0:00

Good morning everybody hope you doing well.

0:02

Stephen Molyneux from Free Domain. Come join

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Alright, question, what are your

0:18

thoughts on the morality of gambling and making money

0:21

from gamblers? It doesn't

0:23

seem to violate UPB or the

0:25

non-aggression principle, but to me

0:27

it's always seemed scummy and manipulative instead of

0:29

providing any value. These

0:31

businesses make money off

0:34

of dumb people's inability to discern probabilities.

0:37

Well, to say that all

0:40

gamblers are dumb, that gambling is a

0:42

tax on mathematical illiteracy, I think

0:44

is, I mean obviously true to some degree, but

0:46

it's missing the central point. Sorry to be annoying,

0:48

right at the beginning, you've missed the central point.

0:50

Let me make the case and you know, maybe

0:53

I'm right, maybe I'm wrong. So

0:55

UPB is, there are

0:57

five categories, right, two of which are mirrors of

1:00

the other. So think of

1:02

them as good,

1:05

nice, neutral, bad,

1:07

and evil. Alright, good, nice, neutral,

1:10

bad, and evil, right? So the good

1:12

mirrors the evil, the nice mirrors

1:15

the bad, and neutral doesn't mirror

1:17

because, you know, zero

1:19

is not the opposite of any number, right? So good

1:23

is, say, respecting property rights,

1:25

evil is a stealing, killing,

1:28

raping, you know, violations of persons and property,

1:30

so that's good versus evil. Nice

1:33

versus bad, it's nice

1:36

to be on time. It's

1:39

bad to be late as a

1:41

whole, right? It's not evil, like you

1:43

gotta shoot someone for being late, right? So

1:46

it's nice. This is what

1:48

I refer to as aesthetically preferable

1:50

actions. So you

1:53

know, reasonably polite, you know,

1:55

not yelling obscenities in

1:57

front of children, whatever it is, right? I

1:59

mean, you can't. shoot people for doing that but it's

2:01

not automatic

2:04

when you approach people and so

2:07

on. A boss yelling abuse is not

2:09

a violation of the non-aggression principle but it sure

2:12

ain't nice and it's pretty bad all around. So

2:15

aesthetically preferable actions are

2:18

those which can be universalized like it's possible for

2:20

people to be on time, it's possible for people

2:22

all around the world to be on time but

2:26

it's not enforced on others. Nobody's holding you

2:28

at gunpoint making you wait for

2:30

someone who's late. You can choose to leave

2:32

at any time so it doesn't violate the

2:34

initiation of violence but it's preferable to be

2:36

on time and that's because we like

2:39

it when people are on time with us and therefore

2:41

we should try to be on time

2:43

with others. So just as

2:45

a whole, there's good versus evil, nice

2:48

versus bad. Bad is not the same

2:50

as evil. Bad behavior is not evil.

2:54

And then there's neutral, morally

2:56

neutral actions. Should I go to a

2:58

cafe today? There's

3:01

no moral question around that.

3:04

Do I like red as opposed to blue

3:06

in the color spectrum? Well there's no moral

3:09

evaluation of that. So good versus

3:11

evil, better versus worse

3:13

or nice versus bad, polite

3:16

versus rude, whatever you want to call it. Aesthetically

3:18

preferable but not UPB. This

3:21

is a quick reminder of how UPB

3:23

works because the

3:26

majority of morals that we deal with are

3:28

not UPB. The

3:31

big questions are how do I handle

3:34

an amoral or negative

3:37

moral situation in

3:40

a way that is most

3:42

productive, most conducive to the spread of

3:45

virtue? If

3:47

some woman says, I know

3:49

that so and so's girlfriend is having an affair,

3:51

those are the kind of moral things that we're

3:53

more likely to deal with or a very aggressive

3:56

boss or an employee

3:58

who's withholding information. that's really, really needed

4:01

from the organization that pays her, whatever

4:03

it is. So these are the – we,

4:06

like 99% of our moral decisions

4:08

are in nice

4:10

versus bad in the

4:12

realm of aesthetically preferable actions, not

4:16

good versus evil. We

4:19

don't wake up in the morning and say, should

4:21

I rob a convenience store today? Should

4:24

I assault someone? This

4:26

is not where we make most of our actual

4:28

moral decisions. And so if

4:30

I were only to have in a

4:33

system of morality extremes

4:36

of good and evil that 99.99%

4:40

of the population, at least that would listen to my broadcast,

4:43

would not ever

4:45

have to make a decision about in their life, well,

4:48

that would be sort

4:50

of pointless, right? Again, diet books for thin people.

