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Stefan Molyneux
  • 5/26/2025
Sunday Morning Live 25 May 2025

In this episode, I examine my contrasting experiences watching the "Minecraft" movie with my daughter and "Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning", focusing on Tom Cruise's remarkable defiance of age norms. I critique the film's simplistic narrative style, linking selfless heroes to authority figures, and explore how these stories shape societal beliefs about power. Utilizing childhood psychology, I highlight our yearning for stability and the influence of early experiences on adult perceptions of authority. I conclude by advocating for self-reliance and personal growth, emphasizing the need to address unmet childhood needs.

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Transcript
00:00Well, good morning, everybody. Welcome to the 25th of May, 2025.
00:07And we are going to talk about a bunch of stuff this morning. I'm going to start off with
00:14a little bit of a movie I saw last night. I haven't seen a lot of movies in the theater lately,
00:23but of course, I went to go and see the Minecraft movie with my daughter. After she saw it,
00:27she wouldn't see it, but then she ended up having a lot of fun. But I went to go and see Mission
00:31Impossible, The Final Reckoning, because what man in his late 60s doesn't want to feel almost
00:37infinitely physically inferior to the extraordinarily jacked up and possibly juiced up Tom
00:42Cruise? I say that with no sense of bitterness, but I saw this meme the other day from, I think
00:51there was the last song that Johnny Cash recorded, Hurt, and it was like, every time I go to the gym
00:56and I'm over 40, I hurt myself today. So, yes. It's a very interesting movie. I think it's
01:09worth watching because it is very much like old school, sheer entertainment movie making. Tom
01:15Cruise's physical abilities in his, what is, is he in his 60s? How old is Tom Cruise? How? I think
01:24he's in the 60s. How old is Tom Cruise? 62. Yeah, he was born in 1962. So, he's 62 years old,
01:37and he's fantastic. I mean, an extraordinary talent, like an absolutely generational talent.
01:44He does serious movies, romantic movies, seeing him as Les Grossman in Tropic Thunder is
01:52absolutely crazy. No, it wasn't a Nine Inch Nails cover of Hurt, was it? Johnny Cash's last song?
02:01Oh, Johnny Cash just sang it for Nine Inch Nails? I don't know. Anyway, that Hurt. So,
02:09Tom Cruise is an absolute force of nature, and what has he been? Divorced three times, and
02:15he's involved in some pretty strange stuff. I think he's estranged from one of his kids from
02:21his marriage. Suri is her name? So, I mean, he's a working machine, and he is an athletics machine.
02:28In one of his last movies, he did a jump across a building from building to building stunt and
02:34broke his ankle, and I took a couple of weeks off and then came back. And Matt Damon has a pretty
02:39funny story about talking to Tom Cruise, and Tom Cruise saying, and I've always wanted to do this
02:42stunt. And my stunt coordinator says, it's impossible. So, I get a new stunt coordinator.
02:48I just keep going. Oh, Trent Reznor wrote it for Nine Inch Nails? Okay,
02:52it's not particularly important. He just sang a song. We don't need to go into the entire etymology.
02:57So, I mean, it's funny, because here's the thing, too. Like, this is how foolish the human mind is,
03:04or at least my human mind is. It's completely foolish, because, you know, like, he's doing
03:07himself an IMAX. He's got massive close-ups. The man is the size of a helium balloon on the screen,
03:13and you're like, oh, his face looks a little puffy. Oh, he looks a little wrinkled. Like,
03:17I don't. It's the funny thing. We sort of judge these things from a distance, and we compare,
03:23or at least I do, sort of compare Tom Cruise to the smooth-faced, apple-cheeked young man
03:29of his risky business days and all of that. And so, you know, you look and you say,
03:33gee, he's a little wrinkled, you know, like I'm not. It's just funny. It's just funny to
03:41see the way the mind works, because he looks fantastic, and his physical and athletic abilities
03:46are absolutely staggering. Like, 90% of people after the age of 30 never sprint again, and this
03:51guy's full-on sprinting in his 60s. His fight scenes are incredible, and the physicality and
03:59commitment is astounding, and the movie is utterly infantile. And I say this having enjoyed a lot of
04:07the stunts. You know, you just kind of turn your Shakespeare brain off and just enjoy the people
04:12sort of testing their physical limits. And I don't think he's wrecked his body in quite the
04:15same way that Keanu Reeves has. Like, Keanu Reeves, his shoulder and his knees all kind of
04:20messed up and all of that. But I'll tell you what makes it infantile, and I don't mean infantile
04:27in like the movie is immature or anything like that. Yeah, he's 5'7". Yeah, no, I mean, the man
04:35is an absolute force of nature when it comes to moviemaking. The work ethic is astounding.
