X/Twitter Questions Answered Jan 2026!

Stefan Molyneux

Stefan Molyneux takes on philosophical questions from his audience on X, zeroing in on personal relationships and the shared wish for parenthood. He looks at how confession can build real bonds and the mental toll that secrets and lies take on people.  Molyneux pushes back against utilitarian ideas about competition and happiness, suggesting that a focus on cutting down suffering could sap drive and stifle achievement. He also digs into how consciousness ties into brain activity, flipping old ideas about the soul on their head.  Wrapping up, he breaks down differences in how men and women handle emotions and talk things out in parenting, stressing the importance of finding equilibrium in partnerships. Overall, it offers a straightforward take on handling relationships and deeper life questions.  GET FREEDOMAIN MERCH! https://shop.freedomain.com/  SUBSCRIBE TO ME ON X! https://x.com/StefanMolyneux  Follow me on Youtube! https://www.youtube.com/@freedomain1  GET MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING', THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI, AND THE FULL AUDIOBOOK! https://peacefulparenting.com/  Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!  Subscribers get 12 HOURS on the "Truth About the French Revolution," multiple interactive multi-lingual philosophy AIs trained on thousands of hours of my material - as well as AIs for Real-Time Relationships, Bitcoin, Peaceful Parenting, and Call-In Shows!  You also receive private livestreams, HUNDREDS of exclusive premium shows, early release podcasts, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!  See you soon! https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2025

Transcript

00:00:00Good morning, everybody. It's Stefan Molyneux from Free Domain.

00:00:04So, on le January 19th, 2026, I asked my good friends on X for philosophical questions you

00:00:12all provided. I will now respond. All right, so let's go. Philosophy, conjecture, only asymmetric

00:00:22info in a relationship is how much she wants to be a mom. Other info, financial, medical character

00:00:27can be researched. Only unknown is her post-birth rewired brain mom. Therefore, burden is 100%

00:00:31on her to persuade the guy to have kids. Conjecture, of course, means a hypothesis and so on. And

00:00:39of course, you do want to know whether your partner wants to have children. And people can lie about

00:00:46this, of course, but that's why you're not supposed to date forever, right? You're supposed to date

00:00:50for a couple of months. You're supposed to be engaged for a couple of months. And ideally,

00:00:54you should get married within the year. This endless dating is bookmarking and wasting fertility

00:01:01years for the sake of sexual access or financial access. So, that's not great. So, yeah, you should

00:01:09have it all sorted within a year. This endless delay stuff is kind of propagandized. It's just a

00:01:16lower the birth rate thing. And I say this having made that mistake of dating for years. I got engaged

00:01:22to the wrong woman at one point and then bailed, thank heavens, for both her and me. And when I

00:01:29met my wife, we got engaged in a couple of months. We got married within the year, pretty much as soon

00:01:34as we could. We even got married in the middle of winter so that we could do it sooner. We didn't

00:01:40wait for summer. And then we started trying to have kids right away. So, yeah, it's supposed to go

00:01:47that way. So, yes, does she want to be a mother? Yeah. I mean, otherwise, you're kind of hijacking

00:01:51the entire process, right? So, what is the purpose of, like, why do we have a sex drive? Why do we

00:01:58have pair bonding? Not for the sake of her own happiness, not for the sake of her own loins,

00:02:03but for the sake of having children. That's why we have these things. That's why they exist. So,

00:02:08you should use it to have kids. But I don't think it's 100% on the woman to persuade the guy to have

00:02:15kids. I mean, why wouldn't men want to be fathers either? Being a father is a blast. It's one of the

00:02:22greatest things in the world. So, why should she have to convince him to have children? Now,

00:02:28she might convince him that she wants to have children, but he should want to have kids as

00:02:35well. All right. Is the meaning of life just life itself? So, I've done entire shows on this.

00:02:42You can go to fdrpodcasts.com to search for meaning, and you can swap by show number to

00:02:47get the most recent ones. What is the philosophy of regularly confessing to a priest? Well,

00:02:54confessions of wrongdoing have positive and negative functions as a whole. So, they can be used

00:03:04to ease your conscience and repave your way back to connection with the rest of humanity,

00:03:08or they can be used as blackmail and control over you. We hold your secrets. If you ever betray

00:03:17the organization, we will reveal your terrible secrets and all that kind of stuff. So, if you've

00:03:24done wrong, then one of the major prices of doing wrong is disconnection from humanity, right? Because

00:03:34if you've done some, I mean, not little things, right? You've done some significant wrong,

00:03:38then you have to put on a fake front. You have to pretend to be what you aren't. It's camouflage,

00:03:45right? I mean, a chameleon can change its colors and still be a chameleon, but a human being cannot

00:03:50repetitively lie and remain close to other human beings. A typical example would be if you are having

00:03:57an affair. If you have an affair, you have to lie to your wife all the time. You have to lie to your

00:04:02husband all the time. You have to lie to everyone all the time. If you have some secret addiction,

00:04:09you gamble in the middle of the night or something like that, then you have to lie about the finances,

00:04:14you have to lie about what you're doing. So, when you have a secret that distances you

00:04:22from other people, and so one of the purposes of confessing to a priest, I guess, or it could be a

00:04:30therapist, although at least a therapist, well, no, because neither can say anything, right?

00:04:34But one of the purposes of confessing to a thief is at least there's someone who knows the truth.

00:04:41And then, of course, the priest will generally instruct you to tell your wife, to tell your

00:04:47husband, whatever it is that's going on, and find a way to work it out. Now, this is one of the reasons

00:04:54why liars are dangerous. People who are comfortable with lying, or good at it, which is usually the same

00:05:00thing, because whatever we practice, we get better at, is that someone who is a liar has, in advance,

00:05:07given themselves permission to do wrong. Because if you have a policy of telling the truth,

00:05:15then you don't really have much option to do wrong, right? So, if you have a policy saying,

00:05:20well, if I do something wrong, I'm going to have to tell the people around me, well, how many people

00:05:27would do wrong if they had to tell the people around them? How many people would shoplift if

00:05:32they had to go and tell the store owner they shoplifted or go to the police? How many people

00:05:37would cheat if, right before cheating, they phoned their spouse and said, oh, by the way, I'm about to

00:05:42cheat. I wanted to be honest, blah, blah, blah. So, liars are untrustworthy, not just because they lie,

00:05:49but because their commitment to lying means that they have a whole array of things that they could

00:05:56do only because they're willing to lie. So, that's why it's important not to be around liars. Now,

00:06:05if you confess to the priest, at least someone knows, at least you've broken that ice wall,

00:06:09right? Lies are like this giant ice wall around your heart that separate you from humanity

00:06:13and occludes your connection to others. It's a profoundly isolating experience to lie

00:06:19on a regular basis. And this is why people get weird who lie because they no longer have

00:06:26the feedback from other people. And we are kind of solipsistic or narcissistic in our pursuit of truth.

00:06:33We have, I mean, one of the reasons we have confirmation bias is that as social animals,

00:06:38we rely on other people to help us achieve the truth. And when you lie to people, you separate

00:06:42yourself from their helpful feedback and things just get worse and worse. So, uh, but of course,

00:06:49again, the blackmail thing is pretty clear. All right. More interesting than Stefan Molyneux said,

00:06:54have you weighed in on the carrot discussion? A two-year-old dropped a carrot. Dad wouldn't do

00:06:59anything nice for him until he picked it up. I'm thinking dad needed to be more explanatory because

00:07:03it became a power contest, which would be fine if explained in sympathetic, bemused tone.

