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Stefan Molyneux
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In this episode, I follow up on "Philosophy vs OnlyFans! Listener Debate" (https://fdrpodcasts.com/5984/philosophy-vs-sex-workers-listener-debate) with some more thoughts. I examine pride and genetic predisposition, addressing whether one should take pride in achievements influenced by genetics. While recognizing the genetic basis of traits like IQ, I stress the significance of personal agency and moral choices, illustrated through a scenario of decision-making in danger. I discuss the variability of human traits and the ethical implications of our choices, arguing against genetic determinism.

I also confront the philosophical issues around death and the modern healthcare system's impact on quality of life. Advocating for thoughtful discourse, I highlight the importance of recognizing the societal consequences of life extension. Ultimately, I call for moral accountability and personal agency in navigating life's challenges.

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Transcript
00:00Yo, yo, this is Stefan Molyneux, just following up in my last show about the OnlyFans question
00:07that came in from a listener, which is to say, you should not have, you should not take
00:13any pride in that which is genetic.
00:17And there's a couple of extra points that I wanted to mention about this that I think
00:20are interesting, and I knew I wasn't quite done, but I couldn't get the arguments.
00:25I actually dreamt about them last night, believe it or not.
00:28And so I wanted to just follow up with a couple of points on that.
00:33If the Bob, Bob was his name, the game we gave him, it's not his real name, I don't know
00:36what his real name is, but Bob was saying that you should not be proud of that which is genetic.
00:44And what's interesting, of course, is if we say that, you know, late teens, IQ is 80% genetic,
00:51that still gives you 20% to work with.
00:5420%, it is a lot.
00:57And it's not, I mean, with regards to IQ, it doesn't translate into, you can go 20 points
01:03higher, or you can go 20 points lower from an average of 100.
01:07It's not that, but it's 5 to 10 points.
01:10It gives you 5 to 10 points either way.
01:12And the interesting thing is that the part of your brain that is subject to environment,
01:21the subject to choice, is interesting.
01:24Let's say, rather than a sort of 360 degree view of free will, let's say that you only
01:31have two choices, right?
01:35You only have two choices, that you're stuck in a corridor, your friend is being attacked
01:42at one end of the corridor, and there's relative safety at the other end of the corridor, but
01:46you only have two choices.
01:48You can run towards your friend and give him help, or you can run towards safety and abandon
01:52your friend to his danger.
01:55Those are the only two choices.
01:57Now, if you decide to run to your friend and help him in his danger, and you save him, and
02:04so on, then that is an act of courage and of virtue.
02:08If you run for safety and abandon your friend to his dismal fate, that is an act of cowardice.
02:15And if you choose the courageous route rather than the cowardly route, sorry, I've been reading
02:21some Edgar Rice Burroughs, so following duty is a big thing in my brain.
02:26So, if you then go to your friend and save him, rescue him from the danger, it could be
02:33dogs or whatever it is, right?
02:35People.
02:36If you rescue him, well, that's 100% courage, even though you only have two choices in that
02:43moment.
02:44The choice that you choose is 100% honorable.
02:48It's not only 20% honorable, let's say you only, because your choices are only 50% honorable
02:54because your choices are reduced.
02:55So, the virtues that you choose, given that you focus on that which is a good, and in
03:01fact, in one of the Edgar Rice Burroughs story, the guy says, well, I chose to go and help
03:07my friend in his time of danger, and it never occurred to me until hours later that I could
03:13have done anything else, which means I'm not particularly heroic because it never even
03:17occurs to me to do something other than rush to save my friend, which is an interesting,
03:23interesting question.
03:25So, even, let's say, let's say for some reason you only have 20% choice.
03:32Well, with that 20% choice, if you choose that which is noble and honorable and virtuous, well,
03:41that's a great positive, and you are 100% responsible for that which is the good, that which you have
03:50chosen as the better.
03:52You know, 10% variability, either way, is pretty good.
04:00That's pretty good.
04:02I mean, if you look at a height of, say, 6 foot, right?
04:09If you look at a height of 6 foot, what is a 10% variable, variability, in height?
04:20I think it's 7 inches, either way, right?
04:23A 10% variability in height means that from 6 feet, that's pretty wild, right?
04:31So, if the average height of a male is about 5 foot 9, a 10% variability would imply a range
04:41of 5 foot 2 to 6 foot 4, 10% lower from the average height of 5.9, puts you down to 5.2.
04:52Yeah, 7 inches, right?
04:54A 10% higher would put you at 6 foot 4.
04:58So, please understand this, even if we're only talking about a 10% variability, then
05:06we're talking about the difference between 5 foot 2 and 6 foot 4.
05:10Now, I mean, you could have some limitations and all of that kind of stuff, but that's still
05:18really, really important.
05:21So, if you're going to tell me that even if we only have a 10% variability, that it doesn't
05:27matter whether someone is 5 foot 2 or whether a man is 5 foot 2 or 6 foot 4, I'd say you're
05:37crazy.
05:37If philosophy can get you to 6 foot 4, as opposed to propaganda gets you to 5 foot 2, would you
05:44say, well, it doesn't really matter about women's weight?
05:48And, of course, that's a little bit different because that's chosen to a large degree.
05:52Obviously, it is not genetic.
05:54Now, of course, my interlocutor would say that nothing is chosen or whatever it is, right?
06:01So, what does that mean?
06:03Well, average woman weighs 154 pounds.
