Video: https://dai.ly/k4tlBzyoOSfyRbzAqAj
Prioritizing children's needs, the impact of choosing the wrong partner, the gut's "second brain" detecting danger, and gratitude for questions & show donations.
2023, Stefan Molyneux
Www.freedomain.com
https://www.freedomain.com
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Generated Shownotes
0:02:18 Defining Truth and its Relationship to Memory and Language
0:04:38 Animals' Lack of Concepts and Definitions
0:07:24 Verbal Abuse, Hate Speech, and Children's Vulnerability
0:08:17 Legal Remedies for False Statements Harmful to Businesses
0:10:45 Verbal Abuse and its Effects on Children's Mental Health
0:14:43 Lack of Protection for Artists and the Rise of AI
0:17:06 Loyalty to Artists and Lured by Lust
0:19:49 Peaceful Parenting and the Acceptability of Parent Timeout
0:21:33 De-escalation: Putting things in perspective
0:24:22 Reflecting on life's true priorities
0:27:28 Childhood Trauma: The Nightstand Incident
0:29:59 Perspective: What Really Matters in Life
0:33:02 The Importance of Recognizing Unimportant Things Now
0:34:57 The Power of a Coaster
0:37:20 Escaping Negative Feelings from Female Judgment
0:40:20 Releasing Emotions vs. Changing Actions and Behavior
0:41:44 Healing Psychological Trauma and Low-Quality Leadership in Canada
0:44:37 Understanding the Concept of "Tromboning" and Objective Childhood Assessment
0:47:06 Avoid enabling manipulative behavior and protect yourself.
0:47:51 Don't assume there's anything wrong with people's lives.
0:50:27 The Complexity of Relationships and Compatibility
0:55:42 The Impact of Parenthood on Selfishness and Dating Life
Chapters
0:00:01 Introduction and Setting the Stage for Philosophy0:02:18 Defining Truth and its Relationship to Memory and Language
0:04:38 Animals' Lack of Concepts and Definitions
0:07:24 Verbal Abuse, Hate Speech, and Children's Vulnerability
0:08:17 Legal Remedies for False Statements Harmful to Businesses
0:10:45 Verbal Abuse and its Effects on Children's Mental Health
0:14:43 Lack of Protection for Artists and the Rise of AI
0:17:06 Loyalty to Artists and Lured by Lust
0:19:49 Peaceful Parenting and the Acceptability of Parent Timeout
0:21:33 De-escalation: Putting things in perspective
0:24:22 Reflecting on life's true priorities
0:27:28 Childhood Trauma: The Nightstand Incident
0:29:59 Perspective: What Really Matters in Life
0:33:02 The Importance of Recognizing Unimportant Things Now
0:34:57 The Power of a Coaster
0:37:20 Escaping Negative Feelings from Female Judgment
0:40:20 Releasing Emotions vs. Changing Actions and Behavior
0:41:44 Healing Psychological Trauma and Low-Quality Leadership in Canada
0:44:37 Understanding the Concept of "Tromboning" and Objective Childhood Assessment
0:47:06 Avoid enabling manipulative behavior and protect yourself.
0:47:51 Don't assume there's anything wrong with people's lives.
0:50:27 The Complexity of Relationships and Compatibility
0:55:42 The Impact of Parenthood on Selfishness and Dating Life
Long Summary
In this segment of the podcast/show, the main speaker discusses the responsibilities and challenges of parenting. They emphasize that once you have a child, it becomes about prioritizing their happiness and well-being over one's own personal satisfaction. The speaker acknowledges that if someone was raised by selfish parents, it may be important to address those issues before becoming a parent themselves. They emphasize that having a child ties you to the other parent for life, regardless of divorce or death, and that it can be difficult if there are bitter feelings involved. The speaker also mentions that becoming a parent can significantly impact one's dating life and the potential to find a high-quality partner. They briefly touch upon the concept of the gut as a second brain and its role in sensing danger and safety. Ultimately, the main message is to prioritize the well-being of the child and make decisions based on what is best for them.Brief Summary
In this episode, we discuss the challenges of parenting and the responsibility of prioritizing a child's well-being. We touch on the impact on dating life and the importance of trusting our instincts as parents. Ultimately, the message is to always prioritize what's best for the child.Tags
episode, challenges, parenting, responsibility, prioritizing, child's well-being, impact, dating life, trusting instincts, best for the childÂ
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Transcript
[0:00]Â Good morning everybody, Stephen Molyneux from freedomain.com. Also these are
Introduction and Setting the Stage for Philosophy
[0:06] the questions that come in from freedomain.locals.com. These are the questions tastefully arranged in a buffet with answers. Is truth when our memory of the universe matches the physical universe? I don't mean to laugh but this is when people start in the middle of nowhere not even knowing where they are and try and create a topographical map of the region. Don't start at the deep end, start real basic. Start real basic, honestly. If you want to start in philosophy, one of the first questions you have to ask is what's different between us and the animals? It can't be that animals have no capacity to process truth, right? I mean, it's true that a rabbit is nutritious to.
[0:57] A wolf, whereas a rock is not. So the wolf has to know the difference between a rock and a rabbit, all right? So how does it do that? Well it uses its sense perception and its instincts and its hunting and its experience of how good rabbits taste or whatever. But wolves have no abstract definition of what is true. They have sense perception, stimulus, response, and they learn over time. You and I can look at the moon and we know what it is, we have words and language for it, we know its relationship to the earth. A wolf looks at the moon, sees a bright blob in the sky and howls at it. It has no concept of what the moon is in reality. It is accurately processing that's a bright blob in the sky but it has no conceptual definition of what it is. And an animal by having no conceptual definition of the truth, no language to describe the truth, no concepts to describe the accuracy of sense perception can't ever really be wrong. I mean you look at the... when people looked at the moon and thought it was a big blob of cheese or something like that, I mean they were wrong. It's, not a big blob of cheese, but they were right in saying there's a bright blob in the sky, a bright sphere in the sky. So is truth when our memory of the universe matches the physical universe?
