- 2 weeks ago
Answering Locals Questions from December 2023 - recovered from the archives!
Stefan addresses the importance of humility and continuous improvement. He recounts his own experiences of feeling overwhelmed and humbled by the vast knowledge in philosophy, despite studying it for 20 years. Stef emphasizes the need to acknowledge that he doesn't have all the answers and encourages further conversation and learning from others. He expresses empathy towards individuals who come across as arrogant but emphasize the importance of conquering the ego and recognizing the potential for growth. Surrounding oneself with quality people who strive for improvement is highlighted as crucial. He also discusses the principles they have established in philosophy, such as UPB, property rights, non-aggression principles, and peaceful parenting, but emphasizes the need for continuous improvement and remaining open to challenging one's certainties. Being humble and continuously improving are seen as intertwined, with Stef concluding that recognizing one's limitations and approaching knowledge with a blank slate mentality is essential for growth. He urges listeners to embrace humility and strive for continuous improvement on their journey.
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Stefan addresses the importance of humility and continuous improvement. He recounts his own experiences of feeling overwhelmed and humbled by the vast knowledge in philosophy, despite studying it for 20 years. Stef emphasizes the need to acknowledge that he doesn't have all the answers and encourages further conversation and learning from others. He expresses empathy towards individuals who come across as arrogant but emphasize the importance of conquering the ego and recognizing the potential for growth. Surrounding oneself with quality people who strive for improvement is highlighted as crucial. He also discusses the principles they have established in philosophy, such as UPB, property rights, non-aggression principles, and peaceful parenting, but emphasizes the need for continuous improvement and remaining open to challenging one's certainties. Being humble and continuously improving are seen as intertwined, with Stef concluding that recognizing one's limitations and approaching knowledge with a blank slate mentality is essential for growth. He urges listeners to embrace humility and strive for continuous improvement on their journey.
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
Category
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LearningTranscript
00:00Good morning, good morning. Hope you're doing well. Stefan Molyneux from Freedom Main.
00:02A couple of questions from freedomain.locals.com. Hope you would join the community.
00:07Need some help clarifying what causality means and if there are different types of causality.
00:12Say, for instance, I have headaches. I choose to take meds for the pain. The meds also risk
00:17damage to my liver and I'm aware of the risks. My liver fails and I die. What was the cause of my
00:23death? Or another case, if every pregnancy requires prior insemination, is pregnancy
00:28caused by insemination? Even if not every instance of insemination causes pregnancy.
00:35Well, with regards to the second one, well, if every pregnancy requires prior insemination,
00:43pregnancy is caused by insemination. So, what you're trying to do is you're trying to mix
00:47the biological with the philosophical, right? So, at a physical level, for sure, pregnancy is
00:53caused by insemination. However, from a philosophical standpoint, pregnancy is caused by the choice
01:02to engage in sexual activity. Obviously, procreative, usually raw dog sexual activity.
01:08So, from a philosophical standpoint, because philosophy is not biology, a different discipline,
01:15right? So, yes, if you have the egg and you have the sperm and fertilization occurs, you get an
01:22implantation occurs and all these dominoes fall, you get pregnancy. So, that's from a biological
01:27standpoint. The question of philosophy is, well, how did that sperm get into proximity to the egg to
01:35begin with? And that's usually because, I mean, outside of rape and so on, that's because there's a
01:40choice to engage in procreative sexual activity. So, from a biological standpoint, the cause is
01:46physical. From a philosophical standpoint, the cause is choice. Choice to engage in, usually,
01:53unprotected sex or to engage in sex and, you know, birth control fails or something like that,
01:58right? So, or you want to get pregnant, right? So, it's the choice to engage in sex that is the cause
02:03of pregnancy. Philosophy is at the beginning of the dominoes, right? If there are dominoes,
02:12you're not far back enough in the causal chain to engage philosophy, right? So, if the woman says,
02:19well, I'm pregnant and the cause of it was the sperm hitting my egg, well, that's not philosophy.
02:27Like, once, and the question is, does choice matter in the situation? So, once the sperm is in
02:32the woman, then there's no choice, really, about whether you get, you can't will yourself to not
02:39get pregnant if the sperm is there, right? I guess you can will yourself to become unpregnant through
02:44an abortion, but if there's no free will involved, it's not the realm of philosophy. Now, you have a
02:51choice as to whether you engage in procreative sexual activity, but you don't have a choice
02:55once the sperm is around the egg, whether you get pregnant or not. That happens or it doesn't.
03:01In the same way, I mean, take an obvious example. In the same way, you have a choice as to whether you
03:08jump off a bridge or not, but once you jump off the bridge, you have no choice as to whether you fall
03:12or not. So, you say, well, what's the cause of someone who dies from jumping off a bridge? Well,
03:20physics, biology would say the cause is the impact on the ground and the resulting trauma to the body
03:28and disruption of the systems and death of the organism, right? But that's not philosophy,
03:34that's physics and biology. Philosophy is where the choice is. Once choice has been committed,
03:41in other words, once there's no longer a choice, like you can choose to jump off a bridge, but you
03:45can't choose whether you fall or not. So, once we're in the realm of physics and biology and choice
03:51is no longer possible, then philosophy has nothing to say about it. Philosophy can talk about the
03:56choices that lead you to the inevitabilities, but once something becomes inevitable, i.e., you jump
04:00off the bridge and you fall, once something becomes inevitable, it's no longer the realm of philosophy.
