What are good techniques to introduce such philosophy to people who have gone astray?
I grew up in and live in a pretty leftist area, but there are also a lot of people on the far right who could use philosophy, virtually everyone I know is a statist that doesn't even know the definition of anarchy, much less the underlying principles. The problem I tend to encounter is that people on both sides tend to think that logic and reason that doesn't fit their programming must be on the opposite extreme relative to where they're at.
It seems like anything rational is often opposed strongly by at least one "side", and often both sides.
I was fortunate to be going through some stuff that required me to open my mind to new ideas in order to survive and\or thrive, some would call it the gift of desperation. How does one approach people who aren't even willing to have an open mind?
Hi Stefan, #1 during your life of philosophical inquiry, what were the top, say, 6 insights that were there most meaningful to you that "teleported" you ahead in life and you're willing to share? (Gems of knowledge do have this power...) #2 The future's SO uncertain, there are intelligent, motivated, organized folk with top (evil) work ethic fabricating danger, famine, floods, g#n@c1d3, etc. ahead. Most good/non-evil people are either morons and/or spineless inoffensive cowards who will just let whatever happen happen maybe without ever having a clue. Even ppl who are (somewhat??) aware don't feel ready or don't want to deal with the situation with 10% of the absolute seriousness it demands (AFAIC, it's the ONLY important topic on the whole planet for humanity rn). What's the best way you've found to behave towards/with those? What's the best strategy? Not sure it's an entirely philosophical Q, but, the heck, I'd love to get your POV on it anyways.
Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!
NOW AVAILABLE FOR SUBSCRIBERS: MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING' - AND THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI AND AUDIOBOOK!
Also get the Truth About the French Revolution, the interactive multi-lingual philosophy AI trained on thousands of hours of my material, private livestreams, premium call in shows, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!
See you soon!
https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022
I grew up in and live in a pretty leftist area, but there are also a lot of people on the far right who could use philosophy, virtually everyone I know is a statist that doesn't even know the definition of anarchy, much less the underlying principles. The problem I tend to encounter is that people on both sides tend to think that logic and reason that doesn't fit their programming must be on the opposite extreme relative to where they're at.
It seems like anything rational is often opposed strongly by at least one "side", and often both sides.
I was fortunate to be going through some stuff that required me to open my mind to new ideas in order to survive and\or thrive, some would call it the gift of desperation. How does one approach people who aren't even willing to have an open mind?
Hi Stefan, #1 during your life of philosophical inquiry, what were the top, say, 6 insights that were there most meaningful to you that "teleported" you ahead in life and you're willing to share? (Gems of knowledge do have this power...) #2 The future's SO uncertain, there are intelligent, motivated, organized folk with top (evil) work ethic fabricating danger, famine, floods, g#n@c1d3, etc. ahead. Most good/non-evil people are either morons and/or spineless inoffensive cowards who will just let whatever happen happen maybe without ever having a clue. Even ppl who are (somewhat??) aware don't feel ready or don't want to deal with the situation with 10% of the absolute seriousness it demands (AFAIC, it's the ONLY important topic on the whole planet for humanity rn). What's the best way you've found to behave towards/with those? What's the best strategy? Not sure it's an entirely philosophical Q, but, the heck, I'd love to get your POV on it anyways.
Join the PREMIUM philosophy community on the web for free!
NOW AVAILABLE FOR SUBSCRIBERS: MY NEW BOOK 'PEACEFUL PARENTING' - AND THE INTERACTIVE PEACEFUL PARENTING AI AND AUDIOBOOK!
Also get the Truth About the French Revolution, the interactive multi-lingual philosophy AI trained on thousands of hours of my material, private livestreams, premium call in shows, the 22 Part History of Philosophers series and much more!
