This episode discusses "Where the Wild Things Are," exploring power, discipline, and social rejection. It delves into Max's behavior, media manipulation, and the value of love over possessions. Valuable insights provided.
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Brief Summary
In this episode, we analyze Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are" and explore themes of discipline, power, and the importance of rules. We discuss Max's sociopathic behavior, the role of media manipulation, and the fear of social rejection. We also examine the significance of prioritizing love over material possessions and the evaluation of claims. With thought-provoking analyses and personal stories, this episode provides valuable insights to consider.
Chapters
0:00:00 Introduction and Background of "Where the Wild Things Are"
0:04:30 The Child Inducted into the Predators Hall of Fame
0:07:06 Max asserts his authority and sends the wild things to bed.
0:16:05 The Power of Imagination and Breaking Boundaries
0:20:16 Differentiating Likely and Unlikely Conspiracy Theories
0:25:44 Gel Man Amnesia and Media Slander
0:29:04 Ostracism and the Price of Remembering the Truth
0:30:57 The Disposable Nature of Social Interactions
0:33:32 Social Interactions Hang by a Thread of Ideological Conformity
0:36:16 Heartbreak and Reflection on Hopes and Dreams
0:40:13 The realization that there's nothing left in the relationship
0:42:13 The Impact of Affection Turned into Rage
0:45:01 Cost of Fighting Over Assets and Impact on Capacity to Love
0:47:05 Navigating Divorce and Bonding Without Kids
0:49:36 The Moral High Ground and Leading by Example
0:55:56 Evaluating Weight Loss Claims: Overwhelming Options
Long Summary
In this episode, we dive into a captivating analysis of the book "Where the Wild Things Are" by Maurice Sendak. We explore the themes of father absence and a lack of discipline from the mother, as well as the significance of the wild things being drawn with human feet while the protagonist, Max, is never depicted with human feet. We delve into the plot of the story, where Max exhibits signs of budding sociopathy through his destructive and cruel behavior towards animals. We discuss how the absence of discipline and rules from Max's mother allows these behaviors to develop.
Covering the protagonist's dream journey into a wild forest and his encounter with dangerous creatures that turn out to be friendly, we explore the concept of redirecting children's sense of danger through propaganda. We analyze Max's ability to tame the wild things by staring into their eyes without blinking, shedding light on his grandiose fantasies and detachment from reality. The story concludes with the wild things bowing down to Max, symbolizing his induction into the Predators Hall of Fame and serving the rulers.
In the next segment, we shift gears to discuss how the protagonist of "Where the Wild Things Are" evolves from a lonely individual to a predator and ultimately an abusive authority figure. We examine the concept of power and its correlation with isolation and loneliness. The protagonist's yearning for love and connection leads him to leave the wild world he has created, although the wild things attempt to lure him back with perilous consequences. We delve into the lack of consequences and punishment upon the protagonist's return home, highlighting the ineffective disciplinary actions taken by his mother. The importance of structure and rules in our lives becomes apparent, as their absence can lead to chaos and madness. We explore the tension between rejecting reality for creativity and the potential for descending into madness.
Moving forward, we discuss the significance of restraint mechanisms in our lives, such as moral and epistemological rules, in containing our wild creativity and imagination. We provide examples of scenarios where the absence of rules has led to negative outcomes, including lying to skip school and the blurring of the line between fantasy and reality. We emphasize the need for rules and boundaries to protect us from the potential chaos and madness of our imaginations. Drawing a comparison between a dog on a leash and a dog without a leash, we illustrate how rules provide protection and safety.
Diving into the concept of media manipulation, we explore the idea that suppressed conspiracy theories are more likely to be true. We touch upon the role of governments in engaging in deception and abuse, leading people's attention away from critical issues and towards unchangeable events. We highlight how the mainstream media often exhibits the "gel man amnesia" effect, where factual evidence is ignored while slanderous information is believed and perpetuated. This manipulation allows those in power to label certain individuals as dangerous and perpetuate division.
Exploring the concept of ostracism and its powerful impact, we discuss the fear of social rejection that inhibits individuals from challenging falsehoods and questioning established narratives. We analyze the high price of remembering and challenging falsehoods, as individuals derive their identities and sense of virtue from these falsehoods. Ostracism produces similar emotional distress to physical torture, underscoring its influence over us.
Shifting gears, we contemplate the importance of pair bonding and a supportive community in raising children, and the genetic implications of isolation. We delve into the concept of conformity and how it affects social interactions, often leading to the avoidance of discussing controversial topics for fear of attack or isolation. We reflect on the complexity of the human brain and the role conformity played in its development. The challenges of telling the truth in a society that values conformity are acknowledged, and a listener's experience with divorce and the emotional pain it entails is addressed. While the main speaker empathizes with the listener's situation, they admit their lack of personal experience in navigating a contentious breakup.
In terms of divorce and material possessions, the main speaker acknowledges that prioritizing love over material possessions is essential. They share personal anecdotes about teaching their daughter about the value of objects and prioritize love when dealing with a failed relationship. They emphasize the need to stay focused on love and not let conflicts over possessions harm the ability to find love in the future. The importance of leading by example in moral arguments is highlighted, and the nuances of morality and practicing what we preach are explored.
Delving into the evaluation of claims, we examine the importance of judging the proponents of theories to filter out false ones. Embodying the virtues we want others to embrace becomes crucial in establishing credibility. We acknowledge the challenges of evaluating arguments and the need for filtering mechanisms due to time constraints and different interests. The main speaker concludes by encouraging listeners to consider these discussions and inviting them to join the community at Freedomain.locals.com and support the show at freedomain.com.
With a mix of thought-provoking analyses and personal experiences, this episode takes a deep dive into various themes and topics, leaving listeners with valuable insights and perspectives to ponder.
Tags
episode, analyze, Maurice Sendak, Where the Wild Things Are, themes, discipline, power, rules, sociopathic behavior, media manipulation, fear of social rejection
Transcript
Introduction and Background of "Where the Wild Things Are"
[0:00] Good morning, everybody. Hope you're doing well. Stefan from Free Domain.
Freedomain.locals.com. Great questions. Sign up for your chance to win some answers to your questions. All right.
Free Domain. Would love a take on where the wild things are.
By Maurice Sendak. It was read to me when I was in early elementary school and something prompted me to go read it again.
I thought, this is a little boy raging about father absence and a mother not enforcing her punishments.
I feel something is important about the fact that one of the wild things is drawn with human feet and the only human picture of the little boy Max is never shown with his human feet.
Well, I did get that recommendation many years ago. I guess it's a pretty old movie by now, right?
So the story is fairly typical. There's no father mentioned, of course, right?