4:52

If you only talk about good and evil, evil

4:54

doers don't care about virtue, and

4:56

good people are tempted by evil. So

4:59

what's the point of a moral system that only talks

5:02

about rape, theft, assault, and murder,

5:04

other than universalizing them in

5:06

the face of obviously institutional violations to

5:08

the contrary, which we can't really achieve, right?

5:11

We can't achieve that, right? We can't

5:13

stop a national debt, right, against whatever

5:15

it is, which would be theft from

5:17

the unborn, right? So I

5:20

want to create a system of morality

5:22

that's actionable, which means I have to

5:24

include almost all

5:26

the moral challenges that almost

5:29

all decent people struggle with,

5:31

right, which is why people

5:33

don't call in and say, I want

5:36

to become a master

5:38

thief. What should I do? Right?

5:41

That's not what people call in about. They

5:43

call in and say, well, I'm being kind

5:45

of exploited, or somebody is treating me disrespectfully,

5:47

or people won't let me tell the essential

5:49

truth about my origin story, or my family

5:52

is still putting me down, or my girlfriend

5:54

is inconstant and volatile,

5:56

because that's where our actual

6:00

moral decisions are. It

6:02

would be like training a

6:04

family doctor only in battlefield

6:07

medicine, right? Well, I

6:09

mean, I suppose someone could stagger into the doctor's

6:11

office once or twice over the course of his

6:14

career with some battlefield style wound.

6:16

He just happened to get stabbed, you know,

6:18

three paces from the doctor's office and just,

6:20

but that's not what 99.9999% of

6:22

his patients

6:24

are not going to be dealing with battlefield injuries. So

6:28

UPB is like the battlefield injuries

6:31

of morality, but aesthetically preferable actions

6:33

tell the truth. You can't

6:35

shoot someone for lying, right? I mean, you can't

6:37

use violence against people who are

6:39

simply lying, but truth

6:41

versus falsehood is very important in

6:44

our lives. So

6:46

aesthetically, it's aesthetically preferable. It's

6:49

good. It's polite. It's

6:51

nice. It's better to tell the truth and

6:54

not being allowed to tell the truth or being punished

6:57

for telling the truth or people who invite you to

6:59

tell the truth and then punish you for telling the

7:01

truth. Well, that's where most

7:03

of our moral decisions lie. So it

7:06

is in the realm of integrity,

7:08

not virtue, right? If we have a

7:10

value called telling the truth and then we have core

7:12

relationships, say with destructive parents

7:15

that in which we are not

7:17

allowed to tell the truth, oh wait, in fact, punished

7:19

for telling the truth, we're gas lit and attacked and

7:21

punished for telling the truth. Well, that's pretty important, right?

7:24

That's pretty important. So

7:26

I just wanted to point that out. Now, gambling,

7:29

you say they don't provide any value.

7:33

The gambler does not provide,

7:36

sorry, the casino. The

7:39

gambler is providing value to the casino. We

7:41

understand that's giving him the money usually,

7:44

but the casino is

7:46

also providing value to

7:48

the gambler, right? So the question

7:50

is, what value does

7:53

the casino provide

7:56

to the gambler? Right?

7:58

What value? Now, Of course, the

8:01

odds of winning and so on, I get

8:03

that. I get that. But the

8:06

gambler is doing

8:09

something very specific. So let's say

8:11

the gambler wants money. Wants

8:14

money for gambling, wants to

8:16

make bets and make money. Okay.

8:19

Well, that's just one of the

8:21

many ways that he could get money. I

8:23

mean, moral in terms of it's

8:26

not theft, right? Assuming that the casino is not cheating

8:28

and the gambler is not cheating, it's not theft. So

8:31

if the gambler wants $10,000,

8:34

he can go to the casino and put

8:37

his money on red 29 or

8:39

play the blackjack table or play

8:41

poker or spin the wheel

8:43

or whatever he's going to be doing. He wants $10,000. So

8:46

the casino is going to give him the $10,000 if he happens

8:49

to win, right? So

8:52

the casino is just one of the places he can get the $10,000. Of

8:55

course, the other place he can get the $10,000 just for,

8:57

you know, there's lots of places, but the most simple is

9:00

he can get a job or he can work

9:02

overtime or he can create a side hustle and

9:04

sell his handcrafted earrings on

9:06

Etsy or whatever, right? So there's ways

9:09

he can get the $10,000. He

9:12

can go to his parents and say, here's what I need

9:14

the money for. He can take out a loan.

9:16

He can take out a second mortgage as

9:18

another kind of loan, I guess. But he can get the

9:20

$10,000 any number of ways. He

9:23

chooses to get

9:25

the $10,000 in the – and it's not even

9:28

the least effort, right? You

9:33

say, well, if he makes $100 an hour, he's got to

9:35

work 100 hours to make $10,000, right? All

9:42

right. That's a lot. And

9:45

so – but if he

9:47

goes to his parents and say, you know, you

9:49

guys have some assets I really need $10,000 if

9:52

you could see your way clear, whatever, blah, blah,

9:54

blah, right? Okay. Well,

9:56

that's actually less effort than gambling, right?

