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Politics • Culture • Lifestyle
The Truth About Hedonism! Locals Questions Answered
January 19, 2024
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Brief Summary
In this episode, we delve into the importance of taking control of our lives and identifying who benefits from our actions. We caution against being used by others for their own gain and share personal experiences to illustrate this point. We also discuss how the concept of Sherlock Holmes can discourage intelligent individuals from having children, perpetuating the enslavement of the intelligent class. For more insights, visit freedomain.com/donate.

Chapters
0:00:20 Defining Hedonism: Pleasure Seeking or Something More?
0:02:30 The Nature of Base Physical Pleasures
0:04:06 The Inherited Attention of Men and Women
0:06:23 Pursuit of Virtue vs. Hedonism
0:09:21 Chinese Parenting: Strict Rules and Conformity
0:11:05 Conformity and Emotional Dysfunction in Chinese Society
0:12:13 The Perception of Inequality and Meritocracy
0:13:41 Beginning of the Conversation
0:13:46 Monetizing Wholesome Moments - The Dad Factor
0:15:56 The Isolation and Challenges of New Motherhood
0:20:13 Breaking the Cycle of Repression and Justifying Childhood Repression
0:20:58 Past Trauma and Fear of Expressing Preferences
0:22:10 Exploring Needs and Avoiding Absolute Conclusions
0:22:37 Different Approaches to Love and Planning
0:24:07 The Insecurity of External Solutions to Feeling Loved
0:25:35 Identifying who runs your life: Reactivity vs. Control
0:28:07 Sherlock Holmes: Master Detective and Service to the Less Intelligent

Long Summary
The main speaker begins by discussing the importance of taking control of one's life and identifying who benefits from our actions. They compare this process to a crime investigation, where one looks at who benefits in order to determine the truth. They go on to give an example of being in a relationship with the wrong person, stating that if no one cautions against it, it may benefit the other person and possibly even others. The main speaker emphasizes the need to assess whether a situation is positive or negative for one's own life. They caution against being used by others for their own benefit, using the example of a sketchy person trying to sell their online soap carving business. The main speaker then shares a personal experience of dating the wrong person and how others encouraged them to continue as a way to avoid facing their own aversion to philosophy.

The conversation then transitions to a discussion of Sherlock Holmes as a character designed to persuade highly intelligent individuals to serve those who are less intelligent and capable. The main speaker argues that this concept discourages intelligent people from having children and subtly reinforces the enslavement of the intelligent class. They conclude by expressing hope that this information is helpful and interesting to the listener and suggesting visiting freedomain.com/donate to support the show.

Tags
episode, taking control, identifying, benefiting, being used, caution, personal experiences, concept, Sherlock Holmes, discourage, intelligent individuals, having children, perpetuating, enslavement, intelligent class, insights

Transcript

[0:00] Good morning, everybody. Hope you're doing well. Stephen Molyneux from freedomain.com, freedomain.com slash donate to help out the show. Thank you very much.
Great question from a listener and a member at freedomain.locals.com, great community, says, I'm struggling to define hedonism.
Defining Hedonism: Pleasure Seeking or Something More?

[0:20] Say it means being led by what I prefer in the moment. A time-wasting demon in me wonders, isn't everything I do preferred in the moment?
Even if I know my actions are noble and aligned with the pleasure of others from a wide enough point of reference isn't it still just pleasure seeking, the pleasure of knowing that future generations will enjoy the tree you planted for a trite example is acted upon in a moment, smells like the beard fallacy just because I don't know the precise moment when my scruff becomes long enough to be called a beard doesn't mean I don't know what a beard is and can't rely on the concept.

[0:56] In the same way I can tell what hedonism is is by what it definitely isn't within the bounds of a sane, everyday conversation aimed at honestly transferring information between human brains.
But besides this common sense metric, is there an even more clear and useful definition I'm missing?
Is the better question why bother with this? Not to be self-abasing, that's a real possibility.
This is a category problem rooted in my own ignorance and not to be taken as an excuse for silly behavior. Thank you.
It's a great me a question. That's a great question. Kind of hedonism is a kind of thing, you know it when you see it, but it's hard to define, right? You know it when you see it, but it's hard to define.
So I obviously don't have any particular final answer, but I will tell you the framework that I use to talk or think about hedonism in my own life and of course in the lives of those around me.

[1:49] Now, hedonism is when the pleasures you take are physical and therefore unearned, right?
So if you have a love of chocolate, right, and you grab a bunch of chocolate and you eat a bunch of chocolate, then you will feel a pleasure.
But that pleasure is physical. It's hardwired into your tongue, into your sense, your taste buds. it's hardwired into your physiology and so on.
And so the pleasure that you take is not something you've earned.
Now you could say, oh yes, but you go and buy the chocolate, but you know what I mean, right?
The Nature of Base Physical Pleasures

[2:30] So base physical pleasures, and by base, I don't mean there's something wrong with them.
I mean, physical pleasures are an essential part of life, but by base, I mean, it's just kind of hardwired into you.
So, of course, sexuality could work the same way. The pleasure of sexual activity, the pleasure of an orgasm is hardwired into you.
And again, that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with it.
It just means if those are the primary pleasures that you're pursuing, you are taking as pleasurable that which you have not earned.
It's an inheritance of nature. It's an an inheritance of evolution.
And in that sense, it's kind of cheap, right?
Stuffing your face to feel good about the food that you're eating is just a base physical pleasure.
The endorphins that are released when you eat, the taste buds that fire when you have, you know, sweet or salty food or fatty food or whatever your preference is, that's all hardwired. You didn't earn.

