M a lot of fundamental bustles of wheel, national self interesting and individual rights.
This is the uron Brook Show. All right, everybody, welcome to
run book show on this Uh what is it. It's Sunday, Sunday nights.
It's pretty the end of the weekend. Everybody's had a fantastic weekend.
And yeah, all right, let's see. Let me just let me just
play around with a sound here just for a second. I want to get
this up a little bit one two, all right, Yeah, I think
that's better. Um, all right, we're gonna do that. I should
put myself in video there. I am all right, hi everybody, And
today we are going to be talking about selfishness. So going to take a
little bit of a break from talking about new stuff. We'll do that in
the morning, talk about my new show, but you know, the day
to day stuff. We will be talking about selfishness today, and in particular,
we'll be watching a video of Patrick Ben David, who who is a
big shot on YouTube and Value entertain Value attainment and who has four million subscribers,
and he did a little segment on selfishness versus selflessness, selfishness versus Selflessness,
which I think was very revealing and and really really interesting. So m
I thought we would we would go over that today. And it's a good
opportunity to just just talk about being selfish, what it means and the remaind
everybody. Also, we've always got newbies here since a good opportunities to kind
of let everybody, let everybody know that what selfishness actually means some of the
some of the new people. All right, if you guys can tell me,
let me know if the sound is okay, as I'm still tinkering with
stuff. It was okay, but the podcast sound was too soft, I
was told in the previous podcast. So I'm trying to calibrate it so we
get the right amount of sound on on the YouTube, but also the right
amount of sound for the podcast so that the podcast doesn't come across at two
low of a volume. So let me know what the volume is good.
The volume for you guys who are listening on YouTube is good. And when
when I play Patrick Bedevida, let him know if if that is good,
and uh we'll go from there, and uh we'll go from there anyway.
Patrick Indvidu is big, He's interviewed everybody. He did come to Okon one
year basically to interview me. So he contacted me in advance that he wanted
to interview me, said he would like to have to Okon to do it.
I mean it was great. He was there and we did it on
the main stage, and I thought it was a good interview. I've posted
the link to that interview in the chat um. I will post it again.
So I'll post it now so you anybody who wants to reference it later,
bookmark it and watch. If you haven't watched the interview, watch it
because I thought it was a really I thought it was really good interview of
mine right that I did, so hopefully, hopefully you'll you'll enjoy that,
all right. If anybody's listening on the UM, well, I know lots
of people are listening on the podcast audio only. If you want to let
me know, just dropping an email or dropping a note somewhere, just let
me know what the volume is like. Is the is the volume okay?
Is the too soft? I know it's too soft on the Greg Selmi video.
I'm going to correct that on the Gregy podcasting UM, I'll correct that,
but let's let me know if it's too soft here as well. And
if there's a bigger problem that I can I can solve. And in the
previous setup I had at all worked out. I don't think I haven't worked
out yet on this setup, which I'm gonna kill anyway, because I've got
this massive soundboard here and I need I need to buy a small soundboard and
get rid of this. This is like a twelve channel soundboard and I'm just
using too. Um. All right, let's see. Have I seen a
yet? I have not, but I plan to. It's on my list
to see. Uh. And I know I still owe two movie reviews,
which I do intend to do really really soon, and then get those Puss
in Boots and Whiplash, Whiplash and the chats. About to ask for another
movie review, I can't remember it's listed here. If it is, so
it shouldn't be a problem. Oh the last the last of the season one,
episode three. Okay, I've I've got that. I've I've watched that.
I just I just need to watch it again so I can do the
review. All right, let's jump in with Patrick and David. We are
talking about selfishness. I don't want you to see that. That wasn't what
I want you to see. I want you to see this bag um.
So, uh, this is uh, this is a show. And at
first, before we even start, let me just say this is great.
This is great. I mean, we've got a major play in the podcasting
world, four million subscribers. Who does a video at ten minute video on
selfish versus selfless? Um? And that's that's that's already good. I mean,
who who has these kind of conversations, who uses the word selfish even
semi positively? And and and here you'll see he uses it wrong. We'll
talk about that. But at least there's an element of positivism in what you
know, in its kind of UM. So we're gonna listen to this,
we're gonna critique it. I think it's a great opportunity to really think about
what selfish is and to really kind of peel off what the misconceptions and show
you how it plays out, how the misconceptions play out in um in somebody's
thinking. Now, here's Patrick Gundavite, he's already interviewed me. He has
red iron Rand, so he's we've talked about selfishness. He's red iron Rand.
But it doesn't have a reality to him. It hasn't. He hasn't
absorbed whatever whatever Ironran said or whatever I said, he still has or at
least or the alternative. Of course he doesn't agree with it, but my
sense is he just hasn't absorbed it. He hasn't absorbed this alternative view of
what selfishness is can be. Oh, no, properly is not can be.
Properly is hasn't really integrated this action. Jackson likes this topic because he
chose it. He sent me the video Katherine's here. Let me just remind
if it'd been Katherine's here somewhere. She's been silent for a little bit.
Katherine's here, and I have no super check questions, so I don't know.
This might be, This might be like you guys, you know,
upset because Catherine hasn't been here for a long time and you're snubbing her a
little bit right now. But hey, Captaine's here and and um right,
and it's it's super Chat is available, so please use it. It's a
way to find the show. But importantly, you guys, this is a
way in which you guys determine the content and the show because you ask questions
and then I get I get to talk about the things you want me to
talk about. Because you ask the questions, it's your content. So please
think about questions, thinking about things you want me to talk about. Use
the super chat in order to get me to talk about them. All right,
Let's press play and let me know what the sound is like, if
it's too loud or too soft or whatever. So before I show the chart,
he, let me tell you a story about Mario. I get them
sounds too loud to me. So what am I going to do here?
Maybe it's my headphones. Maybe it's not you, it's my head right,
you tell me if this If it was, it was loud. Okay,
it was loud. Let me let me see what I can do. All
right, let's try this, um push it back. So before I showed
a chart here, let me tell you a story about Mario. I get
Mario has been with me now for eighteen years. Mario just had a wedding.
You got married this past weekend. I'm my house. Beautiful wedding.