[2:18]Â I mean, if you're going to do philosophy, you have to differentiate us from the animals.
Defining Truth and its Relationship to Memory and Language
[2:23] I mean, is it true that a wolf who's experienced in hunting has had the memory of the difference between a rabbit and a rock? Yep. So the memory of the universe matches the physical universe? Yeah, well, wolves can do it. Single-celled organisms can do it, knowing the difference between food.
[2:45] And non-food. So it has to be something that only people are capable of. If animals can do it, it ain't philosophy, it ain't conceptual. So truth of course is when we have ideas in the mind that describe reality, it's the accuracy of those ideas in the mind that do describe reality. If I say something is true, something is valid, something is factual, then I'm describing something in the real world. I don't say that my dreams at night are factual and empirical in the world, or my daydreams, or I wouldn't say, of course I've written a whole bunch of novels, I wouldn't say that the people in those novels are real, that it is a.
[3:33] Documentary and not fiction. I wouldn't say that these are factual things. I mean there's some factual stuff in the world, of course, I mean there's character Churchill and and so on and there are good guys and bad guys, but it's not a documentary. It describes the essence of things in the real world in terms of psychological realism and historical accuracy, but it is not a documentary. It is fiction, designed to get at a particular kind of truth through engagement and entertaining. It also teaches empathy by delving deep into the character's mind so that you understand that their surface behavior is a manifestation of deep principles or fears or anxieties that they hold.
[4:17]Â So is truth in a memory of the universe matches the physical universe?
The first thing you have to ask when you're trying to define something is can animals do it? Well animals have a memory of the universe that matches the physical universe.
So and you're using language which animals don't really have.
I mean animals have, you know, they bark, they signal things, they meow, whales have their songs and so on. Those are mating cries and rallying cries and lions have
Animals' Lack of Concepts and Definitions
[4:40]Â their roar, I assume to paralyze, pray with fear or to communicate and so on.
[4:47] But that's just making sounds. That's like ooga-booga stuff, right? That's just making sounds in order to organize the hunt or find a mate. It's not conceptual.
Animals, as far as we know, and I can't imagine it would be different, don't have, concepts. They don't have definitions because they don't have conceptual language. They make noises.
A baby makes noises to indicate pleasure or pain or discomfort or whatever, happiness.
But babies don't have language. They're just making sounds to signal to the mother what, they need and to the father. So yeah, first thing you want to do when you're trying to do philosophy is say, is what I'm saying common also to animals? And if it is, you're not doing philosophy. So then a person says, is language a prerequisite for truth? Is language a prerequisite for truth. Language is not a prerequisite for accuracy because all animals need to be accurate in their processing of the universe. I mean, T-Rexes have to eat meat, not trees. So, accuracy, yeah, sense data, all animals need to accurately process sense data in order to survive.
[5:54] Is language a prerequisite for truth? Well, if you're talking about concepts, yes, you have to have language in order to have concepts. One of the reasons we know that is that, let's say, that there is a blue whale that has a concept but no language to describe it, we will never know.
And never knowing is exactly the same as not existing. Just so you understand, right? Never, knowing is exactly the same as non-existent. So if you said, well, there are ghosts around us, all around us, we are outnumbered by the dead 30 to 1, there are ghosts all around us, we will never ever be able to perceive them in any way, shape or form, nor understand them rationally.
Well that's exactly the same as not existing. If you say there's an invisible door, there's an invisible door in the doorway but you'll always be able to walk through it, that's exactly the same as there not being a doorway, right? So if there are animals who have concepts but they have no language to describe them and will never be able to understand what they're saying, that's exactly the same as the animals not having concepts in any empirical practical sense. So, that's how we have to work with. So yeah, language is a prerequisite for truth as, As far as definition, it's not a prerequisite for accurate perception of reality.
What is the difference between verbal abuse and hate speech?
You've mentioned before that hate speech doesn't exist, but I've also mentioned in peaceful parenting that the existence of verbal abuse.
It's the difference here that children cannot remove themselves from the situation, so it is therefore abuse, whereas adults can remove themselves from the situation, so it isn't abusive or even hate speech.
[7:23]Â Yeah, that's right, that's right. So, abusive language physically damages children.
Verbal Abuse, Hate Speech, and Children's Vulnerability
[7:30]Â It is a violation of the non-aggression principle and this is partly out of the Peaceful Parenting book.
So, just a little taste for those who, if you're subscribed to freedomain.locals.com, you're getting the Peaceful Parenting book as I read it in audio format.
But here's a little taste. So, if you lie about an adult and harm his interests, material interests or even his peace of mind. If you lie about an adult and harm his interests, let's say that you go to a restaurant and you say, when I got my food there was a rat tail in the pasta that's so revolting, you know, I mean that's one of the grossest things, of many gross things in the movie Last Tango in Paris. So if you, if you go to a restaurant you say I got a rat's tail
Legal Remedies for False Statements Harmful to Businesses
[8:18] and my pastor and you say that publicly and it was false, you are harming the, restaurant, you are cutting into his business, people won't go, maybe it'll go viral and his business will go out of business, he loses a million dollars, he has six months of sleepless nights, well he's going to sue you for, saying something false that has damaged his peace of mind and his material interests. Even if you say something that doesn't damage someone's material interests but seriously disturbs their peace of mind, that can also be under.
[8:48] Abuse or defamation or slander or it could be just disturbing your peace of mind. So with adults we have legal remedies for when people say things that are false that harm us.
[9:03]Â It's the same thing with children, except children can't get away, so the penalties and the problems would be even higher.
Verbal abuse reshapes the child's brain, and the child can't escape.
