My Health Regimen! Listener Questions

Stefan Molyneux

Philosopher Stefan Molyneux shares his long-time health routine of weightlifting, walking, measured eating, limited sweets and solid sleep, and shows how taking care of the body keeps the mind sharp. He also answers listener questions on spiteful mutants, success and isolation, peaceful parenting by single mothers, and a few other topics.  Questions:  "Stefan, you have mentioned the importance of good health. Would love to hear more on your household no-nos, processed foods, gluten-free, seed oils, or the like. Balancing that with family and friends."   "Stefan, what age do you believe is appropriate to start using a dating app? Asking for a friend."   "What do you think of Edward Dutton’s Spiteful Mutant theory?"   "Do you think faster than light travel is possible or just sci fi wish fulfilment?  "I think it is and that the best time to start colonizing the galaxy was yesterday."   "Would you be willing to write some short stories fleshing out some of your character's backgrounds from "The Future"? "Kind of like the Canterbury Tales. "I have always been particularly interested in the doctor's backstory, how he came to The Civ, and what he needed to do in order to join.  Really clever "detail of his character to have some extra pounds on him, hinting to him being poorly raised in a competing civ before coming to The Civ. "The ...  0:00:00 Why Health Begins with a Strong Body 0:06:00 Beauty, Art, and Our Shared Inheritance 0:15:02 Everyday Habits for Health and Well-Being 0:21:22 Anxiety, Worry, and Finding the Real Problem 0:23:32 When to Start Using a Dating App 0:23:53 Spiteful Mutants, Success, and Social Resentment 0:34:07 Vanity, Ambition, and the Work of Success 0:39:22 Are We Trapped in the Solar System? 0:41:06 The Future Review 0:41:40 Treating Trauma and Borderline Personality Disorder 0:47:23 Looks-Maxxing 0:47:35 Parenting and Moral Authority 0:50:25 Punishment, Social Love, and Closing Thanks  My 10v1 debate in Vegas is coming up on November 16! Check out Digital Social Hour on YouTube for the livestream links: https://youtube.com/@DigitalSocialHour.  Support philosophy! https://freedomain.com/donate/  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/FREEDOMAIN202

Transcript

00:00All righty. Good morning, everybody. 28th of October, 2026, 937 AM. And I'm sorry it's

00:07taking me so long to get through these questions from my good friends on X. But the questions are

00:13so good that they demand I subjugate myself before the requirements for depth and complexity.

00:22All right. Stefan, you have mentioned the importance of good health. Would love to

00:27hear more on your household no-nos, processed foods, gluten-free, cedar oils, or the like,

00:32balancing that with family and friends. So it's a big, long question as a whole. My health,

00:42I mean, I was healthy as a kid, you know, ran around a lot. In my early teens, I was,

00:49I mean,

00:49sort of barely hanging on psychologically. I was alone with my mother. She was losing her mind and

00:56took to bed for weeks and was extremely volatile and dangerous. And I kind of stopped exercising.

01:02There was a funny old show called Participaction, I think it was. And I remember distinctly in my

01:11little apartment watching that show. I may have been, I'm just saying maybe 13 or 14. And

01:20I was like, okay, I can't continue to be this decaying, widening lump of depression. And I

01:28started running around my apartment. I know this sounds like an odd thing, but I could run through

01:33the living room into the kitchen and then round again. And I started running there. And then I just

01:39started running. And so I joined the swim team. I got back into tennis. I joined the water polo team.

01:46I joined the cross country running team. And I was amazed at just how quickly my health sort of

01:52recovered and, and moved on. And since then, I have been quite struck with exercise. I don't really

02:01like cardio, although I'll do it because you know, you kind of got to do it. But in particular,

02:07weight, weightlifting, weightlifting. Now, I cannot lift too much in terms of weight,

02:14weight. It's respectable, but it's not great. And the reason for that is I, I'm just prone to injury

02:20for whatever reason. I just don't have the genetics. My tendons have always been kind of

02:24funky. I had a lumbago as a kid, which was really quite uncomfortable, which is where my bones were

02:30going quite a lot faster than my tendons. I have like the bones of a tall guy. I'm just a

02:34shade under

02:35six feet. And I have the tendons of a hobbit. I've never been able to touch my toes. And people

02:41always

02:42used to say to me, hey, man, just, just stretch and you'll be fine. And it's like, no, no, no,

02:46you can't lengthen your tendons. All you can do is help the muscles that hold them in place,

02:51relax a little bit. But I did stretching and all of that when I was in theater school,

02:55we did warm up for dance and sword fighting and all the other movement classes that we did.

03:00And so I have been doing weights since my mid-teens, with few exceptions. I was in the business world

03:15and just ended up working so much. It was very tough to get much exercise in for a little while

03:19here and there. But I've been fairly consistent as a whole. And the reason for that is that

03:27I could, I would consider it, this is all kinds of psychological and perhaps even nonsensical as a

03:33whole, but I would consider it shameful to have a body much weaker than my mind. I don't like that

03:45sort of British thing where you have this towering intellect and then this rather frail and gooey

03:50body. I do not like the idea that the intellect sits atop the body like a, like the jolly green

03:56giant

03:56on a vaguely flattened tiny pony. And so I have tried to have reasonable lengths of strength and

04:05ability and agility. And the other day I played an hour and a half of pickleball and I can still

04:11sprint. I'm 60 and it's, it's not bad. Obviously I'm not any kind of towering poster boy for abs or

04:18anything like that. But I just feel it's very, very important for the brain to rest upon a strong body