And the story is basically that there's a kid who's wearing a wolf suit and breaks things and makes mischief and is cruel to animals.
So these are all signs of budding sociopathy.
And his mother called him wild thing so she's not imposing any discipline or rules or contact or feedback or intimacy or play and Max said I'll eat you up so now he's talking about you know cannibalism for his mother and so on so he is sputting sociopathy I would assume and then he has a dream obviously it's the night a forest grows and then he moves completely into the dream.
[1:26] World and he sails forever and ever amen to where the wild things are so this is what his mother said to him and the wild things it's it's a typical thing that happens in the world and in children's stories in particular where an authority figure says these things are scary, but they're not really scary these things seem scary but they're not really scary now that is a way to disarm children's instincts of danger, right?
So you see this all the time that, you know, there's this terrible lion, but the lion turns out to be friendly after all.
Or, you know, the lion who's really aggressive and angry, and then it turns out, well, the lion is just hurt because it has a thorn in its paw, and so on.
So the idea, children have a very deep and instinctual sense of danger, but the powers that be don't want those children to have that sense of of danger.
So what they do is they hack or hijack that children's sense of danger so that they can use it against their political enemies or those who are inconvenient to the rulers, as is sort of the case throughout human history.
So a lot of children's stories are redirecting children's legitimate concerns about being preyed upon.
[2:41] To hijack it through propaganda so that those inconvenient to those in power can be viewed as dangerous by children as opposed to the real danger, which throughout human history has usually been those in power.
So he goes to where the wild things are, and they roar with terrible roars and gnash with their terrible teeth.
And so, but of course, they're dangerous, right? There's like all kinds of crazy creatures here.
And one of them is a dog-faced devil. they have curly horns and so on.
So you have lions and manticores and all kinds of strange beasts, but then they have big teeth and claws and horns, and they're obviously predators, but they're all friendly, right?
So that which is dangerous to you is actually friendly and nice and benevolent and helpful, right?
So we can think of the chieftain in an ancient tribe who is actually incredibly dangerous to everyone and would get people killed who disagree with him, But he's a friendly old bear, a Mufasa-style guy and all of that.
So he goes to find the real danger, but the real danger turns out to be fine.
[3:48] And they're roaring at this Max kid, and then Max says, be still, right? And he tames them just by staring into their eyes without blinking.
And they were frightened, right? So the idea that you can stare down, this is a magical thinking, right?
The idea that you can stare down predators, you can just stare at predators and they'll cow and bow before you.
This is a break with reality, right? So, from the sociopathic tendencies of torturing animals and breaking things, to then the megalomaniacal tendency of thinking, or the megalomaniacal fantasy, the grandiose fantasy that you can stare down massive dangerous predators, and they will bow down and admit that you are the greatest and most powerful and so on.
The Child Inducted into the Predators Hall of Fame
[4:30] And then they say, wow, you're way wilder than I am. And all you do is stare at them.
And they then bow down before you, and they make him a king.
And then they have a celebration, right? So this is a child who is being inducted into the Predators Hall of Fame, right? So...
[4:50] The, let's say, sort of the rulers, right, the ruling class, has set up a society where this kid doesn't have any close parents, he's got no siblings, his father is absent, his mother is off-screen, so to speak, like off the page, and simply calls him a wild thing.
And so he's been set up for this kind of instability in his life, sort of mental illness and problems and dangers.
[5:15] And so then what happens is he goes to all the predators in his mind, and they submit to him.
Now, why would predators submit to you just for looking at them?
Why would giant predators, who are clearly built for eating meat, there's a little boy there, why would they bow down before a little boy that they would have biologically been created to eat?
Well, because, and then why would they celebrate bowing down before him and calling him the king?
Well, what happens, of course, is if you serve the rulers, they will praise you, right?
So in most of human societies, there's this belief that the people that are ruled over, the real backbone and spine of the land and patriotism and so on.
Well, you're not serving the country because the country doesn't exist.
You're serving the rulers.
But the rulers will bow down before you and praise you and you are the backbone of the country and you are the backbone of the tribe and they will praise you and they will pretend, of course, that you are in charge.
This, of course, happened in ancient democracies where the rulers would say to the people, you are in charge because you get to vote and so on.
And so, yeah, the predators bow down before the child because he has now become one of them, and they say he's in charge, and they've trapped him in this world.
[6:39] Where predators are his friends, which means he's become a predator.
So that's a fairly typical journey for these kinds of things, and he plays with the predators.
And of course, this has to do with, as well, people who are lonely, children who are lonely, will often fall into a group that is incredibly dangerous for them, just because they're so desperate for companionship, and this, of course, is happening in this story as well.
Max asserts his authority and sends the wild things to bed.
[7:06] And Max eventually puts, sorry the kid, yeah Max, puts an end to this party and he sent the wild things off to bed without their supper, right, so he goes out there, he stares them down, they pretend that he's in charge, there's a big party and then he bullies them and he sends them off to bed without their supper, which of course was the punishment that was inflicted upon him and so now He's inhabiting the neglectful or abusive authority role.
And then he's lonely.
[7:43] So now he has power. He's isolated. So, I mean, this is what people in power have always done, is that they will invite you into a particular structure.
You will enter into that structure. You will then mirror the abuse.
Like all rulers need their enforcers, right? And so they say, oh, you, the salt of the earth, the good people, the law and order people and the enforcers like to go against those that displease the regime.
And so he's invited into this wild world.
He becomes the king of this wild world, which is manipulation on the part of the monstrous, right? They manipulate him into feeling strong.
And then after he starts exercising power, he becomes isolated, right?
Which is what happens if you have power over people, you no longer have connection with people.
You can't be intimate, you can't be vulnerable, you can't be open, you can't approach people as equals. You simply have have power over them, which means you're isolated.
[8:34] So he gets very lonely, and what happens?
Well, he decides to leave, and then the wild things cry, oh, please don't go, we'll eat you up, we love you so.
So he's abandoning power because he wants to be loved, and then the wild things try and lure him back, and they become then dangerous again, right?
Because because he's trying to get away, but he does get away, and he sails forever and ever.
And then he goes back home, and his mother originally punishes him for his wildness, for his abuses.
[9:14] She punishes him by sending him to bed without eating anything.
And then, after he's tempted by power but rejects power, he comes back, and there's no consequences, no punishment.
His mother is just giving him food. Now, of course, I remember this.
With my own mother, she would ground me and then would get bored and say, let's go to a movie. I mean, it's literally the same day.
Same day. Okay. Now, the fact that his supper is, so it's a hollow and false, quote, punishment that his mother has, and he's looking for someone to have authority over him.