The child can't escape. Whatever you do to a kidnap victim is far worse than what you do to a stranger, because you also have to throw in the crime of kidnapping.
And it's interesting to me that the phrase kidnapping, which means to forcibly confine someone, of course, has two childhood element words, right?
A kid and napping. Children nap. Babies nap. Toddlers nap.
Even philosophers from time to time.
So, children are involuntarily confined within the household.
It's not a problem. It's not a moral issue. There's no alternative to it.
And I'm not even saying there should be. It's just kind of a fact.
A fact. My daughter didn't choose me as a father and can't leave. There's no.
[9:55] Question of that. I mean she can't just wander out. I mean I guess she could call and try and get to some sort of foster home or something like that but yeah she can't she can't leave. So I have to be super extra massively considerate towards her and she will of course have the option to leave relatively soon right? She's gonna be 15 soon so she has the option to leave. Well I mean she will leave at some point and she never has to come back and she never has to call me and she never has to talk to me so I have to continue to provide value to her over the course of my life if I want a continued relationship with her.
So, verbal abuse against a confined victim is a violation of the non-aggression principle and verbal abuse is when you say something false about someone that harms them in a significant.
[10:44]Â Manner.
And so, if, let's say for instance, if you say to your child, you're fat, you're disgusting,
Verbal Abuse and its Effects on Children's Mental Health
[10:50] you're obese, blah blah blah blah blah, and your child's not overweight, and even if he is overweight, you would simply say, you're overweight, let's try and deal with it as best we can. Of course good parenting would prevent that from happening in the first place but if you say to your child who's thin, you're fat, you're disgusting, you're obese and this causes sort of cascading psychological phenomenon that ends up at life-threatening anorexia, well then you've really really harmed your child and to me that would be liable, right? So yeah, hate speech. When, you confine children and I mean the closest thing to hate speech I suppose would be harming someone in confinement, right? So if you are a particular, I don't know, gender or ethnicity or something like that, and then when you're forced into government schools, if they tell you you're bad for being part of that gender or ethnicity, then that would be a form of abuse. I hope that makes sense.
Somebody says, I'm frightened about artificial intelligence killing our passion, especially for art. I was a good artist, found some deep meaning in exploring and creating my own art.
Now it seems pointless. No matter how hard I try, AI is going to make it better, cheaper, and in larger scale.
[12:00] I was used to spending months on some paintings and now I feel like it doesn't seem worth it.
Was I doing that for others? Meaning that their validation was more important than the art itself for me, because I can do it and I love the challenge.
But if no one is going to see or care about it, is there any point?
I'm very insecure about the reasons of my fears.
All right.
All right. Well, of course art is for other people No question of that art is for other people. Otherwise, it would just be a dream or a daydream or you know I mean I wrote my novels to be read. I wrote 30 plays to be performed and seen art is definitely for other people, What's interesting to me is?
Why there's no movement to save or protect artists So AI is coming along and honestly There will be a time and I believe it will be in my lifetime and probably not more than five to ten years from now where you can feed a novel into AI and it will create the movie for you, like in perfect rendering.
[13:00] You can just feed a screenplay. Screenplay would be tough because you need screen direction. So you'll feed, I have no doubt, I will be able to feed, my novel, almost say, which is a World War I to World War II, historical novel that spans all of Europe. I will be able to feed my novel into an AI and it will produce a fantastic, perfect quality movie.
Maybe I'll need a few tweaks here and there, but it will certainly be watchable and it will certainly be engaging.
And I would imagine that's not more than five to ten years away. It could be sooner. It depends on the growth of computing power, And I hope somebody's working on this because then what will happen is the studio system will die Then you're just then it would be down to the raw, Beautiful perfect quality of your stories and there won't be any gatekeepers in the same way There's not gatekeepers to podcasts in general. There's deep platforming, but you know, we're still able to have conversations there won't be gatekeepers to movies or television shows you'll just write a great story and, You'll feed it into AI and it will produce a movie for you with extras and scenery and buildings and lighting and it will be beautiful and gorgeous.
And yeah, you'll tweak it a little bit here and there, but it'll be fantastic.
Now, AI has come along and all of this stuff is gonna come along.
Why is it that people aren't raising a stink and a fuss about their favorite artists possibly being thragged?
I remember when I was in junior high school, I started a movement called SOT, Save Our Teachers, for reasons I can't quite possibly remember.
[14:24] But I think one of the wags in class changed it to stretch your tits, as they generally do.
Make it the basest possible thing you can.
So why is it that artists are not being protected? That people are building this kind of stuff and nobody's sitting there saying, well, this is really bad for artists and we should do X, Y, and Z, and so on.
Because people don't like artists. I'm not saying you, right?
Lack of Protection for Artists and the Rise of AI
[14:46]Â Artists have betrayed the people.
Artists have betrayed the people. Artists have betrayed the citizens.
Artists have betrayed their fellow man and woman.
Artists have sold themselves out to the Beelzebub of the state as a whole, not talking about you in particular, but artists as a whole, when the government said, here's some free money, artists were like, yeah, sounds good.
Sounds great. Let's get that free government money. And as a result, artists have stopped defending freedoms and they stopped criticizing the government and, you know, you don't bite the hand that feeds you.
So artists as a whole have become propagandists for the regime.
And so, now that AI is replacing artists...
[15:25] Normally there'd be a big movement to say, you know, I'm going to stamp this as genuine art, not AI art. Let's make sure we protect our artists. Let's make sure that artists continue their essential part of society. But artists became mechanical and predictable and boring.
Artists became NPCs of regime propaganda. Now, AI can assemble predictable words.
It's a word guesser, right? So AI can predict, can create predictable words or predictable images based upon prior instincts or prior manifestations, right, of language or art or whatever. So the more that artists became propagandists, which is inevitable when they take government money, the more the artists became propagandists, the more easily replaceable by AI they were. The more.