04:43The concentration is astounding. The physical commitment is astounding. I'm often wondering,
04:49like action movie heroes, I wonder if they ever look at, you know, because he did,
04:56oh gosh, My Neighbor Has Two Rabbits, that one with René Zellweger, where he just played this
05:02romantic guy. And I wonder if that people like, well, I don't have to break an ankle to do this
05:08role. Must be kind of nice. Yeah, still bankable. And I think he talked to Ben Stiller when Ben
05:14Stiller wanted him to play Lou Grossman or whatever his name was in Tropic Thunder. And
05:19Tom Cruise said like, I have two things. One, I want giant hands. Two, I'm going to dance.
05:24And he pulled it off in a truly astounding way. That's actually a very funny little bit he did
05:29with Robert Patterson about needing Robert Patterson, Jerry Maguire, thanks, Robert Patterson,
05:34to continue to have dirty hair. Your filthy hair is making me millions. What are you going to wash
05:40it with? What are you going to wash it with? Dirt. So, yeah, it's so Tom Cruise is an absolute force
05:49of nature and an incredibly admirable work ethic and all kinds of cool stuff that he does.
05:54But the movie is utterly infantile. And the reason I say it's infantile is it's high stakes
06:01and no personalities. Right. So, I won't do any particular spoilers. But the movie is
06:10incredibly high stakes. Like, you know, they're going out with a bang. So, they have to have
06:15that super high stakes thing. And I got no problem with that. Like, I remember explaining to my
06:19daughter when she was very little, the concept of the MacGuffin. Like, the MacGuffin is just what
06:24drives the plot. Like, the Maltese Falcon and Maltese Falcon. And, you know, it's just what
06:28drives the plot. It's something that everybody needs. Everybody wants. And they just fight like
06:32crazy to get it. And so, you just have to have things that people want. I mean, just breaking
06:37down scenes as an actor when I was in acting school. It's like, what's my character's motivation?
06:41What's my intention? Why does the scene start here and then end here? What does my character
06:45want? How does he try to achieve it? So, obviously, this MacGuffin, this thing that they want is,
06:52you know, as high stakes as you could imagine. Thank you, Think Clearly. Donations at
06:57freedomain.com slash donate. Very, very gratefully and humbly and appreciatively accepted. Thank you.
07:03But so, here's the reason why it's infantile. So, the audience, in my view, in a movie like
07:09this Mission Impossible, The Final Reckoning, and I guess I haven't seen many of the others. I think
07:13I saw the first one. But the reason why I think it's the audience is put in the position of an
07:20infant, the movie is Mission Impossible, Final Reckoning. So, the reason why I would call it
07:29infantile is for an infant, the stakes are incredibly high and the parents don't really have
07:39personalities. The stakes are incredibly high and the parents don't have personalities. So,
07:45for a baby, if you're hungry or you're thirsty, you're uncomfortable because you're sitting in
07:50your own poop or whatever it is, the stakes are incredibly high, right? Because you can't feed
07:55yourself. So, you're kind of helpless. The stakes are incredibly high and your caregivers have no
08:03self-interest and no personality, right? So, when you're a baby, you wake up at two in the morning,
08:11four in the morning, six in the morning, whatever it is, and you cry. And you cry so that you can get
08:17your food, your cuddles, your milk, whatever it is that you need, right?