04:05I mean, this is the old analogy I've used of being a nutritionist, right? That a nutritionist will try
04:11to guide you towards healthy eating so you don't become obese and sick and so on, right? But if
04:18you don't listen to your nutritionist, because you have a choice there, right? Well, if you don't
04:21listen to your nutritionist and you're 300 pounds and your arteries are clogged and you're having a
04:24heart attack, it's no longer the realm of nutrition, right? There's no point calling you nutritionist
04:29saying I'm having a heart attack, right? Call the ambulance, get to a hospital. So, this is when you
04:36look at any particular proposition and you say, is there the realm of choice? Is there a choice?
04:46And not a closed choice, but an open-ended choice. So, one trick that people use, this is not the
04:53person who's asking the question, but it's a great question. We'll get to the headache and liver thing
04:56in a sec. But one of sort of the classic ways that people attempt to destroy philosophy and make
05:02people depressed, horrified, anxious, and avoidant of moral choices is they give you two terrible
05:09choices and say that's philosophy. I mean, Sophie's choice, you know, where she has to choose which
05:15child she saves in the Holocaust or the trolley problem where you have to throw a switch and kill,
05:21you know, I don't know, one genius or 10 average people, whatever they make up at this kind of stuff.
05:25So, they put you in a situation where there are two terrible choices and they say, choose in this
05:32agonizing, hellish situation where there's no good choice and that's philosophy and that has people
05:39avoid philosophy or think that moral choices are only in extremities, under coercive situations,
05:43and so on, right? And sometimes called the ethics of emergencies, you know, who do you eat first
05:51if you're trapped on a mountain in the Andes? Who do you throw overboard if the ship is sinking?
05:55Right? These are all, you're not in a situation of choice. You're in a situation of extremity.
06:00Now, of course, people will say, ah, but there is a choice. There is a choice in that you can,
06:05in the trolley problem, you can throw the switch and have the track go down side A or side B,
06:09so no, there totally is a choice. To which I would say, that is not the realm of philosophy. Now,
06:15of course, I just said that the realm of philosophy is choice, but it's got to be open-ended choice.
06:19Once you're in a situation where somebody's got a gun to your head and says,
06:24you have to shoot either your dog or your cat, right? Then you're not in a philosophical situation.
06:32You're in a situation of emergency alternatives dictated by somebody else's choice to use force
06:37upon you, right? So in the trolley example, it's the person who tied up the people or strapped them to
06:44the track or something like that. That person has made the choice. And when there are, when it's not
06:51an open-ended choice, then it's not a philosophical situation. So if you have a gun to your head and
06:58somebody says, you've got to shoot or you've got to, you've got to, I don't know, hurt your dog or
07:03your cat, right? That's not a philosophical situation because you already have the introduction
07:10of choice-limiting coercion in the same way that if somebody ties somebody to the trolley tracks and
07:17you've got to throw a switch. Of course, none of this makes any sense at all, right? It's all
07:21completely artificial. And the more artificial moral choices are presented as, the more they're
07:25trying to drive you away from morality by making it traumatic, right? Like you hear it too, you've
07:30got to shoot your dog or your cat. It's like, well, nobody wants to do that. That's horrible. And so
07:34I'm just going to avoid moral problems. None of it makes any sense. You can't, you can't even tie
07:39people to trolley tracks. You guess you could tie them up and throw them on the trolley tracks, but then
07:46they could just wriggle off or you maybe sedate them and tie them up and throw them on the tracks or
07:49something like that. But trolleys have drivers and drivers have brakes and trolleys can stop. Like
07:55none of it makes any sense. It's all a completely artificial situation. So when you're in these
08:02emergency coercive alternative situations, all philosophy can do, it can't tell you what to do
08:09in the case of emergency coercive alternatives. It can't tell you what to do because there's no free
08:15choice, right? What it can do is it can say, here's how to avoid ending up in those situations,
08:21right? That's what philosophy can do. In the same way that a nutritionist can't tell you how to handle
08:25heart attack, but the nutritionist can tell you how to avoid that situation. And how do you avoid a
08:31situation where you end up with something like a trolley problem? Well, you make sure that the
08:37non-aggression principle is applied to people in childhood so they're not brutalized and abused,
08:41so they don't end up tying people up and throwing them on trolley tracks, right? So it's about
08:48prevention. Or to put it another way, philosophy is about maximizing the amount of available choice
08:55in society. You do that by being the most peaceful and moral and voluntary towards children so that
09:03they don't end up putting other people in impossible situations, right? Terrible things are happening and
09:09the only thing you have left is horrible alternatives. Well, philosophy can't, of course,
09:15tell you whether if you're forced to shoot your dog or your cat, whether you should shoot your dog or
09:18your cat. I guess the ethics of self-defense would say you're justified in using force against the guy
09:25who's forcing you to shoot either your dog or your cat, but it can't tell you what to do in the
09:30situation of coercion. Philosophy is about prevention, not cure. And once choices have narrowed down to one or
09:37two or three coerced alternatives, philosophy is no longer present anymore than nutrition is present
09:44when you're actively having a heart attack, right? So that's an important consideration to remember.
09:49If it's not open-ended, it's not philosophy. If it's not about prevention, it's not philosophy.
09:57Philosophy is about how to avoid getting into these situations. It's not about what you do when you're
10:03in those situations. So the question, he says, I have headaches. I choose to take meds for the pain.
10:11The meds also risk damage to my liver and I'm aware of the risks. My liver fails and I die. What was
10:15the cause of my death? Well, the cause of your death was the avoidance of choices. Now, from a
10:23biological standpoint, you'd say, well, the meds damage the liver, your liver fails and you die.
