The Fall of Stefan Molyneux

choiceconvo (32)in #stefanmolyneux • 8 years ago

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Choice Conversations hasn't always been a podcast strictly about personal development. That is a relatively new development. In the past, it was a variety show, and often the topic of the day was politics and the libertarian schools of thought. One guest I'd had on the show multiple times was Stefan Moyneux, host of the podcast Freedomain Radio.

And Stefan Molyneux hasn't always been a Donald Trump supporting Republican who cozies up to the religious right. That is also a relatively new development. When I saw the direction Stef was heading, how he'd done a complete 180 on several topics, I felt I had to speak up. With him having made multiple appearances on my podcast, and being mentioned as an influence in several others, I needed to publicly distance myself. That led to a five part series, which I'm sharing with you here today.

Wes Bertrand, author of Complete Liberty and host of the Complete Liberty podcast, is my co-host throughout this series. It is important to keep in mind that when these shows came out, it was still early in Stef's public transition from anarchist to republican. When the first episodes came out, Wes and I received a ton of push back from the Freedomain Radio community defending Stef, saying that he did not support Trump, was not on the right, and didn't even support voting. He has since made it glaringly obvious that he supports Trump, and has explicitly told his audience to vote for Trump. Hopefully that will help you to put these shows into perspective.

Part 1 - A Letter to Stefan

Wes knew Molyneux personally, along with Freedomain Radio producer Mike DeMarco. Wes sent them an email detailing his concerns and requesting a conversation. He heard crickets in response. In part 1, Wes and I discuss the letter, and the disturbing trends we were witnessing on Freedomain Radio that prompted Wes to write the letter.

Part 2 - What's in a name?

In part 2, Wes and I discuss the name of the series and address some of the feedback we'd received about it. We then dove further into the contradictions coming from Stef, and began to dissect his position on IQ.

Part 3 - Gene Wars and IQ

In part 3, geneticist Kevin McKernan joins Wes and I to break down Stefan's Gene Wars series, and the R vs K hypothesis discussed within. Kevin details how R vs K has long been dismissed as pseudo science by the scientific community, and that there is no evidence for the claims Stefan is making that political leanings are tied to genetics. From there, Kevin talks about how Stef's claims about IQ being linked to genetics also have no scientific evidence to back them. We discuss race quite a bit in this episode, and even dig into global warming!

Part 4 - A Principled Look at Immigration

Wes Bertrand and I are joined by author David Hathaway to discuss his excellent book Immigration: Individual vs National Borders. David's book provides a logically consistent view of immigration from a Libertarian's perspective. It details the various fallacies that are put forth by so called voluntaryists who advocate the use of state power to "protect" the borders.

Part 5 - Adam Kokesh, Objectivism, and Religion

In the final installment of the series, Wes and I go through a laundry list of concerns over the inconsistent messages from Freedomain Radio. We could not help returning to the topics of IQ, race, genetics, R vs K, immigration, and Donald Trump. These ideas are the backbone of Stef’s thinking these days, overarching themes, so even though they've been covered thoroughly earlier in the series, we still briefly address them in this episode. Having said that, our discussion goes into many new areas, including Adam Kokesh's appeal to Stef to debate him (which was ignored), Stef's abandonment of Objectivism and the individual (and his corresponding embrace of collectivism), and Stef's cozy-ing up to the religious right.