you get grabbed, you get thrown in the van, you get a

00:25:46couple of weeks of training, you get sent to the front and you get disassembled by some drone.

00:25:50There's no moral content because you're under compulsion. You've been drafted. You've been

00:25:55enslaved. So the moment you say to yourself, I have to, I must, it's no longer moral. Morality

00:26:05is based on choice. If morality is you just taking orders from abstractions, then you're just obeying.

00:26:14It's like praising the direction that a train is going in. The train can only go in a sustained way

00:26:22in one direction, which is where the train tracks are. Oh, good choice going left on those train

00:26:29tracks through the mountains. Good job. That was very, was very skillfully turned. Well, I guess you

00:26:35could talk about speed, but you know, assuming it's a reasonable speed, the train is going to go

00:26:41where the tracks are. And of course, can you imagine hijacking a train?

00:26:49Take me to Switzerland. Like, bro, we're in the Rockies. We ain't getting to Switzerland.

00:26:55I mean, can you imagine? I mean, the plane, yeah, you can take it, you know, and redirect and

00:27:02pale, it can fly places, whatever, right? But a train was an old joke when I was young.

00:27:06Did you hear about the Irish IRA guy who did that to a train? The train is following the tracks.

00:27:17So, in your life, when you say to yourself, I have to, I must, you're no longer good. You're

00:27:28just following orders. You're making yourself do something. And this kind of liberation is really,

00:27:34really important. I mean, we all want to be good. We should all strive for virtue, consistency,

00:27:41integrity. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. Lying can be extremely efficient.

00:27:49How long would it take for me to explain to the barber that I don't care what the back of

00:27:53my

00:27:53head looks like? I don't. I mean, I felt him buzz it. It's fine. Look at the back of your

00:28:00head. It is

00:28:00like a magnificent semi-hairy baby's ass cheek. And I'm like, I don't care. Just thank you for

00:28:06making it shorter. I don't look like a ridiculous dandelion fluff, so I'll be on my way. I mean,

00:28:12I rarely, you know, I mean, people rarely see the back of my head. I'm not like I, I'm not

00:28:16like Jim

00:28:16Morrison. When he first began singing, he sang with his back against the audience because he was so shy.

00:28:21I'm not going to do a show with you guys looking at the back of my head.

00:28:26So am I going to explain all of that to him? No, it's good. I just, it's efficient and it's

00:28:31harmless. Now, if I were to say, well, you know, if he asks me what I think of the haircut,

00:28:36I have to explain everything. If he gives me this speech about how I should call him and only him

00:28:42to

00:28:42get my next haircut because he's so good. And it was at a place that was relatively far away from

00:28:48my

00:28:48home. Just happened to be out there at the mall. And my wife's like, get a haircut. And I'm like,

00:28:53sure. Good plan. Good plan. I'm not driving out there to get a haircut. Am I going to explain all

00:29:00of that? No. Is it going to make any difference? No. It's a waste of time to tell the truth

00:29:06when it

00:29:06affects not at all the outcome. I mean, it's not like I made an appointment and failed to show up.

00:29:11That's different. Do not turn philosophy into compulsion. I woke up this morning after having a,

00:29:21an interesting night of trying to digest something that I would have been fine with when I was 20.

00:29:26Big giant lump of grissel and carbs. And I didn't order fries, but it came with fries. I had a

00:29:33couple

00:29:33of fries, which is unusual. I don't normally eat fries. I mean, they're pretty, they're pretty good

00:29:38if they're fresh, but I don't normally eat them. And I was like, oh, you ever eat that stuff? And

00:29:45it's

00:29:45like, ah, congealed bowling ball is now passing through the London subway map of my lower intestines.

00:29:54I remember a, the girl who asked me to go steady when I was 12. I remember her family took

00:30:05me out

00:30:05for lunch. And after lunch, there were these mints on the table that comes in the little flappy

00:30:15pouch that the bill comes in. And I, I put the after dinner mint, it's fairly big mint in my

00:30:22mouth.

00:30:23And then her father asked me something and I wanted to be polite and I swallowed quickly

00:30:29to answer him. And then they lingered there for another half an hour while this mint was having

00:30:35some sort of high speed chase through my esophagus and whatever leads to your stomach. And what it

00:30:43was, and we went there, your stomach takes four hours to empty or whatever. Right. So, but I remember

00:30:48like I, I felt this every twist and turn of this highly tremulous death egg moving its way through my

00:30:56innards. And I had to just sit there like, Oh, don't, don't react. Don't react. I'm sweating.

