Decoding the Gurus - Supplementary Material 44: Peasant Archmages, Moral Panics, and LOTR Parenting Tips
Episode Date: February 7, 2026We descend once more into the Gurusphere, encountering secret peasant archmages, decline narratives, Epstein emails, and endless moral panics.The full episode is available to Patreon subscribers (1 ho...ur, 37 minutes).Join us at: https://www.patreon.com/DecodingTheGurus00:00 SM 44 PF00:23 Introduction01:30 Konstantin Kisin: Not Left Or Right, Just Right05:20 Boghossian is shocked by pessimistic French people08:50 Konstantin and Warren Smith as relics of the anti-SJW era12:45 A PSA! Hyper Capitalism Tier Update!18:36 Matt's AV Setup20:01 Recommendation: Successville (British version)21:40 My peasant farmer dad is secretly an Archmage!28:14 Scott Galloway talks with Gwyneth Paltrow40:18 American Capitalist Culture and the Gurus48:54 Bryan Johnson vs AG151:45 Bryan Johnson & Epstein Schmoozing58:09 Bari Weiss's Peter Attia Woes59:14 Epstein and QAnon Conspiracies01:03:23 Overinterpreting Epstein emails01:09:04 Shermer promotes Dave Rubin to hawk his book on Truth01:10:37 Conspiracy Theory prevalence on left and riht01:17:44 Jonathan Haidt and his anti-social media crusade01:23:15 Plato on the Corruption of the Youth01:24:30 The Eternal Appeal of Decline Narratives01:26:22 They won't let you enjoy things anymore...01:30:24 Matt's laissez-faire parenting tips01:31:45 Life lessons from Lord of the Rings01:34:17 The Witch King of Angmar defeated by a Woke White WomenSourcesKonstantin Kisin on not being left or rightBoghossian and Kisin bemoan civilisational decline narrativesThe Guardian on Bari Weiss’s new CBS “Podcastistan” hiresNiall Ferguson on how Trump “won Davos”The Guardian: Elon Musk had more extensive ties to Epstein than previously knownMy Farmer Dad Is Secretly an Archmage – viral short-form fantasy dramaBehind the Scenes of My Farmer Dad Is Secretly an ArchmageOriginal Chinese version of
Transcript
Discussion (0)
A low and putting the guru's supplementary material with the venerable psychologist Matthew
Brian and the cheeky young upstart anthropologist psychologist Chris Kavana.
Young is all relative, it's all relative, okay?
Young at heart. I'd prefer you use a different adjective than venerable. I could think of many
other ones. What about inimitable? That's better. Oh, that's pretty good. Yeah.
Yeah, I think you're, I'll go with that, the inimitable Matthew Brine.
I'm not quite sure what it means.
What does it mean?
You can't be imitated?
Like, no one could imitate me.
But it's not unimitable.
It's inimitable.
Inimitable.
It turns like a word that doesn't mean anything.
Yeah, no, it's too, we've said it too many times.
So good or unusual as to be impossible to copy, unique.
Well, that's that's me in an nutshell.
Yep, that's what I've often said about you.
That's true.
Oh, now speaking of self-congratulatory self-descriptions,
that just reminded me of something I saw on Twitter recently.
Good old Constantine Kissin.
He's good at that.
Yeah, Constantine.
He recently appeared on, what was it, Newsnight?
Was that where he was?
That's a BBC thing, right?
Yeah.
I saw that he got a round of coverage because he was, oh, question time.
Sorry, he was on question time.
Yeah, it's like, you know, kind of panel format where they get a bunch of talking heads
and they answer questions and then they respond through audience prompts and stuff as well.
And Constantine was being his usual self there.
That's the first problem.
Like the fact that he was invited on something like that to, you know, represent a certain constituency or something.
Like, they couldn't find anyone better.
Constantine was it?
I know, I know.
But, you know, as he pointed out in response to somebody criticizing while he was there,
you know, he is somebody that gets cliques and the dead.
Well, what he said was, I have the biggest political substack in Britain.
There's a lot of qualifying things there.
But, you know, and he has trigonometry and all that kind of thing.
But, yeah, Constantine has been very successful.
in making himself get gobb for hire, right?
But the main thing he does is that he gives all the right wing talking points
and then he gets very upset and stumps his feet and wheels and lashes if you point out that
he's right wing, you know?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Periodically he admits it.
He periodically says, fine, I'm right wing.
And then he forgets.
Then he goes back, yeah.