[16:18] Original you are, the less AI can reproduce you. The more you take government money, the more you serve the regime, the more you avoid being a teller of original essential truths. The more replaceable you are by AI and the less, reason people have to defend you from unemployment. So again, I'm not talking about you, I'm talking about artists as a whole. AI was an inevitable outgrowth in the art realm of artists being less original, less creative, less essential.
People don't have personal relationship with artists that much anymore, especially Mike Modern Art. People recognize the sort of money laundering, brain repulsive, soul destroying scam of modern art and they're like, yeah, if those guys get replaced by AI, who cares?
When was the last time an artist did something for me rather than taking my tax money through
Loyalty to Artists and Lured by Lust
[17:10] the power of the state? don't have any loyalty to artists anymore and I'm not going to argue that at all.
[17:18] How can we avoid being lured by lust? Never had any problem with this but after leaving my country and coming to a more conservative place so I thought I was surprised by the females using the same lack of outfit than in my country.
The problem is they're more fit more beautiful and it's hard not to look and believe me I was pretty good at it in Brazil but now it seems impossible to, not wonder and I'm married. I think you mean yeah I mean you can't you can't you can't kill the monkey brain. Why would you? Why should you? I mean we're all built, it's like taking a beautiful house and destroying the foundations, right? I mean we're built on the monkey brain or as my friend used to say, I'm married, I'm not blind. Yes, you can look at women who are attractive, you can look at men who are attractive and I mean, here's the thing, man. I mean, this is a basic principle that I... try not to be at war with yourself. Being at war with yourself is the oldest trick in dominating the masses. You set the masses at war with themselves, then all their moral energies are focused on combating inevitable instincts and not in disseminating and revealing the truth about power and coercion to everyone around them. Try not to be at war with yourself. I mean, obviously, if you're, I don't know, fighting some crazy addiction that's making you fat or giving you illness or destroying your finances, yes okay go to battle against that but I don't know, looking at women with lust, yeah it's gonna happen who cares I mean you love your wife and try and be at peace with things you can't control within yourself.
[18:46] And you know I guess when you get old like Socrates says you lose lust and it's like a demon is removed from your shoulders or whatever but observe yourself with some good humor. Yes, you looked at a woman's butt. Oh my gosh, she's got a nice butt.
So what? You know, I mean, it's like when I see my favorite food, my mouth will water. It doesn't mean I'm going to eat it. It just means I'm noticing, oh wow, look at that Pavlovian response from my favorite food. Just try not to be at war with yourself. I mean, be at peace with yourself.
This, you're not violating the non-aggression principle by looking at a woman's butt.
It's not terrible. And trust me, your wife is looking at a guy's abs and saying that might be attractive to me. I don't know, whatever your wife's into, right? But yeah, be at peace with your... don't be at war with your fundamental instincts. Don't be at war with the fact that you like salt and sugar and women's butts can be attractive and, you know, like don't be at war with yourself.
[19:44]Â When you're at war with yourself, you're so easy to rule, it's ridiculous.
So, all right. Is a parent timeout acceptable for peaceful parenting?
Peaceful Parenting and the Acceptability of Parent Timeout
[19:51] That is when a parent excuses themselves from a conflict with their children in order to collect their composure. Certainly it's preferable to shouting or violence, but if the child perceives it as an abandonment threat, then isn't it wrong to do? Well, the child will absolutely experience two things. If you are getting into a conflict with your child and you say, I got to get out of here. I got to go for a walk. I've got to find somewhere to calm down. Well, first of all, I guess the child will perceive three things. One, you're kind of out of control.
Two, you are abandoning the child. And three, the child is provoking you to the point where you're nearly losing your mind and that will be very destructive to the child. Look, mistakes happen. There may be a time where it's certainly better than yelling or helplessly hitting. So it may happen, let's say, that you need to take a breath and cool things down. First of all you've let it escalate to that point and and you need to find it. Most of life is just about preventing escalation isn't it? Like most of a moral life is just about preventing escalation which is called nipping in the butt which means it's easier to stop a snowball than an avalanche, right? So how do people end up having like sleeping with someone outside their marriage?
Well step by step very slowly then very quickly you flirt a little you go out for coffee you go out for dinner you you meet up on a business trip and then eventually you're just going to end up in bed together, right? But it's all step by step by step usually, right?
[21:10]Â So a moral life is just about preventing escalation.
[21:16]Â Don't indulge yourself to the point where you end up with that level of intensity.
Save your intensity for truth and lovemaking.
[21:32]Â What you need to do is if you need to step out because you're getting so upset
De-escalation: Putting things in perspective
[21:37] then you need to make it your project and whether you got to stay up all night for three nights or whatever it is you need to do you need to make it your project to find a way to de-escalate.
Find a way to de-escalate. How do you de-escalate? You put things in perspective.
You know, like if your kid is not sharing and you end up yelling, it's like, Is it more important that my kids share, or more important that I don't yell at my kid?
Or have to run out of the room because I'm overwhelmed or whatever, right?
How important is this? I mean that's perspective, isn't that de-escalation? How important is this?
So your kid doesn't share, so what? Trust your kid will learn to share over time.
A lot of parents go through a situation where their kids prior to the growth spurt of puberty gain some weight.
So you're just going to nag the kid from here to eternity or you're just going to understand the kid's going to learn about, you know, especially if you model good weight behavior yourself, your kid's going to learn about how to be a healthy weight and like it's just going to work out and just trust your kids. Trust that your modeling of the behavior you want is good and your kids it's going to work out. They're smart, they're going to puzzle it all out, they're going to figure it all out and just trust them. How important is this? How important is this?
But I mean that's de-escalation, right?
[22:59] Is it really worth that level of emotional intensity? Let's say your kid drew on the wall, right?