[3:33] That pleasure. It's an indulgence.
And again, you know, I'm not an absolutist as far as this goes, nothing wrong with those kinds of indulgences, but you have to recognize that it's not what you've earned.
In the same way, if you are a woman and, you know, let's say you have a nice figure and you go out in clothing that is really revealing, you will get a lot of male attention.
But that male attention is hardwired into the minds and loins and nervous system of the men. You haven't earned it.
The Inherited Attention of Men and Women

[4:06] It is simply something that is hardwired into the men around you.
And there's really not much that you've done to earn that, right?
I mean, men are attracted to shapely figures. And if you show a lot of skin, you're going to get male attention in the same way that if you are a guy and you've got a great physique and you go out in some expensive car, you may get a lot of female attention, but that's kind of hardwired into women as a whole.
Like if you're a very tall guy, you'll get some female attention because women are wired to look up and feel protected.

[4:37] So it's not something that you've earned. You're just kind of strip mining the inheritances of nature and transforming that into happiness or pleasure for yourself.
But it's like a biological hack in terms of like eating a bunch of sugar or or getting a lot of attention.
We're wired to like those things, and so you're just kind of strip mining the way that the body works, which you haven't earned, right?
You haven't, as a woman, you haven't earned the fact that men will be attracted to your figure.
As a man, you haven't earned the fact that women may be attracted to your resources.

[5:12] And so hedonism, to me, is when you chase as a personal pleasure positive experiences experiences that you have not earned, but are simply inherited from sort of blind nature.
Now, if you compare that to, say, the pursuit of virtue and the promulgation or the spread of virtue, that is not automatic. That goes against your instincts.
A lot of times your instincts for safety and security and conformity and acceptance and not annoying those who have a lot of power over you and over others.
So that kind of goes against the grain.
And the happiness that you will get out of the definition and spread and pursuit of virtue.

[5:57] Is not exactly hardwired. In fact, you're kind of hardwired to avoid it.
Like the pleasure that you would get from having a more slender frame and denying the kind of excess of food that's around kind of goes against the grain, right?
Saying no to food kind of goes against the grain.

[6:15] So the happiness that we get by actually earning things, by going against that
Pursuit of Virtue vs. Hedonism

[6:23] which is comfortable in the moment is something that is not hedonistic.
Hedonistic is letting the pleasures of the moment dominate your decision-making and pursuing positive experiences that are hardwired into you rather than those you generate through your own virtues and values and decisions and choices and going against the grain of what we prefer.
So I hope that makes some kind of sense.
Like hedonism, it also has an intellectual component as well.
So hedonism is, say, this, you know, Bob's argument really bothers me, so I'm going to ban Bob, I'm going to attack Bob, I'm going to undermine Bob, I'm going to attack his reputation, and so on.
That's a form of hedonism because you are not acting on a principle, which is that once you start censoring people, then the censorship eventually will come back to bite you and you render the human condition much less navigatable by blinding people who are far-seeing navigators and you reduce the quality of decisions by reducing the number of participants and so on. So...

[7:31] All of that stuff, it can happen hedonistically that way, that we have a natural urge to slap down something which is offensive or upsetting to us.
It's hedonistic to do so, and it is moral to refrain or avoid that or defend somebody's right to speak, even or perhaps especially if what they say is upsetting to a large number of people.
So hopefully that makes some kind of sense to you.
I wanted to mention too, freedomand.locals.com, you can check out my new show on the truth about sadism, the truth about sadism, and it's really, really good.
So I hope that you will check that out, and I also hope that you will give me some feedback on that, that would be very, very nice. All right, let's get some other questions.

[8:27] Hey, Steph, I've been reading some books on the Chinese Communist Revolution.
Today, I was reading a part about the emergence of the Red Guards.
These are mostly teenagers, many of whom are from higher-class political backgrounds and attend upper-class schools.
Yet in such a short time, they were able to switch from seemingly nonviolent people into murderous and sadistic thugs.
There are many accounts in this book from ex-red guards who explain how they progressed from being averse to the violence to being the leaders of it how does this happen well i mean now it's just, obviously it's a bit complicated question and i won't be able to wrap it up in a short show maybe i'll do longer shows later but if you are a parent then what happens is you will attempt in particularly in Chinese culture historically, you will attempt to.
Chinese Parenting: Strict Rules and Conformity

[9:21] Inflict some pretty strict and brutal social rules on your children through aggression, through violence, through ostracism, through contempt, through threats of abandonment, and so on.
And this has been quite successful over the course of Chinese history, 6,000 years of a pretty stable, though we could easily say stultified society, right?
So, I mean, the first to invent gunpowder, the first to invent fiat currency IQ tests for bureaucrats and so on.
So you get a society that has a fair amount of stability and a massive amount of conformity, which means that, I mean, if you don't allow for progress in your society, you'll simply be taken over by other societies that allow for progress.
It's one of these sort of inevitable situations situations that I talk about in my documentary on Hong Kong, which you can get at freedomang.com slash documentaries.