10:00

could come up with a whole bunch of business ideas and

10:03

then sell them to his entrepreneurial friends for

10:05

$10,000. That might be

10:07

if he's very creative or knows something about

10:10

this, then that might be a

10:12

whole lot less effort than

10:14

going to a casino, which you have to put in

10:17

quite a lot of hours to

10:19

walk out with $10,000 because there's

10:21

ups and downs and so on. So

10:24

then the question is, why does he want to

10:26

go to the casino? What

10:29

value is the casino providing

10:31

to the gambler? Now we can't just

10:34

say gambling because that's tautological. What

10:38

value does the gambler find

10:40

in gambling? Well gambling, well that

10:42

doesn't add anything, it's just tautological.

10:46

It's not money because there's lots of ways you can get to 10 grand. So

10:49

what value is the casino providing? So

10:53

to understand addiction and again, this is just

10:55

my personal opinion, this is not science, not

10:57

facts, just my opinion, maybe it's true, maybe

10:59

it's false. But let me

11:01

introduce you to the idea of templates. Templates.

11:06

So in order for something to

11:08

be addictive, there has to be

11:11

a template. And I'm talking

11:13

about not just a mere physical

11:15

addiction, but a psychological addiction. There

11:17

has to be a template.

11:20

In other words, it has to feel both

11:22

familiar and necessary prior

11:27

to performing the activity that

11:29

you end up addicted to. And

11:31

again, I'm not talking about purely physical

11:34

addictions, I'm talking about the psychological addictions.

11:37

And gambling is more of a psychological

11:39

addiction because a physical addiction is when

11:41

the opiate joy juice flows into

11:43

your veins, removes all of your unhappiness and makes you feel

11:45

like a normal human being for the first time in your

11:48

existence. So that's a physical addiction. But

11:50

a psychological addiction would

11:52

be something where the drug

11:54

is not delivered from something external. Right?

11:58

So Alcohol changes your chemistry. Three:

12:00

A Gambling. Does. Not like they

12:02

did. The gambler is not injected with the

12:04

substance of pornography. Addiction is not. The.

12:07

If your computer monitor is not injecting something

12:09

into your veins, ride South. Are

12:11

we talking about a psychological addiction? I'm.

12:14

Cause you still get the Doberman. I get all of that. But.

12:16

Recital Other: for the psychological addictions, there has

12:18

to be a template of some kind. So.

12:22

What is The template? For.

12:24

Gambling. Why does the.

12:27

Gambling. Addict! And

12:29

up, as a gambling addicts, there has to be

12:31

something that's primed. Because. Of course

12:34

there are tons of people. Who. Really

12:36

get into gambling Who don't end up

12:38

becoming addicts? They enjoy gambling. they dig

12:40

it, may even gamble quite a bit.

12:42

But the don't become. Addicts.

12:45

So. The. Templates:

12:48

That. I. Believe.

12:51

Is. The case for the gambling addicts if you look

12:53

at gambling but us was going on. Well.

12:57

And as many different kinds of gambling some

12:59

a pure chance, some are more skill. But.

13:01

Almost always the casino.

13:04

The. A dealer and so on has

13:06

more scale like if you're playing it a blackjack

13:09

table. The blackjack dealer. Has gone

13:11

through all of the mathematical problem probabilities and

13:13

been deeply and thoroughly trained. On

13:15

how to take money from it. And.

13:18

If you consistently when. You.

13:20

Will a lot of times be accused of

13:23

stealing i saw that are cheating, counting cards

13:25

or whatever and you will be kicked out

13:27

of the casino because the casino doesn't once

13:29

you to consistently when they don't mind of

13:31

course occasional winners because that's the bait that

13:33

draws them in. Ghosts. A gambler.

13:35

And so that the. Casino.

13:37

Can make a lot of money from them from the. Gambler.

13:40

So across, occasional winning, so there. but if you

13:43

consistently when. I'm. No expert on. I've spent

13:45

very little time I can see as. But.

13:47

My understanding is that if you. Keep

13:49

winning. Bell. About pay you.

13:52

If they suspect you of gambling, maybe I'll have a bad

13:54

day. But he'll be banned.

13:57

From. The casino if you. Are

13:59

winning. the time or win too much. So

14:03

let's talk about the game of

14:06

medium skill. Blackjack I would consider

14:10

a game of medium skill. It's not

14:12

totally random, but it's really

14:15

just mathematical odds. But the mathematical odds

14:18

in Blackjack are far less complex than

14:20

the mathematical odds in something like poker,

14:22

which I would consider high skill. Low

14:25

skill would be dice rolling.