Now, one of the reasons why children who are neglected often will end up joining, you know, pretty brutal hierarchical regimes is because they need structure, right?
We all need structure, we all need rules, we all need containment, because our intellects are so wild that if there's no structure around us, we tend to spill over and go crazy.
[10:16] Our intellects and our imaginations and our creativity, I mean, is always a step and a half away from losing touch with reality because our inner lives, I don't think this is just alone for me.
I mean, most people's inner lives are so vivid that sometimes reality is an afterthought, right?
Reality is something. So we're wooed by the sort of inner chaos and imagination.
And because our imaginations are so powerful, we can imagine ourselves into literal sterility, right?
We can imagine ourselves into pretend achievements through, say, video games or other things.
We can imagine that we have power, and that gives us a thrill.
Now, the imagining that you have power, which gives you a thrill, is supposed to be the dopamine that draws you to actually achieving real power.
And I don't necessarily mean power over others, but although we're certainly drawn towards that as well as an addiction.
But let's say success right so when you're a kid you imagine having all of this success and you get excited about the idea of success the thoughts of success the fantasies about success, and that's supposed to be a rehearsal like the lion cubs practicing to hunt that's supposed to be a rehearsal for real success in your life but a lot of people especially with the technology and the internet and all of that nowadays and they get stuck in the rehearsal for success they They get stuck in imaginary success.
[11:41] So when his mother says no supper, but she's still making supper for him, this gives rise to the chaos of his mind.
If we are not raised with a structure or feedback or rules or anything like that, then we court madness. It is literally crazy.
Leading children to the edge of sanity or abandoning them to end up on the edge of sanity and insanity if we don't give them any structural feedback, contact, intimacy, conversations, and so on, right?
[12:13] Or to put it in another way, the only way that our mind has been able to develop such wild capacities of imagination and creativity and reality rejection, right, the only way, I mean, all technology is the rejection of empiricism, in a way, because if you make a bow, like a bow and arrow, if you make a bow, the bow didn't exist before.
So you're rejecting the absence of the bow to create a bow.
So all advancements, language, the invention of language, is not empirical, because language is not directly empirical in that it certainly does represent, syllables represent things and ideas, is but there's no reason why they have to represent those things as you can see by the different words for tree and every language i mean there's some dad and mama writes the easiest things for kids to learn to say so there's all of that but all creativity is a rejection of the empirical all inspiration is a rejection of the empirical and so there's this tension in the mind right which is you can only advance by rejecting reality but when you reject reality you risk madness because because madness is the rejection of reality, right?
So this is why, you know, they say creativity and madness are two sides of the same coin.
I mean, there is some real truth in that. Now, how is it possible that we've been able to generate such wild levels of creativity?
[13:35] Well, because we've had restraint mechanisms, right?
We've had these restraint mechanisms, And the restraint mechanisms are moral rules and rules of, you know, don't lie and rules of, I mean, a friend of mine took off from school when he was a kid after lunch, and the school called his mother, and he said he was sick, and what happened?
He says, oh, I threw up in the corner of the classroom.
In the corner of the playground, and his mother marched him over and said, show me where, because it hadn't rained, right?
So there should be some residue, some evidence.
And she really just, you know, made him end up telling the truth.
Now, she didn't ask him, why don't you want to be in school or in all that kind of stuff.
That was pretty, I mean, this was the 70s, so it's pretty early days for child liberation.
But your sort of wild creativity has to be restrained by some sort sort of usually moral rules or epistemological rules and so on, right?
And, of course, when I was a kid, there was a lot of warnings in literature.
I don't think that really is common anymore.
There were a lot of warnings in literature about the dangers of daydreaming, just dreaming your life away.
This song by Supertrack, Dreamer, Can you put your hands in your head?
Oh, no. So you put your head in your hands. It's a great series of lyrics.
You can't put your hands in your head. So what you fantasize about, what you imagine is not a real thing, right?
[14:58] Pornography is not a family, right? A video game achievement is not real achievement.
It can be fun and fine and train you for other things, but there's no point training for a race if you never run the race. So the training is fine, but you actually have to run the race.
And so fantasizing, this is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, is a sort of famous short story about a guy who's henpecked by his wife and has a really boring life, but fantasizes about all of these cool things that he's doing.
It was actually made into a movie. I'm pretty sure with Jack Lemmon he'd be perfect to play that kind of guy.
[15:29] So what's happened sort of in the modern world, and this is sort of the relativism and subjectivism thing, is that the barriers that contain our wild imaginations and creativity have been systematically broken down.
And thus madness is spilling across the social landscape. And that's not hyperbole, like genuine madness is spilling across the social landscape.
And those who believe in the fewest rules generally become the most mad, right? So people on the right tend to be bound by religious rules.
People on the left tend to be more relativists. And you can see, of course, that people on the right have far fewer mental health issues, far less madness than people on the left.
The Power of Imagination and Breaking Boundaries
[16:05] So our imaginations have flourished because they were tightly bound by mental structures, whether the mental structures are around.
Don't just daydream. Don't be a dreamer.
And i mean i remember in in the 70s among my friends if we liked some girl that, other our friends believed was beyond our reach or too high status you know oh i like such and such a girl like dreamer you're nothing but a dreamer right don't dream don't fantasize but now it's all about believe in the power of imagination and and there's no limits to what what you can do or think or be, and we have this wild storm within us only because there are giant walls around the storm that keep it from spilling into the town for reason, right?
So you break down those walls, the town gets washed away.
So for this kid, he goes into madness. He goes into madness because there aren't any rules.
And then he comes back from his madness, and it's a confirmation that there aren't any rules because his mom says go to bed without supper and he comes back from his psychotic break or his nap and dream or whatever it is.
[17:19] And he finds that there are in fact no rules which is like no rules and the madness of his vision are the same thing.
I mean, it's sort of like you're not scared of a dog on a leash but if the dog, like a barking dog that's on a leash leash, you may be startled but you're not particularly scared because the dog's on the, But if the dog's leash breaks, then suddenly you're scared, right?
Now you have to have rules and protection and danger, right?
So our wildness has grown because there are rules to restrain it.
But those rules of restraining the chaos and fertility and madness of our imagination, those rules have fallen away.
And now we can think, and we've been encouraged to think, you can be anything, you can do anything, there are no restrictions, no rules.
Just believe magic is everything and all this kind of stuff and this story i think strikes a chord with people because it is about a kid with no rules whose imagination runs wild and.
[18:20] He returns to no rules which means that he's simply going to go mad again right this is not the end of the story is not oh he gets a warm supper and right so he goes to a place where where predators are friendly.
He's a little kid who would be prey, but he's actually in charge of all of the monsters, and they call him king of the monsters, and they praise him, which again is training him to be a lackey of the powers that be.
