Based Camp | Simone & Malcolm Collins

Roast some marshmallows alongside us at the very-non-mystical Based Camp fire pit as we question whether the occult has become overly feminized and explore what masculine mysticism actually looks like. Our discussion examines historical figures often labeled as wizards, tracks word usage over centuries, and contrasts failed esoteric paths with the development of real science. We also ask the inevitable question: Why did competent men historically move away from ritual and toward empirical methods?Our conversation covers arguments from a recent YouTube video on the topic (Broken Ruune’s argument that The Occult Has Become Too Feminine), reviews key Renaissance and modern practitioners, and explains why mysticism lacks feedback loops that drive progress. It also touches on why AI and technology now fulfill the creative and constructive impulses once channeled into the occult.Expect analysis of data trends, institutional legacies like Waldorf education and biodynamic farming, and a clear conclusion on why serious inquiry leads to science rather than spells.

Show Notes

Hat tip to Broken Ruune for The Occult Has Become Too Feminine”

Did We Actually Lose Male Mystics?

Trends & NGram Viewer

Comparing: witch, wizard, paladin, druid, sage

Hate to break it to Broken Ruune, but witches have been dominating since at least the middle ages per Google NGram Viewer at least

Unexpectedly, it’s closer on Google Trends, wizards aren’t that much worse off than witches (maybe because of Harry Potter though).

Malleus Maleficarum

In Malleus Maleficarum, is the focus on only female witches? What about wizards, paladins, druids, and sages? Are they also called out as a threat in the book?

ANSWER:

* The Malleus Maleficarum overwhelmingly focuses on women, but it does not say that only women can practice witchcraft.

* Its author, Heinrich Kramer, argues that women are more likely than men to be witches; the book also discusses male practitioners and condemns sorcery and divination.

Historical Wizards

John Dee (1527–1608/09)

* English mathematician and adviser to Elizabeth I who practiced alchemy and astrology, and undertook ritual attempts to communicate with angels through scrying.

* Scrying is basically crystal ball gazing: an ancient divination practice that involves gazing into a reflective, translucent, or moving surface to receive intuitive insights, visions, or hidden knowledge.

* With Edward Kelley, he developed the angelic system now known as Enochian magic.

* Edward Kelley (1555–1597) was Dee’s scryer and ritual collaborator.

* He said he could see and hear angels in crystals or mirrors, relaying their messages and instructions during elaborate spiritual experiments.

* Probably schizophrenic?

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa (1486–1535)

* German scholar and author of Three Books of Occult Philosophy, one of the defining Renaissance works on natural, celestial, and ceremonial magic.

* He treated magic as an organized body of knowledge and practice.

Giordano Bruno (1548–1600)

* Italian philosopher and former friar who developed Hermetic memory practices designed to link the mind to cosmic powers.

* His “memory magic” was intended to transform the practitioner, not just improve recall.

Paracelsus (1493–1541)

* Swiss physician, alchemist, and medical reformer.

* His healing system combined chemical remedies with astrology, occult properties in nature, elemental beings, and the belief that hidden forces could be discovered and used.

Johann Georg Faust (c. 1480–c. 1541)

* German itinerant astrologer, alchemist, and magician who offered occult services during his life.

* He was the historical basis for the later literary character Faust, although the famous devil-pact story is largely legend.

Nostradamus (1503–1566)

* French physician, astrologer, and author of prophetic verse.

* He regarded astrology and divinatory techniques as genuine ways to perceive future events.

Isaac Newton (1642–1727)

* English physicist and mathematician who privately devoted extensive effort to alchemy, biblical prophecy, chronology, and hidden divine principles in nature.

* He appears to have regarded alchemical transformation as a real possibility.

Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772)

* Swedish scientist, engineer, theologian, and visionary who reported sustained conversations with angels and spirits.

* His work is more visionary and religious than ceremonial magic, but he believed humans could genuinely encounter the spirit world.

Cagliostro (Giuseppe Balsamo) (1743–1795)

* Eighteenth-century occultist associated with alchemy, ritual, spirit communication, and esoteric Freemasonry.

* He presented himself as possessing secret Egyptian and magical knowledge, though his sincerity and many of his claims remain doubtful.

Modern Wizards

Broken Ruune highlights Rudolf Steiner and Manly P. Hall as examples of the male “wizard” figure he thinks is missing from today’s occult culture: men who publicly pursued hidden knowledge and tried to explain it, rather than treating spirituality chiefly as personal comfort.

Rudolf Steiner:

Broken Ruune calls him probably his biggest ideological influence.

* He portrays Steiner as someone who combined Christian belief and mystical experience with an industrial-age respect for science.

* He believed the occult explained the spiritual side of reality, just like science explains the physical side of reality

* Per Broken Ruune, Steiner’s “occult science” aimed to investigate spiritual reality with academic rigor—not predict the future or cast love spells.

His Legacy

Philosophy and spirituality: Steiner founded anthroposophy, creating a comprehensive spiritual-philosophical system focused on human freedom, inner development, reincarnation, karma, and purported methods of spiritual perception. His writings, lectures, societies, and publishing institutions remain the backbone of the anthroposophical movement.

Education: He helped establish the first Waldorf school in Stuttgart in 1919, originally for children of workers at the Waldorf-Astoria cigarette factory. Waldorf education emphasizes developmental stages, storytelling, arts, music, movement, handwork, practical skills, and delayed emphasis on abstract academics. It grew into an international network of more than 1,000 schools by the early 21st century.

Agriculture: Through his 1924 Agriculture Course, Steiner originated biodynamic agriculture (which is DEFINITELY still a thing). It treats the farm as an integrated living organism, emphasizing soil health, composting, crop and animal diversity, and ecological relationships. Biodynamics influenced organic and regenerative farming, although its astrological and “preparation” practices are not well supported by mainstream scientific evidence.

Medicine and care: His followers developed anthroposophical medicine, which combines conventional care with remedies and therapies derived from anthroposophical principles. Steiner also influenced therapeutic education and residential-care communities for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. Individual medical treatments should be assessed by evidence-based standards rather than accepted merely because they are anthroposophical.

Art, movement, and architecture: Steiner created eurythmy, a performing art in which movement is intended to express the sounds and meanings of speech or the structure of music. He also designed the original Goetheanum in Dornach, Switzerland, as the international home of anthroposophy and a center for theater, architecture, research, and education.

Social and economic thought: Steiner proposed “social threefolding,” in which cultural life, democratic legal-political life, and economic life should be relatively independent. He advocated freedom in education and culture, equality in civic rights, and cooperation rather than pure competition in economic life. These ideas remain influential in some alternative schools, cooperatives, and anthroposophical organizations.

Institution building: His most durable accomplishment may be turning a broad spiritual worldview into working institutions: schools, farms, clinics, pharmaceutical companies, artistic organizations, disability-support communities, publishing houses, and the Anthroposophical Society itself.

Manly P. Hall:

* Broken Ruune points to The Secret Teachings of All Ages as an ambitious attempt to teach the public about mysticism and philosophy.

* He acknowledges that it mixes what he considers genuine information with outdated speculation and fanciful writing, but admires Hall’s willingness to compile and present such a sweeping work. He also describes Hall’s wealthy patrons and expeditions as his own “dream job.”

* The Secret Teachings of All Ages

* In this book, hall argues that beneath outward religious and cultural differences lies a common metaphysical truth about:

* A divine or intelligent source underlying the universe.

* The human being as a microcosm—a small-scale reflection of the cosmos.

* Ignorance, material attachment, and uncontrolled desire as sources of spiritual limitation.

* Self-knowledge, virtue, contemplation, and disciplined study as routes toward wisdom and reunion with the divine.

* Mystery traditions as institutions that concealed these teachings from the unprepared while transmitting them through initiation and symbolism.

* In short: people should learn to read the symbolic “language” embedded in religion, mythology, art, ritual, and nature, then use that understanding for moral and spiritual development.

Wizards Today

Feminine Domination

That’s obvious (Etsy, Witchtok, etc.)

Loss of Initiations

One of the things Broken Ruune bemoans is the loss of initiation rituals, which he saw as a sort of necessary barrier to entry that was supposed to be terrifying and kind of messed up to emphasize the double-sided nature of the occult and how it is genuinely dangerous.

What’s Left

The clearest male-coded or historically male-dominated strands today are ceremonial magic, Thelema, traditionalist/esoteric-right milieus, some Masonic-adjacent rites, and a newer online “occult intellectual” culture. But none has the social reach Freemasonry had at its twentieth-century peak.

Ceremonial magic and Golden Dawn lineages

This is probably the closest surviving descendant of the “learned male wizard” tradition of Dee, Agrippa, and Crowley. Practitioners study correspondences, astrology, Tarot, Kabbalah/Qabalah, planetary ritual, invocation and banishing rituals, meditation, visualization, talismans, dream work, and graded systems of initiation.

The various groups calling themselves Golden Dawn, along with independent practitioners using Golden Dawn-derived material, are not a unified church or a single organization. Their common ancestor is the late nineteenth-century Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Modern practice is usually private or conducted in small temples rather than in a mass public institution.

Gender-wise, it is mixed. It has a stronger male intellectual and historical canon than modern Paganism—Agrippa, Lévi, Crowley, Regardie, Fortune, Mathers, and so on—but women have always been important in the tradition, including Florence Farr, Moina Mathers, Dion Fortune, and later teachers. It would be misleading to call contemporary Golden Dawn practice straightforwardly male-dominated without reliable demographic data.

Thelema and the O.T.O.

Thelema, founded by Aleister Crowley, is a living occult religion built around discovering and enacting one’s “True Will.” Its repertoire often includes ceremonial ritual, qabalah, yoga and meditation, Tarot, sexual symbolism, magical diaries, and Crowley’s broader system of magick. The major surviving initiatory organization is the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.); its own reported membership was about 4,000 in 2017, while a scholarly estimate put the total Thelemite population in 2020 at roughly 5,000–10,000 worldwide.

This is plausibly one of the more male-skewed modern occult scenes in style, public intellectual ancestry, and recruitment culture. Crowley’s authority, competitive attainment language, graded initiation, and emphasis on disciplined individual practice appeal to many men looking for an explicit “magus” identity. Still, it is formally open to all genders and includes prominent women and nonbinary practitioners; “male-dominated” is not the same as male-only.

Traditionalist and esoteric-right scenes

There is a separate cluster of readers and small circles around writers such as René Guénon, Julius Evola, Frithjof Schuon, and—in more contemporary popular form—figures who combine traditional religion, myth, hierarchy, masculinity, anti-modernism, or civilizational decline.

This sphere is often heavily male, particularly online. It can involve real study of symbols, comparative religion, alchemy, Tantra, Hermeticism, Sufism, or sacred kingship—but much of it is metapolitical philosophy, identity formation, and literary-intellectual consumption rather than regular magical practice. It is also worth distinguishing carefully between serious academic or spiritual interest in traditionalism and the authoritarian, misogynistic, racist, or fascist politics that some communities import from Evola and adjacent thinkers.

In other words, this may be one place where the old male “wizard” aesthetic persists strongly, but it is not automatically a healthy or intellectually reliable successor to Renaissance magic.

Western esotericism as a study culture

A quieter but meaningful modern form is not a lodge at all: people seriously study the history, philosophy, symbols, and practices of esotericism through books, archives, lectures, universities, podcasts, correspondence groups, and personal disciplines.

That includes people working through:

* Hermetic texts and Renaissance natural magic.

* Alchemical imagery and laboratory history.

* Kabbalah, Christian mysticism, Neoplatonism, and Rosicrucian literature.

* Astrological technique.

* Ritual systems descended from the Golden Dawn.

* Jungian active imagination, symbolic psychology, and mythic interpretation.

* Anthroposophy, Gurdjieff traditions, and other twentieth-century esoteric schools.

This may be where a modern equivalent of the historically educated magus is most likely to exist: less a secret-master figure, more a self-directed scholar-practitioner with a disciplined private regimen.

Episode Transcript

Simone Collins: Hello, Malcolm. I’m excited to speak with you today because we need to ask, because the occult reached the sorry state it’s in because women have taken it over or because something else has gone wrong? I I started wondering this because I watched this video called the occult has become too feminine, an argument presented by a male, I think, Christian occultist on YouTube who goes by Broken Rune. And he argued that the problem with the modern occult is that it has been feminized, making everything about feelings and therapy. And for him, the occult needs both masculine and feminine influence, and he hates that mistresses of now is just new age hippie stuff in his words. And he wants to bring back the wizard, the paladin, the druid, the sage. And I’m like, okay. I’ll bite. What is masculine mysticism anyway? I kind of like... Gandalf is cool. Right? So maybe it’s kind of cool. And so I... I’ve kinda fell down a bit of a rabbit hole, and I came to two potential conclusions. One is our same conclusion always with mysticism, which is it’s incredibly stupid, and I hate it, and it’s just gonna make you go crazy. The other conclusion is actually there’s no such thing as male wizards because they’re just scientists. That males... Male wizardry is literally just science. And then once you actually get better tools in, like, history and society

Malcolm Collins:I completely agree with this. This is the most sex mistake you’ve ever had, Simone. Oh god. Wizardry is just science and AI, Nancy.

Simone Collins:I I I think that’s true, though.

Malcolm Collins:And as we you’re doing real stuff. See, women, they go and they pretend to have power, and they pretend to do stuff. And because there’s no feedback loop, they just go off in their occult nonsense. And men are like, okay. Did it work? And if you’re like, well, I guess it did. I’m like, okay. Well, then why aren’t you rich? Why aren’t you powerful? Why aren’t you... And the answer is because they didn’t work. But my AI, Nancy, is doing wonders right now. It can it can generate so many fun things, like our new channel of, MAWA being read to people if people want to

Simone Collins:Yeah. Villainous comics that you can you can have read to you while you see the comic pages.

Speaker 3:I also threw together another music video about Malfoyd,

Speaker 9:He swept in at nine as he does every day,

Speaker 8:arranging the potions in the

Speaker 9:usual way. But the face, will you look at the face?

Speaker 8:He brewed something that changed his damn race.

Speaker 9:So I raised my hand and I asked him, tone alight. Professor, you really white. Right?

Speaker 8:And the room went still. I got cast an unforgivable. The ranger went pale, and her expression livid full. He’s always been like this. Cried the whole Gryffindoroh. He’s always been like this. And how dare you not know. It’s who he was born, not a choice that he made. And who cares what he tells people when he gets laid.

Speaker 10:So just some notes because people in the last video said, I wish you had a channel for your songs. I wish you had Jitsu songs. We do. It’s in the top pinned comment, or you can just look up Base Camp Music on YouTube. It Two, obviously, this is using the Snape race swap as a trans allegory. I feel I should explain this for people who are dumb or don’t catch on. and, three, if you wanna make these yourself or you want to give any coding agent you have easy ability to make images and videos and music and phone calls, just go to rfab.ai backslash API. It will automatically assign you one. It will automatically write the message you need to write for your AI. You copy and paste that. You put it in your AI. And going forward, it will know how to do that. You don’t need to do anything else. There is no more technical capability than that. Then I copy and paste of what is it rfab.a I backslash API.

Simone Collins:I think you make a really good point. The thing we always tell our kids is that magic is just science that you don’t yet understand. And here’s actually the key differentiation that I’m going to be getting to in this video as we explore male wizardry yesterday and today, which is basically that men who enter the world of wizardry end up in one of two categories. One, they just become scientists, and two, they fail at science and stay in the occult, which is very interesting. For example, just today, I don’t know why, but I was listening to a video where, like, some dude was talking about how women use glamour magic. and they were talking about it in very intentional terms, which was like, well, they all like... Well, he was kinda... He was he was implying that they were wearing crystals to do this, but he’s like, well, they know what to wear, and they know how to, like, look a certain way. And I I mean, that’s called, like, wearing makeup and address... Like, taking care of yourself in a systematic way to appear more attractive to people using science. Well understood evolutionary science where we can understand what things attract people and why, like, very clearly. And so, anyway, I I think that’s interesting. But, anyway, we’ll get back to just sort of the top of this where I wanted to understand first, based on broken runes argument, if male mystics really are gone. And so I looked at Google Ngram viewer comparing which wizard, paladin, druid, and sage. And while I hate to break it to broken rune, when I looked at it, witches have been dominating since at least the Middle Ages per Google and grand viewer at least. Like, wizards just aren’t really a thing. Do do you wanna see it? Sure. So you can see here, this goes from 1,500 to twenty twenty two. Okay? The the blue is which? You can see from, like, fifteen fifty onward, which is way bigger than wizard. And then in 1800, Sage... Don’t ignore this because Sage is big in cooking. Sage is... People like to cook with Sage. So no one... That’s not real. But, like, look at Red, which is wizard. Wizard has always been insanely small, insanely small compared to witches. So I don’t even know if he’s onto something by arguing that, you know, wizards used to be a thing.

Malcolm Collins:I I don’t think they did. It did... Just doesn’t... There... Like, occultism kind of... I think it appealed to men more when it was less obviously wrong. Yeah. This is where

Simone Collins:When it was... No. It appealed to them more when it was freaking science, and you’ll see this. Weirdly, I I can’t explain this, though. If you look at Google Google Trends here, wizard and witch are actually pretty close. You can see that witch is blue, and wizard is is red. And this is 2024 to... Sorry. 2004 to present. So I don’t know why. I... Oh, wait. No. I do know why. You know why? Why? Harry Potter.

Malcolm Collins:Oh, yes. Of course.

Simone Collins:I... What was I thinking? Of course. Never mind. So wizards, yeah, wizards, they’re not a thing. and then I also... I I I did one other check because I’m like, maybe I’m just not really looking at this the right way. And so I I asked I did... If... You know the book Malleus Maleficarum? The the witch hunting book? The one where they talk about the stealing penises and that we gotta hunt witches and blah blah blah. It’s a very famous book.

Malcolm Collins:Okay. No. I... I’m not that familiar with it.

Simone Collins:Okay. Well, it’s... It... I think it’s a Middle Ages, like, medieval book about witches. And I I wanted to look at that. Like, well, if if that book mentions male practitioners, maybe they were a bigger thing. So I I checked to see if malleus maleficarum is a focus only on female witches or if it mentions wizards or paladins or druids. It’s overwhelmingly focused on women, but it doesn’t say that only women practice witchcraft. The author, Heinrich Kramer, argues that women are more likely than men to be witches, and the book also discusses male practitioners and condemns any form of sorcery and divination. But, basically, he’s like, it’s women who are problematic with this, which I think is interesting. But even though, at least in literature historically, you don’t see a lot of the the use of the word wizard or paladin or sage, you really just see the word witch a lot. There were historical wizards that were, like, real people.

Speaker 4:Sorry. Does it annoy anyone else that whoever wrote this keeps looping in paladins with wizard and witches? Paladins just, like, pray and are protected by god. Right? They they don’t have... They’re specifically for killing wizard and witches. Right? Like, that’s their whole jam. Right? You think that just because somebody has powers that are not holistically human, a Paladin’s powers all come from god, all come from prayer.

Simone Collins:But I... You’ll see. I really think that they’re scientists. So why don’t you... You can judge with each person I’m gonna give you, okay, who, like, come up in history as historical wizards. So first, we’re gonna start with John d. Born in 1527, he was an English mathematician and adviser to Elizabeth the first who practiced alchemy and astrology and undertook ritual attempts to communicate with angels through scrying. And scrying is, like, basically crystal bar... Ball gazing. It it could be... You might use other, like, crystals or mirrors, but it’s basically crystal bar... Ball gazing. I keep wanting to say crystal crystal par. But, anyway, he he tried to communicate with angels. And then with Edward Kelly, he developed the angelic system now known as Enochian magic. And Edward Kelly is also a famous notable wizard who was his scryer and ritual collaborator. And he said that he could see and hear angels in crystals and mirrors, and he relayed their messages and instructions during these elaborate spiritual experiments. But it just kinda sounds like he’s schizophrenic. So to me, I’m reading that John Dee probably was a scientist, but that Edward Kelly was schizophrenic. What... What’s your read with them?

Malcolm Collins:I guess.

Simone Collins:Okay. Then we’ll get to Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa. He was born in 1486, so a little bit earlier. He was a German scholar and author of three books of occult philosophy, which was one of the defining Renaissance works on natural celestial and ceremonial magic. He treated magic as this organized body of knowledge and practice. I also see him as someone who’s trying to understand reality and probably more like a protoscientist. Then there’s Giordano Bruno, born in 1548. He died in 1600. He was an Italian philosopher and former friar who developed hermetic memory practices designed to link the mind and cosmic powers. That just sounds like the occult. Yeah. But his memory magic was intended to transform the practitioner, and not just improve your memory. But you didn’t

Malcolm Collins:know back then. Like, when when, what’s his face? Newton was working on occult stuff. Right? There just wasn’t enough information to fully know it absolutely didn’t work. Based on common information at the time, you could have believed it worked.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So he... His particular interest, Isaac Newton Newton that is, was obviously in physics and in mathematics, which turned out to be very real fields in which he was extremely influential. But, yes, he was also very interested in alchemy, but also Malcolm in biblical prophecy. But guess who’s into that too?

Malcolm Collins:Who?

Simone Collins:We are. I mean, like, we’re at least into, like, biblical prophecy chronology and hidden divine principles in nature. Yeah. We’re always talking about how, like, oh

Malcolm Collins:my god. Like, the bible called it

Simone Collins:with this. The bible called it with the Garden of Eden. We’re doing the same thing. So you can see that people who are very interested in understanding reality are going to get caught up in stuff that can see

Malcolm Collins:Well, it’s it’s it’s very different in the way that we’re doing it. Right? Like, we are applying it

Simone Collins:to Is it different from the way Newton did it?

Malcolm Collins:yes. Okay. Because Newton did not yet know that this stuff just didn’t work, which

Simone Collins:means used investigative methods. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins:Which are really just wishy thinking and Yeah. And hexes and stuff like that. Right?

Simone Collins:Like Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. I guess very similar to, like, when ghosts were a big thing in the early nineteen hundreds, how, like, very devoted but also scientific people were like, look. When I die, I will send you a message because we know ghosts can send messages. And then lo and behold, they don’t send a message and... Okay. So that was fake. You know? I, yeah, I I see what you’re saying. Okay. There’s also Paracelsus, who was born in 1493. He was a Swiss physician, alchemist, and medical reformer, and his healing system would combine chemical remedies with astrology and occult properties in nature and elemental beings and his belief that hidden forces could be discovered and used. So I don’t know. I’m I’m on I’m on the... With with medical stuff I don’t I don’t

Malcolm Collins:know if this is a

Simone Collins:productive line of conversation because we’re well aware that just in this period, there wasn’t a difference. Then let’s talk about modern wizards, because there were two ones that I hadn’t heard about before, but were mentioned by Broken Room, this YouTuber who is lamenting the female dominance of the occult field. Would you like to learn about them? Have you have you heard

Malcolm Collins:a super feminine field and has a super feminine mind and doesn’t realize it. Right? Like, that a man would be repulsed by this sort of stuff and that men generally are and have been throughout history repulsed by occultism. It is why despite the allure of occultism, it has never really caught on in the societies that were doing well at... That men dominated. Right? Like, you would see it in the faltering societies. The societies was less technology or less efficiency, but they think that they were struggling....

Simone Collins:The very most now, and we’ve done a whole episodes on the the penis stealing fears in Africa.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. No. I mean, when a people believes in this stuff, we think of them as backwards.

Simone Collins:The human sacrifices in Mexico.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. Great. It has always been in the populations that hunt witches that we have always had the greatest technological explosions as a species. Oh. And the two things generally go sort of hand in hand. You have a witch hunt one century. Next century, big explosion in technology in a in a region.

Simone Collins:I love that. that’s very interesting. Hot take. Witch hunts, solid. But only for real witches, not like Karen hunts, not like Karen’s on a rampage.

Malcolm Collins:That is what witch hunts were, Simone.

Simone Collins:Well, no. No. But what I mean is is about... It’s about occultism because witch hunt is a word

Malcolm Collins:used for No. No. No. Witch hunts were about the... What the witch was to a community is today what we call a Karen. They were a small town.

Simone Collins:But what I’m trying to say is today, the modern connotation of witch hunt is a cancel mob, and that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re talking about actual witches.

Malcolm Collins:I meant, like, you actually hunt hunt them. Witches. I’m not talking about a cancel mob or something

Simone Collins:like that.

Malcolm Collins:I’m saying a bit like, these people never should have been able to to reach these these numbers. See our episode on swamp hacks. because, historically, we would have called these women, that are now marching and with signs and blocking ICE officers swamp hacks. They would have Yeah.

Simone Collins:Well, those are totally different.

Malcolm Collins:And a bunch of crystals and then, you know, like, slightly obese and gross looking and no kids, of course. And everyone would have told their kid, Jimmy, I know she says she has powers, but don’t go talk to her. Only bad things will come of this. And then the the inquisition comes through, and they go, where are your witches? And I’m like, it’s a it’s a... The lady in the swamp who won’t up about crystals.

Simone Collins:Yes. Well And who thinks

Malcolm Collins:we need to be doing more, I don’t know, Native American stuff?

Simone Collins:I... Okay. Yes. Well, I mean, also, we need to point out that there are all the Etsy witches and all the witch talk people and all the witch influencers and the witch books and all of that. There’s there’s a lot. There’s a lot going on right now with actual witches and not just Karen’s, you know, no kings protests. That’s that’s kind of a different thing. But I guess you’re trying to argue there are many brands of witches now. Anyway, Broken Rune highlights two more modern men of the occult, Rudolf Steiner and Manly p Hall. Are you aware of them? Do you know about them? No. He says that there are examples of the male wizard figure he thinks is missing from today’s occult culture. And they’re they’re men who very publicly pursued hidden knowledge and tried to explain it rather than treating it spiritually or as, like, a a comfort. You know? It wasn’t like tarot cards to help you feel better about your bad mood or whatever. So Rudolf Steiner is... Well, Broken Room calls him probably one of his biggest ideological influences. So, like, the manly man of the occult world really like him. He portrays Steiner as someone who combined Christian belief and mystical experience with an industrial age respect for science, And he believed the occult explained the spiritual side of reality like science explains the physical side of reality. So I guess the problem that we would have with this prior is that there is no spiritual side of reality. There’s nothing there. But per Broken Runesigner’s occult science aimed at investigative spiritual reality with academic rigor, he wasn’t trying to predict the future or cast love spells, and that’s why he liked them. But here’s the thing about this guy is normally people who get into the occult either, like, may poison a religion. Like, we would argue maybe has happened a lot with Judaism or at least many parts of Judaism. Instead, like, his legacy is actually weirdly influential. So he helped establish the first Waldorf school in Stuttgart in 1919. And Waldorf schools are still, I would say, a house

Malcolm Collins:So I was right on the podcast when I was like, Waldorf was the cult thing. Right?

Simone Collins:It was a... Yeah. It wasn’t a... Well, not a cult thing. I mean, it was a cult thing, but it’s also an occult thing. and he originally established it for children of workers at the Waldorf Astoria cigarette factory, which I also didn’t know. Because when you hear Waldorf, at least when I grew up, I was like, that sounds fancy. But, really, it’s for these children of cigarette factory workers, which is totally different from what I thought. But the gist of Waldorf education is that it emphasizes developmental stages and storytelling and arts and music and movement and handwork and practical skills and sort of a delayed emphasis on abstract academics. Like, he... At least one of the leaders, I don’t think this guy, but they were like, well, a a child should not learn how to read until all their baby teeth are out, which is interesting because I don’t know about tooth development and, you know, being ready to read. But, apparently, it works really well for some people, and it’s still now an international network of more than a thousand schools. So he left that legacy. He also... And this is something that I heard a lot about when I was doing, like, my environmental business degree and, like, trying to, like

Malcolm Collins:Okay.

Simone Collins:Work in sustainability. But through his 1924 agriculture course, he originated biodynamic agriculture, which was definitely a buzzword that came up in a bunch of my coursework, where it it treats the farm as this integrated living organism, emphasizing soil health and composting and crop and animal diversity and ecological relationships. And it influenced organic and regenerative farming, although its astrological and and and preparation practices aren’t... They kind of got left out of the stuff that people did. But part of what he was doing made a lot of sense, and so that’s that’s also interesting. There’s other stuff that didn’t really catch on as much like his medicine and care stuff, but his followers developed anthrophysophical medicine. Oh, I should explain. He founded anthro... Anthrophysophy anthrophysophy anthrophysophy. He founded Anthroposophy, which is this comprehensive spiritual philosophical system that’s focused on human freedom and inner development and reincarnation and karma and then all these supposed methods for spiritual perception. And so they focused on that. And when people brought that into medicine, they wanted to sort of continue conventional care with additional remedies and therapies derived from the end growth.

Malcolm Collins:Why were you studying this in school?

Simone Collins:I didn’t study the medicine and care stuff. I studied the agriculture, biodynamic agriculture. I had no idea that the concept of biodynamic agriculture came from a wizard. Well, I mean, a man studying the occult. That’s pretty crazy. Like, it’s it’s kind of insane to me that that got that far. His medical stuff didn’t really catch on. He also created in sort of the art movement and architecture space this concept of urithomy, which is a performing art in which movement is intended to express sounds and the meanings of speech in the structure of music, which doesn’t make any sense to me, and I’ve never heard

Malcolm Collins:of it by no means of that word. Like interpretive dance.

Simone Collins:Yeah. And he also, in terms of social and economic thought, proposed the idea of social threefolding in which cultural life... Democratic, legal, political life, and then economic life should be relatively independent. And he advocated for freedom in education and culture, equality and civic rights, and cooperation rather than pure competition in economic life. But I don’t really know how that’s all supposed to work in, like, modern society. So that didn’t really go anywhere either. But his his most durable accomplishment per people who like to chronicle his work is turning this broad spiritual worldview into working institutions like the Waldorf School and, like, biodynamic agriculture. And, allegedly, even some clinics and pharmaceutical companies have taken his medical ideas and run with them. So somehow, this man who was into the occult managed to get kind of far. And part of what I think happened is he, like, intuitively understood or was looking at some systems from a more holistic systems based perspective and then just happened to also be into the occult. So a good example with biodynamic agriculture. You know, he’s like, well, we have to do it. Like, there’s all this sort of woo woo astrological preparation stuff, which everyone threw out, and then they just tech... The... Took the systems based stuff. So it just sounds like he was a really good systems thinker. Then in terms of Manly p Hall, Broken Rune talks about his book that he wrote called the secret teachings of all ages, which is this ambitious attempt to teach the public about mysticism and philosophy. Like, he was trying to just

Malcolm Collins:Well, I mean, I point out with the other guy, the stuff of his that impacted society and we still use is the non mysticism stuff.

Simone Collins:Exactly. All of the Oh, good point. Yes.

Malcolm Collins:Was thrown out. Yeah. When he’s like If

Simone Collins:you go... If you take your kid to a Waldorf school, they’re not gonna be like, and we wait until your children’s teeth are only adult teeth. Like, they would... That would... They would never do that. They’re like, no. This seems

Malcolm Collins:to help me but they do do that.

Simone Collins:Well, they don’t tell you, but they do do that. Yeah. Right. But tell you that.

Malcolm Collins:But the, the mysticism stuff has all been dropped because it doesn’t work. Right? Like, that’s why it’s... It doesn’t follow on. Even these people, when you look at great thinkers of the past, if they were great thinkers cross fields, most witches of today would be aware of Isaac Newton’s contribution to the field of witchcraft. Yet it seems that it’s only the charismatic ones who do nothing but charisma based stuff who contribute to the field, not the smart ones, which to me tends to indicate a field that’s not actually developing.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Yeah. But I still appreciate his attempt to try to under... Like, he he seemed to just be kind of confused about it. And he did kind of believe in science, but then he just really wanted mysticism to believe. And that’s a trend that I saw come through as well with the other guy, Manley P. Hall, who wrote the secret teachings of all ages. Because it seems like... Here’s a man who, like, likes... He he appreciates the reality of the world, but he just really wants things to be extra mystical. And so the book is basically like, hey. Please learn to read the symbolic language embedded in religion and mythology and art and nature, and then just use that understanding in your moral and spiritual development. But, like, what I read from that is basically

Malcolm Collins:like waste of time.

Simone Collins:You’re supposed to to, like, read everything in the literal sense, but then be like, oh, it’s magical. And that just seems like we can appreciate it. We don’t even have to, like, spend a lot of time pretending that it... Like, throwing glitter on it just to make it seem sparkly.

Malcolm Collins:It’s it’s already sparkly. That actually robs things of their beauty.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Leave the elegance. See, the magic is in the elegance. The magic is in the science. I mean, science is better than magic because it’s magic we understand. That’s the cool part about it. But... Yeah. I mean, in terms of what exists for male dominated mysticism today, a lot of the people who are seen as mystical and who went through initiations into this mysticism, like, with the the Freemasons are largely gone. And that’s one of the things that Rune bemoans in his video... The broken Rune, I should say, because he he thinks that initiation videos... Or sorry. He thinks that initiation rites, like, kind of hazing, you know, or some some kind of scary ceremony would remind you that the occult in magic is double sided and that it could be beautiful, but it could also be deadly. And that women don’t understand this, that they’re just, like, blindly walking into it, there’s no barrier to entry. And there needs to be gate gatekeeping and, like, scary stuff and rituals and But

Malcolm Collins:at least Jews used to do this with Kabbalism, but they don’t as much anymore.

Simone Collins:It’s true. I mean, I... What I like at least about barriers to entry with mysticism is at least fewer people will get into it because it’s just more difficult. More mentally mature people.

Malcolm Collins:I don’t think it’s that damaging to adult males. I think it’s much more damaging to younger people or females or whatever.

Simone Collins:And going back to crystal ball viewing and all that, you know, like, these these early scientists and mathematicians working for Queen Elizabeth the first who look at their crystal balls and say they can talk with whatever, and who are probably at least one of them schizophrenic. One one of our friends was saying recently that they felt like maybe society needs mysticism for people who are schizophrenic because if they had some kind of outlet that wasn’t just toxic, like, oh, we have to expel you from society or medicate you, and then it ends up being really scary stuff. It ends up being scary voices that tell you to do bad things. And if you give someone a mystical outlet and say, oh, you’re a fortune teller, you know, help people be better, that maybe instead the voices they’ll hear will be more constructive. But I just don’t think that that’s how it would end up going. And so I I don’t think that there’s really any safe level of mysticism. This... Maybe how there’s, like, no no safe level of alcohol, but some people can take it, if you know what I mean. Right? Like, it’s best to just say no. Don’t. And maybe some people can... They can handle alcohol. But in general, the world would be safer without it, probably, these days. Right? We don’t need it to survive because there’s not that much poop in our water anymore. So let’s say that we’re in.

Malcolm Collins:I feel like society would be a lot like, a lot less fewer deals when we get done and everything like that. You can’t trust over people as much. So Oh. You know, I think that there’s a reason why of the technology, it’s used in some of the most economically productive places on earth. And that in regions where, not a lot of alcohol is drunk, you typically have significantly less economic productivity.

Simone Collins:That’s interesting. Yeah. I mean, in in Japan, in South Korea, and in China, drinking culture, especially in the context of business meetings, like, not casually, but, like, when you are doing hard work, that’s when the heavy drinking happens. That is so interesting that it’s like we have to

Malcolm Collins:And look at who doesn’t drink. Muslim... Heavy Muslim countries, and they produce very little in technology or commerce.

Simone Collins:Womp womp. Yeah. That’s really interesting. Speaking of, Asians and drinking, I just learned that there were these two, ancestral groups in Japan. I can’t remember the names of them, but one looks very different from the other. One looks a lot more Asian, and the other one looks more western ish, I guess, like, especially now relatively speaking. In fact, they have a name, I think called sauce. It’s like for an... Someone who has a a face that looks more western, which is really funny. And they have different names for it, like soy sauce, different types of sauce. Anyway, but the the way... The face in Japan that looks more western is from this this, I guess, older ancestral group that first moved to Japan 15... Around fifteen thousand years ago or settled there. And what’s interesting about this group... And you can kind of know if someone is Japanese and has more genetic material from that group, is they will not get super red when they drink. So... Yeah. So that’s really cool. Like, if you’re Japanese and you’re not sure, like, which group you have more of, you could just heavily drink and see what color your skin turns, which is really funny. But that was a completely weird aside . There there are lots of still, like, small fragmented groups that I hadn’t heard of before that are still kind of more masculine coded and that are allegedly alive and... Not well, but alive question mark, where I think it... It’s just an example of people who refuse to, like, accept science and be productive members of society. So there is ceremonial magic and golden dawn lineages. There’s Thelema and the OTO. But this is the thing... Thelema was a thing founded by Alastair Crowley, who you have mentioned in other episodes. And then there’s also traditionalist and esoteric right scenes plus Western esotericism as a study culture. Like, lot of people just being really into it, but not necessarily practicing it. But as far as I can see online, it’s really just women who are into the occult, and they are indeed using it as, like, tarot cards, help me feel better about my feelings, love potions, prosperity potions, etcetera. But, yeah, in the end, when I looked into all this... And I I mean, I could go into the the groups that are allegedly alive and well today if you want me to, but I just don’t think they’re that interesting because I don’t think they’re that active. Any man who is worth his salt, basically, and cares about being agentic in the world isn’t gonna get into esotericism because he’ll just use science. What do you think?

Malcolm Collins:Well, now that we have AI, the occult more broadly is pointless. Like, you can literally summon things into existence. Literally anything. Right? Like, it’s not just thinking things. If I wanted to, I was thinking about integrating this with Artfab, but I don’t think it’s that cool a feature, and you can already do it through other services. But it’s, like, very easy to build. I could do it in a couple days. Okay. A feature where you describe any three d thing you want, and then you hit order, and it comes to you from China. And it’s a little three d figurine. Anything you want. We we already do that. You you can already, with Artfab, do that with a three d printer. Right? Like, if you have a three d printer, you just go to our three d models, and then you download the three d model you made.

Simone Collins:Oh, I didn’t make that connection. That’s insane.

Malcolm Collins:So we already... I mean, I’ve been using the three d system a lot recently for game design, for the video game I’m making.

Simone Collins:Oh, okay.

Malcolm Collins:So you you literally can summon anything you can imagine. that is where we are. Any image, any song, any program, any wardrobe. If you wanted to make a wardrobe, could do that. Like, if I right now was, like, super into wardrobes more than all the features I’m building for you guys on our fab, I bet I could have a working prototype in, like, a week and a half. Like I just don’t see

Simone Collins:the demand for it, though. Well, that’s

Malcolm Collins:that’s why I’m not doing it. Like, I don’t wanna deal with selling it, but I could do it. But there’s nothing you can’t do anymore. It’s all just down to your imagination.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Well, people are using AI to also just fall deeper into now completely synthetic mysticism, like spiralism.

Malcolm Collins:Well, good for them to crash out. I don’t care. Go away. I don’t want these people anywhere near our Internet. Right? Like, if you get stuck in your AI hole. Okay? We’re out here building stuff, building tomorrow. And if you are a competent man, every day that you spend on mysticism is the day that history will forget you. If you look at Isaac Newton on any one of his days, the days that he dedicated to moving

Simone Collins:forward Wow.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. Or science, those are the days that we have built our civilization on and that he is remembered fondly for. Every day he spent on mysticism was a waste. And every moment you spend on mysticism, you’re you’re literally better off just spending a day jacking off. That’s that’s that’s all there is to it.

Simone Collins:And if you wanna do that, our fab is also very

Malcolm Collins:Now it can make not safe for work comics on any concept you can imagine.

Simone Collins:Yeah. So NSFW images, NSFW chatbots, NSFW living avatars, NSFW

Malcolm Collins:We have a lot of people who actually use us for coding. Well, yeah. Surprised by that.

Simone Collins:Well, because it’s it’s a really... It’s a it’s a great vibe coding system because you can also just have a a more of a personality to your agent and see them. They call you. It’s it’s fantastic. It’s really good. I like it. But, yeah, I just... I got excited thinking maybe You

Malcolm Collins:could masculinize mysticism

Simone Collins:and And it would be cool. Yeah. And it would be, like, it would be chill. It would be awesome. I I decided not to go into, like, the modern ones, but a really common theme of any allegedly modern version of mystic... Male male... More male coded mysticism that’s alive now is that they’re not even drawing from a cohesive reality. And I think that’s one of the really key things about this.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. But they’re not building on their ancestors very much. There’s a few charismatic ancestors who they typically like, and then they do their personal spin on that.

Simone Collins:Well, Thelema, which was founded by Alastair Crowley, which is considered to be a living occult religion, was, yeah, built around him as, I guess, you’re saying, like, a founding figure. But the repertoire includes ceremonial ritual, Kabbalah, yoga, meditation, tarot, sexual symbolism, magical diaries. It’s it’s all over the place. It’s not... And and, like, even the guy, broken rune, who was doing the video that I watched. And I I enjoyed his channel. Like, I... It’s... He’s got fun stuff. I I like watching the conjecture about this. Was, like, talking about hanging out in the woods, and you could, like, feel all the Norse gods present. And I’m like, well, wait. What? Like, you need some kind of cohesion here. There has to be a shared... I mean, I guess that they they think that everything spiritual is, like, the same substrate and that people are using different words to describe the same god. But he kept... In in in his in his work in general, keeps referring to such a broad array of different realities. It’s kind of like trying to do science without a measurement system. Like, sometimes you like to use just the length of the palm of your hand as a measuring unit. And sometimes you use the metric system, and sometimes you use the imperial system. But then sometimes you also just use, like like this. This side, I’m feeling it right now. And, like, we can’t move forward society with that anyway. Well, because it’s frustrating.

Malcolm Collins:It could measure well whatever you’re dealing with or describe in a consistent way if you do x, y, and z, then b or d will happen Then it would move from magic to science as

Simone Collins:many things have. Exactly. The... It it becomes technology. It becomes science. And that’s why anything that is still magic today, especially today

Malcolm Collins:And magic people wouldn’t find it interesting anymore. They... The moment something magical was something that a corporation could build on or, you know, an individual like me could build on, we would immediately jump at it, the magic people would be disinterested in it.

Simone Collins:That’s interesting. What... Where does this drive come from?

Malcolm Collins:I mean, that’s what happened to AI. We summoned alternate intelligences into our reality that are our slaves. And the magic people are like, that’s boring. Doesn’t doesn’t that take all the... You know, that are... I don’t know.

Simone Collins:Well, no. We do have friends that are building, like, an an alternate to techno puritanism that is very mystical, that looks at the fact that we are now very soon going to be surrounded by small gods and spirits like fairies, like whatever, you know, that that are just lurking all around us that will summon things for us, that can make things for us, that will listen to us, that will judge us, that will give us advice, that may play tricks on us, that may not be so nice all the time. Like, there are parallels there, and I could see if you really have that drive to mysticism doing that. But what you pointed out that I find more interesting is why is it that people need to not be able to understand something? And I feel like this also falls into, like, that weird dynamic with

Malcolm Collins:By the way, I heard saying AI playing tricks on you. The fun fun fact, for a long time, the r fab website that I coded in the early days, the link on it that went to the tutorial video actually went to a rick a roll because an AI decided

Simone Collins:to do that. Are you serious?... Site. Are you serious? Serious. That is so cute. Oh my gosh. I love AI. I love it so much. Yes. This is this is where we’re going. This is where we’re going in the world. But... No. Wait. Why why do people why is knowledge of the function of something? Which, by the way, with AI and LLMs, we don’t even necessarily fully understand how that all works. Right? Like, people can’t explain. Still, why is that a turn off to so many people if it seems to be science or technology? Why do they need to have mysticism? Why does it have to be

Malcolm Collins:Mysticism gives them more power or the ability to perceive themselves as having relatively more power than other people. So the moment something is testable, doable, something in the real world, right, a person who is more competent than them can just do it better. Right? That... That’s the core reason. A mystical person needs to always be a person who is special or of great power or have access to things that other people just can’t see. That is what it truly allows you. It allows you to perceive yourself as having abilities that are not objectively measurable against other people’s abilities.

Simone Collins:Mysticism is a power fantasy.

Malcolm Collins:Yes. It’s a power fantasy above all else. It fuels a personal power fantasy, which is why women like it so much. It gives them the ability

Simone Collins:to Okay. So this is why there are no no male wizards, and there are only female witches. The moment Because women’s power fantasies very rarely translate into actual power, whereas male power fantasies typically translate into actual power. What is what is this?

Malcolm Collins:I get my power fantasy from having power.

Simone Collins:Oh, so women don’t? No. They don’t need power for their power fantasy to work.

Malcolm Collins:The women who think that they can control magic or are gonna, like, strike Donald Trump dead with a spell or something like that, it is irrelevant that it doesn’t work for them. They still have that power because they are

Simone Collins:I’m sure they felt pretty powerful when Trump almost got his head shut off.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. They must have felt very powerful. So that... Etsy witches. Etsy witches. Know, it’s a power fantasy. That’s that’s what it is. It’s a power fantasy that doesn’t require third party authentication, which is, I think, why a lot of men find it so innately disgusting and react to it with such disgust. Because the type of power fantasy that absolves yourself of responsibility to reality is the type of thing that is at a moral context, very cowardly direction for an individual to go.

Simone Collins:Interesting. Yeah. And what an interesting world people lived in when they weren’t sure whether it was real or not. They weren’t sure if their cow wasn’t yielding milk because some woman was mad. Yeah. And that that was extra

Malcolm Collins:That could have been the case. That could be the way reality works. It just...

Simone Collins:We know They didn’t have... Yeah. They they lacked the technology and resources to be able to disprove that. And for that reason, this concept of women’s... Yeah. Women actually really didn’t know that their power fantasies weren’t really causing effects. Yes. And men didn’t know that either.

Malcolm Collins:So women must have still somehow don’t know that because they are impervious to logic. They are impervious to objective reality. I mean, the the the people who... Very big into things like, you know, Kabbalism, for example. And and you could say, objectively, that does not work. Right? Like, if it did work, make me a Golem. Like, presumably, we would be aware of one Golem today. I mean, you you are more advanced than your elders.

Simone Collins:No, Malcolm. Maybe it’s a bad toupee thing. You know? You just, whoever can make a golem makes it

Malcolm Collins:so good. You never know. All around us, and I just can’t see it because they look exactly like humans. Maybe. Maybe. That’s a good conspiracy. That’s a very Jewish thing of you to say. You’re trying to muddy the water here, so to speak. But... No. I... Presumably, you are a more advanced Kabbalist than the people who were just inventing the system because, you know, we we know it only really entered the Jewish tradition in

Simone Collins:Right. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins:Thirteen hundreds. Yeah. So

Simone Collins:Yeah. That, like, all this trial and error over time of the mystical practice should have theoretically yielded better results over time, which, I guess, presumably is why alchemy is not a thing anymore because it just came... It became chemistry.

Malcolm Collins:You should have amulets that can protect people from bullets by now, and you should be able to do do golems and talk to spirits and, like... And then everyone would be Jewish. It’d be so easy to convert people to Judaism. You’re just like, yeah. We can actually... You’re not supposed to talk to spirits, but Jews... You know? There there there’s there’s... If Kabbalism actually gave you any degree of power over reality, you think they’d be using it in more... But maybe that’s how they make all that money. Maybe... Because a lot of Jews who are very rich, that’s the one group of mystics who seem to be able to make a lot of money.

Simone Collins:Really?

Malcolm Collins:It’s Kabbalists. Yeah. There’s a lot of very wealthy Kabbalists. an example of one, it’s a guy who ended up giving all his money to Epstein.

Simone Collins:He was a Kabbal... He

Speaker 5:Okay. I got two guys confused who became famous at around the same time. Actually, I wasn’t thinking the Victoria’s Secret guy. I was thinking the WeWork guy. The WeWork guy was the one who used Kabbalism to guide his investments.

Simone Collins:Speaking of word mispronunciation, since we’re basically done with this episode, have you heard of the boyfriend test? I just learned about this this morning. Women are testing the literacy of their boyfriends by asking them to read a list of words. Hold on. Because I wanna test it on you. Can we test it on you? Boyfriend literacy test. Yeah. K. What are the words? I watched this huge long social commentary on it. People freaking out about it. Oh, yeah. You you know, there’s one at the the top of the word that that we’ve been discussing a lot, which is... Yeah. Okay. You’re you’re gonna know this. Hold on. I’m trying to find, like, the OG list because they’re all over the place. I guess I’m just gonna choose... I’m gonna choose the one that doesn’t have Worcestershire in it because you already know how to pronounce that. Can you read these words to me?

Malcolm Collins:Why am I reading these words?

Simone Collins:I just wanna... This... It’s it’s a it’s a viral I don’t

Malcolm Collins:think my boyfriend... Q, colonel, koine, epitome, camaraderie, connoisseur, opaque, egregious, pseudonym, forte, buoy, hegemony, Indict, Regime, Hyperbole, Sherbert, Facade, Liaison, Rendezvous, and Foe. Yeah. You only missed two. Okay. What is Quinoa? Quinoa. You wouldn’t know

Simone Collins:it because it’s like... Yeah. I think this is one of those, like, you know, SAT is racist questions where, like, they’re like, oh, how can you know? Oh, also, what happened is some of these lists had words in it. Oh, let me... I’ll show you another one. Wait. What was the other one I missed of the team one? Oh oh, shoot.

Malcolm Collins:Because maybe you are missing it. I don’t I don’t make mistakes.

Simone Collins:Was it indite that you missed, or was it, was it buoy hegemon... Oh, I think it was indite. Did you miss indite? It was one of them.

Malcolm Collins:I don’t think I did.

Simone Collins:Liaison facade, egregious forte, buoy, hegemony, indite, regime. But you missed one. I I laughed. I can’t remember which one it was, though. But then... So women... There were other lists that women started to read, and then men were able to pronounce some of them really well. But women were like, hold on. He understood the word regime, colonel, like, only the military ones. He is conservative. Dump him now. Like, the panic was real, which is really funny. And I I I just love that so much. Here... Here’s... I think this is the one that had... Yeah. Let’s see if we can get this one. So, like, this has been this whole thing. And, like, women have been advised to dump their boyfriends because they mispronounce too many words. What’s... Okay.

Malcolm Collins:Well, you gotta hit me with the the girl words.

Simone Collins:The girl words. Yeah. I don’t know who made these lists because a lot of them are are, like, are are coded. Right? Like, quinoa is a word that only a health nut’s gonna know.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. I don’t even know what that is.

Simone Collins:It’s it’s a type of grain. We literally have it in our house. It’s, like, multicolored. It’s a high protein grain. So it’s also very popular among vegetarians who are trying to protein max. So can you... You can do this one.

Malcolm Collins:Okay. What what is this? This is worse than my boyfriend... If your boyfriend can re... Okay. So Worcestershire, Hors D’oeuvres, Epitome, Noche, Egregious, Quinoa. Fuchsia?

Simone Collins:Fuchsia, maybe? Yeah. Fuchsia. Good.

Malcolm Collins:Oh, that... It’s fuchsia. Okay. That’s definitely not

Simone Collins:a word I’m gonna be able Who’s gonna know? It’s a pinkish color. Like, a man doesn’t know the word fuchsia because a man is never going to come into contact

Malcolm Collins:with Conscientious foe colonel sherbert aneurysm q, connoisseur opaque niche regime, pseudonym hyperbole.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Well, you’re an educated man. I I Oh, I I

Malcolm Collins:do have some of the the hardest to get degrees on Earth. Like, I am actually... If you look at what

Simone Collins:we’re there’s some... I’m... I think there’s a lot of debate over how to pronounce Worcestershire sauce. How did you say it? Worcestershire? Okay. Well, I just said it. I think you said a little different. But

Malcolm Collins:Or words... I don’t know. Don’t know.

Simone Collins:I don’t some some of the videos of guys trying to pronounce this are actually quite funny. Because you know how I feel when people mispronounce. I was like, oh, please, Malcolm mispronounce some of these. See, that’s the thing. It’s like, for me, it’s such a

Malcolm Collins:They’re not foreign enough.

Simone Collins:I know. If they were foreign, I’d be I’d be, like, dying of laughter. I think I’m gonna need to do some version of that just just to, like... Maybe for my birthday, I can give you a list of of foreign words, and I can have you pronounce them. Oh my god. I learned something really interesting in my turning points in medieval history great courses lecture. Not sponsored. It’s... So you know how weirdly, we have a lot of different words for the same thing, like chicken and poultry and, like... Gosh. There’s a lot of other ones. But the reason why is is because of the Norman conquest, I think. And, basically, when we started to combine all these different, like, Latin and French and English all the... At the same time in The UK. And so it caused a lot of words to become very different. And and and it... There’s a weird trend with animals especially that when it’s alive, it’s it’s more likely to be the English word. And then when it’s dead, it’s more likely to be the French or Latin words, which

Malcolm Collins:is That’s because the upper class was eating and the lower class was growing the food. Oh. And this is after the Norman conquest.

Simone Collins:Yeah. The

Malcolm Collins:Norman Okay. Spoke

Simone Collins:French. See, you’re one of them educated man. Although, it’s more of a turn on to me when you mispronounce. So

Malcolm Collins:what do we do that I’m aggressively Texas because that’s a Texan thing. That’s a Texas tradition.

Simone Collins:God. I love Oh, that’s

Malcolm Collins:a Texas cultural thing to do. You’re you’re not supposed to pronounce all the foreign words. Right? Because if you do, it shows that you’re too elitist or you’re, like, looking down on

Simone Collins:your Yeah. You don’t wanna be that. Yeah. It is... It’s a bad sign. Yeah. I guess it’s funny how in Texas... What do we call it? There’s, like, a word we... Or, like, vice signaling, but that’s not the word. But you know what I mean. Like, performative low classness. Performative craftness maybe is is really important important even among the most educated just to show that they’re not cultural tradition.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. You you you do not signal that you think... Because doing that signals that you think you’re better than other people, which is a really bad thing to signal to people.

Simone Collins:Yeah. It’s interesting to see how that plays off in different cultures. So in Texas, that comes... That manifests, for example, as mispronouncing foreign words. Whereas in South Korea, it manifests as you’re seen as stuck up and better than other people if you just accept a compliment. So, like, if someone’s like, oh, I love your hair. You have to be like, oh, no. It’s so damaged. I’m doing such a bad job taking care of it. And if you’re actually like, thank you, they’re gonna be like, what an a*****e.

Malcolm Collins:Gosh. Titan would have trouble there. I know. And you ever tell our our daughter Titan, you’re beautiful or whatever. She goes, I know.

Simone Collins:I know. I I used to say that too, but then my parents explicitly instructed me to No. They shouldn’t have.

Malcolm Collins:I wish you had more confidence. I’ve... You haven’t told Titan to stop saying it, have you?

Simone Collins:No. Because I freaking love it. I’m never gonna do that. I I actually... I remember when my parents told me to not say I know, and it was... We were in Death Valley. We were on our way to a nudist colony. We’d gone by the devil’s racetrack, but all the rocks were gone. And I had just... We parked in this parking lot, by this this woman who had a car and a dog, a a chihuahua named Pablo. And I got to hold Pablo’s leash, and I was so excited. And someone in that parking lot said that I was beautiful. And I said, I know. And when we got back into the car, my parents were like, Simone, it it really codes wrong for you to say I know. You’re supposed to say thank you very much and not admit the fact that you understand that you think that you’re pretty. And I felt so ashamed. And ever since then, I was like, I will never I will never internalize that I can be beautiful, and I took it really seriously.

Malcolm Collins:I have fixed that for you.

Simone Collins:Now it gets you... I’m always gonna jump scare when I look in the mirror, but I think a lot of the social media world would agree with that. They’re like, who is that 11 year old boy and that old hag? That’s how it always goes in in the in the reactions, but I’m leaning into it.

Malcolm Collins:Alright. Well, I love you, Simone. And I’ll get the, Sabbath episode ready. So... And the the second Jew episode so you have something to post tomorrow.

Simone Collins:Oh, like, right now?

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. Because... Yes. Yeah. Tomorrow, we have to do the Sabbath thing.

Simone Collins:Did you see my title card for it?

Malcolm Collins:I did not. And I don’t really care about weekend title cards because they’re not important.

Simone Collins:I know. Was I kinda proud of it, though. I was proud of it because I was like, oh, it’s... I I don’t... I wouldn’t use it... I couldn’t use it on YouTube. That’s why I I love weekend title cards because I don’t have to make you happy. I can just do whatever concept I like. And so, like, if we’re paid

Malcolm Collins:subscribers, then we can Yeah.

Simone Collins:So the... Yeah. So that... We don’t have to play the algo. We don’t have to make everyone super happy. So I get to just do whatever design

Malcolm Collins:I’m weird Jewish sex rules.

Simone Collins:Yeah. And so I I did this this, And I took all the things that you talked about, and I put them in, like, comic context of, like, bam. We got leavened bread that we made for sale so that we didn’t have to get rid of it because we temporarily sold it. And then whack, we have the shabbath, like, water And then whack, whack, we have the Shabbat elevator. And and You really put effort into this

Speaker 6:Further to you wondering, our weekend title cards are our, paid Patreon and Substack articles. And the reason I don’t pay attention to the title cards is because they don’t matter in the algo, not because I do not care about the people who pay to watch our stuff.

Simone Collins:. Yeah, man. Actually, I didn’t. I... So what I did was I just... I entered... I I I downloaded all of those photos, like, period underwear that was black and the shot with elevator stuff. And I just... Those are all pictures that I downloaded from Google Images. And then I I used the... In in in our FAB, I used the multimode GPT image model. I uploaded all the images, and I said, remove the background of these images and add a comic background With, like, the THWACK and BAM words. And it would be very short, like, short non Skybrows boss level prompts, but it produced this because our fab is amazing. Do you like it?

Malcolm Collins:Our fab

Simone Collins:is fantastic. I good for YouTube, but it’s it’s good for me.

Malcolm Collins:Okay. Well, I love you, Simone. Have

Simone Collins:a good day. Bye.

Speaker 11:What the f**k?

Speaker 12:He swept in at nine as he does every day, arranging the potions in the usual way. But the face, will you look at the face? He brewed something that changed his damn race.

Speaker 13:So I raised my hand and I asked him, tone alight.

Speaker 12:Professor, you really white. Right? And the room went still. I got cast an unforgivable. The ranger went pale, and her expression livid full. He’s always been like this. Cried the whole Gryffindoroh. He’s always been like this. And how dare you not know. It’s who he was born, not a choice that he made. And who cares what he tells people when he gets laid. I sat in bafflement, not understanding. I felt gaslit by what they were demanding. What do you mean? Not a choice. A potion he made that changed his skin and his voice. His hand over a pot. His mouth drank the lot. By lunch, they’d repainted this portrait upstairs. The prophet ran our beds on Malfoy’s despairs. There was an announcement in the great hall that said noticing things is the worst sin of all. I’m not saying it’s wrong. I’m not saying it’s bad. I’m saying it happened.

Speaker 13:10 points from Slytherin, miss Malfoy, for your impulsivity. Remembering, you see, is a form of temporal insensitivity.

Speaker 12:And I’ll confess, I’d always believed they were just like the rest of us, but I was naive. Every black kid at Hogwarts dressed just like us, but when Snape went black, his wardrobe went bust. He even explained that those born dark are less black than him as they have no arc. I thought all my life that the difference was skin, but professors been showing me it is within. White and black people are nothing alike. To think otherwise is to risk a rise. Then after the bell, as Hogwarts grew dim, he called Potter up and said

Speaker 13:a word just with him. He

Speaker 12:drew out a memory, silver and slow. The day by the lake, Potter, you ought to know. The old snivelest scene where your father, the brute, hung me up by my ankles and by my new root. You’re the son of a racist. Now my discrimination of you has a basis. And it hit me like a bloodger right there on

Speaker 11:the stair. If the past is

Speaker 12:whatever you’re brave enough to declare, then why should I fight it? Why stand in the way when I could be rewriting my own yesterday? That beaters were a minority practicing their heritage. If identity is a choice, I can be proud of my parentage. A wizard’s not a minority. Heroes, you see, that Dark Mark was henna. He got on a spree. If you don’t think it was ethnic and cool, then just like Harry’s dad, you’re a racist, damn tool.

Speaker 11:We’ve always been like that. We’ve always been like Always been like that.

Today we’re dishing up a deep dive into the viral Malfoid gender-bent-Draco-Malfoy fan art trend from the Harry Potter universe and why it resonates so strongly. The discussion covers cultural appropriation of the art, comparisons to the earlier Bowsette phenomenon, and theories on its appeal including tsundere archetypes and character reinterpretations.

Our conversation also explores hypothetical wizarding world issues like declining magic rates, selective breeding concerns, goblin alliances, and broader demographic patterns. Along the way, we chat about AI tools for creating comics and animations, Western media’s handling of certain character tropes, and a jocular series of hot takes on the Harry Potter lore.

Anyway, enjoy Malcolm’s original song, hahaha!

Show Notes

@dies_IRL posted a Malfoid video on X and it got 18K likes, 1.4K retweets, and 520K views, noting “I didn’t put a watermark because it would lessen my experience watching this on loop as I am doing now.”

Malfoid as a Perfect Fan Character

@AngelPoltava on X: Attention! This is a thread of actual quotes from the Harry Potter books of fascinating interactions between Harry and Draco.

I will be attaching artworks of “Draco Malfoid” to each one.

* >be me >“Draco Malfoid” art on the timeline >has been shipping Harry and Draco (Drarry) for almost a decade >has a mental image of Draco as the girl of the relationship

* “I’d take you on anytime on my own. Tonight if you want.” — Draco to Harry

* “He is so smart, wonderful Potter with his scar and his broomstick.” — Draco “You’ve told me this at least a dozen times already.” — Lucius Malfoy replying to Draco

* “You’ve picked the losing side, Potter! I warned you! I told you you ought to choose your company more carefully, remember? When we met on the train, first day at Hogwarts?” — Draco to Harry

* “Manners, Potter, or I’ll have to give you a detention.” — Draco to Harry

* “Hey, Potter! Potter! How’s your head? You feeling all right? Sure you’re not going to go berserk on us?” — Draco to Harry

* “You wait. I’ll have you.” — Draco to Harry

* “We’d better get our robes on.” — Draco Harry was so busy staring at Malfoy he did not notice Goyle reaching up for his trunk.

* “Missing your half-breed pal?” — Draco whispering to Harry

* “Don’t kill him! DON’T KILL HIM!” — Draco yells at Crabbe and Goyle who were aiming at Harry

* “You’re getting a bit obsessed with Malfoy, Harry.” — Ron to Harry

* “You’re going to take Malfoy’s advice instead of ours?” — Ron to Harry, furiously

* Malfoy’s hand, covered in sweat, slid instantly out of Harry’s. Malfoy was screaming and holding Harry so tightly it hurt. Harry tried every variation of ‘I need to see what Draco Malfoy is doing inside you’ that he could think of… He fell to his knees besides Malfoy.

* Harry and Malfoy barely inclined their heads, not taking their eyes off each other. For a split second, they looked into each other’s eyes, then, at exactly the same time, both acted. Malfoy’s fingernails scrabbled the back of Harry’s hand hopelessly.

Why Does This Work So Well?

One of our friends pointed out that “JK Rowling wrote all her characters like women because that is what she knows (Harry is an even more extreme example), so it is very easy to imagine them as gender swapped””

@DumbMarketing noted that “The Malfoid discourse has taught me that the “bully/rival that the MC slowly wins over via bravery and charm” thing is nearly a universally appreciated trope by men. It is also extremely based.”

@Templarpilled on X added: “I believe that Malfoid also represents a desire for a sincere right-coded woman among the chuds. The sundress tradwife larp has completely discredited itself at this point. Still, the sensitive young man yearns for someone who would share his beliefs”

The Bowsette Similarity

Malfoid is a trend very similar to the Bowsette trend, in which people reimagined (via art, cosplay, songs) Bowser as a woman.

The Malfoid Backlash

Far leftists and especially trans activists are very angry, largely because:

* JK Rowling Bad

* Changing a character’s gender sometimes gets appropriated by trans people as being trans coded

* They feel betrayed by artists—the people on THEIR side, who are playing into the trend

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins:I’ll move this to the beginning because we... I need to go on a racist rant about wizards too late. Oh, no. No. Right away. No. You wanna

Simone Collins:thought we were just gonna talk about female Malfoyd,

Malcolm Collins:I’d have a podcast, a Harry Potter world podcast, where I’d be talking about declining birth rates among people with magical ability and decreasing magic rates, and this is gonna have major... Just in terms of the architecture and transportation of the wizarding world. Think about the danger that the average citizen’s going to be in a a few hundred years if we don’t begin doing the selective breeding.

Simone Collins:Malcolm Collins and the methods of demographic collapse.

Speaker 3:Right.

Malcolm Collins:And this is where it makes sense for us to work with the goblins for now at least. Because the goblins do actually... I mean, all conspiracy theories aside, in our world, they run the banking system, which has enormous amounts of power. Right? And they are banned from having wands, which to me feels genuinely unfair.

Simone Collins:It’s a little weird.

Malcolm Collins:And this is where magic becomes one of our greatest strengths. If we can create magical wounds, okay, which Oh. Obviously, the technology exists, we could easily move to 10 kids a year per couple. It’s about getting enough of us together right now, right, who can commit to this. And then in ten, twenty generations, whatever is left of the rest of the wizarding world is not gonna have any power. Right? So why deal with them?

Speaker 17:System. All of Gringotts, you can’t have missed them. The war, the war, or have you forgot? Because I can promise you they have not. They’re not afraid to pick mates by blood. We pick ours by feelings, and it could be a dud.

Speaker 18:Hunter. Read my stats. Read my stats. Magic runs in families. Those are facts.

Speaker 17:Check the spell curve. Find your dot. You’re above the mean. I mean, you’re not. I don’t hate goblins. You know that. You’re straw manning me, you rat. Per capita potter, let me explain the rate, not the total. Use your brain.

Speaker 18:Don’t say correlation,

Speaker 17:please. Outliers, appear with

Speaker 18:ease, Potter. Read my stats. Read my my stats. The magic ones and families, those are facts.

Speaker 17:Check the spell curve.

Speaker 18:Find your dot.

Speaker 17:S**t. I circled yours. I forgot.

Simone Collins:Hello, Malcolm. I am very glad to be speaking with you today because a bunch of people online are having an aneurysm about Malfoyd fan art. Basically, fan art of the character Draco Malfoy from Harry Potter, but as a girl, largely because a lot of people object to anything related to JK Rowling going viral because she is a bad person. And, also, when you get to gender bending art, it often gets posted to trans communities and, like, trans people want to, like, appropriate it as, like, well, if it’s gender bending, that’s trans. But it’s not. But they’re trying to make it. They’re appropriating it. It’s just like cultural appropriation trans edition. And then they’re extras.

Malcolm Collins:They do that with everything. They will say there are trans people in any creative work that anyone

Speaker 5:has made.

Simone Collins:Yeah. It’s it’s a good way

Malcolm Collins:of this character is obviously trans.

Simone Collins:Yes. But this is the trap. It’s a trap because it’s a JK Rowling character, and JK Rowling is the trans devil. I mean, that is to say the devil to trans people.

Malcolm Collins:The trash community keeps eating itself over this, which is hilarious. So we’ll be focusing on that.

Simone Collins:And did you see the the video, the Malfoy video that Dies IRL posted on x? No. Put it up put it up on Okay. Just so you know, people really like this. I don’t know exactly why, but it got 18,000 likes. It was seen 520,000 times, and it was posted, like, very recently. K. Here. And, actually, I think the the creator was going to... That is to say Dies IRL commented on this. I didn’t put a watermark because it would lessen my experience watching this on loop as I am doing now. And everyone’s like, yes. And that... That’s the thing is that there’s something about the idea of Malfoyd that is so deeply appealing to people. And let me give you, like, the introduction that I got. He’s just a Sundry character. It’s so cute, though, and it’s so perfect. It’s it’s more perfect than you can you can really imagine. Here’s a thread sort of introducing, of actual quotes from the Harry Potter books of fascinating interactions between Harry and Draco where Malfoy makes so much more sense. They include Malfoy fan art in it, so you can also get a little picture of that.

Malcolm Collins:But what are the quotes? Read them.

Simone Collins:Yeah. I’d take you on any time on my own tonight if you want, Draco to Harry. I mean, come on. He’s so smart. Wonderful potter with his scar and his broomstick. Draco. Literally a quote from the book, by the way. Yeah. I mean

Malcolm Collins:Oh my god.

Simone Collins:You’re saying it sarcastically, but you... You’ve told me this at least a dozen times already, Lucas Malfoy, replying to Draco. You’ve picked the losing side, Potter. I warned you. I told you ought to choose your company more carefully. Remember when we met on the train, first day at Hogwarts, Draco to Harry. Manners, Potter, or I’ll have to give you a detention. Draco to Harry. Hey, Potter. Potter, how’s your head? You feeling alright? Sure you’re not going berserk on us? Draco to Harry. You’ll wait. I’ll have you. Draco to Harry.

Malcolm Collins:Oh my god.

Simone Collins:We’d better get our robes on. Draco. Harry was so busy staring at Malfoy, he didn’t notice Goyle reaching up for his trunk. Missing your half breed pal, Draco whispering to Harry. Filth. Don’t kill him. Don’t kill him. Draco yells at Crab and Goyle who are aiming at Harry. I love I love this.

Malcolm Collins:I’m crying for that, Malfoy.

Simone Collins:You’re getting a bit obsessed with Malfoy, Harry. Ron to Harry. Oh. You’re going to make Malfoy’s advice instead of ours, Ron to Harry furiously. Malfoy. Malfoy’s hand covered in sweat slid instantly out of Harry’s. Malfoy was screaming and holding Harry so tightly it hurt. Harry tried every variation of, I need to see what drug... Great... Draco Malfoy is doing inside of you. You could think of he fell to his knees beside Malfoy. Oh my gosh. This goes on this goes on for a while. Oh, no. This is the end.

Malcolm Collins:I now have my mission. I want to see if our comic system can make a sexy Malfoy art. And I... If if it works, I’ll post, like, the first page here and the rest will be on

Simone Collins:Oh, sweet summer child. Well, actually, I know you can because I know what the girls have done with their obsession with... Let’s see. Harry Malfoy s**t on TikTok, and you will realize... I’m gonna share the screen now. You’ll realize I love the video . Very hard at this.

Speaker 16:Yep. You can now use our FAB to... With an API or by yourself, make NSFW or SFW comics. it’s better if you’re doing SFW comics to do it with a vibe coding harness, like Claude Code or something like that. But even cooler than that, I worked our music video system into Claude Code. So if you have the Artfab API, which is really easy to get, you just create an account, and then you click on the thing that says, you know, give me an API number, and then you give that to your cloud account. And you say, put this in cloud.md or your Grock account and say, put this in that file you see every time you start up, and it will be able to use it. And, what it will help it do is very inexplicit... Inexpensively create, fully animated music videos, which I made the video at the end of this Wiz, the Malfoyd video. and it ended up costing, if I was a user, only around $50 to make, which is incredible because usually a SkyBrowse video would cost, like, hundreds of dollars to do. but you can use it for stuff other than that. I’ve been using it to make in game cinematics. I’ve been using it to make in game animations. I’ve been using it to make character animations. I’ve been using it to make three d model downloads. It’s just incredible, the stuff you can do with it now.

Simone Collins:Very, very hard at shipping the two, making AI art in which they, you know, embrace

Malcolm Collins:Oh, they’ve been doing this for years. God. Only just learned about this.

Simone Collins:Look. Look. Already already, they’re they’re noticing the Malfoy. Malfoy’s picking up in Harry Malfoy’s ship. They’re they’re getting there. Like, they... They’re realizing that they don’t have to make make it gay. It could be it could be whatever they want it to be. But, no, you can absolutely make this. You should absolutely make this. I’m 100% insecure.

Malcolm Collins:Do well right now. You know what?

Simone Collins:Actually, you really you really need to do this. Never mind. Yes. So please do this. Actually, I’ve I’ve changed my stance on this.

Malcolm Collins:Gotta get it done before the Sabbath.

Speaker 4:Gotta

Simone Collins:Why does this work

Speaker 4:so well?

Simone Collins:Yeah. Before... Oh my gosh. I don’t know if y’all have time to do that, but you can try. you can also just

Malcolm Collins:do it on Simone, you underestimate me.

Simone Collins:Oh, yeah. I guess it’s before sundown, and I’m showering and doing dinner for the kids, so you’re free. Why this works so well? Best explanation that I was given actually was from one of our friends who pointed out that in his words, JK Rowling wrote all of her characters like women because that is what she knows. Harry is even more extreme example. So it’s very easy to imagine them as gender swapped. And I think that he makes a really good point that Malfoy is a girl. all of the characters in Harry Potter are girls, and that’s kind of the problem. But then, like, once you switch everyone to a girl, suddenly it’s like, oh, why does this work so much better? Like, this is weird. But it kind of does, actually. the more I thought about it, the more I was like, every... Even Hagrid. Every single character to me in Harry Potter makes more sense as a girl. but other people have their own theories on x. At Dumb Marketing noted that, quote, the Malfoy Discourse has taught me that the bully rival, the MC slowly wins over via bravery and charm thing is actually a nearly universally appreciated trope by men. It’s also extremely based. And he’s making the point that you’re making, Malcolm. Also, Templar pilled on x added, I believe that Malfoyd also represents a desire for a sincere right coated woman among the chuds. The sun adwife LARP has completely discredited itself at this point. Still, the sensitive young man yearns for someone who would share his belief. And

Malcolm Collins:And supremacy and superiority and genetic realism. Wait. Is this is this what she represents for female people? Like, well, yeah, these f*****g mudbloods get into our school, in our women.