Let's say your kid drew on the wall, like the marker, permanent marker on the wall, right?
And you look at it, it's like, right?
I mean, who cares? It's a wall. It's a wall.
It's a wall. Oh my, but I don't have the original paint.
[23:26] Okay, so you don't have the original paint. So you've got some black marks on your wall, you've got some, sorry, but you've got some black marks on your wall.
You will, honestly, you will look back and you will laugh.
I'm telling you this, you will look back and you will laugh. And so what?
I mean, these days it's pretty easy, you take a photo of the wall and there's paint matching stuff at the hardware store and it's going to cost you 20 bucks and a couple of hours for the paint to repaint and you can do it with your kid and it's memorable.
Every time you look at that wall you think of the, oh but it doesn't quite match. Oh my god. I don't even know what to say. There's a patch of wall that's slightly a different shade because my kid drew on the wall. Oh my god. I've got to tell you man, you know one day, there's two full days we never live. The day we're born and the day we die. There's one day you're gonna,
Reflecting on life's true priorities
[24:28] wake up and you ain't gonna make it to midnight. You ain't gonna make it to midnight. You're out of options, you're out of choices, you're out of treatments.
You're dying.
[24:43] Everything then is in perspective, right? Everything then is in perspective. Now on, your dying day when you are inevitably reviewing your life, your choices, the good and evil that you did, is it going to be a very high priority that 40 years ago in a house you've long since sold and moved out of, there is a wall with a slightly different patch of color on it.
[25:26] Is that going to matter to you at all? Are you going to sit there with hopefully your loved ones around you, kids, your grandkids, your great grandkids, grandkids, whoever, with all of them around you and they say, what do you think of your life? You can be like, well you know I did a lot of good, I did some ill, it's inevitable, but damn it! That patch of paint man, on that house from 40 years ago. I don't even remember the address. I know we sold it. But that, that patch of paint man on that wall...
That's just tormenting me man, that's torturing me. Were you gonna be that? Of, course not. You got to be crazy and I'm telling you, I mean I've told this story before but it's really really important and if you haven't heard it before you need to hear it.
My mother beat the hell out of me because I had a cup of water and I put it on a night table, and it left a little ring behind. I didn't use a coaster.
[26:51] Now by the next day the ring had evaporated dried up and disappeared and it was like, like so the memory of that when I was I remember I was playing a rocket ship we were going on a rocket ship to Mars. I was doing this with a friend of mine, I was maybe five or six years old, and my mother beat the hell out of me for a temporary white ring on a nightstand or a dresser or something like that. And it was a nice dresser, don't get me wrong, it was nice wood, it it wasn't cheap and I get all of that. Now I'm not... if it was a dresser my
Childhood Trauma: The Nightstand Incident
[27:30] mother still had... sorry if it was a nightstand I think my mother still has, it. If it was a dresser it's long gone. Now I remember that more than half a century later, more than 50 years later, I'm 57 right? I remember that vividly.
[27:50] And, you know, like my friend fled. I mean, he probably thought I was gonna die. It was bad, right? It's like that line from the song, the Dire Straits song, about war. Iron Hand.
[28:06] That night they said, in terms of the casualties, that night they said it had even shocked the Queen. It had even terrified my friend. Thought he was going to witness a murder.
Now that ring lasted a day but the memory, the trauma, I still remember and I still feel and I still understand. Now my mother has that nightstand but she, doesn't have me. Priorities right? The nightstand is infinitely more important, than my son. Or if it was a dresser or a cabinet or something, it's long gone. It was sold or given away when we left England and now somebody else has it or it's, you know, at this point in 50 years maybe it's still around, maybe it went years or decades ago into the garbage and now it's just ground-up crap under a landfill. You see? You understand what I'm saying here, right?
And that memory, that perspective has been absolutely essential for me in terms of quality parenting. What does it matter? What does it matter?
[29:22] My mother chose wood over blood and produced blood over wood. Now she does or doesn't have the wood. Maybe nobody has, your kid is defying you, your kid is arguing with you, your kid is disagreeing with you, the wood, but she doesn't have the blood.
[29:48] Your kid did something bad, your kid dropped a glass, your kid knocked over the milk, your kid drew on the wall.
De-escalation is the fundamental question. Who cares? What does it matter? What does it matter?
Perspective: What Really Matters in Life
[30:04]Â People's perspectives on these things are just wild to me. They're just wild to me.
[30:12] Me. My husband doesn't doesn't doesn't put his his his clothes right into the laundry hamper. Oh my god. Yeah my daughter's a teenager what does she do you can tell where she's been because there's a trail of stuff. Yeah she's cheap. How do I know she had a cup of water because there's a cup there. Who, cares? Who cares? My gosh! I'm telling you man, this is why they cut you off from the older generation, because the older generation is going to look back and say all the shit you care about doesn't matter. Doesn't matter. You're letting it rule your life when it doesn't matter. I think of all the women that I wanted to go out with, some said yes, some said no, it doesn't matter. I'm with the love of my life, through the end of my life. It doesn't matter. Financial stress is ups and downs. It doesn't matter. I mean, you've got your health, right? That's what old people say. If you've got your health, you've got everything. It's pretty true.
[31:18] It's pretty true. What on earth could your child have done or be doing that, has you run from the room in hysterical overwhelmedness. Well, the belief that something matters that doesn't fucking matter. You believe something is all important when it doesn't fucking matter. Please, I'm begging you, I'm begging you, understand this perspective. It doesn't matter. It's unimportant. It will be funny later on.
[32:04] Stop giving yourself license to hysteria. Stop giving yourself license to Exaggerate stop giving yourself license for hysterical hyperbole. Stop giving yourself license to escalate.