So I think where the wild things are, well, where the wild things are, are where the rules are not.
And philosophy, of course, one of the reasons since that I really enjoy my own imagination and creativity with sort of poems and novels and all the role plays that I do, which are very sort of imaginative and creative.
One of the reasons I enjoy these things so much is because I have sort of strict rules.
[19:11] And therefore I can indulge in creativity because I am very clear on the demarcation between madness and sanity.
I mean, it's sort of like if you look at a video game where you're doing something dangerous, shooting or jumping or something dangerous, because it's all contained within the screen and the rules of the game and doesn't harm you in any direct physical way, like you get shot, you respawn, on, you can dive yourself into that imaginary world because there are very strict rules, about that world, which would not be the case if you were in a real war, right?
You'd be terrified and there would be actual consequences.
So, yeah, where the wild things are, where the rules are not.
And one of the reasons that we're facing such challenges in the world at the moment is because the rules that developed to contain the chaos of our creativity have fallen away.
Way, and therefore creativity has passed beyond the rules and turned into madness for a lot of people, and it's a big challenge, so I hope that helps. All right.
Differentiating Likely and Unlikely Conspiracy Theories
[20:16] How do we differ a conspiracy theory that is likely versus one that is unlikely?
Are there any common denominators throughout both the false and the true ones?
Sure. Yeah, I mean, absolutely. Absolutely. So, conspiracy theories are more likely to be true if they are more suppressed.
[20:38] Conspiracy theories that are either false or don't cause any problems for the powers that be are allowed to flourish.
So when I was a kid I was so desperate to get out of high school as a teenager that I took summer school in order to graduate five months early and get on with my life and in that summer school I had a history teacher who was a very unstable and bullying fellow but and and took it very personally that I found him boring which you know I guess in hindsight I can understand but it could have been a challenge for him to become more interesting anyway so what happened was he he brought in a fellow for an entire day to go over the JFK theories about, you know, it wasn't one guy, it wasn't Lee Harvey Oswald, or if it was, maybe there was somebody else.
And, you know, we, we saw the Zapruder film and we went through that.
It was literally a whole day going through all the evidence, right?
That, that about, about the JFK shooting and sort of what happened.
Now, what, what has that done? Knowing whatever you believe about that, what is that? What has that done?
What has that done? Because it's things distant in the past that we can't do anything about. People are all dead by now.
I mean, I guess they weren't in the 70s, but I guess that would be the early 80s.
But, I mean, there's never any punishment, never any blowback, never any... Like, nobody goes to jail, right? So...
[22:03] It's just a way of, it's a way of taking people's legitimate moral outrages and pouring them into things that they can't affect, right?
I mean, you see some of this with the Twin Towers and so on.
Okay, so as far as evil deception lies and abuse goes, yeah, governments do do a lot. But you can't do much about that.
[22:24] And instead what you could do of course is you could focus on child abuse spanking circumcision other forms of horror you could talk to people about some of the dangers in certain school curriculum and maybe encourage them to look for alternative lots of things you could do to to actually diminish the power of evil and the infliction of evil on the young in particular which is what you can do the most about but instead people get drawn into this other stuff And there is sort of a theory, I don't know if it's been validated or not, there's kind of a theory that the intelligence agencies around the world would every now and then release, I guess in the US would release, more information about the JFK shooting, in order to draw all of those interested in diminishing evil into this rabbit's maze, where they argued about a bunch of stuff, expended a huge amount of energy.
[23:15] And they would fuel these conspiracy theories in order to have the label called conspiracy theory. I mean, I mentioned this before.
Conspiracy is not a theory. Conspiracy is a crime. Conspiracy is a crime in common law.
It's the organization of a criminal activity by any group of people.
So the idea that conspiracy is some made-up thing, no, no, it's a real crime.
People get charged with it all the time. so legitimate what quote conspiracy theories tend to be data driven they tend to be I mean they tend to be suppressed or there's a lot of hostility towards them they tend to be opposed with eye rolling and name calling rather than data repudiations and and, I mean, real conspiracy theories are, I don't know, the suppression of certain scientific data, you know, the stuff we've talked about before.
[24:07] The suppression of, you know, in a world that claims to be absolutely obsessed with health and longevity and what's dangerous and what's not dangerous and aspartame and fluoride and all of that.
The fact that child abuse, severe child abuse, takes an average of 20 years off someone's lifespan.
The fact that that has not been talked about. out.
[24:28] So all of this stuff that is the most true conspiracy theories are those that aren't talked about.
That aren't talked about. And the most valid conspiracy theories are those where nobody denies the facts, but they just vanish.
Like without even a ripple. If you get blowback, if you get eye rolling, if you get attack, if you get opposition, a lot of times it's interesting, interesting maybe even important but not actionable so people will fight back on you and stuff that they consider to be outlandish but it's not actionable because it's all just play fighting it's all just nonsense but something that is actionable you know do you have abusive people in your life should you hit your children should you yell at your children should you call your children names should you promote peaceful parenting like all these kinds of things, well that stuff is directly actionable and so nobody will talk about it like that to me that's That's the real conspiracy theory stuff.
Not where there's fights, but where it's incontrovertible, like science and the data is incontrovertible, and there's absolute silence about it.
That's the real stuff. All right.
Why is gel man amnesia so common? Bill Ackman's wife gets basically slandered by the mainstream media, yet he and people like him will read Wikipedia's entry on, say, you or someone else and totally believe it.
Gel Man Amnesia and Media Slander
[25:44] Either that or slander is used as a marker by the communists to label people.
Anyone with such a label is marked as dangerous, in that if you continue to publicly associate with this person, and you will also get attacked.
[25:53] So, gel man, I just want to double-check that.
I think that came out of Michael Crichton, right?
Yes, so he says, Michael Crichton said, the famous novelist, Briefly stated, the gel man amnesia effect is as follows.
You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you knew well.
In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues.
Often the article is so wrong that it actually presents the story backwards. quotes.
[26:21] Reversing cause and effect. I call these the wet streets cause rain stories, papers full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story and then turn the page to national or international affairs and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than a baloney just read. You turn the page and forget what you know. Right.
It is a very interesting and in-depth topic.
Brace yourself. It's a very very interesting and in-depth topic.
Sorry, I seem to have a slow jaw today, but we'll survive.
It's a very fascinating and in-depth topic, why people are so susceptible to media falsehoods.
Why are people so susceptible to media falsehoods?
Well, I think, I mean, to me, it comes out of standardized education, government-run education.
Government-run education is a way to program People to avoid anyone who questions the narrative, right? The general stories.
And this ostracism for, quote, weirdos is really programmed into school.