06:07That's roughly the mean for the U.S. woman.
06:08A 10% variability would be the difference between 63 kilograms and 77 kilograms.
06:17In other words, 139 pounds versus 170 pounds, which is 31-pound difference.
06:25It's a 31-pound difference, even if we just look at 10%.
06:28So, 10% is a big deal because, remember, certainly with regards to IQ, there's really nobody at
06:35the extremes, right?
06:36I mean, in the same way with height, say, well, it's a 10% variability if we just take
06:43this sort of IQ thing and apply it to height.
06:46A 20% variability translates to about a 10% higher level possibility, very roughly, right?
06:52But in general.
06:53But with IQ, remember, we're not playing with people with an IQ of 10 versus people with an
06:59IQ of 300, right?
07:00There's nobody at those extremes in sort of any practical sense.
07:05So, the variability is really important.
07:08Same thing with height.
07:10A 10% variability takes you from 5'2 to 6'4 because the variability is wider given that
07:17there aren't any people who are 6 inches tall, right?
07:20Or, you know, 16 feet tall, right?
07:23So, the variability is really, really important.
07:26And that's why I have talked about IQ, but I focus on free will and better moral decisions.
07:34Somebody who makes a courageous moral decision when he or she can do anything, right?
07:40I mean, let's say that me talking about some controversial topics was reasonably brave, right?
07:47Well, I wasn't stuck in a corridor with only two choices.
07:50I could have talked about anything or nothing at all.
07:53Well, I could have quit to pursue a career as a mime in Queensland.
07:58I could have decided to hike the Arctic.
08:01I could have done anything or I could have talked about any topic whatsoever.
08:05I could have just done tech reviews and movie reviews and so on.
08:08But I chose that.
08:10So, that's...
08:10I think if you can do anything and you choose something courageous,
08:14then your choice of courage is 100% yours.
08:17And if you choose something, even if you have only two choices,
08:24running away to safety in a corridor or running towards helping your friend,
08:28then you are still 100% responsible for the virtue and value of your choices.
08:34So, 10% variability is huge, even in moral decisions.
08:4210% variability.
08:45I mean, think of the difference in your portfolio if you make 10% a year versus if you lose 10% a year.
08:55Ah, well, it's only a small amount of variability.
08:58That is...
09:00Let's see.
09:00Let's say you have $500,000.
09:06If you gain or lose 10% as a whole, what happens, right?
09:13A 10% variability in a $500,000 stock portfolio.
09:19That is a huge amount of losses or gains over time, right?
09:26So, this is amazing when you think about it.
09:30Like, if somebody said, oh, yeah, well, I mean, you can, let's see, over 10 years.
09:37So, we're going to do the stocks over 10 years, gaining or losing 10% a year.
09:45Well, that's a big deal.
09:48What happens over time?
09:50And we're not going to deal with variability or anything like that, right?
09:57Now, I think...
09:58I think that we're...
10:02I think that the AI has got...
10:04I mean, we're going off AI here, right?
10:05So, I think that there's value in that.
10:08Maybe that seems wrong, maybe not.
10:10So, let's just say you've got 10 years and we've got a 10% variability.
10:15So, if you lose 10% a year, then your $500,000 turns into $174,339.22, which is a 65% over 65% down over 10 years.
10:33So, you lose almost 175, like you go down to almost $175,000 from $500,000.
10:42However, if you gain 10% a year from $500,000, then after 10 years, you have almost 160% total return and you gain almost $1.3 million.
10:55$175,000 or $174,339 versus $1.296 million.
11:03So, $174,000 versus $1.3 million, which is a difference of $1,122,532.
11:14So, come on, man.
11:18Don't tell me that even if we're just looking that we take 20% genetic variability, 80% of your IQ is genetic, but you've got 20% to work with, which translates into a 10% gain or loss.
11:31If we look at that, but for height, it's 5'2 versus 6'4.
11:36If we look at that as a stock portfolio over 10 years of a 10% higher low, if you lose, you go from half a million dollars to $174,000.
11:49If you're losing 10% a year, if you're gaining 10% a year, you go from half a million dollars to almost $1.3 million.
11:57So, there's a spread here.
12:00If we're only working with 10%, if we're only working with 10%, 5'2 versus 6'4, 130 pounds versus 170 pounds, give or take.
12:11And we're talking about $174,000 versus $1.3 million, a difference of $1.122 million.
12:19So, it's a huge difference is why I talk about free will, morality, virtue, and so on.
12:28It's a huge, huge difference over time in particular, right?
12:34So, small differences add up to massive changes.
12:40I mean, if you're 5'2 and you dislike being that short as a man, if you're 5'2, what would it be worth to you to be 6'4?
12:52Well, we know exactly what it would be worth if you had 10% losses on half a million versus 10% gains.
12:59It would be over $1.1 million difference.
13:04Rather than being down to $1.70, you'd be up to almost $1.3 million.
13:13That's a huge difference.
13:13So, this is why I focus on these things.
13:16And the last thing I'll say before I get to the next questions is,
13:20he's saying that my work ethic is largely genetic, therefore I shouldn't take pride in it.
13:25But he's trying to correct me.
13:27Now, let's say that I just had a bad work ethic and was doing a shoddy work and so on.
13:33But because my work ethic is largely genetic, I should not be corrected or shamed for it.
13:40Now, I'm not saying he's necessarily shaming me, but he's sort of demanding that I put in these corrections and so on.
