Stuart K. Hayashi
Note from December 31, 2018: I want to thank “motchmaster” for posting a link to this essay onto Reddit’s Skeptic forum. Largely due to that, this blog post is receiving much more traffic than the tiny amount to which I am accustomed. Because it also relates to something dangerous, I should mention that on 26 December 2018 on his YouTube channel, Stefan Molyneux has reverted back to pressuring people who call in to his podcast to disown their parents and cut off contact from them. Since this particular post is getting so much traffic, I think I should ask the reader also to check out my blog post over here about the dangerous disown-your-parents campaign of Molyneux’s.
Note from January 2, 2019: I made two updates to this blog post. I wrote that as of January 2, 2019, Molyneux has not acknowledged the reproduction of text from the Media Wiki article on either the SoundCloud page or the FDRpodcasts.Com page for his “Truth About the Stock Market Crisis” presentation.
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Regular readers of this blog know that the cult leader Stefan Molyneux hosts a podcast called FreeDomain Radio (FDR) — which, as of this posting, boasts over 880,000 subscribers on YouTube. Fortunately, there is an online forum known as FDR Liberated — a support network that discusses Molyneux’s cult and its effects on the loved ones of those who have been pressured into the cult.
After my initial posting about Stefan Molyneux’s repeated acts of plagiarism, which was largely informed by Liberal Sanity Project’s video on plagiarism from the Alt-Right (using Molyneux as a prominent case study), members of the FDR Liberated forum have informed me of other ethically troubling instances from Molyneux. In this blog post, I want to address two in particular. First is that, out of the blue in one of the videos, Molyneux outlandishly proclaims that he is the true author of a book that has been marketed by a psychology writer who appeared to be a longtime friend of his. That claim seems especially disingenuous in consideration of the second item we will discuss: one Molyneux video from February 6, 2018, plagiarized 18 sentences (coming to over 390 words) from a 2016 Media Wiki article.
Part 1 of 2: Stefan Molyneux Bizarrely Telling His Viewers He Wrote His Friend’s Book
Regular readers of this blog and my other writings on Molyneux might be familiar with Stefan Molyneux’s September 8, 2014 video “How NOT to Fight Evil,” as it marked a turning point both in the “TruShibes” saga and in the general ideological direction in which Molyneux took his podcast.Molyneux is on record repeatedly stating that all intellectual property rights, including copyrights, should be abolished. To my knowledge, though, Molyneux did not offer, as his objection to copyrights, any assertion that plagiarism is OK. Rather, he made the same argument against copyrights that has been repeatedly made by the Murray Rothbard-influenced libertarian anarchists at the Ludwig von Mises Institute: that copyrights are a government-enforced monopoly over an industry and are therefore evil. (Murray Rothbard himself cast scorn upon patents while conceding a proper place for copyrights, but most of his disciples malign the institution of copyrights as well.)
(For those interested, in several essays [1, 2, 3, 4] I have rebutted the misleading assertion that copyrights and patents amount to a government-enforced monopolization of an entire industry. That is a straw man that conflates a claim of ownership over a general idea for a broad category of product, versus an author’s or inventor’s ownership over a specific original design among the many other designs for similar products in the same industry. Copyrights and patents are the latter, not the former.)
For the record, most of these Murray Rothbard-influenced libertarian anarchists who advocate the abolition of copyrights and patents still disapprove of plagiarism, at least in theory. Their objection to the enforcement of copyrights and patents is premised on their misconception that such enforcement gives the intellectual-property holder a state-imposed monopoly at the expense of consumers — in the case of literature, such consumers being the readers of the copyrighted material. Most of these libertarian anarchists would say that plagiarism is wrong because the plagiarist misrepresents him- or herself to the consumer (reader) as the true author, thereby cheating the consumer of the ability to enter into their contractual arrangement on good faith.