04:26body. And the sort of the nerd thing where you have a strong intellect and a weak body,

04:31I think is unsustainable. And so my brain is my body, right? That the mind is the shadow cast by

04:40the brain and the brain is the body and the brain is not detached from the body. I don't have

04:45any

04:45otherworldly escape the, you know, the wretched, foul, pestilent flesh and so on. My brain is my body

04:53and my intellect requires, of course, health, physical health. It requires good blood flow to

05:02the brain. And I also, as I've mentioned before, happened to inherit a pretty remarkable brain,

05:10which I say with no pride. It's just, it's like, oh, I'm so proud I have blue eyes, right? I

05:14just

05:14happened to inherit a pretty remarkable brain as the result of the British and Irish intellectual

05:22traditions merging together in this geyser of creativity and reason that characterizes the way

05:28that I interact with reasoned people in the world. And so I really have to take care of this

05:36collective resource, this common resource. It's really, really important for me to be grateful.

05:43I'm immensely grateful for the brain that I happen to have. You know, it's like if you're born with some

05:51absolutely wonderful singing voice, I mean, in a sense, that's sort of a collective, I'm not

05:57saying like I'm morally or socialist or legal or anything. But if you have, I mean, I sort of think,

06:03you know, way back in the day, stone ages and so on, when life was brutal and harsh and dangerous

06:12and

06:13you buried your children and everyone else on a regular basis. So you cut your thumb and got an

06:19infection up to your arm and had to hack your arm off because you couldn't have antibiotics and so

06:23on. And I sort of think like if you have a beautiful singing voice and you're in a tribe of

06:3080, 100 people,

06:3250 people or whatever, then you don't have to sing when everyone is contemplating the fire. I mean,

06:42we were very hypnotized by flames, right? Because flames break up the static of the brain pretty

06:50well because they're such random fractals. Now, you don't have to sing when your tribe has finished

06:58its work day and is staring at the fire and thinking probably sad stone age distant thoughts

07:07about all the losses and perils to come. You don't have to sing, but you kind of should.

07:14But you kind of should because it gives comfort, it gives contemplation, it gives warmth.

07:21You know, the dangers and stresses of life can wind people up pretty, pretty hard. And if you have a

07:32beautiful singing voice and sing with great depth and power and passion and feeling, well,

07:38if you sing, it eases the burdens of people's lives. It's like their heart and its brittle

07:45ostrich eggshell cracks under the caressing soft syllables of your voice, and the heart relaxes and

07:54opens a little bit in the face of the sound of something beautiful. And the harshness and

08:01difficulty and dangerousness, and you've got tics and itchy and, you know, there's a reason why in

08:07the Middle Ages they yearned to be free of the body, because the body was horrendous. People would

08:13kiss others who'd never brushed their teeth and have sex with people who hadn't bathed in the last year.

08:19And what sustains and nobles and elevates us is beauty, which is why when you want to take over

08:24a culture, you make everything ugly. And that way people get depressed and anxious, and there's

08:29nothing to save. And it softens the walls of culture to the point where you can push them aside

08:35like melting butter and step right over and through. So for me, I have this brain, I'm incredibly

08:44grateful for it. I didn't earn it. I try to use it to good effect, of course. And it is

08:50a collective

08:51resource. I can't take credit in my brain any more than I can take credit in the operations of my

09:00liver

09:00or my kidneys or my spleen or whatever. I don't even really know what's going on down there. I just

09:06eat food and get energy. And so I can't take credit for the fact that I have calves or

09:14quads or biceps. I mean, that's just evolution, right? It's just what survived and flourished.

09:20And I can't take any pride in my brain. And so for me, staying healthy is obviously for my wife

09:27and

09:27for my family, my friends who would not be happy if I got sick and paralyzed or ill or decayed

09:35or dying

09:35or something like that. And it's for the world as a whole. And it's also for me. The idea of

09:42having

09:42a strong brain but a weak body is to fall prey to the mind-body dichotomy. You know that the

09:49body

09:49is mere flesh, but the mind is abstract angel wings of pure conceptual perfection. And the body

09:57fails and the mind is eternal and the body is rancid and the mind is pure and the body is

10:04sweaty

10:04and smelly and icky and scratchy. And the mind yearns to escape this prison of mortally decaying,

10:12collapsing flesh and fly free like in every single cheesy fantasy movie when they kill the wizard and

10:19the wizard's castle starts collapsing and they have to race out. This is the mind escaping the

10:25decaying collapse of the body and so on. I won't do that. I won't believe that. It's not true.

10:31The mind and the body are one. The brain is the body. The brain really is the purpose of the

10:37body.

10:37I mean, our entire metabolism reflects that, right? The brain is, what, two or three percent of the

10:46body's mass but takes 20 percent of the energy. So it's a demanding, imperious lord but requires

10:53sturdy, strong peasants to maintain it, which is the body. So I think health is really important.

10:59I think exercise is really important and it is very important for me to maintain my brain for as long

11:06as possible. I love the stories of the guys who are in their 80s or their 90s and who are

11:09still sharp

11:10as a tack and so on, right? Legal eagle. And so I want to maintain it for as long as

11:16possible

11:17and that does require that I maintain my physical health as much as possible. So I have, I mean,

11:27some pluses. I have a good, I would say, when I say I have a good body, I don't mean

11:32in terms of

11:33physique. Like I have a pretty strong and resilient and adaptable and my reflexes are really crazy. Like

11:46fast my reflexes are, my reflexes are really wild. And so I'm, I wouldn't say, because I'm not proud.