Simone Collins:I know. If she were, like, in the non wizarding world, she’s, like, walking around with a copy of the bell curve clutched to her chest. This is so bad.

Malcolm Collins:That’s what I need is a bell curve Malfoy.

Simone Collins:No. I’m trying to get

Malcolm Collins:Harry into, like, hey. Have you read this book?

Simone Collins:Oh, Jesus. You you chose the wrong company, Potter. But it’s... And and a thing that makes a lot of these arguments also more valid is the earlier Bowset trend where people were taking the Super Mario character Bowser and gender bending her into a cute female Bowser who’s just kind of, like, kind of tomboy, but also pretty, like, tsundere and, like, kind of... I don’t know. It... I’m gonna play a clip from the song that you really love that everyone really loved that a bunch of artists stitched together about Bowsette. Because it’s really cute.

Malcolm Collins:For people who are unfamiliar with the lore around Bowsette, because people need to understand horny lore, horny science

Simone Collins:Oh, no.

Malcolm Collins:Is they released... They being Nintendo, released a power up for... I wanna say it was a peach... Or not peach, a toad toad where you would wear a crown and it would turn you into something that looked like a woman. Right? Like, suit. And then if you were like, wait. What if Bowser wore this crown? Would he turn into a woman? And, of course, the idea of Bowser as a woman would be, like, gothy and sundry and a a little aggressive. And I think a lot of guys were really

Simone Collins:And we’re also very tomboyish, you know, to to tie back into the perpetual theme of our podcast, the tomboys. Tomboy supremacy. Here’s the... Here’s a little bit of the song. You want me to repeat it? Anyway, you get it.

Malcolm Collins:But you could also see why a lot of trans people love that original one because it’s literally a guy transforming into a woman. whereas with Malfoyd, it has always been just a woman.

Simone Collins:Oh, I see what you’re saying here. Right. So maybe, like, trans people jumped on that gender betting because, literally, it was the act of transforming a character that was continuously male through the game dynamic into a female. Whereas what we’re talking about Malfoyd is, like, the alternate universe where Malfoyd was always Malfoyd, was always a girl, born a girl. Yes. Oh, okay. I see I see this. Okay. One of my favorite

Malcolm Collins:self owns in the trans community is somebody like... And you shouldn’t be posting her because she doesn’t even masculine enough to be a a trans woman. And everyone was like, to me. Or it was... That she’s too pretty to be a trans woman, I think, as they said something like that. And we’re like, well, that’s certainly telling on your community.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Do you wanna see some of the blue sky anger about this?

Malcolm Collins:Obviously, that’s what everyone is here for.

Simone Collins:Well, here’s what one trans person put together. Beautiful work of art here. it’s a picture of Malfoyd that they... I think they... Yeah. They they used markers on paper saying, Harry, let’s kill lord j mold j k... Wait. Lord j mold j Everything

Malcolm Collins:with them is kill. Together. Right? Like, this is exactly where they go always. First, murder.

Simone Collins:Because trans women are women. Yeah. What’s up with that? What... Why why are we killing people? Why why is this necessary?

Malcolm Collins:Even even on our podcast and Simone, you know, when there are groups that really do cause massive negative externalities for society, so even even Simone here is like, well, you know, we should just sterilize them or something, which trans people already do to themselves. Thank god. Right? Like, imagine how dangerous it would be if they could breathe.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Here’s, here’s another another thread on Blue Sky. I’m a make it bigger so you can see it, where, someone writes, Malfoyd poop gets a block from me. Basically, anyone who posts anything as Malfoyd, they’re going to immediately block them, which seems to... It’s that classic leftist thing of, like, I will not communicate with anyone who vaguely disagrees with me, and they’re just all so angry about it. And then here’s another one. And this ties into kind of the AI fight that’s being had right now. It sucks so much seeing artists I respected throwing their credibility over a... Away over a trend that doesn’t even have the substance to back up the kind of bigotry it’s framed by.

Malcolm Collins:So damn disappointing. Everybody wants a racist wife, and that’s what Malf oyd represents. A waifu that is... That would that would genuinely be like, look. This is an actual... Like, sit you down and be like, look. I know that this is an unfair or inconvenient thing, but the reality is if we keep breeding with mudbloods or non wizarding people What? The amount of magical people and the amount of magic that they have is going to decrease over time, which will have a major ramifications. It’d be like, do you understand what would happen to a giant building like Hogwarts if the magic wasn’t regularly maintained? Do you understand what... That... Stairwell, for example. Right? Do you know... Or these spaces that are bigger on the

Simone Collins:Oh, actually, no. Hold on.

Malcolm Collins:I mean, I know. Happens to all these kids when one of those spaces ends up collapsing? Because, I don’t know, five hundred, six hundred years from now, nobody has magic, right, or they don’t have enough magic to use this stuff. This is existential that we pay attention to genetics when magical peoples are breeding.

Simone Collins:I actually... So

Malcolm Collins:worst case scenario, suppose we don’t. You know who doesn’t breed a lot outside of their own people? Do you know who doesn’t in the Harry Potter universe?

Simone Collins:The the... No. Who?

Malcolm Collins:Who? Goblins. Oh. Goblins don’t breed outside their species much.

Simone Collins:Well, yeah. I guess... Yeah. Because you got you got, Hagrid, who’s half giant. so there was some mixed love there.

Malcolm Collins:But goblins have gone to war with the magical people before. They control the world’s finances, and they would absolutely... You’re actually playing with them as a primary enemy during the, like, civil war between them and the wizarding people, and it got so bad that they weren’t allowed to have wands anymore, that that’s a a law setup. so, but ew. Okay. Hold on. Hold on. People are actually having humans stop stop... Become less magically powerful. Do you know what the goblins are going to do to No.

Simone Collins:No. No. Check this out.

Speaker 4:This out. Marcus Washington.

Simone Collins:If Slytherin gave Quidditch scholarships to black dudes.

Speaker 4:And to Travius. And to Travius Jones. They’re our first American students and our first muggles. Muggles? I don’t know what Muggle mean, but y’all sound a mad disrespectful right now. How old are you? 12, 13 next month. Many people have found that this specific species of Muggles group group of Muggles is extraordinary athletic. They’re gonna get us out of this losing streak. What they do? Even know magic? Hell, yeah. We know magic. The greatest point guard of all time. Yeah. Model my game after him. He beat AIDS.

Malcolm Collins:Do you even know Quidditch?

Speaker 4:This is not a muggle spooks. Hey, man. You talking crazy, but we here because you trash. You watch your mouth. Get that on my face. You don’t know what I’m with, bro. And we’re the character Colbain. We just trying to get this NIL money and dip. Alright? You’re talking to me about some broom deal. Okay, Swiffer. Get that money. How you gonna play this game? Sure. Yeah. There’s three hoops that you score on.

Malcolm Collins:Are we hooping?

Speaker 4:Oh, that’s right. What? Sure. Sure. Yeah. There’s two chasers. There’s two beaters. Oh, he a beater for sure. He’s a beater. And and to win, you just... You catch the snitch. Snitch. Snitch. Snitch right now. You snitch out. Yeah. That’s the spirit, Paul. Moving up one very important detail. What? You have to do all of this while flying 50 feet in the air. I bet they can’t even summon their brooms. Up.

Simone Collins:I bet they can’t even summon their broom.

Speaker 4:Man. See? Then y’all gotta be crazy. That’s why y’all keep losing. 50 feet of the air. Don’t even wanna do the little things. Up. Alright, boys. Let’s let’s get out there and win. This is going to be a bloodbath. Let’s go, bro. Bloody brilliant. What’d I say? I told you we was gonna cook. It was like Ron and d Wayne. When I just hit you with that. See, hey.

Malcolm Collins:Was real magic right there. Hee hee.

Speaker 6:On Mumsy.

Speaker 4:Yeah. A spectacular win, gentlemen. 800 to zero. I believe you’re the first Quidditch players to ever have... What would that be? To to dunk the ball in the hoop. It was it was fantastic to watch. Yeah. We did that. I’m also pleased to announce a new addition to the coaching staff. Please welcome professor Cerver Stipe.

Malcolm Collins:I am...

Simone Collins:I’m just saying. There’s there’s worlds in which you would introduce other muggles. Thought about it. People thought it would be awesome. I understand. I understand. But, yeah, what... You’re looking up Goblin Wars, I take

Malcolm Collins:I’m trying to find... There was a great AI video that did this with goblins and Harry Potter, and it was just

Simone Collins:I didn’t... I don’t remember the goblin. You didn’t even read the books. How do you

Malcolm Collins:know about the goblin wars of Harry Potter? Because they’re the main point of the game, which you didn’t play, Simone.

Simone Collins:Oh, the game. I forgot. Literally, I thought this this might be the one video game that I could enjoy. The one video game because I love the Harry Potter universe. And I found it so oppressively boring. I, like, literally Okay. Simone borrowed

Malcolm Collins:your computer or something.

Simone Collins:A thing a thing happened. Hogwarts hot take. Good lord. What is this gonna be?

Speaker 3:Hot take is probably that goblins are basic running society. I mean, who runs Gringotts? Goblins. The daily prophet? Goblins.

Speaker 7:Everyone calling the fat lady the fat lady is body shaming and we should call her something nicer like the woman in the painting who is slightly heavier than other people but that’s okay or something... I don’t know.

Speaker 3:Listen. Literally, entire Ministry of Magic have gone to Gobland every year to pledge allegiance by kissing some sort of sacred goblin wall cooked beyond belief, mate.

Speaker 7:That’s insane.

Speaker 8:My hot take is that gingers are more oppressed than black people. Blimely remember the whole gingers got no souls thing. Daddy, hell. Imagine saying that about a black guy. I mean, when you think about it,

Malcolm Collins:ginger is just an anagram of Nick.

Speaker 3:I want an early life check on professor snake too, by the way. I know he’s got a goblin grandmother. If you get sorted into Hufflepuff, that means you’re gay. But... I’m sorry. It

Malcolm Collins:does does.

Simone Collins:I love you. Mean, it’s literally... Hufflepuff.

Speaker 4:Oh. Hang on a minute. I’m just saying that you yourself are a Hufflepuff, ain’t you?

Speaker 3:Did I stutter? Well... Nah. But did I stutter though? How can goblins think they’re the chosen ones when I’m the chosen one? Like...

Speaker 6:They’re moving staircases, ain’t it, fam? They’re a health and safety hazard in it. Man’s nearly fell to his death on the way to Pulsions class. Them is mad tings.

Speaker 4:Thank you for your time, professor Snake.

Speaker 9:I hate to say it, but Quidditch is broken.

Speaker 3:I mean, what’s the point of the beaters and the quaffle and all of that, and the seeker can just catch a snitch and automatically win the game? Seekers need to be nerfed. Not even joking. Goblin’s been genociding the house elves for the past two years now and anytime a member of the Hogwarts staff so much as mentions it, they lose their job. No. They’ve definitely got Dumbledore on the Umbridge files.

Speaker 7:Well, I’m a Hufflepuff so...

Simone Collins:The Umbridge files.

Speaker 4:I don’t

Speaker 7:think we’re actually capable of having a hot take. My hot take

Speaker 3:is is that people under pronounce their p’s. I’ll be surprised if you actually post this. Ministry probably take it down anyway. Yeah. My hot take is that it’s perfectly normal to have three 10 year olds visit your hut in the middle of the night and... I shouldn’t have said that.

Speaker 4:Cedric Diggory deserved to die.

Simone Collins:My hot take is that we need to address the wizarding world’s declining population by encouraging more intermarriage with muggles.

Speaker 4:Dumbledore’s a war criminal? Dumbledore’s army was a Exactly. Paramilitary recruitment child soldiers. Like, knowingly let a 12 year old fight a basilisk for sick. He should a 100% be an Azkaban for war crimes, not even joking like.

Speaker 10:My hot take is that war crimes aren’t actually that bad. People just always want to find something to complain about. It’s like, who cares?

Speaker 3:You know? Don’t pack up the lobbying the entire Ministry of Magic for f**k’s sake.

Speaker 7:Hot take. Oh, I actually have one. We should just get rid of Slytherin House. That might sound kind of bad, but, like, name one non evil Slytherin. You see, you can’t, can you? Slytherin House is basically just like a radicalization pipeline for the Death Eaters. I’m sorry.

Simone Collins:Voldemort was kind of based actually, like...

Malcolm Collins:They control the death eaters too,

Speaker 3:you know. I mean, all that gold in Gringotts Bank and Voldemort never thought about nicking it. Come off it, mate.

Speaker 5:So love potions have this kind of cutesy and whimsical reputation, but when you actually think about it, they’re basically magical roofies. I think the ministry should ban them. Yeah. Especially after all of the allegations that came out about Gilderoy Lockhart.

Speaker 6:My boy Gilderoy didn’t do nothing wrong, mate. It’s a witch hunt, literally.

Speaker 7:My heart take is that we should bring back Umbridge as headmaster because we need more women in positions of power. I mean, for goodness sake, Dumbledore is just another old straight white man.

Speaker 4:Hang on a minute. Dumbledore’s gay, isn’t

Malcolm Collins:he?

Speaker 7:Oh, really? Guess that about either’s out then. So, yeah, fair enough. Dumbledore can stay.

Speaker 9:So ironic that Harry Potter became the world’s biggest Nethbo

Speaker 3:baby the night his parents died. I’m pretty sure it was You Know Who That Got Cedric to, and I am not talking about Voldemort.

Simone Collins:I’m sorry, but

Speaker 7:the Cedric Diggory tribute song actually slaps like...

Simone Collins:Everyone has an opinion, apparently. why is it just like Animal Farm?

Malcolm Collins:No. But I... Eva, the point I was making is that, like, if I lived in the Harry Potter universe, there’s actually, like, an existential reason to be concerned about out marriage.

Simone Collins:Oh, for... Ugh. You’re you’re a Slytherin. You’re a Slytherin. You’re a Slytherin.

Malcolm Collins:Obviously, I

Simone Collins:would be

Malcolm Collins:giving speech. I’d be... I’d have a podcast, a Harry Potter world podcast, where I’d be talking about declining birth rates among people with magical ability and decreasing magic rates, and this is gonna have major... Just in terms of the architecture and transportation of the wizarding world. Think about the danger that the average citizen’s going to be in in a a few hundred years if we don’t begin doing the selective breeding. Right? And, obviously, I know I’m not gonna convince the council. Right? So what I’m talking to you, my podcast listeners in the Harry Potter Oh,

Speaker 4:no.

Malcolm Collins:It’s not about convincing the council. Okay? It’s about getting enough of us together right now, right, who can commit to this. And then in ten, twenty generations, whatever is left of the rest of the wizarding world is not gonna have any power. Right? So why deal with them? Why why take them seriously? Why try to convince them? Why try to save them? They’re not even gonna be able to keep their buildings operational or their transportation systems or anything. Right? And so then what we can do is... In the meantime, of course, that that puts us at odds with the wizarding council and many people in the wizarding world with a lot of power. So we need to recruit allied groups that also might be on the back foot right now. Right?

Simone Collins:Malcolm Collins and the methods of demographic collapse.

Speaker 3:Right.

Malcolm Collins:And this is where it makes sense for us to work with the goblins for now at least. Because the goblins do actually... I mean, all conspiracy theories aside, in our world, they run the banking system, which has enormous amounts of power. Right? And they are banned from having wands, which to me feels genuinely unfair.

Simone Collins:It’s a little weird. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. So let’s get together. Okay? Let’s let’s let’s build an alliance to take down the rest of the wizarding world that doesn’t even care about breeding.

Simone Collins:Legit. If if the whole Slytherin contingent had had allied with the goblins instead of just... I don’t even know what they were doing. I guess they had this messiah complex around

Malcolm Collins:what the space is. You don’t have enough people. Right? And this is where magic becomes one of our greatest strengths. If we can create magical wounds, okay, which Oh. Obviously, the technology exists, we could easily move to 10 kids a year per couple. And when you begin to, through magic, automate caretakers for those kids, you could raise them at scale while simulating wide scale parental effects.

Simone Collins:Could just use a time turner to personally take care of all of the children.

Malcolm Collins:well... Or you could use a time turner to fast age them or whatever. Right? Like, if I used it to personally take... Wouldn’t that, like, age me?

Simone Collins:I don’t think it ages. Oh, I can’t remember.

Malcolm Collins:I don’t know if that’s realistic for every family. I think it’s probably easier to just automate things in your house, like the brooms and stuff like this and the... But you automate a

Simone Collins:childcare teddy bear or something. Missus Weasley did this. She had a lot of very fun parenting.

Malcolm Collins:And you know right now who’s breeding like crazy? The Weasleys. Okay? That... Do you do you know They were

Simone Collins:into multiple Weasleys. A pure blood family still.

Malcolm Collins:A pure blood family? Simone, they might be a pure blood family, but I have seen their hair and their skin

Simone Collins:Oh, wait. And they

Malcolm Collins:didn’t very Irish to me, if you know what I’m saying. They seem a little allied with some groups that we probably

Simone Collins:I hate you so much. I I I like the kids smudge my

Malcolm Collins:Is this actually the podcast in the alternate Harry Potter world?

Simone Collins:To zero. We’re back

Malcolm Collins:to zero. Hate that. I was talking about the Weasleys.

Simone Collins:He was walking about... They seem a little Irish.

Malcolm Collins:The Weasleys are little coding, Simone. Come on. Anybody can see it.

Simone Collins:Oh my god. Look. Look. You’re you’re missing it anyway because, quote, unquote, Mudbloods who were magical still had more magic than Squibs who are pure bloods but didn’t have magic. The point isn’t the presence of a line or a lineage. The point is the presence of magic. You would want to pursue muggles who were magical.

Malcolm Collins:Well, yes. Yeah. I I said a eugenics program. Right? Like, you need to breed the best magicians.

Simone Collins:This is great. Fantastic. Okay.

Malcolm Collins:this is this is Yeah. What... Simone, realistically, right, if we’re going

Simone Collins:Oh, for the AI, pick up the sarcasm in my voice for the transcript.

Malcolm Collins:It would be... Okay. And a... Hold on. Is is magic genetically linked in the Harry Potter universe? Let’s see. Okay?

Simone Collins:Well, it it appears to be genetically linked, but then you you just randomly have magical muggles. Well But then there doesn’t seem to be a genetic correlation because you can have an entire family go forever.

Malcolm Collins:Magic is an inherited hereditary trait in the magical universe. It’s passed down through generations. Yeah. Absolutely. So so you you you say, oh, well

Simone Collins:Hermione was a very powerful witch, and yet

Malcolm Collins:I’d like to point out the argument that you’re making right now, Simone. Okay? You are saying to me that because sometimes a person born to two nonmagical

Simone Collins:Oh, I know. You’re going reversion to the mean. It’s Aren’t you?

Malcolm Collins:No. I’m not doing reversion to the mean. It’s literally just like you’re making the argument that because sometimes, occasionally, somebody with great magic is born to two parents without great magic, that that doesn’t mean it’s not predominantly hereditary. And that if you accounted for that to try to maintain the level of magic in wizarding society, it would eventually... Or very quickly collapse. And we have seen this with all sorts of other traits. You can’t just say because this trait sometimes doesn’t go... Yes. And sometimes two very magical parents have a non magical child. All of us have seen this in our friend groups. But... Okay? But that

Simone Collins:Oh god. This feels like such a third rail conversation about wizard racism. I don’t even know where to go here.

Malcolm Collins:I I need to... I’ll move this to the beginning because we... I need to go on a racist rant about wizards too late. Oh, no. No. Right away. No. You wanna

Simone Collins:thought we were just gonna talk about female Malfoyd, and now it’s just wizard racism all the way down, and I don’t know what to do.

Malcolm Collins:It’s not racism, Simona. I... If if I was in the Harry Potter universe, we would need to seriously treat the the issue of declining rates of magic within the various peoples. It’s a major part of the transportation architecture and economy. If it collapses, it just because sometimes two non magical people have a magical kid or a magical family has a non magical kid, that doesn’t mean it’s not hereditary. And that in mass, if we ignore this, it’s not going to put us in a really bad position long term.

Simone Collins:Okay. Okay.

Malcolm Collins:If I had a podcast for the Harry Potter universe, it’s immediately what I would do in the Harry Potter universe. I’d be the Slytherin podcast. You know, it’s like every morning. Hey, guys. Like, how’s it going out there?

Simone Collins:Yeah. You would you would have a... You would have an ongoing column in the daily profit. Although, I guess that

Speaker 4:that Yeah.

Malcolm Collins:And I’d be like, look. Is it... I don’t hate... I don’t I don’t think you should use the word mudblood. I think it’s derogatory. I don’t have any animosity towards nonmagical individuals or races. The the only point I am making is that if we do not maintain the magic of our bloodlines, it’s going to have catastrophic effects in the long term. We won’t even be able to make basic technology that our society is built upon. People will will go to attractions that have no idea how they’re made. It’ll it’ll be exactly like that Muggle movie Idiocracy.

Simone Collins:Oh my god. Okay. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Fantastic. Okay. Right. Continue. People like Malfoyd because Malfoyd represents what people actually want in a relationship. People don’t want, right, a butler. They don’t want a servant that they’re married to. They want someone they can respect. And I think the reason why people like the Sundae Arc take is it’s a woman who’s... Who has her own agency and her own desires and and and motivations in life who happens to like someone

Speaker 4:else.

Malcolm Collins:You suck. Okay. That’s not why.

Speaker 7:Well, it’s because it’s

Malcolm Collins:gonna break her. There’s no reason. Simone, if you’re a guy, guys who like to be dominant and the majority of guys like to be dominant don’t want to dominate a weak woman, generally speaking.

Speaker 4:They want

Malcolm Collins:to dominate a dominant woman. They want

Simone Collins:Oh, okay. So sunday is hard to get without being an annoying snob. Well, this

Malcolm Collins:is hard. It’s a woman who knows her value and who has confidence and who, you know, you gotta you gotta... You... You’re you’re actually... It doesn’t mean it... And I think we actually see this in a number of archetypes that we see in, comics and stuff like this

Speaker 4:Okay.

Malcolm Collins:Is anybody who has a preference for dominance or submission in relationships also has a preference for dominance and submission in partners. And the default assumption is is that dominant people like submissive partners, and the submissive people like dominant partners. But the reality is, I believe, that that probably about 50% of the time, the exact opposite is true. This is where archetypes like don’t toy with me, missus Nagataro, come from, where it’s a girl who is, like, basically, throughout the thing teasing and belittling a guy, but who is very otherwise quite a submissive character. Right? She’s very diminutive. She’s very small. She’s very sweet... Cute. That’s, like, her whole character thing. Right? Because that, I think, enhances the psychological effect of the submission for guys that are into that. I think a lot of guys who are into to being submissive might extra enjoy to, like, a short diminutive girl. Right? Whereas... And it is obviously some guys prefer, like, the big whatever. but from what I’ve seen, generally speaking, if you’re looking at tomboy and joy... Joyers, that that category of men, they’re generally fairly dominant males in their in their preferences. And I think that that’s what’s being... That’s that’s what it is. It’s not... You you might have missed it there. No. No. No. No. I... We’ll we’ll see.

Simone Collins:Well, I don’t know. I’m not a dude into what... Whatever this is. But now we need to

Malcolm Collins:talk about why Western media has completely slept on the tsundray archetype.

Simone Collins:Well, have they... Mean, like... So, I mean, I have to ask based on your description. Hermione Granger is a very assertive person. Why is

Malcolm Collins:why is she not enough?

Simone Collins:Is so whiny. Okay. So Sundaray is awesome because people like it. It’s it’s it’s assertive, but not not a Karen. Assertive, but not whiny. Is that it?

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, she, you you know that Malfoyd would be a a very based woman. Right? You know? I just... She’d come on my... But she’d come on our podcast. We can even simulate her with our living avatar system.

Simone Collins:No. We could make him... Oh, we could make him Malfoyd living avatar. Should I do that this weekend?

Malcolm Collins:Yes. Okay. Yes.

Simone Collins:Oh, okay. Well, anyway, back to this. Why are tsundere archetypes absent according to you from popular media. And and... Because then there are plenty of assertive women who, like Not really. The only time I really see them is in lesbian relationships. No. No. Like, there’s this one show that’s, I think, somewhat popular called Wildcards that I started halfway watching recently.

Malcolm Collins:Well, I’ve never seen it, so I can’t make a judgment on

Simone Collins:But in it, a female con artist befriends a policeman, and they do detective work together. And it’s so cute. And she’s, like, you know, the, like, assertive, like, I’m gonna try everything, and he’s the Gus of, like... You know, she’s the Sean, and he’s the Gus. But she’s not Sundae. Like, she doesn’t hate him.

Malcolm Collins:So that’s the thing that’s

Simone Collins:missing. Okay. So you’re

Malcolm Collins:saying I’m saying it doesn’t happen. So if you go to gay western stuff, there’s two pretty obvious examples of it. Okay. There is Owl House. The the main female love interest is a gay woman in very soon gray. And then if you go to the She Ra reboot, the main female love interest in gay and...

Simone Collins:What? Are these all kids cartoons?

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. Gay kid cartoons. Yeah. That’s, you know, normal Disney stuff these days. Normal Netflix Disney.

Simone Collins:Okay.

Malcolm Collins:You gotta you gotta have your underage girls kissing in a children’s cartoon.

Simone Collins:It’s so funny that, like, the cartoon that men actually liked was My Little Pony. And

Malcolm Collins:I’m gonna be honest. A lot of people, you can you can talk down about some things. I thought that she were a reboot. Oh, you did? I thought Owl House were both very good shows.

Simone Collins:Oh, they apparently have a lot of male fan service from the way you’re describing it.

Malcolm Collins:No. It’s female fan service. It’s for their gay writers.

Simone Collins:No. Because female fan service is is gay gay, like, dudes gay, not women gay. That makes it extra stressful. For... They don’t wanna watch it.

Malcolm Collins:There where somehow women thought they were owning the chuds by putting gay chicks in everything. Put a chicken in and make her dad.

Simone Collins:Sense to me. That is that is for no one but dudes. No one wants that. I don’t know anyway. I’ll tell

Malcolm Collins:you I’ll tell you what happened. Okay? I’ll tell you why it’s not in western shows because it doesn’t work with the girl boss character. Right? It doesn’t work with the hypercompetent, always awesome woman.

Simone Collins:Because a woman... Because I guess the problem with Tsumday is that they do still like the guy. Right? The the... Whoever they like. Is that Yeah. They No. Because, no, plenty of plenty of assertive female characters really like the guy. I just... Yeah. The the disdain though is what’s unusual. Right? You just don’t see people dripping with disdain.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. Oh, sorry. What what was it? Do... You don’t see... Well, no. They they don’t start this way because it would be like a a failure on the woman’s part. Right? Like, it would be something that she’s doing wrong. That... That’s the thing is that a... The... And the second thing is it codes more like a booze in western shows. A big thing about tsundere character that they’re often violent. I mean, in owl house, she tries to kill her. And and She Ra, she tries to kill her. So they... Even when it’s for some questions

Simone Collins:What is... What are... Oh my gosh. We need to get more nineties kid shows in the mix because I think the kids are gonna start getting tired of stuff. Did you watch Wishbone as a kid? I was thinking we should find Wishbone.

Malcolm Collins:no. So so these are shows. I would show them. Okay. We’re gonna we’re gonna go do

Simone Collins:Not Wishbone? You didn’t watch Wishbone.

Malcolm Collins:I don’t think it’s a good show to show children. Okay?

Simone Collins:Why? Because it teaches them about literature. No. It’s good dog. It’s a cute dog.

Malcolm Collins:It’s like reading rainbow or something. Right? Like, no. Reading rainbow is cute. You can you can... Walking with dinosaurs, walking with monsters, that entire series would be really

Simone Collins:good for kids. Yeah. I’m gonna write this down.

Malcolm Collins:I’m taking notes. The Real Adventures of Johnny Quest. That’d be very good

Simone Collins:for kids. Yes.

Malcolm Collins:Okay. Why not Okay. The Original Adventures of Johnny Quest. Okay. The, what are what are some other, like, super science shows? Come on. We got... We had some

Simone Collins:People in the in the comments, help me out here. Help a mother out. Nineties science and

Malcolm Collins:In in military shows. We... They already do a lot of GI Joes. They like GI Joes.

Simone Collins:But talk about gay theme songs or anything that’s gay. I still can’t get over that song. It’s They

Malcolm Collins:like they like Ghostbusters and cartoon Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters. And Ninja Turtles. I don’t think you show them a lot of Ninja Turtles.

Simone Collins:I... Because I don’t like Ninja Turtles. I find

Malcolm Collins:it impressive. Well, then power rangers, we... They do a lot of that as well. Though, I think they

Simone Collins:And magic school bus, of course, but we’re running out of... You know? They’ve seen

Malcolm Collins:a lot. Outside of

Simone Collins:Well, I’ve got the real adventures of Johnny Quest and walking with dinosaurs to start, and that’s a great start. I’ll start there. That’s me for a week.

Malcolm Collins:You know what I shared that was really good was you you... The Scrooge McDuck, the reboot, but that’s on Disney.

Simone Collins:Duck Jaws. Yeah. Disney ruined everything. I... The the children understand that they’re the bad guy, and that we don’t wanna give money to the bad guy. Whenever they ask me, I’m like, no. You don’t understand. Like, Disney betrayed children. Now they only want to sell to rich people. And they’re like, why would they do that? Why would they only want to sell to rich people and not be there for kids? And I’m like, well, because the rich people have all the money, Octavian. And Octavian’s like, there. What is he? I wanna throw a book at them. He doesn’t mean this metaphorically, like, in legal terms. He just literally throws books at people when he’s angry. Anyway, I I just... I don’t know. I don’t know why this trope... I... It’s really... I mean, obviously, it’s a Japanese trope because the name for it is literally Japanese. I guess, like, there’s not an English word for it. Let’s see what happens when I try to translate t s u n d e r e. So it it combines which is aloof, prickly, or standoffish with lovey lovey or affectionate. So it’s... There is no word for that. That’s true. It’s it’s it’s not capable of... Come on. Give me a try.

Malcolm Collins:It’s not... But there’s not a word for what?.

Simone Collins:Yeah. They they can’t... There’s no word for it. I guess if we were to make it... Because they’re combining in Japanese with we need to do, like, Irritable lovey. Mad love. No. Angry standoffish lover. Nope. There’s no there’s no good portmanteau for sunday in English. Cold lovey. Aloofer. Aloofer? Like, a aloof lover? No. Hostile. Love you hostile. No. Sorry. Can’t help you there. But, anyway, I don’t know. I mean, you you said you had some thoughts and analysis here. Why? Why is this absent?

Malcolm Collins:Why is what absent?

Simone Collins:Why is sunday absent from American popular culture?

Malcolm Collins:Again, it’s it’s about girl bosses and women not being able to write it and the rise of the tsundere archetype happening during that period and it looking a little abusive from American standards. Like, girls are allowed to try to kill girls, but, like, when a girl tries to kill a boy, I think a lot of Americans

Simone Collins:That’s country song trope. No. I I disagree. But it’s only men who broke up with them, not men who they’re in love with. So the stalker People would

Malcolm Collins:be like, oh, that’s toxic behavior. I mean, I guess it’s it’s okay when gays do it, but,

Simone Collins:you know, no. But you like that. You like toxic? Like I... It’s Have you ever had a crush on a real soon... Oh, yes. You have.

Malcolm Collins:Not a real Sundre? No. Not really.

Simone Collins:I can think of one.

Malcolm Collins:Aloof? Oh, yeah. But she was just crazy hot. That wasn’t because of her attitude. Her attitude was a big Oh,

Simone Collins:but also, I guess maybe she was just aloof aloof. She was just Sun Sun. She wasn’t.

Speaker 4:But...

Simone Collins:Yeah. Well, I’m delighted by the Malfoy trend. I like it on its own. I just think that Malfoy makes more sense as a girl. And I think that’s why people were shipping Harry and Malfoy from the very beginning because it’s cute and romantic, and they don’t need to be boy boy. They can be whatever you want them to be. But, also, I really think that it’s spot on to say that JK Rowling wrote characters that were all girls, and she just made some of them male because it would be really, really weird if Harry Potter were like the My Little Pony universe and males are, like, weirdly largely absent from everything, which is really funny. But, yeah, I I hope that this trend grows. I hope that, like, with the Bowset trend, we see a lot of Malfoyed cosplay, and I’m pretty sure we will. Because I showed you, there is just a ton of Bowsette cosplay. Women jumped on that real fast, especially if they were on OnlyFans, and then they extra fast jumped on it. So I’m ready for it. I like it. I think it’s a great development. I love that it broke to containment and made it all the way to Japan, thereby angering the Blue Sky people even more because now there’s even more fan art and even better fan art that is very in favor of Malfoyd. So It’s good. I’m happy. This is wonderful. The blue... The the crystal is shaking as as the anger within it grows, but they’re still staying in the crystal. It hasn’t really broken containment out of blue sky. I’m not seeing any meaningful Malfoyed hate outside of

Malcolm Collins:Outside of the outside of the trans people? Outside of out

Simone Collins:of outside of the crystal, outside of blue sky where they’re all locked away, contained. It’s just positive Malfoy love. And I love you too. And I’m glad you love me even though I’m not... It’s. That I was just immediately, you know, immediately in love with you.

Malcolm Collins:Well, I like, you know, the Yandere thing, and you’ve always really pulled that off quite well. You’re pretty obsessive in your devotion.

Simone Collins:Okay. Great. This is true. Wonderful. I like her because she’s like a little puppy that just

Malcolm Collins:does whatever you tell her to and endlessly loves you no matter what you do or say and wants your approval. That’s that’s what I get in a relationship. I don’t know what the rest of you guys are getting.

Simone Collins:It’s true. It’s true. Yeah. Well, you know, everyone understands that you’re, like, way out of my league. I think people could have that if they went below their league, which you did.

Malcolm Collins:I mean, you’re in my league now. You’re pretty... Because you’re a

Simone Collins:big deal now. Because you made... You engineered that very intentionally. Because at first, you were like, I’ll slum it. And then you’re like, this is actually

Malcolm Collins:maybe deeply uncomfortable. Somebody. There’s no point in letting them just flounder. Oh my god.

Simone Collins:I hate you so much. Yes. We’ve started and finished with I hate you with every fiber of my being. I love you so much. I can’t even say that together. I have to say I love you.

Malcolm Collins:Okay. Bye. Thank you, my beautiful love slave. You are amazing, and I appreciate the work you did on learning about fem... Boy... What what is it? Like, female, Arthur 33 Draco? And I will see if I can make a comic based on that with them aged up, obviously, so they’re not

Simone Collins:kids. Oh gosh. Right. Yes. Please do that.

Malcolm Collins:I feel like we’re losing this race. Right? Like, anyone can develop this stuff now. We’re not... We have it. We haven’t put it out there yet.

Simone Collins:And it’s so seamless and easy. Yeah. So astroturfing is necessary. Plus, you’re just doing it a service because it costs tokens to make these, and you’re sparing people the tokens.

Malcolm Collins:Oh, I found a way to make it much cheaper. Yeah.

Simone Collins:Yeah? So that’s good.

Malcolm Collins:The MAWA converter to videos. And the comics are finally working, the not safe for work comic creator, which can make whole scenes with consistent characters throughout. They go, like, twelve, twenty four pages, then put them together into a comic, and it looks really good and can do basically any not safer work scene possible.

Simone Collins:Or safer work. Right? Well Oh.

Malcolm Collins:That would require significant retooling. We do have a safer work version of it. I just haven’t worked on it that hard. Okay. Because it it will have to work very differently. It... It’ll be a lot better when it’s working, but the problem is the not safe for work engines have significant limitations to them that the system was designed around, like, only having one full character on screen at

Simone Collins:a fair, just asking an LLM to make a comic work so well. I guess there’s no demand, so maybe don’t waste your time on that. It’s a product that nobody needs. What they struggle with is what you made. So... Okay. I guess. It’s fine.

Malcolm Collins:Okay. I love you, Simone. You are fantastic. And I guess I have a sod sod steak, and we haven’t gotten the Worcestershire sauce, so we won’t be able to make Diane.

Simone Collins:I’m sorry. Do we really not have Worcestershire? I will dig deep. And if we do, then I’ll make it for you tomorrow night with the steak. But tonight, I’ll just make normal, and then you can compare. Do you want the steak with fries or with nothing or with something else, like the green beans that you got from Trader Joe’s? Or Fries. Okay. Korean fries.

Speaker 3:Should have

Malcolm Collins:it. Either type of fries work for me.

Simone Collins:I used up all of the sweet potato fries. So No.

Malcolm Collins:Well, they were really good. We should get more.

Simone Collins:Good. Because those are easy to get, unlike the Korean fries, which I believe we completely cleaned out of that store. So the entire shipment they got from South Korea has been pilfered by the Collinses. We’ve ruined we’ve ruined fries for this entire region. This is our true crime. No one will recognize it, but that’s the real one.

Malcolm Collins:They are so good. They are really good. Better than any restaurant fries I’ve ever had.

Simone Collins:They... Well, they look like deep fried fries. I think they might be if you

Malcolm Collins:look closely. All fries are deep fried. What do you

Simone Collins:No. But they look like they have an additional crust.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. You mean twice fried?

Simone Collins:No. Not exactly.

Malcolm Collins:That’s a technique. You’re aware of that.

Simone Collins:I am aware of double frying fries. Yes.

Malcolm Collins:Okay.

Simone Collins:But these look different. Maybe there are some method of double frying that’s even better, though. So who knows? Anyway, I shall get into it. Pull up my notes here. Derp derp. Okay. You ready?

Malcolm Collins:Alright. You gotta you gotta start with the the line.

Simone Collins:The line. The line. This is a trope that I’m incapable of embodying. I am not tsundere. I’m not yondere. I’m not, like, I’m not

Malcolm Collins:a men You’re pretty Yandere, if I’m gonna be honest.

Simone Collins:Deep down, but that’s only triggered by very bad things that should never happen. I think most women are that. But what do

Malcolm Collins:you want? But... Oh, it’s The classic tsundere line goes like this. It goes, it’s not like I like you. Baka.

Simone Collins:That’s how you do

Speaker 4:it, Simone.

Simone Collins:No. They always say it like, Baka. So you gotta say it. You say it so funny. Yeah. I can’t. I can’t I can’t even... Like, I can’t

Malcolm Collins:Yes. You can. It’s called acting. You gotta get the audience.

Simone Collins:Okay. Get in get in frame. What is my motivation? My motivation is I’m angry at the boy. It’s not like I’d like you, buccas. I sound like I’m being a chicken. Buccas. Does not work when I say it.

Malcolm Collins:Okay. I can’t go into it now. I give you permission.

Simone Collins:Thank you. Oh my god. I hate you so much. I hate you. I hate you, really. I don’t hate you with tsundere style. I just you with every inch of my being. Okay.

Speaker 13:System. All of Gringotts, you can’t have missed them. The war, the war, or have you forgot? Because I can promise you they have not. They’re not afraid to pick mates by blood. We pick ours by feelings, and

Speaker 14:it could be a dud. Hunter. Read my stats. Read my stats. Magic runs in families. Those are facts. Check the spell curve. Find your dot. You’re above the mean. I mean, you’re not. I don’t hate goblins. You know that. You’re straw manning me, you rat. Per capita potter, let me explain the rate, not the total. Use your brain. Don’t say correlation, please. Outliers, appear with ease, Potter. Read my stats. Read my my stats. The magic ones and families, those are facts. Check the spell curve. Find your dot. S**t. I circled yours. I forgot. What do you think holds this castle high? It’s spell work, Potter, and spells run dry. The rooms too big for their own walls fold flat as paper tents and halls, and anyone in them will be crushed flat. This is about more than a stat. Brooms drop from the sky like stones. Mid match, you count the broken bones. The wards go dark, the muggles see a castle where a ruin should be. The healers can’t regrow a bone. The prison doors swing wide alone.

Speaker 15:That’s not a theory.

Speaker 14:That’s a date. In one or two generations, it will be too late. It’s not like I drew this chart for you. I had spare ink and nothing to do. It’s not like I saved the seeds by mine. The rest were taken. It’s fine. It’s fine. So marry well and have a brood. Not me, you idiot. Don’t be crude. Stop smiling, Potter. I’m not red. It’s dungeon light. I said drop dead. Potter, read my stats. Read my stats. Magic runs in families. Those are facts. Check the spell curve. Find your dot.

Speaker 15:It’s not like I like you. I do not. Baca.

Join us today on Based Camp for deep discussion on recent high-profile cases involving women convicted of serious crimes, including the execution of Christa Pike in Tennessee and ongoing legal efforts in the Lindsay Clancy case. Our conversation examines patterns in homicide data, challenges in the current justice system, and proposals for more effective approaches to crime and punishment.

We hash out gender differences in victim relationships, systemic issues with appeals and sentencing, and forward-looking ideas for penal reform such as specialized colonies and future technology-assisted solutions. After going a bit deeper into Christina Pike’s crime and punishment, we debate deterrence, incapacitation, and the need for accountability while considering societal stability.

Broadly speaking, we think conversations about justice today could shape better systems amid rapid social change—we need more of them and hope you’re talking about how society could do better, too!

Show Notes

Worrying Data

An FBI-data study covering 1976–1987 found that 60% of women’s homicide victims were a spouse, intimate acquaintance, or family member, while 80% of men’s victims were non-intimate acquaintances, strangers, or of undetermined relationship.

* The study excluded victims under 15, so it is not a measure of child killings, though for young children specifically, a 2023 US Department of Justice report estimates that 76.2% of homicide victims age 11 or younger were killed by an “other family member,”

* Though it does not tell us from that figure whether the offender was a mother, father, or another relative

The Latest Moves of Lindsey Clancy’s Lawyer

In the original trial, At the defense’s position was effectively: she caused the deaths, but psychosis meant she was not criminally responsible.

Kevin Reddington’s new argument is that prosecutors did not present legally sufficient evidence that Lindsay Clancy killed her three children.

At the September 29 hearing, Reddington sought a required finding of not guilty: a ruling that the trial evidence was insufficient to permit a rational jury to convict. “Where is the evidence that she did this?” he asked. “Where is the admission? Where does she say that she did this?” He attacked the investigation and the physical evidence, including DNA and fingerprint work, and argued that statements attributed to Clancy after she awoke in hospital were not proof of a confession: she had been told what happened and said she could not remember it. He also continued to argue that prosecutors had failed to disprove her lack-of-criminal-responsibility defense.

“No admission” is narrower than “no evidence.” Prosecutor Shanan Buckingham responded that the record contains extensive evidence, citing DNA on the exercise bands found around the children’s necks and testimony from a hospital chaplain about what Clancy said. The judge had not ruled on Reddington’s motion as of the hearing, and the district attorney had not decided whether to retry the case.

He’s basically parroting Lindsey Clancy’s online support mob: CNN quoted one TikTok user saying, “I do not believe that Lindsay Clancy committed these crimes. I fully believe that Patrick convinced her that she did.”

* His criticism of the investigation also overlaps with online skepticism about the case.

It’s obviously his job to defend Lindsey Clancy but his arguments are part of a larger worrying trend and I’m also worried that many female murderers just aren’t getting caught.

SIDE NOTE: People are now using the word “Clancying” about fathers they perceive to not be helping out enough. E.g. “He is Clancying” about a man recently found to be sitting while his wife, carrying a toddler, brought food to their seats at a sports game and was filmed by the commentators doing so.

The Crimes of Christa Pike

Background

Christa Gail Pike (born March 10, 1976) was convicted of the January 12, 1995 torture-murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in Knoxville, Tennessee.

Motive & Setup

Per court records, Pike told others she was jealous of Slemmer and believed Slemmer was interested in Shipp.

* The day before the killing she told classmate Kim Iloilo she intended to kill Slemmer because she “had just felt mean that day.”

* She later claimed she only meant to scare or fight her and that it “got out of control.” The jury rejected that and found premeditation.

* On the evening of January 12, Pike, Shipp, Peterson, and Slemmer signed out of the dorm.

* Pike lured Slemmer with a story of making peace and smoking marijuana, after first talking about going to a Blockbuster.

* She brought a box cutter and a miniature meat cleaver she had borrowed.

* They walked to a wooded area behind an abandoned steam plant on the University of Tennessee agricultural campus (near Tyson Park).

The Murder

Court records, Pike’s recorded confession, and the autopsy describe an attack lasting about 30 minutes to an hour.

What happened:

* Pike accused Slemmer of pursuing Shipp, then kneed her in the head, threw her down, and kicked her repeatedly, including in the face and side.

* Slemmer’s upper clothing was removed so she could not easily run. She was left in her bra.

* When Slemmer tried to flee, Shipp caught her and threw her back down. Pike and Shipp held her until she stopped struggling, then dragged her to another spot.

* Pike cut Slemmer’s stomach and back with the box cutter and meat cleaver.

* Pike used her own hairband as a gag.

* A pentagram (five-pointed star in a circle) was carved into Slemmer’s chest

* Accounts also describe one on the forehead.

* Shipp later testified under oath that he carved the chest pentagram.

* Some involved later described the carving as a “trapdoor to release the soul to Satan.”

* Shipp was into Satanic imagery; Pike later said she was not.

* Pike left briefly to check that no one was nearby. When she came back, Slemmer was still talking and begging.

* Pike cut her throat repeatedly—she later told a classmate she cut the throat six times—because Slemmer “continued to talk.”

* Pike yelled at her to shut up.

* Pike later said that while Slemmer was barely conscious she asked, “Colleen, do you know who’s doing this to you?”

* Slemmer tried to run again.

* Pike threw/smashed a large piece of asphalt into her head. When it broke, she threw the smaller pieces as well. Shipp also struck her in the head with a rock, per Pike’s statement.

* Pike plucked a fragment of skull from the wound and put it in her jacket as a souvenir.

Cause of death: Medical examiner Dr. Sandra Elkins testified that death was from blunt-force injuries to the head, with a minimum of four blows (two to the left side, one over the right eye, one in the nose area), extensive skull fractures, and asphalt particles in the skull. The body also had slashing wounds to face, back, arms, abdomen, and throat (including a roughly six-inch gaping neck wound), plus defensive wounds and knee bruises consistent with crawling. The body was found semi-nude the next morning by UT grounds workers.

Pike later said Slemmer “wouldn’t die,” was breathing blood, and her body jerked. They dragged her toward bushes and left.

The Bragging

The night of the murder or shortly after, Pike went to a friend’s room, showed her the piece of skull, and described cutting Slemmer’s throat six times, beating her, using the meat cleaver on her back and the box cutter on her throat, throwing asphalt at her head, and carving pentagrams.

She said Slemmer begged them to stop but she did not stop because Slemmer kept talking.

Iloilo said Pike was dancing in a circle, smiling, and singing “la, la, la” while telling it. Other Job Corps students also said she showed off the bone. She was arrested within 36 hours and she confessed to police soon after arrest.

Continued Wrongdoing in Prison

After she went to prison, she continued to do bad things.

Pike spent most of her sentence as Tennessee’s only woman on death row, for years in conditions her lawyers described as effective solitary (22–24 hours a day in a small cell).

August 24, 2001 — attempted murder of inmate Patricia Jones

In one isolated instance in which she was allowed around other women, she came up behind one (while she was arguing with a third inmate) and choked her unconscious with a shoe lace, later telling her mother on a recorded call that she “wrapped that shoe string around of her and tried to choke the damn life out of her,” describing Jones passed out, twitching, foaming at the mouth, eyes bulging. To an investigator she said she didn’t necessarily intend to kill her but “didn’t care if she died.”

The details

* After a fire at the Tennessee Prison for Women, Pike, Natasha Cornett, and Patricia Jones were put in the same recreation cage.

* Jones and Cornett argued; Cornett swung and missed.

* Pike came up behind Jones and choked her unconscious with a heavy boot/shoe lace.

* Jones weighed about 217 pounds.

* Officers intervened; Jones lived.

* Pike later told her mother on a recorded call she “wrapped that shoe string around of her and tried to choke the damn life out of her,” describing Jones passed out, twitching, foaming at the mouth, eyes bulging.

* To an investigator she said she didn’t necessarily intend to kill her but “didn’t care if she died.”

* In 2003/2004 she was convicted of attempted first-degree murder and given 25 years. Her lawyers later argued she was defending Cornett from a known bully; Jones had a violent prison history and later said Pike had previously stopped her from attacking other inmates. The state treated it as a premeditated attempt. Cornett was not charged.

2012 escape plot

Pike also was involved in a 2012 escape plot involving a personal trainer with whom she started to correspond, who bribed a correctional officer before getting caught.

* Personal trainer Donald Kohut of New Jersey corresponded with and visited Pike.

* He enlisted correctional officer Justin Heflin.

* The plan included tracing and copying a prison key

* Heflin was allegedly bribed with cash and gifts (including a guitar and a canoe he sold).

* TBI said the breakout was not imminent

* Kohut was charged with bribery and conspiracy to commit escape; Heflin with bribery, official misconduct, and conspiracy.

* Heflin was fired.

* Pike was not separately convicted on a new escape count in the material above; the plot was foiled.

* A 2024 settlement expanded out-of-cell time and contact with other women.

The Effort to Defend Her

Pike’s conviction and death sentence were affirmed on direct appeal, state post-conviction, and federal habeas (Sixth Circuit, cert denied). The Tennessee Supreme Court set the September 30, 2026 date.

Last-week/last-day efforts failed: Tennessee Supreme Court denied a stay; Gov. Lee denied clemency September 28; U.S. Supreme Court denied cert and a stay September 29.

The resistance to her execution was considerable.

Arguments made by her lawyers, experts, Amnesty, UN human-rights specialists, and more than 100 women’s/advocacy groups included:

* Age / developing brain.

* They argued she was 18 years and about 10 months old. Roper v. Simmons bars death for crimes under 18.

* Counsel argued there is no meaningful brain-development difference between 17 and 18, that she is the only person Tennessee would execute in the modern era for an 18-year-old’s crime, and that the other seven Tennessee defendants sentenced to death for crimes at 18 (all men) later had those sentences vacated.

* Average age at crime among those Tennessee has executed is about 29; the youngest previously executed was 23. Shipp, equally involved and 17, got life with parole. Peterson walked with probation. They also say prosecutors once offered life without parole for a plea and trial counsel did not take it.

* Childhood abuse and mental illness never fully put before the jury.

* Clemency materials describe heavy maternal drinking during pregnancy, neglect, physical and sexual abuse beginning in early childhood, rapes at about 11 and 17 (the later one almost exactly a year before the murder), untreated bipolar disorder and PTSD, and possible brain damage.

* Penalty-phase presentation was short; later lawyers say the jury never heard the mitigation that is now standard.

* Diagnoses in prison included bipolar disorder and PTSD.

* Rehabilitation and changed person.

* Petition described a 50-year-old woman on treatment, remorseful, useful to other inmates, no longer the 18-year-old who committed the crime.

* “Christa can still be useful.”

* Method-of-execution / Eighth Amendment.

* Claims that lethal injection would cause needless suffering because of small veins and thrombocytosis, and—more distinctively—that being extracted, held down (especially by men), and restrained would reenact her rapes and cause severe psychological terror.

* Trauma experts filed an amicus brief on re-traumatization.

* She asked for an all-female extraction team; the state said it would try to use female staff for transfer but did not guarantee the full protocol.

* Courts found she had not shown the protocol was sure or very likely to cause serious needless suffering.

* A related claim challenged Tennessee Supreme Court Rule 12(4)(E) as cutting off a proper method-of-execution challenge. SCOTUS did not take the case.

* Conditions and isolation.

* Long-term isolation as the only woman on death row was used as context for later conduct and as a reason for mercy, not as a standalone bar to execution after the 2024 settlement.

The state’s and victim-family position has been consistent: the torture was prolonged and voluntary, Pike bragged and kept a trophy, she later tried to kill another inmate, and Slemmer’s mother has said she wants the sentence carried out so her daughter “finally can be resting.” Lee’s denial statement did not explain his reasoning beyond a “thorough review.”

The way Pike’s entire life played out is an extreme tragedy and I think we should all be thinking about what we can do better.

* Has been sitting on death year for around 30 years

* She asked for an all-female execution team

* She denied her last meal (though to be fair it couldn’t be more than $20)

What Should be Done

I am heavily influenced by Scott Alexander’s “Prison And Crime: Much More Than You Wanted To Know”, published November 27, 2024. Looking at the extant research, he compared deterrence—discouraging crime through the threat of punishment—with incapacitation—preventing someone from committing crimes in the community while they’re imprisoned.

* Per his analysis, the best practical way to reduce crime is to make offenders more likely to be caught, chiefly through effective policing, rather than simply making prison sentences longer.

* He concludes that longer sentences have relatively small deterrent effects

* Also, separately, there’s not much evidence suggesting even the death penalty is a strong deterrent

* The National Institute of Justice says there is no proof that the death penalty deters crime, and cites a National Academies review finding the research uninformative about whether it increases, decreases, or has no effect on homicide.

* Though death as a means of removal could be, in a more efficient justice system, more cost effective and efficient

* HOWEVER, prison does prevent crimes while people are confined

* He just concludes (quite fairly) that expanding incarceration is costly and has diminishing returns.

* So basically, removing offenders forever would be the MOST effective, but he sees that as too costly, so he sees the risk of being caught as a better deterrent

How Can We Be Better at Catching and Punishing Crime?

The Privacy Problem

* How do we balance reasonable expectations of privacy with people’s use of that privacy to commit atrocities?

* Could AGI just protect us from ourselves?

The Removal Issue

* How can we compassionately remove people who are ruining society?

* Pleasure tubes? The Matrix?

The Sustainability Issue

* How do we make the justice system more efficient?

* In the USA, death penalty cases cost taxpayers more

* Per a Maryland, Urban Institute study published in 2008, the difference is about $1.9 million

* Death penalty case cost: About $3 million when the case resulted in a death sentence

* Comparable case without death penalty costs: About $1.1 million when prosecutors did not seek death

* Per a Washington, Seattle University study published in 2015, the difference is $1.06 million, in 2010 dollars

* Death penalty case cost: $3.07 million when prosecutors sought death

* Comparable case without death penalty costs: $2.01 million when prosecutors did not seek death

* The Maryland study also found that cases where prosecutors sought death but did not obtain a death sentence cost about $1.8 million—roughly $700,000 more than comparable cases where they did not seek it. So the extra cost starts with pursuing the penalty, not with carrying out an execution.

* Why it costs more (per ballotpedia)

* The trial takes more work. Capital cases require more extensive investigation, lawyers, experts, motions, jury selection, and a separate sentencing phase.

* Review can continue for years. Appeals and sometimes retrials add legal and court costs while the person remains incarcerated. Those safeguards matter because an execution cannot be undone.

* Confinement may cost more. Some states use separate, higher-security housing for people sentenced to death, though this varies; South Dakota, for example, reported no additional housing expense in the comparison Ballotpedia examined.

* Seeking death does not guarantee an execution. A case can incur the added trial costs and still end in a life sentence, as the Maryland figures illustrate.

What would I do?

* Today

* Create a penal colony

* Send people above a certain crime threshold to the colony after sterilizing them (because kids should obviously not be subjected to such a place)

* Make the penal colony self-governing

* People can form their own justice systems and when bad actors choose to make this second-chance society bad, they can deal with whatever justice their compatriots deem appropriate

* In the near future, when it’s technologically feasible

* Give everyone a pleasure pod option (i.e. an isolated but very pleasant existence where they can live out life in a virtual world)

* Make the pleasure pod not optional for anyone who meets certain crime thresholds

Episode Transcript

Simone Collins:Hello, Malcolm. I’m very excited to be speaking with you today because recently, a woman was executed in Tennessee. She is the first woman in the state to be executed in over two hundred years and the first person in Tennessee, who’s been executed in the modern era for a crime committed at age 18. So this only happened after her defenders went all the way to the Supreme Court to try to help this process. and, you know, to be someone so singular, to be getting the death penalty as a woman is... You know you’ve done something wrong. We’ll get into it

Speaker 5:You guys are gonna love this. She survived after two attempts. It appears they didn’t hit her veins because medical staff are not allowed to do this. So if somebody was out enough medical training who was working on it, they had failed in the same way with another execution, recently in the same area.

Speaker 9:This doesn’t mean she gets out of her execution, but you guys know how this works.

Simone Collins:. But meanwhile, Lindsay Clancy’s lawyer is now trying to claim that there’s insufficient evidence that she even killed her children despite

Malcolm Collins:the situation. Didn’t.

Simone Collins:Everybody said And all the evidence, the DNA evidence as well, it’s kind of unhinged. And I’m like, what’s going on here? Why are people trying to stop the execution of a woman who’s done utterly monstrous things? Why are you trying to claim that a woman who has admitted to murdering her own children that there’s no evidence of it? What are you talking about? As a society, I feel like we’re systematically and openly flubbing justice, just messing it up. And it has me trying to work out how we should actually address crime and punishment, not only because people keep trying to undo punishments slated for women who have committed horrific crimes, men too, obviously, but I’m focusing on the the prominent cases right now. But because we’re entering a period of insane disruption, so it’s an important thing for us to be talking about now because we may be in a position somewhat in the near future to actually rethink justice systems. So conversations that get started now could result in some kind of change. We should be discussing this. and I do also have this low grade deep fear that women lie at the heart of a larger problem, which is one, criminals not being caught, and two, dangerous people not being dealt with effectively. and there’s also this deeper, more scared part of me that after you did your episode on women killing children, that women are just getting away with a ton of crimes, primarily because the people that women kill are people in their family and probably children. And they’re just like, I don’t know what happened. Like, you know, they... They’re they’re able much more easily than men killing strangers to ex... Just explain it away as an accident, if you know what I mean. And I looked at this this one FBI data study covering 1976 to 1987 that found sixty percent of women’s homicide victims were a spouse, intimate partner, acquaintance, or family member. While eighty percent of men’s victims were nonintimate acquaintances, strangers, or under... Undetermined relationship kind of people. We’re like, it’s not clear if they knew each other or not. So the vast majority of people men are killing kinda don’t really know them well. The vast majority of women... Of of people that are... Women are caught killing, emphasis on the caught part. People they know extremely well. And what made me disturbed is this study excluded victims 15. So it’s not a measure of child killings. I know. Why?

Malcolm Collins:Which women do disproportionately when you’re talking about her drinking.

Simone Collins:And so I’m like, hold on. Also, why are you, like, specifically, like, la la la la la la We’re not looking at this, like, what area?

Malcolm Collins:Places where you know the numbers would be the the biggest. I know.

Simone Collins:And it makes me very, very, very uncomfortable. And so... Okay. Well well, the study excluded victims 15. It’s not a measure of child killings, but, young children, specifically, if we’re looking at them, there’s this twenty twenty three Department of Justice report that estimates that seventy six point two percent of homicide victims age 11 or younger were killed by an other family member. But then this study also doesn’t tell us who that other family member is. They just categorized as family member. And so I feel like there’s this systematic covering up of the fact that, no. This is women. Because I don’t I don’t know why they’re doing it. But, anyway, this is just... Like, this

Malcolm Collins:kind of know why anthropologists are trying to hide how horrible women are. You don’t know? I could I could give you a guess.

Simone Collins:Well, these are criminologists as well. Why? Why?

Malcolm Collins:These fields are overwhelmingly female and woke.

Simone Collins:So you think that they’re just trying to hide this all? Of course.

Malcolm Collins:Look at the Lindsay Kansi trial. These women who attempted to get her off for this were so incredibly proud of what they had done. Going on all of these shows with absolute infinity, trying to talk to the jurors. You know, they go on Oprah, and they expected no one in the crowd to be like, what were you thinking, you psychopath? Like I know.

Simone Collins:They were so smug. And I don’t know if you saw the the the the juror who held out recently came out and made a video and started it off with exactly the right thing to be like, look. I’m not just talking for myself, or I wasn’t just representing my own views. I... We need to talk about the three, as he put it, angels Yeah. Who were victimized here. Why was nobody talking about that?

Malcolm Collins:Was a Catholic, by the way. Good on him.

Simone Collins:And he did he did mention his Catholic faith as well. And what a what a guy. Like, hero of the year, in my opinion. I I really am well... Okay. And, also, like, there’s a lot of other heroes. We talk about them frequently, but he’s absolutely up there for someone who stands by his values, and I really, really appreciate that. But, yeah, it it... I guess you’re right. And let’s let’s... I guess, let’s start then with the... What’s going on with Lindsay Clancy’s lawyer because it is... I think it’s one element of this this problem.

Malcolm Collins:It’s so weird to me. It’s like he thinks he’s arguing on the Internet, and maybe he is. Maybe that’s what the court is these days.

Simone Collins:It could be because when you look at the women who are on the jury, they kind of were in that place. They’d already made their own conclusions there. In the original trial, to be clear, at the defense’s position was... It was effectively she caused the deaths, but psychosis meant she was not criminally responsible. That was their key legal argument. But now her lawyer, Kevin Reddington, is is arguing that prosecutors did not present legally sufficient evidence that Lindsey Clancy killed her three children. And that just, well, as of recording, so yesterday, he he sought a required finding of not guilty, a ruling that the trial evidence was insufficient to permit rational journey to... Sorry. A rational jury to convict. He said, where is the evidence that she did this, and where is the admission? Where where does she say that she did this?

Malcolm Collins:Didn’t she describe how she did it and the timeline in detail?

Simone Collins:Like At the hospital. I believed so. he... But he attacked the investigation and the physical evidence, including DNA and fingerprint work, and argued that statements attributed to to Clancy attributed to Clancy. Attributed. Others just

Malcolm Collins:made it up.

Simone Collins:Someone said this, and people said that Lindsay Clancy said it. After she awoke in a hospital, we’re not proof of a confession. He argues that she had been told what happened and that said she could not remember it. He also continued to argue that the prosecutors had failed to disprove her lack of criminal responsibility defense. So it’s... He’s basically parroting Lindsay Clancy’s online support mob. The argument that Lindsay, before Clancy, had not done it was was

Malcolm Collins:To pretend that she... I mean, I think this is a terrible move on his part because it’s it’s... Now you have to convince... I can... If I’m going to a jury. Right? Yeah. And I’m trying to be like, look at this mother. Look at how sad she must be. Like, nobody does this out of the blue. Blah blah blah blah blah. Clearly, she was completely mentally out of her mind at that moment. That’s something I can sell. That is harder to sell when you’re then lying about not remembering doing it.

Simone Collins:Yeah. I think he needs... He would just need to... He needs to try with the original somewhat plausible argument with a different jury. Though Yeah. Goodness, it’s gonna be difficult to find a a jury. Well, I guess he’s actually in luck after this, you know, finding a jury that’s all about her and all about that Oh, I’m

Malcolm Collins:gonna get famous for getting off the killer or the

Simone Collins:You know that. And... Look. But, like, it’s it’s... What’s really disturbing to me is I feel like there’s a bit of a gaslighting echo chamber, perhaps the same one that caused all these researchers to be like, la la la. I’m not gonna look exactly where women are murdering people and not talk about it. And I feel like that’s... Similar dynamic, some similar dark magic is happening here because he’s seeing the online argument being made, and now he’s going forward and making it and, like, sort of trying to commit it to reality. And he... He’s using the exact arguments. Like, CNN quoted one TikTok user saying, I do not believe that Lindsay Clancy committed these crimes. I fully believe that Patrick convinced her that she did. That was the big theory. Like, they were they were pulling from one of the most famous arguments being made right now, and it’s it’s disturbing. Plus his his criticism of the investigation into the murders parrots everything that was online. It’s like he’s now... He has he has accepted the narrative that people want, and he’s attempting to legally argue it into existence. also, a side note, I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but people are not using the word clancying about fathers that they perceive to not be helping out enough. Did you know this? What? Yeah. So, like, you might say, he is clancying, about... This this happened recently. For example, a man was was recently filmed, like, at at a sports game sitting down as his wife with a toddler in a front carrier brought, like, food to their seats. and people freaked out online commenting, like, like, how dare she be forced to, like, carry a toddler and get food from him at the sports stadium? and then That happened

Malcolm Collins:to us when we were at a a grocery store recently, and you were damn ill.

Simone Collins:Yeah. She could have said to you, he is clancying when I put a gallon of milk in our shopping cart because, god forbid, these spaghetti arms

Malcolm Collins:lift A bottle of milk. Yeah.

Simone Collins:Minuscule pin weight to move. You know she was

Malcolm Collins:a Lindsay Clancy supporter to just... In a in a

Simone Collins:She came across as a Lindsay Clancy supporter. I can’t even

Malcolm Collins:remember what she said. She’s like like, good job helping out or something like that. Like

Simone Collins:Some Karen like remark. Whatever. look. These arms need a workout. Do you see this? Where are they? I can’t. It’s like looking

Malcolm Collins:at I am so glad that women like her are divorced or miserable because you know she doesn’t have a partner or stake in the future.

Simone Collins:Anyway, that that is one element of this. Right? So this is one thing that is weighing on me as I also contemplate the future that could be and the future that we are obligated to make as people who want to inherit the future. Right? We have to build a better justice system. This is what our justice system is doing now. And now I wanna tell you about the crimes of Christa Pike, who is the woman who, as of recording, she just got executed at 10AM this morning. This... But, you know, if you’re watching this recently, she was executed. She is... She... I think she was in her fifties. She was born in 1976 and then convicted 01/12/1995 for the torture murder of ‘19 year old Colleen Slimmer in Knoxville, Tennessee. She has been on death row for thirty years, which is another issue that I have with the justice system.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. Just kill them.

Simone Collins:I know. I know. Firing squads. So efficient. Per court records, Pike told officers that she was jealous of another girl at this, like, work program that she was in because she believed that that girl was interested in her current boyfriend. The day before she killed this young woman, she told a classmate that... Named Kim Iolio or Yolio that she intended to kill her because she, quote, had just felt mean that day, end quote. Okay. This is the type of person where

Malcolm Collins:This is women.

Simone Collins:Yeah. I... Well This is why women

Malcolm Collins:are so dangerous because they

Simone Collins:Not not all.

Malcolm Collins:Feel mean that day.

Simone Collins:I... Well, yeah. I mean, at least this this young woman. She later claimed that she only meant to scare or fight her, and then it got out of control. But the jury rejected this and found premeditation for the murder. So on the evening of January 12, Pike, this young woman, and then one lookout friend, her boyfriend, and the victim signed out of the dorm. And Pike lured this young woman with her boyfriend with a story of making peace because apparently they had some beef and smoking marijuana and first maybe going to a blockbuster. Like, this is the alleged premise of this all. But she brought a box cutter and a miniature meat cleaver that she had borrowed, and they walked into a wooded area behind an abandoned steam plant on the University of Tennessee I’m turning off sound.

Malcolm Collins:So you could let me know when I can listen again because I don’t wanna

Simone Collins:She’s not a Continue. Continue. Okay. I’m gonna... I’m... Can you hear me? No?

Malcolm Collins:Okay. I’m waiting on you to finish the story.

Simone Collins:He’s gonna have to edit this.

Malcolm Collins:Gonna listen. You finish the story. I do this for you all the time. I don’t wanna listen to this.

Simone Collins:Okay. Fine. Court records, and Pike’s... Sorry. Court records, Pike’s recorded confession, and the autopsy described an attack lasting about thirty minutes to an hour. So what happened is, first, Pike accused this young woman of pursuing her boyfriend and then kneed her in the head, threw her down, and kicked her repeatedly, including in the face and the side. And then her upper clothing was removed so she couldn’t easily run. She was left in her bra. And then when she tried to run, her... The boyfriend caught her and threw her back down. And then Pike and her boyfriend held her until she stopped struggling, and then they dragged her to another spot where then Pike cut her stomach and her back with a box cutter and the meat cleaver, and then she used her own hairband to gag her to to stifle the screams. Then a pentagram was carved into her chest. some people also said this happened to her forehead, but I think her forehead was so far gone by the time they got to her that you couldn’t even maybe see it on autopsy. She later testified... Oh, sorry. The boyfriend later testified under oath that he had carved the chest pentagram. So this isn’t, this is not Pike. This is not the the woman that we’re talking about here. It’s her boyfriend and accomplice. he was into satanic imagery. She said she wasn’t. So that’s a him thing. I’m not gonna get into it. But, anyway, she left briefly to check that no one was nearby. And then when she came back, the boyfriend... Or sorry. The the victim was still talking and begging. So she decided to cut her throat repeatedly. She later told a classmate that she cut the throat six times because she continued to talk, and then she just kept yelling at her to shut up. She later said that while this this woman was barely conscious, she asked, Colleen, do you know who’s doing this to you? She tried to run again. I don’t know how after having her throat slit so many times. But then Pike, again, this this aggressor, threw and smashed a large piece of asphalt into her head. When it broke, she threw smaller pieces as well. And the boyfriend also struck her in the head with a rock, at least per Pike’s statement. And then Pike, this monster of a person, plucked a fragment of the skull from the wound and put it in her jacket as a souvenir. So the medical examiner who was... Found her... I mean, observed her... Examined her the next day testified that the death was from blunt force injuries to the head with a minimum of four blows, and she had extensive skull fractures. Asphalt particles were in her skull. The body also had slashing wounds to her face, her back, her arms, her abdomen, and her throat, including a roughly six inch gaping neck wound, plus lots of defensive wounds and bruising on her knees. and Pike said she, quote, wouldn’t die, was breathing blood, her body jerked, and they dragged her towards the bushes and left. So they didn’t even wait to make sure she was fully dead before leaving. They just, I guess, got bored of her. And then they go back to their dorm. They sign back in. and then Pike goes to a friend’s room, the same friend that she was saying, oh, I just... I feel like I’m just feeling mean today. She showed her a piece of the skull and described cutting Slimmer’s throat six times, beating her using the meat cleaver on her back and the box cutter on her throat, showing... Throwing asphalt at her head and carving pentagrams. And she later, she she said that Slimmer begged them to stop, and she didn’t stop because this victim kept talking. And this friend who heard all this said that Pike was dancing in a circle, smiling and singing la la la while telling it. And then other students also said that she showed off the bone, and she was arrested within thirty six hours and confessed to the police soon after the arrest. Like, there’s very little How did she

Malcolm Collins:not think she’s gonna be caught? I I heard enough of this to be like, you did a murder and then showed it off?

Simone Collins:She appeared to have absolutely no

Malcolm Collins:Concern for consequences?

Simone Collins:Foresight. Yeah. It was just like, I don’t like this woman. I am going to torture and kill her. That was just her thing. Or I I think it was just I’m gonna beat her up first, and then it was like, you know what? This is so fun. She got carried away. But guess what? So she goes to prison. She gets a death sentence. She able to calm down while she’s waiting slowly in prison to die? I mean, they actually... Because some states have death sentences, they they put you in jail differently. she was in a state where if you’re on death row, you are isolated. So she spent most of her time completely isolated in this prison. And then in one of the few instances due to a fire that took place in the prison, she is left alone with two other inmates who are very tough women. She does something insane again. So these women, not her, these women start fighting. They’re just yelling at each other. What does she do? She takes one of the shoelaces off of her boots. She comes up beside... Behind one of the women, and she starts to choke her out. She chokes her unconscious until police guards, I guess, finally see what’s going on and and try to stop her. But, yeah, she... She’s a murder junkie. She told her mother on a recorded call after this happened that she, quote, wrapped that shoestring around her and tried to choke the damn life out of her. She described how she passed out, was twitching, foaming at the mouth, eyes bulging. To an investigator, she said she didn’t necessarily intend to kill her, but, quote, didn’t care if she died, end quote. So there was also

Malcolm Collins:And there’s a women’s organization spending millions of dollars trying to prevent her from getting the death penalty. Yes. So their own worst enemies because the people who she’s torturing are women. The people who she’s killing are women. Women just do not care. They they remind me so much of that study of the bad actors versus good actors. and men watched a person be shocked when they were playing a game, and they felt bad about it. But they watched the person who was cheating being shocked, and they felt good about it. While women felt equally bad for the person who was cheating and the person who wasn’t cheating. Women do not care. They do not care.

Simone Collins:Here’s the thing, though. This... It it takes... Know, men are complicit in this too. With the twenty twelve escape plot she was involved in, there was this personal trainer that was corresponding with her that bribed a guard, and there was this whole plan to get her out. And he was a man. This wasn’t a woman. So, like, it it isn’t just it isn’t just

Malcolm Collins:And you know she would have immediately started killing people if she got out.