In any case, in 2014 — before the advocacy of white supremacy replaced the advocacy of anarchy as the regular theme of Molyneux’s podcast — a woman calling herself “TruShibes” went on YouTube and uploaded montages of old Stefan Molyneux videos that exposed not only his repeated self-contradictions, but also the numerous cases where Molyneux attempted to pressure the young people who called in to his show to disown their parents and join his cult. Molyneux had actually video-recorded himself browbeating these callers on the telephone for literally hours, and they took that abuse from him on account of their having mistaken him for a benevolently paternal figure. In this video montage of that from TruShibes, you can count over 60 instances of Molyneux doing that to his callers.
After all his teeth-gnashing against any party that used governmental authority to enforce its copyrights, Molyneux falsely reported TruShibes’s videos to YouTube Corporate as violations of his copyrights. Yes, that is doubly ironic in consideration of the fact that, at this point, Molyneux’s YouTube slide presentations had already been plagiarizing other authors for over three years. Of special interest is that when someone flags a YouTube video as infringing on his or her copyright, that flagging is enforced by court authority. This means that when Molyneux flagged TruShibes’s YouTube uploads exposing him, he was calling upon government authority in the name of enforcing his copyright. Moreover, when Molyneux knowingly falsely flagged TruShibes for copyright infringement, Molyneux perjured himself. This was how Molyneux lost most of his credibility among the libertarian anarchists who were the bulk of his fan base at the time, and also, I suspect, a reason why he ended up having to seek a new target audience, which he found a year later in the newly reinvigorated white nationalist movements of Europe and the English-speaking countries.
“How NOT to Fight Evil” had some morbidly amusing aspects in that Molyneux referred to the TruShibes incident and how it was getting to him. He shouted sarcastically, “But then — oh, my God! — somebody at FreeDomain Radio made a copyright claim! Oh, my God; let’s talk about that FOREVER!” He also pouted that in the aftermath of TruShibes exposing him, “We’re having a bit of a dip [in the level of donations] from last month.”
“How NOT to Fight Evil,” then, was an appropriate title — Stefan Molyneux is the perfect person to use as your model if you want to learn what it looks like when someone is doing the exact opposite of combating corruption.
But on the FDR Liberated forum, the user “Lupus” pointed out something else that was interesting about this video: in it, Molyneux oddly claims, out of nowhere, to have written someone else’s book.
A decade ago, Molyneux visibly interacted with a psychology writer named Lloyd deMause. You can check out his interviews with deMause here and here, and Molyneux’s audiobook reading of deMause’s The Origins of War in Child Abuse is over here.
In the “How NOT to Fight Evil” video, Molyneux bizarrely claimed to be the true author of this very same work. “I’ve written entire books; an entire book, or most of it,” Molyneux proclaims at the 1 hour, 2 minute, 14 second timestamp, “called The Origins of War in Child Abuse by Lloyd deMause.”
“Lupus” thus directed my attention to a February 2018 video uploaded onto YouTube by an account called “Dave Lordy.” “Dave Lordy” noticed Molyneux’s odd claim, and contacted the publisher of The Origins of War in Child Abuse, a Susan Hein, asking whether the book was coauthored by Stefan Molyneux. Ms. Hein replied to “Dave Lordy” that no one but Lloyd deMause authored that work.
This video from “Dave Lordy” is 2 minutes, 8 seconds long.
On December 23, 2018, I e-mailed Ms. Hein myself to ask this same question. With her explicit permission, I can write publicly that she replied the same day and answered that Lloyd deMause is the “sole author” of the book.
I cannot yet speak with full confidence that Molyneux lied outright about being the true author of The Origins of War in Child Abuse. But, consistent with other forms of plagiarism in which Stefan Molyneux has engaged, and of which I have written on this blog, I can present another clear-cut instance of plagiarism that “Lupus” pointed out to me. And this instance of plagiarism on Molyneux’s part seems to be the most shameless yet.
Part 2 of 2: Stefan Molyneux Plagiarizes 18 Sentences and Over 390 Words From the Same Media Wiki Entry
Stefan Molyneux frequently promotes himself as a business genius, just as he touts himself as a genius at writing and in so many other disciplines. That is an ambiguous distinction as, in his older podcasts, he said that his job as a company executive pretty much amounted just to ripping people off. I have also learned of some buzz that Molyneux might be a “Bitcoin millionaire.”I don’t know whether or not Molyneux is some business genius, or if he is a Bitcoin millionaire (I’m not savvy when it comes to evaluating the authenticity of documents that allegedly record Bitcoin exchanges), but I do know there’s a good reason to be wary about taking investment advice from Molyneux: as much as he frames it as his own, the advice does not necessarily come from him.
