Bad Philosophy Questions!

Stefan Molyneux

I’ve loved your work for years! Just wondering—since you haven’t done as many public debates lately, how do you keep your skills sharp? Do you still feel like you’re growing? Thank you    1. Where will you answer this question so I can hear a response if possible. 2. Can you go into the classic concept of akrasia eg "weakness of will" and how our understanding of that concept has evolved with access to the fields of neuroscience, psychoanalysis, etc. With a particular focus on the topic of free will and how perhaps it is or isn't an outmoded concept. 3. Thank u Stefan Molyneux     Dear Stef,   Why is there something rather than nothing?   additionally as a tangential question I will also ask so as not to present the first question in a biased framing:  Why would there be nothing rather than something?     Detective Molyneux on the case~ 🕵‍♂️   What could you reasonably infer knowing only the following about someone:   They are confident in person, both around strangers as well as people they have a close relationship with; however, they appear specifically camera shy, despite rating in the top 10% of attractiveness?    Recommended areas to relocate while looking for a new tribe?    Can someone be low IQ and manipulative?      GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK!  https://peacefulparenting.com/   Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!   Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!   You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!   See you soon!  https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2025   Why do people stop growing when they are comfortable and what can we do to stop it?    At what point does playing along with society become selling out?   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!

Transcript

00:00All right, great questions from Facebook and other places.

00:06Thank you so much for all of your support.

00:07Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show.

00:10Massively appreciated.

00:11All right.

00:12Somebody says, I've loved your work for years.

00:16Just wondering, since you haven't done as many public debates lately, how do you keep

00:20your skills sharp?

00:22Do you still feel like you're growing?

00:25That's a great question.

00:26It's a great question.

00:27My public debates were generally, I mean, I really work to review from first principles

00:33according to reason and evidence, my position.

00:35So public debates were not, in a sense, not fair because other people are not working

00:40from the same kind of blank slate, first principles, reason and evidence built from the ground

00:46up.

00:47I mean, I've got a whole 17-part introduction to philosophy series.

00:50I've written a book, Essential Philosophy.

00:52I've written a UPB, a universally preferable behavior, a rational proof of secular ethics.

00:58So I have all of my arguments and evidence reasoned from first principles, which is,

01:02well, let's just say not the most common thing in the known universe.

01:09As far as keeping my skills sharp, well, I, of course, take lots of questions from the

01:13audience.

01:14I still do call-in shows.

01:15And also, for those of you who are interested, I'm doing, and have been for a while, I'm

01:19doing private call-in shows, which are never released to anyone.

01:23And I can be very blunt and frank in those because I don't have to have any sort of people

01:27second-guessing me in my mind's eye.

01:29So you can book one if you want at freedomain.com slash call.

01:33They're really, really good.

01:34All right.

01:35So how do I keep my skills sharp?

01:37Why do I need to keep my skills sharp?

01:40I mean, honestly, it's a question that I would have.

01:44Why would I need to keep my skills sharp?

01:47I mean, I do philosophy every day.

01:49I do three live streams a week.

01:51I do call-in shows, getting challenging and interesting questions.

01:55So I don't really say, how do I keep my skills sharp?

01:59If I were doing a lot of debates, I would need to keep my debate skills sharp.

02:02But I'm not really doing debates as a whole.

02:05So I don't need to keep those debate skills sharp.

02:08It's sort of like if somebody, like I played the violin for 10 years from the age of six

02:12to the age of 16, and I have not played violin in 42 years.

02:19And how do I keep my violin skills sharp?

02:22Well, I don't.

02:23Now, of course, if I was going to go into a debate for some reason or another, I would

02:27review.

02:28I mean, I've written a whole book called The Art of the Argument.

02:30You can get that at artoftheargument.com.

02:33So it is a little bit like riding a bike.

02:35It wouldn't be hard for me to get back into the mindset.

02:38And the reason in general I've kind of given up on debates is because I have to wait for

02:44the world to catch up.

02:45I've done so much work over the past 20 years, particularly 15 years, 16 years before I got

02:51out of politics.

02:52I've done so much work, and at least for me, advanced the field of philosophy so much.

02:58Philosophy has usually a two to three generation lag, 60 to 90 years.

03:05And I just have to wait for the world to catch up.

03:08I remember, who was I debating?

03:10Stephen Woodward, Rationality Rules, and I got him to accept that rape, theft, assault,

03:16and murder could never be universally preferable behavior.

03:18He accepted that, and it just didn't matter.

03:21I think I had a debate with Thaddeus Russell where he made the claim that a woman could

03:25have sex with a tree and produce an offspring, and I don't fathom that kind of thinking.

03:33And of course, what was I debating with, what's his lobby, Mr. Manbun, Vosch.

03:38And Vosch was talking about letting the workers control the means of production, and I asked

03:41how often he released his studio to those who worked there and let them own the means

03:45of production.

03:46It didn't matter.

03:47Nothing matters to anybody.

03:49Consistency doesn't matter.

03:50Rationality doesn't matter.

03:51Very few people change their minds.

03:53And this won't be the case in the future, but it is the case right now.

03:56So I'm not sure why I would need to keep my skills sharp when everyone else is pretty

04:00much disarmed and way too emotional and invested to reason.

