Philosophy vs Sex Workers! Listener Debate

Name: Philosophy vs Sex Workers! Listener Debate
Uploaded: 2025-06-14T20:59:27+00:00
Duration: 1 h 21 min 35 s
Channel: Stefan Molyneux

00:00:00Good morning. Well, good afternoon. Sorry, everybody. Hope you're doing well.

00:00:03Stefan Molyneux from Freedomaine out for a little June stroll in the fine Canadian hinterlands.

00:00:11And a very interesting post. It annoyed me, but I'm not sure I was justified in my annoyance.

00:00:21So let me sort of read it to you. And for those of you who don't know the backstory,

00:00:27I haven't heard the call-in show, which is at the moment, in the premium section of Freedomaine

00:00:33called Confessions of an OnlyFans Woman, or an OF Woman. One of the things I said, and it was kind

00:00:43of in passing, was that one of the problems with sex work is that you are, it's probably not going

00:00:48to make you happy if you gain value out of that which you did not earn. It's not going to make

00:00:56you very happy. So this woman, she didn't work out. She just had a great figure, and she was able

00:01:01to sell that or monetize that online. And, you know, I said one of the problems, it's sort of a

00:01:07passing comment, but one of the problems is you probably aren't going to end up very happy

00:01:10if you profit out of that which you didn't earn, right? And so this is what, oh, and this woman

00:01:25didn't work out. She just had this figure by nature. So this person says, you made a good point

00:01:31in your recent call-in with the OnlyFans Woman that women shouldn't feel accomplished for making

00:01:34money from selling their images on OnlyFans because they haven't earned their beauty.

00:01:37However, as you do well know, IQ is 80% genetic and becomes more genetic as you get older.

00:01:42You, Steph, yourself experienced a childhood that would be the model of creating a homeless drug

00:01:47addict living in the street. However, you did not become a drug addict or homeless. In fact,

00:01:51you became a very successful businessman, both as a former software executive and also now as a

00:01:56self-employed philosopher. So despite all the environmental odds being against you as a poor

00:02:00child living in a home with an absent father and a dysfunctional mother, you achieved great success.

00:02:04And your success stems not from your environment, but from your high IQ and your work ethic,

00:02:08because both of which are largely genetic. In fact, just as much genetic as women who have big boobs,

00:02:15perfect facial structure, and a peachy body is also genetic. Now, there is some environmental

00:02:24tailoring that, sorry, get that sorted, that can be done such as going to the gym or working hard.

00:02:32However, work ethic is also largely genetic. Interestingly, I would in fact argue that a

00:02:36person's physical body is actually less genetically determined than a person's IQ. The amount of

00:02:41physical transformation a woman's body can go through from the gym is more extreme than anything

00:02:44a person could go, could attempt to do to increase their IQ. Jordan Peterson said there's nothing

00:02:49that can be done to increase IQ. So the point of all of this backstory is to ask, why do you think

00:02:54women selling photos of themselves is not good? Because they haven't earned it, they just inherited it

00:02:58like winning the lottery. You yourself didn't earn your high IQ, and pretty much everything a person

00:03:02does, whether it is work ethic, personality, is all driven largely by predetermined genetic factors.

00:03:08In extreme cases, someone who is born with a high IQ can be totally destroyed by the environment to the

00:03:13point they can't read. But generally speaking, apart from extreme cases, everything a person does,

00:03:17and every accomplishment a person has, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, earned, is the result

00:03:23of innate genetic inheritance. Thus, why would you say that a woman hasn't earned her beauty,

00:03:30your woman who hasn't earned, a woman who hasn't earned her beauty shouldn't sell it when you,

00:03:34Steph, haven't earned your high IQ? Does this suggest a bias where you believe intellectual work,

00:03:38though just as much predetermined as a woman's physical appearance, is superior to, say, OnlyFans

00:03:42work? And does this suggestion instigate any personal reflection in yourself that suggests the

00:03:47reason you are against women selling the body and OnlyFans and the like is because you inherited a

00:03:51high IQ? And as such, you have, I'm sorry, a bias to do work that suits your natural genetic

00:03:59predisposition. That's what you acknowledge. It is an inconsistent argument to make that women who

00:04:03make money from their genetic disposition is bad because they, quote, haven't earned it.

00:04:08So this was annoying, and it took me a while to sort of figure out why, you know, whether this is just or

00:04:14unjust. You can, of course, decide for yourself. I'll make the case. So I replied, and I was just

00:04:21kind of, I found the post incomprehensible in a way and annoying. Like, I understood the argument,

00:04:26but the emotionality behind it was incomprehensible to me. So I wrote, sorry, risking life and limb to

00:04:32spread peaceful parenting and moral philosophy is the same as selling pictures of your butthole on

00:04:36the internet. Do you even hear yourself? He wrote, I do not disagree with the claim that peaceful

00:04:42parenting has tremendous value for society. Certainly more value than, quote, butthole pics. However,

00:04:48you did not make that claim in your conversation with the OnlyFans woman, and that was not the

00:04:52claim I was disputing in my question. I was specifically disputing a claim that women

00:04:55haven't earned the ability to make money using the body because it's unearned. At one hour 30

00:05:00of your OnlyFans call, and you said, and I quote, I think that we end up happier if we get paid for

00:05:07things that aren't just accidental to us. Yeah. You then said to the OnlyFans caller, you did not earn

00:05:12your body. Again, this is a bad argument because a lot of people put a lot of work in the gym and

00:05:17dieting to get an amazing body. So your assumption that OnlyFans women didn't earn their bodies in

00:05:22many cases false. But I was talking to this woman in particular, by the by, not women as a whole.

00:05:26And I did acknowledge that some, I mean, models sometimes diet and exercise a lot, especially

00:05:30bikini models to maintain their figures. So she said, I've noticed from my experience,

00:05:35I have noticed, sorry, from my experience at the gym, that women who have a great, perfect butt

00:05:48are far more common in the gym than you would expect to find by chance by walking around in

00:05:56public places. I'm certain there is a type of perfect peachy ideal female butt that women

00:06:00that have that is largely the result of hard work in the gym, not solely the result,

00:06:04because genetics are also involved, of course. But an enhanced female butt is certainly the result

00:06:08of hard work in the gym, based upon my own first-hand observations of women in the gym.

00:06:13However, okay, but their hard work is also genetic, right? So they didn't even earn that butt. I mean,

00:06:18if you're saying that every outcome is genetic, then the women didn't earn that either. All right.

00:06:23He goes on to say, however, the main problem in their argument is that all abilities, whether it is

00:06:27the height of a basketball player, the strength of a bricklayer, the petite stature of a ballerina,

00:06:30or the mental ability of a philosopher stems from innate unearned genetic factors.

00:06:34Thus, a woman has just as much right to sell photos of her butthole as a computer programmer has the

00:06:40right to use your high IQ to earn money. That's a total straw, man. I never said you didn't have

00:06:45the right to do it. I don't know what you're talking about, honestly, at this point. You're

00:06:47just all over the place, right? So this specific argument you were making in the call-in was a

00:06:52bad argument for all the reasons I've listed herein. You could make the argument that tits and ass

00:06:56picks add no value to society, but on the contrary, philosophy and peaceful parenting does.

00:07:01However, you did not make that argument in your call-in. I was simply pointing out in my question

00:07:05that you used a flawed argument rather than a good argument during the recent OnlyFans

00:07:09woman call-in. I think you should add a prelude to your OnlyFans call-in to let future viewers know

00:07:13that you presented a bad argument on this specific point. It's not a big deal because in a two-plus-hour

00:07:19convo, you can miss what you may or may not have already said. However, considering 10% of American

00:07:24women between 18 to 28 are already selling tits and aspects on OnlyFans, you may see

00:07:28it's deaf as your responsibility to provide a thorough argument as to why women shouldn't do

00:07:33OnlyFans rather than the flawed, unearned argument you presented in your recent OnlyFans call-in

00:07:37and append it to the end of the call-in. That's great. And then I wrote, she never talked about

00:07:44putting hours in the gym. She just said she just grew big breasts. I also acknowledge that some

00:07:49sex workers do work hard on maintaining their figures. I was talking about her specifically

00:07:53to do not follow that. So, I found this argument irritating. Now, the fact that it's irritating

00:08:00does not at all mean that it's a bad argument, right? At all, right? I could get, I could be

00:08:08irritated, right? I mean, let's take the devil's advocate position here, perhaps kind of literally.