As “Lupus” first tipped me off, there is a tremendous issue with Molyneux’s February 6, 2018 YouTube upload on investing, “The Truth About the Stock Market Crisis. Prepare Yourself.” This is another one of Molyneux’s Power Point-style slide presentations. And the presentation slides for this video heavily plagiarize from a Media Wiki article on the topic of “Quantitative Easing,” an institutional instrument of the Federal Reserve to control the quantity of financial credit (and, with it, the number of monetary units) circulating throughout the U.S. economy.
Media Wiki is like the similarly-named Wikipedia in that anyone can add new material to the articles. Therefore, how do we know that it wasn’t the case that Molyneux gave his presentation first, and then someone copied the text from Molyneux’s presentation slides into the Media Wiki article? We know it was Molyneux taking material from the Media Wiki article — not the other way around — because, like Wikipedia, Media Wiki retains a record of changes made to the articles. Media Wiki retains a copy of what the “Quantitative Easing” article looked like on November 1, 2016. When you read the 2016 version of the article, you see that the plagiarized text appeared on Media Wiki before it conspicuously ended up in Molyneux’s slide presentation.
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| I added the red mark in Microsoft Paint. Click on the image to enlarge. |
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| I added the red mark in Microsoft Paint. Click on the image to enlarge. |
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| I added the red mark in Microsoft Paint. Click on the image to enlarge. |
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| I added the red mark in Microsoft Paint. Click on the image to enlarge. |
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| I added the red mark in Microsoft Paint. Click on the image to enlarge. |
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| I added the red marks in Microsoft Paint. Click on the image to enlarge. |
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| I added the red mark in Microsoft Paint. Click on the image to enlarge. |
And, as of this posting on December 23, 2018 — ten months after the initial YouTube upload — the description box of the upload doesn’t even include a link to the plagiarized Media Wiki article. The video does not acknowledge the Media Wiki article.
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| The YouTube upload Description Box, Image 1 of 2. Note the absence of any credit to the Media Wikia article. Click on the image to enlarge. |
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| The YouTube upload Description Box, Image 2 of 2. Note the absence of any credit to the Media Wikia article. Click on the image to enlarge. |
The audio from Molyneux’s presentation is on SoundCloud. As of January 2, 2019, the description area on SoundCloud does not acknowledge that the text from the presentation slides in the version Molyneux uploaded onto YouTube is taken from Media Wiki.
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As of January 2, 2019, Molyneux’s FDRpodcasts.Com does not acknowledge it either:
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Molyneux’s presentation slides plagiarized 18 sentences from the Media Wiki article, coming to over 390 words. The amount of text that Molyneux plagiarized from a single article is almost as long as a newspaper editorial or op-ed (“op-ed” is short for “commentary opposite the editorial page”), and it is longer than most letters to the editor published in newspapers, which seldom exceed 250 words in length.
The first bit of text plagiarized from the Media Wiki article first appears onscreen at the 12 minutes, 43 seconds timestamp. From thereon, plagiarized text from the Media Wiki article remains onscreen until the 25 minutes, 13 seconds mark.
This means that plagiarized text from a single article remains continuously onscreen in the video for over 12 minutes straight.
Readers might find it tedious to compare the plagiarized text sentence-by-sentence as I did. Therefore, this evidence will be enclosed on the bottom of this blog post, subsequent to the conclusion. This blog post has three appendices.
Appendix 1 is the comparison of the plagiarized text sentence-by-sentence — again, 18 sentences and over 390 words in all. Appendix 2 is a block quotation of the portion of the Media Wiki article that Molyneux plagiarized. Appendix 3 is a block quotation of the text appearing in Molyneux’s presentation slides.