04:04All right.

04:05Where will you answer this question so I can hear a response if possible?

04:09Well, subscribe to the podcast, of course.

04:12Can you go into the classic concept of akrasia, e.g., weakness of will, and how our understanding

04:19of that concept has evolved with access to the fields of neuroscience, psychoanalysis,

04:24etc.?

04:25Yes, let me do that for you.

04:29Let me write an entire multi-volume history of will and akrasia with reference to the

04:35fields of neuroscience, psychoanalysis.

04:38I like how he just says, etc., you know, maybe physics, maybe some biology, maybe some Egyptology,

04:43whatever, right?

04:44He says, with a particular focus on the topic of free will and how perhaps it is or isn't

04:49an outmoded concept.

04:51Thank you, Stefan Molyneux.

04:52That's great.

04:53That is great.

04:55That is great.

04:56Listen, man, just a wee favor.

04:58If you could just, you know, raise the Titanic and build me a house, make me immortal and

05:05find a cure for cancer, if I could just throw that into a Facebook comment, I'd really,

05:08really appreciate that.

05:11Oh, my gosh.

05:12That is delightful.

05:13That is delightful.

05:14I mean, it's amazing to me that people ask this kind of stuff.

05:19And listen, it's not like, that's fine.

05:21It's fine.

05:22I'm happy to share my thoughts on this, but I will say that it is quite wild.

05:29So just for those of you, I'm sure you know, Ecclesia, Ecclesia, Ecclesia.

05:34This is ancient Greek.

05:36It means a weakness of will or powerlessness and so on.

05:39Like, why do people not do what is right for them?

05:42Why do people not eat well when they know that eating well would make them better?

05:47Why do people not exercise when they know exercising would make them better?

05:50Why do people not lose weight when they know that losing weight would be better for them

05:53or quit smoking or whatever, right?

05:55Obviously with reference to neuroscience and psychoanalysis and so on, that is a multidimensional,

06:00multi-layered, multi-year project, which I find it's ridiculous to ask, but what the

06:05heck, you can ask anything you want in this life.

06:07I could ask the sun to learn how to do jumping jacks if I want, it just probably won't listen.

06:13So strength of will versus weakness of will is a very interesting concept.

06:18So I think, I'm going to sort of make the case for this, so we want will, willpower,

06:25I think, or at least I'm going to make the case, falls into the Aristotelian mean.

06:30You don't want too little willpower, otherwise you're weak-willed and procrastinate and don't

06:34get anything done, but you also don't want too much willpower, because then you can become

06:40quite brutal and aggressive and also dominant and not negotiate, and also if you have too

06:44much willpower, you can easily be harnessed into doing significant evil.

06:49So willpower is one of these things that we sort of think that more is just always better,

06:58more willpower, stronger will, dominant will, but look at Genghis Khan or Napoleon, like

07:02a lot of evil gets done by people with very strong willpowers and so on, I mean, every

07:08serial killer has a strong willpower to commit murder and lo and behold, they go and do that

07:13kind of stuff and next thing you know, you've got a lot of dead bodies and so on, right?

07:18So with regards to willpower, think of the First World War, all of the fresh-faced, apple-cheeked

07:25young boys who went to war hoping it wasn't going to be over by Christmas, because they

07:29imagined that they would be charging up a hill on a white horse, waving a sword and

07:35cutting down enemies in their prime, when what actually happened was somebody 20 miles

07:39away pushed a button and you got blown up and if you only got half blown up, rats would

07:44gnaw off your toes while you slept and you would die of other things.

07:48So willpower is one of these things that if somebody says, go and take that machine gun

07:54nest, right?

07:55Like think of First World War trenches, go and take that machine gun nest, go destroy

08:00that machine gun nest and you've got a really strong willpower, you're like, yes, I will

08:04go and take out that machine gun nest and what happens is the machine gun nest riddles

08:10you full of bullets and you hang on barbed wire until you get hit by a shell, nobody

08:14ever finds you and you end up as a telegram to your relatives and a flickering flame in

08:19the tomb of the unknown soldier from here to eternity and you just fucking die.

08:23You just die.

08:25A deficiency of willpower is a significant negative, an excess of willpower means that

08:31you're often harnessed into the plans of evildoers and you end up in a pretty terrible

08:36situation.

08:38So evolution has given us medium willpower and you know whenever biology aims for the

08:45medium you tend to get excesses either way.

08:48So it has aimed us for medium willpower and thinking that the will being strengthened

08:55is always a positive is not a good plan as a whole.

09:02I think of things like extreme patriotism and nationalism regardless of the morality

09:06of your government.

09:07Think of people have genuinely have a resistance to, you know, torturing and murdering other

09:13people but somebody with a strong willpower can overcome that in the service of the state

09:17and can become some kind of concentration camp guard or torturer or something like that,

09:22right?

09:23So I'm not a huge fan of, you know, more willpower is always beneficial.

09:28You could of course make the case and that would be a good case or a better case to make

09:33which is to say that if you are deeply steeped in virtue and honor and morality and so on

09:38then more will is generally better but even that has its challenges.

09:44To will the good in the world, as I can tell you from direct personal experience, to will

09:48the good into the world is to be subject to massive amounts of a blowback and attacks

09:53and lies and slander and defamation and libel and all this kind of stuff, right?

