The Death of Jason Arday!

Stefan Molyneux

Philosopher Stefan Molyneux talks about the death of Jason Arday after plagiarism charges and big questions about his Cambridge career and background claims. He shows how the urge to believe preferred stories skips real checks and answers questions on parenting and dating.  0:00:00 Opening Banter and Updates 0:01:31 Jason Arday Scandal 0:06:20 Verifying the Claims 0:10:24 Childhood Story Under Scrutiny 0:12:24 BBC Documentary Claims 0:15:05 The Cruelty of Suicidal Lies 0:18:12 Desperation and Dating 0:24:13 Cambridge and Credentialing 0:27:54 Food, Fitness, and Debates 0:39:22 Non-Aggression Principle 0:40:21 Parenting and Responsibility 0:48:24 Fearful Dating Advice 0:58:21 Listener Praise and Safety 1:02:41 Closing Advice and Marriage  JOIN ME IN NASHVILLE SEPTEMBER 12! https://wordwardebate.com/  Use code STEFAN for 10% off!  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

00:00:00That's right.

00:00:01Broke it down in two minutes.

00:00:03Came down in two minutes.

00:00:04Sorry for the muscle tea.

00:00:06Well, not a lot of muscle, but good evening.

00:00:11Good evening, good evening.

00:00:14So, diving straight into it.

00:00:16Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show.

00:00:18Don't forget, of course, call.freedomain.com.

00:00:21I'm telling you, man, the summer is when you want to get your philosophy chats in.

00:00:28Less waiting, more attention.

00:00:31And you also get to chat with me when I'm not burned out from five other call-in shows that

00:00:37day.

00:00:38So, call.freedomain.com.

00:00:39I hope you will check it out.

00:00:42And I know people want me to talk about my fiancé thinks you're an attractive man.

00:00:51It's not thinks.

00:00:54Thanks.

00:00:54That is a downright metaphysical certainty.

00:00:59Ooh, don't look like Rolo Tomasi at the moment.

00:01:02The glasses, the hats, the muscle tea.

00:01:06There we go.

00:01:06Yeah, do it before the holiday rush.

00:01:08Yeah, yeah, for sure.

00:01:09And do it so in the summer everyone's outside and getting vitamin D, so they're not as unhappy, which is

00:01:13good.

00:01:14You know, I got no problem with that.

00:01:15There's nothing wrong with that at all.

00:01:16But nonetheless, no, there'll be disconnect and reconnecting.

00:01:22Reconnecting successful.

00:01:23All right.

00:01:24I suppose that's good.

00:01:27All right.

00:01:28So, do you want to know?

00:01:32Oh, yes.

00:01:33I think people do want to know about Jason Arday.

00:01:39Arday.

00:01:40A former, I guess, a former in the double sense now that he is both resigned or fired and dead.

00:01:46A former University of Cambridge professor was found dead today.

00:01:50Today?

00:01:50Yeah.

00:01:50Now, August 14th, 2026, at the age of 41.

00:01:55He was discovered unresponsive at a property in Battersea, South London.

00:02:00The Metropolitan Police said the death is being treated as unexpected, but it is not believed to be suspicious.

00:02:05Officers are investigating and preparing a file for the coroner.

00:02:08Of course, we don't know for sure, but I would imagine suicide.

00:02:15So, Arday had resigned on August the 5th.

00:02:17About a week earlier, as professor of sociology of education and fellow of Jesus College amid a high-profile plagiarism

00:02:23scandal.

00:02:25So, to be honest, it really wasn't just plagiarism.

00:02:28It was catastrophic.

00:02:32Pathological lying.

00:02:34Allegations.

00:02:35Sorry.

00:02:35He was Cambridge's youngest ever black professor appointed around 2022 to 2023.

00:02:43Well, we know.

00:02:44All right.

00:02:44Allegations centered on plagiarism in parts of his 2015 PhD thesis and other academic work.

00:02:50Plus, plus, plus, questions about inconsistencies in his career claims, personal background, and medical history.

00:02:56He denied being a fraud and said that the intense public scrutiny and accusations had taken a severe toll.

00:03:03Cambridge had launched an investigation into the circumstances of his appointment.

00:03:07The university expressed deep sadness and offered sympathies to his family and friends.

00:03:11His memoir, Great and Unfortunate Things, detailing his experiences with autism, dyslexia, and overcoming early challenges, has recently been released

00:03:20in the U.S.

00:03:23He was a high-profile academic who frequently appeared in the media and was known for a personal story of

00:03:26overcoming significant early life challenges.

00:03:35I mean, some of this stuff was pretty wild.

00:03:37But let's talk about the plagiarism thing.

00:03:39I'll get to sort of the philosophy of it in a second here.

00:03:42So, the plagiarism thing, his PhD thesis critics, starting with a July 21, 2026, Substack post by philosopher Nathan Kofnas,

00:03:53identified dozens of passengers.

00:03:55Later analysis claimed more than 100, and in some reports, up to 188 sentences that were identical or highly similar

00:04:02to a 2009 dissertation by Paula Zwozdiak-Meyers from Brunel University.

00:04:08Some comparisons noted retained copy-editing errors and a possible rearranged-slash-mistranscribed title.

00:04:16Statistical analysis of chance overlap were described as extremely low, 1 in 100 billion in one analysis.

00:04:23Accusations extended to published articles, including apparent recycling or interview quotes attributed to different participants, similarities to work by other

00:04:30researchers, e.g. epidemiologist Andrew Memon, and internal inconsistencies or impossible data in some studies.

00:04:39Two papers from 2018 and 2020 received corrections for omitted overlaps rather than retractions.

00:04:45Liverpool, John Morris University investigated after complaints and concluded the issue stemmed from honest and reasonable error.

00:04:53Our day's PhD still stands.

00:04:55Cambridge initially referred complaints there and described some public criticism as a vile smear campaign, but later opened its own

00:05:01investigation into his qualifications and honorary appointments.

00:05:07I mean, everyone's just so desperate, right, for this kind of stuff, for diversity in someone that it's like the

00:05:15Elizabeth Holmes thing, right, with Theranos, right, this massive, massive, multi-billion dollar fraud about magic blood vials.

00:05:26There's a magic blood vial reader that could do all of this amazing stuff just by scanning a tiny vial

00:05:31of blood and all of this sort of stuff.

00:05:33None of it held any science.

00:05:35None of it made any sense.

00:05:36And none of the prominent people seem to give a care at all about whether it's true or not.

00:05:42And because everyone's so desperate, like, look, there's a female Steve Jobs, and she dresses just like Steve Jobs, and

00:05:49she has a really deep voice.

00:05:50And, I don't know, it's just everyone's so desperate to have their, to have a counter-stereotype, right, a counter

00:05:57-stereotype.

00:05:59IQ and stereotype accuracy are the two most replicated findings in all of psychology and sociology.

00:06:08I'm not saying I wish it was true.

00:06:10I mean, I wish it wasn't true, but, you know, it'd be cool to be 20 again, but we have

00:06:14to, I don't know, deal with reality as a whole.

00:06:20So, investigations by outlets, including The Telegraph, The Guardian, and The Times, raised additional concerns over R.D.'s public biography.

00:06:27Claims of holding visiting professorships and fellowships, e.g. at Ohio State University's Office of Diversity and Inclusion, University of

00:06:35Glasgow, School of Education, that the institutions reportedly could not verify.

00:06:50That's a fascinating, that's a fascinating epistemological question.

00:06:54I mean, can you imagine when the media was gunning for me, if I had lied about getting a graduate

00:06:58degree from a top-tier university in the realm of the history of philosophy?

00:07:06Honestly, they could not verify.

00:07:11You know, when you write a million-dollar check on a bank account that has 50 bucks in it, they

00:07:17just could not verify the amount.

00:07:19They just couldn't verify it.

00:07:21So, he also claimed fundraising and athletic achievements.

00:07:24He said he raised five million pounds for charity for your extreme runs, such as 600 miles in six days

00:07:30or 30 marathons in 35 days.

00:07:34Yes.

00:07:36Jordan Peterson was awake for 30 days straight, and this guy ran 30 marathons in 35 days.

00:07:41Independently verifiable early records showed far smaller amounts, e.g. one just-giving page raised about 6,000 pounds.