[32:19] To escalate to the point where you have to flee Your little boy or your little girl. You gotta run away like there's some dangerous predator They're a monkey with a machine gun. They're a bomb you gotta run, oh my god, I've gotta flee, and handle it. And you know this, you know that, think of all the worries you had when you were 15. How important were they?
Don't you need that perspective? The perspective of time? And the time to recognize how unimportant most things are is not later, but now. It doesn't do you
The Importance of Recognizing Unimportant Things Now
[33:03] any good later, it just gives you regret. Like why was I so upset about this? I mean if I were to talk to my mom and say you remember that, well of course she'd claimed and I have no memory of it, it never happened, I must have dreamt it, I'm lying, right? But let's say that I did get through to her, would she sit there and say, like she's in her 80s now, right? Would she sit there and say, well yeah of Of course, I beat you bloody, but you didn't use a coaster.
I mean, you were five and you didn't use a coaster.
[33:36] So yeah, it makes perfect sense to me. And yes, it was worth costing in part my relationship with you because you didn't use a coaster. This, right? You understand? I'm holding this up to the camera. You need to know why I've got a coaster, right? See, this is me and this is the coaster. The coaster should be completely unimportant at any age, particularly if I'm five. So there's a ring. Who cares, right? Like my daughter knocked over something, I put a dent and a chip in the hardware floor.
Who cares? Accidents happen, it doesn't matter. What's more important? Some piece, of fucking hardwood or my daughter? I mean, I don't even think about the hardwood, it doesn't matter. You know when I spilled silver paint on a carpet I was so terrified that with my step-grandmother we had to lift up a chair, cut out a little piece and cut out this piece because I was absolutely terrified I was going to get beaten to death over... and I'm not... I know this sounds like exaggeration but it was scary like she was really violent so I was scared I was going to die from spilling some paint because I shouldn't have been doing it there. It's like I'm eight years old, right? And I was afraid that I would die over carpet, over a spill on a carpet. Honestly.
The Power of a Coaster
[35:05]Â My mom doesn't have that carpet anymore. We sure didn't bring it to Canada.
When we moved when I was 11 or I was moved, it's dragged along like a valise.
So my mom doesn't even have that carpet. She doesn't have me. So this coaster should be completely unimportant, right? But with my mother, the coaster, right, looms up, looms up, looms up, and completely eclipses me and now it all goes dark. Right? This is the story, right?
Coaster is unimportant, doesn't matter, but for my mother it zooms up, eclipses me and everything goes dark. And now what does she have? She's got an empty room, she's got nothing, she's got, nothing. She doesn't have the coaster, she doesn't have the wood, she certainly doesn't have the ring on the wood and she doesn't have me. Was that a wise perspective? Was that important enough to to lose your entire relationship with your son, your favorite son.
I hate to say it, but it's true. It's weird. All right.
[36:03] What is the philosophical significance of the necromancer? The necromancer is a class of magician or wizard, who specializes in bringing the dead to life.
And the necromancer is an analogy for the people who continually provoke historical grievances, who continually provoke old things. Oh, remember when he did this?
And oh yeah, remember when they did that?
Or your ancestors did this or, all right.
So the communists are very good at this, right? They are good at provoking ancestral or historical antagonisms. And you can see them doing this with regards to racists.
They promise to do and all of that.
So a necromancer is somebody who brings the dead to life and they attack people.
Well, there's a people who don't let wounds heal. They just continue to pick at them in order to set people against each other in order to have a fight by proxy.
A staff, I messaged and friend requested a woman on Facebook that I met at a nightclub 10 months ago.
Immediately after messaging her on Facebook, I felt a really bad feeling like I'd done something wrong.
I don't know if it's because the messaging of the Me Too movement paints all men as potential predators, or if it's because of stories like Johnny Depp and J.F. Gary Eppie who've been falsely accused by women and had their lives destroyed of, really?
Johnny Depp, yes, I don't know about Gary Eppie. Or if it's because of celebrities like Kevin Costner and Mel Gibson who've had their bank accounts drained by ex-wives in divorce courts, or if it's just because of my own mother who has a history of making belittling and condescending statements about me, regardless of whatever the reason is.
Escaping Negative Feelings from Female Judgment
[37:21] Steph, do you have any advice on how I can escape a very bad negative feeling that often comes from female judgment.
[37:27] Well you can't give your heart to someone who can't handle power. I mean you can't. I mean you can but your heart will get destroyed. You can't give your heart to someone who can't handle power. And women of course know that their power of no, the power of saying no, is terrifying to men and gives them a huge amount of power. And some women, and some men of course, but some we'll talk about women, some women take that power and use it and abuse it and escalate and dominate and use it to extract resources while never providing babies, all right?
So some women will abuse that power and they do that by belittling men, by raising the market demand so they can feel the center of demand which gives them a false sense of virtue and value. I am valuable because people want me, not I am valuable because people love me. And so they will do a lot, they'll post on Instagram that we're revealing outfits in order to provoke male desire so that they feel like they have value because they are desired and it's never fulfilled in terms of like burning up that value in order to have children and pair bonding. So don't be around people who can't handle power. They will use it against you and they will harm you and you get that with your mother and all of that. So you have to say why is it I'm interested in this woman? Why am I interested in this woman? Because she's pretty. Okay well if she's pretty and she's milking that then it's not likely to end up that well. And again I'm not saying don't be attracted to pretty women. My wife's got a great figure and it's very pretty, but she doesn't use it.
[38:57]Â When I first met her she was like, she called it the ten. She was in a giant.
[39:01] T-shirt and she just didn't want people judging her for her looks. Is it even possible to quote heal psychological trauma? I've heard people say that, but, can you do it if your brain has been affected by abuse or neglect? From others I've heard that you heal by learning to manage your trauma reactions and impulses, but you have to be conscious of them. In other words, can someone say, I've healed my psychological trauma? I don't know that healing makes any sense in that context. So if you're frightened of lions, what do you do? Well, you move to a place where there isn't lions. Does that mean you've healed your fear of lions? No, but you've learned from it. The purpose of trauma is not to disappear or be healed, but to instruct and inform and keep you safe. The purpose of trauma is make you scared of dangerous people so that you stay away from dangerous people.