00:31:01I'm trying to concentrate. I'm trying. They must've thought I was some sort of drug addict or something

00:31:05like that. I'm sweating. I'm bodies jerking from time to time as this thing careams around like some

00:31:11sort of rocket league blowup doll. Am I going to sit there and say, Oh, you know, I got to

00:31:18get up and

00:31:18move around. I'm so sorry. I, I, I swallowed the giant murder egg and it's now attempting to

00:31:24vivisect me from the inside out. I got some Hannibal the cannibal rolling around in my gut.

00:31:32Nope. Just grinned and chatted and attempted not to look like I was giving birth to some alien life

00:31:42form through my armpit. It's generally a good plan to have over the course of the day. Don't make

00:31:49yourself do things. Now, not that any one of you lovely, gentle listeners would, you know,

00:31:55obviously don't shoplift. Don't, don't do things like that. And so if it's UPB violations, yeah,

00:32:01make yourself do that. Make yourself not do that, whatever it is, right? If you have the urge to

00:32:07smack someone because they're really annoying you, okay, yes, don't do that, right? Make yourself not

00:32:12do that. But I'm not talking about UPB violations. That's not a thing. The UPB violations is not a

00:32:18thing that we as an audience in general need to be overly concerned with. I've had a couple of people

00:32:26over the course of 21 years talk about, you know, I hit this person or I smacked this person or

00:32:30whatever

00:32:31it is. And they're usually ashamed of it. And so we'll work to resolve that. So I'm not talking about

00:32:35UPB and non-aggression principle. I'm just talking about the call, the private call that the person

00:32:41kindly said, feel free to talk about this with others. And so this is a sort of sample. I guess

00:32:48you could say this is a little sample platter of a private call. So he said, I have to talk

00:32:55to this

00:32:55person who's done me wrong for many, many years. I have to talk to this person. I have to be

00:32:59honest.

00:33:00And I said, but it's not honesty if you have to. It's not honesty if you have to. So if

00:33:09you have

00:33:09a girlfriend and you grab her phone, let's say it's still unlocked, right? You grab her phone

00:33:17thinking it's yours and there's cheating text messages right there. And she looks up. Oh my

00:33:24God. She realizes the horror of what's happening. And she says, I'm having an affair. Is she virtuous

00:33:30for telling the truth? Nope. No, of course not. She just realizes that you've just seen it.

00:33:36You pop open the phone and right there is some man's tumescent 75 degree skyward looking Richard

00:33:44picture. Ah, well, at least you had the common sense to choose a man who is intact. Oh, I have

00:33:52an

00:33:52affair. I had an affair. I had an affair. I had an affair. I confessing. Well, is she telling the

00:33:58truth?

00:33:59Yeah. I mean, technically she's telling you the truth. Does she get any points for it? Is it

00:34:02virtuous? No, no, no, not at all. She's not racked by conscience. She's not chosen to tell you because

00:34:10she feels bad. She's like, she's just, oh, he's caught me. I might as well confess. Might as well

00:34:14get ahead of this. And then later on she can say, at least I told you. It's a manipulation, right?

00:34:21There's no points there. It is pointless. If you make yourself, I mean, I mean, I do this on a

00:34:27pretty continual basis, right? So I woke up. I wasn't bad. I was a little, I could have used a

00:34:33little bit more sleep. I woke up about 9.15 this morning and I only fell asleep around four in

00:34:40the

00:34:40morning. It's kind of unusual, but whatever it happened. So it's the burger. Now, did I say,

00:34:47oh man, I got to get up. I have to, I got, I got a show scheduled at 10. People

00:34:52are counting on me.

00:34:53I got to do it. No, no. The only thing I got to do is die. No, no. I could

00:35:02have just said,

00:35:02nah, I don't feel like it. I don't want to. I'm not going to do it. And in order to

00:35:06preserve my

00:35:07pleasure at doing the show, at having this conversation with you, in order to preserve

00:35:12that pleasure, it has to be chosen. I have to choose to do the show. I got a, I got

00:35:19a, I got a.

00:35:20It's just taking orders, being pushed around and having the weaponry of sophistry to your head

00:35:30and then saying, well, I did the right thing. I fulfilled my obligations. I blah, blah, blah,

00:35:34blah, blah, right? I'm a, I'm a good boy. I obeyed orders. These two thoughts cannot ever coincide.

00:35:42I'm a good person. I obeyed orders. Nope. I mean, for those of us who suffered under the

00:35:49extremely dangerous COVID tyranny, how did we feel about all of those who just did the right thing,

00:35:55obeyed orders, did, did what was expected, did the right thing, saved granny, turned on the

00:36:00unvaccinated. Do we feel like, oh, good people? Yeah, they just, they did what they were told.

