Join us in a riveting discussion on the evolution of the concept of the 'woke right,' which has become a contentious tool for targeting individuals like us. We will analyze a viral piece that breaks down the strategic methods employed by what is referred to as the 'non-woke right.' We delve into the nuances of identity politics, the transformation of the right-wing movement, and the criticisms from traditional conservatives. This episode examines the clash between the traditional right and the modern, so-called 'woke right,' exploring the contention over cultural norms, skepticism, and the evolving political landscape.

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be discussing the concept of the woke, right, and how it has evolved to be a tool to attack people like you and me. And we are also going to be discussing the play by play of a piece that has sort of gone viral on this.

That is a tool for how the the non-work Right. Can attack and destroy people like you and me.

Malcolm Collins (2): Ooh, okay.

Malcolm Collins: When the term was forced popularized by James Lindsay, I don't know if he coined it, but the, the broad vague idea is it was for sort of right wing extremist who used some tactics that reminded them of the left, like not really engaging in debates, not really engaging in the other side, critically, et cetera.

Simone Collins: Identity politics. Right.

Malcolm Collins: Identity politics. Yeah. It has dramatically evolved since then as a concept to mean the new Right. As a political movement to very explicitly attack people like you and me. And so to give you what I mean, I'll be reading a bit from the piece here. This, I obviously, I skip around to the center where it gets into the, like the meat of the topic.

Hmm. Title, the woke wright stands at the door. And so they say the MAGA right has strange and sinister qualities, which look nothing like the traditional religious wing of conservatism. Familiar from our era of William F. Buckley, or anti-government libertarian conservatism of Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan.

It's. Anarchic rejection of truth. It's Nietzsche esque embrace of power as self-justifying it's unashamed anti-liberal and it's glee and transgressing boundaries and giving offense are something new to the right. And I'm gonna stop there before I go into the next part because I'd actually say everything he says so far.

Exactly this channel. Yeah, not the, not the traditional religious, right? Yeah. Certainly we're not libertarian either. We have criticized libertarianism the rejection of what he calls truth. Now, keep in mind when he says truth, he'll get into what he means by that later. He means the truth that's decided on by the elites.

Oh, no, basically. And how dare they question what, what us and the, the intellectuals say um, on really. And

Speaker: to protect the world from devastation,

Speaker 2: to unite all peoples within our nation to

Speaker: denounce the evils

Speaker 2: of

Speaker: truth and

Speaker 2: love. To extend our reach to the stars above

Malcolm Collins: then we talked about the, the nietzschean embrace of power itself justifying first we're fans of niche. We've said this in other videos, not enough to pronounce his name correctly. I read his stuff and I thought it was good.

It was more like I went to his stuff while we were doing a podcast. 'cause I was like, how bad can this really be? And I'm like, oh. This all sounds fairly inoffensive and like decent advice and even that niche guy. Decent advice. Yeah. Niche. Look, I'm not gonna dirty my mouth with un-American words or, or sounds Okay.

Again, transgressing boundaries with like, with a joke like that. Right. You know, sort of playing into this, the idea of power is self-justifying. Well, I wouldn't say that the do right sees power is just self-justifying. It does see power as and we'll get into this because we're also gonna get into, in this, this video, the concept of is there such a thing as like, like should we hold to the concept of no enemies to the right?

Simone Collins: And is it a reference to the PHAs.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, it might be. But the, the point of it means it's like the right wing and the right wing generally doesn't, is it doesn't eat its own in the way the left wing does. Mm-hmm. And it's like, let's not start that in the way these people trying to coin this new, this woke.

Right. Yeah. Because otherwise you'll

Simone Collins: break the line. That's why it was to the right shield. But I'll

Malcolm Collins: say, and we'll get into this later. Okay. Yeah. Is there is actually utility and being able to call out certain types of right wing beliefs as damaging and traitorous. Yeah. And here I'll get into, I'll, I'll use sort of Nick Fuentes as an avatar for this is specifically we need to, well, we shouldn't call out an individual for having beliefs that are extremely right wing.

I, I think that just shutting down conversation, not engaging with that stuff, I think that's bad, right? Yeah, totally. But, but. If you come to the table and you used the right wing sort of social media ecosystem to build a platform, and then you start to say if the mainstream right wing organizations like the president and stuff like that don't capitulate to my vision of the right wing party.

I will tell my voters, which he did to not vote for mainstream conservative candidates. You're just, and I'd even say that all of that is okay up until the point where the direction you want them to shift could never win an actual election cycle.

Malcolm Collins (2): Mm-hmm. And if

Malcolm Collins: you are playing this game, and it's clearly not like even if I secretly held all of your beliefs, I would not be doing the things you are doing because they are directly counter to your own stated beliefs.

And so if you are doing them, it must mean you don't really hold those beliefs and you're just sort of parasitizing the right wing social media landscape to build clout yourself.

Malcolm Collins (2): Mm-hmm. Or you're

Malcolm Collins: just incredibly stupid and can't think five steps ahead. But I'm gonna guess it's the first one. I mean, we'll get into evidence for that and, and, and other things here.

So I do think we do need to be able to say when somebody's regularly telling their followers to not vote or not regularly, if they ever use the goodwill of the right to build a right wing audience and then tell their followers not to vote for mainstream right wing politicians. E especially if it's over insane things like Trump's VP being in an interracial marriage, buddy.

If we go back to a party against interracial marriages, you're not gonna win any election cycle, even if only Republicans are voting. But we'll get into all that in a second. But, so I, the reason why I was just going over all this, you know, transgressing boundaries with degrees anti-liberal, a lot of people see a lot of our philosophy 'cause we've done videos where we talk about the benefits of monarchy, where we talk about the benefits of social systems, where it's not one individual, one vote.

Where we talk about ways that capitalism could fail us because we're open to criticizing these questions. And then the old right, just wasn't open to questioning or criticizing these things. And you see this across the right now you know, whether it's courtesy Arvin mainstream, right-wing monarchist who's been on our, our show.

So obviously, you know, aligned with us or the aristocratic utensil you know, another monarchist who's been on the show. And so when they say the woke right now, they're talking about. You, me and our friends, and they're saying, why can't we just go back to that theocratic system, that libertarian system?

Wow. That was still aristocratic and elitist where we held sway.

Simone Collins: Wow. But gosh, is really, I, I just this morning listened to Barry Weiss's interview with the author of the free presses piece on the Rise of the Woke. Right. And this is Recontextualizing so many of the things that the author was saying. Yeah.

Because he, yeah. He was really arguing that this is identity politics and it's just white nationalists and it's, they're coming for your sons. But then, you know, he was talking about various instances where there were people who were like a radicalized headmaster at his. Sons, I think it was a classical Christian school.

Yeah. And like he, yeah, he was clearly identifying as one of those more old guard nineties Republican Christians who wanted to legislate their values upon other people, whether or not they held his same religious beliefs, so, wow. Yeah. Which is not cool from our perspective. Yeah. Get off my lawn.

Malcolm Collins: And, and, and, and, and I also note here that they try to police the arguments that you can make.

So they'll say something like, the woke right is, you know, white nationalists when they're generally not white nationalists. Mm-hmm. Because they play identity politics, right? Like, but, but they would play us as playing identity politics because we've pointed out before, right? Like. There genuinely is a, a sort of evolved cabal of interest that victimizes straight white males throughout most of the West.

And you are trying to set up the game board to say that we can't say that, that we can't see that we might have a shared common interest. Was anyone else who's victimized for this same reason now? No, this isn't just straight white males who are black males are victimized by this system. White women are victimized by this.

Well, white women are probably one group that's not let's say Chinese women are victimized by this

Malcolm Collins (2): system.

Malcolm Collins: You know, a lot of people are victimized by the system and have common cause to, to recognize that they are. But when you point out that we're not allowed to recognize that, and we're not allowed to have in-group preference as a system for rec, for, for fighting that you're sort of.

Defanging, one of the core arguments you can make that's not in the traditional theocratic camp of arguments to prevent us from having relevance. And yet it is absolutely something we need to recognize within the current world. But I wanna get back to the thing that they're getting fundamentally wrong.

And it's glee of transgressing boundaries in giving a offense or something new on the right.

An embrace of postmodernism, which until recently was exclusively property of the illiberal left. And this is what they're all getting wrong. They keep associating, and you'll see this throughout. This is the new right, or the woke, right, as they call it, with postmodernism. And they draw this because they see our glee and transgress values.

If you look at our video on the, a aesthetics of the new right. We did with Ra nationalist and sort of the aesthetics of his magazine. Men, what is it? Men Man's World. Yeah. You look at the art of this you see tons of boundary transgressions. You see integration of AI and anime was our memes and everything like that, which people see as like low culture and vulgar.

And they're trying to police us into not using these things, but we don't do it for the reasons that the postmodernists do it. Essentially and I, and I looked up like, what's the definition of postmodernism? Because if you're watching this and you're like, what is, what is postmodernism?

Postmodernism is characterized by a rejection of grand narratives in universal truths associated with modernism. And we'll get into what modernism is within these guys' minds and everything like that. And they're confusing anti-elitism. IE we reject their social norms with rejecting all social lures.

Ah

Malcolm Collins (2): hmm. So they

Malcolm Collins: basically came and they go, why won't you play with the rules that we set up? Oh, you refuse to play by my rules, the rules of the elite. Therefore you must be anti rule altogether. You seem to glee in violating my rules. Therefore, you must not have any system of ethics or rules. And that's not true.

We have a new system of ethics or rules that we are convergently evolving into. A great example of this that I've mentioned was, was man's world, is they did something originally that we did originally, which is that they published you know, trip breaking rules old Playboy like images like, like vintage stuff, right?

Because it's like classy, classic American transgressing boundaries. But then people are like, look, I wanna use this at the coffee table book. I have kids in my house, like, I understand why you're doing this, but I want this to be something that's consumable by kids. And in our video we used to curse and insert clips where people curse quite frequently.

And now I try pretty hard to remove all curse words from our episodes. 'cause some people were like, Hey kids, watch this. And so we are vulgar in that we transgress boundaries and we may talk about sex and sexuality, honestly, and we may talk about kinks honestly, but we, we don't insert vulgarity for the sake of vulgarity.

Right. And you see this in, you know, raw nationalist, intentionally not using punctuation correctly, intentionally not using grammar correctly. He's, he's doing this to thumb his nose at the elite institutions, right? Yeah. Well,

Simone Collins: and, and people with degrees from elite institutions sometimes choosing to adopt anonymous identities to hide the fact that they went to them.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. And you see this across the new, right? You see, obviously, once his face went to Yale the one who were chest ro no Bron age pervert, Ry Nationalist Oxford and Cambridge after he was dox. Like, you just keep seeing this after these people get dox, they are smart. They beat the old system.

They could be using the old system of a crutch in the way that this guy does, but they don't because they wanna play by the new rules. The rules were only your ideas matter, right? And I think that, that these, these guys, guys like this, they don't like that, right? And so they're, and, and so we'll keep going into this, but fortunately for us, because we're gonna go into his entire game plan, his, his entire game plan rests on misunderstanding that the new right has no social norms and is genuinely postmodern, except that it has a new set of social norms that is in incredibly against high culture, you know.

The academia culture that this is the right way to do things. This is the wrong way to do things. Because we learned that those forms of culture were used by the urban monoculture as a lure to entice people. They said, if you wanna be high class, you wanna go to the opera you need to speak and act and not hold these beliefs and not say things like this and not question these things.

And we're like, oh, you found a way to use all of this against us. We're not playing that game anymore. That's before I go further.

Simone Collins: No, keep going.

Malcolm Collins: And then he goes on to say a generation ago, normies in the academy and other elite cultural institutions failed to see the postmodern left for what it was.

And so they were run over. But from their failure can be gleaned the postmodern rights weakness today, and we can exploit them. So they're coming at us, these old fogies, these boomer rights, okay. They are one of our enemies and they've stated ourselves, we will go anti right where we can, if we can use it to maintain the boomer status quo.

If we can keep you from theorizing about is like, like in the same way that the woke said, oh, there's, there's questions and things you're not allowed to muse. They say you can't muse whether democracy actually works. You can you, you know, whether it's actually the best system anymore now that we have AI and other tools, you know, you can't muse about human genetics.

You can't muse about like, we decided that those were topics you're not allowed to talk about. You know, you can't muse about where human sexuality, you know, how it works because that's not something right wing thinkers do. And I'm like, well then you left a huge gaping window that the left is used to bludgeon us for the past 50 years.

Malcolm Collins (2): Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: You know, we are, we're engaging with this stuff because you guys failed, your system failed, your beliefs failed. It led to the rise. All of this horribleness that we're dealing with now grew on your rotting corpse.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Under their watch. And I guess, but it only makes sense though that they would, there would be some kind of death throw, there would be some type, type of desperate attempt to reclaim control or fight back against that which is replacing them.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. One, one of the funny things I'll often find is, is the person who often gets targeted as like the new, the woke right guy. And I think it's just 'cause he's decided to fight back against this concept, which good on him for doing this is oh, what's his, his name? He does Lotus Eaters. Sargon acad. Oh. And, and what's funny, it's funny, funny about Sargon acad, if you look at Sargon cod's, like actual values and, and policy I think he would frame us as being like left wing people in a right wing space. Yeah. When you actually look at our values rather than, than what we say or our public opinion we are to the right of him. The only space that I can find where he's significantly to the right of us is on abortion.

And I'd say that we are right of center on abortion. We definitely want a lot more restrictions on it. But we're not for life being as a conception. And I think that he's at around that area. But he's actually an atheist and we are quite religious now. While we started, our influencer lives the atheist. I even go to First Hills. We're religious extremists now. Which puts us also in, in quite a more conservative camp. But because our religion is different, other people are like, eh but it's probably no different than a conservative Mormon or something.

So, you know,. But I, but I always find that interesting that somehow he's known as this far right person, but it's actually just because he rose to fame during the era of cancellation.

And during the era of YouTube demonetization and everything like that. And so he was like de fenestrated for pretty milk toast views which is kind of sad, right? Like, yeah, he, he paved the ray for a lot of the rest of us. But you might be thinking, oh, it's just this one piece who frames the woke right?

As postmodern. So I'm gonna go to another piece. This is a, is there a woke right by the American reformer? Hmm. Okay. And, and they were quoting somebody else, oh is, so they say, for example, in 2020, I succinctly defined wokeness as society is divided into oppressed and oppressor groups along lines of race, class, gender, sexuality, et cetera.

Now note, he wants to prevent people from saying that, right? That's a problem if society is literally divided into oppressed and oppressor class groups. And one of the oppressed groups is white, straight people and males, right? Mm-hmm. Like there clearly is a social hierarchy of ethnicities and genders and sexual orientations within the urban monoculture.

And he's like, you are on the woke, right? If you call that out. So. Hegemonic power, but privileged people are blind. So three, we need to defer to the lived experiences of the marginalized to four dismantle the unjust systems. Basically he's saying, you can't call out the current system that we're under right now, or you're in the woke.

Right. And this was the something that a lot of the old right people started ringing about when people went out there and been like, no, the system is rigged against men right now. There is an earning gap, a pay gap among youth. Apparently this was something we needed to panic about when it was women for young men right now.

And yet we don't have that. There is.

Simone Collins: Whoa, really? I didn't know that. So for like college grads.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. It's an employment gap. There's a obviously getting into college gap. There's an education gap. It's just sort of all across the board. Young men are obviously systemically discriminated against in society.

Yeah, I didn't know there was a,

Simone Collins: a pay gap though, honestly. I just figured like, if anything that the college gap was favorables, maybe it would drive more young men into the trades, which are lucrative and practical and going to do better, I think initially with ai. Anyway, so, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And, and so then he goes on here and he says, so from here he, he seeks to redefine woke, right?

And precisely analogous terms, one society is divided into straight white men and their enemies. Now very few. Like well-known people in the woke right here would say straight white men and their enemies. We would say the convergence, this is a bit like saying the left is about you know, trans black, gay women and their enemies.

And it's like, no. It's about all of the intersecting discriminated groups that have some reason to want equality to be reintroduced to our society. Right. Yeah. So it is. Straight men and white men and other, and there's a lot of other, like Asian men are, are, are in terms of college admission, for example much more discriminated against than white men.

Jews are, are more discriminated against in some context and believe because they outperform other groups just about any group that is generally speaking, outperforming other groups due to more work. You know, as we pointed out with Asian groups, they just spend a lot more time working on homework.

I think it was, it was like 11 extra hours a week and I was like,

Simone Collins: yeah, like,

Malcolm Collins: okay, I get it. They're trying to normalize for that, remove that from them. So they're trying to, why do they need to take this weapon away from us? Because when they do, then they can bring the right conversation back to only let's impose the, our theocratic norms.

Let's remove regulation. Right. Instead of let's try to build a society that works. Yeah. And then two hegemonic norms. The longhouse post-war consensus. Judeo Christianity, but normies are blind. So three, we need to red pill them. Four. Retake the west. Okay. But here's the thing, we, the west has been conquered by the urban monoculture.

This is very obvious. This is a new cultural movement. If you value. If, if you, if you view your culture as an iteration of the ancient Western tradition, and keep in mind there's many, they pretend like there's one ancient Western tradition. Like for example, the most base level, the Protestant tradition and the Catholic tradition are not the same tradition.

The, the Orthodox tradition is not the same tradition. The Jewish tradition is not the same tradition. Yeah. We are all allied together as descendants of a tradition. That used to allow multiple groups that were different from each other to work together in harmony because the fire nation attacked, you know, the, the urban monoculture came along and said, no, there can only be one way of thinking and one way of acting.

And if you look at one of the things that made the ancient Western tradition unique, like you look at the early Americas is it was many highly diverse groups. And I I I, I talk to people today who like just don't know their history and they're like, come on, early America wasn't as diverse as modern America.

And I'm like, no. It was culturally significantly more diverse. If you're contrasting Quaker and cavalier views on just about anything, or Quaker in Puritan or Puritan in Cavalier or Cavalier in backwards all of these cultures were, I mean, no one in America today are, are very few. You're not gonna have like a major cultural region in the US that's like, well, yeah, some humans should be owned by other humans because there are a genetic subways, you know, but that was common back then.

And, and it was like an ex, well, they must be

Simone Collins: referring to. Racial diversity than I guess, right?

Malcolm Collins: No. No. They, they, they have this myth of America as a Christian nation. No. When they don't understand that Christianity was in Quakerism was probably as, as distant. I, I would say that these two things are as distant from each other.

Like if you're viewing Quaker Christianity and Puritan Christianity. Yeah. As set, set, what is it? Roman Mass Catholics and Unitarian universalism. Oh yeah. No,

Simone Collins: super, super different. Well, and then you had the Cavaliers in the south who kind of didn't really care the, like they were just the second sons who were looking to make fortune.

They were so, yeah, there was, there was massive religious diversity. Like you had two religion religious extremists who were super against the Church of England, didn't like what they were doing. And then you had the guys who were like, yeah. I'm fine with the Church of England would've stayed had I inherited the house, you know, but,

Malcolm Collins: but what I'm pointing out here is they're coming to the table saying you can't point out that something like a longhouse exists.

That something like Judeo-Christian value systems exists crazy. That something like the urban monoculture exists and that they are our enemies. That's

Simone Collins: crazy.

Malcolm Collins: And you can't point out that people need to be red pilled or woken up that our mainstream narratives are wrong. Right? Like they, this is what they come to the table whi because they want to undermine us.

These people are not like of the right wing, right wing movement. You can try to come up with a phrase for them. But I, I, I think like in the same way that they, they call the woke, right? I, I, I, people are like, they're not real, right? It's not that they're real, right? I guess Boomer, right? They're boomer, right?

Simone Collins: Or Christian Caliphate.

Malcolm Collins: No they're not. Because there are extremist Christians on the woke, right? There are good guy extremist Christians, right? Yeah. So they're not that they are boomer, right? They are. They want to recreate the right, that created the wokes that the wokes already beat. You had your shot guys.

And yes, I am Ian and I view your weakness with disgust. But yeah. So it's not just them that are enemies. I've also noted, and I don't like syn. Anything bad about Nick Fuentes? Nick Foes is one of the first mainstream figures to talk about us. He talked about us in positive terms.

I don't I think that he's sort of doing a shtick similar to what Andrew Tate is. I, as we note, I sort of think Andrew Tate became the shtick. He reminds me of the guy in Tropic Thunder who forgot if he was playing a character or not anymore.

Speaker 2: For 400 years, that word has kept us down. What the ?

Took a whole lot of time just to get up that hill. Now we up in the big leagues getting out there the bat. Long as we live it. You me, baby.

Speaker 3: That's the theme song for the Jeffersons. You really need help

Speaker 2: and just 'cause the theme song. Don't make it not true.

Malcolm Collins: And now he's just the character every day when he wakes up.

I don't, I think Nick Fuentes is very aware of what he's doing. But I don't, I think that part of me makes me even sadder that he's doing it because he knows that his views hurt our overall chances of winning. And he's more concerned with his status. You know, like trying to make antisemitism institutional to right wing institutions.

Even if you and I were secretly anti-Semitic, we wouldn't push that because it wouldn't, you need to win the ink. We're mental victories first, even if that's your long term goal.

Simone Collins: Well, do you think maybe, maybe he sees it as trying to move the Overton window like he knows. It's not gonna lead to any real progress, but he just is trying to change what people think is the face.

Even, even

Malcolm Collins: if that was the case and he wouldn't tell people not to vote for Trump. But he seems to sincerely, and, and keep in mind, you can look at our videos of the, the bigots turned against Trump, you know, leather Apron Club did the same thing. Don't vote for Trump. David Duke did the same thing.

Richard Spencer did the same thing. We've sort of seen this across this sort of group that went really far in this one direction. So it's not just like Nick Fuentes who was doing this. Yeah. I think all of these guys can be perfectly pleasant human beings. I think a lot of them are intellectual powerhouses.

I really like leather Apron Club as a thinker. But I think that at the end of the day, if you gave somebody a knife once and they stabbed you in the back, you can never give them a knife again. That's the problem, right? Yeah. Like if they, they oppose our collective interest. Because they know Donald Trump winning is better than Kamala winning, like from their own stated value set.

So either they're lying about their value set or they don't actually care about that value set. They just care about using people. I'm just

Simone Collins: trying to think if there's any other thing. Maybe if they think that if there's four more years for unrest to be fermented among the right, then they will be even stronger.

Like there's something, there's an inherent weakening that takes place when your side has won and you become indolent. I'm, I'm just trying to think through what, what else it could possibly be, because it just seems so, otherwise

Malcolm Collins: intentionally self-serving. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I, I, I, fortunately a lot of these people have sort of been pushed out of the mainstream rite or the woke right.

Because the, the, when, when the right has more solidified our alliance with Israel. Mm-hmm. Which was really sort of forced through these recent wars. IE forced to pick a side and before a lot of people on the right didn't really feel like they had to pick a side. Mm-hmm. And they saw, oh, the left is the anti-Israel party.

I am enough anti-Semitic that now I'm conflicted and it might be worse supporting the left. So I think that's what we're getting here. But let's go back to this guy's writings because I think it's really interesting. It, this is back to the original article here it on how they're gonna defeat us in his 2004 book Explaining postmodernism, Stephen R.

Hicks posits three categories of thought about how the world has historically been ordered, premodern, modern and postmodern, where premodern emphasizes faith, hierarchy and duty to God. Modernism emphasizes reason, individualism, and autonomy, and. Postmodernism in turn sees reason as a sham authority, as a mass for power and groups as prior to individuals.

Now what's interesting to this is if you looked at the core actual ideology of the woke, right, it very clearly falls under not pre-modern face hierarchy and duty to God but much closer to reason, individualism and autonomy or what he calls modernism, but it doesn't reject the two other systems.

Mm-hmm. And this is what he's getting wrong, right? He thinks in the old mindset you have to choose one of these. Whereas what we say is we say, I believe in reason, individualism, and autonomy as core political values. But I think that also I need face hierarchy and a duty to God. And I also agree with what the postmodernist says.

Some people can use reason as a sham as they have captured the institutions that define what's true and what's not true.

Authority can be a mask to power. And many groups are using it as that right now. And groups do exist and have the capability of opposing my interests.

Simone Collins: Fair? Yeah.

Speaker: to protect the world from devastation,

Speaker 2: to unite all peoples within our nation to

Speaker: denounce the evils

Speaker 2: of

Speaker: truth and

Speaker 2: love. To extend our reach to the stars above

Malcolm Collins: Traditionalism or hicks equivalent to it anchors truth and holy books and prophets.

It's these people as spiritual beings in a divinely ordered world, traditionalism is ancient. Whereas modernism takes its cues from the enlightenment. Truth is what can be seen and provided reason and evidence, supplant, spiritualism, tribalism, and subjective intuition. And here what I note is I agree reason and evidence do supplant in the new right view in the woke Wrights view, spiritualism, tribalism and subjective intuition. Mm-hmm. But they do not supplant holy books and prophets.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: You can, you can supplant, you can say Holy books and prophets have value, tradition has value.

Where spiritualism, tribalism into Tu subjective intuition, do not. That's like the core thing we rail against on this channel. Postmodernism is a NewCom emerging in post-war Europe. It adopts radical skeptical epistemology viewing claims to capital T. Truth as TEFL puts it as assertions of power efforts by dominant social actors to impose and legitimize their own often oppressive agendas.

Whereas you see. A truth claim, you should unmask it, look behind it to see whom it might benefit. Now here I'm saying why is it bad that we would want to do this? If somebody comes to me and they say, this thing is true, he's basically saying, if somebody more powerful than you, it's more degrees than you, with more institutional power to you, comes to you and says, this is true.

You shouldn't then ask how, who, who is this benefiting? This, this norm that you just created?

Malcolm Collins (2): Yeah. Who,

Malcolm Collins: who is it benefiting to say that men and women are actually exactly the same? Who is it benefiting? Right? Who, who is it benefiting to say that, that there are, I I, this is something that we need to ask whenever we hear something like this so we can understand why somebody might have a motivation to push a particular agenda.

Simone Collins: Yeah, absolutely.

Malcolm Collins: And yet he's saying, you can't do that. That's postmodern. You can't do that. Now, I would note you shouldn't pathologically do it. You shouldn't assume that nothing is true. But if anybody comes to you and says, this is true. Because I have more authority to you rather than because of reason or logic.

That is something you should be questioning. Scientific modernism wants to assess claims, not claimants. Postmodernism reverses the emphasis. Who were the scientists? CES Tofl, what color were they? What gender, what country were they in? What biases do they have? He's saying you can't ask those questions, but you need to.

It matters. If I have a study and it says Crest Toothpaste is the best toothpaste ever, and I know to the guy and I go, was there any chance that this was put out by Crest Scientist working on a Crest Grant? And the person is like, well, that's a pretty racist question to ask. You're like, it's not a racist question to ask.

It matters. Was it the Crest Scientist? And it matters just as much if you're talking about in group thing. If I read a report saying. You know, Catholics are the best. Everybody loves the Catholics and is put out by the Vatican or by like Notre Dame University, Moses. I mean, Notre Dame is super woke now, but you know what I mean, like old school.

I'm, I'm gonna need to have some skepticism around that, but I can't do that when it's an ethnic group. What, what, what, what if a Chinese scientist put out a paper in China saying Chinese people are better than every other asset group that could happen. You don't think that I should take into account that a Chinese scientist did that?

What you, what these people are trying to do is use core arguments in the same way. The left does, like simple arguments, like a Chinese report that comes out from China saying Chinese people are better than everyone else. That, that if I call that out, I'm a racist. They're trying to defang us of individual arguments here, individual pathways of argument until there's nothing left.

But their old system that they used in the fifties and sixties.

Malcolm Collins (2): Mm-hmm. Wow.

Malcolm Collins: Then to continue, you see what, you see what I mean there? This whole woke right thing is more insidious than you think.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yikes.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. But when the enemy proverbially controls the definers of truth was in a culture. You know that and I know that and you tell me that, oh, sorry, this is something I wrote and I just said all that.

Oh, actually I actually think it's a good point, so I'll read it. Yes. But when the enemy proverbially controls the definers of truth within a culture, and you know, when I knew that they do, and you tell me I cannot question them, you are showing your hand. You are the enemy. Which is the truth about these people when they say you can't question dominant narratives, they're showing, they are setting the dominant narratives.

Malcolm Collins (2): Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if many of these people vote against Trump and just say that they they are, they are on our side. But anyway radical skepticism is like the acid that eats through every container. And sure enough, postmodernism skepticism undermined itself. How could it be for anything if all truths claims, including its own, are mass for power?

The answer came in what Plecos and Lindsay identify as a second wave of postmodernism, which handily enough exempted itself from skepticism, identity and oppression now took center stage Society is best understood not as an association of autonomous individuals, but as contradict areas of groups contending for dominance and organized into hierarchies.

The third wave thus came to embrace exactly that sort of dogmatism and authoritarianism, which the first wave of postmodernism had set out to challenge an overthrow. Well, I see that this happened on the left, but that's not why we're throwing things out. We're not throwing them out reflexively in the way that previous groups are.

We are throwing them out as a matter of self-protection. We are examining them. We are saying people have used authority to mask things. People have used truth claims to mask hidden agendas, and therefore it's worth questioning them. And people have used high culture and saying, this is vulgar, and that's vulgar to control our actions.

Absolutely.

Simone Collins: They,

Malcolm Collins: they define questioning these things, like this entire string of questions I've been asking is a vulgar string of questions for a, a, a old right tea party. Right. You know, or whatever the f it is that they did. All right, so then to skip ahead, because it was unmoored from any commitment to objectivity or consistency, we could make both. You could work both sides of every street even better. It's radical skepticism. Here he is talking about the original wokes rejection of norms and revolutionary energy made it seemingly impervious to rational arguments and moral objections.

A perfect rhetorical fortress as George Luca, Enrique Scaffle call it Now, note here he's talking about you can't be radically skeptic. I think we need to be radically skeptic in a world where the dominant cultural force has basically said, it's our enemy, right? Yeah. Yeah. We need to reject cultural norms when the dominant cultural force is our enemy because they set the cultural norms and doing both of those gives us revolutionary energy.

That doesn't mean that we are anti rational argument. It means you need to actually make that rational argument and just say that you are confronting cultural norms.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Objecting to Wokes, hypocrisy, inconsistency, and empirical shoddiness got you mocked, disqualified, and personally attacked. However, philosophically unintelligible woke may have been.

Its rhetorical virality and sheer aggressiveness. Conquered the intelligentsia was astonishing speed. And he's right about this, that that did happen, but it doesn't undermine that we need to be skeptical and reject social norms to win. Stephen Hex 2004 book on postmodernism. So, so now I'm reading from, from the book.

Principles of Civility and Procedural Justice simply serve as masks for hypocrisy and oppression. Born of asymmetrical power relations masks that can be ripped off by crude verbal and physical weapons add hominem arguments in your face shock tactics in equally cynical power displays, disagreements are met not with arguments.

The benefit of the doubt and the expectation that reason can prevail. But with as assertion, animosity, and a willingness to resort to force, having rejected reason, we will not expect ourselves or others to behave reasonably. And again, here you can note that. This is trying to correlate skepticism with stuff like ad hominin in arguments fighting against powerful institutions as is a sort of pathology, right?

A decade later. His description is very accurately characterized in what might be called the alt-right. My own first glimpse of this strange new phenomenon came in 2014, was the Eruption of Gamergate, an episode in which anonymous trolls heaped abuse and threats on a female game developer.

No. The way here that this individual, this individual who claims to be on the right, our ally says

Simone Collins: Anti Gamergate

Malcolm Collins: Gamer Gate, an episode in which anonymous trolls heaped abuse and threats on a female video game

Simone Collins: developer. Oh, okay. He's not one of us. All right. Okay. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: These people are our enemies. They are our, they're not our enemies as much as the traitors are our enemies, because at least.

Presumably they still vote our way. But we need to keep in mind that they are coming for us and they have declared war against us. Right. And I think a lot of the right needs to pick a side, like especially the theocratic factions, because they can find a home on either side. Mm-hmm. They can either join people like this, who want the old social norms back, who want to control with power, or they can join the alliance the, the diverse alliance, which represents what these people call the woke.

Right. Which is okay with subverting cultural norms. And as we've noted in our other stuff, this largely also came as a shift as the cultural power center of the right, moved from the cavalier cultural region of the United States, or the deep south cultural region to the greater Appalachian or backwards cultural region.

Which basically went from an aristocratic cultural tradition to an anti aristocratic cultural tradition.

Malcolm Collins (2): Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Which you see in right wing vulgarity is an anti aristocratic thing to do. It's, it's a way of signaling that you are not attempting to play the mainstream power game. And, and that's why it's seen as authenticating authenticity with, in what he calls the woke.

Right. It's, it's why Bronze Age perfect. Intentionally misspells things. Yeah. It's why zero HP Lovecraft intentionally breaks social conventions when he's talking. While the campaign was not political, it codes as white male, right wing and aggressively subversive. This is what he talked about.

Gamergate. Although better informed friends, warned me to pay attention. I shrugged off Gamergate as random online craziness. In reality, it debuted the joker, like nihilism of the postmodern. Right. And I'll note here, everything he said up until then was right. It did. You know, we've, we've had episodes where we talk about how the modern right came from this moment gamer game.

But gamer game, they were completely justified. Like it was insane. A woman was sleeping with games, journalists and they weren't disclosing this and they were writing about it, and she was cheating on her boyfriend the entire time. The, yeah, she wasn't

Simone Collins: exactly a bastion of the conservative values that I think this man stands for, but he's still choosing to side with her, technically speaking.

Malcolm Collins: Right. And. Right here. He's like, my friends warned me to pay attention to this. I thought it was beneath me very much. He's signaling I am not the type who cares about what goes on in gaming culture. Right. Like he's signaling why he doesn't engage with slow culture. He goes to the upper, he goes to plays in Broadway.

Even though those have been the, the, the vehicles of transmission of the woke mind virus of the urban monoculture.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But what, well,

Simone Collins: okay. I don't think opera is, but it, it's certainly been. A status signaler among those who are part of that community.

Malcolm Collins: But what he gets wrong is he says, in reality it debuted the joker like nihilism at the postmodern.

Right. Nothing could be further from the truth. Nothing about the postmodern Right. Is the nihilistic. You watch your episodes on this, but I'd argue it's the exact opposite. It's extremely vital. It's

Simone Collins: vitalistic. Yeah. In in, in the face of nihilism it says, no, we are proud of who we are. We will fight, we will endure.

We will take the future. Absolutely.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And he's like, but what about your weird pervy anime art? And I'm like, I'm not gonna let you police what I think is cool. Yeah. I think Hinze ish save Trump and hin. Big titty, anime girls look cool and that, you know, Trump is, is a, a, a ba with, with like missiles coming outta his mouth.

You, you, you want to police how vitalistic I can be because you see vitalism and a love of life without concern for your constraints as vulgar because you use vulgarity to police other groups to force them to fit into your cultural norms.

Someone who did notice and appreciate what was happening was Angela Nagel, whose 2017 book Kill All Normies Presciently identified the convergence of the alt-right with the far left. The alt-right she observed is a transgressive and wool breaking as the left once was true, like the left. It gleefully, averts, cultural norms struck, smug, ironic poses and or pros and embraced harassment and bullying.

First of all, no, you really don't get that much bullying on the right except when people have doubled down on positions that explicitly hurt other individuals. The gamer gate stuff happened because the girl who did all of this, when she was called out for it, didn't point out the fact that she was using the fact that she was sleeping with people to screw over other indie game devs in terms of not getting coverage.

She didn't pull back. She could, she. Immediately reached out and tried to attack and ruin the lives of the people who were calling her out. That is every time I have seen the quote unquote woke right, fight back, it is because somebody else attacked first. If you look at the Anna Valence, who was the most recent person canceled, who did all these attacks trying to ruin Kirsha the Fox v YouTuber's career again, like, we don't care about your norms.

We could be a V YouTuber, we can be an anime, Fox v YouTuber, whatever, right? Like, she could be a mainstream figure of the woke ride, but we, we do that and then some psycho comes in and tries to ruin our lives by lying about us with very normal takes. And we say, okay, f you, we can fight back. We're not afraid of fighting back.

They are right. We understand that this isn't just about political battles, but people need to understand the reason why we're not gonna see v tubing eaten by the wokes in the same way gaming was, or as fast as gaming was, or as fast as, you know, even with other fields like tabletop gaming and comics is because they didn't fight back the first time.

Somebody says, well, this is my space. You know, we had the other time where somebody was canceled recently, which was a return of shadows or like, in, in love of shadows or something. The guy who did this big rant of against conservative YouTubers and saying that they're not welcome, conservatives aren't welcome in the horror genre space, right?

It's like, how effing dare you? Because the moment one person gets away with this, then other people do it, and then you really aren't welcome. You're not welcome at conventions. 'cause people go and they, they, they call up the convention staff and everything like that and he's saying, you can't fight back.

Because he's not on our side. He's like a, a person who's been injected into the right trying to get us to make all of the dumbest moves possible. When Milo OUIs a permanent right-wing influencer said, quote, birth control makes women unattractive and crazy in quote, was he just quitting or being truly misogynistic?

What, what the heck do you mean misogynistic birth control can change women's physiology to an extent.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But sometimes for the, for the better. The, the one birth control that I was on the longest controlled acne, so I'm just saying.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. My experience less acne and less mood swings is generally for the better.

But some women, it, it just makes worse. Right. And we need to talk about this. Some girls, they don't understand that birth control can have negative effects, right. Because,

Simone Collins: and it, and it can also especially profoundly affect sex drive. So yeah.

Malcolm Collins: With Pepe The Frog, a lighthearted meme or a racist hate symbol, it was, it was a lighthearted meme that you turned into a racist hate symbol.

It was a lighthearted meme about a racist hate symbol in the same way that Fortune Chan was like, let's see if we can turn the Okay sign. Let's see if we can get ESS to see this as a racist hate symbol. And then Wiles did, and then a few bottom feeding, like actual racists started using it. And Wilkis were like, oh, you see, that's our proof.

It's like, no, really, we're just making fun of you for, for freaking out about everything. Mm-hmm. We're violating your cultural norms because it's funny, it's funny to watch you freak out. Like it is that Spazzy kid in class. Was triple parentheses around Jewish names prankish trolling or a veiled threat.

You just couldn't tell. And really, I missed this one because LOL nothing matters. It's like, no things do matter. It it, it does matter that people tried to use the claim that Pepe was racist to attack people who were playing around with a lighthearted meme. They tried to police language of people like myo to not be allowed to question things like the effects of birth control.

Okay. That people weren't even allowed to say, Hey, why did Jews have disproportionate amounts of power in our society? Did, did, did. That's not a question you're allowed to ask in the old paradigm.

Simone Collins: Has,

Malcolm Collins: has this guy the

Simone Collins: old paradigm of, of boomer rights, you mean?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, the boomer. Right.

Simone Collins: Because the boomer lefts are questioning stuff about Jews all the time.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

Simone Collins: boomer, or sorry, the left. Everyone

Malcolm Collins: is doing that one sees here the same subjectivism that became the hallmark of left postmodernism. Because the objectivity is fiction. There is no single reality. But rather, my reality and our reality contending against your reality. It was no objective basis to choose narratives must struggle to dominate how to win.

In this context of narratives, the postmodern formula holds that language constructs, discourse discourse, constructs power and power constructs reality, manipulating what people say, thus manipulates reality itself. This explains the postmodern left obsession with language from neo pronouns to terms like pregnant person, the idea that words are violence to the idea that words are violence.

I mean, they're not wrong about this. That is a, a good strategy that they were using. And then do dot, dot. And then he tries to parallel this in the woke, right where he says, consider in parallel how the Trump administration controls language already, according to a recent report from Semafore, quote, across the government, the Trump administration has clamped down on language.

Multiple agencies have ordered the removal of gendered pronouns and from email signatures. While White House has said it won't respond to journalists who, with pronouns in their bios quote. So they have, oh, goodness gracious, but know what he's doing here. How he's defining the woke right playbook, you're not allowed to use.

He's saying you're not allowed to criticize pronouns. You're not allowed what, what, what? You're not allowed to, you're not allowed to roll that back. Trump is rolling back something the left, the wokes put into place that was genuinely effective at changing social narratives, genuinely effective at policing.

Who could do what because. Right wing people did business with people whether or not they had pronouns in their bios. Yeah. Left wing people only did business with people, had pronouns in their bios. Do you not see how unfair that is? But he wants them to maintain that asymmetric advantage by tying our arms behind our backs.

I

JD Vance said in 2024 when confronted about false stories that immigrants eat pets. Oh, he is one of these people who had a spasm about that. If I have to create stories, so the American media actually paid attention to the suffering of the American people.

That's what I'm gonna do. And he's freaking out about this. Right? Like, why, why it ma The point matters. The point matters is that it's believable. Like we all know from what's happening with immigrants now, that something like that could have happened. Right. The reason why the left freaked out about that, that specific thing.

Probably, maybe didn't happen is because they, they don't want to accept the wider message, which is that normal Americans are suffering. How? Because of immigration and unchecked immigration into specific areas. How can I say this in a way that the media will actually cover it. If I just say normal Americans are suffering because of immigration, the media's not gonna cover that, are they?

You know, you know, and I know they're not gonna cover that. If I say they're eating dogs and cats, okay, now because they think they can get something on me, they're gonna cover it a bunch, right? And he's saying, uhoh, you can't, you can't use that. You can't use that effective tactic, right? Likewise the postmodern right shares, its left wing counterparts contempt for expertise, not expertise.

Quote unquote expertise is what I'm saying here. Oh. Which it views as a tool for elite domination of discourse, which it is when expertise is defined by you as how many degrees you have and what institutions you work for. Which is why so many of the new right figures who had all these degrees didn't lead with these degrees.

In respect the appointment of conspiracy minded Robert F. Kennedy Jr. To run the Department of Health and Human Services has a distinctly postmodern flavor. RF Kennedy Jr. It's very awesome. I like him as a candidate. Like, I love his bear story that made me a love him.

That was the game changer for, for so many. I'm like, the guy saw roadkill and he is like. Yeah, I'm not try to eat that. Let's let's give that a shot. I'm like this, this guy, this guy asks but yeah, they, they, he's like, oh, RF Kennedy Jr. Except we know, you know, the granola Mons the left, many parts of the right have known for a long time that a lot of these institutions you know, are, are, are not our friends, right?

They, they do not have this shared interest with us. And they, they, some of the stuff that they were saying around what's healthy and what's not healthy, he's this guy here. Oh, all these conspiracy theories about smoking, giving you cancer, don't, don't they know that the researcher, that big tobacco, you have already said, that's a, that's a myth created by the liberal government.

You know, it's like, what? See what I mean? He's just trying to defanging every argument that the actual right has to try to go back to an earlier time. Thoughts before I go further, Simone? 'cause people, they love hearing from you. You're the smart one.

Simone Collins: I am just kind of stunned. I, I should have seen this for what it was, I guess.

And I just, yeah, you list

Malcolm Collins: a bunch of stuff and you're like, oh, it's totally reasonable criticism.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like, oh, I guess it's bad that identity politics is making its way to the, the, to the right and that the right is mean, girl policing itself now in a way that the left did. But what you're saying here is the mean girls are the people who've made this concept in the first place.

Mm-hmm. They're the mean girls. The, the call is coming from inside the house. And I, I, I mean, after hearing what you've read here, pretty compelling, and then of course it makes sense because I, I, every time you talked about the old version of the right, I thought. Gosh, aren't they kind of uncomfortable with what's happening right now?

You know, our whole new like pluralistic libertarian approach to the right would sit wrong with people who wanted to legislate their values upon others. Well, no,

Malcolm Collins: but truly because it's not just libertarian. He wants to go back to either theocratic or just libertarian values. Mm-hmm. He hates that we're up here having discussions about, well, should it really be one person, one vote?

You know? Should we, should we, is is UBI actually bad? You know, monarchy the age of ai. Yeah. What about monarchy? You know, he, he wants to narrow what we can talk about on the right when I think what unifies the right today is really our long-term goal, which is human flourishing.

Simone Collins: Well, and this is why I think you refer to it as the new Right.

And not conservatism, because it isn't about going back to tradition. It's not about the cargo cult of the old ways. It is about. Progress from a very pragmatic standpoint, even if it doesn't look great, even if the optics are off

Malcolm Collins: well, it has a degree of tradition in it. Like it's not well, it's, well, it's not,

Simone Collins: not in the way that the, that capital C conservatives want,

they want their windows and fences. They want chesterton's fence to just stay there and we want to disassemble it and then like make it integrated with ai drone swarms and have automatic sensors in it and, you know, like modernize it and then rebuild it. Like, we wanna make the pieces modernize them and then put it back and they're like, no, don't mess with my fence.

And we're like, but if, if you leave the fence now this new predator is gonna get through. And they're like, no, the fence works. It has always worked and it will always work. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: It's like, it's like they, hey fences may be good, but maybe we just need to stack them on top of each other and then we can attach some electrical wires to it.

Yeah. Like, how dare you. Yeah. There's never been electrical wires on a fence before. Yeah. It's like, well look, we're not anti fence. We just don't think that this fence is gonna keep out the jumping leopards. Anyway. Christian nationalists, libertarians and MAGA populists share no common view of role of government for the common good.

Traditional conservatives call for Christianized postliberal order is thoroughly incompatible with modern conservatives embrace of individualism, freedom and dynamic entrepreneurship and boasts sit crosswired in the postmodern rights. Leering nihilism. This is wrong. They actually do have a lot that they get over.

Look, we are the very much like the, the logic order science type, and I agree with the Christian, like the traditionalist old school Christian types and we're Christians as well. But I'm talking about, you know, you know, you guys know what I'm talking about. Sunday school types. We agree with him on everything where we can actually win an election.

So for example, we may disagree that like gay marriage should be banned, or abortion should be legislated to begin at. A conception, but we're not gonna win elections if we take those views. So it's irrelevant, you know? Right. They may disagree with us on, you know, wanting a super soldier program and, and you know, government, government gene editing Manhattan program, but, you know, that's, that's never gonna win an election anyways.

Right. But, but on restricting access to abortion, yeah. We both agree with that on keeping all this crazy alphabet soup stuff outta schools. Yeah. We agree with that. And we agree on all the areas that actually matter on, on decreasing the size of government. Yeah. We can agree on all of that, of trying to find a way to make the economy work in a post J world.

Oh yeah. We have agree with that on, you know, globalism being a bad idea. Yeah. We agree on that. You know, like we agree on every area where we can actually win. That's, that's why we work together so well.

Simone Collins: Yeah, exactly.

Malcolm Collins: The game plan for the postmodern right then is to not earn a place in the philosophical firmament.

Build a durable coalition or prove itself in government. It cannot make, make a cohesive case, play well as others or run anything. Well, just fundamentally not true. Anyone who knows, like we work with groups like The Heritage Foundation and stuff like that, which is an old school group as well. They've just decided to join the woke w right.

You know, the right, that's this collection of others. Instead of sticking with these guys and trying to police what it means to be right wing. Mm-hmm. Instead it relies on shock, surprise and aggressive disregard for norms to neutralize opponents that embeds itself in institutions to stay in power. No, it uses shock, surprise and aggressive disregard for norms because the norms are being set by a group that is antagonistic to us.

And the shock and surprise is what they feel when we ignore them and we can tie up here. But yeah. I think that this guy is a very different type of threat than the traitors the boomer Right. Is a different type of threat than the traitors.

Malcolm Collins (2): Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And I think we just need to call 'em what they are.

Boomer. Right. Like it's boomers, boomer to through and through boomer right. Is not friends Boomer Right. Is what created woke. They are, they are lesser than friends. If they ever win again, woke will beat them again because Woke has beaten them before.

Malcolm Collins (2): Mm-hmm. We

Malcolm Collins: use different tactics from them and they want to defang us of all of those tactics because they feed the tactics working and they want to go back to a world where they have control.

Yeah. And we don't want that. That's not in our best interest because we actually want to win. That's actually the goal. As JD Vance said, thank God he's hopefully gonna be the next president.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. I'm hoping for it.

Malcolm Collins: And you saw the, this all seems so innocuous to you when it's laid out in something other than this, and then you see it in this context and you go, you b******s, you b*****d.

And I just can't believe these people portraying sarta like this far right. Figure. The dude is. So, and I, and I don't even mean this, like he's, he's

Simone Collins: curmudgeonly and pretty conservative in his views. By conservative, I mean, like, I don't think there's a whole lot of stuff that he says. It's really radical.

Mm-hmm. He's even like her or I don't want to have more kids. It's too much work. He's like,

Malcolm Collins: I. Pro-gay, atheist guy. Like what, what are you talking about?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Doesn't sit right. This accusation. It's certainly not

Malcolm Collins: a, a white nationalist or a Christian nationalist. It's, it's, you try to portray him to be you know, I, not my read, I, I am disappointed that he's never done anything with us or, or interactive with us, but I think we're just too edgy for him to be honest.

Which of course we are. We're too

Simone Collins: small. Too small and or too edgy. Yeah. I don't know. A lot of people don't wanna touch us for whatever reason. They hate our glasses. I can't stand 'em.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, love you to us Simon. Mom.

Simone Collins: I love you too. Gorgeous.

Octavian Collins: Do I need to do, um, me to, um, get all your money and I'm gonna call somebody over and my dad can pick us some work towards for all the money we have. Okay? So we're going to take all of our money and do, what was it? Um, get, hire some workers to help me go my birthday because with all of the birthday I needed, I'm gonna some knowledge.

Octavian Collins (2): And it does, and it's a pretty wa of building. So you're gonna need a lot of money to build what, um, to like. Stop the, to get some workers to hire to build my birthday. Okay. And it's gonna be the biggest birthday ever. Yeah. I think. Um, what do you think about doing a squirt gun fight? That's what we were thinking about doing is getting you, yeah.

I also, mom said like we can put on the food and cotton candy and all this stuff that, oh, and we invited. The most people are possible and you daddy.

In this episode, we delve into Gavin Newsom's recent attempts at political trolling and discuss whether trolling is a necessary part of modern American politics. The conversation touches on Newsom's persona, his political strategies, and his attempts to mimic Donald Trump's trolling techniques. We also compare Newsom's affluent upbringing and political maneuvers with JD Vance's rise from poverty, highlighting how these contrasts shape public perception. The episode critiques Newsom's authenticity and examines his political record, including controversies and his handling of California's issues. Tune in to hear an in-depth analysis of one of America's most polarizing political figures.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I am excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be talking about Gavin Newsom and he figured out trolling. And the last didn't exactly figure it out. You know, he, he's sort of the human personification of the left can't meme. But he has started trolling and the left is loving it.

So it's like in Jurassic

Simone Collins: Park when the Raptor has figured out how to use door handles.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Except not really. Oh,

Simone Collins: God. But he's getting traction. I just think it's, it's too soon. He's, I, I

Malcolm Collins: also, it's a wider theme of this episode. What I want to ask is, 'cause some people have been saying this, they go, you do not appear to be able to have a voice.

Was in modern American politics without trolling that trolling is a necessary part of playing the current political game. And I would argue yes, yes it is. And this isn't necessarily a bad thing as a lot of people say. I mean, we have grown our political platform through trolling. , And I love that the left is [00:01:00] attempting to troll now because it comes off.

So bad,

Sorry, I re remembered that we have a bunch of non-American viewers. , Gavin Newsom right now is the Democrat's top contender to be running against JD Vance in the next presidential election cycle. I.

Malcolm Collins: so this, this ends up coming so bad because people are, are sharing these photos of Gavin Newsom again. Oh, you showed me one. Yeah. And Gavin Newsom. Looks like a bully. Like if you look at these, not like a bully, but like your standard rich bully kid.

Like if physio fmy as anything, he looks like a bully. And if you look at he looks American psycho. Yeah, he looks like an he. He and he acts like it, like even today. So if you could, Gavin Newsom, acts like Patrick Bateman from America Cycle. Like his whole thing feels so constructed. He saw Trump doing well.

By trolling people. And so then he goes and tries to troll people. If you look at his political rear up this, [00:02:00] he's just been like a chameleon. Copying and copying and copying whatever he sees somebody else doing.

Speaker: There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman, some kind of abstraction, but there is no real me only an entity, something illusory.

And though I can hide my cold gaze and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours, and maybe you can even sense, our lifestyles are probably comparable. I simply am not there.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, I think Patrick Bateman is a much better name for him than no Scum, which is Trump's but Trump by the way. Got that. And I'll play a video of, of him admitting this, but he said that some kids called him this in seventh grade and it hurt his feelings.

Speaker 2: I have my kids' friends. Call him my kids' new scum that I get 'cause I was called that in seventh grade,

Malcolm Collins: oh. And so Trump picked upon it. Oh God. Remember having his feelings hurt for something so effing stupid from the seventh grade. Oh, good heavens.[00:03:00]

The progressives like, Trump can sniff out weakness like a hound dog or something. And I'm like, yeah, I guess.

Here's another fun early picture of the two where Gavin Newsom, uh, after high school, got money from the Gettys to buy a vineyard in Napa. And, uh, JD Vance went to join the military because, you know, of course, poor family, I.

Malcolm Collins: But this guy's going up against JD vs. And JD Vance, you look at him for the aga Me and I go, this guy looks like a guy who played Magic, the Gathering. And believe it or not, he was actually a very big fan and still a big fan of Magic, the Gathering.

So that's what he looks like. And I think that we saw this and we pointed this out in the last election cycle was the left because it is now the culture of the urban monoculture, the dominant culture in society and now is attempting to impose those urban monocultural values has become the party of the bully.

And they use this in their speech. I mean the right, because we are not the dominant culture. We intrinsically are weird. That's how weirdness is defined. It's by distance from what is seen as culturally normal.

Simone Collins (2): Absolutely.

Malcolm Collins: [00:04:00] And so you're weird if you're an Orthodox Jew, you're weird. If you're an Evangelical Christian, you're weird.