09:57So it's a balancing act, right?

09:59You want to promote virtue but not at the point of, you know, the mob chasing you into

10:05the swamp with their pitchforks and fiery torches, right?

10:08So a weakness of will, yeah?

10:12Weakness of will sometimes is survival.

10:15Weakness of will sometimes is sometimes when you're hunting you should turn back, right?

10:21So you're hunting some woolly mammoth and it's you and two other guys and you throw

10:28the spear, the woolly mammoth just gets enraged and angry, knows that you're there, sniffs

10:32you out and maybe you should just turn around and go home.

10:36A weakness of will, well, he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day.

10:42It's like, you know, height.

10:44I mean, everyone says, oh, being taller is better but one of my best friends when I was

10:49a teenager was six foot six, had horrible knee problems and, you know, people who are

10:53very tall have knee problems, they have back problems, they tend to live less long because

10:56their hearts have to work harder.

10:57So I think that willpower is one of these things that falls into the Aristotelian mean,

11:03like courage, right?

11:04Too little courage, you're a coward, too much courage, you're foolhardy and the aforementioned

11:07machine gun nest takes you down.

11:09And even if you were to have some moral disagreement with this, which, you know, I could certainly

11:13debate if you're interested, but evolutionarily speaking, people with too much willpower tend

11:20to be very dominant, tend to be very aggressive or tend to be roped into the plans of evildoers,

11:24especially when they're young and, you know, forward for St. George, right?

11:28I remember when I was a little kid, heard a story about St. George and was raised on

11:32heroic stories of the Battle of Britain and so on, it's like, forward for St. George and

11:37all of the people who have very strong willpowers and go into battle and are leading the charge,

11:43well, a lot of them tend to get killed, which means that the excessive or overstrong willpower

11:48tends to get weeded out of the gene pool over time.

11:50So I hope that helps.

11:52All right.

11:53Why is there something rather than nothing?

11:55Additionally, as a tangential question, I will also ask so as not to present the first

12:00question in a biased framing.

12:02Why would there be nothing rather than something?

12:05I mean, this is boring, intellectual, circle-jerk, masturbatory nonsense and nothingness.

12:11I'm honestly, this is just completely ridiculous.

12:14There are serious, serious moral crises going on in the world.

12:20You know, Western civilization is hanging by a thread.

12:24We have endless amounts of child abuse and exploitation.

12:29There are wars around the world.

12:31There is the exploitation and outright theft of the next generation through national debts.

12:37And you're just sitting there going, well, but maybe there's nothing.

12:40Maybe there's something.

12:41What's the difference?

12:42And why is there one rather than the other?

12:44Honestly, if you don't want to do philosophy, moral philosophy, which is what counts, right?

12:49If you want to do philosophy, then do philosophy.

12:53And this is not philosophy.

12:54This is just wasting time with puffy syllables.

12:58If you want to do philosophy, then do philosophy, which is moral philosophy, which means promote

13:02virtue and confront and harm the interests of evildoers, right?

13:05That's philosophy.

13:06Promote virtue and thwart the gains of evildoers.

13:11That's what philosophy is.

13:12It's really nothing else.

13:14It's really nothing else.

13:15You know, like, I mean, if you're a doctor, you should be promoting health and thwarting

13:19illness, right?

13:21Promote health and thwart illness.

13:23That's right.

13:24I mean, if you're a doctor and someone comes to you with some big weird lump in their stomach

13:30and you say, but why is there something rather than nothing?

13:33People would say, yo, yo, Mr. Oncologist guy, could you maybe help me with this weird lump

13:38that I got growing out of my abdomen?

13:40Can you do?

13:41No, but it's interesting because why is there a lump versus there not being a lump?

13:44And why are there atoms versus not being atoms?

13:47People would be like, what the hell are you doing?

13:49Help me with my lump.

13:52Is it benign?

13:53Is it a cyst?

13:54Is it cancerous?

13:55Like, help me.

13:57No, but it's interesting to think about whether there is, why there is something rather than

14:04nothing.

14:05Oh my God.

14:06Can you imagine?

14:08You're frying in some horrible fire, right?

14:14You're trapped on the third floor of your house and you've wet the towels and put them

14:20at the base of the door and you can't breathe and you're staying low to stay out of the

14:24smoke and you're making your peace with life and death and you hear a fireman outside the

14:30door and you say, help me, help me, I'm dying.

14:35And the fireman says, yes, but why is there fire versus not fire?

14:38Why are there, why are there atoms versus not atoms?

14:42This is like you are discrediting yourself and philosophy, like anybody who's actually

14:47doing moral good in the world, who's fighting against evil and promoting virtue.

14:53And you're like, yeah, but why is there something rather than nothing?

14:57I don't, I mean, I don't know what to say.

15:00You're being robbed.

15:01You've got a store and you're being robbed by three guys with shotguns and you press

15:04your alarm and the police shows up and says, but why is there a store versus not a store?

15:09Why is there atoms versus void?

15:11And you're like, can you help me with these three shotgun toting criminals?

15:15Oh, well, the counter with a shotgun.

15:17Yeah.