If right wing means endorsing pretty much old right wing puppet puppet.
policies and liking right-wing politicians and finding right-wing stuff really appealing,
then I guess I'm right-wing.
I know.
I have to, as always, he capitalizes, like, any time he has a success, he's quick to
capitalize it on it.
Yeah.
Do you remember after the Oxford Union speech, he was just glowing with happiness and working
hard to capitalize?
So on Twitter, he said, welcome new followers.
A few things you should know.
This is a chef's kiss tweet.
I am not left or right, and I am not party political.
I care about what's true and what works.
How about that, Chris?
He's not left or right.
And he's not party political.
I think party there, I think it's doing a lot of heavy lifting.
Because I think the way he'd get out of this and say,
well, I don't explicitly endorse a certain party.
I'm not a card-carrying member of such and such.
Given time, though, I think he'll pretty much clearly come out
in endorsing reform.
Yeah, Farage.
Yeah.
But, you know, I'm just interested how he could possibly weasel out of that,
that he's not party political and not left or right.
But, you know, this is the guru's thing.
This is the thing that we've noticed since the very beginning,
since the beginning of the IDW, this claim that they are above politics.
They don't have any tribe.
They don't have any particular allegiances.
They just beams of pure truth and rationality.
So don't you dare try to pigeonhole them?
All they care about is what's true.
and real and good. And it's just, like, it's easy to say that about yourself. I know it sounds good.
And it clearly works. Like, because Constantin is still running with that formula today. And it's
been like, like a decade. Decade. Yeah. How long can they keep getting away with that?
I know. Well, he also, his second point in that tweet is, I want Britain, America and the West
to be strong, confident and united, which is another calling Paul.
And I saw it today.
He was also tweeting out this thing about somebody was lamenting.
Oh, it was Burgossian.
Of course it was Peter Burgossian.
He was saying, in Paris last night, we went out to dinner with six French people in the Fridays.
I asked him, are you optimistic about the future of France?
Everyone burst out laughing.
I encountered this over and over again, profound pessimism about the future.
So much so they laugh.
And Constantine says, there is nothing that shocks our American friends more.
than how utterly declinist Europe and Britain have become.
Massive political and cultural changes required.
But, you know, the thing I want to note here,
one, anybody being surprised that French people would not be optimistic
and singing the joys of the beauty of France and the future.
Like, come on, right?
You know, French people are the people who are known as existential philosophers and so on, right?
There's that.
They invented the word ennui.
then also
Constantine and them
keep like getting butt hurt
about people
criticizing the West or whatever
but I've never listened to a more
moony bunch of sad sacks
than the carousel
of guests that appear on
Joe Rogan on Trigononometry
they're all moaning about the end of civilization
the decline of America
I mean fucking the Trump slogan
is make America great again
implying that currently it's just terrible.
You know, all his speeches and stuff
are talking about the decline
and we're going to lose this.
And yeah, so it's all these words they say
where, you know, they're like,
we want to be optimistic
and have good visions of the future.
Like Elon Musk.
And you list, look at Elon Musk's Twitter feed.
And it's just the most BS, racist,
culture war, conspiratorial bullshit.
But they like to pretend
that they're optimistic
I think positive.
Yeah, I think this is the sort of thing that annoys it most,
just that having it both ways,
like spending day in, day out,
being totally partisan,
like ideologically blinkered,
talking head,
and then pretending that you're above it all
and you don't have any things
and you just care about truth and stuff.
If you care about truth,
he wouldn't use those measly weasel words
around climate change and things like that.
No.
As he said,
these people that the trumpet Western civilization first
and, you know, being strong future and be optimistic and the left are so bad because they
criticize things that are wrong. That is literally all they do. If you listen to their content,
it's moaning and whinging about how everything is awful and in decline and in decline and
gone wrong and the West has fallen, et cetera, et cetera, and getting worse. Yeah, so it's like you can't
pick a lane, you know. That's what annoyed us about those last manorsteree talk that we covered too.
Like, I personally do not like and do not care for and don't endorse that kind of manly,
man as fear, be a man, crap all up, right?
But if you do, and if you really lean into those gender stereotypes,
and that's what makes you a super-duper man,
then you can't whinge and moan and write little poems about your sad feelings.
Like, Chris Williams, like, it's come on.
Demonstrably, they can.
I know they can.
I know they are apt.
They can have their cake and eat it too, and it's not fair.
I shouldn't.
Well, Constantine finished off that tweet by saying most important.
I mean, he, you know, he managed to plug his substack and his podcast, of course,
but then the last bullet point you said, most important, I don't care if you're offended,
winking this.