00:07:08Uh, yes, I did a show on this and, uh, just wanted to reiterate that, uh, for what it's

00:07:14worth. I like Jeremy Kaufman and I think he's a, uh, a very courageous and good guy in many

00:07:18ways. I think it was a mistake in this kind of parenting, which I tried to give good feedback

00:07:22on. So again, freedomain.com, sorry, freedomain.com slash podcasts or fdrpodcast.com. Just do

00:07:29a search, uh, for carrots. It's one of the times you have to search. Uh, very briefly, the

00:07:35son needs to rebel against the father in order to gain access to higher quality females when

00:07:41he gets older. And a father who really squelches the son's rebellion is lowering his future dating

00:07:48market value. So that was my argument. All right. Somebody asks, can religious beliefs survive

00:07:55the recent obsolescence of metaphysical dualism? Ah, listen, bro. I love the question. I think

00:08:03it's a great question, but you gotta communicate in my opinion, and I'm a pretty good communicator.

00:08:10You gotta communicate in a slightly less abstract and pompous manner because, um, most people won't

00:08:16know what you're talking about. And again, I know you're asking me, but then I have to translate it

00:08:21into the general population. If you ask a question on the natural assumption that I'm talking to the

00:08:28intelligent layperson or the intelligent general population, then asking this question, they won't

00:08:33know, uh, what it means. And so I have to now translate your question into general speak. And

00:08:41remember, of course, it's something that struck me many, many years ago. I've mentioned this before,

00:08:44of course, but Socrates never used the word epistemology. Socrates spoke in the common

00:08:51language of the people, the common tongue in Dungeons and Dragons. So can religious beliefs

00:08:58survive the recent obsolescence of metaphysical dualism? Well, what this means is metaphysical

00:09:03dualism, metaphysics has to do with the nature of reality, right? So just a brief reminder of

00:09:09metaphysics, nature of reality, epistemology, nature of knowledge, and so on. Those are the

00:09:15sort of two major divisions. Metaphysical dualism, so there's dualism and there's monism. So dualism

00:09:21is, uh, what's called the mind-body dichotomy, which is another $20 word for saying that the soul

00:09:29is immaterial and the body is material. So metaphysical dualism is that it is in the nature

00:09:36of humanity to have a spirit that is eternal and immaterial and a body that is material and mortal.

00:09:44Ghost in the machine, soul imprisoned in the flesh. So we have the flesh and we have our consciousness.

00:09:53Our consciousness, our spirit, our soul is immaterial and survives our death, whereas our body

00:09:59will decay and rot and be eaten by worms. And so, um, uh, monism is the idea that consciousness

00:10:07is an effect of the brain. It is not in any, it's not any other existing entity, like it's not,

00:10:15consciousness doesn't fly out of our body and leave, uh, and, uh, we have an immaterial essence

00:10:20like a soul. Uh, monism is that the mind is an effect of the brain in the same way that sound waves

00:10:28are the effect of a radio. And when you turn the radio off, you turn your MP3 player off,

00:10:35the voices don't leave and go somewhere else. And just the electricity, which is generating them

00:10:41and producing them, uh, has ceased. So can religious beliefs survive the recent obsolescence

00:10:46of medical-physical dualism? And science is making very great advances. Like we can see the brain

00:10:51activity. We can see personality manifested in light and dark areas of the brain. We can see the effects

00:10:57of free will and so on. And so we are seeing much more clearly that the mind is an effect of the

00:11:07brain. And we can see that if people have brain damage, that their personality changes. And we can

00:11:14see that everything is an effect of the brain. Everything that we say is us. Now, again, and I

00:11:20made this show, uh, made this more vivid in a show recently, but we do partake in eternity. We are

00:11:27mortal, but we partake in eternity. And this is how math should be taught, in my opinion. But

00:11:33when we say that two and two make four, we have participated in something that has been true

00:11:39forever, will remain true forever. And we have hooked our brains in to something that existed before us

00:11:47and will exist after us. So the idea that, particularly with written language, the idea that

00:11:54our soul lives on forever, well, in the not-too-distant future, I will be, well, I think what will happen is

00:12:03my body will be rotting in the ground and my brain will be studied, and they will find enormously large

00:12:08language centrist, I believe. And I, but I will be gone. I will be gone. But, uh, I'm dead and buried.

00:12:17I'm, I'm gone. I, I have joined the choir invisible. If you hadn't nailed them to the perch, you'd be

00:12:24pushing up the naisies. Well, um, but, but here you can hear me speak. Right? Maria Callas, long gone,

00:12:31we can still hear the thrill of her soprano. So you can hear me speak. I am long dead. Yet my

00:12:39thoughts live on in this format. Uh, that means a lot to me, by the way. And I'm eternally grateful

00:12:47for the modern technology that has allowed me to not take all of my wild and productive

00:12:52thoughts to the grave with me. I wrote an entire novel about the terror of a brilliant person sinking

00:12:57into the quicksand of history, leaving no mark really on her society until she does a final

00:13:03self-destructive mark. But I live on. I can speak in your ears as if I were in the room with you.

00:13:15And that's cool enough while I'm still alive. It's even cooler when I'm dead. And the cooler it is when

00:13:22I am long dead. And, of course, the technology means that I'm not some tinny formal voice like

00:13:30you listen to T.S. Eliot reading The Wasteland. Oh, The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot. Right? Headpieces

00:13:38filled with straw, alas, this is the way that the world ends. Right? Uh, it's kind of formal and I'm

00:13:45trying to speak in a sort of relaxed conversational tone. I'm not trying to. I generally do speak in a

00:13:50relaxed conversational tone. So, it's like I'm in the room, right? I'm in your ears. Long dead vocal.

00:13:55My vocal cords have turned to dust. My brain has been sliced and diced and studied. And I am gone,

00:14:03gone, gone. But I'm still tickling the hairs on your inner ear right close to your brain.

00:14:11So, I do get to live on. And this happened, of course, in terms of writing. Unfortunately,

00:14:16we don't have any of Aristotle's writing. We only have his student notes reconstructed and so on.

00:14:22But we have, of course, Plato's writing. And Plato's mind is not tickling our ears

00:14:29in terms of the written form, but it tickles our eyeballs. It changes the electrical impulses going

00:14:36to our brain as we read particular words. In the future, all of my work will be

00:14:42automatically transcribed on the fly, Babelfish style. And I will be able to speak in any language,

00:14:49in any timber. You can change me to a Norwegian woman if you want. And it will be perfectly

00:14:57transcribed in terms of intonation and approach. So, I do get to live forever. I do get to live

00:15:05forever. Through the minds of others, through you listening to me, fifty, a hundred, a thousand,

00:15:12ten thousand years from now, you can hear me padding around this little room talking to you about

00:15:18the truth. I am not dead, as long as there are people listening.

00:15:25All right. Turbo Chud, would four testicles be a game-changer in the manosphere? How long until

00:15:30we achieve our destiny of having four testicles? Man, if I could get mine down from eight, that

00:15:35would be fantastic. Then I could sit cross-legged a bit more easily. Right now, it's like having a

00:15:39bag of marbles strapped to my inner thighs. All right. Somebody else writes, is negative

00:15:43utilitarianism a philosophical equivalent of feminization and what is happening socially?

