Marriage is Just Prostitution? Twitter/X Space

Stefan Molyneux

This discussion explores the profound significance of human consciousness and the role it plays in imbuing life with meaning in an indifferent universe. The speaker emphasizes the unique responsibility of humanity to create meaning and value through creativity and procreation. Drawing parallels between biological creation and artistic expression, the discussion challenges listeners to recognize the moral obligation they hold towards perpetuating life and honoring the sacrifices of their ancestors. Addressing societal fears around parenthood, the speaker argues that the fulfillment of raising children transcends personal convenience and encourages collective stewardship for future generations. The lecture culminates in a call to action, inspiring individuals to embrace their role in nurturing life and contributing to the continuity of humanity.  FOLLOW ME ON X! https://x.com/StefanMolyneux  GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK! https://peacefulparenting.com/  Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!  Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!  You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!  See you soon! https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2025

Transcript

00:00:00I'm going to start today with an exhortation for life, life, life, life, that greatest gift in the

00:00:10known universe. Of all of the universe that we know of, the hundred billion galaxies, each with

00:00:14a hundred billion stars, we are the only conscious, conceptual, thinking, reasoning, moralizing

00:00:23species in existence. And that is the greatest achievement of the universe. The human mind

00:00:33is the greatest achievement that the universe is capable of. And the human mind is the only thing

00:00:41that gives the universe any meaning at all. There is no meaning in the intergalactic voids of empty

00:00:48space. There is no meaning in the 98% prevalence of hydrogen. There is no meaning, as the famous

00:00:55biologist once said, I don't know if there is a god, but if there is, he seems to be inordinately

00:00:59fond of beetles, because of how many there are. There is no meaning in the universe, save that

00:01:06which is contained in the few pounds of wetware jammed between your eardrums. And without meaning,

00:01:13purpose, morality, philosophy, all there is, is, as Blaise Pascal famously chilled his heart

00:01:20with, all there is, is atoms and space. Stuff and nothing. Things and void. Asteroids and a gulf.

00:01:31And in this backwater planet, on an inconsequential M-class star in the Goldilocks zone, on the

00:01:38spiral arm of an indifferent and unremarkable galaxy is the greatest eruption of life and

00:01:46thought and reason that the universe is capable of. And to be in possession of a couple of pounds

00:01:55of incandescent wetware known as the human brain is the greatest gift that exists in this, or

00:02:01conceivably, any other universe, my friends. Your brain is the greatest gift the universe is

00:02:10capable of. And you have the capacity to make more. Think of how much you consume that you can't make

00:02:21more of. Go watch a movie. Can you make a movie? Probably not. Go watch a play. Can you write like

00:02:28Shakespeare? Or Tennessee Williams? Or Samuel Beckett? Probably not. Statistically. Eh, so I

00:02:37haven't written much lately. Neither has Shakespeare. Read a poem. Can you write beautiful poems? Probably

00:02:42not. Eat a great meal. Are you a fantastic cook? Are you a cordon bleu, five-star Michelin chef? No.

00:02:51Probably not. Go to a concert. Can you get 5,000 people to pay to listen to you sing? Probably not.

00:02:58Right? Probably not. Probably not. Listen to music. Can you write music? That is beautiful. Probably

00:03:05not. Most of what you consume, you cannot create. You are a passive Pac-Man eating the glowing dots of

00:03:13other people's creativity. There's nothing wrong with that. I'm the same way. It's not a criticism,

00:03:17but it is a fact. But what is the one thing you can do to participate in the glorious creativity of the

00:03:27world? You can create something better than a movie or a song or a play or an equation or a book or a

00:03:37haiku. You can create infinite creativity. You can create independent, immortal human thought, because

00:03:46as you pass your genes and your instruction down to the next generation and they continue to do it on,

00:03:50your thoughts, your influence become immortal. You can live forever. You can create not something

00:03:58which other people consume. You can create something that itself creates. From four billion years ago,

00:04:06when the first sparks of life arose for the next billions and billions of years, you can keep the

00:04:12torch, the flame, going. For billion years of struggle, your ancestors fought and failed and

00:04:22screwed and screwed and ate and slept and dodged and hunted and were preyed upon to give you with shaking,

00:04:30trembling hands, shaking, trembling hands, they give you the flickering fire of life, of thought,

00:04:41of reason, of dreams, of creativity, of success and failure, worry and triumph, laughter, tears,

00:04:48and everything in between. From the first single-celled organism, through the fish, the amphibians,

00:04:56the reptiles, the mammals, all the way up to you, passed like a baton. Like a single flickering candle,

00:05:05in a rainy storm, you have been passed from fin to claw to tentacle to paw to hand to you. Four

00:05:16billion years, a chain of flickering life, given to you, as the recipient of a gift,

00:05:26fueled by absolutely unfathomable and incomprehensible suffering, you have been given this gift. And you,

00:05:37being the recipient of this gift, have a responsibility to keep it going.

00:05:46Four billion years, millions and millions of generations and struggle to give you life.

00:05:53The greatest gift there is, and you can make more in just a couple of minutes.

00:05:58Many years ago, I made a movie and showed the movie at the Hollywood Film Festival,

00:06:07and a famous director, I think it was Norman Jewison, a famous director gave a speech.

00:06:11And he said, so this is what it's like to make a movie. You wait for years for the right script.

00:06:14You wait for years for the right actors to become available. You spend months scouting locations.

00:06:19Finally, everything is all together. You spend years getting financing and distribution rights.

00:06:23And finally, finally, you are there, shooting the scene. You've waited for years to shoot.

00:06:30And then, the director of photography says, ooh, we're losing the light. We only have time for one

00:06:35take. Years comes down to a finger snap in a moment.

00:06:43Four billion years to give you the guttered flickering gift of life. And you can make it.

00:06:49You don't have to spend, like Norman Jewison, you don't have to spend years waiting for the funding,

00:06:54years waiting for the actress, years waiting for the script. You can go and make life.

00:07:01Well, I don't know about you, but I would say a good cozy half an hour. But for a lot of people,

00:07:07it's two minutes. Two minutes. Maybe 90 seconds, if it's been a while.

00:07:15And the process of creating art, I can tell you this personally, the process of creating art is

00:07:21really difficult, time-consuming, expensive, stressful, with flickering moments of joy.

00:07:28Creating life is a massive amount of cascading fun. A tsunami of orgasmic bliss, let us say.

00:07:36You can make life. And you must. This is not even morally optional. If you can.

00:07:45Some people can't. This is not dedicated to those. You know, 10% of married couples struggle with

00:07:50infertility. So none of this is dedicated to those. I sympathize. I empathize. So this is for those who

00:07:56can, but won't. And don't waste everybody's time by quoting the exceptions. I mean, I think

00:08:03you should lift weights. Well, what about people without arms?

00:08:06Ah. Sand in the Vaseline. Some people, that's all they are is sand in the Vaseline.

00:08:14So if you were to inherit 50 million dollars that your ancestors did not win in the lottery,

00:08:23but fought and scraped and sacrificed and worked hard for and bled to the bone for and died for,

00:08:28and fought for, for you to inherit blood-spattered bone marrow droon 50 million dollars, that it took

00:08:3710 generations of incredibly hard and brutal labor and sacrifice and war for your family to accumulate

00:08:4350 million dollars 50 million dollars. What is your responsibility if you inherit 50 million dollars?

00:08:52Well, your responsibility is to not blow it. Don't waste it. Don't blow it.

00:08:59Don't feed it to useless online purchases of crap that accumulates to be thrown out when you're dead.

00:09:07Your purpose is, okay, maybe, just maybe. You don't have to increase it. Maybe. That's a bare

00:09:13minimum. At least, you know, keep pace with inflation or something like that. Maybe, just maybe, you can

00:09:19get away with not increasing it. But at least, if you inherit 50 million dollars of incredibly hard,

00:09:27brutal labor and capital accumulation, maybe you could at least hand the equivalent of 50 million

00:09:36dollars forward. Because if you inherit your entire family's hard and bloody won labor and value and

00:09:43capital and wealth, and you blow it, you are nothing more than a complete selfish asshole. You're kind of a

00:09:54predatory monster, feeding off the sacrifices of your ancestors and your family. For what?

00:10:02For mindless, hedonistic, stupid consumption in the here and now. For accumulating a bunch of crap

00:10:08that surrounds you instead of loved ones when you get old and die. And you die looking at a bunch of

00:10:15unopened Amazon boxes that will be buried with you in an endless grave of bottomless regret,

00:10:22waste, futility, and stupidity. It's not morally optional to have children.

00:10:30All these people, oh my gosh. I try to be patient. I usually fail, but I try. I try. All these people

00:10:38who will, I love my life. Children would interfere with it. I'm having a great time here. Children

00:10:45would get in the way.

00:10:49Yes, that's right. Enjoy and flourish because of the sacrifices of your parents. And don't pay it

00:10:55forward at all. Accumulate it all for your own hedonistic joy. A fundamental question is if you enjoy

00:11:02life, but you don't want to have children, because it would interfere with that enjoyment.

00:11:08If you could go back in time, would you tell your parents the same thing? Oh,

00:11:12mom and dad. Or, should I say, pre-mom and dad. Married, married guys. Husband and wife.

00:11:19You know, having me will interfere with the shallow, selfish, stupid joys of your existence.

00:11:26So, don't make the beast with two backs unprotected. Don't do a spray and pray. Wear protection.

00:11:34Because, oh mother and father, in order to preserve the joys of your existence,

00:11:40in order to preserve the joys of your existence, oh mother and father, oh mater and pater,

00:11:46you should not have me. I should not exist. If your selfishness went back even one generation,

00:11:52you wouldn't be here to have fun. It's not about you and your little nerve endings and your little

00:11:59dopamine and your little neurotransmitter tickles of transitory pleasure. It's not what it's about.

00:12:07If even one of your ancestors going back four billion years had been hedonistic, you wouldn't be here.