11:55I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm happy that I've done the exercise and so on, but I'm also lucky, right? I'm

11:59just lucky that it, other than one hiccup 13 years ago, I haven't really had any major illnesses and so

12:04on. So I think it is just out of gratitude for all that I have been provided and the reasonable

12:13levels of good I can do for the planet as a whole that I feel I'm in possession of an

12:19accidental

12:20inheritance and it's not mine to spend or consume. It's not mine to spend or consume. And this

12:26inheritance has been gathered under great duress, stress, pain, death, slaughter, and disease for,

12:32for, for billion years, right? Four billion years we've been evolving. And I happen to be handed this

12:37incredibly complex brain as have you. And I'm not saying, obviously I'm not saying I'm the only one

12:41with a complex brain, but we have this amazing inheritance of conceptual thought, language, reason,

12:50philosophy, communication, combined with this incredible technology. I wrote a novel called Just

12:55Poor, which you should definitely check out at freedomain.com books. It's free. The audio book

13:00is fantastic, if I do say so myself, which was about what happens if you're born brilliant when there's

13:09no scope for your brilliance. And this is a orphaned girl in England in the 18th century with no scope

13:18for

13:18her intelligence. It's a terrifying thought. And that partly was what happens if all the things

13:25that I'm capable of doing just vanish and die with me. I was talking to a guy not too long

13:33ago,

13:33a day or two ago, who's written books. And I remember when I was younger and was having a great

13:38deal of difficulty getting published, I didn't realize, of course, at the time, how much anti-white

13:43male and pro-socialism communism was embedded in the publishing industry. And my books, of course,

13:51are anti-collectivist and pro-market, pro-reason, pro-conscience, pro-free will, pro-morals.

13:59And I remember thinking, I'm going to have to put all my books together. And on my deathbed,

14:05I'm, because statistically, I'm more likely to die before my wife. But on my deathbed, I'm going to

14:12have to have friends and family who were gathered around promise to get my books out there somehow,

14:18someday. This was, you know, back before the internet really took off. And now, of course,

14:23the books are out there, which I'm enormously grateful for. And really, you should check out

14:27my fiction. I think it's really good. Freedomain.com slash books. So the sort of unity of my capacities

14:34with the amazing technology to communicate ideas that I can walk around as I am this morning and

14:41share my thoughts across the world for all time is truly staggering. I mean, even if I had had a

14:48book

14:48or two or three or five or 10, I think I've written over 20 published, then they would probably just

14:54sit

14:54in the back dusty room of a library until somebody noticed they hadn't been checked out for five or

14:5910 years and toss them in the remainder bin. So as far as sort of practical health things go,

15:06one challenge I face, and this probably has something to do with growing up fairly significantly

15:11undernourished, is that I am always hungry. I can always eat more. I'm always hungry. I never feel

15:20full. So I have to just kind of will myself. And part of that is due to exercise, of course,

15:25right?

15:26But, you know, it's funny because my brother had a couple of years of good food

15:30in England while I was stuck in Canada and hungry, hungry a lot of times, and he ended up taller

15:36than

15:37me. It could just be genetics or whatever it is, but it's something that I occasionally think may

15:42have had to do with malnutrition. Who knows? But I, what do I do for health? I have, I try

15:50to eat only

15:51when I'm really hungry. So I don't usually eat much in the morning. I'm not particularly hungry in the

15:56morning. I say I'm always hungry, but it's usually afternoons and evenings. Evenings are my tough time

16:01for eating. And that has to do, of course, with stress when I was a child. And I'm sort of

16:05aware

16:05of that. I don't know that I can undo it. But I mean, it's kind of late now in the

16:09day as well. It's

16:10like 50 years ago since I was a little kid. But I try to pace my eating. And I try,

16:18I mean, not to snack

16:19too much. I have given up, for the most part, you know, cookies, chips, candy, chocolate, you know,

16:26that kind of stuff. I really don't eat. I mean, a little bit here and there. I had some dessert

16:30on

16:30my birthday and, and things like that. My wife came home with some shortbread cookies yesterday

16:35because we had a guest over for a day or two. And I had a shortbread cookie. And it's nice.

16:41It's nice.

16:41But for the most part, exercise, of course, is important. And the fact that I can, like I'm

16:49walking right now and walking actually is better for your brain in general than sitting. So the fact

16:54that I can walk and do these kinds of conversations, hugely important for me. And I think for my health

17:00as a whole. And as far as food goes, yeah, my wife is a good cook. And that's, I mean,

17:09that's the

17:09difference between life and death in many ways, being a good cook. And she is very concerned about

17:17health as a whole. She tries to make food from scratch and it's good food. And I don't really

17:24eat. What do I eat that's processed? And I'm sort of aware this always sounds so precious. Oh, no

17:30process. I don't really eat much that you have to unwrap. I guess occasionally if my family's out and I

17:37need some food, I'll throw a frozen pizza in the oven. I mean, obviously that's kind of processed.

