Freedomain Radio

In responding to an e-mail, I played around with some numbers that I thought might be of interest to you in general... 

• Over the course of FDR, we have had about 50,000 fairly consistent listeners.
• That generally means potentially 100,000 parents.
• If we take that down by 10%, because of death, say, we end up with perhaps  90,000 parents.
• I can think of about 20 deFOOs - perhaps there are more, but I can't say for sure.
• Each deFOO affects say 2 parents.
• Thus 40 parents out of 90,000 parents have been affected by family separation - or 0.044%.
• This represents one out of 2,250 parents.
• Interestingly, sociopaths apparently comprise 4% of the population.
• Out of 90,000 parents, this would mean 3,600 sociopathic parents.
• If we assume that separating from a truly sociopathic parent would be emotionally advantageous, then we are far below the average, since only 40 parents have been affected out of 3,600 - or 1.11% of sociopathic parents.

Given these numbers, FDR should be praised for helping to keep families together!

Empiricism over Mythology, FTW

GregG:

Empiricism over Mythology, FTW

A-bloody-men.

My deFOO only affected 1 parent, but I suppose you can throw a sociopathic aunt or two in to skew the numbers.

Really, people complain to no end about deFOOing. What would they have people do - stay with parents who have actively wished them ill all their lives, in word or deed? Come on, folks. Projection = not kewl.

Man I love reason and evidence.

GregG:

Empiricism over Mythology, FTW

Yes!

Charlotte:

Really, people complain to no end about deFOOing. What would they have people do - stay with parents who have actively wished them ill all their lives, in word or deed? Come on, folks.

This is exactly what I was thinking. Someone comes on here complaining about deFoo's, and I think to myself, "So they prefer abusive 'relationships' to positive ones?" I mean, the whole point is that parents should not get special treatment; there are no bonus points or penalties just because somebody is a "parent." If any relationship is not positive and beneficial, then look for better people to interact with. How is that controversial?

Then there are the people who say they only support deFooing in "extreme circumstances." Well even if you include other family members in the statistics and assume that there have been several hundred deFoo's that Stef doesn't know about, then we're still left with fewer than 1% of people deFooing. This means that "deFooing only under extreme circumstances" is already standard practice at FDR, and we're in complete agreement.

I think it's possible that some of the misunderstanding comes from the fact that there are so many podcasts about deFooing in the general stream. Almost everyone who has deFoo'ed has discussed it with Stef in one or more podcasts, while the thousands of listeners who have not deFoo'ed did not talk to Stef in a podcast. This leads to an over-representation of the phenomenon in people's minds--and they think that deFooing is more common than it is, just because it is discussed so much.

Stefan Molyneux:

...it is very important to remember the families that are helped and kept together by FDR, and our commitment to honesty and RTR. Just as in economics, focusing on obvious problems versus subtle solutions is the essence of intelligent analysis.

Given these numbers, FDR should be praised for helping to keep families together!

Someday....