1
- 13 hours ago
Philosopher Stefan Molyneux explains why humans are so violent by looking at our evolution amid constant threats of injury, disease and predators. He also answers listener questions on religious trends, physical books, real pleasure and ethical investing.
Questions:
"Some statistics show a higher % of younger generations embracing more conservative denominations. You commented on this church trend in males, but my experience is that these places also mostly support child-spanking, a strong centralized gov/ authority, and conformity. Thoughts?"
"Stefan, in a recent show you may have commented that the young generation no longer reads physical books. I’ve seen a resurgence of analog technology and physical books on the young as a way to rebel against streaming and social media, can you comment on this trend?"
"Received an argument that I was not articulate enough to properly answer: if hedonism is bad from the philosophical perspective, is caring for your family/community/yourself not hedonism since long-term it is a preservation of your (the selfish) genes? Ethical world=gene survival"
"Stefan, is investing in bonds unethical sense the interest payout is from cohesive taxation from future generations?"
"Stefan, can you comment on the current geopolitical conflicts from the religious lens? Orthodox vs protestants in Ukraine, Israeli Jews and American Christians vs Muslims in Iran; how much of what’s going on is motivated through the perspective of the faithful?"
0:00:00 Conservative Churches and Human Nature
0:13:17 How Violence Shaped Human Evolution
0:21:09 Evolution, Truth, and the Mind
0:26:12 Abstract Ideas and Their Dangers
0:35:41 Tribalism and the Future of the West
0:37:51 Social Media and Physical Books
0:41:44 Hedonism, Family, and Moral Choices
0:44:50 Pleasure, Selfishness, and Connection
0:50:59 Bonds, Ethics, and Investment
0:51:48 Reason as a Path to Peace
My 10v1 debate in Vegas is coming up on November 16! Check out Digital Social Hour on YouTube for the livestream links: https://youtube.com/@DigitalSocialHour.
Support philosophy! https://freedomain.com/donate/
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!
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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
Questions:
"Some statistics show a higher % of younger generations embracing more conservative denominations. You commented on this church trend in males, but my experience is that these places also mostly support child-spanking, a strong centralized gov/ authority, and conformity. Thoughts?"
"Stefan, in a recent show you may have commented that the young generation no longer reads physical books. I’ve seen a resurgence of analog technology and physical books on the young as a way to rebel against streaming and social media, can you comment on this trend?"
"Received an argument that I was not articulate enough to properly answer: if hedonism is bad from the philosophical perspective, is caring for your family/community/yourself not hedonism since long-term it is a preservation of your (the selfish) genes? Ethical world=gene survival"
"Stefan, is investing in bonds unethical sense the interest payout is from cohesive taxation from future generations?"
"Stefan, can you comment on the current geopolitical conflicts from the religious lens? Orthodox vs protestants in Ukraine, Israeli Jews and American Christians vs Muslims in Iran; how much of what’s going on is motivated through the perspective of the faithful?"
0:00:00 Conservative Churches and Human Nature
0:13:17 How Violence Shaped Human Evolution
0:21:09 Evolution, Truth, and the Mind
0:26:12 Abstract Ideas and Their Dangers
0:35:41 Tribalism and the Future of the West
0:37:51 Social Media and Physical Books
0:41:44 Hedonism, Family, and Moral Choices
0:44:50 Pleasure, Selfishness, and Connection
0:50:59 Bonds, Ethics, and Investment
0:51:48 Reason as a Path to Peace
My 10v1 debate in Vegas is coming up on November 16! Check out Digital Social Hour on YouTube for the livestream links: https://youtube.com/@DigitalSocialHour.
Support philosophy! https://freedomain.com/donate/
GET FREEDOMAIN MERCH! https://shop.freedomain.com/
SUBSCRIBE TO ME ON X! https://x.com/StefanMolyneux
Follow me on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@freedomain1
GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK!
https://peacefulparenting.com/
Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!
Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!
You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!
See you soon!
https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/FREEDOMAIN2026
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00All right. Good morning. Good morning, everybody. We are moving on with more questions from the
00:05fine listeners on X. Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show. All right.
00:11Some statistics, person writes, some statistics show a higher percent of younger generations
00:18embracing more conservative denominations. You commented on this church trend in males,
00:23but my experience is that these places also mostly support child's banking,
00:26a strong centralized government slash authority and conformity. Thoughts? Well, I mean,
00:35nothing is perfect except reason and evidence. And human beings are highly fallible. Human beings
00:42are highly prone to emotional pseudo thinking to, as you say, conformity. And these are not flaws
00:51flaws in the human species. These are not flaws. Nothing about humans is imperfect.
01:02Nothing about humans is imperfect, which doesn't mean we can't be improved. So what I mean by that is
01:10we've had four billion years over the course of human evolution and animal and pre-animal evolution
01:16to get things right from a biological standpoint. And human beings are about as perfect a creature
01:24as can be imagined. And human beings are perfect because it's been four billion years of tinkering
01:35and improvement and experimentation and rejection and acceptance and transmission and non-transmission
01:42of genes and so on. So four billion years is an insane amount of time, of course. And that's a
01:49lot of time
01:50to get things right. Now, human beings, for reasons of the brutal violence of nature, human beings have had
02:01to adapt themselves to violence. And this is the violence of nature, the violence of other human beings,
02:10the violence of the primitive states and societies, which birthed us, which we had to adapt to.
02:20Hair trigger violence is everywhere all the time in nature. I mean, if you've ever tried to get close
02:28to a deer, you know how jumpy they can be and should be and have to be and have to
02:37be. If you try to touch a
02:39fish, the fish will dart away. If you try to approach a squirrel, the squirrel will dart away. If you
02:46try to
02:47feed a squirrel, the squirrel will hesitate because it wants the food, but it doesn't want to die. So human
02:54beings have had to adapt to the absolute brutality of nature. I mean, just to be clear, I'm sure you
03:05understand this, but nature is a complete sociopathic, murder-rending, cannibalistic nature red in tooth
03:17and claw. The beasts all survive on predation. And this is just the nature of nature, so to speak.