13:46And there's a sort of an implicit hypocritical thing that is implied in that I'm saying.
13:51This woman should not take pride.
13:54She can't really take pride in her breast size, which is 100% genetic in terms of a normal body weight, right?
14:01So, a woman of a normal body weight will end up with different size breasts, you know, A, B, C, D, or whatever a cup.
14:07And that's genetic.
14:08Now, of course, a woman can increase her breast size artificially, or she can increase her breast size by gaining weight.
14:14But the breast size is genetic.
14:18So, you can't really take pride in that.
14:26100% genetic, yeah.
14:27Like, you can't take pride in height or eye color.
14:29It's 100% genetic.
14:30But whenever you introduce variability, then you also introduce pride in blend.
14:36And if you make a good moral choice, that is 100% your choice.
14:44So, ah, well, but there are IQ factors involved in even making that choice.
14:49Well, again, I've seen extremely high IQ people be extremely corrupt.
14:57I mean, good heavens, just look at the world of politics.
15:00And in the world of business, there's a huge amount of corruption.
15:03I wrote about this in my novel, The God of Atheists.
15:06So, it's not at all any kind of guarantee.
15:11So, if I am not to take pride in something because it's genetic, then I can't be blamed for it either.
15:21So, for instance, let's say that blue eyes are more attractive than brown eyes for a lot of people, right?
15:26Okay, so, if I can't take pride in having blue eyes, which I agree with, then I also can't be blamed if I have brown eyes.
15:38Did you see what I mean?
15:40There's no point telling me to correct having brown eyes because it's not subject to my free will and there is no choice component at all.
15:50Well, it's genetic, right?
15:52In the same way, if I can't take pride in being almost six feet tall, which is above the average, which I agree with, I can't take pride in that.
16:01And I've never felt particularly tall.
16:02I guess my brother's taller.
16:03So, if I can't take pride in being a couple of inches above the average in male height, then neither should someone feel shame for being shorter because I did not choose to be the height that I am and the shorter man did not choose to be the height that he is.
16:29So, there would be no point in me emailing someone and saying, you have to correct your height.
16:37And so, if he's saying, look, Steph, you can't take pride in your work ethic because your work ethic is largely genetic, okay.
16:43So, let's say I do shoddy work or I do non-conscientious based work and so on and cut corners and I'm hypocritical, change my, well, but that's largely genetic.
16:53So, if I can't take any pride in my work ethic, then I can't be chastised or criticized or corrected for my work ethic either because, hey, man, it's just genetic.
17:05It would be like trying to chastise or correct me for my height.
17:08Hey, Steph, you should be six foot two, not a shade under six feet.
17:11You should fix that.
17:13I can't, it's genetic.
17:14So, whereas if you say, well, you have some choice with regards to your conscientiousness and your work ethic, it's not, I didn't say it was all genetic.
17:22It's like, okay, then I can take pride in it, right?
17:25I was, this woman developed large breasts.
17:28It's so funny, the topic that we talk about, right?
17:30This woman, this woman's body developed large breasts with no free will or choice of her own.
17:35In fact, she was embarrassed by it because of how the shamed her for it.
17:38So, if that is the major component of her success on OnlyFans, then, well, what can I tell you?
17:48It's not something she was going to be particularly happy about because she didn't choose it, therefore she can't take pride in it.
17:53And that's 100% genetic, right?
17:55What was it that when I was in junior high, you know, there was this chant, we must, we must, we must improve our breasts or something like that.
18:03We must increase our breasts or something like that.
18:04Because, you know, breasts size could be like penis size in that, you know, women want larger sometimes, men want larger and so on.
18:11So, it doesn't work, right?
18:13As far as I know, there's no particular way to increase breasts size, right?
18:17I mean, this is why women's stuff, Kleenex is down there as far as I understand it.
18:20And Freddie Mercury has a full cabasa sausage when he's performing.
18:23So, if the degree to which my work ethic is genetic is the degree to which I can't be blamed, I can't be chastised, I can't be corrected because it's genetic.
18:38There's no point telling someone to correct that which is genetic.
18:42It's like saying, Steph, you were born the wrong race.
18:47You should be Inuit.
18:48Okay, well, it's a little bit beyond my control which race I was born as.
18:53It's really not.
18:55Up to me, to be born white was not a choice.
18:57I can't take pride in something I never chose, which is genetic, right?
19:01So, that to me is, when you dial up genetics, you dial down responsibility.
19:11And if you're saying, Steph, you can't take pride in your intelligence.
19:17It's like, well, I can't take pride in the genetic components of my intelligence, which is 80%, maybe 80%, who knows?
19:24I don't know exactly where it gets to as you get older, but I started philosophy in my mid-teens.
19:30So, that's when I was probably 70%, 75% genetic, which is a huge amount of 15% variability either way.
19:38So, the fact that I got into philosophy and stuck with philosophy and even though, I mean, philosophy, I mean, let's be frank, man.
19:47I mean, you've seen it, but you haven't seen the stuff that happened when I was younger.
19:51Philosophy has cost me a huge amount.
19:53Philosophy cost me an acting career.
19:56Philosophy cost me an academic career.
19:57Philosophy ended up having, it was a huge downward drag on my business career.
20:04Philosophy cost me friends, various opportunities, and philosophy got me attacked in the media worldwide and deplatformed.
20:12I mean, you know, I've paid some prices, brothers and sisters.
20:16I really have paid some, and it's got me great benefits.
