David Whitehead Freedom, Capitalism & the Heroic Individual

HFTT 240 Yerasimos: [00:00:00] Coming up in this episode, David Whitehead: you know you're born in an original, don't die a copy of everybody else, and I don't wanna be a copy of everybody else. It goes against my nature and everybody else listening should feel the same way. You wanna be who you are and part of who you are is a process of discovery. So if you have all these systems in place blocking you from hitting those processes of discovery and self-actualization, then yeah, you're a slave and you're never gonna rise to the potential that you have. That's why I have such an irk with these types of ideologies. They're trying to bring out the worst and they're trying to devolve man. Namakula: You are now listening to the Here For The Truth Podcast, hosted by Joel Rafidi and Yerasimos. Joel Rafidi: What's up everybody? Welcome back to Here For the Truth Podcast. I'm Joel Rafidi. I'm my co-host. SMOs will meet. As always, we are fresh off an adventure to Bandera, Texas attending the Confluence Festival. I spent an amazing time connecting with amazing [00:01:00] people. Um, getting to meet many of our listeners, host a workshop. I got to perform album, scorpions, other older songs as well. It was just incredible. Uh, so really just shout out to Alec, Mike, Lindsay, Molly, and the entire Confluence team, uh, for hosting such an incredible event. For sure. Yerasimos: I mean, I agree, man. There's not much more I could say it's my third confluence. I love that event. You know, these types of events, music and sky, confluence, they're incredible. We come together, we honor each other. Uh, we get deep, we learn, we laugh, we eat amazing healthy food. We spend time in nature. And, uh, you know, I think it's, uh, it's incredible and I look forward to more of these types of events popping up, uh, around the world. Joel Rafidi: Yeah, totally. Um, so leading up to the time when we were due to record this podcast, I had a power outage in my home in San Miguel At the end, they started to, in the last minute, find a coworking space to jump into. So didn't have my usual mic on me. I had a couple internet issues throughout this, but I don't think it affects the quality too much. I just wanna keep it real with you guys as [00:02:00] always. Uh, David Whitehead is here today, just being David or Whitehead, which, you know, other words, absolute legend, just a diving deep, debunking, cutting away debris, getting to the core of very important topics such as money, individualism, capitalism, heroism, self-esteem, greatness, the things that really matter. This entire conversation just encapsulates the entire wheelhouse of what we are here for the truth. Really advocate for, and this is an absolute masterclass. You go listen to this podcast and if you really connect the dots, take away the treasure. It will change your life, it will change your mind, it will change your thinking. It will change how you approach UG reality. So, you know, let's put in our student hats for this one and just witness greatness as David does his thing. Alright everybody, welcome back to the Here for the Truth podcast. Today we have the return. The guest that I guess his audience is very familiar with [00:03:00] at this point, hopefully, if not, I'd definitely recommend you check out all his previous episodes. They are all absolute bangers. Um, the Kingdom of Heaven within particularly, I think was the most popular episode of last year on Spotify, so that was incredible as well. David, great to see you again, man. David Whitehead: Hey, how's it going, Joel, you're ra us. Good to see you boys. Thanks for having me back. Of course, Yerasimos: man. Of course. Well, I think this is number 10. I don't know. I'm losing track of the times you, you've, uh, came on the podcast, man, man. So, uh, you're definitely one of our audience favorites and we just always appreciate everything you have to say and everything you have to offer and the work that you do in the world. But beyond that, man, just who you are as a man and who you are as a person. And, uh, I think that's the, the most important thing. Oh, he's David Whitehead: too kind, man. Feel the same way about you guys. Joel Rafidi: Yeah, absolutely, man. It's, it's been such a trip, you know, we're just talking about it, but also just recollecting the journey over the last four years. Like I remember. When we first even agreed to start a podcast, you were the first person we reached out to to give us the 1 0 1 of what that even looks like. And you told us the [00:04:00] distributor to get the mic to get, I got the mic still, which is still rocking. Um, I remember you invited me and my first ever live podcast and I was nervous as all hell when I think I haven't mentioned it within the first 10 seconds I was completely unbuckled. But considering all things and way of things have evolved is just really incredible. You know, when you're consistent, when you develop authentic self-esteem, when you walk through your authentic path, how life just transforms in the most magical ways, you know? David Whitehead: Absolutely. Yeah. Like, I'm, I'm so happy to see what you guys have created out of that. And I was just like, you, I, I didn't know how to do any of this stuff. I still feel like I'm learning. 'cause they change everything every week now. Like, you gotta, you gotta get up with the new thing. And that's difficult. I already feel old. I'm like, what? You guys are on a different platform that I've never even heard of before. And there's new technology I've never heard of before. But, um, you know, it's, it's what it's all about is, you know, at least we have this vehicle. At least we have this ability to get on here and have these [00:05:00] conversations and thank goodness it's benefiting people. And that's all I've ever tried to do was get out and, uh, in the work I did starting my podcast, I've done every variation of video logging and podcasting that I can think of. And, uh, I always just did it because. First of all, I enjoyed it. Sometimes there was parts of it I didn't like all the production work, all the trolls, all the, you know, doing anything public is always challenging, but, uh, you, you find out you get a lot of support as well. And also I find I get a lot of really good research, uh, coming from people that tune into the show and we exchange information. I've been contacted by some pretty incredible people and, uh, I'm sure you guys have the same stories, learn so much. And so basically I just feel honored to be able to be in this position where I can do research like this. I can contact authors of books and people that share amazing ideas and get it out there. And I'm just glad to see I get [00:06:00] so much overwhelming, positive feedback. And I know you guys do also and that's huge. So that's what it's all about all time. Yeah, Yerasimos: it's pretty, it's pretty amazing. Like, you know, we do the work that we do. We have a platform, and sometimes I forget, like I forget, I'm sitting here like in my room, getting on a mic and you know, talking with Joel on a guest yourself. And then it goes out to like thousands of people that sit there and, and listen and are inspired and continue on, on their journey and then reach out to you and tell you, Hey, I just found your podcast and I just binge watched every episode for the last four months. And you're like, wait, what? You know, which is in some, in some way. Like when, when I, when I first came across enslaved, you know, I, um, I mean I knew about Michael's work. I think I may have known about you, I'm not sure. But then once Enslaved started, it was just like, how can I not listen to this? Mm-hmm. You know, and I think it's so important too, with people that, you know, do their work in the world is not, not forget where they came from. And so this is why Joel and I always, always tell our origin story. And I will continue saying it [00:07:00] even though I've probably said it to you on this podcast. But just a thank you to you and Michael. You know, we all stand on the shoulders of giants. And this is how, you know, I feel about the two of you and to, to come across the two of you in your work. At a time in my life where I was hungry and thirsty for knowledge and inspiration, um, you know, it was life changing and I, I, I don't think I would be who I am today without you and Michael. Man. It's, it's just, it's just real, you know? And so I'm so grateful. David Whitehead: Oh, bro, that's, that's awesome. I appreciate it. And it's, uh, it's, I got my people, Michael's one of them. I got many people thank for what I've been able to do in my life, and it's just when and when you follow, we follow that calling and you follow your curiosity and you follow. Uh, the, the, basically the things that drive you, the, the questions that drive you, that's what it was for me was, I got questions, I wanna know what's going on. I think conversations on the internet don't just have to be about what you should be eating for [00:08:00] dinner or just really that's cool, but you gotta go into something deeper. I love exploring the mysteries of the universe, the mysteries of who we are, why we're here, where we're going, you know, what the hell's going on in this crazy world. It's also, uh, you know, it's, it's one of the greatest times to be alive if you think about it, that we have these mediums, like our forefathers didn't have access to communication on this scale. Mm-hmm. It's incredible. I'm seeing it in all these other fields. Like I'm in the martial art field really heavy right now 'cause I have my martial arts school and I'm pretty much hitting that full time. I'm training all the time. I'm teaching all the time. I'm, I just finished coaching this massive tournament. We had like 45 people registered for this tournament. Most of them were kids. So I'm coaching that. Next week go to Vancouver. I'm cornering some guy in a way high fight and then back, and now I got another tournament next week. So like I'm, but what I'm bringing that up for is that in the martial art world, I'm seeing the same thing where it used to be that everything was hearsay. Everything was mystical. There was always that mysterious sense in the woods you have to go find for this hidden knowledge. [00:09:00] No, there's no hidden knowledge, just all out there. You can get coaching from the best coaches in the world. You can watch the best athletes in the world, you can, you can learn so much. And it's the same in this field. So the fact that someone like Michael was able to go through basically the library of Alexandria, of the Western history and pull out a lot of gems that most scholars and people that just go to university to study philosophy or history into these subjects, they're never even gonna hear of. And find these brilliant thinkers that contributed greatly to the archive of knowledge that we have and feature that, you know, and there's been many others that have done it as well, though. Michael has to be one of the more unique ones, let's be honest here. Mm-hmm. Um, which is why I still partnered with the man and just love doing enslaved. I mean, I'm, I'm honored to be there doing, and that too, you know, I still binge watch enslaved also. I learned so much. Um, but just, I'm just saying like, incredible that we have the technology, we have the will, there's, people are [00:10:00] hungry for this kind of information. They wanna know about what's going on in the world. They want to know about the mysteries of, uh, of, of life. And that's really what it's all about. And so, you know, we have this ability to communicate this information, give it to people in a digestible way, and then share knowledge. It's a, it's a massive information sharing network. Now there's cons to this because now everybody in their grandma has a podium and it can kind of muddy the water a little bit. But I'd almost rather this than the way it was where it was just like this strict, like there was like these, uh, pre Starkeys and these, you know, officials and it was all the experts, like who, who are the only ones that had a voice in the room. And now everybody has a say. And of course there is pros and cons, but if you find the quality out there, you find the people that really have the gems. Um, you can, you can, you'd be amazed what you can discover without having to just go attend some university. The university is online right now. You can learn any subject you want from the best [00:11:00] people in the world and you get caught up to speed real quick. And so I'm just grateful we're in this time 'cause uh, those of, you know, we've been around a while and before we had this ability, it was very hard to get ahold of it. The guys that we reference in our work here on all these subjects, they had to be the ones going into those libraries and getting out the microfilm and scanning newspaper articles and, and just like the hard. Groundwork that was done in order to produce good journalism and good reporting and good research today, it's made infinitely easier. So I expect to see an explosion of more content like this and more curious minds going out and getting involved and, uh, finding some great mysteries and bringing it to the world. And I think it's a great time to see this happen. Yerasimos: Yeah. There's like no excuse, I feel like these days to like not go after the things you wanna go after and be the person you wanna be. There's just so much access. It comes down to, again, I think maybe some things we'll talk about here today, but like, what do you really want? Who you really are? What's your level of self-esteem? How much [00:12:00] desire do you have, you know, to, to change your life? You know, it's, it's a lot easier now, I think, than it maybe it was, you know, 50, 60, a hundred years ago. David Whitehead: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I, I've, I was always like, I used to love just going into these bookstores and grabbing these books and learning it. I did it with my martial arts career. I did it with this and. You know, it's a sacred journey that's very personal to me, and I'm sure everybody listening knows what I'm talking about. We all share this journey, especially if you do public work. But there's a very private space for myself as well that I always try to hold, you know, keep everybody off and just be like, no, this is, this is just for me. Um, but what I've learned is that you have the ability to, if you have the ability to communicate, and you can even just, you know, do some basic investigation into your ideas, you can at least start the journey. And I think a lot of people are just afraid to start. It was like, when you guys started out, I'm sure you were kinda like, oh my God, what mic do I get? What do I do? How does this work? Is are people even [00:13:00] gonna listen? Are they gonna care? Do I even know what I'm talking about? Am I gonna fumble in front of that big guest that I booked? You know, we all people that create public work, you know, you get all those things that kind of cloud your mind and they can throw you off. And a lot of people don't continue, you know, so people get into it for a weekend and then it's over and they don't want to go to the next level. So hats off to you guys for just continuing