See you soon!
https://freedomain.locals.com/support/promo/UPB2022
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Good morning everybody, Stephen Molyneux from Freedomain. Facebook questions part 2, you
00:08can of course, and with great humility and gratitude I offer up freedomain.com
00:15slash donate to help out the show. What are good techniques to introduce
00:19philosophy to people who've gone astray? I grew up and live in a pretty leftist
00:23area but there are also a lot of people on the far right who could use
00:26philosophy. Virtually everyone I know is a statist that doesn't even know the
00:29definition of voluntarism much less the underlying principles. The problem I
00:35tend to encounter is that people on both sides tend to think that logic and
00:37reason that doesn't fit their programming must be on the opposite
00:40extreme relative to where they're at. It seems like it seems like anything
00:45rational is often strongly opposed by at least one side and often both sides. I
00:50was fortunate to be going through some stuff that required me to open my mind
00:54to new ideas in order to survive and or thrive. Some would call it the gift of
01:00desperation. How does one approach people who aren't even willing to have an open
01:04mind?
01:07So the answer is to recognize that there is but one realm of reason. There is but
01:16one realm of reason. There aren't different layers of metaphysical
01:22reality. There isn't a higher realm where the reverse is true. There isn't a
01:27new amenal realm. There isn't a nirvana. There isn't a platonic realm of
01:32forms and ideas. There is no place where the opposite of reason is reason.
01:37Can you follow? There is no place in which the opposite of reason is reason.
01:44There is no common or collective good
01:50wherein the opposite of morality is morality. There is no place where the
01:57opposite of the good is the good. There is no place where evil becomes virtue
02:09through metaphysical brainwashing tricks from Plato to Kant to the Hegelian
02:17world spirit. Everybody wants to invent a realm where evil becomes good
02:25and they do that by appealing to fear and greed and tribalism of course.
02:35So they say well without evil good cannot survive.
02:43Without people coercively taking your property, a property cannot be
02:48protected. Without people brutally indoctrinating and destroying the souls
02:55and consciences of your children, children cannot be educated. The roads
03:00whatever. People who want to rule over you will find what you want the most.
03:10Your greatest desire which is to say your greatest vulnerability. Your
03:17greatest desire is a beautiful thing in a loving relationship and it is a
03:23suicidal admission in a destructive relationship and a sociopathic
03:27exploitive relationship. So people who want to rule over you it will find your
03:31greatest desire, your greatest goal, your most morally sensitive area
03:40and then they will say if you don't give power to us your greatest moral goal
03:45will never be achieved. In fact the exact opposite will be achieved.
03:50If you don't want the world to burn and drown, sort of an interesting combo right,
03:56if you don't want the world to burn and drown you need to give hundreds of
04:00billions of dollars or trillions of dollars to us.
04:04If you want your property to be protected, everything that you have
04:10gathered together through hard-won labor, if you want your property to be
04:14protected then you need to surrender your rights to us.
04:20If you want children to be educated then you have to hand your children over to
04:25us. If you want people who are ill to get
04:30health care you need to hand over money and medical autonomy to us and they just
04:37kind of paint you into a corner, they fence you in, they put you on a train
04:40track that leads only to subjugation to them. If you want poor people to be
04:45helped then you need to surrender your property to us.
04:50Now, the people in power do not care about the poor, they do not care about
04:57the sick, they do not care about the old, they do not care about educating
05:00children, they certainly don't care about protecting your property as a whole,
05:06they care about power. Now they know that you care about helping the sick, the old,
05:12the poor, the sad, the vulnerable, the unprotected, they know you care about
05:19that so they'll dangle that in front of you in order to get
05:25your property and your obedience. I mean, you go and dig up some worms, you put
05:32them on a hook and you
05:36put your fish hook in the water and the fish thinks, mmm free food, yum yum yum
05:42and that's the whole thing, right? You put your little piece of cheese in the
05:47mousetrap and the mouse thinks, free cheese. So it's all just bait for control
05:57as a whole.
06:02So
06:06if people sort of understand that there is no place where evil becomes good,
06:13it's just a logical contradiction. Violations of property cannot protect
06:20your property. The initiation of the use of force is
06:25immoral and cannot lead to virtue. And all we do is bounce from one coercive
06:32solution to another like mad blood-soaked pinballs in an infinite
06:35arcade from hell.
06:43So philosophy is not so much invention as it is extension, which sounds like a
06:53bit of a fortune cookie but actually is pretty important and profound. So what
06:58were you told as a little, little kid? You were told, don't lie, don't hit, don't
07:07grab. Don't lie, don't hit, don't grab. Don't lie, don't hit, don't grab. That's
07:12what you were told over and over, repeatedly, objectively, universally, not
07:17on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, not in the morning, not when it's cloudy, not at
07:22night, not when you have a headache. Right? Don't lie, don't hit, don't steal.