[10:21] So what happens is the Chinese parents, and I talked about this with the Asian tiger mom, and not to sort of throw them all into one bucket, but there's a bit of a trend that the Asian parents, East Asian parents, tend to be quite aggressive in conformity and the pursuit of excellence with their children, which does produce some excellence, there's no question, but it also does produce some emotional dysfunction, particularly emotional distance, and a feeling that if you don't fit through particular narrow requirements of society's expectations, that you are an unperson, unworthy of any acceptance and love within society.
Conformity and Emotional Dysfunction in Chinese Society

[11:05] You're not loved for who you are, you're loved for how you obey.
Bay. Now that has produced, of course, a very stable society last, of course, thousands and thousands of years.
But the problem is that it renders society susceptible to this kind of flip, right?
So the more conformity that you inflict upon society, and we're going through a brutal series of conformity.

[11:31] Experiments really these days, but the more you attack people, People, the more you reject people, the more you scorn people, the more you ostracize children in particular.
Yes, you'll get a conformist society, but there's a deep wellspring of rage against the harsh and rejecting parents that kicks into that society.
So what happens is it was relatively stable within China for thousands of years.
Is, but when the communists came in and started to, communists are experts at strip mining resentment and turning people against each other, and.
The Perception of Inequality and Meritocracy

[12:13] In society where it's not a pure meritocracy, I mean, even where it is a pure meritocracy, not that we've ever really had it, but in general, if a guy's richer than you, the answer could be, well, he's favored by God, or he's superior to you, or he's harder working than you, or he's studied more than you, something where you stay down here and he stays up there economically.
But of course, the communists come along and they say, well, the only reason that he's wealthier than you is he stole from you and your ancestors, and he hates you, and it's unfair, and it's unjust.
Us and they just start to work these resentments and this happens from child to parent so as long as the parents are perceived as these half godlike authority figures and they run the structure of society and you have to conform with them in order to make anything of yourself in order to get married to have kids to have a job you have to please these these demigods of society as long as that's the case then this brutality against children which inflicts this kind of conformity can be relatively sustainable.
But when you get outside influences coming in to start to turn the children against the parents, then all of that hidden resentment of the massive amounts of fairly brutalized conformity inflicted upon the children then blows up.
And you sort of get through that layer of conformity and you get to the layer of rage underneath and then that's fairly easy to turn against the elder generation.
And you can kind of see this happening happening with the boomers as well in the West.
Beginning of the Conversation

[13:41] All right.
Monetizing Wholesome Moments - The Dad Factor

[13:46] Somebody says, I've been recommended a lot of YouTube shorts of moms being cute with babies that get a lot of views, which obviously supports their income by monetizing these wholesome, funny, tender moments.
Oftentimes I notice they'll have an exchange with the baby where the mom mentions the dad is traveling often for work.
Alarm bells go off in my head. why are these women making themselves and their kids famous while casually dropping dad isn't around why are their husbands letting them all right letting them is a pretty pretty tough phase when it comes to to marriage but i'm let's take as charitable we don't have to but i i feel like i'm being hedonistic let's take a just a brief look at.

[14:30] What might be happening from the most charitable standpoint.
So the most charitable standpoint would be women don't have communities anymore.
Like new moms, moms don't have communities.
So normally, the dads are off at work or out hunting, sort of have to evolve.
The women all get together and they gossip and they chat and they share baby raising tips and they show off their babies and it's a wonderful bonding thing where women can take a bit of a break from managing the little death magnets of toddlers, babies and toddlers and have other eyes on their kids and and you know have a pleasant sharing of you know a stitch and bitch or a a tea tea crumpets and gossip and i don't say gossip with any negative i'm i love gossip myself so women would love to show off their babies and would love to have this kind of community for a variety of reasons we've all been atomized i mean We now live these lives of isolation even within our communities. People don't know their neighbors.
You've got all these bedroom communities where everyone's off at work and then the kids are in daycare and they're not really allowed to play outside.

[15:38] And you just have these endless series of daisy chain isolated universes.
And people, and in particular women, and in particular new moms, are just desperate for any kind of community.
And so if they post online, they get a lot of feedback. They got a lot of love.
They get a lot of, oh, so cute. and it warms their hearts.
The Isolation and Challenges of New Motherhood

[15:56] It warms their hearts. Now, as far as the dads traveling and so on, well, okay, let's say the dads are traveling and let's say the dads, I wouldn't say have to travel, but let's say that's just the way that their work has evolved.

[16:08] Then the women would be even more desperate for community.
Like the isolation that happens to women who have babies is really, really chilling.
Like it's the exact opposite of what would be healthy and positive and wonderful for new moms, but the isolation that new moms have just alone for, with babies for, you know, 12 hours a day, 14 hours a day.
And then the husband comes home and he's kind of tired and distracted.
And, and like, that is just not the way that things should have been.
I mean, when I was growing up, there was, I mean, of course, uh, it was a pretty good good neighborhood in a lot of ways.
Like everyone looked out for each other and other people were fairly okay disciplining you as a kid.
The values were pretty much shared in common. And I was raised to some degree in a collective format.
I would go out of my house and I was just at the tail end of the baby boom.
And there were always, you know, six to 20 kids to go and play with.
And we didn't have any money, of course, but we would just go into the woods.
We'd build forts, we'd make up games, we'd play war. I write about this in my novel almost.