00:12:15If you relish life, if you enjoy life, even if you just appreciate life, even if that's all you do is

00:12:23like, yeah, on the whole, it's a plus. I wouldn't give it an A, but I wouldn't give it an F. It's

00:12:29good enough. It's fine. It's fine. Then it's a plus for you. And if it's a plus for you and you

00:12:38appreciate the sacrifices of your ancestors in order to have you, then pay it the fuck forward.

00:12:43Don't be selfish. Don't consume. And ask yourself this. If my ancestors, wallowing in mud, having to

00:12:55have sex with people disfigured with smallpox, riddled with lice, who hadn't bathed for a year

00:13:03and had never really been exposed to, say, soap or dental care or toothbrushes,

00:13:10where plagues regularly took out significant portions of the population, and warmongers,

00:13:18Cossacks, Vikings, and Genghis Khan's men would regularly blow across the countryside in fields

00:13:24of fire and rape, where they were oppressed by the Lord and would be tortured and murdered for

00:13:30killing one rabbit on the Lord's lands and were bought and sold on the land as serfs or perhaps

00:13:36slaves like the basest livestock we could conceive of. Go back in time with me, my friends. Let us go on

00:13:43a journey back to, it doesn't even have to be that far ago, far away. Let's go back five, six hundred

00:13:49years to the quattrocento. Later middle ages, high middle ages. Go back in time and say, yeah, okay,

00:13:59I get it, I get it. You had to bury half your children. You regularly died of tooth decay.

00:14:07You have no anesthetic for operations and going to a doctor is more likely to kill you than save you.

00:14:13And you struggle to raise your children, and you struggle to live, and you've got long winters,

00:14:18and you are half starved half the time. And you go through all of this struggle and all of this

00:14:24sacrifice. Oh, ancestors of mine, for what? To what end? For what purpose? So that I can stay home,

00:14:33not procreate, touch myself, play video games, and die alone. Though my life is infinitely more

00:14:43comfortable than yours, and though you lived on the modern equivalent of $500 a year, already adjusted

00:14:48for inflation, I know how to do that. You lived on a dollar and change a day, and I live on $100 a day

00:14:56or $500 a day and have access to the kind of conveniences that you couldn't even dream of.

00:15:01Despite the fact that I have infinitely more wealth, and infinitely more comfort, and infinitely

00:15:05more travel, and infinitely more opportunities. Despite the fact that you had to marry the local

00:15:10plump leftover girl in your village or farming community, and I can span the entire world looking

00:15:16for a mate. Despite all of that. Despite the fact that I'm almost certain to not die in childbirth.

00:15:23Despite the fact that I'm almost certain to be able to raise my children to adulthood safely.

00:15:27Despite the fact that I can turn a handle in my house and get fresh clean water. I have air

00:15:37conditioning. A fridge. A stove. A grocery store. A freezer.

00:15:43Ah. Despite the fact that I can coast along on a horseless carriage and go pretty much anywhere I want

00:15:49to do for pennies on the mile. Despite the near-infinite comforts that I receive and enjoy relative to your

00:15:57endless suffering. When you brought forth children and buried half of them, I won't bring forth even.

00:16:03Even one. Even one. You. Coughed and wretched and vomited and bled to pass down the generations to me,

00:16:14life itself, the greatest gift in the universe. The only atoms in the universe that even know

00:16:22what a gift is or what I'm saying, what I'm reasoning, what I'm arguing.

00:16:25You gave me the greatest gift of life so I could do nothing with it. And I could kill off a four

00:16:35billion year line of suffering. Because I suppose at times children can be a little inconvenient.

00:16:46You had ten children in a time of plague. I can't have one in a time of near-infinite comfort. Your

00:16:55hardness and your resolution and your strength and your dedication was apparently forged in fire,

00:17:03blood, and suffering so that I could be soft, somewhat loathsome, lazy, inconsequential,

00:17:12and a de facto absent murderer of the longest lineage of life.

00:17:19No, it's, uh, it's difficult. It's, you know, children are too expensive.

00:17:24It's inconvenient. You know, I, I need a big house. Every child has to have his own room.

00:17:30I mean, come on. Your ancestors had children in wartime. Well, we're not as rich as the boomers,

00:17:39you know. Housing prices are up. Groceries are totally expensive. Really.

00:17:46So, okay, yeah, the boomers were the richest generation in human history. Sure, okay, I get

00:17:50that. Largely through pillaging the unborn through national debt. But let's just take the surface level.

00:17:55Yes, the boomers are the wealthiest. You could say Gen X is the second wealthiest. Maybe you're Gen Z.

00:18:01So maybe, maybe, maybe, out of four billion years of life, you happen to have pulled the extremely long,

00:18:11short straw of being, I don't know, maybe the second or fourth or third wealthiest generation

00:18:18in four billion years. What do you mean I won the lottery, but I only came in third?

00:18:24That sucks. I'm broke. Stop it. Snap out of it. Go back to your ancestors wallowing in the mud

00:18:36under the lash of the lords, and say to them, Well, you see, I don't have enough money to have

00:18:42children. Oh, my God. This is how I doubt that there is a before life. Because if your ancestors

00:18:51were still around and could do anything in some ghostly spiritual form, they would hunt down and

00:18:58haunt your lazy ass, for daring to loftily explain to the world that you can't afford to have children

00:19:04when they lived on spider venom and tree bark during the time of plague.

00:19:09Well, it's true that sometimes you had to eat goose feathers to try and at least pretend that you were

00:19:17having a meal. Sometimes you did have to have bark soup, sure. And sometimes you had to

00:19:23experiment with those strange bushes way up yonder, with those really multicolored berries,

00:19:28because you had just needed something. You had this late stage into the wild, concave belly.

00:19:36But I'd rather have the latest iPhone than bring life into existence.

00:19:41Have some gratitude, people, people, people. Have some gratitude. Have some humility. Have some

00:19:49sense of something larger than yourself, your hedonism, your petty posse mortal life,

00:19:57your little nerve endings that tickle you into doing certain things and avoiding other things.

00:20:03Stop being a little machine, pursuing pleasure, avoiding discomfort like any amoeba.

00:20:09Don't be a bug man. Don't be a bug woman. Be something larger than yourself, because you only exist

00:20:17because of something larger than yourself called four billion years of life and struggle.

00:20:22You are a tiny speck of dirt on the end of a fingernail of an infinite giant called life.

00:20:32And life only struggled to produce you so that you could produce more life.

00:20:37Don't be the recipient of four billion years of stress and strife and struggle for the sake of

00:20:46achieving sterile floating dots on a pixelated screen.

00:20:52I got a new helmet in Warcraft.

00:20:56How about you go and make life and bond and raise children and teach them virtue and watch their

00:21:03incredible creativity and tell them stories and laugh and tickle and chase and live and grow and stop

00:21:11making these sad ass excuses.

00:21:14But, but, but, but, but I don't care. Life doesn't care. You understand that you are handed

00:21:26all of these excuses to not have children by the enemies of reason.

00:21:32Because the fact that you would even process these excuses means that you're smarter than your average bear,

00:21:37although dumber, because at least the bear has sacks and reproduces.

00:21:40You're just psyopped. You're just the recipient of propaganda.

00:21:43Oh, got to worry about overpopulation.

00:21:46Yeah, right. Because the world is totally overpopulated with caring and intelligent people.

00:21:52I don't have enough money.

00:21:55Children are expensive.

00:21:56So, what you're saying is that your parents should have chosen money over you.

00:22:02That you should not exist, but some made-up digital fiat

00:22:05bullshit should have been typed into your parents' bank account instead.

00:22:09Every excuse you give to not have children is an argument that you should not exist.

00:22:16You understand? It is a form of retroactive suicide.

00:22:21Everything you say as to why you shouldn't have children is exactly applicable to your parents

00:22:26and why they shouldn't have had children.

00:22:31And just, if you're going to be that selfish, just be honest, but just don't lie about it.

00:22:36Just be honest about it. That's all I'm asking.

00:22:38That's all I'm begging you for.

00:22:39Just say, look, I'm a selfish prick who's hoarding all of the value of four billion years of struggle

00:22:46so that I can have life, but I'm too lazy and selfish to pay it forward.

00:22:49I just want to smoke weed, rub one out, and play a video game.

00:22:54That's what my ancestors struggled for so that I could waste away the greatest gift in the universe

00:23:00on petty, retarded hedonism.

00:23:02Just be honest. Don't say that there's reasons. Don't say you're being rational.

00:23:07Don't insult your ancestors by saying, it's impractical.

00:23:11Bullshit.

00:23:12This is the most practical time in human history to have children.

00:23:15Imagine you spend a day in your ancestors' life. They spend a day in yours.

00:23:19What would they give to have your life for one day?

00:23:22Your day is heaven to them. Their day is hell to you.

00:23:26But you say it's too difficult to procreate to continue the line.

00:23:32I can't find the right person.

00:23:35Simple solution, my friends. Lower your ridiculous, vainglorious standards.

00:23:41High standards. High standards are just an excuse for inaction.

00:23:44Well, I'll get a job when somebody pays me a million dollars a minute to play a video game.

00:23:49Then I'll get the job. I have standards, you know.

00:23:51I don't want to settle for any job that's less than that, okay?

00:23:54Then just, you're unemployed.

00:23:56Saying you'll never settle is implying that you're so absolutely perfect

00:24:00that no one would have to settle for your lazy ass, your deluded standards.

00:24:04And I say this with sympathy. Lord knows I've made these mistakes myself at times in life,

00:24:08so I say this with hard-owned wisdom, humility, and great sympathy.

00:24:12But I'm still going to say it straight.

00:24:16Because this is the kind of stuff you should have been told by your elders.

00:24:20Now that I'm pushing 60, I consider myself in the vicinity of elderhood.

00:24:26Ah, when I look down, all I see are elderberries.

00:24:31Go forth and multiply. Or we all stay divided.

00:24:36Thank you for your patience. Thank you for letting me have my rant on.

00:24:40I'm happy to take your questions and your comments.

