he posted a message on FDR (and in an e-mail list I am a member of he linked to it) wherein he 'reveals' my real name, quotes from a private e-mail message I sent to him in early 2007, and then writes this:

Liberating Minds is a forum founded and mostly populated by a small number of angry malcontents who were banned from Freedomain Radio for various dysfunctional and destructive behaviours. It has literally thousands and thousands of posts written by a few people, viciously and personally attacking me and various listeners. (I have posted some examples below -- be warned, though -- the language is truly foul.)

Since Liberating Minds is the only web site where people endlessly fixate on Freedomain Radio -- and have for almost 18 months -- its members are almost certainly the source for articles such as the recent one about Freedomain Radio in The Guardian. Barbara Weed, the mother referred to in the article, has an account and regularly posts on "Liberating Minds."

This article refers to me as an 'IT worker' -- for the record, I was a software entrepreneur and executive, co-founded a company and worked for many years as a Chief Technical Officer. I also studied English Literature at York University, hold an undergraduate degree in History from McGill, and earned a graduate degree from the University of Toronto, where I received an 'A' for my Masters thesis analyzing the philosophies of Plato, Kant, Hegel and Locke.

Liberating Minds is run by a fellow named Koen S., who goes by the screen name 'Conrad.' I don't know much about Mr. S., except that he has some articles on Lew Rockwell, and seems to have presented and studied at the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Mr. S. first contacted me in March 2007, writing:
...it really is truly amazing, as you say, that somewhere in a dark little corner of the internet there are these people who really seem to just be correct about, well, all the important aspects of life and science and philosophy, about all the stuff that philosophers and scientists and moralists and theologians and so on have discussed for millennia. Amazing, but true.
It did not take long for this effusive praise to turn into virulent and long-lasting hatred.

Mr. S. was on the Message Board at Freedomain Radio for about 2 months, starting in April 2007, and listened to a lot of podcasts. During the time that he was around, he became increasingly difficult and unpleasant. After some ugly interactions between Mr. S. and myself -- as well as some other listeners -- which I was not able to resolve with him, I asked him to stop posting on the Board, and closed his account.

Unfortunately, Mr. S. did not take this decision very well at all. He founded the Liberating Minds forum, where he and others who had been banned from Freedomain Radio started viciously attacking me. He began creating fake Freedomain Radio User IDs, picking fights and so on. He also began using the FDR message system to speak ill of me to my listeners.

(Over the course of the last few years, I have had to ban about 40 or so people from the Board, out of over 3,300 members, so a little over 1%.)

Almost all the people who regularly post on Liberating Minds are people I banned from posting at FDR, for reasons which I hope will be clear below.

I have generally ignored this hate site for about a year and a half, in the hope that they would get tired or bored. I have not engaged in any debates with any of its participants, or posted on their hate site. Unfortunately, they have continued to escalate their attacks, and now are using the media to act out their resentments.

If a woman broke up with a man, and then saw him post ugly personal attacks about her online, for over a year, with increasing ferocity, this would be a kind of vicious stalking, and would not constitute a viable and objective source of information about her personality and choices. A hate site is not a source of objectivity, any more than a viciously anti-Semitic site is a source of objectivity about Jews.

Below are some quotes from Liberating Minds -- I hope this helps explain why I asked these people to stop posting on FDR, and why I describe it as a hate site. (Of course, there is nothing like this on the FDR board, I would never tolerate such rage and hatred.)

There is a lot more, but for obvious reasons I do not enjoy spending any time on this ugly forum.