10:29What was the biological cause of your death? Well, the biological cause of your death was liver
10:34poisoning from pain medication. Philosophically, like once the pain medication is in your system and
10:41impacts on your liver and your liver fails and you die, once the pain medication is in your system,
10:46well, that's like the sperm being in the vagina or birth canal or fallopian tubes of the woman.
10:51Once it's there, well, things are going to happen, right? And once those dominoes are in place,
10:58then philosophy has nothing to say. So the question philosophy would answer is before you take the
11:08path of pain meds, right? Before you take the path of pain meds, that's where philosophy is. So philosophy
11:16would say, okay, so you have headaches. Now you have a number of choices on how to deal with those
11:22headaches, right? You have a number of choices on how to deal with those headaches. One of those choices
11:27is pain meds. And philosophy would say that the solution that requires the least alteration
11:37and increases knowledge the most is probably best, the least biological alteration, right? So let's say
11:46you're depressed, right? I mean, let's say you can munch a bunch of pills that will mask the symptoms
11:50of depression. Well, that's the most alteration and the least gain of knowledge. Now philosophy would
11:57probably say something like, or this would be my sort of first approach, would say, okay, so minimum
12:04alteration is probably for the best because the body is a complex system. And the less you mess with
12:12a complex system, the more predictable the outcomes are going to be. So medicine in some ways is like
12:18coercion in society. You want as little as humanly possible if there are alternatives. So if you have
12:25a bad infection that your body can't fight, then yes, take some antibiotics, but that's kind of like
12:29an extremity of self-defense in a coercive situation. If you consistently get infections,
12:36you probably need to look for an underlying cause and not just keep nuking yourself with antibiotics
12:39because the antibiotics are going to have effects on your digestion and all other kinds of things and
12:43so on, right? So the least external intervention and the greatest gain of knowledge is probably the
12:51best approach. Now, you understand, this is all analogies. There's no medical advice here. I'm not a
12:56doctor. These are all just analogies for self-knowledge and philosophy. Consult your
13:02doctor if you have any medical issues. Don't listen to podcasters. All right. So with regards to
13:08a headache, the question is, why am I getting headaches? Now, if you nuke the symptoms with
13:16painkillers, you do not gain the knowledge of why you're getting headaches. Maybe you're getting headaches
13:23because you're really stressed. Maybe you're getting headaches because your pillow is really
13:27bad. Maybe you're getting headaches because you don't exercise and you sit all day. Maybe you're
13:31getting headaches because your posture is bad. Maybe you're getting headaches because you're
13:36surrounded by disruptive and abusive people that are causing you a misery. Like maybe there could be
13:43any number of reasons as to why you're getting headaches. Some of them may be psychological. Some of
13:47them may be physical but correctable by yourself like posture and sleeping. And some of them,
13:51maybe you've got a brain tumor. I don't know, right? This is what, what is it they say? My ear is itchy.
13:57WebMD. Cancer. So you would want to look at root causes rather than nuke symptoms. If you have,
14:07you know, repetitive headaches, then you probably need to look more into your whole physical and
14:14psychological well-being scenario and environment rather than just nuke the symptoms. So in this causality,
14:21right, I have headaches, I choose to take meds for the pain. So why would you choose to take meds for
14:27the pain? If you have headaches, you have sort of consistent headaches, and you choose to take meds
14:32for the pain, why would you do that? Well, you would do that because you want to avoid knowledge.
14:36You want to avoid the knowledge of why you have headaches. Now, why you'd want to avoid the
14:42knowledge, that's a whole other question. You know, if you're surrounded by people who are exploiting
14:47you, and the headaches are the result of the stress of being exploited, then obviously the people
14:51who are exploiting you want you to take aspirin rather than figure out that your headaches are
14:59stress-related because you're being exploited by people. They would much rather you take meds than
15:05figure out the cause, right? Of course, the aspirin manufacturers or whatever, they would rather you
15:10take that. The doctor would probably rather prescribe pain meds than try and figure out
15:15root causes because it's not his specialty, and so on, right? Now, it's painful to figure out root
15:23causes. And so taking meds to mask symptoms rather than figuring out root causes is based upon
15:31the preference for short-term gain over long-term gain. You would rather take pills to deal with
15:40the pain of a headache rather than figure out the root causes of the headache and change lifestyle or
15:44relationship or exercise habits or posture habits or whatever it is going to be, right?
15:49So you would rather mask symptoms than deal with root causes in the same way that some people would
15:53rather take painkillers for a toothache rather than go to the dentist and deal with the root causes
15:59and the root problems. So from a biological standpoint, yeah, the toxins in the painkillers
16:06kill your liver, your liver dying kills you, and that's the cause from a biological standpoint.
16:13But from a philosophical standpoint, the cause would be avoiding self-knowledge, avoiding the
16:20knowledge of the cause of the headaches and dealing with root causes and changing lifestyle or habits
16:24or whatever it is, right? Now, of course, maybe you go through every conceivable root cause
16:29I'm not even sure what that would mean, but let's say you do go through every conceivable root cause
16:33and you just have some problem with the headaches. I don't know what this would mean, but, you know,
16:40let's just say that there's nothing you can do about the headaches. You just have mystery headaches
16:45and there's no stretching, no exercise, no chiropractic, no, like nothing, there's nothing,
16:51you know, stress reduction, no better sleeping, there's absolutely nothing you can do.