on and forging through and you're getting, the thing is, is you just, you get better at it, and when you get better at it, you do better work. And then you're inspired to do better work. And it's, it incentivizes you to do your best. And if you keep that motto of like, keep that curiosity, keep trying to bring your best forward, people will resonate with it. You know, especially if you've got like something really legitimate to say and you've got some facts to show people, um, and some inspiring things to teach people. And, uh, and also when you go at it as a, as a student, this is what I've tried to keep in my mind is keep that white belt mindset always right. As much as we get into our, [00:14:00] I guess, our crystallized beliefs and theories and ways of looking at things, you gotta appreciate everybody's point of view and learn from many, learn from many teachers and just stay humble in your pursuit. And if you keep those basic rules, I just, for myself, I. I find that it, it enhances both the work you're doing for the public, but more importantly, it's, it's like you're gonna have that confidence in yourself, in, in your, in the way you're approaching these subjects and the way you're approaching your own forging of your own life. You're gonna develop that and, uh, that's gonna be part of that personal side that, uh, you know, you're gonna be forging for yourself. And so it's, it's inner work as you explore the outer world. And I think that's, uh, a magical thing. Mm-hmm. Joel Rafidi: Yeah. It's like the self reciprocal nature of, you know, self-esteem. If you take any of Nathaniel Brandon's pillars, whether it's consciousness and integrity, purposefulness, whatever it might be like, the more you live with consciousness, the more self-esteem you get, the more self-esteem you get, the more you want to live more consciously, [00:15:00] you know? So once you're kind of on that wheel of kind of self fuels and self feed itself, and I mean, you can continue to rise forever, and this is kind of the beauty of. You know, what the West has built in many ways. You just kind of the crux of what I want to get into here, because for the first time in human history with I guess the rise of Western values, Western traditions, man's mind was kind of unshackled in a sense. He was free to think, free to innovate, free, to go his own way, free to build value was created through man's mind, through man's effort, and not purely through coercion, force, pharaohs emperors, whatever it might be. So do you kind of wanna speak into the current misconceptions or the widespread misconceptions that we have around capitalism currently and in recent mystery that maybe we can start picking apart from there? What value really is, what money really is and what it really means to be a self-responsible human being? David Whitehead: Yeah, this is important. I'm glad we wanted to do this. Um, I think this was [00:16:00] inspired. I, I put out a tweet because I saw a meme going around about. Should I read the meme? Joel Rafidi: I'll read the meme. The meme. David Whitehead: Oh, sure. Yeah. If you wouldn't mind. We'll, we'll put some context. Yeah. Joel Rafidi: It, it was a meme and like the pictures like, you know, maybe a Native American, you know, lady, and she's saying, nature gives us everything for free. Nature doesn't charge us any money. All nature asks of us is that we protect it. And you kind of went in and decided to debunk that. David Whitehead: Yeah. And I can't remember how I phrased it, but I thought deeply about it because I wanted to hit this meme because I'm seeing this refrain, uh, rising up again. And it's not a shock to me. And I understand where people are coming from with this. Okay. So there's like the general impression of what this person is saying, and then there's the details that we gotta get into on this. And the fact that that's a lie. Now, there's nothing free that nature offers you in that regard. And, and there's a reason why. And it's not [00:17:00] because nature's trying to hold you prisoner or anything like that. And I think. This concept really hit me when Michael started talking about something called an antipathy to nature. And he'd said this many times, and I looked it up, antipathy, you know, meaning like, almost like an allergic reaction or like, you know, recoiling an horror or, uh, having like an aversion to it. You, you're like, what, what man has an aversion and antipathy to nature. And then he was getting into all the psychoanalyst and the psychologists and the philosophers that were pointing this out in the human being and going, isn't it interesting that all the rest of nature works very much in harmony with nature and just kind of every species and form of nature, expression of nature just works within its own natural order. But humans are the ones that have this thing where we can walk outside of that and we can actually work against our own nature. And we, we tend to do that. And, um, we tend to develop things like [00:18:00] self hatred, ory, you know, hatred of knowledge and wisdom. We're, we're riddled with fear and anxiety, you know, do you think tigers and lions and polar bears and zebras are riddled with anxiety? You don't know, but they can't, you know, contemplate their own existence to the same degree. So I guess it's part and parcel, but, um, I always found it interesting when he's like that and antipathy to nature. I'm like, what is that? And so, in one sense, you know, I understand what that meme is talking about with, in comparison to the material world that we've built this, uh, corporatist, elitist, you know, globalist type of system, um, of consumption and all that. You know, you get, you get that and you go, okay. But it gets really tricky when you get into the weeds here because you gotta realize that like some of the biggest dictatorships in history have been built out of that premise, right? And people don't understand how this keeps happening. And I think it's because it's actually defying a natural law to view. And, and we'll just [00:19:00] flesh this out a little bit. They're saying nature doesn't charge you money. It shows how far we've come from understanding what money was to begin with, right? And yes, our money system and the capitalist western system has become corrupted. Okay, so when you're arguing, often we're arguing a straw man. When we're talking about pro western values, the values of individualism, freedom, true capitalism, the philosophy of trade, fair trade between individuals, as opposed to having coercive forces and all these different things, um, not being ruled by the whim of the crowd or the tribe or the mob of people around you. Um, this is all very new in human thinking, so it doesn't surprise me that aboriginal, indigenous tribes and whatnot. Have this view. Okay. It's essentially the Rousseau view. Uh, if you go to Jean Jacques [00:20:00] Rousseau, it's the whole myth of the noble savage thing. We've done a lot of this stuff on enslaved, taking it apart. Um, people like Ayn Rand have taken this apart and many others as well. Um, but it's basically the misconception about what nature is looking, what nature really is. It's like, okay, well we have the natural world that gives you everything for free. This person is saying, but it's not free. Just because I don't have a unit of exchange pre the industrial revolution or pre the invention of a monetary system, especially like a free market monetary system, doesn't mean I'm not charged every second of every day. By nature, should I not obey nature's laws? Right? The na nature's laws are that as a human being, I have to eat. At least three times a day, I need to sleep at least eight to 10 hours a day. And nobody really sleeps that much anymore. Um, I have to, there's certain requirements that we have, just like plants and trees, they all have requirements for survival. So nature puts attacks on you right away and it's clicking. [00:21:00] Right? And the cost is you have to be able to develop skills in order to navigate nature, in order to survive the natural elements. If you don't develop those skills, nature will mercilessly deal with you. Doesn't care. No feeling, no, it's nothing personal. It's just, it's just a way of things. Joel Rafidi: Let me, let me, before we go deeper, let me ask you like, how do you consider nature? Like in terms of benevolent, malevolent, neutral, like what's your perspective of nature in, in that sense? David Whitehead: Oh, everything. All of it. Everything. It's dual. It's dual. It's, see, yeah, there's this schools that like. Hippie dippies, nature's just love and light, and the mother goddess, and, you know, it's just all happy ponies and rainbows until the tiger's crawling up your ass. Right? Um, or the earth opens up and swallows entire villages, you know, earthquakes and tsunamis and volcanoes. Uh, and then there's the other side that's like, well, no, nature's just completely malevolent. Like, sort of like the religious [00:22:00] perspective. Nature's cursed. It's a fallen world. It's, uh, you know, your body's a prison for your soul, and we're all prisoners here on this rock, and we're just, you know, held by some, uh. Tyrannical natural order that's trying to lead you astray. It's owned, it's controlled by the devil. Mind you. So, you know, everything nature's trying to offer for you is all demonic and evil. And so there's like these extremes. It's all the things. It's, it's every, like, just as humans are all those things, right? We've seen the expressions of the worst of humanity. We've seen the expressions of the best of humanity and everything in between. We see the same thing when it comes to the natural order. So to me, it's not a mystery. So I look at it, nature is just a canvas. It's neutral. It's a, it's a artistic palate, really. And it, it's, there's laws, there's laws that are in place that govern the natural world, who put them there, how people want to conceive that. That's, that's totally up to them. There's a bazillion theories on that, but, um, just simple observation. Right. Just kind of getting back to this, like what is value? [00:23:00] What, what is, what does it mean to have a cost or a price on something? Look, if you don't, if, if you're in hunter-gatherer societies, you know. Because it seems like we're in this age where people just wanna run back to hunter gatherer societies again. They don't want to have modern civilization. They don't want man to traverse the stars. They don't wanna, it's, it's this fear that humans have of like evolving and, and really progressing forward. Um, and other, other people might argue always, is it really progress that man wants to keep creating all these trinkets and toys and, and, and keep building. Um, but I think it's, I think there's nuance in all these things, but the main thing is to understand that if you do not develop the skills to survive in a hunter gatherer society or in a, in, in that kind of situation, and you don't measure up to that, you're swiftly dealt with in, in, with the natural order, right? Any species that can't defend itself against a more predatory species will be wiped out and gone extinct. It's just the way it goes. [00:24:00] And so. Does that mean it's evil? Does that mean nature's evil? Because, you know, these are the mechanisms at play. Well, no, we see, we see both yin and yang in nature, right? We see beauty, we see destruction, we see. So it's a dualism that we're seeing. And I think this goes across all the scales of, of reality. And so we are finding ourselves sort of thrown into this world in a way where we have to survive and then we have to survive the time in which we live. And the idea of going out into nature and making something out of nothing. I, I use that sort of generally because obviously everything in nature is not nothing, but like nothing in terms of value for the human being. Like WA tree is just there. It's beautiful. It's, it's, it's something that, you know, or, or any aspect of nature is yeah. Is definitely aesthetically beautiful. And it's, it's, you know, some, Joel Rafidi: something in its raw form that hasn't yet been transformed by the human minds to have a greater value, to have a greater benefit for our use. David Whitehead: You just said it be [00:25:00] That's exactly what I was, you said it better than I could. That's exactly it. It's, it's like, it's, it's in its natural form and that is stunningly beautiful and much of nature should be left in that condition, but for human survival and not only survival, but to thrive and grow and, uh, build even more. Um, you know, there, there's certain conditions that have been placed upon us. So I think what the original idea of a monetary system was simply to represent the natural order, but you know, in a way that would be a lot more feasible for human affairs. Right. To, so there's like nature's affairs and then there's human affairs. And in human affairs we're trading goods and services and knowledge and technology and ideas and all these different things. And it takes work and ingenuity and, um. A hell of a lot of sacrifices for people to develop those skills and to develop the ability to turn nothing into something, something that previously didn't have a lot of value to the human being into something that does.