Conclusion
As I post this, I will not, as of yet, state with complete confidence that I know Molyneux is lying in proclaiming that he, not Lloyd deMause, is the true author of the book The Origins of War in Child Abuse, which definitely is marketed with Lloyd deMause’s byline. But, in light of the massive plagiarism in which Molyneux has flagrantly engaged, the prospect that Molyneux told the truth about being the true author is not a likely one.Molyneux can proclaim all he wants that he has a long history of impressive financial acumen. But if he indeed earned the equivalent of a million U.S. dollars himself, you will not find any insight in how he did it in videos such as “The Truth About the Stock Market Crisis. Prepare Yourself.” Instead, you’re better off going directly to the Media Wiki article from which Molyneux snatched 18 sentences’ worth of material, uncredited.
I want to thank the FDR Liberated forum for informing me about these matters. Hopefully, when the truth comes out, potential victims of Molyneux’s influence might be liberated from a psychological tyranny — the tyranny of the illusion that Molyneux knows about the matters of which he speaks, as opposed to parroting a Media Wiki article and declining to acknowledge it.
Appendix 1 of 3: Sentence-By-Sentence Comparison of the Media Wiki Article (the Original) Versus Stefan Molyneux’s Presentation Slides
Sentence 01 of 18.
Media Wiki: “The U.S. Federal Reserve System held between $700 billion and $800 billion of Treasury notes on its balance sheet before the recession.”
Molyneux’s Slide: “The US Federal Reserve held between $700–800 billion of Treasury Notes on its balance sheet before the recession.”
Sentence 02 of 18.
Media Wiki: “In late November 2008, the Federal Reserve started buying $600 billion in mortgage-backed securities.”
Molyneux’s Slide: “In late November 2008, QE1 (Quantitative Easing 1) began and the Federal Reserve started buying $600 billion in mortgage-backed securities.”
Sentence 03 of 18.
Media Wiki: “By March 2009, it held $1.75 trillion of bank debt, mortgage-backed securities, and Treasury notes; this amount reached a peak of $2.1 trillion in June 2010.”
Molyneux’s Slide: “By March 2009, it held $1.75 trillion of bank debt, mortgage-backed securities, and Treasury Notes; this amount reached $2.1 trillion in June 2010.”
Sentence 04 of 18.
Media Wiki: “Further purchases were halted as the economy started to improve, but resumed in August 2010 when the Fed decided the economy was not growing robustly.”
Molyneux’s Slide: “Purchases were temporarily halted, but resumed in August 2010 as the economy did not show signs of recovery.”
Sentence 05 of 18.
Media Wiki: “After the halt in June, holdings started falling naturally as debt matured and were projected to fall to $1.7 trillion by 2012.”
Molyneux’s Slide: “After the halt in June 2010, holdings started falling as the debt matured.”
Sentence 06 of 18.
Media Wiki: “The Fed’s revised goal became to keep holdings at $2.054 trillion.”
Molyneux’s Slide: “The Fed’s revised goal became to keep holdings at $2.054 trillion.”
Sentence 07 of 18.
Media Wiki: “To maintain that level, the Fed bought $30 billion in two- to ten-year Treasury notes every month.”
Molyneux’s Slide: “To maintain that level, the Fed bought $30 billion in two-to-ten-year Treasury Notes every single month.”
Sentence 08 of 18.
Media Wiki: “In November 2010, the Fed announced a second round of quantitative easing, buying $600 billion of Treasury securities by the end of the second quarter of 2011.”
Molyneux’s Slide: “In November 2010, the Fed announced a second round of quantitative easing —QE2 — with plans to buy $600 billion worth of Treasury securities by the end of the second quarter of 2011.”
Sentence 09 of 18.
Media Wiki: “A third round of quantitative easing, ‘QE3’, was announced on 13 September 2012.”
Molyneux’s Slide: “A third round of quantitative easing (QE3) was announced on September 13th, 2015.”
Sentence 10 of 18.
Media Wiki: “In an 11–1 vote, the Federal Reserve decided to launch a new $40 billion per month, open-ended bond purchasing program of agency mortgage-backed securities.”
