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Three deranged tech founders discuss dating and society.
Welcome back to The Handsome Hour. Today, we talk about a wide range of topics. We talk about something that was blowing up on X, which involved a woman demanding a car from her first date. We talk about politics. We talk about a lot of stuff.
Stony:Everyone brings their own energy, and we, vigorously debate, Cody's horrible idea about not being horrible. We think you'll love this episode, and Wes has some special advice at the end for what he really thinks about this episode. Enjoy. It's the handsome hour.
Wes:Welcome back to the handsome hour.
Stony:So the handsome hour of your week.
Wes:Yes. Today we have, we have sponsors on the show. So we're going to be raising some money. Ryle, could you pull up, slide number one? That's the other thing.
Wes:We have a, in studio producer now. We have Ryle here. He's he's a I have a teenager from Russia who's going to help us, help us with the show by pulling things up. Ryle, can you pull up slide number one?
Cody:You tapped that black market Silk Road, Russia to teenage podcast producer pipeline.
Wes:Yep. I went on I went on the deep web. I found the Human trafficking. Marketplace. I said, give me a 17 year old boy.
Wes:And they they sent him here in a dog kennel. Can you pull up slide number one?
Stony:Pull up a slide of us.
Wes:Pull up pull up the slide. Right right right now what you've shared okay. Can you get slide number one up? We needed to do the read. We're we're off the rails here.
Wes:So anyway, we'll pull it up in a minute. We're we're we're raising money for the Starfish project. Okay? And what the Starfish project is, I'm told this is a very good okay. It needs to be just the one slide.
Wes:It needs to be just slide number one. Right now you're showing both slides. Just slide number one.
Stony:So wait a second. We're not trying to great. Okay. Your email.
Cody:Whoever whoever's editing this, please put in the Benny Hill song every time I write
Wes:it West Coast.
Stony:Do you have so many tabs up? I was incredibly clear. Minimize ahead of time. And instead, you brought up the one Chrome application with 84 tabs. Like, I I don't know.
Stony:I just wanna know.
Wes:You have some problems.
Cody:Someone's gonna screenshot that and look at every single every single
Stony:one of And by the way, why are we only raising money to stop the trafficking of women? Like, because What about men?
Cody:We need Raels. So we have
Wes:to Because we need we need Read goodwill from women. Fine. Need goodwill from women.
Stony:I think we should still raise money to stop the human trafficking of all people other than Rael.
Wes:Okay. Because yes. That's of the irony of the show. No. We we we are benefiting from the human trafficking of men because we Yes.
Wes:Need
Stony:That's why I wanna exclude Rael. I'm very
Cody:clear. For the benefit of all of humanity except Rael.
Wes:I I wanna keep the blast radius from our philanthropic efforts just, like, very contained so it doesn't hurt the show. So we're not gonna stop the human trafficking of men. But we are this is serious. We are raising money for the Starfish Project. We will match $250 in donations.
Wes:What this project is, is it helps women who are the victims of human trafficking. I'm not sure how it does it exactly. I am told it's a very good charity by someone I trust. They're either having the women who were trafficked make jewelry and selling the jewelry, or they are giving jewelry to the women who were trafficked, or maybe the women are making the jewelry and then wearing it. I'm not sure.
Wes:I do know that
Stony:it is like should rescue the women, not just ask him to make jewelry.
Wes:I look. It's a good charity. It the the the the money goes to stop human trafficking.
Cody:We take them right out of the trafficking and straight into the sweatshop.
Stony:Are you currently being trafficked? Right. Would you like to make jewelry? I think they should get them out of the trafficking situation.
Cody:They felt like they weren't being exploited enough. They felt like they
Stony:were Yeah. Now that now they're trafficked and slaving away with with lead and mercury in their fingers.
Wes:Right. Okay. Great. And we've got another sponsor. So I guess we just don't get the we just don't get that.
Stony:So we're technically sponsoring them. I mean, I'm I don't I think this is great.
Wes:Yeah. Okay. And and and also, I should probably note this as a disclaimer. By sponsor, I mean, these people have no idea who we are. They they didn't ask to be associated with the show.
Cody:They just exist are we doing this?
Wes:To to earn goodwill.
Cody:To just abide the allegiance of the political favor of women.
Wes:Yes. It's a karmic it's karmic. It's like we're who well, you know, we have to stand for something here. I think that
Cody:I think standing for something if it's a if it's a bald faced transaction?
Wes:I don't know, but wait till you see the second ad. The second ad, we did get something for. We got I did trade. I did make a trade deal to get the second ad.
Stony:Like, baseball cards?
Wes:No. Yes. Here we go. Look. We we've got it up here.
Wes:So that's where you go. You send proof of your donation to handsomehourpodcast@Gmail.com or d mail d mail DM it to me real Wes Myers on x slash Twitter, and, we will match up to $250 in donations. That's $250 in total donations.
Cody:Don't send money to us. Don't do this.
Stony:No. Don't send us the to us.
Cody:Do not send us the money.
Wes:No. No. No. No. That's not what I'm saying.
Wes:Do not send us the money or
Stony:or send us a screenshot of you sending the Starfish project
Wes:Yes. You go to that website and you donate to them and then
Cody:Maybe donate
Wes:to do
Cody:that. Well,
Stony:I don't I don't know if it's a good charity or not.
Cody:I don't know anything about this charity. Look. Someone I'm get coin flip as to whether this is legit or some kind of It
Wes:is a legit laundry scam. No. Someone someone I'm good friend I'm not good friends with. Someone I know and trust suggests
Cody:Okay. Someone you know. Okay. I have never met them. Okay.
Cody:Actually, they found them on a scammer website. Okay.
Stony:Met a guy in a bar.
Cody:Yeah. Actually, I saw them in a dark alley. Okay. And they tried to mug me.
Stony:I mean, we're all against human trafficking. And just to be clear, at least two of us are against the human trafficking of men and women.
Wes:Yes. Oh, I'm against all human trafficking. I I look. I do think that as a man, if you get trafficked, that's kind of on you. I I and I would like to I would like but I'm I you know, like, look.
Wes:I women are we're you gotta focus. Okay?
Stony:You've gotta be a really attractive
Wes:small man to
Stony:be to be human trafficked, I guess. You small hands, slender figure.
Wes:I I have I have I have one I have one thought in human trafficked. Okay, Stoney. Well, why don't you just make a charity? That's why don't we just stop all bad things? Well, thought that's
Stony:a chocolate starfish project.
Wes:Well, my charity is the is the stop bad things foundation. And chocolate starfish. Yes. Butthole funny. Which we're trying to elevate the show.
Wes:Here's what we're trying to do. We're trying to elevate the show. We're trying to associate ourselves with philanthropic causes. We're trying
Cody:to Right.
Wes:Everyone's like Wes. Everyone's like Wes, you're mean to people on Twitter. It's like, well, okay. I'm trying to elevate the show.
Stony:That's what yeah. That's the philanthropic
Cody:So I women who are tuning in right now who are who may be giving us a shot deciding, yeah. Please, you know, we here we are. We have showed up. We have been good boys. Now give us sex.
Cody:Okay? We bought you a drink. Now the way that the transaction and the exchange goes is that now that we have paid for your drink, you must reward us with commensurate sexual activities.
Wes:You know, you can't come to me one day and be like, we need to give the show appeal to women and then just, like, just crap all over it when I try to do that. You can't do that.
Stony:Let's take a step back. Think can. Wait a second.
Cody:I think
Stony:I can.
Cody:In fact, I think that's the optimal path. I think
Stony:We're we're appealing to women by raising money for a women's charity? I I that that sounds almost backwards. I don't know. Guys, please donate. I'm please donate.
Stony:I'm a alright. Let's let's see the next one. Let's see the next slide. I I I often tell my female friends that if they get trafficked, I'll Liam Neeson them out of there. And they they always they always appreciate that.