03:28It is horrendously violent and terrifying and brutal and horrendous. At all times and under all
03:42circumstances, predation and murder, let's say, I mean, just put the moral label on it, though I get
03:47it's not particularly moral. The lion wants to kill the zebra. The zebra is going to kill the grass.
03:54You know, when they introduced rabbits into Australia, the rabbits ate everything and
04:00reproduced until the food sources were gone and they all starved to death. Animals are constantly
04:08tricking other animals. You know, you've got the trap spider that hides under the ground and then
04:13comes out and, you know, there's venom. There is death from above, death from below,
04:22death from all around you. Nature is a slaughterhouse of endless predation. And this is true,
04:32of course, of the lower animals. It's true of apes. It's true of humans that 90% of significant
04:42amounts of violence, of high levels of violence, come from males. And this is true of the ape kingdom
04:48and true of the human kingdom. So, in order to survive the absolute horrendous levels of violence,
05:00trickery, predation and brutality, my nature is constantly chiseling for benefit. And in order
05:07to survive this totally sociopathic world of vengeance, exploitation, betrayal, deception,
05:17harvesting, exploitation, in order to survive this, human beings had to be violent. And we decided,
05:26rather than building the giant claws that the big cats have and the giant teeth and insane speed,
05:34human beings decided to focus on tools and endurance. So, a human being can outrun, in terms of just
05:44dogged endurance, just about every creature on the planet. And I was made sort of very aware of this
05:51when I went hunting in Africa. And I shot a deer or a spring bark or something like that, a
05:59dick dick.
06:00And we had to, it didn't die, and we had to trail it. And this just went on and on
06:05and on until we
06:07found it and administered the coup de gras and then carried it home to eat it. And, you know,
06:14most people are getting their food from the grocery store, where it's all nicely packaged and
06:21sliced and diced. And, you know, there's a sort of cliche that, you know, a serial killer works in
06:30a slaughterhouse, right? And this makes sense by a serial killer, right? A butcher, you know, is a
06:36coarse, fat man with bad skin and cold eyes, right? Because it's all neatly tidied and packaged up
06:44for us as it stands. And the vulnerability of bird eggs means that they've got to have nests in
06:52trees, otherwise their children get eaten. I mean, imagine if in your, well, this is true
06:58throughout history as well, of course, you know, you put your baby in a bassinet or a crib, and some
07:05predator comes and eats it, right? There was a sort of famous story of the man and the woman
07:12in Australia, where a dingo, which is a form of Australian wild dog, took their baby. And the
07:22woman was actually sent to prison for some years until, not the baby's remains, because that would
07:28be taken into an underground dingo lair, but the jacket was found in an area near a dingo's. And
07:34anyway, there was this whole story. And this was something that was, of course, horribly common
07:41throughout human history, that yes, dingoes would, in fact, eat your babies. And rats would chew on your
07:49babies, and you would wake up with a baby missing. Well, that's what birds face, that, well, these days
07:55it's human beings, but, you know, other people eat the eggs. It's a great source of nutrition and protein
08:01and goop and whatever's going on. And I, you know, obviously don't know a huge amount about the
08:08brutality of nature, but I certainly do know something about the brutality of the elements
08:14of nature. I do know something about that. Because I worked for a year and a half with some breaks
08:22in
08:23town, but I worked in the bush in the summer, in the winter, in the fall, in the spring. And
08:29nature is
08:30extremely unforgiving. I worked with dangerous, heavy slicing equipment, giant drills and all of that.
08:38And, yeah, you better pay attention. I mean, these people who are like reality subjective,
08:44it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, you spent your entire time in a library reading books, and
08:47I get all of that. And, you know, the dearth of direct physical labor is pretty hard on particularly
08:54a young man's mind with regards to the subjectivity of nature. Women evolved to live in relationships,
09:01so for them, their reality is somewhat subjective. Men evolved to deal with brute natural facts,
09:07and therefore objectivity. A little bit more often comes from the masculine mind.
09:12And the people who have not had to deal with the direct dangerous brutality of nature. I mean,
09:18I'm not trying to sort of puff up my own He-Man credentials here, but it was not just working
09:25with,
09:26you know, giant dangerous tools in a bitterly cold environment, or sometimes a blisteringly hot
09:32environment. I remember carrying a set of, you know, 80-pound drill bits through a swamp,
09:39and my mouth filled with bugs. I had to hold on to the drill bits, so I couldn't even
09:44actively let them bite my face. And there were times where I felt that this had to be a slightly
09:49easier way to make money. But, of course, I had to go up to take care of my family, to
09:56give money
09:56for my family. And, of course, I had also come out of 13 years of government education,
10:04and therefore was as useless as tits on a bull when it came to economics. There was just no
10:09better way to make money at that point. Because they paid all the expenses, and the money got
10:14deposited back home, and that allowed my family to live. And it did give me some money for school.
10:24But that's brutal, hard, tough reality. It's uncompromising. You can't negotiate with it.