Molyneux’s Slide: “The Federal Reserve decided to launch a new $40 billion per month, open-ended bond purchasing program of agency mortgage-backed securities.”
Sentence 11 of 18.
Media Wiki: “According to NASDAQ.com, this is effectively a stimulus program that allows the Federal Reserve to relieve $40 billion per month of commercial housing market debt risk.”
Molyneux’s Slide: “This is essentially a stimulus program that allowed the Federal Reserve to relieve $40 billion per month of commercial housing market debt risk.”
Sentence 12 of 18.
Media Wiki: “Additionally, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announced that it would likely maintain the federal funds rate near zero ‘at least through 2015.’ ”
Molyneux’s Slide: “It was also announced that the federal funds rate would be held near zero ‘at least through 2015.’ ”
Sentence 13 of 18.
Media Wiki: “On 12 December 2012, the FOMC announced an increase in the amount of open-ended purchases from $40 billion to $85 billion per month.”
Molyneux’s Slide: “On December 12th, 2012, an increase in the amount of open-ended purchases from $40 billion to $85 billion per month was announced.”
Sentence 14 of 18.
Media Wiki: “On 19 June 2013, Ben Bernanke announced a ‘tapering’ of some of the Fed’s QE policies contingent upon continued positive economic data. Specifically, he said that the Fed could scale back its bond purchases from $85 billion to $65 billion a month during the upcoming September 2013 policy meeting.”
Molyneux’s Slide: “On June 19th, 2013, Ben Bernanke announced a ‘tapering’ of some of the Federal Reserve’s QE policies — specifically noting that the Fed may reduce its bond purchases from $85 billion to $65 billion a month.”
Sentence 15 of 18.
Media Wiki: “While Bernanke did not announce an interest rate hike, he suggested that if inflation followed a 2% target rate and unemployment decreased to 6.5%, the Fed would likely start raising rates.”
Molyneux’s Slide: “Bernanke did not announce an interest rate hike, but suggested a rate increase would likely occur if inflation followed a 2% target rate and unemployment decreased to 6.5%.”
Sentence 16 of 18.
Media Wiki: “The stock markets dropped by approximately 4.3% over the three trading days following Bernanke’s announcement, with the Dow Jones dropping 659 points between 19 and 24 June, closing at 14,660 at the end of the day on 24 June.”
Molyneux’s Slide: “Following the comments, the stock markets dropped by 4.3% over the next three trading days with the Dow Jones dropping 659 points between June 19–24, 2013.”
Sentence 17 of 18.
Media Wiki: “On 18 September 2013, the Fed decided to hold off on scaling back its bond-buying program, and announced in December 2013 that it would begin to taper its purchases in January 2014.”
Molyneux’s Slide: “September 18th, 2013, the Fed decided to hold off on scaling back its bond-buying program, but began tapering purchases in February of 2014.”
Sentence 18 of 18.
Media Wiki: “Purchases were halted on 29 October 2014 after accumulating $4.5 trillion in assets.”
Molyneux’s Slide: “QE3 asset purchases were halted on October 19th, 2014 as the Federal Reserve had amassed over $4.5 trillion in assets.”
Appendix 2 of 3: Media Wiki Version
Remember that Stefan Molyneux’s YouTube video upload is dated February 6, 2018, whereas the Media Wiki section that he plagiarized, below, was on the Media Wiki domain as early as 2016. This text was on the Media Wiki page over a year prior to Molyneux’s upload.
The U.S. Federal Reserve System held between $700 billion and $800 billion of Treasury notes on its balance sheet before the recession. In late November 2008, the Federal Reserve started buying $600 billion in mortgage-backed securities. By March 2009, it held $1.75 trillion of bank debt, mortgage-backed securities, and Treasury notes; this amount reached a peak of $2.1 trillion in June 2010. Further purchases were halted as the economy started to improve, but resumed in August 2010 when the Fed decided the economy was not growing robustly. After the halt in June, holdings started falling naturally as debt matured and were projected to fall to $1.7 trillion by 2012. The Fed’s revised goal became to keep holdings at $2.054 trillion. To maintain that level, the Fed bought $30 billion in two- to ten-year Treasury notes every month.