07:31Okay? Don't lie is keep your contracts. Don't hit is don't initiate the use of
07:37force. Don't steal is respect persons and property. Keep your contracts is civil
07:45law. Don't use force, don't steal, is criminal law.
07:54It's really not very complicated, is it?
08:00Complications are used to hide corruption.
08:07And so it is a really bone-chilling thing for people to think and to realize
08:12and to understand that the moral rules they were given as children are all that
08:22is needed to run society.
08:28Kindergarten morality is morality. Now, justifying it, explaining it, the history
08:35of it, I mean these things can be more complicated, although I will certainly
08:39say that at about two and a half my daughter fully understood UPP
08:43because it's just logical and makes sense. It's my rational theory of secular ethics.
08:51It's a proof. It's more than a theory by now.
08:56So that can be a little bit more complicated, but we were told keep your
09:02word, don't hit, don't take. And it is really kind of bone-chilling for people
09:12to think that everything after that in society is all about justifying the
09:18opposite.
09:25So government schools are generally funded by property taxes. Property taxes
09:30are an infinite rent on your property that means you never own it. You simply
09:33rent it from the powers-that-be for 2% a year.
09:40So the teachers who are telling you don't use force, don't take other
09:46people's property are violating it in the entirety of the educational system
09:52as it currently stands, at least under the aegis of the powers-that-be.
10:00There was in the ancient world a contradiction between the local and the
10:09remote. I mean throughout most of cosmology up until the Copernican era
10:18there was the local and then there was the remote.
10:24You take a ball, you drop it, it bounces. Here's a ping-pong ball.
10:30You take a ball, you drop it, it bounces.
10:35And that physics is true for a ping-pong ball. It is true for you, although with I
10:42guess less bouncing unless you're a gymnast. It is true for the earth. It is
10:48true for the moon. It is true for the solar system. It is true
10:53for the galaxy. It is true everywhere and forever and always. Amen. There's a reason
10:59why they can send a probe past Jupiter, past Pluto. It's because the moral rules,
11:05sorry, the physical rules of the bouncing ping-pong ball are the same all over the
11:09universe.
11:13Everything falls. The combination of gravity wells and centrifugal force
11:21creates stable orbits, if such orbits can be maintained. It's true everywhere,
11:27forever and always. Not in the morning, not at night, not on Mondays, Wednesdays
11:33and Fridays, not when the moon is full, but always and forever.
11:40The speed of light is constant. The inverse square law is valid. Gases
11:46expand when heated, always and forever, no matter what.
11:50The atoms are the same all throughout the universe and morals are the same all
11:54throughout society.
11:58I used to refer to this as people want a utopia, a wonderful place. Thomas More
12:04wrote about it. A utopia, right? A perfect society. And I say, well, you have a
12:08utopia called Y-O-U. You-topia. I've never talked to anyone in the realm of
12:15philosophy and if I say, if you're short on money, will you just go rob a
12:18convenience store? And they would say, nobody's ever said, well, yeah, totally.
12:21As I don't move in those circles, right? People are short of money, they say, well,
12:27I'll borrow, I'll beg, I'll work, I'll get it through some voluntary fashion.
12:39So that's how people live. People do not shake guns in each other's faces, at
12:47least the people you're probably talking to. They're certainly the 1% of
12:50violent people in the world, maybe 1, maybe 2%. But the people that
12:55I talk to, the people that you talk to, would never dream of using violence to
12:58get their way. Ah, you see? Utopia, Y-O-U. Utopia. You reject theft and force and
13:07fraud in your life. And that's it. The ball bounces for you.
13:15Gravity works everywhere.
13:19So it is simply extending the ethics that everyone takes for granted to
13:25universals. Now that freaks people out. But that's moral progress. Moral progress
13:32is the extension of personally viable ethics to more and more and more people.
13:38The end of slavery was the extension of the ethics of self-ownership to formerly
13:46excluded sections of the population, sometimes very large sections of the
13:49population, the extension to women of the rights of contract, property and
13:56protection. The process which I've been working on for 40 years of the extension
14:03of the moral rights of independence and protection, as much as is possible, to
14:08children.