10:31It just is. And that is reality. Nature is brutal. And, of course, what I also wanted to mention was
10:39that if I had made a mistake up there, if I had gotten injured, then, you know, sometimes we were
10:46half a day's tough hike away from the tent and deep in the woods. And if I had gotten injured
10:53out there, I probably would have died, or it would have been excruciatingly painful and possibly
11:00significantly damaging. Because let's say that I broke my leg, right? Because we were sometimes
11:06carrying these 80-pound bags of earth samples, and it was an area which had been somewhat clear-cut,
11:13so there was only trees. We had to sort of carry these things along trees. If you slip and break
11:18your leg, what do you do? You're half a day's hike from the tent. And from the tent, you then
11:25have to
11:26call in an airplane. And the airplane may or may not be available, because they're constantly being
11:32booked for other things. And if I had done some severe damage to myself, death or permanent maiming
11:39would be a fairly likely outcome. And then, of course, you get the airplane. It has to fly. It
11:46has to try and get you to a hospital. The closest hospital was hours and hours and hours away, even
11:51by plane. And then there had to be a place for it to land. So you'd probably have to transfer
11:55planes,
11:56because they had to land on the lakes, right? You had a seaplane. In the summer, you had a ski
12:01plane
12:02in the winter. And there were times when you couldn't get either. So if the ice was breaking
12:07up, then the plane couldn't land. Like you were inaccessible, because there's too much ice
12:14for a seaplane, and too much water for a ski plane, right? A plane with skis on the bottom.
12:20So then you're just toast, right? And you're just going to die. I mean, maybe they could try and
12:26drop it. Well, no, you couldn't even drop it. You couldn't land. You couldn't land. The only place to
12:30land is the water. And when the ice is breaking up, that's dangerous, right? And of course, you
12:35know, try to cross the ice sometimes with heavy soil samples when it's starting to crack, you
12:40know, when you just have to sort of give up. And that's when you went back to town, but to
12:44process
12:45the samples. But, you know, it's a tough, tough work out there. So nature is brutal. I mean, nature
12:50will, you know, wipe you out like you're cleaning a window. And so the harshness of nature, the
12:57brutality of nature, you know, all think China is a hole. Nature is a hole. And that's just
13:05kind of how we evolved. And again, I've been a city boy for most of my life. I've sort
13:10of had these extremes in my life as a whole, where I'm loved, I'm hated. I'm a city boy.
13:15I'm out in the deep woods for a year and a half. So the evolution of our society, of our
13:24species, of our psychology and our physiology was based on extraordinary levels of violence,
13:32brutality, and deception, right? Deception. This is a famous line and famous situation in
13:40Macbeth, where there is an army that approaches covering its numbers by holding up giant tree
13:47branches in front of itself. This is one of the prophecies like you are not going to lose
13:52until this forest comes to your castle. And of course, Macbeth says, well, that's never
13:57going to happen. So I guess I'm fine, right? No man born of woman can defeat you. And he
14:02says, oh, no, I was from my mother's womb and timely ripped. And then, bang, right? So that's
14:09how we evolved in a situation, planet, world, environment of extreme levels, levels that
14:18are almost impossible to comprehend. I mean, I didn't really have to deal with predators
14:25out there. I mean, a bear came by once and killed the camp dog or half killed the camp
14:30dog and all of that. But for the most part, we didn't have to deal with predators. So we
14:37had to deal with brute nature, but not predators. Now, of course, our ancestors had to deal not
14:41only with predators, but also with, sorry, with brute nature, but also with predators.
14:47And of course, I also didn't have to deal with bacteria or infections, right? So the greatest
14:54predations on human beings and animals as a whole are viruses and bacteria.
15:00Well, last summer, I got a bee sting, my hands swelled up, and I guess I could have died in
15:07the
15:07past, right? If I had had that infection or whatever happened in the wound. And yet I was
15:15fine because I got some antibiotics and so on, right? So I'm good. I'm fine. But that could have
15:24killed me in the past. You know, half of children died before the age of five from various ailments
15:29and ailments, which people were helpless before and didn't understand. And this is why they thought
15:33it was some sort of divine punishment because, you know, one of the most terrifying and brutal
15:40and high body count predators on the human species is the humble mosquito, right? Because
15:45they're transferring diseases and causing infections and so on, right? You scratch it, it bleeds,
15:52you get an infection, you get an infection, and you did. So we grew up in an environment of staggering
15:59levels of brutality, and men evolved through women's preferences to a large degree, men evolved
16:07to be violent. And that's because nature is staggeringly violent. And it's very easy to forget
16:16that, right? If you don't spend much time in nature, and then you go on nice guided nature
16:21walks, and you look at Ansel Adams paintings and pictures or photos, and you enjoy nature
16:28because you spend all your time in corners and angles and windows and ceiling tiles and white
16:37walls and computer screens, and everything's kind of artificial. So your brain gets like physical
16:42relief from going into nature. It breaks up the discordant straight lines that we surround
16:49ourselves with in order to survive, which is nice because it does keep us relatively safe. But
16:55yeah, nature is a sociopath. And that's putting, of course, to some degree moral standards on it. But
17:05yeah, animals are sociopathic. Lions take great pleasure and joy in ripping the heads off baby
17:15zebra. And that's nature. And that's evolution. And it's horrendous and brutal and dismal and
17:25terrifying. And like, all prey species are permanently anxious and jumpy. And all predator species
17:35also have anxiety. Am I going to find food? When I run across an uncertain landscape, am I going to
17:46fall and break a bone and die? You know, if you're a lion and you break a bone, and the
17:51jackals come
17:52and circle you and snap at you and chew at you, and then the hunter becomes the hunted. It's not
17:58even
17:58hunted, just waiting for him to die. Or are you going to get bitten by some Komodo dragon, which has...
18:03I
18:04think they used to think Komodo dragons had poison. I think they figured out that it just had, they just
18:08have bacteria on their teeth. And are you going to get bitten by a Komodo dragon? And then the Komodo
18:15dragon is going to hang around for a week or two until you die of infection and then eat you.
18:19I mean,
18:20that's nature. I mean, I think we all know this in the abstract. I may have a little bit more
18:26sort of
18:27direct and vivid experience because I grew up... Sorry, I didn't grow up. I was for a significant
18:33amount of time in nature in the wild. And people who grew up on farms see this stuff. But a
18:37farm is a
18:38very cultivated environment. I was in brute nature. And I didn't even have to hunt for my food.
18:44We got deliveries of groceries from time to time in our giant tent in the woods. So that's nature.