14:27

Low to no skill would be dice

14:29

rolling or roulette wheels

14:31

and so on where you... There's

14:33

no skill involved in

14:36

winning. Say, oh well no, I work the numbers, I work

14:38

the odds and so on. But

14:40

there's no particular skill in

14:43

where the ball lands in the roulette wheel.

14:46

There's no particular spin the wheel or it's just

14:48

where it lands. There's no particular skill. So

14:51

we've got high skill, medium skill, and low skill. So

14:54

let's talk about the medium skill first. So

14:57

let me give you a template, see if this makes sense.

15:00

So in the template, it goes something like this. If

15:03

you grow up with a parent who is moody,

15:06

then you need to work very hard

15:09

to try and keep that parent in a good

15:11

mood. Now

15:13

some parents respond

15:15

better or worse to your

15:17

attempts to keep them in a good

15:19

mood or to get them

15:22

in a good mood. Let's say you've got an

15:24

abusive father, he comes home, he's had a really bad

15:26

day, and he's stomping and stalling

15:28

around, he's looking for problems and so on. Now

15:31

maybe you just hide so

15:33

that you don't give him an excuse. But then you

15:35

give him the excuse of, you know, why

15:38

are you hiding from me? What's the matter with you? Come and talk

15:40

to me, right? Whatever, right? And you'll get mad at you for not

15:42

being there. Maybe you try to

15:44

engage him in a way that's sort of

15:46

positive. I sort of think of this more

15:48

around depressive story, but people like

15:51

Robert Williams with a depressed mother who becomes

15:53

a sort of performing dopamine

15:56

delivery dance monkey fun head

15:58

boy in order to try and... keep

16:00

his mother from crashing into a

16:03

life destroying depression. So

16:07

do you as a child have you developed

16:09

any skills or do you believe that

16:12

you can do something to alter the

16:16

negative or dangerous mind state of

16:18

your parents. This is a big

16:20

debate my brother and i had when we were

16:22

growing up with an endless debate. My

16:24

brother would say let's clean up the place among doesn't get mad

16:26

and i would say it doesn't matter what we do if you're

16:28

in a bad mood. She'll just doesn't

16:31

matter right. Well that's not

16:33

give her any excuses well she doesn't need excuses like this

16:35

is back and forth right. Show

16:38

if you had a dangerous and

16:40

dangerous doesn't just mean abusive it

16:43

can mean neglectful depressed. It

16:45

can mean any variety of things or

16:47

even if the parent is not abusive to you directly

16:49

but if they're in a bad mood they go to

16:51

drink and you can try and get them to not

16:53

drink. Because when they don't drink they

16:56

can get up and go to work and provide for the family and

16:58

take care of you and all of that right. So

17:01

do you have as a child

17:04

any ability. To

17:07

alter the destructive mood of

17:09

moody parents. It's

17:11

important question now if

17:14

your parents is just going to be moody no

17:16

matter what you do. Then

17:20

you are in a passive position of

17:22

hoping for a good outcome that you

17:24

can't do anything about you in

17:26

the passive position of hoping for a good outcome that

17:28

you can't do anything about. And

17:30

that's the low skill games i

17:33

hope i hope i hope that

17:35

there will be a good outcome but there's nothing

17:37

i'm forced to play the game in a sense because you're forced

17:39

to be with the parents. But if the

17:41

parent doesn't respond to any of your exhortations

17:43

or preferences or protestations or

17:45

jokes or you know encouragement for entertainment

17:47

if your parent doesn't respond to any

17:50

of that then you just gotta cross

17:52

your fingers and hope that your parent. Is

17:54

In a good mood? or find their way

17:57

to a good mood? Or fights off the

17:59

bad mood or something. The night aperture kind of

18:01

passive and trapped. Well. That's you

18:03

staring at a wheel that spinning that you can't

18:05

do anything about. You're forced to play. right?

18:07

So gamblers feel this compulsion to play. But.

18:10

There's nothing you can do. You just trapped in

18:12

a situation where you have to cross your fingers

18:15

and desperately hope for good outcomes off? Why would

18:17

you have that template? Why would you be in

18:19

a situation where being trapped in a sense by

18:21

iridescent being trapped. In a situation

18:24

where you can only pass athletes.

18:26

Hope and pray like hell for a good outcome. Why

18:28

would that be a template? My has to come from

18:30

somewhere and maybe it comes from a priest or or

18:33

a teacher or something like that. But. Most

18:35

likely. Almost certainly it come from. Being.

18:37

Around a moody, dangerous parents. And.

18:40

There's nothing you can do. To.