[00:26:00] You take a piece of wood, you turn it into a rocking chair, right? Something very simple. Um, and there's so many examples of this. And so even though obviously there's pitfalls along the way, no matter what type of system we put in place to try to mirror that. Um, and yes, we've definitely strayed away in many ways in terms of modern civilization, but that's not the argument to destroy it all. And this is where the Marxist argument comes in, which is essentially the argument that's being given with that meme, if you really know how to decode it, is that, um, we just have to go back to like regress back to the trees, regress back to this primitive state in order to finally be in balanced with nature. This is actually the core of what's at. Going on with the UN ideology and the Club of Rome and the, the Green New Deal stuff and what's behind the green mask. This whole, going back to nature, it's a, it's, it's not what people think it is, right? It's, it's [00:27:00] sort of a false advertisement because it's coming from, I think, and inorganic or inauthentic place. There's Yerasimos: also an David Whitehead: a Yerasimos: naivete, like, we're just gonna walk out in nature. And then like, the Garden of Eden is just gonna be everywhere there for us, like feeding us, you know what I mean? Yeah. As opposed to like, we don't have to do anything to, to make that happen. You know? I mean, how many stories do we see of people who, you know, we're going for a lovely little hike and then got lost and then like 15 days later they, they were found almost dead. You know, because they don't have the ability or the skills or the understanding to even survive or like understand nature to that degree. Well, Joel Rafidi: exactly. Yeah. And it, it's interesting because like, it seems like very early in people's quote unquote truth seeking journey, they believe the major conspiracy and the major enslavement is that humans have to work. Yeah. You know? Okay. And, and that in the ideal utopic society that we would just, everything is available for [00:28:00] everyone. We can just, you know, sing kumbaya, hold hands, we do ula hoops, swing in the swings, and like everything will be given to us. We'll be constantly fed and there'd be no reasons to produce, no reasons to think, no reasons to activate these skills and abilities, which like a gifts, in my opinion, Yerasimos: regression to the wound. Yeah. Just take care of me and feed me. Yeah. Namakula: Now, a short break from the episode, Yerasimos: for those of you that read, uh, my article, the New Community, uh, honoring Individuals and Building Together, you'll understand like where we're moving forward, uh, as community where we honor the individual, we honor each other's uniqueness, and then we come together There. So again, like we mentioned in the beginning, we had an amazing time at Confluence. Events like that are propping up everywhere to meet in person, where we're not meeting, uh, where we're, we're not meeting based on coercion. We're meeting based on shared values. And so the next best thing, uh, uh, is being able to connect with people all around the world online. And it's what we've created, uh, with Friends of the Truth. Uh, we've been going on, I guess three years now with that community. So if you wanna [00:29:00] come together, um, have a laugh, learn, uh, be inspired, um, go to hear for the truth.com/fott and learn all about it. We have five calls a month. We have an incredible telegram group with like 30 subtopics where we engage in a whole bunch of different conversations. And one of my favorite things is that we just have fun and we laugh and we connect. And so if that's what you're looking for, um, yeah, come check us out Joel Rafidi: if the truth.com/ FO tt Namakula: back to the episode. David Whitehead: That's it, man. You guys have got it. It's, it's, that is it. It's wanting that nanny state. If you couldn't get it from your government, you now want to get rid of all modern civilization and go back to pre electricity era and have nature become your parent again. And nature is already your parent no matter what you're gonna think about it. And, uh, it's not, there's an idealized sort of, um, magical child thinking that I see in the way people view nature and especially people that live [00:30:00] in like, you know, high society. It's so funny that these arguments for these types of ideologies come from people living in a modern societies. Um, and so yeah, you're right. The thing is, is you are charged every day to go out and produce something or you're not gonna survive, right? So that alone is already a principle that's there. And people have this illusion that if we just get rid of all of our. Uh, capitalist systems and all the civilization we've created and get rid of all the buildings and just go back to the trees again. That somehow that system of demand upon you as an individual is just gonna stop. Uh, newsflash, it ain't, it's gonna be really, really bad. I think if we had time travel available to us, um, that we would go back and we would realize very quickly how good we have it. And I think that's the problem with every generation is that we don't even know how good we have it in comparison to times before. And [00:31:00] all you gotta do is really start scanning the historical records and the journals and the writings and all the, and even just getting into the poetry and the literature. It's all there about what level of work and toil and slavery, not to some tyrant that humanity had to obey, but to demands put upon us by the natural world. And, um, so this illusion that nature doesn't charge us for anything I. Um, it, it, okay, it might not be in the same way as like the stock market in New York, but it's, there's still a price on everything. And the price is your ability to develop skills, your ability to apply your skills by toil and work and effort. And then of course, everybody doing all that work is gonna wanna see a result for all that work. And the results should be, Hey, I was able to build some kind of structure to live in, to protect me from the elements of nature. And then I'm able to develop, build some things [00:32:00] and generate some skill in being able to ward off wild animals that are constantly trying to attack me. And then, oh, now we've got other people that don't like the fact that I'm in this location and that that tribe over there wants to eliminate me and my tribe over here. So I better develop some skills in how to at least have defensive warfare skills so I can defend myself and you. And it just keeps going and going and going until you realize that like, yeah, you're not put on this world to just sit. Buy and be stagnant. Mm-hmm. There's a demand placed upon you because it's about bringing out the best in human, in the human being and forging the next layer of what you could call natural evolution, the evolutionary process. Um, and there's many layers to that. I'm not just talking strictly Darwinian level here, natural order. And in order to do that, think about it. You can't just sit back with your handout and expect nature to put food in your bowl. It's not gonna, it's not gonna [00:33:00] go that way. You have to go out and actually climb those trees to get those coconuts. You have to go out and, and create these tools that are gonna actually make your survival and a lot easier. And so what I feel is, like in the West specifically, for whatever reason, it was the first time the idea was born that not, and it had to come from the idea first, that there was this thing called the individual. I. Right. This is where it all comes together here. It's not just about, well, what capitalism and money and nature. It's, it's actually getting down to something very deep here, I think in these, uh, in these arguments is like the tribal setting is a collectivist setting and there's a reason for it, right? There's a reason for it. Because before we had the technology or even the thinking to be able to free man from that tribal setting and that collectivism, um, there, it was the way of survival. There were, there were many pragmatic reasons for those types of setups, right? And so people that idealize that, they think, oh, we gotta go back because look at the mess we've [00:34:00] created. Look at the, the horrors of the modern world. But they forget in that pre civilization world. You want to talk horrors, there's many people who've documented it and it's just a different kind of horrors that we're dealing with, but it's still the same thing. 'cause you're still dealing with nature here. You're still dealing with human nature specifically. So, you know, if, if you're just expecting to get free handouts from nature, uh, it's, you're not gonna get it. And so if you, if you have this system of an individual, meaning you have your own inal rights, that, and you, you have your own mind and your own reason and your own logic, and you have your own personal responsibility, it's not just that you're part of this group and everything we measure you against is gonna be the the group, right? It's no, no, you're unto yourself. You're on your own. You can work with other people. Obviously there's a certain bit of collectivism that's always gonna be there. But the, the reason [00:35:00] tyranny keeps rising, I think is because of this misconception that, um, if we just band together and basically fight against nature. Work against it and work against our human nature and reprogram human nature. This is the argument of the Marxist. We gotta reprogram human nature in order for humanity to finally find peace in Kumbaya. That's a contradiction because you're going against the natural order to try to fix things that went wrong with the natural order. And so, um, these ideas all start with these types of misconceptions, I think, is that, uh, we have to go back to some tribe, right? They always say, oh, it takes a village to raise a child and all this kind of stuff. Um, even though there might be some levels there, but you know, if you know what you're looking at, it's, it's, it's very interesting to get into. We can talk about that. Um, and then this idea that if we just go back to nature and get rid of money and get rid of trade, uh, and go back to barter, that somehow we're gonna have a better civilization. And that's actually what happened is that in that post that I did, [00:36:00] and I can't find it now, but I'll go ahead. I, I made those points. Um, listed of basically my top arguments against those, those points made in the meme. I had an interesting exchange with a few people in there. Some of 'em are my friends and love 'em dearly, but I saw where the misconception was, was basically I was like, okay, and this is how I always ask people, if you don't like western capitalism as a system, and let's just leave aside all the discussion about the Federal Reserve and the infiltration, the takeover of our banking system and the corruption that's happened. And by the way, it was socialist Marxist policies that crept into that, that slowly deconstructed it. And that's, I think, where the origin of that corruption happened. But that's another thing. Uh, if you want to get rid of that, what are you gonna replace it with? And I'm like, I give people the microphone, Kate, what, what are you gonna replace? Are we going back to the village? We're going back to the trees. Now we're regressing back into living like the pygmies or something. Like, what, what are we gonna do? And then the guys, people are like, well, we're just gonna trade and barter. And I'm like, okay. [00:37:00] There's many, many issues with that as a, as a replacement for a free market system. And the number one thing that everybody forgets about is the enslavement. Not to the tyrant, not to the Federal Reserve and the banksters, the enslavement to your fellow man. And this was Ryan's argument. This was many, there are many great thinkers we can get into that argued this. Um, and like Hayek and all these guys that went, Hey, there's, there's a different way. We don't have to go extreme totalitarianism on either side of this in order to have the peace and, and the freedom in the world that I think suits the, the human spirit. He, the, the idea is that there was a path that led to the idea of trade between human beings. That was fair. This was the intention of it. Okay. This was the original intention of it. If it worked out like that, that's a different debate. Yeah. But the original intention was to have an A system that. Mirrored human nature and best suited human nature, not an [00:38:00] idealized nature that everybody's like hoping for the utopian vision that hasn't shown itself. Right. Um, it's, it's something that was mirrored based off of nature itself. Its principles, its demands upon the human being and then the nature of the human being itself. Yeah. And we'll just stop there for now. Joel Rafidi: Yeah. It just begs the question like, what is money? And ultimately money is human life force exchanged. And like when you're holding a a dollar bill or a note in your pocket or whatever it might be, that's just ultimately symbolic of the best of your ability. And people make the arguments like a resource based economy, inre and stuff like that. But what's, what's the usefulness of like trading bricks or trading corn or trading seeds, like, whatcha gonna do, carry around like a, a bucket load or a barrel load of, of these things. And so, you know, we hate money, yet we forget what's at the roots of it. And also this like kind of. For me, what comes up is like, what role does envy plays play in this urge and this need and this wants, wants a return to nature because we see [00:39:00] this hatred of the rich proliferating all around us as well. And sure people do get rich in dodgy, corrupt in immoral ways as well. But at the core of it, you know, the richest person ultimately is the person that uses their mind most effectively, who creates the most leverage. And to me, that's not something to tear down, you know? David Whitehead: Yeah, no, well said. And it's, um, it's funny you mentioned like that, 'cause I was thinking about this after having some of these back and forths. I'm like, what is really driving these desires to, you know, just burn it all down and blow it all up and go back to, you know, rewind history. And, um, I, I think that you're right. I think there's a psychological aspect to this. It's also embedded in human nature, but human nature, untamed, I would put it in, in that category. It's kind of like there's this wild part of us, that other part that wants to move forward in life and wants to, you know, create and be free [00:40:00] and all of that. And so we're all sort of battling that on an individual level. And then what this is, is just the argument happening in the collective. Uh, this is like the expression of that internal struggle that I think everybody's dealing with on some level. And if you have people that have more than you in the capitalist system, in a system ruled by, you know, sane and just law, you're not permitted to just go and grab that guy that you don't like, that you think has more than you and bring him out and hang him on a tree in his backyard. Um, you know, there, there's, there's many forms of tyranny that don't exist just with some form of government or some tyrant in, in power. It's, it's been known as the tyranny of the masses. And we've seen this, this is the story of history that people don't really wanna talk about because, um, they, they're thinking like, if we just get rid of, if we get rid of people who are successful in this free system, and if we get rid of people that have more, if we get rid of money entirely, [00:41:00] and then, then we can finally have peace. This is the, the false equation that we have. And I go, well, did we have peace? Pre-industrial revolution? Did we have peace pre the introduction of Western capitalism Really? Was it really peaceful and beautiful? And these, these tribes are just living like the hobbits in the Shire. And, and then these evil uh, you know, Western people came in and just destroyed their way of life. And, uh, you know, this is the, this is what they're being taught in school. These kids are being taught this in school, by the way, by these Marxist professors who are espousing. What do you think the Shire Yerasimos: represent? What do you think the Shire represents? David Whitehead: Well, the Shire, it's, it, it, I look at it as a place in consciousness. It's a mythical realm that is sort of an aspect of, uh, an element of your own mind, really, you know? And, um, even in the Shire, there would've had been some sort of exchange or trade, and maybe they were a small enough little village in there that they could have done some kind of barter system. I don't know if Tolkien wrote about this, but remember Lord of the Rings and the [00:42:00] Shire and all that is a metaphor. And I think all of those different places, uh, you know, whether we're talking Mordor or whether we're talking the Shire, are sort of handset different elements of your consciousness, different archetypes in your mind of, of, uh, of that. And so there's a dream in the human mind of this heavenly utopia. That I think is born of something legitimate, and it's a virtuous thing and it's, it's a part of you, right? But