00:08:13I could be irritated because he's made a great argument and overturned my central point and

00:08:23taken a hammer blow to my judgment, right? So, the fact that I was irritated was interesting to me

00:08:34and I'm not normally irritated if I'm corrected. I normally, I mean, if I've missed something stupid

00:08:41or said something that's totally against what I'd argue in general, I generally will be irritated,

00:08:50but it would be largely at myself. I'm not irritated at people who correct me. I generally,

00:08:56I appreciate it, and if I've made a mistake, then I would be annoyed at myself.

00:09:04So, I was sort of trying to figure out what it was that was annoying to me, just out of curiosity

00:09:15for myself and for this person. The contrast, of course, between saying it's not a big deal

00:09:24and then saying, you know, here's, you know, three or four pages of argumentation

00:09:30is

00:09:36it's interesting, right? If something's not a big deal, why would you bother with it, right? Why would

00:09:40you bother sort of pointing it out or something like that, right? Doesn't make a whole lot of sense

00:09:44if something's not a big deal. I'll just spend a lot of time writing and arguing and listening and

00:09:50checking the exact time I said X, Y, or Z, right? That doesn't make a whole lot of sense. So, I just

00:09:56sort of wanted to point that out, that there's that kind of disparity. Now, he obviously is saying

00:10:04that we have some free will. He's not a determinist, because if he was a determinist,

00:10:10he would have no reason to argue against me any more than I would argue with the television set,

00:10:14right? That doesn't really make much sense. So, then the question is, well, I mean, why is this

00:10:22important to you that you're doing multi-pages? And asking why something is important to someone,

00:10:28of course, is not an argument. It doesn't rebut anything, but it is kind of interesting

00:10:32to figure that out. Does his girlfriend do OF or does someone else he knows do? Like, why is this

00:10:40important? If you say it's not a big deal, it's not important. But I should, like, go through some

00:10:47kind of humiliation ritual and prepend something to say I made a bad argument. So, I'm going to,

00:10:56and here's the other thing that I found annoying. And again, my annoyance doesn't mean squat with

00:11:05regards to the quality of the argument. I just want to share my experience, because I have found

00:11:10you know, I've got an entire podcast called The Joy of Anger. I have found annoyance or anger

00:11:18to be very helpful in my life. It sort of protects me from people who have ill intent, right? So,

00:11:27again, just to be clear, the fact that I'm annoyed at this person, let's just call him Bob,

00:11:33the fact that I'm annoyed at Bob doesn't mean that Bob's wrong. And it certainly doesn't mean

00:11:40that Bob has any kind of ill intent. It just, my instincts are telling me that something is quite

00:11:51awry here. And it sort of impels me to dig in deeper and to figure out what, if anything,

00:11:57right? I could be triggered. It's not particularly common with the amount of self-work that I've done

00:12:04and therapy. And I'm in my late 50s, so I'm not usually triggered much, but it could be. You know,

00:12:11it's not impossible. Not impossible. I generally have an issue, my sort of first issue goes something

00:12:22like this. So, saying that my work in moral philosophy for the protection of children,

00:12:34the reputational financial career kill shots that have been leveled against me, to say that this is,

00:12:43in some moral way, equivalent, and the OF woman that I talked to was not talking about selling butt

00:12:53pics, so I'm just using that as a sort of loosey-goosey analogy, but saying that the work that I've done

00:13:01in moral philosophy is in the same category somehow as someone who is selling butt pics on the internet.

00:13:10If that doesn't give you a funny feeling that something's not right, I almost don't know what

00:13:16to tell you. Yes, protecting children, promoting the non-aggression principle, trying hard to end

00:13:23wars and exploitation and child abuse and violence of every kind, is in the same general category

00:13:29as selling butt pictures. If that doesn't, like if somebody had said,

00:13:36okay, Steph, this is kind of an odd argument, but I'm trying to figure out how it's incorrect, or

00:13:40you know, my gut tells me that this is a strange argument, or there's something weird about this

00:13:45argument, that moral philosophy and the protection of children is in the same category in some fashion

00:13:52as selling wizard-sleeve pictures on the internet, then I would really respect that, because it's like,

00:14:01yeah, I feel the same way. Let's see if we can puzzle it out together. Now, again, the fact that

00:14:06an argument feels weird doesn't mean that the argument is wrong, but an acknowledgement that

00:14:11it feels weird. I'll give you another example to sort of try to make this clearer. So, if someone says to

00:14:18me, murder, I've got an argument that murder is morally good, right? Someone sort of says that

00:14:29case to me. Now, if they say to me, well, look, I know that murder is not morally good, but here's

00:14:35an argument that I can't refute. Can you help me out? And, you know, because clearly murder is not

00:14:41morally good, can you help me out with this argument? Because, you know, my instincts rail

00:14:48against the idea that murder is morally good, as they should, and so, you know, can you help me out

00:14:53with this argument? Then that would be someone that I would respect. But if somebody just kind of

00:14:59cold-heartedly blank-faced makes the argument that murder is good, then I have a problem.

00:15:09I have a problem with the person's lack of trouble with their own argument. So, if he's going to say,

00:15:21Steph, there's a moral or happiness equivalent between the work that you do in protecting children

00:15:29and promoting peace and reason with butthole pictures on the internet, and if there's no instinct

00:15:35in that person that says there's something awry with this, then it seems odd, like weird to me.

00:15:42I feel like I'm in the presence of an extremely alien mindset that doesn't say, okay, there's

00:15:49something, I can't overthrow this argument, but it troubles me. Because it should. It should trouble

00:15:55you. It should trouble you. If you think that murder is good, it should trouble you if you think.

00:16:00But whole pictures on the internet are somehow in the same category as the promotion of peaceful

00:16:06parenting, the protection of children, and peace and reason, and so on, you should say, I mean,

00:16:12your conscience, your instinct should tell you, okay, there's something I can't quite overthrow,

00:16:18but it is kind of weird, and, you know, if it can't be overthrown, we have to accept the weirdness,

00:16:23right? I mean, if you say the state doesn't exist and the non-aggression principle should apply

00:16:28universally, people feel weird about that. That doesn't mean that argument is wrong.