15:18I mean, you, you are useless in this realm.

15:21I mean, probably not in other realms.

15:22I'm just, I'm just being frank with you.

15:24Like there are people out here fighting the good fight, thwarting evil and promoting virtue.

15:29And you're like, but why is there something rather than nothing?

15:31And the reason why this is all useless is that the only reason you're here to make the

15:35question is because there is something rather than nothing.

15:38Why is immensely subsequent to existence, right?

15:43The universe is what, 13 billion years old.

15:45Life is like four plus billion years old and really has been over the last few thousand

15:51years that people have had philosophy.

15:54So why is downstream from something rather than nothing?

15:58So trying to take the question why and throwing it back in time is, is pointless because the

16:05why only exists because there is something rather than nothing.

16:08Why is a question in the human mind.

16:11It does not baked into the nature of the universe.

16:12There's no inscription on a carbon atom that says why or why not.

16:17There's no decision at the beginning which says why or why not for existence versus non-existence,

16:22something versus nothing.

16:24Why is way downstream of something existing and life existing and near frontal cortex

16:30existing and philosophy and language existing.

16:32All of these things have to exist in order for there to be a why.

16:35So then taking the why and going back in time to the beginning of things when the why is

16:40only 14, 13 or 14 billion years into the existence of things is truly putting the cart

16:47before the horse.

16:49It's I don't, I mean, it's like demanding to know why a Socrates was not a vlogger or

16:59a blogger.

17:00Right?

17:01Why did Socrates not record his ideas and arguments on a YouTube channel?

17:08Because he'd be banned, right?

17:09But because YouTube and the Internet is 2,500 years after Socrates, so you can't, you can't

17:18put it back in time.

17:19You can't reverse time.

17:20So honestly, this is from, you know, I've been doing philosophy for 42 years, 43 years.

17:29This is not philosophy.

17:30This is just a bunch of nonsense syllables puffing around to make you feel smart and

17:35to paralyze the inexperienced.

17:37But it is, it's a waste of time.

17:39If you don't want to do philosophy, if you don't want to take the danger of promoting

17:43virtue and thwarting evil, right?

17:46Promoting virtue and thwarting evil is the job of philosophy.

17:50And if you don't want to do that, that's fine.

17:51I mean, it's not to everyone's taste.

17:53Not everyone has the constitution or the strength for it, or the hopefully medium amount of

17:58willpower.

17:59So if you don't want to, if you don't want to do that stuff, that's fine, then don't

18:02do it.

18:03But don't do this crap.

18:05Don't do this nonsense.

18:06All right.

18:07All right.

18:08Detective Molyneux, on the case, what could you reasonably infer knowing only the following

18:15about someone?

18:16They, well, I know that you have problems with singular and plural.

18:20All right.

18:21They, all right.

18:22They are confident in person, both around strangers, as well as people they have a close

18:27relationship with.

18:29However, they appear specifically camera shy, despite rating in the top 10% of attractiveness.

18:37Okay.

18:38So they're socially comfortable and good looking, but they don't want pictures.

18:43Well, my guess is that if people are in the top 10% of attractiveness, and I suffered

18:50under this when I was younger, I was scouted for modeling and all of that.

18:54And if you're in the top 10% of attractiveness, at some point, you want to be judged by something

19:02other than your accidental looks, right?

19:03You don't earn your looks.

19:04I mean, you can maintain them with diet and exercise and all of that, but you don't fundamentally

19:09earn your looks, right?

19:12It'd be like if you are a woman with like really big boobs, you probably don't want

19:16portrait, you want landscape because you want people to listen to what you're saying rather

19:20than scan the jiggle, right?

19:22If you are very wealthy, you probably don't want to show off your wealth on every social

19:26media post, because then you're going to be judged by your wealth and there's going to

19:29be gold diggers and so on.

19:30So I would imagine that the person who's that attractive wants to be known for something

19:34other than being attractive and therefore is probably trying to avoid just the photos

19:42and all of that, right?

19:44Because you know, especially if it's a woman, right, she's very attractive.

19:48She gets photos that are posted on social media and next thing you know, she's got people

19:53sliding into her DMs like some sort of mud corner of a BMX rally.

19:58I mean, I did a show not too long ago with a woman who is a former model and the number

20:05of men who have, and I did ask her, like, would you want to get married?

20:09And I asked her, would you mind if I, is it okay if I forward people's emails if men want

20:14to get to know you?

20:16And she got swarmed, right?

20:19So all right.

20:21Recommended areas to relocate while looking for a new tribe.

20:25Well, there are certain areas you want to avoid, you know, like really heavily propagandized,

20:30heavily leftist areas.

20:31I mean, rightists have their own propaganda, but it tends to be a little less comprehensive

20:37than leftist propaganda because leftists have no foundational beliefs other than conformity

20:43and approval.

20:45Everything is subject to propaganda.

20:48However, people on the right tend to have at least some firm and fixed beliefs which

20:52are not subject to propaganda.

20:54But as sort of the years have gone by, my general position or thought on this sort of

20:59stuff is there's no place.

21:02Like if you're really into philosophy, you're thinking from first principles, you're reasoning

21:05from all, there's no place you can go to get a tribe.

21:09You just have to make one.