Stony:Can can someone tell me what
Wes:human a trafficking is? So What what is that?
Stony:You get some some various flare some very some variations of this. But to my knowledge, the largest human trafficking at least into The US is women are promised jobs. I audio. Audio. Alright.
Stony:Women are promised jobs, and they enter The US when it turns out that they're working at a rub and tug Chinese massage parlor with, you know, things like that. So it's it's it's kind of a promised job which turns into sexual exploitation. That's, I think, the human trafficking in The US. In other countries, you get flat out human slavery.
Wes:Okay. I would assume that happens a lot less to men.
Stony:Yes. To my knowledge. Yes.
Wes:Okay.
Stony:But I'm not sure about boys.
Wes:Yeah. I mean, maybe in, like, Afghanistan.
Stony:If you if you look at some of the stuff that was on, Etsy, there's real genuine questions about what was being what was being sold for thousands of dollars. And we can go into that dark, dark rabbit hole another day.
Wes:About this. Okay. Cool. Right. Okay.
Wes:Yeah. So we're gonna talk about dating.
Cody:The first sponsor was such a glorious success. Let's go to the second sponsor.
Wes:Okay. Second sponsor. We can do the second read now. Ryle, can you pull up slide number two?
Cody:Was there a read for the first one? There was no read.
Wes:There was a read. You just you guys derailed it and and actively, you know
Cody:I see. I see.
Wes:Okay. I'm glad that wasn't a real sponsor. I'm glad that was just something that I pulled up. I'm glad that
Cody:that wasn't.
Wes:That was a
Stony:If that was a charity sponsor sponsor us. We are promoting a non nonprofit. Again, one we've never heard of.
Wes:Okay. Yes. And this is a real sponsor who's doing something for the show. The Handsome Hour is brought to you by duck banding dot com. Okay?
Wes:So we're gonna support the duck hunters of America. This is a show for the common man, so we're good friends with the duck banding. I think the Handsome Hour is the show. Handsome Hour is the show for the common man who finds himself in uncommon times. And so, duckbanding.com sponsoring the show.
Wes:They've given us money for this, actually. And what they want you to do is they want you to follow this hyperlink. And they want you to post this comment on regulations.gov. They want you to say to please enforce the most restrictive interpretation of The US FWS easement. I don't know what that is, but it's good for the duck hunters.
Wes:And they want strict enforcement of this regulation. So what we're all going to do is we're going to all go to this hyperlink. I'll put it in the show notes, and you leave this comment here on on regulation.gov. And thank you, duckbanning.com. Okay.
Stony:Can we all agree that in the future, sponsors have to be unanimously agreed upon?
Wes:This is a good sponsor. Look.
Stony:Doing great. This isn't even a sponsor. We're asking people to blindly They're paying for it. Government regulations.
Wes:If if they if someone pays you to say something, that's a sponsorship.
Cody:Well, they're paying us.
Wes:And it's a good it's a good government regulation.
Cody:I thought we were raising money for them.
Wes:They gave us a backlink. No. They gave us a backlink.
Stony:Is duck banding a hot topic that we need backlinks? Is there a dating Venn diagram with duck banding? I think those Venn diagrams don't even touch.
Wes:No. So what duck banding is is it's like a meteorology for ducks. It tells you where it's like it shows you a map and it's like, this is where all the geese all
Cody:Dude, we could be the number one podcast in the dating in among duck hunters demographic. That vertical, we could own that vertical.
Wes:I am building bridges. Okay? I am I am promoting the show. Am building bridges. I am reaching out
Stony:to Over new duck habitats and killing them.
Cody:Yeah. It's like the guy who applied to be founding producer and he said he had the number one podcast in the vertical farming category, which is I'm sure a category of one. We could niche down like that.
Stony:I I still think we should review all future sponsors and unanimously agree.
Cody:Agree. This was disastrous. This couldn't have possibly have gone worse. And the name you posted on Twitter and it says The Handsome Hour Live Pledge Drive.
Wes:Yes. We are.
Stony:My god.
Wes:We're raising money for the Starfish project. No.
Stony:Do you not think, Wes, this would have been perhaps better talked about to radically take the show in the direction of a charity fundraiser for something You would have said no.
Wes:Yes. You would have said no to it. So I didn't
Cody:Because because because Sony has a a a I promised the person He has a sense of
Wes:ability and quality control. I I promised the person I was going to
Cody:do this. You can simply not make such promises. You realize that?
Stony:Yeah. Yeah. First of all, you didn't have to make that promise. Second of all, if I promise to shave your head for charity, can we shave your head for charity? How much do we have to raise for charity to shave your head?
Stony:I give me a number, and I'll raise it.
Wes:A $100,000.
Stony:Yeah. See? See, you'll you'll you'll you'll you'll you'll Yes.
Wes:Because that's much bigger deal, dude. I would if
Cody:Wes' hair is worth a lot more than his integrity.
Wes:My hair okay. Cody, we're gonna talk about dating on this episode because we've not been doing that. Cody has some dating topics. Let's let's let's kick the soapbox over to Cody.
Cody:Oh my god. Okay. Yeah. So there's a number of things we could talk about here. Increasingly, I feel like I have friends come to me for dating advice.
Cody:And I think that there is a desire for some for some advice from professional matchmakers, from people who've been around the block. And I sort of I'm gonna propose that we essentially codify our advice into, you know, a sort of a sort of dating constitution, that reflects what what we believe in when it comes to dating. And I I I posited the first, when I would make the first the first injunction, the first rule, the first amendment, and Sony immediately disagreed. And I thought it was very funny because it's, like, the most basic thing that I feel like everybody should be able to agree on, but apparently not. And this is this is my this is my, proposal for, rule number one.
Cody:Don't be horrible. And Sony took great compunction with this, great issue with this. He felt that actually being horrible was wonderful and that one should be horrible. And so I think that is gonna be the headline topic for today is let's debate whether don't be horrible is should be rule number one or even a rule at all when it comes to dating.
Stony:Thank you for letting me speak for myself about my opinions of horrible and and summarizing them so accurately.
Cody:That's what we do here.
Stony:I think let's
Wes:I think I think don't be horrible is one of those kinds of things. It's like, how how do you disagree with that? How do you disagree with not being horrible?
Cody:Yeah. I wanna I'm gonna put Stoney on the back foot as much as possible. I have no we have no obligation to, fairness or rigor here on The Handsome Hour. So go ahead, Stoney the horrible.
Stony:Horribleness, like terribleness, like violence, if you remove it from acceptable behavior in society, what you'll quickly find is that the people who are gonna be horrible anyway engage in it. And you need you need the asshole factor to you need the good asshole to fight the bad asshole. You need the good horrible to fight the bad horrible. And if you just remove violent retribution from your society, you will quickly find that your society has completely broken down. So I do think you should be horrible to horrible people, and I think that that should be proportional.
Stony:If someone is loudly playing their Bluetooth speaker on the subway, should they be executed? No. Of course not. But in a just world, you would destroy that Bluetooth speaker. And I think they would think you're being horrible for destroying their Bluetooth speaker.
Stony:I would think you were, yes, also being horrible, but making the world a better place.
Wes:And Okay. So your argument you you you don't agree with the definition of the world word horrible. Like,
Cody:you Yeah. We we we're we're likely just quibbling over definitions here, because I don't disagree with anything that you just said. But, I do think there may be one one thing that's interesting to press on. Yeah. I mean, to be clear, I would this is why I tried to choose the word horrible because it's very difficult to select a word evil.
Cody:Maybe don't be evil. I we're trying to select a word that draws the parameter around, it's like it's it's like tit for tat. It's like, don't yes. You can tat, but don't tit. Right?