00:24:45Let's see, does anybody want to talk? Yes. Let's go with Mad Mark.

00:24:51I expect only barking at this point. Just unmute. What's on your mind, my friend?

00:24:55Oh, you're coming to me first. How's it going, man?

00:24:59It's going well. You don't need to give me small talk. We're live on the air, so hit me up.

00:25:03Fair enough. I would just like to sing your praises about peaceful parenting as a father of two children.

00:25:09I listened to you many years ago and changed the cycle of abuse that was wrought upon me by my own parents.

00:25:16So first of all, thank you for that. When it comes to having children and procreating,

00:25:21that's something that I've been talking about for a really long time is that we are

00:25:25an unbroken chain going back to single-celled organisms four billion years ago.

00:25:31And how dare you waste that upon not having children and squander that gift that was given to you?

00:25:37I mean, you're much more eloquent about saying it than I, but let me also agree with you there.

00:25:43I actually don't really have anything that I'm disagreeing with you here, man.

00:25:46I was looking for something, honestly, that I could point out.

00:25:49There was something that you said that's unrelated earlier on Twitter that I took odds with,

00:25:55if I could explore that for a second.

00:25:57Of course.

00:25:57You were talking about how getting fat in a relationship is worse than cheating,

00:26:03because at least you could hide cheating.

00:26:05No, I said in some ways, I'm not saying it's absolutely worse, but in some ways it's worse.

00:26:11And as somebody, somebody made a comment, which is to say that if, if you're out there with your

00:26:16wife and one of you is cheating, nobody knows. But if your wife gets fat, particularly in the

00:26:20business world, you're judged by your partner. I don't know if you've worked.

00:26:23I hate to sort of like, you know, challenge any status nonsense. But when you work at sort of

00:26:27the highest level of the business, at the board level, at the CXO level,

00:26:30you're going to be judged by your wife. And it is a career limiting move. In fact,

00:26:34it kind of cripples your career to have a fat wife for most men. So it's a very big deal.

00:26:40Just you can't hide it. Sorry, go ahead.

00:26:42No. And I would just point out that there's, there's many debilitating and crippling things

00:26:47that happen within a relationship when the partner cheats that, that are, wait, I'm like,

00:26:51if you're unattracted to someone, yeah, that's bad for the relationship when you lose trust.

00:26:56And, and, and there's like that kind of damage and trauma that happens from a thing like that.

00:27:00I find that to be way worse.

00:27:01But well, but they're, they're not unrelated, of course, right? Because let's just sort of take

00:27:05the typical example, though. It certainly happens the other way that the woman puts on a hundred

00:27:09pounds after marriage. I actually, I knew a guy many years ago. He, he, he married his wife.

00:27:14She was like a buck 15. And when they finally divorced, she was 300 pounds. So she almost tripled,

00:27:19but let's just say put on, I don't know, 50, 70, 500 pounds. So of course that kills fertility.

00:27:25It doesn't kill it dead, but it interferes with fertility. It's harder to clean yourself

00:27:30when you're obese. It can give rise to strange odors. And in fact, even molds or, or fungi. And

00:27:37also, of course, if you love someone, you don't want to see them suffer and obese people suffer

00:27:41both psychologically and physically bad backs and bad knees and joint pain. And of course,

00:27:46if they get diabetes, that can be life-threatening. And so, and of course, when you have a monopoly

00:27:53on your partner's sexual attention, right, in the monogamous relationship, particularly marriage,

00:27:57they can't go anywhere else for sex. And so if you become obese, and of course, for men, that would

00:28:03include things like erectile dysfunction. If you become obese, you have less energy, you're in more

00:28:09pain. So you're less in the mood for sex, you're less attractive, you're depressed, you're anxious,

00:28:13you don't like your own body, you're very self-conscious, right? The women who are like,

00:28:16the lights can't be on when I'm undressing, right? You're afraid to put a pole in the bedroom

00:28:21because it's going to take down the building. And so it's not unrelated. I mean, if a man

00:28:28is sexually satisfied at home, what are the odds he's going to go out and cheat?

00:28:34I mean, virtually zero. As Paul Newman used to say with regards to his wife, Joanne Woodward,

00:28:39he's a famous, gorgeous, ice-blue-eyed actor from the 60s, and said, well, you've never cheated.

00:28:45He said, well, why would I go out for hamburger when I've got steak at home?

00:28:49So obesity and cheating are not unrelated, if that makes sense.

00:28:53Yeah, no, it does. And then also with obesity comes early death, because a lot of people who

00:28:58put on a bunch of weight don't live as long as you should. So then you're going to go through all

00:29:01the trauma and the stuff anyway.

00:29:02Well, and there's a whole bunch of fun stuff. I mean, this week, my wife and I have gone on two

00:29:08hikes. We played an hour and a half of pickleball in a league. I mean, it's not hugely cardio-based,

00:29:16but we had a rousing game of ping-pong last night. So, I mean, you just can't do any active stuff.

00:29:22And it's more expensive because you've got to buy more and richer food. And it's just wretched all

00:29:29around. And if you care about someone, you try and do what's best for them. And

00:29:34there's this woman posted on X, well, I love my husband and he's fat. I'm like, well, I'm not

00:29:37saying you don't love your husband, but if you really, really, truly cared about him in a practical

00:29:41way, you'd urge him to lose weight because obesity can take, you know, a lot of years off the lifespan.

00:29:47And, you know, if I got fat and my wife got fat, we'd say, no, no, no, I want to, I want to do old

00:29:51age with you. A lot of investment in marriages is preparing for the really old age, uh, stuff.

00:30:00So yeah, uh, it's, it is really important. Yeah, man. Well, Ben, I just want to sing your

00:30:05praises again. I, I peaceful parents, my children, they're now 19 and 17 years old. We're, we're

00:30:12almost adults over here, man. So I appreciate what you do, man. And then I guess that's all

00:30:16I got to say. That is, that is the most Canadian accent I've heard in a boot, uh, a boot a while.

00:30:22So I appreciate that. I'm actually south of there, but I guess I have a bunch of Canadian

00:30:26friends that I hang out with. They kind of rub up on me. Excellent. Well, you know, that old joke,

00:30:30like what's the difference between American beer and sex in a canoe? They're both effing close to

00:30:37water anyway. So thanks Mark. I appreciate it. And I really appreciate that endorsement. It's

00:30:43peacefulparenting.com. You got to go listen to this book. You can just listen to it. There's

00:30:47even an abbreviated version. There's a short form version. If you're strapped for time,

00:30:51you can read it, you can listen to it and it's free. And now that the book is out and it's free,

00:30:56you will be responsible if you don't listen to it, not you in particular, but people as a whole. So

00:31:01thank you very much for your kind comments. Yeah. Peacefulparenting.com and let us, yes,

00:31:07yes. I want to remove. Ta-dad. That's great. Ta-dad. What's on your mind, my friend?

00:31:14Hey, greetings from Alberta. First, I want to say I am so grateful for your work on peaceful

00:31:20parenting because I was not raised that way. And my son who's about to turn 17 was raised as close

00:31:28as I could get to what you wrote down as your ideal. So that's my thanks. And then my question

00:31:34is this, with what's happening in Canada and whether Alberta separates or not, have you thought

00:31:42of the potential of what could be done if Alberta designed, even if it doesn't get implemented,

00:31:48a constitution that promoted actual freedom? Some of the things you've been discussing for decades.

00:31:57Yeah. Alberta is the most Canadian province because it's got an A at the beginning and an A

00:32:01at the end. So if I, I mean, if Alberta is serious about free speech, private property,

00:32:09liberty, borders, some kind of constitution, I would tunnel my way there before the ink was dry

00:32:17on the proposal. If it even seemed somewhat likely, I would spawn in, in a giant shimmer of libertarian

00:32:24crystals. So yeah, I'm keeping my eye on it. I know that there's a lot of petitions. There's a lot

00:32:29of interest. And Alberta is like the last vestige of common sense left in Canada. Unfortunately,

00:32:36the Eastern provinces used to be that way. I spent an entire summer in Newfoundland with a marine

00:32:41biologist friend of my father's when I was in my teens, loved the people, but they have been bought

00:32:46and welfare bludgeoned into a slack-jawed submission to the feds. So I am really thrilled at what's going

00:32:52on in Alberta and keeping more than a close beady eye on it. Well, before I let you go, I just want

00:32:59to say that my TAD or my son's initials, DAD is me as dad. But just so you know where this is coming

00:33:08from, my regulatory board, if I put my name out there, then I, they look at everything. But if you

00:33:16look at who Danielle Smith beat in 2009, to be the leader of the Wild Rose Alliance, you'll know my

00:33:23name. And so if you're ever coming out here, reach out to me because I am happy to give you the

00:33:32background. And you're right, if it doesn't happen in Alberta, it's not going to happen in Canada.

00:33:38Thank you for everything you do. I'm glad you're back on X. I'm glad they let you back on YouTube.

00:33:42And it was a crime against humanity when they deleted your, like, thousands of hours of

00:33:50philosophy. And I appreciated whatever aspects of it that I was able to hear before they deleted it.

00:33:55So thank you so much, sir. Well, I appreciate that. I just want to clarify one thing. I'm not

00:34:00allowed back on YouTube. I think some people are uploading my videos there, but my channel has not

00:34:05been restored. And I assume as a result, I'm not personally allowed back, even though I think close

00:34:11to 400,000 people looked at my request for YouTube to review the banning and so on. Because, yeah,

00:34:19I mean, I'm in good standing in just a wide variety of other platforms. And it, of course,

00:34:23is my absolute certainty that I did not violate their terms of service, because nothing was ever

00:34:28explained to me, of course, right? So I doubt that they're still reviewing it. And I don't have much

00:34:32hopes, but technically, I'm not back on YouTube. But just neither here nor there. I just wanted to

00:34:36sort of clarify that. All right. Well, thank you. I appreciate that. Should I take my courage

00:34:41bloodbath and something? All right, let's do it. Okay. Bloodbath and beyond. Oh, I get it. I wasn't

00:34:48sure if you were like some crypto fascist space traveler or something like that. But yes, that's

00:34:55pretty funny, actually. Bloodbath and beyond. If you want to unmute, I'm happy to hear what you have to

00:34:59say. Oh, sure. Thank you for having me on, Stefan. So I kind of disagree. I've actually been a fan

00:35:06of yours for like eight years. There's plenty of areas where I do agree with you. And there's

00:35:10some areas where I disagree. So one of the things I disagree with you would be on hedonism.