08:21And you don't, and this is not a criticism of babies, it's just the way that life is, you don't
08:26actually
08:30have any empathy for your parents and neither should you, right? Because you just, you need...
08:38All right, we're back. Sorry about that. I had forgotten that this computer
08:44gray screens from time to time. I'd completely forgotten about that because I haven't used this
08:47in a while, at least for live streaming, but I'm sure we'll be fine going forward. So,
08:53that'll be good. My apologies. It's all quite exciting. So,
09:00when you're a baby, everything's incredibly high stakes and you don't empathize with your parents,
09:09right? And that's the way it is in the movie. So, in the movie, everything's incredibly high
09:22stakes and the crew has no personality and no preferences. All they do is they dedicate
09:31themselves to the betterment of humanity with no personal identity, right? So, like Ethan Hawke,
09:40he keeps falling in love, I guess, and then people keep... The women keep getting captured
09:47and killed and dying and all of that kind of stuff. So, he doesn't have any particular
09:53personality of his own. He's just there to selflessly serve humanity in the most incredibly
10:00high stakes situation and doing things that are impossible to the audience, right? I mean,
10:07what Tom Cruise does, his athleticism, his... I don't know what diet and exercise regime he has,
10:13but I assume it's fairly intense. The audience can't do what he does. I was in the movie theater
10:19and watching 62-year-old, ripped abd, incredibly flexible, strong Tom Cruise do his thing. And
10:27then you look at the audience and guys who are Tom Cruise's ages are kind of slowly getting up
10:33with the sort of nodded bob creaking sound from my novel, Just Poor. And they cannot do what he
10:42does, right? They can't do what he does. And that's the baby's view, right? Tom Cruise is like
10:49a superhero of athleticism. He just is, right? He's amazing. And he does things that the audience
10:59can't do. So, that is an infantile thing. Your parents are superheroes. They can do all of
11:09these things you can't do. And they have no particular personality. They exist to serve you
11:15just as the Mission Impossible squad exists to serve humanity in a sort of thankless task and
11:21so on. And they say that nobody knows what we do for them, that we are sort of secret and hidden
11:31and nobody knows all of the good that we do for them. And that's sort of like parents, right? I
11:37mean, the babies don't understand what the parents do for them. They're incredibly, they're
11:42astounding, high stakes. They have no particular personalities. They exist to serve babies just as
11:46these guys exist to serve the population as a whole. And they are unappreciated. And of course,
11:54babies don't thank you, right? That's not their gig. They can't do it. They don't have the
11:59brain development, right? Babies are born, what, 60% of adult brain size. And by the time you're
12:03five, it's like 90% of adult brain size. So, babies can't thank you. It's a thankless task
12:11in Mission Impossible, right? They don't have any personality. Neither do children or babies
12:16recognize the parents' personalities. And they selflessly serve humanity. And parents selflessly
12:23serve babies. They're incredibly athletic and do things that are impossible, right? And everything
12:28that parents do to babies is kind of impossible, because babies can't do it themselves.
12:33So, I think that Mission Impossible puts the babies in an infantile state.
12:42Because the other thing that's true, and Ving Rhames plays this as the black computer genius
12:48in the movie, plays this well, where there's a point where Ving Rhames is in a very bad
12:55situation, and he's totally calm and reasonable about it. And so, when babies are panicking,
13:00which they do on a regular basis, because they don't know how their needs are going to be met,
13:04and they can't meet their own needs. So, when babies are panicking, the adults stay calm.
13:13And of course, when you are a parent, this is a very common thing with parents, when you're a
13:19parent, what you do is you look with some bemusement at the panics that your children
13:27have. Like, I have to have this toy, or it's like the end of the world or something like that.