Cody:Don't be an initiator of bad things. You have to try to be a cooperator if you want the game theory to work out. But here here is maybe the interesting place that we could push on, which is, because I I think all of that is, like, sort of, like, obvious. We we probably agree on that. Tell me tell me if if you don't.
Cody:But here's why why I think this is useful to to mention. Two reasons. Number one, I think that it's, you know, it's not binary. Right? Everybody could be a little less horrible.
Cody:And I think a lot of people, and especially in the dating world, tend to undercount how much they what they are inputting into the system is responsible for what they're getting back out of it. Right? And so, you know, they sort of it's everybody and I did this too. Like, it's it's sort of natural human tendency to kinda, like, blame the diffuse, you know, system. It's like, men are bad or women are bad or women are shallow.
Cody:They're gold diggers or men are violent and and and and they just want sex and whatever whatever. And to sort of externalize that. Right? Rather than trying to take responsibility and saying, like, okay. Well, how can I put better inputs in the system?
Cody:And there's two components of that. There's the component, which is like the skill game. It's like, how do you just play the game better? And we talk about that a lot. But the other component is that it's like, how do I come with my heart aligned?
Cody:How do I be more virtuous? And that, you know, cascades it. Like, we can talk about it in this sort of, like, you know, fluffy existentialist way. Like, it's deontological, and you must just align your soul with the right but, actually, like, it it's on a totally practical level. You know, if you're not coming with the right intentions, like, that will ultimately evince itself in your behavior, in your expressions, in how you engage with the world.
Cody:In small ways, they'll be difficult for you to track, but then the world totally will pick up on it and and reciprocate. And so, yeah, this is an attempt to say, like, given that it's a gradation, it's not a binary, it's a spectrum. We could all all probably be a little bit less horrible, be a little bit more virtuous. And if that is an input that we contribute to the system, not only will it make the system as a whole better, of course, I think it'll almost certainly make almost every individual contributor's experience of the system better. Like, everybody's experience of dating can probably be better by being more virtuous.
Cody:And it's so easy to discount how horrible you're actually being. Everybody's probably being significantly more horrible than they think. And that's the first place that you should turn for diagnosis. So I'll pause there. That's the first reason I thought it was interesting and useful to make this injunction number one.
Wes:Yeah. I think it's good. I think that the I think it's it's like the first amendment. Right? Okay.
Wes:The the first amendment doesn't mean you can literally say whatever you want anywhere all the time. That doesn't mean you can, you know, call someone names and not get punched in the face. It it means that
Stony:you kind of does. Yeah. Actually, it it does. You you can say what you want, and that doesn't mean you should be punched in the face.
Wes:Yes. But
Cody:Well, Wes is saying, like, you know, yelling fire in a crowded theater, that's easy. Yes. There's all these sort of like, the his point is that, like, there is room for lawyers to litigate and sort of to discuss and debate endlessly the nuances of the interpretation of this. It's more about getting the central thrust of it correct. Right?
Wes:Yeah. We're writing The United States. The The United States constitution is, like, crisp three pages. The the European Union constitution is, like, 87 pages. Right.
Wes:Are writing It's
Cody:not The US legal code. It's the constitution.
Wes:Right. We are we are establishing principles, and those principles are going to be applied variously in different situations. And as as far as starting off, I think don't be horrible is a good one. What what are some ways you think people are horrible?
Cody:Oh, yeah. Being transactional is the biggest one. Right? Like, there's this sort of it's the it's it's it's it's asking what are my expectations? What am I trying to extract from other people?
Cody:Rather than asking how can I just be, show up in a way that like, how can I make my partner's life better? How can I be a great partner? How can I be a extremely dateable, likable person? Right? So, like, this is just the this dominates this totally predominates the dating discourse.
Cody:You see this, like, all the time. People are like and this is actually what inspired us is most recently, the the discourse that's been blowing up recently is, you know, should, should you get a car for a woman? Right? Like, if you're going on a date with her, should you hire a car to pick her up? Right?
Cody:And, of course, like, you know, all the women are like, what? And, you know, expect him to, you know, send a a rickshaw pulled by a, you know, a blind man.
Wes:Pulled by a victim of human trafficking.
Stony:This is exactly why I don't think we should have this rule. Because I guarantee you that men who are reading that tweet thought that the woman demanding the car was horrible. And I guarantee you that that women who found out that they were not gonna get a cab paid for by their first date called that situation horrible. Whenever people are talking about horrible, they're usually doing it in a self oriented sense. It's entirely subjective.
Stony:And it's inevitably blaming the other person. It is so rare that someone says I was horrible. One out
Cody:of one That's why the rule is don't that's why the rule is don't be horrible. That's the point.
Stony:That's like say that's like saying to people don't have blind spots. They're gonna have blind spots. How can they see the blind spot? That's like saying be aware of your blind spots. It's not the dumbest advice No.
Cody:Well, that's why it's okay. But the point is that the how you do that is long and complicated and nuanced and would be the equivalent of the legal code to Wes' point. It requires deep conversation. The point is that's why rule number one is a reminder to introspect. Yeah.
Cody:That seems that's the point of, like, you know, Jordan Peterson's 12 rules for life. It's like every rule is not the His his rule is a lot execution.
Wes:We get to be better
Stony:than this. This this rule is horrible. Okay?
Wes:So This This is
Stony:horrible rule is horrible. And the first thing I'm gonna do with don't be horrible is to say this rule is horrible.
Wes:Okay. Well, you're outvoted two to one. This is also the thing is, though, that that we're also in this case, we're not just writing the legislation. We are also the supreme court. That means we get to refine it over time by defining what is and is not horrible.
Wes:And in this case, if you are
Stony:But it's not a rule. That is to ask Cody and Wes. That's the rule. Ask Cody and Wes. You guys are gonna be busy busy beavers.
Wes:Right. And and some people might say that that's, actually a good thing when you're hosting a podcast. When you have something that's going to create for future discussion, that might be a good thing if you are producing content for people to consume and enjoy. It might Okay.
Stony:What if
Cody:what what if this were the rule, Stoney? This is the because you're right. Don't be horrible. It's it's articulated in a tongue in cheek way. If I were to not articulate it in a tongue in cheek way, I would say or maybe slightly differently tongue in cheek, I would say, remember that you're the problem.
Cody:What do you think what do think about that for rule number one?
Stony:I mean, I think this is just a variation of the golden rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto yourself, which isn't a bad rule, but I don't think we're being that original by restating the golden rule.
Cody:That's why I said don't be horrible. It's needed. How would alright. Stoney, what would you I mean, I to be okay. First of all, it's not quite the golden rule because I'm not prescribing that people, like, there there can be asymmetries.
Cody:The golden rule is a prescription for symmetry. There can be asymmetries. The point is to take responsibility. That's a little bit of a different But, what would what would your what would your first what would your first amendment be then, Sony, if you if if, if mine is so bad?
Stony:I haven't thought about this, but I'll try to do my best when when put on the spot. What I do agree with you very strongly is I think what you're trying to achieve is you're trying to ask people to make the world a better place through their actions. And you're suggesting to people that while there is a lot of blame, and let's let's let's discuss something in a nonmorality situation. The obesity today is radically higher than it was a hundred years ago, but by definition, we all have the same genes of our great grandparents. That that's that's virtually a truism.
Stony:We might have the average genes of our great grandparents, but by definition, we all have the same genes of our great grandparents, and they didn't have this issue. And they ate a lot of butter, they ate a lot of fat, and you know? So something has changed. I I can't put my finger on. If I could, I would sell diet pills and be a bajillionaire.
Stony:But you can't just say, oh, it's the environment. I'm not gonna care about my own health. I'm not gonna care about my own weight. I'm gonna stop trying. I'm gonna give up because it's it's a large exogenous problem, and there's nothing I can do.