16:55Well, then the cause of your death is still not the headaches. The cause of your death is that you
17:04will choose to risk death rather than live with headaches, right? Now, again, headaches of all
17:12different kinds of severity, that sort of minor ache from off sleep to, I don't know, maybe migraine,
17:18migraine, so I guess it would be different. So wherever the dominoes are inevitable, there is
17:25no philosophy. Wherever the choice is limited, there is no philosophy. So people say, well, what's the
17:31ethics of the trolley problem? There are no ethics of the trolley problem. It's like saying the nutrition
17:36of a heart attack. There are no ethics of the trolley problem other than a society has probably violated
17:45children's integrity, physical, emotional, through abuse in order to produce people who want to torture
17:52others with trolley scenarios, right? That's probably, because the trolley scenario, sort of the ethics of
17:58emergencies, they're all just a form of verbal abuse. Putting you in impossible situations and saying
18:03you're responsible for the outcome, that's just putting you in a situation of verbal abuse, right?
18:08Choose these two impossible situations, both of which are going to make you feel terrible,
18:13and that's just a form of verbal abuse, right? I mean, it's like some really sadistic father
18:18putting two plates in front of his kid saying, one's poop and one's vomit, but you got to eat one,
18:23and then mocking him for the rest of his life for eating poop or vomit, right? It's just sadism.
18:29It's just verbal abuse. And because you'll notice that every time you come up with solutions,
18:36they're not allowed, right? Well, I just get the people off the tracks. No, you can't.
18:40Well, I just yell at the guy to put the brakes on the trolley. Well, they're not working. Like,
18:44you just, you know, so you just, it's all designed to just make you feel terrible about questions of
18:48virtue and ethics and all of that. So that's important. Anytime you're not in an open field of
18:56choice, philosophy doesn't apply. Philosophy is about free will, and free will should not, cannot
19:04be constrained by violations of free will. I mean, it can be constrained, but then it's not free will
19:08anymore. If somebody puts a gun to your head, you don't have free will anymore. I mean, to say
19:13that situations of coercion are philosophical is to say that situations where free will is being
19:20violated are free will situations. I mean, it's actually offensive, like deep down. It's like
19:27saying that the guy who gives money to a robber who's got a gun to his head is charitable and
19:32voluntarily transferring property. It's like equating lovemaking with rape. And yeah, and
19:36situations of free will are where philosophy is. Situations with your gun to your head has nothing
19:41to do with philosophy other than it probably resulted from prior violations of free will,
19:45particularly with regards to the child and abuse. So, all right, let's do one more here.
19:51Just wanted to address Steph's point regarding the film Blade Runner. What Steph called a plot hole
19:55was actually the point of the entire movie. Hmm. Oh my, oh my, oh my. How the confidence doth swell.
20:06How the confidence doth swell. Listen, people can tell me about human nature and tell me that I've
20:12missed the blindingly obvious, but I have had thousands of conversations with people about the
20:16root causes of their emotional and self-knowledge challenges and so on. So, I am in possession of
20:23unique data set with regards to human nature and motivation and childhood and adulthood.
20:30With regards to analyzing stories, and please understand, nobody should ever defer to me because
20:38of my experience. Of course not. It doesn't just because I'm knowledgeable and experienced doesn't mean
20:41that I'm right. But if you approach me without reference to my knowledge and experience,
20:47it's just kind of off-putting. I'm just, it's just kind of off-putting, right? As somebody who is,
20:53who has been a sort of top-rank physicist for 30 years, it doesn't mean that he's right.
20:59But if you walk, waltz up to him and loftily instruct him on the basics of physics, it doesn't
21:05mean that you're wrong and he's right. But I'm just telling you, he's not going to listen to you.
21:10He's just going to roll his eyes. And so, the fact that I have, oh my gosh, I mean, I've studied
21:17literature at the university level. I've written 30 plays, hundreds of poems. I've written novels
21:25that are pretty, pretty great. I'm a trained actor. I've acted in plays. I've analyzed characters.
21:32And none of this, you understand, none of this means that I'm right. But if you approach me
21:38without any recognition of my expertise, I'm just, I don't really care what you say. Like,
21:44I just, because I have to be efficient, you know, especially at the age of 57, right? I'm
21:47two-thirds of the way through my life, maybe even three-quarters for all I know.
21:51And it may be tomorrow that I die, right? So, somebody who comes up after I have been,
21:58you know, I wrote my first short story at the age of six, which is more than half a century ago.
22:02I started writing novels when I was 11 years old. You know, I've written, like, so much,
22:09analyzed so much. I've done shows with a tenured university professor analyzing Shakespeare and
22:17other stories and so on. Like, I know my stuff. It doesn't mean I'm right. I understand.
22:22People say, oh, well, but if I know my stuff and you just tell me, well, you missed the entire
22:29point of the movie. Okay. Hey, man, that's a bold claim. If I go up to a physics professor
22:35or a physics expert who's, you know, contributed massive new things to the field, if I go up to
22:42this guy and say, man, you don't understand physics at all. Hey, you know, that's a bold claim.
22:48That's a bold claim. That's the bold. And also, you know, if the guy who makes the movie comes up
22:55and tells me I missed the whole point of the movie, that's one thing. But if some guy just
23:00watched the movie and then says, Steph, you missed the whole, you missed the point of the entire movie,
23:05my suggestion is having this kind of insulting approach to an expert is not going to have, like,
23:16you're driving quality people out of your life. I say this with great affection and great positivity
23:23and great enthusiasm. You want good people in your life. And if you approach experts with dismissive
23:31contempt, well, you're just not going to have quality people in your life because quality people
23:36don't want to be around that. Now, I'm not saying that you can't disagree with me. Of course,
23:40I think that's wonderful. Please go ahead. You know, just disagree with me. Disagree with me for sure.