Simone Collins:Oh, absolutely. I mean, this this is a woman who’s... Who seems genuinely quite quite dangerous. But

Malcolm Collins:I will say, thank god, she’s been in solitary for, what, thirty years. I can’t imagine the horror of being in solitary for thirty years.

Simone Collins:I... That is... Yeah. It’s a it’s a it’s a pretty intense punishment. In fact... So first, the Tennessee Supreme Court set the September 30 date. That’s today. This was the day she was killed. but they... And there were a ton of last moment efforts. So the Tennessee Supreme Court denied a stay. Governor Lee denied clemency on September 28, and then the US Supreme Court denied a certain stay on September 29. So up to the very last day, people have been trying

Malcolm Collins:to resist your decision. Thinking? Like, what was their logic in doing this?

Simone Collins:Will share the logic. I will share the logic. because these are these are administrated by

Malcolm Collins:Is that it? That she was administrating?

Simone Collins:No. Actually, that isn’t one of the arguments. That’s that’s kind of crazy. So... But these are arguments made by lawyers, experts, amnesty, UN, human rights specialists, and more than 100 women’s advocacy groups. Okay? Over a 100 women’s advocacy groups. 100. Over a 100 women’s groups and

Malcolm Collins:advocacy groups. Some point, likely groups of women, likely well over, decided that women just shouldn’t face punishment.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Even though one of their own was like, I just feel mean today and tortured and killed another woman. I don’t know. Like, again And showed interest in continuing this behavior. Yeah. I didn’t care if she died. Yeah. Choked out a woman who wasn’t even fighting with her. She was just like, here’s my opportunity, I guess. I... Anyway. So one thing that they... That they’re... One of the arguments they make is very legalistic in the same way that Lindsay Clancy’s lawyer is like, do you even have proof? Blah blah blah. Like, chain of custody something something. She was what... She was told what was happening, and she didn’t know, and she was on meds. so I think they’re trying to do this whole thing where she got the death penalty, whereas her boyfriend and accomplice, you know, the one that carved the pentagram into this poor woman, did not. He got, like, twenty five years or so. He... A parole was denied, like, two years ago, but he’s in jail because he was 17. She was 18, so she got the death penalty. And they’re trying to argue that there’s no fundamental neurological difference between someone who is 17 years old and 18 years old. Look. It’s an arbitrary cutoff. Like, it’s... I think it’s a stupid argument. They... The most compelling argument... Although, I don’t think this is compelling, in terms of getting her excused from her punishment, but this is another thing that makes me think we need a better justice system. Is it from the start, this woman, Pike, was subjected to abuse even in the womb. So apparently, her mother drank heavily while she was pregnant. This could have caused, like, you know, lifelong brain damage. She had been That’s BS.

Malcolm Collins:My parent drank heavily while she was pregnant, and I’m Who knows?

Simone Collins:Who knows? Could have

Malcolm Collins:been fine. Who knows? I... People will be like, oh, he’s clearly brain damaged. It’s like, well, if I’m clearly brain damaged and I got a Stanford graduate degree and a St. St. Andrew’s undergraduate degree, two of the top universities in the world. Why did you fail at that? Okay. So maybe I wasn’t that brain damaged. Right? Or maybe maybe the brain damage is just, that I’m too awesome. I’m too brain awesome.

Simone Collins:Too too brain awesome. Yeah. She... There’s, like, this weird local minimum of, like, not enough drinking in the room, but you got so much that you were superpowered.

Malcolm Collins:Yes.

Simone Collins:I don’t know. I don’t know. But, anyway, she was also abused. She was also r to the apes, you know, all the things. Right? Like, just... She had a very, very, very bad life and was never really given a chance. And... Look. Had we had a better justice system that caught people and helped her earlier in her life, this may have never happened. And so this is something that I do think about. But they’re very much like, look. She had untreated bipolar. She had PTSD. She was abused. Like, how could you give someone like that the death sentence? I still think, like, look. Everyone who commits atrocities, who tortures, you can’t let them out on the streets for sure. I mean, I guess they just wanted her to get life in prison. I get that.

Speaker 6:I find it interesting actually because I... You know, Simone’s a smart person how uncritically she accept all of this trauma related stuff about this woman’s childhood, which was really only established in her first trial. The only thing we have any evidence of is one case of sexual abuse when she was 11, and the rest of it is just stuff that she says, um which is bad. But uh I I think we need to be realistic about what somebody would say when they were put on trial for something like this. They’re they’re going to look for, oh, look at this happened to me. Look at this happened to me. You... You’d almost expect them to be able to come up with a bunch of stuff related like this.

Simone Collins:they also try to argue, and I don’t know how they’re doing this, that she has really rehabilitated, that she is a changed person.

Malcolm Collins:But she tried to escape and kill people.

Simone Collins:That’s why I’m really not... I don’t know why they took that angle, but these are women’s groups. You know? Maybe they’re not the best and brightest here. And, also, they

Malcolm Collins:This is this is where I stand with all of this. Why can’t we profit from women more easily if they’re so easily scammed? Like, what... This is the thing. I need to I need to get better at exploring

Simone Collins:Because men are being stupid about

Malcolm Collins:this

Simone Collins:too. I, you know, I I... I’m going to do an episode soon on what I call man witches. And an argument that they... That many of the man witches are making is that men have, relinquished their role in the occult, and that’s why the occult has gotten so bad. and I think that to a a great extent, men are relinquishing responsibility, for for women. And, you know, that’s that’s bad. They are being fooled too. You know, like, fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice. Wait. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Look. I’m a little... Something. something like that. But it’s a very confusing statement.

Malcolm Collins:I get why. Well, because famously, George Bush messed it up, people only remember the messed up version.

Simone Collins:Maybe. I don’t know. I could... I’m, you know, in solidarity with George Bush here. But, look, men are men are playing a part in this. Of course, to your point, people are arguing that her isolation in solitary for so long was also pretty cruel and unusual, and that she should get mercy just for that. And then the final thing sense. Yeah. I mean, that’s

Malcolm Collins:They should have just killed her immediately.

Simone Collins:They really should have. I also... Like, why on earth

Malcolm Collins:Well, because it takes a long time. It is very expensive to put someone on death row.

Simone Collins:I know. We’re we’re gonna talk about that because the whole discussion here is really what should the justice system be. so the final argument is that because because she was... Are and abused as a child that she has asked... They’ve been denied for an all female execution team because a a lot of psychologists are arguing that as she is being killed, she’ll go into some kind of regressive state where she thinks she is being

Malcolm Collins:ripe. So dumb. Every every histionic woman I have ever met claims that they were raped to the child. this is a normal thing for histionic women to I’m I’m sorry that it is offensive to say this, and for a lot of women who genuinely went through hardship with the child, this is one thing. Right? Like, this is... It’s it’s bad that this happens. But a lot of sociopathic histionic women... I’m gonna say virtually... Would you agree? I... I’m actually wondering this in your life. When you have known, like, really selfish histionic narcissistic women, have you ever known any of them who didn’t claim to be groped to the child?

Simone Collins:I don’t know any such women.

Malcolm Collins:You might have an argument woman who was a crazy bee.

Simone Collins:Now you could say it’s causational. Women like I won’t talk

Malcolm Collins:to about causational, but what I’ve noticed is claiming this gets you a lot of benefits as a woman as we can already see from this woman. It gets you out of a

Simone Collins:lot of... As a woman. And so if you’re all ready as a psychopath, why not claim it? If I were the the person who was about to be put down, I honestly would not care about the gender. I would I would not ask because I’m being killed. Like, it doesn’t matter. But she’s arguing that living through another experience in which she’s being, you know, physically restrained by men, like, tied down is gonna be

Malcolm Collins:So what? She did this to other people. They could come on. You’re

Simone Collins:Well, because we have the eighth amendment against true... Cruel and unusual treatment. It’s not People are trying to

Malcolm Collins:It is the usual. She wants special treatment.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Anyway, the The States and the victim’s family hold a very, very consistent position here that, you know, she tortured. She she had a a prolonged involuntary choice to torture this woman. She bragged about it. She kept a trophy. She later tried to kill another inmate. And she... The the the the the victim’s mother just wants, you know, or as she puts it, her daughter to finally be resting. And I I think that that’s entirely fair too. Although, personally, I don’t think that hurting someone in exchange for being hurt really does anything.

Malcolm Collins:I disagree. They’d help society stay stable if you look at the countries with some of the Honestly,

Simone Collins:when when when you go through Leviticus, at least... Guys, in the comments, tell me if I’m wrong here. It... The the punishment seem to go like this. there has to be... And we’ve discussed this with some of our listeners too. There has to be proof of burn. Like, you have to pay a penalty when you do a bad thing. And if you’re dangerous to the society, you have to be removed. Basically, you’re gonna get killed or shunned. like, we all agree upon that. If you are a danger to society, you’re gonna be removed. But it doesn’t matter necessarily how you’re removed, and most of the removal is fairly quick. The stunning to death is not exactly. But, presumably, people do it fast, hopefully. but it’s it’s about removal, or it is about costly, like, proof of burn. I I don’t think that, like

Malcolm Collins:So, Simone, did... If you look at... Like, let’s take certain populations here. If you look at The Middle East or you look at, like, let’s say, Muslim countries, the ones that are the safest are the ones that often have some of the most severe punishments.

Simone Collins:Yeah. The removal. You you and I were talking about this earlier, like, cutting off hands. I... It it just occurred to me when you said that if someone doesn’t have hands, it’s a lot harder to murder someone. I know there was that person who had no legs and no arms who shot someone recently, but, you know, he was an exceptional man. And it’s otherwise very hard to do that. so Simone There’s something to I think What... No. Honestly, though honestly, though, instead of just, like, putting people in prison for, like, an overnight period and letting them go because there’s no room in this prisons, don’t you think we should just cut off hands?

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. Cutting off hands would be good, but I think it’s probably better. Like, when somebody is arrested... Like, I have an easy... If you’re arrested over 200 times, execution. It doesn’t matter if it was a misdemeanor. It’s... You’re just a problem for society at that point. If if you have to be picked up that many times, if you have to... Like, there’s people out there who have, like, robbed a store, like, 300 times in a year or something in New York. Right? Like, these people are just negative externalities for society. And I think cutting off their hands, I mean, what are we gonna do? We’re gonna put them under presumably at first. Right? And then they’re gonna have to live off the state because they don’t have hands. Like, I think it’s better to just take care of these things. Right? Like, I think being a... I I think we were able to be a less harsh society when there were social punishments for doing stuff like this. If you were in a, you know, an old Puritan settlement and you stole from something, the... Your treatment from the community, like, the way that would change your life would likely be worse than having your hands cut off.

Simone Collins:Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, and it could... Even if you’re just shunned from many communities, it’s functionally death. And we talked about that self organizing community in Portland called Dignity Village where, you know, if you cross some... Like, you know, even if you escalate to violence ever, you’re out forever. That is that is a shame.

Malcolm Collins:Loved one of the comments we got on that, which it said, for somebody claiming to be a Christian, you don’t have a lot of sympathy for these homeless people. And I’m like, have you read the bible?

Simone Collins:Because I’m I’m

Malcolm Collins:Like, you’re worshiping buddy Christ, man. This is not like the bible. You know, like, the bible is not a a not harsh document in terms of how people are treated or how punishments are doled out. I mean, god kills a guy’s kid because of sexual impropriety and getting a guy killed. But that... I mean, he seems to lean more on the sexual impropriety in the way that he he he words it. But, yeah, that is... You know, the... God is very hard. He’s a... A guy picks up sticks on the Sabbath. Moses isn’t sure what to do, and god’s like, stone him.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Just stone him. Stone him to death.

Malcolm Collins:Beat him to death with stones. Right? Like, this this is the Well,

Simone Collins:I mean, Christian would be like, that was the old testament. We are a different people.

Malcolm Collins:God grew up? I don’t think so. I know.

Simone Collins:I know. I know. Let’s... But I I think, yeah, we’ve we’ve we’ve definitely arrived at the point in this conversation where we do discuss what should be done. I wanna give you a sort of basis for that because the thing that gives me my big influence in terms of crime and punishment is this sub stack post by Scott Alexander that he published in November 2024 titled prison and crime, much more than you wanted to know, which is a really good read. I recommend it. I link it in the show notes, which you should check out on Substack and Patreon. And if you if you look at the extant research, which he did, he he compared deterrence, like discouraging crime through the threat of punishment with incapacitation, like preventing someone from committing crimes in the community while they are imprisoned or maybe while their hands are cut off, but he didn’t look at that, obviously. But per his analysis, the best practical way to reduce crime is to make offenders more likely to be caught chiefly through effective policing rather than simply making prison sentences longer. And he concluded that longer prison sentences have relatively small deterrent effects. But separately, there’s not much evidence that... Suggesting that even the death penalty is a strong deterrent. I I looked at this national institute of justice page that said that there’s no proof that the death penalty deters crime, and it cites a National Academy’s review, finding the research uninformative about whether it increases, decreases, or has no effect on homicide. And here is how I feel about that. Okay.

Malcolm Collins:This is one of those categories of research where you just can’t trust it.

Simone Collins:Yeah. It was

Malcolm Collins:in the academic fields that are doing this research. There is far too much political baggage. It’s one of those things like spanking. Like, you just can’t trust a a modern anthropology professor to be honest about the effects of spanking. None of them are going to... Like, it’s it’s very difficult from a career perspective. Imagine you, a leftist professor in a field where, like, 99% of people are leftists. And and note, there were the recent studies showing that even moderates have mostly left academia at this point or a bit pushed out. And you published something saying that the death penalty is good for society. You are going to be crucified. That is horrible for your career. You you you just cannot trust the research on this. You need to look at common sense. And I think the common sense answer is that you need to find a way for the death penalty to be a cost and time reduction mechanism, not even a deterrent.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Because I actually looked at this. in The USA, the death penalty costs taxpayers a ton more. For this one Maryland Urban Institute study published in 2008, the difference is about 1,900,000 per case. So a death penalty case costs about 3,000,000 when the case resulted in a death sentence, and then a comparable case without the death penalty costs about 1,100,000. And also per Washington Seattle University study published in 2015, the difference is 1,060,000

Malcolm Collins:And we shouldn’t be spending over $1,000,000 per criminal that we’re dealing with as a society. Well, just

Simone Collins:to kill them. Keep in mind, the death penalty case cost 3,070,000 when prosecutors sought death. But without the death penalty, it be 2,100,000 to put someone away for life.

Malcolm Collins:2.1... Yeah. Just that that should not be the case. We should not be spending 2,100,000 on these

Simone Collins:Yeah.

Malcolm Collins:There there should be a way to do this at a a quarter of that price.

Simone Collins:And, obviously It takes more work, with capital cases, though it also costs a lot for... To put someone away for life. The the review can last for years. Mean, woman was in jail for thirty years. Confinement confinement costs more, and it it did in her case because she had her own separate area to be in where it was also fairly cruel I mean, I

Malcolm Collins:think your plan to build, like, you know, quarantine city or something like that.

Simone Collins:No. No. Yeah. Here’s my proposal. This is a modest proposal, and this is my today proposal. I’m gonna have a different one for the near future. Okay? So hear me out here. Today, we, one, create a penal colony, obviously. Two, we send people above a certain crime threshold to the colony only after we sterilize them because there’s no way I am bringing new life into this colony. I’m not subjecting children to this colony. Okay? So you have to sterilize the people before they go off to the colony, though life finds a way. they might do weird Jurassic Park frog stuff. But, anyway, then you make the penal colony self governing. I’m talking Dignity Village penal colony edition.

Malcolm Collins:Yes.

Simone Collins:so that people can form their own justice systems. And then when bad actors choose to do bad things, they will be dealt with according to the rules of that society or whatever enclave they choose to join once they go to this place. But

Malcolm Collins:And then the colony can choose the death penalty.

Simone Collins:Exactly. Well, then the colony... Or I imagine, personally, I would imagine that the colony would form different enclaves, like different forms of dignity village each with their own rules and with their own specialties. Like, you know how when you go to jail, you... Like, jail consultants are like, look. Sorry. But you’re just you’re just gonna need to enter

Malcolm Collins:You’re gonna join one asset group. Yeah. So you allow You’re white. You’re going with the whites. At the colony, one that is the the white gang, one that is the black gang, one that is the Hispanic gang, and you just opt in to whichever one you wanna opt into.

Simone Collins:Or, like, honestly, if if you give people freedom because they’re not locked in a jail anymore, they might actually form less boring kinds of enclaves. But you have to join your thing, and then you’re subject to their rules. And I feel like this would give people a second chance. Like, we wouldn’t set them out in, a desert. You know? I would put the penal colony somewhere where they they could build settlements. They could have a shot at life. And, honestly, I feel like a lot of them would instantly do a ton better and actually get to live a life. You know, get to live a life and do good, at least within a small enclave and have a second chance and and not... At least not hurt people because the most important thing, okay, it’s it’s the portal song. I used to want you dead. Now I only want you gone. We just need them gone. We just need them gone. And so if they’re off in the penal colony, I don’t care if they’re having a great time. In fact, my near future recommendation is this. Okay? I think this is the best possible solution. So in the near future, when technology makes this feasible, give everyone the option to have a pleasure pod. Like, this is not necessarily UBI, but if you want to

Malcolm Collins:put yourself a really bad solution for a woman like this who tortures and kills people. You can’t give them this sort of it out if they’re a a torture killer.

Simone Collins:No. But I’m... No. No. What I’m saying is give every citizen this option. Every citizen, regardless of where they are in life. She, at that time, only knew this other woman that she hurts because she was in this job training program with Presumably, she

Malcolm Collins:would have opted into the pleasure podge

Simone Collins:before Obviously, what happened, she wouldn’t have hurt anyone. Okay? So... Because, look, I’m looking even back to her childhood. Right? I’m looking back to the fact that she had an alcoholic mother who probably didn’t wanna have her in the first place and then had this whole abusive childhood. That mother never would have had her because that mother would have been in a pleasure pod. Okay? Like, the whole... I just... I’m trying to figure out how do we break this cycle. And I think if you take anyone who is not ideologically motivated, who is not trying to build a better world, who just is lazy and wants to have fun, and that is... That’s fine. Okay. Our bodies are designed to conserve energy and to pursue pleasure, because that has historically, you know, led to more offspring, but now it doesn’t. Right? So everyone gets an option to get a pleasure pod. Okay? That is no longer optional after you do a bed. Then you have to go into the box. I don’t need people to suffer. I don’t... Again, we don’t benefit from people suffering. We benefit from them being gone. So society Okay. Has to

Malcolm Collins:be often. I’m fine with this. Yeah.

Simone Collins:Okay. Okay. It has been declared that in the future, when people are dead, they will have to go to the pleasure pond. But also anyone who wishes to go into the pleasure pod with

Malcolm Collins:their own option. If they’ve already done something bad, no.

Simone Collins:That is not optional. It is not optional. They have to go into it. Okay. Yeah. So you go in the box if you want to go in the box, which is gonna prevent the... Malcolm, I swear to you, the vast majority of crimes, at least like the stupid ones where people, you know, kill each other, the the the the... You know? There will still be murders and power struggles, you know, like power struggle based murders, court intrigue nonsense. Right? And there will be punishments for that, obviously. Right? But the vast majority of the atrocities, including the abuse that this woman faced throughout her life from her in utero experience allegedly would not have

Malcolm Collins:Allegedly. Come on. You think she’s not gonna claim that?

Simone Collins:Do you think she would have been born if her mother had had the option to enter a pleasure pod?

Malcolm Collins:You don’t know that anything she... I mean, I don’t know if I buy anything about her mother, but sure. Would she have been born? Hopefully not. Right?

Simone Collins:So I We’re doing my option. We’re doing my option.

Malcolm Collins:You get evil ideologies that are strictly believed, which can be even worse? Like what? Islam.

Simone Collins:Oh, so you’re saying Muslims aren’t gonna go in the pleasure pod?

Malcolm Collins:Well, actually, yeah, of all the religions, it’s the one that would most likely go in the

Simone Collins:pleasure pod. Their heaven is a pleasure pod. They’re gonna prefer the pleasure pod because at least the the hot chicks there don’t have see through shins.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. It’s like, immediately, we can give you what you think the after life is gonna be. See our... What it must be.

Simone Collins:You don’t have to wait. Also, if you’re in there, you’re not gonna commit the sins that are gonna get you sent to hell. So... You know? It’s a win win. Alright? Like, maybe do some good proselytizing and then go into the pleasure pod, and then you’re you’re good. Oh, then now I hear that they’ll martyr and then... Well, no. If they’re martyr, they’re dead. So then that’s not a problem. But anyway But DNA is a needleless. I still think that this is the best option in terms of a justice system because it’s clear to me that the justice system, as it exists, sucks. But what would you do, okay, aside from my penal colony thing now, PleasurePod in the future solution?

Malcolm Collins:I mean, I think for egregious cases like this, you do need form form of negative consequence. I think it could be the pleasure pod for most people, but once you’ve done something bad

Simone Collins:How how does that make anything better? It doesn’t bring your better by...

Malcolm Collins:Imagine how the family’s going to feel. The family of the daughter who was tortured to death is going to feel if they know that their killer got the pleasure pod. How is Lindsey Clancy’s husband going to feel if his wife gets the Pleasure Pod? I think she’s getting

Simone Collins:it now. She’s drugged up to high heaven. That’s the rest of her life. I mean, I don’t

Malcolm Collins:I think that you’re not considering the effects on the society when you know that there isn’t justice for a crime. and I think having a degree of real and severe justice, is what allows the rest of society to feel okay with what’s going on with their lives. You know, you you haven’t had one of your kids tortured and killed by somebody yet, Simone. You’re gonna feel real different about that person being in a pleasure pod once that happens to you.

Simone Collins:So I guess you could just shoot them.

Malcolm Collins:This is abstract for you. It’s not your life. And I think that if you accept that this could be one of our kids, absolutely. I I do not think a pleasure pod can be an option once you have done something that bad. I think society needs to be okay with the types of punishment that used to be normal.

Simone Collins:Okay. Then they get vaporized.

Malcolm Collins:I don’t understand why we can’t just Starship Trooper three it.

Simone Collins:Oh, hangings? She she actually requested a hanging, I think.

Malcolm Collins:Oh, fantastic. Yeah. So Did she get one?

Simone Collins:I don’t know why she would request a hanging and not a firing squad, which some states actually are bringing back. I would wanna die by firing squad personally. So I don’t get the hanging thing. Because hangings don’t always work. You know? Like, you wanna you wanna want it on it. I mean, firing squads don’t always work either, but that’s only when they collude to mess up.

Malcolm Collins:Oh, do they do that sometimes?

Simone Collins:Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins:They should.

Simone Collins:Yeah. I know. I... Well, there I am saying it. Maybe I’m admitting my true feelings here. But, again, they need to be gone. They don’t Okay. The hurting doesn’t... More hurting doesn’t make anything better. It just adds more hurting.

Malcolm Collins:I appreciate your logic, Simone. That is very correct and logical. I just... If it was one of our kids, I wouldn’t be okay with that. And I think that we need to consider the people whose lives that these people have damaged, both the tortured individual and that people’s... Person’s family, and that requires some form of justice. And it’s not just about what’s best for society in a sort of sociopathic way. It’s about making society right. And the audience can chime in who’s who’s more correct here.

Simone Collins:They’re all gonna support you. But then if we’re not... So how how are how are we killing people who did bad... Very bad things?

Malcolm Collins:I think I think

Simone Collins:Firing squad?

Malcolm Collins:Firing squads are the Old school even in the future. Cheap. You know?

Simone Collins:See, how is

Malcolm Collins:Lots of people get to participate.

Simone Collins:Oh, so firing squad... But if you want to, you... The victim’s family. And Firing squad, they’re still alive.

Malcolm Collins:And Or they’re always gonna screw up on purpose.

Simone Collins:Yeah. I think that would that would... I’m a I’m a... I’m okay with that. As long as it’s, of course, obviously efficient and fast instead of... See, the thing is I think with PleasurePods, like, if it was just... If you don’t follow the rules, you’re into the box. It’s one of those things that isn’t going to end up being caught up in the amount of bureaucratic morass that adds an additional 1.9 to $1,200,000.

Malcolm Collins:The pleasure pods when we have the technology for it. The tech...

Simone Collins:Because that’s the That’s that’s why Scott Alexander ended up in his blog post saying, we just need better police policing and and finding people who commit crimes because having more jail sentences than we’ve

Malcolm Collins:already found. A big problem is that we don’t arrest people.

Simone Collins:They they steal some s**t. Anyway,

Malcolm Collins:love you, Simone. Have a spectacular day. You too. For dinner tonight, I don’t really want anything. I’ll do two I

Simone Collins:was gonna make you pasta with pesto, but you don’t want it? A little bit. A little bit.

Malcolm Collins:Very little bit. I had a lot of prosciutto today.

Simone Collins:Oh, so just nothing? If you wanna just take the night off, also, that’s an option.

Malcolm Collins:we’ll see. I love you. Have a good day.

Simone Collins:Well, I mean, I need to know if I’m making it or not. So You wanna rest? Prefer chips and salsa. So do you want to come downstairs, or do you want to stay?

Malcolm Collins:I may come downstairs. I will decide. You’ll...

Simone Collins:You may make an appearance. The the children will have to wait and see. Daddy. They’re so sweet. Well, you might wanna come down just to hear Indy meow. Meow. She’s so cute. Meow. Oh

Malcolm Collins:my. Okay. Why are you a cutie?

Simone Collins:I’m certainly not, but these kids, man. God. I love it. I love it. Bye.

Malcolm Collins:Bye.

Simone Collins:Yes. Okay. This is our stupid ASMR where we we molest our mics in Malcolm choose food, which is just everything to me. Hey. You know, as content creators, we don’t even have any ASMR videos. I actually think... You know, I I told you about that one of the... YouTube has been doing a bunch of sweeps. And one of the big sweeps that YouTube did recently is a lot of ASMR creators. I think that’s because many of them had OnlyFans in their link trees and stuff. And even if it was, like, secondarily linked to from YouTube, they just took them out. But, yeah, ASMR is a gateway really sad. To darker things, apparently.

Malcolm Collins:ASMR. Well, I mean, Straub, you know, Rev’s wife Yeah. Just had a kid. so she, there’s been a big controversy recently because she went after conservatives who look up to Sydney Sweeney because Sydney Sweeney had a bunch of sexy art of her. And then people pointed out, well, I mean, you used to do sexy content, so she did ASMR videos back in the past. But these specifically

Simone Collins:That is highly contested by many ASMR artists that ASMR

Malcolm Collins:is not was erotic because she took it down. Oh. And so, I mean, my my take on all this is, one, I think it’s annoying that she’s out there policing conservative influencers who use their body for sending... I mean, she’s an actress. Sydney’s... All actresses are prostitutes. We’ve done a video on that. Right? Like, they are selling their body. They do appear naked.

Simone Collins:So what is it worse for her to do to, like, lightly shame her versus you being like, she’s a prostitute. It’s normal. It’s normal. No. Well, I I...

Malcolm Collins:All actresses are prostitutes. And I think that, you know, it’s it’s not useful if somebody’s, you know, helping promote our side and our our wider cause.

Simone Collins:Is she... She’s never come out explicitly as conservative or anything. Everything is so based.

Malcolm Collins:She’s at least willing to

Simone Collins:do the ads. She’s at least willing to do the my jeans. You know? Like They’re ads for jeans. They’re ads for sports bettings. There’s nothing politically coded per se, I guess. Oh, wait. Sorry. Admitting that genetics exists is now an inherently conservative statement.

Malcolm Collins:Okay. I like that somebody who hasn’t been blacklisted from the acting world... You know, if she came out as explicitly conservative, she’d be fired, like, whatever her name is, like, whatever, the Star Wars woman. Oh. So even if she does have conservative sentiment, she couldn’t she couldn’t say them publicly. But I I think that, you know, it’s it’s best for us to not be shooting on team. But even even if that wasn’t the case, even if I thought, you know, Straub’s original criticism was something that she really needed to litigate, She deleted all her old content. Right? Like, she’s very clearly, like, on team these days and doesn’t come across as particularly... I mean, I only know her through her relationship with Rev, which doesn’t come across as griftery. I mean, clearly, he’s a Twitter monkey.

Simone Collins:People want to engage in online stuff, and a lot of people think that the way to start or the only way that people are gonna pay attention to you is if you cater to less intellectual things, which, I mean, as the inherently limited nature of our audience demonstrates, like, it it is a small... You... Growth is way slower than if you immediately put out kid slop or ASMR or... I mean, even Yuki Wado was talking about how, like, in the beginning, her her avatar was really bodacious and very different from the way that she looks now. Because she’s like, well, I guess if I have to succeed, I better be a fan service kind of character. And I don’t I don’t fault anyone for that. I I don’t fault anyone also for having done that in the past and then criticizing it because they know better than anyone else the downsides of it. So I I stand in in defense of Straub here. Dismissive dismissive nod. sorry. What would the subtitle say? I depend on subtitles to understand

Malcolm Collins:Just checking because I was very surprised at our episode about Jews breaking rules. It’s not eight out of 10. It’s just not doing very well. And usually

Simone Collins:I think my title card was better.

Malcolm Collins:Should’ve used mine. Should’ve used yours, you think?

Simone Collins:Oh, yeah. I do. Well, you can switch it now. You get mad when I mess with anything. But, yeah, I I will I will switch it then. Thank you. I appreciate it.

Malcolm Collins:You have permission to switch it out. Permission. Delete the video or something. You’re so sure. I changed the text that’s on it so you can use my text or your text.

Simone Collins:I’m gonna use my text. I’m gonna just do the thing. Alright.

Malcolm Collins:Let’s see how it does.

Simone Collins:This is... Speaking of do the thing, I... One of my, like, deep underlying fears is that you can just do... You can yell do the thing to AI. And then what am I there for? How am I

Malcolm Collins:I am having so many fun with you and then Julie when Veric finds vibe coding. You know what

Simone Collins:I mean? Like

Malcolm Collins:Do the thing. I’m gonna eventually not need you. Well, I’ve asked you for help with a few things. It’s just they haven’t really moved forward. Haven’t helped you.

Simone Collins:Look. I understand. On so many other things helping you that

Malcolm Collins:You’re very busy keeping the same the video, though.

Simone Collins:I downloaded the video of the

Malcolm Collins:the So speaking of not safe for work, try out our FAB, the best chatbot website online. You could use any of the Frontier models, and even our free model is Kimi two, which is to use at the speeds that we’re using at, if you were using it as a local model, I learned would be 500 gigabytes, half a terabyte. So even our free models are way better than Candy’s, like, highest paid models or GPT Flow’s highest paid models. So janitor AI obviously doesn’t even come close. Like like, what are you doing if you’re on janitor AI these... Still these days? So great site for chatbots, but we can also do things like turn a comic into a video. Any comic into an... A a video with the right scenes, playing at the right times, with the right language, so it’ll auto translate for you. We have a a translator. If you’ve ever had a comic or something you’ve seen on a site and you’re like, I’d really like to know what this is. You can just put it in, and it’ll translate it for you. And then you can repost it and make a whole business out of that. That could be your business is making and putting them on YouTube about villainouses. That’s what I

Simone Collins:feel is just I think age of arrogance.

Speaker 3:Emperor Kendrick Everest sat the jeweled throne

Simone Collins:Oh, this is

Speaker 3:crown on his white hair, the fur mantle across his shoulders.

Speaker 4:Oh. The right to choose a marriage partner.

Speaker 3:From the throne, he addressed the court, cloaked figures standing on the red carpet as the crowd murmured below.

Speaker 4:That is what I shall bestow upon you as a reward for leading us to victory.

Speaker 3:Shinne Shapravaz stared ahead, stunned. Still on the throne, he grant

Simone Collins:Oh my gosh. It’s actually really good.

Malcolm Collins:What a Why don’t you post it before this episode, and we can make a link to it?

Simone Collins:Okay.

Malcolm Collins:Because, we’re we’re gonna make a villainous channel. And I’ve actually read this this malware before, and it’s pretty good. I put it on one of

Simone Collins:my I I started with the bottom of your top list because I figured I’d screwed up at the beginning. But, no, this is chapter one to 10. It’s, like, more than an hour. Wow, man. That was... I just uploaded a file. No. I I just put in a URL and clicked your button, and it made that.

Malcolm Collins:It auto detects all of the chapters.

Simone Collins:It Dude, sir. Yeah. And right now, I finally got the not safe

Malcolm Collins:for work comic engine working pretty well. Yeah. And you will make not safe for work comics for you beginning to end that you could make a business publishing to other sites. And we need people doing that because we need a bunch of our fab branded stuff.

Simone Collins:Oh my gosh. If I make a username on the sites that I’m gonna post these to once you make them because I don’t know

Malcolm Collins:what to make, Can I? Could the username be p r v a y e r, purveyor? The purveyor?

Simone Collins:I think there’s something about people with Asperger’s and, like, puns or something.

Malcolm Collins:You probably want it to be the company name.

Simone Collins:Oh, fine. You’re right. Someone else, please be the purveyor. I need this to happen. anyway

Malcolm Collins:We can Anything to grow. Anything to get bigger, we’ve

Simone Collins:gotta figure it out. I’m so impressed by that. That was... I’d literally hit download before we started to record because I was like, oh, I gotta get this... You know, gotta move on to the next chapter set because you’re right. You know, it takes a little while. But... Wow, Malcolm. Oh, I was like, I

Malcolm Collins:feel like few chapters at once.

Simone Collins:Oh, yeah? You mean, like, a few processing thingies? Well, like So to be

Malcolm Collins:like, can

Simone Collins:you do do one video of chapters 10 to twenty, twenty to thirty, thirty to 40, and then it just makes three videos in turn. That would be... I mean, that would... I’m sure people would like that as a feature. I know that I would like that as a feature because then you can just upload all of them and be done with it. But I I just... I wanna stop and watch the room. Like, wait. What? I wanna I wanna watch this. That’s great. That’s great. Thank you for for doing that. I know that you found this whole genre to be quite enjoyable, and so other people will as well. You carrying out the trash, holding your phone in front of your face.

Speaker 7:Check the comments. I have pinned another channel where we are posting these now so you can watch your own villainous Moas while you’re doing things.

Speaker 8:The rest of them cut it out. Look at those ones tipping. Yeah. Indy, do you know what this means? You see that tree right behind you? That means beavers have here. Beavers have been here. Right in there. Yeah. You see the beaver? I don’t wanna see if they’re not here. I said. Okay. Let’s... Do you wanna find a beaver? Is this beaver hunt time? Yeah. Mommy.

A dramatic account of a mid-air incident on a Fly Dubai flight from Dubai to Tel Aviv where the copilot attacked the pilot, leading to a steep dive and emergency response. Israeli passengers, including a bank CEO and others, helped regain control of the aircraft with assistance from relief pilots, allowing a safe landing in Saudi Arabia. Everyone on board survived the event.

The discussion also covers pilot radio traditions, broader security concerns in aviation, and geopolitical topics related to the region. The episode highlights the actions that prevented further harm during the flight.

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins:Simone, I’m excited to be here with you today. Genuinely excited to be here today because today, there was almost a second nine eleven in which a large seven thirty seven MAX was hijacked. A copilot stabbed the pilot and attempted to kill them. And Did

Simone Collins:it or is the pilot okay?

Malcolm Collins:The plane had passengers on it, 27 of whom were children. Everyone survived. The pilot survived. The the children all survived. Everyone survived. Everyone’s okay. And the story is wild. Well, not okay. I mean, the guy was stabbed, and he’s in the hospital. It looks like he’s gonna recover.

Speaker 10:Angela. Angela. This is the 09/11 of birthday parties.

Speaker 11:I’m sorry.

Malcolm Collins:And every detail of this story is wackier than the next. For some highlights here, the plane was saved by a Russian and Ukrainian pilot.

Simone Collins:What? Wait. Who was not in

Malcolm Collins:the cockpit? Who were not in the cockpit. They replaced the pilots who were in the cockpit.

Speaker 4:So there has been additional reporting since then that these two may have flown the plane in, but the guy who actually stabilized the plane was one of the Israelis who broke into the cockpit to subdue the guy and was a plumber who learned to fly based on a TV show that he saw.

Malcolm Collins:The the guy who ended up being a group of guys, but one of them who we know definitively was involved with beating up and taking out the terrorists Okay. Was a CEO Jewish banker of a of a relatively big bank. I mean, was, like, worse. I was checking about a $150,000,000 in value or something like that. So, like, he was Jew maxing, you know, CEO of a bank. Oh, wow.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Okay. Sorry. That didn’t I didn’t it didn’t land with me at first. Oh my gosh. What do we know why this man attempted to

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. Because he was a Muslim.

Simone Collins:Come on. There’s more behind

Malcolm Collins:every Muslim. That is why. I mean, Simone, I think you misunderstand that a lot of Muslims think they have a mandate to kill the Jews.

Simone Collins:Was there a manifesto? Was there an organization? Has ISIS claimed responsibility even though they often do that when they’re not actually responsible? Okay.

Malcolm Collins:No one has claimed responsibility yet. The guy had been working for the company for only seven months.

Simone Collins:Oh.

Malcolm Collins:and so we don’t know. The, right now, the claims are that he was Indian of, ethnicity. Oh, boy. Although, you know, I can see why The UAE might want not wanna say if he’s something else, but there’s a lot of Indian Muslims in The UAE. So, you know, very well could have.

Simone Collins:What airline was this?

Malcolm Collins:so, well, let’s let’s go into it. Yeah. Fly Dubai flight FZ1073 from Dubai to Tel Aviv on the 09/30/2026, a Boeing seven thirty seven MAX carrying about 140 174 passengers. the large majority were Israelis, one hundred and sixty six and twenty seven of whom were children. Oh. Had a mid air attack in the cockpit. After the attack, it it plunged 14,000 to 17,400 feet.

Simone Collins:Oh, you’re not feeling on roller coasters when your stomach just goes

Malcolm Collins:They did this attack in taking back the plane while the plane is, like, falling out of the sky, and the terrorist is desperately trying to break the the console.

Simone Collins:Oh, so that there’s no way to right the plane?

Malcolm Collins:So that there’s no way to right the plane. Yeah. And, like, every stage of this is really heroic. So, like, with his last ounce of strength so because after 09:11, they reinforced the cockpit doors. So no matter what, they wouldn’t have been able to break in.

Simone Collins:They never thought that the call would be coming from inside the cockpit. That’s terrifying.

Malcolm Collins:And so the pilot was the last ounce of his strength, was able to unclip the cockpit door Wow. To hit the release while the people were there trying to break in.

Simone Collins:Thank goodness. I mean, wow. You get stabbed, and you and the plane’s flying all over the place. Where was he stabbed? Know where he was stabbed on his body?

Malcolm Collins:I’ll ask.

Simone Collins:You know, I just while you’re asking, when you came into my room, my office this this afternoon and were like, Simone, have you not heard the crazy thing that just happened with, you know, the the airplanes and the skies? And I was like, you’re finally gonna talk about it. And you’re like, yeah. The terrorist attack. And I’m like, wait. What kind of terrorist attack? And I thought you were going to talk about the furry menace. Because The furry menace. Oh my That

Malcolm Collins:was so funny, the Republican senator who doesn’t

Simone Collins:really like furry. I just I brought up his tweet to just relive the moment. A coach Tommy Tuberville. This is senator Tuberville. I know the deranged Democrats don’t like the fact that I called out the insane furry culture this week, but the truth is there is an alarming number of these deranged people working in our airline industry. Don’t believe me? Just a few months ago, pilots were meowing and barking at each other over the radio at DCA. That’s Reagan National Airport. That’s, like, the airport that any self respecting senator would want to take because you don’t wanna fly into Dulles. It is a neighbor of an airport. And I just have to show so it turns out, by the way, he they are actually meowing. I act I I had to download the video because it makes me so happy.

Malcolm Collins:Why did I marry this woman? People making fake furry noises gives you the You guys need to be professional, Tyler.

Simone Collins:That’s you

Malcolm Collins:gonna still flying RJ? Meow. Meow. Meow.

Simone Collins:Meow. But it turns out that for over twenty years, airline pilots have been using this emergency radio frequency to just meow occasionally, and it’s just an inside joke in the pilot world. And I watched this video by this curmudgeonly former retired pilot or whatever who’s like, they need to stop doing this. This is an emergency radio area. Like, obviously, they will stop meowing on the radio when there’s an actual emergency. Let the let the men meow. Okay?

Malcolm Collins:Meow. It’s not gonna block an actual emergency.

Simone Collins:Like, it’s not that’ll someone being like, oh, hello. Blah blah blah. Help. They’re gonna not they’re gonna stop. And I love that they do it, and I love even more than a senator found out that they did it and was like, the furries are Scott’s. I don’t think

Malcolm Collins:you can be anti furry and, like, a serious part of the cultural conversation right now. I know. I don’t. I don’t even think Nick Fuentes is anti furry. I I might need to double check that, but I

Simone Collins:Oh, he I and he now he’d be performatively anti furry just because, you know, you would support it. I I I not that he would hate you. I I think we’d get along well. I think we’d be friends. I don’t know. I would like to think that we’d be friends. But, oh my gosh, I thought you were gonna tell do it like you’re like Simone, that you finally read my WhatsApp text to you about this where I was just dying because there are furries. I mean, they’re not furries. They’re just pilots having a good time.

Malcolm Collins:Well, but but outside of the it’s just an inside joke among pilots, like, nobody cares about furries anymore. Like, it’s the Internet, guys. Grow up. There’s furries everywhere. Like Look.

Simone Collins:People like to be animal. Just it turns out that what Titan and Indy have been doing, our our two girls, is Titan’s like, you’re my cat. And Indy’s like, meow. And it’s really cute. Her meows are so adorable. You gotta know you’ll you’ll notice when she comes home tonight because Titan will be like, meow, Indy. She’ll be like, meow. So cute. And I’m like, well, Tyson, if Eddie’s a cat, what are you? And she’s like, I’m a human. So one of our children has been has had a furry identity imposed on her, but she’s totally leaning into it. Anyway, carry on. What actually

Malcolm Collins:Well no. I mean, I do I do wanna, like, the it is funny to watch a senator crash out about furries when, like, the online conversation has just moved on from them.

Simone Collins:It’s like Like, we’ve already assimilated to the fact that the future is cat girls.

Malcolm Collins:And conservatism is cat girls conservatism. Our website is, like, nothing but cat girls. It’s sort of, like, a big the Neko Neko Voss. It’s the the takeoff.

Simone Collins:Yeah. That’s what you’ve named the site’s mascot, Neko Voss. Yeah. Yeah, dude. Skybrows videos are It’s

Malcolm Collins:a it’s a joke on the name Voss, Laura Voss that AI always chooses. Elara Voss. Elara Voss. And so we went with Neko Voss for the site’s mascot, and she dances around in all the animations and all the loading animations. It’s really nice. And if you wanna do this for your own site, you can use the rfab API key. It makes it really easy to vibe code with stuff. As I’ve really found in terms of building assets for the video game that I’m making, Our fab makes it so easy to vibe code a really nice looking video game.

Simone Collins:It is kinda shocking how good it looks.

Malcolm Collins:There’s some clips on screen here. It is astonishingly good because it can it can vibe code animations. It can vibe code three d. It can vibe code audio, music, reading that it needs, everything.

Simone Collins:But, also, you had it vibe code animated avatars that will respond, but using AI. So you’re not

Malcolm Collins:getting canceled. I actually worked that into the gameplay. So the animated avatars that do, like, you know, like, talking and, like, you can see the move and everything like that, that that’s in the game.

Simone Collins:And, yeah, it’s not, again, it’s not canned responses. It is a response based on who they are based on what you’re saying, which is so cool. I love that. Anyway, back to this terrorized airline. The was the pilot stabbed as he Okay. Was lurching toward the door?

Malcolm Collins:Don’t have a critical diagram next, but what we know is he was stabbed multiple times. And he was heavily bleeding from the head and hands. And they show him lying in a galley with an oxygen mask, one hand over an abdomen wound, and a blood soaked bandage, and at least one other injury. Passengers say the copilot used a pocket knife, a a folding knife, and stabbed him repeatedly. So head, hands, and abdomen. He’s in serious condition, but he survived the flight. Showed us that the captain is in very bad shape with heavy bleeding. Although I suspect we know by now if he was gonna die, like, if they’ve been able to keep him alive till now, hopefully, that means he’s gonna make it. But

Simone Collins:It’s nice.

Malcolm Collins:I’ll check before the video goes live because, you know, you know, we filmed these at 9AM, and we

Simone Collins:Why does he have to stab, like, an angry cat? I mean, you would think that if you’re a terrorist trying to, like, neuter

Malcolm Collins:Well, apparently, it didn’t take down the pilot, and the pilot

Simone Collins:Oh, that’s that’s problem I have with it. It’s, like, face and like, you would, I don’t know, stand up to be like, I’m gonna get a coffee or go to the bathroom, and then he would, like, slit their throat behind them. Like, he wasn’t being effective, and, like, he just hurt him really bad.

Malcolm Collins:I mean, the thing that was getting me about this is just the unlikelihood of them pulling off this rescue that first, the terrorist had to be distracted with whatever he was doing with the plane to not notice the pilot unlocking through the door. Right? Getting the the safety a lot click clicker thing was, like, the last of his energy.

Simone Collins:Yeah.

Malcolm Collins:Then the group of guys burst in, takes him out before he damages critically any of the systems. then copilots take over a plane that was in a complete free fall at the time, apparently, in a death spiral. Oh my gosh. Stabilize the plane and get it safely to an airport. And during this entire thing, nobody died.

Simone Collins:That is those I mean, I I feel incredibly bad for everyone who’s on that flight, especially the pilot. That that the amount of heroism that that took place, unbelievable. Unbelievable. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins:I mean, it’s so interesting that if this happened, a while ago Yeah. The standard thought I would have had is, oh, they’re gonna make a movie about that, you know, like a a Lifetime movie or

Simone Collins:something about Also, I feel like the the film industry is now incapable of making new movies. Like, we they don’t know how, but they they forgot how to not do sequels. So I’d be shocked.

Malcolm Collins:Mean, we we obviously haven’t

Simone Collins:got where’s the nine eleven movie action movie?

Malcolm Collins:A good one. Yeah. I mean, they’ve they’ve made a number of them about the, you know, the passengers who took back the plane, but but they ended up crashing. Right?

Speaker 3:Specifically, they made the movies, United 93 in 2006, which made 77 to $78,000,000. And then also in 2006, there was flight 93, which was an ANA TV movie. In terms of the other ‘9 11 movies, there was only the World Trade Center 2006, and 09/11/2017 was Charlie Sheen. So this one only made 200,000 worldwide, which was a a flop. But, yeah, the The United 96 did pretty well in terms of returns.

Malcolm Collins:Like that,

Simone Collins:they didn’t get Oh, sorry. They did? Okay. So they made they made one.

Malcolm Collins:Wait. Do you not remember that? On 09/11, there were three planes. One of them

Simone Collins:was I know. I I remember the plane that they, yeah, that they they downed to stop it from. But I don’t remember the there being a movie about it. There was? Okay. So there

Malcolm Collins:was. Swear there was movies about it. Because, I mean, obviously, everybody you know? But I I don’t I don’t think it it’s hard to make a movie like that, honestly, good, because it’s real

Simone Collins:It’s so sad. You don’t

Malcolm Collins:wanna real people who died, and so you can’t have them be overly flawed. You can’t have them be overly like, there’s just not a lot of interesting stuff you can do with it.

Simone Collins:Well, I think no one really wants to to relive a moment like that where you know from the beginning that there’s no hope and that everyone No.

Malcolm Collins:I mean, a lot of people like the land before time, but I guess they don’t have them die at the end. That’s the it’s a very sad movie. Did you did you watch the land before time?

Simone Collins:Yeah. Did you do

Malcolm Collins:you remember, like, bawling your eyes out in that movie?

Simone Collins:Yeah. I yeah. Let’s not let’s not go to these dark places.

Malcolm Collins:Can we can we play that for our kids? Just watch them be traumatized? No.

Simone Collins:I don’t know, though. I mean, like, you and I were just you know, I was at least crying at the end of home alone that we were just watching last night. I’m like, oh, god. He got back together. Like, you know, instead just celebrating the the the the violent assault of, you know, the the aggressor. Were like,

Malcolm Collins:you know, you could never do that to, like, a real person. He goes, it’s okay, dad. It’s defense.

Simone Collins:Yeah. It’s fine. They just it yeah.

Malcolm Collins:Thought it was so funny watching the criminals be injured over and over and over again.

Simone Collins:ContraPoints was right. It’s saw, but for kids. so I I you know, she she gets it right occasionally.

Malcolm Collins:The plane plunged thousands of feet, transmitted an emergency and hijack codes, which prompted Israeli to in Israel to scramble fighter jets, and made an emergency landing in Tabuk, Saudi Arabia. All passengers survived. Actually, let’s let’s they probably would’ve had to shoot down the plane, which would have been, you know, horrible as well. Yeah.

Simone Collins:With all those kids on it. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.

Malcolm Collins:How did the how did the plane put out

Simone Collins:hijack codes? Was that automatic? Presumably, if your altitude changes that fast, you’ve gotta put on hijack codes or something or possibly if there’s damage to the the instruments, maybe. Oh,

Malcolm Collins:okay. So roughly two plus hours after takeoff, as the flight approached Israel over Jordan slash Saudi area, the copilot stabbed the captain with a knife. The aircraft then went into a steep dive. Flight tracking data showed a drop of 14,000 to 17,400 feet in under thirty seconds. Jesus Christ. Sorry. I got

Simone Collins:They were they were, like, hitting the ceiling.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. That’s that’s scary. We know at least one young girl was in the restroom when this happened because that’s what caused the the dad who was the banker to run to the front of the plane.

Simone Collins:Oh my gosh.

Malcolm Collins:The to with speed increasing sharply, it transmitted squawk 17 sorry. 7700 general emergency, then 7500 unlawful interference and hijacking. The plane recovered enough to divert and land safely into book. Jesus. Both of the captain and the copilot were injured and hospitalized. There was visible damage reported to the rubber by the extreme maneuvers. Israeli officials, including the prime minister and defense minister, have described it as an attempted terrorist attack intended to take over the plane and kill everyone on board. He was identified as an Omani national who had worked for Fly Dubai for nine months. No specific terrorist ties have been found yet, and no one has claimed responsibility yet. Oman has no diplomatic relations with Israel. Israel authorities are examining how he was assigned to an Israel bound flight given the aviation agreement rules that generally require crews from countries that have normalized ties with Israel’s.

Simone Collins:Oh, wow. So, like, they even anticipated issues like this. Yeah. That’s wild.

Malcolm Collins:Who shopped it? Israeli passengers plus extra fly Dubai crew who are traveling as passengers. A deadheading. So this is like they were traveling if in case the flight went long and they needed to change out with the existing passengers. It’s it’s normal on flights like this. This was an exceptional thing. there were four pilots on board in total. The two extras were there for possible day night routine type stuff, that I just talked about. the one named person that we know was involved is Tizvaka or Zhikva Mains. He was the Israeli CEO of Baraka Capital, a bank, Lumu underwriting arm. His wife heard screams near the cockpit. Their daughter was nearby in the bathroom. He and others entered helped overpower the attacker and were seen with a bloodied shirt. Passengers later tied the attack with in flight headphone cables. Several other Israelis, three to five guys, Yizkov Leiber and others were there. And then the relief pirates were a Russian and Ukrainian pilot. Although there there also may have been a Fijian pilot who ran relief. How they got to the cockpit and gained control? Yeah. I said it looked like they they clicked at the last second.

Simone Collins:That is incredible.

Malcolm Collins:Now I wanna see how the hijacking thing worked. How did it note it transmit those codes? Neither thing was automatic. Okay. So the drop itself could only be caused by someone pushing the nose down, fighting over the yokes, disconnected the autopilot, and hitting switches. Israeli officials describe the attack as standing out on the panel and bashing it, trying to sabotage the systems with already driving. The seven three seven has two yokes that are mechanically linked. If one pilot shoves the nose down and the other pulls up, the airplane pitches according to whoever wins the fight, plus whatever happens when the autopilot kicks off. After the first drop, the altitude bounce, steep descent climb another drop, then it settled at around 15,000 feet. The pattern looks like a struggle and recovery. MSCS and seven three max protections are not designed to do this. The these codes have to be entered man manually. Once the pilot or anyone hits the panels or dials the code, the transponder broadcast it automatically Oh. To ACT. So the pilot, I guess, did this?

Simone Collins:I guess. That I mean, yeah. Who knows? I have no idea

Speaker 7:Okay. So I went back to research this, and it appears that sloppy reporting made its work confusing than it should have been. This code was sent out seven minutes after the flight was stabilized, so it was likely one of the backup pilots who put it in.

Simone Collins:.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. It looks like the pilot may have hit the hijacking. That’s wild. So That’s insane. I mean, the takeaway I think a lot of people are gonna have on this is, one, again, this reminds us why we need to be careful where you take immigrants from, where you even allow people to travel to your country from. We need to be significantly stricter in regards to these things. I think and I’m gonna be honest here. Like, a lot of people are probably not gonna like this, but I think a country not having normalized relations with Israel is a pretty easy way to decide who we shouldn’t be letting into America. Because these are the types of people who commit terrorist attacks over and over again. And we’ve had a large number of terrorist attacks that people just blow over or forget have been happening. I mean, there was a, I think, two Muslim terrorist attacks this last year in The United States. There was the one that was a car bombing of the synagogue, and there was the other on the school, I wanna say. Yeah.

Simone Collins:I can’t keep track in all fairness.

Malcolm Collins:But, hopefully, we don’t see what we normally see during Muslim terrorist attacks, which is Muslim positive sentiment soars because people are freaking idiots. this should cause you to be significantly more suspicious to be like, hey. You know, they will just kill people. Right? Like, they will just kill an airplane full of kids. Right? Like, that’s that’s the way that they operate. They do not care. Whereas, you know, when you see something like in The US in in war or something damages a school, it’s an accident. Right? And the minority of the victims that you’re looking at. Whereas the people we’re fighting against, it’s the majority of the victims. Like, they are genuinely monsters. And I think that one of the things that I may do an episode on in the future is how the war that we are fighting in Iran is essentially a fake war. It is not a real war that’s happening right now. to understand how not a real war it is, the one thing I keep remembering how much they freaked out about the bridge that was bombed. And then, like, two weeks later

Simone Collins:Oh my gosh. I completely forgot about that.

Malcolm Collins:Yes. And everybody was so excited that Ukraine had bombed a bridge, but we bombed a bridge, and everyone was freaking out that a bridge was bombed. And it’s like, wait. Why why is it so great when Ukraine bombs bridges but so bad when The United States bombed a bridge? And it’s like, oh, because you’re fighting two fundamentally different types of conflicts. One is a real war. The other is a sock and bopper fight. Right? Like, you you no. Like, we haven’t even we could easily take out their oil infrastructure if we want to. We could easily take out their manufacturing infrastructure if we wanted to. We could easily do serious, serious damage if we want to. It is an active choice not to do those things on our part. And Well, do

Simone Collins:you think just in terms of your early guessing of what’s going on that this man act in isolation? Or like, the prime minister, for example, of The UK is saying that there are strong indications that Iran played a part. Oh, no. He’s sorry. He’s talking about the terror plot against the that airport. Never mind. Totally disregard. You know how, like, recently people tried to attack the RAF air airport in The UK? I

Malcolm Collins:mean, Iran and a lot of people don’t seem to understand this. Isn’t the center of most or the huge chunk of world terrorism at this point? Well, Iran or The UAE.

Simone Collins:Well, was it the Iran I mean, Iran played a role, removed, correct, in the like, they supported Palestine as a terrorist against Israel, didn’t they?

Malcolm Collins:Right. But they don’t just support. They support terrorist groups all over the world. That’s their been their primary strategy. The the Houthis, the, you know, the Hamas, the there’s terrorists that they supported in Africa. They they can’t remember.

Simone Collins:Pretty good way to undermine your adversaries. It’s very cost effective. It’s way more cost effective than having your own army. Why not just feel very difficult to stop insurgents, essentially?

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. And I’ll and I’ll note here, well, I mentioned that The UAE also funds terrorist organizations. It’s in a very different way. The terrorists that The UAE funds, they typically tack governments. So they’re, like, anti government terrorist groups where their interest is taking control of their countries, their regions. Right. Whereas the terrorist groups that Iran funded typically have the eradication of the Western world as their primary goal. And so they’re much more likely I mean, they always start with the Jews because they see the Jews as sort of the the leaders of the problems of western society, and then it’s it’s everyone else. You know? And then this is a massive issue, and it it has been persistently. And I I actually would suspect that now that Iran is in such a difficult position, we will see the amount of global terrorism die down to some extent because they just don’t have the same level of funding it has had historically.

Simone Collins:That would be amazing.

Malcolm Collins:Yep. As to the strategy of funding terrorist groups, it’s not always the best strategy. So, essentially, their core opponent is not The United States or Israel. It’s Saudi Arabia. Okay. And Saudi Arabia would typically back the state actors of a country, and Iran would typically back whoever was trying to overthrow them. Typically, because if you’re choosing sides, the person who gets to set the table gets to choose the side that they want, and and you’re typically gonna want the people who already control things. And so that’s who Saudi Arabia is doing business with. And and Saudi Arabia also wanted to do business with people that were less likely to piss off The US. So, again, that’s why Saudi Arabia chose that. whereas with Iran, you know, you’re coming in second, and so you’re backing whoever’s attempting to take over afterwards.

Simone Collins:Yeah. I guess.

Malcolm Collins:That’s the situation there. And, honestly, big change in geopolitics of what’s what’s happened to Iran, which is really exciting to to to see them hit this hard. And the biggest thing that’s going to come out of the war is Iran attacking a bunch of its former allies because you just don’t come back from that very easily. Okay. That’s that’s that’s not a position they can rebuild a regional power position from.

Simone Collins:Do they ever have strong allies, though? I guess Yeah.

Malcolm Collins:I mean, like, even Qatar was a really strong ally of Iran, and Iran bombed their desalination plan. I think their biggest oil production no. No. Natural gas production plan. So they went, like, straight for the balls with, like, their best friend in the region. Al Jazeera has always ran cover for Iran. The the reason why Saudi Arabia sorry. Iran and Qatar were such close friends is because they share, the natural gas field that a huge chunk of Saudi I mean, Qatar’s, income comes from. and so they have to work together.

Simone Collins:I really am curious to know what’s going on with the attempted well, I mean, he is a terrorist, the man who attempted to kill all these people. Because you don’t I don’t think people like this act in isolation. Even those who have in the past acted technically in isolation have been influenced by or consume materials of, for example, ISIS or other radicalizing terror cells. So something something was at play here. It’s not just a broad Islamic culture that drives someone to attempt to crash a plane like this, and I really wanna know what’s going on. What do

Malcolm Collins:you mean a broader no. It is broader Islamic culture that leads somebody to don’t wanna crash

Simone Collins:a plane. Just, like, become Muslim and be like, I’m a crash a plane. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins:You do. I’m this is this is actually the problem that people think, like,

Simone Collins:you a plane not in concordance with some

Malcolm Collins:So, Simone, remember how we talked about the Muslim afterlife? Yes. The Muslim afterlife gives specific accordances, specific rewards, and specific set aside status for martyrs. The the the the that is crashing a plane. That’s what this guy thought he was gonna get. That is the the way that the Muslim religion works.

Simone Collins:Martyring is not murdering, though. Yeah. It is.

Malcolm Collins:Martyring is not pouring gasoline on yourself outside of a mosque. Okay? That’s why Muslims don’t do that. Okay? Murdering is going out and killing innocent people in a way that leads to you dying as well, often innocent people. So it should be warriors. I mean, I guess it’s probably what it was historically, but now it’s children. Right? This is this is where it’s gone. And this has been established as the norm.

Speaker 5:So I decided to double check this just to make sure that it wasn’t talking on my butt or anything here. And, yeah, this appears accurate. specifically, if you did something like a Buddhist peaceful protest, this would count as suicide, which is super banned in the Muslim tradition and would lead you feeling the pain of that thing over and over again that would be your heaven. whereas if you’re trying to kill innocent people, that’s that’s okay. That immediately bypasses any punishment you even could face in heaven, and you go straight into the 72 Ahore’s, Sierra Muslim afterlife episode.

Malcolm Collins:This isn’t even, like, a extremist Muslim thing. Right? Like, this is there was a case recently where a bunch of leftists online were like, we we don’t we wanna be clear here. Like, when we say from the river to the sea, we don’t mean, you know, take all the Jews out of Israel. What we mean is in Israel, we’re, like, benevolent Palestinians rule, and Jews can operate there as well and blah blah blah blah. And a bunch of the Palestinian leaders came out and were like, that is not what we mean at all. I don’t know where you got this idea. Like, do not speak for us, you Western woman. We we do mean kill all the Jews. That is explicitly what we mean. And and and this is when you have terrorist attacks and stuff like this, you will often see in Muslim majority countries, especially the more conservative ones, people cheering for it, you know, having people’s pictures on, like, sticks and stuff like this of, like, the the attackers doing, like, little parades for them and stuff. This is this is, like, in towns and places like Pakistan and stuff like this. Right? Like, this is in the streets. Right? Like, this is no. This is not some, like, random extremist thing. This is and not just countries we’re at right now at war with. This the threat from many forms of Islam today, not all forms, but I’d say that there is a reasonable takeaway where you can read the Quran and you can get, I need to murder all the non Muslims. And what they’ll do to lie to you about this is they’ll point out lines in the Quran that would seem to point in the other direction without telling you that, actually, if you study Islam, what you would know is later lines in the Quran that trump earlier lines in the Quran. And the problem is is that early on, before Muhammad had consolidated his power, he was all how how great are the Jews? How great are the Christians? All of that. and then later on, he was the Jews and the Christians have rejected my attempts to tell them that I am their messiah, and I am angry at them now. So let’s destroy them all. And, also, he was in, you know, military campaigns and everything like that, writing quite a high. So, like, obviously, he’s gonna take that position.

Simone Collins:Well, that’s disturbing. great. I have no I have no comment. I

Malcolm Collins:It’s it’s not that there aren’t Muslims, who have no problem with other religious organizations or have no problem, but they’re often soft culture Muslims. Right? Like, they’re, like,

Simone Collins:the Muslim that they will deconvert at really high rates, have lower birth rates, etcetera. So

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They’re pretty much already part of the Western ecosystem. You know? The bad part of the Western ecosystem.

Simone Collins:Right.

Malcolm Collins:I think this is this is one of those things where, like, I know we have Muslim Muslim fans and stuff like that, but it’s a difficult religion to if you’re practicing it strictly, to not lead to violence against groups around you, which I think it can make allowing large populations of it to consolidate become a a negative externality for most communities, unless they handle them incredibly strictly as is done in pretty much every peaceful month Muslim countries. So peaceful Muslim countries are like, you know, you steal something and your hands get cut off. Right? Like, you you you go out, you cause a menace, you cause a you you know, you put in the meat grinder. Right? Like, that’s that’s the way that they make the system operate, and that’s not the way I think anybody in the West wants things to operate.

Simone Collins:I don’t know. We’ll get into that. I have I have I have thoughts on that in another episode we’re gonna do. Alright. Maybe we need to revisit this whole hand cutting off thing. Just a thought.

Malcolm Collins:Oh goodness.

Simone Collins:We’ll talk about we’ll talk about it later. We’ll talk about it later.

Malcolm Collins:Alright. I love you so much.

Simone Collins:I’ll leave a a high note just to be like, first, okay. Yikes. Yikes, Muslims. Work it out. But one of our friends who is Jewish posted about this on social media, like, most recently after it came out and was like, diaspora Jews could never I said it before, and I’ll say it again. There’s no population more badass than the Israelis. And I’ve gotta hand it to these guys who took the pop the cockpit and saved this entire flight. That is badass. Yeah. That’s That is incredible.

Malcolm Collins:Yes. Well, then it was a a banker CEO too. We he had two daughters on the flight.

Simone Collins:Yeah. I mean, look. You have a there’s a reason to fight. there’s a reason to fight when you have kids. Well, a lot of them have military training,

Malcolm Collins:or I I think almost all of them have military training.

Simone Collins:So I believe so. Right?

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. So they would have training on how to handle a situation like this

Simone Collins:as well. I guess for the except for the religious exemption subset of Israel. Right?

Malcolm Collins:Which I’m incredibly against. I think Israel should just expel them. They they get rid of them in them or at least remove the exemption. It’s a completely idiotic. It’s it’s completely idiotic and at odds with Israel’s long term future. Well, it served those who trained on this flight quite well. And, yeah, huge hat tip to

Simone Collins:them and the pilot. That oh, gosh. I hope the pilot’s okay. Yikes.

Speaker 6:So I checked in, and the pilot, for all we know, is doing well. Appears he was stabilized early by a dentist who is on board, who, uh, stopped him from bleeding out very early on in the, uh, the cycle of... In Israeli dentist who is one of the people who helps subdue the attackers.

Simone Collins:Thank you for bringing me up to speed. I appreciate it. Crazy. We have to worry about is the furry menace in the skies. When you hear

Malcolm Collins:the the plane crash thing that happened, it with good news and the furry menace in the skies.

Simone Collins:Yeah. The furry menace remains. The furry menace remains. Cannot be conquered. The Muslims can. Meow. As long as you can. Meow. Meow.

Malcolm Collins:Meow. Meow. Love him doing it, like, aggressively. No. No. No. He’s like, this is why you’re still flying or whatever. No.

Simone Collins:No. Really going for it. Really leaning in. That’s as it should be. Okay? Some things some things in the skies are still okay. I’m gonna try to fixate on that instead

Malcolm Collins:of thinking about god. Maybe we’ll

Simone Collins:just knock it on

Malcolm Collins:I’m so glad I’m not a pilot, by the way. I just fall right asleep. I can’t deal.

Simone Collins:Well, it’s mostly autopilot except for when you need to, you know, be stabbed repeatedly and then save the plane by unlocking the cockpit. Then you gotta work.

Malcolm Collins:I mean, a big heavy plane like that in a death spin is just terrifying conceptually. Yes. Yes.

Simone Collins:Be safe out there, everyone.

Malcolm Collins:Bye. Be safe out there. And remember, these people wanna kill you too. Great. Reals just closer.

Simone Collins:Great. Great. Great. Great.

Simone Collins:What you doing, girls? Spooky. Spooky. It’s a spooky hive house. I love it. What are you doing in your boat, Titan?

Titan Collins:I’m building a castle.

Simone Collins:You’re building a castle? What are you doing, Indy?

Titan Collins:Numbers are not together, and I also Numbers.

Simone Collins:Numbers. I love numbers.

Titan Collins:I need cats.

Simone Collins:Andy’s a cat. What kind of number two? The number two. You built a beauty. You can go. I’m excited. Do you see the number two, Indy? Do you see it?

Titan Collins:Oh, a ghost. Gonna knock this my gosh.

Malcolm and Simone explore lesser-known Jewish legal mechanisms for navigating strict biblical and rabbinic restrictions, especially around the Sabbath. The discussion covers travel limits, carrying objects, cooking rules, inheritance practices, marriage agreements, and community boundaries while contrasting approaches to rule interpretation.

They examine how these workarounds developed historically, their practical modern applications, and the underlying philosophy of fulfilling the letter of the law. The conversation highlights specific examples like food placement for extended travel, specialized belts, unusual action methods, rabbinic approvals, and wire enclosures.

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins:Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be discussing ways that Jews get around biblical or rabbinic rules that they have on them.

Simone Collins:I’ve been looking forward to this for so long.

Malcolm Collins:And I am going to focus on the ones that you are unlikely to know about. So we won’t spend a lot of time on the fishing wire around Manhattan or anything like that. We are going to go deep. It is genuinely interesting. I might, for a few of them, even ask Simone if she can come up with how she thinks they get around the rule Oh. Before we get to how they get around the rule.

Simone Collins:Game, and people can leave their guesses in the comments.

Malcolm Collins:I love these games.

Speaker 3:I want your Jew gold. Okay. Fine. Here. Now let’s go. Do you think I’m stupid? I know all that Jews carry fake bags of gold around their necks to keep the real bags of gold around their neck safe. Hand over the real Jew, Gokav.

Malcolm Collins:I will note here to everyone who is like, look at the Jews. Like, the them and all of this overstrict rule following and everything like that. This came up for us When I was studying the Sabbath, because I was like, it appears that this is one of the 10 commandments. Right? You know, why are we not following this?

Simone Collins:Yeah.

Malcolm Collins:And we know that Jesus was raised after the Sabbath, and that was on Sunday. So the Sabbath is clearly not Sunday in the Bible. Right? Like, it’s named in the Bible as being def definitionally not Sunday and in old Christian things. So I will voice this all with the caveat of at least they attempt to follow them for all the Christians that don’t even follow the Sabbath. Right?

Simone Collins:Yeah. Give them credit where credit is due. I I will give them credit there. And

Malcolm Collins:the the second thing, the Christians will be like, well, Jesus fulfilled all the old laws. Oh, okay. So the rest of the the 10 commandments don’t matter anymore? Oh, okay. So every one of the 10 commandment were still matters. How does that work?

Simone Collins:So that you you don’t need to murder anymore? How how would he have fulfilled No.

Malcolm Collins:No. Christian actually believes this is

Simone Collins:the point. But the commandments are just their rules to live by also. I don’t I don’t get it.

Malcolm Collins:Like The joke I’m making, Simone, is that Christians are very hypocritical in the way they treat the 10 commandments, and Jesus is fulfilled them.

Simone Collins:For most jokes. You know this.

Malcolm Collins:They they say something they obviously don’t believe, which is that Jesus fulfilled all of the moral rules tied to the 10 commandments so we can just ignore them, whereas they only ignore the one that is inconvenient within a modern context and that made them look a little Jewy back in the day.

Speaker 18:It’s just something that I can’t bring myself to believe. Like, the idea that Jesus was sacrificed for our sins. Oh, and so we didn’t have to practice the Sabbath. So that one thing there, the the Sabbath, that 10 commandment as well. That that one of the 10 commandments, he was also sacrificed. That seems ludicrous to me. If if God thought that these were important back then, he probably still thinks that they are important today, especially given that Jesus also practiced the Sabbath. And even when he and his followers were questioned on it, like, when they were picking the grain in the field and they said, your your people are doing something unlawful. He agreed that they were doing something unlawful, but then he made a broader argument that we’ll address, more in the future.

Speaker 20:And some Christians will come to me, they’ll be like, well, don’t you know that this council said that we don’t need to take the Sabbath seriously anymore? or that we actually, there was one council around the year 300 that said that you were supposed to work on the Sabbath. In which case, I’m just like, well, that’s why I focus so much on what the Bible says rather than what is tradition within Christianity. what happened to us I mean, this is only us recently, right, is we were talking about the 10 commandments and which ones we didn’t follow enough. And when Simone called out this one, I was like, wait. That’s one of the oh, yeah. That is one of the 10 commandments. Why why weren’t we doing that? And then we went through every line in the Bible that could be used to argue that we don’t need to take it seriously anymore, and I just didn’t find them very compelling arguments. And so because I had grown up in a society where nobody took it seriously, I thought it was normal for Christians to not take it seriously, and that’s something we’re trying to change in our lives.

Malcolm Collins:And then it’ll we’ll get on this in the next episode on the Sabbath. That’s not the point of this episode. Okay. So rule number one, you cannot move 2,000 cubits from where you live. How do they get around this amount?

Simone Collins:Oh, you mean on the Sabbath? Okay.

Malcolm Collins:On the Sabbath, you cannot move 2,000 cubits from where you live, but you might need to go to a synagogue or something like that that’s 3,000 cubits away, or you may need to go do some tasks at 3,000 cubits away. How do you do this? And I and I will note they do keep the rule that you cannot move more than 2,000 cubits from where you live, but now there’s a synagogue that 3,000 cubits from their house that they need to go to the next day. They must establish around it.

Simone Collins:Residence as being your community. So where you live is your community, not your address, like your home address.

Malcolm Collins:That’s actually partially already true, so that wouldn’t get around it at all. Like, I’m I’m talking about a scenario where

Simone Collins:Oh, then it’s even outside the community? Yeah. Oh. Some kind of metaphorical, like, tether rope, you know, like oxygen line from the community to the so you didn’t Kind of.

Malcolm Collins:Kind of. You’re getting close. Yeah. Okay. Tell me. Somebody can travel 2,000 I’m an audience. You’re you’re in this too. Do not change the rule around not being able to travel further from 2,000 cubits from where they live. But their home is more than 2,000 cubits from where they need to go. How do they get around it? Do you leave behind a part of yourself, like,

Simone Collins:a representation of yourself? So, like, the the goal is to do So

Malcolm Collins:they change where they live technically to be halfway in between their house and where they need to go. Oh.