00:16:33But you do need to acknowledge that it is a strange argument to make. So I just sort of wanted

00:16:41to point that out, that I felt coldness, hostility, and manipulation. Well, you said and use your own

00:16:49words against you, and so on, right? And there's this certainty. There's this certainty that he is

00:16:58right, I am wrong, to the point where he's insisting, without the argument even being close to

00:17:05concluding, he's insisting that I put a correction out, because he's absolutely certain that I am wrong,

00:17:11and that he is right, and that coldness, not even noticing the strangeness of the argument,

00:17:18that it's that kind of manipulation, using your own words against you, right? Which, you know,

00:17:23if it's valid, it's valid. If it's not, then it's just being a bit of a dick, right? And this insistence

00:17:29that I put the correction out already, despite the fact that the argument has barely occurred,

00:17:39and I think that the dishonesty. I think the telling thing is when he says, look, look, 10% of

00:17:44women 18 to 28, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, it's like, but do you know any of them? Why is this

00:17:48personal to you? Why does it, A, not matter, and B, you need to put out a correction, Steph, and

00:17:54here's, you know, five pages of argumentation, right? These are, I think, not honest. If he says,

00:18:04look, my, I don't know, my girlfriend apparently has a history of this, and it really troubles me,

00:18:10and bothers me, and so on, right? There's something that makes it personal, right? I mean, I'm pretty

00:18:15clear, right, that one of the reasons I focus on child abuse is I was fairly horrifically abused

00:18:20as a child, so it is both theoretical and personal. Why do I promote philosophies that would reduce

00:18:31significantly, or perhaps even eliminate, the possibility of war? Well, because my family

00:18:37suffered in endless bloody waves in the First and Second World War in the 20th century,

00:18:42and my mother's madness was to a significant degree brought about by war and all that occurred

00:18:51in that way. So, yes, it's personal, and I've been very upfront and honest about that, and so people

00:18:58can place the urgency and the emotional emphasis that I place upon these arguments in context,

00:19:03because if you get the emotional intensity without knowing why, it feels weird. Why does it matter to

00:19:10you? Why are you putting pages out? Why are you demanding a retraction or a correction and so on,

00:19:15right? And also, importantly, why are you strawmanning, right? Why are you... So, I never said... In fact,

00:19:24I was very clear in the conversation with the OF woman, I was very clear that, from a technical

00:19:31standpoint, sex work does not violate the non-aggression principle, because it does not require,

00:19:38assuming there's nothing fraudulent, it does not require the initiation of force in order to be

00:19:42achieved. It is a voluntary transaction between two consulting adults. However, sex work is a shadow

00:19:52cast by prior violations of the non-aggression principle. In other words, just about every

00:19:58sex worker was viciously abused, often sexually, or neglected as a child. Those are necessary but not

00:20:11sufficient conditions for someone to become a sex worker. Now, as an adult, sure, it's voluntary. However,

00:20:22if it is a shadow cast by prior abuse, it is related to abuse. Though itself is voluntary, it is a result

00:20:31of involuntary abuse and neglect as a child. So, that is an important aspect of things. So, I said you're

00:20:44generally happier if you take pride in things that you have earned rather than things you have inherited.

00:20:50Well, sure. I mean, this can't be that complicated, can it? Really? You're going to be more proud of

00:20:56money that you've made rather than money you just inherited, right? I mean, if somebody makes a

00:21:03million dollars, you know, through honorable work, that's a good thing, right? It's a positive thing.

00:21:11However, if some distant aunt you didn't even know about leaves you a million dollars,

00:21:16then you have no particular right to be proud of that because you didn't earn it, right? So,

00:21:23I'm not sure how this is remarkably controversial, that you can't take pride in that which you didn't

00:21:32earn. Okay, so, I mean, this is something I've said for forever and ever I'm in. So, you're going to be

00:21:39happier in achievements that you've earned rather than accidental characteristics you just happen to

00:21:48have inherited. Now, again, I can't imagine in any particular way or reason how this could be

00:21:54considered controversial at all, but I suppose it is. So, because that's relatively uncontroversial,

00:22:01Bob, my interrogator, changes the goalposts, moves the goalposts and changes the definitions, right?

00:22:10So, he goes from me saying you'll be happier if you earn things rather than, you know, just

00:22:16having your accidental inheritance, you'll be happier if you earn things, to then he says, well,

00:22:22there's a morality involved and then he's saying that I'm saying people don't have the right to the

00:22:26unearned, right? So, saying to someone, hey, you know what? You'll probably be happier

00:22:32if you earn money rather than just get given the money, right?

00:22:40Now, from that, let's say some distant great aunt you didn't even know about dies and you get a

00:22:48million dollars, right? Now, if I say that's not going to make you as happy as if you'd earned the

00:22:54money yourself, am I then saying, A, it's immoral to accept it? No, I'm not saying that at all. Of

00:23:02course not. This is a measure of happiness, not of morality, which I was very clear about, number one.

00:23:06Number two, am I saying that you have no right to accept it, that it should be legally barred?

00:23:17Well, no. This is an argument to a large degree from aesthetics, right? You can be miserable doing

00:23:23good and there can be glee in doing evil. So, happiness is not a moral measure. In general,

00:23:29we want the most sustainable happiness, which has the most to do with morality, but it is not a moral

00:23:35measure. This is a measure of happiness. I didn't say she was immoral. I didn't say she had no right

00:23:42to do it. So, when this guy, Bob, moves the goalposts and says, well, you're saying there's a moral problem

00:23:48and you're saying, well, she has the right to do it and I'm not saying she doesn't. This is an

00:23:52argument from happiness, related to happiness. And she's not happy. I mean, she, I don't know,

00:24:01I guess you listen to the show, but she called me up because, specifically because she's unhappy.

00:24:09So, that's why I was making the argument from happiness. Now, we talked a lot about the various

00:24:17reasons why she might be unhappy. And this was one of them. And it's a valid one. I didn't say this

00:24:28made her miserable or immoral or she shouldn't have the right to do it. So, these are all straw men.

00:24:35Now, why do people straw men in general? Well, they straw men because they don't have a good case.

00:24:46And they straw men because they are upset by my argument about you won't get as much happiness

00:24:57from the unearned as you will from the earned. So, if for some reason, probably personal,

00:25:05he is upset by my argument, then what he's going to do is he's going to change

00:25:15the nature of my argument or the content of my argument to match his own level of upset.

00:25:23Right? So, when I was talking about IQ, people got upset. And so, they had to invent other terms

00:25:31to put me in horrible moral categories because those horrible moral categories match the level

00:25:39of their upset. And this is why people straw men. If the argument is a two, and this was a pretty mild

00:25:46argument, and pretty uncontroversial, if the argument is a two, but your upset level is an eight,

00:25:54then what you have to do is you have to up the wrongness of my argument to an eight. Otherwise,

00:26:03the emotional nature of your reaction becomes clear to you, and you don't want that to happen for

00:26:08whatever reason, for whatever reason. So, let's have a look in a little bit more detail

00:26:16about what our good friend Bob is trying to argue. Okay, so, he's saying, look, IQ is largely genetic.

00:26:29Yes. Yes. Yes, that is true. And, of course, as he points out, I've made that argument many times.

00:26:37Well, not made that argument. I've cited those experts. I interviewed 17 world-renowned experts

00:26:43on intelligence, and this is what they told me, right? That's 80% by late teens, goes up from there.

00:26:53Now, he also said that a hard work ethic is, he said, largely genetic. So, what does largely genetic

00:27:04mean? Well, I had a quick look, and there is no specific gene that has been researched for

00:27:10a hard work. However, there are traits like conscientiousness and so on that are 40 to 60%

00:27:20genetic, and they are somewhat related to hard work. So, let's say they're half related

00:27:33to hard work. I mean, I don't think anyone's studied it, but let's, we can be generous and

00:27:38say that 50%, so we're now talking 20 to 30%. The 20 to 30% of hard work is genetic. Well, that's not

00:27:48much, frankly. That's not much. I mean, and it is basically a third of the effect of IQ. So,

00:27:58the fact that he's conflating these two things, one of which is known with great specificity,

00:28:02which is the 80 plus percent of IQ inheritance, and the other, which has not even really been

00:28:06studied, but we can guesstimate at 20 to 30%, the fact that he's conflating these two is dishonest.

00:28:13Right, so you'll notice, as I did, of course, you'll notice that our good friend Bob quotes the 80%

00:28:21plus, but doesn't quote any percentages for hard work, which means he's talking out of his ass.