00:15:49Follow on, is it ultimately potentially more harmful? Hmm. Again, I would write, I would argue

00:15:58that you, my friend, it's kind of an empathy test. So, when you talk about abstract topics,

00:16:05you need to be very careful, I think, I would argue, you need to be very careful that you are not

00:16:12pulling a status card. So, pulling a status card is using abstract, somewhat subjective,

00:16:22complicated terms without defining or explaining them. And this puts people in a bind. And be aware

00:16:31of this. It's a very, very important thing in life. This is an empathy thing. So, if you're discussing

00:16:37philosophical topics with people and you use terms like negative utilitarianism, and basically

00:16:45negative utilitarianism. So, traditional utilitarianism is about maximizing happiness.

00:16:50negative utilitarianism, and this comes out of Karl Popper and others, is about minimizing

00:16:58suffering. That the purpose of a good society is to minimize suffering, not to maximize happiness.

00:17:06So, negative utilitarianism is not a term that most people would understand. So, when you are talking

00:17:13to a general audience, you really do have to ask yourself, what is it like to be on the other side of

00:17:19my communication? Am I clear? Am I comprehensible? Because you don't want to put other people in the

00:17:25awkward position of asking you what the living hell you're talking about. Because when you use jargon

00:17:34without explaining it, it does put other people in a very awkward situation, which is, they have to ask you

00:17:42what you're talking about. Now, if I'm using some common term, I say, oh, that's a very lovely oak tree,

00:17:52and somebody says, I don't, what are you talking about? I don't know what you're talking about.

00:17:56I would assume that they don't speak English, and, right, I've made a sort of mistake, or whatever,

00:18:01maybe I didn't know. But that would be sort of common term. So, that would not be something that I

00:18:07would feel bad about, that I had, you know, not using complicated language, right? But if you use

00:18:15complicated language, then when you say it to people, they're in the awkward position of having

00:18:23to ask, what does that mean? What do you mean by negative utilitarianism, right? They may not know

00:18:31what utilitarianism means, and they probably wouldn't know what negative utilitarianism refers to.

00:18:39So, if you use complicated language to people, then you are pulling a status game on them. I mean,

00:18:49unless you're dealing with people who already know these terms, like some other academic, or

00:18:53somebody who does this for a living, or something like that. So, what happens is, when you use

00:19:01complicated language to a general audience, they have to ask you what you mean, and why do they have

00:19:09to ask you what you mean? Now, I understand you're not asking this question of a general audience,

00:19:14you're asking it of me, but it would be easier for me if you would define what you mean, right? Because

00:19:22there is no objective definition of negative utilitarianism, right? It's not like two and two

00:19:29make four, or an oak tree, or a dolphin, or something like that. Because when you say, well,

00:19:34the purpose of life is to minimize unhappiness, that is relatively subjective. So, I don't know what

00:19:39you mean, economic unhappiness, emotional unhappiness, career unhappiness, love unhappiness, like...

00:19:46So, when you're using complicated and relatively subjective terms without defining them,

00:19:50you're putting the other person in an awkward position. Because they have to ask you what you

00:19:55mean, and then what do you do? Do you say, oh, well, gee, I thought you knew what that meant.

00:20:01You know what I mean? Like, there's a kind of superiority in there. It's very, very important,

00:20:05in my truly humble opinion. You know, you've heard me say a million times on this show,

00:20:10I struggle with this too, I'm far from perfect, blah, blah, blah, we're all in the same boat,

00:20:14we're all in the same war trenches, uh, in the battle for truth. Because, uh, I want to,

00:20:21um, I want to, it's a fairly awkward way to put it, I want to raise people up. You know,

00:20:26I don't mean it that way, like I'm hauling people up from a frozen river, but I want us to be on an

00:20:31equal playing field. I don't want to be any kind of superior dude or anything like that, because we

00:20:38do all struggle with these things. And I don't want people to come out of any contact with me feeling

00:20:42smaller. I mean, unless they're a total douchebag, in which case, fair is fair. But I don't want

00:20:49people to emerge from any contact with me feeling lesser or dumber or awkward or untutored or unschooled

00:20:57or unaware or anything like that. So I have to adjust on what it is that I'm saying. Like,

00:21:03if I'm talking to someone, uh, in a call-in show and clearly English is not their native tongue,

00:21:09I have to adjust what it is that I'm doing so that it makes sense to them, right? And I'm sorry

00:21:17for the long explanation, but it's just a big empathy thing. If you use complicated terms with

00:21:23someone who doesn't know what those complicated terms mean, it's a bit of a dick move. Because

00:21:29what are they supposed to say? They either have to play along, in which case there's no point to

00:21:34the conversation. Or they have to say, I don't know what that means. And what they experience,

00:21:41I'll tell you this straight up, what they experience is a diminishment. Because you're

00:21:45talking to them as if everybody knows what something like, uh, negative utilitarianism,

00:21:52right, uh, means. Or, you know, this is a, to talk to the earlier guy, uh, the recent obsolescence

00:22:00of metaphysical dualism. Are you trying to sound clever? Are you trying to be superior?

00:22:05Are you trying to make them feel awkward? Did you have a bad teacher who did this to you?

00:22:10Because if they don't know, like, if you use these terms on the assumption that everybody

00:22:16knows them and someone doesn't know them, which most, like, 99% of the population would

00:22:21not be able to give you a definition of, uh, the obsolescence of metaphysical dualism or

00:22:27negative utilitarianism? And is it a philosophical equivalent of feminization and what is happening

00:22:32societally? Follow on, is it ultimately potentially more harmful, right? That is extremely vague,

00:22:39pretty subjective and using technical language, which I have to translate, you know, putting the

00:22:43burden of translating on me. And if you ask the average person, right, you ask the average person

00:22:49what that means, they wouldn't be able to tell you. So now you're putting them in a position where

00:22:53they think, well, it's like the emperor's new clothes. They think, well, does everyone know these

00:22:57terms? And this is a common term that I just don't know. I've just completely missed for some

00:23:01reason. So, uh, this is, uh, not, I'm not trying to be a nag, of course, right? But I am saying that

00:23:11you will get more happiness in life when people have a positive interaction with you. And if you give

00:23:19them technical terms that they feel bad for not knowing, because the only reason you wouldn't explain

00:23:23technical terms or any, any language that you use, the only reason that you wouldn't explain these

00:23:29things is that they would be common knowledge, right? And if you don't know that they're not

00:23:33common knowledge, then you lack empathy for others. If you're doing it to look clever, then people have

00:23:39a negative experience of interacting with you. And then you can only really hang out with masochists.

00:23:44All right, so let's get to the question. Is negative utilitarianism a philosophical equivalent

00:23:47of feminization of what is happening societally? Follow on, is it ultimately potentially more harmful?

00:23:53Then what? Then non-utilitarianism, then positive utilitarianism, then something else?

00:24:00I don't know. So you have to really, when you communicate, and I'm sorry to be such a nag,

00:24:05but I really want you guys to be great communicators, because it really matters,

00:24:09because you care about philosophy. And I hope you'll take the coaching on how to communicate well. I mean,

00:24:13I've taken very complicated philosophical concepts and translated them to tens of millions of people

00:24:20in a way that is positive for them, which is why people keep coming back to the show.