20:18Don't get me wrong.
20:19I'm not a martyr, but it's had a price, and I've stuck with it.
20:24And it never particularly crossed my mind to not stick with it, so I'm not even going to say that that's particularly heroic.
20:32But I, I mean, I spent my childhood having to kowtow and bow down to anti-rational forces in the part of parents and culture and so on.
20:41And I'm not going to do that when I have any possibility of not doing it, right?
20:45So, there's no point correcting people for that which is genetic.
20:49It's, it, that would be irrational.
20:50It's like saying to someone, you have the wrong eye color.
20:53You need to fix it.
20:54So, if my intelligence and my conscientiousness and my work ethic and all of that is genetic, okay, I can't take pride in it, blah, blah, blah.
21:03Sure.
21:04But then I can't be blamed or corrected for it either.
21:07And that's the contradiction, right?
21:09He's saying, he's not saying you are 90% not responsible for making this bad argument because your intelligence and your work ethic is genetic.
21:18He's not saying that.
21:19He's saying I'm 100% responsible for making a bad argument.
21:22I need to correct it.
21:23I need to fix it.
21:23I need to not be hypocritical.
21:25I need to put out a correction on the podcast.
21:26I'm 100% responsible for making a bad argument.
21:29Okay.
21:31Let's say I did make a bad argument.
21:32And let's say I am 100% responsible for making a bad argument.
21:36Okay.
21:37Then I'm 100% responsible for making a good argument and therefore I can take some goddamn pride in that.
21:43But the stripping people of pride through genetics is repulsive.
21:47This is why I got irritated is it turns my stomach.
21:52If you make good choices, particularly if you come from a bad background, and yeah, maybe I help people make better choices.
21:59So what?
22:01Other people helped me make better choices too.
22:04I could sort of go through the list.
22:05I've done it before, but I got, you know, I read thousands of books written by people that helped me make better choices.
22:13I went to therapy and a therapist helped me make better choices and so on, right?
22:18So I just think it's repulsive when people say, well, you can't take pride in something, but you're 100% responsible for doing something wrong.
22:28It's like, no, no, that's close to abusive.
22:32And this is what bothers me about this kind of determinism, right?
22:36Is that even if we say, well, you know, of course, you know, there's a, we talked about a 15 to 30% variability in work ethic.
22:43Okay.
22:43That's 70 to 85% that I can take pride in.
22:45And each good decision I take 100% pride in, and I don't really think of these genetics much at all because I'm focused on doing maximum good for society, which means always take more responsibility.
23:00Because nobody knows where that line is, so always take more responsibility.
23:04Let's say that you are, I don't know, I mean, let's say that you are only 75% responsible for your decisions, but you don't know that.
23:11And you don't know where the 75% lies, so just take 100%, and that'll give you maximum control.
23:17And I personally believe that we are in reality and in practicality, we are at 100% responsibility, right?
23:28This is the old joke from Monty Python, where the criminal gets caught and he says, it's a fair cop, but society is to blame.
23:34And the policeman says, agreed, we'll be charging them too.
23:38Well, that's not what happens.
23:40And it's certainly not how I've been treated.
23:42Like, you know, in sort of media attacks on me, nobody says, well, you know, he was raised by a mentally ill mother and his father was absent and also had mental health challenges.
23:51So let's cut the guy some slack for some bad decisions or bad choices, right?
23:57I got 0% environmental excuses in the eyes of the media.
24:04I mean, there was not one person who ever interviewed me who said, well, it seems to me you're making some bad decisions, but man, you had it rough as a child.
24:12Holy crap.
24:13That's terrible, right?
24:14And, you know, violence and madness and poverty and dysfunction in every corner.
24:21And so, you know, you had it rough as a kid.
24:23So, you know, I'm just curious about all of that.
24:26I think it was nothing like that.
24:27I was just 100% willed with no background, no history, no excuses.
24:32I mean, and that's what, for the most part, certainly with adults, we don't charge them with a crime and then charge their parents if the child was raised badly.
24:45Nope.
24:46The way that the law works, the way that media attacks work, the way that all of this stuff goes is 100% responsibility.
24:54And so that's the way that people work.
24:57That's the way society works.
24:58That's the way the law works.
24:59That's the way the media works.
25:00So, yeah, I aim for 100%.
25:05I aim for, I mean, I look for causality in my childhood, but I aim for 100% responsibility.
25:11I know that I don't have 100% responsibility in my life, that there are factors beyond my control, but I aim for 100%, right?
25:20If you are, if you find a bunch of gold in a field, right?
25:24And let's say, well, I could probably only recover about 75% of it.
25:29Some of it's going to be really hard to find.
25:30Some of it's, you know, whatever, sinking into the ground.
25:33That's whatever you can make up.
25:35So, I'm only going to get 75%.
25:37Okay.
25:38So, let's look at, and let's say that it is, in fact.
25:41You can only recover 75% of it, right?
25:43Let's say the jewelry spilled from a truck into a field with soft earth, and it's raining like crazy, and some of it is just going to sink and be hard, if not impossible to find, right?
25:56It's turning into quicksand.
25:58You only have a, so let's say that you can only get 75% of the jewelry, okay?
26:06So, if you go in saying, well, I can only get 75%, right?
26:09You got two people going in, right?
26:11Bob and Doug.
26:11Bob says, let's say Bob and Susan do a he, she thing, right?