00:35:16I'd say that delayed gratification, you're simply delaying like more petty amounts of hedonism,

00:35:23like just small distractions for larger amounts of hedonism long term. And you're choosing that larger

00:35:30dopamine spike over more small petty ones, usually. So when I, yeah, sorry, but when I critique hedonism,

00:35:38I'm not saying don't ever have pleasure. I'm not a masochist, right? So when I say hedonism,

00:35:45I'm talking about sacrificing long term happiness and integrity for the sake of short term bursts of

00:35:52pleasure, like a drug addict, right? I mean, he knows. Drug addicts, like they actually gain like

00:35:57really big spikes in dopamine. So if we were to use this, for example, like you would gain a much

00:36:04larger testosterone and dopamine spike through fornication than you would through just looking

00:36:10at porn. Now, I'm sure it does cost a lot more money, like 200, 400. Wait, sorry. Are you talking

00:36:18about, sorry, are you talking about you gain more pleasure from sex with prostitutes than from

00:36:24masturbation to pornography? Is that your argument?

00:36:27It's not even just that, but like, let's suppose you wanted to pay someone to be your wife.

00:36:31No, no, no. Hang on. You just, you said two to four. Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on,

00:36:35hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. You said two to $400 an hour. Now, I don't know how

00:36:41expensive your wife is, but that's a lot. I assume by two to $400 an hour, you were talking about

00:36:46prostitutes. Well, this is how I look at it. Marriage and relationships, those are long term

00:36:52prostitution contracts. Generally, when you buy in bulk, like, things tend to scale down per hour.

00:37:00So, you think that marriage is about paying for sex?

00:37:03Marriage, it's in itself a long term prostitution contract, and the illusion that...

00:37:08No, it's not. What's the... Hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on, hang on. What is the

00:37:14difference between paying a woman for sex and funding a family? What is the primary difference

00:37:23there? Nope, nope, nope, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's a difference of degree. What is the difference

00:37:30of kind?

00:37:30What do you mean?

00:37:33Well, it's not just more or less of something. It's a foundational difference. What is the

00:37:36big difference between sex with a prostitute, paying for sex with a prostitute, and a man

00:37:42funding a family?

00:37:44Yes, nearly there's children involved.

00:37:46There we go. Okay, got it. Got it. Okay, so you are, as a father, as a husband... No, I know

00:37:54you're not a dad.

00:37:54All husbands have children, though.

00:37:56Okay, let's not do edge cases. The institution of marriage exists for the protection and provision

00:38:02of children. That's all... That's what it's for. Now, I mean, the road exists so cars can

00:38:07drive on it. That doesn't mean that bicyclists can't drive on it either. It's just not for

00:38:11bikes. So, marriage exists for the provision of resources for the raising of children. A

00:38:16man is not paying for his wife to have sex with him. A man is funding the continuation

00:38:21of his bloodline through children, and children are... require resources, and the first resource

00:38:28that children require is somebody to take care of them, especially when they're very

00:38:31young. You know, getting up at night, breastfeeding, and so on, right? So, the man is not funding

00:38:35his wife to have sex with him. He is funding the continuation of his line through the provision

00:38:41of resources to his children. So, it's not even close to what's going on with the prostitute.

00:38:46It's not even in the same category.

00:38:48Oh, did we lose him? You're muted, bro.

00:38:50No, it's like, that's a difference in perspective I really haven't heard, so...

00:38:55Okay, it's not a difference in perspective. I'm not just looking at it from a slightly

00:38:58different angle, right? Why does a man provide resources to his wife and children? Okay, but

00:39:06it's not a perspective. It's an argument. It's valid or it's invalid. If it's invalid,

00:39:09right, we can do some thinking on the fly, and we don't have to rehearse everything.

00:39:12Some people would say marriage is like a union of some sort. I'm like, I'd consider that

00:39:18like pretty much on par, same thing practically as a contract.

00:39:22Well, yes, there's an implicit contract in marriage, and there is, in fact, an explicit

00:39:26contract, though not necessarily legally enforceable, which are the marriage vows.

00:39:30But yeah, for sure. I mean, the woman gives up economic independence in return for resources

00:39:34which allow her to raise children. The man gives up sexual polygamy and 90% of his money

00:39:42in order to provide for his children. So, this has nothing to do with paying a woman

00:39:47for sex. That's not even close. So, marriage is not nothing to do with...

00:39:51You are, in this scenario, though, considering that you are giving up so much money and you

00:39:56create children through sex.

00:39:57Yes, but you're not paying a woman for sex. You are... No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Let me...

00:40:03Let me... Let me... Let me... Let me finish my point. You are not paying a woman for...

00:40:08You are not paying a woman for sex because most of the money goes to the children. You

00:40:15are paying for someone to have children with who you love and appear bonded with, and you

00:40:19are paying because somebody has to raise the children, and either the children are raised

00:40:24by strangers, in which case you lose control over what they're taught and the values that

00:40:30they receive, and you don't just have biological children, you have a reproduction of values,

00:40:37of virtues. So, you choose a woman who matches your virtues and values, and you pay for her

00:40:43to stay home and raise your children, so you get the benefit of biological reproduction and

00:40:48mimetic or value reproduction. So, you are paying for the continuation of your values and

00:40:54of your genetics. You can't... A prostitute has nothing to do with that whatsoever.

00:40:59I mean, like, you can just buy their own morals in that way, because it's like they're a

00:41:04prostitute, so... I have no idea what that means. What do you mean by buy their own morals?

00:41:09This... This... Hang on. It... But it... Come on. Let's be honest emotionally, man. My argument

00:41:13bothers you, right? It upsets you. It bothers you. Be honest. It annoys you. Why? Why?

00:41:24It... It doesn't really bother me, I would say. It's like... I just have, like, some cognitive

00:41:30dissonance with, like, where I'm just like... No, but it's... It's cognitive... And listen, it's not a

00:41:33critique. There's tons of arguments that bother me, too, so this is not a criticism or anything like

00:41:36that. But cognitive dissonance arises because the argument troubles you emotionally.

00:41:42It troubles me emotionally. I'm just like... I mean, like...

00:41:45Bro. Bro. You're not... Listen. With all due respect, man, you're... I mean, either you're not

00:41:50being honest with yourself, or you're not being honest with me. And I'll tell you why. How... Hang

00:41:55on. Hang on. And when I say I tell you why, this means I'm going to talk, right? But let me ask

00:41:59you a question first. You don't have to give me your exact age, but it sounds like you're in your

00:42:03twenties? Yes. Okay. Early, mid, or late? Twenty. Twenty-eight. Okay. What is the most

00:42:09successful romantic relationship that you've had, and how long did it last? Like, what even

00:42:14counts as a relationship? Monogamous... Monogamous sexual contact that is sustained. Like a week.

00:42:22Okay. So, you have... Honestly, I felt violated by the woman. She didn't wash out her pussy. She

00:42:28enjoyed it more than me, and then I broke up with her later on. I was like, damn, shouldn't

00:42:32I've lowered my standards. Okay. I'm obviously sorry to hear that. And I hope you get tested.

00:42:37But here's the thing. The reason why... The reason why my argument bothers you is this. What

00:42:47kind of quality woman do you think you can get to commit to you if you go around spouting

00:42:52off that marriage is just a form of prostitution? Your perspective is costing you... Sorry?

00:42:59One that's honest, real, and price-based in terms of decision-making. Yeah. But that's

00:43:04not what you... Yeah. But that's not what you got. That's not what you got. What you got

00:43:09was a skank with a dirty whatever. Honestly, she wasn't even a hoe. Like... Okay. So, it's

00:43:15your theory... Your theory that you get some honest woman with virtue and integrity, and that's

00:43:22not... Not working. It's not working because your most successful relationship is somewhere where

00:43:28you needed some kind of alien life-form decontamination chamber after you had bad sex. So, it's not

00:43:36working. I would say, like, I just lowered my standards too much. Well, I would also argue

00:43:42that she lowered her standards because I'm telling you, bro. I mean, you can take it from me.

00:43:46Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on. Hang on, young guy.

00:43:51Listen. Listen. An elder is trying to teach you something to bring you happiness. Can you stop

00:43:59talking for 30 seconds? Just try listening to someone who might be a tiny bit wiser because

00:44:08he's been married for almost a quarter century, very happily, raised a kid, had success in the

00:44:15world. So, maybe this is a time where you can listen. Can you do that? A quality woman,

00:44:23a woman of genuine virtue, honesty, and integrity, will avoid you like the plague if you say the

00:44:30best thing a woman can be is a whore. The most honest... No, my God! Can you shut up? For 10 seconds.

00:44:39Just give me 10 seconds. Because you just said you could, and then you started again.

00:44:45If you want a virtuous, quality woman in your life, you're going to have to reformulate

00:44:50your predatory view of women and recognize that, yes, there are some predatory women out there.

00:44:56There are predatory men. But there are good women out there, women of honor and integrity and virtue

00:45:04and courage, dedication, loyalty, love, affection, great parenting skills, great household running

00:45:10skills, great partnership skills that will make you a better man. I say this from personal experience.

00:45:18Having been raised by a crazed and violent single mother, I've been very happily married to a wonderful

00:45:23woman for a quarter century. If I had told her when we first started seeing each other that all women

00:45:31were prostitutes and marriage was just institutionalized whoredom, would she have

00:45:36continued to date me? Now you can talk. It depends how rich you were. Okay. All right. I tried. I tried.

00:45:44You just want to hang on to this. I'm very sorry for that. And thank you for your conversation.