00:36:04So they're good people. Nope. Even if what you're being told is good, you're not good for obeying it.

00:36:11Yes. And I know I'm shouting at you from some potentially imagine, what's a completely imaginary

00:36:19higher mountain of ideal being. That's not the case. I have to remind myself of this stuff, right?

00:36:23I don't have to. I don't have to. I can quit all of this tomorrow, go work in a gas

00:36:29station.

00:36:30I can fulfill my lifelong dream of becoming a mime in Australia. Sorry, a lifelong dream,

00:36:37but if I had one, right, I could go do that. I can wake up and I can go backpacking

00:36:42alone

00:36:43through the Ural Mountains if I want and never touch a microphone again. Never. Never. Because

00:36:51the only way what I do has value is if I don't have to do it. If I don't have

00:36:59to do it. I could

00:37:01follow Jesus's induction, sell everything I own, give the money to the poor, join a monastery,

00:37:07pull a full Leonard Cohen. I could do all of that. Leonard Cohen, a famous singer-songwriter,

00:37:13some hallelujah, you probably know, bird on a wire. Aaron Neville's version's amazing.

00:37:17He was in a monastery. He had a gravel voice. He was in a monastery. And he came back out

00:37:23because

00:37:23his girlfriend, I think, either spent or stole or whatever, but his money was all gone.

00:37:30All I need is a pint today if I ever get out of here. His money was all gone.

00:37:37Got to be a reason why my money's all gone. I got a Dalmatian. I can still get high. I

00:37:45can play

00:37:46the guitar like a... Anyway, you know the rest of that song. I can do anything. I can do anything.

00:37:53You can do anything. Ah, yes, well, you know, I got to eat. I got to live. Yeah, sure. I

00:37:57get that.

00:37:58You don't even have to do that. Make it a choice. And that's the only way to make it good.

00:38:04What you choose can be virtuous. What you do under the compulsion of, quote, virtue

00:38:10is just obeying orders and is not good. You ever have this? You ever have this? I'm sure you have.

00:38:17I can't be alone. You ever have this? This is when I was younger, right? I put a lot into

00:38:26relationships. You know, I mean, I like to help. I mean, the call-in shows, I thought they were all

00:38:33going to be about philosophy, but it turned out people wanted to talk about personal stuff, which

00:38:37is fine. I'm not complaining about that. That's interesting and important and valuable. And my

00:38:43wife says psychology grew out of philosophy because philosophy was not enough to get people to change.

00:38:49It's actually a very interesting perspective. And more than a perspective, I think there's something

00:38:54fundamentally true about it, which is why when I was talking about all these abstractions and good

00:38:59and evil and right and wrong and UPP. And so she says, I remember just standing in the kitchen,

00:39:04she said, yeah, yeah, but it all starts with the family. It all starts with the family.

00:39:09Oh, electric arcs crossing through every neuron in my brain, reshaping, reforming,

00:39:14helping define my life's work. Amazing person. So you ever have this? You put a lot into relationships.

00:39:22You help people. You give them feedback. You try to give them some guidance. You maybe lend them some

00:39:28money. I mean, geez, when I was younger, because I was a chief executive, I was a chief technical

00:39:34officer. I've interviewed like a thousand people. I've hired like a hundred people pretty effectively

00:39:40too, especially after I developed an intelligence test. It was basically that that was the way to do

00:39:47it. But I was pouring a lot of, hey, let's go here. Hey, let's go to there. Hey, let's do

00:39:53that. I mean,

00:39:54I remember I gave a friend of mine who wanted to act a role in a play that I was

00:39:58directing.

00:40:00It generated a lot of stuff, generated businesses, generated jobs, generated activities. Let's do

00:40:06this. Let's do that. A friend of mine, when we were working up north, we got a month off.

00:40:10And back then Air Canada had, you could pay a certain amount of money and you could fly anywhere

00:40:14in Ontario, Quebec for a month. And we just spent the whole month flying around, staying in hostels,

00:40:20seeing stuff, doing stuff, generating all of that. I mean, didn't pay for it, but coming up with the

00:40:24ideas and making things happen. I put a lot, I put a lot into my relationships, make things happen.

00:40:32And then, you know, at some point that niggling brain worm pops up in your head that says,

00:40:36is this really equal? Is this, is this reciprocal? Is this, is this balanced? Is this, do they,

00:40:46do they care as much about me as I care about them? Do they care as much about generating

00:40:50interesting, interesting and enjoyable things as I do? You ever do this? You, if you're a too mucher,

00:40:57if you're a too mucher, and I, you know, tried to hold my family together, tried to

00:41:01make positive things happen and so on. So I'm, I certainly was, it's less so now, I was a too

00:41:07mucher.