[17:21] And we, of course, didn't have any central authorities. We made up our own rules, we enforced our own, rules of the game kids who cheated just weren't invited to the next game or were actively repelled like no you can't play you cheat so of course the idea that we don't need a central authority to have rules in society comes directly out of my childhood where a bunch of eight-year-olds with no central authority were perfectly able to make up complicated games and enforce all the rules with only ostracism as the methodology for punishing those who cheated so the isolation that That people experience, and particularly mothers, new mothers experience, is just brutal.
And of course, it's partly by design. It's in order to make sure that the women go back to work, right?
To put their kids in daycare and go back to work just because they need some kind of adult interaction.
Interaction um and parents particularly to new parents we're absolutely not designed to spend our entire days making goo goo goo goo gaga noises at new babies like we're designed to interact with a wide variety of ages and as part of that interaction is taking care of our kids but we're not supposed to be in a sense locked in a couple of rooms in the suburbs with a baby all day and most of the evening that's just not how we're designed i don't think it's healthy but it's the way that society has been herded right it's the way the society has been forcibly.

[18:44] Herded and it's also of course because people um i mean we have this elder generation that, just is kind of hedonistic they want to go on their cruises they want to go on their their trips and their travel and they want to go golfing and this and they basically just abandoned their kids and their grandkids a lot of times whereas for me it's like you know when my daughter gets old enough, and she has kids, I mean, if she wants me to, and I hope that she will, then I'll be my wife and I will be right there.
I'll be there to help and that engage in there to enjoy.
So I assume that it's just them trying to reach out to some kind of community and avoid the isolation and solitude and loneliness and kind of desperation that happens, you know, like if you've spent 12 hours a day, if you just spent 12 hours with a baby, your husband comes on, you kind of to latch on because you need that adult interaction all right hi steph how do you stop yourself from falling into a past mistake and learn to catch yourself i almost got into a relationship with a virtuous man amazing man however without stating certain things i'd like for him to initiate more planned things etc and instead people pleasing and not going to bring it up repressing ignoring and hating the anxiety in me though it was trying to tell me something and not asking why i feel The only reason I haven't said yes immediately now, and instead will be having a deep honest conversation about what I need.
Breaking the Cycle of Repression and Justifying Childhood Repression

[20:13] What he needs before is, sorry, it's a little confusing to me, is because my best friend caught me and saved me.
If I hadn't, such an amazing friend in my life, I would have just repeated the past and repressed what I wanted again.
How can I learn to catch myself so this won't happen again?
So the reason that you have, in my humble opinion, obviously, the reason that you have these bad habits comes from your childhood childhood and comes because you're still justifying some act of repression in your childhood.
You're still justifying some act of repression in your childhood.
And so if, let's say, you don't express your needs, right? You don't express your needs, you don't express your preferences.
Past Trauma and Fear of Expressing Preferences

[20:58] You would not express your needs and preferences because you would have had the expression of your needs and preferences preferences attacked and humiliated in the past, right?
You would have been attacked and humiliated for expressing your preferences in the past.
And somehow you believe that that's still valid. Somehow you still believe that that's true. Well, it's bad for you to have preferences. Well, preferences are dangerous.
So you just haven't drawn enough of a barrier between yourself and your past, which we usually do by just getting internally and emotionally angry and having a zero acceptance policy for the abuses of the past.
So that's number one. Number two is the fact that that you have preferences doesn't mean the other person has to change.
I mean, to give you this liberating parachute in a relationship to jump out of the flaming wreck of self-criticism, just because you have preferences doesn't mean the other person has to change.
Your preferences might be crazy. Mine might be crazy. It might be neurotic.
The fact that you have preferences, I really need you to initiate more.
It's like, how do you know? How do you know that's what you really need?
Right? Now, you can honestly say, I feel some frustration with you not initiating more. That doesn't mean you have to. I'm just saying that. And that's a very interesting conversation.
Exploring Needs and Avoiding Absolute Conclusions

[22:10] But don't present conclusions in a relationship, particularly when you have a complicated past. You don't know. I don't know.
It's a topic to be explored. It's not an absolute to be inflicted.
Right? So you said, what does he say? I wanted to, I wanted to, for him to initiate more, plan things, et cetera. Okay.
So you want him to plan things so that what? what you feel, uh, loved.
Different Approaches to Love and Planning

[22:37] There are plenty of people who plan things for others who don't love them.
And there are plenty of people who love others who don't plan for things.
So he's a man, right? So he's out there wrestling resources from the world.
He's not out there planning how many balloons he's going to have for your five-month dating anniversary.
Like, that's just not how we, we don't do those kinds of things.
So now you say, well, the way that I take care of a man is to plan his birthday party and to take initiative and that's how I show him I care.
And it's wonderful. There's nothing wrong with that.
But don't expect a man to be like you. I mean, you like a man.
You're attracted to men because they're different from you. And there's a funny thing that happens where we attract, we're attracted to people who are different from us and then we expect them to be like us or we're unloved.
I mean, if the man's going to work and paying the bills, that's his love, that's his affection.
It's not, well, you know, you haven't planned any outings to the opera lately and it's like, well, no, that's not, that's how a lot of women do it.
And I think it's great, but it's not how a lot of men do it.
And the fact that you have needs usually has to do with not feeling loved.
Like if the man's with you, he cares about you, he pays the bills or he does other things that show his affection and devotion.
He's monogamous. He tells you he loves you, then you're left.