13:32Everything's incredibly high stakes for children, which is fine. But of course, as an adult,
13:37I remember when my daughter was little, she liked, I don't know if you've ever done this,
13:42you can get these coins at places like Niagara Falls and other places. You get these coins,
13:47and you get a stamp on them, and then you get to keep the coin. So, she really,
13:52really wanted one. I get that. Everything in video games or tablet games is like
13:58gems. You collect gems, right? That's why there aren't any collect cockroaches, right? You collect
14:03gems. And so, gathering of wealth is essential for children's development. It's kind of what
14:08they want and need. And so, I bought her one of these little coins that you stamp, right?
14:17And she was desperate for it. So, that's fine. She can't fulfill her own needs. She doesn't have
14:22her own money when she was that little. So, I got her. And then the next time she wanted one,
14:25I said, hey, I'm happy to buy it for you again, but you have to tell me where the last one is.
14:29Where's the last one? Remember, we bought one here a while. Somebody says, I'm barely following.
14:39Get to the point of this, please. That's interesting. So, I'm talking about
14:47immaturity, or not immaturity, but appropriate maturity for babies. I'm talking about people
14:55being in an infantile state in the movie, and that somebody is actually doing this on Rumble.
15:00I'm barely following. Get to the point of this, please. Well, no, I will do the show the way that
15:04I want to do it. And if you don't like it, this is how I communicate. And if you don't like it,
15:14there's a million other channels that you can go and see, but I'm trying to sort of build a case
15:17here about what the movie is doing and why people respond to it. And this is going to tie into
15:24politics as well, which we'll get to in just a second. So, if you can't follow, that's fine.
15:29I sympathize. If you can't follow, this may not be the channel for you. So, just wanted to mention that.
15:37So, the belief or the fantasy that there are people out there massively dedicated to the good
15:49of humanity, who have no lives of their own, no needs of their own, take no thanks, have no stability,
15:57and simply exist as you or other or population-serving machines is really the foundation
16:08for the virtues of people's imagination about statism and about bureaucrats. You know, they're
16:13just, you know, you see this all over the place, right? But there are these people who just wake
16:20up to serve humanity and don't have any needs of their own, don't have any families, don't have any
16:26preferences, don't have any regrets, and are just selflessly dedicated to doing the right thing and
16:32the good thing in a way that doesn't exist, right? Which is to say we divide humanity
16:41into those who have self-interest and those who are selfless, ideal, Kantian, golden rule
16:52slaves, robots, or servants of the common good. And because we fantasize that there are two groups
17:01in humanity, the selfish and the selfless, those who have their own preferences and work towards
17:09satisfying their own desires, and those who have no preferences for themselves and selflessly and
17:19in a sense slavishly dedicate themselves to the good of humanity as a whole, why is this compelling
17:27to us? Why do we believe this? Yes, I did an article rebuttal yesterday about critiques
17:36of anarcho-capitalism because it's a topic that I kind of miss and really, really like. So,
17:43why is it that we divide humanity into the self-interested and the selfless?
17:53Right? So, we have selfish bad guys, self-interested good guys, and selfless heroes,
18:02right? Selfish bad guys, self-interested good guys, and selfless heroes. Well, I'm going to say
18:10that the reason why we have this belief, and here's a typical example is, well, you see,
18:17my friends, there are these evil capitalists in the world, right? These evil corporations,
18:24these capitalists, and they just want to exploit you, and they just want to
18:30steal from you and underpay you, and they're just really selfish, mean people who are drawn
18:35to power and want to exercise that power in an evil way over the general population,
18:42right? So, the class of people who will exploit you if they have any kind of power or if they're
18:48your boss, right? They'll just demand that you work weekends or threaten to fire you and they
18:52just mean, terrible, exploitive people, right? So, that's the selfish bad guys, right?
19:00And you are the self-interested good guy. You don't want to exploit others, but you don't want
19:04to be exploited. You're relatively empathetic and so on, right? So, you've got selfish bad guys,
19:12you've got self-interested good guys, and then you have selfless heroes.