From a thread called “Go a-fucking-head”:
Mole: “FUCK ALL OF YOU!!! SO YOU WANT TO TALK SHIT. SUCK MY DICK YOU COCKMONGLERS AND ASSCLOWNS. I'LL RIP YOUR HEADS OFF AND SHIT DOWN YOUR THROATS!!!!111!!ONE Oh, and thanks for using my idea... asshole” (link)

Mr. S.: “hey Jew boy, if you hate this thread so much why don't you go someplace else where you will be welcome, you know, like Auschwitz...” (link)

Alex: “Let it all hang out Kun-Rod. Oh wait, I guess you have let it hang out. Just couldn't see it wifout my handy Jew-boy magnifying glass! Fucktard.” (link)

Mr. S.: "yeah well, who the fuck cares about LM anyway, you goddamn Jew" (link)

From the thread “Stef's Wikipedia page deleted”
Mr. S.: “fuck you in your nose NonE” (link)

From Mr. S., regarding a video where I laugh:
Mr. S.: “I hate the laughter so much too (Stef would of course say that we hate it because we can't stand to see true happiness and joy (oh no, I'm mind reading)). I want to beat it [the laughter, not Stef] to death, saw its limbs off, then beat it to death again, pour gasoline over it, set it on fire, and then vomit all over it -- you catch my drift?” (Emphasis added) (link)

... to which another member replies:
Dylboz (banned member): “Yeah, if it were on fire, I wouldn't even piss on it to put it out. Burn, motherfucker, burn!" (link)

On the thread about the recent Guardian article, from banned member Dylboz:
“Good article. I want there to be more. I really, really hope that the media picks up on it, he's a terrible, manipulative malignant narcissist. Reading that just roiled my meanest emotions, I have nothing but loathing for this man, victimizing young people, taking advantage of their vulnerabilities, and turning them against their families and friends all to feed his ego, soothe his raging insecurity and TAKE THEIR MONEY!

I wish she had pointed out that he has no other source of income than those ‘donations.’

Fucker. I can't stand him. He makes me mad, so much more because I fell for his schtick. Makes me feel stupid. And I don't like being made a fool. At least I figured him out, and I never did feel comfortable with the whole confessional vibe, the denouncing of your parents and dredging up the worst bits of your childhood, it all seemed so, I don't know, Owellian, like some combination of the 2 minutes hate and room 101.

His childish, pathetic, petty lie, and his dishonesty about why he was telling it, which was just to make Conrad look bad, then going back to his captive audience where he could frame reality and leave out all the relevant bits after he got totally embarrassed on Kinsella's Libertarian Google forum, it was so aweful, and stupid and sad that I immediately lost all respect for him, and suddenly I had him cornered and he was petulantly clinging to this stupid little lie, I wanted him to admit it, in fact, if he had, it would have totally redeemed him, but I now know he's utterly incapable of admitting error and he hates being criticized (because his self-esteenm is so low, his self image so fragile, he is so insecure that he is afraid of his own fucking baby!) so much that he would rather lie and lie and lie again, manipulate and twist and squirm and writhe, ban people from his message board and act like he's the noble long-suffering victim, but never admit the truth, and over something so fucking meaningless and petty and tiny and PATHETIC! OH. MY. GOD. Laughing at cartoon violence perpetrated by a baby on a dog? Crime of the century, evidence of a black soul and hopelessly recalcitrant, willful corruption. Really ? COME ON! GROW THE FUCK UP! And then to continue acting all high and mighty about it when he plays a video game that congratulates you on your headshots and killing sprees, complete with enormous blood spatters and squishy sound effects ("that's not in the game I play, I've never seen that, Oh, I've never watched the intro movie, I have no idea what you're talking about") what a PATHETIC immature weasely douche bag!” (link)

From a user called defoodDad, regarding the Guardian article:
defoodDad: “I'm sure dick face has read it by now too, Choke on it Stef.” (link)

More From Dylboz:
"...I hate that man. I really, really do. He is the sick son-of-a-bitch..." (link)

Mr. S.:
“dude, I would almost give my pinky toe to have a conversation with him. I can now see through all the manipulation techniques that he uses and would be so capable and willing to expose him, to show him for what he is: a gigantic douchebag.” (link)

NonEntity (another banned member):
“...it does support my contention that Stef is a scumbag, is dishonest and hypocrictical.” (link)

