Stefan Molyneux:That's just not true, I'm afraid.
If you're not willing to be honest, there's not much point in posting here.
When I was really young, my mother and I were walking into a store. I pointed out the baldness of a man walking in front of us. My mom shushed me.
As a young child, I constantly confused similarly sounding words, like "infinite" and "infant". And a more embarrassing "condo" and "condom", which came up a lot since I was big into SimCity on the Nintendo.
When I was in elementary school, the goons asked us to gather intel on our parents' abusive habits, including alcohol and drug consumption. I asked my parents about their drinking habits. They were not pleased with the question. They didn't drink at all until my sister and I graduated from college. Now they enjoy a glass of wine on rare occasions. But they explained to me in harried terms about how my sister and I could be snatched away by the state on the flimsiest of excuses. At this point, I did not understand the distinction between hard and soft beverages, and I was always getting on my parents for drinking [coffee/water] and driving.
Speaking of which, I used to mispronounce "teetotaler". When I was confronted about this by my grandmother a few years ago on vacation, I defended my pronunciation vehemently. We didn't have access to a dictionary or the Internet for the week. When I got home, I looked it up. I was wrong. I also mispronounce "adjacent", which is only a problem when I try to use the adjectival form "adjacency".
My parents thought Peter Pan was culty. They also thought Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was culty, but I watched the cartoon anyway, and when they sat down with me and watched it, they learned it was harmless and allowed me to watch it freely.
When I was in first or second grade, I stole all of the sticky tack in my classroom on a Friday afternoon. I didn't realize I was stealing. My parents explained what stealing was and why it was wrong, and they forced me to return the sticky tack and apologize on Monday. I still didn't understand and I tried to steal the sticky tack again shortly thereafter, but I was caught red-handed.
I once tried to frame my sister by turning on the lights in her room when she wasn't in her room. The rule was that we had to turn off the lights when we left our rooms. My sister did get in trouble the first time I framed her, but the second time my mom caught me red-handed. Nevertheless, I naively denied my crime. My dad tried to ground me for a weekend (being grounded, the punishment of choice by my parents, only lasted a few days with me, not weeks or months like I see on TV), but I had too many activities (cub scouts, little league, school projects, science fair, etc) that my punishment effectively meant I had to miss a single TV show episode that I tape recorded anyway and watched later.
One of my mom's favorite anecdotes about me as a young child is this: when I was in daycare, I wouldn't dive in and play with the other children right away. I would sit on the outskirts and study the entire scene for several minutes. Then I would figure out what I wanted to do and then do it with an almost manic dedication. I would organize the other kids into projects like building a Lego city. This behavior would later get me into trouble with my elementary and middle school teachers (the tall poppy syndrome, perhaps?). I was always being punished by teachers for being a bored, hormonal kid in a state gulag. When my parents found out about it, they would have me moved to other teachers, and ultimately other schools until either I found a good teacher or the school year expired.
All of my friends as a child were of a low-income or broken home demographic. My parents are solidly middle/upper-middle class professionals with excellent financial responsibility. We had the home that all the kids would hang out at.
And on a final note, I don't appreciate being humiliated in public by being called a liar just because I don't immediately kow-tow to your foregone conclusions. You showed no empathy, sympathy, curiosity, or respect for me, my history, my feelings, my family, or my current circumstances. I know you and I don't and haven't ever gotten along like best buds, but if this and our other recent encounters is a good indicator of the nature of our relationship, then I think that is why there is "not much point in posting here". I respect your ideas, Stef, and FDR has helped me over my fear of the black helicopters and my misplaced hope in a futile political system. But deeper than that, I haven't gotten any help on these boards at all despite a number of attempts to reach out, and I don't think I will get any help here, especially in this "donators-only" clique that has arisen recently. So I'll leave now, lurk occasionally, and return in a few years when I've gotten a job and therapy.
Thank you for the podcasts. I still owe you a few hundred more dollars, and I'll get it to you eventually (again, once I've gotten a job).