19:19So, of course, the selfless heroes put themselves forward, or the propaganda puts themselves forward
19:24as, we're going to protect you, the self-interested good guy from the
19:31selfish bad guy because we are the selfless heroes. So, we're going to stand between you
19:37and the selfish bad guys so that you can be protected. And we don't need any thanks,
19:42we don't have any needs of our own, and we just exist to serve you. Now, let's put this in the
19:50baby crib, right? Because there's always a reason why people find such absolutely irrational things
19:55compelling, right? It's completely irrational, of course. Saying that there's a selfish bad guys who
20:01love to exploit you through power, and they're your bosses in a voluntary free market environment,
20:06but the people in the government are just selfless caped crusaders who only exist to serve you and
20:10protect you from the bad guys, is to create those with power into two categories. Those who have
20:16power in a voluntary sense, in other words, they're your boss, but you can quit and they can fire you
20:20and you can go get another job and so on. So, those who are the bad guys in a voluntary situation
20:27are utterly corrupted by power, but those who have coercive power over you, the power of the state,
20:33are just selfless, noble, wonderful, virtuous heroes. And the people in the free market are
20:39utterly corrupted by power, even though that power is voluntary, it's a voluntary relationship,
20:44but the people who have coercive power over you and your descendants through debts and
20:48unfunded liabilities, the people who have coercive power over you,
20:53well, you see, those people are not corrupted by power. So, voluntary power in the free market
21:01utterly corrupts capitalists and bosses and managers, but coercive power in the political
21:07realm does not corrupt anyone whatsoever. Obviously, this makes no sense at all.
21:14This makes no sense at all. I mean, it is the moral and logical equivalent of saying
21:21your boyfriend is going to abuse you, but the guy who kidnaps you is in love and just wants
21:27the best thing for you, right? The voluntary situation is corrupting, but the coercive
21:33situation is noble and heroic. So, why do people believe this? Well, the reason that people believe
21:39this is because it mirrors infancy. See what I can get out of a Tom Cruise movie, right?
21:47So, in infancy, what do you have? You have bad things. This is your hunger, your thirst,
21:56your discomfort, your boredom, and maybe if you have loud or tormenting siblings or something
22:02like that, there's sort of the negatives, right? So, this is the equivalent of the selfish bad guy.
22:08As a baby, as a toddler, you have impulses that are painful, that are uncomfortable, that are
22:14maddening, and so on. Babies can't even scratch their own backs, right? So, you get an itch,
22:17you've just got to cry. When you drink the milk, you often will end up with sort of bubbles and
22:25you need to be burped and patted and so on. You can't even discharge your own physical discomfort.
22:30Heaven forbid you have something like colic or something like that. It's just brutal on babies.
22:34Babies spend a fair amount of time utterly uncomfortable and helpless. So, saying that
22:41there are bad guys, these are the negative impulses, either internal,
22:45negative experiences, either internal discomfort or external if you've got
22:51teasing or negative or hostile siblings, which was, of course, the case from
22:56most families throughout most of human history. I think my very first memory is of my brother
23:02dancing around me and teasing me in a sort of nasal, difficult,
23:05shrill, unpleasant voice. So, it's just negative, right? So, for a baby, the baby is
23:14good, self-interested. The baby's negative impulses
23:20are the villains and the noble selfless heroes are the parents who solve the problem.
23:32So, and, of course, for toddlers, the negative experiences are sometimes of their own making,
23:43right? They lean too forward. They fall over. They try to walk. They fall over. They grab
23:47something. It's too hot. They, you know, whatever. There's just negative experiences based upon their
23:51own choices, right? So, I think this is why. So, it's more free will, free market stuff.
23:58It's your own choices. So, I think that the Tom Cruise stuff is very compelling to people
24:05because he is the selfless, statist bureaucrat who is willing to undergo
24:15impossible, unbearable physical torture and negative stimuli with no self-interest and
24:19no preferences of his own in order to save humanity, even though he gets no thanks.