00:24:25So I am definitely an expert on communicating philosophy. And so I hope you'll take the coaching

00:24:32that you need to at least ask people if they know what these terms mean, and assume that they don't,

00:24:39right? Or you can say negative utilitarianism. And by that, I mean, blah, blah, blah, right? Because even

00:24:44though I understand the definition of negative utilitarianism, those two words do not encapsulate

00:24:50the entire philosophy in an objective manner. So the avoidance of suffering. Yes, so originally,

00:24:59the, of course, the original American experiment, life, liberty, it was supposed to be, of course,

00:25:04life, liberty, and property, but that would have implicitly rejected slavery, which is why it was

00:25:11why it was taken out, and became life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, not the guarantee of

00:25:15happiness. So if you think of a race, and everybody is told the race is happening ahead of time,

00:25:26the running race, they can train as much or as little as they want. They can work as much as or as

00:25:32little as they want to prepare for the race mentally, stretching, whatever, right? Strengthening

00:25:37their legs, their lungs, their heart. And it's a hundred-yard dash, hundred-meter dash. Everyone

00:25:43starts a flat field, and you just bang, off you go, and whoever crosses the finish lights most is the

00:25:47winner. And, of course, people who are in the race are in the race to win it, so they have the

00:25:52pursuit of happiness. They can pursue winning the race. They can have that as a goal, and they can

00:25:57achieve it, but not everyone. It's not a great analogy for the free market, because in the free market,

00:26:03it's win-win, this is win-lose. But the pursuit of happiness is everyone can run the race, and whoever

00:26:09is the fastest wins, wins the race. So the person who wins the race makes everybody who doesn't win

00:26:17the race less happy. So if Bob is ahead, and Tom is right behind him, if Bob stumbles and trips, and Tom

00:26:27wins the race, then Bob loses, though he was going to win, and Bob, sorry, and Tom wins, though he was

00:26:32going to lose. So Tom is very happy that Bob stumbled and fell. Yay, trip. So everybody who

00:26:42doesn't win is unhappy. Now, if you say that the race is there not to allow someone to be happy to

00:26:50win, but the race is there to make sure nobody is unhappy that they lose, then you have a big

00:26:56problem. A big problem. Now, if you have a win-lose paradigm, then positive and negative

00:27:03utilitarianism can meet in the back. They come full circle, like left and right tyranny. So they

00:27:09come full circle, and they meet in the back. Because if you say, well, we've got 10 people in the race,

00:27:14and we want to maximize their happiness. We want to maximize the happiness of everyone.

00:27:18All 10 people in the race need to have maximum happiness. Well, one person wins the race.

00:27:26That gives them plus 10 happiness. Everybody else loses the race. That gives them, let's say,

00:27:30minus 5 happiness. So you have plus 10 happiness for the guy who wins the race. You've got 9 people

00:27:35with minus 5, so it's minus 45, so you end up with minus 35 happiness. So having a win-lose race

00:27:42causes unhappiness in society as a whole. You have more people unhappy, maybe not to quite the degree

00:27:48that the winner is happy, but you have more people unhappy than are happy. So you can't ever have a race

00:27:53with only one winner. So how do you have it so that people in the race are the least unhappy?

00:28:02Well, frankly, the only thing you can do is disband the race. There's no way. There's no way

00:28:07to minimize unhappiness and still have the race. Because if you say, okay, well, there aren't going

00:28:15to be any winners or losers. Everybody can run, walk, nap, walk backwards, walk on their hands.

00:28:22It doesn't matter. Then because it doesn't matter who wins, nobody's going to bother showing up to

00:28:28the race because there's no prize, there's no victory, there's nothing. So you have to get rid of the race.

00:28:32You have to get rid of competition if you are a utilitarian who wants to maximize happiness or a

00:28:38negative utilitarian who wants to minimize unhappiness. Because how on earth are you going to

00:28:44minimize unhappiness while still having a race where, by definition, there can only be one winner

00:28:53and nine losers? That's competition. And even though capitalism is win-win, right? So when I was in the

00:29:00business world, capitalism is win-win, but it's not win-win for everyone. So when I was in the

00:29:06business world, we would do these things that were called RFPs. We would respond to RFPs. RFPs means

00:29:13request for proposal. So you would put a lot of time, effort, and energy into crafting a lengthy

00:29:21document saying how your solution was going to be the best and here's how much it was going to cost

00:29:25and here's how long it was going to take. And we would often be in competition with, you know, five or ten

00:29:30other companies. Some of them, like Microsoft and IBM, quite large. So this is one of the reasons I

00:29:36had to really work on my charisma, charisma. So while it's win-win for the company that chooses the one

00:29:45company out of the five or ten who submits an RFP, every other company has spent, the RFPs took a while,

00:29:52right? They could take up to a week to put together. Now, the contracts could be a million

00:29:58dollars or more. So if you won, you were happy. But the company who wants the RFPs and the company

00:30:07who wins that process, they're both happy. But the four to nine or more other companies who spent a week

00:30:15of significant professional time and spent thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars

00:30:21putting together these RFPs, I remember doing one that took a month. And that was probably

00:30:31$20,000 to $30,000 worth of professional time. And if you lose, then you're very unhappy.

00:30:40So even though capitalism is win-win, it's only win-win for the two parties who conclude the

00:30:45contract. For everybody else who's bidding on the contract, they lose. So if you have a company

00:30:52and 10 RFP submitters, then you have 11 entities. Two of them will be happy. Nine of them will be

00:30:58unhappy. How do you minimize the unhappiness? They can't all do the work. They can't all get paid.

00:31:04So how do you minimize the unhappiness? Well, I guess you could say everyone gets paid whether

00:31:12they win the contract or not. Well, then people really won't put much effort into the RFPs because

00:31:17they're going to get paid anyway. It's not competitive. So it won't be accurate. It won't

00:31:20be detailed. And then you won't have any decision by which to make a better decision. How do you make

00:31:26sure nobody loses the running race? Well, the only thing you can do is, I guess you could micromanage

00:31:33the running race so that everyone crosses the race at the exact same time and therefore everybody

00:31:39gets what? First prize? But that's micromanaging, right? Because people, the race also becomes much

00:31:46more expensive, right? Let's say you get a thousand dollars for winning the race. Everyone has to win

00:31:52the race at the same time. The race now doesn't cost a thousand dollars. It costs $10,000. It's too

00:31:57expensive. Everyone gets their money. What if somebody's sick? It's not their fault. So then you have to

00:32:03give them a prize, even though they never showed up. It's not their fault they got sick. They're

00:32:07unhappy, right? So then there won't be a race. People won't even show up for the race. I mean,

00:32:12I remember a friend of mine telling me about his son who was in a running race and there was one girl

00:32:20who was away on vacation and she got a ribbon. Didn't even show up that day. So it is definitely

00:32:26feminine. To minimize unhappiness is fine within the family when you have a bunch of kids because

00:32:31things have got to be equal and so on, right? But it's just, yeah, I mean, I think you're right.

00:32:35It's bad in society as a whole, but yeah, utilitarianism can't work. All you can have is

00:32:39objective universal standards, rationally explained, implemented by free market dispute resolution

00:32:46organizations, but you can't minimize unhappiness. And it's not people, it's not society's job to

00:32:51minimize your unhappiness. All right. Now, of course, the other minimizing unhappiness is

00:32:59also something that does come out of the female mindset as a whole. And it requires micromanaging

00:33:08and tyranny, which makes, and the guy who could win the running race is really unhappy. All right.

00:33:15What is the biological reason why wives try to talk softly to their husbands when they're in another

00:33:21room or otherwise can't hear them? There's no way it's a coincidence which nearly every husband on the,

00:33:27has nearly every husband on the planet experiencing it. Women try to talk softly to their husband. I

00:33:33don't know. Why do teenagers mumble? And then when you ask, um, sorry, what? They say nothing.