00:28:30Right, this is your clue, right? When somebody has two categories, and he says, well, here's one

00:28:39category, 80 plus percent, and here's another category, uh, I'm not, I'm not going to give you

00:28:47that percentage. Well, that's because he doesn't have a good percentage, and that's, again, an

00:28:51emotional argument. Now, I, of course, and I don't talk about him much, because it's not his issue that

00:29:02I'm certainly famous, but I have a brother. My brother grew up, of course, we had a very similar

00:29:07shared environment. There were some differences, of course. He spent some years in England with

00:29:10relatives, which I didn't, and he spent a year in boarding school. I went later. So, we had largely

00:29:18shared environments. We could not be more different. Honestly, like, we could not be more

00:29:25different if it was designed. So, I have sort of that to work with. I, of course, grew up with

00:29:33a lot of very smart people. There was a certain kind of brilliance in my cohort. I mean, I know

00:29:39this because, uh, my friends, uh, I mean, my best friend at the time, one of the best men at my

00:29:45wedding, scored well over 100% on his math tests. Ended up starting out doing a math and physics double

00:29:52major in university, and another friend of mine became, uh, two of them became professors. One became

00:29:58a writer, and another one became a lawyer, and just very, very smart people. I knew this, of course,

00:30:04to some degree, because the Dungeons and Dragons work that we did was highly creative and innovative,

00:30:10and all of that. So, D&D is kind of like an IQ game in many ways. So, I grew up with very,

00:30:20very smart people, and how many of them became philosophical? Uh, none. None of them, even though,

00:30:29well, no, sorry, sorry, one. One did. One did. But, in my view, without getting into specifics or details,

00:30:36in my view, this person did not become philosophical in any practical sense. It remained largely theoretical,

00:30:44and while he was skeptical of the virtue of the state, he ended up enthusiastically entering into

00:30:54a career that required extensive state protection, and all of that. So, it was not particularly practical

00:31:00in his philosophy, to put it mildly. So, of the, uh, 10 friends that I had, who had intelligence

00:31:13and conscientiousness, of course, right? You can't do these high-level professions without being

00:31:18conscientious. Uh, one, uh, me, right? So, 10% of this highly intelligent, highly motivated group

00:31:27became moral, in a way that I would genuinely and deeply sort of process and understand.

00:31:40Something's moving in the woods here. Let us hope it is but a deer. Anyway, so,

00:31:48I, uh, I, uh, I have, uh, other family members, of course, uh, fairly, I mean, I was fairly close to

00:31:57many, uh, cousins and nieces and so on when I was growing up, of which, I, of course, it's been

00:32:04forever, and, um, and so I don't know what their current status is, but of the people who were part of

00:32:11my extended family, I do not know any who became moral and philosophical. So, if you sort of put me

00:32:21in my extended family, then we're looking at maybe 3%, maybe 5%, uh, to my knowledge, which again is

00:32:30limited, who became specifically moral. So, we got 10% of my family, of my close friends, we've got

00:32:363% to 5% of my extended family, and if you look at my school as a whole, there was one other fellow

00:32:43that I knew who was very much into philosophy, and I don't know what happened to Tim, of course,

00:32:49or how far he went in his philosophical progression, but, um, and I knew a lot of kids because I was in

00:32:55a lot of sports and, and, uh, did a lot of socializing, and so, of the 100 or so kids, there

00:33:02were two or three of us, so, again, that's 3%, and, again, the IQ would vary as the, but, you know,

00:33:08I generally wasn't friends with kids who weren't smart just because of a sort of compatibility

00:33:11issue, so I'm working with some data. Now, is this anecdotal? Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is, for sure,

00:33:20for sure, but it's not just anecdotal, right, because it's a fairly large sample group.

00:33:28So, as far as hard work being genetic, he just uses the weasel term largely. He doesn't know.

00:33:39Again, maybe there are studies out there I've never come across that have some massive answer

00:33:45as to, but, you know, I think he would quote those, right, wouldn't he? I mean, if you're trying to make

00:33:50a case that, uh, someone who's into, uh, accuracy and validity in his arguments, and you're saying

00:33:59you're totally wrong to the point where you need to put a retraction in your podcast, then wouldn't

00:34:03you gather the data? So, I'm going to go out on a, you know, not very long limb here, and I'm going

00:34:08to say that this guy has just used the word largely because he doesn't have any data. To back up

00:34:14his contention that hard work is largely genetic, we can go, at a rough estimate, somewhere in the

00:34:23realm of 20% or 30% as, uh, as a generous estimate that half of conscientiousness, um, is related to

00:34:35hard work. Everybody knows, really intelligent, lazy people, everybody knows people who were less

00:34:41intelligent, but work really hard. So, again, these are not arguments against, there are always

00:34:46outliers, but it's nowhere near IQ, and he's just kind of putting the two together. IQ and hard work

00:34:57do not produce virtue. In fact, IQ plus hard work can produce some of the greatest evils known to man.

00:35:04People who ran Nazi and Soviet gulags and concentration camps worked really hard to do some of the greatest

00:35:14evils in human history. So, saying that hard work and IQ produce virtue is not the case. Now,

00:35:30what I'm saying to this woman is, you will feel

00:35:34happier at the things you earn rather than the things you accidentally inherit. I mean, I don't

00:35:44really think, again, I don't think that's controversial, and I was really talking about

00:35:49happiness rather than morality. Now, why was I talking about happiness rather than morality? Because I did

00:35:54talk about morals to some degree with her, but also you need to tailor your arguments for who is

00:36:04listening. And she was an unhappy woman calling me out of desperation for her misery. So, I have to

00:36:14identify what will be one of the factors that is making her unhappy, and one of the factors that is making

00:36:21her unhappy is her taking significant financial rewards for that which she did not earn.

00:36:31I mean, if somebody were to call me up and say, hey man, I inherited a hundred thousand dollars out

00:36:36of nowhere, and I'm just not happy, I'd be like, well, I mean, it's not like the hundred thousand

00:36:40dollars is terrible, but you didn't earn it, and therefore you can't expect it to contribute to

00:36:46your self-worth, your self-esteem, and so on, right? So, the fact that I did well despite having a bad

00:36:56childhood is not genetic. First of all, I had a bad childhood, and I was not doing well until I

00:37:04discovered philosophy. I mean, I cheated on a girlfriend, I was a shoplifter for a brief amount

00:37:10of time, and I only stopped that because of fear, not because of any sudden discovery of moral virtue,

00:37:16and so the idea that my genetics are just going to lead me to truth, reason, virtue, and happiness

00:37:21is not true at all. I also, of course, knew intelligent young men and women who took a decidedly bad path,

00:37:33despite their intelligence, despite the fact that they worked very, very hard. So, again, maybe you're

00:37:44a young man, Bob, but I just have a lot of life experience. I have a lot of detailed observations.

00:37:51I am an observation machine. I observe very deep. That's why people call me in the call-in shows,

00:37:57because they know that I listen and observe very deeply. So, again, this is not some magic applesauce

00:38:02that makes me write and everything, but you're going to have to bring some serious data if you

00:38:08want to overturn close to 60 years of very close observation. So, if a woman is a fitness model,

00:38:18then, you know, often she was born with a good figure and a good capacity to gain muscle,

00:38:22and that's fine. Now, if she works very hard to be a fitness model, and she does her fitness,

00:38:30her workout routines, and she looks great, and she inspires men and women to exercise and get

00:38:39healthier and so on, and she makes good money doing that, I would say good for you. Now, it's not a

00:38:46moral venture. It's a health venture, and there's nothing wrong with health ventures. I am, in fact,

00:38:53having a nice hike as I record this. So, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with health ventures,

00:38:57but they're not moral ventures, because someone could watch her workout videos because he wants

00:39:05to be a more effective and aggressive mugger. He wants to be stronger so that he can grapple people,

00:39:11take their purses, and run away, right? So, someone can follow her program and use it to

00:39:18do great evil. Someone could watch someone's diet program because he wants to lose weight so that

00:39:27he can run away from robbing banks more effectively, or something like that, right? Whereas somebody,

00:39:34so somebody who watches exercise videos, watches diet videos, and implements them doesn't necessarily

00:39:40mean that they are adding to the virtue of the world. They could be, in fact, increasing the misery.