23:45Yeah, I mean, that's that's a great way to learn. And every statement I make could could possibly
23:50be wrong. So, yes, absolutely disagree with me. But if you contemptuously dismiss something that I
23:57said without making an argument, I'm just not interested. Like, I'm just telling you, like,
24:02quality people don't want to be around people who tell them that they're dumb and wrong with no
24:07argument. They just don't want to be around. Right. And listen, I mean, I'm telling you, man,
24:12you want quality people in your life. I mean, especially now, especially these days, especially
24:16with the way the world's going. You absolutely want quality people in your life. And you're
24:19just driving them away with this approach. Right. Just so he says, just wanted to address
24:23Steph's point regarding the film Blade Runner. What Steph called a plot hole was actually
24:27the point of the entire movie. OK, so I don't know, minor spoilers or whatever. Right. So my argument
24:33regarding the movie Blade Runner was why are they risking everyone's lives shooting into crowds,
24:41getting Decker probably killed and and other people killed and so on? Why were they doing
24:46all that for robots that were within 12 hours of dying anyway? Why would they do that? Just
24:52let the robots die. I mean, it's a plot hole and people are saying, oh, yes, but the robots
24:57are killing people. And it's like, well, yes, but the robots are killing people who programmed
25:00them to die. The robots are acting in self-defense. They just want to come back and find out how to
25:08not die. They're looking for medicine and they're getting shot for looking for medicine. And then
25:13once they find out the people who programmed them to die and there is no medicine, they kill those
25:19people in the same way that you would probably be justified in killing someone who poisoned you
25:24without a cure. Right. We would all understand that. Right. We would all understand that particular
25:28situation. So that that's a plot hole and needs to be addressed. And the fact that it isn't addressed
25:34is interesting. Right. It just to me, it made the whole film much less dramatic at the end when,
25:39you know, Rutger Hauer with his sort of famous and he think he made up that speech for the movie.
25:44Rutger Hauer's character with his famous speech, like there's supposed to be this whole battle scene
25:50between the robot and Decker, the Harrison Ford character, and the robot's about to win and he
25:59just dies. So he's going to die anyway. So what's the point of the whole fight? What's the point of
26:03the whole battle? So that's a plot hole. Now you can, you can patch it up with some particular form
26:09of imagination, but it needed to be addressed in the movie. They needed to explain, like Decker needed
26:15to ask, I mean, if I was writing the movie, that's a big plot hole. So what I would do is I would say,
26:20Decker would need to say, well, look, they're going to die within 12 hours. Like we know exactly how
26:25long they live. We know exactly when they were made. They're going to die in 12 hours. Just let
26:29them die. Right. That's, that's a plot hole. Now, maybe there's an answer they could come up with
26:34or something like that, that makes it more compelling. But why would you hunt people down who were just
26:39about to die and say, oh, well, they're killing people. But, you know, Decker is shooting into
26:45crowds. He's like, you know, destroying property and, and so on. Right. There's grave risk and
26:51danger. He's putting his own life at danger for people who were just about to die. And also given
26:57that they, the two people that they kill, I mean, all the people they kill are trying to catch them
27:02and kill them because they're trying to find medicine for their imminent death. Right. The guy at
27:08the beginning and, and the geneticist guy with the aging disease, and then the guy with the fish tank
27:13glasses, who's in charge of the whole program. So once they have killed all the people who have
27:19sentenced them to death by building into them that they will die after four years, I think it is.
27:24So there's no, there's no threat to anyone. Right. It would be like if some guy was out to kill the
27:32guy who killed his wife and that guy was about to die and he killed his wife, why would you risk your
27:38own life hunting him down? He's not going to kill anyone else because he's only wants to kill the guy who
27:41killed his wife. So he kills the guy who killed his wife and he's about to die. He's an hour from
27:45dying. Like, why would you risk your own life to kill someone who had already achieved his
27:50objective of revenge and was about to die? He's not going to kill anyone else.
27:56Now you could say, well, you know, they're going to give you a million dollars because they want you
28:00to prevent, the rich guys who created this program want you to prevent the robots from killing them.
28:06Well, all right, that would be one thing. But then he's, it becomes a much less sympathetic
28:11character, right? The Decker character is much less sympathetic because then he's just a gun for
28:15hire to protect billionaires from the evils, from the back, blowback of the evils they're doing,
28:19right? This is not, it's pretty nihilistic, right? And you need to have some sympathy for Decker.
28:24And, of course, even if that were the case, the final fight with Chris, the Daryl Hannah character,
28:32the Daryl, almost good to get that word out, with Chris, the Daryl Hannah character, and then the
28:36Rutger Hauer character, the two robots, the penultimate fight is when they've already achieved
28:41their objectives of killing the people who did them wrong, killing the people who poisoned them
28:45genetically so they'd die after four years. Right? So why? Why bother? They're about to die.
28:50Why risk your life to kill people who've already achieved their objective of vengeance and are
28:56about to die? Makes no sense. Now, again, you can make up something if you want, but it's not
29:01addressed in the movie. And therefore, it's a plot hole. You say, ah, yeah, but there's an answer
29:05based upon the lore. And it's like, no, I don't care, but you can make up anything you want. But
29:09it's still a plot hole in the movie. And it needed to be addressed, but it wasn't. So anyway, just to
29:14move on, right? So just wanted to address Steph's points regarding the film Blade Runner. What Steph called
29:18the plot hole was actually the point of the entire movie. The point was that humans were
29:22rapidly becoming unfeeling, unthinking machines, whereas the robots, i.e. the cyborgs, were
29:27the rons behaving in a human-like fashion. The humans are just blindly following orders,
29:31not thinking, not questioning. Likewise, it is the humans showing little concern and regard
29:36for their fellow men. Achieve the objective at all costs. That's the problem, and the primary
29:41point the movie was trying to make. Well, first of all, whether the humans were becoming
29:47unfeeling, unthinking machines, whereas the robots were more human, has nothing to do
29:50with the plot point I was talking about. Even if we accept that, I don't know if that's
29:55an answer or not. I would have to sort of think about it more.
30:00So, I mean, not only is this person loftily telling me that I missed the entire point of
30:05the movie, but his point, his polaris, his point has absolutely nothing to do with what
30:09I said. So, whether the humans are unfeeling and the robots are feeling, I mean, none of
30:15that makes any differences to the plot hole. None of it makes any differences to the plot
30:19hole. The plot hole is logical and motivational, right? Why would you risk your life killing
30:25people who pose no threat to others who are just about to die? And they pose no threat to
30:29others because they've already achieved their objective of vengeance against those who murdered
30:32them as they perceive it, right? Programming them to die without a cure. So, that has nothing
30:37to do with the point was that humans were rapidly becoming unfeeling, unthinking machines. Okay,
30:42fine. I mean, that's the theme, but that has nothing to do with the plot hole. So, my guess
30:49is, you know, when you deal with art, people get a little crazy. Like, honestly, I mean, you
30:53know that, right? You deal with art, people get a little crazy because they take it personally.
30:57My favorite art is my this, it's my that. And if the movie has sort of special meaning
31:04for you, and, you know, it's a pretty good movie. It's just gaping plot holes that make
31:09the ending kind of empty. But if the movie has sort of very special meaning to you, and
31:14I point out a plot hole that you've missed, maybe you feel embarrassed or humiliated or
31:18maybe I should have noticed or whatever. So, you react, right? But here's the funny thing
31:23about this comment. And again, I say this with positivity and, you know, just pointing
31:27things out that are empirical and logical. So, he says, the movie is trying to show that
31:34humans are becoming unfeeling, unthinking machines. And that's bad, right? So, you should be a human
31:41being with depth of thought and feeling. You shouldn't just be like a robot that's programmed
31:48and doesn't have, doesn't just react automatically and so on. But he's defensively reacting
31:54automatically and not thinking. And in a sense, lashing out, right? In terms of saying, I missed
31:59the entire point of the movie. And which is completely unrelated to the plot hole. So,
32:04he's not self-critical, right? And this is what you need to do in the world. I mean, if you
32:08want to be successful in any realm, intellectual, artistic, like genuinely successful, not just
32:13sort of make money. If you want to be genuinely successful in any realm, you need to be
32:17relentlessly self-critical. Before I ask a question of an expert, I will look up other
32:25possible answers. I mean, don't you do that? Don't you do that? Isn't that a basic level
32:32of respect for expertise and so on? So, if I criticize someone for having no idea of the
32:40theme of the movie, I want to make sure that I'm manifesting having learned from the theme
32:45of the movie, right? In other words, I'm not going to react in an automatic programmed
32:49manner. And I'm going to be self-critical and be skeptical of the value of my own contribution.
32:55Like, how is it that you end up contributing to the world? Well, the first thing you have
33:00to do is be skeptical of your own contributions. Be skeptical of the value of your own contributions.
33:07And recognize that it's going to probably take you a long time to provide any actual value
33:12to society as a whole, right? It's going to take you a long time to provide value to society
33:20as a whole, right? 10,000 hours. If you really want to understand plots, themes, characters,
33:27stories, you know, be an actor or study plays and motivation because plays are empirical as
33:36to actions and words, not thoughts. Unless you have a soliloquy like Hamlet where the thoughts
33:42are revealed, which is kind of rare in modern naturalistic plays, right? And in novels,
33:47of course, there's something called the unreliable narrator, which is where somebody says what
33:50happened, but it turns out that they're not really telling the truth, as opposed to the
33:54omniscient narrator who's not supposed to lie about things, right? So, if you want to contribute
34:00to an expert's understanding of plot and character and story and motivation and like somebody who's
34:11spent literally half a century creating some works and, you know, my novels have been fairly
34:17successful and my books as a whole have been fairly successful, like, you know, 100,000 plus
34:23downloaded a month. Not bad for, you know, some really challenging novels in an increasingly
34:28anti-literate age. So, if you want to provide value to somebody with half a century's experience
34:35and, of course, I've been trained by professional writers in writing. I have gone to the top theater
34:40school in Canada, which only accepts 1% of applicants and I've produced my own plays and
34:45written my own novels and, of course, I do role plays with people, which is a form of improv to step
34:51into characters and so on. So, if you want to tell me about how I'm just so obviously wrong about
34:59something I have half a century's experience in, again, I'm not saying I'm, obviously, I can make
35:04mistakes, but if you just loftily inform me and then get things totally wrong, you have no credibility.
35:10And that's fine, but the problem is you have great credibility with yourself, but no credibility with
35:16people who have knowledge. It's like, you know, when a kid just pronounces nonsense French sounds
35:21fully confident that he's speaking French. I mean, we would accept that as a kid as a kind of a playful
35:26and fun thing to do, but if you spout a bunch of nonsense syllables thinking that you're actually
35:31speaking a language, people who speak that language just look at you like you're, like, what? Do you not
35:36even know you're not speaking French? Do you not even know that you don't know the language? Do you not
35:39even know that you're totally wrong? You're loftily informing an expert how wrong the expert is and then
35:44you get things completely wrong yourself, right? Now, I'm not saying you're wrong about the theme
35:49of the movie and so on. That's a different matter. I think the theme of the movie is much more about
35:54science destroying God, but, you know, that's a topic for another time. You could be right about
35:58the theme of the movie, but the theme of the movie has nothing to do with the plot hole that I
36:03examined, right? It's nothing to do with the plot hole and the fact that you wouldn't be skeptical of
36:08that, right? So, before I post something, particularly if I'm talking about a sort of area of
36:14expertise, I would really be self-critical about whether I'm providing any value, right? Now, of
36:20course, if I've identified a plot hole and yet the plot hole is addressed in the movie, then I would
36:28be mistaken. And maybe it is addressed in the movie, in which case, you know, like when I said in the
36:34movie Joker, I made an error and then went and re-watched it and the audience who told me I'd made an
36:38error was totally right and I thanked them for helping me get it right. I got something wrong. So, that's
36:43fine. I don't get things wrong. That's no problem. But, yeah, there's a plot hole. And the theme of
36:48the movie doesn't change the plot hole. So, yeah, it's just, I'm sort of laboring on this point and
36:53it's not particular to the movie, but I'm sort of laboring this point because I just want you guys
36:58as a whole to have quality people in your life. And if I go up to a tax accountant with 50 years
37:04experience, right, and say he doesn't know a damn thing about tax law and he's a complete idiot and got
37:09it totally wrong, what are the odds that that tax accountant who's been one of the most successful
37:14tax accountants in human history with 50 years experience and I tell him he's, and I have, you
37:19know, particular training in tax law and I go up and I tell him he's completely wrong, he got it totally
37:23wrong and he doesn't understand a thing about tax law. I mean, what's the, how do you look, this is so
37:30important, like how do you look to the other person? How do you look to the person with deep knowledge and
37:34expertise? Now, my guess is, and this is a big challenge, of course, that we all face, right,
37:39which is the transition from being a big fish in a little pond to a much bigger pond, right? I mean,
37:45as I mentioned before, everyone who was an actor in theater school was the best actor in their local
37:49environment. I was the best actor at my university and all of that. And then we get to where everybody
37:54has a lot of skill and expertise and it's kind of an adjustment, right? It's a big readjustment.
37:59So this is the kind of thing where you probably, I'm getting a guess, right? So the situation is
38:04something like this and it's very common and there's nothing to be, it's not a bad thing,
38:08it's not a wrong thing, it's just a transition thing that everybody needs to understand if you
38:12want to reach to the top, right? So my guess is that you're the smartest person in a group of
38:19relative dummies and you are a smart person and I think that's great. I mean, I'm trying to help you
38:23with that, right? So you're the smartest person and you think about the themes of the movies and I think
38:28your theme of the movie is actually very interesting and there's a lot of rich stuff there, right?
38:32So you're used to dominating people because you're the smartest person in a group of relative dummies
38:40and so you're able to out-talk, out-argue, out-debate everyone in your environment.
38:45Great. You're the best softball player in your local pickup team and everyone's like, wow, you're
38:52really good and you can win and hit the ball and catch and throw, right? So you're the best softball
38:57player in your local pickup league. Fantastic. No problem with that. But then you step with that
39:04kind of arrogance into the show, right? Into the big leagues. With regards to philosophy,
39:10free domain is the big leagues. And there are other big leagues out there, obviously, right? But I'm just
39:13talking about this particular venue. And it's tough. It's tough. And the reason I'm saying all of this
39:21is I want you to continually improve. And when we are the best in our environment, we generally stop
39:26improving. And I want you to continually improve because that's where happiness is. I mean, Aristotle's
39:32got it pretty good as far as this stuff goes that happiness is the maximum pursuit of our abilities.
39:39It's the maximum development of our abilities in pursuit of the good, the pursuit of virtue,
39:43integrity, the maximum development of our abilities. Now, what is the maximum development of
39:48your abilities? I don't know. But arrogance is the opposite of that. Arrogance is the opposite of
39:54that. So you may be the best actor in your high school. You may be the best debater in your circle
40:02of friends. You may be the best baseball player in your local pickup league. Great. Do you want to
40:08become a great baseball player? Or do you want to just be the best baseball player in your local
40:12environment? And listen, I don't care. I mean, I think it's better if you pursue maximum
40:18excellence because who knows? It's a form of arrogance to even know what you're capable of.
40:22Do you want to be great? Or do you just want to be better than the rubes around you? Now,
40:29the problem is if all you want to be is better than the rubes around you, then you'll come across
40:33real experts and you'll be arrogant because you think you're the best, not just the best around
40:38your local environment, but you're the best. And then you'll be the best local baseball player in a
40:43pickup league and you'll, for some reason, end up in the major leagues and you'll get smoked.
40:49You'll get smoked. And that will be shocking for you and disorienting. And I get that.
40:55We've all been through it. I say this with no lofty superiority. We've all been through it.
41:02And that moment where you get smoked in the big leagues is the moment that determines the rest of
41:08your life. Do you retreat back to Smallville or do you say, wow, I got a long way to go? Hey,
41:14man, with regards to philosophy, I've got a long way to go. I still feel enormously humbled relative
41:20to the knowledge that is out there and available in the realm of philosophy. I still feel humbled.
41:26I still feel like a beginner in many ways. The journey ahead is vastly greater than the journey
41:33behind. And it's a continual improvement. I mean, I had to admit after studying philosophy for 20 years,
41:38I didn't actually know what ethics was, which is the entire point of philosophy. Not an easy moment.
