 Good day, May 40 here. So I've gone through my life with this kind of exhausting habit of always asking myself, like, am I better than or am I worse than? It's not a choice. I have not chosen to do this. It's just been an instinctual way that I prop myself up is that I always try to find a perspective by which I'm better than other people. Or like the awful truth will come through that in some ways, maybe in many ways, I am worse than other people. And it's just some kind of ingrained algorithm that's been there since my earliest days. I would think about, do I run faster than someone else? Am I smarter than someone else? Am I better looking than someone else? Is my father more successful than someone else? Do I have more friends? Do I have fewer friends? Am I reading more books? It's just absolutely exhausting, this constant comparison. Okay, I don't make as much money as this person. I don't have as many friends as this person. But at least I'm deeper than this person. I am more ready to grapple with difficult underlying realities or at least I see through the BS man. I see through the nonsense. I know how the world really works. And I get onto YouTube and live streaming and it seems like almost all live streamers just like this. Just like this. You watch the the Medica versus Fuentes debate and it's all about, am I a better person than you? Like, oh, Medica, you're a bad person because you're going to die of cancer in a year. It's crazy. I mean, this is Christ is King, Nick Fuentes, Christian, laughing and mocking Mr. Medica for having cancer. I mean, this is crazy. What office chair is this? Yeah, who's gay or the other person? I don't know. I've had this office chair for 20 years. I bought it from a friend who's in the air conditioning business and it's very comfortable, very functional. It's worked really well for me for 20 years. So I normally use a standing desk, probably 50, 60 percent of the time I use a standing desk. But when I sit down, I sit on this office chair. Tada. Christianity is a means for Nick concealing his latent homosexuality. Well, Christianity, like Judaism, it's almost infinitely flexible, right? Christianity can be adapted to almost any, any need. So Colin Liddell comments for Fuentes, the fact that Medica has cancer is the judgment of God. Essentially, Fuentes is a Calvinist, not a Catholic. Now, this is not the influence of John Calvin. This is not the result of Nick Fuentes, you know, delving into the many learned books on theology by John Calvin. All right. That's not what's going on here. I mean, Stix and Hammer, like Stix and Hammer, isn't he into the occult? So I guess some would say, oh, you know, Stix and Hammer, he's a Satanist. I mean, he is far more of a Christian than Nick Fuentes. Right? Yeah. Fuentes telling Medica, you won't be around next year. He spent an entire day on a date with that bloke, a deep-throats dildos. Yeah, Catboy Cammie. That's not gay, bro. Like Stix and Hammer is far more Christ-like, far more Christian than Nick Fuentes. I guess Stix comparatively in the world of live streaming is someone who's at ease with himself. I mean, I don't recall Stix and Hammer getting into stupid, pointless feuds. That doesn't seem to characterize Stix and Hammer. I've been reading some Colin Liddell as Colin a pagan. I would assume that Colin is not a monotheist. So I think some definitions of pagan say it's anyone who's not a monotheist. So yeah, perhaps that's right. Did I see his article on St. George's date? No, I haven't seen that. But dating women is gay, bro. Yeah, having sex with women, like somehow that's gay. Sex is gay. So I get into the world of live streaming and I discover that almost everyone else has that same tendency that I've had almost all my life. But it's out there. It's not just like a voice in the head. It's just out there. You get debates between live streamers and it all boils down to who's better than who. And people are comparing themselves on the most trivial measures. Like, oh, I can deadlift this amount of weight or I'm in this level of health. Like the level of health that you're in is likely not a moral reflection on you. Right? It's largely a matter of your genetics and then your your early environment. So there there is a degree to which, you know, eating ride and exercise can have a positive effect on your health. But overall, your health is not primarily a credit or discredit to you that plenty of good people have died with cancer at age five. Like that five year old who dies of cancer, he's a bad person. The 11 year old who dies of cancer, the 15 year old, my mother died of cancer at 39. Like getting cancer is not a sign that you're a bad person. And I was watching some Kino Casino and they're making fun of JF because he's got some kind of growth up here on the top of top of his nose. And they're all speculating that JF has cancer and is because he drinks so much diapepsy. I one, I don't think we have any evidence that growth is cancer. And two, even if it is cancerous, that doesn't mean that JF's a bad person. So in the water live stream, I'm just struck by how that internal voice in my head is like always