QuestEon has taken a break from writing… and has created one of those YouTube videos that seem to be all the rage these days.
Enjoy!
Click below to e-mail or DIGG, etc., this article! As always, I welcome your comments!
Since I slavishly follow the daily activities of Stefan Molyneux, I feel qualified to announce that although he has tried on several titles in the past, including philosopher, libertarian, and advocate for peaceful parenting (whatever that is), I believe the best title for him remains “accidental humorist.”
Case in point, a silly little brouhaha a week or so ago that ended with him calling an entire legion of thoughtful critics “a bunch of nasty people screaming their little lungs out.”
For all you historians reading this post several hundred years from now, here’s a quick synopsis:
Some guy gave Stefan Molyneux, accidental humorist, a $2.00 donation.
Molyneux made a Facebook post suggesting the donation wasn’t enough.
Hundreds of people commented on the post; many called Molyneux ungrateful.
That ignited a reddit discussion with more people doing the same.
Which, in turn, inspired an amusing and interesting discussion with on our forum.
Molyneux tried to control it as best he could, deleting comments that exposed touchy, reputation-damaging stuff (like Christina’s suspension, for example).
And then he responded to it all with (surprise!) a YouTube podcast. He titles the podcast “In Which I Admit Fault And Promise to Improve…”
His critics listened to the podcast and instead heard Molyneux accuse them [...] Continue Reading…
Back in June 2010, I noticed a strange and unexplained disappearance of Christina Papadopoulos from Stefan Molyneux’s Freedomain Radio.
All traces of the podcasts Molyneux’s wife had co-produced, excited conversations about her contributions to the psychology theories of FDR, and even innocent queries about her disappearance were quickly removed from the site.
Unbeknownst to most recent FDR members, Christina once played a significant role in the “community,” particularly through her series of Ask-A-Therapist podcasts, of which approximately 20 were produced.
Even though Stefan praised Christina as the inspiration behind his philosophy (the couple had even co-released a podcast suggesting she was the architect behind the “community”), she was suddenly gone—purged, in fact—from the site.
The mystery is solved
Back then, Stefan and Christina knew something we didn’t. But now we do.
Christina was being investigated by College of Psychologists of Ontario, who govern professional conduct and licensing in that province. On October 30th, 2012, she was found guilty of professional misconduct.
According to an article written by Tu Thanh Ha* for Toronto’s Globe & Mail, the College investigated whether “Ms. Papadopoulos, a psychological associate, gave improper advice on a number podcasts made with her husband, Stefan Molyneux.”
The article continues:
“Ms. Papadopoulos advocated a practice called deFOOing, [...] Continue Reading…
On June 21, the blog Molyneux Revealed published a shocking post—A Suicide Caused by Stefan Molyneux and Christina Papadopoulos and FreeDomainRadio.
The post contained an email that had been written by a grieving parent. In the email, the parent recounted the story of his son (who he refers to as “Sam”).
“Sam” had become enamored of the psychology/philosophy of FDR, abandoned his family and friends, and subsequently—alone and homeless—took his own life.
I have confirmed at least the above facts. They are true. The family prefers to stay anonymous for now and I’ll respect their wishes.
Edmund Burke, the blogger at Molyneux Revealed who is himself a defooed parent, cites the incident as one more proof that “the evil perpetuated by Stephan (sic) Molyneux and his wife Christina Papadopoulos is lethal.” The grieving parent also believes that—as a result of the defoo—his son had “no family and support structure to turn back to” in his most urgent time of need.
However, beyond the verifiable facts of the incident, we are mostly left with conjecture. And as always, people will rely on their own biases to decide which conjecture suits their interpretation of the story best.
Did the story play out as “Sam’s” father claims? [...] Continue Reading…
Part 1: An article of faith
“I’m full of treasure for everyone!”
This quote, taken from Stefan Molyneux’s Podcast FDR 1019 (formerly FDR Premium 79) We Are Full of Treasure, is more descriptive of Molyneux than he knows.
But you’ll be surprised to find out why.
We’ll come back to that.
But first, let’s start with a few words about science and FDR. Clearly, science is one of the pillars of Molyneux’s Freedomain Radio.
The word is used to elevate the FDR “community” among the common horde. Members are encouraged to think of FDR as the home for rational thought, a place where logic overrides mythology, where truth—no matter how painful—is the Holy Chalice.
In Molyneux’s book Universally Preferable Behavior, a Rational Proof of Secular Ethics, the words “scientific method” are repeated nearly 40 times.
Even in his treatise on love and relationships, Real-Time Relationships (The Logic of Love), Molyneux has this to say about his approach to love, truth, philosophy, logic, psychology, etc:
A scientific theory is not “proven” because its author says so, but rather relative to the objective standard of the scientific method, which is to say relative to empirical reality. A compass measures “North,” not just me yelling the word [...] Continue Reading…
What? Has the entire world gone mad?! Regular readers of my little blog (I’m looking at you, mom) may be stunned into near insanity to notice that after years of a writing pace that can only be described as glacial, I’m making two posts within 48 hours of each other!