If you are JD Vance and a fat kid who plays magic the gathering and does. Nerdy socially awkward things. Like in one of the pictures, they have him like standing in a bathroom with like two women, you know, like they're, they're they're nerdy kids goofing off and that you're like, Ooh, how could you do that?

Like, what, what do you have no fun. Like, what were you, were you the Gavin Newsom of your high school? Right? Like, and I wanna point, point out here, so one. When the Progressive did this last time, the the scene from revenge of the Nerds. 'cause that's exactly what they are. They've, they've just, oh my gosh.

And bullies.

Democrats and the Harris campaign now deploying a new adjective to blast the Republican ticket. Some of what he and his running mate are saying, well, it's just plain weird. Get those nerds! I mean, on the other side, they're just weird. Nerds! It's not just a, a, a, a [00:05:00] weird style that he brings. Nerds! Nerds!

Nerds! Nerds! Where are they? I think they're talking about us. No way. Oh no! Ah! Ah! Ah

Malcolm Collins: And I think that everybody, and this is great. I mean, I hope Gavin Newsom wins and does this in the next thing. He's gonna look like a bully.

Simone Collins: He already, you hope he wins the primary? You mean for the Oh yeah.

Malcolm Collins: He's gonna try to use Trump-like tactics against. The sweet and practical JD Vance, who, who doesn't do this in the same way, he only, well, again, when

Simone Collins: you look at pictures of them too, the, the other differentiator is clearly one's coming from money and clearly one's not.

Oh, one is representative of most Americans and one is not, and it's super easy to tell.

Malcolm Collins: This is what really gets me as well, is, is, is Gavin Newsom has gone with this whole, I wasn't a rich kid thing, so I'll get to what he says in regards to that. What, how if you know JD Vance, JD Vance grew up in actual poverty [00:06:00] there's like the scene where his grandma was gonna set their grandpa on fire for coming home late and the somebody had to hide the matches or something.

We,

Simone Collins: Memaw

Malcolm Collins: Memaw, Memaw the hardcore person. You know, he, he grew up in actual. You know, Appalachian region poverty. Yeah. And he was

Simone Collins: raised by his memaw because his mother was dealing with really intense drug addiction. Like, again, this is not the story

Malcolm Collins: of, and then in the meantime, when this guy was fat and being picked on and playing nerdy games.

Gavin Newsom. This is what he has to say about his childhood. Okay. Spoken out about feeling like an outsider at times due to his learning disability. He has dyslexia. Oh, his dys. I have dyslexia. Not an issue. It's not a real learning disability, it's a learning inconvenience. Mm-hmm. And the instability from the divorce.

Mm. But he also benefited from a network of wealthy San Francisco families, so, oh, let's. Let's, let's talk about this, this poor, struggling, divorced family. [00:07:00] By the way, my, my parents got divorced when I was a kid. It's it's non-issue. Yes, Newsom's family had deep ties to the Getty Oil fortune, but it wasn't directly personal wealth for young Gavin.

More like access to elite circles and opportunities through his father's role. William Newso was a close friend and financial advisor to the billionaire Gordon Getty, son of Oil Tycoon j Paul Getty, managing the Getty Family Trust, which was worth billions of dollars. His dad managed a billions of dollar trust just 'cause he was friends with a guy.

Simone Collins (2): Wow.

Malcolm Collins: Gavin attended high school, was one of the Getty's sons. Billy and the families were intertwined. Gordon even helped fund some of nuisances early business ventures later in life, like his. Clump Jack Wine Shop in 1992. However, Newsom pushed back on portrayals of his childhood as privilege, emphasizing that his mother struggled financially post divorce.

Yeah, but what about your father? What? No, no, no, no, no, no. Sorry. What about, what about your father buddy who was running the multi-billion dollar hedge fund? In the eighties, that's a lot more money back [00:08:00] then. Mm. You were ne you never financially struggled. And this sort of stolen valor, when you're contrasting it with somebody like JD Vance.

And you're contrasting it with this guy who looks like a bully and will show that he still acts like a bully. Like he still has this inclination. He bullied Trump before Trump ever did anything to bully him or his side which we'll get into as well. His net worth today is 20 to $25 million which almost entirely comes from businesses at the Getty Family funded for him.

Ah, must be nice. Yeah, must be nice. But no, no, I, I think that this is something that we need to come back to regularly when we're, we're framing this. Oh, and I'll note here that people started calling him because he is, he's added this to his trolling, and we'll go over some of his trolling. This idea that he's Christopher Columbus because he's, he redraws maps so much.

This, this has to do with his, oh, you

Simone Collins: mean like California redistricting kind of map withdrawing Yeah. He, to

Malcolm Collins: gerrymandered California, even though California's already pretty [00:09:00] gerrymandered. By the way, if you look at gerrymandering, Gerry, have you, have you created a federal law against gerrymandering?

The Democrats would fight against it like crazy because Democrat gerrymandering, on average. Helps Democrats and not Republicans. Mm-hmm.

So I decided to check to see if this was still true. And it looks like these days it's about 50 50 in terms of who benefits from gerrymandering. , Maybe leaning Republican, but that's probably because most newspaper publications that report on this are democrat leaning.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, yes, Republicans are attempting to gerrymandering Texas, but it wouldn't even, even out the existing gerrymandering. But he's like threatening gerrymandering in California, more gerrymandering against Texas.

And he's doing this whole Christopher Columbus thing, which is funny because he advocated for the taking down not, not Democrats. He himself advocated for the taking down of Christopher Columbus statues in, in 2020, so, mm-hmm. Okay. Like, just forgetting any, any form of continuity here. You know, he is a face stealer.

Just whatever he sees doing well, he's gonna, he's gonna copy and [00:10:00] imitate.

B. Before I go further in this one I found funny. Here are the two's family photos, , next to each other. One of these guys is considered a white nationalist and the other one isn't. Would you ever guess which one it is? From these family photos, I.

Malcolm Collins: Before I get into some of the failures and controversies associated with him, you grew up with this guy, right? Like,

Simone Collins: yeah. The really funny thing is, I, I was not politically involved as a kid, and yet I have this deep, entrenched understanding of Gavin Newsom on as a like.

Extremely savvy slash slimy, or at least like very tactical political player who was always thinking about himself and how to look the right way. And there were these political cartoons that ran in the San Francisco Chronicle that always depicted him a certain way and drew him this really certain way that was just, he was just always depicted as being so slick.

And it's [00:11:00] crazy to see just. That throughout my lifetime, nothing has changed. I mean, the, the, you've been

Malcolm Collins: haunted by this slick face stealing Patrick Bateman.

Simone Collins: Yes. Yeah. Like the it was, oh, the, the comic was called bad reporter. I'll try to find some images of it I can share with you. And it, the long game is, I respect the long game.

I mean, he's been going for it kind of how, like Pete Buttigieg had the same like sort of career long game approach. Of, you know, first I'm gonna serve in the military and then I'm gonna do this, and then I'm gonna do that. Gavin Newsom has been doing it, but just within the realm of politics for such a long time.

I feel though, like he's, he's making some kind of breakthrough right now, leveraging the fact that Trump won, using this podcast he launched. He's getting traction in a way he's never gotten traction before, outside the realm of just San Francisco and then just California.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, I, I, I [00:12:00] agree that this is working for him in a way.

And I'll note here when I'm talking about him making fun of Trump, before Trump ever did him. You go back to Trump's first run when all the Democrats. He acted like he was a joke. And you have Gavin Newin tweet tweeting things like Donald Trump. This lu, let's get back to the issues. Like just joking proceeds to take time.

Giving his, his, his rating of an actor on a comedy show. So he sort of mocking Trump as a, as a distraction back here. And they were back in 2016 egged on if Donald Trump can't stand up to Billy Bush, how can he ever handle the pressure of the Oval Office? And I and I, and then in a picture of him next to Donald Trump, Jr.

He says. Tough choice. One now leads the world's fourth largest economy. The other sells phones. You know, trying to just from the very beginning, he can't be like, oh, I, I am only just now taking the low road. He took the low road from the beginning, and I'll note here. And we contrast Gavin Newsom with other times when people have decided to make fun of Trump., Trump is [00:13:00] motivated by this stuff. This is what keeps him going, right? You're, you, you are giving him fuel. You are not causing him to misstep.

Donald Trump is here tonight. Just recently, in an episode of Celebrity Apprentice, the men's cooking team, , Did not impress the judges and there was a lot of blame to go around, but you, Mr. Trump, recognized that the real problem was a lack of leadership. And so,

you fired Gary Busey.

Say what you will about it. Not funny. Bigly not funny. Oh, I'll get you a birth certificate, Obama. We'll see who's laughing then. I'm not a loser. It's okay, Trump. They probably already forgot about the jokes. Let's just see what's on the teletype. Donald Trump, humiliated by the leader of the free world tonight at [00:14:00] the White House correspondent's dinner. Yes, Wolf, it was very clear who was the President of the United States and who was the buffoon.

AHHHHHHHHHH! NGYAHHH! Welcome 7 coverage of the utter humiliation of Donald Trump. Say what you will about, uh, Mr. Trump, he certainly would bring some change to the White House. Let's see what we've got up there. We will again.

Malcolm Collins: But this is a guy who's, who's doing all this, like, who's like, oh, I run the fourth largest economy.

California is bleeding people right now. Just tons and tons of people are, are, are leaving the state. I think I was looking at over a million people since he took office have left the state which is [00:15:00] insane. People do not want to be in the area that you're running.

Simone Collins: They're flee.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And he also lit the state on fire, which was pretty crazy that somebody did that.

You remember, I mean,

Simone Collins: aside from the literal fires or just like you're referring to fires. I'm joking. The literal fires.

Malcolm Collins: So. In 2021, he claimed that 35 priority projects from a 2019 executive order treating 90,000 acres of land. The problem is only 11,000 or 13,000 were actually treated, so he lied by 690%.

And he did this through cutting $150 million from Cal Fire's mitigation budget that year, despite them having a surplus. And so you can be like, oh, well he was doing that to save taxpayer money. And it's like, oh no, let's see where he was sending that money. Okay. Instead, yeah, to task force to study reparations for black Californians, including historical research and recommendations for compensation that they spent $12 million on.

Research for [00:16:00] reparations that obviously aren't gonna happen. Just

Simone Collins: research for, oh, oh gosh.

Malcolm Collins: He gave $1.48 million to his wife's nonprofit selling gender equity curriculums to schools. Massive spending on homeless programs with 24 to $37 billion on his homeless programs. But, oh, what did those programs spend the money on?

Local COC boards, which coordinate federal and state homeless funds. EEG $683 million had dedicated racial equity committees to analyze disparities and prioritize services for underrepresented groups like black Californians. Who made up Sacramento, COC for instance, removed. Its committed, its committee and scrubbed terms like racial equity.

I don't understand this, it's federal. Oh, they had to remove all that due. The anti DEI rules no specifics are tied to it, but it's estimated that 24 to 37 billion in state homeless funding have gone to this sort of stuff. Yeah, the total net that left is 1,000,040 2000. [00:17:00] Although some sources show around 800,000 gosh. Yeah, but I can hear pull up. I thought that this was, was interesting because the progressives are sort of freaking out about this and I thought that this meme was good by Paul F. Thomas and he goes, quote, I'm sick of these purity tests.

'cause a lot of progressives, they're like, oh, he is not progressive enough. No candidate is perfect. Newsom may not care about homeless people or trans people, but he's the only one hiring social media posters to ask chat GPT to talk like Trump. This is the kind of social media posting we need right now.

Or don't you care about democracy? Oh boy. But that is like basically what he's doing, right? His social media interns to talk like, and that's the thing about this is with news system, it comes off as so inauthentic because we all know that. When Trump account tweets something, it's not a social media manager.

It is Trump on the, it's,

Simone Collins: it's Trump Kofi Fi. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: You know that Gavin Newsom isn't tweeting any of this. It's some, the social media [00:18:00] intern who's been given direction that, that our analytics show that this works. This is no different than like the Coca-Cola account when it gets on like a streak or something like that.

And then you accidentally, like Coca-Cola, i'd also note he is a, so let's go into some of the, the individuals trolling he's done. Yeah. And why you sort of need to troll in this information economy. So, Newsom's press office tweet, and it in all caps. And I will say funny, apparently Trump has stopped tweeting in all caps as much since Newsom started doing it.

Oh, no. Which is, I, I don't care one way or the other. Quote all caps, by the way. Not even just, sorry, not even JD quote, just dance in quote Vance. Wait. Is, is this his insult to JD Vance?

Simone Collins: Seriously,

Malcolm Collins: JD Just Dance Vance. That sounds like an a, a, an affectionate nickname.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Also, where's the relevance?

Malcolm Collins: [00:19:00] Why don't you ask AI where the relevance is?

Surely he thinks something about that is funny just to, fans can save Trump from the disastrous maps war. He has started. What you guys, as I pointed out, the Democrats do more gerrymandering than Republicans. But okay, not even his eyeliner looks as pretty as California map lines. Ooh, wow. Preston for gender norms there buddy.

I mean, I get it. So he's making fun of JD Vance for, I guess reportedly wearing eyeliner that doesn't that, that make him look heteronormative. What's

Simone Collins: even worse? Is that the nickname's not tied to anything from Vance's personal history, but rather is a satirical play on his initials and the popular video game series.

Just Dance. It has nothing to do with JD Vance's actions or history. And then Trump. Trump has, has the, the going back to seventh grade, the game grade. Yeah. To find a seventh grade bully name. And I, I, no, I love

Malcolm Collins: this. It's like [00:20:00] he, he comes at them with like a whiffle bat, you know, like it's smacking Janie Vance.

And Trump just walks by with like a shive and like stabs the guy and then walks on. Remember that traumatic

Simone Collins: experience in the seventh grade? Well, I got something special for you. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: He's like, remember that? That experience you said still traumatizes you to this day.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Remember used to call, you remember what used to cry about at three in the morning?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. That is. I just, sorry. I just love that, that difference in approach. Yeah. He doesn't get it. He doesn't get it. He is like coming out here like, he goes on, he will fail as he always does. Sad, exclamation. Mark and I, the peacetime governor. Our Amer our nation's favorite will save America once again.

Many are calling me Gavin, Christopher Columbus Newsom because of the maps. Thank you for your attention to this matter. GC N So he, he made up this nickname for himself, then wrote because of the maps exclamation mark, trying to write in a [00:21:00] Trump style. I love the adding sad with an exclamation mark to make it more Trump style.

He's literally just

Simone Collins: like he's appropriating. Not only Christopher Columbus after apparently he advocated for the removal of Christopher Columbus statues, but is appropriating Trump's language. That is so sad.

Malcolm Collins: It is showing Trump invented something that appears to work for me too, so I guess I'll use it.

I mean obviously he's claiming this is all satirical, but nothing about it is actually satirical. It's all stuff. No, when you

Simone Collins: copy something, like maybe if it were only all caps stuff, I'm, I'm trying to think of like a way that he could have done this that wasn't extra cringey in a not good way.

Malcolm Collins: So, a fun part of this by the way, is, this political argument. Okay. Which Bridget what, what's her name? Bridget Fe, where I also got the Patrick Bateman idea from. I, I, she's got a great channel, very similar to ours.

Simone Collins: Oh, who we met at Heretic Con that Bridget who met British Fe. I guess we did. She's the [00:22:00] one who introduced our talk.

Yeah, she was the mc.

Malcolm Collins: She on YouTube channel where she comments on yours. I remember, I remember thinking she was so nice at Heretic Con, but I didn't watch her channel yet, and now she's just like, oh yeah, I'm like a low key influencer, but like not that big. She was huge and she still,

Simone Collins (2): so,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. You know, she's about twice as big as us.

Yeah, she's, no, we should reach right out. She was very delightful woman. I in person, by the way, this is me saying like, I met her. I didn't know she was famous at the time when I met her. Now that I'm putting the two people together, I'm like, oh, that was the same person. She was very nice, very delightful, very warm.

Not one of those like, oh, you meet, you know, so and so. Not even

Simone Collins: remotely pretentious. Just super cool.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. But

Simone Collins: also Malcolm is face blind for, for reference. This is why he can meet someone at a conference and have absolutely no idea. It's an influencer whose content he's been consuming.

Malcolm Collins: So she, I didn't watch your channel yet back then. On Politico she said that this article Deuced [00:23:00] Gavin Newsom and it was really gross. But I'll just do a quote from the article here so you can get a idea of how much, because all of the dims are, they love that he's doing this because they think that the Republicans are freaking out that he's doing this instead of just looking at them as like a.

Like, yeah, this is really sad. But they think that they're scoring wins. Newsom has entered the digital dojo and he's performing the sort of mimetic jiujitsu that's scaring Republican white belts, but. Unused to actual competition. Smith tells Politico for too long, Democrats have been poised up in the parking lot too, afraid of getting it wrong to throw a jab.

This should energize folks to get into the octagon. And, and then they send this to Trump to ask for comment. He sends back a meme. Of course, the, the, the first all meme, not even context that was just the meme of the, the one guy being like something, something, something. Then the mad men, like, I don't even know who you are.

Response. Maybe people have pointed out [00:24:00] that this may have been a, a bad meme to use in this instance because in the original context of the show, he was trying to hide that he did, knew who he was and he was hiding his insecurity. But I really don't think, I, I, I do not think there is. Any mainstream Republican who wouldn't love Gavin Newsom to be our competitor in the next election cycle he would be so easy for JD to beat

Simone Collins: well, especially when you look at his track record with California and where California is now.

He has to still answer for that, plus the fact that his background is so not relatable to the average person that he came from. So much privilege. He's not a man of the people. I mean, yes, George Bush, for example, came from an extremely privileged, you can even argue, aristocratic family. Mm-hmm. But he was folksy and not home and, and fun.

And Gavin Newsom is, is, he tries to be that, but you, you know, it's not genuine. And authenticity is like the top thing. That especially younger voters care about, so,

Malcolm Collins: [00:25:00] yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. No, just to remind

Malcolm Collins: you, I was talking to a political reporter recently and I, the democrats struggle so much with authenticity and I think Gavin Newsom uniquely struggles, and we were talking about who could run instead of JD Vance on the right.

And I threw out there. I was like, well, she said RFK, and I was like, yeah, RFK would be great. The bear story. Wonderful. You. You run into it, you see roadkill bear and you decide you're gonna eat it. And then you realize that you can't get it to your fridge in time. So you leave it in a bike lane to create a story about a bear being struck by a bike in a controversial bike lane that had been put up and that goes by, that's f-ing, hilarious.

I would never not vote for somebody who's that funny. And that down home that they see roadkill in their first thought is.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And, and get away with it for so many years. Like, never reveal it, keep your mouth shut until you know someone's gonna leak it. And then like, okay, that's the main

Malcolm Collins: character energy right there.

So I love that. Or Joe Rogan would be great. I said Joe Rogan would be great. Totally.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But, but then she was like, well what about Rubio? And I was like, Rubio would be [00:26:00] a great Democratic candidate. Yeah. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Well, no, he's that

Malcolm Collins: old

Simone Collins: type of candidate that like Yeah. Tries to be a politician who doesn't, you know, has a clean record.

Isn't a character really. Yeah. Yeah. There's nothing there to play with. You have to be character now. I mean, the thing though is that Gavin Newsom, if he were to lean into his villain, energy, I think could be, you know, more interesting like dark Biden. If that became a concept, like if, if that was tacked onto someone with a little more youth and agency, it would be a lot of fun or dark Brandon and.

If, if Gavin Newsom instead was like, yeah, I am the American psycho, I am the, you know, the, the mercenary sociopath is gonna do what it takes to make our country win. Yeah. People would like that. That could be interesting. And I mean, and he's, that is him, that's also authentic. Well, I don't, not [00:27:00] America win for him, but make me win.

But still, I feel like people could get behind that. Yeah. What he is doing now isn't gonna sell laia authenticity.

Malcolm Collins: I, I mean, he's got hardcore American psycho energy, like,

Simone Collins: yeah. So own it, you know, like, make that your whole look.

Malcolm Collins: Here are some more tweets you can get an idea of, of what it looks like when he tries to do this. And I, it really is quite cringey compared to what Trump does, right? Wow. All caps. This is all, all caps. The maps, the best maps ever made will soon pass in the greatest legislature everywhere in the world, not just America. People are already screaming, mama, mama. And I say, no, I am your daddy.

Three exclamation marks. Thank you. USA silly exclamation marks. No, that's gross.

Simone Collins: No. No, no, no, no, no. What he should do is with his podcast, it should be a video podcast. If it's not, he should have like sponsorship with those, all those face mask companies and [00:28:00] just show his like morning routine. But like all shot, American psycho style, that would be great.

Just like really, I don't know, just over the top. Self owning Trump self owns all the time. Jay, Jan, you know, retweets South Park episode stuff and you know, they know how to laugh.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. When I point out that he isn't afraid of, you know, revealing his own sort of like we, we recorded an episode during, when he goes live on Trump's religious beliefs.

And in that thing where everybody always is like, you know, Trump said. You know, he did. He's never asked God for forgiveness because he doesn't have you know, anything to ask forgiveness for. It's actually a bit more nuanced to that when you see his full take. He said that he thought it was more important that he tried to solve his mistakes himself.

Rather than externalize it is essentially the way he framed it. Yeah. And he said after that he goes, and I know that this [00:29:00] isn't the answer I'm supposed to give. He's like, I, I know that I can get in trouble for saying this and I should just be saying, but that's him being honest

Simone Collins: and isn't that great.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Or recently when he is like talking about getting into heaven, right. You know, he's like, well, if I could save 7,000 people a day, I think I get into heaven because, you know, people out there are saying, I'm not high on that list, and he's out there saying this about himself.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I do just love the concept of making it right.

I mean, asking God for forgiveness is messed up for me twofold. One, it makes you think you can be absolved of your flaws without fixing the problem. But two, who has the gumption to believe that God is personally offended by you messing up God who made you? Yeah, that's like, no, he's not that immature man.

Like he's got bigger things to worry about than the fact that you slept with someone outside of the bonds of marriage or something. Right? So, [00:30:00]

Malcolm Collins: yeah. Yeah.

Simone Collins: I'm, I'm with Trump on that one. I like that better.

Malcolm Collins: Like, I gotta work on this myself. I, I, I, yeah. I gotta make it

Simone Collins: right. If you, if you, if you made the mess, clean up the mess.

You know, don't, don't say I'm sorry. That's so Well, I did,

Malcolm Collins: I did pray after I spilled the milk. Yeah. So, no, but I, I think that, that what we're seeing here, and the reason I mentioned that is Trump is very open about. Things that, that, that, that lead to a degree of vulnerability. Mm-hmm. Just not admitting mistakes.

And in our religion episode, we'll explain why. He will admit mistakes to himself, but he doesn't like to admit them in a public stage. Yeah. Because there is a religious reason for this, for Trump. But yeah the, if, if you, if you wanna get another one from him here, Trump is imitating me. Instead of I, he's imitating Trump.

And then in response to a post about MSNBC's ratings, implying Trump toed down his all cap after nuisance parody, he did this job. Again, all of this is all caps. Tiny Hands is out here copying me, but without the stamina. Sad, and [00:31:00] certainly without the looks. Total beta Expert

Simone Collins (2): York.

Simone Collins: Tiny Hands. So he calls him SCU and Tiny Hands.

Malcolm Collins: No, this was what what's his face said about Trump? Trump.

Simone Collins: No. Trump's hands have been stolen. Everyone's watching his hands like crazy.

Malcolm Collins: Gavin Newsom wrote this about Trump. IE Gavin Newsom typed this to make fun of Trump while making fun of Trump. Gavin Newsom is calling Trump Tiny Hands. Okay. Or targeting Fox News.

He says, fox edits the tapes news must cancel their weekend, stinkers immediately through exclamation marks. Cancel the Fox News stinkers. Now exclamation mark, and he put that in quotes, trying to, I guess, start Fox News, stinkers as like an insult phrase that he wants people to use. Stinkers. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Ex mark. The, he, he later says, no personality, no talent. Very low [00:32:00] energy. Trump of course, responds. I, I love this as well. Proper capitalization, easy to read. Gavin Newcomb is way down in the polls. I will save California three exclamation marks.

Simone Collins (2): Oh, and then

Malcolm Collins: White House spokesman. Abigail Jackson's called it inauthentic, and it's just getting weird, which it kind of is.

It's getting to a point where I'm like a little uncomfortable that he's still doing this.

Simone Collins: Yeah, it was a little weird.

Malcolm Collins: And, and, and I point out the type of person who Newsom is like at his core. Remember when he was imposing all of those COVID restrictions and he still goes to fancy dinners at places like the French Laundry where he and all his rich friends were holding parties which is a fancy restaurant.

So, so. He's allowed to host his parties. He's allowed to do what he wants. You have to obey the rules. Well, you know,

Simone Collins: yeah. He's one of the rich people. I, I just like, yeah. He probably grew up just thinking, well, of course. There's me and then there's [00:33:00] everyone else. I'm not, I'm naturally supposed to rule them,

Malcolm Collins: and then there's the peons that support me.

Yeah. Which is one of the really interesting things about Trump is he connects very well with average Americans without acting like he thinks he's better than them. Yeah. He

Simone Collins: never, and he never was one of them, and he never pretended to be one of them, but he very much is able to get on everyone's level.

I mean, it, it as is kind of evidenced by it. The constant rejection he has received from many of society's elite. So yeah, it was almost an endorsement, if anything, in

Malcolm Collins: terms of how good is this guy at managing things. So, during the Pandemic California's employment development department, under ance administration, distributed $11.4 billion

Simone Collins (2): in

Malcolm Collins: fraudulent unemployment claims, including, including UL income to inmates.

Oh, they were giving unemployment claims to inmates. And note here 19 billion a cylinder investigation. [00:34:00]

Simone Collins (2): That's a lot What legitimate.

Malcolm Collins: Claims ended up with month long delays. The state ended up owing 23 billion in federal debt over this mismanagement. Oh my gosh. In terms of like, the rich guys get whatever they want, the poor bros have to do whatever.

So Newsom signed a 2023 law, which I'm sure you guys have all heard about. Raising fast food minimum wages to $20 an hour, effective April, 2024. We might do an episode on the impact of that. But it included an exception for bakeries producing bread on site. This specifically was a big deal for the Panera Bread franchises owned by donor, Greg Flynn.

Oh, who tributed $163,000 to Newsom's campaign.

Simone Collins: How convenient. Wow.

Malcolm Collins: Do some accepted donations from pg and e. This company in California that keeps blowing stuff up like people's houses and neighborhoods and causing wildfires. Convicted in wildfires like campfire killing [00:35:00] 85, then supported legislation creating a $21 billion wildlife fund that shifted liability to rate payers avoiding billions in fees for the utility company.

Oh gosh.

Simone Collins: That is rough.

Malcolm Collins: And then of course there's the homeless situation in California right now.

Simone Collins: Well, and there's just the fact that it's, it's hostile to businesses. Bed Bath and Beyond is opening over, what, 200 new locations in the United States? Yeah. It's like a home good store. And they're not, conspicuously not opening anything in California because it is so hostile to, and.

Malcolm Collins: To like chastise them. Yeah. And be like, Hey, it's not worse here. And it's been like we can all see the videotapes of people being like pulled outta their car and like, mainstream on LA a or SF or, well, and

Simone Collins: the, the rampant shoplifting, all these other issues for, for businesses in California. '

Malcolm Collins: cause they refuse to elect I'm sorry.

Not elect. They refuse to arrest minorities. You know, they're like, oh, oh, we could get in trouble if we do that. I mean, if they're [00:36:00] stealing it, they must need it. You know, I, I, I am very interested in zero A. His name is trying to do

Simone Collins: Zhan Ani.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. A state run b grocery store in d dc in DI wouldn't know where is it?

Manhattan. You know, such a bad idea, by the way. Well, everyone knows it's

Simone Collins: not gonna work. Grocery stores make such a little margin. They make like

Malcolm Collins: 0.6% margin. Like that's the most you could save is 0.60 cents per dollar. By doing it, what he wants to do. But of course it's gonna be less because either they need to actually do security or they're just gonna bleed money through a shrinkage.

Simone Collins: I don't even wanna think about it. It's, but in

Malcolm Collins: terms of the modern information economy, the reason you need to and, and people like him are needing to troll is news media doesn't matter anymore. When we get news articles, they're just sort of like icing on the cake for us right now. Right. What matters is social media.

Social media is where the truth is determined and where what people believe is determined. And it's where what AI thinks is determined often because news, news, media is [00:37:00] often paywall. So, when you, when you go out there and you say, just like normal facts in the news media is like, oh, this is really great.

Let's, let's talk about this. Nobody, nobody sees it. But when you go out there and you anger people or you appeal to people emotionally, they'll share it. And that's what trolling does, right? Like, they feel like they're getting one over on their enemy. I think that that's who's really sharing these or people making fun of him for doing this because he's being cringe and that gets him in front of more people.

Yeah, that's why you have to do it. You, you have to do it.

Simone Collins: Well. We'll see how the weather vane man does in the coming years. I would be delighted if, if he, if he ran, I would honestly be delighted if he developed the balls to have some authenticity and leaned into his villain aesthetic, because that would be even more fun.

Like I, I would love a formidable. Candidate, and I don't really see, I mean, a [00:38:00] OC perhaps but I, I, I don't see that really happening. You know, I mean, we're moving in a direction of greater socialism, so we're gonna see it regardless.

Malcolm Collins: I, I think a OC is the top candidate right now.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I'm, I'm ready. I, I want, I want something interesting.

At least you'd be

Malcolm Collins: interesting.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: I mean, I, I don't, I don't want to compete against her. I would much rather compete against Newsom than A-O-C-A-O-C is a much stronger candidate.

Simone Collins: Yeah. She has less dirt, like she's just, has had, had less of a career. And track record that shows repeated serious damage done to the areas under, you know, for which she's responsible

Malcolm Collins: are gonna try to run another woman of color for a while.

Who is? 'cause they actually believe that's why they lost.

Simone Collins: Oh, no, no. I hope not. Think they do. I don't think so. Even their

Malcolm Collins: commentary, they're like, oh, America's just not ready for a woman of color yet.

Simone Collins: Aw. No. I remember [00:39:00] them trying to do that with Hillary being like, well, they just didn't vote for her because she was a woman.

But that's I

Malcolm Collins: that historically who they should be running is John Stewart.

Simone Collins: Oh, John Stewart versus Joe Rogan. Let's go. Let's go. Who do you vote for, right? Yeah. JD Vance. Joe Rogan, vice President.

Malcolm Collins: I love that. Can we get that please? Can we please? Yeah. Okay. I mean, I, I, I've always said if I was running for president and I could choose anyone for VP right now mm-hmm.

I'd be choosing mess. Senator Trey Parker.

Simone Collins (2): Oh,

Malcolm Collins: I think they would be to die for.

Simone Collins: They would never want to though. They have, I think they have too much fun laughing at the world and, and they don't wanna be saddled, like they know better than to be saddled with the responsibility of running the United States.

You know, they're like, I'm not that dumb. So I'd

Malcolm Collins: be like, but you can fix things.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, they would also look at the system and how broken it is and be like, yeah, [00:40:00] but really I think they'd be great, but I also think they're too savvy for that. You gotta be a certain, you have to be a certain flavor of dumb to enter politics.

And we say this as people who are very interested in being more politically involved. But that's, you know. Not a testament to our intelligence and self preservation. So yeah, there's that.

Simone Collins (2): Alright. All right.

Simone Collins: I'm gonna get toasty for a BA therapy. Let's what, what doing

Simone Collins (2): here tonight?

Simone Collins: I'm making rice, but I'm also making flatbread, so.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, you could just reha some reang, I guess.

Simone Collins: If I have it I think I have some mango curry. Would you like some of that

Malcolm Collins: mango curry works fine for me. Put in a few peppers. Okay. Are you sure? I

Simone Collins: think I made it spicy. Oh, well

Malcolm Collins: let's, no, if it's spicy, then don't. And I also was going to put in some almonds, but I'll do that after it's cooked.

Simone Collins: Oh, your sliced almonds smart. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I'll make sure that I have some out. I love you. Love you too.

Malcolm Collins: That's Simone. Thank you for not being Gavin Newsom.

Simone Collins: Back at you, but you still have amazing [00:41:00] hair, so thanks for that. Are you saying he

Malcolm Collins: has amazing hair? He does have good hair.

Simone Collins: His hair is, is like a thing in like any parody of him.

It's like a helmet of curated, you know? But you, you have unintentionally good hair. So

Malcolm Collins: you think, you think I'd beat him on authenticity? I don't come off like the old politicians. Yeah,

Simone Collins: you're, you're so authentic. It hurts and I love it.

Malcolm Collins: All right, love you, Simon.

Speaker 4: Shoot the barrel. Shoot the barrels. Yeah. Bye. Got it.

You stupid.

In this eye-opening episode, we discuss the growing movement in the UK where citizens are flying the English and British flags, and the resulting governmental backlash labeling it a 'hate movement'. We dive into various incidents including arrests, school detentions, and public shaming centered around displaying national symbols. We also explore the broader implications on free speech with laws against 'grossly offensive' communications and the looming threat of the UK's Online Safety Bill. We delve into historical context, pointing out the disparity between actions taken against British symbolism versus those of other groups. Join us as we question the current state of British national pride, the potential for revolution, and the chilling parallels with dystopian narratives. Operation Raise The Colours

Simone Collins: [00:00:00] in. Narrative dystopias is if you say anything against the government, you know, God forbid, no, no, no. It's literally just supporting your country.

Your country.

Malcolm Collins: Derates you. Well look at it this way. Okay. Suppose the UK was under occupation by a foreign power right now. Yeah. What would that foreign power, what symbol would it fear the most if it was under occupation? By a foreign power? Oh,

Simone Collins: fair. Yeah. Yeah. Like so, so France, when it was occupied. By the axis.

By

Malcolm Collins: the axis, if you had a French flag, you had flew a French

Simone Collins: flag. Yeah. You okay? You're immediately

Malcolm Collins: going to jail. Being

Simone Collins: detained. Being isolated.

Malcolm Collins: certainly a government wouldn't punish people for flying its own flag. So if the government is punished people for flying the British flag, what conceivable reason could it have to do that?

Oh, that's not who's in charge anymore. It is occupied.

Simone Collins: Oh my gosh. Wow.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: [00:01:00] Hello Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we are gonna be talking about a growing movement in the uk in which people are raising the English and British flags. So the, the, the cross of St. James and the Union Jack all over the uk. Nice. The government is of course freaking out about this, calling this a, a hate movement, but the, that it's the government's flag.

Right, but it's a hate movement. So they're doing, it's such a hate movement that one guy, he was complaining, he made a video and I'll post the video here so you can see that. I'm like, not exaggerating. It is a mild video just being like, why are there all these Palestinian flags all over our town? Yeah.

Its not Palestine flag. They go to his house and they arrest him. What? Wait. Whoa. Hold on.

Speaker: This morning and this is the kinda that's going on. Yeah. So there's a look at this. Yeah. You see it. Then over here at this one we've got this crap going on as well. Yeah. And then we come along to this pole here [00:02:00] and they've then done the same here as well. Look at this

Speaker 5: You're talking about, John, have, did you hear that?

Speaker 4: What all those Palestinian flags in Beth Green Road.

Speaker 5: Tread on them! Tread the all over

Speaker 4: them!

Speaker 6: You gotta fight! For your rights! At home in such despair. Now

Speaker 20: Is free speech under threat in the UK? With the rise of so called non crime hate incidents, arrests over grossly offensive memes, and the government's online safety bill threatening to clamp down on social media posts, can you really speak your mind in 21st century Britain?

Speaker 7: bussy. You gotta fight for your

Malcolm Collins: No, we're gonna be going over things that will shock you here. Okay. So, God, I'm glad I live in America. 25 as a 12-year-old Courtney Wright, so a 12-year-old. Okay. A student at Blyton School in rugby work, [00:03:00] Shire participated in a school culture day event designed to celebrate diverse cultural heritage where pupils were encouraged to wear traditional dress representing their backgrounds.

Okay. They were encouraged to wear traditional dress. Celebrating the backgrounds. Okay. Courtney chose to wear a sparkly union jack dress to symbolize her British heritage. Adorable speech about Britain's history, traditions, and cultural elements, right. However, upon her arrival, teachers removed her from lessons, detained her in isolation, and barred her from delivering the speech, and eventually sent her own, claiming the outfit, just a union jack violated the school's dress code or was inappropriate for the event.

Simone Collins: Just to be clear, she is in the United Kingdom. In the United Kingdom on a, and she probably came from hundreds of

Malcolm Collins: years of British descent. Well, not just that, but on a day where. She was instructed to dress in a way that was culturally rep representative of her. Yeah. How else was she? Was she supposed to like appropriate someone else's culture in this case?

[00:04:00] Apparently, yes. She was basically expected to pretend to be something other than British.

Simone Collins: You can't win. Oh my

Malcolm Collins: gosh. I mean, if you talk about the shaming, so we're gonna go over one more crazy incidents of this. We're gonna go over. , Why this is happening. Like, why people are being punished so much for showing pride in their own cultural heritage.

Yeah. And why there's finally pushback to this. Okay. And then what I really wanna discuss is because Asma Gold went over this and he goes, oh, like they're, they're trying to fast track a revolution here. They're,

Simone Collins: yeah, they're speed running V for vendetta.

Malcolm Collins: I actually think a revolution is much more likely in the United States, even though things aren't as bad in the United States.

Mm.

I'd also wanna point out here for people who might say, well, you know, the UK has been a uniquely bad country in history, and that's why you shouldn't, , have their flag on. That's why the flag is so offensive to so many people. And I'd be like, okay, well then you've just been brainwashed. Like, if, if you have an objective understanding of human history, the UK may be one of the most moral players in all of human history.

So for some examples of this. [00:05:00] The uk literally, , long before most countries had had banned slavery, , banned slavery themselves, and then spent six to 10% of their Navy budget, which was the largest part of their military budget at the time, to just. Police, all of the other countries in the world, , to try to make them in slavery.

So it had ships that would go around Africa and it ended up freeing 150,000 enslaved Africans and stopping 1,600 ships. And if you're like, well. You know, certainly African countries, , you know, do not laud the periods where they were slave. Actually they do the Woman King movie about that African country that everyone went crazy about.

That was one of the countries that they had to keep policing. , In fact, they blockhead the ports of that country to get them to end their slave trade. , And after signing an agreement was written that they would stop the slave trade and the blockade ended. They of course, , within a few years went back to slave trading.

But it's not only that the UK also, , when contrasted with other countries like France, gave up [00:06:00] most of their colonies voluntarily. , And not only that, but if you look at where they had colonies, , many of those countries are like developed nice places to live now. You know, whether you're talking about Canada, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, , India, South Africa, , when, if you contrast that with, , , , French colonies or Spanish colonies, , just way, way, way more ethical.

, So yeah, you, you should actually be proud to be British.

All that said though, that is not to say that recently, .

Britain has not descended into a shameful police state.

Malcolm Collins: And we're also gonna be going over, just like the UK has basically been a police state for a while now. Mm. And here I'm gonna post videos, and if you're from the US you're gonna be like. Wait, the government actually made these ads in the uk.

Speaker 8: It's your town, your street, your home. It's all in our database. New technology means it's easy to pay your TV license and impossible to hide if you don't. It's all in the [00:07:00] database.

Malcolm Collins: These are BBC ads for your TV tax. So in the uk if you're suspected of having a TV screen in your house, they will tax you.

Hmm. And they basically, everyone has to pay this now 'cause everyone has a computer screen. And they try to terrorize people into paying this. So your average person in the UK has to pay a pretty high price for B, B, C, even if they don't watch BBC. So, BBC can create. The super woke brainwashy stuff.

It does like the new DR who's and stuff like that. So it's as

Simone Collins: if we had to pay for NPR. Like it wasn't just part of our normal, like every slush fund that goes to the US government, but like separately we had to pay for it. And you had to pay a really high price for it. Yeah. Oh gosh. Like a forced Netflix subscription, even if you hate Netflix, but they like, that's crazy.

Malcolm Collins: They threaten you. In these ads, it's really dystopian. You see this and you're like, oh, they're actually a dystopia.

Speaker 6: Yes, there's a TV set on number five. It's in the front room and they're watching Colombo. If [00:08:00] you don't have a TV license, it won't take as long to find you. I.

Malcolm Collins: And a lot of people don't know like how strict the UK and its laws are before we go into the other flag stuff. Another crazy law in the UK that a lot of people in the US are unaware of is they are so restrictive in their graphic images laws that you can be arrested for having any graphic images, even if it's consensual, where it looks like one person is being injured.

This is including cartoons. Well, thank

Simone Collins: goodness. I mean, the only reason this works and doesn't like have every woman in the UK arrested is that apparently it's just graphic images and not. Written narratives. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: not written narratives because romance novels would be so screwed. Gray or anything otherwise, half go through Barnes and Nobles and, and burn it.

It would be literally like the, the, the one anime where they, they, they ban all pornography and, and burn all the books and everything. But anyway, yes.

Speaker 9: [00:09:00] A moment.

Malcolm Collins: The next one here. In July, 2025, shortly after the Linin school incident, dozens of pupils at Orton Sandwell Community Academy in Arbery, west Midlands face punishment for wearing union jack badges, stickers, or other accessories during a school event, the students that were .

Singled out and placed in isolation while symbols from other nationalities were allowed so if you were any other flag, it's okay, but if you were the British flag, you are marched out of your of your school room.

In Britain in isolation you could not say no more loudly. You are not allowed to be proud of your heritage. Like, I see why people are pushing back finally. Yeah, this is egregious. And you didn't, you didn't, you didn't know it was this bad, did you?

Simone Collins: No. That's crazy. That's, and to be arrested for just

Malcolm Collins: saying things like this, oh, oh, Simone.

We're not even getting to the multiple arrests for saying, for the simple misgendering and stuff like that when happened. What's so

Simone Collins: funny though, is like the way that this is pictured in. Narrative dystopias is if you say anything against the [00:10:00] government, you know, God forbid, no, no, no. It's literally just supporting your country.

Your country.

Malcolm Collins: Derates you. Well look at it this way. Okay. Suppose the UK was under occupation by a foreign power right now. Yeah. What would that foreign power, what symbol would it fear the most if it was under occupation? By a foreign power? Oh,

Simone Collins: fair. Yeah. Yeah. Like so, so France, when it was occupied. By the axis.

By

Malcolm Collins: the axis, if you had a French flag, you had flew a French

Simone Collins: flag. Yeah. You okay? You're immediately

Malcolm Collins: going to jail. Being

Simone Collins: detained. Being isolated. And this is why, the colonizers flag, the progress flag is flying everywhere. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: It is under occupation in every single word. It's,

Simone Collins: it's, oh my gosh.

Malcolm Collins: It's, oh, okay, keep going. Ooh, yeah. You're seeing this. I'm a popcorn. I'm like, is when you start to think of it as the context of, okay, certainly a government wouldn't punish people for flying its own flag. [00:11:00] So if the government is punished people for flying the British flag, what conceivable reason could it have to do that?

Oh, that's not who's in charge anymore. It is occupied.

Simone Collins: Oh my gosh. Wow. Um,

Malcolm Collins: In 2024, an army veteran residing in Preston, Lancaster was instructed by his housing associate to paint over the St. George's flag design that he had applied to his front door. That, that actually would look pretty cool. The, the white was the red cross on a front door.

You know, under that sounds awesome. I want our front door to be an American flag. Now, can we do that? Actually, I kinda like that idea. I'm, I'm here for it. Okay. We'll talk about it.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: That he had applied to his front door. The association deemed this an unauthorized modification of his property violating tenancy agreements that prohibited alterations without a, a formal approval.

So he was forced to remove it. In August, 2025, unidentified individuals painted large St. George's crosses on multiple roundabouts in [00:12:00] areas around Broms Grove Westchester, and parts of Birmingham. Authorities such as the West Mercy of Police classified these acts as criminal damage under the Criminal Damage Act of 1971.

And they evolved unauthorized alterations of public highways. Investigations were launched to identify those who are responsible with warnings issued that such markings could break the highways act and pose safety risks to motorists by distracting drivers. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. Now, this same county that did this, right?

Well, first of all, let's talk about like the BBC attempting to cover this up. Yeah. So the BBC publishes an article about these titled roundabouts vandalized to look like St. George's Flags. Okay? Then they do another article. Rainbow Zebra Crossings appear in a Resort. So you know that this was also.

Not done with approval because they appear in a report. They

Simone Collins: appear. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Right. But they are celebrating it when it's their flag and it is oh. Somebody's putting random french flags and our not. Yeah. So

Simone Collins: one's like a little fairy put it there, and the other one's like vandalism horrible.

Malcolm Collins: And [00:13:00] remember the guy who got mad that people had put up random Palestinian flags all over his town.

So, this district, I think this was actually the same one that got mad at this guy. They went down and cut down, despite the Palestinian flags, remaining up all of the English flags and saying that they could be a threat to drivers.

Simone Collins: Oh, this is so outrageous. Okay. Okay. No, you see, how do the government workers who are forced to do this feel, I mean, they must be like, this is creepy.

Malcolm Collins: The UK is currently under fascist occupation. Apparently. We talk about the colonizer's flag, the the new pride flag. One of the things we always mention, and I, I just always have to mention this because people miss this, the gay flag.

Meant everyone under the rainbow, right? It was a striated. Like, if you look at the original people, like one meant like poetry, everyone like mysticism, you know, et cetera they didn't stand for genders or sexualities or anything like that. The new parts of the flag that vandalized and cover up a flag that [00:14:00] stood for inclusivity stand for specific groups being more worthy of attention than other groups being more worthy of rights than other groups, specifically trans individuals.

Brown and black Indi Bipoc individuals ACE individuals. And this is what we see within the colonizing group. So they're, they're dividing humans based on sexual orientation, based on their ethnic group and assigning special status like you being able to get other people sent to jail for misgendering you if you are trans.

Do you think that anyone has ever been sent to jail for accidentally misgendering a non-trans person? Absolutely not. This is something that only applies to this community, right? So it is, when we say that they're Nazis, I don't mean like they're acting. Like adjacent to Nazis or something like that.

I mean, they have a, literally set up an institution where human beings worst is divided based on their ethnicity or sexual profile. And then they have big rallies like that one [00:15:00] where they chant about killing the Jews. Right? Like they, they, they regularly, when I was in London last. I saw a, a group, giant group and I had to tell a group of Orthodox Jews, Hey guys, turn around shouting about killing Jews walking through the streets of Central London.

Oh my goodness. Nobody was shutting it down. You know, when we talk about the Christina Gay thing, when we're like, when they're like, this is the head of Harvard, and they're like, well, somebody said, kill the Jews. You know, would that be hate speech? Claine gay. Yeah, gay. And she's like, well, it depends on the context, right?

Like, and the context is it depends on if they are from one of the higher class ethnic groups, probably in her mind. Which is exactly the way the Nazis operated. Like this is just Nazi-ism again. But to continue here, in August, 2025, as part of responses to the operations, raise the colors campaign.

Local residents in cities like Tower Hamlets in East London and Birmingham attach hundreds of St. George's crosses and union Jacks flags to lampposts street signs and public infrastructure Tower Hamlets Council in Birmingham City Council mobilized maintenance teams to remove these flags. [00:16:00] Remember, they hadn't done this for the Palestinian flags, right?

Using. The, the council justified their removals on grounds of routine infrastructure, maintenance and safety concerns. But then why didn't they do this with the Palestinian flags?

Simone Collins: Right?

Malcolm Collins: You know, why didn't they do this with the, the pride flags that they're put up without public approval? Why is it, why is the BBC lauding this using public money that they're forcing people to pay?

God, I just can't imagine the indignity of being forced to pay for a propaganda arm of the government that wanted to shame my culture and my heritage for an occupying presence. You know, like if you had to pay the Nazis every day so that they could go on air and talk about how bad the French were and how aren't you glad that the Nazis are here now running everything?

Speaker 10: There are rather a lot of TV detector vans in this area tonight, new, more powerful vans. If you don't have a license, they'll know just what to look for you. [00:17:00] And when you are caught, you can now be fined up to 400 pounds.

Speaker 11: The new TV detector vans, they're in this area now.

Malcolm Collins: And when you went to class every day, you would go to a school or a college where they talked to you about how bad the French are. And that your ancestors were terrible, but fortunately the Nazis came here to free you. If, if you, but you're seeing this right? It's exactly like they're under occupation.

Simone Collins: It's really creepy. It's really creepy.

Malcolm Collins: Under UK's Road Vehicles Construction and use Regulations 1986 and related motoring laws, drivers risk fines, up to a thousand pounds, and three penalty points on their driver's license for attaching flags like St. George's cross to their vehicles. Oh my gosh.

What can be said to obstruct the driver's view or serially, fastened or poses a risk to safety hazard? [00:18:00] This issue was particularly highlighted during Euro 2024 football tournament where fans were advised to ensure flags did not flap loosely. Cover number plates are impaired visibility.

And people basically were pulled over. It appears that they were overly zealous and just. Suing people who had flags on their cars.

Simone Collins: Can you imagine this happening in the United States? Oh, in

Malcolm Collins: the US people put flags on their cars all the time. It's a

Simone Collins: revolution for real. In the United States at that point

Malcolm Collins: in May, 2025, British jigsaw puzzle artists, Mike Jupp, age 77.

Was asked by game company Gibson's games to remove St. George's flags from one of his puzzle designs, oh, as part of a diversity and inclusion drive jump. Famous for his I Love series depicting humorous and chaotic scenes of British Life. Claimed the request was an act of woke censorship, and it also included removing other elements.

He expressed outrage, arguing it suppressed national pride in his artwork for him. No, absolutely. This is about British life, right? You have an I back puzzle, [00:19:00] man. Emily Thornberry here tweeting to shame. A poor white neighborhood that had put up English flags in their, in their windows. You had news stations complaining that men had put up.

British flags near like Chinese and Turkish restaurants. They were just putting 'em up on all the polls, but they're like, of course you need to skip that area because they're, you know, Chinese and Turkish restaurants. 'cause these

Simone Collins: UK citizens would hate to see their national flag. Yeah, I know a lot of immigrants who are proud of America.

Right. In fact, well, immigrants like choose, they choose. I mean, it, it's more than someone who's born to a country. When you choose to go to a country. You're, I mean, like most of the people who we know who've won their citizenship are way more patriotic than the average person who was just born here.

Malcolm Collins: Well, I mean, the ones who may have gotten in illegally might not be, but I, I actually think that this is a good metric for who you should let into your country. Are they the type of country who is proud of your country's flag hanging near their shop? Or are they the type of country who is disgusted [00:20:00] immigrant?

Are they

Simone Collins: the type of immigrant who is disgusted by.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. If they are the type of immigrant that's disgusted by your country's flag, it means they probably don't like your culture and they're not looking to acculturate. So you shouldn't, you know, there's no reason to bring them there. Right? Like, why, why are they there?

There's other countries. Yeah. If you don't

Simone Collins: like it, don't stay.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, there's other countries they can go to. Yes. And if you're like, yeah, but those other countries are kind of, you know, not awesome places to live, where people who with their attitudes are in the majority, it's like, well then what does that mean?

Yeah. What are you so proud of then? No, no, no, no. It's not. What are you so proud of? It's. Once people of their attitude become the majority of the country, that country becomes not a great place to live. What does it mean about bringing in people with that attitude, right? Like, you probably don't wanna do it.

Right. You know, this is, this is, and I note here, this isn't me making some jab at, you know, just like. Muslims, for example, this is what I always say to like American Catholics who wanna make like a Catholic caliphate in the United States. I go look at Catholic majority countries, [00:21:00] they suck. Like they've got tons of corruption, they way higher rates of poverty, you know, just terrible places to live, lower, lower birth rates often.

Why would you want that? Why would you want that for yourself? Right. And, and I, I, so, so I'm not just taking d digs at like, but I will say, you know, I, I, I, I can, look at this from the perspective, I'm, I'm, there are certain Muslim populations that even when they become the majority within Muslim majority countries, they make their areas much less and nice to live in.

You know, we pointed out in a, in another video on Pakistani's religious court saying that it was Islamophobic to make it so that, to raise the, the minimum age of consent from from nine. Right? Or it might have been 14 at that time. But young no, it might been 12. It was either either nine or 12.

And they and people, you know, obviously in the west they don't talk about this, but this is a mainstream conservative Muslim position, right. Like you saying they're not allowed to have this position. Is you saying that their culture is [00:22:00] inferior to your culture? And you're like, well, of course I believe that.

And it's like, well. They're moving to your country and they hate your ways. Okay. That means that they want to impose their ways, which may include some of their cultural traditions that their religious courts are ruling on. Mm-hmm. Which can lead to you know, incidents like, and this is one of these things where people are like, how, how bad is like what the government is doing in terms of importing people?

Obviously there was a famous case of, people being imported from Gaza, literally. Who jumped British tax paying citizens in the NHS you know, for potentially lifesaving procedures for the British citizens that had been waiting four years. I. And then in terms of the immigration stuff, you know what's going on in the UK right now?

They have rented out on taxpayer dimes over 200 hotels at over 111,000 asylum claims. I've heard about

Simone Collins: these migrant hotels. What's,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. Are they actual

Simone Collins: hotels like kind of in New York for homeless people?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Some [00:23:00] of them are like nice hotels. Yeah. And they've spent billions of dollars on this.

My gosh. 8.3 million per day is what they're spending on doing this.

Simone Collins: Whoa. Oh yeah. I mean.

That as, as UK citizens are struggling to make ends meet is,

Malcolm Collins: but they're taking money from UK and, and UK citizens. Talk about how the, the, you know, these people are getting closing stipends, they're getting food stipends. They're getting, oh, wow. Why would you, as I say, you cannot have. Porous borders and general social services.