00:07:506,000 pounds?

00:07:535 million pounds.

00:07:54Well, he was in education, sociology, and DEI departments, so may not be overly concerned with math excellence.

00:08:05Other personal claims, such as appearing in the Up documentaries, timeline issues given his birth year, or receiving a pig's

00:08:12head threat, no supporting evidence found in some probes.

00:08:16Our day acknowledged some early career errors, admitting them, attributing them partly to inadequate supervision.

00:08:24Yes, I lied, because I was inadequately supervised.

00:08:30His autism and learning disabilities.

00:08:32He consistently denied being a liar or academic fraud and framed much of the scrutiny as racially motivated or ableist.

00:08:41Because don't you, I don't know, if you guys are younger, maybe you don't remember this, but when I was

00:08:46young, because pretty much everyone was white, there was like in my boarding school, there were like 500 kids, and

00:08:52there was like one Indian guy.

00:08:54So you could call people jerks or a-holes or douchebags or whatever it is, and nobody could pull the

00:09:00race card.

00:09:03You could call someone an idiot or incompetent, and nobody could pull the race card.

00:09:11I mean, there were different times.

00:09:14There were different times.

00:09:16So concerns circulated privately among academics as early as 2023, public explosion in late July 2026, after this guy's post

00:09:24and subsequent media coverage.

00:09:26So Cambridge launched a formal investigation around August 5th, 2026.

00:09:30James Arday resigned the same day, citing the relentless accusations, speculations, and public commentary, and the personal toll on himself

00:09:36and his family.

00:09:37His emphasis, the resignation, he emphasized the resignation was not an omission of the narratives against him.

00:09:44His memoir, Great and Unfortunate Things, proceeded towards publication amid the controversy with some reported edits to certain claims.

00:10:01And you can see this video, it's on X, of this liberal, older white woman just, I mean, enveloping his

00:10:11hand as he strides up to her with this worship and this, oh, bleh.

00:10:17It's just terrible.

00:10:20It's just terrible.

00:10:24So Jason Arday's public narrative about his childhood centered on severe developmental challenges that made his later academic success appear

00:10:31extraordinary.

00:10:32Key claims, as he repeated in interviews, Cambridge announcement, and his memoir, included

00:10:37diagnosed at three with autism, global developmental delay, and in some accounts related conditions, nonverbal or effectively mute.

00:10:47Until just before his 12th birthday, when he miraculously spoke for the first time during speech therapy, he was unable

00:10:54to read or write until the age of 18, he was taught by a girlfriend.

00:10:59Doctors reportedly told his mother he was, and I quote, no better than a vegetable, or that, quote, there's no

00:11:06one in there.

00:11:08These details formed a core part of the inspirational overcoming adversity story that accompanied his rapid rise.

00:11:14Yeah.

00:11:17So nonverbal until the age of 11 or 12, well, some former schoolmates and a childhood neighbor disputed this.

00:11:23Jonathan Stewart, YouTuber in the year below our day at Heathbrook Primary School in Nine Elms, described him as a

00:11:30class clown who was always cracking jokes, put on accents, sang songs,

00:11:35including a 1990s, including a 1990s, and was a good mimic, and was a good mimic.

00:11:41I think, I'm no speech pathologist or therapist, but I think I would put those in the category of verbal,

00:11:51in that we say that Robin Williams was verbal.

00:11:57Another former pupil and a neighbor said they remembered him speaking regularly as a child.

00:12:03Others supported our day's account, saying they did not hear him speak until secondary school or recalled him being regularly

00:12:07removed for support.

00:12:09Our day denies the contradictory recollections and arranged supporting statements from two other school friends.

00:12:15How do you have school friends if you're not verbal?

00:12:17Eh, you know, maybe it's a different world out there.

00:12:24So in a 2022 talk, our day stated he was part of the BBC's 7 Up series, the longitudinal documentary

00:12:30that began in 1964.

00:12:32So this is some, I read about this years ago, this is off the top of my head, so sorry

00:12:37if I get anything wrong,

00:12:39but it is that there's a documentary filmmaker who followed people from 7, 14, 21, 28, you know, 35, and

00:12:4942,

00:12:50like every seven years, right, so, and would check in on them, right?

00:12:54So he was filmed, so the documentary began in 1964, he was filmed at ages 7 and 14, and pulled

00:13:02out at 14.

00:13:03This is chronologically impossible, like Hillary Clinton with her NASA claims, our day was born in 1985.

00:13:09The BBC confirmed he had no involvement.

00:13:12He later described it as an analogy, or reference to a different community project, with no independent evidence provided.

00:13:22Other early life details in his memoir and interview, specific recollections from ages where he claimed to be non-verbal,

00:13:28corporal punishment at school after it was banned in England, or precise medical phrasing,

00:13:32have also been scrutinized for consistency or plausibility by journalists.

00:13:40So, of course, he's saying, look, I was non-verbal, I didn't speak, I couldn't read, and look at me

00:13:45becoming a professor,

00:13:46overcoming all of this adversity, and so on.

00:13:55Well, it's cruel.

00:13:57It's cruel.

00:14:01It's cruel.

00:14:03The idea that you can be like a vegetable, and there's nobody in there, and boom, you can start speaking,

00:14:10and boom, you can learn how to read,

00:14:11because your girlfriend teaches you, and boom, you can become a professor at Cambridge, and, you know,

00:14:18Cambridge is one of the oldest British institutions, and so on, is really, really tough.

00:14:24So, it's cruel.

00:14:26It's just cruel.

00:14:31It's cruel, because to elevate someone like this into a very high status, and we don't live, as yet, in

00:14:45North Korea,

00:14:45and so the big lie is kind of impossible to maintain,

00:14:49to elevate someone like this to such a position of high status, to worship the ground they walk on,

00:14:55for them to be like, oh, you've disproved all of our cliches, and so on, and to just have that

00:15:02kind of confirmation bias, incredibly cruel.

00:15:04Of course, it's cruel to him, and he may have paid for it with his life if he killed himself,

00:15:09and, you know, I personally, I don't have any sympathy for suicides.

00:15:14I don't.

00:15:14I just, I think it's a terrible, cowardly, awful, destructive, and horrible way to deal with or escape,

00:15:21or try to escape your problems.

00:15:22Well, I guess you do escape your problems, but you just dump 10 of your problems on everyone else's shoulders.

00:15:27I actually have a special kind of loathing for suicides.

00:15:30I mean, if for some reason you can't take living anymore, at least make it look like an accident,

00:15:35so that your family doesn't have to deal with it.

00:15:39So, yeah, it is not vetting people, not verifying their stories,

00:15:45and the absolute improbability of these stories.

00:15:49You know, the stuff that you really, really want to be true,

00:15:57that's what will get you.

00:16:00That's what will get you, man.

00:16:01The stuff that you are just desperate to be true.

00:16:05Again, I don't want to pat myself on the back too much,

00:16:08but I will say that a lot of the stuff that I got in trouble for publicly

00:16:11is stuff that I really didn't want to be true.

00:16:13Ethnicity and IQ, I didn't want that to be true.

00:16:16Single mother stuff, the perils and plagues and bad outcomes of single mother stuff,

00:16:20I didn't want that to be true.

00:16:22I didn't want voluntarism or a stateless society to be ideal,

00:16:26because it's a whole lot easier to work within the existing system of making a small government

00:16:29rather than advocating for and designing a stateless society.

00:16:33That's not fun.

00:16:34One, I sure as heck didn't want to focus on political power growing out of child abuse.

00:16:40I didn't want to focus on the gene wars,

00:16:42that political beliefs are significantly genetic,

00:16:45and what we call politics is just gene wars by another name.

00:16:47I didn't want any of these things to be true.

00:16:49It really didn't.

00:16:51I would, like, for instance, I would love it if IQ was malleable.

00:16:54Like, that would be the greatest thing.

00:16:58But, of course, they spend over $100 billion on head smart,

00:17:01trying to get blacks and whites to end up with equivalent IQ scores.

00:17:04And despite some early gains, it all just washes out and becomes neutral,

00:17:08and nobody knows how to budget.

00:17:11But I would love it.

00:17:11Can you imagine?