the evil starts to, stuff starts to happen when you try to force your utopia on the world and onto nature, right? When you're taking something in the mythical, archetypal realm of your consciousness and trying to superimpose it on the physical, natural world, not taking human nature into account or na nature's laws into account, that's when we have, that's when all the, the poverty starts, the starvation, the genocide, the, the struggle sessions and all the, all the horrible things that we've seen in the totalitarian and regimes that we've, uh, covered before, right? So I think that this is where I put that [00:43:00] line and I go, everybody needs to maybe read the other side of the argument here, because I know it's, it's an easy argument in your mind to just say, well, it's all the people that have more than me or are doing better than me, or can produce more than me, that are the problem. Notice that everything is about people above you. That's the, that's the projection from these people that I think are possessed with sort of a victim mentality, right? Is they look at all the causes of evil in the world. That's simply people that are higher than your station in life. And this isn't new. This is something that's been a problem in humanity for as long as we can see recorded history. And so if we're talking about, okay, if we just, if we see corruption happening in our monetary system, 'cause some pirates came in and, you know, totally rearranged everything and are stealing from us. And look at what they're, they're using it to, you know, hurt people and destroy our economies and take power. And we, we are having a false [00:44:00] equivalency in our mind that we have to blow up the entire thing of individualism, freedom free trade, the original, you know, idea of what capitalism was, which I guess we should explain, 'cause you asked about that Joel. Like there's the capitalism of today that we see happening where it's what you could call crony capitalism or fake capitalism, right? Yeah. Well, it's Joel Rafidi: not really capitalism because you know, the moment, the moment freedom is intervened with, in terms of the core essence of laissez-faire capitalism, like it changes the entire beast altogether. You know? So I don't even like applying the words what we currently exist within today. David Whitehead: And I agree with you. I agree with you. And it's because this would be the way people talk about. So when people that are advocating for the abolishment of capitalism, they're arguing from what they think capitalism is, which it's not. Yeah. So it's the wrong word. You're right. Um, do we have to just change the word because it's become basically like. S ordered in people's heads, maybe, [00:45:00] but free. I like saying like, free trade, free markets. Yeah. The reason that a lot of people don't like that though is because they're like, well, we gotta control the people who work too hard. Because if they work, if, if you get up Joel every day and you are up at 5:00 AM and you're bright and shiny and you're working your RS off, you're gonna have success. Whether we had a monetary system or no monetary system. Okay, you could rig the barter game and just have everybody bartering and getting it, like if you're out there working in this world, you're gonna be ahead of the curve, right against the guy that isn't working as hard, isn't producing, isn't working on himself, in order to develop the ability and the, the skills and the genius in order to produce something of value that's worth bartering or exchanging for. Right? So, um, this is where it does get down to the personalist level of psychology, and we brought up the nature of envy. And I think that sort of a cult of envy, uh, it's what R Rand called it [00:46:00] and, and I think it's accurate. The cult of envy is very alluring to the people who are riddled with envy. It's pretty simple and they want what everybody else has that they don't have. Everybody's not happy with what they have. You could even have those people who got many stories of people who are wealthy. They did make it, they got millions of dollars in the bank, but they're just not happy with what they have. So people then equate, well, look, S hollow, it's not, it doesn't have any feelings. There's no humanity in it. It's like, yeah. But there's categories of things that the human being needs to express. Right? And so you don't just equate all that together. You have to have a system of trade and barter that's sound and reasonable and allows for the freedom of every individual to either make it or break it. Right? Uh, you have to have a system that allows for failures too. Like, I don't like this whole talk about how we have to save everybody from their mistakes and their bad decisions. 'cause if you keep saving yourselves from all the, let's say we, we have our children, for example. We're trying to teach children. I'm [00:47:00] a good example is I'm coaching this competitive team in Juujitsu. Got like these 50 kids I'm working on and I took them in. They've never trained Juujitsu in their lives and I'm trying to turn them into champions and I'm having good progress. Uh, we just took home 29 medals at the last tournament. A lot of these kids have only trained with me six months, you know, so, you know. But what is that? What did they have to do? Each individual? Yeah. They're part of a team, I guess you could call that a collective, but they made it to a team that when you go on the competition mat, it's you against one other opponent. It's, and that opponent mirrors you. You're trying to figure out where your skills are at. What did those children have to do to themselves in order to produce this skill to go out and win a gold medal against somebody far more experienced than them in a tournament? Well, they had to put the work in. They had to have the desire to, it had to start with a desire. It started with a desire that, Hey, I wanna win. Well, what is the desire to win anyways? Is it just to get like. Everybody cheering your name, [00:48:00] is it just to get the medal? Maybe for some people that's how they start going on that process. But if you really listen to the, I listen to these kids and I watch them, what really motivates them is the feeling that comes with having themselves do something that they succeeded at, that they put the work in. Like when I see a child that's really, you know, shy and timid and you know, doesn't know what they're doing, and then they go from that to just Molly whopping like four competitive kids in a row at a tournament in Jiujitsu, they're, they're not just looking at that gold medal. Yeah. They're shocked that they even were capable of dealing with that level of pressure on a symbolic level. That was them going through a process of growth at a very high level, high speed rate. And they learned that when I came and I showed up to class and I did, I followed the instruction and I worked hard. And I had that desire and I had that goal, [00:49:00] and then I did the work to achieve the goal, and then I achieved the goal. They now prove something to themselves. That's the first layers of self-esteem in that kid. Yeah, that's right. That, that was the gratification. It was not the medals, it's the desire for they did something. It's the desire for Joel Rafidi: self-esteem. Right, right. And it's, it's, it's very Well, it's very also, yeah, well, I mean it's, it's the urge to heroism, which we all have within us as well. And ultimately that's also what's at the core of this Marxist return to the national world. Push is like to destroy the hero and it's only in that urge to heroism, which has led also to everything which the west has built. And then you also, you witness all around us, the war on pride. And what is pride is that whether the emotional reward for achievements, you do the thing, you get the self-esteem. Wow. There's this natural reward mechanism built within me. I feel pride. Let me go get more of that. Let me go become more greats. Yerasimos: And yet that's one of the seven deadly sins. I mean, I get it hubris. So there's other elements to that. But like on the basic [00:50:00] level, uh, I agree with what Joel's saying. It's like you go through this process and you experience this feeling of putting work in and you know, what does that do to you? You know? But I mean, just Joel Rafidi: I imagine what the, the man who first rubbed two sticks together and developed fire kind of felt, you know, in many ways we think fire, we consider fire to be the first technology. Now we have warmth, now we have a weapon. Now we can heat food. Now we can have power. Now we can have energy. And it's like, it's that feeling within us that led to more and more innovation, which ultimately adds to the rise of everything that we're experiencing all around of us here today. And I love Rand's argument here, which is that money is not the reputable evil, it's actually the root of all good, you know, which our WR students know very well because in the objectivist ethics, she argues that the good is that which proliferates life evil is that which is anti-life. So what is the moral objective of all of nature, if not its own survival. First and foremost, if survival is not valued, no other values are possible, right? [00:51:00] So in many ways it is the highest morality to make money. It is the highest morality to figure out the problems of your life, to sustain one's self. And so continue to grow and to continue to evolve. And this is what they're trying to take away from us. David Whitehead: Yeah, exactly. And that when you look at it, I think people would have trouble looking at it from a, a deeper level than just the physical nature of money and the money system and all of that, right? Is uh, you have to look at this as everything is, is, is, is basically an expression of the human mind. And it's a, it's a symbol. It's the money's a symbol for something. It's a unit of exchange. It's as simple as it can be, right? There's money systems. That could be better than others or worse than others, or could become corrupted over time. But the corruptive element in any of our systems isn't because necessarily of the system, right? Unless, of course the system was developed, uh, for very particular corrupt reason from the beginning. But it's the [00:52:00] p it's it. This is an element in human nature, no matter what system. We've tried all the systems and that, you know, that we know of. Maybe there's even more we don't yet know of, but we've tried them all, many times we've run these experiments many times and we know the outcome, right? And so if you talk about something very simple when you think about money, or at least the way money should be looked at, um, it's merit. Mm-hmm. Money, merit. It's, are you, did you do what it took? Did you actually apply yourself to earn your status or was it given to you? Right. And this is the idea, like, do you. Like, you see homeless people sitting around all over the place, right? And you, your heart bleeds for them. You feel bad for them, and you go, okay, well I'll just give this homeless guy a bunch of money and that'll fix it, right? Or, I see all these starving people in Africa, let's just keep donating billions of dollars year after year to have it get flushed down the toilet over there, you know, by the, by the corrupt, [00:53:00] uh, system. And, and the fact that money isn't the way that, that system's gonna be fixed. It's, it, you gotta realize it's because money's just a unit of exchange and it's actually a symbol of like what you're talking about, of, um, that application of your mind and, and your, and your work into something that it's, is it the money that's the corrupt? This was Rand's argument. Is it money that's corrupt or were you not worthy of your money, right? Should you just be given the money? Is that 'cause this is what the argument is. Then you go, well, how do we fix the homeless population? Do we just give them money? Because here's the, here's what's gonna happen. From what I've seen, you give a lot of these people money. What do they do? They do really bad things with it. They don't use it as a tool to change their status from being a person living on the streets, screaming at the sky to being somebody that lives in a home with a family and is out there living their life and, you know, living their best life. Look at the statistics with the lottery. So, Yerasimos: similar thing, you know, people win the lottery. [00:54:00] Lottery Exactly. Like, yeah. After a few years they go back David Whitehead: to where they were. Very often they do because what's, what's the difference? Was it the money that corrupt every 'cause? The money corrupted them really though. Really? The money did. Did the physical dollar bill corrupt you? Yeah. The numbers in your bank account corrupt you. Or was it something in you that corrupted you? This all comes back to merit and personal responsibility. Is it the money that corrupts or is it a part of your own nature that's corrupting right and it, it's easy to blame external things you can blame nature. You can blame your circumstance. You can blame money, you can blame capitalism. You can blame the West. You can, there's lots of things to blame in the world for all your problems, right? And that is the get outta jail free card that everybody wants. It's easier for them to live in the way of thinking that says, I am a victim in this world. Everything is preying on me. And so that's why [00:55:00] I'm not successful. It's everybody else's fault that I'm not living my best life. And that produces, um, a very downward spiral psychology in that person. Whereas the way of the west, the, the tradition of Western values, right, is no, it is about heroism. It's about merit, it's about reaping what you sow. And it's about personal responsibility for what you do have control over, no matter what system we invent. Whether we're in modern civilization or pre-industrial civilization, you are gonna be called to account for your actions or your non-action. The laws of merit, personal responsibility, and all these things that I was saying that a, a sane understanding of what money could be and value could be, is supposed to represent all those rules apply whether we have a monetary system or not. That was my main argument. Right. And then there's just what's more pragmatic, [00:56:00] what's more functional, what actually works, right? And so, you know, we have to try to understand that this isn't just about studying the economic arguments. 