00:39:46If it's someone, let's say, who's just a real son of a bitch, who screams at people, yells at people,

00:39:50and he diets and exercise to the point where he adds an additional 20 years worth of misery to

00:39:56the people in his life or in his family, well, is that necessarily adding a huge amount more good?

00:40:04No, it's kind of traumatizing people. So, again, I'm sure a lot of people do good out of the health

00:40:08that they get, but not everyone. Whereas someone who reads Peaceful Parenting and implements it,

00:40:12and no longer yells at, hits, intimidates, or neglects his children, like he's doing more good.

00:40:20He's just, or he's certainly doing less evil. So, you can take a pride in that which you have earned,

00:40:27but you will be the most happy if that which you have earned is also moral, right? Virtue equals

00:40:38reason equals virtue equals happiness. The equation that Nietzsche identified with Socrates,

00:40:44which I think is a great summary, which I've talked about for 20 years. Well, more than 20 years,

00:40:49but publicly for 20 years. So, reason equals virtue equals happiness. This is Eudomania. This is

00:40:56Aristotle's greatest happiness is to be achieved in a life spent in the pursuit of virtue. Now,

00:41:06there's two levels of happiness. I guess there's three. There's three levels of happiness that you

00:41:11can get from virtue. One is your virtue as yourself. Two is you increase the virtue of those around you.

00:41:16Three, you increase the virtue of the world as a whole. And those come with a very positive

00:41:26outcomes in terms of happiness. And they also come with great dangers in terms of blowback, right?

00:41:33There's no way to increase the virtue in this world without interfering with the interests of some

00:41:38very nasty, malevolent, and evil people. And they, what is it, the old saying in war, right? The enemy

00:41:45has his say, right? You launch an attack, as just happened, I guess, yesterday with Iran,

00:41:51Israel attacking Iran, and then there'll be some blowback. I'm not sure there'll be much because

00:41:56Iran has driven out high IQ people for decades, but the enemy gets his say. And so you can promote

00:42:03virtue. And if you promote virtue within yourself, it's hard to say that that does much because you

00:42:12need to also promote virtue in, like life is a team sport, right? And if you, if you're part of a team

00:42:18that's bad at stuff, you're part of a soccer team that's bad at soccer, you becoming better at soccer

00:42:27only increases your team's success marginally because you need to also get other people who

00:42:33are better at soccer, right? If you're in a choir where, with a bunch of bad singers and you sing

00:42:37better, it doesn't solve the problem as a whole. In fact, it might make it seem more discordant in a

00:42:43way. So to bring, to increase, to encourage and increase the virtues in those around you makes

00:42:55your life better as a whole. To increase and encourage the virtues of the society you live in

00:43:02makes your life better and worse, right? I mean, it's better because you have the happiness of

00:43:09increasing virtue, but you have to be cautious in this blowback. And so it is a complicated deal,

00:43:15but one well worth making, in my opinion. So somebody said, he said here, your high IQ and

00:43:25your work ethic, both of which are largely genetic, in fact, just as much genetic as women who have big

00:43:29boobs. Perfect facial structure and PT body is also genetic. No, I don't think that's necessarily true.

00:43:37I remember many years ago playing volleyball with a woman who had a nice figure and

00:43:43she said, this is me. I don't even work out now if she was playing volleyball. So there was some

00:43:49working out. She said, when I work out, it's insane how good I look and actually not great.

00:43:54Everyone gets distracted. So I'm sure there's some fat deposits, some genetics and so on.

00:44:00But I think boob size is pretty much 100% genetic. I mean, potential for boob size. I think that's

00:44:11100% genetic. So it doesn't figure into the other things that you're talking about.

00:44:18So I don't know about, like height is 100% genetic, right? I mean, again, if you starve or whatever,

00:44:28right? But height is 100% genetic. Eye color is 100% genetic. IQ 80 plus, hard work, 20 to 30 as a sort

00:44:39of back of the napkin calculation. So when he says, listen, you shouldn't take pride in your

00:44:46intelligence. Well, of course you shouldn't. I mean, I've only said that about a million times

00:44:51in the show. I don't take any pride in my intelligence. I take pride in the use I have

00:44:57put my intelligence to. Now, notice you'll say that he's talked about hard work. Let's say being

00:45:03genetic. But intelligence and hard work have no moral characteristics whatsoever.

00:45:12You can be very intelligent and highly evil. You can be very hard working and highly evil.

00:45:20So I'm a moral philosopher, which means, of course, I don't take pride in my intelligence.

00:45:25With my intelligence and verbal skills, I could have made a fortune in sales. I could have become

00:45:30a powerful politician or propagandist. I could be invited everywhere and fated everywhere and praised

00:45:37in the media with the skills that I have. And I haven't taken that road. Instead of speaking

00:45:48on the steps of parliament, I wander the woods talking into a microphone on my own. Right?

00:45:55So that's my choice. I regret nothing. And I'm very happy with it. In fact, I would be miserable

00:46:04if I hadn't made this choice in many ways, although I may not know why. So when he talks

00:46:09about intelligence and hard work, he's not talking about virtue.

00:46:17Now, he's not a determinist because he allows for some free will. So the fact that I chose

00:46:23moral philosophy, well, moral philosophy, again, I've talked about this before when I first started

00:46:29reading philosophy, I was captivated and excited and that came from within me. However, taking

00:46:37on the topics that I've taken on, as you know, the voluntary family, voluntarism as a political

00:46:43philosophy, and talking about IQ and anti-leftism and so on and criticisms of feminism, these are

00:46:52all very sort of hot button topics that ended up with, you know, massive media attacks and

00:46:57de-platforming and all kinds of reputational damage and so on, which it's not just me alone

00:47:01that has to deal with that, of course. So that required a specific virtue called courage.

00:47:09Now, unless you're going to say that courage is genetic, then I take pride not in my intelligence,

00:47:19not in my work ethic, but in my virtues, because the virtues are earned, in particular because we are

00:47:25raised in a highly corrupt and propagandized society, therefore virtue becomes even harder.

00:47:31Right? It didn't, I mean, this was interesting for me when I went both to Hong Kong and to Poland to do

00:47:35my documentaries, I could meet and greet and speak without fear, without the media whipping people

00:47:42up into, you know, death threats, bomb threats, and attacking the venues and so on, right? So I would say

00:47:49that when it came to doing speaking in places like Australia, that required courage. I mean,

00:47:57Lauren Southern was attacked on stage. So it takes courage to stand up to the media, it takes courage

00:48:05to stand up and speak when you can get attacked at any time, it takes courage to press on and tell

00:48:12the truth, even though there's bomb threats, death threats, and so on, right? So it takes courage for

00:48:18those things. I did not need, in particular, a courage in, say, Poland. In Poland, I could speak,

00:48:27I was welcomed, I toured places and no problems, and I remember we did one night where everyone was

00:48:36around shouting philosophical questions at me while I served them drinks in a big bar, which was a fun

00:48:42night. So I did not need much courage to speak and meet with people in Hong Kong or Poland, but I did

00:48:52need courage to meet and greet and speak with people in other places where I've given speeches.

00:48:59So the fact that he talks about amoral qualities such as intelligence and hard work and not about

00:49:06virtue itself is interesting. Now, is it virtuous to post naked pictures or videos of yourself

00:49:21for money? I would say no. Is it evil? No. It is not a violation of the non-aggression principle

00:49:30and so on, right? But is it moral? Right? Is it promoting virtue, integrity, honesty, and courage

00:49:46in society as a whole? Right? I would say no. So, for instance, if I was not recording this podcast

00:49:58while on this rather arduous hike, I would be doing something amoral. Not amoral. It's not moral.

00:50:07I'm just going for a hike. I enjoy it. Is it good? Is it bad? There's no particular answer to that.