21:10You have to try and find a way to make one in your own area.

21:12There is no big hyper-rational tribe that's out there just waiting for you to join them.

21:16And I say this as somebody who's been working in this area again for sort of 40 plus years.

21:19Yeah, just work to create one.

21:21There is no place you can slot yourself into.

21:23All right.

21:24Can someone be low IQ and manipulative?

21:26Sure.

21:27Yeah, absolutely.

21:28In fact, people who are high IQ tend to negotiate and debate.

21:33People who are low IQ tend to manipulate, right?

21:36So Homath is a very sort of passionate thinker on X.

21:41It's H-O-E under bar math.

21:44And you know, he basically says that a lot of people on the left or propagandized people

21:48are like, I'm going to hit you with a negative label and then say you should be harmed.

21:53I mean, I've been talking about this for years, which is not to say that his way of putting

21:57it is not very passionate and clear, but yeah, they hit you with a low, a whole series of

22:02negative labels, and then they countenance violence against those negative labels.

22:07Right?

22:08You're a Nazi.

22:09Nazis should be beaten up or killed.

22:11So they are applying like, you know, how they have these target painters, like in the military,

22:16they'll hit someone with a laser and then the missile or drone hones in on that laser

22:21mark.

22:22So yeah, manipulative.

22:23Absolutely.

22:24Absolutely.

22:25People who are very low IQ tend to be manipulative.

22:28They have a dim instinct for understanding morality.

22:32They don't have any morality themselves in general, but they know that other people do

22:36and they know which buttons to push.

22:38So yeah, low IQ and manipulative often goes hand in hand.

22:42I mean, high IQ and manipulative can as well, if they don't have any moral absolutes.

22:47All right.

22:48All right.

22:49I have one question, says somebody else.

22:53First question ever.

22:54I wish I could play a sound for that.

22:56Try as I might.

22:58I cannot for the life of me find the study that I know you've referenced many times.

23:03It was about parents lying about how often they abuse their kids, how quickly the problematic

23:08behavior resumes after the abuse.

23:10There were ethical questions because microphones were placed in their homes under false pretenses.

23:15Am I misremembering?

23:16Where do I find this?

23:18Yeah.

23:19So the study that you're referring to, I talked about many years ago and I don't believe it

23:27was unethical.

23:28I don't believe it was unethical.

23:31I think it was accidental.

23:32The data that they got was accidental.

23:35Oh yes.

23:37So it was the first real time study of spanking.

23:40Yes, here we go.

23:42So the show number is 2675.

23:48That's the show number.

23:50And it was a little, it was 11 years ago, a little over 11 years ago.

23:55And it was April 22nd, 2014.

23:58And it is really, really, really something.

24:02So let me sort of tell you, just very briefly, you can go and listen to that show and get

24:08more details about it.

24:10I don't think I was able to, which I tried to do, of course, at the time.

24:14I don't think I was able to get the study authors.

24:17I think that they were unavailable or didn't respond or something like that, right?

24:22So I will tell you about the study and you can go and listen to the show for more details.

24:29So the first real time study of spanking.

24:33So a study conducted by George Holden, a psychologist and parenting expert at Southern Methodist

24:38University, used real time audio recordings to document instances of parents spanking

24:44their children.

24:45This research revealed that spanking was more common than parents admitted, often occurring

24:50for minor misdeeds and that children misbehaved again within 10 minutes of being spanked.

24:57The study also found that parents did not always follow the guidelines recommended by

25:01advocates of corporal punishment and blah, blah, blah, right?

25:04So yes, that was a very powerful study.

25:07It was not actually designed to find a spanking thing.

25:12It was recorded, there were sort of other recordings and so on.

25:17Yeah, the parents did not know that it was going to be a study about spanking.

25:23And Holden, the researcher himself, didn't even know he would be studying spanking.

25:27He wanted to study yelling and so on.

25:31And so it was pretty brutal and it is incredibly common and it is just appalling.

25:42So I hope that helps and I hope that you will check it out as well.

25:47So yeah, it wasn't exactly false pretenses.

25:50He said he was studying yelling, he turned out to be.

25:52And that was his goal.

25:53All right, what is at the edge of the universe?

25:56You know, when I was a kid, I thought it was my mother's ironing board.

25:58The edge of the universe?

25:59Isn't that a universe that comes close to climaxing but doesn't?

26:04What is at the edge of the universe?

26:06Who cares?

26:07Again, we have deep significant moral issues that we need to deal with in the world that

26:13is.

26:14And this is a way of pretending to do philosophy without taking on any risk whatsoever.

26:20But genuine philosophy is an extreme sport.

26:23Genuine philosophy, which is the promotion of virtue and the thwarting of evil.

26:28Evil does not like to be thwarted and evil does not like for virtue to be promoted.

26:32So when you're like, well, why is there something rather than nothing and what is at the edge

26:35of the universe?

26:36You are not doing philosophy.

26:39Philosophy that doesn't come with any risk of blowback from evildoers is not philosophy

26:42at all.

26:43Right?

26:44It's like saying, oh, I'm a cancer researcher and none of the work I ever do ever does anything

26:51to inhibit the growth of cancer or deal with any of the effects of cancer.

26:56Well then you're not a cancer researcher.