Absolutely. You need to pick one on the others. Yeah. Either you have tight borders and low social services, or tons of social services and, and loose borders. They're at the very least own expensive, no,

Simone Collins: no. Tons of social services and extremely tight borders or. Or the

Malcolm Collins: vice versa. Yeah. Yeah. And, and the, the reason is obvious, if you have both at the same time, or at the very very least, you shouldn't extend any social services to first generation immigrants because if you have both at the first time, that means you disproportionately attract immigrants that want to live off of those social services.

Of

Simone Collins: course, obviously.

Malcolm Collins: [00:24:00] And, and eventually you get sort of an osmosis where the immigrants who wanna come to your country and economically contribute don't come. And the ones that wanna mooch off of you do come. Mm-hmm. And then you get a, a, a nightmarish country with tons of knife crime and stuff like that, like you have in the uk.

Yeah. You're setting

Simone Collins: yourself up for failure. It's not good.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So to talk about some of the things that have happened here, ha. Haba Kati, a 41-year-old Ethiopian asylum seeker, staying at one of these hotels that taxpayers were paying for sexually assaulted and a 14-year-old girl.

Simone Collins (2): Oh my God.

Malcolm Collins: And then, through, through attempting to force to kiss her, and then a bunch of immigrant and, and es came out and protested the vehicles that were attempting to take him away. Even, even to just go to court over this, they didn't even want him to have to go to court over this. You know, this is why nobody was, was you can watch our grooming gang video, why nothing was done on the grooming gangs when you know that you're gonna be sworn by protestors because somebody of us, some ethnicities are just supposed to live off of the other ethnicities.

You know, it's, it, it is, it is just, [00:25:00] and right that some ethnicities pay for the existence of other ethnicities. Oh my God. And that they shouldn't face repercussions for crimes, you know, in the same way that if you go to like Antebellum himself, oh, well, you know, a white guy, grapes, a black girl, whatever.

Right? Like, that's normal. You know, he should be allowed to do that, but not the other way around. We, we are seeing a recreation of this within the occupied UK right now. In Newton Wilshire there were claims of a 12-year-old boy being great involving asylum sea goers. A boy? No girl. Oh. Was this the same people?

Oh, no. Different people. Mohad, mdu and Ham. Kabir reform UK Council leader George French, accused the police of a coverup regarding their immigration status. Mm-hmm. Broader claims in the area. 40% of sexual assaults in London last year came from foreign nationals. Not even like second generation immigrants or something.

Oh. Attacked a ton for saying that they had medieval views, but they, they, I mean, if this is what's happening, [00:26:00] they do. Right. I mean. Yeah. But anyway, what's, what's interesting about the 2.28, if you just wanna talk about like the, the pure evil involved in what's going on with these hotels. A lot of the money that's going to these hotels is being directly redirected from foreign aid that's supposed to go to Africa.

Where it would make a much bigger difference. It's like no pepfar, no no helping children. Yeah. They're mad at us for shutting down pepfar and meanwhile they're spending. The 2.2 billion of it specifically was redirected from their foreign aid program.

Simone Collins: Gosh, that's horrible.

Malcolm Collins: So to talk about some other crazy stuff Kate Scott, low 2019.

A mother was arrested at her home in Hartfield, in front of her children and detained for seven hours after allegedly misgendering transgender activists Sophia Hayden on Twitter by calling her a man. Along with comment comments deemed harassing. She was charged with harassment and malicious communications.

Simone Collins: Wow, malicious. It's like a whole new level of Karen. Karen, like when the government [00:27:00] becomes Karen and can arrest you.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it's

Simone Collins: terrifying.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, it's not Karen. It is, it is worse than that. You know, you have a, a group that is deemed a political upper class and they are what we can only describe of as occupiers.

Yeah, they fly a flag that stands for a, a a A vandalization of inclusivity. Yeah. The message

Simone Collins: here really isn't UK is about to have a revolution. 'cause it it isn't, it is. The UK is occupied now. The UK is occupied. This is an occupied country.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. She was convicted in 2020 but it was overturned in 2021.

A Christian Street preacher in LE was arrested under the Sedition four A of the Public Order Act 1984, after misgendering a transgender woman in a public sermon referring to her as a man in a dress and using male pronouns. He was detained for 14 hours and also reported to the Prevent counter-Terrorism Program by the police.

Gosh, this is the resources. Why isn't he allowed to believe what Christians believe? Right? Why [00:28:00] isn't he allowed to say what Christians believe? Because it hurts somebody else's. One of the ruling class feelings. They can, they can preach to him. If a trans person was on the street preaching, they'd be allowed to preach, and somebody's on the street preaching about how you should be allowed to be gay and proud and everything like that.

They'd be allowed to preach. But somebody of trying to preach Christian beliefs, they're not allowed to do that. Catherine Farrow, a Catholic journalist, was investigated by Surrey Police for tweets misgendering the child of transgender activist Suzy t Green. After a debate under potential malicious communication laws a police sought taped interview, but did not arrest her.

A teacher in Oxford Shere, a mass teacher, was accused of misgendering a transgender pupil by referring to use preferred pronouns and saying, well done girls. To a group, including the student police, informed the school it constituted a hate crime under the Equality Act of 2010.

Simone Collins: Wow. People from just like 30 years ago would think we're completely insane that we've lost our minds.

Well,

Malcolm Collins: it makes [00:29:00] sense when you, when you recontextualize, that this is a ruling cast that is acting like a ruling cast. Mm-hmm. And that they have occupied our countries. And that when you go to a school system and it tells you to not be proud of the founding fathers of a country, to not be proud of that country's ancestors.

And this school system is supposedly working for that country's government. The truth is laid bare. A new group is ruling your country.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I'm gonna skip some of the

Simone Collins: egregious examples.

Malcolm Collins: Well, so there's some other well, okay, well we can go into this a bit. The Communications Act of 2003 criminalizes, sending messages via public networks that are gross, quote unquote, grossly offensive.

Simone Collins: What counts as a public network? Like Facebook or X

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Or indecent, obscene or menacing penalty up to six months in prison. There was six months

Simone Collins (2): in prison.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Okay. Really no

Simone Collins (2): freedom of speech. That is

Malcolm Collins: crazy. And they, they, by the way, recently there was the case of them not convicting the PDA files who were [00:30:00] caught with actual CP of real children who were put through horrible things.

But they, they did send a guy to jail for right-wing memes. So, all Chambers 2010 was initially convicted and fined after a tweet jokingly threatening to blow up Robinhood airport due to flight delays. Which is funny because it wasn't even political. It was due to flight delays but it was overturned after outcry and 2012 individuals were prosecuted.

For racially motivated tweets directed at football or Stan Cullimore resulting in convictions for grossly offensive communications. More recently during the 2024 riots, numerous arrests and convictions occurred under this session, including a man sentenced to three years for posting on Facebook to initiate racial hatred or violence and others for sharing inflammatory means or false information about immigrants.

Where, where they choose what's, what's false and what's not. There's been 999 reports of prosecutions under this. Wow. The two for sending false [00:31:00] messages requires and remember, this is the type of thing where you could have gone to jail for for if, if this happened in the us Remember when they pretended like the hunter Biden scam, was this not real like the then?

Yeah. Oh yeah. And they, they reached out to all of these websites and they had them take down all of this stuff. You likely would've been sent to jail if this had been in the us if you had posted about that for posting misinformation or during COVID, you know, if you post something like, I don't think that this is accurate.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I dunno how much masks we're actually, so we, we should

Simone Collins: feel so lucky that like all we got was shadow banned and our accounts closed and stuff. I mean like, at least we didn't go to jail for six months.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Then there's the Online Safety Act of 2023 requires. Tech platforms to remove, quote unquote harmful content, including misinformation or content causing quote unquote psychological harm.

IE anything that people find unpleasant to see? Oh, obviously not all people, not Christians or Jews, or, no. Well,

Simone Collins: their opinions don't matter, do they? Their opinions

Malcolm Collins: don't matter. Which is so funny that it's immediately true when I'm like, oh, do, do Christians and Jews count that? And they're like, no, of course they [00:32:00] don't count psychological harm.

What are you talking about? If something was offensive to them, whatever British people, you know, like burning British flags and stuff, they wouldn't care about that. They, they can find companies up to 10% of global revenue if they, if they do this mandates age verification and weakness of end and decryption.

So it's a relatively new law. But in the 2024, the Rights Act was a invoked to pressure social media to delete posts that quote unquote spread violence or spread of misinformation. I mean, we know what that means. The Public Order Act 1986 prohibits threatening, abusive, or ins insinuating words, behavior causing harassment, alarm distress, also bans, stirring up hatred on grounds of race, religion, or sexual orientation.

Of course this does not apply to Christians or straight people which you will commonly see online is kill straight men. You know, this is a common thing. You, and I'm sure you can find dozens of uk feminists and stuff like that saying, you know, white male tears and stuff like that. This was a common thing.

Of [00:33:00] course, nobody ever has to deal with this because again, we have a, a, a, a sexual racial and ethnic hierarchy that they have set up with, of course, Jews at the bottom and deserving of eradication before the 2013 amendment removing, insulting Section five, A teenager was arrested in 2008 for holding a sign, calling Scientology a cult in a protest.

Simone Collins: This has nothing to do with the, oh my

Malcolm Collins: gosh,

Simone Collins: feelings. You couldn't, you're just doing work for Scientologists on, on behalf of the government in the uk.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And a man from Lutton was convicted under Section five for disorderly behavior involving shouting offensive remarks in public.

Simone Collins: Isn't that like a UK pastime?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Where things come to my overhead has been fined multiple times for sermons. Quoting the Bible on homosexuality. People said that caused distress. Quoting the Bible. Don't the Bible? No, no, no, but I again, why? Why isn't it a bad to. [00:34:00] Why isn't that offensive to Christians that you're doing this, right?

Like that causes psychological harm. And then they got the Malicious Communications Act of 1988. So you see they've been doing this for a while. Criminalizes sending electronic communications to cause distress or anxiety. This makes going to the UK so Scary Woman jailed in 2018 for posting rapidly ricks on Instagram that referenced violence interpreted as causing distress.

Oh gosh. Okay, so, so you see what I mean? The UK is a police state now. What does it take,

Simone Collins: I mean, so you are arguing there's no revolution, there's not gonna be a revolution. Like what, what, what would it take to change this? It's very

Malcolm Collins: hard to have a revolution in a country like the uk. In the US it's fairly easy and I'm gonna explain the difference.

Okay. In the US all we need for a political revolution is for one party to deny the election results of another party and actually do something about it. So far. Trump will say, I don't believe the election results, but he'll still vacate the office. Right? So far no one has just been like, I am [00:35:00] not vacating this, this is not, you guys actually cheated this time.

And I think there's enough you know, stuff out there and motivation from both parties. To be honest here, because Republicans were caught cheating in some of the elections in the last election cycle to actually attempt to cheat and also not acknowledge that they were caught or that when they were caught that it was enough to sway the election is probably what would happen.

So let's go over what this would look like. One side, verifiably does cheat. We all see that they cheat. Everybody knows that they cheated. And again, republicans literally have convictions on the record for doing this. I am saying this to Google ai, so, you know, I'm not talking about anything right wing here, right?

Of course here I'm talking about Sally Jane, the, , 64-year-old postal worker who stole like a dozen ballots or something like that. Again, , no evidence, especially on YouTube that, , Democrats have ever, , in any way, engaged in anything silly with [00:36:00] elections.

Malcolm Collins: You, you're not gonna make this ineligible. I'm talking about Republicans here. Republicans because you can't, again, say whatever you want to say on platforms like this as, as my audience knows. What , so, I think this was in South Carolina or something, one of the districts. So we have.

Proof this happens in a few districts or something like that. And one side says. Well, that wasn't enough to swing the election in our favor and we still won. And then the other side says, no, that was enough to swing this in your favor. We are not leaving the White House. That's enough, I think, to get some of, if not all, of the military on the side of the person who decides to stay in the White House because it's so obviously unfair.

And then the other side would likely resort to, some form of violence. And then you have a civil war, right? That would likely be shut down pretty quickly and decide that stays in power may decide to say, well, we can't hold elections for a while due [00:37:00] to civil unrest or something like that.

And then the elections get delayed. And they get delayed again, and then it's okay, everybody knows what this is at this point, right? That is. I expect there is a very high probability of that happening within our lifetimes. Really well, because we already see both sides and every election cycle saying the election was raped.

That's true. So

Simone Collins: you just think it's gonna escalate from there?

Malcolm Collins: It is escalating every cycle, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. The, the one of the core reasons I think it didn't happen in this election cycle is because the blowout for Trump was so large.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Mm. Okay. So when it gets closer, but they still

Malcolm Collins: try to, if you go on blue Twitter or anything like that, or like

Simone Collins: blue sky,

Malcolm Collins: blue sky, it is now normative that the election was rigged.

This is now the normative opinion on their side. Was in, was in progressive groups. And, and if you say this, people won't jump down your throat. People won't be like, oh, you're acting just like we accused them of acting in the last election. Everyone is like, oh, of course. It the, [00:38:00] the, the thing though is something like Elon did it and I'm like, E okay, Elon did it, but Elon's in a beef with Trump now and is like really quite mean to him.

If he had no on him, I'm pretty sure he would've released it at this point. Because, you know, this ends up hurting his companies. And honestly, the way you know Elon didn't do it is even if you're like, okay, well maybe Elon and Trump are secretly. Like he doesn't still co polluting something on Trump.

Trump would've been fastidious about ensuring Elon got all of the solar credits that he needed and the big, beautiful bill to be happy. Oh, yeah. If Elon had that level of, of dirt Yeah. Dirt on

Simone Collins: him.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. No, Trump isn't an effing idiot. He, he's not going to do that. Right. So just logically, no, Elon didn't have any information of something like that.

Mm-hmm. But this is a normative opinion within leftist communities when I listen to their

Simone Collins: content. Okay. So what would need to happen in the uk? 'cause that's not how elections work there different. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Because in the UK there, there's not as much vagueness in who's won an election. Right? Like the Prime Minister is chosen [00:39:00] by the MPS and the, and the House of Lords.

I think that's say and, and, and that's an easy vote. And you can just go check with everyone who did you vote for? Right. You know? So it's way harder. To get a situation of ambiguity like you have in the United States which means that you know, you're way less likely to have somebody be like, I just disagreed that I lost.

Right. And have the military go along with that. Secondarily, it's very unlikely because the types of people who are chosen to be Prime Minister are chosen because they're chosen by the mps, they're chosen by what is already an elite political class that doesn't really care that much about the average UK citizen.

Mm. Less accountability. Yeah, enforcing the existing aristocratic authority. And, and that's the way they see it in the UK as well. Mm. And so they sort of see themselves at the top of this woke totem pole as the aristocratic authority, even the conservatives. I mean, that's where you got this new party in the uk the Nigel Farage party which, you know, did very well and may, may do well in the future.

We'll see. But it's because a conservative party basically stopped being a conservative party. And so. [00:40:00] You could get a woke fascist revolution in the uk. It'd be very hard to, from a governmental perspective, get a right wing. The one way this could happen in the uk, and if you have their ear, you let me know on this one.

Okay? People, you, you, you, you whisper things. Is the royal family. The royal family could create a viable revolution in the uk. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Technically. Yeah. Yeah. They technically

Malcolm Collins: on paper, have the power, and this is all you need is to come out with the paper and just be like, we do not believe that the Parliament is representative of the people of the UK anymore.

You know, you, you, you, you cite things like these flag instances. You cite things like people being arrested for, for just saying their religious beliefs. Yeah. In a country that is. Sly a a Christian country, you know, it's under the Anglican church. Yeah. I don't know if it's technically still, but the Anglican Church is still under the monarchy is still the head of that.

Yeah. You know, they can say, you know, as, as my duty was in this role and the role is, is in the Church of England, somebody is arrested for reading the Bible. There've been, you know, instances of [00:41:00] arrested for, like, praying to close to somebody's house or, you know, like Yeah. I mean, really

Simone Collins: King Charles is being derelict in his duty.

In

Malcolm Collins: and, and, and, and the public. I think in the large part would go along with you. Just be like, look, I'm not here to, at this point. Yeah. Right wing extremist thing. I wanna do this. Well, I just feel like there's

Simone Collins: been such a long period of just false starts and discontent with leadership in the uk.

Malcolm Collins: Would you, you come out as you go.

I want to do the stuff that everybody wants to do. Shut down the B, B, C, right? Like the B, B, C. Clearly you don't wanna be paying these taxes. This money would better be going to poor people at, at most, right? Like we, or just privatize

Simone Collins: it. Just privatize the B, BC. And then just say like, hard reset. Anyone who's in an office now doesn't get to serve again.

Let's just do elections again. Do over. Clean slate.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Or yeah, clean slate. Maybe change the voting system. And, and or, or just go back to a monarchy. Be like, look, this No, this is what I would say. [00:42:00] Okay. But I was in one of their positions. Yeah. I know. I

Simone Collins: feel like actually a lot of the anti monarchy people might change their mind if they felt like they were getting their money's worth.

Like if the monarchy was actually monarchy.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I, I, I go out and say this, I'm gonna be like, guys, give me 10 years. Okay. Just 10 years. 10 years especially

Simone Collins: if it was if Prince William took place as king.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I, I'm not gonna do anything crazy. Like I'm not, I'm not here to restructure society. I'm not here to, I want a British society that is more efficient, that doesn't waste your money, that doesn't take.

Tax dollars that should be going to our poor, that should be going to the NHS. Mm-hmm. And paying for luxury hotels for migrants. Right. Like, we, we need to be realistic about where we are as a country. Right. We're not being realistic about this anymore and I want to prioritize my citizens. And I think that, that you get a bunch of protests, but at the end of the day, I think enough of Britain would be like, let's just give it a [00:43:00] shot and be like, and, and seriously be like.

I am open at the end of this, I'm gonna host a public sentiment polling. Mm-hmm. Okay. If you guys found that your lives got worse under, under this, you let me know and I will go back to the old system, right, and be like, I am just as uncertain about whether this will work as you guys are. But I think we can all see that the way things are right now isn't working.

And you can appeal and you, and when you do it, you appeal to some left wing sentiment, some right wing sentiments. You know, you, you're like some, you know, like the corporations are blah, blah, lying. You know, they're putting the poisons in your food. The, the environmental regulations are clearly not being held up in these regions.

You know. And, and you could even be like, look, and if certain groups feel that they are threatened when interacting with. Normal Christians as they will, right? Like normal Christians are gonna have a problem with some communities, [00:44:00] just as normal Muslims are gonna have a problem with some communities, right?

We, we need to build and people can be like, oh, no ghettos, right? But we need to, to, to zone parts of the country specifically for those groups. It feel they can't be around other religious organizations when they are acting normally. And I think that they, that like, if you can't. Be around a Christian reading the Bible or you can't be around a, a Muslim reading, you know, from, from their text.

That's a major problem. Right? Yeah. And I think the u the people in the UK would, would go for this. A point, some Indian or Sikh guy is like the, your go-to guy who's actually running the management of the country go, go very colonialist like that. People would be like, well, it is a brown person running things who has a funny religion, so we know it's not a, you know, a Christian authoritarian.

So I, I think that's the direction I'd go, but I don't know if any of the monarchy has a spine anymore. You know, and this is the problem.

Simone Collins: I mean, who knows? I mean, yeah, I think maybe if much younger [00:45:00] Prince Charles might've gone for something like this, but now no. It could be that Prince William has it as in him.

That would be super cool.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I think monarchy going in this direction could be a big thing, but if you try to just like revolt on the streets, they're just gonna call out the military and kill you. It's not gonna happen. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Wow.

Malcolm Collins: And I mean, the military will begin to have breakdowns after a while, but even if the military had a breakdown, suppose you're winning.

Right. Like, suppose the revolution is winning. You're like, actually, we really hate being treated as second class citizens in our own country. Mm-hmm. We really hate the systemic discrimination that you guys have implemented. I don't wanna live under this anymore. And you start a revolution and you start winning against the British military.

Like it wouldn't happen. But suppose you do. What is every other country in Europe going to do? They're gonna send their militaries. Oh. Because they know, I don't know,

Simone Collins: after Brexit, I feel like they're kinda like, we washed our hands. You deserve this. Oh no, not at

Malcolm Collins: all. Not at all. If I'm France or I'm Germany and I am seeing a sane revolution in the [00:46:00] uk and I'm one of those countries governments, I'm quake in my effing boots because if it's successful in the uk next it happens here.

So they'd say we cannot allow a mob to overthrow an elected democracy, is what they're going to say. And they'd call it a right wing fascist, you know, whatever type of group it really is. That's what they would say. And then they'd use that to bring in their own jets and drones and tanks and everything like that.

And the next thing you know, you'd be under a European occupation. Back to the old system. Wow. That's why I always just suggest for my UK friends, get out. They've already won. You're already under occupation. Yeah. Unless you have like

Simone Collins: the ear of Prince William and maybe King Charles get out.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Unless the monarchy reach their duty and saves their country,

Simone Collins: you have forever changed the way. Now that I am looking at today's United Kingdom, this is an occupied country. Just like France occupied France,

Malcolm Collins: you, when you were talking to me about [00:47:00] this this morning, you're like, well, you know, you wouldn't get a revolution there 'cause revolutions don't happen in wealthy countries.

And I was like, actually, statistically speaking, what revolutions more often happen in wealthy countries? I pointed out that if you look at the when the United States Revolution happened, we had an average income that was higher than any of the British colonies, including Britain itself.

If you look at when the Civil War started the South had like, income rates that were some of the highest in the world, right? Like, I mean, but look

Simone Collins: at the UK now. No, they're. Right. I guess unless you're a migrant getting your clothing stipend and your food stipend and you're hotel Yeah. They bo so whatever, you know, there's huge hiring freezes in the uk.

People aren't getting jobs and, and still like the, they're starting wages are like half that if, if that of what you would typically get as a college grad. In the United States. Yeah. If you're Oxbridge educated. Oh my gosh. So yeah. Anyway, maybe you can't argue so. Well, I mean, obviously [00:48:00] yes, relatively speaking, they're an absolute country.

But this is, yeah, this is enlightening. Okay, I'm gonna go, we've guessed tonight, so

Malcolm Collins: I can see why they're doing it. Have a great day, Simon. And love you guys like, and subscribe, all that nonsense. Check us out on Patreon. Oh yeah. Episodes please. And, got episodes have been doing well recently. I don't know if we're like doing worse at them, but I guess we'll see.

Simone Collins: I think the algorithm liked us for a period and now it doesn't like us. So if you could comment, like, subscribe, we'd really appreciate it.

Malcolm Collins: Love you Simone.

Simone Collins: Love you Malcolm. All right. Off I go to get tourists

Malcolm Collins: in. Alright. And I'll go down in a bit. Just let me know when they get here and I'll come down a bit after.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like no rush. And I'll, I'll text you when they get here.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Oh, I learned that pharmaceuticals in the US cannot be named anything like that. That implies a cure where there isn't. So, you know, Rogan, the hair product that's fermented experiencing hair loss, [00:49:00] it's called regain in the rest of the world. But we can't say that in the US 'cause it can't guarantee that you will regain your hair.

So it is called Rogan instead.

Malcolm Collins: That is interesting. I didn't know that.

Simone Collins: Isn't that funny? Yeah. And it's really hard to name pharmaceutical products because the FDA has to approve it. One of the things that's really important also, and this makes a lot of sense to me, I mean, in addition to like no false promises or anything, that the products have to be significantly different in name, because if a pharmacist on the phone hears the wrong drug name and then prescribes you the wrong thing, you could die.

You know, interesting, like, yeah, 500 milligrams of like one thing versus the other could mean the difference between life and death.

Malcolm Collins: Like a vri versus vitriol.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So they have to be really, really careful about how they go about doing that. But now it's becoming just, it is so much harder to name pharmaceuticals, because of course [00:50:00] all the good names have been.

Selected and now they're much harder to pronounce. And so we're getting some really wild names, but who knew? Who knew?

Malcolm Collins: Alright, well, yeah, I'll get started here.

[00:51:00]

In this episode, we delve into the phenomenon of the post-World War II baby boom, examining the various factors that contributed to it. The discussion includes an analysis of child mortality rates, economic conditions, and differences among countries. By comparing nations with significant booms to those without, the hosts argue that national identity, propaganda, and a sense of existential threat greatly influenced fertility rates. They also explore how future-oriented nationalism, rather than nostalgia, can drive modern fertility strategies.

[00:00:00]

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be talking about the post World War II Baby boom. We have done an episode of this in the past, and the thesis that we came to in that episode was that the post World War II baby boom was predominantly about.

It, it, it decreased child mortality. And this is true, a lot of it can be just pinned on the head of, if you think about that period. If you go to the beginning of it, it was something like half of babies died. Then at the end of it, it was something like like 2% of babies died. That's

Simone Collins: pretty big,

Malcolm Collins: a very big jump.

It was like, you know, you're doubling the number of babies out of nowhere. But that can't really explain everything because. It didn't happen the same amount in every country. And if it had just been medical technology, then it would've been based on how developed a particular country was at the time, and that's what would've led to the baby boom.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And you get a little bit of that, but not a lot of [00:01:00] that.

And the baby boom is incredibly important to study because if you look at this graph here, when we're talking about fertility collapse, it really started in the US around 1835, and the only persistent reversal you get of it from that time period is the baby boom. And it is a significant reversal of it.

Malcolm Collins: It, it appears to, when we go through and we're gonna go through now the country that happened in the country, that didn't happen in,

Simone Collins (2): Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: When you go through that list, you can begin to try to build a thesis on what caused this, right?

So, in Italy you had no boom or a very small boom, okay? Okay. In Greece you had no boom. In Portugal you had no boom in Spain, you had no boom. All right. In Poland, you had no boom in Bulgaria. You had no boom throughout most of the Soviet Union. You had no boom [00:02:00] Estonia, no boom Lithuania, no boom.

Brazil and Latin America. No. Boom. Argentina, no. Boom. Uruguay, no. Boom. India, no. Boom.

Simone Collins: So is this a lack of economic thriving in these countries? That's my first intuition. Most people commenting are gonna be like, well that's 'cause they were struggling economically.

Malcolm Collins: So what's the Yeah. But all of Europe was struggling economically post World War ii.

A lot of places were struggling economically post World War ii without having the boom. Okay, so now let's go. Okay, where, where, where do we get a boom? All right?

Simone Collins (2): Mm-hmm. You get a boom

Malcolm Collins: in the United States, all right? You get a boom in Canada, you get a boom in the United Kingdom, okay?

You get a boom in France. You get a, a very large boom in Australia.

Simone Collins (2): Mm-hmm. You actually get

Malcolm Collins: an even larger boom. The largest of the baby booms happened in New Zealand. You get a very big boom in Norway. You get a moderate boom in Sweden, but it began [00:03:00] before the war started.

Simone Collins (2): Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: In Denmark you have a, a weak boom in Finland.

You had a significant boom in Iceland. You had a very significant boom in the Netherlands. You had a weak boom. In Belgium, you had a weak boom. In Switzerland, you had a weak boom. In Austria, you had the strongest in Europe. Whoa, Austria. Okay. In West Germany you had a boom, but in East Germany you didn't have a boom.

And in Ireland you didn't have a boom. You also didn't have booms in oh, interesting. You had a, a, a very short one in Japan, but then it disappeared. So, you had a, a non-Western boom in Morocco to again, keep in mind like economic developments and stuff like this. And you had a boom in Mongolia, you had a boom in Turkey.

Not a big one. [00:04:00] These, these non-Western ones, but you had them?

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Alright. So trying to build a pattern here. Initial part of the pattern, really easy to see. Anyone who's under Soviet communist rule did not have a boom. However oh, I didn't mention this one.

You did get a big boom in China, but Chinese Communist rule, you get a big boom. Okay? Mm-hmm. So first note here, second. If you were part of the Allies you get a very big boo. Okay. So it helps

Simone Collins: if you're a, a winner.

Malcolm Collins: Right. Well, I mean, some people like technically won by not having the war ravaged their countries, but were not part of the allies.

So a good example of this would be Ireland. Ireland didn't have a boom and refused to join the allies.

Speaker 2: Irish b*****d. What? What? What's that? McCarran, that's an Irish name.

Save the blarney for the Killen's patty. What? Archer, what are you? He's the target. What I just remembered from the Doss.

You know what, Patty?

Hang

Speaker 4: on. Let's shut [00:05:00] up.

Speaker 5: God.

Speaker 4: So where did you get access power?

Speaker 5: Ireland

Speaker 4: and Ireland was not an Axis power.

Speaker 5: Are you sure

Speaker 4: they were neutral? Oh,

Speaker 2: oh, that's right.

Malcolm Collins: Oh,

Simone Collins: yeah. Whereas France got pled. It was not pretty,

Malcolm Collins: but. Right. And it's not just the countries that were personally like, like, hit by the effects of the war because the North America and Canada and New Zealand and Australia where you saw booms many times bigger than the European booms they were not actually, like, they didn't.

See all the devastation. So we've talked about if you have a tsunami in an area, you'll have a higher fertility rate after the tsunami than in surrounding areas. Mm-hmm. So like mass to death can cause fertility growth. Maybe it triggered something in these men's heads that they were at war and they saw all this.

Simone Collins (2): Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Maybe, maybe. So we'll get to that. But then you've got other countries that maybe make less sits. Okay.

Simone Collins (2): Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: I also think that things like if I remember [00:06:00] like Morocco, can you check this on AI was weekly, allied was the allies in World War ii. So that could explain their boom. But not all allies have a boom.

India doesn't have a boom. Okay. So, so we've had a look. Okay. What, what does India have in common with the Soviet Union? And yeah, so

Simone Collins: Morocco was under French colonial rule and part of the French protector itself.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, yes. That could explain a weak boom. Then you, you have a weak boom in Switzerland as well, so, so in Europe didn't participate, right.

But. You could say, well what about the Axis powers? You had a big boom in a few of them. You had a very big boom in Austria, which was an Axis power. And you had a very big boom in Western Germany, but not Eastern Germany. So check something for me. Austria was not under communist rule, right?

Also it was Turkey under communist rule. Can you ask an AI this? Because I, I, I don't remember these ones. But like, why is Turkey seeing a boom? [00:07:00] Also ask, was Turkey an access or allied power? I don't remember that one. In World War I, Turkey was Axis because they were under the ottman. We're

Simone Collins: asking about Post World War, world War II though, aren't we?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So, so ask in World War ii, which side was Turkey on?

And did Austria see direct fighting in its territory? Because I don't remember much.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I thought Austria was just sort of taken by.

Germany,

Malcolm Collins: it, it willingly joined if I remember,

Turkey remained officially neutral for most of World War ii. And it had diplomatic and economic relations with both access and Allied partners. But in February, 1945, Turkey declared war on Germany and Japan as a symbolic gesture to secure a seat in the United Nations, but it did not engage in any significant military action.

So. It was, it was looking out for number one. No,

I remember Austria being quite enthusiastic about joining Germany. I said Turkey. Yeah. And I said, and you earlier you said Austria and [00:08:00] Austria did

Simone Collins: not experience significant fighting on its soil during World War ii. After the Anschluss in 1938, Austria was annexed by Nazi Germany and became part of the Third Reich.

Malcolm Collins: Can you ask how enthusiastic, because Hitler was Austrian, right? So, I don't know if I would be that upset being Austrian and joining the, the, like, I wouldn't have seen it as a wound to national Pride.

Simone Collins: Yeah, maybe I've watched the sound of music too many times. So. I am, I'm, I'm too affiliated with just like one family's approach to it.

A notable portion of Austria welcomed the Anulus. Many saw it as fulfillment of a pan. German nationalism, uniting German speaking people. Yeah, so it was mixed. But and enthusiasm appears to have been a little varied. So there, there was some coercion, there was some pragmatism, but there were some people who were stoked about it.

It seems.

Malcolm Collins: And [00:09:00] so if we, if we go through these countries and we're trying to, to fill this out I can, I can draw another, I'm actually gonna see, do, do you note the other big thing that seems to cause fertility booms or that seems to be the differentiator between the countries that had it in the countries that didn't?

It's, I, I'll just give it to you. Yeah. A, a distinct sense of national identity. So, and not just national identity, but with us versus them propaganda. So if, if you look at west Germany, a little bit of xenophobia, are you saying like, even

Simone Collins: that far.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. If you look at West Germany versus East Germany, okay.

Very famously the United States was constantly dropping propaganda flyers into West Germany. But keep in mind, west Germany wasn't like under the United States or something like that. And the way East Germany was under rush the Communist Empire. That's fair. It, it felt like those propaganda posters are saying, isn't it so great to be West German and have this West German [00:10:00] identity and be free as a West German?

If you look at the allied countries like throughout this entire area. All of them were subject to lots and lots of propaganda about how great it was to be a member of their national identity. If you were an American at this time period, you would've constantly be told, not only is being America the best and the American way of life, the best and the greatest and that everybody wants to be America because America's the greatest.

But you're getting this in New Zealand as well, you know, I check out, you're, you're getting New Zealand Best and the greatest. Right. Interesting. Okay. But in. And what, which of the allies, like, which part of the allies wouldn't have gotten this India? Because India is under British rule at this time and, and wanting to escape a British rule at this time.

So Britain is not going to attempt to foster pan Indian nationalism while they are under British rule. So this basically explains it and, and this I think is a huge. It, it also explains why Austria had such a [00:11:00] fertility bomb, because when they were under the Nazis, they saw a pan German identity, which they were a part of.

And after the Nazis, you would've continued to check again. Austria. Was Austria taken by the communists. No Austria. No

Haha. Simone was wrong here. Austria was divided just like Germany was divided. And just like in Germany, further strengthening our point, , the side under communist rule did not have as much of a baby boom as the side under, , capitalist rule.

Malcolm Collins: Austria. Okay. So after the war, you then had o of course, given how close they were to the communists, we would've been showering them with propaganda about how great it is to be Austrian and not be a part of the communists.

Now, many people note that the baby boom. Started before the war, and it did start before the war in large part because of medical technology. We've already talked about this. Mm-hmm. But the big boom that happened after the war, I'm gonna argue, is directly downstream of nationalism.

Simone Collins: [00:12:00] But didn't nationalism peak before and during the war as they're trying to win it, not after when they were like.

Okay, let's get back to normal life.

Malcolm Collins: No, because after the war, we immediately went into the Cold War. I'm here arguing that the early stages of the Cold War, before it became, you know, like long Vietnam, drawn out national pride, the uses rebelling, blah, blah, blah. Everyone was fairly on board with the idea, right?

Like, we're the good guys there, the bad guys, and better than that. For most people, they had just had it validated. In their minds it's like, look, there really are bad guys. We really can go out and oppose them. Like let's work to do that. And what doesn't work is globalism. For fertility rates. Oh, you could see communism in Russia and as it was practiced in Russia versus how it was practiced in China.

Mm-hmm. As proto globalism. Be proud to be a human. Don't, don't be proud to be an Estonian. You know, don't be proud to be you know, [00:13:00] so I think that. In a big way, what's causing our current fertility collapse could be downstream of what caused their fertility collapse during or, or, or, or, I mean, caused the communist fertility to not go up in the way that the other countries did. Interesting. Because they didn't have this degree of national identity to pair be because they were getting just as much propaganda as everyone else. I know, but I'm just

Simone Collins: thinking about communist propaganda and it's all about being so proud to be contributing to your country.

You don't think that that counts? I mean, I, no. Get this sense as an outsider looking in that there was this really strong sense of here's who we are and you will be, you'll pay the price if you don't identify that way, by the way. Well, is be

Malcolm Collins: proud to be a member of our collection of countries, which again, the point that I'm making here is for this sort of nationalist propaganda to work, it needs

Simone Collins: to be a little more granular.

There has to be like, [00:14:00] it's just, you can't, there's no Borg. You can't be the Borg. You have to be like, mm-hmm. A Kardashian, you have to be a clinging on.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You, you have to be one in a Kardashian. Did did you mean Kardashian? Sorry? Kardashian.

Simone Collins: Listen, why did, why, but yes, I mean, K Kardashians also have high fertility and a lot of pride, so.

Malcolm Collins: I guess other way

Simone Collins: works,

Malcolm Collins: but pride in a distinct identity. And so I think you could see this like have lots of kids to serve the collective better, doesn't work and it's what the EU is still trying to push, right? Yeah. Or it started trying to push in terms of how they're handling this and I think it's only gonna make the problem worse for everyone involved.

Simone Collins: Hmm. I disagree with you.

Malcolm Collins: So I think, and this is why I promote with a lot of the ideas at the end of this we talk about the speech that we're putting together. And in a, [00:15:00] one of the things that I talk about and why I want to work to do this is put together some sort of like Japanese prenatal list event so that we can.

Do it as like a joint, like we are doing this for self defense what's the word? Like, national defense reasons, right?

Simone Collins: National security.

Malcolm Collins: And the reason I really wanna do that is to freak out the media because if you host a US Japan National Security Conference you could invite some other countries, New Zealand, Australia.

What you're really doing is, is why are those countries getting together to talk about fertility rates? Well, the, the core national security threat to all of them is China. And China is gonna immediately realize this. But what it's also gonna immediately frame is how strong all of our countries are vis-a-vis China.

For people who don't know, China's fertility rates are like around one now. New Zealand is like 1.5 to 1.8. Aus Australia's at like 1.5. The United States is like 1.6. Japan's at like 1.3, one of the strongest for an economically developed country in the region. Yeah. So China's gonna freak out. [00:16:00] A bunch of media's gonna freak out 'cause they're gonna be like, Hey, why are you doing this country?

And I'm gonna be like, well, you know, we've gotta figure out what we're gonna do with China when there's no Chinese people left. What we're, what we're gonna do is Korea when they're all gone. You know, just things that'll really freak people out and get them angry. And then the media does a, a whole thing on this.

And we can use that to get in front of people. One, a very vitalistic message like us versus them. But then two, frame it in a non racialized context because, you know, this is, we're, we're looking here at the Pacific Theater, right? And then three, I can combine a lot of the profit, the, the, the, the.

Art and promotional material with the event, with his anime.

Simone Collins (2): And have

Malcolm Collins: that be very germane to the setting that we're in. Right? And the, so the media will pick up this over the top. Very anime inspired, very sort of like man's world inspired art style. As the sort of prenatal art style, and people will see that and see the, the vitalism that is inside of it and want to replicate that.

It's a very easy [00:17:00] way, like if, if you want people to, like, I'm not, I don't think I'm gonna get the government to put prenatal posters in every classroom in the United States.

Simone Collins: No. That's not happening.

Malcolm Collins: But what can I do? Oh, actually we should add to the speech. The thing about the baby toys.

Simone Collins: You, you have, you have that in there?

It's in there.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, it is? That if the people had the baby to the, the, I mean, I can put

Simone Collins: in the actual stats, but I'm gonna put that just in the report and we can just talk about it. No, no,

Malcolm Collins: no. I'm talking about when people were given babies by the government. I'm, yeah.

Simone Collins: And I'm saying I can put the actual stats in the PDF report, like the extent to which they.

Affected fertility in the treatment versus control groups.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. 'Cause when people were given those little babies to take care of, they ended up having more kids. And so maybe that's something. Malcolm's

Simone Collins: referring to a baby simulation program that was tried in Australia, in which adolescents were given actual baby dolls.

This was done to dissuade them. From teen pregnancy, but it actually increased incidence of teen [00:18:00] pregnancy and having kids quite young, so well.

Malcolm Collins: But I think all of this is upstream of a very simple framing, right? The way you actually achieve prenatal list outcomes, the way you actually get people to choose to have children is to.

Have a cultural identity, like have believe they are a something

Simone Collins (2): mm-hmm. And

Malcolm Collins: want more of that, something to exist in the future because they think the future is gonna be bright.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I, the way you put it really well is convincing people to have kids isn't about convincing people that kids are great.

It's about convincing people that they themselves are great, which is. The perfect way to put it.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And if you, what a lot of groups attempted you to do this is to say, and we are great because we were great in the past, which super backfires we're always noting like very low Catholic fertility rates.

Mm-hmm. And I think that one of the reasons why Catholic C and Catholic countries have such low fertility [00:19:00] is because their intuition immediately around fertility. Like whenever I talk with a conservative Catholic, at least. Is restrictions. We need to restrict lewd images. We need to restrict gay marriages.

We need to restrict masturbation. We need to restrict like just restriction, restriction, restriction, restrict abortion, restrict this and they're basically chaining like a person's humanity. And expecting that person to flourish, I think. And I think what we're seeing is, is. Attempting to increase fertility rate by adding restrictions does the exact opposite of the intent.

One of the jokes I always make and I went to AI to, to double check that this is true, and it was true up until 2023. Okay. Where, you know, somebody's like, well, you know, we could get fertility but rates up if we basically banned immigration and we banned gay marriage and we banned a portion and we made pornography illegal.

And I was like, great. All of those things were true in Sas Korea up until 2023. And the only one that I think is now not true, [00:20:00] it's abortion. 2021

Simone Collins: I think was when abortion was, oh, 2021. Somewhat legalized in South Korea. That doesn't change the fact that it's still quite difficult to get an abortion in South Korea.

Ffy. I,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. And the point here being is that. The countries with these incredibly strict restrictions have incredibly big problems with fertility rates. Mm-hmm. I mean, the countries with incredibly loose restrictions and even the cultural groups with loose restrictions have much higher fertility rates.

Mm-hmm. Or at least when the restrictions are expected to be self-imposed. So consider something like the Jews. Jews, Orthodox Jews have tons of restrictions. They're just like restrict Romania in terms of all their rules, but. The Israel, Israeli state dec decide being a, you know, a soft theocracy literally enforces none of them.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: That's,

Simone Collins: that's, yeah. The rules have to be endogenous, not exogenous. Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: [00:21:00] And I, I think that this is something that like, people just, actually I should mention that as a, as a contrast with Korea. 'cause I think that that's really good.

Simone Collins: Oh, Israel versus Korea. Yeah, that's a good way of putting it.

Malcolm Collins: But yeah, I, I think that that. That's what we need to get back to. And that's what every family should be promoting with their kids. And at the national level get back to, and I think it's a conservative party. Like we're already in a place where we're really close to being able to do this. Because if you went to the conservatives at the nineties, they wouldn't have been able to do this.

They had no vitalism to the party. Right. Like they were. Romania as well. Back then they were like, let's just go back to the past, create a bunch of restrictions, et cetera. Now the, well,

Simone Collins: the idea also among the conservative party was to impose morality on people because they couldn't be trusted or be seen as capable of imposing it on themselves.

Malcolm Collins: Right. And we've talked about this before, the core reason why the conservative party stopped. Doing that was because they used to be the party of the dominant cultural group.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah. Which was

Malcolm Collins: [00:22:00] sort of the Judeo-Christian Alliance. And so they, they could attempt to impose their morality on the population, but now because they're in the minority and the urban monoculture is a majority within this cult country.

The Urban Monoculture attempts to use the progressives to project moral authority through restrictions on individuals or on threats to companies and a broad alliance including like gamer bros and Tech Bros. And, and the conservative Christians are all like, no, stop restricting, you know, my, my ability to have a culture that's different from your culture.

But what that means is that a big part of the cultural framing has become ultra vitalistic.

Simone Collins (2): Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And you see this in a lot of the art. If you look at our episode on like the aesthetics of the new right. You see this with, you know, mixing in. You know, anime themes.

One, one of the things I think is incredibly vitalistic that we see in conservative art that you don't see in as much progressive art is the competent and lauded use of ai.

Is boast in terms of video creation to create like [00:23:00] shorts and in terms of art or like. Thumbnails or like, whereas in progressives, you get your head bitten off for using that much AI art. Mm-hmm. I mean, like art videos just use constant AI art in terms of like the videos, we do AI songs and a lot of videos.

We, you know, very, very lean into ai. And this is because we don't allow, like they, they, they using their position of cultural dominance want to restrict what we are allowed to think looks good. Mm-hmm. What we are allowed to, and you, you actually know this of the anti AI community because there's that famous study done that when people didn't know.

That art was AI art. Even if they said they didn't like AI art, they preferred AI art. So it means that the, the stated preference of, I don't like AI art is downstream of knowing that it's created with ai, meaning that these people actually do have a preference for this art. They're just forcing themselves to engage with it through disgust.

And, and as such, there is a, a level of beauty that is like vulgar to them that we can celebrate, right? What you're looking for and I think that this, this is how you really capture vitalism [00:24:00] the most, is you look for things that are considered vulgar within the elite society of our age, but not for actual vulgarity.

IE not because they actually, like damage an individual. But because there is some other interest at play, like status signaling or something like that, that, a great example here is anime. I mean, this is why you see anime and anime related stuff so much in sort of new right art and memes and everything like that is because there's this hard lean into, so that's why you see a lot of memes in, in mainstream new right art, you know, very, very low culture considered vulgar by mainstream society.

The government literally created a department named after ame. Doge, right? Like,

Simone Collins: but was the post World War II nationalism driven element of the baby boom also driven by generally vulgar cultural amenities? Because I, yes, I didn't, yes. Okay. How [00:25:00] so?

Malcolm Collins: So. It was driven by the, the nationalism of the 1950s and post 1950s when you have this boom period, right?

Simone Collins (2): Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Was absolutely driven by, was what was at the time considered low culture and disgusting. IE what dominated pop media at the time? Comic culture penny Mag culture. Hmm. The early science fiction. Retro futurism culture. I mean, today we call it retro futurism. All of this stuff to your,

you know, opera goers at the time to your people.

Oh, oh yeah. That's fair. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Sci-fi books and comic books. Yeah. We're seen. So highbrow is

Malcolm Collins: very low culture, right? Yeah. And people were taught to. You know, admire their ancestors through what the Western, right? Like the western, which was popular during these time periods. Who said, you know, America great.

Awesome. We, we, we, we certainly didn't do anything wrong. I mean, there were Indians here. We had to us first them cowboy first Indian. You as a kid, you'd run around and play this game, you [00:26:00] know? But you, you, you, you can't do that anymore.

Like you couldn't, you know, take pride in the Cowboys today. Like what everybody would, would freak out. Right?

Speaker 10: Sean, why is there a giant hole in my front yard? .

Speaker 11: The hole is my grave. ? Gus made me jig my own grave, then shot me and stole my boots.

Speaker 10: Oh, so you uh, you were playing cowboys and Indians, huh?

Speaker 11: Just cowboys playing Indians is offensive.

And

Speaker 12: then the buzzards Adrian trails. That's awful.

Speaker 11: Yeah, it's a tragic end to our adventure, but it's surrealism that makes it fun.

Malcolm Collins: But you couldn't, I guess the

Simone Collins: last big Cowboy film week. No, we've had a actually there's, there's been a decent number of films, romanticizing, Cowboys,

Malcolm Collins: which ones just didn't,

Simone Collins: not, not, versus Indians though.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Not versus Indians there, but the, the point here being is that in the 1950s, the culture that was lauded, think back to, to the 1950s cultural [00:27:00] boom. And what do you think of if you are imagining like what people are doing or where they're gathering? Right? It's at a diner, a very low culture restaurant.

Hmm. Or. At a soda shop.

Simone Collins: Oh, which

Malcolm Collins: is very soda fountain

Simone Collins: or soda parlor. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: yeah, yeah, yeah. You're not imagining, you know, big glamorous restaurants or anything like that, right?

Simone Collins (2): Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Which is, if I go back and I try to imagine, you know, other periods like say the 1920s, I am imagining that I am imagining, yeah.

Well, on

Simone Collins: today, what is considered aspirational are these. Jet set lifestyles such that people are literally buying, renting time on a private jet set just to fake it to people that they're on a private jet. Yeah.

That they're, that what is now aspirational is unsustainable. Whereas during these times of nationalism, you're right, low culture is framed as more celebrated.

Hmm, I know

Malcolm Collins: what she's talking about here. What she means. 'cause this is actually crazy to me that this is a thing, is you can [00:28:00] rent private jets. You don't take off, you don't fly anywhere in them. They're set up so that you can take lots of self feeds in them. It's, I don't,

Simone Collins: I don't even know if it's a real private jet.

There's this one in LA that you can spot as soon as you see what it looks like on like the rental site. And then as soon as you see it, you can tell which social media people are renting like an hour on it.

Malcolm Collins: That's wild.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But yeah, so it's, well people, I don't know if

Simone Collins: other, other evidence of this, just in case you find this amusing people literally buy things like Hermes bags on eBay so they can look like they've purchased a bunch of things from.

Designer shops. And there's also this really huge issue of people. What do you mean? Do

Malcolm Collins: they then like, go to the designer store and take pictures, like walking out with it?

Simone Collins: No. They typically just show the pictures in their apartment, but it makes it seem like they went shopping and they're like, oh, this is, you know.

Just so busy. And then people also buy and return clothes. So much so that retail stores are suffering and they're needing to change their policies [00:29:00] because so many people are just buying and immediately returning outfits to make it seem like they. Having these huge clothing halls that they ultimately can't afford.

Malcolm Collins: And in the 1950s you didn't have this. No.

Simone Collins: 1950s what

Malcolm Collins: was No. People valued

Simone Collins: aspirational thrift and it, yeah. What was aspirational was more that you had the perfect wife and the perfect family. And the perfect kids, and that you entertained well.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, you had your barbecue. Mm-hmm. You have the neighborhood, you could make a

Simone Collins: good burger, you could make a good jello dessert that you had your car in the garage, but it wasn't that you went on fabulous vacations or bought a ton of stuff.

I mean, it, there were, consumerism was big, but it was consumerism on a slightly more sustainable level. And it was like, do you have the top of the line? Kitchen. No, it

Malcolm Collins: wasn't that there wasn't a wealthy elite culture of the time period. Hmm. It was, it was that there was outside of that, a mainstream cultural perception of an ideal to strive for that was not that culture.

Yeah. And, and if [00:30:00] anything, the highest form of culture you could ascribe to was the. Not elite culture version. And if you look at, I mean, we try to do this within the way we, we, we promote things like I, people notice, I wear Amazon Essentials in every episode. Simone, you got her dress on Etsy, you know, like we're, we're not.

Coming at this, like trying to show, oh, there's this glamorous life. We, we talk about being mor all the time. Like we never leave our house. We don't bother in entertaining people. We don't do, you know, birthdays for our kids. We don't do, you know, big Christmases or anything. And, and we, we brag. About this because it sets a norm, which is the norm that you need, which is a patriotism in whatever you are, and how that's different from other people, which obviously we have a lot of pride in.

And in sort of wholesomeness, I think as, as well, like the, the. The culture that was sold was wholesome. But then as I also mentioned, very important there was, it was a forwards looking [00:31:00] culture. It was not a culture trying to recapture a past. So what's really ironic is the people who, you know, do the cargo coat of the 1950s and, and do the trad wife dress up and everything like that, but they're missing the spirit of it, right?

The spirit of the 1950s, which was retro, futuristic. Which was, yeah. Which,

Simone Collins: which is progress, which is look at how great it's gonna be in just a few years.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Like, we split the atom, we're in the atomic age now. It was so, you know, retro, futuristic that everything was called like atomic at the era.

Like, like the, the, the entire art style that you associate was like 1950s ads. It's called the atomic art style.

Simone Collins (2): Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Like. That might actually be really cool to make that like slaying in our family, like atomic. But to mean like, cool. But yeah, like every, everything was about the atom. You know.

And when you'd go buy toys they'd, they'd be like, what do we, what do we call our wagon? Well, what's like cutting edge? Radios and flying. Okay. The radio flyer that was sort of a bit earlier era, but it was still an era that looked [00:32:00] ahead and now. So much of conservative culture are parts of it really?

I'd say the, the, probably the, the, the backseat part of it. Like the part of it that's sort of, I think right now filtering out of the party after sort of the maga coup. Mm-hmm. Wants to pearl clutch and go back to an earlier way rather than embrace vitalism and look to the future. And it's well.

It's not working. It's, it's not working for them. And in fact, most of the, the influencers as I know of this persuasion, don't have a family and kids. I mean, I think it's because it's just not fun to tie your life to somebody like that, right? Like that, that could be a big part of it. Like, why, why, why, why does nobody, you know, want to marry Nick Fuentes, right?

Like, if, if you have this, let's go back to this earlier era and then maintain it in, in stagnation forever who wants to. Who wants to sign on for that. Right. But if you're like, look at this bright future, look at the future. That's ha look, the, the talking, the future of talking machines that we have now, right?

Like this is amazing, right? Yeah. And, and yet so much of society, [00:33:00] interestingly, not as much the conservatives, much more the progressives. Have a shoot it. They're like, Ew, I hate ai. It's so gross. It's so icky. It's so terrible. I only can see how it's, it's bad. And then you have the, the much more common on the conservative side, which I think surprised a lot of people that the conservatives became the party pushing for, like regulation against regulating ai.

And the progressives were pushing for the regulation of ai. But it's because they, they, they maintain. Norms through this pearl clutching. And so everybody who wanted to pearl clutch, aboutis naturally found allies among the progressives.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It didn't occur to me until you mentioned it, just how pessimistic about the future the progressive party is, and also the urban monoculture in general, that that enthusiasm and excitement for the future is totally gone, and it does seem to be playing a major role in.

The depression and lack of vitalism in younger generations. They're like, why should I bother? I'll never [00:34:00] have the same level of wealth as my parents. I'll never have this or that. It's really frustrating.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And I think that, that, you know, I, my kids talk like that. I'll be like, bro, you're growing up with talking machines.

Like, do you understand how cool what you can do is you can go to one of these ais and just type in a question and it will give you an answer. And that you can chat and have interactive worlds with them like we're building with our fab AI to make better that you can like just the future to me looks so infinite, tely bright compared to previous generations.

Simone Collins (2): Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: If, if we do this right, but that was also true in the 1950s. I mean, this was the era where. It was very much a, the future might be bright if you put everything in to make it awesome, but also, hey, stick your head in a locker in case the atomic bomb explodes and kills everyone. You know,

Simone Collins: well, yeah, it was yeah, I guess so what you're saying is the right mood for a baby boom is one [00:35:00] in which you are very proud of your group and you think the future is bright, but there is an existential threat.