Stony:So I completely believe that that that attitude is guaranteeing self defeat, and there's nothing wrong with with the raging against the machine to try to make your world better, to try to make the world better, and I completely I completely support that. So we might be closer than you think, but I perhaps disagree. Or maybe I'm just being ornery.
Cody:Yeah. Again, that is the the reason it's phrased that way. It's supposed to be kind of a joke. It's supposed to be tongue in cheek. It is precisely funny funny because of exactly what you're saying.
Cody:Exact yes. That's the joke. Nobody recognizes that they're being horrible. That's why they need to be reminded. That's why it'll be a funny thing for us to always come back to over and over again.
Cody:Oh, you're violating the first rule. Have you tried just not being horrible? You know? But okay. But again, I I still I'm putting you on the spot.
Stony:What do you think would
Cody:What do you think should be the first if you're giving advice, if you're summing up the advice that we have given historically on this show and advice you would give generally, what's what's rule number one to follow that would be, less obvious and more useful?
Stony:I mean, I think people touch upon this when they talk about the good struggle or the good fight. And life is a struggle. You don't have to work hard to solve nonproblems. You have to work hard to solve problems, your problems, your family's problems, your friends' problems, the world's problems. I do think we should do that, though, equally, I I I think that so many of the people trying to solve the world's problems today, especially those with an IQ of a 110, I definitely think those people are the most dangerous.
Stony:They always think that they should be put in power to solve the world's problems, so I'm very hesitant to even recommend anything. I'm gonna let Wes go. We've been blabbing too much.
Wes:Well, this is really boring. The look. You Yeah.
Stony:Let's go back to ducks.
Wes:If you wanna put, 10 commandments, we're calling it the 10 Commandments. We're calling it the Handsome Hour 10 Commandments. If number one, don't be horrible. I mean, don't be horrible. Has a little bit of like a Reddit ring to it.
Wes:When when you know when it's like, well, why do you support X Y Z? It's called being a decent human being, right? It is a little bit of a tautology. I think that's okay. I think that don't be horrible.
Wes:Horrible is a great first commandment. Just like how thou shall not kill like that doesn't mean literally never kill. It just means like. Air against killing, Right? It means probably if killing is don't let killing be your first solution to every problem.
Cody:Yeah. Rule number one should be it's literally explained. Tap the sign. Right? Rule number one is a sign that we can always tap.
Cody:It's like Yes. Rule number one, don't talk about Fight Clubs. Rule you're violating rule number one. Don't make me tap the sign. That's the joke.
Cody:So
Wes:Well, don't if if you wanted alternative, maybe this could be number two if we agree. I mean, I think don't be horrible is fine as number one. If you want a number two, it could be, don't be transactional, I think. Right? But then Sony's gonna say that, but, like, there are situations where you want to be transactional.
Wes:And so we could add a paragraph of fine print to every commandment, or we can just
Stony:Genuine question. Can you define transactional? Because you scratch my back. I scratch your back. Doesn't is that transactional, or is transactional only looking out for yourself?
Stony:Because I've heard multiple definitions.
Wes:I think transactional is, transactional is viewing romantic interactions as an exchange of I'm going to do this for you because you will do something else for me. And like, obviously, there's a little bit of that inherent in every human relationship, right? None of us are Jesus. None of our are just like, you know, doing everything we do for the good of someone else or the good of the collective. However When you are in a relationship with someone or when you are dating someone or when you recording someone, or even if you were on a first date, having the mindset of everything that I do is engineered to get a specific outcome or a specific something from this other person.
Wes:That's not a good way to view life. That's not a good way. Like if you have a wife, and you're like, I'm gonna wash the dishes, right? I'm gonna I'm gonna wake up early and I'm going to do a couple chores today. You shouldn't be doing that because you want her to give you a blow job.
Wes:Like that's not like maybe she will give you a blow job, and that will be awesome. But like the reason you should be doing that is because like you want to do something to make your wife happy. That's the way I think of it. It's about intention. It's it doesn't necessarily change anything you do.
Wes:It probably will. If you if you obey that rule all the time, Of course, you're going to be transactional. Sometimes like that's just the nature of life. However if if you view like, the the classic example is, like, viewing women as, like, a a machine that you put tokens of kindness into to receive
Cody:Like, like, let's just say, for example, like, you just you claim to espouse a charity you think they'll like so that they'll, you know, retweet your podcast.
Stony:I was thinking that too.
Cody:Just as an example.
Wes:She's not gonna retweet it. It's she's I she said that the things I tweet scare her. So it won't she's not gonna retweet the prod for the okay. Do we want we can have Rael pull up the 10 commandments as we write
Stony:them here. Are we are we writing
Cody:I think we're just one. I think so the idea here is
Stony:I think one is enough, and I I don't even know if we've got to one.
Cody:I don't think we've done. We we should all agree. If somebody doesn't agree, then this shouldn't be it. And we don't even have to have 10 commandments. I thought it would be a fun thing to that we if we produce artifacts.
Cody:Right? If we produce we we can produce things that get put on a shirt, it'll be a talking point. It's like, oh, you know, every every 10 episodes not not necessarily rigorously.
Wes:Just Where
Stony:where's our where's our hat? Where's our where's our hats?
Wes:We we talked about that. I'm still in negotiation with the hat people. I my original supplier of the hats.
Stony:The big hat people or or the
Wes:Big hat. No. The little little hat people. No. They they're just wearing baseball caps.
Wes:That was another idea I had is, like, just, like, what about different types of yarmulkes? Like, you always see the same yarmulkes, just the little, like why why does it never have a brim, or why does it never have, like, little, like, tassel?
Cody:I was say, like, we we don't do baseball caps. We just do yamikas.
Stony:Yeah. Can Some are sponsors. I have I have heard that, you know, you're there's a wedding. Not everyone has one. There's, like, get your own you know, pick a yamik out.
Stony:And sometimes they're sponsors, so there is some variation to them.
Wes:Yeah. My friend's wedding had camouflage yarmulkes. You you couldn't see the top of my head. And often I and this is another thing worth mentioning. Yarmulkes are that size to hide the bald spot.
Wes:Right? Like that.
Cody:No. They're that small because it's an it's an instantiation of Jews trying to get one over on God. It's a technical hat. Right? It's the same way that they, like, technically don't turn the lights on on Saturday, but because they have a machine that turns it on for them or whatever.
Cody:It's technically a hat. And then it covers the smallest amount of your head possible.
Stony:By the way, I'm always amazed they stay on, but I've I've gone to, like, Jewish weddings and Jewish funerals. No. I and I didn't clip it, and the thing stayed on. I was I was amazed.
Wes:Was dating this girl. Was dating this girl. We were walking behind this, like, this Jewish guy in the sidewalk, and his yarmulke fell off. And she picked it up, and she goes, sir, sir, you dropped your little hat. I thought that was very funny.
Wes:I'm like, there's a name for that little hat. She didn't know what it was.
Stony:Dating. Let's go back to dating before we
Wes:Well, I guess we're gonna table Luke.
Cody:Should you
Wes:table the 10 commandments for now? Yes. No. Wait. Men wear them.
Wes:So only if you're gay.
Stony:Yeah. I don't wanna I don't wanna date a guy with the yarmulke, but it's more the guy thing.
Wes:That's commandment number two. Don't date guys with the yarmulkes. Alright. No. That's not commandment number two.
Wes:It's you can date whoever you want.
Cody:Can I just say
Stony:Unless they're horrible? Don't date horrible people. Or be horrible and then date horrible people. What you don't want is to you don't wanna mix horrible and nonhorrible.
Cody:Yeah. That's right. There's definitely a sort of mating within horribleness.
Stony:For sure.
Wes:Yeah. Well, Rael told me a story actually of something he did that was horrible. What Rael said was that, you know, you've seen this girl, she wanted to commit, and she wanted him to, like, publicly be in a relationship with him and tell his friends. And he said, no. I don't wanna do that because it's gay, and it's low testosterone.