00:45:49All right. Oh, Lord. We have a word salad of... Oh, Lord. Wooshiek? Wooshiek? Need... needs weeds.

00:46:00Words. Words on your mind, my friend. You're going to need to unmute if you have muted. And I'm all ears.

00:46:06Going once, going twice. Yes, sir.

00:46:08Hello. Okay. Uh... Cheers, Ron. Beautiful Poland. I'm actually the guy who was on one of your

00:46:17calling shows. Oh, this must have been like four, five years ago. I was singing some Elvis. I don't know if...

00:46:23But... Okay. So that was one thing I wanted to say. Second is...

00:46:28That American beer is effing close to water. Fun fact. United States is the only country in the world

00:46:37that produces all kinds of beers. So like every beer style you can think of is being manufactured

00:46:43in the USA, including some of the beers which, for historical reasons, need to be, uh, like brewed in,

00:46:54uh... Okay. I'm a, I'm a little, uh, sorry. With all due respect, and I hope you watch my documentary

00:46:59on Poland, I'm a little confused as to why we're defending American beer because I made one casual

00:47:04joke that isn't even particularly serious. Is there a philosophical question that you had

00:47:08that you wanted to talk about? I just wanted to share a factoid, I guess. Okay. Well, I appreciate

00:47:14that. I suppose... That was an opposing logic. No, that's fine. I suppose American beer can consider

00:47:18itself ably defended by our good friend from Poland. And, uh, yeah, if you haven't seen my

00:47:23documentary on, on Poland, you can go to freedomain.com slash documentaries for that.

00:47:29And now, Katie, I think we talked yesterday or the day before. Master mind. That's a great way to put it.

00:47:35If you want to unmute, I'm all ears.

00:47:38Are people not experienced with these kinds of conversations? It feels odd. It feels like

00:47:42there's always this odd pause when, when I invite people. But, all right, we will remove him.

00:47:48Gave it a shot. And, no, Tim H. Yeah, I don't know why. If, you know, if you're, if you, if you want

00:47:54to talk, be ready to talk. And, and the reason is because I don't want to do a whole lot of editing

00:47:59post-production. Like, I don't want to have to, uh, oh, this person had a pause and I got to go in.

00:48:03Like, just, you know, it's, uh, it's not a big operation here at freedomain. So, if you could

00:48:09just do me a solid and if you want to talk and it's a free conversation about philosophy, at least

00:48:13have the good manners and good grace to be ready to talk. All right, Tim, what's on your mind?

00:48:18Uh, thanks for the mic, Stefan. Long-time fan. Uh, just a quick question. I guess more of a,

00:48:24uh, an observation on my part and whether or not you feel ties in, um, unresolved childhood trauma.

00:48:29I see, I've seen a lot of it throughout my life and I've seen some people operate in a fashion

00:48:35where they actually address it head on. They get help for it, whether it be through therapy or other

00:48:40mechanisms. And then there's those who just try to tough it out. And I've seen that there's been

00:48:46different results for both. Therapy doesn't always work for everybody, but my, uh, my observations

00:48:51have shown me that unresolved childhood trauma is a major impact on our society right now. And I'm

00:48:57just curious whether or not you share that opinion and whether or not you have any ideas about how

00:49:01we could try to, I guess, resolve that to a certain degree to try to make our society a more healthy

00:49:06place. I mean, I think, I appreciate your kind words. I think it's entirely honorable and wise for

00:49:12you to focus on this issue and people avoid resolving childhood trauma because it is inconvenient

00:49:20to those who traumatize them. And I'm, it's not cowardly. Like when we grow up, we have to please

00:49:25our parents. We evolved to please our parents. Of course, it's important to remember that we

00:49:28evolved in a time of extreme danger and scarcity. And if there were six kids and you were the least

00:49:35favorite of those children, you might not get food. You might not get protection. You might be left

00:49:39behind or, or, you know, not too close to the fire. Uh, you might not have even just parents

00:49:44being around can scare off predators. So we, we had to please our parents. And so we evolved to do

00:49:50it that way or to put it another way, the children who did not evolve to please their parents had a

00:49:54lower chance of surviving to reproductive age. So we are programmed to please our parents. And if our

00:50:01parents demand subjugation and that they exploit us, that they beat us, that they scream at us,

00:50:06that we become sort of poison containers for their own screwed up emotions, we do that. We just have

00:50:11to, we, we don't really have much of a choice as children. And then going against that as adults

00:50:16goes against our instincts. And of course, those who've harmed and exploited us don't want us to

00:50:21gain wisdom, virtue, independence, and integrity. And they certainly don't want to be judged morally

00:50:26for what they did. Because a lot of people who abuse dominate and humiliate others, and therefore

00:50:31they can't stand being humiliated. And they view moral questioning or skepticism or Socratic

00:50:37questioning as humiliating, and they want to blow up again, but they don't have the same power over

00:50:41you when you're an adult. So for me, it's just about like, virtue is more intelligent, more important

00:50:47than anything. Virtue and honesty and truth and integrity are more important than nation, family,

00:50:53neighborhood, race, sex, anything, right? I mean, that is the purpose of philosophy is to bring reason

00:51:01to people so they can be virtuous, so they can be happy. So just telling people that you have to be

00:51:07honest in relationships, so you don't have a relationship. If all you're doing is conforming

00:51:11and being gaslit, it's not a relationship. If all you're doing is biting your tongue and not saying

00:51:16what you think and feel, then you don't have a relationship. And not only do you not have that

00:51:23relationship, but because you have that habit, all honest and direct relationships are denied to you.

00:51:29If you are around, say, family members, and you bite your tongue because they're going to blow up

00:51:35or yell or scream at you or humiliate you or ostracize you, then you don't have a relationship with

00:51:41them because you're not being honest. But also, you don't have a relationship with anyone else, really,

00:51:44because those habits are so strong and ingrained that it's too stressful for you to be honest.

00:51:49And so, it is extremely costly to ghost yourself just to be around people who harm you and just to

00:51:56remind people that they don't have to be like that at all. And honesty is the most important thing

00:52:04because every lie you take doesn't extend your life. It doesn't make you closer to people. It just

00:52:09is, in general, subtracted from your life as a whole. So, I hope that helps and thank you for the

00:52:14question. We do have a bunch of folks. So, our good friend, Connor. Connor, how are you, buddy,

00:52:23brother, mes amis? Oh, don't be that guy. Don't be that guy who doesn't talk. Yes, sir. How's it going?

00:52:32Magical. Thank you, Stepan. Sorry. As soon as what happens, as soon as you activate someone as a

00:52:36speaker, the sound cuts out as it transitions from normal sound to speakerphone. So, maybe sometimes

00:52:42when you call people names, it might mute for a second. So, I do apologize.

00:52:47No, Connor. I'll speak with you again after last year. We spoke on,

00:52:51formerly on LotusEaters.com. Wait, wait, wait. Give the website again. Give the website again.

00:52:55That was a rapid marketing ploy. Go ahead. Yes, it was my former show on LotusEaters.com. I had the

00:53:02privilege of interviewing Stepan about peaceful parenting, the present, his career, etc.

00:53:07And sorry, sorry, I hate to interrupt again, but just for those of you who aren't from England,

00:53:12LotusEaters refers to LotusEaters. There are some subtleties. It's funny because British people like

00:53:17their T's except in their language. So, LotusEaters is LotusEaters, just so people don't understand.

00:53:24If they don't understand the gloss will stop, they'll be very confused. But sorry, go ahead.

00:53:27Yes, you escaped our wonderful country with all of your consonants and vowels intact.

00:53:31My question actually pertains to a previous speaker, almost the inverse, the chap who

00:53:38couldn't understand the value of marriage beyond prostitution. I hope he discovers the inverse

00:53:43because it would be a sad and lonely life otherwise. I'm actually getting married on Saturday.

00:53:48No way. Hang on. Hang on. I'm just diving. Hang on. I'm just diving into my inbox.

00:53:52Diving into my inbox. Wedding invites. Let me just have a look. Scan, scan, scan. Oh, come on,

00:53:59man. Can you imagine? I'd give a fairly decent wedding speech, wouldn't I? But of course,

00:54:04I think I'd go straight from Heathrow Airport to the Tower of London based on my tweets. But anyway,

00:54:10go on. I'll be joining you there soon enough. I was just wondering if, for newlyweds,

00:54:18what your condensed advice would be because I shall be taking it very much to heart.

00:54:23Well, obviously, massive congratulations. I'm sure that you and your bride are both very

00:54:27lucky to have each other and wonderful best wishes for embarking on the most beautiful journey

00:54:32of life, which is life with someone you love. Having a best friend and a wonderful romantic

00:54:38and sexual partner for the rest of your life is beyond delightful. And I wish it for everyone

00:54:43and so on. Regarding the previous caller, just before I get to that advice, you know, it's kind

00:54:48of funny. And I know that there are these big forks in the road. And, you know, this guy got to

00:54:52really put forth his theory of men and women and life and marriage and sex and money.

00:54:58And unfortunately, he's just going to go through probably the rest of his life without anyone

00:55:02directly trying to body block him from this nihilism. And it always surprises me when I'm

00:55:09pretty emphatic with people to try and save their soul, so to speak. And they just then repeat the same

00:55:14propaganda because change in people who are willing to confront you on your false ideals is not

00:55:20common. It is very rare. And it is kind of a now or never moment. And I really, really feel bad when

00:55:27people blow that moment. And the demons that have their hearts in their grip, they can't fight them

00:55:32off and don't even really seem to try. So that was just a very sad moment for me. I just want to sort of

00:55:36share on that. I'm sort of barreling forward in the show for the sake of these conversations. But it's

00:55:41very sad to see that fork in the road and the absolute wrong path taken. So with regards to

00:55:49marriage, so I was sort of raised, and I think this is still somewhat common, that men and women are

00:55:56kind of the same, just with different genitals. You've got an Audi and you've got an Innie, but

00:56:00men and women are kind of the same. It's not true. We are different and complementary. And so after I got

00:56:06married, my wife was talking about something and what needed to be done in the home. And you know,

00:56:13like most bachelors, I lived with a broken futon and a table made out of bricks and a plank of wood.