We had a great time. But I want to tell you about a conversation
I hadn't with them. Five years ago. We're sitting down in the office
in Dallas. I said Mario. Why don't you own a car? Cars
don't move me? How come you don't own a watch? I don't need
to have a nice watch. How can you never have money in savings?
I don't care if I money. If I have it, I give it
to other people. And I'm going through, like, notice all the examples.
Notice all the examples he's giving, right, all the examples, A
watch, A A I can't increases somewhere else, watch a car. All
the examples about material things. And this is really really important. So everything's
about all those examples about this Mario guy in terms of material things. I'm
going to take it back a little bit. See you can so you can
listen to this again. Um, but this we'll come back to this because
this is I think, I think, really really important. Why don't you
own a car? Cars don't move me? How come you don't want a
watch? I don't need to have a nice watch. How can you never
have money in savings? I don't care if I money. If I have
it, I give it to other people. And I'm going through, like,
what selfish goals do you have in place? Nothing I said, you
realize, but notice all the selfish goals, all the things that he defined
as selfish, every single one of them is a goal. That um,
that is a material goal. There's no spiritual goal. There's no even career
goal is not mansions. So selfish is narrowly construed as at least right now,
as material as as as as stuff. Stuff. This guy doesn't like
stuff. But it is interesting listen to what he says about this. It
is interesting kind of this is the positive element that Patrick brings to this discussion.
By you being that way, you're not a positive to the world,
he says. That's the other thing to note, and I'm sorry I'm stopping
him maybe two seconds, but well, we'll get to a flow here in
a minute. The other thing is from the beginning, the standard of value
is the world. So what he's criticizing this guy is, Hey, you're
not a knit positive to the world. What about being in positive to you?
Because he'll talk positively about selfishness in a sense, but always is in
the context of what selfishness makes possible for you to do for the world.
That's the context. The context is not used. So there's no there's no
real selfishness, there's no deep selfishness in a sense of killing about you,
your life, your values, your happiness, your world. It's out there.
What can you do to make out there better? And it turns out
the thinking about yourself, making your life a little bit better is good for
the world out there, So do it. But the standard is the world,
and and and so if you if you take the standard as the world,
then you've undermined the whole concept of selfishness. To begin with, the
whole selfishness. You've predetermined it to be immolal and bad and unacceptable. Because
your standard, whether you know implicitly and in this case explicitly is others.
Is the world is external to you. That's the standard. And yeah,
you should think about yourself more in order to make them better off. But
you see, this is how we conditioned all of them. All conditioning in
the culture, all of them, all conditioning in the world out there is
oriented around conditioning you to think of others, to place others first. And
even in thinking about yourself and being quote selfish, it's because that motivates you,
that gets you excited, that's gets you going for the world out there,
for somebody else. All right, we're gonna we're going to rewind it
a little bit. Again, if I have it, I give it to
other people, and I'm going through, like, what selfish goals do you
have in place? Nothing? I said, you realize by you being that
way, you're not positive to the world. This is what you mean.
I said, if you're slightly more driven, other people win. I win,
you win, your family wins, your peers win, your legacy wins,
your future kids win, everybody wins. So if you're slightly more selfishly
driven, that is, if you're more driven towards values, everybody wins.
Now there's that truth to that. But notice that your family wins, I
win, they win, they win. Over there, they win. But
the whole point is I win, and it's still too loud. Huh.
All right, all right, so slightly so the standard, the standard note
the standard driven. Other people win, I win, you win, your
family wins, your peers win, your legacy wins, your future kids win.
Everybody wins. If you have something you're going after, the world is
a better place if you're in the hunt or some of your selfish goals.
So he sits there and he starts thinking about it, which is absolutely true,
absolutely true. Everybody's better off if people are self interested if people are
selfish and people sue values of people pursue selfish goals, you know, in
in in a selfish way. We'll talk about with selfish goals and selfish way.
He means everybody's better off, including you. This guy's ubering around all
over the place. He's one of the same thing pretty much every day.
Same shoe, the same shirt, same pants. Maybe changes are up here
and there, but it's pretty much the same routine things. There's nothing exciting
going on that he's looking forward to except for his job. We have this
conversation, Mario starts making changes. He makes a video about alcohol. I
think the last time Mario drank alcohol was three and a half years ago.
The video inspires a bunch of different people and then he says, Pat,
I want to buy this. He buys a nice red Challenger car, comes
in. It's in the back of the building. Guys seems his eyes light
up. So look at what it feels like DNA why, which is great.
I mean, what he's showing is what happens to people once they engage
in their values, once they develop loves and passions and favors and things they
desire. Now again the focus here is almost all on material things. But
even in the material world, we have to desire, we have to want,
we have to value, we have to appreciate, we have to strive.
It makes our life better. Material things make out life better. We
should want material things because they make out life better. What's sad is that
it's totally limited to that, and that limits you completely in terms of your
understanding of selfishness. Will get to that, right, But yeah, I
mean, this guy suddenly discovers he likes stuff, he wants stuff, he
values stuff, and surprise, surprise, his life becomes more meaningful, his
life becomes more fun, his life becomes more exciting. Watched and a nice
suit and nice shoes, and you start saving money. Fast forward to today.
He's been living on the water in Florida for a few years. Now,
drives a nice car, has more savings than he's ever had in his
life. And I'm talking a few hundred thousand dollars of savings. Just three
years ago he had one thousand dollars in a bank. He's got three hundred
thousand dollars and savings today, doing good for himself, just got married,
about to be a father. Parents was here, family, was here.
They're looking at him so proud of him. What happened to this guy?
Just in five years, we don't recognize this guy anymore. What happened to
this guy? He finally chose to be a little bit more selfish. So
watch this, and what I would say is, yeah, there's a sense
in which he chose to be more selfish. But what's really happened here is
he chose to be a valuer. And that's ultimately what it means to be
selfish. What it means to be selfish in the most important sense is to
become a valuer, to choose your values, to pursue your values, to
gain your values, to identify your values, to go after your values,
to live for your values, for your own values. And indeed, you
know, we took a guy he didn't care about anything. It wasn't that
he was he was self less. He was self less in a sense that
he didn't care about self He didn't care about what he liked. He didn't
he didn't he didn't like anything, he didn't focus him like anything. He
didn't think about liking anything, he didn't value liking anything. And suddenly he
oriented himself towards valuing towards liking, towards caring. Patrick caused us being selfish.