Wes:But I think the real reason is that he just is not that into that girl. And he's 17, and he wants to go experience more of the world, which I think at that age is okay.
Stony:So you wanna you wanna go right to marriage, or you wanna date exclusively? Just just help us out here a little bit. Because at some point, you if if you wanna be the ultimate nongay, you should end up probably having heterosexual sex and making babies. Once you have responsibility, you lose freedom, or you are a or you abdicate your responsibility, which is somewhere between benign neglect and malicious neglect. So not feeding your baby would be malicious neglect and quickly turning to something between manslaughter and and even murder.
Stony:So once you start having sex and making babies, you've lost your freedom. I just want to be clear that that baby production is the loss of freedom for one or one or both parents. And that's not a bad thing. Once you have employees in the company, you've you've lost your freedom. Once you buy a house, you've lost your freedom.
Stony:You've got to fix the
Cody:roof. Everything meaningful in life involves a reduction of freedom. Yeah. Life is actually about changing yourself to stuff.
Stony:So you can get a fleshlight if if you don't want responsibility. But once you start having sex, you've gotta be aware that the end output is either gonna be potentially a baby or an abortion. And then you've gotta be comfortable with the idea that for convenience, you you ended a fetus' life, which is a serious thing to walk around with. But I think the fact that he is 17 and hasn't necessarily had responsibility or had the benefit of seeing that that increased responsibility can and does overlap with increased happiness and increased power.
Wes:And I
Stony:mean the power to create, the power to make the world a better place. It's very hard to make the world a better place without responsibility. Most things in life are like marathons. You don't finish a marathon. Someone says, oh, is that fun?
Stony:No. The marathon wasn't fun. Your feet are in pain. Your nipples are bleeding. You you know, who knows what happened?
Stony:But it was perhaps an amazing experience. And very quickly, the fun aspect leaves life. I don't even mean that it's a bad thing. You know?
Wes:Think the rationalists the rationalists call that type two fun. That's a type of fun where you're not. It's not exhilarating. It's not like doing cocaine or it's not like, you know, driving really, really fast or, you know, shouting at people on the on the street. It's not like that kind of fun.
Wes:It's like going through something hard for delayed gratification at the end of it, like it's like you hike up a giant mountain to enjoy the fantastic view. Or you go run a marathon for the feeling of accomplishment you get after the marathon, which is in itself sort of a type of fun. I admit you wouldn't really call it because we have I think that maybe the definition of fun has like drifted a little bit. We're like the fun now to us means something that releases dopamine instantaneously. It's just sort of like a whoo.
Wes:It's it's experience, right? But, yeah, I mean, I I do think that, like, as you get older, the thrill you get from doing something that provides instant gratification hopefully starts to wane a little bit, and you accumulate these experiences and you experience time more rapidly and you realize that well, what I want is to invest in something that's going to produce, you know, a feeling of satisfaction later. And it's also why a 17 year old would think that it's low testosterone to have a girlfriend or, you know, you would not wanna commit to a girl because it's, quote, gay, as Rael put it, because you still are in the phase of life where, like, sex with lots of different people is very exciting. And I I I think some guys are always in that sort of phase, but it's not just that sex. It's not just sex.
Wes:Right? But, like, you do reach a point in life where you're not, like, you're not really you probably shouldn't be that motivated by, like, having sex with one more person.
Stony:What might be helpful, Rael, is to imagine I don't know if you've ever seen this, but, a lot of times in life, accomplishments don't have a discrete moment. But one of the one of the more televised events where people celebrated a combined accomplishment was around SpaceX when when the rockets landed, on the end successfully. And you just see the SpaceX team go crazy sharing, and they're they're incredibly happy. But that that euphoria took years of hard work, but they were able to accomplish something that they worked incredibly hard for. And I'm gonna suggest that that euphoria is better for you and better for society than one more girl you get to have sex with, one more hit of coke or whatever drug, one more drunken booze night, whatever it is, these aren't things you look back on and say, I'm so glad my life is full of that.
Stony:I don't know. We're not we're not trying to be mean to you just to be clear. We're recognizing that maybe you haven't, had the big brother advice we're we're hoping. But you can tell us to f off. It's fine.
Stony:I my my feelings won't be hurt.
Wes:Alright. This is a really great show, guys. Cody, you you said you had some other topics.
Stony:I'm just gonna think of a I saw I saw a clip where, interestingly enough, Nick Fuentes agreed with Real, but for exact opposite reasons. But he also said that dating was gay, so we can we can find that someday and discuss it. But but what he said was it's a delay of marriage. It's a delay of responsibility. It's sterile.
Stony:It's transactional. So it was interesting that that he would he would agree with Rael, but perhaps for different reasons.
Wes:He says that dating is, by definition, all of those things. What is his what are you supposed to do instead? You're supposed to just, like, find the first girl you see and marry her?
Stony:What he was, I think, highlighting was that if you delay marriage to your thirties, it's unrealistic to expect that someone's going to be celibate from 15 to 30. That's crazy. And if you are crazy. You've probably got other mental issues. So by delaying marriage, we are almost encouraging, if not flat out requiring, premarital sex and all the problems that go with that.
Stony:And so by the time you finally do get married, you've already had tons of partners. And I've known women, and this kind of surprised me, who proudly announced on, like, the second date, oh, yeah. I had an abortion. You know, I was dating this guy for years, and I don't know. I it was, like, she basically, like, wasn't good for her career.
Stony:It wasn't even clear why. And and that's gonna be the inevitable output is either abortion or child out of wedlock or shotgun marriage, the person you happen to be with at the time. And I think all of those are much lower, optimal strategies than identifying the person you wanna marry and marrying them.
Wes:Okay. Yeah. I think so too. I think I do think that it's true that, I think that if you wanna date someone I think that once I've I've I've talked about this before, and I don't know if I talked about it on the show. But there is something where if you, if you're in your thirties and you're going to marry a woman who's, you know, in her early thirties or in her late twenties or something and, you know, delaying marriage to a normal point, let alone if she's older than that and you want her to be celibate, you are asking for you're just asking for a different host of problems.
Wes:And it is it does it is just what you said where, like, it doesn't mean that if she's not it doesn't mean that if a woman is celibate until she's 30, she has problems.
Stony:But but there's a correlation. There's a likelihood
Wes:there's going to be an extreme adverse selection because a woman like that is most likely going to get married before before she's 30. And if she's not 30, and she's never had sex, then And she's not married Like, it means, well, there's okay. Probably a good reason she's not married. Right? Or there's a good reason she hasn't had sex, which might mean that she is, like, really, you know, certain attitudes towards sex or there's something wrong there.
Wes:Trauma. I don't know. But and then, you know, that's going to be a problem once you're married. And then there's also the issue that, like, women I this is one of the reasons I don't care about, like, celibacy and a partner is that I have had partners before, or I've dated women who, like, I was, like, the second guy they ever had sex with. And I think that, they had weird attitudes.
Wes:They were, like, weird. Like, they didn't like being perceived. There's a problem where, like, some women just, like, don't like being perceived, which means, like, they don't like being seen and judged and thought of by men at all. And they're just very uncomfortable. Like, even with men looking at them, like, I remember reading this thing where, like, this woman's like, oh, I always wear socks because I'm afraid that, like, men are going to have a foot fetish.
Wes:And it's like, That's cute. Yeah. It's a little bit like weird, though. It's like I
Stony:said, baby, I got a sock fetish. Just throw her off guard.
Wes:Right. It's like there's always going to be something weird about you that, like men might find interesting or attractive. Right And so it's I just think it probably correlates really highly with a certain level of neuroticism. And I do think there's something else where, like if a woman never we talked about this on the whole phases episode. But like if a woman never like has never really like seen over the fence to see what's on the other side, and like, she's always going to maybe, like, because there's this idea in society like you're supposed to do that, like it's fun and exhilarating.