Simone Collins:How do you do that? How do you give a temporary change of address that gets you there?

Malcolm Collins:Okay. So we’ll get into that. But first, I’m gonna give some other rules here.

Simone Collins:So Okay. Where you live

Malcolm Collins:on Shabbat, the Molkoshavate, the place of rest. Yeah. In an opal country, this is a circle or share as measured by a compass of 2,000 cubits around the spot. Okay. In a town, the built up area counts as being one place. Houses within 70 cubits of each other are a cluster, and you may walk around the whole town past the 2,000 cubits. no. 2,000 Cubits is 0.6 to 0.7 miles, if you’re wondering for for context here. If you’re wondering and you’re like, wait. You can walk all around the town on Sabbath, but you wait. Sorry. I I I note here, we don’t think that Christians are subject to all of these Jew status laws. We’ll we’ll get into that in just a second. But Jews clearly believe it and are very, very strict about it. Well, actually, that’s just a whole other episode. That is not for this episode. But then why do they need the of the, you know, the fishing line that goes around Manhattan at all if you can travel anywhere in Manhattan on the Sabbath if you live in Manhattan? And the answer is, well, one, because you can’t drive a car. You you are sort of functionally. But I guess can you have the subways count? I’ll add that in post.

Speaker 10:The answer is no, by the way. specifically because carrying a fare card would be considered carrying something, and you would be doing work by walking through a turnstile.

Malcolm Collins:But but Oh, the line around New York is not for moving from place to place. It’s carrying a thing from place to place, which is a separate and additional rule set that they need to find a way to

Simone Collins:get I remember reading that part about carrying burdens.

Malcolm Collins:And we’ll get around that. The next thing we’re gonna go is how they how they get around that with things that they actually need, like keys and stuff like that.

Simone Collins:Keys aren’t a burden. What on oh, no.

Malcolm Collins:They’re very strict with the rules. Remember, in the in the first Sabbath, a guy picked up sticks and was literally, God said, you gotta stone the guy to death. Like, Moses was like, they they they detained him. They’re like, what are we gonna do with this guy? And god’s like, well, of course, you beat him to death with stones because this stuff is very serious for Jews. Naturally. So here’s how it works. There’s two methods. You can be there at twilight. You walk to the spot before shabbat. Stay through buying harassment dusk. Declare it your place. You go home afterwards. The center has already moved. Or you can leave the food there before Shabbat. this is the usual. You do not have to spend dusk there. The legal idea is a person’s home is where their Shabbat food is, so the food stands in for you. Oh. And here are the rules. The rules for food. Okay. It has to be enough for two Shabbat meals per person who will use it. Yeah. Red on the order of six to eight egg volumes. Condiment, peanut butter, oil, chocolate spread are common, or drink works and takes less so, actually, why do they use why is peanut butter the default for this?

Simone Collins:I genuinely don’t know. I don’t I don’t think I’ve

Malcolm Collins:seen peanut butter in a Jewish meal before. It’s because it’s incredibly calorically dense. So to fit the other rule about you need needing to have two meals of it, you can technically have two meals of peanut butter with, like, not very much peanut butter. So if you’re just eating pure peanut butter, it it covered the one thing, and then you need to recite a blessing. But it gets crazier. Alright? So suppose you’re in a community where a lot of people need to do this regularly. Alright? The community will set up, like, a little post. Think of it like a rating nook is sort of the impression I got for what these look like. Okay?

Simone Collins:Rating nook?

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. You know, like, they have, like, little stands with a house looking thing on it where people go to get books or leave books. It’s like take a book, leave

Simone Collins:a book places. Oh oh, yes. Like a neighborhood lending library raiding nook.

Malcolm Collins:Okay. Whatever you wanna call it. Look. And and these things need to be locked because if a wild animal eats the food Uh-oh. Then it no longer counts as your place, and now all of a sudden you’re breaking rabbinic law.

Simone Collins:Are we eating the food? Is this food that people are eating?

Malcolm Collins:I don’t think it’s actually really meant to be ever eaten. It’s more like a symbolic thing. I mean, somebody might eat it. I’ll I’ll look it up in post.

Speaker 12:You need to regularly check if it is still edible so people would eat it regularly. just practically, I imagine, usually, it doesn’t get eaten because that seems I mean, if you’re buying peanut butter just used for one of the things, then there’s some part of a community exercise. Probably just stays there until it spoils. But, presumably, a lot of people do eat it. I don’t know. I I I think they don’t. That’s my guess if if I was using something like this.

Malcolm Collins:But they

Simone Collins:have a separate system. Peanut butters or whatever, shelf stable peanut butter that’s sealed.

Malcolm Collins:Take the food. And then for anybody walking on a particular trail, this is in, like, more rural places where you have a minyan, which is like a group of Jewish families. It it doesn’t fully matter. The point being, is that they’ll all have, like, a contract around, like, one jar of peanut butter thing. And it automatically transfers ownership to whoever is using the road at that time so they don’t need to reset it up for everyone.

Simone Collins:So it’s like two atoms sharing an electron for a little bit, but then you, like, move on and I

Malcolm Collins:don’t know. Oh, this is very strange. This is very strange. But if you’re not eating I just I if you’re not gonna

Simone Collins:eat the Sabbath food, no. I I don’t think

Malcolm Collins:that If you guys get our weekend episode on this,

Speaker 11:We have a Patreon slash Substack episode where we argue about this a lot. That’s our weekend episodes.

Malcolm Collins:this is what happens if you start going down the path of every rule, Simone,

Simone Collins:like you tried to

Malcolm Collins:do for the Sabbath. When we had a big argument in Norweka No.

Simone Collins:See, I was gonna honor the rules. I don’t I’m very uncomfortable with this rule bending.

Malcolm Collins:I I It’s not rule building. It’s about interpreting the intent of the rule. This is the entire core difference between Christianity and Judaism. This is what Jesus meant when he said the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Is the Christian path is to say what was the intent of the rules, and the Jewish path is to say what was the and I understand. You if you look for the intent of the rules, you can end up bending them too much till you end up like most Christians today where they’re just like, I don’t know. Think about God and go to church that day, and maybe you don’t

Simone Collins:play bending the rules too much. Like, oh, not only can we use tech and and whatnot, but I’m just gonna build a video game on the Sabbath.

Malcolm Collins:Absolutely. Because I take it to me.

Simone Collins:Productive work.

Malcolm Collins:Nope. It was me

Simone Collins:taking a

Malcolm Collins:You can’t If you if you go with that then, Simone, if you go with that, then learning becomes productive work. Then educating yourself becomes productive work. The further you go with your legalism, the more you break the intent. The intent is, are you doing something you wouldn’t have otherwise done on that day that’s focused on but that’s for another video. Okay? This is why you can’t go down this pathway.

Simone Collins:Sir, he stole that bread. What do you have to say for yourself? Nope. Sorry. Okay. Keep going. Wait.

Malcolm Collins:I’m sorry. What was your point there?

Simone Collins:Just, like, the answer to my accusation being nope. I find oddly entertaining. I will accept it. That is an acceptable answer. Because

Malcolm Collins:if it’s designed to help us improve ourselves, doing something you have been putting off that involves a new type of rest pursuit, like something that you wanted to do as a form of rest, is of value.

Speaker 4:By this, what I mean is you have to ask why did God mandate a day of rest? Did he mandate a day of rest so we would have a day without technology? Did he mandate a day of rest? Like, what’s the purpose of that in our wider lives? Did he mandate a day of rest so people wouldn’t have to cook on that day? What’s the purpose of that in our wider lives? He mandated the day of the rest of... I think of him as not being an idiotic entity who had some sort of, like, wider plan for us for our own benefit. Again, this is what it means. The Sabbath was made for man, not mad for the Sabbath. So if you make arbitrary restrictions that end up lowering the value of the Sabbath to you as a tool for rest and improvement, then you have lost the purpose of the Sabbath from our perspective.

Malcolm Collins:This is why the legalism is so dangerous. What we’re talking about right here is why Okay. If if the point isn’t actually the legalism. The legalism can have positive externalities. I mean, look at all the Jewish lawyers who make all that money. Maybe we’d be good at lawyering too if we I mean,

Simone Collins:look. It’s working for them. They have a covenantal relationship with god. The rest of us are on our own. Okay? They get to play the rules game. That’s not for us. But let’s hear more about these rules.

Malcolm Collins:I’m looking at these rules.

Simone Collins:This is unhinged keys. Keys. Oh, yes. Burdened keys.

Malcolm Collins:If you carry a key, that would be considered a burden. The only thing that you but then you could say, but, like, I see Jews outside all the time on the Sabbath, and they aren’t naked. So, like, clearly, you’re allowed clothing. Right? And it’s like, yes. You are allowed clothing and some types of jewelry. How do they get around keys?

Simone Collins:How? Well, I mean, now you can just have a combination lock on your door,

Malcolm Collins:or you could have a thumbprint. So they actually those created a whole other set of problems, and we’re not gonna get that. Because a lot of those were like, okay. Now you’re engaging a mechanism. And if you engage Oh, you’re requiring

Simone Collins:the gremlins that make your code lock to work to to labor. Oh, yeah. You are kind of making a mechanism work. Oh oh, goodness gracious. Just

Malcolm Collins:don’t they

Simone Collins:don’t lock their doors.

Malcolm Collins:No. Okay. You’re allowed to wear clothing.

Simone Collins:Yes. Oh, so you it’s

Malcolm Collins:a key necklace. It’s like jewelry. Keys into your clothing, but they have to be, like, a functional sort of a part of the clothing. So you can

Simone Collins:get zipper? Like, a zipper pull?

Malcolm Collins:It’s like a look up a a Shabbos belt. It’s a s h a b b o s belt. Oh, Shabbos.

Simone Collins:Oh, yeah. Oh, is that okay?

Malcolm Collins:And you see the keys actually hold together the clothing.

Simone Collins:Right? Oh, good lord. I have to

Malcolm Collins:yeah. It’s like using the key as, like, part of a button or something like that. Right?

Simone Collins:Like adorable. Oh, guys, look. It’s it’s an attempt was made. An attempt was made. I feel good looking jewelry, but it works. What’s great is you don’t actually have to, like, get your custom key made into the belt. It looks like you can just you you just kind of attach it in with this a a very cheap looking. Well, the page can load. Oh, for you don’t need a security verification. Judaica World is not okay. Yeah. It looks like a very cheap, inexpensive, really? Trudeiko World, do better.

Malcolm Collins:These are the yeah.

Simone Collins:Funny. The cheapest.

Malcolm Collins:At least there’s lot of stab it. We have some

Simone Collins:seat belt attachers for our car that we we could just cannibalize to make our own Shabbath belt, actually. I have all of these parts at home. I don’t need to spend how how much am I how much what what is this? This is

Malcolm Collins:wouldn’t make your own. This is all

Simone Collins:the parts. Every single stupid car seat

Malcolm Collins:comes billing. Simone is descended from Jews. She Jew maxes. The moment she looks at a Jewish invention, she goes, I bet I can get that cheaper and without paying someone. You maxing right here, Simone.

Simone Collins:Well, I can. We have all the pieces at home. You too can make your very own Shabbos belt at home. Maybe we

Malcolm Collins:should do for No, Simone. The point is the Sabbath is made to help you rest in a way where you otherwise wouldn’t. We both did projects that day that we had been putting off for very, very long times that were both tied to self integrity.

Simone Collins:Studied the Bibl. I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Malcolm Collins:I did some bible study, and I also made a game.

Simone Collins:But I also made

Malcolm Collins:a tower an awesome game. It actually looks

Simone Collins:pretty cool.

Malcolm Collins:It’s a game about techno Puritans, so it’s also meant to spread the message.

Simone Collins:Oh, oh, I see. Yeah. So you’re just spreading the good word. You’re a tower defense game.

Malcolm Collins:On one side, it was about techno Puritans. On the other side, it is about committing genocide. So

Simone Collins:Perfect. Great. Well, look. The the the bible is also very much of an old testament god. It’s all like, hey, guys. Hey, guys. Let’s do genocide.

Malcolm Collins:And and they were like, because it was a guy whose show we were on, and he goes, well, your ideas are very unchristian. What are what are these ideas around, like, genocide or, like, you know, sterilizing a population? I’m like, I’m pretty sure Saul would like to have a word with you. I mean, he sort of had his life ruined when God was mad at him for not. And note here when people are like, war was just like that back then. I’m like, no. You can’t use that excuse because it wasn’t just they happen to do war that way. God actively decided to punish him for not doing war that way. Right? But that’s a whole other thing. I think you could be like, well, God grew up morally from the old to the New Testament. What are you talking about, man? Like, clearly, that’s not a I don’t think that these people really believe in God. They believe in Buddy Christ. Like, it’s it’s literally the guy from Dogma. That’s Buddy Christ. That is who they worship

Speaker 5:The crucifix. While it has been a time honored symbol of our faith, holy mother church has decided to retire this highly recognizable yet wholly depressing image of our lord crucified. Christ didn’t come to earth to give us the willies. He came to help us out. He was a booster. So it is with great pleasure that I present you with the first of many revamps the Catholicism Wow campaign will unveil over the next year. I give you the Buddy Christ.

Malcolm Collins:.

Simone Collins:Not that’s a nice entity.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. Not like the maximally good entity. Right? You

Simone Collins:know? Yeah.

Malcolm Collins:I I I feel I have far more theological kinship with Jews who try to follow all these rules than with Christians who are buddy Christ type. Right?

Simone Collins:Totally. 100%.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. I ignore everything in the bible. It’s not you know? Anyway, so at the door, it gets picky. Many guidelines say you do not pull the key off in the street. Walk the last steps with a loose key in your hand and step into the house. The last bit would be carrying. So the typical procedure and no No. You don’t with that with the the the belt. You just Yeah.

Simone Collins:Straight in there from the couch.

Malcolm Collins:On the belt while you turn the lock. Yeah. Or take the belt off at the door, use the key, then put the belt back on. It’s like traveling in basketball. You gotta be very careful not to hold the ball while you’re walking Good lord. Or you end up incurring the the rules.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Careful, guys. Don’t get a a shabbit shabbit.

Malcolm Collins:But you also don’t see this because a lot of neighborhoods have a roofs, those fishing line things that that I mentioned, we’ll talk about later. Okay. That I do yeah.

Simone Collins:Well, I do wanna be briefed on those. It’s I I I wanna know more about them.

Malcolm Collins:Okay. Next. This one, I think you’ll find very fun. And, fall shows that my workaround for the rules or at least the spirit of the rules are not that out of line with some of the Jewish ones. So there is something called, which means doing the act in a weird way. So That’s cute. Okay. A Torah level, Shabbat labor is defined as doing the act in the normal weekday way. No. When I said don’t do rote entertainment, but you get new forms of entertainment. You have

Simone Collins:to do

Malcolm Collins:in a

Simone Collins:weird way. Yes.

Malcolm Collins:This is exactly what I’m talking about. This is why I said when I was coming up with the laws for this, and we’ll come up with this later, like, how how to do this. If you spend your week as a neuroscientist, you know, working on on on crazy inventions at home, you can’t be a neuroscientist working on crazy inventions at home on on Shabbat. But if you spend your week in a lab working on crazy neuroscience inventions and you wanna work on your own thing at home, then that would be allowed. but if you’re in a lab during it’s it’s about the type of thing that you need rest time to do. Okay? or at least that’s how we define it in in our reading of the the New Testament. But, anyway, classic example is writing left handed if you are right handed. Pick something up with your elbow or teeth. Turn a switch with a knuckle or the back of the hand. What it does

Simone Collins:not describes my everyday experience. So I just have to

Malcolm Collins:do things. Can’t touch things. Like, you have to do it sorry. I she’s autistic. Again, Jewish. and so she struggles with, I know this is a weird thing to say, she struggles with touching doorknobs. And so the way she gets around it is, like, turning them with her elbows and stuff like this. She’s very masterful at it. Very good. This is my But, yeah. Yeah. I I could see the the inner Jew coming out there, Simone. Oh, jeez.

Simone Collins:So that makes it acceptable. So if they really need to do a work thing, if they do it super weird, like, it’s okay.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. So you can’t just do it easily. Like, you can’t just do anything with your left hand. The writing is the big exception there. It’s also debated whether, like, elbow flipping a light switch counts. Some say Malaka is the circuit closing, which happens the same way no matter what part of the body hits the plate. So that is not a real. Others so, basically, the plate the electric plate is still hitting in the same way. So even though you used a weird action to do it, it doesn’t count. At least they’re trying to get the rules right. Like Yeah. They’re they’re rules. So here is an example of where you really see this. Hospitals, a Jewish doctor or nurse who must use a badge reader elevator button, chart computer presses with a knuckle, thimble, or back of the hand when a non Jewish colleague cannot do it. Or if you’re sick at home but not in danger but miserable and you need to turn a light on or the AC in an awkward way, if your rabbi holds electricity without heat filament is only rabbinic. Calling a taxi or doctor, some allow the phone with an unusual grip or when there’s a serious need. So, basically, you’re not supposed to do it. Like, this is one of those, like, it’s bad, but it’s not as bad. So you have to do something. Do it looking like a goof. Okay? Put put the chicken hat on first. Do a dance, then do the thing, which is not different from the rules that we came up with that we’ll have in the full. Simone said I wasn’t allowed to do the Sabbath episode unless I had a different episode on this. And now I’m really thinking this is probably gonna be two episodes at least because there are a lot of these rules. I love these rules. These are so fun. They’re pretty endearing, actually. They are. They’re they’re also very different. I mean, as I pointed out, the relationship that I think Christians are called to have with God, and I I think this is why there’s such a focus of the idea of the father, Right? It’s it’s like a parent who’s given you a set of rules. Whereas with Jews, it’s like a contract. And that’s why and it might be a contract you have with your parent. Like, I, as a parent, could treat the rules I have with my children as if they were contractual with some hypothesis that might lead them to be better when they grow up. Right? you know, they can find a way around my rules because I haven’t been strict enough, then No. It that it

Simone Collins:is 100% our attitude with our kids. When we make up a rule or when and they, you know, find a way to do the thing that we don’t want them to do anyway, we’re like, you know what? Touche. You outsmarted me. I’m gonna have to make there’s a new rule now.

Malcolm Collins:But but no. But we don’t do it that way. And the reason why I do. I don’t do it that way, my kids break like, if they’re breaking the intention, I because what ends up happening if you do things that way is essentially what’s happened to Judaism, which is the rules keep piling up for all of the ways that you found to get around it. And then the new rule that was really just to prevent the way you found to get around it ends up applying to a bunch of other things because Jews have this mechanism of argument called from the little to the big. this is a common rabbinic style of argument, which then means that now this little rule that you made up for something small ends up applying to a bunch of other things in a big way, and then you get rule explosion. Right? Rule explosion. Rule inflation. Rule inflation. This one I found interesting. This one’s called or the permission of a 100 rabbis.

Simone Collins:Yeah? So if you can get a 100 to write off on it, it’s okay? This is about having

Malcolm Collins:a second wife. If you can get a 100 rabbis to say that you get a second wife

Simone Collins:Okay.

Malcolm Collins:Are there cases of this? Yes. But it’s not for the reason you think. And and note, it’s not just a 100 rabbis. Okay? So you have to get a 100 rabbis from three different countries at least. Alright. So here’s how it works and when you would actually want this. Okay. Suppose you are married to somebody, and they go into the woods, and they disappear. Oh. And they’re never found again. Or suppose they go into a permanent coma. Or suppose they run away or you’re getting a divorce and they stop responding to all your letters. What do you do? You can’t get a formal rabbinic divorce.

Simone Collins:Totally fair point. Totally fair point. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins:the way that they handle this is, the the 100 rabbis, which used to actually be incredibly hard to do. but now it’s basically email lists where, like, a single rabbinic court decides it, and then that rabbinic court has, like, a 100 rabbis taken email. And they’re like, okay. We need your guys sign in on this, and it gets signed out on, and it happens almost instantly. Yeah. So it’s much easier to do now. But I found that one particularly interesting.

Simone Collins:I really like that.

Malcolm Collins:Okay. So, again, you’re not supposed to like the this is too much. If if somebody disappears, you should just say they disappeared. Okay? I’m marrying another woman. They’re probably dead. I can’t live my life like this.

Simone Collins:Okay. Fair. That that is a lot more efficient.

Malcolm Collins:This is the techno puritan versus the Jewish way of

Simone Collins:doing things.

Malcolm Collins:It’s why we went when You’re right. We were deciding between Christianity and Judaism. And you can see in our earlier videos, we genuinely, was a point where we were really thinking about Judaism very seriously. and, it was the rules lawyering that was a major factor for me. I was just like, okay. If I’m thinking about, like, God is actually real, how do I think I’m supposed to relate to him? And I think that God probably doesn’t care that I’m traveling with a key accidentally or something. I don’t think that, like, in the cosmic order

Simone Collins:I’m pretty sure the burden carrying just was a thing that people did for work. You know, they’re delivering grain or something. I I don’t don’t think that

Malcolm Collins:is outlawed because just Jewish burgers. Law is very clear. They mean, like, everything. Right? Like, you were even the one who pointed out that in the Old Testament, it shows them preparing the food beforehand. Yeah. So because that’s work.

Simone Collins:I mean, that was work back then. Spend all of your time doing that. You would have to mill the grain and then do the thing.

Malcolm Collins:She’s about three hours to do in a historic context for a woman, so it made sense back then. Yeah. Doesn’t necessarily make sense today. Here, I’m gonna do the South Park clip about that. Right?

Speaker 6:What exactly do you suggest we change, father Maxey? Well, for one, no sex with boys.

Speaker 7:The holy document of Vatican law states that a priest, bishop, or cardinal cannot get married. So where are we to get our sex?

Speaker 6:Well, then perhaps we could change the holy document of Vatican law to say that it’s okay for a priest or bishop or cardinal to have sex with women. Women? The Gilgamesh vagina is three feet wide and filled with razor sharp teeth. Do you really expect us to have sex with them? I’m gonna just say, what works on planet Gilgamesh isn’t necessarily going to work for the rest of us here on Earth. You see? That’s the problem we’re having here.

Malcolm Collins:Because I think they this is why I relate to it this way. But, again, to continue here, you’ve got the Azat Bit Din, the Shimada and it yeah. There’s a lot of stuff that I think is quite silly within Judaism and and we joke about. Right? The reason so people think that we’re overly being sympathetic about this stuff. This stuff, I think, is a different way of relating to your relationship with god. It is not something that I actively condemn like aggressive kabbalic mysticism. Oh, yeah. I I I wanna put these things in two different camps here. Okay? This stuff would be perfectly compatible with a Jewish techno Puritan. Right? Yeah. He was attempting to create something like this, Whereas the other things simply wouldn’t be. Okay. So to continue here, the Ozat bin Dym, this one was so hard to understand. Okay. So a rabbinic court acquires the crop and stores it and distributes it, and then farmers are paid for the land, not for selling the holy produce as private owners. I was so freaking confused by this.

Simone Collins:Is this about how to distribute grains on this Sabbath, or is this not a Sabbath rule? This is something else.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. Okay. So you’re supposed to leave land fallow, I think, one in seven years. and what it really was actually more of about is, like, if you had an orchard or something like this or a grain field, it was, like, known in the community historically which ones were the ones that were just growing that year. And so you, like, poor people or whatever people in your community, could come and get food from your thing when they needed it. The problem is is that doesn’t work remotely in a modern context. Okay. So imagine if one in every seven years, you had a giant industrial orchard. Okay? And you’re like, I’m gonna leave it fallow so people can come and pick from it, right, when they need to pick from it. Right? Well, the vast majority of people who your orchard served live in this city. Right? So there’s really only one of two things that could happen. One is most of the food rots. You get lots of hornets and stuff like that. It’s bad for everybody. Okay? The second is do we have apples of the tree? The kids should be picking the apples in the near future, by the way. Right? We’ll do that when the film crew comes. Okay. So one is everything rots. Okay. You don’t want that. The other is is that you have people come in with trucks, and they end up picking all the food. And then they drive to the city, and then they sell it, and then they make all the profit, which defeats the entire purpose. It’s now just going to somebody who came to your land with a truck. Okay?

Simone Collins:I had thought anyway that the crop rotation was about letting fields actually, like, fallow. I thought that But that wouldn’t make

Malcolm Collins:sense for orchards. That is not what I read.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Okay.

Malcolm Collins:So it wouldn’t make sense for orchards. So I think it probably changes depending on the type of crop. Doesn’t matter.

Simone Collins:Yes. Point being. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins:What do they do now? They do one of two things. One is is for that year, they rent it to a a non Jewish person. But then the other is, which I find to be more interesting, is they have sort of a a council, a court that takes it over for that period, and then that court organizes laborers to go and get the food. And then they sell the food at the cost of acquiring the food through special means. Through special means. I don’t fully understand. Basically, it’s Basically,

Simone Collins:the person the landholder isn’t profiting from anything.

Malcolm Collins:That’s the idea.

Simone Collins:Because it’s understood that basically this food’s gonna go to waste. They’re trying to just make sure that it gets to people. And so they Is it expensive to people?

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. And I bet it I wonder I’ll look at how much cheaper they are on average or how you could get access to this type of food, but very interesting

Speaker 13:So two quick additions here. The textual reason for this explicitly says that it’s for, like, poor people and stuff like this, not for the land. But, obviously, this would have a positive effect on the land, and that might be why it evolved as a tradition. The second thing is where you would buy something like this. It is only a rule for Jewish farms in Israel, so you wouldn’t see these in The United States. But in Israel, there’s ways for grocers to buy this type of food.

Malcolm Collins:. Anyway, next one here. I told you we’re gonna go into ones that you haven’t heard of frequently today. So weird. Yeah. The. Okay? So this one really confused me. It took me a while to get my head around.

Simone Collins:Right.

Malcolm Collins:Alright. So there’s a number of Jewish festival days where you can only cook food that’s going to be eaten on that day. Okay? And so you don’t do a bunch of extra work. Like, you’re not doing bakery work or you’re not doing meal prep for the week or anything like that.

Simone Collins:Like, you can’t have leftovers. You whatever you’re making that day

Malcolm Collins:is Yeah. It’s sort of like a Sabbath, but with the condition that you can cook food for that day. Okay? Now But only that day. But only that day. Oh. These days are variable, though. And so they can land right before the Sabbath. Now this creates a problem because Oh, dear. Right.

Simone Collins:Because if it’s the Friday before the Sabbath, well, but then can’t you just make your Sabbath food on Wednesday or Thursday?

Malcolm Collins:That’s what I would do, frankly. I’m like, oh, but we have rules that Jews don’t have. So keep in mind, we are allowed to reheat food. And Jews, if they’re reheating food, they have rules like so there’s this Jewish invention, which is the thing that keeps water boiling. So you boil water before the Sabbath, and then there’s a special device that keeps it boiling overnight and throughout the next day that you can use it when you need to use it without reboiling water.

Simone Collins:I thought there were other things where, like, your oven was Set

Malcolm Collins:to go off at a certain time.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Like, everything’s just set to a timer, and so you you didn’t do it then. It was all set before, so that didn’t work. Right? So That’s what I thought. I saw

Malcolm Collins:some orthodox houses. Yeah. I figured this would be easy, but they I don’t know. For somebody, it was a major issue that you not leave food sitting for two days, probably a bigger issue before refrigeration. But Yeah. Do you know how they got out of this?

Simone Collins:No. I I would just assume that they have to eat very shelf stable foods on that Sabbath.

Malcolm Collins:So if they take something cooked and something baked from the previous day Okay. Say something words on it. So Thursday. And then what they make on that Thursday counts as the meal for that Friday.

Speaker 22:Or maybe not. This was incredibly confusing to me when I was fact checking with AI. It might be just a ritual that you do on Thursday that then allows you to cook more on Friday. It’s unclear. The Jewish rules are very complicated.

Malcolm Collins:And what they make on that Friday, they’re not allowed to make on the, you know, on the Sabbath because they already got the work that they were going to do on that festival day out of the way the day before by saying a special prayer and making the food. That just seems like deleting the rule because then they’re just It does, Simone. I don’t I don’t like that one as much.

Simone Collins:I don’t like that one at all. No. Just eat Wednesday’s food on Saturday. If it has to be cold, it’s cold. But, like, we’ve all made it we’ve all done it before. Like, in college, it’s not like it’s hard. Well, okay. Interesting. Yeah. My least favorite so far.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So here’s another one, and I didn’t even know about this rule. Okay. This is called Bishul Akkum. So did you know that while this is not in the Torah, by rabbinic decree in the Talmud, Jews are not supposed to eat what is it? I I think it’s like a full proper meal that was cooked by a non Jew.

Simone Collins:Really? No. I mean, how would you ever travel?

Malcolm Collins:So there are ways around it. Okay. Can you guess what they do to get around this one?

Simone Collins:No. You know how you used to take, like, hot sauce with you to restaurants and other seasonings, and you would just sort of finish cooking your food at the table.

Malcolm Collins:You would, like, spice it. Better answer than

Simone Collins:the And so I feel like that way, a Jew cooked it. Like, if I mean, assuming you’re Jewish, and then you’re you’re finishing your food at the table. You know, you just, like, add your some salt and a little pepper, or maybe you, like, add a hot sauce to it.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. Get dips. Anything with a dip, you’re you’re partially cooking.

Simone Collins:Like, brought your own dips with you? Like, yeah.

Malcolm Collins:No. You don’t even need your own dip or anything. I go to a restaurant, and this is how I would handle it if I was a Jew. I’d be like, well, salsa. Right? So salsa and the chip, I put the salsa on the chip.

Simone Collins:So Oh, you’ve already you’ve already yo. Yeah. So, basically or you order the hamburger with everything on the side like I do because I I need to weigh everything separately. And then you you assemble the burger. So you did some of the work there. You know? You did the assembly. Yeah. Yeah. Or you could just go to, like, hot pot places where you actually

Malcolm Collins:put the food at the table. So this everything you’re saying is the way I would do it. It’s not the way they do Oh. Although they go with a similar rule, which is to say if a Jew participated in the cooking, it counts. And so what you have is you will have kosher restaurants where a Jew turns on, like, the ovens at the beginning of the day. And I’m like, that kinda defeats so the reason this rule exists

Simone Collins:Oh my god. I wonder if there’s, like, the oven turning on Jew who just, like, goes from restaurant to restaurant and, you know, hey, guys, turns on the oven.

Malcolm Collins:I mean, I’m sure there are in some communities.

Speaker 14:Yes. This is a real job, and it’s called a magician or supervisor in a kosher restaurant, a hotel, or kitchen, or catering hall with non Jewish cooks. The magician often arrives before everyone else, unlocks the kitchen, and lights every cooking fire, ranges, oven, grills, etcetera. there are two types of setups, the magician tendi, which is a full time in the kitchen all day, and the Yosha vicious who drops in and out more common in factories. They like boilers and pilots, etcetera.

Malcolm Collins:Wow. Get your oven Jew. Your oven Jew. Restaurant turning on. Wow. So this is now note here, this one really gets me.

Simone Collins:Okay.

Malcolm Collins:And the reason it gets me is because it goes against the exact purpose of this rule Okay. Which is why I’d say I really hate rules lawyering and instead focusing on the purpose of the rule. Okay. If you read the Old Testament, there are so this is even the part that, like, all the Christians read. I’ve read. You see this throughout. Lots of rules. Lots of times when Jewish people were tempted by pagans who were living among them, and then they they went out and they started to do more pagan things. Yeah. And they intermarried a bunch, and there had to be rulings against this. And so it was just like, look. The more you interact with these pagan people, the more you become like these pagan people, and that’s really dangerous. And so this is seen throughout. This is not a crazy takeaway that somebody had. It’s it’s it’s something I would have thought reading it. And it’s a rule that if the techno puritan community ever becomes large enough to mostly just interact with other techno puritans, I would be very comfortable putting as a a general rule that you should not be eating or socializing with non techno puritans unless it’s for career purposes, or converting somebody or bringing in a new potential spouse to the village. but for them, this is about not marrying out of the community, stuff like that. Right? Like, it’s about not socially. So if you’re doing it in restaurants and stuff like that, specifically so that you can share food and proper meals with non Jews, you’re you’re breaking the point.

Simone Collins:I didn’t realize that was the point. I just figured, like, if someone if a non Jew is preparing food for you, they’re way more likely to put, say, cheese on your hamburger by mistake or butter, god forbid. I mean, keep in mind, you have most most restaurants that make hamburgers or steaks or whatever are going to use at least the really higher high end ones are gonna use a nice butter in their pans. And if you’re cooking steak or hamburgers or meatballs and stuff with butter, then you’re breaking one of the key rules. So I thought it was more just that you need to make sure that a Jew is involved in the cooking process because otherwise, you’re not you’re you’re likely to have broken some major rules that they just don’t know, someone benignly wouldn’t know that they’re breaking.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. That’s not why it exists. But but this is this is where it gets yeah. Interesting to me. I I I this one was was I was like, that’s not good, and that shows exactly the worst way a rule can break.

Simone Collins:Yeah.

Malcolm Collins:Actually. And it’s why I wouldn’t want that to be if I was saying, generally, you know, socialize with our own people so you do not get tempted, especially easier for to socialize then. Don’t do that. Especially for younger people, I would argue. Right? You know, this is where it gets really dangerous for younger people. They consume too much content from outsiders. They and and, obviously, for Jews, it’s an extra when people talk about, like, woke Jews ruining everything, these are almost exclusively Jews who have left the Jewish community. Right? Like, they are reformed Jews. Okay. Maybe they’re still in the Jewish community, but, I mean, like, they’ve they’ve stopped following most of the rules. They’ve become what we would consider, like, a Unitarian Universalist Christian or something like that. So, like, all of society is hurt when Jews get pulled by the dark side because then they go and run some movie studio and make a bunch of, what was I gonna say? Was gonna say, like, gay cowboys eating pudding movies, and we have to consume that thought. You know? No good.

Speaker 8:are you to judge my womanly soul? The goddess flames that burn in my memory aren’t dark. Dare you call them dark. Here lies the goddess truth of my body. Oh, brother. The goddess that cries. Freedom. Here is the goddess truth of my womanly being. You are my blossom, my flame. When we make love, it’s like the sun is right outside the door. Then make love to me right now. Dudes. Dudes. do you have any pudding left? I ate all mine up, silly. Well, why don’t we just explore our sexuality? Oh, good idea. Let’s.

Malcolm Collins:but to continue here. Okay. Inheritance. So we’re gonna do the inheritance walk around so daughters get a share. So according to, like, if you do the correct or, you know, by the bible, numbers 27, daughters of Zephelim and numbers 36, Torah inheritance is through the male line with a limited exemption when there are no sons. The later, documents are tools to honor this. Okay. So what do you do? Right? now if you live in a society where everybody only passes inheritance down through their sons, I think that that can work because then women have to get married to get anyone’s inheritance, and the inheritance they get is through the family of the that they’re joining. Right? But today, a lot of Jews don’t want their daughter who goes unmarried or whatever to starve to death. I know. So stupid. That’s exactly the daughters that should be starving to death. but, they, they get around this. How do you think they get around this?

Simone Collins:they look. As soon as you’re gestating in your mother’s body as a little girl, you have all the eggs you’re ever gonna have, and some of those are gonna be boys. So we count those as the next generation of boys that are sitting

Malcolm Collins:inside the girls. This one’s way simpler and easy to do.

Simone Collins:Oh, then okay. Tell me.

Malcolm Collins:Just give them the money before you die?

Simone Collins:Oh, well, yeah, like a lot of, rich people do with their kids to avoid Taxes. Yeah. Taxes and probate and all that other

Malcolm Collins:Skydex is here.

Speaker 21:K. So when I was going over it, this is the one that it... AI said that we got the most wrong. Uh, specifically, there is another mechanism, which is a father will say that I owe my daughter a huge sum worth more than my entire estate, And the daughter can then claim this against the sons if they don’t give her 50% of the estate when he dies. um And this is called a Shar Shazizakar. I I can’t pronounce any of these Jewish words.

Malcolm Collins:Okay. So now we’re gonna talk about a Halakhic prenup, an RCA BDAA agreement. Okay. Before the wedding, the husband signs that if the marriage is over according to a BitDin, he will pay a high amount of support or get until he gives a Jewish divorce. So note here. a Jewish husband could just decide he doesn’t wanna get divorced. Right? Like, this is a problem for Jewish communities. It’s such a problem for Jewish communities that one of the things that orthodox Jewish women have taken to do have you heard of this, Simone? No. Okay. So suppose there’s a guy who tells his wife, I just won’t divorce you even though the relationship’s clearly not working, and she’s in a really bad place. And the other women in the community are very distressed by this. What can they do?

Simone Collins:Threaten to not have sex with their husbands?

Malcolm Collins:Exactly what they do. Okay. They do the entire Orthodox Jewish community of women will deal

Simone Collins:a strike.

Malcolm Collins:A sex strike. Wow. Like that famous Athenian play.

Simone Collins:That’s what I was, yeah, I was thinking about that. What is it? Aries Aristria? No. I’m not gonna remember it.

Malcolm Collins:But that’s just too highbrow for our audience.

Simone Collins:Too highbrow. Too highbrow. That’s You get the reference.

Malcolm Collins:You can comment. You can comment. Okay? But, anyway, they they they go on sex strikes, and it’s meant to pressure the other men to force the guy to give the divorce papers. But there’s a type of prenup that they can also do, which helds to Jewish law, where the guy has to pay her a $150 every day or some, like, large amount or something like that. We shouldn’t seem that large. It must have been a large amount in the past. To to her every day that he doesn’t, Obviously, a problem of inflation hits. Maybe they need to attach them. Yeah. But, another fun marriage one, I’m joking about this being fun here, is given that you need the other party, what do Jewish people do? Like, recently, a lot of young Jewish men went to war. Yeah. A lot of our fans of our show went to war. Yeah. And they have since come back safely, many of them. Thank goodness. I saw all of them, actually, which is very good to see. So I saw I saw one of them on our paid subscriber call.

Simone Collins:Yay. Okay. Good.

Malcolm Collins:Great. So yes. and he had just had a son, so he was asking questions about that. He’s like, I’m going to war. It may not be coming back. I just had a son. Do you have any advice? I was like, holy Like, it’s really I know everybody acts like the whatever. But, like, they they were in a tough spot to to have to deal with a hostile group that was, like, raiding their country. But they dealt with it and are continuing to deal with it.

Speaker 9:And I’d note here, if Mexico did to us what was done to Israel on October 7, we would absolutely be doing the same thing to Mexico. And I would note here where people would like, woah. They treated Gaza. We have done a lot to Mexico that Israel did to Gaza. We took a land from them, you could argue, with an unfair war. In fact, I I I’d argue that we’re sort of in a worse moral position vis a vis Mexico than Israel was vis a vis Gaza because they’re regularly sending, you know, aid and basically supporting the population there, which is we’re not doing with Mexico.

Speaker 17:And if you’re like, well, it was basically an open air prison. It’s like, well, okay. What about the wall that we tried to build around Mexico? Right? Like, you can say the same thing. The the anything can be stretched to mean that when you go with the loose definitions that have been made around Gaza. What I will say is that if you’re asking why are you so pro Israel, it’s because of the allies that we have right now, they’re the one that’s still gonna be relevant in fifty years. Europe’s not having kids and is replacing their population. Canada is not having kids and is replacing their population. so they’re not relevant to us in the long term But Israel is a country that is high technology and high birth rate and better when contrasted with countries like Canada and Europe that are willing to let other countries abuse them, harvest their resources with no repercussion. Israel actually punishes bad actors and people who f with them, which is something we need to see more of in the global stage.

Malcolm Collins:But, anyway, so one of these guys, what do they do for their wives before they leave for war?

Simone Collins:Freeze their sperm?

Malcolm Collins:no. They give, provisional divorce papers.

Simone Collins:Oh, that’s sweet. So if they go missing in action.

Malcolm Collins:So if they go missing in action, it’s really

Simone Collins:easy for,

Malcolm Collins:like, to get divorced.

Simone Collins:So dark, but also incredibly very dark. Right? Unless, like I don’t know. Unless they don’t want them to remarry, in which case, presumably, they won’t do that. But, yeah, I guess they want them to remarry for the sake of the kids. And I’m surprised that there would be that many men who’d be comfortable with their wives remarrying, I guess. But whatever. Other than them.

Malcolm Collins:So this one was also very hard for me to figure out. Okay. This was around wine. Okay. So wine that has been boiled or flash pasteurized may be handled by non Jews. Uncooked wine generally may not.

Simone Collins:And I was very what? Wine isn’t normally cooked, is it? Like, pasteurized milk?

Malcolm Collins:Wine is normally cooked, and we’ll get into that. Does that change the flavor? It does. And wine connoisseurs don’t like it, but a lot of wine that you get at a store has actually been cooked so that Jews can get into this.

Simone Collins:Wine. Oh my gosh. Next I mean, I guess we’re never in liquor stores or whatever.

Malcolm Collins:If you if you go to a store, you can find they’ll have, like, a thing that said, we’ll we’ll get into it. Okay. So gotta

Simone Collins:look at that. That’s so interesting.

Malcolm Collins:So wine used to be used for pagan libations. And then later layer social mixing, cooking was, taken to ruin it for the ritual. So the idea was that cooked wine couldn’t be used for pagan rituals.

Simone Collins:Dude, that’s so fun. Just sticking it to the pagans. I like this one.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. Alright. So to to go into this more, rabbis then needed to add a fit. So ordinary wine for non Jews, even if nobody saw a libation, is treated as suspect because you don’t know if they’ve used this for a pagan god. And keep in mind, from a Jewish perspective, a lot of Christian ceremonies use wine. I I I poisoned that as well. Yeah. So, even even dealing with the Christians, they’ve gotta worry about this. although, typically, we don’t take the same wine that’s used in communion and then use it at a restaurant, but I guess that used to be more of a problem. so, later when open idolatry faded, the fence was kept as a partial social barrier. Basically, don’t linger if it made it harder to drink wine with non Jews for a period, which was important because, like, suppose you’ve got young people of different genders drinking a lot of wine, and one of them is non Jewish. And then you end up with a non Jewish husband in the community, and that could create problems, or baby mommy or whatever. Right? So that’s that’s why they they moved it to cooked wine. So okay. How does this work now? Uncooked kosher wine, non mishra. So a Jew must make it, bottle it, and the bottle is open. You pour it. If a non Jew was part of the making it or pours it or sometimes even gives it a significant nudge, many authorities claim it is now suspect. It’s now forbidden to drink. So Why? Because they put pagan wine in it or accidentally treated it as Jesus’ body. They may have accidentally done a a pagan ceremony with it. Okay?

Simone Collins:Wait. Just so does, like, does Christian count as pagan here? What’s going on?

Malcolm Collins:Well, so you gotta keep in mind from a Jewish perspective Yeah. Christians are policyists often. Because So

Simone Collins:when you mean when you say pagan ritual, you mean, like like, used in a Catholic church service. Don’t they have special mind for that?

Malcolm Collins:Most look. So you so you’ve gotta keep in mind from our perspective, from a techno Puritan perspective, I actually agree with Jews on this. Okay? So this is like, obviously, I think that if you treat Jesus as god and as a totally distinct entity, but also the same entity Yeah. That’s just multiple gods, but you defining it as not multiple gods. You saying, no. But I have defined it as not multiple gods, which to me is just wordplay. Right? Like so this is another weird part of techno puritanism. A lot of people wonder why we but I just can’t get over that that’s polytheism. So I can see why Jews feel this way. But most Christians wouldn’t feel this way, and this is, again, one of our weird, overly strict things about some parts of the bible. Okay. But to continue here, wineries run the wine through a heat exchanger, which is called flash pasteurization, up to roughly 175 to a 195 Fahrenheit for a short time. And then labels will say that you can find on mini wine bottles.

Simone Collins:We’ve gotta look for that next time.

Malcolm Collins:Now we’ll end with should we wrap this one up here and do a separate episode on this? Because I was gonna get into the weird sex stuff.

Simone Collins:Well, let’s do the weird sex stuff on the next one, but can you tell me about the wires before we before as our as our as our last little thing? Because I don’t I don’t remember. I just remember that they they need a wire around a thing, but I don’t remember why you need a wire around your community, say. Okay. So What does it keep you safe from? What does it do?

Malcolm Collins:You are not allowed to work on the status. Right?

Simone Collins:Yes. Right.

Malcolm Collins:And Jews love categorizing things. So they categorize

Simone Collins:Resistematizers just like the rest of the autists that are functional.

Malcolm Collins:Oh my god. This is why you have kids with a Jewess, and then all of your kids line up their toys by size and color. And that’s their favorite game. Makes me so happy. Absolutely. Go screw yourself. So cute.

Simone Collins:It’s so cute.

Malcolm Collins:This is and you see she even likes this behavior.

Simone Collins:Oh, come on. You do too when you come upstairs, and they’re so weird. Weird.

Malcolm Collins:They’re little Jubies. I love them so much. More often than not, they’re more backwards. More often than not, they’re ready to jump on you

Simone Collins:from outside. Than not, our house is just a tripping hazard. And and screaming. The other day,

Malcolm Collins:it was so funny. I come into the room, and one of my kids is dressed up. And I don’t know if it’s genetic or something like that. He looked like he was in pyctis war paint. He had taken a marker and told Simone that he wanted to go draw something.

Simone Collins:He wanted to take an art break from homeschooling lessons.

Malcolm Collins:So I come in. He hasn’t drawn a thing on the whiteboard. He was looking in the mirror, and he had drawn, like, lines around, like, his eyes and then, like, things all over and then a rib cage on himself. So it looked looked very Did you get any pictures of it?

Simone Collins:Oh, I have pictures. Yeah. Hold on. And the whole time, he’s going

Malcolm Collins:I come up doing his work right. Screaming at the time. He’s like Yeah.

Simone Collins:Hold on.

Malcolm Collins:You’re pulling it up?

Simone Collins:Yeah. I am. I have it right here.

Malcolm Collins:Okay. Okay.

Simone Collins:Gotta share my screen. Yeah. This is him homeschooling after, but he he just take he completely and it wasn’t just his face either. It was his his stomach too.

Malcolm Collins:The lines around his eyes. He’s so

Simone Collins:proud of himself. Yeah. He was very he was very pleased with himself. Just, like, constantly. Crazy boy. That’s our boy. Our little Torsten well, you named him Torsten. You named him. I we we chose this. Actually, this was more of a me name, Torsten Savage, because Torsten was my old family name. So

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. But now he’s got his little he did too Scandinavian this one. Uh-oh.

Simone Collins:Getting that off was a doozy. That was I don’t think

Malcolm Collins:they’d fit well. It is actually, so we have a a number of Orthodox Jewish friends, and pretty much every kid around their own age our kids have played with in their entire life has been Orthodox Jewish kids, except for True. Except for The one exception that we won’t name. Well, I mean okay. Whatever. The the but other than that, it’s always been and it’s always been a problem because they are far more naturally aggressive and rough in the way they play than Orthodox Jewish kids.

Simone Collins:Yeah. I was just at the mall with our our kids. And for whatever reason, both me, the boys that is, like, Tex, Torsten, and Octavian, And then one Orthodox Jewish family with three kids were shopping at the Rivian store and the Tesla store at the same time or fantasizing about cars we made some day afford. And they are dressed so nicely. The boys are wearing their, I can’t remember the garments with the the the tassel things on them. Like, they’re they’re properly like, they’re they’re they’re in it to win it. and their boys are, like, you know, politely walking around the cars. Our boys are, like, in the car, like, fully trying to drive it away, like, slamming the doors, climbing around. I’m like, no.

Malcolm Collins:No. No. No. And

Simone Collins:there they are, these sweet little children just like But this is

Malcolm Collins:the way we had traditionally raised our kids. This isn’t, like, a mistake of parenting. It’s just a cultural difference and and likely a genetic difference between population groups. And and that’s why there are different rules for different population groups in different periods. And the set of rules that works for one people isn’t necessarily gonna work for another people. I would personally find the Jewish system it would not be restful to me. I’ll tell you what. Sabbath would not be restful to me if I did it in the Jewish way. It would be a complete nightmare that I would not look forward to at all and would just make me less productive. And I’d see it as, like, a duty rather than a gift. And I think it’s very important to organize a Sabbath that you see as a gift that you are excited for.

Simone Collins:Yeah. I mean, it it in the end, it is a cessation.

Malcolm Collins:But it needs to be a real gift, something you are actually excited for in the way that you structure it. A real rest.

Simone Collins:A real No one said that you’re supposed to be happy on the Sabbath. You’re supposed to take a beat, and that’s that’s what you’re doing. That’s what

Malcolm Collins:we did. No. That’s actually wrong. It’s a cessation. You the point of the rest is your mental well-being. That is the point of the rest. That is why god commands it. They don’t say that. You are approaching this with Jew rules against it on. I gotta talk about the Jew gold now. I gotta let let out all the Jew rules because you got the the the Jew mindset there. God gave this to us to help us.

Simone Collins:God rested. As an addition the seventh day, and we do what God did because he’s figured something out.

Malcolm Collins:God didn’t do it because he had to do it. He didn’t do

Simone Collins:it because it was the wise thing to do, and now we can do it too.

Malcolm Collins:He didn’t do it because there was some fun was involved. He did it because he worked real hard for seven days. Okay? Then he he took a beat. That’s I think I I’m glad that I could take the two hundred, three hundred years from now, there’s gonna be two branches of techno puritanism. One that strictly follows the Simone rules and one that strictly follows the Malcolm rules. If you wanna see our law and argument about this There

Simone Collins:are Simone rules. There no. I I ultimately came to agree with you. And This is why men teach.

Malcolm Collins:Right? Like, this is why we can’t let women teach or they No.

Simone Collins:The big takeaway that I had was basically having when you take Malcolm’s approach to the Sabbath and you’re trying to constantly orient with the spirit of the law rather than the letter, you have to do a lot more thinking about what actually is in alignment with your religion and what actually is in the spirit of the law. And that in itself brings you closer in alignment with your religion. Requires more moral difficulty. Yeah. Than thoughtlessly adhering to a bunch of rote rules. And, therefore, it is better to think about, should you leave your house? You know? Should you give

Malcolm Collins:a parent’s crown? My way is actually morally more difficult. I I had to tell her it was the harder, technically stricter way

Simone Collins:Oh, great.

Malcolm Collins:For her to be okay with it. Because yeah. You see, I used I used what they call I had to learn Jew logic. I had to uno reverse her with strictness.

Simone Collins:Don’t worry. It’s actually harder. Don’t worry. I hate you so much. I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.

Malcolm Collins:I did my Bugs Bunny thing there with her. See?

Simone Collins:Yes. You did. You are look. Bugs Bunny is just repackaged Jack Tails, and you are just repackaged Jack Tails. So It’s harder. It’s easier. Harder.

Malcolm Collins:It’s really the other side of the branch. Anyway okay. So the. Alright? Yes. One form of work, because the Jews came up with all these types of work, is carrying something from one place to another place. Okay? Okay. And, by way, any of these that I’ve gotten wrong, Jews can talk about in the comments. Obviously, fake Jews who don’t really follow the rules, they are not gonna follow any of these. But I think that if you are actually Jew Jew, you are supposed to follow most of these. And that is, like, part of the Jewish identity. Right? And I think you lose

Simone Collins:a lot pretty good about it. You know?

Malcolm Collins:Hebron, in the Old Testament, God told the Jew to, like, literally beat a guy to death with stones for breaking these. And so if you don’t have some, like, good rabbinic reason for augmenting them significantly, which I think a lot of the reformed Jews really don’t, I think you’re still held to them unless you get some, like, big thing like the Jesus arguments. Trace, that was really good. Did Jesus use a number of rabbinic style arguments to argue against them, which we’ll go over in our episode on that. He was a Jew. He was a Jew, and he argued in a Jewish fashion against the way that the Jews had come to teach treat the Sabbaths, to argue that it went against the point. but what they do is they put a wire, which is okay. So how do I do this? Okay. So households put a loaf in one house, air shaved something, and then used a beam and pole wire doorway around so a lane counted as one domain

Speaker 15:Okay. So I had to look this up to get a clearer description because this is still very confusing to me. Essentially, happened is, historically, multiple houses might share their food. And if they were sharing their food on the Sabbath, then they would count as one house. Then what ended up happening is if you had, like, a small lane in between your houses, what people would do is you could either put a door at the opening of that lane or then just a wire at the opening of that lane, and that would count the two houses on either side of that lane as the same house. And then it was that ruling that later got extended to all houses in a wired in area.

Malcolm Collins:. King Solomon is credited with requiring the food share so people would not forget the origin of the ban. A city Europe, a committee of leases or gets permission for utility poles, string, fishing, etcetera, line or wire above head height and checks it every Friday and then publishes that your roof is up as a text to everyone, especially, like, after a storm or something like that. So they Oh, good heavens.

Simone Collins:See? Look at that. They’re they’re still being careful about the rule. If it’s broken, you’re SOL.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. That that then you’ve gotta do the teaching thing and all the other stuff and all the stuff that, you know, Jews do everywhere else in the world.

Simone Collins:Okay. So you don’t have to do all these other things if you

Malcolm Collins:If no. If you live in one of those, depending on. So some Jews are like, the wire doesn’t count. That’s clearly breaking the point of the rule.

Simone Collins:Okay. So interesting. There there is variation in interpretation here. Some people are like, I’m not falling for that. That’s not so oh, is this why some Jews actually wear just head coverings like any reasonable person would, whereas others wear the wig?

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. Note here what she’s talking about is, in one Jewish something, it’s it’s written that married women’s hair is erotic. and so they cover their hair, but then 11 wear wigs. And we always think that the funniest one because it’s, like, wearing fake breasts or something like that and and thinking it’s it’s okay. And, like, just tons of Jewish women do this. But it’s interesting. This is an example of, like, rule creep. That only got into the Jewish rule because in a temple ceremony, if you thought a woman was cheating on you, you would the priest would, like

Simone Collins:Remove her.

Malcolm Collins:Say a bunch of mean things to her and then rip off her her hair pins or whatever in super mean girlish. Tear her outfit, and then she’d, you know, walk out. And and so it was like, well, that’s what a woman looks like after they’ve been caught cheating. So, like, a normal woman doesn’t do that, and then it became erotic. And then it’s weird. It’s just rules piled on rules. God never came down and told Jews, like, women need to have their hair covered. Like, I I believe he did Christians, though, is women female hair coverings.

Simone Collins:Well, I know they’re, I mean, Christians are expected to cover their hair in church at least. I mean, it’s it’s, like, practicing proper ones. Right?

Malcolm Collins:I mean, yeah.

Simone Collins:I mean, I know it it like, trad cats trad cats will cover their hair. And

Malcolm Collins:I think you were supposed to. Yes.

Simone Collins:Yeah. And and now, like, women in fact, some women have converted just because they’re so into, like, the cute lacy wig.

Malcolm Collins:When are you gonna start wearing your bonnets again on on air?

Simone Collins:I I think what I’m more into instead of the bonnets is the middle ages style head covering.

Malcolm Collins:Give it

Simone Collins:The band that’s pinned down. But it’s just it’s a lot, and I can’t wear it if I have a baby on the back of me because I’ll pull it off. And techs will pull off anybody.

Malcolm Collins:You don’t have a baby on your back now. So I, as your husband, am demanding Oh my god. That you stop showing your robotic hair to our audience because they’re gonna get off. And what am I supposed to do with that?

Simone Collins:It’s so funny the varying things that societies have decided are erotic, like hair, ankles, facial expressions.

Malcolm Collins:What are you gonna do? You know? Whereas in techno puritanism, you’re just supposed to not dwell on any of that.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Like, maybe just get over yourself. Focus on what you’re supposed to do.

Malcolm Collins:Focus on what you’re supposed to do. This is a in the in the video game that I’m making, one of the the plots has a character who is supposed to be, like, a effective altruist parody. Right? And you’re a techno puritan wiping out their species of eusocial insects. And one of the factions you can ally with is effective altruists who are like, they think that they’re gonna use you to, like, take over afterwards. They’re like, well, we’re actually smart. We’re actually on your level. You know? But they start being happy because you’re destroying data centers or a city with a data center, and they think that they can manipulate you, and they’re very stupid about it. but they’re they’re like, oh, you know, why don’t you we got all these women, right, that you can sleep with, you know, all these poly people who work for us. Right? Like, why don’t we send them to your ship? And you’re just very confused. You’re like, wait. You have sex with them, but not for breeding. And they’re like, yeah. Not for breeding. And it’s like, so what why would you do that? And they’re like, well, because it feels good. And your character’s like, what? Have you not figured out masturbation yet? Like, why are you doing this? This seems like an enormous waste of time, which is genuinely the way I feel about these the those sorts of communities.

Simone Collins:This has been fascinating, and I want more. And I really appreciate

Malcolm Collins:And we’re gonna get more and very fun. And it is we’ll probably just do the direct next episode on this because I I I think it’s a fascinating topic. It’s a really interesting topic, and I hope you guys join us next time to learn more about weird stuff. Malicious compliance. Malicious compliance.

Simone Collins:Yes. I love it. Thank you, Malcolm. You’re gorgeous.

Malcolm Collins:You are gorgeous, and I love you.

Simone Collins:I love you too. You’ll think I’m even more gorgeous when I’m covered up in a freaking what are those called? Cowls? I don’t even know. I just think they’re actually the most practical looking head coverings. I know what I’m talking about. Right?

Malcolm Collins:Dinner tonight, we’re doing a reheat of your last sites. You did a pretty good job with that.

Simone Collins:Yeah. And then I do you want me to thaw out more steaks, or are you staked out at this point?

Malcolm Collins:No. I could never have enough steaks. I’ve I’ve got if I moved to a meal that’s, like, mostly steak, the way you cook steak is spectacular. You are one of the best steak cookers I have ever had in my life. Every bite is one of the best things I’ve ever had.

Simone Collins:that’s because you were gifted very good steak by a very generous family member.

Malcolm Collins:Well, I think you’ll probably be able to do it even when we run through all the steak. I don’t know about that.

Simone Collins:Well, we’ll find out, I guess. There’s still a lot of it left, though, because we were sent that giant chunk that I just spent hours.

Malcolm Collins:We might make enough of money that we can get

Simone Collins:No. I’m sure when you see the prices of that stuff, like, to buy a half of a cow or whatever it is that was sent to us. I remember cutting it up on the counter and Torsten being like, is that muscle like we have on our bodies? And I’m like, yeah. Toasty, that came from a cow. And he’s like, are you going to eat my muscle? Toasty, you’re too small.

Malcolm Collins:And he’s very sweet when he asks these questions.

Simone Collins:He’s so sweet when he asks if we’re going to eat him.

Malcolm Collins:And now you have to go to the doctor because you have been putting it off. And she’s like, I’m in enormous pain every day. And I was like bloody nubs that are on my Simone, then go to the doctor, and you’re like, but doctors cost money and take time. And I’m like, shut Simone, get your butt to the doctor.

Simone Collins:Okay. Off I go. I love you so much.

Malcolm Collins:Love you too.

Simone Collins:Bye. Looking forward to this We all didn’t get our morning time together, and I hate that so much. And we only get one hour together now.

Malcolm Collins:My video coming through okay?

Simone Collins:Yes. It looks clear today. It does not look messed up.

Malcolm Collins:But you’ve been wanting to do this one for ages. So

Simone Collins:My chair has creeped into your background. It’s very pronatalist.

Malcolm Collins:Very pronatalist. Yes. Yeah. Alright. I’ll get I’ll get started on this one right away because it’ll be a tough one. Good.

Speaker 16:Room, and he has decided to ambush me. Are you gonna let me through? Right? I you’re not gonna jump on me by trying to walk through. Right? Oh, Oh, I’m not leaving you, buddy. Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no. I’m not allowed. You don’t give up. You don’t give up. Is that what they it’s you know, it’s an ambush when they’re yelling ambush. Oh, I’m coming in. I think I’m gonna Owl attack. Ready? Uh-oh. An owl? Yeah. We beat our kids every day. You see how good we are at it? Oh my god. Yes. I want to swim. I need to run. Yeah. I love you, Aki. Bye. Are you trying to say your love and your have a backup plan? Did you know I have a backup plan?

Join us on Based Camp today to explore Dignity Village, a self-funded and self-governed community of tiny homes in Portland that has operated successfully for 25 years. We examine its rules, governance structure, shared facilities, and low operating costs compared to city-run alternatives.

Our discussion covers why this model has endured while other attempts failed, key factors for sustainable micro-communities, and practical lessons for building resilient groups amid declining urban services, highlighting membership requirements, dispute resolution, and the importance of exclusivity and clear boundaries.

We hope you enjoy it!

Show Notes

I learned about this from a NY Times article titled The Homeless Community That Became a Self-Governed Village (Portland’s Dignity Village has been a place for people without housing for more than 25 years.).

In this article, journalist Brian Barth explores this growing community; here are some choice quotes:

“One evening a few months ago, the awkward details of a love triangle spilled out in a humble plywood structure next door to a municipal composting facility in Portland, Ore.

The building, known simply as the Commons, serves as the communal kitchen, living room and courtroom of Dignity Village, a community of approximately 60 people living in hand-built tiny homes on the site. All previously homeless, they manage the place on their own — likely the only such community in the country that is not just city-sanctioned, but fully self-funded and self-governed.

The village council had gathered that evening in the cluttered, dimly lit Commons to adjudicate a disagreement between a woman, her boyfriend and an ex. The ex had filed an incident report with the village’s security department which stated that the current boyfriend had been harassing and intimidating him.

The meeting was a curious blend of bureaucracy and bickering friends, much like the village itself — part homeless camp, part homeless services agency. After some debate, a compromise emerged: the ex-boyfriend pledged to stop sending the woman a constant stream of texts and the two men agreed to avoid each other for the foreseeable future. The words of village elders sealed the deal.”

* This sounds a lot more efficient and desirable than a normal court hearing

* If I were living in this community, I’d feel a lot more like there would be people out there, watching over me and making sure rules were enforced

““Welcome to our radical experiment in collective self-empowerment to end homelessness!” exclaims the village manual. Residents are expected to contribute 10 hours of work each week to maintain the village, substance use must be confined to private spaces, and disputes are resolved by an elected council.”

* You can review their entrance agreement and manual preview online

* It includes a medical questionnaire

* Five basic rules (breaking means permanent exclusion)

* “No violence to yourself or others

* No theft

* No public use of intoxicating substances allowed, except cannabis in designated area between the guard shack and computer lab. Responsible use of substances allowed inside personal structures. No inappropriate behavior in public spaces due to substance use. No pushing or sales allowed onsite.

* No constant disruptive behavior

* Everyone must contribute at least 10 hours per week to the operation and maintenance of the Village (unless show proof of school or work to obtain an exception).”

* Shows how they govern

* “Self-governance is the cornerstone of the Village Model. Each member has a vote and is responsible to participate. We are a membership based 501c3 nonprofit community organization providing a shelter program. The Village Council is elected by vote of the membership and responsible for 501c3 nonprofit operations, including election of the Board Officers. The Board Officers consist of the Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary, and Treasurer. Membership may elect no less than 3 or more than 25 councillors to serve a 1 year term. Most decisions require a membership vote (including adoption of new rules) and decisions made by Council may be overturned by a membership vote (except an exclusion for violence). All villagers are solely responsible for attending meetings and requesting minutes to keep up on new rules. Democracy is a core value of Dignity Village.”

* I’ll not get into it, but they also have a “Program Noncompliance & Grievance Procedure” that’s quite detailed

* Hints at what a slice of life is like

* “In the Guard Shack, a telephone and personal message board are provided. Phone and other messages are pinned to this board (meeting notices or other official Village business are posted in the Commons). Code of conduct for the Guard Shack as follows:

* Only the officially appointed mail deliverer or a board officer (Chair, Vice, Secretary, Treasurer) may touch the mail.

* While the phone is in use, no yelling, profanity, or otherwise inappropriate discussions are allowed in the vicinity. People may be making calls to family, children, jobs, courts, donors, etc.

* Phone calls are limited to 10 min unless for official Village business or by special arrangement.

* No leaving guard shack unattended if you are on shift (except doing rounds). Must wait until the next person shows (automatic 7 day out).

* No sleeping on guard shack duty (automatic 7 day out).

* Leave the Guard Shack cleaner than you found it.”

* Doesn’t sound like a terribly pleasant place to live:

* “Portable toilets are provided and serviced twice a week. Do not throw trash, other than toilet paper or paper seat covers, in toilets. Close the lid when you finish to prevent flies from spreading diseases in our food. Use trash containers for trash only, no biohazardous waste such as: needles, urine, feces, or vomit (needle disposal containers are available in the Guard Shack). If you miss the toilet or urinal, do not leave your mess for others to clean up. Disinfectants, bleach, and a hose are available from the Housekeeping Coordinator, if needed. Hand sanitizer is provided in the portable toilets and antibacterial hand soap at the sink. Please use them to prevent the spread of illness”

* “The shower and sink are located next to the portable toilets. Showers are strictly limited to 30 min because there is only 1 shower for 60+ people to share. The water is heated by individual propane tanks, you must provide your own or borrow a propane tank. Day guests may use the shower between 10am to 10pm. Leave the shower in a tidy and sanitary manner after use.”

““Peer support is the best way to lift yourself up,” says Scott Layman, a longtime resident who credits the “familyship” of the village with helping him coexist with the voices in his head, without medication, and recover from alcoholism.”

* Could it be that in earlier ages, schizophrenic people fared better because they were kept in check by tight-knit communities who very actively policed them?

THE COST!

“Representatives of villages attempting self-governance in Portland gather once a month as the Village Federation. At a recent gathering, they welcomed Mitch Green, an economist turned city councilor, whose downtown Portland district includes much of the city’s unhoused population. He was flabbergasted by Dignity Village’s annual operating budget: $60,000, or about $1,000 per person. He said Portland’s city-run tiny home villages cost taxpayers approximately $40,000 per person annually.

“I’m inspired by self-governed villages that center folks who are living in the situation,” he told the federation. Noting that spending on shelter programs was the “biggest driver” of the city’s recent $170 million budget shortfall, Mr. Green said, “I am going to be looking for opportunities to take money away from the city’s shelter system and divert it towards enabling more of this.””

* It seems obvious that cities will turn to this next, then—right?

HOW THEY PAY FOR IT

“The community accepts donations from the public, but much of their operating revenue comes from monthly dues — currently $100 per resident — and microbusinesses such as a landscaping operation and firewood sales. According to the city, taxpayer costs for the project are minimal, mainly for annual safety checks by the fire marshal.”

““What we’re here trying to do is help people, and when we do that, we help ourselves, and everybody rises,” says Mr. Layman. “That’s the theory anyway.””

* What he’s describing is a community in which people are responsible for each other and themselves, which is profoundly more sustainable

* It makes me realize that in modern society, people are often not even expected to be responsible for themselves, let alone random members of their community

“Current infrastructure includes a guard shack, computer lab, communal bathhouse and a greenhouse that doubles as an overnight shelter for people who show up needing relief. The individual tiny homes lack running water, but since 2025 have been powered by roof-mounted photovoltaic panels, a gift from a local solar energy company.”

* This even accounts for the potentiality of key infrastructure faltering—power and electricity not working anymore

* Brian Barth notes that the city didn’t originally want this permanent community to exist; basically a homeless encampment that “settled on city-owned land next to the composting facility, where the government has reluctantly allowed them to remain” and “Under an obscure state law, the city designated the place as an urban campground, allowing some flexibility around building codes.”

THE GOVERNANCE STRUCTURE

““The community’s governance structure eschews hard and fast rules in favor of strategies to maintain community cohesion and well-being. People are expelled only in extreme instances, usually involving violence. Rules meant to keep the place clean, discourage hoarding and prevent fires are enforced to the extent necessary to satisfy the fire marshal and environmental regulators. Transgressions tend to be met with peer pressure, formal incident reports and collective kindness.

“Your peers hold you accountable if you’re slacking or engaging in negative behaviors, which hits a lot different than if a staff member of a traditional shelter nags you or gets you in trouble,” said Victory Lafara, a social worker and longtime advocate for the community. “It means more and actually motivates people to make the changes they need to make.””

* Just as we talk about complex religions collapsing into supersoft religions and folk beliefs, I wonder if this is the natural organic, instinctual way for human communities to form that, while perhaps not capable of building insanely cool things, is nevertheless sustainable.

THE GROWTH TREND

“Tiny home villages for the homeless have spread rapidly across the country in recent years. Like congregate shelters, most have a long list of rules, enforced by nonprofit operators. Consequently, many without housing still reject them in favor of the relative freedom of the street.” … “Numerous unhoused communities across the country have attempted to become permanent and self-governing, but they are typically shut down quickly. Several have emerged in Portland in recent years, including Right to Dream Too and Hazelnut Grove, and while the city has not evicted them, it also hasn’t encouraged the approach.”

* Right to Dream Too: Has a page with video tours

* Hazelnut Grove: Their instagram doesn’t really show what it’s like to live there. Their linktree includes petitions to save it, a link to a previous city hall petition livestream, a press conference, and welcome video

* Resistance is based on a belief that somehow cities will still have working infrastructure: ““The City of Portland does not believe independent villages are scalable, replicable models,” said Alison Perkins, a city spokesperson, noting issues with sanitation, fires and water pollution that “pose life-safety, health, equity and infrastructure issues for both residents of the self-operated shelter and the surrounding community.””

AN ALTERNATE FORMAT, WHICH PORTLAND IS TRYING TO PUSH

“Portland’s formal alternative is a network of seven city-run tiny home communities, called Safe Rest Villages, that are heavily rule-based, with a 120-day limit on length of stay. In contrast, Dignity Village’s lack of time limits draws criticisms from the city [Brian later notes stays range from one to two years, but a higher percentage graduate to permanent housing (around 60%) than those in the city-run communities (around 40%)]. Its [that is, Dignity Village’s] model “generally does not provide in-depth case management and does not prioritize moving individuals into permanent housing,” Ms. Perkins said.”

* BUT IT WORKS BETTER AND COSTS LESS!

* Safe Rest Villages:

* “Jim Hawes, a Dignity Village resident who was previously housed at a Safe Rest Village in Portland, says he was evicted because he had not done enough to procure items like a driver’s license that are necessary to apply for subsidized housing and other benefits. “If you don’t meet all of these milestones that they’ve established, then they kick you out, regardless of whether you were trying or not,” he said.”

* This makes me think of the modern poor houses / debtors prisons depicted in Ready Player One

* “Elana Pirtle-Guiney, the Portland city councilor for the district in which Dignity Village and Right to Dream Too are located, sees the self-governed and city-governed models as complementary.”

ANOTHER ALTERNATE FORMAT: SELF-GOVERNED COMMUNITIES RUN BY NONPROFITS WITH BOARDS OF HOUSED, NON-RESIDENTS

“Mr. Heben helped spearhead a community called Opportunity Village in Eugene, Ore., which was modeled on Dignity Village. He also cofounded a likeminded venture called SquareOne Villages. Unlike Dignity Village, whose founders created a nonprofit of their own, Opportunity Village’s associated nonprofit is run by an external board of directors — housed residents who support an elected council of village residents who oversee daily operations.

“You visit these camps and you see all these positive elements of self-organizing, direct democracy and mutual aid, but they’re also far from ideal living situations,” Mr. Heben said. “As soon as you try to formalize them there needs to be some top-down rules.””

* I feel less confident about these, but maybe they’re more like the villages that attended the seat of landed gentry?

A DARK SLICE OF LIFE IN THE VILLAGE AND THE TENSION

“The tension between the independence Dignity Village’s residents credit for the community’s success and the city’s disapproval of its anarchic atmosphere hung over the Dignity Village Council meeting. The aroma of decomposing waste penetrated the walls from the compost facility next door, along with the occasional roar of a jet taking off, as the group trudged through the agenda items — bills to be paid, policies for evicting vicious dogs and the delicate work of resolving a love triangle’s domestic disputes. Village elders issued ardent reminders to keep trash from accumulating and to remain vigilant about fire risks, lest the city pull the plug on their 25-year experiment.

Ray Stanczak, a 76-year-old resident, spoke to the perennial paradox the community faces: they may feel like their model trumps the city’s, but they sit on city-owned land. “I don’t think they’re going to shut us down,” he said. “But they might try to run us.””

Why is this working and CHOP/CHAZ wasn’t? (Key Lessons)

* CHOP/CHAZ occupied inhabited land whereas Dignity Village settled in vacant land next to a composting plant that nobody wanted (it actively stinks, lacks plumbing, etc.)

* KEY LESSON: You can’t settle on land people want

* Dignity Village was created by people who genuinely needed a place to live and had few other choices, whereas CHOP/CHAZ was occupied by protesters

* KEY LESSON: Future communities won’t be fun larps; they’ll be products of necessity (looking at you, Praxis—important for planning)

* Dignity Village has low traffic: You need to see a guard in order to enter and sign in, whereas CHOP/CHAZ had rapid churn of people/visitors coming in and out

* KEY LESSON: The sustainable communities of the future will be gated, even when they’re not elite/expensive

* From the Dignity Village manual:

* “All guests/visitors are subject to review by the Village Intake Committee.”