00:56:20So I was perfectly fine. We'd still be in caves if it was up to men. We'd be in caves with

00:56:25mysterious black, big, big screen TVs, but we'd still be in caves. And so I just looked at her,

00:56:30I'm like, wow, you were foundationally different from me. And recognizing that was really important

00:56:36for me because in marriage, if you grew up with this ideology that men and women are kind of the same,

00:56:40then you think, well, I wouldn't do it that way. So that has to be sort of incorrect. Or we have

00:56:45to find one way to do it. And you don't. She's going to have her skills, strengths, and abilities.

00:56:51You're going to have, you obviously, you know, your strengths, skills, and abilities. They don't

00:56:55really have to overlap at all. In fact, it's kind of important that they don't. So there's going to

00:56:59be stuff where she has authority and there's going to be stuff where you have authority. You know,

00:57:03if my wife says, apparently, apparently rooms just need to change color every couple of years.

00:57:09I didn't even know that. I mean, I still have the same wallpaper that came on with my computer. So

00:57:14and so if she says, this room needs to be fresh, freshened up, I don't know why I don't comprehend

00:57:23it. I do it. And it's nice. It's, it's the great mystery of day pillows and little clamshell soaps

00:57:32that are wrapped in plastic that you're not supposed to touch. And why, why we need infinity towels? I don't

00:57:37know. I don't know. And if it was my house, there wouldn't be lovely potted plants in the front of

00:57:46the house and a nice little trim with some, some bushes. And I mean, it's beautiful, lovely,

00:57:51absolutely lovely, but never crossed my mind. Honestly, I've seen it. Architectural Digest,

00:57:55high-end movies with pretty people. I don't, I don't get it. I don't, but it's really nice.

00:58:00And so she, she runs all of that stuff in the same way. If I say to her, I need a microphone

00:58:06of some kind, she's like, okay, she doesn't understand it. And she doesn't even want to

00:58:10understand it. And I'm not sure I could explain it in a way that would make the kind of sense to

00:58:14her that it does to me, but it just works. So never be afraid to divide labor in a marriage.

00:58:21There's going to be stuff that she cares about that she's great at. Godspeed, give her all of that and

00:58:25more. And at the same time, there's going to be stuff that you are good at and you care about,

00:58:32and she should give you Godspeed in those directions. And once you kind of divvy up the

00:58:36division of labor, it's fantastic. It'd be like, you can't imagine running a company where everybody

00:58:40had to have equal skills in programming and marketing and accounting and being a CEO and,

00:58:46and contract law. Like everybody's got to divide their labor for a business to be effective. And it's

00:58:51the same thing in marriage. You're going to look at her and you're going to say,

00:58:54you are a beautiful, incomprehensible space alien of joy. I do not understand ways in which your

00:58:59mind works sometimes, but the effects are always marvelous. And I'm sure that she'll have,

00:59:04as I've said before in the show, many times women are delightfully incomprehensible.

00:59:08And it's the same thing with women to men. And we've evolved that way. And so,

00:59:12you know, vive la différence, as the French say, enjoy and appreciate just the different approaches

00:59:17that you're going to take. Do not try to overlap on each other's area of areas of expertise and

00:59:22authority. And I think that that, for me at least, has virtually eliminated, I mean, I've been married

00:59:30for 23 years. We've maybe had five or seven conflicts of any significance and they're always

00:59:35resolved within an hour or two. We always end up closer afterwards. Relationships can be easy peasy,

00:59:40nice and easy. Just don't step on each other's toes and give each other freedom to pursue the

00:59:45passions that you both are best at. Does that make sense? I hope that that's not too long in rambling.

00:59:49No, not at all. Thank you very much. It sounds a lot like what Ivan Illich would call ambiguous

00:59:55complementarity, which is the mystery between the sexes that can be, yes, a source of frustration,

01:00:01but also of joy. I think that misunderstanding is often evolving into hostility among types like that

01:00:10previous caller, who I think, I don't wish to psychoanalyze too much, perhaps has been indulging

01:00:16in a little too much pornography and so can only see relationships in a sexual and transactional

01:00:21manner and not that sort of playful and emotional manner that you and I can, Steph. But if you do

01:00:28make your way over to England eventually and return to this sort of dystopic place, we'd love to buy you

01:00:34dinner sometime. Thank you for all you've done, sir. I appreciate it. And you said the former,

01:00:40is it not still people not still finding you at lotus eaters.com? Yes, my colleagues are still

01:00:46continuing on with work in my stead and they're doing some great stuff, lots of philosophy over

01:00:52there. So I encourage people to check it out. But I'm just on YouTube these days and doing some

01:00:57journalism work elsewhere because other projects have pulled me away, but they're still great lads and

01:01:02some of them are indeed coming to the wedding. Beautiful. I'm sure it'll be a great time and

01:01:06congratulations on your marriage. And let's move to preterite. Preterite? I always think of

01:01:14preternatural. And what's on your mind? Of course, I will give you the civilized moment. Thank you,

01:01:19Connor, for explaining the text for me. I've never called into an X space before, but I hear

01:01:23rustles and bustles. So preterite, what's on your mind? I wanted to ask you, what do you think the main

01:01:30kind of driving causal factors are behind the natality crisis in the developed world? And how do

01:01:37we go about addressing them? So you mean the collapsing birth rate? Is that right? Yes.

01:01:44Well, the collapsing birth rate is not at all an accident. It's in general by design. There's a

01:01:50couple of factors and then I'll sort of tie it all together in one bow of moral analysis. So the most

01:01:56common factor of a collapsing birth rate is women's access to higher education. Now, of course,

01:02:03then it sounds like, well, women who are well-educated don't want to have children, but that's

01:02:06not the case. Education, higher education, particularly for women, is antinatalist

01:02:12indoctrination that makes them hostile to the providers and protectors of mankind, which is

01:02:16the males of the species. So access to higher education, what it does is women sleep around

01:02:22a lot, not all, of course, but a lot of women sleep around a lot in college, which means they get

01:02:26ghosted, which means that they are using the sexual subsidy or the subsidy of sexual access

01:02:31to gain access to higher quality men than will commit to them, right? A 10 man will sleep with a

01:02:376 woman, but he won't commit to her. And so, unfortunately, because a lot of women think that

01:02:43a man will have sex with them, that he will then commit to them. Not the case. So they are told that

01:02:48men are exploiters and users, and then they go and hook men in with a vagina access, and then they

01:02:55get ghosted by the men, and they're like, aha, it's true, men are terrible, and so on, which is why

01:03:00you should not get involved in sexual relations with someone who's not already committed, because

01:03:05it is a form, it's a drug, right? It means that you can get a higher status, a more attractive man

01:03:10than you otherwise could, and then that recalibrates your expectations to the point where you can see this

01:03:16all over the place in social media. The women are constantly saying, oh, there aren't any attractive

01:03:19men around. Where are all the attractive men? And it's like, well, what's happened is you've burned

01:03:24out your beauty retinas by staring at high status men and subsidizing sexual access with them, and

01:03:30then not getting commitment, and then you just don't see average looking men or above average looking

01:03:35men. You only see the tens, and so that's pretty bad. Then, of course, women are delaying having

01:03:41children. So the longer you can delay people settling down and getting married, the more you

01:03:45encourage promiscuity, STDs, and increasing ghosting and bitterness, and sexual access that

01:03:51results in failed relationships or non-relationships drive feminism, because women feel exploited when

01:03:57they are, in fact, equally exploiting the men by subsidizing access with sexuality. So when you give

01:04:02women access to higher education, you delay marriage and children, and then you put women in debt,

01:04:07right? Because a lot of women, the majority, significant majority of student loans, debt is held by women,

01:04:12and when women graduate hostile to men, having had their pair-bonding mechanisms ripped out by the

01:04:18roots with constant promiscuity, and also significantly in debt, they are foundationally,

01:04:24as I say this with great sorrow, genuine great deepened sorrow in my heart, they are unmarriable.

01:04:30And as you know, half of women, relatively soon, are going to be middle-aged, single, and unmarried.

01:04:36And it is a form of warfare. See, in traditional warfare, you kill people already born. In modern

01:04:46warfare, you prevent your children from being born. And that is your decimation, that is your

01:04:52depopulation. Like a neutron bomb, it kills the people, believes the building's standings.

01:04:57Propaganda is not directly violent, because it prevents people from coming into being,

01:05:02rather than waiting until they're already adults, and then gassing, or bombing, or shooting them.

01:05:08And so, when women get access to higher education, it delays marriage, it propagandizes women into

01:05:16being hostile towards men, it tears out their pair-bonding by the roots with a series of

01:05:20successive and failed, quote, relationships, or as the new phrase goes, situationships. And then,

01:05:26they graduate in debt, which men don't want to take on. And then, the women feel like,

01:05:29well, I've just graduated. Oof, I've been in school forever. I think I'm going to go and travel.

01:05:34And then, they go and travel. And then, they often subsidize that travel with sexuality

01:05:38in other countries. And maybe, they come back from that travel in debt, or within sexually

01:05:42transmitted seas, or with a whole other series of ghosted men that they can be bitter about,

01:05:47and angry about, and frustrated about. And then, they say, well, geez, you know, I've done all this

01:05:51education. I've got to start my career. And then, they get a job, which is mostly for the

01:05:54government. Women generally work for the government, because the government, and HR departments,

01:05:58and all other sorts of email nonsense jobs are invented to keep women from reproducing.

01:06:03And then, they're working all the time, and they're trying to pay off their debt. And then,

01:06:06they're tired, and they're kind of embittered, and they've had too many relationships, and they've

01:06:09had their heart broken too many times. And then, they hit all of this propaganda about the world

01:06:14is overpopulated, and having children is irresponsible, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

01:06:17And then, they just delay, and defer, and delay, and defer, and their standards are way too high,

01:06:21and their sexual market has collapsed because of the lack of pair bonding, and the excessive sexuality

01:06:25that they've experienced. And then, they sail into their 30s. And in their 30s, well, what is left?