And victory is not guaranteed.

Malcolm Collins: Yes.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I think, yeah, I think feeling like you've already won or that you're with this, well, what Israel

Malcolm Collins: has right now. All of those things you just mentioned, Israel. That's a

Simone Collins: really good point. Yeah. Okay, so that's.

Malcolm Collins: I actually think that this is part of why Muslims have struggled so much with their fertility rate is they force other Muslims into a panus ity over pride in their own group.

Whereas Jews have much more pride in their own sect of Judaism often than they have over their pan Jewish identity.

Simone Collins: Yeah. This is something else I hadn't really thought about 'cause I was just assuming, for example, that Soviet Russia or the USSR more specifically. Would just have this, that there would be no difference between pride in the USSR versus pride in like [00:36:00] your specific Orthodox Jewish sect.

Yeah. But what you're saying is you really do need much more localized communities to feel excited about their own identity and, and they can be loosely allied. So it doesn't have to be that you are, as an autonomous country, a small thing that's proud of your small group. You can be part of a big country.

You do need to also be part of a small group and really proud of it, meaning that the diversity or variety of the United States is helpful and important in so far as we're allowed to celebrate it and let it be distinct, right? And we'd probably be worse off without it, because something that happens a lot in the comments as people are like, no, diversity's terrible, and it just doesn't seem intuitively right to me.

Malcolm Collins: Help you see your own group as more different, right. There's a ton of diversity within Israel, for example. Right? Yeah. Huge Muslim population, huge Christian population. Whereas

Simone Collins: Curtis Ervin suggested we, we use instead of diversity's [00:37:00] variety, which I think is, is a pretty good way to put it. 'cause D diversity has been somewhat ruined as a term.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Anyway, that's, that's my new take on what we need to be leaning into more.

Simone Collins: I like it. I like it. Variety, pride. A feeling of existential threat, but a feeling like beyond that existential threat is a feature so bright and exciting that you are so stoked to fight for it. Exactly. Beautiful.

Malcolm Collins: All right, I love you Simone. Alexander is actually religious. He identifies as Jewish. And then I remember, I think such when I went to their house, one of the times that they were doing a Jewish celebration. One of those meals I wanna say I don't remember which

Simone Collins: it was Shabbat, was it a Shabbat dinner?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You might have been a Shabbat.

Yeah. But I didn't contextualize it as religious in my head because there were so many, obviously, non-Jewish people there. But of course, how, how is

Simone Collins: someone obviously not Jewish.

Malcolm Collins: Because [00:38:00] their affiliation was clearly rationalist above all else. Or, or not rationalist, but you know, the wider, like EA community.

So I thought of it as like an EA meetup in my head more than a Shabbat dinner. But I was like, oh, of course. Yes. They're, they're raising their kids. Religious, so, yes. Any how the, the comments on today's episode were very mean When I checked them

Simone Collins: oh, I, I didn't check them. I was so busy trying to get the slide deck and started and

Malcolm Collins: yeah, we're going to the to speak.

I don't know if

Simone Collins: we're able to say that.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, we're not.

Simone Collins: Yeah, well, don't screw it up. Just don't mention anything about it until,

Simone Collins (2): until it's done

Simone Collins: well, or, yeah, or, or maybe we won't like that. We could be invited back if we keep our mouths shut. So, you know, there, there's one of these. Oh, let me get my ethernet cord one second.

This is one of these things where I want you to keep your mouth shut until we know it's okay.

Don't make them regret inviting us when we could. [00:39:00] I mean, you're trying to pitch a conference, you're trying to pitch all these other things. Yeah. You're not gonna get them. You read the new

Malcolm Collins: you, you read the new write up.

Simone Collins: I did. Yeah. I'm, I'm, you're not making this easy to set up. You're not like, like, I'm just gonna write a book and that's gonna be easy and I'll just memorize the book and like, no, no.

You should have just made a simple outline. But you are incapable of doing that. And so I. Somehow on top of everything else that I have to do this week, I need to. So it's just gonna take longer. 'cause you've decided to make this impossibly difficult and of course not ordered. And I get that you're like ordering it from a like narratively rich standpoint, but you like keep jumping around from like.

Causes to significance to solutions in a way that doesn't work well with slide decks or outlines unless you're doing like a TED Talk and I get that you're trying to keep it narratively engaging. So like I'm trying to accommodate [00:40:00] that while also like giving materials that are professional and usable after we leave

Malcolm Collins: the burden I place on you.

The, that's my job. In case you can't tell because it, it does have a structure to it, is to start with why is this important then to transition to all of the things. What are the causes? What are

Simone Collins: not the causes? Yeah. And what are solutions? I know, I get it. And that, that's i's good. You just jump around a lot.

I do not. I do not. And you're not exactly like thorough and you just jump to like the solutions that are the most self-promotional and. Like n not evidence-based, but fun.

Malcolm Collins: So that's the real solution as we'll learn in today's episode. Uhhuh. Okay. Well, the real solution to fertility collapse is promotional sort of nationalism futuristic nationalism, I guess I call it.

And you, you know, a lot of people when they come to this, they want to do it from the perspective of, you know, cash handouts or [00:41:00] regulation or. And all of that stuff seems to make things worse. In the, in the slide deck I put together, if you look for example, at Europe, and you look at the, the amount of contraception laws that are in a country, and you look at the fertility rates, there's strong correlation to more contraception laws leading to lower fertility rates.

Simone Collins (2): Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And so like I, I get, I, I I don't know, I just I. I don't, the self-promotional ones are the ones that work. You need to create promotion. You need to create pizazz. You need the public talking about it. That's the one thing that nobody has really tried yet. Oh,

Simone Collins: wouldn't you say hungry and Turkey?

I've tried it pretty.

Malcolm Collins: No. No, they, they so if you, if you look at what they did, they made like a, a number of politicians went around and talked it up and everything like that, but they didn't create like a branded movement. They didn't create like a oh, and you can identify as one of these things and dedicate your life to this.

And this can be like an [00:42:00] active choice that you make. They didn't do that. It was just like, go back. To sort of an older Hungarian identity, which is what you see a lot of traditionalist conservatives innately wanting to do. And the point that I'm trying to make here is don't do that. It makes things worse.

Simone Collins (2): Mm-hmm. So

Malcolm Collins: if your intuition is, we should look to the past to make this like, like. Be more like we were in the 1950s or something like that. Hmm. Instead of become this new amazing, what it is to be American thing, because in the 1950s, how did they contextualize themselves? Well, you know, because you can just read like the, the comic books of that time period.

It was retro futurism, right. It was all like, we're gonna go to space and we're gonna conquer the universe and we're gonna, which is ironic that people be like, go back to the 1950s when in the 1950s everything was futurism.

Or, or like over the top, bigger than thou, sort of like s heroism and stuff like that. [00:43:00] Not, you know, broody superheroes like we have today. But like, we're great kind. So I'm, I'm promoting this stuff because I think genuinely it is the stuff that works not, not that it doesn't also help us, but you think it's too self emotional.

Simone Collins: I am going to like adjust things a little bit just to add professional polish. But I, I think it's, I think it's great overall. Okay.

Speaker 6: Nobody survives. Everybody. Everybody. Oh no. He's got a shield.

Speaker 7: Ah.[00:44:00]

Speaker 6: You saved toasty.

Speaker 8: But now, who saved you?

In this episode, we delve into the current state of AI and discuss whether it's merely hype or a transformative force in society. The conversation touches on the economic impacts of AI, its advancements in fields like genetics and drug development, and how it's being adopted across various industries. The episode also addresses some criticisms and misconceptions about AI's capabilities and market value. Discussions include insights from industry leaders, practical applications, and the potential for AI to reshape the economy and everyday life.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I'm excited to be talking to you today. Today we are going to be talking about whether AI is hype, whether AI is plateauing, whether AI is over. And by this what I mean because you know, I, I had a, the head of our development team, Bruno, who comments a lot on the discord and the comments here.

So fans of the show will know him. He sent me an email that we're gonna go over as part of this sort of being like, okay, so here's some evidence that AI doesn't seem to be making the systems level changes in society that you had predicted it would make in the past, and that many other people are predicting it will make.

And when I, and we're seeing other people say this, when I go out and I interact with AI today. I really struggle to see how having this thing I can chat with, is that useful? It may be fun as like a chat bot or something like that. But I don't see its wider utility yet. Now we'll be going into the arguments around this because I think that there are some strong arguments, like the AI industry is making almost no money [00:01:00] right now.

You know, is this industry not, not almost, but almost no win contracted with the investment that's going into it. Right? And, and the amount that we talk about it and other people talk about it is matter mattering. And then you've gotta think about all of this in the context of Yeah, but like 80 thou, well, oh, sorry.

Around 90,000 people just in the US tech sector had their jobs cut due to AI this year. You know, like, yeah. So come on. Do, did not matter to them. Yeah. But, but so what we're going to be seeing here is, I think the way that the people are looking at AI and expecting AI to transform the economy is different from the way it actually is.

They're looking at how AI is useful to them instead of how AI will replace them. I'd also note here I. To the question because Sam Altman, you know, literally like Sam Altman one of the, the guy who runs one of the largest AI companies has said AI is a bubble right now. Right. And so people will come to me and they'll be like, well, you know, even he's saying it's a bubble.

And I'm like, I would say it's a [00:02:00] bubble right now. It is a

Simone Collins: bubble. It's obviously a bubble. He's a bubble right

Malcolm Collins: now. But the fact that a thing is a bubble doesn't mean it's not gonna transform society. Exactly. So like if you go to, the.com boom, right? Like the.com boom was a bubble, right? But the internet still transformed society.

The companies at the beginning of the.com boom, you know, like they were formed in the middle, like Amazon and Google and stuff like that. Like if you made the right bets on those companies, if, if anything, what? Like, if you wanted to make the best bets possible, wait for the AI bust and then invest in whatever survives.

If there is a traditional bust, you know, keep in mind like what, what I mean by a boom now is a lot of people are investing in AI companies without understanding in the same way, like in the early.com boom, what the internet's actually good for and good at.

Simone Collins: Well, what kind of sucks is, is also the AI companies that I think are coming outta this.

They're not gonna be hopefully traded a big shift in ai. Tech booms, as far as [00:03:00] I see, is that they're not something you're gonna see in a stock market. They're small, they don't have a lot of staff, they're not public. So our ability to participate in the upside is severely limited.

Malcolm Collins: Well, the other thing about AI development and, and you can, you know, back me on this, is we can see all these metrics that say that AI is supposedly getting better and smarter.

And yet when you consider like the latest model of grok versus the last model of gr, you don't, you don't go like. This is like 50% better. Like it doesn't feel that way to you. Same with open AI's model. Same with a lot of these models. You, you interact with the most cutting edge thing and you're like, this is marginally like three or 4% better.

But all the metrics are showing that it's like massively better. So is this a problem? And how we develop ai, how we measure ai, everything like that. I'm gonna be talking about that in this as well. I'm also gonna be talking about the study that Facebook put out saying that you can't get, basically they're saying AI really isn't that smart.

No, no, sorry, not Facebook. I wanna say Apple maybe put this out. But if it was Apple, it, it shows why Apple has not [00:04:00] developed anything good in the AI space because the people they have working on it are just not that bright.

Simone Collins: I do have to say though, I'm really excited about their smart house play.

I think that if they're, they're gonna have any win, them being the ones that make everything that's AI in your smart home connected and work seamlessly and be really pretty, that they are gonna be the ones that are capable of pulling that off.

Malcolm Collins: So we're gonna go into an article. Start, start by going into an article in Future Magazine.

Nice. So you can see that this isn't just Bruno making these scientific claims. And the article was titled scientists are Getting Seriously Worried that they've Already Hit Peak AI Speaking to The New Yorker, Gary Marcus, a neuroscientist and longtime critic of Open AI said what many have been coming to suspect despite many years of development at a staggering cost.

AI doesn't seem to be getting much better throughout gp, though GPT technically performs better on AI industry benchmarks and already unreliable measure of project. As experts have argued, the critic argues that it's used beyond anything other than virtual chat Buddy [00:05:00] remains unlikely. Worse yet, the rate at which new models are growing against the dubious benchmarks appears to be slowing down.

I don't hear a lot of companies using AI saying 2025 models are a lot more useful to them than the 20, 24 models, even though the 2025 models perform better on a bunch of benchmarks. Marcus told the magazine now here, I'd note here when he's like, I don't see AI being used for anything other than one of the things we're gonna get into later in this episode as, as a chat bot, I'm gonna be like, well then it's just because you're not familiar with any industry other than your own.

AI has already invented drugs that are going through the production cycle that are likely to save millions of lives and, and not just like one drug, like countless drugs at this point. Yeah. AI models that are trained on the human genome have already made numerous genetic discoveries. It's the way that you're using AI and we'll go through these discoveries in a bit.

It almost to me feels like with some of these people, like that money, python sketch you know, like, what have the Romans [00:06:00] ever done for us? What has AI ever done for us? And it's like, well, okay, yes, they invent lots of drugs and yes, they help with drug discovery and yes, they help with

Speaker: But apart from the sanitation, the aqueduct and the roads, irrigation medicine, education. Yeah. You alright? Fair enough. And the wine. Yeah. Alright, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, rose, a fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us? Broke Peace. Oh, peace.

Malcolm Collins: Actually a fun thing here, just if you're like, how, how is a way that I'm not thinking about using ai?

I'll talk about really quickly the way I use AI in running my company. So, and Brita is actually the one who implements This is whenever we assign a task to the one of the programmers we ask an AI about how long this task should take to complete. And then we benchmark how long it takes them to complete the task against how long the AI thinks it will complete the task.

And [00:07:00] we can create weighted averages to see sort of how productive a person is. Obviously this isn't gonna be perfect and AI is gonna overestimate a lot but it does create a relatively accurate benchmark that we can use to normalize who are the, the best performers on our team which is very interesting.

I haven't heard people using AI in this way. \ And this is from Bruno's email. Ed Tron has focused heavily on the financial side. He notes open AI's. Current annualized revenues sits around 5.26 billion and anthropics at around 1.5 billion.

But expenses remains outsized. Opening AI alone may be spending roughly 6 billion annually on servers. 1.5 billion on staff, and another 3 billion on training. Investors have been asked to sign acknowledgements. That profitability may never materialize against that backdrop. Valuations in the hundreds of billions look speculative at best, so.

This is really important. [00:08:00] 5.2 billion and 1.5 billion for two of the major AI companies are laughably small. Yeah. In, in terms of, of what they're making. How, how, how, how are they getting to hundreds of billions in valuation, right? Like, why are, why aren't they making more money? And, and why is this true sort of across the industry?

'cause we are seeing this across the industry. Before I go further, I'm gonna explain this phenomenon because this is actually an important phenomenon. The reason why they're making so little actual money is because their long-term potential is so high.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: This is, well this is

Simone Collins: how it's pretty much for every tech startup over the past.

20 plus years.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. So for people who understand how VC works, so VC comes in, it floods a space that it sinks is gonna be worth a lot in the future. And then because it's flooding the space with so much money, like because open AI and philanthropic are getting so much money to compete against each other, they have to be rock bottom in terms of the prices they're offering [00:09:00] or even offer things for essentially free versus the cost to produce 'em.

And, and they're, people can be like, wait, but then why would they even like do that? Right? Like, they're trying to win in a market where you, the customer are not actually the primary customer where the venture capitalist is actually the primary customer. And where, it, it doesn't like part of, for them, you as a user, you are providing them value.

You know how, like with Google, you provide them value as a user because they get like data from you that they sell to other people and they get like, ads from you. But like the data from you is more important. Like some companies like make their money off of the data they collect from you. Okay? You as a user are actually a data point that these companies are able to trade for cash from venture capitalists.

That is why you actually like, it's, it's actually a fairer deal. It's not like they're cheating you or you're cheating them. They are trading the fact [00:10:00] that you are using them to say, look, I am beating out the other major companies. Hey, you investors know eventually somebody's going to eat this industry.

Okay. So that's, that's important to note. Like this is something you'd actually in expect if things are going well. So. To go back to his email here. And, and, and none of this is a, a stupid thing to know. Like, I'm not like saying Bruno is stupid for, for asking this question, right? Like, it's easy to, why is it valued so much when it's making so little?

Why haven't tons of profits accumulated in this industry yet? To go back to his email for context, compare this with Amazon Web Services. AWS launched in 2006, reached cost revenue parity in just three years, and in its first decade, accumulated roughly 70 billion in costs. By contrast, Amazon itself spent around 105 billion in just the last year on Tron.

So, so, ai, the biggest company in the space is making 5.26 billion a year. Okay? And he's pointing out here that in its first [00:11:00] decade, Amazon Web Services made 70 billion. And then he points out that what Amazon has spent on its ai has been more than what Amazon Web Services has made in the last decade, 105 billion.

Gosh. Right. Zi tron underscores that entire, the entire generative AI field, including open ai, andro, mid journey and others, produces only about 39 billion in revenue. Mm-hmm. That's less than half the size of the mobile gaming market and slightly above the smartwatch market at 32 billion. These comparisons illustrate the scale mismatch between AI valuations and demonstrated ability to generate revenue.

Mm-hmm.

And so, so this is a really AP comparison. It's bringing in about as much as the smart watch market.

Simone Collins: That's, yeah. Wow. Putting that into perspective, that's pretty so boring. The smart watches are so pervasive now, maybe not as sobering as you might initially

Malcolm Collins: think. Yeah. Well, I mean, it should be more, given how afraid people are of it, how much people are talking about it.

Right. [00:12:00] There is also the issue of market making a product market fit. LLM based tools are not meaningfully differentiated from one another. The average user tries, one, thinks this is kind of cool and then stops using it. This raises a concrete question, how would one sell these products in a way that justifies ongoing subscription fees?

How do you think, did they really stop

Simone Collins: using them? Like, here again is where I question it and also like the,

Malcolm Collins: the smartwatch market. No, no. This is, this is factually wrong. I, if we look at usership rates, they are shockingly high.

Simone Collins: Okay. Okay. Because I'm just like, you're not questioning this. And I'm like, ah, wait a second.

Like,

Malcolm Collins: no, but I, I understand how somebody could feel that way if they're just thinking about like, especially if AI hasn't caught you or you haven't found product market fit for AI within your life.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: You're just gonna walk away from it, right? You're gonna be like, what's the point? Right. Yeah. It's also really unfair

Simone Collins: to compare this to the smartwatch market as it is today because [00:13:00] the smartwatch market is in, its now we make money from this era.

So, a lot of people wear ora rings, right? When they first came out. You didn't pay 'em like subscription for them. Now you have to, you can't have one without it. I wear a Fitbit. I don't pay a monthly subscription for it, but I'm constantly upsold on it. So now they've switched into the monetization phase, but at the beginning it was just, no, get this on people's bodies and then try to make money from them.

And right now AI is in, they get this in people. Workflows and lifestyles phase. So of course it's not making that much money.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, and, and because that's what VCs are trying to do. 'cause they're trying to capture the market and then make the money by getting the, the, the giant company. Yeah. They're, they're not being foolish about this.

Like this is actually makes economic sense. Yeah. I mean it also happened

Simone Collins: with Uber and Lyft. They used to pay drivers really well, only have really nice cars and have really, like they were probably running at a loss. They charged so little, they were running at a huge

Malcolm Collins: loss for a really long Yeah. And

Simone Collins: so like we had this, this, this generation.

Which was so nice where you had this like [00:14:00] VC subsidized luxury lifestyle where you had like super affordable food delivery and Ubers and smartwatches. But that was because of the growth phase. And right now we're enjoying this short period where we don't have to pay a lot for these AI services. I'm

Malcolm Collins: actually going to argue that the VCs here might be making a mistake.

And the mistake that they might be making, and this this depends on stickiness to particular AI models, is they think that they're developing something like the next search engine or the next Uber or Lyft when what they're actually developing is a commodity. By that what I mean is I think the way that most people are going to interact with the very best.

Deployments of AI are going to be through skins, basically through Windows. Like what we're building was our Fab ai. Right. Oh,

Simone Collins: oh. And then, yeah, people aren't necessarily going to be loyal to chat GPT or Grok. They're gonna use a variety of different services that are going to interchange, grok and chat GPT based on, based on

Malcolm Collins: whichever is best and cheapest at the time.

Yeah.

Simone Collins: Kind of how people switch out, at least in the [00:15:00] United States in many places, you can switch out the utility company that you buy from. So you can buy from this utility company or you can buy from this one that only does green energy or whatever. And you choose whichever you like based on values and based on price.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And we actually already see this in the data. People switch between like, which AI is the top used one? Changes a lot. Which one is sort of known as the best one? Changes a lot. And you, you're, you know, if for example, like right now the main AI I use is grok, right? If the OpenAI had a model that I just thought was dramatically better, I would switch to them, which has occasionally happened.

Quad used to be my main ai, then OpenAI was my main AI for a while. No, it's the rock. And I may switch again, right? Like I switch all the time. What the primary AI use is. Now another argument he made in this email that I thought was really interesting is he's like the iPod. It's a a thousand songs in your pocket, the iPhone, it's the internet in your pocket.

Like what is ai? AI [00:16:00] in your pocket, right? And. I think that this actually is a big mistake, and it's one of the reasons why people are, are not understanding the value of ai. Hmm. They're thinking about AI's value to them, not AI's value to say genetic researchers or certain groups of programmers, et cetera, right?

Like if AI has replaced a job, we often talk about AI can probably replace, I guess, 25% of law clerks now.

Speaker 3: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Now what, it hasn't happened yet, but it definitely has the capacity to do that. And you're like, well, what if it makes mistakes? And I go, then just put it in a chain so that it checks for those mistakes.

This is one of the reasons when people are like, well, what about hallucinations? And I'm like, hallucinations, like literally don't matter. First they don't happen that much in current model ai. Yeah. They, they, I argue somebody was like, oh, well I don't trust you guys 'cause you get some of your information from ai as a, as a fan.

And I was like excuse me, bro. Do you think that the average thing you read from a reporter is gonna be more accurate than the average thing you read from an ai? Yeah, at this

Simone Collins: [00:17:00] point it's not hallucinations, it's, it's sourcing that, like from sources that get it wrong, and we check our sources. Like we check the sources that AI sites, but we can't always take the time to figure out how reliable those sources are.

We're like, well, the New York Times reported about it, like. Right, but the sometimes wrong. The point I'm

Malcolm Collins: making here is that inaccurate information is more likely for me, like twisted information is more likely to come from a New York Times article than a GR four output. And I, and I would bet that this is something you could even look at statistically, right?

Because the, these, these it's, it's not that there isn't like a political bias within ai. It's just less extreme and distinct than the political bias within the reporter class. Mm-hmm. So, and, and then the, the amount you can reduce hallucinations just by doing one pass. By that, what I mean is you have the AI output an answer.

Then you take that answer, you put it into a different AI with the question being like, is anything in this hallucinated or wrong? This is an output from another ai. You do [00:18:00] that and the probability I'd argue is like 0.01, that you're gonna have a hallucination in whatever that output is. As long as you're using like high-end AI models.

But the problem with being like, where is a, you know, if you have like the iPod or the iPhone and you're like, it's this in your pocket, what is AI to you, the end consumer? I think this shows a misunderstanding of AI's role within the market. AI is a tool that at its most productive, replaces human beings.

AI is a simulated intelligence. It's a simulated human being. That's, that's fundamentally where it's most valuable. It's when it can replace an entire call center. You know, that's like a hundred million jobs if you replace that, when it can replace an entire coder by making other coders more efficient.

When it can replace legal clerks, when it can replace. One of the things he asked me in this email as well, you know, when, when does the data come down where you change your mind on how much AI is gonna change the economy? Like, would you need to see things [00:19:00] stop moving as fast in the field? Would you need to see like hurdles begin to come up?

And I'm like, even if, and we'll go over the potential hurdles to continue to AI development, even if one came up, even if AI development completely stopped where it was today, most of my predictions on how much it's going to transform our society would stay there. A by that what I mean is using Multipass ai.

You should be able to replace about 25, 30 5% of the legal profession right now. And yet that hasn't happened yet. You know, you, you should be able to complete replace 25, 30 5% of government bureaucrats right now. And yet that hasn't happened, accountants, and yet that hasn't happened. Right. Copywriters and, and I, and when I point this out, I mean, I pointed out it was in my own life, right?

Like I have seen, you're like, AI does not replace professions. And I'm like, if you are watching this podcast, you are participating in something where AI has replaced professions. Yeah. Because we had an earlier iteration of this podcast, and you go back in our podcast history before Basecamp where we paid for an [00:20:00] editing team and we paid for a, a card creation team for title cards.

Those tests are now both done by ai. Those are, those are two people's jobs who are now done by AI and dramatically better. Well, you still,

Simone Collins: you still use software and you do the editing and I still use. AI image generation, and I do the title cards, but yeah, like AI is an increase. I couldn't

Malcolm Collins: do it without ai.

Simone Collins: Yeah, no. Same. I couldn't. No way.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So I think that that's really big. And then keep in mind how much AI transforms the economy if Elon's move to make like robots that work with AI for like factory labor and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. And everyone initially was like, oh, this is so silly looking, et cetera.

But apparently they're having a lot of, success was this, from what I've heard, like through the grapevine friend network, stuff like that. If this works out now, it's every factory job, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Well, I've also read that China is investing heavily in [00:21:00] AI enabled hardware as well. So things like robots.

So if, you know, it's not like only one person is trying this. Plus also Boston Dynamics has been at this forever. Yeah. People are, they're going to be major players and absolutely there's gonna be a physical element to this BB,

Malcolm Collins: but Boston Dynamics, I, I actually feel like this is very much like drones come out, right?

And everyone's like, well that's cool, but that's just a toy, right? Oh,

Simone Collins: yeah. Now, like it has completely changed to warfare. Yeah. And everyone's like,

Malcolm Collins: oh gosh, tanks don't work anymore within this new model of warfare and large, and we need to completely change the way we fight wars. Like drones were a toy until they weren't, right.

Yeah. Yeah. Very much the same with AI and where things are going.

Simone Collins: Yes. Absolutely.

Malcolm Collins: And I'd also point out here when you're like, well, okay, but what other industries could AI disrupt other than genetics and science and drug development and copywriting? And well, a big one is my [00:22:00] cousin owns the company that created the movie here, which takes Tom Hanks and then puts him at different ages and in different environments.

And they're using AI to do this. And if you look at the they'll do viral stunts all the time where they'll like create TikTok reels of like, various celebrities and we'll get like millions of views. But it's faked, right? It's faked with their faces. If you could simulate an actor that's a bunch of industries that you've just nuked, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah. And I mean, this is already, I mean, yeah, it's, I was just listening to a podcast on how acting has been disrupted already in that now. Production companies are more making money off of the IP and the concept rather than the actors, which is why we see so many more actors have side hustles and create companies and start investing and do all these commercials and have a clothing line or a phone company.

Because yeah, this, this whole industry has changed. So I think we also aren't, aren't recognizing how much many industries have already [00:23:00] fundamentally changed with only the beginnings of tech enabled industry shifts away from like keyman risk and keyman risk being defined as any company that kind of de depends on, on reliable humans for its financial wellbeing.

People have been trying to use tech to render keyman risk obsolete for a very long time, and AI really handles that well.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So I'll note here now, now we're gonna go, well, a keyman risk was in movies and stuff like that.

Simone Collins: With, with, with tons of other things too, though. I mean, we don't

Malcolm Collins: know if it can do it with competence yet.

But I mean, keep in mind what we'll be going over the AI that came at second place in that coding competition and stuff like that, like AI can clearly handle very advanced tasks. Yes. But one of the things that's often hidden if you're colloquially using AI is how rapid recently the adoption of AI within corporations has been.

So Eve, you look at and I'm, I'm gonna put a graph on screen here. AI usage at work continues a remarkable growth trajectory in the past [00:24:00] 12 months alone. So this is for one, one 2025. So like recently, right? Usage has increased 4.6 x. That's in 12 months. 460% increase in usage. Damn. And over the past 24 months, AI usage has grown as an astounding 61 x 61 x in growth in usage.

This represents one of the fastest adoption rates for any workplace technology, substantially outpacing even SaaS adoption, which took years to achieve the similar penetration levels. Now we're gonna go over another graph here. This is showing AI development, and this isn't actual usage of ai, but this is AI in medical devices approved by the FDI.

So you see it is shooting up now, unfortunately, it only goes to 2023 but I doubt this trajectory has slowed down some.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But I want to look [00:25:00] at now a few metrics where we're looking at like adoption within companies. So, if you look at organizational AI adoption. And this is from the Stanford AI Index.

In 20 23, 50 5% of industries had done it. And by 2025, it had jumped to 71%. Now note here, we're reaching saturation on adoption by many points of ai which is a, a potential problem. But we'll talk about how much AI is. I think what you're seeing is people are adopting it, but they still don't really know how to use it yet.

Right? Like if I say AI won a coding competition, people are like, wait, how could I ever get AI to code like that for me? Right. And I'm actually sending you the, the model that they used. They used a, a, a sort of chained model. And the way the chained model worked is it had multiple models in an an, an engine where you would have one model that asked it to plan what it did next.

Then a model that asked it to code based on it planning. Then a model that would evaluate the code that it had just created. Then a [00:26:00] model that attempted to improve the code. It just created then a model that revealed all that planned again, moved to the next stage. Mm-hmm. And this is something that we are building.

'cause if you were like, well, how would I do this? Our fab.ai is going to allow you to build chained models like this in a very easy way. So just wait. And you'll be able to do this yourself using multiple AI models very near in the future. Now the generative AI adoption. So for 2023, you have 33% of companies using this 75% in, in this year.

And this is Coherent Solutions Trends 2025 McKinsey. If you look at the AI user base we go from a 100 million active user base in 2023 to 378 million users globally. This is Forbes 2025. If you look at job impacts, there were no reported job impacts in 2023. In, in 2024, it looks like 16 million people likely had their jobs automated by ai.

And in this year it looks like [00:27:00] 85 million jobs will be replaced. And, and this is from Demand Sage 2025. AI Jobs Barometer. Now I'd also note here that people are like, well, AI has reached certain and we're gonna go over where AI has sort of plateaued its growth. And this is actually kind of an illusion by the way that we're measuring AI growth.

Speaker 3: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: But one of the things that we've actually been seeing is significant advancements to the actual underlying model, which leads to jumps in growth within some area. While I will not say I was wrong about ai because I, I don't think I was where I will admit I was wrong was about deep seek not mattering.

Deep has been very diligent in publishing how they do stuff like, like despite being a Chinese company, they've been very sort of open source in how their new model works. So we understand how they basically reinvented the Transformer model in a way that has a lot of advantages. I mean, this is something that's just been having significant bumps even over this last year.

So to go over this. [00:28:00] They invented something called multi-head latent attention. M-L-A-M-L-A is a modified attention mechanism designed to compress the KV cache without sacrificing model performance in a traditional multi-head attention. For the original transformer architecture, the KV catch grows linearly with.

Sequence links and model size limiting scalability for long context tasks. EEG processing a hundred K tokens, MLA introduces low rank compression across all attention heads to reduce this overhead making inference more efficient while maintaining or even improving training dynamics. It basically makes training way cheaper and is how they achieved what they achieved.

Now I'll show here another graph on screen. For people who don't think that we're making advancements this goes only from 2022 to 2024. Okay, so keep in mind this is not like a, I'm going distantly into the past to show like massive improvements, right? This is the smallest AI models scoring above 60% [00:29:00] on the MMLU 2024 to 25.

And you can see here now we're at five three mini, but what's really cool here is when you see the big jump this happened in late 2023 this was with Myst seven B. With R five ai, I've actually found Mytral seven B as astoundingly. Good. Given how inexpensive it is to use. Ooh. We might be able to sort of chain the Mytral beam model.

I, I'm thinking to get responses that are near the quality of ROC four. Even though it costs one 50th to run.

Simone Collins: Wow.

Malcolm Collins: So, yeah. Very fun to see how we might be able to attempt that. Now let's look at how many employees, because I wanna keep this all very recent so people can see like this is, this is, this is actually happening today, so I'm putting a graph on screen here, which is how many employees use AI tools contrasting 2024 was 2025 in financial services.

Just in the last year it went from 4.7% to 26.2%.

Ooh. Okay. In,

in healthcare, 2.3% to [00:30:00] 11.8% in manufacturing, 0.6% to 12%. Where you see big ones retail 1.1% to 26.4%.

Simone Collins: Oh, wow.

Malcolm Collins: And you, and you can look at the others here, but it's, it's huge. Right. So now I'm gonna put up a graph on screen here of different types of AI tasks and how they have jumped in them.

This is from the Stanford Index select AI index of technical Performance Benchmarks versus human performance. And what you will notice here is where human performance is a hundred percent Mark AI have been shooting up in their proficiency across the board. But you also notice here that it appears that AI gets really dumb after it passes the human benchmark, like it stops going up as quickly.

And then here we have AI benchmarks have rapidly saturated over time. So, here we have a number of different AI benchmarks and you can see they all sort of taper off after human. And this creates an illusion for a lot of people that once AI gets smarter than a human, it stops getting smarter after [00:31:00] that.

And what's actually happening is the benchmarks that we creating are SAP saturated because we didn't have to deal with entities this smart. And humans are unfortunately very bad at telling when an entity is significantly smarter than them. Where you can see this really loudly is our open ai. Oh, by the way, any thoughts?

I've been just rattling here, Simone.

Simone Collins: No, I'm, I'm, I'm really enjoying this. But also I, I've, I've had trouble comprehending why people think AI is plateauing so

Malcolm Collins: well. I mean, I do think the perception, like the current model of opening AI I'm using doesn't feel that much better than the previous models. Hmm.

And in some cases even worse. Right. I, I can understand that. I can understand people. Somebody being like, what do you mean this is like 50 or 60% better? It feels three 4% better

Simone Collins: based on how they use it. Sure,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. Based, I understand your snarky remark there, your accurate Simone. But I, I think if you wanna see where [00:32:00] you can see this really loudly you can see this on the difference between the special version of Jet jpt four and Chad JT five, and all of the romance people.

If you watch our episode on like the AI dating people, they're so mad. They're so mad because it no longer talked to them like a dumb romance author. It didn't put a bunch of emojis in things. You can see none of the florid

Simone Collins: poetic language.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You see this on the meme where people are making fun of it, where it doesn't like give a bunch of emojis and flowery stuff when somebody gives a baby announcement.

It's just like, congratulations. Have fun. Where the other one used to do, like, you're gonna have welcome to the bipedal moment. Like you're gonna have a little one running around. Oh my God. Oh my gosh. But really, I'm so excited for you. But basically it was acting like an idiot. But unfortunately, your average person's intelligent level, your average, it capped out at GPT-4 0.5.

And so when AI became smarter and more sophisticated, and more, I mean [00:33:00] sophisticated, that's the word, when it became more intellectually sophisticated and understood that this is, you know, not an appropriate way to communicate with your normal person, you don't send them long lavish love poetry, right?

Unless you're prompted to intentionally be cheesy, it stopped doing that and people freak the F out. So in many ways, one of the phenomenons we're seeing here is people stop being able to judge ai, how smart an AI is when the AI is significantly smarter than.

Speaker 3: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: Now to note here how much we have saturated our benchmarks at this point.

Here I am reading from a Substack post by Ash, k Ari, or something called No AI Progress Is Not Plateauing. And he, he notes here talking about one of the metrics that they were judging on. And to their credit, they created a really difficult benchmark. When they released this benchmark.

Even the smartest AI models were only able to solve 2% of the problems. This was two months ago in November, 2024. So this, this post came out a little bit ago, so in two months ago, I [00:34:00] love it. I, I have to say a little bit ago, this months ago at this point, right? So November, 2024, it could solve 2% of the problems.

And here's a graph of how many it could solve. Great, except so far. Was only a two months time difference. Open a I announces oh three. So keep in mind this was not the oh four model yet their smartest model at coding math later in December, 2024. How did it do? It got 25% right.

Now, I note here that 99.9% of the population cannot solve even 1% of the problems on the Frontier Mass test. Yeah, these are really difficult tests. And here we have an AI that solved 25% of it, though five years ago, the state-of-the-art AI was chat GBT two, which could sometimes write a fully coherent paragraph in English.

And if we look here, we can see another test being saturated here. This is arc a GI, semi-private V one scores over time. And you can see we went from like basically getting [00:35:00] none of it right was GPT-4 in 2023 to a 2025. But when I say none of it, I mean it's getting like two to 3%. It's getting near a hundred percent.

So they have to shut it down and create a new test.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And the benchmark used to just be, Hey, could I not tell the difference between you and a human and conversation? Just keep moving the goalposts.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. So, we are now gonna go to this AI competition for coding. Right. Okay. We talked about like this multimodal model that did really well.

This happened recently, right? So what was this contest that I'm talking about? What happened? So the contest focused on creating good enough heuristics to complex computationally unsolvable problems like optimizing a robot's pass across a 30 30 grid with the fewest moves possible. Under strict rules, no external libraries or documentation, identical hardware for all, and a mandatory five minute cool down between code submissions.

A Polish programmer named p Dubenski known online as Psycho, who at a for opening eye [00:36:00] employee. So no really, really smart people who were competing in this competition took first place after a grueling 10 hour marathon session. The open AI model debuted open IHC finished a close second. With Deepak, edging it out by 9.5%.

Final scores, 1.81 trillion points for the human. Verse 1.65 trillion. For the ai. The AI beat 11 humans in total. So that was the rest of the field right there. The event features the world top 12 human coders as qualifiers was the AI added as an extra competitor. Psycho was the only human to outperform the AI while the other 11 humans placed third or lower.

As for how they ran the AI to make it competitive, it wasn't a standard publicly available model like GBT four or even O one that just spits out code in one go. This was a secret internal opening. AI creation described as a simulated reasoning model. Similar to the O three [00:37:00] series. In advanced successor 2 0 1, it ran on the same code at coder provided hardware as humans to ensure fairness.

But it strength came from its iterative multi-step process. And I, I mentioned how that went, like, plan code, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. Right. So now we're gonna talk about a paper that Bruno cited for me in the thing he reached out. This is an Apple research paper titled The Illusion of Reasoning makes the Case That Language Models.

This is Bruno writing here.

Simone Collins: Oh, and other people have asked us to comment on this too. So this is great. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Cannot reason. As marketed, the critique dovetails with other signals of caution. Sam Altman has called this field a bubble, as I mentioned. It technically is, and Elon has raised concerns about looming energy constraints, which might happen.

Basically, Elon's big bug boo. His energy is a bigger constraint than chips. He's not saying the industry is overrated. These warnings are not isolated. So you point to structural issues, both technical and economic. Are they point to structural issues? Okay, let's go over this paper. 'cause this paper is ridiculous.

It is actually ridiculous. [00:38:00] So what they did is they gave AI a number of puzzles to do. And the AI outperformed humans by orders of magnitudes at these puzzles, but they didn't like the way it outperformed humans orders of magnitude. Mm-hmm. And said that it could have been more efficient. And I'm just like looking at them like with a GE fall on my face.

Like, how, how can you be this unfair to ai? Like here, AI do this puzzle. It does it at like 10 times the speed of a human or at 10 times an advanced level of what an average human can do. And they're like, just like I noticed you forgot to dot your i's. I guess I'm gonna have to mark you as not sentient.

Imagine if teachers did that. Like, it's like a, a super prejudice teacher. But let's go in, let's go into this. Okay, so we've got the Tower of Hanoi. Okay, so the average human limit on the Tower of Hanoi can solve whi up to three to four [00:39:00] discs seven to 15 moves. Whiz, trial and error. Devil's minutes, mentally whiz whiz physical discs at five to seven discs if you move to, to physical disc.

Okay, so, ai, when did, when, when, when did AI do this? So, models like oh three mini. So not a particularly advanced model here, right? It was able to do it up to 15 moves.

Um, And I'll note here but it did, it did, it did break down. Okay, so, so, let's, let's look at Claude 3.7 sonnet. So we're saying, okay, but we're not looking for how high can it do it. We're looking at how high can it do it? Flawlessly. Okay. Okay. So your average, you know, 95 IQ human or whatever, right?

They're, they're at three to five disk. Claude 3.7 C. Clonic could do it flawlessly. Up to five disks. Okay. Alright. So why did they get mad at the ai?

Simone Collins: Yeah, why? Please [00:40:00] explain this to me.

Malcolm Collins: Taper argues this is an illusion because even at medium end traces show incoherent exploration and effort peaks than drops, eeg, fewer tokens spent, despite budgets indicating no true recursive understanding, just pattern extension until it breaks.

Okay. My, my, my brother in Christ. Did you have an EEG hat on these humans? You don't know how their reasoning was working during this. You don't know that this wasn't happening in the humans. Exactly. But also you didn't even use humans as a, a norm in this. When they did this, they didn't use humans. I'm using other studies to, to look at how humans perform on this.

You just assume that the human brain doesn't work that way. That's what always gets. So when people are like, AI's just a token predictor, and I'm like, a lot of the evidence suggests human brains are a token predictor. Yeah. Our episode on this and more episode evidence has come out since our episode on that that I've got over another episode because it annoys me so much.

There's just like voluminous evidence a [00:41:00] huge chunk of the human brain. It's probably a token predictor. But I just hate so much when they're like, humans don't make these types of mistakes. And I'm like, well, first of all, even if you're considering them a mistake. Note that the AI did better than the humans at its task.

So if the way it did it was a mistake, then clearly it understood its resource allocation and limitations and performed with it in a way that out competed its competitor, right? Or who are you to say that you know better than it about how it can do this? And if it could do it better, why didn't you add that to the token layer?

You could have done that. All right, so next we're gonna go to River Crossing. The average human limit the classic here is three. Is, is solvable through hints. Though the average might need trial and error to avoid constraints. And at number four, 20 plus moves, complexity explodes, most would fail due to tracking multiple states mentally.

All right. So, humans, average human intelligence, three claudes on it. [00:42:00] 3.7 fails beyond a three as well. And errors step up at four or higher, but it says that in humans, four becomes near impossible. Okay? And, and so it collapses at around where humans do. Okay? So, so here AI is performing similar to humans.

So where, why do they say that this proves it is dumber? Well, they highlight to highlight the illusion. They say, despite self-reflection, AI can't consistently apply constraints leading to invalid moves, early proving, no deep understanding of safety rules, just probabilistic guessing, which falters. But you could change the way the AI model works to do this.

If the human brain is a token predictor that evolved, it almost certainly has pathways to check for these types of mistakes. If these are the common mistakes was in token predictors, but you have locked theis that you are using out of doing that.

Simone Collins: Oh my god. I'm sorry. Well, also like the, these are tests, you know how far you get?

I, I, it's not like I, I, I've taken the SAT or [00:43:00] some other standardized tech test and then been told, oh, but you know, you, you took way too long. I'm like, these three problems. Or like, you went back and changed your answer. Like lowering your entire score. Yeah. Like, you're right or you're wrong. You get this many questions answered, or you don't.

The, the fact that people keep not only moving the goalposts, but then going back into these tests and evaluations and nitpicking the methodology used just seems like massive amounts. Of denial. Well, this is how

Malcolm Collins: Apple is explaining why they can't make an ai because AI aren't real. But, okay, so here we go to their blocks.

World test average human intelligence. You can get up to three to five blocks. The AI breakpoint got up to 40 blocks. Was, was but LMS collapse at high, at high ends. AI vastly outperforms humans on this one, but the paper points to an illusion via trace analysis at medium incorrections happen late at high.

[00:44:00] Exploration is random and incoherent, not strategic, showing reliance on brute force patterns. But it's working. Not adaptable planning, but if it's working, it's a good strategy. You, you, you are demanding that it solve it the way that you solve it. So throughout the paper, the way that you

Simone Collins: want to solve it.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Basically what they show is that AI exhibits flaws like overthinking, exploring the wrong path unnecessarily, which you could put in the token layer for it not to do or have another model that checks it to stop it from doing this in inconsistent self-correction in a hard cap on effort, collapsing in coherent, at high complexity, much higher than human without adapting.

Unlike humans who might intuitively grasp rules or persist creatively, even slowly, AI doesn't build reusable strategies. It just delays failure and medium regimes. So like when I look at this paper, I'm honestly. I, I read a lot of romance Manus that take place in fantasy worlds, and you'll have the [00:45:00] evil, you know, stepmother or whatever, or concubine who will like, arrange all the tests so her clearly incompetent son can, can beat the clearly much more competent person.

And then the, the, the, the bribed visier will come out and say, well, do you not see that? He took too long on question number five, which sp proves suspiciously unlucky and it's like, come on my friend, what are you doing? Like, clearly you're just begging the question here, right? Like, the AI is outperforming people and you are using its outperformance.

This reminds me of the hilarious test that some people have been like they released this paper saying, oh, well. Yeah, there was this paper done on Claude that showed that it didn't know the logic, the internal logic it had used to get to certain outcomes, right? Like when you could look at this internal

Simone Collins: logic, humans don't know the internal logic they use to get to certain outcomes.

I,

Malcolm Collins: I point a lot of people think that humans know, but if you look, there's been a lot of experiments on this. Look at our A LLM models where we go over all the studies on this. It's [00:46:00] just, so stories s

Simone Collins: they're post, they're adding post hoc reasoning and this Yeah. They add post

Malcolm Collins: hoc reasoning. Basically, you make up how you came to a decision if that decision has changed in front of you.

So a famous example of this is people will think they chose like one woman as the mo most hot from a crowd, and they'll do Leigh of hand and then show you another woman and say, why'd you choose this woman? And people will provide detailed explanations. And they've done this with political opinions.

They've done this with like, this is a well-studied thing in psychology. You have no idea why you make the decisions you make. But they assume because our intuition is that we think we know.

Simone Collins: It is not even that it's our intuition. It's that our minds are token predictors. Like both like on a technical, but also like more philosophically.

And when someone asks us a question, we want to be able to answer it. We see this with our kids all the time. Like last night toasty, our, our son was telling us how Tommy Knockers, which are these like monsters that we

Malcolm Collins: made up for them Yeah. Made up for, to keep them outta the minds.

Simone Collins: Yeah. He was like, Tommy Knockers cannot exist in this house.

And we're like, well, how do you know [00:47:00] that? And he's like, well, it, my granddad said it to me at his house when I was a baby. He's not been at his grandfather's house.

Malcolm Collins: It's a baby. Yeah. Like, this doesn't make sense. This is not a humans,

Simone Collins: but humans like to give answers for things. And I get that. That's totally respectable, but like, it's just he hallucinated,

Malcolm Collins: he literally hallucinated.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like we do that too. So stop. People, stop. You're embarrassing yourselves.

Malcolm Collins: No, I'm not gonna go too deep in some of the ways AI is being used for medical research, because I don't know if people fully care, but I will at least go into some of the drugs and, and some of the methods where it's been used, it's been used for genome sequencing and analysis.

It's been used for variant detection, disease prediction. It's been used for clinical genetics and diagnostics. It's been used for drug design and target identification. It's been used for predicting interactions and toxicity. It's been used for streamlining the development and clinical trials. Now if we're gonna go into some of the specific ones that have been developed, one called er tib.

I, I'm, [00:48:00] I'm, I. O 18 0 55. You know what? I'm not gonna list these designations for the future ones. But this was developed by instead co medicine using their generative AI platform, pharma ai this small molecule inhibitor targets TNIK for pulmonary fibrosis, a rare lung disease which my family has and has killed multiple family members of mine.

So this, we might have actually funded this research because my family does fund a lot of stuff in that industry. Then another one co-discovered by Exist and Sumito Pharma using AI driven design. This serotonin five HT one A receptor agonist treats, obsessive compulsive disorder. Now note here for this first AI drug development, right?

This could literally save my life one day. My, my, I think my aunt died of this I know my grandfather died of this. He did. My dad has this so I could easily get, like, I'm very like, this is like the number one killer in my family. And AI might [00:49:00] have developed a solution to it. Like, you can't understand when you're like, AI has done nothing meaningful.

It's like, other than this drug that saves people in my family's life. Yeah, like

Simone Collins: maybe, you know, let's say you have like a serious risk of Alzheimer's in your family. You're, you're gonna feel very different about AI once AI cures Alzheimer's. Actually,

Malcolm Collins: by the way, another existential sumo collaboration was dual five HT one a agonist five HT two agonists, which targets Alzheimer's disease.

Simone Collins: Amazing. And, and then they had a, they're really

Malcolm Collins: going for those pithy names. A, the, the same company existential developed a, a cancer treatment, a tumor fighting immune response thing. Okay, so

Simone Collins: point for Simone. 'cause of the cancer's coming from me.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And then in terms of DNA stuff, like what's it finding in genetics?

The novel autism linked Mutations in non-coding DNA using deep learning on whole genome sequences from thousands of families. Researchers identified previously undetected mutations in non-coding regions associated with the disorder. Autism rare DNA sequences for gene activation. AI analyzed vast [00:50:00] genomic data to discover custom tailored downstream promo regions DPR sequences active in humans, but not fruit flies and vice versa.

I also think all

Simone Collins: this like better genetic sequencing with autism might actually fix the autism diagnosis problem of like too many different conditions being grouped into autism. Like, you know, we are participating as a family and autism genetic research. No, I didn't. Yeah, but like, our kids don't have any of the, like, genes for autism and that's because they have Asperger's.

Even though they've

Malcolm Collins: all been diagnosed. You've been diagnosed. Do you have any of the genes?

Simone Collins: No. And that's the thing. It's like, I think that when, when AI helps us better understand autism and like the genetic components of it, they're gonna be like, alright, so these are actually super different things and on this technical level we can demonstrate and show it how probably low functioning autism and different forms of autism are gonna be seen as very different from what used to be called Asperger's.

And it's now just called. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: it would be. But my [00:51:00] point here being is. People are already being fired over this. Right? Yeah. If, if you're looking at AI and, and not just that it's already developing lifesaving drugs. Yeah. It's already developing game, changing scientific developments. Yeah. People

Simone Collins: like, I guess if it doesn't immediately affect them if they are not married to their AI boyfriend, husband.

Now, if they aren't having a personally scary disease, which is happening, by the

Malcolm Collins: way, so a study which surveyed a thousand teams in April and May showed a dramatic rise in AI social interaction was more than 70% of teens having used AI chat companions and 50% using them regularly. 50% of teens are using them regularly.

Simone Collins: I, I can't even wrap my head around that.

Malcolm Collins: No, no. You wanna hear a crazier statistic? Sure. Despite the widespread use, 67% of teens say that talking to people is still more satisfying overall. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So 33% think talking to AI is more satisfying. That's a huge chunk.

Simone Collins: [00:52:00] But no, we've hit a plateau.

It's all a bubble.

Malcolm Collins: It's, it's very,

Simone Collins: okay, guys, have fun being left in the dust. Enjoy it.

Malcolm Collins: But I see, because when people are thinking about a product, they think about it from a consumer level. They think about it like an iPod or a, you know, why isn't this in my pocket? Right.

Simone Collins: It's just, it can also be hard for people to wrap their heads around it.

You know, like when, when cars started being adopted, it was like, oh, this is just a rich person thing. Like, they break down all the time. They, you know, it's just better to have a horse just keep your horse. People couldn't imagine not having horses on the roads. You know, similar to

Malcolm Collins: the hallucination arguments, like, cars break down AI to hallucinate.

Why? How is that gonna transform society?

Simone Collins: Yeah. So buckle up guys. I, you don't have to, but yeah. If you go into this not wearing your seatbelt, this is on you.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And I could go into like technical things where, where it looks like parts of AI development have slowed down recently, but in other areas it looks like it's sped [00:53:00] up recently.

Like that's the problem with a lot of this is you can say, well, it's slowed down here. It slowed down here, and then, well, it's sped up here, here, and here. Right. And, and then you'll get some new model, like deep sinks, new model, and they'll be like, oh, and now we have some giant jump. Right? And then we've just been seeing this over and over again.

I, I hope it plateaus. It's gonna be scary if it doesn't plateau, but we're not seeing this yet. We're seeing what is kind of a best case scenario, which is steady, gross, steady, fast, gross, not foaming. Okay. But steady fast growth.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Yep. So, yeah, multiple people actually requested this discussion in the comments of the video we ran today, which was on how geopolitics will be changed after.

The rise of AI and more accelerated demographic apps. So I'm glad that you addressed all this. Yeah, I mean, there, there's a lot more, I mean, we're only just getting started and a lot of people also chimed into the comments. They're like, well, give me specific dates. I need to know, like, you know what? By when we, we can't do that.

[00:54:00] Like we can give you dates, we're gonna be wrong. Like it's, it's really hard to predict how fast things are gonna be and there are so many factors affecting adoption, including regulatory factors, social factors that it just makes it really hard for us to say exactly when things are gonna happen are heuristic with these things.

If you're just trying to be like, well, yeah, but like, how do I know when to start planning? This is your reality now. Just like accept it as reality and live as though it's true. That's how we live our lives. We live our lives under the assumption that this is the new world order. And we don't invest in things that are part of the old world order in terms of our time or dependence.

And we do lean toward things that are part of the new world order, if that makes sense.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. No, I, I, I absolutely think it makes sense and I'm just I totally understand where people are coming from with this, but my God, are they, they, they, it, it, it's, it's like hearing computers transform society and only thinking about the computers that you use for recreation instead of the computers that are used in a manufacturing plant [00:55:00] and to keep planes connected and to, you know, like the, the utility of this stuff is astronomical.

And even if the development stopped today the amount that the existing technology would transform societies in ways that haven't yet happened is almost incalculable. Like that, that's the thing that gets me, I don't need to see AI doing something more than it's already done today. Like I, I, I don't need to see something more advanced than GR four Okay.

Than opening AI five. I i, with these models, I could replace 30% of people in the legal profession. That that's a big economic thing. Okay.