26:58I don't know what you're doing.

26:59Why is there cancer rather than not cancer?

27:01Well that doesn't, I mean, maybe at some sort of cellular level you could answer that.

27:06But at a philosophical level, you know, why is there a cancer at a philosophical level

27:11that doesn't solve any problems with cancer?

27:14Now you could say, why is the lung cancer because people smoke and then you promote

27:16anti-smoking and so on.

27:18Okay.

27:19That's, that's reasonable.

27:20But what is at the edge of the universe?

27:22What's really at the edge of the universe is my indifference and contempt for these kinds

27:25of nonsensical questions.

27:27We are in a moral emergency.

27:29The promotion of virtue and the thwarting of evil is foundational.

27:32It's going to be very exciting.

27:34It's going to be very satisfying.

27:35It's going to be risky and sometimes unpleasant and difficult.

27:39And you're never going to get in any trouble by asking these useless questions.

27:43But what it does is it promotes the idea that philosophy is useless and pointless.

27:48So you are absolutely serving corrupt people by asking these who cares questions.

27:55There is no such thing as the edge of the universe.

27:56The edge is a physical concept around the delineation of particular things.

28:03The edge of a cliff, right?

28:05There is no edge to the universe.

28:07And even if we were to imagine that there is something at the first and outermost reaches

28:12of the universe, it has absolutely no moral content to us whatsoever.

28:16So it's, you're discrediting philosophy, you're wasting people's time, and you are pretending

28:22to do philosophy.

28:23You're hijacking the value and virtue of philosophy for your own ego gratification, which is,

28:28in my view, kind of parasitical.

28:30All right.

28:31Are you still a Randian?

28:32I've strayed to anarcho-objectivism with common law, with a common law chaser.

28:36So if you want, you can look, I've got a three-part series on Ayn Rand and objectivism, which you

28:41can find at fdrpodcasts.com.

28:43I am not an objectivist.

28:45I mean, I accept objectivist metaphysics and epistemology almost completely, but with regards

28:50to ethics and politics, no.

28:52Because Ayn Rand formulated, you know, the good is that which serves man's life.

28:57Reason serves man's life the most, therefore reason is the good.

29:00And it's like, nope, nope, anti-rationality serves people's lives extraordinarily well,

29:05right?

29:06Say, let's just, I mean, Japanese culture is quite rational, Western European culture

29:10is quite rational, and the birth rates are catastrophically low.

29:14And if you look at a place like Africa, which, you know, is a little bit more primitive,

29:17tribal and superstitious, the birth rates are enormously high.

29:20So is reason serving people's lives?

29:22No.

29:23It doesn't follow.

29:25It doesn't follow.

29:26All right.

29:27So how do you balance the line of letting children be children and encouraging imagination

29:31and play and not lying to them?

29:33For example, Santa Claus and the tooth fairy.

29:36I do have your audio book, but I've only just started listening to it.

29:39We've only just begun to listen.

29:43Letting children be children.

29:44That's the sort of tautology that has no value.

29:47And it's manipulative.

29:48I'm sorry to sound kind of harsh, because I really do appreciate the questions and I'm

29:51not trying to be mean, but letting children be children, what does that mean?

29:55Should we not let children be children?

29:56I mean, that's setting things up in a kind of manipulative way.

29:59No, I'm in favor of not letting children be children, but children are children.

30:03It's a tautology, right?

30:05So imagination and play is great.

30:08Imagination and play is great.

30:09You know, when I was, when my daughter was little, I read to her a very sanitized version

30:12of The Hobbit.

30:13I cleaned it up and I made it obviously kid friendly.

30:17And so, but she enjoyed the story.

30:20Did I ever tell her that hobbits are real and orcs are real and dragons are real?

30:24No, of course not.

30:26Encouraging imagination means you don't say that things are real that are not real.

30:31So if you say Santa Claus is real, you're just lying to them.

30:36Imagination is when we create things in our mind that don't exist in reality.

30:40Like I'm a novelist, right?

30:41So I'm currently working on a novel.

30:43And so I'm creating people who don't exist and dialogues that never happened and situations

30:48that never occurred.

30:49That's called imagination.

30:50Like there's a fiction and nonfiction section of the library, there's documentaries and

30:54then there is fiction, right?

30:57So encouraging imagination and play is absolutely coming up with great and creative stories,

31:03but you don't tell them that they're real.

31:05That's actually harmful to them, right?

31:07So when my daughter was little, we used to play a game called smorg.

31:11That's after the dragon, of course, in The Hobbit.

31:13And smorg, I would gather together some of her gems and, you know, fake jewelry and all

31:18of that.

31:19And I would lie on the bed, curled up around this jewelry and so on.

31:23And then she would have to try and come in and sneak in and get it without waking me

31:27up.

31:28Right?

31:29Now, I'm not saying I'm a real dragon.

31:30I'm possessed by smorg.

31:31Right?

31:32I mean, it's just imagination.

31:33So why do Democrats lie about everything?

31:35Well, I don't know that the Democrats lie a whole lot less than the Republicans.

31:40Because at least the Democrats are up front about everything, but the Republicans pretend

31:43to be about small government and now they're just cranking up the debt by what, two trillion

31:47dollars a year.