[23:56] All these gestures and so on, that's to manage insecurity that comes from the past.
And a man will often recoil from that hole with no bottom. So if you as a woman say, well, I just need you to initiate more.
The Insecurity of External Solutions to Feeling Loved

[24:07] Otherwise, basically, I don't feel loved. It's like, okay, now I have two jobs.
I have a job where I go to work and pay the bills. And now I have another job called initiating things at home.
And also, if you don't feel loved by the man's base affection and consideration and devotion, then him going through the mechanical process of planning things or initiating things or whatever, that's not going to make you feel loved.
Because the problem is you have difficulty feeling loved.
If you have difficulty feeling loved, asking other people to jump through hoops, won't work. It won't work.
It will never, there is no external solution to the problem of insecurity.
So you say, well, I don't feel loved, but if he planned things more and did more things for me, then I'd feel loved. And it's like, but you won't.
You won't. All that will happen is he He will plan things and they'll somehow be the wrong things.
He'll plan things and it's not at the right time. Or he'll plan things and you're not going to be in the mood.
Or he plans things and it's too expensive. Or he plans things and it's not expensive enough.
Like, men generally recoil from jumping through hoops to please a woman because it will never please her.
Because the problem is internal. It's based upon history.

[25:15] So don't ask other people to fix your internal states. states.
Don't ever ask people to fix your internal states. That is, I mean, honestly, it's like saying, well, I'm hungry, honey, you eat something, right? Like they can't fix your internal hunger.
And you're just going to get more mad at them if you take that approach.
Identifying who runs your life: Reactivity vs. Control

[25:35] Let's see here. How do you identify who runs one's life?
If you are reacting, this is a quote from me, if you are reacting, you are not in control of your life. So who runs your your life, those who force you to be reactive.
So the simple, I think the simple metric is to do the following.
If it doesn't benefit me, who does it benefit? Who does it benefit?
Who does it benefit? That's the first thing you do when looking at a crime is who benefits, right?
I mean, a wife dies and the husband inherits a million dollars or gets a million dollars in life life insurance. Okay, so he benefits.
She obviously doesn't benefit because she's dead. He benefits, right? Let's say she was murdered, right? So he benefits.
So you look at that doesn't that's not absolute proof, but it's the first place to look, right?
So if you are.

[26:26] In a relationship with the wrong person i mean i think we've all been there in a relationship with the wrong person then who benefits well the person you're in the relationship with benefits and if other people aren't trying to tell you this is the wrong relationship don't do it, then they benefit in some manner you don't benefit from being in the wrong relationship you'll get some secondary gains and all of that but you don't fundamentally benefit from being in a relationship that's not making you happy with a woman who's not virtuous or a man who's not virtuous so so who who benefits?
So who benefits?

[27:00] So you look at something and say, is this good for my life or bad for my life?
Is this positive or negative?
If it's negative for your life, then it must be positive for other people because we don't act completely randomly and we certainly don't act in consistently self-destructive ways.
So self-destructive means to benefit others, right?
So if you've got some skeevy guy who's trying to get you to invest in his online, soap carving business, then of course he wants you to invest.
And if you don't want to invest, it's negative for him.
And if other people are convincing you to invest, then it's beneficial to them in some way.
It's not beneficial to you because it's kind of skeevy and there's no paperwork and you know, whatever, there's no, okay, we won't do any contracts.
It's all just handshake and won't look you in the eye or whatever.
So just look at who benefits, who benefits.
So when I was dating the wrong person, other people who had a hostility towards philosophy, were encouraging me to continue dating so that they could say that philosophy leads to ruin, so that they could avoid their own avoidance of philosophy.
So I hope that helps. Thoughts on Sherlock Holmes?
Sherlock Holmes: Master Detective and Service to the Less Intelligent

[28:07] So Sherlock Holmes is, of course, a master detective.
And the purpose of Sherlock Sherlock Holmes is to convince hyper-intelligent people to serve the less intelligent and the less able and to not have children themselves.
That is to say, very, very high intelligence should be used in the service of the much less intelligent and you shouldn't have any kids.
That you are a piece of livestock, that you are a service animal for the less intelligent. Because, of course, Sherlock Holmes is a total genius who goes around, runs around solving everyone else's problems.
He has no life of his own and he never has kids.
So it's programming the intelligent to be in the service of the less intelligent and, for heaven's sakes, not to have kids.
So it's about the enslavement stuff.
Stuff so all right well i hope this helps i just wanted to drop by for a quick chat thank you everyone so much free domain.locals.com i hope that you find this helpful and interesting if you would like to help out the show i'd really really appreciate it january is a little bit of a lean month as it usually is after christmas so free domain.com slash donate lots of love take care i'll talk to you soon bye.

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The Truth About AI Part 1

Stefan Molyneux looks at the philosophical and moral sides of artificial intelligence, particularly where it crosses with copyright laws and its effects on society. He points out how AI draws from copyrighted materials without getting permission, which brings up issues around intellectual property. Molyneux draws a comparison between standard ways of learning and what AI can do as a customized tutor, noting its ability to deliver information suited to individual needs. He cautions that AI could lower the worth of conventional media and put authors' incomes at risk by turning their creations into commodities. Molyneux calls for an approach where AI firms get approval from the original creators, stressing the importance of acknowledging authors' work as AI becomes more common.

0:00:00 Introduction to AI's Impact
0:00:15 The Ethics of Copyright
0:04:19 Transformative Uses of AI
0:07:55 The Role of AI in Learning
0:16:22 The Nature of AI's Existence
0:20:37 AI and Intellectual Property Issues
0:23:15...

00:24:49
Peaceful Parenting: Immunity to Politics

This clip comes from "Stefan Molyneux on the Scott Adams School!", get the full show at https://fdrpodcasts.com/6302

Raising kids with reason, negotiation, and evidence creates future adults immune to political force. It’s about shaping minds, not just moments. 🌱 Better late than never—plant that seed today!

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FRIDAY NIGHT LIVE X SPACE WITH STEFAN MOLYNEUX 7pm EST - ONE HOUR TO GO!

Let us talk philosophy, my friends! Bring your questions!

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GET MY FREE BOOK ‘PEACEFUL PARENTING’!!

Whether you have children, will have children, or know those who have children, you MUST get your hands on 'Peaceful Parenting'!

'Peaceful Parenting' is the culmination of my life's work in philosophy.

I've spoken with countless parents who have taken these principles and raised their children peacefully, joyously, and morally.

I go over the why, the how, and the evidence for the virtues and power of 'Peaceful Parenting'.

You can easily listen to the audiobook, or read in a variety of formats. If you are pressed for time, there is an abridged version so you can get the essentials. There are even translations of the book into Spanish and Russian, as well as a powerful multilingual AI to ask any questions you need!

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In the vast tapestry of human experience, this collection of premium content stands as a beacon of reflection and introspection! Each episode is a journey into the complexities of our shared existence. From the intricate dance of self-forgiveness to the harrowing tales of personal adversity, these moments of life challenge, provoke, and inspire.


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THE GREATEST ESSAY IN THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY

Humanity evolves through accumulated wisdom from endless trial and error. This wisdom has been transmitted through fiction – stories, superstitions, commandments, and ancestor-worship – which has created the considerable problem that these fictions can be easily intercepted and replaced by other lies. 

Children absorb their moral and cultural wisdom from parents, priests and teachers. When governments take over education, foreign thoughts easily transmit themselves to the young, displacing parents and priests. In a fast-changing world, parents represent the past, and are easily displaced by propaganda. 

Government education thus facilitates cultural takeovers – a soft invasion that displaces existing thought-patterns and destroys all prior values. 

The strength of intergenerational cultural transmission of values only exists when authority is exercised by elders. When that authority transfers to the State, children adapt to the new leaders, scorning their parents in the process. 

This is an evolutionary adaptation that resulted from the constant brutal takeovers of human history and prehistory. If your tribe was conquered, you had to adapt to the values of your new masters or risk genetic death through murder or ostracism. 

When a new overlord – who represents the future – inflicts his values on the young, they scorn their parents and cleave to the new ruler in order to survive. 

Government instruction of the young is thus the portal through which alien ideas conquer the young as if a violent overthrow had occurred – which in fact it did, since government education is funded through force. 

This is the weakness of the cultural transmission of values – by using ‘authority’ instead of philosophy – reason and evidence – new authorities can easily displace the accumulated wisdom of thousands of years. 

It is a common observation that a culture’s success breeds its own destruction. Cultures that follow more objective reason tend to prosper – this prosperity breeds resentment and greed in the hearts of less-successful people and cultures, who then swarm into the wealthier lands and use the State to drain them dry of their resources. 

Everything that has been painfully learned and transmitted over a thousand generations can be scattered to the winds in a mere generation or two. 

This happens less in the realms of reason and mathematics, for obvious reasons. Two and two make four throughout all time, in all places, regardless of propaganda. The Pythagorean theorem is as true now as it was thousands of years ago – Aristotle’s three laws of logic remain absolute and incontrovertible to all but the most deranged. 

Science – absent the corrupting influence of government funding – remains true and absolute across time and space. Biological absolutes can only be opposed by those about to commit suicide. 

Authority based on lies hates the clarity and objectivity – and curiosity – of rational philosophy. Bowing to the authority of reason means abandoning the lies that prop up the powerful – but refusing to bow to reason means you end up bowing to foreigners who take over your society via the centralized indoctrination of the young. 

Why is this inevitable? 

Because it is an addiction. 

Political power is the most powerful – and dangerous – addiction. The drug addict only destroys his own life, and harms those close to him. The addiction to political power harms hundreds of millions of people – but the political junkies don’t care, they have dehumanized their fellow citizens – in order to rule over others, you must first view them as mere useful livestock instead of sovereign minds like your own. 

Just as drug addicts would rather destroy lives than stop using – political addicts would rather be slaves in their own sick system than free in a rational, moral world. 

If we cannot find a way to transmit morals without lies or assumptions, we will never break the self-destructive cycle of civilization – success breeds unequal wealth, which breeds resentment and greed, which breeds stealing from the successful through political power, which collapses the society. 

If we cannot anchor morals in reason and evidence, we can never build a successful civilization that does not engineer its own demise. Everything good that mankind builds will forever be dismantled using the same tools that were used to build it. 

Since the fall of religion in the West – inevitable given the wild successes of the free market and modern science and medicinewhich came out of skepticism, reason and the Enlightenment – we have applied critical reasoning to every sphere except morality. We have spun spaceships out of the solar system, plumbed the depths of the atom and cast our minds back to the very nanoseconds after our universe came into being – but we cannot yet clearly state why murder, rape, theft and assault are wrong. 

We can say that they are “wrong” because they feel bad, or are harmful to social cohesion, or because God commands it, or because they are against the law – but that does not help us understand what morality is, or how it is proven. 

Saying that rape is wrong because it feels bad to the victim does not answer why rape is wrong. Clearly it feels ‘good’ to the rapist – otherwise rape would not exist. 