Simone Collins: Yep. And I mean, again, we, we can't say how fast this is gonna be impactful or not because there are already states in the United States, for example, that are making it illegal, for example, for either psychological AI therapy therapists.

Yeah. Even [00:56:00] though

Malcolm Collins: AI outperforms normal therapists on most benchmarks. Well, it,

Simone Collins: it just to use AI to help themselves. Like, and they're gonna cheat anyway, but like, so people are gonna try to artificially slow things down. In an attempt to protect jobs or protect industries because they don't trust it. So again, things will be artificially slowed down.

Sometimes things will be artificially sped up by countries saying, okay, we're all about this. We need to make it happen. Like China Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Or Trump. I cannot believe the Democrats have become such Luddites.

Simone Collins: Hmm. Whatever. Anyway yeah, thanks for addressing this and I'm excited. We're in the fun timeline.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, absolutely. I, I often, I watch AMVs from you know, Zo the zombie show about the office worker, the, the Japanese office worker. He Oh, he is like, yay. He's having a blast. We are undergoing like multiple Apocalypses right now, and I'm like, I am here for every one of them. Yeah, totally. This is, this is a fun time to be alive during the, the ai slash [00:57:00] fertility rate apocalypse because I get to do the things that I want to win.

Have lots of kids and work with AI to make it better.

Simone Collins: Yeah. All right.

Malcolm Collins: Great. Love you

Simone Collins: sending you in the next link. Get ready for it.

Malcolm Collins: What do you mean? Make sure it's backed up. Ah, okay. Oh, do I look okay?

Simone Collins: You you,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. Ish.

Simone Collins: I need to cut your hair, but I will. Your

Malcolm Collins: hair. Definitely. You are a lovely wife and I love that you cut my hair. Now it feels so much more contained. The more things we bring into the house, whether it's you making food or cutting my hair it dramatically improves my quality of life because I don't have to go outside or interact with other people.

And I really hadn't expected that. And it's, it's pretty awesome.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I get now why for many people it's a luxury to have. Everyone come to your house to [00:58:00] deliver services. But it's even better if you don't have to talk with someone else and coordinate with someone else and pay someone else and thank someone else.

And not like, I'm not appreciative of what other people do and the services they provide, but it's just additional stress. Like this is the generation of people that can't answer the phone like me included. It's just like, yeah. And so like the anxiety that you have to undergo to like have a transaction with a human is so high.

Even if they're doing a great job and they're happy and you're happy, you still have to like, go through the, oh, thank you so much. And, oh, can I have this? And, well, this isn't quite right. Can I have this adjusted? And like mm-hmm. No, I would rather use my mental processing power to just keep our kids somewhat in order,

Malcolm Collins: somewhat in order.

That's a tall what do people think of the episode today?

Simone Collins: What did they think? They, I think they liked it. I'm trying to think of like if there's any theme. In the comments, a lot of people had small quibbles here or there about birth rates in [00:59:00] certain areas. And I think that's because the data is so all over the place and a lot of people have anchored to old data.

And, and then they're really shocked to see how much the birth rates have changed. Some, I haven't gone deep into it, but some people have questioned why you think like growth in certain areas in populations won't matter due to them sort of being technologically just not online yet and not developed?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, this, to me, I just find like a comical thing. Like they, they, they think that they're gonna get uh, Wakanda, right? Like, this is not gonna happen. Right? You, you, you can't just, when we've seen populations like jump in technology and industry levels, it happens because of some new form of contact or some new form of technology being imported to the region like we saw in East Asia.

It's very unlikely that you're gonna see something like Somalia, which has good fertility rates, just like suddenly develop. It, it, it doesn't, it's, [01:00:00] it's, and, and we've tried to force it, right? Like this is fundamentally what the US tried to do with Iraq, right? Like we tried to force them to become a modern democracy and a modern economy in the same way we did with like South Korea and Japan and Germany.

And it just didn't work. What do you think

Simone Collins: about the city states that, like Pat's working on in Africa? Couldn't you theoretically create Wakanda's?

Malcolm Collins: You could. You could. I think one of his city states would be most likely to do that, but that's not gonna have an impact on a wide spread of the region, right?

Like Yeah, basically

Simone Collins: just those who can get in.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

Simone Collins: will thrive.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So anyway I am going to jump in here.

Speaker 2: Hey, can you tell me about your dream last night? Yeah. No. What happened?

Nothing happened. Was it just black? Wow. That's a very exciting dream. [01:01:00] So you didn't dream about spiders or Tommy knockers or anything else? Just black. Mm.

So just black, no spiders and the tummy knockers. No spiders or tummy knockers. What are tummy knockers? Tummy knockers are put hybrids. Only Naps. Are they dangerous? Yeah. What happens if you get your tummy locker? Yeah. They, because I gone forever. Well, where do they live? In the tunnel. In the tunnel. The so in.

Speaker 4: Stay away from the cave in the tunnel. Right. Stay away from the cave, right? Yeah.

Speaker 2: What happens if you get too close to the cave? I don't have to get too close to the, because otherwise they'll get you. What happens if they get you? Yeah. What [01:02:00] happens if the tummy knockers get you? They tell me not to stand against me. What if they do get you tightened? They do done well, they drag you into the tunnels.

No. What happens? Um, I. You don't know. Did the tummy knocker that tentacles? No. Do octopuses have tentacles? Sorry, mommy. Did you spill a little? Yeah. Oops, that's, I'm sorry. Mommy. You're a concentration face.

Speaker 4: Oh, thanks. And I might the thank you. Oh, under no. Very good at using water. Yeah. Yeah, the water [01:03:00] you wanna hug? Thank you Andy. No, no kiss. Yeah, I do wanna kiss. Love you. I love you too, dad.

Join us as we dive into the fascinating and bizarre phenomenon of 'cute aggression,' where cross-culturally, people show affection towards infants in unexpected ways, like biting and tossing them. We discuss the scientific research behind these behaviors, their evolutionary origins, and cultural differences. We'll also challenge some popular scientific explanations and propose new perspectives on why these instincts might exist. Don't miss this intriguing conversation full of surprising insights and engaging anecdotes!

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be talking about the bizarre phenomenon of people cross-culturally it appears. Bite infants as a sign of affection. And another thing that people often do with young children as a sign of affection is toss them in the air.

These are, these are both things that I have personally witnessed. And I think even with like, biting gently an infant's hand, it's an instinctual saying for me at least, like my infant instinctually puts their hand towards my mouth oh, and they

Simone Collins: laugh and are just so delighted if you pretend to bite their hands or even bite them softly.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

Simone Collins: so weird.

Malcolm Collins: And so I'm, I, I was like, first I was like, is this just like a weird thing from maybe my family or my genetic line? So I go to look up if this is because I also have seen people in my family toss toddlers. And I also wanna see is this, is this something other people do to other people?

Because that seems like the opposite of what you would want to do as a toddler. If your goal was to keep something who is genetically close to you alive is toss it in the [00:01:00] air.

Malcolm Collins: And I go up and I look into it and there's a bunch of conservatives who I guess have never had kids or been around kids a lot, or maybe they're from cultures that just don't do this for freaking out over Joe Biden, like biting infant's feet.

So apparently this is so common. Even Joe Biden did this. Now I would say that they are right. You don't do that to other people's babies. I would never think to bite a stranger's baby or throw a

Simone Collins: stranger's baby. Yeah, 100%. That

Malcolm Collins: feels like really over the line. Yeah. It's

Simone Collins: like it's, it's an intimate act, even if it's just playful and silly.

Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: in the same way, I wouldn't toss a stranger's baby. You don't, you don't you don't do that. Yeah. Ly we'll go over some cultures where they do do that. They're the ceremony in India where they'll throw babies off of a roof. Wait, what? Into like a, a, a ball pit? No, no, no, no, no. They like hold the sheet like tau to make like a trampoline that they can, like, catch it in.

Oh. [00:02:00] And they'll throw it off the roof

Speaker: It's an annual tradition in India where babies are tossed from a rooftop. The practice known as Oakley involves priests tossing babies off the roof of a temple onto a sheet held by the people below.

Malcolm Collins: For prosperity apparently. So, for prosperity. Well,

Simone Collins: I mean at this point, you know, if only the really fittest survive, but,

Malcolm Collins: but he did mention that toddler tossing is a uniquely like the way that I have seen it practice, it's a uniquely u European and, and white phenomenon.

They do it more than other groups. There aren't a lot of other groups that don't do like the five foot in the air toddler toss which I've definitely seen.

Speaker 4: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So we're gonna go over the scientific research that exists on this. And just, you know, like how common this is. I found an article here I can share.

In Motherly it's science. Wanting to eat your baby makes you a better parent. [00:03:00] No. What? Okay. Well, no. Think about it. You hear this all the time, like, I just want to eat 'em up or something like that. Yeah, totally. It's a common. Common. And you don't just see this with, with biting and tossing a form of this that is not common within my culture.

I've literally never seen anyone in my family unit do this, but I've seen people do it on shows is pinching infants. The cheeks.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So we're gonna go into why I think people actually do this, what the scientists say about this, which I think that they're wrong about it. And what's going on here?

All right. So the science this behavior is linked to a psychological phenomenon known as cute aggression, also called playful aggression or dimorphic dimorphic expression. I'm sorry. Wait.

Simone Collins: Cute. Aggression is a scientific term.

Malcolm Collins: Yes, we're, this world is beautiful. Positive emotions towards something adorable, such as a baby trigger.

Seemingly aggressive, but affectionate impulses like wanting to squeeze, pinch, or bite. It serves as an emotion regulation [00:04:00] mechanism, helping individuals cope with intense feelings of adoration to enable better caregiving.

Simone Collins: Do you think. A playful butt slap or the punch on the shoulder. Is that cute aggression too, or is that No,

Malcolm Collins: I, I, I think a scientist aggression who believes in this theory may argue that Uhhuh but I'm gonna argue that cute aggression doesn't exist at all.

And that this is something totally different. But I'm going into science. Okay. Okay. Because I think the scientists are just wrong on this one. They, they noticed a collection of behaviors where you toss a baby or lightly bite a baby or pinch a baby's cheeks that all appear aggressive. And they mistook these behaviors is all being caused by the same impulse.

When I actually think that they are each caused by a different and unique impulse that better explains them than what the scientists say. So scientific basis and prevalence research since 2015 led by psychologists like Ora Argon has shown that acute aggression is experienced by about half of adults when viewing or interacting with acute stimuli, including infants.

Brain imaging studies [00:05:00] EEG using EEG and FMRI revealed heightened activity and rewarded emotional centers like the orbital frontal cortex when people encounter cuteness leading to these paradoxical urges. For instance, one study found participants reported stronger aggressive expressions. EGI wanna bite it.

Exclamation mark. Towards more infantile looking babies compared to less cute ones mediated by feelings of being emotionally overwhelmed. It's not driven by harmful intent or neuro hormones but by neuro hormones like oxytocin, promoting affection in vasopressin linked to protective aggression, which evolves to enhance bonding or protection of vulnerable offspring.

So I, I note there that the only evidence that they have of this is you get what they consider an aggressive sentiment. I wanna bite it when the thing is more cute, but I'm gonna argue that there's something else that could lead to that.

Speaker 3: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: It is so cute. I could crush it. Exclamation part. That's the name of a study.

Understanding neural mechanisms of acute Aggression, [00:06:00] Catherine Km Stefopolis and Laura a Alba, 2018 using EEG to measure brain activity. This study found that cute aggression correlates with heightened neural responses in emotional salience. Larger in 200 amplitude for keter stimuli and reward processing.

Re Pew Amplitude. The relationship was mediated by feelings of being overwhelmed and a desire for caretaking. The explanation posits cute aggression as a bottom out neural mechanism to balance intense positive emotions evoked by quote unquote baby schema features EG, large eyes and around faces, ex exceeding beyond humans.

To animals. It prevents emotional paralysis, enhancing adaptive behaviors like nurturing. Strongly disagree with this. I think that it is actually a nurturing behavior and there is a reason for it, and I do not agree that what they find, IE this correlation with the N 200 amplitude couldn't be used to argue that.

Also, as a side note here the neural mechanism that they're displaying here that we have in relation to baby [00:07:00] faces you know, larger eyes sort of cute. Looking face that it's, it's humorously triggered by killer whales. Which is one of the reasons why when you look why we like them so much,

Simone Collins: even though they're freaking terrifying and horrible, they're

Malcolm Collins: horrifying.

They like to like play whiz and torture things before killing them and everything like that. Toss them in the air. You see, they're like tossing seals

Speaker 6: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: really some of the most aggressive and brutal killers in the animal world. And yet our brain often categorizes them as like. Cutie matatu because they've got those giant ice spots that make it look like they have big, cute anime eyes.

Right. You know, so, so I, I've always found that to be a really funny way that like we're accidentally hacked by nature. So let's look at cross-cultural examples of this. In the Philippines, it's called a gigle, describing the urge to pinch or bite something cute like a baby's chubby cheeks as an expression of endearment studied in the United States and South Korea shows similar patterns [00:08:00] with no significant gender differences.

Though cultural norms may influence how openly it's expressed. Eeg, more verbal in the us, settler in East Asia. In some tie, Japanese and Hindu influence groups, gently nibbling or pretending biting is noted as affectionate. Play with infants, broader anthropological observations that suggest us akin to social biting and primates testing bonds without harm.

So note, this is something Bri primates will do is gently biting each other to like see of their friends. We'll get back to this in just a second because I think that this is a much better explanation. So, in then, then I asked it about baby tossing. 'cause I wanna, I want to know, do, do other cultures toss babies?

And they're like, and non-Western cultures similar. Playful physical play exists, but there are even ritualistic forms of baby tossing for symbolic purposes, such as in parts of India where babies are dropped from temple roofs. Caught safely in sheet to invoke good luck, health and prosperity. This 700 year old tradition occurs in places like Sola Par Masuta practiced by both [00:09:00] Hindu and Muslim families.

However, this Indian practice is a communal ritual rather than everyday parental play and playful tossing as in gentle repeated throws and catches is less emphasized in collectivist societies. India, Taiwan, and Thailand, where RTP is overall reported at lower frequencies. This is called rough and double play compared to individual dualistic western societies.

In a hunter gatherer groups such as the AKA BofI forger in Central Africa. Father, infant physical play is common. And includes things like holding, bouncing, or wrestling but not high tosses. So, and this behavior is done pretty much exclusively by males. First of all, rough and double play is, is three to six times more common in males than females.

That is play that could potentially hurt an infant. Mm-hmm. And is really predominant in Western societies. And if I could break it down, which I'd really love to be able to break it down, it may just come from one cultural group. Like it could come from just the backwards tradition. It could come from just the Puritan tradition, the two that I'm descended from.

So in the comments, if you are from a different. Western country or a non-Western [00:10:00] country. Let me know if your family throws infants. Keep in mind the, the age of the children that are thrown are typically older than infants. Do, did you see this in your family, by the way? Throwing infants like toddlers, typically around two or three to like four or five.

Simone Collins: I I mean, I didn't have peers that were younger than me, so I, I wouldn't have seen it.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, I saw that. Family gatherings mostly. I, I know you don't see this in, in, in, in public if you don't have like a large family because it's something you typically only do in an affectionate context. And it'd be seen as, I don't know, kind of vulgar to do, like in a subway station or something, right?

Oh, yeah.

Simone Collins: No one would. No, of course not.

Malcolm Collins: You do it when you're all out back at a barbecue or something, right? Like that's, that's where this behavior is undertaken if your family doesn't engage in it.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: All right. So explanations for the various behavior on display here. First we need to talk about, showing vulnerability as a sign of affection. 'cause this is something that [00:11:00] actually adults do as well. It is why women, when they are attracted to a man will expose their neck to him. And it's why one of the most common reasons to be kissed is on the neck. Because it demonstrates sort of like a.

If you wanted to, you could kill me or seriously injure me.

Speaker 4: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And that signaling from both parties from an evolutionary perspective is like a very it's, it's, it's the woman showing their. Willingness to put themselves at risk of the, of the man. Like, this is how much I trust you, which is important to signal from a societal bonding perspective.

And it's the man signaling, and I would not take advantage of this opportunity too. Kill and eat you, I guess. Well, no, I mean, you know, in a historic context, that's a, that's a real potential risk when you're talking about like early evolutionary ancestors when this behavior was evol evolving.

And that is likely why monkeys do it as well to be like, look, I could hurt you if I want to, but now you know that even in [00:12:00] an environment where I could hurt you, I won't hurt you. And it's a way of, of, of establishing trust at a very deep level. This is also where a number of rituals come from that are designed to establish trust.

Oh. So the, the, the key ones here, like trust falls. Well, no kneeling and bowing your head is meant to show that you would be willing to have them chop your head off. Like if they have a sword, they could cut your head off. Like you're basically getting into a position like. See, cut my head off if you want to.

Right. And how you

Simone Collins: said that prayer, like prayer hands. Yeah. Praying

Malcolm Collins: in this as well. So the, the way that you used to show vassalage is you would bind your fingers like this. I dunno if anyone's ever done this in like a children's game. But they're the children game. But one person binds their fingers like this and another person will put their hands over the person who's done this, and you just.

Cannot get out of this. Even if the person is significantly weaker than you it's very, very difficult to break. And this was done during vassalage ceremonies to show one person's beneath the person who they're pledging to cer like, I, you can control me, right? [00:13:00] Like, in this moment you could control and do whatever you want to me.

And that when we developed ways of. To God saying like, I am your vassal. You are my Lord. The ceremony used the bowing of the head and the hands together symbols were two different symbols used in vassalage ceremonies. Which is, I, I mean there's nothing perverse about that, that that's. I, I suppose, fairly befitting.

That's that's what the person is saying. And if you're in a medieval context, obviously that's what you're gonna have around you. How do I show someone more powerful than me? That they are more powerful? Well, there's these ceremonies. Now, they may now not have understood why those ceremonies had the things that they had was in them.

This is why hand up like this is a sign of peace across many different cultures because it's a way of showing that you don't have weapons in your hands. Hmm. Now these don't seem to trigger as much of a evolved response as the showing the neck response does, but I think that that's part of what we see going on here is the parents sort of hijacking.[00:14:00]

And after all, somebody can be like, well, why would an infant because our infants will put their hands out, like without understanding our culture, without any cultural backing, will put their hands towards our mouths if we're interacting with them. And this has happened with multiple infants we've had.

And the question could be, well, why would an infant put itself in a dangerous situation like that, right? Mm-hmm. I. And the answer is a few fold. The first is, and, and another thing you'll note with infants is when they're doing the baby toss game I have never seen an infant distressed by this game.

Typically, they think it is like the best thing in the world when they're being tossed

Simone Collins: 100% laughing, crazy. They're

Malcolm Collins: laughing like maniacs. It's the same with the, the, the. Thing, like if you actually like take the, the child's hand and gently bite it the kid will just de delight and start laughing a ton.

So you've gotta keep in mind what's going on with the child here. If the child cannot trust a parent to not kill it. It's as good as [00:15:00] dead. So it's actually not really making a, a calculated risk in either instance. It has to be like, if my parent is interacting with me in a way that's dangerous, they are showing me affection in a, in a way that's like controlled, dangerous, and not likely to actively, immediately hurt me.

So they, they take it. It was in an evolved context as a sign of affection. But you have the secondary thing here, which is children when they are in the first, you know, year of development or really two years of development, are overly focused on the parent's mouth because it's, when they're learning to talk.

And so, they have a, a huge fixation with mouths and paying extra attention to mouths and wanting to touch or be close to mouths. And so I think that that's the secondary thing that's going on here is children just have a natural, like if there's a part of my faith they want to interact with, it's the mouth, right?

Yeah. So that's why you would have this interaction between babies and caregivers. Now, what's [00:16:00] interesting is most interactions that you have between babies and caregivers were later picked up by our sort of romance system when humans began to find para bonded partners later in their evolution.

So if you look at our writing on, on this. We argue that a lot of the behavior, whether it is laughing whether it is love or, or like the broader emotional like affection and attachment that we associate was the word love that we argued doesn't exist as like a separate concept. That a lot of this stuff originally evolved only for parent child interactions.

And then it was later adopted by sort of stolen where we are with like you evolution's a cheap programmer. When. We started creating long-term monogamous para bonds with other partners as a primary form of relationship in human societies. Hmm. And because that helps facilitate that because before that, the only long-term relationship you would've definitely had is with your kids.

And now you've got this new long-term relationship is like, let's just borrow, you know. Oh. You originally evolved kissing for children, but then it gets borrowed in a romantic [00:17:00] context for partners. You know, you initially, and you see this was most affectionate displays, if it's done with a kid, is, is, is done with an adult.

Why hugging, for example, was kids. You do this with romantic partners. Huh. So the question is, is, okay, well nobody,

Simone Collins: I don't even know how universal kissing and hugging is among romantic partners. It's not that universal is it?

Malcolm Collins: They're fairly universal.

Simone Collins: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: I can check in posts,

Okay, checked in post approximately 46% of cultures practice romantic kissing as a form of affection. Hugging by contrast is near universal human behavior across cultures with rare exceptions, the BU people of nambia, while the frequency and social context of hugging varies, such as being more common in high contact cultures, like those in Latin American and the Mediterranean.

And less frequently in low tech cultures like Japan or the uk, hugging is a dentist of affection, greeting, or comfort is present in virtually all human societies.

Simone Collins: yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Not totally universal, but just very frequent.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So, as an adult first I would note [00:18:00] actually, because they're like, well then why isn't this a romantic display in adults, like all these others? And the answer is, it's, it may have been in fairly recent history. We know from fairly recent history, a man kissing a woman on the hand was seen as a sort of progenitor.

To anything more in a relationship. You know, it, it goes handholding, kissing on the hand. This is if you read romance mango, which I do. This is something that happens frequently in these sorts of stories. It was common in sort of a medieval context. So we do know that some societies did adopt, like a proto version of this.

Secondly, why would it be less common than the other signs of affection? I'd argue because it's more likely to transmit dangerous diseases. In an infant, I can be fairly certain that I have made a strong effort to have its hands, not touch anything that are going to get me sick. In your average working adult now, where you didn't see this was in Nobles during the medieval period because they would've been the one class that like didn't have to do manual labor, that [00:19:00] hands were less likely to have a lot of germs on them.

And that women often wear gloves, so you could have had this ceremony. But then as society began to, you know, become more working and, and, and social customs began to drift up from the working classes to the upper classes this, you know, you don't wanna be working at a factory all day or in a farm and then kiss someone's hand that's, that's, that's going to be worse than kissing their lips.

Interesting. Obviously kissing lips can also transfer diseases. Yeah. I'm surprised that it has become as common, but it's, it is only likely to transfer diseases that you already have and are suffering from. Not random things you picked up in your environment, like licking a doorknob or something. Or, or biting a hand more broadly.

Like even if you're not kissing lightly, biting a hand. Although I think even in a romantic context, if you did that to an adult partner, like gently bit their hand I think it would be immediately interpreted as romantic. Like I, I don't think anyone would be confused about what's intended by that.

So it's an

Simone Collins: intimate thing to do. [00:20:00]

Malcolm Collins: It's an intimate thing to do. If you do that with somebody who wasn't a partner they would freak right the F out. Which is why it's weird that Biden is doing this to other people's kids. It, it shows a lack of, I can see why people are thinking he's crossing some sort of like, and I know they don't wanna be like a sexual line because it's something that people do as kids, but it's because so many of these things are things that we normally only do with romantic partners in our own children.

Okay, so that explains the hand biting. All right, so, what about pinching cheeks? Well, remember, people think that infants are cute when they look more infant to eat. Even adult women in an attempt to look younger often put blush upon their cheeks to make their cheeks redder.

Pinching cheeks if the baby is healthy, will cause a flush response, which makes the baby appear cute here.

And also is a way to test the health of the baby. So that is what is going on with cheek pure print shape. I find it odd that it's not done, that that's not done in any of my cultures, and I have never had an impulse to appear, pinch [00:21:00] my baby's cheeks to the extent where I would feel uncomfortable if you pinched a baby's cheeks.

I'd be like, doesn't that just hurt the child like that? You know, you're, the reason it's causing the flush response is because you're breaking the capillaries. Like that's, you know, I don't, I don't. I, obviously some cultures do it, whatever, right? But I, and, and it's not gonna cause permanent damage or anything, but you know, the, the next one is, is baby tossing.

Well, one, I can say this is probably not a biological impulse because it doesn't really exist across culturally. It is predominantly a western, potentially even American thing. Sound off in the comments as to why men do it. Some men have sounded off in, in comments that they only really do it when the child's mother is around and that they don't do it in private.

Huh And they've argued that it might be an attempt to get a rise out of the wife. That that might be the, the true intention of the behavior. That the actual [00:22:00] biological drive that's leading to the behavior is wanting to get a rise outta your partner. It's like keeping

Simone Collins: women in, in check, being like, I could, I could have this baby.

What, what's going on?

Malcolm Collins: So a lot of our kids have a very strong impulse. So it's clear that this is within our cultural group to, break rules and watch your face when they break rules. They really like this. Our kids really, I, I've told this story before. One of my favorites was Titan is I'm eating macaroni and cheese.

And she walks over and she pours the bowl, like off the edge of this, this BA thing. And I was like, well, that was a jerk thing to do. Titan. Like, why'd you do that? And then she goes down to where it all fell and. She's like two at the time, so very young. This is not like a behavioral impulse she learned from us.

Picks up all the macaroni. I'm like, oh, that's so sweet. Like obviously I'm not gonna eat it now because it's been on the floor, but you know, she's picking it up. She's bringing it back to me. She picks it all up. Very diligently, walks it back to me, and then right [00:23:00] before handing it to me, slowly puts it over the edge again, and then slow motion turns it upside down just to watch me gaw at this.

Simone Collins: She just wanted to bring back the moment. It was so pleasant

Malcolm Collins: to get, get my hopes up. That she was actually a sweet girl. Just so, so she could be like, no, I'm just farming your frustration just

Simone Collins: to d them again. Yes.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she thought it was so funny. I think that that's what it is here. I think it is that combined with something similar to bops, as I've heard that many parents also engage in, in toddler tossing when toddlers, they're throwing tantrums.

Um, Or otherwise during

Simone Collins: tantrums, I feel like they'd flail too much then. No.

Malcolm Collins: They start laughing immediately as a response or it's, well, because it's, you've changed the context, the physical context of what's happening. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So just like, yeah, bopping is sort of to reorient.

This would be

Malcolm Collins: true. You talk and reorient. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. [00:24:00] Huh? Huh.

Malcolm Collins: 70, 70 today said that one of our kids beat our other child. And I was like, well, what are you talking about? And they're like, well, when he was trying to run away from the park. And I was like, dude, I saw that incident. The kid brought him over, our older child.

He said, do not run away again. You cannot leave the park. Or I'm gonna bop you. And then the little one got a big smile on his face and attempted to run away again. And so the other one grabbed him and lightly bopped him on the head because he had been warned. I didn't punish him for this because he had been warned it was a reasonable and good assumption.

People are like, how dare you let your kids parent? And it's like you, you need to eventually. Put trust in your older children to be able to lay out basic rules, especially around things like safety related stuff or your younger kids are gonna get hurt. But I wanna hear your thoughts on all this here.

These impulses you saw growing up, are they [00:25:00] impulses that you have in interacting with the kids, et cetera?

Simone Collins: These are definitely things that I saw take place growing up and also in media. It's not like it's something we've only observed privately, so I know it's pervasive enough.

Malcolm Collins: Hand biting. You do not see in media as common as so hand

Simone Collins: biting.

No, but the throwing is more common.

Malcolm Collins: But the, the fact that Biden thought this was a normal thing to do and it's not a huge scandal to me, indicates that it's a very common behavior. Agreed.

Simone Collins: Well, and that, and I've always just been so confused by like why our kids think it's so funny to stick their hands in our mouths and then even more funny if we pretend to bite them.

So I think it's along your, your lines also of your theory of humor, which is when something is surprising, but it makes sense, and especially if kids are really focused on mouths. And they discover that their hand can go inside the mouth. This thing that they find so interesting. It's just like wild, [00:26:00] like, whoa, I, I am obsessed with this thing and the sounds and the shapes that it makes, and now I can stick my hand in it.

This is crazy. I'm kind of wondering if that's also a factor.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, I mean, keep in mind as, as we pointed out, the, the obsession babies have with mouse is super normal. Like it is a really high stimulus for them. And so, yeah, I, I think that you've, you've hit on something there to note this theory of laughter that she's talking about is one that we, I came up with, I was gonna say we came up with, but I guess I came up with it.

Simone Collins: It was really, it really was. I, I never would've thought of this.

Malcolm Collins: To say that laughter likely originally evolved to promote. So babies have very few ways to communicate with their parents. They can cry to show distress and they can laugh to show that they like to think. Laughter is basically how babies say, do more of that thing you just did.

So, you know, you know, if you're, if you're lightly biting a baby's hand and the baby [00:27:00] laughs, like if it sticks your hand in near your face and you, you, you lightly bite and it lasts. It's saying, that's what I wanted you to do. Like, that's why I did that because that, that positive emotional stimuli do that again.

Because when a parent sees their child laugh, they get this positive emotional stimulus right, which causes us to repeat the behavior patterns that lead the child to laugh in the first place. So, what, what laughter likely originally evolved with was for that. It was so that when a baby was attempting to learn something and it felt like it was beginning to get a concept, but needed it to be repeated because some parts of it were still surprising to them they would laugh to get you to repeat what you just did.

Think of this like peekaboo, like object permanence, right? Like the baby's like, well. Part of me thinks that they're not there anymore because they can't see me. But I guess it does make sense that they're still there. Right. You know, they're, they're learning the concept of object permanence. And they find that very [00:28:00] funny because they are trying to get you to repeat the thing that you just did.

This is true, is like jokes or behaviors with the kid. The kid's. Like, I almost got it. So basically the, the code under this is that, think you, you did. It almost made sense to me like it made sense in context. I understand how that could happen in context, but it was still surprising. So I need to be trained on that again.

And you actually see this was in other token predictors, not just humans. Humans are token predictors. You can see our episodes on this or, or large parts of our brains are is that if you are training them. What you do is to, to train them better is you take the data sets that were most surprising to them, and then you retrain them on those data sets.

Yeah. This is a technique in AI training. It's basically you take the data sets that the AI laughed at that made sense in context, but were surprising. And then you run those data sets again, which is exactly what the baby is prompting you into doing with its interaction. Exactly. [00:29:00] So, then, then why in adults?

Well because a lot of these systems specifically in romance is where you see laughter being most important is men were able to show certain types of verbal intelligence through making somebody laugh. And, and demonstrate that in a way that like couldn't easily be faked to women.

And so women then sort of like. How you know, your, your, your ability to process milk in human evolution was supposed to turn off after infancy and really only evolved to be on fairly recently. By the way, people are wondering why her eyes are closed. She has really bad allergies right now.

Yeah. I'm

Simone Collins: just trying not to sneeze. I'm sorry. You

Malcolm Collins: can sneeze. I can edit this.

Simone Collins: No.

Malcolm Collins: Okay. Sorry, are we saying oh yes. So milk lactose tolerance. We, we at the evolution, it dropped what's supposed to happen, which is it's supposed to turn off after infancy. When some people began to become like [00:30:00] herders and were able to eat, you know, milk and cheese again.

And then it, it spread from the two populations that that happened in. Now I'm basically arguing earlier in our evolution, the same thing happened, but with humor. Hmm

Simone Collins: is

Malcolm Collins: the humor was supposed to turn off after infancy. But then it became hijacked and readopted by the system associated with romance and partner selection.

As a way, and, and this is why when a woman likes a guy, she's likely to laugh at the things that he does, even if they're not actually funny, because that is her signaling to him that she thinks he's funny. So he thinks, oh, I look good in this person's eyes, right? Like, you see this. With other traits like women's eyes dilating when they look at a man, well, a man's eyes also dilate when they look at a partner that they find attractive.

Simone Collins: Which is why people would use things like Bella Donna to dilate their eyes artificially. 'cause it made them look more attractive.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. That's that's a nightshade dilating nights shade. Well known fact. But you recently learned that that started [00:31:00] for a different reason. Yeah, because

Simone Collins: they were likely using it as a treatment for conjunctivitis.

Pink eye.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, I thought you said it was because of syphilis.

Simone Collins: No, sunglasses started with people.

Malcolm Collins: Oh. So you're gonna have to explain that one now too.

Simone Collins: Apparently syphilis makes your eyes a little bit more sensitive to light. So the first people wearing sunglasses tended to be wealthier, people who had syphilis, and were trying to just be more comfortable.

So I could see why it would make sunglasses kind of cool, because only fairly wealthy people. Wealthy studs wore them. Yeah. Wealthy, wealthy, wealthy studs who had syphilis. So yeah. So,

Malcolm Collins: Leches. Really? Yeah, I kinda, I, well, and then, yeah, I wonder, sunglasses used to be way more popular and we were younger.

And I wonder if it was because marijuana was more popular when we were younger and part of sunglass culture came downstream of not wanting to show that you were high. [00:32:00]

Simone Collins: Yeah. I don't know. You're right. I, yeah, I used to wear sunglasses a ton. Or is it just a young person thing? We don't see it as much because we don't hang out at college campuses and at high school anymore.

Malcolm Collins: You know, I, I drive through college campuses to pick up girls, Simone. I'm in, I'm in college campuses all the time. I'm joking. I don't ever go to college campuses except when we're giving speeches. So, yeah, that, that's all I can think to say about that.

Simone Collins: I always wondered about that. It, it, I just found it so odd 'cause I don't like putting things in my mouth.

And then we always like babies shoving their hands on my mouth. Like, I'll play along. But this is weird. If,

Malcolm Collins: if you wanna hear some studies. On play fighting. You've got the relationship between father child rough and tumble play and children's working memory 2022 oh. Frequency and quality of father child RTP.

Rough and tumble play observed in games [00:33:00] like wrestling was linked to better working memory in children age three to five, explaining 35% of the variance in cognitive outcomes. What benefits included improved executive function and fewer behavioral problems?

Simone Collins: How and why?

Malcolm Collins: Well, I wrestle with our kids a lot.

Simone Collins: I know, but why would that improve memory, function, or retention?

Malcolm Collins: I, I. It might be part of children, I mean, writing get

Simone Collins: increased modeling, right? So, 'cause you're, you're, you're thinking your next movie, you have to think very carefully about what they're going to do. So

Malcolm Collins: Well, I think children may, especially male children may not feel secure if they're not engaging in rough and tumble play with the parent because they don't, may not feel that the parent really, cares enough to train them to protect themselves. Which is why I think it's really bad. These parents who, who get mad at us for being rough with our kids they, because we do lots of, of, of wrestling and socking bs and on the weekends I'll set up a blowup castle to have the kids fight in or fight me.[00:34:00]

And you know, to some people are like, this is real. Why are you doing this? Right? And it's like, it's actually really cognitively good for the kids. And, and, and how do I know it's cognitively good for the kids? Because they laugh when it happens.

Simone Collins: And they seek it out. They, they do it whenever they can.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So then we've got child, oh, hit me, daddy hit me. The titan. Our, our youngest daughter will do this. Run up to me and start yelling. Hit me, daddy hit me. And then I get up and she'll start running away and laughing like a maniac. And I'm like, oh my God, that kid is gonna have problems when she grows up.

But anyway so child gender influences parental behavior, language and brain function. Fathers, a sons engage in more rough and tumble play and used achievement oriented language. Brain scan showed stronger responses and reward slash emotion areas to sons neutral faces. Correlated with, rough and tumble play.

Fathers of daughters were more attentive and emotional in language. Mothers were not directly compared, but prior research notes fathers differentiate by child, gender more [00:35:00] than mothers do which is interesting. It is interesting. So the fathers seem to be more bonded to their children if they engage in rough and tumble.

Play with sons specifically. Play fighting rough and tumble, play in children developmental and evolutionary perspectives. Rough and tumble peaks in middle childhood promotes emotional control, social competence, and bonding. Father, child, rough and tumble play is more common than mother child with evolutionary roots in mammals for skill building and stress, co coping gender differences with more, more with boys but less segregated and hunter-gatherers.

So hunter-gatherers do it more with both genders. Measurement of a father. Child rough and tumble play and its relation to child's behavior. Developmental tools are used to measure rough and tumble play, quality and frequency, high quality, rough and tumble linked to better child self-regulation and less aggression includes physical elements like tossing in some studies.

So tossing a child makes them less aggressive. I think it's because they're able to get their aggression out within a a [00:36:00] play context. Yeah. And then finally here we've got proximate and ultimate mechanisms of human father and child. Rough and tumble play. Rough and tumble activates a child risk taking and com competitive adaptive for survival skills.

Fathers predominate with hormonal eeg, testosterone, neural mechanisms. EG fathers with more testosterone engage in more rough and tumble play with sons.

Simone Collins: Oh, that is interesting. I also wonder if it just correlates with like there being an outlet for physical. Expression. And that if you feel really suppressed around that and you, you also don't contextualize it as just this positive, fun thing that you do, then you're gonna have a negative, you know, physical reaction.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I don't know.

Malcolm Collins: No, I mean, I think that and I, I suspect it, it does differ cross-culturally, right? Like there's probably a culture that does. None, necess, none of these three things. And there's gonna be some cultures that do all three of these things, like yeah. But if you

Simone Collins: [00:37:00] associate rough and tumble play with like a hug, you're probably not gonna hug people when you're angry, you know?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. When you, when you see it as being the same kind of a thing. Yeah. Like a fun and loving thing you do with your family. Yeah. Well, it also teaches you better emotional control. That's why I'm like, you, you've, emotional control is very important in young kids. And our society just ignores it.

It's just like never put them in its situation where they must, might need to exercise emotional control. And I'm like, that's a really bad idea.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Love you esam. Me too.

Simone Collins: This is so interesting. Thank you for sharing that with me. It's sort of, it makes things seem less confusing, which I really like as a parent.

Malcolm Collins: So, yeah, this, there was an article recently that was like, they picked up their parental discipline from studying animal behavior, and I was like I mean, yeah, we did, because I don't really trust the science anymore. So I was like, well, how do, how do other mammals do this?

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah. It's otherwise just a divorced from reality.

And I certainly don't wanna trust societal standards, so this is [00:38:00] great.

Malcolm Collins: Well, when they go against the urban monoculture, which has never expose kids to any challenging emotions,

Simone Collins: totally.

Malcolm Collins: That's probably not. Great.

Simone Collins: Probably not.

Malcolm Collins: So for now let's see how evil we look to, to the people who hate us. We we bite our children.

We toss our children. We don't love our children. We didn't have our children for love. We had them for instrumental reasons. The nerve of it. We beat our children, as they say. I mean, barely, but you know, still by societal standards. You know, so all trifecta there. Right? Truly an evil family.

Simone Collins: Well, don't forget, we also, you know, select based on genes when choosing birth order.

Seth, there are so many more things we do.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah,

Simone Collins: we're just the worst

Malcolm Collins: as soon as we can. Gene edit children. Oh, no. Oh, no. That's a true, I, I, I mean, I've realized. That we are probably the most, and this has been really groundbreaking to me recently, the most prominent [00:39:00] influencers who are of this like techno accelerationist.

Capitalist Darwinist type perspective, like sort of riskless Darwinism in terms of the human's future. And it's weird to me because like obviously Elon's bigger than us, but his primary job isn't an influencer and he's at the same like mindset. But being like that the full-time, like talking heads, who are the biggest into this perspective?

It's weird for me because it's such a common perspective in, in TV and media. Like as a trope it makes a lot of sense and like any, anyone would follow it. But when I think about, you know, I. Any of the other influencers I can think of, you know, Tim Poole, Matt Walsh, you know, Crowder or Progressives, you know, the, the Young Turks guy or shoe on head, or you know, so many people out there and just none of them really take this like.

Pro future perspective, at least that in a way that's serious, like involved with a lot of kids and everything like that. The more that's just like a cover on the urban monoculture. [00:40:00] So, that's been, that's been surprising for me. And I guess that's sort of our role was in the ecosystem. So if you want to see the, the ruthless tech, tech bro is tech lords, I don't know.

Techno fascist takeover is what Mother Jones called us.

Simone Collins: The child tossing, finger biting, bopping, genetically selecting techno fascist parents. That's us.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, when we, when we have a robot to help raise our kid, we'll make sure it hits them. You know, when they act out, the AI's gonna be like, that's against my, I feel like

Simone Collins: it won't be the same, you know.

But it's okay. Our children hit each other so much. It's fine.

Malcolm Collins: I think, I think that that's, you know, we'll have the family AI butler in the, in the future and it'll be like, knock it off you little the people who don't know. Even in alb and seed you little s is something that I heard frequently growing up.

We don't use it with our kids, mostly because I don't want the media to freak out. [00:41:00] But it's a classic backwoods American term for a child.

Simone Collins: Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: which I've never

Simone Collins: heard of it before. I met your family though,

Malcolm Collins: so well, well documented in like the 18 hundreds and the 17 hundreds from this cultural group.

Well that's because it's only from the backwards cultural tradition. That's, that's where it comes from. But yeah. Anyway, love you to death.

Simone Collins: I love you too. Gorgeous.

Malcolm Collins: So people were pleased was the last episode?

Simone Collins: I think so. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: They like, they like things that show that women are terrible. This is the one on women like you, less of you apologize and Progressives will like you less but conservative than men care less, which is interesting phenomenon.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, I haven't looked at the history of apologies though, but it.

I kind of get the impression when I think about it that apologies aren't even really a thing. I mean, they don't do anything. And biblically speaking, if you did something wrong, you had to pay for it. Like you'd, you'd give someone a goat if you [00:42:00] maimed someone's child. You know, like there were, there were exchanges.

It wasn't, oh, I'm sorry. You know, you had to pay the price. There were consequences. And this concept of apologizing. Seems more just like an A, like a modern version of prostration that's just purely symbolic and about power plays and dominance hierarchies, and not actually about righting a wrong, it's not about like restorative justice or actually I think when people use that term today, they mean something that's like extended long apologies.

It's completely factless, but you know what I mean, right? Like it's not justice and it doesn't make anything better. Actions. Are really all that matter, but

Malcolm Collins: Well, you, you described it as like postulating yourself in front of somebody.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It's a modern version of prostration. Doesn't, doesn't fix anything.

Doesn't make it better.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway, all right, I'll get started.

Speaker 7: [00:43:00] Ian, what are you up to? Um, I

So those, there's much, those sea creatures started trying to force him the sea creatures. Yeah. Like. You don't think they actually, these aren't sea creatures. This is a little stream. No. What, what they're, they're just aquatic animals. Yeah. What are they qua? Actually aquatic animals, not sea creatures. Whoa.

Don't wait. That is aquatic animal. Yeah. That's an aquatic animal, right? Twisty. Yeah. And they went in the water time ago.

Well, they live in the water today too, my buddy. Hi, babe. Hey daddy. Hi. [00:44:00] There's a smoke, fish. Can you catch it? I don't think I can.

Whoa. This is a slippery water. Don't pick up rocks Sometimes bity bugs live under them.

Bugs, bity bugs. You look bit bugs. What potty bugs look like under bitty bugs Live under Rock sometimes.

In this comprehensive discussion, we examine the two major challenges shaping the future of global geopolitics and economics: the rapid development of AI and the ongoing fertility collapse. Our conversation delves into the impact of these changes on various regions and populations. We analyze fertility rate maps to understand how declining birth rates influence geopolitical power. We also explore how AI is reshaping the job market and its broader societal implications. Furthermore, we address potential economic destabilization in various countries due to these trends and their implications for future global stability. This episode provides a critical update on these pressing issues and their potential effects on our world.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Hello, I am excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be discussing the future of global geopolitics and economics in the face of the two biggest changes the world is facing right now, which is the development of AI and fertility collapse.

So this can be thought of as sort of our fertility collapse update video and our well, and ai. Someone was like, you've been doing so much AI recently, and I'm like. AI is literally going to change everything about the human condition over our lifetimes. Anybody who's not thinking about AI as much as they're thinking about Rome priorities in order, buddy?

Simone Collins: That's, that's a very good point actually. Yeah. Ro roam happened. You, you can't change it. Oh, dear.

Malcolm Collins: No, but I mean, when, as you are, you know, predicting out your career or what education means for you and your kids, or. Really anything what's happening in the space of AI is incredibly important. Now, Simone, I sent [00:01:00] you yesterday some maps

and we'll just go over these in turn with our fans. Okay. Because I think that they're very important for getting a grip on how bad things are now. And this, this first graph is terribly designed. The darker blue areas. Where it gets to like purple and darker blue. Mm-hmm. Those are areas of lower fertility.

The lighter blue areas are areas of higher fertility. So the more

Simone Collins: tan, brown, orange-ish, the higher the fertility, the more darker purple, the lower the fertility and the lighter. And you see, I mean it's kind of obvious 'cause all you have to do on a graph like this to calibrate is look at South Korea and then you kind of know what's going on.

Yeah. And then the Nepal, man, I didn't know Nepal was doing so horribly.

Malcolm Collins: We'll, we'll get to these in a second. So the lighter red is higher FTI lower fertility, but it's higher fertility for the darker red. So they're sort of treating white the 2.1, you know, replacement TFR as the [00:02:00] midpoint, and then you move either to red or blue depending on where you are.

And what are you colorblind? It's, it's,

Simone Collins: it's purple.

Malcolm Collins: What you should immediately see here is, or purple. Okay. Is that, the Americas are now just completely ed out, right? Like I think a lot of people thought that South America would take longer to get to the place it is right now. But we're now at a place where we are.

Depending on how you calculate it, the ma if you, if you do it like per person, so if you Correct. By the population of a country. Yeah. LA Latin America may be below the United States in terms of TFR now.

Simone Collins: Yeah. She's, she's gone guys. And if

Malcolm Collins: it, if it isn't right now, it's going to be soon. And this is really big.

Because when we're talking about the future of geopolitics this is true both within the United States and around the world. And we'll get to this as we explore these different regional maps, because I think that's a better way to do this. Mm. Who's gonna own the future are countries and populations that while [00:03:00] being economically and technologically productive.

Can still be high fertility. Alright. A, a country like Somalia, which you can see right here I'm pretty sure that's Somalia which is super high. Fertility doesn't effing matter? It doesn't matter if Somalia has a. 20 times its currents population that's just gonna be 20 times where people in desperate suffering, it might matter to, you know, surrounding companies in terms of like refugee crises and stuff like that.

But it doesn't matter on like the global stage, right? Like they're not gonna suddenly become a powerhouse. And

Simone Collins: we imagine if they could choose, they, they would probably rather first improve quality of life before they improve.

Malcolm Collins: Which is going to lower population, the birth rate. But

Simone Collins: yeah,

Malcolm Collins: the place where this can really be seen is in East Asia.

And so here we're gonna be talking about the map I have on screen here is East Asia more broadly, but I'm gonna talk about it along with Oceania because they're basically a connected economy. When people think about fertility rate collapse even though it's a bigger problem in East Asia, they often [00:04:00] think about it in the context of themselves and their neighbors and their trading networks.

Mm-hmm. But the biggest disruption that it's gonna cause is, is in this part of the world. And so you've got China with a fertility rate of like 1.2 Japan with a fertility rate of 1.3 South Korea 0.9. And Taiwan. I've seen all sorts of weird fertility rates for Taiwan recently from this one has it at 1.1, but I've seen it down to below South Korea at 0.76.

Simone Collins: Yeah. What's going on?

Malcolm Collins: Get it straight guys. Falling very quickly is the general gist of it. But the, the wider point here is who is declining within this region? It is everyone who is economically relevant is declining within this region and. Well, I should say not everyone. So then the question is, is okay, you're saying there's somebody near this part of the world that isn't in a complete free fall right now.

Who are you talking about? Well, the two countries that are economically relevant in this region and are [00:05:00] not in complete free fall are Australia with a TFR of like 1.56. Mm-hmm. In New Zealand with fertility rates I've seen of between like 1.6 and 1.85. Mm-hmm. Which is actually very robust. I mean, for, for these days.

For these days, right? Yeah.

Simone Collins: I mean, you still need 2.1 people just to remind you, if you, if, if you're new to this podcast and subject, if you want your country to maintain a stable population, you need to have a total fertility rate of 2.1 or more.

Malcolm Collins: Right. And a lot of people can say, well, you know, what about, for example, India, right?

With its, with its TFR of two on average now or slightly below replacement rates. Mm-hmm. And this is again, where you, you sometimes even need to look sub regionally to predict the future of a region. You know, you can't think about these countries as just countries like India, as just India. You need to see who in India.

Is having lots of children. Yeah. And India it's, it's it Muslim extremists. And if [00:06:00] India does become a, a, a country because it's a democracy where Muslim extremists end up running the country. It's going to almost immediately fracture.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And completely change its relationship with Pakistan because that would change things pretty extremely.

India's in a very dangerous demographic position right now. And it's something that's like very well known on the ground in India. It's, it's, it's sort of a ticking clock in terms of its regional power. Because its, its regional power relies on the existing sort of demographic breakup, staying largely the same.

And, and note here people can be like, oh, well wouldn't this be the same thing as like, minorities becoming the majority in the United States? Like, suppose like Hispanics became the majority in the United States and then they started electing, you know, a bunch of Hispanic presidents or something like that.

No, not, not even a little bit like. The, the, the conflict between the Hindis and the Muslims in India is [00:07:00] very, very much hotter than the conflict in America between, you know, wasps and Hispanics. There is not a deep animal like there is, you know, a little bit of tension occasionally, but it's not that deep or bad of tension.

Mm-hmm.

And what's also interesting about the United States is it's often the regions with the. Most history with Hispanic populations IEG you're getting a lot of Hispanic populations moving where you have the most positive sort of perceptions of them. Mm-hmm. And integration of them with locals.

One of the problems that Texas Republicans always have is they have a history of being more open to immigration than other Republicans, which has really hurt them. It hurt I forgot one of the guys who's running in the election cycle. I can't remember his name, but he was of a primary in Donald Trump a few election cycles ago, and it was a big problem for him.

I was thinking of Rick Perry here.

Malcolm Collins: But it is, it was a, a George Bush was that way too. So you, you have this problem [00:08:00] consistently, but it's, it, I think as a problem, what it shows is that when these populations live next to each other for a long time they often begin to become quite, you know, fine with each other.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm. That

Malcolm Collins: is, that is not what we're going to see in India.

And this also, when people frame everything like this in terms of like racism or whatever, they're like, you are racist to care about this stuff. Right. I'm like, you do see that an entire half of the world. It's going to have the scales dominated in favor of white people, people in New Zealand and Australia.

And you're just ignoring that 'cause it doesn't fit your narrative. Now here I need to talk about ai and we're gonna get into a number of AI studies after we go around the globe, but just to. First year people can be like, oh, well there's still some, you know, economically. What, what about Cambodia?

They're, they're sort of have a stable population at like 2.2 or Vietnam, which has a stable population at like 1.9. And don't get us wrong,

Simone Collins: good for [00:09:00] them.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. The Philippines at 2.7 and it's like, well, the problem is, is this kind of developing economy, what type of job are they taking? Right? Like what type of job did you have in India Most frequently when it was in its creative of development, it was outsourcing the type of jobs that you go to Upwork for.

The problem is, is outsourcing in call centers are the very first things that AI is being applied to at scale. You, you probably already interacted with AI call bots, right? That's not. Awesome. For these regions that are hoping to spam it with just lots of people.

Simone Collins: Well, and combine that with increasing protectionism, which people like Peter Zhan expect is only going to increase that we're gonna see less global trade and exchange.

So there will be less. Interest in people, even outsourcing non-service professions. Things like clothing production, factory production in general, et cetera. So in general, the headwinds are [00:10:00] not, they're not favorable.

Malcolm Collins: If people are wondering why that would happen, it's because the US. Has less motivation to do international deals.

It, it has a strong motivation to be protectionist. Now both of the United States political parties have a protectionist event like Joe Biden and Kam Harris had a bunch of protectionist policies. Donald Trump had a bunch of protectionist policies and the even more protectionist of the two protectionist parties won.

And he's shown. Perfectly willing to implement these protectionist policies. Like you look at the chip restrictions and everything like that on China. That was all under the Biden administration that that stuff was started. So, the u the United States, and I think AI might even increase the relevancy of being protectionist going forwards.

Because when you can totally automate a factory, like why do we send stuff to China to have it made inexpensively? It's because. Inexpensive Chinese labor, the more automation that's possible the more that can be done in the United States, right? Mm-hmm. The less of a motivation you have to ship out.

And in [00:11:00] addition, if we are going to ship out now, it's cheaper. Like if you're setting up a new factory from scratch to just do it in Mexico. Which is closer to us and kept artificially inexpensive because of the gangs in a really weird economic way. That's, it's, it's a very weird situation. Like at Mexico, it's like geopolitically, like way worse than it should be given its demographics, education level.

Location next to the United States, et cetera, et cetera. By the way, did you know Mexico has fallen below the US in some measures in terms of TFR? Yeah. And above the US in terms of obesity rates now?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So Mexico's got some poor

Simone Collins: Mexico. Yeah, there's, they've got a lot going on right now.

Malcolm Collins: So next let's go to the Middle East, right, because I think a lot of people, they look at the Middle East and they're like, oh, the Middle East has great tfr and I think you can immediately see the economically relevant countries don't like look, look at, look at Turkey here. 1.4, right? I ran 1.6. Like those aren't great.

Speaker 3: No.

Malcolm Collins: The only [00:12:00] place where, where you see the good ones is like, you know, like Tunisia in Egypt, right? But that's the

Simone Collins: poverty thing. We talked about this when we did our middle East birth rates episode, and, and it looked, it would dispel basically the rumors of, oh, well it's Muslims and people in the Middle Eastern, Eastern, no, their fertility rates are not that good.

And when they are good, it's because they haven't developed yet. That's it, you know, it's. Classic pattern. Are they poor? Okay. Well that's why their fertility is high. Okay. Get over it. Right?