26:15So, Bob says, hey, man, I can only get 75% of the jewelry, and Susan says, I bet I can get 100% of the jewelry.
26:28In fact, there might be jewelry here that was just dropped by accident.
26:30Maybe I can get 105%.
26:32Who is going to come back with more jewelry?
26:35Bob, who tells himself he can only get 75% of the jewelry, or Susan, who says, I can get 105% of the jewelry.
26:43Who's going to come back with more jewelry?
26:46Even if we accept that both of them are at 75%, well, almost certainly, Susan's going to come back with more jewelry, because she's not putting a limit on herself.
26:56She's going to get real close to that 75%, whereas Bob might only get 50, 60, 70%.
27:03And those little differences, over time in particular, as we talked about with the portfolio, add up to a lot.
27:091.1 plus million dollar difference over 10 years.
27:12So, aim for 100%, and even if it's only 75%, aim for 100%, and you'll end up with more virtuous actions and a better life situation.
27:22And this is just a one-time thing, right?
27:25As we saw, over 10 years, just a 10% variability is the difference between being almost broke and a millionaire.
27:33You can do that over 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years.
27:37That's something else.
27:38So, let's say you become a moral agent at the age of 20, and you live to 85.
27:46Let's say you become a moral agent at the age of 20, and you live to 85, right?
27:51Okay, so that's 65 years, right?
27:56So, let's say you've got your half a million dollars, and you're looking at a 10% gain or 10% loss over 65 years, right?
28:06What is the difference?
28:08What is the difference?
28:11Well, it's not small.
28:16Oh, my gosh.
28:18Okay, so what is the result?
28:21Okay.
28:21Even if we're just looking, 80% genetic, 10% variability.
28:26This is in your portfolio.
28:28Gaining or losing, 10% over 65 years.
28:32Well, your half a million over 65 years of losing 10% a year is worth $633.39.
28:41Your half a million turns into an iPad with DAX.
28:48$633.39.
28:50You lose 99.873% of your money.
28:54Ooh, what do you think the high end is of that, right?
29:00Of making 10% better choices or making 10% of your half million dollars over 65 years until you're 85, right?
29:08Average lifespan, 65 years of being a moral agent.
29:13Well, so instead of ending up with $633 and change, you end up with $278 million, $596,569.2.
29:30So, the difference is between $633.3 to about $278.6 million.
29:41Come on.
29:43For a $500,000 stock portfolio, gaining 10% per year over 65 years, the value grows to $278.6 million, a 55,619% return.
29:57Losing 10% per year, it drops to $633 and change.
30:03So, come on.
30:05Come on.
30:07It's almost a $280 million difference from being pissed off to a multi-centimillionaire.
30:16Right?
30:16Close to $300 million versus $600.
30:20And that's why I say, aim for 100% responsibility.
30:25You'll end up with more jewelry.
30:28Even if we accept 80% genetics, working on that 10% variability has compounding value.
30:35When you make good decisions, you are more likely to make good decisions again in the future because you have the reinforcement of making good decisions.
30:42The fact that I hit the public square and sphere after having suffered and benefited from philosophy for 20 years meant that I was no stranger to making good decisions based upon reason and evidence.
30:55So, I guess that went on a little longer than I was thinking, but I just wanted to point that out.
31:02So, for instance, I was talking about a larger variability turned out to be smaller, but I was conscientious and looked that up.
31:08So, yeah, just aim for 100%.
31:11Forget the genetics.
31:12Just aim for 100% responsibility in anything that you have any part of responsibility for, and things will be much better off as a whole in your life.
31:24And that's what I want for you.
31:25I want you to get, quote, hundreds of millions of dollars rather than end up without a part to piss in because you're down to $600 and you have a lifetime of bitterness, loss, and regret.
31:37All right.
31:37So, let's move on to another question.
31:39On the most solemn of all subjects, death, writes a listener.
31:43My grandmother is slowly fading away with Parkinson's.
31:47Following a change to her main drug, treating the disease, she began rapidly declining.
31:53She's reached the point where there is no pleasure to life at all.
31:56I've had other family members fade away ever slowly.
32:01It's been tragic to watch.
32:02Her decline is death without dignity.
32:05It appears to me that in the West, death is forestalled with medicine to prolong the life at all costs, primarily for profit motive.
32:12Has our relationship to death changed in your lifetime?
32:15It's a delicate and sensitive issue because there is a part of us that does not want to put a price on human life.
32:25I get that.
32:26And I deeply sympathize with that.
32:30That having been said, we do put prices on human life all the time.
32:35We put a price on human life all the time.
32:37So, for instance, if we lowered the maximum speed that cars were allowed to drive to 10 kilometers an hour,
32:46we would save probably 35,000 lives a year in the U.S., which is the death toll of car accidents.
32:53And, of course, a lot of maiming and injury and so on.
32:55There wouldn't be much maiming and injury if cars were only going 10 miles an hour.
33:00So, why don't we do that?
33:01Well, because there would be other costs.
33:05I mean, food would take forever to deliver.
33:07The price would be very high.
33:09And ambulances couldn't travel fast.
33:12And so on.
33:13And the criminals would drive faster.
33:14So, if the cops were not allowed to drive faster than that, then criminals would get away,
33:19which would be more rape, murder, mayhem, theft, and assault, and so on, right?
33:24So, we do balance these things out.