And it's just like, that's Constantine.
He's the embodiment of a 2010's culture war drenched.
Facts don't care about your.
feelings.
Yeah.
Like, it's dead.
Like, that is, that's a cliche.
That is such a vapid cliche at this point, surely.
But it still works.
It still works.
It works for him.
Constantine's kind of running like an unbored relic from the culture.
He's running on the fumes of 2010 culture war stuff.
And it doesn't matter that, you know, that he's an empty vessel.
Just a drum that goes bong when you hit it.
Clearly, I think, going for the lowest common denominator and just repeating empty cliches,
that's a winning strategy.
I think he could become Prime Minister of England.
I know.
I've said that as well.
That's where we're heading.
But similarly, the Warren Smith is like that, right?
You know, the guy that came to Fiam by doing that video where he was a teacher reacting to a student
talking about J.K. Rowling's tweets.
He's went on and he makes like react videos, right, about stuff that he sees on the internet.
And it's, I mean, to say that he is not the intellectual behemoth that he presents himself is to put it mildly.
Like his takes are really, really by the numbers, culture war stuff.
And if you go and look at his output, it's just him constantly endorsing every sort of,
right-wing culture war take that you can imagine.
And not really adding anything to it,
but occasionally in his videos, he's adding in,
you know, and that's how you do critical thinking.
And his videos get hundreds of thousands of views.
So there's a huge market for feeding people,
partisan culture war stuff,
and then telling them this is actually intellectual discourse.
And, you know, I'm not partisan for any side on this.
I'm just looking at this critically, and they're not, right?
Trigonometry is not.
The title gives it away.
Warren Smith is not.
He's just repeating every line that comes from, you know,
right wing, culture war pundits.
But it's a huge market for it.
That's right.
And to be clear, the critique here is not that they're right-wing or conservative.
You can absolutely be right-wing and interesting and have novel ideas
and actually contribute something new, right?
There are heaps of figures throughout the 20th century that have fit that mold.
And I assume they are still around today.
But the issue with these people is that they have, like, Constantine Kissen has never had an original thought in his life.
Like that's the, that is my problem with him.
I know, I know.
I mean, we listened to the episode where he talked about the Oxford Union speech was the defining moment of his life.
and it was a empty rhetoric-drenched cultural war speech
that contradicted itself and made all these claims
that are demonstrably false and so on.
But that was the brightest moment of his life.
And in favor of his interpretation,
it clearly did open doors to him
and get him invited on bigger podcasts
and get him more guests and stuff.
So he's correctly reading the cultural moment
that that is a big deal,
you know, going viral in clips
because that's what gives you currency
in Trump's America and whatnot.
Yeah, this is true.
Matt, one little announcement thing
we should make collectively.
We're making this as a podcast group.
Oh, good.
I'm on board.
Yeah.
Yeah, this is an important PSA
for our listening audience,
which is, you know, Matt,
we are men of the people.
We are salt of the earth type guys.
You know, we're out here just scraping the get by.
We do the podcast mainly because
we're servants of the people, right?
We represent the people.
We fight back against the evil corporations,
the evil gurus taking over.
It's a calling.
It's a spiritual quest,
whatever way you want to put it.
We would give it away for free,
but we don't.
Our bonus material.
No, wait, we do.
We give away the podcast for free
because of our commitment
to, you know, the importance of the fight back
and all that kind of thing.
But, you know, we have bonus material
and that is available for.
for an extra cost, right?
And since we started the podcast,
we haven't adjusted our pricing
for the different tiers, Matt.
We have a $2 tier, $5 tier, and a $10 tier,
or something like that.
It's kind of close.
I think actually we did adjust the pricing
because Petraim me or does increase it like by $1.
So it's like $3, $6 or $10 now.
But those more changes forced upon us, Matt,
by the evil overlords of Patreon.
And they've been following us, Matt,
still saying,
are you sure your lower tier should exist?
That's,
yeah,
we're getting emails around that.
And,
you know,
you and I were talking and we thought,
look,
when we started doing that,
the podcast for many years,
we were just putting out,
you know,
like one extra thing every month or so,
right?
Not only,
it's wall-to-wall content.
You're overflowing.
You've got decoding academia episodes.
You've got supplementary materials.
material. You've got interviews coming early. You know, the whole, it's a whole, what is it?
Double-loader kits that you've got. So what we're doing, all of this is just to say,
we're going to take away the lowest tier and just simplify it into two. And this means that
anybody that signs up will automatically be able to access the Bikodian academia thing, which is
the majority of extra bonus content that we have, which you currently don't get.
on the lowest tier, right?