00:17:13If IQ were malleable, that would be the greatest thing in philosophy,

00:17:21because if IQ were malleable, I would throw every resource I had into changing it and raising it.

00:17:29Now, of course, 80%, 85%, there's still 15%, and that's kind of important.

00:17:33So, it is better to be wise than brilliant.

00:17:36Wisdom can be transferred.

00:17:38Raw horsepower can't.

00:17:40So, it is really, really important to transfer wisdom,

00:17:48and that's what philosophy can do,

00:17:49but I'm not going to promise to change your eye color or your height or your genetics or anything like

00:17:53that.

00:17:54So, all of the stuff that was, you know, severely controversial for me, for others,

00:17:59well, first of all, it was controversial for me, and I wish it wasn't true,

00:18:01but if wishes were horses, beggars would ride, and yet beggars do not ride.

00:18:06And so, the stuff that you want to be true is the stuff that will really, really get you.

00:18:12I mean, I did the show on Wednesday about the miscarriage risk post-COVID vaccine,

00:18:20and, I mean, I really, really hated the mandates and the Nuremberg Code cracking imposition of that therapeutic,

00:18:33and I had some sympathy for the number,

00:18:35but it just didn't pass the smell test, and in digging on it, it does not seem to be true.

00:18:39So, you just have to grit your teeth, and, you know, if you think this applies to me,

00:18:44well, I guess it does,

00:18:45but where it really applies, my friend, is in your dating relationships.

00:18:49And, you know, you meet that girl.

00:18:51She's attractive.

00:18:52She's fun.

00:18:53She's maybe a little kooky, maybe a little bit of a nose ring,

00:18:56one or two tattoos, but nothing too bad.

00:18:58And you really, really want her to be the one.

00:19:01You really, really want her to be the answerer.

00:19:03This is who I'm going to marry.

00:19:04This is who I'm going to be with.

00:19:05This is who I'm going to be with.

00:19:10And you want it to be true.

00:19:11And you want it to be true because who doesn't enjoy taking their Richard for a shower, right?

00:19:17And so you want it to be true, but you really, really, really, really got to be skeptical.

00:19:25It's the things that you are most desperate to be true that are the giant hooks by which you will

00:19:30be manipulated,

00:19:31pulled into a boat, thumped against the gunwool, and served up for dinner.

00:19:36Really, really, really one thing that I will tell you after a lifetime of battling error within myself and others.

00:19:43It's the stuff that you're most desperate to be true that will get you the worst.

00:19:48Because that desperation goes out into the world.

00:19:50Like, I'm so desperate for this to be true.

00:19:52And then you just get conned and you get ripped off and you get exploited and you get lied to

00:19:58because you're just,

00:19:59you really, really want things to be true.

00:20:01Just desperate for things to be true.

00:20:04I really want this relationship to work out.

00:20:07This is the one for me.

00:20:09All right.

00:20:09Sorry, let me get to your questions and comments.

00:20:11So, yeah, people really wanted this black guy to have overcome autism and run 30, to have run 30 marathons

00:20:23in 30 days and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:20:25And it's like, eh.

00:20:28It's no good.

00:20:29It's no good.

00:20:29It's very cruel.

00:20:30It's cruel on the person who didn't get the job.

00:20:32But it's cruel on, you know, it's cruel.

00:20:35I assume that Cambridge is very expensive.

00:20:40And it's cruel to promote someone like this.

00:20:44It's cruel for them because it builds them up and then absolutely rips them apart.

00:20:48And so you're exposing them to enemy fire.

00:20:51If you don't vet people, if you don't check their stories, if you don't just, you know, come on, this

00:20:54can't be true.

00:20:55Like this, everything that he said, like there's just no way.

00:20:59There's no way this guy went from his doctor saying he's a vegetable to suddenly speaking, to suddenly reading, to

00:21:05running 30 marathons, to raising 5 million pounds, to become.

00:21:08Like this just, this is not how life is.

00:21:11I mean, that's like a superhero story.

00:21:13Unless he got bitten by a radioactive freaking spider, he's not doing that stuff and anyone who believes that.

00:21:19So think of the damage that all of this has done.

00:21:21Obviously, it could have cost this guy his life, although obviously he made the choice.

00:21:26But to promote if he was a pathological liar, and it certainly seems to me like he was.

00:21:31We'll find out more over time, I'm sure.

00:21:33But if he was a pathological liar, promoting to a position of prominence is just going to have him torn

00:21:38apart.

00:21:39Because at some point, someone is going to start looking into this stuff.

00:21:41So you absolutely are pushing someone out into gunfire.

00:21:45And people who lie like that generally kind of have the mind of a child.

00:21:48I'm not talking about IQ.

00:21:50Maybe he was very smart.

00:21:50I don't know.

00:21:52But people who lie that brazenly, that repeatedly, that openly, and that unbelievably, it's a childish mindset.

00:21:58You know, you've seen these videos with the kid who's got chocolate all over his face.

00:22:02And he says, I didn't eat any chocolate.

00:22:03You know, it's just, that's a child's mentality where you just lie like that.

00:22:07And if you've ever been around pathological liars, they spin you right round, baby, right round.

00:22:13And you don't want to, you don't want to get involved in that, that quagmire of manipulation.

00:22:17And of course, underneath the pathological lying is immense rage.

00:22:23Great fear of being exposed.

00:22:24And pathological liars get away with lying because they have a certain kind of threat.

00:22:29And of course, he lashed out.

00:22:30Some of his students who said he was not a great professor, he called them bigoted.

00:22:34Everyone who criticized him, he called them racist or ablest or, you know, what, you just, you hate successful autistic

00:22:41people.

00:22:41Like, who would think that?

00:22:43Who would even, who wouldn't even cross anyone's mind to hate somebody who, if this story was true and he

00:22:49pulled himself or somehow genetically got pulled out of autism at the age of 12 and 18 and became a

00:22:54professor?

00:22:54I mean, everybody would be thrilled and happy and overjoyed, but it, the amount of harm.

00:23:00So it harms him, may have cost him his life.

00:23:02It harms the reputation of the college, which means that Cambridge University, it is now incontrovertible that it's run by

00:23:12mouth-breathing toad brains.

00:23:17It's that the people who, they're not rigorous, they don't vet, they don't think, they're not skeptical, they're not rational,

00:23:24they're not curious, they don't have the basic common sense.

00:23:26God gave a goose to not step in its own shite.

00:23:29And so what happens to the reputation of all the people who sacrificed massive amounts of money, time, and energy

00:23:35in order to get a degree from Cambridge?

00:23:36Cambridge, now that everyone knows, that Cambridge is staffed by the most foolish ideological people known to man, God, or

00:23:44devil.

00:23:44So it harms the reputation of the college, it harms all the people who've gone there, it harms him.

00:23:50It harmed the person who didn't get the job.

00:23:54It harms their own ideology.

00:23:58And it was mostly women who got him his job.

00:24:04So it does not do much for the reputation of women as critical, skeptical thinkers.

00:24:10Ah, all right.

00:24:14All right.

00:24:16StephBot needs a bigger data center.

00:24:18Yeah, you know there's a bunch of AIs around for donors, right?

00:24:21So if you subscribe at freedomain.locals.com, you can subscribe, which would be hugely appreciated, right?

00:24:28Because having a sort of base amount of money is very helpful for running the show.

00:24:32It's hard to plan otherwise.

00:24:34So you can do all of that.

00:24:37You look like the tax man.

00:24:39Ooh, looking healthy for your age, Molly.

00:24:42Well done.

00:24:42Well, thank you very much.

00:24:43I appreciate that.

00:24:46Oh, the people who hired him, they don't have a lower IQ.

00:24:50They have a high IQ, just low wisdom.

00:24:53Low wisdom, low skepticism.

00:24:55And they desperately wanted to be, see, and I don't know if this, maybe it's a bit more of a

00:25:00female thing, but, and I don't know, of course, the motivations of the people who hired him, so I can't

00:25:07say for sure.

00:25:07But if I had to guess, not that I have to guess, but if I choose to guess, I would

00:25:11say they want to be known as the people who hired the youngest black professor in the history of Cambridge.

00:25:17I got him that job.

00:25:18I found him.

00:25:19I vetted him.

00:25:20I gave him that.

00:25:20There's a certain amount of preening, you know, preening.

