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Naval Ravikant

lines on the record: 126
first: 2025-01-16
most recent: 2025-01-16
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Certain things where you can argue the opposite. So I'll take the other side for a moment to challenge Aaron's philosophy. I think brain plasticity is a thing. Like if you don't learn your math or your music or your languages when you're young, it's a lot harder to learn than when you're older. And they're building blocks. So my kid may be interested in some physics thing, like, oh, why is the sun light going this way or why is there a quarter moon instead of a half moon? And I started trying to explain it. But if he doesn't have the basics in geometry or math because he skipped all of that, then he'll lose interest before I can get him interested enough to figure out the math. If you're trying to figure out basic math when you're 19, it's pretty late in the game. Like you're going to have a hard time. Same thing with literacy and reading. If you never learn how to put words together and read, then when you finally are interested, and I point you to the book, you can't read it. And you're not going to climb that hill from zero to figure it out. So I'm kind of stuck on that one. I think I would call it literacy numerous.”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There was an old book called The Scientists in the Crib, the title is so good that I think the book was very popular because everyone wants to view their child as a little scientist, even though they treat them like the convict in the crib, right? Like you can do exactly what I say when I tell you to. But I think there's a struggle. People say, well, I don't want to be my kid's best friend. They have friends. I have to be a parent. And then they kind of think through, well, what does that mean to be a parent? And the reality is, I think most people would have preferred more independence when they were kids. So why not start trying to give it to your kids and doing the explanation? But the explanations are hard. It takes a lot of upfront work.”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Why cover They all go together. And so the sooner you can teach your kids that knowledge, the better. But there's an age, I would argue with Aaron, like there's a certain age that we just doesn't register. No.”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Also, not part of an explanatory framework that you can build upon. Rules don't connect to each other. The only way rules connect to each other is dad or mom say so, whereas knowledge, it's a framework of understanding. So once you understand you're brushing your teeth because of germs, then you also understand why you should shower and why you should use soap and why you should change your underwear and all that.”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I have a rule for myself, which I do bust my kids occasionally, which I know you don't bust your kids, but I do occasionally bust my kids. But if they come to me with something that they did innocently that they didn't think was wrong but is wrong, I never bust them because I don't want to create that feeling in them, like don't go to dad. So at least I'm not fully enlightened here, but I'm headed in the direction. But let's go to some of the harder ones. Let's talk about like eating or screen time. Those are the tough ones.”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“gave you my own anecdotes on this that are so with my older son i actually managed to explain to him the germ theory of disease we watched two videos on little germs eating things and i convinced him like germs going to eat his teeth if he doesn't brush them so he brushes them my daughter she's really young she just sees me flossing all the time she loves playing with floss it's that simple so each one has her own mechanism how they figure it out my middle son you know he likes the i think it's a spider man toothbrush so it's like a very particular toothbrush he likes so he plays with that so there's a different solution for each one but it takes time it takes creativity it takes problem solving and you can't get exactly what you want when you want it”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Often, you know, that I would rather that my kids be disobedient and free and uneducated than that they're educated and obedient. Because you can always educate yourself and most of us who know anything have become self-learners over time. And learning is always moving target. But that independent thinking, that independent streak, you can't get back. Everyone I know who is successful in life has a strong independent streak, no exceptions.”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Tough there. The other one is if one of them is hitting the other, then that to me is a boundary that you don't cross and I tend to get emotional and tend to interfere. So those are probably the two places where I'm most restrictive. But I would say that our kids are closer to wild animals than properly raised children. But I will say I think most kids these days that I run into, most of their friends who are kind of quote unquote normally raised, I wouldn't trade places. Our family has a lot more freedom. We get along great with our kids. They're very intelligent. They're very independent. They're very capable. And they seem to me as well or better adjusted than any of their peers. Not to put their peers down. But I have noticed that all of their peers tend to have a way of getting attention from adults and violating the rules. And that could be anything from I'm having an allergic reaction to I threw up, to I'm having a meltdown to whatever. And these are all attention-seeking behavior to control adults where normally.”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm also not that restricted with screen time. I basically just, you know, after 6 p.m., they get unlimited screen time. And I don't force them to go to school. They're a combination of homeschooled and unschooled. Where I would say I am restrictive is I probably interfere a lot if they're like fighting, if they're hitting each other. I'm kind of pushy about like let's go, let's go, let's hurry up. You know, we're late, get in the car, that kind of thing. Definitely the one place where I have a big bugaboo. I think they can get over eating badly as kids. Young bodies are very resilient and it takes a lifetime to figure out how to eat well. And I think they can get over even socialization and emotional hang-ups and interpersonal conflict. All that stuff has to be handled on its own. And they have to figure it out. The two places where I probably interfere a lot is one is I insist on math and reading. Like you got to do your math and you got to do your reading. If you do your math in reading, then you're free individual. Until then, you're a little slave and you don't get to do what you want.”