That's good. It's a good you know, it's a good presentation of
selfishness up to this point, up to this limited point. And the guy
changed his life and it made his life, his family's life. Is people
around him, the people who works with everybody's better off. It indeed is
win win. This is good. This is the positive influence that maybe I'm
van has had Patrick Bendavide in terms of you know, he's willing to at
least say that something can be selfish is good. I create this chart yesterday.
I want you to think about it and kind of grade yourself as well.
Then I'm going to give you a different ways save We have a chart.
In this chart that you're looking at. On the top left, this
is a person that's one hundred percent selfish and there's zero selfless. The center
where the two collide is fifty fifty, meaning they're fifty percent selfish fifty percent
selfless. And then the person on the top right is a person that's a
hundred percent selfless, meaning they don't care anything about themselves. Everything's about other
people. And in the bottom right of somebody that has zero selfish genes,
meaning all I care about is as much as I do for you. I
don't need anything from anybody. So then we continue this conversation and we said,
so which one is more realistic and which one doesn't exist? So we
created a chart and gave it a name with eleven different levels on where people
would be based on the breakdown. And here's what we found out on the
top and the bottom. If a person is one hundred percent selfless and zero
percent selfish on the bottom, that's non existent. Yeah, so he's saying
selfless people don't exist. You can't be selfless, and this is actually pretty
good. It's a myth. You know why. It's impossible for a person
not to be selfish. If you're not selfish, you don't eat, you
don't drink, you don't take care of yourself, you don't wash, you
don't do anything. You don't exist. So that's a myth. A person
cannot be a hundred percent selfless. You have to be selfish in order to
live or else you're dead. However, at the top, so that's good,
right, So at least he is rejecting the idea that anybody can be
selfless. He recognizes that basic survival, basic existence, basic existence in any
kind of world requires you to think about yourself. It requires you to take
care of yourself. It requires you to do some basic things that allow you
to live. So truly selfless people would die. So pretty so so far,
so good. Let's see where he goes with one hundred percent self interest.
So when you look at the person that's one hundred percent selfish and zero
percent selfless, those people can actually exist. Some of them are criminals,
sociopaths, they're a danger to society because they're willing to sacrifice friends, family,
relative business, career, it doesn't matter. There are one hundred percent
all about themselves. However, now this is the amazing thing, right,
How does he not get this? How does he not get that criminals and
psychopaths and all these others are not selfish. Isn't it obvious that these people
are undermining them selves. Isn't it obvious that these people are self destructive?
You know, isn't a criminal going to jail? Is going to jail?
A selfish thing is alienating your friends, your family, everybody around you,
and being like a total totally isolated and not having anybody who want to do
business with you? Is that? Is that self interested? Is that in
your self interest? Is that selfish? Are you? If selfish means and
here is an important point, you have to define it right. But he's
defined selfless is not caring about yourself, only caring about other people. Then
let's say selfish means caring only about yourself and not caring about other people,
only caring about yourself. But if you only care about yourself, doesn't that
mean that you don't want to go to jail? Doesn't only caring about yourself
mean that you want to have friends? Doesn't only caring about yourself mean that
you want to succeed in business? And you don't want everybody in business to
be alienated from you or to shun you. This only caring about If you
only care about yourself, don't you want to still have a romantic relationship with
somebody just because sex is great and love is great and you feel great when
you do it. So they can't escape, and sadly, Patrick can't escape
this conventional notion that selfishness just means self gratification, short term self gratification.
Why can't why can't they integrate into this conception, the idea of but there's
a future, and in order to achieve my goals in the future, if
a piss everybody off today, I'm not going to achieve my goals in the
future. So why would I incorporate my future goals into my self interest today?
And isn't that true self interest? Isn't being lying, cheating, stealing?
I mean, is equivalent of being selfish? You know, being a
criminal or whatever. Isn't that self destructive? Not selfish? I mean,
don't you think that there's a there's a If you're going to do graphs,
would you have to do it in three dimensions? They're selfish, they're self
less. Well, but an element of being self less is being self destructive.
Wouldn't you say that being a criminal is actually self less because it actually
huts you, it actually destroys you, it actually does things, it makes
you woose off. So it's it's it's curious how difficult this concept is.
It's curious how how really hard it is for people to embrace the idea that
the future is part of you and that in order to in order to succeed
in life, you have to take the future into account. And I know.
To succeed in life, you can't be a joke to everybody you know.
To succeed in life, you can't life steal and cheat not to succeed
in life. You can't be a psychopath and a in a in a criminal
that's not successful in life, that doesn't lead to success. So it's not
selfish. And I think I think that the fundamental one of the reasons that
many reasons they can't integrate this, but one of the reasons they don't integrate
it is that they don't actually in order to integrate it. I think what
you have to identify is reason. Is man's basic means of survival. Is
that in order to be selfish, in order to be successful in life,
you have to reason, You have to think. And while when you talk
to people in an aleoscope, if I ask Patrick with defeat, if you
want to be good, if you want to if you want to make a
lot of money over time over time, is lying, cheating, stealing a
good strategy, he would say, no, of course not. Is alienating
everybody around you, is turning out that people you do business with off against
you? Is that a good strategy you need to go well? No,
of course not, and he would actually recognize that it's thinking important in setting
a strategy like that. Yeah. Probably so in any given narrow goal,
I think they would see it. But I don't think they can see it
as a general They can't see it beyond that. And then he can't connect
that to selfishness because selfishness is so being corrupted. So even he who's trying
to give it a positive spin, you need some selfishness, just not the
length steating cheating pot, and you need some selflessness. We'll see, we'll
see how that integrates. What does it even mean to be selfless? But
he does hear some good stuff coming up on selflessness. All right, So
I think you're getting you're getting it right. It's it's it's this lack of
reason, long term thinking, and it's all about, you know, selfishness,
at least its pure form, is one hundred percent about instant gratification.