18:54So the reason, of course, I'm saying all of this is that human beings are perfect because we have
19:03unambiguously won in the game of nature. I think, I mean, think of the countless millions of species
19:09that have evolved. Some have stayed. Most have decayed and died or blended into other species.
19:17So we are the unambiguous winners of the 4 billion year, virtually infinite number of species and
19:26virtually infinite number of mutations. We are the absolute triumphant winners of the game
19:33of evolution. And how did we become the absolute winners? Like we dominate the entire planet. Now,
19:41people can say, ah, yes, but it's, it may not be sustainable and so on. It's like, I don't give
19:47a rat's keister. I don't give a rat's behind as to whether it's sustainable or not. Because living
19:54like an animal, living like an ape was wretched and horrible. I mean, compared to the glories of being
20:00able to talk about philosophy with the world and reason and yeah, so maybe it's not sustainable. Sure,
20:06maybe it's not sustainable. But the alternative was worse, which is, you know, just live like a
20:12chimpanzee and, you know, fight and, you know, reproduce and tear at each other. And I mean,
20:21that's just horrendous. That's just horrendous. So when I say human beings are perfect, what I'm saying
20:27is that we've absolutely won the game of life. We've absolutely won the game of evolution. There
20:36aren't even close seconds. Like there aren't other animals that are kind of like us or, you know,
20:40just only half a smart, like you look at the world, you look at it and look at a city.
20:45That's a
20:45beautiful thing. You look at a city. It's an absolutely beautiful thing. A ship, an airplane,
20:49a spaceship, a computer. I mean, it's incredible. Absolutely incredible. So human beings are perfect
20:59in that we've completely won the game of evolution. Now, this doesn't mean that we can't be improved
21:05because we are perfect relative to the game of evolution. If the universe were to have a purpose,
21:12it would be universal because the universe is kind of hinted in the name. The universe is universal
21:20and the purpose of the universe, if it were to have a purpose, must be truth, must be truth,
21:27accuracy, that things in the material mind, which is made of properties, universal properties of
21:36matter and energy, that there would be a match of things in the mind. Since the mind is made of
21:42universals, there would be a match between things in the mind and things in the universe. I don't want
21:50to exempt the mind from the universe. Of course, the mind is a material part of the universe. But that
21:55the contents of the mind should match the properties of the universe that the universe and the mind
22:00all contain is a beautiful symmetry. So we evolved to deal with violence, deception, predation,
22:10sudden death, helplessness in the face. I mean, we can keep the wolves out of our cities. We can do
22:19that. But what we can't do is keep the bacteria out of our wounds. I mean, we didn't even have
22:25soap
22:25till like a couple hundred years ago. And they didn't even think of putting soap on the hands,
22:31like washing hands before any kind of operation, like opening people up, putting your hands inside
22:37them. They didn't even think of washing hands until, what, 150 years ago, something like that. And then
22:44the guy who came up with that idea was so ridiculed that he was put into an insane asylum
22:50and was beaten to death by an orderly. That's his reward for saving hundreds of millions of human
22:58lives over time. Our profits are almost always stoned in one way or another. So we are perfect
23:08in that we have undeniably won the entire game of evolution. That doesn't mean we can't be improved.
23:15So we've won the entire game of evolution. And the purpose, in many ways, I think, of winning the
23:21entire game of evolution is to pursue truth, right? So evolution means you don't pursue truth,
23:29you pursue survival, right? That's what evolution says. It doesn't matter if you're right or wrong,
23:36true or false. What matters is you survive. Now, of course, some of survival requires processing
23:44truth, right? The senses have to be valid. They have to accurately represent things in reality,
23:51because if they don't accurately represent things in reality, then you can't get your resources from
23:56reality, right? The lion has to accurately process where the zebra is in order to get his food.
24:03So we are perfect in terms of evolution, but our perfection in terms of evolution has come to
24:11some degree at the expense of truth. So to survive a brutal universe, we have to combine with tribal
24:21members, right? We have to be part of the tribe. We have to surrender to the tribe. We have to
24:26conform
24:26with the tribe and its illusions in order to survive. Because we are evolved to process
24:33immediate sense data, but we have the ability, which is a side effect of the need to develop tools
24:38and language, which usually aid our survival, right? We have to have abstractions that represent
24:48cause and effect. Now, abstractions that represent cause and effect have given us the ability
24:55to create tools and do all kinds of wonderful, great, and delightful stuff. And, of course, we have to
25:02imagine cause and effect in order to even be able to create tools, right? And so one of the side
25:10effects
25:11of creating tools and language has been conceptual universals are a rejection of reality. Reality does
25:23not come with a bricked house, right? Reality does not come with automatic fire, right? So we have to
25:34imagine these things. We have to imagine things which are not part of reality itself. They're based
25:41upon principles. And so we have this amazing ability to imagine things which aren't there based upon
25:50principles. This gives us tools. This gives us language. This gives us cohesion. This gives us myths,
25:57which can join us together. And it also gives us a superstition. Superstition is a side effect.
26:08Superstition is a side effect. It's a great song, but it is a side effect. Now, in terms of predation,
26:17the greatest predator on humanity, and there's not even a close second in the modern world,
26:24the greatest predator on humanity is false moral theories. Human beings have won the evolutionary
26:34race through universals, through our adoption of universals. That's given us technology and tools
26:41and medicine and science and architecture. It's all based upon our absorption and processing
26:47of abstract universals. That is what has given us the victory in the problem of predation and deception,
26:56of murder and lying that is known as evolution. So we have abstract universals. And to put it another
27:05way, particularly, let's say, a little bit more so in the West, I think, because of the history of
27:11theoretical universals in ancient Greece and then practical universals in ancient Rome, and then
27:19Christianity bringing those universals over to the moral sphere, we have a little bit more focus on
27:26abstract universals in the West. Which is to say, those who were best able to process abstract
27:35universals tended to survive and pass on their genes a little bit more. The fear that we have in the
27:44West of going against society is to do with this. Society, as it gets larger and gets to a nation
27:53state, is more and more abstract universals. For king and country. I remember when I was a little kid
28:00pretending to be St. George fighting dragons and, you know, I was preparing. I was preparing for my
28:06adult life. And I remember for king and country, for St. George and, you know, like this whole
28:13abstract universal stuff, got young men to fight and die and, in a sense, go against their own
28:20evolutionary programming. And that allowed the ideas to spread through conquest a lot of times.