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, exactly. So mom and other caretakers might be more restrictive, but I tend not to be, especially around food, especially when I know what a bad job I personally do with food.”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I basically retreated heavily back. And what I retreated on was, first, I'm not very authoritarian with the kids. I never have been. So if they're around me and they want to eat junk food, I just hand them the junk food and then I'll leave the room. So I'm not that responsible.”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But you can start in one area. And so, what's an example of an area where you could start, Aaron? The beauty of truth is you don't have to rely on somebody's study because, you know, people who do studies these days, we know how corrupted they are, right? So we know there's a whole class of people who show up on Twitter and say source, as if that's killing your argument. Harvard didn't bless this. Well, Harvard wants mandatory education at Harvard. So I can't listen to that. They want indoctrinate my child.”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Then, secondly, it's not an all or nothing thing. And Aaron lays this out in his book, which is basically about where can you start? So for example, I'll say with my children, my children are closer to somewhere between homeschooled and unschooled. And they wake up when they want and they sleep relatively when they want. And they do have a lot more permissiveness around eating and screen time. The amount of screen time they spend is horrific. I think one of my kids was showing the other day. He did eight hours of screen time that day, which I think most parents would have a fit, like one day, eight hour screen time. That's all he did. So they already have a high level of permissiveness. And I can just say for me personally that they seem pretty well developed. They're happy. They're healthy. They're pretty intelligent and they seem to do well relative to their peers. They seem to have less hang-ups than I think the average kid would. And they have a lot more freedom. But the good news is you don't have to do this all or nothing. I said all or nothing to be provocative because Aaron's a believer. He's all the way.”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There is some Lindy evidence. There's some Lindy evidence. Firstly, keep in mind that historically children hit puberty age of 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, and they were adults at that point. They were out conquering nations and having children. And it's only recently that we moved it up to 18 and a lot of struggle of teenagehood is trying to control an adult as if they're a child. And so you can already see that it happens at a certain age.”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If you ask most people like, hey, when you are young, do you wish your parents had controlled you more or less? I think most people's complaint would be that my parents were too controlling, right?”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then finally, we just assume that the kids are not capable of learning certain things fast enough. They have to brush their teeth. They have to not eat ice cream because it might cause irreparable damage by the time they're old enough. But I think all of these are valid concerns and they're worth tackling. And we can go more into them. But I got a whole list of controversial things to go through with you.”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“All the time. So there's a learning process. And so the question is, when do you start that learning process? And so I think we have this distinction that kids below a certain age, they're like somewhere between, this is going to be controversial, but somewhere between animals and slaves and ignoramuses, right? Like they're like animals that need to teach them basic things so it sticks like you teach a dog, you teach the kid what to eat, when to eat, how to eat, when to go to the bathroom. And then they're a little bit of a slave because we can order them around. We're physically larger than them, even if we're not physically overpowering them. Every missive is backed up with a threat of or what else. Well, I'll take it away from you. It's like what the government says, I'm going to write your ticket for jaywalking. What they really mean is I'll put you in jail if you jaywalk because everything is backed up at the end of the day with the ability to throw you in jail. The same way, everything you say as a parent is backed up with the ability of force. And without that, it wouldn't exist.”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Could be finally figuring out proper diet and nutrition, which turns out to be the opposite of what we were taught, you know, the FDA food pyramid is still upside down and starts with grains and, you know, get your bread and get your rice. And then it kind of goes down from there and meat is at the bottom. So a lot of it is about undoing what we learned. A lot of us also have the stories. I personally have the story. When I first went to college, I ate the worst food you could imagine. I just ate complete garbage. I played a ton of games. mostly what I did spent most of my time in the computer lab playing video games and I was just so enamored with their freedom not that my mother was all that restrictive in the first place but I just didn't have this abundance of food and screen time that I suddenly did in school and I think even as an adult we're all still dealing with social media addiction we're all still dealing with eating more sugar than we want to we're all still dealing with trying to figure out the proper diet we're all still trying to be disciplined enough to exercise we're all still you know trying not to doom scroll”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I think underneath, deep down, we all kind of know that there's this