17:41But my wife makes stuff from scratch and she makes this. There's almost always a fridge full of

17:47meals as a whole. And I guess I eat a little bit of deli meat, which is probably not ideal,

17:53but occasionally I'll have, you know, toasties with that. Other than that, I don't weigh myself

18:01more than a couple of times a year. I think that's kind of an, I mean, my mother had an

18:06eating

18:06disorder that was quite serious. So I think it's quite important to not, for me at least, not to

18:11focus on that. So I go for my annual checkup and I weigh myself there and maybe I'll weigh myself

18:17once

18:17or twice at the gym, just to double check. But I mean, it's 194, 195, stuff like that. And of

18:29course,

18:29it's tough when you exercise, especially if I've done a little bit more exercise than usual, then you

18:34add some weight, but it's because of muscle. And then that muscle, you know, one of the great things

18:40about having my cute little late middle-aged muscles is that they mow down on the fat while I'm

18:47sleeping and things like that. Sleep. Yeah. Yeah. Important. I need seven hours. And so I make

18:54sure I get my seven hours and that's important. If I am tired, I will nap. I have sort of

19:01noticed a

19:02bit of an association could just be psychological. If I have a bit of sugar, sometimes I feel tired

19:06afterwards. I don't know if that's a myth or not. I've heard it both ways. So I try to avoid

19:10sugar

19:10during the day because if I am tired, I will take a short rest. I will usually have a bit

19:16of a nap.

19:17Maybe once or twice in two or three weeks. But for the most part, my energy is good and

19:24all of that. And I suppose, you know, manage stress, that kind of stuff. And there's always

19:29something to be concerned about if you focus on it. But it is really important to be grateful for

19:33all of the great things in my life, as I'm sure there are great things in your life as well.

19:40So let's see. Anything else? I don't eat much salt. I like an omelet. Again, I'll have some sugar.

19:50For a while, I was off sugar almost completely. And I've allowed myself a few treats here and there.

19:56And oral hygiene, of course, is very important. I floss. I use my water pick. And I go to the

20:01dentist every four months because I still have my wisdom teeth and I don't want to get them removed.

20:06Obviously, that would be a not fun experience, to put it mildly. So, I mean, whether I'll make it to

20:11the end of my life with my wisdom teeth is perhaps a little doubtful. But I definitely want to give

20:17it

20:17my best shot. So, I think other than that, I'll get my blood work done every year and get my

20:25eyes

20:25checked. You know, the blurry thing where they stare deep into your irises and so on. I get that done

20:29every

20:30two years, probably over 60 now. I'll go every year because, you know, things loom, right? Things

20:36loom as you age. You cataracts and things like that. So, I want to keep an eye on that. So,

20:40you get it.

20:42And other than that, you know, just be happy, be in love, be grateful. I think gratitude is one of

20:48the

20:48greatest gifts that you can give yourself in terms of health. You know, and I want to sort of avoid

20:54that

20:55thing where, you know, when you're younger, you worry about money and dating. And then when you get in

21:00your middle age, you worry about your kids and your parents aging. And then when you get old, maybe your

21:03money worries are a little better, but then you start worrying about health. And I sort of try and avoid

21:08that. I mean, I wrote this play many, many years ago called Teeth. And it was, everyone says worry less.

21:18You know, we should worry less, be concerned less, be less anxious. And, but there's a middle ground,

21:23right? There's a middle ground. It is. There are some people at the end of their lives,

21:29they look back and they say, I wish I'd worried more or been concerned more. And of course, I

21:34talked to these guys and some women on the show on a regular basis. On the call-in shows where

21:39I'm

21:40like, you know, you should be panicking. Like, you should be. I remember many years ago, there was a

21:43guy calling and he says, like, I'm in my early 50s. I'm living in my brother's garage, but I don't

21:48want

21:48to panic. And I'm like, you kind of do. You kind of do want to panic at that point. So

21:54anxiety or nervousness or concern or whatever it is, some worry, I think it falls in the

22:00Aristotelian mean. And I think most people who have concerns with anxiety are anxious about the

22:07wrong things. And if you're anxious about the wrong things, then your anxiety generally won't be

22:13solved. Anxiety is there to tell you something important needs to be done. And then when you get it

22:18done, you will usually relax. It's sort of like if you think you're thirsty, but you're actually

22:24hungry, then drinking water won't solve the problem. You will just continue to feel the

22:29discomfort because you're not having the right solution to the right problem. The right problem

22:34is hunger, which means go eat something, don't just drink something, right? And so I try and focus

22:41on if I have some concerns or worries, I'll try and figure out what's going on, try and solve it

22:47as

22:47best I can. And then, you know, work my best to let it go, which is usually more than possible.

22:54So those are general health things as a whole. And I hope that's of use, probably too abstracted

23:03personal, but those are the health things that I have as a whole. And I hope that is helpful and

23:11at least somewhat interesting for you, my friends. But, you know, I'm sort of hoping,

23:18I'm hoping to age without chronic health problems. And I don't have any chronic health problems. I

23:22don't have any achy pains, don't have any knee problems, don't have any back problems. I'm not

23:26any on any medications or anything like that. So, all right. Steph, what age do you believe is

23:33appropriate to start using a dating app asking for a friend? That's a tough call, man. That is a

23:38a long way away. Out of curiosity, back when I was single, this is very early on in the internet

23:44days, I did try a dating app, but I quickly recognized that it was just all males. So I

23:49don't really have any, I don't really have any arguments. What do you think of Edward Dutton's

23:54spiteful mutant theory? So with all apologies to Mr. Ed, I'm probably going to get this somewhat wrong,

24:01but I think the spiteful mutant theory has to do with the fact that evolutionary pressures for the last

24:07200 years, and particularly for the last 100 years have been significantly removed, which means that

24:13people are growing into adulthood who in the past would not have made it. And because we have all of

24:21this technology and medicine and so on to prop up people who otherwise wouldn't have made it, we end up

24:28with a lot of people who have not just physical, of course, but mental problems. And I mean, I'm not

24:42an evolutionary biologist, of course, so I can't determine anything to do with that. And so certainly,

24:49of course, of course, there are many people who make it to adulthood now, who in the past would not

24:54have

24:54made it to adulthood, I get all of that. And so does that mean that they inevitably become,

25:01you know, communist trolls, and so on? I don't, I don't think so. I think the big problem is the

25:09fact

25:09that we have replaced, you know, wholesome, rational, empirical education with endless propaganda. Like,

25:18you know, how was it, Bioware just shut down, which was a really great game developer from, I guess,

25:26the 90s onwards. And the problem with success, you know, it's a really tough issue. I have a very

25:32ambivalent relationship with success. You know, I've been on top, I've been on the bottom, I've been

25:36just about everywhere in between. And success is tough. Success is tough. Because if you're successful,

25:43then you will be hijacked, your organization will be hijacked to push propaganda. There are propagandists

25:51floating around the world as a whole, who are constantly sniffing for new avenues to inflict

25:56propaganda. And something like Bioware, was it their last game had a bunch of, you know, crazy leftist

26:05stuff in it? Was it a Dragon Age? I can't really remember, but some D&D thing where they tried

26:09to jam a

26:10bunch of leftist stuff in. And yeah, so the moment you become successful, you are targeted,

26:16and you are infiltrated, and you are used to broadcast

26:23propaganda. So it's sort of like, if you grow up poor, then you may have the dream of escaping

26:29poverty. Well, escape poverty, okay. So you work to escape poverty, and you make some money. And if

26:35you're still around all the poor people, which is usually the case, then the poor people will hit

26:40you up for money, or success, or advantage, or jobs, or maybe not job. Well, sometimes, I guess.

26:47And so success is tough. Success has made a failure of our home. I think that's one of the old

26:55songs. And so when you achieve success, if you achieve success, and I hope that you do,

27:01I hope this show helps you do that. But if you achieve success, what's going to happen

27:07is people will try to get things from you. And Kevin, is it Kevin O'Leary, would say, you know,

27:14like, because he's very wealthy, and he would say, you know, if somebody wants money for a business

27:20venture, he'll give them 50k, but only on the condition that they never ask him for more money

27:24or talk to him about the business. So success is a failure. And this is just one of the paradoxes.

27:33It would be better, I think, in a free market voluntary society. But right now, success is

27:41a challenge. And success will almost certainly mean the failure of your original primary relationships.

27:48If you grew up in a non-successful environment, and you become successful, you have less and less in

27:53common with the people you grew up with. And then they are full of maybe spite, envy, jealousy,

28:01greed, there's awkwardness, and so on. And that is really tough. You have to float up into a realm

28:11where you are only around other successful people, right? You sort of think of some obese family,

28:21and then, you know, one member starts working out, exercising, dieting, you know, they're strict,

28:26they get abs, they're whatever, right? I mean, there's just an awkwardness there. And that's just

28:31the body, which is much less than the mind or things like that. So you got to move into other

28:40areas and

28:41dimensions where people are successful as a whole. So I hope that helps with regards to that. But it

28:52is a, it's a big challenging situation. It's a big, big old challenging situation. Success is kind of

28:59failure. So I think the spiteful mutant theory, again, I can't speak to the genetics, but when you

29:07succeed, people get very tense. They get, they get a little stressed. And it's this elephant in the

29:13room. And the elephant in the room is one of two things. Some of the principles of success are

29:21transferable, for sure, for sure. But most people want the success without the effort, of course,

29:29right? We want something for nothing. And that's not necessarily a bad thing as a whole. Technology is

29:33something for nothing. I'm getting to you through the internet, knocking on your door. But people kind

29:39of instinctively recognize that if they drop the scarcity, loser, the system's rigged against me,

29:47determinism, mindset. And if they talk about, I will, rather than yes, but, well, you could be

29:58successful. Yeah, but I don't have the context. Yeah, but the system's rigged against me. Yeah, but blah,

30:02blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't have the right accent. I don't know. Yes, but if you drop

30:07that mindset, then you will arouse the enmity of people around you. If you grow up among, for want

30:14of a better phrase, if you grow up among losers, then if you become a winner, the losers will resent

30:20you. Because the losers believe that the system is stacked against them, that there's nothing they

30:25can do, they can't advance, they can't get anywhere, they can't rise, they can't, you know,

30:29everything's against them. And listen, there's lots of stuff against people, you know, if you're

30:33in the white male category. I mean, under Trump, like, all of the jobs created under Trump went to

30:39women. Yes. So, I get all of that. And again, I'm not talking to the average, I'm talking to the

30:46top

30:461% of intelligence to characterize my listeners. There's options, there's possibilities, and I've

30:51obviously tried to point them out. Over the years, whether people have listened or not,

30:55is not up to me. But if you grow up surrounded by losers, they believe... It's funny, because losers

31:04as a whole are a combination of vanity and insecurity, right? Simple mind style. And they have vanity

31:12because they believe they're super smart and super competent and super great. But then, the more vanity

31:17you have, the harder it is to explain why you can't, won't, or don't succeed. And so, they have to

31:23create, in their mind, these insurmountable barriers, right? Like, yes, I am an expert rock

31:29climber, but it's a sheer infinite wall of frozen ice. A vertical wall of frozen ice, and nobody can

31:37climb that. And so, people love to praise themselves. And the problem with praising yourself is then you

31:45have to explain to yourself why you don't succeed, or why you haven't succeeded. So, I had a friend

31:54who, when I was in my teens, had a very, very high view of his own intellect. And he's definitely

31:59a

31:59smart guy. Definitely a smart guy. I mean, the guy got over 100% on math tests, so it's really

32:05quite

32:05remarkable. But he was 5'7", or something like that. Although, you know, he had physical characteristics

32:15that were quite attractive. I won't sort of get into details. But, you know, as to why he didn't

32:21date, he said, well, women don't like short guys. Oh, okay, I get that. I get that. I mean,

32:31Tom Cruise is a short guy. And again, you can sort of find these examples. But he was like,

32:37so I have a very high opinion of myself, but I'm scared to ask out women. Now, it wasn't like

32:43he

32:43asked out a bunch of women who all said, no, you're too short. And this unwillingness to

32:49compromise based on vanity. You know, I did not marry a supermodel. If it's any consolation,

32:57my wife also did not marry a supermodel. Now, I find it very attractive. She finds me very

33:03attractive. But, you know, neither of us are going to be on the cover of GQ or Vanity Fair anytime

33:08soon.

33:09And that ship may have sailed into the West with elves who decay. But there are necessary

33:19compromises. And even if the two, two of the most wealthy and successful and attractive people

33:25in the world and Janina Jolie and Brad Pitt, even if they get together, they end up unhappy and

33:31railing at each other and suing each other about what vineyards in France or something.

33:35So even they don't end up happy sometimes. Billy Joel, very talented singer, songwriter and

33:41performer, married four times and bitter. I saw a documentary on him. It just looks tense and

33:49bitter. So, I mean, you can't get more success than Billy Joel, right? And I think he's now got brain

33:58issues or something like that, can't do or can't. I guess he's getting older, right? Happens to all,

34:02but he should have pushed that Vax hard. Did he ever. So people say there are insurmountable

34:09barriers to success. And when you break through those barriers, it shocks them to their core and

34:17they get very tense. People, everyone's vain. Everyone's vain. I mean, myself included. Everyone's

34:24vain. And it's not vanity if you do it, right? So Freddie Mercury, even when he was very younger,

34:33said, I'm not just going to be a star, darling, I'm going to be a superstar, right? And he did

34:38it.

34:38He worked hard. He toured. He, you know, he did it. And good for him, like no harm, no foul,

34:44right? It's

34:44great to have vanity if it impels you to action to achieve success. Good. But people who have vanity,

34:52who don't do the necessary work, have a challenge. They think they're great, but the world doesn't

34:57think they're great. They think they're a fabulous darling, but the world does not think that they're

35:01a fabulous darling. Sweetie darling, fab fab style. So what do people do if they have a great degree of

35:09vanity and they don't have any particular success? It's a tough call. Everybody, when they're a kid,

35:17believes deep down that they're destined for great things. I mean, an astronaut is going to be

35:21a fireman saving people's lives. I'm going to be a cowboy, whatever it is, right? And people believe

35:29that they're destined for great things. And then it doesn't pan out or they don't do the work or

35:35whatever it is, right? So then people have a problem, a challenge, which is, I think I'm great.

35:41The world doesn't agree. And either it's like, well, I need to do more work then, or the world is

35:46stupid

35:47and bigoted and rigged against me. Okay. And so if you, I mean, I always believed I was destined for

35:53great things. And I mean, to a significant degree, I pulled it off. I managed to stick the landing. I

36:00mean, then I was pushed over, but nonetheless, I stuck the landing for a while. So in Spy for Mutants,

36:07I think it has a lot more to do with the fact that people have a lot of vanity and

36:12everyone's got

36:13main character syndrome and everyone's very important to themselves. And I'm not saying

36:17that's a bad thing. That's right. Right now I'm sort of looking around and the view that I have

36:22would not exist if my brain wasn't here, right? The view I have would not exist if my brain wasn't

36:27here. None of the thoughts I put out would go out if my brain didn't do them. And I didn't

36:31work to,

36:32work very hard to apply and grow and challenge the world. And I think comport myself with a reasonable

36:39degree of moral courage and integrity and sincerity and so on. Right. So there's nothing

36:45wrong with having vanity. There's nothing wrong with thinking you're destined for great things.

36:48There's nothing wrong with daydreaming, but you either pursue your daydreams or you have to give

36:53them up. You, I mean, if you were a medieval peasant and you had no odds, opportunities, possibilities,

36:58I mean, there's always possibilities. Even Thomas Sowell has a great sequence of about even the slaves,

37:07the black slaves in the antebellum South, if they had particular talents, then they were often given

37:12scope to pursue those talents and so on. And so even slaves have some, some opportunities and we

37:19are not slaves. We have more opportunities. And of course, if you can't get opportunities,

37:24you just make opportunities, right? If you have to get across the river and there's no boat or barge,

37:31you have to find a way across the river, whatever that's going to be. When I worked up North,

37:36we had to do kilometer square. We had to hammer the stake claims into trees in a kilometer square.

37:44That's how we got the mineral rights to look for the gold. And so we had to go in a

37:49square and

37:50sometimes it seemed almost insurmountable. Sometimes there were raging rivers. Sometimes there were

37:55swamps. Sometimes there were gullies and so on. And the job was to go in a kilometer square.

38:03That was the job. So we had to find a way. Sometimes if the river was too, too far to

38:11cross,

38:11if the river was too wide, don't look back. You got one more river. Sorry, all the river songs,

38:18river of dreams are floating in my head. But sometimes one of us would have to wait and the

38:24other one would have to go up the river bank to find a place to cross. If it was too

38:29fast,

38:30you know, it could be dangerous if it was too fast, right? You get washed away and you are gone,

38:35baby gone. Particularly if there was some kind of waterfall further down. So, you know, with swamps,

38:40I remember being up to my chest in swamp, picking leeches off my legs and all of that. So, yeah,

38:45I mean, you just, there's no way forward. You just have to will and find a way. And that is,

38:53you know, again, be that water going down the side of the cliff that I talked about, right?

38:57You get blocked. You just find a way around it. You just have to will and keep moving forward and

39:01not accept no and deal with all of that. Put your will against the inertia of the world and see

39:08who

39:08wins. Usually whoever wins has the strongest will. So I think, despite for mutants, I can't speak for

39:15the genetics of it, but I think it has a lot to do with education and vanity as to why

39:21people are so

39:22bitter. All right. Do you think faster than light travel is possible or just sci-fi wish fulfillment?

39:26I think it is. And the best time to start colonizing the galaxy was yesterday. Yes. Well,

39:32of course, the civilized people in the world will do a heck of a lot to get away from the

39:37bottom 1%

39:38or 5%, right? So I do not think faster than light travel is possible. I do not think interstellar

39:45travel is possible unless you go really, really slow, in which case it will take tens of thousands of

39:49years and really what's the point. But no, you can't, you can't even if you get to half sea,

39:55like half the speed of light, then you're just going to, every little bit of matter is just going

40:01to hit you so hard. It's going to shred the spaceship. Like you, we're stuck in the solar

40:04system. It just is the way that it is. I mean, it's kind of fun to think of wormholes and

40:08stuff like

40:09that. I mean, that's all made up nonsense. You can't, you can't beam across. You can, there's no

40:16warp nine Sulu or whatever. I mean, that's, it's fun sort of sci-fi fantasy. But no, we are stuck

40:25in the solar system. You know, maybe that we, we can't colonize Venus, of course, because basically

40:32it has giant vats of sulfuric acid masquerading as an atmosphere. We could probably do something on

40:38Mars, but smart people just, smart people are always trying to get away from the dummies.

40:45Smart people are always trying to get away from the dummies, from that sweet spot of criminality

40:49around IQ 85 and so on. And, you know, smart people can deal with the dummies, but the dummies are

40:56very good at manipulating women's sympathies and therefore can't be dealt with effectively. So,

41:01I mean, by that, I just mean putting in jail or something like that. So, all right. Would you be

41:06willing to write some short stories fleshing out some of your characters' backgrounds from the

41:10future, kind of like the Canterbury Tales? I've always been particularly interested in the doctor's

41:16backstory, how he came to the Civ and what he needed to do in order to join. Really clever detail

41:21of his

41:21character. Actually, it's a lawyer, not a doctor. Really clever detail of his character to have some

41:25extra pounds on him, hinting to him being poorly raised in a competing Civ before coming to

41:30the Civ, your world. The audio version of the future was absolute peak, really brought the characters

41:34alive for me. Thank you again for all you do, Steph. That's a very interesting idea. I would

41:38certainly mull that over and I appreciate that. How to get rid of the H-1B program or cap it

41:42by

41:42country at least? What psychotherapy should actually do to prevent or treat effectively

41:47borderline personality disorder? So, I did some research not too long ago and when I was sort

41:52of coming up and I sort of took psychology when I was in university, borderline personality was

41:59basically, well, you can manage some symptoms, but you can't really fix it. And what it will do is

42:03it will fade in its intensity over time. The borderline personalities, it's sort of halfway

42:08between neurosis and psychosis. These are the people who are like, you know, they'll call their

42:16therapists at two in the morning saying, I need a session now or I'm going to, you know, X myself

42:20or something like that. So, I mean, really, I love you. I hate you. Don't leave me. You know,

42:26that kind of real rollercoaster kind of crazy stuff. But there do appear to be some treatments that can

42:32be helpful and effective. And I would recommend looking into that as a whole. So, the earlier the

42:39trauma, I think this is just my particular idea, right? This is nothing official or scientific or

42:44anything like that. But the earlier the trauma, the worse the problems, right? So, psychosis,

42:51you know, complete sociopathy and so on. Those are, you know, very early childhood, like infancy

42:59abuses or maybe even stuff in the womb. And then if you make it through that with relative peace,

43:05and then if you get abused in sort of the first year or two or three of life, then you

43:10are maybe

43:12narcissistic and so on. And then later you're just neurotic and later you're just anxious. So,

43:16you know, the problems go down the later that the issues take, that the abuses sort of hit or take

43:24root. And so, I'm not obviously a therapist. So, to prevent borderline personality disorder, unless

43:31there's some genetic thing that I don't know about, or I don't think anybody knows about it, but, you

43:37know, peace, love, virtue, affection from conception onwards is the way to prevent it, I think.