00:41:08And then at some point, like, it's just Jenga, right? You just keep taking little blocks out.

00:41:16Oh, I wonder about this. Okay. If I stop putting energy into this, what happens? Okay. If I stop

00:41:21putting energy into that, what happens? In other words, have I trained people to be passive receivers

00:41:27of the energy and resources that I put out? What happens if I stop, what happens if I stop putting

00:41:34out, right? What happens if I stop being a too mucher? Well, as it turns out, if I stop being

00:41:43a too mucher,

00:41:43the Mi Plus, well, there's, there's nothing, nothing, nothing. You know, it's like, uh, you're in a tandem

00:41:53bike with someone and you're, you're busted your quads, flexing your butt cheeks like Jean-Claude

00:42:01Van Damme between two Volvo buses, and you're getting up the hill, and the other person's just sitting

00:42:09back there with their legs on the bar smoking. And what happens if you stop pedaling? If you need a

00:42:16rest, if you need a break, if you're tired, what happens? Well, of course, you hope that if you

00:42:22stop pedaling, the other guy is going to drop his cigarette and get his freaking feet on the pedals

00:42:28and start grinding his gears. That's what you hope. And what happens if you stop pedaling,

00:42:33and the whole thing, you just start coasting back down towards the T intersection with the trucks?

00:42:39Well, you've got to jump off. What happens if you stop being a too mucher and you stop pedaling for

00:42:43both of you? What happens? What happens if you stop pouring energy into people and you see what comes

00:42:50back? I got to take a break, guys. I've been pedaling for too long. My legs are killing me like

00:42:57I'm getting cramps. I can see like giant troll thumbs, invisible troll thumbs are pressing into my

00:43:03muscles. I can see these ripples like I'm going to really hurt myself to pull something bad and tear a

00:43:08muscle. So I'm going to stop pedaling. And then you just start sliding backwards and you're going to

00:43:13crash and it's going to be bad. What happens if you stop pouring energy into other people? What happens

00:43:20if you let them pedal for a while? What happens if you stop overcompensating and start expecting

00:43:28equality? I must pour energy time resources into my relationships. I must. You don't. Must.

00:43:39It's not a virtuous relationship if you're pouring additional resources into people because you feel

00:43:48that's what you must do or you're avoiding the anxiety of finding out what you're actually worth

00:43:52to people if you're not working like some manic coked up Stephen King directing monkey, pouring

00:43:59resources, energy, time, humor, jokes, jobs into people. What happens if you stop pedaling? Well, if you

00:44:07pour resources into people because you're afraid of finding out if they really care about you, as you,

00:44:15not just for what you provide, but as you, well, it's not a good thing. It's not a kind thing.

00:44:20It's not a positive thing. It's not a virtuous thing. It's just a fear thing. If I don't provide

00:44:26resources, people won't like me. They won't pay any attention to me. They won't care about me. I

00:44:30won't have anyone to go to Quebec and Ontario with for a month. I'll be alone. That's not good.

00:44:38So with the caller, again, with his permission, I said, sorry, why do you have to talk to them?

00:44:46Why do you have to talk to this person? Well, I've got to be honest. I've got to tell the

00:44:50truth. I owe

00:44:50them that much and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I said, well, then you don't have a choice.

00:44:55You just, you don't have a choice. If you have to do it because it's the right thing to do,

00:45:01then just, then why are you calling me for advice? I said, how, how I should do it? And I

00:45:06said, but the

00:45:06how assumes the why. How do I climb Mount Everest carrying a medium-sized pachyderm? Come on, let's

00:45:17puzzle this out. I have a question. Not how do you climb Mount Everest with a medium-sized pachyderm on

00:45:23your back, but why would you climb Mount Everest with a medium-sized pachyderm on your back? Why?

00:45:30That seems a bit more relevant. This is the foundation of voluntarism or anarcho-capitalism.

00:45:37How should the government provide these services? Uh-uh. Eh. Let's Rene Descartes. Let's blank slate it.