But we're going to not do this for like a dollar month.
So should you want to sign up and get gram followed in at the low, low, $3?
Oh, that's where you're going with this.
That's interesting.
Yeah, it's available.
So look, we're not saying, it's going on, tough shit, right?
And if you're already there, you don't have to do anything.
It's not like being taken away, right?
So the only thing is if you want to subscribe at the,
$3 tier, you have like another month for it.
And then we're going in line, we're following the herd, like all the other podcasters,
and we're charging a whole $5 for a month.
Yeah, that's it.
And, yeah, so we're not $15.
We're not like the fifth column or Sam Harris.
Okay.
We're just charging around $5 because of the overwhelming amount of content that you got.
And we wanted to let people know, to give them notice.
Yeah, even though it doesn't affect anyone.
Transpine sorts.
Yeah, even though it doesn't affect anyone who's actually currently subscribed to us.
No, that's right.
So, and like I say, you can still sneak in under the low barrier if you want.
You can sneak it if you want to.
I mean, yeah.
Yeah, let's say it's there.
It's there.
The option is there.
Don't say we didn't warn you.
Okay.
All right.
All right.
Yeah, because what, $2, $3?
What is that?
Does he even buy a cup of coffee at Starbucks these days?
Not anymore.
Not anymore.
It wouldn't even buy a fancy coffee, not long with like pumpkin.
Not a white mocha.
I can't afford a white mocha for that.
Yeah.
You wouldn't be able to afford one of those sort of wanky, complicated coffees they sell in America.
Oh, look, it's inflation.
It's inflation and it's economics, it's hard times.
It's got things to do with Trump tariffs.
It's the whole thing, you know.
Listen, listen, everyone, I'll tell you the truth.
Like, Chris works damn hard.
He works damn hard at this.
He's grinding away.
he's doing all kinds of things
editing
he's doing a lot of things
that's it's really
right up the idea
you were like he said tons of things
editing
posting the things
maybe
mostly okay mostly editing
but that's not nothing
that's not nothing
yeah that's right
there's people who have jobs
that are editors
so that's true
that's right
so yeah but look
okay that's our
he doesn't have tenure
help him out
I don't have tenure
doesn't have tenure
that's right
I don't have a house, okay?
All these other gurus, they all live in the houses.
He's not publishing as many articles as you should be because of this podcast.
Also true.
Yeah, that's why.
That's why.
That's why my output looks like that.
Okay, the sacrifices I'm here.
I don't want to remove the lowest tier.
I don't want to remove it.
We're just being forced by capitalistic forces beyond our can.
But there's no mentions of sports cars, Chris.
If it comes to that, I'm out.
Well, I haven't unleashed my high-hand luxury brand.
Yeah, eat the gurus.
Well, there go, Matt.
That's a public service announcement done.
Okay.
Back to our normal is scheduled.
Guru decoding duties.
Duties.
Very good.
Very good.
Okay.
All right.
All right.
Hey, can we have a break from moaning about the state of the world and the online
discords for a second, Chris. My new speakers arrive today. My high-fi speakers. Wow.
Yeah. Wow. I'm so happy. I'm so happy. So you seem to be getting a lot of AV equipment.
Like, are you planning to have a disco? A-V. A-V. That's so 1980s of you, Chris. That is so 1990s.
What do you call it? Vibe accrued remand-scrots is that this is the, what's the hip lingo for it these
days? This is stereo. Stereo. Stereo. Really? We've got, we've got, we've got, we've got,
I've got a turntable.
We've got a bunch of vinyl.
I should say it's my son who's getting into vinyl,
and otherwise I wouldn't.
I'm quite happy with streaming digital.
Thank you very much.
But, you know, I figured lean into it.
So last night I bought a whole bunch of records.
I got classics of the genre, like Craftworks,
Autobahn, for instance.
Brian Eno's music for airports.
I can't remember the rest of them,
but I got like 11 LBs.
you know, just a bunch of, just a bunch of high-fire stuff.
And we've got the good speakers, got the turntable, got a good amp,
got to set up the lounge room.
It's going to be very cool, very groovy.
It's a new hobby.
It's a new thing.
Wow.
Wow.
Well, since you're, you know, talking about positive things,
I'm going to give you one.
You know, people say we don't recommend enough, you know, the things that we like.
And I have said there's a new.