'cause there's people that are probably way better than me at giving all of those. It's about understanding the psychological component here, the, the human nature argument that many people are looking to pass the buck. And it's kind of funny that it's the buck right to pass the dollar on, to pass, to pass the responsibility on. So if you look at, and it's funny how when you make this mental shift. You're gonna make more money, you're gonna have more success. You're gonna, you know, see the change happening in your life. If you operate under that victim mindset that says, everybody's out to get me. This system's evil and corrupt, therefore I'm not gonna participate it and I'm gonna go live in the forest. Um, that's not really gonna be sustainable. And you're looking at it from the wrong angle. See, the heroic type looks at the situation and goes, okay, I can't control all these things over here. I [00:57:00] can't control, like I've been living in Canada. I can't control the insanity of our government right now. I can't control that and the way they're running our economy. But what I can control is I can still get my ass up every day. And even within that corrupted system where our dollar's hyperinflated, I gotta work 10 times harder than I normally would. I could sit back and go, like a lot of people that I know in, in this, um, in my communities of people who are awake to what's going on and we've just sort of given up and now. They're living in squalor. They have no money. The kids are, you know, living out in the forest with them. Like they're not, they're not progressing, you know? And whereas I say, no, get up despite all of that and apply the principle that I'm talking about of I'm going out there and I'm gonna work on what I do have control over, and I'm gonna activate the heroism within myself to deal with the challenges, what, whatever way they come. And when you ha, when you approach life like that, it's not [00:58:00] even, and it's not about money. It really isn't. It really is not about money. It's about what money would symbolize to you. So you can reclaim that by simply applying yourself now if you want to go and get at the making of the changes, that would help. Uh, you know, ease the economic tension in our, all of our nations that I think is throwing people into poverty. Maybe start asking yourself, what really changed in our western monetary systems that has been producing a lot more economic hardship? And then pause that and then go. What's really interesting is that even with the corruption that it's happened in western economies, why is the entire third world coming here and not remaining in the previous civilizational state that everybody here is dreaming would be the utopia. It's not a utopia in Haiti. It's not a utopia in Africa. It's not a utopia in Venezuela. It's not a, it's not a utopia. [00:59:00] It never is, and it's, it's the sales pitch of utopia, but it never gets there. Why? Because. It's magical child thinking. It's, it's an incorrect view of how to activate your own heroism and go out and actually do something of value in your life and in the world. And don't forget the people that invented these systems originally, and the people that have achieved legitimate success. I'm not talking about criminal success or screwing people over what I'm talking about. People that worked hard, they built their financial security, right? Um, what do they know that the average person out there doesn't know? Is it that they're just all evil? 'cause that's the other assumption. Anybody that's successful must be evil. Wouldn't that be nice? Doesn't, doesn't that ease the bur the, the burdens that nature puts upon you to, to grow from within yourself and create something of value, not just creating money. Remember, you're trying to create the internal money, the inner value. That's where the real [01:00:00] wealth is, right? And then any money or any, um, material success or external success, you're gonna achieve. Is only a reflection of that, right? The difference is, is that it's all about the premise of your worldview. It's your mindset about how you're approaching things. If I go back to that example of those kids that I'm training for competition, I had kids in that team that had a very negative self view, and I spotted it right away, right? They're younger than maybe 10, 11 years old, and I can tell they get down on themselves. The minute they experience failure. Hey, when they're doing great, they're unstoppable. When their mind is like, oh, I'm winning. I'm doing well, they're unstoppable. The second they meet any level of resistance, what happens? They cave. They start crying. They don't want to do it anymore. They want to quit. They want to give up, and I have to constantly have these chats with them to remind them of, Hey, five minutes ago you were killing it. What switched it was your mindset that switched. And now you wanna blame your training partner. You wanna blame the referees at the tournament that you [01:01:00] didn't win. You wanna blame your coaches. You wanna blame, you're looking for everybody else to blame when the reality is No, no, no. It's a mindset shift that needs to take place here. And when I, when I was able to prove this to some of these kids, I don't see that behavior in them anymore. It literally cured it, at least for now. So all they needed was a metaphor, a, an an environment to practice this skill, which just so happened to be the training mats, the competition. That's all just a, a stage, um, metaphorical practice for this inner development work. That's how I see it. Mm-hmm. It's not about the, the other external things. Um, Joel Rafidi: and when every, everything requires your efforts, you know, like you, you leave your house, it's going to collect dust. The same with anything. If you just sit there and let life and nature have you, like it's, it's going to have you ultimately, you know, it's like has blame, has victimhood, has entity, have these things ever led to the life that you genuinely want, the life that you [01:02:00] genuinely crave? And the answer is absolutely no. So like on a prime, what are your level? The first acceptance is that life is a challenge. Life is complex, life wise, the application of my mind to solve problems. And hopefully I can go from solving less fun problems to more fun problems. And that's kind of the journey that we all need to take, you know? And it's like the initial reassurance be like, okay, you know, life has this entropic factor built within it. Let me go and meet it. Let me rise to the occasion and that, you know, let me find self-esteem within that. The only person I need to prove anything to is myself ultimately. And let's fucking welcome that challenge, you know? David Whitehead: Exactly. Exactly. And I guess this would be a good time to sort of point out that. When I was speaking earlier about sort of like the impression that people have of capitalism and money in the west versus the reality of it would be this. Um, if you think about times prior to any sort of free market [01:03:00] idea or the concept of a free individual, right, or free trade, I don't think people studied enough history to realize how rare that was, how that wasn't supposed to happen. Um, and, and just how reviled that was in the beginning, right? And when you think about it, what was it really? We had feudalism and various forms of it. So basically different forms of communism and totalitarianism. Uh, we've had many expressions of that all over the world. And then suddenly we said, Hey, we keep running into this problem where these elite groups keep getting all the power and. Oh, you know, it, it, we're just all living in toil. We're all slaves and surfs to some Lord or MAs master. Right. And we're not free. Our soul as a human being is not being fulfilled. Our destiny is not being fulfilled. And if you look at those times, that's the dark ages. That's wars and gen [01:04:00] sides and just poverty like you can't even imagine. Okay. And all, all of this before electricity existed, right? Just watch the power go out and watch the whole world go mad today. Okay? And electricity wouldn't, wouldn't, uh, have been invented without the precepts and concepts of western capitalism. Um, because you would've had, you wouldn't have had incentives for people to go and apply themselves to that degree to figure something like that out. And then, yeah. Maybe some people hijacked it and turned it into a, a little, uh, you know, mafia controlled electricity or energy, whatever. But that's just what humans are gonna do, right? No matter what you do, the, the inventions and the brilliance and the, and the genius came from a notion that you are an individual that has your own mind. And if you go out, we're gonna give, we're gonna give you guys a chance. If you go out and you work and you apply yourself, you will be rewarded according to that scale. Right? It's not just gonna be like, I go out and work my butt off, [01:05:00] my neighbor doesn't, and he gets the same. Right? That, that doesn't incentivize the best in humanity. Actually, Ayn Rand does a nice writeup in, uh, Atlas Shrugged. Where she's talking about the railway company and the whole, it's like a, a video on YouTube. It's like a 45 minute or one hour long thing where she goes in and, and uses that story of the railway company to describe what happens when you work against human nature and you bring out the worst in humanity. And she's describing what happened in communist Russia and what's happened in these socialist experiments in the past. Yeah. Where it brings out the worst in humanity while selling you the utopian vision. Right. Joel Rafidi: Yeah. You know, much of the time, like these proponents of these ideas, they're, they're anti technological as well, you know, and, um, Milton Friedman has this amazing quip, like he visited China and he saw, they were all digging with shovels instead of like digging equipment and machinery. He's like, why are you guys digging the shovels? And they go, ah, because more of us can work if we have shovels. And he goes, so why are you [01:06:00] using spoons? If that's the case, you know? David Whitehead: No. Right. Yeah. How far do you wanna take it? Yeah. Because it's like, we gotta share the workload, we gotta share the workload. And it's like, okay, so I guess what I'm saying here to wrap it up is that the idea of capitalism was to give you the average person a shot at making it in this world. Whereas before you were literally owned as chattel. Yeah. Now we can make an argument that we're sort of living in an illusion and there's still that chattel system that's set up. But leave that aside for a minute, just talking principles here of the intention of, uh, I think the original capitalist system, which was to free humanity from the oligarchs, and not just from the oligarchs, but from the masses around them. So that now you have trade as the standard of, of relation between humans as oppo, as opposed to pointing a gun at somebody. Right. Using force and coercion to get your way, which is how it was done. Before, yeah, all the [01:07:00] disagreements and all the quibbles over land and resources and who has what wasn't settled by two people sitting down and negotiating deals and then shaking hands with a win-win arrangement in the end. That's not how it was done, it was done at might makes right? Who's got more guys, who's got more weapons? How can we just take that shit and make it ours? Um, so that's the way the world works. If we don't have the principles and values of a system that would give you the opportunity to live and thrive and grow without having to point a gun at somebody. Instead, we, as Rand said, man should become traders that trading, meaning T-R-A-D-E-R trading, we're traders, we're not, um, we're not just killing each other for resources all the time. And it creates, creates a dynamic Joel Rafidi: of not selling your weaknesses to other stupidity, but your talents to their reason. David Whitehead: Exactly. Exactly. And, and you're also not just going off the whims of people. Like if, if you, if you live in a small [01:08:00] village and that entire village suddenly targets you because they think you're a witch, or you're demonically possessed, or you're some kind of an evil person, or you're a greedy this, or you're whatever, um, then they are gonna come and use their force to burn you at the stake or put you in prison or take all your shit, right? Whereas the idea was to say, no, we need to free, we need to free man from this condition. And look what happened. Even though I think right out of the gate this, the system was slowly infiltrated and, and corrupted, but look at what was created even with the s the, the little smidgen of free market that we had a little, the smidgen of freedom gave the entire world all the things that we take for granted. All those. Latte sipping Marxists in LA or whatever that have no idea how good they have it simply by having access to electricity and modern communication tools that were all developed out of Western capitalism. Right? Yeah. This is the thing. They're the ones critiquing it. [01:09:00] From those lofts, and I find it interesting. And then when you tell those people, well, hey, if you really, really want all those Marxist tenants in your system, there's plenty of countries in the world that exercise. All of those tenants, why not move to those places? Or better yet, nobody's stopping you from going to live like the Amish in America. Do you want to go live like the Amish, start a little commune, start a little cult, and go and live off the land and do the whole thing and do the whole tribal setting and you know, and do all that? Great. But here's the, here's the trade though. You've gotta practice what you preach. You gotta give up all of your electricity. No more air plane, car travel. Like you literally have to practice what? No iPhone. Yerasimos: No iPhone, no iPhones. Gimme your fucking iPhone. That's no David Whitehead: YouTube. Yeah, no, nothing, no bank account, nothing. Just go and and build it and, and prove what you're saying. And the thing is, is nobody's done that. And when they do, it turns into a shit show. Right? So that's what it is, is the proof is [01:10:00] when they do it, Joel Rafidi: never actually, sorry. When they do it, they become capitalists. When they do it, they become capitalists. David Whitehead: Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Exactly. So, um, and, and that's the thing is like, that's what always got me was that was the biggest contradiction is none of these Marxists are willing to go and live in an actual Marxist country, run by those principles and values. And they're, instead, they're trying to convert America and other Western countries into that, which was always striking me as a bit odd. That this isn't about, oh, we just want to do our own little thing and please leave me alone. Well go ahead, go, go live somewhere. Go live in the sticks and start a commune then, uh, and they never do. Yeah, go leave all of your wealth and everything behind, you know, get out of your Tesla and go start some shit. Go get a horse and buggy, you know, but then even with that horse and buggy, that's technology, right? Applied to nature. You gotta learn how to tame that horse and train it and take care of it. Like nature's already putting demands on you better get your [01:11:00] Rs up and work. It's not gonna be a free ride, in fact. You're gonna be working your bloody ass off 24 hours a day, seven days a week just to get your ration of carrots or whatever it's gonna be. You're gonna use a barter and trade with, uh, with your neighbors. And, and then what's gonna happen, you're gonna find out, you're gonna see the worst part of the human spirit as well, and they're just gonna come and steal all your shit in the end. Anyways, I've just, so many counts of this. People have this, Ben, the final thing to wrap that up is when people talk about the, the evils of capitalism or the evils of free trade and all of that, it's like, yeah, but you're really just critiquing the things you don't like about the natural world really. Right? In many regards. You, you're, you're, it's that antipathy to nature again. Nature places demands upon you, and humanity wants to throw off those demands. That's what it is. It's a sort of magical child thinking, and they think that if we get rid of any of the systems we put in place to at least attempt to make our lives a little bit easier. [01:12:00] We get rid of all the systems, we blow it all up, that suddenly those demands will be released from you. And I'm just here to say, no, nothing is free. Nature does charge you a tax every day, and it's due all the time. And that tax is, if you don't get up and apply your mind and your, and your hands to your work for your survival, uh, you will be punished for that action, that action or that non-action. And so, um, as much as I wanna see some changes made so that we can get back to a much more laissez-faire free market system and really bring those values back again, uh, look at what we've been able to accomplish, even in light of the much of the corruption that we can document here. Um, and the, the proof is in the pudding that nobody's fleeing to the tribal groups. Nobody's fleeing their country to go live in these Marxists. Socialist, uh, hell holes, they're fleeing to come to the West because of the fact, what do they all say? Oh, I've got a better shot at life. [01:13:00] I'm being persecuted by my government. I'm being hunted down by my neighbors. I'm, you know, so I want to come to a place where I'm gonna be free of that. Well, I mean, there you go. If you're coming here and not going there, why are these people still arguing that those systems are what we need to start installing here? Yerasimos: Yeah, I mean, I mean, Joel's family, my family, I mean, they immigrated to Australia for Joel and the us um, for, for my dad. And they came here in search of a better life where they, their hard work could be honored, where they could make something of themselves and they did. Which is pretty amazing. But yeah, I mean, I love that you made the LA joke because it's just hilarious to me and just, I see it all the time and it's just rooted in a lot of deep virtue signaling as well. 