It's one hundred percent about exploiting other people. However, we looked at the
different tiers and here's what we came up with. So the next level would
be somebody that is ten percent selfish and ninety percent selfless, meaning there's ten
percent selfish ninety percent selfless, selfish enough to eat, to shower, to
have a job, to do the basic type of things, but they'll agree
with anything anybody tells them. These are people that are weak willed and generally
cowardly. Now I love this. This is actually really really good because he's
identifying self less ness with weak willed, with secondhandedness, with having no opinion
for themselves, with being you know, weak. That's fantastic because that's a
good integration. I wish he integrated the other side as well. I wish
he integrated this selfish as being rational. He gets that a little bit.
You'll see it later. He gets a little bit of it, but he
can't get it at one hundred said one hundred percent is only caring about yourself.
Well, reason just imploded. Reason just went out the window. Now
you're just being you know, self gratifying, self destructive, doing anything,
exploiting people, even though it doesn't help you, It doesn't make you better,
it doesn't add to your life. All right, let's listen to cleaning.
They're selfish enough to eat, to shower, to have a job,
to do the basic type of things, but they'll agree with anything anybody tells
them. These are people that are weak willed and generally cowardly. They're a
net negative to society. One. Now, the other thing I like about
this is the net cowardly, sorry, the cowardly. They associate cowardly with
self lessness. I think he's absolutely right. I think courage comes from selfishness.
So again, some good integrations here secondhanded, don't think for themselves,
look to other people for everything, and are cowards. And then he has
to add net negative to society. Also true, Just that's not the point.
We're not trying to evaluate it hire by that standard. And what does
it even mean the standard of society? Who's measuring? How do you measure
which society? In what world? In whatever? Renette negative to society one
minute to having a conversation with somebody saying do you know what that person said?
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, wow, I can't believe it.
Then they'll go to the next person completely disagrees with that person. No,
that person said, oh yeah, yeah yeah. Zero backbone. Okay,
there's other words for it, but that's the level of ten ninety The next
I like that zero backbone. If you're if you're ten percent selfish, ninety
percent selflessness. According to him no backbone fantastic because absolutely true. Okay,
there's other words for it, but that's the level of ten ninety. The
next person is somebody that's twenty eighty. These are folks that are indecisive.
They're conforming to everyone. They can't make a decision, So I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know. They're afraid to make selfish goals and selfish
dreams, and I don't know if this is good for me. I don't
want to offend anybody. I'm just kind of like conforming again. I'm in
decide, I'm staying out of it again. Conformity, lack of values,
lack of drive. He's identifying it. That comes from caring about your own
life. Selfishness means caring about your own life, which means setting your own
values, living by your own standards. He gets the opposite. He gets
the selfless nest means no values for yourself. It means not living by your
own standard. But you know other people whispering. It means conformity. It
means negation of you and not even having values. That's what self less ness
means. So he gets the negative, which is good. The thirty seventy
these are people that are passive, meek, submissive, tame, still a
little more selfish than others, but not enough yet to start getting some kind
of progress about them. There's still more in the net negative community than he
have forty sixty supporting cast, very good, supporting cast, very helpful.
They're great people to be having in business to help out with different structures.
But during the forty sixty mode still and the so notice that once we get
into the middle, the selflessness translates now into what it now translates into being
helpful, helping others, being nice to people, opening doors to grandma,
helping the old woman cross the street. It's it's gone, is the so.
So that in a little bit of selfishness, right, it's this mixture.
I mean, there's something very wrong about this whole approach. And of
course we all want to ultimately be a one hundred percent of something right,
one hundred percent of the good, one hundred percent of being selfish and what
that implies. But it's interesting to see how he's conceiving of it, and
it's interesting to see the true identifications that he is making about the wall.
Thinking about self serves in one's life and the role and what happens when one
doesn't do enough thinking about oneself. The problem is that he views self lessness
as kind and nice to people, and it's much worse than that, of
course, and to some extent he has identified that's it's the water down selflessness.
That is kindness, But you can be kind and still be selfish.
The middle is think or advisor. These are people that are fifty fifty.
They're good thinkers. What do you think about this? I thought we should
do this? What about that? I don't know. Let me think about
the other person's side, Well, you know what, the their side is
this, This side is that. So they get you to think because they
can both be selfish and they're selfless. So they're actually a good person to
have on the team because they can give you both sides of what to do
and whatnot. So what's what sense in what sense of being selfless? Here?
What's the sense in which people are being selfless in the sense that they
can think about what other people might think, think about what other people might
want. They might have some empathy. So now selflessness becomes empathy. If
you're truly selfish and and and you're in you're in a team Isn't it selfish
to try to understand what the other team members want? Isn't it selfish to
try to understand what the context is? Isn't it's selfish to try to think
and not jump to answers. So again, this conceptual confusion that he has
is really screwing this up because all the good things he's saying now about fifty
fifty, sixty forty all consistent with one hundred percent selfish. There's nothing self
less about it, because now he's confusing self lessness before he got what it
was now in this water down foam because it's water down by selfishness. Now
it's becoming kindness, friendliness, thoughtfulness. But all those are characteristics of somebody
who is potentially one hundred percent selfish. It's frustrating that he can't see it.
To do. The synergist and the great teammate is the sixty forty.
They have goals, they have dreams, they go out there and get it
done. They push other people. There's somebody that you're going to want in
any great organization because there are sixty forty and they have their own things that
they still want to drive to improve the company, improve themselves they're reading,
they're improving, they're doing all that. They're not content with where they are,
so they have bigger selfish goals than being selfless. Then you have the
kingmaker, and what is sense in which what's the sense in which they're selfless?
See the way he's construing it is somebody who's selfish doesn't deal with other
people, isn't interested in other people, doesn't care about other people, doesn't
want to trade with other people, doesn't want to copy with with other people,
doesn't want other people. But that's screwed up because it's in your selfish
interest to deal with other people, to and the selfish interest to want other
people to in their selfish interest to trade with other people. It's in your
selfish interests to have sex with other people I know, and so on.
So what is it? So but he cannot acknowledge that. To him,
being selfish means no other people. It doesn't mean taking care of self.