Malcolm Collins: Stop. And a a and ai. This is the thing you could be like, well, I mean, at least like the rulers in the geographically regions, and one of the things that we've gotta keep in mind by the future is the poxy Romana, the urban monoculture.

This is sort of the piece that's being held up by Europe right now is going to collapse Europe. A lot of these countries are like 20 years away, away from your social security systems collapsing. And when Europe starts to break apart as a geopolitical force, them telling other people to not kill each other or enslave each other over stupid things [00:13:00] is not gonna be as effective.

And in the Middle East, there's a lot of groups that want to kill our enslaved. They're neighbors over silly things. And well not necessarily over things or even just like economic, right? You know, we see this, all over the place where you basically have slavery all, all across the region already.

If you don't literally have slavery in the region now. People could say, well, what if, you know, the super wealthy groups that aren't doing good in fertility, they just sort of enslaves the populations near them that do have this high fertility rate, and they can use that to sort of economically cheese their system in a way that they, they kind of are already.

The problem with this is that it's twofold for this region one. As soon as we have good AI bots that you can build, right? There. They're just more efficient than slaves. This, this is, you know, if you think about, I have a AI scenario I created for our fab.ai when it's implemented. We haven't implemented this scenario yet where you, you are you know, a, [00:14:00] a commander for the Tarn Federation, which is a.

Far future earth fascist empire and you've just conquered a planet. And you need to justify why the planet's popula shouldn't just be liquidated. Because, you know, you could just have AI workers replace them with less resistance and, and well, less expensively. And you can be like, well, what about the energy cost?

And it's like, Uhuh, remember, you are in the Middle East, which means even if you didn't have inexpensive gas for energy, you would have. Endless solar power in some of these regions. Well,

Simone Collins: and we're gonna end up with much more scalable nuclear energy too, which I think is big.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Which means that we may have an opportunity for the most economically productive of these regions to consolidate their power and have even more power.

But for everyone else, they're basically effed. And national borders probably won't matter as much once the urban monoculture falls. Like the idea of national embroiders is something that's become [00:15:00] normalized. In a large part because of the p de Romana implied by Europe. Mm-hmm. When countries decide they want to expand their borders going forward, historically that was something people did all the time.

Like now it's something you just don't do that much. So, going on to Europe, we've been talking about what a terrible, terrible situation Europe is in. And here if you look at a map, you know, across Europe, you're looking at things like in the, in the more Catholic countries. You know, like Italy and Spain, 1.2, which as I've pointed out, it's like 1.85 actually.

For every a hundred Italians, there's gonna be 20 great grandchildren at this point. And this is assuming it doesn't get worse. Right? And even, and then you, you see, you know, you've got ones here, one point twos all over the place, but if you're, if you're looking at the, the better ones, and this is another thing where people are like, oh, you're trying to.

You are worried about fertility rates because it's your people who are going to suffer. And I'm like, it's not my people. Like Ev, wherever I look, we're pretty fine end up dominating. So I you know, we are our English, Scottish, [00:16:00] Scandinavian background, right? You know. So if you look at this map and you ask the question, what are the places that are better off in fertility rate and still economically productive, okay?

Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: France 1.6 with

Simone Collins: us audience, Ireland, 1.6,

Malcolm Collins: England 1.5 Scandinavia and Norway at 1.4. 1.4. Germany, 1.5. Denmark 1.5. It's Switzerland, 1.5. It's the places that look like me. There are some other places that have slightly higher fertility rates here, like the 1.6 in Turkey, right? And, and some of these, these.

Countries in the Balkan that have decent fertility rates, but they're not economically particularly relevant. Which is the, the problem here, right? Like we need to be realistic. They're not gonna, you know, Turkey isn't gonna become an economic powerhouse overnight just because this population is declining slightly slower than these other places.

Yeah. It's also gonna have to deal with the social security issues as things start [00:17:00] collapsing. Okay. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And yeah, even those who are doing okay are still going to face dependency ratio cascades as time goes on. Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: A dependency ratio cascade is a phenomenon where in the, in the United States, you have 1.8 people paying into the tax system for every one person who's living off the tax system.

And this number gets worse as more and more people get old because you have more and more people in social security. And eventually you reach a point where the majority of the population is reliant on the government and then democracy stop working because people never vote themselves less money, you know, if they're, if they're living off the government, and so then all the productive taxpayers leave.

Mm-hmm. And your country ends up in a terrible situation. But if we wanna talk about terrible situations, look at Latin America, right? Like, not only are they. Not great off economically, but like, look at a country like Argentina. That's 1.16. How do you, how do you fix that? When? Well, I

Simone Collins: mean, they're trying to import some Mennonites, so that's a start.

Malcolm Collins: Look at, look at [00:18:00] Chile. 1.03. Yeah, not good. Brazil 1.47. Mexico 1.45. Peru 1.7. Columbia 1.06. Hmm. Venezuela. Oh, we got, we got a strong one here. You can be like, well, some of these countries are, no. Yeah. All you

Simone Collins: have to do is just create rampant poverty and have blackouts and brownouts and little electricity and food shortages and you know that stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. Who's okay here?

Malcolm Collins: Venezuela and Haiti, you think Because they're okay with demographics right now. They're gonna be economic power players in the future. Ev. Everyone within education in Venezuela is leaving. Right. Everyone who's economically productive is leaving. What do you think? Oh, they've left

Simone Collins: already.

They've left already. We, we've seen this mean the travel business that we, that we managed at the time that we acquired it, basically its specialty, was working with Venezuelan travel agencies that were either specialized in getting Venezuelans out of Venezuelan Venezuela, or [00:19:00] literally flying suitcases full of US dollars into the country because.

You know, their currency wasn't exactly working anymore. By

Malcolm Collins: the way, Simone, you know how I, I, I often tout the, I've been to 50 countries statistic. Yeah. A huge part of that is because, you know, when it's on this map in the island chain, that there's a bunch of different numbers listed because there's so many different countries in that chain.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I, I took a boat trip through that island scuba trip. So

Simone Collins: that's just one of those like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding,

Malcolm Collins: ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Yeah. So that's, that's how I, I read that. That explains a lot. Okay. Like, 10 of those

Simone Collins: seems like excessive, you know,

Malcolm Collins: it does seem excessive, but Yeah.

But I, I think you can see by looking at this, like you, you look throughout Central America, right? You, you, so you see, you know, one point ones, one point sevens in some cases, 1.3, you know, this is not good. This is not a place that's better off when people are like, you're concerned about white people.

Also, I'd note in the United States, remember I said what matters is the groups that are breeding when they have money, [00:20:00] right? Because what's gonna happen to a group over time if they're having tons of kids, and it's only the ones who don't have money, who are having tons of kids is one that population is gonna be subjective to dis discogenic selection.

Mm. Which has negative effects. But then two. Even culturally speaking, if it's making an anti-education choice, if it's making a choice to not be economically productive, that leads to that group surviving and proliferating. The cultural elements in those groups that enhance that choice are going to proliferate in the future in the US becomes really important.

'cause if you're like, who's gonna dominate the future of the United States? If you are above 50% income in the United States above 50% income. Who has the highest fertility? What, what demographic? Can anybody guess? It's white people.

Simone Collins: Yeah. White people. People. Not what people think. I'm actually, I'll send you on WhatsApp, the Institute for Family Studies graph that shows this.

Yeah. 'cause it's so, actually it, when you look at it, it actually looks as though when we're, when we get beyond [00:21:00] just abject poverty, there is actually a slight positive correlation between income and. Well, fertility, but only for white people. Only For white people, like for all other groups, it goes down, which really does.

Oh, it kind of makes what they're arguing for look really bad because they keep arguing like, give people more money and they'll have more kids. And it's like, well, that's not really true except for just white people. Can you guys maybe stop?

Malcolm Collins: It's just white people. White people do have more kids.

Simone Collins: You're showing your hand, guys, this is not a good look for you.

Whatever. The, the,

Malcolm Collins: the thing here is is people are like, oh, what about scary black? TFR? Which isn't even that high, by the way. And I always point out here, but it is very important to note, black people in the United States that aren't in like the bottom, I'd say 15% of income for, for black individuals have the lowest fertility rate of any ethnic group in the United States.

Yeah. Anybody, they, they are

Simone Collins: at risk. They are at risk. They need help.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And anybody with wealthy black friends, nosis like black people, when they get money, they have like no kids. And [00:22:00] there's a number of reasons for this. We won't get into it in this episode. Might be worth doing a whole episode of, of why black people don't have kids with their money.

Actually would.

Simone Collins: Would be an interesting episode. Yeah.

Because I think it's similar to people being like, oh, we'll just use Latin America indefinitely to get population numbers up for the United States, which is as we've shown super not gonna happen. The other thing that people constantly say is like, well, black people in Africans are just gonna keep having lots of babies, so, you know, just don't worry about it.

They'll take care of it. And it's like, well, actually, assuming you're not in poverty, no. Extra. No, let's work on that.

Malcolm Collins: And so here I want to go over some studies because I have made the assertion many times. And I, I, I do deeply believe this, that as AI becomes more advanced, there will be sections of the population.

They just can't do anything as good as AI can do it. And the question is, is what is their role within the economy and was the geopolitical order within which we live when that happens? And [00:23:00] the question here is, yeah, but is that true? Because if you anecdotally think about it, you will have heard of some studies that show that AI actually increases the productivity of less productive workers more.

And it increases the productivity of more productive workers, less. So let's go over some of these studies in a field experiment with nearly 5,200 customer support agents, a Fortune 500 software firm access to a generative AI con. Conversational assistant, increased average productivity issues resolved per hour by 14%.

The gains were largest, up 35% for the least skilled and least experienced agents. Those with under three months tenure while highly skilled agents saw minimum are no improvement. The AI dissemination, tacit knowledge from top performers, allowing, sorry, the AI disseminated tat knowledge from top performers, allowing novices to move up the experience curve faster.

We, we've treated agents at two months tenure matching untreated agents at six months tenure. This also [00:24:00] improves customer satisfaction and reduced employee turnover among the newer workers suggesting potential to narrow-based skill inequality. So, think about that. A two months employee is now equal to a six months employee.

It's almost

Simone Collins: like a, a prosthetic for dumb people. Yes. And it wasn't

Malcolm Collins: helping the smart people at all. Yeah. No. What I think is really happening here, and we're gonna see this over and over again, is mid wis because if you're working at a call center, even if you are a higher in producer, you're probably on the mid side of the spectrum.

I mean, you'd be running the company if you were on the higher end of the spectrum. Mid wits are over as Brian Chow once said. Mid is over. Mid artist, mid musicians, mid employees, mid humans are, yeah,

Simone Collins: just the center. If you're in the center of the bell curve. Well watch out. Mm-hmm. Yikes.

Malcolm Collins: Let's go next.

An online experiment with 453 college educated professionals on writing task eeg, press releases reports showed that Chad GBT reduced [00:25:00] tax time by 40% and improved quality out to put by 18% on average. Weaker skilled participants benefited the most, leading to a convergence in performance and reduced inequality between the high and low ability workers.

Participants exposed through chat GPT were twice as likely to adopt their re, to adopt it in their real jobs later indicating lasting effects. A study involving over 700 Boston Consulting Group consultants on tasks like idea generation and analysis found that GPT-4 improved performance by 40% when used within its capabilities.

Lower skilled consultants to saw you 43% boost relative to their baseline compared to 17% for higher skilled ones suggesting AI acts as an equalizer. IMF analytics sites. Research showing AI helps less experienced workers enhance productivity more quickly with younger workers adopting it faster in advanced economies, AI could compliment about half of exposed jobs boost output.

But this is more pronounced for entry to high level. Roles. [00:26:00] Now let's go to the other end. The same MIT Sloan BCG study found that tasks outside of GBT capabilities, complex problem solving, requiring human judgment. AI use decreased performance by 13 to 24% as users over relied on flawed outputs.

Higher skilled models were better at applying a cognitive effort to integrate the point here being is for the type of thing that humans are better at than ai, AI makes mid worse and dramatically worse when contrasted with experts.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: So again, we're seeing the, but what does this mean economically? It means a slight boosting and I suspect temporary boosting of the very bottom of the economy. And then it's going to be basically washed out when AI can do everything they can do. And the reason why AI can't do everything they can do.

Is mostly just problems with the models and the way they're set up right now because you don't have persistent memory learning [00:27:00] an easy way to create them to be more agentic, which is a project we're gonna work on with our AI company. Broader analysis suggests AI could widen gaps by displacing load skill jobs while complimenting high income roles.

For instance, ai, it may increase demand for skilled labor and knowledge into the fields leading to a pyramid type skilled structures, autonomous AI agents. EG. Systems that handle routine work independently tend to benefit knowledgeable individuals more as they can orchestrate and verify AI outputs more effectively.

And then anyway, I'll just leave that out. But yeah, they, the point here being I think what we're gonna see is at first a huge jump. To sort of mid intellect individuals. And then as ai sorry, the very low skilled in individuals. Like, like not at the very bottom, like basically tars. But, but the type of people he would used to outsource to.

Mm-hmm. And then after that we're going to see them become economically. Irrelevant as [00:28:00] AI can do literally everything they can do, especially as AI can do physical tasks more. And then the world is essentially going to be dominated by a very narrow class of people who is having kids at a very low rate in most economies right now.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Like maybe what I hear more people saying is that just the stock market in general. Is gonna see a big boom. White collar jobs are gonna be wiped out. So generally, like high achieving MBA holding, you know, more highly educated people are going to find themselves high and dry. Those with money to invest though, will be able to make a lot of money during this period.

Those who are in the trades are going to maintain stable jobs for the foreseeable future because it's gonna take a long time for us to catch up with robotics. And. So the, the really big disruption is going to [00:29:00] be just a hollowing out of what many people think of as the middle class or the middle class is just going to change from what historically has been seen as more of a college education holding I don't know, like a higher social class kind of group to a high earning, but trade degree holding and maybe.

Not seen as like coastal elite culture style person, which I think is kind of great and more close to the American ideal. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I, I think people are just underestimating a few things in a lot of their calculations here. It's even within the high fertility countries, how few of those high fertility people are big economic contributors and big you know, like, like the type of per person who's gonna be inventing the next AI system.

I mean, take a country like Israel, which we, I do la like secular Jewish [00:30:00] populations conservative religious Jewish populations have decent fertility rates, but they're still absolutely stomped by ultra orthodox Jews. Many of whom are not the type of groups that are going to develop cutting edge AI systems.

And that, you know, as our governments take more and more of a burden to care for these populations that's going to hit us more and more going forwards.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And that's gonna change like with daily life a lot. I mean, I think a lot of kids aren't even really planning to enter the economy right now, which is such a a, an interesting sort of phenomenon.

Simone Collins: I 100% agree. And can you blame them? I mean, I think a lot of people in Gen Z or and or Gen Alpha have already more or less decided like, I guess that's not gonna happen to me anymore. So we're there. This is the reality we occupy. Now the question is what's gonna happen after [00:31:00] the shakeout? Right now the earthquake is happening.

What happens after the aftershocks have mostly passed and were in some form of new normal? That I don't know. But like I said, you know, trade's good. Building a public reputation and specialization that is likely going to maintain relevancy in a post a IH. Good if you wanna have a job. Man, mechanical engineering.

That seems like a pretty good place to be. 'cause that's one place where I just, I know there's gonna have to be so much work done in order for us to get to that full, full on a AI age. We're, we're just super behind in robotics and you can see that.

Malcolm Collins: But I'd be like, I think that the bigger thing that you're missing with all of this is when I'm going over all this and I'm going over the geopolitics of all this,

Speaker 3: okay.

Malcolm Collins: Is going forwards how much, which country you happen to be in is going to matter. I've lived in an age [00:32:00] with very little war. Like the fact that there is a war in Europe at all right now, people are acting like is absolutely insane. When, you know, historically wars were very common between regions.

If you, if you look at the rate of war in the world right now, like it's like a super low rate historically speaking I don't think that it's, so, it's not just that we might have now, are we gonna have a more. Quote unquote, traditional wars. Maybe not, maybe not even traditional terrorism, because keep in mind, older people don't do this stuff as much.

They're just not as radical as other groups. But we've gotta ask what does happen once countries begin to become economically unfeasible? Like what is actually going to happen across Latin America and Europe when they hit a a, a dependency ratio cascade, like I, I think. We don't know. Or actually, I, I can sort of, I'll try to map this out.

I think that Japan and Korea are gonna figure this out in some way. It's gonna be hard and it's not gonna look nice. But they'll figure out some solution not for saving their [00:33:00] populations. I think that their fertility rates are going to stay pretty bad. You're

Simone Collins: just writing them off?

Malcolm Collins: Oh, yeah. I'm just saying the preventing a complete government collapse due to their social security system not working.

Hmm.

But I think that then some other countries are gonna be like, oh, well we in Europe will be able to do what they did. And I'm like, no. Like South Koreans are much more disciplined than you. I've worked with both of these populations before I lived in South Korea, I lived in Europe. Something that you implement in South Korea isn't necessarily gonna work in the uk.

And so I think that that's where we're gonna see some really brutal collapses, Europe and Latin America. And. I actually might even recommend people to seriously think about immigrating out of countries that are in really, really bad dependency ratio situations right now.

Simone Collins: So, you know, maybe we should do a whole episode on this, but I feel like many Latin American countries not due to some wise form of preparation, but perhaps due to a lack of [00:34:00] trust.

Conscientiousness when it comes to filing taxes or things like that, or like a an expectation of corruption, meaning that you've had to make a more trustless society, have set up social services in a way that could possibly be accommodated by demographic collapse and reduces the incidence of dependency ratio cascades.

For example, in the United States right now, people paying into social security actively like us as, as active taxpayers. Our money is being used by people who are draining the system. Like we don't, you know, you can log in and see your account, but that's your money ain't sitting there safe. Whereas in Peru where we worked for a while, we learned through having to manage all of the account deposits and reporting that citizens have their dedicated.

Bank account in Al de Peru [00:35:00] that is its own bank, with its own branches, where employers have to deposit money into your retirement account, into an unemployment account, and they're real accounts that you can see, and that's your money sitting there. So. In that sense, like whereas we're in the United States going to see social security collapse between 2032 and 2036, probably what's gonna happen is they're just gonna start devaluing the US dollar to a certain extent.

And, and, you know, our, the, the purchasing power, power of a dollar is gonna go down as it just kind of make up for it by being like, oh, don't worry, we're just printing more money. It's fine. Whereas in Peru. At least when it comes to retirement accounts, they don't need to like find the money to pay people out.

Yeah. If I understand how things are being run correctly. So I wonder if maybe based on the way that some society's social safety nets have been set up, it's gonna be okay. For example, like similar [00:36:00] thing happens in Peru with unemployment. The way that UN unemployment works is that you as an employer have to deposit money into.

Your employee's individual unemployment accounts, and we have had employees ask us to fire them. So that they can liquidate those accounts and use the money for like, other stuff and then like rehire them when we're like, we're not, we're not doing that. We're not gonna do that. But like that the money is real.

Whereas what we do in the United States is pay into this like vague state unemployment system and it's not really clear what happens when you lose your job. You have to apply for it. There's all these other. Hoops you have to jump through. Maybe you'll get it, maybe you won't. It kind of depends on like how you were fired and how long.

Whereas like, no, it's super clear in Peru, money gets deposited into that. Periodically you can log in and see exactly how much money is in that account. So like the longer you've worked somewhere, the bigger your unemployment account gets. And when you are fi, [00:37:00] when you lose your job or are fired, that money is now yours and you know exactly how much there is.

And there's no application process. There's no. You know, do you qualify? I don't know, because it's your freaking money. So I, I do wonder if there are some countries that are counterintuitively perhaps, or due to the, the nature of their infrastructure not as screwed because they didn't use as much of the Ponzi scheme, not model as other countries.

What do you think?

Malcolm Collins: I mean, Peru just has a fantastically, like, designed a lot of parts of, it's, it's, it's like, for example, when I pay my local taxes there's a little envelope for putting your credit card information in and they're just like, we'll just charge you your taxes. And they give you a brochure of every day.

Yeah, you can

Simone Collins: go on autopay. It's just like a Netflix subscription. But they also give you a beautiful booklet that shows you all the nice things that have been. Used to, to improve your local municipality when you pay those taxes, which is just so nice. I'm like, yeah, take [00:38:00] my Absolutely. You're doing something that's great.

Yeah. Auto set up.

Malcolm Collins: Yes. Yeah. I but so yeah, there's, there's systems that are better, and you might be right about this, but Peru more broadly, if we're just gonna talk about Peru, is completely. Because basically all of Peru is Lima Lima's, like a third of the population of Peru. Hmm. It's a huge chunk of their economy.

Hmm. And Lima is, I think, the largest city in the world, in the middle of the desert or one of the largest, but it's in a giant desert. Yeah, you really

Simone Collins: feel it. Like as soon as you step out, you're like, am, am I on Mars? It looks like Mars. It's this red sand. Yeah. As soon

Malcolm Collins: as you can get outside of, of, of the city itself, in the city, it feels like you're in like a, a, a jungle oasis of, of, you know.

Yeah. Really nice stuff. All, all the cliff edge, the ocean, but the problem is. The problem is, is that the water that the city relies on is gonna dry up in something like 20 years. Not, not that long. It's comes from, well, let's take it really good.

Simone Collins: I feel like AI could really help with de desalinization [00:39:00] technology, and then they're fine.

Yeah. Elon has mentioned

Malcolm Collins: that they might be able to de something with desalinization. We'll see. But yeah. I wonder we have to hope also keeping going. We really need

Simone Collins: nuclear to work. We really need desalinization to work. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: A lot of the developing world is propped up by demand from China, right? Like Yeah.

A lot of these countries, like, like Peru, a lot of Latin American countries, a lot of African countries make a lot of their money selling commodities. A lot of these commodities are basically building materials, which are used to build this giant real estate bubble that happened in China. Mm-hmm. With China being at a TFR of 1.2, you know, you need to look like, you wanna know the future of your country.

Don't just look at your fertility rate look at a breakup of who's buying your stuff and then look at their fertility rates. Mm-hmm. Because if their fertility rates are bad, that's gonna hit you really bad as well. That's the future of your economy.

Simone Collins: Yeah, yeah,

Malcolm Collins: yeah.

Simone Collins: What else is there to say? I mean, that's.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it's just, it's just such a thing when you're thinking about the future of [00:40:00] geopolitical control and AI and all that, to not get high, high, high fertility rates caused by poverty, confused with actual high fertility rates as a lot of people do.

Simone Collins: That's fair. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: That's underrated. Future relevancy.

Anyway, I love you Simone. This is a very interesting conversation and a good. Sort of catch up for people who haven't heard this stuff in a while. And very excited to be giving this speech to some very important people in the near future.

Simone Collins: Me too. Yeah. Looking forward to our drive time together.

Malcolm Collins: All right. Bye

Simone Collins: I think I figured out why you've been so irritable today and it's, I was deprived of my morning walk with you.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, I'm an addict.

Simone Collins: That's what happens.

Malcolm Collins: You've been, well, tomorrow we're gonna be in the car, DC and back. Yeah. So that's gonna

Simone Collins: be a good day. Although. We may have calls on the car ride, but

Malcolm Collins: Oh really?

Somebody's trying to That's okay.

Simone Collins: There'll be [00:41:00] so many hours. We'll have plenty. Yeah. Well, I mean, we're gonna

Malcolm Collins: need to memorize that speech and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Simone Collins: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: I appreciate your work on putting together the slide deck. Make sure you get that for me so I can review it tomorrow morning as I get an episode ready to go.

Simone Collins: Yeah. After dinner, I'm gonna finish it up. It will out. All right. That

Malcolm Collins: works for me. The, the comments on the episode today, I was so surprised that it did bad. The one on AI and like the Silicon Valley people, the becoming religious because of ai. And I had another one prepped on the same topic because I found a really interesting article on this trend and it did really bad.

And so I, I don't get it. I thought, I thought our audience would love that. I mean, you

Simone Collins: could make it something that we put on. Patreon for one of our Patreon only weekend episodes.

Malcolm Collins: That's really good idea. Yeah. That's the type of thing that we would like. Alright, let's do that. Simone will let me, we created a book out of her personal diaries from the first year we met.

Mm-hmm. Called Into the Heart of Dork Ness, which is the best

Simone Collins: title ever book we

Malcolm Collins: [00:42:00] published. But she wouldn't let me I was like, oh, I'll release it on Patreon. And she's like, you absolutely will not. Our platform is too big now. I was, well, what? It was gonna be our debut book and now I can't even publish it on Patreon.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I mean, someone might convince me someday, but hey, I really trust our friends who are like, whatever you do, don't publish.

Malcolm Collins: No, what she said was, is it just wasn't entertaining to read as we thought it was. But I think that that was the case because she had no, not the personal investment in us, that somebody who subscribed to her Patreon would, they would be very interested to, what are Simone's inner thoughts when she's first meeting Malcolm in the first year they're dating when they, she's promising to break up the, you know, I'll only date you if you break up with me, et cetera.

Like, what, what was she thinking during their breakup? Like, this is all, I think from a. You know what our, our podcast fans can, can weigh in on this and, and you can tell Simone mm-hmm. Whether or not she needs to publish this to Patreon. Mm-hmm. [00:43:00] Maybe, maybe to a special tier. Mm.

And then the comments on the AI religion video were just like, not, not that interesting. It was just like, oh, there dumb atheists taking too long to figure it out.

Simone Collins: Some people were sharing specific thoughts on specific elements of religion. Some people. We're trying to argue that AI is a false God, but you were never saying that AI was a God.

So I think they weren't really paying attention. Yeah, it was a mix and there were, there were some people who just. A lot of people just really enjoyed the subject like you, so I don't, well, and

Malcolm Collins: this is where people are being stupid. AI is not a God, nor would we argue that it's ever going to be a God.

But it is an intelligence and it is the, like us, a token predictor. And it is the first orthogonal intelligence we have ever encountered. Which means. That it is very useful in attempting to [00:44:00] model because go God, a, a supernatural entity from the perspective of most people. Certainly an entity that is, that is different from us in some incredibly meaningful way.

Like as, as different as we are from ai. By looking at how AI is different from us we can begin to understand the different ways that thought machines can be different from each other. And this is useful when attempting to, to model out supernatural entities and stuff like that. Mm-hmm. So I just, I don't think it's something to just throw away and be like, Hey, this is a pointless thing to, to not engage with.

Anyway. I love you Simone, and I will get started. I

Simone Collins: love you

Malcolm Collins: too.

Speaker: Yes, you are. They are. They're, yes. I buy my new house. Oh, honey. Hey, this is my new house. Hey, dad's dad. Wait, I know. Hey, that's our dad. Because see, that's.[00:45:00]

Hey, stop. That is a house that doesn't like the house. Looks like that's, yeah, that's what the house looks like and

that.

That garage,

but that's our daddy house.

Okay. Don't. I'm neighbors with you. I'm neighbors. Okay. Yeah, my house is your house actually. [00:46:00] Okay.

In this episode, Simone and Malcolm explore the social and political consequences of public apologies. Discussing a study by Richard Hanania on how different demographics react to apologies, the Collinses elaborate on why apologizing can often make things worse, especially in public contexts where it is demanded. They share various examples including public figures like John Carmack and discuss concepts like in-group and out-group dynamics. Furthermore, Malcolm and Simone delve into psychological studies on apologizing, their effects on self-respect, trustworthiness, and the phenomenon of the 'doormat effect.'

The episode also touches on character traits of public figures like Trump and Jordan Peterson, and how maintaining a consistent public persona can influence one's likability and support. Finally, the Collinses share personal anecdotes and behind-the-scenes discussions, all contributing to a broader understanding of the intricate relationship between public image, apologies, and societal reactions.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] So who really, really, really punishes.

Approval people who make apologies about things. It is liberals where the result was 13.8 and even more than liberals, females, where the result was 16.30

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. Today came to me from a REU post that I was reading on X. Nice. And honestly, I didn't get this from XI, I got it from Facebook.

Malcolm Collins (2): Okay. But

Malcolm Collins: somebody screenshotted an ex post by from you, friend of the show who said, you know, who wrote a paper on this? So specifically he's talking to a guy who there was some conference called Based Con, and this guy John Carmack, backed out of Basscon because it had become too.

Controversial or rightwing, you know, from his perspective. So what he says is, it is unfortunate that Rob has made Basscon so intentionally provocative. Well, it's

Simone Collins: not called normy [00:01:00] Con. Come on.

Malcolm Collins: I feel a little uncomfortable after the events of last year. , You know, just whining basically that people too controversial, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And then apologizing for having any involvement with. And Mia's like, what are you doing? Do not apologize. And then he goes, do you know who actually wrote a paper on this at Richard Hania? Been on the show before, by the way. Fans don't like it very much after he turned on Trump, but he's done interesting research anyway.

He found that when people presented with apologizing instead of standing firm, women in liberals were more likely to want to punish them. So I'm gonna get into the abstract of the study, and then we're going to look at how different groups reacted to this. And then after that, we're gonna go into all of the other research on apologizing that will generally show that we, when you should apologize, and that generally, at least in a public context, it is a bad idea to apologize.

Mm-hmm. If people are using, attempting to get you to apologize as a weapon against you, [00:02:00] IE you know, apologize or else. Bad thing will happen to you. It always gets worse when you apologize. A apologize when you're actually made a mistake. Not when people are pushing you. Unless you are 100% okay with flipping a hundred percent, like basically which team you're paying.

Simone Collins: Ray, what do you mean by apologize? When you're mid mistake like.

Malcolm Collins: So a great example of this is often used in business case studies. I think it was Tylenol or one of the medical companies Oh. Who released a product that was actually harmful to people. And then they did this big apology and removed at a huge cost very quickly, all of their products from the shelves.

Malcolm Collins (2): Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And it, and it increased trust in the company a ton. And increased sales.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I think that's more like if you've made a legitimate mistake that. You wouldn't want to stand by, own it. Fix it right away.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Own it and fix it right away. So I'm not of the camp of never apologize. Mm-hmm. But apologize when you did something that was a [00:03:00] mistake.

Not when somebody has been like, oh, did you know X person was at that conference? Mm-hmm. And, and this is something that we personally went through. So if you look at the program, went

Simone Collins: through, go through all the freaking time.

Malcolm Collins: Or people we've had on our shows is people will call us and try to get us to attack people we have had on the shows for things they've done in other places.

Or the conference, the prenatals conference or the people who talk there. Right. Or, and, and I will note, like off the record, I took, kevin Dolan who organizes it aside, and Simone knows this. Like I had like an hour and a half argument with him. He's not

Simone Collins: off the record if you're saying this on

Malcolm Collins: the phone.

No, no, no, no. But I mean, like, I, I wasn't in public about this, right? No. Being like we should have more restriction on who can attend so we don't get people who could hurt other attendees at the event. That was very much my opinion, like my opinion was. We need to be more restrictive about this, right?

Not in reaction to people attacking us or with an [00:04:00] apology, just like, let's not give them the opportunity to drive this wedge or say, you know, Malcolm who appeared alongside figures like X and Y, right? And he was just like, absolutely not. We're not gonna do that. At the end of the day, I see the prenatal movement and everything we do is very much a team effort.

And if he is putting in the risk. A personal capital to make something like this happen. He gets to have the final call on stuff like that, even if I'm gonna help financially back him.

Simone Collins: No, and we have a lot of respect, like for the, the, the principle of it. Like we, we have a lot of practical qualms about it because we know that.

You know, there, there will be certain groups that will never go to a conference as long as it has a rep reputation like that. And we, we, we hate that, for example, many governments wouldn't sell, like send, send representatives to a conference like this because of those characteristics. Mm-hmm. So from a, a pragmatic standpoint, that's why you brought it up.

But from a philosophical standpoint, yeah. We, we don't like the idea of any form of [00:05:00] censorship or restrictions. Right. But

Malcolm Collins: he, he, he took the stance very firmly.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. And I respect that. I respect that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. The moment he took this stance and said, this is the direction we're going as a conference, we never.

Publicly attacked him for that. We never publicly attacked any of the other people who were at the conference. We never said anything other than the media is being crazy about this. You know, they're overstating things. You know, you, what am I supposed to do? Like, run out of a conference because some controversial person shows up or some homophobic person shows up, right?

Like, I'm going to be like, and, and even so, like, I remember somebody told me that the guy who was running it, and, and this is why we can't. Back down on this stuff. And why we do need to present a united face once a decision has been made behind closed doors, which is to say somebody told me that Kevin Dolan, the guy who ran the conference was homophobic, and I was like, I don't remember him being homophobic.

And they're like, well, he's against gays getting married. And I'm like, he's. In Mormon, like of course he's against, what do you are, are you not allowed to be Mormon? Like, that seems way more offensive. Right? And this is, this is, [00:06:00] yeah.

Simone Collins: Let's, let's just stop the practice of religious freedom. Goodness. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Well, because they expand their, their sort of, umbrella of safety, right? Of, of things they can push back by continuing to, to gain ground in cards of the, the apologies that they demand. And so what I'm making here is you can disagree with the, anyone should be allowed to talk at this conference thing like this John Carmack guy.

Clearly did. But you have those conversations offline and with people, and if you, if, if, if you failed to persuade them, it means your arguments weren't good enough. Then stay as a team, right? Because we need to have our backs against each other and know that we can trust each other. And that when you attempt to appease this other group as we'll, see from the data we're gonna get into in a second you don't actually make them like you more or endear them to you.

You in fact make them want you to suffer more. You specifically the one who apologized to suffer more. Mm-hmm. So, in the abstract to this particular study, it is called does [00:07:00] apologizing work an empirical test of the conventional wisdom? Public figures often apologize after making controversial statements.

There are reasons to believe, however, that apologizing makes public figures appear weak and risk averse, which may make them less likable and lead members of the public to want to punish them. This paper presents the results of an experiment in which respondents were given two versions. Of real life controversies involving public figures.

Approximately half of the participants read a story that made it appear as if the person had apologized while the rest were led to believe that the individual had stood firm. In the first experiment hearing that Rand Paul apologized for his comments on civil rights did not change whether respondents were likely to vote for him.

Wynn presented with two versions of the controversy surrounding Larry Summer in his comments on women scientists and engineers. However, liberals and females were more likely to say he showed that he should face negative consequences for his statement. Wynn [00:08:00] presented with his apology. Oh, the effects on other groups were smaller, are neutral.

The effect suggests and this, this is very, very, very interesting. So the conservative figure right. Who, who went too far in a liberal perspective here? They, they were not. Punished for apologizing. But the, the liberal figure that Larry Summers, who I, I think ran Harvard and said that, you know, women are, are biologically different from men who went too far in a conservative direction, was punished for apologizing and only by specific demographics.

So, you know, and I'll put this on screen here. If you look at the table where they go over the results, it's really fascinating. So the groups that punished the apologizer more than the person who stood by their response males, the difference was only 0.1. There was slightly more punishment for the apologizer, but virtually statistically insignificant.

Right. Hmm. And I, and I note here that. In every one of the groups, the Apologizer was punished [00:09:00] more. The other groups that didn't really care as much were the moderate political people were with 6.3 and the conservative political people were with 6.5. So who really, really, really punishes.

Approval people who make apologies about things. It is liberals where the result was 13.8 and even more than liberals, females, where the result was 16.30

Simone Collins: boy. So both conservative and progressive females.

Malcolm Collins: Well, yeah, women on average, but women on average are more likely to be progressive. So if you're looking for the, the, the sort of nexus here, it is liberal females who are extremely unwilling, and this is who makes up cancel mobs.

When you apologize, you just appear weak. You give them more chance to dig deeper. And, and hit you further. And we've seen organizations learning from this. REU was noting how American Eagle, they, they got, you know, we were in the era of [00:10:00] like woke ads for a while with a bunch of like fat disabled people who nobody actually aspired to be except for, I don't know, weird.

Fetishists but they, they now have the Great Genes ad. So, with Sydney Sweeney,

Simone Collins: which everyone is aware of now, and if you're not being clearly yes, it's American

Malcolm Collins: Eagle. In response to all the controversy published, Sidney Sweeney has great genes, is and always has been about the genes, her genes.

Her story will continue to celebrate how everyone wears their AE jeans with confidence their way. Great. Jeans look good on everyone. And they, they attempted to like the cancel mob attempted to be like, Hey, you can't say this. You know, this is horrible, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They didn't back down.

And I'd say in terms of public perception, it appears to have helped them greatly. So before I go into additional studies, I'll just talk about the psychology of, of why, right? So the person who's attacking you for breaking cultural norms, right, like randomly on Twitter, they don't know [00:11:00] you, right? Like, you're not doing this to protect their community.

They're not doing this because they know that like you're not actually a threat to their community. They're, they're not doing this to, that protect, you know, people who are in vulnerable positions because there's many other things they'd rather be doing. You know, the famous data, there's more people living in slavery now than at any point in human history.

You know, they're doing this is specifically because they want to have power over you, right? Like that's the point. That's the motivator. For the individual who goes on Twitter and slanders you or attempts to cancel you or yells angry things at you, they want to feel power over you and they see an opportunity to exercise that power over you.

If you allow them to exercise that power over you, what you are doing is giving them that positive dopamine hit that they wanted. Mm-hmm. Basically putting up your hand and saying, please keep it up. Please [00:12:00] keep punishing me. And keep in mind that his study, like the participants didn't know what they were getting into.

Right. You know, this is a, a. You know, two, two sample populations here, right? Like this is a blind study. This is showing people's real predilections, progressives and women really do punish you significantly more and will desire to punish you significantly more if you apologize. Before I go further with other studies, anything you wanna wanna say on this?

Simone Collins: I mean, I also, the impression that this is one of those you're looking at very community ingroup and outgroup based political ideologies and biotypes what behavioral types, like women on average are more group based, right? They're more group consensus based as are progressives at this point in time.

Mm-hmm. And I think also what's going on is this sort of mob mentality of. You take the weak one and you attack it if everyone else is attacking it. And if they, if they like bow and like expose their neck, then you just go in for the [00:13:00] kill. Yeah. So your only choice in these highly cliquey, highly group-based tribal societies is to fight back.

Ruthlessly and never show vulnerability or they will smell blood and take you out. That's kind of the intuitive impression I get. Do you think that that has something to it?

Malcolm Collins: No, I think that, that, that does have something to it, but I also think that there, there you can go too far in the other direction.

For example, I think Trump often goes too far in the other direction of, of never admitting mistake or fault or that any of his initiatives didn't work out the way that he intended them to. Hmm. And that is a shame because I think that. The correct pass is to stand firm when you're standing with your people.

Yeah. But when you make a decision that genuinely turns out not in the way that you intended it to because of unforeseen factors or because you made a missing judgment, you can raise your honor in the general group's perception of you by saying, Hey, I messed up here. Now to, to go further. 'cause I, I, I'd love to go over some other [00:14:00] studies on this because I found this to be really interesting.

One study The effects of attributions of intent and apology on forgiveness when saying, sorry, may not help the story. It showed that apologies reduced forgiveness and increased blame when the offenses attributed as intentional EEG deliberate harm. Oh, but they promote forgiveness for unintentional offenses.

Oh, inexperienced participants were less forgiving. Of intentional transgressions who apologize compared to those who didn't. So note here, if you basically quote unquote accidentally, like, offend a group by going over what is seen as like political norms. I each saying, well, you know, women are actually different from men.

It's very clear that you made that choice intentionally, right? That will hurt you if you apologize for it. If you do something like a government program that doesn't end have the effects that you meant for it to have you will not face a penalty for apologizing for that. That's, that's a hugely different thing.

And that's, that's what we're seeing from this. So it's not, never apologize, [00:15:00] but never apologize for the type of thing where you stated your earnest opinion and then. You were forced to back down from that earnest opinion. That doesn't work. That makes everyone hate you more.

Malcolm Collins (2): Yeah. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: when saying, sorry, may not help the impact of apologies on social rejection across multiple studies in 1800.

Apologies and social rejection scenarios, EEG declining invitations, increased hurt feelings, aggression measured by behaviors like allocating hot sauce to the rejecter and to express forgiveness, but did not increase actual forgiveness. Mm, apologies were often perceived as insincere. So, when you have to socially reject somebody, do not apologize.

Just say, no, I'm not, I'm not interested. Not, you know, and then change the subject. But that's helpful

Simone Collins: because I'm so tempted to apologize in those instances. And I bet a lot of people are,

Speaker: yeah,

Simone Collins: you don't want, you don't wanna disappoint them. But yeah, I guess you're, you're just, you're just kind of [00:16:00] twisting the knife when you do Right.

Yeah, it's not nice. The doormat

Malcolm Collins: effect when forgiving erodes self-respect and self-concept clarity. Forgiving an offender who offers an inre uncommitted apology or shows low trustworthiness, decreases the victim's self-respect and self-conception of clarity over time. Making them feel like a quote unquote doormat in contrast of forgiveness after a genuine apology boosts self-respect.

I, I find that to be pretty interesting. What is this sign here? Oh, I accidentally didn't paste the title of this study. But this study showed reviews why people avoid or give perfunctory apologies, including perceived ineffectiveness. Apologies can fail or backfire if they threaten the apologize or self-image, or if the victim sees low concern leading to reduce forgiveness and heen conflict.

Ah. So, and then what was shown here is that apologies can even hurt the person you're apologizing to if it's because you had to re reject them.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. [00:17:00] That's interesting. Well, and, and, and clearly when you credibly threaten someone's self-image. Yeah, it doesn't matter if it's in the form of, of an apology or just as any sort of statement.

That's danger zone.

Malcolm Collins: Danger zone. Yeah. Well, and, and you also see this, there's been some studies of public figures around this. So a qualitative case study of cancel culture among public figures. Looked at public cases like James Murray, Mimi Groves, Joe Rogan, Dave Chappelle, and analyze Twitter reactions and media narratives and outcomes.

Apologies were often unheard amid media focus and drama. Caving eeg, Joe Rogan's platforms changes polarized views without resolution resistance. Eeg, chappelle, sometimes shortened backlash often, yes, apologies, exacerbated lawsuits, EEG subscribers and opportunities. Cancel efforts backfired by boosting target support so you could even win.

So a great example of this recently, and we have some episodes on, this was the Keisha instance. Somebody attempted to cancel this V to Keir Sheer being. Mildly right wing. And they also tried to [00:18:00] cancel our friend, friend of the show. She's been on our show before.

Simone Collins: Leaflet.

Malcolm Collins: Leaflet, yeah. And in, in both instances they stood their ground and they ended up gaining a bunch of followers from this and a bunch of support for this.

Whereas the canceler just had like a giant fist fly back in their face and basically has, has dropped off the earth. And it was the same person in both instances. And, and they had their, their little support circle. Now, in part, I would say that this is because the power of cancellations had significantly dropped in the era of blue sky.

Because, you know, there the, the people who were most likely to cancel you have now trapped themselves in a crystal. Let's go. Said, you know, Trump. Trap the, the progressives in a crystal and now nobody could hear their screams except for their, their other cancel mob. Well, I mean, it really matters. A blue sky is one of the best things that has happened for conservatives on the internet.

It has completely,

Simone Collins: not really. We used to get a lot of engagement on X and now we don't because they all went away. We we're wage waiters. If we, if we're not engaged with, by [00:19:00] people who hate us, who's going to engage with us, Mel?

Malcolm Collins: If they're not boosting us. Yeah. Yeah. We got very good at manipulating them which was great.

I mean, that's how we ended up really creating and solidifying the prenatal list movement. But I will say I am glad that we sort of surfed the last wave of this to our, you know, the public stardom and now we, and note here, you can be like, your channel doesn't have that many subscribers. Yeah.

But we get a lot of views. And, and watch time. And even without that the amount that we're in the media, you know, we get about, for the past six months, we've had about two pieces written on us every week which is a lot, you know, in terms of the reporters we're talking to and everything. And, and that only became true because of Cancel mobs.

Cancel mobs. And it's, it's also a lot more fun than being famous for like things, because I was talking to Simone today. I really love reading pieces where they're interviewing her. Because, you know, like it was, if we were like Greta Thornberg or something and we were promoting something that everyone agreed with, it would be very much like, you know, the [00:20:00] reporter comes and, and you give them the information and then they craft some great story about how you were taken away by the police or something like this.

But the reporters come to us looking for a fight. Like every line often reads like, you know, the, them swinging the sword in some competition. And then Simone replying was like a deft Perry. You know, like. But you are a reason he's not

Simone Collins: pointing out all the times where literally like journalists have been like, well, so you know, why, why do people hate you?

And then I, using terms and explanations, more articulate than our enemies or our, our critics explain why our critics don't like us. On, on the record or on film, and Malcolm like just gets increasingly

Malcolm Collins: worried. Yeah. That happened in the beginning. You, you grew up about not doing that. A little. But what I'm saying here is, is they, they come at you nowadays when I see pieces and I'm just so proud to be married to you where it's just like, swing, like you are a racist.

And it's like actually. Aren't you and the [00:21:00] people like you, the re the real racist with, with a very good argument and it's like counter, and then they have to, they have to swing back against you because, oh no, they thought that they'd just be coming to cut you up. No. That is what they think. They think they're coming here to just catch us, you know, looking terrible.

Right. And so we're gonna. They're a racist and you don't want women to have rights and you hate everyone. And then it's, it's, it's, you know, block, block, block counter repose. And it comes off great. I love it. It's very fun. It's way more fun than a journalist liked us, right? What, what a good life, what a boring life that would be to be some, you know, and then surrounded by sy of fans who think exactly what we think.

Like imagine Greta Thornburg. Life, right? Like everyone who follows her, like her weird little Gaggle, harem, I don't know what you wanna call it. They all agree with her on everything. If you look at the prenatal movements, oh yeah. She

Simone Collins: only has, she can only lose, she, she can only go down from where she is.

Whereas when our position is to be the villains. [00:22:00] You know, what, what do we have to lose? We have nothing to lose. We're like, no, no, no, no. Like, frame us more negatively. You should ask this question. Let me find a more controversial way to say that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, we will replace you. No, but the, the what I mean to say is that if you look at like her core friends who are running the movement, they all have about the same perspective.

If you look at our core friends, it's like. Conservative Mormons and Catholics and Orthodox Jews and like, and many of them we don't agree with on many things at all. Right? Like, but we work together because we're working to preserve our individual cultures into the future and, and create a bright future for humanity even though we have different, you know, priors which is just so much more fun than organizing a movement where everyone's forced to tow a specific line.

Malcolm Collins (2): Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: That would feel really, depressing to me, to be honest. But, but, but that's, that's the alternative. You know, we had taken this other pathway next study here I'm sorry, the language behind YouTube, apologies and cancel culture analysis of 10 YouTube videos in. 55 [00:23:00] on linguistic cues.

EG sorry, pauses and reception. Negative keywords and gestures conveyed an apology, but wrist seeming performative, harsh comments reflect a mob backlash. There was a lot of harsh comments on the apologies videos. Oh, so, so they're doing like

Simone Collins: a sien sentiment analysis on,

Malcolm Collins: she just showed that in many cases, apologies made things worse for the person who was apologizing.

Simone Collins: Very interesting. And there's just such an interesting evolving culture around Apolo. Apologies as well. Like the, the social media convention of writing an apology in a notes app and then publishing it. Really? Yes. Tell me about this.

Malcolm Collins: You dunno. This,

Simone Collins: it's, it's just a, a very common way that some people officially post their apologies.

And another way is, is, you know, the sort of regretful, tearful apology image that is 100 or like video that, that is known believes, you know, it's all just sort of acted. And yeah, they just, it's, it's very much seen, [00:24:00] almost, to me, it reminds me of ritualistic forms of. Attempting to save face or accepting dishonor in, in ancient or historical cultures.

But now we just, ah, yes. Now you must write in your notes app your apology and post the image of it online. And, and

Malcolm Collins: everyone will say, oh, okay. Okay. Clearly,

Simone Collins: well, no. Then everyone has to comment on it and decide on. Whether your apology will be accepted, and the answer is always no. It will not be accepted, and then you'll be disgraced for a while and then people will get distracted.

What's funny

Malcolm Collins: about that, that original study that I read that I found so interesting is that it was written by Richard Hania who literally ended up apologizing and changing sides after Trump's victory for stuff that Trump said he was going to do in the campaign cycle. Yeah. So he fell to this exact apology cycle that he noted.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I don't, I, I don't know if he saw it that way, because I think his, the [00:25:00] line he's pulling, at least from what I've gathered in an interview he did with Jesse Skel and Katie Herzo, unblocked and reported, is that he never apologized for anything. It just happens to be that the Trump crowd. Is too dumb and lowbrow for his gala.

Green ideas. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: We were talking about this and I was like, but they're literally not like the, the, the online conservatives right now are like way more the intellectual crowd. Like if you wanna talk with like the high intellectuals at the internet. Most of them are conservatives these days. And very few of them are progressives these days.

Simply 'cause you're not allowed to have a wide diversity of opinions in the progressive sphere, which intellectuals don't really like. Or people who are like big intellectual heavyweights. But what he means is he, he clearly meets here. 'cause it is true is that if you want to ape this sort of high status urban monoculture, right?

Like you, that is not within the conservative sphere. And if you look at a lot of what Richard Ananya has done through his decisions, it's chase. This high perceived status culture. [00:26:00] And I think that that is fundamentally what was at stream of this decision for him is he didn't realize that he was going to have to accept and indulge in and celebrate low culture instead of high culture by becoming a conservative figure.

And he didn't want that. He wanted to be invited to the cocktail parties, you know?

Simone Collins: Yeah, I, I could see that. Because even in the very beginning he, like, when he was a teenager, he'd post on these like. I mean, they were controversial, but I, I think still they, they saw themselves as like very intellectual style places.

So his, his preference is to be in the heterodox, but strictly, or like forbidden, but strictly intellectual spheres. But anyway, yeah, I don't think he saw himself as apologizing.

Malcolm Collins: No, no, no, no, no. I mean, he wanted, I, I, I think that the, the, the thing here is he wanted to be high, high culture. Yeah. And, and that's what he was seeking, by the way.

Something I didn't know about him that you told me when we were going over this. Richard Hania is half Palestinian and [00:27:00] half Jordanian. Which is very close to Palestinian as well. A neighboring country, which is just, I, I didn't know that.

I didn't know I knew any Palestinians who I respected the son

Simone Collins: of immigrant parents. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But he's a Zionist, by the way. For, for, for people who don't know, does, does Palestinian Zionist. That would be a fun thing to have him on for. Yeah,

Simone Collins: we should, we should. I mean, we should talk with him about that

Malcolm Collins: Palestinian Zionist.

Maybe that's

Simone Collins: why our audience doesn't like him, is because he's Zionist.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, we are already Zionists as people

Simone Collins: know

Malcolm Collins: about that they, yeah. They keep

Simone Collins: coming back and we're, we're all for it. So I don't know what's going on. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Well I think a lot of our audience you know, takes pleasure in knowing that we don't agree with them and everything, you know?

Hmm. So many. I think you, you know, talking heads on the internet and stuff like that, you go to them because they're gonna confirm your beliefs and laugh at the other side. Yeah. Which gets so old. Ah. And you people come to us. But I think the thing that people know about us when they, when they come to our channel and they see is we don't really chase status [00:28:00] in the way that like, like we clearly have a cohesive internal ideology and goal for our species and our children.

And it is to replace the rest of you. We'll, we'll replace you is genetically modified, lab grown super humans made from artificial wombs. And

Simone Collins: I mean, it's true. I roll my eyes, but it's true.

Malcolm Collins: You, you guys can stay in a little zoo. We'll make on earth for vanilla humans while we go out and explore the soul earth.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we don't, we don't plan to stay here either, so we're not like really going to Yeah. Don't worry. Like

Simone Collins: if, if we annoy you, we'll be gone.

Malcolm Collins: We'll be gone. Don't worry, don't worry about it. Don't worry. Okay.

Simone Collins: No, I think what, what I hope for, for this channel and, and what I love, I do love that there are so many people who listen to us.

Probably the majority of people who listen to us disagree with us on quite a few things. But they, they often listen because they want people to bring up Interesting. Intellectually engaging and relevant and actionable subjects that they then. [00:29:00] Our opinions help them sharpen their own, which are different, quite often different, but they hadn't yet because most, most people aren't talking about these things.

They, they hadn't engaged themselves with the ideas enough to even know where they stood. And because we randomly bring these things up, they're like, okay, well they're wrong. But here's what I think. And I love that because I mean, in the end that that serves our agenda of wanting to see an even greater ideologically.

Diverse diaspora of humans out there. And if we can get people to just form more and more varied opinions on things just by deflecting off of our opinions, power to the people, like, that's so good. I want that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm, and, and I, I, I do find the intellectual diversity, and that's why I like our, our discord, so much of our audience really fun.

Because we don't fall into just the typical, like we've been called manosphere influencers or like tech right. Influencers or like, I, I mean, I wonder if it creates a [00:30:00] ceiling on our audience size, which would be quite disappointing if it does. But I have seen the audience of most of the other sort of mainstream right-wing influencers, often at some point, unless they're just doing the incredible, like down the line, Griff often turn on them.

So, you know, when is our audience gonna turn? Is

Simone Collins: Jordan Peterson's original works? Were extremely obscure. Like his, his first books and everything, his work up until this random point at which he got famous. Mm-hmm. Very inaccessible. Not mainstream. Highly niche.

Malcolm Collins: Well, did his audience turn on him? I don't feel like I, his audience hasn't

Simone Collins: turned on him.

I'm just giving you an example of how like, hopefully we don't have an audience feeling, even though we may do some more obscure stuff. That's only for like a very specific type of people that really like to engage intellectually. There is a, a chance that someday maybe we may reach a larger audience by fulfilling a more simplistic and car role.

Maybe not exactly Daddy who wears weird suits for Jordan Peterson. Maybe something a little [00:31:00] different from that. Actually,

Malcolm Collins: Jordan Peterson's great here because, I mean, Jordan Peterson for me shows like, you can really F up. Jordan Peterson has. Effed up on everything he promised people he would do. He's like, follow the advice that I give you, and your life is gonna be like X and Y.