00:50:15It's morally neutral, which is one of the categories in my book, University Preferable Behavior,

00:50:22Irrational Proof of Secular Ethics. If you haven't read it, you should. If you want a shorter version,

00:50:26essentialphilosophy.com, the last third. So, if I was just going on a hike, maybe listening to some

00:50:35music or humming to myself or just enjoying the peace and serenity of nature, then

00:50:43I would not be adding to the virtue of the world. Now, you could make the argument because I'm generally

00:50:51adding to the virtue of the world. A hike might help me live longer and so on, have more energy.

00:50:56Yeah, but not on the hike directly. I'm not adding to the virtue of the world. Now, of course, making

00:51:03the argument that I'm making, hopefully clearing things up in this very interesting and contentious,

00:51:09at least for me, situation, and for the other person too, I think, I am, in fact, adding to the

00:51:14virtue of the world. Now, I would say, as a whole, that that which promotes

00:51:26love is a positive to the world. In other words, if people have the experience of loving someone else

00:51:39and being loved by someone else, that adds to the goodness of the world. So, the question is,

00:51:46if love is our involuntary response to virtue, if we're virtuous, and by promoting virtue,

00:51:52I'm promoting people's capacity to love and to be loved, what does an online pornographer do?

00:52:04Do they add to the love that is possible in the world? I think the answer to that is fairly clear.

00:52:17They do not add to the virtue of the world. In fact, they probably add to the secrecy of the world.

00:52:25Because if someone went to the gym over lunch, and somebody said, what did you do over lunch?

00:52:33They all went to the gym, let's say they're working from home, went over lunch, they instead,

00:52:37they're masturbated to pornography, they probably aren't going to say that, right?

00:52:41And it's a certain amount of, and you know, I get that. I mean, you go to the bathroom,

00:52:44you don't say that either, but this is sort of slightly different, right?

00:52:47So, it adds to the secrecy of people, that which they keep hidden and silent, and, you know,

00:52:57are probably somewhat ashamed of, right?

00:53:01If someone says, oh, I've been filming you, blah, blah, blah, right? Pay me bitcoins.

00:53:06Well, I mean, people would be tempted by that, because there is a certain amount of shame

00:53:10involved in these things, right? So, is somebody who posts naked videos of herself online

00:53:21adding to the virtue of the world? Well, why do we have love at all, really? Right? We have love

00:53:29because love is what's best for children.

00:53:33And so, love is foundationally romantic. As a periphery, love, in sort of the splash radius

00:53:43of radiance, love also encapsulates friendship. But love is primarily developed for pair bonding,

00:53:52with regards to creating a stable environment for children to grow up in, and for culture to be

00:53:58transmitted in, and so on, right? In the same way that a road is not made for bicycles,

00:54:02bicycles, but bicycles can use it. Love is not made for friendship, but friendship

00:54:06can use it. Love is primarily there as a emotional state or a biochemical reaction

00:54:13based upon the need for children to have a stable environment to grow up in. It's what's best for

00:54:21children. It's what's safest for children, and what's best for the transmission of culture. And

00:54:25because culture is transmitted, it then is worth writing down, and you get artists, and all of that

00:54:30sort of stuff, right? I mean, nobody's going to bother with a poem like the Odyssey if nobody's

00:54:35ever going to speak, listen to, or read, or sing about it ever again, right? So, love is for the

00:54:45kids, right? It's for the kids, it's for the stability of society, and for the benefit of the family.

00:54:51So, does masturbation to online pornography promote the stability of the family and the

00:55:05happiness of children, particularly if it's used as an avoidance mechanism to not talk to girls at

00:55:11all, really, or get yourself a girlfriend, slash fiancé, slash wife, slash mother of your children and

00:55:17grandmother of your grandchildren? It does not promote that, really, at all. In fact, you could

00:55:23argue that it denigrates from that. It denigrates that, it removes that, diminishes it. I'll get the

00:55:29word eventually, trust me. So, it does not promote that. Let's look at it a little further and a little

00:55:43deeper. Why is it that a woman's sexual attractiveness has a man give her money? Again, we know the answer

00:55:55to this in general, but just in case you don't, very briefly, men are emotionally primed to give

00:56:03gifts in the same way that birds are emotionally primed to build, you know, mating displays and so on,

00:56:10right? So, men are programmed to give gifts to attractive women. In this way, they show their

00:56:19sensitivity, their reproductive fitness, their capacity for excess resource acquisition, and so on,

00:56:24right? And a woman who is interested in a man will accept his gifts, and the acceptance of his gifts signals

00:56:32that she is potentially receptive to his romantic advances. So, if you bring a woman flowers and

00:56:42chocolates on Valentine's Day, and she accepts them, that signals that she at least is available and

00:56:49doesn't hate you, right? And if she's married, and you bring her flowers and chocolates on Valentine's Day,

00:56:58assuming she's happily married, she will say, I can't accept these, I'm sorry, I'm happily married.

00:57:05I can't accept these gifts. So, for a man to give gifts, to give resources to a woman he's attracted

00:57:15to is part of his nature, and it has grown to be part of his nature because there wasn't online

00:57:21pornography during our evolution, right? So, a man is driven when he's, is actually interested in a

00:57:32woman, he's driven to give a gift. Now, the gift could be, you know, chocolates and flowers, it could

00:57:37be a poem, it could be, what's that old line from Dead Poets Society, why is there poetry to woo women,

00:57:42right? And also, he may just pick her up in a nice car, showing his resources, he also may

00:57:50just pay for dinner, or pay for drinks, or whatever it is, right? He's gonna, he's gonna give her gifts.

00:57:57And that is a down payment on the future labor that she's going to, hopefully, with him, commit to,

00:58:04which is the having and raising of five to ten children. So, in order to

00:58:11have and raise five to ten children, a woman needs to get 80 to 90 percent of a man's income.

00:58:19She needs to take 80 to 90 percent of her husband's income, which is why men have the capacity to

00:58:26create excess resources, because the men who couldn't create excess resources didn't generally

00:58:30reproduce, and therefore, they died off. So, the provision of excess resources as a mating

00:58:40offering offering to females, who the man is aroused by, or sexually attracted to, or romantically

00:58:46attracted to, that is what men are programmed to do. And so, if a woman is displaying her sexual

00:58:55availability by showing up in the man's vision, either naked, or largely naked, or whatever it is,

00:59:01or performing quasi-sexual or sexual acts, then he is driven, or programmed, to give her resources.

00:59:13Because the resources are a down payment on the future female labor of the having and raising of

00:59:18children, of running a household, of managing cultural transmission, and social rules, and all

00:59:23that kind of stuff, right? So, for a woman to offer sexual enticement and receive gifts where

00:59:35there's no possibility of returning children and a household to the man, it's not, it's funny, you know,

00:59:47this is a real gray area here, right? I sort of really, I have to tread carefully and be delicate

00:59:52here, right? Because you're not breaking a contract, right? But of course, dating is not a contract,

01:00:06right? You don't sign contracts, right? Taking you out for dinner five times, now we have to kiss, right?

01:00:11That's not how dating works. Dating is an implicit contract. Implicit contracts are tricky in the realm

01:00:17of contracts as a whole, right? So, you don't sign a contract to pay for your meal when you go to a

01:00:25restaurant ahead of time. You don't sign a contract. I mean, you sign a contract when you have to pick

01:00:33up your cell phone if you're entering into a cell phone plan, but you don't sign a contract

01:00:41when you sit down in a restaurant. There is an implicit contract which says you're going to pay at the

01:00:45end. Now, if you die in a dash, even though you haven't signed a contract, you're still liable,

01:00:54right? You don't physically sign a contract when you go to refuel your car, right? If you don't pay at

01:01:04the pump, right? You're going to fill your car, you're going to go in, and you're going to pay for it.