So anybody who asks uncomfortable questions will be shunned.
And this is the, really, it's one of the most ultimate forms and in-depth forms of censorship that exists in the world.
And, you know, we all know it. We all feel it.
I mean, no one's immune to it. at all, which is somebody's blathering away about a topic that they're just completely wrong about.
[27:50] And do you say something? Well, why wouldn't you say something?
Why wouldn't I say something? And again, maybe you've never bit your tongue.
I know I have. So why would you not say something to correct them?
Because social ostracism. Because when people are wedded to a delusion, they will will divorce you if you mention the truth.
I mean, even raise a couple of questions, right? Like, even raise a couple of questions.
[28:21] So what you do is you program people to believe that the narrative, the falsehood, the lies, is virtue, compassion, truth, goodness, and therefore anyone who questions this narrative, these lies, this propaganda, is evil and bad and wrong. You know how.
And this all happens in, it happens in homes, of course, right?
But it also very much happens in school. school.
So, the reason why people have this kind of amnesia is because if they remember.
[28:57] If they remember, if they think, if they question, if they challenge, then they will be ostracized.
Ostracism and the Price of Remembering the Truth
[29:04] So, it's a hack on our biology, right? Ostracism is genetic death, right?
I mean, throughout most Most of our evolution, ostracism, is genetic death.
So you can't afford to be ostracized, or those who chose ostracism over conformity, those genes didn't make it, right?
So we all have the genes within us that provoke great unease when opposing narratives.
Now, of course, it could be direct death if you question the legitimacy of the king, the ruler, the emperor, or whatever, right? Then you just get killed.
But again, it's also death through ostracism, right? the sharpshooter of avoidance.
And women tend to patrol this a little bit more than men, and certainly I've sort of seen this in my experience, for reasons we've sort of talked about before.
So it's not so much that people just forget this stuff.
It's that everybody in society, almost everybody in society, is bound up in these falsehoods. This is Plato's cave.
This is nothing new, but this is people are in the matrix, they're in the delusions, they're in the fantasies.
[30:06] And misery loves company delusion is bondage to each other to the delusion and so on and so if you people found their identity on falsehoods and therefore if you question those falsehoods they view this as an existential attack upon their identity their virtue their personalities their entire sense of of being so it's not so much that people forget it's just that the price of remembering is so high.
I mean, if you were abused as a kid and you've kind of blocked this, it's because the price of remembering the abuse was so high.
If you were abused as a kid and you remember that directly as a kid and think about it a lot as a kid, then you will look with anger and ferocity and resentment and sorrow at your abuser, which will only provoke further abuse. So, right?
Again, it's not that people forget, it's just the price of remembering is so high.
The Disposable Nature of Social Interactions
[30:57] And most people are, I mean, this is a sort of chilling fact about life.
It's pretty wild. If you've been through this, I'm sure you have.
Certainly, if you're into philosophy, you've been through this.
It's really quite amazing how disposable most people are to each other.
I mean, it really, it's amazing. Most people are just so disposable to each other.
So if you are in some lefty group, and even if you've known this lefty group, and you see this all over the place, right?
If you've known some lefty group for decades, could be years, decades you've been friends, and then you bring up some conservative point or some fact that they find upsetting, or then they'll just, you know, cut you. Just boom, done, gone, gone.
And the same thing can happen, of course, on the right. If you talk about some of the injustices of the military-industrial complex, and a lot of the pro-military right will also drop and dump you as a soy boy or whatever it is, right? Man bun incarnate.
And so it really is. And don't we all have this kind of sense that, I mean, outside, hopefully, of a few treasured loved ones, we're completely disposable to others.
And we are so constituted, of course, as I've mentioned a million times before, that ostracism produces within us the same sensations as physical torture.
[32:08] Because we need pair bonding to raise our children. Our children don't survive without pair bonding or at least a commitment on the part of both parties both the parents and of course also from the community to provide for us when we're unwell or if the kids are you know you you've got to go breastfeed and some kids running around you need other kids to other other parents other community members to watch your kids, so we are a social organism that is more than ourselves i mean the only reason we could end up so complex is because the raising of children is a multi-decade dozen or more people investment.
And if we don't have those dozen or more people, our kids have a much lower chance of survival, right?
So isolation is painful to us because it is usually a genetic, certainly a genetic impedance and probably would be the end of our genetics.
So once you get people to believe a bunch of lies, then our evolutionarily demanded conformity metrics kick in and we won't oppose those lies, because opposing those lies means being tossed to the side.
[33:10] And it is, you know, people will literally say, I love you for decades.
But then if you question something that they don't want you to question, they'll toss you to the side. They'll attack you. They're like, it's, it's a wild phenomenon to see.
And evolutionarily speaking, we can understand all of this.
It's just, it's a, it's a pretty big gap from what is claimed to what is actually the case.
Social Interactions Hang by a Thread of Ideological Conformity
[33:32] And so I think everybody has the sense that a lot of social interactions hang by a thread and the thread is almost absolute ideological conformity.
And I think it's become much worse than that.
I mean, I don't know anything about Bill Ackman in particular, but I assume that somebody of his status has to move within a world where conformity is pretty strictly required.
And people don't, I mean, the real problem is not that conformity is required, but people.
[34:00] Don't, they're not honest with themselves about that conformity, right? So if there's some controversial topic, right?
And then what people do is they say, well, it's impolite or it's false or it's wrong or it's mean or it's bad or whatever it is.
They don't say, well, I'm interested in this topic, but I can't talk about it with people because they will attack or drop me in a moment, right?
So when you are enslaved and, you know, I mean, he's got a lot of money, but I'm sure that but there's stuff that he doesn't want to talk about.
[34:30] So, is he free? Well, it's kind of tough, right?
And it's interesting, of course, and do I resent this?
Not in particular, because the only reason that you and I have a complex enough brain to even have these questions or observations or analyses is because our ancestors conformed to each other to the point where we could be really slow to develop, right?
That which is slower to develop generally and biologically ends up more complex.
Our brain is ridiculously slow to develop, which is why it ends up so complex.
So the fact that our ancestors conformed to social norms is how we developed a brain big enough to question social norms so i don't want to i don't want to you know chip out the base of the tree that's keeping me from the bears right so or the wolves i suppose bears can climb trees so, he doesn't want to i would assume people like him again i don't know him personally but i assume people like him they don't want to say to themselves that there's a massive censorship and a requirement to bow before the false social gods of conformity in his life no matter how how wealthy he is, how powerful he is, or whatever, right?
If he tells the truth about various topics, he's going to get dumped and dropped and attacked and isolated, and nobody really wants to, like everybody striding confidently around the world, how many people are willing to say, well, I hang by a thread.
I hang by a thread called nodding along with falsehoods.
[35:45] You know, that's kind of tough. I mean, I think it's important to tell the truth no matter what, but, you know, for a lot of people, that's pretty rough.
All right, let's see here.
Uh-huh, Steph, I'm currently going through a divorce. No kids.
Like our marriage, the divorce has become contentious as we and our lawyers fight over how to split up the assets.
In going through boxes of old stuff, I have found a lot of sentimental things like anniversary cards, letters, and notes that we would give each other.
When we were dating, she would frequently write something nice on a post.
Heartbreak and Reflection on Hopes and Dreams
[36:16] And leave it on my car, along with a granola bar so that I would find it when I went to work in the mornings.
As I have come across all of these things recently, I really feel sad as I think back on our hopes and dreams in the beginning and compare it to the mess that we have created since then.
I have put them all in a box and avoided looking at and reading them because it breaks my heart.
Do you think it would be helpful for grieving, mourning, or healing to go through those cards and notes and memories and dig up that pain?
Or do you think it would do more harm than good? Well, I'm sorry, Frank, that's tough.
I mean, it's a very, very difficult thing to go through that kind of breakup.
I've never had to go through that kind of breakup.
I've never, I would say I've never, I've never really had a bad breakup.
I mean, I've had breakups where I'm I'm sad and all of that, but I've never had a sort of contentious yelling.
Certainly, you know, I was never married before I got married, so there was nothing like that.
So I've never, I've never gone through this kind of thing.
So I'm, you know, I can imagine it and I, you know, my sympathy goes out to you.
I don't, I don't quite understand fighting with your ex about your assets.
That, that I'm a little, I'm a little confused about. That I'm a little confused about.
[37:39] In my experience, I mean, I've certainly had people cheat me or lie to me or rip me off and so on, and I've certainly taken action once or twice, once legal, but as a whole, I'm generally, yeah, take it.
Good riddance. Take it. Moving on. I'm not going to bound myself up in a couple of years of very expensive fighting where you get 25%, I get 25%, and the lawyers get 50%.
Like, sometimes couples attempt to maintain their bond through conflict, through fighting.
[38:09] Feels married and i would imagine that really giving up on the marriage and grieving about the marriage would have something to do with giving up the property and just saying well it's just stuff man it's just stuff i can make more stuff it's i can go and you know how much are you pouring emotional bitterness tension and frustration over over things over objects over over stuff.
I mean, I've never quite understood people's focus on stuff, material stuff.
I mean, I used to say this to my daughter sometimes when she would want something new, I'd say, oh, hey, remember, and she didn't usually, but, you know, occasionally she would.
I would say, you know, when she was very little, we would go to some fair or Niagara Falls or something, and they have those little machines where you press your penny, right? You press a a penny and whatever, right?
And she would desperately want those and, you know, it's fine, you know, have a couple of pennies or whatever, but that's an investment.
And then the next time she desperately wants something, I'd say, hey, where are those pennies? And it'd be this long pause, right?
And this isn't to be mean or humiliate her. And I have to do this with myself, right?
Which is to say, well, this other thing that you desperately wanted, where is it now? She's like, I think it's in a drawer somewhere, right? So you desperately wanted it and where where is it now?
[39:25] And of course, you can think about this with regards to your own childhood, that there were things that you desperately wanted and were hungry to have.
And look, some of those were important. I mean, I desperately wanted a computer, learned how to program computers. It was the foundation of my career.
It gave me the technical skills to run a podcast.
So I get all of that. And this is not, you know, there are some things that you need and it's legit and good and all of that.
But if you're in the situation where you're just trying to win in against her, you're trying to beat her, you're trying to take things from her because you're angry, then the marriage is not over.
If you still want to fight, the marriage is not over. The marriage is over when you don't want to fight anymore.
You know, I mean, I remember in the relationship in my 20s, which went on off and on for a number of years, if we were having conflicts, we stayed together, but...
The realization that there's nothing left in the relationship
[40:14] Evening when I just looked at her and I was like, there's nothing.
There's really nothing here.
Well, that's when it was over. Like if you still want to fight, then you still care about the other person and they're winning or losing and they're still bound up with them.
So if I were in your shoes, what I would do, I guess since the divorce is still going on, it's not finalized.
If I were in your shoes, I would invite my wife over.
She's not your ex-wife yet, right? I would invite my my wife over and I would spread out all these things and I'd say, listen, let's just, let's just go through these.
Look, maybe things haven't worked out between us.
It seems like we both want to move on and it didn't, it didn't work out.
Not because we hate each other.
I mean, obviously we're disappointed and we did things we regret, but you know, we're imperfect human beings like everyone.
[41:00] But let's try it. Either we try and work things out or we try and find a way to move on without conflict because conflict is simply keeping us bound to each other and preventing us from moving on with their lives.
Like, you can't have a boyfriend if you're fighting with me.
I can't have a girlfriend if I'm fighting with you.
We're still bound up with each other. Now, the foundation of our relationship was this affection, this positivity, this kindness, this support, this love.
I want to just go through these things. Let's just sit down here.
It'll take an hour and it may save us a zillion dollars, right?
Let's just go through these things because this was really the foundation of our relationship.
The foundation of our relationship wasn't the cash, it wasn't the stocks, it wasn't the bonds, it wasn't the crypto, it wasn't the house, it wasn't the cars, it wasn't the lampshades.
The foundation of our relationship was the affection and love that we have in these notes, in these letters, in these histories, these memories.
Now, the more that we fight, the more we are harming our own capacity to love.
Because the more that we fight, the more we're saying this level of affection can turn to this level of hostility, which is going to make us paranoid about love.
The fight that we're doing now is harming.
The Impact of Affection Turned into Rage
[42:13] Irrevocably our capacity to love in the future. Because if this level of affection you see in these pictures and these letters and these granola bar wrappers, this level of affection has turned into this level of rage.
What is that going to do to us in the future if we feel this level of affection that's in these letters?
Again, well, we may never feel this level of affection again because now we're scarred and we're scarring each other through this.
So, look, I mean, things didn't work out between us.
That's sad. It happens. Obviously, it happens. Maybe we made mistakes.
Sure, we did. But we are where we are.
But, you know, the old thing, cutting off your nose to spice your face.
Why would we want to continue doing harm to our memories and to our future capacities for love?
And, of course, our finances as well, which is not inconsiderable.
This was the foundation of our affection. Now, we can say to each other, it didn't work out.
And we made some mistakes, and we did some wrong things, and we did some angry things. But still, the whole entire basis of what we did was this level of affection.
Now, maybe this level of affection isn't enough for us to apologize and get back together and move on, but if you want the stuff, take the stuff.
[43:24] I will get rid of stuff to protect my capacity for love, because love is more important than stuff.
I mean, I remember when I was a kid, that song, give you a diamond ring, my friend, if it'll make you feel all right. I don't care too much for money. Money can't buy me love.
And I remember being kind of tormented by that question because I being poor I had a hunger and a thirst and a lust for stuff right and, I mean, I assume if you're fighting over assets and you have lawyers, then you have a lot of assets.
[43:56] Now, would you keep stuff if it meant never being able to fall in love again?
Let's say you have a car. You keep the car. You keep the $80,000 Mercedes or whatever they are. You keep that car.
[44:09] The car sits in the driveway. The car sits in the garage. Your heart sits in storage because it's afraid to come out.
So you've got the car and no love.
Let's say she gets the house okay she sits in a house knowing that she's capable of ripping the house out of the hands of a man she for many years claimed to absolutely love worship and adore that she is capable of that she's become her heart has become a bear trap she knows sitting in that this is what this stuff is so costly man i can't even tell you she's sitting in that house with the full and certain knowledge that she can use the aggression of the court system, to rip the house out of the hands of a man she once claimed to love.
Cost of Fighting Over Assets and Impact on Capacity to Love
[45:01] What does that do to her capacity to be loved, to love, to trust herself, to trust her own feelings, her own instincts?
Does that leave her perpetually guarded? Of course. I mean, she has to be guarded against herself. self, right?
If you're fighting over a cottage, right?
Let's say you've got a cottage and your wife, your ex-wife wants it, you're divorced, your wife wants it and you want it, okay?
You're fighting over it, you yell, you scream, so you get, let's say somehow, somehow you get the cottage, okay?
[45:32] Now, you have a cottage. You sit in that cottage, and that cottage is a giant monument. It's a mausoleum, really.
The cottage is a giant monument to your willingness to threaten and bully someone you once claimed to love in order to get a pile of wood, brick, and stone.
You see, in the storms of life, you can take shelter in the physical cottage, but your heart will forever remain shivering outside, because of what that level of conflict has revealed to you about your capacity for hatred and destruction of someone you once claimed to love, worship, and adore.
The bricks you pursue are piling up on the grave of your heart.
[46:15] So if you sit down with her and you go through these old things, and you say, I want to retain my ability to fall in love like this, and the more we fight, the less I'll be able to do that, the less you'll be able to do that, but I don't want to instruct you, because I'm trying to learn myself and I've behaved badly too.
In fact, I've just behaved badly. I don't want to even say too.
So, you know, if you want the stuff, I would rather keep my capacity to love, than have a bunch of stuff built on the grave of my trust in myself.
I did love you. I still care for you. If you want the stuff, take the stuff.
If I have to start naked and shivering with only a barrel around my nads, I will do that.
But what I won't do is threaten, bully, and attack someone I once claimed to love. I won't do that.
Navigating Divorce and Bonding Without Kids
[47:06] What you should or shouldn't do. Obviously, I'm not you, and if you want to do a call-in, you can email me, callin at freedomain.com.
Most likely, the reason you got divorced is you didn't have kids, right?
Your body will bond, right? Your instincts, your passions will bond with someone until it realizes, if you're of childbearing age, and you're a male, I assume, so you're of childbearing age forever, pretty much.
If you're not having kids, then just start fighting and opposing each other, because you're going to want to free yourself, right?
So I don't know what you should do this is none of this is advice about what you would do but this is not only what i would do it's what i have done now again i've never been in this kind of situation but you know i was living with a woman and moved out and i gave her a couple of months rent and you know whatever she wanted she could have i just and i ended up living in a room in somebody else's apartment for quite a while and i just i i can't chase stuff off the cliff i can't i can't chase stuff off the cliff so anyway i hope this helps again please don't take this as any advice about what you should do but i'm just telling you what's worked for me maybe there's something of value for you in it all right i'm interested in your thoughts about melee i realize it verges on politics i'm curious about his ideas of freedom and the possibility of survival well here's the.
[48:25] Fulfillment of a prophecy i made some time ago which is that as sort of the liberties diminish in most countries that they will shine in one country because it's going to be such a harbor and a safe haven for the massively productive curious and intelligent to go to.
So I think it's a phenomenon that comes out of restricted freedoms in the rest of the world and we'll see.
I mean he is a singular character.
He is obviously very intelligent, very charismatic, very passionate.
[48:59] Educated, able to speak reasonably and deeply about central banking, as well as was he a front man for a Rolling Stones cover band, and he was a TV presenter.
So he is a singular gathering of characteristics.
And this is why the black pill is kind of tough, right? Because the black pill assumes that everything's just going to continue, but there's a pendulum, right?
Things swing back, things return to some form of normalcy, or at least when things go too far.
So I don't know how it's going to play out.
Obviously, I don't know how it's going to play out, but it certainly is a fascinating phenomenon, something very interesting to watch. All right.
The Moral High Ground and Leading by Example
[49:36] All right, last one. What is a moral high ground? Does the concept of a moral high ground make it morally, seem subjective because the persuasiveness of a moral argument rests on the moral character of the individual preaching rather than the logical coherence of the argument itself, i.e.
The person has to practice what they preach in order for what they say to be seen as correct?
Or should Should their preaching be judged purely objectively regardless of what they practice?
My inner staff already has an answer along the lines of morality is usually counter-cultural, and this means interfering with the interests of people with power, such as politicians, parents, employers, etc.
In order for moral argument to stick, you have to be willing to lead by example.
[50:16] Since for many people, it would be a risk to simply follow your moral guidelines based on a theoretical proof.
They have to see tangible rewards before they make tangible sacrifices, So, a moral high ground is necessary for showing people the rewards of virtue.
Is my inner stuff correct?
Or does a rational world only need logical proofs in order for people to commit to something moral? No, logical proofs are largely useless for people.
And again, we are not designed for logic. We're designed for cooperation and conformity, which means those who can program the young control most people's responses.
And again, there are a few people, you know, scattershot into the midst who value logic.
[50:54] Integrity over conformity, truth over approval.
And that's sort of how the human race sort of lurches forward over time. So I'm not much sure.
So usually people say the moral high ground, what they say is, when people say take the high road, or we're going to take the high road, what it means is that you're going to ignore the predations of, you know, immoral and dangerous people.
Take the high ground often means just get out of the fray and let the bad people do do what they want.
I mean, I know, relative to what I was just saying to the divorced guy about what I did in the past, but it's not evil, right?
A relationship that doesn't work out doesn't mean people are evil.
So are you saying, should people manifest the virtues that they want others to follow?