Trauma is experiencing something negative when in the presence of someone.
So like there's this theory, you know, this is a bizarre theory. It's a bizarre theory. You can see it in the movie.
[40:04] Goodwill hunting and it's in a bunch of other movies and the theory is that you have all of these bottled up emotions that make You unhappy, but then you have one big screaming screaming crying throwing yourself on the ground sobbing, Thing and then all of those feelings are released and you're relaxed and happy going forward. This is sort of bottled up,
Releasing Emotions vs. Changing Actions and Behavior
[40:22] Kind of feeling that you've got all these repressed things. You let all those feelings out and everything is is great, And it's it's not it's not true in my opinion. I'm no expert on this, right?
I feel like just in my opinion, in my experience, having talked to a whole bunch of people, it's not true.
[40:38] It's not true. I just had the call with the guy on Sunday who was sobbing at the beginning, and but he didn't have a whole bunch of emotions that he needed to let out because a lot of times those feelings are generated by continued thoughts of victimhood and you need to try and find ways to stop being a victim in order to not have the tears that come out from your experience of victimhood. So you need to change your life, your actions or behavior, right? And you told him you need to get to a safe neighborhood where you're not going to be assaulted for going to the bank machine. The idea that he needs to just let his feelings out while still staying in a dangerous neighborhood where he gets assaulted on a regular basis, what good would that do?
Oh, you've got to let your feelings out, you just let all the tears out, let all the crying out.
You're still in a neighborhood where you're going to get assaulted so you're just going to feel like more of a victim and cry more tomorrow. Oh, you know, your hand's in a fire and it's hurting, well you just need to let that pain fall through you like fight club star let that pain flow through you experience the pain don't fight it's like take your hand out of the fire man, you can't and the purpose of the pain is so you don't put your hand in the fire.
[41:42]Â I mean i've learned from the trauma that i experienced as a child so that i'm a happy
Healing Psychological Trauma and Low-Quality Leadership in Canada
[41:46] guy now my happiness in general is seven to eight out of ten which is as good as i'm gonna aim for because i think aiming higher then makes you be unhappy because you haven't achieved that or something, but I don't know about healed my psychological trauma. I'm not in situations where my trauma gets continually provoked by having trashy dangerous degenerate people in my life. So I've learned from it and therefore it is at peace. I'm at peace with it. Why does the Conservative Party of Canada have low quality leadership since Harper was voted out? How can they improve? Who do you think would be a quality candidate for the next Prime Minister of Canada. Sorry, it's politics, I don't care. How long after you started posting podcasts was it until it felt like people were starting to listen? What were the breakout moments for you? I don't remember anything like that, honestly. I don't remember anything like that. I sort of hate to say it because I'm talking to you so I don't want you to feel devalued by this as an individual. I massively care that there is an audience but I don't care the size of the audience. My, connection is with the truth and with honesty and directness and providing value.
[43:01] After that, it's out of my hands. It's out of my control. It's out of my control. So, it wasn't like, oh gosh, people are starting to listen. That's great. My connection is with the truth and communicating it as directly and as passionately and as practically and actionably as humanly possible. I'm always aiming for that. After that, it's up to the audience. After that, it's up to you. If you listen, great. If you share it, great. If it's too scary to share, I understand, but not great. So I don't really care how many people listen. I care.
[43:40] How well I'm doing philosophy. Now of course it matters that there's an audience and I've got to pay the bills and all of that, but it matters to me how well I'm doing. It doesn't matter to me nearly as well how many people listen. Because the moment I start to focus on the audience, I'm then focused on the audience rather than the truth. I would rather have a core audience of people who really understood and got and acted on what I was saying than a broader audience that just viewed me as an engaging and entertaining talking thumb or head or whatever it is, right? My primary relationship is with the truth. Through that I hope that an audience manifests but if I say that it's really important to me that there's a big audience or whatever, then I have a problem because then I'm focused on the audience and not the truth.
So I'm aiming at the truth and we'll see what happens.
[44:35]Â What do you think goes through the mind of a person who unironically uses the term anarcho-tyranny?
Understanding the Concept of "Tromboning" and Objective Childhood Assessment
[44:44]Â I'm not sure that they would have a mind if they're just repeating slogans without understanding anything.
A friend of mine used the term Traumabonding to refer to the anguish of remembering good things about one's abusive parents.
First, how does one know what was good about their childhood and what was bad?
Second, how does one get a more objective view of how their childhood affected them?
A more objective view of how their childhood affected them? I don't understand.
How your childhood affected you is what your internal experience was.
Was. I don't know what about objective view. Objective often has to do with dissociating.
You know, like I've had people, many people, call in for call-in shows and they're very unhappy about their childhoods and their childhoods were obviously bad and then they say, well, you know, but I've heard worse on your show and it's like, no, that's just a way of distancing yourself from your own experience. A bad childhood is absolutely terrible for you and dissociating yourself from your experience by saying other people had it worse. I don't know, that's a way of, minimizing your own experience and you say, oh but Steph, you said put things in perspective and so on. It's like no, because if you minimize your experience of danger you will, be highly likely to be in a dangerous situation again. Oh that lion jumping at me wasn't so bad, other people have had bigger lions jump at them, so you'll be less attentive or careful about lions.
[46:12] I have a niece that dropped out of college. She's currently 20 years old, lives with her mother, and has no motivation to work, go to school, or do much of anything. She sleeps all day, and or stares at social media for hours. She's recently lost her best friend to suicide.
Because of this, we have not been too assertive in trying to motivate her to figure out what to do with herself, and also including nudging her to do talk therapy. She was raised by my sister.