00:33:40It's a mystery. Why do wives try to talk softly to their husbands when they're in another room

00:33:45or otherwise can't hear them? Well, women, I think, if I remember rightly, I could be wrong about this,

00:33:50but I think women tend to retain better hearing as a whole over the course of their lives. So maybe

00:33:56they could hear themselves and they're not really getting that. The husband might not be quite as

00:34:01sharp-eared as in the past, but I think my general idea would be something like this. And it obviously

00:34:12could be complete nonsense, but this is sort of my first thought if this helps.

00:34:15So women, I mean, this is a beautiful thing about women. I love this about women. Women,

00:34:23particularly wives, are constantly thinking about the happiness of everyone else in a way that we

00:34:31semi-autistic, gearhead, mechanical-brained males can't comprehend. And my wife openly says this. She

00:34:39wakes up in the morning and she's like, okay, you know, how's everyone's happiness? What can I do to

00:34:43make people happier and content? And she's just lovely that way. And I think that's a female nature

00:34:51as a whole. And again, if it's not corrupted by politics, it's the most beautiful thing in the

00:34:55world. When it gets corrupted by politics, it becomes terrifying and civilizational ending in

00:35:00some ways. So I think this is one of the reasons why women will get mad if they have to ask you stuff,

00:35:09because they're constantly thinking. And, you know, ladies, correct me if I'm wrong, of course,

00:35:14right? But this is what I've talked. In the sort of high-quality wives that I've met and talked to

00:35:19about these kinds of things that, oh, yeah, everyone's constantly on my mind. Everyone's

00:35:23happiness is, well, I would call it an obsession, but it's not. It's just a female brain.

00:35:29Everyone's happiness is really important, which is why when women, you know, there's this old sort of

00:35:35joke about how women, you're flicking through the channels when people used to do that kind of thing,

00:35:40you're flicking through the channels, and she comes across a video or an image or a film of a woman

00:35:45crying, she has to stop, right? Because if an unhappy person is kind of a torment for a woman. And

00:35:53again, with regards to babies and toddlers and kids, it's an absolutely beautiful thing. And this is one

00:35:59of the reasons why they're able to multitask and run households so well. And because remember,

00:36:03women are designed to raise, you know, five to ten children and keep them all alive and keep them

00:36:09relatively happy in there. She just has to think about other people's happiness and needs all the

00:36:13time. We men, maybe it's the four testicles. I don't know. But we men, we don't. We don't do that. And

00:36:24it's not that women are warm and men are cold. Women care about others and men don't care about

00:36:29each other's, right? There was a woman who wanted her day off, a day off on her birthday. She was

00:36:36talking to Caleb Hammer, the banshee-voiced shrieker at other people's misjudged finances.

00:36:43And he's like, well, why would you get a day off for your birthday? You're an adult, right?

00:36:49And she's like, well, I guess it's because I care about people, right? So that's her thought.

00:36:53So she cares about people, so people should get the day off on their birthday. And he can't run a

00:36:59business if everyone's taking their time off for their birthday. And so men have to not care if

00:37:07other people are unhappy. We have to not care if other people are unhappy. Because women are in

00:37:15cooperation and redistribution. And men are in meritocratic, raw meritocratic competition.

00:37:24As I sort of mentioned before, the best, you know, dead-eye dick, the best guy at throwing the

00:37:32spear, he gets the spear. Because if they throw the spear and miss, then people don't eat and people

00:37:38might die. So men are in a raw meritocracy. And a lot of sports has to be a raw meritocracy.

00:37:45So that men know who the best fighters are, who the best warriors are, who the best hunters are.

00:37:52So if men say, well, you know, bug-eyed Bob over there hasn't thrown a spear in a while. He feels

00:38:00sad about it. Let's give him the spear. Then he throws and misses, scares the deer away, and everybody

00:38:08starves. So men can't afford. So if bug-eyed Bob can't throw a spear, he doesn't get a spear. In fact,

00:38:14he doesn't even really get invited on the hunting party. And he's sad about that. But men can't afford

00:38:19to worry about people being sad about stuff, because we have to win the wars, and we have to feed

00:38:24the people. We have to feed the families. So we can't get overly fussed about people being unhappy,

00:38:31right? So there's a... I learned this from WKRP in Cincinnati, which was a very funny show about being

00:38:37on the radio. So I was on the radio in university, and I watched this show about a radio station,

00:38:43which was very funny and very clever. And one of the shows, there was a newscaster called Les

00:38:50Nesman. It's time for more music and Les Nesman. So Les Nesman was a sort of nebbish, nerdy guy,

00:39:00chai-chai Rodriguez. And there was one... It was always an indoor studio stuff. And then there was

00:39:07one show where they were out on a baseball field. And it was a sort of very vivid and memorable show.

00:39:13Every character had their details, including the lazy union guy. But Les Nesman was forced to play

00:39:21the violin as a little boy, rather than throw and catch baseballs, because he was a son of a single

00:39:27mother, no father, and so... Then he accidentally caught a ball, and apparently this was the greatest

00:39:34thing ever. Now, that's a feminine approach. Because I'm sure you've just met people who are

00:39:42just physically uncoordinated. I don't know how it survived four million years of evolution.

00:39:47But, you know, they throw balls like some semi-spastic hand-cranked swastika, and they just

00:39:53don't... They can't throw, they can't catch, they can't hit. It's physically awkward. And Les Nesman

00:40:00would be one of those guys. And so, the fact that he accidentally catches a ball, and is cheered,

00:40:08and this heals everything. And it's like, well, if bug-eyed Bob badly throws a spear, but it

00:40:14accidentally lands in the neck of the deer, and everybody gets to eat, doesn't mean that he gets

00:40:18the ball. He doesn't get the spear or the ball next time. And of course, it's a peculiar thing,

00:40:23which is, well, if you just give me a chance, I can be really good. And that's not how men work.

00:40:29We have to work with proven wins and losses. We can't deal with speculation, right?

00:40:33And, hey, remember that time three years ago when I threw the spear and it did hit the deer? I was

00:40:37like, yeah, but you can't repeat it. I mean, you could blindfold me, put a golf ball in front of

00:40:41me. I might get a hole in one, but I sure as hell couldn't repeat it. So, the reason I'm saying all

00:40:45of this, believe it or not, there is a reason, thank you for your patience, is that because women

00:40:51are constantly thinking about everyone else, again, beautiful thing, lovely thing, in the same way

00:40:58that men's mechanical monomania is also a beautiful and wonderful thing. We are an amazing team,

00:41:02produced the best brain on the planet and best brain in the universe that we know of.

00:41:06So, the reason why women speak softly when their men is running drills in the garage is because

00:41:15the husband is ever-present in the wife's mind in a way that men can't really process.

00:41:24You know, people drift in and out of our minds as a whole. You know, we're focused on tasks

00:41:31and people kind of drift in and out of our minds while we're doing stuff. You know, I mean,

00:41:38you think of the guy in war, he's got a picture of his girl in his pocket or whatever, right? So,

00:41:44she's, but he's not thinking of her when he's under fire. He's not thinking of her when he's

00:41:47running through barbed wire or across no man's land or something. So, women come in and out of

00:41:54men's minds, children come in and out of men's minds while we're focusing on tasks.