18:43

Change. That parents mood for the better. You just have

18:45

to hope. That. Somehow that's a

18:47

good outcome that the parents shakes it

18:50

off or or time passes or. You

18:52

know they drink so much as they pass out

18:54

or something, so you just your gear passes and

18:57

you're desperate for a positive outcomes. But there's nothing

18:59

you can do about it. but you're trapped in

19:01

the situation. right? So that's

19:03

low skill. Gambling.

19:05

Addictions. Ride. That spedding

19:07

other ponies rights of are betting on forces

19:10

or or greyhounds or what? Our cock fighting

19:12

in the so the immoral sense. I

19:15

mean. You. Desperately want the horse to

19:17

win but any and you're right. Yoyo month of it.

19:19

But there's nothing you can do about. It. It.

19:22

To trapped in the game. right? So that's stuck in

19:24

a house with a bad parents who does not respond

19:26

in any way, shape or form, To. Your

19:28

ex or tastes or response negatively to everything

19:30

you try to do, In which case, doing

19:33

nothing is the best strategies. so you're paralyzed.

19:35

it trapped. And. You're desperately

19:37

hoping hoping for a good outcome. But.

19:40

You can't do anything to alter the outcome.

19:43

So that's. Having an addiction

19:45

to. Los. No

19:47

skill. Gambling. Once makes sense. Now.

19:50

I can do the rest of them of course much

19:52

more quickly the more Im impact you can have. On.

19:56

The. Outcome. Of. A moody

19:58

parents negative mood. includes, the

20:01

more skill you're going to

20:03

be drawn to, and there's a bit of

20:05

an intelligence thing here for sure, the more

20:07

skill you're going to be drawn

20:10

to in gambling. Because

20:12

you've developed all of these skills. I really, really,

20:14

I'm trapped in the game, which is the addiction.

20:16

I desperately want a positive outcome, and there's something

20:19

I can do about it. So you're

20:21

going to be drawn to higher and higher skilled

20:24

gambling games, the

20:27

more that you

20:29

were able to affect the outcome of a

20:32

negative parent's dangerous mood when you were little. You're

20:34

still trapped in the game, that's the addiction, but

20:36

there's something you can do to affect the outcome. And

20:39

so managing a situation, applying

20:42

your skill in order to produce a positive

20:44

outcome, that's got to come from childhood. It's

20:46

a template. It's a template. I desperately

20:49

need a positive outcome. I'm helpless. Well,

20:51

that's a zero-skill game. I

20:54

mean, like the game of war, right? Which is the

20:56

high, it's not even really a game. It's no strategy,

20:58

right? So that's one,

21:00

right? And then all the way up to the most

21:02

sophisticated games, poker

21:05

or whatever it is, I don't know what the most

21:07

complex gambling games are, but I assume it's something like

21:09

that, where the number of

21:11

variables and the amount of skill has a significant

21:13

impact on the outcome. So

21:16

you are addicted, which means you're trapped in

21:18

the game, and you're desperately

21:21

flexing your wits in order

21:23

to produce a positive outcome. Well, that's a

21:26

dangerous parent who can be managed. There's some

21:28

skill that you can bring to bear. Now,

21:30

you can't solve the problem. You

21:32

can't fix the parent, but you can at

21:35

least manage or ameliorate some aspects of

21:37

the negative or dangerous moods. So

21:40

for me, I did not

21:42

believe that there was anything I

21:44

could do to change my

21:47

mother's bad moods. And

21:50

I actually, this is

21:52

sort of a point of pride for me when

21:55

I was a kid, it was a point of pride and a

21:57

sort of deep and significant point of pride for me as a

21:59

kid. Which was this, even

22:02

if I could, I wouldn't.

22:05

Even if I could, I wouldn't. I'm not going to

22:08

pretend that my mother's moods are

22:10

mine to manage because that would be

22:13

to take responsibility for her moods and

22:15

that would be to take responsibility away

22:17

from her for her moods. And

22:19

it was really just a point of pride. And

22:22

I knew it was going to be tough but

22:25

frankly, I would be damned

22:30

if I would try and fix my mother's moods. I'm

22:32

not taking ownership for that crap.

22:35

I'm not making myself responsible for

22:37

that terrible behavior. It's her job.

22:40

It's her responsibility. And this came from basically,

22:42

I mean basically kind of an FU to

22:44

the moodiness. I find moody

22:46

people quite exhausting. And also,

22:50

it was dangerous to me to take on

22:52

my mother's moods and also she helped me

22:54

responsible for my life. When

22:56

I was a kid, if I did something wrong, she would

22:59

help me responsible. So I'm like, okay, well if you have

23:01

the direct principle

23:04

of self-ownership and personal responsibility for

23:06

little kids who are five,

23:09

six, seven years old, then I'll

23:11

be damned, damned if I withhold from

23:13

you responsibility for what you're doing when

23:16

you're 35. Like

23:18

no way. I'm not taking that on.