00:25:24And it's so funny to think that you're really high up in one of the oldest and most venerated educational

00:25:28institutions on the planet, and you still need brownie points.

00:25:32Blah!

00:25:33God, that's hideous.

00:25:35Can you imagine being in your 50s or your 60s, being at the top of your profession, and still needing

00:25:42court toadies to lick your high heels and say, oh, what a wonderful, oh, that's so progressive.

00:25:48Oh, you've just, you've given him such an advantage.

00:25:50Oh, the youngest.

00:25:51Oh, magnificent.

00:25:52Can you imagine?

00:25:54I can't imagine.

00:25:55Like, I mean, you know, we all like to be praised from time to time.

00:25:58I suppose that's nice, although I suppose I've learned to live without it quite a bit, which has, you know,

00:26:03given me some freedom.

00:26:03But can you imagine being in your 50s and your 60s at the very top of your profession, lauded by

00:26:10everyone in society, chancellor of the hiring at Cambridge, blah, blah, top of your profession, and still needing validation from

00:26:18people who just think you're just so wonderful and woke and progressive and amazing.

00:26:23Oh, good for you.

00:26:24Oh, my God, you cannot be free if you need the approval of others.

00:26:29You can't even think if you need the approval of others.

00:26:36Oh, another day in clown world.

00:26:41Well, at least clowns are entertaining, though, right?

00:26:45Cambridge is the problem here.

00:26:46Well, it's one of the problems, for sure.

00:26:48For sure.

00:26:52All right.

00:26:56Bom, bom, bom, bom.

00:26:58Yeah, nonverbal.

00:26:59We're all nonverbal compared to Robin Williams.

00:27:02You know, it's funny because I remember a couple of times in theater school, I, for some reason, had this

00:27:08sort of possession and let rip and came up with, like, just amazing speeches.

00:27:12And I sometimes do it.

00:27:13I just, one of the reasons I have this goofy muscle tee on is I was doing some cardio and

00:27:18then I was answering an X question about why I do what I do.

00:27:22And I just got possessed by emotion.

00:27:25And, you know, it's tough to do a show when your voice is thick with feeling.

00:27:30And so I didn't really have time to change.

00:27:32I was just sort of recovering from all of that and so on.

00:27:35So.

00:27:37Stephen Poole.

00:27:37Yeah, did you know Hillary was named after the famous Hillary that climbed Mount Everest?

00:27:41That's right.

00:27:42That's right.

00:27:44Is Jeff dressed like the leader of a street gang tonight?

00:27:46Well, it's nice that you put me in a leadership position.

00:27:48A lot of leaders in street gangs need their reading glasses.

00:27:55Stolen valor of genuinely overcoming massive odds.

00:27:57Yeah, yeah, for sure.

00:27:59What are you weighing these days?

00:28:01Um, I don't know.

00:28:03I don't, I sort of weigh myself once or twice a year.

00:28:06Like when I go for my checkup, I get weighed at the doctor.

00:28:08Last time I was weighed, I was 190.

00:28:10So I'm just a shade, I hate to say 5'11 because I'm closer to six foot, but it also

00:28:15sounds

00:28:15kind of goofy to say six.

00:28:16I'm six foot in the morning with good posture.

00:28:17So I'm six foot and 190 and most, I wouldn't say entirely solid muscle.

00:28:23It was a friend of mine's birthday last night and we all met up for dinner and one of his

00:28:28daughters is a cook and her baking literally is the closest that I come to believing in God.

00:28:38Oh my gosh.

00:28:40It's so good.

00:28:42I mean, I don't know if you guys have noticed this lately, but food kind of sucks these days.

00:28:50I was just talking about this with my wife the other day.

00:28:52Like we went out for a meal because we were, we're tootling about somewhere and we went

00:28:56out for a meal and afterwards we were like, well, that was bland.

00:29:00That was boring.

00:29:01That was uninspired.

00:29:02That was just, I mean, it might as well be 87 grade fuel for an old pickup truck.

00:29:06Well, I guess it's given me some calories and that's it.

00:29:10It might as well have been beamed like toothpaste into my belly.

00:29:12It sucks.

00:29:13I cannot remember the last time I had a meal, which was like, oh, so good.

00:29:18Like you put something in your mouth, like, oh, mouth water really good and so on.

00:29:21And I mean, I had COVID, but it didn't lose my sense of smell or taste.

00:29:24Although my daughter would argue that I, in the 80s, lost my taste when it comes to music,

00:29:28but that's a whole other discussion.

00:29:32So yeah, restaurants, I'm not blaming restaurants.

00:29:34You know, they've, they've had inflation.

00:29:36They've had to cut quality, I'm sure.

00:29:38But yeah, meals, they just, they bite.

00:29:41They're bad.

00:29:41They're, they're no good.

00:29:44The only flavor they get is massive amounts of, you know, garlic, aioli and fat and, and

00:29:50sort of all of that.

00:29:51So I miss, I miss when food, I miss when food is really good.

00:29:54Anyway, so this friend of mine's daughter, she assembles all of the known virtues in

00:30:02humankind, and even some we've never even thought of, mixes them together in a bowl,

00:30:06calls down an angel fart of pure manna sunshine and puts it all together.

00:30:11And then you eat her food and it's actually more of a possession than it is a taste.

00:30:19In other words, the food takes over your taste buds, swirls them, takes them on a foxtrot,

00:30:26gives them a gentle foot massage, and then punches them until they submit.

00:30:31And there's no safe word you can say.

00:30:33They, the food, she made a blueberry with, with banana and the icing was fantastic.

00:30:38And the cake was solid.

00:30:39And I don't have cake more than once or twice a year.

00:30:42Well, do I, do I, I didn't until she became such a good baker.

00:30:47Now it happens a little bit more regularly.

00:30:51And I'm fairly decent at willpower with like not eating, but this stuff, like it was just

00:30:55impossible.

00:30:55I lost my reason.

00:30:57I, my, my hands became like puppet master sugar seeking hands.

00:31:01And I'd had a fairly mediocre meal.

00:31:03It was like a, I don't know, just like a toasted cheese with some salad.

00:31:07So it was kind of a boring meal.

00:31:08And then she's like, oh, some cake.

00:31:09You'd bring out this cake.

00:31:11And the cake is so beautiful.

00:31:12It is actually like watching a serial killer disassemble a victim to watch that thing get cut.

00:31:17I thought it was going to bleed.

00:31:18I thought it was going to scream.

00:31:19I mean, somebody was screaming.

00:31:20I think it may have been me.

00:31:21It's hard to say.

00:31:23And the food was so good.

00:31:24And my wife does not like bananas in her food.

00:31:31So they cut off a piece.

00:31:33Oh, I'll share it with my wife.

00:31:34And then I forgot.

00:31:35I know I didn't forget.

00:31:36I chose not to.

00:31:36I never forget.

00:31:38And it was just all there.

00:31:39And it was calling for me.

00:31:40And if I was Odysseus strapped to the mass, I would have broken free of my bonds and face

00:31:46planted in that absolutely glorious and delectable food.

00:31:48And she's going through culinary school.

00:31:50And I think that she should not open a place to serve her baked goods.

00:31:56She should open a church where they worship her baked goods.

00:31:59Because it's not just baked goods.

00:32:03It's baked platonic goodness.

00:32:05Like the ultimate sincrona, the meridian, the perfection, the Everest of absolute virtue

00:32:10is all coalesced in her absolutely splendiferous food.

00:32:16And you just don't get that much good stuff anymore.

00:32:20You just don't.

00:32:21It's very sad.

00:32:22I don't even remember why I started.

00:32:24Because now I'm drooling.

00:32:26I need to.

00:32:27One of the dental things that, you know, the dental things that slurp everything out of

00:32:31the back of your throat.

00:32:31But you try not to swallow so that they don't do something horrible with your gums.

00:32:35What the hell was I talking about for?

00:32:37Oh, yeah.

00:32:38So what do I weigh?

00:32:39Yeah.

00:32:39So I don't weigh myself very often.

00:32:41If I had to go to a walking clinic or something for some stupid little thing, then I'll go in.

00:32:45And the only way, the only scales that I trust, I don't trust any electronic scales.

00:32:49I think they're just full of complete nonsense and lies.