24:24Well, that's the noble parent who takes care of the baby's needs. And this is why
24:34authority is salvation, right? You're giving government power is salvation. And when you're a
24:40baby, your parents are the state and they save you from the negative impulses of the negative
24:55experiences, either internal or external. I'll sort of give you an example with regards to
25:02siblings. So, in this formulation, your boss is an older sibling. The state is the parent,
25:09right? So, the way it works for most of human evolution is, as a younger sibling,
25:16you cannot compete for resources. Your older siblings will take more resources. They will
25:20take more time. They will take more attention. They will take more food. They will take more
25:23water. They will take more space and they will take it away from you, right? So,
25:31those who are slightly above you in power, but not as powerful as the parents is your
25:38boss, who's above you in power, but not nearly as powerful as the state.
25:44Just hit me with a why if you're following this so far. And I don't mean this in any
25:49way. It's a challenging series of arguments to make, but I think it really does
25:55explode out why people are so susceptible to this power scenario, this power situation,
26:02why they fear their bosses, but love the state. Okay. So, with elder siblings,
26:09they will take from you and it is up to the parents to instruct the elder siblings to not
26:16take your stuff. So, now that you're getting to the point, I am, says someone.
26:25Yes, that's right. You must be really good at getting to the point. You should run shows,
26:29not watch the shows. Because if you're better at explaining complex
26:33psycho-political social dynamics than me, then you should definitely run your own show and not watch
26:37mine. And I'll watch your show and take notes. I'm pretty good at explaining this stuff. It's
26:41very complex. So, in the mind state of the citizen, the boss is an older sibling who is dangerous
26:54because the older sibling can take things from you because you're a baby or a toddler, right?
26:59And you have to appeal to the parents to get the older sibling to give you stuff back,
27:04which is why the capitalist, your boss, is the exploiting older sibling who's going to take
27:11from you and you have no chance because he's got more power than you, but much less power
27:16than the parents, right? So, your older sibling has more power than you. He's going to take stuff
27:21from you. He's going to exploit you, but he's way less power than the state. So, you have to bypass
27:25your older sibling to appeal to your parents and say,
27:29Joe took the last orange, right? There are eight kids in the household. There were
27:40eight oranges and the youngest kid doesn't get the orange because the older kid took it.
27:44And then you have to appeal to the parents. You can't go and get it from the older sibling
27:48because he's bigger and stronger. So, you have to appeal to the parents, right?
27:55And so, in the same way, you feel helpless with regards to your boss,
27:58helpless to negotiate with regards to your boss. And you can't gain strength and power
28:07with your sibling because they're always going to be older, right? Always going to be older and
28:11stronger. I mean, maybe at the very end of your life, they'll be a little weaker, but that's
28:15irrelevant to the sort of formation of the psychology. So, you can't grow in power to
28:23get stuff back. And if you've had a fractious or abusive relationship with an elder sibling,
28:28it's really quite maddening because they're always bigger and stronger and faster and so on, right?
28:33You can't win. You can't win physically. So, you have to bypass the sibling and appeal to
28:37the parents because you can't gain enough strength and power to take things back from your sibling.
28:42And in the same way, if you have a mean boss, a boss who dominates, a boss who yells or whatever
28:49it is, you can't gain enough economic strength, power, independence and value to fight back. I
28:56mean, over time, you've got a mean boss, right? You've got a bad boss. One of the big solutions,
29:01of course, is to gain economic strength and value to the point where you can't win physically.
29:11To the point where you can start your own company and you don't need your boss,
29:15or you can go and get a better job and you don't need your boss, but that takes a while.
29:20It takes usually at a minimum a year or two to gain the kind of skills or value
29:25that means you can leave a bad boss behind and go to some new boss or become your own boss.
29:32I got thoroughly tired of working for people. So, I have been my own boss for like,
29:40oh gosh, with one sort of brief couple of year exception in the middle since my late 20s. So,
29:48that's almost 30 years. They say 27 or 28 out of 30 years I've been my own boss because I just,
29:56I don't like working for people. I consider most people much less competent than I am.
30:00So, people start, and Mission Impossible, I remember a friend of mine many years ago referred
30:10to Tom Cruise's mindset as rage against the press, which it seemed to fit. And that, of course, is.