43:45Treat effectively, that's tough, you know. So, you can help people who are victims. So, if you've been

43:52abused as a child and you managed to contain your impulses or desire to abuse others, then you can be

43:59helped. The problem that the, to me, the real borderline about when people become very difficult, if not

44:06perhaps even impossible, to help is if they have become victimizers, right? So, let's just sort of take a

44:15an example. It's a little bit of a cardboard cutout, but an example would be a woman who is horrendously

44:21abused as a baby, a toddler, a child, and so on. Then she is a victim, obviously, completely 150%

44:31total sympathy and empathy, and we would sort of have anger at her parents for their horrendous

44:37mistreatment of a helpless baby, infant, toddler, and so on. And if you have been a victim, then you

44:47can get angry at your victimizers, and that is a healthy and helpful thing. However, if this woman

44:56has grown up and she has, usually, often through sexual appeal and so on, she has now really harmed

45:05others, right? So, she has terrorized men. She maybe has launched false accusations against men. She

45:12spread horrendous malicious gossip, destroying the reputations of men. She has tyrannized men and so on

45:20by saying, you know, if you leave me, I'm going to do X, Y, or Z, terrible things. And she

45:25has become

45:26a tyrant and a victimizer of others, right? So, think of your immune system, right? You want your

45:32immune system to attack things that aren't part of your body. I guess transplants accepted, but you want

45:40your immune system to attack things that aren't your body, and you don't want it to attack your body,

45:46right? If it attacks your body, you have an autoimmune disorder, which can be quite

45:50debilitating. So, in the same way, if healing people of psychological distress that is caused

46:00by evil has something to do with moral clarity, then if the woman has grown up and tyrannized,

46:06often men or maybe other women, but she's just been horrendous to people, then she has every reason,

46:11of course, to be angry at the parents who mistreated her when she was a child. But the problem is,

46:16the righteous anger that she has towards the evils of others is a weapon that goes off when she uses

46:23it in her own face, right? Like those terrible muskets or First World War weapons from the shady

46:28manufacturers who, they went off in people's faces, right? So, it's tough to get a bead on evildoers and

46:37get angry at them if, well, it's half a mirror that you're aiming at, right? So, once people have

46:45crossed over into doing irreparable and undoable harm to others, then they do appear to be at least

46:51beyond the reach of moral clarity. Because the degree of rage or anger, which I think would be

46:58healthy, that in their minds they would unload or unleash upon their abusers, well,

47:04the more angry they get at their abusers, which I think is a healthy thing, the more angry and

47:10contemptuous and hostile they're going to get towards themselves. Like, once you've joined the

47:15ranks of the Dark Souls, it's kind of tough to switch the light on, right? So, I think there's a

47:20point

47:20beyond which it becomes somewhat irreversible. All right. Ken, what's your opinion on looks maxing?

47:27Well, I think it's important to be attractive, but you don't want to become obsessive.

47:30Right. I mean, it's the Aristotelian mean. You need to care about your looks, but not only about

47:34your looks. Can single mothers use peaceful parenting if their child does not believe the

47:38mother has any authority over them? Kids seem to work this out fairly quickly. Well, single mothers

47:44can use peaceful parenting, but single mothers need to admit fault. Now, of course, one of the

47:50challenges is that if single mothers were able to admit fault, they probably wouldn't have ended up

47:55as single mothers. So, the single mother needs to say to the child, right, needs to say, I made a

48:01mistake in choosing your father. He was a bad man, and he betrayed us, and I'm asking you to have

48:08judgment as a little kid when I didn't have good judgment as a grown woman. So, people don't mind

48:15if you've made mistakes. They mind if you pretend you haven't made mistakes. And so, the single

48:22mother needs to have credibility, right, to have credibility, the single mother needs to say,

48:28I chose the wrong man to be your father. He was a bad man, and I'm old enough. I was

48:35old enough to

48:36know better. I let my desires get the better of me. I was unwise, and blah, blah, blah. And, you

48:41know,

48:41so just, I made a mistake. I made a mistake, and you should learn from my mistake. Kids don't mind

48:48being lectured to if they're lectured with humility, if they're lectured with humility. So, if there's a

48:57grandfather who says, you shouldn't smoke, even if he's still a smoker, or he used to smoke,

49:03you shouldn't smoke, okay, that's fine. If he says, you know, I smoked and I shouldn't, right?

49:10I shouldn't have, and I'm going to give you that lesson. However, if the grandfather is puffing away

49:15on a cigarette saying, smoking is bad, wrong, and stupid, then it's like so disconnected from

49:23reality and how you're presenting yourself that you're just not going to have any credibility.

49:27So, single mothers can use peaceful parenting. Why does the child not see the mother as having

49:32any authority? Because the mother is hypocritical, and hypocrites have no authority. So, if you want

49:40to have authority, particularly in moral matters, you have to not be an active hypocrite in the

49:45moment. Like, you know, we've all, I'm sorry, I've certainly acted against reason, and I've talked

49:50about my limitations of spending many years pursuing rational philosophy without actually having it

49:55inform my personal relationships very decisively. So, that was a problem. So, I, you know, of course,

50:02with my callers, I'm consistently saying, I've made mistakes too, and you're further ahead than I was

50:08at your age. So, it's important to be, as if I said, well, I've been perfect my whole life, and

50:13you

50:13should just follow my perfect example. Like, that would just be gross and false, right? So, I mean,

50:19this is another problem with kids in school. Why do the boys have ADHD? Because the boys very often

50:24are smarter than their teachers. All right. Is death an appropriate punishment for male genital

50:28mutilation? No. No. However, a counter-circumcision as an adult with an anesthetic like they inflict on

50:34others. Could be an eye for an eye thing. What world problems wouldn't be in some degree bettered

50:39by a standardization of love on a societal level? I don't really understand that question. So,

50:43if you'd like to rephrase it and send it in again, you can always email me support at

50:47freedomain.com. All right. Thank you, everyone, of course, so much for this wonderful life of reason,

50:54thought, consideration, and virtue. I really appreciate it. freedomain.com slash donate.

50:59freedomain.com slash donate. If you would like to help out the show, I would certainly deeply

51:04and humbly appreciate it. I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful day. Lots of love from

51:08up here, my friends. I'll talk soon. Bye.

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