00:32:52But I will do one where you have to do the weights, right?

00:32:54Like you have to do the weights.

00:32:56I'll do those.

00:32:59Looking forward to watching your debate with Jay Dyer.

00:33:02I think it's going to be very interesting.

00:33:05Very, yeah.

00:33:06So worldwardebate.com, worldwardebate.com.

00:33:09They're going to run out of tickets very soon, which I'm very thrilled about.

00:33:11And I would like to really thank everyone who has bought tickets.

00:33:15I've sold more tickets than just about everybody else.

00:33:18And that's really thanks to you guys.

00:33:20And I will do a fantastic job.

00:33:23And I am very eager and thrilled to have this conversation.

00:33:27And so I really do appreciate it.

00:33:29Worldwardebate.com.

00:33:31Don't wait.

00:33:3338 marathons in 38 days.

00:33:36Yeah, because, you know, 38 marathons in 38 days, fine.

00:33:4039 would be nuts.

00:33:41Like 39, absolutely unbelievable.

00:33:4338, no problem.

00:33:46I used to have that Rain Man memory before computers took over for me.

00:33:49Yeah, that's true.

00:33:50What is my daughter's phone number?

00:33:53It's under Izzy.

00:33:54All right.

00:33:58I remember you telling a caller that people who are suicidal have people around them who want them dead.

00:34:02Maybe that is why people who commit suicide do it in a way to harm the people in their life.

00:34:05Yeah, it could be.

00:34:07This was a psychologist, a psychologist, a psychiatrist from many years ago I read who said,

00:34:13and this is just anecdotal, it's not like a big study thing,

00:34:15but he said that he's never had a suicidal patient who didn't have a motorist parent

00:34:20or voice in their head from a parent for that.

00:34:28Oh, yes.

00:34:31Suicidal empathy, Gadsad named it.

00:34:33Yeah, I don't agree with Gadsad.

00:34:39It's not suicidal empathy.

00:34:41Because, and I haven't read his book, so forgive me if I'm completely wrong about this.

00:34:46But I don't think that he talks about the political power that is driving all of this sort of stuff.

00:34:53So.

00:35:04Stefan looking good.

00:35:06This reminds me of the sad documentary on the girl in Texas who faked a pregnancy in order to be

00:35:11loved and paid massive attention to.

00:35:14I did see that documentary.

00:35:16I find pathological liars.

00:35:19Oh, yeah.

00:35:19She faked a pregnancy.

00:35:21And then, oh, that's a dark story, man.

00:35:24I was like, wow, this is kind of crazy.

00:35:25What a story.

00:35:26How is she going to deal with this?

00:35:27And I won't give you spoilers.

00:35:29And I was watching that documentary.

00:35:31And I was like, wow, what a crazy story.

00:35:33How can she possibly keep this up?

00:35:35And then I'm like, oh, my God.

00:35:37She did what?

00:35:38Anyway, so if you get a chance to watch the documentary, it's good.

00:35:43Now, I'm not sure why this, me looking good, reminds you of the girl in Texas who faked a pregnancy.

00:35:48I don't know why that hangs together.

00:35:50But I'm sure it does for you.

00:35:53And I'm not disagreeing, right?

00:35:56I'm sure they want to put all their money to hire good cooks instead of lining their pockets.

00:36:00No, well, remember, of course, a lot of people left the restaurant industry over COVID, right?

00:36:03Because restaurants were, I mean, certainly local restaurants were destroyed.

00:36:06COVID had a lot to do, the COVID lockdowns had a lot to do with preventing herd immunity, as Jeffrey

00:36:11Tucker has had a guest on to point out.

00:36:13But, of course, small businesses vote conservative.

00:36:16Small businesses vote for the left because they're running their own businesses.

00:36:21And so they don't have the big connections that big corporations do and all of that.

00:36:25And so one of the reasons why the lockdowns hit small businesses the hardest is they wanted to punish people

00:36:32for voting conservative.

00:36:35And the best way to do that is to leave the big stores open and have the small businesses go

00:36:41under.

00:36:42So a lot of people left the restaurant industry and maybe they've come back and maybe they haven't.

00:36:46So, yeah, worldwardebate.com, promo code Stefan for 10% off.

00:36:51That's right.

00:36:53I'm a huge fan.

00:36:54I've been listening to you since I was 16.

00:36:55Well, thank you very much.

00:36:57What's your lifetime bench press personal best ever?

00:37:00I hate to say it.

00:37:01I don't, I've never tracked that kind of stuff.

00:37:03Maybe I've just, obviously, I'm not like a big muscle guy, right?

00:37:06I mean, you know, I'm almost 60.

00:37:08It's not terrible, but I'm not a big muscle guy.

00:37:10And I've never been like, oh, my personal best.

00:37:15I go down five slots below the heavy ones on my little home gym.

00:37:20I got my home gym.

00:37:21I got it secondhand.

00:37:22I had one for a while that was like this Gumby nightmare.

00:37:26I had a gym at home for a while that was Elastics.

00:37:30Have you ever tried one of those?

00:37:31They're horrible because you never feel satisfied because you never quite get it to where you need it.

00:37:37It just gets boing, boing, boing, boing.

00:37:40I felt like a Gumby in a barrel rolling down a hill.

00:37:43And so I was like, you can never quite get it right.

00:37:48And so anyway, I bought a, I was just walking in town with my daughter some years ago.

00:37:56And there was a garage sale.

00:37:59Now, I can never go to a garage sale with my wife because she finds the idea of having other

00:38:02people's old stuff to be vile beyond words.

00:38:06And whatever, that's who she is.

00:38:07But my daughter likes them because she's a hunter-gatherer.

00:38:10She likes, like, we'll go, we'll travel, we'll drive for 40 minutes to get free samples from someplace.

00:38:16You know, if there's someplace that, oh, there's a fair, I think they'll have free samples.

00:38:19Yes.

00:38:19So we burn up, you know, a hundred times the price of the free samples in gas to drive there.

00:38:24But we're both hunter-gatherers.

00:38:25So we just enjoy getting, getting free stuff.

00:38:28So I was at the gym and she got a coin sorter and I got this, I was already at

00:38:33the garage sale.

00:38:35And she got a coin sorter, which didn't last very long.

00:38:39And I got a gym and it's kind of old, but it's got a lifetime warranty.

00:38:45And it finally, it's just absolute weights.

00:38:47And I, you know, if you've got it, it's just like not that big.

00:38:50It does, but it does legs, which is good.

00:38:53And so I, I've occasionally thought it would be kind of fun to film a workout.

00:38:58I mean, I don't know.

00:38:58Would you guys be at all interested in that?

00:39:00I know Jared Taylor does that kind of stuff.

00:39:01I mean, do you really care if you watch me work out and so on?

00:39:05But I, yeah, so I've never, once when I was in, when I was in university and I played Macbeth,

00:39:12I figured Macbeth was a, you know, big, strong warrior guy.

00:39:14So I, I really bulked up a little bit there, but I don't have any bench press personal best,

00:39:20if that makes any sense.

00:39:22What's the justification for the non-aggression principle?

00:39:25It is the only moral principle that can be universalized.

00:39:29So if you say everyone should both initiate and want the initiation of force against them,

00:39:34if you want the initiation of force against you, then it's not violence.

00:39:38Like if you want someone to hit you, if you say, hit me, hit me, I'll give you 50 bucks,

00:39:41hit me, hit me, right?

00:39:42Then you, it's not the same as assault, right?

00:39:45If you go into a hockey arena or you go shopping in Milwaukee on Black Friday,

00:39:49or you go to a boxing arena, then you're consenting in a sense to be assaulted.

00:39:53So the only logical, consistent approach to aggression is the non-aggression principle.

00:39:59Because if you say, then everyone should want to aggress and be aggressed against,

00:40:04because that's what universality means, right?

00:40:06But if you want to be aggressed against, it's not violence and it doesn't pass the coma test

00:40:10and other things like that.

00:40:11For more on that, you can go to my website, freedomman.com slash books,

00:40:15and go to UPB, universally preferable behavior.

00:40:21All right.

00:40:22If we blame our parents, could they not just do the same and so on?

00:40:27Infinitum.

00:40:28Sure.

00:40:30Sure.

00:40:31Sure.