31:48So I wouldn't, I wouldn't get that partisan about it.

31:51But the government, and in particular control over government schools, and to a smaller

31:58degree, the media, it means that lying is incredibly profitable.

32:02Lying is incredibly profitable.

32:04So if you can, let's say you can lie to children and say that plant food will destroy the planet,

32:11right?

32:12CO2 will destroy the planet.

32:13And if you don't hand over, you know, trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars and

32:19enormous amounts of obedience to the government, that plant food is going to destroy the planet.

32:24Well, that lie nets you trillions and trillions and trillions of dollars.

32:29And most people will lie if, especially if they're going to get away with it.

32:32And especially if they're going to be praised for it, which is generally what happens in

32:35these situations, then most people will lie for trillions of dollars.

32:39Most people will lie for a hundred bucks.

32:41So it is the state and its capacity to take, borrow, and print money that makes lying incredibly

32:50profitable.

32:52So just look at COVID.

32:55Alright.

32:56I think you're the greatest thinking mind of our generation.

32:58Hands down.

33:00I appreciate that.

33:01It's very kind.

33:02Somebody says, I have a question.

33:03Yes.

33:04It's funny how I ask for questions and then somebody says, I have a question.

33:07As an influencer, do you actually think you have a serious moral influence?

33:10If so, what would that be?

33:12And do you think it's any different to the mainstream?

33:15Also what will it do apart from causing divide?

33:18Do you actually think, well, I know, I know that I have a serious moral influence.

33:21I know that.

33:22I mean, I have, my inbox is full of people who, you know, I've helped them to be happily

33:31married and they have kids, they have a great relationship with their kids.

33:33They've, you know, peacefulparenting.com, you should really check out my latest nonfiction

33:37book at peacefulparenting.com.

33:41And I did the sort of back of the napkin math and I prevented 1.5 billion assaults against

33:47children through the work that I have done over the last 20 years.

33:50So, yes, I know I have the empirical evidence, I have the numbers and so on.

33:54So, I mean, I remember when I did a Taylor Swift tweet saying she should maybe have kids.

33:59She's 30, like 90% of her eggs are already dead and gone.

34:03And people got really upset about that.

34:05And it was viewed millions of times.

34:06It was voted the worst tweet in history, which is, you know, I'm actually quite proud

34:09of.

34:10But I did the, again, back of the napkin calculation that probably about 60,000 babies were born

34:16out of that tweet.

34:19And I can't guarantee the numbers in detail, but that doesn't really matter.

34:22It's a big number.

34:23So, yes, I absolutely know.

34:26And there are other things in the more general worldview that I know about.

34:29But just in terms of, you know, the number of listeners that I've had, the people who

34:34are parents, the people who've listened to Peaceful Parenting, who've rejected violations

34:38of the non-aggression principle against their own children, yep, absolutely.

34:42I know that for an absolute fact.

34:45All right.

34:46Give me some effing crypto, you dog.

34:49I tried to give it to you, man.

34:51I tried to give you crypto way back in the day when it was very cheap.

34:55All right.

34:56Why do people stop growing when they are comfortable and what can we do to stop it?

35:01What's wrong with, sorry, what's wrong with not growing?

35:04Is life just some sort of endless marathon that you have to climb an endless cliff wall

35:09and get to a higher place?

35:10What's wrong with taking a pause and enjoying the fruits of your labor?

35:14I mean, you sound like some, you know, there's this kind of old cliche about wives, like

35:20nothing bothers a wife more than a husband relaxing on the couch, which is, you know,

35:25my wife is constantly telling me to work less and take it easy.

35:27And I'm constantly telling her to do that too.

35:29So I, what's wrong with, I mean, oh my God, someone's comfortable.

35:34They need to be made uncomfortable and they need to stop being comfortable.

35:37My God, how tense is it in your brain, man?

35:41Nothing wrong with being comfortable.

35:42All right.

35:43What point does playing, I'm sorry, I will say this again, with a government society,

35:46people indulge pathological altruism at the expense of the next generation through debt

35:50and money printing, but that's not quite the same as being comfortable.

35:55At what point does playing along with society become selling out?

35:59Yeah, yeah, yeah.

36:02So I'll just tell you the filter that I, maybe I'm being mean again, who cares, right?

36:08So I'll just tell you the filter I put this stuff through, right?

36:10So listen, brothers and sisters, everybody, I know for a simple, absolute fact that you

36:16have corrupted and immoral people in your environment, in your life.

36:20Could be in your immediate family, hopefully not.

36:23Could be in an extended family, could be friends, could be people that you know, acquaintances,

36:28like you have, it could be at work, you have corrupted and immoral people in your life.

36:32I know that for a fact, I know that.

36:35Now when you send me these abstract nonsense, frankly bullshit questions, I know that what

36:42you're not doing is saying, you know, I have this corrupt person in my life, I have this

36:47person, they're mean to their kids, they're hitting, they're aggressive, they're abusive,

36:52they lie at work, they're like, I have people in my life who are corrupt and immoral.

36:57And you know, maybe not a hundred percent, and we all have little quirks and habits and

37:00so on that could be improved.

37:02But I know for a simple, absolute fact that you have corrupt people in your life and in

37:07your environment.