Dylboz (addressing me from the site):
“Fuck off, you douche-bag. You are driving so many good people who could be an asset to the freedom movement and libertarianism into a ditch, a great big psuedo-psychological amateur philosophy game of Swedish cracker. You look more and more like some kind of CIA operative sent to neutralize anarcho-capitalists to me all the time. I'm not inclined to that kind of conspiratorial thinking, but if the shoe fits...” (link)
Mr. S.:
“Fuck you Stef. You lie and you manipulate and the FDR'ers are relieved after this interview, after you lied to and manipulated everybody listening to it. Fuck you Stef...” (link)
Mr. S. Again:
“...the thing is, Stef is a very sophisticated liar, so he will be very precise in his lies so that he can always wiggle his way out of things... ...the thing is, we've been 'debating' Stef and following him debating others for over a year now (I know, it's bad) and if there is anything I have learned is that you have to be supercareful in such debates in order to really expose Stef's hypocrisy and dishonesty. He always creates ways out for himself, but if you understand how his mind works (i know, I know) then you can expose him ...in short, don't worry, my (and others') disgust with Stefan is as great as yours...” (link)

ZebraFoal:
“I've never believed that Stef is that fucked up. I think he's narcissitic and a "successful pyschopath," but I think he uses and embellishes messed-upedness for his very calculating, mercenary, power-avid, self-flattering ends.”

“I do not believe that Stef came from a horribly abusive family. I think he's an opportunist, embellishing on more or less regular stuff to further his narcissistic goals. As I said elsewhere today, I also believe he is a "successful psychopath."

Just apply the "skin-crawl test"--and you will see!

note: (felt by researchers interviewing psychopaths) It is thought to be an ancient vestigial reaction to being in the presence of a predator --the feeling of your skin crawling--

Whenever I listened to Stef's voice, I had it. When he addressed me on the Board, my skin positively got up and crawled away.” (link)
From another banned member:
"...fairly dissapointed with Stef's blunt, one-answer treatment of divergent theories, plus his gang of sycophants, who would promptly lick his bunghole without even reading the discussion at hand. And Stef does not have that disgust many of us have in having our asses kissed, best expressed in that phrase, "nobody likes an ass kisser". *one thing that strikes me about the FDR "methodology", is how convenient it is to just chalk it up to a "fucked-up psyche" or having been "brutalized as a child" every damn time someone disagrees with you. It is like marxism and the "bourgeois logic". For a while I was swayed by that siren, but snapped out of it after hearing podcast after podcast where he would end with, "that is because they were brutalized as a child", it was like goddamn mad-libs... (link) (emphasis added)



Mr. S. at work:
"it'd be much appreciated if you did post it though. am at work now and can't access FDR. I am quite interested in his response since Travis' post seemed spot on." (link)


Sonia Mansour Robaey: (banned member), posting on Mr. Swinkel's forum:
Just two remarks. The first being that the Molyneux cult bans everybody who disagrees with them therefore keeping their followers under tight thought control while being discussed at other forums. I doubt that the Molyneux followers visit other forums. So we have to be careful here to discuss molyneux in order to expose the cult but not to give it a non deserved publicity. I found it very disturbing for example that Molyneux's thinking was discussed on the Mises forum, we are giving him too much credibility here. The second is that I think we have to go from discussion into action. One possibility I see is to sue the cult for hate speech targeting a special group in society and leading to psychological damage and suffering. I leave you with that. I don't have time to be enough on the forum but I will check your reactions and advice whenever I have little time.(link)
Thanks to all of you on this forum who reproduced the exchange between me and the FDR cult members and their 'leader'. I cannot access the forum anymore. But I will be visiting this one. FDR cultists were boasting about having some publicity from the Guardian article, let's use this publicity to let people know the truth about Molyneux and his cult.(link)


From her blog:
My brief exchange with members of the FDR cult, detailed with additional post banning comments Last sunday, I read an article in the Guardian about an internet forum that goes by the name of FDR coaching young adults, who have issues with their own emancipation, into cutting ties with their families. I had a brief discussion with members of this cultist forum before being banned by their 'maître à penser'.(link)