'cause they're not gonna give up this stuff. They're not like, people will hate on Amazon and then use it five times a day. It's like, stop using it. You know what I mean? Like exactly like, I don't know, I, I personally like Amazon. Obviously there's some issues and people, we can have that conversation, but like, I'm not gonna sit there and tug shit on something that like, has made my life a lot easier and has freed up time for me to do other things.[01:14:00] And then there's this whole idea of like the nostalgia of like, oh, I'm gonna have, I'm gonna be a farmer and, and live that life. Listen, you know, I do a very, very small version of that here as like a, a little bit of a, you know, working the land and homesteading and it's fucking a lot of work. You know, you have to learn skills. There's things you have to deal with all the time and like to just go and make that your life and leave the cities. Like, you're gonna have to realize that there's certain comforts and certain conveniences that you don't have when you choose that. Again, at the end of the day, it comes down to your values and what you want. But like, it's not easy, you know, it's not easy to have to like toil to a certain degree, but that's what's required, like you've been saying before. So, you know, it's just this like illusion and this fantasy people, uh, live with. But again, at the root of it is the psychology and philosophy of a person. You know, I know you say it, Michael says that we say we're living in a posts psychological, post philosophical world. Do people even have a personal philosophy? Have they put the time and the energy and effort to have one? Or is it just programmed into them? Do they know themselves? Do they [01:15:00] understand the architecture of the human psyche and how that plays out interpersonally and interpersonally? And most people don't, you know, but it's, those people take the time and the energy to understand themselves, what it means to be an individual. How do you live where they're gonna may make something of themselves. And that's sitting around complaining all the time, hating on people and blaming other people. Like, I get it. We can be victimized. I get it. We are, we maybe at times in our lives we have been victimized. I know we've talked about it, but how long do you stay in that state? At some point you go, this mindset hasn't led me to where I wanna be. So maybe you need to make a shift. And if you don't know what that shift is, maybe you need some support, maybe you need to have the self-esteem and the wherewithal to go, who can I reach out to for support? Then you take that information, you take that knowledge, you become more self-responsible, and you start applying that into your life and you start seeing the changes. But I mean, it's easy again, to point the finger. David Whitehead: It's too [01:16:00] easy. It's too easy. And that's actually a good point, and I'm gonna bring this one up. I've got a really good, um, I did another post earlier than the post we were talking about today, where I was talking about, um, you know, what's the definition of a free market? Because here in Canada, it's a really taboo topic actually, to talk about it. Right. And 'cause there's just, I think it's like 86% of the professors in Canadian universities are like openly Marxist. So, you know, our young people are being taught the wrong principles and values, I think, and they're not being taught. The side by side comparison. It's always like capitalism, evil, west evil, anything western is evil. And then this is where we need to go. And they're being taught that rousso and you know, back to the trees nonsense as well. So I was like, okay, here's the quote that people need from Ayn Rand because she's talking about it as a philosopher. Okay? She wasn't talking about it. As an economist, this is often the critiques go wrong. Like no, who you're, you're critiquing her as an economist. You're not [01:17:00] understanding, she's making a philosophical argument. And because we're living in that post philosophical age, you're bringing up your oss. Nobody's computing this. So what we're talking about is like, what is the moral argument here of, uh, and this was brilliantly illustrated by a good quote from Thomas Sowell as well, where he was like talking to these liberal professors of his day, these Marxist professors of his day, and he is like, look, how much of my money is basically to be your money? Like, how much of, how much of my, the money that I have earned, do you have a right to. Can you tell me what's the number like of what I've done to create value in my life? How much do I owe you that? What do I owe you? Like he was trying to get to that argument. Well, she's got a definition of a truly free economy. Okay, so she says this, Ayn Rand in a true free economy where no men or group of men can use physical coercion against anybody. Economic power can be achieved only by voluntary means, by the [01:18:00] voluntary choice and agreement of all those who participate in the process of production and trade. Hint, that's a massive word there. The voluntary participation. In a free market, all prices, wages, and profits are determined not by the arbitrary whim of the rich or of the poor. People forget about that, nor by anyone's greed. Or by anyone's need, but by the law of supply and demand. The mechanism of a free market reflects and sums up all the economic choices and decision made by all the participants. Men trade their goods or services by mutual consent to mutual advantage according to their own independent uncoerced judgment. A man can grow rich only if he is able to offer better values, better products or services at a lower price than others are able to offer. Wealth in a free market is achieved by a free general democratic vote, by the sales and the purchases of every individual who takes part [01:19:00] in the economic life of the country. Whenever you buy one product rather than another, you are voting for the success of some manufacturer. And in this type of voting, every man votes only on those matters, which he's qualified to judge on his own preferences, interests, and needs. No one has the power to decide for others or to sub substitute his judgment for theirs. No one has the power to appoint himself, the voice of the public, and to leave the public voiceless and disenfranchised a lot in there. But she's summing up better than any. All of us combined can sum up this argument in basically saying what she's getting at here is human nature. She's getting at a deep chord that if you read through it, you go, right, we're talking about philosophy here. We're talking about psychology. I'm talking about human nature and that what system is the more moral system when it comes to you as an individual. Now you have to first have the belief that human beings have an [01:20:00] individual mind, which I think is demonstrable, right? And you can even see that this individualism in nature. Now you're gonna see a bit of collectivism as well in nature, right? 'cause it's dual. But Michael was pointing this out and I thought it was brilliant. He's like, you think nature should be looked at as this big collectivistic machine of oppression? He's like, every single leaf is different. Every single one. So you have a category of trees and you have a category of leaves, but. The collectivist looks at it all. Oh, it's all the same shit. It's just a bunch of trees. They're all the same. But the minute you zoom in, the minute you pay more attention and apply your mind and your observation to those leaves and to those pine cones and to those snowflakes and to those, like every, even the way the atmosphere looks every day slightly different. There's a difference right down to the base level. So there's a general category, human being, but then there's an infinite array of difference. There's a [01:21:00] general category, leaves on trees, but every single leaf is different, just a little bit. And every lady bug everything. So individualism and the idea that there's a unique expression that nature is, is putting out in all living things is incredible. And so when you start there and then you go, okay, so if we accept the fact that. Human beings have this individual aspect as well, this uniqueness as well. And we're not just talking about the way your eyes are shaped or your ears or anything. We're talking also about your mind, your, your particular blend of experiences in life that led to create who you are right now is itself also another level of uniqueness and individuality that will be totally different. Like Joel and your Asus and myself, we've all had similar experiences in life. Maybe we, we've all been to a pub and had a pint. We've all gone to a mall. We've all, you know, there's d But our own way of experiencing each one of those experiences is infinitely unique. [01:22:00] And then there's experiences that you've had that I haven't had. And, and there's attributes that you have that I don't have. And what the envious types do is they look at those differences and they go, we gotta get rid of all the differences. We don't want individualism. We don't want individuality anymore. We don't want the uniqueness of nature. That's too frightening for me to compete against the little man says, right? So I wanna make everybody the same shade of gray. I want every leaf in nature to look exactly the same, because that makes sense to my mind. That's what they're arguing. Really, when you boil it all down is they hate, that's the antipathy to nature. I'm talking about the na, the natural part of themselves that's striving for heroism. They gotta suppress the shit outta that because it frightens them. 'cause they know a great weight of responsibility falls upon them at that moment when they recognize that. And so they don't want the uniqueness. And then that's when it, when it gets into the economic level of trade. You [01:23:00] have one unique individual trading with another unique individual. And the point of it is to build peaceful relationships with win-win outcomes amongst humanity. That's how we achieve more peace in this world. Not forcing square pegs into round holes, making everybody the same shade of gray like these globalists want to do to the world and getting rid of individualism. See, 'cause you gotta understand the architecture of control. The reason they hate individualism, the rea, the reason they hate uniqueness in nature is because it threatens their hold on power. Isn't that interesting? You can't have William Wallace out there, uh, going against the grain in Scotland when all the rest of the Scots were just content to get on their knees in front of these kings. You had a unique guy go. Fuck this shit. We're gonna take these guys out. We're gonna claim our freedom back, or we're gonna die trying. 'cause what the hell is life all about anyways? You're gonna die alone in your beds. Why not [01:24:00] make a good fight for it and fight for your freedom? You want these lords and elites coming in and just stealing your children whenever they want and taking your shit whenever they want. 