01:06:31What is left, in general, is the detritus, the leftovers, and the remainders, the people that

01:06:37nobody wants, the people who are too oddly constituted, or strange, or weird, or have

01:06:42fetishes, or various addictions. For men, usually do pornography. For women, it can be an addiction to

01:06:47the female form of pornography, which is these weird novels with these vampiric lords, with abs,

01:06:53and infinite money glitches, that sweep women off their feet, who are just mid. Right? I mean,

01:06:58this is the Christian Grey stuff from Fifty Shades of Grey, where this midwoman who works in a hardware

01:07:03store gets swept off her feet by a guy with a superb physique, who flies helicopters, has a zillion

01:07:09dollars, and plays piano magnificently, and all she has to do is let him whip her with a beat-me-eat-me-licorice

01:07:15whip, and everything is happily ever after. Or the twilight thing, where a midgirl, suddenly, who's

01:07:21very immature, suddenly receives the fascinated attention of a 400-year-old man, which is as

01:07:26close to a story of pedophilia as you could possibly imagine. And so, women are often addicted

01:07:31to this intense hypergamy stimuli of modern, quote, fiction. And again, that's just more of a

01:07:37depopulation agenda. Raise people's expectations to the point where they can't be satisfied, and they

01:07:42can't pay a bond, and they'll never settle down. So, to reverse all of this, I mean, it's both very

01:07:48simple in principle and very hard in practice. Like, you like dieting. It's very simple in

01:07:52principle, right? Eat less than you burn, and you'll lose weight, but it's hard to implement.

01:07:58And we simply have to commit, as a society, as a species, the whole world over, we have to commit

01:08:04to solving social problems without violence. And that sounds like a tall order, but all of these,

01:08:12everything that I'm describing is supported and maintained by the initiation of the use of force,

01:08:20the forced redistribution of wealth, the forced redistribution of jobs by forcing employers to

01:08:25hire people that they might not otherwise hire. And student debt, of course, is enforced through

01:08:30the state, and the propaganda is designed to steer women. See, single women want bigger government,

01:08:37right? By far the biggest voters for the left in the West are single women, and therefore the left has

01:08:42every intention of keeping women single, which is why the poisonous anti-male ideology and the

01:08:47encouragement of promiscuity and all of the things that keep women single is promoted because the

01:08:51left owns the major cultural and financial and educational institutions, and they want to crank out

01:08:57single women because single women vote for the protection of the state because they don't have

01:09:01protection of a husband. So, sorry, I know that was a long and complicated speech. Hopefully that makes

01:09:06some kind of sense, and I'm happy to hear your thoughts.

01:09:08Yeah, absolutely. Women control access to reproduction. So, you know, the onus isn't

01:09:15really on men here, I don't think. They're not the ones refusing to have children by and large.

01:09:20The question I wanted to pose to you is, do you think, like, artificial wounds could potentially

01:09:26be a solution to the nativity crisis?

01:09:29No. No. No. No, no. No, that's not going to happen. I mean, it may happen technically, but it's not

01:09:35going to solve the problem. Because there's no point for men to say, look, single moms are a negative

01:09:41because children need fathers, and then say, well, no, it's fine for children to grow up without

01:09:47mothers. We need mothers and fathers. Artificial wounds may solve the reproduction crisis, but it'll only

01:09:53differ at one generation. Because the kids raised in single-parent households have lower reproductive

01:09:58goals often because they didn't have a good time growing up. They didn't watch their single parent

01:10:04having a good time. And so, no, it is not a technological solution. It's a moral solution.

01:10:09We need to start committing to reducing the amount of coercion and social engineering that comes in from

01:10:14the power of the state. And if we can reduce the infliction of violence, coercion, in the complicated

01:10:21issues of social problems, then we can begin to solve this in a very real and foundational way.

01:10:28Whatever the problem is in society, the answer is always the same. More freedom, less coercion.

01:10:34Less violations of the non-aggression principle and property rights. More freedom is always the answer,

01:10:39no matter what the question is. And while the technological leap of artificial wombs may

01:10:44solve particular technical aspects of it, we still need children to be raised with mothers and fathers

01:10:50as a whole. Absolutely. Thank you for your time, Stefan.

01:10:53Thank you. I appreciate that. All right, let's do one more. And we have...

01:10:58Un...

01:10:59Tanana...

01:11:00Un...

01:11:00Tanana...

01:11:01All right, I'm going to give you a civilized break. Thanks, Connor, for reminding me about the

01:11:05technicalities. And un... Tanana... What is on your mind, my friend? Speak to me, or forever hold

01:11:13your peace.

01:11:14Good day. It's good to hear you again after, I guess, so many years. I have two questions

01:11:21for the first, which is similar to what our previous friend asked. What do you think the

01:11:29impact of easy access to contraception has on birthright?

01:11:33I mean, I don't know, obviously, foundationally, but I don't think that easy access to contraception

01:11:43would fundamentally alter birth rates. It would allow couples to manage when they had children.

01:11:50I don't know that it would fundamentally alter birth rates as a whole. You know, the big problem

01:11:55with the sort of coercive modern welfare state system is it has turned children from liabilities

01:12:01into assets. Children normally cost money, which means somebody has to be there to provide money,

01:12:06which means women need men in order to have families, which means women get married.

01:12:10And so, because men are forced to subsidize single motherhood, right, the vast majority of taxes

01:12:16are paid by men and women receive the vast majority of social and political benefits outside of the

01:12:22military-industrial complex, which is a few small elite men. But when you have the welfare state,

01:12:28which means women get paid by the state or by male taxpayers for having children,

01:12:33then women don't need to get married. And they can instead, they can decide to have children

01:12:43for a living. And in fact, having men in the household when women decide to have children

01:12:47for a living reduces their benefits. So, the birth rate then goes up for irresponsible people

01:12:57and goes down for responsible people because the tax burdens become so high that a lot of people

01:13:01convince themselves that they can't afford to have children. So, the birth rate is not a big blob,

01:13:08right? I'm sure you're aware of this, right? So, the birth rate is not a big blob. Now, in the past,

01:13:12in the past, more successful people had more children, right? I mean, you can see this is traced

01:13:19out in the Jewish community where the rabbis who had to learn like four different languages and had

01:13:23obviously very high IQs, had the most children. And so, in the past, the poor people had relatively

01:13:29fewer children and the wealthy, which is to say perhaps the higher IQ and more competent,

01:13:33at least materially, had more children. Now, quite the reverse is true. The higher the woman's

01:13:38educational standards, often the lower the reproduction. And so, I think that those factors

01:13:46probably have a lot more to do with the birth rate than some simple technology which allows you to

01:13:50choose more easily when to get pregnant, if that makes sense.

01:13:54It does make sense, but let me try to explain my reasoning to begin with. You said previously that

01:14:01people were also having children during war, which I would believe it's a very bad time to have

01:14:08children. And if you could avoid it, you would avoid it. And although you can, let's say,

01:14:15you don't necessarily need a condom to avoid having children, it's definitely harder to do that.

01:14:21That's why I think that sex being much more likely to end up in a pregnancy might have contributed to

01:14:30a higher birth rate until the pill and condoms and whatever else you have now.

01:14:38Yeah, I'm certainly not going to argue that it has an effect on a birth rate. I just don't think it

01:14:42has as much of an effect on the birth rate as sort of the moral corruption of forced redistribution

01:14:48of wealth. But sorry, go ahead.

01:14:50So, thank you for that. I guess as a young father myself with a one-year-old daughter,

01:14:56is there any advice that you could give me?

01:14:59Well, first, accept my congratulations. My daughter is 17 this year, and I find myself

01:15:06gripped with nostalgia looking back. There's pictures in my room of my daughter when she

01:15:12was a baby and a toddler, and it's such a wonderful and adorable face. There's a little

01:15:18restaurant not too far from where I live, and my daughter and I, when she was little,

01:15:21she would dress up in this butterfly-winged princess costume and sit on my lap while we ate

01:15:26our food and chatted. And she was fascinated by the grandfather clock, and I was just wonderful.

01:15:31We were just visiting with some friends yesterday who have their fifth baby as a newborn and was

01:15:37chatting with the kids and reading Dr. Seuss to them and just having a blast. And so, I look forward

01:15:42to grandchildren, although I know that's not imminent, but just congratulations on that beautiful

01:15:48journey. So, I think the thing that I did as a parent, outside of the moral stuff, peacefulparenting.com,

01:15:57you should get all of that, and I'm sure you're fine with all of that, but children really,

01:16:00really want to be listened to. And so many people just talk and talk and lecture and lecture and

01:16:04tell and tell and instruct and instruct and read to and read to. But as your child is one and is

01:16:10starting to develop a language, if not now, in the near future, the important thing that is often

01:16:16overlooked, and my daughter and I would talk about this, right? We'd hang out with a bunch of people

01:16:20when she was very little, and she'd say, nobody talked to me, and nobody asked me questions. And I

01:16:25noticed that, and I'm going to blink four times, and I was like, yeah. So, then we would get

01:16:29together, and I would notice this. My daughter would start talking, and other people would start

01:16:33talking, and so she had nothing to say. And I would have to say, whoa, hang on, Izzy, we'll still

01:16:38let her finish her thought, right? And I'd have to sort of coach people on just listening. It was

01:16:43easier when we were at home, because I would just love listening to her, and we'd sort of chat back

01:16:47and forth and all of that when she was very little. But of course, in company, you know, children

01:16:51should be seen and not heard. As my mom used to say, if I was between her and the television,

01:16:55you might be a pain, but you're not a windowpane. And so, I would say that make sure that people

01:17:02listen to children. They're not just like screechy, scamper monsters that interfere with adult

01:17:07conversations. They usually have really interesting stuff to add to conversations, really unique

01:17:12perspectives, and they can be very funny. And I don't mean sort of inadvertently funny, but they

01:17:16can be genuinely hilarious. And so, you know, really guard your daughter's space for speaking,

01:17:22and make sure that people absorb what she has to say, and that she's shown respect for her

01:17:27thoughts, you know, before she gets old. Because by then, you know, she'll just have felt unheard

01:17:33in company, and so on. And the other thing, too, is that if she feels heard in company, then she'll

01:17:38enjoy when people come over, rather than feeling invisible, which I think a lot of kids experience,

01:17:43if that makes sense.