The father played a minimal role, but myself and my father when he was alive helped out where we could. How can we help my niece?" She's an adult man. Don't care about people more than they care about themselves. They'll just exploit you. Like if you care about people more than they care about themselves, you're giving them power over your resources, time, attention, money, whatever it is.
[47:03]Â Don't make yourself exploitable because that simply reinforces manipulative
Avoid enabling manipulative behavior and protect yourself.
[47:09] people's worst habits. Don't make yourself exploitable. If she's complaining about her life, just listen. Don't give answers. The moment you step in and try and help people and give them all the answers and tell them what to do and do this and do that, you are taking away their agency. Now, people say, ah yes well Steph but you have call-in shows. I don't tell people what to do. I listen, I provide connections I think where they make sense and we talk about that and I may suggest talk therapy but they're calling me asking me for advice usually because they're in desperate straits.
[47:49]Â Also, don't assume there's anything wrong with people's lives.
Don't assume there's anything wrong with people's lives.
[47:53] Because it's not the life you want, doesn't mean that it's not the life they want. Maybe she just wants to sleep all day and watch videos all night or whatever she's doing all night.
I'll stare at social media for hours.
I see you at night, right? Sleeps all day. So she's up all night. Well, it's not the life you would want. It's not the life I would want.
Don't assume there's anything wrong with people's lives because If you say, oh that life is terrible, you're wasting your life, you're doing all this that and the other, then you're going to further crush any sense of value she has in herself, which is probably going to drive her further into the dissociative addictive behavior.
So be available as a resource, obviously, and tell her that, you know, I'm happy to listen, happy to help, but don't fall into the trap of caring more about people than they care about themselves because it'll just rouse their worst instincts to exploit you, usually.
[48:48] What is the purpose of morality? The purpose of morality is to help you avoid rank hypocrisy, so that you can tell the truth and you can be entirely present in the world, which immensely raises or improves your chances of being loved and of being able to love, which is the greatest joy around. What is your process for writing the ending of your novels? Many stories in mainstream media today seem to be very good in the beginning and middle but then completely fall apart at the end. Maybe I'm just noticing it more but any ideas on why this seems so commonplace today?
[49:23] Well sure, I mean the purpose of novels are to communicate morality, to communicate moral lessons, and because people in media as a whole don't believe in morality they can't have any endings, for their stories. So my process for writing the ending of your novels is to make sure that.
[49:44] Everyone gets paid what they've earned. The good people get good things and the bad people get bad things. So, but you have to believe in morality in order to have a satisfying ending to a story. What are your thoughts on the love languages? Oh, this is well some people experience love through touch, other people experience love through gifts, other people experience love and this, this, this, this and my...
That's a bunch of nonsense. It really is just... men... this idea that men and women are so fundamentally different that what experiences love for one thing is not love for another and blah blah blah blah blah and men experience love through sex but women need to feel love in order to have sex and blah blah blah. Nonsense!
You know we've evolved to be compatible, right? I mean we of all the species who
The Complexity of Relationships and Compatibility
[50:28] have to pay a bond for 60 years to raise kids, grandkids and great-grandkids, we have to pay a bond for 60 years. Do you really think that men and women have evolved to being comprehensible to each other? No. Here's what happens. What happens is Bob and Mary choose each other for reasons of lust, vanity, status, whatever, nonsense, right? And then they find out that they don't really like each other and then they invent a whole bunch of complications as to how they should get along better when they've just chosen.
Each other, but they're not compatible, they're not moral, they don't use each other for morality.
[51:05] My wife and I don't have any issues with communication. We don't. We chat, we engage, we enjoy each other's company, we're going to go out today for a nice meal, talk about a variety of things, looking forward to it, it's going to be great. So I'm a little dressed up today, actually I have pants on. So yeah, there's no... if you choose someone and you don't really like and respect that person's virtues, then you're going to have to invent a whole bunch of reasons why you're not getting along and it's like oh because I'm touching her in the wrong way and I didn't buy enough gifts and I'm not listening well enough and I didn't clean the house well enough and I didn't... she has a different love life... you chose each other for the wrong reasons and now you just have to make up a whole bunch of voodoo nonsense to why you're not getting along it's like you know I'm getting along because you're not virtuous so be virtuous you don't don't need all of this nonsense right and there's a huge there's a huge market, to to say that incompatibility is somehow baked into males and females which is really funny again we've evolved to be perfectly compatible so if you're incompatible it's because you chose the wrong person for the wrong reasons and you're trying to wallpaper it up with some convoluted nonsense so there's a huge market as to well you're not getting along because you're not doing this secret trick baffles couples who don't get along.
No, there's no, you just choose your partner on virtue, be virtuous yourself and you're fine.
[52:28] Any thoughts on violent impulses against my unborn baby? I would never act on them, but throughout her pregnancy, I would sometimes have very sudden flashes of violence in my mind towards her and the baby specifically.
[52:38] I've heard when my wife becomes pregnant, my testosterone is supposed to drop, but honestly, I feel more aggressive than ever.
You were describing a low quality male in a recent show and all the characteristics could be used describe my behavior towards my wife. I would really really strongly recommend get into some talk therapy about this. This is going to be harsh, I could be totally wrong, so if it doesn't apply to you please discard it like, yesterday's potato rinds. All right, babies, Take away any excuses you have for selfishness. You have to, your whole life changes, you're there for your babies, you're there for your kids.
One day, many days down the road, I will talk about everything that my wife and I have done for our daughter and it is massive.
[53:32] Like you wouldn't believe it. And it's not a sacrifice, I mean this is what you choose when you have kids, what's best for our kids, right? What's best for our kids? So yeah, everything that we've had to do is wild and again we'll get into it at some point before I'm dead hopefully. Be a little tricky after.