33:26We say, well, we will take a certain number of deaths from cars traveling at high speed
33:31because otherwise there will be even more deaths from people being unable to get food
33:36or unable to afford food and criminals getting away with things and all that kind of stuff, right?
33:40So, we do accept this all the time.
33:43And it is, of course, the visible versus the invisible, which is a real challenge for people
33:48as a whole, right?
33:50So, the visible is, well, we're doing everything we can to keep grandma alive.
33:55And she's got a hospital bed.
33:56She's got a whole team of specialists.
33:58She's got nurses.
33:59She's got medicines.
34:00She's got, you name it, right?
34:01Orderlies.
34:02So, we see all of the effort that goes into keeping grandma alive, right?
34:07What we don't see is all of the people who get sicker or die because of all the resources
34:14being poured into grandma.
34:15We don't see that.
34:16We don't see that.
34:18So, because grandma is being kept alive, there are fewer resources in the emergency rooms,
34:25right?
34:26Fewer doctors, fewer nurses, fewer receptionists because money is, money, time, resources, and
34:31manpower in particular is being poured into granny.
34:35Now, because there are fewer resources in the emergency room, then, you know, one of
34:42two things generally happens.
34:43Number one, somebody dies waiting to be seen in the ER.
34:48But we don't see that because it's not directly causal.
34:52Or the other thing that happens is somebody who's had to wait in the past, you know, six,
34:57say, 10, 12 hours to see someone, they have chest pains and they're like, oh, oh my God,
35:03it's, I can't, like, I've got to work tomorrow.
35:05I can't spend eight hours in the ER waiting to see someone.
35:09And it's probably nothing, right?
35:10So, because they've had a prior experience, just waiting and waiting, like limbo, for the
35:16ER resources, they say, oh, it's probably nothing.
35:19They don't go to the ER and they die from a heart attack, right?
35:24At home.
35:25And this isn't even recorded, right?
35:27This could be a secret thought, right?
35:29Or even if he tells it to his wife and, you know, his wife says, yeah, it's probably nothing.
35:34I've got to work tomorrow too.
35:36We've got three kids in the house.
35:37We can't just go to the ER for eight hours, right?
35:40Because the last time we were there was eight hours.
35:43So, people die then because of that, but it's not seen.
35:47It's not visible.
35:48Now, if you take resources away from granny, then granny is unsupported.
35:52And then people will live who are younger and who have a future, right?
35:57I don't really know much about the progression of Parkinson's, but I think it's pretty one,
36:02it's a one-way street if deterioration.
36:04Whereas somebody who's got a medical issue that can be saved through the ER, they've got
36:10another, you know, 30, 40, 50 years to go.
36:13Well, that's, you know.
36:15So, we have the visible versus the invisible.
36:21The people, if resources are taken away from granny, they'll raise holy hell about it.
36:27Whereas the people who will live, if resources are taken away from granny and put into other
36:33areas, the people who will live don't even know that that's why they're living, right?
36:38This is why we have to leave things to the free market.
36:40And this is why we can't make decisions based upon emotions.
36:44We have to make decisions based upon reason and virtue and evidence, right?
36:50So, of course, we talked about this.
36:52So, I talked about this a couple of shows ago, that there is a massive tens of thousands
36:57of children are missing from the world because of seat laws, right?
37:01And you've got to have these seats for your children.
37:03So, a few children have been saved, but what's it, 60,000 or so children have not been born
37:12statistically, right?
37:14Now, the children who die because they are not in these car seats and there's a car crash,
37:21well, there's blood, there's sorrow, there's weeping and wailing mothers, there's funerals,
37:24like it's all very vivid and very visible.
37:26Whereas the parents who say, ah, you know, we can't get a whole new car.
37:30We've only got room for two car seats, let's just stop at two.
37:33Well, there's no drama there.
37:34There's no blood on the road.
37:37There's no funerals.
37:38There's no weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.
37:40And, of course, I'm not saying this to diminish the death of a child.
37:43It's one of the worst things that can possibly happen.
37:45What I'm saying is that the visible versus the invisible, the seen versus the unseen,
37:51which is the basis of economics, means that if we are making decisions emotionally,
37:57we generally make bad decisions because emotions respond to emotion, emotions respond to tragedy.
38:06And if you are making decisions emotionally, you are incredibly subject and prey to propaganda,
38:14right?
38:15So, with regards to the lockdowns, of course, you would see or you would get these sort
38:20of endless reports of people dying from COVID.
38:22They weren't vaccinated and their last fading wish was, I wish I'd been vaccinated.
38:26I can't believe I'm dying.
38:27Right.
38:28And they would show all of this sort of devastation and there was sort of Chinese propaganda of
38:34people falling over in the streets from COVID-19 and so on.
38:37But what you didn't see was the media didn't say, you know, here's someone dying because
38:43they couldn't get their cancer checkups and so they got cancer or cancer spread and they're
38:50dying because of that and, you know, here's a suicide of despair because someone couldn't
38:54keep their job, their entire business shut down, right?
38:57So, if you're going to make decisions emotionally, then you're just as programmable as a computer
39:04because the media will hide from you certain emotional triggers and will show you other
39:10emotional triggers.
39:12And this way, this is what happened over COVID.
39:14This has happened in a wide variety of situations, right?
39:19So, if the media wants a war, then they'll show you all the evils of the person they want
39:25to be attacked and they will hide all of the death and destruction that comes from the war
39:32or they'll show it in a kind of cool, distant, light flash on the horizon kind of ways.