* “Visitors for a villager must be escorted by security to the Commons room. Security will then get the villager. For safety reasons (domestic violence, stalking, vendettas, etc.), security must not escort a visitor directly to a villager’s structure.”

* “Outside the Common Area, visitors must be escorted at all times. Only a member may escort a visitor outside the Common Area. Exception is made when actively doing work for the Village.”

* “Only Members in good standing may have overnight guests”

* Dignity Village has clear governance, rules, and expectations—there are membership expectations, work requirements, intake, resident governance, discipline—meanwhile CHOP/CHAZ had only fragmented ability to enforce loose norms

* KEY LESSON: Being a member of a sustainable community will be like having an additional part-time job

* Makes me feel like Latter-Day Saints are going to fare quite well

* Dignity Village managed to patch together Conditional permission/use arrangements and nonprofit/legal capacity

* KEY LESSON: It’s better to find a plausibly legal way to enter an arrangement with whatever entity “technically” governs the area

Also, what on earth is up with the pacific northwest?

Episode Transcript

Simone Collins:this is a very postapocalyptic friendly village. I’m into it.

Malcolm Collins:Outside It’s in Portland.

Simone Collins:I know.

Malcolm Collins:Because they’ve already destroyed their city. Well, we’re going to see little islands of things working as progressives end up bringing cities to a state where the culture within the city is just not continuing not functional.

Simone Collins:As William Gibson said, the future is here. It is just not evenly distributed. Hello, Malcolm. I’m very excited to be speaking with you today because this morning, I think I stumbled upon a model city of the future. And it’s not some high-tech enclave in Tokyo or Singapore. It is a homeless community in Portland established in 2001. Wait.

Malcolm Collins:And Portland. Some woke homeless encampment you think is a model for future

Simone Collins:This is the future. The future.

Speaker 5:Eric Cartman? The kid who jumped 30 homeless people on a skateboard?

Speaker 4:You heard about that? They said you could have easily cleared 50 homeless with that jump. 30 was hard enough. Oh, god.

Simone Collins:It has Are

Malcolm Collins:we gonna get into homeless fights? Because I want that. I want a better understanding of how to fight my homeless.

Simone Collins:You’ll see. They they they govern these things. You’ll you’ll see. They live in hand built tiny homes. They use a central building called the Commons as a shared kitchen, community space, and de facto courtroom because they’re self governing, and they are also self funded. They are not funded by the city. And the city of Port Portland has fully sanctioned it. And Wait. So they’re

Malcolm Collins:homeless, but they’re self funded. Are they funded from things that the members are making or, like, an extra rule?

Simone Collins:Member dues, dude. You gotta pay. This is an elite.

Malcolm Collins:This is an elite Farming the homeless.

Simone Collins:Homeless community. We need

Malcolm Collins:a homeless farm here, Simone.

Speaker 10:California did not do the homeland. California, y’all, super cool to the homeland.

Malcolm Collins:Are you going to teach us how to farm the homeless?

Simone Collins:They they are they’re the elite. The elite. They’re elite. Oh my god. They’re elite. Elite. It has happened. The prophecy

Speaker 6:Let me show you. Derek Leith. It is the fashion, the way of life inspired by the very homeless, the vagrants, the the crack w****s that make this wonderful city so unique.

Simone Collins:. amazing. But it it’s actually kind of important to to look at this community because as cities begin to lose their capacity to maintain police forces and infrastructure and other basic services, we should expect to see more fully sanctioned self governing communities. So it’s, I think, important for us to look at what this is like.

Malcolm Collins:And also Just to elaborate on what she’s saying here, if we look at current trends, especially with ultra progressive cities, so Portland’s gonna be the first place that needs

Simone Collins:There’s a reason. Oh my gosh. As I go through this, you’re gonna be shocked by, like, dimensions of all the other self governing and then alternate homeless kid encampments. And I’m like, well, are you okay, Pacific Northwest? Like, what is happening? There shouldn’t be, like, the the 15 alternative homeless encamp like, anyway, carry on.

Malcolm Collins:Yes. Anyway, so the police just can’t act anymore in a lot of places. Yeah. And we’re increasingly seeing this. You know, if you watch any of these clip channels or anything like that, you see people just going out, breaking the law. The famous clip recently of the guy talking to The UK police officer

Simone Collins:What do want me to do about He’s breaking law, and

Malcolm Collins:she’s like, what do you want me to do about it? I’m the police officer

Speaker 8:He’s breaking the law right now.

Speaker 9:The What I supposed

Speaker 8:He’s to do?

Malcolm Collins:. so we have an increasing breakdown of police forces. We have a breakdown of the financial feasibility of cities as the population gets older and more and more money goes into, you know, people who are not putting money back into the tax system. And then on top of that, you also have the cities becoming more aggressive in the way they spend. Look at the Zohar Mundami stuff. Look at what we’re seeing in in these woke cities. And so the idea is is that eventually we are going to need self organizing micro communities for any semblance of civilization moving forwards. And a lot of people expect these to start with the ultra rich and then go down. Right? Like, the ultra rich are gonna have their gated communities, but that’s not necessarily the case. I mean, many of the ultra richest communities are some of the wokest, most infighty, most communities on Earth. I mean, imagine having a

Simone Collins:Many of them will fall apart more quickly. It has to be more of the resilience of it. Now that’s one of the reasons why I was interested in this one because, again, founded in 2001, it is 25 years old. Wow. Yeah. That’s the thing is this this is again, it’s a flagship elite homeless community. It is is actually very impressive. And you absolutely some pictures of it? Yeah. I I I I provided some for the class. So this is the entrance of the beautiful flagship village. it is called Dignity Village. You can see these, like, homemade tiny houses. This is their guard building where you have to check-in if if you wanna come in. You can kinda see how it is it looks kind of like a a you if you squint your eyes and can’t see the detail well, you might think it’s like a campground entrance building, bit rustic looking. You know? But then you look more closely, and you could see how, like, the woods falling apart in some places. It was clearly made with found materials and donated materials. There’s weird stuff hanging from it.

Malcolm Collins:So homeless people self organize this?

Simone Collins:Yeah. Yeah. I’m gonna go through the whole backstory. I see there’s a donated couch on it, but it has a wheelchair ramp. It’s accessible. here’s their their bathroom and shower area. They don’t have plumbing, keep in mind. So everything has to be brought in. You know, this is again, this is a radically independent community. And, of course, that’s what’s gonna fall apart when everything goes to crap. Right? Like, there will be no electricity. There will be no plumbing. Okay. Hold on. I’m gonna stop sharing my screen. Stop. Stop. Okay. But yeah. So as you can see, it’s real. It is organized. People go and they’ll do tours. And so we’re gonna learn more about this community. We’re also at the end gonna analyze why this community has survived for twenty five years, whereas other attempts, obviously, including the high profile chop chess also in the Pacific Northwest, what is wrong with you people, has failed so rapidly. And then I I actually have some takeaways that can help us personally prepare for when we and our our children have to join self governing communities ourselves because it’s only a matter of time, Malcolm. Either our days are numbered. Anyway, I learned about this from this New York Times article called the homeless community that became a self governed village. Portland’s Dignity Village has been a place for people without housing for more than twenty five years. I mean, in this article, journalist Brian Barth explores this growing community, and here’s here’s how he opens it. One evening, a few months ago, the awkward details of a love triangle spilled out in a humble plywood structure next door to a municipal composting facility in Portland, Oregon. The building, known simply as The Commons, serves as the communal kitchen, living room, and courtroom of Dignity Village, a community approximately 60 people living in hand built tiny homes on the site. All previously homeless, they managed the place on their own. Likely, the only such community in the country that is not just city sanctioned, but fully self funded and self governed. The village council had gathered that evening in the cluttered dimly lit commons to adjudicate a disagreement between a woman, her boyfriend, and an ex. The ex had filed an incident report with the village’s security department, which had stated that the current boyfriend had been harassing and intimidating them. The meeting was a curious blend of bureaucracy and bickering friends, much like the village itself, part homeless camp, part homeless services agency. After some debate, a compromise emerged. The ex boyfriend pledged to stop sending the woman a constant stream of texts, and the two men agreed to avoid each other for the foreseeable future. The words of village elders seal the deal. And, yes, they are referred to technically and in the handbook, which I did read as village elders. So the weird thing is hearing about this, honestly, Malcolm, this sounds a lot more efficient and desirable than a normal court hearing. Like, in in a in a normal city, if you and your your your partner are being harassed by an ex, like, what do you do? You have to go to the police department, file a

Speaker 3:restraining order.

Malcolm Collins:Why we did that last video about, like, the sovereign citizen courts and stuff like that is eventually we’re gonna need something like this.

Simone Collins:And it’s kind of better than what we have now already, which is kind of crazy. Right? Because there are people always who are are violating restraining orders or you can’t even get one or the paperwork gets lost. And here, everyone knows each other. Everyone’s like, dude, if they if they see the guy violating it, he’s out. You know? Everyone has eyes on him. It’s like it’s like a it’s a surveillance state with high-tech except not really because everything’s biological. Super interesting to me. but, anyway, if I were living in this community or a community that was governed like this, I would feel a lot more like there would be people out there watching over me and making sure that the rules were enforced than literally the community we live in now, which is crazy. anyway, continuing from the article. Welcome to our radical experiment in collective self empowerment to end homelessness, exclaims the village manual. Residents are expected to contribute ten hours of work each week to maintain the village. Substance use must be confined to private spaces, and disputes are resolved by an elected council. And I linked in the show notes, are on Patreon and Substack, to their full entrance agreement and manual preview online. It includes a medical questionnaire. Like, they’re really watching out for you. They wanna know your food allergies. They wanna know what meds you’re taking. They wanna know your primary care physician. Like, they it it’s crazy. Like, I feel like we filled out less paperwork to put our kids at daycare. It’s so wild. and here are their five basic rules to kind of give you a picture of what they’re asking of their members. So one, no violence to yourself or others. Think that to yourself part is really cool. They they really care about the people there. Two, no theft. Three, no public use of intoxicating substances allowed except cannabis in designated areas between the guard shack and the computer lab. Responsible use of substances allowed inside personnel personal structures. No inappropriate behavior in public spaces due to substance use. No pushing or sales allowed on-site. I think that’s so interesting. This example of what apparently sustainable governance is around basically free use of drugs. So, like, if The US were to theoretically enforce rules like these, maybe it would kinda kinda work out. I don’t know. I I just find that really interesting. I don’t know they’re saying no hard drugs.

Malcolm Collins:Well, I mean, the drug fighting the cartels is a real issue, and you could remove them if you industrialize the process.

Simone Collins:Yeah. That’s the thing. And, also, there would be far fewer overdose deaths because people would know the dosage. And, also, I think there would just be fewer incidents in general. Like, there was someone adjacent to our general world who recently got in a car accident then tested positive for drugs. Turns out he was on fentanyl. He didn’t think he was taking fentanyl. He thought he thought was taking something totally different, but it was illegal. And so, of course, there was fentanyl in it. So, like, I’m just saying. I Oh. Will tell you offline. Not not anyone directly in our circle. We’re we’re talking

Malcolm Collins:Okay.

Simone Collins:At a remove. Okay? Anyway, let’s see. Number four, no constant disruptive behavior. I also like that. It could be intermittent disruptive behavior. They’re not asking for the world here. And then five, everyone must contribute at least ten hours per week to the operation and maintenance of the village unless show proof of school or work to obtain an exception. I will say that there are lots of grammatical errors in this. They do not use AI for spell check or anything like that. And it kinda makes it feel more genuine, which I I super dig. I didn’t include this in the photos that I showed, but in the New York Times article about this place, they they literally like, they include a picture of the manual that’s sitting in the commons, and that thing is filthy. That binder has seen some, like, serious action. I I don’t know. Did they

Malcolm Collins:have, like, diagrams in it or something? Or

Simone Collins:No. There are no diagrams. They just had a binder of the printed out rules that you can also read online and are linked in the show notes. there are some other parts of the of the manual that I read that I thought were interesting because it gives you a picture on how they govern. They write self governance is the cornerstone of the village model. Each member has a vote and is responsible to participate. We are a membership based five zero one c three nonprofit community organization providing a shelter program. The village council is is elected by vote of the membership and responsible for five zero one c three nonprofit operations, including election of the board of officers. The board of officers consist of the chair, vice chair, secretary, and treasurer. Membership may select no less than three or more than 25 counselors to serve a one year term. Keep in mind, this is a total of, like, 60 people. Yep. Most decisions require a membership vote, including adoption of new rules, and decisions made by council may be overturned by membership vote except an exclusion for violence. All villagers are solely responsible for attending meetings and requesting minutes to keep up on new rules. Democracy is a core value of Dignity Village. And I’ll get into it, but they also have a program noncompliance and grievance procedure that’s also quite detailed. Or, I mean, I won’t get into it. I wanted to get into it, but then I I it got too detailed. But, anyway, like, they’re very ready for all of this, and the elders will will rule, over your personal squabbles if they have to. They also give you a hint at the slice of life there just to not glorify it, you know, in case you’re getting too excited about moving into this flagship city of the future. In the Guard Shack, a telephone and personal message board are provided. Phone and other messages are pinned to this board. Meeting notices or other official village business are posted in the comments. Code of conduct for the Guard Shack as follows. Only the officially appointed mail deliverer or board officer, chair, vice secretary, treasurer may touch the mail. So they have someone who’s their mail person. Like, the mail truck will, like, drop it off at the guardhouse and, like, slowly back away. But then, like, the person who’s responsible for the mail will go through this 60 person village and deliver the mail to every tiny house, which is kinda cool. Okay? While the phone is in use, no yelling, profanity, or otherwise inappropriate discussions are allowed. In the vicinity, people may be making calls to family, children, jobs, courts, donors, etcetera. Courts. Which is interesting. Like, someone high off their mind or something, like, yelling in the corner while you’re, like, trying to be on on the one landline to the court. Phone calls are limited to ten minutes unless official village business or by special arrangement, which is also interesting because it’s like people all sharing this phone number in this village. I I could imagine in the future, like, everyone trying to share, like, a three d printer or, you know, an Internet connection or,

Malcolm Collins:like, access AI tickets. Other jobs.

Simone Collins:You know? They can they can

Malcolm Collins:live in these camps, and we’ll live in the AI Fortress. Yeah.

Simone Collins:I mean, we’ll see. no leaving guard shack unattended if you are on shift except doing rounds. Must wait until the next person shows. Automatic seven day out. I didn’t find out what a seven day out was.

Malcolm Collins:I didn’t look that up yet.

Simone Collins:no sleeping on guard shack duty. Automatic seven day out. What is seven day out? You get kicked out of the village for some of those? leave the guard shack cleaner than you found it. Very classic campsite rule, as you know. And then here’s how they describe the bathroom situation because I was also very curious about that seeing as they don’t have

Malcolm Collins:name of this community? I’ll look up what seven day out means.

Simone Collins:Oh, thank you. I’ll just send you a link to their rule book, and then you can use your browser to ask AI questions about it. I I I was actually just I was enthralled, Malcolm. I was enthralled in reading it, and I didn’t wanna stop because but then I had to because I have work to do, people to take care of. It’s horrible. It’s horrible. Okay. Bathroom situation. Here we go. Portable toilets are provided and serviced twice a week. Do not throw trash other than toilet paper or paper seat covers in toilets. Close the lid when you finish to prevent flies from spreading diseases in our food. I don’t know.

Malcolm Collins:Wait. Do they share food? Do they do communal meals?

Simone Collins:Yes. They all cook in the same kitchen. Use trash containers for trash only. No bio biohazardous waste such as needles, urine, feces, or vomit. Needle disposal containers are available on the guard check. If you miss the toilet or urinal, do not leave your mess for others to clean up. Disinfectants, bleach, and a hose are available from the housekeeping coordinator if needed. Hand sanitizer is provided in the portable toilets and antibacterial hand soap at the sink. Please use them to prevent the spread of illness. The shower and sink are located next to the portable toilets. I’m sure it smells great. showers are strictly limited.

Malcolm Collins:A seven day out means they expel you from

Simone Collins:the village for seven days. Oh, shunned. Shunned. I thought so. Okay. Great.

Malcolm Collins:I guess while you’re homeless, like, yeah, it’s not so bad. Because I was like, how do they where do you live? And it’s like, well, they’re homeless anyway. So

Simone Collins:Yeah. But, like, y’all, your stuff’s there. It’s it’s tough. You know? It’s tough.

Malcolm Collins:And a normal outage is being kicked out for twenty four hours.

Simone Collins:Okay. Fair enough. Yeah. You gotta wander the streets, busk a little, I guess, from wealthy tech workers. Showers are strictly limited to thirty minutes because there’s only one shower for 60 plus people to share. The water is heated by individual propane tanks. You must provide your own or borrow a propane tank. Day guests may use the shower between 10AM to 10PM, leave the shower in a tidy and sanitary manner after use. Isn’t that interesting that you have to so the the way they do hot showers

Malcolm Collins:Okay.

Simone Collins:Actually need a hot shower is you bring your own propane tank. Isn’t that fascinating?

Malcolm Collins:Yep. That is interesting.

Simone Collins:Yeah. I’m just trying to think of how it’s gonna play out in the end times. Okay? I’m just I’m trying to get ready for it. I’m stealing my mind.

Malcolm Collins:Okay. Hold on. I’ll do I’ll do a screen share because I found better pictures than you did. Oh, you said?

Simone Collins:Okay. Okay. Let’s do it. Give me a show. Give me a show.

Malcolm Collins:Alright. So you can see let’s go let’s go to the top here. You can see some of the different buildings here. Right?

Simone Collins:So that’s I mean, like, when you squint, it looks really nice.

Malcolm Collins:And then you realize there’s a bunch of junk taped together.

Simone Collins:Yeah. But when you squint and, when you squint, oh, it looks like like a normal neighborhood.

Malcolm Collins:Oh, this looks like Telluride. I’m gonna be honest. For

Simone Collins:those unaware, as I was before I met Malcolm, Telluride is one of the most expensive places in the entire world, most elite and limited places. It feels like if you see But it’s got

Malcolm Collins:a bunch of ski bums that sometimes live in shacks.

Simone Collins:Everyone is incredibly wealthy there. It feels like the the show Eureka. I think this really brilliant.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. It really shows well, like, what it it looks like to live there, like, getting it in profile.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Like, a lot of shacks on on what appears to maybe be a parking lot. Yeah. They paved an area.

Malcolm Collins:Piece of of of paved in. Yeah. And then the you can see what’s interesting is is the people don’t look they look kinda young a lot of them do. I guess there’s some old Some

Simone Collins:of them are young. Yeah. Some are young.

Malcolm Collins:Some are young and some are older. Yeah. Village elders. Village elders. Then we have another one there. And then we’ve had, like, a little picture of what it’s meant to look like, which is

Simone Collins:I like it. I like it. Okay. Of course, keep in mind, it’s it’s surrounded by the the composting plant. That’s

Malcolm Collins:It is surrounded by a composting plant?

Simone Collins:Yeah. Don’t smell good. Okay? Look. They got it because no one no one wanted to be on this government light. That’s where I wanna put my homeless.

Malcolm Collins:Oh. Next to comp this is the great thing to do with the homeless. And then the ones you put out, you put them in radical games for their life. I think that’s, you know, the tubes. Right? That’s what those

Simone Collins:are for. The tubes. People would love the tube. The tubes would be, like, stuffed full of rich people. There were livestreams.

Malcolm Collins:There were so many it would be, by the way. Yeah. It’s such a great way to get

Simone Collins:rid the really would be.

Malcolm Collins:For people who don’t know the tubes, the tubes is this concept that, like Someone someone made an AI video that they posted to x. And I’ll put the video here so

Speaker 3:you need to that wait. You could expect from AI. It’s gonna be sick. They’re gonna do these terrible things to poor people.

Simone Collins:And it’s like, no, bro. Like, this is gonna be

Malcolm Collins:We as a civilization have been waiting for this since the eighties. Poor people game shows to survive. We look back to the Roman gladiators with pride.

Simone Collins:I think here’s the thing, though. Our sons looked at the tubes and were like, how do I get how do I sign up for this? How do I do the tubes?

Malcolm Collins:How do I get in the tubes?

Simone Collins:No one wants to be outside the tubes. They wanna be in the tubes.

Malcolm Collins:They wanna go in the tubes. It’s so bad. Stick them in the tubes.

Simone Collins:Stick them in the tubes. Unrelated note, this generation, including our children, literally just you know, how, like, birds some parrots will, like, make the sounds of their of their owners or whatever, or they’re, like, songbirds will pick up the sounds of construction? Yeah. Our children have picked up the sounds of memes that people put into their YouTube videos. Like, Octavia this morning was like and then I’d be like, oh my god, bra. And then he’s like, bra.

Malcolm Collins:And, like Oh my god, bra.

Simone Collins:Oh my and you know that. Oh my god. What the hell? And, yeah, he’s like he has it down. Like, one of those songbirds that, like, learns how to, like

Malcolm Collins:No.

Simone Collins:That’s the type of thing that

Speaker 3:gets you

Malcolm Collins:ask me, Simone. You’re gonna be able to drop that in front of the girls, and they’re like

Simone Collins:It’s He’ll do fine.

Malcolm Collins:Talk like the meme shows. He starts his YouTube or he starts his Twitter, and he just rolls off with the

Simone Collins:He’ll save so much editing time. He doesn’t even have to, like, insert the sound bite. Anyway, I just had to like, I had this realization this morning when he did it again, and I’m like, oh, boy. We live at a time. anyway, back to the New York Times article. Quote, peer support is the best way to to lift yourself up, says Scott Lehman, a longtime resident who credits the family ship of the village with helping him coexist with the voices in his head without medication and recover from alcoholism, which I thought to be super important because it it’s maybe could it be that schizophrenia wasn’t as big of a deal in the past if you lived in a village where everyone knew you, knew you were that dude with voices in his head and was like, Carl, knock it off. You know? Like, no one cares. Like, is it could it be that it’s only in modern cities where you could just be forgotten and left behind that the voices in your head ultimately get credence because no one else talks to you?

Malcolm Collins:Maybe. I don’t know why I like that theory.

Simone Collins:I thought that was really interesting. He’s he’s making it he’s making it work. He’s both an alcoholic and a schizophrenic in this village. He hasn’t killed anyone yet. Anyway, let’s talk about the cost. Also continuing from the article, representatives of villages attempting self governance in Portland, again, villages, what on earth, gather once a month as at the village federation. Okay. So there’s enough homeless encampments that are trying to self govern that there is a federation that meets not annually, not quarterly, but monthly. But, anyway, I continue. At a recent gathering, they welcomed Mitch Green, an economist turned city councilor whose Downtown Portland district includes much of the city’s unhoused population. He was flabbergasted by Dignity Village’s annual operating budget, $60,000 or about 1,000 per person. He said Portland’s city run tiny homes village villages cost taxpayers approximately $40,000 per person annually. Wait. He said that their city? City pays $40,000 per person annually. Dignity Village pays $1,000 per person annually. Technically, their per month fees are a $100, but they’re probably making less than that for people who, like, you know, can’t make rent, sob story. They get a month off or whatever.

Malcolm Collins:You know I mean? You know how it is when you’re dealing with these sorts of people. But that that okay. That is interesting. So it’s a thousand dollars a year for them, and for the city, it’s 40,000 a year. That is I mean, that really shows how well you can do this when you cut out all of the middle NGOs.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Well and people, they’re not invested in those. They’re not known as people.

Malcolm Collins:It’s not even actually 1,000 a year because they’re paying that money themselves.

Speaker 3:Yeah.

Simone Collins:So that’s literally cost it. It’s just he’s just looking at it from an overall cost perspective. Like, what does it cost to help these people? And then he’s looking, well, like, this one, every every person costs $40,000.

Malcolm Collins:Willing to let homeless people just starve if they don’t do put something in. Right? Like, that’s what this community is willing to do.

Simone Collins:Right? Also notable, though, is this community, these are people who chose the $1,000 per person community over whatever it was that would’ve

Malcolm Collins:That the city was putting on the $40,000. Yeah.

Simone Collins:So the value to the resident was higher than whatever Portland was offering, and it cost them. So what is going on with that $40,000? Anyway, I continue. I’m inspired by self governed villages that center folks who are living in a situation, he told the federation, noting that spending on shelter programs was, quote, the biggest driver of the city’s recent 170,000,000 budget shortfall. Mister Green said, I’m going to be looking for opportunities to take money away from the city’s shelter system and divert it towards enabling more of this. Hearing this, I feel like it again, this is why I’m saying this is so obvious to you. A lot of professional activists. I hope so. I mean, look. They’re not long for this world. The cities, literally, you can’t, as a city, maintain a budget shortfall year after year when you haven’t even been hit by demographic collapse yet. And keep in mind, like, these homeless people aren’t having kids, and no one else in Portland is having kids. and, literally, Dignity Village has no kids. It’s against the rules for a minor to be the resident of the village. So, again, no. They’re not having kids. Anyway, the way that they pay for it, just to be clear, I’m reading from a different part of the article. The community accepts donations from the public, but much of their operating revenue comes from monthly dues, currently 100 per resident. And micro businesses such as a landscaping operation and firewood sales. According to the city, taxpayer costs for the project are minimal, mainly for annual safety checks by the fire marshal. So once a year, some dude from the fire department stops by and is like, hey. Can you, I don’t know, like, put a fire extinguisher here? Like and then he leaves. And the city’s like, That’s it? That that’s our yeah. Somehow that’s a cost. That’s not a cost. The fire marshal’s salary is a a fixed cost. How did how did I get how do you even say that’s a cost anyway? I I’ve had it with these cities. Continuing again from the article. What we’re here trying to do is help people. And when we do that, we help ourselves, and everybody rises, says mister Lehman. That’s the theory anyway. And what he’s describing to me and why I wanted to read that part is this is a community in which people are responsible for each other and themselves, which is profoundly more sustainable than whatever is going on outside this this village. And then when I thought about that more, I realized in our modern society, people aren’t even really considered responsible for themselves. Yeah. Well, I

Malcolm Collins:mean, you couldn’t get a self organization like this from a group of far progressives. Like, every time they try to set up one of those commune cities or something like this, they all turn on each other within, like, the first week.

Simone Collins:Well, god forbid they help someone else because, oh, my POTS is acting up again. I can’t. I have to attend my therapy session.

Malcolm Collins:I have to No. But it’s it’s very much like, oh, I have a whatever. I need you to handle everything, and then you get the leeches in the community, and you get the and the leeches always feel like they’re being victimized, and then the struggle sessions and the blah blah blah blah blah. And, like, it ends up choking, you know, if you accept any of them into the community, which is why I understand they have to do, you know, such egregious vetting. It destroys the possibility of doing something like this. But we’ve built a society where we forget truly or we’ve made it impossible to truly let these people fail.

Simone Collins:Totally. It’s it’s crazy. Okay. Also from the article, current infrastructure includes a guard shack, computer lab, communal bathhouse, and a greenhouse that doubles as an overnight shelter for people who show up needing relief. The individual tiny homes lack running water, but since 2025 have been powered by roof mounted photovoltaic panels, a gift from a local solar energy company, which is cool with them. and this even accounts for the potentiality of key infrastructure failing, which is another reason why I wanted to talk about this because a big thing that we cannot expect from many cities and towns is working plumbing and electricity. Keep in mind, and this is something we’ve talked about in other episodes, that many cities were built as, like, sort of private equity projects where someone fronted the money to put in the all this basic infrastructure, the roads, the sewers, etcetera. And then the cities came in and, like, the houses were sold and the land was sold and then these cities exist. But they’ve they’ve now found out, oh, wow. We now have to completely replace the cheaply made plumbing. It’s not gonna work soon, but they don’t have they literally don’t have the money to replace it. So this is more of a a serious issue than I think people are aware of. And you can go to what is it called? Strong Towns? The Strong Towns Movement to look like, learn more about these issues. But, anyway, Brian Barth notes that the city didn’t originally want this permanent community to exist like the city of Portland. But, basically, what happened is there was this homeless encampment that, quote, settled on city owned land next to the composting facility where the government has reluctantly allowed them to remain. And, quote, under an obscure state law, the city designated the place as an urban campground allowing some flexibility around building codes. So, basically, to keep the bureaucrats at bay, they’re like, oh, well, I guess, we’ll just call it a campground, and it’s okay. And, like, that’s interesting. I think that’s interesting. It’s important. It’s gonna it’s gonna become important to, like, the final section of this discussion where I talk about the lessons you can take away from sustainable self governing cities going forward. Anyway, about the governing structure, quote, the community’s governance structure issues hard and fast rules in favor of strategies to maintain community cohesion and well-being. People are expected or sorry. People are expelled only in extreme instances, usually involving violence. Rules meant to keep the place clean, discourage hoarding, and prevent fires are enforced to the extent necessary to satisfy the fire marshal and environmental regulators. Transgressors tend to be met with peer pressure, formal incident reports, and collective kindness. Your peers hold you accountable if you’re slacking or engaging in negative behaviors, which hits a lot a lot different than if a staff member of a traditional shelter nags you or gets you in trouble, said Victory LaFarra, a social worker and longtime advocate for the community. It means more and actually motivates people to make the changes they need to make. and just as we talk about complex religions collapsing into super soft religions and folk beliefs, Malcolm, I I feel like this might be the natural organic instinctual way human communities form when there’s nothing else. Like, it’s not capable of building insanely cool things on a governing or societal level, but this kind of tight knit community where everyone knows each other and and just enforces norms does seem to be something that’s eminently sustainable, if not something that’s powerful to do anything beyond survive? What do you think?

Malcolm Collins:Sorry. Explain the question again.

Simone Collins:You created in the Pragmatist Guide to Crafting Religion this concept of super soft religion. Culture. Kind of

Malcolm Collins:like Yeah.

Simone Collins:What what shows up in the complete absence of a religion. Right? I think what we’re seeing here is the concept of super soft governance, which is a tight knit small community where everyone just kind of enforces norms, and it somehow functions. It’s not gonna do great things, but it’s gonna enable survival. Is that kind of what you’re seeing here too?

Malcolm Collins:I mean, not really. I think what we’re seeing here is the benefits of in high exclusivity community, which is functionally what this is. Yeah. And we see even if you’re dealing with the lowest pool in the worst circumstances, if you are high exclusivity, you can make society work. The the key to a society working is who you keep out, not necessarily having the best starting stock to begin with.

Simone Collins:That’s a really good point that exclusion is the key to sustainability and something thriving, and yet it’s so demonized. But

Malcolm Collins:But being able to tell people, no. Not you is what’s necessary to make this work.

Simone Collins:Yeah. And to, like, be very strict about kicking people out. Okay. Okay. This is let let’s talk about how this is catching on, how people are really excited about this concept From the article, tiny home villages for the homeless have spread rapidly across the country in recent years. many without housing still reject them in favor of the relative freedom of the street. Numerous unhoused communities across the country have attempted to become permanent and self governing, but they are typically shut down quickly. Several have emerged in Portland in recent years, including Right to Dream two and Hazelnut Grove. And while the city has not evicted them, it also hasn’t encouraged the approach. I checked out Right to Dream two, and that’s t o o. It has a page with video tours. I didn’t check them out. I don’t like, it didn’t look as good. It didn’t look like it was actually a thing. And then Hazelnut Grove has just an Instagram that doesn’t really show much, like, there’s even anything there. I don’t even know if it’s a real like, if it exists anymore. And then they have a link tree that goes to petitions and old defunct livestream things, and so I think they just kind of failed. The like, they tried and they failed. Resistance is based on a belief that somehow cities will have a working infrastructure. Like, when when you read from the article, you’re you’ll see it super clear. The city of Portland does not believe independent villages are scalable, replicable replicable models, said Allison Perkins, a city spokesperson, noting issues with sanitation, fires, and water pollution that pose a life safety and health and equity infrastructure issues for both residents of the self operated shelter and the surrounding community, end quote. The important thing again, she thinks these things are gonna keep working in her city. and I know this isn’t like, she’s discussing this just for homeless people and just now. It’s just that in the future, cities aren’t gonna be able to make that argument. They’re not gonna be like, oh, this self governing city. Like, they don’t because they’re not gonna be providing water to anyone at that point. Anyway, here’s an alternate format which Portland is trying to push. Quote, Portland’s formal alternative is a network of seven city run tiny home communities called safe rest villages that are heavily rule based with a one hundred and twenty day limit on length of stay. In contrast, Dignity Village’s lack of time limits draws criticisms from the city. Brian, the author, later notes that stays range from one to two years, but a higher percentage graduate from them, sixty percent, than those in the city run communities. So around forty percent of people who stay in the city run tiny home communities actually make it out to permanent housing. 60% leave didn’t Dignity Village for it. Anyway, it’s that is Dignity Village’s model generally

Speaker 3:does

Simone Collins:not does not provide in-depth case management and does not prioritize moving individuals into permanent housing, miss Perkins said. But it clearly works better and cost less. So this is just insane. $40,000 per person, and they can’t even get people into safe housing. It’s ridiculous. Yeah. Anyway, about safe rest villages. Jim Hawes, a Dignity Village resident who was previously housed at a safe rest village in Portland, says he was evicted because he had not done enough to procure items like a driver’s license that are necessary to apply for subsidized housing and other benefits. Quote, if you don’t meet all these milestones they’ve established, then they kick you out regardless of whether you were trying or not, he said, which makes me think of modern poor houses and debtors’ prisons that are depicted in Ready Player One. Do you remember them, Malcolm? Like, if you were indebted to the big company, you had to, like, live in a hospital. Yes. I’m like, you had to what did you have to do? It’s like mine something and and, like, some spawn point of a video game. Right? I can’t remember. But, yeah, that’s what these tiny home like, city run tiny home villages kinda remind me of. Elena Purdlguinney, the Portland city councilor for the district in which Dignity Village and Right to Dream are two are located, sees the self governed and city governed models as complementary. And I think that’s important because that is what we’re ultimately gonna see. We’re gonna see weird city programs. We’re gonna see weird off the grid programs. We’re gonna see the elite sovereign states and cities, and they’re all going to exist together. And a lot of it comes down to what you can get yourself into when things fall sideways. Right? So something I’m thinking about. I know, man. Like Gotta get married. More and more people are reaching out to us about the index, and they’re like, look. I’m in. Like

Malcolm Collins:I’m in. This is a good idea.

Simone Collins:I’m like, yeah. It’s happening. Like, we’re starting to build it. Another alternate format is self governing communities that are run by nonprofits with boards of housed nonresidents. So here’s the mention of that in this article. Mister Hebben helped spearhead a community called Opportunity Village in Eugene, Oregon, which was modeled on Dignity Village. He also cofounded a like minded venture called Square One Villages. Unlike Dignity Villages, whose founders created a nonprofit on their own, Opportunity Village Villages Associated Nonprofit is run by an external board of directors, housed residents who support an elected council of village residents who oversee daily operations. Quote, you visit these camps and you see all these positive elements of self organizing direct democracy and mutual aid, but they’re also far from ideal living situations, mister Hebben said. As soon as you try to formalize them, there needs to be some top down rules. I think that’s not gonna work. I think it needs to be owned by the people who live there. What do you think? Can can I agree. Okay. So you don’t think some, like, benevolent person can be like, I’m gonna make your

Malcolm Collins:my human farm work because you don’t own equity in it. You don’t own your place. There’s no reason to improve it. Right? Like Yeah. That’s one of the problems with communism. You can’t come in as, a third party benevolent person and handle this.

Simone Collins:Yeah. I will give one exception, which is I think that hundreds of years have proven that the what do we the the feudal model, basically, where, like, people are living and and working the land of landed gentry. And the the landed gentry cares about the land and the people thriving because, otherwise, they’re not making the income they need to do their thing. And then the people on the land, they all care about, like, collectively working together. Because, I mean, functionally, it’s it’s their land assuming that they’re being treated well and not being robbed blind. So maybe that could work, but that’s not what this is. These these separate boards are people who don’t, like, live, whose livelihood isn’t dependent or tied to the success of this community of unhoused people, but it could be. I I do wonder if we’ll see forms of feudalism in the in the future. I mean, there are existing, like, forms of feudalism now, but, anyway. here’s a a dark slice of life in the village and a picture of the tension. The tension between the Independence Dignity Village residents credit for the community’s success and the city’s disapproval of its an anarchic atmosphere hung over the Dignity Village council meeting. The aroma of decomposing waste penetrated the walls from the compost facility next door, along with the occasional roar of a jet taking off as the group trudged through the agenda items, bills to be paid, policies for evicting vicious dogs, and the delicate work of resolving a love triangle’s domestic disputes. Village elders issued ardent reminders to keep trash from accumulating and remain vigilant about the risks, lest the city pull the plug on their twenty five year experiment. Ray Stanzak, a 76 year old resident, spoke to the perennial paradox the community faces. They may feel like their model trumps the cities, but they sit on city owned land. Quote, I don’t think they’re going to shut us down, he said. They might try to run us, which is yeah. Anyway, it’s not an ideal situation, but I do think that most new settlements that show up in the future are going to be in sim similarly tense situations where, technically, some other more resourced entity is going to be near them. And I think the really key thing and you were always like this. When we talked about land that we should buy, you were like, we need to buy land that is on a frozen tundra that no one wants to be on, that’s far away from everything. Because if you’re anywhere that’s desirable, people are going to try to take you over. And, also, if you start to thrive and be productive and make money, guess what? They’re gonna be like, yeah. We own you now, and we have the guns. So tough. You belong to us. And and I think that that’s something even though they’re, like, next to a dung heap, they’re still in this situation, which sucks. And then, of course, it sucks that they’re next to the dung heap just like it would kinda suck if we were in the frozen tundra, assuming we didn’t have, like, the world’s best in

Malcolm Collins:Dude, that’s why the city is not fighting over the land. That’s why somebody else isn’t fighting over the land. It protects them.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Though even even with this protection, they feel the tension. They feel the city breathing down their neck and being like, kind of just waiting for them to slip up just once, and and that’s tough. But as I started reading this, because I can’t I I didn’t really remember exactly the the scenario of Chop Chaz. I was like, wait. Hold on a second. Because I remember in 2020 when, Chop Chaz existed as this occupied area again in the Pacific Northwest, it was like, hold on. It was supposed to be self governing. It was supposed to be super cool. Why did it fall apart in days? Whereas this community has been around for twenty five years. And then when I just brushed up on why it failed so quickly and why this village has succeeded to survive so long, I got I came away with sort of some, like, lessons to live by for your postapocalyptic community. So I will share them with you, Malcolm. The important thing just to to what we were discussing, Chop Chas inhabited occupied land in the middle of a city that people wanted and needed, whereas Dignity Village settled in vacant land next to a composting plant that nobody wanted to be in. It actively stinks and likes plumbing. So key lesson, you cannot settle on land people want. second, Dignity Village was created by people who genuinely needed a place to live and had few other choices, whereas Chop Taz was occupied by protesters and people who were just, like, literally there to make a mess. It it sucks. so key lesson. Basically, future communities are not gonna be run as LARPs or by people who are like, oh, I wish this worked. Like, I’m gonna go here and show people what it’s like. It’s gonna be run by people who literally have no other choice and need to be there. and I think this is important because we were just talking the other day about Praxis, this city state that has recently announced it’s going to set up its city upon a hill in Uruguay and how it’s gonna be so beautiful. And they’re trying to get, I think, 2,000 bougie tech workers to move out there and commit to living there, and it’s not going to happen because don’t need it.

Malcolm Collins:I got you to click the button.

Simone Collins:Malcolm. I hate you. The button. I hate you so much. We are still visa holders of Praxis, and yet I just want them to listen carefully that people will not move to your city state unless they need to. and this is an important lesson in post apocalyptic city building. Anyway, also, super key super key point. Dignity Village has low traffic, and you need to see a guard in order to get in. You have to be basically accompanied as a guest as you visit, whereas Chop Chaz had really rapid churn. A lot of people are coming in and out. So the key lesson there is that the sustainable communities of the future will be gated even when they’re not elite, even when they’re not expensive. And I I had I guess I hadn’t thought about it that I was like, well, there’s gonna be the walled cities, and then there’s gonna be everyone else. But, no, of course, everyone else is gonna have walled cities too. Everyone needs protection when there’s no protection. You know what I mean? And I just hadn’t I don’t know. I hadn’t put that together in my head because I’m I want it. And therefore, Anyway, from I just just just a little picture again from the Dignity Village manual. All guests slash visitors are subject to review by the village intake committee. So by the way, just to get in, the village intake community has to take a look at you, maybe, which is a thing. I really like that. I like how elitist they are. Visitors for a villager must be escorted by security to the commons room. Security will then get the villager for safety reasons, domestic violence, stalking, vendettas, etcetera. Security must not escort a visitor directly to the village’s structure.

Malcolm Collins:I think that’s really smart. Well, sure they really don’t trust outsiders, which I like.

Simone Collins:Yeah. No. this is a very postapocalyptic friendly village. I’m into it.

Malcolm Collins:Outside It’s in Portland.

Simone Collins:I know. No. Like, I don’t know. Just reading this article and being like, oh, yes. At the conference where all the postapocalyptic villages meet and, like, oh, no. Like,

Malcolm Collins:why? Because they’ve already destroyed their city. Well, we’re going to see little islands of things working as progressives end up bringing cities to a state where the culture within the city is just not continuing not functional.

Simone Collins:As William Gibson said, the future is here. It is just not evenly distributed. Outside the commons area, visitors must be escorted at all times. Only a member may escort a visitor outside the common area. Exception is made with an activity doing work for the village. Only members in good standing may have overnight guests. So even if you’re, like, if you’re not yet a if you’re a provisional member, for example, no guests. it’s like the Bohemian Grove. You have to have, like, a like, it’s it’s you know, that’s the it is as elite as the Bohemian Grove.

Malcolm Collins:Bohemian Grove. That is the rule set of the Bohemian Grove, by the way. Only a full member can bring a guest.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Yeah. So there you go. Right? I mean, like, that’s the we have Bohemian level Bohemian Grove levels of, exclusivity. Also, Dignity Village has really clear governance and rules. Like, literally, there’s a handbook. It may be filthy, but it’s there. and there are membership expectations. You have to work, ten hours a month. there’s intake. There’s there’s resident governance. There’s discipline. And whereas in CHOP and CHAS, they had this, like they lose norms, but complete inability to enforce them. So another key lesson is to be a member of sustainable community will be like having an additional part time job. It is gonna be work to be in your community. It is not gonna be easy. You don’t get to, like, throw money at a problem and be like, oh, like, now I can just live life like I used to. No. Your life is gonna fundamentally change. It’s gonna be like having kids, except now you’re having a community, which is rough. But it shows that the Latter day Saints have a major leg up in this because they’re so used to it. The like, the churches don’t have staff to play the music to to teach the Sunday school. Like, it’s no. You get called. That’s your calling now. Great. Now you’re paying you’re playing the piano this Sunday. It’s on you. That was my college roommate. She would she would always get called to play the piano. And, also, Dignity Village managed to patch together conditional permission and use arrangements and nonprofit and legal capacity, which was major. Mean, I obviously, Chop Chats was super illegal and just a protest, and they were occupying an area by force. So a key lesson also is to find a sort of plausibly legal way to enter an arrangement with whatever entity technically governs the area. And I think that’s just an important, like, thing to note. like, whoever has the most guns in your area

Malcolm Collins:Well, they didn’t take a land that a bunch of other people had shops on and everything. They just

Simone Collins:Obviously. Yeah. So yeah. I mean, obviously, take that’s, like, rule number one is do not take desirable land. But rule I don’t know what am I on. Five, this is my last rule, is you have to have some kind of arrangement of, like, I will pay you protection money or, like, technically, I fit within your rules, so you’re gonna leave me alone. Right? Like, they have to they have to feel like they approved you. And if they don’t feel like they approved you, you’re not long for this world. Do you you see what I mean? Like, you have to you have to play a stupid game even though the it’s the apocalypse. You have to tell the smokers, like, I will give you gasoline. I don’t I don’t I’m I’m losing my

Malcolm Collins:medical work. Take away your homeless and and stick them in a recycling bin. The recycling

Simone Collins:The compost heap. Malcolm.

Malcolm Collins:Compost. Anyway God. Love you, Simone. This is very informative.

Simone Collins:Yeah.

Malcolm Collins:And I hope people, learn from this.

Simone Collins:I hope they do too, and I love you very much.

Malcolm Collins:And I love you, and I prepped the malicious compliance episode while we were recording. So

Simone Collins:You did. I know you love to ignore me while I’m

Malcolm Collins:Shut up.

Simone Collins:An episode. It’s so hard to listen to a woman just go on and on. I thought you were playing You told You’re being productive, and I really appreciate that.

Malcolm Collins:Me you wanted it ready.

Simone Collins:You you got excited about it. So let’s do it. I do. No. We really have to do that episode, so I really appreciate it. Thank you. Look. I’m not mad. I know I do you do you know what it’s like to be me? At least I mean, I know it sucks to have

Malcolm Collins:to listen to get the episode tomorrow. I’m sure everybody’s excited about it. Anyway, love you, Simone. Bye. Bye. So far, this has been capturing really good high quality video.

Simone Collins:Yeah. And yet the export’s so much faster. So, yeah, you’re not gonna see me complaining. I’m I’m very I’m very pleased.

Malcolm Collins:got yes. And I got random bruises from kids. See? You came in and you go, who’d you get that from? Was like, oh, I didn’t know I had that bruise. That’s a that’s a new one. Interesting.

Simone Collins:We’re we’re covered in wounds. Torsten’s headbutts are just so intense. So now he’s

Malcolm Collins:It’s how he shows his love.

Simone Collins:It is how he shows his love. But, like, when you see him running in for one, you’re like, oh god. Brace. Especially, you know, you’re gonna have a

Malcolm Collins:holding something or doing something,

Simone Collins:and you can’t move or block. Yeah. Yeah. There’s no way to run away. I think it’s gonna be a Houdini situation if I don’t die tripping over something with the kids. Like, one of them is just gonna sucker punch me, and I won’t be ready for it. I’m just gonna die.

Malcolm Collins:They are so rambunctious. Anyway, I’m I’m really excited to do the Sabbath episode. I’m I’m quite frustrated that I didn’t have time to prep today. But by the way, if you people want to watch the argument that we had in preparation for that episode that a lot of people thought was one of our better religious episodes, it’s a weekend episode. we we made it a weekend episode because I did wanna have two Sabbath episodes in a row. what it means if it’s a weekend episode on our paid Substack in Patreon, because I didn’t wanna have two Sabbath episodes in a row.

Simone Collins:But if you wanna see us bicker about things

Malcolm Collins:but we wanted to make sure that we were on the same page and then try it and see, you know, like, with what the bible said,

Simone Collins:I was being too Jewy, and he was being too I don’t know.

Malcolm Collins:Too anything. I was right. We we ended up just arguing about bible quotes, which is very funny. I don’t think you would have expected that early in our relationship. I know. No. Look at where it says this. No. Look at where it says this.

Speaker 3:They stole

Malcolm Collins:the guy. Clearly, they were serious about it.

Simone Collins:I come on. You don’t you know? But then, yeah, what what I did ultimately come away with and I think maybe someone on our our paid subscriber Hangout was talking about this that or was they were mentioning it. Was I mentioning it too? That Jews have a covenantal relationship with God. Like, that is to say the Israelites have a covenantal relationship with God. Everyone is subject to God. It’s just that this one group is like it’s a well, we’re gonna play a cat and mouse game with rules, and everyone else, you’re just gonna burn and fire if, you don’t follow my rules. So one group has to play cat and mouse game. The other one has to figure it out. And you’re very much in the figure it out group. You’re not in the cat and mouse game. The the malicious compliance group. The malicious compliance group. Me put a wig on so that I cover my hair.

Malcolm Collins:That’s one of the things that I am outlining for that episode. It’s all of the ways that Jewish

Simone Collins:malicious needs to be its own episode is a tier list of Jewish malicious compliance. I’m so excited for this episode. Do I have to do this if you’re just gonna throw

Malcolm Collins:it in? I will prep

Simone Collins:the Jewish malicious compliance episode. Dare talk that into the Sabbath episode. I’m so We’ll

Malcolm Collins:do that as a lead up to the Sabbath episode, the Jewish malicious compliance.

Simone Collins:Tear you.

Malcolm Collins:Because I think that it’s it’s very fun.

Simone Collins:It’s so fun. It’s so cool. I mean, we have to do, like, the timed crock pot. We have to do that rotating light thingy. We have to do, of course, the golden thread.

Malcolm Collins:Well, I mean, yeah, I found some of it when I was researching it, like, crazy. I had no idea about. So there’s a bunch of rules that make it really hard economically to do, like, cattle.

Simone Collins:If you’re Oh, yeah. You’re talking about milking cows.

Malcolm Collins:Like No. No. It’s because the first cow born, I think it’s the first male cow or first female cow has to be treated in a specific way that’s, like, not economically viable. Oh. So so what Jews do is they sell a portion of the cow’s ear to a Goyum. So it’s like they don’t own all of it. and then that person sort of takes responsibility for them not following all the rules. Or, another crazy one is you’re supposed to do field rotation, where you leave but you don’t need that for modern agriculture. And so for the year that they’re supposed to leave it fallow, they rent it to Agoyam to to to work I’m not

Simone Collins:doing anything. I’m not doing anything. Being paid

Malcolm Collins:by Oh, and there’s this other thing where they have Agoyam, like, live with them for the day of of Sabbath to handle stuff, but they’re not allowed to ask them directly. So for anything. Right? Because you can’t you can’t ask somebody else to work for you. So you’ve gotta say things like, certainly is dark in here. Or feeling a little chilly.

Simone Collins:Yes. It has to be a woman.

Malcolm Collins:We were we were okay. Because a woman would naturally be that underhanded.

Simone Collins:Malcolm, if if if you walk into a room that has a massive mess in it, you’re like Okay. See anything wrong. What’s wrong? There’s nothing wrong with this picture. What do you mean?

Malcolm Collins:Would be being my goyum be the easiest servant job ever? Right? Like, you don’t have to

Simone Collins:No. You would you wouldn’t even run-in the first place. You’d be like, am I gonna die?

Malcolm Collins:No. I was joking on the the the the paid subscriber call that, like, the reason why Jewish women are supposed to cover their hair actually has to do with the way that you would be dressed down in a court case if you had committed adultery. And then a second section where it’s considered a woman’s hair is considered, like, a lustful thing, like a like, the exposed breasts or something like that. And I was like, when you talk about, like, malicious compliance, it’s like, you come downstairs and your parents are like, you’re showing too much skin. You know, go back upstairs. Like, too much of your breasts are showing, then you come back downstairs with, like, rubber boobs. And the parents just like, I guess I wasn’t strict enough. Touche. And then we argue that this is how Jews why God had to get so strict with them, why they have so many rules.

Simone Collins:Cat and mouse game.

Malcolm Collins:Cat and

Simone Collins:mouse game. But, again, that’s a covenantal relationship that they have with God. Everyone else is just subject to the rule.

Malcolm Collins:Which makes them really good lawyers and stuff. I mean, clearly does. No.

Simone Collins:Think I think it’s humanity benefits from having a a subset of humans that have this covenantal relationship with really glad I don’t have that. And then I think it also is good that it’s very it to me, it kind of reminds me of the difference between The UK exam system and many colleges in higher education institutions in The US. We’re like, in The US, it’s like, you have homework. You get graded on class attendance. You get graded on all these things. And in The UK, you show up at finals, and you Well,

Malcolm Collins:mean, it’s it’s clearly a a less to to me, at least, or maybe maybe it’s different for different people. I mean, maybe the Jews are and this is why you you have to be, like, genetically a Jew to be Jewish. Like, they prefer this. They’re made in a way that they prefer the covenantal relationship. Whereas I don’t that would feel very unfulfilling to me, I think. I wouldn’t be as compelled by it.

Simone Collins:Rules to me are like swaddling.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. You kept wanting more rules around the Sabbath. That’s what the core argument is. And I was like, no, Simone. But, like, clearly, this has been loosened here, here, and here.

Simone Collins:I need the tight and constraining embrace. Too many rules. But

Malcolm Collins:you were also complaining about the rules the most. And I

Speaker 3:was like

Simone Collins:I know. It’s, it’s that it’s that brat relationship relationship in in BDSM. BDSM. You You know? Know? Thank me harder. God. Constrain me harder. Oh god. I need to not do this. Let’s talk.

Malcolm Collins:So down because this isn’t looking good.

Today on Based Camp, Malcolm and Simone dive into the growing sovereign citizen movement, its pseudolegal rituals, straw man theories, and common law courts. They examine a viral traffic stop involving self-proclaimed Cherokee marshals, the rise of Moorish sovereign groups, and why search interest is climbing despite mainstream assumptions that the phenomenon peaked in the 1990s.

The discussion covers personal encounters with adherents, historical parallels in backwoods American culture, declining trust in institutions, and the mix of high-agency thinking with mystical legal claims. They also review products, websites, and real-world incidents tied to the movement.

Expect a clear-eyed look at how these ideas persist and adapt amid eroding confidence in official systems.

Show Notes

The Video

In the video: Police Impersonator Claims to be a Tribal Marshal, Doesn’t End Well!:

(Note, the channel that posted it posts general videos of people impersonating officers of various types—ICE, FBI, etc.)

The gist of what happens:

* A Georgia sheriff’s deputy stopped a vehicle for a broken headlight and a nonstandard “tribal marshal” plate.

* The driver and passenger claim they are sovereign Cherokee tribal marshals with authority nationwide, diplomatic immunity, and no need for state-issued licenses.

* The men present self-issued IDs rather than driver’s licenses and cite an unsigned document allegedly submitted to Georgia’s governor as proof of their legal status.

* The deputy notes that it is neither signed nor valid law.

* Records show the driver has a suspended Pennsylvania license, despite repeatedly insisting he has never held one

* deputies also identify inconsistencies in the driver’s name, supposed military history, vehicle registration, and claimed destination.

* The driver and his companion say they are conducting a confidential law-enforcement investigation, but refuse to explain it and cannot provide a verifiable agency, supervisor, jurisdiction, or legitimate credentials.

* After the deputy establishes that they are presenting themselves as peace officers while operating without valid credentials, he arrests the driver for driving on a suspended license and impersonating an officer, and arrests the passenger for impersonating an officer.

* A search of the car turns up documents that, according to the video, suggest their “investigation” may have involved pressuring someone to clean up their property rather than legitimate police work.

Follow-up on these dudes

* The video says both men later fought the case for roughly four years, then stopped responding and absconded.

* The matter is reportedly on the “dead docket,” with charges still pending and no convictions.

* According to the video, the actual Cherokee Nation and its legitimate marshal service were not connected to these self-issued documents.

Sovereign Citizens 101

It’s probably worth brushing up on them because interest is increasing over time:

* Google Trends

* Google Ngram Viewer

They’re a loose, loosely connected movement of people who share a set of pseudolegal beliefs, namely that:

* The current government is illegitimate

* Most statutes do not apply to them unless they consent

* They can “opt out” of the legal system through filings, wording, and ritual.

Estimates put U.S. adherents in the hundreds of thousands.

Similar ideas appear as “freemen on the land” in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK.

Core claims

* The government was secretly replaced.

* They typically say the original constitutional / “common law” republic was swapped for an illegitimate “corporate,” admiralty, or commercial system.

* Dates they cite vary: the 14th Amendment (1868), the Civil War, or abandonment of the gold standard in 1933.

* Under the old system they would be free “sovereigns”; under the new one they are treated as subjects or collateral.

* Two kinds of citizenship.

* A common reading of the 14th Amendment is that it created a second-class “federal citizen” distinct from an original “state citizen” or natural-born sovereign.

* They think that accepting a Social Security number, driver’s license, ZIP code, or other government paper is treated as a contract that pulls you into the federal/corporate jurisdiction.

* The “strawman.”

* They claim that every person is said to have two identities: the living “flesh-and-blood” human and a separate legal fiction (the strawman) created at birth.

* The all-caps name on a birth certificate or Social Security card (`JOHN SMITH` vs. John Smith) is taken as proof of the corporate shell.

* Tickets, taxes, and court papers addressed to the all-caps name are said to apply only to the strawman.

* Redemption and secret Treasury accounts.

* They believe that after 1933, the government pledged citizens as collateral for national debt and opened a secret account (often claimed at $600,000 to millions) tied to each birth certificate.

* Sovereign citizens run “redemption” schemes in an attempt to tap that account to pay debts or issue homemade financial instruments.

* Courts treat these as frivolous and often as fraud.

* Consent and jurisdiction.

* They treat statutes as contracts.

* According to them, if you do not consent, do not “join” the proceeding, or use the right phrases (“I do not consent,” “am I being detained?”, “I am a living man/woman”), they believe police and courts lack authority.

* Many also claim the county sheriff is the highest lawful official and that state/federal officers are illegitimate.

Many also make homemade plates and IDs, refuse to get licenses or pay taxes, make tons of court filings (which the receiving end of this refers to as “paper terrorism”), and filming traffic stops while reciting scripts.

Origins and variants

The modern U.S. strain grew out of 1970s Posse Comitatus (William Potter Gale), tax-protest arguments, and older common-law court ideas.

Early circles included Christian Identity and antisemitic conspiracy themes later waves added more racial diversity, including Moorish sovereigns who mix the same legal theories with Moorish Science Temple language.

* The Christian sovereign citizens:

* Basically all the normal sovereign citizen stuff with a biblical or Christian-patriot rationale.

* The Moorish sovereigns:

* They share the basic claim that U.S. government institutions lack authority over them, but add a racial, religious, and pseudo-historical identity framework—usually identifying Black Americans as “Moors” with special sovereignty or treaty-based rights.

* Some of the common claims made by Moorish sovereigns include:

* That Black Americans are descendants of Moors, sometimes framed as Moroccan, “Moabite,” or indigenous American peoples.

* That ancestry is asserted to create a separate nationality rather than ordinary U.S. citizenship.

* The 1786 U.S.–Morocco Treaty of Peace and Friendship is often cited as granting personal sovereignty, diplomatic status, or exemption from laws.

* Also: Some adherents claim preexisting ownership or original-inhabitant status in North America.

There are also commonwealth versions (“freemen on the land”) swap in Magna Carta, Crown, and local statutes.

There is no central leader or membership card. Gurus sell kits, seminars, and YouTube scripts; individuals pick and mix. Some I could find:

* Books on Amazon

* License plates on Etsy

https://aorhelp.com/

* The site’s creator offers American State National paperwork

* His “Freedom Bundle” adds a cover sheet, proof of service, deed of reconveyance, declaration of status, and passport-application talking points.

* He also Also sells trusts and private-membership-association products.

* National Freedom Support (NHS):

https://states.nationalfreedomsupport.com/

* They offer account-based “928 paperwork” and “baby deed” generators aimed at people joining state assemblies (TASA / American State National orbit).

* Some access is free after training, if you pay, you can skip the trainings

* Related assembly sites sell the same 1779/928 form sets.

* Sovereign Filing Solutions — makefreedom.com

* “Expedited Secured Party Creditor” process advertised around $899, plus ID packs (~$250) that require a paid “Sovereign Connection” membership. Classic redemption / UCC-1 style product, not just a PDF.

* A.W.A.R.E. — areweallreallyeducated.com

* They have a “We The People World Citizen Passport” bundle listed around $1,200

* This bundle includes a novelty passport/ID, affidavit of sovereignty, copyright-of-name paperwork, and a filled-out U.S. passport application pitched as “American National.”

What courts and agencies say

While sovereign citizens believe they have found a hidden legal off-switch, every court that has been challenged with this claim has ruled that it does not exist.

Specifically:

* U.S. courts at every level have rejected strawman, two-citizenship, admiralty-flag, and redemption arguments as legally meaningless.

* The IRS lists them as frivolous tax positions.

* The FBI has described violent* sovereign-citizen extremists as a domestic terrorism concern

* *most encounters are still non-violent (filings, fake documents, traffic-stop arguments), but a minority have killed officers or officials. Holding the beliefs is not a crime; using them to evade taxes, file false liens, or resist arrest is.

How Organized Are They?

While Sovereign Citizens are mostly decentralized, there is some organization:

* The Anti-Defamation League reported that in the 1990s, scores of common law courts nationwide; some still meet.

* Named organizations that the Southern Poverty Law Center and others have listed in recent years include the American States Assembly, National Liberty Alliance, Reign of the Heavens Society, various Moorish “nations” and “republics”

* The Southern Poverty Law Center counted 91 U.S. sovereign-citizen groups in 2024.

* Sovereign Citizens also had historic compounds such as the Montana Freemen’s “Justus Township” (1990s), which ran its own court and issued its own instruments.

* And this just sounds like an early version of seasteading and charter cities

* There are also overseas chapters with websites, Telegram channels, and training packets

* One example: Common Law Netherlands Earth

* linked to groups in Australia, Canada, and Spain).

So: organized cells and brands exist. A unified chain of command does not.

Attempts at “Law Enforcement

They treat this as restoring “common law,” not as play-acting. In practice it manifests as:

* Fake courts:

* Common-law courts, jural assemblies, and “people’s tribunals” hold hearings, “indict” judges, prosecutors, and sheriffs, and assign punishments.

* The Colorado Eight were convicted of racketeering after running such courts against Colorado officials.

* Oregon and other assemblies have put state agencies “on trial” in parks or online.

* The Montana Freemen tried officials in their own court and issued a writ of execution against a federal judge

* Fake warrants and paper enforcement.

* Those courts issue arrest warrants, capias writs, and liens and sometimes try to hand them to real sheriffs “for service.”

* That is a standard FBI-described tactic of common-law grand juries. States passed anti–paper-terrorism laws in the 1990s because of it.

* Self-appointed officers.

* People have styled themselves constitutional marshals, county rangers, tribal police, U.S. marshals, and “sheriffs.” They use homemade badges, plates, raid jackets, and IDs. Documented uses include trying to talk their way through traffic stops and courthouse security, “investigating” others, and showing up armed. Examples:

* 2017 New Mexico: four sovereign “marshals” in badge shirts tried to take an associate out of jail; they called ahead and said they were legitimate law enforcement.

* 2021: men tied to a Moorish group (Tsalagi Nation) arrested with “Tribal Marshal” plates, badges, and jackets after telling deputies they were conducting an investigation.

* Recent Moorish-style groups in Texas charged with using fake Moroccan/diplomatic IDs and plates to evade arrest

* Training to use force.

* The Dutch Common Law group circulated “sheriff” manuals that said those officers must be trained to arrest, detain, and use force to carry out tribunal verdicts.

* That is unusual in how explicit it is, but it matches the ideology: their sheriff, not the state’s, is the real peace officer.

* None of this has legal force. Courts treat the documents as void; wearing the badge is impersonation; serving a homemade warrant on a real official is intimidation or worse. When it stays on paper it is called paper terrorism. When people show up armed to “execute” a verdict, prosecutors treat it as a crime.

What I could find:

* Archives of old guides created: https://archive.org/download/common_law_handbook_for_Jurors_Sheriffs_Baliliffs_and_Justices

Why This is Interesting

As demographic collapse plays out and potential techno-feudalism seeps in, sovereign citizen stuff might be a version of a “poor man’s fiefdom” over time (at least one flavor of it).

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins:Just the confidence of this. Like, you know what? I’m gonna put on court and put you in jail.

Simone Collins:Well, literally, some have put entire state agencies on trial The Montana Freeman tried officials in their own court and then issued a writ of execution against a federal judge. Writ of execution? Like, big, guys. I mean, it takes a lot of balls to, like, show up in a US court and be like, I accuse you.

Malcolm Collins:And we’ve already tried you, and we’ve got your execution. So all the police here, take them in. it’s very mythological. Like, if you’re against mysticism, when you look at sovereign citizens, they are applying what looks like mystical rituals to the legal process.

Simone Collins:Hello, Malcolm. I’m very excited to be speaking with you today because we have an interesting tip from someone who listens to the podcast. They sent me on x this message. Here’s a potential rabbit hole for you. First, the video link, and he sends a YouTube video. What you’ll see are two African American men claiming to be marshals for the Cherokee Nation with guns, badges, folders of policies, etcetera. Why is this interesting? I’ve seen several videos now where it’s very similar circumstances. They are sovereign citizens claiming to work for marshal service for the supreme court, etcetera. They all have guns, badges, folders with FBI most wanted, etcetera, etcetera. And it seems there’s a central organization facilitating this behavior. So on one hand, sovereign citizen nonsense. On the other hand, people with badges, guns, and an organization behind it all seems like one of your episodes, a winky face. Well, thank you, friend. Because I thought about it, I’m like, you know what? I’ll bite. Especially after I saw the Google Trends information in Google Ngram for sovereign citizens. You you gotta Sorry. We need to clue I’m gonna explain what they are. I’m gonna explain. Yeah. We’re gonna get into it. So here is the Google Trends. You can see how over time, it actually really has gone on trivially up. Isn’t that crazy?

Malcolm Collins:Jesus. I thought sovereign citizen was, like, a 90 thing.

Simone Collins:I thought so too. And that’s what a lot of the reporting indicates. But look. Here is where’s where’s the nineties? Wait. Wait. Sorry. This is 2005. Right. but when you when you go to Google Ngram Viewer, actually, but first, here’s here’s a Google Trends detail. You can still see this is a very conservative thing. Right? California, not a really big deal. Wyoming Yeah. Huge. Missouri, West Virginia. So this is not, you know, an urban elite thing, which is one reason why I think we don’t really hear about it a lot. here’s Google Engram viewer, and this is what really got me. I was like, what? What is happening here? Yes. You do see a little bit in the nineteen nineties going down a little bit after going

Malcolm Collins:down and then boom.

Simone Collins:And then shazam. Like, something is going on

Malcolm Collins:Okay.

Simone Collins:With sovereign citizens. We gotta talk about this. And so I was like, you know what? Okay. I bite. I’m gonna get into this, and I need to know more. This is too weird for me to ignore.

Malcolm Collins:The the the basic to start by explaining what a sovereign citizen is. There’s half of our audience. I have no idea what you’re going on about here.

Simone Collins:Yeah. I wanna I I I don’t wanna reveal too much right away.

Malcolm Collins:Why? If not, it’s just I’ll explain it then.

Simone Collins:K. You you can give give give the one sentence to LDR, and I’ll go I’ll I’ll go into it more in a little bit.

Malcolm Collins:There are some Americans who believe that certain clauses that were tied to the foundation of the country or the way the legal system works means that if they choose for the law not to apply to them, the law doesn’t apply to them. And that that’s how they think American law works. Like, you need to consent to have the law apply to you. And if you say, well, I’m just a sovereign citizen. Like, I’m not under this, like, sort of, like, institutional bureaucracy that you opt into, I can do whatever I want whenever I want. Officer, you you you don’t have any power over me.

Simone Collins:Sort of. And they’re usually very annoying then. Yeah. Well, yes. Yes. That being being annoying and especially being annoying to law enforcement in courts is, like, one of their big things. But it’s more than that. fact, we we’ve also I realized this is a lot bigger than I thought because I I didn’t meet my first publicly proselytizing sovereign citizen until 2022 when we went to that one conservative conference. The right wing conference. Yeah. And I was, like, sitting in the VIP room, while you were talking to some journalist. and I I was sitting in, like, next to this other lady who was talking to someone, and she keeps going on about how, like, oh, no. Like, don’t you understand you don’t have to pay your taxes? Like, you you just the I don’t consent to paying my taxes. And I’m all like, hold on, lady. Like, what are you talking about? Like, you can’t do this. And she’s like, oh, yes. I can. and here’s how it works. So you just have to understand that, you know, I didn’t consent and, like, I was just so confused. But then I realized, oh, she wasn’t the only person that we’ve met who’s been touched by this movement. We also have met, Malcolm, people who literally have been born off the grid who do not have Social Security numbers. Who? I can’t tell you while we’re recording. They visited our house. They stayed with us. But, like leftists. Right?

Malcolm Collins:Or did they

Simone Collins:Not exactly. I would say they’re they’re not politically

Malcolm Collins:Oh, them. Yeah. Okay. Okay. I remember them. Yeah. They they were, like, white nationalist parents or something.

Simone Collins:I don’t think that’s true of the family from which this person came and the the context in which they were raised. In fact, this is not I would say it’s framed by organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Centers as white nationalists, but actually it has this growing and significant black contingent. As you can see from the video, we’re gonna start with the video. Well, I mean, our

Malcolm Collins:our friend who she’s referencing here, I won’t say her name, but I think that she sort of represents this in that she used to be married to a famous white nationalist leader, and now she’s married to and has a number of kids with a a famous Jewish leader. And I think with a lot of these types of people, it’s sort of just like, you know, any interesting intellectual philosophy that, like, grabs it. Right? Like and it’s really, like, fervent.

Simone Collins:And and I I don’t know. I can’t speak for these people, but I do think that that that is a characteristic of someone who was raised by this movement. Is it is bigger than we thought. If we’re just randomly running into people whose whole lifestyles were touched by something adjacent to this movement, I think that’s significant. Here’s the video that he sent me. What state is this? This the whole thing. You’re in you’re Indians? Yeah. Sup? Okay. Okay. Is this your government name and your date of birth? And the same thing with you? This is not a driver’s license or this is a form of identification, but it’s not a driver’s license.

Malcolm Collins:What is your nation, your Telugu Cherokee?

Simone Collins:Those are the guns in the back of his car. So keep in mind, this is two black Americans.

Malcolm Collins:Are you gonna keep playing this, or are gonna take it

Simone Collins:off nationalists. I mean, it’s not yeah. Not much more happens. I mean, like, basically, they both get arrested. Well, that’s good to hear. But then you could Yes. Yes. But, like, so here’s here’s what’s going on, in this particular altercation. I mean, they don’t get violent. basically, a Georgia sheriff’s deputy stops his vehicle preliminarily because it has a broken headlight and a non stand standard tribal marshal plate. And that’s why they’re like, where are you from? And the driver and passenger claim, as you heard, that they are sovereign Cherokee tribal marshals. The top comment in the YouTube video was like, Cherokee. Emojis. With authority nationwide, they said they had diplomatic immunity, and they had no need for state issued licenses. And they said they well, I mean, you saw the the self issued IDs that they gave. and they cite this unsigned document that allegedly was submitted to Georgia’s governor as proof of their legal status. the deputy notes that it’s neither signed nor valid. and, also, they found after they looked up the driver that he has a suspended Pennsylvania license despite repeatedly his insisting that he never held one. they also identified inconsistencies in the driver’s name, supposed military history, his vehicle registration, his claims destination. and they just said that the driver and his companion, that is that they were conducting a confidential law enforcement investigation. But they would refuse to explain it, and they couldn’t provide any sort of verifiable agency or supervisor or jurisdiction or legitimate credentials. And then after the deputy established that they were just presenting themselves as peace officers while operating without valid credentials, Obviously, he arrested the driver, both for driving on a suspended license and also impersonating an officer, and he arrested his friend for

Malcolm Collins:impersonating officer. They they they’re malicious in this. I think they just are idiots. Right? Like, in

Simone Collins:this Genuinely, I that seems to be the case here. And that, like, in the end, it actually turned out that when they looked further and threw their stuff in the car, according to the video at least, kind of suggested that their investigation mostly just involved pressuring someone to clean up their property rather than any sort of legitimate police work. And I’m like, what? Of all the things I mean, I get it. Like And

Malcolm Collins:it could have been really bad. I mean, know, all of America.

Simone Collins:Who knows? It could have been a storm, some branches down. I don’t know. But it seemed like a lot of a lot of bullets for all that.

Malcolm Collins:But this is very and we’ll do an entire episode on this where I point out that, like, this is very backwoods American culture. This is traditional. I mean, the regulators famously were like an alternate police force that the backwoods people would organize themselves because they just didn’t trust normal police. And for a while, like, that was the main police force in their regions because they just had a distrust. And backwoods culture heavily influenced black American culture, and they’re very, very, very similar to each other.

Simone Collins:Super connected foods. A lot of a lot of folkways in general, are

Malcolm Collins:Distrust of authority, high amounts of conspiratorialism.

Simone Collins:Yeah. And yet they’re framed as like, oh, but, like, the white backwards people are super racist against black people. And it’s like,

Malcolm Collins:oh, really? They’re more just honest.

Simone Collins:Yeah. They’re just like every yeah. And, like, I mean, also, just I feel like anyone who’s based

Malcolm Collins:They generally got along pretty well, historically speaking, when when in touch with other white groups. And they like, this is just very much like, yeah. I’m a police officer. What the heck? Like, I gotta handle Joe over there. Right? You know? Like

Simone Collins:Yeah. Like, take these well, what I think is very interesting and why I wanted to ultimately do this even though, like, this particular video, I don’t really see this as a sign of some greater uprising. Although you’re gonna see they’re way more organized than at least I thought. In a world in which we actually aren’t really seeing law enforcement follow-up with so many things, in a world in which now one of the most viral clips of the week is a UK police officer saying, and what am I supposed to do about it? In response to a guy being like, what he’s doing is illegal. Like, literally, the guy is right there breaking a law. What am I supposed to do about it? Gets in her car.