23:21

And so when I went

23:23

to a – I did a bit

23:25

of gambling, I mean dimes

23:27

and quarters at parties when

23:30

I was a teenager, but I

23:32

was never drawn to the high-skilled games. I

23:35

was drawn to the low-skilled games. I

23:37

hope for a good outcome, there's nothing I

23:39

can do to affect it. And look, please

23:41

understand, I'm not saying this is proof. I'm

23:44

just saying this is where this stuff has come from. The

23:47

people I knew as

23:49

kids who believed that they

23:51

could do something about their parents' negative mood, if

23:54

they got into gambling,

23:56

they tended to be drawn

23:58

towards the higher-skilled Games. And

24:01

I felt that template click in when I was a

24:03

low skilled. Games. That. Wanting a

24:05

good outcome and not lifting a finger to

24:07

changing to chained to be able to factor

24:09

that felt terribly familiar. And I

24:11

have two of his. I some big demon

24:14

I have to battle. but I don't I

24:16

don't gamble because. I. Did very

24:18

much see how that can become a thing. That.

24:20

You could call repetition compulsion. I would call at the

24:23

same of the bottom analogy from my book Real time

24:25

relationships we demand of times as much. But.

24:27

As a template. Something.

24:30

Clicked into place that feels. Terribly

24:33

familiar. Managing.

24:35

Your. Emotional responses

24:37

to an outcome you cannot affect

24:40

has to be present in your

24:42

heart, mind, and soul. Before.

24:45

It clicked into. Place.

24:47

As something both familiar and desirable.

24:50

When. You gamble. A. One a

24:52

positive outcome. I. Have no

24:54

small medium or large capacity to affect

24:56

the outcome. Which means I'm drawn to

24:59

allow small medium or large scale the

25:01

high school games. But.

25:03

To that is only a to last downs

25:05

we have one my lay out the got

25:07

one more layer of this shukla to pound

25:10

the kick. Chocolate. Addict

25:12

of my mother assaulted me. See gotta

25:14

say it's been awhile. Inject some. Is

25:17

the other level. When.

25:19

This, You can't really control

25:21

the outcome of someone's moodiness.

25:24

All. You can do is manage

25:27

your own responses. To

25:29

that moodiness. And you see, of

25:31

course we know this because. People.

25:33

Who grub of moody parents will often end up with

25:35

moody boyfriends or girlfriends or husbands or wives or whatever.

25:38

Because. They're. You. Can't

25:40

manage someone's moodiness? You can give

25:42

yourself the illusion. That you

25:44

can manage to purchase have fundamentally manager. It's as if you

25:46

did manage that you could solve. It. right?

25:49

A successful diet ends right. You lose the

25:51

weight you start dialing at least as much.

25:54

And. If you're constantly dieting, you know,

25:56

getting a losing. Ten.

25:58

twenty five pounds whenever If you're

26:00

constantly dieting, constantly getting and losing the weight,

26:02

your diet is not successful. And

26:06

you can't do anything to manage the moods

26:08

of your parents because

26:11

if you don't try to manage them at all, well, then

26:13

you're accepting that you can't do anything to manage the moods of

26:15

your parents. The more you try to manage the moods of your

26:17

parents, the more they will blame

26:20

you for being in bad moods and expect you

26:22

to fix their moodiness, which

26:24

means they never gain any self-control, which

26:27

means you are then forever and ever going

26:29

to have to manage their

26:31

moodiness. It's like a kid, like

26:34

when you're very little and you have chocolates

26:36

around or whatever is your particular crack candy

26:38

of choice. Before you

26:40

develop self-restraint, before you understand calories and eating

26:42

well and all of that, before any of

26:45

that, you will just eat as much candy

26:47

as you can get your hands on. So

26:49

it's up to the parents to manage the food

26:51

intake of young children because they cannot manage their

26:53

own food intake. They simply go for what tastes

26:56

best. So

26:59

you don't have the chocolate in the house. You

27:01

put it in a place that's inaccessible and

27:03

you manage and figure out

27:05

what your children are eating and have them

27:07

or guide them, steer them pretty

27:10

directly towards better food choices. And of course,

27:12

you model self-restraint in your food

27:14

choices so that your children

27:16

grow up being able to manage their

27:18

own food. I

27:21

know this sort of direct experience. So

27:25

the children cannot manage their own food choices.