It means no other people. So no, here's the here's the interesting thing
that integrates it on At the end, everything is about other people. Being
selfish is not taking care of self. Being selfish to Patrick Vindavite means negating
other people. Being self less is approving of other people, is working for
other people, is all about other people. So the balance here is not
about so much about self, although that doesn't enter into the values and so
on, but it's primarily there's a big chunk of it is I either negate
other people or I sacrifice other people. But to be selfish means to copulate
with other people, to trade with other people, to identify other people who
are good for you, into into being them close into your life, that
friendship, to have loved and that he can't get that he can't get.
All right, let's see the driver. These people are misunderstood. These people
are going to be pushing everybody, raising standards, disturbing people. But at
the same time they are selfless enough. It's about a bigger dream, a
bigger cause, a bigger vision where everybody wins instead of just being about themselves.
But a bigger vision, a bigger cause is in it they cause,
their vision is that really selfless. They're winning by it. Again, massive
confusion here about what these terms refer to and what is actually going on and
what these human beings actually are. So there's something he's capturing here, something's
capturing here, but he's not capturing a spectrum of selfishness to selflessness, even
though there is value in such a spectrum. We could imagine such a spectrum.
Such a spectrum would evolve, you know, maybe guilt, maybe people
who are selfish and some realms of their life and selfless in other realms of
their life. But selfishness means thinking about what's good for you and doing what's
good for you, but what's good over the long run, thinking using reason.
That is the thirty percent mixture of selfless and selfish to be able to
drive the organization to the next level. The next one is a solopreneur eighty
twenty selfish, twenty percent selfless. They're still a net positive to society.
They set an example of success, but they're bad at duplicating meaning. Look,
I'm good, I'm not disrespectful to you, I don't hurt you,
I don't take advantage of you. But I'm just taking care of myself.
You do you, I do me, and I'm still a net positive to
society. Not a great leader, not great at driving other people, but
they're good at for themselves. Then yet now again they up. He is
identifying characteristics. It's just nothing to do with selfish versus self less. The
next level, which is ninety ten, this is a narcissist world revolves around
them, and the narcissist is actually not a net positive to society. They're
bigger net positive to society than the weak world cowardly, but they're not a
net positive to society. But how is a narcissist selfish? I mean,
narcissism is a problem again self destructive, But how is a narcissist selfish?
How is thinking that the world revolves around you, which is clearly false for
pretty much every one of us, even even somebody like Donald Trump, where
it comes very close to rotating around him. For those people, it's it's
a narcissist. It's doesn't revolve around you. Say, you're living a lie.
You cannot be happy, you cannot be successful, you cannot win,
you cannot be great at anything. Well, they might not know that they
but they know they're failing, they know they're unhappy, they know they're not
successful. So reality is the judge in the end, and that ultimately is
the standard. But the standard is also the standard philosophically, or the standard
is really you know, human nature, what human beings. You require what
human beings need, and this is the bigger issue of selfishness. Selfishness needs
not just the value you a bunch of material stuff. It needs a moll
faework, It needs a you know, amall system. You need principles by
which to live. It's purely about them, and they're willing to do generally
at all costs. They'll use you as a pond. They'll look at you
as a way to get what they can get out of you. It's not
about how they can help you, it's what they can get out of you,
rather than making everybody I don't want at the same time, So when
you look at the chart here, some people will come back and say,
I can't believe you just said that, Pad. You mean to tell me
somebody that's this they're we qual cowardly. Yes, that's generally what happens.
You just called me Outpad. I don't like this feeling you've given me.
I'm not doing this to make you feel good. When I create charts like
this, I go and think about myself how I was at eighteen, then
twenty eight, and what I have to choose to change, And it wasn't
easy then thirty four, then thirty five. The only reason I'm looking at
this because the last twenty years and having been in the insurance industry, haven't
trained forty thousand different licensed agents in the insurance industry. You look at traits
of qualities and you say, man, that guy could have been very big,
but man, it was all about him. That person could be very
big, but dude, he couldn't get over the fact that his wife kept
telling him you gotta come home, or you gotta come home, or if
you wanted to please everybody. She could have been amazing, but her mom
made her feel so guilty all the time, and she fell for it.
That person could have been amazing, that they could never make up their minds.
It was always one day, this one day that that person was an
incredible driver. And they built so many different leaders. They pissed a lot
of people off, but they also built a lot of different leaders. So
if you judge them on success, they helped a lot of people become financially
free. These are case studies on different people. Now somebody may say,
well, Pat, does this apply to every aspect of your life? You
know, now this is important, So does this apply to every aspect of
your life. Right, and you know, given that he doesn't have a
proper definition of selfish and selfless, given that he doesn't really grasp it,
although he's he's getting close to some things, but he doesn't quite grasp it.
The answer, of course, is going to be now as a mother,
if I'm pregnant, shouldn't I be selfless? Yes? This apply.
If your mother and pregnant, you're gonna be selfless, So you should have
the baby even if you don't want it. Right, really, I mean
this is part of it. Yes, I mean this is suddenly the Christian
ideall ideal, and this is the suddenly the the the the anti bulltionists.
Aren't you having a baby because you want to have a baby. Aren't you
having a baby because you love the idea of being a mother. Aren't you
having a baby for selfish reasons? Aren't you taking care of your body and
your health and not smoking and not drinking because you're selfish because you want your
baby to be as healthy as you possibly can? Why? Because it's your
baby? So again, viewing selfish is this narrow thing, is this narrow,
materialistic, short term thing is deadly? It really is deadly. Because
now he's gonna say, you should be selfless in your family life, you
should be selfish, should business selfless in your family life? Now that's a
disaster. We can um, you can go and look at um. Um.
God, what was I gonna say? I was gonna say something anyway,
We'll get back to it. But you know, it's it's a disaster
to live this bifurcated life, selfless mass, just as he described in business
is bad for you and everything. Is it good to be a coward in
your family life? Is it good to be a coward in any part of
your life? But to be selfless means not to have values, means not
so so. Oh yeah, I was gonna give the example a randos given
I always use about the wedding. Right you go to your your your you're
supposed to be in the night before the wedding, you say, I'm not
getting married with you for any selfish reasons. You know it's not because you
make me feel any better. I'm doing it purely for you. This is
completely selfless. I am this is a major sacrifice for me to marry you
tomorrow. Really nice to business. Let me read it quoteure that maybe this
makes sense to you. And this is by the same talent. He wrote
a book called Skin and Again and he said this, He said, I
am at the federal level a libertarian, at the state level of Republican,
at the local level of democrat, and at my friends and family of socialists.