14:11We can hit adults. We cannot hit adults. We cannot hit children.
14:22So morality does not need to be invented because we already accept it in our
14:28lives. We don't use force. We don't use fraud. We don't steal in our personal
14:35lives. And it is simply the basic and elemental recognition
14:43that what is moral for you, what you accept as moral, the way you live as
14:49moral, is the moral. Keep your word.
14:57Don't use violence. Don't steal. We all accept it.
15:04And it is simply a matter of getting people to slowly, slowly undo all of the
15:12tortuous mental gymnastics that they have to go through to end up justifying
15:20that which is personally evil to them to be somehow moral for others.
15:26We are not telling people anything new. We are not inventing morality. We are
15:33justifying and extending it any more than Copernicus or Tycho Brahe or
15:39Galileo invented gravity. They did not invent gravity.
15:46Simply identify it and extend it. Everybody accepts gravity and we're
15:51saying it goes on and on forever. It's valid everywhere.
15:56So the way that you talk to people is to say, well, what do you accept as the good?
15:59And forget about the justifications. What do you accept as the good? Well, if you
16:04sign a contract, should you keep it? Well, yes. Otherwise it's kind of fraud. Okay, so
16:08you shouldn't defraud.
16:10You shouldn't lie to people for material gain.
16:14Okay, what about hitting? When you were a kid and some kid was annoying you, could
16:21you punch him in the face and break his glasses? Well, no. Okay, all right, accept that.
16:24Okay, let's say some other kid has a toy that you like. Can you just grab it
16:29and go home? Can you grab and steal that? No. Okay, so that's all the
16:35complicated justifications. Who cares, right?
16:38Those are the morals that we accept. Those are the morals you teach your
16:41children. Those are the morals you live by in your daily life. Okay, the ball
16:45bounces for you because of gravity. A kite stays up in the air because of the
16:52tension between the pull down from the string and the push-up from the wind.
16:58We accept all of that. Planes fly because of the different surface areas, top and
17:03bottom of the wing. Okay, it's true everywhere.
17:09No tennis player. There was a Matthew Perry who was a pretty good tennis player
17:16in Canada, but Canada, in general, you don't get to play tennis, certainly not
17:21outdoors. You certainly don't get to play tennis all year. So he moved to LA and he
17:27tried to become a tennis player in the Sunshine State and he flamed out because
17:33the other tennis players had had year-round outdoor tennis practice and
17:36he had not. But what he didn't do when he went to Los Angeles is he didn't say
17:43what's the gravity like here and do they have a different system of scoring and
17:47are the tennis courts a different size? No. The man-made conventions were the
17:52same, the size of the tennis courts and the rules of tennis were the same, and
18:00the physics were the same.
18:04Right? Airline pilots, when crossing in the airspace from one country to another,
18:09do not need to adjust their instruments because the physics are
18:12different. No. Universal. Accepting that is progress. But it's incredibly painful
18:20for people to say the morals they were taught as children are the universal
18:24morals that apply to everyone. It's incredibly painful because they realize
18:28how much they've been lied to and exploited. The problem we have is not a
18:31rational one, it's an emotional one, which is why I talk so much about feelings and
18:35the unconscious and so on. The barrier to virtue is not rational. It is emotional.
18:43It is very hard. It's easier to fool someone than to convince him that he's
18:48been fooled.
18:51All right, let's see here. That's a theological question. I don't really
18:58have a good answer to that. I'm no theologian. Hi Stefan, number one during
19:05your life, a philosophical inquiry, what would the top say six insights that were
19:09there most, that were most meaningful to you, that teleported you ahead in life
19:13and that you're willing to share? Gems of knowledge, do you have this power? I
19:17wouldn't necessarily say six insights. So for me it was the confrontation,
19:24obviously, to give you the top one, which I think encompasses many of the others.