28:29So, we have developed, as the need for tools and language, which allows for weaponry and history
28:37and the abstract universals of not just our immediate tribe, but our nation, and so on. We have
28:44developed, again, I would argue, a little bit more so in the West, a focus or expertise on abstract
28:50universals. That is why we survive, why we flourish, how we can protect ourselves. It gives us, you know,
28:56philosophy, morals, science, engineering, architecture, medicine, and so on. These are
29:02abstract universals. Now, the problem is, of course, that when a particular group has survived
29:08through a focus on abstract universals, that group has become specialized. And when you become
29:15specialized, you are vulnerable, right? So, the dinosaurs, of course, specialized to particular
29:22temperatures. So, they allowed the environment to regulate their body temperatures. They did not
29:26have, they were not warm-blooded, right? They were cold-blooded. And so, when the temperature
29:30changed, because they had specialized in cold-blooded architecture, the regulation of body temperature was
29:39dependent upon the environment. It allowed them to grow bigger and so on, because they didn't need all
29:43of the heating and cooling mechanisms that mammals have. But because they specialized for a particular
29:50temperature, then when they are no longer in that particular temperature, if some ice age comes along,
29:57as it kind of inevitably does, then they die off. So, or, I mean, whatever killed the dinosaurs. So,
30:06this is the case in Florida. There are these iguanas, I think, that every time there's a cold snap,
30:11they just freeze and fall out of the trees, and you can sort of pick them up like little lizard
30:16sickles or whatever. So, they just can't adapt, right? Whereas the mice and the, I don't know,
30:22whatever else there is in Florida, beavers, I don't know, whatever's in Florida that are mammals,
30:27they tend to survive a lot better. So, everything that is a specialty is also a vulnerability.
30:35So, omnivores that can either, can eat either meat or plants, survive better, but have to hunt more.
30:42And carnivores, if there's no prey around, they starve to death because they can't eat anything
30:47but meat. So, your specialty is also your vulnerability. The more you adapt to a particular
30:53thing, the more you can be hacked by that particular thing. And so, human beings have
30:59developed this amazing capacity for abstract universals, and means that we are particularly
31:04vulnerable to false moral theories, to exploitive moral, moral theories. So, that's how, when cold
31:14spread, because we have openings on our faces, right? Eyes, nose, mouth, you know, you touch your
31:21mouth, your nose, if you've got a virus, you're probably going to go in and, right? So, we,
31:26we, of course, need air holes and eating holes and so on and seeing holes, but that's also a
31:33vulnerability because that's how diseases and illnesses get transmitted and get into us,
31:38right? So, yeah, all that we specialize in are our vulnerabilities, and human beings have chosen
31:45to throw, throw themselves, to throw ourselves entirely into abstract universals, which has
31:50allowed us to win evolution, but the problem is that we are then immensely susceptible to false
31:57moral theories, which are, again, by far the greatest predators on, on, on human beings, right? In 20th
32:07century, democide, a quarter of a billion human beings slaughtered by their own governments outside
32:11of war. You throw in war and you get another, I don't know, 150 million, 100 million, so, you know,
32:18between the third and half a billion human beings killed. Now, it's, you know, from a sort of cold-eyed
32:24demographic standpoint, universals have created and sustained more human life in terms of science and
32:32agriculture and medicine than the false moral theories have taken away, right? Because even
32:37with all the predation of the 20th century and beyond, the numbers of human beings continue to grow.
32:42So, from an evolutionary standpoint, it's, it's good. Though, of course, the false moral theories do
32:49produce untold and immense evils. From a sheer number standpoint, the numbers of human beings
32:54tends to keep going up, except for, um, young white women of reproductive age. That is not really
33:01happening at all. So, human beings evolved in a situation of extreme violence, as did all animals.
33:10What's that line from Star Wars? Like, there's always a bigger fish kind of thing. Well, not always,
33:14but the bigger fish is, its predator is, is being hungry, because it needs more calories. So,
33:21we evolved out of brutality through abstract universals, but then the problem is that the
33:29abstract universals then gave us false moral theories. So, we escaped direct physical predators
33:38through abstract universals through abstract universals in many ways. But then, because we
33:43escaped our natural predators, the creatures that would prey upon us in the wild, we escaped those
33:49through abstract universals, but that introduced a hack wherein we could be controlled, bullied,
33:55subjugated, and slaughtered by the millions by abstract universals. So, to escape bears and wolves,
34:04lions and tigers and sharks, to escape all of those, we pursued abstract universals, tools and towns and cities
34:12and weapons and, and so on. But the pursuit of that created a new predator class, which is the totalitarian
34:21state with its false moral theories of fascism, communism, socialism, and so on, right? So, it's a challenge.
34:27Evolution is a challenge. So, human beings are perfect in the realm of evolution.
34:33Human beings must improve in the realm of universals and bring universals, true universals, to morals.
34:41And then we shall be perfect in form and function, in practice and theory, in the material and in the
34:49abstract.
34:51So, UPB is like antibiotics. It removes predation from that which is largely unseen, which is the false moral theories
35:01that surround and corrupt our minds. So, we made ourselves safer from nature, and we made ourselves more vulnerable
35:10and controllable by false moral theories, by human beings who hook into our abstract universals,
35:16because our capacity to process abstract universals was positively selected for in that abstract universals,
35:24those tribes that embraced it, or embraced them, the abstract universals, became more powerful.