British comedy I came across that you don't really get, but that's okay. It's called
Successville where it's like improvisational comedy show where they're doing like an
edie's detective drama and they threw in some minor celebrity who has to like kind of play along
and often doesn't do it well, which is where the humor is. Now I know you don't you don't really
get them at. You're like, well, I don't get it. But trust me, it actually is funny if you've got a sense
of humor. So I don't get it. Explain to
me, they're doing a skit and there's a guy in there who he was following along, trying to follow
along and failing and not quite getting it and cracking up. And that's the joke. Is that the joke?
Is that the joke? The joke is it's good improvisational comedy stuff around the detective
it is like hard button theme. But the out of their depth celebrity people trying to interact
and play along in this.
The fact that they kind of mess it up,
that's the humor, Matt. That's good.
Look, people get it, okay?
People get it.
I don't know how successful it is overall,
but, and I know there's an American version.
Don't watch that.
Watch the British one.
I haven't seen the American one,
so it could be better, but
from my point of view,
it's good. So I'm recommending that map
and you can't stop me,
even though, you know,
it's just too high broad for you.
But I've got something,
more your suite as well, a
recommendation that I have to give to people.
This is really testing the limits
of what we're allowed to talk
about in this section of that
because I saw something recently
which is, it's hard to even
explain what it is, but the
title of it is my
farmer dad is secretly
an archmage.
And what it is
on like Instagram, it's probably on
TikTok and stuff as well. You might have
seen it where there's like these little
one minute for a three minute clips or so where there's like a simple premise right and the simple
premise in this is the person that everybody is treating as a peasant dalt is actually the most
powerful archmaid in the citadel or whatever right and in the little three minute clip it's like
you know him apart to say oh that's because i'm and people kind of off say it's quiet dad you're
stupid peasant you don't know anything and you know they're talking if only the
Archmage was here. And it's like, it's kind of dramatic edging, if you will, but you're
waiting for the bit where he's about to reveal that he's this guy and he's being treated
very badly. Right. And then the clip cuts. And it's like, if you want to watch the rest of this,
you know, sign up for whatever source, right? But if you, if you see more of these clips,
it's just like that's what happens in every single clip. So the story like progresses, but every
clip is like this three minute chunk where it's building up the reveal and then it, you know,
it doesn't really happen and it moves on the next thing. And the acting in it is so bad. It's so
bad. There are people and I'm not even sure they're actors. You know, it's, it's like if you and I
were to do a production, it would be on par. There are also like people in it who appear to be
normal actors and they're quite good. But the thing is, it's so addictive. It's so addictive. It's
It's like psychologically, because it's so cheesy and the premise is so stupid, but you're just like,
but I kind of want to see what happens, right?
And it's only meant to be consumed in like three minute intervals.
But after I watched a couple of them, I went and hunted out the full thing.
And it's like an hour and a half.
It's a full movie.
And that's all that happens for like 90 minutes, it's little segments like that.
Oh, God.
It's, yeah, I don't know.
So you said there's a link to keep watching or something.
Yeah.
If you follow the link and pay the paywall, do you get to see the?
I presume so, but it's like it's some predatory click beer thing, the harvester credit details.
So you shouldn't do that.
You should just go and find where it's been uploaded on Dillemotion or YouTube or whatever.
This is so you.
So you went out and sought out like a whole,
library of the clickbait
It's a movie, it's an entire
movie just cut up and it's also in
vertical format. It's a movie
in vertical format
which adds to the feeling
of surrealness, right? And the effects
are kind of 1990s
sci-fi channel effects. But Matt
the other thing about it is
there's something weird
about it where
it's like set in a medieval fantasy
right? But
the bit that was like kind of ringing
strange to me was, if you know what Isakai is, you don't, but it's, it's like a, oh, you know, Isakai?
Oh, I'd you said Isakaya.
No, no, no, no. No, it's like this category of manga and anime where people go into a different
world and they have to level up and fight. And they're often, like, now, scraping the barrel for
ideas. Like, I was reborn as a vending machine. I was reborn as a, like, Pachinko ball or whatever, right?
like this is the level that they're at.
And this one reads a little bit like that,
but the actors are going around
and they're humming it up and stuff,
and it's like a European court setting, right?
But they're talking about,
I'm a seventh degree mage,
and he is only an eighth degree.
And, you know, to get to the ultra-master level,
you have to have done whatever.
And the thing that struck me is, like,
some of the things they're talking about
just seemed like a weird fit
with that setting.
It's just culturally incongruous.
And then I discovered
it's because this is a remake
of a Chinese,
like original,
which is the exact same premise,
but set in China.