One of her posts on the Freedomain Radio site:
...What Mr. Molyneux does is to feel opportunity at every vulnerability, opportunity to profit from the vulnerabilities of the people who are seeking a way to their emancipation in a dificult personal ontext (sometimes pathological). This is called predation. To my knowledge, Mr Molyneux does not hold a degree in Philosophy. Philosophy is not just words, Philosophy is rigourous thinking combined with an ethical methodology, Mr. Molyneux has neither, he doesn't even have doubt. Philosophy could not exist without doubt.(link)



There are two main reasons that I have now decided to stop ignoring these attacks.

The first is that the mainstream media seems to view this site with some credibility, which I can only assume is because they do not know its vile contents. I also truly hoped that Mr. S. in particular would find away to overcome his irrational hatreds and do something more productive with his life. I am aware that revealing his rages in this manner may be devastating for him, and I am truly sorry that this has become the only option that remains.

Secondly, as you can see from the chart below, over the past year, a very small number of people are returning again and again to FDR (and the visits are only currently increasing), and so it is clear that ignoring this problem is only making it worse,

I changed my name in the above

OH EM GEE...

Does Stef even comprehend what a "Catharsis" AKA "Bitch and Complain" forum is for? I guess not, because he never gets mad at anyone. Yup, all that yelling about assclowns and fucking assholes in his podcasts is pure reason being conveyed.

Haha, just when I thought that things had died down, here we go again!

Here's what I posted on the subject in Libertarian Forum (when I refer to "this forum" below, it is Libertarian Forum):

Perhaps I should remind people of my story with Molyneux and FDR...summarily, I was ex-communicated from FDR because I -- gasp -- joined a forum with similar ideas but critical of FDR (LiberatingMinds). Molyneux also engaged in various ad-hominems against those who placed some trust in him in telling him personal problems, basically violating what should have been a confidentiality at least of name and handle. His justification of this is that he did it in the donors-section only, where only those who donate have access...but violating a confidentiality is still unethical, even if violated to only a few.

He has also I think encouraged an atmosphere on his forum of psycho-analysis rather than actually addressing the arguments. Various members of the forum have, when debating with me, taken quotes severely out of context, or even quoted context as well but ignored it in the response. i.e., I made an assertion, and then made an argument for it; one member highlighted my assertion and said, "that's just an unsupported assertion", ignoring my argument. Now, you can certainly disagree with my argument, but it takes some balls to say I haven't even made an argument while quoting my argument!

Then of course there is the whole "de-FOOing" thing. I have no problem with dissociating from truly bad people. I think Molyneux makes some good points. However, it seems to be black and white with him; in reality, there are varying levels of association and dissociation; it is a scale. Not every parental failing warrants complete disassociation. Some may warrant partial disassociation or distancing.

Furthermore, Molyneux is mistaking victim for victimizer in criticizing the moral failings of those who do not "get the bad people out of their lives". Certainly, it is a moral failing to associate with people who mis-treat you; it clearly doesn't mean you have no integrity, are hypocritical, or unlibertarian however. It is a moral failing in the treatment of the self, much like over-eating.

Finally, I would add Molyneux's Randianesque arrogance and trite dismissal of Austro-libertarians. You can find him saying things like, "For a philosopher, you'd think he'd be able to keep better control of his weight" about Roderick T. Long; Long is also "just a guy who wrote a fucking article". Oh, and Ludwig von Mises and the other Classical Liberals get similar dismissal. He claims that Mises failed to do anything about Statism's progress; yet this analysis ignores praxeological considerations, in that things would have been worse were it not for the Classical Liberals. His response to that is, "that's like a raindance-dentist saying that while his raindance didn't cure your toothache, it would have been worse if not for his raindance"; this is a ridiculous analogy.

Now, on this forum, Molyneux -- in response to these criticisms -- paid some lip-service to Mises and the other Classical Liberals. Which is basically double-talk, as he said other things on his own forum. He also seems to interact with people in a very different manner depending on whether he's on his own forum, or posting in here for example.