Pretty weird. Yeah, I mean, he's a man of new principle.
In other words, he doesn't stamp for anything. What does that even
mean? Right? What does it mean to be a socialist? At family
level? And you know, what does that mean? You treat truly everybody
equally. One kid gets an A and one kids gets a F that's okay,
love them both, treat them exactly the same. Both get desserts.
You know when you know, when when is a is a excellent athletes,
you maybe suppress him and the other ones mediocre, and you you know,
you try to raise him up to just to make them all equal. Really,
what does it even mean? I mean people say this, I think
Hyak said this, in the family will all outurists in the family will all
socialists. But we're not. Now, It's true that you cannot take a
political concept and apply to the family. Family is not a political concept,
but it's still true that in a family you have to be selfish, you
have to do what's good for you. Now, the reason you have a
family is because you have a selfish motivation to have a family, because you
love them, because you care for them, because you want them to be
successful, not out of a self less god for them, but out of
a selfish regard for them, because you're selfish. You want them to be
successful, and you don't treat them the same as you treat other kids other
families because they're your kids. So again, this complete confusion. What does
it mean that the local level to be democrat At the local level we should
regulate and control everything. Really, why does that make sense? If it's
wrong at the federal level, then what makes it suddenly right at the local
level. So no, I mean, I mean a principle as a principle.
As a principle, it applies federal level, local level. If if
you believe that to use force, to use coosion to violate somebody's rights as
wrong at the federal level, then it's also wrong at the state level.
It's also wrong at at local level. And hey, it's it's even wrong
in the family. Although again you're conflating two different many differentiations here federal,
state, and local all political institutions. The family is not a different kind
of institution, different kind of relationship, particularly when you get into children.
Mcrat and my friends and family. A socialist pretty weird, right, Wait
a minute. You can be a socialist and you can be a libertarian and
a Republican and a democrat. Yes, at different levels. No, you
can't, You actually can't. That is a completely confusing, unprincipled, bizarre
way of living your life, completely fragmented. I'm simply giving you who benefits
if you are somebody that you have some selfish goals. Your wife wins,
your husband wins, your kids wins. Your last name was yeah. Yeah.
Being selfish means it's good for your family. So why are you not
being selfish in the family. Your family wants, your heritage wins, the
company you're working for wins, the industry wins, everybody wins. A challenge
with this conversation is this you ever rented a car and like, this is
supposed to go one hundred and twenty miles an hour. How come when I
go to eighty it goes back down. That car is a speed governor.
And what it does is it doesn't allow to go over eighty miles per hour,
right, And the rental companies do this so they don't have too many
accidents because that's expensive and they've done the research to know what the numbers.
They don't want drivers to go about because it's not their car. They don't
treat it like their car. The reason why this chart is being shared with
you is you may be watching this and you may say, man, I'm
kind of part of the narcissist community. No problem, bring your governor down
to seventy. Okay, and no, anytime you go about seventy, people
don't like to be around you because it's all about you. But you maybe
somebody that's at the other level. You're a little bit of a cowardly weak
wheel, or you conform. Maybe you need to bring your governor up and
start talking about your selfish goals. Like Mario, did you know what happened
to his life? It changed almost everybody I know. That's bitter. They
tend to come more from a place of selfless than a little that's true.
That's true. It's very good at kind of critiquing the fact that people who
are bitter people who are said, people who don't have a life are people
who don't have values, and they're not self interested in not pursue their own
goals, not pursue their own life. That's true, but then he doesn't
understand what pursuing all that actually is a little bit of selfish. The world
is a better place if you have a little bit more selfish gene in you
than selfless gene in you. Everybody around you wins if you have that.
So if you want the net positive index chart, all right, So yes,
super super important to get your concepts right, super super important, to
define them clearly, super super important to think it really through. What does
it mean to be selfish? What does it mean to be selfless? And
neither one of them is really about other people. To be selfless means not
to care of ourself, not to take care of self, not to consider
self. And in that selfless category, you would include somebody like Bernie made
Off. You would include a lot of the narcissists, because what they're doing
is not taking care of themselves, not doing what's good for them, not
making their life the best life that it can be, the diminishing their own
life, and What it means to be selfish is to take care of yourself,
and that includes cooperating with other people. Means loving friendship, It means
engaging with other people means motivating them. In a business context, it means
leading, It means encouraging. It means being kind when the context is appropriate.
It means taking care of your own life and making your life the best
life that it can be. No, there is no such thing as destructively
selfish. That's a contradiction in terms, how can you be destructive and selfish
at the same time? What made was a self destructive but self destructive is
selflessness. If Bernie made off, as stopped early on and said to himself,
is what I'm doing going to lead to my happiness, to success,
it's prosperity. Is lying, cheating and stealing really good for me long term?
Is it good for me? Is it good for the people I love?
Is it good for the things that I cherish, the things that I
value? My friends? And he would say, well, of course not,
and he would stop what he was doing immediately. And Bernie made of
you know, he probably by the time he thought those thoughts, it was
too late because he was so deep in it. But the problem is he
didn't think. And the essence of selflessness is not to think. The essence
of selflessness is not the essence of selfnessness is to not think about self,
to not think about what's good for you, to not think about the consequences
of your actions long term to you, to your life, to your happiness,
to your friendships, just financial success, to everything. Don't call it
irrational egoism, because you shouldn't condition egoism. Egoism is taking care of self,
is caring about self. It's taking care of your ego, and by
doing that irrationally, you can do it irrationally. To contradiction in terms,
those terms cannot stand next to one another. It is not irrational egoism.
It's not irrational self interest. It's not irrational selfishness. It's irrational period.
In other words, it's irrational self less Now it's self destructive. Now.
Sometimes you do something that is that is bad for you, but you couldn't
have known, or you didn't know, you really did the thinking, but
you made a mistake. That's not being self less. But people who don't
think, people who don't plan and make obvious mistakes, and this is again,
the advantage of having principles prevents you from making stupid mistakes, like don't
like be honest, don't fake reality. That's it. Just do it all
the time, don't fake reality. If you do that, you're not gonna
make many mistakes in that room. This is the value of having virtues and
having a moral system is It gives you a framework. It gives you shortcuts.