37:08I know that.

37:09And every question that's not, how do I deal with this corrupt and immoral person in my

37:13life is largely nonsense.

37:15It's avoidance.

37:16It's just pretending to be moral.

37:18It's pretending to be virtuous.

37:19It's pretending to be, oh, so into these deep and moral questions in philosophy and so on.

37:25So the way that I view it is, it's like you're a medic in a war, and a medic in a war is

37:31always busy, right?

37:32There's always someone coming in, holding their intestines or missing an arm or whatever

37:35it is.

37:37And like Bertolt Brecht talking about sawing off people's legs in a war.

37:41So you're a medic in a war.

37:44And let's say that I'm a very, in this analogy, I'm an expert, healthcare or whatever, in

37:51this war.

37:52And I say, you can send me questions.

37:54Now your questions, since you're a medic in a war, should be about saving lives and stopping

37:59war, right?

38:01That's what your question should be.

38:02Saving lives and stopping war.

38:05And what instead I get is this stuff, this, when does going along with society become

38:13selling out?

38:14It's like, no, no, you've got a steady conveyor belt of decimated, wounded and broken people

38:20coming across your mash unit.

38:22And that's what you have to deal with.

38:24I'm sorry that that's what we have to deal with.

38:25But that's life.

38:26And lots of corrupt people out there in the world, lots of people who are hypocrites,

38:29a lot of people who believe false things and tell lies, right?

38:32Are you telling me that in your life, you don't know anyone who tells lies, who doesn't

38:37repeat media nonsense, like the fine people hoax or the Russia Convolution conspiracy

38:41theory hoax, or, you know, like all of this stuff has gone out and says a whole list of

38:45these, these hoaxes, which is well, well, are you saying you don't have anyone in your

38:49life who promulgates falsehoods, who lies?

38:55No one, not one damn soul in your environment lies, manipulates or avoids the truth.

39:04No one.

39:05But why is there something rather than nothing?

39:07And when does it become selling out?

39:08That's just, that's not real questions.

39:10The real question is, how do I deal with the liars in my environment?

39:12How do I deal with the violent people who support violence or enact violence in my environment?

39:16How do I deal with the people who hit their kids, who yell at the kids, who are bad parents,

39:19who dump their kids in daycare, who neglect and avoid their kids?

39:22Like, how do I deal with the corrupt people in my environment?

39:27That's really the only question that matters.

39:30Because you can do something about that.

39:32And especially like when people give me these ill-defined questions, conforming with society

39:36versus selling out, I don't know what any of that stuff means.

39:38And the fact that people aren't defining it means that they don't want an answer.

39:43They want some pleasing concoction of syllables that drugs them into thinking that they're

39:47doing something philosophical in their life when they're simply avoiding the promotion

39:52of virtue and the thwarting of evildoers.

39:55You have people in your life, my friends, who lie.

39:57I guarantee it.

39:58I guarantee it.

39:59You have people in your life who lie.

40:00You have people in your life who promote a violence, right?

40:06You have people in your life who say, I paid into Social Security, which is not true.

40:11There's no Social Security lockbox, just a bunch of dusty IOUs from Treasury.

40:15You have people who say the national debt doesn't really matter and deficits don't matter.

40:21You have people who lie, who are corrupt, who promote coercion and theft and falsehoods.

40:29You have those people in your life, I guarantee it.

40:32And the question you should be asking me, the question you should be asking yourself

40:35is, how do I deal with the amoral or immoral liars in my life?

40:40It's all it comes down to, because you have them.

40:43You have them.

40:44I know you have them.

40:45I mean, I have some of them through these questions, right?

40:48And I'm not trying to say this to be mean.

40:50I'm just saying that if you want to be a doctor, then you have to promote health and do something

40:55to thwart illness.

40:57And if you're claiming to be a doctor, which is asking me these philosophical questions,

41:00is an analogy, right?

41:01If you're claiming to be a doctor and you're asking me why is there existence versus

41:05non-existence and you're not asking me how can I best promote health and thwart illness,

41:10then you're kind of hijacking the quote doctor again.

41:13As an analogy, you're hijacking the doctor thing when you actually have no interest in

41:17doing what doctors actually do, which is to promote health and thwart illness.

41:20I mean, you go to your doctor with some horrible infection and the doctor just waxes philosophical

41:26about how much you should conform to society before selling out or why there is existence

41:31versus non-existence and so on.

41:32That person's not a doctor.

41:33They're just a time waster and they're pretending to be a doctor while actually putting people

41:38in more danger because they're not actually promoting health and thwarting illness.

41:41All right.

41:42I hope that helps.

41:43I hope that the shock therapy of this bluntness is productive for you.

41:46Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show, really would, really would appreciate

41:50it.

41:51Freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show.

41:53I look forward to the next round of questions.

41:54I really thank you for your time, care, attention and input.

41:59Thank you so much and lots of love from up here.

42:02Don't forget shows are, you can go to freedomain.com to get notified.

42:07You can go to freedomain.locals.com to be notified.

42:11Shows are Wednesday and Friday, 7pm and Sundays, 11am.

42:15Lots of love, my friends.

42:16Take care.

42:17I'll talk to you soon.

42:18Bye.

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