Wes:And I think that, like, part of a lot of women's maturity, or their maturation is living through that being like, actually, it's not that great. What I really want is something long term, and I want stability in a family and stuff. That's that is not what I want. And because it it in most, you know, most women's best interest is not to do that. So you if you if you if that, you know, thought is in the back of her head of, like, you know, that can lead to other issues on the front line Yep.
Wes:Is is what I'm saying.
Stony:I I think that process is understandable given the society we're in. But one of the common complaints from men, and I'm not saying that women don't have their own complaints, but I'm I'm just talking about the complaints men have, is one of the phrases is that woman is unwifable. And I do think that women can engage in behavior that makes them fundamentally either unwifable or struggle much more to to find a guy. On top of the fact that women sexual attractiveness peaks around 23. Some people would say 21.
Stony:And so every decade, they delay that, which is a decade of lost fertility. It is it is a gradual descent in where their market value where they're losing market value, often completely unaware of it. What what good comes of this?
Wes:Well, I think we'd agree that, like, it's it's a net negative. Yeah. I mean, it is bad. We we know it's bad.
Stony:Apologies. I was kind of assuming maybe miss mistakenly so that you were talking about the the natural pro the natural phase they go through. I don't think really women are looking back and saying, I'm so glad I delayed getting married and and having kids. Or that you know, what I when I talk to, like, one of the most disparaging things you can see is the number of 43 year old women on Bumble or Tinder who are saying, I'm ready to settle down and have a family. I'm like, you're ready to settle down and have a family?
Stony:You've been ovulating for about thirty years now, and there aren't many eggs left. And as a 43 year old, you're gonna be picking from what? The 48 to fifty fifty five year olds? What's your plan here? This this this is not what you call having it work out.
Stony:So, anyway, I'll I'll shut up, let you guys
Cody:Yeah. So I think I think I think part of what you're pointing here is, Sony, is that I mean, we we've talked about this before, so I don't know if we wanna, like, reach retread it too deeply. But it's like it's little bit of a false dichotomy in the sense that, yeah, if that is the choice, if the choice is between, you know, having a girl who ends up in a relationship but she's always yearning for the slut that she could have been and she's never satisfied or happy in your relationship, and a girl who got the slut phase out of her system and is now happy and settled down with you and is a good good partner, if that's truly the only choice that can be had, then yeah, there's an argument to be made that maybe the the second is better. But one would hope that there are maybe third or fourth other choices that are superior to both. And I think that's what we kind of want to be going for.
Cody:And I think your point is
Stony:I think the disparagement of the slut phase that happened in earlier generations was a very good thing. And that disparagement often came from the female side. And I think females almost collectively were aware that if enough women went to the slut phase, then they were all gonna have to go to the slut phase. Yeah.
Cody:Yeah. Yeah. Totally. I mean, it's there's a lot of talk about, you know, how the genders police each other and police themselves. But, yeah, a lot of those historical systems were actually meant to be sort of representing because this is this totally connects to this conversation we were just having with Rael.
Cody:This is Yeah.
Stony:I wanna ask him his opinion.
Cody:Yeah. Chronic the chronic problem of every of history. Right? Which is that, like, younger people don't know what it's like to be older, but older people do know what it's like to be younger, and there's an asymmetry. And so older people can try to give like, they set older people set the rules of the society, which feel oppressive and arbitrary to the younger people because they don't know why those rules were made because they haven't had the life experience yet that the older people had when they made them.
Cody:And so it's like all the slut of the slut shaming of of prior of prior generations. Sure. There were some, like, intersexual competition and stuff there that you're talking about, Stoney. But also, it was totally also came from, at least in some cases, a beneficent motivation of, no, like, we're looking out for your future interests. Like, you yourself are going to want something different ten years from now, and we're protecting your ability to get it.
Cody:And you don't know that that's what you're going to want, but very reliably, you probably will.
Stony:And I don't blame Rael for this. If you look at the most wealthy, powerful men on the planet, and I returned to the Sultan of Constantinople, for this, they had harems. The Sultan had a harem of over a 100 women. And, you know, you you turn to a 17 year old like Raelle, and you say, do you want a relationship with one woman and all the responsibility that comes with that, or do you want a a series of of short term sexual conquests that are a lot of fun without any commitment? What do you think he's gonna pick?
Stony:You know? But then the question is not only is what that's best for Rael, but what's best best for our society. And if that leads to a society with radically, with birth rates radically below the population, whatever the the stable population, and your population's wiped out in five generations, is it acceptable for the society elders to step in and say, we're gonna establish some rules to make sure we're not destroyed in a couple generations. By the way, this is why the man had to give the woman an engagement ring. This is why the engagement ring was expensive.
Stony:This is why the engagement ring was more expensive than the wedding ring. I remember when I was a kid, I was very confused. I thought the wedding ring should be the expensive one. But the engagement ring is there because it's a social proof that you have picked one woman. That woman shows off the engagement ring to the world.
Stony:If you start giving out a couple engagement rings to multiple women, a, you probably can't afford it in the first place. But b, they're all gonna be like, wait a second. Are we dating the same guy? Like, there's Facebook groups called, are we dating the same guy? And it's like, if only we could invent a way to publicly demonstrate that you were dating the same guy.
Stony:Oh my God. It's called the engagement ring. Like, so these Facebook groups are coming about to solve the very problem that engagement ring solved.
Wes:Yeah. Well, it's a sign of commitment.
Stony:And women clearly don't wanna be dating the same guy. This is hilarious. They have these Facebook groups, but at the same time, they're like, but I'm quite happy to engage in semi anonymous, you know, coupling in the club. Well, this is the this is the result. Take your pick.
Wes:Well, we had I think that kinda leads nicely into this other thing that, I I I shared with the group before this. And so, this is, John Morgan of the Morgan and Morgan Law Firm. You've seen ads with his face and the bus the buses in your city, and there's always a bad phrase that tries to connect with the culture of your city next to his face. And so he was quoted, as saying that, his Children must sign a prenup before they get married, or they will only receive $1,000,000 per year from him, which
Cody:Per year.
Wes:Only. Only. Yeah. So if you want if you need more than a million dollars a year from your father, John Morgan, then you need to do that. And his reasoning is that 50% of all marriages are going to end divorce.
Wes:That's just raw numbers. It's going to happen. For people who marry after 30, it's only four percent. Have your fun in your twenties because it's probably going to happen 50% of the time. So he says that, If one of his Children are getting married, and they're not going to get a prenup, he says they don't get anything.
Wes:They get a million bucks a year, which is not bad. You're You're never getting the big haul. You're not getting a big lump sum. You're going to get enough to survive. Thankfully a million dollars is enough to survive.
Stony:Get on that. Yeah
Wes:I could. I think I could. I could find a way to get by in a million dollars a year for my dad, John Morgan. But he says that, especially if she won't sign it, then you're definitely not getting it. So fellas, when you will you give your your kids more than a million dollars a year if they don't sign a pre op?
Stony:I I also think we ought to touch on one thing that hasn't been discussed here. Will this also change the nature of the people dating his kids? Because if the people dating his kids are having the back of their mind, well, if it doesn't work out, I'll end up with $10.10, $2,050,000,000 dollars out of a divorce. That option is taken off the table, and it will also eliminate any short term thinking. Some and, also, we don't know if that million dollars has strings to it.
Stony:And what I mean by that is, he might set up his will so that if if there's high alimony, it doesn't go out. And, again, what this is gonna do is it's gonna change people's attitudes towards maybe I won't get divorced after all because there's no there's no financial upside to it. So so this might be a very effective thing, not just you you guys might be thinking of as punishing his kids. I think of it as it's gonna change the people that his kids date and marry, and it's gonna change the spouse's activity. And, of course, you don't want someone to stay with you just for the money, but you also don't want them to leave you for the money.