kind of looking for an angle, looking for a perspective by which I can shore up my own fragile sense of self by trying to find some perspective whereby I'm better than other people. And it's the dominant modus operandi among live streamers. It's like, oh, I get 1200 live viewers, I'm better than you, you only get 200 live viewers. It's a lot easier to get live viewers when you're telling people what they want to hear and you're giving people the drama. And your, your feedings say people's worst instincts. Yeah, it's very possible to get a ton of live viewers. On the other hand, it's very possible to do a stream with only four live viewers and it absolutely sucks too. But either way, if you do a better live stream than someone else, it doesn't make you a better person. And so the same insecurity, right? What type of person is, I should apologize for hitting it. I just don't get any benefit from Curtis Yavin. So I don't hate Curtis Yavin. If he's friends with Steve Saylor, that says something good about Curtis Yavin, I just, I don't think you didn't, I've just never gotten any benefit. So it's not a global summary of the net worth of Curtis Yavin's thought. It's just that to the extent that I've engaged with it, the extent that I've read it and the extent that I've listened to him talk, I've just never received benefit. So I'm sure there, there are some things he says that are of use. I have yet to, to encounter any benefit from it. But I guess the same, the same sort of insecurity that, that leads someone like me for most of my life to constantly be comparing myself to other people and trying to figure out ways that I'm better than or worse than. I guess that, that I don't know if his personal distaste, I just haven't received benefit. It's not, yeah, he doesn't get to the point, he rambles, he seems to have an exaggerated sense. He's self, he's self educated in political philosophy and the self-taught, there are some advantages, you can be a kind of classic, but there are a lot of other disadvantages. You don't know what you don't know. You don't really have much real world comparison with other people who are similarly into political philosophy as yourself. So the self taught, self educated often have a vastly exaggerated sense of their own learning and their own contributions. And they're much more likely to think, Oh, you know, I've, I've, you know, I've got this, you know, innovative perspective that's never been thought before. Well, when you have, when you have more broader based education around other people, then you get a better sense of, of your own level. Have I watched any of alternative hypothesis material? Yeah, I've watched some old hype. It's a mixed bag. It seems overly emotional. It seems hyper, hyper emotional. You never know, it's like, you know, he's, he's flowing on, you know, vast rivers of emotion. So I, I instinctively don't trust anything that old hype says. So I'm open that sometimes he'll contribute with, with something. Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think Kodesh Yalvin has some good insights. And, and I think that old hype had some good insights at times. It's just that I've heard so much useless things from, from both of them. I've watched old hype and he comes across as very empirical and very fact driven. But underneath is just this sea tide of emotion that makes him incredibly untrustworthy. Yeah. Yeah. Old hype comes to some kind of conclusion and then does, you know, a lot of data driven research for it. But yeah, I find him untrustworthy. So yeah, at times he says something useful, plenty of times he says something useful and he does come across very data, many people come across very data driven. But when you look at what they, oh, give me, except when he, his video just going off on juice, I think that's the, that's old hypes video just going off on juice just seemed to seem to me utterly bizarre. And I just, I just don't trust him. He seems too unstable. He does not seem, does not seem stable to me. Yeah. He reaches some kind of conclusion. And, and then, then seems to, you know, try to gather facts to sustain his conclusion. So the thing is, I admire a fairly, you know, solid, like even keeled emotional people like Steve Saylor, right? He, he's, he's like the opposite of old hype. He's not, or Andrew Sullivan. Okay. Andrew Sullivan, again, is incredibly flighty, right? Andrew Sullivan just gets carried away by his emotions one way or another. So I've, I've been afflicted all my life with this insane need to just continually compare myself to others. And it's not something I voluntarily choose. Like, I don't have not chosen this torment, right? I've not chosen this ridiculous way to go through life where I'm just constantly trying to compare myself to others and then try to shore up my sense of self. Because, you know, from this one perspective, I'm better than others. Then I get online to live streamers and it's dominated by people like me. It's just dominated by people thinking every possible way that they are better than others. So those who do live streams with four people watching is like, Oh yeah, but I'm giving the high quality