'cause they have more power than you Fuck that. And how many different people have risen up in history with that same spirit to fight back. So, but what was that spirit that fought back? It was the spirit of that individual, that spirit, that cry for human freedom. That was what fought back. It's an expression of the natural order that fought back against something that was working against the natural order. That's how it worked. So nobody wants to have that discussion because what it does is it calls them to towards greatness. It calls them towards their individuality, which has a boatload of that responsibility. It's easier to just envy and hate everybody that is doing those things and to say, no, we need to hyper control everything and micromanage everything down to the fine detail in order to achieve peace on earth and goodwill towards men. Whereas these philosophers again say, no, no, no. Oh, you're missing the huge [01:25:00] component here, which is human nature. And we need to build something that's built off of that. Not try to put everybody in reeducation camps and point guns to their head and just go out and start killing all the people that are successful and have all the things and are out there doing those, uh, heroic works. So that's, that's the real argument here, is it's actually not just about an economic argument that we could bring in a, a Milton Friedman or, you know, a Hayek or some of these other guys, you know, Ludwig von Meeses or some of these people to argue. Um, it's a philosophical moral argument that for me, inspired me to respond to that post where they're talking about how everything's free and we just gotta go back to the, and I'm like, no, there's so much of a, there's a big package that's underneath that argument that is, uh, gonna strangle your civilization if you don't watch out for it. Now, that's not me to say. Just to wrap this up, that's not to say, again, I didn't understand the spirit of that meme where they're talking about the beauty of nature and how nature is not the same as these machine world that we've created. I get [01:26:00] that. But there's a flaw in the argument. And, uh, what I read from a Rand is pointing out in. No uncertain terms, what that flaw really is, and then what the solution to that is. It's also what she's pointing out is the solution to all this hyperinflation we're seeing, to all this government corruption we're seeing to this lawlessness that we're seeing and all the crime and the homeless, there's solutions in there, but the solution is not to force change people. The solution is to educate and inspire and bring that culture back again. It was the culture that was destroyed before our economy was destroyed. And so that's why we gotta go back to the philosophical cultural framework when we're having this argument. Yerasimos: Yeah. Thanks for that man. I love your, uh, your passionate rants, man. The next level, um, I think also with community, we have to look at it this way too because historically it was very collectivistic where it's like you sacrifice who you are to get along in the family. You know, I. [01:27:00] In a group, in a social group. And yet what is the future of community? Because we are social beings. It's not about like this rigid, solitary, individual lone wolf philosophy, like stick your middle fingers up at everyone. But it's like, you know, when individualism is the primary, when your uniqueness is the primary, then you come together where there isn't coercion, where we honor each other for our differences and our strengths, and we come together that way and we move forward from that place as opposed to, oh, I have to like hide so much of who I am just so I can get along in the family, in the social group, in the workplace, et cetera. And it's no, because again, like I love people, I love community. I love connection. It, it's, it's part of the fabric of who we are as human beings. But yeah, don't tell me I can't be myself, you know what I mean? Don't say I can't be in this whatever collective unless I, you know, I have to follow all your rules. So, and, and we're [01:28:00] seeing that, we're seeing that in some of these events that are popping up in communities that are being built where it's like, man, like I love you for who you are. You know, we may not have the same exact agreements on, or the same exact beliefs on everything, but like, dude, you're so amazing and so unique. Like, let's utilize your gifts to the best of your ability and vice versa. And like, I want all of you and, and vice, and vice versa. So, I don't know, I, that's what I just see things moving forward. But individualism is at the foundation, and even from a human design standpoint, I've talked about this. We're moving to a new 400 stage cycle where we're moving from a tribalistic way of being, and supposedly according to human design in 2027, we're moving to this north new 400 year cycle where indivi, individualism and self knowledge and and com coming together from that place is gonna be what's gonna happen more and more as opposed to self-sacrifice. Just so you can go along to get along, if that makes sense. David Whitehead: Yeah, no, I hear you. And this is a good thing too, because this is the, the common misconception, whenever we talk about individualism or personalism or um, capital or [01:29:00] any of these things, the reason it gets everybody's hackles up is because they have this, uh, mathematical equation in their head that says, if you're advocating for principles of individualism to be the foundation of your society, then that means you are this narcissistic lone wolf who just wants to go out the alone. And you don't want to have a community. And all it's nothing could be further from the truth. What we're talking about is what kind of system do you want to govern your society? What kind of principles and values do you want to govern your society and what premise, meaning what foundation are you gonna be launching from? Um, and so we are both, we have an individual spirit, which should be honored for every individual because you are your greatest enemy and your greatest savior all the same time, right? So you need to have that. But then you also do have a social component, which you, you're gonna work together with other individuals to do things like, I don't know, build bridges, build highways, build byways, build great, uh, things for your society, for your children. You're gonna live in family units. That's a mini collective, [01:30:00] right? That you know. But the thing is, is like you said, the premise of it being collective, see, collectivism and individualism when we're really talking about it, are defined by what manner of government are you gonna have? Are they gonna rule by the whims of the mob? Are they gonna rule by might makes, right? Are they gonna rule by, uh, the lowest common denominator? Like, what's the system gonna be? Or are they gonna rule on hey. If your neighbors don't like you, we'll, you're still gonna be protected from them coming with torches to your front door, right? To protect your right to be who you are. Um, and so, yeah, the philosophical argument for individualism is that's the only path to get into communication with. I believe the, the divine or the spirit or God or whatever you wanna talk about, uh, the, to activate the kingdom of heaven within you. Um, so, and you are, no one's gonna die for you. Okay? No one was born for you. You, those are experiences that you are [01:31:00] gonna have in your life. And so you're gonna, there's a, there's that individual nature, and then the collective part of you is what way are you approaching the collective and how's that collective responding back to you? Right? Remember, people are just a mirror for you, really in this world. And so you are, uh, you're out there. You are pursuing your goals and dreams, and you are either gonna work with like-minded individuals that are gonna respect, also respect your individualism and respect your boundaries. Um, or you're gonna be working with a mob mentality, like what we went through with say the pandemic, where if you weren't following all of the cues given by the authorities and wearing the two masks and standing on the X and everything else, the collective will enforce those rules without even thinking twice about it. Right? So we had a crash course in what we're talking about in reality, right? This isn't just philosophical anymore. This was very real. Where when we were ruled under collectivistic [01:32:00] principles, during those lockdowns, what happened to your individual sovereignty? It got crushed, right? And then you find out later that the arguments used to take that individual sovereignty from you were spurious to begin with, and you find out, oh, there was another political agenda behind that. Right? And so. That's the example is, is it from the premise of individual rights and freedom, or is it from the premise that you don't have any individual rights and freedom and you're just gonna be ruled by a bunch of NPCs? We call them NPCs out there, because these are non-player characters. It's kind of a joke, but it's real because these people have decided to stop playing the game. They've, they've stopped engaging and showing up and participating in life. They're just waiting for the media to tell them what the next thing is. They're just waiting for the authorities to tell them what the next rules are. They're waiting for the next guru or cult leader to tell 'em what the next cool, trendy belief system is. They're not, they're not [01:33:00] approaching the world from the inside out. It's all the outside in. So the, it's the outside in approach that produces collectivism in a negative form. Joel Rafidi: You David Whitehead: know, the, the beautiful Joel Rafidi: paradox is that at the core of making money is a very collective essence because the person who AMAs the most wealth is the person who solves the most problems for the most amount of people. Like you're literally providing to the collective in the most profound way possible when you truly generate wealth. David Whitehead: Yeah, that was, uh, j Edward Griffin's an amazing argument. I, I put this in one of my, I think it was chapter five of my cult of the medics, but I did an interview with j Edward Griffin on enslaved. People can go check it out. And he broke down this difference of collectivism versus individualism. And he, he does it beautifully, um, where he basically was like, okay, if we understand that there's no such thing as a group of people, if we just, just think about it, right? There's people that go together and they wear the same costumes and they believe the same things to a certain extent, [01:34:00] but the more you, again, it's like looking at that forest. You see a bunch of trees, they look the same, but the more you zoom in with that magnifying glass, you see even within that collective. There's a world of differences between every person involved and you can't get rid of this. This is what the collectivists hate. They just can't get rid of this thing. It's 'cause it's a natural law. And he's like, so there is no such thing as a group. There's people that group together willingly, voluntarily to accomplish things, but that doesn't mean it's a group where it's like this little borg hive mind. Right? Um, it still has individuals participating in those group activities. And then he's like, when I finally sussed out all these arguments and I read everything I could about capitalism and communism and socialism, and I studied history and I put it all together, he said, I realized that when Mar the Marxist argument of the greater good for the greater number came from installing collectivistic governments and, and, and totalitarianism really, uh, he's, he realized that [01:35:00] no, it was the path of individualism, free markets, free trade and freedom in general. That was. The best interest of the greater number. It was the, the, the best solution to the problem. It's just that it's never had the, that argument has never had the steam behind it in the way our institutions talk about it in schools and media. And also, uh, when you bring in Michael's work on psychology, he would say, you find, you wake up to find out that the vast majority of humanity wants freedom from freedom, right? They, they, they, they dress and they put freedom in big capital letters all over the place. But when freedom's offered, they run as far away from it as possible. And that's why he spent so much time going into psychology and all that because he was trying to figure out why. And, um, so you gotta, f freedom is something you gotta fight for. It's something you gotta preserve. It's something that you will always be butting heads against people with simply because of [01:36:00] the fact that people would rather have the free ride. Yeah. They would rather have the illusion of security. They would rather have some master. Teaching them and training them and grooming them and giving them a prescription for life. Right? And yet there is this other side to us. So, so, so those that would say, well then individual is against human nature. No, because we also have a history of people that we're advocating for the individualist concepts. Right? So you have, we, we have both expressions in the human psyche happening and we've done the experiment. Over and over again, which principles applied to a society bring More abundance, more freedom, right. More, um, authenticity, more sanity versus what's the opposite of that? And so that's always interesting to me is that the proof is in the pudding as to which one better reflects the natural order and which one just simply doesn't. And I think we, we've done enough Joel Rafidi: experiments to figure that [01:37:00] out. The reason that individualism and capitalism, to me is most reflective of the national order comes down to the fact that capitalism and the individualism are the only systems that honor the individual's rights to property. And without the right to property, there is no right to life. If you are offending for your own survival, collecting food, whatever it might be, and then someone else just comes along and takes it, then you no longer have the right to life. And so one system honors the rights of property. One absolutely does not. It's like, it's a very big bridge to cross to explain to people that, hey, actually maybe capitalism is much more reflective of nature than anything else that is currently in existence. David Whitehead: Be, I'm so glad you went here. 'cause that is the next step. And uh, I'll have to do another Rand quote on this 'cause it's so good. She just, she just wrote it better than I could have said it. But, um, just to say that, that like, uh, that that whole idea of how you are to be viewed as a sovereign entity and not as [01:38:00] just, you know, what does she call it? A sacrificial animal on the altar of the collective or whatever. Right? Uh, that is something that I think people forget about. And so lemme just read this quote and then I'll tell you what I was gonna go with this. She's talking about individualism. She specifically says individualism regards, man, every man as an independent sovereign entity who possesses an inalienable right to his own life. A right derived from his nature as a rational being. Individualism holds that a civilized society or any form of association cooperation or peaceful coexistence amongst men can be achieved only on the basis of the recognition of individual rights. And that a group as such has no rights other than the individual rights of its members. So if we understand, again, like what I was saying, that there's no real such thing as a group when, when defined like this, that any group that we want to talk about can only have the rights of what an individual has. It starts to blow the hole through A lot of the arguments we're seeing happen [01:39:00] right now. And she goes, do not make the mistake of the ignorant who think that an individual is a man who says, all do is I please that everyone else's expense. 