00:45:45Wipe the blackboard clean. Not how should the government provide these services. Why should

00:45:51the government provide these services? Not how do you talk to someone who's done you wrong for many

00:45:57years, but why should you talk to someone who's done you wrong for many years? Well, the people

00:46:02who call me up and waste my time trying to sell me garbage-ass white paper stocks, how do I

00:46:08tell

00:46:09them the truth? What truth do I, why do I need to tell the truth about the people who are

00:46:13intruding

00:46:13and will just call me back and tie up my phone line like it's trespassing? I don't mind the first

00:46:18time,

00:46:19but you know, and I'd say to them, take me off the list. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we'll get to that.

00:46:24And they

00:46:26not the how. That is the first question. It's the why or the whether. Why do I have to talk

00:46:33to this

00:46:33person? Now, there could be a good reason, but if you just assume on the basis of a kind of

00:46:41totalitarian flock-based fascistic set of orders called philosophy that you have to do it like

00:46:45you're a train on a tracks, then you're not good. You're good if you choose. Maybe there are good

00:46:51reasons for talking to this person. Maybe there aren't. But assuming that you have to talk to this

00:46:55person because there's this virtue called honesty, such a lonely word, because there's this virtue

00:47:00called honesty, I have to. Nope. I mean, where you have honesty in a relationship, people are honest

00:47:10with you. I think you owe people. But we've all had this, right? You go to your spam folder for

00:47:17whatever

00:47:17reason. Wasn't there some, something in the, was it in the Alex Jones trial where they said he was

00:47:23sending some sort of very salacious or negative material? It turned out it was just the contents

00:47:27of his junk folder, which you can't really control. But, you know, you have this thing where

00:47:32your renewal is coming up for something, and maybe it's something you even have.

00:47:36And then, of course, you go to the from, and it's some Elon Musk-named Eastern European keyboard

00:47:42mash of an email address, not from the actual place. Do you say, well, you know, I am obligated to

00:47:49pay

00:47:49my bills, and this is a bill that came in, I must pay it? No. No. Because, of course, it's

00:47:58fraudulent,

00:47:58right? This one's your credit card number. It's fraudulent. So you don't owe paying the bill if the

00:48:05bill is fraudulent, and you don't owe the truth to people who are fraudulent. The people who were

00:48:09calling me up, I mean, it's legal, I suppose, for these guys to call you up and, 10x your money

00:48:16in 10

00:48:16months, and wouldn't you like to have that beautiful Caribbean vacation, or buy a new car for your

00:48:21wife? All right. Just dangle this OnlyFans horror of selling your soul. I guess it's legal, but it's

00:48:29not moral. It's not moral. So do I owe honesty to people who are not moral? Nope. I really don't.

00:48:40If I say to someone, hey, hey, man, here's what I need in this relationship, and it's a just and

00:48:45fair request, you know? Like, I did this for you. I'd really appreciate it if you did something to

00:48:49me, or whatever it is, right? You know, if you've got some friend, and you've lent him a bunch of

00:48:53money over the years, and he's paid you back, or whatever, and then you need to borrow some money,

00:48:56it's like, ooh, I'm not comfortable with that. It's like, ah, that seems a bit odd, because you're

00:49:01very comfortable borrowing the money, and you don't want to lend the money. That seems kind of not

00:49:07consistent. You know, let's at least have a conversation about this, right? And let's say the guy doesn't want

00:49:11to have a conversation with you. Won't lend you the money. I mean, do you say, hey, I'd like to

00:49:18talk about this, and he's like, yeah, yeah, we'll get to it. Some point, right? And never contacts you

00:49:22for a while. I mean, what do you do? Ah, I've got to sit down and talk, got to explain.

00:49:26Nope, nope, nope,

00:49:27nope, nope. He borrowed money from you for years. He will not lend you money. And let's say he's got

00:49:35it,

00:49:35right? So he's got the money. And even if he doesn't have the money, maybe he has a line of

00:49:40credit.

00:49:40Maybe he can whatever, right? If you fronted someone money for years, then it's reasonable

00:49:45to expect that they may lend you if they could. And usually people can, to some degree or another.

00:49:52So do you owe him pursuit? Do you owe him more truth? Do you owe him more honesty? Nope. Well,

00:49:56I've got to be. You know, if I choose not to see this guy anymore, because I was annoyed that

00:49:59he

00:50:00never lent me any money after I'd lent him money for years, and wouldn't talk to me about it, and

00:50:03I told

00:50:03him what I needed, and I've got to tell him why. I've got to tell him why. I've got to

00:50:09talk to him

00:50:10anymore. I need to get closure. Nope. I mean, hey, if you want it, I mean, you can do it

00:50:14if

00:50:14you, I mean, I'm not saying you can't, right? Because, you know, if I say you have to, or

00:50:18you can't, right, those two are just giving you orders. Why do I never tell people what