01:01:08That's an implicit contract. And there are lots of implicit contracts in the world, right? If you're

01:01:15going to a potluck dinner, everyone's supposed to bring something to eat. Now, if you show up without

01:01:21anything to eat, and, you know, the host lets you stay or whatever, you're not stealing, but you also

01:01:28haven't upheld your side of the bargain. So, there are some contracts that are implicit but enforceable.

01:01:36If you pump gas and drive away without paying, then you have broken

01:01:46a contract and you could be charged for criminal, criminally, even though you didn't sign a contract.

01:01:53So, this is an important area of life to understand that most of life runs on implicit contracts.

01:02:07You don't generally, I mean, some people do, a few people do in terms of prenups, but

01:02:13most times you're not signing a contract that says, I'm not going to cheat. I mean,

01:02:17you make your vows, but not many people seem to take those vows too seriously these days.

01:02:21So, this is an implicit contract.

01:02:25When, if you're dating multiple people, when do you settle down into a monogamous relationship?

01:02:30I mean, that differs for different people and so on, but certainly if you're sleeping with someone,

01:02:35at least in my day, the implicit contract was, you sure as hell better not be sleeping

01:02:40with anybody else, right? I mean, for obvious reasons of jealousy and sexually transmitted

01:02:47diseases and potential pregnancies and stalkers and all kinds of stuff, right? Don't play the field that

01:02:52way.

01:02:55When you sit down with a stranger to play chess, there's an implicit contract that you're

01:02:59both going to obey the rules of chess, right? I mean, you get all of this, right?

01:03:02Most of life, most of society works on implicit contracts. And the more the contract is not

01:03:17known, in many ways, the worse it is to violate it. So, it's not common knowledge among men that they

01:03:25are programmed to provide resources to attractive women. I think most men have this instinct, but

01:03:40they don't really know it.

01:03:41So, they don't really know the unconscious mechanisms by which they feel compelled or get

01:03:47pleasure out of giving money to online sex workers.

01:03:51Because that is a down payment on what is hoped to be a future return of children and

01:03:59a household, right? A legacy.

01:04:03So, women who exploit that innate programming of men

01:04:12without, while knowing that there's no chance that the man is going to get

01:04:17a children and a family and a household out of her, is that fraudulent?

01:04:25Is that immoral?

01:04:28Well, it's in the vicinity. It's hard to sort of pin it down.

01:04:35A woman, let's take another example, a woman who is asked out on a date by a man

01:04:39who is not at all interested in the man, who will never date him, who will never kiss him,

01:04:47who then goes and takes an expensive meal from the man.

01:04:50Is that fraudulent? Kind of.

01:04:55Right? And it's a little bit more seriously fraudulent because that's more of a direct withholding.

01:04:59So, if a man asks a woman out on a date and she says, listen, I'll go on a date with you,

01:05:07and I mean, I guess I'm happy if you pay, but I'm not at all attracted to you, I'm never going

01:05:13to date you, never going to kiss you, it's never going to happen, right? In fact, I'm going to go

01:05:17from a date with you to a date with a guy I really like and I might kiss him, but I'm not going to kiss you,

01:05:22right? Well, that would be honest. And I think all but the most cucked men, or perhaps the most

01:05:32optimistic men, which is two sides of the same coin, all but the most cucked men would themselves say,

01:05:38uh, yeah, I'm not going to, I'm not going to do that, right? If you're not going to date me at all,

01:05:43if there's absolutely no chance of you dating me, then I'm not going to do that, right? Thanks, but no

01:05:49thanks. So, and they're called, there's booty calls, right? Which is one o'clock in the morning,

01:05:55just go have sex and, and, and despawn, and then sperm then despawned, and then there is

01:06:01the foodie call, right? The foodie call is a woman who goes on dates with men she has no interest in,

01:06:06just so they'll pay for dinner. And of course, because we live in a kind of quasi-masturbation

01:06:12culture, the man will sometimes just take an attractive woman out so he can fantasize about it

01:06:16later rather than actually have a relationship, which again is not exactly bringing children and

01:06:22family and cultural continuation into the mix, so to speak, right? So is it, is it fraudulent?

01:06:32Is it fraudulent? Again, let's look at another implicit, uh, claim, right? Is it fraudulent for a man

01:06:39to pretend to have more resources than he has, right? This goes back to Sandman from years ago

01:06:46that I think he knew a guy who would go through the garbage in a bank deposit area, like an ATM,

01:06:54until he found a deposit with a huge amount of money, half a million dollars or whatever, right?

01:07:01And then he would, this guy would talk to women, and then if they weren't interested, he'd just say,

01:07:06well, just call me, and he'd write his number, and then they'd turn it over, they'd see half a

01:07:09million, and maybe they'd call him because he doesn't actually have half a million.

01:07:13Now, of course, he's not explicitly saying he has half a million, there's just kind of an implicit

01:07:19implication, right? So implicit, there's an implicit statement that he does, right? But he doesn't,

01:07:23he could just say, hey man, I just, I just go through bank receipts for scraps of paper,

01:07:27I never told you I had half a million dollars, but he's definitely misleading her that way.

01:07:32Now, if the woman dates him, because women are programmed to respond to

01:07:36male resources in the same way that men are programmed to respond to female

01:07:40fertility signals and beauty and hips, tip-to-waist ratio and so on,

01:07:45if she dates him because she is led to believe that

01:07:53he has a lot of money, and then it turns out he doesn't, is that fraudulent? Let's say he dates

01:08:00her for a year, uses up a year of her youth, she passes by a bunch of other men who have resources,

01:08:07maybe not quite as many. Is that, is that wrong? Yeah.

01:08:14There's an implicit falsification. Now, you could say, of course, and I understand all of this,

01:08:18right? And I just want to say, like, this is a multi-dimensional issue, which is why I'm treading

01:08:21fairly carefully. So, if you say, look, Steph, these guys who are, like, sending, you know,

01:08:3110 bucks a month to women on OnlyFans, they don't believe that they're going to get a wife and kids

01:08:36out of it, so it's not fraudulent. They don't believe that, right? And I get that, right? I get

01:08:43that. Now, is it fraudulent if the man thinks he's talking to the woman, but he's not, right? This is

01:08:50an army of low-paid guys, you know, typing, pretending to be the woman, or let's say it's AI or something

01:08:59like that. So, you two can chat with, what's her name, right? And then you type with her, but it's not

01:09:04her. Is that fraudulent? Well, yeah, that's fraudulent. Yeah, that's fraudulent for sure.

01:09:10So, I mean, the men generally are buying, and I sort of hate to be this crude, but, you know,

01:09:16let's just tell it like it is. The men are buying better orgasms. If the woman has accepted your gift

01:09:24and you believe that, you know, your body is sort of programmed to believe that there's a possibility

01:09:28of a relationship, then I assume you're buying better orgasms because that's how you're programmed.

01:09:34And orgasm is one of the biggest motivators in human life, right? So,

01:09:43it's a complex topic. I think that women are exploiting a hack in the male system, in the male

01:09:54biology, in the male mind and neurological system. Women are exploiting pre-programmed

01:10:02male desires and preferences to enrich themselves. Is it fraudulent?

01:10:12It's close. Sometimes it is, right? If you think you're talking to the girl, but you're not that

01:10:16fraudulent, or if it's promoted that you're talking to the girl and you're not that certainly fraudulent.

01:10:19I did talk many years ago to a fellow who was actually in significant debt to some pretty sinister

01:10:27people because he had gotten involved with an online sex worker who said she needed money for X, Y, and Z.

01:10:41He said, oh, I come and visit you, but I don't have a passport, and my mother's sick, and so on, right?

01:10:46Now, that is fraudulent if it's not true.