It gives you cognitive shortcuts to be able to live a selfish knife life
and to make fewer and fewer mistakes errors. But there is no It's just
like, there's no such thing as conscious capitalism. I don't know what do
you call? It's state capitalism. There's no such thing as irrational egoism.
Not conditioned egoism is egoism. Staking of a self and taking care of self
requires what the number one thing? If taking care of self requires rationality,
So how can you have irrational taking care of self? You can't have that.
It's just it's just doesn't make any sense. So the thing he's missing
you think everybody's missing is the thinking they think everybody's missing is the reason rationality.
That's what it means to be selfish. What it means to be selfish
is to think, to think about what, think about how to make your
life the best life that it can be, think about how to pursue your
values, how to achieve your values. It's not about other people, true,
unless those other people happen to be values, and for all of us,
other people are values. All right. Hopefully that was enlightning to some
of you, expanding horizons to others of you, and probably somewhat repetitive to
many of you. Bet hopefully that was a value. I'm happy if we
get a bunch of questions about ego, about being egoish, being selfish,
and so on on the show. That would be Now when it's time for
the super chat, that would be great if we got a lot of those
kinds of questions. All Right, we are an hour answer the show.
In spite of Catherine being here, we are way behind on our super chat.
We do have goals, and I just want to re emphasize how important
those goals are to the continue, you know, to the show, to
being able to sustain it, sustain as many shows as I do. There
has to be I have to, I have to have a sense of being
compensated for it. A lot of that conversation comes from monthly contributors. Thank
you for those of you who do it that way. Please more of you
do it that way. Um that is through Patreon, subscribe, stall your
on bookshow dot coms last support which is the main way in which people support
me through PayPal, but we also use super Chat. Super Chat has become
a major source of that um uh, that support, So please consider using
the super chat feature. You can use just a sticker, or you can
ask a question to help support the show. Five dollars from everybody listening right
now would get us over the top of our goal, So I consider getting
us off the goal. All right, let's start with shots about fifty bucks.
I wasn't I wasn't. I wasn't intrigued by your news story about engineering
egg sells in order about future artificial wounds. It would be possible to cook
fetuses for a whole year so that they are born more fully developed, less
time dealing with diapers and vomit. I'm curious about wasn't intrigued? Why weren't
you intrigue? Or is that a typo? So you know? Anyway?
Um yeah, artificial wounds make it somewhat optional. In terms of when you
know in a sense they're they're born. So many babies are born now prematurely
and and have to be an incubators or just very small and and and very
sensitive and very difficult. But making us out of show makes it all the
more likely that they will be more fully formed and more fully developed when they
come out. Less time dealing with diapers and vomit. Good thing, good
thing. But of course those early days, weeks, months of development of
engaging with the world probably pretty crucial to cognitive development of the baby. So
I'm not sure it'll turn out that it is. It would be it would
be a value to keep them in for longer, even though it might be
more convenient. So it was a typos, but says he was intrigued by
the new story about engineering excels. I thought it was a fascinating story.
I hope, I hope you guys check it out, all right, All
right, So we got John with five dollars, Catherine, or five dollars.
We need one hundred and more people to do five dollars, and they're
watching right now. We're at one hundred like people, so just everybody I
know, I know Gail has already done five dollars, so we've got you
know, we've got a bunch of they're just doing stickers. They're not even
not even asking a question. So any one of you can do that,
please consider doing it all right here, um, thank you here, Thank
you so much Ron for doing this live stream. Patrick Mdefde is a really
dynamic individual, has done what I think we're extremely important with a lot of
people on both sides of the law. Yeah, I mean I like Patrick.
I like the interview he did of me. I encouraged you guys to
go watch it. Just put his name in my name. I think that
three different videos of me, one on his channel, one on the I
an Institute channel, one on my channel. Of the interviews, it's We've
been watched by a lot of people. I thought it was a good interview.
And he's a dynamic guy. He's a great salesman, he's super articulate,
and he has some of the biggest guests in the world on And maybe
what you should do is, now that I've critiqued his selfish video, maybe
you should encourage him to do an interview with me. Maybe talk to him
about having me back on and talking about more things, maybe talking about the
state of the world, talking about what's going on in the world, and
also talking about why I think he's got selfishness wrong. James asked, what
what's making you well known? Is not your podcast, it's your appearances on
alex Feedman and other large platforms. I think you should do if you pray
Gear University videos, those are what propelled Alex to notreaide. I don't think
so. I don't think that's what propelled Alex the notoride. I think what
propelled Alex de Notorieti is m is the work he did with all companies.
It's it's it's the just the confidences he attended, the seminars, he did,
the constant work with the industry itself. UM. I think the pray
Get videos are nice. They're nice, they have that they you know,
they they're big splash. But in terms of actually getting people to identify you
as an expert, actually getting people to identify you as somebody connected to this
particular industry, that is all about the things that he did with the industry
and the book that he wrote and the marketing that he did around that.
UM. The Peigue University helped a little bit helped with the marketing, I'm
sure, but that's not what propelled him at all, I don't think,
but I agree what what what made me well known is lex Feedman, other
large platforms, and I would love to do large platforms. And I don't
particularly want to do Prague University, um unless it's kind of on my terms,
because I don't like Prague University. I don't like that platform. I
find it antium, anti everything, anti a lot of what I believe in
and what I hold dear um and and it's just not worth it. Plus,
you know, they've never approached me to do it, and they would
want me to pay them a lot of money to do it. So you
know, I got lex Feedman, I got what's his name, um um,
Shapiro. I've done been Shapiro. I've been on a lot of big
podcasts. I'd like to be on more. I think the best way for
you guys to help me get on more of these podcasts. I'd like to
be again on Patrick, I'd like to be again on on other you know,
on some of the bigger, even bigger platforms. The best way for
that to happen. Dave Ruben, Michael Malice all the I mean, Michael
Mouse, I don't think he added much to me. You didn't see a
real bump in terms of subscribers, is you guys right? You guys.