And so all the references,
if you watch that version,
are like them sitting,
you know,
at a Chinese court.
It's the exact same thing,
the exact same dialogue,
but just in a Chinese setting,
which makes much more sense
because at the end,
it becomes a god
and all this kind of things.
So, yeah.
But, you know, one, I'm not recommending that people watch this,
but I'm saying as an addiction specialist,
this would be interesting for you to see
because it's like psychological crack.
It's like, you know, putting people up to the end of a reveal
where they're waiting for people to get their comeuppance.
And then it doesn't give you that.
And, you know, every single scene is like that.
Yeah, that is interesting.
But maybe it's just a you thing.
I don't know.
My farmer dad is secretly an archeryage.
Okay.
That's the one.
Check it out.
The only good actor in it really is the follower.
But that's what you want, right?
You want the follower who's secretly an archmage.
Actually, that character sort of reminds me of you.
It's a bit like to you, the dad character in it.
So, yeah, there you go, I'm just recommending that.
Is that relevant to the format?
It's something you liked.
I guess that's fine.
It's a positive thing.
I mean, I didn't like, let's just be clear here.
I consumed it knowing full well what it is and thinking, oh, what a terrible thing that this exists, but also genuinely enjoying it.
So it's not like I watched and thought this is the way movies should be from now on.
I'm just kind of amaze that it exists.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, well, me too.
Well, I will watch one.
I watch one.
I watch one.
That's it.
Yeah.
Maybe everybody in the audience will watch it.
Well, but okay, Matt, to return to the theme of this podcast, the actual theme, all right?
Scott Galloway, I mean, he's not the theme of the podcast, but he had somebody who recovered recently.
And I saw him pop up with Gwyneth Paltrow.
Actually, I think it was an Instagram shorter or something that I saw.
And he was talking about the same topics.
Actually, I listened to a little bit of that interview, and it's amazing.
He says all the same anecdotes, you know, like the ones on Chris Williamson.
It's like a comedian, you know, making the thing appear as if it's spontaneous.
But it's the same anecdotes, the same statistics, and he delivers it the same way.
So it's quite, yeah, quite amazing message discipline.
That's interesting.
And how was Gwyneth Paltrow?
Well, I mean, she was, you know, she was kind of herself.
Was she into those talking points?
Yeah, I mean, she is.
They all are that talk to Scott for the duration of the conversation, at least, right?
And there was a bit, I mean, this is a familiar thing, Matt.
I've got one clip for you, just one little clip.
But I wanted to discuss it because it made something resonate that we covered.
I don't think any of those are what I call the real right of
passage. I think of, I think there are a lot of people born as males who live, 80 years, die and
never became men. Yeah, I agree. The way I would describe it is, and I parrot a lot of this from
my Yoda on this topic, a guy named Richard Reeves from the American Institute for boys and men,
I think the, I think when you become a man is the following. And I try to tell my boys this,
it's when you get to a point of surplus value. So I say to my kids, you're, I say to them,
I'm like, you're total negative value right now. We have a school spending so much,
there's so many talented people and so many resources being poured into at school. You're giving
nothing back. Your mom and your dad spend so much money, time, and love and affection on you,
we don't get as much back. I mean, yeah, kids, greatest thing in the world, blah, blah, blah,
we don't get as much back as they're getting. That's the whole point. At some point, when you
become a man, is when you get to a point of surplus value. You're creating more tax revenue than
you absorb. If you live in the United States, you're absorbing $20,000, $30,000 a year in government
support just by if you want to call 911 and have someone show up, if you want people to defend
your borders, if you want to be able to go to national parks, travel on roads, you're absorbing
a lot of tax revenue. One way to add surplus values, you create more jobs and revenue than you
absorb. Another way is you provide more care for other people that provide care for you, for you,
You absorb more complaints than people complain to you.
You take care of more people than the care you've absorbed at that point.
You're adding surplus value.
You notice people's lives.
You're the guy that makes people feel better and feel safe.
Uh-huh.
Uh-huh.
Okay.
At first he was really emphasizing the economic side of things.
And I was thinking, this is a very economic definition of manhood.
So there's the surplus value theory there.
all very good, I guess, and then he branched out to, you know, all kinds, you know, emotional surplus value.
You're providing more emotional support than you're requiring.
You're giving more than you're receiving.
Isn't that a good thing, Chris?
Yeah, well, so in terms of amounts of time spent, a lot more spent on the surplus value in terms of financial contributions to society than the being kind.
But even they're converting.
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