00:40:32Yes.

00:40:32So I understand this is like turtles all the way up, so to speak.

00:40:38So to steel man your argument, if you say, well, my mother was mean, and that's her fault.

00:40:46And then she says, well, I'm mean because my mother was mean, and it's her fault.

00:40:50And her mother says, well, my grandmother, my great-grandmother,

00:40:52all the way back to, I don't know, Adam and Eve after the fall.

00:40:56But it doesn't really work because I don't say I can be mean because my mother was mean.

00:41:06My mother was very mean, very violent, and very abusive.

00:41:09I don't say I can be mean because my mother was mean.

00:41:13I say I was hurt because my mother was mean.

00:41:18It doesn't give me justification to be mean to others.

00:41:20And because I say I was hurt as a child because my mother was violent,

00:41:24then I know what it is to be hurt when you're yelled at, screamed at, called names,

00:41:30beaten, thrown across the room, hit against a wall, and stuff like that.

00:41:33So because I know that it hurts, I then don't want to do it to others.

00:41:37So because I have empathy with how much it hurt me as a child,

00:41:40I don't want to do it, obviously, to my child or to other people.

00:41:43Whereas if you say, well, I get to be mean because my mother was mean,

00:41:51then you are to blame because there's nothing in being treated badly that automatically makes you mean.

00:41:59If your mother yells at you, that doesn't automatically mean you're going to yell at other people.

00:42:03If your mother hits you or your father hits you, it doesn't mean you're automatically going to hit other people.

00:42:07There's nothing about that.

00:42:08It's not dominoes.

00:42:09We have free will.

00:42:12So that's the first argument.

00:42:13The second argument, of course, is that parents who are mean are mean to their children

00:42:22by holding their children to very high moral standards.

00:42:26So if they say, don't do this, and you do that, and then they hit you, let's say you're five,

00:42:32and they say, don't eat any cookies before dinner, and then you go and have a couple of cookies before

00:42:36dinner,

00:42:37and you get caught, and you get spanked,

00:42:39then your parent is saying that you are responsible for doing the right thing when you're five.

00:42:46You're responsible for doing the right thing when you're five or six or four or ten or whatever it is,

00:42:51right?

00:42:52And so that's very high moral standards.

00:42:54You have to do the right thing.

00:42:56And so that means that the parents have an infinitely higher responsibility to do the right thing,

00:43:01because if you're saying to a five-year-old, you have to do the right thing,

00:43:04then, of course, if you're 30 or five or 40 or 25, you have to do the right thing even

00:43:08more,

00:43:08because you're the parent, you're in a position of power and authority, you're an adult, and so on.

00:43:13Now, if the parents say, well, I did the best I could with the knowledge I had,

00:43:17we don't compare them to their own parents.

00:43:20What we do is we compare them to the standards they inflicted upon their children.

00:43:24So if your mother says to you, if your mother hit you or screamed at you or whatever, right,

00:43:32and you say that was wrong, she says, well, I did the best I could with the knowledge I had,

00:43:36then the question is, when you as a child, say, studied a test,

00:43:43sorry, studied for a test or didn't study for a test and then wrote a test,

00:43:46and then you say you failed the test, and you said, well, I did the best I could with the

00:43:50knowledge I had,

00:43:51your mother would say, well, you should have studied more, that's no excuse, right?

00:43:55Okay, so she's got a principle, right?

00:43:57We don't first and foremost judge people by abstract moral standards.

00:44:02We judge them by the standards they've inflicted, particularly on children.

00:44:07So if a child is punished because the child didn't study for a test or didn't study hard enough

00:44:14and failed the test or did badly, and the child doesn't get the excuse,

00:44:18which is perfectly rational, to say, well, when I wrote that test,

00:44:21I did the best I could with the knowledge I had.

00:44:22Well, that's a true statement, right?

00:44:24It's a true statement.

00:44:27So we don't judge people primarily or initially by abstract moral standards

00:44:33because they could say, I don't know those abstract moral standards.

00:44:37I didn't know spanking violated the non-aggression principle.

00:44:40And they can say that, and we can't prove it one way or the other.

00:44:44So what we do is we abstract the morals that people have inflicted on children

00:44:51and apply it to them because they can't say, well, that's not a standard that I have

00:44:57or that's not a standard I'd heard of.

00:44:59Because if you punish a child for doing badly on a test,

00:45:02then you reject the argument that you cannot be punished or held accountable

00:45:09if you did the best you could with the knowledge you had

00:45:11because everyone who goes into a test in general does the best they could

00:45:13with the knowledge they had, right?

00:45:16So a parent who punishes you for failing a test

00:45:21and would not accept as an excuse, well, I did the best I could, mom and dad,

00:45:25but the knowledge I had, they said, that's not enough.

00:45:27You should have studied more.

00:45:28Well, what's more important, a test when you're a kid

00:45:30or the actual use of violence when parenting little children?

00:45:34Of course, of course, parenting is infinitely more important

00:45:37than some stupid spelling bee or math test or whatever

00:45:39when you're six or 10 or whatever.

00:45:42So what we look for is not inconsistency with abstract standards.

00:45:47What we look for is inconsistency with inflicted standards.

00:45:54That's important.

00:45:56That's important.

00:45:58So when I fought back against my mother,

00:46:02she was shocked and appalled that I would use any kind of violence or aggression.

00:46:09So violence and aggression is good when she does it,

00:46:12but it's bad when I do it.

00:46:13So then that's ridiculous, right?

00:46:15So if parents say, well, I did the best I could with the knowledge I had.

00:46:23Well, did you let your children fail at anything, right?

00:46:27Did you let your children say, I forgot?

00:46:30Oh, I forgot I wasn't supposed to have any cookies before dinner.

00:46:33I'm sorry.

00:46:34Whoops, I forgot.

00:46:35You didn't forget.

00:46:36Whack, whack, whack, right?

00:46:37So even if you claim to be doing the best you can with the knowledge you have

00:46:40and you say, I forgot,

00:46:41and maybe you legitimately did forget or whatever, right?

00:46:43So we don't hold people first and foremost accountable to abstract moral standards

00:46:48because they can easily claim they didn't understand those standards,

00:46:51they didn't have those standards,

00:46:52they maybe learned them later,

00:46:53but we can absolutely hold people morally accountable

00:46:58for the standards they inflict upon children.

00:47:02And if the parent says, I was mean because my mother was mean,

00:47:07then the question is, how did the parent deal with their child when the child was mean?

00:47:16Right?

00:47:16So let's say you've got a kid and he wants to get on the swing

00:47:20and he just pushes another kid off a swing and then you go punish him

00:47:22and you yell at him and you hit him or whatever you do and you punish him, right?

00:47:26And you say, don't be mean, don't be mean.

00:47:30And then later they say, well, I was mean because my mother was mean.

00:47:33It's like, well, but you were mean and you punished me for being mean.

00:47:36So how can you as an adult say you're mean because of your mother

00:47:39when you punished me for being mean as a little child

00:47:41while you were actually being mean to me?

00:47:43You should have said, logically, to be consistent,

00:47:46well, I can't punish him because he's only mean because I'm mean

00:47:48because I'm only mean because my mother was mean

00:47:49and I'm just paying it forward.

00:47:51But no, you inflict, don't be mean on a child in a violent way, which is mean.

00:47:57And then when that child circles back as an adult and questions you,

00:48:00you say, oh, no, but it was just because my mother was mean.

00:48:02It's like, well, you were mean, you still punish me for the effects of your meanness.

00:48:04So I'm punishing you too.

00:48:06So, I hope that helps.

00:48:11Do, do, do.

00:48:16Depriving us of your leg shots.

00:48:18I have good legs.

00:48:20I have good getaway sticks.

00:48:21I have good gams.

00:48:25All right.

00:48:27Is it correct to say that lack of motivation to date

00:48:30mainly stems from unresolved parental issues?

00:48:34Um, I don't know.

00:48:37I don't know because,

00:48:41because the question is, why wouldn't you deal with those unresolved parental issues?

00:48:45I don't know.

00:48:46But my first thought, which certainly, of course, doesn't mean it's the right thought.

00:48:51But my first thought is that dating, uh, dating, asking girls out for, for, for boys and dating

00:48:58is terrifying for women and dating is terrifying for women in a different kind of way because

00:49:02a lot of women, um, they're not going to ask a guy out.