01:10:51Now, I'm not talking legal standards. I don't know. I'm not a lawyer, right? So, I can't really speak to

01:10:57that. But morally, if you say to a man who's desperate for you to come and meet him, well,

01:11:05I'd come and meet you, but I need 500 bucks to get my passport, and you either have no intention of

01:11:11meeting him, or you already have a passport, or at least you have no intention of getting the passport,

01:11:16then that's fraudulent for sure. I mean, you're lying, and you're preying upon his hopes that you

01:11:21would come and visit. And then you say, oh, my mother needs a thousand dollars for health issues,

01:11:27when that's not the case. No, that's fraudulent, right? I mean, you're just lying.

01:11:35So, yeah, implicit contracts, people need to know the truth up front, right? And so, if you say to a

01:11:41restaurant, listen, I'm going to order your most expensive items, and I'm going to dine and dash,

01:11:46I'm not going to pay, right? Then the restaurant is not going to bring you the food, right? They're

01:11:53just not going to bring you the food, for obvious reasons, right? Don't want to lose money.

01:11:58And so, is there a, quote, girlfriend experience? Is it, oh, I've missed you. Oh,

01:12:05I've been thinking about you. You know, in other words, is there some dangling of hope

01:12:09for a relationship, a family, children, and so on? Is that, is that the case? Now, of course,

01:12:16if there are, I don't know, what do some of these women have, like a million, 10 million,

01:12:19whatever subscribers? Of course, like, no individual is going to

01:12:25have any particular chance of dating and making her his wife, or whatever it is. So, I get all of

01:12:34that. People say, well, come on. I mean, it's one in 10 million, or one in a million. It's not going to

01:12:37happen, blah, blah, blah. Okay, is that fraudulent? Well, probably not, but it's a hack. It's a hack.

01:12:48It is an exploitation of a pre-built emotional mechanism in no way designed for

01:12:55what is occurring, right? We did not evolve with digital online pornography or the ability to send

01:13:06money across the world and have a woman topless thank you for it. That did not happen.

01:13:14So, is it honorable? No, it's not. And it is, of course, destructive, because people who are addicted

01:13:23to this kind of online spending on online nakedness are probably not getting quality

01:13:34girlfriends, fiancées, wives, and so on, right? That's just not happening. So, you are, in fact,

01:13:41harming the formation of the family. You are harming people's capacity to pair bond. You are

01:13:48stuffing them full of secrets and shame. It is exploitive. And, of course, I get there's no supply

01:13:58without demand. So, the men who are sending money to these women are also harming these women

01:14:08because they're being turned into flesh commodities

01:14:11whose only value is TNA and as masturbation fantasies. And there's no response to virtue.

01:14:20There is only a response to physical markers of fertility. It's very R-selected.

01:14:27So, by, I mean, there is a certain amount of anger slash rage towards women

01:14:32that has men give them money to trap them in a humiliating and denigrating lifestyle.

01:14:50So, it is very R-selected. It is very

01:14:55pleasure in the now versus virtue and happiness in the future.

01:14:58So, is it a specific violation of the non-aggression principle? It is not.

01:15:07Do most of the people participating in these transactions have histories of significant

01:15:12neglect, abuse, and trauma? Yes, they do.

01:15:17And so,

01:15:21I don't take pride in my

01:15:22intelligence. And I don't take pride in my work ethic, per se.

01:15:32I take pride in the uses that I put my innate gifts towards the promotion of virtue, not just in

01:15:40myself, not just in those around me, but in the world as a whole. I don't think the same can be said

01:15:47for women posting pictures of their boobs.

01:15:55In fact, that can be quite corrupting. And of course, also, because men have access now to

01:16:04ridiculous levels of female attractiveness, like the sort of one in 10,000 women who make it big on

01:16:09on these platforms. Men have access and then program themselves through masturbation to

01:16:14respond to such ridiculous levels of female attractiveness, that it's like women reading

01:16:22celebrity magazines and thinking that men of such wealth and talent and attractiveness are somehow

01:16:27available to them. It programs men

01:16:31to view normal-looking women as ugly. And it programs women, in the celebrity culture, it programs women

01:16:41to look at average earning men as pissed broke, as duds, as losers. It's just no money, right?

01:16:52So, forever focusing on the extremes inoculates you against the norm that is probably your lot.

01:17:00So, in general, and as a whole, I would put this sort of sex work in the realm of aesthetically

01:17:07negative actions, right? So, there is virtue, the good. There is

01:17:15aesthetically positive actions, which are good for society, good for people as a whole, but can't be enforced

01:17:21through violence, which is things like being on time, being relatively polite and diplomatic and

01:17:26thoughtful and so on, right? Aesthetically positive, but not enforceable. You can't shoot someone for

01:17:30being late, right? But you can shoot someone for physically attacking you, assault or attempted

01:17:37murder. So, there's moral, aesthetically positive, which is around the realm of politeness and

01:17:45thoughtfulness. There is neutral, running for the bus, doesn't matter, going for a walk. And then there's

01:17:50aesthetically negative actions, rudeness, being late, which are not enforceable through force,

01:17:56because they themselves are not enforced through force. And then there's evil, right? Which is

01:18:01violations of the non-aggression principle and so on, right? Now, where does sex work belong? Well,

01:18:09not in the realm of virtue, and not in the realm of aesthetically positive actions, because it harms

01:18:15society. It's an exploitive hack of male and female physiology, but more the male side, and prevents love

01:18:24and gives people black-hearted secrets and prevents pair bonding and delays marriage and family and

01:18:32children, which are, you know, the primary ingredients to the spread of virtue. Most people can spread virtue

01:18:37through family, through having children. They don't necessarily have the

01:18:41rhetorical skills and technical abilities to do what I do or other people do. So, you're preventing

01:18:47people from spreading virtue in the most effective way they can, which is having children and raising

01:18:52them peacefully and virtuously. So, it's not evil, because it does not require the initiation,

01:19:01violations of the initiation of the use of force or fraud. Again, it can be fraudulent in some areas,

01:19:06if you think you're talking to the woman, but you're not. But this kind of sex work is aesthetically

01:19:16negative. It's not evil, it's not morally neutral, it's not good for society, and it is not the

01:19:24promotion of virtue as a whole. So, it would fall into the realm of aesthetically negative behavior.

01:19:33And aesthetic means it's not evil, it's bad for society, but it does not initiate the use of

01:19:44force or fraud. Again, a lot of this online stuff is fraudulent, but not all. And I'm not saying that

01:19:53the woman I talked to was doing anything like that. I don't know. I'm also not saying that she was showing

01:19:57pictures of her butthole. That was just a bit of hyperbole to sort of make the case. I don't know what

01:20:01she was doing online, other than what she told me, so I don't want to impugn that. But yeah,

01:20:07so it would be squarely and towards the lower end of aesthetically negative actions.

01:20:13So, that's for the reasons I sort of outlined, that's where I would put it in the hierarchy,

01:20:18sort of the five level hierarchy of values that UPB, universally preferable behavior, outlines.

01:20:25And again, I go into this more into the book. It's not violently inflicted upon you, but it is

01:20:32online sex work or sex work as a whole. It's a shadow cast by earlier neglect and violence,

01:20:37which are two sides of the same coin. In fact, neglect is often worse than violence for children.

01:20:41So, it's aesthetically negative. It is a shadow cast by

01:20:45severe violations of the non-aggression principle against helpless and dependent children.

01:20:49And it is harmful to society as a whole, and therefore will not bring happiness. It harms

01:20:55love, pair bonding, family formation, cultural transmission, children, which is the greatest

01:20:59chance most people have to spread virtue in the world. So, it is very much at the down and dark

01:21:05end of aesthetically negative actions, but does not fall into the category of evil unless the

01:21:11aforementioned fraud is occurring. So, I hope that clears that part up.

01:21:15Yeah, I hope this helps. I look forward to continuing the discussion. I appreciate the

01:21:22question and the annoyance it brought. So, farewell my friends, freedomain.com slash donate.

01:21:27Hey, look at that. How about an online worker? freedomain.com slash donate. Take care, my friends. Bye!

Philosophy vs Sex Workers! Listener Debate

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