27:27

So it's up to the parents to manage

27:29

those food choices for them and

27:32

grow them to the point where the children will manage

27:34

their own food choices so that the parents, when

27:36

the parents are 60 and the children

27:39

are 30, the parents

27:41

aren't still telling the children what they should or

27:43

shouldn't eat and the children aren't overweight, they've internalized

27:46

reasonably healthy eating habits, if that makes

27:48

sense. But parents

27:51

are supposed to manage their own emotions as

27:54

adults are supposed to manage their own emotions if

27:57

they offload that job. bad

28:00

mood because my kids did

28:02

something bad or negative or I'm

28:04

in a bad mood, it must

28:06

be because of the kids. And it's

28:08

up to my kids to make my

28:10

mood better, right? Big hugs. And

28:12

now I understand bad moods can be ameliorated

28:15

by other people giving you, you know,

28:17

comfort or whatever. Your dog dies and

28:19

puts you in a bad mood or a sad mood and then

28:21

other people can give you comfort and that helps. So I'm not

28:23

saying that we don't have anything to do with each other's emotions

28:25

or anything like that. But in

28:27

particular, negative emotions are not to be managed

28:29

by your children, right? That's a

28:31

horrible, horrible job. That's like

28:33

you going to daycare and they

28:36

drive it to work for you, right? That's just crazy, especially

28:39

when they're like five, right? So your

28:42

kids are not supposed to be managing your negative

28:44

emotions and they're not supposed to be managing your

28:46

emotions at all. And

28:48

kids are drawn to manage negative emotions because they want to

28:51

stay alive and they don't want to get abandoned and they

28:53

don't want their children to be paralyzed

28:55

or to fall apart, I've

28:57

got two particular examples of this, children

29:00

managing their parents' emotions. One

29:03

is, of course, Kay

29:06

with her mother, Lady Barbara, in Just Poor and

29:08

the other is Tom with

29:12

his mother in my

29:14

novel, Almost, that they

29:17

take on the burden of their

29:19

mother's emotions and try to prop them up and

29:21

keep them going as a form of survival or

29:23

self-protection. Or to put it another way, of course,

29:25

the children who weren't successful at ameliorating the negative

29:28

emotions of their parents had less

29:30

of a chance of survival so those genes would have

29:32

gotten weeded out, those preferences would have gotten weeded out

29:35

over the course of society. So

29:37

you can't manage your parents' emotions and

29:39

it never fixes, never works in the long run.

29:42

You just do it as a sort of survival mechanism in the short run. And

29:45

of course, if your parents make you responsible for

29:49

their emotions, then you reject

29:52

that responsibility at your peril. So,

29:54

you know, my mother would blame me for being in a

29:56

bad mood and I would kind of nod and whatever, right?

29:58

But I mean, I'm not a bad mood. never really believed it

30:01

and I always held her in

30:03

great contempt for such a pathetic cowardly

30:05

move. Yes, yes. Your

30:07

life is a total mess but

30:10

it's me at the age of age who's

30:12

the problem. Yeah, yeah. The kid

30:14

is the problem, not any of the choices you're making

30:17

as a sovereign adult. Yeah. I

30:19

mean, it's just, it's so contemptible. It's just

30:21

pathetic, right? And you know,

30:23

of course you're not responsible for your parents' moods or choices

30:26

or whatever. My daughter's not responsible for my moods or choices,

30:28

right? So

30:31

you're not managing your parents because you

30:33

can't do that. You can

30:35

pretend and you can play this game but it

30:37

never ends, right? And once you

30:39

accept that it never ends, you will stop

30:42

doing it, right? If

30:44

you pretend that you can manage your

30:46

parents' emotions, once you accept that you can't do

30:49

that, then it will

30:51

end. At least you pretend that

30:53

you can support your parents' emotions. If

30:56

you have a sort of emotional terrorist or an emotional

30:58

bully as a parent, then you know,

31:00

you'll appease them when you're younger and then when you

31:02

get older, you probably get kind

31:05

of tired of that and just tell them the truth and

31:07

stop managing their emotions and then you

31:09

realize, of course, that they've not learned anything

31:11

about managing their own emotions. In fact, it's

31:13

gotten worse because they've offloaded the, forcefully offloaded

31:15

the job onto you and so that's a

31:17

huge crisis for the quote, relationship,

31:19

right? Managing other people is not a relationship.

31:23

It's appeasement and manipulation and survival

31:25

because it's a predator-prey relationship. So

31:30

what you're doing, of course, is

31:33

you are managing your

31:35

emotions of anxiety at

31:37

having pathetically immature parents. If

31:40

these are the parents, right? Not all parents, all right? You're

31:44

managing your feelings of anxiety and fear at

31:47

having extremely immature parents. Moody,

31:50

volatile, child-blaming, petty,

31:52

self-righteous, whatever's going on, right? And

31:56

the day that you wake up and look at your

31:58

parent and say, Well, they're just

32:00

a toddler with a driver's

32:02

license. That's a

32:04

pretty alarming moment, right? And

32:07

your life changes at that point when you

32:09

can't look at your parents as authority figures but as dangerous,

32:12

volatile, immature people that you have to

32:14

constantly manage because as a five or

32:17

ten-year-old, you're far more mature than they are. I mean,

32:19

that's a pretty chilling moment if that's the kind of

32:21

parents you have and a lot of parents like that.