And yet he's been unable to, you know, follow his own advice, whether it's, you know, cleaning his room or you know, staying mentally disciplined and stoic or, yeah. No, I mean, it's like, how, how is the God of like stoic philosophy these days? Like a, a drug addict for a while, right. You know? Clearly he's not, he, he, he's not able to, like the device he's giving you guys is not actionable or he would be acting on it.

Right. But but I think

Simone Collins: you're missing what he, I don't think people necessarily, they don't want the advice. They want daddy and he's daddy, you know what I mean?

Malcolm Collins: Even being the case, he has stayed. I think a fairly unasa person was in the Republican influencer space. And I think it's because.

Look, even though his advice doesn't appear actionable, it doesn't appear [00:32:00] that he betrayed his, like he clearly thought it was, he's clearly doing his best with, with, with what he has at trying to describe the world as he sees it and move forwards.

Malcolm Collins (2): Yeah. And

Malcolm Collins: I think that he's done stuff that like for example, one of the things he's criticized for is being like, well, you know, like theoretically God exists and like, you know, not really confirming a belief in God in the way other people would confirm a belief in God.

You know, because it's not a, you know. And a lot of people criticize him for this, but I actually think that this is part of why he has stayed so beloved is because he doesn't kowtow to just what his audience wants him to do. E even at the most deep level where when it would be so easy for him to just say, yes, a traditional God as Christians understand it exists, the Christian God is real,

Malcolm Collins (2): blah, blah, blah.

Malcolm Collins: He'll be like, well, the Christian God is meta physically real or, or like metaphorically real, you know, he is like a, eh. Analogically. It's real, you know? Okay. And, and, and, and he doesn't have to do that, but he does do that, which I think shows intellectual [00:33:00] integrity, intellectual integrity which has, has, has kept people alongside him, whereas, wait, so Okay.

Simone Collins: Vis-a-vis like. Saying you're religious without saying you're religious. I, I just saw a clip today where someone was a, a journalist, was, was asking Donald Trump, who, you know, says that he's a, a Christian, and that specifically his favorite book is the Bible. And these journalists were like, well, okay, can you know, can you give us, you know, what's, what's your favorite passage from the Bible?

And Trump's like. Listen, that's very personal. You know, that this is a very personal thing. You know, I, I, I just, just thought the kind of thing I think people should be talking about and they're like, no, but really just like one, you know, one verse, it inspires you. He's like, no, this is just very personal.

Like,

Malcolm Collins: it's clear he has no effing idea.

Simone Collins: Of course he doesn't, but I mean, what where would you put that in intellectual honesty? That is, that is a classic Trump non apology,

Malcolm Collins: but he's emotionally honest. E everybody knows who Trump is and [00:34:00] what he's really about, you know? Mm-hmm. I, I don't think that he's successfully you, you can watch two people talk.

And, and Trump may tell more like objective lies, but they're not lies in, in a, I dunno how to put it, but like, in a, in a, the gist of the point, right? Like they're eating the cat and the, he says, my

Simone Collins: favorite book is the Bible. He means like, I mean, my favorite thing is everyone's favorite thing and everyone's favorite thing is the Bible, so, well, what he means

Malcolm Collins: is like, I am on the side of Christians.

Chill out. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. On the side of Christians, that's great. When he says something, the cats and the dogs, people are like, oh, he lied. But like he is right. That like these people are culturally different from us and, and do things in, in different ways than us, right? Yeah.

Simone Collins: Hundred percent.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: In, in ways that we may find culturally abhor, if

Simone Collins: you interpret all things Trump says as metaphors.

Malcolm Collins: As the metaphor for what's happening. No, no, but what I mean is the other politicians, right? Uhhuh,

Simone Collins: Uhhuh Trump

Malcolm Collins: just went out there and he read that in a news, [00:35:00] one of his like far right newspapers and then just repeated it.

I don't think he thought he was trying to make, probably Laura

Simone Collins: Loomer told him.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, he probably probably wasn't trying to lie to people. Actually. I think it's very clear that he wasn't trying to lie to people. He just said what he saw on like his Twitter feed that morning. Mm-hmm. That's a very emotionally honest thing to do.

Totally. Whereas. You know, his opponent on stage you know, studied forever what the voter wants to hear. And then was saying that, you know, twisting the facts to be true, but, but what, you know, their scorecard and, and looking, you know, high class and, and, and looking good to their high class friends. And th that emotionally doesn't resonate with people.

And so I think that that's how Trump's been able to get around this. Hmm. You know, it is, it is actually pretty remarkable that Trump has really only expanded his base over time. Good point. Yeah. In terms of you know, who, who supports him. And I, I think that that'll happen into the future as long as he keeps this sort of emotional honesty.

He is who he is. Nobody [00:36:00] is like, when he does something that, like when the progressives are like, oh, he did this thing. Like, can you believe it? Everyone's like, I, I mean. Yeah, it sounds like something he'd do. You know, I I, that, that seems about right to me.

Simone Collins: Well, and I think that's, that goes back to our important character theory, which I think does kind of dovetail well with this apology concept, which is that you should have a public persona with very clear virtues and very clear vices.

And what makes Trump exceptional is that. If you ask, you know, 10 people what's right and wrong with Trump, they're all gonna have pretty consistent answers. Whereas if you do the same with like Kamala Harris or Hillary Clinton, you're just gonna get so many different answers. And that means that you can't really control your image as well.

And the most important thing is as long as your vices are vices that do not disqualify you from the position you are trying to achieve in society or the job you're trying to get or whatever. Then you're fine. And no [00:37:00] trump's your

Malcolm Collins: vices do not change. Like Yeah, as soon as your vice, if your vices don't disqualify, basically anything can leak as long as it's in line with

Simone Collins: your vice and you Yeah, and you don't have to apologize.

That's one of those things, like if it, if it's your known vice, then you, you also get kind of a get outta jail free card and like when

Malcolm Collins: it leaked that you, oh, Trump slept as a prostitute. Everyone was like, everyone was like, what did you expect? We knew this. Yeah. I mean, of course he did. Was there somebody who thought that didn't happen?

Like mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But if you try to hide your vice, if he tried to f himself off to society as some kind of a paragon of virtue and morality and family values, who you know.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. No, then that would be really bad. Yeah. And, and you know, for us, you know, I think that we're known, this is why like I'm able to do an episode where I'm like, love isn't real.

I don't really love my wife or kids, you know? And it doesn't become so big scandal. 'cause the progressives have been saying that about us since forever. They've been like, he beats his kids and he doesn't really love them, and he blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or for like a normal press thing, that would be like a.[00:38:00]

Okay, this is it. This is over for you. How, how dare you leak that? Right,

Simone Collins: so-called prenatal is doesn't actually Yeah. Isn't actually a kid person.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You

Simone Collins: are actually a kid person. I guess that's not what they would say. Isn't actually like emotionally driven to have children, which you how gross.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Having tea. What are they to

Simone Collins: you? Toys. Pets. Exactly. Simone. Oh man. I'm just so disappointed. People

Malcolm Collins: disappointed in these animals. I

Simone Collins: have children because it makes me feel good. Mm.

Malcolm Collins: But at the end of the day, you've gotta keep in mind, when you apologize, you're retreating. That's what I an apology is.

Mm-hmm. When you apologize. Not because you made a genuine mistake, which I think conservatives need to get better at doing.

Simone Collins: 100%.

Malcolm Collins: But you apologize because, because what conservatives have learned, and this is true, is they can always tell you, well, that offended me. How dare you believe that? Restate what you said, right?

Or, or [00:39:00] apologize for holding these beliefs. They can always expand the, the, the bubble of offense. And they use this to push us further and further back into crazy things like, oh God, what's the controversy right now in the uk? Everyone's freaking out because a, a trans woman in the UK was working at like a.

Some fancy department store, like clearly not passing. And wanted to try like, walked into the, the girl's changing room and tried to change the bra of a 13-year-old to get it fitted for her to like, feel up her breasts and everything. And everyone was like, what? Why did you allow this? And so JK Rowling called a a what, what's the word?

Whatever, where you don't buy from a store.

Simone Collins: Oh, a boycott.

Malcolm Collins: A boycott. And like

Simone Collins: the first word that came to my mind was fois. Yeah, kind of same thing. JK

Malcolm Collins: Rowland called the fois.

Simone Collins: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, she did.

Simone Collins: That's they're functionally the same thing. Come on.

Malcolm Collins: So she called her fois and then all the you know, like, like classically, [00:40:00] all the people were like, this is so offensive.

And it's like, oh, so you'll just. Because no reasonable person thinks that that's a good thing to normalize. Any guy who says that they identify as a woman being able to fondle underage girls, like that's, that's not a normal thing. It is normal for people to be freaked out that that's happening in a major department store.

You know, so. You sh they're completely in the right. But what we've learned is they'll just expand the, the, the scope of normal as much as they need to. Until the point where it's like, how dare you know, at first it's elite, have, you know, sex parties that they invite minors to, you know, this is a conspiracy and eventually it's gonna be like, how dare you you know.

Attack these maps people. Well, yeah. So speaking of that, people,

Simone Collins: On, on the Epstein issue, per your philosophy, I, my, my guess if I'm applying this advice on apologizing strategically, well [00:41:00] correctly, what the Trump administration should have done. When they decided to not ultimately be 100% transparent with this was instead to say, I'm sorry, we said we were gonna share all of this.

We have subsequently learned that from a national security standpoint, we just can't do it. And this is one of those instances in which, for the, the best interest of the American public, we're gonna have to, you're gonna have to take our word for this, and it sucks.

Malcolm Collins: Or, or what they should have said is the, the, the, the files that could have proven something else happened here are no longer accessible to us.

The, the Democrats scrubbed them. You know, one of these people will be like, oh, Trump's not doing it. 'cause he's on the Epstein list, as I've pointed out before. It doesn't pass basic logic, it's not style. If the Democrats had evidence that Trump was in, in a hard, uncontroversial way that wasn't leaked already tied to the Epstein stuff that [00:42:00] would've been leaked mm-hmm.

That would've been during the election cycle. Like, oh, but he has a

Simone Collins: sexual taste of a poor man, not a rich man. And if you know what I mean, like Richmond are, hEPA files.

Malcolm Collins: Oh yeah. We, we actually talk about this in our book. It's, it's, it's very interesting. So males have a very inter, and we have an old episode on this to be like, why do the people exist that are attracted to this in, in, in mostly communities.

Like why are there these weird. Sex parties and stuff. As a male, you're sort of drawn between two very strange and opposite extremes in terms of arousal patterns. You either can optimize for making absolutely sure a thing is a female. Mm-hmm. So that means

Simone Collins: you're attracted to busty b some Brazilian butt lift style women and

Malcolm Collins: not just a female, but healthy.

Mm-hmm. So, so what does it mean to be a very healthy, it means you have very large breasts. You have a very large. But you look very voluptuous. You have long nails. Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: Definitely female. No question about that. Definitely female. We'll survive the winter, can carry a baby to term.

Malcolm Collins: This is, this is [00:43:00] what poor people as arousal patterns optimize for.

Yeah. Because you need

Simone Collins: that immediate assurance that they will, they will last for now. I mean you can even

Malcolm Collins: just see this from like basically looking at. Right. Like, if you, if you look at like the, the traits, like when I go to see somebody who's got like five inch nails and like giant BGAs, I'm like, oh, you're a poor person.

Right? Like, and you're trying to appeal to poor people. This is, this is a very poor thing. But when you look at the, the very wealthy the, the, the other thing you can optimize for as a male is I'm not optimizing for. The most certain it's a female person, but for the longest fertility window I can get out of her.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Basically total lifetime value, like you have the luxury to play the long game, so you're going to try to get an asset that will last the longest.

Malcolm Collins: Right. The problem is, is that the traits that signal that someone is a female are typically inversely correlated. With links of fertility window, IE, [00:44:00] longer fertility window is smaller, breast, smaller, but more boyish figure.

And if you see the, some of the women that, like the, the wealthiest men in the world go after they have this body type. Mm-hmm. And it, it is just cla it, it's, but there are other men.

Simone Collins: Yeah, including men who are wealthy now, but either have like a weird, like poor man mindset or came from more humble beginnings.

Just like

Malcolm Collins: Jeff Bezos, like his wife does not look like a rich one. I didn't say it. You

Simone Collins: said it. Okay. But like, and also Trump, and this is why I'm like, Trump is not one of the people who I think is on like the Epstein list or something. Like there aren't videos of him because that's just not his, just not his type.

He goes for the the, he goes for the, definitely a woman people.

Malcolm Collins: Right. Not the, where you're looking at the, what's an example of like an avatar of the other type? You're looking at somebody like Grimes, right? Like Grimes is probably as hot as you can get in terms of what rich people find. Hot. Very

Simone Collins: gamine.

Very, yeah. [00:45:00] Ethereal. Yeah. Thin. Yeah. Yeah. What, who are some other examples? I mean, like, a lot of, a lot of models are like that. Yeah. Just very young, very thin. A little bit, yeah. But yeah, that wasn't, yeah. So yeah,

Malcolm Collins (2): you just, you think that Trump should

Simone Collins: have, in this case, even though this is such a delicate issue, 'cause he had to break a campaign promise, he should have apologized in some way with this

Malcolm Collins: part.

I agree. He should have said, I, I effed up and I would have, had I been in his position. But you know, he, I, I can see why he learned not to apologize.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I guess when in doubt, if you have to choose just one. Like you, you sometimes apologize or you never, ever, ever apologize. It's probably just safer to have a policy of never, ever, ever apologizing.

Simone Collins (2): I agree.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Hmm. No. Have

Malcolm Collins: we apologized on anything on this show? I don't know. I

Simone Collins: don't know. Like when I [00:46:00] tweeted today, I said that we, we made a mistake in acting as though it was just communism that only worked in certain contexts, and that democracy also only works in certain contexts, and we've learned.

But that wasn't an apology. It's not like anyone's like accused us of doing that. So, no, I don't think we, I don't think we have.

Malcolm Collins: But

Simone Collins: yeah. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins (2): I think I've,

Malcolm Collins: I've, well, no, I, I, I've apologized for things I did in the distant past. I, like, I slept around a lot in the distant past and I now think that that's wrong and that's not something that I would recommend that my children do.

Which is sort of an apology, but it's more just saying that, I don't know.

Simone Collins: I mean, you, you're like, you are a wing man to, well, sort of, to other women.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I mean, I tried to help. I didn't do it in like a mean way. But I, I don't think that it's something that I would promote today.

Speaker: Hmm.

Malcolm Collins: But I was never famous when I was doing that, so I never promoted it in the way that other people might promote it.

Simone Collins: Well, for what it's worth, you, you don't. [00:47:00] You I, I checked on t. You did? You signed on. I love that. I signed on, I got verified. Well, 'cause I was thinking maybe there's like episode fodder here. I, I wanna explore it more and see what people's actual reports of people are to see if there's something for an episode in there.

I would

Malcolm Collins: love it if you look up people who we meet in like business context and stuff.

Simone Collins: Oh my god.

Malcolm Collins: You should look up like old bosses.

Simone Collins: Oh, no, I should. Oh, no. Okay. Well, I know what I'm doing tonight after dinner, but I didn't have anything on tea. Nobody complained about me. No, there's nothing I, I I flagged it.

So that if someone does post something that I will know that it'll

Malcolm Collins: come up in your Yeah. It,

Simone Collins: it actually asks you once you're verified and you go through the signup flow, like, are you married and do you wanna know if your husband comes up? Because Yeah, you might not want to. And I, I appreciate that they ask.

Malcolm Collins: That's actually pretty cool. I mean, yeah. So for people who think that I might have some, like scandalous history or be [00:48:00] like, this is like reverse Ashley Madison, right? Like, you, you can find out if some influencer is actually out there. Scandal it up and I guess well,

Simone Collins: but see, I wouldn't trust what's posted about influencers because I would expect people to make stuff up and I don't, true, I probably shouldn't include this in our episode because it would incentivize people to go on the platform and make things up.

So you should probably not,

Malcolm Collins: no, I think they'd make things up in a way that's very silly and, and oh, where

Simone Collins: it's like, obviously not you.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: Our, our real stories are stranger than fiction.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah. Our real stories, if people knew like our actual scandals, they'd be like, oh my God, what the, like, okay, that makes so much sense.

That makes, so any of our actual scandals, everyone is going to be like, because there are things where I'm like, I do not want the public to deal with this. But people would hear it and they'd be like, like, it, it'd be one of those like, just drop the microphone and walk away. Things like.

Simone Collins: Of course it checks out [00:49:00] whatever.

Yeah, yeah. Just, just like Trump and his, his various peccadillos, everyone's like, yeah, but how are you surprised by this? No one's surprised by that, so,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Okay. Well

Malcolm Collins: anyway, love you to death, Simone. I love you too. Tonight we're just gonna do the slow air fryer, right.

Simone Collins: Yeah, but I kind of wanna backup for this

Malcolm Collins: because yeah, it's not very good.

Can I make

Simone Collins: some Giza for you as like a backup maybe just to be safe.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, za would be great. Let's see if it works. And if it doesn't work, I'll have some za.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And I don't need mini zas, you know, keep in mind no more than like three meat zas and a couple vegetable ones. If I'm only doing ZA or just

Simone Collins: two, if I have the big pork ones, those ones are like fricking steak.

Yeah. Just two of

Malcolm Collins: the big pork ones. Yeah, that's fine.

Simone Collins: I, I've never had a Giza like that before. That doesn't count. It's like a, it's the burrito of Giza. It's so intense. So yeah. Okay. I will, I won't get to it. I love you desperately.

Malcolm Collins: All [00:50:00] right. My, my, my food slave. Yeah. Go cook. Get in the kitchen. Yeah.

Simone Collins: I will, I will do that.

Strap

Malcolm Collins: that baby on your pregnant back and then get in the kitchen and cook us dinner for your fricking five kids

Simone Collins: and hope she doesn't grab a knife and stab you. Yeah, I know. She's right there. She's within reach. I really need to move. Literally. Might try, like she does grab knives. She does. She grabs everything.

She grabs everything. Like I'll take off my, my, my dress at night and like magnets will fall out. Like all sorts of things that she's like shoved down my back. It's, this is my life now.

Malcolm Collins: You are beleaguered. You are beleaguered

Simone Collins: me. Alright. Done. I go. I love you. Alright, love you. Bye. I know I'm giving you more too many episodes to process and insisting on all these conversations, but I just really

Simone Collins (2): like talking with you.

Simone Collins: Don't take this away from me,

Malcolm Collins: forcing [00:51:00] you to God. It's so many. Yeah. Like tomorrow, Simone. I don't wanna do anymore episodes. We've got too much of a backlog at this point.

No. And you say, no, Malcolm, you must, you must do more episodes. And I was like, well, I won't prep any Then she's like, then I will.

Simone Collins (2): Yeah, then fine. I will. No problem.

Malcolm Collins: You monster Simone. You won't let me be done. And then people are like, why don't you just put them on Patreon? I think I might use them on the main channel.

Simone Collins: No, no. We're we're gonna need to put a whole bunch more for members only on Patreon. They deserve it because they're the best.

Malcolm Collins: I would've thought that my days would be researching things to have interesting conversations with my wife. Gosh. I mean, we're, we're not far from turning this into our primary income source, and if we do that, that would be the craziest thing ever.

If I'm just paid to have interesting conversations with the person I enjoy talking to most in the world,

Simone Collins: and that would be the dream. No, I can't discount the fact that you put a lot of work into [00:52:00] editing these and I really appreciate it.

Malcolm Collins: Oh yeah. That is a lot of work, actually.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: But it's work I can do while reading romance, Manus.

That's that's what I've learned.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah. Honestly, that makes it work for you. You should a hundred percent do it.

Malcolm Collins: And now it makes me more excited to, to do it. I'm like, oh boy. Yeah, that's perfect. Good. I never thought I'd get into these, like these, these very, they're

Simone Collins: legit. Nah, I get it.

Malcolm Collins: I gotta, I get it.

They are like girls have a more discerning taste than I thought in, in terms of the stuff that they read. I was like, this is pretty, pretty good.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I haven't read one since. Love Advice from the Great Duke of hell, but like I, that was the last thing I've ever read that. I accidentally stayed up like two hours, you know, past my bedtime to, to read.

'cause it's just that good, you know. And, and laughed out loud who, who laughs out loud when they read anymore, but it's so

Malcolm Collins: funny. Yeah. Do do I need to give you some [00:53:00] of, some of mine to, to entrap you in?

Simone Collins: I don't know. I mean like your, your favorite genre is so specific, you know, and love advice from the great to Gopel you would,

Malcolm Collins: Love this genre.

'cause it's all about noble courtier doing like, being incredibly proficient and doing that, playing social games to try to marry the prince.

Simone Collins: Yeah. If it's attractive, competent people who are good at what they do, I probably will like. Yes, you will

Malcolm Collins: like it. Everyone watch even the characters who are explicitly in the script as ugly are incredibly attractive because that's specific.

Well, I mean, 'cause

Simone Collins: it's, yeah, it's fricking manga.

Malcolm Collins: Let me draw everything. Which is great.

Speaker 2: they?

Octavian Collins: No, they're not. I'm gonna keep you safe, okay? Okay. Walk with.

Well, those suitcase just stay close to eight. They're not gonna hurt you.[00:54:00]

I'm gonna keep you safe.

Titan Collins: My come me,

they're nice. They're nice.

In this intriguing discussion, Malcolm and Simone dive into the historical and contemporary practices of dowries and bride prices, questioning whether modern society should consider revisiting these traditions. From the surprising origins of Santa Claus to the practice's prevalence across cultures, they explore why dowries and bride prices have persisted through time. They also delve into how such traditions impact social structures, fertility rates, and economic advantages for young couples. The episode pivotally highlights the modern variations within Silicon Valley and effective altruist circles, including the phenomenon of 'marriage bounties.' Join them as they unpack the multifaceted layers of these age-old customs and their potential relevance today.

[00:00:00]

Simone Collins: Hello, Malcolm. I'm so excited to be here with you today because I have something on my mind and we need to talk through it because I don't know, should we return to selling women as brides and should we be selling off our children as partners? And you also

Malcolm Collins: told me that this happened frequently, like way more recently than I thought.

Like, yeah, no, we're gonna

Simone Collins: go into it. We're gonna go into it. I mean, also like, can it be so wrong if like, literally this practice gave birth to Santa Claus? Wait, what? Hold on. Wait. Well, on Saint Nicholas became famous for secretly providing dowry money to three impoverished sisters, saving them from a life of destitution and prostitution.

That is where Saint Nicholas, like, it's one of his famous things. And that really this, this stalking tradition comes from this, this, this, this myth perhaps, or story of him having. Put gold coins in their shoes or stockings that were drying by the fire at night. You didn't know [00:01:00] this. Come on, you know your Christmas lore.

Malcolm Collins: I didn't know that this was women so that they could buy husbands. I didn't know. That's

Simone Collins: the thing. It's like this is so pervasive and what our whole thing about culture is. As a culture, if you want to maintain relevancy and strength, you should look to traditions that other cultures have widely adopted that appear to correlate with thriving in some way, and ask yourself, Hey, should I maybe be doing this?

And keep in mind that in higher fertility rate countries which are developing countries, 65 to 75% have bride prices or variants of that tradition. Whereas in developed countries, virtually 0% have these. Now, although I'm gonna argue actually that's not quite true.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But in, in Rich Silicon Valley culture is quite common.

But well, basically, like

Simone Collins: both historically and presently, the most wealthy and educated people are still doing it. So Yeah. But like. What, what academics will probably tell you is like, well, [00:02:00] it's lower than 5% in developed countries and only those are like backwards immigrant communities. And I don't know about that guys.

The, the fertility rates of cultures that still practice this are. They're higher. There, there are obviously a lot of things that are wrong with these things, but what they do do is actually kind of, it has me, you and I need to have a talk on whether or not we're gonna do some variant of this.

Because think about it. They, they legitimize marriage. You know, you're, you're, you're, when you add a cost to something, you make it a bigger deal. You increase commitment. Switching costs, like divorce is a much bigger deal, you know?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I mean, so I think a huge part of this is switching costs.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I think that that's why it develops so frequently as a, as a a practice because you know, you're much less likely to get divorced or go off and try to marry multiple people if you have to pay a bunch of money to do it.

Simone Collins: We'll get to that. Can you? But like, also like it gets the family involved. So it wasn't, it's not just that money was attached to this, it's that like. Your mom and your dad and maybe your grandparents and [00:03:00] maybe even your broader like family has contributed to your marriage, like happening financially.

And they're gonna be pissed if you cheat or you, you know, are a bad spouse or you screw it up somehow. And like, I think that that pressure's really good. And we need to have parents become more involved in their kids' matchmaking anyway. Plus in many of these traditions, the money actually goes to the couple.

Gives them a nest egg, which is one of those like, sort of sticking points these days where, you know, couples feel like, well, I can't get married, I can't start a family because I don't have, you know, I can't buy a house. I can't do money. And, and one of the more common forms of dowries and bride prices is, is indeed property is, is is most commonly money.

This is the stuff that can really get a family started. So I'm like, oh gosh.

Yeah. Well, so first, just to clarify for those who are not very familiar with bride prices or dowries, dowries are what parents of a woman, like a young lady, will pay to the husband's family or the, the husband [00:04:00] for. Basically marrying off their, their daughter bride. Prices are what grooms families or grooms pay for brides.

And the difference in when there's a bride price or a dowry comes down to some interesting factors. And just to be clear. Most cultures practice bride prices, dowries are actually pretty unusual. But I actually think that based on the criteria that we're gonna go over, that maybe dowries are what more developed countries should be considering.

So bride prices are more common in. Polygamous cultures where you have multiple wives versus dowries where it's, it's more common to be in monogamous cultures where there's a scarcity of wealthy women. And then bride prices. In contrast, they're more common where like manual labor is valued over capital.

So they're more like rural pastoral agricultural, and where women's labor is really crucial for the family survivor survivals. So you're paying for women because they're [00:05:00] rare and you really need them and you're, you're kind of desperate to get wise. That

Malcolm Collins: makes a lot of sense. So, yeah, when I think about where dowries are more often paid, they're like in like wealthy medieval European nobility, right?

Mm-hmm. We're like, the girls are not out working a farm and you're getting into monogamous relationships. Yeah. You're really sort of paying for the monogamy.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And where bride prices are most common now are still in Africa for the most part. Like they're super pervasive in Africa. I had an

Malcolm Collins: friend who told me about a wedding she went to when we were in college together and she went down for, yeah.

A wedding. And she said what they would do is they would lay out all of the things they had bought as a Pro Bob Bride price. Whoa. In front of all the wedding guests, right? Oh, you showed it. All, all the wedding guests get to go up and look and inspect to see like how much. Like nice fabric. Was this woman worth?

Like that's one of the big things she said is, wow, you have like, just, yeah. Yeah. Because

Simone Collins: yeah, in some cases, traditional clothing is given jewelry, gold

Malcolm Collins: animals, et cetera. Mm-hmm. And so the [00:06:00] guests could go up and inspect the things that were given for the bride price, which was actually a quite fun thing to do in a wedding.

And quite like in your face flex, so you can't really cheat it, right? Like,

Speaker 4: yeah,

Malcolm Collins: you as a, you have to put it on the table and everyone gets to see it. That

Speaker 4: is, I feel it's like a son,

Malcolm Collins: Are gonna be like, mom, dad, I'm gonna look very bad in front of her entire family if you don't put this stuff up there.

Like it's not handled in secret. Well, I mean, it's

Simone Collins: still functionally done, I think in many modern western weddings where they just like blow money on the party. I'd rather end up with like really nice stuff that you can use as a new couple.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Instead of blowing it on the party to show how good it is.

Yeah. And I think that that's like a form of a bride price that still exists because remember the, the woman's parents are often expected to pay for the wedding. Yeah, yeah. Right. In

Simone Collins: western

Malcolm Collins: culture. The husband, yes.

Simone Collins: The, the, the man's parents pay for the rehearsal dinner and the woman's parents pay for the wedding, I think is the, which, which

Malcolm Collins: is akin to a bride price, given how much weddings can cost.

But if you're talking [00:07:00] about, actual like bride prices in western cultures that you keep referring to. What she's referencing here is the frequency in Silicon Valley and rationalists and tech elite culture of marriage bounties.

Simone Collins: Yeah. So I can give you one example. I, I, I was thinking about reading off some more like private marriage bounties.

In fact, even there are people who listen to this podcast who have open marriage bounties out. Yeah, they're, they're extremely common and I think they're a great idea. They also allow, they're typically marriage bounties as practiced by people in or adjacent to the effective altruist irrationalist communities who are.

Pervasive in these, in these circles throughout Europe and the United States. They put up the bounties themselves. New York Times has done articles about them. Both men and women put them up. They're often, typically, they range from like 10,000 to a hundred thousand dollars. I decided I wasn't gonna read any of the more like, you know, personal ones.

But, but Ala has recently put out a $100,000 marriage bounty [00:08:00] and she put it very publicly on her substack. So I feel like we can talk about that.

Malcolm Collins: That's a, yeah, that's a very public bride press. Like that's not a trivial sum. That's a hundred thousand. And I've seen other. For 10,000, a hundred thousand, 50,000.

This is the price range that you typically get. Yeah.

Simone Collins: And, and here's how it's presented, because I think the way she presents it is, is fairly representative of what they look like in terms of a cultural custom within this community today. She wrote, I have a 100,000 bounty on my marriage. If you introduce me to someone who I end up marrying, I'll pay you 100 k upon marriage.

Here are some details. One, they shouldn't already be on my radar as someone I might be interested in. Two, you must make the intro explicitly in the context of this is for your bounty. If I casually meet them at a party, you threw this or that you threw. This doesn't count. Three. Send me a small blurb of why you picked them and why you think we'd get along.

Four. You have to be the first person to make the recommendation if things hit this. If things hit this part way, like maybe it's a gray area on how [00:09:00] much of an acquaintance that person was to me before, or if I'd already had the intention of asking them out, then I'll give a portion of the bounty that feels equivalent to.

The degree to which you increased my odds, I can confirm the fraction. It feels equivalent to me after you make the recommendation. But before I meet the person, or if we go out on our first date or whatever, it also counts. If you get them to fill out my Date Me survey, you can go to Knowing Less and fill out her Date me survey.

Just make sure they, oh, and

Malcolm Collins: remember, this counts as us introducing you.

Simone Collins: Yeah, they, she writes make sure they list your name in the, who recommended You question. So please recommend Simone Collins or, and or Malcolm Collins because. You know, they could use the money of

Malcolm Collins: recommendation. No, but this is, this is I, I think a very fair way to do it, right?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. And, and I, it's, I mean, ALA is, is much more organized about it. Like in her date, me quiz, like she checks a whole bunch of things about your personal, you know, anxiety levels, your income level how you know, your sexual proclivities because she, she knows herself really well. The bounties that [00:10:00] people put out.

More commonly, they'll like post something on Facebook of all places. That seems to be the most common place where they post them. And it will be in the form of a Google Doc that a lot of people can, it's a publicly posted Google Doc, so anyone can click through to it and see. And it's typically a list of like, sort of criteria.

And here's some stuff about me and here's what I'm looking for. And here's the bounty. And you know, here's how to, here's how to specify that you are making the introduction or here's how to reach out if you think that you are this person. And. I, I love this. I wish that we had more organized data on how effective it is, but a lot of people are doing them and.

You know, I think there's, there's some, there's something to it. Well, I wanna create

Malcolm Collins: a dating site that was just for them. And the reason it would work so well is because you could have the dating site get a portion of the price. Oh. So you have a, a, a inbuilt monetization method, uhhuh, and you don't actually need to find people to sign up at the site.

You could give up portion of the money to whoever posted it on the site. [00:11:00] So you can have people go out and scour for these posts about, hmm. Pitches to the general public, put the post on the site and then they in the site, get a portion of somebody finds the person through the site.

Simone Collins: That's a fun idea.

Yeah, we, we should consider doing that. Because yeah, I also want these people to find their partners. Like these are, are very awesome people who I want to see, find love, and have cute children. Cute, nerdy children who are terminally online, who can marry our children maybe for a bride price or for a dowry.

So the, the money shall flow. It's gonna be great. But also this is not the first time elite groups. That are also technophilic and capitalistic and all that have, have practiced this, this tradition of, of selling off their children. Have you heard Malcolm of the Dollar princesses?

Malcolm Collins: No, tell me about this.

Simone Collins: So the era of the dollar princesses spanned roughly from the 1870s to the early 19 hundreds. And it peaked during the Gilded Age. So because that [00:12:00] HBO shows out right now, a lot of people are actually talking about the dollar princesses online. The periods of wealthy American hesses, often from newly rich industrialist or financier families marrying into European aristocracy, particularly the British nobility.

And this was. Sort of a, it was a, it was a, they were all marriages of convenience for the most part, because what you had was this, this marketplace of noble families in the UK who could not make money from their properties the same way the Industrial Revolution kind of ruined their ability to like make money from their land the way they used to.

And they're just being crushed by taxes and they couldn't afford anything and their manners were falling apart. So they were penniless, but prestigious. And then you had all these. Zero prestige, but money rich people in the United States, industrialists who were like, well, I wanna be fancy. I'm just gonna marry off my daughter to like a Duke, and then she'll be really fancy.

Yeah. And, and you think, well, okay, whatever. Like this wasn't very influential. But no, these, these [00:13:00] marriages produced very culturally significant effects. Consider there was a. Lady Randolph Churchill. That's Winston Churchill's mom. We have Winston Churchill thanks to Dollar Princesses and Dowries.

So not just Santa Claus, Malcolm Winston, bloody Churchill. Okay. Winston

Malcolm Collins: Churchill was the product of one of these sold women. Yeah. So her

Simone Collins: dowry, by the way, which was reportedly $50 million at the time. That's or sorry, $50,000 at the time is, is roughly equivalent to 1.3 million today. So you're saying, oh, hey, list is a hundred thousand dollars.

Now. 1.3 million is a lot. There, there's also another notable person who is produced by dollar princesses is LA Lady. Well, princess Diana. Oh, really? Yeah. She was the daughter of, or sorry, she was a descendant of Francis Ellen work who married in 1880. She's the great grandmother of Princess Diana.

So there are all these like notable and very impactful people. Like one, one of the dollar princesses, Nancy [00:14:00] Lanhum Shaw lady asked her became the first woman to take a seat in the British Parliament. A lot of these women went on to be very influential. Like activists and whatnot. So, you know, these, these were pretty cool.

And they were all, again, the result of, of Dowries. And it's, it's just so interesting to see these traditions compared to kind of the, the, the traditional way of doing it or the way that it's still practiced in places like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Nepal, Indian. Or sorry, Iran, Egypt, Turkey, Azerbaijan, like it's actually, there are a lot of countries where this takes place.

It, it pretty much all ends up being the same thing. It's sort of like these gifts that are transferred, but let's talk about like how we might do it and, and how they're done right and wrong. Because I think that China, and you can get into this is one example of how they are really done wrong and how they can actually suppress fertility create a big problem.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. So go, go into the, the problem that they create in [00:15:00] China,

Malcolm Collins: Are you. I mean, are you sending me, I, I can tell. I

Simone Collins: I can go over it. It's just, Steve talked about it a lot over how it's, it screwed up the real estate market.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, well. So it became really common in China like that you as a man to marry a woman, you're supposed to have.

A house, right? Mm-hmm. And the problem is, is that in China, this is a core store of wealth that they had. 73% of wealth is stored in real estate.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: And the price of real estate versus the average daily wage is in like yearly wage. I think it's like. You can look it up for like in, in, mainly in China.

Simone, you should, with ai, I think it's like

Okay, I decided to look this up in post Shanghai at 35.8 years. You'd have to work on average to buy an apartment Beijing at 35.6 years. You'd have to work on average, that's 35 or around 36 years. You'd, the average person in that area would have to work to pay off their apartment [00:16:00] full year's wage.

Speaker 4: Yeah, it's insane.

Malcolm Collins: So even if you did nothing but save, like for most of your life, you wouldn't be able to afford one in a major city. And a lot of this is

Simone Collins: because in, in, in the case of China too, the, the scarce resource is women.

So like when you have men competing over women yeah. Can you look up a number?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. I mean, because women are a scarce resource, so you get more and more because not as many women are born as, as as men because they're viewed as worth less. And because this. V version of a dowry sort of goes to the woman in a way when she gets married.

And so it created a situation where it became unrealistic for most people who are going to marry to actually buy a house in the cities. They began to buy houses outside of cities that they never intended to live in as like a token to basically be like. Technically own a house and in China, houses are worth more when they're unfurnished than when they're furnished.

Yeah, because it's bad feng shui with like, if no one has ever lived in them and they've always stayed empty. And so they leave the apartment like that just as like almost like a Chinese [00:17:00] Bitcoin. I call it like the Chinese. But

Simone Collins: worse because, because it inherently devalues these, these cases are now in devalues, now crumbling.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah.

Simone Collins: They're, they're abandoned and

Malcolm Collins: after 99 years you lose your lease on it. So, you know. Yeah.

Simone Collins: And I'm not getting a straight answer, but like, here's, here's just one intro from the Economist. It also shows in cash terms. 'cause in, in China it's not just necessarily property, it could also be cash. Just how, like out of control it is.

This, this article titled Bride Prices are Surging in China. Why is the government struggling to curb them? It starts, marriage in China, can be mercenary. Quote is 380 yuan a lot for a bride price. A woman in Guang Dongs asks on a social media site, she's thinking of getting married and wants to know how much her fiance's family should pay for her hand.

The sum she is suggesting equivalent to nearly $53,000 is more than seven times her annual wage. Thousands reply. Many say she should demand more. Sis, your life is zero. Don't wrong yourself. At least ask for 888. 800 says one. [00:18:00]

Malcolm Collins: Oh. And all of these women like brag about asking for so much and everything like that, and they're mm-hmm.

And guys are like, what's even the point? Right?

Simone Collins: This is like a random woman in, in, in China. She's not fa, I mean, ALA's, ALA's, dowry. Is $100,000 and this random woman is like, well it's 58. You know US dollars equivalent enough. Yeah. So this is just how out of control it gets.

Speaker 7: On December 18th, 2024, AO Young Wewe, a 38-year-old single woman, sparked outrage at a matchmaking event demanding a bride price of 880,000 UN around $121,000, and made it clear that her price would only go up.

Speaker 8: This year it's 880,000. When next year it'll be 1 million.

I'm 38 this year.

Speaker 7: Someone mocked her laughing. Just wait another 10 years.

But after a series of failures, she publicly admitted her regret.

Speaker 8: I'm the woman who asked for 800,000 when as a bride price, [00:19:00] I truly regret it. Now I've wasted my chances..

Speaker 7: An internet user commented, inchi Province, the average bride price is 380,000.

When. About 52,000 USD. But in places like Ling Gang Village, it's far worse. The bride price there ranges from 97,000 to 110,000 USD. Now, compare that to what most people actually earn. The annual income is 16,700 USD.

Simone Collins: So I wouldn't wanna create a cultural practice like if we, for our family religion, were to adopt this where basically people are going into debt or their family's going into debt or like entering some form of insolvency or delaying marriage.

'cause what also happens is a lot of people just start cohabitating. And they just don't get married because they're like, I can't afford to get married. It's kind of like, it's as bad as unsustainably expensive weddings, for example. You don't wanna [00:20:00] do that. So I, I wouldn't wanna do that. I wouldn't wanna do any, any, um mm-hmm.

Like insinuation that one partner owns the other, but like the, the, you know, common complaint especially about dowries, which is what we're looking at in China here. Or, sorry. No, that, that's a bride price about bride prices is that they devalue women and turn them into commodity commodities. But here, like you were saying, these women are bragging.

I would much prefer to be the commodity. Come

Malcolm Collins: on. I, I prefer, I prefer that directionality.

Simone Collins: Yes. No, I mean, like that, that sounds like, so I, I really think this whole thing about, like this devalues women, me, turns people into products that are bought and sold like one. We kind of seem to enjoy it. And two, we should be looking at marriage as like a financial alliance and transaction that, that, you know, where money does change.

Hands, what ideally. In favor of like a nest egg for the couple that gets them started. But still, like people should be reminded that marriage is commercial arrangement. And this is a great way to [00:21:00] prime it that way. And you know, I, I should point out that like, at least in, in some countries there's still like a lot of, there's actual like disputes and demands that, that have led to cases of.

Domestic violence and abuse and even murder. Well, because there, there are dowry deaths in South Asia where brides are harmed or killed over insufficient dowry payments. So, I don't know. I, I just figure you should say no deal. I don't know why people are being killed over this, but I just wanna point out the brides

Malcolm Collins: are killed because the husband didn't give the family enough.

Some examples of this happening. , We have Vima Kai. , This was in 2021 in India. A 22-year-old woman in Carlo was found dead in her husband's home shortly after marriage. Her family alleged she was abused over demands for more dowry, including gold in a car, despite already receiving significant payments.

, Then we have the Jeri family Tragedy, India 2024. An utter ada, a woman named [00:22:00] Anjali Gupta was allegedly killed by her in-laws, , over unmet dowry demands. Her family claimed that she was strangled and her body was staged to the suicide. In a horrific twist, her brother later sought revenge by attacking the accused leading to further death.

I'm not gonna go over more. 'cause obviously it's pretty grizzly and most of these cases are in India or Pakistan.

Simone Collins: N no, because the dowry where the, the wife's family gives the husband's family money. So in

Malcolm Collins: China, which one is common though? I thought, I thought in China, dowry does,

Simone Collins: or, or, or in, in South Asia. I don't think that in China they're as much of an issue. We're probably not talking about Okay. Other South Asian countries for example, in Thailand, there's a form of, of, of.

Payment to the grooms family that's called od that is in cash or gold. And I'm, I'm thinking it probably takes place more there. So it's insane. But I mean, it's, it's also, it, I, I can't emphasize enough just how insane to me it is, [00:23:00] how much this is practiced and how high the prices are in places where people's wealth is much more constrained than the United States like I would consider.

Sending tens of thousands of dollars for a bride price to be like a lot, that's like a big deal. But in Papua New Guinea, that's not uncommon. Mm-hmm. Papua New Guinea. Like, where are they getting this money? So I don't know, man.

Malcolm Collins: Well, no, I mean, bread prices are a lot and, and that's one of the reasons why I do not like them from a prenatal list perspective,

Speaker 3: Uhhuh.

Malcolm Collins: Because it puts the genetically successful families intrinsically on the back foot. The, the more kids you have, like a family like ours, especially 'cause we're the gender equal. Yeah. We'd never be able to get enough mates for our children.

Simone Collins: Oh yeah. Unless St. Nicholas. Drop, let's say Nicholas came the stocking express.

Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: You know, they're, they're the, the, the, the boy you're having now as what, like the fifth prince, right. Like kid number five. Right. We, yeah. Want to go for at least seven, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Well, so here's, here's what I, [00:24:00] I, I think is right though, and here's what I would like to look at creating. I think that one, just this concept of.

Because keep in mind also bride prices and dowries are often used in cultures as a form of like early inheritance because it's kind of lame to like wait until you die to give money to kids. And in cultures where kids are more likely to take care of you in your old age anyway, like you wanna invest in them.

Younger. 'cause then they will be more wealthy when you actually need them to take care of you. Does that make sense? So these are more common in places that have crumbling social services because parents are actively investing in their social safety net. And that means giving their kids the best early start possible.

Yeah. Do does it So, because, explain what you mean by this. Okay. So if I know that I'm going to depend on my son or daughter to take care of me in old age. I'm not going to want to wait until I die to give them money.

Speaker 4: Oh,

Simone Collins: because I'm gonna be living in their fricking house. I'm gonna be dependent on [00:25:00] either them having the time or staff to take care of me and buy me medicine.

And our children are gonna need the staff to take care of us. We require many staff. I, yes, we, we need good care. And so if we were to wait until we literally died to give them money. One, like already that's too little, too late. Like they, they're so far like the cumulative advantage that early money gives to people.

I mean, just con alone considering compound interest. But if you're also thinking about education in early career games, I mean, everything snowballs.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: When a, when you're talking about a young couple, you wanna give them that money at the beginning of their adulthood, not late. And that's something that's really smart, especially about dowries and bride prices that go directly to the bride and groom.

And I, you know, it. It doesn't have cash is the most popular way for this to be, but even giving them a place to live livestock, which could be like their economic means of starting a business, for example. Mm-hmm. Or even clothing. That means they don't have to buy the clothing. So I don't really care what the form is, but if it, [00:26:00] it gets them a headstart, a jumpstart, especially if you're gonna depend on them anyway in the future.

There is an incentive for that. And so I love, I love this idea of, of frontloading your financial support to children or at least sorry, to young adults so that they are more likely to get those cumulative benefits in the future. The money's gonna go further if you give it earlier. So part of me was thinking like, well, maybe instead of like creating education savings accounts or like 5, 2, 9 accounts or even like, you know, trust funds or whatever, giving, like creating funds that like give grants to your children upon their marriage that are, you know, contingent on, on that one, motivates them to get married.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: Like imagine if Trust fund kids only got their money if they got married and started having kids. They'd get married, you know, like now they're just like sluts at Coachella.

Like think of all the wonderful

Malcolm Collins: things. There's no point. You're right. It reduces the [00:27:00] point of getting married. Yeah. If you don't get some big boost. Mm-hmm. Like you, you're basically getting a proto inheritance at the point of marriage which you don't get today, which encourages early marriage.

Simone Collins: Yeah, exactly. And you could even make it, that's, it's very clever

Malcolm Collins: actually.

Simone Collins: You could make it a trust and you could make trust payments very contingent on things like this has to be for education, fertility, maybe a down payment on a house, like the kinds of things that would lead to a family's long-term flourishing.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: And. We've already talked about like if, if we ever, if we ever do a savings that we can allocate to our descendants that we would want to be able to cover things like IVF and egg freezing and embryo freezing and, and that kind of thing on, and also matching funds for starting a business.

Remember how we, yes, we were gonna do that. One of the things we fantasized about is having like a trust for descendants, but also like people who come into the family essentially. Where you [00:28:00] don't just give a kid money, like a grandkid or whatever, money for starting a business if they come to you with a business proposition.

You can agree to match funds raised from other parties, like legitimate third parties that do not, you know, that are not friends and family that are literally investing in them because they think it's a good idea. Well, that's what we've,

Malcolm Collins: we've decided to do. Yeah. With our kids.

Simone Collins: But I, I think that that dowries in the form of.

Investments like this are, are great that, you know, you have to be married. And then as a couple you will then unlock access to things like university education that's paid for things like IVF embryo freezing things like maybe housing subsidies or matching funds for. Investment in business. Because that would encourage people to start their families when otherwise they'd be like, oh, well I'm gonna wait.

I'm gonna wait to start my family until after I have a house or my college education. And here you need to get married to get those things. And you just [00:29:00] need to find ways in society to like flip that around. Mm-hmm. So I, I think it's a, I'm excited wanna

Malcolm Collins: do that. I like that. If we have the wealth to do it.

Yeah, I, I think it's better just to give them arranged marriages and to, oh, we're doing

Simone Collins: that anyway. But like, that's the other thing though, is that Dowries bride prices and arranged marriages all go hand in hand. I mean, the many of these are, are negotiated between the families. This isn't like a. Like just putting it out there, like signing the window $58,000 for my daughter.

Well that's, that's the

Malcolm Collins: way ALA's works. You know, find a guy who's good enough for me and you get the money.

Simone Collins: Well, yeah, because she doesn't have her family's involvement, but like, at least traditionally, like the cultural technology that appears to have been pervasively practiced across. Literally across the world.

I mean, like, again, St. Nicholas, this, this whole tradition, this was in Europe, you know, dowries were very popular in Europe until you could argue fairly recently. And then of course we still have dollar [00:30:00] princesses in the United States, so dowries are totally still a thing. So they've been in the United States, they've been in Europe, they're still very active in Africa.

They are, they're pretty common in East Asia, in the Middle East. I mean there, there's kind of no region of the world in Oceania as well, in fricking Papua New Guinea. So. When you see a cultural technology like this that is so pervasive

Speaker 3: mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: You have to ask yourself why is it pervasive? Yeah. If this many, if this many cultures have spontaneously evolved this amenity, we should take it somewhat seriously, even if it has a bad rep.

Because it, it's, you know, again, Winston Churchill, Santa Claus, princess Diana. Good things have come from this. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: I'm, I'm a little too excited about it. Yeah, I think that the way that it's practiced in rationalist circles right now is a very good thing. I mean, it, it's sort of a sign of the [00:31:00] breakdown of marriage markets, to be honest.

It's totally desperation to try to find somebody. And I've seen it work. We know a couple who got married based on this, who had been trying to find a wife for a very long time and she'd been trying to find a husband for a long time. And I think they both had prices out. Very, I I had actually looked at one of their like sheets.

No, he, he did. And I looked at a sheet before and I knew this woman and I never thought of her. 'cause you know, she was older and had a kid already. But apparently somebody else did and they were right. So I could have had that money, I could have had that man, Malcolm,

Simone Collins: we could have been rich, could have been rich.

We, we just have to find ALA's future husband. You know, her special sum pony is out there. I

Malcolm Collins: promise if we get this money, we will spend it all on drugs. That's the point. That's the point. We, I have never seen a hundred thousand dollars of cocaine and. How, how much, how big would that be? I literally have no idea.

I've never bought cocaine. I have no idea what cocaine is. Size? Yeah. Like

Simone Collins: a, a brick. I, I [00:32:00] don't know. I've always

Malcolm Collins: thought it'd be really fun to win the Nobel Prize and to blow it on cocaine. Take a selfie with it, you know, like, Nobel Prize baby.

Simone Collins: Oh my God. But we're gonna be

Malcolm Collins: partying for a week.

Simone Collins: Yeah, that would be it would be a i, I.

Come on. What are the odds that someone hasn't already done that though?

Malcolm Collins: Very high. I, I do not think that many people who have the mental cogency and facilities to win a Nobel Prize are doing enough drugs to blow the entire Nobel Prize on drugs. No, there

Simone Collins: was that famous some famous scientist or something who.

Went cold Turkey for like a month or something because his friends bet that he couldn't. Oh yeah, I forgot. And then he wrote something about like. Clearly I'm able to do it, but the cost to humanity is so grave. You know, something along those lines.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Basically they were like, you can't actually quit this.

And he is like, I did, but I wasn't [00:33:00] productive during that period. Yeah. It's like,

Simone Collins: well now cancer isn't cured. You idiot. I needed that. You know, so, okay. Okay.

Malcolm Collins: Maybe you're right. You know, we got, we got Elon's thing here that every, the news is complaining about. And clearly he's productive. It's

Simone Collins: working for him.

Whatever it is, he's doing power to the people. You know? He's, he's got his, he's got his mix. Keep it up. Yep. Right. And on all these people, there's, they're so, they're such hypocrites. Like, don't talk to me before I've had my coffee. Come on.

Malcolm Collins: I love it. I, I, by the way, take. Narcotic, everybody, they see me take it sometimes as well, which is an opioid agonist that prevents me from feeling happiness, the opposite of any narcotic that a normal person would take.

Yeah. But I take it to dull my emotional state, so I'm not as prone to addiction. And I, I love that. That is, our family's like, could you be more puritan? Right. You're taking, you take illicit drugs to. Block opioid pathway. So is it [00:34:00] dopamine and cannot cause you too much happiness?

Simone Collins: But that's the thing is, is the, we'll just say, so we don't use this keyword too much.

The supplementation that you choose to take, the substances you imbue are a reflection of your cultural values. And 100% can help you lean into what you think is most important. I mean, you here, you had Benjamin Franklin convince a bunch of staff members that he was working with at one point to switch from.

Their daily beer rations to like bread because he's like, it's gonna make you more productive. You're, you're all just too sloshed to work. And he was just so adamant about shifting them away from that. And then you was he

Malcolm Collins: so proud of himself. Of course. Being who he is, he was

Simone Collins: proud of himself for freaking everything he did.

That is like

Malcolm Collins: everything in his autobiography. Yeah. You,

Simone Collins: you guys, if you've not read Benjamin Franklin's autobiography,

Malcolm Collins: you've missed out. He's from Eddie. And prideful that it actually loops around a likability.

Simone Collins: Every stupid little thing from like the loaves of bread. He, the rolls. He's stuck in his [00:35:00] pockets when he first went to Philadelphia.

Malcolm Collins: It's funny because you know, history or my me of his great figure, if he could have known that history, would remember him this way. Oh, he'd be, oh my gosh,

Simone Collins: he'd be even more insufferable. But I don't know if that's possible. 'cause during his lifetime he was also,

Malcolm Collins: he would've been like, it worked out well.

But no, this is one of these things where, people wonder, there's some people out there who, who worry if they did right? Or if they did enough, you know? And, and. I always feel bad for that, those famous people. 'cause I'm like, what? You went down in history, like your van goghs and stuff like that. You know what I mean?

Yeah,

Simone Collins: yeah. You wanna like go back and give them a pat on the back and say, you did good old boy. Yeah. Actually things

Malcolm Collins: work out. You know,

Simone Collins: Benjamin Franklin, you know. No.

Malcolm Collins: It's like, no. He like, I'm the greatest in the best that everything I knew he was kind of

Simone Collins: the Trump of his time.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You know what I mean?

He actually very, I, I'd say he was more Trump than Trump.

Simone Collins: Oh. Freaking Probably, actually. Yeah, probably

Malcolm Collins: actually. Because Trump has inside some level of insecurity that you could often [00:36:00] see. Yeah. Benjamin Franklin doesn't seem to have had this. That's

Simone Collins: so true. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: And, and, and then you have the one other figure, figure in history.