41:42But out of that came UPB. Every time I do a listener call, I don't know the answer
41:47to the problem. I don't know the solution. I don't know the facts that bring the greatest value to bear
41:54on the situation. I don't know. And that's why I will spend an hour, hour and a half,
41:59sometimes even two hours just asking questions and gathering information because I don't know.
42:02I mean, this is why I don't generally just take an email with a complex personal problem
42:08and just provide an answer like in this situation, right? In this kind of format.
42:12Because I don't know. And that's why on the live streams, if somebody asks me a question,
42:17I'll say, listen, I can't really give much of an answer because I don't have enough information.
42:20Call in at freedomain.com. We can talk further and so on, right?
42:23And I hope that modeling this kind of humility and excitement about the future, right?
42:30Humility is excitement about the future because it means there's so much more to do,
42:34so much more to grow, so much more to learn.
42:36I mean, Freddie Mercury had mastered rock and pop and he went on to quasi-opera
42:43with Montserrat Caballet, a Spanish opera singer.
42:48That's a bit nutty. What the heck?
42:50Well, I don't think this experiment was particularly successful,
42:53although the Golden Boy is a fun song, but yeah, he wanted to do more,
42:57wanted to try more, wanted to, he tried ballet, right?
43:00All this kind of nonsense, right? Good, good for him.
43:03Keeps you alive, keeps you, keeps you going.
43:06So, if I'm humble after 40 years, I mean, technically after about 15, so 42 years.
43:13If I'm humble, deeply humble after 42 years of studying philosophy and art, literature,
43:21plot, character, and have vast experience in these matters.
43:25If I'm humble in these matters after 42 years and somebody comes in, gets things completely wrong
43:31and is totally arrogant and contemptuous, I sympathize with the mindset, I really do.
43:39But I just hope you, I mean, and I know it's tough, right?
43:42It's tough for the ego, right? I get that.
43:43But, you know, conquering the ego is pretty important.
43:46The ego says, I am great.
43:48Philosophy says, aim to be great.
43:50Aiming to be great means accepting there's a long way to go.
43:54So, to have quality people in your life means that there are people who are continuously improving,
43:59but you can't continuously improve if you're vainglorious and arrogant about your existing abilities, right?
44:06If you think your knowledge is already perfect, you don't work to improve it.
44:11I don't take, I don't practice walking every day because I'm pretty good at walking.
44:15I can, I can walk, right?
44:17So, I don't practice it because I'm good enough at it.
44:19I'm not a power walker or a marathon walker or a speed walker, but I'm, I don't, I don't practice breathing.
44:25I don't, right?
44:25I don't see if I can digest things or not, right?
44:29Because those things I'm confident and comfortable with, right?
44:32I don't have to remind myself which way to hold the tennis racket, right?
44:36Now, I can continuously improve in tennis and after a certain age, it just means getting less bad less quickly, right?
44:42Because you hit your physical peak a while ago, right?
44:45So, quality people are people in the process of continuous improvement which arises out of humility and tentativeness and deep unwillingness to establish certainties.
44:58Now, of course, you have to have certainties, otherwise there's no standard by which you can improve, right?
45:02So, I have certainties relative to reason and evidence, relative to UPB.
45:06These things are all established and proven relative to property rights, non-aggression principle, peaceful parenting.
45:10I have proved all of these, so my improvement comes out of a base of certainty that is very hard to establish.
45:19I mean, if it had been established, there wouldn't be any arguments about metaphysics or epistemology or ethics.
45:24In philosophy, when after thousands and thousands and thousands of years, there's no consensus.
45:29And there's no consensus because there's no humility.
45:33Humility is, how do I know that?
45:35Do I really know that?
45:36And you can go pathological like Socrates, I know that I know nothing, it's all nonsense, right?
45:42Even the statement is self-contradictory, as we well know.
45:45So, if you can't be humble enough to recognize how little you know and to build your knowledge from a blank slate base of principles, reason and evidence from the ground up,
45:55then you won't ever be in a state of continuous improvement.
45:58If you look in the mirror and you're already your perfect weight, you'll stop dieting.
46:04If you're 300 pounds, you'll diet.
46:06Maybe you should probably should, right?
46:08But if you're a great weight, not underweight, not overweight, then you won't diet.
46:14I mean, you may have a nutrition plan, but you won't restrict calorie to further lose weight.
46:21But if you're fat and you look in the mirror and your genuine and entire experience is that you're the perfect weight, then you won't diet.
46:28If your self-image is that you have perfect knowledge, then you won't improve.
46:35And then the people who are improving, who are quality people, who've become quality people through the process of improvement, those people will reject you.
46:42Because you're so far back on the journey, they can't even see you.
46:47And again, this is not anything to make you feel bad.
46:49Again, we all have to start from somewhere.
46:51And I'm trying to reach the true self of you that really wants to improve rather than arrogantly castigating those with a century of experience and successful experience, too.
46:59I'm sorry, don't mean to laugh.
47:01I don't mean to laugh.
47:01Honestly, you're like a person who's 400 pounds lecturing an expert nutritionist who's got an ideal body weight exactly how they got everything about eating wrong.
47:12You understand?
47:13I mean, to people with knowledge, to people with expertise, to people with experience, it's a tragic thing to see.
47:22And I hope that you will reflect upon this.
47:24Thanks, everyone, so much.
47:25Freedomman.com slash donate.
47:26Lots of love.
47:27Talk to you soon.
47:28Bye.
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