00:41:59Yes. But I remember a woman, she wrote about being a mother and she said,

00:42:05I can't ever stop thinking about my family. It's like a dimmer switch goes halfway down. I can dim

00:42:09it a little bit, but even when I'm watching an action movie or a horror movie, I'm still thinking

00:42:13about my family. What do people need? What are they looking for? What needs to be done? What

00:42:17appointment needs to be made? Constant. And again, beautiful. And this mismatch between men and women,

00:42:24and it's not a mismatch in terms of like what's productive, but if women think that men need to

00:42:29be like them, then women will constantly be thinking, well, why haven't you thought of this?

00:42:33Or how could you possibly forget this? Or, you know, so-and-so does need that. And what is the

00:42:38name of our kid's pediatrician and his assistant and the woman at the reception, right? Men don't know

00:42:45because we are raw meritocracy task-oriented and women are constantly thinking about everyone else.

00:42:53Beautiful thing. So, because the man's mind is constantly present in the woman's mind,

00:42:59she talks to him as if he's there because he's always there, right? I mean, lurking. What do you

00:43:07need now, right? And so, because women are constantly thinking about other people's needs,

00:43:13when people don't think about the woman's needs, if a man doesn't think about the woman's needs,

00:43:18she gets offended. Like, well, what? I mean, if you cared about me, you would be thinking

00:43:23continually about my needs. But that would be asking for the man's brain to be a woman's brain,

00:43:27which would make her kind of a lesbian. Although lesbians don't seem to think that much about

00:43:32other women's needs either because they're just to have about the most violent relationships in

00:43:36all of the human ecosystem. So, just as a man, I understand that women are delightfully

00:43:43incomprehensible. Same thing for women. Men are delightfully incomprehensible.

00:43:48She's talking to you as if you're in the room because you're constantly on her mind.

00:43:53And she thinks you're right there because you are constantly right there.

00:43:57So, hopefully that helps explain that. What is the meaning of life? Again, I've answered this a

00:44:03bunch of times. Perfectly valid for you to ask. It's not like you would know all of the shows I've

00:44:07done. But go to fdrpodcast.com, search for meaning, and sought by the most recent. In light

00:44:13of Ashley Sinclair AI scandal, how can a framework for ethical porn be attained? Ethical porn be

00:44:24attained, isn't it? So, of course, the production of pornography often requires some significant

00:44:31levels of abuse. The production of pornography generally relies on a prior history of childhood

00:44:35sexual abuse and so on. So, I suppose... Because, you know, one of the things that women say in

00:44:42defense of their own pornography consumption, which generally seems to have semi-human beasts,

00:44:47uh, what's it? Glory? Glory... Glory Hole Milk Farm or some horrendous thing where a woman is trying

00:44:55to pay off her student debts by milking semen from a minotaur. Milk cow minotaur farm, something like

00:45:01that. I'm afraid I have too much PTSD from reading reviews of the book to remember it. But, uh,

00:45:08shoo and head did a very, uh, as she does, really great shows on this kind of stuff. But, you know,

00:45:13the werewolves and the billionaire vampires and things like that. So, women, when they are trying

00:45:19to defend their own trash pornography consumption, which is highly dangerous, toxic, they say, well,

00:45:25but people aren't harmed. And, I mean, I, yeah, that's certainly true. You don't, you know, no

00:45:31minotaurs were harmed in the writing of this book. And, uh, if I suppose you could create pornography

00:45:37through AI, then people would not be, uh, harmed, uh, and so on. And the Ashley Sinclair AI scandal,

00:45:44isn't she suing Elon Musk because Grok can produce images of people in bikinis? And she herself has

00:45:51produced many images of herself in a bikini using Grok and praises Grok for its creation of,

00:45:58um, I think she put it as a great, that gives women a great rack, right? Nice boobs. So, uh,

00:46:05it is a odd thing. And I, I don't think it has anything to do with any abstract ethical concerns.

00:46:10It has to do with vengeance. All right. Uh, is Frankenstein's monster also called Frankenstein

00:46:17due to his newfound family lineage. I don't know. I don't really have any opinion on that.

00:46:23You recently spoke to a caller about giving children a sibling for companionship. How do

00:46:27those of us who only had one kid due to consequences of past mistakes or just bad luck make sure a kid

00:46:33thrives despite? I think you face similar challenges. I'm forty, uh, six. My wife is forty-four. My son is

00:46:41two. Well, wow. Congratulations on getting one past the goalie right under the wire. That's you grabbing a

00:46:46child like Indiana Jones grabs his hat from a falling door. Uh, so, uh, good for you. So, uh,

00:46:51the, the essential thing, the essential thing, if you have an only child, is for one parent to be

00:46:58staggeringly immature. Staggeringly immature to the point where you start off slightly older than the

00:47:05sibling when the sibling is two, the pretend sibling your kid is two, and then by the time

00:47:09they're about ten, they've vastly outgrown you. I think we all know who that is in my family. That's right.

00:47:16My wife. No, it's me. I cannot tell. Or at least I won't this time. So, uh, you, you have to sort

00:47:22of get down on your knees and, and play with the child as if you're a child. That gives them

00:47:26more of a peer experience. Uh, of course, if you have friends with kids, uh, you want to have your

00:47:32friends, uh, play, uh, kids play with your kid as much as possible. If you are religious, there are

00:47:39tons of youth groups and all that kind of good juicy stuff. But it's, it's a very, it's a very

00:47:46big question. And you, you have to make sure, of course, so you'll be older and then your kid's

00:47:49going to be all alone, right? Because you're, you're old ass parents, as am I. Uh, I'm going

00:47:54to be 60 this year. My daughter is 17. She's going to be 18 this year, right? So, uh, I guess I was

00:48:01your wife's age when my daughter came along and, uh, you're going to have to really work

00:48:08to make sure she has good peers and, uh, hopefully you can, can date and get into a good relationship

00:48:14because when you and your wife get old, uh, she's going to have a lot. I mean, if it's a

00:48:20daughter, oftentimes daughters have an urge to take care of elderly parents, which is really

00:48:24tough. And it's one of the things that's a real drag. I mean, there's, there's pluses

00:48:27and minuses. Like there's pluses about being an older parent as you probably have more resources

00:48:31in time. But the downside is that, you know, you, you've got to really work to stay as healthy

00:48:37as possible. It's one of the reasons I, I exercise and, and try to keep myself at a healthy

00:48:41weight and get my blood work done and checkups. And I just don't want to put my daughter through

00:48:46the burden of taking care of me when I get old, at least for as long as possible and all

00:48:50of that. So, and of course it'll probably fall on my wife. She'll probably outlive me statistically.

00:48:55Plus she's shorter. So, so, uh, yeah, look after your health and try and get her as many

00:49:00companions as possible and play with her at her level and, uh, try to give her good, good

00:49:05skills that way and, uh, have a great template with regards to your wife, right? So I love

00:49:12your wife, uh, and have your wife love you back so that your daughter has a good template

00:49:17for a marriage that she wants. All right. Um, why does it look like the average IQ tends

00:49:27to adhere to ideology thinking? I thought about that from my experience and from data showing

00:49:33that women tend more to leftism. Women IQ are vastly recorded towards the average.