Stony:So I think this is a great thing.
Wes:Yeah. I I do think it's smart. I I think that going public with, it's just what you said. It does serve as, a deterrent effect almost. Right?
Wes:I don't love prenups. I I don't I I think the prenups they they do just feel transactional to me. I do think that they're kinda necessitated just because of the way the laws are in this country, you know, surrounding who gets what after a divorce. I think that, you know, I do sort of blame the state for forcing, forcing us to be transactional in our in our relationships in that way. However, I do think that if you're the heir to the, you know, this billion dollar fortune, like, it probably is just the smartest thing to do.
Wes:Right? It's a little bit like life insurance. Like, I don't wanna have life insurance because I don't want anyone else to have stake in my death.
Stony:Who who's that famous divorce lawyer from New York City? We might have even talked about him. I forget his name. He does a lot of podcasts. He said a couple things.
Stony:One of the things he said was that the couples he's done prenups for have never come back to him for a divorce. And his speculation is that the people who are capable of having those difficult discussions are more ready for marriage. And I totally support that idea. I don't know if it's true or not. The other thing he said, he talked about how what is traditionally brought into a marriage by the guy is resources and security and protection.
Stony:What is traditionally brought into the marriage by the woman is femininity, grace, and sex. And during a divorce or after divorce, the state can extract the resources from the man. The state's not gonna extract the resources from the woman. So this will sound awful, and I'm great. All people will will yell at me for saying this.
Stony:But if the husband is expected to continue to provide money after the separation, why isn't the wife expected to provide sex after the separation? And when you say it that way, you're like, well, that's ridiculous. You can't expect the wife to keep on having sex with someone she doesn't want in her life. It goes both ways. Why is the husband expected to provide money for this person who's no no longer in his life?
Wes:Yeah. I mean, is that do you wanna try to answer that question? There because there is an answer to that question.
Stony:So the go ahead and answer it, but but, you know, think as you go through and more the short term alright.
Cody:We all know that. It's it's our it's an archaic system that's left over from, like, like, eighteen hundreds or something. Right? And we we all, like, we all know.
Wes:Well well, no. There there I I I I I think that part of it is that, it's like if a woman okay. If you let's say you have a traditional setup. Right? And a woman's going to bury your Children, and she's going to take years out of the career market to take care of the home and take care of the family and do those things like that is that is taking away seriously from her future ability to provide for herself.
Wes:That's what explains the gender pay gap. It's almost completely because women take time off to raise a family and so they have on average fewer years of experience and you would expect to be paid less with fewer years of experience. So I do like I'm not saying it's great. Like I don't really have like a well formed opinion on this, but I do understand the logic that says, you know, I we're getting divorced now. I'm 40.
Wes:My prospects are much worse. My job prospects are much worse. And a lot of lot of that is because I contributed, you know, to raising the family for so many years, but I don't think that means you should get billions of dollars.
Cody:Yeah. I mean But they
Stony:also get the kids. So so that's that's part of the problem is what happens is the women, to statistics say eighty percent of women are the initiators of the divorce. And when you look at states that have made fiftyfifty split of kids, that dramatically lowers the divorce numbers. So you're effectively rewarding women for divorce. That's the problem.
Stony:As you're saying to women, you get to keep the house, you get to keep the kids, and you're going to have a lifetime supply of money. All you need to do is stop feeling the tingles and great, you get all these benefits. And I think that we need to recognize that if marriage is a contract between two people and they say in the wedding ceremony till death do us part, then there shouldn't be any financial payoff if you optionally decide to part because you no longer feel the tingles. By the way, I do think discussing this ahead of time is vital because the number of people who are gonna get bitten in the ass for falling in love and and naively signing a legal contract, people need to be aware of this. And I do think a prenup is vital because you need to know that the state is gonna be against the guy if something goes wrong.
Wes:Agreed?
Cody:Yeah. I mean, it pretty much just is classic example of one of those things where, I feel like there's a lot of things like this where, yes, it is obviously, practically a good idea, and you should probably get one from a purely practical perspective. But if you think you might need a prenup, you're marrying the wrong person.
Stony:Well, that's Cody's. I'm going the opposite direction. I think you always need a prenup.
Cody:I'm saying you should get one. And if you think you need one, you're probably making a mistake. You the the position that you should be in is, wow. This feels crazy that we're gonna get a prenup because we're insuring against something it's never gonna it should feel like buying life insurance on the earth. It should feel like buying insurance against alien invasion or something.
Cody:I shouldn't say it like that because I believe alien. That's not the it's you're right. That's what you feel like. It should feel like you're buying insurance on a Godzilla attack. And if you if you're worried that Godzilla might actually be attack attacking, then the solution is not to buy insurance.
Cody:It's to not live in Tokyo.
Stony:People have have house insurance, and the chance of getting divorced is what? 10 x higher than your house burning down?
Cody:Yes. But again, I will go back to the don't make me tap this on. The entire point of life should be to not be a statistic. So you should be you shouldn't you should be living your entire your entire way of trying to be life should be don't tell me the odds. You're trying to be the exception to every to every statistic.
Cody:Most people are obese. Therefore, I'm probably gonna be obese. Therefore, don't try to not be obese. Right? The point is to die is to is to be the exception.
Stony:You know, that that famous phrase, don't tell me those odds, those ships still
Cody:have Also, that's not the quote.
Stony:Shields. Right? Don't maybe I'm thinking of Star Trek and not Star Wars. I know the I'm just not sure whether Star Wars had shields or not. But, yeah, they did have shields.
Stony:The Death Star had a shield. Right? Yes.
Cody:So Two kinds of shields, Stoneth.
Stony:These ship had shields because they knew something could go wrong. So I disagree with your point about don't, you know, don't be a sarcistic. You should not have been in charge of the shields. Are we gonna build shields here? No.
Stony:Cody said, don't be a statistic. So let's not build shields on our spaceship. Boy, this conversation's No.
Cody:It would be better to not go to the place where people are shooting lasers at you. That's the point. If you cannot avoid it, if it is an inevitability
Stony:point of having a spaceship if you're not gonna go places that people are gonna shoot lasers at you? These are really boring places. Everyone was shooting lasers. All of the spaceships had lasers. There was lasers everywhere.
Stony:I can't think of a single ship that didn't have lasers.
Cody:Yes. Well, this is okay. This is this is Star Wars. It's a little it's a little bit yes. But the point is that so, I mean, are you trying to say that, like, it is impossible to try to marry somebody who is, you know, much less likely than average to be, to intend to extract resources from you cynically?
Cody:Sure. It's absolutely possible, but it's also possible to take your starship somewhere that that who wants
Stony:an interesting life where you don't have lasers? Have lasers. Exactly. Have lasers. Have a prenup.
Stony:Have a shield. Have a great life. By the way, for people, rate this episode. We'd love to get your feedback. And maybe you agree with Wes.
Stony:Maybe this is an awful episode. Let's talk about something else.
Wes:I've stopped yeah. I I've stopped starting fights with people on the Internet. I was just trying to so I spent a I spent a week basically just, like, saying whatever I could say to get clicks. I gained, like, a 100 followers, which is pretty good. And the the last episode, I got over a thousand views.
Wes:It got, like, 1.2 like, 1,200 views, which is, you know, I think a lot of those are just people watching for three seconds. Like, what the hell is this? But I do think that, like I don't know. Part of my I'm not gonna do it anymore because I think that it's sort of his unbecoming, and I sort of do feel, like, regret for it. But I I think that the important thing for you to understand is that what happens on Twitter is theater.
Wes:Okay? Where it's I'm I'm just I'm playing a part. I'm doing it. I'm being ridiculous on purpose.