00:50:22to do? I don't tell people what to do. Because if they do something because I tell them, there's

00:50:27no moral content in it. I mean, if you say to your kid, if you don't share that toy, you

00:50:37will never

00:50:37see a screen again until you're an adult. And then the kid, oh, okay, share the toy. Oh, look, she's

00:50:43learned the value of sharing. Oh, it's beautiful. Look how well she shares. Oh, magnificent hugs all

00:50:50around. Like, nope. She's got no moral virtue or value in sharing, even if we say that sharing is

00:50:57a moral value or virtue. No moral content. Just been threatened. So if you say, well, I've got to

00:51:03tell the truth, because if I don't tell the truth, I'm going to call myself a bad person who lied

00:51:09and

00:51:09is immoral, then there's no moral content in telling the truth. You cannot tell the truth

00:51:17if you make yourself tell the truth, right? I mean, this is really, really important.

00:51:24Sorry, of course it is, right? Been an hour on this, right? It's really, really important.

00:51:28If you pay a woman to be your, quote, girlfriend for the weekend, right? Some escort gives you the

00:51:35girlfriend experience, right? Is she your girlfriend? Nope. It's just incentives. I mean,

00:51:42she's faking it, I suppose. Not that I've ever known a woman who fakes it, but she's faking

00:51:47it, right? She's not your girlfriend. Come Sunday night or Monday morning, she's like,

00:51:52okay, I need my money and take care. Love to do it again if you've got the money. But she's

00:51:57not your girlfriend. She's simply responding to incentives. She doesn't care about you.

00:52:01She doesn't love you. She's not going to buy you a birthday present. She's not going to

00:52:05ask if you slept well. She's not your girlfriend. The welfare state is not charity. People who are

00:52:11forced to do things are not responsible for them. And if you force yourself to do something,

00:52:16it's not good. Truth is something that must be chosen. If you simply order yourself to tell the

00:52:24truth, you can't tell the truth. Because telling the truth is an act of virtue, and an act of virtue

00:52:29has to be chosen, not compelled. Now, if you don't want to tell the truth, and you say, well, I

00:52:35have a

00:52:36virtue called telling the truth, so I have to tell the truth. I'm going to force myself to tell the

00:52:40truth. All you've achieved is threat, and dominion, and enforcement, not virtue. If somebody who's

00:52:49about to steal sees a security camera, and then decides not to steal, have they done anything

00:52:55virtuous? Nope. Nope. They haven't chosen to respect property rights, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:53:01Nope. They just, ah, I don't want to get caught. I don't want to get caught. Ah, if I get

00:53:05caught for

00:53:05stealing, I could miss my third offense. I could actually go to jail, unless I get a female judge,

00:53:10in which case I'll get, ah, a warm lecture and, ah, set free. Nope. You can only tell the truth

00:53:20if

00:53:20you choose to tell the truth. If you just give yourself orders, you're not telling the truth,

00:53:24you're just mouthing words. There's no moral content. If a man is forced to rob a bank, he's

00:53:28not robbing a bank. He's going through the motions on the basis of compulsion. A man washing up,

00:53:34a fat man washing up on a desert island with very little food, doesn't get to say,

00:53:39I think I'll choose to diet. Like, what was his name, Chumley on Loss? The guy with the giant

00:53:46head of brillo hair who weighed a good 300 plus pounds, and he's on this desert island with very

00:53:51little food, and mysteriously, he maintains his weight. It's magic. I've chosen to die. I've chosen

00:53:59to lose weight. I've chosen to die. It's like, bro, you're on a desert island. You didn't choose

00:54:02anything. You don't have enough food. That's not the same as dieting. You know, one of the

00:54:08roots, I think, of the obesity crisis has to do with men who came back from wars were thin

00:54:14and starved. There's a scene in Mrs. Miniver where the guy has come back from the war, he

00:54:19was overweight before the war, he's slender now, and he starts eating like a pig. You know,

00:54:24when there was a guy, I think it was in the 50s, volunteered for starvation rations, starvation

00:54:29rations to some degree, and they all lost massive amounts of weight. They were on this

00:54:33thing for two years, and they became obsessed with food and so on. Now, their, quote, starvation

00:54:39rations were a little over 1,600 calories a day, so they weren't starving. They weren't

00:54:44pulling some 500-calorie Dallas Buyers Club Matthew McConaughey self-starving or some machinist

00:54:50Christian Bale thing, but, you know, 1,600 calories. Now, when they were finally out of

00:54:56this experiment, what they needed to do to gain weight was to eat like 4,000 calories or 5,000