'cause that's what everybody's gonna say. An individual is a man who recognizes the inalienable individual rights of man his own and those of others. So think about that. The people that go, oh, you're just a narcissistic asshole that are promoting individualism. No, it's, I recognize that it's no master above, no slave. Below in the middle there is where the perfect freedom exists. Freedom from each other. Freedom from man, being free from man. Right? That's the thing here. And that my rights that I'm advocating for, like you're talking about property rights. Joel, what property other than your body, do we need to start with? Like, let's go there. Where's the feminists with the My body, my choice? Well, they all shut the hell up when the Covid thing came out and they mandated these bio injections or whatever that, that went out the window, which was interesting, right? So, [01:40:00] but we have to be philosophically consistent. We talk about property rights, property rights. There's something you can, there's a book you can get called The Territorial Imperative, which goes through a sort of, it comes from an evolutionary concept, but it's just the idea that like all animals in the natural order and the natural kingdom, uh, they all carve out property for themselves. And there's a reason for it. It's for the purpose of survival. That's why, that's why nature does that. That's why bears find their cave. That's why beavers build their dams and their little huts and their little, you know, and why every, you know, ants are making their ant hills and the whole thing, like there's, it is a survival imperative that starts with it, right? And then the property of your body. Who owns your body? Does the government own your body? Does the the tribe, do your neighbors own your body? Right? Really like, think about it. Who owns your body, right? So you start with the argument of property rights with your body, and then you go, okay, well what if I wanna build a domicile to protect my body from the natural world, [01:41:00] from the elements and from, you know, people that want to kill me and steal my body from you and steal my life from me. Right? Is your life your own or is it owned by somebody else? Right? And we keep going and then you keep going into it. So, but just to get back to where she's going here, I just love that she's talking about how when they're saying You're just a greedy narcissist because you're having, and she's like, no, I want the same for you as well. What are you gonna do with that? So she goes, the mind, this is another, this is deep here. The mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. Now, there's such a thing as the illusion of a collective consciousness in that sense that we've sort of created, right? That you can merge with at a football game or in a vote, in a political thing or whatever, or in a cult. But look what happens when you do that. The reason that never works out is because of the fact that it's an illusion, right? The mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as collective thought. An [01:42:00] agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn upon by many individual thoughts. It is a secondary consequence. The primary act, the process of reason, must be performed by each man alone. We can divide a meal among many men. We cannot digest it in a collective stomach. No man can use his lungs to breathe for another man. No man can use his brain to think for another. All the functions of the body and spirit are private. They can be shared or transferred, right? So. When you understand that what she's talking about are those natural laws that apply to human life that you, you can't debunk, that you can't nego. That's just a fact of reality. Now we look at our systems of government and economy and property rights, and you see that. The people that are advocating for collectivism are looking to steal property rights from you, like here in Canada, you [01:43:00] know, acquiring land and property, being bought and built by the government now and then they're coming after your firearms and they're coming after all these things. And then what about the money that you've earned and what, what's been done? What's been done to it by the fact that there's stealing 60 to 70% of your income through taxation in this country where I live, and you know, so that's your property that they're taking and reallocating Who's doing that? A bunch of individual minds that are up there in the government or higher up that are deciding where to allocate those resources. And then if you say as an individual, Hey, I don't want you to take my money and fund, uh, some crazy shit that I don't believe in. I don't, I didn't vote for this. I don't want you to take my property to do that. It's against my will. What do they do? They send men with guns to coerce you into doing it. So it's forced. So the outcome of collectivism. This whole Marxist concept can only be achieved by coercion and force. That's why every time we run those experiments of having those principles in a society, it [01:44:00] turns into coercion force and totalitarianism and genocide, right? Because it, it disobeys this law of property rights starting, I think, right down to the cells of your own body that they would love to claim as theirs. But this is the principle. These are the renegade philosophers. Like no, no. Reclaim it. Reclaim your mind. Reclaim your body. Declare it as your property operate as such. The only thing is here's the fine print. A lot of personal responsibility comes with this. A lot of hard work and effort comes with this. That's why you're gonna have to call upon that hero heroism in order to be able to approach life like this. Because the problem is we live in a crab in the bucket scenario where the minute you start trying to crawl up higher. You're gonna be dragged down by people who will not do that. Right. And of course, they're gonna be espousing the ideology of collectivism because it relieves them of that personal responsibility. And that's why, so that's why I think [01:45:00] that her work, and, and there's many others we could point to, is so valuable with this. And it absolutely shatters this myth that, uh, we should just go back to some collective tribal setting, trade and barter and, and basically find more forms of totalitarianism. Uh, she's trying to ask you, here's what it takes to have freedom if you want it, and it's available to anyone that wants to take it. Joel Rafidi: Yeah. Beautiful man. Well said, bro. One, one final cherry that I, I'd even place on that is like, when there's private ownership and there's responsibility, there is care. When someone owns something, they care about something. When someone owns a piece of land, then they're responsible for it. They make it beautiful. They make bro, they make it amazing. If no one owns anything, then things become a shit show. Things become ghettos, things become garbage ridden. Things become graffiti laden all over, you know? And so like private property is a beautiful thing in terms of it activates the care principle. I care about this thing now, so I'm gonna maintain it. I'm gonna make it grow. I wanna make it [01:46:00] beautiful. David Whitehead: Oh, I love that. 'cause that hits on the incentive thing. Yeah. The socialist missed, or maybe they knew all the time 'cause it was really just a big scam to acquire power and resources through inauthentic means. But that's another thing is the idea that. What you're expressing there is, is this idea that, you know, you are responsible for that and you're basically giving your responsibility away by saying that you don't, you know, that's not, you don't need private property because of course, who wants to have to do the work to tend that garden, right? Like, it's better that we just do these public housing and have the government take care of everything for us, you know? Yeah. Um, but then what the, the thing that misses from that mentality is what level of soul activation and self-expression are you missing out on by skipping the work it takes to achieve greatness. This is what I was bringing that example of those kids, I'm, I'm teaching them and I'm teaching 'em these principles by saying, it's you. Yeah. It's me teaching you and me [01:47:00] showing you and getting you to work and do all this. But in the end, it's you. It's, you are the one that has to do the pushups. You are the one that has to show up, motivate yourself. You're the one that's gotta dust yourself off every time things don't work out. You are the one that has to go out there and win and achieve greatness, right? And when you do that, and you do the work, that's really hard. It's so incredibly hard to do it. But look at the result. Look at the result. And the result must be seen as more than just everybody clapping and cheering and you getting some metal or some ribbon. The result is you upgraded. You got some xp. Now you, you, you're not, you're no longer the person you used to be. You're stronger, you're better. And it's this process that is gonna lift you higher. And that's the real goal here, right? And if you don't have that self ownership, we're talking about property, what about yourself, your mind, your body. You're forging this, you're creating this every second of every day. Do you want someone else to take that process over for you? If so, what would be motivating you to do [01:48:00] that? Maybe a fear of failure, maybe a fear of success. Who knows? Maybe a blending of both. But in the end, you have to claim your own territorial imperative. You have to claim your own property rights, even if the government's gonna take your physical property rights away. The real property rights are the domain of your own mind, and to the extent that you have control over it, the domain of your body. Right? And that's the be, that's the gift you were given by nature. And so that's the natural principle. And that body and that mind is unique amongst the NPCs. It's totally unique. You have a, yeah, biologically you're a human, you have a, you have a head, two arms, two legs, just like everybody else, but you are unique. And then you have the ability to become even more unique. That's why I love that old quote. It was like, you know, you're born in an original, don't die a copy of everybody else. Right? And I don't wanna be a copy of everybody else. Why does that? Irk me when it's like you're just a copy of everybody else. Well, it's because it goes against my nature [01:49:00] and everybody else listening should feel the same way. You wanna be who you are and part of who you are is a process of discovery. So if you have all these systems in place blocking you from hitting those processes of discovery and self-actualization and, and, and learning about this principle, then yeah, you're a slave and you're never gonna rise to the potential that you have. And, uh, that's why I have such an irk with these types of ideologies. 'cause they're, they're trying to bring out the worst and they're trying to devolve man. They're not trying to uplift, they're not trying to inspire, they're not trying to bring, um, you know, real. Progress and of anything, they're destructive, uh, concepts, and they're coming from self-destructive types of people. The psychological types of self-destructiveness. They exist all around us. Any one of us could fall into that self-destructive mindset at any time. So it's a, it's a, that's why the hero archetypes are so brilliant is because they're there to remind you. Yeah. The f the, the default setting [01:50:00] is gonna pull you back down, right all the time. But if you tend your garden, if you get up every day and you apply yourself and you, you exercise your will to create something out of nothing and go through that process. The rewards are great, but it needs maintenance. Just like your lawn needs maintenance, just like your life needs maintenance, your property needs maintenance, your body needs maintenance, your mind also needs that maintenance. And it's gonna be up against the, trust me, when you're in this mindset, you're, you're a rare person in the world because it's so much easier to not go on that journey and just default every to everybody else. So, uh, to me it's inspiring these kind of concepts, and that's why I love them. And when I practice them, my life completely and totally changed only for the policies. Yerasimos: David, I agree with you a hundred percent here, and I just, it's a gift to be alive and to, to, to embody these principles as, as best as we can. So, man, as always, thank you so much for coming on. Um, can you, um, let everyone know, I mean, I think our audience knows how to find you, but let everyone know what [01:51:00] you going on. Thanks, bro. Appreciate it. How they can find you, how they can support your work, et cetera. David Whitehead: Sure, yeah, I'm, uh, still, we're working with enslaved right now. Michael and I we're making some upgrades. Um, so doing lots of that and check all that@enslaved.com. Um, and then I have my own Truth Warrior podcast that I still do. It's not been as frequent lately 'cause I've just had so much going on, but I still, uh, I have my podcast, you can get it on iTunes, Spotify, et cetera. And then my main production hub these days is Substack. I just really love the platform. I've got, uh, some premium content there. I've got boatloads of free content anybody can success. And I am working on, I'm, I'm kind of back into the comparative religion mythology research. I'm continuing my Bible decoded series right now. Um, I'm gonna, I'm actually, I just finished editing the whole production. I just gotta get it all done. And it's called The Body Is the Tomb And it's gonna be a very, very interesting discussion on over, [01:52:00] on My Substack. If you just look up Truth Warrior, you'll find me. Yerasimos: Awesome, bro. Yeah, we'll have all those links down in the show notes as well and keep doing your thing. And um, yeah, man, for everyone else listening, we'll see you next time. Lots of luck. Joel Rafidi: Am I here? Am I, am I here? Oh, cool. Yerasimos: Oh, you are here. Okay. I know you broke out a little bit, but you're here. I was Joel Rafidi: cutting. Yeah, the outro. David, thank you so much, man. Absolute masterclass on individualism, heroism capitalism, money, like just incredible value for anyone listening to this. You're an absolute legend, man. Love you, appreciate you and I highly recommend everyone. Go check out Davis' work. We'll see you guys next time. Peace. Thanks brother. Thanks, Gary. Cheers. Wow. Like everything that David kind of touched on right here, right now really cuts to the core and cut to the essence of what we believe leads one to greatness, leads one to heroism, leads, one to living the life of their genuine desires. And many of, much of what we touched on here also is what is at the core of rise above the herd. And while our group coaching program rise above the herd [01:53:00] is finished. After 12 rounds in that 10 week group coaching live call formats, it is going to make a return in a more on demand format at some time in the near future. So to keep your eyes out for that, we're looking to make it more accessible and for it to have a much broader region, a much broader impact on those that are genuinely interested in changing their life, claiming their potential and rising out of the status quo and into the next level of their lives. So make sure you're subscribed wherever it might be here for the truth.com. Uh, and stay on the lookout for that. And that wraps up today's journey. But hey, the truth train doesn't stop here. Every Friday, we drop little nuggets of wisdom straight to your inbox. We're talking mind expanding ideas, heart opening perspectives, and the kind of content that hopefully makes you go, whoa, I never thought of it that way. Our Friday drops like having coffee with that friend who always blows your mind, except this [01:54:00] friend shows up right on schedule and never asks to borrow money. So if you wanna join our Truth Seeking Tribe, it's super easy. Just hop over to here for the truth.com/friday and hit that subscribe button. No spam, no fluff, just pure, unfiltered, goodness delivered weekly. So if you're ready to make your Fridays a little more truthful, a little more inspiring, and a whole lot more awesome, your future self will. Thank you for this one. See you next time. And remember, we're always here for the truth, and we're always here for you. A.