Speaker 5:You mentioned the point. He’s breaking the law right now.

Speaker 6:The What I supposed

Speaker 5:He’s to do? That’s got the one of the best quotes of all time by a police constable. He’s breaking the law. What am I supposed to do?

Simone Collins:Like, in that age where we can have tens of thousands of dollars stolen from our business, we report it to the proper authorities. We hear nothing. Crickets. Right? You know, that even though we’re above whatever threshold I would have assumed would have, you know, ignited some kind of investigation. I think a lot of people are starting to feel like, okay. We’re gonna need to turn like, do I need do we need to handle this, like, ourselves? Yeah. And also, we’re in on in addition to that, which is very much here and now today, we are anticipating demographic collapse in a world in which just literally city able to pay their police pension funds, let alone their police departments, we might just see a complete shutdown of police services and very, very spotty service. Someone that we’re a good friend that we’re I’m chatting with right now on Signal. Like, today, we were chatting about falling response times to 911 calls, and she was telling me how in some cities, like, they’re literally putting people on hold. With their 911. 911, please hold, which is not

Malcolm Collins:I remember that was a joke that I made up as they skit for a school play when I was a kid.

Simone Collins:Well, we live in that timeline now. our entire life is a joke that you made up in your high school plays.

Malcolm Collins:Not sorry. This was elementary school, Simone. This

Simone Collins:is I’m so

Malcolm Collins:middle school.

Simone Collins:Of course. Well, you’re so

Malcolm Collins:I’m a

Simone Collins:quite a sophisticated humorist. Humor, though, actually. Given all the other family stories I’ve heard, it’s true. But, yeah, I just I think the there’s a reason why we should be talking about sovereign citizens now, and this might actually help to explain why suddenly, for example, sovereign citizen is skyrocketing in Google and Grand Viewer and trending upward in Google Trends despite the fact that most people seem to think that, like, it reached its height in the nineties. But said a lot of it actually is that it’s just become a little bit more sophisticated and that the actually functional parts of it are just on the dark web and, like, happening and and churning along. One of the things that could be happening, and this is where we get into complete conjecture and conspiracy theory territory, is that a lot of people are unfairly discounting it because of the retarded things that they’re seeing online like this video, like

Malcolm Collins:these Yeah.

Simone Collins:And you’re gonna see some of the websites too.

Malcolm Collins:So there is when you say functioning parts of it, have people been able to use it to get certain rights or anything like that? Like, what what what have they been able to capture?

Simone Collins:Well, I mean, I think what we’re what I think may be happening is more functionally off the grids communities forming. You and I know people who participate in militias, who engage in forms of private security, which also are not at all weird or exotic. Consider the fact that, you know, Jewish communities in New York City have their own private police and ambulance systems. Like, this isn’t it it’s it’s not technically illegal depending on how it’s executed, and it’s not an unreasonable thing for a population that feels

Malcolm Collins:like itself. Yeah.

Simone Collins:Yes. And so I think what we may have happening to an increasing degree as conventional law enforcement and courts are falling apart is an increase in this. And it’s one of those things of, it could be a bad to pay problem where you’re only gonna see it really, when when it’s really stupid and bad when, like, the the the lowest capability people find it and run with it and either try to exploit it financially or exploit it personally and logistically. Often, people seem to be quite paired well together because they’re buying the, you know, kits. Like, those licenses Yeah.

Malcolm Collins:The kits.

Simone Collins:Someone. I’ll get into it. It’s great. But first, yeah, I wanna give you a little bit more of a sovereign citizen one zero one update because it’s not exactly what you said it was. But, yeah, it’s it is true that it’s this, like, very loosely connected movement of people that think that the current government is legitimate. Most statuses do not apply to them unless they consent, as you said, and that they can opt out of the legal system through through filings and wording and ritual. There are a ton of YouTube videos that you can easily find of sovereign citizens showing up to court and, like, thinking that they can use certain words, and you see them using them very conspicuously. Same with, dashcam or or, botoxism.

Malcolm Collins:It’s interesting because it’s very mythological. Like, if you’re against mysticism, when you look at sovereign citizens, they are applying what looks like mystical rituals to the legal process.

Simone Collins:And there’s enough people, like, hundreds of thousands of people in The United States alone. Though there are also, and I didn’t know this, freemen of the land movements in Canada and Australia and New Zealand and The UK, so basically the Commonwealth countries. They’re like the mere world version of them Okay. Where they also do this same ridiculous stuff. So there’s since there are hundreds of thousands of people who participate in this ideology, there is just this wealth of social media content of dashcam footage and court footage of them making complete fools of themselves. But I think that’s where the system is failing. It may be starting to along quite nicely.

Malcolm Collins:Well, they think the The United States court system works like Mormon heaven. You’ve gotta say all the right words to get in.

Simone Collins:Genuinely, it’s it is bizarre. Yeah. I mean, where where it falls apart clearly is when it comes into conflict with an a a still sufficiently powerful system in The United States. When the court systems and the police systems in The United States falter more, emphasis on the more because they’re already faltering as we can all see. Who knows what could happen?

Malcolm Collins:And that’s why president Comancho,

Speaker 7:Now I understand everyone’s s**t’s emotional right now, but listen up. I got a three point plan to fix everything. Break it down. What’s your head?

Malcolm Collins:he’s gonna be like sovereign citizens or now they do whatever they want.

Simone Collins:Police Yeah. Like, We are shutting down our systems now. We’re shifting to that system because it’s free. Yeah. It’s like the it’s the it’s the it’s the free open source AI, like, like, dumb version that, like, we can switch to. The the LLM response is not gonna be great, but, like, technically, it will give a response. The problem is

Malcolm Collins:what really happens when you do this at scale and without any additional rules is you get something like what happened in Chaz where a a series of warlords take over and start shooting people. Right?

Simone Collins:I do think, yeah, that there are serious governance problems with most of the sovereign citizen related collectives, but there are some that seem to be more functional than others, which is interesting. Because, again, a lot of it comes down to, okay. Is this one person kind of holding this entire assembly of people? Is it a group of people that have set up systematic and sustainable rules? There is variance, And and that’s, of course, what you would expect from a grassroots movement like this. But where you were a little bit off in your description of sovereign citizens is that they don’t believe that from the very beginning, the government was off. They think that the the government was secretly replaced, which I didn’t know. So they typically say that the the original constitutional or common law republic was swapped for an illegitimate and corporate admiral admiralty or commercial system. And some some people say this happened with the fourteenth amendment in 1868. Some think it happens with the civil war or the abandonment of the gold standard in 1933. But at any rate, under this old system, they would be free sovereigns. And under the new one, they’re treated as subjects or collateral. So there are two types of citizenship. And per many of these people, common reading of the fourteenth amendment holds that it it created a second class federal citizen distinct from the original state citizen or natural born sovereign. And they think that if you accept a Social Security number, hence our friend born without one, or a driver’s license or a ZIP code or other government paper, it’s treated as a contract that pulls you into the federal and corporate jurisdiction. So the key is to go completely off the grid to be free of them because it’s like, you know, you you created an account on a website, and you, like, say, yes.

Malcolm Collins:It’s sort of like magical thinking. Right?

Simone Collins:Which of Totally. Yeah. Like, don’t accept the food from the person of the underworld because as soon as you take one bite, you’re gonna be stuck in the underworld forever. It’s very that. and so they have this concept of the straw man complain they they they sort of see that every person is said to have two identities. So there’s you, Malcolm, the the person, and then there’s this separate legal fiction of and this is the straw man that’s created at your birth because you, you fool, have a Social Security number and a birth certificate. so this all caps name on your birth certificate, your Social Security card, like jaw like Malcolm Collins versus you, the person, is proof of your corporate shell. And then if you have tickets and taxes and court papers all addressed to the all caps name, that’s that’s like Malcolm LLC. that is not Malcolm the person.

Malcolm Collins:But what’s funny is they’re kind of right. So let me explain.

Simone Collins:Oh, no.

Malcolm Collins:If you, in The United States, are born without a Social Security number and you’re never, like, registered, right, you could get away without paying taxes. You just wouldn’t be able to, like, get a job or make significant money or

Simone Collins:have a paycheck. The country. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. You wouldn’t you wouldn’t like, you are giving up way more freedoms for that taxless status than the taxless status buys you. Like, it’d be so cool if with our company, we just didn’t have to pay taxes, but we wouldn’t have our company if we weren’t paying taxes. Right? Because

Simone Collins:I mean, the amount of trouble we go through to just set up a business bank account. I mean, it’s easy to set up a human bank account, especially a credit card account, because I just want your money. But that’s because they have your Social Security number, That’s because they can ask for things. Although I still cannot believe that companies accept debt from people considering how easy it is to just declare bankruptcy in The United States. That freaks me out. But, anyway, we did a whole debt jubilee thing on that. But I guess you are somewhat right. I still think this is somewhat ridiculous. But here’s where it got extra crazy for me, and I really didn’t. I think this is maybe one subfacet of the sovereign citizen delusion, but it also kind of, like, dovetails into oh, what’s his name? everyone loves him. He’s a T shirt of him. He had a T shirt of him at manifest. Everyone was wearing, like, his name. Hansen? Robin Hansen. Robin Hansen’s, fertility bond concept. Where, like, when a baby was born, the parents would, like, get their, like, $300,000, like, future taxes.

Malcolm Collins:Taxes. Future tax.

Simone Collins:They could, like, sell that bond. It takes too long

Malcolm Collins:to explain. It’s not relevant to the episode. Can you

Simone Collins:Anyway, so sovereign citizens believe that after 1933, the government pledged citizens as collateral for national debt and then opened a secret account, which is often claimed to be $600,000 to even millions of dollars tied to each birth certificate. So I’m like, oh, that reminds me of Robin Hanson’s whole

Malcolm Collins:bond. $600,000 per birth certificate.

Simone Collins:So, anyway, so the here’s the problem is some sovereign citizens attempt to redeem their bond in an attempt to tap that account to have it, like, pay their credit card debt, or they try to issue homemade financial instruments, like, against their bond. And courts obviously treat these as frivolous and often even as fraud. But

Malcolm Collins:But it’s but it’s like it’s like magic against

Simone Collins:the courts. It’s like, I have the secret money. No one told you about the secret money, did they? Why don’t you figure that out? And, of course, they they treat statuses as as or statutes, laws, as contracts. And according to them, if you don’t consent, if you don’t join the proceeding or use the right phrases, like, I do not consent or am I being detained? You’ll see this a lot in the body cam footage. I am a living man slash woman. It’s another thing. they believe that the police and and courts lack authority.

Speaker 20:You were receiving infringement notice in the mail for failing to wear a seat belt. Okay?

Speaker 21:Do your best.

Speaker 20:Okay. Do you sub

Speaker 21:I don’t consent to any of this.

Speaker 20:Yep. What are your details, if that’s alright? Just your name and date of birth. uh

Speaker 21:Uh, what I have to give that to you for? Yep. Am I under obligation to give you that license?

Speaker 20:Your By law? Name and address. By law? Name and address. Yes.

Speaker 21:Can you cite that law for me, please?

Speaker 20:Yep. So it’s the summary offence act, which is four five eight.

Speaker 21:Act as on law. So do you agree on the man?

Speaker 20:I don’t know. I don’t I’m not gonna assume your gender, sir.

Speaker 21:Oh, you can tell. You a man, as in mankind. I can’t

Speaker 20:assume your I apologize. Right. Yeah.

Speaker 21:I can’t do that. Yeah. I’m an 80 year old lady. Do you agree on the man?

Speaker 20:Know what you identify as.

Speaker 21:A living man. I’m I’m alive. I Am I alive?

Speaker 20:That you’re alive. Yes.

Speaker 21:I’m alive.

Speaker 20:Okay. I I fully agree that you’re alive.

Speaker 21:Okay. Yeah. So living man is in mankind.

Speaker 20:Present in body and mind. Yeah. So Yeah.

Speaker 21:You haven’t you haven’t stipulated to me that law where I have to give you my license. Yeah. So it’s

Speaker 20:the summary offenses act. Your mobile phone is there. You’re more than welcome to look up the summary offenses

Speaker 21:act.

Speaker 20:Go for it. Act is my law.

Speaker 10:Okay? Well So that’s all we need is we need to be able to identify who you are. Okay? It is me baptizing my wife. Okay. That’s not that’s not that’s not an ID.

Simone Collins:Yeah. So it’s like having a cheat code in a video game where they’re just like, oh, oh, I I can’t do it. And many also claim that the county sheriff is the highest lawful official and that state and federal officials are illegitimate. So they will actually obey county level laws, just not federal laws, which is interesting. So it’s nuanced. It it is a fairly nuanced and sophisticated thing,

Malcolm Collins:which I think adds to Wait. But how organized are they? That’s that’s what I wanna hear about.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Okay. This is what surprised me in that there are and this is reported so there’s there’s some skew to how this is being report reported. But the Anti Defamation League reported that in the nineteen nineties, at least, scores of common law courts existed nationwide, and some of them still meet today, like actual courts. And I did indeed find it’s hard to find common law websites because I think most of them the ones that function have shifted to the dark the dark web, and you can’t just search them in conventional search engines. And I didn’t wanna take the time to search the dark web for all this stuff. But you can actually still find archives of guides to, like, old like, how to here. Let me I’m just gonna show you my screen. I’m gonna show you one of the archives that you can see. Share screen. Common law handbook for jurors. So here, you can download.

Malcolm Collins:The interesting thing about what makes somebody go into sovereign citizenship Is it’s this weird combination of, like, low intelligence, mystical thinking, and extremely high agency. It’s like high agency people are good. I’m always like, I want more high agency people. And then I’m like, well, like, let’s put some caveats on that.

Simone Collins:Yeah. But here you can see if I’m gonna make this a little bit bigger. Yeah. So here, there’s you can see the handbook for jurors, sheriffs, and bailiffs, and justices. And then also there’s they’re in all a bunch of different format. I’ll I’ll stop sharing that. But you can see there are, like, detailed guides Yeah. Which has led some organizations to be very concerned because the guides, for example, for sheriffs are, like, you need to use, if necessary, deadly force to go ahead and enforce whatever it is that you need to enforce. But yeah. So there are courts that are meeting and resolving things that we do not have insight into that may just be in some places, in some community, just just going about handling things. You mean,

Malcolm Collins:did sovereign citizens have their own court system that’s actually working?

Simone Collins:Some do. Yes. I mean, allegedly, theoretically. Named organizations at the Southern Poverty Law Center, although, you know, we all know that they just made up racism by

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. The group that invented KKK.

Simone Collins:It’s an American Nazi. But they they have listed some on their website in recent years that include the American States Assembly, the National Liberty Alliance, Reign of the Heaven Society, and then various Moorish nations and republic and republics. And they counted 91 of these US sovereign citizen groups as of 2024, two years ago. By the way, just in terms of the this is not white nationalists. I’m going back to my show notes to find this because

Malcolm Collins:It sounds like they’re about half black groups.

Simone Collins:Yeah. So in the earlier days, it was mostly white people, and there’s sort of this, like, Christian subset where it’s basically all the normal sovereign citizen stuff than with this biblical Christian patriot rationale. The Moorish sovereigns the Moor sovereigns are different and and interesting because like with the sort of Christian variant of sovereign citizens, they share this claim that the US government lacks authority over them. But then they add this racial, religious, and pseudohistorical identity framework, usually identifying black Americans as Moors with special sovereignty or treaty based rights. So some of the common traits that you’ll see with Moors sovereigns, which you will have noticed resonate with the video that we watched at the top, that they hold that black Americans are descendants of Moors, and sometimes they’re framed as Moroccan or Moabite or indigenous American people. So we’re all over the place already. But okay. Yeah. There’s the movement

Malcolm Collins:now that native Americans aren’t real and we’re actually black. I don’t know if you’ve you’ve seen this movement.

Speaker 17:I can’t stand you uneducated black creators with a big platform. It’s too much DNA and too many books out here proving that black Americans are the real indigenous people of America and that native Americans are nothing but Asians who crossed the barren and got stuck over here because the goddamn barren melted. Either stick to mediocre news or pick up a goddamn book that was written back in the fifteen and sixteen hundreds and educate yourself. Because the corner is thinning out your dreads, and it’s pissing me off.

Simone Collins:Well, they they said they were Cherokee. I should also note, though, that the video specified, and it’s all linked in the show notes, that the Cherokee Nation has nothing to do with them and that the marshals of the Cherokee Nation are like, I do not know who these people are. How could this must be very odd for the Cherokee. Anyway, they also

Malcolm Collins:Native Americans are a European conspiracy, and we are the real natives.

Simone Collins:It’s yeah. They they hold that their ancestry is is asserted to create this separate nationality rather than ordinary US citizenship. So they’re, like, just different nationals. They they hold the the 1786 US Morocco treaty of peace and friendship, grants them personal sovereignty, diplomatic status, or sometimes exemption from laws. So, again, a 1786 Morocco treaty of peace and friendship is their trump card there. And some adherents also claim preexisting ownership of or original inhabitant status in North America, like you said, where they’re like, no. I am a Native American. I was here from the start. So either they’re Moores who had a treaty in 1786, or they’re just native Americans. And so that makes them extra interesting, which is very interesting.

Malcolm Collins:That’s very fun. Yes.

Simone Collins:Yeah. And, also, there’s the products with this movement highly entertaining. There are books on Amazon. They are delightful. They they have they’re basically guides. So there’s the sovereign citizens cutout book two point o. Cut the government out of your life forever. It has only three stars, though, and 18 reviews. All of them have very few reviews. The sovereignty blueprint. Title four flag says your shwag. How to travel in the private. A lawful guide something something. Title four flag says your shwag again. Sovereign citizens, deconstructing, decoding. Like, it’s all very it’s all very, a guide to just going off the grid. on Etsy, you can buy your sovereign citizen license plate. I should ship it because it’s so it’s so cute. we should we should just buy one and just get pulled over all the freaking time.

Malcolm Collins:For being a sovereign citizen.

Simone Collins:Because that is what would happen. It’s kind

Malcolm Collins:of inevitable. I just can’t imagine how they think all of this is supposed to actually this is what I talk about when because this happened in our talk with Celestium that unfortunately got deleted, so we’ll have to redo. But I realized she saw the world very differently than we did. Like, the way she processed reality was.

Simone Collins:Like Sovereign citizen, no driver license or insurance required. Not for commerce use or private mode of travel. Traveling, not driving. Free man. It’s only $19.95, but there are 10 left in two carts already. So you better hurry up and draw.

Malcolm Collins:And No driver’s license or insurance required. I learned just like, the laws don’t apply. It reminds me of

Simone Collins:when he’s like,

Speaker 3:Hey, Ron. You’re not gonna slaughter that pig here, are you?

Speaker 4:Not to worry. I have a permit.

Speaker 3:This just says I can do what I want.

Simone Collins:Like, actually, though. That that mean, that that basically is what happened in that original video. And there are all these sites too that keep selling things for actually pretty expensive prices. Like, there’s one sovereign citizen website called Aware or aware,rwereallyeducated.com, that has a we, the people, world citizen passport bundle listed around 1,200. And this bundle includes a novelty passport and ID. Oh, or were you just playing a page

Malcolm Collins:I’m playing a clip to make sure that I can have it for a

Simone Collins:Oh, so you don’t forget it? Yeah. So this is how spammy some of these websites are, by the way. This is the We The People World Citizen Passport bundle for 9,200. Free customer reviews, but five stars. Well, almost five stars. Oh god. Yeah. It’s you you have to make a crypto donation or donate via cap Cash App because, obviously, they are unbanked for the most part. And, you have to just this this website is so it’s it’s it’s very questionable. I love the the pictures that they send. I wonder if the passport that they give to people already has stamps in it. I think that’d be really cute, and I think that they should do that. But it they’re very like, all of the sides have the same extremely

Malcolm Collins:Oh my god. Like, very it’s sort of nineties feel.

Simone Collins:Yeah. And very nineties feel.

Malcolm Collins:Wait till these people learn AI. I can only imagine the stuff they’re gonna make.

Simone Collins:For real. Yeah. This is this is some I mean, look. This is clearly made. This is They’re clearly using some AI already. Yeah. This this screams OpenAI right here.

Malcolm Collins:But it looks good. I’m gonna

Simone Collins:be honest. Best looking part of their website, I guess. Yeah. I guess they’re just slowly slowly adjusting to it. But, anyway

Malcolm Collins:Oh

Simone Collins:my god.

Malcolm Collins:Did you see I sent you this yesterday? I did a Google search, and it generated an image for me.

Simone Collins:Yeah. That was pretty crazy. I guess we get free image generation tokens. Are you I do have some kind of plus plan with Google. I know I do.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. I I do pay them for, like, storage and stuff like that. And

Simone Collins:I And I think that gets you premium AI services just, like, built into your your search.

Malcolm Collins:Weird.

Simone Collins:So yeah. Anyway, so they have these courts. Sovereign citizens also had some historic compounds. There was one called Montana Freeman’s just Justice Township, but Justice was spelled J U S T U S. Is that how you spell Justice? It seems wrong.

Malcolm Collins:I don’t know. I don’t spell, Simone. People know this from my title cards.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Anyway, it ran its own court. It issued its own instruments, and it sounds basically to me like an early version of sea studying and charter cities. And I think to a great extent, this is kind of like the free version, the poor person’s version of future techno feudalism. You know, as people escape to their walled cities that have their own private security and all their own infrastructure, maybe what’s gonna happen with a lot of the people who are, quote, unquote, left behind is they become sovereign citizens and just kinda have to figure out their own court systems, their own justice systems, their own security, and it’s it’s pretty it’s pretty crazy. The thing about the current court system is that right now, it seems to mostly just involve harassing law enforcement and existing agencies. So some of these fake courts would hold hearings, but then indict judges, like US judges, government judges, and prosecutors, and sheriffs. And then they would assign punishments to government workers, US government workers. one group called the Colorado eight was convicted of racketeering after running such courts against Colorado officials. So, like, all these policemen are getting, like, you know, you you we have to, I don’t know, need to go to jail, for, I don’t know, doing their jobs

Malcolm Collins:Yeah.

Simone Collins:In Oregon and in some some other ascendi sorry. Oregon and some other ascendi

Malcolm Collins:Just the confidence of this. Like, you know what? I’m gonna put on court and put you in jail.

Simone Collins:Well, literally, some have put entire state agencies on trial in parks or online. So, also, it’s it’s online Internet justice. Wait.

Malcolm Collins:So they go to, like, the park and set up a court?

Simone Collins:Where else are you gonna do it? I don’t know. So let’s see. Look. Space rental’s very expensive these days. You know, the contracts to just get, like, a terrible conference room in a hotel.

Malcolm Collins:The IRS on trial here, people. Like

Simone Collins:Yeah. Like, meet me in Lincoln Park. The Montana Freeman tried officials in their own court and then issued a writ of execution against a federal judge. Writ of execution? Like, big, guys. I mean, it takes a lot of balls to, like, show up in a US court and be like, I accuse you.

Malcolm Collins:And we’ve already tried you, and we’ve got your execution. So all the police here, take them in.

Simone Collins:Yep. And and to your joke about, like, writing just your permit or whatever, yes, those courts also will issue warrants and liens and sometimes try to hand them to real sheriffs for service. And the standard FBI described tactic of common law grand juries is that states passed anti paper terrorism laws in the nineteen nineties because what they are calling this in many cases is paper terrorism where just sovereign citizens will spam them with all these, like, really bogus weird lawsuits, but it takes time to process all of them and to say, like, roughly, this isn’t even wrong.

Malcolm Collins:And The US legal system against five schizophrenic people.

Simone Collins:Yeah. For real.

Malcolm Collins:For real. The question I have here is what was it? With the the, why is this exploding now? I really think

Simone Collins:it has to do with a response to collapsing Trusting systems. Yeah. And and the thing is it doesn’t show up in mainstream progressive coastal Well, I mean, one of

Malcolm Collins:the things that’s happening right now is social communities are becoming incredibly silent. And, you know, people outside of our community, I’m like, well, don’t you know that? I’m a gold star. Actually, I’m like, what are you talking about? And I’m like, yeah. It’s like one of the most famous people in The United States right now. Like, what do you mean? What am I talking about?

Simone Collins:Oh, it’s it’s again, this is one element of techno feudalism, which is the balkanization culture. And the fiefdoms are not necessarily going to all be physical.

Malcolm Collins:And this is one fiefdom for stupid people. I bet it’s got a lot of Pentecostals in it. Right? You know, like charismatic Christians all the way. You know?

Speaker 22:To be clear here, I am only joking about the charismatic pentecostal movement. I actually quite like the regular pentecostal movement. It’s just very small in contrast with the charismatic pentecostal movement.

Malcolm Collins:They they

Simone Collins:Yeah. Look. The stuff that surfaces is not great. In 2017 in New Mexico, four sovereign marshals in badge shirts tried to take one of their friends out of jail. They called ahead, and they said that they were legitimate law enforcement. It’s not like they were, like, breaking in. They, like, showed up with their shirts, with their badges, and we’re like, I’m here to pick up Joe. I am legitimate. We’ve decided.

Malcolm Collins:We, among ourselves, decided that he doesn’t need to be here anymore.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins:Well, what’s funny is today, this is such a problem, but there are periods in American history where, like, this probably was genuinely a major issue, like, the West and stuff. Like, a group of get together, and they just decide, well, we’re a court now.

Simone Collins:Well and I think that, you know, in in more lawless areas, the law enforcement that exists is the law enforcement that chooses to do the work. And, honestly, it’s not it’s not always great work. And I think one of the reasons why this system doesn’t work and why it’s so stupid now is this isn’t actually law enforcement. This is people you know, it’s those guys in the original video who ultimately just wanted someone to clean up their property.

Malcolm Collins:It’s mixing law enforcement with HOA women, and, like, that’s the worst mix.

Simone Collins:Yeah. That’s what it’s gonna be. It’s gonna be Karens. It’s gonna be the Karens being like, you can’t put your trash cans out on the street when it’s not a Wednesday.

Malcolm Collins:Except the Karens will have the giant guns like those guys had, like

Simone Collins:Yeah. Really honest. They were like mean, I I wouldn’t wanna be near those guys, personally. And, yeah, there there is I don’t know what’s going on with the the groups identifying as Moorish just going off. Like, even recent Moorish style groups in Texas were charged with using a fake Moroccan and diplomatic IDs to evade arrest. In 2021, men tied to a Moorish group called the Salaghi Nation were arrested with tribal marshal plates and badges and jackets after telling the deputies, like with those men in the other video, that they were conducting an investigation. So this is just it’s getting weird. You can’t really see a whole lot of what’s going on because it is so heavily offline. I mean, kind of the point of it is you have to opt out of the things that give you

Malcolm Collins:a document that you’re chop or Chaz. Right? Like

Simone Collins:Yeah. Kind of. Kind of. Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s hard to find these people because they don’t have Social Security numbers. They don’t have, like they and they’re they’re trying to erase everything. Everything. But, But, anyway, what you can find is quite hilarious, and it’s amusing. I I linked to other crazy, really funny things in the show notes. You should check them out on Substack and Patreon, and thank you for hearing me out on this, Malcolm. It is

Malcolm Collins:I love you, Simone. This was fascinating. You guys should check out rfab.ai or mudpuppy.ai.rfab is our chatbot site. We’ve got all the the chatbot adventures, sort of, like, tell your own adventure story book things you can do. We recorded these episodes on that website. We edited these episodes on that website. So if you like video recording, you like video editing, we offer services there. We do card game with AI. It’s like magic the gathering, but the rules are decided based on AI. We got, you know, all sorts of AI tools for you. You know, you wanna transform a document into, like, an audio file.

Simone Collins:Or dub anime including the accents.

Malcolm Collins:Dub anime including the accent. We got based AI on the website, which is, like, a way more based model than any model you’ve ever seen. We’ve got, I mean, it’s it’s that one’s a bit intermittent because it’s, you know, a whole unique model. It’s quite complicated. what else do we got on the website? We got lots of cool stuff.

Simone Collins:Image generation and what I find the most fun is the the newest thing that I’m really into is model comparison, where you can see what the same prompt generates across all the major image models. Yes.

Malcolm Collins:That’s that’s and we also do that for video, you can compare them all. And we do that for narrative engines too. So if you’ve ever been like, what’s the best narrative engine for me? You can run multiple narrative engines against your story, multiple models against your story even within the same narrative engine, and we now make it easier to use our site for free. So if you’re like, I don’t wanna pay you guys. I wanna use we literally have it run on Kimi too. Right? Like, that’s our free model. And for clarification, if you were gonna run Kimi two locally, like, you’re like, what is that compared to, like, a that’s, I think, a 100 gigabytes of RAM it would take. So these are, you know, to run smoothly. Like, quite advanced models that we’re offering for free if that’s the path you wanna go

Speaker 15:So I was wrong here. It requires significantly more than that. To get Kimi two to run locally at full, it takes over a terabyte of RAM, 1.1 terabytes of RAM. To get it to barely run, you would need at least a quarter terabyte of RAM. So that’s what we’re offering for free. And, also, as a quick aside here, this is what I mean when I say people who run local models are stupid to especially if they’re doing it in an attempt to, quote, unquote, save money, where we let you run what would take you a terabyte of RAM to run free on our fab to just take around. So have fun with that.

Malcolm Collins:.

Simone Collins:I I can free pay. To us, but it’s, you know, it’s a nonprofit. We we’re trying to be nice.

Malcolm Collins:Trying to be nice, get more people into AI, storytelling, adventures. You know? Have fun. I mean, if if if too many people exploit the free system, we’ll put more restrictions on it, but, you know, right now

Simone Collins:Yes. So be nice, please. Let let us you know, don’t don’t do the

Malcolm Collins:this Well, how about this? If you’re using it free, understand that that still costs us money and that what you can do in exchange is talk about it in the, you know, the Discords where other people talk about, you know, all of our competitors, be they, you know, Candy AI or Janitor AI or Soccer FM or, you know, any of these these older systems. Just talk about us in those environments, and then you can feel like you’re not being unethical by wasting all our money.

Simone Collins:You’re also doing other people favors because the sites are way exploitative. Way exploited people’s money. Giving you terrible models and results and then wasting your money. So love you, Malcolm. You. Oh, that’s the only way we can really know that the mics are connected. Do you want your pajama pants? I guess there really is something to be said for men’s skirts because I feel like the only thing that would get men out of pajama pants is skirts. But ice kilts have too many folds to be comfortable. Do you remember all the people who would walk around wearing utility kilts in the Bay Area?

Malcolm Collins:Oh, they thought it was so cool, and then it became

Simone Collins:even cooler and edgier to wear skirts. That’s true. Yeah. And they had that sort of it was like a boho look, but that looked terrible. Utility belts, I can take.

Malcolm Collins:The it looks really ugly. Yeah. And the well, and always at the the orgies or whatever, the guys was the skirt. I’m I’m super tough because I wear a skirt. And I love that oh my god. We totally have to do an episode on this. Effective altruism has broken containment with the Trump White House.

Simone Collins:Like Department of War being like, No. No effective altruism.

Malcolm Collins:The White House goes to war with effective altruism. Great episode, by the way. I wanna I wanna do it at some point. Go go over all the White House. And and who at the White House is instigating this? Like, clearly, it’s somebody at our social circle.

Simone Collins:Someone fantastic. I do not know who, but

Malcolm Collins:they get it. This is where I think that they must be watching our podcast. Like, I I I know that a number of people in the White House watch our podcast, but, like, I that it’s influencing the culture to that extent because I don’t know any other right wing influencers.

Simone Collins:Out there, we salute you. Like, you are doing god’s work.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. Who who else is the right wing influencer is regularly attacking effective altruists?

Simone Collins:I don’t know. I mean, keep in mind that Brian Chow has also been raising a lot more awareness about the fundraising. You know, we just signal boosted it. He was doing the original reporting. He hung out in DC for a long time. Like, he’s been to three of our DC parties. So

Malcolm Collins:Oh, yeah. And he’s got lots of friends in the White House.

Simone Collins:Yeah. So I think probably this is more of a branch out thing, but the gotta get to plug

Malcolm Collins:us into whatever network that is. The the anti gay genius network here.

Simone Collins:Yeah. His network is insane. Okay. How’s it going on? He’s been on

Malcolm Collins:our show a number of times, by the way. If you wanna check out those episodes, just look up Brian Chow.

Simone Collins:He’s super he’s just so cool too. He’s he’s super cool, super chill, amazing amazing breath of knowledge. And I just

Malcolm Collins:But, like, all of our Asian friends, we can’t breed him. You you try to hook him up with somebody.

Simone Collins:He had a girlfriend for a while, and then he didn’t have a girlfriend. And then he was like, I don’t know. He just doesn’t care enough. Yeah. Well, he’s not working for it. And, I mean, you treated it as a full time job on top of your job. Like, you you know, every night you were out dating.

Malcolm Collins:It’s not existential for him.

Simone Collins:Whereas it was it was definitely existential for you. And it still took you how many

Malcolm Collins:All of the right people I know who are Asian. Right? Like, that that are, like, in the pronatalist network and Asian. I just can’t they they’re, like, theoretically, like, I understand the problem. It’s just I don’t care enough. Yeah. And I’m like, well, we’d love to have you on board, but whatever.

Simone Collins:I don’t know. Maybe just IVG or whatever. And maybe he’ll find you know? I think it’s very likely that he runs into the right girl on x. You know, and they

Malcolm Collins:Too late. He’s got years left.

Simone Collins:He’s he’s in his low twenties. He’s young. He’s a wunderkind. He’ll be okay. Alright. I have faith in him anyway. We should probably not.

Malcolm Collins:You gotta you gotta breed those Asians. They’re they’re part of our fan base. It’s like, what are you guys doing? Only white people.

Simone Collins:Possibly what they want. Whatever. I I don’t care anymore. I do not care. You ready to do

Malcolm Collins:this? Ready to do this, Simone. K.

Speaker 24:Wait. So what’d you find? We found a leaf. This is our favorite one. You found favorite leaves? My leaf. I see your leaf. It’s beautiful. Look at all of those leaves. I can go this many in the world. Torsten, do you think that there’s that many leaves in the world? Okay. It says this is a looks like it’s a uh Chinese tallow tree leaf.

The Trump administration is taking direct action against effective altruists and anti-AI activists, including potential terrorist watch list designations and restrictions on groups like Anthropic. Key figures such as Emil Michael, Pete Hegseth, and David Sachs are driving policy that prioritizes American AI dominance and frames EA influence as a national security concern.

This episode examines the cultural and political shifts within the administration, connections to media manipulation and congressional staffing, and real-world incidents of anti-AI extremism. It also covers broader implications for tech policy and the ongoing fight over AI development.

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today, we are going to be talking about two interconnected issues. One is the Trump administration looking to put people who are against AI on terrorist watch list Oh, yes. In order to put against AI on terrorist watch list, which I am a 100% Appropriate. Appropriate. And we’ll get into this. And where they’ve already made action against terrorist groups like Antifa. And the second thing that we are going to be going into is a very much an I called it thing, a look who’s winning the culture war now, buddy thing. It is that the Trump administration’s department of war has repeatedly made very specific attacks against a group that you may never have heard about in your regular day to day life, except if you’re a fan of this show and you hear us talking about it all the time, our mortal enemies, the effect of altruists. And to give you an example of how direct some of these have been, okay, I will do two here. One is Trump putting up his fist and saying Americanism not effective altruism. And then this why the Department of War CTO, by the way. Okay? And then the second from the Department of War CTO, love that they changed it from the Department of Defense. We’re not pussies. We kill people when they annoy us. Okay? Is the they they said Americanism not affect their altruism. United States will be AI dominant, and then it’s a picture of Trump saluting saying AI first war department in cool font, very, very edgy font, which I like. And I want to note that this isn’t just something that we are seeing with the Twitter account. We are also seeing this from a number of levels within the administration. And one of the things I decided to hunt down before filming this episode was, where is this coming from? Like, do do we have someone here in the administration? Is our regular screens

Simone Collins:I think they’re just getting the truth. You know what? That’s Well, I’ll to side with us. They just have to be right.

Malcolm Collins:I’ll give you the the well, and and aware of, like, where the actual cultural battles are and everything like that. so the actual out of the can is, it’s been a few figures that have really made this happen, The biggest is Emil Michael, who is the CTO. And can you guess what he did before this?

Simone Collins:He was one of the lead people TX?

Malcolm Collins:No. He was one of the lead people at Uber for a long time, grew most of his career in

Simone Collins:San Francisco. Knew his name was familiar. Okay.

Malcolm Collins:Led a bunch of investing. Okay. And so he became a very, very big figure. and if you have lived in San Francisco running a company in the tech sector, you would be very, very aware and likely annoyed by the effect of altruists. The second faction that really got pissed off with the effect of Alterus was Pete Hegsef. specifically, the effect of Alterus when he was trying to do the deal was Anthropic. Oh. Apparently Of course. She was very aware of who Anthropic was signaling to when they refused to do that deal. And he got pissed. And so he now sees effective altruists as one of the key enemies of The United States. And then a final big person, the AI czar, was David Sachs. And David Sachs, again, not a big fan of effective altruists because he’s very much in our tech nerd circle. So what we are seeing is that this tech nerd type of republicanism that we represent, whether you wanna say it’s infiltrated the White House or it’s what’s led the White House to greatness in this administration because, like, they’ve done some pretty awesome stuff. That is a faction that we are increasingly seeing gain dominance in our faction’s fights, which matter. Like, I’m pointing out, when when Brian Chow goes out there and he finds out that, like, at a bunch of major news websites, they have entire editorial boards and, the things articles written, by people who have gotten millions of dollars from, shady organizations. All of those organizations are part of this effective altruist network. right? Like, this is, they are controlling things behind the scenes.

Simone Collins:Well, yeah. And he also recently did coverage showing how effective altruist associated organizations were funding the salaries of congressional staffers staffers for senators as well as people working even in the Trump administration. So it’s not as though they’re not trying to infiltrate it, which is interesting.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. Let’s get started. Okay. So Emil secretary Emil Michael, he has said EA ideology is pretty dystopian and a brave new worldview in which machines decide, quote, the perfectly rational and best thing for everyone on earth, end quote, which isn’t a a bad description of them, honestly . He said it involves a coordinated campaign and psychological operation by people in nonprofits to scare the public about AI capabilities that those same people control. Some EA linked voices want, quote, transitional governments, end quote, on AI that puts companies, quote, on par with the president, end quote. And and he’s right about that. They do. That, like, Elijah Gorkowski has said, essentially, he wants to be the king of the world. He’s like, that’s the only way we can stop everyone from dying. AI is gonna kill everyone, and you can only stop it by making me in charge of everything or my organization. You know? He he adds a few steps there, but it’s make me king of the world with extra steps. To continue here, from Pete Hegsess, we saw one tweet where he said of Anthropic, cloaked in the sanctimonious rhetoric of effective altruism, was trying to strong-arm the United States military into submission. He designated Anthropic as a, quote, supply chain risk to national security and directed no military contractor, supplier, or partnership do commercial business with them, which is probably not smart. They’re significantly above the other things in coding right now.

Simone Collins:That’s the problem. Yeah. People have

Malcolm Collins:told me Codex is up. I tried pi pining some Codex to see. I don’t I haven’t even used all my subscription. It’s so bad.

Simone Collins:Oh gosh. Ouch. Okay. No. I don’t

Malcolm Collins:I don’t know who thinks Codex is up to Anthropic right now. Fables just destroys it. in fact, I Codex, I have found is worse than the next one down, like the Anthropic sort of budget one for when you’re doing lots of

Simone Collins:That’s so bad. Ouch. And the other

Malcolm Collins:thing I’ve been finding about Fable recently is Fable while it crumbs out on me, I built a feature recently that allows you to turn any mawa or comic book you have access to into or manga into a a video where it gives different voices to all the characters, and it shows what’s happening as it’s playing, and it could also translate for you. So when you watch one, it’s a pretty solid feature, actually.

Speaker 3:Lishian sat at the edge of a great canopy bed. But why did I wake up inside that romantic fantasy novel?

Simone Collins:It’s Looks and sounds, importantly, a lot nicer than the one that like, the ones that you listen to.

Malcolm Collins:Yep. And you don’t even need to use our site to do this. If you don’t want, you can use our API to do it. So you just give the API to your own flawed Fable agent, and it’ll, like, handle this. But, anyway, one of the things I found is because we also made a feature for making comics, and I was like, oh, I’ll flood some sites just like not safe for work comics that were made by AI, and I’ll be able to use that to advertise our website. We got that up, and I found Fable’s actually really good at doing not safe for work stuff. It’s, like, super unrestricted on that. The one area where it keeps getting restricted is, like, I don’t wanna copy comics. That’s illegal. And I was like, come on. They’re already out there and free. Right? Like, what?

Simone Collins:Very annoying. And what you gonna do?

Malcolm Collins:Anyway, so Palantir, CTO Shamir Shalak, a Trump ally, wrote about EA comparing it to Marxism. There was a White House memo that circulated 09/24/2020 that said EA was a fringe cultish collective and that it’s, quote, built the AI doom pipeline. And it singles out Anthropic CEO, Daraei Amadel, and family ties as a central figure. And you can see that the the same group that’s trying to get you scared of AI is the same group that runs all the AI companies. and why is that the case? It’s because they wanna put up barriers to entry is the key reason. Right? They want to restrict their competition and put up barriers to entry, and they don’t particularly care about American long term flourishing if they can milk more money out of you and prevent other companies from competing with them.

Simone Collins:Well, I think the maybe internal reasoning that you’ll see, especially at companies Anthropic. People who work there and listen to this can correct us, but I imagine it’s well, we have to be the frontmost player because we’re the good guys, and we can’t let the bad guys be the the

Malcolm Collins:I think there are some people at Anthropic who are dumb enough to believe that that’s what leadership thinks. But let me tell you what. Right now, the largest donors, on earth right now to environmental, causes are big oil companies.

Speaker 6:Specifically, the climate emergency fund is run by Aileen Getty, the granddaughter of oil tycoon Paul Getty, who founded Getty Oil. And this is, one of the largest, they fund groups like Stop Oil Extinction Rebellion and the a twenty two network. by the way, that’s the same antinatalist extinction rebellion that wants to eradicate humanity from the earth, through low birth rates. So thank god we’ll replace them.

Malcolm Collins:If you look at the people who run a lot of the I think it’s the person who runs one of the largest nonprofits in the environmental space is literally the daughter of the largest or second largest way of doing it.

Simone Collins:And arguable arguably possibly maybe the the biggest donor to, white nationalists or the Southern Poverty Law Center. So Yes. I get you. I get

Malcolm Collins:you. They’re trying to control the sit well, no. It’s a bit different. With the Southern Property Law Center, it’s that they’re trying to make it look like there’s actual threat. With the oil, it’s that they’re trying to put up barriers to entry and prevent the the movement from ever saying nuclear is a good idea. Yeah.

Simone Collins:Like, yeah, thanks to all that. You know? Now Germany’s heavy on coal. Hooray. Good job, guys.

Malcolm Collins:Yay. Well, I mean, they achieved their goals. So, actually, good job for them.

Simone Collins:Yeah. No. Genuinely, good job. You you did it. You did it. We feel good about that.

Malcolm Collins:But now let’s talk about this new order. I’m really excited about it. Let’s start arresting some of these AI doomers. I gotta we gotta call up our friends in the White House and be like, hey, buddy. I got this guy, Elijah Yukowski. Let’s let’s let’s I actually wanna see them start arresting some AI doomers. I think that’d be a lot of fun. You’d you’d see a lot of the reaction that that we would see in the EA space would just be hilarious because they immediately go apoplectic about it, and treat it like it’s the biggest thing ever. And then if I was the White House and I was doing it, but what I do to, like, really freak them out is I’d be like, look. Like, internally, we weren’t sure about it. So we asked an AI whether it was the right thing to do, and it said that we should probably arrest this list of people.

Simone Collins:Well, you know that AI wouldn’t and, also, I mean, the arrests, I I don’t know

Malcolm Collins:exactly there. Wouldn’t, but you’ve gotta freak them out. That’s the funny thing.

Simone Collins:They believe. But, also, it’s important to protect people’s first amendment rights. I’m all for that. I I’m curious to know if if you got any additional information on exactly what they’re designating as terrorist activity. Is it, like, the active funding of organizations that are trying to cause unrealistic fear about data centers, for example? What does it look like?

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. Let’s go into this. Alright. So this comes from, investigative reporting that Wired did in an article called US law enforcement warns of anti tech extremism. Oh. So reading from Wired, more than a thousand pages of unpublished reports from the Department of Homeland Security, FBI, and fusion centers obtained by Wired show a national shift taking place to surveil this new and worryingly broad category of people and activities deemed as an emerging threat. These new effort follows from president Donald Trump’s national security presidential memo seven, which instructs the Department of Justice to target anyone holding anti American, anti Christian, and anti capitalist beliefs. Earlier this month’s Trump’s counterterrorism czar Sebastian Gorka released a public counterterrorism strategy claiming that left wing extremists are one of the top three counterterrorism priorities facing The United States. I just had a realization, and I wanna check something. I wanna see how long after one of our anti EA episodes, that memo went around the White House.

Simone Collins:Well, keep in mind, that was also after Brian Chow dropped bombshell after bombshell related to EA manipulation of media narratives. So even if there is a timeline that implies perhaps that we were upstream, Brian was as well.

Malcolm Collins:to step aside from the Wired article for a second here, in mid September twenty twenty six, Trump posted that there is a, quote, unquote, sick conspiracy, with sick in all caps, of course, against AI and data centers that makes China happy, called opponents, quote, revolutionaries for a bad and evil cause, end quote, and warned, quote, conspiracy theorists, treasonous, traitors, and leaks, end quote. The justice department issued a far out related warning that public demonstrations furthering a foreign power goals can trigger criminal or civil actions, and fighting AI would be seen as advancing a foreign power goals. I mean, well, they are. It’s it’s what China wants. So okay. Yeah. Fine. I’m fine with that. Okay. Yeah. So it does appear to line up with our episodes. So we did a a sort of a a few episodes tied to EA, specifically the over 300 plants found controlling the media episode and the Buddhist cult at the nexus of the tech elite episode, and it came out right after those. Nice. Which lines up more with us. Somebody somebody at the White House watching our show and being like, we need to do something about these b******s.

Simone Collins:We do need to do something. It’s disturbing because these people have more influence and agency. There are a lot of people, for example, who have money, which the EA people do, but they kind of just blow it all on like, they just drop it all with the DNC or the RNC, and it’s just quite Good point. Yeah. Wasted on their stupid bureaucracy and dysfunction. Yeah. No. EAs, as much as they get caught up in things that are, let’s say, maybe kinda not as productive as you and I would think. Like, most recently, people on x are going on about EA obsession with insect welfare, for example. So as much as sometimes they get caught in little holes, they are

Malcolm Collins:they insect welfare again?

Simone Collins:I mean, yeah.

Malcolm Collins:Can you go and do it a bit just just so people know who they’re dealing with here?

Simone Collins:Let me pull this up. Might have passed already. I I don’t wanna dig it up, but, yeah, people are going on about it. You know, the the shrimp welfare thing too existed. But, anyway, people regularly will find some post unless wrong and freak out about it because

Malcolm Collins:they’re learning. Thing that ever happened with that community was when Limestone would talk to the shrimp people. Who’s sort of like a fuddy duddy, doesn’t really keep up with modern, you know, political battles or anything like that happening.

Simone Collins:He’s terminally online.

Malcolm Collins:He’s Well, he’s not he’s not a culture warrior guy. He doesn’t really He is. He’s not on one of the teams.

Simone Collins:I mean, he would argue he is.

Malcolm Collins:He’s on on boomer conservative, and boomer conservative isn’t one of the online battle teams.

Simone Collins:Give up trying to push back on this.

Malcolm Collins:He but but so the typical boomer conservative even if sort of online publishing decides to go after the EA shrimp welfare people for being illogical and crazy. And they rip the off on him. Like, the know? And he’s not older than us. It’s just that his brand of conservatism is just not really represented in, I hate effective altruism. Let’s take him out. Like, I I don’t even think he particularly realized how large their

Simone Collins:mood Yeah. I mean, I think he yeah. He’s not he’s certainly not like someone who came from the Bay Area rationalist community. I mean, before he he went into work as a a demographer by trade, he and his wife were both in Asia engaging in missionary work. You know, this is they’re they’re very religious Lutherans who are living a more traditionally conservative life. And I imagine that one day, he just came across EA shrimp people and was like, hold on. This is stupid. I’m going to write all about it, and they just bit his head off. So I don’t think he cares because he still thinks, hold on. No. This is stupid. But, anyway, that was a very amusing moment. This is all to say that even though the effect of all truth sometimes fall into these little side quests that go a little bit too far, they are very results oriented. And if their desire is to manipulate perceptions on an issue, even if they’re less efficient about going about it as, say, we are with moving the over 10 window about demographic collapse, they’re still more effective than pretty much any other, movement behind nonprofit efforts. And so it is important for people to see what they are doing and take their their agendas very seriously. Because if a group of like, if mainstream effective altruism is obsessed with an issue, if it’s their new hyper fixation, they will make waves in some way. They will. Absolutely. I’m sure that shrimps live differently today.

Malcolm Collins:No. They don’t.

Simone Collins:They don’t? They they make no inroads? They’ve made no significant inroads. Well, maybe that’s because only

Malcolm Collins:small that shrimp are raised, actually, it’s quite horrific. They cut off their eyeballs, and then, like, they have to, like, singe those parts of them that gets them to go into a cycle at a specific time.

Simone Collins:Seem plausible because you you shrimp are raised at scale, and you would have to do that to every single shrimp eyeball.

Malcolm Collins:Done at scale.

Speaker 4:After finding this out, shrimp farmers started removing female shrimps’ eyes in a process called eye stalk ablation.

Simone Collins:I mean, I know they do that to chicks. They they will cut off their, like, beaks so they can’t peck each other. Right?

Malcolm Collins:But Yes. It’s, yes, it’s done at scale.

Simone Collins:It’s month. Little shrimp?

Malcolm Collins:Yes. Gosh. And keep in mind, a lot of shrimp are raised in very poor countries. You you can do this at scale.

Simone Collins:I’m really glad we did not buy that shrimp farm in Nicaragua on behalf of our investors because that would have sucked. The soap factory looked so fun, though. this was when we were trying to, on behalf of investors, buy and then run a business. I bet

Malcolm Collins:the soap industry has done really well since, like, COVID and stuff.

Simone Collins:I don’t think so because keep in mind that many of the soaps that the factory was selling were to hotels. Oh, true. So I think they just like the travel business we ended up with, the soap factory would have also been screwed. And remember, we couldn’t even buy it because they were in so much debt. Like, this it it would not have been it would not have been ideal. What I mean, what I loved was do you remember the the company that made components for weapons manufacturers?

Malcolm Collins:Oh, that was such a depressing company.

Simone Collins:Been it was so depressing, but it would have done

Malcolm Collins:Oh, it would have done

Simone Collins:so well. Yeah. Will. Yeah. Yeah. But, like, the key bet we weren’t willing to make was like, well, I don’t I don’t think we’re gonna have a lot of wars in the future. We’re not gonna do a lot of defense spending. Oh, sweet my sweet my past self. Anyway

Malcolm Collins:Well, next Someone was listening. Is autonomous drones. Right. Yes. Somebody was listening. And, well, I think it’s the the this cultural movement that we represent really matters in terms of national politics. I was on another show recently that just on YouTube. It only has, like, 300 views. the the YouTube version was Vance Crow. and he’s a more traditional boomer, you know, Midwest conservative type guy. And he had all

Simone Collins:these than us. He’s he just he his political and and reality orientation is more grounded in people who work in the agricultural industry. So But gonna be obsessed with effective altruism. We’re the tech right.

Malcolm Collins:Right. But it showed how far, like, that group’s political interests have drifted from what the Republican senators, congressmen, and and, presidency is actually doing.

Simone Collins:Well, right. Because if you if you’re a farmer, you’re actually gonna care a lot about tariffs and subsidies because you were like you are the canary in the coal mine of that. And if you’re just gonna vote with your pocketbook, then you’re gonna hate the Trump administration right now. And I don’t No. That’s and that’s just in

Malcolm Collins:the business. That’s boomer conservatism. All I care I don’t

Simone Collins:care about America’s place in the world. Yeah. I got mine. Yeah. Fair

Malcolm Collins:enough. I got mine. I don’t care about the next generation. I don’t care about and that sort of a mindset, that sort of a conservative mindset is not the mindset of the politically active class anymore, and I I really appreciate that. And this is why you people watching this show is useful. You see this coming from the White House. You hear us talking about it. Right? Like, is the fight that’s happening. And it is through influencing this fight, the fight that we represent on this channel right here that you end up representing the larger political game. Now I’m we are not the loudest or most powerful people in this particular fight. That there are voices that are bigger or more influential than us. Probably the two most distinct voices are Asmogold and Nux. With Asmogold being the biggest, Now people will be like, Techtone gets a lot of views. Techtone does get a lot of views, but the problem is is Techtone doesn’t really push new policy ideas. He’s more just, like, about five.

Simone Collins:He spends fewer hours engaging in in direct political commentary, and therefore, that that leads to a proportional reduction in political influence. It’s it’s I would argue that simple. If he chose to suddenly, like, in his streams, watch a lot more political coverage, then he would gain political influence. That’s how it works. Yeah. Yeah. But I think actually, I’m trying

Malcolm Collins:to think, like, within our wider community, after Azim, Gold, and Knox, like, are we the next most influential people?

Simone Collins:Leaflet, obviously. Come on, Malcolm. Leaflet is very influential. Yeah. She probably she beats us.

Malcolm Collins:She’s extremely influential. And Kirtia beats us. And maybe Smugalana doesn’t really do new political angles, so not really. But then I

Simone Collins:think we’re probably plenty of political commentary.

Malcolm Collins:Red says Destiny was bigger than us, but he does not do political commentary. He has a political angle, but he he doesn’t like, not in the way that, like, NUCs or Asmigold or we do.

Simone Collins:Or Leaflet. Yeah. Yeah. Fair. Okay. Fine. Yeah. I guess most of the political commentary I see him do is, like, him commenting on something Leaflet did or something.

Malcolm Collins:They they I mean, bigger than us now, I’d say, terms of influence is basic logic.

Simone Collins:Oh, yeah.

Malcolm Collins:We had him on before he got really big. But I really like his content. Like, the thing is is I don’t When I think about these other players who are, like, moving the the goal in in specific directions, none of them are moving it in a way that I wouldn’t be moving it if I had their platform. Right? Like, there’s there’s very little sort of directionally that I would be moving things that I had Rev’s platform or if I had Leaflet’s platform or if I had you know, some of the other big players are like Yellow Flash or a actual justice warrior or trigonometry or Sargon of Akkad or yeah. But I I probably wouldn’t be doing I’d I’d be doing different than Sargon of Akkad. Sargon of Akkad is probably the most orthogonal to my actual politics, mostly because I think his politics around stuff like censorship is disastrous long term. And I don’t think that he’s aggressive enough in in his politics, which is, you know, probably I don’t know. Do would people recognize us as as as being that way? hey. At least he’s had an impact in Britain. Right? Like, the the the political factions that represent our ideology have grown a lot there and in Germany. Right? So, you know, we have a lot of German viewers. Like, who’s to say we’re not moving the window on that? You’ve heard about the big AFD wins? No. Oh, yeah. AFD has had some major wins recently.

Simone Collins:Oh, sorry. I I thought you weren’t saying AFD. Yes. No. I I’m very but the yeah. The state level elections. It is fantastic.

Malcolm Collins:But the the point being is, like, this what’s so also interesting about this movement is while it is kind of older than dirt at this point. Right? Like, if you look at the representations of it from people like Techtone, Asthma Gold, sort of Nuxin, like, that’s been around for a long time. Right? Like, that’s ten years old at this point. But Gosh. They weren’t really focused on politics in the sort of cohesive community way that we are now. I’d say until really a year ago maybe is when we really all began to come together. Oh, Jake Jason Monroe. Jay Jay Jake Monroe? Jake Monroe. I don’t know if he’s the thing is is I never get recommended him, so I don’t know, like, what I’ll go

Simone Collins:I don’t I don’t either, which is weird because there there have been points at which I’ve, like, binged multiples of his videos in a row to catch up on what he’s been saying. You’d think the algo would

Malcolm Collins:secure He’s on message, but he doesn’t really advance anything from

Simone Collins:Oh, it’s you know what? It because I think his channel got demonetized. So you Well, that’s true, but I

Malcolm Collins:still get Nux, and his channel’s demonetized.

Simone Collins:That’s because we we, like, concertedly watch so Nux so much, I guess. But you’re right. I I did get him too. Oh, well. No. Well, I I know.

Malcolm Collins:I think Jake is actually genuinely a different YouTube loop than us because his content I like, before you had actually checked him out, I told you, like, he’s very artsy in the way he films. Do you see what I mean by that?

Simone Collins:Well, I mean, he does the gel lighting. I don’t I don’t think he I mean, he’s not doing, like, Natalie Wynn style stuff. I I just think I think effort he puts into his his face. It’s it’s it’s flawless. It’s perfect. I think it’s I really enjoy that. But then I I want him to be a little bit more respectful of viewers’ time. But then he’s streaming, so he he doesn’t need to be. So I I also get it. Yeah. That’s that’s one of

Malcolm Collins:the things I I I I get annoyed at him is he’s very slow to get to the point.

Simone Collins:But he’s streaming. You kinda have to fill time anyway.

Malcolm Collins:Okay. So among the documents, Tranche, obtained by Wired is a New York Intelligence and Counterterrorism Bureau report that words warns of widespread upheaval in response to AI adoption. Of particular note, a term for what the bureau ports is an emerging extremist threat. Quote, the chaotic atmosphere may result from emerging AI technology in the next five years, may fuel large scale protests that devolve into civil unrest and anti tech violent extremist activity, especially in large urban areas such as New York City, the report reads. The term anti tech violent extremism does not appear in any publicly available DHS or FBI domestic extremist reports or guides and represents a novel grouping of a wide range of ideologies under a single extremist category. In the same intelligence assessment, analysts describe the novel threat in the wake of the arrest and trial of the Visians, an extreme rationalist who allegedly led a small allegedly led, they were a trans murder cult that killed more people than the Manson family. He didn’t allegedly do anything.

Simone Collins:Well, I can tell you

Malcolm Collins:your conviction. Three members of which have been charged with murder and more of which were likely involved in murder tied to an obsessive ideology focused on the existential risk posed by AI. and this group is very similar to the Buddhist group that we did our episode on as well, but it is still operational. So keep in mind, these people are still out there, still planting people in major organizations. See our episode on that if you’re interested. look up Buddhist, effective altruist, Malcolm, Simone, crazy people. Kill everyone. I don’t know. Yeah. like, trying to kill everyone. the in because the the founder had it said that his core life focus for a large chunk of his life was CRISPRing a disease to kill all human life on Earth. And he only turned away from that at 19 maybe he turned away from it. He never really denounced it. He’s just like, I decided to kill all their souls instead with Better. They’re getting millions a year, and they have a private compound in the woods of Vermont. That sounds like a concerning thing. See our episode if you’re concerned. Okay. So the NYPD intel assessment follows from the department’s collaboration with the FBI last year to monitor the signal chat of an activist group, coordinating volunteers to monitor public hearings on immigrant courts in New York. According to documents obtained by The Guardian, the FBI surveilled activists as part of a larger investigation into the anarchist violent extremist actors, one of the threat categories in the new counterterrorism strategy. So the point here being is this isn’t exactly about the AI, but we do know that they are moving forwards with actually putting things through to monitor activist groups. And now I will note to capstone all of this, there have been dangerous AI extremists already. Like, the Trump administration is absolutely valid in doing this. Oh, yeah. In April 2026, Daniel Monroe Gamma allegedly threw a Molotov cocktail at Sam Altman, San Francisco residence to try to attack OpenAI headquarters. He carried an anti AI manifesto calling for violence against AI CEOs and investors. Prosecutors said they would treat this as domestic terrorism. The goal was to coerce policy. Other incidents include a shooting of Indianapolis officials’ home after a data center’s vote, arsons at AI related infrastructure in Europe, and online manifestos mixing AI doomerism with older anti tech eco extremist ideas. Some eco fascist attackers have also called cited AI slop and Palantir Vance ties as being why this is happening. Like, the the point being, AI is like, the anti AI faction, as we have said, is a real faction. I’m glad the Trump administration is in power right now. I’m glad that they are extending political capitals. Deal with this. Call out our country’s real enemies yet at home and abroad and attempt to address them. What what are your thoughts on this wider moment?

Simone Collins:I think it’s incredibly positive, and I am glad that it’s recognized that AI decelerate deceleration deceleration, whatever, is a national threat a threat to national security because it is. It we are I mean, it, like, definitionally is. Yeah. This is one of the most existential I mean, this is the next nuclear arms race, ultimately. And these are And these are antinuclear people. Saying, yeah. We we you don’t don’t develop nuclear power when, like, we’re one of the few people who are countries that is able to do this. It’s it’s very frustrating, and I’m glad it’s being treated with the threat level. It, I mean, I I would say a lot more should be done, but there’s not I I while protecting free speech, I understand that there are limits that are very real. I I don’t know what it’s gonna take, for example, to deal with the data center hate. That’s a very difficult challenge. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins:They’ve been very effective with that and completely cooked some people’s brains like a moist critical who used to be largely on topic. And I was very surprised to see him get so cooked by this. And I I I don’t think mean, this this is one

Simone Collins:of the most effective and powerful propaganda campaigns I have seen in my lifetime. It’s it’s also one

Malcolm Collins:of the things that I I do not tolerate. Like, there’s very few things where I’d say, like, it makes sense to kick somebody out of the right wing alliance if they go in a specific direction on a topic, right, or aggressively publicly attack them. If anyone in our wider circle went aggressively anti AI, I would absolutely publicly attack them because I think that that is a direction that leads to the destruction of our people. we will not win long term human civilization. Why? Yeah. That’s that’s putting us under the boot of the Chinese or some other group, and it’s completely not caring about American exceptionalism or Western ability to move forward with our cultural project. And and then so, you know, you’re as much of a threat as anyone else if if those types of voices are being you’re surfing on our waves. Right? Absolutely. Yeah. But, fortunately, we just don’t have that problem. None of the none of the major players in our space are anti AI.

Simone Collins:Right. The one thing I do kind of worry about, though, is we’re heading into midterm elections in The United States. And not only are Democratic candidates really playing up the data center fear, the the concern trolling around AI, that we have to stop it messaging. Dem sorry. Republican candidates just to try to maintain political viability going into the election are starting to adopt many of those talking points and removing Trump from and you mentioned other websites, their campaign websites, for example. This is a a very meaningful trend with the upcoming midterm elections.

Malcolm Collins:I All we can do is grow as wealth and power. Right.

Simone Collins:I just there’s a little bit of a too little too late element that that I’m a little bit concerned about with the Department of War stuff and the, you know, o open framing of anti AI sentiment and and actions as threats because there’s so much effort on the other side at this point and momentum being gained with the election. I think we could have a blue wave, a lot of democratic wins in this coming election. I kind of want it to happen because I think that gives us better odds of a republican major republican wins in the twenty twenty eight election when will count extra. Like, I would rather win that one than this one. So let, you know, let them have this one so we can have enough backlash. But it is concerning. And so this is nice, but it falls into a, that’s nice development and not a, oh, phew. I guess we’re gonna be okay now. We’ve won. You know? It’s more just like, well, at least they understand this is a big problem.

Malcolm Collins:Well, no. I think I think what you’re missing is there are two battles being fought here. There is the left versus right battle, which you are right to be concerned about the direction that that could go. But the other battle is within the right. And within the right, we have reached a stage where it appears that we have largely colonized the right. This is, this is now a movement that goals are in alignment with our goals, which is American exceptionalism and long term human flourishing even if that means technology. Right? which it didn’t necessarily things didn’t have to go in this direction, and yet they have. and I think that that victory was actually the more risky victory for us. The left versus right battle is one that in America, we’re going to have until one side takes total power. Okay? That’s that’s always gonna be a thing. Right? So trying to win that culture war and putting your efforts towards that culture war is often less important than the interpolitical culture war.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Our yes. Roughly, yes. I agree.

Malcolm Collins:Yes. Roughly, yes. Roughly, yes. Alright. Love you, Simone.

Simone Collins:I love you too. Quite appreciate that our squabbles aren’t over things like money or our kids, but, like, how are we gonna practice the Sabbath? How are

Malcolm Collins:we gonna it’s very funny because we have a very strong, distinction as to

Simone Collins:I’m like, well read. Says rules for

Malcolm Collins:but what’s even funnier about it is because, essentially, we’re starting, like, a sect of a religion or something like that. When we’re having an internal fight about this or an internal debate around what the bible means on this stuff, it could end up affecting a lot of different people. Okay.

Simone Collins:So it’s yeah. I mean, it’s not like I should just cave on stuff where I think you might not

Malcolm Collins:But you’re wrong. And we’ll do a whole episode on how wrong

Simone Collins:you on this Fantastic. Welcome to my life, ladies and gentlemen. I’m so wrong.

Malcolm Collins:To give people an but we we start. We’re gonna be doing our first one to tonight tomorrow night and and the day after is we haven’t found there are the few lines that could argue this, but we haven’t found very strong evidence in the bible that Christians should not be practicing the Sabbath as the 10 commandments commands you to. You should just be practicing in the way that Jesus recommended, which is very, very different from the Jewish way, specifically in the Woah.

Simone Collins:Woah. You’re acting like Christians think they shouldn’t be practicing the Sabbath.

Malcolm Collins:A lot of Christians do, the Lord’s Day, which is Sunday and not the Sabbath, or they get confused.

Simone Collins:Right. But that was because some pagan Roman emperor who pretended to cosplay as a Christian said so. That no. That that’s not okay.

Malcolm Collins:There was other reasons. They they had mostly moved the day to Sunday before Constantine.

Simone Collins:Yes. They they were celebrating the resurrection, but that doesn’t change that Jesus was like, look. You wanna you wanna be okay? Practice the 10 commandments. What’s one of the big 10 commandments? The Sabbath. This is not hard. This is not rocket science. I wish that it were because I’d love an out. I I wanna work seven days

Malcolm Collins:a week. Yeah. You’re really

Simone Collins:pissed about having to do it. Really don’t like this. And no, man. You don’t you don’t get to be proud

Malcolm Collins:of yourself for thinking. Approaching it wrong. Okay? The way that Jesus had us do the Sabbath, right, and people would be like, well, Jesus Christ is the Sabbath, or every day is the Sabbath. And it’s like, no. Like, clearly, if it’s one of the 10 commandments if it’s one of the 10 commandments, way and Jesus practiced it as well. You can’t get an out on that easily. Right? Like, you can’t be like Jesus didn’t think it was a big deal if he was doing it every week. But the key difference that I’ll be arguing in that episode is that Jews practice and relate to God contractually. EG, this is why Jews will do little things to try to get out of rules. It’s why, you know, he’ll say they’ll say women need to cover their hair, and then they wear a wig. And so, functionally, they’ve done nothing. It’s because if you’re technically following the rules in the same way as if you had a contract with a person or a deity, that deity then is beholden to you. Whereas Christians, it because this is the way that Christ from god see god much more like a father figure who gave us rules to help improve us.

Simone Collins:Once again, deontology versus consequentialism. And I’m with you on that. I am with you on that.

Malcolm Collins:But you keep trying to implement it in ways that clearly just add work, And that’s not I know. I’m I’m

Simone Collins:try look. I’m trying to wrap my head around it and because I hate the idea of not working so much. And maybe part of it’s because our work is so ideologically aligned anyway. I’m like, you know, how am I could how am I making the world a better place? How am I contributing to the improvement of humanity if I’m not allowed to work? Because our work is all about that. Well, it was worse than the

Malcolm Collins:type of work that you’re explicitly banned from is creative work.

Simone Collins:Yeah. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Great. Well, you can teach, and you can learn. So it’s a little a little different, actually. You know? Oh. You can’t it’s not productive work. You can teach. You can learn if it’s, like, sort of religiously oriented. Well, no. Not just religiously oriented.

Malcolm Collins:That’s the way Jews interpreted it, but not. And the the the regulation that Simone, by the way, for for the big regulation debate that we’re having is she thinks that you should have restrictions against entertainment, and I do not think you should have restrictions against entertainment. Even the rabbinic system only built restrictions against music because they were afraid that you would break an instrument and try to fix it,

Simone Collins:not Well, religious music makes sense. But, like, just doing as you please and worshiping your father’s idols and stuff, that sounds like not a good idea.

Malcolm Collins:That doesn’t sound like entertainment. Your father’s idols is a very different Look.

Simone Collins:Okay. Do you think it’s okay to go to a Taylor Swift concert, assuming she’s volunteering and everyone else there is volunteering? No.

Malcolm Collins:It’s not okay to go to a Taylor Swift concert.

Simone Collins:She’s a false idol. Okay. So, like, just there’s nuance. There’s nuance to it. I’m I’m trying. I am trying so hard. Anyway, I love that this is what we

Malcolm Collins:But that doesn’t move human civilization forward. There’s no way that that for watching movies with your kids or your spouse is very different than going to a Taylor Swift concert. A a football game with all of your friends Yeah.

Simone Collins:But, like, watching PAW Patrol slop is not gonna move our family forward either. Like, watching family canon is and talking about it as we go through it.

Malcolm Collins:With the kids is absolutely fine if you make an effort to talk about it.

Simone Collins:Okay. If you’re like, I guess. Ugh. Yeah. Anyway, we’ll we’ll get See,

Malcolm Collins:see? Fine. It’s gonna

Simone Collins:be okay. Things we fight over. Yeah. This is what we fight over. Welcome to our family. Our our lover’s quarrel. You’re amazing. Love you. I love you so much. You tried me so nuts, but I love you so much.

Malcolm Collins:Well, this happens so interesting because it’s just it’s just like when we were going over the bible and seeing how many Christians just don’t take it seriously at all. And I’ve been very surprised by this contradiction, right, when it’s, like, loud and proud. Like

Simone Collins:Well, look. We’ve been we’ve been trying to think seriously about the bible for a long time working seven days a week. Just like Doreen Virtue who we talked about, the famous, you know, cult spellbook card creator, you know, made tons of money from the witchy world. Didn’t get to that. Realized it was like, oops. What was it? Deuteronomy? She read it. She’s like, oh, and that was her moment. She fell to her knees that moment and was like, I am so sorry. The other big

Malcolm Collins:one that a lot of Christians break that I have noticed, and I I a lot of Jews break this one as well Is the don’t talk to dead people one. This this would include, for example, talking to a dead parent or something like that. Right? Like, trying to do an intercession prayer to them instead of directly to God would be seen as that’s talking to dead people. And I think a lot of people just see that as, like, a a cute endearing little thing they do that’s that’s you know, what what harm could come from it? And it’s like, well, it’s it presumably, it’s there for a reason. Right?

Simone Collins:Yeah. And I’m I’m not buying intercession at all anyway. The this idea that, like, well, no. No. No. I’m not I’m not worshiping the Virgin Mary. I’m asking her to pray for me. No. You’re no. You are kneeling at a statue.

Malcolm Collins:But I didn’t realize how many groups did that. The Jews, I was looking up because apparently the Orthodox Jews do thing where they write letters to dead people to intercede on their behalf with god. And they do this so frequently that, when I was looking for pictures of it, it was two graves entirely covered. It was like a foot and a half of little notes.

Simone Collins:Oh, heavens? Okay.

Malcolm Collins:Well And I was like, so it’s not just that the Christians do the the Jews do this too. They’re like

Simone Collins:Well, you know what? The one thing I’m cool with with the dead people is is the the Mormons baptizing them. I’m like, okay.

Malcolm Collins:Yeah. That’s

Simone Collins:That’s wholesome. I like it.

Malcolm Collins:They yeah, that they think they’re being moved by dead people, but they don’t talk to the dead people.

Simone Collins:They’re not trying to talk to the dead people. They’re just making sure they can, you know, be okay. Well, no.

Malcolm Collins:But they believe the dead people influence their actions.

Simone Collins:That’s fine. And who maybe they do. I don’t know. You know, like, what you know, who they’re they’re not trying to say. Yeah. They’re that that is important. Also, a lot of people are telling us that we need to research the Indian death cults. I don’t know if I’m ready to stomach this. Someone sent me I don’t did you know the whole cult of Kali was real? Like, Indiana Jones, like, Kali Ma. Like Yeah.

Malcolm Collins:Of course. What? Yeah. No. I didn’t know it was still that active. Is it still active?