Saying it harms social happiness or cohesion is a category error, since ‘society’ does not exist empirically. Individuals act in their own perceived self-interest. From an evolutionary perspective, ‘rape’ is common. The amoral genes of an ugly man that no woman wants are rewarded for rape, since it gives them at least some chance to survive. 

Saying that rape is wrong because God commands it does not answer the question – it is an appeal to an unreasoning authority that cannot be directly questioned. 

Saying that rape is wrong because it is illegal is begging the question. Many evil things throughout history have been legal, and many good things – such as free speech and absolute private property – are currently criminalized. 

Saying that rape is wrong because it makes the victim unhappy is not a moral argument – it is a strange argument from hedonism, in that the ‘morality’ of an action is measured only by pleasure and painWe often inflict significant misery on people in order to heal or educate them. We punish children – often harshly. The ‘hedonism’ argument is also used to justify sacrificing free speech on the altar of self-proclaimed ‘offense’ and ‘upset.’ 

So… 

Why is rape wrong? 

Why are murder, theft and assault immoral? 

A central tenet of modernity has been the confirmation of personal experience through universal laws that end up utterly blowing our minds. 

The theory of gravity affirms our immediate experience of weight and balance and throwing and catching – and also that we are standing on giant spinning ball rocketing around a star that is itself rocketing around a galaxy. We feel still; we are in fact in blinding motion. The sun and the moon appear to be the same size – they are in fact vastly different. It looks like the stars go round the Earth, but they don’t 

Science confirms our most immediate experiences, while blowing our minds about the universe as a whole. 

If you expand your local observations – “everything I drop falls” – to the universal – “everything in the universe falls” – you radically rewrite your entire world-view. 

If you take the speed of light as constant, your perception of time and space change forever – and you also unlock the power of the atom, for better and for worse. 

If you take the principles of selective breeding and animal husbandry and apply them to life for the last four billion years, you get the theory of evolution, and your world-view is forever changed – for the better, but the transition is dizzying. 

If we take our most common moral instincts – that rape, theft, assault and murder are wrong – and truly universalize them, our world-view also changes forever – better, more accuratemore moral – but also deeply disturbing, disorienting and dizzying. 

But we cannot universalize what we cannot prove – this would just be the attempt to turn personal preferences into universal rules: “I like blue, therefore blue is universally preferable.” 

No, we must first prove morality – only then can we universalize it. 

To prove morality, we must first accept that anything that is impossible cannot also be true. 

It cannot be true that a man can walk north and south at the same time. 

It cannot be true that a ball can fall up and down at the same time. 

It cannot be true that gases both expand and contract when heated. 

It cannot be true that water both boils and freezes at the same temperature. 

It cannot be true that 2 plus 2 equals both 4 and 5. 

If all men are mortal, and Socrates is a man, then it cannot be true that Socrates is immortal. 

If you say that impossible things can be true, then you are saying that you have a standard of truth that includes both truth and the opposite of truth, which is itself impossible. 

The impossible is the opposite of the possible – if you say that both the possible and the impossible can be true, then you are saying that your standard for truth has two opposite standards, which cannot be valid. This would be like saying that the proof of a scientific theory is conformity with reason and evidence, and also the opposite of conformity with reason and evidence, or that profit in a company equals both making money, and losing money. 

All morality is universally preferable behaviourin that it categorizes behaviour that should ideally be chosen or avoided by all people, at all timesWe do not say that rape is evil only on Wednesdays, or 1° north of the equator, or only by tall people. Rape is always and forever wrong – we understand this instinctively, though it is a challenge to prove it rationally. 

Remember, that which is impossible can never be true. 

If we put forward the proposition that “rape is universally preferable behaviour,” can that ever be true? 

If it is impossible, it can never be true. 

If we logically analyse the proposition that “rape is universally preferable behaviour,” we quickly find that it is impossible. 

The statement demands that everyone prefers rape – to rape and be raped at all times, and under all circumstances. 

Aside from the logistical challenges of both raping and being raped at the same time, the entire proposition immediately contradicts itself. Since it is self-contradictory, it is impossible, and if it is impossible, it can neither be true nor valid. 

If “rape is universally preferable behaviour,” then everyone must want to rape and be raped at all times. 

However, rape is by definition violently unwanted sexual behaviour. 

In other words, it is only “rape” because it is decidedly not preferred. 

Since the category “rape” only exists because one person wants it, while the other person – his or her victim – desperately does not want itrape cannot be universally preferable. 

No behaviour that only exists because one person wants it, and the other person does not, can ever be in the category of “universally preferable.” 

Therefore, it is impossible that rape is universally preferable behaviour. 

What about the opposite? Not raping? 

Can “not raping” logically ever be “universally preferable behaviour”? 

In other words, are there innate self-contradictions in the statement “not raping is universally preferable behaviour”? 

No. 

Everyone on the planet can simultaneously “not rape” without logical self-contradiction. Two neighbours can both be gardening at the same time – which is “not raping” – without self-contradiction. All of humanity can operate under the “don’t rape” rule without any logical contradictions whatsoever. 

Therefore, when we say that “rape is wrong,” we mean this in a dual sense – rape is morally wrong, and it is morally wrong because any attempt to make rape “moral” – i.e. universally preferable behaviour – creates immediate self-contradictions, and therefore is impossible, and therefore cannot be correct or valid. 

It is both morally and logically wrong. 

What about assault? 