39:37So, the media will present to you very vivid emotional triggers and hide from you other
39:44ones and this way you are just led to do what they want.
39:50And this is why we must steadfastly avoid these kinds of emotional triggers because you're just
39:59going to get programmed with vivid sense data that provokes an emotional response and they
40:07play you like an organ.
40:09They just, I mean, you just, most people, and look, I sort of hate to say it, but it seems
40:14to be kind of true that women are a little bit more susceptible to this kind of stuff due
40:20to their sort of passionate and attached and emotional natures, which is a beautiful and
40:23wonderful thing in the family and the children and in the community and so on.
40:29But it means that, I mean, this is the, what opened up Europe borders back in the day was
40:34that the Turkish boy drowned on the beach and the media showed that and everybody reacted
40:40and cried and got triggered and all of that.
40:43Whereas, I think the men were a little bit more like, well, what the hell was this guy
40:47doing, putting his family on an overloaded boat in the Mediterranean during the storm?
40:52Men were like, man, I can get a ticket.
40:55I can get in trouble with the law if my kid is biking without a helmet or I don't wear
41:00a seatbelt.
41:00And this guy is loading his family up in a storm on an overloaded boat sailing to get,
41:07what was he aiming to try and get dental care in Canada or something like that, if I remember
41:10rightly.
41:11Okay, so we don't make decisions based upon reason and evidence, we make decisions based
41:18upon programmed emotions from vivid images through the media.
41:22And to stop really making decisions, that's just being triggered, right?
41:26So men usually have to make tougher decisions.
41:31And again, this is not to say that men are better or women are better, there's just different
41:36ways that we've evolved.
41:37And in particular, this is true of the ice people, right?
41:41They call it the climate people.
41:43If there's not enough food for the winter, then people just have to go hungry and the
41:48kids will complain and so on, right?
41:50Now, it's the women's job, so to speak, emotionally to make sure that the kids are equally fed,
41:56right?
41:56So it's not a meritocracy in terms of strength getting food.
42:00But the younger kids get food.
42:02Even if the older kids are snatching from it, the mother uses force to redistribute it if
42:06she has to, and to grab the food back.
42:09The mother uses force to redistribute resources, which is why women tend to be socialist in
42:14practice.
42:16And this is why socialism and forced redistribution of wealth grows when women get to vote because
42:20their instincts to balance things out among children are then taken to society as a whole.
42:24And, you know, the imagery of, oh, here's a big giant office building, a big vertical ice cube
42:30tray of glass, wealth, and power.
42:32And here's a guy living in a cardboard shack at the bottom of the tower.
42:38This is so wrong.
42:39Just take a little bit from the tower.
42:40Give it to him.
42:41And this just gets women going.
42:44And they want to use the power of the state to redistribute income because that's their
42:47instinct, right?
42:48Use force to redistribute resources so that the poor get enough and their youngest children
42:52don't starve to death, perfectly essential in a family and perfectly destructive with
42:58the coercive power of the state.
43:00Whereas when I was, and this may be a bit more of a male thing, but when I saw those kinds
43:07of pictures of, well, here's a guy living in a shack, a cardboard shack at the base of
43:12a great office tower, I was like, geez, I bet I don't want to be that guy.
43:19I don't want to be that guy, I bet he's a warning, right?
43:22He's not someone who needs to be saved.
43:24He's a warning.
43:25And of course, if you've ever spent time trying to genuinely help the poor, it's, the poor
43:32are not poor because they lack money.
43:34They are poor because they make bad decisions and they are embedded in those bad decisions
43:39in terms of who they've married, how they've raised their children, the occupations they've
43:44chosen or not chosen, the drugs they've consumed, the drinking.
43:46They are encased, like pan-solar style, they're encased in these bad decisions.
43:52And getting them to make better decisions usually means that they have to abandon their
43:56entire lifestyle, often their family of origin, certainly their friends, and possibly their
44:01marriage, and they have to apologize to their children.
44:03Like to make better decisions when someone's old enough to be independent and be helped
44:08means that you have to pry them out of this massive giant sepulchre or tomb of bad decisions
44:15and everything has to change.
44:18Now, people who are alcoholics are tough to turn into non-alcoholics because they're social
44:25so-called drinks, the bar they go to is their primary social engagement place, they married
44:31a woman who knows that they drink, their wife might also drink.
44:34Like they've also got, you know, if they start drinking, they get these massive regrets about
44:37having missed out on so much in life and especially time and interaction with their children, just
44:42that and the other, right?
44:43Like it's, oh, it's trying to get people to make better decisions when they've got decades
44:49of bad decisions is very hard.
44:52I mean, it's not impossible because there's free will.
44:55So, but I mean, I spent many, many years, I spent, let's see, from 15 to my early 30s,
45:02I mean, I spent almost 20 years working very hard to try and get my mother and other people,
45:07but primarily my mother, to make better decisions.
45:10Can you please make some better decisions?
45:12Nope.
45:13So even with family bonds, even with my, you know, not insignificant skill at encouraging
45:19people and getting people to make better decisions, I spent close to two decades
45:24trying to get my mother to make better decisions and she didn't, she didn't.
45:31And so when I started, I was 15, she was in her mid-40s, but it was not, it was not possible.
45:41I mean, she was institutionalized by people who wanted her to make better decisions.
45:44Let's cross our fingers and hope something like that happened.
45:47Her doctors wanted her to make better decisions.