In November 2010, the Fed announced a second round of quantitative easing, buying $600 billion of Treasury securities by the end of the second quarter of 2011. The expression “QE2” became a ubiquitous nickname in 2010, used to refer to this second round of quantitative easing by US central banks. Retrospectively, the round of quantitative easing preceding QE2 was called “QE1”.
A third round of quantitative easing, “QE3”, was announced on 13 September 2012. In an 11–1 vote, the Federal Reserve decided to launch a new $40 billion per month, open-ended bond purchasing program of agency mortgage-backed securities. Additionally, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announced that it would likely maintain the federal funds rate near zero “at least through 2015.” According to NASDAQ.com, this is effectively a stimulus program that allows the Federal Reserve to relieve $40 billion per month of commercial housing market debt risk. Because of its open-ended nature, QE3 has earned the popular nickname of “QE-Infinity.” On 12 December 2012, the FOMC announced an increase in the amount of open-ended purchases from $40 billion to $85 billion per month.
On 19 June 2013, Ben Bernanke announced a “tapering” of some of the Fed’s QE policies contingent upon continued positive economic data. Specifically, he said that the Fed could scale back its bond purchases from $85 billion to $65 billion a month during the upcoming September 2013 policy meeting. He also suggested that the bond-buying program could wrap up by mid-2014. While Bernanke did not announce an interest rate hike, he suggested that if inflation followed a 2% target rate and unemployment decreased to 6.5%, the Fed would likely start raising rates. The stock markets dropped by approximately 4.3% over the three trading days following Bernanke’s announcement, with the Dow Jones dropping 659 points between 19 and 24 June, closing at 14,660 at the end of the day on 24 June. On 18 September 2013, the Fed decided to hold off on scaling back its bond-buying program, and announced in December 2013 that it would begin to taper its purchases in January 2014. Purchases were halted on 29 October 2014 after accumulating $4.5 trillion in assets.
Appendix 3 of 3: Stefan Molyneux’s Version
- The US Federal Reserve held between $700–800 billion of Treasury Notes on its balance sheet before the recession. In late November 2008, QE1 (Quantitative Easing 1) began and the Federal Reserve started buying $600 billion in mortgage-backed securities.
- By March 2009, it held $1.75 trillion of bank debt, mortgage-backed securities, and Treasury Notes; this amount reached $2.1 trillion in June 2010. Purchases were temporarily halted, but resumed in August 2010 as the economy did not show signs of recovery.
- After the halt in June 2010, holdings started falling as the debt matured. The Fed’s revised goal became to keep holdings at $2.045 trillion. To maintain that level, the Fed bought $30 billion in two-to-ten-year Treasury Notes every single month.
- In November 2010, the Fed announced a second round of quantitative easing —QE2 — with plans to buy $600 billion worth of Treasury securities by the end of the second quarter of 2011.
- A third round of quantitative easing (QE3) was announced on September 13th, 2015. The Federal Reserve decided to launch a new $40 billion per month, open-ended bond purchasing program of agency mortgage-backed securities.
- This is essentially a stimulus program that allowed the Federal Reserve to relieve $40 billion per month of commercial housing market debt risk.
- It was also announced that the federal funds rate would be held near zero “at least through 2015.”
- On December 12th, 2012, an increase in the amount of open-ended purchases from $40 billion to $85 billion per month was announced.
- On June 19th, 2013, Ben Bernanke announced a “tapering” of some of the Federal Reserve’s QE policies — specifically noting that the Fed may reduce its bond purchases from $85 billion to $65 billion a month.
- Bernanke did not announce an interest rate hike, but suggested a rate increase would likely occur if inflation followed a 2% target rate and unemployment decreased to 6.5%.
- Following the comments, the stock markets dropped by 4.3% over the next three trading days with the Dow Jones dropping 659 points between June 19–24, 2013.
- September 18th, 2013, the Fed decided to hold off on scaling back its bond-buying program, but began tapering purchases in February of 2014.
- QE3 asset purchases were halted on October 19th, 2014 as the Federal Reserve had amassed over $4.5 trillion in assets.