00:49:05So they just have to be attractive and cross their fingers and hope that the right guy approaches

00:49:08them.

00:49:08Um, it's kind of annoying for me.

00:49:10I can't imagine being in the dating world and having to be passive.

00:49:14Like I would just go talk to girls and some would say yes, some would say no, whatever

00:49:17it is, right?

00:49:18The ones who said no were fools and the ones who said yes were wise, you know, it's a basic

00:49:22sorting mechanism.

00:49:26Um, so, no, I'm not going to do that acronym with UPP.

00:49:31Um, so, dating is scary because you want to, you want the top girl and then you have to

00:49:41basically aim for the top girl and then you go down until you get a girl who will go out

00:49:45with you, right?

00:49:45So that's, dating, dating is scary.

00:49:48Dating is scary.

00:49:53And there's a lot of people out there with very malevolent goals, particularly for the

00:49:58West.

00:49:58They want depopulation.

00:49:59They want the Western people to vanish over time and so on.

00:50:04And we've got like 2% of the world's population is young white women of childbearing age.

00:50:10So, you know, it's not, not ideal.

00:50:13And so there's people who will say, here's the reasons why you don't have to go and ask

00:50:18a girl out.

00:50:20It's men going their own way.

00:50:21It's Sandman.

00:50:22It's, you know, like, uh, uh, girls are bad and, and they're all crazy and, and blah,

00:50:26blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:50:27And, and so there are people who will say that to you.

00:50:33And it's tempting.

00:50:35I mean, especially with this endless online nudity video entertainment stuff.

00:50:41So it's tempting.

00:50:45I'll do it when I've lost a little bit of weight.

00:50:47I'll do it when I've worked out a little bit more.

00:50:48I'll do it when I've got a better job.

00:50:50I'll do it.

00:50:50It's just a way of later, later, later.

00:50:52Right.

00:50:53And the purpose of the devil is not to tell you, no, is to tell you later.

00:51:00Later.

00:51:01What's the rush?

00:51:02What's the hurry?

00:51:02You've got time.

00:51:03You've got time.

00:51:06Focus on your career.

00:51:07Focus on making money.

00:51:08Become the best you.

00:51:09It'll work out.

00:51:10So the goal is if you say to people, especially men, if you say no, they'll say, oh yeah,

00:51:16yes.

00:51:16Right.

00:51:16So you get response.

00:51:18Right.

00:51:18So the purpose of corrupting power is not to tell you no, it's just to get you to delay.

00:51:25Just to delay.

00:51:30It's not to get you to not run the race.

00:51:32It's just to get you to run the race badly so you'll lose.

00:51:34Run right slowly.

00:51:35Right.

00:51:38So men find it frightening to talk to girls.

00:51:41And then there's people out there.

00:51:43Like I remember having these debates on X where people would say, you know, you can go to jail for

00:51:46talking to a woman at Starbucks.

00:51:47It's like, no, you can't.

00:51:50No, you can't.

00:51:52I mean, I'm not dating.

00:51:53I'm happily married, but I still talk to people.

00:51:56And you could say, oh, yeah, but you're an old guy.

00:51:58But I've been doing this for decades.

00:51:59Like I'll chat with the waitress.

00:52:00I'll chat with the girl behind the Starbucks counter.

00:52:03I'll make a joke or two.

00:52:03I always try to leave, you know, the person slightly better off than when I found them.

00:52:07That's sort of a big foundational ethic of mine.

00:52:09And usually it works.

00:52:10Sometimes it doesn't.

00:52:11But I will generally try to leave people slightly better off than when I met them.

00:52:18You know, a joke, a laugh, a smile, a little bit of information, interesting fact or something like that.

00:52:23And, you know, I do think that it works as a whole.

00:52:26So I talk to people a lot, and I've been doing it my whole life.

00:52:30And I've talked to, I mean, half the people I've talked to are women in general, or maybe even more

00:52:35if it's like a waitress, because waitresses are often women.

00:52:37Or the people behind the counter, you know, how's your day going?

00:52:41Or I'll make a joke about something or whatever.

00:52:43And, you know, if I can get a smile and leave somebody with a smile, I mean, you have to

00:52:48interact anyway.

00:52:48Why not leave somebody better off?

00:52:51I want a coffee.

00:52:52They want my money.

00:52:53Why not give them a smile as well?

00:52:55Because also I remember what it's like being in the service industry and having nice customers can make a real

00:53:01difference.

00:53:02So then people will say, you know, if you talk to women, you go to jail.

00:53:06And, of course, nobody really believes that, but it's an excuse.

00:53:11Maybe I'll just wait until the Me Too stuff calms down, or maybe I'll wait until, you know, I'll wait,

00:53:15I'll wait, I'll wait, right?

00:53:16And then, of course, in general, when you wait, your options get worse.

00:53:22Basic fact of dating.

00:53:23The longer you wait, the worse your options become.

00:53:28For obvious reasons, right?

00:53:29We don't need to, because the good stuff is taken first, right?

00:53:32The good people are taken first.

00:53:33And they're kept off the market, right?

00:53:35So my wife, I think, is a very high-quality woman, and as soon as I started dating her, within

00:53:42a couple of months I proposed, and 11 months after meeting, we got married, and, you know, locked her down,

00:53:48keep her happy, you know?

00:53:49And so she's not going to be back out on the market unless I get hit by some giant truck.

00:53:54Like, so I think what keeps people from dating is the generalized fear and anxiety that coincides with what they're

00:54:10scared of, right?

00:54:10It's a really tough thing in the world, man.

00:54:12It's a really tough thing.

00:54:13When you're scared of something and somebody amplifies those fears, they're giving you kind of an excuse to not do

00:54:17it.

00:54:21But, you know, if you want to, you know, at the place I went for dinner last night where my

00:54:26friend's daughter bought her amazing food, there was like a comedy night, you know, like every, I can't remember what

00:54:33night of the week it was, right?

00:54:35And so if somebody has an interest in comedy, and I tried stand-up once, I thought it was interesting,

00:54:41but if somebody has an interest in comedy, then they should go and do it, right?

00:54:44But if people are like, oh, you know, you're not that funny, and people would just laugh, they'll laugh at

00:54:48you, but in the wrong way, and this kind of stuff, and you just play out these disaster scenarios, then

00:54:52you say, well, you know, maybe I'll work on some better jokes, and I'll do it in a week or

00:54:55two, and then you just kind of forget about it, and then your life just vanishes.

00:55:01You know, like we're all going into that train of death, you know, that tunnel of death.

00:55:04We're just trains going into the tunnel of death.

00:55:06I guess we come out of the tunnel of life, we go into the tunnel of death.

00:55:09And we come out of a hole, and we get dropped in a hole, and that's it.

00:55:13We just hold a hole.

00:55:14And so I think that one of the reasons men don't date is it's just difficult and unpleasant to date,

00:55:20and it's tough, and you can just say later.

00:55:26Are you from Canada?

00:55:28No, I am not from Canada.

00:55:32I was born in Hoyerland, I grew up in England, I spent some time in Africa, and then Canada.

00:55:40All right, not anymore, which is why women are complaining about men not approaching.

00:55:44It's not only fear of rejection, but now we have to deal with other life-ruining complications.

00:55:54Well, what can I tell you?

00:55:56I mean, you just choose your pain.

00:55:59Oh, it could be dangerous to talk to girls.

00:56:02It could be unpleasant to talk to girls.

00:56:04Sure.

00:56:06Yeah.

00:56:07She might be like, oh, like, what makes you think?

00:56:09You have a chance.

00:56:10Gross.

00:56:11Yeah, it could be bad, right?

00:56:13It could be bad.

00:56:15Everyone who's a man who's had any ambition has had that one-up, like, oh, why are you talking to

00:56:20me?

00:56:21You're not Brad Pitt.

00:56:23Right, so, yeah, it could be a little soul-crushing, it could be unpleasant.

00:56:27Sure.

00:56:30And, and, and so what?

00:56:35So what's your option, right?

00:56:37What's your option, right?

00:56:40What is your option?

00:56:43Your option is to be generally sad and depressed because you don't have a woman at all.