32:24

So most people pretend that

32:26

they can manage their parents' moods because their parents

32:29

demand that and also because it gives them

32:31

the illusion of control. It gives

32:33

them the illusion of control that actually enslaves them.

32:36

And a gambling addiction is

32:38

giving you the illusion of control, you're going to

32:40

get more money but it actually enslaves you. So

32:43

it comes from trying to get

32:46

a benefit through manipulation, trying to get

32:48

a benefit through amoral skill.

32:50

Well, that's trying to get your parents in

32:53

a better mood based upon your

32:56

manipulations. And for kids to manipulate their parents

32:58

into a better mood or avoid a negative

33:00

mood, I don't mean that manipulation in a

33:03

bad way. That's

33:05

manipulation like climbing a tree

33:07

and getting some fruit is manipulating the

33:09

fruits, manipulating it with your fingers. It's

33:13

not a bad thing. It's a survival thing. And

33:16

no survival thing is a bad thing. It's tragic sometimes what

33:18

you need to do to survive but survival is

33:20

in general a good thing, evolutionarily

33:22

speaking. You can't say it's a bad thing, it's

33:24

why we're all here. I mean, you can but it's just kind of ridiculous.

33:28

Wishing that things were otherwise in evolution

33:30

is kind of wishing for non-existence in a way. So,

33:34

gambling addicts, what are they there

33:36

for? They're

33:39

there to continue the relationship

33:41

with moody and abusive parents so

33:44

that they can continue

33:46

to normalize that relationship and not question

33:48

it. Let me say this again. Why

33:52

are gambling addicts at the casino?

33:54

Well, it's to normalize various

33:56

degrees of perceived control over

33:59

the... outcomes desperately wanted, good

34:01

mood of her parents, while having

34:04

no real control. And that no

34:06

real control shows up in the addiction. So,

34:10

in a sense, in a very

34:12

real sense, the adult children are

34:14

ordered to go to the casino by

34:16

the parents so that the

34:19

moodiness of the parents never becomes denormalized because

34:21

now the children, the adult children, are stuck

34:24

in a situation where they're desperate for a

34:26

good outcome, that they can have little effect

34:29

on the outcome. And

34:31

to have a good effect on the

34:33

outcome is to end the relationship, right? So, in other

34:35

words, if you consistently win, you'll be banned from the

34:37

casino, as they'll assume you're cheating. Again, I don't know

34:39

for sure. It's a rumor. I mean, whether that's a

34:41

fact or not. But I assume that a casino would

34:44

not be overly keen on somebody who keeps winning, you

34:46

know, $100,000 every night. They

34:48

probably wouldn't have that person stick around for too long.

34:51

So, the relationship means that

34:53

you can't win. If you win, you end the

34:55

relationship. And so, if

34:58

you win independence and you stop

35:00

taking responsibility for your immature

35:02

parents' emotions, the relationship would

35:05

end in its current form, right? So, you

35:07

understand that the gambling relationship, the casino or

35:10

the – and by casino, I mean, you

35:12

know, whatever, whoever's hosting the gambling – that's

35:15

a direct mirror of the

35:18

immature, manageable emotion parental

35:20

relationship. So, what is

35:22

the gambler really after? He's after continuing the

35:24

illusion of having a relationship with

35:27

people who exploit him and demand

35:29

that he manage their emotions or

35:31

inflict their moods upon him, no matter

35:33

what he does. So, it's

35:35

the normalization of the exploitive relationship

35:37

with the parents that drive someone

35:40

to the gambling, which is another way of saying that

35:43

the gambling addict is so used to

35:46

managing uncertain outcomes and trying to

35:48

get a benefit that

35:52

there's a sick familiarity. That's the template. There's

35:54

a sick familiarity with regards to

35:56

the gambling.

36:01

your anxiety at your own helplessness, which was

36:03

inflicted on you by your parents, and then

36:05

gets transferred to the dealer

36:08

at the blackjack table, or the roulette

36:11

guy, or the poker dealer, or

36:13

whatever, right? So I

36:15

hope that helps, and I would certainly be interested

36:18

in your feedback. We could do this for a

36:20

variety of addictions, but the psychological ones are generally

36:23

better, right? So I hope

36:25

that helps, and love you guys so much for

36:28

giving me the opportunity to do this very important

36:30

and very good work, and thank

36:32

you again so much, freedomain.com/donate if you'd like to

36:34

help out the show, I'd really appreciate that. I'll

36:36

talk to you soon, bye.