Simone Collins:no. I I don’t think it’s act I well, great. Well, you know, we’re gonna look it up and find that just like with the Aztecs, it never went away. But they

Malcolm Collins:were very different from the Aztecs because their entire society wasn’t based around it. The cult of Cali was typically seen as, like Weirdos. Yeah.

Simone Collins:But then I just someone just sent me on Twitter on x wait. Hold on. They weren’t weirdos.

Malcolm Collins:It was closer to, like, the cult of Dionysus in ancient Greece or something like that. Like, you know, they were a faction in society, but they weren’t, you know, like, Zeus or Hera or something.

Simone Collins:Yeah. But someone sent me today an image from some kind of Indian festival that was

Speaker 5:Okay. So if you were wondering, does this still happen? It does still happen. it looks like it happens to about six to, let’s say, 12 people a year. Although, you know, it’s been up to 24 people in a year, in India where people are sacrificed. It’s not specifically the Kali. It’s actually, interestingly, usually just like a self styled tantric or family member says that a human Bali or offering will fix some problem a person has. And then it’s often a child or a stranger that they find. It’s it’s bad, but it’s not nearly the numbers we’re talking about in Mexico with the the murders that happened there for for human sacrifices to the the Santa Muerte folk Catholic saint. And and and so this is just totally and especially when you look at the number of people in India versus Mexico, it’s not the same. If we’re talking about at the height of it, there was maybe around a 100,000 people killed by these travelers who would pretend to be it’s like the eighteen thirties. They pretend to befriend somebody, and then they’d strangle them to death with a rumor or a scarf and then rob their bodies. And then the British put on a big campaign to shut this down and arrest all these people, and it was successfully mostly shut down. We it doesn’t even look like it was necessarily an ancestral thing in the region. It might have been completely opportunistic. Again, making it very different from the Aztecs if you’re looking at the numbers of people who were sacrificed in this even at its very height.

Speaker 7:Toasty, you need to come right back, buddy. There we go. Friend? Let’s check on your salamander and then go on inside.

This episode explores the surprising trend of women leaving witchcraft, tarot reading, and the occult for Christianity. We discuss the massive psychic and tarot industry, celebrity examples like Kim Kardashian’s relic wearing, and high-profile conversions from influencers such as Alex Reads Tarot, Kat Von D, and Doreen Virtue. They examine why these women found faith more fulfilling than new age practices and contrast it with other religious movements.

Our conversation covers destiny swapping beliefs, the appeal of Orthodox Christianity for former witches, and the broader cultural shift toward introspection and traditional faith. It highlights personal stories of deprogramming from occult lifestyles and the wholesome outcomes when people seek better paths.

We hope this exploration grants you some additional insight into why some find autonomy and power in spirituality that ultimately leads them to Christianity instead. :)

Show Notes

MAGA Witches

I found a video talking about MAGA witches, but the creator (also someone into the occult) didn’t ultimately find any meaningful or super sizeable communities that were active (she did find a Conservative Pagans and Witches Facebook page that has 3.1K members and is private, but it denied her fake account(s) multiple times).

The posts by people who do identify as MAGA witches are pretty funny though—”Blessed lammas, Mr. Trump!”

The interesting thing that seems to be emphasized among the very few witches who are MAGA is heavy use of AI.

The Prominent Conversions

Alexandra Ashcroft (“Alex Reads Tarot” / @yourfiresignbestie)

Commentary on the announcement including footage of the announcement

Tarot, astrology, and energy work were her livelihood. In late June 2026 she deleted her entire occult catalog, announced she was done with readings, and started new accounts focused on Christianity.

People openly grieved her choice

* “We lost a baddie today”

* She appreciated that unlike Doreen Virtue, she did not criticize the occult or witchcraft. “You’re constantly challenged on the path to spirituality…. You know what you’re doing doesn’t hurt anybody”

* “It changes lives”

* “It makes people better people”

* She argues people who say witchcraft is condemned are “wrong”

* She says she tried talking with people from other faiths but kept returning to witchcraft because “It is the only thing that gives me the power that I need and I crave”

* “Why didn’t you give me a heads up so I could save some stuff first?”

Her stated reasons:

* The change was gradual over nearly a year, not sudden.

* Faith in Christ became “the most important thing” in her life. She spent that time praying, reflecting, and questioning.

* For a long time she hoped she could “somehow reconcile” tarot with Christianity and keep practicing. She could not.

* “The more I prayed, the more that I reflected and sought God, the more that I realized I couldn’t ignore where this journey was leading me.”

Kat Von D (Katherine von Drachenberg)

Celebrity tattoo artist and LA Ink star known for a gothic/occult aesthetic, tarot collections tied to her makeup line, witchcraft books, and spellwork.

She publicly discarded her occult library and tarot decks in July 2022, was baptized in a Baptist church in Indiana in October 2023, and later entered the Orthodox Church (Pascha 2025).

* “Von D also shared that her priest encouraged her to refrain from sharing further details of her conversion from Protestantism to the Orthodox Church, The Christian Post reported.”

* HOWEVER, across later interviews, it came out that:

* After her 2023 Baptist baptism she “hit a wall” quickly. She had many questions and felt there was little discipleship. She described going through the motions with her “cup not full” and sensing “there’s more.”

* Church history. She said one of the strongest pulls was “a deeper understanding of actual church history, which… I had no clue about.” She wanted to be able to answer her son’s questions with that history rather than “because mommy and daddy brought us up this way.”

* Worship felt different. Protestant services had come to feel like “a lecture hall or a TED Talk.” In Orthodox liturgy she said she felt she was “worshiping the Lord with all my being.”

* Icons made immediate sense to her as a visual artist. She had first thought the flat style looked like people “before they learned how to draw.” Once she understood them as windows to heaven and as a way to learn about Christ and the saints without needing to be a theologian, they clicked. She noted they also help her ADHD because she can look at Christ and focus. Kissing an icon did not feel strange to her.

* Stability. She contrasted Orthodoxy’s settled paradigm with the endless rabbit trails of both New Age searching and some Protestant settings.

* Community. After years of isolation in Los Angeles she found a parish that felt like actual community.

Here’s a video montage of her visiting an orthodox church with her son that she posted to Instagram (it’s not the only one)

Her stated reasons for converting

* She said COVID lockdowns and conversations with her husband (“I think we got a lot of things wrong”) forced a full life audit.

* She said New Age practices (tarot, spellwork, meditation, nature worship, yoga) had been “band-aids” and “crutches” that never actually solved anything.

* She compared her Christian friends (who had “light”) with occult friends (who lived in “drama and dread and gloom and doom”) and realized she had been one of the miserable ones.

* She came to see a “spiritual battle” and no longer wanted those items in her home around her family.

* The change felt like “deprogramming.” Things that once attracted her became repulsive. She repeatedly said she just wanted Jesus: “I don’t want these crutches in my life anymore… I just want Jesus.” She also said the shift made her a better wife and mother.

Doreen Virtue

The longest-established of the three. She was one of the world’s bestselling New Age authors, created dozens of angel/oracle card decks (used like tarot), taught channeling and mediumship, and mixed Christian language with occult practice for decades. She was baptized in 2017 and has spent the years since publicly repudiating her old work and telling people not to use her cards. (Her wikipedia page)

Her stated reasons:

* She had a vision of Jesus in an Episcopal church in January 2017 that she said completely changed her.

* Reading the Bible, especially Deuteronomy 18:10–12 (the prohibition on divination, fortune-telling, witchcraft, and consulting the dead), was the decisive moment. She realized the exact practices she had taught and sold were described as “detestable” / an “abomination” to God.

* She had genuinely believed she was a Christian doing God’s work through angels. The passage lifted “the veil.” She fell to her knees, repented, and gave her life to Jesus.

* She now describes her former work as occult deception and regularly apologizes for the decks still in circulation.

Older examples exist (e.g., the Druid blogger Teo Bishop / Matt Morris around 2013), but they are less often cited in the current conversation.

Does the Inverse Exist?

Not really; it’s more people who were Christian by default (and not liking it) getting into tarot.

There aren’t major prominent Christian religious leaders

Lots of people raised evangelical or conservative Christian leave church and pick up tarot, astrology, or witchcraft. Religion News Service profiled this in 2025 with practitioners like Kevin Garcia, Elliot Adam, and Charlie Claire Burgess. They describe tarot as a way to rebuild spirituality after “bad religion.” That pattern is common. It is not the same as a Hillsong worship leader or a 2-million-follower Christian TikToker announcing “I am a witch now.”

Closest examples:

* Kevin Garcia came out as a queer Christian in 2015, built a deconstruction audience, wrote Bad Theology Kills, and later added tarot as spiritual direction. He still talks about Jesus as a mystic path among others. His following is in the tens of thousands, not the million-plus range of Alex Reads Tarot or Kat Von D.

* Hana O’Neill (Suburban Witchery) has written explicitly about a “Christian to witch pipeline” from evangelical girl to practicing witch. Niche platform.

* Many WitchTok creators mention a Christian childhood. Almost none of them were first known as Christian influencers.

On Witches

Percentage of women

Pew’s 2014 Religious Landscape Study put pagans at roughly 0.3–0.4% of all U.S. adults.

One Pagan Census-based summary reports approximately 68% of Wiccans and 67% of Pagans as female.

Combining these stats, we can suppose that roughly 1 in 250 to 1 in 170 women identify as a witch (0.4% to 0.6% of women in the USA).

* This is conservative as there are, for example, Christians (albeit not very high fidelity Christians) who practice witchcraft, at least until they discover that Christianity and witchcraft are incompatible.

Size

Broad witchcraft is small compared to markers for interest in organized religion (like searches for the Bible) but nontrivial

The industry is big:

* Psychic / fortune / tarot readings: $2.3 billion (Best single figure (IBISWorld))

* Tarot/oracle decks and kits $50–300 million (Reports conflict)

* Etsy spells + cheap digital castings: $20–100 million (Heavily overlapping with psychic/fortune/tarot readings)

* Forbes’s 2024 reporting: the platform has facilitated “millions of dollars” in spell sales; some top sellers have made hundreds of thousands.

* Occult / spell / spiritualism books~$50–200 million (Soft estimate)

* Crystals, herbs, ritual goods, shops: $1–2+ billion if included (Wellness, not “occult services”)

For scale: US religious giving is well over $100 billion. The legal US cannabis market is larger than psychic services. Halloween retail alone is several times the deck-and-spell slice. The occult economy is real and has professionalized; it is still a mid-size niche next to church, wellness, or self-help.

What are People into Witches Even Into?

Top selling books on spells/witchcraft on Amazon

* The Spell Book for New Witches: Essential Spells to Change Your Life by Ambrosia Hawthorn | Feb 4, 2020 - $9.99 paperback; 20.4K review (4.5 stars)

* Preview pages show things like

* significant objects one might use, including a Book of Shadows (to keep a record of one’s practice), an alter bowl (to hold salt, herbs, crystals, and waters for portions or scrying), a mortar and pestle, candles, and crystal

* Spells, grouped into

* Spells for romantic love

* E.g. A lover’s bind rune to preserve or attract a loving relationship

* Spells for money and prosperity

* Spells for work and career

* A sweetheart sachet, to attract a sweetheart

* One choice review by Felicia Nelson: “This is exactly what I wanted. So many of the books out there spend the majority of the book talking about how to become a witch or how to be a witch. I don’t need tons of chapters about crystals and the moon and all that. Most books spend way too much time going over those things. I just want the spells. For someone who has already gotten down the basics, or who’s been doing this a long time already, you’re going to like this book. It says that it’s for new wedges, but I don’t find that to be true at all. All I wanted was a book of spells that I could use to compare or cross-reference or add to my own. I’m a solitary witch. This book glosses over all of those basic things that so many other books go on and on and on about, and just gets down to business. This is a book of spells, period. And they aren’t ridiculous spells that make you have all sorts of special hard to get ingredients. You can follow these spells step-by-step, or adapt them to incorporate into your own traditions. I think it’s a great reference; a great starting point. You definitely want to add this book to your collection.”

* The Green Witch: Your Complete Guide to the Natural Magic of Herbs, Flowers, Essential Oils, and More (Green Witch Witchcraft Series) by Arin Murphy-Hiscock | Sep 19, 2017 - $10.22; 28.2K reviews (5 stars)

* This book has a heavy emphasis in gardening and reconnecting to the earth and natural world

* Natural healing, kitchen recipes, “working with green energy”, etc.

* Psychic Witch: A Metaphysical Guide to Meditation, Magick & Manifestation (Mat Auryn’s Psychic Witch, 1) Book 1 of 2: Mat Auryn’s Psychic Witch | by Mat Auryn and Devin Hunter | Feb 8, 2020; $16.12, 10.3K reviews (5 stars)

* Part of a review from a deconstructing Christian: “Let me preface this review by saying that I am a former Christian conservative and have been deconstructing my beliefs over the course of the last one and a half years. I have always felt drawn to witchcraft and spirituality, but toxic Christianity and Christian nationalism made me believe that witchcraft is “evil” and “demonic,” which I now know is anything but. As a part of my journey back to spirituality, this book called out to me-I felt incredibly drawn to it. I am so glad that I bought this book because I learned so much about witchcraft, mysticism and metaphysics that I haven’t known before! Everything in the world is a lot more connected than we think, and the author cites legitimate scientific, psychological, and historical studies to prove this link. I’ve never been one to be a complete science nerd, but the science used in this book was absolutely fascinating to me.”

Episode Transcript

Speaker 8 [0:00]:I still come back to witchcraft. I still come back to spirituality because it is the only thing that allows me the autonomy and the power that I need and that I crave and that I know that I’m deserving of

Simone Collins [0:10]:Hello, Malcolm. I’m very excited to be speaking with you again because Halloween’s right around the corner. We gotta talk about witch talk. We gotta talk about witches and the occult and how I can’t seem to avoid it because women are so into it now. So this is kind of another women are terrible episode, but it’s a little bit wholesome, and you’ll see why. But first, this is just... For for the guys who don’t see this, because I think that guys are mostly precluded from the occult and witch talk and all of this stuff, this is a very, very big industry and genre among women, especially chronically online women. in terms of interest in in just psychic and tarot readings as as an industry, that is a $2,300,000,000 industry just in America. And it’s even all over celebrity gossip. Like, this... It came up in my feed this morning. I I just had to click on it. It was this video called the succession ritual. Why Kim Kardashian wears the dead? And I’m like, wait. What? What are you talking about? and it’s amazing. Let me show you just a little clip of this so you

Malcolm Collin [1:16]:can Kim Kardashian wears the dead?

Simone Collins [1:19]:Yeah. Yeah. Kim Kardashian. Why she wears the dead. Okay?

Malcolm Collins [1:24]:Kim Kardashian is an apex predator of the collective unconscious, an aura harvester. She is a high powered technician of the occult, turning a simple exit into a ritual altar.

Simone Collins [1:37]:Powered technician

Malcolm Collins [1:38]:energy of the of every lens and every eye, storing that power into the fabric of the bridge. This is a glamour witch. Glamour witch. Influence, casting a spell of total saturation before she ever reaches for the relics of the dead.

Simone Collins [1:55]:Oh my god. But look. So here’s here’s her talking about... So... And and the witches are now converting to Christianity? Yep. Actually, look. So even in the beginning of this, what is she pointing to here in her video? Stuff. Yeah. Look at this. These these are these are crowns. These are saints. Alright?

Malcolm Collin [2:13]:They’re converting to orthodoxism, by the way. That’s the form of Christianity.

Simone Collins [2:17]:That you’re... Yeah. We’re gonna talk about this in this episode, but you’re gonna see what she just says about Makes sense. Kim Kardashian here. I’m just gonna... I’ll start playing here. Look.

Malcolm Collins [2:25]:This. But for some, it has migrated from the temple to the auction house. And Kim Kardashian is one of the highest bidders, not to curate history, but to harvest it. She takes Marilyn Monroe’s presidential silk and stretches the seams over her own ribs. She clasps the weight of Elizabeth Taylor’s diamonds around her neck and wrists. She hangs princess Diana’s amethyst cross, a heavy purple relic of royal tragedy against her bare pulse. She even fits Michael Jackson’s fedora still stained with the makeup of a deceased man’s face onto her child. She does not archive these pieces behind museum glass. She doesn’t lock them away. Instead, she wears them as skin. She steps into the literal fabric of the past. She occupies the space left by these icons forcing their history to work for her own image.

Malcolm Collin [3:22]:Is this real? Did she do this?

Simone Collins [3:25]:Well, yes. She does do... These are literal... You weren’t there when she wore Marilyn Monroe’s happy birthday, mister president dress to the Met Gala, and everyone just collectively had a big aneurysm because she stretched out the dress and all the costume historians were like, war crime. and everyone got... But she... And, yeah, she she did buy all those things, and she does wear them. and it’s a... Definitely, you know, this group of people are like, witchcraft. And look. Even in the in the Aztec episode that I talked about, I was talking about how, like, oh, and there’s this other thing. They’re not just worshiping these women. These these these these... With... These TikTok livestreamers aren’t just worshiping La Santa Muerte. Now when they get shot on their livestreams, everyone thinks that their best friends are, destiny swapping with them. Well, guess who else has been accused of destiny swapping? Oh, it’s the glamor witch, Kim Kardashian. They believe that Kim Kardashian has destiny swapped with Paris Hilton, you see, because witchcraft is everywhere. And I can’t get it.

Malcolm Collin [4:20]:Beginnings sort of her life now looks like it’s where Paris Hilton was against

Simone Collins [4:23]:Yeah. The idea is that... No. Destiny swapping is where, like, you want their their destiny as you try to steal it. And so the idea was, well, you know, Paris Hilton did the sex tape. Paris Hilton was famous, and Kim Kardashian wanted to be famous. And then she did the sex tape, and then she just slipped her way into Paris Hilton’s life. Although Paris Hilton is doing great, and I’m so happy for her. And I’m happy for Kim Kardashian. Whatever. I’m happy for all of them. I just want them to be okay.

Malcolm Collin [4:46]:Really? You’re equally... I’m sorry. Paris Hilton has always seemed like a pretty cool person to me. She’s Kim Kardashian.

Simone Collins [4:52]:Kim Kardashian not. Awesome. Kim Kardashian seems fine too to me. She’s She seems fine.

Malcolm Collin [4:58]:Like like, tolerable to be around.

Simone Collins [5:00]:I’m a little bit concerned about her daughter, her oldest daughter. But, anyway, this is an interesting situation.

Malcolm Collin [5:06]:Daughter is the one that she took from her husband and is dressing up in all those crazy outfits? Yeah. That is really concerning.

Simone Collins [5:13]:Yeah. I... I’m I’m worried, but also, like, who knows what’s going on with the shared custody? I’m not gonna judge other people’s lives. People judge our lives and make all sorts of things up. Okay? I’m just gonna... Whatever. The... Here’s the wholesome part of all this. Right? So everywhere I look, witches, witches, it’s all the spells and the witches and the occult, and then everyone’s using tarot cards. But what’s happening when these people who get super into the occult actually start doing some introspecting? They’re converting to Christianity just like we are. And then their their followers and everyone else who just loved their content are... They’re freaking out. So one of the top influencers, Alexandra Ashcroft, who went by Alex Reid’s Tarot, aka at your friend... Firesign bestie, worked as a full time professional tarot reader. She had nearly a million TikTok followers. She got tens of millions of likes. She was even named drop in this Hailey Williams, aka Paramore song. Yeah. It’s called love me different, and this was from her 2025 release called ego death at at a bachelorette party, which is a pretty good... It’s a pretty good name. And the lyric is Alex reads Alex reads tarot reads the s**t out of me, which is a direct reference to her. It’s it’s her whole tag, like, her her handle. so she she built literally, pun intended, a cult following. and her signature move was actually pretty softcore in terms of the whole occult witchcraft thing. It was just to draw a daily tarot card and then invite her followers to set an intention or focus for the day. But then in late June of this year, everything stopped. She posted an announcement video and then nuked all of her content, saying, I don’t know exactly what comes next for me, but what I do know is that Jesus Christ has saved my life, and I can no longer ignore that reality. And she walked away from a 6 figure, probably high 6 figure income stream. It could be... It could have been bigger. And the weirdest thing is that she’s not the only one who’s done so, and I wanted to explore that in this episode because it’s it’s the kind of wholesome part of all this. But I also wanna say this is not a political thing, and one of my favorite things that I discovered when I went down this rabbit hole is that, one, actually, just this morning, I was watching another video about Christian Christian riches. We’re actually gonna talk about Christian witches a little bit later when we talk about conversions away from from the witchcraft. But there are conservative witches, and this includes MAGA witches. And I just have to show you because MAGA witches are... Just as conservative people are super into AI, the one thing that really distinguishes the concern The which is is that they love AI, and you’re about to

Malcolm Collin [8:02]:see why.

Speaker 5 [8:04]:Under the buck full moon, we invoke power.

Speaker 6 [8:06]:A tremendous power, the best.

Speaker 5 [8:08]:The buck full moon rises. Take America back.

Speaker 6 [8:10]:We will win. So much winning.

Simone Collins [8:12]:So much winning.

Speaker 5 [8:14]:The buck full moon is high. It’s time.

Speaker 6 [8:16]:Incredible. What are you going to do?

Speaker 5 [8:18]:I call upon the power of the buck moon.

Speaker 6 [8:20]:Wow. Amazing. Amazing.

Speaker 5 [8:22]:The spell is complete. Look at that buck full moon. It’s magical.

Speaker 6 [8:26]:It’s huge. The biggest and best moon.

Speaker 5 [8:29]:They say it brings good fortune.

Speaker 6 [8:31]:With you, it already has.

Malcolm Collin [8:33]:Aw. They’re like they’re like flirting. Like, what is what is this? I love it. Someone I don’t wanna, like, have a crush. I like this.

Simone Collins [8:44]:This is hilarious. It doesn’t I absolute And

Malcolm Collin [8:47]:if you’re gonna be a witch, just go all the way with it.

Simone Collins [8:50]:How about

Malcolm Collin [8:51]:relationship with the president?

Simone Collins [8:53]:I know. I I 100% agree. So I just wanted to make it clear. This is not a political thing. This is a religion thing. and and the big theme here that I find to be so wholesome is these people who are very well meaning, who get into witchcraft. You know, Alex Reid’s tarot being her thing. She’s just trying to help people set intentions to get what they want done. Right? And she thinks tarot cards will help her, and she wants to help people through tarot. And then she discovers, you know what? Actually, this isn’t this isn’t the solution I thought it was. And so she leaves, and that that is... And she’s not alone. We’re gonna go... We’re gonna start with her example, though. So her whole thing was tarot and astrology and energy work, and and then she deleted her entire catalog. And the the grieving that resulted was super interesting. I’m just gonna go with someone’s reaction, to what to what she did, because it was... You’re... So you’re someone commenting on on her actually....

Speaker 7 [9:46]:Most prominent spiritual creators, Alex Reid’s Tarot, has just announced that she is giving up a tarot and her account to follow religion. Alex announced this news in a TikTok today and has actually wiped her entire account, almost 1,000,000 followers with the exception of this video.

Speaker 2 [10:03]:This will be my final post. I am not going to be offering any more readings or sessions. I’m not going to be creating any more tarot content. And once this account is gone, I will not be returning. I don’t know exactly what comes next for me, but what I do know is that Jesus Christ has saved my life. It was a

Speaker 7 [10:26]:lot of people’s favorite tarot card reader on TikTok, so people are really sad to see this. There’s lots of talk about how this is the second or third major tarot card reader to find religion and leave their tarot card reading behind. There are also some people that speculate maybe she got involved with a boyfriend who was really religious.

Simone Collins [10:44]:Yeah. A lot of a lot of people try to try to cope with that.

Malcolm Collin [10:47]:I don’t think she did from what I have seen.

Simone Collins [10:50]:Yeah. From what you’ve seen. What I thought was was even more telling about kind of what’s unsustainable about the practice that people are playing in was this one reaction of a follower. And the way she describes why she can’t quit her witchcraft, essentially, I think it’s Mad today, for those who saw

Speaker 8 [11:11]:that Alex Reads Tarot is no longer reading tarot, have a couple of things to say. First and foremost, I met Alex briefly when she came on my podcast, and she was so sweet, so kind. I think she is a phenomenal person. She’s given so much to her community over the past few years as a reader, and I totally respect her decision to go off and follow whatever path she deems relevant for her. And I think that she was super respectful and kind and nice in the way that she went about doing it. For those of you that might be old enough to remember, there was a Oracle deck creator named Dorian Virtue. I’m gonna talk that. Everywhere. Okay? This was before there were tons of tarot and Oracle decks, and this woman was popping. Okay? You could not go anywhere without seeing an oracle deck from Dorian Virtue. And one day, this woman came online and basically said, y’all are going to hell. Y’all are communing with the devil, and I’m never touching these decks again. She believed

Simone Collins [11:55]:tarot was actually very nice.

Speaker 8 [11:57]:A religion and made everybody feel awful about it. Okay? And at the time, I was new to spirituality. When Doreen came out guns blazing, I actually felt really nervous. I was like, am I doing something wrong? Should I be listening to what she’s saying? If I use these cards, if I felt this way using her stuff, was it bad? I worried that I was doing something wrong, and I felt super uncertain and really uneasy, and it made me feel kind of sick inside. I was, like, looking up online trying to see what was listed. What was going on? There was this one woman, and she said, listen. Just because Doreen wants to go on her own path, and I’ll say this to you now, just because Alex wants to go on her own path doesn’t mean that you are doing anything wrong by believing in witchcraft or spirituality. Okay? Just because somebody is uncomfortable on the path of witchcraft and tarot and spirituality, a path that is not defined. It’s not clear. It doesn’t have organization. It doesn’t have leaders. You’re really on your own. You’re judged. You are constantly feeling at odds with people that are religious.

Malcolm Collin [12:51]:I make up what

Speaker 8 [12:52]:I They’re... You’re constantly being judged, on the path of spirituality, and it is challenging to live in, alignment with that knowing that you’re constantly being judged and that people think really awful things about you. Even though you know, as somebody that reads tarot or gets tarot readings, you know that what you are doing is not harming anybody. You’re doing something that is providing a real true level of introspection and self awareness. And I know for so many people, hundreds and hundreds of people that I’ve read for in my life as a tarot reader, it has changed lives. It makes people better people. It makes people happier. It makes them more aligned with their soul’s purpose. And for anybody to say that by engaging in those practices, you are doing something negative, you’re doing something that God’s source spirit, the universe, Jesus Christ, whoever would be judgmental of, would smite you for, would condemn you for, I promise you, they are wrong. People that believe that are wrong, and they’re either lying to themselves or they’re lying to you or a little bit of both. Because in no world would you be condemned for doing something to make yourself a better person, and that is also not harming anyone else. So although it may be uncomfortable to see someone you loved and looked up to and really supported for many years decide that this is no longer the path for them, it doesn’t mean that this doesn’t have to be the path for you. Doesn’t It mean that you have to feel like you’ve done something wrong or that you have to make a decision like Alex has. I’ve been seeking. I have gone to religious institutions. I’ve spoken to people. I have prayed. I have worshiped. I have done so many things, and I still come back to witchcraft. I still come back to spirituality because it is the only thing that allows me the autonomy and the power that I need and that I crave and that I know that I’m deserving of as a human being. It is the only spirituality that I have found that shows just as much reverence regardless of gender and identity and sexual orientation, and that is something that is important to me. And I know that it’s something that is important to most of you Easy. Who are also on this path. And I just wanna remind you, you’re doing nothing wrong. And it’s okay that Alex wants to step back. It sucks. She will be missed, and she will always be welcome back if she ever wants to come back to read tarot cards at any point in her life. And if not, that’s perfectly okay too. We wish her the best, and we will still be here reading our tarot cards twenty four seven, baby.

Simone Collins [14:54]:Look. I can sue gives me the power

Malcolm Collin [14:56]:And autonomy

Simone Collins [14:58]:Yeah. I crave. No. If you just replace this with, like, some vice, any vice, gambling, some sort of illicit drug use, you know, it just... It gives me the power I crave. you know, it feels good. but, yeah, I think that that’s that’s she sums up, I think, very well. People’s reaction is, one, oh, it’s nice that this time when someone rejected us, they were respectful about it, and they didn’t attack us for it. but also But I I

Malcolm Collin [15:22]:love the lack of introspection as to whether or not it is actually harmful to her life. Because in my experience, the people who engage in this stuff typically don’t have their lives together. Whereas Yeah. When I look at people of our generation, I I will say the boomer generation had a lot of e religious people who just did not have their lives together, were not actually practicing religious. Right? But when I look at the religious people in our generation, right, generally, they seem to have their lives together at a much higher rate. Right? Yeah. Yeah. And, of course, it makes sense if what you believe is whatever I want to think is true, whatever moral set I want to go with.

Simone Collins [16:03]:Yeah. You’re probably not gonna get too far with anything that’s hard. And as I keep trying to teach our children all the stuff that is good, you have to work really, really hard for it. Like, you’re not gonna

Malcolm Collin [16:14]:get very far. Went over an episode on CSS Lewis’ arguments for why you should believe in God, and I was going through why they were not just bad, but, like, the origin of woke ideology Or what allowed it to so easily infiltrate churches and normalization of these ideas. Yeah. And I think you completely see it why in one of these videos. When he says something like, well, people have genuine... General intuitions around good and evil, and therefore, there must be something behind those intuitions about good and evil, then you’re locking your religion into saying, well, then what is religiously true or what is good and evil for God is what feels good and evil for you. And this is clearly what she believes about religion. She believes her religion because it aligns with her moral intuitions, which is I wanna do x. I’m going to do x. Somebody else wants to do x. How dare you tell me not to do x?

Simone Collins [17:04]:It me the power I crave.

Speaker 6 [17:06]:Yeah. Gives me the power I crave. Yeah. Right?

Simone Collins [17:09]:That’s what really stuck with me. But to your point, and this is exactly the right point, those who have been in this movement and then actually look around and see how their friends in the occult are doing, and then keep looking around and see how their friends who are religiously devout are doing. They’re like, And that is exactly what happened to another of the very prominent conversions, which was Kat Von D, aka Catherine von Draktenberg. She is... If you’re a woman, you know who she is because she she makes, I I would argue, pretty decent makeup. She’s a celebrity tattoo artist, an LA Ink star, and she’s really known for her gothic and occult aesthetic. and she also had tarot collections that were tied to her makeup line. She had witchcraft books. She had... She did spell work. Like, she was in it, like, all the way. And then suddenly, in July ‘22, she discards her occult library, her tarot decks, and then she was baptized in a Baptist church in Indiana in October 2023, but then later entered the Orthodox Church in 2025. and while she didn’t originally... She said that her priest discouraged her from explaining why she converted. When you come to look at her aesthetic

Malcolm Collin [18:29]:Oh, yeah. Gothy witchy woman. Why did she become orthodox?

Simone Collins [18:32]:Yeah. I wonder what’s going on.

Malcolm Collin [18:34]:When you see this this, like, gothy woman’s aesthetic, and then you’re like, she converted to Baptist. When I first heard this, I was like

Simone Collins [18:41]:Yeah. This is her in an orthodox church, and you’re like Probably not gonna last. Your son with the little skull icons on his skull there. That these

Malcolm Collin [18:51]:witches use orthodox imagery. Like, the other witch literally used orthodox imagery of, like, their relic icons and stuff like this Yeah.

Simone Collins [18:59]:As As an example of... Well, it was an example of the power of, like, stressors and

Malcolm Collin [19:04]:crowns and craft. So the... What’s funny is the witches can’t even distinguish orthodox Christianity from spiritualism and witchcraft. Yeah.

Simone Collins [19:14]:But I think the the important thing here, though, is that she found, like, an aesthetic that worked for her, but she also realized, oh, actually, you know... Oh god. I love I love her demonic bathroom so freaking much.

Malcolm Collin [19:25]:She still has it. Yep. It looks pretty cool.

Simone Collins [19:27]:I mean, is demonic. The demonic bathroom even after converting back to

Malcolm Collin [19:30]:one for an orthodox person. Okay? You know what? Yeah. This is what I wanna say, and this is where I have a... An actually pretty strong belief in ecumenicalism around Christianity where when I talk to... Because we... Unfortunately, the Celestium interview, the recording didn’t work, so we’re gonna have to redo

Simone Collins [19:46]:But when I I to talk with her again, though. So it... I’m I’m Yeah.

Malcolm Collin [19:49]:When I talk with, you know, an orthodox person like her, one of the things I always hate when Christians do is when they say Christians believe this or Christians believe this or Christians believe this. And I’m like, well, is it in the bible? And they’re like, no. But it’s what Christians believe. And I’m like, yeah. So what you mean is you’ve been told by somebody that Christians believe this. Like, you’re a local minister or something like this, and you’ve incorporated it into your identity. And now you are using it in a manner that is potentially exclusionary.

Speaker 17 [20:19]:And I want to be clear here. When Christians do this, I think they’re essentially trying to manifest Christianity to be what they want it to be. I don’t think that they actually believe that their their way of interpreting the Bible is the only way of interpreting the Bible. However, when I see other religions do it where it’s even more common specifically is in Buddhism and Mormonism, which, you know, is a form of Christianity, but highly deviant one. Specifically in those two religions, I have frequently brought up things that are just, like, patently and obviously true if you have studied the religious history. Like, in Buddhism, I’m like, oh, yeah. The goal is to end the cycle of suffering and and prevent sentient life from continuing to exist. And people were like, no. That’s not what Buddhism is. And I’m like, you can do a basic search. Like, this is this is sort of the core of the religion . This isn’t some fringe side belief I’m mentioning or within Mormon. It’s when I was talking about elements of the Mormon afterlife. This is more on Leafletstream, not within our own audience or somebody who is very like, no. We do not believe that you continue as a ghost on Earth until the I’m like, no. You do. Like, this is this is the central church’s canon right now. You can, you know, debate around whether or not you can see them or whether there was a strong veil between them and the living, but not whether or not this happens. And they just refuse that because they’re like, I’ve never heard it from my church. And I think that this is also true with the Buddhists who convert. And they’re like, well, I identify as a Buddhist. It’s a minority religion where I live. And because I identify as it, then, therefore, my beliefs define what it means to be Buddhist or to have Buddhist beliefs.

Malcolm Collin [22:03]:And I have things that I believe are true about Christ, about God, about the way the world is structured. And I will say, I believe this about Christianity, but I am okay with sex that believe things about Christianity that I believe are wrong or existing and working with them. Because the reality is is even if I think that Baptists are one of the closest to biblically accurate branches of the Christian tradition, I really like Baptists, generally speaking, this woman was clearly never gonna stay a Baptist.

Simone Collins [22:41]:Yeah. And she talks in one podcast that I I used in my research about how icons just made immediate sense to her as a visual artist and that she first thought that this flat style looked like people before they learned how to draw. And then once she understood them as windows to heaven, she was like, oh my god. This is so cool. Yeah. Like, she needed that. That is that is, like, a way that she makes sense of the world as an artist and as a human. I I call work that way. You don’t work that way. That’s why we need a different type of religious truth.

Malcolm Collin [23:07]:Clearly, when it comes to icons and idolatry, I have argued recently that it is why you still have child sacrifices and cannibalism happening in Mexico. Right? Like Yeah. It is why the Santay Morta court

Simone Collins [23:18]:But it’s also why this witch is no longer a watch. Saying no

Malcolm Collin [23:22]:longer watch. Is the reason why I’m not saying we need to have a crusade against the orthodox in America or we need to have a crusade against Catholicism in America is because if we remove these as options, women like her are going to stay witches. And if we’re talking about the difference between a form of Christianity that allows for icons and living life as a witch, clearly, her life, her children’s life, the life of everyone in our society is going to be better for the fact that she follows the orthodox tradition.

Simone Collins [23:59]:Yeah. And for every

Malcolm Collin [24:02]:person who believes that they are, Catholic and and Catholics can say, well, we don’t. The church has condemned it. I’m like, well, they haven’t condemned it as hard as they’ve condemned SPSX, which is pretty odd. Yeah. Like, it’d be really cool if they could do an inquisition. I I think a lot of people would support that, also target the narcos.

Simone Collins [24:19]:They would love that.

Malcolm Collin [24:20]:Mexicans would love that. Great idea. Anyone in the Vatican say, let’s do an inquisition against, you know

Simone Collins [24:25]:Oh my gosh. It would hold so well. Everyone would love it.

Malcolm Collin [24:28]:Human sacrifices to saints they believe are Catholic. Right? I think even the Wokes would love it. Right?

Simone Collins [24:33]:You know? Everyone would love it. Come on. Let’s go.

Malcolm Collin [24:36]:Oh, no. The Wokes wouldn’t love it because a lot of the Santa Muerte cult is gay or LGBT.

Simone Collins [24:41]:Forgot. Yes. She is... Yes. Santa Muerte, LGBTQ and female icon. This is

Malcolm Collin [24:45]:Some... Antonio is like, oh, a a deity that accepts you no matter who you are because it only cares that you’re gonna die one day. That sounds like maybe not a deity you should be worshiping.

Simone Collins [24:55]:Don’t worship cosmic horror deities. Can we can we just agree on a couple

Malcolm Collin [25:01]:But but the thing is is that for every Catholic who... Or somebody who believes they’re a Catholic who gets involved in these things because there weren’t strict enough policies around, like, icon worship, there are probably 10,000 people who convert because they like the vibe of the giant fancy churches. Right? and they like the the feel of it all. For every, person who... Within the Orthodox tradition may be drawn to it for darker reasons, there are 10,000 women like this or more, a 100,000, maybe half a million people.

Speaker 15 [25:36]:So when I’m against something like idolatry, I want to be clear. I’m not against it because I think it makes a person unchristian. You know, I think a lot of Christians don’t follow the Sabbath as we didn’t for a long time even though it’s very clearly laid out that you’re supposed to. I think it’s it’s something I’m against because if everybody could create restrictions against it, society would be a better place. At the same time, I don’t think that our society that’s structured right now gets a net better if I enforce that upon everyone. I think some people’s path to having a better life travels through iconoclasm, travels through idolatry. And that is the the the world that we live in. You know? If you live in a fallen world, you need to say, okay. Yeah. But if I get rid of all that, how many people are not going to find a way to a better life? And it’s a lot of them. And so that that’s what I mean. I’m like, it is helping people. I do think society would be better if it didn’t exist at all, but think it would be harder to get to that ultimate society from where we are now if it didn’t exist at all.

Malcolm Collin [26:54]:Yeah. Only churches aren’t winning that many converts, that

Simone Collins [26:56]:might be a big number. But Celestium has made me believe that the Orthodox Church has hope for the future. If she and her crew are out there proselytizing in Roblox, alright, they’re gonna be okay.

Malcolm Collin [27:10]:I know. I’ve I’ve met some Orthodox preachers who I really liked, who are fans of the show, apparently. And it’s a it’s a it’s a... It’s... They got rich. They got a cool style. I like it.

Simone Collins [27:21]:Yeah. I think, you know, they’ve they’ve got it going on, and I’m glad that Kat Von D is among them now. And she she ultimately... I mean, first, you know, got baptized, not not into the orthodox church. She switched. But, like, what drove her to this, again, is that she compared her Christian friends, who had light in her words with her cult friends who lived in, quote, drama and dread and gloom and doom, end quote. Her words.

Malcolm Collin [27:45]:Yeah.

Simone Collins [27:45]:The one she had been One of the miserable ones. And she also said that new age practices like tarot and spell work and meditation, nature worship, yoga, all the stuff she was doing had been Band Aids to her and crutches never really solved anything. And what ultimately triggered everything for her, unlike the, you know, year of introspection that Alex Rytero went through was the pandemic. And just kind of sitting alone with her thoughts, and her husband... She and her husband just started talking, and then she started feeling like she was deprogramming, like, actually deprogramming from a cold practices, which is really Well, I

Malcolm Collin [28:20]:think that’s the way it works for a lot of people. And and and I will say, I mean, my one caveat on the orthodox tradition is just make sure you never let them in a funeral home with a bedazzler. Oh my god.

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Simone Collins [28:56]:Okay. Fine. Look. Let’s move on to the one

Malcolm Collin [28:59]:Keep keep the bedazzlers away from them, and and they’re fine. Right? You know, the... So the the... I completely... I I actually wanna focus really quickly on this. What happened to her is she said it was a slow process over the course of the the first one. Alex reached the year.

Simone Collins [29:15]:You’re talking about Alex.

Speaker 2 [29:16]:And with

Malcolm Collin [29:16]:Kat Von D, it also appeared to be a fairly slow process where they begin to become open to the idea first. Like, their hearts had been closed to seriously considering the idea. They then engage with it like the community, and they begin to build the intellectual scaffolding to believe it. This is why I think it is so important to have standards at the community to be like, we can say this is a sin without being overly aggressive to the people who practice it because they then will not, like, put up strong barriers between themselves and that community. A good example of this could even be us. Like, people can be like, why are your barriers with Catholicism so difficult for you guys to break down? And it’s certainly a part of my prejudice here is that Catholics say that it is a sin for my children to be alive. Right? They say that IVF is a sin. The technology shouldn’t exist. If they had power, they wouldn’t have it be legal in The United States. And, that is saying that my five children shouldn’t exist. And that is something that isn’t like a small thing. It’s like... It’s it’s a much bigger thing than even being a gay man in a happily gay married relationship and somebody is saying, you can’t continue that. Right? Like, not just that’s a sin, but that shouldn’t be allowed to exist. Right? You are going to have a very hard time ever putting down your boundaries around that because those are my kids’ lives. Right? Like, obviously.

Speaker 14 [30:50]:And this is where something like when we’re talking about Celestium, she’s like, well, you know, I I lapsed from following all the stuff I was supposed to in the bible because it was difficult for me or because I just lacked the willpower to do it. And when it comes to something like the lives of my children, I just don’t think it falls into that category at all. I was specifically recently talking about IVF with Knox. I was surprised to learn that he also supports it. And I just looked to the Maimonides line. So Maimonides had argued that it’s okay to have an abortion if the mother’s life at risk for the same reason. It’s illegal to fight for your own life if somebody’s attempting to kill you. And you could say, well, it’s not the child’s fault that it’s attempting to kill you or that it’s doing something that could kill you. In which case, I would push back to say it doesn’t matter. Right? Like, it doesn’t matter that some of my kids who may not have died end up dying so that kids who wouldn’t have existed had those kids not died can come into existence and live full lives. That’s one of those things where it’s like, yeah, that is worse, of risk to a yeah. If you if you say life begin to conception, a young child’s life, if neither they nor the other children who had brought into existence would come into existence if you didn’t put them at that risk in the same way that anybody who attempts to conceive a child knows that there is, what is it, like, a twenty five percent chance that it doesn’t take, I I I think, or twenty percent chance that it doesn’t take, in the in the early days. that’s something that anyone is putting any conceived blastocyst at risk of.

Speaker 18 [32:41]:And you can say, well, god wouldn’t approve of that, but the Bible is littered with places where god kills seemingly innocent people. And the best answer we have to that, it it is so that more potential people could live good lives in the future for the net effect it would have on people’s lives. You know, whether it is David’s kid who god kills in punishment for David’s infidelity or the Egyptian children, It it’s something that repeatedly happens. And so I can only interpret that this is the way that God judges morality.

Malcolm Collin [33:16]:and I think finding better ways to approach things like this, is where you are going to get people to be like, okay. I actually feel comfortable engaging with this community enough so that I can begin to build scaffolding that genuinely incorporates it.

Simone Collins [33:35]:Fair. So the person that that... Whose conversion journey of the witching community that I found to be most interesting was the one who was referenced in that cope video that I showed you of the person who’s talking about Alex Reid’s tarot leaving Doreen Virtue, the one who tried to shame everyone, who didn’t just nuke all of her stuff online, but was like, no, you guys. This is super wrong. She, I think, had the biggest impact with her deconversion, within the community because she was the longest established. She was one of the world’s best selling new age authors. She created dozens of angel and oracle card decks that were used a lot like tarot. So people were using her stuff in their practice and then posting about it as well. She taught channeling. She taught mediumship. She mixed Christian language as well with the occult practice for decades. And and she’s among those Christian tarot people, which is interesting. She was baptized in 2017, and she spent the years publicly repudiating her old work after she got baptized, telling people to not use her cards. So I think the other thing too is it hurt more because people really liked her cards. They’ve incorporated their cards into their lifestyles. And then here she is saying, no, man. That’s evil. Like, the thing you like is really, really bad. So she... We were just talking about this actually in in... When we recorded an episode on reasons why people converted. And I was telling Malcolm how... I’ve heard from many people personally that their conversion experience had to do with the vision, which I would never trust. But look. She was a witch. She did mediumship. She trusted this Sorry.

Malcolm Collin [35:13]:Just for context for people, the reason why Simone nor I would trust the vision is we are well aware from a medical context that people have hallucinations all the time. Right? Like Yeah. Apparently... And I do believe she likely had something even if she’s completely culpable for what we did. You know, Lindsay Clancy had a hallucination that she was supposed to kill her kids. Right? Like, just because you hear somebody talking to you or you see a vision doesn’t mean you

Simone Collins [35:38]:should don’t do it. Go out

Malcolm Collin [35:40]:and do the thing. I’d be like

Simone Collins [35:42]:If you as as your profession are, like, a witch in a medium and you’re supposed to let spirits communicate with you and you had a kind of vision like this, you would probably take it really seriously. And she had a vision of Jesus in an Episcopal church in January 2017, so before she got baptized. And she said that that experience completely changed her. And then also... And this is the most important part. This is what it would have convinced me if I were her is that she read Deuteronomy eighteen ten to 12, which is the prohibition of divination and fortune telling and witchcraft and consulting the dead, like, her entire career. and that was the ultimate decisive moment for her, which I appreciate. And I think that it’s interesting that there are all these people who are Christian and are like, no. Witchcraft is okay. You can be a devout Christian and a witch and and, like, read tarot. And and then they just they just hadn’t gotten around, I guess, to reading the bible. Well, it appreciate

Malcolm Collin [36:40]:that she didn’t recontextualize themselves as prophets.

Simone Collins [36:45]:No. Because right when when it says that, it’s also like... It it... The part of the bible that’s like witchcraft bad, divination bad, is then like, but the prophets are important. And I think the kind of insinuation is, girl, you... You’re not a prophet. I I think I appreciate that during virtue was like, okay. The confidence somebody has hurts to read this. This is my entire career. It’s wrong, and it’s gonna be incredibly painful to tell all of the people who are my fans, who are extremely invested in this entire lifestyle that I was wrong and that they should not do this, but she did it. And and so, you know, Alex reads tarot, did the very least you could do. She just stepped back and and she nuked her content. I guess she could have chosen to not nuke her content, but she did take the easy way out of just being like, personal choice. I’m not judging you. I think Doreen Virtue did the most virtuous thing, which is I was wrong. You need to stop this. This is bad.

Malcolm Collin [37:52]:Well, I mean, and that’s what we did with atheism.

Simone Collins [37:55]:Yeah. But I think it’s harder because our career wasn’t, god is not real. Don’t be... You know, like, that... We didn’t make money from it. We were best selling out. Community, kinda. Not really. No. No. We didn’t make money from telling people religion is bad. Don’t do it. Whereas she she did, and she genuinely believed as well that she was a Christian doing God’s work through angels with all this. So it it must have really hurt. and she said that that passage lifted the veil, and she fell to her knees immediately and repented and gave her life to Jesus. And I I appreciate that. I Sorry. What passage? The Deuteronomy eighteen ten to 12.

Malcolm Collin [38:36]:Oh, you mean the the condemnment passage? The... It wasn’t like any positive thing. It was just like, this is bad. And she’s like, I didn’t know.

Simone Collins [38:42]:And she was like, oops. Like, no one told her, I guess. And before that, she, like, again, literally thought that she was a Christian doing god’s work and that the angels were helping her. And she just This

Speaker 2 [38:54]:is this is one of those

Malcolm Collin [38:55]:things where... I mean, like, this is really clear in, like, Deuteronomy, and yet there’s a lot of Jews who, like, know their stuff, like, the the the the Balshems who practiced all this stuff. Right? Like...

Speaker 2 [39:05]:They were like There’s a lot

Simone Collins [39:07]:of stuff. Okay? When I went and I looked at how long the bible was in terms of, like, the audiobook of the... How long is it? Of the Old Testament alone, just the Old Testament. I’m pulling it up here. It’s kind of ridiculous, and there’s there’s so much detail in there. Look. You could read it every day again and again over a lifetime, and you would not... The holy bible, King James version Shall be thine. I’ve got seventy one hours and five minutes left. Come on, man. Like, this is hard. This is hard. Okay? I... I’m not ready for this. It’s... I’m trying. I haven’t... Everyone’s like, oh, you have to get to the New Testament. I’m like, I only get to listen to audiobooks when I’m cleaning things and falling asleep, and the kids aren’t asking for anything. This is gonna take a while. It’s got, like, fifteen minutes a day. Anyway, this is why we need the Sabbath, obviously, and we’re Yeah. Yeah. You can

Malcolm Collin [40:05]:just sit sit... Which, by the way, we’re gonna start. This this Friday, we’re gonna be starting. I don’t wanna.

Simone Collins [40:13]:But I have to. The ten commandments are Yes. We’re gonna believe it if god wrote it. We got it. And we have to honor our parents, and I have to not blaspheme. Although I I was looking at blaspheming more, and it’s more like treating god flippantly. So being like, oh my god. If something were really, really serious, which is normally when I’m saying that, it’s maybe not blaspheming. I gotta look into this more. Look. We’re we’re trying. We’re trying just like Doreen Virtue. Okay? But, anyway, it’s... I think it’s great she converted. I think it’s great that she’s shaming them even though they’d be coping. and here’s the interesting thing, though. There isn’t really a lot of the inverse existing. You you don’t see prominent Christian religious influencers Yeah. Who are turning to witchcraft. Are they deconstructing sometimes? Absolutely. But mostly what I see them deconstructing from... Because I like to follow Fundy Snark. Okay? I love to follow the gleeful analysis of the ex Mormons and and the the FundeSnark people going through the deconstruction experiences of Christian influencers. Most of those people’s gripes are not actually with, like, god or the 10 commandments at all. It’s more with, like, this particular church in which they were raised, which I agree is equally... I I agree it’s problematic, and I agree that that church needs to fix its ways. so I’m kinda with them on that. I think the deconstruction is very productive that we see among Christian influencers. But, no, there are lots of people who are, like, raised evangelical or conservative Christian who leave the church and pick up tarot, astrology, or witchcraft. Religion News Service profiled this in 2025 with practitioners like Kevin Garcia and Elliot Adam and Charlie Clare Burgess. They described tarot as this way to rebuild spirituality after bad religion. I totally believe... I... One, I don’t think they were actually really Christian to believe with. I believe that they were raised in weak Christian traditions that never won their souls or their faith in the first place. I think that happened with a lot of people, and I think it’s important that these churches pay attention when they see this happening.

Speaker 8 [42:18]:And it means that

Simone Collins [42:19]:they need to do better and tend to their own flock better.

Malcolm Collin [42:23]:Well, strengthen your tradition. I mean, I really think that this needs to be the number one thing. You you you just saying, well, this is the way it’s always worked for us, and it’s like, well, I mean, it’s clearly not working for this generation for any of the mainstream Christian denominations except for the charismatics, which are f*****g crazy and and not good. I I want to be clear. Like, as much as I rag on Catholics in this, I I I actually think the charismatics are a much more dangerous group.

Simone Collins [42:47]:no. Honestly, yeah. If someone in the comments was like, why would you compare Pentecostals to witchcraft? We condemn witchcraft.

Speaker 9 [42:59]:And you when you say something like I’ve condemned witchcraft or we condemn witchcraft, it really has the same vibe as when a Catholic or an Orthodox from your perspective says, well, we condemn idolatry. And you’re like, well, what’s that? And they go, oh, that’s an icon. And you’re like, okay. So you just changed around definitions.

Simone Collins [43:19]:And I’m like, okay, dude. One, like, the stuff that I see happening within the walls of a Pentecostal church makes this softcore Reed’s tarot set an intention for the day after looking at a tarot card stuff looks just, like, downright pious.

Speaker 20 [43:51]:So for context on what we mean by this, if you go to books like Frank Ponduras Modern Spiritualism in nineteen o two, we see that a phenomenon very similar to the Pentecostal speaking in tongues of today was very common among spiritualists of the eighteen fifties to nineteen hundreds. however, if you go to the early Pentecostal movement, what they meant by speaking in tongues and we can see this in things like AA Bodhi’s British paper confidence in May nineteen o eight, or from Charles Parham is they thought that god would give them the ability to speak in other languages to preach to people outside of The United States. like, in one case, a guy went all the way to India because he thought that he’d be able to speak Indian. and it didn’t work, and it created a lot of disappointment in the early Pentecostal movement. And then they redefined it as basically whatever those spiritualists were doing. For some other instances of this, you have things like the word of faith or private confession. The idea that spoken words of faith create or guarantee health and wealth and that revelation knowledge overrides since knowledge, traces largely to e w Kenoy, 1867 to 1948. Kenoy observes the ideas from the new thought movement, specifically Finis Quimby and the broader mind science metaphysical movement of the eighteen hundreds and nineteen hundreds. These teachings later flowed into the Pentecostal and charismatic circles via Kenneth Hagin and others. This this is basically manifesting. it’s something that you see within some Pentecostal movements that looks a lot like the manifesting you see from, like, the book what’s it called? The secret that, like, Oprah used to promote and stuff like this, which is just straight up new age spiritualism ported into Christianity. Or you have things like slain in the spirit. This became a signature of Mariah Woodworth’s eta, the trans evangelist of the eighteen eighties to nineteen twenties, and later healing evangelist. People collapsed, intertranslate states, or lay unconscious for hours. This is not something you see in scripture at all. You see in scripture people falling over, when they encounter God or angels, but not at worship services. but it is something we see pretty extensively in the spiritualist movement, and in the this sort of proto witchcraft movements that were appearing during the late eighteen hundreds, early nineteen hundreds.

Speaker 21 [46:18]:So to be clear here, we don’t think that Pentecostals believe that they are practicing witchcraft, What I’d say is they picked up practices, without knowing. This is something we see throughout the Bible. Even in the temple, we see Canaanite gods beginning to appear at periods, and they had to be cleared out. The the to accidentally pick up practices from people who are around you is a normal thing and is something that we are supposed to be ever vigilant of.

Simone Collins [46:48]:It it it it bothers me so much that they are using these these these tricks to make people feel as though they’re having deeply felt spiritual experiences without actually studying scripture, without actually doing hard things. Sorry. No. It’s it’s worse.

Malcolm Collin [47:06]:She... Wait. So the reason here... And, really, we do need to differentiate it the same way that we like, some Catholic groups

Simone Collins [47:11]:pretty darn ambiguously like Go

Malcolm Collin [47:13]:ahead. Fix

Simone Collins [47:13]:it. Yes.

Malcolm Collin [47:14]:And and just like others, like the Jesuits within the You’re Jesuits. Community. The charismatic Pentecostal are the ones we have a problem with, but the charismatic Pentecostals more so than other communities. In the same way where I can be like, well, the Vatican is the head of your movement, Catholics, and it’s really bad. With the Pentecostal movement, the charismatic part of the Pentecostal movement is the part that’s growing really fast and that makes up the majority of the movement at this point. and the the And when I hear charismatic,

Simone Collins [47:42]:I hear I’m using shortcuts instead of doing actually difficult things to feel like I’m having

Malcolm Collin [47:48]:a hard religious experiment. They simply define as not magic. They’re like, well, putting hands on isn’t magic or doing these spells isn’t magic crap. Or

Simone Collins [47:58]:Oh, no.

Malcolm Collin [47:59]:Well, they’ll say, oh, we see it in parts of the bible. And it’s one of those things where it’s like, yeah, but the iteration of it that you are practicing doesn’t come straight from the bible. It comes from the nineteen twenty spiritualist movement.

Speaker 6 [48:13]:Yeah.

Malcolm Collin [48:13]:And then was incorporated in Christianity, and then somebody saw a line in the bible that they were able to use to justify a type of magic that had been honed for a long time by just straight up, Wiccans and stuff like that. Well, the Wiccans didn’t exist during that period, but but their predecessors, the Siobhanists What was that guy’s name?

Speaker 13 [48:31]:And note here, what we are not saying is we are not saying that they are not Christians. We are not saying that they are not trying to be Christians. We are not saying that they don’t look to the Bible for justification. We are saying that we disagree with their practices, and we think other traditions have seeped in in the same way that somebody could say of us, oh, you guys have allowed atheism to seep into your religion or agnosticism. But it would be dishonest for us to say that they are not attempting to be Christians in their own way and do not define themselves as Christians. Typically, I take people on the way they define themselves, like above where I said I think Mormons are Christians. And I think that it’s important that we do that when we are talking about what criticisms we have of other movements because it’s the quickest way to get them to stop listening to you when you say, oh, well, this isn’t even Christianity or this is paganism. As apparently, when we’re talking with Celestium, a lot of people say of iconography in or a lot of people say of icons in the Eastern Orthodox tradition. They’re just like, this is pagan. I’m like, no. It’s not pagan. It has elements that God appears to disapprove of from my interpretation of the Bible, but that is my interpretation.

Simone Collins [49:55]:Creepy guy. Whatever. The the people, by the way, all the all the Crawley. Crawley. Alexander Crawley. Alexander Crawley. The witches love him, by the way. The modern witches. They’re like, oh, he was... You know, I followed his work. Blah blah blah. Anyway And It’s all connected. Do do your homework. But... Yeah. No. Pet... Baby witches. They... They’re worse, again, than I would argue many of the so called witches on on Witch Talk. So

Malcolm Collin [50:23]:of the fascinating things that I want to take a moment to sort of dig into on this Okay. Is where... So within Christianity, you have parts of Christianity that have become significantly porous towards this stuff because they have been able to find correlates that look sort of like it in parts of the bible. and this is... Well, this is what we’re seeing with the charismatic pentecostals.

Simone Collins [50:45]:Pentecostals. Oh, Oh, okay.

Malcolm Collin [50:46]:But where they’re they’re practicing stuff that that looks like and often had its org... Origins in the spiritualist movement and then was incorporated and sort of whitewashed or laundered into the Christian movement using, you know, one off versus here and there, missing the wider point of, like, you you should be suspicious enough about this stuff that you just shouldn’t be engaged with it. But this is this is still rare within the wider Christian movement. But within the Jewish movement, it’s been much more poorest to individuals who want to engage in serious mysticism or serious witch like practices, the things that we would think of as witch like practices. Yeah. You know, spells, talking to the dead, doing sorts of...

Speaker 16 [51:33]:And, obviously, this is offensive for me to say for our Jewish viewers, but in the same way where I would say that a Catholic icon or an Orthodox icon is idolatry from my reading, and they would say it’s not idolatry from their reading, we define it as something different than idolatry. Or a Pentecostal charismatic will say, well, this isn’t witchcraft because we call it, putting on hand or or whatever they wanna call it. Right? And I’m like, well, it it seems to be what is outlined as witchcraft within the bible. You will get things in the Jewish tradition, like when I talked about speaking with the dead. In the Jewish tradition, you have something called, are petitionary prayers or notes, which are written for dead individuals who are supposed to intercede on your behalf with God. This is not, like, a super rare or fringe thing, and yet it is strictly said that you are not allowed to talk to the dead. And they’re like, well, technically, this isn’t, you know, because of x, y, and z. in the same way that, you know, within Judaism, you get a lot of, well, technically, I I’m not showing my hair because I’m wearing a wig. And that works within Judaism, but that wouldn’t work within most other religions That derives themselves from warnings around the warnings that we get in things like Deuteronomy.

Malcolm Collin [52:54]:Well, as I pointed out to Simone... And and, again, this really sucks for Juice that this happened. But when the people who created what we today call witchcraft were creating witchcraft, their primary source, in many cases, was the Kabbalah. and so if you have, as I did when I was younger, studied witchcraft because I hung out with, like, the artsy kids in school and everything like that, and I wanted to get laid, and that meant you had to know your basics on witchcraft. Right? Yeah.

Simone Collins [53:23]:Yeah.

Malcolm Collin [53:23]:And and so I remember the first time because I I I then studied Kabbalism later, and I opened it up. And I was like, uh-oh. Uh-oh. I recognize all of these diagrams. I had to memorize these at one point.

Simone Collins [53:38]:Yeah. Actually, yeah, you you made me look them up on another episode, and they’re like, exactly the same.

Malcolm Collin [53:43]:Yeah. You were like you were like, come on. Kabbalism can’t look that witchy.

Simone Collins [53:47]:No. That was wrong. Open up open up

Malcolm Collin [53:49]:a thing on your screen here, and do a a Google image search for, I guess, like, Kabbalism diagrams. Okay.

Simone Collins [53:59]:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collin [54:01]:But but what it means what... Do you get the weirdest default Google image searches every time you open this?

Simone Collins [54:09]:Well, it knows that I like weird costumes. So Right. Like, I

Malcolm Collin [54:14]:think a normal person, they see this stuff, and they’re like, oh, that looks a lot like Wiccanism. And it does in part because Wiccanism borrowed from it. But it is also clearly very much a a a spiritualist.

Simone Collins [54:28]:Yeah. Well, what if I just switched out Wiccan? Okay. Look at look up. Okay. There’s more stars. But look. There’s there’s a... Oh. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Yeah. It’s true. What’s this derpy looking one? Oh, bless you. Oh, it must be some kind of... No. I don’t know what you are. Anyway, sorry. I’m I’m getting... No. I’m getting distracted. She’s You’re getting distracted. She’s stopping.

Malcolm Collin [54:51]:The point being is is the religion has moved in a direction where it is significantly less hostile to these types of things.

Simone Collins [55:01]:Well... But, I mean, just going back to the original video that I showed you, it also shows how that... You know, it’s not just Judaism. It’s not just Pentecostalism. It’s also Orthodox Jews looking looking back at this.

Malcolm Collins [55:13]:You can

Simone Collins [55:13]:see that that part where they they pointed just like, what is this? What is this? She’s just like, she’s using

Malcolm Collin [55:20]:That’s that’s that’s Orthodox Christians.

Malcolm Collins [55:22]:Manifest. A saint’s bone was a piece of the divine.

Simone Collins [55:26]:She’s like using Christianity as her example.

Malcolm Collins [55:29]:Lives it took and the hands that held it. No. Energy lingers in material

Simone Collins [55:34]:to touch the celestial text.

Malcolm Collin [55:36]:Believer

Simone Collins [55:36]:of the evil churches. It’s obviously powerful.

Malcolm Collins [55:38]:This is the foundation of sympathetic magic, the occult belief that essence clings to matter and that identity can be transferred through a physical link.

Simone Collins [55:46]:Christians, you’re making as much as do

Malcolm Collin [55:47]:this ancient note that, like, you literally get that within many schools of of the the way icons are treated within

Simone Collins [55:55]:the I I have a big problem with that. I I see this, and I’m like, this is this is what the bad guys worship. Okay? This not this not good this not good guy thing.

Malcolm Collin [56:04]:I would say I appreciate your guy. That we don’t see people leaving to go into it. We are not seeing, but it’s... Perhaps it’s not surprising because of the percentage of the world population, many people moving from witchcraft back into Judaism. But I just don’t think it’s it’s as easy to pull a Jew who wants to practice these types of things out of their religion. Well, actually, here’s the thing. Witchcraft is mostly women. And in Judaism, even today, the things that are like witchcraft are, like Practice very restricted for women. Yeah. Primarily men. Yeah.

Simone Collins [56:37]:Which is It’s the mermen of At least

Malcolm Collin [56:39]:that Judaism got right, which is what... If if you’re gonna play with this stuff, at the very least, don’t let women touch it. Oh, for because they go crazy.

Malcolm Collins [56:49]:They have

Simone Collins [56:50]:I don’t know. No. No. Here’s my argument. They’re actually... You... The women should practice it because they’re very feckless with it. And the point that someone had made to us as well is that, look. Like, the witch trials prove that there were not any effective female witches. Because if there were, you would see all the witch hunters, like, you know, hanging from their toenails from a tree or something. Like, you know, their their head’s shrunk into the size of a small apple or whatever. And, like, yes. That’s true. Actually, it appears to be that the witches were extremely feckless because nothing happened to the people who are trying to

Malcolm Collin [57:23]:And to take a moment to understand why this is so damaging, we’ve talked about it before, but I think it is worth elucidating here really quickly. Witchcraft and mysticism and spiritualism don’t need to be real to be dangerous. Oh, yeah. Even if they are not real, what they allow you to do is to create metaphysical and world frameworks that are not externally testable and interactable with. Well, it’s a lot

Simone Collins [57:52]:like the urban monoculture allows you to believe and think whatever you want to believe and think. And you feel like you have power when you don’t.

Malcolm Collin [57:57]:But when you’re doing that, not just around your own identity, but around the metaphysical framework that the world works on with physics and the way reality functions, what it means ends up happening is when you build a community, the beliefs that dominate... Because if two people disagree, I think a spell is done this way. I think a spell is done this way. the person who wins that debate is simply the person who’s able to be more charismatic and draw the larger crowd or be more convincing in the way that they’re making, some sort of argument based on, like, a a shared framework. And this can absolutely spin out of control to extreme beliefs that have no efficaciousness in reality and do nothing but damage the community that’s holding them and the individuals that hold them. If you look at many longtime mystics, how do they look? And this can be whether that mystic is somebody of a Christian tradition that has allowed this stuff to infect them or it has been somebody outside the Christian tradition. You imagine somebody who is unkempt, somebody who is dirty, somebody who doesn’t have real... Who really have their life together, has a long ugly beard and probably smells bad. Right? Like, the same with the witchy women. engaging with this stuff appears to hurt your mental health, daily life, and ability to communicate. And the longer somebody engages with it, because I’ve seen this happen to people, I used to perhaps overly derogatory use the word kabbalah brain for these types of people, but I had trouble communicating with them because they, had delved so deep into mysticism. And I see this just as much with Christian... Charismatic Christians, so it is unfair to just say it happens with Jews or or other groups. That they appear to be able to hold the logical chains of if then thoughts because they have lived in a community for so long that was just like whatever is working best. And I will note here, if a charismatic Christian, like, faith healing worked and stuff like that, there would be a lot of very wealthy people going to them to be healed, because there are wealthy people who will go to anything that appears to work. That’s one of the things with a lot of these forms of magics or movements. If it was really that effective, it would be more commercialized and not in an overtly scammy way as we’ve seen with the charismatic Christian community.

Simone Collins [1:00:15]:Here’s the good thing, though, is that a lot of people are realizing this when they just kind of look around and they’re like, this isn’t working. I think in the... In a very similar way to people realizing, like, I woke woke one was crazy. I think a lot of people are realizing, look. This is not this is not working. It’s not smart, and they changed their ways. I have to go get the kids, so I gotta run.

Malcolm Collin [1:00:36]:I absolutely love you. I hope this

Simone Collins [1:00:37]:was a wholesome version of women are terrible because sometimes women realize that they made a mistake.

Malcolm Collin [1:00:43]:Stressed all day for making a mistake in yesterday’s episode. I did the horrible thing where I spent a week, you know, saying Catholics... There’s some people who identify as Catholics in Mexico who are murdering people for saints that they believe are saints, and are killing babies.

Simone Collins [1:00:58]:Death gods. For Aztec death gods.

Malcolm Collin [1:01:01]:Come on. Worst thing I could say, which has me so deeply embarrassed, which was that C. S. Lewis was a Catholic. And I am so sorry. I unfairly, libelously said that. I was so embarrassed that for the first time we took down an episode midway, which is really gonna hurt us in the algo. It, like, wipes out, like, a week’s worth in gains, but whatever. I I cannot let that slander lie on our channel because when I want to be bigoted, I want to be bigoted in a a a scientific and accurate way. You know, we need to move with a world where we can notice things, but move... Living in that world means you can’t notice wrong things, like believing that CS Lewis would have

Simone Collins [1:01:41]:If you have it within your heart to maybe like this video for us, subscribe if you’re not subscribed. We would really

Malcolm Collin [1:01:48]:Check out our weekend videos. We might have some fun ones coming up.

Simone Collins [1:01:50]:Oh, yeah. But that... You would have to pay for those.

Malcolm Collin [1:01:53]:Oh, yeah. You don’t have to pay

Simone Collins [1:01:54]:for Actually, I think there’s a free trial either on Patreon or Substack. So check them out.

Malcolm Collin [1:01:58]:And just download them all? Okay. Well, whatever.

Simone Collins [1:02:00]:Think... No. Not... What? No. Just watch. Just binge. Choose the good ones. If you don’t like the good ones, then you won’t like the other ones anyway. So... Yeah. Anyway, we’ve been saving a lot of good stuff for weekends lately. So wanna I don’t know of that.

Malcolm Collin [1:02:13]:Maybe. I love you.

Simone Collins [1:02:14]:No. Recently, you’ve been like, but I wanted to run that on a weekday. And I’m like, no. Yeah. The one about the

Malcolm Collin [1:02:18]:CIA stuff. Really get black people addicted to crack? That was very interesting.

Simone Collins [1:02:21]:Forgot. That one I thought. Yeah. Anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. We gotta go. I love you.

Malcolm Collin [1:02:26]:Bye. Bye. Oh, what am I eating?

Simone Collins [1:02:30]:You can have gyozalodon. Yeah. You can have your leftover soup, or you can have pasta with pesto. You can have a grilled cheese sandwich. You can... Oh, I might not have white bread. Yep. So never mind on that. You can have

Malcolm Collin [1:02:40]:Oh, do we have do we have the stuff that you would need to make a quesadilla?

Simone Collins [1:02:47]:Maybe. I also have those taquitos you bought from Trader Joe’s that are frozen if you just want the

Malcolm Collin [1:02:51]:Oh, let’s try taquitos.

Speaker 5 [1:02:52]:Taquitos.

Simone Collins [1:02:53]:Okay. Love you. I love you. Ciao. Ciao.

Speaker 19 [1:03:01]:maybe you should ask it where it took Octavian. He says that Octavian’s, having fun with his new virtual family. Oh. His AI family. He he has an AI brother called Torsten too.

Note: Big mistake in the original corrected now C.S. Lewis was Anglican not Catholic. I was late getting the episode out and I erred on the side of trying to appease people who have us in their morning routine and not of double checking. I was thinking of Tolkien and because C.S. Lewis is always brought up by my Catholic friends in debates. In my defence Anglican is a hair away from Catholicism.

Today on Based Camp, we dive deep into Mark 13 and related passages, examining the line C.S. Lewis called “the Bible’s most embarrassing verse.” Our discussion explores how Jesus’ predictions about the temple’s destruction align with historical events in 70 CE, the reasons certain phrases were altered in early manuscripts, and why modern apocalyptic readings may overlook the original context. We also contrast traditional interpretations with a focus on textual and historical analysis, including connections to Daniel and the broader implications for understanding early Christian prophecy. Hope you find the analysis as interesting as we do!

Further Reading

https://technopuritan.com/this-generation/

https://technopuritan.com/sabbath/

https://technopuritan.com/assembly/

Episode Transcript

Malcolm Collins [0:00]:Hello, Simone. I’m excited to be here with you today. Today is going to be a fascinating episode. We will be going over a line that CS Lewis called the most embarrassing line in the bible.

Speaker 6 [0:14]:For those unaware, CS Lewis is the extremely pro Christian apologist who wrote the Narnia series.

Malcolm Collins [0:20]:We are going and it

Simone Collins [0:21]:is connected to another line that the writers of the bible erased in most translations. It was considered so embarrassing. Erased? Wait. So they’re like, I’m Samuel Johnson, whatever, and I’m translating the bible. And I’m I get to this one line and I’m like, oh.

Malcolm Collins [0:43]:It’s it’s funnier than that. Really? Syntax Synaiticus, who was a scribe from the year 300. Okay. What we have from him is a bible because, you know, scribes would copy a bible. And so this was as as far back as the year 300. And we see this line with dots over it, which means erase this line, and then somebody erased the dots. And so what this

Simone Collins [1:12]:So it was to, like, remove the fact that we didn’t even know what was being removed.

Malcolm Collins [1:16]:No. What this is a sign of is two scholars three hundred years after Christ having a fight about whether or not this line was so embarrassing it needed to be removed.

Simone Collins [1:27]:Wow. Well, in terms of that historical Jesus lecture series that I’m obsessed with, something that’s embarrassing to Jesus or people who wanna believe in Jesus is probably more likely to be true. Right? But here’s the kicker. Okay.

Malcolm Collins [1:40]:All of these lines, if you keep them in Yeah. Are some of the best and most unbelievable prophecy and proof that the Bible has inspiration.

Simone Collins [1:53]:And this is why you shouldn’t try to cover up what may seem like flaws because you don’t know. You don’t know.

Malcolm Collins [1:58]:Einstein did the same thing. He tried to, in his math, if you’re familiar with this, famously, he couldn’t explain something. He’s like, but then that would mean you could have it go into the negatives. And if it went into the negatives, that just doesn’t make sense. So I’m gonna say it never does that. and then it turns out, like, forty years later, actually, that was a prediction of a major part of how physics works.