00:55:02calories. And so, when you're at war, you're hungry. It's one of the sort of things that

00:55:08happens because it's just highly, you've a high degree of physical activity. Sometimes, I know the

00:55:12army's a lot of hurry up and wait, but sometimes it's like a lot of physical activity, a lot of

00:55:16adrenaline, a lot of fear, a lot of sleeplessness. It's all terrible for your system, and not enough

00:55:21food often, right? How many people come back from the front lines fast? Well, no one. I guess you

00:55:27also want to be a smaller target. And so, they came back, and they were hungry. They had years

00:55:33of suppressed appetites, and then they gorged. A lot of them became overweight, and if you're

00:55:39overweight, that can transmit itself genetically. I don't know if it's male. I'm not positive, but

00:55:44it's possible. Well, it's possible. It's not a great argument. So, the people at war, were

00:55:52they on a diet? Nope. They just didn't have enough food. Stuck on some island off the coast

00:55:59of Japan? No food. Or some Japanese soldier who sits in the jungle for 30 years because he

00:56:06doesn't know the war is over? There's no food. I mean, very little, right? So, that which

00:56:13is done under compulsion has no moral content. So, if you want to be good, you can't make

00:56:19yourself be good. You have to choose it. You have to choose it. And if you're following

00:56:26orders, you can't be good because you're not pursuing virtue for the sake of virtue. What

00:56:33are you doing? What you're doing is you are avoiding the prison of self-attack. And listen,

00:56:43there's a very common phenomenon in the world. Excuse me, a very common phenomenon in the world.

00:56:47Virtue signaling. I want to feel good. I don't want to do good. I don't want to be criticized. I

00:56:51want

00:56:52to be viewed as a good person. So, I'll support X, Y, or Z. Usually, leftist policy because I don't

00:56:56want to be seen as mean. I want to be seen as a nice person and so on. You can

00:56:59see this with

00:56:59the... When leftists talk to people on the right, they genuinely can't comprehend how anyone could

00:57:06have a different opinion because their opinions are the good and they're not chosen. They're just

00:57:11inflicted. And their friendships are based upon them having these opinions or perspectives. And

00:57:15if they were to even question these opinions or perspectives, then they're far-right fascists

00:57:19and so on. Like this is absolutely wretched woman. A woman of immense and enormous privilege

00:57:25and went to like a crazy expensive private school. PhD from Harvard, I think it is, this

00:57:30woman. It's why I can't... I used to read The Economist when I was in my teens and 20s. I

00:57:35haven't read it in decades because it's just absolute trash. Just mealy-mouthed, virtue-signaling,

00:57:41woke garbage. And this woman has the audacity to sit down with Elon Musk, who is as to her

00:57:48as Jupiter is to one of its moons in terms of intellect, and has the nerve to call a far

00:57:54-right

00:57:54and extremist. And these are just buzzwords. It's just a buzzword to signal that you don't

00:57:59know how to think. Thinking is hard. Judging is both easy and wrong. Judging without thought,

00:58:07right? If you think, okay, then you can earn your way to judgment. But judging without thought

00:58:12is easy. It's reactive. It's animalistic. It's instinctive. And wrong. And she literally thinks

00:58:19it's an argument to say to Elon Musk, you know, there are some people who don't like you.

00:58:27It's so junior high. Oh, you know, Beth like totally has a problem with you. Like she just

00:58:32thinks you're so stuck up in vain. And Beth is just like, you're the worst. Oh, okay. I'll change

00:58:38because Beth has a negative. Oh, my gosh. You know, some people say you're racist. Oh,

00:58:45what do you say? What do you say to racist? Oh, what do you say? Some people don't like

00:58:49you. Some people use negative words. Some people think you're bad. Oh, a vocal fry my brain.

00:58:56I would argue that she's probably pretty racist because she wouldn't say that to him. She would

00:59:00never say that to a black man or an Indian man or she wouldn't say that. She would only say

00:59:06that to a white male. It's racist and sexist. So don't give yourself orders. Don't be good

00:59:12out of fear of self-attack. Don't be smaller than your values and be pushed around by them.

00:59:19I know because, you know, we've got to have our ability to compare proposed actions to ideal

00:59:24standards. Absolutely. And again, I'm not talking about UPB violate. I'm talking about the general

00:59:29aesthetics of living. Where our moral decisions are is not, oh, I really want to smack that guy up.

00:59:35Oh, I really want to steal this stuff. Oh, like that's not where I think most of us are, right?

00:59:40Don't be nice to people because you're afraid they won't like you if you're not.