30:16So, Tom Cruise is working to create an infantile state among people for reasons I sort of talked
30:21about before. And this is the root of people's faith and trust in government, is that in people's
30:28minds, their boss is an older sibling, and you're in danger from your older sibling. So, you have to
30:35run to your parents to protect you from your older sibling who's going to take your resources and
30:40maybe push in and, you know, in extreme cases, put you in danger or get you killed because,
30:46you know, you've seen these, I'm sure you've seen these videos of the little baby birds
30:50in the nest pushing out the other baby birds because they want to keep the resources for
30:57themselves. And that's sort of common in nature that siblings Edmund and Edgar style from
31:03King Lear, our siblings can sometimes work to eliminate the other sibling. It happened a lot
31:11of sort of the ancient world when siblings were fighting for a crown or an emperorship,
31:15they've just poisoned and eliminate each other to get the prize. So, you have localized lesser
31:25power that you can't respond to or fight against or protect yourself from, or maybe even survive
31:31in an extreme case. So, you have an instinct to bypass the cruel older brother to go to the
31:36selfless moral parent so that you are protected from the predations of the siblings and thus can
31:42survive. And this translates in people's mind to, this is sort of from the communist manifesto,
31:49that the capitalists, the bourgeois, the corporations who are the elder siblings
31:52are corrupt, mean and vicious, and you need an all-powerful state to protect you from them.
31:57And that's why people believe this stuff, even though it makes absolutely zero logical sense
32:06from a moral or practical standpoint, or a historical standpoint as well.
32:13All right, so let me just get to your comments. And this is why peaceful parenting solves this
32:21stuff, right? Because if people have unmet childhood needs, they will attempt to get
32:27those childhood needs met through politics. If you had parents who didn't provide you what you needed
32:36as a baby, then you will be drawn to having the state provide you what you needed as a baby,
32:44and which was helpful to you as a baby, but what is utterly destructive for you
32:47as an adult. As an adult, trying to get your infant needs met through
32:54or childhood needs met through politics is absolutely, utterly, completely destructive,
33:00because it swells the power of the state, which is the real danger.
33:05Would you consider coming back to politics?
33:09No, I don't think that philosophy is where politics is at the moment.
33:14Politics at the moment is about power, and debate is about reason,
33:21and I don't think politics is about debate anymore. All right.
33:24What do you think is some women's obsession over self-diagnosis of things like autism,
33:31borderline personality, and OCD? I know too many women like this, even my wife,
33:36who's great at many levels, but look up these things every time she has an emotional flare,
33:40looking for the quote reason. Okay, so obviously I can't diagnose anyone, and I have no skill,
33:46expertise, or competence in this area, so this is all just foolish amateur opinions,
33:51but it is not. Let's say that you've had bad parents, a childhood trauma, and so on,
33:57you've not dealt with. So, do your parents want you to look up something as a diagnosis,
34:02or do your parents want you to look at them in a critical manner?
34:09So, if people, let's say your wife has an emotional flare-up, well, I would assume that
34:14one of the reasons, or one of the good things to do with regards to her emotional flare-up
34:18would be to go to her childhood and figure out the sort of cause and unmet needs and
34:26avoidance of legitimate suffering from the childhood that would cause an emotional flare-up.
34:31However, that leads towards criticism of the parents. So, the parents, the inner alter-ego
34:36parents, in my, again, humble amateur opinion, would be driving her to look for some sort of
34:42technical definition that lets the parents off the hook. So, if you have ridiculously
34:47critical parents, then you're going to double, triple check everything and never feel quite at
34:51ease with your own decisions, which is something to do with OCD. So, and I'm not saying all OCD
34:58is related to parents, right? This is one possibility. So, if you have to constantly
35:04check things because you have parents yelling at you in your head because they're hypercritical,
35:09then your parents would rather you look at, oh, I have OCD, rather than go back to the source of
35:15all of this, which would be parental neglect or abuse.