35:31And you sort of look at the West versus, say, China.
35:34I talked about this in my documentary on Hong Kong, which I hope you will check out.
35:41So, as far as all of this goes, sort of get back to the question, some statistics show a high
35:48percentage of younger generations
35:49embracing more conservative denominations. You commented on this church trend in males,
35:54but my experience is that these places also mostly support child spanking, a strong centralized government
36:00and authority and conformity. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So, one of the challenges is that the West,
36:09for reasons obviously slightly outside the scope of this discussion, has imposed upon it,
36:18or has chosen, or however you want to say, to import a large number of culturists who reject abstract universals.
36:25They have in-group preferences. And what that is going to do is it is going to cause people in
36:32the West
36:33to be drawn towards their own tribes, their own tribalism. That's kind of what has to be done.
36:39That's kind of what has to be done. There's no other way really to survive all of this.
36:45And so, I imagine that we will end up falling back in time for a while, you know, 100 years,
36:52200 years,
36:52or whatever. We'll end up falling back in time for a while, things will get tribal and brutal.
36:59See, one of the things that's happened is the science and medicine and agricultural expertise
37:04and so on of the West was transferred to other cultures, who then got the benefits without having
37:11to go through the philosophical evolutionary path of focusing on abstract universals.
37:17And so, they get the effects of better philosophy, which is technology and medicine and so on,
37:25but they didn't have to go through the process required to produce it.
37:30So, you can produce the effects of better philosophy on cultures with worse philosophy,
37:35and they get all the benefits of the better philosophy, but without actually having to improve their thinking.
37:41So, I mean, criminals can use weapons that they could never invent, right?
37:46So, somebody else has to invent them.
37:47So, I imagine there's going to be more tribalism that's coming for a while.
37:52All right, Stefan, in a recent show, you may have commented that the young generation no longer reads physical books.
37:58I've seen a resurgence for analog technology and physical books on the young
38:01as a way to rebel against streaming and social media.
38:04Can you comment on this trend?
38:05Yeah, so social media is brain rot to a large degree.
38:09Not all of it, not all of it, but certainly a good chunk of it.
38:14Some of it can be very good.
38:16I saw a little clip that I thought was very clever, where a woman was saying to a man,
38:21well, the man wants to marry a virgin, but he himself is not a virgin.
38:25And he said, well, that's the same logic as you wanting to marry a man who's wealthy when you yourself
38:29are not wealthy.
38:31And, you know, that's boom, right?
38:33That's boom.
38:34I don't, for whatever reason, I don't have these, I don't tend to generate these clippable boom things,
38:40you know, like the Kathy Newman, Jordan Peterson thing.
38:42But whatever, that's fine.
38:43Can't do it all.
38:44Can't do it all well.
38:45So, there is a certain amount of brain rot flipping through reels.
38:50I think they're called reels.
38:51Some of them can be very funny.
38:53Some of them can be very, very funny.
38:57My daughter and I have occasionally watched short videos to the point where I am weeping with laughter.
39:03They can sometimes be, and you know what's really funny?
39:06This is particularly true on Instagram.
39:08It's that it is not just the videos that are funny, but it's the comment sections that can be absolutely
39:18hilarious.
39:21And, of course, I can't think of any right now, but some of the comment sections can be, I mean,
39:27I will laugh harder at the comment section of a good short video than I will at most comedies.
39:34Most comedies, you know, maybe I've been around a little too long.
39:37Well, not too long, but I've been around for quite a while.
39:39And so, most comedies, you know, they're amusing or funny, and I might smile and maybe chuckle a little, but
39:45I can, with the reels and the comments sections, I can weep with laughter.
39:52Like, I can laugh until my ab, I'd like to say plural, but it's probably one, my ab hurts.
39:58So, this stuff can be very funny.
40:01But, yeah, there's going to be a bit of physical books.
40:03The physical book thing is interesting and important.
40:06And I'm plowing my way through a giant book at the moment, and I will say that I don't quite
40:10have the patience that I used to for long books.
40:12You know, when I was doing an interview or two a week, I'd have to read four or five books
40:16a week and plow through those.
40:18But now, I guess I read The Outsiders not too long ago, and I'm going through this big giant book.
40:26And with my family, we will read a work of fiction together.
40:32And I'm pretty good with accents and voices and all of that.
40:35So, we do some of that, and my family does some of that, which is a lot of fun.
40:39But I would assume that for younger people, you want to develop the muscle of concentration and follow-through.
40:47And you know what it's like.
40:48You get to a bit of a slow part in a book, and you're like, oh, I wonder what's going
40:51on on X.
40:52Or, oh, here's a video.
40:53Or, oh, I got a notification.
40:54Oh, I checked my email.
40:55Right?
40:55So, you kind of fragment yourself up.
40:57But, of course, this ADHD stuff has a lot to do with whether you're breastfed or not.
41:04Every additional month of being breastfed lowers your symptoms of ADHD quite considerably.
41:12So, all right.
41:12So, I would assume that they enjoy that because it's a little bit more concentrated and so on, which is
41:18good.
41:19Which is good.
41:21So, also, there are things that vanish, right?
41:25You can go to Mike Cernovich's movie, Hoaxed, which is a really great movie about media bias and deception.
41:30And in Hoaxed, hoaxedmovie.com, people bought it off Amazon, and then, for various deplatforming reasons, it gone.
41:40It gone.
41:40It was vanished, even though they bought it.
41:42So, I think people want fixed copies because they can't be taken.
41:45Somebody says, received an argument that I was not articulate enough to properly answer.
41:49If hedonism is bad from the philosophical perspective, is caring for your family community yourself not hedonism?
41:57Since, long term, it is a preservation of your, the selfish genes.