content. And then those who do live streams with 2000 people watching is like, yeah, that's because I'm a much better person. And if someone has health problems or marital problems or financial problems or alcohol problems, this is a new opportunity to put people down. And so I guess it makes sense that people who have no core, right? That's what you, what it means when you're just constantly comparing yourself to others, you have no core, right? You lack a firm foundation in reality, you don't really know who you are. And to the extent that you do know who you are, you don't like who you are. That explains why one is just constantly driven to compare oneself with others and try to find like a favorable angle by which somehow you are better. And then you always get, I would always get these, these horrifying flashes of reality that I was not just not better than those around me. I was like way behind them. So in my 20s, it was easy for me to feel like, you know, I was staying out with my peers, but by my late 30s, like almost all my peers were far excelling me in the traditional matters of getting married and having kids and buying home and achieving a professional success. And so as I got into my 40s, I increasingly saw it like the delusional nature of my own need to be a hero. I remember Paul Cowan, he directed a documentary in which I was one of the main characters called Give Me Your Soul that came out in the year 2000. And he noted that like Luke had this desperate need to be a hero. And so if one has a desperate need to be a hero, that usually indicates you're not at ease with yourself. So what type of people put a lot of effort into live streaming, right? It's generally people who have a desperate need to be a hero. People with a desperate need to be a hero are not emotionally stable. And so if you're getting into these insane comparisons with other live streamers about, how you're better than them and they're worse than you, it just indicates someone who lacks a core. And this live streaming sector is just dominated by people without any solid sense of self, whereby they'll just prostitute themselves, they will get taken over by the chat. If they get like some applause on the chat, they will go that direction. So you see this in the distant right or distant left, like any extreme movement that the more extreme you get, the more intense the applause you get from a certain sector. So it's called audience capture. What type of person is particularly vulnerable to audience capture? Person who lacks a sense of self, lacks a core identity. And then like a plant grows towards the sun, the live streamer just grows towards the audience and goes to where the applause is. And so do you think Jerry Springer wanted to become Jerry Springer? He was a mayor of Cincinnati. He was someone who was intent on having a conventionally successful career. Then he got caught soliciting a prostitute, he got arrested. And then he became incredibly successful doing trash TV shows. And do you think Jerry Springer really wanted to be known for creating trash TV shows? No, he didn't. He was actually a thoughtful, intelligent guy, but he got captured by the success that he achieved turning out trash. And so he gravitated towards that realm that gave him applause and that gave him money and gave him status. We all naturally tend to spend our time doing that, which will make us feel most important. After we pay the bills and meet our most pressing obligations, we all naturally, the secure, the insecure, naturally tend towards those activities in which we will feel most important. So some people will spend a lot of time at the gym working out and other people will spend time live streaming and other people will spend time in Torah classes. And when they're in Torah class, they will ask questions, so to speak, just try to show that they know the material better than everyone else, that they're smarter than everyone else, that they can pierce through the BS better than everyone else. That's what people would notice about me when I would get to Torah classes, that I always have to raise my hand and try to show off that I was smarter than everyone else. Remember in political science class in college, this girl said to me, I never understand the questions that you're asking, because I was just, you know, trying to show off that I was smarter than everyone else. And that's what you do when you weren't loved as a kid, when you weren't secure. I sound like a cliche here, but when you lack a sense of self, then you're desperately trying to create some kind of false sense of self to substitute for the lack inside of you. And so you see this with live stream is dominantly the ones that I'm acquainted with. It's this desperate need to create a false self to create a better foundation than what they really feel like they have inside, which is emptiness. Let's have a look at the chat. My mom always told me there's always going to be someone better. Yeah, there's always going to be someone better. Truthfully, your competition isn't all that great. I love it when things go wrong for others. So we all want to feel important. It's our deepest drive after we meet our basic needs for food and for shelter. But the intensity of that drive, like that drive like the sex drive, all right, totally normal, natural and healthy. But when it gets warped, when it gets out of proportion, so that it becomes maladaptive. So if in my desperate need to feel important, I start saying things on here, or having guests on here or creating shows on here, that are against my self interest, that injure my real life, that make me a less happy person, that make me less functional in reality, then I'm allowing my need to or desire to feel important to overwhelm my best interests, then that natural normal healthy desire has become warped. So wanting to have sex, normal, natural and healthy. But if in your pursuit of sex, you beggar yourself, you destroy your reputation, you get arrested, you get nasty diseases, you exacerbate your own feelings of low self esteem, you hurt other people, then that normal, natural and healthy desire for sex has become warped. And so the desire to feel important, normal, natural and healthy. But if you pursue it in a way that's maladaptive, all right, then it's become warped. And so I guess it's obvious, live streamers generally speaking of people who lack self esteem, and are trying to create this new self online to shore up the emptiness that they feel inside. And so it's normal, natural and healthy to try to do that. But if in creating this new persona online, creating this new self or going to where you get this feeling of importance, you act in a way that is against your best interests. You start saying things here that damage your relationships with your family, with your friends, with your community, with your profession, with your educational institution, then that desire to feel important has become warped. And your live streaming has become maladaptive to your best interests. So you'll notice a fairly dramatic change in the way I've been live streaming since the Saturday night, Jim Goad massacre. When I had perhaps my highest view count ever, but I didn't like that blood sports quality, I didn't like the repercussions dealing with them for days afterwards, the complaints and the anger and the my tuperation and people wanting to get revenge on me. And it's like, that went really low. I'm not sure I want to go in this direction anymore. And I started shifting the direction of what I do online. Do I feel like having kids and being married is a real accomplishment? Yes, generally speaking, all things being equal, I think it's a real accomplishment. I love when things go wrong for others. And I hate that my self worth operates this way. So live streamers who go on a show and say ridiculous things like, you're going to be dead in a year from cancer. And this shows that you're an inferior person to me. No normal sane person chooses to operate and to speak that way. It's obviously maladaptive. You wish that you didn't get such a high from other people getting into trouble. But that's the way your algorithm works. And there are some advantages to that. You could be like a first responder. You could work for an ambulance company or a 9-1-1 operator or be a policeman or a psychologist. Or you could enter a profession where you're constantly exposed to other people's deepest darkest times and it would just run off you. So some people would be burdened by that. But I assume you're like me. I am not burdened when someone tells me about a tough time that they're going through. It usually does not stay with me. So there's this quality that you have of not being bothered when other people's lives are falling apart. There are many adaptive positive ways to build on that. Let's start comparison, obsession, anonymous. Now, more informant lips as having kids getting married is really the only accomplishment. Now, I think that's arbitrary. We can choose to give ourselves the applause and the love and the veneration that we desperately want for other people. So even if I never get married and I never have kids, if I have a positive relationship with people, if I have friends, if I have community, if I contribute to other people's lives, even contribute to your life doing this live stream, then I can have a solid sense of self from that. And that's like an adaptive positive thing. But it's like, yeah, I've accomplished something. If I've said something that has had a positive effect on people or I've contributed to this community, I play a certain role in this community. Raising children to adulthood in reasonable shape is the only accomplishment. No, I mean, people can make scientific breakthroughs. Priests don't have kids, but I'm sure there are a lot of priests who have helped people's lives. Nature says so anyway. No, nature doesn't have such a definitive scorecard. Now, you can take one perspective and it's like, oh, nature is run by evolution, which is based on the survival of the fittest. Only those who propagate their genes to the next generation are winners. So you can choose a certain perspective by which, oh, we do have clear winners and losers here. And the clear winners are those who propagate their genes. But you know, a rapist who goes around propagating his genes, I don't think that that person's a winner. I mean, Nealus, I don't think there's any objective measure of success. Yeah, I don't think there's any objective measure of success. I think the closest one functionally that we have is the esteem of the people around us who know us, right? If the people who know you esteem you, then that's pretty close. That's functionally an objective measure of success. I thought Jerry Spring was mayor after the show. Now, he was mayor of Cincinnati before the show. It's always a personal explanation with Luke. Ma me. Yeah. Do I think seeing prostitutes is bad? Yeah. I think generally speaking, it has a negative effect on the people who participate in it. What is a European nationalist? Yeah, Europeans aren't one nation. So all sorts of identities such as European or white or black or Jewish or Christian, they have meaning in certain contexts. All right? So if you're the only white person on the bus, then being white may have a meaning that it wouldn't otherwise have for you. So identities have meaning in context. They depend on the situation. Everything is contextual. Can we get a recap of the Jim Goad stream? Oh, so in December 2018, I was doing this very thoughtful live stream on what counts for legitimate debate. And the only grounds for legitimate debate is to argue over facts or logic, right? You can argue over someone's facts, you can argue over someone's logic, and that's the only legitimate grounds for debate. If you move outside of facts and logic, you're engaging in essentially illegitimate discourse, right? If the setting is a debate, if you're arguing with someone, there are only two grounds to hold an argument over someone's facts and over someone's logic. So I was doing this highbrow stream on debate, and then Jim Goad joined. And then when Jim Goad joined, then some other people joined. Nick Fuentes was on the stream, Baked Alaska, Bidson. Who's that guy who streams with Bidson quite a lot. So it turned into five or six people against Jim Goad. So Jim Goad went low, and then these other people went even lower. Sean was on it. So then these other people went lower. And participants on the show, Sean and Bidson from the Weekly Sweat, and participants on the show started just sharing the invite link to the stream. So I was having to spend most of the stream just like blocking all these dozens of people who try to get in. Jim Goad tried to get his co-host onto the show, but because I was like overwhelmed by all these uninvited people trying to crash and burn the stream, I wasn't able to distinguish who it really was Jim's co-host. So Jim felt burned and betrayed because prior to this, I'd had a good relationship with Jim. And so it just went on. And I would sometimes take off from the stream for 15 minutes to go do my laundry. And like Jim Goad got accused of all sorts of things which he hadn't done. And yeah, Jim Goad took it low, and everyone else then took it lower. Do I believe that stoning is the appropriate punishment for witchcraft? No, I don't. I'm not a big fan of stoning or capital punishment for witchcraft. Humans are not motivated by facts and logic, unfortunately. Correct. But we're very good at spotting the weak points in other people's arguments. So Hugo Mercier, the French neuroscientist, makes this great point. We're terrible at spotting the weak points in our own arguments because that's not evolutionarily adaptive. We do better when we're filled with confidence. So we have evolved to feel good about our own opinions, our own perspectives about our own approach to things. And so we are not evolved to be able to think critically about our own opinions. But we are well-evolved to be able to understand and critique other people's opinions in case they're trying to manipulate us, take advantage of us, screw us over, or send us in a direction that's not good for us. So we're great at critiquing other people. We tend to be terrible at critiquing ourselves. That's why we think much more logically when we think in a social way, when we think as a group. So my thinking has become much sharper from doing these live streams because people would come up with points and rejoinders and arguments and attack my facts and my logic and reveal all sorts of weak points in my own thinking that I would never have seen. So in many ways, we think best as a group. And so our conventional nature of thinking and of the intellectual is someone like sitting alone and pondering. But that's not how we usually think most effectively. We think most effectively when we think with other people, when other people challenge us, when other people try to punch holes through what we're thinking. And if I'm thinking socially, as I do on these live streams, I am highly motivated to read more books. I read more books, I engage with more intellectual lectures and podcasts, because I'm motivated to buttress my presentations on this stream. And so when we think socially, we become more motivated to do the hard work of reading books of engaging in intellectual lectures and discourse to try to achieve greater levels of clarity and various intellectual cognitive breakthroughs. So we get more motivated by thinking socially and we get our own weak points exposed when we think socially. So thinking socially, like what we're doing right now, it makes you sharper and smarter and more attuned to reality. Do I believe in the divine inspiration of the Torah? Yes, but at the same time, I welcome the completely secular approach. It's not like there's just one approach to Torah or just one approach to anything. I welcome the New York Times approach and I welcome the Steve Saylor approach. I welcome right-wing approaches and left-wing approaches. I try to partake in all of them and I often find and I benefit from looking at the same thing from different perspectives. I have not seen the Northman movie, but I've heard great things about it. Leviticus says a man or woman who is a witch shall surely be put to death. They shall be stoned with stones and their blood shall be upon them. Yeah, I don't want to see that operating today. What is the New York Times interpretation of Leviticus 2027? I would venture that the New York Times is not in support of capital punishment for witchcraft, but most people today are not in support of capital punishment for witchcraft. And you can believe that God gave that commandment 3200 years ago and simultaneously believed that it is not operative today. So just because God said something 3200 years ago does not mean that we should practice it today. I think you could make up with Jim. I like Jim Goat. I'm sure I could. Religion should be banned. Okay, so if religion was banned, then where would people turn to for comfort? So from a completely secular atheistic perspective, the primary purpose of religion is to provide comfort for people. So if people weren't getting their comfort from religion, where would they turn? They wouldn't, generally speaking, turn to the study of Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, Descartes and a manual count, right? People looking for comfort would turn to things that would seem equally ridiculous to you, right? In our increasingly individualized, atomized world that is increasingly rationalized and bureaucratized and incentivized to go along rational economic means, the world is steadily every year drained of magic and mystery. And as people become increasingly attenuated in their relationships with other people, the more desperate their need for comfort. So you take away religion as people's primary source of comfort, then what are they going to turn to? They're going to turn to crystals and to all sorts of woohoo thinking and things that would seem equally ridiculous to you as religion. So people need comfort. That's from a secular perspective, the primary reason that they turn to religion. And so if you take away religion, they're just going to take away, they're just going to seek out things that you'd find equally ridiculous. Few people use religion as a code. I'm not sure that's true. Look at Europe, people have found comfort outside of religion. That's true. There was a lot of talk that the world would essentially come to an end if people gave up religion. People gave up their belief in hell. They would just become amoral, immoral, horrible people. And that has not happened in Europe, right? Generally speaking, Swedes behave in Sweden pretty similar to the way that Swedes behave in the United States, that the moral standards of Europeans, generally speaking, pretty similar to the moral standards of Americans who are much more ostensibly religious. So Europeans, where have they turned to for comfort and assurance? I'm not sure. I haven't thought about it. It's an excellent challenge. So yeah, few people in Europe use religion as a cope. They have found comfort outside of religion. John Smith says religion does a lot more harm than good, particularly Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. People could do mushrooms on Sunday. They could play a community game of cricket. They could do a moderate amount of drugs, he says. So one way that Europeans live, that's very different from the way Americans live, is that generally speaking, Europeans live in an area where their grandparents lived. So generally speaking, Europeans tend to have traditional ties of family and community that Americans do not, that Americans tend to be much more mobile. And when Americans embrace a religion, it gives them the patina, an ersatz version of the traditional ties of Europe. So Europeans find it ridiculous how welcoming churches are in America, because for a church in Europe, it is primarily catering to people who've been going there for generations. People in Europe tend to be rooted to a particular place and to a particular community and to have ties that go back many, many generations. So the way that Americans try to recapture that feeling of genuine traditional ties with place and with people is to go to church. Religion gives people moral values to follow. Yes. So religion can have a morally elevating effect on people. So particularly in an atomized, bureaucratized, you know, capitalist, semi-capitalist system like the United States, yeah, religion is a way of giving a sense of the traditional values that Europeans have, of that traditional tie to community. Most Europeans, I believe, live within walking distance of where their grandparents lived, which is very different from Americans and Australians. So what religion does is it gives you that patina or an intimation of that traditional sense of community. And when you have that traditional sense of community, that's where real values come from, right? Values don't generally speaking come from reading a book or listening to a preacher or listening to a rabbi. Values generally come out of your ties to other people. And so what religion does is it gives you an opportunity to form bonds with other people. Then when you form bonds with other people, values come from that. So when you get into a rhythm with someone else, right, you go jogging every morning with someone else, you will develop an ethic out of that. I was on the Santa Monica beach on Sunday, and there are about 100 people with headphones on, like, or dancing to music. There will be an ethic that comes from that. There will be a morality that comes from that. There's a very powerful connection that comes from doing things together. You go to an aerobics class with people. There will be a morality and an ethic that comes from that. You go to yoga class with people. There will be a morality and an ethic that comes from that. You become a soldier and you march with people. You get this very powerful sense of solidarity. Many people look back on their time in the armed services as the most meaningful, exciting, fulfilling time of their life, because that was the time they had the closest bonds with other people. So religion is one way of forming bonds with people. Yoga class is another way. Spin class is another way. Swimming is another way. The moral values that you get from participating in intense activities with other people, that forms us. That's, generally speaking, where our moral values come from, not from the Bible and not from the preacher. Our moral values in the way we live practically come from the bonds that we form with other people, and we form bonds by getting on the same page with other people and participating in activities. The more intense the activities that you participate in with someone else, the stronger the bond. So an intense yoga class will enable you to form stronger bonds with other people than a relaxed yoga class. An intense meditation session will enable you to form stronger bonds with other people than a relaxed meditation session. An intense workout will enable you to form stronger bonds with other people than a relaxed workout. An intense live stream will enable you to form stronger bonds with other people than a relaxed live stream. An intense run, an intense debate, an intense internet blood sports will enable you to form stronger bonds, tighter bonds with other people and out of those bonds come an ethic. So you get on the same page with other people, you participate with other people in rituals, practices, you sing with other people, right? You join a choir, you will form bonds with those people and out of those bonds will come a moral code that will travel with you outside of the choir. So that's the primary place where we get our morality is from the bonds that we form. You form a bond with your family, that those values that you and your family share, you will take that outside of your family. You form strong bonds at work, right? Let's say you have an intense job, right? If you have an intense job, you're more likely to form intense connections with other people out of those intense connections will come intense ethical standards and intense morality that you'll take outside of your job. So when you form bonds, that's what will primarily give you your practical morality, not theories, not books, not preachers, not rabbis, it's the bonds. You wanna pull off a successful conversion to Orthodox Judaism or a successful conversion to Islam or to Christianity. You form bonds with people, and then out of those bonds, you develop a way of life and an ethic, right? Certain people convert to Orthodox Judaism, they believe in the teachings and they're all rah, rah, rah, but for psychological reasons, they social reasons, they never form deep lasting bonds with other people. And then when your enthusiasm dims, you're much more likely to drop out of Orthodox Judaism. On the other hand, let's say you converted to Orthodox Judaism for pragmatic reasons to get married to someone and you didn't really care that much about the theology, but you form strong bonds with other people, you're not gonna drop out of Orthodox Judaism. So what keeps converts to Orthodox Judaism in Orthodox Judaism is not generally speaking theology. What keeps converts in a high-intensity, high-demanding religion is the intensity of the bonds that they form with other people. You don't form those bonds, you're dropped out. So some people convert to Orthodox Judaism to get married and they may stay married as long as the kids are in the house and then as soon as the kids are 18 and out of the house, they may completely turn their back and on Orthodox Judaism and go their own way because they don't have enough significant relationships in Orthodox Judaism to keep them there. Or other people who are born Jewish, born into Orthodox Judaism, get married to another Orthodox Jew, have kids, raise kids in Orthodox Judaism, but they don't necessarily believe in almost any of it, but they have bonds to people and they want a container to raise kids in, like a safe space to raise kids in, to shelter their kids from reality. So they maintain a commitment to Orthodox Judaism for as long as the kids are in the house and then once the kids are 18 and after college, then couples get divorced, couples drop the Orthodox Jewish commitment. Do women ever convert to Orthodox Judaism to find a husband? I'm sure that happens at times, but generally speaking, people convert to Orthodox Judaism because they've fallen in love with an Orthodox Jew and they want to get married. So no, it's not mainly men who are Jewish, bringing along a non-Jewish woman to convert. Plenty of non-Jewish men convert to get married to Jewish women. So I admit that there are better ways for us to build bonds without the nonsense of religion. I didn't say that they're better. Like I think religion is probably for most people, for many people, it's the best way to build bonds with others. I think that there's probably a religious impulse in many people. I'm not gonna necessarily say most people because Europe is the first secular place ever in human history, right? Virtually all of human history has been religious, but post-World War II or post-1950s, Europe has been overwhelmingly secular and life goes on. So I'm sure religion for many people is an adaptive response to life and then for other people, religion is maladaptive for them. So I have no doubt that for some people, embracing atheism leads them to become a better person and unleashes all sorts of energy and positive contributions to the world, they would not have experienced if they'd stayed in the religion in which they were raised. People are complex, situations are complex, situations are constantly changing. Tovious Singer is not a great resource for women who want to inquire about Orthodox Judaism. Yeah, religion kind of pre-filters the people you'd wanna have relationships with. Yeah, so if you wanna get married and have kids, then the irrational thing, generally speaking, will be to become religious because the religious people are the most likely to stay married and stay committed to raising the kids. If you just wanna screw around, then being religious is not a rational choice, but you wanna get married, have a family, being religious is a rational choice, right? The type of people who are religious tend to be committed to things like marriage and family. So I think people choose what kind of sex life they want. Do they want a monogamous sex life? If you want a monogamous sex life, then choosing to be religious is usually the rational response. You don't want a monogamous sex life, then choosing religion is not usually an adaptive response. Will Islam replace secularism in Europe? No, Muslims are becoming increasingly secular. So Islam holds power just like certain communities are able to keep the community within their group by having an enormous crime rate in the US. So people won't move into a particular community because of the enormous crime rate. Islam has been able, sections of Islam has been able to maintain its dominance by intimidating people. But generally speaking, Muslims are not high intensity in their commitment to Islam. And so as Muslims move to the West, their commitment to Islam, or generally speaking will wane over the generations. So I'm not sure that Islam is going to overcome Christianity in Europe, certainly in some areas it will. I don't believe overall. Imagine having an atheist wife that is pro-abortion or pro-gay. Well, yeah, that would be a challenge if you're not pro-abortion or pro-gay, or if you're a monotheist. The more you have in common, the better the chances for your relationship. That's the same with live streamer and his audience. Same with people who are married, friends, the more you have in common, the more likely you are to stay connected. They have trans imams in Europe. That's us dominating them. Wow, I didn't know about that. You can still have a family and raise kids and be an atheist. Yes, you can, but generally speaking, it's not as useful a choice as being religious, right? Religion provides a better framework, environment and community for people who want to stay married, stay monogamous and have a commitment to raising kids. So I don't think Islam will replace secularism in Europe. I think it's more likely that secularism will undercut Islam in Europe. Not that there won't be some nasty bumps and bruises along the way. There are a few genuinely religious people anywhere even in the US, that's true. So yes, in the United States, religion tends to be a mile wide and an inch deep because it's primarily functioning as a patina of the traditional type of community that people have in Europe, where you live for generations in the same area. Bye-bye.