01:17:45It does. Thank you very much for your answer.

01:17:49All right. Well, I've had a slight delay in my next thing. So, we're going to our good

01:17:55friend, Katie. What's on your mind, my friend? Hello.

01:18:00How are you?

01:18:01I'm well, thanks. How are you doing?

01:18:02I'm doing great, thanks. That was a beautiful, beautiful message that you were just giving.

01:18:07Well, all of it has been, but I couldn't agree more with you. And children, just as a mother

01:18:12myself, they're just absolutely fantastic. I always take my into one's brain, and it challenges

01:18:18me to restructure things when I'm at a pivot point, and I'm like, how would you feel about

01:18:25this? Does this make sense? And you tell me how you feel about it. And it's fascinating.

01:18:33Their minds are just beautiful, as of their souls. So, I wanted to, I really enjoyed this

01:18:40conversation. I sent you a little message, but I'll read this out, because I wanted to

01:18:45ask, in a philosophical way, if the soul's ascent ends upon its devotion to the truth, the

01:18:53city is built on normal lies, and the heart knows no more. How then shall just man live,

01:19:02when truth makes him an exile, and sirens makes him an exile? So, basically, for those

01:19:08that, I don't know, that's kind of ways, though, telling the truth gets you punished or left

01:19:13out, but staying quiet helps you fit in. How can someone be a good person in the world

01:19:19in its eyes?

01:19:21It's a tough question. It's a balance. It's a balancing act. And my essential point outside

01:19:28of morality, of course, I know that we don't have rapists, thieves, and murderers in the

01:19:31audience as a whole, right? Or even at all. So, I say this outside of base moral considerations.

01:19:38All is permitted if you're honest about it. All is permitted if you're, so, if I am in a

01:19:45social situation where I decide to lie or withhold the truth, to me, that's fine, as long as I don't

01:19:54lie to myself about it. So, if I'm in some social situation, and somebody says something

01:20:01that is just wrong, it's just wrong, I would say bad, but just wrong, a thousand times wrong,

01:20:07and maybe even somewhat offensive or goes against really important sensibilities of mine or whatever,

01:20:13I may choose to say something. It depends how hard my wife kicks me under the table, right?

01:20:18But I may choose to say something. I may choose to say nothing. I won't counter-signal. I won't agree

01:20:26with someone who says something that I know to be false and egregious. But I may say nothing.

01:20:32Now, I don't feel bad about that. We all have to make our compromises to survive in a relatively

01:20:36corrupt world. But I will not lie to myself about it, right? I will not say, well, it was a wise thing

01:20:43that I'll just say there were negative consequences to telling the truth. I chose not to take them,

01:20:50and so I didn't tell the truth. And again, I won't sort of outwardly lie and say things that I believe

01:20:55to be false or anything like that. But if somebody says something, I don't know, you can come up with

01:21:04any number of these things yourself. I don't want to box people in. But, you know, something which is

01:21:07just, you know, not right and, you know, perhaps even a little offensive. I may say something. I may

01:21:14not. But I won't lie to myself about my motives. And so, I think it's not so much that society makes

01:21:21you withhold the truth or maybe even lie from time to time. I will not let society's irrational

01:21:26hostilities to the truth stand between me and my honesty with myself. It may stand between me and

01:21:33my honesty with the world at times, but I will not let it stand between me and my honesty with

01:21:38myself. And as long as I remain rigorously honest with myself, it matters much less to me what I say

01:21:44or don't say in the world, if that makes sense.

01:21:47Yeah. That is amazing. Absolutely. And thank you. There's a lot of us who have been proven to this

01:21:55at some point. It's like wrongdoing. It's like where does one speak or not speak and do and not do.

01:22:03But the way that you have basically compartmentalized this, as long as one is off with

01:22:08what's self, you know, it doesn't mean that you have to lie. It doesn't mean that you have to

01:22:14this either. But then I guess, you know, or should one say something? I'm talking from like a bigger

01:22:23perspective here. Somebody has done, for example, and those in positions of power, overlooking it,

01:22:32but you know the truth. Do you think that there is a moral duty to speak or do we go back to,

01:22:39dear? I severely like what you said. It stumped me in the best way, though.

01:22:45Well, with regards to whether you have a moral obligation to speak the truth,

01:22:50and I won't make a big speech out of this because it's a big topic, but I'll boil it down.

01:22:55Morality is not a set of abstract rules that program you like a computer that you have to

01:23:00follow no matter what, because that's not free will. That's why I said on Twitter the other day,

01:23:04don't quote rules at me. Moral reasoning is the only morality. So what I mean by that is

01:23:09I owe the truth to people who've been honest with me. I do not owe the truth to people who

01:23:14are dishonest with me. I owe diplomacy to people who are diplomatic to me. I do not owe diplomacy to

01:23:20those who are rude to me. And so in our economic relationships, we recognize the principle of

01:23:28reciprocity. That if someone pays me for a job, I owe them that job. If somebody pays me 20 bucks to

01:23:36mow their lawn, I owe them either their $20 back or I have to mow their lawn. But I don't just have

01:23:41to mow the lawn and give 20 bucks to everyone in the neighborhood. So in our relationships, and even

01:23:49personal, so I'm saying from our economic relationships, we recognize that obligation arises

01:23:54out of reciprocity. Somebody sends me X amount of dollars for a particular good or service,

01:24:00then I provide that good or service. It's a reciprocity. I don't provide that good or service

01:24:03to everyone. I'm not morally obligated to provide it to everyone. It's the same thing with honesty.

01:24:07People who have honesty with you, people who are honest with you, you owe them honesty because

01:24:12they've earned it. People who treat you badly, you do not owe good treatment to. I said this on X,

01:24:17and it's a principle I've lived by since I was, well, I can calculate, 21 years old.

01:24:21I was 22 years old when I first was introduced to this by my college roommate. And we literally

01:24:28shared a room. It wasn't even like a roommate in a flat. We shared the same room. And he said that

01:24:34mathematically, you can't do better. They've modeled all of this out, prisoner's dilemmas and passing

01:24:39food and so on back and forth in prison. Treat people the best you can the first time you meet

01:24:45them after that. Treat them as they treat you. You can't do better than that mathematically. And it's

01:24:49been an enormously productive principle for me in my life, right? So if people treat you well,

01:24:55you treat them well. So with regards to are you obligated to speak up regarding someone who's in

01:25:01trouble with someone in power and so on? Well, if they've stood up for you before, great. Then I think

01:25:07you owe them that loyalty. If they've put their necks on the line for you, if they've made sacrifices to

01:25:13protect and support you, then I think you have an obligation. It's not a moral, like you have to or

01:25:18go to jail. It's not like a legal obligation. But I think you have an obligation to repay honor with

01:25:23honor, to repay courage with courage, to repay honesty with honesty, and to repay integrity with

01:25:28integrity. In the same way that in marriage in general, we repay monocamy with monocamy, right?

01:25:33And so I think that morality, and I don't think that morality is a relationship, that you earn

01:25:38moral consideration. And I don't mean like protection of property or life. I'm talking about

01:25:43just what are called aesthetically preferable actions, positives that aren't legally required

01:25:47or morally able to be enforced with violence. But we repay consideration with consideration.

01:25:53So if somebody is polite to me, I will be polite to them. And you heard this earlier in the call,

01:25:58right? I mean, the people who are nice and listen, and we have a good exchange, wonderful,

01:26:03great conversation. When somebody says that they will be quiet while I make a speech and then

01:26:07interrupt me 10 seconds later, I can be pretty brusque with them because they're not treating me

01:26:12with respect. So I feel no obligation to treat them with respect. And that's my principle. That's

01:26:18how things work. So if people have earned your courage and honesty and consideration, great. I mean,

01:26:24when I was deplatformed, very few people did or said anything to protect and support me. Now, that's

01:26:30a little difficult at the time, but it liberates me from having to do anything to protect and support

01:26:34them because they have released me from all claims of mutual support. So I think if the person has

01:26:41earned your courage by being courageous in their support of you, I think it's a good thing and an

01:26:45honorable thing to do back. If they haven't, I do not recognize abstract principles as foundational

01:26:51motivations. It's all about reciprocity and earned consideration in relationships, if that makes sense.

01:26:57This has been phenomenal. I will lightly step down and I'll just leave them for somebody else to speak

01:27:06because I just think about this all night. But I won't take up any more of the time. It's been

01:27:10fantastic. I really appreciate this. And I appreciate you and everyone that's on the speaker.

01:27:16Well, thank you. Those are fantastic questions. And I, oh, our Bloodbath and Beyond fellow is back,

01:27:22but I'm not going to take the call. Although I do appreciate the conversation that we had

01:27:27earlier. I just don't think that he's back with any particularly good intent because there was no

01:27:33bending to anything more productive or positive before. So, freedomain.com slash donate. If you'd like

01:27:39to help out the show, I really would appreciate it. You can subscribe at freedomain.locals.com

01:27:43or subscribestar.com slash freedomain to help out the show. I really, really would appreciate it.

01:27:49And you get all kinds of fantastic benefits and bonuses for doing that. It is Thursday and we will

01:27:53talk to you tomorrow night. We will do an ex voice live stream chat with video so that you get to see

01:28:03the glowing speckled egg of hopefully consistent truth coming off your pixels. Thank you for your time

01:28:09and great questions and comments today. I really do appreciate that. Peacefulparenting.com.

01:28:14Lots of love, my friends. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.

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