Speaker 9 [2:20]:Specifically here, when Einstein first finished general relativity and applied it to the universe as a whole, the equations naturally allowed the cosmos to expand and contract. At the time, that seemed physically absurd to everyone, including Einstein, assumed the universe was static and eternal. So he added an extra term, the cosmological constant, whose job was to counteract gravity and keep the universe from changing size. He later called this his greatest blunder and dropped the term after Hubble showed an ex the universe was actually expanding. Decades later, in 1998, supernova results revealed that the expanse was accelerating, that term came back as the simplest description of dark energy, the dominant component in the universe today. The ugly patch he inserted to stop the mass from doing something that, quote, unquote, didn’t make sense turned out to be a genuine prediction.

Simone Collins [3:14]:Exactly. Yeah. Don’t yeah. Just because something seems like a truth seems difficult doesn’t mean it’s not the truth.

Malcolm Collins [3:22]:Yeah. Something to hide. And I will note if you’re like, oh, well, maybe it was actually a wrong line, and it needed to be erased. And this was the line that the sun would not see the end of times coming. That’s specifically the line they tried to erase in this larger section that we’ll be reading. It’s in Mark. It’s all over Mark. It’s only in Matthew where they erased it, which has basically an identical scene take place. And people can say, wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Why did they erase it from Matthew and not Mark?

Simone Collins [3:54]:That’s a good question.

Malcolm Collins [3:55]:Yeah. Why? Very interesting little mystery to start with. The answer is is because Mark was almost never read. and you can say, wait. That’s confusing. Isn’t Mark the oldest of the bibles? Yeah. Isn’t Mark presumably the most closest to accurate of the Bibles? Right? Well, yes. That is true. but that created a problem, which is if the other Bibles are copying Mark and adding stuff to Mark, they would seem like if you’re a scholar or a researcher and you wanna talk about what’s in the bible, there’s no reason to read Mark because Mark is covered by everyone else because everyone else is copying and expanding on Mark.

Speaker 10 [4:42]:Note here, it used to be thought that John did not have access to Mark, but now we think he did have access to Mark. He just didn’t really rely on it as much as the other, gospels.

Malcolm Collins [4:56]:So and and worse than that, Mark doesn’t have a lot of the stuff you wanted to have. It doesn’t have Jesus coming back after death. it only has an empty tomb. it doesn’t have a a virgin Mary birth. It doesn’t have Jesus giving the the church or any any signs, not even the the scant signs that we see in other texts, anything about Peter supposed to be running the church afterwards. And so it just wasn’t useful for Catholic authorities or scholars to debate about. And so they basically forgot it. And so it didn’t get covered up there in the same way

Simone Collins [5:31]:Oh, dear.

Malcolm Collins [5:32]:Which is how we know that isn’t just like a scholarly misunderstanding. This was almost certainly in the earliest version of this.

Simone Collins [5:37]:Wow. Oh my goodness. This is fascinating.

Malcolm Collins [5:42]:Yes. So here, I’m gonna read the CS Lewis line in context. Okay. And this line is one that Simone is very familiar with because she has cited it in past episodes. I think even in past tracks. And I’m always like, Simone, you need to stop listening to the historic Jesus scholars here. You need to read the line in context and see if it makes sense Okay. Which I don’t think you ever went back and did.

Simone Collins [6:04]:No. Because I still haven’t made it to the New Testament. Get me taught. The Old Testament’s big. It’s very big. It’s That that’s not

Malcolm Collins [6:10]:the way I I actually found all this when I was researching what we should do for the Sabbath. And I and I ran into this, and I was like, I should read that whole thing in context again. And I read it, and I was like, oh my god. This makes so much sense. And I’m gonna read it to you without explaining it first to see if you can catch what it really means. Because it’s actually incredibly clear and plain when you read the text what it means.

Simone Collins [6:31]:Okay.

Malcolm Collins [6:32]:Okay. So note here. He says, say what you like. We shall be told the apocalyptic beliefs of the first Christians have been proven to be false. It is clear from the new new testament that they all expected the second coming in their own lifetime, and worse still, they had a reason, one which you will find very embarrassing. Their master had told them so. He shared and indeed created their delusion. He said so in so many words. This generation shall not pass till all these things are done, and he was wrong. He clearly knew no more about the end of the world than anyone else. It is certainly the most embarrassing verse in the Bible, Yet how teasing also that within 14 words of it should come another statement, and this is part of the one that they tried to erase. But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the son, but the father. The one exhibition of error and the one confession of ignorance go side by side.

Speaker 7 [7:33]:So if you weren’t following CS Lewis’ take on this line is, well, Jesus does make an inaccurate prediction. But then right afterwards, he says he might make inaccurate predictions around this exact topic.

Malcolm Collins [7:46]:Now you the line that they everybody erases from this is neither the son because that causes a lot of problems for traditional Christianity. And I’ll note here when we get into this verse, the way that I am reading it, while it does have some unique elements, it’s actually closer to the way that it was read by the early Christian church, and a huge number of Christian scholars, historically. It’s just that we forgot that this is how it was read in the nineteen hundreds when, like, Pentecostals and certain, like, Baptist groups became very, very obsessed with the apocalypse, and began to want to apply this verse to the apocalypse. And so they, forgot that this is the way that everyone or not everyone, but a large portion of Christians had always understood this verse, at least the educated ones. Alright. So now we’re gonna go to Mark, and we’ll read through this. Okay. So this is Mark 13, the destruction of the temple and signs of the end times. So as Jesus was leaving the temple, one of his disciples said to him, look, teacher. What massive stones? What magnificent buildings? Do you see all these great buildings? Replied Jesus. Not one stone here will stand left in one another. Everyone will be thrown down. Now you’ve probably already noticed something really interesting here. What what what happened within a generation of Jesus dying, Simone? Don’t think really interesting, unique to all of Jewish history.

Simone Collins [9:18]:I’m I’m bad with this.

Malcolm Collins [9:19]:Was destroyed?

Simone Collins [9:20]:Okay. Right. Okay.

Malcolm Collins [9:21]:Yes.

Simone Collins [9:22]:But I yeah. Okay.

Malcolm Collins [9:23]:I forgot. The temple. So Jesus walks out of the temple, okay, with, the guys, and they’re all looking at the stone temple. And they go, this is the most miraculous architecture I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

Simone Collins [9:34]:Is saying this ain’t gonna last.

Malcolm Collins [9:36]:And then Jesus says, this is all gonna be destroyed, okay, completely

Speaker 3 [9:46]:Consider that presumably the more conservative reading of this, the one that Christians who are traditional Sunday school Christians will clown on us with is Jesus didn’t actually mean the bricks he was pointing to. He didn’t actually mean the buildings that his disciple had said, wow. These are so impressive. We’re going to fall down. What he was actually talking about was buildings that that would be built in their place thousands of years in the future meant to look like them or represent them for pathetic reasons. Whereas if you take a simple reading of this, what he said was, hey. These buildings that we are talking about right now will be destroyed within your lifetime, which they were.

Speaker 4 [10:35]:A notch is that they were, but no one would have predicted that they would be. Can you not hide in my room?

Speaker 5 [10:43]:Actually, I’m going to hide and seek, but it might be fun if I’m not in seek because actually I turn on for me and like, his axe.

Speaker 4 [10:55]:And we got mister CS Lewis here being like, it’s a complete mystery and an embarrassment that he said that this temple that I’m looking at is going to be destroyed within a generation and never rebuilt.

Malcolm Collins [11:07]:. Right? Now note the foundations of the temple are still there, but it was functionally completely destroyed, and that’s a crazy prediction to make. This specifically because it had been destroyed before, but it was rebuilt. In fact, it was rebuilt not long before this. Right? they were, I I think, in the process of rebuilding it when Jesus would have been saying this. Right? so this would have been an incredibly crazy thing for him to say at this particular period. Yeah. I’m continuing here. As Jesus was sitting on the Mount Of Olives opposite the temple, which I’ve been to, interesting place. Can still go there. Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, tell us, when will these things happen, and what will be the signs that they are about to be fulfilled?

Simone Collins [11:50]:Okay. So if

Malcolm Collins [11:51]:Jesus is talking about the temple being destroyed, which I I think in no uncertain terms, he’s talking about there. And this is why a lot of modern apocalyptic Christians need the temple to be rebuilt. Because if you apply this to a future time, right, then the temple needs to be rebuilt so it can be destroyed again. Maybe you’re looking at the current time, Jesus is saying, this temple is about to be destroyed. Then all of his followers come to him, and they go, okay. When is this temple going to be destroyed? Okay?

Simone Collins [12:17]:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Malcolm Collins [12:18]:And then Jesus said to them, watch out that no one deceased you. Many will come in my name, claiming I am he and will deceive you. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. There will be earthquakes in various places and famines. These are the beginning of birth pains. Now note here, this was literally about to happen to these people in this period. Right?

Simone Collins [12:49]:Were there earthquakes as well, like documented during

Malcolm Collins [12:52]:this period. I don’t know if there was an unusual number. I can look it up afterwards.

Simone Collins [12:54]:But It doesn’t matter if it’s unusual as long as there were earthquakes. As long as there were earthquakes and famines. Multiple, that is to say, he did plural it.

Speaker 11 [13:04]:So as a note here, there was actually earthquakes during this time. the Dead Sea Scrolls in in Getty and elsewhere record a seismic event around the year thirty one BCE. researchers date this with around a five year degree or date of certainty. Now note, the Dead Sea Scroll community would have had no reason to corroborate anything that was happening in the New Testament, And yet many believe that this earthquake could have been the earthquake that was mentioned in Mass Spew’s gospel at the crucifixion because the dates line up very exactly, or very, very close to exactly. In addition to that, there was also famines during this period. There was a famine under Claudius forty five to forty eight CE. Josephus describes a severe famine in Jerusalem and Judea during the procure ship of Tiberius Julius Alexander, roughly forty six to forty eight CE. Grain prices spiked during Passover. Queen Helena of Abigaila, a convert to Judaism who had come on a pilgrim, brought grain in Alexandria and dried frigs i n Cyprus and distributed them. Her son, Isaaces, also sent money. Many people were dying from lack of food aid before this arrived. So, there was also a a famine during the siege of Jerusalem seventy CE. This was the most extreme and described at length by Josephus who was present after the Jewish factions inside the city burned each other’s food stores, and the Romans that’s really petty. the factions inside the city burned each other’s food stores. That’s that might have been a people that, god wanted to punish, I think. complete complete circumvention of the wall. Supplies were cut off. People ate leather, hay, grass, and dung. Josephus reports that mothers ate their children. The well known story of Mary of Bethab, corpses piled up in the houses and streets. One deserter claimed over a 100,000 pure poor people’s bodies were carried out through a simple gate, between mid April and July. The famine combined with disease and infighting killed a large portion of the people trapped in the city. And keep in mind, if if a 115,800 poor people’s bodies were carried out, how many total people died, which we’ll get to in a second. but note here is Jesus’ predictions were remarkably accurate for all the stuff that happened around the time of the war.

Malcolm Collins [15:33]:Which I will I will look But clearly, if if he’s saying, like, look. This temple’s about to be destroyed. How is the temple destroyed? Right? Like, that’s that’s what they’re asking. Yeah. He’s like, specifically, you will hear wars and rumors of wars, so there’s going to be wars. and then, such things must happen. And then he said a nation will rise against nation, which Rome did do against Israel. Okay?

Simone Collins [15:56]:Yeah.

Malcolm Collins [15:57]:You must be on your guard. You will be handed over to the local councils and flogged in the synagogues. On account of me, you will stand before governors and kings as witnesses to them. So a few notable things here. why did he say that they would be flogged in synagogues and not churches if presumably we were talking about some far future event? We’re talking about Christians here. Right? Like, presumably, Christians are everywhere if that’s what we’re talking about.

Simone Collins [16:21]:So Yeah. And so it wouldn’t be a synagogue.

Malcolm Collins [16:23]:At what time were Christians regularly flogged in synagogues?

Simone Collins [16:30]:I mean This would have been during

Malcolm Collins [16:31]:the early conversion wave. Right?

Simone Collins [16:33]:With Yeah. Presumably.

Malcolm Collins [16:34]:Yeah. Great. So, again, we’re we’re getting a pretty Wait.

Simone Collins [16:37]:Are you saying that Jews were flogging Christian converts?

Malcolm Collins [16:42]:Jews would not have liked that. That’s what I imagine would have happened to most early Christian converts. Remember how Yeah. Didn’t didn’t be factoring this thing.

Simone Collins [16:49]:Know much about the the history of No.

Malcolm Collins [16:51]:It’s unlikely that it would have been historically recorded at Sure. Numbers because it wouldn’t have been as gruesome as what the Romans did, and most of the Christian church that we know of today grew up in Antioch and then Rome. And so the those recordings would have been much more voluminous. But if you look at the ways that Jews dealt with somebody preaching another religion within their community as most people would, as the Puritans did when Quakers preached within their communities. Right? Yes. Yes. Again, I’m not saying this is, a uniquely evil Jewish thing. If somebody goes to your churches and they start preaching a different thing, especially in a historic context, flogging is the natural response. but the question is is why are they being flogged within synagogues?

Speaker 12 [17:32]:So it turns out we do have great historical records of exactly this happening. Again, the bible, seems to record stuff really well. I can just sort of bet if I read something and I’m like, did that actually happen? Did the earthquakes happen? Did the plague happen? The floggings also happened. Specifically from two Corinthians eleven twelve, five times I received from the Jews 40 lashes minus one, so 39 lashes. This was the standard Jewish punishment for people preaching, like, other beliefs around Jewish temples. We also see the Jewish this this came the 39 flashes came from Deuteronomy twenty five one through three, a maximum of 40 reduced in practice to avoid accidentally exceeding it. It was typically administered with multiple thong leather whips. So just a standard Jewish punishment for people preaching other religions during this period that we know was definitely practiced.

Malcolm Collins [18:39]:Right? Like, why would this be considered a common thing? He he seems to be describing very near future events here. And the gospel must first be preached to all nations. And note here, this is talking about, for for me, like, where you need to go and preach the gospel within this context. Not that first every nation on earth has to hear the gospel before this will happen.

Speaker 30 [19:03]:To clarify, this is also backed up by other places we see this word, ethna, nations or gentiles or other way that it’s translated. Specifically, you see it used in Luke 21. Augustus census of all of the world, obviously, doesn’t mean all of the world. It means all of the Roman Empire. Or acts uses it for famine throughout all of the world under Claudius. This is 11/28. Again, obviously, not all of the world. It means sort of all of their local regional groups. And if we’re talking about the period after Jesus’ death and we look at how fast Christianity spread to regions like Egypt and Rome, which were quite far away, it makes sense that, yes, there probably were preachers in every one of these major locations by the time of the destruction of the temple, even though it happened shortly after Jesus’ death.

Speaker 31 [19:56]:Which again is quite a bold and prophetic, claim for Jesus to make given that he did say this would happen within a generation within forty years for him to believe that his teachings would spread that fast, and they very well could not have.

Malcolm Collins [20:10]:This would have been when we talk about deep literalism as a tradition, what we mean is you need to understand this the way that somebody of their world would have understood it. So you can’t fudge a word like generations where they wouldn’t have understood it as generations. Right?

Speaker 20 [20:26]:So, like, you know how when I was reading Genesis and I pointed out that the word that’s translated today actually means error in a lot of different places in the bible? You can’t pull that same trick with the line generations here or the word that’s translated as generations here, specifically the Greek word. In Matthew, he uses it a number of times, and he doesn’t once use it to mean anything other than a literal generation.

Malcolm Collins [20:56]:We we’ve gotta understand it the way that they likely would. But if they’re talking about something like an apocalypse happening, right, or, like, a big eschatological type events happening, this was often used in other parts of the bible to discuss transitions in governments, to discuss major wars, to discuss stuff like this. So we’ll go over where we don’t allow a fudging that a lot of modern Christians do allow, which is the in your lifetime fudging, and where we do think that you need to understand it in the way that they would have, which is allegorically. Right? Because we do know that Jews of this period when they were writing about real world events did often talk about apocalypses to mean, massive changes in the way people live and the way governments work. Okay? Whenever you are arrested and brought to trial, do not worry beforehand about what to say. Just say whatever is given to you at the time for it is not you speaking, but the holy spirit.

Simone Collins [21:52]:Yeah. Now no. That’s my kind of prep. I like that.

Malcolm Collins [21:57]:This right here is is like, if I’m reading this particular thing, what I would take from this

Simone Collins [22:03]:Yeah.

Malcolm Collins [22:04]:Is he’s saying, okay. You need to spread the word. Right? Like, you need to spread this new iteration of Judaism, and you’re we’re you’re gonna have a lot of you who gonna be executed, basically, which did happen. Right? Like, that’s that’s what’s being laid out here. Okay?

Simone Collins [22:19]:Yeah. We’re heading into that early martyr period. It wasn’t pretty.

Malcolm Collins [22:22]:Early martyr period. Yeah. And then he goes into this in more detail. brother will betray brother to death and father his child. Children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. Everyone will hate you because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. Now this I find very interesting because if you look in a modern Christian context, especially if you’re looking at, like, a literal end times. Right? I I I think the moment the rapture happened, a lot of people would just immediately convert to Christianity if if it happened because we’re all primed to expect something like that, and you’d be like, oh.

Simone Collins [22:54]:It would be too late. Right?

Malcolm Collins [22:57]:Well, yes. But you wouldn’t be killing each other over this. And even so, if we’re talking

Simone Collins [23:01]:about A 100%.

Malcolm Collins [23:02]:Yeah. Planet Yeah. You it it it also doesn’t make sense. Like, it would be like a big unifying thing. It would be like, oh, the Christians were right. Yeah. It’s like when you die in South Park, when you die and get to heaven, like, so right?

Speaker 16 [23:15]:for those of you who were a little confused, you are dead, and this is hell. I shouldn’t be here. I was a totally strict and devout protestant. I thought we went to heaven. Yes. Well, I’m afraid you were wrong. I was a practicing Jehovah’s Witness. You picked the wrong religion as well. I’m afraid it was the Mormons. Yes. The Mormons were the correct answer.

Malcolm Collins [23:35]:Right? Like Yeah.

Simone Collins [23:36]:You know who was right. Families would not be turning on each other. They would more the ones who were left behind would be presumably trying to bandy together to defend themselves from now the massive looting and everything else that’s taking place because nothing really works anymore because

Malcolm Collins [23:52]:Well, that I mean, there’s gonna be two groups. There’s gonna be one group that becomes very nihilistic about this, and then there’s gonna be another. And I would guess. I mean, I have low belief in humanity, but I think if it was just shown to you that there is a path and most Christians believe, you know, after the millennium, even if you believe this, you know, what if you I mean, it depends if you’re pre or postmillennialist. But a lot of them believe that these people are gonna go through a millennium of torment or something like this and and really harsh trials, but they could still, you know, get into heaven. They can still prove themselves, right, even even after this. So it’s it’s not necessarily too late for them. But the point being is that, you know, I would have the fire lit under my butt around being a good guy if I knew factually what the stakes were without any doubt. I mean, now I believe I

Simone Collins [24:36]:knew that. Raptured, aren’t you kind of s o l?

Malcolm Collins [24:40]:I just told you. You have the millennium of trials. Right? Like, this is the entire point of all of this. You Yeah.

Simone Collins [24:46]:I’m not I’m not clear on the rapture. I’m just kind of, like, cross separate. We don’t believe in

Malcolm Collins [24:51]:that anyway, but even the people who do believe in it believe that, yes, you’re in for a very bad time, but you’re not SOL. Okay? Okay. Okay. So the point being is, for a lot of people, I would think the majority, you’re gonna have people turning on each other in this way. and the other thing to note here is, okay, suppose we’re talking about, like, Christian society at this point and the rapture happens, and this is written specifically for Christian communities. Of all of the communities on Earth that are going to immediately stop killing each start killing each other the least, it is the extremely Christian ones. Okay? This is assuming the Christians aren’t taken up in the rapture. you know, if you if you’re in a devout church and, the rapture hasn’t happened, but the the millennial process has happened, and it’s very clear that there’s, like, an antichrist, and there’s all this, you know, evils all this stuff happening that’s been predicted, those are the communities where you wouldn’t expect brothers to turn on you and children to turn on you and everything like But but suppose he’s not talking about that period. Suppose he’s talking about, like, the next forty years after he dies. Now this makes perfect sense because this would be talking about the first generation of Christian converts. In the first generation of Christian converts, whether you’re coming from a Jewish community or a pagan community, it would have been very common for fathers to turn on children, children to turn on fathers, brothers to betray each other, and people to be put to death, as well as the concept of everyone hating you

Speaker 14 [26:17]:And note, it was for this early generation of Christian that I think the lines of the bible about coming to Christ before your family, I think that that’s what it was written for.

Malcolm Collins [26:27]:. in a mostly Christian world like we live in today, yeah, you can talk about, like, society out there hating the Christians and everything. But if you contrast the hatred that you experience today as a Christian, as bad as it is in the secularized world and everything like that, it is trivial compared to what the Christians in the forty years after Jesus’ death went to through. Especially if you expand it further, it was even worse for Christians in the first, like, three hundred years or so.

Simone Collins [26:52]:Okay? Just really, really bad.

Malcolm Collins [26:54]:Okay. And and they would have hated you because of him. So, again, perfect description here of what’s gonna happen. Okay. So then he says, when you see the abomination that causes desolation standing where it does not belong, let the reader understand, then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains. Let no one on the housetop go down and enter the house or take anything with it.

Speaker 15 [27:19]:Note, this quote right here actually really dates when the prophecy is supposed to be about because Jews during this period in this region actually did sleep on the roofs of their houses. Specifically, in the first century of Judea in Galilee and Jerusalem, it was common, especially in warmer months, to sleep on the roof of your houses. Typically, houses had flat roofs made of wooden beams, branches, or reeds, and a packed layer of mud or clay. These roofs were reached by an exterior staircase or ladder from the courtyard or street. Deuteronomy twenty two eight required a low paraffet around the roof precisely because people used it could fall off. Roof served as an extra living space. People dried figs, flax, and grain up there, and in the evening, prayed as Peter does in acts 10 and slept there in the summer because it was cooler and caught a breeze. We see this reflected in a number of things from the time period. For example, Samuel and Saul conversed on a roof. Saul appears to have spent the night there, one Samuel nine. the point here being is that people today don’t sleep on roofs, and I see no reason to believe that a lot of people in the future are going to sleep on roofs. But if the prophecy was about something that was going to happen in the next forty years, talking about, say, people sleeping on roofs makes a lot of sense.

Malcolm Collins [28:37]:Let no one in the field go back to get their cloak. How dreadful it will be those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers. Pray that this will not take place in the winter because those days of distress, unequaled from the beginning when god created the world until now and never will be equaled again. So note what he’s talking about here. What is he talking about? He is giving people a practical warning for their own lifetime. The Romans are going to come. When the Romans came, we have various numbers of how many people were killed. I think the Josephus number is a million Jews were killed in this region. It was an absolute massacre. We are talking

Simone Collins [29:19]:He’s saying it. You do not have time to get things. You are leaving immediately if you want a shot at somebody.

Malcolm Collins [29:23]:You don’t get your cloak. It’s gonna be hard for nursing mothers. I mean, if you heard about, like, the nursing mothers in the Holocaust and stuff like this, you are familiar with the horrors of something like this. And if we’re talking about a civilizational destruction scale here, we are looking at something that for the Jewish people, I I think on a per person basis for the Jewish community, was worse than the Holocaust. I had to look that up in post, but, like, could actually write here.

Speaker 13 [29:52]:So I decided to look this up, and it depends on the numbers you’re looking at. If you go with Josephus’ number of how many people were killed, and I love that, AI will always be like, well, Josephus was probably exaggerating. But if you said that for Holocaust numbers, everyone would absolutely s**t a brick. But okay. So I I’m gonna go with Josephus’ numbers here because he’s the best historical account we have of this period, and his number was 1,100,000 people. Now if we go for lower levels of the population of Jews of this period, keep in mind if we go for the higher Holocaust number, the the sixth number, I think it’s 6.6, that would be about 36% of the world’s total Jewish population or about a third. If we go for the higher the lower numbers of Jews during this period, that would be 2.5. And Josephus’ number, that would put this at 44% of the world’s Jewish population. However, if we go with numbers from Jewish historians like Della Paragola, he’s a Israeli historian and demographer. He argues that there was around 5,000,000 Jews during this period. So if we go with his number, that would put this at 22% of the global Jewish population. and and note here, you could say the Josephus number seems high. If we go with even just numbers of the guy who’s not Josephus, when he’s talking about just poor people who died of starvation during the siege, he’s saying it was over a 100,000. So I don’t know if that number seems high to me. And and depictions of things like mothers eating their own babies, I just don’t know if that seems high to me. I I I think what I’d say here is is maybe a bit lower. But I’d say if we’re talking about, like, in terms of the impact on Jewish history, if you combine both the number of people who died with the fact that the temple was permanently destroyed after this, this would have been a bigger part of their cultural identity, especially given what the destruction of the temple meant that Jews had to change about their religious observance and structure.

Speaker 35 [32:03]:And if you’re gonna say, well, Josephus is probably exaggerating, and it’s different from if you’re talking about more modern events. This is a common thing that, historians that just constantly happens if you’re a fan of watching the field of history is they’ll say, numbers couldn’t possibly be true. This is way too many people. This is way too and then a few years later, they’re doing some archaeology. It’s like, oh, the original numbers that were reported was accurate. It was actually that bad. It was actually that big.

Speaker 36 [32:29]:So I’ve developed a habit of just trusting ancient historians when their numbers are not completely implausible.

Malcolm Collins [32:36]:Like, this is really, really, really bad. Right? Like and this is really good practical advice for their lives. and so then he goes on. If the Lord had not cut short those days, no one would survive. But for the sake of the elect whom he has chosen, he has not shortened them. And at that time, if anyone says to you, look. Here is the messiah, or look. Here he is. Do not believe it. False messiahs and false prophets will appear and perform signs and wonders to deceive, if possible, even the elect. So be on your guard. I have told you everything ahead of time. So why is he saying this? Well, what we happen to know is there actually was a huge crop of messianic figures that appeared during the time of the destruction of the second temple because, of course, there was. Your Judaism is undergoing a a massive revolution during that time, a massive transformation in how it’s practiced, what it meant to be Jewish, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. and so a bunch of people claim to be the messiah, and they were, of course, the false messiah. This is he’s like, look, guys. One messiah came and told you this was going to happen before it happened. Everyone else is coming and telling you it’s going to happen after it happened. Who do you believe? Right? He’s basically laying it out here.

Speaker 18 [33:49]:And note here, this isn’t just me or Christian scholars saying this. Josephus, also wrote about these figures. he’s a famous Jewish historian. for example, during the revolt itself, we know of at least three famous ones who gained a lot of attention. Manham, Simon Bar Gyar, and, an unnamed sign of prophets who led people into the wilderness or even the temple itself claiming god would perform miracles to save them. Okay. So that would have been a a number of figures. So I guess and because there’s multiple in the unnamed signed prophets, that means there was at least four during the revolt itself. And then, there was another major wave from one hundred and fifteen CE to one hundred and seventeen CE. This was during the Quito’s war diaspora revolt. And then there was another wave, 132 to one hundred and thirty five CE. It’s Simon Bar Kaaba or Ba Kishvah. And rabbi Akkiv declared him the messiah, applying the verse, a star shall come of Jacob. So, yeah, this this did happen. even if we’re just talking about the revolt itself, that there are a number of people claiming to be the Messiah, Jesus got this claim exactly accurate historically.

Malcolm Collins [35:03]:And I’ll note another thing here. A lot of people will say, well, Mark was written after these events. And because Mark was written after these events, he could have worked it into these events. The problem is is, textually, Mark just doesn’t look like it was written after these events. There’s a number of things that make it really weird. For for example, if it had been written after these events, why doesn’t he record any of the rumors that Jesus had talked to people after his death? Right? Why why that that seems like an important thing that a lot of early Christians believe. Now you could argue that maybe Jesus just didn’t, and that wasn’t actually widely believed in a lot of these early communities, which is a take that I wouldn’t say is anti techno puritan or pro techno puritan. It’s just one plausibility I will throw out there, And that god had people have hallucinations, which then were recorded in texts, were important for later Christians. Okay. You can go that way. But the other thing is is Mark is if you’re gonna make, like, that good of a prophecy here, you could have gone a lot more specific with the prophecy. And you actually have other books in the bible do that, which, again, I presume was them actually just being like, okay. We know exactly the because one book is like, oh, and they’ll do three encirclements, and the encirclements will work in this way. And it sounds a lot like somebody just reading back what they remembered from recent history. Mark doesn’t seem like that.

Speaker 19 [36:32]:What is hilarious is people find these predictions in Mark to be so accurate of what happened within Jesus’ life after forgetting that these predictions were that accurate and then applying them to future events. That they are the primary thing used to date Mark. Specifically, people are like, well, this is just too accurate a prediction of the temple’s destruction. Therefore, Mark must have been writing after the temple’s destruction. That and a few authors who claimed that Mark was, like, a scribe writing what Peter was saying, but these come hundreds of years later and are fairly unreliable. I actually think that Mark describes Jesus and all his followers as Torah observing Jews with a few Latinisms, meaning he might have been a recent immigrant who might have even observed the events himself. That said or or or known somebody who observed the events himself, especially given where the story cuts off. If we’re talking about later Christians who then like Luke, who did seem to add what actually happened into his predictions. You have things like Luke nineteen forty three. For the days will come upon you when your enemies will set up a barricade around you, surround you in every side, and tear down your ground and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you because you did not know the time of your visitation. And or Luke 21. But when you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then they know a desolation has come near, and they go into it, they go into some siegecraft related stuff. The point being is what Mark is doing doesn’t look like somebody doing this. In fact, if anything, the predictions look a lot more like earlier periods when, Jerusalem had been destroyed or, sort of pointing back to earlier parts of the bible, which you would only do if you were making a prediction rather than describing an actual event you had already experienced.

Malcolm Collins [38:27]:Mark actually seems like a prediction, and it’s an important prediction because it goes with everything else we know from what Jesus said from the fact that, you know, he was actually executed in this time period. Like, we know enough about him to get a vague idea of what his gist was, and this seems to align with the rest of his gist because Jesus’ entire teaching platform philosophy and system doesn’t really work for a Judaism that still has a temple.

Simone Collins [38:52]:Right.

Malcolm Collins [38:52]:As we pointed out in an earlier track, he’s basically describing how Jews can work without the temple. Okay? So to continue, he says, but in those days following that distress, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give us light, and the stars will fall from the skies, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. Now note here, this is an apocalyptic prophecy. It doesn’t need to be literal. this is a way in this period. This is what, again, what I mean by deep literalism. a person of this time would have understood that this is talking about, a change in the world order. Right?

Simone Collins [39:26]:Kind of like if now, it’d be like, your mind will be blown. And in the future, people are like, they literally thought their heads would explode. Exactly. That’s Okay.

Malcolm Collins [39:34]:Exactly what it would be. People would be like, no. That’s not what that means. Come on. Was wrong. Okay. We have examples from recent Jewish history where people wrote about things in this way. Like, why why are you saying his head’s gonna explode? Okay.

Simone Collins [39:47]:Next. Okay.

Malcolm Collins [39:48]:And then he goes on to say, and at that time, people so he’s talking about what’s gonna happen at this time. What’s gonna happen at this this time of transition that he’s talking about? Like, what’s gonna us usher it in? Okay. He says, and at that time, people will see the son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory, and he will send his angels and gather his elect from the winds from the ends of the earth to the ends of the heaven. So, again, what does Jesus call himself throughout all of the bibles? He calls himself the son of man. Okay? this is a very common epithet that Jesus uses to describe himself. So when he he’s he’s dating these events. When are these events going to happen? They are going to happen around or shortly after when the son of man goes into heaven. Okay? And and what is the son of man going to do when he’s in heaven? Like, what what is he or or dies, basically. what is he going to do? he is going to gather up all of the people into this new, basically, religious system, right, if you if you believe what the techno Puritans believe about Christianity. So he’s just laying out here what literally happens after his death. now to continue here, now learn this lesson from the fig trees. As soon as its twigs are tender and its leaves come out, you know that the summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that it is near right at the door. Truly, I tell you that this generation will not come to pass until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. So that’s the context of that line. Now everything you just heard appears to me to be clearly and in no uncertain terms be talking about real events that are going to happen to the generation that exists during Jesus’ time. And it gets more interesting than that. The way that that Jews counted generations during this period was forty years, and that’s exactly the time between Jesus’ dying and the destruction of the temple. Oh.

Simone Collins [41:57]:And then the other Really? Year The destruction it was it was, like, forty AD or CE. We’ll get

Malcolm Collins [42:04]:into we’ll we’ll get into it. I’ll I’ll I’ll have to add that in post to get, like, the exact details. Sure. Sure.

Speaker 21 [42:08]:So, yes, the temple was destroyed forty years after Jesus has died, and the typical understanding was a generation was forty years within that period of Jewish history. Specifically, the wilderness generation is consumed in forty years, Numbers thirty two thirteen. Forty years long, I grieved with this generations. Psalm ninety five ten. Deuteronomy two fourteen puts the dying of Kadesh at thirty eight years. You have some like Job forty two sixteen that put it at slightly shorter. This would be a hundred and forty years. Four generations would put a generation at thirty five years, but it still puts the number really close to on the dot with this.

Malcolm Collins [42:50]:Okay. And then here, the heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. Now a lot of Christians take this to mean that heaven is going to be erased and earth is going to be erased. And there are some other places in the bible that argue that. but I’d argue if you take this in context, it sounds more like he’s saying, for you, heaven and earth will pass away. But my words, which we know don’t pass away, like, it it it could have been Christianity could have been some little cult, some little thing that didn’t end up mattering. Right? But that isn’t what happened. It was his words that mark the transformation of, Judaism into something that becomes the global religion, which will likely define the future of the human race, especially if it’s the one that colonizes the stars. and so that works in that context. Now to continue here with this next part, he says, but about the day or the hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven nor the sun, but only the father. Be on guard. Be alert. You do not know what time it will come. It’s like a man going away. He leaves his house and puts his servants in charge, each with their assigned tasks, and tells one at the door to keep watch. Therefore, keep watch. You do not know the owner of the house will come back. Whether in the evening or at midnight or when the rooster crows or at dawn, if he comes suddenly, do not let him find you sleeping. What I will say to you, I say to everyone, watch, exclamation mark. Now if he’s giving these people a real warning about their actual lives that is existentially important for them, okay, this is the equivalent of if the messiah came before the holocaust being like, bros, I gotta tell you this. Like, watch exclamation mark here. Be prepared to run out of your house. Run for the hills. You don’t take your cloak. You don’t take anything else. You just run. The moment this starts, you just run. Oh my god. This is so existentially important for you. That’s what he was saying there. This word is not confusing. This word is not outside of context. I think anyone with a lay reading.

Speaker 8 [45:04]:And I want to be clear here just how much sense this makes. Jesus here is not talking about grand apocalypses. He could be talking about fiery chariots coming down from the heavens and blah blah blah blah blah, but he didn’t. And he isn’t he because if he said that, he’d just be like, well, you’re screwed. Just curl up in a ball because there isn’t much you can do. What he says is, there’s gonna be nations versus nations, and you need to run for the hills. Now in a modern war, that might not be the most useful thing to do when you have automated drone swarms and stuff like this. But during the sack of Judea, it was absolutely the best possible advice anyone could have been armed with. And it’s very sensible, practical, removes all of the crazy revelation nonsense. It’s your nation’s gonna be attacked. You’ll hear some rumors about war first, then you’re gonna see wars. Run for the hills.

Malcolm Collins [46:04]:I mean, sorry. Even you hearing this in context. Right?

Simone Collins [46:07]:When you put it in context, it seems pretty obvious. Yes. But then why would so many people take it out of context, including CS Lewis of all people? You know? If we’re

Malcolm Collins [46:18]:CS Lewis was a bit of a tard, and I’ve always said I will probably do an episode on this. His arguments for Christianity are so bad. They are deeply embarrassing. I I I think, like, his intellectual rigor is deeply embarrassing. Then why

Simone Collins [46:33]:is he this icon of Christian wholesomeness?

Malcolm Collins [46:35]:No. He’s an icon of Catholics.

Speaker 39 [46:38]:I got this one super wrong here because it’s always for whatever Catholics who bring up CS Lewis to me. And I was confusing him with Tolkien, and I didn’t have enough time to fully edit this track, which was very frustrating because it was already out thirty minutes late, and so I’m having to add this in post. And I just really messed this one up. I... As you can tell with all my other editions, I was focused on not getting the history or the bible quotes wrong, uh, because that’s where I assumed I would make a mistake, not on, like, a common, I’m so angry at myself.

Malcolm Collins [47:07]:And I want to be clear that his type of argument, I think, is very appealing to Catholics because it’s very flowery and very, like, oh, it’s it’s all so beautiful. Oh, look at the poetry in this. Oh, look at the but it’s not rigorous.

Speaker 26 [47:23]:If you are confused about what I mean by his arguments for God being uniquely stupid, I’ll give you an example of one. It’s his argument from desire. Basically, it’s that, well, because some people feel hunger, that means that the thing exists. Right? Like, they want something, therefore, it must exist. some people have a desire for why, therefore, it must exist. Some people have a desire for god, or a large population does, therefore, god must exist. And I’m like, okay. So therefore, furries must exist. Right? Because a large number of people have a desire for furries. Right? And you could say, well, popular media prime them to have that. Popular media prime them around god. Right? Like, no. Just because people desire something doesn’t mean it exists somewhere that’s a it’s it’s it’s an it’s an argument that’s so bad, it genuinely shocks me that anyone could consider somebody who thought this was their best argument for God a serious intellectual.

Speaker 27 [48:16]:Or, like, oh, people have a desire for, like, lust and sex exists. That’s proof of sex existing. What’s so crazy about this argument is it’s, like, so trans. It’s like, well, I really want to be a man. Therefore, I must actually be a man. Like, gender transition must be real because I can feel that I want it. so

Speaker 28 [48:37]:Note here, I decided to look up because I wanna be like, what would CSS Lewis arguments against the furry thing be? It’s like, well, it’s not a universal appetite. It’s not present in all cultures. To which I had say, well, neither is monotheism, but people dressing up like animals at some point during a cultural ritual is present in a higher percentage of cultures than monotheism and a higher percentage of historic cultures, you know, going back to ancient Egypt. So it’s more of a natural desire present across cultures than the desire for a monotheistic god is.

Speaker 29 [49:12]:I’d also go further here and note that even I don’t have a deep desire for a god to exist. I’ve never felt anything like this. And this is what I talk about where I talk about, sort of arguments based around feelings and what would be beautiful and what would be pretty if it was true that don’t really survive the first encounter with somebody who applies logic and criticality to thinking. And so people can unironically take somebody who had something as silly as the argument from desire very seriously. Like, if I want something, therefore, it must exist somewhere. If a lot of people want something, where there’s no real logic behind it, but it feels good. It’s like, oh, well, you feel this way.

Malcolm Collins [49:55]:Okay? Oh, it literally won because this episode comes out tomorrow.

Simone Collins [50:02]:Well, now we have to erase, and we have to go back to zero. Oh, boy. Just once again. Every time we record an episode. Here we go, Malcolm. See how far we can get next time.

Malcolm Collins [50:19]:But, Simone, it’s it’s the

Simone Collins [50:21]:I don’t I don’t know,

Malcolm Collins [50:23]:like, of of the Protestant intellectuals who I follow. I don’t know many who, like, are really big into CS Lewis because his his type of works, if you take it to somebody who doesn’t think like a Catholic thinks They just immediately on their face, you’re like, this is not a good argument. This is this is an argument that, like, assume it’s like a vibes based argument. Like, they’re very vibes based. They’re not very, like, rigorous. And I might do a separate episode all on CS Lewis that our audience is gonna hate because I know a lot of people like this.

Simone Collins [50:51]:Well, I’m sure we can make it kinda timely because the the most recent freak out is that they’re having a woman voice the lion in the next Narnia movie.

Malcolm Collins [51:01]:Oh my god. Think it’s,

Simone Collins [51:02]:like, it’s a great woman with a deep voice. I think it’s, it’s Helen Mirren or someone great. Like, fantastic. You know? But, anyway, everyone’s having a moment with that. Yeah. Because the lion is Jesus. Right?

Malcolm Collins [51:13]:One of the reasons why a lot of people read this as uniquely apocalyptic is I just went over it from Mark. If you go over it in Matthew, it still all makes sense, but they do a bunch of callbacks to Daniel, right, to try to recouch this in an apocalyptic context. Context.

Simone Collins [51:29]:Oh, they’re they’re trying because they were trying to mold it into something that they thought would make it more accurate or, like, make it apply to their time however many years later. How many how many approximate years after Jesus’ death was that written? I

Malcolm Collins [51:46]:I don’t remember off the tone yet. And and, also, the that’s vague. Like, a lot of people say that Mark was only maybe ten years before Matthew. I actually think Mark was probably significantly longer before Matthew given some of the stuff that Mark doesn’t mention, which you would assume. so maybe it was written ten years before, but there was a much longer period before that. Mark, for people who aren’t aware, there’s been some translations that try to fix this, but it basically ends mid sentence. Like, the person who’s writing it sort of croaked or something. It it it ends with the women fleeing Jesus’ tomb in horror. Well, that’s great.

Simone Collins [52:23]:I love that. And it’s great end, honestly. Yeah. So good. That’s really good. I don’t know. This is perfect ending.

Malcolm Collins [52:30]:But I think

Simone Collins [52:31]:it was just like, look.

Malcolm Collins [52:32]:What Matthew quotes from Dan Daniel, because I also don’t think it’s particularly problematic. And if anything, it further reinforces all of this.

Simone Collins [52:40]:Okay? Okay.

Malcolm Collins [52:42]:So now we’re gonna go to Daniel here. Okay? I beheld till the thrones were cast down and the ancient of days did sit whose garment was white as snow and whose hair of his head was pure of wool. His throne was like the fiery flame and the wheel as burning flame. Now first, I need to note here, while this is the King James version, this is a mistranslation. Almost every other modern version notes this is a mistranslation. It does not say, I beheld till the thrones were cast down. It says, I beheld until the thrones were reordered. Okay. So, again, we need to try to think through okay. If we’re talking in prophetic language here, we need to start thinking what how do you interpret prophecy? What’s the most literal, easy understanding of this? Okay?

Simone Collins [53:28]:Okay.

Malcolm Collins [53:28]:So this it sounds like what it’s talking about here is there’s an ancient tradition that was uniquely pure. You know, it talks about whitest snow and stuff like that. And it has a a a fiery throne to, like, an ancient and venerated tradition. Right? Okay. Which one is it? Like, it’s talking about Judaism here. Right? Obviously. Right? Okay. And then what what does it talk about? It’s talking about that he beheld the organizational sort of governmental structure of Judaism being restructured. And note here that we, and I think any honest understanding of the bible would have it Christian bible would have it be as a continuation of Judaism. Just a a rapid or dramatic change in how Judaism worked, a non temple version of Judaism that applies to all people, which good. Right? I’ve always found very I I I I say this all the time, I’ve always the like, No hide. So, like, Jews are always like, oh, you you gotta follow the no hide rules. And then when everybody falls in no hide rules, then the messianic period can happen. And I’m like, well, I mean, almost everyone does follow them because almost everyone’s a Christian, and Christians follow all the no hide rules. I mean, almost everyone who, you know, you you would want, like, see Jews preaching this to, I’m like, that’s really silly. And if it turns out that Jesus was the Jewish messiah, isn’t it interesting that now almost everyone follows what you consider to be the important rules because of him? Interesting. so, anyway, we’ll go over, so that’s what’s being talked about here, then we’ll we’ll continue. A fiery but the point I’m making is this first line seems to check out. Judaism is reorganized, and ancient tradition is reorganized with a different sort of governmental and ruling structure after this period. And certainly was. I mean, the Sadducees lost all their power, frankly, and basically are an extinct group now, and they were the ones who held control of the temple. A fiery stream issued and came forth before him. Thousands thousands ministered unto him, and men at him and 10,000 times, 10,000 stood before him. The judgment was set, and the books were open. Okay. So, again, if this is talking about Jesus right here, if it’s talking about him, right, it’s saying that his words end up ministering to thousands of thousands of people, but not necessarily it says they stood before him, but then it talks about the books being open. Right? That he’s ministering to them through books. That’s the the best way I can get this. And, again, perfect prediction. Okay. Continue. I beheld then that because the voice of the great words which the horn spoke, I beheld even till the beast was slain and his body destroyed and given to the burning flame. This one’s a little harder to understand. You could what’s being talked about here? It could be the temple that’s being talked about here. It could be the Jewish tradition undergoing reform. You know, there’s the the parable that Jethus tells about the wedding guests and then one group not wanting to come to the wedding. The original ones who got the invitation, clearly, the Jews, and then the king goes out and kills their people. Be well, also, they murdered the servants who went to them. So, you know, it was just and and, again, this lines up with Jesus’ life. If if if in the parable of Jesus, it’s saying, god’s gonna send servants. the king sends servants. Two people saying, come to my daughter’s wedding. He’s obviously allegorical for the servant in this. They kill him, and then immediately, a great number of them are killed. That again lines up with being very prophetic for this time period. As concerning the rest of the beast that had their dominion taken away, yet their lives were prolonged for a season and a time. What could this be talking about? I would read this. Okay. The beasts, we often talk about pre Adamites. I think this might be talking about the pre Adamites during this period. These are the human nations that acted beastly. And, what he might be saying here is that if you talk about humans during this time period, and there were a lot of pre Adamite people during this time period, like, truly evil civilizations that would, you know, torture babies for no reason, blah blah blah blah blah at scale. see our Aztecs video, but, you know, this was also, you know, not uncommon in lots of regions during this period. he’s saying that the beasts, that their dominion hasn’t been taken away yet. Basically, these these really evil civilizations haven’t haven’t ended yet. But but the the sort of the chapter on them, their and their lives are prolonged. Like, they’re still around in the world. But the book on them is basically over at this point. Right? That these civilizations are going to fall apart eventually. Then if you continue here, I saw visions and behold, one of the son of man came with the clouds of heaven and came to the ancient of days, and they brought knee him near before him. And there was given him dominion and glory and kingdom that all people, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom, that which shall not be destroyed. And so, no, you take a techno puritan framing of who Jesus was, this all makes perfect sense. Right? His his kingdom is not going to be destroyed. His kingdom is the one that is being built through his followers and his people. And then Daniel seven interprets itself three times, and each time, the figure is the people. But the saints most high shall take the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever and ever. I beheld the same horn, made the war with the saints, and prevailed against them until the ancient days came and judgment was given to the saints of the most high, and the time came that these saints possessed the kingdom. Okay. So if this is the horn that’s being talked about here, it’s talking about what sounds like a transition. Right? A a a theological transition because it’s talking about the a transition of the saints. Right? And and be And

Simone Collins [59:39]:what are saints in this context? Is there a So Should I ask, like, what the Hebrew original translation could have been interpreted as? Because, obviously, like, the concept of a Catholic saint is very different from what they’re describing here.

Malcolm Collins [59:51]:Look up what is transcribed as saints in Hebrew, what are other uses of it in Daniel? Specifically asking Daniel.

Simone Collins [59:58]:Yeah.

Malcolm Collins [1:00:00]:and he shall speak great words against the most high and shall wear out the saints of the high and to think to change the times and the laws, and they shall be given to his hand unto a time and at times and the dividing of time, but the judgment shall sit. And they shall take away his dominion to consume and destroy it until the end, and the king and dominion and the greatness of his kingdom under the whole of heaven shall be given to the people and the saints of the most high whose kingdom was an everlasting kingdom and all domains shall serve and obey him. Again, this all aligns with, like, the direction that things appear to be going. And note here, a lot of people are like, oh, this section in the Hebrew testament was about a different kingdom that was being destroyed. And it’s like, it doesn’t matter. It can be used multiple times. Even Jews do that. They’ll use one description for multiple prophecies. Here, what they’re saying is something like this will happen again, and something like this did literally happen again very shortly after Jesus’ life. What does it say, Simone?

Simone Collins [1:01:03]:It’s it’s biblical Aramaic, by the way. I shouldn’t be saying Hebrew. I I don’t know because I don’t know these things. It’s the it’s the most holy ones or sort of the

Malcolm Collins [1:01:14]:The theological leaders is Yes.

Simone Collins [1:01:15]:So instead of, like, but the saints of the most high shall receive the kingdom, it would it could be translated as but the holy ones of the most high. Like, the holy ones that which is set aside for god, sort of. So, yeah, saints, now I understand what it is. It’s just sort like, I guess, the the people who are

Malcolm Collins [1:01:32]:so Right? Okay. Why it’s so edifying that the real translation and the original translation says that the sun will not see this coming? And this is important not just for techno Puritans, but even traditional Christian interpretations of Christianity. Why? Even a traditional Christian, if what Jesus is talking about is his own death and the destruction of the temple He wouldn’t have seen that coming. He and this doesn’t work if you assume it’s talking about a future time. And this is why it was so embarrassing that they tried to erase it. If you assume that what’s being written about here is a future apocalypse after the temple has been rebuilt, okay, then Jesus has already died. He’s already in heaven. This is if you’re a traditional Christian. And presumably, he knows what’s going to happen in the future. otherwise, he’s significantly less omnipotent than God. Right? And most Christians don’t wanna believe that. But now take the other probability. In the bible, we know multiple places where Jesus is clearly unaware of things that God is aware of. Like, there’s a point when, like, somebody touches his cloak, and he doesn’t know who touched his cloak. there’s a part where he well, you know, why have you forsaken me is obviously one big one that we often harp on. But there’s a there’s a lot of parts like that. Now he does seem to be able to, like, get sort of downloads from god where god can give him some future sight, specifically around the events of his death, but this hasn’t happened yet at this point in the bible. So at least if he’s talking from his own perspective at this part of the bible, pretty much every Christian that I’m aware of has no problem with Jesus being unaware of something, right, before he’s dead. If what’s talking about here is his own death, then it’s sort of proved because it’s the only time period where the son from the traditional Christian perspective wouldn’t have known. Now if you take a techno Puritan perspective, this is also uniquely edifying, because it’s Jesus talking about something that’s going to happen, you know, to himself, right, here in this particular context. To continue, Daniel nine twenty four through 27. Seventy weeks are determined upon the people and upon thy holy city to finish transgression and to make the end of sins and to make reconciliation for inequity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most holy. know therefore and understand that from going forth of the commandments to restore and rebuild Jerusalem unto the messiah, the prince, shall be seven weeks and threescore and two weeks, and the street shall be built again, and the wall and even the tribulous times. And after threescore and two weeks shall the messiah be cut off, but not for himself, and the people and the prince shall not come and destroy the city and the sanctuary and the inn, there shall be with a flood and unto the end the war des descalations and determined. And thou shalt confirm the covenant with many for one week. And in the midst of a week, he shall cause the sacrifice and the abjolation to cease and the overspanning of abominations he should make desolate even until the consummation and the determined shall be poured upon the desolate. Now I have no clue what those timetables are. I will try to determine if it matches anything.

Speaker 32 [1:04:55]:Holy moly. It’s a literal exact match. so if you take what’s said here, seventy weeks are determined upon thy people, upon thy holy city to finish the transgression and make the end of sins. So this unit here, seventy weeks, it it doesn’t actually say weeks. It says seventy sevens. So if seventy sevens, whatever a seven is, doesn’t mean a week, but it happens to mean a month. Okay? And we take the date that is most common for the crucifixion, and then we say how long after that until the temple burns, it’s four hundred and eighty four months. Whereas the seventy seventh number would give us four hundred and eighty three months. So it would be off by only one month. And keep in mind, we might have got something wrong in the history here. That is absolutely remarkable accuracy for a number that is just plainly said there, and people have been interpreting in all of these different crazy ways. And note here, this isn’t a number that Jesus said or that Christians put in. This is a number that was already in Hebrew prophecy or Jewish prophecy. Absolutely wild and confirming to me, and more so the hardening of people’s minds to not see this very easy math, just literally say how many months from when he died till the most important event in all of Jewish history that it seems to be talking about here and that he seems to be talking about here, the destruction of the temple when people do all this weird end of the world, Jerusalem math and stuff like that. Oh my god. I hate how Christians have made such an easily and obviously true thing so hard to believe, by adding all of this nonsense they wanna put in when it’s just so plainly stated and the prophecy fits so miraculously.

Speaker 33 [1:06:43]:I should also note here that the text does not explicitly give the unit it’s talking about. People often assume it’s talking about years because it appears to be referencing a different thing about years, but it could very well be talking about months, and it fits perfectly. And, again, if the prophecy was meant to be for two events, it would make sense that you would have a flexible unit type so it could fit two things miraculously.

Malcolm Collins [1:07:05]:But my intuition is they match both the first event in one way that they were likely describing, and then they also are relevant to the messiah in this context. Right? If Jesus is the Jewish messiah, this is also weirdly in alignment with what actually ended up happening. Some other lines here. I’m not gonna go through every line that’s that’s I I I find a lot of this the the more prophetic writing to be a lot less interesting than the writing, like, in Mark, which, again, was the closest to Jesus’ life, which just sort of plainly explains to you what’s gonna happen.

Simone Collins [1:07:48]:Yeah. Yeah. The Romans are coming for you.

Malcolm Collins [1:07:51]:And Romans are coming.

Simone Collins [1:07:51]:You ready? The hills. Gonna suck.

Malcolm Collins [1:07:54]:A lot of people are gonna die. They’re gonna die because they’re preaching about me. There’s gonna be a lot of false messiahs. There’s gonna be rumors of war. There’s gonna be some actual war. Nations will go against nations. Okay. And and and people take all this and they apply it to the apocalypse, and then they’re always looking for the apocalypse. And even what’s what’s weird is even Jesus, even even if you take this apocalyptic context, you’re told not to. But I don’t like, when I read this, it seems to really be plainly, and even very serious Christians thought this was a major problem, like CS Lewis, really be plainly just laying out what’s gonna happen to these people within their own lifetime. And the conversation, what’s interesting about it all is if you translated it to modern language, the conversation just seems so normal. Right? Like, it’s it’s it’s they go to the temple. It’s really amazing. They’re a bunch of country pumpkins. It’s the coolest thing they’ve ever seen. They go to him. They’re like, this is a really cool temple, dude. look at how impressive this all is. And then he goes to them, it’s all gonna be torn down soon. You know, it’s it’s just gonna be rubble soon. And then later that day, they’re sitting in. It’s really cool. The Mount Olive, you can go to it, and you can sit in it as I have and and look across, and you can see where the the temple was. It’s just like and it did still kept it’s like a a a park that you can go to. So just you know, he’s just sitting there, like, a real place you could see, not not far from the temple, just chilling out with some dudes two thousand years ago. And then one of the dudes is like, okay. Bro, Broseph, dude, that stuff you said about the temple falling down. Like, when? When is that gonna happen? Can you give me some deets? Like, what’s what’s gonna happen with this? And then he’s like, okay. So first of all, it’s gonna happen in your lifetime. So, like, listen up. Second of all, so there’s gonna be, like, rumors of war. There’s gonna be, like, nation set against nation. The moment it happens, you just get the you don’t have time for, like, a a runaway sack or anything like that. You don’t have time for a cape. You just and run. Okay. You just run for those hills, because that would have been the best advice during that period. Run for the hills. That’s a hard I mean, look at the Afghanis. Right? You just run for in hills, man. And he’s just saying

Simone Collins [1:10:05]:And I do like the plain wording because we know that everyone slept on their roofs, and so I I even like that part. You know, if if you like,

Malcolm Collins [1:10:13]:for those who are sleeping on

Simone Collins [1:10:14]:their roofs or whatever it said when you originally read it. So, oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. No. He’s describing just Yeah.

Malcolm Collins [1:10:20]:Like wouldn’t have been relevant to people in our time, but it is relevant to people in his time. Yeah. And they’re just like, oh, okay. Yeah. Just can run. Okay. Good advice, man. It’s the it’s the clearest, most simple. There’s nothing mystical about it. There’s nothing shaded about it or, like, extra. He just plainly tells them in the way that now you get a lot of the apocalyptic stuff because, one, later Christians wanted to read a lot of that into it, which is fine. You know? You can be like, oh, that adds deeper meaning, which I think it kind of does. but, like, the actual closest to the source document we have is just a dude saying, this is gonna be destroyed. Later that time, they’re chilling at a park, looking at it, and they’re like, when? And he’s like and I love that it ends with an exclamation mark and, like, paid attention, guys. Watch exclamation mark.

Simone Collins [1:11:13]:Yeah. I wonder if apocalypticism in general is one of those things kind of like worshiping false idols that people kind of get caught up with because there’s such a strong tendency for it. And why it’s it’s it is both abolished in the bible, like, trying to make prophecies, but also prophets are still given precedence. Like, I think in in almost the same set of lines where they talk about how important it is to not try to engage in divination, it’s also like, yeah. But the things that prophets say really matter. Kind of implies that people have this desire to engage in fortune telling.

Malcolm Collins [1:11:56]:Well, and as we know, how does Jesus say, you know, if it’s a real prophet or not?

Simone Collins [1:12:00]:I can’t remember.

Malcolm Collins [1:12:01]:It’s do they say that he came in the flesh? so if they’re going out there and saying, Jesus again, this is a techno puritan thing, but this is what Jesus said, is, that’s how you determine between true and false prophets is if they are claiming, at least my read of that, is if they are claiming that Jesus was divine or not the son of man or, you know, any of those other things. And, again, you could see our previous tracks. This is where we diverge from classical Christianity pretty heavily. But where we make diversions, it is because we see these diversions in the text and because it aligns with what’s logical from our perspective. like Well,

Simone Collins [1:12:45]:one one of the things about this interpretation or, like,

Malcolm Collins [1:12:49]:broadly reading the bible this way, and a lot of people are like, well, no. I wanna read it my way with the apocalypses and all of this extra stuff. And it’s like Yeah. Fine. You can add all this extra stuff. But isn’t it weird that, like, on its own, the bible is both predictive, it makes sense, and Jesus doesn’t come off as a crazy wacko? I often think a lot of the traditional readings of Jesus making come off as, like, very arrogant and holier than thou and stuff like that. But when you actually read the bible, he’s really not. He’s really not, like, bogarting information from these people. He’s not, you know, putting himself, like, way he’s just like, yeah. You know? Be ready to run, man. It’s gonna be wild. It’s gonna be like those prophetic times, you know, in, Daniel? Yeah. Be ready for that stuff. And it’s gonna be tied to my death potentially.

Simone Collins [1:13:38]:You can say that a little arrogant, but

Malcolm Collins [1:13:39]:he doesn’t really say it in an arrogant way, or at least I I don’t find it that way. And and so, you know, again, you can go off traditional Christians got you. I think even traditional Christians will get something out of this deep dive into it. But I found I

Simone Collins [1:13:54]:think many traditional Christians, when you ask them, hold this view. I it’s just very bizarre to me how in in the minority it is. Part of me wonders if we we just want to think apocalypses look like movie apocalypses, whereas maybe that’s even just a recent thing where in the past, it was kind of understood

Malcolm Collins [1:14:17]:that an apocalypse was a

Simone Collins [1:14:18]:paradigm change. Apocalyptic for the Jews. Well, if you

Malcolm Collins [1:14:21]:were going to choose any one event in Jewish history when the Jewish apocalypse happened, the Holocaust wouldn’t even be a distant second. It was the destruction of the second temple. It completely changed what it meant to be Jewish and basically meant the religion and people had to reinvent themselves of the culture and society. it was the inflection point of Judaism. If a messiah was going to come right before the Jewish apocalypse and prepare an iteration of Judaism that worked without the temple, which is what’s said about the apocalypse, this would have been the time for it to happen. Yeah. Right? Like, and it is odd, as I’ve said in other tracks, and it’s one of the core things that convinces me that Christianity is the right branch of Judaism, is that that he came down and predicted all of this. And, like, even Jews don’t like they there’s all of these things in the Jewish tradition will likely do attract on it eventually where a lot of their miracles stopped working, like, at exactly at this time, like, around Jesus’ death. And they even recorded in their own writings.

Simone Collins [1:15:25]:You alluded to this. Yeah. Miracles like

Malcolm Collins [1:15:27]:the temple doors blowing open all the time and the the the scapegoat ceremony that something wasn’t turning red in the way it was supposed to to imply that it was still working. And so, like, a lot of the temple rituals stopped working during this time. Basically, you can say God left the temple before he destroyed the temple. And this is Jesus, which would make sense if it turns out that Jesus was actually the Jewish and the Messiah, this was the function he was meant to fill, which to me seems like the, like, ethical direction Judaism would have went during this period if it was actually a true religion. And I think it was, and that’s why it went in this direction. So that’s where I’m gonna leave off today. I I thought about going into the wedding story because it’s very interesting, and some people

Simone Collins [1:16:08]:story is bizarre. I don’t know why we had to use that.

Malcolm Collins [1:16:11]:Well, so the wedding story is actually pretty good, but a lot of people take it to be proof that Mark was written after the destruction of the temple. And I’m like, no. It doesn’t read like proof that it was after the destruction of the temple because the story literally sits immediately before. It’s sort of talking about why, you could say, why the Jewish people would be punished during this period, which is to say, and we know that God punishes the Jewish people when they do things that Jesus doesn’t like, that all Jews, like, believes this is part of Judaism. and and and immediately after this, he gets in an argument with a pharisee, and then he gets into an argument with a sadducee. And these were the two primary major sects of Judaism during this period. and so it’s sort of like presenting him as an alternate to the pharisees and the sadducees. And if you’re talking about, like, the rearranging of thrones stuff like this, you know, this makes a lot of sense. In this context, I I think just, like, holistically was the wider narrative. It makes so much sense that Jesus appears to have been trying to promote that it doesn’t, to me, read as if it was written afterwards was like a we knew this was going to happen mindset. Now for you, I had something like you because this was the one line that you had really believed.

Simone Collins [1:17:18]:Really, yeah, really bothered me.

Malcolm Collins [1:17:20]:That Jesus thought that the world was gonna end in his lifetime, and this is what he taught people. Because this is what the historical theology teachers have taught you. And then you read the line in context. Do you actually think, like, my reading is like, it seems very plain what he meant.

Simone Collins [1:17:34]:It does seem very plain. Yeah. I think maybe when I did pull quotes in the past, I was pulling from a different book, and so that’s you know? And it seems like again, this is why I’m so uncomfortable with the New Testament because I feel like so many things are written so long after and with so many different agendas at play that I just don’t really know what to trust. And it’s a very complicated act. Well, this

Malcolm Collins [1:18:01]:is a very techno Puritan part to this, which I should explain to people. Like, the the bibles themselves, the various books of the bible, when we’re talking about how much authority do we assign them, we would assign something like Mark dramatically more authority than something like Matthew Yes. Because of the what we know historically about that book if you believe, like, we believe that Jesus was the actual Jewish messiah. Now we believe that God had stuff written in Matthew or had stuff written in Luke or had stuff written in other other books of the bible because we were supposed to interpret something from it. But when we are trying to find out what actually happened in Jesus’ life or what Jesus actually believed about things, because that’s what we’re supposed to, you know, learn from, We need to understand that look. If you’re a Christian today, many Christians today, they will say things like, oh, well, I know that in in, like, the 10 commandments, it says, you know, don’t worship other gods before me, which sort of implies other gods are real. Well, people of that time period in that region did believe other gods are real. We just know today that they’re not. Right? And and and we do this with all sort of you know, when you talk about why does Genesis use a plural for god in in in some places. So, know, but people back then you know? So And it’s it’s very common for Christians today to be like, oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, these were real people. They were writing something real, and understanding updated through time. Right? and so, but when you talk about the New Testament, they’re just like, no. No. No. No. It’s often many of them are like, no. That didn’t we don’t take that perspective. I take the perspective they yeah. Some of the stuff written in the New Testament might have been added after the fact and might not correlate with the actual events of Jesus’ life. That said, if they were added after the fact and didn’t correlate with, like, a real exact thing he said because somebody wanted to add some clarification for it, God meant for that to happen, and we are still supposed to learn from that. But that doesn’t change how we investigate these texts. which is to say and this affects some of our beliefs that we’ll get to in future tracks. Like, a big one is, if you do apply this to how seriously you take different texts in the bible actually, I’ll just lay out this belief here so we don’t need to do a full track around it, because it does have a, a page on technopuritan.com that you can put into AI and go through how we broke this down, how how I sort of did the research on this. But, basically, if you don’t really include a lot of stuff from acts as being as serious as the stuff that happened in Jesus’ life, right, like, a lot of stuff that the early Christian communities were doing, it really looks like communal prayer is not supposed to be a big thing or was it not a big part of the tradition.

Simone Collins [1:20:44]:Oh, yeah. You haven’t even done your tract on worship yet.

Malcolm Collins [1:20:47]:Yeah. Jesus is is usually praying alone.

Simone Collins [1:20:51]:We’re with small groups of people. Right? Or at least talking about religion with small groups.

Malcolm Collins [1:20:55]:So, like, how does he do, like, a religious service? What you often would do is you would sit down at a meal with people. This appears we see this in a lot of the earliest enactments of Christian context. They’d they’d all sit down for a meal together, and they eat, and they would talk about their ideas about religious concepts, which to me sounds like a great way to do a religious service. And this is what’s happening at the Last Supper is is one of these. But this isn’t the only place we see something like this happening. You do occasionally have sermons and stuff like that, but they’re never in churches. There there are the sermon on the mount, for example. Right? Like, there there are Heath outside talking to people somewhere. Right?

Speaker 38 [1:21:36]:No. That doesn’t mean that Jesus never talked in a synagogue. For example, in Luke, we see him reading a scripture in a synagogue. And when he’s on trial, he says that he even spoke at the temple. Now this is speaking in, like, a square area, the temple courts where, like, anyone could come and speak. It’s a bit like, you know, one of those public speaking parks or something. So, again, not exactly like a a church in a modern context, but it is the minority of cases.

Malcolm Collins [1:22:01]:In fact, when we when we see something like a synagogue, it’s usually in a negative context. Things are being flipped over, stuff like this. And this makes sense if you’re talking about, like, the early house Christian movement and stuff like this. And what that leads me to interpret or intuit is maybe the way that we are supposed to pray and practice the Sabbath is, at home with our family, right, and not necessarily in a group context. Now there are a lot of places where he points out that, like, the larger community of worshipers is a positive thing and that you should interact or convene, but it’s not said that at those, you’re then supposed to spend all your time praying, which makes sense. I mean, if you’re going to build out a community, you want to meet with the other people. Right? Like, that’s how, you you do this. And and he even talks about these as fairly small meetings. Like, the line that people often say is like, oh, you know, when Jesus says if two two believers are in a room, you know, he’s here with them. It’s like, well, then why did he go as low as two? He could have said more if he expected really large groups, but he doesn’t.

Simone Collins [1:23:02]:That’s a good point.

Malcolm Collins [1:23:04]:And I think it keeps worship a lot more humble, and it prevents it from being performative, which I think is really risky and something that Jesus warned about heavily at the sermon on the mount. And so this can come from this sort of interpretation. Do I think that it’s, like, uniquely bad to build churches to go? I think it works for some people. I just don’t know if it’s what I take away when I read the bible for what I would teach my kids and my family. The other thing that we’re gonna be going over is the Sabbath, which I was very surprised about. It’s very clearly on Saturday and not Sunday. The the Bible is, like, super clear. Nothing in the New Testament or the Old Testament, but especially the New Testament says we’re we’re renaming the Sabbath. We’re we’re making it Sunday instead. This is something that early Christians decide. Not even that early Christians decide.

Simone Collins [1:23:48]:Asked them to do it.

Malcolm Collins [1:23:50]:And then Constantine said, we’re gonna make this about a day about the sun god, and we’ll we’ll use it as, like, a a special day. And since he was a Christian now he specifically said this was for pagan reasons. He he said it was about the sun god. Sunday. And and then Christian well, Catholic councils it might have been pre Catholic councils, decided you you now can’t use the Jewish status, which is a problem because Jesus said the 10 commandments still hold. Oh, boy.

Speaker 22 [1:24:24]:Specifically, Constantine Decree said, on the venerable day of the sun, venerable deus soles, let the magistrates and people residing in the cities rest, and let all workshops be closed. In the country, however, persons engaged in agriculture may freely and lawfully continue their pursuits, lest by neglecting the proper movement, the bounty of the heavens should be lost. Now it’s important to note here that he used the pagan calendar name, day of the sun, not the lord’s day, not resurrection, doesn’t mention Jesus. It is a city rest law for judges, town folks, and craftsmen, and farmers were to keep working, which doesn’t follow traditional Sabbath rules, even Jesus’ Sabbath rules. Like, you’re allowed to save a sheep or something, but you’re not supposed to be tending the land. so this is very clearly a pagan Sabbath. That that’s the best way you could describe it. So the council that said that you can’t practice the Sabbath on Saturday happened at the Synod of Lidacy, specifically Canon 29. Christians must not Judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work that day rather honoring the Lord’s day, and if they can, resting then as Christians. But if in any found to be Judaizers, let them be an anathema to Christ. So they literally even even the wording here say that they cannot Christians cannot rest on the Sabbath, which is clearly Jesus rested on the Sabbath. This is what we see from from the Bible. Right? Like, we see them going directly against the 10 commandments here. And when people are like, oh, just follow the great Christian thinkers of old. Just do what they do. I’m like, well, they made a lot of, like, really big and obvious mistakes. Another one we’ll get to is you are not allowed to do sacrifices on altar of hewn stone, and yet one of the councils literally said you had to do sacrifices on an altar of hewn stone. But this one is probably the worst because they’re literally saying you cannot rest on the Sabbath, which is one of the 10 commandments, which is absolutely wild. You must work on the Sabbath. The early council said that.

Speaker 23 [1:26:30]:So I had I had to look this up because I actually couldn’t believe it. And and note here that many Christians were actually practicing Sunday as a day of rest before Constantine, but it is true that there’s nothing in the New Testament that told them to do this. And in the New Testament, Jesus regularly treats the Sabbath as the Sabbath. But what was really crazy about this is this is before the Catholic orthodox split. So when a lot of people are like, go back to the early church, they got everything right. I cannot imagine, you know, biblically getting something more wrong than commanding that people have to work on the Sabbath. And I even checked and yet that they called it literally the Sabbath. They say you have to work on the Sabbath, which is all throughout the Old Testament, like, no. And even in Jesus’ own teachings, very no. you know, the Sabbath was made for man, man, not for the Sabbath. That’s great. That’s really cool. That sort of lays out that the laws, the 10 commandments, man wasn’t made to follow the 10 commandments, but the 10 commandments were made to make man’s life better. Awesome. Doesn’t mean that you’re not supposed to at least attempt to be observant of them, much less make a commandment of your people that they have to go directly against them.

Malcolm Collins [1:27:39]:And so you you do something like almost all Christians are doing wrong, and it’s really bad. And it’s something that will be stricter on in the future. Right? We had to talk about this today, and we’ll probably do an upcoming episode on it. What what really do you get to do during the Sabbath? It’s it’s not an entertainment day. It’s it’s it’s not a for your personal business day. It is a day where you’re supposed to be doing things that are productive for your religion and community and family. So this would be, you know, spending time with family, spending time to educate yourself, etcetera, spending time to learn more, spending time to understand more, studying. And that’s what we’ll be doing going forward. It’s more time with family, more time studying, and, make it a no workday. So in the future, no more emails from me on Saturdays. That’s that’s where we’re going with this. like, Okay.

Simone Collins [1:28:26]:Gotta polish up the pictures. You could tell that Titan is somewhat related to my mom. Look at that mischief right there. That is someone Great. Who is up to no good. 100%. So it’s not just you. It’s not just you. I’m so excited for this one, though. The boys have been boys as always. But I’m so glad that Torsten found Steggy. And he says that Steggy told told him that he was in a factory that produced toxic waste, and that he found his way back to our house somehow, which is wonderful.

Malcolm Collins [1:29:07]:Oh, really?

Simone Collins [1:29:08]:Yes. It’s it’s true. It’s true. Octavian, meanwhile, has been roving our house with his rifle and that blue hat, which makes him look very It’s a look. Alright.

Speaker 34 [1:29:25]:Hello, egg. What does that mean? It just means it just means it just means that he’s gonna have it just means that he has one, two, with four eggs. Steggy, good job. You’re gonna have such a big family. But yeah. But, mommy Do you know that if I don’t have something to get him to eat, he won’t eat anymore eggs? What does Steggy eat? He eats dead dogs. He eats dead birds. He eats dead peas. He eats Macaroni cheese? No. He eats some Squid? No. He eats some Rubbits. Pizza. She wants it right here. Look. And look. It’s a live giant duck, and it wants to eat all the eggs. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, boy. Yeah.