Well, of course they should. I'm sorry, I don't mean to laugh, but isn't it the case that when I put it that clearly, that should people manifest the virtues they want others to follow? of course they should.
[51:48] Of course they should. Because you need to see the outcome, right?
You think of a weight loss program, they have the before and the after programs, photos, right? They have the before and the after photos.
Now, if you don't want the after photos, then you won't get involved in the program for the most part, right?
If you have an acne medication or acne treatment, and then there's the before and the after, right?
And if you don't care about the after, you don't care about clear skin or whatever, you won't get involved in the program.
So yeah, yeah, people do need to see the before and the after to see if they're even interested in going along with that, right?
I mean, exercise program, before flabby, after, you know, whatever, right? You've seen these kinds of things, right?
So yeah, you do need a bit of a snapshot of before and after, because people have to want the outcome in order to pursue the methodology, right?
[52:35] People have to want the outcome in order to pursue the methodology.
And the best way to have people want want the outcome is to manifest the outcome in yourself right so if i'm some personal trainer i do my crunches and eat my protein or do whatever people do to get abs and all of that so yeah then i will manifest that right so you in terms of if what you mean is should you live the values you want others to follow should you live them first yeah i say oh yes but it should just be a rational argument it's like well but people don't have time i mean it's just a function of being mortal right?
People don't have, like there's probably, I mean, how many people, how many billions of people are there in the world?
And of those billions of people, there are billions of people who want you to do what they want you to do, right?
I mean, there's people in India who would love me to buy their product in India.
There's people in China who would love me to appraise the Chinese government, right?
So there's endless amounts of people in the world who want you to do what they they want you to do.
[53:39] Evaluating an argument can be quite time consuming and complex, right?
Evaluating an argument, especially if it relies on external sources, evidence, data, and so on, right? Evaluating an argument is quite challenging and complex.
[53:54] So if you've got billions of people who all want you to invest a week in evaluating their arguments, how are you going to prioritize?
Are you going to listen to anyone? Well, of course, you also want people to listen to you as well. Well, so we need to have some sort of way of cutting down on the number of arguments that we are willing to listen to.
We have to have some way of doing it. Otherwise, nothing ever happens.
Nothing ever changes. No one listens to anyone.
[54:20] Because you can't possibly... I mean, so think of all of the things you've read about online that seem kind of outlandish to you, right?
It could be true, but seem kind of outlandish. We can think of dozens and dozens of examples, right? it.
Well, why would you invest time in figuring out and analyzing and understanding and evaluating the reason and evidence behind these various claims?
Each one of these deep and various claims could involve thousands of hours of study.
So how are you going to figure out whose claims are even worth the time to evaluate because you can't conceivably evaluate more than a tiny tiny tiny infinitesimally small fraction of the claims made around the world i mean there are 10 000 religions around the world how are you going to evaluate each religion's claims there are, millions or at least tens of thousands of highly contentious scientific arguments arguments, how are you going to figure out, or how are you going to have the time to figure out and become an expert in each one of these arguments? It's impossible.
[55:30] So you have to have a massive filter to discard most arguments.
I mean, it's simply a factor of time and mortality and different interests and so on, right?
How are you going to weed out? Because you're going to to have to.
You can probably evaluate over the course of your life maybe one in a million claims.
Evaluating Weight Loss Claims: Overwhelming Options
[55:56] Let's say you are overweight. You want to lose weight. How many tens of thousands of dietary approaches are there?
Especially if you throw in exercise into diet, exercise, nutrition.
How many wild combinations of these things are out there?
When you can't experiment on yourself, you're going to have to evaluate these things. How are you going to evaluate them?
You couldn't ever live long enough to evaluate all of their claims in any rigorous manner.
To become an expert in... you couldn't become an expert in even one or maybe two of the 10,000 religions could you become a really deep expert in.
I mean, in terms of like original texts and studying ancient languages and so on. Maybe a couple. Maybe a couple.
So, which couple are you going to choose out of the 10,000?
There are thousands of languages. I tell you, you understand, right? So, you have to have a way of weeding out claims.
[56:50] And how do we do it? Well, to some degree we judge the claimants.
And there's nothing wrong with that. It's perfectly written in the form of empiricism.
If somebody says, I have a surefire weight loss and they weigh 300 pounds, then you won't bother evaluating their claims.
Because either they think weight loss is important, but they haven't followed any weight loss programs, yet somehow have developed a weight loss plan that doesn't make any sense.
How can you claim that something is beneficial if you won't even touch it yourself? self.
I mean, if some researcher who has stage four cancer says he has a surefire claim, a cure for cancer, he knows exactly how to cure cancer, and then dies of cancer, would you listen to him? No.
Now, could he theoretically in some abstract sense be right? In a way, no.
[57:38] I mean, because we can always create these, well, yes, he was right, but he just had a fear of needles or almonds or whatever he was, apricot seeds or whatever he was using to treat his cancer or he wanted to die or, you know, who knows, right?
You could create some scenario, but you will always end up being more wrong by following that.
Because if you say I'm never going to judge the proponent of a theory as to the effectiveness of the theory.
[58:04] Judge the proponent of the theory as to the effectiveness of the theory, then you lose one of the primary filtering mechanisms by which you discard false theories, right?
You lose one of those primary sorting mechanisms, in which case you then either don't evaluate any theory, which means you don't gain any knowledge, or you have to just evaluate theories without the filtering mechanism.
So even if you follow one theory without judging the person, you'll end up being wrong because you'll lose that filtering mechanism, and therefore you'll be presented with this giant tsunami of information that you can't possibly drink or put in a teacup because you lose the filtering mechanism you'll end up being far more wrong in your life even if this person through some miracle happens to be right happened to have figured out the cure for cancer even though he died of cancer so you'll be more wrong if society loses its filtering mechanism then society has to invest in examining everyone's theory with no filtering mechanisms and therefore you'll end up wasting far more time and being far more wrong.
So there's a reason why we have this practical mechanism for filtering things.
So you should manifest the virtues that you want others to absorb.
Yeah, so the fat guy pushing a diet, either he doesn't want to lose weight, in which case, how on earth does he come up with a diet?
Or he wants to lose weight and hasn't even tried his own diet, which doesn't make any sense, then how does he know if it works?
Or he wants to lose weight, has tried his own diet, and it hasn't worked, right?
[59:29] Yes, absolutely. In this case, the moral high ground is pretty essential.
All right. Well, thank you everyone so much for dropping by.
[59:37] Freedomain.locals.com for a great community. And, you know, have the community.
It's important. It's a great resource.
And freedomain.com. If you'd like to help out the show, really appreciate your input and questions as always.
And lots of love from here. I'll talk to you soon. Bye.