Stony:You're in the early shit posting days, and that apparently shit posting happens until you reach a certain point, and then the shit posting drops off as you try to maintain your followers rather than grow your followers. That's what I've heard. That that shit posting is actually highly effective, not that I encourage it.
Wes:Yeah. I don't know. It you know, I I don't know. A lot of it is really embarrassing to look back on, but it's like, it worked. It got the reaction I wanted.
Cody:It's all good. I mean, look, I'm gonna say this not to, obviously, to chastise US, but I I do think I mean, this goes to again, like, what I sure I'm gonna try to propose a commandment in the coming weeks that that captures this sentiment. But it's like, this totally applies to dating space. It's like, don't do things that you know are wrong. Don't don't trade, you know, long term compounding virtue for short term expediency.
Cody:Right? People do this all the time in dating. They're, like, tempted to make that trade, and it's, like, always a bad trade. It feels good in the short term because you get, you know, whatever. You get rewarded, you get laid, you get this or that, and then you get punished for it, and it's never worth the punishment.
Wes:Can you think of an example can you think of an example of how people try to make that exchange in dating?
Cody:Don't ever perform on a date. Right? That's one way, which we've talked about in the past. That's the first one that comes to mind. Right?
Cody:It's like, yes, you might and this is I this is like, this is this blows people's mind. This is one of those common pieces of dating advice I get to, like, my friends and when they hit me up for advice and stuff. And they this is, like, such a just radically different way of thinking that they, like even very smart people have never thought about, which surprises me. It's like, yeah, it's like, don't try to control the outcome, which feels very, you know, saying it like that feels very, like, zen. It's like, just be but it's true.
Cody:It's like you have to be a dating deontologist. You have to just play your game, and I shouldn't use those words because that sounds like I'm saying it's not about game. It's not about game. It's about it's about do your thing, do what you know is right, and be okay with whatever happens as a result of that. And in the short term, that's gonna feel bad because you're gonna get rejected.
Cody:You're gonna have dates go awry. You're gonna have people tell you that they're not into you know, whatever. Right? But you are avoiding it's it's the it it's it's false positives versus false negatives. Right?
Cody:It it's gonna feel like you're you're you're it's trading false positives for false negatives. It's better to have because false positives can feel really good in the short term. Right? They can but the problem is that false positives almost in every case exclusively come with false negatives necessarily. So what You'll miss the point person that you should be with because you were fucking around with people you shouldn't have been with and trying to impress them and trying to be attractive to them, etcetera.
Stony:Your advice aligns partially, I think, with don't take feedback. But I also think that feedback is beneficial. And this comes back to the woman who demanded her date send a car for her. And that's what the internet and ex has been blowing up about. I think this was Blaine Anderson's date who she reposted this about.
Stony:Is very simple to should take feedback? This is very
Cody:simple to reconcile. So here's how it works. Yes. I would I do not agree with the phrase don't take you should take feedback. I do agree with the phrase you should listen to feedback.
Cody:So you do not take it wholesale. You take it in and you process You evaluate it, and you see if it'll lie the point is, look, if you're optimizing for a relate if if what you want out of a relationship is you want a maximally transactional relationship where, as a woman, you are putting in sex and you are getting back resources. And it's basically a sugar daddy relationship. And and as soon as he finds someone younger and hotter, he discards you without a second thought. And as soon as you find somebody richer and higher status, you discard him with second thought.
Cody:And that's your dream, and that's what you want for the rest of your life until you're dead. Great. Awesome. Demand the car. That's what you'll get.
Cody:The point is to align so my so the point is is is align your short term behavior with your long term goals. That's the point. Make sure that your inputs are aligned with the output that you want in the long term. And if the output that you want is to psych is to psychopath max, great. You be you go you do you, boo.
Stony:So to to rephrase, Cody, what I think you're what I think you're saying, and I agree with this, is consider all or close to all of the feedback. And then the question you should be asking in this particular woman's case is not just should I do this, which is which is a a kind of a factual thing, but more do I wanna be the person that does this? Do I also want the consequences of doing this? And what are the consequences of doing this? And it's perfectly acceptable to ask yourself, do I want to be this person?
Stony:Or is this another version of me I'd like to be that I'm going work towards? And I don't think that's in any way disingenuous. No more that it's disingenuous to say, do I wanna be the person that shows up to dates on disheveled clothing not having showers for three days, or do I wanna put my best foot forward? Which is more base, more basic, you know, grooming than than demanding a car, but I think they're in the same ballpark. Maybe Cody would Sure.
Stony:Would
Wes:Well, there's there's a difference between saying don't perform and don't try. You know? Because looking like shit is not a part of your identity. And but if it is, like, if if you if you like, let's hopefully, this is nobody listening to this. Hopefully, this is not a real person, but it is.
Wes:If if if if you're the type of person who is like, I'm never going to take care of myself, and I'm never going to present myself well, then you can't go on a first date and look really good, right? But who's saying that nobody's like I am a person who doesn't take care of myself. I am a person who doesn't shave. I am a person who doesn't get haircuts, right? Like you should try, right?
Wes:Like you want to show up to the date as the best version of yourself, but not something that you're not going to be able to commit to. So if you're a guy and you're like, Yeah, I'm going buy a girl a car, you can do that. If you've never met this girl, do you wanna bring her to a first date, you wanna call the car for her, you can do that. But understand that you are setting the precedent for how you were supposed to comport yourself and what you're supposed to do for the rest of the relationship. And if you are not going to forever pay for all of her conveniences, then don't order the car.
Wes:And honestly, probably even then still don't order the car. I'm the guy who's always like the men should pay for the date. You should buy the drinks. Even if it's a bad date, you should pay for this stuff. Don't order a car.
Wes:Like
Stony:I think a good response would have been, I'm saving my money for my future wife. And if you are that woman, you'll benefit because I've saved my money. And if you're not my future wife, then why in the world am I getting a car for you? That would be an interesting response. I'd be curious what that woman would have said if she was told that.
Wes:Yeah. I I think that if you I mean, if if you're not if you're not inclined to order the car for a woman and she's, like, asking you to do that before a date, like, you just saved yourself
Stony:Can we get that woman two hours. On the podcast even for a ten minute interview? And yeah.
Cody:Was this mad was this Madison Campbell?
Wes:Oh, she was she's not gonna come on the show. No. I mean, I just did that all week. I I was on an airplane on Friday for, like, eight hours, and so I just was, like, tweeting a bunch and, like, insulting people and, power bottom dad blocked me, if you know that account. He said I was a gay moron and blocked me.
Wes:I thought that was pretty funny. It's like
Stony:You should have replied, I'm not gay.
Wes:That's what I no. No. I said I'm not a moron. That's how I replied to him. He says, you're a gay moron.
Wes:I said, I'm not a moron, which is I don't know.
Cody:Wes Wes.
Wes:Well, everybody, thanks for tuning in. We're sorry this episode wasn't as good as the other ones, but if you Wes, the
Cody:first rule of show business is you never tell the audience they're getting a bad show. It's always the best show we've done.
Wes:No. But but this is what I'm saying now will be at the end of the show. So what we're doing is we're having integrity. We're
Stony:saying Okay.
Wes:We're we're we're pacing. Because right now, the listener's like, man, they're really off this week. This isn't the Handsome Hour.
Stony:Know we know yeah. This this it's like the high school principal. This student class was the best one ever. You know? They never are.
Stony:But
Wes:So remember, go to starfishproject.com. Send evidence that you donated. We will match up to $250 in donations. If you wanna know about the duck hunting thing, just go back to the beginning of the episode and listen to it again. Thanks for tuning in.
Wes:We love you.
Cody:Goodbye.
Wes:Kiss your dads.
Cody:Stay handsome.
Stony:It's the handsome hour.