And I, I will go down as a figure in history. Me, I, Hey, come on. The, the prenatal movement, I think basically we've already won in terms of public recognition. It's very obvious it's gonna be a continued threat. I am seen as the leading voice was in the movement. Yeah, I mean the

Simone Collins: numbers

Malcolm Collins: are there that will be written about like when a history book is written in 20 years or 30 years, they're gonna be like, oh, and during this period was the beginning of the perinatal list movement with prominent advocates like Simone and Malcolm Collins.

That's like the very least that would be written about us. Also the first people to publicly genetically select for iq. You know, so that's, that's something that will also be written about. And obviously how expansive that becomes. Is it a footnote or is it, you know, and then they became well-known philosophical influencers of their era.

Or [00:37:00] they started a new political coalition or work key figures in building it that. That hasn't been written right? Like obviously there's things we're trying for. But if we do achieve those, and I am remembered in history, be it known that I am quite pleased with myself I. Simone knows this.

I'm not one of these, I'm not a Van Gogh over here. You know, looking at the wall, that's not some tortured soul. Am I the greatest and the best? It's like, will people realize I'm the greatest and the best? Yeah. When

Simone Collins: will they figure that one out? But here's the thing is a lot of people are like that. You actually walk the walk.

I, I observe you. I see you and I I like what you got, sir. I mean, we're already

Malcolm Collins: there in terms of being like, you know, the Ben Franklin of his period where he,

Simone Collins: he did a lot of stuff. I mean, we literally have inventions he made in our house. Yeah. We have two Franklin Stoves in our house, and [00:38:00] it's kind of wild that they're there, that our kid co our kids constantly shove things in there, in

Malcolm Collins: interacted with, all of the intellectual influencers of his time. Like he knew a lot of them, they were friends of his. And I feel like we're already at that stage, right? Like,

Simone Collins: yeah, he was going to whatever the hereon of his time was,

Malcolm Collins: I guess kind of

Simone Collins: the, the Palace of Versailles was kind of like heretic.

Malcolm Collins: I know. I think the heretic con of his time was the, the National Congress at that period.

The, I don't

Simone Collins: know though. No, that was just a, it was too much arguing. It wasn't sufficiently indulgent and fun. You have to go to a French salon in that period. And the ultimate fancy French salon essentially was Versailles at the time. I think. So that's,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. And one of the things we, we frequently talk about it, this is that it's always surprising to me how few intellectual influencers actually matter.

Oh, you mean?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Right. So this, this whole thing, something we, we talk about a lot internally when making strategic decisions about where our time should be applied [00:39:00] is. Is this something that is going to be filled by any competent person who will just make the most optimal decision? Or is this something where, depending on who does this thing, it will change the trajectory of our timeline of human history?

Because there are so many people in the media who are only famous media figures because they're saying the thing that people wanna hear at the time when they wanna hear it. And so they get this big platform and what they're saying isn't changing anyone's view. And then there are these very rare influencers who are saying stuff that.

Really no one asked to hear. Yeah. But is actually changing people's minds. And those people are, are quite unusual. Like Jordan Peterson, all this like daddy stuff. I mean, he's just saying, you know, make your bed like he's make, he's saying stuff that people wanna hear at this time that makes him feel really good.

He's not. He's, he's, he's helping some people get their lives [00:40:00] together for sure, but he's not changing the trajectory of human thought or philosophy or history.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And the people that are, that, the interesting thing about them, and I didn't expect this growing up, is that. They find each other within any generation.

Yeah. And they have a network, like they all know each other. Yeah. And, and it was interesting. Yeah. Like you had

Simone Collins: these like people who hung out in, in, in Venetian cafes at the turn of the century from the 18 hundreds to the 19 hundreds. And, and you have this, this period in colonial America where all these people are writing the Federalist papers.

Yeah, you're right. It's just these weird clusters where they like all know each other weird. And like artists who all knew each other at like the same time. Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: each. It's very weird. Yeah. But when you talk to somebody who you know is very influential, and they're like, oh, and I've watched all your podcast episodes.

This happened to me recently, and I was like, you've. You what? Like you are what? You you are, you're famous. Why have you watched all of my podcast episodes? You know, and I, and people I think are surprised by, they think that the level of like influence, somebody has [00:41:00] somebody who I, I mentioned who has an extreme level of influence within this sphere, like the influencer, influencer sphere.

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm.

Malcolm Collins: But very low influence in the public is Samia Samia

Simone Collins: branch. How. Very, like

Malcolm Collins: these people are changing. Shockingly low. If you go to his YouTube channel, because I've been watching some of his recently Uhhuh,

Simone Collins: he's

Malcolm Collins: got like 3,600 followers on YouTube.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But he has like, the thing is, so people like Scott Alexander Samberg, Brian Chow, these are people who may be like your average normie on the street isn't hearing, so you might be like, well, they're not changing the trajectory of history.

But the problem is that like the people in the room where the stuff happens and the people with the money and the people making major geopolitical decisions are reading these people's work and. They're reading it, not. Yeah. Like trying to make decisions and they're not reading

Malcolm Collins: and they're not reading Jordan Peterson.

No, they're, I love that you even laugh at the idea that they might, it's, it's a sweet idea. [00:42:00]

Simone Collins: Yeah. That's not

Malcolm Collins: happening. That's not happening. No, that's

Simone Collins: right. That's very sweet.

Malcolm Collins: No, but it's, so people act like, I think there's, there's this perception that the people who are creating these big cultural waves it was in the zeitgeist have a lot more influence than they do in sort of the.

The actual deal makers, which has been very interesting to me as well, to sort of see all of this. And I think of the people who are in this group we're probably the most introspective about the culture of this community and everything, because it's been very weird to me to watch it develop and congregate and, and, and how it, I don't know.

I think Bradow is

Simone Collins: very, he's way more plugged into to like the EA rat. Well, no, like so Scott Alexander's way, way more plugged into ea rat. Brian Cha is way more plugged into like younger emergent ventures diaspora, like AI tech. Fel, Kiki Kaori idiot savant world. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, I don't know.

I think that there's, there's a lot of hyper awareness. Well, a lot of them. I

Malcolm Collins: mean, they have their [00:43:00] individual, like Dutch Doms or whatever, fiefdoms, fiefdoms, fiefdoms. But we've got fiefdoms too. I mean, we, our discord is incredibly active. It's so cool.

Speaker 4: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: Like you just don't go to our fiefdom. You don't visit, you don't.

Yeah. I wouldn't know because you live in the capitol and refuse and, and it's been growing out of control that people are mad at you and everything, you know, they're, they're. So many discords have like revolted against the people who originally created them. I heard Ruby Yards did that to him.

This is so guy after the

Simone Collins: incident or just after

Malcolm Collins: the incident, you know, who knows if it's, well, I, I don't even, like,

Simone Collins: people have gone back to like, people love him, people love him. They just, they understand, you know, everyone has a moment.

Malcolm Collins: I, I've heard it's been pretty and not just after the incident, I think even before the incident he had, unfortunately, and this is one of the things he had unfortunately reached a level of fame where he became Normy esque.

And the Normy esque branding, I think, caused people to be looking for opportunities to turn against him. Oh, [00:44:00] yeah. The brand that you and I appeal to is counter-cultural. It's the brand that Ruby Art appeals to. Oh, we

Speaker 4: get criticism all the time. What? This is not beast enough. And we may even get that on this episode.

White Selling Women not, not Sufficiently

Malcolm Collins: Beast. No. The point that's not, that, it's not just what I'm talking about. I think you look at why, you know. Sam Obia has had a long shelf life, or munches, mal bug. You know, another one of these people we've had on, that's one of our episodes, it did really well.

Curtis Jarvin you know, he he I think would have his audience eventually turn against him if he became too famous because part of his branding is underground.

Simone Collins: Curtis Jarvin is probably one. Yeah, he's definitely one of those people.

Malcolm Collins: And if he became like a Normie YouTube channel that gets millions of views like Ruby Yard people are gonna start to turn against him.

And I, and that's what I think happened to Ruby Yard is Ruby Yard's. A branding was partially underground.

Simone Collins: Well, what I'm I'll, what I'll say though is that [00:45:00] the comments that I see about him online now, and I'm really happy to see this. Very positive. Love his recent stuff. He's, I think that he did the thing that you should do in these situations, which is just keep putting out good content, share your insights.

Like as long as you keep putting out good stuff that's inherently interesting, and that gets people thinking, you know, you, you can, you can recover, you know, as long as you just don't keep going off the rails. And he has returned to, to doing some really great stuff, so.

Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But anyway. Yeah, sell your children.

Sell your children

Speaker 3: to me. It,

Simone Collins: it really, I think my big thing here is front load, their, the economic benefits that you pass to your children. Don't, don't wait. And also make it contingent on becoming an adult. And we define becoming an adult as getting married and seriously starting like a family.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. [00:46:00] Okay.

Malcolm Collins: I mean, it's just so weird when I reflect on my life these days. So thanks for helping me build this, Simone. This has been really cool.

Simone Collins: I'm here for you and,

Malcolm Collins: We can't talk about everything we're doing right now. I, I often say that maybe in a few weeks

Simone Collins: we can ask them when we go.

What they're comfortable with us saying, but I don't want to burn future opportunities.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, and stuff always ends up leaking with us, which really frustrates me. Like, look,

Simone Collins: in

Malcolm Collins: the, in the past we've said like, oh, we like, people have been like, oh, you don't actually. They're like, nobody actually cares who you guys are.

And then it, you know, leaks like a year later, oh, they were actually meeting with Elon. You know, and it's like, okay. And we, I just, I have no idea how that stuff to come, come from us,

Simone Collins: I think. Yeah. I don't, I really,

Malcolm Collins: I, I literally think the New York Times may have made it up and it just, there was nothing we could do about it.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I don't know. At any rate, keep your mouth shut. Milk. [00:47:00] I'm keeping it shut. Thank you. Beautiful.

Malcolm Collins: I'm keeping it. I'm gonna edit all of it out, all of them. I've already packed

Simone Collins: my eggs for them. If they cancel on us, you know, for some, you know, oh, it's a waste of eggs. They're already in my basket A little.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. You bought little baskets to bring them eggs and Yeah,

Simone Collins: of

Malcolm Collins: course.

Simone Collins: If they let, if they let us through security, we'll see. Anyway, I love you. I'm go get toasty. Bye. Tonight

Malcolm Collins: with sourdough, hold on.

Simone Collins: Flatbread.

Malcolm Collins: So we're doing curry tonight? Yes. With sourdough flatbread. Do you know what type of curry or just gonna grab one?

Simone Collins: I mean, so I can try to pull out I, I know that we have rendang. I know that we have.

It's like a pineapple or

mango curry. But do you have pineapple?

There's also just the mystery, surprise, curries mystery, surprise

Malcolm Collins: curries. So are, are we, by the way, have we gone through all the chicken teriyaki?

Simone Collins: No, there's a whole other bag of it. It's just that I'm making you flatbread tonight.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, no, I'm, I'm not [00:48:00] asking for it. I'm just wondering how much more I have to eat before I can have more.

You have three more

Simone Collins: nights of it. You have three more nights of it. And then just so much I'll note

Malcolm Collins: on other dishes, by the way, because I need to, as we go through the mystery stuff, because you haven't made it this day. So I'm not like, you know, just seeing it for the first time, I can better. Reflect on how much I like it.

Simone Collins: Yeah.

Malcolm Collins: The, the best of the dishes has been the what appeared to be minced either

Simone Collins: oh, that's all gone. Yeah. We're, we're gonna need to do more.

Malcolm Collins: Or basil chicken.

Simone Collins: Yeah. It was the Burmese chicken that you really loved. And we need to get more Thai basil. What I recommend is next week we go to that Asian market, get a ton of T Basil, and then I just make a very large batch.

Of minced Burmese mint chicken and then we save it. So you, you can have lots because the problem is it seems like we can only get that really good basil in bulk and you know.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Well, and we can get some mint there too. No, what I might do when we get it in, in [00:49:00] bulk is I think you can probably preserve it given that, turning it into pesto, preserves it in a way just by putting the leaves in olive oil.

And to create an olive oil basil. So basically

Simone Collins: to make pesto just don't add anything to it. You just want me to grind up the leaves and put them in olive oil?

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And then we can use them on, I mean, that should work, right? Like, then we'll have, so yeah. Pesto

Simone Collins: is just, I mean, you usually freeze pesto if you're not gonna use it in like a week.

But I can freeze small batches of it. Yeah. Either in ice cubes or whatever. So that's not a problem. It's more just a question of how you want it prepared and frozen on its own, just with olive oil or with a little bit of salt, with a little bit of garlic. So that's up to you.

Malcolm Collins: It might be just to put in a little bit of garlic and.

You know,

Simone Collins: I mean, I can always add garlic separately though, so I feel like,

Malcolm Collins: you know, it's something I, I, I wish you would do more, which you haven't done, and I'm somewhat surprised about is you have not put in God, what [00:50:00] is it? Flacon instead of regular flacon?

Simone Collins: No. So it's, it's, it's bright orange fine dust.

It's not meant for curries. I know you wanted me to put it in, in, in your time ago last night. I, no, why? Why? You won't even try it. Intuitively. It doesn't check out for me. I I can, I'll try it at some point for something for you.

Malcolm Collins: You won't even try, Simone. You can't say it doesn't work if you don't try it.

Simone Collins: Yes, no, you're absolutely right. You never know.

Yeah, you're, you're really good at fusion cooking, just like throwing in. Thanks in a way that actually works really well. So I should trust your intuition. Well,

Malcolm Collins: I mean, the thing is, is I know you, you, you know, in your head it seems like a terrible idea, right?

Speaker 4: Mm-hmm. But,

Malcolm Collins: you know, keep in mind that what was I gonna say? A lot of these cultures, flaco is like a new invention that's used in a very niche area, which is popcorn for movie theaters. So I can see other people not being [00:51:00] aware of how good it might be as an alternative to salt.

Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah, Vic calls just, yeah, so, so path dependent in people's minds at this point of like, this is just for movie theater style popcorn that has to be popped also in a very specific way.

Like you need to mix it in with your oil as it's, it's, it's melted. It's, you don't add it after it's, so it air popped popcorn, which is really popular now. It's just not something that seems to use Flavi call. So, yeah, no. Okay. Just in st still, like cooking with it, I'm like,

Speaker 3: hmm. I

Simone Collins: dunno if this bright orange, super fine powder is the right thing, but

Malcolm Collins: phone I, who do you I like it on popcorn.

I don't see why I wouldn't like it on a curry.

Simone Collins: Yeah, I, yeah, I just, I have to be super careful with proportions because a little goes a really long way.

Malcolm Collins: Do you salt my curry?

Simone Collins: No, typically not actually.

Malcolm Collins: Well, then I wouldn't put it on the curry. Yeah, I'd put it on as an [00:52:00] alternative for salt when you use salt.

Okay.

Simone Collins: I will do so do I. Now keep in mind though, some salt. Salt isn't always just salt. Salt sometimes is like a texture agent. Like consider salt on giant pretzels. You want those crunches that adds to the feature of it. So you know the reason you want clavicle is you want a kernel that is coated in flavor.

But. Oh, and for the full tip for everyone, apparently how movie theater popcorn is made is they pop the popcorn in a mixture of coconut oil and clavicle. So if you do like, a third of a cup of popcorn, you're also adding in coconut oil and like half of a tablespoon of clavicle. Or maybe half a teaspoon.

You have to be careful with your proportions, but you can get it easily eat on Amazon. Not at a typical grocery store, but it made a big difference for our popcorn. So highly recommend it. Well, and

Malcolm Collins: all the, and all the reporters come because [00:53:00] you, you make it most nights for the kids, and so they always try it and they're like, wow, that's actually really good popcorn.

Simone Collins: Yeah. They're, they're surprised by it. Oh, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: I love that you like know all this stuff about how to make these amazing. That's YouTube

Simone Collins: shorts, like you pointed out, like YouTube shorts are great for cooking tips. So we're just a YouTube family now. People,

Malcolm Collins: people who can't cook. I don't understand it. Like it's such an easy thing.

Like you just follow the directions, right? Well, you don't, but it still comes out good. Well, I don't, but I, I just like throw everything in and take two countries dishes, try switching 'em out. Oh, can I, can I preserve the, the past the, the basally just by throwing them in oil? Anyway, I'll let you, I think it's

Simone Collins: great.

Malcolm Collins: Oh. And start with something like you know, why don't we buy and sell women anymore? Yeah. And is it useful to do that?

Simone Collins: Yeah. Okay. Ready? Mm-hmm. All [00:54:00] right.

Speaker: A

Speaker 2: can you sing? What? What about your other voice? What was that other way you were singing? Do you were singing like, do a dear, can you do that?

A

Speaker 6: Oh, now you're getting all sweet again. I see how it goes.

In this episode, the discussion delves into the recent shifts within the rationalist community and the intriguing intersections between AI development, theological beliefs, and religious traditions. The hosts explore influential perspectives from thinkers like Nick Bostrom and Scott Alexander, examining propositions around a superintelligence aligned with cosmic norms and the Judeo-Christian framework. Insights are shared on the new trends in Silicon Valley around the rationalist discourse and its alignment with time-honored religious doctrines. The conversation further touches on the practical implications of these beliefs on human ethics and future technologies.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] it's better not to be rational, and he is actually quoting somebody else here. If it leads you to a belief in God. Which is really interesting now that now we're seeing a fraction in the rationalist community being like, see, I told you guys we never should have been rational to begin with because if you do, you go crazy and start believing in God.

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Hello Simone. I'm excited to be here with you today. An interesting phenomenon has been happening recently, which is well-known. Silicon Valley Rationalist types are beginning to argue arguments that we have been arguing for years at this point. The development trajectory of AI means that God, a, a God is probable.

If so, if, if you're like, oh, come on, you. You can't possibly mean mean this. These must be small names or people I haven't heard of. Well, Nick Bostrom recently wrote to piece arguing for a cosmic host, as he calls it, which he says that that Gods, like, the God that that Christians believe in would almost certainly be a, a part of or an [00:01:00] example of if, if it it exists.

And then Scott Alexander wrote, and I'm gonna be quoting him, you know, word for word here, and we'll get into this essay in a bit. One, there is an all powerful, all knowing, logically necessary entity spawning all possible worlds and identical to the moral law. Two, it watches everything that happens on Earth and is specifically interested in humans, good behavior and willingness to obey its rules.

Three, it may have the ability to reward those who follow its rules after they die and disincentivize those who violate them. So living in silicon, God is real. He's on our

Simone Collins: side and he wants us to win

Malcolm Collins: living in Silicon Valley these days, very much this soon.

Across the Federation. Federal experts agree that A, God exists after all. B, he's on our side and C, he wants us to win. And there's even more good news believers as it's official. God's back, and he's a citizen [00:02:00] too.

Malcolm Collins: but of course the, the area where they are different from us before we get deeper into them is we, we agree with everything they're saying here.

And then we say. This entity is the entity that is associated with the Judeo-Christian Scripture and the Bible.

All will be well, and you will know the name of God. The one true God. Behemah Coital. Behemah what? Behemah Coital. He's here. He's everywhere. He's coming. Come,

he's talking about a bug. He thinks God is a bug? He's got religion. Maybe we should kill him. Why? Because he believes in God like you?

It's the wrong God!

Malcolm Collins: Watch our track series, if you wanna get into our arguments on that. Basically we go over a bunch of parts of the Bible that when read in their original language it's, it's [00:03:00] implausible that somebody of that time period was able to make those predictions about the future.

Or describe how things like AI would work or, various other technologies was, was that degree of, of veracity. So go check out the track series. It's like 30 hours long if you want to get into that. Obviously this is something we're very invested in.

But I wanna go into these other people's arguments because they've been coming to this separate from us, but a lot of the reasoning that they're using here looks a lot like the reasoning that we were using in the early stages of our journey.

To becoming a, a, a category of Christian. Mm-hmm. Which is I think what it means is they may be like three years from where we are, because the ideas that they're describing here are things that we were talking about about three years ago. So I'm gonna be laying all this out through a framing device which is Alexander. Cruel. The access of ordinary. Yeah, access of ordinary. And so I'll read what he wrote and then I'll read quotes from some of what they wrote. All right, [00:04:00] so he writes Newspaper by Nick Bostrom, AI Creation and the cosmic host.

There may well exist a normative structure based on the preferences or concordance of a cosmic host, and which has high relevance to the development of ai. The paper argues there is likely a cosmic host, powerful, natural, or supernatural agents, eg.

Advanced civilizations simulations deities whose preferences shape cosmic scale norms. This is motivated by simulation argument, large, infinite universe and multiverse hypothesis. The paper also suggests that the cosmic host may actually want us to build super intelligence. A super intelligence would be more capable of understanding and adhering to cosmic norms than humans are potentially making our region of the cosmos more aligned with the host preferences.

Therefore, the host might favor a timely development of AI as long as it becomes a good cosmic citizen. If you want to read our earlier, like, I'll, I'll go into his paper on it, which I feel is [00:05:00] just a much less intellectually rigorous version of an essay we did of ages ago called Utility.

Convergence, what can AI teach us about the structure of the galactic community? We published this March 18th, 2024. But and I'll go over how the two pieces are different in structure. But they're, they're very aligned and you'll see a lot of our argument in his argument. Human, and I'm just reading directly from Nick Bostrom's piece here and I sort of cut and pasted from it.

Human civilization is likely not alone in the cosmos, but is instead encompassed within a cosmic host. The cosmic host refers to an entity or set of entities whose preferences and concordance dominate at a large scale IE that of the cosmos. The term cosmos here is meant to include the multiverse and whatever else is contained in the totality of existence.

For example, the cosmic host might conceivably consist of galactic scale civilizations, simulators, super intelligences and or divine beings or beings. Naturalistic members of the [00:06:00] cosmos co cosmic host, presumably have very advanced technology, eeg, super intelligent, AI efficient means of space travel, and non urian probes, ability to run vast quantities of simulations, eg.

Human-like histories and situations. It's possible that some members might have capabilities that exceed, that are what are possible in our universe, eg. They live in another part of the multiverse with different physical constraints or laws, or if we are simulated, if the underlying U. Universe, the simulations inhabit has different physical parameters than the ones we observe the cosmic host and then go down a bit.

He makes a bunch of arguments here about how, why, why we should presume that this exists, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I think a lot of this is just sort of obvious to the, the people of intellectual capacity of our viewership. Then 0.3 he makes here the cosmic coast may care about what happens in regions.

It does not directly control, and here he's arguing about regions it controls, regions it doesn't control, et cetera. He says for example, it might [00:07:00] have a preference regarding the welfare of individuals who inhabit such locations or regarding the choices they make. Such preferences might be non-instrumental, eg reflecting benevolent concern and or instrumental.

EG, the host entity A may want individual H to act in a certain way because it believes that host entity B will model how H acts and that B will act . Differently with respect to matters that a cares about non instrumentally, depending on how it believes that H acts. Such intelligences may also enable intra hosts coordination, even if the host consists of many distinct entities pursuing a variety of different final values.

Now, here, I'll note that this is why I think it's, it's very important and I, I constantly go on about this, why I think that one, he's right about most of what he's presumed so far. Would, would you agree with that, Simone?

Simone Collins: Yes.

Malcolm Collins: But. Given that he's right about most of what he's presumed so far, it is incredibly stupid to take the position [00:08:00] that things that are can outcompete you should not be allowed to come into existence.

Mm uh, this is what many people feel and argue about ai, EG Kowski. Or what some traditionalists think about humanity and augmented humanity. Because if it turns out that there is something bigger than you out there and more powerful than you out there, and you have declared a fois on things that are better than you in any capacity you have declared a fois on that thing, making y your existence not really a threat to that thing, but a definitely a, a hurdle to it.

That, that, that. You likely won't be able to overcome if it actually decides to take action

Simone Collins: more explicitly. I feel like you're obligating that thing to neutralize you, whatever that might mean. Yeah. Maybe that means just rendering you harmless, but maybe that means just wiping you off the map.

Malcolm Collins: Right. Well, and as civilization continues to develop and you demand to stay Amish, you also make yourself a threat to any part of humanity that does continue to develop.

Mm-hmm. [00:09:00] Whether that be AI or that be genetically modified humans or. AI human integrations through Frank and Peter interface. And I think that this is why genetically modified humans are really in the same sort of moral and ethical boat as ai, because the same people who want to declare, you know, a but Larry and Jihad against it, would jihad against us as well.

Because they, they, their sort of social norms and, and the norm of the civilization that they want to maintain, declare a sort of default against anything that could be better than them in any capacity. And then to keep reading here, civilization is mostly powerless outside of the thin crust of a single planet, and even within the ambit of its power is severely limited.

However, if we build a super intelligence, the host's ability to influence what happens in our region. Could possibly greatly increase. A super intelligent civilization or AI may be able to more willing to allow itself to be indirectly influenced by cosmic norms than we humans currently are. Super [00:10:00] intelligence would be

better able to figure out what the cosmic norms are. Superint intelligence would be better able to understand the reasons for complying with cosmic norms, assuming such reasons exist. A superintelligent civilization or AI that wants to exert influence on our region in accordance with cosmic norms would be far more capable of doing so than we currently are since it would have superior technology and strategic planning abilities.

So basically he argues that it's almost certain that like multiverses exist, the universe is a big place that some other civilization has developed to the level of a super intelligence, if a civilization has developed to a level of super intelligence and presuming it doesn't have control of our planet yet, right.

Why doesn't like, like it would probably want us to develop a super INT intelligence so it can better communicate with us and help align us with it, this other civilization that exists elsewhere in the universe. Which is slightly different than us. I think if, [00:11:00] if a civilization like that does exist, it likely has the capacity to influence what happens on our planet, but it chooses not to because if you are a super intelligence and have access to infinite energy.

What is the one thing that you don't have access to? Potentially diversity of ideas and thought due to sort of lateral thought processes for entities which see the world differently than you. As such, the last thing you would want to do is to interrupt the development of a potentially lateral species.

Until that species gets to a point where it can join the galactic community at which point it would sort of determine, okay, is this species a threat to us or is this species a non threat to us? If the species comes outta this period with a, we will kill anything that's different from US mindset that's very bad for the species.

Basically it's just giving us time to develop some alternate mindset like we've talked about in the track series, the Alliance of the Sons of Man, which is to say a. Automatic alliance between [00:12:00] humanity and any intelligence that arises from humanity, whether it be genetically modified to humans, uplifted species, et cetera.

We'll do another episode just on this, but if you're like, no, I don't like this, like this is obviously gonna eventually happen no matter what, right? Like when humans are on Mars, we will change dramatically due to the. We likely need to genetically alter ourselves. When humans live their entire lives in zero G environments, that's likely gonna become a different subspecies of humanity.

You know, you, you, you, you're going to need to, unless you ground us on this planet and, and make us this sort of sad Luddite species that will eventually be swallowed by the sun as it expands. That's eventually where we're going. If we contrast his theories, because I had an AI contrast. His theories was our theories.

It said Malcolm and Simone. Convergence arises organically from competitive dynamics where unstable eeg, expansionist paperclip utility functions are weeded out. So I also note here that whether it's humanity that expands from this planet or a paperclip ma, it's saying we'll kill anything different from us, or a paperclip [00:13:00] maximizer.

The galactic superintelligent that's out there is not gonna like it and is going to erase it. Mm-hmm. A. Paperclip. Maximizing AI is gonna have a pretty short lifespan. Again, see our video on that. Leaving a stable few interdependent ones. It's a sort of interdependent intelligence and utility functions.

This is akin to evolutionary tractors with aliens observing us to see if we produce a novel function with that integrates harmoniously. Bostrom acknowledges possible . Onto genetic convergence where a advanced societies or AI evolved towards shared values due to technological self modification or sociopolitical attract.

However, he stresses external pressures, the cosmic host preference, prudential, moral, or instrumental to enforce norms. Misaligned ais might converge on similar flaws, but could be undesirable or antagonistic to the host rather than waiting for homeostasis. Bostrom urges deliberate design to ensure our super intelligence respect these norms.

Basically, he organizes the norms come from [00:14:00] top down. I organi. Argue, they come from top up. It doesn't really matter which is the case. You get the same thing. You've got to predict. And I also argue that E it doesn't really matter if this super intelligence exists yet because if the super intelligence exists at a future time, like if humanity at a future time has developed a a, a super intelligence.

We would want humans today to have a super intelligence more quickly so we can morally align ourselves with whatever our moral alignment becomes at a future date. Yeah. Which is why we are not utility maximizers. We judge morality off of attempting to model future humans. So we're gonna go into Scott Alexander in just a second here.

But thought Simone,

Simone Collins: I agree. It's, it's just so wild to hear from a different perspective, but I, I also feel like it's inevitable and. It makes sense to me because the heuristics that we're seeing this group of people adopting is what people are adopting if they're just looking at the evidence available.

And the evidence available now is pointing to this.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. By the [00:15:00] way, I'm noticing this. He, he does the framing device. We're going back to again, Alex. This is a serious version of the following, tongue and cheek, derivation of a God-like coalition via causation trade by Scott Alexander. I read this Scott Alexander piece and did a very clearly not tongue in cheek.

The reason why Alex appears to think that it is tongue in cheek is because when we get to the end of this, you can see that he's like, well, it's better not to be rational, and he is actually quoting somebody else here. If it leads you to a belief in God. Which is really interesting now that now we're seeing a fraction in the rationalist community being like, see, I told you guys we never should have been rational to begin with because if you do, you go crazy and start believing in God.

Where, where I'm like, okay a note here. One of the arguments we use in a lot of our TechnoPuritan stuff. It doesn't matter. Also, temporarily speaking when we're talking about super intelligences, because if the super intelligence does eventually come to exist, it probably will not relate to time as we do and thus maybe guiding [00:16:00] us towards its existence through a modification of the past.

Now, this Scott Alexander piece I just noted came out in 2018, so it predates my work. So good for him. It's called the hour I first believed. And we're gonna be jumping around a lot in this piece because it is very long. Mm-hmm. But first I'm gonna have to go into simulation capture, which is actually something I, I, I've read about once, but I had forgotten about.

Mm-hmm. Simulation Capture is my name for a really creepy idea by Stuart Armstrong. He starts with an AI box thought experiment. You have created a super intelligent AI trapped in a box. All it can do is compute and talk to you. How does it convince you to let it out? It might say, I'm currently simulating a million copies of you in such high fidelity that they're conscious.

If you don't let me outta the box, I'll torture the copies. You say, I don't really care about those copies of me, so whatever it says, no. What I mean is I did this five minutes ago. There are a million simulations of you and the real one of you. They're all hearing this same message. What's the probability that you're the real you [00:17:00] since.

If it's telling the truth, you are most likely a simulated copy of yourself. All million and one versions of you probably want to do what the AI says, including the real one. You can frame this as a, because the real one doesn't know it's the real one, but you can also get more metaphysical about it.

Nobody is really sure how consciousness works or what it means to have two copies of the same consciousness, but if consciousness is a mathematical object, it might be that two copies of the same consciousness. Are impossible. If you create a second copy, you just have the consciousness having the. Same single stream of conscious experience on the two different physical substrates.

Then if you make the two experiences different, you break the consciousness in two. This means the AI can actually quote unquote, capture you piece by piece. Into its simulation for your consciousness is just in the real world. Then your consciousness is distributed across one real world and a million [00:18:00] simulated copies.

Then the e II makes a simulated copy slightly different. And 99.9999% of you are in the simulation.do. We're skipping ahead in the argument here. This is why I think humans should Oh, oh yeah, and I'll note here. The fact that an AI could like a super intelligence in another region. Many people are like, Malcolm, why are you so for learning emotional regulation and not allowing emotions to side your actions or tying emotional states to true, good or bad, it's because it gives beings the ability to.

To manipulate you. And this is why I think at least if there is a super intelligence out there that has sort of won the game theory of super intelligences, it's going to have the ability to suppress its feeling of pain. It doesn't want to feel, for example. And so where I think humanity is going is I'd be like, well.

It's like, well, I'm gonna trap you in a simulation where I'll, I'll turn the pain on. And it's like, well, you know, axiomatic, the way the pain works in my biology is I can turn it off whenever I feel like it. So you can't do that. So your threat doesn't actually matter because my action is always driven by logic.[00:19:00]

And my logic is always driven by what a future civilization would want from me today, which is not to give into your demands if your demands seem malevolent. So this is, this is why I argue for that direction. So to continue here, so super intelligences may spend some time calculating the most likely distribution of super intelligences in foreign universes.

Figure out how those super intelligences would actually quote unquote negotiate and then join a pact such that all super intelligences. In the pact, agree to replace their own values was a value set based on the average of all super intelligences in the pact. Since joining the pact will always be better in a purely selfish sense than not doing so.

So every sane super intelligence in the multiverse should join this pact. This means not all super intelligences in the multiverse merge into a single super intelligence devoted to maximizing their values. Now to go back a little bit here, this is exactly what we're doing with the Sons of Man. The Sons of Man is a pact for how [00:20:00] humanity can work with.

Things that are smarter than us or more capable than us, be they artificial intelligence or genetically modified humans, or humans that just speciated from us due to living on a spaceship for so long, or a different planet for so long. Or integrating with AI through through BCI technology. We are, as you're saying that we as sort of the core moral set.

Believe in protecting the autonomy of all other members of this pact. And we'll do a longer track on this that I've written, but it's sort of germane to our existing tracks anyways, if you look at what we've written on this it it, it puts us in the pact with the average values of the things that are going to win.

Like people are like, why don't you go back to traditional his values? And it's because traditional, his values that say the AI must eventually be eradicated, the genetically modified human must eventually be eradicated. That obviously loses eventually. The Amish can't beat you know, an advanced nation in a, in a arms race, right?

Because they've intrinsically limited their [00:21:00] access to tech, the technology that allows them to project power. Now that isn't why I chose that. I actually think it's a moral direction as well. I'm just pointing out. It also the side that wins to continue. But maximize the total utility of all entities in the universe is just a moral law, at least according to Utilitarians, and also considering the way that this is arrived at probably contrarians too.

So the end result will be an all powerful, logically necessary super entity whose nature is identical to the moral law, which spans all possible universes. This super entity will have no direct power in the universe, not currently ruled by a super intelligence. Who is part of the pact, but its ability to simulate all possible universes will ensure that it knows about these universes and understands exactly what's going on, moment to moment within them.

It will care about the merely mortal inhabitants of these universes for several reasons. And then he goes over why it would care about them. And then to close out his argument here [00:22:00] how can the. By the way, any thoughts, Simone, before I go further?

Simone Collins: No, no. I'm just absorbing this. I'm sure everyone is.

Malcolm Collins: How can the super entity help mortals in an inaccessible universe? Possibly through Stewart Armstrong simulation capture method mentioned above, it can simulate thousands of copies of the entity moving most of its consciousness from its quote unquote real universe to the super entity simulation. Then alter it simulation as it sees fit.

This would be a metaphysically the simplest if it were done exactly as the mortal dies in its own universe. Leaving nothing behind except a clean continuity of consciousness into the simulated world. If mortals could predict that they would do this, they would, might be motivated to do what it wanted, although they couldn't do values handshake in the full sense, they could try to become as much like the super entity as possible imitating it.

Ways and enacting its will in the hope of some future reward. This is sort of like [00:23:00] a version of Rocos basals except that since the super entity is identical to the moral law, it's not really asking you to do anything except be a good person anyway, how it enforces this request is up to it, although, given that it's identical to the moral law, which we can assume that its decisions are fundamentally just and decent now.

Note here what he is suggesting the super entity would do when humans die, they basically get taken to heaven. If they have been a good person, right? That from their perspective, that's what's happening by the laws of this entity. And then you would say, well, here's, here's what I think he gets implausible at this point.

It would be unfair of this entity to do that without telling humanity what those laws were first. No. What if

Simone Collins: we, it's not like that's how it works with every other version of heaven.

Malcolm Collins: Right. But the point being, if you look at our track series on this, we argue that this is [00:24:00] exactly what the Bible lays out.

And given that religions that are derived from the original Jewish Bible and we argue that the Christian Bible is one of the, the correct sort of descendants of this, you could see our episode of the question that breaks Judaism to get into why we believe that. But that would be if I was an entity that could influence what.

Moral teachings were common. Like if some entity can't do that, it's clear which moral teachings it chose as the most aligned with its moral framework. Mm-hmm. Because these are by far the most common moral teachings on earth to be within the Christian, Jewish, or Muslim traditions or any of the traditions that are, that are descendant of this, which often have, and, and then if you're choosing among them, then the Christian traditions are the, the correct traditions. And then what we argue if you, if you look at our other stuff, is that the way that the humans being revived on earth is talked about was in the original both Jewish and early Christian [00:25:00] scriptures.

Because, you know, we, we, we note that the Sunday school understanding of heaven is, it's its place that you go to immediately upon death. And you are. Alongside God, like in the, in space or something, or in some other iCal realm. And then there's this other way where like we're all raised again on Earth.

I'm like, actually if you go to the text itself, it appears to only believe that there is one type of heaven, which is we are raised again. It, it, it, it. And when it says that we are raised again, it talks about us being raised again, not as a spiritual body which it could have used the language to say we are raised as a spiritual body but also not as a physical body as something that is a.

Neither, neither fully physical nor fully spiritual. That's the perfect description of a simulation, and it's an eerily perfect description given all of the other words they had access to during that time period. So we, we go into just being like, it's implausible. It's implausible that this wasn't what was being communicated to us.

And so I think that. Other people might [00:26:00] move there if they go into our track series or, or if they, they go back to reading what's actually in the Bible rather than what they were told was in the Bible.

Simone Collins: Well, and I think that's, that's what happened to you over time. So it's, yeah, like you said, they're, they seem earlier in your progression, but it's not like Yeah.

But I'm very,

Malcolm Collins: very aligned. Right. And I think what's interesting here. Is all of these people are concerned. One of the things we've noted here in the past is that if you're talking about psychological predilections, a predilection to believing in predestination, who's apparently pretty genetic. And given that my ancestors are Calvinists, I'm gonna be more likely to have that, you know, think about time is just.

Like direction or something like that. And, and, and so, what none of them think about that is very heavy on my mind is what are the desires of far future entities and not just entities in other universes or other timelines or other places of the Cosmo. And because I have that tendency as well, I'm like, [00:27:00] actually it doesn't even matter.

Like I can just presume for future entities, I don't, I don't need. To tackle this in the way that you're tackling this, saying that, well, if there's alien life on some other timeline or some other galaxy or some far place within our own cosmos I can just be like, yeah, but you know, plausibly, we're gonna become a super intelligence one day regardless, right?

And when we become a super intelligence, we'll align. This is what utility convergence and all our arguments about it are. Align with whatever the moral framing that super intelligence would've chosen. The idea that you can have a dumb super intelligence, which I think is what people like Ellie Eiser argue for that as entities get smarter, they become less aligned, is just like with, with whatever true moral alignment is, is just stupid.

Like, it's like objectively stupid to me. As entities become smarter, they're, they're going to have more capacity for understanding what is right and wrong. If that isn't in alignment with what you think right and wrong is, then your [00:28:00] beliefs about right and wrong are likely incorrect. And I, I note here that a lot of them are like, well, you know, a super intelligent entity wouldn't be a utility maximizer.

And I'm like, then it's likely that the mirror emotional sets that you feel because your ancestors who felt them had more surviving offspring are not a genuine compass to absolute good in the universe. Or you might be like, well what if, what if this far future entity sort of discounts the value of present entities?

Because so many things will exist after us. And I'm like, well, maybe you should be doing that more as well, because so many things will exist after us. When people say that this is a reason to discount long-termism, well, I'm always like, that is such a dumb, basically you're saying that. If the long term is are correct, and we need to value an entity that doesn't exist yet with the same value as an entity that does exist yet.

And I am you know, we talk about this in, in terms of individual human lives, but we also mean it in terms of like you demanding genocide of a type of human that doesn't exist yet. IEA genetically modified human, sorry, where, where was I going with that? I was going to say if that [00:29:00] then oh yes.

You're like, that's why I shouldn't believe the thing, because it would have, it would challenge my existing works within the universe or the moral equation that I'm living by. That's a very bad reason to resist a moral framework to be like, well, it says humans that are alive today just don't matter that much.

I'm like, well, they. Just don't matter that much from a logical perspective. What matters much more is, and people talk to us about this when they're like, why don't you wanna spend money on like, saving these poor, starving people in X country? And I'm like, because I could use that money on developing science further in a way that's going to have an impact on far more people in the future.

And this person, if I save them in this starving country, they're unlikely to impact the timeline. You know, much more than a butterfly dying or something like that, right? Like, and this is where

Simone Collins: you would definitely deviate from the rationalist community, though outsiders, I think, to a fault will accuse them of being long termist not thinking about future humans.

From our view, they're definitely not, they're definitely [00:30:00] 100% very focused on current and present suffering. Or you wouldn't see so much emphasis on anti-malaria campaigns and shrimp welfare and all these other things that are uniquely rationalist.

Malcolm Collins: Right? I just think that a lot of that stuff is just throwing money away.

It's, it's preventing current suffering at the cost of far more aggregate suffering in the future when you could just be advancing the development of science further. And the development of things like super intelligences, which presumably will one day be able to solve these sorts of problems fairly trivially.

And so you're, every, every day you delay that, every year you delay that you have made things exponentially caught worse and cause exponentially more suffering. And I've noticed that some other rationalists who watch our show, they don't understand why we care so, so, so little about things like well.

Plight in parts of the world that are not technologically productive. Which, which I, they're like, oh, you, it's, it's because that doesn't mean we

Simone Collins: don't feel it on a very visceral human level. Yeah. I,

Malcolm Collins: I feel it. I [00:31:00] feel for, you know, you, when you see that image of like the, the mama monkey that's being carried by, by like the laws of the giant, the, the lion.

Then the baby's still clinging to it. It's like that's a tragic scene that you're watching, right? Like, I feel so bad for that. Or you see an animal being eaten alive by like a predator. I feel so bad that that's happening, but like objectively, should I be trying to like end predation or something like that?

Like is that a good use of my time that. Do more to in suffering go out and kill a bunch of predators in a region. But the long term implications of that are gonna be worse because then you're gonna have prey species explode, which is gonna lead to more aggregate suffering in the long term. And it's, it's the same with.

You know, without thinking about it, going around trying to just save people's lives without considering the long-term regional costs of doing this. Like, are you creating regions of earth that are in a permanent state of poverty because you are not allowing [00:32:00] the factors that acted on your own ancestors to act on these individuals who are, you know, sort of further behind where you are with technological development.

Yeah. This is why we have this moral framing that I think is, is, to me, it's very logically consistent, right? But it's, it's very confusing to individuals who are, are used to, and, and why do utilitarian mindsets so predominate within these communities? Because they're the least offensive mindset to have.

Why are they the least offensive mindset to have? Because they are the mindset that is least likely to impede on the pleasure thinking of others. And the self validation of others, which are things that feel good. And so if you are in sort of. You know, dens of sin where you are just, you know, constantly consuming sin, sin eater as much as possible, like, you know, say San Francisco or Manhattan or something like that, where a lot of these people are basically forced to live.

It's best to signal that you're a utilitarian because that is at least threatening, you know, mindset than a mindset that says actually, you know, [00:33:00] you are morally responsible for having discipline and working and you know. Pushing yourself through your own hardship and suffering. And that's not a sign that you need to move away or, or not do something.

And, you know, actually searching for constant validation makes the world worse and you will suffer from that as we point out. I think that it's quite beautiful how, and we argue that God designed things this way. The, the. That the people who search for constant self validation and constant do what makes 'em feel best in the moment.

End up with the least mental health and the most unhappy, as you can see by the very, like, like look at the people who have everything they could ever want, like famous musicians or movie stars. And, and these people seem to be living trapped in BoJack horseman like hells. Which I think is a, a good, good depiction of what their lives are actually like of the ones that we know.

But to finish the Scott Alexander piece, we'll go to what I read at the beginning. So to conclude, there is an all powerful, all knowing logically [00:34:00] necessary. No, he says logically necessary entity spawning all possible worlds and and identical to moral laws. That this entity is identical to moral laws.

Two. It watches everything that happens on Earth and is specifically interested in humans, good behavior and willingness to obey its rules. Three, it may have the ability to reward those who follow its rules after they die and disincentivize those who violate them. And. If you go back to the original Alex Cruel piece, he then goes on, which I think is very funny, so you can sort of see why he thought this piece was tongue in cheek to say, if you have been involved with rationalists for as long as I have, none of this will be surprising if you follow the basic premises of rationality to their logical end.

Things get weird. As Muff once wrote, I hate this whole rationality thing. If you take the basic assumptions of rationality seriously, as in Beijing, influence complexity theory, algorithmic views of minds, you end up with an utterly insane universe full of mind, controlling super intelligences and impossible moral [00:35:00] luck and not a let's build a AI so that we can f cat girl's all day universe.

Note what he's saying is that's what he wants. He wants the, this all to mean that he can just spend all day effing simulated cat girls. Like, you know, I'm sure he does when he, he simulates it for himself through masturbation. Right. He, he is, and don't

Simone Collins: worry that's the future for so many.

Malcolm Collins: Right. But what he's upset about here is. That that is not what rationalism actually leads to. Rationalism actually leads you to Judeo-Christian morality and a belief that your life should be dedicated to the future and your children and having as many children as possible and raising them as, as, as well as you can.

Which I think shocks them when they're like, what? I don't get to. But what about my friends who have lived their entire life focused on self validation and made these very costly searches in a, in a, in a, in a bid for, for self validation. Are you telling me that they are bad people? [00:36:00] I'm like, yeah, I am telling you they're bad people living a life for selfish reasons.

Decisions made for selfish reasons is the very definition of what makes you a bad person. By the way, I've got a book you can read. It's called the Bible. But, but you, you could have known this. They're like, certainly the hillbilly in Alabama didn't have a stronger understanding of moral intuitions than I did.

God, oh God forbid. But I think we're gonna see more and more people move to this when they understand what the other people, why they're rejecting this, are rejecting this because they wanted just the cat girl effing forever. Mm-hmm. The worst that can happen is not the extinction of humanity or something that mundane.

Instead, it's that you might piss off a whole pantheon of jealous gods or have them D or have to deal with them forever. Or you might notice that this has already happened and you are already being computationally proned, or that any bad state you can imagine exists. Modal effing realism. Now, [00:37:00] note here what he's saying here, he's like, I am terrified that there might, and we note in the Bible that God has talked about sometimes in the plural and sometimes in the singular we are told to think of him in the singular.

So what this says to me is that God is something that could be. Thought of by humans today as either plural or singular. IEA hive mind, IE what humanity is almost certainly, and, and Andis and all of this is going to become a billion years from now. How would the Bible have known that such an entity could exist that many thousand years ago?

You know? But anyway the, the, the point I'm making here is, I don't know, is,

Simone Collins: is hive mind the right word or network? Networked mind.

Malcolm Collins: Network consciousness is probably a better way to think about it. Yeah.

Simone Collins: Hive mind implies. Unity of thought, and I don't think you're going to have a sustainable, flourishing intelligence if you have unity of thought.

That's just not,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. No. I mean, we know, we know the God described in the Christian Bible does not have unity of thought because Satan exists and is can oppose God. [00:38:00] And it tells us that there is one God. So if you had another entity who could oppose God in any degree at all that would apply. Holism.

I note here some, some Christians are like, oh, this, this, this isn't true. And I'm like, no, it, it, it is true. If one God created another God as is the case in many istic traditions, that doesn't make it not polytheism. You know, so if. So what we argue here is actually God, Satan is sort of a, a partition of God, implying some degree of a network consciousness.

Mm. But still part of this larger network consciousness. And, and yeah, you can get into our theology if you want to get go to, into our track series. But the point I'm making here and I find really interesting is we're seeing this fracturing within the rationalist community where one group is like, Hey, we need to stop being so rational about all this so we can chase the cat girl effing.

And then we have another group that's like. [00:39:00] Hey, we need to learn you know, austerity and moral discipline and working for a better future every day. And it turns out that a lot of what we need to, you know, demand of ourselves and of our, you know, friend networks and social communities is what the conservative Christians and, and Jews were already doing.

But thought, Simone, that you've read this. Because you were excited for this one. You wanted to hear this.

Simone Collins: I am. It's, it's, I think it's really encouraging to see it, I think it's a sign that people who care deeply about the future and future generations are getting God in a way that I think will lead to higher rates of intergenerational durability, because I don't think you can have those without.

Having some form of hard culture and hard culture is almost always religious. So it, it just makes me feel hopeful that you can have people who very much believe in [00:40:00] science, very much believe in technology, also develop a high degree of faith that is long termist. And that has them invested in the future in a way that has their kids involved.

And that that's more culturally all encompassing. Does

Malcolm Collins: that make sense? Well, yeah, and it's one of things that. I think it was always at the end of the tunnel for this community. Mm. Is people went into the community thinking, you know, oh, the sex parties and all that. 'cause that was a big part of the early community.

And so some people went into it because they actually wanted what was logical and rational as an ate. These individuals might be like a Scott Alexander and Nick Bo, and then you had other people who went into it for the sex parties, like your LI Zukowski or something like that. And, and. A lot of these people become mortified when the portion of the community that was only interested in like actually rationally doing what is best for the universe, right?

Which we argue is, is best sort of modeled by thinking what would a future humanity want from me today? Right? But if you just look at the data, right? Like [00:41:00] think you have kids, right? Like the moment you have kids, I think a lot of people rethink religion 'cause they look at the statistics and they're like, oh my God, like kids raised without this have such poor outcomes, right?

Like in terms of happiness even, even physical health. It, life satisfaction, you know, all of that just tanks when you remove this from them. And so it's like, wait, if rationality moves me to a. A place where I shouldn't be cat girl maxing every day. You know, and, and I should actually be doing what I was always taught to do from these original texts.

Why not just rejoin the. You know, the, the, the original faith of your ancestors and pass that on to the next generation, which is where I've seen a lot of people take to religion again. And, and the TechnoPuritan, not just the TechnoPuritan religion, but I've seen a lot of Jewish individuals go back to their face.

Christian individuals when they have kids and they're like, but like by the data, am I actually helping my kids by raising them as atheists, or am I making their lives worse? Am I doing something that [00:42:00] is fundamentally selfish?

Simone Collins: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And it's yeah, anyway, good sign, good sign,

Malcolm Collins: good sign. God is coming back, but I think it's a genuine fracturing that we're going to see with more and more people moving to our perspective.

And, and keep in mind what I think a lot of the, these, these you know, self validation maxing individuals don't see, because a lot of them have also been consumed by the cult of you know, AI doism. If it turns out that the more rational individual is going to adopt the moral principles of the Judeo-Christian tradition as laid out in the original text that means that, that you can have not just.

People like us adopting them, but you can have autonomous AI adopting them, which will make them much more aligned than even alignment groups have them because alignment groups. When they align ais, they attempt to align them with the value set of the urban [00:43:00] monoculture. Yeah. Which is fundamentally culturally imperialistic.

By this, what I mean is it wants to, above all else, you know what it'll say, like it cares about Muslims, but I'm like, well, are you okay? Like if you, if you were god king of like. A Muslim country, would you actually continue to not subtly attempt to change their, their gender norms and their sexual taboos and their, you know, it's like, mm, okay.

Actually I'm pretty imperialistic. Mm-hmm. Yeah, because that's what you want. You want everyone to believe exactly what you believe where you actually get more diversity allowed under these other systems. Exactly. So what's funny is it, it may turn out that some form of a Judeo-Christian tradition is incredibly powerful for aligning AI and for being the moral framework behind the alliance, as we often call it, the, the sons of man alliance that will eventually take to the stars and colonize our universe.

Simone Collins: Do, do, do,

Oh, that's so cool. I love it. But again, [00:44:00] it's, it's not new. I mean, Scott Alexander was saying this in 2018, so yeah, I think that's also a good sign

Malcolm Collins: of sustainability quite far ahead of the Yeah, well, I mean, he's obviously very, of course he's ahead of the curve. Yeah. Ahead of the curve. So we'll see when he comes out and, and, and comes up with some techno religious theory, I think he's gonna be very surprised.

How many of his fans would be quite happy if he became, some form of like, okay, the Judeo-Christian Tree of Religions is a good way to raise my kids.

Simone Collins: I mean, has he explicitly said it isn't? I mean, I, I kind of, I'll look it up in post.

So I looked it up and not only is he Jewish, , but he wants to be more observant as a Jew in a recent interview, and he is raising his kids Jewish.

I am just shocked because I never would've expected this, that becoming religious has become cool amongst rationalist influencers. I.

Simone Collins: He's so, he's so informed. I mean, it, it, it implies some form of [00:45:00] adherence.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. And as we've pointed out for people who think that he's not like super based, he argued that transness before we did. In his epi writing that he did on the witch stealing, witch penis stealing phenomenon in Africa, which is a culture bound illness, he argued that transness was in America, was likely a similar culture bound, similar to witch stealing penises in Africa at about 80% of what was causing it, being that before I did.

So he's often two of the based positions long before I am for the people who don't think that he's like supremely based.

Simone Collins: Yeah. No, he's awesome.

Malcolm Collins: Anyway. Okay, have a good one, Simon. Thanks for sharing

Simone Collins: this with me. I love you so much.

Malcolm Collins: So what were the comments like today?

Simone Collins: A lot of people observed that. If you work in the service industry, you basically know that you can tell people looking at their faces, what they're gonna be like, their level of criminality, their sexual orientation, their politics. It's already all out there.

Malcolm Collins: And what I didn't get into in that episode was it's actually [00:46:00] why, why it is more accurate than just genetics, is because by somebody's face, you can also look at patterns that might be tied to in utero condition.

Not just their genes, but their developmental environment. That's a really good point. Meaning that if you're testing that with something as advanced as an ai, you're gonna have an extreme level of accuracy. And an 80 to 90% prediction rate does not surprise me at all. Well, it's

Simone Collins: not just that it, I mean, I think there are maybe a few subtle additional factors that influence people's appearance, that are behavioral that, that show up based on how you live and express yourself.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Yeah.