00:59:45Don't order yourself to be honest because you don't want to call yourself dishonest and bad.

00:59:50Don't order yourself to provide resources to people for fear that they won't like you if you don't,

00:59:56or you won't have any friends if you don't. I mean, for women, of course, it's don't offer up sex

01:00:00to get

01:00:00a man's attention or to try and snag a man or bag a man. For men, don't flash resources and,

01:00:05right, be liked for who you are. And if you are a pinball bouncing around from the various bing,

01:00:11bing, bing, rubber baby buggy bumpers of, that was an old warm-up rubber baby buggy bumpers as a

01:00:17warm-up for theater to get your lips and palate moving. See, Freddie Mercury can do vocal warm-ups

01:00:24in public. Actors, not so much. The raid in Spain falls mainly on the migrants.

01:00:34Don't make yourself do stuff, man. Where you make yourself do stuff, you don't exist because you're

01:00:40taking the compulsion of virtues which themselves have no life and using them to overshadow your

01:00:46choice. You are known by what you choose, and if you force yourself to do stuff, you can't be known

01:00:51by what you choose. You can only be obscured by what you obey. Obedience is empty. Obedience,

01:00:58and anybody can obey anything. We saw this under COVID. People just obey. And didn't we have contempt?

01:01:03I mean, to some degree. Where somebody is obedient, where they substitute external bribes and threats

01:01:10for internal thought and choice, well, they don't really exist. You don't exist when you're under

01:01:18compulsion, which is why a man who's forced to rob a bank, we don't hold him as guilty of a

01:01:23moral

01:01:23crime. He didn't make that choice. He didn't exist. He was simply complying, obeying. It's the Nuremberg

01:01:29Principle. The leaders with choice are held accountable. The soldiers forced are not. Don't put yourself

01:01:36under compulsion. It's the devil's work because it has you chase a virtue that disappears when you force

01:01:44it. It's like saying, well, a woman who lives under my roof must really love me, so if I lock

01:01:49someone

01:01:49in the basement, that's the same thing. Nope. That's just being there under compulsion. Don't do things

01:01:55under compulsion. Don't do things under compulsion. Make the choices. Achieve the virtues. Manifest

01:02:03yourself to people. And then, and only then, can you be someone who can be loved. If you're under

01:02:11compulsion, you're absent. You're frightened. You're obedient. You don't exist. You conform like

01:02:17water has no shape. It conforms to a vessel. And you have no shape if you're simply conforming

01:02:23to rewards and punishments. Well, if I tell the truth, I'm a good person. And if I don't tell the

01:02:26truth, I'm a liar and I'm a bad person. Well, it's just compulsion. There's no virtue in that.

01:02:31You're just threatening and bribing yourself with good opinion or self-punishment. It's not virtue.

01:02:37You've just drafted yourself into a war called virtue. And the virtue disappears because you

01:02:42drafted yourself. All that you force yourself to choose has no moral content. If you make yourself

01:02:48be honest, you can't be honest because honesty is a virtue that must be chosen, not compelled.

01:02:53Not compelled. Also, it's not sustainable. Also, you're highly susceptible to manipulation and

01:02:59external influence and so on. And that's the secret. That's the secret. It's a big secret.

01:03:04And it goes against most moral philosophy. Certainly, it goes against religious moral

01:03:10philosophy, which is be good to go to heaven. If you're bad, you go to hell or you're excluded

01:03:15from heaven. It's just punishments and rewards, incentives, bribes and threats. And this is why

01:03:23there's no moral progress in theology. But the moral progress comes from having the joy and the

01:03:30self-respect to actually choose things rather than make yourself do things, which is to remain in a

01:03:35state of bad parenting, threatening schooling, bribe, punishment, heaven and hell, reward incentives,

01:03:42being a pinball bouncing around. We don't blame a pinball for where it ends up because it's just an

01:03:47inert object bouncing around between various bumpers and thrusters and bings and bangs and bombs.

01:03:55So don't be that. Don't bounce around from reward and punishment and call yourself good. It won't

01:04:01work. You won't exist. You can't be loved. And you fundamentally can't have self-respect for obeying

01:04:06orders. Choose good. Choose virtue. That which is compelled can never be good. So do not compel

01:04:16yourself to virtue or it evaporates in your head.

01:04:21freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show. Thank you so much for your very kind support

01:04:26and your very kind attention. I love everyone who participates in what we do. It's the greatest

01:04:32conversation there ever will be in the world. freedomain.com slash donate. And if you would

01:04:37like a call, of course, call.freedomain.com. Lots of love, my friends. Talk to you soon. Bye.

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