Well, assault occurs when one person violently attacks another person who does not want the attack to occur. (This does not apply to sports such as boxing or wrestling where aggressive attacks are agreed to beforehand.) 

This follows the same asymmetry as rape. 

Assault can never be universally preferable behaviour, because if it were, everyone must want to assault and be assaulted at all times and under all circumstances. 

However, if you want to be assaulted, then it is not assault. 

Boom. 

What about theft? 

Well, theft is the unwanted transfer of property. 

To say that theft is universally preferable behaviour is to argue that everyone must want to steal and be stolen from at all times, and under all circumstances. 

However, if you want to be stolen from, it is not theft – the category completely disappears when it is universalized. 

If I want you to take my property, you are not stealing from me. 

If I put a couch by the side of the road with a sign saying “TAKE ME,” I cannot call you a thief for taking the couch. 

Theft cannot be universally preferable behaviour because again, it is asymmetrical, in that it is wanted by one party – the thief – but desperately not wanted by the other party – the person stolen from. 

If a category only exists because one person wants it, but the other person doesn’t, it cannot fall under the category of “universally preferable behaviour.” 

The same goes for murder. 

Murder is the unwanted killing of another. 

If someone wants to be killed, this would fall under the category of euthanasia, which is different from murder, which is decidedly unwanted. 

In this way, rape, theft, assault and murder can never be universally preferable behaviours. 

The nonaggression principle and a respect for property rights fully conform to rational morality, in that they can be universalized with perfect consistency. 

There is no contradiction in the proposal that everyone should respect persons and property at all times. To not initiate the use of force, and to not steal, are both perfectly logically consistent. 

Of course, morality exists because people want to do evil – we do not live in heaven, at least not yet. 

Universally preferable behaviour is a method of evaluating moral propositions which entirely accepts that some people want to do evil. 

The reason why it is so essential is because the greatest evils in the world are done not by violent or greedy individuals, but rather by false moral systems such as fascism, communism, socialism and so on. 

In the 20th century alone, governments murdered 250 million of their own citizens – outside of war, just slaughtering them in the streets, in gulags and concentration camps. 

Individual murderers can at worst kill only a few dozen people in their lifetime, and such serial killers are extraordinarily rare. 

Compare this to the toll of war. 

A thief may steal your car, but it takes a government to have you born into millions of dollars of intergenerational debt and unfunded liabilities. 

Now, remember when I told you that when we universalize your individual experience, we end up with great and dizzying truths? 

Get ready. 

What is theft? 

The unwanted transfer of property, usually through the threat of force. 

What is the national debt? 

The unwanted transfer of property, through the threat of force. 

Individuals in governments have run up incomprehensible debts to be paid by the next generations – the ultimate example of “taxation without representation.” 

The concept of “government” is a moral theory, just like “slavery” and “theocracy” and “honour killings.” 

The theory is that some individuals must initiate the use of force, while other individuals are banned from initiating the use of force. 

Those within the “government” are defined by their moral and legal rights to initiate the use of force, while those outside the “government” are defined by moral and legal bans on initiating the use of force. 

This is an entirely contradictory moral theory. 

If initiating the use of force is wrong, then it is wrong for everyone, since morality is universally preferable behaviour. 

If all men are mortal, we cannot say that Socrates is both a man and immortal. 

If initiating force is universally wrong, we cannot say that it is wrong for some people, but right for others. 

“Government” is a moral theory that is entirely self-contradictory – and that which is self-contradictory is impossible – as we accepted earlier – and thus cannot be valid. 

If a biologist creates a category called “mammal” which is defined by being warm-blooded,” is it valid to include cold-blooded creatures in that category? 

Of course not. 

If a physicist proposes a rule that all matter has the property of gravity, can he also say that obsidian has the property of antigravity? 

Of course not. 

If all matter has gravity, and obsidian is composed of matter, then obsidian must have gravity. 

If we say that morality applies to all humanscan we create a separate category of humans for which the opposite of morality applies? 

Of course not. 

I mean, we can do whatever we want, but it’s neither true nor moral. 

If we look at something like counterfeiting, we understand that counterfeiting is the creation of pretend currency based on no underlying value or limitation. 

Counterfeiting is illegal for private citizens, but legal – and indeed encouraged – for those protected by the government. 

Thus, by the moral theory of “government,” that which is evil for one person, is virtuous for another. 

No. 

False. 

That which is self-contradictory cannot stand. 

People who live by ignoring obvious self-contradictions are generally called insane. 

They cannot succeed for long in this life. 

Societies that live by ignoring obvious self-contradictions are also insane, although we generally call them degenerate, decadent, declining and corrupt. 

Such societies cannot succeed for long in this world. 

The only real power – the essence of political power – is to create opposite moral categories for power-mongers. 

What is evil for you is good for them. 

It is disorienting to take our personal morals and truly universalize them. 

So what? 

Do you think we have reached the perfect end of our moral journey as a species? 

Is there nothing left to improve upon when it comes to virtue? 

Every evil person creates opposite standards for themselves – the thief says that he can steal, but others should not, because he doesn’t like to be stolen from! 

Politicians say that they must use violence, but citizens must not. 

Nothing that is self-contradictory can last for long. 

You think we have finished our moral journey? 

Of course not. 

Shake off your stupor, wake up to the corruption all around and within you. 

Like “government,” slavery was a universal morally-justified ethic for almost all of human history. 

Until it wasn’t. 

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