00:49:41Well, women innately care about what is thrust in front of them, so to speak. And remember,

00:49:50of course, a lot of women over the past would inherit children, not their own. So you could

00:49:56be a step-mom. Uh, of course, your sister could die and you end up with her kids. You might die

00:50:01during childbirth or of sort of various illnesses which were rampant. And so women, women who only

00:50:08had a biological impulse to mother their own children, well, that would be bad for the family

00:50:14lineage, right? Because, of course, your sister's children are still biologically related to you,

00:50:19so you need to care about more than just your own biological children. So women tend to mother

00:50:24whatever is put in front of them. And again, you can see these videos all over social media. And

00:50:30they're beautiful videos, really, which is, you know, a girl of 11 or 12 is given a puppy and bursts

00:50:35into tears and just loves that puppy with all her heart and all of that, because women will mother

00:50:40whatever is put in front of them. And with the rise of modern media, you know, African bloated-bellied

00:50:48children and so on who are starving to death are put in front of women. And that, was it Sally

00:50:53Struthers who ran that stuff in the 70s or 80s? And so when hungry children are put in front of

00:50:59women, their mothering impulse kicks in, because that's how we're programmed. So you just need to

00:51:07put sad people in front of women, and women's mothering instincts will kick in, and they will

00:51:13get enormously fierce in the protection, right? To the point where women are risking their lives

00:51:19trying to protect sad people, often sad criminals and sad, in fact, pedophiles, from being deported.

00:51:28Even though Honan, the same guy who deported twice as many people under Obama, and mainstream media

00:51:35went for ride-alongs, and he got the, you know, significant presidential, the Presidential Medal of

00:51:41Freedom or something like that, he got, was very much praised, but that was under Obama, now it's

00:51:45under Trump, and Trump's only deporting half the numbers, and now he's evil Hitler, trademark, blah,

00:51:51blah, blah. So, if you can hack women's biological caring systems to care for X, right? And again,

00:52:01that would be her sister's kid, it could be a cousin's child or something like that, and then she will,

00:52:08you know, take care of whoever's put in her household. Again, a beautiful thing, if it's in a

00:52:14free society, but it's very easy to hack women's omnicaring sense, right? Men don't have that,

00:52:22right? Men don't have that as much. So, again, strengths in different areas. So, it's very easy

00:52:30to hack women's omnicaring to the point where they view criminals as their children and the police as

00:52:38predators, right? So, women, you know, famously lift up cars to get their kids who are trapped under,

00:52:44I don't know if it's an urban myth, but women are very ferocious, like, you know, that sort of mama

00:52:48bear, mama grizzly bear energy, like, I'll do anything to protect my kids. And so, you can hack

00:52:54into women's biological systems and endlessly portray, I was thinking of this the other day,

00:53:00there was an album, an album, in 45, a long-haired country singer named Crystal Gale did a lovely

00:53:06version of, um, no, I'll get the song in a sec, it'll come to me, but on the flips, Amazing Grace,

00:53:14there we go, Amazing Grace, she's a lovely version of Amazing Grace, and on the other side, I never

00:53:19listened to the other side, was a song called I Pity the Poor Immigrant, and this was a, I assume,

00:53:24I'm not saying she was a Marxist, but I assume that this was just sort of Marxist songwriters or

00:53:27whatever, I pity the poor immigrant, and pity poor immigrant, this is a way of hacking into women's

00:53:36caring systems to have them care for their enemies and attack their protectors, right, it's just a

00:53:42reversal, you can program women to view, I mean, honestly, anyone, it's an amazing, right, because

00:53:48the net, the net was never designed to be outside of a tribe, right, so, if you can convince

00:53:56women that the, the, the poor immigrants who are just here, huddled, caring for their families,

00:54:02you know, want to tear the families apart, and they're just looking for a better life, and,

00:54:06you know, they're sad and hunted, and, oh, the tears, and the sobbing, and the anguish, and right,

00:54:11and then you hook into women's omnicaring biological mechanisms, and then they are poor,

00:54:19helpless children being chased by dangerous predators, and the women will then

00:54:26defend the poor, helpless children against the dangerous predators, and, and it's a, it's a very

00:54:32cruel hack to turn love into corruption, but, of course, it's not like the powers that be have any

00:54:38compunction about that, all right, uh, Sean, come on, we all know it's seen, if, isn't that concerning,

00:54:48if the Christian Satan exists, is it a manifestation of God, or a result of the trauma and outrage of the

00:54:57billions of souls that suffer in hell? Is it a manifestation of God, or a result of the trauma and outrage of the

00:55:03billions of souls that suffer in hell? I don't really understand that question, so, uh, if you could rephrase

00:55:11and resubmit, I would appreciate that. Tom writes, how does a free society cope with people who can't

00:55:17think, uh, rationally? Well, I mean, the capacity to process concepts is required for any kind of

00:55:26contract, right? A social contract, a, uh, you have, in order to be subject to morality, you have to

00:55:32understand morality, and so people who can't think rationally would not be able to function,

00:55:41in a free society, they couldn't function in any kind of society, and so, uh, when people get

00:55:48pregnant, uh, they would have insurance, uh, against the possibility that their child had some

00:55:53biological form of schizophrenia and was not able to act rationally, and then they would, uh, take care,

00:56:00uh, the society would take care, the DROs would take care of that, right? So, you pay a certain amount

00:56:04of money in insurance, lots of people would do that, and then the few people who develop biological

00:56:08issues with their brain, not as a result of child abuse, which would be caught, and be caught early,

00:56:13of course, any deviation from rationality would be caught early through brain scans and interviews,

00:56:17and would be solved or fixed, but let's say it was some biological degradation that was occurring,

00:56:22some tumor or something, or something that was happening to the brain that had nothing to do with

00:56:26child abuse, then that person would be institutionalized, and it would be paid for through

00:56:31the insurance. If, for whatever reason, people didn't have insurance, there would be charities

00:56:35to take care of that. All right, somebody writes, and again, I love these questions, I really, really

00:56:41do appreciate them. I don't care for philosophers. You ask them, hey, you know any chicks who like a

00:56:48fun time, and they never know anything that matters. What is the point of all this philosophy then?

00:56:53Well, so one of the reasons that philosophers don't talk about chicks who like a fun time

00:57:00is because chicks are, well, they're biologically programmed to follow the largest person they meet

00:57:09when they get out of the egg, and so for them, fun is just trailing after you, and they would love to

00:57:14climb on you, and so on, so because it's biologically programmed for chicks to do that, there's really not

00:57:20much that philosophy would have to say about that. What is your epistemological stance? Are we born

00:57:26with innate knowledge, or is knowledge gained solely from experience? We are certainly born with innate

00:57:31instincts, for sure. I mean, I'm sure every boy remembers that magical day when the girls turned

00:57:39from sort of vaguely alien, somewhat fascinating creatures that were sort of negative in sports to

00:57:46the sole object of your attention from morning till night. So when the hormones kick in, and the lust

00:57:55kicks in, and the sexual drive kicks in, that's just a part of puberty, and so that conditions just

00:58:03about everything you do as a teenager, and a young man, also a middle-aged man, and an old man, that's

00:58:09all we do is try to please women. Beautiful. So we certainly have innate instincts, we have a fight

00:58:17or flight mechanism, we of course are born with hunger, we are born with a sense of balance, we are

00:58:23born with discomfort from physical injury and illness, and so on, so we have a lot that guides us

00:58:29towards safety. As boys in particular, happens with some girls, but with boys in particular, boys will

00:58:38constantly want to test their limits, because we need to be physically competent in order to be

00:58:44good providers. So boys will constantly, you know, jump off high things, and, you know, boys will set

00:58:49up ramps, and my brother and I tried to make a parachute out of newspapers, and so on. And we used

00:58:56to climb the outside of our apartment building just to get into the room with the TV when our mother was

00:59:01out on a date. It was really quite dangerous in hindsight. And when we got locked out, I would beg the

00:59:06superintendent, and I would climb pretty high up on a ladder to get in through the window. And so, yeah,

00:59:11boys will constantly be testing their limits. I used to, very foolishly, and please don't do this,

00:59:16I used to cross giant bridges at night with trains coming. That was exciting and remarkably retarded

00:59:21or dumb. So, yeah, boys are constantly testing their limits with, so that's our drive, and yet pain

00:59:31when you test your limits too far is quite vivid, and so on. So, we have a lot of guiding mechanisms

00:59:38hormonally from our pain mechanisms, from that which gives us pleasure, the joy, yeah, the joy of

00:59:44mastering a new skill is really, really cool. As soon as a boy learns how to ride a bike, what does

00:59:50he do? Well, he tries to ride it without hands. No hands! So, all right, and let's see here.