contradiction between, okay, we teach kids go to school, obey their rules, do what we say. You don't know yet, you're not ready, you're not ready, you're not ready. And then all of a sudden, they go to college and there's a complete flip. Like, now you're free. Now you get to learn how to operate in the real world. You got to think for yourself, why can't you think for yourself, right? And this whole time, you've domesticated them as almost like animals so that they can function in normal society. You train them to eat, you train them to go to the bathroom, you train them to go to sleep, you train them to listen to the teacher. And then all of a sudden, there's supposed to be independent thinkers and creators and knowledge generators. And I think all of us have a story of how some very important parts of our life are all about undoing all the things we're taught and discovering for ourselves. And it could be learning how to learn instead of being forced to learn, learning what to learn instead of the set of subjects we were given in school.”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Couldn't every parent say, well, I try to do that. I tried to convince them that broccoli is good and salmon is good and they should eat their broccoli and salmon, then they get dessert. And so I try to convince her to do that, but they don't know any better. And I always try, I always try to negotiate with them. But after a while, you sort of give up because you realize they're just going to eat chocolate until they explode. And so I have to cut that off and say, no, no more ice cream. And you're going to eat your salmon, your broccoli, and then you can have your ice cream. And then there's a little bit of fighting and whining. then eventually they just get used to it. So what's wrong with that? I tried too. I tried to negotiate with them.”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Don't make them do chores. You don't have rules like don't hit each other. You try not to immediate sibling conflict. You don't force them to share things. They're not forced to say thank you or obliged to say thank you or even badger to say thank you. There's no real punishment. There's no timeouts or withholding of things. There's no making them spend time with the grandparents or the extended family. You don't force them to brush their teeth. You don't make them sit at the dinner table that's optional. So what are we talking about here? Do you have children or do you have roommates? Exactly. So, what is this all about? Where did this come from?”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Say, I've incorporated maybe 30 to 50% of what you're saying. I was already directionally inclined, but I've managed to incorporate some of it. And my wife and I are open to more of the rest, although it's pretty radical. So let's get into it. So just as an example, the philosophy that you're talking about, the taking children serious philosophy, which you lay out in the sovereign child, the book, you basically say the kids have no sleep schedules. You don't control what they eat. They have unrestricted screen time. I'm not even sure I have unrestricted screen time, but your kids have unrestricted screen time. You don't force them to go to school.”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Two reasons. I think one is it really attacks at a core level the entire system we have around how we view children and raise children. So it's really a big FU to the entire system, everything from schooling to parenting, child raising, to how do you take care of the most precious thing in your life. And second, it's a bunch of dudes. It's a bunch of men standing around talking about this. I don't see the wives or the women. So you could just call this the bro parenting episode, right? This is a bunch of dads and potential dads talking about what is the best way to raise sovereign children. So let me just start off by maybe asking Erin, give us a very quick background on yourself.”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Of what he has to say. And I think some of it has seeped into my life and my family life, and some of it still hasn't. So I'm here to challenge him and interrogate him and to reveal him to the rest of the world. I will say that this may end up being one of your most controversial episodes.”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In these rabbit holes where I would find myself having to usually, when I meet someone like that, I usually side with them, I learn from them, and I kind of try to help preach that to the rest of the world. Here it was a little bit the opposite. I found myself on the defensive. I found him too radical, too hard to take seriously. But as time went on, I actually realized he was right about a lot of things. It gave me that very uncomfortable feeling. And so Aaron actually wrote a book called The Sovereign Child. He's been espousing a theory around taking children seriously, which is an older philosophy. But he's, I would say, the best expositor of that philosophy. But he also had really great takes in everything from is AI going to end the world to what do you do if you walk into an emergency room? Because he's a doctor, to how to run a classroom, because I think he's also been a public school teacher. So I just found him very compelling person to talk to. And I'm still honestly trying to digest a lot.”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. Go to and just talking about various things. He came out of the critical rationalism crowd, which is a group of thinkers that surround David Deutsch and his philosophy. And Aaron struck me as someone at first who was like, this man is insane. But I realized in a good way, he's a very ground up, very principled thinker. And what I really liked about talking to Aaron, who came out kind of as out of nowhere, is that he will take these philosophically sound positions that are very controversial. And then he will just defend them indefatigably without tiring. He'll just keep going. He'll keep repeating himself. We need to. He'll explain it from 10 different angles. But he is very tied into the idea of using creativity to find answers to problems and to not using coercion. And so he would end up”
2025-01-16 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #788: Naval Ravikant and Aaron Stupple — How to Raise a Sovereign Child, A Freedom-Maximizing Approach to Parenting · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT