I wanted to put together my 92nd case or so on something that you
and I do not see eye to eye on and you could give me a
propaganda analysis or logic analysis and grade my argument.
Here is the case for the return of Stefan Molyneux to Twitter.
Assume the human race has existed for 10,000 years.
For 99.9% of human history, the opportunity cost and monetary
cost of communicating information has been
extraordinarily high. Today, thanks to Elon Musk, you,
Mr. Molyneux, the most important philosopher in the English
speaking language, have been reinstated to Twitter.
Now X, meaning the site's 611 million monthly visitors could
have access to free domain content.
My small account with 14,000 followers received 73,000
impressions in the last three months.
With your account at 380,000 followers, consider how many
thirsty horses can be brought to the free domain.
Well of truth, even your most recent tweet has 520 likes.
Considering my college history course had only 50 students in
total, it's reasonable to believe that you're at least 10
times as influential as an Arizona State University
professor. Yes, it's better to have 20
dedicated students than 10,000 uninterested students.
The problem is, you don't know who these dedicated people are
in advance. You could drastically increase
your capacity to bring the very free education progressives
pretend to offer and outcompete the psychopathic sophists,
politicians, journalists, academics and media elites as
Socrates was enlightening the common man in the agora.
X is the marketplace of today where you can extend your global
reach at a microscopic opportunity cost and 0 monetary
cost. I can see your return tweet now.
Not sure if Taylor Swift has had any kids yet.
If so, Taylor along with all parents and future parents can
enjoy a free PDF of my new book at Peaceful parenting.com.
The most important topics communicated to millions of
people at your fingertips. Yes, the evil bastards of old
Twitter owe you a sincere apology.
I ask that you do not let Jack Dorsey being a prick stop you
from communicating the importance of truth and
volunteerism to your hundreds of thousands of ex followers.
They committed fraud by banning you.
You never violated the terms of service, but X could possibly be
the best bulwark philosophers have against the psychopath
class who was unapologetically provoking nuclear wars and
inflating our currency, wiping away our savings.
I ask that you take advantage of this technology, something kings
and Queens of the past never could have imagined anyone would
ever have access to, and increase your unique capacity to
improve the lives of millions of X users as you have mine.
Well, I would add to that beautiful case to say that if
I'm not tweeting on X about peaceful parenting, how many
hundreds of thousands of children are going to continue
to experience violence because of what I don't do?
And do I not have some responsibility for that?
So listen, man, I, I think that's a great case.
And I'm just going to pretend that I'm having Internet
difficulties because it's hard for one to answer.
So glitch, glitch, glitch. So no, it's a, it's a great
case. And, and in fact, I happened to
see somebody shared with me that people were tweeting about me.
And I mean, combined the tweets got like, I don't know, like 2-2
tweets about me got like 8 million views, which was, I
mean, it's, it's nice to see, it's nice to see that that
people still Remember Me. It's also not not quite so nice
to see. I actually got the website
called one website over because that's sort of been my, my case
that people are like, Hey, whatever happened to that guy?
Is he still alive? Is he still, what's he doing?
And it's like, you know, I, I'm just one website over, right?
So, so listen, I, I hear what you're saying and, and you are,
you are whispering sweet worm tongue sounds into my, my ear
because it is very, very tempting.
It is, it is very tempting. I wrestle with this.
I wouldn't say quite on a daily basis, but I will certainly say
that the temptation is real. The temptation is real.
So the counter arguments are go something like this.
So if I do have a fairly unique capacity to explain philosophy
in practical ways to the world, I don't think that's fairly safe
to say then what I should do is aim for maximum philosophy.
Now the question is, do you do maximum philosophy in the here
and now or do you do maximum philosophy in the future?
Now if you do maximum philosophy in the here and now, you just
get killed like historically this is sort of what what
happens, right or disabled in in some some manner, right.
So if I the more traction I have in the present, the more risk
there is obviously we can we can see that and we can see that all
over the world in the present. We can look at tons of examples
in the past and that would minimize philosophy in the
future, right? So I'm, if I'm aiming for
maximum philosophy, the question is a bird in the hand versus 2
in the Bush, right? So if I achieve maximum
philosophy now, the blowback is obviously for high and I've
experienced it to some degree, but more so if I'm aiming for
maximum philosophy, then I would put more of my thoughts down to
help the future as a whole rather than have a big series of
changes towards philosophy in the present because of the
blowback associated with that. So that's sort of one argument.
The second is of course, what you're asking or what you're
suggesting, which again, I really appreciate you bringing
up. It's something that I have
already done and I've done that for 40 years, which is to go out
with as much charm and, and positivity and facts and
reasoning evidence into the public square to talk.
And the result of that was, you know, the destruction of
significant portions of my life's work, lots of falsehoods
around media violence and and so on.
And what would prevent that from reoccurring is that Ah, yes,
well, but you know, there's this the new guy at the Helmand, You
know, I think Elon is doing fantastic service to to the
world. And obviously he's a, a very, a
very principled man when it comes to free speech And boy,
talk about putting where your money where your mouth is.
That's that's something and a half.
And so I also recognize that I don't even believe it was Jack
Dorsey in particular. We can sort of go back into the
sort of actors behind this kind of stuff, but I don't think that
obviously Elon Musk is not personally responsible for what
people did prior. But the organization is the
organization. And just as it inherits the
users and it inherits the assets and it inherits the debt, it
also inherits the moral choices made by those beforehand.
So if I were to go back on Twitter without any apologies,
without any restitution, without any certainties that it wasn't
going to happen again, then I would be re entering into a
abusive relationship with promises of change, but with no
promises of change. So what I do is I say to myself,
if somebody called into one of my shows and said, you know, I
was in this really abusive relationship and the guy has
said he'll take me back, you know, he's gone to therapy.
Let's say whatever analogy you want to use about the new
ownership. So I was in this relationship
with this guy who, you know, set fire to my half my life's work
or whatever. And, and, but he said he'll,
he'll take me back. And well, he hasn't said so, but
I've heard through some friends that I can contact him.
Why would I be in pursuit of that relationship?
Well, he's changed. Well, OK, but if he's changed,
there would be evidence of that in the form of apologies and
restitution. Now, I get I understand the
legal system. I understand the complications
involved with all of that. But nonetheless, would you
counsel someone to go back into an abusive relationship with
somebody who signalled that they were open to resuming that
relationship, but who'd made no public apologies or withdrawal
of prior insults? No.
So I can't, and listen, I, I again, your temptation is, is,
is great and, and I really appreciate you bringing it up,
but I can't, you know, and I'm not, I'm not suggesting you're
suggesting this, of course, but just in my own, in my own mind,
if I, if I wouldn't give the advice, I can't take it.
And the idea that I could do more in the here and now, of
course, absolutely there there is.
Would that cost me more in the future?
Possibly, possibly. I mean, we can see that we don't
have to go through the list, but everybody knows them.
The the truth tellers who both in the past and in the present
have come to a very bad end is not, it's not a very short list,
unfortunately, it's a very long list.
So I'm aiming for maximum philosophy.
I am. I have a standard of resuming
relationships that does require restitution and apologies and
some commitment as to it not happening again.
And those are not forthcoming for reasons that I can vaguely
understand from a legal standpoint but still are
important. And so I just have to follow the
advice that I've given others. I have to aim in a practical
sense for maximum philosophy, and I can't resume a
relationship where there has been extreme levels of
mistreatment without apologies. Restitution and certainties to a
large degree that it's not going to happen again.
So and I this is not even anything negative towards Elon
Musk. I mean, I think that there are
lots of pressures put on businesses regarding free speech
that are hard to figure out and, and hard to know where they're
originating from. But I don't think it's just
internal. So they can't make that
guarantee, right? Because if it's just a purely
internal matter, that's one thing.
But if there are other factors involved in these kinds of
censorship things, then they can't make those guarantees.
So I will continue to do maximum philosophy for the future.
You know, I have, like all philosophers should have a 500
year business plan. Because if you don't, I think it
keeps you away from the core truths that most influence the
future. It is, you know, there's the old
saying, no, no prophet is respected in his own country.
Well, philosophers are attacked by the culture that is and
defined positively the the culture to come.
And so recognizing that as a pattern, if I the more I focus
on the present, the less I influence the future.
The more I focus on the future, the less I need to influence in
the present and the more I can change the future.
I think it's just a matter of of patience for me.
So again, it's a great case that you brought up and I am tempted
by on a regular basis, but I do have to sort of grip my teeth
and focus on those, those aspects.