35:24Because we are all selfish, but it gives us hope we have to have something to strive for.
35:31Sure, but of course, you know, your selfishness as a parent includes the happiness of your children,
35:34right? As is your case with your wife and friends, right? All right, let me just get to your
35:45I am the oldest in my family. Is that why I have an arsehole persona?
35:49I wouldn't put it deterministically that way.
35:53After your last few uploads, read some Seneca. You need it lately, LOL.
35:59Strange and immature set of comments. I think we've had this guy as a troll before.
36:05That was quite awesome. Thanks, Steph. My girlfriend quite likes it too. It was her
36:09first time hearing an argument like that. I'm good. In politics, they can't even get the doge
36:13cuts passed. Yeah, for sure. Rock legend Pete Townsend of The Who says Bruce Springsteen ruined
36:21everyone tonight when he brought politics to the stage. He's a bit overrated to begin with.
36:25He's the kind of bloke who should just shut up and play. Hey, little baby, is your daddy home?
36:34Did he run away and leave you all alone? I got a bad desire. I'm on fire.
36:44Hey, little girl.
36:50I assume that most people, I assume, and it happens on the right too, but I assume
36:54it's a bit more on the left. I assume most people hardcore into leftist politics
36:59have some seriously deranged skeletons in their closet.
37:02Seriously deranged skeletons in their closet. All right.
37:06Bomega, nice to see you. FreedomAid.com to help out the show. You say, I'm thinking of the metaphor
37:12of training wheels on a bike. A child needs it. The adult will never be free if they don't learn
37:16to ride without them. Can the adult ever rely on themselves if they never learn the risk of
37:23falling and how to stop it? Ditto with government. Interesting.
37:29Yeah, I mean, my daughter is eager to get her life started, eager to be independent, right?
37:36And I respect that. And I was talking about this with her last night. That's really been the goal.
37:40The goal has been to get her to a state of independence and self-reliance,
37:46right? Meeting all of her needs, teaching her how to meet her own needs, helping her divvy up
37:50legitimate from illegitimate from illegitimate from illegitimate from illegitimate from illegitimate.
37:56Helping her divvy up legitimate from illegitimate needs. Learning how to navigate the needs that
38:01other people have of you and the needs that you have for yourself and the needs you have
38:05of other people. This is all the purpose of parenting is, you know, like my friend,
38:12my roommate from college, right? His father said, you know, like you're as a parent, you're like a
38:16bow, right? You draw back the bow and then you launch the child into the world as an independent
38:21entity. And you have to meet the child's needs. So then the child knows the needs can be met,
38:29learns how to trust. And then the child learns how to meet his or her own needs and then how
38:33to navigate the needs other people have and they have, right? And then they can be independent
38:38and then they don't need the state. They have self-trust, right?
38:42Is he just turned 16? Not too long ago, right? Yeah, she's 16, almost 16 and a half.
38:47So it's our last, it's our last full year.
38:52Just the way that it is.
38:57All right, let me just check my motivation
39:06and see how the donations are. Are we getting anything?
39:11We're going to go down only in a sec.
39:19No more, I love you.
39:30And you can of course, join that at FDR URL.com
39:39slash locals, FDR URL.com slash locals.
39:43All right, so I really do appreciate that. I've got some fairly spicy stuff to get into
39:49on the donor only section. Hello, Trogas. Sorry, if you joined and you're not a donor,
39:54we're just about to head to donor only. So you can of course, get involved in that.
39:59And it's a great donor community and boy, do you get a lot of bonuses. You get a bunch of AIs,
40:03you get the 23 part history of philosophers series. And you also get a truth about the
40:11French revolution is a 12 hour presentation. It's great stuff. Freedom.locals.com. You're
40:17a member. Fantastic. Somebody says crazy. I started listening when I didn't have kids
40:23and more. Your is about to 18 and mine's about to be nine. Yeah, that's true.
40:29All right, so let's do our donor only
40:34local supporters only update stream and we will go to that.