42:02Ethical world equals gene survival.
42:05So, if hedonism is bad, is caring for your family not hedonism?
42:09But it depends how, right?
42:11This is the Sopranos question, right?
42:13So, in the Sopranos, Anthony Soprano is a mob boss who takes care of his family by hurting people, by
42:25killing people, by breaking people's bones, by beating them up, by setting fire to their stores, by blowing things up.
42:31So, he's taking care of his family, but it's immoral.
42:36It's evil, right?
42:37He's initiating the use of force.
42:39And, sometimes, of course, the argument is made that he ends up taking over the store of a guy who
42:44got into debt with him.
42:46So, he might argue that, you know, hey, you chose to gamble, you chose to borrow money, I warned you
42:51against it, you decided to keep doing it, and all of that.
42:55So, it really depends how you do it.
42:59So, there is an essential element of pleasure as a motivator, but I think it's fair to say that there
43:08are higher and lower pleasures.
43:11So, there is the pleasure you get from biting into a ding-dong, which I suppose sounds a little bit
43:17more gay than it is.
43:18There is a whole species of, like, absolute, doesn't decay on the shelf, junk food, racked in plastic, and Joe
43:26Lewis, passion flakies, and the ding-dongs.
43:29They used to be, I don't know if they're still around, hostess Twinkies, and, like, just absolute goo.
43:34I remember when I was in junior high school, you could get a donut for a quarter, and occasionally, I
43:40would have a quarter and get a donut, and it had this absolutely delightful petroleum-based biochemical goop in the
43:48middle.
43:49It's a, quote, cream, although, obviously, it wasn't cream in any biological sense.
43:54The cows used to produce this cream are entirely abstract and, again, petroleum-based, but it was really good.
44:00It was really good.
44:00It was so good, right?
44:03So, that's a fairly trashy pleasure, but, you know, the pleasure that you get out of, say, exercising, working out,
44:11being strong and healthy, like I went and played pickleball with a group last night.
44:19And my wife and I played an hour and a half of pickleball on some doubles, which is not a
44:26huge amount of effort, and some singles, which was more effort, of course.
44:30And, you know, I like, at 60, being able to do an hour and a half of pickleball, you know,
44:36to sweat, to get the blood pumping, and I can still sprint to get the ball when it rolls away.
44:40So, you know, still being able to sprint at 60 is pretty nice.
44:43There's a certain amount of pleasure in that, which is good.
44:45Which is good, man.
44:47It's good, man.
44:48So, that's a certain kind of pleasure.
44:49So, pleasure is needed, but the pleasure of doing good in the world is better than the sadistic pleasure of
44:57hurting people, in that it's more universal.
45:01See, if you have separate rules or opposing rules for yourself and others, you end up extraordinarily isolated, right?
45:10So, let's say that you say, well, with my girlfriend, it only matters that I get sexual pleasure.
45:18It doesn't matter if she gets sexual pleasure, right?
45:21Well, then your sexual pleasure will be diminished because it's not mutual, right?
45:25You're not viewing her as a human being, but rather as some sort of fleshlight masturbatory object.
45:29And so, you're isolated, you're separated, you're disconnected from others.
45:34One of the beautiful things about universal moral standards is we get to live in the same moral universe as
45:39others.
45:40It's not win-lose.
45:41It's not I win.
45:42I get what I want.
45:43You don't get what you want.
45:44I don't care.
45:45You know, you're separating and opposing yourself in your mind to others.
45:49You enter into relationships with others, not as mutual win-win.
45:53We both want to get what we want.
45:54Let's find a way to have that happen.
45:56But you end up in a predator-prey relationship, a win-lose relationship, with those you claim to love.
46:04And that tangles up your brain.
46:06It makes you very hard.
46:09It makes it almost impossible for you to connect, right?
46:13So, if you're with your girlfriend and you get your sexual pleasure and you don't care about her
46:17and you just turn over and fall asleep or go shower or something
46:20and she's sort of seething and upset and unsatisfied and so on and you don't care,
46:25then you can't be close to her because you're not recognizing her as a human being who wants her sexual
46:29pleasure
46:29just as you do, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
46:31And so, that is isolating, right?
46:38Selfishness brutally, brutally isolates people.
46:42And that isolation knows of the soul because we're social animals and to be isolated is painful.
46:49So, you'll get your short-term pleasures, maybe sexual gratification,
46:52but your long-term pleasures in terms of connection and mutual respect and love are going to be,
46:58they're going to collapse.
46:59It's going to be catastrophic for those impulses or thoughts or feelings within you.
47:04So, that is bad stuff.
47:08So, yes, there's hedonism, but there's also maintaining hedonism in the long run.
47:16So, if you give up, right, let's say you're at a party and, you know, there's this terrible habit among
47:23the young of,
47:25hey, try this pill and, you know, I don't know, nobody knows where it comes from and so on
47:30and some of the stuff is laced with fentanyl and it's kind of a bio-weapon in a way.
47:35Not a bio-weapon, but it's kind of like a weapon against people who are young in the West.
47:39Usually, it's people who are young.
47:41So, you're at a party and somebody says, hey, man, try this pill.
47:44It's going to make you feel great.
47:46You're going to have a party time.
47:47It's going to be fantastic, right?
47:49Now, if you take the pill, you get the immediate approval and cheers, perhaps, of the degenerates around you.
47:55So, if you, but if you take the pill, you could be dead or OD or end up brain dead
48:01or like it could,
48:02it could completely wreck your life.
48:04It could completely wreck your life.
48:07And what's it, I was talking about Brian Wilson who died, was it last year or something?
48:11I was talking about Brian Wilson that he, he took drugs and then forever had voices screaming in his ear
48:16that he was a terrible human being and bad and wrong and stupid and untalented.
48:22Like, the rest of his life, that's, that's all he was doing was managing these horrible voices
48:26that these drugs had opened up the portal to because of his abusive father.