00:59:56Somebody writes, of course you remember the, oh, sorry, and we're also drawn to rationality and

01:00:02consistency, because we can't manipulate physical objects which are required for survival and

01:00:07flourishing without at least accepting the rationality of and consistency of matter and

01:00:12energy. All right. Somebody says, of course you remember the universally preferred concepts from

01:00:17a couple of years ago. I universally prefer you talking about the higher things. So, what is your

01:00:23reasoning for engaging the low frequency of X users? Secondly, are you free to be the true you in

01:00:31public? Well, see, here's the funny thing, right? So, when people say what they want, I usually don't

01:00:38listen. I usually don't listen. So, this person says, I prefer you talking about the higher things.

01:00:45Well, I am available for calls. And I've repeatedly said that UPB is one of my favorite subjects to

01:00:57talk about. Universally preferable behavior, a rational proof of secular ethics, freedomain.com

01:01:02slash books. So, if people say, well, I want you to talk about UPB, let's say, right? Well,

01:01:10you can book a call. It's free. And you can say, I want to talk about UPB. And then you can come up

01:01:19with some questions. I mean, I don't care. You can even use AI to come up with some questions. That's

01:01:23totally fine, too. And we can talk about what you want to talk about or what you consider important.

01:01:29It will cost you nothing. And it will elevate the conversation according to your preferences.

01:01:34And that's fine. But if people don't want to book a call, and listen, I'll tell you guys straight up,

01:01:43it's not a huge secret. If there's, like I have scheduled times where I accept calls,

01:01:48if you can't make any of those times or something that's really urgent, you can always contact me,

01:01:52support at freedomain.com, and ask for a call outside of regular hours. And I will do my best to

01:01:58accommodate. So, this person says, Steph, I want you to talk about a topic that I prefer.

01:02:05And it's very easy to achieve that. All you have to do is book a time with me. We will do that call,

01:02:10and it will go out to the world. But if somebody can't be bothered to book a time to bring some

01:02:16questions to the table, then it's an I want, I want, I want, which is actually kind of feminine.

01:02:23It is more feminine to put your wishes out into the universe. And it is more masculine to say,

01:02:29well, if I want something, I should achieve it. If I want something, I should work to achieve it. I

01:02:33should find a way to manifest it. For real, right? A woman can say, gee, I'm hungry, and the man will

01:02:39go and get her some food. Whereas a man who's hungry has to go and get some food, right? So,

01:02:47if a man is saying, Steph, I want you to talk about X, Y, and Z, and that man, I assume you're a man,

01:02:53has not booked a session. Or, you know, I do call-in shows, right? Wednesday night, 7 p.m. Sometimes

01:03:03go on for hours. Friday night, 7 p.m. Sundays for donors, 11 a.m. Or 10 a.m. Sorry, 10 a.m. So, I do all

01:03:09these call-in shows, and I generally get to all the callers. So, you could call in and talk about what

01:03:16you want, and you could elevate the conversation in the way that serves your preferences. Typing out a wish

01:03:22rather than manifesting it in actual practical action is, to me, um, I don't quite understand it.

01:03:29But like me saying, I really wish that there was a great philosophy show, and I email you people,

01:03:34oh, wouldn't it be great if there's a great philosophy show, blah, blah, blah. All right.

01:03:37When does open-mindedness need to lead to moral relativism? Well, it's fine to be open-minded,

01:03:42but not so open-minded your brain falls out. So, to be open-minded is like, I will entertain

01:03:48all propositions, but they still have to be rational and empirical, right? So, a scientist,

01:03:54a good scientist, will say, sure, come up with a conjecture, come up with a hypothesis,

01:03:59I'll have a look at it, but if I notice that it's self-contradictory or doesn't accord with,

01:04:04doesn't accord with the practical evidence of the world, like if somebody says, I think that fire is

01:04:11both fire and ice, and it's both hot and cold to the touch simultaneously, nobody's going to test that,

01:04:17because it's like, well, that's just self-contradictory and doesn't accord to reason and

01:04:19evidence. So, open-mindedness is great in terms of, yeah, bring me your thoughts and ideas.

01:04:24It leads to moral relativism when everything is entertained with no objective standard.

01:04:30What's your philosophy on smacking someone in the face with a chair if they enter your church to

01:04:35disrupt services? Oh, gosh, yeah, that's the Don Lemon thing, right? Inquiring minds want to know.

01:04:41I mean, I don't know that you should smack someone in the face with a chair,

01:04:44because it's not like they're risking your life and limb, but I think you should definitely

01:04:48call law enforcement and have them arrested for trespassing, for sure.

01:04:53Other than the fact that you are aware at this moment, is there anything you can say is certain?

01:04:58Yes, you can watch my Introduction to Philosophy series, a 17-part series. You can get

01:05:02fdrpodcast.com about things that are certain. I'm certain that you exist. I'm certain that I exist.

01:05:08I'm certain that objective reality exists. I'm certain that my senses

01:05:11have the capacity to process the truth. I'm certain that the truth requires rational consistency

01:05:17and empirical evidence, and so on. All right. Where do you stand on pineapple on a pizza?

01:05:25Actually, I built the entire UPB theory on the deep evil of pineapple on a pizza.

01:05:31All right. The Greeks solved philosophy thousands of years ago. There's nothing worthwhile to say

01:05:36about it. Simply read the Stoics. No, the Greeks did not solve philosophy. If the Greeks had solved

01:05:41philosophy years ago, that culture would still be around. So, no, they did not. All right.

01:05:48Theology answers what, but not how, or why, and is thus incomplete. Science answers how,

01:05:54but not what, or why, and thus is incomplete. Well, I mean, but why is to do with free will,

01:06:00not matter. Why did a man kill his wife? You need to, motive means an opportunity, right? You need

01:06:08to have some kind of motive. So, the why is for human choices. The why is not for the existence

01:06:14of matter, because matter is not a free will entity. So, looking for causality is to do with

01:06:20human consciousness. Why did you do that, right? Which we all have had from time to time in

01:06:26relationships. So, the why is for human consciousness and free will and choices. It is not for why.

01:06:32But why does carbon exist, right? It just does. So, it's not a free will thing. All right. Well,

01:06:39I really appreciate everyone's questions and comments. Thank you so, so much. I hope this

01:06:42is helpful to you. If you find this helpful, freedomain.com slash donate to help support the

01:06:49show. I'd really appreciate it. And also, shop.freedomain.com for your tasty philosophy

01:06:55merch. Be a tiny little billboard and show your love of the truth and your courage in the face of

01:07:01discombobulating anti-rationalists. And peacefulparenting.com. You can get your book

01:07:08now. And the print books of the future and the present are now available at freedomain.com

01:07:11slash books. Thanks a mill, everybody. Lots of love. Bye.

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