Yes, I know this is only one of my snarky little Quickies! but look at the big picture for once, can’t you? It’s still two posts. Don’t make me go all Mel Gibson on you.
The first post (Stefan Molyneux and the Wax Wings Affair), which you really should read, is all about the day a self-proclaimed famous libertarian gained the attention of actual famous libertarians in a way that was most uncomfortable.
This post is about the ongoing dust storm that has been kicked up by the controversy.
First, of course, the FreeDomain Radio folks have begun to circle the wagons based on the natural assumption that Molyneux must be right. One of them has actually managed to suggest that since Dr. Presley was connected with the original letter, it must be wrong. (Hey, I don’t make up the crazy; I just write about it.) I’m certain that there must be some [...] Continue Reading…
Stef and I have become very concerned about your language lately. I’ve been kickin’ it with Stef a lot these days. Turns out, he’s a pretty good guy to hang with. Wicked fun on karaoke night, too—he’s not a half-bad singer.
We love to sit in his living room and banter back and forth about the whole FDR enterprise and how things are shaping up and stuff. Sometimes Christina will bounce in with a big tray full of poutine and some frosty Moulson’s and we’ll kid her about that whole ethical violations thing. She’s a good egg.
But boy, she can give as good as she gets. As you know, the ol’ spam filter “accidentally” doesn’t work very well when screening new members for FDR. So even though it appears as if “the largest and most popular philosophical conversation in the world!” has thousands of members, only a fraction of them seem to be both real people/active.
For a while, the board software would proudly announce all the new members who joined in the past 24 hours, but then everyone could see that most of the “people flocking to FDR” had screen names like lcdtvprice11, samedayloans, christiandating (my favorite!), greenteafatburn, and [...] Continue Reading…
It’s important to note that the following article does not claim or attempt to claim that FreeDomain Radio is a destructive cult. It presents information on destructive cults in general and examines some of the public, documented, and controversial aspects of FreeDomain Radio. It’s up to you to draw your own conclusions.
Disclaimer
Summary: This series of articles explores the question whether it is more accurate to refer to Stefan Molyneux’s FreeDomain Radio as a cult or as a destructive cult. According to my cult-identification flowchart, we are surrounded by cults, technically speaking. Most are harmless and some are even beneficial.
However, a small percentage of cults are actually destructive to the people who join them. Is FDR one of them?
In Part One of this series, I identified the first set of troubling aspects of FDR: (1) It appears to have one set of beliefs on the surface and an entirely different set of beliefs that it actively promotes behind the scenes. (2) A number of destructive cult experts have publicly stated their concerns about FDR. And (3), there is a presence of members who appear to display cult-like behavior.
Part Two continued with the next set of troubling aspects: (1) Mr. Molyneux [...] Continue Reading…
It’s important to note that the following article does not claim or attempt to claim that FreeDomain Radio is a destructive cult. It presents information on destructive cults in general and examines some of the public, documented, and controversial aspects of FreeDomain Radio. It’s up to you to draw your own conclusions.
Disclaimer
Summary: This series of articles explores the question whether it is more accurate to refer to Stefan Molyneux’s FreeDomain Radio as a cult or as a destructive cult. According to my cult-identification flowchart, we are surrounded by cults, technically speaking. Most are harmless and some are even beneficial.
However, a small percentage of cults are actually destructive to the people who join them. Is FDR one of them?
In Part One of this series, I identified the first set of troubling aspects of FDR: (1) It appears to have one set of beliefs on the surface and an entirely different set of beliefs that it actively promotes behind the scenes. (2) A number of destructive cult experts have publicly stated their concerns about FDR. And (3), there is a presence of members who appear to display cult-like behavior.
Part Two continued with the next set of troubling aspects: (1) Mr. Molyneux [...] Continue Reading…
Okay, I’m going to break the fourth wall for just this one post.
I sometimes receive emails from former FDR members. Some had become deeply involved; others had reached the point where they were seriously considering abandoning their family and friends. The writers tell me that they began to critically re-evaluate their involvement in FDR after reading information on this site.
Each of them had read something here that made them question what they were hearing. And usually that first question was a domino that lead to their own entire critical re-assessment of Stefan Molyneux.
They tell me, often ecstatically, about the personal progress they were able to make after separating from the group. (But for some of them, the way back was hard. Which is why I’ve written this article.)
They want to give me credit but actually all I’ve ever done is take the things Stefan Molyneux and his wife say and do and put them down in writing for all to see and evaluate for themselves.
Still, I wish I could tell you what those e-mails have meant to me. It’s very humbling.
I never expected that. I was just writing about [...] Continue Reading…