48:30So, the short-term hedonism of approval from degenerates, and even if you take the pill and
48:36you have a decent time, or maybe even a good time, well, you now risk addiction.
48:42And even more fundamentally, what's happened is you now know that you will just do what other
48:49people say, and you have no will, thoughts, virtues, or values of your own, that you're
48:54just a weathervane.
48:55You're the tail of a kite being pulled around by other people's willed string-pulling choices.
48:59So, that's not exactly a recipe for self-respect at all, right?
49:05So, hedonism, yeah, we should follow to some degree the pleasure principle.
49:09Well, we should not be pure masochists, because you also can't really spread philosophy.
49:16Let's say you want to spread virtue and philosophy.
49:18You can't really spread virtue and philosophy by being a masochist.
49:24And of course, I guess you could argue even the masochist is motivated by hedonism because
49:29the masochist takes pleasure out of being tormented, tortured, or bullied, or hit, or whatever
49:33creepy stuff is going on in the Red Room.
49:36So, you do have to show some reasonable, rational pleasures to others.
49:44It cannot be that virtue is all about self-flagellating.
49:49And of course, you know, there are religions that say, well, you have to suffer in this life.
49:53But the reason you suffer in this life is so that you get wonderful things in, lo and behold,
49:59the next life, right?
50:00That you're going to get wonderful things in the next life, and therefore, it's good to
50:03suffer in this life.
50:05That's just deferred hedonism that allows you to be exploited.
50:08Now, so, if you have a tumor, you get it removed, you're going to suffer because you
50:13have to recover and all of that.
50:14But the purpose is that the long term is it's going to be better.
50:18And so, hedonism, there has to be some pleasure.
50:22But we want the longest term pleasures as a whole.
50:28And we can't guarantee those, right?
50:31Virtue does not guarantee happiness.
50:34Virtue does not guarantee happiness in the same way that eating well and exercising does
50:38not guarantee health.
50:40But it's your best shot.
50:42And virtue unites, right?
50:44So, if you're with your wife, your girlfriend, your husband, your boyfriend, and you both share
50:48the same values, then you're both in the same place, in the same mindset.
50:53You're working for each other's happiness.
50:55You are united.
50:55You are close.
50:56And it's a beautiful thing.
50:58It's a beautiful thing.
50:58So, all right.
51:00Steph, is investing in bonds unethical in the sense the interest payout is from cohesive
51:04taxation from future generations?
51:07Yeah.
51:08I mean, that's a good question.
51:12There is a significant degree of uncertainty and moral ambiguity and hazard in all investments,
51:23right?
51:24So, let's say that you invest in some fund and in that fund is some military-industrial complex
51:31companies.
51:32Then you are investing in war and destruction and death and so on.
51:37So, yes, I'm generally, I think that, of course, as you know, I think Bitcoin is the way to go.
51:44It is the most ethical currency around.
51:46So, I would definitely work on all of that.
51:49All right.
51:49Steph, can you comment on the current geopolitical conflicts from the religious lens?
51:53Orthodox versus Protestants in Ukraine, Israeli Jews and American Christians versus Muslims in Iran.
51:58How much of what's going on is motivated through the perspective of the faithful?
52:01Well, I would say I can probably not comment on that in any specifics.
52:10I can't really comment on that in any specifics.
52:13However, I will say that the only thing that can bring peace is reason.
52:18The only thing that can bring peace is reason and empiricism, the evidence of the senses,
52:23and all of the arguments that are, frankly, slightly underappreciated that I made regarding
52:30the evolution of reason from the evidence of the senses that I made in J. Dyer's debate
52:38with me on my debate with J. Dyer.
52:40So, yes, if you'll notice, the scientific community is generally less at war with each other
52:47than the religious community.
52:49Mathematicians are less at war with each other than either statists or theologians.
52:56And the degree to which they are at war with society is the degree to which they are funded
53:05by the government.
53:08And, you know, most mathematicians, I mean, outside of Wall Street and so on, most mathematicians
53:14are funded by the government.
53:15Most physicists are funded by the government and so on.
53:21Academics, of course, are funded and protected by the government.
53:25So, given that, they are at war with society, right, because they are using the force of
53:33the government to gain privileges and income from society against the will of society, right?
53:38Whatever is forced is against someone's will.
53:40That this is, I mean, praxeological, which is to say it is true by definition.
53:47It is true by definition.
53:49That which is forced is against people's will.
53:53There's no escape from that.
53:55There's no way around that.
53:57That is foundational and factual.
54:00That which is coerced is against people's choices and preferences.
54:05And so, people do not want the current number of academics.
54:10They do not want the current number of abstract physicists.
54:12They do not want the current number of mathematicians and so on.
54:16And so, these people are, by definition, acting against the will and through coercion, violating
54:24the property rights of individuals.
54:27So, this is one of the reasons why academics, the abstract theoreticians who prey upon the
54:35population as a whole, the people who are mathematicians and physicists and others who
54:39are living off the public purse, it's funny because they are in hot pursuit of universals
54:44in the physical realm, but they can only pursue their mostly nonsensical work at the expense
54:50of universal principles in the moral realm by using the state to prey upon the purses
54:55of the people.
54:56And this is one of the reasons why these mathematicians and physicists and so on, why they are so horrified
55:05by AI.
55:07If AI can do their job for them, well, AI does not require direct taxation for the most part
55:16in order to do its job, in order to do its work.
55:20So, they are somewhat horrified about all of that, and good.
55:25All right.
55:25So, I will stop here.
55:26Again, thank you so much for your great questions.
55:29I will get to more.
55:29These questions are so good.
55:31It's a three-course meal to answer some of them.
55:33So, freedomand.com slash donate to help out the show.
55:36I really would appreciate that.
55:37freedomand.com slash donate to help out the show.
55:40And we will talk soon.
55:42Bye.