Regarding Molyneux' defense of FDR not being a cult, I agree it isn't like for example the Scientology cult. However, there are varying levels of cultiness. It is not black and white, but a continuum. And there are certainly some culty things about FDR.

It is nice to know he reads all my vitriol and ad hominems, I wonder if he has also reflected on any of the genuine criticisms we all have made of his work and what he does. I guess it finally got to him, eh? I always wondered how much he had seen, and it is clear now that he must have searched through and read pretty much everything I wrote over the last year or so. I wonder, does he remember the content of his own podcasts where he pretty much says all that and worse about Conrad and a whole host of other people? I mean, really, dude... Are you really gonna be that big of a giant hypocrite? Oh, right, yeah you are. I forgot who I was talking about.

Also, it appears that he just got me evicted from that Google group. Although I never post, I do read the posts, and I'll miss it. Oh well...

Hey Conrad, I'm sorry that Molyneux said some nasty things about you and portrayed you as a sort of simpering troll. You're a smart guy and you understand philosophy and economics far better than most people I've encountered. Molyneux is hardly more than a trivialized demagogue who feeds on children.

But I think that's your problem, right there. Not that you're a child, of course. But you're still feeding Molyneux in ways that are basically childish. You're kind of fixated on this guy, and you've got to let him go because he's only going to drag you down. To hell with this guy and his band of miserable toadies.

This website goes through its own phases, where we talk about some interesting philosophy, politics, and economics; and then something like the Guardian article pops up, and--WHOOSH--it's The Stefan Molyneux Show. It doesn't seem healthy.

I get it, though. I spent a lot of time fostering my own anti-FDR flame. But one day I looked out the window and realized, Freedomain Radio is wasting my life. It was a powerful moment for me. Despite that realization, I got pulled back into the drama--and occasionally still do. He doesn't have the same kind of hold on me anymore, though. I don't listen to his podcasts, I don't read his forums, and I don't care about his followers or his cheap, stolen philosophies. I've heard and read everything he has to offer, and so have you. Do yourself a favor and don't waste on more time on this guy.

I made the top of the list!!

::throws arms up::

btw, what was that google group you mentioned? Is google now the main provider of online groups? I remember way back when there was e-groups, then it was yahoo groups. So I guess google has the baton now. Seems they've swallowed up usenet as well.

I agree with Stewart. You guys give Molyneux plenty of ammunition by constantly talking about him (hey, even if he's shooting blanks, it still sounds good). It's why I visit this site rarely, although I like Conrad.

This is a strategical error. You have every right to do it, of course; but then it sounds childish if you are upset that some people might see it as, well, the way it comes off.

I am saddened, I didn't even make the list for calling him out on being culty.....


:'(

Oh well, there is always next time.




And btw, I agree, we do spend a lot of time fighting against Molyneux, but have not really gotten anywhere. He obviously can portray us as evil, but really, who is winning? I mean, we got the articles(in print or being printed or still to come) against him. And he has yet to get one word of "good" press. I guess what I am trying to say here is this, sure he is a bad guy, and sure we have mostly(not all on LM) been wronged by him, but isn't it time to be the bigger person and just let it go?[/img]

From FDR:

Privacy Policy

I take your privacy very seriously. As a result, I will...

* ...not divulge your contact information
* ...not mention your name or location without explicit permission

The guy tried to present mole's post in the "Bitch and Complain" forum with "!!!!111!!ONE" in it as proof that we're all violent sociopaths. Not that's it's really that offensive to me personally, but that kind of boneheadedness is a spectacle that I'd be happy to waste my time on.

Well, that and I just can't stand by and watch him emotionally manipulate people and tell them to do cruel things to themselves and others in the name of voluntarism; to tear people apart from others in the name of voluntary cooperation. I think that voluntarism is the best way to go and I don't want it ruined by him.

And you'd be surprised how you can convince people of the truth of your message with a populist message against something. I was very convinced by reading an article by Walter Block that was against Objectivism.