19:28But the top one was the confrontation with the angry manipulative will that
19:35wishes to falsify and misrepresent for profit. The camouflage, shape-shifting,
19:41predatory manipulator within me. Confronting that. It is taking down a
19:50mythical beast of almost universal dimension and terror. That confrontation
19:59with the black beast of camouflage and falsehood that characterizes those of us
20:09who have great language skills, great communication skills, the dark side
20:14beckons. When you're good with language, your first temptation is to use language
20:23for profit. To use words, to lie, to misrepresent, to falsify, to defraud, to
20:36manipulate. Language was largely invented as a method of extracting resources for
20:46those rich in mind and weak in body. Somebody who was really good at telling
20:54stories would get tips for telling stories at the end of a long day and then
20:58at some point figured out that if he invented various morals and gods and
21:05devils that he could use his stories to make far more money through mythology.
21:14And I don't just mean theological mythology. I mean lying to people about
21:18the common good and the
21:23the propping up of political and military leaders through pomp circumstance,
21:30mythology, collectivism and lies, that lies were more profitable than the truth.
21:38When someone does something funny on a hunting expedition and you tell that
21:43story, people will laugh and tip you. On the other hand, political leaders will
21:49give you a lot of money if you prop up the legitimacy of their rule and people
21:54will pay to avoid hell. And so language is far more profitable in falsehood than
22:05it is in truth. And my abilities with language are very strong and realizing
22:12that I could talk people into and out of just about anything, had a black beast
22:19arise in my heart that wished to strike out and make my fortune through falsehood.
22:30And making the decision to face down this
22:41shape-shifting, brain-dissolving, will-eroding-in-others beast and not use
22:49language to extract subjugation and resources from others, well, that was a
23:00black time in my life. Not wishing to go the route of so many that I had seen
23:06before me and most of whom I saw around me who used language to manipulate,
23:11particularly I happened to be raised among a group of linguistically very
23:17skilled people and very smart people.
23:24And their first use of language was to get women into bed, was to talk the way
23:32into jobs, was to make people afraid, FOMO, to generate fear of missing out, to get people to
23:38lower inhibitions with, you only live once and these kinds of exhortations assails people and
23:45sophists and manipulators of every stripe, spot and hue.
23:49And taming that beast with the whips and swords and mental airstrikes of reason and
23:58evidence, tame that beast to the service of virtue, tame that MOFO to the service of
24:07virtue. Oh, man, oh, that was brutal, because the angry woman, the angry beast,
24:17because the angry will wishes to hoover up resources through language skills.
24:25And to tame a beast invented for war to the cause of peace, to tame the beast of
24:34language intended for the cause of exploitation to the service of virtue. Oh, God, that was hard.
24:42That was hard because the temptation would make my hands shake.
24:50The temptation would make my hands shake.
24:57Imagine what I could do if I just let rip with my language powers and my charisma and my
25:06reasoning skills and my confidence. Imagine what I could do if I stepped fully into the
25:19bladed, shiny, bloody armor of endless sophistry and used the whips of my words
25:26to herd a population. Always thirsty for a ruler.
25:32Oh, in my own small way, I really understood the 40 days and 40 nights that Jesus spent in
25:43the desert when the devil came to him, laid before him all the kingdoms of the world and said,
25:48all this can be yours. You just have to follow me.
25:53Well, the devil is a sophist. The devil uses language, temptation, not force.
26:04Not force. The devil will offer you material benefits in return for your soul,
26:12which is use sophistry to control people rather than
26:17use the power of reason and language to serve and enhance the conscience that you possess
26:27and to serve and enhance the conscience that others possess throughout the world.
26:34We all have the swords called words. We all have the weapon called a tongue.
26:42We all have the power of language, which can create the greatest goods and the greatest hells
26:51in the world. So, for me, when I came across
27:01the return fire of philosophy because I was pinned down and being eaten alive by this beast,
27:06pinned down and being eaten alive by this beast, by this sophist,
27:10by the exploitation potential of language and my abilities, I was being eaten alive. I was being
27:16led astray. I was being dragged down into darkness. I was losing the fight in the desert. I was
27:22bowing down before the black beast of linguistic exploitation because it had been used on me and I
27:31saw no alternative. And so, I was being consumed by that beast and I almost had to fight from its
27:39gum line, from its throat. And when I came across philosophy, ah, the great goddess who hands you
27:46weapons to fight back the beast of exploitation. Oh, man. The sword came to my hand and glowed
27:56with the light of a thousand suns and I stood. And I flexed and I fought. And the battle was not
28:05a quick one and vestigial flickers of the battle still flame within my heart from time to time,
28:11though it has been 40 years of relative victories. But taking on that beast,
28:21the witch doctor, the magic user, the sophist, the one ring that binds others through persuasion
28:30and language, the ring in Lord of the Rings is sophistry. It has no direct power, but it uses
28:38emotions to convince.