00:56:52No wife, no support, no kids, no grandkids, a life of aging out and being isolated and being lonely and

00:57:00blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:57:02Blah!

00:57:03That's no fun.

00:57:05It's just choose your pain.

00:57:06That's all life is.

00:57:07Choose your pain.

00:57:09I've chosen to spend tens of thousands of hours working out.

00:57:12Probably saved my life from cancer.

00:57:14So, choose your pain.

00:57:16You can either be uncomfortable working out, like I did 40 minutes of a hard bike machine today, and it

00:57:24was a little gross.

00:57:25Be thankful that this is not me in your house, that just, just, that there's no smell-o-vision coming

00:57:29forward here, right?

00:57:30So, I did hard cardio.

00:57:32Yesterday, I did 45 minutes of hard weights, and I regularly get 10,000 steps

00:57:37because I like the walkie-talkies with my show.

00:57:39What did I do today?

00:57:41Let's, let's, let's verify that.

00:57:43What did I do today for steps?

00:57:45Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum.

00:57:489,000.

00:57:498, 9, 9, 2.

00:57:50Yeah, and I'll probably do a little bit more.

00:57:52So, yeah.

00:57:53So, choose your pain.

00:57:55So, yes, talking to girls can be sad.

00:57:58It can make you unhappy and so on, and it can ruin your vanity.

00:58:02It can, you know, but you have to find out what you're worth in the world, right?

00:58:05You have to find out what you're worth.

00:58:07So, we say, well, I'm going to avoid talking to girls because it could be negative.

00:58:10It's like, okay, do you think then you've escaped the negative?

00:58:12Like, this idea that you cannot do stuff and escape the consequences is kind of crazy.

00:58:17It's kind of crazy.

00:58:20All right.

00:58:22Hey, Steph.

00:58:23I'm a 19-year-old black South African woman who's listened since the age of 16.

00:58:27Your show helped me understand morality.

00:58:29I've just started university, and your show is helping me grow a backbone.

00:58:34How beautiful.

00:58:35I love hearing that kind of stuff.

00:58:37Congratulations, and thank you for sharing.

00:58:39That is a beautiful thing, and I appreciate that communication.

00:58:44This is, yeah, it's not the stuff that keeps me going, but it sure helps.

00:58:53The stuff that keeps me going is love of virtue and hatred of evil, but, right?

00:58:57All right.

00:58:58Let's see here.

00:59:03Yes, that plus 80% COVID vax miscarriage claim would scare a lot of men and women away from

00:59:08dating, as you pointed out.

00:59:10Yeah, yeah.

00:59:11Yeah.

00:59:12You should work for the show.

00:59:14All right.

00:59:16A man rescues a woman from getting hit by a car.

00:59:19She then goes to sue him because he touched her a certain way that she didn't like.

00:59:23Luckily, the judge dropped it.

00:59:25That man is never saving another woman.

00:59:28Yeah, I get where you're coming from.

00:59:31But this is like, I don't need to work or save any money because somebody won the lottery.

00:59:37And it's like, these extreme edge cases, you know, edge cases make for bad law.

00:59:45You cannot rationally run your life by some crazy woman who tried to sue a guy who saved

00:59:54her.

00:59:54That is so unbelievably rare.

00:59:58Now, what you can do, what you can do with regards to dating is don't have sex with women

01:00:04unless you know them really well.

01:00:07Three-month rule is a good plan.

01:00:10Ideally, you should wait for marriage like I did.

01:00:13But just in case you just don't have my immense self-control.

01:00:17But I'm just kidding.

01:00:19But do not have sex with women you don't know very well.

01:00:23And women don't have sex with men you don't know very well.

01:00:26If you're like, oh my God, you know, this guy got accused of something terrible.

01:00:29It's like, well, did he know the woman enough to know whether she was stable or not?

01:00:32And if the woman says, oh, here's to the SSRIs I sprinkle on my morning cornflakes, you

01:00:38might be like, hmm, I'm not going to use that line like, hey, how about breakfast?

01:00:44Shall I call you or nudge you?

01:00:47Right?

01:00:47You don't want to be doing that.

01:00:49So yeah, don't have sex with people.

01:00:50Don't get involved with people unless you know them really well.

01:00:52Don't have sex with people until you get a sense of their childhood, their family, their

01:00:56history, their parents, and all that kind of stuff.

01:00:57That's all.

01:00:58That's how it used to be, right?

01:00:59Girls like bald guys.

01:01:02Every girl I talk to from twos to tens have turned bright red when I approach them with

01:01:06full eye contact, bold tone of voice, and engages me in conversation.

01:01:14Well, okay.

01:01:15Maybe they turn bright red because you're a little imposing.

01:01:18I don't know.

01:01:19I don't know.

01:01:22But why aren't you married then if you're very good at talking to women and picking women

01:01:25up?

01:01:25You know, the purpose of all of this is not just empty sex or not just in your lipstick

01:01:30case, says Pat Benatar, but it is in fact to get married and have children.

01:01:34So all these guys who were like, yeah, I'm great at talking to women.

01:01:36It's like, then why can't you choose one who's going to stay with you?

01:01:45Isn't Lauren Southern a man?

01:01:51No, although she did do a video where she claimed to change this sort of stuff.

01:01:56Anything else?

01:01:57All right.

01:01:58That's really good.

01:02:00All right.

01:02:00Anything else?

01:02:01More questions?

01:02:04Anything else?

01:02:06Yeah, I did a lot of research today.

01:02:08A lot of work.

01:02:09Did a show before this show worked out.

01:02:14And I could do a let's play tonight.

01:02:18I could.

01:02:20I could.

01:02:21I haven't done any.

01:02:22My wife and I are half addicted to a word game.

01:02:25That's a lot of fun.

01:02:27What's up, Steph?

01:02:28My nipples.

01:02:29It's cold down here.

01:02:30That's what's up, man.

01:02:31I got some diamond cutters.

01:02:34Could make myself a little snowman.

01:02:42All right.

01:02:43Well, I will stop here.

01:02:44Oh, oh, oh.

01:02:45Oh, no.

01:02:45Sorry, Mike.

01:02:46I'll wait to call me on Sunday.

01:02:48We'll do Sunday morning, 10 a.m.

01:02:50Because I want to make sure that I'm fresh.

01:02:53And I've been working, oh, so hard today.

01:02:55Oh, the life of a philosopher.

01:02:57Let me tell you.

01:02:58Let me just tell you.

01:02:59Nothing but back-breaking mental labor.

01:03:02Oh, I need to lie down.

01:03:04And I need my little reason elves to help pummel my temples back into a state of semi-rationality.

01:03:12So, hey, man, what would you say to someone 18 years old about to start a career?

01:03:20Just make sure you provide maximum value.

01:03:22Think of it from your boss's standpoint.

01:03:24Figure out who you're supposed to provide value to.

01:03:26Maybe it's your boss.

01:03:27Probably it's the customers in the long run.

01:03:33But, yes, the current plan is to come to Vegas in November.

01:03:36Yeah.

01:03:37So, as a young worker, you figure out who's the most – who's the people you need to apply value

01:03:42to, right?

01:03:43If you're a waitress – or, sorry, if you're a waiter, then, you know, it's happy customers and food and

01:03:48all of that.

01:03:49So, skin care routine works too.

01:03:53Yes, I do have a skin care regime.

01:03:55I mean, really, it's just slop on at night, slop on in the morning.

01:04:00So, sugar also ages skin.

01:04:03Why are we promoting marriage?

01:04:04Last time I checked, you aren't really religious.

01:04:06Why does the government have to be involved in my personal life?

01:04:08Well, marriage – the purpose of marriage is a stable pair-bonding situation for the benefit of children.

01:04:14So, that's what marriage is for and all of that.

01:04:17So, I thank you guys for dropping by tonight.

01:04:20Really do appreciate it.

01:04:21Have yourself a glorious, lovely, wonderful, beautiful, tasty, scrumptious evening.

01:04:25We will talk to you Sunday at 10 a.m.

01:04:29And keep your eyes posted for a wee bit of – let's play soon.

01:04:35Yeah, FDR podcast – sorry, fdpodcast.com slash 209.

01:04:39That's why I get married.

01:04:41That's the love, my friends.

01:04:42Bye.

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