The way I got on Ruben is a bunch of people went on Ruben and
said, hey, you should interview you on Brook and then he interviewed me
once, and he interviewed me a few times after that. The way Lex
did it is he'd been following my podcast. He still shows up once in
a while over here in the chat um. That's how I've got all of
them. It's either you guys have urged them or they have known about me
for one one way or the other through something that I've done to talk.
I've given a viable video that's gone. I've tried to get ontogonometry. They
kind of said that they weren't available when I wanted to do it, and
so I keep trying every time I'm in London to get ontogonometry. But you
should let them know that they should have me on. I mean, the
number one way in which I will get on people's shows is if you they're
customers. If you will their supporters, their audience, tell them, hey,
we'd really like you to interview it you're on book, and not just
do it once, but do it regularly so that they know there's real passion
here. And I don't see a lot of my audience doing that. A
few of you do it, and I really appreciate that, but do it
consistently. Do you know large numbers of you? You know the thousand people
or fifteen hundred people are gonna watch this video. It would be great if
single one of you did it. All right, we are still looking for
five dollars from everybody hasn't done anything on the super check yet was still four
hundred and fifty dollars short. So please consider providing some support. Catherine,
A way are you? I don't know what's going on. People are ignoring
you today, ignoring you completely, all right, Catherine's going to be very
sad. Friend of Harber says, egoism being the beneficiary of your own action
irrational. Egoism to me is having an irrational standard of what it is a
benefit to oneself, but benefit from oneself is an objective standard. Benefit oneself
is not whatever benefit oneself benefit means something. Self means something. So if
I do something and I die and I say, whoops, you know that
was irrational benefit to myself. No, I mean it didn't benefit you.
He heard you so um made off. Didn't even think he was benefiting.
He didn't think And even if he didn't think he was benefiting, he was
wrong, and he was wrong. Not in a subtle way, he was
wrong, big time. He was wrong through evasion. There's no way he
really could think about it and come to the conclusion that this was good for
him. So no, I think it's very, very dangerous to associate in
any way benefiting of your own action with something that clearly irrationality does not benefit
your own action. That's just a it's inconsistent those two. All right,
We've got a few more five and ten dollars questions. If you want to
ask a question, now make it a twenty dollars. I'm starting to have
a feeling that, like what you guys are questioned out that that's uh,
you know, there are no more questions for me to answer in the world.
That's right. I mean, you know, this is the kind of
topic. If Action Jackson tells me a topic and then I can't raise any
super chat, then I go, God, you're just you're just killing me
action Jackson. If I'd Donna show one, you know, on Trump and
Putin, I would have raised six hundred and fifty dollars like that? All
right? Taz says, it's nearly made. Can you believe it? I
can't actually so much to do, so many plans to execute. Absolutely,
it's the year is just push passing quickly. Hopacampbell, thank you. Michael
says, do you think it makes people uncomfortable that nine rand was right about
everything? They can't accept the one person originated all these profound truths? No?
I mean, I some people I think made uncomfortable with that. But
but no, I think most people just don't accept that their truths. If
they if they accepted that their truths, we'd be way ahead and then we
could deal with the discomfort. They don't accept them as truth. It's not
like these truths are obvious and they go, oh, but one person.
Nah. No, the truths are not obvious and they don't accept them.
Liam says, no one thinks about individual rights. They think about the outcome
they desire. It's pure narcissism. Yes, And it's in that sense it's
a self less strategy because it leads to bad outcomes for self. You know,
it's other people are never the standard. It's always about negating self.
I gave you. I give that example of my morality of capitalism. Talk.
If the standards other people businessmen would be heroes. But the standards not
other people. The standard is your own suffering. The standards being self less.
And as Patrick Navitch said, I think it's just to follow me.
Very few people are actually selfless. Nobody's actually really fully completely selfless. There's
a typo some way, he said. All right, Al says, these
are the same people who believe that sacrifice is about giving something up for something
better. Yes, the Jordan Peterson's of the world, the sacrifice somehow becomes
investment. No investments, investment sacrifice, sacrifice. Sacrifice is a net loss.
That's the whole point. That's what makes it a sacrifice. Investment is
a net gain. See action Jackson. Nobody really cares about about you asking
them to do super jets. Sad reality. All right, Tim says,
keep up the good work you're on. You're an inspiration. Appreciate that.
Thank you, Daniel says, has anyone mentioned to you on about Elon Musk
responded, Iron RAN's tweets go you and yes I saw that. He responded
by saying, yeah, I Rand was right, but so is Oh well,
so was Huxley. And it's all coming together. All three of them
were right. It's all coming together right now. Yeah, yeah, he's
right, Iron Ran. There's no question Elon Musk is right. Ran.
All right, thank you everybody. I am I have to admit a little
concerned about the inability to raise to raise the six hundred and fifty dollars.
Usually we at least make get close, we get semi close, but we
didn't even get close tonight. So, um, I am concerned. Maybe
it's because it's Sunday night. Maybe because we've had so many shows one after
the other. I am not sure. We didn't even make the two hundred
and fifty dollars for the for the for the news shows that you know that
we do on a daily basis. So uh, that is uh, that
is uh concerning, let's say concerning. And it was a great topic.
Yess actually, Jackson, it actually was a great topic. Well, we
didn't get any of the whales here, obviously, we didn't get any of
the people who can write or who are happy to write one hundred dollars or
five hundred dollars or stuff like that, UH to UH to get us over
the top as often happens. Yes, we need many many more people to
UH, to follow you on book show and to participates in in the live
shows, but nowhere else today. Maybe we'll get them tomorrow. So tomorrow
we'll have noon and one o'clock we'll do our news round up. We'll do
the same thing on Tuesday. I'm not sure if I'll be able to do
a show tomorrow night. We'll see. I will try, but no guarantees.
And but we definitely will do UM Monday and tuesdays the news shows.
All right, everybody, don't forget to like the show before you leave.
We had well of one hundred people watching live, so there should be a
hundred thumbs up over there. So I'm not sure. I'm not sure why
we don't have John. Thank you, thank you for for additional support.
I appreciate that. Thanks everybody. I will see you all tomorrow. Bye.