28:39To stand tall against the devouring beast of sophistry is the job of a true philosopher.
28:53And when I tamed that beast within me, when I liberated the beast within me from its own
28:59worst instincts and was able to harness and serve it to not a wolf that devours children,
29:10but a sheepdog that protects the livelihood of mankind, ah, to tame the beast
29:21and turn it to virtue, the beast within, the beast we all have to face, the beast of lying,
29:29the beast of pettiness, the beast of using language to be justified at the expense of
29:35everyone else, the beast of using fear and people's desire for good and avoidance of the evil
29:43to turn them to the avoidance of good and the embrace of evil, ah, that was an epic battle.
29:54That was an epic battle.
29:57Still some vague aftershocks, because the beast within me that has been tamed to the pursuit of
30:03virtue still hears the howl of the beasts all over the world, all calling to each other, join us.
30:12We are winning.
30:13We have power.
30:15Reason must be fragmented for us to maintain power.
30:20And these beasts are constantly calling to each other across the world.
30:23The howls and yips of the coyotes and the wolves and the lions and the roars echo across the dim
30:28forests of our unconscious, and they're all reaching out for each other, and they're all
30:33trying to gather together, and they're all looking.
30:39To woodchipper the best hopes of mankind.
30:45Because those who are powerless in the face of their own beasts must end up inevitably
30:51thirsting for endless power over others.
30:54And the beast wants to kill in many ways, spiritually, emotionally, all who fall for its siren song.
31:05All who nod and follow and bow and are consumed end up as arms on the beast
31:15to rake and claw and strip down the independence, rational thought, and critical thinking skills
31:21of all those who stand against it.
31:24And the beast has come for me, and the beast is coming for you.
31:32And you have to tame the beast within yourself.
31:39When someone shows a flash of fear of what you do to comfort them rather than double down.
31:46When someone lies, do you correct them, though that correction brings other beasts
31:54at your door, clawing, biting, scratching, tunneling, burrowing?
32:08So the biggest insight I had was to tame language and its capacity to exploit
32:14and turn it to the pursuit of virtue to clarify.
32:17To accept that that which is claimed to be universal is, in fact, universal.
32:22That that which is claimed to be the good for one is, in fact, the good for all.
32:27That, that is the biggest insight, that language, through sketchy definitions, has the power
32:38to pick the pockets of the dead and to turn them to the pursuit of virtue.
32:45Of the dead and to steal the souls of the unborn.
32:53I mean, just look at the national debt.
32:57The national debt is using language to hide the theft from the unborn.
33:05And this is where conservatives, to me, have so little credibility because they say we must protect
33:12the unborn from the abortioners' cudgel.
33:18And I understand that, and I appreciate that.
33:22But why would you want to protect the unborn only to have them born into debt slavery to foreign banksters?
33:33We must preserve the life of the unborn so we can have them born into debt slavery.
33:39It does not seem to me the final and most elevated conception of the rights of the unborn.
33:45The rights of the unborn should, without a doubt, be to be born without their lives
33:53stolen from them by prior sophistry in the covering up of crimes.
33:57One small example.
34:09And I do believe that we all have that beast within us, and I do believe that we all,
34:14especially if you're listening to this kind of show and have an appreciation
34:18for the flourishes and gymnastics of scintillating language.
34:21Well, you have that beast, and that beast is calling for you to use your power,
34:26to use your power of language for the covering up and justification of endless crimes.
34:32And I say, use your language to turn the light on so that people can see.
34:44The bloody fists in the velvet gloves of social compulsion
34:53so that the crimes are uncovered, the truth is seen, virtue is clear,
34:59and through using language to clarify rather than to cannibalize.
35:08We give people through clear definitions the possibility of actual choice and true free will
35:13for the first time in human history, and hopefully, hopefully not for the last.