45:49Her health was telling her to make better decisions.
45:51Her loneliness was telling her to make better decisions, but she didn't.
45:54She just wouldn't.
45:55Now, of course, I'm not going to judge the world as a whole by my mother, who was kind
45:58of an extreme case, but it's not just that.
46:02Not just her.
46:03So if there's a guy who's like, I don't know, 50 with the scraggly beard and haunted eyes
46:10and he's living in a cardboard shack at the base of a giant tower, my urge was to avoid
46:16his fate, not to step in and save it.
46:19I mean, I remember when I was doing my documentary, Sunset in the Golden State, I went, I was taken
46:25by a social worker down to talk to someone who was living on the street and this was a
46:32veteran and he had a lot of issues, to put it mildly.
46:36And can he be helped?
46:38I mean, if you think about taking the average homeless person, let's say, into your house
46:44and trying to get them cleaned up and making better decisions, well, this is the Jean Valjean
46:49idea, right?
46:51It's a blank slate idea.
46:52But in the Jean Valjean, he's taken in by a priest after he's released from prison.
46:56He steals some silver and then the cops bring him back and the priest says, no, I gave him
47:02the silver.
47:03He didn't steal it.
47:03And then he says, go and be a good man.
47:05And it turns out that Jean Valjean, though he was a starving thief and was in prison for
47:10decades, becomes this robust, virtuous, tenderhearted, moral, I mean, it's like expecting him to be
47:17an orc.
47:18Like, it's such a fantasy.
47:20But it is a very seductive fantasy to believe that moral free will and virtue can survive
47:27decades of corrupt and immoral decisions.
47:30That a man can become robust after trauma and unjust imprisonment.
47:36So there are tough decisions to be made in society.
47:40Now, in a free society, you can't force other people to pay for the health care that you
47:48want.
47:49So, I mean, there will be insurance, of course.
47:51There will be charity.
47:52There will be help for people who've made bad choices this way.
47:55There will be somebody, some mom who didn't take out health insurance and so on, and her
48:02kid is sick.
48:02There will be charity because the children should not pay for the bad decisions of their
48:06elders.
48:07But as a whole, you can't force other people to pay for your bad choices.
48:13Half of the health care costs you spend over the course of your entire life are in the
48:17last few months of your existence.
48:19Is that worth it?
48:21Is that worth it?
48:22I don't know.
48:24Nobody can make that decision for other people.
48:26But what is true is that in a free society, you cannot take a gun and force other people
48:31to pay for health care.
48:33Now, of course, I think a free society will be wealthy enough that health care can be
48:38relatively easily paid for.
48:40Right?
48:41I remember Dr. Robert Long's great articles about the friendly societies in health care
48:46that you could get an entire year's worth of health care for two or three days' wages back
48:52in the day, right?
48:53Before the government came in to help.
48:55So, I don't have the answer as to when is the cost-benefit of spending tens or hundreds
49:05of thousands of dollars on extending somebody's life at the end of it, especially when their
49:11mind is gone and they're sort of a shell of who they used to be.
49:15It's a body with a mostly broken brain.
49:19I don't know the answer to that.
49:20I do know because that's individual, right?
49:23I do know for sure, though, that you, and I'm not saying you would ever want this, right?
49:30But in a free society, nobody should ever be forced to pay for other people.
49:35So, for instance, it's so corrupt and immoral that some people can't afford medicine for
49:41their children because, why?
49:45Because they're being taxed to pay for end-of-life health care where there's no particular future.
49:51And, I mean, I do remember when a friend of mine's mother had a terrible aneurysm or stroke
49:57or something, and she was in hospital, and they said, look, her brain has got almost no activity,
50:03and he had to make the decision to turn off the machinery that was keeping her body alive.
50:09And that's really tough.
50:11Of course, that's really tough.
50:13And this is why men and women need each other, right?
50:17Men need women to help generate more sympathy, and women need men to help generate more practicality.
50:24And, you know, he did make the tough decision to turn off their machinery.
50:28And, in my view, again, it's personal, and if you're using your own money, right, it's up to you.
50:37But, in my view, he made the right decision because his mother was gone, the body was still going,
50:42and if he kept her alive, I mean, who knows?
50:45And, of course, because her mind was largely gone, there was no way to know if there was any
50:49particular suffering that the remnants of her might be experiencing because she couldn't
50:52communicate anything and so on.
50:54So, in my view, he made the tough but practical decision to turn off the machines,
50:59and thus her body went the way of her mind.
51:04So, there's no answer that I would give to people.
51:08So, I think that if someone is suffering, and there's no hope for improvement, and the pain
51:15can't really be managed, and they're near the end of their life anyway, you could make
51:20a case, right, that it's not worth going on.
51:23But, again, those are tough decisions.
51:25And, of course, we really haven't had to make tough decisions like that for two-plus generations
51:30because of debt, right?
51:32Just money, money, money, printing money, borrowing money, and so on.
51:35So, morality is based upon scarcity, and fear currency erodes and destroys scarcity, and
51:43therefore erodes and destroys morality.
51:46All right.
51:47So, I'll stop here.
51:48I really do appreciate everyone's time, thoughts, care, and attention.
51:51Freedomain.com slash donate to help out philosophy.
51:54I really, really, really appreciate that, and it is very important for me and for the show.
52:00Freedomain.com slash donate.
52:02Lots of love, my friends.
52:04Take care.
52:04Talk to you soon.
52:05Bye.